South Africa: Businesses roped in to help build rural infrastructure KwaZulu-Natal Premier, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has encouraged businesses to collaborate with government in the rollout of infrastructure to rural and township communities. Dube-Ncube made the appeal during the launch of an innovative project at Zwelibanzi High School in Umlazi on Thursday. The project, which is spearheaded by a leading alcohol manufacturer, Diageo South Africa, in partnership with non-government organisation, Triple-P, is aimed at assisting disadvantaged schools have uninterrupted water supply by repairing and maintaining water infrastructure at 17 schools in Umlazi, KwaMakhutha and Isiphingo, south of Durban. Today we are celebrating a milestone of the partnership with Diageo South Africa, which will see the repair of water leakages and sanitation in schools, thus ensuring constant and uninterrupted water supply to township and rural schools, Dube-Ncube said, adding that it is difficult to recover lost learning and teaching time due to water shortages and interruptions. We commend Diageo South Africa for this commitment, which clearly projects them as a responsible corporate citizen of South Africa, not only in words but in deeds. It is our wish that other businesses follow in their footsteps by uplifting the communities with whom they do business, Dube-Ncube said. The project has resulted in the saving of 14 million litres of potable water per year, which is about 800 000 litres that would have been lost per school per year due to water leakages. Research findings on water wastage in South Africa show that leaks are responsible for 37% of potable water loss, with eThekwini Municipality recording losses of at least 50% of its potable water due to leaks. Dube-Ncube said schools in underserved communities are the most affected by water leaks and the severe water loss increases the schools water bills, which most schools cannot afford. The Premier said the water infrastructure project has provided employment opportunities to qualified and experienced unemployed plumbers, and provided skills development and training. She said the project comes at a time when KwaZulu-Natal is in high spirits after attaining an excellent 83% overall pass in the National Senior Certificate examinations, claiming the coveted third spot nationally and first spot as most improved province. The Premier commended Zwelibanzi High School for contributing a pass rate of 84.9%, which includes excellent results in Mathematics and Physical Science. We congratulate the teachers, learners, parents and all other stakeholders who ensured the success of our learners. Despite facing hurdles like COVID-19, the devastating floods and the prolonged power outages, the people of our province have proven their resilience, Dube-Ncube said. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2023-01-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Students of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine at their Match Day event on the U. of C. campus in 2018. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) On Thursday, the University of Chicagos Pritzker School of Medicine announced it was withdrawing from the popular rankings published by U.S. News and World Report, the former newsweekly that has carved out a niche ranking individual programs and schools at colleges and universities, as well as entire institutions. The decision wasnt quite the profile in courage that the university implied. There was plenty of cover. Advertisement Within the last few days, such other high-ranked med schools as the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia and Stanford universities also have said they will no longer provide U.S. News with the data it uses for its rankings. They in turn had been sheltered by Harvard Universitys top-ranked medical school, which announced its own refusal to provide the data on Jan. 17. The revolt by these prestigious medical schools only took place after high-end law schools had put together the same kind of revolt last fall, as spearheaded by the top-ranked Yale Law School. Advertisement The reasoning? Youre unlikely to be fully enlightened by the Pritzker School of Medicines jargon-filled statement: This decision is based on our judgment that the current methodology raises deep concerns about inequity perpetuated by the misuse of metrics that fail to capture the quality or outcomes of medical education for those who most need these data: Applicants to medical school. Got that? In essence, the University of Chicago, like its peers, is arguing that the rankings perpetuate elitism, which makes these elite institutions uncomfortable (in public, at least) and, these elites say, encourages schools to enroll students with the highest grades and test scores, since that is what the rankings reward, at the expense of qualities like (to quote the dean of the U. Penn School) creativity, passion, resilience, and empathy. Sure, all those softer qualities are very important. But all things being equal, most of us going under a surgeons knife would also like to think the doctor had good grades and test scores too. We know plenty of fine doctors who manage to embody all of these things, which is how they got into a top medical school in the first place. When did grades and test scores become so debased? And is this a way to quietly reduce the number of Asian American medical students? It sure could be put to work in that direction. Theres something else at play here. Whatever the issues of inequity (although its a squishy argument to say that the current rankings promote that anyway, as distinct from providing beacons for minority success), the universities also dislike the rankings because they cannot control them. Theyre an external judgment. Academics always hate that. They prefer peer reviews and, trust us, that is not because peer reviews are more reliable when it comes to the objective application of metrics. Evidence of that can be found in what the Pritzker deans have proposed as a replacement for medical students wondering where to apply: the Chicago medical school, the Tribune reported, now will share essential information on its admissions website. Great. So we replace an independent judgment with additional marketing material put out by the school being judged, which is unlikely to highlight anything that shows it in a less than positive light. What could possibly go wrong with that? Peer under the hood here and you find a lot of desire for control and a resistance to market realities. Given free rein, the top medical schools will operate more and more like a cartel, moving as a block. Advertisement Faculty and students at top medical schools are proud to work where they work, as well they should be. Whatever their administrators disavow in public, those rankings are not going away. Theyll merely be whispered among the elite, thus denying prospective medical students important information as they plan to take on the debt that such an education requires. And, despite what the schools say, those from poorer backgrounds will suffer the most without an independent source of information. None of this is to say that U.S. News rankings are not flawed. In fact, weve long been troubled by their overreliance on the self-reporting of data and on corrupt peer reviewing. But thats a matter for U.S. News editors and their readers. In many ways, the publication now will to have to face up to what those of us in daily newspapering have known for decades: journalists have to do their own data-crunching work and rely as little as possible on the input of those being judged. If we are doing our job, there is a good chance they will be irritated by the findings and refuse to cooperate. Just like City Hall. A lack of that awareness long has been one of the flaws in the rankings, and U.S. News now has a chance to end any and all of its cozy relationships with elite schools. But rankings of universities and their programs are important in a competitive marketplace where schools charge colossal amounts of money for tuition. They provide something different, and far more valuable, from promotional copy on websites, where every medical school looks like it suffers from the Lake Wobegon effect: everyones achievements are above average. One final note for Chicagos medical school. Even as its peer law schools kvetched about having to live with these competitive outside rankings using factors with which it did not agree, Chicagos superb law school (ranked number three in the nation) didnt join the crowd. Instead, it said that the rankings were one of several factors and data points that potential students should consider. Advertisement Precisely. Given our great universitys stands on free speech and independent thinking, the medical school should have taken the same stance as U. of C.s law professors did. Join the discussion on Twitter @chitribopinions and on Facebook. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. Pakistan's recent countrywide electricity blackout is a symptom of its enduring economic crisis as its forex reserves are dwindling and are not in a position to buy oil for the energy sector, writes Adnan Aamir in Nikkei Asia. A prolonged shortage of dollars is wreaking havoc throughout the economy and a nationwide power outage this week underscored the razor-thin margins for error in Pakistan's energy sector, he writes. The government said the blackout, which lasted around 16 hours, was caused by a technical glitch in the transmission system, however, a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity drew an indirect connection to dwindling fuel supplies, reported Nikkei Asia. "The government turns off the power plants at night to save fuel," said the official, who was not authorized to speak to the media, adding, "When they tried to resume them on Monday morning, the system tripped, and it created a crisis-like situation." As per distributors and some officials, a shortage of dollars will lead Pakistan toward an oil crisis, writes Aamir. The Oil Companies Advisory Council -- a body representing refineries, marketing and pipeline companies -- on January 13 sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance, a copy of which was seen by Nikkei Asia. The group highlighted the problems industry players are having opening letters of credit to import petroleum products. A letter of credit, or LC, is a document issued by the importer's bank, guaranteeing payment to the exporter once the terms of the contract have been met. "If LCs are not established on a timely basis, critical imports of petroleum products would be impacted, which may lead to a fuel shortage in the country," the letter read. It further stated that once the supply chain is compromised, it could take six to eight weeks to normalise it. The letter revealed further that Pakistan needs to import around 430,000 metric tonnes of gasoline, 200,000 tonnes of high-speed diesel and 650,000 tonnes of crude oil every month. The total bill comes to about USD 1.3 billion, writes Aamir. Echoing the council's warning, the Power Division of Pakistan on Saturday wrote to the governor of the State Bank, saying stocks of petroleum products may dry up as banks refuse to open and confirm LCs for imports. The Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) has downplayed the concerns over fuel, saying in a news release that Pakistan has enough stocks to meet gasoline demand for 18 days and diesel needs for 37 days. But the federal official who spoke with Nikkei Asia said oil stocks are at dangerously low levels. "Oil stocks are replenished on a regular basis through imports, which is not taking place as frequently as required due to the shortage of forex reserves," he said. Pakistan's forex stockpile stood at USD 4.6 billion as of January 13, according to data released by the State Bank. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that Pakistan's total external debt will be around USD 138 billion by the end of the current fiscal year in June, with about USD 21 billion worth of repayments due this year. The situation has raised fears that Pakistan could join smaller South Asian neighbour Sri Lanka in default. Islamabad is scrambling to revive a stalled IMF bailout programme originally worth USD 6 billion and expanded with another USD 1 billion last year. (ANI) Japan on Friday decided to lower COVID-19 to the same category of infectious diseases as seasonal influenza on May 8, reported NHK World. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, along with health minister Kato Katsunobu and other Cabinet members in a meeting of the government's task force made the decision to downgrade COVID-19 classification. "As for masking, regardless of indoors and outdoors, the decision will be left up to individuals," said Kishida in a televised government meeting. Kishida also said the government will review a policy on indoor and outdoor facial masks so that whether to wear them will be left up to individuals. He said it will study when the review on masks will be done, reported NHK World. "We will take further steps towards 'life with corona' and make steady progress on returning to normality in homes, schools, workplaces, neighbourhoods and all facets of life," he added. Kishida said at the meeting that based on the opinions of a health ministry panel, COVID-19 will be downgraded on May 8 unless specific circumstances arise, reported NHK World. He said the government will hear from experts before downgrading COVID-19, which is now classified as equivalent to category two, the second-most severe tier. The current level allows authorities to take strict measures to prevent the spread of the disease, including restrictions on people's movements. Seasonal flu is in category five, the lowest tier. After COVID-19 is downgraded to category five, the government plans to review the medical system to enable patients with the disease to receive treatment at more medical institutions. Meanwhile, Japan also plans to continue to cover patients' medical expenses for a limited period of time to prevent a sharp increase in their financial burden. The prime minister said the government will provide details in early March, reported NHK World. As for vaccines, the government plans to continue allowing people to get them free of charge, if necessary. Moreover, the task force meeting decided to scrap the 50 per cent capacity limit on spectators for sports, music and other events that involve cheering or shouting, reported NHK World. Organizers can hold such events at full capacity of the venue from now on, as long as they implement anti-infection measures. (ANI) Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on Friday said that India repatriated 17 Pakistani nationals via the Attari-Wagah border who was under imprisonment in the country. "17 Pakistani nationals imprisoned in India were repatriated today via Attari-Wagah border after hectic efforts of @PakinIndia& @ForeignOfficePk& cooperation of Indian side. Our efforts will continue to repatriate all Pakistani prisoners from India on completion of their sentences," tweeted the Pakistan High Commission of India. Earlier on Thursday, India repatriated a Pakistan national. "In close coordination with @ForeignOfficePk & also the Indian side,a Pakistani national who was under imprisonment in India,was repatriated today via Attari-Wagah border. We will continue our efforts for early repatriation of those Pakistani prisoners who have completed their sentences," tweeted the Pakistan High Commission of India. India and Pakistan this month had exchanged the lists of civilian prisoners and fishermen in their custody, in line with the longstanding agreement between the two countries. In an earlier statement on January 1, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said India shared lists of 339 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 95 Pakistani fishermen currently in Indian custody. Similarly, Pakistan has shared lists of 51 civilian prisoners and 654 fishermen in its custody, who are Indians or are believed to be Indians. In the statement, the Indian government called for early release and repatriation of civilian prisoners, missing Indian defence personnel, and fishermen along with their boats, from Pakistan's custody. "In this context, Pakistan was asked to expedite the release and repatriation of 631 Indian fishermen and 02 Indian civilian prisoners, who have completed their sentence and whose nationality has been confirmed and conveyed to Pakistan. In addition, Pakistan has been asked to provide immediate consular access to the remaining 30 fishermen and 22 civilian prisoners in Pakistan's custody, who are believed to be Indian," the MEA said. The ministry said India remains committed to addressing, on priority, all humanitarian matters, including those pertaining to prisoners and fishermen in each other's country. In this context, India has also urged Pakistan to expedite necessary action at its end to confirm the nationality status of 71 Pakistani prisoners, including fishermen, whose repatriation is pending for want of nationality confirmation from Pakistan. The External Affairs Ministry also said Pakistan had been requested to ensure the safety, security and welfare of all Indian and believed-to-be Indian civilian prisoners and fishermen, pending their release and repatriation to India. (ANI) The Chinese authorities in Tibet have detained a 30-year-old Tibetan writer and former teacher for allegedly contacting exiles outside the country, US non-profit news service Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported. According to RFA, the writer, known as Palgon, was arrested at his home in August 2022 and has been incommunicado ever since. "There is still no information on where he is being held at the moment," a source said. "His family members were also not informed or given proper reasons for his arrest other than Palgon's contact with people in exile to offer prayers to His Holiness the Dalai Lama," the source added. Palgon is from the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China's southeastern Qinghai province. He used to be an elementary school teacher in the prefecture's Pema county. He, however, later resigned from his role and continued as an independent writer. China has over the last few months, arrested monks, writers, young protestors, and other Tibetan figures in a wide-ranging crackdown. Those detained are often held incommunicado for months before being sentenced. Director of the India-based Tibet Policy Institute, Dawa Tsering, said the arrest shows China's attempts to block Tibetans from communicating with the outside world. "The Chinese government does not want the international communities to know about the harsh policies that they have been implementing on Tibetans in terms of religion, culture, and language," he said, as quoted by RFA. RFA contacted police in Pema county and Golog prefecture, but they were not available for comment. Tibet Press recently reported that China denies Tibet's ancient individual existence, claiming it to be a part of the mainland. The legitimacy of China's claim is based on an illegal agreement in 1951. The Agreement on Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, also known as the 17 Point Agreement, was signed on May 23, 1951, by a person devoid of legitimate authority to represent Tibet, the Tibet Press has reported. According to the Tibet Press, China had pledged to keep Tibet's traditional and religious integrity and local ethnic groups' local practices unhindered. The questioned agreement was signed through coercive means and is devoid of any legal legitimacy, the report further reads.Non-compliance with the agreement, however, caused the Tibetan uprising of 1959 which was crushed and also forced the 14th Dalai Lama to flee to India with his followers, it states. (ANI) Chinese Communist Party's lockdown measures have become a tool for more surveillance and control over the Tibetans, reported Marco Respinti in Bitter Winter, an Italy-based magazine on religious liberty and human rights. The "Zero COVID" policy of President Xi Jinping has been a great tool for repression. Lockdowns and similar measures greatly helped the regime to implement its gigantic and hyper-technological system of control and surveillance of its citizens, under the pretext of protecting their health. The victims of the COVID-age repression have been again religious groups, ethnic minorities, and all sorts of dissenters and dissidents, said Respinti. "Voice of America (VoA)", in an article on September 22, brilliantly summarized the situation, stating that "Tibetans are monitored more heavily and face harsher repercussions than people elsewhere because of the political sensitivity of the region." Especially in the historic capital Lhasa, people were "quarantined in empty stadiums, schools, warehouses and unfinished buildings." The situation in Tibet was unbearable and protests began first on social media in September to go then to the streets on October 27 against a lockdown imposed since August 8, reported Bitter Winter. Tibetans were even arrested for daring to share online COVID-related photos and videos. Media reported the case of a nomad, Rinchen Dhondup, and other six fellow Tibetans who were arrested on September 14 for this reason. Other Tibetans were arrested in Lhasa, Nagqhu, and other counties for similar crimes. Of all this repressive policy against Tibetans using the supposedly anti-COVID measures, one key point is especially alarming. First, to ascertain infections, Tibetans were massively compelled to undertake antigen tests, said Respinti. Social media showed pictures and footage of Tibetans standing in huge lines on some rocky paths under icy rain. Many were women with their little children: all had to wait in harsh conditions for being tested. Secondly, even some people who tested negative were separated from others, quarantined, and monitored again and again, reported Bitter Winter. As reported by VoA, a Tibetan man and his three young children were taken to the Lhasa Beijing Middle School Quarantine Center after the man's wife's anti-COVID test was inconclusive. "Authorities," reports VoA, "required the entire family to quarantine with 800 people." Two of those young kids "developed fevers in the school facility where there were no doctors, medicine or medical treatments." It is quite difficult to describe this as a measure to protect the health of Tibetans, said Respinti. Again, "in a viral audio recording, a Tibetan father pleads with a government official at one of the Lhasa quarantine centers to not separate him from his year-old child" even though they had all tested negative for COVID. "Now we have tested positive," the Tibetan father lamented, "and you want to take away our child." Once more, it is rather difficult to describe this as a measure to protect the health of Tibetans. During the lockdown, tests on Tibetans were taken once a day and in certain areas even twice a day. Was this evidence of special care for the health of Tibetans? asked Respinti. China, a totalitarian regime manages the health of highly controlled and repressed people such as the Tibetans. In a totalitarian country such as the CCP-led China, the horrendous practice of organ harvesting whose victims are those the CCP target as enemies is a huge and prosperous industry. DNA profiling and the strict monitoring of the health conditions of the designated victims is of course strategic for organ harvesting. The Chinese lockdown measures are tools to control the citizens even more strictly, and the antigenic tests on Tibetans are a tool in the hands of the organ harvesters, said Respinti. (ANI) Screenshot: Lucasfilm Anyone who watched Lucasfilms new Disney+ show Willow wont be surprised by this next sentence. The behind-the-scenes documentary, Willow: Behind the Magic, is only half-serious, much like the show its based on. Willows cast and crew give viewers a sneak peek behind the scenes of the making of the show, while also weaving elaborate tales about star Warwick Davis narcissism, toxic on-set antics, and more. None of which is true, of course, and all of which is funny, but it gives the documentary a decidedly different tone from the ones on other Disney+ shows. Which, if you think about it, is right in line with what Willow the show itself is. Read more So, here are 16 facts we learned from its making-of documentary, a good number of which are actually true, and a few that are not. People have been asking Ron Howard about Willow for decades Screenshot: Lucasfilm Ron Howard, director of the original Willow movie and producer of this sequel series, said that it was about 10 years after the original Willow came out that he began hearing from people, on a regular basis, who wanted to talk about Willow. This was always George Lucas idea Screenshot: Lucasfilm Willow was the brainchild of George Lucas and, after the original film was released, Lucas didnt want to make just a theatrical sequelhe thought TV would be the right place for it. Little did he know that 30 years later, that would come true. The twins bonded over FaceTime Screenshot: Lucasfilm Dempsey Bryk, who place Prince Airk on the show, said he first met Ruby Cruz, who plays his sister, Princess Kit, via FaceTime. Two minutes into the chat he felt like he knew her, and that type of relationship trickled down to everyone on set. The troll city of Skelling was real-ish Screenshot: Lucasfilm For episode six of the series, Prisoners of Skellin, the production built sets for the city of Skellin itself, which makes sense. But what makes it noteworthy is that the set wasnt just a few walls repurposed and moved, it was a full maze unto itself. Story continues Matching the original movie Screenshot: Lucasfilm Several scenes in Willow use footage, or are inspired by footage, from the original film. For those scenes, the sets were reconstructed (sometimes with the help of digital effects) so that new footage could be shot and combined seamlessly with the movie. Bavmordas throne. Finally. Screenshot: Lucasfilm In the original movie, when the heroes approach Bavmordas throne, only a small part of the set was real. The rest was a matte painting (see above). For the show, the production finally built the throne room in full. Real were-rats Screenshot: Lucasfilm Some of the coolest creatures in Willow are the werewolf rats that Boorman and Kit run into. The documentary shows that these were real creations, brought to life by talented puppeteers and effects specialists. Warwick Davis was the on-set medic and make-up artist Screenshot: Lucasfilm Though he has no actual medical training, Willow himself, Warwick Davis, was the on-set medic for the production. He also did everyones makeup, except his own. Oh, right, heres where the jokes begin. Warwick Davis transported most of the actors to set Screenshot: Lucasfilm Warwick Davis also, reportedly, picked up each actor at their home and brought them to the set personally. Well, all except one actor. The Elora Danon rivalry Screenshot: Lucasfilm Angry that Elora Danon, played by Ellie Bamber, was going to be a lead on the show, Davis reportedly didnt pick the actress up for work and would constantly break her wands, making work very difficult. Remember what we said about joking right? The actors did many of their own stunts Screenshot: Lucasfilm This ones real: though the actors all had stunt performers, whenever possible they did their own stunts. To prepare, they went through a month-long boot camp before shooting to train and learn fight choreography. No choreography was installed into the show unless the actors could do it. Wales was Willow country Screenshot: Lucasfilm The original Willow was filmed in a few places, one of which was Wales. And so for the Disney+ show, production was primarily in Wales, both in a studio in Cardiff and all around the country. Apparently, within a hour drive from Cardiff, the show could find beaches, forests, lakes, valleys, and mountains, all of which were used for location shooting. Warwick Davis invented the colon Screenshot: Lucasfilm What is the colon, you ask? Well, the actor claims he invented the idea of continuing a franchise but added a colon and a subtitle and then takes us through a few of the titles he pitched Ron Howard over the years. Willow: Bavmordas Revenge, Willow: Lost in New York, Willow: Spring Break: Miami Beach (a double colon, according to Davis), and then; Willow: Willows Colon, which was a PSA on gastroenterology. A long-standing rivalry Screenshot: Lucasfilm Davis claims that he used to be friends with Christian Slater but, after Slater stole his idea for a movie in the 1980s, they havent talked sinceuntil they made Willow of course. Davis even says if Slater is on Disney+, they should change it to Disney minus. Gleeful representation Screenshot: Lucasfilm Stars Ruby Cruz and Erin Kellyman both geek out about the fact that they got to not just have a queer love story with their characters, but do it with Disney, which means so many more people will get to see it. Amar Chadha-Patel is a klutz Screenshot: Lucasfilm This one we think is a joke (like all the Warwick Davis stuff) but is played a bit more seriously than the rest. Basically, the documentary claims the actor can barely stand on his own two feet and is always falling down. Willow: Behind the Magic is now streaming on Disney+, along with all of Willows first season. More from Gizmodo Sign up for Gizmodo's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Tara Duncan. (Evan Mulling / For The Times) When Oscar winner Mahershala Ali and his producing partners made the rounds last year, pitching an adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitzs bestselling novel The Plot, it sparked a bidding war. The buzzy thriller about a failed author who engages in an act of literary theft, forever changing his life, was primed for success. In addition to executive producing, Ali is starring in the series; . two years earlier, another Korelitz novel was adapted into the acclaimed HBO series The Undoing. The response was overwhelming. Every single place we pitched made an offer, said Layne Eskridge, president of POV Entertainment, who along with Ali brought the project to six networks and streamers under her producing deal with Endeavor Content (now Fifth Season). In the end, Onyx Collective a relatively new brand focusing on creators of color and underrepresented voices won out, ordering an eight-episode limited series to stream on Hulu. Operating much like a mini studio and network, Onyx is a content arm for Disney, developing, producing and acquiring projects exclusively for Hulu and other Disney platforms. Onyx, whose president, Tara Duncan, had a track record at Netflix and elsewhere for bringing quality, entertaining stories to the screen, demonstrated vision and competitiveness, Eskridge said. But the fledgling brand also brought something else to the table: During the pitch meetings, Duncan and nearly every member of the executive team involved was a person of color. Moreover, they all had the power to greenlight the project. We knew we weren't going to get that anywhere else, Eskridge said. That is unique to Onyx. It's super special, and we wanted that. Tara Duncan. (Evan Mulling / For The Times) At a time when Hollywood continues to make public pronouncements about inclusion even as such efforts remain faltering, Onyx has assembled a roster of talent in less than two years that includes Ryan Coogler and Natasha Rothwell in overall deals and has generated an impressive slate of projects with Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Washington and musician-filmmaker Ahmir Questlove Thompson. Story continues After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the Black Lives Matters protests that sparked a global reckoning over race and society, Hollywood faced heavy pressure to address its lack of diversity in film and executive suites. Although those events occurred after the initial discussions surrounding Onyx, they did accelerate and inform its development. Onyxs first official title, 2021s Summer of Soul, won the Oscar for documentary feature last year. At Sundance this month, the filmmaker behind it, Questlove, announced a second collaboration with Onyx, a documentary on Sly and the Family Stone. "A lot of studios and streamers were interested in Summer of Soul, but when we met with the Onyx team it was just different," Questlove said in a statement. "Ive never worked with so many diverse executives that have a genuine understanding of why were trying to make this content and give it the level of support that weve received at Onyx." Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, center, accepts the award for documentary feature for "Summer of Soul" at the 94th Academy Awards. (Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times) The six-part docuseries The 1619 Project, an adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones' seminal work in the New York Times Magazine that reassessed America's history and narrative surrounding slavery and the contributions of Black Americans, premiered Thursday on Hulu. Onyx is a creative partner, overseeing the series produced by Lionsgate, Harpo Films and the New York Times for Hulu. The goal is to create entertainment first, broadly accessible content for Disney from a culturally specific point of view, said Duncan, who is also president of Disneys young adult cable network Freeform. Future rollouts include the feature movie Bruiser, a drama about fathers, families and toxic masculinity that debuted at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival; Gigante, a docuseries about the eclectic, long-running Spanish language show Sabado Gigante; and a pair of comedies: The Other Black Girl, starring Rashida Jones as one of two Black employees at a book publisher, and Deli Boys, about a pair of Pakistani American brothers who take over their fathers convenience store empire and discover his secret life of crime. Were looking to entertain a broad audience, Duncan said, adding that she wants creators [to] feel like this is a place where they can come and do not only their best work, but work that's going to be provocative for them and will inspire and push them. And I don't think the conversation around where we have to be is limited to the conversation around identity. There are other elements and aspects of our experience that have yet to be fully tapped from a creative point of view. Cooglers Proximity Media was one of the first companies to partner with Onyx in an overall deal to create non-Marvel titles across Disney. I really could see that [Duncan] was someone that was worth betting on, said Coogler, the director and writer of Black Panther and Creed. She was just really sharp and had a clear vision on how to build a company that tells great stories and can offer things in the marketplace that people would be excited about. Coogler found a natural alliance of values and mission between his production company and Onyx in making event-driven films and television shows that bring audiences into closer proximity with stories or types of characters that are present in society but often overlooked. At Sundance this month, Coogler announced a pair of projects as part of Proximitys overall deal with Onyx. One is the docuseries Anthem, which follows composer Kris Bowers (Bridgerton and King Richard) and Grammy-winning music producer DJ Dahi cross the country creating music inspired by the national anthem. The second is the scripted drama series Sheba, an exploration of the life of Africas first queen and her rise to power. In March, the comedy UnPrisoned, about how the messy relationship among a single mom, a therapist and her teen son is upended when her dad moves in with them after his release from prison, will begin streaming on Hulu. It stars Washington, who is also executive producer. It is the second Onyx project for Washington and her production company, Simpson Street, after last years well-received legal drama Reasonable Doubt, which also ran on Hulu. Washington, who has long had a home inside the Disney family, said partnering with Onyx was a great opportunity to move our own slate forward. We think a lot at Simpson Street about deconstructing the idea of the other and challenging the longstanding ideas about who gets to be a protagonist and making sure that were centering all different kinds of people and all different kinds of stories not necessarily always stories that are created and driven by characters of color, but often that," she said. Kerry Washington at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) The idea for Onyx began in 2019 when Dana Walden, chairman of Disney General Entertainment Content, began talking with then- (and now current) Chief Executive Bob Iger. It was not long after Black Panther broke box office records; to date, the film has earned $1.4 billion worldwide, spurring a blockbuster sequel. I was relatively new to Disney, and Bob mentioned that he had been giving a lot of thought to creating an environment on Hulu that would be a destination for subscribers of color," she said. Walden said that Iger pointed to the success of the Undefeated (later renamed Andscape), a multimedia brand formed under ESPN that focuses on storytelling at the nexus of race, sports and culture from the point of view of journalists of color. (Times Executive Editor Kevin Merida was previously editor-in-chief of the Undefeated.) He wanted to try to do that with creators of color for Hulu, Walden added. Tara Duncan. (Evan Mulling / For The Times) When Walden tapped Duncan to run Onyx in 2021, Duncan had already cemented her reputation at Disney as someone with great instincts, experience in building programming and numerous relationships with filmmakers. A year earlier, Duncan had been named president of Freeform. Onyx, which is based at Disney headquarters in Burbank, has its own budget and a staff of about 30. Disney would not disclose figures. Duncan grew up in the Inland Empire, about two hours east of Los Angeles. I was always very interested in film and television, she said. I was one of those kids that was writing my own scripts in elementary school. After high school, she got a paid internship at ABC daytime through the Emma L. Bowen Foundation. She followed that up with an internship that later became her first job at Section Eight, George Clooney and Steven Soderberghs production company, after graduating from Loyola Marymount University. By 2007, Duncan had moved on to AMC as an executive in scripted development, at a time when the cable network was launching such hits as Mad Men, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. The network was trying to redefine itself, and that was a really formative experience for me, she said. In 2014, Duncan landed at Netflix as one of the streamer's first creative executives. Four years later, she left, taking a personal sabbatical, she said. After a year and a half of traveling, Duncan returned to Hollywood and landed an overall deal with Hulu, quickly gaining notice at Disney. At Freeform and Hulu, Duncan says she used her slate and filter from the perspective of wanting to bring in more creators of color and more stories from people of color, generating such commercial and critical hits as Freeforms Cruel Summer. Onyx was a natural extension of that work. Duncan said her first order of business was to build talent relationships in what she calls the first pillar of success to fortify our pipeline. Duncan, however, is quick to point out that although Onyxs focus is on diverse filmmakers and storytelling, it is not a diversity and inclusion initiative. Rather, Onyx is a home for a kaleidoscope of stories and storytellers that taps into leveraging artists of color. We are positioned and driven to drive subscribers and drive the business in the same way as our colleagues, said Duncan. Prentice Penny, a writer, director, producer and a former showrunner on HBOs Insecure, said he was immediately drawn to Onyx. At some other places, you might feel like you have to explain why this story is relevant, he said. Or you have to go through a lot of stuff to convince people that our art is valid and that we want to see true realizations of ourselves onscreen. What really affected me was that [Onyx] was going to be run by people who look like me and who understood things like me." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Two Great Danes attacked a mail carrier as she handed a package to a homeowner in Lenoir on Thursday, Police Chief Brent Phelps said Friday. The dogs pushed past the homeowner and attacked the 47-year-old U.S. Postal Service worker at the front door of the home just before 2 p.m., Phelps said in a Lenoir Police Department news release. The home is in the 900 block of Norwood Street Southwest, off U.S. 321. The homeowner immediately controlled the dogs and gave the mail carrier first aid, the chief said. The postal worker suffered severe injuries to her right forearm and puncture wounds to her back and right leg, according to the release. She was taken to Caldwell UNC Healthcare and then flown to Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, Phelps said. Her condition wasnt available Friday. Caldwell County Animal Care Enforcement took possession of the dogs, Phelps said. The 4-year-old dogs had never bitten anyone, their owner told police. No dog-related calls at the home had been reported to police in the past, Phelps said. He said he expects no criminal charges to be filed in the case. The USPS is unable to comment about details of the attack while the incident remains under investigation, spokesman Philip Bogenberger told The Charlotte Observer. The safety of our employees and customers is our top priority, Bogenberger said in an email. We ask customers to keep their dogs secure to ensure carriers can safely deliver the mail. If dogs are present, dont open your door to accept mail and packages from carriers, he urged. If its necessary to open the door, make sure dogs are secured in a separate room, Bogenberger said. A 29-year-old woman was arrested after police said she posed as a teenager and attended a New Jersey high school, according to local news outlets. The woman, a resident of New Brunswick, is said to have given a fake birth certificate to the New Brunswick Board of Education with the intent to enroll as a juvenile high-school student, according to a Jan. 25 police news release. An attorney for the woman could not immediately be reached for comment by McClatchy News. After gaining admittance, the woman attended New Brunswick High School for four days before anyone noticed something was awry, according to 6ABC News. She was arrested Tuesday, Jan. 24, according to CBS News. Last week supposedly the administrators let in a 29-year-old, a student told 6ABC. So basically everybody was scared. Some people gave their personal information to that lady. State statutes direct schools to enroll unaccompanied children lacking proper documentation, though school districts can request documents to verify a childs age, police said. A school district may not prevent or discourage a child, including an unaccompanied child, from enrolling in or attending school because he or she lacks a birth certificate or has records that indicate a foreign place of birth, such as a foreign birth certificate, police said. The New Brunswick Public Schools superintendent said the incident was bothersome, adding that she would closely examine the districts enrollment process, according to News12. The woman was charged with one count of providing a false government document, a third-degree offense, police said. Motorcyclist dies in crash with school bus with children on board, Florida police say Man charged after shooting at driver accused of stealing his car, Georgia cops say Dead grandmothers ID used by grandson to steal thousands in benefits, CT officials say A young girl dances with her father at last year's Daddy Daughter Dance, held by the city of Elgin. This year the dance will be offered two nights, Feb. 17 and 18, at The Edward Schock Centre of Elgin. (City of Elgin / HANDOUT) Daddy Daughter Dance, Princess Tea tickets on sale Tickets are on sale for the city of Elgins annual Daddy Daughter Dance and Princess Tea Time, all being held the weekend of Feb. 17 and 18 in the Heritage Ballroom at The Edward Schock Centre of Elgin. This years theme is Disneys animated film Tangled and Princess Rapunzel will attend both events. Advertisement The dance is open to girls ages 2 to 17 and starts at 6:30 both nights. It will feature a buffet dinner, decorations based on the movie, a raffle for an American Girl doll, prize giveaways and a decorated cookie dessert. The Princess Tea Time will be held at 11 a.m. Feb. 18 and is designed for children ages 2 to 10. It will include light refreshments, art projects and games. Advertisement Tickets for the Daddy Daughter Dance are $25 for adults and $15 for each child. Princess Tea Time tickets cost $10 for adults and children. Registration is required and space is limited. For tickets and more information, go to cityofelgin.org/ddd. Valentines cards being collected for health care heroes State Reps Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, and Suzanne Ness, D-Crystal Lake, are collecting Valentines Day cards for their second annual Hearts for Healthcare Heroes drive. Cards may be dropped off now through Friday, Feb. 10, at: Taylor Branch YMCA, 50 N. McLean Blvd., Elgin; Gail Borden Library, 270 N. Grove Ave., Elgin; Moellers office, 164 Division St., Elgin; Dundee Library, 555 Barrington Ave, East Dundee; Algonquin Area Public Library, 2600 Harnish Drive, Algonquin; Nesss office, 20 S. Grove St., Carpentersville. On Monday, Feb. 13, staff from Moellers and Nesss offices will deliver the cards and 300 carnations to doctors and nurses working at Advocate Sherman Hospital, the VNA Health Care, Oak Street Health and Greater Family Health, all in Elgin. For more information, call 847-841-7130 or email staterepmoeller@gmail.com. Township offering seniors free income tax preparation Hanover Township staff and AARP volunteers will provide free income tax preparation services for seniors from Feb. 8 through April 10. Appointments are required, and will be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis. Advertisement Participants are asked to pick up the necessary documents prior to their appointment at the Township Senior Center, 240 S. Route 59, Bartlett. Returns will be filed electronically, and printouts given to each participant for their records. For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 630-483-5660. futurewalk / Getty Images 3D printing technology is now being used to build houses all over the world. While the practice hasnt replaced traditional construction, its a trend that likely will continue to expand over the coming years. Wealthy Millennials Arent Banking on Stocks: Heres What Theyre Investing In Instead Learn: 3 Things You Must Do When Your Savings Reach $50,000 Discover: 7 Florida Cities That Could Be Headed for a Housing Crisis 3D-printed homes are created using large concrete 3D printers, and they are typically more affordable than traditionally constructed homes plus, theyre also built in a sustainable fashion. 3D homes will definitely have a large impact on the real estate industry because of two important reasons, said Theresa Raymond, broker and owner at TN Smoky Mtn Realty. The first one is the increasing cost of construction. 3D homes are unimaginably cheaper to construct, and its possible to build a complete house in 24 hours. This is a way to meet the massive demand for homes now. The second one is sustainability, she continued. The world is running out of resources, and there should be a way to address it. 3D homes require very few materials. Heres a look at the cost of 3D-printed homes and whether you should consider actually living in one. How Much Do 3D-Printed Homes Cost? Just as with traditionally constructed homes, 3D-printed homes are available at a variety of price points though they are generally more affordable. Costs are determined by the location and kind of structure, said Rinal Patel, real estate agent and founder of Suburb Realtor. With prices ranging from $10,000 to $400,000, these structures are designed to help improve the cost of housing by providing quality living areas for individuals at an affordable rate. Dustin Fox, Realtor and owner of Fox Homes, said you should expect to pay $15,000 for a one-bedroom home and the prices go up from there. Adding one more bedroom will [make the home] cost about $25,000 to $30,000, he said. If you have a bigger family and are looking for a four-bedroom house, then [expect] about a $50,000 budget. Depending on how complex the design is, the price can touch as much as $500,000. Story continues Should You Live in a 3D-Printed Home? While you may be wary about living in a 3D-printed home, these structures are definitely livable. 3D homes are durable enough to be lived in, especially as they are made from concrete, Patel said. [A 3D-printed home] is sturdy enough to protect its occupants from major natural disasters. However, these homes tend to be pretty basic and may not offer all of the amenities you would want in a full-time residence. A 3D home is an economical option to purchasing a regular house with many of the same features, such as insulation and airtightness, though they lack some of the amenities typical in more permanent options, said Martin Orefice, CEO of Rent To Own Labs, an online resource for finding rent-to-own homes. If you prefer a home with more bells and whistles as your primary residence, you may still want to consider a 3D-printed home as a second home. As Orefice said, They can be used as vacation homes or temporary residences. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 3D-Printed Houses: What Do They Cost and Are They Actually Livable? Black women continue to push the envelope in every way, and rightfully so. Over the years, many Black women have proven that they are brilliant creators in every niche, and that also includes literary excellence. With more Black women authors telling their stories, it is important to lean in and listen. If you are looking for new books by Black women to get started on this year, here is a list to consider. South To America By Imani Perry In South To America, Imani Perry employs a variety of writing genres that give an insightful look into the historical significance of Southern America. Perry also draws inspiration from Albert Murrays 1971 memoir South to a Very Old Place. A fun fact about this book is that according to The New York Times, while reporting for this book, Perry reportedly traveled to over a dozen Southern cities to research for the book. 'South To America' By Imani Perry $17.99 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon Becoming by Michelle Obama Beyond being a symbol of inspiration, Michelle Obama is also a celebrated author whose deep memoir Becoming quickly garnered the attention of book lovers when it was released. The book gives readers a riveting behind-the-scenes view into the former first ladys time in and out of the White House. In Becoming, Obama also highlighted other relevant themes like sexism and racism and how they plague broader society. 'Becoming' by Michelle Obama $21.19 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon Mamas Sleeping Scarf By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nwa Grace-James Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has shown a lot of brilliance with her books over the course of her career, but with Mamas Sleeping Scarf, the Nigerian author opted to write a childrens book about a little girl who adores her mothers night scarf. It is a heartwarming story about love and family and can make a perfect gift for the little ones in your life. 'Mama's Sleeping Scarf' By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nwa Grace-James Story continues $19 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Toni Morrison is a national treasure in many ways, and everyone deserves to read her work. In The Bluest Eye, the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizewinning icon writes about Pecola Breedlove. In the story, Breedlove is an 11-year-old Black girl who yearns for blue eyes. because she believes that it will make her feel beautiful. 'The Bluest Eye' by Toni Morrison $22.95 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon Restore: A Lost Girls Journey to Hope By Tifanny Dionne In this book, Tifanny Dionne gives readers insight into her powerful story. At the tender age of 10, Dionne is victim of a kidnapping and eventually of human trafficking. These events trigger a chain of reactions that she has to unlearn. Restore is as the name implies, because it is a celebration of restoration, healing and empowerment. 'Restore: A Lost Girl's Journey to Hope' By Tifanny Dionne $12.97 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings By Maya Angelou Another iconic writer to add to the list of authors to read this year is Maya Angelou. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is an intimate, coming-of-age story. In this book, Angelou gives readers the opportunity to learn more about her story. She also shares the trauma she endured before critical acclaim. 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' By Maya Angelou $17.03 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon Finding Me: A Memoir By Viola Davis When Viola Davis released Finding Me: A Memoir, last year, a lot of people were intrigued and curious. Almost a year after the book release, the book continues to be a top-rated item. Finding Me is a story about Davis background and the blood, sweat and tears that made the icon. Finding Me: A Memoir $18.48 Buy Now Photo Courtesy of Amazon Our editors love finding you the best products and offers! If you purchase something by clicking on one of the affiliate links on our website, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid wasnt named an All-Star Game starter on Thursday night, and Daryl Morey knows exactly who to blame. The Sixers president of basketball operations went off on the shameless Boston media in a radio appearance on Friday morning. "Completely hosed once again," Morey said on 97.5 The Fanatic. "This time, to your point, the perpetrators of the crime were the shameless media, who most of them have recused themselves because they don't want the vote on something that affect players' paychecks. "But the shameless Boston media is way overrepresented. They haven't recused themselves, and they shoved Joel low enough so that he's not an All-Star starter. It's crazy." The NBA released starters on Thursday night for this years All-Star Game in Salt Lake City. Fan voting accounted for 50% of the final vote, while media votes and player votes accounted for the other 50%. Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo was named the Eastern Conference captain after receiving more than 6.7 million fan votes and 220 player votes, narrowly edging Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant. Jayson Tatum, Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell then rounded out the East starters. LeBron James was named the Western Conference captain, marking a record-tying 19th appearance in the game for the Los Angeles Lakers star. Embiid, who had been named a starter for five straight All-Star teams, did not make the cut. He finished third in the Eastern Conference frontcourt player and media voting, and fourth in the fan voting. Its not like Embiid isnt having an MVP-caliber season. The 28-year-old is averaging a league-best 33.4 points per game along with 9.8 rebounds and 4.1 assists for the 76ers. Philadelphia has lost just once in January, too, and sits just 2.5 games back of the first-place Celtics in the Eastern Conference standings. Now, its hard to back up Moreys claim that it was the shameless Boston media who kept Embiid out of the starting lineup. If thats the case, one would think that Celtics guard Jaylen Brown would have beaten out either Mitchell or Irving for a starting spot, too. Brown, instead, finished third among the East guards. While its unclear how Embiid feels about his snub, Morey is livid. Their next matchup in Boston on Feb. 8 is sure to be entertaining. This weekend, there will be plenty of things happening to keep you entertained. Check out our guide to events below: Third Annual Local Music Merch Swap Orlando Music Historys third annual Local Music Merch Swap takes place Friday beginning at 8 p.m. There will be live music and the chance to expand your music collection. The swap portion is free to attend and participate, but the concert Is $10 in advance and $12 the day of the show. Click here for details. Rock the Universe Rock the Universe, Floridas biggest Christian music festival, returns for its 25th year on Friday and Saturday. Get more information here. READ: Some parts of Central Florida could see frost by morning Shiprocked Port Canaverals rock event takes place through Saturday. Check out the headliners and more by clicking here Wicked This is Wickeds first weekend back at the Dr. Phillips Center. The show runs through Feb. 12. Click here for tickets and information. READ: NASA Day of Remembrance honors fallen astronauts Oakland Heritage Day Celebrate Oakland Heritage Day and the citys 135th anniversary from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday in historic downtown Oakland. Click here for details. Winterfest The Rosen JCCs annual Winterfest returns Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 pm. There will be food, snow slides, games, face painting, a petting zoo and more. Tickets are $40 for a family of four. Click here for more information: https://www.accelevents.com/e/Winterfest2023 The songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra presents Something Wonderful The Songs of Rodgers & Hammerstein at the Dr. Phillips Center. The show takes place Saturday at both 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Click here for tickets and information. READ: Please love me: Dog abandoned in Chattanooga reunited with owner Kitten Cuddle and Adoption Polk County will host its kitten cuddle and adoption event on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Visitors can enjoy five minutes of kitten and cat cuddling for a $5 donation. All proceeds go to SPCA Florida. Story continues Elmos Birthday Weekend Everyones favorite red furry resident of Sesame Street is celebrating his birthday! From Saturday through Thursday, you can celebrate Elmos birthday at SeaWorld Orlando. There will be story time, a scavenger hunt, photo opportunities, a DJ dance party, parade and more. Click here for more information. READ: SeaWorld announces culinary dishes, concert lineup for Seven Seas Food Festival Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live. The Royal Ontario Museum's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal has spurred mixed reactions. Tara Walton/Getty Images Some of the ugliest buildings in the world are home to luxury apartments and government facilities. From Texas to Thailand, buildings across the world are ridiculed for their function and style. North Korea's "Hotel of Doom" has been empty for decades, and is widely recognized as an eyesore. Thanks partly to its blocky, concrete exterior, people in Massachusetts wanted to demolish Boston's City Hall before its construction was even completed. Boston City Hall. Jorge Antonio/Getty Images Completed in 1968, this building is an example of brutalist architecture a controversial style known for its bare, blocky shapes and frequent use of exposed concrete. Over the years, it has also been criticized for being "ugly" and "anti-urban." "City Hall is so ugly that its insane upside-down wedding-cake columns and windswept plaza distract from the building's true offense," wrote columnist Paul McMorrow in the Boston Globe in 2013. "Its great crime isn't being ugly; it's being anti-urban," McMorrow wrote. "... The primary function of cities is clustering people together, but City Hall goes to great lengths to repel them." In addition, many people in Massachusetts called for the destruction of Boston's City Hall before the structure was even fully built, according to Current Affairs magazine. North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, also dubbed the "Hotel of Doom," has stood empty for over 30 years, sparking criticism about its design and construction. Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. Catriona MacGregor/Getty Images Once considered "the world's tallest unoccupied building" by Guinness World Records, the Ryugyong Hotel has been nicknamed the "Hotel of Doom," according to the BBC. It's also been described as "the worst-designed building in the world" and one of "the world's ugliest hotels" by writers for publications like Esquire and The Telegraph. When construction began in 1987, the Ryugyong Hotel was designed to become an impressive masterpiece: a building taller than the Eiffel Tower, complete with 3,000 rooms and five revolving restaurants, according to CNN Style. Story continues Decades later, this hotel has yet to open its doors to guests. A Washingtonian critic described Washington, DC's J. Edgar Hoover Building as visually unappealing, "cold," "unwelcoming," and "dystopian." J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, DC. Richard T. Nowitz/Getty Images The construction of the FBI's headquarters officially known as the J. Edgar Hoover Building began in the 1960s. It is emblematic of brutalist architecture, which originated in the mid-20th century. An article from The Washingtonian, a prominent local newspaper in DC, states that the building, which is the home of the FBI, has long been considered the "scorn of Washingtonians." The author later describes the structure as "cold, unwelcoming, [and] almost dystopian." According to a survey conducted by home improvement company Buildworld, the building is deemed to be the ugliest building in the US. The FBI website states that the structure heavily "[contrasts] with the traditional marble, granite, or limestone government buildings." In defense of the building, Deane Madsen, who runs an Instagram account dedicated to appreciating DC's brutalist buildings, stated, "DC isn't just Greek revival monuments or courthouse style buildings. It's not just these sort of white marble edifices." Many believe that the Verizon Building on Pearl Street contrasts too heavily with its surrounding buildings, disrupting the beauty of New York City's iconic skyline. The Verizon Building on Pearl Street in New York. Oleg Albinsky/Getty Images Built in 1975, the Verizon Building on Pearl Street has remained the subject of much ridicule. Set behind the historic Brooklyn Bridge and adjacent to some of NYC's most beloved structures, many see the building as an affront to the city's skyline. Paul Goldberger a New York Times architecture critic argued that the building might be the "most disturbing" structure in all of New York City in 1975. In a TimeOut article that showcased critical tweets aimed at the building, Twitter users referred to the building as "stupid" and claimed that it "ruined" their otherwise beautiful photos of the NYC skyline. Although criticized by locals for its ugly Brutalist exterior, apartments inside The Balfron Tower sell for close to $1 million. The Balfron Tower in London. Jack Taylor/Getty Images Similar to the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, The Balfron Tower is an example of Brutalist architecture. Although the structure was built in the 1960s, the residential building has newly-renovated interiors. Various publications, including MyLondon, refer to the structure as one of "the ugliest buildings in the country." Nevertheless, after renovations, the Guardian reports that apartments in the Balfron Tower are being sold for upwards of 800,000, or $992,744. In the same MyLondon article, Josh Bolton notes that in 2010 residents were forced to relocate and eventually kicked out of the building to allow for refurbishments. The building offers luxury amenities, including a private dining terrace, a yoga room, and a movie theater. The Zizkov Television Tower in Prague has been called "the second-ugliest building in the world" and is said to evoke the country's communist past. The Zizkov Television Tower in Prague. Frank Bienewald/Getty Images A structure builders began constructing in the 1980s, the Zizkov Television Tower in Prague, Czech Republic, has been nicknamed "the second-ugliest building in the world," according to CBC Radio. The building sticks out amongst the rest of Prague's charming architecture and is a divisive reminder of the city's former communist government. Over a decade ago, to make the "eyesore" more unique, artist David Cerny installed sculptures of giant babies crawling up the side of the tower. First added to the tower as a temporary exhibit, the "Babies" sculptures were recently reinstalled with more durable construction, according to expats.cz. Although the building itself may inspire mixed feelings, the sculptures of babies are quite beloved. In an article for The Washington Post, an architecture critic called the ROM Crystal in Toronto considered one of the most hated buildings in Canada "ugly" and "useless." ROM Crystal in Toronto. Tara Walton/Getty Images When it first opened in 2007, the Royal Ontario Museum's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal did not receive much love for its design comprised of glass, steel, sloped walls, and angle joints. "Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses the ugliness of bland functional buildings by being both ugly and useless," wrote Philip Kennicott, art and architecture critic, in The Washington Post in 2009. Kennicott also questioned the wisdom of creating a building with slanted walls to display art. In the past decade or so, some Torontonians have come to see the building as an essential addition to the city's landscape and a beloved landmark. "Architecture needs time to sink in," said Alexander Josephson, cofounder of architecture and design firm Partisans, in Azure magazine. San Antonio's Alamodome a multi-use stadium has been referred to as "an upside-down armadillo" and is hated by Texans and tourists alike. The Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images The Alamodome which cost $186 million to construct opened its doors in 1993. Despite its hefty price tag, San Antonians aren't impressed with the stadium's aesthetic. According to the San Antonio Current, "Locals have long referred to the 64,000-seat arena by nicknames including the 'Dead Armadillo' and the 'Doo Doo Dome.'" In 2018, San Antonio Culture Map reported that Judge Nelson Wolff, who was San Antonio's mayor during the Alamodome's construction, explained that San Antonio residents referred to the stadium as "four telephone poles on an airplane hangar" and "an upside-down armadillo." Strikingly dissimilar to the medieval architecture that Edinburgh is known for, the Scottish Parliament Building has been named the "world's biggest eyesore" by Buildworld. The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland. Cornfield/Shutterstock In Buildworld's survey of the world's ugliest buildings, the Scottish Parliament Building came out on top. They found that, at the time of their study, 42.07% of tweets that mentioned the building were negative. According to the Scottish Parliament's archive, the building, which was completed in 2004, is made from a mixture of steel, oak, and granite. According to Buildword, "The project was unpopular from the start, as a national building designed by a foreign architect that quickly spiraled ten times over budget and way beyond its deadline." Read the original article on Insider [Source] A political activist was sentenced to 28 years in prison for insulting the Thai monarchy on Facebook. Mongkol Tirakote, a 29-year-old online clothing vendor and activist, was found guilty in two separate royal defamation cases by a court in the northern city of Chiang Rai on Thursday. He was arrested in August last year. According to the court, Tirakote violated Thailands lese-majeste laws in 14 of 27 Facebook posts. His prison sentence was originally set to 42 years, but the court reduced it to 28 years following his testimony. While Tirakote intends to lodge an appeal, the court has granted him bail of 300,000 baht (approximately $9,144), according to his lawyer. More from NextShark: Shiba Inu behind Doge meme makes surprising recovery, owner announces Sunai Phasuk, a Human Rights Watch senior researcher, said that Tirakotes 28-year sentence is the second-highest prison term given by a Thai court for a royal defamation case. More from NextShark: Thai man in coma after foreign owners of Porsche he was admiring brutally attack him Tirakote also faces a third royal defamation charge over online posts from last year. He is expected back in court in March for the separate charge. Story continues Those convicted under the lese-majeste laws face imprisonment of three to 15 years per count. More from NextShark: Japanese tourist arrested after assault of Korean taxi driver for not understanding Japanese According to critics, the laws are often taken advantage of to suppress public debate. In 2021, a former civil servant was sentenced to over 43 years in prison after she posted several audio clips critical of the Thai monarch on social media. There have been more than 200 royal defamation cases since November 2020, when mass youth-led protests called for democratic change, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. WASHINGTON One way to get Congress to support regulating artificial intelligence is by using it to write a resolution calling for just that. At least, thats what Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., hopes. He's introducing a nonbinding measure Thursday that would direct the House to take a look at artificial intelligence, a bill that was written entirely by the online AI chatbot ChatGPT. Using a simple prompt, Lieu was able to generate a standard congressional resolution. It read: You are Congressman Ted Lieu. Write a comprehensive congressional resolution generally expressing support for Congress to focus on AI. The resolution doesnt specify that it was written using artificial intelligence. Acknowledging the potential positive impacts of artificial intelligence, Lieus resolution specifically outlines Congress responsibility to ensure that the development and deployment of AI is done in a way that is safe, ethical, and respects the rights and privacy of all Americans. Lieu is also pushing for Congress to establish a nonpartisan commission that would provide recommendations about how to regulate AI. The rapid advancements in AI technology have made it clear that the time to act is now to ensure that AI is used in ways that are safe, ethical and beneficial for society, ChatGPT wrote in an op-ed Lieu published in The New York Times this week. Failure to do so could lead to a future where the risks of AI far outweigh its benefits. The rise of artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT is already raising concerns about cheating in the classroom, but Lieu, who is one of a handful of members of Congress with technology backgrounds, wrote in his Times op-ed that some of the harm associated with AI could even be deadly. As one of just three members of Congress with a computer science degree, I am enthralled by A.I. and excited about the incredible ways it will continue to advance society. And as a member of Congress, I am freaked out by A.I., specifically A.I. that is left unchecked and unregulated, he wrote. Story continues Lieu isnt the first member of Congress to have brought artificial intelligence to the House chamber. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., 34, delivered a speech Wednesday on the House floor written by Chat GPT. Auchincloss said he wants to spotlight the issue for Congress so that we have a debate now about purposeful policy for AI, and not be 10 years behind the ball like I think a lot of policy was for social media. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters Tuesday that all members of the House Intelligence Committee will take courses in AI and Quantum, the same training military generals receive, McCarthy noted. We want to be able to speak of making sure our country and the national security is protected. Asked whether Congress needs to learn how to, at the very least, understand the technology, the Senates No. 3 Republican, John Thune, R-S.D., said it could have serious implications. I have my own challenges with basic intelligence, Thune quipped. But certainly, I think we need to understand it. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com Russian missile shot down The dummy warhead matches the weight of an actual nuclear device, but lacks any fissile elements, Ihnat noted, and explained that Ukrainian air defenses are forced to prioritize those targets, depleting air defense resources. Read also: Russias latest massive missile attack kills 11 people, says official According to the air force, the missiles used for intercepting this decoy missile allow the Russians to preserve their more precise weapons, such as Kalibrs. Read also: Ukrainian forces take out 700 Russians in suspected rocket attack on Donbas on New Year's Eve Earlier, Ukrainian defense news outlet Defense Express reported that during the mass missile strike on Jan. 26, a Kh-55 missile with a dummy nuclear warhead was shot down. Its fragments were found near the suburb of Boryspil. The first use of a dummy nuclear warhead-equipped Kh-55 missiles was reported on Nov. 17, 2022. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine In this photo from 2000, Dan Casey, left, helps customer Ed Stegman, of Naperville, find an item at his store, Casey's Foods, which opened in 1991. Outside the store, Casey was known for his involvement in numerous community and business organizations. (JOHN KRINGAS / CHICAGO TRIBUNE) The longtime owner of Caseys Foods in Naperville is being remembered for the tireless work he did to benefit the local community. Dan Casey, 67, died Jan. 19 surrounded by his family at his Lisle home, where he lived since 1990. A memorial service and open house will be held Feb. 8. Advertisement Born in Hinsdale, Casey graduated from Benet Academy in Lisle in 1973 and attended Northern Illinois University for two years before joining the family business. He took a job in 1975 behind the meat counter at Caseys in Villa Park, which was initially known as Mikes Meats when it was founded by his father Mike Casey and uncle Mike Kelly, both Irish immigrants. Advertisement After becoming a journeyman meat cutter in 1978, he moved up to partner and manager of the Villa Park store in December 1980 and later managed the Caseys Meat Market in Western Springs. When Caseys Foods opened in the Naperville Plaza in 1991, he also took on an active role in the community. Dan Casey, who owned Casey's Foods for nearly three decades, is being remembered for his volunteer work in Naperville. (Caseys Foods / HANDOUT) Casey was a member of a number of Naperville-area boards of directors and advisory boards over the years. Among them was Little Friends Inc., a nonprofit that provides services for children and adults with autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and social emotional needs. Mike Briggs, the organizations president and CEO, said Casey was an advocate for their mission and was in the middle of his second, nine-year board term at the time of his death. He was on our board for almost 14 years, including time as chairman for four years, Brigg said. In promoting Little Friends, Casey had the ability to engage his friends and draw in people from outside his circle through his enthusiasm. He was passionate in what he was doing, Briggs said. He was a wonderful guy. Dan was special. Advertisement In 2018, Casey was the recipient of the first Dottee Krejci Memorial Award, an honor given in memory of Dorothy Dottee Krejci, founding director of Little Friends. Beyond working together to promote Little Friends, Casey also became a close friend, Briggs said. Someone said, God got a good man. He did. Dan was a good man, he said. Casey also was the board of First Community Bank of Naperville from 2011-2023, Naperville Country Club from 2006-2009 and Naperville Heritage Society from 2002-2004. He was active in the Rotary Club of Naperville-Sunrise and the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce. Outside Naperville, Casey was president of the Western Springs Business Association from 1995-1998 and on the board of directors of First National Bank of LaGrange from 1996-2007. He owned his Naperville food store until 2019, when he sold it to longtime Naperville resident and Caseys employee Kris Vishe. Advertisement His community work often was behind the scenes, donating steaks and other food for charity cook-offs or providing cakes for local business anniversaries, friends said. Over the years, Caseys Foods was a partner with Loaves & Fishes, providing fresh foods to the nonprofits pantry and making monetary donations with his wife, Jill, the organization said. His Irish heritage was important and Casey was involved with West Suburban Irish, serving as grand marshal of the 2006 St. Patricks Day parade in Naperville. For years employees of Caseys Foods volunteered to build a float for the annual parade. A memorial mass will be held at noon Wednesday, Feb. 8, at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church at 820 Division St. in Lisle. An open house from 2:30 to 8:30 p.m. will follow at Naperville Country Club, 25W570 Chicago Ave. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughter Colleen (Reed) Wilcox, of Pittsfield, Vermont; siblings, Maureen Stachowicz, Sheila Coha, Christine Casey, Kevin Casey, David Casey, Patricia Jung and Margaret Wiecek; and numerous other relatives. Arrangements are being handled by Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home & Cremation Services in Naperville. Advertisement Donations in memory of Casey can be made to Little Friends Inc., 27555 Diehl Road, Warrenville, IL, 60555, or at www.littlefriendsinc.org/donate. subaker@tribpub.com Alan Cumming has earnt the praise of fans as he revealed that he was the latest celebrity to return his OBE. The Scottish star of stage and screen announced on Friday (27 January), his 58th birthday, that he had recently returned the honour given to him in 2009 for services to the arts and his LGBT+ activism in the US. Writing on Instagram, Cumming explained that recent public conversations about the monarchy and British Empire had made him reconsider and return the prestigious honour hed once been so proud of. In doing so, Cumming joins a number of well-known individuals to have refused an honour for a variety of reasons, whether political, personal, or because they did not feel it was appropriate. Here is a run-down of familiar faces who have spurned their honours: Skepta (Getty) Skepta claimed he had turned down an MBE for the 2017 New Year's Honours via a new track, titled Hypocrisy. In the second verse of Hypocrisy, he raps: Just came back from the Ivors/ And look at what we collected/ The MBE got rejected/ I'm not trying to be accepted. Alan Cumming Of his decision return his OBE, Cumming wrote: The Queens death and the ensuing conversations about the role of monarchy and especially the way the British Empire profited at the expense (and death) of indigenous peoples across the world really opened my eyes. Also, thankfully, times and laws in the US have changed, and the great good the award brought to the LGBTQ+ cause back in 2009 is now less potent than the misgivings I have being associated with the toxicity of empire (OBE stands for Officer of the British Empire). The 58-year-old concluded: So I returned my award, explained my reasons and reiterated my great gratitude for being given it in the first place. Im now back to being plain old Alan Cumming again. Happy birthday to me! Paul Weller (Getty) The musician rejected a CBE in 2006. In a statement a spokesperson for Weller simply said: Paul was surprised and flattered, but it wasnt really for him. Story continues Francis Crick The physicist who discovered DNA, along with James Watson, was offered a CBE in 1963 but declined, one year after they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He apparently believed the British monarchy to be out of date, reported the Mail. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Getty Images) The journalist and author said in 2006 she had been stupid to accept an MBE, which she later returned. I was stupid once and allowed myself to accept an MBE, partly to please my mum, who was always afraid that my big mouth would get us deported from here, as we were from Uganda," she wrote. Then the poet Benjamin Zephaniah shamed me live on Channel 4 News, just as the Iraq war was building up and my republicanism was solidifying. I returned the lovely object and have had to put up with scorn ever since, some deserved. But I now speak with the zeal of a convert. The honours system sucks and we should start again, devise a fair and independent new method to annually acclaim exceptional citizens for their contribution to the nation, not to overweening political parties or the semi-skilled, dysfunctional Windsors. Ken Loach (Getty) The film director, whose films focus on social issues such as poverty and homelessness, spoke about turning down an OBE in 1977. Its all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest," he said. I turned down the OBE because its not a club you want to join when you look at the villains whove got it. Michael Sheen In 2020, Welsh actor Michael Sheen said that he had returned his OBE in 2017, while calling for the royal family to abandon the tradition of giving the title of Prince of Wales to the English thrones heir apparent. When he was due to present a lecture about state relations between the English and the Welsh, he opted to relinquish the honour to avoid hypocrisy. By the time Id finished writing that lecture, I remember sitting there going, Well, I have a choice. I either dont give this lecture and hold on to my OBE or I give this lecture and I have to give my OBE back, he said. Alan Bennett (Getty) Playwright and author Alan Bennett turned down the offer of becoming a CBE in 1988 and then rejected a knighthood in 1996. He said the reason for doing so was because he did not believe that he could carry off being a knight: I felt that, in my case, it just wouldnt suit me, thats all. It would be like wearing a suit every day of your life. Jim Broadbent I was offered an OBE a couple of years ago, but I said no," Jim Broadbent revealed in 2012. "Im not that comfortable with actors receiving honours, partly because I think they ought to go to those who really help others. Besides, I like the idea of actors not being part of the establishment. Were vagabonds and rogues, and were not a part of the authorities and establishment, really. If you mix the two together, things get blurry. Jon Snow (Channel 4) The Channel 4 News anchor who has a career spanning 40 years and reported on major events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and Nelson Mandelas release from prison turned down an OBE on the grounds of being a journalist. He said he believed journalists shouldnt take honours from the government, explaining: I tried to find out why Id been given it and was unable to get a clear answer, or, indeed to find out who had proposed me, reports the New York Times. Benjamin Zephaniah (Rex) The celebrated poet turned down an OBE in 2003. Penning an article for the Guardian, he firmly asserted: Benjamin Zephaniah OBE no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire. Explaining he gets angry when hearing the word empire the poet also said it would have been better to give him one of these empire things for his work to combat racism or promoting animal rights rather than literature where there are a whole lot of writers who are better than me. John Le Carre The Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy author was among a 2003 list of leaked names of those who declined an honour. It is not clear what honour le Carre declined, or his reason for doing so. French and Saunders (BBC) The comedy duo turned down OBEs in 2001. Saunders later toldSource magazine in 2008: If I felt I deserved a Damehood Id accept it. Looking back she said: At the time, we felt that we were being paid very well to have a lot of fun. It didnt seem right somehow It felt a bit fake to stand alongside people who devoted their lives to truly worthy causes. Roald Dahl The beloved childrens author behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who died in 1990 reportedly refused a knighthood in 1986. His name was one of many revealed by the Telegraph after a Freedom of Information act in 2012. John Oliver British-American comedian and Last Week Tonight presenter John Oliver declined an OBE a few years ago, describing the experience to Conan OBrien. There was a moment of thinking, I get to go Buckingham Palace, that would be an experience, he said. Then what kicks in is, Oh no I dont want that at all. I dont want an Order Of The British Empire. Why on earth would I want that? Then I looked up all the people who rejected it. I think the Beatles gave it back in the end. Awards for comedy are inherently silly, added Oliver. David Bowie (Getty) The iconic performer spurned honours twice. He refused a CBE in 2000 and later a knighthood in 2003. The 68-year-old reportedly explained: I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously dont know what its for. Its not what I spent my life working for." Nigella Lawson The TV chef was another name who was revealed to have turned down an OBE in 2001. She explained: Im not saving lives and Im not doing anything other than something I absolutely love. Danny Boyle (Getty Images) The award-winning director was offered a knighthood following his successful Opening Ceremony routine at the London Olympics in 2012. He rejected "Sir Danny", saying hed rather be a man of the people and that hes proud to be an equal citizen which was reflected in his Opening Ceremony. Alfred Hitchcock The Birds and Psycho director turned down a CBE in 1962 but later went on to accept a knighthood and was Sir Alfred Hitchcock for only four months before his death in 1980. According to the Daily Mail, he originally refused the lesser title because it didnt do justice to his contribution to British culture. Stephen Hawking In 2008, the scientist told how he was offered a knighthood in the late 1990s but declined reportedly over the UK governments science funding. John Lennon The Beatle didnt exactly turn his MBE down, but returned it four years after receiving the accolade. In a letter to the Queen explaining his decision he listed Britains involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing (The Nigerian Civil War), the support of the USAs war in Vietnam and 'Cold Turkey' [by Plastic Ono Band] slipping down the charts. A sobbing Alex Murdaugh told law enforcement he tried to turn over his sons bloodied body twice and checked him and his wife for pulses but police saw no signs of blood on the clean accused killer, according to bombshell courtroom testimony. During the second day of testimony at murder trial in Colleton County Courthouse on Friday, jurors were shown footage from the disgraced legal scions first police interview in the aftermath of the murders. In the footage, Mr Murdaugh described touching the bodies of his son Paul, 22, and wife Maggie, 52, after he allegedly found them brutally shot to death at the kennels of the familys estate in Islandton, South Carolina. He sobbed as he said he saw his sons brain detached from his head and claimed that he tried to turn his body over twice. I could see his brain ... I ran over to Maggie, actually I think I tried to turn Paul over first... um... you know, I tried to turn him over, I dunno, I figured it out, he is heard saying. Mr Murdaugh said that his sons cellphone fell from his pocket when he tried to move him and that he handled it briefly. His cell phone popped out of his pocket, I started trying to do something with it but I put it back down really quickly, and then I went to my wife, he says. In dramatic testimony, Detective Laura Rutland of Colleton County Sheriffs Office contradicted his version of events as she said that Mr Murdaugh was clean from head to toe with no signs of blood on his body, shirt, shorts or shoes. Det Rutland was in charge of securing the search warrant of the Murdaugh property that night before she then travelled to the scene and was assigned as the chief liaison with South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) the state authority leading the investigation. When she arrived on the scene, she testifed that she noticed brain, blood, hair, and skull matter from Paul in the ceiling of the kennels. She also saw fresh shoe impressions on the left side of the hanger building. She said the shoe impressions flat sandal, flip flop type shoes appeared to match the shoes Maggie was wearing. Story continues She told the court how she and a fellow law enforcement officer interviewed Mr Murdaugh in a police car at around 1am around three hours after he had placed a 911 call alerting authorities to the scene. His attorney was present at the time. She testified that he told them he had tried to turn over Pauls body twice and also tried to check both Paul and Maggies pulses. She said she didnt say where he checked for a pulse but, in a gripping reenactment, agreed that if Mr Murdaugh had touched pulse points on Pauls neck or wrists he would have been covered in blood. As jurors have previously heard, the crime scene was especially violent and bloody. Paul had been shot twice once in the head and once in the chest with a shotgun while Maggie was shot five times with an automatic rifle with some of the bullets striking her when she had already fallen to the ground. Pauls brain had been shot out of his skull and both he and Maggie were lying in pools of their own blood. Det Rutland testified that she saw no knee prints or footprints in the blood around either victim. When asked about Mr Murdaughs shorts, shoes, hands and so forth, to each question she replied: They were clean. As the interview was played in court, jurors heard how Mr Murdaugh claimed he had gone to visit his elderly mother who had Alzheimers and then returned to find his wife and son werent home. He said he then headed to the kennels and made the grim discovery. When I came back here and I pulled up and I could see them, he is heard saying. Parts of the audio is inaudible but he is heard saying it was really bad and I could see that before tailing off as he breaks down in tears. The father and son is heard sobbing inconsolably as he says he saw his sons brain. When asked how his relationship was with his wife, he claims: Wonderful. Mr Murdaugh suggests to the officers that Maggie and Pauls deaths could be connected to a 2019 fatal boat crash. At the time of Pauls death, he was awaiting trial over the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach. Paul was allegedly drunk driving a boat of his friends including Beach in 2019 when it crashed and they were thrown overboard. The rest of the group survived but Beachs body washed up days later. Paul was charged with boating under the influence and faced up to 25 years in prison. He was killed before the trial could proceed. The detectives testimony supports that given by several law enforcement officials on Thursday who said that they did not see any blood on Mr Murdaugh when they responded to the scene on the night of 7 June 2021. However, they all described a violent and bloody scene with Pauls brains separated from his body and both victims lying in pools of blood. Captain Jason Chapman of the Colleton County Sheriffs Office, who also responded to the scene that day, told the court that he saw no visible signs of blood on Mr Murdaugh something he agreed would have been likely if he had touched their bodies. In the 911 call, played in court on Thursday, Mr Murdaugh is also heard telling the dispatcher that he had touched his wife and sons bodies and suggesting that they were killed because of the 2019 boating incident. Colleton County Sheriffs Sgt Daniel Greene, who was the first officer on the scene of the murders, told the court that Mr Murdaugh immediately suggested that his wife and son had been murdered because of the boat crash as soon as he arrived. This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck, Mr Murdaugh is heard saying in the bodycam footage. I know thats what this is. Mr Murdaugh, the 54-year-old heir to a prominent legal dynasty, is accused of gunning down his wife and son in an attempt to distract from a string of other scandals encircling him. He is facing life in prison on two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. Mr Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Prosecutors say that Mr Murdaugh killed his wife and son in an attempt to distract from the other crimes and scandals swirling around him. At the time of the murders, Mr Murdaugh was believed to be facing financial ruin from a 20-year opioid addiction and one day earlier had been confronted by his law firm PMPED over an alleged multi-million-dollar fraud scheme. Now, Mr Murdaugh is charged with more than 100 counts from multiple indictments alleging he stole nearly $8.5m from clients at his law firm in fraud schemes going back a decade. The attorney, who has since been disbarred, allegedly represented the clients in wrongful death settlements before pocketing the money for himself. Alleged victims include family members of Gloria Satterfield family, the Murdaughs longtime housekeeper who died in a mysterious trip and fall accident at the family home in 2018. At the time, her death was regarded as an accidental fall though the investigation was reopened after Maggie and Pauls murders. Three months on from the murders on 4 September 2021 Mr Murdaugh allegedly conspired to pay a hitman to shoot him dead so that Buster would inherit a $10m life insurance windfall. The now-disbarred attorney initially claimed he was ambushed in a drive-by shooting while changing a tyre on his vehicle, but his story quickly unravelled and he confessed to orchestrating the plot. Mr Murdaugh and his alleged co-conspirator Curtis Smith were arrested and charged over the incident. As well as the deaths of Beach and Satterfield, questions have also surfaced about other mystery deaths surrounding the Murdaughs. Stephen Smith, 19, was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County, South Carolina. The openly gay teenager had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled a hit-and-run. But the victims family have long doubted this version of events, with the Murdaugh name cropping up in several police tips and community rumours. An investigation was reopened into his death after Maggie and Pauls murders. A detective who was the first to interview Alex Murdaugh the night his wife and son were killed attempted to poke holes in his story during Fridays testimony at the Colleton County Courthouse. Murdaugh told investigators with the State Law Enforcement Division what happened the night of his wife and son were murdered on June 7, 2021, described the familys relationships with each other, and offered his theory on what may have happened when Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were shot and killed at the familys rural Colleton County estate. Jurors on Friday, Day 5 of Murdaughs double-murder trial, listed to audio of a recorded interview with Murdaugh conducted the night of the murders, the second full day of testimony in the long-anticipated murder trial in Walterboro. Murdaugh described coming home from his mothers house and discovering the bodies while seated in an investigators car at the Moselle property in Islandton. He can be heard crying at times on the tape. I pulled up and I could see them, I knew it was something bad, Murdaugh said. Playing the recording was the first time prosecutors gave a detailed accounting of the night from Murdaughs own perspective. He told investigators he attempted to tun over the body of his son, Paul, knocking Pauls cellphone out of his pocket in the process. His cellphone popped out, and I tried to do something with it, then I put it down immediately, Murdaugh told investigators. Murdaugh family members listen to testimony in the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Grace Beahm Alford/The Post and Courier/Pool He told investigators he also touched his wife Maggies body, attempting to get a pulse. After calling 911, he told investigators he called both of his brothers and attempted to call a neighbor who did not answer. He said he had called and texted Maggie when he left his mothers house, but did not get a response. Laura Rutland, a detective with the Colleton County Sheriffs Office, testified she found Murdaughs story unusual at the time. Murdaughs mother suffers from late-stage Alzheimers, a disease she characterized as usually worse in the evenings. Murdaugh said he didnt return from his mothers house until after 9 p.m. Story continues Defense attorney Jim Griffin noted that the day in question Murdaughs father had been admitted to the hospital. His father, a former state prosecutor, died a few days later. You dont criticize a son for visiting his mother with late-stage Alzheimers on the same night his father went into the hospital, Griffin said. The evidence table holds 12-gauge shotgun presented in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Grace Beahm Alford/The Post and Courier/Pool Prosecutor John Meadors also questioned Rutland about the state of Murdaughs clothes the night of the murder. Although he said he had tried to check for signs of life on the two bodies, Rutland described Murdaughs hands, shirt, shorts and shoes as clean, without visible blood from his contact with what other witnesses have described as a very bloody scene. Griffin noted that also would not have been the case if Murdaugh had killed his wife and son at close range, as the prosecution contends. Rutland also testified that when she first spoke to Murdaugh at the scene, he was speaking to another man whom he introduced as Dan Henderson, another lawyer at Murdaughs former law firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick whom she understood to be his personal attorney. Meadors, who questioned the witness Friday morning, is an experienced prosecutor in high-profile cases hired by the S.C. Attorney Generals office shortly before the start of the Murdaugh trial. Family dynamics Murdaugh described his relationship with Maggie as a wonderful marriage, wonderful relationship, and said the relationship between Paul and Maggie was as good as it can be. Paul was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful kid, Murdaugh said on the tape. In the courtroom, Murdaugh could be seen bowing his head and bobbing it slightly back and forth as some of the more emotional parts of the tape were played. His attorney Dick Harpootlian at one point turned and patted him on the shoulder. Murdaugh said he was unaware of any trespassers who may have been on the Moselle property recently, but that the negative publicity around a boat wreck Paul was involved with in which a young woman was killed lead to some pretty vile stuff being directed at Paul, who Murdaugh said had been punched and hit and just attacked a lot, but nothing like this. Asked if Paul had been directly threatened, Murdaugh says, Oh yes, he gets them all the time, Ill kick your ass, Ive never been privy firsthand. In his conversation with SLED, Murdaugh also referenced C.B. Rowe, the groundskeeper for the Moselle property, who he said wasnt doing a good job and had killed plants on the property. Rowe was off work on June 7, the day the murders took place. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. (Bloomberg) -- Antitrust enforcers should be willing to challenge mergers that decrease competition, without trusting corporations to stick to promised remedies, a top Justice Department official said Thursday, two days after the department sued Alphabet Inc.s Google to break up its online advertising business. Most Read from Bloomberg Doha Mekki, the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the departments antitrust division, said agencies under previous administrations have usurped the will of Congress by declining to enforce the letter of antitrust laws that are in some cases more than century old. She called for the government to operate with a bias towards action, even if it means occasionally losing in court. Mekkis comments came after the Justice Department on Tuesday filed the landmark case against Google over its dominance in online advertising. She said the case highlighting the governments missed opportunities to protect competition in emerging industries such as online advertising. Google, in response to Tuesdays lawsuit, said the Justice Department is doubling down on a flawed argument. During a speech at George Mason University in Virginia, Mekki said our reliance on predictions have failed us. The university is known for a free-market approach to antitrust and some of its professors have at times criticized the Biden administrations aggressive antitrust enforcement. She referred to the Federal Trade Commissions decision to sign off on Googles acquisition of advertising technology platform DoubleClick Inc. during the George W. Bush administration. At the time, several FTC commissioners acknowledged that the acquisition could enable Google to dominate the online advertising ecosystem, but they chose not to block the deal because they could not adequately predict what the market would look like years down the line. Story continues That acquisition was a turning point, Mekki said. As we alleged in our complaint, it vaulted Google into a commanding position over the tools online publishers use. She said the FTC commissioners statements at the time read as a roadmap of the conduct that Google would later engage in, but they failed to intervene. Now, Googles acquisition of DoubleClick plays a central role in the DOJs case against Google. The DOJs complaint filed Tuesday seeks to force Google to spin off its online advertising division. Mekki said government enforcers should focus on enforcing the law as Congress intended with a focus on what markets could become rather than only what they look like today. Focus on measuring competition, rather than predicting the competitive effects with certainty in a dynamic world, Mekki said. That is the more consistent framework under the statute that Congress wrote. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. By Isla Binnie NEW YORK (Reuters) - ArcelorMittal has led the latest, $120 million round of investment for Boston Metal in the startup's quest to go to market by 2026 with equipment capable of taking the heavy greenhouse gas emissions out of steel production, the companies said. Much of the world's steel is currently made in coal-fired blast furnaces and its producers are coming under increasing pressure to reduce their contribution to global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that cause climate change. Steel producers are estimated to produce 7-9% of all harmful emissions, according to the World Steel Association. Boston Metal makes parts for cells in which electricity splits iron ore, creating liquid iron and no byproducts or emissions apart from oxygen. As long as the power comes from renewable sources, this means carbon is completely eliminated from the process, Chief Executive Tadeu Carneiro said. Microsoft Corp's Climate Innovation Fund also joined current investors, who include carmaker BMW, in the investment, which will go toward expanding a pilot plant in Boston and building a new site in Brazil. A big hurdle to so-called green steel is the cost of production, but this electrolysis process can compete with traditional methods as long as power costs $30-$40 per megawatt hour, Carneiro said, prices which can be achieved in places like the hydropower-rich Canadian province of Quebec. Companies in steel-hungry sectors like carmaking have been reviewing their supply chains. "What is the point of having an electric car running on a battery and carrying dirty steel?" Carneiro asked. ArcelorMittal's investment marks a shift in steel companies' willingness to invest in the technology since Boston Metal first went out looking for funding in 2018, Carneiro said. Venture capital investors bought in, but the steelmakers did not bite at the time. "Five or six years ago it seemed to be too early for them ... The environment changed completely. Now all the steelmaking companies are very interested in following what we are doing because they need a solution." (Reporting by Isla Binnie in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Jan. 26For the 17th consecutive year, employees of Ashley Furniture Industries have shown their generosity through the company's "Dollar a Week" program. Workers from locations in Ecru, Verona, Ripley and Saltillo donated a total of nearly $74,000 to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital during the past year. Le Bonheur will receive a donation of $31,504, while St. Jude $42,410. Since 2006, Ashley employees have contributed $347,883 to Le Bonheur. Since 2012, employees have contributed $279,868. "Le Bonheur Children's Hospital is thankful for companies like Ashley Furniture and its employees of North Mississippi for their generous donation once again," Le Bonheur President and CEO, Michael Wiggins said. "Thanks in part to their generosity for the past 18 years, Le Bonheur is able to ensure that our patients and families are able to receive the best care whenever they need us." Tanya Frey, Vice President, Midsouth Territory for ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, said, "Our hearts are filled with gratitude for this generous donation from Ashley Furniture employees through their 'Dollar a Week' program. The support we receive through this partnership helps St. Jude continue its ongoing $12.9 billion, six-year strategic plan that will help more of the 400,000 children around the world with cancer each year." In addition to these employee contributions, Ron Wanek, Founder and Chairman of Ashley, and his wife Joyce, made a personal donation of $5,000 to each organization. "We are proud to support both of these outstanding organizations in their efforts to find cures for childhood diseases," Wanek said. "I am thrilled by all of our employees who continue this generosity year after year and we hope this gift helps ease some of the burden on patients' families." In addition to the money raised for LeBonheur and St. Jude at the Mississippi plants, Ashley employees also supported a variety of different organizations through the "Dollar a Week" program, including $8,582 to Ronald McDonald House Charities, $63,003 to Ashley's Angels, and $18,891 to miscellaneous organizations such as Relay for Life, Together for Tippah and Rotary Coats for Kids. [Source] Florida public schools may soon be required to teach Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history to its students if a new bill passes. Last Thursday, Florida State Representative Susan Plasencia (D, FL-40) filed House Bill 287 in an effort to implement AAPI studies in Florida public schools. The proposed bill calls for updated school curricula to include: The history of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the immigration, citizenship, civil rights, identity, and culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to American society. More from NextShark: Driver charged with manslaughter for killing Asian senior in San Francisco crash Plasencias district covers parts of Orange County, which has one of the highest concentrations of AAPIs in Florida. The United States Census Bureaus 2021 American Community Survey lists an estimated 620,260 Asians and 12,453 Pacific Islanders residing in Florida. On Thursday, Florida State Senator Linda Stewart (D, FL-13) announced Senate Bill 294 with bipartisan support from co-sponsor State Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez (R, FL-39). More from NextShark: Foo Fighters Collaborates With Japanese Brewery to Release 2 Limited-Edition Sakes In Thursdays press release, Stewart, who had been working towards getting the legislation passed since last year, said, It is necessary now more than ever to educate young people on different cultures given the Asian-American hate crimes that have been happening across the country, most recently with the mass shootings in California. If the bill is signed into law, school districts will be required to provide proof of Asian American studies being included in their updated curriculum. This change will not add financial costs to schools, according to Stewart. More from NextShark: Purdue Northwest faculty votes no-confidence in chancellor for mock Asian language I just want us to recognize the Asian American culture and teach the young people about that culture, Stewart said. If they learn about it, then they are less likely to go on the street and beat em up because thats what they are doing. They are shooting them and beating them up. Story continues Incorporating Asian studies in the classroom allows students to uncover fresh global perspectives, said Rodriguez. Through its culturally diverse and rich history, students will gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of the Asian community. If passed, the bill, which has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, may go into effect as early as the 2023-2024 academic school year. More from NextShark: Hong Kong's next leader: Beijing favorite and ex-security chief John Lee Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., waits for the start of a session in the House chamber on Jan. 6. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) A flurry of questions emerged this week surrounding the campaign of the embattled freshman Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., who has been caught fabricating many aspects of his life story, and has had to admit that he lied about his education, work history and personal life. Just this week, new campaign disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission suggest that at least $625,000 in campaign loans did not come from Santoss personal funds, as he previously claimed. Questions remain as to where the funds did come from. His campaign has also raised suspicions by listing a bizarrely large number of expenses of between $199 and $199.99, which conveniently falls just below the $200 minimum for which the FEC requires a receipt. In an attempt to address some of those questions, Santoss campaign committee told federal regulators it had hired a new treasurer about those lingering questions. The person Santos claimed to have hired said he had declined the job. Calls continue to grow from both sides of the aisle for the congress members resignation, while the Republican House leadership stands by Santos, recently seating him on two House committees. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy did say on Tuesday, however, that if the Ethics Committee finds that Santos broke the law, he will be removed from Congress. I think when we see that the leadership structure is willing to tolerate dishonesty, it probably does cause a pretty substantial reduction in trust of that leadership, Chris Hart, professor of psychology and director of the Human Deception Laboratory and Psychological Science program at Texas Womans University, told Yahoo News. I can't imagine that this is going to be anything but harmful to the public's trust in Congress that people like George Santos aren't being held accountable. The Santos saga has even inspired new legislation in Long Island's Nassau County, called the G.E.O.R.G.E. Package. Lawmakers there proposed a bill package that would require political candidates to undergo a background check and would make it a misdemeanor for lying about income, employment, education history or address. Story continues When we look at lying very broadly, everyone lies, said Hart. But does it take a certain type of lying to be successful as a politician? Heres what Hart explained to Yahoo News. (Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.) Yahoo News: Why did Santos lie to the extent he did, when he was likely to get caught? Chris Hart: My suspicion is he probably saw lying as a necessity. He thought he could get something via lying that he couldn't achieve through honesty. He probably didn't think he was going to get caught. If we look at a lot of the lies that he has recently been held accountable for, these are lies he told before he was elected into office. And the dynamics were a little different people weren't checking up on everything he said. So he might have just developed his social routine for what he wanted to get in life. What is a pathological liar? It's very frequent lying that's oftentimes compulsive in nature. When we talk about any kind of psychopathology, we characterize thoughts and behaviors as abnormal or psychopathological when they meet four criteria. It is deviant in some ways: Usually, someone is doing something a lot more or a lot less than people do in the general population. It causes dysfunction in the person's life: problems in their social relationships, romantic and family relationships and/or the workplace. It causes them distress: They're troubled by their unusual behavior and wish they could stop or change. It often causes some danger: sometimes physical danger, or risk of loss of opportunity. [Hart says there are many variations of the definition, but this is how he and his colleague Drew Curtis frame the definition in their book Big Liars: What Psychological Science Tells Us About Lying and How You Can Avoid Being Duped.] Is George Santos considered a pathological liar? Not ever having evaluated him, I couldn't say anything definitive. Given just what I've seen based on what I read in the popular press, he doesn't really seem to have a lot of concern about his lying, and it doesn't seem to be distressing to him. He looks a lot more like the types of people that we see who have a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. These are people that lie, and often for personal gain or because they're deriving some sort of pleasure out of it. But more broadly, theyre consistently violating the rights of others, breaking rules, violating social norms and generally operating in a very exploitive and manipulative way with others, oftentimes with very little evidence of empathy or remorse or guilt about their behavior. What, if anything, is different about George Santoss lies and the false or misleading claims that former President Donald Trump made during his campaigns and presidency? I've seen some other psychologists writing about Donald Trump and describing his pattern of lying as actually being somewhat different. So we have this concept that we refer to people as "bullshitters" and a bullshitter is someone whos not really engaged in a cold, calculating form of lying. They're just saying whatever in the moment seems like the best thing to say, with no regard to whether it's truthful or not, saying whatever happens to serve their needs at the moment. George Santos's lies seem a bit more calculated. He is clearly trying to cultivate a particular image of himself that would present himself as a more electable individual. Do liars benefit politically from lying? If we look at people who choose to go into politics, they seem to be typical in the sense of how honest they are. But we also found, in studies that looked at who gets reelected, we find that politicians who are willing to lie are significantly more likely to be reelected. What this suggests is that the people who actually succeed are willing to make sacrifices with the truth, they're willing to kind of conceal things they don't want you to see and make the world appear as they want it to look to increase the odds of reelection. Politics, unfortunately, is one of those domains where politicians, especially at the federal level, are serving so many constituents that it's really challenging to not offend or let down part of your constituency. And so one of the ways that politicians can avoid doing that is by concealing or shifting the message that they're telling people at different times. It's probably a field where people would prefer to be honest, just like in any other field, but just the dynamics of the workplace make it almost essential that one is not being 100% genuine and forthright at all times. Just 10 minutes after leaving her Berwyn home, Roxana Vera got a call from her oldest son, crying and pleading for help. He had been shot as he made his way to perform at a local establishment for his first show of the year the night of Jan. 19. When she arrived at the scene, her 21-year-old son, Edixon Vera, lay on the ground covered in blood. Two friends who were walking with him were also shot. It was like a nightmare, Roxana Vera said in a phone interview from the hospital where her son was taken. Edixon Vera was shot in the right leg, and he has undergone four surgeries, she said. Though she is grateful her son is alive, Roxana Vera fears for the safety of her family after receiving threats following the shooting. She is also worried because even after she expressed her concerns, Vera said, it took several days to get a call back from the detective to follow up on the case. They assume that just because he is a rapper he is also involved in gangs, the mother said. It has become so normal to walk away from shootings because police assume that all young kids are involved in that. Her son is not, she said. Ray Hanania, a spokesman for Cicero police, confirmed the shooting in the 5500 block of 22nd Place, in which at least two people shot and wounded two males, both 21, and one female, 24. All three were struck by gunfire in the lower extremities, according to the statement. Hanania said police are aware of the threats and are investigating. The police take the shooting very seriously and will continue to investigate it based on the evidence, Hanania said. Roxana Vera and her son say in the meantime they pray that they remain safe. The single mom of three said the shooting has changed their lives forever as she raises money to pay for the medical bills. On Tuesday night, she finally met with the investigator on her sons case. Every time I walk outside Im in fear, Roxana Vera said. But I want people to know that my son is a good man and he does not deserve this. Story continues When she migrated to the Chicago area she ran from violence to protect her kids, she said. She first lived in Forest Park and then moved to Berwyn. Edixon Vera, known as EdiXzon, began writing his raps at an early age, right before moving to the Chicago area from Venezuela when he was 15. It was a way for him to dream and cope with life changes. But he never thought he would share his art with the public, he said from the hospital bed. He began sharing his raps, all in Spanish and mostly about his experiences, on social media and then slowly found others who have an appreciation for the art in his circle of friends. Edixon Vera is a graduate of Morton East High School and paid his tuition at Morton College by working as a driver delivering food. He said he has avoided gangs or other trouble since arriving in this country, focusing on his music and bettering his life and that of his family. Perhaps they didnt like my music, he said. Yo vengo de un lugar bajo y Uno viene aqui a progresar, he said. I come from a bad place, and we come here to do better for ourselves. Just an hour before undergoing a fourth surgery, Edixon Vera said he is hopeful he will walk again and he is confident he will continue to write his music. larodriguez@chicagotribune.com Colinford Mattis arrives at federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday. (Mary Altaffer/AP) BROOKLYN In a dramatic hearing on Thursday, a federal judge sentenced a corporate attorney who firebombed a police car during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests to a year in jail, arguing that his prestigious education boarding school, Princeton, a law degree from New York University should have rendered him a peacekeeper, not an instigator. Youre not one of the oppressed. Youre one of the privileged, senior Eastern District of New York Judge Brian Cogan told Colinford Mattis, even as he expressed admiration for what the 35-year-old had accomplished in his life. The sentencing marked the culmination of a two-and-a-half-year legal battle that saw Mattis and his co-defendant, Urooj Rahman, become symbols of the nations political tumult and divisions. Spanning two presidential administrations, their case saw competing imperatives play out in public and in the courtroom, as well as in the media. To the Heritage Foundation they were terrorists, while New York magazine allowed that they could be seen as civil-rights heroes, even martyrs. The Daily Mail called them woke lawyers. In the pages of the New York Times, they were described by a guest contributor as victims of deeply ingrained injustices. The Justice Department under then-President Donald Trump sought to put them away for at least 45 years. But then Joe Biden became president, and in both cases the Justice Department settled for much less. They ended up pleading guilty last summer to conspiracy to commit arson. Both will lose their law licenses. Booking photos of Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman taken on May 30, 2020. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP) Youre a good guy. No question, Cogan told Mattis, dressed in a blue shirt and tan khakis. Before reading the sentence 12 months and one day, a fine of $30,000 and one year of probation the judge asked for a few moments of quiet contemplation, a final opportunity to think through a case that had become a topic of national interest and a referendum on racism and policing, privilege and justice, not to mention the coronavirus pandemic that seemed to bring those and other forces into inescapable public confrontation. Story continues The facts of the case were never in dispute. But what those facts mean remains deeply unsettled, as the nation continues to struggle with racial and social divisions. Promising attorneys who seemed to embody a fundamental American promise, Mattis and Rahman both said in court that they had allowed anger to consume them. Ill be spending every day for the rest of my life trying to make this right, Rahman said at her sentencing. She will spend 15 months in jail. Standing before the same judge three months later, Mattis voiced the same sentiment. I ruined my life with my conduct that night, he said on Thursday. In succumbing to anger at a time of profound division, fear and isolation, the two were perhaps no different from many other Americans who see no meaningful outlet for their frustration at what they see as societys misguided direction. Political violence remains rare, but it is rising. For the most part, the perpetrators are far-right extremists. In this case, the malefactors were progressives, which may be why the case gained national attention. Activists march in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn on May 31, 2020. (Kevin Hagen/AP) It was Rahman, a social justice activist who worked in housing law, who threw a Bud Light bottle filled with gasoline a wick of toilet paper served as the fuse at an abandoned New York Police Department vehicle in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn in the early hours of May 30, 2020, as New York and many other cities, large and small, across the nation erupted in social justice protests. Mattis drove the car. But it was he who purchased the gasoline used to make the flaming Molotov cocktail that Rahman threw. Though generally peaceful, the ragged edges of that summers Black Lives Matter protests sometimes devolved into violence, mostly involving destruction of private property. Whereas more than a few defendants from the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol have achieved a measure of public notoriety several have even run for public office Rahman and Mattis are the rare social justice protesters privy to the same attention. Cogans obviously genuine compassion for Mattis who is raising three foster children, for whom he was left to care after his mother died from uterine cancer was overcome by a sense that the vehement demonstrations that followed George Floyds killing needed attorneys to monitor police misconduct instead of partaking in misconduct of their own. We really needed you. We really needed the lawyers, Cogan said as he mulled the horrible night that saw violence erupt all over New York. Several officers of the NYPD were accused of overly aggressive tactics in confronting protesters throughout late May and early June 2020. New York police officers push back protesters during a demonstration in Brooklyn on May 30, 2020. (Seth Wenig/AP) Mattiss defense attorney Sabrina Shroff argued that her clients alcohol abuse and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, prevented him from thinking clearly. She said that late night calls with him could be something of an ordeal. He just sounded drunk, Shroff said. Cogan appeared unconvinced by appeals to neurodivergence or substance abuse, pointing to Mattiss educational and professional record as evidence that he had more internal fortitude than Shroff suggested. Still, the proceedings were informed by the knowledge that a much worse fate could have awaited Mattis and Rahman. In the broadest terms, it was the 2020 presidential election that came to their rescue. Within hours of their arrest, the case was transferred from state to federal court, an unusual move for a crime that involved no bodily harm or loss of life. The police van they torched had already been vandalized. Trumps Justice Department plainly wanted to make an example of the duo, as the unstinting June 11 indictment filed against them made clear. Prosecutors also fought to keep them in pretrial detention, leading to a campaign on the imprisoned pairs behalf. The Trump Administration is wielding the punitive force of this system against Colin and Urooj, who are Black and South Asian, respectively, in order to chill popular protest against the unjust status quo, read an open letter from civil rights and progressive advocacy groups. The letter said that cruel and unnecessary treatment the two experienced reflects the Trump Administrations animosity towards the powerful and growing Movement for Black Lives. Police officers push back protesters as a police car burns during a demonstration in Brooklyn on May 30, 2020. (Seth Wenig/AP) A judge set them free on bond that June. Even then, they still faced a potential minimum 45-year prison sentence from prosecutors who seemed determined to see them as domestic terrorists, not hapless vandals. But then came the turnover of presidential administrations; almost exactly a year after the two were first arrested, federal prosecutors now in Bidens employ, not Trumps gave Mattis and Rahman a plea deal that, were they to accept it, would give them no more than two years in jail. Conservatives were outraged, with a National Review editorial criticizing Biden for shameful pandering. That and similar charges seemed to ignore the fact that Mattis and Rahman have their professional and personal lives ruined for the foreseeable future and perhaps for the rest of their lives. Mattiss defense attorney Shroff said on Thursday that the crime her client had committed was going to forever mark him. Speaking a few minutes later, Mattis described the family he was trying to build, the three children from whom he will be separated once his jail term begins in several weeks. I ruined that, he said. Snow shoveling help for seniors is provided by the American Legion and VFW posts and the Naperville Jaycees as well as local churches and Boy Scout troops, according to the Naperville Senior Task Force. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call) Fosters office offers help navigating federal bureaucracy U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, said residents in need of assistance navigating various federal agencies should contact his Aurora office at 2000 W. Galena Blvd. His staff can help with issues involving such things as navigating the U.S. citizenship application process, collecting overdue IRS tax refunds, obtaining veteran benefits or accessing Medicare benefits, a release from Fosters office said. Advertisement U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (Bill Foster / HANDOUT) They can also assist with problems involving the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Internal Revenue Service among others. Constituents should contact his district office at 630-585-7672 or his Washington, D.C., office at 202-225-3515 or go to his website at foster.house.gov/services/help-federal-agency. Advertisement Fosters district encompasses parts of Naperville, Bolingbrook, Aurora and other western suburbs. Naperville Hose Co. 1 seeks info on former firefighters Naperville Hose Co. No. 1, a nonprofit organization, is looking for names of people who were part of the Naperville Fire Department for inclusion on a plaque it hopes to place at an as-yet unannounced location in the city. Theyre seeking the names of non-full-time members as well as their ranks, badge numbers, years they served and any photos that can be provided. The department was founded in 1874 and will be celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2024. The organization is working with Naper Settlement, which has a collection of fire department memorabilia. Anyone with information about past firefighters should send it to Ruthi Sommers at sommers127@att.net by March 1. Seniors can seek snow shoveling help from local groups Seniors in need of help with snow removal should contact one of several local organizations, according to the Naperville Senior Task Force. The American Legion at 630-728-7519, the VFW at 630-420-9820 and the Naperville Jaycees at 630-961-9375 provide assistance as do local churches and Boy Scout troops, the group said in its most recent news letter. Advertisement For information on the task force, go to www.naperville.il.us/government/taskforces/senior-task-force or send email to seniortaskforce@naperville.il.us. Local groups partnering on Naperville candidate forums The Naperville Senior Task Force, Positively Naperville and the Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation are cosponsoring several candidate forums. Residents can learn about candidates running for Naperville City Council at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31, and Tuesday, Feb. 28, at an event being held at the Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St. A similar event for Naperville mayoral candidates will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 14, at the same location. Kash Ageel, of Naperville, is a new member of the Naperville Community Television, Channel 17, board of directors. (NCTV / HANDOUT) Two new members named to the NCTV17 board Kash Ageel and Brian OMalley have been appointed to the board of directors for Naperville Community Television, Channel 17. Aqeel, a Naperville resident, is a business professional and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of global experience in the software and technology industry, according to an NCTV17 news release. He is currently a senior account executive with iManage and an active member of and volunteer for the Islamic Center of Naperville. Advertisement Naperville resident Brian OMalley has been named to the board of directors for Naperville Community Television, Channel 17. (NCTV / HANDOUT) OMalley is also a Naperville resident and marketing manager for State Farm Agency in Naperville. He currently serves as the immediate past president of the Rotary Club of Naperville and as a member of the St. Raphael St. Vincent DePaul Society. Two police officers will not be disciplined for the 2021 fatal shooting of Alex Gonzales Jr. and the wounding of his girlfriend while their infant was in a car with them, the Austin Police Department announced Thursday. Police Chief Joe Chacon's decision against disciplinary action comes in striking contrast to the recommendation of a citizen panel that examined the evidence and urged the Police Department to fire the two officers involved. The interim director of the city's civilian Office of Police Oversight also recommended that one of the officers be fired. Last month, Travis County grand jurors declined to indict the officers, but activists and Gonzales' family have called for the officers to be terminated. Both officers will resume their full-time roles as officers, the Police Department said Thursday. Police officer Gabriel Gutierrez, who was off-duty at the time, told authorities that 27-year-old Gonzales pointed a gun at him in a moment of road rage. Gutierrez then drew his own weapon, shooting and injuring Gonzales, who had his girlfriend and baby in the car. Gutierrez then called for backup, police said. More:No charges for 2 Austin police officers in 2021 fatal shooting of driver reaching for baby Some law enforcement experts have pointed out that Gutierrez could have instead retreated, described the car and given its license plate number to 911 dispatchers before allowing uniformed officers to take charge. Officer Luis Serrato, who responded to the scene, shot the wounded Gonzales as he reached into the backseat of his car, where his infant child was, police video of the incident shows. "These decisions are not made quickly or lightly," the Police Department said in a statement. "The investigation of the incident revealed that when Officer Gutierrez came into contact with Mr. Gonzales, he acted as a private citizen who defended himself in the face of a deadly threat. Officer Gutierrez was not in a police vehicle or police uniform." Story continues The statement continued: "Further, the investigation showed that Officer Serrato's actions in response to the incident were in accordance with APD's policy and training. The department recognizes the sensitive nature of the officer-involved shooting and is aware of the high level of public interest. The officers involved acted according to their training and APD policy." Scott Hendler, attorney for the Gonzales family, urged the city to fire Chacon in light of this decision. He also urged the Travis County district attorney to resubmit the case to a new grand jury. "Its time to make a course correction," Hendler said in a statement. "Chief Chacon cannot lead the Austin Police Department with the character required because he is unable or unwilling to discipline the officers under his command for excessive violence and even murder." More:Off-the-clock officers acting as on-duty cops: Alex Gonzales death shows need for restraint, experts say Austin police Internal Affairs on Monday provided Austin's Office of Police Oversight as well as the city's community police review commission with a private case briefing. They also heard input from members of the public during Monday's meeting. Sylvia Hardman, interim director of the Office of Police Oversight, recommended Gutierrez be fired and suggested that Serrato receive counseling and guidance. Meanwhile, the Austin community police review commission unanimously recommended Gutierrez be fired and voted 6-1 to recommend Serrato's firing. What we know about the shooting The incident happened Jan. 5, 2021, while Gutierrez was off duty and traveling in his personal vehicle. He told investigators that he noticed another vehicle driving erratically. Gutierrez said he did not call 911 to report the erratic behavior as he did not believe anyone was in danger, according to Hardman's report, which was published after she reviewed the evidence. "Officer Gutierrez states and evidence supports that the other vehicle eventually pulled up along the side ofhis vehicle," Hardman wrote. "Officer Gutierrez states that he saw the driver of the car pointing a gun in his face and he thought he was going to get shot and was going to die." Gutierrez then grabbed his personal gun and shot eight times at Gonzales, emptying his magazine, the oversight agency's report says. Hardman called this decision reckless and contended that Gutierrez took no action to deescalate the situation. Gutierrez then reloaded and looked at Gonzales, who appeared to have been shot in the side of the head. Gonzales face was covered with blood, and he was slumped over. "Officer Gutierrez states that he then heard screaming and realized that someone else was in the car," Hardman said. "He states that, prior to that, he didnt know that anyone else was in the car." Gutierrez called 911, and Gonzales rolled a short distance and stopped at a curb. Gonzales' girlfriend, who had been shot by Gutierrez, fell out of the passenger seat onto the ground, police have said. As officers arrived and told Gutierrez to step back, Gonzales got out of the car. The officers gave multiple commands for Gonzales to get away from the vehicle and not to reach for anything, the video shows. Gonzales initially complied with the commands, but eventually walked around and reached into the car's backseat, and Serrato shot and killed him. Questions surrounding police actions The parents' lawsuit against the city and the officers argues Gonzales's behavior was reasonable for someone who had just been shot while his partner and child were in the car, and police should have anticipated that. "Because Gonzales sustained a gunshot wound in the head at close range, his hearing and ability to process what he could hear, more likely than not, were impaired, making it unlikely that he could understand the conflicting commands of the officers. Because no one came to his or his passengers' aid, Gonzales made his way to the passenger side of the car to reach his wounded girlfriend and check whether Gutierrez had shot his child," their lawsuit states. Hardman also raised several other issues with Gutierrez's actions, including: Gutierrez said he didn't communicate verbally with Gonzales during their initial encounter, but a civilian witness said there was an exchange of words. "This inconsistency impacts Officer Gutierrezs credibility," Hardman wrote. Gutierrez failed to inform 911 dispatchers or other officers that he shot Gonzales. Gutierrez continued to shout put the gun down despite the fact that he saw Gonzales hands and saw he wasn't holding a gun. However, Hardman concluded that Serratos shooting appeared to be within policy, since he and the other on-duty officer at the scene gave Gonzales several commands not to reach into the car. "Officer Serrato reasonably believed that Mr. Gonzales had a weapon and that Mr. Gonzales was attempting to retrieve a weapon," Hardman wrote. '10 shots may have been excessive' However, she still raised concerns with the fact that Serrato fired 10 times at someone who had already been shot. "Officers are trained to shoot until the threat has ended," she wrote. "This standard/training should be reviewed and revised to provide more direct guidance on what this standard actually means. Under the facts and circumstances of this case, it appears that 10 shots may have been excessive." Hardman also was concerned that Serrato fired while Gonzales' injured girlfriend was nearby and could have been shot, she wrote. In the Police Department's statement, police officials thanked the oversight director and committee for their input, but did not acknowledge that both parties had recommended firing Gutierrez. The commission's "advisory role is integral to transparent, thorough and effective public safety processes and policies, and APD thanks them for their service," the statement says. Gonzales family attorney Hendler slammed Chacon's decision Thursday. "Alex Gonzales parents, Elizabeth and Alex Gonzales Sr., are disgusted with Chief Chacon and have no faith in his ability to control the rogue officers in his department," Hendler said. "They have been let down by the Austin criminal justice system, which has abdicated its responsibility to hold the officer who murdered their gravely wounded and unarmed son accountable under the law." Austin activists also decried Chacon's decision. "If any one of the 18 bullets police fired had struck Alexs baby, we all know those officers would be fired, if not facing prison time," said Chris Harris, policy director of the Austin Justice Coalition. "It is by pure luck that Alexs baby was unharmed. Lucky, reckless police are still reckless police, and they threaten our community with their continued employment." This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin police officers who shot Alex Gonzales Jr. won't be fired Despite its steely skies and icy wind, Paris sparkles in January, as the citys prestigious maisons present their latest high jewelry offerings. A sense of geometric restraint pervaded many of this years designs, allowing the mind-bogglingly precious materials to shine: from gargantuan diamonds to mouthwatering rubies and rare gemstones that were snapped up by collectors in an instant. These were the highlights from the City of Light. Graff High Jewelry Graff Diamond Necklace with 50-Carat D-Flawless Oval Diamond For Paris Haute Couture Week, British house Graff unveiled its latest humdinger: a 50-carat, D-Flawless oval diamond. The egg-sized pool of pure brilliance seems to float at the center of a jaw-dropping necklace, amid a supporting cast of diamonds totaling another 100 carats. Every stone was cut and polished to fit the tribal-inspired design to perfection. The house also unveiled an array of chandelier earrings, sumptuous bib necklaces and cocktail rings showcasing yellow diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires, indicative of the one-of-a-kind treasures that are produced in its Mayfair workshop and disappear into the hands of collectors with astonishing speed. More from Robb Report De Beers Metamorphosis De Beers Metamorphosis Collection De Beers honed in on the details of expert goldsmithing with Metamorphosis, the first chapter of which was revealed in Paris. Nine pieces combine yellow, white and rose gold, with a medley of diamond colors and setting techniques to represent the four seasons. Transformability abounds: the hero piece is a swaggering necklace in which four diamond-set strands hang between two intricate clips, all of which can be rejigged to give a multitude of different styling options. Theres a youthful, almost casual air to the range, with a ring jacket that surrounds a 3.06ct diamond, and an earcuff in which the strands are tipped with brightly colored removable titanium chrysalises: a hint at the metamorphosis to be seen in the next chapter. Story continues Chaumet Liens Inseparables Chaumet Liens Inseparables Collection Chaumet began 2023 with a palate cleanser, adding nine new high jewelry pieces to its minimalistic Liens collection. The Liens Inseparables range sees slender strands of diamond-set white gold elegantly intertwined across necklaces, earrings and cocktail rings. While one parure is composed entirely of white diamonds, another features a ribbon of channel-set blue sapphires weaving gracefully around the pave-set stones, emphasizing the fluidity of the designs. The simple silhouettes are expertly articulated; made to meld to the body. Crowning the range is a delicate diamond headpiece: a modern, minimalistic take on the majestic tiaras for which the house is known. Dior Dearest Dior Dior Dearest Dior Earrings and Ring Ten years after the launch of Dear Dior, a high jewelry collection inspired by Diors lace archives, and five years since the couture-inspired follow-up, Victoire de Castellane returned to the theme for Dearest Dior, a 77-piece collection dedicated to the fragile beauty of lace. Gold becomes almost unrecognizable in fantastically intricate, openwork designs that place a profusion of diamonds and gemstones as close to the skin as possible. Mismatching earrings suspend hot pink or yellow sapphires from billowing diamond petticoats, while an 11-carat blue sapphire is the centerpiece of an airy necklace of diamond-set mesh. De Castellanes riotous approach to color is evident in bejeweled floral bouquets that appear as though freshly clasped by the most avant-garde florist. David Morris Skylines David Morris Skylines Collection A 43-carat Australian black opal sits at the center of the Amunet choker, David Morris ode to the symbolism of the stars in Ancient Egypt. Surrounded by white diamonds, pink spinels, emeralds and Paraiba tourmaline on a necklace of lapis lazuli beads, its one highlight of a 20-piece collection inspired by both the night skies and Londons ever-changing skyline. CEO and Creative Director Jeremy Morris love of geometry is apparent in architecturally conceived designs such as the Capola necklace, with its rock-crystal and diamond chevrons, and the angular Glaziale necklace, featuring over 55 carats of triangular and fancy-cut diamonds. Sophisticated designs are matched by the quality of the stones: Paraiba tourmalines, velvety Sri Lankan sapphires and sunset-hued tourmalines appear alongside rare pink and blue diamonds. Cindy Chao Black Label Cindy Chao Black Label Masterpiece Earrings and Brooch Taiwanese jewelry artist Cindy Chao follows Gaudis maxim that there are no straight lines in nature. Her three-dimensional, organic sculptures immortalize fleeting moments in nature with hundreds of carats of precious gems. In Paris she presented two new Black Label Masterpieces: a pair of sprouted cardamom pods, their freshly unfurled titanium bodies glistening with yellow and brown diamonds, garnets, alexandrites and sapphires, revealing fat seeds of cabochon Colombian emerald and rose-cut diamonds. Her celebration of natures imperfections continues in her White Label pieces: a dragonfly with diamond and sapphire wings and an ox-horn body, and brooches and earrings in which gemstones become petals, stamens and leaves, every joint delicately articulated so they quiver with life. Louis Vuitton Spirit Louis Vuitton Spirit Collection Louis Vuitton launched the second chapter of its biggest-ever high jewelry collection, Spirit, continuing the abstract themes of liberty, destiny, fantasy and radiance, with a focus on bold, geometric pieces that combine rare gemstones with recognizable LV house codes. The versatile Fantasy necklace wraps the neck with yellow-gold and diamond-set chevrons, adorned with two diamonds cut in the shape of the houses Monogram Star. The same cut appears at the center of the Destiny bib, amid an extraordinary layout of 37 color-matched rubies. And a new version of the Radiance necklace with its armor-like glossy gold scales is complemented by a pair of earcuffs in which a flourish of diamond-set Vs sits high on the ear, emanating from fiery Spessartite garnets like the scales of a dragon. Boucheron Like a Queen Boucheron Like a Queen Aquamarine and Diamond Bracelet and Diamond Brooches Boucheron creative director Claire Choisne paid homage to the 1937 aquamarine and diamond clips that the late Queen Elizabeth II received on her 18th birthday with the Like a Queen collection, comprising 18 contemporary interpretations of the quintessentially Art Deco design. The designs span brooches, cocktail rings, bracelets, earrings and transformable necklaces, as Choisne encourages clients to wear their high jewelry in evermore daring ways. An aquamarine and diamond bracelet is modernized with electric-blue lacquer, while the Winter Green earrings see each half of the motif strung with a pear-cut emerald. In the Snow White suite, the brooches can be worn classically on the lapel, pinned in the hair, or used to fasten a necklace of Akoya pearls, in tribute to the Queens signature style. Chopard High Jewelry Chopard Yellow Diamond and White Diamond Necklace and Ring Chopard saves its huge high jewelry collection for the Cannes Film Festival in May so for now, the house has revealed a preview of the exceptional stones that will soon grace the red carpet. A pair of stonking oval yellow sapphires from Sri Lanka; a 26.70-carat royal blue sapphire; a 10-carat ruby and pink and green diamonds were on show, alongside a preview of recently completed high jewelry designs, including a necklace set with a whopping 100-carat fancy intense yellow diamond, with a 30-carat yellow diamond ring to match. Cartier Beautes du Monde Celebrating beauty wherever it is found is the ethos behind Cartiers Beautes du Monde collection, and one neednt look far to discover the beauty in the third and final chapter of the range. Inspirations drawn from flora and fauna are abstracted into geometric motifs with an exotic, unmistakably Cartier flavor. Showstopping necklaces are a particular forte, whether set with a cascade of spinel beads to evoke the undulating fins of a pair of Siamese fighting fish, or adorned with 42.44 carats of cabochon emeralds in homage to a birds plumage. Cartiers signature palette of green, black and red finds new expression in the kimono-inspired Obi necklace, while other designs explore new, more muted color schemes. The houses panther makes an appearance, of course, in abstract form as onyx spots on the Panthere Exotique earrings, as well as lurking amongst a painterly array of lavender jade and yellow sapphires in the Panthere Urbaine necklace, a wild cat in an urban jungle. Gucci Hortus Deliciarum Gucci Hortus Deliciarum Collection Forty-two new additions to the third installment of Hortus Deliciarum, Guccis high jewelry range which debuted in 2019, continue the fusion of antique inspirations with a fantastical, futuristic aesthetic. Fairytale-like cascades of white diamonds are topped with billowing bows and shooting stars, and long Seventies-style pendants are strung with gobstopper-sized cabochon gems. Masculine chunky chains are adorned with the houses signature tiger head, and Guccis chimeric tiger-snake wraps around the wrist, crowned with a yellow sapphire. Clashing colors and unusual gemstones abound: a series of signet rings feature heart-shaped and hexagonal colored gemstones and opals, their fiery brilliance tempered by a backdrop of baguette-cut diamonds. Repossi La Ligne Repossi La Ligne Collection Now majority owned by LVMH, Repossi presented La Ligne, the houses first high jewelry range since 2019, and with 15 pieces, its biggest yet. Conceived around the simple concept of a plumb line, the pieces play with the houses signature use of negative space, with typical restraint. Pear-cut diamonds appear to float alongside straight lines of precise pave-set diamonds or mirror-polished white gold. An architectural cuff sees the line extend the length of the upper arm, while a torque-style collar necklace drips diamonds vertically between the collarbones. With every piece wrought in white cold, its a cool, considered return to high jewelry from Gaia Repossi, the queen of understated rebellion. Best of Robb Report Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. If an Alaska cruise has ever left you wanting more, Cunard Line has you covered. The luxury brand is partnering again with train company Rocky Mountaineer to offer rail extensions on its sailings to the Last Frontier this summer. Between June and August, passengers on Cunard's Queen Elizabeth ship can ride the train through the Canadian Rockies by tacking on either a three-night post-cruise package or adding a four-night trip ahead of their sailing, depending on the date of their cruise. "We are excited to partner with Rocky Mountaineer so our passengers can enjoy the spectacular scenery and Alaskan wildlife in the utmost of luxury both by land and by sea," Matt Gleaves, Cunard's VP, Commercial North America, said in a news release. How long can you be on a cruise?: Why some passengers opt to sail for 6 months or longer 60% off on a cruise for your guest?: Here are 7 cruise deals to snag during wave season Cunard previously partnered with Rocky Mountaineer in 2019. Other cruise lines, such as American Queen Voyages, have also worked with the company. Where do Cunard's Rocky Mountaineer tours go? During the three-night option, Rocky Mountaineer takes guests east from Vancouver, British Columbia to Calgary, Alberta. The four-night trip makes the opposite journey, building in extra time for exploring Banff, where passengers can take in sweeping views courtesy of the Banff Gondola. The train offers plenty of striking scenery, too: glass-dome windows allow for 180-degree views of lakes, canyons and mountains. The train also has a dining room on board that serves up locally-inspired cuisine and complimentary bar service, according to the release. Guests stay at hotels along the way. Travelers can extend thier Cunard voyage in Alaska with Rocky Mountaineer. How much do Cunard's Rocky Mountaineer packages cost? The three-night package following the cruise starts at $2,850 per passenger based on double occupancy. The add-on is available on two itineraries from Japan to Alaska one is 25 days long, while the other is 16 and four Alaska cruises sailing round-trip from Vancouver. Those sailings are between 10 and 11 nights. Story continues Cruise ship kids clubs: Here's everything to know The four-night train trip on the front end starts at $3,250 per guest based on double occupancy. That option is available on three Alaska sailings between seven and 10 nights, round-trip from Vancouver. The packages include hotel stays, meals on board and more. Travelers can book via Cunard's website or by calling 1-800-728-6273. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cruise too short? Cunard guests can now extend Alaska trips by train The Biden administration released state-by-state data on Friday breaking down who applied for President Bidens student debt relief program last year. While the program that would give millions of Americans up to $20,000 in student debt relief is being challenged before the Supreme Court, the Biden administration broke down the data of those who seek it. The information released by the administration showed that more than 26 million Americans from all 50 states have applied or were automatically declared eligible for the program and more than 16 million applications were fully approved and were sent to loan servicers to be discharged. The applications were opened up back in October but were on the Department of Educations site for less than a month. The applications had to be taken down due to court battles against the program. While the applications were up, the biggest states, California and Texas, also had the highest number of those who applied or were automatically eligible. California had 2.3 million applications and 1.4 million approved. Texas had 2.1 million applications and 1.3 million approved. Wyoming was at the bottom of the pack with only 30,000 applications and 18,000 approved, with Alaska in second-to-last place with 38,000 applications and 24,000 approved. In the fact sheet, the administration said more than 40 million borrowers would be eligible under the program and 90 percent of the benefits from the relief would go to those making less than $75,000 a year. The program was stopped due to a barrage of lawsuits that were filed against it. Two of the lawsuits prevailed above the others and are now making the case against the debt relief to the Supreme Court. The data was released the same day the plaintiffs in both of the lawsuits have to give their opening briefs to the Supreme Court. Next month, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for both cases, with a final decision on the legality of the program likely to come in May or June. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Department of Energy on Thursday announced a grant of $118 million in funding for domestic production of biofuels, part of the Biden administrations emission-reduction goals. Funding was divided between 17 projects, each of which received between $500,000 and $80 million, according to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. The projects are sited in nine states and the District of Columbia, according to the department. They are divided into four categories: emission reduction using ethanol and integrated biorefinery technology in the pre-pilot, pilot and demonstration stages. Biofuels are quickly produced fuels derived from organic material, distinct from fossil fuels both for their renewability and the much shorter time span they take to produce. The federal government has set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the primary driver of climate change, by 70 percent by the end of the decade. The U.S. ethanol industry welcomes this announcement from Sec. Granholm and we applaud the Biden Administration for making this important investment in Americas energy future. The Administration clearly recognizes that biofuels like ethanol can provide immediate carbon reductions across the entire transportation sector, Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President Geoff Cooper said in a statement. RFA members were among the companies awarded funds by the Biden administration. These grants represent a big step forward on the path toward net-zero emissions by 2050. Not only will these investments result in new innovations and technologies, but they will also spur job creation and economic activity in communities across the country, Cooper added. The announcement comes just over a month after the Biden administration proposed an update to the biofuel blending standards, proposing to add the fuels used in electric vehicles for the first time. The proposal would increase the volume of biofuels required to blend into the national pool of retail fuel from 20.63 billion gallons in 2022 to 20.87 billion gallons in 2023. The mandate would further increase to 21.87 billion in 2024 and 22.68 billion in 2025. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. President Biden on Thursday hosted a Lunar New Year celebration at the White House, offering support for the Asian American community days after a gunman in California killed 11 people during festivities for the holiday. The president and first lady Jill Biden hosted dozens of people in the East Room of the White House for a reception, where the president acknowledged both the desire to celebrate and the ongoing mourning in the Asian American community. For all the progress, this community has experienced profound hate, pain, and violence and loss, President Biden said. As Ive said before, hate can have no safe harbor in America. No person deserves to be treated in a hateful way. Biden was speaking less than a week after a gunman in Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian American neighborhood in Los Angeles, killed 11 people at a dance studio who were celebrating the Lunar New Year. In a video released Thursday by the White House, Biden spoke with Brandon Tsay, a 26-year-old who is credited with disarming the gunman in Monterey Park, and thanked him for his courage. The president during the reception held a moment of silence in honor of the victims. He also recounted a conversation with Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who told the president that Thursdays celebration should go forward and not to give in to fear and sorrow. Chu is the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. The Monterey Park shooting is the latest instance of violence against the Asian American community. Hate crimes against Asian Americans has been on the rise since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China. Since early 2021, a gunman in the Atlanta area killed several Asian women, multiple people were shot at a California church in an incident authorities said was motivated by political hatred against Taiwan and a man in New York City allegedly attacked seven Asian women within a two-hour period. Biden noted that there have been efforts during his administration to improve recognition and support for Asian Americans, including legislation to study the creation of a National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture, as well as a bill to combat the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans stemming from the pandemic. We cannot be silent, Biden said Thursday. I will not be silent. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. U.S. Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. recently defended his comments about banning natural-gas stoves, calling the blowback misdirected in a new interview. Trumka told Bloomberg News earlier this month that the commission was set to open public comment on the dangers of gas stoves sometime this winter. He said the commission could set standards on emissions from stoves, or even look to ban the manufacture or import of the appliances over health concerns. While the commissions chairman later disputed these claims, Trumkas comments caused widespread outrage among Republican lawmakers, chefs, and others who rely upon gas stoves. When you learn upsetting new information about something youve been around for a long time maybe your whole life you can never predict peoples reactions, Trumka told the Washington Post in an interview published Thursday. And there is going to be justifiable anger, and sometimes its misdirected. He said he hoped the debate increased awareness of the alleged health risks associated with indoor appliances. People have that information and can make choices for themselves at this point, Trumka said. Thats fantastic. An academic-journal article published last month claimed that 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases were linked to the use of gas stoves in households. However, the study was funded by RMI, an environmental group that aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 50 percent within the next seven years, and the studys lead author is part of RMIs Carbon-Free Buildings initiative. The study was not based on actual scientific research but was instead based on a mathematical formula that used information from previous studies in North America and Europe and data about the number of children living in homes with gas stoves from the American Housing Survey. Trumka, meanwhile, acknowledged that his work on the commission and his role as a father make him much more paranoid than the average person about everyday hazards. Story continues Its very easy to see how everyday things can be hazardous, Trumka said. The commission is in the very early stages of considering regulations on new gas stoves, according to the Washington Post report. CPSC chairman Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric said earlier this month that he is not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so. Nonetheless, Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent President Biden a letter at the time expressing strong opposition to any potential ban on gas stoves. This kind of intrusion into the homes of Americans by the federal government as a way of forcing rush-to-green, liberal policies is the nanny state at its worst, the letter reads. Banning natural gas stoves is not about public safety it is another example of government control; like other policies we have seen from your administration, to tell Americans what kinds of cars they can drive, how they heat their homes, and how to live their lives. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this month that Biden does not support banning gas stoves. She cited Hoehn-Sarics statement and said the commission, which is independent, is not banning gas stoves and said the White House is not in touch with them on this particular issue. More from National Review President Biden on Friday spoke with the parents of Tyre Nichols ahead of the release of video footage expected to show police officers beating Nichols, a Black man who died after a traffic stop earlier this month. Biden spoke with RowVaughn Wells, Nichols mother, and Rodney Wells, his stepfather, to directly express his and Dr. Bidens condolences for Tyre Nichols death. During the conversation, the President commended the familys courage and strength, the White House said in a readout of the call. In a video clip of the call shared by a Washington Post reporter, Biden can be heard telling Nicholss parents that their comments earlier in the day were moving. Biden recounted how he lost his son, Beau Biden, to cancer and his daughter, Naomi, in a car accident. I didnt have the courage to do what you did, Biden told Nicholss parents. Biden a day earlier called for meaningful reforms after five officers were indicted with second-degree murder charges in the death of Nichols, who was 29. Tyres death is a painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all, Biden said in a statement on Thursday night. The five now-former Memphis Police officers involved in the incident were charged with second-degree murder and other offenses on Thursday. All five men, who are all Black, were fired from the department. Several officials at the federal, state and local level have described the video footage as horrific and appalling, with some officials comparing it to the Rodney King video from 1991, when grainy footage showed the African American man being beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis on Friday said the video of the incident in her city is about the same, if not worse than the 1991 King footage. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that Biden had been briefed on the video, but he had not watched it. She reiterated that the White House is calling for demonstrations in response to the release of the footage to remain peaceful. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Federal statistics indicate that the average life expectancy in the Settegast neighborhood of northeast Houston bordered by two landfills and a Union Pacific train terminal is 66 years. A Black community in Houston has a shorter life expectancy than the rest of Harris County, with its residents dying two decades sooner on average. Federal statistics indicate that the average lifespan in the Settegast neighborhood in northeast Houston bordered by two landfills on one side and a Union Pacific train terminal on another is 66 years. The typical life expectancy in the peaceful community outside the Loop is at least 20 years less than in places such as Clear Lake City, Upper Kirby, and other parts of the Energy Corridor, The Houston Chronicle reported. Several groups, including the Urban Land Institute Houston and Harris County Public Health, have expressed concern about Settegasts low life expectancy. The organizations and area government employees are creating an action plan Actions for Health Equity in Settegast using using a $27,000 grant from ULI Houstons parent company. Harris County and the City of Houston previously planned to file a lawsuit against Union Pacific Railroad over long-standing contamination. Houstons Settegast neighborhood is bordered by two landfills on one side and a Union Pacific train terminal on another. (Photo: Screenshot/YouTube.com/Click2Houston) In an effort led by Harris County Public Health analyst and urban planner Elizabeth Van Horn, the grant team has turned to Settegast residents to understand their concerns. Theyve learned that people there are worried about a lack of access to nutritious food and quality doctors, shoddy infrastructure and environmental health issues. Were trying to look at how historical and current discrimination in different planning and development practices are impacting the health and well-being of residents today, said Van Horn, according to The Chronicle. The Houston-Harris County Economic Opportunity Organization tried to summarize the problems afflicting Settegast in 1966, citing a lack of city water, sanitary sewers, paved streets, public amenities like libraries or health care, and drainage infrastructure. Some properties damaged by floodwaters during 2017s Hurricane Harvey never fully recovered. Story continues Another neighborhood issue is the illegal dumping of tires, furniture and other items in ditches, which blocks access and hinders rainfall drainage. Settegast is a forgotten community within the city of Houston and [Harris] County, said Carolyn Rivera, who has lived in Settegast for 43 years and turns 80 this year, The Chronicle reported. According to city planning papers, Black families who found many other residential districts restricted to them settled in Settegast in the 1940s. Michael Frazier, a native who now works as a tax assessor for the local school system, said many of the early Settegast homeowners died without wills, leaving their homes unclaimed by heirs and eventually in foreclosure. Some people lost their houses due to unpaid taxes. Homeownership dropped from 60 percent in 2013 to 44 percent today, with many former residential properties turned into parking lots for 18-wheelers and auto repair shops. Officials will now create an action plan to address the challenges identified by Actions for Health Equity in Settegast. Van Horn said the group was considering hosting a neighborhood resource fair, assisting seniors in applying for exemptions from paying property taxes, figuring out how to get residents access to more fresh food, and monitoring air quality. She said officials would share ideas from the public panel sometime in April. Many of the concerns seen in 1966, said Van Horn, frustrated by a lack of progress, are still concerns experienced by residents today. TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. Also, please download theGrio mobile apps today! The post In this Black neighborhood, people die about 20 years sooner than in the rest of the county appeared first on TheGrio. The following items were taken from Naperville police reports and press releases. An arrest does not constitute a finding of guilt: Tommie Lee Banks III, 52, of the 800 block of Greenwood Circle, Naperville, was arrested on a warrant at 7 p.m. Jan. 22 at the police station, 1350 Aurora Ave. Jacqquez J. Harris, 26, of the 800 block of North Mozart Street, Chicago, was arrested on charges of driving on a suspended/revoked license and illegal transportation of cannabis at 7:39 p.m. Jan. 22 at Karns Road and Ridgeland Avenue. Frank Edward Whitefield, 20, of the 7600 block of South Champlain Avenue, Chicago, was arrested on charges of possession of burglary tools, aggravated unlawful use of weapons and Illinois Vehicle Code felonies at 4:41 a.m. Jan. 24 in the 1600 block of Westminster Drive. Alexia Latice Blair, 28, of the 177th Street, Lansing, was arrested on charges of driving on a suspended or revoked drivers license, driving on an expired registration and driving without insurance at 2:30 p.m. Jan. 24 at Route 59 and La Fox Avenue. Nicole Marie Riske, 18, of the 5600 block of Court Maria, Hanover Park, was arrested on charges of disobeying a stop sign, illegal transportation of cannabis and possession of a false ID card at 6:33 p.m. Jan. 24 at North Route 59 and Brookdale Road. Ronnell Dortch, 46, of the 700 block of Schomer Avenue, Aurora, was arrested on charges of obstructed windshield or front/side window, driving on a suspended/revoked license and illegal possession/transportation of liquor by a driver at 10:55 p.m. Jan. 24 in the 2700 block of West 75th Street Angelo Martell Roberts Jr., 30, of the 4200 block of Maypole Avenue, Chicago, was arrested on charges of obstructed windshield or front/side window, driving on a suspended/revoked license and driving without insurance at 12:55 a.m. Jan. 25 at Brookdale Road and Bond Street. Shayla Bimarie Rodriguez, 21, of the 1600 block of Shamrock Court, Aurora, was arrested on a warrant and on charges of driving on a suspended/revoked license and operating a vehicle with a cancelled, suspended or revoked registration at 9:18 p.m. Jan. 25 at South Route 59 and Ogden Avenue. Rose Wakefield. (Via KGW video) An Oregon jury awarded a Black woman $1 million in damages this week in a civil case after a gas attendant at a full-service gas station told her, I dont serve Black people. On March 12, 2020, Rose Wakefield stopped at Jacksons Food Store in Beaverton, Ore., to get her gas pumped. She said the attendant, Nigel Powers, disregarded her after she tried to get his attention several times, filling up for other cars that drove into the station after her. "I went to a gas station to get gas and service, and I wasn't served. I was actually humiliated and disrespected," Wakefield told a local media outlet, KGW. According to Wakefields attorney, Gregory Kafoury, when she tried to ask for help from Powers, he said, I'll get to you when I feel like it. Surveillance video shows Wakefield going into the store to get help after complaining that Powers had continued to ignore her. Another employee then followed her outside and finally serviced her. According to the Washington Post, Kafoury said that when they walked toward her car, Powers approached the store clerk, Wakefield and the vehicle. Rose holds out her arms and says, Dont come any closer, stay away from my car, Kafoury told the Post. As Wakefield was leaving the gas station, she asked Powers, Why did you treat me this way? Powers then told her, I dont serve Black people and laughed in her face, according to court documents. Yahoo News wasnt able immediately to reach Powers for comment. Gas attendants are required by law to pump fuel for motorists at gas stations in Oregons larger population centers. New Jersey and Oregon are the only states that place restrictions on self-service gasoline. Kafoury said that when Wakefield called the corporate hotline twice the following week to complain, her calls were ignored. He added that Powers was written up that day for an unrelated incident. Powers was eventually fired, but for being written up for talking on his cellphone. Story continues In October 2020, Wakefield filed a lawsuit, saying that she suffered from feelings of racial stigmatization, humiliation and anger. The gas station tried to settle with her for $12,000 before a trial. The lawsuit between Wakefield and Jacksons Food Stores and PacWest Energy, the gas station operator, eventually went to a civil trial at Multnomah County Circuit Court that lasted four days. The jury found that Wakefield had been racially discriminated against, and the circuit court awarded her $450,000 for discrimination and ordered the defendants to pay $330,000 and $220,000 in damages, respectively. Jacksons Food Stores said in a statement to local media that although the company has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination, it disagreed with the ruling. After carefully reviewing all facts and evidence, including video surveillance, we chose to take this matter to trial because we were comfortable based on our knowledge that the service-related concern actually reported by the customer was investigated and promptly addressed, the statement said. As such, we respectfully disagree with the jurys ruling because our knowledge does not align with the verdict. The Telegraph The precise veracity of the large cache of intelligence documents that have apparently been leaked from the Pentagon might be open to question, but there can be little doubt about the negative impact that they are having on Ukraines war effort. Even if the release of the documents turns out to be part of a clever disinformation campaign by the Kremlins cyber-trolls, it could nevertheless prompt Ukraines high command to rethink its long-planned counteroffensive against Russian forces. Green attends the Green attends the "Based On A True Story" photocall during the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 27, 2017 in Cannes, France. LONDON (AP) A lawyer for Eva Green alleged Thursday that producers of a collapsed film tried to damage the French actress reputation by depicting her as a diva. The performer, who played Vesper Lynd in James Bond thriller Casino Royale, is suing producers for a $1 million fee she says she is owed for A Patriot. Green, 42, was lined up to star in the sci-fi thriller alongside Charles Dance and Helen Hunt, and was also an executive producer on the project, which collapsed in late 2019. Production company White Lantern Film is fighting the claim and is countersuing, saying Green made unreasonable demands and undermined the production. Hearings in the case opened Thursday at the High Court in London. Greens lawyer, Edmund Cullen, said the movie had been a passion project for Green and she had bent over backwards to get this done. He said Green loved the script and wanted the film to be made, but the financial plan was never going to work. This case is designed to paint my client as a diva to win headlines and damage her reputation, the lawyer said. Lawyers for the production company argue in written submissions that Green had expressed a lack of confidence and dissatisfaction regarding some of the production team and had grown increasingly reluctant to be involved in the project. White Lanterns evidence includes expletive-filled text messages in which Green called one of the films executive producers, Jake Seal, evil a devious sociopath and a mad man, and branded production manager Terry Bird a moron. Max Mallin, a lawyer for the production company, said that in the messages Green accused Seal of wanting to make a cheap B movie and called local crew members at the production facility in southern England peasants. Mallin said Green had a vitriolic aversion to making a film that White Lantern could and was going to make. Story continues We have got a critical split between the expectation of Eva Green and the film she wanted to make and what the budget could afford, he said. Greens attorney, Cullen, said the text message had to be seen in context as an informal venting of a stream of consciousness during a tense stage of the films production. He accused the production company of seeking to lay every failure of the production at Ms. Greens door. It seems to be designed to blacken the name of an actor who has not breached a contract or missed a days shooting in a career spanning 20 years, he said in written arguments. Green is scheduled to testify on Monday. The case is due to last for about two weeks. Related... In the hours leading up to the release of the graphic police video depicting five officers viciously beating Tyre Nichols, Boston city leaders urged restraint and civility in the wake of the images they knew would turn stomachs. The footage shows the Black officers beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the Nichols familys legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Nichols died three days after the January 7 confrontation. Tyre Nichols death: Memphis Police Department releases video of Nichols arrest Shortly after 6:00 p.m. Reverend Jeffrey Brown invited those in the shadow of the newly erected Martin Luther King Jr. Embrace Statue on the Boston Common to join hands and pray. God we tire of business as usual, orated Brown, flanked by civilians, city officials and police joined in linked arms. So we stand here together determined to reframe this narrative so that people will understand Tyres life mattered. That our lives matter. As we stand together with our hands in one another, we will draw strength from each other. To be able to hold our heads up high together and change this world together, said Brown, morphing the air with his hand as if he were holding fresh clay. At 7:00 p.m. Memphis city officials released a video of the graphic arrest. The video captures the officers holding up Nichols as others punch him. Once subdued, police prop the bloody and dazed Nichols up against the side of a police car. Minutes later, Nichols falls to his side, only getting up once officers lift him again. Although Boston Mayor Michelle Wu had not seen the video when she spoke at Nichols vigil, she spoke confidently regarding what it would show. We know the footage is going to be released tonight. And we know what it will show. That five police officers took his life during a traffic stop, Wu said. Tyre Nichols was a father. And a son. A second-shift worker. A skater. And a man who loved to watch the sunset. Story continues What happens in Memphis doesnt just impact Memphis. When horrific acts by those who are sworn to serve and protect everywhere take place, they undermine the trust in those that are sworn to protect and serve everywhere, said Wu. " To all of our communities but especially to the Brown and Black men of Boston, you deserve to feel and to be safe in your cars and in your homes. In our streets, in our stores. The places where you work and live and celebrate. Please know that we see you. Earlier Friday, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Reverend Kevin Peterson acknowledged the traumatic emotions the video would evoke. Now is a time across this Commonwealth for us to communicate with honesty and understanding, and to show care, empathy and love. We will be guided by our continued conversations with faith leaders and community members, and we will commit to the work we need to do as a nation, and as a state, to address systemic profiling and racism, and protect basic human rights, said Healey. As the images of the video come to light this evening, we urge the people of Boston to remain composed, said Peterson, founder of Boston-based New Democracy Coalition. Voice your discontent if you need to. Express your anger if you feel compelled but challenge your rage in seeking justice. We should embrace non-violence over the instinct of striking back with violence. Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis described the officers actions as heinous, reckless and inhumane, and said Friday that her department has been unable to substantiate the reckless driving allegation that prompted the stop. Peterson expected the graphic video to resonate amongst Bostons Black population. Memphis is a thousand miles away but for every black man and black woman in Boston, Tyre Nichols represents the possibility of their fate at the hands of local police, said Peterson. Still we must have hope and seek justice and push forward reform. He also called the incident yet another indicator of how far we must move toward achieving justice for poor and black people in Boston. Reverend Peterson hopes that Bostons Friday night will remain peaceful - and perhaps even become a point of progress in the city. We call for calm and composure and respect for the local police. We also call for police to use restraint. And we call for greater reforms in the Boston Police Department. The Massachusetts State Police released a statement Friday afternoon condemning the actions of the five Memphis police officers and echoed the desire for any Boston demonstrations to remain peaceful. The brutality alleged in these indictments and supported by the evidence described by Tennesse authorities represents clear criminality and an utter breach of the public trust, said MSP Superintendent Colonel Christopher Mason. We understand that members of the public may wish to exercise their rights of expression in response to this incident. We urge anyone who does so to act peacefully and with respect for the law and their fellow citizens. In the event that there are demonstrations, the State Police will protect the safety, property and rights of all demonstrators and the public at large alike. The Boston Police Department sends our deepest condolences to the entire family of Tyre Nichols. We share their sadness and outrage at this unnecessary loss of life. We and anyone capable of compassion understand how wrong this incident was and why it evokes anger and frustration, added Boston Police commissioner Michael Cox in a statement. Massachusetts Law Enforcement agencies respond to the death of Tyre Nichols: pic.twitter.com/ftgFwUEeYf Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association (@MAPOLICECHIEFS) January 27, 2023 Statement from Boston Police Commissioner Michael A. Cox on the death of Tyre Nichols https://t.co/gtRDC37yU6 Boston Police Dept. (@bostonpolice) January 27, 2023 Important message from Grafton FD. pic.twitter.com/xxwWj14rcR Grafton Police (@GraftonPolice) January 28, 2023 Statement of Middlesex County Chiefs of Police Association On Death of Tyre Nichols In Police Custody - John Guilfoil Public Relations LLC https://t.co/wJWCFKFCnJ Middlesex County Police Chiefs Association, MA. (@middlesexchiefs) January 28, 2023 Statement regarding the incident in Memphis. https://t.co/6N4dJPLqal Tewksbury Police (@TewksburyPD) January 28, 2023 Statement of Chief Julie Flaherty on Death of Tyre Nichols https://t.co/2Rlb7WFJsl Arlington MA, Police Department (@ArlingtonMAPD) January 28, 2023 Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW A "massive arms factory" is to be built in Poland in order to help Ukraine win the war. Source: Tobias Ellwood, Chairman of the Defence Select Committee of the British Parliament, as reported by European Pravda with a reference to The Telegraph Details: Ellwood has stated that the Western governments have shown the lack of strategic foresight in their plans to help Ukraine "survive and thrive". The conservative member of the parliament has supported the decision on sending main battle tanks of a Western type; however, he has also said that supplying Kyiv with various supply chains and weaponry types is "unsustainable". Quote: "Its just not feasible in the long term. Tanks today, yes. But we need a strategy to make sure Ukraine can defend itself." More details: Given that the Western military resources are reducing, Ellwood believes that building an arms factory in Poland will help make the Armed Forces of Ukraine a more independent army. The concept can be developed based on a microchip production factory, opened by Taiwan in the USA out of fear that the Chinese invasion will cut it off from the West. Quote: "Lets do the same with Ukraine, so that they could purchase their own equipment with their specification, maybe with NATO standards, and have a constantly secured supply chain." Background: Earlier, media outlets reported that the Pentagon is going to increase the production of artillery shells in the next two years to the level unseen since the Korean war. Before the war, the US army produced 14,400 unguided shells per month. According to new US plans, this number will increase to 90,000 per month. On 25 January, US President Joe Biden confirmed the intention of sending 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, equalling to one Ukrainian battalion, in order to enhance its defence capability against Russia. Along with sending tanks, the USA will start training Ukrainian soldiers and provide components as soon as possible. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Britney Spears confirmed the police visit occurred in a tweet on Thursday. ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images Britney Spears called out fans for urging police to visit her after she took down her Instagram. She also said she felt "gaslit and bullied" by the media coverage around the incident. Spears has deactivated her popular Instagram account multiple times before. Britney Spears tweeted that fans "went too far" after they reportedly called the police to check up on her for deleting her Instagram account of 41 million followers this week. According to TMZ, the Ventura County Sheriff's Department paid a visit to Britney Spears' residence in Thousands Oaks, California, for a wellness check after several fans phoned their office on Tuesday. Even though Spears has attempted to de-escalate the situation, some of her fans were viscerally concerned, especially after she changed her Instagram name to River Red before she went dark. In her first public statement since the incident, the singer denied that her followers had anything to worry about. Spears said she believed the police went to her house because of "prank phone calls" that went "a little too far." "I love and adore my fans but this time things went a little too far and my privacy was invaded," she wrote in the tweet, which has garnered nearly 30,000 likes. "The police never entered my home and when they came to my gate they quickly realized there was no issue and left immediately." Insider has reached out to the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. Spears added that she felt "gaslit and bullied" by media outlets portraying her and the incident in a poor light. The post received a wave of support, with hundreds of people wishing her well and trusting her assurances. "Those are not fans. They are obsessive psychos who think they have the right to be privy to every detail of your life," a journalist wrote. "You don't owe anything to anyone." As of writing this story on Thursday, Spears' account still remains deactivated. Insider has also reached out to her team for comment. The singer has deactivated her account multiple times before, which has not previously incited widespread panic among her fans. However, the complex legal battle over her conservatorship in 2022 has made everyone, fans or otherwise, on higher alert over the popstar's well-being. Read the original article on Business Insider A postal worker in Caldwell County was seriously hurt after being attacked by two large dogs while delivering mail, according to Caldwell County Animal Care Enforcement. It happened along Norwood Street on Thursday in Lenoir when Kristi Reinheardt Goldsberry, 47, was delivering a package to a home. Channel 9s Dave Faherty learned Friday that Goldsberry was seriously hurt in the attack and was airlifted to the hospital. She received a severe trauma to her right forearm and puncture wounds to her back and right leg. Lenoir- two Great Danes weighing more than 120-pounds have been surrendered to animal care enforcement after an attack involving a postal worker. The story today on channel 9 eyewitness news at noon and five-thirty. pic.twitter.com/7MumicSziZ Dave Faherty (@FahertyWSOC9) January 27, 2023 The attack happened on the dog owners property after she had opened the door. ALSO READ: Theres no fear of God: Bus stolen from church in Burke County Two Great Danes, believed to weigh as much as 130 pounds each, were initially inside the home when the mail carrier went to the front door, officials said. The dogs then managed to get outside and attack the worker. The owner of the dogs stated the dogs are four years old and have never bitten anyone before. Both dogs were up to date on their rabies vaccinations and are now under quarantine. The owner surrendered the dogs at the animal center, Faherty learned. This was not a provoked attack. She wasnt doing anything out of the ordinary. She was just delivering the mail, said Caldwell County Animal Care Director Richard Gilliland. Once the dogs did attack the postal worker, the owner was able to gain access to the dogs and secure them back in the residence and render aide to the postal worker. Animal Care Services is now working closely with the Lenoir Police Department. Because of the nature of the attack, the dogs will not be adopted. Story continues Neighbor Glenn Herman said he often saw the dogs inside the fenced backyard where warning signs are posted. Herman said he never had issues with the Great Danes, even going right up to the fence line. Ive been out and walked over there and reached through the fence and petted the dogs, Herman told Channel 9 on Friday. I mean, they werent vicious to me. Mail carrier Rachel Duncan told Channel 9 about the precautions she takes with canines on her route. When I pull in a driveway, I blow the horn and try to make all kinds of noise or distractions to see if there are any dogs that may come out, Duncan said. It is unlikely any charges will be filed, according to police. (WATCH BELOW: 49 miniature horses, 39 chickens seized amid Burke County animal cruelty investigation) John Eastman appeared alongside Rudy Giuliani at a pro-Trump rally on January 6. Jim Bourg California legal authorities want to disbar John Eastman for trying to keep Donald Trump in power. Eastman tried to convince former VP Mike Pence to block the vote certification on January 6, 2021. State bar charges say he corrupted the practice of law with "dishonesty and corruption." California legal authorities have filed disciplinary charges against John Eastman, a law professor who advised former President Donald Trump on how to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. George Cardona, the top trial lawyer for the California state bar, brought 11 charges that allege Eastman made false and misleading statements that amount to acts of "moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption," the disciplinary charges say. The case will go to the State Bar Court of California, where Eastman has an opportunity to defend himself. Following Trump's loss in the 2020 election, Eastman, a former professor at the Chapman University School of Law, drafted legal memos that purported to offer avenues to keep him in office. He backed the dubious legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence would have the power to override the will of voters and block certification of electoral college votes for now-President Joe Biden, as outlined in a memo he previously shared with Insider (and which one constitutional law expert described as a "proposed coup cloaked in legal language"). Eastman pushed this bunk theory even after courts around the country tossed dozens of challenges to 2020 election results, and then-Attorney General Bill Barr said he saw no evidence of widespread fraud that would change Biden's victory, according to the charges. That prompted critics, including the bipartisan States United Democracy Center, to demand he be investigated for possible ethics violations a demand the bar has now heeded. "By proposing to Pence that he had the legal authority to and should act unilaterally to resolve purported disputes regarding electoral votes on January 6, 2021, or that he had the legal authority unilaterally to delay certification of the votes, respondent advanced a radical and incorrect theory of constitutional law and election law," the bar charges state. Story continues Former Trump legal adviser John Eastman AP Photo/Susan Walsh Undeterred, Eastman spoke at the pro-Trump rally at the Ellipse of the National Mall in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, and pushed false conspiracy theories about election fraud. At his speech, he demanded that Pence ask legislatures to examine those debunked theories. "During his speech, respondent stated to the crowd that fraud had occurred in the November 3, 2020, presidential election, including a claim that 'dead people had voted' and that Dominion electronic voting machines had fraudulently manipulated the election results," the charges say. "Respondent made these statements with the intent to convince the listener that the outcome of the presidential election had been affected by fraud." Eastman's speech contributed to the violent attack on the Capitol by pro-Trump supporters, according to the charges. During the riot, Eastman emailed Pence's White House Counsel Greg Jacobs blaming him and Pence for the insurrection. "The 'siege' is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that American people can see for themselves what happened," Eastman wrote at the time. The California Bar court ultimately has the ability to strip Eastman of the ability to practice law in the state. It may impose fines or issue other sanctions, such as censure. Randall A. Miller, an attorney for Eastman, said in a statement that his client a senior fellow at the conservative Claremont Institute was merely providing "his evaluation of alternatives available to [former] President Trump in the fluid and fast-moving aftermath of the 2020 election." Eastman, posting on Substack, said he plans to "respond to each charge in due course." For now, he is soliciting money for his legal defense, having already raised more than $250,000. The former law professor is one of many lawyers allied with Trump who has faced professional consequences for pursuing false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The Washington, DC bar is currently evaluating potential sanctions against Rudy Giuliani, who pushed false claims while attempting to overturn Trump's loss in Pennsylvania. Giuliani has also been sued by election technology companies he implicated in false conspiracy theories about the election results, and has lost his ability to practice law in New York. Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump Administration Justice Department official who tried to overturn the election results, is also facing charges from the DC bar. Trump's attorneys have been sanctioned for other reasons, too. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Florida fined him and his attorney Alina Habba nearly $1 million for filing a "frivolous" lawsuit that alleged Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey colluded to make him lose the 2016 election, which he actually won. Read the original article on Business Insider Rendering of new development at 1657 Shermer Road approved by the Northbrook Village Board. (Debbie Ford / Pioneer Press) A new apartment and commercial development is coming to the former Grainger site (1657 Shermer Road) despite social media pushback. With a Northbrook Plan Commission outright denial last autumn, the Northbrook Village Board of Trustees on Jan. 24 unanimously approved ordinances for an approximately $150 million development with zoning relief. An outlot restaurant building is included. Advertisement Village of Northbrook documents. (Pioneer Press) Trustees are not obligated to take the Plan Commissions position. The commission is a recommending body only. Trustee Dan Pepoon said, I support the development, believing it to be in Northbrooks best interest. Advertisement Contract purchaser Quarterra Multifamily Communities (QMC), associated with Lennar (same company but new name), will buy the 10.3 acre Grainger property from the Village of Northbrook for $10.5 million with real estate broker assistance. In January of 2018, the board approved an agreement to buy the land from Grainger for approximately $8 million. Critics charge the village acted hastily in a bungled attempt to unsuccessfully relocate Northbrooks Metra station south to the former Grainger site. The co-applicant working with Quarterra is Housing Opportunity Development Corporation (HODC) of Skokie to develop affordable housing apartments on 1.49 acreage donated from Quarterra. The north part of the property is in Northbrook School District 28 where HODC is developing a 48-unit affordable housing building. HDOC will handle five units in the south building for a total of 53 affordable housing units. The larger south portion is served by Northbrook/Glenview School District 30 where QMCs more than 300 units are located. Elementary school districts are aware of the projected enrollment of 42 students from both developer units, despite objectors fears of overcrowding at elementary schools and at Glenbrook North High School. The development will generate more than $2 million in annual property taxes, according to village documents. Developer one-time impact fees of approximately $2.3 million benefit three school districts (including Glenbrook High School District 225), plus the Northbrook Park District and Northbrook Public Library. Tuesdays meeting had standing room boardroom attendance with uniformed Northbrook police presence. The lobby, with temporary seating and a monitor televising the live meeting, accommodated overflow. Advertisement The 7:30 p.m. meeting lasted until shortly before 1 a.m. with two called-for rest breaks. Its Wednesday, said Northbrook Village Trustee Johannah Hebl. Thanks for hanging in there. Its 12:20 (a.m.). I dont go on social media that much, definitely not going on later, Hebl said with a laugh. Keeping with a theme of fatigue, Hebl said, Northbrooks village downtown, town center, whatever you want to call it, its tired. Its late. Northbrook Village Trustee Johannah Hebl at the dais during a long night that would last two more hours. Taken at the Northbrook Village Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 24, 2023. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press) Its a tired downtown, I just have no other way to describe it, Hebl said. Weve got an opportunity here to revitalize. Im very excited about this development, Hebl said. Advertisement Hebl wanted no tax increment district financing created to assist Grainger redevelopment. I want to use their money to invest in Northbrook, Hebl said at the dais, pointing to developers seated in the audience. While a public hearing was not required, trustees accommodated podium comments. People were given three minutes each. A timer via overhead screen ticked off the seconds. Neighbors from high school to senior adult ages spoke. One parent was excited that adult renters with disabilities could access affordable housing in Northbrook to remain near loved ones. Others discussed a conflict of interest by the village in wanting to quickly unload an ill-researched land purchase. People wait their turn to speak at the Northbrook Village Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 24, 2023. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press) With each hour, audience eye rolling evolved into loud guffawing. Advertisement Several neighbors angrily left the boardroom. Village Hall doors adjacent to the boardroom hallway loudly banged as people left in disgust. It seems to me that this is kind of a done deal, Bo Herbst, a 20-year Northbrook resident, told trustees. From the dais, Trustee Muriel J. Collison, the boards Planning and Economic Development Committee chair, confronted an audience member who had earlier spoken at the podium. If youre going to laugh and youre going to have conversations excuse yourself from the room, Collison said. Excuse yourself from the room, Collison repeated. Next time well have you escorted. The person immediately left without police escort. Advertisement A verbal exchange ensued between another Northbrook resident and Collison. This audience member loudly accused Collison for being called out for inappropriate behavior. To Pioneer Press, Collison later said, I dont want anybody not to participate but when somebodys speaking and we listen to hours of public comment and were trying to get information, and youre laughing and joking and talking and talking back, yelling at the (developer) speaker its frustrating. Northbrook Village Trustee Muriel J. Collison reacts to an audience member who is now being asked to leave the room. Taken at the Northbrook Village Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 24, 2023. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press) And then when youre sitting in the front row and youre rolling your eyes and doing all that stuff, and Im like, Why are you doing that? Its rude, Collison said. Collison indicated a petition in opposition has duplicate or invalid signatures, inflating claims by neighbors the petition has nearly 1,000 signatures. There was a lot of NIMBY (not in my backyard), Collison said about Tuesday night. Advertisement But developer Peter Chmielewski, Quarterra division president, assured the board, Going from an abandoned, dilapidated, environmentally contaminated office building ... but to a $150 million investment I dont know that theres a way that it could have a negative impact on property values. To Pioneer Press, Chmielewski said, Not sure yet, when the development would break ground. Richard Koenig, HODC executive director, told Pioneer Press after the unanimous approval about feeling, very excited, but also, exhausted. Trustee Joy Ebhomielen, stating newbie board status, added, Ive only been a trustee for under two years now. I do support this new development. I wasnt here when the property was purchased, I dont have skin in that, Ebhomielen said. Im happy they did make that decision because now theres more control. Advertisement Northbrook Village President Kathryn L. Ciesla, a former village trustee, is not embarrassed about the Grainger purchase. If anybody understands working with the federal government, working with Metra, and trying to understand and survey where the traffic signals need to be, if the train stop could be moved so that it wouldnt block the tracks, you know, thats all safety regulated, Ciesla said to Pioneer Press. Northbrook Village President Kathryn L. Ciesla at the Northbrook Village Board of Trustees meeting on Jan. 24, 2023. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press) Thats nothing to mess around with so it was certainly important to do the due diligence on that. Collison was glad the village bought Grainger. I said it at the beginning, and I caught so much heat for this, that I would buy it again and Id say today I would buy it again in a heartbeat, Collison said to Pioneer Press. To me, it was such a crucial piece of land and especially with the downtown. I hope that the residents that were against it, I hope that they will embrace it. Advertisement Karie Angell Luc is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Farmworkers weed rows of Romaine lettuce outside Holtville, Calif. Farmers in the area rely on water from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal to irrigate their crops. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Just north of the California-Mexico border, the All-American Canal cuts across 80 miles of barren, dune-swept desert. Up to 200 feet wide and 20 feet deep, the canal delivers the single largest share of Colorado River water to the fertile farmlands of the Imperial Valley. It's more water than what Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas get combined, and it's used to grow lettuce, broccoli, carrots and spinach, as well as hay to supply beef and dairy operations, wheat, melons, lemons and other crops. Since its founding in 1911, the Imperial Irrigation District has held some of the most senior water rights on the river, and it is among the last in line to take cuts. Its water rights, which date to 1901, support the local farm economy and sustain a substantial portion of the nation's food supply. But as the Colorado's largest reservoir declines closer to "dead pool" levels, politicians and water managers in other states are calling on the IID to make cuts beyond the 250,000 acre-feet, or about 9%, that the agency has pledged to make starting this year. They say that the dire state of Lake Mead warrants larger cuts, and that much of the reductions will need to come from agriculture because roughly 80% of the rivers water is used for farming a large portion of it for alfalfa and other thirsty crops. The demands have struck an anxious chord among Imperial Valley growers, who say their way of life could be threatened and the country's food security is at stake. There are about 400 farms in the Imperial Valley, and together with nearby farmlands around Yuma, Ariz., they produce most of the country's winter vegetables. Farmers say they understand the crisis is serious and that everyone needs to use less water from the river. But many are adamant that they hope to avoid leaving fields dry and fallow, which they say would harm the economy and food production. They say they are willing to shift to more water-efficient irrigation systems to free up water and boost reservoir levels, so long as they are paid enough to help foot the bill. Story continues Some growers have already been installing water-saving sprinklers on their fields, aiming to stretch the available water further and prepare for drier times. The Colorado River system is in dire straits, said Ben Abatti III, a 28-year-old farmer. We know were going to have to save water. An irrigation worker adjusts sprinkler heads in Holtville. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Beside him, sprinklers sprayed a field of newly planted basil, the spray glowing in the sun. The sprinklers use less water than the usual practice of opening canal gates and letting the water flow in to flood fields. Abatti estimates that assembling the network of pipes on a field can reduce a row crops water consumption by 10% to 25%. The sprinklers can also help boost crop yields. But they are expensive, he said, costing about $4,000 per acre to buy or about $400 per acre to rent for a season. Installing more sprinklers and other water-efficient irrigation systems would enable the valleys farmers to significantly reduce water usage while maintaining crop production, Abatti said. He said he hopes farmers will receive financial help so they can scale up conservation while continuing to farm. The Bureau of Reclamation is offering $4 billion in drought mitigation funding, including money to pay growers who temporarily forgo some of their water. The All-American Canal moves Colorado River water from Arizona into California, here in the area of Gordon's Well near the California-Mexico border. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Farmers and IID officials have said they prefer to prioritize improving water efficiency rather than leaving farmland dry. The district could conserve by lining more of its earthen canals with concrete to keep water from seeping into the ground, and by building other infrastructure to reduce spillage. But some of the districts board members have acknowledged that some land-fallowing will probably be necessary, at least temporarily. We don't want to take land out of production, Abatti said. Here in the Imperial Valley, fallowing would be an absolute last resort. He and his family, who rent much of their land, are growing hay, sugar beets, cilantro, parsley, basil and wheat. Abatti is a third-generation farmer who works with his father, mother and brother. He started driving a tractor with his father when he was 8. Ben Abatti III, a third-generation farmer, has been installing sprinklers on some fields to use water more efficiently, and has found the sprinklers can help improve crop yields. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) It's kind of just in my blood, he said. And I'd love to keep doing this. But he and other farmers say theyre increasingly concerned about the risks of a worst-case scenario. And some criticize the federal government for not imposing larger cuts throughout the region sooner to head off a potential disaster. If Lake Mead were to hit dead pool levels, that would cut off the flow to California, Nevada and Mexico, including the only supply of water for nine cities and about 500,000 acres of farmland in the Imperial Valley. In such a scenario, Abatti said, farm fields would turn to dust, people would be forced to move, and Americans would see food shortages and higher prices at grocery stores. There's already a rent crisis, a housing crisis. You know, wait till the food crisis, Abatti said. He and other growers say they see an urgent need to reduce water use throughout the Southwest, and theyre bracing for larger cuts. Andrew Leimgruber, a fourth-generation farmer, said he is disappointed with how federal officials have handled the situation as the reservoirs have dropped. Unfortunately, I believe mismanagement led us to this point, Leimgruber said. A worker controls water while flooding a field to irrigate iceberg lettuce in the Imperial Valley. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Because they've continued to kick the can down the road, now we're getting to crisis levels. I think it would have been much easier to manage and mitigate the problem earlier on, Leimgruber said. We should have been making cuts quicker. I believe we need to be making more cuts than we are now. And it's going to cause pain. As he spoke, workers were laying out the metal pieces of an overhead sprinkler system to irrigate a field of organic greens. The scent of freshly tilled soil filled the air. I believe that the burden is going to have to ultimately be shared by all and that some major changes need to happen, Leimgruber said. But it can't just always be off the backs of agriculture. Leimgruber said he is putting in four new water-saving irrigation systems. He and other growers can still do more to conserve, he said, but a lot of us think anything over 20% in reduction would have huge impacts. A newer style of irrigation uses a stream of water unlike the old style of sprinklers. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Over the last two decades, the Imperial Irrigation District has significantly scaled back water use. Under a 2003 water transfer deal, the district began selling water to Southern California cities, reducing its annual usage from 3.1 million acre-feet to about 2.6 million acre-feet. Those savings have been achieved partly through a program in which growers propose plans for conserving on their farms and receive payments from the district. In the deals initial years, the district also paid farmers to leave some fields dry, but land-fallowing was controversial and was phased out. Some landowners have converted thousands of acres of farmlands to solar panels, allowing the water to be used elsewhere. But farmers say they dont want to fallow much land because theyve seen how drying up fields affects the whole farm economy, from laborers to sellers of seeds and supplies. Stephen Benson, a farmer and former IID board member, said the question should be how to redouble conservation efforts while keeping farms going. We have implemented drip. We've implemented sprinklers on crops that have never used those systems. And the reality is we can conserve water, but the cost is so high, Benson said. There needs to be a set of incentives. Some researchers have suggested that because alfalfa and other cattle-feed crops consume a large share of the river, an effective way of dramatically reducing water use would be to leave some of these lands dry on a rotating basis or seasonally. In the last year, though, alfalfa prices reached record highs. And some farmers say it makes sense to keep growing hay because its lucrative. Another major issue is the shrinking Salton Sea, which is fed by agricultural runoff. The water transfer deal has accelerated the lakes decline. Its ecosystem has been deteriorating, and its retreating shorelines spew dust into communities where people already suffer from asthma at high rates. Dusk settles over the low Salton Sea, which is fed by agricultural runoff. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) The Imperial Irrigation Districts managers demanded federal money to support environmental projects at the lake as a key condition for participating in cuts. And the Biden administration responded with a plan to provide $250 million to accelerate the construction of wetlands along the retreating shores to provide habitat for birds and help control dust. California uses more Colorado River water than any other state. And some officials from other states have been pushing for California's big water users, including the IID, to agree to larger reductions. In contrast to the Imperial Valleys senior water rights, Arizonas cities rely on junior rights that are vulnerable to cuts. This year, Arizona is already being forced to take 21% less water from the river. Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, has said the water-rights priority system is the single biggest thing that is making discussions among the states extremely difficult. Higher-priority water users are saying it should be the lower-priority water users that should do this, Buschatzke said. But at the end of the day, if the system crashes, and no water's coming out of either lake, your priority and your piece of paper doesn't mean a thing. The priority system, he said, is creating an outcome in which it's much harder to collaboratively find a path forward. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and others have suggested its time to revamp the 1922 Colorado River Compact, which divided the water among the seven states, to include measures for apportioning reductions. Water managers from Nevada and other states have urged the federal government to start accounting for evaporation losses from reservoirs and canals in the river's Lower Basin, which could translate into major reductions for California. Some farmers in Imperial County say that theyre willing to help reduce water use but that the system for dealing with shortages is laid out in the law of the river. They point out that the water-rights system requires those with junior water rights, such as Arizona's cities, to take the largest cuts first. John Hawk says he could reduce his water use from about 18,000 acre-feet per year to about 15,000 acre-feet, if necessary, and if farmers are paid enough. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) The rules are the rules, said John Hawk, a farmer and Imperial County supervisor who lives in Holtville. Follow the rules and let's all make cuts. And it'll be heavier cuts in Arizona than it will be here in California. Hawk grows lettuce, onions, parsley, wheat and hay. His father worked on the construction of the All-American Canal in the 1930s, using a mule team to pull a grader. Hawk said he would be willing to cut water use by giving up a wheat crop and temporarily fallowing some land if he receives compensation. We want to do our part, Hawk said. All of us need to learn to live with less. And, you know, the West is arid. I mean, this is liquid gold. Some farmers say they fear that powerful city water agencies could try to target the Imperial Valleys water as the shortage worsens. We do not know what's going to happen with the water, said Luis Velez, a 21-year-old farmer. Velez, who started his company at 19, has been growing alfalfa, Bermuda grass, wheat and onions. But during part of last year, the shortage prompted the IID to impose a water limit on each farm under its so-called equitable distribution plan. To stay under his allocation, Velez decided not to plant one 30-acre field of onions. Up to 200 feet wide and 20 feet deep, the All-American Canal delivers the single largest share of Colorado River water to the fertile farmlands of the Imperial Valley. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) This is a very high-producing field, Velez said, standing on the bare, hardened dirt. I decided not to plant anything this year, because just of the uncertainty that growers are experiencing. I do not know if I'm going to be able to finish out this crop, if we'll have enough water. Velez said hes also dealing with rising costs for fertilizer, fuel and other supplies. And he feels uncertain about the future. Honestly, Im scared, Velez said. I don't know if I'll be here in the next 10 years farming, just due to the water issues. Velez said he hopes to continue farming. We love doing what we do, he said. But we feel threatened. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Canadian National Railway Company's (TSE:CNR) periodic dividend will be increasing on the 31st of March to CA$0.79, with investors receiving 7.8% more than last year's CA$0.733. This will take the annual payment to 1.9% of the stock price, which is above what most companies in the industry pay. Check out our latest analysis for Canadian National Railway Canadian National Railway's Dividend Is Well Covered By Earnings We like to see robust dividend yields, but that doesn't matter if the payment isn't sustainable. However, Canadian National Railway's earnings easily cover the dividend. This means that most of what the business earns is being used to help it grow. Looking forward, earnings per share is forecast to rise by 25.1% over the next year. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we think the payout ratio could be 35% by next year, which is in a pretty sustainable range. Canadian National Railway Has A Solid Track Record The company has an extended history of paying stable dividends. The annual payment during the last 10 years was CA$0.75 in 2013, and the most recent fiscal year payment was CA$2.93. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 15% over that duration. So, dividends have been growing pretty quickly, and even more impressively, they haven't experienced any notable falls during this period. Dividend Growth May Be Hard To Achieve Investors could be attracted to the stock based on the quality of its payment history. Although it's important to note that Canadian National Railway's earnings per share has basically not grown from where it was five years ago, which could erode the purchasing power of the dividend over time. While growth may be thin on the ground, Canadian National Railway could always pay out a higher proportion of earnings to increase shareholder returns. Canadian National Railway Looks Like A Great Dividend Stock Overall, a dividend increase is always good, and we think that Canadian National Railway is a strong income stock thanks to its track record and growing earnings. Earnings are easily covering distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. All of these factors considered, we think this has solid potential as a dividend stock. Story continues Investors generally tend to favour companies with a consistent, stable dividend policy as opposed to those operating an irregular one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. For example, we've picked out 1 warning sign for Canadian National Railway that investors should know about before committing capital to this stock. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our collection of strong dividend payers. 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 Capitol Police officials are beefing up security on the Hill amid heightened concerns over Friday's expected release of reportedly brutal police footage from a traffic stop that led to the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tenn. The Capitol's law enforcement entity is expected to increase its security posture as departments around the country gird for protests over the weekend related to the Nichols arrest footage, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity. Security boosts ahead of anticipated protest activity generally mean longer hours for officers. The Capitol Police said Friday morning that they are being cautious, like other departments around the country. Congressional party leadership has been briefed on the ongoing matters, according to another person familiar with the conversations. But workers were spotted Thursday evening unloading fencing near the Capitol. The barricades were of the bicycle-rack type generally used for crowd control. Five Memphis police officers were charged with murder and other crimes Thursday related to the death of Nichols, who died on Jan. 10. Nichols, who is Black, was stopped by police on Jan. 7. The officers, all of them also Black, were fired by the department last week. Officials are expected to release video footage from the beating on Friday, though its not yet clear how extensive the disclosure will be. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who represents Memphis, discussed the potential for protests on the floor Thursday, urging peaceful demonstrations. "It could be a situation where people want to exercise their First Amendment rights to protest actions of the police department, and people should. But they should be peaceful and calm ... I pray for my city," Cohen said in a floor speech on Thursday. D.C. police said they are also "fully activating" the force on Friday in preparation for possible protests. The House is expected to be in session for several hours Friday as they complete consideration of an energy bill related to drilling on public lands. The Senate will be out of session. A large contingent of Capitol Police officers is preparing to descend on the federal courthouse in Washington on Friday to attend the sentencing of a Jan. 6 rioter who sprayed their colleague Brian Sicknick in the face with a chemical agent hours before his death. Also in attendance will be Sicknicks longtime partner, Sandra Garza, and members of Sicknicks family as U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan delivers judgment to Julian Khater, 33, who pleaded guilty to spraying Sicknick and has been incarcerated since his March 2021 arrest. A medical examiner determined that Sicknicks Jan. 7, 2021, death was the result of natural causes strokes caused by a blood clot but noted that all that transpired played a role in his condition. Sicknicks family holds Khater primarily responsible for Sicknicks death, saying the stress of the Jan. 6 attack, punctuated by the spray attack that Khater unleashed, may have caused his health to fail. The family wrote a series of pained and impassioned letters to the court urging a harsh sentence for Khater. It wasnt immediately clear whether members of Sicknicks family would also attend the sentencing hearing. Prosecutors echoed their sentiment, agreeing that Khater bore responsibility for Sicknicks death and urging Hogan to impose a 90-month sentence. While Julian Khaters spray assault on Officer Sicknick ultimately was not determined to be the direct cause of his death, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gilead Light wrote in a 30-page sentencing memo, Officer Sicknicks tragic demise, so close in time to the traumatic events of that day, underscores the seriousness of the offense committed by Khater and his fellow rioters. Khaters attack became a significant flashpoint in the Jan. 6 riot. In addition to spraying Sicknick, he sprayed Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who had already been injured during the initial breach of police lines that afternoon. Edwards was a witness at the Jan. 6 select committees first public hearing and described the horrors she witnessed as a mob of then-President Donald Trumps supporters surged past police lines and into the Capitol. Story continues The sentencing hearing is sure to be wrenching, a stark reminder of the real-world pain caused by the Jan. 6 attack. While many Capitol Police officers have taken the trek to the courthouse to testify in Jan. 6 trials or make victim impact statements in cases in which they were personally scarred by the actions of a particular defendant, Fridays hearing appears to be the first organized, collective action by a large swath of the department in support of a fallen officer. Other Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers died subsequent to the events of Jan. 6, including at least two by suicide. One member of the mob, Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to breach the House chamber. Several others in the crowd that day died amid the chaos. Khaters family has pleaded with Hogan for leniency. I am not excusing his actions, your Honor, only pleading for a second chance for Julian to truly live a life of service and repentance, his mother, Eleanor Khater, wrote in a letter to the judge. I place my son in your hands, in the desperate hope that you will show him compassion and leniency. In a sentencing memo urging Hogan to give Khater a sentence of time-served his 22 months of post-arrest detention his attorneys Joseph Tacopina and Chad Seigel cited Khaters anxiety disorder and a pervasive mob mentality as the root causes of his behavior. A climate of mass hysteria, fueled by the dissemination of misinformation about the 2020 election, originating at the highest level, gave rise to a visceral powder keg waiting to ignite, Tacopina and Seigel wrote. And that is precisely what occurred. The attorneys also described Khaters pretrial detention as extraordinarily harsh, particularly amid restrictions imposed as a result of the Covid pandemic. Khater was born in New Jersey, but his father moved the family to war-torn Lebanon when he was 5, until 2006, when his family fled and returned to the United States. He agreed to attend Trumps Jan. 6 rally when asked by a friend, George Tanios, to join him. Tanios has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor offenses stemming from the attack. A man who admitted using chemical spray to assault Brian Sicknick on January 6, a day before the Capitol police officer died, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in a Washington court on Friday. Related: US jury convicts man pictured with feet on Pelosis desk during Capitol attack Julian Khater, 33, from Pennsylvania, was also fined $10,000. The judge, Thomas F Hogan, told Khater: There are officers who lost their lives, theres officers who committed suicide after this, theres officers who cant go back to work. Your actions ... are inexcusable. Sicknicks death, at 42, is one of nine now linked to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump attempting to block certification of Joe Bidens 2020 election win. Later that month, Sicknicks body lay in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Two months after that, the Washington DC medical examiner ruled that the officer died from natural causes after suffering two strokes. But in March 2022, Khater pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon. He faced a maximum sentence of 20 years. Prosecutors asked for seven and a half. Khater has already served 22 months of his 80-month tariff. A friend of Khater, George Tanios, 41 and from West Virginia, admitted buying bear deterrent and chemical spray and giving some to Khater. Charged with walking on restricted grounds at the Capitol, he faced six months in prison. He also faced sentencing on Friday. Nearly 1,000 people have been charged over the Capitol attack and more than 300 sentenced. The longest sentence yet, of 10 years, went to Thomas Webster, a retired police officer from New York who attacked officers with a flagpole. The House January 6 committee recommended four criminal charges against Trump, for inciting the riot. The Department of Justice has not acted. Sicknicks partner, Sandra Garza, has filed a $10m wrongful death lawsuit against Khater, Tanios and Trump. In court filings before sentencing, the assistant US attorney Gilead Light said Khater was visibly incensed at the Capitol on January 6, and used pepper spray against police for half a minute. Story continues Khaters tone of voice and his facial expressions betray his emotion, his anger and his loss of control, Gilead said. He [was] incensed at having been personally sprayed by police chemical spray while standing on the front line of a riot, as if he had been an innocent victim. Attorneys for Khater sought to blame Trump, writing: A climate of mass hysteria, fueled by the dissemination of misinformation about the 2020 election, originating at the highest level, gave rise to a visceral powder keg waiting to ignited. But Gladys Sicknick, the officers mother, said Khater was centre stage in our recurring nightmare and the reason Brian is dead. Lawlessness, misplaced loyalty and hate killed my son, she said. I hope you are haunted by your crimes behind bars. Whatever jail time you receive is not enough. In court on Friday, as around 50 uniformed Capitol police officers looked on, Khater said he wished he could take it all back. Rebuked by the judge for not apologising to any officer he assaulted, he said he had been advised not to do so, due to the wrongful death lawsuit. Officer Sicknicks brother, Kenneth Sicknick, said that when Khater was released, he would still be younger than Brian was when he died. HELSINKI (Reuters) - A cash-strapped Finnish zoo said on Friday it was preparing to return two giant pandas on loan from China as it could no longer afford their upkeep. The pandas, named Lumi and Pyry, were brought to Finland in January 2018, nine months after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Nordic country and signed a joint agreement on protecting the animals. Ahtari Zoo, a private company which had hoped the pandas would bring visitors to the central Finland location, said it had instead accumulated mounting debts as the pandemic curbed travel. Finland's government, which gave one-off support of 200,000 euros in 2021, declined an application for a 5 million euro ($5.4 million) grant. The decision came after some members of parliament pointed out that the amount was higher than what the country spends annually on protecting some of its own endangered species. The foreign ministry said it had established a working group to seek a solution, but added there was no certainty one would be found. "If the pandas were returned, we believe that China would understand it would be a business decision of a private company in a difficult financial situation," a ministry spokesperson said. "We do not believe that this would have wider effects on the relations between Finland and China." A final decision on whether to return the pandas will be made on Feb. 28, the zoo said. Giant pandas, whose black and white faces have made them beloved around the world, are considered a vulnerable species, with much of their mountainous natural habitat in southwest China under threat from deforestation. China's modern panda diplomacy dates back to at least 1972 when it donated two giant pandas to the United States. (Reporting by Essi Lehto, editing by Terje Solsvik, Anne Kauranen and Nick Macfie) Austin, TX --News Direct-- Central Health Central Health sued Ascension Texas (Ascension), formerly known as Seton Healthcare Family, Tuesday for failing to meet its contractual obligations to provide healthcare for Travis County residents with low income. Several hours after Central Health filed its original petition, Ascension filed suit. We were out of options, said Mike Geeslin, President & CEO of Central Health, in regard to Central Healths petition. Ascensions persistent failures to honor its contractual commitments left Central Health with no choice but to file a lawsuit to hold Ascension accountable for not providing adequate, equitable healthcare services for people with low income in Travis County. Their practices have caused real harm to the people we serve. History: City of Austin, Ascension, and Central Health When it was formed in 2004, Central Health inherited the City of Austins relationship with Ascension, which was intended to help fulfill Central Healths mission to care for Travis County residents with low income. As part of that relationship, Ascension operated University Medical Center Brackenridge Hospital and provided healthcare to Travis Countys safety-net population. After Central Health was formed, it acquired the property on which University Medical Center Brackenridge sat; however, pursuant to a lease, Ascension continued to operate that hospital. Unlike other major urban hospital districts in Texas, Central Health has never operated a public hospital. Instead, it relies on Ascension to keep its long-standing contractual commitments to provide hospital and most specialty care to Travis Countys safety-net population. Long-Standing Contractual Relationship Between Central Health and Ascension Between 2004 and 2013, Central Health and Ascension worked together under a Safety Net Agreement to provide healthcare services to Travis County residents with low income. In 2013, Ascension recommitted to its contractual obligation to care for Travis County residents with low income, and it agreed that going forward, it would provide at least the current levels of healthcare services, including hospital and specialty care, that it had been providing. Story continues These renewed contractual commitments applied to patients enrolled in Central Healths Medical Access Program (MAP), which is a health coverage program for uninsured Travis County residents with low income (MAP Patients), and to certain patients who are financially indigent or medically indigent, as defined by Ascensions Charity Care Policy (Charity Care Patients). Per the 2013 Safety Net Agreement between Ascension and Central Health, Ascension continued to receive compensation for providing care and participated in projects eligible for Medicaid 1115 Transformation Waiver funding. Ascension also received additional public funding. In addition, Ascension was permitted to affiliate with the Central Health-supported Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, as part of the development of the new teaching and safety-net hospitalDell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas at Austin. In operating Dell Seton Medical Center, Ascension is standing in for Central Health, as the local hospital district, in providing healthcare services to Travis County residents with low income. Thus, Ascensions right to operate the hospital is conditioned on Ascension fulfilling its contractional obligations to Central Health. Ascension Caring for Fewer Patients Ascensions own data shows that it has failed to provide healthcare services to MAP Patients and Charity Care Patients at the agreed-upon 2013 levels. In the 2022 contract year, Ascension served approximately 8,000 fewer patients in the hospital compared with the 2013 contract year, reflecting a roughly 21% reduction. Patient encounters also dropped. In the 2022 contract year there were approximately 31,000 fewer patient hospital encounters (including inpatient services, outpatient services, and emergency room visits) compared with the 2013 contract year, reflecting a roughly 33% reduction. Central Health alleges that Ascensions failures apply not only to the overall levels of healthcare services, but also to numerous specialty areas, including general surgery, mammography, oncology radiation therapy, orthopedics, otolaryngology, podiatry, plastic surgery, pulmonology, and rheumatology. While Ascension substantially benefited from its contracts with Central Health, it failed to meet its commitments to us, said Dr. Charles Bell, Central Health Board of Managers Chair. Over the years, Ascension has cared for fewer and fewer patients and thats neither acceptable nor contractually allowable. We reached a point where our only option was taking Ascension to court. We hoped it would never come to this. We believe Ascensions failure to provide agreed-upon healthcare cannot be explained by a lack of need in our community or by mere happenstance, said Casey Dobson of Scott Douglass & McConnico, the law firm representing Central Health. We believe it stems from Ascension reducing, capping, and eliminating services for MAP Patients and Charity Care Patients. The unfortunate reality is that many Travis County residents with low income who needed critical care from Ascension did not receive that care. The End of the Line: Pursuing Equity, Declarations, and Damages Central Health and Ascension have been talking and negotiating for years to try and rectify the situation. Last week, Central Health and Ascension reached the end of their contractually required alternative dispute resolution efforts. When those efforts failed, Central Health had no other option but to seek court intervention. The Lawsuit In its lawsuit, Central Health asserts breach-of-contract claims against Ascension for the following things: Failing to provide agreed-upon healthcare services to low-income Travis County residents, both overall and in relation to several specialty areas; Failing to provide healthcare services to MAP Patients and Charity Care Patients on a nondiscriminatory basis; Improperly billing Charity Care Patients for healthcare services; and Not providing required reports that Central Health needs to monitor, on behalf of Travis County residents, Ascensions compliance with performance standards. Additionally, because Ascensions failures are so consequential, Central Health seeks a judicial declaration that would entitle it to terminate agreements with Ascension and trigger Central Healths option to purchase Dell Seton Medical Center. This option is not something we wanted to pursue, said Dr. Bell. But we have to do what is necessary to ensure that, in the future, this safety-net hospital will deliver the level and quality of care that Travis County residents with low income need and deserve. Central Health also seeks other declarations to resolve ongoing disagreements with and relating to Ascension. A copy of the complete Original Petition is available here. ### About Central Health Central Health is the local hospital district that connects one in seven Travis County residents with low income to quality health care. We work with a network of partners to eliminate health disparities and reach our vision of Travis County becoming a model healthy community. Contact Details Ted Burton, Chief Communications Officer Central Health +1 512-797-8200 Ted.Burton@centralhealth.net View source version on newsdirect.com: https://newsdirect.com/news/central-health-sues-ascension-for-failing-to-live-up-to-its-contractual-commitments-to-care-for-travis-county-residents-with-low-income-150264859 By Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) -China and the United States exchanged sharp criticism at a World Trade Organization meeting on Friday, with Beijing calling Washington a "unilateral bully" and the U.S. accusing its rival of illegal retaliatory measures. China's ambassador to the WTO Li Chenggang spoke at a meeting on trade disputes shortly after the United States lodged an appeal against a series of WTO rulings involving China, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland which found that U.S. metal tariffs breached global rules. "These troubling behaviors of the U.S. have clearly depicted an image of the U.S. as a unilateral bully, a rule breaker, and a supply chain disruptor," he said, according to a copy of his speech obtained by Reuters. The WTO has made important rulings against the United States in recent weeks, including the metals ruling involving China and a separate dispute with Hong Kong over labeling which Washington also appealed. Washington, which has long criticized the WTO dispute system for overreach and is leading discussions on reforming it, has criticized both rulings. The United States said it regretted the metal tariffs dispute with China was even on the agenda at the meeting and accused Beijing of imposing "illegal unilateral retaliatory measures" on U.S. exports. "A WTO that serves to shield China's non-market policies and practices is not in anyone's interest," said Deputy United States Trade Representative Maria Pagan, according to a copy of her speech. The WTO will not be able to review Washington's appeal of the metals case because its top appeals bench is paralyzed after the United States blocked new judges. "China would have hoped that the U.S. would show due self-restraint not to appeal every unfavorable panel report into the void, which the U.S. itself has created," Li said. In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Pagan played down the significance of more vocal criticism of Washington by China at WTO meetings. "You can call us whatever names you want," she said. "We are continuing to talk to China." (Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; editing by Toby Chopra and Grant McCool) East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland speaks during a press conference to announce new local waterway and port projects receiving federal funding on Monday, June 27, 2022 at the Indiana Harbor Confined Disposal Facility in East Chicago. (Michael Gard / Post-Tribune) (Michael Gard / Post-Tribune) East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland contends the city council did not follow state statute when it gave final approval to new district maps in January and he is suing to stop their implementation. Copeland filed suit Friday in Lake County Superior Court Civil Division seeking to stop the Lake County Board of Elections and Voter Registration from implementing the maps for this years election cycle and instead revert back to the maps that were enacted after the 2010 U.S. Census, according to the suit. Advertisement The Mayor is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction enjoining both the East Chicago Common Council and the Lake County Board of Elections from conducting an election using the new maps. The East Chicago City Council approved 6-3 an amended version of the city council district map at its Dec. 28 city council meeting. In the suit, Copeland said by statute he had 10 days after the council approved the redistricting ordinance to sign it into law or veto the measure outright or by not signing, which is called a pocket veto. Copeland elected to let the 10-day period expire, creating the pocket veto. The council overrode the veto at its Jan. 11 city council meeting. Advertisement According to the suit, state statute says an ordinance is not approved until the Mayor signs it or the city council overrides the pocket or written veto. Since the council did not override the pocket veto until January, it missed the Dec. 31 deadline to approve the redistricting maps, the suit alleges. The suit seeks an order declaring the redistricting ordinance was not adopted in compliance with statute and is therefore void, so in turn the redistricting it describes also is void. The suit then seeks an order reinstating the map drawn after the 2010 U.S. Census. Copeland also is seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the common council and Lake County Board of Elections preventing them from conducting an election using the newly drawn maps until the next time redistricting is permitted by statute and new maps can be properly submitted and approved. In a statement Friday, Copeland said the city council had all year to create a new reasonable redistricting plan that could have been openly discussed at public meetings with opportunity for public input. Instead a few members met privately, waiting until the last minute, and drew district boundaries designed to geographically exclude known or potential political opponents for their own benefit, Copeland said. Moreover, its clear that the statutory redistricting deadline was not met. The proposed districts cross existing precinct boundaries requiring multiple ballots and voting machines in some precincts which is certain to cause confusion, Copeland said. Angela Jones, council attorney, called the suit just a gross waste of taxpayer funds. The legislative body has full authority to redistrict under statute, Jones said. She said the mayor has no say or insight related to the redistricting but pocket vetoed it anyway. Advertisement In my opinion he is responsible for his own grievance, Jones said. The council is required to redistrict by statute and if it did not it would have been out of compliance with the statute opening it up to potential additional litigation, she said. The Gary Common Council Thursday was sued by Barbara Bolling after its members failed to approve a new council district map by the Dec. 31 deadline, claiming the imbalanced populations across the district water down her vote. In East Chicago, Jones said the council spent a considerable amount of time working with a non-profit, conducting research and pouring over maps to come up with the new district maps prior to approval. Its the common council who did their job, Jones said. Councilman Terence Hill said he was blindsided by the amendment to the redistricting ordinance that created the version of the map ultimately approved by the council. He said he and his colleagues had worked to come up with the map that was initially unanimously approved. Advertisement When the map came back for third and final reading, there was an amendment changing it. No one talked to me about any changes, Hill said. The amended version passed the council 6-3 with Hill and two other council members voted against the plan. Council President Monica Gonzalez Guzman, who was among the six who amended the originally presented map, could not be reached for comment Friday. East Chicagos Corporation Counsel Joe Allegretti disagreed with Jones and said the mayor is involved in the process. As set out in the complaint, he said, redistricting occurs by adopting an ordinance before the statutory deadline after passage by the council and approval by the mayor or by the council overriding his veto. That obviously didnt occur before the deadline rendering the councils action invalid, Allegretti said. East Chicago Democratic Precinct Chairwoman Christine Russell said neither she nor the precinct organization were included in any discussion on the new district maps, which she called disappointing since six of the nine council members are precinct committeemen. Russell said she learned of the lawsuit Friday. She said there were no public meetings about the process. Advertisement The thing was they had all year. Why did it take so long for them to do it, she said. My concern is what people will have to go through for the next few months for this election. cnapoleon@chicagotribune.com The Massachusetts Civil Services Commission is recommending legal actions against the ex-Methuen police chief that allegedly hired his political allies and business associates and improperly earned one of the states richest contracts for a police chief. The Civil Services Commission says it found several instances that John Solomon hired individuals as full-time police officers when it was impermissible to do so. City records show that the City paid over $1.5 million to seven non-civil service intermittent police officers whose service as full-time officers was impermissibleeither because their full-time employment was not in compliance, the Civil Services Commissions report reads. According to the report, the most brazen example of Solomons alleged abuse of power was his hiring of Sean Fountain, the former Chair of the Methuen City Council as a permanent intermittent police officer. Solomon was put on leave in December 2020 following a report from a state Inspector General that found irregularities in the way the city handled the contract that led to his $350,000 salary. Inspector General Glenn Cunha wrote that his office found a failure of leadership at all levels regarding contracts approved in 2017. Solomon retired the next month. On Friday, Essex District Attorney Paul Tucker said his office will work diligently to enact hiring practices in line with the Commissions report. We will take any appropriate action, including consulting with other state and federal agencies, if appropriate. We appreciate the Commissions thorough work, as well as the earlier report prepared by the Office of the Inspector General, the statement reads. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, introduced a bill to add clergy to the list of mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect. A Kansas senator has renewed his push to add clergy to the list of mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect, but the lack of protection for religious confessions sets the bill up for opposition. Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, introduced SB 87, which requires ordained ministers to report suspected physical, sexual or emotional abuse and neglect of children. "Our children are taught to trust in certain authority figures in their communities, because adults are supposed to speak up for children when theyve been harmed," Holland said. "Far too many of our faith leaders those who are foundational to the development of our sense of self and spirituality have violated that trust, and Kansas kids have suffered as a result of their silence." Clergy would join the existing list of mandated reporters that includes medical and mental health providers, teachers and school administrators, child care providers and first responders. Failure to report, interfering with a report or knowingly making a false report are all misdemeanors. Confession would not be protected Holland's legislation would not exempt privileged penitential communications. Without penitential privilege, clergy who learn of suspected abuse through confession would have to choose between violating religious beliefs or violating the law. Penitential communications are already privileged in court proceedings. The lack of such a protection could be an impediment to advancing legislation that would otherwise have greater support. Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said the group's position hasn't changed since 2019 when Holland first introduced similar legislation. The Catholic Conference as well as the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas supports making ordained clergy mandated reporters, as long as the seal of confession is protected. Weber said the Kansas Catholic Conference in 2019 worked with Holland, who then turned from a bill that didn't protect penitential privilege to a bill that did protect it. Story continues "For a number of years now, Catholic clergy and all Catholics working with children have been trained and required to report abuse as a condition of their employment or status as a volunteer," Weber said. "Hollands cynical about-face and insistence that the time-honored and widely accepted penitential privilege now be discarded is a shameless, bigoted attack on Catholics and is a sad example of political self-promotion and grandstanding." The Catholic Church has argued that a priest is obligated to not reveal the contents of a confession, even if it means going to jail. Breaking the seal of confession could lead to excommunication. In 2019, archdiocese chancellor Rev. John Riley, testified that the church is "committed to doing everything reasonably possible to prevent abuse, report suspicion of abuse, and provide ongoing awareness training and background checking," as well as cooperating with law enforcement. Weber also pointed to work within the Catholic Church to create a safer environment for children, including required training for clergy and other people on detecting, reporting and preventing child sex abuse. Holland said for states that include clergy in their mandatory reporting laws, some do and some don't protect penitential privilege. He fears the privilege would be "a back door to not reporting" that in turn discourages law enforcement from investigating. "If we have a religious organization where this is a pervasive problem, my concern is that then the exemption becomes basically standard operating procedure where if something happens, run and go confess it, and now when the investigators come it's like, 'we don't know, we're not obligated to share that information,'" he said. He said exempting confessions would be both a compromise and "the easy way out." "There are lots of stakeholders involved here," Holland said. "It really is going to come down to will the Legislature want to try to address this, and then what is the consensus? At the end of the day, if we get something done, that's a start." More:Church abuse investigation suspects 188 Kansas clergy committed crimes but no charges filed Kansas Senate bill follows KBI report Holland's renewed push comes weeks after the release of a Kansas Bureau of Investigation report into child sex abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church. Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas requested the investigation, and former Attorney General Derek Schmidt released the KBI report on his last working day in office. The KBI investigation identified 188 clergy suspected of committing crimes across each of the four Catholic dioceses in Kansas. The agency opened 125 criminal cases and filed 30 charging affidavits with local prosecutors. None have been prosecuted, largely due to the statute of limitations. A handful of bipartisan lawmakers joined survivors earlier this month to push for changing the law to allow criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits over past abuses, which SB 95 would do. More:'Hear us,' child sex abuse survivors plead. Will Kansas lawmakers make legal reforms? "How we fix the problem is more than just this one issue about making clergy and priests mandatory reporters," Holland said. "You have issues about statute of limitations, which others have been trying to address as well. So there's a number of pieces of the puzzle." At a news conference outside the Johnson County Courthouse, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called on Attorney General Kris Kobach to publicly name the accused priests and release a more detailed report. The group also vowed to file an open records request. Typically, prosecutors do not release information publicly on people not charged with a crime. Acting KBI director Tony Mattivi said that is why there are internal talks at the KBI and attorney general's office about "whether it's something we're even allowed to do, and if we are allowed to, do we want to." The archdiocese previously published its own list of substantiated allegations of clergy sexual abuse of a minor. "Make no mistake," Holland said of the KBI report, "this is pervasive and I'm convinced it continues to occur. And it's not just with one particular Christian faith. But it's out there and we need to do something as a Legislature to protect Kansas kids." "If Senator Holland has evidence that sexual abuse is taking place pervasive then he should immediately call 911 and report it," Weber said. "The KBI Report, in no way, shape or form indicates that sexual abuse is currently 'pervasive' in the Catholic Church, and in fact, the KBI Report indicates just the opposite has taken place in the Catholic Church." Past attempts have failed Holland has been trying for years to require religious ministers to report suspected abuse. He started in 2019 with SB 37, which did not have protections for penitential privilege. "But in working in a bipartisan fashion with Republican leadership, Republican Senate leadership said basically for us to get something done here, you need to put that privilege exception into the bill," Holland said. "And so I agreed." Holland then introduced a new "weaker version" of the bill, SB 218, that had protections for penitential privilege. It passed the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee and unanimously passed the full Senate. But then it sat in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee until scheduled hearings in March 2020 were cancelled amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill then died in committee. In 2021, Holland tried again with SB 75. That bill also protected penitential privilege. The bill was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it sat without a hearing for two years before it died at the end of the 2022 session. Meanwhile, Holland attempted to force debate last year on a constitutional amendment to address the topic. The motion to withdraw resolution SCR 1624 from committee failed along party lines. "I wanted to get people on record, because I tired of screwing around with and let them know that I'm not going away with this issue," he said. This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas bill would make clergy mandated reporters of child sex abuse A Colorado baker sued over his refusal to bake a cake for a transgender woman lost an appeal Thursday after a panel of judges ruled that his decision violated the states anti-discrimination laws. Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips first made headlines in 2012, when he was sued for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. That case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, with justices ruling in his favor in 2018. His latest legal battle involved Denver-based attorney Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman who said the Christian-owned bakery refused to sell her a cake because of her gender identity. On Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed with a trial judge ruling that Phillips violated Scardinas rights by denying her services because of her trans identity. In her complaint, Scardina claimed that the Christian baker refused to sell her a birthday cake because she is transgender, despite repeatedly advertising that they would sell birthday cakes to the general public, including LGBT individuals. The cake she wanted to order was blue on the outside and pink on the inside to celebrate her transition. Philips has maintained that he wont create cakes to celebrate events that he, as a Christian, doesnt agree with. His lawyers argued that the decision to deny baking Scardina the cake was based on his firm and sincere religious beliefs. Doing so would violate his free speech rights under the First Amendment. But the court found that making a pink cake with blue frosting would not violate his rights. Writing for the three-judge panel, Judge Timohty Shutz noted that the cake ordered by Scardina expressed no images or message. We conclude that creating a pink cake with blue frosting is not inherently expressive and any message or symbolism it provides to an observer would not be attributed to the baker, he wrote. Phillips was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent conservative legal advocacy organization that has been designated as an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of its decades-long work against LGBTQ rights. Story continues Lawyer Jake Warner of the Alliance said his client will appeal. No one should be forced to express a message that violates their core beliefs, he stated, adding that state law is being misused to force him to say things he does not believe ... This cruelty must stop. In Phillips 2018 case, the Supreme Court issued a limited ruling that he didnt have to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. But the court shied away from addressing larger questions about LGBTQ rights and claims to religious freedom. Wide smiles and proud relatives were abundant Friday morning at the James G. Jackson Columbus Police Academy, as 31 new officers graduated training to join the Columbus Division of Police and 18 others will join other central Ohio law enforcement agencies. The number of Columbus recruits are significantly lower than other recent classes, which have averaged about 45 new officers. The number is not what Columbus police leadership hoped it would be to help solve staffing issues that have left the division down at least more than 150 officers. Among those who graduated Friday, none had a wider smile than 21-year-old Prakash Poudyel, the second Nepali officer to join Columbus police. A graduate of Northland High School who was a police cadet prior to joining the academy, Poudyel said he has wanted to be an officer since he was a young kid and after moving to Columbus at the age of 10. "I saw a lot of Columbus police officers," Poudyel said. "I always wanted to be a police officer." Poudyel and his 30 classmates are some help to a short-staffed department, but other help is now delayed in coming. First Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts said Friday that police have "pushed back" a second class of lateral recruits from other agencies. This was due to tweaks being made to the program based on feedback from the first class, she said; however, people within Columbus police have told The Dispatch it was because of a lack of interest and low class numbers. There will be three academy graduations in 2023 in an effort to boost the division's ranks. Prakash Poudyel is swarmed by his nieces, nephews and other family members following his swearing-in as a new Columbus police officer on Friday at the 138th recruit graduating class at the James G. Jackson Columbus Police Academy. Poudyel is the second Nepali police officer on the Columbus force. Poudyel said he hopes he can make a difference in Columbus and the local Nepali community, including by encouraging other young Nepalis to consider law enforcement as a career. "Since I'm in it now, I can help them through the process," Poudyel said. The oldest member of the 138th recruit graduating class 55-year-old Juan A. Morales spent 23 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and 15 years in the Illinois National Guard before deciding to begin a second career as a Columbus police officer. Story continues "I want to keep living," Morales said. "I might be a transplant from Chicago, but the red, white and blue blankets one coast to another." Morales said that even though his two sons are older than many of his classmates, he was happy to be able to learn from everyone in the class and hopes some of his wisdom partially coming from deployments during the Gulf War and to Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan was passed on to them. Officers walk in line to the stage at the start of the swearing-in ceremony for the 138th graduating class at the James G. Jackson Columbus Police Academy. "They looked up to me, not as a parent, but it was silent motivation," Morales said. "They also motivate me because I've been through life, I've seen the good and the bad. These guys are going to see some horrible stuff. That courage for me, in not knowing what's out there and stepping up anyways, they inspire me to keep going." Morales said he hopes to work 15 more years as a Columbus police officer, so long as his body holds up. "I might become a firefighter then," he joked, referencing two members of the graduating police training class who are Columbus firefighters and arson investigators. The class graduating Friday began with 66 members, ending with a total of 49 people, 31 of whom will join Columbus police. The other recruits will join other central Ohio law enforcement agencies, including Westerville, Worthington, Ohio State University and the Columbus Division of Fire. Officers from the 138th police recruit graduating class raise their hands to be sworn in Friday at the James G. Jackson Columbus Police Academy graduation ceremony. Recruits typically leave the training academy due to a lasting injury that prevents completion of physical testing requirements, choosing to leave, or being asked to leave due to performance. Class orator Kalib Amos, who will join Westerville's Division of Police, may have been responsible for 95% of the questions asked during classes, but he got serious in his speech as he talked about the risks of becoming a police officer. "We're all human," he said. "Regardless of whether you wear a police badge or an orange jumpsuit, we're all the same. We all need compassion." Potts said that the new Columbus police officers taking their oaths on Friday before embarking on 15 weeks of field training need to continue standing up for what they believe in and what is right. "From this day forward until the day you retire, you will be in the public eye, open to second-guessing," Potts said. With the graduation coming hours before Memphis police body camera footage in the death of Tyre Nichols was scheduled to be released, the sentiment carried extra weight. "When you wear this badge, it's a badge of honor," Potts said. "If you tarnish it, we will hold you accountable." Columbus police First Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts speaks Friday during the graduation ceremony for 49 law enforcement officers at the James G. Jackson Columbus Police Academy. Related coverage:Columbus police have changed how they count homicides. Here's what that means. bbruner@dispatch.com @bethany_bruner This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus police adds 31 officers in smaller-than-average academy class A 19-year-old Columbus woman, wanted in connection with a stabbing death of a Philadelphia man earlier this week, was in custody Friday, according to the Philadelphia Police Department. Nicole Marie Rodgers of Columbus, Georgia, was arrested for the murder of Alwaleed Algheraibi, 25, on Thursday, police said. Shortly before noon on Monday, January 23, Philadelphia Police responded to a location on Hansberry Street on reports of a person screaming. Police and PFD-Medics located a 25-year-old white male in the third floor bathroom with a stab wound to the neck. PFD-Medic Unit pronounced the victim dead on the scene at 11:55 A.M. Rodgers has been charged with murder, robbery, burglary, theft and related charges. Amazon Prime Video Comedian Nate Bargatze describes what he does for a living as saying dumb stuff in front of large groups. And hes very good at it. On this bonus episode of The Last Laugh podcast, Bargatze talks about making the jump from Netflix to Amazon for his latest special Hello World, which premieres on Jan. 31 and finds him grappling with the everyday challenges of parenthood and middle age as only he can. We also get into the pros and cons of being a clean comedian, the one joke that caused a sex worker to call him out for being insensitive, and his biggest comedy goals moving forward. When I point out to Bargatze that hes the first three-time guest on The Last Laugh, he replies, I love that. Record-breaking, thats all Im going for. Hes just returned home to Nashville after flying to New York to appear on The Tonight Show, where he has now officially graduated from doing five-minute stand-up spots to sitting on the couch next to host Jimmy Fallon. You basically just go do your stand-up, but you sit down, Bargatze says, explaining that being a panel guest allows for a more conversational style that suits his low-key comedy persona. Bargatze, who hit his 20-year anniversary as a comedian this past year, has slowly risen the ranks of the comedy world to become one of the most objectively successful stand-up comics aroundall without the benefit of an eponymous sitcom, a dream he admits hes still chasing after many false starts. It was getting two consecutive hour-long specials on Netflix2019s The Tennessee Kid and 2021s The Greatest Average Americanthat he says changed his life forever. But for Hello World, Bargatze jumped at the chance to be one of the first comics in Amazon Prime Videos new push into a comedy-special landscape that has been dominated by Netflix for almost a decade. Hes hoping its a savvy career move to reach a new audience, but admits he could always be wrong. As for that self-deprecating job description he delivers on stage, Bargatze says, Theres more to it than that, before joking that if he was jogging and someone came up to him and asked what he did for a living, saying dumb stuff in front of large groups would be the simplest answer. Story continues But doesnt he have to be at least kind of smart to make his dumb thoughts funny to millions of people? I feel like awareness plays a lot into it, he answers. Youve got to be super aware and you do have to pick up on stuff. Youve got to notice things more than most people will notice things. When Bargatze takes note of his own inability to do something, like the bit in his new special about how hard it can be to turn off the lights in a hotel room, he generally feels confident that audiences will be able to relate. A lot of people think they might be the only dumb ones that have done something, he says. But then, once I get to say it in a large group, and you hear everybody laugh, you realize a lot of people have done this. And yet, there have been times when he delivered an observational joke that he thought would be relatable but falls flat with the crowd. When people dont relate to it and then theyre just laughing at you, it can be too much, Bargatze says. Youre like, all right, thats too dumb. Either they dont believe it or they feel sorry for you. So theres a balance you have to find. You want to be just the right amount of dumb. Listen to the episode now and subscribe to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday. Vir Das Was Called a Terrorist for Telling Jokes. It Only Made Him Funnier. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. The shoes (circled) that have sparked more conspiracy theories about Putin. (Getty Images) A photo of Vladimir Putin wearing heels has sparked more conspiracy theories that the Russian president uses a body double. The dictator was this week pictured with students at Moscow State University and appeared to be wearing chunky heels in an apparent attempt to boost his height. Putin is estimated to be 57. There have been previous - and completely unverified - claims Putin uses a double amid questions about his health and mental state. These have been pushed in particular by the Ukrainian government amid the ongoing war in the country which was sparked by Putin nearly a year ago. Another state-released image of Russian president Vladimir Putin at Moscow State University on Wednesday. (AFP via Getty Images) Putin was pictured with a group of more than 20 students, most of whom were taller than him, on Wednesday. Putin, who has previously been mockingly described by UK defence secretary Ben Wallace as suffering from "small man syndrome, has become the subject of social media jibes about the heels and his height - though others suggested it was a deliberate ploy from his so-called double to make him taller in order to resemble the actual Putin. There were further claims about Putin's appearance from the Telegram channel General SVR, which is known for pumping out claims - without evidence - about Putin's health. Referring to the picture, it made claims such as the "left cheekbone of the understudy was swollen and moved unnaturally with the presidents' facial expressions" and "an unnaturally hanging upper lip is the result of an unsuccessful fitting of the understudy". Watch: US and Germany sending battle tanks to back Ukraine war effort In October, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraines head of military intelligence, claimed Putin uses three body doubles who had plastic surgery to resemble him. Budanov claimed in an interview with the Mail on Sunday that doubles are used to cover up Putins loss of control in the Russian government. He said, without presenting evidence: We know specifically about three people that keep appearing, but how many there are, we don't know. They all had plastic surgery to look alike. Story continues Read more: Ukraine tanks: Russian TV host calls for military strikes on 'Nazi scumbag' Germany The one thing that gives them away is their height. It's visible in videos and pictures. Also gesturing, body language and earlobes, since they are unique for every person. There have even been questions about whether Putin is actually alive. These were permeated last week by Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said: "I don't quite understand that he is still alive, or that it is him particularly making decisions, or who is taking decisions there, who is the the circle of people making the decisions." From left: Former police officers Rafael Quinos Otano and Lorenzo Orfila are accused of kidnapping a 50-year-old man, beating him and leaving him unconscious. From left: Former police officers Rafael Quinos Otano and Lorenzo Orfila are accused of kidnapping a 50-year-old man, beating him and leaving him unconscious. Two now-former Miami-area police officers are accused of kidnapping a 50-year-old homeless man, beating him and leaving him unconscious in the woods. The homeless man was then allegedly bribed by a third man not to testify against the officers, authorities said. Rafael Otano, 27, and Lorenzo Orfila, 22, were fired from the Hialeah Police Department on Thursday after being jailed on felony armed kidnapping and battery charges. Both men, who face an additional misdemeanor charge of official misconduct, could see life in prison if convicted, said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. We will not allow rogue police officers to abuse their powers and betray the public that they serve, Rundle said at a press conference while announcing the charges. Otano and Orfila, who were ordered held without bond, allegedly picked up Jose Ortega Gutierrez, 50, from a Hialeah shopping plaza around 5 p.m. on Dec. 17 after someone called the police to complain about him, according to the arrest affidavits. Gutierrez said Otano and Orfila handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a police vehicle. Detectives investigating the incident later said they were unable to find any legal justification for Gutierrezs detention, said Rundle. Gutierrez said the officers then drove him against his will to an isolated and dark area where they physically roughed him up while he was in handcuffs. He lost consciousness and woke up alone, no longer handcuffed and bleeding from his head. He later made contact with an off-duty police officer, who was out walking his dog, who called 911, according to the affidavit. An officer responding to that 911 call, which was broadcast over a police radio, later told investigators that Orfila had called him asking about Gutierrezs condition and requesting that a police report not be filed. Orfila allegedly admitted in the call that they had roughed up the man and dropped him off near where he was found. Story continues The responding officer did file a police report, however, documenting Gutierrezs claim that he had been beat up by Hialeah police officers, according to the affidavit. Evidence supporting the mans allegations includes GPS data collected from the officers vehicles and surveillance video taken from the shopping plaza where Gutierrez said the officers had picked him up. Otano and Orfila did not have their body-worn cameras on at the time of the alleged incident as required, said Rundle. Ali Saleh, 45, is accused of bribing the alleged victim so he would not cooperate with the police investigation. Ali Saleh, 45, is accused of bribing the alleged victim so he would not cooperate with the police investigation. In what Rundle described as an additional layer of insult to the criminal conduct, Gutierrez was later allegedly approached by a civilian identified as Ali Saleh, 45, who offered him $1,200 cash in exchange for him signing a document that would have the case against Otano and Orfila dismissed. Gutierrez told detectives that he does not know how to read and did not know what the document said but that he took the money because he is homeless and unemployed. The document was pre-notarized and stated that Gutierrez was arrested for drinking on Dec. 17 and was not battered by the officers, conflicting prior sworn and recorded statements he had given to police, according to the affidavit. Gutierrez said that Saleh then instructed him to put the document in his pocket and approach him outside while handing it to him. Gutierrez said he believed Saleh recorded the exchange on his cell phone since he raised and pointed it at Gutierrez during the exchange. Video surveillance footage corroborates Gutierrezs description of the two of them meeting outside, according to the affidavit. Saleh was charged with felony witness tampering and also held without bond. Rundle said authorities dont know the reasons for Otano and Orfilas alleged actions. She said of Gutierrez that by all accounts, he was a harmless person and certainly didnt deserve to be pretended to be arrested and beaten and abandoned. Attorney information was not available for Otano, Orfila or Saleh. Hialeah Police Chief George Fuente called the allegations against both former officers disturbing. We will not accept anything less than an unblemished integrity from those that entrust us to serve and protect, Fuente said Thursday. Orfila was a three-year member of the department and Otano a five-year member. Both had minor disciplinary issues in their files, he said. COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) The South Carolina Supreme Court ordered a lower court to collect more information from the Department of Corrections regarding the state agency's attempts to acquire lethal injection drugs. The Thursday order means that it could be four more months until justices decide whether a newly organized firing squad or the electric chair are legal methods of execution in the state. The order reversed a previous ruling that denied the plaintiffs request for such information from the circuit court, which Chief Justice Donald Beatty wrote abused its discretion. Inmates discovery requests regarding lethal injection are particularly relevant and reasonable in light of the fact that, for over ten years, other states have continued to perform executions using lethal injection, rather than electrocution and the firing squad, Beatty wrote. The high court found it impossible to evaluate the States assessment that such drugs are not available in South Carolina without such information. The justices said state lawyers failed to answer how or when South Carolina officials had sought the drugs during oral arguments earlier this month. The Department of Corrections has 60 days to provide that information to the circuit court, which will then have 60 more days to conduct any additional hearings and present the findings to the South Carolina Supreme Court. South Carolina previously one of the most prolific states of its size when it came to capital punishment has not killed anyone on death row since May 2011. Its batch of lethal injection drugs expired in 2013. Four condemned prisoners challenged a 2021 law that forced them to choose between the electric chair or a newly formed firing squad signed by Gov. Henry McMaster in hopes the state could then restart its executions after the involuntary pause. The issue received extra attention from McMaster in his State of the State speech last night. The governor called on lawmakers to pass a shield law protecting the identities of the companies making lethal injection drugs a solution he said would free the companies to sell them to South Carolina without fear of public rebuke. The death penalty has remained under near constant scrutiny throughout the United States. Late last year, Tennessee issued a report finding the state had used lethal injection drugs that hadnt been properly tested, abandoning 2018 guidelines. Police and fire vehicles wait outside Valparaiso High School the morning of Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, after the school was placed on lockdown. (Deena Lawley-Dixon / Post-Tribune) A suspect is in custody in connection with threats made to Valparaiso High School three times this month, culminating with threats to a number of Porter County districts and Hobart schools on Thursday, according to a release from the Valparaiso Police Department. As a new threat was being communicated (Thursday) to several area school corporations, the VPD was hard at work, with the support of numerous local and federal agencies, Capt. Joe Hall, public information officer for Valparaiso police, said in a statement released Thursday night. The dedication and commitment have led to a 16-year-old male suspect from Ohio being taken into custody in connection with these incidents in Valparaiso. Advertisement The investigation is ongoing and further information will be released when available. The Valparaiso community has been alerted to potential threats at Valparaiso High School, with reports of possible violence called in on Jan. 9, 17 and again on Thursday. The Jan. 9 incident prompted the school to go on lockdown, with students sheltering in their classrooms, and then the less restrictive lockout before school was dismissed for the day shortly before 11 a.m. Advertisement The threats, communicated by phone, have interrupted school days by panicking our students, staff and parents, Hall said, adding protocols were followed during each of the incidents. Thursday, in addition to Valparaiso High School, Portage High School and the Hobart schools also received noncredible threats, police said. Portage High School was placed on lockdown, then lockout before students were dismissed in the late morning. The other schools were temporarily placed on lockout, so no one could leave or enter the building. Multiple investigators have worked exhaustively to identify and locate a suspect. These investigations are tedious, filled with multiple layers of deception on the part of the violator, with details that take large amounts of time to analyze, Hall said, adding often, such investigations can take months. The Valparaiso Police Department, Hall said, is extremely proud of the effort and collaboration of all involved in the investigation, particularly the investigations division and its remarkable efforts the past few weeks. Other agencies assisting include: U.S. Secret Service, Chicago Field Office and Forensic Services Division in Washington, D.C.; FBI, Indianapolis Field Division; Porter County Prosecutors Office; Porter County Sheriffs Department; Porter County 911 Central Communications Center; Valparaiso Fire Department; and Valparaiso Community Schools. Police body camera footage and a 911 call from the brutal October 2022 attack on then-Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-Calif.) husband Paul Pelosi in their San Francisco home was made public on Friday. The San Francisco Superior Court released the video and call alongside other evidence after a coalition of news organizations argued they should be made public. Prosecutors had declined to release the video to the media out of concern it could be manipulated to spread false information, NBC reported, while lawyers for accused Pelosi attacker David DePape argued the release could irreparably damage his right to a fair trial, CNN reported. False information and conspiracy theories, some of which were boosted by tech billionaire Elon Musk and former President Trump, quickly spread in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Fridays released evidence further debunks those theories. Nancy Pelosi declined to comment on the video soon after its release on Friday. Im not going to say anything right now; I may shortly, Pelosi told reporters. Police say DePape, then 42, broke through the back door of the Pelosi home, later telling authorities that he was hoping to target Speaker Pelosi and break her kneecaps. She was not home at the time, but he found her 82-year-old husband Paul Pelosi, who awoke to the intruder. While talking to DePape, Pelosi went into a bathroom, where he was able to grab a phone to make a 911 call. The 911 call in the wee hours of Oct. 28 starts with Pelosi being heard saying that he guesses he just called by mistake. Theres a gentleman here just waiting for my wife to come back, Pelosi tells the operator when she asks if everything is OK. Asked if he needed police, fire, or medical assistance, Pelosi responded that he did not think so. He then asks if the Capitol Police are around. DePapes muffled voice can be heard in the background. Ive got a problem, but he thinks everythings good, Pelosi says on the call. The gentleman just came into the house, and he wants to wait here for my wife to come home. Story continues Asked if he knows who the man is, Pelosi says he does not. Hes telling me to put the phone down and do what he says, Pelosi says. The operator asks the mans name, and DePape says his name is David. Im a friend of theirs, DePape said. Pelosi says he does not know who the man is. The graphic video depicts two police officers knocking on Pelosis door a short time later. The door opens to the DePape and Pelosi both grasping a hammer. Hi, how are you doing? an officer says. Whats going on, man? Everythings good, DePape responds. During the exchange, DePape grabs the hammer with both hands while Pelosi has just one hand on the hammer, holding a glass in the other. Drop the hammer, an officer says. Ah, nope, DePape says. Hey! Hey, hey, hey, Pelosi says as a struggle for the hammer ensues. What is going on right now? an officer says. In a matter of seconds, DePape wriggles the hammer free from Pelosis grasp, and takes a large swing at Pelosi inside of the house, just out of view of the camera. Oh, shit, an officer says as the two officers rush in to peel DePape off Pelosi. Pelosi is seen laying face down on the ground, and a pool of blood can be seen around his head. The officers restrain DePape. Just over 30 seconds elapsed from the first knock on the door to DePape taking a swing at Pelosi. Pelosi suffered a skull fracture as well as several injuries to his arm and hand. DePape has pleaded not guilty to six charges, including attempted murder. Mychael Schnell contributed. Updated at 1:47 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. In another chapter in controversies swirling around Clay County Sheriff Jeffrey Lyde, a district judge voluntarily stepped away from the criminal cases against the sheriff Wednesday, court records show. The development comes a few days after the same judge, 97th District Judge Jack McGaughey, bowed out of presiding over a civil case to remove Lyde from elected office. Ninety-seventh District Judge Jack McGaughey handles matters Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, at the Clay County Courthouse. McGaughey filed orders voluntarily recusing himself Wednesday from cases involving six official oppression charges against Lyde, court documents show. McGaughey also asked Senior District Judge David Evans, who presides over the Eighth Administrative Judicial Region, to put another judge on the cases, court documents show. Sheriff faces civil, criminal charges The sheriff is accused of sexually harassing three female staff members in 2021 and 2022, as well as assaulting one by slapping her buttocks. In addition, Lyde is suspected of holding a man and a woman in jail without a finding of probable cause in July 2021. In each of his voluntary recusal orders, McGaughey writes that "there was a ground" for his disqualification or recusal, court documents show. The judge didn't specify what ground, but he notes a rule that judges shall recuse themselves if their impartiality might reasonably be questioned in certain instances. Clay County Sheriff Jeff Lyde exits the courtroom after his suspension hearing is postponed Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023. They include having a personal bias or personal knowledge of key information, according to the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. Grounds for disqualification Grounds for disqualification include if a judge has served as a lawyer in the matter at controversy or knows they have an interest in it, according to the TRCP. In addition, grounds for disqualification are being related by marriage or blood to a certain degree to someone involved. McGaughey stepped away from the removal case against Lyde after defense attorney Randall D. Moore of Fort Worth filed a motion pushing for his recusal. Moore alleges the judge is a key witness and was a legal advisor to the sheriff, court documents show. Story continues In addition, the defense attorney sought McGaughey's recusal in the cases involving the man and woman allegedly held in jail without a finding of probable cause, contending the judge was a witness and should be disqualified. Since McGaughey bowed out of the cases, they are effectively stalled until Evans designates a new judge to sit on the bench for them. But Lyde and his attorney have not been idle ahead of the district judge's exit from his cases. Staff members put on leave Lyde put staff members on leave Jan. 19 who are involved in legal proceedings against him according to a notification letter obtained Thursday by the Times Record News. The sheriff put three peace officers and one administrative staff member on paid administrative leave to meet his bond conditions and comply with a temporary restraining order McGaughey granted in the removal case, according to the letter. Lyde is forbidden to have contact with the three women he's accused of sexually harassing and to be around their workplaces. Defense attorney Randall D. Moore of Fort Worth gives a statement after the postponement of Sheriff Jeffrey Lyde's suspension hearing Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, at the Clay County Courthouse. Attorney said move doesn't violate order But Lyde's move raises the question of whether he violated the restraining order. Moore says he did not. The order prohibits Lyde from firing, demoting, altering his staff members' pay, doing anything to impact their law-enforcement credentials or retaliating against them. McGaughey extended the order through Jan. 31 on the day Lyde was to go before him for a suspension hearing. Moore's motion pushing to remove the judge from the case scuttled that hearing. Lyde maintains innocence of official oppression charges Lyde maintains his innocence of the official oppression charges from July 2021 involving the jailed couple. His attorney contends the latest charges are politically motivated. If convicted of the class A misdemeanor of official oppression, Lyde faces up to a year in jail and a fine up to $4,000. He was free Friday on $15,000 in bonds after his Jan. 2 arrest on the latest oppression charges, according to court filings and online Clay County Jail records. The second petition for his removal was submitted by local attorney and former district judge Frank Douthitt, 97th District Attorney Casey Hall and Clay County Attorney Seth Slagle. Trish Choate, enterprise watchdog reporter for the Times Record News, covers education, courts, breaking news and more. Contact her with news tips at tchoate@gannett.com. Her Twitter handle is @Trishapedia. This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Judge McGaughey steps away from Sheriff Lyde's criminal cases Crumbl Cookies is opening a Medina location at 1126 N. Court St. on Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. National chain Crumbl Cookies is opening a location in Medina, bringing the virally popular cookies to the area just in time for Valentines Day. The locally owned and operated shop, located at 1126 N. Court St., will open at 8 a.m. Friday, Feb. 3. Flavors available at the store on opening day will be Churro, Blueberry Muffin, Chocolate Cookies & Cream, Key Lime Pie, Classic Pink Sugar and Milk Chocolate Chip. The Medina location joins the Stow location, which just opened this month at 4326 Kent Rd., Unit C300. Along with a location in Jackson Township, theyre the only Crumbl Cookies locations in the Greater Akron area (although there are several in the Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati areas). My family and I are so excited to be opening a store in Medina, store owner Nathan Tulett said in a statement. In 2021, we packed up our home in Utah, grabbed the family dog, and headed to this beautiful area of the country for a chance to experience something new and amazing. We had hoped to like it here, but have truly been blown away by how much we love the area and the amazing community that welcomed us in. Our love for cookies has provided us with a family business we couldnt be more excited about. The company said the Medina store is employing more than 60 people. Crumbl Cookies Stow:Crumbl Cookie announces opening day flavors for Stow location Nathan Tulett, pictured here with his family, is the store owner of Crumbl Cookies' new Medina location at 1126 N. Court St. The location is opening Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. Customers can order in-person during the first five business days after the opening. Starting Feb. 8, delivery, curbside pickup, catering and nationwide shipping will be available at Crumbl.com or on the Crumbl app, where customers can collect Loyalty Crumbs toward free cookies. The grand opening week menu will contain six of more than 200 weekly rotating flavors, including Milk Chocolate Chip. Other specialty flavors include Cornbread, Cookies & Cream, S'mores, Key Lime Pie, Peppermint Bark, Caramel Popcorn, Buttermilk Pancake and Galaxy Brownie. Flavors are announced weekly at 8 p.m. Sundays on Crumbls social media accounts. Story continues The store will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. It'll be closed Sundays. Crumbl was founded in 2017 in Logan, Utah, by Jason McGowan and Sawyer Hemsley and has grown from one shop to 713 locations in 47 states (none in Delaware, Rhode Island or Vermont). This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Crumbl Cookies is opening shop in Medina, OH in February By Robert Muller and Jan Lopatka PRAGUE (Reuters) - Former army chief and high NATO official Petr Pavel won the Czech Republic's presidential election on Saturday with a pledge to keep the country firmly anchored in the West and bridge society's political differences. Pavel, a 61-year-old retired general running for office for the first time, won 58.3% of the vote with all voting districts reporting final results, defeating billionaire ex-premier Andrej Babis, a dominant but polarising force in Czech politics for a decade. Pavel, a social liberal who had campaigned as an independent and gained the backing of the centre-right government, conveyed a message of unity when addressing his supporters and journalists at a Prague concert venue on Saturday as results showed he had won. "Values such as truth, dignity, respect and humility won," he said. "I am convinced that these values are shared by the vast majority of us, it is worth us trying to make them part of our lives and also return them to the Prague Castle and our politics." Pavel has also fully backed continued support for Ukraine in its defence against Russia's invasion. Czech presidents do not have many day-to-day duties but they pick prime ministers and central bank heads, have a say in foreign policy, are powerful opinion makers, and can push the government on policies. Pavel will take office in March, replacing outgoing Milos Zeman, a divisive figure himself during his two terms in office over the past decade who had backed Babis as his successor. Zeman had pushed for closer ties with Beijing and also with Moscow until Russia invaded Ukraine, and Pavel's election will mark a sharp shift. Turnout in the runoff vote that ended on Saturday was a record high 70.2%. The result of the election will only become official when published in a legal journal on Tuesday, but the outcome of the poll was already clear on Saturday. Babis, 68, a combative business magnate who heads the biggest opposition party in parliament, had attacked Pavel as the government's candidate. He sought to attract voters struggling with soaring prices by vowing to push the government do more to help them. Story continues Babis and Prime Minister Petr Fiala congratulated Pavel on his victory. Slovakia's liberal President Zuzana Caputova appeared at Pavel's headquarters to congratulate him, a demonstration of their close political positions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy congratulated Pavel on his election on Twitter and said he looked forward to close cooperation. Graphic: Czech 2023 presidential election result https://www.reuters.com/graphics/CZECH-ELECTION/xmpjklzqevr/chart.png EU AND NATO TIES Pavel has backed keeping the central European country of 10.5 million firmly in the European Union and NATO military alliance, and supports the government's continued aid to Ukraine. He supports adopting the euro, a topic that successive governments have kept on the back burner, and supports same-sex marriage and other progressive policies. A career soldier, Pavel joined the army in Communist times, was decorated with a French military cross for valour during peacekeeping in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and later rose to lead the Czech general staff and become chairman of NATO's military committee for three years before retiring in 2018. "I voted for Mr. Pavel because he is a decent and reasonable man and I think that the young generation has a future with him," said Abdulai Diop, 60, after voting in Prague on Saturday. Babis had campaigned on fears of the war in Ukraine spreading, and sought to offer to broker peace talks while suggesting Pavel, as a former soldier, could drag the Czechs into a war, a claim Pavel rejected. (Reporting by Robert Muller, Jason Hovet and Jan Lopatka; Additional reporting by Jiri Skacel and Fedja Grulovic; Editing by Hugh Lawson, David Holmes and Helen Popper) An infant who investigators say was injured by his mother and found unconscious in his Duxbury home has died, authorities announced Friday. The 8-month-old baby, Callan Clancy, was found with his two siblings, 5-year-old Cora Clancy and 3-year-old Dawson Clancy, suffering from obvious signs of trauma on Tuesday night, according to Plymouth County District Attorneys office. Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after being found while Callan was flown to a Boston hospital for further treatment. While an autopsy will determine the exact cause and manner of their deaths, Cruz said that Preliminarily, it appears the children were strangled. Lindsay Clancy, 32, is facing two counts of homicide, three counts of strangulation, and assault and battery with a deadly weapon, in the deaths of her kids. Clancy is under police custody in a Boston hospital as of Friday. The DA has not said if the charges Lindsay is facing as of Friday will be upgraded to an additional third count of homicide after announcing the death of her third child. DA: Duxbury mother under police custody for murder charges in deaths of her 2 children Police responded to 47 Summer St. around 6:15 p.m. after a man, later identified as Lindsay Clancys husband, arrived at the home and called 911 to report a womans attempted suicide. Cruz said Lindsay Clancy had jumped out of a second-story window. While an autopsy will determine the exact cause and manner of their deaths, Cruz said that Preliminarily, it appears the children were strangled. People left flowers at the end of the driveway of the Summer Street home all day. Shocked. Very shocked, said Tom McGrath, a neighbor. Several local congregations have opened their doors to offer faith and support for those who need it in the wake of this South Shore tragedy. Its almost something you cant wrap your mind around. I have kids that are the same age. It hits home, said Pastor Jeremy Stanford. Story continues Massachusetts General Hospital confirmed that Lindsay Clancy is an employee there. The hospital released a statement on Wednesday that said: We are shocked and saddened to learn of this unthinkable tragedy. We extend our deepest sympathies to all those affected by these devastating events. Cruz called the incident an unimaginable senseless tragedy and noted that it didnt happen randomly. He also acknowledged the emergency crews who first witnessed the tragic scene when they responded to the home. Im sure many of them will not forget what they saw last evening, Cruz said. Duxbury Fire Chief Rob Reardon said first responders are being offered added support during this difficult time. Tragedies like these are always difficult to comprehend and process. We may be left struggling with many emotions. Please know that all public safety personnel have been offered, and will continue to be offered, needed support, Reardon said. To all those who responded: We care about you. If you are a colleague in need of support, please reach out, Reardon said. Duxbury Town Manager Rene Read said first responders are receiving support from peer support groups within the law enforcement community. In these seemingly impossible moments, our support for them is absolutely critical, and were committed to ensuring their well-being, Read said, fighting back tears. The outpouring of support from the Duxbury community has been tremendous, Read said. Its been remarkable. The churches have all opened their doors. People just want to do something, Read said. Its tough. The Rev. Bill Ferguson from the Pilgrim Church of Duxbury told Boston 25 that eight churches from their Interfaith Council opened their doors to make sure people had a place to go. It is hitting hard. If you are a parent of a young child, even if you are not, when children are involved especially --- There is a special numbness that comes in with that, Ferguson said. Ferguson explained how some of his parishioners are first responders and there is a lot of concern for them after what they saw in the Summer Street home. We overlook the first responders and the effects these tragedies have on them when they first encounter them. I know the department has put them on leave for their own mental health to seek help, Ferguson said. Hundreds attended Thursday nights emotional candlelight vigil in Duxbury at the Holy Family Church addressing mental health. States focus on postpartum depression goes back years State troopers assigned to Cruzs office are assisting Duxbury police with the investigation. A gofundme was created for the husband and father. 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 Police in Dallas are readying for possible protests Friday night in response to the release of a video depicting the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, according to The Dallas Morning News. The video, which is scheduled to be released around 6 p.m. Friday, comes a day after five Memphis police officers were charged with murder in Nichols death. Nichols, 29, was beaten by officers during a traffic stop and died three days later, according to the Associated Press. The video of the traffic stop has already been show to the family, according to The Dallas Morning News. Its release is expected to trigger protests across the nation, including in Dallas, where organizers with Next Generation Action Network are organizing a demonstration in front of the Dallas police headquarters Friday evening. Dallas police are preparing for the protests, KXAS-TV reported. Leadership with the department said at a news conference Friday that they havent seen the video yet, but are asking for calm and peaceful protests even if the video is as violent as many expect it to be. Eddie Garcia, police chief in Dallas, said at a news conference Friday he commends the Memphis police chief for doing a remarkable job in the face of a crisis. He said the department was expedient in firing and filing charges against the officers accused of murder in Nichols death. Our badge once again has gotten tarnished, Garcia said. We stand alongside our community for justice and in frustration, and we want people to have that opportunity to vent. But do that peacefully. We arent going to tolerate lawlessness. ... We hope that doesnt happen. Garcia said hes been in contact with police departments across the nation and even in Canada expecting demonstrations when the video is released. He said his department is expecting things to go smoothly and peacefully and hopes people realize that with the officers firing and arrests that justice is being served, but they will be prepared in case demonstrations in the city become violent. No demonstrations planned in Fort Worth were immediately evident, but Fort Worth police told the Star-Telegram in a statement that the department is monitoring the situation and will be ready to respond if needed. We respect all citizens constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, the Fort Worth department said in an emailed statement. We want all voices to be heard in a safe environment. Our goal throughout this time will be to preserve peoples constitutional rights while effectively protecting people, property and maintaining public peace and order. The Philadelphia 76ers president called into radio station 97.5 The Fanatic with some choice words about the NBA's leading scorer missing out on a starting position in this season's All-Star Game. Video Transcript DARYL MOREY: Joel Embiid completely hosed once again. This time-- this time, to your point, the perpetrators of the crime were the shameless media who, most of them will recuse themselves because they don't want to vote on something that affects player's paychecks. But the shameless-- the shameless Boston media is way overrepresented. They haven't recused themselves. And they shoved Joel low enough so that he's not an All-Star starter. It's crazy. Instead of going to All-NBA and All-Star systems that would basically just put the five best people on the floor-- - Yep. DARYL MOREY: They continue to hold on to like antiquated notions of symbols that we put next to players. The league office has done a good job to get us in the position to be successful. They've made real changes. They've made the game the best it's ever been. And yet there's still-- [MUTED] --sat down in 1948 and put these position labels on people. And we're still voting on them sixty years later. It's crazy to me. The ongoing Spring Festival holiday has blown a trumpet for the nation's tourism recovery, which is witnessing a robust rebound, thanks to optimized COVID-19 control measures. Southwest China's Sichuan province said that as of Tuesday, the fourth day of the seven-day holiday,the number of visitors to its 15 attractions rated 5A China's highest ranking had hit a record high for attendance since 2020. As of Wednesday, the 15 attractions saw a year-on-year increase of about 48 percent in the number of travelers, while ticket revenue was 64 percent higher than during the same period last year. The number of visits reached its capacity at some of the province's attractions, including Mount Emei,famous for its breathtaking views, and the Sanxingdui Museum, whose exhibits showcase the nation's ancient civilization. A report from Hubei province in Central China was also encouraging. According to the province's bureau of culture and tourism, Hubei had received 17.62 million visits as of 3 pm on Tuesday, a year-on-year increase of 26 percent. Tourism-related revenue was about 9.92 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) during the four days 33.83 percent more than in the same period last year. Visitors at a museum in Guanghan, Sichuan province, take photos on Jan 24, 2023 of a gold mask discovered among the Sanxingdui Ruins. [PHOTO by LI DONG/FOR CHINA DAILY] Figures from travel agencies confirmed the boom in the tourism market during the Spring Festival holiday. Trip.com Group, for example, said that hotels, homestays and ticket bookings for tourist attractions all outperformed those in 2019- the year before COVID-19 hit in the first four days of the holiday. It also said that homestay bookings doubled in the first four days compared with the same period last year, and sales of tickets for attractions rose 50 percent year-on-year. At the holiday's halfway point,travelers began planning their return trips. Travel portal Qunar said that most of its users set their return trips for between Thursday and Jan 31, and the market will see a return-travel peak on Friday the last day of the holiday. Guo Lechun, deputy director of Qunar's big data academy, said that the number of returning travelers will surge compared with that of the early period of the Spring Festival travel rush, which started on Jan 7 and will end on Feb 15. "We estimate that the passenger volume of the year's Spring Festival travel rush will recover to 80 percent of that in 2019, which is a good start for this year's tourism industry," he said. Early on Monday, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a notice reminding travelers to protect their safety and health during holiday trips. The ministry said people should not go to dangerous areas such as riverbanks and the edges of cliffs, as well as off-limits places where safety and security cannot be guaranteed. Travelers were also encouraged to consider their own health condition when participating in high-risk recreational activities, and to prepare masks and other anti-COVID supplies. (Belinda Cape) Odele Ventimiglia, the daughter of Sopranos actor John Ventimiglia, has died at the age of 25 just three months after giving birth. Ms Ventimiglia died on 12 January and the cause of death has not been made public. Mother Belinda Cape said in a post on Facebook that the family was heartbroken. Mr Ventimiglia appeared on the HBO show between 1999 and 2007 as Artie Bucco. Heartbroken to have to post our darling Odeles funeral notice. Her sister Lucinda and I have been overwhelmed by the messages of support and love we have received, and your remembrances of how cherished Odele was to so many, Ms Cape wrote. Odele was greatly loved, and leaves a huge hole in our lives. Words will never be enough to express the grief we are all feeling. I loved my little sister a lot and I will spend the rest of my life searching for her in everything, sister Lucinda Ventimiglia wrote on Instagram. My family and I are so grateful for all the care and support we have been receiving during this impossible time. It has never been more clear how much she meant to so many people, she added. Love this picture. Thank you Lucinda, Mr Ventimiglia commented on the post. (Belinda Cape) The funeral service is set to be held at Old First Reformed Church in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday. According to social media posts by her family, Ms Ventimiglia gave birth to her daughter Shiloh in November of last year. The family organised a GoFundeMe for the child, writing: With the loss of our darling Odele, we are fundraising to help Shiloh with future education costs. As of Friday morning, it had surpassed its $50,000 goal by more than $7,000. Stevie Van Zandt, who appeared on The Sopranos alongside Mr Ventimiglia, donated $500 alongside his wife Maureen. Deepest Love and Condolences, they wrote. John Ventimiglia appears on The Sopranos on HBO (Screenshot / HBO) Ms Ventimiglia had worked as a server and host at Vekslers in Brooklyn since 2016, according to the site Harri. Her Facebook stated that she attended the Institute for Collaborative Education in New York, a school that provides job training with local employers. In addition to Artie Bucco, Mr Ventimiglia played Organized Crime Control Bureau Chief Dino Arbogast on Blue Bloods on CBS and Detective Eddy Costa on Jessica Jones produced by Disney. He also played Judge John Sirica in the Watergate drama Gaslit starring Julia Roberts. An attorney for one of the cops charged in Tyre Nichols' death said nobody "intended" for him to die. But a lawyer for the victim's family told Insider the officer's actions were "designed to harm." Prosecutors say Nichols was brutally beaten by police in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this month. A defense attorney for one of the five fired Memphis, Tennessee, police officers charged in the beating death of Tyre Nichols said the cops never "intended" for the young Black motorist to die. But a lawyer for Nichols' family said the officers' "actions were designed to kill." William Massey, an attorney for Emmitt Martin III told reporters on Thursday shortly after Martin and four other Memphis Police Department officers were indicted on second-degree murder charges that, "no one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die. No one. No one." "I would just imagine police officers have a very difficult and dangerous job, and sometimes a thankless job. And it's probably one of their worst fears that something like this would happen on their watch," Massey said. But attorneys for Nichols' family, who have already viewed the police body-camera video, said it shows the five Black officers beating Nichols like a "human pinata" for three straight minutes. Nichols family lawyer Antonio Romanucci has said Nichols was "defenseless the entire time" and told Insider on Friday ahead of the video footage's release that "When you see the video, and you see the fact that they were taking free punches and free kicks at somebody who was restrained, they knew that their actions were designed to harm." "Whether or not they knew they were going to kill him, that's not the law," said Romanucci. According to Tennessee law, second-degree murder is defined in part as "a knowing killing of another." Attorney Blake Ballin, who is representing Desmond Mills Jr. in the case, said his client was "devastated" by the charges and "to be accused of something like this hurts him on another level." Story continues "He could not be more upset about this entire situation, again, somebody who has dedicated his life to protecting society, to protecting the community to be accused of being involved in the death of another is devastating to him," Ballin said. The defense lawyers said they have not yet seen police body-camera footage of Nichols' arrest, which is set to be released to the public on Friday evening. Authorities allege 29-year-old Nichols was severely beaten by Martin, Mills, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, and Justin Smith during a traffic stop on January 7. Nichols, a father, was hospitalized in critical condition and died three days later. "Their actions were designed to harm, and [Nichols] died as a result of those actions that they took, which caused his injuries," Romanucci told Insider. "That's why second-degree murder is appropriate." Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis has called the incident "heinous, reckless and inhumane," while Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch said he was "sickened" by what the "appalling" footage shows. Mills' attorney cautioned the public to "reserve judgment" once the footage is released. "Know that there is always more to the story," Ballin said, adding, "We will do our own investigation, we will gather information from the state that's not available to the public and when it's time to defend our clients, our side of things will come out." Ballin described his client Mills as "a gentle, respectful father" and "a family man." "He has put on a strong facade, but I know underneath it all this is causing his family a lot of anxiety and a lot of pain, not only for his own situation but for what this kind of accusation, this kind of incident is doing to our city," said Ballin. Defense lawyers for Martin and Mills said they each intend to plead not guilty in the case. All five former officers who have been charged posted their bonds of either $350,000 or $250,000 and were released from jail as of Friday afternoon, records show. Read the original article on Business Insider Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., questions a witness during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing in 2022. (Bill O'Leary/Pool via Reuters) The debt ceiling is nothing more than a Washington problem at the moment, so there is lots of chatter on the topic inside the Beltway and with the exception of Wall Street mostly indifference outside it. But should Congress fail to raise the debt ceiling in the next few months, Americans wont have any choice but to snap to attention. Analysts warn that if Congress refuses to raise the ceiling and instead forces the U.S. to default on its debts, the result would be catastrophic, wiping out millions of jobs and trillions in household wealth. At that point, the national focus will bring intense pressure on members of Congress to reach a deal. This has happened a few times in the past decade. But one Democrat who was at the center of the 2011 debt ceiling showdown thinks that unlike then, this confrontation will end with Republicans getting nothing. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was a House member in 2011 and was named to a working group led by then-Vice President Joe Biden that negotiated with Republicans. The debt ceiling was then raised in exchange for $900 billion in spending cuts. But Van Hollen told Yahoo News in an interview that he believes Republicans now are too fractured and have too small a House majority to reach a unified negotiating position. From left: House Speaker John Boehner, Vice President Joe Biden, President Barack Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Oval Office in 2011 after the battle over raising the debt ceiling. (Pete Souza/Reuters) As public pressure grows to avert an economic crisis in the coming months, Van Hollen said, a handful of Republicans in swing districts will face enormous pressure to pass a clean debt limit increase, through a legislative maneuver known as a discharge petition. As we get closer and closer to this cliff, and people recognize the disaster that will be faced by the American people if we go over it, there are going to be some of those Republican members that are going to really be pushed hard to sign that discharge petition, said Van Hollen in an interview. The discharge petition allows a simple majority in the House to bring a bill to the floor for a vote, without the approval of the House speaker. Story continues Normally, the power of the speaker is the power to decide to bring up a bill or not bring up a bill, Van Hollen said. There are arcane rules around the discharge petition intended to make it difficult. Any proposal brought to the floor this way must be proposed in a committee first and must sit there without any action for 30 days. Once the petition has been signed by 218 members, it can be brought to the floor for a vote only after seven legislative days and only on a second or fourth Monday of a month, according to the Congressional Research Service. We only need a very few number of Republicans. You only need four, five to get to the majority, Van Hollen said. The dome of the U.S. Capitol is visible in a reflection on Capitol Hill. (Andrew Harnik/AP) He acknowledged that he does not know, at this moment, which Republicans might join with Democrats to pass a clean debt ceiling hike. In essence, Washington is too relaxed about the debt ceiling at this point for it to become clear which House Republicans might join Democrats to pass an increase. Because the ceiling has always been raised in the past, there is a sense of complacency among politicians and business leaders who believe the two parties will eventually reach a deal. That will change, Van Hollen argued, as time passes and the prospect of a real economic crisis looms larger. Those House members some of whom are representing districts that President Biden carried are going to be getting an earful from their constituents, their small businesses, their medium-sized businesses, their larger businesses, as to the consequences for the country of not paying our bills on time, he said. It is possible that House Republicans will figure out what they want to negotiate toward and will unify their slim majority around a clear position from which to negotiate. But at the moment, the House GOP is fractured between a multitude of voices calling for different things. Some want to cut Social Security and Medicare, while others including Speaker Kevin McCarthy say no way. Some Republicans want to cut defense spending, and others are adamantly opposed. They're going to have to get their act together beyond saying, We want budget cuts, Van Hollen said. They have to be more specific. He reiterated moments later that if Republicans want to cut spending, the place to have that discussion is part of the appropriations bills, which are part of the budget process. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at a news conference in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol. (Jose Luis Magana/AP) Matthew Yglesias, a political writer with one of the most successful Substack columns on U.S. politics, wrote Thursday that Republicans are trying to hold a negotiation about this, but they dont actually have a negotiating position. And in general, Republicans are making outlandish promises about their ability to cut federal spending or balance the budget that even conservative budget experts view as nonserious, though these same experts agree that spending, deficits and debt all badly need to be reined in. GOP rhetoric also ignores political realities. The party doesnt control the White House or the Senate, so its power is vastly limited. Republicans' motives are in question as well. The GOP increased rather than reduced spending when the party did control the presidency and both chambers of Congress from 2017 to 2019. One House Republican leader, Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, acknowledged this fact. Republicans are just as guilty [as Democrats] at spending, said Hern, chairman of the powerful Republican Study Committee (RSC), in an interview with Yahoo News. Hern said he would be releasing a letter next week laying out what the RSC, which includes 156 of the 222 House Republicans, thinks the GOP should push for in a debt ceiling negotiation. I have strong feelings on this conversation, he told Yahoo News. While I don't have the ability to be prescriptive about what the speaker puts on the floor ... I have a letter already written. I'm not out here trying to burn the place down for the sake of shutting down, not paying the debt, not sending some wrong signal to our debt holders, Hern said. A deputy accused of assaulting and injuring a defendant in the YSL RICO trial during a scuffle was fired from a local police department in 2020 after he lied about using excessive force on a suspect and failed to activate his body camera, according to state records reviewed by Channel 2 Action News. Channel 2s Michael Seiden reported that Fulton County Deputy Morris Kandakai, a member of the Scorpion Unit, has been placed on administrative duties pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation, a spokesperson confirmed in an email. This comes one day after defense attorney Angela DWilliams filed a formal complaint on behalf of Rodalius Ryan, one of the 13 co-defendants standing trial with hip-hop superstar Young Thug. My client, Rodalius Ryan Jr., was a victim of an unwarranted attack by Investigator (Morris) Kandakai, of the Scorpion Unit of the Fulton County Sheriffs Department, on January 23, 2023, DWillams wrote in the complaint. Although every deputy is equipped with a body camera, Investigator (Morris) Kandakai intentionally did not activate his body camera, while viciously attacking Mr. Ryan, he punched Mr. Ryan in the head, she wrote in the complaint. The officers attack continued, he dragged him out of the vehicle, which caused Mr. Ryans head to hit the concrete of the sidewalk and caused contusions to his body. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] In an incident report filed Monday by Kandakai, the deputy reported the scuffle took place as he was preparing to transport Ryan from the jail to the courthouse. Inmate Ryan began to spit on the rear floor of my patrol vehicle while I was sitting on the front driver side, the deputy wrote in his incident report. I then informed Inmate Ryan to stop spitting or he would have to clean up his own bodily fluids. Inmate Ryan advised, I am not cleaning up [expletive], and continued to spit, but at this time towards my direction. The deputy claims that Ryan spit in his face and he told another deputy that he was going to remove him from the vehicle to put a spit mask on him, according to the report. Story continues I walked to the rear passenger side door, opened the door and advised inmate Ryan to exit the vehicle where he ignored my order, he wrote in the incident report. I then reached inside the patrol vehicle to remove Inmate Ryan where he stiffened his body and laid out in the backseat of the patrol vehicle and flailing his legs, in a kicking motion to prevent me from removing him. I was able to physically control one of his ankles during this time and Inmate Ryan was physically extracted from the patrol vehicle and placed on the ground. Ryans attorney alleges the deputy used excessive force on her client which required medical care. He had a knot on his head, blood dripping from his wrist and finger, and scrapes on his legs, according to the complaint. Although Investigator Kandakai failed to activate his body camera, there should be a dash camera or camera on the vehicle that captured all the actions of both parties during this volatile incident. The camera footage will provide for transparency and give clarity into this incident, according to the complaint. Department policy requires all members of the Scorpion Unit to wear body cameras. The vehicle transporting Ryan from the jail to the courthouse was not equipped with a camera, a spokesperson confirmed. Hours after the incident, investigators charged Ryan with one count of simple battery and one count of willful obstruction of law enforcement officers. Ryan, who is already serving a life sentence for a 2019 murder, is standing trial after prosecutors charged him with one count of violating Georgias RICO act as part of a sweeping gang indictment filed last year. RELATED STORIES: A Channel 2 Action News investigation discovered that Morris Kandakai was hired by the Fulton County Sheriffs Office despite his troubled past. In March 2020, Kandakai was working as a police sergeant for the City of South Fulton when he was involved in the controversial arrest of a suspected shoplifter. While in the process of the subject being handcuffed, Sgt. MK (Morris Kandakai) ran up and dropped to a knee in the area of the subjects head, face and shoulder, according to a case summary submitted online to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST), the state agency charged with certifying police. Officer SF still had momentum when he dropped to a knee on the subject. The subject screamed out, my face, he just put his knee in my face! Body camera video from another officer showed Kandakais knee close to the suspects face while he was being handcuffed, according to POST records. During his interview, Kandakai told investigators that he felt the suspect was attempting to get up while another officer was attempting to handcuff him, but the arresting officer refuted that account, telling investigators that once the suspect was on the ground, he didnt show any resistance, POST records confirmed. The internal affairs investigation also determined that Kandakai did not activate his body camera during the incident. This was the second violation of department policy within a year. The first violation happened in February 2020 after he allowed a motorist to drive away in an unregistered vehicle without a valid license. The violation resulted in a two-day suspension, according to POST records. In July 2020, Kandakai was terminated from the South Fulton Police Department for violating several department policies, including truthfulness, unnecessary force, maltreatment of prisoners and camera system activation, POST records confirmed. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] POST ordered him to serve 24 months on probation, but that did not keep him out of law enforcement. In January 2021, Kandakai joined the Clayton County Sheriffs Office before submitting his resignation two months later. Two weeks later, he joined the Fulton County Sheriffs Office, according to online records. Channel 2 reached out to Fulton County, inquiring about why he was hired despite his troubled past, but a spokesperson declined to answer citing the ongoing investigation. A review of his POST profile also showed that Kandakai has been a licensed peace officer since 2012 when he joined the Atlanta Police Department before submitting his resignation in 2015 and joining the Roswell Police Department. Hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to block rogue judges pursuing bail reform, leaders of Miami-Dade Countys justice system announced they would delay new rules making it easier for people with low incomes to leave jail while they await trial. The afternoon announcement by the chief judge in Miami-Dade, Nushin Sayfie, said the rollout of the bail-reform plan expected for later this year would be shelved until the criminal-justice legislation DeSantis unveiled in his Miami speech could be considered by the Florida Legislature. DeSantis said his proposed laws would tighten the state rules for when judges could release someone from jail as they await trial. The 60-day legislative session begins March 7. Our pretrial justice improvement project focuses on public safety, and a key element of the project is that judges should be the determinants of whether or not an individual remains in jail on serious charges, Sayfie said in the statement. Since the proposed legislation also touches on release criteria for serious crimes, as well as monetary bond schedules, it is prudent to hold off on implementation pending further guidance from our state lawmakers. READ MORE: Bail system hurts Miamis poor. Controversial software could fix that but is public at risk? The statement paused a two-year effort by a committee that included representatives from Miami-Dades Corrections Department, homeless agency, and the public defender and state attorneys offices. After a story in the Miami Herald Sunday detailed the groups plans, local Republican leaders criticized the idea, culminating in traveling to Miami to promote a legislative package with tougher penalties for serious crimes. Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a press conference proposing anti-crime legislation at the Police Benevolent Association in Miami on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Asked about bail reform in Miami-Dade during a press conference after the speech, DeSantis called the concept dangerous. This package will ensure judges cant go rogue and be releasing people, DeSantis said. All of the proposals I have heard along those lines I think would be dangerous for the people of Miami-Dade. Story continues Judge: Its about risk to public vs. defendants ability to pay Sayfie, an elected judge in the state court system, has defended the bail-reform work as a way to put a persons potential risk to the public ahead of the persons ability to pay bail as the main factor in deciding who must stay in jail ahead of a criminal trial. READ MORE: DeSantis wants death penalty for child sex crimes, life sentences for candy-like fentanyl Under the current system, people charged with most crimes are eligible to leave jail before trial if they can pay bail amounts that are refunded if they appear in court. People who dont pay remain in jail, unless a judge opts to reduce or eliminate the required bail amount. The proposed system would shift to assessing a defendants risk of skipping trial or committing another crime, based on criminal backgrounds and other metrics. Sayfie said the change would mean more defendants would end up before a judge after being taken to jail because many offenses would no longer be eligible for quick release after bail payments. A persons wealth has become the primary determinant of whether they will be released or detained before trial, instead of the likelihood they will flee or pose a threat to public safety, Sayfies office said in a statement about the effort released last month. The project teams goal is and has always been to utilize evidence-based tools in order to improve public safety and ensure future court appearances, while ensuring that no one is jailed simply because they are poor. The last two months saw a campaign against the effort in some local governments. At least four municipalities passed resolutions opposing or criticizing the plan: Miami Beach, South Miami, West Miami and Doral. Kevin Cabrera, a Miami-Dade commissioner and a Republican in a non-partisan seat, said he planned to introduce a similar resolution for the County Commission, which oversees the countys jail system. I think its important for us to have a position, he said. Miami Herald staff writer Tess Riski contributed to this report A diver has been decapitated by a Great White shark in waters off of the coast of Mexico in front of shocked fishermen. In the first deadly shark attack of 2023, Manuel Lopez was diving for molluscs off of San Jose Beach in Tobari Bay on the west coast of Mexico when he was attacked by the shark on 5 January. Mr Lopez, a man in his 50s, had his head separated from his body by the 19-foot-long (5.7 metres) shark. Fisherman Jose Bernal told Tracking Sharks that Mr Lopez was diving when the animal attacked him, ripping off his head and biting both shoulders. Mr Lopez had been diving at a depth of about 59 feet (18 metres) to gather ax tripe, a scallop-like mollusc, at the bottom of the ocean when the shark struck. Mr Bernal said that several sharks had been spotted in the waters in the days leading up to the attack, adding that the fishermen had been looking out for the animals. Local divers had been warned about the presence of sharks in the area and most had not been out for several days, he said. Some people had been refraining from entering the waters due to the shark sightings. But the seafood shortage prompted demand to rise in the area, leading to Mr Lopezs decision to dive. While fishermen are able to claim a 7,200 pesos yearly stipend, its not enough when theres no income coming from the sea, Tracking Sharks reported. Mr Lopez was using a source of air from the surface, which is common in that area, which involves a compressor that pumps air to the diver via a collection of hoses connected to the diver along with ropes, with the diver often pulling the boat along the surface using their tethered supply lines, according to Tracking Sharks,. Great White Sharks can become as large as 20 feet long (6 metres) and weigh up to two tonnes, with as many as 300 serrated teeth. Having a strong sense of smell, the sharks can swim as fast as 35 mph (56 kph), usually hunting seals, sea lions, dolphins, as well as turtles. Experts say that humans may be mistaken for seals, particularly when wearing wetsuits, and attacks on humans are often seen as experimental. Sharks tend to move away after a single bite when they understand the human wasnt their intended target, but a single bite is often deadly. Great white sharks are most prevalent in the Gulf of California during December and January when pregnant female sharks enter the area, Tracking Sharks noted. The sharks will often search for fat-filled sea lions to feed upon due to their high caloric count. The Department of Justice disrupted a global ransomware gang, known as Hive, for allegedly extorting more than $100 million in ransom payments from more than 1,500 victims around the world. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed said this week that it plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) to create content. This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hills Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. Close Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Hillicon Valley newsletter DOJ dismantles ransomware gang The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it dismantled an international ransomware group responsible for extorting more than $100 million in payments from organizations based in the U.S. and around the world. The ransomware group, known as Hive, has targeted more than 1,500 victims around the world since its operation began in June 2021, the department said. At a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the group has targeted critical sectors including hospitals and schools. He noted a 2021 incident where Hive hackers deployed ransomware on computers of a hospital based in the Midwest. At a time when COVID-19 was surging in communities around the world, the Hive ransomware attack prevented the hospital from accepting any new patients, Garland said. The hospital was forced to rely on paper copies of patient information [and] was only able to recover its data after it paid a ransom, he added. Read more here. BuzzFeed to use AI for content creation News, quiz and games website BuzzFeed plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the coming months to create content, the companys top executive said this week. In a memo sent to staff, BuzzFeed Chief Executive Jonah Peretti said the company will be aiming to lead the future of AI-powered content and maximize the creativity of our writers, producers, and creators and our business. Story continues If the past 15 years of the internet have been defined by algorithmic feeds that curate and recommend content, the next 15 years will be defined by AI and data helping create, personalize, and animate the content itself, Peretti said in the memo, which was reviewed by The Hill on Thursday. Our industry will expand beyond AI-powered curation (feeds), to AI-powered creation (content). AI opens up a new era of creativity, where creative humans like us play a key role providing the ideas, cultural currency, inspired prompts, IP, and formats that come to life using the newest technologies. Read more here. Breaking down the DOJs latest Google lawsuiT The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its second lawsuit against Google this week, highlighting the ongoing bipartisan angst from regulators and lawmakers against tech giants. The Biden administrations case, joined by a handful of states, seeks to break up Google to untangle what the antitrust enforcers say is an anticompetitive dominance in the digital ad market. Google denied the allegations and argued theyre similar to ones made in a separate Texas-led case. The government faces a tough road ahead in its challenge. But it adds to the growing courtroom battles facing Google and illustrates how federal and state antitrust enforcers are plowing ahead with plans to crack down on tech giants dominance. Read more here about what to know about the lawsuit. Google lays off massage therapists More than two dozen in-house massage therapists were part of the latest round of layoffs that happened at Google last week. According to filings reported by CNBC on Tuesday, 27 in-house massage therapists were among the 1,845 employees to lose their jobs with the company in the state of California. Twenty-four of the massage therapists who lost their jobs had been based at the companys headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., while three more massage therapists employed by the company and based at the Los Angeles and Irvine, Calif. campuses were also let go. Google is one of several tech companies that have laid off thousands of employees in recent weeks. Read more here. Bits & pieces An op-ed to chew on: US cant afford to dawdle on investing in space-based solar power Notable links from around the web: TikToks New Defense in Washington: Going on the Offense (The New York Times / Cecilia Kang, Sapna Maheshwari and David McCabe) What Facebook and Trump have in common (The Washington Post / Will Oremus) Jobless claims down despite tech layoffs New first-time applications for jobless benefits fell last week, even as major technology and media companies announced thousands of layoffs, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department. In the week ending Jan. 21, initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled 186,000 after seasonal adjustments, down 6,000 from the previous weeks total of 190,000. Roughly 197,500 Americans filed to begin new cycles of jobless benefits each week over the past month, still well below pre-pandemic averages. New weekly jobless claims are not necessarily a perfect reflection of layoffs, as some Americans who have lost their jobs may not have applied yet for unemployment benefits. The thousands of layoffs announced by companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon are also relatively small in proportion to the natural churn of millions of layoffs and new hirings each year. Read more here. Thats it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hills Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. Well see you tomorrow. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Railway stations, highways and airports across China are bracing for a fresh travel peak as a growing number of travelers hit the road and return to work after a week-long Spring Festival holiday which will end on Friday. On Thursday, Beijing West Railway Station and Beijing South Railway Station, two major railway terminals in the Chinese capital, were estimated to receive 156,000 passenger arrivals and 142,000 passenger arrivals, respectively, according to Beijing Major Railway Station Areas Administration. Beijing West Railway Station is expected to see the travel peak on Saturday with more than 180,000 passenger arrivals. To ensure smooth traffic flow around the railway stations, Beijing will extend the operating time of subways and put more buses and taxis on roads, among others. "We call on taxi operators and online car-hailing platforms to send more cars around the railway stations during the recent travel rush, especially at night," said Mao Jun, deputy director of Beijing Major Railway Station Areas Administration. In central China's Hubei Province, State Grid Hubei Electric Power Co., Ltd. has done a comprehensive "physical check" for 824 charging piles in operation in the province's expressway service areas. It has also installed 18 mobile charging facilities in busy service zones. Hubei's transport authorities said it would release timely information on road conditions and weather through radios, social media platforms, and navigation software to help drivers and passengers choose trip routes. To meet the employment demand of enterprises, many Chinese provinces are using charter services to transport workers back to work. A charter flight carrying 186 migrant workers arrived at Fuzhou, the capital of east China's Fujian Province, on Thursday afternoon. Wang Mingrui, director of Fuzhou Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security, said these workers come from various places in southwest China's Yunnan Province and will work for 28 key enterprises in Fuzhou. Fuzhou will arrange nine charter flights and one charter train before Feb. 8 to help workers from provinces, including Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, return to the city. More "point-to-point" direct flights and trains will be opened to ensure smooth and safe post-holiday travel flow. After the Spring Festival holiday, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region will open 10 special trains for locals who will return to work in China's economic powerhouse Guangdong Province. Spring Festival usually sees hundreds of millions of Chinese head to their hometowns to unite with families. The annual travel rush, or "Chunyun," often puts the country's transportation system to the test. Around 2.1 billion passenger trips are expected to be made during this year's Spring Festival travel rush, between Jan. 7 and Feb. 15, according to the Ministry of Transport. A Skagit County pastor who admitted he leads a double life was arrested in January with nearly three pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine and bragged that he was a good drug dealer, according to court documents. Steve Parker, 57, was arrested January 19 in Mount Vernon after detectives with the Skagit County Interlocal Drug Enforcement Unit received information that Parker had been distributing controlled substances in Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom counties. Information provided to detectives said that Parker not only possessed firearms, but was dealing in fentanyl powder, fentanyl pills, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. According to court documents, Parker is an officer of Nest Ministries and director/officer of Omni-Mana Services that provide help to those who have had troubled pasts, addictions, or just down on their luck. With the help of ProviderOne, we are able to help find employment and low cost housing while counseling our clients through the process. Detectives determined Parker had two homes -- one on the Tulalip Reservation and another in Arlington. Parker was arrested in Mount Vernon in his 2002 Subaru, where officers found him in possession of two ounces of fentanyl powder and a loaded handgun. Deputies also noted Parker ran a live feed camera on his phone, but turned it off as they were contacting him. Parker told the deputies he was aware fentanyl was a dangerous drug. He admitted to providing Narcan to an overdose patient in the past. He told deputies he resupplied his drugs three to four times a week, from multiple sources. According to an affidavit, Parker also bragged about being a good drug dealer, adding he is good at business. He said his drug dealing has been a source of income. He said he bought the 2002 Subaru a few weeks ago. Parker reportedly bought a 2011 Mercedes and a 2007 GMC Yukon a month ago, putting those purchases in other peoples names. After a warrant was served on the Subaru, officers found over 2.7 pounds of methamphetamine, over 2,000 counterfeit pills, and another ounce of fentanyl powder and cocaine. Story continues Parker said his home in Tulalip -- where he lives with his girlfriend -- is where he conducts his criminal business. His Arlington home is where his wife and mother-in-law live, along with fourteen sex offenders, according to a sex offender database. One of the sex offenders, Raymond Joe Wagner, was sentenced in 2015 to molesting two preteen girls over the course of about three years. Detectives serving a search warrant on the Tulalip home saw several subjects flee and hide when they arrive. Detectives who searched the Arlington home confirmed none of the residents were aware of Parkers criminal activities. A total of 30 firearms were recovered at both homes. Parker is scheduled to be arraigned February 2. AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday that it is not clear whether his government will disclose the result of ongoing talks with the U.S. over new export restrictions for the semiconductor industry. U.S. officials have said they expect the Netherlands and Japan soon to adopt restrictions similar to those introduced for U.S. companies in October, aimed at hobbling China's domestic chipmaking industry. A Dutch delegation is in the U.S. on Friday for talks. Netherlands-based ASML Holding, a key supplier to chipmakers, could see at least some of its $2.4 billion in annual sales to China affected by the decision. "Those talks have been going on for a long time and we're not saying anything about it," Rutte said. "It's really in doubt that if something comes out of them, that it will be very visible. We'll have to see." Asked whether ASML would not need to be informed of the decision in order to implement new restrictions, Rutte said government communications with the company "are also private." ASML CEO Peter Wennink told Reuters on Wednesday Chinese chipmakers are already adjusting their plans to account for new restrictions seen as likely and he expects sales to China to be flat in 2023 while ASML group sales rise by 25%. Rutte's government has previously signalled it intends to reach some agreement with the U.S. over export controls, but that it will not simply adopt the U.S. rules. Rutte said on Friday the talks were ongoing with "many countries" and that they are aimed at maintaining technological leadership, and preventing "the best technology be used in defence systems where you don't want it." "But also how do you ensure at the same time that you don't damage supply lines," he said. (Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, Toby Sterling, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Editing by Louise Heavens) BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian majority-state-owned energy company Ecopetrol on Thursday said Chief Executive Felipe Bayon will leave his post on March 31, following more than five years in the position. Bayon's departure represents a shake-up for Colombia's biggest company and largest producer of oil - one of the Andean country's most important exports - during a drive by leftist President Gustavo Petro to accelerate the transition toward renewable energy. Choosing Bayon's replacement will involve a rigorous selection process by the company's board of directors, the company said in a statement. "Ecopetrol expresses its gratitude to Felipe Bayon for his management and wishes him success in his new professional projects," Ecopetrol said. According to his Linkedin, Bayon spent just over 20 years at London-listed oil giant BP before joining Ecopetrol in 2016 as executive vice president and chief operating officer. He took on the mantle of chief executive a year later and steered the company through the coronavirus pandemic and celebrated surging profits as oil prices recovered. The industry will mourn his departure amid tension between the oil sector and the government, Colombia Risk Analysis founder Sergio Guzman told Reuters "Inevitably, with Bayon's departure, the sector loses a standard bearer who was quite important," Guzman said. (Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Leslie Adler and Josie Kao) Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad (KLSE:PANAMY) as an investment opportunity by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. Our analysis will employ the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple! We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. See our latest analysis for Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad Step By Step Through The Calculation 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. A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 Levered FCF (MYR, Millions) RM67.9m RM93.0m RM118.9m RM138.9m RM156.7m RM172.5m RM186.5m RM199.0m RM210.5m RM221.3m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 16.82% Est @ 12.84% Est @ 10.05% Est @ 8.10% Est @ 6.74% Est @ 5.78% Est @ 5.11% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 12% RM60.7 RM74.4 RM85.1 RM89.0 RM89.8 RM88.4 RM85.5 RM81.7 RM77.3 RM72.7 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM805m Story continues The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. 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 3.6%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 12%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2032 (1 + g) (r g) = RM221m (1 + 3.6%) (12% 3.6%) = RM2.8b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM2.8b ( 1 + 12%)10= RM914m The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is RM1.7b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of RM23.0, the company appears about fair value at a 19% 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. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the 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 Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad 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 12%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.070. 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 Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad Strength Currently debt free. Dividends are covered by earnings and cash flows. Weakness Earnings declined over the past year. Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Consumer Durables market. Opportunity Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the Malaysian market. Current share price is below our estimate of fair value. Threat Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year. 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. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. For Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad, we've compiled three additional aspects you should assess: Risks: For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Panasonic Manufacturing Malaysia Berhad that you should be aware of before investing here. Future Earnings: How does PANAMY'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 High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Malaysian 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 The flag of Estonia Read also: Estonia donates all of its 155mm howitzers and other weapons to Ukraine Over 100 countries have signed the convention that prohibits the use of this kind of artillery shells, but neither Estonia nor Ukraine were among them. Berlin would have to give a go-ahead because the cluster shells Estonian armed forces have at their disposal were procured from Germany, which has since ceased their production. We'll have to see what agreements between our forces we reach with Ukraine, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said. Read also: Estonia greenlights new military aid package to Ukraine And we're trying to secure the various authorizations we need. And then maybe we can comment further on what we've provided and what we haven't. Should we provide them (cluster munitions to Ukraine), I don't see a problem with that on Ukrainian territory, because cluster munitions are already being used by both sides' armies on Ukrainian territory. Cluster bombs are considered dangerous particularly to civilian populations, as undetonated elements effectively become landmines, scattered across large areas. However, there were numerous cases of cluster munitions being used in the war in Ukraine. Read also: US to bolster military presence in Estonia In other words, cluster munitions aren't especially accurate weapons, Rene Vark, associate professor of international law at the University of Tartu, told ERR. Read also: Ahead of announcing tank transfers, Berlin quietly reached agreements on supplying modern versions expert They cause a lot of collateral damage. Especially when used in a populated area, the way the Russians have in Kharkiv, for example. On the other hand, using this ammunition in open terrain to suppress enemy forces could be perfectly justified, as those forces are legitimate military targets. According to Vark, given that Germany has ceased the production of this type of ammunition, Berlin could be opposed to greenlighting their re-export. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine CHICAGO The ex-wife of TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau told a Chicago federal judge Thursday she saw him handling dozens of gold bars over the course of their marriage and that shes scared for her life now that hes turned against her. Trudeau is fighting an attempt by federal regulators to have him thrown back in jail for allegedly lying about his assets in an attempt to avoid paying the whopping $37.6 million civil penalty he owes for lying about his controversial weight-loss book. Nataliya Babenko told U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman that Trudeau had gold bars in a duffel bag when they were stopped by security at OHare International Airport years ago, kept stacks of gold bars in boxes in his closet at their Oak Brook mansion, and stashed more bars in a safe at his home office in Zurich. I feel like (handling gold bars) was almost like a theme for his life ... like smoking a cigar every day, Babenko testified during a hotly contested civil contempt hearing, where Gettleman is deciding whether to throw Trudeau back in jail. Trudeau has claimed in sworn depositions that he gave gold to Babenko during their marriage, which was annulled last year. But when an attorney for the Federal Trade Commission asked her Thursday whether that happened, she answered in a flat tone, Never. She also denied Trudeaus claim that her father had threatened to kill him. Never, she said. This is outrageous. At the end of her testimony, over the strenuous objections of Trudeaus attorneys, Babenko told the judge that facing her ex-husband in court was excruciating because of what he has put her through with his lies. So much abuse, so much oppression, she said, as Trudeau sat at a defense table, looking right at her. Im very scared for my life ... from the day he has thrown me into this false narrative. Babenko is expected to give continued testimony via Zoom at a later date, when Trudeaus attorneys will get the opportunity to cross-examine her. Story continues Babenko, who was born in Ukraine and now lives in Los Angeles, was a surprise witness in a never-ending legal drama thats been unfolding in Chicagos federal courthouse since 2004, when the FTC first filed suit against Trudeau over the outrageous claims he made about what was in his book, The Weight Loss Cure They Dont Want You to Know About. More than 800,000 people bought the book that Trudeau claimed was filled with easy weight-loss techniques when it called for prescription injections of a hormone found only in pregnant women, a month of colon hydrotherapy and a 500-calorie-per-day diet. After Trudeau failed to pay a penny of the $37.6 million fine, leading to a civil contempt order by Gettleman. Separately, Trudeau, 59, was convicted by a jury in 2014 of criminal contempt for violating a consent order in which he promised to stop making the misleading ads touting the book. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman, and was released from a minimum-security federal prison camp in Alabama in January. Since his release, lawyer for the FTC have told Gettleman they believe the self-described infomercial king is still hiding potentially millions of dollars in assets overseas, and has failed to provide a detailed accounting of his assets, including any cash, gold bars, jewelry, vehicles and safe deposit boxes. At a hearing last month, FTC attorney Jonathan Cohen revealed newly discovered emails that he said show Trudeau was seeking to ship and store 300 pounds of gold bars and other precious metals in Switzerland in 2013, the same time he was crying poor to the court. In addition to the repayment of the judgment, Gettleman has also ordered Trudeau to show why he should not be held in contempt yet again for failing to report to the court when he was released from incarceration, which he had promised to do. Trudeaus attorney, Giel Stein, accused the FTC of jumping the gun, saying Trudeau is acutely aware of the consequences here and only wants to know how much he still owes so he can figure out how to begin repaying it. Meanwhile, the FTC called Babenko on Thursday, to rebut some of Trudeaus claims in his recent deposition about what he knew about any gold bars. Babenko recalled first seeing her husband with gold when they were stopped by Transportation Security Administration officers at OHare in the late 2000s. She said he also had gold bars with him when they took a later trip to Guatemala. In 2010, she said, she and Trudeau went to a Northern Trust bank branch in downtown Chicago, where Trudeau opened up two safe deposit boxes, one in his name and another, larger box in her name. She said he loaded the box with something in a private room outside her presence, then came and put the full, heavy box in the slot. I didnt know what it was for, she said. I really didnt need a safe deposit box. Court records show Babenko filed for a marriage annulment in Los Angeles last year, which was granted late last year. The basis for the annulment, she testified Thursday, was fraud on the part of Trudeau. By Maggie Fick (Reuters) - Brussels is discussing with Pfizer and BioNTech the possibility of reducing the up to 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses the EU has committed to buy this year in return for a higher price, a source with knowledge of the talks said. Also on the table is an extension of the deadline for delivery, possibly to the second half of 2024, the source said. They declined to be identified because the talks are confidential. The negotiations are ongoing, and it is not clear what the final outcome may be. The talks come amid of global glut of COVID-19 shots, and relate to the biggest contract for vaccines of all those signed by the EU while the pandemic raged. A European Commission spokesperson asked for comment on the talks called on vaccine makers to work with member states and the Commission "to ensure that the agreements reflect the changing situation". The Commission "will continue in view of adapting the supply of vaccine doses over the years to come, and to extend it over a larger time period", the spokesperson said, declining to comment on pricing or other details. A Pfizer spokesperson declined to comment on details of the discussions, but said the company has shown ongoing commitment to accommodating EU member state concerns. With regards to price, the Pfizer spokesperson said: "We have always had a tiered pricing approach for the COVID-19 vaccine, guided by agreed volumes and national income tiers, to ensure equity between agreements with countries with similar economic profiles." A BioNTech spokesperson added that their company "continue(s) to work with the European Commission and governments to find pragmatic solutions while respecting the fundamental principles agreed between the parties in concluding the agreement". GLOBAL GLUT Though the glut of vaccine is an issue worldwide, Europe is contending with a particularly big excess. Most people in the EU who wanted a primary course of the COVID-19 vaccine, and those who were later eligible for boosters, have received them. The EU's drug regulator cautioned in November that uptake of booster doses had been disappointing. Story continues In May 2021, Brussels signed a contract with Pfizer and BioNTech to buy 900 million doses, with an option for an additional 900 million doses, by the end of 2023. Around half or more of the first 900 million doses from that contract have not yet been delivered because demand dropped last year. The EU has not exercised the additional option. Some 328 million people in the EU out of a total population of around 450 million have received the primary course of a vaccine, according to Our World in Data. The talks over the unwanted doses are the latest in a series of negotiations over changes to the 2021 contract. Brussels is under pressure to cut the volume as EU member states complain of strained budgets and no desire to spend money on unneeded doses. At 19.50 euros ($21.22) in the May 2021 contract, the amount that European governments are contractually obliged to pay this year totals between 7.8 billion and 9.75 billion euros. It is unclear what the renegotiated price in Europe would be. In the United States, Pfizer is hoping to charge a list price of $110 to $130 per dose in the fall, though that price does not include discounts. EU officials have said for months that there is a mismatch between supply and demand of COVID-19 vaccines. "We are no longer at the peak of the crisis, and this directly impacts our demand for vaccines, while public finances are under great strain at this moment," EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told a European Council meeting in December. "Our vaccine contracts need to take the current situation into account, and companies should show flexibility on that," she added. Last summer, the two sides agreed to pause deliveries to give EU countries time to administer what they had received. That came after EU governments warned Pfizer and other companies that millions of doses could go to waste. In November, they signed an amendment that gave countries the ability to have doses delivered and stored in warehouses, another sign of the supply glut. ($1 = 0.9184 euros) (Reporting by Maggie Fick; Additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York and Patricia Weiss in Frankfurt; Editing by Josephine Mason and Jan Harvey) Flash "The migratory situation in the European Union (EU) is strained," the member states' justice and home affairs ministers agreed at their Council meeting on Thursday. "There is an urgent need to strengthen the external borders, increase returns, and prevent irregular migration," they said, according to a statement issued by the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU. "Difficulties in returning third country nationals who are not entitled to stay in the EU is a major challenge for many member states. Current return rates are not acceptable, and negatively affect the reception capacity, as well as the legitimacy of (the EU states') national asylum and migration systems," the statement said. The ministers agreed on the need for more effective cooperation with countries of origin, and for comprehensive migration partnerships and effective readmission agreements with third countries to prevent irregular migration and improve returns. They agreed that the EU should use both positive incentives and restrictive measures and that all relevant policy areas, such as visa policy, development cooperation, trade and diplomatic relations, must be used. The EU member states also support the introduction of restrictive visa measures in relation to third countries that do not cooperate on returns, the statement said. The two-day informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers, which also addressed the fight against organized crime in the digital age, ends on Friday. Charles F. McGonigal, who held one of the FBI's most sensitive positions, now faces criminal charges for his alleged ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch. Michael M. Santiago, Frederic Soltan, Kirill Kudryavtsev/GettyImages; Arif Qazi/Insider; One morning in October 2017, Allison Guerriero noticed something unusual on the floor of her boyfriend's Park Slope, Brooklyn, apartment: a bag full of cash. There it was, lying next to his shoes, near the futon, the kind of bag that liquor stores give out. Inside were bundles of bills, big denominations bound up with rubber bands. It didn't seem like something he should be carrying around. After all, her boyfriend, Charles F. McGonigal, held one of the most senior and sensitive positions in the FBI. "Where the fuck is this from?" she asked. "Oh, you remember that baseball game?" McGonigal replied, according to Guerriero's recollection. "I made a bet and won." McGonigal had two high-school-age children and a wife or "ex-wife" as he sometimes referred to her back at home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He would return there once or twice a month. But McGonigal had led Guerriero to believe that he was either divorced or soon would be. She didn't question his story, nor did she question the story about the bag full of cash. A few days before, Guerriero had sat on the couch with McGonigal in the one-room garden sublet to watch McGonigal's Cleveland Indians beat the Yankees. Much later after Guerriero's cancer diagnosis, their breakup, and McGonigal's retirement from the FBI McGonigal would be indicted on suspicion of, among other things, accepting $225,000 in cash from a former employee of Albania's intelligence agency. That total includes one $80,000 chunk that was allegedly handed over in a parked car, outside a restaurant, on October 5, 2017. October 5 and 6 also happened to be the days when the Indians beat the Yankees in the first two games of the American League Division Series. Today, Guerriero no longer believes the bag of cash contained winnings from a sports bet. One of McGonigal's attorneys, Seth DuCharme, declined to comment. Guerriero was 44 when they met, a former substitute kindergarten teacher who volunteered for law-enforcement causes and was working as a contractor for a security company while living at home with her father. McGonigal, then 49 years old, had just started his new job at the FBI's New York office. Story continues Guerriero says their affair lasted for a little more than a year. McGonigal's Brooklyn sublet may have been modest, but he lived large. He courted Guerriero at high-end restaurants. He would give her gifts of cash $500 or $1,000 for her birthday and for Christmas. He once joked about framing his divorce papers for her, as a Christmas gift, but those papers never materialized. He took her to watch New Jersey Devils hockey games in a private box. She recalls that McGonigal once gave a hundred-dollar bill to a panhandler on the street. "I'm a little better off than him. I can spare a hundred dollars," Guerriero remembers McGonigal saying, after she expressed astonishment. That day in October wasn't the only time that Guerriero remembers McGonigal carrying large amounts of cash. After he brushed her curiosity aside, she tempered her suspicions. She told herself it was probably "buy money" for a sting operation, or a payoff for one of McGonigal's informants. She had dated federal law-enforcement officials before. She knew not to ask too many questions about work. "Charlie McGonigal knew everybody in the national security and law-enforcement world," Guerriero said, in an interview with Insider. "He fooled them all. So why should I feel bad that he was able to deceive me?" The dual indictments lodged against McGonigal earlier this week in New York and Washington, DC, are the culmination of a grand-jury investigation that Insider exclusively reported on last year, and they lay out breathtaking allegations of subterfuge and corruption. But Guerriero says that McGonigal's deceptions extended beyond his duties as a counterintelligence chief and into their personal life. Two sources who knew both McGonigal and Guerriero in New York told Insider that they believed Guerriero's account of the relationship, including her claim that McGonigal had led Guerriero to believe that he was effectively single. And Guerriero's father told Insider that McGonigal would regularly drive to his house, where Guerriero lived, to pick her up. "I was deceived about it," Guerriero's father said. "He seemed to be a straight shooter. If I'd had known he was married, I would have said something." Federal prosecutors charged McGonigal with money laundering and making false statements in his mandatory employee disclosures to the FBI. He was also charged with taking money from a representative of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who McGonigal had once himself investigated, in violation of US economic sanctions against Russia; the indictment alleges that Deripaska paid him to investigate a rival oligarch. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. McGonigal was not an ordinary FBI agent. He led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning as well as a search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA. While working at FBI headquarters in Washington, he played a role in opening the investigation into the Trump campaign's Russia contacts that was later dubbed Operation Crossfire Hurricane. But it was McGonigal's final FBI job, special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the FBI's New York field office, that was his most important assignment at the bureau. It was his job to find enemy spies and recruit his own. "New York City is a global center for espionage and counterespionage," says one senior law-enforcement insider who was closely familiar with the specifics of McGonigal's role. "You have visits from foreign business elites and politicians. You have the United Nations. You have ethnic populations. Who runs the pitches to recruit spies from all those other countries? The FBI. So the access you get in that job is extraordinary. It's almost bottomless. So if you're running FBI counterintelligence in New York, you can get your hands on almost anything you want, and you don't always have to make excuses for why you're asking for it." The impact of the McGonigal indictments is still rippling out through the law-enforcement world. The charges accuse an official at the heart of the Trump-Russia investigation of secretly selling his own access, accepting bundles of cash in surreptitious meetings with someone who had ties to Albanian intelligence. McGonigal, a top-tier member of the city's law-enforcement community, a man who had fully integrated himself into a powerful circle of trust where favors get swapped and sensitive intelligence gets circulated, is accused of himself being on the take. If the indictments are correct, McGonigal was leading a dangerous double life, right under the noses of some of the sharpest cops in America. But what might be most striking about the case against McGonigal is how cheaply he is alleged to have rented out his law-enforcement powers. One indictment suggests that for $225,000, McGonigal's associates got him to lobby the Albanian prime minister about the awarding of oil-field drilling licenses and then open an FBI investigation connected to a US citizen who had lobbied for one of the prime minister's political opponents. Arranging a meeting for an executive from a Bosnian pharmaceutical company with a US official at the United Nations was said to be a pricier item $500,000, one indictment claims. It is unclear whether that money ever materialized. In September 2018, McGonigal left the FBI to work as a vice president at Brookfield Properties, a multibillion-dollar real-estate company. His salary there was most likely higher than what he made inside the government, but it wasn't anywhere near the C-suite or oligarch-scale money that courses through New York's penthouse condos and boardrooms. One law-enforcement source estimated that McGonigal stood to make roughly $300,000 to $350,000 a year, including annual bonuses. "He said he needed to make more money," said Guerriero, who was still in the relationship with McGonigal when he left the FBI. "He had two kids to put through college." The value that McGonigal is accused of providing his access and his pull are clear from the indictments. One of them alleges that he arranged for the daughter of a foreign contact, a college student, to get a VIP tour from the New York City Police Department. The indictment identifies that foreign contact as "Agent-1," an agent of the Russian oligarch Deripaska, former Russian diplomat, and rumored Russian intelligence officer. That description matches Evgeny Fokin, who works for En+, a Deripaska-owned energy company, and was already linked to McGonigal and an associate in a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing from November 2021. Agent-1's identity remains unconfirmed. Neither Fokin nor En+ responded to requests for comment. A person familiar with the NYPD's arrangement said the daughter was a guest, not an intern. She didn't have independent access to police facilities, they said, and was given no work to do. Guerriero recalls McGonigal using the FBI's resources for their relationship. Once, they had sex in an SUV that she understood to be federal government property. After she was found to have breast cancer, Guerriero recalls, McGonigal would occasionally send a junior agent in an FBI sedan to give her rides from New Jersey to her cousin's apartment in New York. Despite the ongoing deception about his marital status, McGonigal was "caring, loving, and concerned" during the period of her illness, she says. In late 2018, McGonigal and Guerriero broke up. She remembers receiving an anonymous and hostile note in the mail. Soon after, McGonigal told her he was still married and had no plans to divorce his wife. "I was shocked," she said. "I was very much in love with him, and I was so hurt." She started drinking heavily to cope. A few months later, Guerriero, after a bout of drinking, dashed off an angry email to William Sweeney, who was in charge of the FBI's New York City bureau, and who, she recalls, had first introduced her to McGonigal. She remembers telling Sweeney in the email that he should look into their extramarital affair, and also McGonigal's dealings in Albania. McGonigal had already befriended Albania's prime minister and traveled to the country extensively, dealings that would appear later in one of his indictments. Guerriero told Insider that she had deleted the email. Sweeney didn't reply to a request for comment made through Sweeney's current employer, Citigroup. Insider couldn't confirm that Guerriero had sent the email or that Sweeney had received it. Regardless, by November 2021, the FBI was looking into McGonigal. Two agents showed up at Guerriero's door, she says, showed her a picture of McGonigal with the Albanian prime minister, and interviewed her about their interactions. She also received a grand-jury subpoena requesting all of her communications with McGonigal as well as information about any "payments or gifts" he may have given her. Guerriero acknowledges that the combination of her alcohol abuse and her health problems led to some extreme behavior, including her sending hostile emails to McGonigal's family, the contents of which she says she cannot recall. "I really did go overboard," she said. "I harassed them. I'm not going to deny that. I was horrible to them." By her own account, Guerriero contacted one of McGonigal's children despite being prohibited from doing so by a court order, an incident that led to her spending the night in a New Jersey jail. The court order stemmed from a 2019 police report, obtained by Insider, that McGonigal's wife, Pamela, filed with the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland. The report states that McGonigal and Guerriero "had a relationship" and that Guerriero had repeatedly harassed her with unwelcome emails and phone calls including 20 calls in one day despite her asking Guerriero to stop. Guerriero confirmed that her contact with the McGonigal family led to a separate restraining order issued in New Jersey. "I am ashamed and embarrassed and sorry for my actions during the time that I was drinking," she said. Allison Guerriero knew Rudy Giuliani from law-enforcement circles. Giuliani let her stay in a guest room at his residence after Guerriero's father's house caught fire in 2021. Allison Guerriero Guerriero's troubles worsened in early 2021, when she was badly burned during a fire at her father's house. She asked friends for help through a GoFundMe. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City, whom she knew from law-enforcement circles, let her stay in a guest bedroom. Since then, Guerriero has been a frequent on-air caller for Giuliani's radio shows. She maintains that the 2020 election was marred by widespread voter fraud, a belief pushed by Giuliani that has been repeatedly debunked. "Whatever Giuliani says about the 2020 election is what I believe," she said. During her relationship with McGonigal, Guerriero says, they never talked about politics. "I thought he was apolitical," he said, "which is something I continue to believe." The FBI declined to address the specifics of Guerriero's story. Instead, it sent a statement from Director Christopher Wray, who said the FBI holds employees to "the highest standard" and treats everyone equally, "even when it is one of our own." Insider spoke with three of McGonigal's former law-enforcement colleagues who expressed shock about the indictments. "It's heartbreaking," said one, who had worked alongside McGonigal at the FBI. "This is an incredible organization filled with truly dedicated men and women. This sets our image and reputation back." Guerriero's father said his view of the FBI had already been tarnished by the way that McGonigal treated his daughter. "I've always had huge admiration for the FBI," he said. "I idealized the agents that I saw in the movies. I thought these people were gods, that they never did anything wrong. It was so disappointing." He did say, however, that McGonigal had called him after the relationship ended to apologize for his behavior, and that he had accepted McGonigal's apology. Mattathias Schwartz is a senior correspondent at Insider and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. He can be reached at mschwartz@insider.com and schwartz79@protonmail.com. Read the original article on Business Insider Residents of Memphis and Shelby County have the right to have their voices heard in the wake of horrific tragedy, but they should do it peacefully, said Shelby County Commission Chairman Mickell Lowery. "Seeing the video first-hand, it's horrendous," he said. "But what we're asking people to do, what Tyre's mother has asked....is to let your voices be heard in a peaceful manner." Multiple Shelby County commissioners gathered Friday ahead of the release of a video expected to show the beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died three days after a Jan. 7 traffic stop by the Memphis Police Department. Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who is running for Memphis mayor, Memphis NAACP President Van Turner, also a mayoral candidate, State Sen. London Lamar, State Rep. G.A. Hardaway and Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy were also in attendance. The death of Nichols, who died Jan. 10, is under investigation and has led to the firing, arrests and indictments of five Memphis police officers. Former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills, Jr. are charged with one count of second-degree murder, aggravated assault-acting in concert, aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct and one count of official oppression, court records show. Lowery said conversations need to be had about law enforcement culture and our city. Lets be a model for the nation, because eyes are on Memphis today, he added. Lamar said "it was heartbreaking to see a mother have to grieve in front of the whole world" and that she never wanted to see that happen again. That means tearing down a culture of police brutality," she said. Bonner said his 88-year-old father, a former MPD officer, called him crying about what happened to Nichols. We cannot condone this, we do not condone this, Bonner says. SCORPION unit questions Activists and Nichols' family called earlier Friday for the disbandment of the MPD unit called SCORPION, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, that some of the officers belonged to. Story continues Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland on Friday afternoon said the SCORPION unit is inactive and has been inactive since this event happened. At the Friday press conference, Bonner said he didn't think it was an appropriate time to talk about what mayoral candidates would do with the SCORPION unit if elected. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis said Wednesday night more officers are under investigation in addition to the five charged, though she didn't specify how many or the nature of the policy violations. In addition, a Memphis Fire Department spokeswoman said Monday two Memphis Firefighters involved in the initial care of Nichols were "relieved of duty" pending the outcome of an internal investigation. The unit focuses on preventing auto theft and gang-related violence and was structured to have some coordination with the Multi-Agency Gang Unit. Davis has also announced an independent review of all of the departments specialized units. Katherine Burgess covers county government and religion. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Tyre Nichols death: Shelby County officials call for peaceful protests With authorities set to release body camera video Friday afternoon showing the events leading to the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man allegedly beaten by five police officers earlier this month following a traffic stop, Nichols parents are calling for peaceful protest demonstrations. Nichols who was raised in Sacramento and still has family in the area was severely injured during the Jan. 7 confrontation with the five officers in Memphis, Tennessee. Nichols died of his injuries Jan. 10 at a hospital. Prosecutors on Thursday announced that the five involved officers, all of whom are Black, were arrested and charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault and other crimes. All five Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith were fired by the Memphis Police Department last week. This combo of booking images provided by the Shelby County Sheriffs Office shows, from left, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. The five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop, records showed Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (Shelby County Sheriffs Office via AP) The family is very satisfied with the process, with the police chief, the D.A. they acted very, very quickly in this case, Nichols father, Rodney Wells, said during a Friday morning news conference led by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and Memphis-area community leaders. We are very, very pleased with that. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis in a Wednesday statement called the incident heinous, reckless, and inhumane, and said body camera video would be made publicly available in an effort to be transparent. The Police Department is expected to release video from the incident around 4 p.m. Pacific time. We want peace. We do not want any type of uproar, Wells said during the live-streamed news conference. We do not want any type of disturbance. We want peaceful protests. Thats what the family wants. Thats what the community wants. Attorneys for the Nichols family and some family members have already viewed the footage. Ive never seen the video, but what Ive heard is very horrific, said RowVaughn Wells, Nichols mother. I just want to ask for prayer for my family and this whole community. Story continues RowVaugn Wells, second from left, becomes emotional during a press conference at Mt. Olive Cathedral CME Church after she viewed footage of the violent police interaction that led to the death of her son Tyre Nichols Memphis, TN on January 23, 2023. Brandon Dill for The Washington Post via Getty Images Family members of Tyre Nichols, including sister Keyana Dixon, right, stand with Betty Williams, left, president of the greater Sacramento branch of the NAACP, along with other organizations, during a press conference at City Hall on Friday for the killing of former Sacramento resident Tyre Nichols. Nichols died on Jan. 10 after being beaten by Memphis law enforcement officers. When we look at how fast the police chief and police department terminated them, and we look at how swiftly the district attorney filed charges against them in less than 20 days, Crump said during Fridays news conference, then we want to proclaim that this is the blueprint, going forward, for any time any officers whether they be Black or white will be held accountable. No longer can you tell us we have to wait 6 months to a year. Crump also called for the creation of Tyres Law, creating a duty for officers to intervene when a crime is being committed. I want to say to the five police officers who murdered my son: You also disgraced your own families, RowVaughn Wells said Friday. Im going to pray for you and your families, because at the end of the day, this shouldnt have happened. Rev. Andre E Johnson, of the Gifts of Life Ministries, preaches at a candlelight vigil for Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers, in Memphis, Tenn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. Behind at left are Tyres mother RowVaughn Wells and his stepfather Rodney Wells. Sacramento community, activists respond Nichols moved from Sacramento to Memphis in 2020. According to Sacramento community activist and Voice of the Youth founder Berry Accius, Nichols made the move to be closer to his mother. The NAACPs Greater Sacramento chapter plans a news conference Friday at 2:30 p.m., ahead of the video release, near Sacramento City Hall. The (Greater Sacramento) NAACP applauds the Memphis District Attorney and police chief for swiftly investigating, arresting, and charging the officers related to this heinous act, the chapter said in a news release. However, we continue to watch closely to see whether these standards of civil servant accountability are applied consistently across racial lines in the U.S. Sacramento became a national focal point of protests and calls for law enforcement reform after the fatal police shooting of 22-year-old Stephon Clark in March 2018. Musaqoi Young, of Sacramento, and others hold up their cell phones to honor Stephon Clark during a rally with his brother Stevante Clark in front of City Hall on Monday, June 1, 2020, in Sacramento after days of heated demonstrations to protest the death of George Floyd, who was killed by police in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Young, who said sheis been with Black Lives Matter for four days, said people need to unite to fight against corrupt police in Sacramento ibecause theyire killing us like we donit matter, they treat us like weire cattle,i she said, iwe need to stop this.i The California National Guard was called in and citywide curfew implemented, while the looting by divergent groups and use of force from police that marked earlier days was largely absent. Californias capital city also was the site of weeks of large protests in the summer of 2020. Hundreds of thousands nationwide outraged over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police marched in the streets demanding an end to systemic racism and police excessive force. Friends and family members of Nichols in the Sacramento area are planning a candlelight vigil Monday evening at Regency Parks skate park near Bridgecross Drive and Lazzini Way in North Natomas. Nichols was an avid skateboarder. At least three men have been arrested in a murder-for-hire plot allegedly sponsored by Iran that targeted a U.S. journalist and human rights activist who is a prominent critic of Tehran, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday. All three of the defendants are expected to stand trial, Garland added, with two of the men in U.S. custody and a third awaiting extradition, though he did not say from where. These charges arise out of an ongoing investigation into the government of Irans efforts to assassinate, on U.S. soil, a journalist, author and human rights activist who is a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin, Garland said during a press conference. While Garland did not name the victim, it is believed to be Masih Alinejad, a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic who was earlier the target of a kidnapping plot that was disrupted by the FBI and revealed in an unsealed indictment in July 2021. Alinejad on Friday identified herself as the victim of the murder-for-hire plot, writing and posting a video on Twitter that she met with 12 FBI agents in New York where she learned that the three men were arrested. This is the face of a person who was the target of an assassination plot, Alinejad said in the video. Let me make it clear, I am not scared for my life because I knew that killing, assassinating, hanging, torturing, raping is in the DNA in the Islamic Republic. Thats why I came to the United States of America to practice my right, my freedom of expression to give voice of brave people of Iran to say no to Islamic Republic. Garland detailed the plot laid out in the indictment alleging that individuals in Iran tasked Rafat Amirov with carrying out the murder-for-hire plot, with Amirov described as a member of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran. He is expected to be presented in federal court in New York later today. Two other individuals, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev, are alleged to have been directed by Amirov to carry out the murder plot against Alinejad. Story continues Mehdiyev has been in U.S. custody since July 2022 when he was arrested near the victims home in Brooklyn, New York with an assault rifle, two ammunition magazines, and approximately 66 rounds of ammunition, Garland said. The U.S. alleges that Mehdiyev was working from instructions by Omarov, who is in the custody of foreign partners, Garland said, pending extradition to the United States. National security advisor Jake Sullivan released a statement Friday responding to the unsealed indictment. While it did not name Alinejad, he has previously met with the human rights activist and spoke with her by phone in July following Mehdiyevs arrest near her home. Sullivan said in his statement that the Justice Departments indictment follows a disturbing pattern of Iranian Government-sponsored efforts to kill, torture, and intimidate into silence activists for speaking out for the fundamental rights and freedoms of Iranians around the world. Let there be no mistake: The United States will not allow Iran or other authoritarian regimes to export efforts to stifle peaceful dissent through threats and intimidation against those living lawfully in our country, Sullivan continued. And we will hold those involved in such activities accountable under the law, just as we are doing today, he continued. The government of Iran is also reported to be targeting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, who served as special envoy for Iran during the Trump administration and continue to receive government protection. Updated at 1:14 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The American Red Cross brought a bloodmobile to Adams Rite Aerospace in Fullerton, CA on Thursday, January 20, 2022. Photo by Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images) The FDA is reportedly set to ease blood donation restrictions on men who have sex with men. According to The Washington Post, the agency is set to announce changes in the coming days. Gay and bisexual men who are in monogamous relationships will soon be able to give blood. The Food and Drug Administration is set to relax blood donation restrictions for gay and bisexual men after years of barring many of them from giving blood, The Washington Post reported Thursday. An unnamed official familiar with the matter told the outlet that queer men in monogamous relationships will soon be able to donate blood, even if they haven't abstained from sex for several months, ending a decades-long policy born of the AIDS crisis. The anticipated easing comes as blood banks and LGBT organizations have pushed for a more equal policy in recent years, with the American Medical Association calling the ban "discriminatory" in January 2022. The FDA did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment and confirmation. The anonymous source told The Post the new limitations are meant to keep the blood supply free of HIV by focusing more stringently on sexual behavior as opposed to a person's gender or orientation. The FDA eased restrictions in April 2020, soon after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing men who have sex with men to donate blood as long as they had abstained from sex with other men for three months, citing an "urgent and immediate need for blood." The 2020 update overrode a 2015 amendment that limited donations to men who hadn't had sex with a man for a year. Men who are now eligible to donate blood will likely have to wait until the end of 2023 to do so, according to The Post, as the FDA makes final changes after a period of public comment. Despite media reports on the likely changes, some LGBT advocates are waiting to celebrate until they see the new guidance themselves. Cole Williams, 22, a nursing and political science student at the University of Cincinnati and the founder of Pride and Plasma, told Insider he would welcome any decreases in discriminatory policies but hoped changes would focus on more individualized risks, including the type of sex in which donors are engaging instead of a blanket adjustment to the existing gendered policy. Story continues "Any step forward with less restrictive policies is a win," he said. "But I don't expect the policy will be completely gone away." "HIV is not a disease that only targets the queer community and queer men. Anyone can have it," Williams added. "So saying a heterosexual individual is completely free from the risk while all queer people are subject to high risk, that's just not accurate science." Read the original article on Insider BEIJING (Reuters) - Five Chinese citizens were among the victims in a shooting in the California town of Half Moon Bay, the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco said. The Half Moon Bay shooting on Monday, in which seven people died, was the second of two gun rampages in California in recent days in which a total of 18 people were killed. "The Consulate General is in communication with the relevant U.S. authorities to follow up on the progress of the investigation," a spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the Consulate General strongly condemned the violence. Chunli Zhao, a Chinese citizen and 66-year-old immigrant farm worker, was the lone suspect in the massacre at two mushroom farms in the northern California seaside town. He was formally presented with seven counts of murder and a single count of attempted murder during his first court appearance in nearby Redwood City on Wednesday. (Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Robert Birsel) Rep. Cory Mills. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Florida congressman Cory Mills gifted his colleagues inert grenades. The grenades, Mills said, were made for an MK19 grenade launcher. "These are manufactured in the Sunshine State and first developed in the Vietnam War," Mills wrote. A GOP congressman from Florida gifted his colleagues inert 40mm grenades to celebrate being named to the House Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs Committees. Rep. Cory Mills on January 20 sent a letter welcoming his colleagues "to a mission-oriented 118th Congress," along with a dummy grenade. Mills said he was "eager to get to work for the American people" and was honored to serve on the committees. "In that spirit, it is my pleasure to give you a 40mm grenade, made for an MK19 grenade launcher," Mills wrote. 'These are manufactured in the Sunshine State and first developed in the Vietnam War." The letter to his colleagues assured them in a postscript that "these Florida manufactured 40mm grenades are inert." Mills' letter was posted to Twitter on Thursday by Daily Mail reporter Morgan Phillips. "Per the letter, the grenades are inert, and were cleared through all security metrics," Mills' spokesman Juan Ayala said in an email to The Washington Post. "I just wish they tagged our official account." It's unclear how many grenades Mills gifted to his colleagues. Representatives for the congressman did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Mills, a congressman backed by former President Donald Trump, in November won his seat in Florida's 7th Congressional district. In May, Mills bragged about supplying law enforcement agencies with tear gas used against Black Lives Matter protesters. Mills has also parroted Trump's claims that the election was rigged, per the Orlando Sentinel. Read the original article on Business Insider You are here: World Flash A U.S. military operation killed a number of Islamic State (ISIS) members in Somalia on Wednesday, including a key leader of the extremist group, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Thursday. Among those killed was Bilal-al-Sudani, "an ISIS leader in Somalia and a key facilitator for ISIS's global network," said Austin in a statement. "Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group's operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan," he said. Authorized by President Joe Biden, the operation was carried out in northern Somalia and caused no civilian deaths, the statement added. Wayne Hibbs III testifies during his second-degree murder trial on Thursday at the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach. Hibbs was found not guilty. A sex offender on trial for murder testified Thursday that he did not kill his roommate at a motel that specializes in housing sex offenders and sexual predators west of Daytona Beach. A few hours later, Wayne B. Hibbs III sat next to his attorney, Assistant Public Defender John Selden, as the jurys verdict was read: not guilty of second-degree murder. Shortly after, Hibbs appeared to be wiping his face around his eyes. The jury of five women and one man took about 90 minutes to reach its verdict. Jurors declined comment as they left the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach. Hibbs, 55, was released from the Volusia County Branch Jail at 9:21 p.m. Thursday, according to jail records. Marc W. Pinder, 69, was found dead three years ago in room No. 2 at the Speedway Motel, 3753 W. International Speedway, near Daytona Beach. The motel for years has housed people convicted of sex crimes. It is currently home to 19 sex offenders and 12 sexual predators, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcements website. Death at sex offender motel:Dead man at sex-offender motel identified, case investigated as homicide Death investigation:Man found dead at Daytona-area motel for sex offenders Hibbs pleaded no contest in 2002 in Volusia County to lewd or lascivious exhibition with a victim under 16 by an offender 18 or over, and lewd and lascivious conduct. Hibbs was adjudicated guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by 15 years' probation. Pinder was convicted in Orange County in 2012 of five charges: lewd, lascivious battery, sex with victim 12 to 15 years of age; procuring a person under 18 years of age for prostitution; soliciting or attempting to solicit a child for sex/lewdness; traveling to meet a minor to commit unlawful sexual offense; and lewd, lascivious battery with a victim 12 to 15 years of age, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcements sex offender website. After their release from prison, both men wound up in room No. 2 at the motel. Story continues And while jurors were informed that the men had been in some kind of facility before their move to the motel, they were not told the two were sex offenders. Hibbs denies being the killer Wayne Hibbs III after he was found not guilty Thursday in the murder of his roommate at a motel housing sex offenders west of Daytona Beach. Probation officers went to the motel Feb. 28, 2020, to check on Pinder when he did not respond to their calls. When Pinder, who was on oxygen, did not answer his door, another motel resident opened the unit and entered the room. Pinder was found face up in bed, a bloody pillow covered his head. His skull had been bashed in. The murder weapon was a blood-stained 15-pound dumbbell. Hibbs testified during the trial, saying he was not responsible for the death. Selden asked Hibbs about a couple of elephants in the room. "Did you kill Marc Pinder? Selden asked. I did not, HIbbs said. Did you cause any harm to Marc Pinder at all? Selden asked. Hibbs said he did not. Hibbs would turn to the jury at times as he testified. Hibbs spoke softly and was at times difficult to hear in the gallery. A dead man's car Wayne Hibbs III during his trial on a charge of second-degree murder in the killing of his roommate at a motel housing sex offenders near Daytona Beach. Hibbs was found not guilty. During cross examination, Assistant State Attorney Mark Interlicchio said the medical examiner stated that Pinder died in the early morning hours. "He was alive when I left," Hibbs said. "He was alive when you left. When you left with his phone, his bankcard and his car," Interlicchio said. Hibbs said that he left the motel room that day to go to work. He took Pinders car because Pinder asked him to change the tires on the car. Pinder was hoping to get permission from his probation officers to drive out of state for a funeral and he wanted the car ready. Hibbs said he found out Pinder was dead when another motel resident called his work. Hibbs voluntarily spoke to detectives about the case and was not arrested at that point. But he said later he worried that he had become a suspect. He said he cut off his ankle monitor and fled and hoped that the real killer was captured. During closing arguments, Interlicchio said that Hibbs was behind on rent. Interlicchio said there were no signs of forced entry into the room. And he said that Pinder was surprised during the attack and did not have any defensive wounds. Interlicchio said Pinder had planned to go to his girlfriend's house that morning, and questioned why would he tell Hibbs to take his car. Selden said during his closing argument that Hibbs did not act like a killer. He said it didnt make sense that Hibbs would kill Pinder and then take Pinders car and go to work as if nothing had happened. He said if Hibbs had been the killer, it made more sense that he would have immediately cut off his ankle monitor, got in the car and driven far away. Selden also disputed that Pinder died in the early morning, saying that a first responder did not find signs of rigor mortis, for example. And he said that Pinder could have changed his mind about visiting his girlfriend and had planned to tell her, but he died before he had the chance. This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Man found not guilty of killing roommate at Florida sex offender motel San Francisco Superior Court Dramatic body-cam footage of the infamous hammer attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosis husband Paul Pelosi was finally made public Friday, shedding more light on what happened last October. The clip was filmed by an officer who first responded to the violent break-in at the Pelosis San Francisco mansion. Warning: the footage below is graphic #EXCLUSIVE Just released police body camera video shows moments David DePape attacked Paul Pelosi at his# San Francisco home WARNING: VIDEO IS GRAPHIC#PaulPelosi #BREAKING@Nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/rQZriBvOCm Bigad Shaban (@BigadShaban) January 27, 2023 The four-minute 911 call made by Mr. Pelosi, security video of the break-in, and a portion of an interview between alleged attacker David DePape and investigators were also expected to be released Friday. The release came after media organizations argued in court that the recordings should be available to the publican argument Judge Stephen Murphy of the San Francisco Superior Court sided with Wednesday. Both prosecutors and Adam Lipson, the attorney representing DePape, argued against the release, citing fears the footage would propagate conspiracy theories or affect DePapes chances of a fair trial. David DePape, center, pictured at the wedding of nudist activist Gypsy Taub in 2013. Michael Short/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Cops say the Oct. 28 attack on Mr. Pelosi, 82, was carried out by DePape, a hemp jewelry maker-turned-carpenter and COVID conspiracist who is nearly half Mr. Pelosis age. Local prosecutors alleged in prior court filings that DePape snuck into the Pelosis house just after 2:30 a.m. and confronted Mr. Pelosi in his bedroom, demanding: Wheres Nancy? Wheres Nancy? He then threatened to tie up Mr. Pelosi after he tried to escape by elevator, telling him, I can take you out, the filing said. Story continues Audio from Pelosis 911 call and a clip of body-cam footage was played in court last month. In the call, Mr. Pelosi can be heard saying, Theres a gentleman here waiting for my wife to come back, Nancy Pelosi. I dont know who he is Seconds later, another voice comes in on the call: My names David. An officers body-cam captured him arriving at the scene. The officer could be heard asking DePape whats going on, to which he responded, Everythings good. The officer asked DePape to drop a hammer he and Mr. Pelosi were both holding, but DePape replied, Uh, nope. Moments later, the footage captured DePape pull the hammer from Mr. Pelosis grasp and strike him with it repeatedly. The officer quickly tackled DePape as Mr. Pelosi laid unconscious on the ground. The officer, Kyle Cagney, testified in December that the ordeal happened in a matter of seconds. Paul Pelosi attends an event in December, two months after the violent break-in. Tom Williams/Getty Images Prosecutors allege that Nancy Pelosi was DePapes primary target, citing his alleged confession that he planned to break 'her kneecaps because she was leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party. As news of the attack spread, unfounded conspiracies about what happened ran rampant, including from Elon Musk and Donald Trump,who speculated the attack was a set-up, orchestrated to make the conservatives look bad as DePapes public persona was far-right. Conspiracist Jim Hofts junk news site, The Gateway Pundit, claimed in since-deleted stories that DePape and Mr. Pelosi were lovers who got into a fight, a nonsensical theory also shared in a quickly-deleted tweet by Musk just days after he took over Twitter. On a personal blog uncovered by The Daily Beast, DePape, who once lived with a famous Bay Area nude activist and battled drug issues, shared a series of extreme right-wing opinions and parroted QAnon conspiracy talking points. Pelosis injuries required surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands, Nancy Pelosis spokesman Drew Hammill said in November. Pelosi told CNN last week that her husband is doing OK, but it would still take a little while for him to be back to normal. DePape has pleaded not guilty to six charges brought by the San Francisco District Attorneys office, including attempted murder, and he faces a parallel proceeding in federal court. He faces life in prison if convicted of all charges. 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. MANY FARMS June Marie Wauneka was determined to tell Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs about the trauma of attending a Kayenta boarding school when she was a child. Wauneka drove to Arizona in from Cedar City, Utah, and stayed with her niece, Lynette Willie, in Window Rock so they could both attend Haaland's "Road to Healing" tour at the Many Farms High School School gymnasium Sunday. Willie had never really heard her aunt's stories, so along with Haaland, Hobbs, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland and Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, she listened to what Wauneka went through. We had our hair cut. My grandma had taught us to have long hair and take care of it but it was cut off and that was the biggest thing that I thought was wrong, Wauneka said, recalling her and her three sisters' arrival at boarding school. We couldnt talk Navajo to each other. We were forbidden to say Navajo words, and when we did, they got the soap and washed out our mouths. Wauneka was one of several former students speaking at the event. Two days earlier, Haaland, Newland, and Hobbs stopped at the Gila Crossing Community School on the Gila River Indian Community south of Phoenix to hear other boarding school stories. Haaland is traveling around the country where boarding schools were located to gather oral testimonies from students about the treatment they endured at the schools and the long-term suffering it caused. Previous stops have been in South Dakota, Oklahoma and Michigan. There were about 47 boarding schools in Arizona, with two of them in Many Farms, a community near Chinle on the Navajo Nation. Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty greets one of the people at a listening session in Many Farms. Her grandmother had attended a boarding school, the focus of the day's discussions. Enduring punishment as her friends watched After she was forced to eat food shes never had before, such as sauerkraut, fighting off bullies, getting punished by dorm maids and being told she was "naughty," Wauneka said she and her friends ran away from the dorm. A couple of my friends ran away to home, said Wauneka. They found us and brought us back. The last time we ran away we were punished. They had us stand in line, put out our hands and they wanted to know who was the one that planned to run away. We all stood there and didn't want to tell on one another. We stood there and they had a big, long ruler and kept on hitting our hands. Story continues She told herself shed taken beatings and whippings from her grandpa when he was drunk, and she knew she could endure this kind of punishment. As the other students started to cry, they were told to sit down, but Wauneka stood defiantly and took the whippings until her hands bled. I said 'I can do this. I can take this,' said Wauneka Sunday, as her voice began to crack with emotion. Pretty soon it was hurting so bad, the kids were saying Come on. Come on. Please sit down. So finally I did. There were about 367 government-funded, and often church-run, Indian boarding schools across the U.S. in the 1800s and 1900s, according to the National Native American Boarding School Coalition. Children were forcibly abducted by government agents and sent to schools hundreds of miles away. When Wauneka told members of the Paiute tribe, who live near her in Cedar City, that she would be attending the healing tour, they told her their own stories, hoping she could relay it for them to Haaland. She told the people there that she was coming here today, and some of the Paiutes got together and told her their stories, Willie told Haaland. She has 19 brothers and sisters, and a lot of her siblings went, my aunts and uncles began to talk about it. I think just you being here initiating that has started that road for them to share that. I haven't heard these things from her and when I did, I wept, because she was just a child. 'Road to Healing':Interior Secretary Deb Haaland hears from Indian boarding school survivors in Arizona Forced to leave home for boarding school Eleanor Smith attended a boarding school in Teec Nos Pos and her parents met at Chemawa Indian School in Oregon. She came to Many Farms on Sunday to tell her story to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Eleanor Smith said she was there to be a voice for her mother, Marie Peterson. Peterson grew up in Black Mesa, in a traditional Navajo home. Her family lived in a hogan, and as a child she was taught to run toward the east in the morning and say her morning prayers while giving an offering of corn pollen from the pollen pouch she carried. But that changed when she was around 8 or 9, Smith said. A black car with a big white star on the side of it and a big truck came to the family's hogan to take Peterson and her siblings away to boarding school. It was the BIA, said Smith. They were there to basically round up Navajo children to take to the boarding schools. The family, not knowing hardly a word of English, and the Navajo police officer was there to interpret to my grandparents, that you have to put your fingerprint on this document to send your kids away to boarding school. If you dont, you will be arrested. With no other option, Smith said her grandparents placed their fingerprints on the document to allow for their children to be torn away from their parents. I can just imagine the trauma that they had to go through, said Smith, as she tried holding back tears telling her moms story. Not knowing a word of English, yet forced to speak it. Not knowing a foreign culture, yet having to conform to it. They were loaded up into the truck and they were taken away, crying, screaming for their parents. She said they just held each other. There were cousins in that truck also, and they just all held onto each other. Her mom, now in her 80s, was taken to Albuquerque Indian School. Once they arrived at the school, Peterson, like Wauneka, had her hair chopped off after they were checked for lice. In our Navajo culture we are taught that your hair is part of your spirit and body, said Smith. They held it as sacred, but yet their hair was chopped. They had no control. Their corn pollen pouches were taken away and thrown in the trash. Eleanor Smith tells the story of her mother's time at a boarding school, during the Road to Healing tour at Many Farms on the Navajo Nation. It wasnt long after that Peterson contracted tuberculosis and was taken to a sanatorium in Santa Fe, where she had to have surgery to remove part of her lung. She stayed in Santa Fe for the entire school year. The following year, she and her siblings decided to be taken to another boarding school so they could stay together. They went to Chemawa Indian School in Oregon, a school that dates to the 1870s and currently is the oldest, continuously operated boarding school for Native American students in the United States. Boarding school was made to be more vocational, said Smith, whose parents both met at Chemawa Indian School. It was not to prepare them for college. My mom was trained to be a maid basically, and my dad did construction work. My dad helped build the Space Needle. My mom was working for a lawyer and a doctor couple, she helped raise their child. Curriculums within Indian boarding schools changed throughout the decades. It began with an emphasis on agriculture from 1879 to 1910, vocational education from 1910 to 1960, academia from 1960 to 1990, and reform and college preparation in the 1990s. Cultural programming generally was limited until the 1960s, when many tribes began to oversee the school, according to the Heard Museum in Phoenix. In Cove: Parents want a decision about plans to replace a Navajo school near old uranium mines 'I still spoke Navajo' Determined to strip the Native identity away from Native children, the students were forbidden to speak their own language. Today, the ramifications to this are evident with the decline in fluent Navajo speakers. Ernest Dick from Rough Rock stood next to Haaland and Newland and said he wished he could tell his story of his time in a Rough Rock boarding school to them in Navajo. You lose the meaning in Navajo to English, it makes it hard, said Dick, a former Navajo language and culture teacher. I went to school with my sister. They said once we were in the building that's it, my parents didn't have control. It was very uncomfortable. When you talked in Navajo they washed your mouth out with yellow soap with a brush. But I still spoke Navajo. Dick disliked the food that was given. He referred to peas as gah bi chaa (rabbit poop). Milk was usually spoiled, but they still had to drink it, Dick remembered. Inside the dorms where he lived the conditions were bad, with no running water, and no restroom, forcing students to use buckets. The treatment and abuse the students endured was bad, but what made it worse was those who were inflicting this treatment were Navajo workers. Smith also touched on this in her testimony about her own time at a boarding school in Teec Nos Pos, where the dorm maid had been abusive and would humiliate and shame Smith. They are our people, said Dick. Who trained them to treat us like that? It was real cruel. Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty also attended and listened to the stories, and after each person spoke, she went over to greet them. Crottys grandmother is a product of boarding schools, a personal story that Crotty didn't really want to elaborate on. She said as a family they have been focused on helping her grandmother heal from the experience. "We are making sure we are creating safe spaces, because most of these survivors are our parents or grandparents," said Crotty. "And they were always shamed and blamed not to say anything. When we talk about intergenerational trauma we have to dissect it." Crotty's mom, well known Navajo quilter Susan Hudson, has used her artistry through quilt making to tell about the boarding school experiences of her mom, Crotty's grandmother. One of the quilts on the topic currently can be viewed at the Heard Museum's "Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories" exhibit. As a Navajo lawmaker, Crotty can use her position to address the issue and figure out how she can change policy, she said. After the Navajo people endured being rounded up, taken prisoner and forced to march to Bosque Redondo in what is known as the Long Walk, they were held captive in an internment camp. After four years, the prisoners were set free after they signed the Treaty of 1868. The treaty mandated that Navajo children between the ages 6 and 16 would be sent to school. It also stated that for every 30 children, a teacher and schoolhouse would furnished and the teacher would "reside among the Indians" to teach English education. "My great grandfather came back from the Long Walk," said Willie. "When they were coming back they thought they were going home. But they separated the children from their family at Fort Wingate, and immediately took the children, and my great grandpa went. He thought he was going to go home. But he said it was a lie, 'we didn't get to go home. We didn't get to celebrate. We didn't even go through cleansing ceremonies.' These are some of things that happened and that is when the legacy of boarding school started." Arlyssa Becenti covers Indigenous affairs for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send ideas and tips to arlyssa.becenti@arizonarepublic.com. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Deb Haaland hears stories of mistreatment at boardingg schools A Fresno woman who worked for the Internal Revenue Service was convicted in federal court Thursday for multiple crimes related to a years-long fraud scheme. Deena Vang Lee, who was originally indicted in 2019, was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, five counts of preparing and presenting false and fraudulent returns, and three counts of making and subscribing a false and fraudulent tax return, the Justice Department said in a statement Friday. The jury found that this defendant, who operated a tax preparation business, willfully prepared and filed tax returns for her clients that were false and under reported her own taxable income, said U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert. In evidence presented at trial, Lee was accused of using her role as a tax preparer to put false information on customers tax returns without their knowledge or consent. She then submitted those returns to the IRS. This happened over a period from 2012-2016 during which she also obtained the identification of multiple individuals and falsely listed them as child care providers on tax returns without their knowledge or consent. From 2013 to 2015, Lee also under-reported her own income related to her tax preparation services. Taxpayers put trust in tax preparers to prepare their tax returns in accordance with the law. It is unacceptable for tax preparers to break this confidence by submitting fraudulent returns in their clients names, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, J. Russell George, said in the release. Lee is set for sentencing May 8, when she faces a maximum of 20 years (and a $250,000 fine) for the wire fraud counts and three years (and $250,0000) for the counts related to preparing and presenting false returns and making and subscribing a false tax return counts. There is also a minimum mandatory sentence of two consecutive years for the aggravated identity theft counts. A former downtown State College business owner who pepper-sprayed at least three police officers during the violent January 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to more than six years in prison. Julian E. Khater, 33, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan to 80 months in prison. He received credit for 22 1/2 months served since his March 2021 arrest and was also fined $10,000, The Washington Post reported. The sentence which is less than the 7 1/2 years federal prosecutors asked for is one of the longest handed down for any Capitol rioter. Khater, who owned Frutta Bowls until it closed in May 2020, pleaded guilty in September to two felony counts of assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon. That includes Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after defending the Capitol. The medical examiners office in Washington, D.C., ruled in April 2021 that Sicknick, 42, had two strokes and died of natural causes. Neither Khater nor George Tanios a West Virginia man who pleaded guilty to misdemeanors for conspiring with Khater were charged in Sicknicks death. The case against them has been among the most prominent brought by the Justice Department, which is prosecuting hundreds of people from nearly every state for their conduct at the Capitol. Sicknick and other officers were standing guard behind metal bicycle racks as the mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Khater, a federal prosecutor wrote in a sentencing memo to Hogan, pepper-sprayed the officers for nearly 30 seconds. The attack, prosecutors wrote, contributed to the collapse of the police line. Sicknicks mother, two older brothers, sister-in-law and longtime partner each authored a letter to Hogan. Each honored Sicknick and lambasted Khater. Gladys Sicknick, his mother, wrote Khater is center stage in our recurring nightmare. I dont know what kind of upbringing you had, what might have happened in your childhood that contributed to your deluded sense of right and wrong. If I were your mother, Id be embarrassed to have a son like you. I couldnt bear to look at you ever again, she wrote. ... Lawlessness, misplaced loyalty, and hate killed my son and I hope you are haunted by your crimes behind bars. Whatever jail time you receive is not enough. Story continues Craig Sicknick, his brother, wondered if Khater thought he would be rewarded for his idiotic efforts. He remembered his younger brother as a gentle soul who chose the path of protecting others. Your actions that day led to the death of my kid brother, who was by any measure more of man than you will ever hope to be, he wrote. Kenneth Sicknick described his brother as a hero, one that was humble and cared deeply about helping others in need. The only thing that surpasses my anger is my sadness. Sadness that the only time I can communicate with Brian is to speak into the nothingness and hope that he is listening. I am sad that I am now hyper aware regarding my surroundings hoping to see signs that he is still here, he wrote. A price on a receipt with his badge number, a cardinal showing up at random, a blue and black butterfly that flies across my path. I stop when I see these things. I listen, I remember (and) I hope that he is OK because I know that myself and my family are not. Nicholle Sicknick, his sister-in-law, wrote her memories are now drowned in rage and sadness and terror and tears. Sandra Garza, Sicknicks partner of more than a decade, described him as a wonderful, warmhearted and caring person. She filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month against Trump, Khater and Tanios. After his death, which was so public, not one single person had anything negative to say about him, Garza wrote. Thats why it hurts me so much that defendants Tanios and Khater assaulted him. Had they gotten to know him, they would have liked him, and that is why its very sad and very painful for me to accept what they did. Khaters attorneys Joseph Tacopina and Chad Seigel painted his actions as a fleeting and impulsive response to a moment of hysteria fueled by his preexisting diagnosed anxiety coupled with the potent influence of a mob mentality. More than a dozen people wrote a letter in support of Khater. Julian Khater did not plan his assault. He did not belong to some militia or extremist organization. He did not enter the Capitol building. He did not brag on social media or elsewhere about his conduct. He did not urge others to engage in violence. He did not engage in political rhetoric justifying his actions, his attorneys wrote. ... He acted momentarily, impulsively and aberrantly in the heat of the moment, fueled by his anxiety and extremely stressful circumstances. The longest prison sentence for a Capitol rioter so far is 10 years. As sunlight leaked on Thursday morning through window blinds on the second floor of the U.S. District Court building in Fort Worth, the discussion was of the tumult that resulted when aircraft were thrust into a Southeast Asian sea and an Ethiopian field. Thirteen people who are relatives of victims of Boeing 737 Max crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 told Judge Reed OConnor of memories they held and of plans that were upended by the catastrophes. They relayed the various purposes of the victims travel and the broader purposes of their lives. All 189 passengers and crew on board the first flight, Lion Air 610, died. In the second flight, Ethiopian Airlines 302, all 157 passengers and crew on board died. Several victim representatives described sleep disrupted by thoughts of the experience of rushing to death inside a plane falling out of the sky. After recounting biography and grief, many of the relatives turned to their assessment of a deferred prosecution agreement between federal prosecutors and The Boeing Company. The relatives said that the agreement, under which Boeing will pay about $2.5 billion in a criminal penalty, compensation payments to Boeings 737 MAX airline customers and to a crash-victim beneficiaries fund, was crafted without consulting them. It falls short of holding accountable a company that they allege was motivated by greed. Paul Kiernan told OConnor that he had lost his soulmate. Our future together will never happen, Kiernan said of his partner, Joanna Toole. Toole and the other victims were the human cost in what he said was Boeings calculation that passenger safety was inferior to its own interests. The deferred prosecution agreement is not justice because it was never intended to be justice, said Kiernan, who is from Ireland. They knew, Kiernan said of Boeing, and did nothing. Clariss Moore, right, holds Paul Njoroges arm following an arraignment involving Boeing on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. They both lost family members in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plane crash in 2019. Numerous family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted the company immunity from criminal prosecution. The agreement was reached in January 2001, when the U.S. Department of Justice charged Boeing with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Such agreements often call for prosecutors to seek the dismissal of a charge when the terms of the agreement are satisfied. The matter was filed In the Northern District of Texas because the fraud at least in part occurred in the district. Story continues Boeing admitted that two of its 737 MAX flight technical pilots deceived the Federal Aviation Administrations aircraft evaluation group about an important aircraft part known as MCAS that affected the flight control system of the Boeing 737 MAX. Because of the deception, a key document published by the FAA lacked information about the part, and in turn, airplane manuals and pilot-training materials for U.S.-based airlines lacked information about it, the U.S. Attorneys Office in Dallas has said. In November 2016, two of Boeings 737 MAX flight technical pilots discovered information about an important change to the control system part. Rather than sharing information about this change with the FAA, Boeing concealed the information and deceived the FAA about the part. Victim representatives on Thursday repeatedly criticized the deferred prosecution agreement at an initial appearance hearing that OConnor ordered last week. Zipporah Kuria, a London resident whose father, Joseph Kuria, died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said outside the courthouse that it had been disappointing to hear Boeing and the Justice Department sing from the same script during arguments on conditions of release. Zipporah Kuria walks into the Fort Worth federal courthouse while holding a photograph of her father, Joseph Kuria Waithaka, on Thursday, January 26, 2023. Kurias father was one of the 346 people killed in two plane crashes involving a Boeing 737 MAX. She and other family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted them immunity from criminal prosecution. Paul Cassell, an attorney for the victims relatives, sought three such conditions. A standard requirement that the defendant not commit new federal, state or local crimes; a monitor to evaluate Boeings agreement compliance; and the public release of the substance of Boeings agreement compliance efforts. Lorinda Laryea, the principal deputy chief of the U.S. Department of Justice criminal fraud section, argued that the second and third conditions were unprecedented, unnecessary and inappropriate. Indeed, as they developed the agreement, fraud section prosecutors determined that an independent compliance monitor was unnecessary. Benjamin Hatch, a Boeing attorney, said that agreement compliance was a matter of regular discussion with prosecutors. The company pleaded not guilty. OConnor ordered a condition prohibiting the company from committing a new crime, and said he would later issue an order on the other conditions. The families have challenged elements of the agreement and have sought an order from OConnor that would rescind its immunity provision. The victim representatives assert that the agreement violates the Crime Victims Rights Act because prosecutors did not confer with victims relatives before entering into it. OConnor interrupted Catherine Berthet, the second victim representative to speak at the arraignment hearing, to ask how much remained of her lengthy statement on her daughter, Camille Geoffroy. Ill give you one more minute, so wrap it up, OConnor said. When Berthet continued beyond the limit, OConnor again interrupted and she briefly insisted on continuing. Please. maam, step on back, the judge instructed. Paul Njoroge, who lost multiple family members in a plane crash involving a Boeing 737 MAX, speaks to the media following an arraignment at the federal courthouse in Fort Worth on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at the federal court in Fort Worth. He and other family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted them immunity from criminal prosecution. Paul Njoroges three children, wife and mother-in-law died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. The question that always lingers on my mind is why did the Department of Justice try to protect Boeing? the Canadian man said in an interview with reporters outside the courthouse. Nadia Millerson, the mother of Samya Stumo who was killed in one of the two plane crashes involving a Boeing 737 MAX, unfurls a banner with photographs of some of the victims following an arraignment at the federal courthouse in Fort Worth on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at the federal court in Fort Worth. She and other family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted them immunity from criminal prosecution. Benjamin Hall, the Fox News foreign correspondent who was seriously injured during a Russian bomb blast in Ukraine last year, returned to the air Thursday with a vivid description of the explosion, which killed cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova. Everything went dark following the detonation of two bombs nearby, Hall said on Fox & Friends in his first appearance on the network since the March attack near Kyiv. Reading an excerpt from his upcoming memoir, the London-based father of three recalled hearing what he believed to be his young daughters urging him to get out of the car he was inside. Hall crawled out of the vehicle just before it was struck by a third projectile, he said. Severely injured but still alive, he sat and talked with Zakrzewski for 40 minutes before the cameraman died. Ive got one leg. Ive got no feet. I see through one eye. Ive got one workable hand. I was burned all over, said Hall. And I feel stronger. I feel more confident than I ever have, he added, crediting his recovery to a military medical facility in Texas, where he was rebuilt. Saved: A War Reporters Mission To Make It Home is scheduled for release on March 14, the first anniversary of the tragedy. Watch the conversation here: Related... A Leclerc tank at a training area in Sissonne, France in November 2012. FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP via Getty Images Western countries have committed to provide dozens of tanks to Ukraine in recent weeks. France is also considering sending its Leclerc tanks to Ukraine. Some French officials are worried that their tanks would create new logistical problems for Kyiv. With several Western nations already pledging tanks for Ukraine, speculation is mounting that France may send its Leclerc main battle tanks. But French defense officials question how useful the Leclerc would be, as Ukrainians already face the challenge of incorporating multiple Western tanks, including the US's M1 Abrams, Britain's Challenger 2, and Germany's Leopard 2. These designs are more complex than the Soviet- and Russian-designed tanks that Ukraine had before the war, thus requiring Ukrainian crews to learn new equipment, tactics, and maintenance. Those concerns appear to trump previous worries that supplying tanks to Ukraine could inflame disputes within NATO or provoke Russian retaliation. "There's no political objection," a French defense official told news service Agence France-Presse this week. "We are just wondering whether the Leclerc would be a poisoned chalice. The aim is to be useful and effective." A Leclerc tank on the Champs-Elysees during the Bastille Day parade on July 14, 2018. LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images Ukraine would beg to differ. Desperate for any tanks they can get, Ukrainian troops would gladly take the Leclerc, one of the more advanced tanks in the world. Designed for speed and firepower, the Leclerc can use its French-designed 120 mm smoothbore cannon and advanced sensors to engage targets while on the move. The latest version of the Leclerc can reach a speed of 50 mph and destroy a target as far as 2.5 miles away, the commander of a French tank regiment told Le Monde. As with other French weapons through the years, the Leclerc is a little different than its foreign counterparts. Weighing in at around 57 tons, it is smaller and lighter than the 80-ton M1A3 Abrams, the 64-ton Challenger 2, and the 62-ton Leopard 2. It is probably less well armored than a late-model Abrams or Challenger 2, though it does mount Explosive Reactive Armor charges to deflect anti-tank rounds. Story continues Also unusual is that the Leclerc only has a three-person crew rather than the four typical in Western tanks. (Russia tanks such as the T-72 and T-90 have a crew of three.) The Leclerc, as well as Russian tanks, use an autoloader to feed shells into the cannon. While this allows the vehicle to be smaller, the autoloader is more vulnerable to malfunction. It also means one less crewman to stand watch and perform maintenance, which leads to more work for the three-person crew. A French Leclerc tank during an exercise in Germany in November 2019. US Army/Pfc. Michael Ybarra Assessing the performance of the Leclerc is somewhat difficult given the tank's limited combat record. It first entered French service in 1991, when it was considered the most expensive tank in the world, which may have hampered its export prospects. Other than France, only the United Arab Emirates purchased the Leclerc (some of which it later donated to Jordan). The UAE operates 258 vehicles, some of which saw combat when it intervened in Yemen's civil war. Some claim it performed better than the M1 Abrams tanks that Saudi Arabia has used in that conflict. Some 862 Leclercs were built before production ceased in 2008: France operates 222, and 50 of those were recently slated for upgrade to the XLR version. The Leclerc's lighter weight may make it more maneuverable than the other Western tanks headed to Ukraine. On the other hand, yet another tank model means the Ukrainian army will have to deal with yet another set of tactical and logistical changes. If France only sends a small number of tanks just as Britain is only sending 14 Challenger 2s then it would require a lot of overhead for a relatively small combat capability. French troops and Leclerc tanks in Mitrovica, in what is now Kosovo, in June 1999. Patrick AVENTURIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Also significant is that unlike the Abrams and Leopard 2, there are only three nations that operate the Leclerc. Should problems arise with French deliveries, Ukraine would have difficulty finding other sources of vehicles and spare parts. Nonetheless, the Leclerc would be a formidable and probably superior opponent of Russian tanks such as the T-72 and T-90. At the least, France would be giving Ukraine a real tank. The AMX-10RC, which France recently pledged to Ukraine, has been called a "light tank." In reality, it's an armored car with a big cannon but light armor, and it isn't designed for slugging it out with enemy tanks. France has also sent Caesar self-propelled 155 mm howitzers, as well as Crotale mobile anti-aircraft missiles. Ukraine may also receive the more advanced French-Italian SAMP-T/Mamba air-defense system. But other than Rafale jet fighters, the most powerful weapon symbolically and militarily that France could provide would be Leclerc tanks. Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn. Read the original article on Business Insider Franklin Borough's volunteer fire chief has been suspended from his duties after he was arrested last week for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend and destroying her apartment, later fleeing the home in the borough-issued chief's pickup truck, police said. Khyle Conklin, 28, who has served as the borough's top firefighter since 2020, had allegedly been drinking before a midnight dispute with the woman turned physical and he struck her in the face and head, at one point slamming her head against the interior of the apartment, police said. Conklin purportedly also "threw items" around the home and punched the bed frame, breaking it. Conklin, who police said drove to the fire department after the incident to switch out the department truck for his own vehicle, was later taken into custody by Ogdensburg police officers. He was charged by Franklin Borough police on a summons complaint with simple assault, a disorderly persons offense. The Franklin Borough Fire Department Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2019. Conklin did not respond to several requests for comment. In Franklin, as is common in several towns, the firehouse, grounds, fire trucks, including the chief's truck, and equipment are owned by the municipality. The fire department operates as its own entity with its own bylaws and procedures, such as handling disciplinary matters. Borough code states that the mayor and council approve the department's rules and regulations, which are governed by the fire department. Conklin is to have no active duties in the fire department pending the resolution of his case, Fred Babcock Jr., the fire department's president, told the New Jersey Herald on Friday. Michael Raperto, the current deputy chief, will serve in the top spot, added Babcock, who served as chief for several years before Conklin took the helm in 2020. He did not wish to provide further comment stating it was an internal issue. Franklin Mayor John Sowden and John Postas, council president, did not respond to requests for comment. John Ursin, the borough attorney, said Thursday evening to not expect a response from township officials, only stating "The Borough has no comment." Story continues Police say the woman called 911 on Jan. 19 to report Conklin was hitting her and a dispatcher advised the couple to separate from one another while Franklin officers were en route to the apartment, records show. The woman told the first responding officer Sgt. Robert VanderPloeg, who is also the affiant on police records, that Conklin had "rocked" her a slang term used to describe someone having been "beaten up" and that she had head and face pain, records show. Conklin, police said, had already left the home before they arrived driving what the victim said was the chief's fire truck. Officers found the truck, but not Conklin, at the fire department and were notified Conklin had likely driven his personal vehicle from the department. Nearby agencies were advised to stop and hold Conklin, who was found a short time later by patrols in Ogdensburg and he was placed in custody without incident, police said. Conklin admitted to police that earlier in the evening he had been at the fire department and drinking alcohol at Brick & Brew, a bar and grill in the borough, VanderPloeg said by phone on Thursday. The police report indicates Conklin "appeared to be under the influence at the time of the offense" and further states that "at the time of arrest he was under the influence." He was not charged with drinking and driving, which VanderPloeg said he determined was not at play. NJ newsHe found an enemy soldier's diary after a Vietnam War battle. Now he seeks its owner Conklin was not operating his vehicle when Ogdensburg patrol officers found him prior to handing over custody to Franklin officers, VanderPloeg said. Alcohol was noted in the report because of the woman's statements and Conklin's own admissions he had been drinking, VanderPloeg said, but Conklin did not appear impaired at the scene. "If alcohol is at all at play, regardless of degree of impairment or whether or not he is intoxicated in the eye of the law, I would still put alcohol (in the report) because he had consumed that evening," VanderPloeg said. State statute permits an individual to ingest some alcohol before they reach the .08% legal blood alcohol concentration limit when it is illegal to drink and drive, he added. VanderPloeg said based on his interaction with Conklin that evening, there were no physical manifestations of impairment or alcohol consumption, meaning Conklin had not, for example, been swaying or slurring his speech nor did he smell of alcohol. While in custody, Conklin, who had dried blood on his hands, admitted he struck the woman but said he did so in self-defense and that he had been struck in the face by the woman, records show. Police said Conklin did not exhibit any signs of injury nor did he complain of pain. The woman was treated at the scene by members of the Wallkill Valley First Aid Squad, but she declined further care at the hospital, the arrest record states. She declined a temporary restraining order, VanderPloeg said. It was believed that the woman told Conklin she was ending their relationship or their relationship had recently ended and the victim indicated that "alcohol consumption did not play a role in the incident," police wrote. Conklin was 18 years old when he first became a firefighter in the borough in December 2012. He served as captain in 2017 and 2018 and assistant chief in 2019 before taking over the top spot. The Franklin Borough Fire Department seen in January 2019. The chief and its officers are elected by the volunteer members at the start of each year. The department has upwards of 30 unpaid members that cover fires, accidents and emergency calls within a roughly 4.4-square-mile radius that houses nearly 5,000 people. Gregory Mueller, Sussex County's first assistant prosecutor, said his office was unaware of the incident until the New Jersey Herald contacted them this week. He obtained the investigation reports and reviewed it Thursday. "It does appear with regard to the criminal charge it is appropriate, however, the matter is under review by our office," Mueller said. Conklin's charges were filed in the Franklin Borough Municipal Court, but the case was transferred to Hardyston Municipal Court due to a conflict of interest, with his first appearance scheduled for Feb. 1, according to the court administrator. He faces a maximum six months in jail if convicted on the charge. Lori Comstock can be reached on Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH, on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/LoriComstockNJH or by phone: 973-383-1194. This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Franklin NJ fire chief arrested, accused of assaulting woman Flash The Chinese Consulate-General in San Francisco confirmed on Thursday that five Chinese citizens were among the seven farmworkers killed in two related shootings in the coastal city of Half Moon Bay, California, just south of San Francisco. "We strongly condemn this incident of gun violence, and express our deep condolences to the victims and sincere condolences to the injured," spokesperson for the consulate-general said in a release. The spokesperson added that the consulate-general is currently in communication with relevant U.S. departments to follow up on the investigation, while providing assistance to the family of the victims. The shootings took place at a California mushroom farm and a nearby site on Monday. According to local sheriffs, the attack was a "workplace violence incident." The suspect had been arrested. Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost has partnered with two other first-term Democrats to demand a briefing on mass shootings in America. >>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<< A mass shooting is defined as one in which at least four people are struck by gunfire in the attack, not counting the shooter. READ: Past presidents, vice presidents asked to check for classified records Less than a month into 2023, there have been 39 such shootings in the United States taking place across 18 states, according to the gun violence archive. In total, 70 people have lost their lives and another 167 have been injured. In the letter addressed to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Frost, Jared Moskowitz, and New York Congressman Dan Goldman request a classified briefing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other relevant agencies on the problem. We came together to say, hey, lets give members of Congress the information they need, Frost said. Lets have a briefing on mass shootings, how theyre impacting communities, the lives being lost. READ: Tyre Nichols death: 5 fired Memphis police officers charged with murder Frost says the briefing is needed to provide Congress the insight they need to develop solutions. We need hard data, but we also need to look at the root causes, Frost said. Theres so much information that comes out after these shootings, and a lot of times its misinformation. Frost says, for him, its important to collect as much data as possible on shootings, including demographic information, the guns that are used, and the laws in the individual states where mass shootings have taken place. The goal, he says, is to enact legislation that will make a difference. A lot of times youll hear people when theres a mass shooting in a state that has good regulation on ending gun violence, folks will say it had good regulations and didnt stop it, Frost explained. However, what they dont say is that we dont have federal laws, and what we need is federal laws that will help end gun violenceuniversal background checks, etcetera, so we need that data, and we need that briefing so folks know how gun violence impacts individual districts. Story continues READ: Push to ban rent control measures in Florida gains traction Frost, Moskowitz, and Goldman are all Democrats serving their first terms in Congress. Frost says its important to him that they also get Republicans on board. Weve received a positive response, even walking on the floor hearing folks, Frost said. We havent gotten a response from the speaker yet. Read the full letter below: Briefing on Mass Shootings by Charles Frazier on Scribd 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. Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty With a new George Santos revelation seeming to drop every day, the congressman looks as if hes trying to prevent at least one thing from leaking: his Spotify account. Santos appears to have taken unusual countermeasures to conceal his Spotifya seemingly innocuous piece of his digital footprint that would only disclose that he is a fan of Brazilian music, enjoys tunes by drag queens, and gives his playlists cringey names like Vibes and Turn Up. The Daily Beast reached out to Santos multiple times this week asking if the account was his. Santos at first didnt respondand then denied having a Spotify at all. But within hours after the first contact through a voicemail on his cellphone, the accounts name was changed from Mr. Deea potential play off Devolder, one of his known surnamesto ABC123. That wasnt the only detail that made the connection between Santos and the account far more than a coincidence. George Santos Latest Crisis Is Happening Inside His Office This story didnt start with Santos. It started with a look at Matheus Gerardthe man Santos says he is married toand his own social media. Spotify was in the mix. And Gerard only followed three accounts: one that appears to be an acquaintance, one for the musician David Guetta, and one for Mr. Dee. A few things made Mr. Dee suspect. Not only did Gerard follow him, but he and Mr. Dee had a collaborative playlist together, housed on Gerards account, under the title Matt. Santos has generally referred to his spouse as Matt, but Gerard doesnt appear to go by Matt widely on his social media. Then theres the fact that Mr. Dees own music tastes suggest an interest in drag. Video of Santos wearing drag under the name of Kitara Ravache recently emerged; the Republican initially denied it was him only to later say that he was just having fun at a festival. Mr. Dees Gym playlist includes songs like Adrenaline and Sissy That Walk by American drag queen RuPaul. It also includes American by RuPaul and the cast of RuPauls Drag Race Season 10a patriotic ballad for inclusion that counters virtually every facet of Republicans anti-LGBTQ platform. Story continues One verse, for example, goes like this: Watch me smile and watch me slay. Cause Im living for my true self everyday. Its not about your color, gender, or size. But if we come together, we can rise. Another data point is Santos heritagehe is Brazilian. And Mr. Dee shows a particular soft spot for Brazilian drag queen Pabllo Vitar in his Happy list and Turn up playlists. The playlists altogether include a number of other Brazilian artists, including Lorena Simpson, Allan Natal, Luisa Sonza and Anitta (an artist whom Santos follows on Instagram). Another clue came when The Daily Beast identified the second of Mr. Dees two lone followers as Lianna Farnesi. Farnesi works for Templar Baker, a consulting group Santos heavily contracted throughout his campaign, spending more than $102,000 on the companys services, according to his campaign finance reports. Farnesi was one of Santos top staffers throughout his 2022 bid. On invites to events for a 2021 campaign fundraiser and Santos 2023 swearing-in celebration, Farnesi was listed as the point of contact. And before turning her Twitter account private after the midterm elections, she was an open Santos fan. A Wayback Machine capture of her Twitter showed a long series of posts detailing Santos time on the trail and hailing his win against Democrat Robert Zimmerman. Its unclear exactly when Farnesi went private. She did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast. Rep. George Santos did not have a sense of humor when we asked him about a Spotify account that appears to be his. Win McNamee/Getty The Daily Beast attempted to reach the congressman about the account, calling his cellphone on Monday afternoon and leaving a voicemail inquiring about the Mr. Dee account. Santos did not respond to the call. But by Tuesday morning, the name Mr. Dee had been changed to ABC123. And Santos husband, Gerard, had unfollowed the account (though he did not remove ABC123, formerly known as Mr. Dee, from the collaborative playlist they share). Farnesi still followed the account as of Thursday. On Tuesday afternoon, The Daily Beast approached Santos in the Capitol to ask about the account. After noting a voicemail had been left on his phone about the Spotify inquiry, Santos interruptedA voicemail, where? He insisted that reporters leaving voicemails are sometimes getting wrong numbers and should email his staff instead. The Daily Beast is certain the number used is Santos correct number. After continuing to ask about the account, and identifying it as being under the name Mr. Dee, Santos interrupted againI dont use Spotify. I use Pandora. There is a public Pandora account under the name georgedevolder, but that does not exclude the use of a Spotify, too. There is also another Spotify account under the name Anthony Devolder that uses Santos official congressional headshot; it is unclear whether its an unauthorized impersonation, or an official forward-facing account that for some reason decided to go by Anthony Devolder instead. George Santos Admits 500K Personal Loan to Campaign Wasnt Personal Spotify isn't the only social media Santos seems to be shutting down. The congressman, as of mid-January, had a public Venmo page, including his list of 157 friends, and a lineup of public payment transactions. But last week, he made all his past transactions, many laden with emojis, private. The effort to shut down his digital presence makes sense. It appears Santos, quite literally, never stopped lying throughout his campaign. Every week new revelations emerge about his past remarks, like one this week in which it was revealed by MSNBC that Santos claimed he was the victim of an assassination attempt. Also on Tuesday, The Daily Beast was first to report the Santos campaign seems to have suddenly changed its mind about the source of $705,000 in personal loans to his campaign. In a newly filed amendment to his campaign finance reports, the campaign said the loans were not, in fact, taken out of his own funds. The reports did not identify where the money actually came from, and Santos refuses to say. With a record like that, even small insightslike a Spotify pagecan matter. While Santos apparent affinity for drag artists is one takeaway from his Spotify account, its far from the only impression. There are plenty of everyday tunes associated with Mr. Dees account. There are bops like Tonight (Im Fuckin You) by Enrique Iglesias, This Is What You Came For by Calvin Harris and Rhianna, Old Town Road by Lil Nas X and Sucker by the Jonas Brothers. (Santos also follows Nick Jonas on Instagram, in addition to following several drag queen accounts.) Overall, whoever Mr. Dee is, their music tastes definitely skew toward pop, with some house music mixed in. The Daily Beast listened to Mr. Dees longest playlistGymwhile writing much of this article and can see how itd be good background noise for a workout. It had fast-paced, energetic songs with plenty of bass. The final song on the playlist, Rise Up by Andra Day, would also be excellent for a cool-down or some post-workout stretching. When talking about totally not being a Spotify user, Santos inquired while stepping into a Capitol elevator, Are you interested in my musical preferences? When The Daily Beast responded that we are, Santos offered up at least one small bit of information. My favorite jam right now: Sam Smiths song, Unholy, he said as the elevator door closed. Will Bredderman, Jose Pagliery, and Pilar Melendez contributed to this report. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Georgia governor Brian Kemp signed an emergency order Thursday declaring a 15-day state of emergency and mobilizing up to 1,000 National Guard troops in response to leftist violence that gripped the city over the weekend. Georgians respect peaceful protests, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property, Governor Kemp asserted in the order. Protests turned violent in downtown Atlanta as masked activist threw rocks, launched fireworks, and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundations office building, Kemps added in the executive order. Six Antifa extremists were charged with counts of domestic terrorism by the Atlanta police following Saturdays riot. Five of the accused came from out of state. One of them, Francis Carroll, was reportedly out on bail for another charge of domestic terrorism and is a descendant of a wealthy Maine family, according to investigative reporter Andy Ngo. Georgia @GovKemp is declaring a state of emergency after the violent protests this weekend surrounding the Atlanta public safety center. The order authorizes him to deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops. #gapol pic.twitter.com/4mFWw56hoM Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) January 26, 2023 Protesters were originally drawn to Atlanta to march in memory of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran (Tortuguita), a climate activist killed earlier in the week. Teran was part of an environmental outfit seeking to block the construction of a new $90 million Atlanta police training facility in a wooded area of DeKalb County. The group dubbed their campaign Stop Cop City. The events surrounding Terans lethal encounter with police remain contested. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation asserts that Teran shot at law enforcement, prompting police to return fire and kill him. Story continues However, Terans mother, Belkis, challenged the states narrative that her son initiated the violence. Im convinced that he was assassinated in cold blood, Belkis told The Guardian. The group remained committed to violent tactics. Destruction of material is fundamentally different from violence. All reported acts appear to be explicitly targeted against the financial backers & goons of the Atlanta Police Foundation, a shady nonprofit that funnels weapons and military gear into our city to wage war on black and brown folks, a spokesperson for the anti-police campaign told a local Atlanta news station. ATLANTA RIOT: More images from downtown Atlanta tonight after a Cop City protest became a riot. A number of businesses were vandalized and a City of Atlanta Police Department Vehicle was set ablaze. Continued coverage on @FOX5Atlanta #breaking #news #atl #atlantaprotest pic.twitter.com/GJHNtQYf3T Billy Heath III (@BillyHeathFOX5) January 22, 2023 The Antifa riots in Atlanta coincided with a similar incident in Boston which saw protesters vandalize the Boston Common and assault a police officer on Saturday night. During the riot, the son of House minority whip Katherine Clark (D., Mass.) was arrested. Since returning to office following a healthy electoral mandate, Governor Kemp has taken a strong stance on public safety, pushing for limits on cashless bail and labeling violent demonstrators as terrorists. The executive order also comes as a precautionary measure as Georgia police authorities closely monitor the developing situation in Memphis following the death of Tyre Nichols, a black man, at the hands of Memphis police. Bodycam footage from the incident, which featured several black cops, is expected to be released Friday. The emergency order expires on February 9. More from National Review TORONTO (AP) Sean Johnson is the new goalkeeper for Toronto FC through 2024. The 33-year-old free agent spent the last six seasons with New York City FC. Toronto FC signed him using targeted allocation money. Toronto conceded 66 goals last season, tying a franchise worst. Johnson is a 13-year veteran of Major League Soccer. He played all 34 regular-season matches for NYC last year with a career-high 14 clean sheets. NYCFC Sporting Director David Lee said in a news release that Johnson was a leader and fantastic professional who played an important part in winning the Club our first MLS Cup in 2021. Johnson also has won 10 caps for the U.S and was part of the U.S. team at the World Cup in Qatar. Johnson is a member of the executive board for Black Players for Change, a coalition of MLS players, coaches and staff working to make the game of soccer more inclusive. ___ AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports By Angelo Amante ROME (Reuters) - Posters of Al Pacino as the Godfather and Joaquin Phoenix as Joker were found in an apartment in western Sicily where mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro is believed to have lived in the months prior to his arrest, police footage showed on Friday. The apartment, in the town of Campobello di Mazara, is in a modest building just a few kilometres away from the boss's home town of Castelvetrano. Magistrates said he was living a "regular" life there, including going to the supermarket, despite being Italy's most wanted man. Messina Denaro was arrested in the Sicilian capital of Palermo on Jan. 16 after 30 years on the run as he was going to a private hospital where he had scheduled cancer treatment. Along with the Godfather and Joker posters, the boss had a picture of a lion on the walls of his living room, while a calendar featuring a scantily-clad woman was found hanging in a small room he used as a personal gym, footage showed. In the house, police also found a loaded Smith&Wesson 38 caliber special revolver, and a package with a further 20 rounds of the same bullets, a separate statement said. Nicknamed "U Siccu" (The Skinny One), Messina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to multiple life terms for an array of crimes, including for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Known for his taste for luxury, the boss had perfumes and designer clothes in his house, police said immediately after his arrest, but the video showed they also found everyday items such as an ironing board and a drying rack. Messina Denaro is being held in a high-security jail close to the central Italian city of l'Aquila, where he will be subject to the tough "41bis" rules aimed at preventing mobsters from running criminal activities from behind bars. (Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Gavin Jones and Christina Fincher) By Lananh Nguyen NEW YORK (Reuters) -Goldman Sachs Group Inc. slashed compensation for its Chief Executive Officer David Solomon by 29% to $25 million for 2022, the bank said in a filing Friday. Solomon's pay comprises a $2 million base salary, $6.9 million cash bonus and $16.1 million in restricted stock. He was paid $35 million for 2021. The bank's compensation committee cited the "challenging operating environment" as a factor in deciding Solomon's pay, according to the filing. It also noted his "strong individual performance and effective leadership." The cut was the largest so far among the CEOs of the biggest U.S. banks, whose firms suffered from a dealmaking drought after a blockbuster 2021. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman's compensation was reduced 10% to $31.5 million for 2022. At JPMorgan Chase & Co, Jamie Dimon's pay held steady at $34.5 million for 2022. Goldman's fourth-quarter profit slumped 66% to $1.33 billion as investment banking slumped and its consumer business lost money. Shares tumbled more than 6% when the bank reported earnings Jan. 17. Solomon sat for an interview with Reuters in Davos, Switzerland, last week in which he highlighted the firm's hits -- and downplayed its misses. But skeptical shareholders want to know more about the Wall Street giant's plans. "Good companies should invest and innovate and try new things. And by the way, when you do, you're not going to always get it right," Solomon said. Last year, influential proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis urged shareholders to vote against pay packages that included one-off stock grants for Solomon and John Waldron, the company's president. Their compensation was later approved by investors. (Reporting by Lananh NguyenEditing by Nick Zieminski) Thousands of US-based Google employees woke up to an email on January 20 saying they'd been laid off. Tsering Topgyal/AP Photo A Google engineer said survivors of the recent mass layoffs cried in meetings the day of the cull. Two engineers told Insider some remaining staff were worried about further job cuts. Google is now "just another big company," one said. Some Google employees who survived the recent cull of around 12,000 staff cried during meetings the day layoffs were announced, a serving employee told Insider. In video calls that day, "some of the folks were sobbing, they were drying their eyes," the employee, an engineer for Google on the East Coast, said. On January 20, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, announced layoffs equating to about 6% of the company's global workforce. Pichai told remaining staff they could work from home that day to process the "difficult news." The East Coast engineer, who has worked at Google for more than 10 years, requested anonymity to protect his employment but his identity is known to Insider. He said that when surviving staff ask each other how they're doing, some joke they're alright because they still have their jobs. People nod to each other with a shared sense of understanding when passing each other in the office, he said: "It's not the typical nonverbal interaction there used to be before. Now it's a meaningful nod." 'Just another big company' An engineer on the West Coast who's been with Google for more than 10 years told Insider surviving staff were "angry and sad." "We truly did believe that Google was something different," he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his employment but his identity is known to Insider. "This is just another big company," he said. "Now, anything that used to feel special or like you really were a part of a mission not just a big money-making machine that feeling is I think gone." Both engineers said some remaining employees were worried about further cuts. The East Coast engineer said Google employees were often headhunted but didn't leave because of the perks and sense of job security but perks had been gradually been "stripped down" and the layoffs meant employment didn't feel as secure any more, he said. Story continues "Now what is left to distinguish this company from any other company, any other recruiter that contacts us with a good offer?" he added. Laid-off Google staff in the US woke up on January 20 to an email saying they'd been cut, though some found out through messages from concerned colleagues. Nicholas Whitaker, who worked in Google's people development team before being laid off, told Insider he saw messages from colleagues that morning asking if he was okay and thought there'd been a shooting or a natural disaster. As access to company systems was cut off on January 20, laid-off staff were forced to reach out to colleagues by other means to say goodbye. The West Coast engineer said surviving staff were given no information about who'd been let go, aside from a "cannot connect" message on Google's internal communication system if they tried to contact them. Several laid-off staff told Insider they'd been overwhelmed by offers of help from current and former staff, such as offers to share resumes. Xoogler, a community of former Google staff, has organized mental-health and immigration-advice sessions. Whitaker said he was offering free meditation and mindfulness sessions. "I miss my colleagues," Jarrod Ahalt, a laid-off security engineer, told Insider. "We've been trying to support each other as best as we can." Google didn't respond to Insider's request for comment. Were you recently laid off by Google or another tech company? Contact this reporter at gdean@insider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider Republican National Committee chairman Ronna McDaniel speaks during a Get Out To Vote rally Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) The Republican National Committee re-elected chair Ronna McDaniel to a fourth term Friday, passing over challengers who wanted to move the party further to the right and forge a closer embrace of former President Donald Trump. Defending her record in a earlier speech to RNC delegates, McDaniel declared victory by pledging to unify the party and claiming that "the Democrats are going to hear us in 2024." McDaniel, first nominated for the job by Trump in late 2016, claimed victory from the 168-member committee in an election held in the shadow of the former president and his emerging 2024 presidential campaign. The secret-ballot vote capped the RNC's three-day winter meeting at a beach resort in Dana Point, Calif. Party battle: Under the shadows of Trump and 2024, the Republican Party faces a contentious leadership fight The beginning: Trump picks Ronna Romney McDaniel as RNC head The challengers: Dhillon and Lindell California attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell also Trump backers challenged McDaniel by arguing that the party needs new leadership after losing the presidency and the U.S. Senate in the past two elections. On Friday, pledging party unity, McDaniel called Dhillon and Lindell to the stage to thank them for the race. "The Democrats are going to hear us in 2024," McDaniel told the cheering crowd Trump had stayed neutral in the race, saying the candidates would have to fight it out among themselves. McDaniel's fourth term a record for the modern Republican Party comes in the wake of Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, losses by Trump candidates in the 2022 congressional races, and Trump's announcement that he will seek the presidency again in 2024. Her win capped the most contentious RNC race in two decades. Dhillon, a former official with the California Republican Party, was particularly aggressive in seeking votes and attacking McDaniel over the party's performance. She also racked up high profile endorsements, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a potential 2024 presidential candidate himself and Kari Lake, who lost last year's governor's race in Arizona. Story continues "This is the first RNC race where every endorsement vote of a Republican group nationally demanded change," Dhillon tweeted before Friday's vote. "I am that change." In an interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk, DeSantis said: "I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC." Sticking with McDaniel Most of Dhillon's big-name endorsers were not members of the Republican National Committee, however. Most of that group the voters stuck with McDaniel, who has won praise for working with state and local parties as well as rank-and-file Republicans. McDaniel had more than 100 endorsements at the start of the race late last year, more that enough to prevail. Lindell, an outspoken 2020 election denier, never seemed to get traction in the RNC race. The secret-ballot election took place at a general session, but members did not have to disclose who they voted for. The Trump factor McDaniel begins her latest term leading a party with divisions over Trump and his 2024 campaign. The Trump campaign: Donald Trump plans campaign stops targeting Republican opponents and prosecutors Trump v. DeSantis: OnPolitics: Trump's GOP support craters, poll shows. Here's who is on the rise for 2024. In a survey of all 168 RNC members, The New York Times reported, "just four offered an unabashed endorsement of Mr. Trumps 2024 campaign. Twenty said the former president should not be the partys nominee. An additional 35 said they would like to see a big primary field or declined to state their position on Mr. Trump. The remainder did not respond to messages." Trump's dominance of the party has been vexatious for McDaniel in her role as party leader. Over the years, some Republicans have said that McDaniel has tilted the party too much in favor of Trump; at other times, some have said McDaniel hasn't helped Trump enough. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ronna McDaniel wins re-election as Republican National Committee chair Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday the state will explore ways to have the death penalty for people who rape children, while he also reiterated a call to allow murderers to be sentenced to death without unanimous jury recommendations. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, held that the Eighth Amendments ban on cruel and unusual punishment prevented the death penalty for child rapists. That was based in part on a 1977 decision. They (sexual predators) will do whatever they can to satiate themselves at the expense of very, very vulnerable people, DeSantis said Thursday as he outlined a series of legislative proposals during an appearance at the Miami Police Benevolent Association. I believe the only appropriate punishment that would be commensurate to that would be capital. DeSantis said he doesnt think the current U.S. Supreme Court would uphold the ruling that barred the death penalty in rape cases. We understand that it will be challenged, but I think its right for us to challenge a decision that wasnt well thought out, was very narrowly decided, DeSantis said. Meanwhile, DeSantis said he will ask lawmakers to require at least life sentences for convicted child rapists and to expand a list of sex offenses that would make inmates ineligible for gain time, which can lead to early release. DeSantis also again called for changing a law that requires unanimous jury recommendations before judges can impose the death penalty. DeSantis could seek a change to allow recommendations of eight of 12 jurors. DeSantis has made similar comments since October when a jury did not recommend the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz, who was convicted of murdering 17 people in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Cruz was sentenced to life in prison. Legislators required unanimous jury recommendations for death sentences in 2017 in response to a Florida Supreme Court ruling. But the court, with new members in 2020, backed away from the ruling, opening the door to non-unanimous jury recommendations. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live. By Nailia Bagirova BAKU (Reuters) -A gunman shot dead a security guard and wounded two other people at Azerbaijan's embassy in Iran on Friday, in an attack Baku branded an "act of terrorism" that it said was the result of Tehran failing to heed its calls for improved security. Police in Tehran said they had arrested a suspect and Iranian authorities condemned the incident, but said the gunman appeared to have had a personal, not a political motive. The incident comes amid increased tensions between the two neighbouring countries over Iran's treatment of its large ethnic Azeri minority and over Azerbaijan's decision this month to appoint its first ever ambassador to Israel. "The attacker broke through the guard post, killing the head of security with a Kalashnikov assault rifle," Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said. CCTV footage obtained by Reuters showed the attacker forcing his way into the building and shooting at two men before a third embassy employee grapples him away. A grey-haired man identified as the attacker was later shown on Iranian state TV saying he had acted to secure the release of his Azeri wife who he believed was being held at the embassy. A young woman identified as the man's daughter said her mother was in Azerbaijan. "My mother is not in the embassy and I told him that but he did not accept that," she said. Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi called for "a comprehensive investigation" of the incident and sent his condolences to Azerbaijan and the dead man's family, Iranian state media said. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, quoted on a government site, said that based on evidence and initial observations the gunman's motive was "completely personal". "Necessary security measures have been taken to continue normal activities at the embassy and diplomats of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran," he said. AZERI ANGER Story continues Azerbaijan's foreign ministry responded strongly to the attack, summoning Iran's ambassador in Baku to demand justice and saying it would evacuate its embassy staff from Tehran. It said an "anti-Azerbaijani campaign" in Iran had contributed to the attack, without elaborating, and accused Tehran of long ignoring its appeals to boost embassy security. "Unfortunately, the latest bloody terrorist act demonstrates the serious consequences of the failure to give the necessary attention to our constant appeals in this regard," it said. Iran's Amirabdollahian later told Azeri Foreign Minister Jayran Bairamov in a phone call that he hoped the attack would not damage bilateral ties. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev demanded swift punishment for those involved in Friday's "act of terrorism". Aliyev has complained in the past about Iran's treatment of its Azerbaijani minority, saying for example that Azeris have no schools where they can study in their own language. Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim former Soviet republic, has friendly ties with the United States and Israel and has had difficult diplomatic relations with Iran. Azerbaijan appointed its first ever ambassador to Israel this month. Israel has had an embassy in Baku since the early 1990s and has been a significant military backer of Azerbaijan in recent years. It has also provided diplomatic support for Baku in its standoff with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran's Revolutionary Guards carried out major military drills along the countrys borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan amid fears of renewed fighting between the two South Caucasus states last year. (Additional reporting by Caleb Davis and Dubai newsroom; Writing by Michael Georgy and Gareth Jones; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Christina Fincher) The Gulfport Police Department is seeking a Gulfport woman in connection to a drive-by shooting that occurred Thursday morning. Darrien Nicole Clark, 29, is wanted on an active felony warrant and is considered armed and dangerous, according to the Gulfport Police Department. Police describe Clark as a 5-foot-5 Black woman with black hair and brown eyes, weighing approximately 110 pounds. Police responded to a call about a drive-by shooting in the 600 block of Layton Drive around 6:35 a.m. on Thursday. Investigators determined Clark allegedly got into a physical altercation with an unnamed victim before she left to get a firearm. Clark then returned with the weapon and fired multiple times striking two residences and a vehicle. Police did not say if anyone was injured in the incident. The Gulfport Police Department asks that anyone with information regarding this incident contact the Gulfport Police Department at 228-868-5959 or Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers at 877-787-5898. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) A gunman stormed the Azerbaijan Embassy in Iran's capital Friday, killing its security chief and wounding two guards in an attack that spiked long-simmering tensions between the two neighboring countries. Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said it would evacuate the diplomatic post, accusing Iran of not taking reported threats against it seriously in the past that include inciting comments in hard-line media over Azerbaijan's diplomatic ties to Israel. Tehrans police chief, Gen. Hossein Rahimi, initially blamed the attack on personal and family problems, something quickly repeated across Iranian state media. But within hours Rahimi would lose his position as police chief after footage emerged that appeared to show a security force member doing nothing to stop the attack. Previously, there have been attempts to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran, and it was constantly raised before Iran to take measures to prevent such cases, and to ensure the safety of our diplomatic missions, the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry said. Unfortunately, the last bloody terror attack demonstrates the serious consequences of not showing proper sensitivity to our urgent appeals in this direction. We are of the opinion that the recent anti-Azerbaijani campaign against our country in Iran led to such attack against our diplomatic mission," the ministry added. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called the assault a terrorist attack. He identified the dead security chief as 1st Lt. Orkhan Rizvan Oglu Askarov. We demand that this terrorist act be swiftly investigated and the terrorists punished, Aliyev said in a statement. "Terror against diplomatic missions is unacceptable! The attack happened Friday morning, the second day of the Iranian weekend. Surveillance video released in Azerbaijan purportedly showed the gunman arriving by car at the embassy, running into the back of another car parked out front. He exited his car, holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-style rifle. Story continues From there, details immediately conflict with the Iranian account of the attack. Iranian state TV had quoted Rahimi as saying the gunman had entered the embassy with his two children during the attack. However, surveillance footage from inside the embassy, which matched details of the aftermath and bore a timestamp matching the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministrys statement, showed the gunman burst through the embassys doors alone. Those inside tried to push through metal detectors to take cover. The man opens fire with the rifle, its muzzle flashing, as he chases after the men into the small side office. Another man bursts from a side door and fights the gunman for the rifle as the footage ends. Another surveillance video from outside the embassy, which also corresponded to the same details, showed the gunman slam his car into another in front of the embassy. The gunman then got out and leveled his rifle at a figure inside of the Iranian police stand, likely a security force member, who stood still and did nothing as the man stormed the embassy. Video of the aftermath showed an empty diplomatic police post just near the embassy, with one man apparently wounded in an SUV parked outside. Inside the embassy past a metal detector, paramedics stood over what appeared to be a lifeless body in a small office as blood pooled on the floor beneath. Associated Press journalists later saw the embassys front door pocked with bullet holes after the attack. Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari reportedly said the gunman's wife had disappeared in April after a visit to the embassy. The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency quoted Shahriari as saying the gunman believed his wife was still in the diplomatic post at the time of the attack even though it was some eight months later. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also said his country strongly condemned the attack, which was under investigation with high priority and sensitivity. Azerbaijan also summoned Iran's ambassador there to lodge a protest over the attack as authorities replaced Rahimi, Tehran's police chief, without offering an explanation. Azerbaijan borders Iran's northwest and belonged to the Persian Empire until the early 19th century. Ethnic Azeris also number over 12 million people in Iran and represent the Islamic Republic's largest minority group making maintaining good relations even more important for Tehran. There have been tensions between the two countries as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran also wants to maintain its 44-kilometer (27-mile) border with landlocked Armenia something that could be threatened if Azerbaijan seizes new territory through warfare. Iran in October launched a military exercise near the Azerbaijan border, flexing its martial might amid the nationwide protests rocking the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan also maintains close ties to Israel, which Tehran views as its top regional enemy. The Islamic Republic and Israel are locked in an ongoing shadow war as Iran's nuclear program rapidly enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Israel also offered its condolences to Azerbaijan over the attack. Turkey, which has close ties to Azerbaijan, condemned the attack, called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and for measures to be put in place to prevent similar attacks in the future. Turkey has backed Azerbaijan against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey, which has been subjected to similar attacks in the past, deeply shares the pain of the Azerbaijani people, a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said. Brotherly Azerbaijan is not alone. Our support to Azerbaijan will continue without interruption, as it always has. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the U.S. condemns the attack. We echo President Aliyevs call for a prompt investigation into this unacceptable violence, he said. We offer our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were killed and injured today. Any attack against diplomats or diplomatic facilities anywhere is unacceptable. ___ Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. STORY: "The attacker broke through the guard post, killing the head of security with a Kalashnikov assault rifle," Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said. The superintendent of criminal affairs in Tehran, Judge Mohammad Shahriari, said the attacker's motive was personal, according to the Tasnim news agency. He quotes the assailant as saying his wife went to the Azerbaijan embassy in Tehran and never returned home. STORY: Demonstrators, some claiming to be police officers, rioted in Haitis capital city Port-au-Prince on Thursday, protesting over recent killings of police officers by armed gangs in the country. The protesters wearing hoods, flak jackets, and one with a shirt with the word police written on the sleeve - roared through streets on motorbikes, and blocked roads with trucks and burning tires. This protester, wearing a helmet and bullet-proof vest, says theyre seeking justice for their brothers killed by bandits, and asking for a reaction from the Prime Minister to the crisis. The mob later broke into the airport, just as Prime Minister Ariel Henry was returning from a trip to Argentina. A Reuters witness heard gunfire near Henrys official residence in Port-au-Prince, which was swarmed by protesters. Haiti's National Police and the Prime Minister's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. According to the force and local media reports, at least 10 officers were murdered in the Caribbean nation the past week, which has been mired in gang violence. The United Nations is discussing sending a foreign strike force to confront the criminal groups, but no country has offered to lead such a force. By Brian Ellsworth (Reuters) - More than one million Haitian children are under constant threat of violence in the area of the capital Port-au-Prince because of chronic lawlessness, the regional director of children's agency UNICEF said on Friday. UNICEF last year warned that Haitian children are threatened by malnutrition, armed violence, and an outbreak of cholera. Many schools were unable to start the academic year because gangs in September blocked fuel distribution, creating a humanitarian crisis. Haiti's political leaders should unite around ensuring children have access to education, food and drinking water, said Garry Conille, UNICEF's Latin America and Caribbean director. "If you don't do this, you're actually creating a pipeline for the gangs, and this is something that we can't afford," he said in an interview with Reuters. UNICEF is seeking $210 million for its Haiti operations in 2023, more than double what it requested in 2022, due to the growing need to provide services for children, he said. It is also seeking to address gender-based violence and violence toward children in Haitian homes, where corporal punishment remains common. "Children not only find the opportunity to learn (at school), but it's also more and more a safe haven in the neighborhood and a way to escape all sorts of violence," Conille said. "I think the international community needs to continue to maintain its focus and provide the necessary resources so that these children can get the support they need." A spate of police murders by gangs spurred a protest by police officers who on Thursday attacked the residence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and later swarmed the main airport. (This story has been corrected to remove reference to children out of school after UNICEF clarified it cannot confirm the figure.) (Reporting by Brian Ellsworth in Caracas; editing by Grant McCool) Jan. 27Attorneys representing 14 Hawaii youths appeared in court Thursday to argue in favor of a lawsuit that claims the state Department of Transportation is violating their client's state constitutional rights by not doing enough to stem the emissions that are contributing to climate change. Attorneys representing 14 Hawaii youths appeared in court Thursday to argue in favor of a lawsuit that claims the state Department of Transportation is violating their client's state constitutional rights by not doing enough to stem the emissions that are contributing to climate change. The suit, the first of its kind in Hawaii, argues that the DOT's system is causing the plaintiffs, ages 10 to 20 and living across the island chain, significant harm and affecting their ability to "live healthful lives in Hawai 'i now and into the future." Circuit Court Environmental Judge Jeffrey Crabtree heard arguments on the state's motion to dismiss the case before a packed courtroom of plaintiffs, their parents and supporters Thursday morning. He ended the hearing by saying he would make a ruling on Navahine F. v, Hawaii Department of Transportation later, after studying the issues further. The lawsuit is the latest attempt by young people in the U.S. to hold governments accountable for the climate crisis. Representing the Hawaii youth are lawyers from Earthjustice and Oregon-based Our Children's Trust, which describes itself as "the world's only nonprofit public interest law firm that exclusively provides strategic, campaign based legal services to youth from diverse backgrounds to secure their legal rights to a safe climate." Our Children's Trust is also part of youth climate lawsuits in Montana, Virginia and Utah. Attorney Bryan Killian, representing the state of Hawaii, told the judge that Hawaii is indeed addressing climate change and is in fact one of the leaders among the 50 states in doing so. Gov. Josh Green has made climate change a high priority in his administration, and he has selected a new director (Ed Sniffen ) to work with him on his policies. Story continues The state's motion to dismiss, he said, stresses the proper process for addressing climate change. He said the complaint is flawed because it does not allege any violations of climate laws, and it doesn't argue that any of the defendant's own greenhouse gases are causing harm. State targets on emission reductions are statewide targets, Killian said, not just for the DOT. In addition, the department has to deal with competing goals, including not only reducing emissions, but user equity, reducing costs and "maximizing the throughput of people." Killian said the complaint falls short of meeting the standards and precedents required for judicial oversight of a state department. Leina 'ala Ley, an Earthjustice attorney representing the Hawaii youth, told the court the transportation sector is responsible for a majority of the state's greenhouse gas emissions and that these emissions are going up, not down, in violation of the department's constitutional duties to protect the public trust and the plaintiff's right to health, well-being and their culture practices. "While other sectors have taken significant steps in the past few decades to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Hawaii Department of Transportation remains trapped in the past, doing business as usual and failing to take advantage of opportunities that are available now to provide Hawaii's residents with more and cleaner transportation options that can help mitigate climate harm, " Ley said. Following the hearing, attorneys from Earthjustice and Our Children's Trust said that no matter what Crabtree rules, the case will move forward, either in Circuit Court or on appeal. If the case is dismissed, "We would try to get to the state Supreme Court as quickly as possible given the urgency of the case and the harm these youth are suffering, " said Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel for Our Children's Trust. Andrea Rodgers, senior litigation attorney with Our Children's Trust, told a news conference outside the Honolulu courtroom that the state's lawyers argued that climate change is a problem that can be dealt with 20 years down the line. "They said they're doing the best that they can and that they shouldn't be pushed into doing things they just don't want to doeven though the science, the Legislature, has all commanded them to de-carbonize the transportation system as soon as possible. It's frustrating when you hear that from your government entity. This is an existential crisis that needs to be addressed today." Taliya Nishida, a 15-year-old Kamehameha Schools Hawaii island student, said she joined the suit in an effort to make a difference in the climate crisis. "Instead of being a bystander and just hearing about it, this time I can actually go to court and create a change, " she said. Nishida said her house in Kamuela is off-grid, and her family lives off catchment water. The problem is there's precious little rain. "We have no water in the catchment tank, " she said. "So we're flushing our toilets from buckets of water that we get from in town. For showers I only get one or two minutes." Plaintiff Messina, a 15-year-old from Kailua, who declined to give her last name, said she was seething in the courtroom as she heard the state's attorney offering up excuses. "It's very hard to hear, " she said. "We know this is an issue that needs to be dealt with now, and the more they postpone it, the more they are showing to us that it doesn't matter to them, and we're just like little pests in the way of their scheme. That's really what it felt like in every argument they made." Before he concluded the hearing, Crabtree paused to say he was encouraged by the fact that the young people were coming forward and trying to make their community better. But Environmental Court, he cautioned, is not the Environmental Protection Agency. It is a court and not friendly to one side or the other. "We endeavor to do our best to make decisions based on the law, the facts and judicial procedure. That's it, " the judge said. "Sometimes the environment wins in this courtroom, and sometimes it loses. That's just the way it is." Jan. 26HARLINGEN The school district is joining 20 Cameron, Hidalgo and Willacy County districts in a growing campaign pushing legislators to quash the South Texas school district's taxing authority. The school board has passed a resolution "seeking legislative change to the funding of South Texas ISD and elimination of the duplication of taxes for Harlingen CISD taxpayers," aiming to push lawmakers into introducing legislation to address concerns. "This is not at all about doing away with South Texas ISD or asking for those additional taxing funds," Superintendent Alicia Noyola stated Thursday. "It is simply about doing what is right for our students and for our taxpayers. As we studied the programming and particularly the funding at South Texas ISD, it raised a number of concerns. We saw a duplication of taxes and a lack of equity in funding between South Texas ISD and public school districts within Cameron, Willacy and Hidalgo." Across the state, the South Texas school district's taxation has created Texas' only case of "duplication of taxes," Brianna Vela Garcia, the Harlingen school district's spokeswoman, said. Districts' funding Meanwhile, Noyola pointed to the South Texas school district's "inequitable" funding. "Beyond the simple duplication of taxes, more importantly is the lack of equity in funding that exists between what South Texas ISD receives through that taxation and what Harlingen CISD and every other district in Willacy, Cameron and Hidalgo County receive," she stated. "In order for our students to receive the same amount of taxing monies that South Texas ISD students are, we would have to triple our taxes just to provide an equal amount." With an enrollment of about 4,200 students, the South Texas school district's tax rate of $4.92 per $100 valuation raised $32 million in fiscal 2020-2021, providing $7,634 for every student, records show. Story continues In Harlingen, with an enrollment of about 17,800 students, the district's tax rate stands at $1.15 per $100 valuation, raising about $42 million while providing $2,373 for each student. While the South Texas school district's fund balance stood at $87.8 million during the 2020-2021 school year, Harlingen's was set at $44.6 million. Duplication of taxes Last week, the school board passed the resolution following Noyola's presentation. In the 1960s, the state founded the South Texas school district based in Mercedes to serve the area's special education students, authorizing the district to raise property taxes as high as 5 cents per $100 valuation, she told board members during the Dec. 17 meeting. As other school districts began serving more special education students, the South Texas school district developed its career and technical education programs while continuing to tax its neighboring communities, she said. Now, the state requires all school districts offer such career and technical education programs, she said. Today, the South Texas school district offers programs similar to those of other area school districts while continuing to tax their communities, Noyola told board members. "When you compare school districts, we have equivalent school districts," she said. "There is no longer something special that is being provided at South Texas ISD that school districts like Harlingen do not provide, so you know they're providing similar programming and yet our communities in Willacy, Cameron and Hidalgo counties continue to be taxed. In essence, there's a duplication of taxes." 'Inequitable funding' During her presentation, Noyola outlined factors behind what she described as the South Texas school district's inequitable funding. In Harlingen, as appraised property values go up, the school district lowers its tax rate, she said, noting the school board cut the district's rate by 16 cents during the last three years. "However, South Texas ISD is not subject to any taxation so as the property values continue to go up, we are compressing but they are not subject to any type of compression and so as these property values go up, their tax collections continue to increase," Noyola told board members. Meanwhile, the state does not subject the South Texas school district to return excess tax revenue as it does districts such as Point Isabel, Noyola said "South Texas ISD is not subject to recapture so their tax collections continue to increase year to year," she said. In closing her presentation, Noyola suggested lawmakers consider funding the South Texas school district as they fund charter schools such as IDEA Public Schools, for which the state does not grant taxing authority. "This is not about the elimination or doing away with South Texas ISD," she said. "This district is a district of choice. We believe in providing choice to students and so if parents, students choose to attend South Texas ISD, that is their perrogative. However, what we are looking for is equity in funding so that our students also have the opportunities that the students that attend South Texas ISD right now are able to experience." Growing campaign Now, the Harlingen school district joins 20 other districts in passing resolutions calling for changes in the South Texas school district's funding along with the "elimination of the duplication of taxes," including Brownsville, Donna, Edinburg, La Feria, La Villa, Lasara, Lyford, Los Fresnos, McAllen, Mission, Monte Alto, Point Isabel, Rio Hondo, San Benito, San Perlita, Santa Rosa, Sharyland, Valley View, Weslaco and Zapata. South Texas ISD response On Thursday, the South Texas school district did not respond to a request for comment before 5 p.m. However, the district released a statement to the Monitor in McAllen earlier this month. "Although STISD has taxing authority, the taxation for RGV residents within the three counties served is not double, as the rates collected by STISD and other local school districts differ considerably," officials stated. "Although we have taxing authority over a large geographical area, as a district so spread out, there are also unique challenges that come with the set-up that other districts do not face, like providing transportation across three counties," officials stated. "STISD wants all families from the communities served to have the opportunity to participate in our district and programs, if they so choose, and we continue to offer free bus transportation to students throughout the three counties." Despite its development of career and technical education programs, the district continues to serve special education students, officials stated. "We have also maintained our emphasis on students with special needs through our Career and Technical Education Half-Day program, a collaborative effort we have in place with sister school districts throughout the RGV, whereby students take the majority of their academic courses at their home district and take CTE courses through STISD," officials stated. Meanwhile, the district's commitment to quality education has led graduates to higher education along with successful careers. "The group that established STISD anticipated the positive changes vocational magnet schools could bring to our region and worked hard to put this district in place to do just that," officials stated. "With multiple generations of successful alumni across the region, the state, the nation and the world, we take pride in what we have built over the last half-century for the RGV." ------ PREVIOUS COVERAGE: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made headlines in 2018 for being one of the few world leaders to give birth while in office. Ardern announced last week that she is stepping down on Feb. 7. (Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images) What does it mean for women to have it all? Is work-life balance a legitimate goal or a myth created by those who have never tried to achieve it? Questions like these resurfaced last week when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced she would not be seeking reelection. I know what this job takes, and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It's that simple, the 42-year-old mother said during her press conference. I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then its time. Arderns decision to leave on her own terms is being both applauded and scrutinized. To provide more food for thought in this age-old debate, MAKERS has compiled a list of seven working women and their insights on how to find the sweet spot. Jacinda Ardern be your own kind of leader When she was elected at the age of 37, Jacinda Ardern became New Zealands youngest prime minister in more than a century. A year later, she made headlines for being one of the few world leaders to give birth while in office. But after five years of serving her country, Ardern will be stepping down Feb. 7. I am not leaving because it was hard, she told reporters. I am leaving because with such a privileged role comes responsibility; the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. Be your own kind of leader one that knows when its time to go.Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand prime minister During her tenure, Ardern gained global recognition for her leadership following two mass shootings and for successfully navigating the pandemic. I hope in return I leave behind a belief that you can be kind, but strong; empathetic, but decisive; optimistic, but focused; that you can be your own kind of leader one that knows when its time to go. Katie Porter think of balance as riding a bike Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) told MAKERS that being a working parent is like riding a bike and the only goal is just not to fall over. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images) Katie Porter represents the 47th congressional district of Orange County, Calif. Shes also a single mother of three. I think the whole concept of balance is super, super messed up, Democratic Rep. Porter said at the 2022 MAKERS CONFERENCE. I thought about balance maybe because I'm a lawyer like the scales of justice. It's like this perfect thing that you put a kid on this side and a promotion on this side and all of a sudden, everything is easy and in harmony. And that is complete malarkey. Story continues Instead, Porter said finding that balance is more like riding a bike. The goal is just not to fall over. If you are pedaling, you are winning. I think that is the kind of balance that we need to give ourselves permission to find in life. Rep. Porter is pedaling faster these days, having just announced she will be running for the Senate seat of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in 2024. Miranda Prins-Visscher try guilt-free outsourcing Miranda Prins-Visscher is the general manager for continental Europe at the Kellogg Company and the mother of two. She says working moms need to try guilt free outsourcing. (Photo by Miranda Prins-Visscher) Miranda Prins-Visscher is the general manager for continental Europe at the Kellogg Company and leads a team of 600 employees. But her Twitter profile also reveals she is proud to be a full-time working, ambitious mum of 2 cheerful kids. When asked how do you manage it all? the Dutch executive answers: I dont. And I do not even try. I outsource 43 hours of work per week, according to a recent post on her LinkedIn page. Miranda Prins-Visscher's LinkedIn post says she spends time in her kitchen behind a laptop or Excel worksheet or having meals with the kids, not behind the stove. Although Prins-Visscher has lived in five countries and can speak six languages, she said she doesnt clean or cook and never learned to iron. Prins-Visscher said this arrangement gives her time to spend on what she deems most important: time with her kids, a fulfilling job and recharging. My advice for 2023: Give this guilt free outsourcing a try. We cannot do it all [alone]. Arianna Huffington strive for life-work integration Thrive Global founder and CEO Arianna Huffington says believing that work and life can be balanced "is a recipe for certain failure. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Fortune) Author and media mogul Arianna Huffington recently co-authored a piece in Fortune about the so-called Great Resignation and the resulting bigger-picture conversations about work. People arent just quitting their jobs, theyre rethinking what they want out of life,the article states. The truth is that work and life are on the same side, so they dont need to be balanced. They rise and fall together increase your lifes overall well-being and youll also be more effective at work. Believing that the two can be balanced, and that when we achieve this balance we can have it all, is a recipe for certain failure. Believing that . . . when we achieve this balance we can have it all, is a recipe for certain failure.Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO of Thrive Global After leaving the Huffington Post in 2016, the mother of two launched Thrive Global, a digital platform dedicated to employee health and wellness. Life-work integration is about embedding well-being into the workflow itself. Its about well-being as a set of guiding principles that we can design our day around. It starts with asking ourselves what our non-negotiables are, what are the things in our lives that are critical components of who we are and who we want to be, and that allow us to show up as our best selves. Reshma Saujani join the moms first movement Reshma Saujani founded Moms First to help transform our workplaces, our culture and our government to enable America's moms to thrive. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images) Reshma Saujani is the founder and CEO of Moms First, an advocacy group working to transform our workplaces, culture and government policies to help Americas moms. I used to hate being asked about juggling career and family, Saujani said in a recent article. When young women would come up to me after speeches or events and ask how I managed it all, I would literally shoo them away with my hand. But the mother of two boys said the pandemic changed her thinking. It became clear (literally visible through our Zoom screens!) that what happened in our homes impacted how we showed up at work, and vice versa. There was no use hiding it. Saujani is now creating a movement to build a society where the needs of mothers come first. As stated on the activists website: America doesnt work if we dont work for moms. Angela Garbes help redefine what is essential Author Angela Garbes speaks onstage during The 2022 MAKERS Conference on October 25, 2022 in Dana Point, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The MAKERS Conference) Angela Garbes is a Seattle-based speaker and author of the national bestseller Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change. In the book, Garbes argues that parenting and caregiving is the work that makes all other work possible. She told MAKERS that this idea came from the grief and anger she felt during the pandemic as a mom who had to put down her professional work to become a full-time caregiver. We heard a lot about essential workers, health care workers, sanitation workers, who, yes, are absolutely essential. But I couldn't help but think, What about me? Garbes told the audience at the 2022 MAKERS Conference. I was working 24/7, holding everything together and keeping people alive. That work felt pretty damn essential. For her fellow working moms who are trying to make ends meet or simply stay afloat, Garbes had a message: We are no different from the women we hire to clean our houses. We are no different from the women we hire to take care of our children. And you know, sometimes this can be uncomfortable to hear, but it's the truth, she said. We must leverage whatever power we have to advocate for them and to work with them to create a more sustainable and equitable care system. Jeanniey Walden look for a blend, not a balance Jeanniey Walden is host of the TV show and podcast LiftOff and the former chief marketing officer at DailyPay. Jeanniey Walden started her career as an elementary school teacher before transitioning to the world of business. She rose the ranks to become chief marketing officer at DailyPay and is now host of LiftOff, a TV show and podcast that helps employees make the most of their personal and professional lives. So many people live their life trying to have it all, and many times, that goal can actually backfire, and create stress, anxiety and depression, Walden tells GOBankingRates. The truth is, no one person has it all. More importantly, no one needs it all. In reality, we all live most effectively when we create a work-life blend an opportunity to create a schedule that meets the needs of your life. When you create a work-life blend, you can create an attainable and fulfilling future path. There is no one solution that fits everyone. Yes, there are "Fancy" drinks on the menu. Taylor Hill / FilmMagic; Nicole Kandi / EyeEm / Getty Images In the fall of 2021, during a concert at the Choctaw Grand Theater in Durant, Oklahoma, Reba McEntire took a break between songs to welcome Chief Gary Batton of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to join her on stage. Batton had some big news, announcing that the Choctaw Nation had partnered with McEntire to open a restaurant in the tiny town of Atoka. Were thrilled to pieces because its going to be right downtown [in] Atoka, McEntire said. Its going to be called Rebas Place, and its going to be in the old Masonic building. Yall know where that is if youve been to Atoka. Were really tickled. At the time, McEntire hoped that the restaurant would be able to open in late 2022. Last autumn came and went without Rebas Place, but its finally open and promises to serve an irresistible combination of comfort food, well-mixed cocktails, and McEntire's charm to the 3,000-person town. "This has been a long time coming, McEntire said during the grand opening of Rebas Place, which was live-streamed on Facebook on Thursday. So please give all these folks here who have worked so hard another round of applause. McEntire told People that she got [herself] reacquainted with her home state after her mothers death in early 2020. During her extended stay in Oklahoma, she was contacted by some Atoka officials about opening a restaurant in the town. After launching the partnership with the Choctaw Nation, McEntire was able to focus on her vision for the venue. We wanted music on a small stage. Not big bands. Not big loud, she told the outlet. It's going to be something that people can remain eating, visiting, while the music's going on. I will go in and do some music, singing, absolutely. It has to be friendly. It has to be great food." The menu leans into comfort food and "down home" classics like a "Southern Charcuterie Board" that includes country ham, both pimento cheese, and beer cheese, boiled peanut hummus, and homemade pickles. (There's also a "Soup and Pot Pie" section of the menu). Other offerings include a "Fancy" steak dinner, chicken-fried steak, and a Cherry Coke BBQ burger. Story continues "I told them, 'You got to have great iced tea. Great bread. I want chicken fried steak. Chicken fried chicken. I want beans and cornbread,'" McEntire told People. "I gave Chef Kurtess [Mortensen] my recipe for my smashed potatoes with caramelized onions and garlic. And have to have good drinks. That's very important." Those drinks will be mixed behind a restored antique bar that is over a century old, and diners seated throughout all three stories can also enjoy live music, pick up some souvenirs from the attached retail area, or look at some of the memorabilia that McEntire selected to put on display. "I'm a pack rat and have been saving things from day one," she told Garden & Gun. "I even have rodeo things that belonged to my mom and dad, and then there are outfits that I've worn for concerts and movies and album covers. We're also paying homage to the Choctaws, because everybody needs to know their long history in that area." And if you bump into a personable local who looks a little like Reba McEntire, there's a decent chance that it is Reba McEntire. She says that she'd like to drop into the restaurant as "much as [she] possibly can." And why not? With pimento cheese, pot pies, and Reba's own potato recipe, it sounds like the kind of place where you "Can't Even Get the Blues." BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) Yarden Garzon's stat line for No. 6 Indiana was plenty impressive 20 points with four 3s, plus 10 rebounds in a 78-65 win over No. 2 Ohio State. It's what the freshman from Israel did without the ball that really helped the Hoosiers on Thursday night. With Indiana trailing by six at halftime, coach Teri Moren asked Garzon to switch over and slow down Buckeyes forward Cotie McMahon, who had already scored 18 points. Garzon limited McMahon to three points after the break and the Hoosiers, boosted by a third-quarter flurry, rallied to win. Mackenzie Holmes scored 26 for Indiana. Yarden got challenged in that second half, being put on Cotie, and she stepped up to the challenge and made plays and knocked down shots, Holmes said. Her level of maturity is something Ive never seen from a freshman. And the Hoosiers are seeing things that once seemed unimaginable. They've won four straight over the Buckeyes, and their seventh win in a row overall continued the best start in school history (19-1, 9-1 Big Ten). The Hoosiers celebrated with a raucous, record regular-season crowd of 10,455 it's the second time in less than two weeks they've set an attendance record. McMahon finished with 21 points before fouling out with about five minutes to play. Taylor Mikesell had 15 and Taylor Thierry had 13 points and 12 rebounds for Ohio State (19-2, 8-2), which has lost two straight since starting this week as one of only three unbeaten Division I teams. The Hoosiers surged in the third quarter, a game-changing 24-3 run that allowed Indiana to erase a 38-32 deficit and seize control by building a 56-41 cushion. Ohio State never fully recovered. It was not good, obviously, but Indiana played really well through that stretch, Buckeyes coach Kevin McGuff said. We had some early shots that didnt go in and then we had some turnovers and it just snowballed on us. Indiana opened the run with eight consecutive points to take the lead then made three straight 3s. It ended by converting back-to-back Buckeyes turnovers into breakaway layups and Holmes making a free throw. Story continues Ohio State's full-court pressure had scrambling early in the fourth as it closed to 64-56 with 6:15 to play. But the Buckeyes couldn't get any closer. It was a battle of two really good basketball teams and we knew it was going to be a fight, Moren said. We just had an incredible third quarter. BIG PICTURE Ohio State: The Buckeyes have looked vulnerable this week, albeit against two of the nation's top teams. While Ohio State's conference title hopes, the Buckeyes shouldn't fret. Indiana: The Hoosiers have only won one Big Ten regular-season title in school history, that coming in 1983. The wins over No. 13 Michigan on Monday and now the Buckeyes have them within reach of ending that drought. POLL IMPLICATIONS Ohio State: This week's losses will probably prevent the Buckeyes from spending a third consecutive week at a school-record tying No. 2. But this loss shouldn't knock Ohio State out of the top 10. Indiana: The Hoosiers should climb back into the top five with one more win. And they've solidified the case to earn a potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. MOREN'S MOMENT Moren was honored before the game for becoming the school's career victories leader. She broke the mark set by the late Jim Izard (188) with last week's 83-72 victory at Illinois then added win No. 190 against Michigan. The crowd roared with approval as one fan held a sign that read Pay Teri Moren." MIKESELL'S MILESTONE Mikesell started her career at Maryland, left for Oregon and then returned to her home state Buckeyes. Thursday's game put her in the 2,000-point club. She now has 2,013 career points and needs 25 to reach the 1,000-point mark in two seasons with the Buckeyes. UP NEXT Ohio State: Welcomes Purdue to Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday. Indiana: Hosts Rutgers on Sunday. ___ AP womens college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 A demonstration in response to the death of Manuel Teran, who was killed during a police raid inside Weelaunee People's Park, the planned site of a "Cop City" project, in Atlanta. (Cheney Orr/Reuters) A plan to build a new training center for police and firefighters in Atlanta has put city officials on a collision course with activists opposed to its construction. Dubbed Cop City by opponents, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is set to include a shooting range, burn tower sites and a mock city affixed with homes and streets. The 85-acre project was approved by the Atlanta City Council in 2021 and is backed by the Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit largely funded by corporate donors. Proponents of the training center say it is needed to help boost law enforcement recruitment, retention and morale in the wake of severe staffing shortages in the city. Some residents have also voiced concerns about rising crime rates in and around Atlanta, where homicides have increased in each of the last three years. They see the center as a big part of the solution to the growing problem. For City Councilor Michael Julian Bond, who voted in favor of the plan two years ago, the center represents a necessary investment in public safety thats been decades in the making. The city desperately needs new training facilities, not only for our police, but particularly for our fire department, Bond told Yahoo News. Currently, there is no place within the corporate limits of the city of Atlanta that our firefighters have to train, which is a result of decades of the facilities that they did have deteriorating. A map of proposed Public Safety Training Center in southeast Atlanta. (Atlanta Police Foundation) But critics say the move will harm the regions environment, further strain community/police relations and endanger the areas majority Black population. A lot of the pushback comes from Cop City representing the militarization of the Atlanta Police Department and adding to the violence that were seeing against Black communities in the city, Michael Collins, senior director of government affairs at Color Of Change, a nonprofit civil rights organization, told Yahoo News. [Atlanta officials] have prioritized law enforcement and this training facility over the concerns of the Black community. Story continues The issue garnered national attention last week after a forest defender, 26-year-old Manuel Teran, was shot and killed by police while occupying the land where the training center is set to be built. Police claim that Teran shot a state trooper first without warning and officers returned fire. In the days since the shooting, protests against the centers construction and the activists death have multiplied and at times turned violent. On Saturday, in the midst of a peaceful march down Peachtree Street, a handful of vandals separated from the larger group and went off to break various storefront windows and light a police car on fire. As a result, six people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism. All but one of them were from outside of Georgia. It doesnt take a rocket scientist or an attorney to tell you that setting fires and breaking windows isnt protest, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said at a press conference that night. Its terrorism. Vandals smashed windows and lit a police car on fire in Atlanta in the wake of the death of an environmental activist killed after authorities said he shot a state trooper, Jan. 21. (Alex Slitz/AP) Unrest from protests in the last week has become so violent that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Thursday authorizing the use of as many as 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops. Plans for the center date back to September 2021, after the Atlanta City Council approved the ground lease for the facility by a vote of 10-4. The forest space had been slated to become the citys largest park. But 16 months ago, the city council instead moved forward with the training facility despite concerns from the community. A survey conducted by Social Insights in August 2021 of nearly 400 residents in the forests surrounding area found that 98% did not support new police and fire fighting facilities being built in the area. The problem with the police training center and the Atlanta forest is a classic Atlanta issue, Doug Williams, a resident of Atlantas East Lake neighborhood and political activist, told the Intercept. Those in power did what they wanted without a lot of concern for what local residents wanted. This is the Atlanta way. The land, which is owned by the city of Atlanta but falls just outside of the citys limits in an unincorporated part of Dekalb County, was used as recently as the 1990s as a former prison farm where low-risk inmates could work and take care of livestock. But since then the land has been largely empty and unusedMike Spivey, who moved from Denver two years ago to a home near the proposed facility, told the local NBC affiliate that he thinks the facility would be a good thing. He said the area was quiet when the project was first approved, but hes since noticed that more people have been camping out in the area in recent months. He also said that a neighbor moved because of several recent break-ins in the area. I feel like [with the facility] it will be even safer to live out here, he told the news station. But studies have shown increased police spending doesnt always lead to less crime. An abandoned protest sign in Weelaunee People's Park, the planned site of a controversial . (REUTERS/Cheney Orr) The project is set to cost around $90 million, and taxpayers are expected to pay a third of that, or $30 million. The rest will come from private donations raised by the Atlanta Police Foundation. According to 11Alive, the Atlanta Police Foundations board is filled with executives from nearly all of Atlanta's big-name companies, like Delta, Waffle House, Home Depot, Georgia Pacific, Equifax, Carter, Accenture, Wells Fargo and UPS, among others. It reads like a who's who of corporate Atlanta. Representatives from Home Depot and UPS told Yahoo News that they did not donate to the construction of the training center. But for activists like Collins, the corporate support for the venture is cause for concern. We do not believe that corporations should be in the business of policing, yet they are massively funding local police departments, Collins said, adding that the donations ultimately allow the companies to get their priorities for public safety over and above individuals in the community. The foundation did not return Yahoo News request for comment. It's completely circumventing the democratic process, Collins said, wary that Atlantas proposed training facility could become a blueprint for other cities. There basically are conversations that are happening behind closed doors, beyond the ears of the community and beyond the oversight of politicians. Georgia state troopers in Atlanta, Jan. 18. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Bond, who represents 450,000 residents as one of three at-large council members, rejects the assertion that corporate donations negatively affect public safety. Otherwise, he says, the entire burden of any new project would fall squarely on taxpayers. Bond sees the dispute over the centers construction as something of a false divide between members of the community and law enforcement. Both groups want a safer city, he says, but might have different visions for achieving it. He adds that the further you get away from the area where the center would be located, [most] Atlantans dont have the same type of fervor that the activists do for the facility. Throughout the crisis of the summer of activism ... there were demonstrations here, but 911 never stopped ringing, he said. There is a continuingly demonstrated need for police, fire and emergency services. Opponents of the new police center also say theyre concerned about how the construction could affect the local environment. For years, some community activists have looked to turn the former prison farmland into a recreational park. And they argue that keeping the parks greenery will help combat climate change, as trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, while making the area less susceptible to flooding. Critics also say that ordnance testing could pollute the soil and water surrounding the new facility. Residents in that neighborhood already have some of the countrys highest rates of poverty, asthma and exposure to toxic chemicals, according to a White House database, and this project could make a bad situation even worse. DeKalb, Ga., and Atlanta SWAT members leaving the Gresham Park command post in Atlanta, Jan. 18. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Yet opponents of the training center say they feel shut out from the conversation. Ahead of the city councils vote in 2021, hundreds of Atlanta residents phoned into the council to voice their disapproval of the project. But that didnt stop the council from voting in favor of the training center. I lost faith in the city government, Albrica Batts, one of the hundreds of Atlanta residents that called the council in opposition, told Capital B News. It felt like the council did not care about their constituents. Its all about money, greed, power and corruption. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, a Democrat, has said the activists looking to stop the project oppose the very things that they asked for more police training. We cant train the imaginary, we have to do it in a facility that allows for police [and] firefighters in the community to train together, Dickens, who in 2021 as a council member voted in favor of the facility, said at a Sunday press conference. This is bringing about the change that we wanted to see in 2020. And now while were doing it, these individuals [who] dont want to see any resources go towards that training, were going to develop this training center and those individuals will have to come to a halt. Activists hold candlelight vigil for Manuel Teran, who was shot and killed by Georgia State Police on Jan. 8, during a raid on the Stop Cop City occupation in Atlanta. (Jake Lee Green/Zuma Press Wire) But for critics like Collins, the fight against the facilitys construction is just getting started. All thats gone on with the protests will cause companies to take a second look about whether they want to be involved in the project, he said. I think Cop City is far from a done deal and the national interest on this will only shine a light on what have been some very shady practices on the part of police and corporations. _____ Cover thumbnail photos: Jack Forbes/Yahoo News; photos: Lincoln University, J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo RABAT (Reuters) - A human rights watchdog called on Morocco on Friday not to extradite a Shi'ite Muslim to his homeland of Saudi Arabia, citing fears he could face torture and an unfair trial there. Hassan Al Rabea, who has been in Morocco since last summer, has been held in a prison near Rabat after being arrested at Marrakech airport on Jan. 14, Human Rights Watch said in a statement. Saudi prosecutors accuse Rabea of leaving the kingdom illegally with the help of terrorists, the campaign group added. Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for a comment. It has denied previous accusations that it practices torture and conducts unfair trials. Rabea's case will be examined by a Moroccan court, which will submit a verdict on the legality of his extradition before a final decision is made by the government, a Moroccan judicial source said. Shi'ite activists in conservative, mostly Sunni Muslim, Saudi Arabia, say the government has cracked down on their minority sect for years as part of a regional tussle for influence with Shi'ite Iran. Saudi Arabia denies any discrimination against Shiites. It has accused Iran of instigating past unrest in the kingdom by the Shiite community. "The Moroccan government should stand for rights and resist Saudi efforts to forcibly return him," Human Rights Watch said. In 2021, Morocco extradited Osama al-Hasani, a dual Australian-Saudi citizen, to Saudi Arabia in a case that concerned rights groups. (Reporting by Ahmed Eljechtimi; Editing by Vin Shahrestani) BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary will veto any European Union sanctions against Russia affecting nuclear energy, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday. Ukraine has called on the 27-nation EU to include Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom in sanctions but Hungary, which has a Russian-built nuclear plant it plans to expand with Rosatom, has blocked that. Orban reiterated in an interview that sanctions on nuclear energy "must obviously be vetoed". "We will not allow the plan to include nuclear energy into the sanctions be implemented," the Hungarian premier said. "This is out of the question." EU-member Hungary has repeatedly criticised EU sanctions on Russia over its invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, saying they failed to weaken Russia meaningfully, while they risk destroying the European economy. The West has not imposed sanctions on Rosatom since Russia invaded Ukraine. Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant has four small Russian-built VVER 440 reactors with a combined capacity of about 2,000 megawatts, which started operating between 1982 and 1987. It generates about half its power and the plant gets its nuclear fuel from Russia. Under a deal signed in 2014 with Russia, Hungary aims to expand the Paks plant with two Russian-made VVER reactors with a capacity of 1.2 gigawatts each. (Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Jacqueline Wong) Bryan Kohberger sent a gushing email to a local police chief months before he allegedly murdered four University of Idaho students in a brutal attack in Moscow, Idaho, it has been revealed. The 28-year-old PhD student applied for a research assistant position in public safety with the Pullman Police Department in Washington in early 2022 and was interviewed by Pullman Police Chief Gary Jenkins for the position. After the 12 April meeting, Mr Kohberger sent an email to the police chief saying it was a great pleasure to meet with you today and share my thoughts and excitement regarding the research assistantship for public safety. It is unclear if Mr Kohberger was offered the position, which was due to start in August. Months later, on 13 November, the 28-year-old allegedly stabbed to death students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. He is facing the death penalty on charges of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. Court documents unsealed last week showed that 15 items including hairs, receipts, a disposable glove and items with red stains were recovered from his home in Pullman, Washington, during a search in late December. Key points Bryan Kohberger met local police chief and sent him gushing email months before murders Moscow restaurant where victims worked denies Kohberger claims Attorney debunks speculation about co-defendant discovery Chilling online comments from suspect as teen revealed Idaho murders suspect should get an F in criminology,' attorney says 15:11 , Andrea Blanco Suspected mass killer Bryan Kohberger should get an F in his criminology class after the damning affidavit laid out evidence linking him to the murders of four University of Idaho students, according to a prominent criminal defence attorney. Duncan Levin, the former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DAs office and attorney at Levin & Associates who has represented clients including Harvey Weinstein and Anna Delvey, spoke exclusively to The Independent about the strength of the criminal case against the 28-year-old PhD student. Story continues Based on the evidence outlined in the probable cause affidavit, Mr Levin said that Mr Kohberger did a poor job of covering his tracks and that the prosecution has a very strong case against him. In short, he should get an F in criminology class, he said. He did not do a good job of covering his tracks. Neighbour says Bryan Kohberger described murders as crime of passion before arrest 14:49 , Andrea Blanco Bryan Kohbergers neighbour has claimed that the murder suspect brought up the student killings in conversation one time. The neighbour, who wishes to remain anonymous, told CBS News that Mr Kohberger spoke to him about the quadruple homicide just days on from the 13 November attack. He brought it up in conversation, they said. [He] asked if I had heard about the murders, which I did. And then he said, Yeah, seems like they have no leads. Seems like it was a crime of passion. At the time of our conversation, it was only a few days after it happened so there wasnt much details out. Conflict of interest concerns raised as it emerges Bryan Kohberger attorney previously represented victims family 14:30 , Rachel Sharp Concerns about a possible conflict of interest have been raised in the Idaho murders case as it has emerged that Bryan Kohbergers attorney previously represented a family member of one of the victims. Court documents, filed on 5 January, reveal that public defender Anne Taylor stood down from as the attorney for Xana Kernodles mother. Ms Taylor is now representing Mr Kohberger as he faces the death penalty for the murders of Kernodle, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, and two roommates Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen. Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer tweeted that this marks a conflict of interest in the case. Cant understand how a conflict of interest didnt exist when AT took the case. IME w/the Public Defenders Office, when their office represented a client associated with a case they could NOT except the client, she said. Have never seen a conflict like this overlooked by a court. Court documents, filed on 5 January, reveal that public defender Anne Taylor stood down from as the attorney for Xana Kernodles mother (Idaho state records) Kaylee Goncalves previously called in missing person sighting to same police officer who then investigated her murder 13:45 , Rachel Sharp True crime follower Kaylee Goncalves previously called in a potential missing person sighting and spoke to one of the same police officers who then investigated her murder, it has been revealed. In September 2021, Sharon Archer, a 62-year-old woman who lived in Goncalves hometown of Coeur dAlene, went missing. An Idaho State Police incident report, seen by Fox News Digital, reveals that Goncalves called police on 5 October to report a sighting of a woman matching Archers description at the Walmart in Moscow. Kaylee told me the females name is possibly Sharon Archer, Sgt. Dustin Blaker wrote in the report. Kaylee told me the female was staring at her and her boyfriend when they were in the store and as they checked out. Investigators did not find Archer and it remains unclear if the woman was indeed her. She was found dead inside a submerged vehicle about three weeks later. Sgt Baker later became a lead investigator in Goncalves murder case. How strong is the case against Bryan Kohberger? 12:59 , Rachel Sharp Duncan Levin, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DAs office who has no official connection to the Idaho murders case, spoke to The Independent about the strength of the criminal case and what to expect next as it makes it way through the courts. Based on the damning evidence outlined in the probable cause affidavit, Mr Levin said that the prosecution has a very strong case against Bryan Kohberger. Its an exceedingly detailed probable cause affidavit and frankly its pretty surprising that the prosecutors would include the level of detail they included in it, said the attorney at Levin & Associates who has represented clients including Harvey Weinstein and Anna Delvey. He added: I have to say looking at it it is a perfect case of where theres smoke, theres fire. Theres so many damning pieces of evidence. The information here all points to Kohberger as the only person to have committed the crime. The suspect - who is presumed innocent until proven guilty - was tied to the murders through DNA evidence, cellphone data, an eyewitness account and his white Hyundai Elantra, according to the bombshell probable cause affidavit released earlier this month. The DNA evidence in particular is one very, very important piece of information, Mr Levin said. The affidavit revealed for the first time that a knife sheath had been left behind at the crime scene on the bed next to the bodies of Mogen and Goncalves. DNA found on the sheath was matched to Mr Kohberger, using DNA obtained from trash taken from his parents home and a genetic genealogy database, the affidavit states. Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed the three female slain University of Idaho victims on Instagram 12:15 , Rachel Sharp Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed all three slain female University of Idaho victims on Instagram and repeatedly messaged one of them prior to the brutal stabbings, according to a report. An investigator familiar with the case told People that the 28-year-old criminology PhD student followed the accounts of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle but neither of them followed him back. Then, in late-October around two weeks before the 13 November slayings Mr Kohberger allegedly messaged one of the victims repeatedly on the social media platform, the source said. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the story: Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed Idaho murders victims on Instagram Kaylee Goncalves was no longer living at student home when she was killed 11:45 , Rachel Sharp Idaho murders victim Kaylee Goncalves had already moved out of the home where she and three other students were brutally murdered but tragically returned to Moscow to visit her best friend that fateful weekend. Goncalves parents told NBCs Dateline that the 21-year-old had recently left the student rental property on King Road, Moscow, ahead of her upcoming graduation that December and a move to Austin, Texas, for a new job at a tech firm. Then, on the weekend of 12 November, she decided to go back to the college town to visit her best friend Madison Mogen. The two young women had been inseparable since meeting in the sixth grade and Goncalves wanted to show Mogen her new Range Rover that she had saved up for and bought. The pair also planned to go to a party together on the night of Saturday 12 November. These girls were best friends since sixth grade, like inseparable, said Goncalves mother Kristi Goncalves. That was the last time that I saw Kaylee. Bryan Kohberger met local police chief and sent him gushing email months before murders 11:06 , Rachel Sharp Bryan Kohberger sent a gushing email to a local police chief months before he allegedly murdered four University of Idaho students in a brutal attack in Moscow, Idaho, it has been revealed. The 28-year-old PhD student applied for a research assistant position in public safety with the Pullman Police Department in Washington in early 2022 and was interviewed by Pullman Police Chief Gary Jenkins for the position. After the 12 April meeting, Mr Kohberger sent an email to the police chief saying it was a great pleasure to meet with you today and share my thoughts and excitement regarding the research assistantship for public safety. Mr Jenkins responded: Great to meet and talk to you as well. It is unclear if Mr Kohberger was offered the position, which was due to start in August. What was found inside Bryan Kohbergers home: 10:45 , Rachel Sharp Last week, police in Washington unsealed search warrants for Bryan Kohbergers apartment in Pullman and his office at Washington State University (WSU). The unsealed documents reveal that investigators seized a string of items from his home. This included: - one nitrite type black glove - one Walmart receipt with one Dickies tag - two Marshalls receipts - dust container from a vacuum - multiple possible hair and hair strands - one possible animal hair strands - two cuttings from uncased pillow of reddish/brown stain - two top and bottom mattress cover with multiple stains - items with a dark red spot - a computer tower - a Fire TV stick No items were seized from his office which he shared with other PhD students. Bryan Kohbergers Idaho murders arrest affidavit was meant to give answers. Instead it raises these new questions 10:00 , Rachel Sharp Why did the surviving roommate wait eight hours to call 911 after seeing the killer? Who was the intended target? Is Bryan Kohberger the stalker Kaylee Goncalves complained about? The affidavit revealed what led authorities to arrest Bryan Kohberger. But it also raised further questions about the case. The Independents Rachel Sharp reports on the questions still unanswered in the case: Bryan Kohbergers Idaho murders arrest affidavit raises these new questions Could Bryan Kohberger get a plea deal? 09:15 , Rachel Sharp If convicted of the four murders, Mr Kohberger faces the possibility of lethal injection, should the prosecution seek the death penalty. In the state of Idaho, the maximum sentence for first-degree murder is death and the suspect is facing four counts of this charge. While the Latah County prosecutor has not yet confirmed whether or not he plans to seek the death penalty in the case and he is unlikely to show his hand over the coming weeks due to the gag order now in place. Goncalves parents have already said that they want their daughters killer to be sentenced to death saying he has to pay for what he has done. If you want to play gods role, youre gonna have to go answer to him, Steve told NewsNation in early-January. According to attorney Duncan Levin, in a death penalty case, the only possible plea deal would be for the suspect to be given life in prison instead. However, he said it is too early to tell whether this is likely in this case. At this point, it is too early for the two sides to have a discussion about a plea deal, he told The Independent. On a death penalty case, the only plea on the table is life in prison but both sides have too much investigating ahead of them to discuss that at this time. UI students launch fundraiser selling bracelets in victims honour 08:30 , Rachel Sharp University of Idaho students have launched fundraiser selling bracelets in honour of the four murder victims. The Vandal Strong bracelets are black silicon bands featuring the names of Ethan, Maddie, Xana and Kaylee. They are for sale on the UI website with funds from the sales set to go towards a memorial for the victims. Student fundraiser organized by @ASUIDAHO selling #vandalstrong bracelets to raise money towards building a permanent memorial on @uidaho campus for Xana, Ethan, Madison, and Kaylee. A way for us to honor and remember them forever. Link to buy below:https://t.co/agvLa4CtmB Sheldon Kernodle (@amigoshel) January 20, 2023 Bryan Kohberger should get an F in criminology over damning Idaho murders affidavit, attorney says 07:45 , Rachel Sharp Suspected mass killer Bryan Kohberger should get an F in his criminology class after the damning affidavit laid out evidence linking him to the murders of four University of Idaho students, according to a prominent criminal defence attorney. Duncan Levin, the former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DAs office and attorney at Levin & Associates who has represented clients including Harvey Weinstein and Anna Delvey, spoke exclusively to The Independent about the strength of the criminal case against the 28-year-old PhD student. Based on the evidence outlined in the probable cause affidavit, Mr Levin said that Mr Kohberger did a poor job of covering his tracks and that the prosecution has a very strong case against him. In short he should get an F in criminology class, he said. He did not do a good job of covering his tracks. Read more here: Bryan Kohberger should get an F in criminology over Idaho murders, attorney says What could investigators find from Kohbergers computer tower and Fire TV stick? 07:00 , Rachel Sharp Last week, police in Washington unsealed search warrants for Bryan Kohbergers apartment in Pullman and his office at Washington State University (WSU). The unsealed documents reveal that investigators seized a string of items from his home including possible human and animal hair strands, a disposable glove, items with red and brown stains and a computer tower and Fire TV stick. No items were seized from his office which he shared with other PhD students. Experts Dr Monte Miller, a former crime scene investigator and forensic expert for the Texas Department of Public Safety and former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer spoke to The Independent about the items seized. They said that, in addition to physical evidence, investigators could be looking into Mr Kohbergers behaviour, including computer searches, articles he read and television he watched in the weeks leading up to and in the aftermath of the murders. They may be looking at what he watched. Did he watch the news? Did he watch anything connected to the murders? Did he watch shows about [crime]? Dr Miller told The Independent. Some of that might go with his PhD, or could be explainable to him. [Investigators] are just trying to put the whole picture together. Ms Coffindaffer echoed that assessment, adding that Mr Kohbergers Fire TV stick could have been paired with other apps and even social media platforms. There could be some very important information there related particularly to his searches and social media, she added. Bryan Kohbergers neighbour reveals normal conversation about murders 06:15 , Rachel Sharp Bryan Kohbergers neighbour has revealed how he had a normal conversation about the college murders with the man now accused of carrying them out. The neighbour, who did not wish to be named, told Fox News that the 28-year-old criminology PhD student raised the topic just days on from the 13 November slayings. He actually says, Have you heard about the murders? FOX Nation host Nancy Grace asked. The neighbour responded: Yeah, hes like, Yeah, it seems like they dont have any leads. Mr Kohberger chillingly went on to suggest that the murders were a crime of passion. In the early days of the investigation, a Moscow official described the killings in that way. VOICES: I lived through an attack similar to the Idaho murders. We must defend the survivors 05:15 , Rachel Sharp It was an amazing, fun, vibrant summer of 1992. I was living in a three-level house off campus from the University at Buffalo with five of my Chi Omega sorority sisters. Mine was the front room, a converted patio. The original entrance door was sealed shut and drywalled over, so you wouldnt know that from the inside. Alanna Zabel writes for The Independent: I lived through an attack similar to the Idaho murders. We must defend the survivors Possible animal hair found at Bryan Kohbergers home 04:15 , Rachel Sharp A possible animal hair was among the evidence seized from the home of Bryan Kohberger sparking speculation that it could belong to victim Kaylee Goncalves dog. Search warrants for Mr Kohbergers home and WSU office were unsealed last week, revealing what investigators found during searches executed on 30 December. Among the items seized was a possible animal hair strand. While Mr Kohberger is not believed to have a pet, Goncalves had a pet dog named Murphy who she shared with her ex-boyfriend. Murphy was at home at the time of the murders and was found unscathed in Goncalves bedroom. Goncalves and Madison Mogen were found dead in Mogens room. An affidavit in support of Mr Kohbergers arrest revealed that one of the victims two surviving roommates Dylan Mortensen, had heard the dog making noise in Goncalves room around the time of the killings. The affidavit also stated that a security camera near the home heard the dog barking at 4.17am. What the newly-expanded gag order means 03:30 , Rachel Sharp A gag order was first issued earlier this month preventing law enforcement officials, attorneys for both the defence and the prosecution, as well as others involved in the high-profile case from speaking out about it. Last week, the gag order was broadly expanded to also ban any attorneys representing survivors, witnesses or the victims family members from talking or writing about the case. In the court order, Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall said that there is a balance between protecting the right to a fair trial for all parties involved and the right to free expression as afforded under both the United States and Idaho Constitution. To preserve the right to a fair trial some curtailment of the dissemination of information in this case is necessary and authorized under the law, she wrote. Now a coalition of news organisations is asking a judge to pull back the scope of the gag order, saying that media access to officials can provide the public with important context in such high-profile criminal cases. This order is unnecessarily sweeping and broad and severely impedes the publics understanding of a significant criminal investigation that profoundly impacted the community, said Josh Hoffner, national news director for The Associated Press. Bryan Kohbergers trial for the Idaho murders is months away. How strong is the case against him? 02:45 , Rachel Sharp It will be another six months before Bryan Kohberger and the families of his alleged victims come face to face in court again, after his preliminary hearing was postponed until the summer. The 28-year-old criminology PhD student could face the death penalty if convicted when he eventually goes on trial for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin the four students who were found violently stabbed to death in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on 13 November. Details about the murders and his alleged role in them were laid out in the damning probable cause affidavit released earlier this month. But just how strong is the case against him? What can we expect next from the defence and the prosecution? And why has Mr Kohbergers attorney requested evidence about a co-defendant? Duncan Levin, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DAs office who has no official connection to the Idaho murders case, spoke to The Independents Rachel Sharp about the strength of the criminal case and what to expect next as it makes it way through the courts. Read what he said here: How strong is the case against Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger? Neighbour says Bryan Kohberger described murders as crime of passion prior to arrest 02:00 , Rachel Sharp Bryan Kohbergers neighbour has claimed that the murder suspect brought up the student killings in conversation one time. The neighbour, who wishes to remain anonymous, told CBS News that Mr Kohberger spoke to him about the quadruple homicide just days on from the 13 November attack. He brought it up in conversation, they said. [He] asked if I had heard about the murders, which I did. And then he said, Yeah, seems like they have no leads. Seems like it was a crime of passion. At the time of our conversation, it was only a few days after it happened so there wasnt much details out. What forensic experts say about evidence seized from Bryan Kohbergers home in the Idaho murders case 00:30 , Rachel Sharp Authorities have lifted the lid on alleged evidence found in the home of Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger, marking the latest development in a horror case that has gripped the nation for two months. A search warrant was executed at Mr Kohbergers apartment in Pullman, Washington, on 30 December, the same day he was arrested at his parents home in Pennsylvania on charges for the 13 November stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in Moscow, Idaho. A record of evidence recovered during the apartment search was unsealed on Wednesday, revealing the seizure of 15 items including hairs, receipts, a computer tower, a disposable glove and items with peculiar stains. The record reignited a frenzy of speculation online - despite its simplicity and lack of conjecture. But what significance, if any, can actually be gleaned from the list? The Independents Andrea Blanco spoke to two experts - Dr Monte Miller, a former crime scene investigator and forensic expert for the Texas Department of Public Safety; and former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer - for their takes on each item. Read what they said here: What forensic experts say about evidence seized from Bryan Kohbergers home Mad Greek owner denies suspect dined there Monday 23 January 2023 23:45 , Rachel Sharp A former employee at the Mad Greek restaurant, where Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle worked, told People last week that Bryan Kohberger had visited the eatery in the weeks before the murders. The suspect, who is vegan, popped in at least twice for some vegan pizza, the employee said. An investigator with knowledge of the case told People that investigators knew about the visits to the restaurant, and had seized footage from it and interviewed both the staff and owners. However, this was almost instantly refuted by the owner of the Mad Greek, who denied Mr Kohberger had ever been there. Jackie Fischer slammed the article as completely fabricated information in a Facebook post on Friday and urged the public and the media to please allow us to grieve the loss of our friends and co-worker. Officials have not addressed the speculation about the restaurant visit or the Instagram account and are unlikely to do so, due to a gag order preventing law enforcement officials and the defence and prosecution teams from speaking out about the high-profile case. The news/media should really do their due diligence before running a story with completely fabricated information. This will be my only response to this story from People It is not true. This person who wants their 5 minutes of fame has now caused a whole bunch of extra work for myself and the investigators, the owner wrote. To all media/reporters/internet sleuths, etc.. please allow us to grieve the loss of our friends and co workers. This has been incredibly hard on us. With our phones ringing off the hook, reporters banging on my door at my private residence and hunting down employees as well as showing up constantly at the restaurant, we have not been afforded the time to grieve. Please stop calling, messaging, knocking and showing up. I personally will not be doing any interviews or entertaining wild accusations at this time. My employees also feel the same! Stained items found at suspects home likely covered in blood, say experts Monday 23 January 2023 23:00 , Rachel Sharp Last week, police in Washington unsealed search warrants for Mr Kohbergers apartment in Pullman and his office at Washington State University (WSU). In the documents, investigators listed several items with stains, including cuttings of a mattress cover, a reddish/brown stain on an uncovered pillow and a collection of dark red spot. Experts Dr Monte Miller, a former crime scene investigator and forensic expert for the Texas Department of Public Safety and former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer both told The Independent that police likely believe those stains could be blood. A reddish or brown stain is a euphemism for, We found something that looks like blood, Dr Miller said. It might be blood from the victims, might be his blood. They dont know until they test it, but theyll be able to get DNA if it is blood. We dont know what the stains in the cover sheets look like, but again theyre looking for any kind of DNA, evidence that might have come from the crime scene. Ms Coffindaffer added: They dont call it blood, but its definitely inferred that it was blood. Dr Miller noted that while stains on clothing and bedding are not necessarily unusual, investigators will try to link the evidence found at the Pullman apartment to the crime scene in Moscow. The likelihood that any of those stains came from the crime scene, is going to be dependent on how well he cleaned up, he said. She slept through an attack that nearly killed her roommate. Now, shes defending a stranger in the Idaho murders Monday 23 January 2023 22:15 , Rachel Sharp When Alanna Zabel first heard that four young students had been viciously murdered in their rental home after a night out, she didnt want to think about it. When she then heard that one of the surviving roommates was coming under attack for how she handled the unimaginable experience, she realised she had to speak out. I can understand every aspect of what she went through. Being 19 years old, having fun, you dont know any reality where a man breaks into your house and attacks your friends, she tells The Independent. I get it, I get it when people say why didnt she call 911? But those people are just used to watching these things happen in movies. This is a very unique and traumatic experience. Three decades before University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were attacked in an off-campus home in Moscow, Ms Zabels college home in Buffalo, New York, was broken into by a man who raped and violently attacked her roommate with a hammer, leaving her for dead. There are many chilling similarities between the two cases none more so than the experiences of the roommates who survived. Alanna Zabel tells The Independents Rachel Sharp why she feels the need to defend the surviving roommate in Idaho and how she understands the way trauma can shape reactions to such horrifying events: She slept through an attack in her home - and has a message about the Idaho murders 911 dispatcher may be behind unconscious individual police report Monday 23 January 2023 21:30 , Rachel Sharp The 911 call alerting law enforcement to the murders of the four University of Idaho students has long been shrouded in mystery after Moscow Police said that the caller initially reported an unconscious individual in the home. The call was made from the cellphone of one of the two surviving roommates at around 11.58am on 13 November, with the dispatcher speaking to multiple people. Officers arrived at the home to find a bloody scene, with Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin all dead from multiple stab wounds. Since then, questions have persisted around why the caller reported an unconscious individual when officials described the crime scene as one of the worst they had ever seen. A potential reason for the mysterious 911 call has now been revealed in Air Mails article The Eyes of a Killer. Civilian employees at Whitcom 9-1-1, an agency in Pullman, Washington, handle the 911 calls to the Moscow Police Department as well as several other agencies, according to the report. The agency is severely understaffed to such an extent that the dispatchers guild has previously warned that our ability to uphold public safety is at risk. Under standard protocol, when callers are agitated the dispatcher will often assign the call with the generic label of unconscious person rather than waste valuable time and resources trying to gather specific details. In this case, it is possible that the dispatcher assigned the generic label while speaking to the students who were panicked by what they saw and were passing the phone from one to the other. Why is there a six month gap before the preliminary hearing? Monday 23 January 2023 20:45 , Rachel Sharp At his status hearing in Latah County Courthouse on 12 January, Bryan Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial - which would have set his preliminary hearing within 14 days. Instead, his attorney asked that the next court date instead be delayed until the summer, to give defence more time to review all the evidence in the case. The prosecution agreed with the request and the judge scheduled the preliminary hearing for the week beginning 26 June, setting aside the entire week for the hearing. Now, the victims families and the public will have to wait another six months to learn further details about the murders and the case against Mr Kohberger. Duncan Levin, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DAs office who has no official connection to the Idaho murders case, told The Independent that a six-month time gap between a status hearing and preliminary hearing is somewhat unusual but its a marker of the complexity of the case. It is somewhat unusual to see such a long gap but then again nothing is normal in this case, he said. Death penalty cases do mean that everything will take longer and be done a little bit differently than one might expect to see on a typical case. The six-month delay is a benefit to both sides, he added. The defence wants as much time as possible to conduct their own investigations before they have the opportunity to cross-examine the states witnesses. So theyre eager to have more information in their hands before any testimony is heard in the preliminary hearing, he said. Similarly, the prosecution needs time to conduct further investigations. For example they will be likely doing a forensic examination of Kohbergers automobile and residence. And they are still yet to uncover a motive. They have a lot of work yet to do. He added: Both sides really need more time to review evidence and develop their cases. What Idaho murders investigators were looking for at Bryan Kohbergers apartment - and what they found Monday 23 January 2023 20:00 , Rachel Sharp When Bryan Kohberger was charged with the brutal murders of four Idaho students last month, authorities immediately searched his dorm room and office at nearby Washington State University. In a newly unsealed search warrant application, investigators outlined exactly what they were looking for at the home of the 28-year-old graduate student who was arrested in Pennsylvania last month. First, the application, filed in Washingtons Superior Court on 29 December, gave police permission to search for blood, or other bodily fluid or human tissue or skin cells, or items with blood or other bodily fluid or human tissue or skin cells on the items. The Independents Graeme Massie breaks down what the search warrant reveals about what investigators were looking for and what they found: What Idaho murders investigators were looking for at Bryan Kohbergers apartment Kaylee Goncalves family reveals reason for calls to former boyfriend not long before murders Monday 23 January 2023 19:15 , Rachel Sharp Kaylee Goncalves family members have revealed a possible reason for the calls the slain student made to her former boyfriend not long before she was brutally murdered. In the early hours of 13 November, Goncalves and Mogen both made phone calls to Goncalves ex-boyfriend Jack DuCoeur, with whom she shares pet dog Murphy. Mr DuCoeur did not answer the calls. Just hours later at between 4am and 4.25am Goncalves and Mogen were brutally stabbed to death alongside Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. In a sit-down interview with the YouTube channel Chronicles of Olivia, the Goncalves family spoke out about the calls, saying that they believe their daughter was seeking to rekindle her relationship with Mr DuCoeur. Goncalves broke up with Mr DuCoeur ahead of her post-graduation move to Texas, but had later voiced concerns that she might not ever find another Jack and was considering getting back together with him, they said. Kaylees father Steve Goncalves said that the couple had remained friends and the slain student was looking for every excuse for [Mr DuCoeur] to pick up the phone. Bryan Kohbergers neighbour says he claimed to have submitted DNA to ancestry website in past Monday 23 January 2023 18:30 , Rachel Sharp A neighbour of Bryan Kohberger has claimed that the murder suspect told him he had submitted his DNA to an ancestry website in the past casting new light on the revelation that investigators used a genealogy database to help match him to DNA evidence found at the crime scene. The 28-year-old PhD student was tracked down by investigators in part thanks to DNA that the killer is believed to have left inside the student home in Moscow, Idaho. According to the probable cause affidavit, a knife sheath was left behind at the crime scene on the bed next to the bodies of Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. DNA found on the sheath was matched to Mr Kohberger, using DNA obtained from trash taken from his parents home, the affidavit states. Sources told CNN that investigators also enlisted the help of a genetic genealogy database. Now, Mr Kohbergers neighbour has spoken out to say that the suspect once brought up the topic of his ancestry and told him he had submitted his DNA for consumer genetic testing months before the murders. The neighbour, who was not named but is a fellow Washington State University graduate student who lived in the same on-campus apartment complex in Pullman, Washington, as Mr Kohberger, told the Idaho Statesman that the pair got to know each other after they both moved there in August. He said that they exchanged cellphone numbers and they went on a walk together chatting one evening in August. He talked about his ancestors, he said. He had some sort of DNA test. I dont know how he got to that point It was just interesting to him. Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed the three female slain University of Idaho victims on Instagram Monday 23 January 2023 17:45 , Rachel Sharp Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed all three slain female University of Idaho victims on Instagram and repeatedly messaged one of them prior to the brutal stabbings, according to a report. An investigator familiar with the case told People that the 28-year-old criminology PhD student followed the accounts of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle but neither of them followed him back. Then, in late-October around two weeks before the 13 November slayings Mr Kohberger allegedly messaged one of the victims repeatedly on the social media platform, the source said. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed Idaho murders victims on Instagram Hit-and-run unfolded outside Bryan Kohbergers home on night of murders Monday 23 January 2023 17:15 , Oliver O'Connell A hit-and-run unfolded outside of Bryan Kohbergers home on the same night that he allegedly murdered four University of Idaho students, it has been revealed. At around 11.40pm on the night of 12 November, police were called to a report of a crash in front of an apartment complex on the Washington State University (WSU) campus, in Pullman, Washington state, according to authorities. The apartment complex, which houses mainly graduate or PhD students, had been home to Mr Kohberger since August when he relocated from his home state of Pennsylvania to start a PhD program in criminal justice at the university. The Independents Rachel Sharp has the full story: Hit-and-run unfolded outside Bryan Kohbergers home on night of Idaho college murders VOICES: The eerie online world of the Idaho murders case Monday 23 January 2023 17:00 , Rachel Sharp While America has long been fascinated with true crime, the shocking brutality and seeming randomness of the Moscow murders sent the internet sleuth community into overdrive. Conspiracy theories and rumours have dominated the investigation with thousands of people joining social media groups to discuss their take on what transpired and why. The Independents Rachel Sharp writes: The eerie online world of the Idaho murders case Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed the three female victims on Instagram Monday 23 January 2023 16:15 , Rachel Sharp Bryan Kohberger is believed to have followed the three female slain University of Idaho victims on Instagram prior to the stabbings, according to a report. An investigator familiar with the case told People that the 28-year-old criminology PhD student followed the accounts of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle but they did not follow him back. Then, in late-October just weeks before the 13 November slayings Mr Kohberger allegedly messaged one of the victims repeatedly on the social media platform, the source said. Officials have not confirmed the account and a gag order is currently in place around the high-profile case. Why is the defence requesting evidence about a co-defendant? Monday 23 January 2023 15:30 , Rachel Sharp Last week, Bryan Kohbergers attorney Ann Taylor filed a discovery request in the case, asking the judge to order the prosecution to hand over all discovery in the case within 14 days. Among the discovery requests were witness statements, digital media and police reports about the case. It also included a request for information about a co-defendant in the case. Statements of co-defendant. Any written or recorded statements by a codefendant, and the substance of any relevant oral statement made by a co-defendant whether before or after arrest in response to interrogation by any person known by the codefendant to be a peace officer or agent of the prosecuting attorney, or which are otherwise relevant to the offense charged, the filing reads. The request has prompted speculation of evidence suggesting that Mr Kohberger may have had an accomplice or that the defence could seek to argue that as part of their case. However, Mr Levin explained that this is just part of the standard requests for discovery in a case. These are just very standard requests as part of the defences discovery request, he said. While ruling out other individuals as possible suspects will likely form part of the states case against Mr Kohberger, he said that this does not indicate that there are other suspects. The probable cause affidavit makes no mention of a co-defendant and law enforcement officials have previously insisted that they believe the suspect acted alone. The request making mention of a co-defendant is also just one of 18 discovery requests made in the court filing. I dont think I would make much hay of that, Mr Levin said of the discovery request. What forensic experts say about evidence seized from Bryan Kohbergers Washington state home Monday 23 January 2023 15:00 , Andrea Blanco Authorities have lifted the lid on alleged evidence found in the home of Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger, marking the latest development in a horror case that has gripped the nation for two months. A search warrant was executed at Mr Kohbergers apartment in Pullman, Washington, on 30 December, the same day he was arrested at his parents home in Pennsylvania on charges for the 13 November stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in Moscow, Idaho. A record of evidence recovered during the apartment search was unsealed on Wednesday, revealing the seizure of 15 items including hairs, receipts, a computer tower, a disposable glove and items with peculiar stains. The record reignited a frenzy of speculation online - despite its simplicity and lack of conjecture. But what significance, if any, can actually be gleaned from the list? The Independent spoke to two experts - Dr Monte Miller, a former crime scene investigator and forensic expert for the Texas Department of Public Safety; and former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer - for their takes on each item. Read the full story. DNA evidence of extreme importance in otherwise circumstantial case Monday 23 January 2023 13:00 , Andrea Blanco Based on the damning evidence outlined in the probable cause affidavit, the prosecution has a very strong case against Mr Kohberger, according to prominent defence attorney Duncan Levin. Mr Levin, a former assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DAs office who has no official connection to the Idaho murders case, speaks to The Independent about the strength of the criminal case and what to expect next as it makes its way through the courts. Its an exceedingly detailed probable cause affidavit and frankly its pretty surprising that the prosecutors would include the level of detail they included in it, said the attorney at Levin & Associates who has represented clients including Harvey Weinstein and Anna Delvey. He added: I have to say looking at it it is a perfect case of where theres smoke, theres fire. Theres so many damning pieces of evidence. The information here all points to Kohberger as the only person to have committed the crime. The suspect - who is presumed innocent until proven guilty - was tied to the murders through DNA evidence, cellphone data, an eyewitness account and his white Hyundai Elantra, according to the bombshell probable cause affidavit released earlier this month. The DNA evidence in particular is one very, very important piece of information, Mr Levin said. Kaylees ex pens tribute posts on Instagram account for their dog Monday 23 January 2023 11:00 , Andrea Blanco Goncalves mother Kristi Goncalves shared that Jack DuCoeur is behind an Instagram account dedicated to Murphy, the pet dog found inside the home when police made the grim discovery on 13 November. The dog was handed over to animal services and was later released to Mr DuCoeur. Although the couple had recently broken up ahead of Goncalves move to Texas, they had remained friendly, their relatives have said. On the accounts first post on Monday, Mr DuCoeur posted a picture of the Labradoodle with the caption: Missing my mom every day, but trying to live my best life. I got to admire her beauty in the sky this evening. This is a throwback photo of me. My mom loved this one, another post read. Mr DuCoeur also posted a picture that Goncalves had taken of him and Murphy. The account already has more than 10,000 followers, with people commenting heartfelt messages. This hurts my heart. Youre a good boy Murphy. So happy you and your Dad have each other, an Instagram user wrote. Youll be best pals for life. Much love and sympathy to everyone mourning Kaylee. News outlets join to oppose gag order in Idaho stabbing case Monday 23 January 2023 09:00 , Andrea Blanco Twenty regional and national news organizations have formed a coalition to ask a judge to narrow a gag order in the case against a man accused of killing four University of Idaho students, The Associated Press reported. The coalition, which includes contends that press access to law enforcement officers and other officials involved in high-stakes criminal cases provides the public with important context and a better understanding of how the criminal justice system operates. Bryan Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths in Moscow, Idaho. Prosecutors have yet to reveal if they intend to seek the death penalty. The case garnered widespread publicity, and earlier this month Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall issued a gag order barring attorneys, law enforcement agencies and others associated with the case from talking about it. On Thursday she broadened that gag order, also prohibiting any attorneys representing survivors, witnesses or the victims family members from talking or writing about the case. There is a balance between protecting the right to a fair trial for all parties involved and the right to free expression as afforded under both the United States and Idaho Constitution, Marshall wrote in the amended order. To preserve the right to a fair trial some curtailment of the dissemination of information in this case is necessary and authorized under the law. Mad Greek restaurant denies Bryan Kohberger dined at restaurant where two victims worked Monday 23 January 2023 07:00 , Andrea Blanco The restaurant where Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle worked has responded to claims that Bryan Kohberger ate there twice in the weeks before the Idaho murders. In a strongly-worded Facebook post on Friday, the restaurant called a People magazine report citing an anonymous worker who said Mr Kohberber visited twice completely fabricated information. The news/media should really do their due diligence before running a story with completely fabricated information. This will be my only response to this story from People It is not true, the post signed by Jackie Fischer read. This person who wants their 5 minutes of fame has now caused a whole bunch of extra work for myself and the investigators. I also have not forbidden employees from speaking to reporters. We all decided collectively to support the families and not share anything that could potentially harm the investigation or cause the families more stress. To all media/reporters/internet sleuths, etc.. please allow us to grieve the loss of our friends and co-workers. This has been incredibly hard on us. With our phones ringing off the hook, reporters banging on my door at my private residence and hunting down employees as well as showing up constantly at the restaurant, we have not been afforded the time to grieve. Please stop calling, messaging, knocking and showing up. I personally will not be doing any interviews or entertaining wild accusations at this time. My employees also feel the same! To all others, please dont believe everything you read. If its not coming from the courts or the police, wait until it does or doesnt before judging. To everyone who has supported myself, my family and my employees, thank you. Your kind words and support help us get through each day while we navigate these unknown times. (IG) Victims father broke down and cried at news of suspect arrest Monday 23 January 2023 05:00 , Andrea Blanco The devastated father of slain University of Idaho student Madison Mogen has revealed that he just broke down and cried when he learned that his daughters accused killer had been taken into custody by police. Ben Mogen had been clinging onto hope that the murderer who violently stabbed his daughter to death alongside her friends Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin would be brought to justice. Finally, seven weeks on from the 13 November slayings, an investigator broke the news to him that a suspect Bryan Kohberger had finally been arrested and charged with their murders. The Independents Rachel Sharp reports: Madison Mogens father broke down when he learned of Bryan Kohbergers arrest Kaylee Goncalves family says its almost like she knew she only had a certain amount of time on earth Monday 23 January 2023 03:00 , Andrea Blanco In a sit-down interview with the YouTube channel Chronicles of Olivia filmed two days before Mr Kohbergers arrest the Goncalves remembered their daughter as a hardworking young woman who was not afraid to go after what she wanted in life. Among other bittersweet revelations made in the YouTube interview was that Goncalves had taken summer classes to graduate ahead of time. Its almost like she knew she only had a certain amount of time on this planet and she was rushing towards [her goals], Mr Goncalves said. The family also spoke of the sheer fear and devastation they experienced after finding out that Kaylee was killed through a family member with connections in Moscow. They first tried to get in touch with both Goncalves and Mogen to no avail. When they attempted to call police in the immediate hours after the bodies were found, the family was told no information could be released at the time. An officer eventually showed up at the door to officially inform them that their daughter had been killed. I kept giving [my parents] hope, Alivea Gonclaves said. I kept saying If they were killed last night, you guys would know by now. I kept giving them hope. According to the family, they reached out to the YouTube channel because Kaylee followed it on TikTok and would often watch videos on the true crime account. (Instagram) What can we expect from the preliminary hearing? Monday 23 January 2023 19:13 , Rachel Sharp Further evidence and information about the case is not expected to be made public until the preliminary hearing on 26 June, after a judge issued a gag order preventing officials from talking about the case. Behind the scenes, both sides will be conducting investigative work, examining discovery and moving the case forward, prominent defence attorney Duncan Levin told The Independent. In the preliminary hearing, the prosecution and the defence will then both lay out their cases in court for the first time, witnesses will likely be called and the defence will have the opportunity to cross-examine them, and Bryan Kohberger will enter a plea on the charges. I think this case looks like it is headed to trial, said Mr Levin, adding that due to the complexity of the case it could take some time. As a case where the death penalty is on the table, it will take a long time to wind its way through the courts and it will be a lengthy court proceeding, he said. Its not the kind of case a court regularly handles so whether its in 2023 is an open question. Expert explains how airtight the case against Bryan Kohberger is Monday 23 January 2023 01:00 , Andrea Blanco It will be another six months before Bryan Kohberger and the families of his alleged victims come face to face in court again, after his preliminary hearing was postponed until the summer. The prominent attorney Duncan Levin speaks to The Independents Rachel Sharp about the case against Bryan Kohberger and what to expect for the next moves from the defence and the prosecution: How strong is the case against Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger? These were all the items seized from Bryan Kohbergers home on the day of his arrest Sunday 22 January 2023 22:47 , Andrea Blanco Police investigating the murder of four Idaho students seized a string of items from suspect Bryan Kohbergers apartment, including possible hair strands, a disposable glove, items with red and brown stains and a computer, according to a newly unsealed search warrant. According to the search warrant unsealed on Wednesday, these are the items seized from his apartment: IG Group Holdings (LON:IGG) First Half 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: UK513.9m (up 9.6% from 1H 2022). Net income: UK194.9m (down 3.8% from 1H 2022). Profit margin: 38% (down from 43% in 1H 2022). The decrease in margin was driven by higher expenses. EPS: UK0.46 (down from UK0.48 in 1H 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period IG Group Holdings Earnings Insights Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 5.8% p.a. on average during the next 3 years, compared to a 6.2% growth forecast for the Capital Markets industry in the United Kingdom. Performance of the British Capital Markets industry. The company's share price is broadly unchanged from a week ago. Balance Sheet Analysis Just as investors must consider earnings, it is also important to take into account the strength of a company's balance sheet. See our latest analysis on IG Group Holdings' balance sheet health. 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 By Sumit Khanna AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - Police in India on Friday charged 10 people with homicide in connection with the collapse of a colonial-era footbridge last year that killed at least 135 people, a top official told Reuters. The 145-year-old suspension bridge in the town of Morbi was packed with sightseers when it collapsed on Oct. 30, plunging hundreds into the Machchhu river below. It had reopened after repairs just days before. Most of the victims were women and children who drowned. Police in the western state of Gujarat have issued an arrest warrant for the boss of the company that managed the bridge and on Friday named him as the main accused in a charge sheet filed in a Morbi court, said Ashok Kumar Yadav, a top state police official. Jaysukh Patel, the managing director of the Oreva Group, best known for making clocks and electrical products, was absconding and a lookout circular was issued for him last week to prevent him from leaving the country, police said. The Oreva Group did not respond to emailed queries seeking comment. Patel's mobile phone was switched off and text messages sent to him could not be delivered. Besides Patel, the more than 1,200-page charge sheet names two managers of the Oreva Group, two ticketing clerks, three security guards and two people from a firm contracted by Oreva to repair the bridge before it reopened to the public, said Yadav. (Writing by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Editing by Robert Birsel) Does the January share price for Kawan Food Berhad (KLSE:KAWAN) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example! We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. See our latest analysis for Kawan Food Berhad What's The Estimated Valuation? We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. 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 (MYR, Millions) RM51.1m RM58.0m RM63.3m RM68.0m RM72.3m RM76.3m RM80.0m RM83.6m RM87.1m RM90.6m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 9.16% Est @ 7.47% Est @ 6.30% Est @ 5.47% Est @ 4.90% Est @ 4.49% Est @ 4.21% Est @ 4.01% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 9.7% RM46.6 RM48.2 RM48.0 RM47.0 RM45.5 RM43.8 RM41.9 RM39.9 RM37.9 RM35.9 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM435m 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 3.6%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 9.7%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2032 (1 + g) (r g) = RM91m (1 + 3.6%) (9.7% 3.6%) = RM1.5b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM1.5b ( 1 + 9.7%)10= RM604m The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is RM1.0b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of RM2.3, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 22% 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 The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the 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 Kawan Food Berhad 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 9.7%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. 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 Kawan Food Berhad Strength Earnings growth over the past year exceeded its 5-year average. Debt is not viewed as a risk. Weakness Earnings growth over the past year underperformed the Food industry. Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Food market. Opportunity Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the Malaysian market. Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%. Threat Dividends are not covered by cash flow. Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year. Moving On: 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. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For Kawan Food Berhad, we've put together three pertinent items you should assess: Financial Health: Does KAWAN have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk. Future Earnings: How does KAWAN'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. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the KLSE every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks 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 A 22-year-old Iowa man has been convicted of killing his father, mother and sister in a 2021 rampage. A jury found Alex Jackson guilty Wednesday on three counts of first-degree murder. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Jackson called police on June 15, 2021 and claimed that an intruder had broken into his familys Cedar Rapids home, fatally shot his father and wounded him in a struggle. Authorities arrived to find Jan Jackson, 61, Melissa Jackson, 68, and their daughter Sabrina Jackson, 19, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Alex Jackson had a gunshot wound to his foot and he was transported to a nearby hospital. But as police examined the scene, they began to doubt his story. There was no sign of forced entry at the house and no intruder was caught on the familys doorbell camera. Investigators said the weapon used in the murders, a Browning .22-caliber rifle, belonged to the Jackson family and the only prints on the weapon belonged to Alex Jackson. Prosecutors said the killer turned on his family after his father told him to get a job or move out. He was a student at the University of Iowa at the time and had about $30 in a bank account. Alex Jacksons attorneys promised to appeal the jurys decision. Sentencing was scheduled for March 3. With News Wire Services Gowun Park, 41, a Simpson College economics professor accused of killing her husband, pleaded not guilty on March 13, 2020. Interviews a former Simpson College professor had with West Des Moines police before she was charged with murdering her husband can be used at her trial, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday. The ruling vacated an Iowa Court of Appeals ruling that found four of the five interviews could not be used. That appeal came after a Dallas County judge ruled all the interviews must be excluded, a decision the justices reversed. Gowun Park, 43, was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping after calling 911 for medical attention for her husband, Sung Woo Nam, 41, at their West Des Moines condominium on Feb. 15, 2020. Detectives summoned to the scene said Nam, who was determined to be dead, was tied to a chair with his hands and feet bound and a towel taped over his head. The cord used to tie him to the chair was around his neck and the cause of his death was listed as strangulation, according to court documents. The case, argued before the Supreme Court Nov. 16, centered on the contention by Parks attorneys that detectives improperly promised leniency if she spoke to them during interviews on Feb. 15 and 16, 2020. Prosecutors maintained that the detectives, though deceptive, had acted within the bounds of the law. Parks attorneys could not be reached for comment Friday. Previous rulings threw out interviews Dallas County Judge Brad McCall ruled in 2021 that none of the interviews could not be used because: Detectives who arrived at Park's condo to investigate Nam's death effectively detained her even though they said she was not being held and should have read her her Miranda rights before questioning her, because they would not allow her to go to the hospital to check on her husband, who she believed was still alive. In addition, they restricted her movement within the condo to the point that she could not change out of her pajamas before they took her to the West Des Moines Police Department. In a second interview at the police department, detectives kept questioning Park, a native of South Korea for whom English was a second language, even though she asked to speak with a lawyer and it was clear she did not understand her rights when they were read to her. Though Park initiated a third conversation about eight hours later, detectives failed to check whether she had spoken to a lawyer before carrying on the interview. She also was interviewed twice more. after which police charged her. Detectives implied Park would be treated with leniency if she talked to them. Story continues In June, Iowa Court of Appeals Judge Anuradha Vaitheswaran ruled that statements from the first interview between Park and two West Des Moines police officers at her condominium could be admitted at trial. The other four interviews should be excluded, Vaitheswaran wrote, because officers deceived Park and misled her into giving damning statements, which led to her arrest. Prosecutors then appealed to the Supreme Court, which in its 5-0 decision vacated Vaitheswarans ruling and reversed McCalls ruling. Justices Thomas Waterman and David May abstained. Park who was released from jail on a reduced bond because of the COVID-19 pandemic, pleaded not guilty in March 2020. Park, who Simpson hired as an assistant professor in 2017, told detectives her husband was abusive and had given her permission to tie him up when he became violent, according to court documents. West Des Moines police officers interviewed Park for the first time at her home from 7 to 8:15 p.m. Feb. 15, 2020. Officers led her away from a room where Nam was receiving medical attention and then confined her to a bedroom, but did not read Park her Miranda rights. In Fridays ruling Justice Edward Mansfield wrote for the majority that officers restricted Park's movement to preserve evidence and that the questioning at her condo focused on determining what had happened, not on getting her to confess to murder. Their other interactions with her were part of an attempt to calm her, Mansfield wrote. The officers were calm, respectful, and sympathetic, Mansfield wrote. At the beginning of the interaction, the officers were trying to console Park in her emotional state. At most points throughout the interaction, multiple officers were present, but the questioning was intermittent and generally conducted by only one officer at a time. The Supreme Court found that the district court and Court of Appeals had improperly suppressed Parks second interview at the West Des Moines Police Department between 9 p.m. Feb. 15 and 3 a.m. Feb. 16. In their rulings McCall and Vaitheswaran wrote that detectives mislead Park by lying to her about her husbands condition when they knew he already had died. Vaitheswaran and McCall also found that Park did not properly waive her Miranda rights. At one point Park was asked to read and waive her Miranda rights, to which Park responded, "I'm not sure " according to court documents. "A reasonable person in Park's shoes would surmise that the deception was designed to circumvent her right to remain silent," Vaitheswaran wrote last year. Mansfield acknowledged that detectives deceived Park about Nams condition, but used no deception about exactly what they were looking for: Information on how Nam ended up with ligature marks on his wrist and neck. Vaitheswaran found that the trickery got Park to talk. Supreme Court justices disagreed. Mansfield wrote that the detectives' deception was distasteful, but did not cause Park to waive her Miranda rights. Park was willing to talk about how Nam ended up bound and tied to a chair from the get-go. Her answers in that regard didnt change until midday February 16, when she returned for the third interview, well after she knew that Nam had died. Detectives also told her they were trying to help her if Nam had abused her. The second interview ended when she declined to speak without a lawyer. Park initiated a third interview with police when she returned to the police station at 11 a.m. Feb. 16. McCall said detectives failed to ask if she had spoken to legal counsel. Her attorneys argued this showed that she believed she was not in trouble. She was interviewed a fourth time at her condo on Feb. 18, 2020, and a fifth time on Feb. 19, 2020, when she contacted police. At the end of that interview detectives arrested her, read her Miranda warnings and charged with first-degree murder. Supreme Court: Park 'ought to control the narrative from the time she called 911' The Supreme Court found that Parks explanations evolved as she talked to detectives and realized that law enforcement could obtain incriminating evidence from her cell phone. Park comes across on the videos as an intelligent person who, although clearly distraught, realized that she might be in legal jeopardy and who sought to control the narrative from the time she called 911, Mansfield wrote. The case will now be remanded back to Dallas County district court. If convicted Park faces spending life in prison. Park came to the U.S. after finishing high school in South Korea. She got a doctoral degree in economics in 2017 from the City University of New York. She earned a master's degree in economics at New York University in 2010 and taught there as an adjunct professor from 2015 to 2017. Her Simpson contract was up at the end of the 2019- 2020 academic year and she had a job in Kentucky lined up, according to court records. Park had no prior history with law enforcement. Philip Joens covers retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Ex-Simpson prof's statements OK in murder trial, Supreme Court rules Gov. Kay Ivey waves on during the Inauguration Day parade on the steps of the Alabama State Capital Building in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Jan. 16, 2023. Gov. Kay Ivey on Thursday issued an executive order standardizing the public records request process for state agencies. The order requires all executive branch agencies to create records request pages on their websites and adhere to new guidelines for response times and fees. Alabama has been the worst state in the nation for compliance with open records laws, according to a University of Arizona journalism study from 2019. The laws are also some of the vaguest in the nation, Alabama Press Association Executive Director Felicia Mason said. Still, while Ivey's order may not mean more requests are fulfilled, it does add more specificity to existing law, which is a step in the right direction, Mason said. "We certainly applaud the governor for the contents of the order," Mason said in an interview. "I think ... this is a recognition that the public deserves a response (to records requests)." Executive agencies now must create public records request pages on their websites and include a public records request form and a contact for assistance with public records requests. The order also requires that agencies inform requesters whether they will be able to provide the requested documents within 15 days for "standard requests" and 45 days for "time-intensive requests." Any request that the agency determines would take eight or more hours of staff time to complete is considered time-intensive. "Ignoring an open records request is not an option under this executive order, which is a big difference than where we are now," Mason said. The order establishes a uniform fee schedule for all records requests, and prohibits agencies from charging per-page fees for records provided electronically. All requests will incur charges for document retrieval and preparation, up to $20 per hour, and include a minimum fee of $20. Agencies cannot charge for time spent on legal review or redaction necessary to withhold sensitive information, under the order. Story continues Agencies can charge up to 50 cents per page for copies produced on standard 8.5-by-11-inch paper. Other costs may be charged to the requester if the agency informs them beforehand, including for flash drives or other hardware necessary for electronically producing records, special paper sizes and for costs associated with searching electronic databases, according to the order. The order gives agencies until April 26, 2023, to comply or begin to make formal rule changes necessary to implement these new requirements. From day one, a top priority of mine was to restore our peoples faith in their state government, Ivey said in a news release accompanying the executive order. Today, I am still every bit as committed to leading a state government that Alabamians can be proud of one that is open, honest and transparent. Access to public records is essential to guaranteeing transparency in government, and I am proud to sign this executive order that improves this process as a whole. Mason said there are still many custodians of public records in the state local governments, for example that don't fall under this order. She said APA is looking to make further improvements to Alabama's open records law that would affect all levels of government. Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanMealins. Your subscription makes our journalism possible. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Ivey sets rules for state agencies to respond to public records asks NEW YORK (AP) A Jamaican cleric accused of recruiting support for the Islamic State group was convicted Thursday of state terrorism charges after being extradited to New York City following an undercover New York Police Department sting that went international. Abdullah el-Faisal is due to be sentenced next month after his conviction in state Supreme Court in Manhattan on counts including soliciting or providing support for an act of terrorism, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said. Bragg's office said it was the first-ever state-level trial on terrorism charges. New York's laws on terrorism were passed in the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. El-Faisal, who had previously served prison time in Britain after being convicted of incitement and stirring racial hatred and had also been deported from Kenya, was arrested in his native Jamaica in 2017 and extradited to New York City in 2020. Authorities said that beginning in 2016, an undercover officer in New York City posed as a would-be jihadist and started communicating with the cleric, who was living in Jamaica. Prosecutors said el-Faisal, whom they described as highly influential, had supported the Islamic State organization for several years, encouraging violent acts in online lectures and calling for the creation of an Islamic caliphate. Authorities said the interaction with the undercover officer, who ended up going overseas as part of the operation, led to the cleric giving out contact information for someone in Syria who would act as a conduit for connecting with the Islamic State. They said he also engaged in activities like trying to facilitate a marriage between the officer and a member of the militant group. Michael Fineman, an attorney for el-Faisal, said he was disappointed" by the conviction and planned to appeal. He said the cleric never actually agreed to help the officer travel to territory controlled by the group. Federal officials have said el-Faisals sermons influenced people such as Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a bomb in Times Square in 2010, and Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber who attempted to blow up a transatlantic flight on Christmas Day 2009. Washington The New Jersey man who admitted to spraying U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick with pepper spray during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack was sentenced to 80 months in prison on Friday in a Washington, D.C. courtroom packed with Sicknick's colleagues and fellow officers. "I don't know what got into you," said federal Judge Thomas Hogan, as he imposed the yearslong prison sentence on Julian Khater, "somehow you got determined to push your way through the crowd." Hogan also fined Khater $10,000. Sicknick died of natural causes a day after defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 assault, the D.C. medical examiner's office announced last year. He suffered strokes, with a medical examiner's report summary citing "acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar artery thrombosis." Friday's sentencing hearing drew busloads of other U.S. Capitol Police officers who wanted to honor their fallen colleague. According to court documents and Julian Khater's plea agreement, he and codefendant George Tanios who pleaded guilty to lesser charges traveled to Washington, D.C. from West Virginia to attend former President Donald Trump's rally at the White House Ellipse. The pair moved from the rally grounds toward the Capitol, although investigators say they uncovered no evidence that the men planned on rioting that day. "Surveillance video shows Khater reaching inside Tanios' backpack and retrieving one of the canisters of chemical spray they had brought to Washington," the government pre-sentencing memo alleged, describing Khater as angry, emotional, and out of control. After making his way to the front of the mob on the Capitol's lower west side, prosecutors say Khater aimed the pepper spray at a line of officers. / Credit: Department of Justice "Khater's attack, in conjunction with attacks from hundreds of other rioters, resulted in the collapse of the police line," the government wrote, "Khater's first victim was United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick." Story continues Bodycam and surveillance video reviewed by CBS News and pictures included in court documents show Sicknick reacting to an irritant, recoiling, and clearing the area to wipe his eyes and clean his face. Other officers were also hit with Khater's pepper spray and attempted to shield themselves from its effects, the videos show. Neither Khater nor Tanios have been charged in Sicknick's death. Officer Brian Sicknick on Jan. 6, 2021. / Credit: Department of Justice Urging the judge to sentence Khater to 90 months in prison, prosecutors wrote, "While Julian Khater's spray assault on Officer Sicknick ultimately was not determined to be the direct cause of his death, Office Sicknick's tragic demise, so close in time to the traumatic events of that day, underscores the seriousness of the offense committed by Khater and his fellow rioters." He "committed a cowardly and premeditated assault on at least three uniformed law enforcement officers," the government said during Friday's proceedings, showing the court video of Khater's various actions during the attack. And although Khater did not himself enter the Capitol that day, the government told Hogan that he was a vital part of the mob that broke down the barriers and "allowed" the breach of the Capitol. Khater who has been incarcerated since his arrest in March 2021 asked for leniency, his attorneys writing before sentencing that he "feels genuine remorse for his conduct." Describing their client as a gentle and kind individual who was swept up in the mob mentality of the day, Khater's defense team argued he and Tanios traveled to the nation's capital for the sole purpose of attending the Trump rally. Tanios, they said, only brought the pepper spray used in the attack to defend them against potential violence that day, not attack. Khater's regrettable actions, they wrote, "were indeed isolated and not part of some coordinated effort." His defense team asked Hogan for a sentence of time served, citing in legal briefs what they described as suboptimal and dehumanizing conditions in custody which include poor food and sleep deprivation. In court on Friday, Khater's defense attorney said, "the conduct in this case does not define him," and cited his client's history of crippling anxiety and depression. "Despite some of the hyperbole and rhetoric," the defense argued Friday, "Mr. Khater did not directly or indirectly" lead to Sicknick's death. Khater himself also briefly spoke on Friday, describing the last two years as humbling, yet "agonizing." "I can assure you," he said to the judge, "what transpired that day was not in my nature will never happen again." Hogan noted he did not hear any sorrow or regret from Khater about what he did to the officers that day. Khater responded that he avoided doing so because of an ongoing civil case on the matter. For his part, Tanios already pleaded guilty to lesser courts on illegal entry and disorderly conduct and was sentenced to time served with one year of supervised release. He admitted to encouraging rioters, videotaping assaults on law enforcement and buying the cans of spray chemicals used that day. Ahead of sentencing, Sicknick's mother and siblings submitted letters to the court, describing feelings of anger toward Khater. They also spoke emotionally in court on Friday about their loss. "You attacked my son like he was an animal; you are the animal, Mr. Khater," Sicknick's mother, Gladys, wrote, "You should have known better... in this great country, we go to the voting booth to make a difference. We don't start an armed rebellion, no matter the President encouraged you to 'fight like Hell'." Dressed in her deceased son's shirt, Gladys Sicknick addressed Khater during Friday's proceedings. "You attacked my son like he was an animal. You are the animal, Mr. Khater," she said, emotionally. "How does it feel to be headed to jail because of a bald-faced lie?" Sicknick's longtime partner, Santa Garza, said Khater and Tanios were "brainwashed" by Trump. Judge Hogan was careful to point out that he was not sentencing Khater for Sicknick's death, emphasizing that such a charge was not in front of him on Friday. Still, the judge said he found no excuse for the actions that day. Billy Packer, NCAA basketball broadcaster, dies at 82 Diversity in police ranks isn't only solution to use-of-force issues, says attorney "CBS Evening News" headlines for Friday, January 27, 2023 TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan tightened sanctions against Russia on Friday following its latest wave of missile attacks in Ukraine, adding goods to an export ban list and freezing the assets of Russian officials and entities. The decision comes after Russia launched missile attacks in Ukraine killing at least 11 people on Thursday following a pledge by Germany and the United States to supply tanks that could help Ukraine counter any new Russian offensive. "In light of the situation surrounding Ukraine and to contribute to international efforts to secure peace, Japan will implement export bans in line with other major nations," the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry said in a release. Among the new sanctions, Japan will prohibit shipments of items to 49 organizations in Russia from Feb. 3 that could be used to enhance its military capability. Those will include products ranging from water cannons, gas exploration equipment and semiconductor equipment to vaccines, X-ray inspection equipment, explosives and robots, the ministry said. Japan will also freeze the assets of three entities and 22 individuals in Russia, including aircraft company JSC Irkut Corp, surface-to-air missile maker MMZ Avangard, deputy defence minister Mikhail Mizintsev and justice minister Konstantin Chuychenko, along with 14 pro-Moscow individuals related to the "annexation" of parts of southeastern Ukraine region. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told warned of an unspecified impact on relations with an "unfriendly" Japan. "Japan, from the very start of the situation, has taken its place in the circle of unfriendly countries. Inevitably, there will be consequences for bilateral relations," Peskov told reporters. (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya and Tim Kelly; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, Robert Birsel) TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan and the Netherlands will soon agree to join the United States in restricting exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China, Bloomberg News reported. Talks between the countries will conclude as early as Friday, with the Netherlands restricting ASML Holding NV from selling machines to China used to make certain types of advanced chips, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Japan would impose similar restrictions on Nikon Corp, the report said. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara, a government spokesperson, said Japan would make "appropriate steps" based on the United States' and other nations' regulatory moves. He declined to comment further when asked about the report at a Friday afternoon media briefing. The Dutch foreign ministry declined comment. Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who has said he expects to reach agreement with the United States and other allies on stricter controls but that the Netherlands will not simply adopt U.S. rules, will take questions at his weekly news briefing later on Friday. Sources have told Reuters that a deal between Dutch and U.S. officials could be clinched by the end of the month as representatives from the two countries meet in Washington on Friday. Getting the Netherlands and Japan to impose tighter export controls on China would be a major diplomatic win for U.S. President Joe Biden's administration, which in October announced sweeping restrictions on Beijing's access to U.S. chipmaking technology to slow its technological and military advances. Without Japanese or Dutch cooperation, U.S. companies would face a competitive disadvantage. "We have been in discussion with the United States and other countries regarding the export-control regime," Yasutoshi Nishimura, Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, told reporters on Friday. "We will implement any measures in accordance with our Foreign Exchange Law and through international cooperation," he added, declining to provide further details. Story continues While Nikon could be affected, the Japanese company most likely to be affected by new restrictions will be chip manufacturing machinery maker Tokyo Electron, which relies on China for about a quarter of its sales, said Masahiko Hosokawa, a Meisei University professor and former director general of trade control at the ministry. "A balance needs to be struck so no one among Japan, the United States and Europe will be disproportionately disadvantaged. It's about fairness," he said. Dutch officials have insisted that fresh controls address national security concerns rather than favour U.S. chip-related companies, a source familiar with the discussions told Reuters. Japan expects sales at affected chip-related companies to rebound quickly because the market for their equipment is expanding, a trade and industry official involved in overseeing semiconductor firms told Reuters. He asked not to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media. (Reporting by Tim Kelly, Kiysho Takenaka, Mayu Sakoda, Kantaro Komiya and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, Gerry Doyle and Jacqueline Wong) Jay Leno, who made headlines late last year after getting burned on 7% of his body in a fire in his garage that erupted while he was working on one of his vintage cars, has revealed he was involved in yet another accident. Leno was asked by the Las Vegas Review-Journal how he was feeling after Novembers fire when he said he'd been injured recently in an accident on his 1940 Indian motorcycle. Its so funny you should say that, the comedian, 72, replied. That was the first accident. OK? Then just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle. So Ive got a broken collarbone. Ive got two broken ribs. Ive got two cracked kneecaps. Leno later talked to NBC News on the phone about the incident on Jan. 27. He said that he's fine and will be able to perform this coming weekend despite the Jan. 17 accident. He said he had been driving his motorcycle when he noticed the smell of leaking gas and tried to pull into an empty parking lot to turn around. Jay Leno (Reinhold Matay / AP) "So I turn around, I start to cut through a parking lot. And there was a wire across two poles which was not well marked and boom, I just got it clotheslined me, hit me in the neck and threw me off the bike," he told NBC News. "And the bike kept going and I was laying on the ground. So thats about the end of that." His spokesman confirmed the story to NBC News as well and added that while Leno had to cancel some events, he will return to the stage next week while he continues to improve. Hes OK," the spokesman added. "He had a shoulder operation, and that was about a week ago. And he has some trouble with his knees. He can walk around. He comes to work every day. In his call with NBC News, Leno outlined his upcoming touring schedule and joked about the crash. Its a 72-year-old guy driving an 83-year-old motorcycle. So what can happen, really, when you think about it?" he quipped. The former "Tonight Show" host elected to keep this accident under wraps because of all the media attention he received after he was burned in November. Story continues You know, after getting burned up, you get that one for free, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. After that, youre Harrison Ford, crashing airplanes. You just want to keep your head down. Leno spent 10 days at the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles after he suffered burns to his face, chest and hands while he worked on a vintage car in his garage. A notorious workhorse, the comedian returned to the stage just 15 days after the blaze, which occurred while he and friend Dave Killackey were tooling around with a vintage car. It was a 1907 White Steam Car, Leno told TODAY in December about the fire. The fuel line was clogged so I was underneath it. It sounded clogged and I said, Blow some air through the line, and so he did. And suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas. And then the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire, he added. Leno initially went home before his wife, Mavis, told him to go to the hospital. When you look like me, you dont really worry about what you look like, he told TODAY. Look, if Im George Clooney, its going to be a huge problem. But they said it would be alright so, you know my attitude is I trust people who are the best to do what they do. In his Jan. 27 call with NBC News, Leno said his mind immediately went to the recent burn incident while he was "going down" off his motorcycle. As I was having the second (incident) and I was going, 'Oh, I have to get another brand-new face,'" he said. "Grossman gave me a new face and Im going to bang this one up and I have to get another but luckily, I didnt have to do that. So Im OK. He added that the incident hasnt dissuaded him from driving his vintage cars and motorcycles. "No, no. Men over the age of 40, you cant teach them anything really. Its just a classic accident, just happens all the time to people, you know, so its just one of those things," he said. "What I tell people, the joke, I say, 'I was going down the road, I came around the corner and crashed into Jeremy Renners snowplow.'" Renner was hospitalized on New Year's Day after he was run over by his own snowplow near his home in Reno, Nevada as he tried to stop it from hitting his nephew. Leno's show featuring his many vintage vehicles "Jay Leno's Garage" was recently canceled by CNBC, NBC News confirmed on Jan. 27. It had been on the network since 2015. Leno told NBC News he plans to shop the show around. Were going to take 'Jay Lenos Garage' somewhere else. You know, it was CNBC, theyre a financial news network. And when they took us on, it was somewhat unusual to have this car show in the middle of financial news," he explained, adding he still felt it had been a successful show. "But now theyve decided to go with straight financial news across the board. So well move on to somewhere else. But I enjoyed my time there and everybody was great." CNBC confirmed to NBC News that the network is doubling down on "its core content of business news and personal finance information" and "has extended the strategy to its primetime programing." Leno noted those primetime changes in his comments. "Its fine. No hard feelings or anything," he said. "CNBC ... has canceled its whole primetime lineup. So theyre not doing original programming anymore. So it wasnt just us, it was the whole primetime departments been closed down. TODAY, NBC and CNBC are owned by the same parent company, NBCUniversal. This article was originally published on TODAY.com Fox News A discussion about classified documents being found at Mar-a-Lago and at President Joe Bidens Delaware home turned snippy on Thursday, with The Five co-hosts Jeanine Pirro and Jessica Tarlov getting into a back-and-forth that culminated in Pirro taking offense at her colleagues demeanor. Pirro began by mentioning the photograph of classified documents that Mar-a-Lago investigators released in a court filing last August the same photograph that conservatives like former President Donald Trump himself bizarrely complained about, as if it being staged was evidence of something malicious. Wehad the layout of the classified documents these top secret documents like a narrative, like for a school child. But when it comes to Joe Biden, no narrative. No layout. None of that stuff, Pirro said, seemingly implying a bias among those tasked with searching the Biden home. Later in the segment, Tarlov claimed that classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were in greater danger of being wrongfully exposed, given its status as a social club. Mar-a-Lago is a place where there are people being entertained. There are parties there every single night, and that was cause for concern about how things were being kept. I understand that Hunter Biden is a big party animal, but its not the same thing, Tarlov said. President Trump is in a tuxedo all the time, entertaining tons of foreign nationals. There was enough separation between the documents and those who shouldnt get a look at them, insisted Pirro, who asked Tarlov if she has ever been to Mar-a-Lago. After Tarlov said no, Pirro scolded her. So then dont assume! Dont assume what you dont know. You dont assume, Tarlov shot back. Pirro, growing angry, told her, Dont point your finger! Co-host Brian Kilmeade then stepped in to take Pirros side. [Pirros] point is that theres a residence area and theres a public area, and the place was locked up. You have no idea what his office looks like if youre a member of the club, Kilmeade claimed broadly, as if its impossible for Trump to simply invite a loyal, dues-member up there if he wants to. Story continues Yeah. Fort Knox, Tarlov added sarcastically, reflecting the clubs history of suspect security measures. 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. DETROIT Owners of certain Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators might be getting a warranty extension and possibly cash back for a specific type of repair if they paid out of pocket related to whats commonly referred to as the Jeep Death Wobble. The information is part of a proposed settlement agreement in a class-action case that would be limited to owners or lessees of 2018-20 Jeep Wranglers and 2020 Jeep Gladiators. The warranty extension for up to eight years or 90,000 miles would cover all parts and labor needed to replace a failed front suspension damper," according to the proposed agreement. A Jeep brand website notes that a common length for a basic limited warranty is three years or 36,000 miles. Previously: Jeep Wrangler drivers report 'death wobble' on highways Recalls: 430K Mercedes-Benz, Lincoln and more among latest cars and motorcycles facing recalls FCA US, the U.S. operating arm of Stellantis, which owns the Jeep brand, would also pay attorney fees for the plaintiffs of up to $3.95 million and $4,000 for each of the six class representatives. The proposed agreement stipulates that the company denies any admission of liability or wrongdoing. A proposed settlement agreement in a federal lawsuit over the Jeep "Death Wobble" would mean owners or lessees of certain models, include the 2020 Jeep Wrangler, could be eligible for an extended warranty and for reimbursement if they paid to repair their vehicles with a certain part. How to submit a claim for reimbursement The agreement would allow owners or lessees of the affected vehicles who paid for a repair related to a front suspension steering damper to submit a claim for reimbursement to www.fcarecallreimbursement.com. Final approval of the proposed agreement, which is affiliated with a lawsuit initially filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit in 2019, is pending a fairness hearing scheduled for April 19 in Detroit. Its not clear how many vehicles would be involved, but an amended complaint for the suit filed in January 2020 noted that the company had identified approximately 192,000 owners and their Jeep vehicles known to suffer from the defects that manifest as the Death Wobble. Eric Mayne, a spokesman for Stellantis, said the company does not comment on active litigation. Messages seeking comment were sent to attorneys for the plaintiffs. Story continues What is the 'Death Wobble'? The Death Wobble, as it has come to be called, typically happens when an affected vehicle hits a bump at highway speeds, which leads to vibration or shaking that drivers often describe as frightening. The lawsuit describes it as the seemingly uncontrollable side-to-side shaking of the Jeep vehicles front-end steering components and by extension its steering wheel. The company has consistently said the issue is not a safety problem, a point disputed by many owners. Although Death Wobble sounds dramatic and the phenomenon has a long complaint history online and to federal regulators, the company, which prefers to use the term vibration, said in 2019 that it was not aware of any deaths or injuries related to it. That was the year FCA said it had a fix for the issue a new steering damper, a part also known as a stabilizer, for affected Jeep Wranglers. Many owners have referred to the damper as a Band-Aid. In 2019, Mark Chernoby, who was then-FCAs chief technical compliance officer, said the vibration was not unique to Wranglers and could happen with any solid front axle vehicle. He described the underlying issue as resonance, comparable to hitting a tuning fork. Similar issues in other vehicles In 2018, the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported that a few complaints of similar issues were made to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the 2018 Ford F-250 as well. Death Wobble complaints related to FCA and Jeep, however, date back more than a decade. U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo and then-U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, both California Democrats, penned a letter to the late FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne and NHTSA officials about the issue in 2012. That followed a story by KGO-TV in San Francisco saying it had found more than 600 complaints to NHTSA about Jeeps wobbling or vibrating since 1995, listing no deaths but five injuries, as the Free Press reported previously. On Tuesday, the Free Press reached out to NHTSA to follow up on an investigation the agency launched in 2019 involving 2018-19 Jeep Wranglers under the subject of weld quality deficiencies. As part of that case, the agencys Office of Defects Investigation had asked FCA for additional information concerning reports of steering shimmy or wobble, loose steering and steering lockup. The response from NHTSA this week was that it does not generally comment on open investigations. Complaints about the issue have continued to populate NHTSAs website, such as one involving a 2020 Jeep Wrangler in Utah with an incident date of Dec. 29: Driving on highway, 80 miles an hour in southern Utah, three times I hit a normal bridge / road seam and the Jeep Death Wobble occurred. This is a well known thing amongst Jeep owners, but since I was a new owner I had no idea what was going on. After slowing down the wobble stopped. I thought I was going to crash. Contact reporter Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jeep 'Death Wobble' settlement could mean repair reimbursements A federal judge sentenced a man to 80 months in prison for using pepper spray during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot against officer Brian Sicknick, who died hours later of natural causes. Dozens of Sicknicks former colleagues gathered in D.C.s federal courthouse on Friday as U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan handed down Julian Khaters sentence. Khater pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous weapon. Court documents show that Khater sprayed Sicknick and another officer with a can of hand-held pepper spray. Khater also sprayed U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who appeared publicly before the House Jan. 6 committee in June and spoke at Fridays sentencing. You are center stage in our recurring nightmare, said Gladys Sicknick, the officers mother. Sicknick was hospitalized the evening of the riot and died the following day. The medical examiner determined it was from two strokes caused by a blot clot, deeming it natural causes, while noting that all that transpired played a role in his condition. I felt like the absolute worst kind of officer, Edwards said at Fridays sentencing. Someone who couldnt help their friend. The government had asked the judge to sentence Khater to 90 months in prison, while Khaters attorneys asked for the nearly two years he already spent in jail to satisfy his sentence. Khaters attorneys argued his anxiety disorder, harsh conditions at the jail and remorse following the riot merited the lower sentence. Its not in my nature. Its not who I am, Khater told the judge just before he was sentenced. Court documents state that Khater and co-defendant George Pierre Tanios traveled to D.C. together to attend former President Trumps rally near the White House before joining rioters on the Capitol grounds. Tanios had previously bought two cans of bear spray and two cans of pepper spray, giving the pepper spray canister to Khater, which he then used against the officers. Story continues Federal prosecutors on Friday showed Hogan videos of the assaults, also playing Capitol surveillance footage showing Sicknick stumbling for minutes outside the building once he was sprayed. Later on Friday, the judge sentenced Tanios to time served and one year of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to two counts of disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, a misdemeanor. Five members of Sicknicks family spoke during the proceedings, tearful at times as they largely blamed Khater for the officers death, asking for a harsh punishment. Sicknicks longtime partner, Sandra Garza, specifically demanded the maximum sentence you can impose. Garza earlier this month also filed a separate civil lawsuit against Khater, Tanios and Trump, demanding $10 million in damages from each of them. Roughly 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6 at the Capitol, according to the Department of Justice. In the roughly two years since the attack, federal prosecutors have arrested more than 950 defendants. Updated at 2:37 p.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) A jury has awarded an Oregon woman $1 million in damages after finding she was discriminated against by a gas station employee who told her, I dont serve Black people. The Multnomah County jurys award this week to Portland resident Rose Wakefield, 63, included punitive damages of $550,000. Wakefields lawyer, Gregory Kafoury, said she stopped for gas at Jacksons Food Store in Beaverton on March 12, 2020, and saw the attendant, Nigel Powers, ignore her and instead pump gas for other drivers. When she tried to ask for assistance he said, I'll get to you when I feel like it, according to Kafoury. Attendants are required to pump fuel for motorists at gas stations in Oregons larger population centers including Portland and the nearby suburb of Beaverton. Surveillance video showed Wakefield go inside to ask for help. Another employee followed her back outside to pump her gas. Kafoury said as she was leaving, Wakefield asked Powers why he refused to help her and that he said, I don't serve Black people. I was like, What world am I living in? Wakefield told KGW. This is not supposed to go down like that. It was a terrible, terrible confrontation between me and this guy. During the following week, Wakefield complained twice to managers, but her phone calls were largely disregarded, Kafoury said. Powers was fired a month later after corporate records showed he had been written up several times for talking on his cellphone, Kafoury said. Ms. Wakefield originally was just going to let this go, Kafoury said. She told her friends that it was too disturbing, and she didnt want to deal with it. And then she thought about it and said, Its too wrong. I have to do something about it. A statement from Jacksons Food Stores Thursday said the company has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind and that it respectfully disagrees with the jurys ruling because our knowledge does not align with the verdict. Story continues After carefully reviewing all facts and evidence, including video surveillance, we chose to take this matter to trial because we were comfortable based on our knowledge that the service-related concern actually reported by the customer was investigated and promptly addressed, the statement said. The company didn't elaborate, but Kafoury said Powers was never questioned by the company about the racist comments and was disciplined only for failing to serve customers in the order of their arrival. Efforts to contact Powers were unsuccessful. Joshua Boucher/The State/Pool/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Hours after his wife and son were murdered outside their rural South Carolina home, Alex Murdaugh insisted in a police interview that he had a wonderful relationship with his family before offering up his own theory on the grisly crime. In a recorded interview from June 7, 2021, that was played at Murdaughs murder trial on Friday, the disgraced attorney explained that hed recently returned home after visiting his mother, who has Alzheimers, and had gone down to the kennels just outside their Colleton County estate knowing that his dog lover wife, Maggie, would be there. But when he arrived at the kennels, he said he found his 52-year-old wife and his 22-year-old son, Paul, fatally shot. I pulled up and I could see them, I knew it was something bad, Murdaugh said on the tape. How the Murdaugh Saga UnfoldedFrom a Boat Crash to Murder At times gasping for breath in between sobs, Murdaugh then told South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division agents that he could see Pauls brain matter on the ground as he went to touch them both to check for a pulse. He explained that he then tried to turn over Paul and grab his sons cellphone out of his pocketbefore quickly putting it down and checking on his wife. Despite his claims that he tried multiple times to check on Maggie and Paul, Colleton County Sheriffs Detective Laura Rutland testified in court Friday that Murdaugh appeared clean and had no traces of blood on his clothes or shoes when she first approached him at the murder scene. Rutland added that she also did not see any shoe or knee prints in the pools of blood around Pauls body that would be consistent with Murdaughs claims. The contradictory claims during his initial police interview are among the pieces of evidence that prosecutors hope will prove to the jury that Murdaugh fatally shot two members of his family in a twisted scheme to shift the attention away from his soon-to-be-exposed financial crimes and garner sympathy in the community. Story continues Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime in connection with the double homicide. His defense lawyers have argued that Murdaugh had no motivation to murder his family and prosecutors have no concrete evidence tying him to the grisly murders that captured national headlines. If convicted, Murdaugh faces 30 years in prison. Over the last two days, several officers testified that Murdaugh was upset but not crying as authorities responded to the murder scene the night of June 7, 2021. They also indicated that Murdaugh immediately told a law enforcement officer that he believed the motivation behind the murders was connected to a February 2019 boat crash. At the time of the murders, Paul was awaiting trial after allegedly crashing a boat while intoxicatedresulting in the death of his friend, 19-year-old Mallory Beach. Murdaugh also brought up the boat crash during his first interview with SLED agents after he was asked if there was anyone who would have wanted to hurt his family. Insisting that he had a wonderful marriage with Maggie and a relationship that was as good as it could be with Paul, Murdaugh mentioned that he had been proud of his son for how he handled the public scrutinyand threatsof the boat crash case. Ive never been prouder of him than the way he has handled the pressures and the adversity in that situation, Murdaugh said in the police interview. Paul is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful kid. Murdaugh added that the family had received a lot of negative publicity around the crash and that Paul had been punched and hit and just attacked as he was awaiting trial. But on the night of the murders, Murdaugh said that nothing seemed out of the ordinary with the family. He said in the interview that after briefly taking a nap, he woke up and texted his wife at around 9:08 p.m. to let her know he was going to visit his mother. About 40 minutes later, he said he tried calling Maggie when he was returning back to the house. Minutes later, at around 10:07 p.m, Murdaugh called the police to report that his family had been shot. Prosecutors previously argued to jurors that Murdaugh actually killed his family about two hours earlierand then called his dead wife and several family members to establish an alibi. Its up to you to decide whether or not he was trying to manufacture an alibi, state prosecutor Creighton Waters said Wednesday at the start of Murdaughs murder trial. Read more at The Daily Beast. Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now. Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh said on Monday that he and his fellow justices on the high court have great relations, heaping plenty of praise on his current and former liberal colleagues. My experience with the court in my four and a half years and at this moment is there are great relations among all nine justices, both personally and professionally, Kavanaugh said at an event with Notre Dame Law School, a video of which was made public on Thursday. We only get tough cases, and we disagree on some of those, he added. But we work well together, and we get along well together. Kavanaugh noted that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former Justice Stephen Breyer, both liberals, were particularly welcoming to him when he first joined the court. Ginsburg defended Kavanaugh and fellow conservative justice, Neil Gorsuch, in 2019, saying they were both very decent and very smart individuals. She also publicly applauded Kavanaughs decision to hire a staff of all female clerks. Justice Ginsburg would publicly talk about me a lot during my first term, he said at the Monday event. She didnt have to do that and Ill never forget that. It was very meaningful to me what she said. Kavanaugh also praised Breyer, who stepped down from the court last year, for being just an amazing colleague, who was always trying to reach a consensus, always positive, always optimistic, always friendly. He added that the newest addition to the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, was off to a great start. Its wonderful to have two new colleagues who have fit in, in my judgement, fit in well with the group, he said, referring to Jackson and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The Supreme Court has faced heavy criticism in recent years over several controversial rulings, particularly its June decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization case that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion decisions back to the states. The courts approval rating fell to 38 percent in July, following the ruling. However, it has since recovered slightly, with about 47 percent of Americans saying they approve of the court in a January poll. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was not forthcoming with details after he met with Twitter owner Elon Musk in Washington on Thursday. Mr McCarthy told a gaggle of reporters at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon that he has been friends with the embattled technology entrepreneur for years and that Mr Musk had visited to wish me a happy birthday. Mr Musk was in the Capitol to meet with both Mr McCarthy and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries about the future of Twitter as the Republican-led House Oversight Committee prepares to hold a hearing into how the company handled a pre-2020 election story about Hunter Bidens laptop. Just met with @SpeakerMcCarthy & @RepJeffries to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 26, 2023 Just met with @SpeakerMcCarthy & @RepJeffries to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties, Mr Musk tweeted following the conclusion of the meeting. Mr McCarthy is just weeks into his tenure as Speaker after a grueling battle to secure the nod from his caucus to replace Nancy Pelosi. Mr McCarthy ultimately won the job on the fifteenth ballot, persuading a number of holdouts from the far right Freedom Caucus to eventually support him. Leaving a meeting with Elon Musk, Speaker McCarthy wont elaborate on what the two discussed, besides saying theyve been friends for years, and that Musk came to wish him a happy birthday. pic.twitter.com/OhzjVlO6sr Nathaniel Reed (@ReedReports) January 26, 2023 Mr Musk has been dealing with his own challenges since being forced by a court order to buy Twitter late last year. Story continues His handling of the company has enraged a number of its high-profile users and reportedly driven advertisers from the site, with Mr Musk making and then backing away from a number of changes to how the site functions and slashing the companys workforce and office space. Since buying the platform, Mr Musk has been fairly consistent about one thing: his support of the Republican Party. Mr Musk urged his Twitter followers to support Republicans in last years midterm elections, though it is not clear if he himself voted. The meeting with Mr McCarthy and Mr Jeffries comes as Mr Musk has promised he will step back from the day-to-day operation of the social media site. Pedal power is returning to the Americas Cup. Two-time defending champion Emirates Team New Zealand has added a new group of elite athletes, including two cyclists, to help provide the immense amount of power required for the hydraulics that control various systems on the foiling AC75 sloops that will be sailed in the 2024 regatta in Barcelona. The Kiwis first debuted the cyclors during the 2017 Americas Cup, using cyclists pedaling stationary bikes to replace traditional grinders to power the hydraulic systems for trimming sails and controlling the foils on their 50-foot catamaran. That was just one of several technological breakthroughs that helped propel the Kiwis to a stunning upset of two-time champion Oracle Team USA. Cyclors were banned from the last Americas Cup, when the AC75 monohulls replaced the catamarans, but are back because the crew size has been reduced from 11 to eight. Its up to each team to decide whether to use grinders or cyclors, but the prevailing thinking is that four crewmen using their legs will provide more power than four crewmen using their arms. The Kiwis have hired rower/cyclist Hamish Bond, a three-time Olympic rowing gold medalist; cyclist Louis Crosby; multi-sport athlete Dougal Allan; and rower Cameron Webster to go along with grinders from the last Cup and original cyclor Simon van Velthooven. Each of the new recruits went through a tough selection process overseen by ETNZ trainer Kim Simperingham late last year. We had a really interesting week of cyclor testing for our existing sailing team as well as a list of potential new candidates, all of whom took their bodies to their absolute limits for the tests, Simperingham said. The two main physical qualities we were looking for are athletes that can sustain a really high-power output for the length of a race, up to about half an hour, and athletes that can also achieve really high peaks in power, that will be used for the maneuvers during races. Story continues The tests were a combination of short maximum power output tests as well as longer endurance tests as the Kiwis looked for athletes to get them through the next few years. What we found was the big guys have the power and endurance as opposed to the smaller guys with huge power-to-weight ratio who, although highly impressive, struggle to match the overall numbers that bigger guys can output which shows in many of the guys who have been selected, Simperingham said. Van Velthooven, will return to his familiar role alongside grinders Louis Sinclair, Marcus Hansen and Marius van der Pol from the last regatta. The grinders went through the testing as well, along with sailor Sam Meech who joined the team in 2022. Its brutal. Americas Cups are hard so they put us through a hard test. Its crucial to deliver the whole way through. van Velthooven said. You sort of easily forget how much pain these little tests can put you through. So thats a good check-in and reminder, van der Pol said. Flight controller Blair Tuke was involved in the selection process and is encouraged by the skill of the athletes. We have a really potent mix of Americas Cup and AC75 experience, fresh hungry talent and raw power which I am sure will set us up strongly by the time we are on the start line for the Americas Cup match, Tuke said. To see what these guys are prepared to put themselves through in testing to qualify for the team has been really impressive and I have no doubt they will apply that same commitment to the whole team in the gym, in the shed and on the water throughout the campaign, Tuke said. The New York Yacht Clubs American Magic has been training with four cyclors aboard Patriot on Pensacola Bay for four months, said Terry Hutchinson, the president of sailing operations/skipper. The change in the rule drove the decision, Hutchinson said. The crews were reduced from 11 down to eight but they didnt change the amount of power being used in the boat. Four guys using their arms are not the same as using their legs, so the rule change made it very easy. From there weve had to work on fine-tuning the athletes and finding them. Hutchinson said 10 athletes are competing for cyclor spots. The team will have eight or nine cyclors in order rotate fresh athletes through on days when there are multiple races. ___ Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/berniewilson Transgender rights supporters protest in favour of Scottish gender reform bill outside Downing Street in London on Jan. 21. Credit - Henry NichollsReuters Scotlands parliament voted to pass its Gender Recognition Reform bill in December, following in the footsteps of 18 other countries that have removed barriers for transgender people to legally change their gender. After months of debate and scrutiny, the bill was met warmly, passing through parliament 86 to 39, and called a big step forward by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups. That was until earlier this month, when the U.K. government vetoed the bill. This marks the first time in Scotlands history that the government has exercised such power, raising concern over the U.K.s creeping influence into previously devolved issues. What is Scotlands Gender Recognition Reform Bill? Scotlands Gender Recognition Reform bill would have made it easier for trans people in Scotland to get a certificate legally recognizing that their gender is different from the one they were assigned at birth, without having a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoriawhich can be costly to obtain. It also reduced the minimum age for gender recognition from 18 to 16. Similar laws have been adopted in several other countries, such as Argentina and Denmark. In a statement, Nancy Kelley, the CEO of Stonewall, a U.K.-based organization which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, said that the bill had received more extensive scrutiny than any other legislation in the Scottish parliaments history. Alister Jack, the British governments minister for Scotland and a member of the Scottish Conservatives, who used Section 35 of the Scotland Act to veto the bill, said it was in conflict with the U.K.s Equity Act, the 2010 legislation that broadly protects against discrimination in all of Great Britain. He also expressed concern that the reforms would have an adverse impact on single sex clubs, associations and protections such as equal pay, and argued that they might create significant complications that could lead to more fraudulent or bad faith applications. Story continues J.K. Rowling, the prominent Harry Potter author who lives in Scotland, has also come out against the bill and called it the single biggest assault on the rights of Scottish women and girls in my lifetime. Rowling is a divisive figure and has previously been accused of transphobia. Proponents of the bill have pushed back against such claims. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in October that the aim was to reform a process that was degrading and traumatic for trans people. Constitutional Clash Over Section 35 The use of Section 35 has found the bill lodged into a much bigger debate over the U.K.s power in Scotland, especially considering the veto came not long after the U.K.s Supreme Court ruled last November that the Scottish government could not hold a referendum on independence without the U.K. governments approval. The bills veto has ignited calls for Scotland to seek independence from the U.K., but this alone wont be the driving force, says Nicola McEwen, politics professor at the University of Edinburgh. Rather, the focus is on how the U.K. chooses to exercise its power in the future. This is the first time that Section 35 has been used. If its a one off, then it probably wont have a long term impact, McEwen says. If, however, the U.K. government sees this as a tool that they have at their disposal, and are more willing to use it, then that could potentially erode perceptions of the authority of the Scottish parliamentparticularly if they do on an issue that is more supported. In recent years, British support for transgender rights has fallen, according to a 2022 YouGov poll, making the bill an easy target for the government to test the limits of the devolution of power that has defined Scotlands relationship with the U.K. in the last two decades. Scotlands modern parliament was formed fairly recently, when the Labour party devolved power across the U.K., giving Scotland control of issues such as income taxes and education while keeping major policies like immigration and national security in the hands of the U.K. government in Westminster. But lately, the U.K. government has been testing the limits of devolution more so than they have in the past, McEwen says, as seen with the Levelling Up Fund and the UK Internal Market Act. The U.K. Government seems to want to have a presence in Scotland, in areas that are otherwise devolved, because it sees itself as legitimately acting on behalf of the U.K. in every area, McEwen says. What Happens Next? Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC that the issue would inevitably end up in court, saying that the Scottish government would vigorously defend this legislation. Sturgeon accused Jack of launching a direct attack on the institution of the Scottish Parliament. Once in court, the question will be whether the legislation does in fact undermine the policy set within the Equalities legislationwhich is anyones guess. Theres definitely different legal opinions on that, McEwen says. The issue has become about more than gender recognition, as it brings into question the authority of the Scottish parliament and courts. For nationalists who believe strongly in Scottish independence, it could show the weakness of devolution compared to independence, and increase support for a move toward independence. But in Glasgow, where hundreds gathered last weekend to protest the bills block, the more immediate concern was the blow to trans rights, and the fear of the impact a continued use of Section 35 might have on other marginalized communities. That the long-negotiated bill wont be able to help the trans community is a loss to advocacy groups. In the statement released the day of the veto, Kelley said the decision treats trans people as a threat to be contained, not citizens to be respected. This is the nuclear option, she said. Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with murder in the death of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who died three days after being beaten in a traffic stop in early January. Two other officers have been relieved of duty as the investigation continues, and three fire department personnel who responded to the scene have also been fired. Disturbing video footage of Nichols' violent arrest was released Friday, Jan. 27. An additional 20 hours of video footage was set to be released this week, but a judge for the Criminal Criminal Court of Tennessee for the 30th Judicial District Division 3 ruled on Wednesday that the information could not be released until the state and defendants have time to review it. Here is what we know so far about the police encounter, his death and the aftermath. Who was Tyre Nichols, and what do we know about his arrest? Nichols, a 29-year-old who worked at FedEx, was the father of a 4-year-old boy. The youngest of four siblings, he was especially close with his mother. He has been described by friends and family as joyful and spiritual, and he was an avid skateboarder and photographer. "This man walked into a room, and everyone loved him," said Angelina Paxton, a friend who attended his memorial service. Nichols grew up in Sacramento before moving to Memphis, where he lived with his mother and stepfather. "My son loved me to death, and I love him to death," his mother, RowVaughn Wells, told CBS News, sharing that her son had a tattoo of her name on his arm. Several family members spoke at his funeral service, with his brother describing Tyre as a "very peaceful... very respectful" young man who "touched a lot of lives." Friends from his teenage years in California spoke to CBS Sacramento about their memories. "I know Tyre. I know how great he was," said Jerome Neal. "I see him interacting with like almost everybody at the skate park when I'm with him. He was just well-loved." "He just touches anybody who gets around him," another friend, Austin Robert, told the station. "He's a fantastic person and that's how I really want everybody to remember him." Story continues On the night of Jan. 7, Nichols was returning home from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset, according to his family's attorneys. On the way home, he was stopped for reckless driving, according to the initial statement from the Memphis Police Department. As officers approached Nichols to arrest him, a "confrontation" occurred and Nichols ran away, police said. A second "confrontation" also occurred at some point before Nichols was ultimately arrested, police said. Memphis Police Director Cerelyn "CJ" Davis later said investigators "have not been able to substantiate" the initial report of reckless driving. Police said that, following the arrest, Nichols "complained of having a shortness of breath, at which time an ambulance was called." Nichols was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said. Three days later, on Jan. 10, Nichols "succumbed to his injuries," the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said, but did not elaborate on what those injuries were. An official cause of death has not been released. Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, told CBS affiliate WREG-TV his stepson suffered a cardiac arrest and kidney failure because of a beating by the officers. In this photo provided by CBS affiliate WREG-TV, Tyre Nichols' stepfather Rodney Wells holds a photo of Nichols in the hospital after his arrest during a protest in Memphis, Sat. Jan. 14, 2023. / Credit: AP Attorneys for the family said that an independent autopsy they commissioned found that Nichols suffered "extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating." The full findings of the report were not made public. What does the bodycam and surveillance footage show? Four videos were released Jan. 27, including footage from police body cameras and street surveillance cameras. They show officers first removing Nichols from his vehicle after pulling him over, an initial struggle when Nichols breaks loose and runs away from the officers, and then disturbing images of Nichols being restrained and beaten by five officers at an intersection. The videos show Nichols being kicked and punched in the head while being restrained, pepper sprayed, and struck multiple times with a baton. The first body camera video shows a police officer approaching a car with his gun drawn while Nichols is being forcibly pulled out and pushed to the ground by another officer. In the video, Nichols tells the officers he was "just trying to get home." The officers continue to push him to the ground and an officer pulls a Taser stun gun and points it at Nichols' leg. Another officer pepper sprays Nichols before he breaks loose and runs down the street. The image from video released on Jan. 27, 2023, and partially redacted by the City of Memphis, shows Tyre Nichols seated leaning against a car during an attack by five Memphis police officers on Jan. 7, 2023. Nichols died on Jan. 10. The five officers have since been fired and charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. / Credit: City of Memphis via AP The second video, taken from an elevated street surveillance camera, shows officers restraining and beating Nichols at a different location, a suburban intersection. Two officers are shown holding Nichols on the ground, when a third officer approaches and kicks Nichols in the face. A fourth officer with a baton also beats Nichols, hitting him in the back. Nichols stands up and stumbles while being held by two officers, when another one punches him in the face several times until the blows make Nichols collapse. The third video shows bodycam footage and audio of the beating, after officers apprehend Nichols at the intersection. While he is being held on the ground, the officer wearing the camera pepper sprays Nichols repeatedly. The officer later deploys the retractable baton. The fourth video shows bodycam footage of an officer chasing and knocking Nichols to the ground at the intersection. The video is almost entirely obscured for several minutes, but audio conveys the apparent struggle for Nichols to catch his breath and the sound of handcuffs clicking. "Get him up!" one of the officers says. Officers can be seen gathering at the intersection, with police lights and Nichols sitting on the street with his back against a gray car, his hands behind him. An officer shines a flashlight on his face a couple of times, and Nichols seems to be bleeding from the side of his head. Nichols sits in the dark against the car, barely moving. At some point paramedics are seen walking up to him, propping him up as he slumps to the side. Nichols' family and their attorneys, along with several Memphis authorities, had viewed the footage before its public release. In a Jan. 23 press conference, family attorney Ben Crump called the video "heinous" and likened the police's actions to the infamous 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police. "He was a human pinata for those police officers," Antonio Romanucci, another family attorney, said. Nichols' mother, RowVaugn Wells, told "CBS Mornings" that when she saw the video, "All I heard my son say was, 'What did I do?' I just lost it from there." She said she could not watch it in full. In a video statement, Memphis Police Chief Davis called the officers' actions "heinous, reckless and inhumane." "This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual," she said. The officers involved Five Memphis police officers were determined to be "directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. Nichols," said Davis, the police chief. The five officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were fired on Jan. 20 and are now facing criminal charges including second-degree murder. All five have pleaded not guilty. On Friday, Feb. 3, a sixth officer, Preston Hemphill, was fired for violating "numerous" policies, including personal conduct, truthfulness, and compliance with various regulations, according to a Memphis Police Department statement. A seventh, unidentified officer was relieved of duty shortly after the incident with Nichols took place. On March 7, Memphis chief legal officer Jennifer Sink revealed a seventh officer had been fired. Another officer resigned "in lieu of termination" and three others had been suspended, Sink said. Two officers who were initially facing discipline had their charges dropped, Sink said. In addition, three members of the Memphis Fire Department who responded to the scene were fired for violating "numerous" policies and protocols. Sink said on March 7 that one more member of the fire department had been suspended. The five officers charged were members of the so-called SCORPION unit, a group created by the department to focus on fighting street crime. On Jan. 28, Memphis police announced that the SCORPION unit had been "permanently deactivated." The unit had been "inactive" since the encounter with Nichols, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland had said in a news bulletin Jan. 27. Strickland also said that the city was "initiating an outside, independent review of the training, policies and operations of our specialized units." Five former Memphis police officers were charged with second-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of Tyre Nichols after a traffic stop in January 2023. / Credit: Shelby County Jail On Jan. 26, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy announced that a grand jury had handed down indictments on charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression against the five former officers. Second-degree murder is a class A felony punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Martin's lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. Martin was out on $350,000 bond by early the next morning, jail records showed. Bean, Smith, Mills and Haley all posted $250,000 bond and were released. Massey said none of the officers intended to kill Nichols. "No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die," Massey told reporters. "No one. No one. Police officers have a difficult and dangerous job. It's probably one of their worst fears that something like this would happen on their watch." One of the officers, Haley, was accused previously of using excessive force. He was named as a defendant in a 2016 federal civil rights lawsuit while employed by the Shelby County Division of Corrections. The plaintiff in that case, Cordarlrius Sledge, said he was an inmate in 2015 when Haley and another corrections officer accused him of flushing contraband. The two officers "hit me in the face with punches," according to the complaint. A third officer then slammed his head to the ground, Sledge said. He lost consciousness and woke up in the facility's medical center. The claims were ultimately dismissed after a judge ruled that Sledge had failed to file a grievance against the officers within 30 days of the incident. Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, Jr. announced on Friday, Jan. 27, that two deputies who were at the scene following Nichols' arrest by Memphis police have been "relieved of duty." Bonner said that an "internal investigation" has been launched to determine if the deputies violated any policies. No further details were provided. In the Jan. 27 news bulletin, Strickland said that "concurrent" with the investigation into Nichols' death, "other MPD officers are still under investigation for department policy violations, some infractions less egregious than others." The Associated Press contributed reporting. Biden's budget proposal to call for higher taxes on billionaires Assessing the challenges faced by America's military as it contends with China, Russia NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy discusses close calls at airports, East Palestine toxic train derailment Kevin Guerrero, left, and Rafael Guerrero relax as they sit next to their shopping bags at the Glendale Galleria. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) For the record: 12:23 a.m. Jan. 28, 2023: A previous version of this article incorrectly said the county, as of Friday, was reporting 951 cases a week. L.A. County reported 951 cases a day for the seven-day period that ended Friday. With coronavirus transmission on the decline, Los Angeles County health officials have relaxed their broad recommendation that everyone mask up indoors while in public. While wearing a face covering is still required in certain settings such as healthcare facilities and nursing homes and still encouraged aboard public transit, the decision for most should now be considered a matter of personal preference. That isn't to say masking is no longer useful, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday. "I do encourage people to continue to think of masking as an effective tool to reduce exposure to COVID-19," she said, as she continued wearing a mask as usual during her weekly briefing. Ferrer also continues to strongly recommend that individuals more vulnerable to severe illness keep wearing masks in indoor public settings, especially those that are crowded or have poor ventilation. Businesses, schools and offices can still choose to mandate mask use. "We encourage workers who are going to have many, many exposures during the day to go ahead and keep those masks on," Ferrer said. Workers with vulnerable family members also may elect to continue masking in public to reduce the chance of bringing an infection home. State occupational health and safety rules still require workers who have been exposed to the coronavirus to wear masks at their worksite for 10 days after their exposure. Recently infected individuals who have exited isolation because they've tested negative on a rapid test must still wear a mask at work through the 10th day following onset of COVID-19 symptoms or their first positive test. L.A. County had strongly recommended universal indoor masking in public settings since mid-November, when its coronavirus case rate topped 100 cases a week for every 100,000 residents, a level that is considered high. Story continues The shift in the county's official masking stance came a little more than a week ago, after the region's weekly coronavirus case rate fell below 100. L.A. County's case rate has continued to fall since then. The county was reporting 66 cases a week for every 100,000 residents, or 951 cases a day for the seven-day period that ended Friday. The county remains in the low COVID-19 community level outlined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Authorities note official case tallies are likely a significant undercount at this point in the pandemic a byproduct of increased use of at-home tests, the results of which are not reliably reported to public health agencies, as well as people testing less regularly. However, wastewater surveillance data also suggest coronavirus transmission is dropping. For weeks, L.A. County reached a plateau, with wastewater concentrations hovering at about 70% of the peak noted during last summer's surge. But in early January, levels plunged to about 29% of the summer peak, according to data released Thursday. The county considers that to be of "low concern," according to Ferrer. Coronavirus levels in wastewater in L.A. County fell in early January. (L.A. County Department of Public Health) "These numbers confirm that the decline in transmission is both real and significant. And hopefully the decline in transmission will be followed soon by a decrease in deaths," she said. Promisingly, levels of flu and respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV, also have fallen significantly in recent weeks. There is, however, a risk that flu activity could rebound this spring, Ferrer said, and RSV is expected to continue to circulate. "The same measures we've been accustomed to for COVID-19 frequent handwashing, staying home when sick, wearing a mask in crowded places will also continue to prevent transmission of these other respiratory viruses," Ferrer said. Levels of flu and RSV have also fallen in L.A. County wastewater. (L.A. County Department of Public Health) Hospitalizations also are declining. As of Thursday, there were 722 coronavirus-positive patients in hospitals in L.A. County. That has been nearly cut in half since early December. The apparent peak recorded this fall and winter 1,308 on Dec. 8 is slightly lower than the summer high point of 1,329 on July 20, and significantly below last winter's wave, which maxed out at 4,814. The record for coronavirus-positive hospitalizations came during the first winter of the pandemic, when vaccinations were still in short supply and hospital morgues were overflowing. That came on Jan. 5, 2021, when 8,098 were hospitalized. COVID-19 deaths have stabilized, but are still relatively high compared to last summer. L.A. County has been averaging 140 deaths per week for nearly a month, higher than last summer's max of 122, but lower than the prior winter's peak of 513. L.A. County recorded 43 COVID-19 deaths per week during its lowest point in the fall. Even with the county relaxing its masking recommendation, Ferrer said she still keeps hers on as much as possible in indoor public settings. "I'm an older person. I'm over 65, and I don't want to get sick," she said. But Ferrer has started eating indoors at restaurants if no outdoor option is available, since the risk of viral transmission is lower. She said she keeps her mask on unless she's eating or drinking, and patronizes places where she thinks the ventilation is decent. "Everyone knows I love to be outside. So mostly I try to be outside," she said. "But ... I go inside when that's not an opportunity." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. By Duncan Miriri NAIROBI (Reuters) -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki on Thursday on a tour of Africa to shore up support for Russia, focusing on the "dynamics of the war in Ukraine", Eritrea's information minister said. Lavrov has been on a week-long charm offensive on the continent, starting in South Africa, which is planning joint military drills with Russia and China, and finishing off with a surprise trip to the reclusive Horn of Africa nation of Eritrea. South Africa is one of Russia's most important allies on a continent divided over the invasion and Western attempts to isolate Moscow because of its military actions. Eritrea is one of the few African countries that voted against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine although many abstained. "We are thankful to Eritrean friends for their consistent support of Russian initiatives in the UN," Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency TASS. He said Asmara had taken a "principled and balanced position on issues regarding the events in Ukraine and around it", TASS reported, adding that he also invited his Eritrean counterpart, Osman Saleh, to visit Moscow soon. The talks in Eritrea also explored ways of enhancing ties in energy, mining, information technology, education and health, Information Minister Yemane Meskel said on Twitter late on Thursday. Both sides will conduct a joint study to establish the logistical and transit opportunities presented by the Red Sea port of Massawa and its airport, TASS said. "I would like to mention the possibility of using the logistical potential of the Massawa port and the citys airport. The airport of Massawa looks interesting from the point of view of its transit possibilities," Lavrov said. Lavrov's visit to Africa coincides with others by senior U.S. officials, who are crisscrossing the continent to shore up ties with U.S. allies there. Story continues Speaking when he met Lavrov's delegation on Thursday, Foreign Minister Osman blamed the crisis in Ukraine on what he described as the United States' "reckless policy of hegemony and containment" over a number of decades. "The sad fact is that Ukraine is both a pretext and victim of this policy," Osman said during the speech delivered in Massawa. There was no mention of the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, where Eritrean troops fought alongside their Ethiopian federal counterparts against rebellious Tigrayan forces. A deal to end the fighting was signed last November but Eritrea was not party to the truce. Eritrean troops have started to leave some parts of Tigray, witnesses said. (Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Additional reporting by Alex Winning in Johannesburg; Editing by James Macharia Chege, Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens) A gunman opened fire Friday night near a synagogue in east Jerusalem, killing at least seven people and wounding several before he was shot and killed, Israeli police and medics said. The shooting in the Jewish neighborhood of Neve Yaakov followed a deadly raid by the Israeli military Thursday in the occupied West Bank that killed nine Palestinians, with a 10th killed later north of Jerusalem. After Friday's shooting, a spokesman for the Magen David Adom emergency service said that in addition to those killed, three people had been taken to a hospital, including a 70-year-old in critical condition, a 20-year-old in serious condition, and a 14-year-old in moderate to serious condition. Israeli police said the gunman was shot and killed, and large police force was at the scene. Police forces quickly arrived at the scene, engaged with the terrorist and opened fire at him. The terrorist was neutralized. Seven innocent people were slaughtered and more were injured as result of the terror attack Israel Police (@israelpolice) January 27, 2023 On Twitter, Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai said the Jerusalem shooting was "a difficult and complex attack with a large number of casualties." Police said the attacker came from East Jerusalem. They said it appears he started shooting on the street prior his arrival at the synagogue, where worshippers were gathered for Shabbat evening prayers. "This is absolutely horrific," U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters. "We condemn this apparent terrorist attack in the strongest terms. Our commitment to Israel's security remains ironclad, and we are in direct touch with our Israeli partners." The White House said President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu "to discuss the horrific terror attack" and "made clear that this was an attack against the civilized world." Story continues Israeli emergency service personnel and security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in a settler neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on January 27, 2023. / Credit: AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit the region next week. Earlier, scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. Bodycam footage of Tyre Nichols' violent arrest released by Memphis police Memphis City Council member Rhonda Logan on Tyre Nichols video: "Emotions right now are raw" CBS News coverage: Tyre Nichols arrest video released Israeli emergency service personnel and security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in a settler neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on January 27, 2023 AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images A shooting at a Jerusalem synagogue Friday has left at least seven dead and almost a dozen injured. Israel's emergency services said police killed the gunman at the crime scene. The attack marks another day of violence in the region after a deadly Israeli raid Thursday. A shooting at a Jerusalem synagogue on Friday has left at least seven people dead and ten others injured, according to Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The country's Magen David Adom emergency services said police killed the gunman at the crime scene, according to Reuters, Associated Press, and CNN. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the shooting a terrorist attack on Twitter. The shooting occurred during worship services on International Holocaust Remembrance Day and comes a day after Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians and injured others in Jenin, according to reporting from CNN. That Israeli raid was the deadliest into the West Bank territory in decades, according to AP. The surge in violence gripped the region before a planned trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the end of this month. Read the original article on Business Insider BEIRUT (Reuters) - Some 40 Lebanese lawmakers on Friday became the latest group to back the judge investigating the catastrophic 2020 Beirut port blast and call for the country's top prosecutor to be held accountable for steps taken against the judge and his probe. Judge Tarek Bitar on Monday resumed his probe into the blast that killed more than 220 people after a 13-month suspension caused by legal wrangling and high-level political pressure. He issued charges against senior security, political and judicial officials, including top public prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat. Though previously recused from the case due to a conflict of interest, Oueidat filed charges against Bitar for allegedly mishandling the inquiry and released the remaining 17 detainees still held over the investigation. The group of lawmakers backing Bitar represents under a third of Lebanon's 128-member legislature and includes independent MPs backed by civil society groups, the Kataeb party and the Christian Lebanese Forces party. The lawmakers in a statement said Oueidat should be "immediately held accountable for flagrant violations he has committed and his direct interference... and the release of detainees without the authority to do so." Oueidat could not be reached for comment on Friday. He has defended his decisions, telling Reuters on Thursday that it was Bitar who had violated legal principles by resuming his probe based on what he considered a shoddy legal justification. Oueidat's decisions have been backed by the heavily armed Hezbollah group which has opposed Bitar's probe after he sought to question and prosecute some of its friends and allies. The Lebanese Judges Association, representing a fifth of Lebanon's 500-member judiciary, said Oueidat's decisions "went beyond all limits and principles in a flagrant manner that destroys the foundations of justice." It said judges who have "sold themselves in service of political authorities" should resign and be held accountable. Story continues The Beirut Bar Association, representing lawyers, said that Oueidat's decisions "constituted an abuse of power and a violation of the law". The tussle leaves little hope of justice being served over the deadly explosion that devastated swathes of Beirut, raising concern the case will go the way of countless others in a country where impunity has long been the norm. (Reporting by Timour Azhari; Editing by Christina Fincher) Jan. 26When Dr. Luis Torres was working toward his undergraduate degree in his native Puerto Rico, he would have never guessed that a dinner invite would change his path in life. "A Life U recruiter invited me to dinner in PR, I went, and then soon after I attended LIFE Leadership Weekend," said Dr. Torres. "From there, I decided I wanted to study Chiropractic." Dr. Torres found himself in Marietta on the pathway to becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic. After years of hard work and dedication, he graduated in March 2021. Soon after graduation, he got the opportunity from his alma mater to head the newest branch of LIFE Chiropractic Centers in San Juan. "My plan was always that, when I graduated, I would come back to PR, but at the time, my plan was to stay in the U.S. for at least two or three years to gain more experience and work as an associate, but this opportunity came, so I took it, and we are here now," said Dr. Torres. The clinic officially opened in the winter of 2022, but a grand opening ceremony was held in October where many from Life U's executive leadership team and Board of Trustees attended and hosted a one-day continuing education event and ribbon cutting. Life U President Dr. Rob Scott, Vice President of University Advancement & Enrollment Dr. Gilles LaMarche, Board of Trustee member and Puerto Rico native Dr. Eddy Diaz and Vice President of Global Initiative Dr. John Downes were just a few of the special speakers and attendees at the grand opening. "This clinic is LIFE Chiropractic Centers Puerto Rico," said Dr. Torres. "We take patients, as any other clinic, but also, we treat the patients of PR and also serve as a recruitment and admissions center to get the word out about Life U to people who are interested in studying Chiropractic in Marietta. We then help them in the process of going into the program." According to Dr. Torres, plans for the clinic's future include continuing to care for patients in the community and increase patient volume, but also serving as a hub where other Life U alumni in Puerto Rico can gather for continuing education, meet and greets and simply to recharge their passion for the profession with their colleagues to serve a population that is growing more aware of the benefits of chiropractic care. "I would say that right now there is more consciousness about what Chiropractic is in PR than ever, so I would say there is a big chiropractic belief here for the people. They know what we do," said Dr. Torres. How far off is REDtone Digital Berhad (KLSE:REDTONE) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example! We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. 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 REDtone Digital Berhad The Model We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Seeing as no analyst estimates of free cash flow are available to us, we have extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the company's last 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. A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 Levered FCF (MYR, Millions) RM39.6m RM36.9m RM35.5m RM35.0m RM35.0m RM35.4m RM36.0m RM36.8m RM37.8m RM38.9m Growth Rate Estimate Source Est @ -11.26% Est @ -6.82% Est @ -3.71% Est @ -1.53% Est @ -0.01% Est @ 1.06% Est @ 1.81% Est @ 2.33% Est @ 2.70% Est @ 2.95% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 9.7% RM36.1 RM30.7 RM26.9 RM24.2 RM22.0 RM20.3 RM18.8 RM17.6 RM16.4 RM15.4 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM228m Story continues After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (3.6%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 9.7%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2032 (1 + g) (r g) = RM39m (1 + 3.6%) (9.7% 3.6%) = RM656m Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM656m ( 1 + 9.7%)10= RM260m The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is RM488m. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of RM0.5, the company appears about fair value at a 17% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out. dcf Important Assumptions Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. 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 REDtone Digital Berhad 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 9.7%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. 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 REDtone Digital Berhad Strength Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry. Debt is not viewed as a risk. Dividends are covered by earnings and cash flows. Weakness Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Telecom market. Opportunity Current share price is below our estimate of fair value. Lack of analyst coverage makes it difficult to determine REDTONE's earnings prospects. Threat No apparent threats visible for REDTONE. Moving On: Whilst important, the DCF calculation shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. For REDtone Digital Berhad, we've compiled three important elements you should further research: Risks: For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for REDtone Digital Berhad that you should be aware of. Other High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing! Other Environmentally-Friendly Companies: Concerned about the environment and think consumers will buy eco-friendly products more and more? Browse through our interactive list of companies that are thinking about a greener future to discover some stocks you may not have thought of! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Malaysian 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 Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty When Washington was on the brink of careening off the so-called fiscal cliff in 2011, recalcitrant congressional Republicans were facing pressure from a crucial ally. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the countrys most powerful business lobby, had a clear message to GOP lawmakers who wanted to take the debt limit hostage in order to force spending cuts: quit messing around. They urged Republicans to extend the federal governments borrowing authorityand in doing so helped to soothe the U.S. and global economy. More than a decade ago, Republicans were skeptical of that messagebut they were friendly with the messenger. Now, with another debt limit crisis looming, Republicans are increasingly hostile to both. After decades of having every GOP decisionmaker on speed-dial, the Chamberas its simply known in Washingtonnow finds its former relationships with the party frayed. Some Republicans never quite forgave the Chambers decision to back a slate of Democratic candidates in 2020, while the partys more socially conservative and economically populist drift has made the business lobby a useful target for politicians seeking to decry woke capital and economic globalization. The Real Reason McCarthy Put Santos on the Science Committee Last year, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), never before known as an enemy of big business, publicly called for the ouster of the Chambers CEO. His deputy, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), has said he wont even take a meeting with the group. With the GOP again seeking deep spending cuts in exchange for voting to avert a catastrophic default on the debt later this year, the Chamber again plans to play a key role advocating on behalf of corporate America. Its warning policymakers to avoid getting near a default at all costswhile at the same time castigating President Joe Biden for saying he wont negotiate with Republicans on the issue. And theyre also expressing openness to using the debt limit mechanism to force the spending cuts that Republicans are demanding. Story continues Still, a survey of some key Republican lawmakers found that only a few are eager to hear out the case of their formerly close ally. When asked by The Daily Beast if the Chamber has influence with the GOP on the debt limit, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK)chairman of the Houses influential Republican Study Committeehad a flat answer: No. I know business people have to make the decision they have to makeI don't represent those, I represent American people, constituents, 800,000, said Hern. I know what they're asking me: why can't you all sit down and have an adult conversation about how we bend our spending in America? Asked the same question, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the third-ranking Senate Republican, had a similar answer. Probably not, he said. Were going to do what were going to do as a Republican conference regardless of what the Chamber thinks. There are, of course, some Republicans who still tout their Chamber credentials. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a leader of the GOPs more moderate wing, proudly noted that he was the groups highest-rated member of Congress the last two years. Bacon told The Daily Beast that the Chamber remains influential, but he added that he didnt know if that impacts everybody. I like listening to them, he said. I think theyve been a good advocate. The strained ties between Republicans and the Chamber raise the prospect that the congressional GOP may be far more immune than it was a decade ago to any tempering influence from the national business community, which is desperate to avoid an economy-destroying event. Kevin McCarthy Gushed Hell Never Leave Marjorie Taylor Greene: Report More than ever, party leaders in the House are responsive to the views and demands of a hard-right wing that abhors compromise. With a razor-thin majority in that chamber, only a few lawmakers could veto any debt limit solution, just as they paralyzed McCarthys bid for the speakership. And some of those who led that revolt feel as stridently about this issue: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has explicitly said the government cannot lift the debt ceiling. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Neil Bradleythe Chambers executive vice president and a former top aide to McCarthystressed they share a belief with GOP leaders and members that avoiding a default is a unifying goal. Default can never be an option, he said. Thats similar to what Leader McConnell and Speaker McCarthy are saying. While Bradley allowed that in general, relationships are varied between the Chamber and GOP lawmakers, he argued there is not anyone who refuses to believe the facts youre presenting about the impact on the economy because they dislike some position you took on some other issue. Asked whether the Chamber disagreed with the Republican strategy of leveraging the debt limit to demand spending cuts, Bradley validated the maneuver, saying past debt limit increases have included really important measures to address the deficit. In Washington lobbying circles, theres not much heartburn over what the GOPs anti-Chamber moment could mean for its posture on the debt limit. This GOP majority has a genuine populist streak that informs their pugilistic pose on the debt limit, said Liam Donovan, a Republican lobbyist. But even as they're less receptive to the corporate community than ever, the bulk of the conference understands the grave economic consequences of a default scenario. Donovan argued that while the Chamber might be in the political penalty box, lawmakers will be moved by business owners in their districts, many of whom are involved in local chambers of commerce with links to the national organization. When it gets to be crunch time, you can bet Main Street will pick up the slack, he said. Some denizens of K Street also dont exactly buy the tough talk from McCarthy and his leadership team when it comes to the Chamber. As much as Kevin McCarthy is pretending to be someone, at his core, he is a business-friendly Republican from California, said one lobbyist. The Chamber has lost some of its juice, but theres no way these guys turn down a phone call from the head of the Chamber, or its board members. Doug Heye, a former top aide to former GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor, also suggested that lawmakers willing to totally discount the Chambers arguments arent going to be part of any solution on the debt limit. The Chamber and other business groups are warning Congress not to jump off the cliff, because there are no wings and doing so could tank the economy, Heye said. Are members going to disregard that simply because they dont like the source of the warnings? I suppose its possible, but any members doing so arent exactly at the forefront of rationality. The Chamber of Commerce Tried to Find a Middle Ground. It Ended Up Pissing Off Both Parties. What makes the rift between the Republican Party and the Chamber so potent, however, is that it encompasses more than issue-based disagreements. While the leading business lobby is a nonpartisan organization, the GOPs longtime alliance with big business gave it a most-favored status enjoyed by few other interest groups. Some would quip that the Chambers longtime former CEO, Tom Donohue, was the 101st Senator. But during the era of Donald Trump, Republicans developed pronounced differences with the Chamber on immigration and trade policy, and warred over corporate policies on the environment and social issues. Taken together, they amount to a divergence of values on the topics that most animate conservative voters. The GOPs increased reliance on small-dollar grassroots campaign donations has also diminished the influence of groups like the Chamber, which long was the partys most essential big-money electoral player. During the 2011 standoff, Donohue joked well get rid of you to the tea partiers holding the debt limit hostageand had the Beltway wondering how much he was actually joking. Today, those same lawmakers might not spend much time wondering at all. The right-wing populist Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who did not hesitate to say he is not the Chambers favorite senator, believes the group has left American business and the working class behind. They're far less influential among Republicans, my observation is, than they were in years past, Hawley told The Daily Beast. I haven't been here very long, but I don't hear a lot of Republicans in both chambers saying, Oh, the Chamber said XYZ. While there have been more recent debt ceiling standoffs, the upcoming battle mirrors the explosive situation from 2011, when Democrats controlled the White House and Senate while a new lot of Republicans had just handed the GOP control of the House. At the time, the Chamber had a friendly audience for its case to handle the debt limit responsibly. Many GOP lawmakers weighing their debt ceiling votes had just been elected in a red wave election in which the business lobbying group spent some $75 million, largely to benefit Republicans. Dems Take Hard Line on Debt Limit Talks: Absolutely Not Still, the Chamber struggled to win over the same Republicans theyd boosted. Three months after its policy head urged Congress to raise the debt limit as expeditiously as possible, congressional Republicans finally got a deal with President Obama, which paired a debt limit increase with the decade-long set of spending cuts known as sequestration. In the process, theyd spooked financial markets and prompted the ratings agency Standard & Poor to downgrade the creditworthiness of the U.S. federal governmentnot the outcome the Chamber and business leaders had wanted. Such an outcome seems possible again, with months to go until the true fiscal cliff arrives. Bradley, the Chambers executive vice president, worked for House GOP leadership at the time. To this day, he has a copy of the Budget Control Actthe legislation that codified the sequester and ended the 2011 standoffon his wall. There wasnt a situation, Bradley said, in which I was talking to the U.S. Chamber every day about how we got the debt limit done. 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. Police arrested a man after he punched and kicked a woman and pulled a knife on an officer in Georgetown, according to the Seattle Police Department. Around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, 911 received a report that a man was assaulting a woman on South Michigan Street. An officer driving through the area was flagged down by witnesses who pointed out the attacker. The officer drove down the street, caught up to the man, and commanded him to stop. The man ignored him and started running. The officer chased him until he turned around and pulled out a knife. The officer pulled out his gun and the attacker dropped the knife, allowing the officer to arrest him, according to the report. Officers spoke with the woman who said the attacker punched her face multiple times and kicked her after she fell to the ground. She was taken in an ambulance to Harborview Medical Center, police said. Police took the mans knife as evidence and booked him into the King County Jail for domestic violence-related assault and felony-level threats to the officer. WASHINGTON (AP) A New Jersey man who joined a mob's attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to more than six years in prison for using pepper spray to assault police officers, one of whom died a day after the siege. Julian Khater didn't mention the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick or address the officer's family in a written statement he read aloud before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced him to six years and eight months of imprisonment. Khater wasn't charged in the officer's death. A medical examiner concluded that Sicknick, 42, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he and other officers tried to hold off the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Hogan said Sicknick's death was the elephant in the room but stressed that the coroner's report didn't give him any basis to use that as a sentencing factor. However, the judge noted that Khater did not apologize to the officers whom he attacked or express any sorrow for hurting them. Somewhere along the line, we've lost the sense of acceptance of responsibility, Hogan said. Khater replied that he changed his prepared statement to the court on his lawyer's advice after he was recently named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit over his actions on Jan. 6. I wanted to apologize to everybody, he said. The judge gave Khater credit for the nearly two years he has served in pretrial detention. Hogan also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine. Khater's friend and co-defendant, George Tanios, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly and disruptive conduct and spent nearly six months in jail before an appeals court ordered his release. Hogan sentenced Tanios, 41, of Morgantown, West Virginia, on Friday to the jail time he already served. Dozens of police officers filled the courtroom gallery, with many others watching the proceedings on a television in an overflow courtroom. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement that they will never forget Officer Sicknick's bravery, nor his dedication to our country." Story continues Officer Brian Sicknick died an American hero and he will forever be remembered as one, Manger said. Although Tanios and Khater werent charged in Sicknicks death, the officer's relatives believe they bear responsibility. Sicknick's mother, two brothers, a sister-in-law and his longtime girlfriend addressed the judge in court before he imposed the sentences. "Your selfish actions have caused more pain than you could ever imagine," said an older brother, Craig Sicknick. My family is a wreck, and none of us have been even remotely unscathed as the result of your actions that day. Gladys Sicknick, the officer's mother, told Khater he is center stage in our recurring nightmare. You attacked my son like he was an animal. You are the animal, Mr. Khater, she said. Federal prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of seven years and six months for Khater, 34, of Somerset, New Jersey. The medical examiners office in Washington determined in April 2021 that Sicknick died from natural causes after suffering two strokes near the base of his brain stem. The medical examiner also noted that Sicknick had engaged with rioters on Jan. 6 and that all that transpired played a role in his condition," according to prosecutors. Defense attorney Chad Seigel said the medical examiner's autopsy confirmed that Khater didn't directly or indirectly cause the officer's death. If there was any evidence to the contrary, they would have charged him," Seigel said. Prosecutors said Sicknicks tragic demise, so close in time to the traumatic events of that day, underscores the seriousness of the offense committed by Khater and his fellow rioters." Officer Sicknicks death should serve as a solemn reminder to Khater, and to all of the rioters who committed acts of violence against police officers on that day, that their actions contributed to immense trauma, stress and suffering for all police officers who were physically attacked at the Capitol, they wrote in a court filing. Khater drove from New Jersey to pick up Tanios in West Virginia before driving to the Washington area on Jan. 5. They took a rideshare into the nation's capital on the following morning to attend the Stop the Steal rally and hear then-President Donald Trump address supporters. Joining the crowd that marched from the rally to the Capitol, Khater and Tanios approached the Lower West Terrace. Khater became enraged when he was exposed to police chemical spray, "as if he was some innocent victim," a prosecutor, Gilead Light, told the judge. Surveillance video shows Khater reaching inside Tanios backpack and retrieving a cannister of pepper spray that Tanios had purchased a day earlier. Video captured Tanios saying, Hold on, hold on, not yet, not yet its still early, as Khater reached into his backpack. Several minutes later, Khater approached officers guarding a barricade and sprayed at least three of them, including Sicknick. He jumped into action right as the officers were at their most defenseless, Light said. Light said the attack was premeditated, but Khater's lawyers said he didn't plan the assault. Khater told the FBI that he and Tanios had brought bear spray and pepper spray to the rally to protect themselves. Khater stopped spraying police after an officer sprayed him. Police officers retreated from the Lower West Terrace after Khaters attack. More than three hours after police cleared the Capitol of rioters, Sicknick began slurring his speech while talking to fellow officers and collapsed. He remained on life support at a hospital for nearly 24 hours before he died. Khater pleaded guilty in September to two counts of assaulting or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon. Tanios pleaded guilty in July to two misdemeanors. Neither of them was accused of entering the Capitol on Jan. 6. Prosecutors had recommended sentencing Tanios to the five months and six days that he already has served in jail. Tanios operated a sandwich restaurant near West Virginia Universitys campus. It closed during his jail stint. Khater has been jailed since his March 2021 arrest in Newark, New Jersey. He operated a health food restaurant that closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 100 police officers were injured at the Capitol on Jan. 6. More than 950 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Approximately 500 riot defendants have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses. Over 380 have been sentenced, with more than half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years. ___ Follow APs coverage of the Capitol riot at: https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege Firefighters battle a fire at a two-story apartment building in Westlake on Thursday evening. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) One person was arrested Thursday at the scene of a massive fire at a two-story apartment building in Westlake, police said. Officers arrived at the building in the 2800 block of 7th Street about 3 p.m. in response to a report of a disturbance, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. As police were talking with the person who reported the incident, they were told that someone inside was lighting things on fire. The suspect eventually left the building and was arrested, but police did not say what offenses the person was suspected of committing. The Los Angeles Fire Department said a 45-year-old man in police custody had been taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The blaze, which spread through the second floor and attic, was mostly extinguished within 53 minutes by more than 100 firefighters, Fire Department officials said. Video footage from KTLA-TV Channel 5 showed firefighters on the roof of the apartment building as flames roared around them. Fire crews remained on the scene working to extinguish the last small pockets still burning. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Christian baker Jack Phillips on Thursday lost his appeal in a case that stemmed from his refusal to make a cake for an individuals gender transition. A Colorado Court of Appeals three-judge panel, all appointed by Democratic governors, upheld an earlier court decision requiring Phillips to bake the cake. Attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) representing Phillips said Thursday they plan to appeal the ruling. Phillips won a case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 over his refusal to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Autumn Scardina tried to order a cake from Masterpiece Cakeshop that was blue on the outside and pink on the inside in honor of Scardinas gender transition, on the same day in 2017 that the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillipss appeal in the wedding-cake case. Scardina said during a March 2021 trial that the attempt to order the cake was a test to see whether Phillips would make good on his assertion that he would sell any other type of product but opposed making a gay couples wedding cake because, as a Christian, he was opposed to the religious ceremony involved, according to CBS Denver. Scardinas lawyer, Paula Greisen, claimed the call was not a setup but rather more of calling someones bluff. Phillipss lawyer, Sean Gates, said the baker could not create the cake because he did not agree with the message it would send: that gender transition is something to be celebrated. He argued that it was not discrimination against Scardina and later added that Phillips had also declined to make cakes with other messages he disagreed with, such as Halloween images. The court found that the act of baking a pink cake with blue frosting does not constitute protected speech under the First Amendment. Additionally, the division concludes that CADAs [Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act] prohibition against discrimination based on a persons transgender status does not violate a proprietors right to freely exercise or express their religion, the court wrote. Story continues The court ruled Phillipss right to an accommodation based on his religious beliefs would not override Scardinas protected status because the cake request did not have an inherent meaning or expressed message. ADF senior counsel Jake Warner, who is representing Phillips in the case, responded to the ruling in a statement: No one should be forced to express a message that violates their core beliefs. Over a decade ago, Colorado officials began targeting Jack, misusing state law to force him to say things he does not believe, Warner added. Then an activist attorney continued that crusade. This cruelty must stop. One need not agree with Jacks views to agree that all Americans should be free to say what they believe, even if the government disagrees with those beliefs. John McHugh, an attorney for Scardina, called the ruling was a victory for Scardina and the greater LGBTQ community in a statement to the Daily Caller. The court held that Masterpiece Cakeshop broke the law when it refused to sell a birthday cake to Ms. Scardina because she is a transgender woman, McHugh told the outlet. In doing so, the court rejected the defendants free speech argument because, as defendants admitted at trial, a pink cake with blue frosting does not have any inherent meaning and the act of selling a cake is not speech. Similarly, the Court held, consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent, that Mr. Phillips religious beliefs do not exempt him from anti-discrimination laws. More from National Review Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida sits alone on the House floor as lawmakers gather for a 14th round of voting to elect a new speaker on the fourth day of the 118th Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. REUTERS/Jon Cherry Rep. Matt Gaetz was one of 20 House Republicans who challenged Kevin McCarthy's speaker bid. Other vote holdouts have since been rewarded with better committee assignments and leadership gigs. Gaetz told Insider that he's happier cruising along than climbing the political ladder. Anyone expecting Rep. Matt Gaetz to be brokenhearted about not scoring any higher-profile posts after kneecapping Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month must not get what the Florida Republican is all about. "I'm making back benching great again," said Gaetz, a self-satisfied grin stretching across his face as he delivered the Trumpy quip, when asked about his seemingly stagnant workload. While many of the 19 other conservative Republicans who dragged out the House GOP leadership fight wound up with plum committee assignments and leadership roles, Capitol Hill watchers estimate that the scandal-plagued Florida Republican has, at least so far, stuck to reinventing himself after spending two years fending off sex trafficking allegations. Earlier this week McCarthy named the 12 House Republicans spearheading a new "weaponization of federal government" subcommittee that was one of Gaetz's top priorities during the speaker vote negotiations. While fellow holdout Rep. Chip Roy of Texas made the cut, Gaetz is not in the mix. Roy, a former chief of staff to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, was handed a seat on the powerful House Rules Committee as well. From his new perch Roy can sway what legislation reaches the floor and, if he garners enough support, effectively nuke some bills by allowing poison pill amendments to be introduced during floor debate. When asked if that was a career disappointment, Gaetz shot back "absolutely not." "We've got some of our best members on that committee," Gaetz told Insider at the US Capitol, hailing the political savvy of designees like Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan and Obama era congressional inquisitor Rep. Darrell Issa of California. Story continues "It's our A team. I'm gonna be their biggest cheerleader," Gaetz said between House votes. Jordan and other House Republicans are already stepping all over each other to chip away at President Joe Biden's reelection prospects ahead of the 2024 election. Gaetz, who already serves on Judiciary and the House Armed Services Committee, said he expects to be "real busy" on both of those fronts, but didn't elaborate on how he might contribute to those efforts. He did not get promoted to subcommittee chair on either of those panels this term. Rep. Bryon Donalds, who flipped from a McCarthy supporter to a challenger and then finally back again, is seeing his power increase. Donalds' opposition went even further than Gaetz's, with the fellow Florida Republican briefly a candidate against McCarthy during the speakership race. Donalds will now have a seat on the powerful GOP steering committee, which helps dole out committee assignments to the rest of the conference. McCarthy made Donalds his emissary to the panel. Even Rep. Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican who also refused to back McCarthy by name through the final 15th ballot, isn't walking away empty-handed. She'll be on the House Oversight Committee, the premiere panel for all things related to investigations of the Biden administration. As one GOP strategist told Insider earlier this month about Gaetz: "I don't think this guy's looking to be a policymaker." For now, dodging any new responsibilities frees up Gaetz to skewer political opponents on right-wing talk shows and spend more time getting to know deceiver-in-chief Rep. George Santos. Read the original article on Business Insider Starting this fall, Maxfield Elementary will welcome several education majors from the University of St. Thomas for an immersive, yearlong student-teaching experience. St. Thomas and St. Paul Public Schools leaders announced the new partnership on Friday, saying it will better prepare the teaching candidates while providing additional, research-based support for struggling students. Superintendent Joe Gothard said the program, which theyre calling the Maxfield Elementary Collaborative Learning School, also could inspire more students, especially students of color, to consider teaching as a career. Its showing our young scholars that this is who you can become, he said, and you can see this happening in a school in our district every day. For five weeks this spring, St. Thomas will implement an after-school math tutoring program for all Maxfield students. Then, starting on the first day of school in the fall, between six and eight education majors will be embedded in Maxfield classrooms, where theyll focus on literacy instruction for K-2 students who are behind grade level. At Maxfield, where 85 percent of students qualify for free school meals, just 15 percent passed the states math test last year and 20 percent tested proficient in reading. It allows our students to be in the field for far more hours than required for state licensure, said Amy Smith, interim education dean at St. Thomas. That extra time, she said, prepares our teachers to be in the world right away, day one ready. Maxfield also will set aside a classroom for use by St. Thomas faculty. Theyll use that space to teach and organize field-based research involving more St. Thomas students. For a teacher preparation program, Smith said, such a close partnership is the dream. This is the gold standard. The school district and St. Thomas already work together on the SPPS Urban Teacher Residency, or SUTR, which seeks to prepare more teachers of color through a paid, 15-month program where candidates help out in the classroom while earning a masters degree and teaching license. Story continues Theres precedent in the district for a close relationship with higher education. Hamline Elementary is Hamline Universitys lab school, receiving tutors and research-based teaching methods. Maxfield is calling its relationship with St. Thomas a collaboration, not a lab school. This is a dream come true for many of our students and faculty here and our families, Principal Leslie Hitchens said. Related Articles Meet El Shaddai, a Black expat from Ethiopia who has created mindful retreats in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. El Shaddai invites many across the diaspora to experience the bliss state and reconsider what else luxury could mean. Once meeting El Shaddai on Costa Ricas Caribbean coast, I was impressed by their ability to create a life that seemed worlds apart from their previous reality in DC. One of the first questions El Shaddai asked me was if I knew about the history of Puerto Viejo. They were ready to fill me in if I did not. Having learned more about The Intuition School and El Shaddais commitment to respecting the land and local livelihood, it now seems less surprising. The relationship and respect between the Jamaicans and the Indigenous of the land is something that they widely speak about. Six months later, we sit down to discuss how it has blossomed into something truly unlike other retreat spaces. This is what to expect from a community-centered, mindful retreat in Puerto Viejo for Black bodies. Related: The Black Expat: I Moved Out Of The U.S. And Have Been Living In The Tropics for 6+ Years Tell us about yourself Courtesy of The Intuition School My name is El Shaddai, my friends call me El. Im of Ethiopian descendency. I was born and raised in the United States in the DC area. About two years ago, I moved to Costa Rica and its been a transformative experience here. Its changed so much of who I am and its developed so much of who I am. Primarily one of the biggest changes is that I identified as an educator, a high school teacher, and Ive kept that label as an educator, but Ive transitioned into more of my meditative practice. I have always been an educator while working as a high school teacher and it feels good that it has maintained. Why did you choose Puerto Viejo? Story continues I wanted to be my full self, fully Black and fully non-binary, and invite my Black non-binary friends. I searched the world trying to figure out which community was ready for all of me and ended up with a short list. There were three options, but weird coincidences knocked out the other two. I was actually trying to buy a flight to Bahia in Brasil, and it was the morning of the Great Conjunction in 2021 and the flight sold out as I was pressing Confirm. The other was Havana, Cuba and the borders closed. Im thankful for closed doors. When I got to Puerto Viejo, I realized quickly that it is magical. Im thankful to the Afro-local and indigenous communities who have, for generations, nurtured healthy relationships with the natural world here. Since, weve been working to become an activation site. As we learn how to step into the Oneness of this space, we activate and illuminate ourselves, each other, and all other natural life. And when I arrived, I began to wonder if I came across as an asylum seeker. I didnt realize how difficult in my previous life it was to access my basic needs. I thought that way was the only option. Honestly, I still havent come to a conclusion on that. What was your relationship like with retreats before deciding to curate your own? Courtesy of The Intuition School So when I want something I generally put a lot of effort towards it. However because of the strength of my intuition, I have learned how important it is to be guided by my divine feminine spirit first, and then move into divine masculine, aligned action. And so because of that, Ive learned the importance of the loudness of my spirit, my intuition to make sure that any steps that I take are guided, and one of the ways that I had to learn that was through the power of intentional rest, mindful rest actually. I want to call it mindful rest. And mindful rest began to unlock a lot for me. It activated a lot inside of me, and it became the way that I would bond with my spirit and with my intuition. Mindful, natural, luxurious rest, you know? I began to understand that my spirits preference was mindful, intentional, naturally luxurious rest. She taught me what she wanted and it went from there. How do you go about creating your retreats in the way that you do? I think the process started long ago, even when I was teaching in under-resourced high schools. It came from a place not only of my own needs but deep intuitive desires. I would say that The Intuition School was born directly from that. We began with our ethics and what was right for us while also serving the natural world. We were guided by our spirits wants and desires: pleasure, bliss, joy, play, and ease. Weve designed an experience that lets guests embody natural luxury. Through blissful immersion in nature, youre guided to reconsider what you think of as extravagance, richness, and satisfaction. Here, we believe that to live in luxury is to live in your intentionality, to be able to do what your spirit says. Weve essentially created an experience that allows guests to embody their fullness for the week and beyond. Through blissful immersion in nature, theyre guided to reconsider what they think of as extravagance and richness. Where else in the world have you contemplated having a retreat? Courtesy of The Intuition School My family is Ethiopian so the number one next spot to be able to focus on Afro-indigeneity and begin to tap into the wealth of the whispers that are in the land of Ethiopia. As the birthplace of humanity, there is a lot to be heard there. And so thats exciting but the first on a long list. Primarily, our focus right now is to begin to conceptualize what it means to be providers of a lot of activation sites. Right now were going through a process of getting our ethical branding down really well. We have a really incredible brand strategist who is helping us with this. The intention is to be so well rooted in all that we do that were able to take the same concept of activating the land through the activation of ourselves and each other. Of course, we want to multiply and be able to provide lots of spaces where Black women are at the center of that reconnection of oneness between humanity and the natural world. We dont have a list of locations down, we want to be guided to whatever land pulls us in, in the same way that Puerto Viejo did. Its more a matter of waiting for them to come rather than scoping them out. That's so incredible. I can see this in the content you've shared online about the retreat space. It all feels very aligned. Would you say that you personally feel the call, then feel it out and then start envisioning the site? Courtesy of The Intuition School I actually think that its less about the site and more about the guidance of the people who are connected to that land. I am very focused on making sure that the curriculum is really rooted in our ethical standards because there are a lot of tourism and retreat spaces that I dont believe are deeply rooted in the same ethics that we are. To connect with a new space is finding individuals that have a connection with that land and also have a connection with us, like a mycelium network forming, and when we find rituals that have the same depth of commitment to the land and depth of commitment to the same parallel ethics that we have, then we allow for that mycelium network to source them with all that we offer. We are going through a process of training with them now. We then tend to allow that activation site to grow from itself. What is the feeling you want guests to have as they leave the retreat? Courtesy of The Intuition School I want guests to remember. Not necessarily to change or to heal who they are. I just want them to remember what it felt like the moments they were in the bliss state. What it feels like to be comfortable in their body, flowy in their emotions, calm in their minds, and passionate in their hearts. Just to remember, and to remember that they can always remember. The embodiment of the bliss state is enough to reconnect. Find The Intuition Schools website for updates and keep up to date with retreats on Instagram and TikTok. Help grow The Intuition School by supporting and sharing the fundraiser campaign. Related: Travel To Heal: Tips To Make Any Trip Feel Like A Wellness Retreat MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) Authorities released video footage Friday showing Tyre Nichols being beaten by five Memphis police officers who held the Black motorist down and repeatedly struck him with their fists, boots and batons as he screamed for his mother. The video is filled with violent moments showing the officers, who are also Black, chasing and pummeling Nichols and leaving him on the pavement propped against a squad car as they fist-bump and celebrate their actions. The footage emerged one day after the officers were charged with murder in Nichols death. The chilling images of another Black man dying at the hands of police renewed tough questions about how fatal encounters with law enforcement continue even after repeated calls for change. Protesters gathered for mostly peaceful demonstrations in multiple cities, including Memphis, where several dozen demonstrators blocked the Interstate 55 bridge that carries traffic over the Mississippi River toward Arkansas. Semitrucks were backed up for a distance. In Washington, dozens of protestors gathered in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House and near Black Lives Matter Plaza. Other cities nationwide braced for demonstrations, but media outlets reported only scattered and nonviolent protests. Demonstrators at times blocked traffic while they chanted slogans and marched through the streets of New York City, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. The recording shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes while screaming profanities at him throughout the attack. The Nichols family legal team has likened the assault to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. After the first officer roughly pulls Nichols out of a car, Nichols can be heard saying, I didn't do anything, as a group of officers begins to wrestle him to the ground. One officer is heard yelling, Tase him! Tase him! Nichols calmly says, OK, Im on the ground." Story continues You guys are really doing a lot right now, Nichols says. Im just trying to go home. Stop, Im not doing anything, he yells moments later. Nichols can then be seen running as an officer fires a Taser at him. The officers then start chasing Nichols. Other officers are called, and a search ensues before Nichols is caught at another intersection. The officers beat him with a baton, and kick and punch him. Security camera footage shows three officers surrounding Nichols as he lies in the street cornered between police cars, with a fourth officer nearby. Two officers hold Nichols to the ground as he moves about, and then the third appears to kick him in the head. Nichols slumps more fully onto the pavement with all three officers surrounding him. The same officer kicks him again. The fourth officer then walks over, draws a baton and holds it up at shoulder level as two officers hold Nichols upright, as if he were sitting. Im going to baton the f--- out you, one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Nichols. The officer strikes Nichols on the back with the baton three times in a row. The other officers then appear to hoist Nichols to his feet, with him flopping like a doll, barely able to stay upright. An officer then punches him in the face, as the officer with the baton continues to menace him. Nichols stumbles and turns, still held up by two officers. The officer who punched him then walks around to Nichols front and punches him four more times. Then Nichols collapses. Two officers can then be seen atop Nichols on the ground, with a third nearby, for about 40 seconds. Three more officers then run up, and one can be seen kicking Nichols on the ground. As Nichols is slumped up against a car, not one of the officers renders aid. The body camera footage shows a first-person view of one of them reaching down and tying his shoe. It takes more than 20 minutes after Nichols is beaten and on the pavement before any sort of medical attention is provided, even though two fire department officers arrived on the scene with medical equipment within 10 minutes. Throughout the videos, officers make claims about Nichols behavior that are not supported by the footage or that the district attorney and other officials have said did not happen. In one of the videos, an officer claims that during the initial traffic stop Nichols reached for his gun before fleeing and almost had his hand on the handle, which is not shown in the video. After Nichols is in handcuffs and leaning against a police car, several officers say that he must have been high. Later an officer says no drugs were found in his car, and another officer immediately counters that Nichols must have ditched something while he was running away. Authorities have not released an autopsy report, but they have said there appeared to be no justification for the traffic stop, and nothing of note was found in the car. The video raised questions about the role and possible culpability of the other officers at the scene, in addition to the five who were charged. The footage shows a number of other officers standing around after the beating. Memphis Police Director Cerelyn CJ Davis has said other officers are under investigation for their part in the arrest. Davis described the five officers' actions as heinous, reckless and inhumane." During the traffic stop, the video shows the officers were already ramped up, at about a 10, she said. The officers were aggressive, loud, using profane language and probably scared Mr. Nichols from the very beginning. Police are trained to understand that people might flee just because they are scared, said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who studies use of force. Nichols relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully. I dont want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because thats not what my son stood for, Nichols mother, RowVaughn Wells, said Thursday. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. Christopher Taylor was one of the protesters at the Interstate 55 bridge on Friday. He said he watched the video. The Memphis native said it was horrible that the officers appeared to be laughing as they stood around after the beating. I cried, he said. And that right there, as not only a father myself but I am also a son, my mother is still living, that could have been me. Speaking at the White House, President Joe Biden said Friday that he was very concerned about the prospect of violence and called for protests to remain peaceful. Biden said he spoke with Nichols' mother earlier in the day and told her that he was going to be making a case to Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to get this under control. The legislation, which has been stalled, is meant to tackle police misconduct and excessive force and boost federal and state accountability efforts. Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody. The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond and been released from custody by Friday morning, according to court and jail records. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said in a statement late Friday that two deputies who appeared on the scene after the beating were relieved of duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation. Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, condemned the alleged actions of the Memphis officers. The event as described to us does not constitute legitimate police work or a traffic stop gone wrong. This is a criminal assault under the pretext of law," Yoes said in a statement. As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police departments full and complete cooperation." ___ Associated Press reporters Aaron Morrison in New York, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Rebecca Reynolds in Lexington, Kentucky, contributed to this report. Cerelyn J. Davis, the Chief of Police for the Memphis Police Department, is pictured. Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images Memphis' police chief told CNN her department hasn't found proof Tyre Nichols drove recklessly. Nichols was beaten by Memphis police officers during a traffic stop on January 7. Nichols died three days later, and five officers have been charged in his death. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn J. Davis told CNN Thursday morning that her department has not found proof of Tyre Nichols driving recklessly the reason police officers used to pull him over on January 7. "We've looked at cameras, we've looked at body-worn cameras, and even if something occurred prior to the stop, we've been unable to substantiate that at this time," Davis told CNN. "We have not been able to substantiate the reckless driving." Nichols was stopped by Memphis police officers at a traffic light on January 7 and accused of reckless driving. During the traffic stop, the police officers beat Nichols, and he died in the hospital three days later, on January 10. "We've taken a pretty extensive look to determine what the probable cause was, and we have not been able to substantiate that," Davis told CNN of the reckless driving claim. "It doesn't mean that something didn't happen, but there's no proof." Five officers were charged with murder in connection to Nichols' death. Memphis police are expected to release the body-camera footage of the incident Friday evening. Davis has warned that what the footage shows is "heinous" and "inhumane" and could lead to public protests. Read the original article on Business Insider Attorney Ben Crump and members of Tyre Nichols' family at a press conference in Memphis, January 27, 2023 Gerald Herbert/AP Five Memphis police officers were charged with second-degree murder within 20 days of the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said this example of "swift justice" should set a precedent for future cases of police aggression. Tyre Nichols died three days after being held at a traffic stop and beaten by Memphis police officers. MEMPHIS, Tennessee The recent charges of five police officers involved in the death of Tyre Nichols should act as a standard for police accountability, according to Ben Crump, attorney for the Nichols Family. Standing next to Nichols' parents at the pulpit at Memphis' Mount Olive CME Church downtown, Crump told a crowd of dozens of locals that the race of the police officers is irrelevant when evaluating what happened. There is a cultural problem within policing that allows officers no matter their race to inflict harm on Black citizens, he said. "We have never seen swift justice like this," Crump said at a press conference in Memphis' Mount Olive CME Church. "We want to proclaim that this is the blueprint going forward for any time any officers, whether they be Black or white, will be held accountable. No longer can you tell us we got to wait six months to a year." On Friday January 20th, Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith were fired from the Memphis Police Department for the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols. Six days later, each officer was indicted on second-degree murder charges. According to the 2021 Police Violence Report, less than 3% of all deaths at the hands of police officers result with the officers being charged with a crime. Such swift legal action is unprecedented in cases of police aggression, but the Nichols family representative still warns of a longer path to justice. Crump called out the "institutionalized police culture" that he attributes for the death of Tyre Nichols. In addition to judicial action, legal representative Antonio Ramanucci called for an end to the "now corrupted" SCORPION unit, the MPD team specializing in violent crime that is involved with the death of Nichols. Story continues "When we look at how these five Black officers, who were caught on camera committing a crime, and when we look at how fast the police chief and the police department terminated them. And we look at how swiftly the district attorney brought charges against them in less than 20 days, then we want to proclaim that this is the blueprint going forward," Crump continued at the press conference. "We won't accept less going forward." Read the original article on Business Insider By Kylie Madry and Isabel Woodford MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Citigroup Chief Executive Jane Fraser is planning to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a government spokesperson told Reuters on Friday, amid the bank's attempt to finalize the sale of its local unit. Fraser will be in Mexico in the "first week of February" during a planned visit with her leadership team, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. A spokesperson for Lopez Obrador, Jesus Ramirez, said he did not have further details on the meeting, and said it was subject to final confirmation. Citi declined to comment. The planned meeting comes as Citi aims to sell its Mexican unit, Banamex, as part of the company's planned withdrawal of its retail services in the country after 20 years, first announced last January. Two bidders, which sources told Reuters were Mexican conglomerate Grupo Mexico and Banca Mifel, are vying for Citi's local unit, Lopez Obrador said in December. In an earnings call earlier this month, Fraser said she was bullish about institutional interest in Mexico. "As you can imagine, in today's environment, Mexico is key for many of our corporate clients around the world for their supply chains. And we play a very important role there," she said. Regarding the planned sale of Citi's retail unit, Fraser said she was "extremely pleased" with the progress being made, and reiterated that the company was still pursuing the "dual tracks" of an initial public offering if no sale was agreed upon. Citi executives previously circled January 2023 as the proposed date for finalizing the deal. Fraser has moved to simplify the Wall Street giant, announcing plans to shrink Citi's overseas footprint and exit non-core consumer markets, including Bahrain, China and India over the past 12 months. (Reporting by Kylie Madry and Isabel Woodford; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer, Cassandra Garrison and Leslie Adler) The Kroger on North Heincke Road in Miamisburg held a grand opening Friday. The first 300 customers at 7:00 a.m. received a $10 Kroger gift card. >>Kroger sponsoring food drive at Saturdays Wright State mens basketball game Long-term associates will be honored at the grand opening ceremony, and Kroger will announce donations to local organizations combating food insecurity. From 10:00 a.m. until noon there was a meet and greet with WhoDey Mascot and Ben-Gals cheerleaders from the Cincinnati Bengals. We are excited to continue our Full, Fresh and Friendly experience to the Miamisburg community with the opening of this new marketplace, said Jenifer Moore, corporate affairs manager for the Cincinnati/Dayton division. The $27 million store includes a new Starbucks, bistro seating area, sushi bar, household, kitchen, and apparel, along with an expanded floral, produce, bakery, and meat departments and expanded PickUp, Pharmacy, and The Little Clinic services. The Democratic majority in the Michigan Senate approved a measure Thursday that would move the state's presidential primary earlier in the year. The 20-18 party-line vote to shift the primary from mid-March to late February every four years is favored by Democrats, but may substantially hurt Republicans ahead of what is anticipated to be a heated election to decide the party's nominee in 2024. "This bill uplifts the voice and vote of Michigan Democrats and Michigan Republicans, and gives every Michigander an early, deserving chance to choose the next president of the United States," said state Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, the lead sponsor of the bill. A person stands behind a voting booth as they cast their vote inside the Central United Methodist Church polling place in Detroit on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. Right now, the state's presidential primary is set for the second Tuesday in March every four years. The bill would move that to the fourth Tuesday in February. That would make Michigan one of the first states to hold a primary. Supporters point to the national hoopla associated with traditional first voting states Iowa and New Hampshire, arguing the attention brings more focus to local issues and concerns. But Republicans noted that their national rules are different than those of the Democratic Party. If Michigan moves its primary earlier in 2024, the national GOP would likely penalize Michigan Republicans, explained Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township. More:Michigan moves one step closer to becoming early primary state for Democrats More:Michigan Democrats argue case for becoming an early presidential primary state "If the Michigan primary takes place before March 1 of next year, Republicans would lose about 85% of the Republican delegates to the national convention. We had 72 delegates in 2020, and we'd go down to 13 delegates next year," he said. "This legislation ... will, I believe, disenfranchise Michigan voters if left how it is." The argument did not resonate with the Democratic majority, but the GOP may ultimately achieve the outcome they want. Story continues Under Michigan Senate rules, it takes two-thirds of the members to make sure a bill goes into effect as soon as it is signed into law. Without that level of support, the law does not take effect until 90 days after the end of session. Right now, Democrats do not have enough votes to get to that threshold, meaning the bill would likely not take effect until after the prescribed 2024 primary date. The legislation was prompted by the Democratic Party's decision to revisit its calendar for which states hold presidential primary contests first. Late last year, at the direction of President Joe Biden, the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee adopted a new primary calendar for 2024 that would put South Carolina first, to be followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and then Michigan, upending the current calendar that begins with Iowa's caucuses and then the New Hampshire primary every presidential year. However, all of the states, including Michigan, have to enact laws ensuring they can legally hold primaries on the dates preferred by the party which still has to finalize the new calendar. The Republican Party, meanwhile, has said it would keep to the current calendar, raising questions about how this will work out between the parties come next year. While in the future moving the presidential primary may help the state, it's unclear how it would benefit Democrats in 2024. Biden has not officially said he's running for reelection, but many expect him to do so. If that's the case, it's unlikely a sitting president would face substantial opposition from his own party. But the GOP presidential primary is expected to be a raucous affair. Former President Donald Trump already indicated he's running, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and a slew of others are expected to weigh their own bids. If Michigan is actually penalized by the RNC for shifting its primary, that would mean the state's votes during the contest would have far less impact at the GOP's nominating convention. The bill must still pass the House and be signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to become law. Free Press staff writer and Washington correspondent Todd Spangler contributed to this report. Contact Dave Boucher: dboucher@freepress.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michigan Senate OKs earlier presidential primary angering state GOP A militia leader has been sentenced to more time in prison for pointing an assault rifle at police in Louisville during racial justice protests in 2020. John Johnson, who goes by Grandmaster Jay, leads the Not F***ing Around Coalition, a group of Black militants that visited Louisville several times amid demonstrations over the police killing of Breonna Taylor. Previous coverage:Grandmaster Jay, militia leader who had home in West Chester, sentenced to 7+ years in prison On Thursday, he was ordered to serve one year in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of wanton endangerment in Jefferson Circuit Court. Johnson, from Cincinnati, was previously sentenced to seven years and two months in prison after he was found guilty on federal charges for the same incident. "Johnson manifested indifference to the value of human life and created a substantial danger of death or serious physical injury when he pointed an assault riffle at 5 police officers stationed on the roof" of a building near Jefferson Square Park, a press release from Jefferson Circuit Court said. The sentences are set to be served concurrently. In November, Johnson's attorney Murdoch Walker II said he would appeal the federal sentencing. Reach Ana Rocio Alvarez Brinez at abrinez@gannett.com; follow her on Twitter at @SoyAnaAlvarez This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Militia leader Grandmaster Jay, from Ohio, sentenced in Kentucky court COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) Diamond Miller remembered the last time Maryland hosted Michigan. That was just over a year ago, hours after the death of Terrapins coach Brenda Frese's father. The Wolverines trounced the Terps by 20. We all know what happened last year, and we got embarrassed on our home court, Miller said. We just felt like we needed this one back for coach and her family." Miller scored 23 points, and No. 10 Maryland closed the first quarter with a 13-2 run and led the rest of the way in a 72-64 victory over No. 13 Michigan on Thursday night. The Terrapins gained a measure of revenge for their two losses to the Wolverines last season, and they've now won 10 of 11 since a loss to Nebraska in early December. Abby Meyers contributed 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Terps (17-4, 8-2 Big Ten). Lavender Briggs scored 14 points and Shyanne Sellers added 13. Leigha Brown led the Wolverines with 16 points. Michigan (16-5, 6-4) led 13-9 in the first quarter before a three-point play by Miller started Maryland's big run. Briggs and Faith Masonius made 3-pointers during that stretch. The Terps pushed the lead to 16 in the third quarter before the Wolverines were able to chip away. Miller sat for a bit with four fouls, and Michigan cut the lead to seven early in the fourth quarter, but the Wolverines still wasted too many possessions with turnovers to mount much of a comeback. Michigan ended up with 24 turnovers, and Maryland had a 25-5 advantage in points off turnovers. Miller fouled out with 2:19 remaining, but even after those two free throws, the Terps led 65-57 and had little trouble holding on. I loved everything about Diamond's game tonight, Frese said. I thought that last call was a tough one because obviously we needed her on the court, but she played so hard tonight. That's who she is and what she's capable of doing every single night. Michigan lost for the second time in four days against a top-10 opponent. No. 6 Indiana beat the Wolverines 92-83 on Monday. Story continues We better defend, because when you play Maryland or when you play Indiana or when you play Illinois or when you play Iowa, Ohio State, you're going to play a team that has five people on the court that can score at any single time," Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. If you take a breath and you relax we were up 13-9 with four to go in the first quarter, and we lost the first quarter 22-15. BIG PICTURE Michigan: Whether it was against Maryland's press or in their half-court offense, the Wolverines turned the ball over too much to score consistently. This was a lower-scoring game than the loss to Indiana, but the margin ended up being similar. Maryland: While Miller clearly led the way, the Terps had plenty of offensive contributors. They also held Michigan to 13 points below its season average entering the game. Super proud of this group, because it was going to take a 40-minute effort, Frese said. To see that growth, so many new pieces, and it does take time within a team, and that trust level has to get there, but they're definitely buying in on both ends of the floor. POLL IMPLICATIONS The Wolverines have appeared in 48 straight AP polls, and although a multiloss week could certainly drop them, the quality of their opponents could save them from a substantial plunge. Maryland is tied for 10th with an Iowa team that beat No. 2 Ohio State on Monday night. Now the Terps can boast an impressive victory of their own. UP NEXT Michigan: The Wolverines play their third game of the week when they visit Minnesota on Sunday. Maryland: The Terps host Penn State on Monday night. ___ Follow Noah Trister at https://twitter.com/noahtrister ___ AP womens college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 Ukraines Agriculture Ministry said on Jan. 26 that grain exports from the country's Black Sea ports had reached a record low due to sabotage by Russia. The ministry said that on average" two or three cargo ships have been leaving Black Sea ports every day in January under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The initiative is a U.N.-backed deal signed in July by Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey to unblock Ukrainian grain exports amid Russia's invasion of the country. The exports had been blocked by Russia's armed forces. (The decrease) is due to the artificial blocking of the grain corridor by Russian inspectors, the ministry said in a statement. According to the ministry, ships loaded with only 2.4 million metric tons of grain left Ukrainian ports in January, down from 4 metric tons in October. This is not the first time Ukraine has said the Russian delegation is deliberately stalling the process. In late December, Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry said that some of the ships that had set sail from Ukraine under the grain initiative had been stuck in Turkish waters awaiting inspection for over a month. "This is the result of purposeful actions of the Russian delegation in the Joint Coordination Center aimed at slowing down the process of ship inspections," the Infrastructure Ministry said. The Joint Coordination Center was established to coordinate the implementation of the deal, and each party to the agreement has representatives within it. In October, President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Russia deliberately provokes the food crisis by delaying cargo ships with grain from Ukraine. According to Agriculture Ministry, a total of 675 ships carrying 18.4 million metric tons of grain have left Ukrainian Black Sea ports under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Russian troops used two Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to target infrastructure facilities in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia during a massive attack on 26 January. Source: Colonel Yurii Ihnat, Spokesperson for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the air of the national joint 24/7 newscast Quote: "There are simply a few of them (the Kinzhal missiles in Russian possession) and they [the Russians ed.] save them for hitting the most important strategic targets. This time, unfortunately, one of the most critical strategic targets was the facility in Zaporizhzhia and one of the energy infrastructure facilities in Kyiv. This is their 'strategic target' to leave people in one of Kyivs districts without electricity." Details: In addition to the Kinzhal missiles, which the Ukrainian air defence system is not capable of shooting down with the available military assets, on 26 January, the Russians used other types of missiles (a total of 55 ed.), of which 47 were destroyed (46 cruise missiles and one guided missile ed.). Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Deputies from the Haywood County and Shelby County Sheriffs Offices are seen coming in to the boat ramp after searching for Kevin Watson using sonar near the Hatchie River Boat Ramp in an area of the river known as The Big Eddy on Tuesday, January 17, 2023, outside Hillville, Tenn. Watson is being sought in connection with his former wife Britney Watsons disappearance and Haywood County Sheriff Billy Garrett Jr. said their investigation now leads them to believe she is deceased. Kevin Watson, the 44-year-old Haywood County man suspected in the disappearance of his former wife, was arrested on Jan. 20 on a first-degree murder warrant after his ex-wife's body was found. On Jan. 23, the sheriffs office recovered a body on the Hillville Loop property, confirming its identity as 34-year-old Britney Watson, who had been reported missing since Jan. 7. According to the press release, the identification was obtained via fingerprints. More:Haywood County Sheriff's search for man suspected in ex-wife's disappearance At the time of Kevin Watsons arrest, sheriffs deputies were still in search of the body of Britney Watson. In a press release from Haywood County Sheriff Billy Garrett Jr., it was revealed that the sheriffs office had received a call from Watsons friend who disclosed his alleged desire to turn himself into authorities. After deputies arrived at the callers address in Tipton County near Mason, Tennessee, Watson was arrested and taken to the Haywood County Jail. He is currently under no bond, meaning either a judge has not yet determined a bond or, given the severity of a crime, will not be set at all and the opportunity for bail is inherently denied. After abandoning his truck at the embankment of the Hatchie River, it was presumed that Watsons disappearance was an apparent suicide, Garrett said over a week ago, after Watson left a cryptic note in his truck. In a Jan.17 press conference held at the end of Big Eddy Road in Whiteville, the sheriffs department scoured the river using sonar equipment to locate his body but found nothing. Watsons court date will be held at the Haywood County Justice Complex in Brownsville on Jan.31. This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: Body of Britney Watson is found and her ex-husband has been arrested [Source] Huu Can Tran, the deceased suspect in Saturdays mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, had no known connection to his victims, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna told reporters Wednesday. The incident, which left 11 people dead and nine others injured, occurred at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio just after it hosted Lunar New Year celebrations. Luna said investigators are still trying to determine Trans motive. The 72-year-old allegedly fired a total of 42 bullets using a Cobray model CM11-9, a variant of the MAC-10 semi-automatic machine pistol with a 30-round magazine. The weapon was purchased in Monterey Park on Feb. 9, 1999, but was not registered in the state of California. More from NextShark: Rising golf star Rose Zhang becomes first student athlete to sign NIL deal with Adidas Hours after the massacre, Tran was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound from a Norinco 7.62 X 25mm pistol. Authorities who searched his home recovered a Savage Arms .308 caliber bolt action rifle. Speaking to CNN, Trans ex-wife said she met him at the Monterey Park ballroom, where he gave informal lessons. A former friend also claimed that Tran used to frequent the venue and was hostile to a lot of people there. A Monterey Park resident reportedly claimed to have learned through discussions on WeChat that Tran was looking for a woman who had been invited to an event at the ballroom. However, he was not invited himself, which allegedly upset him. More from NextShark: Controversial Acting Ice Director Tony Pham to Quit After 5 Months One Star Ballroom regular said Tran was banned from the studio after irritating dancers and teachers. The same allegedly happened in the Alhambra-based Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio, where Tran headed after the shooting but was disarmed. When he would come to the dance halls, he would offer free lessons, but would tell the woman that in exchange she could only dance with him, the regular told the Daily Mail. Many of the dancers and teachers complained that he was argumentative and ultimately Tran was no longer allowed back to either Star Dance Studio or Lai Lai. Story continues More from NextShark: Restaurant Server Fired for Calling Asian Customers 'CHINA' Another dancer who claimed to see Tran every Friday night between 2016 and 2017 believes he was depressed. He talked to many dancing friends about his unfortunate life, divorce and not having a place to live, the dancer wrote in a WeChat group, as per Daily Mail. So, it could be imaged that he was very depressed. His biggest pride and joy were dancing, but it was taken away. In a lonely New Years Eve, he chose to bring the guns to destroy everything. For him, this is the end, the dancer added. More from NextShark: No Asian countries make Ukraines thank-you list Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant, had a limited criminal history, with only one arrest in 1990 for unlawful possession of a firearm. Its unknown whether he was convicted in the case. Luna urged anyone with information on Trans motive to contact the Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. A lot of rumors out there, a lot of people sharing stories, but again, we will only put out there information that we have verified through facts and evidence, he said. RowVaughn Wells speaks during a candlelight vigil Thursday for her son Tyre Nichols, who died days after he was beaten by police officers in Memphis, Tenn. (Scott Olson / Getty Images) The city of Memphis released nearly an hour of graphic video Friday evening showing the beating of Tyre Nichols, footage capturing a traffic stop that spiraled into a savage display of force, once again leaving an American city reeling from police violence. The video which includes numerous angles from police body-camera footage shows the violent encounter between Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, and police during his Jan. 7 arrest, which stemmed from a traffic stop. Nichols died three days later from his injuries. The highly anticipated footage formed the basis of murder charges that were filed Thursday against five Black former Memphis police officers from the departments controversial "SCORPION" unit and set off protests across the country. The five fired officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith were released from the Shelby County Jail early Friday morning, according to jail records. The officers were released on bail ranging from $250,000 to $350,000, according to the Shelby County district attorney. Four videos of the incident were released three of which were recorded by cameras worn by officers and a fourth from a pole-mounted police camera in the neighborhood where the beating occurred. The video starts when officers stop Nichols. Police are seen with their guns drawn the moment they step out of their cars and approach Nichols, who is still in the driver's seat of his car in the middle of a lane. "You gonna get your ass blown the f out, one officer yells while Nichols is still in the car. Numerous officers have their guns drawn. An officer tells Nichols to get out of the car, then drags him from the drivers seat. I didnt do anything, Nichols says as he is hauled from the car. All right, Im on the ground. OK. Stop, Nichols says as officers scream at him to get on the ground. OK, dude, dang. You guys are really doing a lot right now. I cant breathe. Story continues Nichols gets up after about 30 seconds on the ground by his car and begins to run away. An officer tries to shoot him with a Taser, though it's not clear if it hits Nichols. Another video shows police chasing Nichols after he gets up and runs and tackling him near a curb. Footage from the pole camera shows a subsequent interaction, after police tackle Nichols to the ground following a chase. Shut the f up, one officer yells as Nichols screams from the ground. You want to get sprayed again? Nichols can be seen wiping his face after getting pepper-sprayed. When Nichols is already on the ground, one officer makes the others move. Watch out, Im gonna baton the f out of you, he yells at Nichols. Nichols gets back to his feet and is moaning as another officer punches him in the face with his left hand. All right, all right, Nichols says. Nichols calls and screams for his mother numerous times throughout the encounter. Three officers kick him and attempt to restrain him as Nichols lies on the ground by a curb. After a few minutes of police hitting and attempting to restrain Nichols, they sit him up against a police vehicle. From there, Nichols slumps to the ground, without officers noticing for nearly a minute. The video does not show any officer attempt to de-escalate the situation, nor does it show any officer tell another to stop attacking or restraining Nichols. It is not clear in the footage if Nichols refuses to give police his hands. In no part of the video viewed by The Times does Nichols appear to fight back against police. After the confrontation ends, the police officers involved in the chase and beating discuss what has just happened as they catch their breath and wipe pepper spray from their eyes. Some agree that Nichols must have been high on something. Others say he was driving into oncoming traffic when they pulled him over. They talk about their roles in the incident. "Man, I was hitting him with straight haymakers, dog, one officer says. Other officers say they were rocking Nichols but also say to one another that he was grabbing for their guns. He literally had his hand on my gun, one officer says. Officers can be heard laughing as Nichols slumps to the ground from an upright position propped against the car. He high as a motherf, one officer says. Hey sit up, bro, an officer yells at Nichols when he realizes that the man has collapsed. Sit up, man. The officer then lifts a limp and bloodied Nichols back into an upright position. Before the video was released Friday, Nichols' family called for peaceful protests. RowVaughn Wells Nichols' mother made the plea at a candlelight vigil Thursday in honor of her son and at a Friday news conference. Wells, who said her son's encounter with police occurred as he was returning from a public park where he enjoyed taking photos, told those at the vigil: "We want peace. "I want each and every one of you to protest in peace. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully," she said. Wells noted that she chose not to watch the video. "We do not want any type of uproar, any type of disturbance. Thats what [the] family wants. Thats what [the] community wants. Please, please protest, but protest safely," Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, said at Friday's news conference. The couple spoke at the morning event in the airy Mt. Olive Cathedral Christian Methodist Episcopal Church on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a prominent street in downtown Memphis on which King marched with striking sanitation workers days before his assassination in 1968. "I want to say to the five police officers that murdered my son," RowVaughn Wells said, tearing up on the stage of the church, "you also disgraced your own families when you did this. Im going to pray for you and your families." Lawyers for the Nichols family have compared the video to footage of the 1991 Rodney King beating, but in higher definition. "This is far worse than Rodney King," said Ed Obayashi, a Northern California sheriff's deputy and use-of-force expert. "In all my years of use-of-force cases, I have never [seen] one where they are holding him up to beat him." Responses by politicians began pouring in Friday evening, with President Biden saying he was "outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols' death." Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass criticized the officers seen in the footage. "Tonight, we saw ferocious violence from an out of control herd," Bass said in a statement. "No words can express the chilling familiarity of a Black man crying out for his mother as he is beaten to death by officers." The death of Nichols comes after the Memphis Police Department, like many nationwide, enacted reforms after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. Memphis police adopted reforms such as requiring its officers to intervene if they witnessed misconduct or excessive force by their colleagues following a model set by a nationwide police reform initiative called 8 Cant Wait, according to UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz, who studies police accountability. With the Nichols beating, the country could be headed into another moment of reckoning just a few years after George Floyds murder, Schwartz said. She said she was surprised by the speed with which the officers involved were fired and charged, calling it very unusual for these kind of cases. Officers are really rarely disciplined or, even more rarely, criminally prosecuted. The Police Department is acting uncharacteristically for any law enforcement agency, uncharacteristically quickly, to have fired the officers," Schwartz said. The release of the video put police in Memphis and across the country on notice for protests. In New York City, hundreds of protesters gathered in Times Square. Three people were arrested around 9 p.m. in Midtown Manhattan on suspicion of causing damage to a police vehicle, said a New York Police Department spokesman. In downtown Los Angeles, about 100 people gathered outside LAPD headquarters to hold a candlelight vigil for Nichols and Keenan Anderson, who died this month after L.A. police pinned him to the ground and discharged a Taser on him at least six times in 42 seconds. The group burned sage and hung signs calling for abolishing police over barricades the LAPD had set up. After the vigil, officers in riot gear assembled as a small group knocked over the metal barricades and marched into a plaza outside the police headquarters lobby. Under "Los Angeles Police Department" on the side of the building, someone spray-painted in red the word kills." By 10:15 p.m., the crowd had shrunk to about 30 people as insults and smoke of indeterminate provenance filled the air. Some demonstrators shook and banged on a police car with an officer sitting inside. Activists on the ground in Memphis expressed frustration with speculation that the city would erupt in chaos after the release of the video, saying the brutal imagery should instead spark questions about the policing culture fostered by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and Police Chief Cerelyn Davis. I think my biggest quarrel with messaging is this anticipation for a riot versus the hard questions that should be asked to the mayor and the police chief, said Keedran Franklin, the co-founder of the Memphis Coalition of Concerned Citizens, who also organizes with the national group Black Men Build. No one has ever seen Memphis go up in flames. Weve had major protests here," Franklin said. "We dont get violent." Large-scale protests that some feared could spring up never materialized in Memphis. Downtown businesses mostly remained open Friday, though a few stores closed early in light of the video's release. People were eating at restaurants, and a few shops were boarded up. When the video was released, a group of more than 100 protesters began marching from Martyrs Park, just south of downtown Memphis. Some clutched homemade signs demanding justice. Familiar chants of No justice, no peace roared from the crowd as they marched onto Riverside Drive. Protesters held court on a section of Highway 55. The demonstrations were peaceful, even as several speakers signaled their intent to defy any law enforcement efforts to clear the highway until their demands were met. Police mostly kept their distance. The blues clubs that line popular Beale Street were packed with patrons. Protesters reached the bridge that spans the Mississippi River between Tennessee and Arkansas, then turned back and began heading toward Martyrs Park. Standing off to the side was a man with his family, including three young children. The man, who declined to give his name, said he felt compelled to attend the rally because he lived in the area and felt solidarity with those calling for change. "Sometimes it takes more than talking to be heard," the man told The Times. Jany reported from Memphis. Goldberg and Queally reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Richard Winton and Alexandra E. Petri contributed to this report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. (Reuters) - Myanmar's ruling junta on Friday announced tough requirements for parties to contest an election this year, including a huge increase in their membership, a move that could sideline the military's opponents and cement its grip on politics. Myanmar's top generals led a coup in February 2021 after five years of tense power-sharing under a quasi-civilian political system that was created by the military, which led to a decade of unprecedented reform. The country has been in chaos since the putsch, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on opponents that saw Western sanctions re-imposed. The military has pledged to hold an election in August this year. An announcement in Friday's state media said parties intending to compete nationally must have at least 100,000 members, up from 1,000 previously, and commit to running in the election in the next 60 days or be de-registered as a party. The rules favour the Union Solidarity and Development Party, a military proxy stacked with former generals, which was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party in 2015 and 2020 elections. The NLD was decimated by the coup, with thousands of its members arrested or jailed, including Suu Kyi, and many more in hiding. Richard Horsey, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, who was based in Myanmar for 15 years, said the rules aimed to restore a political system the military can control. "Parties are going to be either too scared, offended at the sham that the election is, or it will just be too expensive for them to mount a nationwide campaign in that kind of environment. Who would fund a political party right now?" he said. "This whole exercise is something to perpetuate military rule. It's a piece of theatre. It doesn't have to work, because they've decided what the outcome will be." The junta says it is committed to democracy and seized power because of unaddressed violations in a 2020 election won in a landslide by the ruling NLD. The NLD in November described the election as "phoney" and said it would not acknowledge it. The election has also been dismissed as a sham by Western governments. (Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Martin Petty and Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Nick Macfie) The Nampa Police Department said Thursday that officers arrested a 34-year-old man Wednesday night in connection to a robbery and vehicle theft. The incidents took place Tuesday morning, when a car was stolen from in front of the owners home. Police said in a news release that someone took the vehicle while it was warming up on 6th Street S., abandoned it in a parking lot and then stole a bag of cash from a person at a nearby credit union. Online records show that the suspect is now in the Canyon County jail and faces robbery, grand theft and burglary charges. Police once again reminded vehicle owners to be cautious about leaving unattended vehicles running, even for a short period of time. Keep in mind the thief not only has access to your car, but also potentially your house keys, garage door openers and any other personal items in the vehicle, police said in the release. 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 A Naples man accused of critically injuring a 14-year-old boy in a crash more than two years ago will head to trial in April. Juan Pablo Alvizurez Giron, 49, is accused of striking the boy, who the Collier County Sheriff's Office identified as "Jamesly," as he walked to school at 6:40 a.m. Sept. 3, 2020. Alvizurez Giron was taken into custody Sept. 9, 2020, charged with leaving the scene of a crash involving serious bodily injury, according to troopers. Back home:14-year-old boy injured in East Naples hit-and-run crash returns home from hospital Naples attorney accused:Attorney arrested in fatal crash was late to pick up daughter on day of wreck, report says Jamesly was using a crosswalk with his skateboard at the intersection of U.S. 41 and Southwest Boulevard, near Whistlers Cove apartment complex, when Alvizurez Giron struck him. When troopers received a tip about a pickup with damage consistent with the pieces found at the crash scene, they impounded Alvizurez Giron's pickup. Alvizurez Giron told troopers he lent the pickup to his brother that day, and added that his brother mentioned someone crashed into the pickup and fled the scene, the arrest report indicated. Troopers asked where his brother, Luis Felipe, was. Alvizurez Giron said he flew to Guatemala the morning after the crash. While they searched Alvizurez Giron's phone, they interviewed three of his other siblings, who said Luis Felipe hadn't been in the U.S. for some time. Jamesly was flown to Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers with injuries to both arms and his left leg. He spent several weeks recovering from multiple surgeries, according to the sheriffs office. The Sheriff's Office said Jamesly at the time of the crash was a straight-A student at Lely High School and began to worry about falling behind in class. Tomas Rodriguez is a Breaking/Live News Reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. You can reach Tomas at TRodriguez@gannett.com or 772-333-5501. Connect with him on Twitter @TomasFRoBeltran, Instagram @tomasfrobeltran and Facebook @tomasrodrigueznews. This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Trial date set for Naples man accused of injuring teen in hit, run A Naples physician charged last summer in authorizing fraudulent billing of $2.6 million to Medicare has given up his license to practice in Florida and entered a guilty plea in federal court, records show. Dr. Omar Saleh, 37, voluntarily relinquished his state medical license in early December to the state Board of Medicine which was finalized Dec. 28, according to state records. In separate action in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Saleh entered a guilty plea for participating in a scheme where he received kickbacks in exchange for signing doctors orders for genetic testing that were medically unnecessary and sent to two Texas laboratories. More:Naples physician among 36 nationwide charged for fraudulently billing $2.6 million to Medicare He will be sentenced April 20 in U.S. District Court in Miami and remains out on bond, court records show. Sentencing is before U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom. Saleh is one of 36 defendants across 13 federal jurisdictions facing criminal charges where a total of $1.2 billion was fraudulently billed to Medicare involving telemedicine, cancer genetic testing, and durable equipment schemes. The charges were announced last July after a nationwide coordinated investigation. Telemedicine schemes account for more than $1 billion of the losses: the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services put in place more flexible rules for patients to get telemedicine visits during the COVID-19 pandemic More:Former Naples resident gets four years in prison for investment scam against elderly couple In addition, the Justice department said fraud related to cardiovascular genetic testing has become a burgeoning scheme. Criminal charges were filed against the executive of a telemedicine company, owners and operators of clinical laboratories, durable medical equipment companies, marketing organizations and medical professionals, according to the Justice Department. The federal government seized more than $8 million in cash, luxury cars and other goods connected to the fraud scheme Story continues Other defendants are based in South Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North Carolina, New York, Texas and California. What are the charges that Saleh faced in the scheme? Saleh, whose practice was located at 2338 Immokalee Road in North Naples, is the only defendant in Southwest Florida. His involvement in the scheme appears to have been based in Miami. Beginning sometime in April 2020 while in Miami and elsewhere, he solicited and received kickbacks and bribes in exchange for signing doctors order for genetic tests that were not medically necessary and sent to two Texas laboratories, according to the federal government. He was recruited by another defendant, Michael Stein, of Palm Beach, to sign the genetic testing orders for patients referred by Panda Conservation Group, a Texas company. Pandas principal place of business was in Broward County, according to court filings. In exchange, Stein offered Saleh illegal renumeration in the form of referrals of Panda-recruited patients and the chance to bill Medicare for telemedicine consults with these patients, the documents show. While Saleh agreed to order the genetic testing in exchange for the referral of these patients and the opportunity to bill for telemedicine visits that did not actually occur, he was ultimately not able to bill these visits and received no compensation, according to his plea agreement. Saleh was aware the genetic tests he ordered would be conducted by either of two other Texas companies, Amerihealth Laboratory or MP3 Laboratory, the agreement shows. Saleh knew the laboratories would submit claims to Medicare, which came to at least $2.6 million although Medicare paid $1.6 million, according to the plea document. Its not clear from the plea document if Saleh was aware of the amount billed to Medicare. What has happened in the case since the charges? Shortly after the case was announced last summer, the state Department of Health began an investigation after Saleh was arrested July 15, 2022 and charged felony conspiracy to commit health care fraud. He signed an agreement Aug. 4, 2022 to voluntary relinquish his Florida medical license. The state Board of Medicine on Dec. 2 accepted his notice to give up his licenses to practice medicine in the state and he agreed to never reapply to practice in the state. His practitioner profile with the state health department shows he is licensed in Connecticut and New Hampshire. This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Naples doctor faces sentencing April 20 on felony charge to commit fraud Manchester Citys Nathan Ake (right) and Jack Grealish celebrate (Mike Egerton/PA). (PA Wire) Nathan Ake proved the unlikely match-winner as Manchester City edged out title rivals Arsenal 1-0 in a tense FA Cup fourth-round tie on Friday. The Netherlands defender steered home a low shot in the 64th minute at the Etihad Stadium as City landed the first blow in their trilogy of clashes with the Gunners over the coming months. Arsenal, the Premier League leaders, had enjoyed the better of the first half, with Takehiro Tomiyasu and Leandro Trossard both forcing good saves from Stefan Ortega. Yet, while much had been made of the growing touchline rivalry between City manager Pep Guardiola and his former assistant Mikel Arteta, for a seventh time in eight meetings it was ultimately the old master who prevailed. Guardiola, perhaps aware that a victory could also have a psychological impact heading into next months league encounter between the sides, went with a strong side and made just two changes to Artetas six. The Gunners, however, retained all their usual energy and, in a frantic start, seemed determined not to allow City to establish their customary early rhythm. As a result the hosts played more direct than normal and the results were mixed. There were some promising attacks, but Erling Haaland seemed uncomfortable with the altered plan and, despite plenty of touches, the Norwegians impact was minimal. The Gunners initially looked the brighter team and Tomiyasu stung the palms of Citys number two goalkeeper Ortega with a ferocious shot in the fifth minute. Trossard, making his first start for his new club, also forced a good save from the German after breaking into the area on the left. Story continues City had a half-chance when Haaland broke clear after a Rob Holding miskick, but Gunners keeper Matt Turner met him outside the area. The ball looped into the air and Haaland adjusted to attempt an ambitious overhead kick, but Tomiyasu comfortably cleared. Citys best chance of the first half came when Kevin De Bruyne cut inside and curled a left-foot effort narrowly wide, but Arsenal went close again when Eddie Nketiah poked wide from a Trossard cross. If at first, you don't succeed, try again #EmiratesFACup pic.twitter.com/v5PKOUrqSt Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 27, 2023 City suffered a blow just before the interval when defender John Stones was forced off with an apparent hamstring injury, but they returned for the second half more determined to take control. De Bruyne began to run through the middle more and passes became slicker. The attack was enlivened further when Julian Alvarez came off the bench in the 58th minute. The change paid off six minutes later when the World Cup winner thumped the base of the post with a powerful long-range drive and Jack Grealish laid off to Ake from the rebound. The Dutchman had time and space and calmly placed a shot beyond the reach of Turner. It proved a decisive strike and City comfortably and efficiently closed out the game with Arsenal failing to threaten again. On 26 January, Kharkiv-based National Guardsmen destroyed a Russian Mi-24 helicopter with a man-portable air-defence system [MANPADS] on the Bakhmut front. Source: Press service of National Guard of Ukraine Details: The chief of air defence service of the 3rd Operational Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine stated that on 26 January at 10:40, a Ukrainian fire group of the anti-aircraft missile and artillery division detected two aerial targets on the south-eastern outskirts of Bakhmut. Two missile launches at Russian Mi-24 helicopters were carried out with 9K310 Igla-1 MANPADS. One helicopter was shot down, and the other was damaged. Quote from National Guard gunner: "This helicopter can fly at low altitudes, allowing them to approach our units undetected in this terrain. It can manoeuvre, targeting our forces and the most important positions using its missile and artillery arsenal. That is why detection and destruction of such targets are highly effective during combined arms combat." Reference: The Mi-24 is a Soviet multiple-purpose attack helicopter and support for infantry. It is one of the fastest attack helicopters in the world, designated to transfer and support manpower on the contact line. Reminder: According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, since the beginning of the full-scale war on 24 February 2022 till 27 January 2023, Russian forces have lost 282 helicopters in Ukraine. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Nationwide Children's Hospital in June 2021 file photo. A former employee of Nationwide Children's Hospital is suing the hospital system, claiming officials there illegally fired her when she objected to receiving a COVID-19 vaccination because of her religious beliefs. Tina Moore, of Pickerington, filed a lawsuit Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Moore identifies as Christian and claims her religious beliefs and her need for an accommodation were the motivating factors behind her termination last April. Prior to being fired, Moore had been employed with Nationwide Children's for 24 years, most recently as a scheduler for surgeries. A spokesperson for Nationwide Children's Hospital did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Moore's complaint, the hospital system announced in August 2021 that all employees had to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or be approved for an exemption by March 15, 2022. Taking a COVID-19 vaccine does not align with Moore's religious beliefs as a Christian, according to the complaint, and she filed a religious exemption request form. More:Faith and the COVID vaccine: What religions have doctrinal reasons for being unvaccinated? On or about March 10, the complaint states Moore was told by a hospital human resources official that she had failed to provide sufficient information showing her religious belief prohibited her from receiving a COVID-19 vaccination. Moore was told she was being placed on unpaid leave and if not vaccinated before March 15, her position would be posted and filled, the complaint reads. Moore said she sought clarification with human resources, but was met with silence. Nationwide Children's "did not respond to Moore's offer of additional information, did not seek clarification about her beliefs, and did not permit her to provide any further explanation beyond what she was able to provide on the hospital system's 'Religious Exemption Request Form,'" the complaint reads. When she reported to work the next day on March 11, Moore said in her lawsuit that she was told in an email by human resources to leave the property immediately because she was "work restricted." She turned in her badge and left. One week later, Moore said she received a letter that said her employment had been terminated, effective April 15, because she was not fully vaccinated and her religious exemption was not approved. Story continues "Moore alleges the defendant engaged in intentional discrimination against her when it failed to provide her with a reasonable accommodation because her sincerely held religious beliefs conflicted with a work requirement and instead terminated her," the lawsuit reads. Moore said the hospital system took away her access to her work email and she couldn't obtain copies of her exemption request and correspondence with human resources personnel to provide as exhibits to the complaint. Moore went on to file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which in October said it would not proceed further in its investigation and had made no determination whether a further investigation would establish whether Nationwide Children's had violated the law. (The commission's letter was included in Moore's lawsuit.) The lawsuit claims that while Moore's religious exemption request was denied, others submitted by coworkers were approved. One coworker who held a similar position to hers originally had their exemption denied, but was approved once the hospital reexamined the application, Moore said in the lawsuit. Moore, who is being represented by Eric Jones of Jones Law Group in Columbus, is seeking compensatory damages including lost wages, past and future lost income, physical pain, emotional distress and humiliation. She's also seeking a court order awarding her back pay, pre-judgement interest, fringe benefits and other appropriate relief. Monroe Trombly covers breaking and trending news. mtrombly@dispatch.com @monroetrombly This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Nationwide Children's employee claims firing over religion, vaccine Native American comedy writer Joey Clift (Cowlitz) thinks theres something way scarier and a lot less harmful than the ubiquitous Native American burial grounds trope you see in pop culture. European burial grounds, for one. After all, the Paris catacombs are made of human bones, Clift writes in Gone Native, his digital series distributed by Comedy Central that tackles a variety of misconceptions about the Native community. Clift has written an open letter to legendary horror author Stephen King in an effort to raise awareness about the trope ... which plays a pivotal role in the authors bestselling novel Pet Sematary (1983). I think by illuminating the existence of these stereotypes, which are harmful to Native people in the media, I can hopefully convince non-Natives to stop using these tropes, . While King isnt the only writer to have included the trope in his work, many film adaptations of Kings books have included it, including The Shining and It. It: Chapter Two, which came out in 2019 which is based on a Stephen King book uses weird made-up Native magic to explain a major plot point . Clift is no stranger to writing about Native culture. The fact that hes creating his own series during a pivotal time for Native representation in entertainment isnt lost on him. Its showing non-Native people that were still here, we exist, we have amazing stories to tell" Video Transcript [MUSIC PLAYING] JOEY CLIFT: I think by illuminating the existence of these stereotypes, which are harmful to Native people, in the media, I can hopefully convince non-Natives. To stop using these tropes. "It-- Chapter 2," which came out in 2019, which is based on a Stephen King book, it uses just, like, weird, made up Native magic to explain, like, a major plot point. And that's a movie that came out in 2019. I think that it's showing non-Native people that we're still here. We exist. We have amazing stories to tell. A key FDA committee voted to update the current vaccination strategy against COVID-19, signaling a shift in how the U.S. will handle the virus going into the fourth year of the pandemic. Welcome to The Hills Health Care roundup, where were following the latest moves on policy and news affecting your health. Im Joseph Choi. Subscribe here. Close Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Health Care newsletter FDA panel proposes harmonizing doses, boosters The vaccine advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday voted to recommend matching the composition of primary COVID-19 vaccines doses and booster doses, which would make all vaccines administered consist of the updated bivalent dose. The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) was asked on Thursday to consider making all COVID-19 immunizations match in composition, which in this specific case would mean phasing out the original coronavirus vaccine and only administering the bivalent shot. All 21 voting VRBPAC members present at the meeting voted in favor of making this recommendation. While the FDA is not required to abide by the committees recommendations, the agency usually follows the panels vote. The bivalent mRNA shot contains components of both the original ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. The booster was authorized for use in September. Under the current FDA authorization, the bivalent boosters are available to people as young as six months. The shot can be administered at least two months following a primary series vaccination or a previous monovalent booster shot. Archana Chatterjee, VRBPAC member and dean of the Chicago Medical School, endorsed the recommendation as a way of reducing confusion people may have regarding different vaccine formulations that are currently available. Story continues Speaking with colleagues, friends, family questions Im answering from the community. Theres so much confusion about these different formulations that I think anything we can do to ease up on that confusion and simplify things is going to be a good thing, Chatterjee said. Having vaccines is not sufficient. We need to have them be used. Read more here. Watchdog knocks NIH oversight of research funds A federal watchdog agency for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says in a report released this week that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) failed to carry out sufficient oversight into research conducted using millions in federal funds, including research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been aggressively scrutinized amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for HHS focused on the awards that were distributed through the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from emerging diseases. The OIG looked into three NIH grants awarded to EcoHealth totaling about $8 million, which in turn were awarded to several recipients, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to the OIG, monitoring of research was done by reviewing lab reports, performing audits and corresponding directly with the award recipients. However, it was found that EcoHealth failed to submit timely progress reports to the NIH, which in turn did not follow up with the nonprofit in a timely manner. EcoHealths failure to submit a progress report in a timely manner and NIHs failure to follow up on a missing progress report limited NIHs ability to effectively monitor its grant award to EcoHealth and evaluate whether the special terms and conditions were met, the OIG report read. Read more here. Top FDA safety official resigns A top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety official submitted his resignation this week, citing progress on tackling the U.S. infant formula shortage while also expressing frustrations with the structure of the agency. Frank Yiannas, the FDAs deputy commissioner for food policy and response, joined the agency in 2018 after having previously worked for several decades in food safety for Walmart and the Walt Disney World Co. His last day with the agency is set for Feb. 24. Delayed decision: In his resignation letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, Yiannas noted he had considered leaving in February 2022 due to his concerns over the decentralized structure of the foods program that he and Califf found themselves working with. Yiannas, however, said he decided to postpone his exit in light of the infant formula incidents the presence of bacteria in powdered formula that led to at least two deaths and subsequent shortages that were reported to the FDA around that same time. The FDA official wrote in his letter to Califf that improvements that have been made since the crises first started have encouraged him to leave the agency. With the Abbott facility now reopened, infant formula availability more prevalent, and very importantly the necessary monitoring, data systems, and insights now in place through the 21 Forward platform to help address the current and any future infant formula supply chain challenges, I believe the time is right for me to leave and vacate this position, Yiannas wrote. Read more here. FDA: NEW REGULATIONS ARE NEEDED TO MANAGE CBD RISKS The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday called for new regulations for the cannabidiol (CBD) market, saying the agency needs to provide additional oversight to manage the risks involved in using those products. Janet Woodcock, the principal deputy commissioner of the FDA, said in a release that the agency conducted a review and determined that a new regulatory pathway is needed to balance the publics desire to use CBD with the necessary oversight. She said the FDA is prepared to work with Congress to enact the regulations. Potential issues: The agency said CBD use has raised some safety concerns especially for long-term users, and studies have shown that it can lead to liver damage, interactions with certain medicines and harm to the male reproductive system. Exposure to CBD can be especially concerning to children and those who are pregnant. Woodcock said the existing regulations for food and dietary supplements only provide limited tools for managing the risks of CBD use. She said the working group she chairs has examined studies related to a CBD-based drug and published scientific literature and studies but has not found sufficient evidence to determine how much CBD can be consumed without harm being caused to a person. Read more here. SEN. ANGUS KING TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine) on Thursday announced hes tested positive for COVID-19 and will isolate during his sickness. An hour ago, I tested positive for COVID on a routine test on my way to the airport home to Maine. Ive been vaccinated and boosted, so I feel alright just sorry to not make it home this weekend, King said on Twitter. Repeat: This COVID-19 case is the second King has reported since the start of the pandemic, after testing positive in August 2021. At the time, he and fellow Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) were the second and third breakthrough cases in which a fully vaccinated person catches the virus announced in the Senate. The senator said hell be isolating under the guidance of Congresss Office of the Attending Physician. Read more here. WHAT WERE READING Drug company middlemen likely to be a focus in 118th Congress (Roll Call) How do heavy metals like lead get in baby food? (The New York Times) HHS Becerra on enrolling in Medicare, annual Covid vaccines, and seniors mental health (Stat) STATE BY STATE More Californians are dying at home. Another covid new normal? (Kaiser Health News) Autism diagnoses rose sharply in NJ suburbs, went undercounted: Rutgers (Gothamist) Texas to increase salaries, starting pay at state hospitals, living centers (KVUE) Thats it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hills Health Care page for the latest news and coverage. See you tomorrow. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. WASHINGTON The U.S. military has killed a senior Islamic State leader during an assault operation in northern Somalia. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who announced the operation, identified the leader as Bilal al-Sudani, a key operative and facilitator for ISIS's global network. "This action leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure, and it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad," Austin said in a statement. About 10 of al-Sudani's ISIS operatives also were killed in the assault, which was authorized by President Joe Biden and took place Wednesday in a mountainous cave complex in northern Somalia, said senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gives a press conference during the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting at the US Air Base in Ramstein, western Germany, on January 20, 2023. Austin confirmed on Thursday that the U.S. military had killed a senior Islamic State leader during an assault operation in northern Somalia. (Photo by ANDRE PAIN / AFP) (Photo by ANDRE PAIN/AFP via Getty Images) Military officials had prepared for the possibility of capturing al-Sudani, but a response by hostile forces resulted in his death, the officials said. There were no casualties among American service members or civilians, the officials said. Wednesday's strike is the third by U.S. forces in Somalia since Jan. 20, according to U.S. Africa Command. Troops sent to Somalia: Reversing Trump, Biden moves to deploy US troops to Somalia to help counter extremist group President Joe Biden speaks at the Steamfitters Local 602 in Springfield, Va., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) From his cave complex, al-Sudani supported ISIS's expansion and activities across Africa and beyond the continent by providing funding to sustain the organization's operational capabilities around the world, including ISIS's Khorasan branch in Afghanistan, one of the terrorist group's most lethal branches, officials said. Al-Sudani has a long history as a terrorist in Somalia. Before joining ISIS, he was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2012 as an ISIS leader for his role in helping foreign fighters travel to an al-Shabaab training camp and facilitating financing for violent foreign extremists in Somalia. Al-Sudani had a key operational and financial role with specialized skills that made him an important target for U.S. counterterrorism action, officials said. Story continues The assault operation that killed al-Sudani resulted from months of coordination and planning across the U.S. government, the officials said. Once planning reached a critical stage last week, the Defense Department briefed Biden and other members of his national security team. Biden authorized the operation earlier this week. East Africa, including Somalia and Sudan, has been of concern to U.S. counterterrorism officials for decades. In 1988, Osama bin Laden established the al-Qaida network from a group of Arab and other foreign veterans of the Afghan insurgency. Two years later, he left his native Saudi Arabia for Sudan and used it as a base to recruit operatives for his new organization. ISIS in our own backyard: Group's U.S. followers are diverse, in places large and small In March 2022, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned several southern Africa-based Islamic State organizers and financial facilitators, saying they were playing an increasingly central role in facilitating the transfer of funds from the top of the ISIS hierarchy to branches across Africa. The United States is working with our African partners, including South Africa, to dismantle ISIS financial support networks on the continent, Brian Nelson, the Treasury undersecretary, said at the time. Al-Sudani was not one of those sanctioned in that Treasury action. But in its announcement, Treasury described him as a U.S. -designated ISIS leader in Somalia involved in helping ISIS supporters in South Africa become better organized and recruit new members. ISIS has recently attempted to expand its influence in Africa through large-scale operations in areas where government control is limited, Nelson said. ISIS branches in Africa rely on local fundraising schemes such as theft, extortion of local populations, and kidnapping for ransom, as well as financial support from the ISIS hierarchy." ISIS leader dies: ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi dies in US military raid in Syria This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ISIS leader in Somalia killed in raid by US military forces A little more than three years after The 1619 Project published in The New York Times Magazine, presenting a provocative examination of the American slave trade and its legacy, Nikole Hannah-Jones will debut her Pulitzer Prize-winning work on Hulu Thursday with a specific purpose in mind: to strengthen the case for reparations. Were going to have to fight for equality, whether we get reparations or not, she said. But I would rather were fighting for equality having gotten some semblance of financial justice for the financial and other crimes that Black people have experienced. The Hulu series, produced under the Onyx Collective brand, carefully builds a case for reparations by providing a historic and contemporary analysis of the impact of slavery. Hannah-Jones argument for reparations, though, is not new. The fight for reparations has been going on for centuries in federal and state governments. During every congressional session from 1989 until he retired in 2017, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., introduced a bill to create a commission to report on the impact of slavery and offer recommendations for reparations known as H.R. 40. The bill finally passed a committee vote in the House in 2021, with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, as its lead sponsor. Even with that milestone, Duke University professor and economist William Darity said its unlikely that a reparations bill will pass with a Republican majority in the House. Still, he remains a staunch advocate for reparations and the elimination of the racial wealth gap. I dont think theres anything else that can be done besides a federal program, direct payments to Black American descendants of U.S. slavery, Darity said. If the focus is on the racial wealth gap as the strongest economic indicator of the cumulative intergenerational effects of white supremacy in the United States, then no, theres nothing that can be done by other entities, or theres no other policies besides a direct payment strategy that would truly, truly accomplish that goal. Story continues In the Hulu series and in many of his published works, including a 2021 article in The Economist co-written with A. Kirsten Mullen, Darity estimated that it would cost the federal government between $12 trillion to $14 trillion to pay financial restitution to Black American descendants of those enslaved. He notes that Black people were excluded from full citizenship in the U.S. at the nations founding and it would take an average of $350,000 per person to help close the wealth gap for the 40 million descendants alive today. The community is owed a debt from the federal government that has never been met over the course of the 157 years since the end of the Civil War, he said, citing several negative policies like the denial of 40-acre land grants for Black Americans by the government, which returned 400,000 acres of land back to Confederate owners. Darity also referenced massacres of Black people across the country by white terrorists, and the appropriation and seizure of Black-owned property in the aftermath of the Civil War. Those practices, he said, carry over to discriminatory housing practices against Black Americans, a widening racial wealth gap and a pattern of policies that have stunted the financial growth of Black Americans. While there have been efforts to issue redress to Black Americans at state and local levels so far, in areas including California, Kansas City, Missouri, and Evanston, Illinois there remains debate as to whether these attempts can provide an adequate substitute for federal reparations. I have real reservations about relying upon state governments or municipal governments to do this, Darity said. They dont have the capacity to eliminate the racial wealth gap. And whatever they choose to do is bound to fall far short of what is merited by the eligible population. Told through the lens of Nikole Hannah-Jones personal story, historical events and the modern fights for voting rights, the first episode of The 1619 Project Democracy explores Black Americas centuries-long fight to democratize America and to hold the country to its founding ideals. (Patti Perret / Hulu) Hannah-Jones, however, said Black Americans should not reject any potential funding, even if its on the state level and potentially inadequate to provide financial redress. Every time there is a local or state reparations bill thats moving forward, it just further legitimizes the larger federal effort, she said. So I definitely am an advocate of both. The subject of state reparations and the return of land are discussed in the series, along with the idea that reparations should be more than just a cash payout. Hannah-Jones said the best approach would include rebuilding. It should also be a large investment into Black communities and Black institutions that have been divested in, like Black public schools and historically Black colleges and universities. And strong enforcement of existing law. We do have pretty good civil rights laws, what we dont have is good enforcement of them, she noted. If the federal government were to ever issue reparations, Darity surmised that Black Americans might begin to feel a sense of equality. However, he calls for three specific requirements with the payout of reparations to ensure that. First, acknowledgement on the part of the culpable party, he said. Second, an act of redress on the part of the culpable party. But then the third component is closure that the community that has been victimized will make no further claims for restitution after adequate redress has been provided unless theres a renewal of the atrocities. Hannah-Jones recognizes the need for closure, adding that if Black Americans did receive reparations, fair treatment and equality in all things, then there would be no need to continue the fight. But, she quipped, the likelihood that we will ever reach that is very low. Nonetheless, she said she believes that America must realize that democracy is multicultural and that the true founding of the country was not established in 1776 but in 1619, when the first documented African people were brought to the colonies in bondage. She said she hopes her new series will help cement that idea and the need for restitution to the descendants of those who were enslaved and later endured incredible discrimination and hardship. You cannot fully and accurately understand the country that we live in today if you have not dealt with the primacy of the legacy of slavery, that slavery is one of the oldest institutions in America, Hannah-Jones said. It is foundational. Foundational to our economic, political, social, medical systems and it is shaping our society, whether we acknowledge it or not. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com By Kanishka Singh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A North Carolina man who faced criminal charges after claiming he had a bomb in his truck parked near the U.S. Capitol in 2021 pleaded guilty on Friday, the Justice Department said in a statement. Floyd Ray Roseberry, 52, of Grover, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to one charge of threats to use explosives during a standoff with police that lasted four hours near the Library of Congress, the Justice Department said on Friday. Roseberry had earlier pleaded not guilty. Roseberry faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who accepted the plea, scheduled a sentencing for June 15, the Justice Department added. During the incident in August 2021, Roseberry parked his vehicle on a sidewalk outside the U.S. Library of Congress and told an officer who approached him that he had a bomb while holding what appeared to be a detonator, according to police. Police shut down streets and evacuated nearby buildings as they negotiated with Roseberry. The standoff paralyzed a swath of Washington for several hours. Roseberry later surrendered to police, who said at the time that they found possible bomb-making materials, but no bomb, in the truck. Roseberry, who had a history of mental illness, faced charges of using a weapon of mass destruction and making threats to use explosive materials. He live-streamed his threats from his Facebook account. In the video, he said the "revolution's on." "I'm ready to die for the cause," he added. Prosecutors said that he also stated that he was upset about the 2020 election results and demanded that President Joe Biden resign from office. He demanded to speak to Biden about several grievances, according to prosecutors. (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot) SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea on Saturday denounced U.S. pledges of battle tanks to Ukraine, claiming Washington was "further crossing the red line" to win hegemony by proxy war, state media KCNA reported. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, made the remarks in a statement carried by KCNA, saying that North Korea will "stand in the same trench" as Russia against the United States. The United States said this week it would supply Ukraine with 31 of its most advanced battle tanks after Germany made a similar announcement. This scrapped a taboo in Western support for Ukraine's battle against Russia's invasion by pledging arms that have a mainly offensive purpose. "I express serious concern over the U.S. escalating the war situation by providing Ukraine with military hardware for ground offensive," Kim Yo Jong said in the statement. The United States and Western countries "have neither right nor justification to slander sovereign states' exercise of the right to self-defence." Nuclear-armed North Korea launched an unprecedented number of missiles last year, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the U.S. mainland. U.S. and South Korean officials have also warned the North could be preparing for its first test of a nuclear device since 2017. (Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea condemned on Friday the decision by the United States to supply Ukraine with advanced battle tanks to help fight off Russia's invasion, saying Washington is escalating a sinister proxy war aimed at destroying Moscow. The comments by the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un underscored the countrys deepening alignment with Russia over the war in Ukraine as it confronts the United States and its Asian allies over its own growing nuclear weapons and missiles program. North Korea has blamed the United States for the crisis in Ukraine, insisting that the Wests hegemonic policy forced Russia to take military action to protect its security interests. It has also used the distraction created by the war to accelerate its own weapons development, test-firing more than 70 missiles in 2022 alone, including potentially nuclear-capable weapons believed able to target South Korea and the U.S. mainland. The United States has accused North Korea of sending large supplies of artillery shells and other ammunition to Russia to support its offensive in Ukraine, although the North has repeatedly denied the claim. Kim Yo Jongs comments, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, came after U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said the United States will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, reversing months of arguments by Washington that they were too difficult for Ukrainian troops to operate and maintain. The U.S. decision followed Germanys agreement to send 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks from its own stocks. Kim said the Biden administration was further crossing the red line by sending its main tanks to Ukraine and that the decision reflects a sinister intention to realize its hegemonic aim by further expanding the proxy war for destroying Russia. The U.S. is the arch criminal which poses serious threat and challenge to the strategic security of Russia and pushes the regional situation to the present grave phase, she said. I do not doubt that any military hardware the U.S. and the West boast of will be burnt into pieces in the face of the indomitable fighting spirit and might of the heroic Russian army and people, she said, adding that North Korea will always stand in the same trench with Russia. North Korea is the only nation other than Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, two Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, and has also hinted at plans to send workers there to help with rebuilding efforts. Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty As frustration builds over the seemingly endless number of Americans killed in mass shootings, Danielle Moodie, co-host of The New Abnormal, couldnt contain her frustration on this weeks episode. There have been so many tragedies since Sandy Hook and in my opinion, nothing has really changed, Moodie vented to Gloria Pan, the senior vice president at MomsRising, a pro-gun control group. Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast. Pan countered by saying all is not lostand that despite the lack of political leadership over the issue, the Sandy Hook event jumpstarted the opposition to the NRA and their plans. Up until then there wasnt really an effective gun safety movement. The vast majority of Americans do want stronger gun laws, Pan says. Its just about how you talk about it. Ninety percent of Americans support universal background checks to make sure that people who really would not be responsible gun owners dont get their hands on it. However, the people who have the power to vote for stronger gun laws theyre answering to a different, more subset of constituents. Pan, who has been working on gun safety since the Sandy Hook shootings, said Americans are in for a fight if theyre to make change for real. We can bring our heartbreak, we can bring our stories to Washington and we can demand this change. But its not just not going to happen because the opposition to any kind of reform is just so strong. And the opposition to it is rooted. Its somewhere else. Its rooted in what they perceive as, as constitutional rights and stories about, you know, what America is about, going all the way back to our founding, which, you know, I think deserves a second look. The Real Reason McCarthy Put Santos on the Science Committee Also on the podcast, Radley Balko, an expert on police militarization in America who writes The Watch substack, discusses the danger of no-knock warrants and whether Breonna Taylors death has changed anything. Story continues Im extremely cynical about this stuff and I've been covering it for about 20 years now. I think that the backlash and reaction to the Breonna Taylor case, and George Floyd, has inspired more substantive reforms than weve ever seen, or at least since Ive been covering this issue. Louisville did pass a ban on no-knocks. Its not the law I wouldve written and I think its a little bit too easy to get around, but the idea if you told me five years ago that we would be talking about 30 cities and five or six states passing bans on no-knock grades because of the overwhelming public support for that position, I wouldve told you you were outta your mind. I still think we have a long way to go, but for the first time, probably in my career, Im not completely a hundred percent cynical about the prospects of things changing. Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher. 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. (Bloomberg) -- New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson said he will vacate his Wellington Central seat and instead run on the Labour Party list in this years election. Most Read from Bloomberg I am putting myself forward to be a list only candidate, campaigning for the re-election of the Labour Government and to being Finance Minister next term under the leadership of Chris Hipkins, Robertson said in a Facebook post Friday in Wellington. Being Minister of Finance is a huge job, and does often draw you away from electorate responsibilities. I am particularly conscious of that now as the country enters a challenging economic period. Robertson has been the member of parliament for Wellington Central since 2008. Becoming a list MP means he would not trigger a by-election should he decide to retire from politics after the Oct. 14 general election in the event of a Labour defeat. His decision comes just days after the shock resignation of former prime minister Jacinda Ardern. As we have been farewelling Jacinda in recent days I know there has been a mixture of emotions, Robertson said. Gratitude for her work, sadness at her leaving the role, but excitement about a new leadership team and the opportunity ahead at this election. I genuinely believe that Labour is on the right track to win the election. Read More: Chris Hipkins Confirmed as New Zealands Next Prime Minister Under New Zealands system of proportional representation, politicians can stand either in an electorate or on their partys list. The number of list candidates that get into parliament is determined by the proportion of the party vote each party receives. Story continues As a senior member of the government, Robertson will be placed high on Labours list and is assured of being returned to parliament whatever the outcome of the election. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. Say: 'Honeybees. Say: 'Honeybees." At least one persistently curious bear in Colorado wound up taking a massive amount of selfies thanks to a camera set up to monitor wildlife habitats. Rangers in the city of Boulders Open Space and Mountain Parks department placed a series of cameras across some 46,000 acres to secretly observe local animals in the wild. They could bear-ly contain their glee when they discovered that about 400 of the 580 photos from one camera featured a very photogenic bruin, as OSMP tweeted earlier this week. Recently, a bear discovered a wildlife camera that we use to monitor wildlife across #Boulder open space. Of the 580 photos captured, about 400 were bear selfies. Read more about we use wildlife cameras to observe sensitive wildlife habitats. https://t.co/1hmLB3MHlUpic.twitter.com/714BELWK6c Boulder OSMP (@boulderosmp) January 23, 2023 The cameras can gather massive amounts of information while reducing the time rangers spend in sensitive areas trying to observe wildlife, according to officials. A camera trap snaps a photo each time its motion detector is set off. It grabs a still photo and can also capture videos of up to 30 seconds. The cameras use infrared light at night for nocturnal animals, according to a release on the citys website. The motion-detecting cameras provide us a unique opportunity to learn more about how local species use the landscape around us while minimizing our presence in sensitive habitats, said Will Keeley, an OSMP senior wildlife ecologist quoted in the release. The cameras help OSMP staff identify important wildlife areas and help them recommend habitat-protective measures to help protect sensitive natural areas, Keeley added. Story continues Cameras are positioned in wildlife corridors where rangers believe animals are likely to travel and where there are signs of their activity. Every day, scores of animal species furtively scurry across Boulder landscapes to search for food and to find resting places. Most often, no one not even Boulders Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) staff ever sees them, the release noted. But sometimes OSMP staff is fortunate enough to get an up-close look at local wildlife ... residing in their natural state, thanks to the cameras, it states. The cameras have also grabbed motion-activated videos of other wildlife, including bobcats, mountain lions, raptors, ducklings, coyotes, deer and foxes. None, however, appear to be as boldly and as persistently curious as the selfie bear who had the camera clicking. Check out some other shots here: Related... A cemetery in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where victims from the Yugoslavian wars are buried. (Getty) An Ohio sausage maker has been accused by US federal authorities of covering up his past as a war criminal in the former Yugoslavia. Jugoslav Vidic, 54, of Parma Heights, was arrested on Thursday and charged with lying to immigration officials when he entered the US in 1999, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. Prosecutors said Mr Vidic was convicted in absentia in 1998 of the murder of a former co-worker at a meat processing plant during an attack by the Red Berets special forces unit of the Yugoslavian army in 1991. Mr Vidic, an ethnic Serb, allegedly singled out and took away at gunpoint Croat Stjepan Komes during the raid. Komes was never seen alive again, and his body was found in a mass grave. The DOJ notes that Komes was targeted because he shook hands with former Croatian President Franjo Tudjman during a press event a year earlier. Mr Vidic fled to the US in 1999 under refugee status and is alleged to have lied about his military background and involvement in extra-judicial killings. He became a permanent resident in 2005. Mr Vidic pleaded not guilty to one count of procuring a green card through false statements and one count of making lying to a federal agent during an appearance the US District Court in Cleveland on Thursday. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted. His attorney Daniel Misiewicz did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Independent. An estimated 140,000 people died and two million were displaced in sectarian killings and wars after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. After arriving in the US, Vidic was accused of sexually harassing four female employees at a Daves Supermarket where he worked as the meat department manager in 2009, according to Cleveland.com. The grocery chain was sued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and eventually settled the case out of court and paid a $300,000 fine. Mr Vidic then opened his own business, Jugos, making and selling Balkan-style sausages. It was slapped with a recall by the Ohio Department of Agriculture in 2019 for selling uninspected meat. AMMAN, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Jordanians on Friday took part in a demonstration in the capital Amman to protest the killing of Palestinians in Jenin by Israeli forces. "The raids in the West Bank by the Israeli forces are unjustified and innocent Palestinians were killed, including women and children," said Mohammad Abu Freij, one of the demonstrators. "We are here to show our support to our brotherly Palestinians and to make our voices heard," he added. Jumaa Halaweh, another demonstrator aged 57, said the Arabs and Muslims should "exert more efforts other than just condemnations to stop the Israel aggression." On Thursday, Jordan's Foreign Ministry denounced the Israelis' escalating military campaign and warned of a "new wave of violence," urging Israel to halt all military operations against Palestinians and refrain from illegitimate procedures that would undermine the two-state solution and opportunities for peace. The raids come a few days after King Abdullah II of Jordan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Amman. During the meeting, the king stressed the need to maintain calm and cease all acts of violence in order to pave the way for a political horizon for the peace process. Earlier on Thursday, the Israeli army force stormed the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank and killed nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, and wounded 16, four of them in serious condition, according to Palestinian Health Ministry. Pueblo police and fire investigators are probing the cause of a blaze that led to the death of one adult in the Bessemer neighborhood early Friday morning. Firefighters and police were called to the home in the 1600 block of Palmer Avenue just before 5:30 a.m., said Roger Schneider, crime prevention officer for Pueblo police. When they arrived, the home, located behind the main house on the property, was engulfed in flames. Investigators were still on scene Friday morning working to determine the cause of the fire, according to a Tweet from the Pueblo Fire Department. "They got the fire out fairly quickly and then called out fire investigators along with our investigators," Schneider said. More details will be released when they become available, he said. This is a developing story. Check back at chieftain.com for updates Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon covers business news. She can be reached by email at tharmon@chieftain.com or via Twitter at twitter.com/tracywumps. This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: One killed in Bessemer house fire; police, fire department investigating German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks in Germany in October, in front of a Leopard 2 main battle tank. Scholz is sending 14 such tanks to Ukraine. (Moritz Frankenberg / dpa via Associated Press) The Biden administration announced this week that the U.S. will provide 31 Abrams M-1 tanks to Ukraine, and Germany said it will send 14 of its Leopard tanks to Kyiv. The tank deal and the first anniversary of the start of the war next month offer an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness and future direction of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which has been authorized at more than $27 billion in the last year alone an annual amount not seen since the height of the Vietnam War. American arms and training, combined with the skill and courage of Ukrainian forces, have been highly effective in blunting Russias attack and rolling back some of its initial territorial gains. The question is how to continue supporting Ukraine without inching closer to a direct U.S.-Russian confrontation. The tank deal itself will not be a game-changer militarily. The relatively small numbers involved, and the fact that the U.S. systems reportedly may not arrive in Ukraine for six months to well over a year, are just part of the issue. Daniel Davis, who served in an armored cavalry regiment in a devastating tank battle with Iraqi forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, has pointed out that to be fully effective in using them, U.S. personnel required more than a year of training. The systems are also extremely difficult to maintain, as undersecretary for defense policy Colin Kahl noted recently, suggesting that the Pentagons initial reluctance to supply the tanks was because the Defense Department has been very focused on ... not providing the Ukrainians systems they cant repair, they cant sustain, and that they, over the long term, cant afford. These realities greatly diminish the tanks role on the battlefield. So far, the Biden administration has taken some care to avoid providing advanced systems that might provoke a dangerous response from Russia. But the administrations idea of what might be considered provocative has been shifting. Thats evident in the recent approvals to provide Patriot missile systems and the M-1s systems that the administration had originally withheld, partly out of concern over escalation. Story continues There is no objective measure of what might provoke escalation on the part of Moscow, or a reliable prediction of what that escalation might entail. But the tank announcement has sparked fears in Russia that the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may supply ever more effective and sophisticated systems to Ukraine which could incite a harsh Russian reaction. For nearly a year, those worries including fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin would use a tactical nuclear weapon have guided the Wests response to the Russian invasion. Such risks could increase if the war drags on and Putin becomes worried about being defeated or deposed. The Biden administration should proceed with caution in deciding what level of weaponry to provide Ukraine in the coming year, when it will probably face intense pressure both within the U.S. and from Ukrainian officials to provide Kyiv with combat aircraft and long-range missiles. Another concern raised by analysts of U.S. military aid to Ukraine has been the danger that American weapons could fall into the wrong hands. There is no indication that this has happened in any significant way thus far, but as the war continues the dangers of weapons being diverted may rise. In the conflicts that the U.S. has been involved in over recent decades, American weapons have ended up with adversaries of the U.S. or of U.S. allies, including the Taliban, Islamic State and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Cold War-era stocks of weapons from former Warsaw Pact nations and former Soviet republics including Ukraine have been resold by arms dealers to repressive regimes throughout Africa, and reportedly even to terror groups such as Al Qaeda. This history of diversion suggests that a strict monitoring system of arms supplied to Ukraine should be established now to head off potential global proliferation of these weapons in the future. Perhaps the most important lesson in providing U.S. military aid is that arms alone wont end the war. They must be accompanied by a diplomatic track if a long war or a dangerous turn is to be averted. There are no immediate prospects for a negotiated end to the Ukraine war. But given the threats of widespread suffering or the risk of a spreading conflict, its not too soon to start preparing the ground for an eventual settlement. It is essential to continue helping Ukraine to defend itself, but that assistance must be accompanied by diplomatic initiatives if the most dangerous potential outcomes of the war are to be avoided. William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Family members and supporters at a news conference in Memphis, Tenn., hold a photograph of Tyre Nichols, who died three days after he was beaten by police on Jan. 7. (Gerald Herbert / Associated Press ) On Jan. 7, Memphis police officers stopped 29-year-old Tyre Nichols for a traffic violation and then beat him so viciously that he was hospitalized and died three days later. Memphis, Tenn., Police Chief Cerelyn Davis has called the beating heinous, reckless, and inhumane and fired the five officers involved. On Thursday, the district attorney announced that the officers had been arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Late Friday, the city released video footage of the horrific beating. Less than three years after George Floyd was murdered, there are hauntingly familiar calls for justice for Tyre Nichols. We have been here far too many times before. Reports of people beaten and killed by police have periodically put the failures of our criminal justice system on the front pages of newspapers. In response, legislative committees have held hearings. Reports have been issued, documenting racist policing, unlawful arrests and excessive force. Reforms have been put into place. Then, invariably, the countrys attention has been drawn elsewhere and the conversation has gone quiet. When the world watched Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin murder Floyd, the conversation began anew. In some ways, it felt different this time around. Police chiefs around the country immediately and unequivocally condemned Floyds killing. Protests were larger and more racially diverse than ever before. Important reforms got traction at the federal, state and local levels. But then the nation's sense of urgency began to slip: Protests died down; proposed reforms were voted down; Black Lives Matter murals painted in bright colors on city streets began to fade. Despite unprecedented attention paid to police misconduct and violence in 2020, police killed more people in 2022 than they had in any year since experts began tracking these killings. Now we are poised for yet another painful reckoning. In the weeks after Floyd was murdered, calls for reform focused on ending a legal protection for police called qualified immunity. Officers are entitled to qualified immunity which shields them from liability in civil cases even if they have violated the Constitution, so long as they have not violated clearly established law. Story continues The Supreme Court has defined clearly established law in such a narrow way that officers have been granted qualified immunity even when they have stolen more than $225,000 during a search, used a police dog to assault a man who had surrendered and sat on a mans neck and back until he died. Although some large cities and counties pay tens of millions each year to resolve misconduct lawsuits against their officers, these and many other horrific cases have been dismissed on qualified immunity grounds. After Floyds murder, Congress and many states took up legislation that would in effect end qualified immunity. But union officials and other defenders of the status quo argued passionately against them, claiming that police officers and local governments would be bankrupted for reasonable mistakes without qualified immunity. There is no evidence to support such claims. Officers wouldnt be bankrupted without qualified immunity; local governments almost always pick up the tab when their officers are sued, and these payouts amount to less than 1% of most governments budgets. And the Supreme Courts interpretation of the 4th Amendment further shields officers from liability when they make reasonable mistakes. But, in many places, the fears stoked by opponents of these reform bills have proved more powerful than facts on the ground. Currently, several states, including New York, Washington and New Hampshire, have reintroduced police reform bills. I testified in favor of Washingtons bill earlier this week and listened as opponents of the bill raised the very same groundless concerns that have led to other bills defeat. The killing of Nichols should serve as a reminder of what is at stake in the continuing debate about police violence and reform. Its not the phantom menace of more lawsuits against the police, but how our society allows these horrible injustices to happen again and again and what we owe to victims of government misconduct and abuse. Ending qualified immunity wont end all the problems in policing far from it. There are many other legal protections shielding law enforcement officers from justice in the courts and from discipline and termination by their departments. We also need to ask broader questions about what we empower police to do, and how to restore trust between law enforcement and communities they serve. But for now, eliminating qualified immunity is an important first step, given the egregious misconduct it protects. Id hoped that we wouldnt have to see another killing on a viral video to restart the national conversation about police reform. Yet here we are. This time, we must focus on facts, not fear-mongering. Myths about the dangers of making it too easy to sue police have made a mess of our system. We need a shared understanding of why officers must be held accountable for their actions, and a commitment to end senseless legal protections that embolden police and leave victims without a meaningful remedy. Joanna Schwartz is a law professor at UCLA and the author of the forthcoming book Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Pamela Anderson and Jack Nicholson. C Flanigan/FilmMagic; Getty Images/Bob Riha, Jr. Pamela Anderson told Variety she once walked in on Jack Nicholson having a threesome. She described Hollywood at the height of her popularity as "complete freedom." She also said she has "nothing against" Lily James, who played her in "Pam & Tommy." In a new excerpt of her upcoming memoir published by Variety, Pamela Anderson recalled watching Jack Nicholson have a threesome one night at the Playboy Manson. She said she had wandered into a bathroom to apply lip gloss and soon realized she'd intruded on "The Shining" actor being intimate with two "beautiful women." "They were all giggling and kissing up against the wall, sliding all over each other. I walked by to use the mirror, bending over the sink to fix my lip gloss," Anderson wrote. "Trying not to look, but I couldn't help myself and caught his eye in the reflection. I guess that got him to the finish line, because he made a funny noise, smiled and said, 'Thanks, dear.'" Pamela Anderson in "Pamela, a Love Story." Netflix Reflecting on the moment with Variety reporter Tatiana Siegel, she described that era in Hollywood as a time of "complete freedom." "It was full of artists, philanthropists, intellectuals, chivalry, beautiful women. It was really an experience," she added. Anderson has been critical of "third-wave feminism" in recent years. In a 2018 "60 Minutes Australia" interview, she said that while she considered herself a feminist, modern-day feminism "paralyzes men." She also called the #MeToo movement "a bit too much." But being critical of modern-day feminist beliefs doesn't mean Anderson hasn't felt exploited in the past, both by her sex tape scandal with her then-husband Tommy Lee and also by the 2022 Hulu series "Pam & Tommy," which brought the scandal back into the spotlight again by telling the story of the distribution of the tape. Pam Anderson with her ex-husband Tommy Lee. Denise Truscello/WireImage/Getty Images Anderson has been outspoken in the press about refusing to watch the series. But she told Variety of the actor who played her in the series, "I've got nothing against Lily James." Story continues "I think that she's a beautiful girl, and she was just doing the job. But the idea of the whole thing happening was just really crushing for me," she added. She also noted that it must have been "hard" for James to play her because she didn't "have the whole picture." Anderson added that she asked Netflix to invite James to the premiere of her documentary, "Pamela, A Love Story," which, like her memoir, will be released on January 31. Read the original article on Insider After 48 years representing Vermont in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Patrick Leahy performed his final official act in Vermont on Dec. 10 at the Vermont Statehouse the same building where, in 1974, he had first announced that he was running for the office despite the unlikely odds. At the recent event, Leahy joined Sen. Bernie Sanders and Senator-elect Peter Welch in awarding nominations to select high school students from across the state for entry into military schools and academies. On Tuesday, Jan. 3, Leahy closed his career by swearing in Peter Welch as his successor in the U.S. Senate. In an interview following the Statehouse event, Leahy shared some memorable emotional moments from his long career in public service and spoke about topics ranging from key legislation he initiated, the people who inspired him to run and remain in the Senate, and even the food that sustained him on long days and nights at work. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, left, and U.S. Senator-Elect Peter Welch share a moment outside the Senate Chamber before Welchs swearing in ceremony for the 118th Congress at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. Before Leahy talked bigger picture topics, he was first asked about food because food connects people. The senator clearly takes pride in looking for what people friends or adversaries have in common and for ways to break the ice to open communications. In his memoir The Road Taken, he noted that when he was Chittenden County States Attorney, he was able to cope with his tight schedule of researching and writing briefs through the night, arguing his cases in court during the day, and then joining his wife and life partner Marcelle and their three children daily for dinner. I could manage that schedule then, as long as I had my coffee and chocolate chip cookies Marcelles cookies! Leahy said. The Q and A that follows was edited for length and clarity. Free Press: What food and drink sustained you when you were in the Senate? Sen. Leahy: Well, the food in the Senate dining room is not going to sustain anybody. I was better off when I could get home to Marcelle. Sometimes, just to save time or try to spare her, Id bring my lunch from home in my briefcase and eat it at my desk as I worked. I grew up in a family where my mother was first generation Italian American. My fathers family, the Leahys, have been here since the mid-1800s. My father said, You know Patrick. Youve never grown up eating Irish food or Italian food. Count your blessings. I dont know about the Irish food but, as Marcelle knows, I have an inclination toward Italian food, especially Northern Italian food; we visit our relatives there. Its all about Mangia! Mangia! Story continues U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy poses for a portrait with his wife Marcelle and answers questions during an interview with the Burlington Free Press after officiating at the United States Service Academy Nominee Ceremony in the Cedar Creek Room at the Vermont State House in Montpelier, Vermont, on Saturday, December 10, 2022. Leahy, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch posed for portraits with the nine Vermonters who are being nominated to United States Service Academies to be members of the Class of 2027. This was Sen. Leahy's last official act as senator in Vermont. FP: In what major ways has Vermont changed since you first became a U.S. Senator? And in what ways has the country changed? How does your legacy connect to those changes? Leahy: Thats interesting. Ive been thinking of something like that. When I first announced that I was running for the U.S. Senate, I announced right here in the Statehouse, with my parents and Marcelles parents here. I was a 33-year-old states attorney. In Vermont, we never had elected anyone under age 50. Vermont had not elected a non-Republican since 1856. Certainly, Vermont had never elected a Catholic. I was a 33-year-old Catholic Democrat. And the question I kept being asked was, Okay kid. You got your nomination. Now what are you going to do next year? I was going to practice law. Marcelle, especially, was behind me to run. I campaigned by trying to reach out to everybody. After I won, I reached out to Vermont Republican lawmakers and Republican governors. Id say, I know you didnt vote for me, but we all want whats best for Vermont. If I can help with anything, just call me, and Ill try to help. At the time I entered the Senate, Vermont was third smallest state in population in the union; now its second. In the U.S. Senate, were all equal, all 100 of us. So, there are lots of things I can do. I made it a point to first get on the Agriculture Committee and, then as soon as I could, on Appropriations. And then the Judiciary Committee, with issues that interested me since the time I was states attorney. I could do a lot of things for Vermont. I put in the first toll-free phone system. I remember being asked why Id open the doors for constituents to keep calling me. I wanted to hear from Vermonters. And I had to pay for it myself for the first two months, because it was so unusual a budget request, until the Senate agreed to pay for it. Once elected, I tried to spend 8 10 days a month in Vermont at different times over the month. I went all over the state to ask people, Whats on your mind? And I kept that up. It was a very close reelection in 1980, when Reagan and the Republicans swept Congress. I was one of 12 Democratic senators who were targeted. I was one of two who made it through, along with Gary Hart from Colorado. We both had done the same thing. We had spent time in our states. After that the elections were never close. My father said, close to the first election day, Patrick, its better to win by one vote than lose by a landslide. On my next election in 1986, my Dad was no longer with us. But I won by an overwhelming landslide. My campaign manager toasted him on election night, Howard Leahy, heres your landslide. U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy answers questions during an interview with the Burlington Free Press after officiating at the United States Service Academy Nominee Ceremony in the Cedar Creek Room at the Vermont State House in Montpelier, Vermont, on Saturday, December 10, 2022. Leahy, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch posed for portraits with the nine Vermonters who are being nominated to United States Service Academies to be members of the Class of 2027. This was Sen. Leahy's last official act as senator in Vermont. FP: I was going to ask you about the people who have worked as your staff over the years. Im sure you can name so many as being helpful. Are there one or two staff members who championed a piece of legislation that meant a great deal to you? Or staff who have had some memorable interactions with constituents or the public? And what proportion of your staff are from Vermont? Leahy: We always hire the best person for the position. It helps if they are Vermonters. In the Vermont office, they are all Vermonters and Ive hired the best people in Vermont to represent me. Here in the room with us is John Tracy, my long-time Vermont state director. Combined with his prior experience in the Vermont Legislature, followed by five years as our office field representative before assuming the state director role, John has met and helped myriad Vermonters and Vermont communities on a wide variety of issues. And Michelle Monroe who is here too, writes me this wonderful press briefing every day. She ties people and events to Vermont. I thought I knew Vermont history. But Ive learned so much more about Vermont from her. And thats a wonderful thing. We have staff who work very, very hard on everything. In the Senate office in D.C., sometimes you need to have specialized skills or experience in certain areas, like dealing with highly classified matters. But even there weve had Vermonters spend two or three years working in other positions, and then they are ready to handle it. Many have gone on to other jobs after theyve worked in the Vermont office. Tim Rieser, my long-time staff member on the Foreign Ops Subcommittee, is from Vermont and has worked very, very closely with me on land mines and using war victim funds for Vietnamese people; he helped me open the relations we now have with Vietnam. Tim remembers his first trip over there, when we didnt have relations. He had introduced me to Bobby Muller, a Vietnam veteran. Bobby was head of the Vietnam Veterans of America, and he was in a wheelchair. He was paralyzed from his injuries in the war. He asked me to ban land mines and provide medical equipment to the people of Vietnam who were seriously injured from land mines. He couldnt even get the sentence out when I said, Yes, Ill work with you. I was the only Vermonter who had ever voted to end the war in Vietnam and that vote won by a one- point margin. So, I spoke to President George H.W. Bush about making a trip to Vietnam to open relations by allocating war victims funds through the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, and he said, That sounds good. Jim Baker, then secretary of state, was at the White House meeting and agreed. I said there was someone at the State Department who opposed this approach. But I got the president to support it. He said, Jimmy, I never heard anyone call Baker Jimmy before get him on the phone. The State Department official didnt know he was on speaker phone. Poor guy! He said that it was Leahys idea and he thought it was a terrible one. President Bush said, Okay, I have somebody here who thinks its a great idea. Patrick Leahy, in 1996, shakes hands with a Vietnamese man injured by a landmine who received a wheelchair at a clinic in Vietnam funded through the Leahy War Victims Fund. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in 1996, shakes hands with a Vietnamese man injured by a landmine gets who received his first wheelchair at a clinic in Vietnam funded through the Leahy War Victims Fund. I brought a bipartisan delegation to Vietnam, as I always do whenever I bring a delegation. We were in Vietnam with many injured Vietnamese meeting us and listening to us speak. There was a legless man there and I was asked to pick him up and place him in a wheelchair that we were giving him. Marcelle told me how to best lift him without breaking his frail bones. He was staring at me the whole time. He lost his legs from an American land mine. And here was a 6-foot tall American. I picked him up and put him in the wheelchair and he was staring at me all the time. Im thinking he must hate me. Then he reaches out and grabs my shirt and pulls me down and kisses me. The second thing that happened was that Sen. John Glenn (D, OH) who was a caring but not an emotional guy had a similar experience and teared up. Marcelle, remember what John said on the bus on the way back to the hotel? Marcelle said without hesitation, After what weve seen, if anyone complains Im going to throw them off the bus! When we returned, I told President Bush about our trip, and he also had a visible emotional reaction. And then we were going to clean up Agent Orange. We were going to give a huge amount of money. John Tracy had fought the war in Vietnam and his helicopter crashed at one point in the jungles. He had been stationed in Da Nang. John was almost killed by a sniper in Da Nang. John came with me to Vietnam. It was the first time he had been back to Vietnam. And an army general was there and I was telling him John was here with me. The feneral gets off the platform, finds John in the crowd, and says, Mr. Tracy. Everything stopped as soon as he said those words. He walks up to John and stands at attention and salutes him. John, would you say that was emotional? And then we passed legislation to ban the export and use of land mines. This was the first law in the world anywhere. Other countries have adopted laws banning land mines, and they have Leahy in their names. And then, for other legislation back here, we spent time sitting at farmers tables. There were many organic farmers I talked with. They talked about big agricultural manufacturers who promoted their products as organic in nature. So, I wrote the first organic farm bill, providing funds for organic farmers. I think last year it was $65 billion nationwide. The legislation allows the use of food stamps in farmers markets and in school lunch programs. Marcelle and I go to the schools and sit with the kids. Anyway, I had such wonderful opportunities to do something and Oh, look outside the window, the lights just came on the (Statehouse) Christmas tree! - and I think Im motivated a lot by the fact that I wasnt supposed to be here in the first place, as a 33-year-old kid in a heavily Republican state and Im on the Democratic ticket. I was in a very close reelection, too, that I wasnt expected to win. I am here, and I am taking advantage of every second that Im here. I want to make it all worthwhile. Every year, something different comes up that people havent done anything about it. I say, Lets take it on. And with exceptional staff, why not use the opportunity? And then a few years ago I said to my son our family always makes decisions together I think its time to go home. The national syndicated editorial cartoonists did this cartoon, with these two farmers at dusk and theyre sitting and talking. And up in the sky the Batman symbol appears. The caption was, Yep. I guess thats the Bat signal telling Senator Leahy to come home. FP: You said that then President John F. Kennedy inspired you to enter politics. He was bright, eloquent, young, Catholic, Irish and, most notably, hopeful. If you were that same 33-year old Pat Leahy today, who would be the person inspiring you to enter politics? Leahy: I worry about some of the people I serve with. I am inspired by Barack Obama. He suffered impossible odds. He was accused of not being an American, which of course he is. And he faced such racist slurs. And still he served with dignity. That would certainly inspire me. John Lewis, who I got to know, really, really inspired me a lot; I loved him. I was a big supporter of Robert Kennedy - he inspired me. But there are lots of people in Vermont. My parents inspired me. My mother faced bias and never showed bias to others. My father went to get jobs and the signs said, No Irish need apply here. He started and ran Leahy Press in Montpelier. My father hired people: Republicans, Democrats, men, women; he made sure they had jobs Gail Rosenberg is a free-lance writer and historian based in Burlington. This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Patrick Leahy looks back on 48 years in U.S. Senate and Vermont roots Roy Keane has mocked Pep Guardiola after the Manchester City managers frosty interview ahead of his sides FA Cup fourth-round clash against Arsenal - chiding the Spaniard to smile more. Working as a pundit on the ITV coverage of the contest on Friday evening, Keane smirked as he made the jibe after Guardiola appeared to take exception to the line of questioning from ITV reporter Gabriel Clarke. Clarkes questions were largely about the below full-strength side the Gunners had selected, as well as Guardiolas relationship with opposition boss Mikel Arteta, who used to be his assistant at City. I think Pep should smile a bit more - and thats coming from me! Roy Keane pic.twitter.com/iNhxGXtlFO ITV Football (@itvfootball) January 27, 2023 His answers were largely monotone, leading to a frosty, awkward atmosphere as Clarke gamely kept plugging away with further inquiries despite little response. You are asking me about the Arsenal selection? Guardiola responded incredulously when initially asked about the Gunners line-up. Mikel has come here? Not yet' responded Clarke. Well, ask him, fumed the Spaniard, before grumpily muttering It's his decision, I approve what every manager does. Guardiola shrugged when asked whether he thought it was Arsenals strongest line-up before offering, It's a decision for Mikel - what can I say. Clarkes final question was whether the two managers would share a drink and a conversation at the end of the match, with Guardiola simply saying, more than welcome", then storming away from the interview area glaring at Clarke. Back in the ITV studio, presenter Mark Pougatch couldnt help but chuckle as he said, He wasn't very chatty, was he? And that was Gabriel being nice as well! Pundit Ian Wright then weighed in, backing Clarke and questioning the attitude of Guardiola. Story continues It looked like hard work, said Wright. It's funny, I never hear anything out of these interviews. He [Guardiola] always seems like he's someone who doesn't want to be doing them. It's really strange because I thought Gabe was on good form there. He wasn't being nasty. With a smirk on his face, the famously grumpy Keane then mischievously piped up, I think Pep should smile a bit more - and that's coming from me!, which prompted roars of laughter from his broadcast colleagues. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and importantly, not his boss Joe Biden is the top choice of Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire for the upcoming presidential election cycle. Those were the results of a new Granite State poll released on Thursday, which delivered another bad headline for the president: a full two-thirds of Democratic primary voters in the state say he should either probably or definitely not run for re-election. In a poll listing a score of the nations most prominent Democratic figures, Mr Buttigieg topped the ranks with 16 per cent of voters naming him as their first choice for the 2024 primary. In second place was Mr Biden at 15 per cent, with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders following behind at 10 and 8 per cent, respectively. The result is somewhat of a likely outcome for Mr Buttigieg, who has taken on a role with newfound national prominence since joining the Biden administration. As secretary of Transportation, he has been a visible and vocal defender of the adminsitrations early successful push for infrastructure reform, a topic over which he frequently sparred with Fox News hosts as one of the few Democrats willing to go on the network to face potentially hostile questions. That position as the Biden administrations face on Fox News came into newfound relevance when the secretary came under fire from the right for taking parental leave after the births of his twins, criticism which many outside observers agreed was largely rooted in homophobia. That led to an on-air confrontation with Foxs Bret Baier, with Mr Buttigieg questioning the host directly: [W]hy is it any different when its me and my husband? The moment drew widespread praise from supporters of the former mayor, who is seen as one of the Democratic Partys most effective communicators especially in conservative media environments. But he has also faced more politically neutral criticism over his handling of various issues that have plagued US air travel and other areas under his purview since he took office. Most recently, he has faced questions over why his agency has not reacted with punitive action following a major Southwest Airlines systems outage over the holidays that left thousands stranded away from their families. Mr Biden remains adamant that he will run again in 2024, but the president was already the oldest American to take office as commander-in-chief when he did so in 2020. The Granite State poll was conducted with responses gathered by the University of New Hampshire. The survey included responses from 346 New Hampshire residents who identified as likely participants in the 2024 Democratic primary election taken between 19 to 23 January. The polls margin of error for the Democratic primary voter subsample is 5.3 percentage points. An aerial view of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp on December 19, 2019 in Oswiecim, Poland. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images It has been 78 years since the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration complex. First established in 1940, Auschwitz had a concentration camp, large gas chambers, and crematoria. More than 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, including nearly one million Jews. It was the greatest tragedy of the Holocaust. In just five years, over one million people were murdered at Auschwitz, the largest and deadliest Nazi concentration camp. Auschwitz was established in 1940 and located in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city the Germans annexed. Between 1940 and 1945, it grew to include three main camp centers and a slew of subcamps each of which were used for forced labor, torture, and mass killing. An estimated 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz during its five-year operation, and approximately 1.1 million were killed. The terror of Auschwitz finally subsided on January 27, 1945, when the Soviet Army liberated the remaining 7,000 prisoners from the camps. On the 78th anniversary of this liberation, these photos exhibit the horror and history of Auschwitz. Auschwitz was established in 1940 in the suburbs of Oswiecim, Poland. During its first year, authorities cleared 15 square miles for the camp. An aerial view of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp on December 19, 2019 in Oswiecim, Poland. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Auschwitz I, the first camp to undergo construction, was initially created for three reasons: to imprison enemies, to use forced labor, and to kill certain groups of people. The crematorium near gas chamber one at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz I in Oswiecim, Poland, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019. Markus Schreiber/AP Sources: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, AuschwitzBirkenau Memorial and State Museum Construction of the largest camp, Auschwitz II, also called Auschwitz-Birkenau, began in October 1941. Electrified barbed wire divided it into 10 different sections. The remains of brick stone chimneys of prisoner barracks can be seen inside the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz Birkenau or Auschwitz II. Markus Schreiber/AP Sources: Jewish Virtual Library, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau's different sections were for "women; men; a family camp for Roma (Gypsies) deported from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; and a family camp for Jewish families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto," according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Story continues Women in the barracks at Auschwitz, Poland, January 1945. Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images Sources: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Inmates were put into poorly structured wooden barracks with 36 bunks each. Five to six prisoners were packed in so over 500 prisoners were in each unit. Reuters Pictures Archive Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Incoming prisoners who were selected for forced labor received tattoos and had a serial number sewn into their uniforms. Auschwitz was the only concentration camp to do this. Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Eva Behar shows her number tattoo in her home on December 1, 2014 in London, United Kingdom. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Shortly after construction, Auschwitz-Birkenau became the largest killing center and central location for the extermination of Jews in Europe. Bodies of prisoners found in Auschwitz, shortly after liberation in 1945. Reuters Source: Museum of Jewish Heritage In 1942, two farmhouses just outside the camp were turned into gas chambers. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum But as Auschwitz-Birkenau became a central location for mass killing, these gas chambers were too small. Four new chambers were built between March and June 1943, each containing a disrobing area, gas chamber, and crematory ovens. Shoes of victims exterminated at Auschwitz. Rolf Vennenbernd/picture alliance via Getty Images Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum As millions of people were murdered, mounds of eye glasses, razors, shoes, and other belongings were left behind. Remains of glasses from people exterminated at Auschwitz. Pawel Ulatowski/Reuters In 1942, Auschwitz III, also known as Buna or Monowitz, opened near the town of Monowice to house more forced laborers. An ariel picture taken of Auschwitz barracks taken on December 15, 2019 in Oswiecim, Poland. Pablo GONZALEZ / AFP via Getty Images Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Forty-four subcamps with different specializations were established at Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944. The Nazis made prisoners work on large farms, in coal mines, in weapons production basically anything the German military needed for war. A photo of women deemed fit for work, taken in May 1944 in Auschwitz. AFP via Getty Images Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Between 1940 and 1945, an estimated 1.3 million people were sent to Auschwitz. Approximately 1.1 million were killed. Cadavers of women and Children who died in cold weather at Auschwitz. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images Source: Museum of Jewish Heritage In January 1945, before Soviet forces could reach the camps for liberation, nearly 60,000 people were forced to march west, and thousands more were killed. Soviet soldiers with survivors of Auschwitz in 1945. REUTERS:HO AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The terror finally subsided on January 27, 1945, when the Soviet Army reached the gates of Auschwitz. Soviet soldiers arriving at the gates of Auschwitz in 1945. REUTERS:HO AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM REUTERS Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum When Soviet soldiers arrived, only between 6,000 and 7,000 prisoners remained. The majority of them faced starvation, illness, and death. Sovfoto/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Source: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Available records indicate that when the soldiers arrived, at least 700 youth prisoners were still at the camp, half of whom were Jewish. Children who have lived to be liberated by the Red Army from the Auschwitz concentration camp on January 27, 1945. TASS via Getty Images Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum In many cases, the liberated children were malnourished, severely weak, vitamin deficient, and diseased. Of 180 children examined after liberation, 40% had tuberculosis. Jewish children, survivors of Auschwitz, with a nurse behind a barbed wire fence, Poland, February 1945. Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Immediately after liberation, many of the children were sent to hospitals organized by the Soviet army and the Polish Red Cross. Holocaust survivor Rachel Rubin shows a photograph of herself as a 14-year-old girl shortly after her liberation in 1945. Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images In 2016, a group of children who survived the horrors of Auschwitz met to take their photo together. 81-year-old Paula Lebovics, 79-year-old Miriam Ziegler, 85-year-old Gabor Hirsch and 80-year-old Eva Kor pose with the original image of them as children taken at Auschwitz at the time of its liberation on January 26, 2015 in Krakow, Poland. Ian Gavan/Getty Images In total, 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. One-sixth of these exterminations happened at Auschwitz alone. Photographs are displayed at the Birkenau Museum, December 10, 2004, of the many faces of the men, women and children at the Auschwitz II. Scott Barbour/Getty Images Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum To commemorate this grave tragedy, world leaders met in Israel in 2020 to mark 75 years since the camp's liberation. Russia's President Vladimir Putin arrived in Israel on a working visit to attend celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Mikhail Metzel/TASS via Getty Images On January 27, 2023, Holocaust survivors gathered in Oswiecim, Poland, to attend a ceremony marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Holocaust survivors wearing striped scarves attend a ceremony during 78th Anniversary Of Auschwitz - Birkenau Liberation and Holocaust Remembrance Day. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images Holocaust survivors and former Auschwitz inmates were joined by world leaders at a wreath-laying and candle ceremony in front of the Death Wall to remember the thousands who died at the former Nazi concentration complex. The flag of Israel and candles are seen during the 78th Anniversary Of Auschwitz - Birkenau Liberation ceremony and Holocaust Remembrance Day in Brzezinka, Poland, on January 27, 2023. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images Editor's note: This list was first published in January 2020 and has been updated to reflect recent developments. Read the original article on Business Insider ANKARA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkiye condemned the burning of the Quran by a far-right politician near a mosque in Denmark on Friday. "We condemn in the strongest terms that the hate crime committed in Sweden against our holy book Quran is allowed to be committed again in Copenhagen, Denmark today," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The fact that this despicable act, which was carried out in Denmark after Sweden and the Netherlands, was not prevented despite all our warnings, is worrying as it reveals the dangerous dimensions of religious intolerance and hatred in Europe by abusing the so-called freedom environment," the statement said. Rasmus Paludan, leader of the Danish far-right political party Hard Line, burned the Quran in front of a mosque in Copenhagen on Friday. Paludan earlier burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm last Saturday which caused Turkiye to postpone a trilateral mechanism meeting with Sweden and Finland on their NATO bid. The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday summoned Danish Ambassador to Ankara Danny Annan ahead of the demonstration and asked for the reversal of the permission given to Rasmus Paludan. The protest involving the Quran is the third of its kind recently. Ankara summoned the Dutch envoy in Ankara on Tuesday to convey its protest after Edwin Wagensveld, leader of a far-right group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, tore out pages from a Quran in the Netherlands. By Nathan Frandino and Gram Slattery SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -San Francisco authorities released video footage on Friday of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, being struck by an intruder's hammer as police rushed into their home to stop the attack. The police body-worn camera footage of the Oct. 28 violence was released alongside a surveillance video showing the alleged attacker, David DePape, 42, smashing through a glass window to get into the couple's San Francisco home, as well as a 911 call from a distressed Paul Pelosi, who was talking to the dispatcher with DePape apparently beside him. In the body-cam footage, two police officers knock on the door of the Pelosis' home. When it opens, Pelosi and DePape can both be seen clutching a large hammer. DePape tells police officers, "Everything's good," at which point the officers instruct him to drop the hammer. DePape then appears to tear the hammer fully away from Pelosi, who is in sleep wear, before striking him with a powerful overhand blow. The two officers then charge inside - one of them shouting an expletive - tackling DePape, and then calling for back-up and medics. Pelosi, lying still, can be seen partially under the body of DePape, who is being restrained by the officers. San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Adam Lipson, who represents DePape, called the release of the evidence a "terrible mistake." In a statement, he said: "The footage is inflammatory and could feed unfounded theories about this case, and we are extremely concerned about Mr. DePape's ability to get a fair trial." DePape has been indicted on federal attempted kidnapping and assault charges. He has pleaded not guilty to state charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, elder abuse, false imprisonment and threatening a public official. The assailant had been seeking Nancy Pelosi and wanted to wait for her to return to the house, Paul Pelosi said. Story continues The attack shocked Washington and renewed concerns about a breakdown in civility and a rise in political violence. It also highlighted the limitations of the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP), which is charged with protecting Congress and the representatives who serve in it. Many USCP officers were injured during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when rioters burst through security barriers, with some making it clear that they were looking for Nancy Pelosi. 'SURVIVOR'S GUILT' In a Nov. 17 interview with reporters after she announced she would not seek re-election to a Democratic leadership position, Pelosi described the severity of her husband's injuries and the "traumatic effect" of the intrusion. "If he had fallen or slipped on the ice in an accident and hit his head, it would be horrible. But to have it be an assault on him because they were looking for me is really - call it survivor's guilt or something. But the traumatic effect on him, this happened in our house, in our home, a crime scene," Pelosi said. After the attack, Pelosi underwent emergency surgery for his wounds, which included a fractured skull. He was released from the hospital several days later but is experiencing a long recovery process. While many politicians condemned the attack in San Francisco, some Republicans made light of the incident, which also spawned a number of unfounded, online conspiracy theories. During the 911 call, Paul Pelosi seems to communicate his distress obliquely so as not to provoke DePape, but grows increasingly direct over the course of the roughly three-minute conversation. At one point, he asked if anyone from the U.S. Capitol Police was nearby. Speaker Pelosi was not in San Francisco at the time. After saying, "I've got a problem, but he (DePape) thinks everything is good," the dispatcher says he should call back if the need arises. At that point Pelosi responds: "No, no, no, this gentleman just came into the house, and he wants to wait for my wife to come home." He tells the dispatcher he does not know DePape, though DePape identifies himself as a "friend." Toward the end of the call, Pelosi says: "He wants me to get the hell off the phone. Okay?" (Reporting by Nathan Frandino in San Francisco and Gram Slattery in Washington; Editing by Richard Cowan, Bill Berkrot and Rosalba O'Brien) Italian police said Thursday they have dismantled a 'Ndrangheta mafia ring dominating a large area of southern Calabria and seized assets exceeding 250 million euros. The early-hour blitz by over 300 police officers centered on areas of Italy's poorest region controlled by the Mancuso clan and its affiliates -- a powerful branch of the infamous 'Ndrangheta, many of whose top operatives are among hundreds of defendants in an ongoing maxi-trial. Fifty-six people, many already in prison, were put under criminal investigation for a series of crimes including mafia-related conspiracy, extortion, kidnapping, bribery and possession of weapons, police and prosecutors said. Besides alleged mafia members, the operation also snared businessmen, a regional councillor released from prison days earlier, a former head of the regional tourism board and two civil servants, police said. The incarcerated boss of the clan, Luigi Mancuso "The Supreme," is the biggest fish in the massive mafia trial that started in January 2021. Still, police said his clan and affiliates, including the La Rosa and Accortini families, have continued to dominate activity in Vibo Valentia province on the toe of Italy's boot, known as the 'Coast of the Gods' for stunning coastal views. A panoramic view shows Vibo Valentia, Calabria, on November 19, 2021. / Credit: GIANLUCA CHININEA/AFP via Getty Images One mafia scheme involved the infiltration of a foreign tour operator in Pizzo Calabro, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. In Calabria, the extent of the 'Ndrangheta's reach in the local economy has made it near impossible to eradicate. Controlling the bulk of cocaine flowing into Europe, the 'Ndrangheta has surpassed Sicily's Cosa Nostra in power and wealth. It has extended far beyond its rural roots and now operates internationally, with illegal gains reinvested in the legitimate economy. In the area around Vibo Valentia, extortion of local businesses and the fixing of public tenders is also common. The allegations against those arrested Thursday include the transport and sale of stolen farm machinery to Malta and Romania, police said. Story continues The sting Thursday extended to other parts of Calabria, to Palermo in Sicily and as far as Rome and Milan, police said. In a press conference, anti-mafia prosecutor Nicola Gratteri, whose efforts to defeat the 'Ndrangheta have forced him to live under police escort for over 30 years, called the group a "fierce mafia syndicate" controlling areas around the tourist resort of Tropea. Francesco Messina, who leads Italy's organized crime investigative unit (DAC), cited the economic power of the clan, relying locally on "substantial" extortion activity. The "total absence" of complaints to authorities was striking, Messina said, underscoring the 'Ndrangheta's power to intimidate. Just last week, authorities arrested Italy's most-wanted fugitive, taking mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro into custody after a 30-year manhunt. The 60-year-old fugitive was caught in a "health facility in Palermo, where he had gone for therapeutic treatment," officials said. On Monday, Italian police in Sicily said they arrested Andrea Bonafede -- the man whose identity was used by Messina Denaro during 30 years on the run, authorities said. In issuing the warrant for Bonafede's arrest, Judge Alfredo Montalto said Bonafede was suspected of being a member of Cosa Nostra, and helping Messina Denaro to carry out his role as a major mob boss. Messina Denaro was considered "Mafia nobility" the last of three top mafia bosses, the others being the notorious Salvatore "Toto" Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, both of whom also eluded capture for decades, continuing to live clandestine lives in Sicily. Riina, the so-called "boss of bosses," was on the run for 23 years before his arrest in 1993. Provenzano spent 38 years as a fugitive and was finally captured in 2006. Anna Matranga contributed to this report. Trains see boost in passengers looking for an alternative to flying MoneyWatch: Hiring boost for job-seekers this winter Holocaust survivors create cookbook to share Jewish recipes, stories of perseverance This undated photo provided by the Grants Pass Police Department shows Benjamin Obadiah Foster. Foster is accused of torturing a woman he held captive, less than two years after he was convicted in Nevada of critically injuring another woman he held captive for two weeks.(Grants Pass Police Department via AP) SALEM, Ore. (AP) A man accused of torturing a woman he held captive in Oregon, and who was convicted in Nevada of keeping another woman in captivity, is using dating apps to find people who can help him avoid the police or to find new victims, authorities said Friday. Benjamin Obadiah Foster, 36, is the subject of an intensive, round-the-clock search by police after a woman was found unconscious, bound and near death in Grants Pass, Oregon, on Tuesday. She was hospitalized in critical condition. On Thursday night, Grants Pass police, sheriff's deputies, an Oregon State Police SWAT team and federal agents raided a property in the unincorporated community of Wolf Creek, some 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Grants Pass, where they seized Foster's car and arrested a 68-year-old woman for hindering prosecution. Foster managed to escape. Authorities provided no other details, but the area, right off Interstate 5, is thickly forested and mountainous. The arrested woman, Tina Marie Jones, had followed Foster in a vehicle earlier Thursday as he drove to a remote location in Wolf Creek then intentionally drove his 2008 Nissan Sentra over an embankment, according to court documents. Jones then gave Foster a ride to the property that was raided Thursday night and where Foster had been hiding while police searched for him, according to Josephine County Circuit Court records. Grants Pass police said Foster is actively using online dating applications to contact unsuspecting individuals who may be lured into assisting with the suspects escape or potentially as additional victims." Police offered a $2,500 reward on Friday for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of Foster, who is charged with attempted murder, kidnapping and assault in the attack on the Grants Pass woman. Fosters public defender in the Las Vegas case did not immediately respond to emails from The Associated Press seeking comment on Fosters behalf. Story continues Grants Pass Police Chief Warren Hensman told AP on Thursday that it is extremely troubling that Foster was out and able to prey on other women instead of still being behind bars for the Nevada crimes. In 2019, before moving to Oregon, Foster held his then-girlfriend captive inside her Las Vegas apartment for two weeks. He initially was charged with five felonies, including assault and battery, and faced decades in prison upon conviction. But in August 2021, Foster reached a deal with Clark County prosecutors that allowed him to plead guilty to one felony count of battery and a misdemeanor count of battery constituting domestic violence. A judge sentenced him to up to 2 1/2 years in a Nevada prison. The 729 days he had spent in jail awaiting trial were factored into his punishment, leaving Foster with fewer than 200 days to serve in state custody. Fosters girlfriend suffered seven broken ribs, two black eyes and injuries from being bound at the wrists and ankles with zip ties and duct tape during her two-week captivity, according to a Las Vegas police report. The woman also told police she was forced to eat lye and was choked to the point of unconsciousness. She escaped when Foster let her out of his sight during a trip together to a grocery store and gas station. Court records show, Foster was out of custody at the time on a suspended jail sentence for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. He also was awaiting trial in another 2018 case involving domestic violence. But Fosters plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 settled the domestic violence case, a copy of the agreement shows, and he was sentenced to credit for time served. Police in Grants Pass, a town of some 40,000 in southwest Oregon, said Foster is believed to be armed and "extremely dangerous. We are using every piece of technology available to locate this man, said Hensman, the police chief. Hensman said he didn't have time to think about how authorities in Nevada handled Fosters crimes there. Whatever happened in the past, he said, we can talk about those situations later. ___ Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty If youre one of the millions of Americans who want desperately for the country to move on from Donald Trump and his toxic brand of politics, Ive got some bad newshes the odds-on favorite to be the 2024 Republican nominee for president. I dont make the rules here (and Im not happy about it either), but the numbers dont lie. In the latest poll from the polling firm Morning Consult, Trump is winning 49 percent of the GOP field, which gives him a 19 percentage point lead over his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. These results are mirrored in nearly every recent poll of GOP voters as Trump continues to garner the support of 40 to 50 percent of Republicans. The Obscure New York Law That Could Dismantle Trumps Empire Those numbers could certainly change before next year when GOP voters head to the polls. But what would Trump have to do to lose their support? Hes already incited an insurrection, continues to deny that he lost the 2020 election, and mishandled a pandemic that has, to date, killed more than one million Americans. Other than praising Barack Obama as the greatest president in U.S. history, calling for critical race theory curricula to be adopted nationwide, or endorsing drive-thru abortion clinics, its hard to see what would cause these true believers to abandon Trump. Now, as Nathaniel Rakich points out in FiveThirtyEight, there is an unusual dynamic in the GOP polling that suggests Trump is vulnerable. When pollsters ask GOP voters about multiple presidential candidates, Trump is well ahead. But in a mock head-to-head matchup with DeSantis, its the Florida governor who emerges as the winner. That suggests supporters of single-digit Republicans like former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz, or former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley dont want to see Trump get the nod again. If none of these candidates throw their hats in the ringand DeSantis had the Anyone But Trump vote to himselfhe could prevail. Story continues Nikki Haley visits Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on Jan. 20, 2023, in New York City. Theo Wargo/Getty But likely the opposite will happen. Take Haley, for example. In April 2021 she said that she wouldnt get in the presidential race if Trump ran. Now she is hiring staff, reaching out to donors, and preparing to hit the hustings in 2024. Part of the reason for Haleys about-face, undoubtedly, is the popular notion that Trump is vulnerable to an intra-party challenge. Paradoxically, that means the weaker Trump looks, the more it encourages GOP aspirants to run in 2024but more candidates actually increases the likelihood that Trump ends up as the nominee. Indeed, one of the quirks of the Republican primary process is that its largely a winner-take-all system. Delegates are not distributed proportionally (as is the case with Democrats). So a Republican candidate who wins a state primary in a crowded field, with, say 30-40 percent of the vote, still wins all the delegates. This is, by the way, precisely how Trump emerged victorious out of a crowded GOP field in 2016. Yet, theres another dynamic from seven years ago that also benefited Trump: Republican candidates ganged up on each other and left him largely untouched. Famously, in a crucial debate before the New Hampshire primary, then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ripped the bark off Florida Sen. Marco Rubiobelieving that if he weakened Rubio, it would push him up the polls and make him the most likely alternative to Trump. How did that work out? Ron DeSantis addresses supporters during a rally for himself and Sen. Marco Rubio on Nov. 7, 2022 in Orlando, Florida. Phelan M. Ebenhack for The Washington Post via Getty That same process could get a reprise in 2024. Right now, DeSantis has emerged as the most likely non-Trump GOP alternative. But rather than attack Trumpwhich Republicans have largely avoided for fear that he would post something mean about them on Truth Socialthe 2024 wannabes are far more likely to go after DeSantis. This is not a unique dynamic. In presidential nominating contests, with crowded multi-candidate fields. The also-rans frequently try to tear down the candidate who is in second and ignore the one in first. How Trump Sank the Senate for His Own Party But for Republicans, theres another dynamic at playattacking DeSantis is a sure-fire way to curry favor with Trump, which could pay long-term dividends. Case in point: earlier this month, the press secretary for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, another 2024 GOP aspirant, laid into DeSantis for reconciling himself to Floridas 15-week abortion ban and not pushing for a more restrictive law. Does he believe that 14-week-old babies dont have a right to live? Noems chief spokesperson said in an interview with the conservative-leaning National Review. According to The Daily Beast, Noems gambit was a message to Trump. She wants to be his running mate in 2024, and what better way to increase her odds than going after his chief rival, DeSantis? Noem is making a shrewd, arguably inspired political calculation. Pretty much everything would need to fall her way to emerge as the 2024 GOP nominee. Her better path to the White House is running with Trump. Even if they lose (which is probably the most likely outcome in a head-to-head race with Joe Biden), Noem would be well-positioned to run in 2028. Not only would she have garnered invaluable name recognition, but she can likely count on Trumps support. If somehow they win, she gets to be vice president! Trump speaks to the crowd at his Save America Rally in Vandalia, Ohio on Nov. 7, 2022. Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Other Republicans, staring at single-digit poll results and anemic fundraising numbers, might make the same calculation as Noem. It creates the other paradox of the 2024 campaign: the political incentive for nearly every Republican running is to attack DeSantis and not Trump. Considering that DeSantis national numbers are likely inflated (few Republicans outside Florida know all that much about him), it could make for a brutal campaign. And thats not even mentioning that his refusal to bend a knee to Trump ensures that the former president will take every opportunity he can to lacerate him. As we saw in 2016, Trump will not fight fairand will likely spend his time mocking DeSantis height, weight, and voice, all the while claiming that hed never have become governor without Trumps support (which is kind of true). How a Harvard Fellowship Flap Spawned Israel Conspiracy Theories Again, if all this sounds like a repeat of the nightmare that was the 2016 campaignits because it is. Republicans, unwilling to attack Trump, sic themselves on his chief rival as they jockey for the non-Trump mantle. Doing so leaves him unscathed and fails to weaken his unshakable base of support in the party, which is less than a majority but, in a winner-take-all primary system, is good enough to run the table and win the party nod. Of course, a lot can happen in the next year to alter this potential outcome. Trump could get indicted. Republican voters may finally decide that theyve had enough of him. The party could unite around DeSantis in a desperate effort to stop Trump. Anything is possible, and only a fool would predict how a Republican nomination fight will play out. But the emerging dynamic of the race is becoming increasingly clear: Its Trumps to lose. 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. January is human trafficking prevention month and the Port of Seattle announced Friday they have been awarded for their efforts. The Port of Seattle has been honored with a first-place award from the Department of Transportations 2022 Combatting Human Trafficking in Transportation Impact Awards. The grant will allow the Port of Seattle to run a national committee with airports around the country. The committee will create a nationwide anti-human trafficking awareness toolkit. This announcement comes after the Port of Seattle launched its Port of Allies Against Human Trafficking Pledge on Jan. 11. During human trafficking prevention month, the Port is calling on its partners to raise awareness of the signs and behaviors of human trafficking, according to the Port of Seattle. The latest statistics from the National Human Trafficking Hotline show that 233 cases, involving 337 victims were identified in Washington State in 2021, the Port of Seattle said. Education and awareness are key to recognizing human trafficking at our gateway, Port of Seattle Commissioner Toshiko Hasegawa said. Active participation from pledge members will help to interrupt this monstrous underground economy. John Durham and Donald Trump. Associated Press; Getty Images John Durham used Russian intelligence claims to obtain a US citizen's emails, per The New York Times. Durham was appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. But Durham pursued a dubious claim from Russia involving Hillary Clinton and an aide to George Soros. John Durham, former US Attorney for the District of Connecticut, was supposed to be investigating the investigators, charged with looking into the origins of what former President Donald Trump often termed a "hoax": the FBI's examination of his campaign's dealings with the Russian government. In the course of his hunt for wrongdoing, culminating in two failed prosecutions, the veteran prosecutor relied on dubious claims from the Kremlin to pursue a conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton, Democratic donor and right-wing boogeyman George Soros, and the former head of the Democratic National Committee, according to an investigation by The New York Times published Thursday. Durham, appointed as US special counsel by former Attorney General Bill Barr, had been told by a federal judge that his evidence was shoddy. As The Washington Post reported in 2017, a Russian intelligence document, obtained by the US, had claimed there was a plot to shield Clinton from an ongoing investigation into her email storage. That and other Russian intelligence assessments were provided to Washington by Dutch intelligence, which had infiltrated their Russian counterparts and the specific group responsible for hacking the DNC and laundering the emails it stole through Wikileaks and friendly journalists during the 2016 presidential campaign; the Dutch even caught the hackers doing the job, on video. The memos were not to be taken at face value, according to those who reviewed them. They "were said to make demonstrably inconsistent, inaccurate or exaggerated claims," the Times reported, "and some US analysts believed Russia may have deliberately seeded them with disinformation." A federal judge, reviewing the claims, deemed them insufficient to subpoena a US citizen's communications. Story continues But Durham pursued them anyway. And he got them, according to the Times, going around the judge's veto by threatening the target with a subpoena from a grand jury, a lower bar to clear (it is not clear if an actual subpoena was obtained). As Russian intelligence analysts themselves had told it, Moscow had hacked Leonard Benardo, executive vice president of Soros' Open Society Foundations, and in doing so uncovered a plot at the highest level to sway the 2016 election. Specifically, Democratic lawmaker and former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz was charged with discussing over an email to Benardo a promise, from then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, that the Obama-era Department of Justice would make sure to limit the investigation into Clinton's private email server to avoid any political fallout. Although Durham succeeded in obtaining Benardo's emails, he never found any evidence to support the Russian claims, The Times reported, and his investigation ended with fewer successful prosecutions than Special Counsel Robert Mueller's own investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, the "hoax" that some hoped he would debunk. Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com Read the original article on Business Insider BAGHDAD, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Iraq and France on Thursday inked a strategic partnership agreement to enhance bilateral cooperation in various areas including energy and securityaccording to Iraqi officials. The agreement was signed during Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani's one-day visit to France's capital Paris, after he met with French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and talked with President Emmanuel Macron, al-Sudani's media office tweeted. During talks with Macron, the two leaders discussed bilateral ties, regional and international issues of common concern, and joint cooperation in vital sectors, said the media office's press release. The agreement covers cooperation in such areas as combating terrorism and extremism, cultural exchange, crisis management, combating economic and organized crime, protecting the environment and promoting human rights, which, al-Sudani tweeted on Thursday, "lays down a road map for expanding our two countries' cooperation in various fields." The past years have witnessed deepened bilateral exchanges. Macron has visited Iraq twice, one in 2020 and another in 2021. France-headquartered oil producer TotalEnergies signed a deal with the Iraqi government in 2021, agreeing to invest in oil, gas and renewables projects in southern Iraq over 25 years. A prosecutor found by a judge to have presented patently untrue testimony against a man falsely accused of murder in Wyandotte County is no longer working in the Kansas Attorney Generals Office, less than a month after Republican Kris Kobach took office. As a Wyandotte County prosecutor, Ed Brancart led the prosecution of Olin Pete Coones, who spent 12 years in prison before his exoneration and release in 2020. Brancart then became a senior assistant attorney general, working under former Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt for about five years. When Wyandotte County District Court Judge Bill Klapper threw out Coones conviction, he ruled that Brancart had suppressed exculpatory evidence and threatened an informant who may have had mental health issues with jail time if he didnt testify. Klapper found the state had suborned perjury in the case. The Kansas Attorney Generals Office confirmed Thursday that Brancarts last day of employment was Thursday but didnt provide additional details. It wasnt clear whether Brancart resigned or was forced out. Lawyers in the Kansas Attorney Generals Office serve at the pleasure of the attorney general. Brancart on Friday didnt answer calls to a phone number listed for him online. Brancarts departure comes after years of criticism of his role in Coones wrongful conviction. Brancarts position in the Kansas Attorney Generals Office, where he was the deputy director of the Medicaid fraud and abuse division, also drew attention this fall as Schmidt, a Republican, unsuccessfully ran for governor. Coones was sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2009 for the murders of Kathleen and Carl Schroll, who were found shot to death on the morning of April 7, 2008, in their Kansas City, Kansas, home. Coones maintained his innocence, and no physical evidence or eyewitnesses tied Coones to the crime. In two trials, he was convicted of killing Kathleen but not Carl. In November 2020, Klapper overturned Coones conviction and set him free. Coones died 108 days after his release, at 64, from cancer. In November 2022, his family filed a federal lawsuit against KCK police. Story continues Klapper ruled that Brancart knew an informant wanted a deal in exchange for testifying against Coones and claiming Coones had confessed. The prosecutor threatened the informant with jail time if he did not testify, the judge said, but that after the informant did not get what he wanted, he offered to testify against another detainee. Brancart hasnt responded to previous requests for comment from The Star about Coones case. The Stars Luke Nozicka and Katie Bernard contributed reporting. Russian shelling of Kherson Oblast, including the regional capital, killed two, according to the Prosecutor General's Office. However, the information provided on the number of injured varied. The regional government said in a telegram post that four people were injured. Prosecutor General's Office said five were injured. In Kherson, one was killed and one injured. The Russian attack on Komyshany, three kilometers west of Kherson, killed one and injured three civilians, the Kherson Oblast administration reported. Some injured have been hospitalized. Also, Russian shelling damaged civilian infrastructure, including hospital and residential buildings, according to the prosecutors office. The Russian army has been shelling the Ukrainian-held part of Kherson Oblast daily since Ukraine's forces liberated the western bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts in November after eight months of Russian occupation. King County prosecutors charged a man Wednesday who is accused of attempting to rape a woman and assaulting a medical response worker after his arrest earlier this week. David Krick, 41, is charged with one count of first-degree attempted rape and one count of third-degree assault with sexual motivation. According to court documents, Krick attacked a woman Sunday around 5 p.m. as she left her apartment building in the 1400 block of Dexter Avenue North to walk her dog. The woman was able to get back into her building, but Krick followed behind a pizza delivery person. Documents say Krick made his way into the womans apartment, lifted her off the ground and put his hands between her legs while saying sexually motivated comments and threatening to kill her. Eventually, residents helped the woman escape and call the police. When officers arrived, they arrested and restrained Krick, who continued to yell sexually motivated comments. Krick was treated at Harborview Medical Center before being booked into the King County Jail. While being transported by ambulance to the jail, Krick exposed himself while touching a female American Medical Response employee and making sexually motivated comments, according to court documents. Krick remains in the King County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 2. Prosecutors have asked that his bail be set at $250,000 because he is dangerous and a flight risk. MEMPHIS Protests were held in Memphis and cities across the country Friday and more demonstrations are planned for the weekend as the nation reacted to brutal footage of the killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police. Demonstrators were already taking to the streets in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon and local news outlets across the country reported on protests planned for Saturday in New York City, Memphis, Baltimore, Charlotte, Newark, Dallas and Raleigh, among other major cities. Protests remained mostly peaceful Friday night as people rallied after officials in Memphis released disturbing video of the fatal police beating of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died three days after a traffic stop on Jan. 7. Amid freezing temperatures Friday, more than 100 protesters shut down an interstate bridge connecting Tennessee and Arkansas in Memphis. Some chanted "killer cops have got to go." Protesters locked arms and chanted "we ready, we ready, we ready for y'all," as they marched from the bridge and toward downtown. Onlookers cheered from their balconies. When is accountability really going to be set forth?" said activist LJ Abraham. The video of the killing, which involved five Black officers who were charged in Nichols' death, shows Nichols being tased, belted with a baton, repeatedly kicked in the face and brutalized despite seeming to put up no resistance. Memphis police chief Cerelyn "CJ" Davis told CNN Friday that the video shows "acts that defy humanity." LIVE COVERAGE: Memphis to release footage of traffic stop that led to death of Tyre Nichols Chicagoans protest in freezing temperatures Friday A dozen people gathered across from a police precinct in Chicago in freezing temperatures Friday evening to protest the killing of Tyre Nichols, as well as call attention to the killing of Anthony Alvarez, who was fatally shot by Chicago police in 2021. From Memphis to Chicago, these killer cops have got to go, the group chanted. Some held signs saying Justice for Tyre Nichols and End police terror. Story continues Ana Santoyo, 33, a Chicago native running for alderperson, said the killing is another reminder that police brutality is pervasive in the U.S. Its not just bad apples. Its the whole bunch, she said. Protesters hold signs as they rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, in Chicago, Ill. on January 27,2023. Santoyo said no mother should have to go through what Nichols mother is going through. Santoyo, who is Mexican American, said she worries about how police will see her own infant son as he grows up. Time and time again we know, cops dont keep us safe whenever we hear another name, whenever we have to say another name, she said. Kamran Sidiqi, 27, who helped organize the demonstration, said he hopes protests in Chicago and nationwide send a message that Memphis is not alone in its calls for justice for Nichols. For Sidiqi, justice begins with seeing the officers involved convicted. "It's tough to imagine what justice is here because Tyre is never coming back," he said. "That's someone's son, someone's friend lost forever. That's a human being's life that is gone. But a modicum of justice would be putting these killer cops in jail. A modicum of justice would be building a whole new system so that this can't happen again." Demonstrators block traffic on Riverside Drive near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge as they protest the killing of Tyre Nichols on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, in Memphis, Tenn. Dozens march in NYC's Times Square Protesters began marching through a congested Times Square shortly after 7:30 p.m. Friday. New York City Councilmember Chi Osse, the 24-year-old Brooklynite elected after he organized during Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyds murder by Minneapolis police, stood alongside the marchers, who formed a small crowd at the glimmering tourist hub. Nothing has really changed since 2020, Osse said. And if anything, we've seen police budgets grow across the country, right? The protests continued southbound on Seventh Avenue just before 8 p.m., with onlookers at Times Square watching. Traffic stood still as marchers passed. "Justice for," a speaker shouted through a megaphone. "Tyre Nichols," marchers chanted back. A protester was arrested after jumping on a police car and breaking its windshield, ABC7 reported. Several hundred protestors march through midtown Manhattan Jan. 27, 2023 after the release of video showing Memphis, TN police beating Tyre Nichols on Jan. 7 following a traffic stop. Nichols died three days later. 'Acts that defy humanity' Memphis police chief Cerelyn "CJ" Davis told CNN Friday that the video shows "acts that defy humanity." "You're going to see a disregard for life, duty of care that we're all sworn to, and a level of physical interaction that is above and beyond what is required in law enforcement," the chief said. That description brings to mind the video of police officers beating Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991. The acquittal of the officers involved in that incident set off many protests. The incident also comes more than two years after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police also caught on video spurred local protests and a global racial justice movement. RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers, leaves at the conclusion of a candlelight vigil for Tyre, in Memphis, Tenn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Peaceful protest urged The family has asked supporters to protest in peace. During a Friday press conference, Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, said, "More than anything we want peace. We do not want any type of uproar. We do not want any type of disturbance. On Friday afternoon, mayors from major cities spoke with White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall and Senior Advisor to the President Julie Rodriguez on a call to be briefed on federal preparations for the expected protests. "White House officials asked the mayors to remain in regular contact over the coming days and reiterated that the President will continue to be clear in his message to the American people that peaceful protests are appropriate, but violence is never acceptable." Police forces some in riot gear were seen in streets across the nation preparing for demonstrations Friday. In Los Angeles, tensions flared between protesters and police, and smoke filled the air as people shook and banged on a police car with an officer inside, the Los Angeles Times reported. Someone also vandalized police headquarters sign that reads "Los Angeles Police Department" by writing the word "kills" underneath. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Protests after Tyre Nichols video release expected across US A Raleigh man was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to assaulting a Transportation Security Administration officer at Raleigh-Durham International Airport last spring. Adonis Fabian Zorrilla, 27, and a companion were going through the checkpoint last March when the TSA pulled their bags aside for inspection. Inside, they discovered 17 false identification cards with Zorillas photo and a variety of names, according to prosecutors. Zorrilla then grabbed the TSA officers arm and tried to wrestle the ID cards from her, tearing one of her ligaments, according to prosecutors. He then took off running outside the airport, leaving his shoes and other belongings at the checkpoint. Zorrilla was arrested nearly two months later in Bibb County, Georgia, where he was charged with forgery. He was returned to North Carolina, where he pled guilty to the assault charge in August. Zorrilla was sentenced Thursday to 37 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. District Attorneys Office. He was also ordered to pay $4,103.35 in restitution. Remains found last week have been identified as those of a missing 4-year-old Oklahoma girl, authorities said Thursday. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation had initially been unable to confirm the remains, found Jan. 17 in rural Grady County, were those of Athena Brownfield and said a medical examiner would make the identification. The bureau said Thursday that the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner positively identified the remains as Athenas. The bureau didn't provide any additional comment, citing a gag order filed in Caddo County District Court that prohibits law enforcement agencies from making public comments about the investigation. Authorities and volunteers had been searching for Athena since Jan. 10, when a postal worker spotted her 5-year-old sister alone near the girls home in Cyril, the state bureau said. At that point they realized another child was missing, agency spokesperson Brook Arbeitman said. Athena Brownfield (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation via Facebook) On Jan. 16, investigators said their search had shifted to a recovery operation to find her remains. The remains were found outside Rush Springs, about 16 miles southeast of Cyril, in neighboring Caddo County, the state bureau said. Authorities haven't released additional details about where and how they were found. Ivon Adams and his wife, Alysia Adams, were arrested Jan. 12 in connection with the case. Ivon Adams, 36, was arrested in Phoenix and faces one count of first-degree murder and one count of child neglect, the state bureau has said. Alysia Adams, 31, was arrested at the Grady County Sheriff's Office and faces two counts of child neglect. She is being held in the Caddo County Jail, officials said. Ivon Adams waived extradition and is in jail in Oklahoma, according to online court and jail records and NBC affiliate KFOR of Oklahoma City. Attorneys listed for both did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday evening. According to arrest affidavits for the pair, Alysia Adams told a state bureau special agent her husband beat Athena to death on Christmas. She said he told her he buried her body near their old residence in Rush Springs, the affidavit said. Story continues The State Bureau of Investigation has said that Alysia Adams is related to the two girls and that the sisters had been in her care for at least a year. Athenas sister was placed into state protective custody, Arbeitman said. Agents have interviewed the girls biological parents, and they are cooperating with the investigation, the state bureau said. After her 5-year-old sister was found, authorities launched a widespread search for Athena, who was described as having limited verbal skills. The search expanded to neighboring Grady County, and officials had searched ponds and other bodies of water in the area, according to KFOR. Cyril is a town about 65 miles southwest of Oklahoma City in Caddo County. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com On Friday, 27 January the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia banished Datze Rutka, a temporary Charge d'Affaires of Latvia, and obliged her to leave the territory of Russia within two weeks, in response to Rigas decision to lower the level of diplomatic relations. Source: European Pravda, referring to press release of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Russia The Russian side expressed its "vigorous protest" against the Latvian diplomat, claiming that "justifying this step by the so-called solidarity with other Baltic countries is not acceptable." The Russian Foreign Ministry also traditionally blamed Latvia for "total russophobia" and "complete clean-up of the Russian-speaking information space, elimination of the Soviet memorial and cultural heritage, and criminal prosecution of compatriots." Background: On Monday, 23 January, the Russian ambassador was informed about the Latvian sides decision to lower its level of diplomatic representation in Russia starting 24 February (the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine ed.) to the position of a temporary Charge dAffaires. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs added that the decision was made due to Russia continuing its full-scale military aggression against Ukraine starting on 24 February 2022, as well as out of solidarity with Estonia and Lithuania. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the Russian ambassador in Estonia must leave the country in the beginning of February after the level of diplomatic relations between the two countries was lowered. In response,Russia obliged Margus Laidr, the ambassador of Estonia in Russia, to leave the country by 7 February, and withdrew its ambassador in Tallinn. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Avdiivka, Toretsk, Oleksandropil and Bogoyavlenets also came under fire The shelling began at about 9.00 a.m. and lasted more than an hour and a half. Two civilians were killed and at least five more were injured in the attack, the governor wrote. Read also: Azov Regiment becomes assault brigade and already fighting in Bakhmut Several cars and about a dozen houses and other structures were also affected. t.me/pavlokyrylenko_donoda t.me/pavlokyrylenko_donoda t.me/pavlokyrylenko_donoda t.me/pavlokyrylenko_donoda t.me/pavlokyrylenko_donoda In addition, the settlements of Avdiivka, Toretsk, Oleksandropil, and Bohoyavlenets were shelled from multiple launch rocket systems. Read also: Fighting in Soledar and Bakhmut comparable to Battle of Verdun, Zelenskyys chief-of-staff says "The enemy is purposely destroying our cities and towns, Kyrylenko said. All civilians who are not engaged in defense and crucial infrastructure maintenance must be evacuated. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) has called on African countries scheduled to hold elections during the first half of 2023 to ensure peaceful and inclusive elections toward silencing the guns in Africa. The call was made by the AU's Peace and Security Council in a statement issued on Thursday that followed its recent meeting that dwelt upon elections that were conducted in Africa from July to December 2022 and an outlook for 2023. The Council welcomed the "relentless efforts" being deployed by AU member states scheduled to organize elections during the first half of 2023, namely Benin, Djibouti, Nigeria, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, an AU statement read. It encouraged the countries to sustain their effort in order to ensure that their planned elections are peaceful, inclusive, transparent, democratic and credible towards realizing continental aspiration in silencing the guns in Africa. It underscored the need to further strengthen the institutional capacity of judicial systems across the continent toward effectively addressing all electoral disputes; and promote platforms for dialogue, consensus building and amicable settlement of election-related disputes among political actors. The Council further called on all AU member states to continue to redouble their efforts in mobilizing domestic financial resources for their election processes with a view to insulating the elections from unintended consequences of depending on external sources of election financing. Meanwhile, the Council congratulated countries that successfully held elections during the second half of 2022 in a peaceful and transparent manner, namely the Republic of Congo, Senegal, Kenya, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, Tunisia and Lesotho. The Russian soldiers are taking away weapons from the combat zone; dozens of servicemen have already been put on trial for mishandling guns. Source: Vyorstka, Russian Telegram channel Details: Since the beginning of the full-scale war in February 2022, at least 42 servicemen in Russia have appeared in court for the appropriation, storage, transportation and carrying of weapons, ammunition and explosive devices (Articles 222 and 222.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Vyorstka has discovered this by studying the bases of all Russian garrison military courts. Judging by the published verdicts, the Russian soldiers bring the firearms found at the front back home or keep unused cartridges and grenades for themselves. They carry them to military units, hiding them in armoured vests, backpacks and sleeping bags, then bring them to a secret place, and when going home on vacation, they take these weapons with them. At least 18 servicemen who had come home from the war have already been convicted. Two dozen more are awaiting a court decision. One soldier was sent to prison for 2.5 years. During the inspection at the checkpoint of the Crimean bridge, which he used to come home, 4 hand grenades, 5 bullets and a smoke grenade were found in his backpack. The soldier told investigators that he was carrying explosive devices "for personal safety." The rest of the servicemen have been fined for several tens of thousands of roubles and received suspended terms. Sometimes weapons were found during inspections at checkpoints, Road Patrol Service posts and train stations. For example, when searching a soldier from Kursk, who was coming home through Crimea, an employee of the State Road Safety Inspectorate found a Val rifle, a Makarov pistol and 300 rounds of ammunition in his backpack. In Samara Oblast, employees of the Road Patrol Service found a Makarov pistol and two loaded magazines in the car of a soldier from Chelyabinsk, in which he was coming home from the war. Story continues At a train station in Voronezh Oblast, an F-1 hand grenade was seized from a soldier after he had his backpack scanned with an X-ray. Later, he told investigators that he wanted to use the grenade for fishing. Those who manage to bring weapons home keep them in their apartments and cottage houses. In Reutov (Moscow Oblast), two friends who came home from the war gave loaded magazines from a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a Dragunov rifle to the owner of the apartment they rented. She took the ammunition, and a few days after that, she called the police. In Bryansk, another soldier took a fragmentation grenade from the front, brought it to the service apartment and put it on a shelf in the corridor. On the same day, he had a fight with his wife. The policemen, who arrived at the scene, saw the grenade and called the bomb disposal experts. One of the convicts got drunk and started firing his pistol in a public place. He found a Makarov pistol with cartridges and an RGD-5 grenade under the seat of a combat vehicle that returned to the unit after the battle. He kept the find in the ground, and three weeks after that, he dug up a gun, took it with him for a walk and started shooting into the air near a grocery store. The court assigned him compulsory works. Several servicemen who took combat ammunition from the front managed to avoid criminal liability: their cases were closed. They convinced the court that they came to their senses and made amends by giving public lectures in their military units about responsibility for illegal possession of weapons and by donating 5 to 10 thousand roubles to help children. In August 2022, in Smolensk Oblast, four armed men, one of them being a contracted soldier, attacked Ukrainian refugees at a temporary accommodation point. The same month, in Rostov-on-Don, a military officer shot a taxi driver from a Makarov pistol as the two argued about politics. In December in Petrozavodsk, another soldier killed his wife with a handgun, Vyorstka emphasised. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Russian invaders According to UK intelligence, over the last six days, various Russia media sources have begun to claim that Russian forces have made significant advances, breaking through Ukrainian defences in two areas: in Zaporizhzhya Oblast near Orikhiv, and 100km to the east, in Donetsk Oblast, near Vuhledar. Read also: Russia strengths its defense in Zaporizhzhya Oblast UK intelligence Russian units have probably conducted local, probing attacks near Orikhiv and Vuhledar, but it is highly unlikely that Russia has actually achieved any substantive advances, the ministry said in its daily summary. The MoD also noted that there is a realistic possibility that Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation in an effort to imply that the Russian operation is sustaining momentum. Read also: Ukrainian military says fighting continues near Soledar Ukraines General Staff reported on Jan. 27 that the Defense Forces had repelled enemy attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts over the past day. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine The General Staff of Ukraines Armed Forces notes the increasing activity of Russian combat aviation on all fronts. Source: General Staff of Ukraines Armed Forces on Telegram Details: The report says that the Russian occupiers performed 24 air strikes and seven missile strikes during the day. In addition, they carried out more than 30 attacks using multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS). Casualties among civilians were reported. The premises of the Regional Infectious Disease Hospital in Kherson were damaged. Despite significant losses, the Russians continue their offensive on the Bakhmut, Lyman, Avdiivka and Novopavlivka fronts. They are on the defensive on the Kupiansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson fronts. The occupiers also continue to use the network of civilian healthcare facilities in the temporarily occupied territory to treat their wounded soldiers. In the temporarily occupied resort village of Zaliznyi Port in Skadovsk District (Kherson Oblast) the Russian so-called "administration" is carrying out a census and confiscation of businesses (boarding houses, cafes, restaurants) that have not been re-registered under Russian law from Ukrainian citizens. In response, the Air Force of Ukraines Armed Forces delivered seven strikes on clusters of Russian military personnel, as well as a strike on the positions of anti-aircraft missile systems. During the day, on 27 January, anti-aircraft missile units of the Air Force of Ukraines Armed Forces shot down a Russian Su-25 jet and a Mi-8 helicopter. The units of Rocket forces and Artillery targeted two clusters of occupiers personnel. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Six civilians were killed and nine more sustained injuries as a result of Russian attacks in Donetsk Oblast on 26 January. Source: Pavlo Kyrylenko, Head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "On 26 January, the Russians killed six civilians in Donetsk Oblast: two in Ocheretyne, two in Bokoiavlenka, one in Avdiivka and one in Paraskoviivka." Details: According to Kyrylenko, nine more people in the oblast sustained injuries. As of 27 January, the Russians have killed at least 1,326 and wounded at least 2,905 civilians in Donetsk Oblast. Kyrylenko noted that these numbers are not final, since it is impossible to establish the exact number of victims in Mariupol and Volnovakha at the moment. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! The Russian invaders are preparing for a new mass checkup of the residents "loyalty" in the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts. Source: National Resistance Center (NRC) Details: The NRC noted that mass checking of phones for the presence of Ukrainian applications (in particular, banks and online education) is planned. In addition, the Russians are increasing the number of checkpoints between the settlements of southern Ukraine. At the checkpoints, residents are asked if they have military records, own vehicles, [ask for] links to personal accounts in social media with further verification. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! On 27 January, the Russians struck residential areas and the outskirts of Kherson, killing two people. Source: press service of Kherson Oblast Military Administration Details: The debris caused by an explosion of a Russian shell in Suvorov district damaged a car with a man and a woman inside. The man was taken to a hospital, and the woman died on site. In addition, Russians shelled the settlement of Komyshany in the outskirts of Kherson, injuring three people and killing a 25-year old woman, who died as a result of her injuries. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Samsung is holding its first Unpacked event of 2023 on February 1st, and many expect the Galaxy S23 family to be the centerpiece. The company has even teased a few details, such as camera and performance upgrades. But will this phone lineup be a major revision, or a modest yearly refresh? Lets take a look at what youre likely to see when Samsung takes to the stage in San Francisco. Galaxy S23 Ultra If the Galaxy S22 Ultras main appeal was its Note-style pen functionality, the S23 Ultra may revolve around its camera system. Rumors from leaker Ice Universe and others have long pointed to the highest-end S23 model sporting a 200-megapixel main camera, and Samsung added fuel to the discussion by unveiling a sensor that could fit the bill. The ISOCELL HP2 promises extremely detailed photos and 8K video at 30 frames per second while still offering solid low-light capabilities. It might also capture more accurate colors in brightly-lit scenarios. The front camera may get a slight bump to 12MP as well. It wont surprise you to hear that Samsung is poised to give the S23 family a speed boost with Qualcomms Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Its supposedly over 25 percent faster than Gen 1 while offering hardware-accelerated ray tracing for more realistic lighting in games. You may see up to a fourfold improvement in AI processing, too. Qualcomm claims Gen 2 is up to 40 percent more energy efficient, and you might get emergency satellite communication in addition to WiFi 7 networking. However, the biggest shock may be where you find that chip. Well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims Samsung will use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to power the Galaxy S23 in every country, rather than using its in-house Exynos chips in regions like Asia and Europe. Critics have routinely knocked Exynos-based Galaxy phones for having worse performance and battery life than their Snapdragon counterparts, but that might not be an issue this time around. You may not see other sweeping changes, but thats not necessarily a problem. If leaked images at Nieuwe Mobiel are accurate, the Galaxy S23 Ultra will have a slightly flatter design than its predecessor, addressing complaints about the 6.8-inch screens curved edges. Youd still find a 12MP ultra-wide camera, dual 10MP telephoto lenses, an S-Pen and up to 12GB of RAM. You may get a 1TB storage option, though, so you might not have to worry as much about that 8K footage chewing up all your free space. Story continues Galaxy S23 and S23+ Samsung Galaxy S23+ leak Samsungs more mainstream smartphones arent expected to receive as dramatic an update, but there could still be meaningful improvements. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and the rumored 12MP front camera might arrive alongside an ever-so-slightly larger battery. The phones could also ship with 256GB of storage as the baseline important if youd rather not spend extra just to hold a sizable media collection. Otherwise well probably get the familiar 6.1- and 6.6-inch displays of the Galaxy S22 line, not to mention a 50MP main rear camera, a 12MP ultra-wide and a lone 10MP telephoto. Leaked pictures at Nieuwe Mobiel suggest Samsung is redesigning the camera array to look more like that of the Ultra family, so the conspicuous camera hump of the S21 and S22 may vanish. Galaxy Book 3 Ultra Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra leak Samsung rarely sticks to phone introductions at Unpacked events, and there are signs a high-end laptop may be the other star of the show. Samsungs reservation page hints at a new Galaxy Book range, while the companys mobile experience president TM Roh makes clear in a blog post that there will be Ultra products in more device categories besides phones. Expect an Ultra laptop, then. Provided a leak at The Tech Outlook is authentic, that new model would be the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra. Its not entirely clear what that laptop might deliver, but Samsung Display said the high-end Galaxy Book line will feature OLED screens with built-in touch, much like smartphones. The Ultra is also expected to arrive in tandem with a more conventional Galaxy Book 3 Pro and a Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 convertible with pen support. Wed expect improved performance, and possibly extras like pen input and advanced display technology (this is Samsung, after all). Wildcards: New Galaxy Tabs and Galaxy Buds Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+ There hasnt been much talk of other product unveilings at Unpacked, and there are even rumors casting doubt on potential releases. The Elec sources claim Samsung has pushed out the launch of a Galaxy Tab S9 family, possibly due to economic uncertainty and poor sales of the Tab S8 series. As it is, the company tends to wait longer between tablet revisions than it does phones the Tab S8 arrived in early 2022 where its S7 predecessor arrived in summer 2020. We also wouldnt count on new earbuds. Samsung introduced the regular Galaxy Buds 2 in summer 2021, and the Buds 2 Pro a year later. Short of a revamp of the so-so Galaxy Buds Live, theres no pressure on the company to update its in-ear audio roster. Other products are only likely to appear at Samsungs later events. Dont brace yourself for new Galaxy Z foldables, Galaxy A budget phones or Galaxy Watch timepieces this early in the year. [Source] San Francisco officials recently announced a new response protocol to hate incidents in the city, making it easier for victims to find much-needed support. The effort, which was shared on Thursday and comes on the heels of multiple mass shootings in California, provides multilingual resources to victims, helping them report crimes faster and navigate the legal system more conveniently. The languages reportedly include Cantonese, Mandarin and Tagalog. For its part, the city police already has over 100 officers who speak Cantonese, 20 who speak Mandarin and another 20 who speak Tagalog. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins Office of Victim Services also created a resource guide on dealing with hate crimes. More from NextShark: Taiwan's Pokemon Go Grandpa Stopped From Hunting After Earthquake Alarm Glitch Hits His 72 Phones It includes advice on filing a police report, information on receiving support during the court process and access to community organizations and counseling services. San Francisco saw a 567% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2021 compared to the previous year. Police Chief William Scott said there was a significant decrease in 2022, but figures were not immediately available. More from NextShark: 2 Indian Buffalo Racers Reportedly Beat Usain Bolts 100 Meter Record Mayor London Breed, who headed the news conference on Thursday, commented on the importance of a "coordinated response." Our different agencies who support not only criminal justice reform, who support pushing to prevent crimes in the first place, we also support that after those lines are crossed that there is a coordinated response to get to the bottom of the situation, so people are held accountable, and victims feel as though justice was served and they get the supportive services they need to feel safe in San Francisco. City Attorney David Chiu was also present at the conference. In a statement, he said the city is working hard to address the problems: Story continues More from NextShark: Son Heung-min becomes highest-ranked Asian player in men's Ballon d'Or history Over the last several years, our API [Asian Pacific Islander] communities have dealt with tremendous levels of loss, hate and violence directed at us. These incidents are inexcusable and have no place in San Francisco. I am grateful to our community partners for identifying ways to improve our city's response to hate incidents, and appreciate the collaboration that has led to new policies implemented by Mayor Breed, District Attorney Jenkins, and Police Chief Scott. The city is working hard to demonstrate our commitment to supporting and lifting up victims and survivors of hate. More from NextShark: Woman arrested for fatally stabbing her parents in South Korea says a ghost told me to do it GREENLAND A trial date has been set in the case of the ex-school bus driver currently detained on federal charges he stalked and threatened an 8-year-old Greenland child on his bus route. Michael Chick, an Eliot, Maine, resident formerly employed by First Student, is tentatively scheduled to stand trial on a federal interstate charge beginning March 21 at 9:30 a.m. in the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire in Concord. He waived arraignment and pleaded not guilty on Sept. 21, according to court records. Chick, whose case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations and the Greenland Police Department, was arrested in early August following a warranted search of his residence. He was subsequently denied bail, then in September, New Hampshire U.S. Attorney Jane Young announced a federal grand jury indicted him for a single charge of cyberstalking. Ex-school bus driver Michael Chick, currently detained on charges he stalked and threatened an 8-year-old Greenland child on his bus route, is tentatively set to stand trial beginning March 21, according to court records. Chick pleaded not guilty to his charges in mid-September. U.S. District of New Hampshire Chief Judge Landya McCafferty will preside over Chicks trial. Jurors will not be selected until the first day of Chicks trial, according to Mary Ellen McMahon, spokesperson for the U.S. attorneys office in New Hampshire. The trial was initially scheduled in January. The defendant pushed for the court to extend it for another 60 days. The government provided initial discovery on September 26, 2022, and additional discovery on or about October 26, 2022, Chicks request to continue the trial reads. It was granted. Defense counsel has been making steady progress performing various necessary tasks in this case, but needs additional time for further preparation and consultation. What is Michael Chick accused of doing? The parents of the Greenland child became suspicious of the bus driver and first reported him to the Greenland school district and town police in April, court records show. Chick allegedly gave the child and his sister gifts on the bus on numerous occasions, which included candy, Pokemon paraphernalia, and other small toys, according to a police affidavit. Story continues Additionally, when the children were absent from school, (Chick) would leave letters for them at the residence saying how much he misses them, the affidavit reads. Michael Chick, 39, of Eliot, Maine, is facing federal interstate stalking charges. In May, Chick allegedly asked the childs family if he could attend the childs Little League baseball game. The childs family, according to the affidavit, contacted the Greenland Central School asking for assistance, and school administration contacted First Student to have Chick reassigned to a different bus route. Police, including the school resource officer, spoke with Chick in May and told him that he could no longer contact the child, nor his family. Chick was reassigned bus routes that month but continued communicating with the child even afterward, including calling the child over to his bus, court records state. The childs family reported Chick to police twice last spring. They did so again in July upon finding two TracFones inside the childs lunchbox. Authorities were told by the parents the child told them the devices were gifts from Chick. 'It's on us all to keep children safe': How abuse report by citizens led to conviction Chick allegedly gave the child multiple TracFones and instructed him to take inappropriate photographs of himself. The former bus driver is also accused of placing GPS tracking devices on the childs parents vehicles to track whether they reported him to police and making several visits to the family's home at night. Chick is accused of following the child and his family around Greenland and nearby communities, taking "surreptitious photographs and videos" in "public places, including retail stores and a water park. The childs parents were very concerned for their sons safety as well as their own, verbalizing that they were afraid that Chick would come to their home and kidnap the child, court documents state. Chick allegedly told child about group of threatening criminals The child reported to investigators Chick told him a story about The Team, a group of criminals that would kidnap and torture the child if he didnt comply with the instructions to photograph and take videos of himself. The child additionally told authorities that he was told that The Team would kill his family if he didnt comply. The Team, the child later told his parents, was a group of anywhere between eight and 800 people, the affidavit states. Helping your children:What parents need to know about how predators groom kids On or about June 1, Chick gave the child a computer-generated note and told him to read it. The threatening note, supposedly written by The Team, was written in capital letters, according to the court, and read: You had too many chances this is not working we are done (expletive) around make this happen now or the kid disappears. Chick later admitted to investigators that he threatened the child on the bus and gave him three separate TracFones, according to court documents. Authorities searched his car and found his cell phone, a TracFone, a digital camera, duct tape, rubber gloves, candy, childrens undergarments and toys, and a magnetic GPS vehicle tracker. Authorities claimed that surveillance cameras, TracFones, large plastic bags of childrens underwear and more evidence were found at Chicks residence. Child's family: Chick is 'predator of the worst kind' At Chicks bail hearing in mid-August, where federal public defender Behzad Mirhashem lost his bid for home incarceration for Chick, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kasey Weiland, the prosecutor in the case, read a prepared statement from the family of the child allegedly targeted by Chick. Though not present at the hearing, the family at the center of allegations against Chick wrote they would forever be scarred by this mans actions and felt sick with worry the ex-bus driver could contact the child again in the future. He is a predator of the worst kind, the family wrote. Protect us and protect the public by keeping him out of society. In the wake of Chicks arrest, Homeland Security Investigations created a hotline for anyone with information about the investigation into the former bus driver. The number for the tipline is (603) 722-1751. Mirhashem could not be reached for comment. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH school bus driver Michael Chick faces trial for stalking child ISLAMABAD, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Friday strongly condemned Israel's attack on the occupied northern West Bank, according to the country's Foreign Ministry. The Israeli army force stormed the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Thursday and killed nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, and wounded 16, four of them in serious condition. "The government and the people of Pakistan extend sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families of victims and best wishes for full and swift recovery of the injured in this brutal attack," according to a statement from the ministry. Pakistan called upon the international community to assume its responsibility in bringing these actions by the Israeli forces to a halt and ensuring adequate protection of the human rights of the Palestinian people, said the statement. Pakistan also reiterated its strong and unwavering support for the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people for the full realization of their fundamental rights. The Patmos Library in Jamestown, Mich., where at least two librarians have quit amid pressure and harassment from residents demanding the removal of books. (Joshua Lott / Washington Post via Getty Images) In her time as a Texas school librarian, Carolyn Foote watched the image of her profession veer from the stereotype of shrinking violets behind spectacles cataloging titles to pedophiles and groomers out to pollute the minds of the nations youth. Librarians came from a climate of being so appreciated to hearing this message that were reviled, said Foote, co-founder of Freadom Fighters, an advocacy group for librarians that has nearly 15,000 Twitter followers. It was an astonishing turn of events." A lot of librarians are asking themselves whether they want to remain in the profession, she added. "At least five people I know have retired early. Once a comforting presence at story circle and book fairs, librarians have been condemned, bullied and drawn into battles over censorship as school and library boards face intensifying pressure from conservatives seeking to ban books exploring racial and LGBTQ themes. Those voices have grown stronger in red states since the pandemic, when parental groups opposed to mask mandates expanded their sights and became more involved in how and what their children were taught. Recent polls suggest most Americans are not in favor of banning books. But concentrated pressure by politically connected parental groups, said Peter Bromberg, a board member at EveryLibrary, a nonprofit library advisory group, has librarians facing a great deal of stress. There are signs on people's lawns calling librarians pedophiles." They face pressure from principals and administrators over book displays, and "neighbors talk about them being an arm of Satan. The Patmos Library in Jamestown, Mich., which lost public funding after a campaign by conservatives, forcing it to rely on donations. (Joshua Lott / Washington Post via Getty Images) Some librarians are fighting back; others have lost or left their jobs. The culture wars over books come at a time when about 27% of public libraries have reduced staff because of budget cuts and other reasons, according to a 2021 national survey. Lessa Kanani'opua Pelayo-Lozada, president of the American Library Assn., said librarians' problems are compounded by attacks that are part of an effort "seeking to abolish diverse ideas and erode this country of freedom of expression. I see it as the dismantling of education." Story continues :: A number of school board meetings in recent years have become explosive and emblematic of the country's political animosities. Parents yell, boo, shake fists and hold up sexually graphic images in dramas that play out on social media. Similar scenes have erupted at public libraries, including at the Patmos Library in western Michigan, where at least two librarians have quit amid pressure and harassment from residents demanding the removal of LGBTQ books and young adult graphic novels. Visitors enter the Patmos Library. (Joshua Lott / Washington Post via Getty Images) At the library's December board meeting, librarian Jean Reicher denounced critics a week after the building closed early over fears for the staffs safety. She said that signs around town labeled her a pedophile and that she'd received abusive phone calls and had iPhones pointed at her. Her emotional retort came a month after a campaign led by conservatives succeeded in defunding the library, forcing it to rely on donations. We have been threatened. We have been cursed, said Reicher. How dare you people. You dont know me. You dont know anything about me. You have said Ive sexualized your children. Im grooming your children." She raised her hands. Her anger welled. "I have six grandkids out there, she said, ticking off the offenses aimed at her. "I moved to this town 2 years ago, and I regret it every day for the last year. This has been horrible," she continued. "I wasnt raised this way. I believe in God. Im a Catholic. Im a Christian. Im everything you are. School and library boards are encountering demands from conservative lawmakers and parental groups, such as Moms for Liberty and Mama Bears Rising, and in a few instances the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys, to scrub libraries of what they consider upsetting pornographic and LGBTQ depictions. Many conservatives criticize schools as overrun with progressive ideas that are confusing children about race and gender. By exposing our children to adult concepts such as gender identity we are asking them to carry a load that is much too heavy for them, Kit Hart, a Moms for Liberty member, said in a video posted last year from a school board meeting in Carroll County, Md. A 10-year-old should not be reduced to his sexuality. A video posted on the Moms for Liberty website shows another one of its members outlining her concerns at a public meeting in Mecklenburg, N.C.: Parents beware of terms like social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion. Those inherently good things are being used to disguise a biased political agenda, she said. Our schools are becoming indoctrination camps and a breeding ground for hatred and division. Florida and other states have placed tougher restrictions on books that schools can stock. A Missouri law passed last year makes it a crime for a school to provide sexually explicit material to a student. After a discrimination complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Education Departments Office for Civil Rights is investigating a Texas school district after a superintendent directed librarians to remove LGBTQ-related books. We have been thrown to the forefront of the cultural wars whether we want to be there or not, said Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian in Livingston Parish, La., who last year broke out in hives and fell into depression after she was threatened for speaking against censorship. Its not fun to be vilified in your small town or the country at large. Its all related to their using political fear and outrage. And theyre using children to do it. Jones was skewered by conservative activists, including Citizens for a New Louisiana, after she warned at a library meeting that "hate and fear disguised as moral outrage have no place in Livingston Parish." A picture of her appeared online with a red circle around her head resembling a target and she was called a pig and a supporter of teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds. Someone suggested she should be slapped. Martha Hickson, a high school librarian in Annandale, N.J., endured similar stress and said she lost 12 pounds in one week after she was accused by a parent at a school board meeting of being a groomer by providing graphic novels and memoirs, such as Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, that could steer children toward heinous acts. Maia Kobabe holds a copy of "Gender Queer: A Memoir" at North Sonoma Regional Park in Santa Rosa, Calif. The graphic memoir about coming out as nonbinary is the most banned book in America. (Josh Edelson / For The Times) What really stung was that my name was used in that context, said Hickson, 63, who in 2020 received the American Assn. of School Librarians Intellectual Freedom Award. It was devastating. I broke down and I couldnt stop crying." She couldn't catch her breath, she said, and "couldnt speak in full sentences. I cracked two teeth from grinding and was fitted with a night guard. I go to the pool now and swim three times a week. It washes the stress away. Jessica Brassington, head of the Texas-based Mama Bears Rising, which advocates for increased parental oversight in education, said her intent is not to rebuke librarians or teachers but to get stricter state guidelines on selecting school books in what she sees as a broader war against her Christian faith. We want to protect our children. Weve seen the dark side of what can happen beyond the book. Suicide. Alienation, said Brassington, whose organization has pressed for the removal of books in school districts and warned against children being indoctrinated by an "evil" sexual agenda. We want to know what books are available to our children. ... The parents are being bypassed. :: Calls to ban certain books in schools have arisen for generations among liberal and conservative parents, educators and activist groups. Classics such as Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings have been pulled from reading lists. Books deemed to be obscene such as The Catcher in the Rye and Tropic of Cancer were censored for decades. In the 1980s, well-funded and organized groups like the Christian right Moral Majority condemned books on secular humanism. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed laws to restrict school instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. (Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Those battles echo today and have accelerated as religious conservatives and right-leaning politicians, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have backed bills to limit school instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. Of the 1,648 titles banned in schools across the country in the 2021-22 school year, according to a PEN America study, 41% had prominent LGBTQ characters or explicitly explored LGBTQ themes. It's hard to compare this to anything other than the Red Scare in the 1950s, said Foote, a retired high school librarian of 29 years who was named a Champion of Change by President Obama. Theres nothing else remotely close to this. Librarians are being pushed out of the process of selecting books, said Tasslyn Magnusson, a Wisconsin writer and teacher who has compiled a national database of books being challenged in school districts. Were cutting kids off from all the things they need to function in a diverse society. Theyre trying to [keep] kids from learning about the world. How will kids grow into good Americans and global citizens? I just read somewhere James Baldwin got banned. School librarians have long been accustomed to hearing from angry parents. Some parents request that their child not be allowed to check out certain books. Demands to remove a book from circulation traditionally go through a committee review process. But librarians have complained recently that thorough reviews are sometimes skipped or influenced by pressure from parental groups. That pressure in some districts is likely to make for less diverse reading lists as librarians choose not to select certain books. "If librarians are being threatened with lawsuits and fines," said Pelayo-Lozada, whose association is holding a nationwide conference in New Orleans this weekend that will address book banning, "it can lead to self-censoring." Hicksons school district in New Jersey faced criticism in 2021 when a group of parents wanted Gender Queer, Lawn Boy and other books removed from the library. A complaint was filed against Hickson with police, but the local prosecutor did not pursue charges. At later school board meetings, a contingent of parents, students and residents urged the board not to purge those titles. A district committee reviewed the books and last year decided to keep them on the shelves. But I was still tarred and feathered, said Hickson. Amid pressure from her union and support in the community, the school board said accusations of malicious motives against Hickson were unfounded. I look at these kids and my heart breaks," she said. "These groups wanting to ban books have a whole political machinery around them and are using books as proxies to attack people in society." Kids have to deal with "bullying, slurs and shoving. Jones in Louisiana said school libraries are often refuges for students to explore what they may be experiencing along racial and LGBTQ themes. A lot of parents supported me but they were scared to speak out because of harassment, said Jones, president of the Louisiana Assn. of School Librarians. Some students question their identity and they come to me and ask about LGBTQ books. But the parents want to keep it quiet so the child is not harassed. This whole thing has turned my life upside down. Jones is on medical leave until next semester. A defamation suit she filed against two men, including one belonging to the conservative group Citizens for a New Louisiana, was dismissed. She said she will appeal. Last month, state Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, who is running for governor, announced a tip line for people to "protect" children and report library books that contain extremely graphic sexual content. Theyre using librarians again for their politics, said Jones, who is writing a book about her ordeal and forming a citizens alliance against censorship in the states 64 parishes. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. SCOTCH PLAINS - Three Park Avenue businesses have become voluntary safe places for victims of hate crimes, such as bullying, under a new initiative launched by the township. Under the Safe Place Initiative, any victim of a hate crime can go to the Social Status Co., 417 Park Ave., Black Drop Coffee, 431 Park Ave., or Stage House Tavern, 366 Park Ave. Owners and managers of the three businesses have received training from the Scotch Plains Police Department with two key responsibilities - immediately dial 911 and allow a victim to remain on premises until police arrive. The Safe Place Initiative relies on strong communication and cooperation between local police, local business and local social services agencies, Mayor Josh Losardo said. We have received a tremendous response in our community to launch this initiative, and we appreciate such an active collaboration to keep our residents protected from any form of hate. The Scotch Plains Police Department is the 332nd law enforcement agency in the United States, Canada and Europe to sign on to the program. There is no cost for businesses to join or maintain the program. The Safe Place Initiative, started by the Seattle Police Department in 2015, is for victims of all hate crimes involving race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, mental, physical, or sensory disabilities, homelessness, marital status, political ideology, age, or parental status. More:Scotch Plains man charged with attempted murder after shooting family member, say police We often say that hate has no home in Scotch Plains, Councilman Matt Adams said. Through the Safe Place Initiative, victims can be assured they have a place to go, to be heard, where they can be treated with dignity and respect. They will find a welcoming business, as well as the resources of our police officers, who will respond within minutes. Scotch Plains Police Chief Ted Conley said the three businesses have a "Safe Place" decal their front glass. Businesses must place the 4 by 6-inch decal at the main public entrance, three to five feet off the ground and be easily visible. Story continues All 25 Union County law enforcement agencies have committed to participating in the program, 23 being certified for the rollout, the chief said. More:Scotch Plains mayor says redevelopment 'will move forward in a very big way' in 2023 I am pleased and honored that Scotch Plains has welcoming businesses where victims can seek refuge while we are notified and can then promptly arrive to assist them, Conley said, adding Town Manager Al Mirabella worked closely with Union County Prosecutor William Daniel for Scotch Plains to be in the program. Any Scotch Plains business interested in becoming a Safe Place, or anyone in need of more information, can email spsafeplace@scotchplainspd.org. The police departments liaison is Sgt. Gerard Rites, Training/Support Services Supervisor, who can be reached at 908-322-7100 Ext. 140. Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com Mike Deak is a reporter for mycentraljersey.com. To get unlimited access to his articles on Somerset and Hunterdon counties, please subscribe or activate your digital account. This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Scotch Plains businesses become 'safe places' for hate crime victims FREEHOLD A Sea Bright police officer was arrested and charged with a series of crimes he allegedly committed against an ex-girlfriend, including stalking, making terroristic threats and cyber harassment, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said Friday. Erich A. Bennett, 46, of Sea Bright is charged with second-degree pattern of official misconduct, two counts of second-degree official misconduct, two counts of third-degree computer theft, third-degree criminal mischief, third-degree making terroristic threats, fourth-degree cyber harassment, fourth-degree hindering apprehension, fourth-degree identity theft and fourth-degree stalking, according to the announcement. An investigation revealed that Bennett and the victim, an adult woman, were in a brief relationship that the victim ended late last November, Santiago said. On Dec. 5, Bennett showed up unannounced to the woman's residence and threatened her with physical harm, prompting her to block him from contacting her electronically and to install security cameras outside her home, according to the release. On Jan. 8, the victim started to receive harassing and threatening messages on social media from an online persona, Santiago said, which the investigation connected to Bennett. The next weekend, as she was leaving her home, she noticed all of her car tires had been slashed, the news release said. Then, over the course of the weekend, she saw that her car had been keyed, a flagpole was torn off the front of her house and her Ring doorbell camera and two other security cameras had been removed. The investigation placed Bennett in the area of the victims residence at the suspected time of the incidents, Santiago said. The investigation also found that from October 2022 through January 2023, Bennett had accessed law-enforcement databases on more than 30 occasions for non-law-enforcement purposes, said Santiago. Bennett had specifically been accessing personal identifying information of the victim and other people she knew. Story continues Bennett was arrested without incident on Jan. 25, and is in the Monmouth County jail pending a detention hearing, scheduled to take place on Feb. 6 in Monmouth County Superior Court, according to the press release. The Prosecutors Office has filed a motion to keep him detained pending the resolution of the criminal case against him. We acknowledge that when incidents such as this occur, the trust bestowed to us by our residents and governing body may be called into question," Sea Bright Police Chief Brett M. Friedman said. "But know that the Sea Bright Police Department is dedicated to providing the highest level of service to all we are called to serve. Bennett is currently suspended without pay from his job as a Sea Bright police officer, said Santiago. The facts of this case highlight a pattern of disturbing behavior, Santiago said. When a law-enforcement officer so egregiously harms a member of the very public they are sworn to protect and serve, it necessitates a swift and diligent investigation and apprehension. The Prosecutor's Office is asking anyone who has information about Bennetts activities to contact MCPO Detective Ryan Mahony at 800-533-7443. 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: Sea Bright police officer arrested for stalking, harassing ex ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) Croatian police on Friday brought in for questioning several people over the disappearance last October of a luxury yacht from an Adriatic Sea marina where it was held as part of Western sanctions imposed on oligarchs with links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The disappearance of the 35-meter Irina Vu from the marina on the island of Murter was only recently noticed and reported by local media. The yacht reportedly sailed to Turkey and another one was left in its place. The incident has triggered public criticism of the authorities in Croatia. The luxury vessel was one of five impounded in the country because they belonged to Russia-linked tycoons who came under international sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The government has replaced officials in charge of coastal security and the Murter marina while also stepping up monitoring of the remaining yachts. The state HRT television said the missing yacht is worth around 5 million euros ($5.44 million.) Local media have reported that it belongs to the family of Russian metals magnate Alisher Usmanov and is apparently formally registered to his wife. Croatian police gave no details about the suspects or the investigation. The statement added that officers have been conducting searches in several locations, including the suspects' homes. Croatia is a popular yachting destination because of its stunning coastline and hundreds of islands. Local media have also questioned how the yacht could sail all the way to Turkey without being registered and checked along the way. Journalists note that the UAE is not interested in the origin of foreigners' funds According to the journalists, these former MPs are Natalia Korolevska, Vadym Stolar and Suto Mamoian. Read also: Four Ukrainian MPs to be deprived of deputys seats for holding Russian passports Journalists noted that these individuals have expressed that they feel protected in Dubai, because while financial monitoring is in place in the European Union, under the palm trees of the UAE, no one asks where the money comes from. Mamoian was spotted in the worlds largest shopping center, Dubai Mall, on Jan. 7. According to sources in business circles, he flew to Dubai for talks with representatives of a big bookmaker company, for which he is trying to solve problems, becoming an intermediary between the authorities and the owners. In turn, Stolar was spotted in the Russian restaurant Suvoroff. According to the Ukrainska Pravdas sources in diplomatic circles, the Ukrainian lawmaker even obtained a drivers license in the UAE, the re-port says. Only residents are eligible for this, so hes going to live in the Persian Gulf. Stolar is currently in Ukraine, but, sources say that he is trying to leave again and is negotiating with the authorities to get permission to leave the country. As for Korolevska, she lives with her family at the Address Beach Resort hotel in Dubai, according to the investigation. NV collage On Oct. 17, Korolevska and her husband, Yuriy Solod, were spotted in the office of Dubais largest developer, Emaar, Ukrainska Pravda said. Ukrainska Pravdas sources among the developers inform that the family had purchased real estate for more than $10 million. According to sources in Ukrainian intelligence, Korolevska was among those whom Viktor Medvedchuk (former pro-Kremlin head of OPZZh) advised staying in Ukraine and waiting for the occupation to immediately seize power. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine A man accused of shooting a woman in Pulaski County has been arrested in Illinois, the Pulaski County Sheriffs Office said Friday. Sonny Powell, 48, was arrested in Lombard, Ill., and is awaiting extradition back to Kentucky, according to the sheriffs office. Powell is being held at the DuPage County Detention Center in the meantime. Powell isnt facing any charges in Illinois, the sheriffs office said. Powell is accused of shooting a 44-year-old woman multiple times. The sheriffs office said Thursday that the woman was dropped off at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital by an unknown man. The woman eventually was taken to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital for treatment of her injuries, the sheriffs office said. Its not clear what her condition is. The sheriffs office identified Powell as the suspect after searching a residence on Normandy Lane in Somerset, where both Powell and the woman lived together, according to the sheriffs office. The extent of the relationship between Powell and the victim is unknown, the sheriffs office said. While searching the home, investigators found evidence that indicated the shooting happened there, according to the sheriffs office. A South Carolina man was arrested after being accused of stealing an elderly Hall County womans identity. Hall County Sheriff officials said between May 1st and Aug. 24th, 31-year-old Aaron Justin Williams of North Augusta used the name, date of birth and social security of a 65-year-old Braselton woman to open several bank accounts, obtain a credit card and take out loans over $15,000. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Authorities confirmed that Williams did not know the woman whose identity he stole. It is unclear how he obtained her information. The victim reported the crime on Aug. 10th, officials said, after she was alerted of suspicious activity that involved her identity from the credit union Williams used in South Carolina. TRENDING STORIES: Deputies obtained arrest warrants for Williams however he was incarcerated in South Carolina on Aug. 24th. Williams was booked into the Hall County Jail and charged with five counts of identity theft/fraud and one count of exploitation of an elderly person. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: SYDNEY, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Australia's peak consumer protection body, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has begun the sweep to identify misleading testimonials and endorsements by social media influencers after receiving more than 150 tip-offs. Following a request from the ACCC last week seeking community feedback, the watchdog said on Friday that they will look at more than 100 mentioned influencers who were reported to hide their affiliation with the product or company they are promoting. Most of those involved were in the beauty, lifestyle, parenting, and fashion categories, where influencer marketing is prevalent. The ACCC said the sweep will be run over the following weeks. A range of social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Facebook, and livestreaming service, Twitch, will be reviewed, as well as the role of other parties such as advertisers, marketers and brands in facilitating misconduct. "The number of tip-offs reflects the community concern about the ever-increasing number of manipulative marketing techniques on social media, designed to exploit or pressure consumers into purchasing goods or services," ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said. "The ACCC will not hesitate to take action where we see consumers are at risk of being misled or deceived by a testimonial, and there is potential for significant harm. This action may include following up misconduct with compliance, education and potential enforcement activities as appropriate." The watchdog noted that although many consumers are aware that influencers receive a financial benefit for promoting products and services, they remain concerned that influencers, advertisers and brands try to hide this fact from consumers, which prevents them from making informed choices. This can particularly apply to micro-influencers with smaller followings, as they can build and maintain a more seemingly authentic relationship with followers to add legitimacy to hidden advertising posts. "With more Australians choosing to shop online, consumers often rely on reviews and testimonials when making purchases," Cass-Gottlieb said. "It is important social media influencers are clear if there are any commercial motivations behind their posts," she added. "This includes those posts that are incentivized and presented as impartial but are not." SOUTH PLAINFIELD - An 81-year-old nursing home resident has been charged with reckless manslaughter in connection with assaulting another elderly resident, 91, who died from her injuries. Angel Bermontiz, 81, of Piscataway was charged Thursday with one count of reckless manslaughter, Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone announced. Around 3:40 p.m. Jan. 16, police received a 911 call about a combative patient at the AristaCare at Cedar Oaks nursing home and rehabilitation center on Durham Avenue. When police arrived, they found Bermontiz had been restrained in his bed by staff members, according to the prosecutor. Police were told that Bermowitz had just assaulted Clara Sutowski, 91, of South Plainfield, another nursing home resident. 'I'm sorry every day for my choices':South Jersey man gets 55 years in murder of Plainsboro co-worker Sutowski was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick where she later died, according to the prosecutor's office. An investigation by South Plainfield Detective Thomas Rutter and Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office Detective Jose Rosario determined Bermontiz allegedly slapped Sutowski. causing her to fall and hit her head on the floor, the prosecutor's office said. The investigation is continuing. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Thomas Rutter at 908- 755-0700 or Detective Jose Rosario at 732-745-4045. Email: srussell@gannettnj.com Suzanne Russell is a breaking news reporter for MyCentralJersey.com covering crime, courts and other mayhem. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: South Plainfield NJ nursing home resident charged in death State Senator Linda Stewart announced Friday that she has begun crafting a bill to address the increase in human trafficking across Florida. >>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<< Ive always advocated for human trafficking reform, and we cant wait any longer with peoples lives at stake, said Stewart. Im hoping that my legislation will see bipartisan support so we can work to put an end to trafficking across the state. pic.twitter.com/3VgVXdJlfb Linda Stewart (@LindaStewartFL) January 27, 2023 Stewart said the bill would promote awareness, expand training for law enforcement, and create a database to collect anonymous tips about suspected human trafficking incidents. Read: Police: Daytona man charged with human trafficking and drug possession Central Florida, with its large tourism population and many hotels, has long been favored by criminals in the human trafficking trade. Read: Human trafficking: 9 warning signs to look out for Stewart said the bill would also build off language in the Tenant Safety bill passed last legislative session. The law, also known as Miyas law, prohibited hourly rentals at certain lodging establishments. Stewart said she hopes the new legislation, with bipartisan support, will help end trafficking across Florida. VIDEO: Traffic stop leads to arrest of human trafficking According to the U.S. Department of State, there are an estimated 24.9 million victims of human trafficking worldwide at any given time. To report an occurrence or suspicion of human trafficking, contact local law enforcement and the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1(888) 373-7888. 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. Sitting on the bed inside my room at the Bowery Grand Hotel in New York City. Laura Casado/Insider I spent a night at the worst-rated hotel in New York City, the Bowery Grand Hotel. The room was the smallest and most modest I've stayed in, with a shared bathroom and few amenities. It only cost $95 and I thought the location was convenient, but I'd choose a nicer hotel next time. As a travel editor based in New York, I'm constantly on the hunt for hidden gems around the city especially if they're cheap. I like checking out hotels in my city to recommend to visiting friends and family. Laura Casado for Insider When it comes to hotels, New York has options for everyone, from boutique favorites to globally-known brands. There's also a spread of budget-friendly hotels to attract backpackers and no-frills travelers. But I've learned over the years that while it's great to save on a stay, cheap hotels are not always created equal. Saving on a nightly rate might mean sacrificing amenities like a private bathroom, complimentary breakfast, room service, and more. So, I was curious what a stay would be like at one of the city's cheapest hotels, the Bowery Grand Hotel, where room rates start at $53 per night, as of January 2023. One of the cheapest hotels in the city is also its lowest-rated: The Bowery Grand Hotel, located in downtown Manhattan. Downtown Manhattan is home to hundreds of hotels. Getty Images The Bowery Grand Hotel is a budget hotel, located at the intersection of Bowery Street and Broome Street in lower Manhattan, where three different neighborhoods meet: Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and Little Italy. Since there isn't one site that definitively ranks all NYC hotels, I based my research on Google Reviews. At 2.3 out of 5 stars awarded by 530 reviewers, as of Wednesday, the Bowery Grand is the lowest-rated among New York hotels with at least 120 reviews. The hotel had the same 2.3-star ranking when I booked my stay in December last year. The hotel has air-conditioning a plus if you're staying in the summer and 30 rooms, according to Expedia, across four floors. There are men-only shared dormitory rooms, private rooms with a double bed, and private rooms with a single bed. None of the rooms have private bathrooms and instead share communal bathrooms. Story continues I wasn't sure what to expect going into my stay, and was a bit wary after reading some online reviews. Across the street from the Bowery Grand Hotel. Laura Casado/Insider Before I arrived, reading reviews online made me a bit nervous. One reviewer who stayed at the hotel in November 2022 described the property as "absolutely a dump" that had "dirty bathrooms with no toilet paper." Other reviewers said they saw a "colony of drain flies"in the bathroom and described the rooms as "cage-like." Reading these reviews made me worried about how clean the property would be. I've stayed in hostels in the past, and am fine with no-frills lodgings, but I draw the line at dirty or unhygienic. Still, I wanted to experience the stay for myself. I booked my reservation through Expedia for a Monday night in December, for a private single room with a shared bathroom. It cost $80 and $15 tax, so the total booking was $95. I thought this cost was low compared to many other hotels in New York, especially considering that prices are typically expensive in December, according to US News, as it's a busy tourist holiday season. When I arrived at the hotel's address, it took me a moment to find the entrance since scaffolding initially blocked my view of the hotel sign. The scaffolding and banner sign outside of the hotel. Laura Casado/Insider I rode the J train from Brooklyn into the Bowery Street station and walked two blocks south to the hotel's address. Standing across the street from the Bowery Grand, I saw the hotel's sign and banner on the second floor. But I also saw that the ground floor of the building was a lighting shop, and I was initially confused about where to find the hotel's entrance. Then, I saw a paper sign reading "Private property, no trespassing" on a metal door to the left of the light shop. The paper was signed "Grand Hotel," which made me think that this door must be the entrance. I opened the door, and looked up to a two-story staircase. The staircase leading up to the hotel lobby. Laura Casado/Insider After opening the metal door, I was met with a small entryway that led to a set of stairs. There was a door to the left marked "Fire Dept," which I didn't think was the entrance to the hotel, so I went up the stairs. As I climbed the stairs, I still wasn't entirely sure I was in the right place since I didn't see signage anywhere that clearly indicated the Bowery Grand Hotel. Walking up the stairs, I noticed that the tiles on the floor were weathered and dirty, and several were missing. The floor of the landing at the top of the stairs. Laura Casado/Insider There were two flights of stairs, and no elevator or wheelchair-accessible option to get upstairs that I could see. On the steps and stair landings, I saw dirt, dust bunnies, and stains on the floor and walls. Representatives for the Bowery Grand Hotel did not respond to Insider's request for comment on the lack of cleanliness throughout the hotel. When I reached the top of the staircase, I turned right into the lobby. In the lobby, I walked up to a desk behind a half-window wall next to a few trash canisters, with no seating. The front desk at the Bowery Grand Hotel. Laura Casado/Insider The lobby at the Bowery Grand Hotel was one room with a front desk hidden largely behind a half-glass wall, which I thought looked like many of the barrier guards I've seen in delis and cafes around New York. I looked around and was surprised that the lobby didn't have any seating, decor, or furniture, either, other than several trash bins. I'm used to seeing a lobby with a waiting area when I visit a hotel, even at budget hostels where I've stayed in the past. I gave the clerk behind the counter my name, and he looked up my reservation. The clerk told me there was $20 deposit required for my room key, and that the deposit would be returned to me when I checked out the next morning by 11 a.m.. I paid cash for the $20, and the hotel clerk printed my receipt and handed me the room key, which was a physical key on a small keychain. He also unrolled and handed me about four feet of toilet paper to use for the shared bathrooms, and pointed out on the receipt I could find the free Wi-Fi network name and password. The clerk pointed me down a narrow hallway to the left of the lobby where I'd find my room. There were doors on both sides of the small hallway leading to the rooms. Laura Casado/Insider Given Bowery Grand's budget prices, I thought there might be a gathering space or shared living room like I've seen at other thrifty hotels and hostel-like stays in the past, but there wasn't one that I saw. Since I didn't see any other guests or a space to relax and mingle, I headed straight to my room. My room was on the same floor as the lobby, to the left and down a narrow hallway. The hallway lacked any art decoration and had minimal lighting. The door to my room was unlocked, and I opened it to reveal my lodgings for the evening. It was much smaller than I expected. Inside my room. Laura Casado/Insider I'd seen from reviews and photos online of the Bowery Grand that the rooms were modest and no-frills in terms of decor. But the photos I'd seen hadn't prepared me for just how small the single room was. The no-windows room was rectangular in shape, and there were just three pieces of furniture inside, including the bed. It reminded me of the sizing of Harry Potter's closet room under the stairs, but less cozy. Given that the bed was six feet long, I would estimate the room to be around 10 feet wide, at most. Besides the small twin bed, there was a white plastic trash can lined with a bag and a white side table. The furniture in my room. Laura Casado/Insider The room was minimally decorated with just a twin bed on a metal bed frame, white sheets, and an extra blanket and hand towel. At the foot of the bed was a white side table and a small plastic trash bin. Upon further inspection, I realized that the white side table was an old filing cabinet. The side table was actually a filing cabinet. Laura Casado/Insider The cabinet had a missing lower drawer, and it had been turned so the broken side faced the wall. I didn't plan on unpacking my small bag as I was only staying for one night, but I think I'd miss a storage option if I had a longer stay. On the bed, I was provided with white sheets, one pillow in a white pillowcase, and a folded brown blanket and white towel. There was a brown blanket and white hand towel folded on the bed. Laura Casado/Insider The bed was already fitted with a white bottom sheet and the pillow with a pillowcase, but there was no top sheet. I was given a brown blanket folded on the bed, and a white hand towel. The mattress felt soft and the metal bed frame squeaked slightly when I sat down. I felt a bit uneasy to notice that the sheets looked worn and stained, and the white hand towel also looked old and overused. I set down my overnight bag and connected to the Wi-Fi on my phone. It was a strong connection I played Spotify and YouTube without any delays or glitches. A fan hung from the ceiling near the door, and there was a strip light on the wall. The strip light on the wall inside the room. Laura Casado/Insider I read on Expedia that the hotel had air conditioning, and inside my room, there was also a fan with a pull switch hanging from the ceiling near the door. On the door-side of the room, a light switch connected to a cool-toned strip light near the top of the wall, which was the only light source inside the room. A plastic toothbrush, toothpaste, and small bar of soap were waiting for me in the room. There was a free toothbrush, toothpaste, and small bar of soap in the room. Laura Casado/Insider The light switch was also where I found the only power outlet in the room. Balancing on it were a plastic toothbrush, a small toothpaste packet, and a small bar of soap. I later realized, after going to the shared bathrooms down the hallway, that this soap was to be used as my personal hand soap. I thought it was a nice gesture to be given these items by the hotel for free. In most hotels where I've stayed, there's also typically been a free mini shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and body lotion, but not usually a toothbrush and paste. I wanted to check out the communal bathroom, so I left my room and locked the door behind me. I followed signs leading down the hallway away from the lobby, and looped around into a new hallway with several shared bathrooms. The hallway with the shared bathrooms. Laura Casado/Insider Curving around, I saw the doors of the shared bathrooms. There were four bathrooms in total, each next to the other. Later over the phone, a hotel employee told me that there are shared bathrooms on each floor of the hotel. The first bathroom was marked "out of order," so I entered the second door. Inside, there was a toilet, sink, and walk-in shower. One of the shared bathrooms. Laura Casado/Insider I knew that the shared bathroom in one of New York's cheapest hotels would likely be bare bones, but I was disappointed to see that the bathroom looked like it hadn't been thoroughly cleaned in some time. It was also small, and had just enough room for one person to move around. I also noticed that there was a paint bucket used as a trash can on the floor, and no mirror above the sink. I brought the toilet paper the hotel clerk had given me, as there were no extra rolls in the bathroom. There also wasn't any hand soap, a hand dryer, or drying towels, so I used the soap from my room and let my hands air-dry after using hand sanitizer I brought with me. At least the water from the sink had good pressure and was hot, and I never had to wait in line to use the bathroom. Opening the shower door, I saw the floor appeared to be stained and dirty. The floor of the stand-up shower. Laura Casado/Insider The shower door didn't have a handle, and instead had a rope tied through the missing handle hole to use to pull the door open. Like the rest of the bathroom, the inside of the shower appeared to be dirty. I saw what looked like stains and dirt on the walls, and mildew on the grout around the edge of the floor. I decided to skip my usual evening shower routine. I left the hotel to explore the surrounding area, and found a variety of casual restaurants within a few blocks. I found casual restaurants and cafes just a few minutes away from the hotel. Laura Casado/Insider While the Wi-Fi was working well on my phone, it didn't have as strong a connection on my laptop. So, I set out to find a cafe with seating and Wi-Fi to use my laptop before I was ready to settle in for the night. As I walked along the streets surrounding the hotel, I noticed that they were filled with restaurants, cafes, and bakeries. There were several Chinese, Thai, and Taiwanese restaurants, as well as Chinese bakeries. I also walked by a fish market and two corner grocery stores with stands of fresh produce. All of these businesses were within a few minutes' walk of the Bowery Grand, so I thought they'd be convenient to access if hotel guests were looking for a bite to eat nearby. Just a few blocks away, I found a cafe called Granddaddy that served coffee and pastries, and sat down to catch up on some work. After, I took a quick walk to McNally Jackson bookstore to browse books before heading back to the hotel around 8 p.m. When I got back to the hotel, the front-desk clerk flagged me down and offered a whole roll of toilet paper. The second shared bathroom I went into had a mirror above the sink. Laura Casado/Insider I thought it was generous of the clerk to give me a whole roll of toilet paper, out of the blue. I went into a different shared bathroom on my same floor, and found that this one had a vanity mirror above the sink. This bathroom didn't seem any cleaner than the first, however, and I still saw dirt and dust on the floor and in the shower stall. I brushed my teeth quickly, and washed my hands with soap and water. As a contact lens wearer, I'm prone to eye infections, and didn't feel comfortable taking out my lenses in the bathroom. So I returned to my room to use hand sanitizer before removing my contacts and makeup, and hoped I wouldn't need to use the bathroom overnight. Around 9:30 p.m., I turned off the light to get some sleep. I could touch both sides of my rooms sitting on the bed. Laura Casado/Insider Back in my room, I listened to music on my phone, but there wasn't much else to do but go to sleep. I was surprised it wasn't very loud inside my room, especially because the hotel is in a relatively busy area and the walls of my room seemed thin. I could hear one person coughing in a room down the hall, and what sounded like a washing machine perpetually running on the floor above. But I didn't hear any street traffic or noise from outside, likely because my room was tucked into the center of the building without a window. A hotel employee later told me over the phone that in the past, some street-facing rooms had windows, but now, those rooms aren't available and none of the available rooms have windows. The employee didn't specify what the street-facing rooms are used for now. It was also a comfortable temperature in my room, neither too hot or too cold. I didn't see a radiator or device to adjust the temperature, so I assumed the whole building had a central heating system that the hotel management adjusted. But it was hard to relax because I didn't feel totally comfortable or at ease in the tiny room. Luckily, though, I was tired after a long workday and eventually dozed off. The next morning, I checked out at 8:30 a.m., and received back my $20 cash deposit. The lobby the morning I checked out. Laura Casado for Insider I slept throughout the night, but woke up feeling a bit groggy and not as well-rested as I usually feel at home. I used the bathroom quickly and got dressed. Check out time was 11 a.m., but I left around 8:30 a.m. to get to work. In the end, my stay at the Bowery Grand was about as no-frills as I expected, and I could see why other past guests gave it a low ranking on Google. Overall, I think the only pros of the Bowery Grand Hotel are its price and location. The Bowery Grand Hotel. Laura Casado/Insider While it was interesting to see what it was like to stay at New York City's worst-rated hotel, I was disappointed by the Bowery Grand's overall lack of cleanliness and won't be back. I also think that at $95 a night, it's overpriced for what you get, considering the only amenities are the free Wi-Fi, air-conditioning, and travel-sized toiletries. Still, the Bowery Grand does have a great central location that makes it convenient to get to other areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Read the original article on Insider A man is accused of luring a 12-year-old with water before sexually assaulting her at an Atlanta-area park, authorities in Georgia say. Now hes behind bars. The incident happened just before 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21, at Shaw Park in Marietta, according to the Cobb County Police Department. Investigators said the man, identified as Douglas Darch, approached the girl and offered her a water bottle as she was walking in the woods. The child told police she started to feel dizzy and tingle after taking a sip from the seemingly unopened bottle. Thats when Darch is accused of threatening her with a knife and molesting her, police said in an arrest warrant. Its not clear what was in the water bottle or if the girl was at the park by herself. Authorities said Darch is homeless, WSB-TV reported. He was booked into jail on multiple charges, including felony aggravated child molestation, aggravated assault, child cruelty, terroristic threats and child molestation, online records show. He remained held without bond as of Jan. 27. Marietta is about 20 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta. If you have experienced sexual assault and need someone to talk to, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for support at 1-800-656-4673 or visit the hotline's online chatroom. Employee groped his coworkers and flashed teen customers, feds say. Company to pay Custodian holding razor told student hed cut him into pieces, Florida cops say Man accused of groping woman at restaurant says his arrest is a Me Too thing, cops say There have been several films about the transgender community in New York. Paris Is Burning and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson are just two films that remain topical. However, a Black transwoman is rarely at the helm of these films, turning the lens on herself and history, enabling her to take back her narrative. With The Stroll, actress/ activist Kristen Lovell and her co-director, Zackary Drucker, examine the decade Lovell spent on The Stroll. This was a strip in New York Citys Meatpacking District on 14th street between Ninth Avenue and the Hudson River. From the 1970s until the beginning of the 21st century, transgender sex workers worked, lived, and died on The Stroll until it was paved over and erased. With her soothing tone, Lovell talks openly about her experiences. She also interviews other women, including Egyptt LaBeija, Lady P, Ceyenne Doroshow, and countless others who dated on The Stroll for years. All topics are up for discussion. The women open up about the hardships they experienced, from being thrown out of their family homes to being attacked while working. These women are the very few that survived. Many of these stories are devastating. However, The Stroll is also infused with humor and moments of levity. Looking back on their time on The Stroll, the women discuss the camaraderie they shared as they learned to survive. Drucker and Lovell also highlight activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who gave everything to offer a better path forward for young trans women, sex workers, and non-binary people like them. Yet The Stroll goes even deeper than that. With Lovell acting as a guide, the show addresses the tensions between the transgender and the gay and lesbian communities, especially when it came to speaking out against violence and attacks. One standout though shocking moment is a clip of a young RuPaul, who saunters down The Stroll, interviewing girls in almost a mocking tone that reeks of disgust and cruelty. For transpeople, especially those who made their living through sex work, being marginalized within their community emboldened them to stand up for themselves and each other. The death of a young trans woman named Amanda Milan in 2000 at New York Citys Port Authority in front of hundreds of onlookers became a turning point in the community. Story continues While the reality of trans life and sex workers lives are the heart of The Stroll, the history of New York City, especially its laws and politics, frames the story. Lovell and Drucker illustrate the Meatpacking District as it once was. The streets were sparse, with the smell of rotten meat wafting through the air. However, the unjust policies of Mayor Richard Giuliani (1994-2001) and the attacks that the women were constantly under from NYPDs 6th prescient (who often were also clients) began to make things more volatile for sex workers. The film also unpacks Mayor Michael Bloombergs (2002-2013) policies and the gentrification that stormed the city following September 11, 2001. Bloombergs laws pushed many sex workers off the streets and often into jail, allowing luxury retail and housing to come into Meatpacking. At one point in the film, Lovell says, I cant believe how many times I had to go to jail for this Highline Park to be built. Lovell and Drucker use stunning 2-D animation to recreate the past. In one striking scene, a former sex worker named Tabaytha recalls her incarceration from 1998 to 2012. Upon returning to The Stroll following her release, she stumbled into a completely transformed neighborhood and learned that most of her friends were dead. The Strolls North Star is the films ability to address trans erasure, not just in the Meatpacking District, but in society overall. A tribute to the trans girls and women who are no longer here, The Stroll is a history lesson and a wake-up call for many who act as if trans rights and visibility are just hot topics. A beautifully done and frank documentary, The Stroll is a reminder that trans people, sex workers, and those who exist in between wont be destroyed, no matter how hard society (and the city of New York) may try to blot them out. The Stroll premiered on Jan. 23, 2023, at Sundance Film Festival. The post The Stroll Review: Is A Beautifully Frank Documentary About Trans Sex Workers and The City Who Tried To Erase Them (Sundance) appeared first on Shadow And Act. If the Supreme Court strikes down the presidents student loan forgiveness program, the Biden administration has no plan B yet beyond its already-announced 60-day extension of its payment pause for the millions of borrowers who would otherwise be eligible for cancellation. [Were] not deliberating or considering any other approach, Bharat Ramamurti, the deputy director of the National Economic Council, told reporters in an embargoed briefing on Thursday. Our lawyers and team are confident in the legal authority. [Were] not exploring other alternatives. Borrower advocates hoped that, if the relief plan was overturned, the administration would further extend the payment pause that expires two months after the end of June or when litigation is resolved. Others said the administration could make the requirement for forgiveness under a particular income-driven repayment plan easier, or potentially assert authority under a 1965 act to push through debt cancellation. "If the Supreme Court follows the law, there is no need for a plan B, Eden Iscil, a public policy manager at the National Consumers League, told Yahoo Finance. The White House has also demonstrated a commitment to protecting borrowers by pausing repayment until litigation is resolved. This payment and interest pause should stay in effect until debt cancellation is implemented to prevent waves of confused borrowers from falling into delinquency and default." The revelation leaves the more than 26 million borrowers who have already applied for cancellation or have been automatically approved on edge before the highest court in the nation hears arguments at the end of February and likely delivers a ruling on forgiveness in June. "Most currently do not know when they will start making payments again, whether any of their debt will be forgiven, or what their next monthly payment will be," said Katherine McKay, associate director of insights and evidence at the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program. "Waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the case is nerve-wracking for millions of borrowers who need help and are looking for reassurance." Story continues US President Joe Biden speaks about student debt relief at Central New Mexico Community College Student Resource Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on November 3, 2022. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images) In November, the Education Department (ED) stopped taking applications for student loan forgiveness after a Texas federal district court judge ruled the program is a violation of legislative power and the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit Appellate Court imposed an injunction in a separate case. Shortly after, the Biden Administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the program. Earlier this month, the DOJ filed its brief on behalf of ED with the Supreme Court. In the Texas case, the DOJ argued that the HEROES Act of 2003 gave the Education Secretary the authority to cancel the debt, while the state of Missouri lacks standing to sue in the 8th Circuit case. Despite the obstacles, borrower advocates were confident the administration could pursue other avenues of relief if forgiveness fell through. The U.S. Department of Education has done a very good job of demonstrating that the plaintiffs lack legal standing [and] if a plaintiff lacks legal standing, the case cannot be considered on the merits, Mark Kantrowitz, author and student loan expert, told Yahoo Finance. However, if the U.S. Supreme Court were to consider the case on the merits, the U.S. Department of Education is more likely than not to lose its case. Even if the Biden Administration loses in court, there are options for a Plan B or Plan C to provide some amount of financial relief, Kantrowitz said. Plan B is to continue the payment pause and interest waiver indefinitely for as long as President Biden is in office. Plan C is more complicated, he said. What plans B and C could be As a result of the litigation, President Biden extended the payment pause on federal student loans until June 30, 2023. If litigation has not been resolved by then, payments will begin 60 days after that. Plan B would simply extend federal forbearance while Biden is in office, even though that's an imperfect solution, according to advocates. The major reason proponents have argued for loan forgiveness is that historically default increases 20-fold after periods of nonpayment such as during the payment pause making economic hardship worse with longer periods of non-payment. This is exactly what student debt relief plans to avoid a projected wave of delinquency and default," Abby Shafroth, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) and director of the Student Loan Borrowers Assistance Project, said in a separate press call for advocates filing amicus briefs. WASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 25: Student loan borrowers stage a rally in front of The White House to celebrate President Biden cancelling student debt and to begin the fight to cancel any remaining debt on August 25, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We the 45m) A Plan C could provide forgiveness under the income-contingent repayment plan offered by the federal government after five to 10 years of on-time payments instead of the current 25 years using the Education Departments regulatory rule-making authority, according to Kantrowitz. This is not a theoretical exercise because its been done before with repayment plans, he said. This is more likely to survive a court challenge because its through the regulatory process. Kantrowitzs proposal could greatly increase the number of borrowers who achieve forgiveness through this income-driven payment (IDR) plan, some advocates said. Since the first IDR plan became available in 1995, only a few dozen individuals have received debt cancellation, Iscil said. To put this in comparison, there's roughly two million borrowers who have been in repayment for over 20 years and still have outstanding debt. Still, that would fall far short of the amount of relief Bidens forgiveness plan thats being litigated would bring since this plan only applies to certain federal loans. This is not a substitute for addressing the underlying structural problems with debt repayment that burdens millions of individuals nationwide, Iscil said. A much weaker plan D In addition to the HEROES Act, Iscil said the administration has the authority to implement debt cancellation under the Higher Education Act of 1965. The administration has not yet utilized the Higher Education Act's authority to achieve widespread debt cancellation, Iscil said. This is an option available to them. Not all borrower advocates agree. The claims that the president has the authority to forgive student loans are based on a misreading of the Higher Education Act of 1965 [and] taken out of context, Kantrowitz said. When Congress authorizes a loan forgiveness program, the U.S. Secretary of Education has the authority to forgive student loans as authorized under the terms of these loan forgiveness programs. Without authorization by Congress of a specific loan forgiveness program, the president does not have the authority to forgive student loan debt under the Higher Education Act, Kantrowitz said. That claim is much weaker. Many advocates believe if the Supreme Court follows the law, there will be no need for a Plan B, C, or D. I am confident that the court will see through these sham lawsuits, Persis S. Yu, deputy executive director of Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC), told Yahoo Finance. As more than a dozen amicus briefs attested to just two weeks ago, cancellation is both legal and necessary to help millions of our most vulnerable student loan borrowers bounce back from the economic challenges of the pandemic and help build an economy that works for all workers and families. Ronda is a personal finance senior reporter for Yahoo Finance and attorney with experience in law, insurance, education, and government.Follow her on Twitter @writesronda Click here for the latest personal finance news to help you with investing, paying off debt, buying a home, retirement, and more Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance Download the Yahoo Finance app for Apple or Android Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, and YouTube Parents voiced feelings of disappointment, frustration and fear at the Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board of Education meeting Thursday night after learning three days earlier that Superintendent Eric Olson had submitted his resignation. The Board formally approved Olsons resignation at their meeting in a 4-3 vote. Board President Denise Pearl and members Nicole Woitowich and Larry Ryles voted no, while Secretary Phyllis Lubinski, Vice President Carol Sales and members Tom Sotos and Gareth Kennedy voted yes. Many parents and community members who addressed the board during public comment said they feared that Olsons resignation would damage the reputation of the district, particularly on the heels of a rocky year that included conflicts over masking and vaccination requirements and changes to school traditions. We are currently not stable; we are possibly not even civil, parent Beth Rankin said. How do we show up for our educators now and going forward? District 64 first told parents Monday, via an email from Olson and a follow-up email from the Board, that Olson would leave his position, citing irreconcilable differences between Board and superintendent. The resignation took place on the heels of two board meetings that saw intense public comment. At the Nov. 17 meeting, according to previous reporting, parents condemning an attempt to move the Holiday Sing (a December concert) to become the Spring Sing called on the board to fire Olson, with one speculating that he was a pagan, a satan worshipper or downright evil. Olson had said the music teachers desired to move the concert later into the school year to give students more time to make progress. Other parents at that meeting voiced their dissatisfaction with how the district had handled pandemic mitigations and vaccination requirements, which exploded almost a year ago at a February 2022 Board meeting. Per previous reporting, tensions rose high enough that police were asked to be present at schools the next morning for security. Story continues At the Dec. 15 meeting, parents who supported Olsons work in the district packed the meeting to voice their approval of his implementation of full-day kindergarten in the district, his work on the strategic plan through 2026 and his leadership throughout the pandemic. At the Jan. 26 board meeting, parents asked that the board wait until after the April 4 elections, in which four seats on the board are up for possible turnover, to select a successor to Olson. I ask that the board recuse themselves from selecting his successor and allow the next board to have that task, Kristen Olson, no relation to the superintendent, said during her public comment. A clean slate will be good for everybody. Parent Rachel Georgakis expressed her fear that Olsons resignation just months after the board had unanimously renewed his contract in August 2022 would impact the effectiveness of the search for the districts next leader. Parent Nicole Birmingham echoed that fear, saying shes a teacher in Lake County and that the word is out there that District 64 is not a good place to come to; its not a good place to work. Its not a nice place to be a superintendent. Local activist Nan Parson echoed many of the same points other commenters had made and wished Olson the best for the rest of his career. Olson told Pioneer Press Tuesday he was not leaving for a specific new opportunity. I hope he finds a community that is welcoming and friendly, Parson said. Unlike Park Ridge. New details were released about how Gulfport police found a person bound and with multiple gunshot wounds Thursday in the wounds off Old Highway 49. The victim is in stable condition, and the suspects are in custody in Louisiana, police said. It started in Vicksburg, continued in Gulfport and ended in Gonzales, Louisiana, where a spokeswoman for the Gonzales Police Department said eight people were detained. According to the Vicksburg Post, the spokeswoman said officers were contacted Thursday by Gulfport police detectives about a manhunt related to a home invasion, the shooting of a current or former law enforcement officer in Vicksburg and home burglaries in the Gulfport area. The Vicksburg Post identified the shooting victim as Mike Ouzts. His Facebook page says he is a former Warren County Sheriffs deputy. Gulfport police said they were contacted by a citizen who saw something strange and called the police about suspicious activity at 2:14 a.m. Thursday. Officers arrived at the scene and located a vehicle reported stolen by Vicksburg police. The officers were approached by a person later identified as Logan Delena, who fled on foot and is one of the suspects in custody in Gonzales. Gulfport investigators contacted Vicksburg police, who said the vehicle was involved in a suspicious missing person case in their area. Thursday afternoon police searched the wooded area near where the vehicle was found looking for more stolen items. Near Temple Baptist Church, they found the victim bound and shot. The victim was transported to a local area hospital. Through the investigation by the Harrison County Sheriffs Office, Vicksburg police, Gulfport police and the Gonzalez Police Department in Louisiana, the suspects were found and taken into custody in Gonzales. The suspects are facing charges in Gonzales resulting from their apprehension, according to the press release. They then will be extradited back to Mississippi to face multiple felony charges out of Vicksburg, according to Gulfport Police. PredragImages / Getty Images No one ever said doing your taxes was easy. According to CNBC, the IRS estimates that the average taxpayer spends about 12 hours on their tax return and spends an average of $230 on tax software or professional tax preparers to help out. With a complicated filing process and tax code, it is easy to make mistakes. See: How 2023 Recession Will Differ From 2008 and How You Should Prepare Differently Read: 3 Ways Smart People Save Money When Filing Their Taxes Do You Have a Tax Question? Ask a Tax Pro This week marks the official beginning of tax season. The filing deadline to submit 2022 tax returns (or an extension to file and pay tax owed) is Tuesday, April 18, 2023. Taxpayers requesting an extension will have until Monday, Oct. 16, 2023, to file. While the IRS will sometimes correct errors it finds during processing, more often than not, filing an incorrect return means youll have to file an amended one later and maybe pay a penalty along with it. So, when the time comes to sit down and work on your taxes, make sure you double check your returns for little mistakes that could end up costing you big. A small error in a Social Security Number can delay if not stop a refund from being issued, said Scott Kadrlik, a CPA and managing partner at Meuwissen, Flygare, Kadrlik & Associates. A bank account error will delay refunds for a long time. Here are some of the most common mistakes that taxpayers make on their returns and things you should triple check before filing. Negligent Errors Carelessness leads to one of the most common mistakes: putting in wrong information, whether its your Social Security number, bank account number, or even your name and birth date (yes, this happens). Makes sure to check you have the right filing status identified, too. The IRS Interactive Tax Assistant can help you choose the right filing status. One mistake that has become a lot more common during the COVID-19 pandemic is that many taxpayers are using expired ID numbers to file their taxes. You need an ID that is not expired, we see that a lot especially because of the pandemic, they forget that they did not renew their license, Camille Fields, a tax pro with Jackson Hewitt in Ohio, told ABC6/FOX28. Story continues Tax forms can be confusing, so always pay extra attention to the instructions. And, in your haste to rid your house of tax forms and get them into the hands of the IRS, dont forget to sign and date your forms! Math Mistakes Tax preparation software does all the dreaded math calculations for e-filers and is recommended by the IRS. But when manually filing your return, keep an eye out for pesky math errors these are among the most common mistakes found by the IRS. Pretend that you are back in school, and double-check your work to make sure your addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc., arrive at the correct amounts. The IRS finds millions of math errors on returns every year. Besides basic miscalculations, taxpayers stumble with choosing incorrect figures from tax tables or schedules and make inconsistent entries and inaccurate limit amounts. Missing Income or Deductions Another common mistake is not including all of your income. This is especially relevant in the age of the side hustle when many Americans earn extra money in their spare time to supplement their main source of income. A lot of people arent aware that its not just W-2 income, its self-employment which includes your side gigs. Unemployment [benefits are] also taxable as well, noted Fields. Some taxpayers also forget to include interest, dividend and investment income all of which need to be included in your total income. Make sure you have all your income sources accounted for before signing and filing your return. Things like missing insurance, taxes or depreciation on a rental, depreciation or home office on self-employed business, or sales tax deduction as an itemized deduction, are common things that Dan Henn, a CPA in Rockledge, Florida, notices especially on do-it-yourself returns. Charitable contributions are also fertile territory for mistakes. One common mistake occurs when you receive a benefit in exchange for your donation, such as tickets to an event. In this case, you need to deduct the fair market value of the tickets from your charitable contribution, according to Bloomberg Tax. Take Our Poll: How Much of a Tax Refund Do You Expect in 2023? More: Social Security Benefits May Be Taxable Cryptocurrency Tax Reporting A mistake that occurs with increasing frequency these days is failing to report cryptocurrency transactions. As Bloomberg Tax noted, crypto is treated as property for federal income tax purposes. Any capital gain or loss on virtual currency transactions must be recognized on your return. Keep an eye out for the updated crypto question on the first page of Form 1040: At any time during 2022, did you (a) receive (as a reward, award, or payment for property or services); or (b) sell, exchange, gift, or otherwise dispose of a digital asset (or a financial interest in a digital asset)? If you answered yes to this question, you should report all of your taxable cryptocurrency transactions on your tax return. Typically, your crypto capital gains and losses are reported using IRS Form 8949, Schedule D and Form 1040. Your should include ordinary crypto income using 1040 Schedule 1 or Schedule C if your earnings come from self-employment. More From GOBankingRates This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Taxes 2023: Common Mistakes You Want To Avoid as the Tax Filing Season Opens Taylor Swift surprised fans this week with a steamy new video, but its her handsome co-star who has captured the lions share of the internet buzz. True to form, Swift unveiled her video for Lavender Haze the opening track of her acclaimed Midnights album exactly at midnight on Friday. Her love interest in the video is played by Laith Ashley, a transgender actor, model and activist. Written and directed by Swift, the video shows the 11-time Grammy winner in bed beside a shirtless Ashley, who doubles as a TV weatherman. Later, the two are seen canoodling at a party and on a dance floor bathed in purple strobe lights and fog. In an Instagram post announcing the premiere of Lavender Haze, Swift said she absolutely adored working with Ashley, who is Dominican American and was raised in New York. Watch the Lavender Haze video below. There is lots of lavender. There is lots of haze, she wrote. This was the first video I wrote out of the three that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights, like a sultry sleepless 70s fever dream. Hope you like it. Ashley, meanwhile, said appearing in Swifts video was a truly magical experience that he will never forget. Your storytelling abilities through your music and visuals continue to leave me in awe, inspired, and hopeful, he wrote on Instagram. Thank you for being an ally. Representation matters. AND LOVE WILL ALWAYS WIN! Ashleys casting which is certainly groundbreaking in a music video released by a pop musician of Swifts stature drew praise from fans and LGBTQ advocacy groups alike. Okay @laith_ashley looking sexy as hell in the new Taylor Swift video Corey Lay (@CoreyLay) January 27, 2023 To see @laith_ashley, an out trans man, costar in this Taylor video is so incredible: https://t.co/XSKqmrd4Efhttps://t.co/3JOY02GDRt GLAAD (@glaad) January 27, 2023 The love interest in Taylor Swifts new Lavender Haze music video is trans model and artist Laith Ashley. At a time when trans rights are increasingly under attack, this representation is major. pic.twitter.com/5n1F6aSGiP Ashley Spencer (@AshleyySpencer) January 27, 2023 Though Lavender Haze will undoubtedly be remembered as a breakout moment for Ashley, his star has been on the rise for some time. Story continues Having been featured in British GQ and Vogue France, the 33-year-old has been heavily focused on acting lately, landing minor roles on TV series like Pose and Strut. Hell soon be seen alongside Rumer Willis in the comedy film My Divorce Party. Speaking to The Advocate in 2021, Ashley said he was grateful for the opportunities hes thus far been given in Hollywood but stressed that theres still a lot of work to be done about transgender representation in show business. Theres training that needs to be done around language; theres training that needs to be done around trans people in general, he explained. Ive read character breakdowns for TV and film that misgenders the individual ... [and] sometimes, not all the time, it does feel like tokenism ... Theyre not really trying to understand. Theyre just like: Oh, theyre calling for diversity, so if we put a trans person in as this character, well get funded. Laith Ashley at the 2022 Outfest Legacy Awards Gala in Los Angeles. The actor had the internet abuzz after his featured guest appearance in the new Taylor Swift music video for her song Laith Ashley at the 2022 Outfest Legacy Awards Gala in Los Angeles. The actor had the internet abuzz after his featured guest appearance in the new Taylor Swift music video for her song "Lavender Haze." Related... ISLAMABAD, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a symbol of Pakistan's all-weather strategic cooperative partnership with China, is a cornerstone of the South Asian country's peaceful growth and economic prosperity, according to Pakistani officials. Launched in 2013, CPEC is a corridor linking the Gwadar port in southwestern Pakistan with Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which highlights energy, transport and industrial cooperation. Romina Khurshid Alam, convener of the National Parliamentary Task Force on Sustainable Development Goals, told Xinhua CPEC is a reflection of the long-standing Pakistan-China ironclad friendship, which has grown deeper and deeper. "Pakistan-China relations have transformed into a strong economic partnership owing to CPEC. With CPEC moving in the right direction, a prosperous and peaceful future for Pakistan is promised," the lawmaker said. Alam said CPEC has achieved extraordinary milestones over the past several years. A number of development projects under the framework of CPEC have been bringing about socio-economic benefits for the people of Pakistan. Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Aisha Ghaus Pasha said CPEC proved to be a game changer for Pakistan, founding a strong base for peace, development and win-win cooperation between China and Pakistan. "It (CPEC) helped Pakistan to do away with the severe energy crisis by implementing various power projects across the country, building state-of-the-art road infrastructure, and operationalizing deep-sea Gwadar Port, creating business opportunities in Gwadar and along CPEC highways," Pasha told Xinhua. As CPEC has moved toward the second phase of high-quality development, the two neighbors have been cooperating in the fields of health, industry, agriculture, information technology and social welfare, she said. With enhanced cooperation with China in a variety of fields, Pakistan has been learning from the Chinese model of inclusive growth and implementing it in Pakistan to enhance socio-economic development, she added. Mushahid Hussain Syed, chairman of Pakistani Senate's Defense Committee, told Xinhua that CPEC is a framework of regional connectivity, benefiting not only Pakistan and China, but would be favorable for central Asian countries as Pakistan offers the shortest route to international seas through its southern port of Karachi and Gwadar port. Being a vital national project of Pakistan, CPEC would not only facilitate economic connectivity of Pakistan beyond South Asia, but drive the movement of people across the regions, promoting people-to-people exchanges, cultural activities, trade, businesses and investments, as well as helping countries to build more integrated region of shared destiny, harmony and development, the senator said. He said the countries are currently focusing on geo-economics for shared prosperity rather than security-centric policies, adding that the emerging connectivity has been providing enormous opportunities for regional development. Sen. Ted Cruz has previously advocated for the continued decentralization of cryptocurrency. Theres no such thing as a free lunch (or snack) and Texas Senator Ted Cruz knows this, which is why the conservative wants to bring cryptocurrency into Congress. On Wednesday, Cruz introduced the ACCEPT Resolution, which stands for Adopting Cryptocurrency in Congress as an Exchange of Payment for Transactions Resolution. If adopted, the resolution could see the U.S. government contracting with food vendors and vending machine operators that accept cryptocurrency. The ACCEPT Resolution is not a bill, but a concurrent resolution, which are used to make or amend rules for the House and Senate, meaning that the ACCEPT Resolution wouldnt apply to any vending machines or food sales outside of the Capitol property. Read more A concurrent resolution requiring the Architect of the Capitol, the Secretary of the Senate, and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives to contract with food service contractors and vending machine contractors for the Capitol Complex that accept cryptocurrency, and for other purposes, the resolution reads. The resolution doesnt specify any types of cryptocurrency, if the resolution will bar cash or card payments, or what the timeline could be for this resolution. Cruzs office did not immediately return Gizmodos request for comment. According to CoinTelegraph, Cruz has been a vocal advocate for cryptocurrency in the past. Specifically, the senator has rallied behind the decentralization of Bitcoin, stating on Twitter that The Left hates Bitcoin because they cant control it. Cruz also reportedly purchased an investment in Bitcoin early last year that was somewhere in the ballpark of $15,000 to $50,000. The ACCEPT Resolution is a resolution with a bizarrely small scope, and the next steps are for the Senate and House to agree (or disagree) on whether or not to implement it. The resolution does not need the approval of President Joe Biden. Story continues More from Gizmodo Sign up for Gizmodo's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Memphis is a city well-versed in trauma and too often steeped in sorrow. Friday, those feelings were amplified along with others, including righteous anger and justifiable disgust during the gap between what might be labeled two major "events" in the government response to the death of Tyre Nichols, one that occurred the day before, the other scheduled for Friday evening. Thursday, five police officers or former police officers, since they had been fired the week before were arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Nichols, 29, who died of injuries Jan. 10, three days after a "confrontation" after a traffic stop in Southeast Memphis led to what prosecutors characterized as a lethal beating near his mother's home from police. Family and supporters of Tyre Nichols gathered for a candlelight vigil in honor of him on Jan. 26, 2023 at Tobey Skatepark in Memphis. Tyre Nichols case: What is second-degree murder in Tennessee? Tyre Nichols death: How to navigate news coverage, social media as footage releases Also Thursday, officials said a video of the beating constructed from footage captured by police body-cams and "SkyCop" cameras will be released after 6 p.m. Friday. "Many of us are wondering how our community will respond and are concerned about it," said J. Lawrence Turner, pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church at 70 N. Bellevue, where the public "Celebration of Life" service for Nichols is scheduled to take place at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. "My thought is that we should honor the request of his family, who as recently as this afternoon called for there to be nonviolent protest," said Turner, 41. "In this situation in particular, when the people who have lost the most feel that way, we should respect their wishes." Secular officialdom, however, seems less than confident that citizens will honor the request of RowVaughn Wells, Nichols' mother, who has urged people to "protest in peace." Their uncertainty is based on the reportedly "heinous" content of the video. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch described the footage as "absolutely appalling... I'm shocked and sickened by what I saw." Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis said the "heinous" video reveals "acts that defy humanity" and is about the same if not worse than the infamous video of Los Angeles police beating Rodney King in 1991. FBI Director Chris Wray also said he was "appalled by the footage. Story continues Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy listens to a question during a press conference regarding the five officers charged with murder over the death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tenn., on Thursday, January 26, 2023. As a result of such warnings, the national media, in Memphis in force this week and even the international media presented Memphis as a city poised atop a powder keg, "bracing" to explode. The Nichols story dominated the front page of Friday's New York Times, which reported that "the city as been bracing for more than a week for the video," with its "agonizing detail." "The city of Memphis is bracing for public outrage," wrote Reuters. "The city of Memphis is bracing" for the video, reported the BBC. "Cities brace for protests," contributed the Washington Post, one of many outlets predicting the likelihood of chaotic, even violent nationwide responses to the video. Even the President of the United States added his voice. "I join Tyres family in calling for peaceful protest," Joe Biden said, in a statement from the White House. "Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable. Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice." Meanwhile, others suggested such cautions only amplified the horror already inflicted on Nichols. The way theyve spent days & hours emphasizing the violence of Tyre Nichols murder like its a countdown to a movie release tells you everything about the depravity of the system we live under. Bree Newsome Bass (@BreeNewsome) January 27, 2023 Some said they would not watch the video. Im going to try my best to avoid the video of the police murdering Tyre Nichols. Its traumatic. I dont need to see it to know how sick it is. Video is obviously needed for accountability, but I remain bothered by the virality and mass consumption of Black and Brown death. Crystal Fincher (@finchfrii) January 27, 2023 Some put the video in a historic context. I get why many wont, but I am going to watch the video. I will bear witness. I dont know if I will finish the whole thing. I might need a gang of melatonin to sleep, but Im going to try. Let the people see what they did to my boy. - Mamie Till#tyrenichols Tami Sawyer (@tamisawyer) January 27, 2023 Others encouraged people to watch a different video: Before the Memphis Police Dept. releases the video of 5 MPD officers murdering #TyreNichols during a routine traffic stop, and that heinous video inevitably goes viral, I want to amplify THIS video of Tyre LIVING his best life. #JusticeForTyreNichols : Austin Dean pic.twitter.com/LQ7jPiObIH Mai PerkinsTWNE (@FlyMai16) January 26, 2023 Turner said it was tragic that, yet again, so-called "peace officers" had committed apparently unwarranted violence. But he said a non-peaceful response would only encourage those who rely on violence in the first place. "We can't respond to violence by perpetuating more violence." Meanwhile, Wendi Thomas of MLK50, a Memphis-based new outlet with an emphasis on social and economic justice, pointed out that the burden of demanding lawful and humane behavior shouldn't fall on the victim's family. Instead of grieving relatives calling for peaceful protest, what if the police union tearfully demanded that their colleagues stop using excessive force? I mean, the union has more influence on cops than Tyre Nichols' parents have on an entire city - right? Wendi C. Thomas (@wendi_c_thomas) January 27, 2023 This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Tyre Nichols: Tense Memphis mourns as it awaits release of video Jan. 26State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington sentenced a Tesuque man to 15 years in prison Tuesday for fatally shooting his brother in 2020. A jury convicted Patricio Griego, 68, of second-degree murder in November in connection with the death of 75-year-old Jimmy Griego, a longtime employee of the Santa Fe Opera and volunteer firefighter. "The family shared their emotions and pain with the court and requested the full sentence be served by Patricio," the First Judicial District Attorney's Office wrote on its Facebook page Wednesday. Patricio Griego shot his brother in the Tesuque home he shared with their mother after the siblings argued over who would inherit her house, prosecutors told jurors during a four-day trial. His second-degree murder conviction was a step down from the first-degree murder penalty prosecutors had sought in the case, but a step up from the voluntary manslaughter charge Griego's defense attorney Sydney West had argued would be appropriate. West argued the state hadn't proven Griego deliberated before he shot his brother, a mandatory element of first-degree murder. Patricio Griego has a low IQ and other cognitive deficits, West told jurors at trial, and hadn't planned to kill his brother but had been frightened and flustered when Jimmy Griego showed up at the house in Tesuque unannounced and angry that morning. West did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. Let's talk about the popular Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO). The company's shares saw a decent share price growth in the teens level on the NYSE over the last few months. As a large-cap stock with high coverage by analysts, you could assume any recent changes in the companys outlook is already priced into the stock. But what if there is still an opportunity to buy? Lets examine Thermo Fisher Scientifics valuation and outlook in more detail to determine if theres still a bargain opportunity. See our latest analysis for Thermo Fisher Scientific What Is Thermo Fisher Scientific Worth? According to my price multiple model, which makes a comparison between the company's price-to-earnings ratio and the industry average, the stock price seems to be justfied. Ive used the price-to-earnings ratio in this instance because theres not enough visibility to forecast its cash flows. The stocks ratio of 32.35x is currently trading slightly above its industry peers ratio of 31.44x, which means if you buy Thermo Fisher Scientific today, youd be paying a relatively reasonable price for it. And if you believe that Thermo Fisher Scientific should be trading at this level in the long run, then there should only be a fairly immaterial downside vs other industry peers. Furthermore, Thermo Fisher Scientifics share price also seems relatively stable compared to the rest of the market, as indicated by its low beta. This may mean it is less likely for the stock to fall lower from natural market volatility, which suggests less opportunities to buy moving forward. Can we expect growth from Thermo Fisher Scientific? Future outlook is an important aspect when youre looking at buying a stock, especially if you are an investor looking for growth in your portfolio. Buying a great company with a robust outlook at a cheap price is always a good investment, so lets also take a look at the company's future expectations. Thermo Fisher Scientific's earnings over the next few years are expected to increase by 28%, indicating a highly optimistic future ahead. This should lead to more robust cash flows, feeding into a higher share value. Story continues What This Means For You Are you a shareholder? TMOs optimistic future growth appears to have been factored into the current share price, with shares trading around industry price multiples. However, there are also other important factors which we havent considered today, such as the financial strength of the company. Have these factors changed since the last time you looked at TMO? Will you have enough confidence to invest in the company should the price drop below the industry PE ratio? Are you a potential investor? If youve been keeping tabs on TMO, now may not be the most advantageous time to buy, given it is trading around industry price multiples. However, the positive outlook is encouraging for TMO, which means its worth diving deeper into other factors such as the strength of its balance sheet, in order to take advantage of the next price drop. So if you'd like to dive deeper into this stock, it's crucial to consider any risks it's facing. Every company has risks, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Thermo Fisher Scientific you should know about. If you are no longer interested in Thermo Fisher Scientific, you can use our free platform to see our list of over 50 other stocks with a high growth potential. 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 Jan. 26Connor Goss scored in the first period and Nick Laughlin added an empty-net goal with a minute to go as Cape Elizabeth defeated previously undefeated Brunswick 2-0 in a boys' hockey game Thursday night. Goss scored with an assist from Phil Coupe at 12:21 of the first period and the Capers (9-2) held that lead, thanks in part to 16 saves from goalie Charlie Garvin, before Laughlin clinched it. The Dragons (10-1-1) got 37 saves from Luke Patterson. CHEVERUS/YARMOUTH 6, GREELY 4: David Swift scored one goal and assisted on two others as Cheverus/Yarmouth (6-2-1) held off Greely (2-8) for its sixth consecutive victory, at Troubh Ice Arena. Cheverus/Yarmouth took a 2-0 lead after one period on goals from Swift and Ian O'Connor. Brian Connolly and Ben Moll added second-period goals before the Rangers got on the board on a Charlie Moore goal. After Evan Hawkins answered, goals from Finn Murphy and Moore pulled Greely within 5-3 heading to third period. Moore completed his hat trick on a rebound with 10:43 left, but Cheverus/Yarmouth put it away with 2:34 remaining when Swift set up Quinn McCoy. Neal McQuarrie made 12 saves for Cheverus/Yarmouth. Greely's Will Klein stopped 15 shots. GIRLS' BASKETBALL SANFORD 52, GORHAM 41: Julissa McBarron dropped in 22 points as the Spartans (9-4) defeated the Rams (8-6) in Gorham. Riley Hebler chipped in with 11 points. Ellie Gay led Gorham with 17 points. GRAY-NEW GLOUCESTER 41, YARMOUTH 32: Isabelle Morelli scored 11 points and Ella Kenney added nine as the Patriots (11-2) beat the Clippers (4-8) in Gray. Cate King led Yarmouth with 11 points. Lauren Keaney had nine. KENNEBUNK 50, NOBLE 25: Skylar Holder notched 14 points and Kendall Therrien contributed 11 as the Rams (3-10) rolled past the Knights (0-12) in Kennebunk. Taylor Gnirk led Noble with 11 points. WAYNFLETE 46, ST. DOMINIC 18: Maeve Mechtenberg sank four 3-pointers and scored 14 points as the Flyers (3-10) beat the Saints (2-10) in Auburn. Story continues Lauren McNutt-Girouard added 12 points for Waynflete, which built a 24-5 halftime lead. LAKE REGION 49, POLAND 14: Melissa Mayo scored 14 points, Bella Smith added 12 and the Lakers (11-3) shut down the Knights (0-12) in Naples. Althea Thornton had four points for Poland. OLD ORCHARD BEACH 65, TRAIP ACADEMY 31: Elise McNair posted 37 points, 10 rebounds and six steals to lead the Seagulls (11-3) over the Rangers (6-7) in Old Orchard Beach. Summer St. Louis tallied seven points and 10 rebounds for OOB. Sarah Davis also grabbed 10 rebounds. LEWISTON 52, MORSE 23: Natalie Beaudoin scored 20 points and Koral Morin had 18 as the Blue Devils (4-9) beat the Shipbuilders (1-12) in Bath. Haley Kirkpatrick paced Morse with seven points. BOYS' BASKETBALL YARMOUTH 57, GRAY-NEW GLOUCESTER 54: Evan Hamm fueled a third-quarter surge with nine of his 19 points, and the Clippers (8-4) held off the Patriots (10-3) in Yarmouth. Stephen Walsh scored 13 points and Matt Gautreau had 11 for Yarmouth, which used a 17-8 advantage in the third quarter to open a 47-36 lead. Noah Hebert paced the Patriots with 16 points. Nate Hebert finished with 10. GREELY 59, WELLS 57: Hayden MacArthur scored 10 points in the fourth quarter and finished with 19 as the Rangers (6-6) edged the Warriors (4-9) in Cumberland. Tyler Pettengill chipped in 12 points. Seamus Raftice had eight. Caden Dufort and Jeremy Therrien each put in 16 points for Wells. Eli Roy added 12. WAYNFLETE 48, ST. DOMINIC 34: Nico Kirby scored 23 points, including five 3-pointers, to lead the Flyers (8-6) past the Saints (5-7) in Auburn. Connor Ford also reached double figures with 10 points. Matt Adey added nine. The Saints got 13 points from Jon Tangilamesu and 10 from Campbell Perryman. OLD ORCHARD BEACH 77, TRAIP ACADEMY 62: The Seagulls (13-1) used a 24-8 second-quarter advantage, paced by 13 points from Brady Croteau, to surge past the Rangers (4-10) at Kittery. Landen Johnson led Old Orchard Beach with 29 points. Croteau finished with 23. Dylan Santamaria scored 15 points, Ben Hawkes chipped in with 14 and Sam Jordan had 13 for Traip. LAKE REGION 58, POLAND 53: Jackson Libby and Jacob Chadbourne scored 15 points apiece, and the Lakers (6-8) held off a late rally by the Knights (3-9) in Poland. John Patenaude paced Poland with 23 points. Hayden Christner hit three 3-pointers and finished with 13 points. CAPE ELIZABETH 43, FREEPORT 41: Owen Tighe got nine of his 19 points in the fourth quarter, and the Capers (9-5) used a 29-13 edge in the second half to beat the Falcons (4-9) in Freeport. JT Pound led Freeport with 18 points. BOOTHBAY 51, HALL-DALE 47: Finn Harkins scored 18 points, Gryffin Kristan added 15, and the Seahawks (7-5) edged the Bulldogs (6-6) in Boothbay Harbor. TJ Wilson led Hall-Dale with 18 points. GIRLS' HOCKEY FALMOUTH/SCARBOROUGH 4, GORHAM 1: Trinity Grenier scored a pair of goals and Hope Melevsky recorded a goal and two assists to help the Navigators (4-9-1) beat Gorham/Bonny Eagle/Massabesic/Fryeburg/Lake Region/Westbrook (8-6) at Family Ice Center. Audrey Farnham also scored for the Navigators. Cadence Howard broke up the shutout bid in the third period. PARIS (Reuters) - Sciences Po, one of France's top universities, has banned the use of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-based chatbot that can generate coherent prose, to prevent fraud and plagiarism. ChatGPT is a free programme that generates original text about virtually any subject in response to a prompt, including articles, essays, jokes and even poetry, raising concerns across industries about plagiarism. The university said on Friday the school had emailed all students and faculty announcing a ban on ChatGPT and all other AI-based tools at Sciences Po. "Without transparent referencing, students are forbidden to use the software for the production of any written work or presentations, except for specific course purposes, with the supervision of a course leader," Sciences Po said, though it did not specify how it would track usage. ChatGPT has already been banned in some public schools in New York City and Seattle, according to U.S. media reports, while several U.S. universities have announced plans to do fewer take-home assessments and more hand-written essays and oral exams. Sciences Po, whose main campus is in Paris, added that punishment for using the software may go as far as exclusion from the institution, or even from French higher education as a whole. "The ChatGPT software is raising important questions for educators and researchers all around the world, with regards to fraud in general, and particularly plagiarism," it said . Microsoft Corp last week announced a further multibillion dollar investment in OpenAI - the artificial intelligence research lab behind ChatGPT - building on a bet it made on OpenAI nearly four years ago, when it dedicated $1 billion for the startup co-founded by Tesla's Elon Musk and investor Sam Altman. (Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Josie Kao) Story at a glance Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Rocky Mountain National Park were among the most-recommended by past visitors. Findings are based on survey responses collected in September 2022. Among the most-visited parks, Death Valley National Park is the least likely to be strongly recommended. The United States is home to over 60 national parks, but for visitors, some stand out more than others. Among those who have visited it, 84 percent strongly recommend the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Thats according to a new YouGov poll that assessed recommendations for the 25 most-visited parks in the country. Findings are based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, carried out in September 2022. Eighty-four percent of visitors also recommend Yellowstone National Park, which spans parts of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, and is home to around half of the worlds active geysers. America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was the third most-recommended, according to visitors, and was followed by the Great Smoky Mountains National park, located in North Carolina and Tennessee, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Yosemite, Sequoia, Redwood, Zion and Bryce Canyon rounded out the top ten most highly recommended parks. Although the Grand Canyon National Park was the most highly recommended, it trailed behind the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when it comes to parks Americans are most likely to have visited. Twenty percent of U.S. adults have also visited Everglades National Park at some point in their life, while the same percentage have visited Redwood National Park. In contrast, just nine percent of adults have visited Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, despite it being one of the most highly recommended. Among the top most-visited parks, Death Valley National Park in California and Nevada is the least likely to be strongly recommended, along with Joshua Tree National Park and Gateway Arch National park. Although the number of visitors to national parks declined significantly in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, totals rebounded in 2021, rising from 237 million visitors to 297 million. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. HANOI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The steel demand in Vietnam is expected to keep falling due to the property market slump, tightened monetary policy and economic downturn in many export markets, local media reported on Friday. With the property market remaining in a slump, prospects for 2023 remain gloomy, especially in the first half of the year, local newspaper Vietnam News reported, citing local analysts. The stagnant real estate market and tightened monetary policy would drag down steel demand this year, the newspaper said. Analysts forecast domestic demand for finished steel products to decline in single-digit in 2023, with the acceleration in public spending possibly making up for the reduced demand from households. Exports would recover slowly because of the global economic downturn, according to the newspaper. Demand in the United States and European markets is expected to decline this year as a result of the economic downturn, but the Southeast Asian market is likely to remain steady, it said. Vietnam's exports to traditional trading partners could be affected by the capacity increase in recent years in neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, it warned. In 2022, Vietnam spent nearly 12.1 billion U.S. dollars importing more than 11.8 million tons of steel and iron, down 4.4 percent in volume but up 4.3 percent in value against 2021, according to its General Statistics Office. The country reaped approximately 7.9 billion dollars from exporting roughly 8.3 million tons of the products last year, down 33.2 percent and 36.8 percent respectively year on year, said the office. The Toronto Police Service has been tasked with stopping the rise in violence on the TTC. (Credit: Toronto Police Mounted Unit) Torontonians continue to be in disbelief over how poorly the city is responding to a spike in violence that's impacted its public transit system. There have been numerous attacks in recent months on the TTC, toward both civilians and employees. As a result, Toronto Mayor John Tory on Thursday announced an increase in police presence to patrol the transit system. Apparently, that comes in the form of a horse. This is absurd. Sending a police horse to a subway station is an unserious response to a serious issue. We must finally address the root causes of violence in our city along with providing professionals with expertise in identifying & deescalating potentially violent individuals. https://t.co/vJBQ76e6F4 Josh Matlow (@JoshMatlow) January 26, 2023 There are many things wrong with this image. But before we get to that, to make matters even worse, Torontonians are also calling out how this photo misrepresents the police force's current actions. A day earlier on Wednesday, the city was met with its biggest snow storm of the year which basically shut down the TTC. But if you look at the image, there doesn't seem to be any snow. A Toronto Police Services media relations officer, Caroline de Kloet, told Yahoo Canada that the photo was in fact taken Monday. "Due to the increased violence, patrols have been paying special attention to transit properties, including station entrances and TTC street car and bus stops," said de Kloet. Your tweet clearly implies action taken today, in response to the days news. The picture was clearly not taken the day after a snowstorm. Using public-funded comms to lie to the public. https://t.co/KLgQ44N7WQ pic.twitter.com/7oa0KkqhKA Gil Meslin (@g_meslin) January 27, 2023 The tweet from the Toronto Police Mounted Unit comes amid outrage over Tory's initial move to increase police funding. Many feel that it doesn't address the real problems plaguing this city, which have contributed to the violence, such as a lack of resources for community and social support systems, to go along with the TTC's subpar service. Story continues In response to Josh Matlow's tweet, the Toronto Police Association defended the horse: Our Mounted Unit provides a deterrent for criminal activity and, as weve heard first hand, our officers provide a sense of security for TTC riders. Well continue to do our part to keep our city safe and we would welcome the expertise of others. @TPSMounted Toronto Police Association (@TPAca) January 27, 2023 The Toronto Police Association, which represents approximately 8,000 civilian and uniform members, might want to read the room: How are you getting the horse into the train? Duane Rollins (@24thminute) January 26, 2023 This horse cop is the perfect solution to crime on public transit. Unless the crime is down any stairs, or up any stairs, or through any tight area or in any transit vehicle. But if you wanna do a crime on that brief flat stretch of sidewalk outside the station? THINK AGAIN, pal https://t.co/6zdYbIqzF5 att (@matttomic) January 27, 2023 Cut the @TPSMounted unit. Cut the comms staff who made this idiotic, useless tweet. Provide care and housing for those who need it. https://t.co/tQ4BxCJLVZ Alex Bozikovic (@alexbozikovic) January 27, 2023 its the anti-homeless architecture for me (cop on a horse a close second though) https://t.co/52SHMFdlPi pic.twitter.com/x4ZC2dOA9B JNH (@jnhatcher) January 27, 2023 very useful in case a carriage robbery or a saloon gunfight breaks out at the subway stop. get a real job. john (@johnsemley3000) January 27, 2023 I dont think a dressage routine will solve this crisis, what an insulting waste of resources Niko Stratis (@nikostratis) January 27, 2023 How is this real? People getting stabbed on the bus and a guy on a horse is going to stop it?? How much does it cost to shelter and care for that horse? Whens the last time a horse cop did something useful? Cory (@coryr__) January 27, 2023 Is this a fucking sit-com? What people have had enough of is legislated poverty & the defunding of social services. Society is breaking down. The only way to fix it is to create policy that guarantees a basic quality of life to each person. Not a police horsie. #Toronto https://t.co/igUPD0D2K5 April Cruel (@April75Cruel) January 27, 2023 George Santos has yet another headache coming his way, thanks to amended filings submitted to the FEC this week. The embattled New York congressman was already facing calls for his resignation or ouster from both parties before his filings with the Federal Election Commission this week. Now, those filings are becoming the source of problem after problem, each with the potential to run afoul of the law. The latest issue flagged by reporters with ABC News on Thursday stems from filings that several fundraising committees working on behalf of the Santos 2022 campaign made with the agency specifying a change in the individual assigned as treasurer for the committees. Those committees are now listed as having their financial operations overseen by Thomas Datwyler, a longtime specialist in political campaign finances. But theres just one problem: Mr Datwyler adamantly told ABC News that he is not working for the Santos campaign, and in fact had informed them of that before the FEC filings were submitted: "On Monday, we informed the Santos campaign that Mr. Datwyler would not be serving as treasurer," said Mr Datwyler's attorney Derek Ross. "It appears that there's been a disconnect between that conversation and the filings today, which we did not authorize, Mr Ross continued. Confusingly, Mr Datwylers electronic signature remains on the documents. An attempt by The Independent to get in contact with Mr Ross to determine whether Mr Datwyler had authorised that e-signature or whether it was added without his permission was not immediately successful. Mr Santoss FEC filings had previously raised a number of other red flags. Reporters and legal experts found themselves immediately suspicious of a high number of donations just under the $200 threshold, above which they would be subject to laws requiring donors provide their full names, addresses, occupations and employers. Story continues There were also two loans to the campaign, one for $125,000 and another for $500,000, which were amended to no longer list Mr Santoss personal funds as their sources. All in all, it was a perplexing series of issues to be raised in a single FEC filing that comes after a seemingly unending avalanche of stories about the congressmans lies and embellishments about his resume. He still remains accused of lying about his grandparents supposedly fleeing the Holocaust, among other issues, and faces questions about a sudden surge of wealth he acquired over the past several years. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019, in New York. AP Photo/Evan Vucci Donald Trump appeared to criticize a decision by the US and Germany to provide tanks to Ukraine. "FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES," Trump said on his social media platform. Trump also suggested ending the war in Ukraine would be "easy," without elaborating. Former President Donald Trump, whose first impeachment was linked to his dealings with Ukraine, on Thursday appeared to criticize the US and Germany over their recent decisions to provide battle tanks to Kyiv at a time when Russia is expected to launch another major offensive. Trump suggested offering tanks to Ukraine would lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Trump said it would be "easy" to end the war, without providing any suggestions on how this would be accomplished. "FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES. Get this crazy war ended, NOW. So easy to do," Trump, who is running for president again in 2024, said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump referred to as a "genius" the week Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has repeatedly made nuclear threats throughout the war. Western countries have accused Putin of reckless nuclear saber-rattling. Nuclear experts have expressed grave concerns about Putin's threats, as leading historians warning that the Russian leader's rhetoric and actions have presented nuclear dangers even greater than during the Cuban missile crisis at the height of the Cold War. But many top military analysts and Russia experts also say that Putin's nuclear threats are largely designed to deter the West from continuing to provide Ukraine with crucial security assistance. The US and other NATO countries have sent billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine, including vital weapons that have played a key role on the battlefield and wreaked havoc on Russia's forces. Ukraine recently pushed hard for the West to provide tanks as it looks to defend against the ongoing Russian invasion but also makes preparations to regain control of occupied territory. Story continues Trump, who has routinely praised Putin, has consistently been a critic of US aid to Ukraine. The former president's first impeachment was tied to his effort to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into launching an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, over unfounded allegations of corruption. At the time, Biden was a presidential candidate and Trump's top political rival. As he pressured Zelenskyy to launch the inquiries, Trump simultaneously froze congressionally-approved military aid to Ukraine as it continued to fight a war against Kremlin-backed rebels in the country's eastern Donbas region. Much of the fighting in the war Putin launched in late February 2022 has occurred in the Donbas, which is comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions two out of four Ukrainian territories the Russian leader illegally annexed in September. Though Trump suggested it would be "easy" to end the war in Ukraine, that is not a view that is widely shared by experts or people with experience in diplomacy. Putin's decision to illegally annex four Ukrainian territories, declaring them as part of Russia, has made the possibility of talks to end the fighting extraordinarily unlikely. Russian forces do not fully occupy these regions, and Kyiv has been clear it would not agree to any peace terms requiring it to cede territory to Moscow. "The fact that the Russians have annexed four [Ukrainian] provinces makes an agreement nearly impossible," Gerard Araud, the former French ambassador to the US and the United Nations, told Insider this week. Speaking on Putin's goal of dividing the West to weaken support for Ukraine, Araud also said that "the Russians have always dreamed of having Trump back because in military terms the support of the Americans is really overwhelming compared to the support of the Europeans." The US has provided more security aid to Ukraine than any other country over $27 billion since Russia invaded. But a number of Republicans in Congress loyal to Trump have expressed opposition to continued aid to Ukraine, citing economic concerns. Read the original article on Business Insider Tucker Carlson on Thursday called for the U.S. to invade Canada and remove Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The Fox News host claimed he meant it before saying he was talking himself into a frenzy. (Watch the video below.) During Fox Nations Tucker Carlson Today, Carlson referenced the arrests last year of anti-vax truckers in Canada. The demonstrators paralyzed commerce and won over extremists with their traffic-tying protests of COVID-19 safety measures. At the time, Carlson said the country had become a dictatorship because the government took action. And now he suggested hed like to do something about it. Im completely in favor of a Bay of Pigs operation to liberate that country, Carlson said. Why should we stand back and let our biggest trading partner ... why should we let it become Cuba? Like, why dont we liberate it? Were spending all this money to liberate Ukraine from the Russians. Why are we not sending an armed force north to liberate Canada from Trudeau? And I mean it. The right-wing personality then laughed and said, Im just talking myself into a frenzy here. Carlsons suggestion brought to mind the mostly forgotten 1995 movie Canadian Bacon, in which the United States fabricates tension with Canada, prompting American vigilantes to prepare for war. h/t Media Matters Related... By Tarek Amara and Angus McDowall TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian activist Chaimaa Issa is due to face a military court on Friday on charges of insulting a president whom she accuses of trashing the democracy built from a 2011 revolution in which she took full part. Opposition figures say her trial is part of an effort by the authorities to curb dissent against President Kais Saied amid a parliamentary election in which low enthusiasm has undermined his claim of public support for his seizure of powers. The first round of the election in December drew turnout of only 11%, prompting widespread ridicule among Saied's opponents and new demands by the powerful labour union that he change tack. The second round will come on Sunday, two days after Issa's trial is due to begin and after a string of prosecutions of other critics of the president. "The situation is very dangerous and disturbing because of the attacks on democracy," she said. Saied, who was elected in a landslide in 2019, sent tanks to shut down parliament in 2021 before seizing most powers and rewriting the constitution, passing a new version last year in a referendum. He said his actions were both legal and necessary to save Tunisia from years of economic stagnation and political bickering, and has labelled his foes traitors, calling for action against them. The authorities have rejected claims that any of the trials, including that of Issa, are politically motivated. However, while Saied has promised to defend rights and freedoms won in the election, the new parliament that voters are selecting will have hardly any power and he will retain ultimate authority. PROTESTS Issa is one of several prominent critics of Saied facing court cases, timing that the opposition believes is a deliberate tactic of intimidation. "Saied started a campaign against the leaders of the front row of the opposition," said Najib Chebbi, head of the "Salvation Front" coalition of opposition groups that have held repeated protests against the president. Story continues Ali Laaryedh, a leader of the biggest opposition party, Ennahda, was imprisoned last month on charges of having helped send jihadists to Syria while part of the ruling coalition, something he and it deny. Ghazi Chouachi, the former leader of Attayar party and a vocal opponent of Saied, is being prosecuted for a radio interview in which he criticised the president. Another prominent activist, Ayachi Hammami, faces trial under a law prohibiting the spread of "fake news" online after having criticized Saied and the justice minister. For Issa, the contrast between today's Tunisia and the democracy she sought to build after the 2011 revolution is stark. Two days before the previous autocracy collapsed in January 2011, she had written a social media post saying she was prepared to pay any price for freedom. As the daughter of a political prisoner, it was a cost she understood. "Today, I repeat the same message. I am ready to pay the price for freedom and democracy," she said. For many Tunisians, however, political and democratic goals have taken a back seat to an economic crash that has pushed the state to the brink of bankruptcy while emptying supermarket shelves of key goods. The UGTT labour union, which says it has a million members, has focused its attacks on Saied's handling of the economy and his government's promises of painful reforms as the price of securing an international bailout. It now demands Saied also abort his political plans and instead move to a national dialogue that includes all the main civil society groupings to forge a new path forwards. The dialogue represents "a last opportunity" for Saied, though he has so far rejected the idea, said Sami Tahri, a senior UGTT official. "If the president does not accept dialogue, we will have our say and not remain silent," he said. (Reporting by Tarek Amara and Jihed Abidellaoui, writing by Angus McDowall, editing by Nick Macfie) ANKARA (Reuters) -Turkey has summoned Denmark's ambassador to Ankara over a planned protest in the Danish capital on Friday that is expected to include the burning of a copy of the Koran, the Danish foreign ministry said on Friday. A protest in Stockholm last weekend by a far-right anti-immigrant Danish/Swedish politician against Islam and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has heightened tensions between Sweden and Turkey. Sweden needs Turkey's backing to gain entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line, Rasmus Paludan, plans to protest outside the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen every Friday until Turkey accepts Sweden's NATO application, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. "Denmark has a good relationship with Turkey, and this case does not change that," Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in an email sent to Reuters. "Our task now is to talk to Turkey about the conditions in Denmark with our open democracy, and that there is a difference between Denmark as a country - and our people as such - and individual people who have strongly divergent views," he said. One source from the Turkish foreign ministry said Ankara strongly condemned "provocative acts that constitute a hate crime", which included an "assault" on the Muslim holy book. The ministry asked for permission for the demonstration to be revoked, the sources said. (Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever, Ece Toksabay and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Nick Macfie) Columbus police say Nalah T. Jackson, 24, is seen here at a convenience store in Huber Heights near Dayton hours after she abducted twin infant boys when she stole their mother's running 2010 Honda Accord Dec. 19 from outside the Donatos Pizza in the Short North while the mother was inside picking up a DoorDash order for delivery to earn money . A Columbus woman accused of stealing a running car with twin infant boys during the week before Christmas is now facing charges alleging she stole two other vehicles earlier in December and crashed them. Nalah T. Jackson, 24, could also potentially face charges related to a 2021 car theft on the Ohio State University campus, according to the Franklin County Prosecutor's office. Jackson is currently facing two federal charges of kidnapping a minor after Columbus police say she stole a running 2010 Honda Dec. 19 from outside a Donatos Pizza in the Short North with then-5-month-old twins Ky'air and Kason Thomas inside as their mother ran inside the pizza shop to get a Door Dash order for delivery. Ky'air was recovered the following morning, found by a passerby left in a car seat with a blanket on in a parking lot of Dayton International Airport. Kason was recovered Dec. 22 in his mother's car in the parking lot of an Indianapolis pizza shop, hours after Jackson had been arrested by police there, thanks to the efforts of two women cousins who alerted them. On Friday, a Franklin County grand jury indicted Jackson on two felony charges theft and receiving stolen property related to a Dec. 2 incident. Jackson was allegedly driving a car stolen earlier that day in Columbus when she crashed it near the intersection of Bridge Street and Frantz Road in Dublin, according to G. W. Wharton, deputy chief counsel for the grand jury unit in the Franklin County Prosecutor's office. "Somebody was getting out to help her, left her vehicle, then Ms. Jackson got into that good Samaritan's car and stole that," Wharton said. Jackson only managed to drive a short distance before she crashed the second car, Wharton said. The receiving stolen property charge is related to the first car and the theft charge is related to the second car. Wharton said Jackson was injured, but he did not know to what extent. She was transported to OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital and heavily sedated, meaning Dublin police could not question her at the time, Wharton said. Story continues Because Jackson was hospitalized for her injuries, police did not arrest her and forwarded information to the county prosecutor's office for direct indictment, said Rebecca Myers, a spokeswoman for the City of Dublin. The third alleged incident dates from November 2021, when Ohio State University police said Jackson was in a 2020 Honda CRV reported stolen from the university's campus. Wharton said that incident is still under review for possible presentation to a county grand jury. University police charged Jackson in January 2022 in Franklin County Municipal Court with receiving stolen property. According to a signed statement submitted by a university police detective to the court, property inside the car yielded DNA evidence that matches Jackson, "a known offender." More:A chance encounter and mother's intuition: How 2 Indy women helped find missing Ohio twin More:Was lost custody of her son a motive in suspect Nalah Jackson's kidnapping of twins? The case was dismissed in Municipal Court last week at the request of Franklin County prosecutors because Common Pleas courts handle felony cases like receiving stolen property charges. Columbus police had filed kidnapping charges against Jackson in connection with the abduction of the twins and Jackson was ordered held on $1.5 million bond, but a police spokesman said those charges will likely be dismissed so the federal kidnapping case can proceed. Jackson is scheduled to face a jury trial in federal court in Columbus on March 20. If convicted, she faces 20 years to life in prison on each of the two counts. jlaird@dispatch.com @LairdWrites This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Twins kidnapping suspect charged with previously stealing two vehicles By Sheila Dang (Reuters) - The stalling of a Twitter program that was critical for outside researchers studying disinformation campaigns throws into question the company's strategy to comply with upcoming regulation in Europe, former employees and experts told Reuters. The European Union's new Digital Services Act (DSA), one of the world's strictest regulations on internet platforms, has sent tech companies scrambling to meet its requirements on having measures in place against illegal content and explaining the steps they take on content moderation, before the law comes into full effect in early 2024. Twitter signed a voluntary agreement in June with the EU related to the DSA committing to "empowering the research community" through means including sharing datasets about disinformation with researchers. The EU's goal with the law is to create a safer internet for users and have a mechanism to hold companies accountable. According to Yoel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety, the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium was a key part of Twitter's plan to do that, since it compiled data on state-backed manipulation of the platform and provided that to researchers. "Twitter was uniquely well-positioned," he said. Nearly all of the 10 to 15 employees who worked on the consortium have left the company since Elon Musk's takeover in October, according to Roth, who resigned in November, and three other former employees who were involved with the program. The EU law would require platforms with over 45 million EU users to respond to EU-vetted researcher proposals. Failure to comply with the DSA once it comes into effect could lead to fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban from operating in the EU, according to the European Commission website. Reuters was unable to determine if Twitter has made alternative plans to comply with the DSA. In an email, Twitter's head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, said: "We intend to fully comply with the DSA, have many employees working on DSA compliance internally and have communicated our intent to comply to (EU Commissioner Thierry) Breton and his team." Story continues She did not comment on detailed questions about the status of the consortium, how many employees were working on it, or how Twitter planned to comply with the DSA. Breton has met at least twice with Musk to discuss Twitter's intent to comply with the upcoming law. In November, Breton said Twitter had "huge work ahead" because the company will have to "tackle disinformation with resolve" and significantly reinforce content moderation. In May, Musk appeared in a video with Breton expressing agreement with the Digital Services Act. Breton's spokesperson declined to comment for this story. Across the company, at least 5,000 staff (about two thirds of the total before the takeover) have either quit or been fired as Musk overhauls Twitter, hitting the trust and safety and public policy teams particularly hard. "I just don't see how the absolutely skeletal staff ... will be able to readily comply (with the DSA)," said Rebekah Tromble, director of the Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at George Washington University. THE WORK OF THE CONSORTIUM The research consortium was formed in response to backlash against Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. According to the company's website, its aim is "to increase transparency around Twitters content moderation policies and enforcement decisions." Twitter prohibits people, organizations or governments from manipulating conversation on the service, such as using multiple or fake accounts to make content appear more popular. Early last year, Twitter launched a pilot version of the consortium to disclose examples of manipulation of the platform to some outside researchers. As Twitter investigated and took down accounts that were suspected of foreign interference, it released data on that to the researchers to help them study the misinformation strategies and where they originated. In September, Twitter opened an application process to expand the consortium and had accepted about 50 researchers by the time of Musk's acquisition on Oct. 27, two of the former employees said. Twitter had been preparing to disclose at least a dozen new datasets to researchers before then, the former employees said. Of the three former Twitter employees, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, one spoke with current employees recently and was told they do not have the personnel or bandwidth to continue working on the consortium. Five outside researchers told Reuters that without a program like the research consortium, it will be more difficult to study how governments use Twitter to interfere with elections or political events globally. Two of those who are members of the consortium said Twitter has not sent a memo to close the program formally and previously-released data remain available to them, but they had not received data from it in at least two months. The research consortium was an important tool to make the internet safer, according to two U.S. lawmakers who introduced a bill last year that would require social media platforms to provide data access to academic researchers. Their Digital Services Oversight and Safety Act has not been voted on. Rep. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts and Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois also wrote an open letter to Twitter on Nov. 18 asking whether Twitter would maintain the consortium, following layoffs that halved the staff. Asked about the consortium by Reuters this month, Trahan said failure to maintain the program would be "a massive step back." The Stanford Internet Observatory, a consortium member that studies internet risks, said it has not received any communication from the program since mid-November and no longer has a point of contact at Twitter. The Stanford team has published at least three papers using data from the consortium, including one about Twitter accounts that promoted Indias military activities in Kashmir, and one on U.S.-linked attempts to spread pro-Western narratives abroad. If the research consortium is eliminated, "we will be returning to the 2017 era of limited shared communication about malicious state actor activity," said Renee DiResta, research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory. Cazadores de Fake News, a Venezuela-based consortium member that fact checks online news, told Reuters the research program "seems to have fallen into a hiatus," and the organization has not heard from Twitter since Musk's acquisition. "But we hope that it will resurface at some point, as it is a very valuable initiative," said spokesperson Adrian Gonzalez. (Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; additional reporting by Paresh Dave; editing by Kenneth Li and Claudia Parsons) TEHRAN, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- One of the members working in Azerbaijan's Embassy was killed and two others injured in an armed attack on the embassy in the Iranian capital on Friday morning. Hossein Rahimi, Tehran police chief, said the assailant hit the employee while the employee was parking his car in front of the embassy's entrance at 8:25 local time (0455 GMT), reported the semi-official Mehr news agency on Friday. The attacker then entered the embassy holding a Kalashnikov rifle and started shooting, killing the employee and injuring two others, he added. The assailant was arrested by police forces while seeking to escape, citing family and personal issues as the motive behind the attack, said the police chief. The assailant had entered the embassy with his two young children, he added. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry identified the assassinated individual as a guard, who had served as the head of security at the embassy, saying the Friday attack also wounded two people. MANAGUA (Reuters) - A judge in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, on Thursday sentenced two French citizens to eight years in jail, according to a human rights group, on charges of conspiracy amid a wave of convictions against relatives of jailed or exiled opponents. Jeannine Horvilleur and her daughter Ana Alvarez, the wife and daughter, respectively, of an exiled opposition leader, were arrested last September and charged with conspiracy and undermining the nation's integrity, an accusation that President Daniel Ortega's administration has repeatedly leveled against opponents. "We repudiate these actions by the regime and the judiciary," the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights said in a statement. "We demand their immediate release because they are innocent." Nicaraguas government did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. The human rights group said authorities had confiscated assets such as vehicles and mobile phones belonging to the two French citizens, as well as one Nicaraguan. Last October, the French government said it was "deeply concerned" about the arrest of its two citizens. Javier Alvarez, Horvilleur's husband and Alvarez's father, who is based in Costa Rica, said the government was targeting his relatives in an act of political revenge: "My wife and daughter are in prison because of revenge against me," he told Reuters. (Reporting by Ismael Lopez; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Leslie Adler) A federal grand jury indicted two people on charges they vandalized anti-abortion health facilities in Florida with spray-painted threats to intimidate employees, including in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Caleb Freestone, 27, of Miami-Dade County and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, of Orange County are accused of engaging in a conspiracy to spray-paint threats of force and other intimidating messages on the property of the pregnancy resource centers in order to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate the employees of those facilities in their ability to provide reproductive health services, according to the indictment handed up this week by a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida. The duo, who were arrested Monday, wore disguises such as masks, hats, and gloves when they targeted the pregnancy resource centers, which provide counseling, pregnancy testing and ultrasound examinations, the indictment said. According to the indictment, Freestone, Smith-Stewart and other co-conspirators on or about May 28, 2022, spray- painted threats, including If abortions arent SAFE then niether [sic] are you, at a Hollywood facility affiliated with the Archdiocese of Miami. This happened several weeks after a Supreme Court draft was leaked and showed the justices planned to strike down Roe v. Wade. On June 24, 2022, the court reversed Roe v. Wade, overturning womens constitutional right to an abortion, a right upheld for nearly 50 years after the courts landmark 1973 ruling. As a result of the courts decision, each state has more power to decide its own abortion policy, including outlawing the procedure. READ MORE: Was abortion illegal in Florida before Roe v. Wade? Are there restrictions now? Freestone and Smith-Stewart are also accused of spray-painting threats on or about June 26, 2022, at a Winter Haven facility, including YOUR TIME IS UP!! WERE COMING for U and We are everywhere. That incident was two days after the court ruling overturning Roe. Story continues Freestone, the indictment alleges, also went with others on or about July 3, 2022 about a week after the Supreme Court reversal to a pregnancy resource center in Hialeah to spray-paint threats including If abortions arent safe the [sic] neither are you. The indictment doesnt identify the targeted facilities by name. As the Herald has previously reported, Pregnancy Help Medical Clinic, 390 W. 49th St. in Hialeah, was vandalized in early July. A similar act of vandalism happened at the Archdiocese of Miamis South Broward Pregnancy Help Center in Hollywood during Memorial Day weekend, READ NEXT: Police investigate hate crime vandalism at a Hialeah pro-life pregnancy center The indictment alleges Freestone and Smith-Stewart violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, which prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage thats meant to interfere with a clinics ability to provide reproductive health services. The pregnancy health centers listed in the indictment were targeted between May and July, which is when discussions about abortion rights heated up after the leaked court opinion in May and the court ruling at the end of June. In April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning most abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The new law went into effect July 1. The Florida Supreme Court on Monday rejected requests to temporarily halt the 15-week abortion law. READ MORE: FDA says pharmacies can now give abortion pills by prescription. What about in Florida? If convicted of the offenses, Freestone and Smith-Stewart each face up to a maximum of 12 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release. Nashville Police Chief John Drake Ahead of the expected release of Memphis police footage tied to the death of Tyre Nichols, Nashville Police Chief John Drake said he was repulsed by what he called a horrendous beating that has garnered national attention. Five former Memphis Police officers were charged Thursday in Nichols' death and booked into the Shelby County Jail. All face a second-degree murder charge, among others. "This should not happen anywhere, ever, and I condemn their actions in the strongest possible way," part of Drake's statement said. Nashville Mayor John Cooper said the brutality against Nichols was shocking and deeply upsetting. Neither Drake nor Cooper indicated they had seen police footage of the traffic stop that preceded Nichols' death. Latest updates:Five fired Memphis police officers indicted, booked in connection to Tyre Nichols death Tyre Deandre Nichols, 29, died Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, in Memphis, three days being stopped and detained by Memphis Police. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the death. The charges came just under a week after the five officers were fired for their involvement in the traffic stop that precipitated Nichols' death earlier this month. Nichols died Jan. 10, three days after a traffic stop near his mother's home and after what Memphis Police called a "confrontation." He was 29. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Nichols sustained serious injuries. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn C.J. Davis called the incident heinous, reckless and inhumane. 'He loved Tennessee':Friends remember Tyre Nichols, man who died after Memphis police arrest In his statement, Drake lauded Davis and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for their swift action after Nichols died. Cooper echoed that sentiment, and extended condolences to the Nichols family. "When individuals who swear to protect their fellow citizens abuse that privilege, they do not deserve to be called police officers and they dishonor the brave officers doing the right thing for their neighbors every day, Cooper said. Reach reporter Rachel Wegner at RAwegner@tennessean.com or find her on Twitter @RachelAnnWegner. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tyre Nichols: Nashville police chief, mayor condemn Memphis officers Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images Tyre Nicholss mother says she feels sorry for the five Memphis police officers who are charged with killing her son by beating him to a pulp, but says they brought shame on their own families and the Black community. Related: Biden calls for calm ahead of video release in Tyre Nichols police death latest updates RowVaughn Wells was speaking in an emotional live interview on CNN on Friday morning one day after the officers, who are all Black, were charged with murder in the beating death of her son following a traffic stop in the city earlier this month. People dont know what those five police officers did to our family. And they really dont know what they did to their own families. They have put their own families in harms way, she said. They have brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the Black community. I just feel sorry for them. I really do. Because they didnt have to do this. Wells spoke of seeing her 29-year-old son, whom she said was my baby, a mommas boy, in the hospital after the beating, which was captured on a horrific video set to be released publicly on Friday evening. They had beat him to a pulp. He had bruises all over, she said. His head was swollen like a watermelon. His neck was busting because of the swelling. They broke his neck. His nose was like an S. They actually just beat the crap out of him, so when I saw him, I knew my son was gone. Even if he did live he would have been a vegetable. Wells said she hadnt been able to bring herself to watch the video, which she said shed been told was horrific. The humanity of it all. Where was the humanity? They beat my son like a pinata, she said. Breaking down in tears, she said she could not understand why the officers acted so violently to her son, who was not armed a level of aggression that the Memphis police chief, Cerelyn CJ Davis, conceded to CNN was unexplainable. He had Crohns disease, he had surgery in 2013. My son weighed a buck fifty [150lb], he was 6ft 3in, Wells said. Story continues And those men, if you combine their weights, it was over a thousand pounds beating and beating a 150ld person to death. Because thats what they did, they beat my son to death. He cried out for me, because Im his mother, and thats what he was trying to [do], get home to safety. On Thursday, the officers were charged with second-degree murder. Wells said they were good charges despite initially calling for murder charges in the first degree. Those are the charges that I feel will stick, so Im happy with the charges that the district attorney has set forth. I want to say thank you to the district attorney because hes working very hard on this as well as the chief of police. That the officers are Black, she said, was irrelevant to their conduct, but was still consequential. We dont care what color the officer is, there are good officers and bad officers, and we want bad officers taken off the boards, she said. But by them being Black, it hurt the Black community. The swiftness of the officers firing, and subsequent charging, was commended as a blueprint for America by the familys attorney Ben Crump, who appeared on CNN alongside Wells and her husband, Nicholss stepfather Rodney Wells. Citing other killings of young Black men and youth, including Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery and Philando Castile, Crump said: Think how these cases took so long for them to charge. Here in Memphis, we have the blueprint, that it can be done swiftly and efficiently. Now when its not Black officers we want to see this same type of justice. Wells said she wanted people to know who her son was. I dont have my baby. Ill never have my baby again. But I do know that he was a good person and that all the good in Tyre will come out. He was a beautiful soul and touched a lot of people, she said. I just feel like my son was sent here on assignment from God, and his assignment is over and he was sent back home. God is not gonna let any of his childrens names go in vain. When this is all over, its gonna be so good, so positive because my son was a good and positive person. Thats what keeps me going. At a press conference in Memphis later on Friday, Wells urged parents not to let their children watch the video of her sons beating. To the police whove been charged, she said: Im going to pray for you and your families. She added: I have a lot of words that I want to say but they will not come out, I havent had time to grieve. My son was supposed to be here today, no mother should lose their child in the violent way that I lost my child. Demonstrations quickly began on Friday evening as Memphis police released footage of the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols. Related: Tyre Nichols video worse than Rodney King footage, Memphis police chief says The video released on Friday showed Memphis officers kicking Nichols repeatedly in the head, punching him in the face, and hitting him with a baton. It also showed officers and medical personnel failing to intervene as Nichols could not sit upright after the assault. In Memphis, demonstrators began marching shortly after the video was released, taking over a bridge connecting Tennessee and Arkansas. HAPPENING NOW: Protestors are finally walking off bridge and are headed directly to where police. Protestors chanting: WE READY, WE READY, WE READY FOR YALL pic.twitter.com/ypw6nkYs7B Anthony Cabassa (@AnthonyCabassa_) January 28, 2023 Protesters also gathered in Atlanta and New York City, where there appeared to be some arrests. Peaceful protests in NYC after video of #TyreNichols murder by police officers is released. pic.twitter.com/LW7YzNSnXI Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) January 28, 2023 Activists have planned demonstrations in Memphis and at least seven other major American cities: New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Portland. Story continues Arrests starting at Times Square protest for Tyre Nichols @CBSNewYork pic.twitter.com/IWzOANYNeb Ali Bauman (@AliBaumanTV) January 28, 2023 Nicholss family, as well as US officials, have urged protesters to remain peaceful. When that tape comes out [Friday], its going to be horrific, Nicholss mother, RowVaughn Wells, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying. But I want each and every one of you to protest in peace. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. #HappeningNow Protesters stand off with the NYPD as police and SRG (Special Response Group) block off the road on W42nd Street and 10th Avenue in Times Square, following #TyreNicholsVideo Release Video by Ken Lopez @FreedomNTV FULL STORY https://t.co/QJ2nE1QYX7 pic.twitter.com/DLoIqDHwHh Oliya Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) January 28, 2023 In a statement released shortly after the videos were made public, Joe Biden said: I join Mr Nicholss family in calling for peaceful protest. The White House also met with mayors of several of Americas largest cities on Friday to prepare for protests. The five police officers all of whom are Black who beat Nichols during the traffic stop have been fired and charged with murder and other offenses. Local officials across the US are preparing for mass demonstrations. In Memphis, where the deadly encounter between Nichols and police unfolded, schools cancelled after-school activities for Friday and events scheduled on Saturday, while some area businesses were expected to close earlier. Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, has declared a state of emergency on Thursday in advance of the release of this video. Kemps declaration comes in the wake of protests in Atlanta on 21 January over the death of activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, who was killed at a police training centre, NPR reported. Demonstrators protest near the White House in Washington DC. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Washington DC police officials also said they are preparing for demonstrations. While the Metropolitan police department respects the communitys first amendment right to demonstrate and peacefully protest, officials said in a statement to WTOP, we will not tolerate any unlawful behavior during first amendment demonstrations, and we will take swift law enforcement action should anyone break the law. The expected demonstrations over Nicholss death come more than two years after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis spurred worldwide mass protests. Police departments across the US drew extensive scrutiny over their handling of often peaceful protesters. Some US police punched, kicked, teargassed, pepper-sprayed and drove vehicles toward protesters. Thousands of US protest participants found themselves jailed and many were injured, with some sustaining life-threatening injuries. STORY: Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev were charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering for their role in the thwarted Tehran-backed plot, the Department of Justice said in a statement. "The victim publicized (the) Iranian government's human rights abuses, discriminatory treatment of women, suppression of democratic participation and expression and use of arbitrary imprisonment, torture and execution," Garland said. Garland did not name the alleged victim, but Mehdiyev was arrested last year in New York for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist Masih Alinejad, a longtime critic of Iran's head-covering laws who has promoted videos of women violating those laws on social media. Mehdiyev pleaded not guilty to one count of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He is being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center pending trial. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. prosecutors in 2021 charged four Iranians alleged to be intelligence operatives for Tehran with plotting to kidnap a New York-based journalist and activist. While the target of the plot was not named, Reuters confirmed she was Alinejad. MOSCOW, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Latvian ambassador to Russia, Maris Riekstins, should leave Russia within two weeks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday. Latvian Charge d'Affaires Dace Rutka was summoned to the ministry in protest over Latvia's decision to lower the level of Russian-Latvian diplomatic relations, the ministry said in a statement. Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Monday his country recalled its ambassador from Russia and downgraded diplomatic relations with Russia to the level of charge d'affaires as of Feb. 24. Rinkevics said the decision was made in a show of solidarity with its neighbor Estonia. The Russian Foreign Ministry called Latvia's justification of its decision completely unacceptable. It said that the only way the Baltic states had shown solidarity was through their "total Russophobia" and their efforts to promote hostility against Russia. By Luc Cohen and Joel Schectman NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors have charged three men with attempting to assassinate a prominent critic of Iran's government who was previously the target of a failed Tehran-backed kidnapping plot, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Friday, Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev were charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering for their role in the thwarted Tehran-backed assassination attempt of the journalist and activist, who is a U.S. citizen and lives in Brooklyn. Garland did not name the alleged victim, but Mehdiyev was arrested last year in New York for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist Masih Alinejad, a longtime critic of Iran's head-covering laws who has promoted videos of women violating those laws to her millions of social media followers. In an interview with Reuters, Alinejad said she was invited to the FBI headquarters in Manhattan this morning where a dozen agents described to her the details of the plot. In July, the men had planned to get Alinejad out of her house by asking her for flowers from her garden, and then gun her down, authorities said. Her elaborate garden is well known in the neighborhood: Each section is dedicated to family in Iran from who she has been separated for 13 years. The assailants had been monitoring the property and may have observed that she often shares flowers with her neighbors, she said. But she spotted the assailants surveilling her house and fled, authorities said. Imagine they had opened fire, she said, How many of my beautiful neighbors would have died. My stepchildren? Alinejad said the assassination attempt shows that Iran is terrified of Iranian women demanding their rights, which she often promotes through social media. They are scared of their own people, she said. Like millions of others I want freedom for my country. I dont deserve to die for that. Mehdiyev, 24, pleaded not guilty to one count of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He is being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn pending trial. Story continues Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. prosecutors in 2021 charged four Iranians alleged to be intelligence operatives for Tehran with plotting to kidnap a New York-based journalist and activist. While the target of that plot was not named, Reuters confirmed she was Alinejad. Garland said the victim of the assassination plot and the attempted kidnapping were the same person. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday's charges followed "a disturbing pattern of Iranian government-sponsored efforts to kill, torture, and intimidate into silence activists for speaking out for the fundamental rights and freedoms of Iranians around the world." After the 2021 kidnapping plot failed, Amirov - a resident of Iran - sent information about the target to Omarov, a resident of the Czech Republic and Slovenia, prosecutors said on Friday. Omarov then sent those details to Mehdiyev, who lived in Yonkers, New York, prosecutors said. Amirov and Omarov then arranged for Mehdiyev to get $30,000 in cash, which he used to buy an assault rifle and ammunition, prosecutors said. He then staked out the target's neighborhood for several days in July 2022, but was stopped for a traffic violation and arrested when police found his weapon. Amirov, 43, was arrested outside the United States, Garland said. He was taken into U.S. custody on Thursday and pleaded not guilty through a defense lawyer at an arraignment in federal court in Manhattan on Friday afternoon. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave ordered Amirov detained pending trial after his lawyer did not object to prosecutors' request that he be denied bail. Omarov, 38, was arrested in the Czech Republic earlier this month, and the United States is seeking his extradition. In recent years, the United States and Iran have been at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear program, its support for proxy forces in the region, and its deadly clampdown on unrest after the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman in morality police custody. Iran accuses Western powers of fomenting the unrest, which security forces have met with deadly violence. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Arshad Mohammed in WashingonEditing by Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell) London A 19-year-old British man whose extreme right-wing videos helped "inspire" two recent U.S. shootings, according to police, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison by a U.K. court. Daniel Harris was convicted of encouraging terrorism. He had been previously found guilty of six terrorism offenses in November of 2022, following a slew of online posts on the World Truth Videos platform spewing racist rhetoric and issuing calls for the death of minorities. Harris was also convicted of the possession of a 3D printer with the intent to make his own gun. Daniel Harris is seen in a photo provided by the police in Derbyshire, England. / Credit: Derbyshire Constabulary The teenager's online videos were referenced several times by the gunman behind the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York last May, as well as the suspect in the mass killing at a Colorado gay club in November. Harris' previous convictions include aggravated criminal damage for defacing a Manchester mural of George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in Minnesota in 2020. Judge Patrick Field KC told the court on Friday that Harris created a series of videos glorifying acts of murder with specific instructions to emulate them, according to BBC News. "In these videos you expressed and repeated vile antisemitic, racist, misogynistic and homophobic views," he told Harris at the sentencing. "You intended to encourage terrorism, and it's plain that what was being encouraged was lethal, racist and antisemitic violence, as well as violence against the gay community." Last year, a 19-year-old man pleaded guilty to the the hate-fueled murder of 10 individuals in the Buffalo, New York grocery store. An online statement he posted revealed his objective was to target a predominantly Black neighborhood. At the top of his online statement was an image taken from one of Harris' videos. Two months prior to the shooting, the Buffalo gunman commented on one of Harris' posts praising a 2019 terror attack on a mosque in New Zealand, with the American telling the British teenager, "You are not alone my friend :)". Story continues "The threat [Harris] posed became such that we had to act in order to ensure the safety of the wider public," Detective Inspector Chris Brett said in a police statement after the sentencing on Friday. "The reference to one of his videos in the prelude to the Buffalo attack is a case in point." Further evidence revealed that the person suspected of killing five people at the Q Club in Colorado had also frequented Harris' channel on the World Truth Videos platform. "As we have seen in this case against Daniel Harris, such irresponsible and hateful behavior can have deadly consequences," Brett said. "While not all individuals have the means to act upon their words, in the online space, they can easily spread to inspire others who do." Concern intensifies over violence in the West Bank Memphis prepares to release bodycam video of Tyre Nichols' arrest Trains see boost in passengers looking for an alternative to flying By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Over two dozen U.S. representatives on Friday called on top U.S. climate envoy John Kerry to urge the United Arab Emirates to withdraw its appointment of the head of its state oil company as president of the COP28 climate summit it will host this year. The 27 Democratic members of Congress, led by California Congressman Jared Huffman, sent a letter to Kerry calling on him to persuade the future U.N. climate summit host to withdraw the appointment of Sultan Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, who is charged with shepherding the next round of climate negotiations. The lawmakers said the appointment jeopardizes the climate talks, which they say are already negatively influenced by the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists. "It risks undermining the very essence of what is trying to be accomplished," they wrote to Kerry. "Furthermore, as some of us have urged future COPs should require any participating company to submit an audited corporate political influencing statement that discloses climate-related lobbying, campaign contributions, and funding of trade associations and organizations active on energy and climate," they added. On Jan. 12, Kerry congratulated the UAE on the selection of Jaber. In an interview with Reuters last month, Kerry said having an oil state host the COP is a positive move because "it's so important that you have an oil and gas producing nation step up and say we understand the challenge of the climate crisis. Al-Jaber, also UAE's minister of industry and technology and its climate envoy, will help shape the conference's agenda and intergovernmental negotiations to build consensus, his office said in a statement. Campaigners and some delegates criticized COP27, saying fossil fuel producers had watered down emission reduction ambitions and benefited from sympathetic treatment from Egypt, a natural gas exporter and frequent recipient of Gulf funds. (Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by David Gregorio) By Max Hunder KYIV (Reuters) -Russia is violating the "fundamental principles of child protection" in wartime by giving Ukrainian children Russian passports and putting them up for adoption, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) chief told Reuters in an interview. Speaking at the UNHCR offices in Kyiv following a six-day tour of Ukraine, Filippo Grandi said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had asked his agency to "do more" to help children from occupied regions to whom this was happening. "Giving them (Russian) nationality or having them adopted goes against the fundamental principles of child protection in situations of war," Grandi said. "This is something that is happening in Russia and must not happen," he added. Zelenskiy, after meeting Grandi on Wednesday, called for mechanisms to be established to "defend and return" children and adults deported to Russia since its invasion of Ukraine last February, as well as to punish those responsible. Grandi said his agency was unable to estimate the number of children who had been given passports or put up for adoption, as access in Russia was extremely limited. "We are seeking access all the time, and access has been rather rare, sporadic and not unfettered," he said. In Moscow, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Grandi of being silent when children died as a result of what she said was Ukrainian shelling in the Donbas region after pro-Moscow separatists declared independence in 2014. "I also wish such officials from the U.N. had taken note of the colossal humanitarian assistance" that Russia had provided to inhabitants of the region, she told reporters. FUTURE TRENDS Grandi highlighted two potential future trends in Ukraine's displacement crisis, which saw eight million people flee abroad and several million more become internally displaced. More refugees could return in the warm season, as happened in 2022 when the agency observed "hundreds of thousands" of returnees at the end of the summer - although that movement was halted by the onset of the cold. Story continues Ukraine's typically icy winter has been made harsher still this year by Russian missile strikes against energy infrastructure, leading to outages of power, water and heat. "We have seen returns drop considerably, long or short, in the winter months ... coupled with a very slight increase with people getting out of the country," he said. Grandi also warned that and increase in fighting could trigger a new wave of refugees, although these are likely to mostly be internal. "What we have seen in the last few days is not very promising in this respect, everybody foresees that there will be a rise in hostilities, an escalation ... and this is likely to generate a more displacement." GLOBAL VIEW Grandi painted a bleak global outlook, predicting that the number of displaced people, currently at 103 million, would "almost inevitably" grow in the coming years if the U.N. Security Council continued to be divided on key issues. He also urged countries to process prospective asylum seekers more quickly in order to stop unfounded asylum claims from clogging up the system. "Don't drag it out! Because dragging it out means that people abscond, they disappear, they become illegal immigrants, and then its a big problem because nobody knows how to send them back," he said. (Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva, Caleb Davis and Filipp Lebedev; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel, David Ljunggren and Grant McCool) A U.S. military operation in northern Somalia killed a senior leader of the Islamic State terrorist group and 10 other ISIS fighters on Wednesday night, according to two senior administration officials. Bilal al Sudani, who the officials described as a key operative and facilitator of the terror groups global network, was the target of the raid. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and funding the groups operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan. President Joe Biden ordered the operation after Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommended it. The officials said no civilians were wounded or killed in the operation, but they did not identify any of the 10 others killed beyond characterizing them as ISIS operatives. The only injury the officials reported was a U.S. service member who was bitten by one of the American military service dogs. The operation took place in a mountainous area in northern Somalia and followed months of planning, the officials said. [There were] extensive rehearsals of the operation itself by our military forces, one senior administration official said, including at sites specifically built to recreate the terrain where the operation ultimately needed to take place [T]he actual execution [was] careful, precise and effective. The operation yielded some intelligence, but the senior administration officials declined to provide specifics. Our intelligence community expects to glean valuable information from this operation as well, demonstrating our continued emphasis on maximizing intelligence collection, one official said. This article was originally published on NBCNews.com (Reuters) -The U.S. securities regulator is investigating Elon Musk's role in shaping EV maker Tesla's self-driving claims, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a person with knowledge of the matter. The review is part of an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe of the company's statements about its Autopilot driver-assistance system, the report added. SEC officials are considering whether Musk may have inappropriately made forward-looking statements, the report said, without specifying which specific statements or activities by Musk attracted the regulator's attention. Tesla Chief Executive Musk did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, while the SEC declined to comment. Separately, the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Jan. 9 said the regulatory agency is "working really fast" on the Tesla Autopilot investigation it opened in August 2021. Musk is also under trial for allegedly misleading investors with his 2018 tweet saying "funding secured" for taking Tesla private. (Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath) By Chris Prentice NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is probing registered investment advisers over whether they are meeting rules around custody of client crypto assets, three sources with knowledge of the inquiry told Reuters. The SEC has been questioning advisers' efforts to follow the agency's rules around custody of clients' digital assets for several months, but the probe has gathered pace in the wake of the blow-up of crypto exchange FTX, the sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity as the inquiries are not public. Advisers managing clients' digital assets typically use a third party to store them. SEC enforcement staff are asking investment advisers for details around what the firms did to assess custody for platforms including FTX, one of the sources said. The broad enforcement sweep, which has not been previously reported, is a sign the top U.S. markets regulator's scrutiny of the crypto industry is expanding to more traditional Wall Street firms. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment. By law, investment advisers cannot have custody of client funds or securities if they do not meet certain requirements to protect the assets. One of these demands that advisers hold such assets with a firm deemed to be a "qualified custodian," though the SEC does not hold any specific list or offer licenses to firms to become such custodians. The SEC's investigation signals the regulator is targeting a long-brewing issue for traditional firms that have sought ways to invest in crypto, attorneys told Reuters. The agency's accounting guidance has made it too capital-intensive for many lenders to hold digital assets on behalf of clients, limiting options for advisers seeking custodians. "This is an obvious compliance issue for investment advisers. If you have custody of client assets that are securities, then you need to custody those with one of these qualified custodians," said Anthony Tu-Sekine, head of Seward and Kissel's Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Group. Story continues "I think it's an easy call for the SEC to make." Under Democratic leadership, the SEC has made crypto a priority area for enforcement, nearly doubling the size of its crypto team last year. But the regulator is under fresh pressure to go after crypto in the wake of a series of bankruptcies across the industry and the unveiling of U.S. charges against FTX's founder and former head, Sam Bankman-Fried, for allegedly committing fraud. He has pleaded not guilty. Two of Bankman-Fried's associates, former Alameda chief executive Caroline Ellison and former FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang, have both pleaded guilty to defrauding investors and agreed to cooperate. The SEC has also been probing FTX equity investors for details of their due diligence efforts when they invested in the crypto exchange. (Reporting by Chris Prentice in New York; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Megan Davies and Leslie Adler) UK companies are holding off investments amid recession fears. Photo: Henry Nicholls/Reuters Companies raised less money through the markets as total gross capital issuance by all UK residents came in at 33.4bn in December, 26.5bn lower than in November, and also below the previous six-month average, according to latest figures from the Bank of England (BoE). Total net capital issuance was 200m last month, compared to 10.9bn in November and the previous six-month average of 1.2bn. Capital issuance means ways businesses have to raise money, either through issuing debt in the form of bonds or commercial paper, or equity, where companies secure funds through the sale of shares. The capital issuance statistics published by the BoE consist of non-government primary market issuance of bonds, commercial paper and equity, representing finance raised by UK resident entities. The central bank said the drop in capital issuance was driven by the fall in issuance of gross commercial paper which fell to 12.6bn in December, compared to 31.3bn in November and the previous six-month average of 20.6bn. Read more: How ChatGPT could lead to 'mass technological unemployment' - The Crypto Mile The data also showed that gross bond issuance was 20.5bn in December, compared to 27.7bn in November, while gross commercial paper issuance stood at 12.6bn. The decrease in net issuance in bonds was primarily driven by a drop across two major sectors monetary financial institutions (MFI), and others financial corporations (OFC). Companies fear the UK's impending recession could be deeper than previously thought. Faced with a worsening situation, less government support and higher taxes, the economists said they thought each of the next three years could be worse than they had previously expected. In October, EYs Item Club had predicted a 0.3% contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) this year, followed by 2.4% growth next year and a 2.3% rise in 2025. But in an updated forecast released on Monday, it said GDP would drop 0.7% this year, followed by growth of 1.9% and 2.2% over the next two years. Story continues The figures also come as an industry body warned slow and unpredictable decisions by regulators are tarnishing the UKs competitiveness on the global stage, TheCityUK have issued a report that claims the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are taking too long to vet finance firms, potentially discouraging investment. Read more: Asda axes 300 jobs with another 4,000 facing pay cuts TheCityUK say that complex, opaque and slow authorisations, such as for a new chief executive or a new product, can discourage growth and investment. They acknowledged that the FCA and the PRA are taking steps to speed up authorisations, but say further action is needed. Watch: What is a recession and how do we spot one? An arms factory in Poland could help make the Ukrainian army more independent According to the outlet, the initiative was put forward by the chairman of the parliamentary defense select committee, Tobias Ellwood. The politician believes that Western governments have demonstrated a lack of strategic foresight in their steps to support Ukraine, and this must now be rectified. Ellwood noted that the decision to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Western tanks was the right one, but organizing supply chains for the different parts and ammunition may be unsustainable. "Its just not feasible in the long term, the Conservative MP explained, noting that an arms factory in Poland could help make the Ukrainian army more independent. Tanks today, yes. But we need a strategy to make sure Ukraine can defend itself [...] so they can procure their own equipment to their own specification, probably NATO standard, and have a constantly protected supply chain." The U.S. announced that it would transferring a number of Abrams M1 main battle tanks to Ukraine on Jan. 25. In addition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will also receive German Leopard 2 tanks from a variety of countries, as well as British Challenger 2 tanks. As of today, 73 modern Western tanks have been confirmed for delivery to Ukraine: 14 Challenger 2s from the UK; 31 Abrams from the United States; 14 Leopard 2s from Germany; 14 Leopard 2s from Poland. Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukraine was also to receive 90 modernized T-72s. Another 50 Leopard 2 tanks, according to unconfirmed reports, may be jointly supplied to Ukraine by Portugal, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, and Denmark. Spain may also supply 20 to 50 units of the heavily armored vehicles, and Sweden is considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Stridsvagn 122 tanks their local equivalent of the Leopard 2. France is also considering further supplying Ukraine with a number of its Leclerc tanks. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine By Vladyslav and Smilianets NEAR VUHLEDAR, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukraine on Friday battled Russian troops trying to pierce its lines in the east and northeast, and artillery bombardments intensified after Western allies promised the Kyiv government it would send them tanks to repel the invaders. Kyiv said fierce battles were under way, a day after at least 11 people were killed in missile and drone strikes which were seen in Ukraine as a response to the promises by important allies to send it tanks. After weeks of wrangling, Germany and the United States this week said they would send Ukraine dozens of modern tanks to help push back Russian forces, opening the way for other countries to follow suit. Poland gave Ukraine a further boost on Friday by promising an additional 60 tanks on top of 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it had already pledged. A total of 321 heavy tanks have been promised to Ukraine by several countries, Ukraine's ambassador to France, Vadym Omelchenko, said on BFM television on Friday. Ukraine has also asked for U.S. F16 fighter jets. The White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the government was aware of Ukraine's request but added, "We don't have any additional weapons systems to speak to today." Both sides in the war are expected to launch spring offensives, though Washington has advised Ukraine to wait until the latest weapons are in place and training has been provided - a process expected to take several months. Moscow accused U.S. President Joe Biden of prolonging the war by arming Kyiv. Ukraine says the only way to end the war is for allies to give it the weapons to win it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the situation at the front remained extremely acute, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region. In a Friday evening address, Zelenskiy said Russian forces were not just storming Ukrainian positions but also destroying the towns and villages around them. Story continues In Bohoiavlenka village in Donetsk region, soldiers said fighting around the nearby town of Vuhledar had intensified, with Russian troops constantly trying to advance and capture it. Vuhledar had come under intense shelling in the past 24 hours, with seven buildings and two schools damaged, Yevhen Nazarenko, spokesman for the Ukraine army's 68th brigade, told Reuters. "They constantly use artillery fire, aviation. There is no single quiet minute here," he said. Thick black smoke rose over Bohoiavlenka and explosions could be heard in the background. Some homes were damaged. Oleh Synehubov, governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv, said fierce fighting was continuing along the front lines there but Ukrainian forces were holding out. POWER SHORTAGES Millions of Ukrainians faced electricity shortages after Thursday's missile and drone strikes, the latest to target energy facilities and deprive people of heat, light and water. Russian air attacks hit five high-voltage substations in the central, southern and southwest regions on Thursday, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. Ukraine will need an additional $17 billion in financing this year for energy repairs, de-mining and to rebuild infrastructure, he added. Russia has been targeting Ukraine's energy infrastructure with intense air strikes far from the front about weekly since October. Kyiv says the attacks serve no military purpose and aim to harm civilians, a war crime. Moscow says the strikes are intended to reduce Ukraine's ability to fight. The latest strikes focused on "facilities that operate Ukraine's defence industrial complex and transport system," it said. "The goals of the massive attack have been reached. All the assigned targets have been neutralised." After Ukraine recaptured land in the second half of 2022, front lines have been largely frozen for more than two months, with Russia trying to gain ground in the east and protect a corridor of land it has seized in southern Ukraine. Oleskandr Musiyenko, head of the Military and Strategic Research Centre of Ukraine, said Russia was sending in reinforcements, mainly conscripts, to block Ukrainian advances. "But they do not have the level of artillery and tank support they had on Feb. 24," Musiyenko told Ukrainian television, referring to the date of Moscow's invasion in 2022. CHILDREN DEPORTED Kyiv accuses Moscow of deporting children as well as adults from occupied areas and giving them Russian passports. Filippo Grandi, the U.N.'s refugee agency chief, said this violated "the fundamental principles of child protection in situations of war" and that Russia must stop it. Japan tightened sanctions on Friday, expanding an export ban list and freezing assets of Russian officials and entities. But Ukraine's hopes that the European Union will impose sanctions affecting nuclear energy were dealt a blow by Hungary, which said that it would veto such moves. Hungary has a Russian-built nuclear plant which it plans to expand. Ukraine's foreign ministry said it will summon Hungary's ambassador to complain about "unacceptable" remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban about Ukraine. A ministry spokesman said Orban told reporters that Ukraine was a no man's land and compared it to Afghanistan. Russia tightened its own moves against Western entities, with communications regulator Roskomnadzor saying it had blocked the websites of the CIA and FBI. Russia says it launched its "special military operation" to fend off a hostile West. Ukraine and its allies say the invasion was an unprovoked act of aggression. (Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Peter Graff and Cynthia Osterman) (Reuters) - The Ukrainian foreign ministry will summon Hungary's ambassador to complain about "completely unacceptable" remarks Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made about Ukraine, Kyiv said on Friday. The announcement marks a new low in ties between the two neighbours. Hungary has repeatedly criticised European Union sanctions on Russia, saying they failed to weaken Moscow meaningfully, while they risk destroying the European economy. Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko, writing on Facebook, said Orban had told reporters that Ukraine was a no man's land and compared it to Afghanistan. "Such statements are completely unacceptable. Budapest is continuing a deliberate course aimed at destroying Hungarian-Ukrainian relations," he said. "The Hungarian ambassador will be summoned to the Ukrainian foreign ministry for a frank discussion. We reserve the right to take other measures in response." Orban earlier said on Friday that Hungary would veto any EU sanctions against Russia affecting nuclear energy. Hungary has a Russian-built nuclear plant it plans to expand. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) Ukraine is forming the world's first drone attack companies as part of the Army of Drones project. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Details: Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, approved the creation of drone attack companies during the Staff's meeting. Together with the Defence Ministry, the General Staff and the State Service of Special Communications, a coordination headquarters has been set up for the full implementation of the project within the framework of the Army of Drones. The General Staff reports that this is required in order to implement a number of key reforms and increase drone production for the Defence Forces. Quote: "We have already selected the most professional servicemen to lead the attack companies. Each of them will receive drones and ammunition, Starlink and other necessary equipment to defeat the enemy in hot spots." Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! A Ukrainian noncommissioned officer leads a US-Ukrainian NCO professional development class at a training center in Ukraine in October 2017. Oklahoma Army National Guard/Sgt. Anthony Jones Many expected Russia's military to overwhelm Ukraine's forces when it attacked in February 2022. Ukraine's success has been attributed in part to the skill of its noncommissioned officers. Since 2015, US troops have trained Ukraine's NCOs to "feed initiative and make tactical decisions." Ukraine's stiff but flexible defense in the days after Russia's invasion a year ago surprised the Russians, but US National Guard troops who trained those Ukrainians saw it coming, the head of the US National Guard said this week. US and Ukrainian officials have emphasized the role of Ukraine's noncommissioned officers higher-ranking enlisted troops who have not been commissioned as officers as front-line leaders who were able to adapt and make decisions in the hectic early days of the war, contrasting their performance with that of Russian units reliant on senior officers for battlefield guidance. After Russia's 2014 invasion, the US National Guard "worked very closely" with Ukraine's military "to identify those areas where they felt that they could really improve to prepare themselves if anything like that occurred again," US Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, adding that one of those areas "was NCO development." Army National Guard Sgt. Matthew Councill listens to a Ukrainian soldier brief his team before a drill at a Ukrainian base in May 2017. Oklahoma Army National Guard/Sgt. Anthony Jones US National Guard units began rotating through Ukraine in 2015 to conduct training as part of the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine. "We've really focused on developing their noncommissioned officers, as well as a couple other areas that they really wanted to work on," Hokanson said of the training. The program included sessions between US and Ukrainian NCOs to develop knowledge and skills out of the view of junior troops and officers. "You don't want to have to read from a book in front of the soldiers, so you read through and practice," an Oklahoma National Guard sergeant said in 2017. That training fostered "a competent non-commissioned officer corps that could feed initiative and make tactical decisions based on commander's intent," like NCOs in NATO militaries, Lt. Col. Todd Hopkins, deputy commander of the Florida National Guard's 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, said in May 2022, after a training rotation. Story continues On Tuesday, Hokanson and his senior enlisted advisor, Chief Master Sgt. Tony Whitehead, said the effect of that NCO training was visible after Russia's attack. Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Kevin Lawson speaks to Ukrainian NCOs after a drill at a base in Ukraine in May 2017. Oklahoma Army National Guard/Sgt. Anthony Jones "When you look at the predictors when the war started, there were a lot of folks that said it would be a matter of days or weeks," Hokanson said, referring to expectations of a Russian victory. "Our Guardsmen that had trained the Ukrainians, they said not so fast, that they really felt that the training, that [the Ukrainians] had really taken it seriously, and we saw the impact." US trainers withdrew from Ukraine on February 12, but the impact of their training was visible from afar, Whitehead said. Ukrainian NCOs "were able to lead from the front at the lowest level of supervision. That's where our NCOs really are effective because the things that our commanders empower them to do," Whitehead added. Hokanson and Whitehead echoed Chief Master Sgt. of the Ukrainian Air Force Kostiantyn Stanislavchuk, who said in August that Ukrainian sergeants, "without waiting for instructions from the above, took the initiative" to conduct "independent, small operations" and act "independently and resourcefully." "In this way, the [Ukrainian] defense forces are comparatively different from the enemy, where generals are forced to personally raise their subordinates to attack," Stanislavchuk said at a summit in Washington DC. A Ukrainian team leader takes part in a drill during junior leader training led by US and Canadian soldiers at a base in Ukraine in May 2017. Oklahoma Army National Guard/Sgt. Anthony Jones Ukrainian troops' effectiveness and Russian troops' shortcomings also surprised US intelligence agencies, which expected Russia's attack to overwhelm Ukrainian forces. US intelligence officials have acknowledged that they failed to see that Russia's military was a "hollow force." Other factors also shaped the first few days of fighting. While Russia surprised Ukraine at the operational level, Russian troops weren't expecting to do what Moscow ordered them to do, and Ukrainian troops, many of whom had fought Russia and its proxies in the Donbas region between 2014 and 2022, "had been psychologically and practically preparing for this fight for eight years," according to a Royal United Services Institute report on the first five months of the war. But Ukraine's performance has generated more interest in NCO training among the National Guard's other foreign partners, Hokanson said Wednesday. "After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we had a few of our state partners reach out and say, OK, these are areas that we feel like we should probably develop as well, and we've really tailored our engagement since then to address those concerns that each of these separate countries have," Hokanson said. Read the original article on Business Insider The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine expects that Russian and Belarusian joint military drills on training grounds in the Republic of Belarus will be continued repeatedly in order to exert pressure on the Defence Forces of Ukraine. Source: Andrii Demchenko, Spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, on the air of the national joint 24/7 newscast Quote: "We need to understand that such land military drills last more than one month and are continued repeatedly. And I think that after the extension of the current exercises, they will be extended again and again. Effectively, Belarus and Russia continue to pursue this line to exert pressure. This is done, among other things, so that the Ukrainian Defence Forces hold enough personnel and equipment in this area and do not transfer them to more strenuous areas of the contact line, where full-scale combat is taking place." Details: At the same time, according to Demchenko, they have not detected any formations of offensive groups, although the Russians should not be underestimated. The State Border Guard Service has not recorded any movement of Belarusian or Russian military equipment or personnel across the state border of Ukraine. The intelligence units are monitoring the territory of the Republic of Belarus in order to have the full picture and understand how critical the situation is at the moment. Earlier: Belaruski Hajun, an independent Belarusian military monitoring media outlet, reported that joint military drills of Russian and Belarusian forces have once again been extended, at least till 6 February. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! 109 Russian soldiers were killed in action and an additional 188 wounded over Jan. 26 in battles around Vuhledar as the fighting intensifies near the village in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk Oblast, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the Eastern Operational Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. "Fierce fighting is ongoing," Cherevatyi said in comments to Ukrinform on Jan. 27. "The enemy is indeed trying to achieve an intermediate success there, but thanks to the efforts of our defenders, they are unsuccessful." 45 kilometers southwest of the occupied regional capital of Donetsk, the village of Vuhledar is located at the strategic intersection between the east-west contact line going through Zaporizhzhia, and the north-south front stretching north towards the embattled city of Bakhmut. Over the past week, both the Russian defense ministry and military bloggers have claimed to have made advances along the Zaporizhzhia front line, both near Vuhledar and near Orikhiv. The Ukrainian military has denied losing any territory while acknowledged the uptick in intensity. Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on Jan. 25 that fierce battles were taking place in the Bakhmut and Vuhledar directions as Russian troops were increasing pressure. In its daily intelligence briefing, the U.K. defense ministry said it was "highly unlikely" Russia has made any significant progress in the area. "There is a realistic possibility that Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation in an effort to imply that the Russian operation is sustaining momentum," read the report. Ukrainian soldiers have arrived in Germany to train to operate the Marder infrantry fighting vehicle, according to German press agency dpa, cited by Deutsche Welle on Jan. 27. Training is expected to begin in the near future, with the vehicles to enter service in late winter. In service since the 1970s but having routinely undergone modernization, the Marder has a strong reputation for its reliability, firepower, and protection. Berlin promised to deliver 40 of the German-built Marders to Ukraine on Jan. 6, the same day that the Biden administration pledged 50 (later expanded to 100) of the U.S. equivalent, the Bradley. The announcement of Marder and Bradley infrantry fighting vehicles proved to be the beginning of a significant new wave of coordinated military aid to Ukraine, which culminated in the announcement of British Challenger 2, German-built Leopard 2, and U.S Andrew Myatt was willing to give his life for his country serving in the Army. After 9/11 he was deployed to Iraq, where he performed dangerous missions like searching for improvised explosive devices to disarm and destroy. But the 24-year Army veteran never thought the greatest risk to his health would show up years later. Myatt has a rare form of leukemia, which doctors say was most likely caused by exposure to toxins during his deployments. The toxins were from burn pits, which were the main way troops disposed of garbage, often using jet fuel to ignite flames. "The last thing you're thinking about is, you know that the smoke I walk by or the solvents I put in my vehicle is going to kill me," Myatt said. He applied for health coverage three times through the Department of Veterans Affairs and was denied each time. For years, that's been the reality of veterans who couldn't prove to the VA that their health conditions were linked to burn pit exposure. In August, President Biden signed the PACT Act, expanding VA healthcare eligibility for veterans who had toxic exposures during the Vietnam War, Gulf War and post-9/11 wars. The PACT Act takes the burden of proof off veterans, automatically linking asthma, some cancers and other illnesses to burn pit exposure. Presumptive conditions related to toxic exposure. / Credit: CBS News An estimated four million veterans who were deployed in the last 30 years were exposed to burn pits, according to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, who is urging veterans who may have been affected to file claims with the department. Nearly 260,000 claims have been filed and 66,000 benefits issued since the legislation was signed into law, the VA told CBS News. At least 1.4 million veterans have been screened for toxic exposure. "We've got a long way to go and we won't rest here in this building until we've reached every one of those vets, made sure they know what they qualify for, we get them signed up and we get that process going," McDonough said. McDonough said the VA is in the process of determining what VA facilities need in order to provide care to potentially millions of more patients. Story continues "We're running a process, an analysis facility by facility, to say, what do they currently need there?" he said. "What will additional vets coming in as a result of this law need? And we're out hiring very aggressively to fill those needs." While Myatt applauds the effort, he said for some veterans it's too little too late. "Knowing that those 3.5 million service members were exposed unnecessarily and we could have better mitigated against that and controlled it, and not knowing how many of them died, died needlessly after they came back because of that is, it's disheartening," he said. After filing his fourth claim earlier this month, Myatt was finally approved for coverage through the VA, after it ruled that his cancer was a result of his deployments. Despite evidence that shows the toxins from burn pits can harm troops, the Defense Department has yet to ban them. A spokesperson for the department said it "currently does not operate any open air burn pits," but it is "currently tracking 6 open air burn pits that are located in/near United States personnel in the countries of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Niger." "Our efforts to reduce burn pit use involve increased communications with host nations and partners, requesting the use of alternative waste disposal methods and making investments in technologies that may turn waste disposal into usable power and energy for the warfighter," the spokesperson said. Veterans can file a claim at VA.gov/PACT. MoneyWatch: Hiring boost for job-seekers this winter Holocaust survivors create cookbook to share Jewish recipes, stories of perseverance Quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning talk about fatherhood and "Manningcasts" Valley National Bancorp (NASDAQ:VLY) Full Year 2022 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: US$1.79b (up 36% from FY 2021). Net income: US$555.7m (up 21% from FY 2021). Profit margin: 31% (down from 35% in FY 2021). The decrease in margin was driven by higher expenses. EPS: US$1.15 (up from US$1.13 in FY 2021). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Valley National Bancorp EPS Misses Expectations Revenue was in line with analyst estimates. Earnings per share (EPS) missed analyst estimates by 2.1%. Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to grow 12% p.a. on average during the next 2 years, compared to a 6.5% growth forecast for the Banks industry in the US. Performance of the American Banks industry. The company's shares are up 3.2% from a week ago. Risk Analysis Don't forget that there may still be risks. For instance, we've identified 2 warning signs for Valley National Bancorp that you should be aware of. 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 [Source] A Tennessee university professor recently made the case that undergraduate mathematics education is discriminatory against queer and transgender students of color. Luis Leyva, assistant professor of mathematics education at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, described it as a "white, cisheteropatriarchal space" during a lecture at the Joint Mathematics Meetings 2023, the "largest mathematics gathering in the world," in Boston on Jan. 4. The lecture, delivered by Leyva in two parts, was titled "Undergraduate Mathematics Education as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space and Opportunities for Structural Disruption to Advance Queer of Color Justice." Leyva based his argument on research that examined the educational experiences of 39 undergraduate students of color majoring in STEM fields who identify as queer or transgender (QT). More from NextShark: Report: Xinjiang cotton found in Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss tops He discussed in the first part of the lecture how "Black, Latin*, and Asian QT students narratives of experience reflect forms of intersectionality, or instances of oppression and resistance at intersecting systems of white supremacy and cisheteropatriarchy (or white cisheteropatriarchy)." He also explained how he used his analytical framework, "STEM Education as a White, Cisheteropatriarchal Space, to show how intersectional oppression among undergraduate QT students of color "unfolds across three interconnected levels of influence in undergraduate STEM: ideological, institutional, and relational." The second part of the lecture focused on applying Leva's framework and research findings to contend that undergraduate mathematics education "operates as a white, cisheteropatriarchal space that limits learning opportunities affirming of queer of color identities and experiences." More from NextShark: Man Harasses Group of Asians in Vancouver With Racist Anti-China Rant He ended his lecture by "re-imagining" a type of undergraduate mathematics education that would increase support for "learners marginalized across intersections of race, gender, and sexuality." Story continues Leyva, who advocates creating "culturally and socially relevant environments in STEM," is part of Vanderbilt Universitys Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies. According to his university bio, he conducts studies on narratives of oppression and agency across historically marginalized groups educational experiences to uncover interlocking functions of racism and cisheteropatriarchy in undergraduate STEM." More from NextShark: Artist Drue Kataoka Helps Crowdfund to Protect Asian Elders, Change Hate Crime Laws Enjoy this content? Read more from NextShark! Chinese teen sold at birth and rejected twice by biological parents dies by suicide Five months after he being ordered to take his schizophrenia medication, a Richland murder suspect is ready to face criminal charges, say state psychologists. Eastern State Hospital medical officials believe that Aaron Christopher Kellys condition is in partial remission and he can stand trial in Benton County. But his attorneys dispute that hes mentally healthy enough to help in his defense and plan to argue that before a Tri-Cities judge next month. Kelly, 40, is charged with first-degree murder for killing an Instacart worker, Justin Krumbah, inside the Richland Fred Meyer store last February and also wounding a store employee. He appeared in Benton County Superior Court this week via video link from the jail. One of his attorneys, Karla Kane, said a hearing is needed for a judge determine whether Kelly can face trial for murder and attempted murder for the Feb. 7 shooting. The charges against Kelley have been on hold since Feb. 23, 2022, when defense attorneys asked to have his competency evaluated. State psychologists agreed that his mental condition prevented him from being able to help his attorneys. They asked for three months of treatment for Kelly, who had refused to cooperative or even to answer questions. Kelly objected to taking the medication to treat his condition until a judge ruled that the hospital could require him to take it starting last August. Hes remained at the hospital until earlier this month. Fred Meyer shooting Kelly is accused of walking into the Fred Meyer on Wellsian Way about 11 a.m. on Feb. 7, 2022, having a brief conversation with Krumbah whom he didnt know, and then shooting the 38-year-old. Instacart donated $50,000 to the GoFundMe account set up to help the family of Justin Krumbah, including to pay for his funeral. Kelly then shot store employee Mark Hill, 56, three times near the customer service desk, according to court documents. Hill was rushed to a hospital and survived. Kelly stayed in the store for a few minutes before leaving and eventually heading to his bank to empty his account, prosecutors said. He was arrested 11 hours later driving on Interstate 90 near Sprague, southwest of Spokane, in Eastern Washington. Story continues Police talk with employees and customers who were inside the Richland Fred Meyer when Instacart shopper Justin Krumbah was shot and killed. Competency report Washington state psychologists Richard Yocum and Sara Hartigan filed the most recent report on Kellys mental health on Jan. 4. They said his delusions, impaired insight and other symptoms had abated enough that they did not appear to impair his competency-related abilities. Therefore, it is recommended that he return to court to resume adjudication of his pending criminal matter, they wrote. Kelly had a history of not cooperating with treatment, according to the report. He was preoccupied with what was being documented about him and carried a folder of paperwork that he wouldnt talk about. Aaron C. Kelly appears in February 2022 in Benton County Superior Court on charges he killed one man and wounded another inside the Richland Fred Meyer store. He also barricaded himself in his room due to paranoia, and he was designated as an escape risk due to the detailed drawing he made of hospital grounds, according to the report. He continued to be guarded, suspicious and cautious and isolated himself. However his symptoms appear to have decreased in severity, said the medical officials. He also started engaging with other patients toward the end of his stay, according to the report. The psychologists said Kellys thoughts were organized, linear and goal-directed and while he reported some minimal paranoid beliefs, he didnt dwell on them. Kelly also showed that he understood the court proceedings and the role of his attorneys, the judge and the jury. The Russians have forcibly transported 3,500 convicts from occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts to Crimea, where they are being recruited by the Wagner Group [a Russian private military company ed.]. Source: press service of the National Resistance Center Details: According to the National Resistance Center, the Russian occupiers have forcibly transported convicts to occupied Crimea, where they are being urged to join the ranks of the Wagner Group. The Center points out that the majority of the convicts refuse to sign the contract, which leads them to being held in intolerable conditions. The National Resistance Center emphasises that the people in question are convicts that had been sentenced in Ukraine for criminal offences and were in prison at the time of the full-scale invasion. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! (Reuters) - Walmart Inc said on Friday it would adjust working hours for its U.S. pharmacy team and implement it nationwide in 4,600 locations, with drugstore operator CVS Health Corp doing the same for about two-thirds of its retail pharmacies, amid a tight labor market. The United States has been experiencing a nationwide labor shortage since the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced retailers to offer attractive incentives and pay increases. Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS each raised their minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2021 while Walmart said last year it would increase the average pay of pharmacy workers to more than $20 per hour. Earlier on Friday, the Wall Street Journal first reported CVS Health Corp and Walmart were cutting pharmacy hours. Walmart's pharmacies will be open from 9 AM to 7 PM, Monday through Friday from March, while the weekend hours would not change, a spokesperson for the company said. Currently, they are open from 9 AM to 9 PM. CVS said the new hours of operation, which begin in March, at impacted pharmacies will vary, adding it periodically reviews operating hours to make sure peak customer demand was being met. The company had 9,900 retail locations including pharmacies, according to a regulatory filing in February 2022. Walgreens said in a statement that at times it had to adjust store or pharmacy hours at some places after staffing challenges impacted retailers and healthcare entities, among others, over the last 12 months. (Reporting by Bhanvi Satija and Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri) Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the leading members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are pushing for their panel to gain access to the classified documents found at President Bidens and former President Trumps residences over the last year. Our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those [documents], Warner told CBS News in an interview alongside Rubio, set to air on Sunday. But our job is to make sure theres not an intelligence compromise. In what has become a widespread issue in recent months, classified documents have now been discovered at the homes of Biden, Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. A small number of documents bearing classified markings were found at Pences Indiana home last week, after the former vice president brought in outside counsel to search his personal records. The decision came in the wake of revelations that classified documents had been discovered at Bidens former Washington, D.C., office and Wilmington, Del., home. The National Archives reportedly asked former presidents and vice presidents to conduct a similar search for any misplaced presidential records, including classified materials, in a letter on Thursday, according to CNN. Warner said Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, was previously willing to brief the Senate Intelligence Committee on the classified material discoveries. However, with the Justice Departments appointment of special counsels to lead investigations into both Bidens and Trumps handling of classified documents, Warner said the committee has been left in limbo and has no timeline on when they will get access to the documents. We cant do our job, he said. That just cannot stand. Rubio emphasized that congressional oversight on the documents should not impede the investigations. If in fact those documents were very sensitive, materials were sensitive, and they pose a counterintelligence or national security threat to the United States, then the intelligence agencies are tasked with the job of coming up with ways to mitigate that, Rubio said. How can we judge whether their mitigation standards are appropriate if we dont have material to compare it against, and we cant even make an assessment on whether theyve properly risk-assessed it? he added. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Hours after attorneys Antonio Romanucci and Ben Crump called for the immediate disbanding of the Memphis Police Department's SCORPION Unit, a specialized unit focused on crime prevention, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland confirmed the unit was inactive. Officers in the unit were indicted on charges for the death of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old Black man who officials say died after officers injured him during a traffic stop earlier this month. Memphis officials had previously been mum on the status of the unit, but late Wednesday said the unit was under review. Officials have not set a date for expected results of the review. "Since this event happened, the SCORPION Unit has been and remains inactive," Strickland said Friday afternoon in a weekly email update. Nichols' parents, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, joined attorneys Romanucci and Crump calling for reforms to the unit during a Friday morning press conference. The attorneys said they intend to file a civil lawsuit against the unit and called on the Memphis Police Department to accept a pattern and practice investigation by the Department of Justice should the federal organization deem the investigation appropriate. "The intent of the SCORPION Unit has now been corrupted," Romanucci said. Romanucci and Crump described allegations from other people of police violence with the unit and a lack of response from the Memphis Police Department's internal affairs. At least two of the five officers indicted on charges for Nichols' death were part of the unit, attorneys have confirmed. Mother of Tyre Nichols, RowVaughn Wells, sheds tears at a press conference for Tyre Nichols on Jan. 27, 2023 at Mt. Olive Cathedral CME Church in Memphis, TN. Calls to disband special unit come alongside praise for swift action in officer termination, charges Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis announced the "complete and independent review" of all the department's specialized units earlier this week. It is unclear if additional units, beyond the SCORPION unit, are part of the investigation. "It is clear that these officers violated the departments policies and training. I want to assure you we are doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again," Strickland said in the Friday update. "We are initiating an outside, independent review of the training, policies, and operations of our specialized units. Since this event happened, the SCORPION Unit has been and remains inactive." Story continues Describing the SCORPION unit, Crump said: "We believe this was a pattern and practice. And Tyre is dead because that pattern and practice went unchecked by the people who were supposed to check that." Crump also called for support to legislation in honor of Nichols that would emphasize a duty to intervene when crimes are committed, he said, including when crimes are committed by other police officers. While the Memphis Police Department created the unit, the attorneys also commended Davis and local leadership for moving swiftly toward terminating the officers, all of whom are Black, and Shelby County District Attorney Gen. Steve Mulroy for bringing charges. "This is the blueprint, America," Crump said. "And we won't accept less." Still, Crump criticized the culture of police departments: "We have to talk about this institutionalized police culture that has this unwritten law that you can engage in excessive use of force against Black and brown people." "It doesn't matter if it's a Black police officer or a white police officer," Crump said. "And that's why it hurts so bad, because you want them to see the humanity. You keep thinking to yourself that these officers have got to understand that could have been your brother." Attorney Ben Crump speaks at a press conference for Tyre Nichols on Jan. 27, 2023 at Mt. Olive Cathedral CME Church in Memphis, TN. Calls for disbanded unit come days after Memphis police chief announces 'complete and independent review' The announcement came about a day after five former MPD officers, some of whom belonged to the SCORPION Unit, were charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault, among other criminal charges for their roles in the traffic stop that led to Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, being taken to the hospital in critical condition. Nichols was the fourth person to die after interactions with local law enforcement over a five-week span. Three other people were fatally shot. "You often hear about other tragedies that happen before the high-profile case that's going on. And what we try to do is try to lift all the injustices up and we try to speak to all of those," Crump said asked about the shootings. "...I would hope that the city leadership, if the Department of Justice deems it appropriate, to have a pattern and practice organization of the Memphis Police Department, that they will welcome it." Officers in the SCORPION unit and others like it across the country, Romanucci alleged, operate with "whispered impunity." "You can call this the SCORPION unit, if that's what you want to call it. But what these really are...these are suppression units, these are saturation units, and what they really turn out to be are oppression units. And what they do is they wind up oppressing the people that we care about the most," Romanucci said Friday. In an open letter Thursday night, Crump and Romanucci elaborated on the calls to disband: "The official cause for Tyres encounter with police on January 7, 2023, was a traffic stop, far outside the units stated purpose of stemming violent crime. But the 'why' of Tyre Nichols's death is found in this policing culture itself, not something Tyre personally did. And his running in fear for his life in-between a series of beatings was an affront to the officers, who wanted to show Tyre and the city of Memphis that as a team they can take anyone down. No one escapes the Scorpions." Nichols family 'satisfied' with charges: 'We had a special son' Nichols had just left his mother's house when officers pulled him over for a traffic violation. According to police, a "confrontation" took place and Nichols eventually ran away back towards his mother's house. He didn't make it home that night. Crump told reporters at a press conference Jan. 23 that Nichols was between 80 and 100 yards from the house when officers caught up to him. That, according to Romanucci, is where an "unadulterated...beating of [Nichols] for three minutes" took place. "The last words on the video he's only about 80 to 100 yards from the house and he calls for his mom," Crump said Jan. 23. "Three times, he calls, 'Mom. Mom. Mom.' Where's the humanity?" Nichols was taken to St. Francis Hospital in critical condition after he "complained of a shortness of breath," according to the initial police narrative. He died three days later on Jan. 10. More details and clarity on the incident were nearly nonexistent before Thursday afternoon, when Mulroy hosted a press conference and laid out a vague timeline. "There was an initial altercation involving several officers and Mr. Nichols. Pepper spray was deployed," Mulroy said. "Mr. Nichols fled on foot and there was another altercation at a nearby location, at which the serious injuries were experienced by Mr. Nichols. After some period of time of waiting around afterwards, he was taken away by ambulance." Five officers were immediately placed on administrative leave while MPD brass conducted an internal investigation. Former MPD officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills, Jr. were fired Jan. 20 after that investigation was completed. Two employees from the Memphis Fire Department, who have not been identified or charged in connection with Nichols' death, were relieved of duty. Bean, Haley, Smith, Martin III and Mills, Jr. were all indicted on second-degree murder charges, aggravated assault-acting in concert, aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct and one count of official oppression, according to court records. They were held on various bonds, ranging from $250,000 to $350,000 and all five had bonded out by Friday. Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, had previously called for the officers to be charged with first-degree murder, but said he was satisfied with the swiftness and severity of the charges. "We're very satisfied with the charges," Wells said. "This is a special case. We had a special son." Laura Testino covers education and children's issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com. Find her on Twitter: @LDTestino Lucas Finton is a news reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Tyre Nichols' attorneys call for Memphis SCORPION Unit to be disbanded The Emmy Award-winning "CBS Sunday Morning" is broadcast on CBS Sundays beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET. "Sunday Morning" also streams on the CBS News app beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET. (Download it here.) Host: Jane Pauley WATCH THE FULL JANUARY 29 EPISODE! COVER STORY: Tyre Nichols' death, and a mother's pain | Watch Video With the release of bodycam and surveillance camera video, the nation witnessed the savage beating by Memphis Police officers of Tyre Nichols, a Black man who pleaded for his life. One who did not watch was Nichols' mother, RowVaughn Wells, who said she felt the pain of her son as he was being assaulted. Correspondent Lee Cowan reports. TECHNOLOGY: Creating a "lie detector" for deepfakes | Watch Video With the proliferation of artificial intelligence software used to produce fake videos and photographs that can spread disinformation, Adobe and Microsoft have teamed up to develop new tools for verifying the attributes and history of images and videos on the web. Correspondent David Pogue looks at how Content Credentials can help retain trust in journalism, and protect democracy from propaganda. For more info: Content Credentials (Beta) for Photoshop Steven Holl's Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, Iowa. / Credit: Iwan Baan / Steven Holl Architects ARCHITECTURE: The "luminist architecture" of Steven Holl | Watch Video The works of architect Steven Holl have helped define the look of cities around the world, making remarkable use of light and space. Correspondent Rita Braver talks with Holl, whose recent works include the REACH at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., and the Kinder Building at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston buildings in which Holl hopes to express "the joy from the creative act." For more info: Steven Holl ArchitectsThe REACH at the Kennedy CenterNancy and Rich Kinder Building, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Actor James Cromwell (right), with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz. / Credit: CBS News MOVIES: James Cromwell, never tiring of acting or activism | Watch Video James Cromwell, the 83-year-old character actor is known for memorable roles in "L.A. Confidential," "The Queen," "Succession," and his Oscar-nominated performance as Farmer Hoggett in "Babe," is also known for his activism, including protests against animal testing and a power plant. Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz visits with Cromwell to talk about playing opposite a pig, and gluing himself to a Starbucks counter to protest pricing. Story continues For more info: Follow @jamesocromwell on Twitter Samantha Smith, a fifth-grader from Manchester, Maine, is greeted by Russian Young Pioneers at an airport on the Crimean Peninsula, July 9, 1972. / Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images "MOBITUARIES": Samantha Smith, the fifth-grader from Maine who became "America's Littlest Diplomat" | Watch Video In 1982 an 10-year-old girl wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov voicing her worries about the prospect of nuclear war. "Mobituaries" host Mo Rocca looks back at Samantha Smith, who was invited to the USSR, and was welcomed like a visiting head of state. Listen to the "Mobituaries" episode "Samantha Smith: Death of a Peacemaker" For more info: "Mobituaries" Season 3samanthasmith.infoMaine State Museum, AugustaManchester Elementary School, Manchester, Me. Coming in June: "America's Youngest Ambassador: The Cold War Story of Samantha Smith's Lasting Message of Peace" by Lena Nelson (Down East Books) PASSAGE: In memoriam (Video) "Sunday Morning" remembers some of the notable figures who left us this week, including Emmy Award-winning college basketball broadcaster Billy Packer. COMMENTARY: Charles Blow on Tyre Nichols' death, and America's shame | Watch Video The New York Times columnist says the nation's commitment to change, following the death of George Floyd and a wave of historic protests in its wake, has been abandoned - and that the spectacle surrounding the deaths of Black people at the hands of police continues. For more info: Charles M. Blow, The New York Times Correspondent Tracy Smith with actors Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, stars of MOVIES: "Banshees of Inisherin" stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson on friendship | Watch Video The acclaimed Irish comic-drama "The Banshees of Inisherin," about two longtime friends whose relationship suddenly grinds to a halt, stars two actors who clicked while collaborating on the 2008 classic "In Bruges." Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, both Oscar-nominated for their performances in "Banshees," talk with correspondent Tracy Smith about their friendship, and the challenge of playing ex-friends. To watch a trailer for "The Banshees of Inisherin" click on the video player below For more info: "The Banshees of Inisherin" is in theaters and streaming on HBO Max A fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon by Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1936). / Credit: RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images ARTS: Meret Oppenheim: An artist beyond categorization | Watch Video Best-known for a fur-lined teacup, the Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1913-1985) was a free-spirit whose work spanned half a century. Correspondent Serena Altschul reports on a new retrospective of Oppenheim's work, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. For more info: Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (through March 4)Exhibition catalogue: "Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition," edited by Nina Zimmer, Natalie Dupecher, Anne Umland, with Lee Colon and Nora Lohner (MoMA), in Hardcover format, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound"Meret Oppenheim: My Album," edited by Lisa Wenger and Martina Corgnati (Scheidegger and Spiess), in Trade Paperback, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieboundAll works by Meret Oppenheim 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, ZurichPhotos courtesy of Nanda LanFranco, and Keystone SDA/Kurt BlumFamily photos provided by Lisa Wenger Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attend the Tehran Conference in 1943. / Credit: CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images HISTORY: "The Nazi Conspiracy": The WWII plot to kill FDR, Churchill and Stalin | Watch Video In their latest book, "The Nazi Conspiracy," Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch write about an assassination plot aimed at Allied leaders attending their first face-to-face summit meeting in Tehran in 1943 a conspiracy that, if successful, could have changed the outcome of the war. Correspondent Jim Axelrod talks with Meltzer about how the head of FDR's Secret Service detail helped foil the Nazis' alleged plans. READ AN EXCERPT: "The Nazi Conspiracy" For more info: "The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill" by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch (Flatiron Books), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and IndieboundBrad MeltzerJosh MenschHistorian Lynne OlsonHome of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, Hyde Park, N.Y. NATURE: White Mountains of New Hampshire (Extended Video) We leave you this Sunday morning in a snowstorm, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Videographer: Scot Miller. WEB EXCLUSIVES: Aubrey MOVIES: Sundance Film Festival 2023 highlights: Part 2As the festival returns to Park City, Utah, you can also attend virtually via online screenings of new films through January 30. CBSNews.com's David Morgan offers some highlights. [For Part 1 of our coverage click here.] For more info: 2023 Sundance Film Festival (through January 30) "HERE COMES THE SUN": Actress Christine Baranski and a look inside the homes of Architectural Digest (Video) Christine Baranski has a habit of playing regal, accomplished women. But she's really just a girl from Buffalo, and those roots still run deep. Also, what do Fred Astaire's living room, Serena Williams' karaoke bar and Maria Sharapova's bowling alley all have in common? We'll show you. The Emmy Award-winning "CBS Sunday Morning" is broadcast on CBS Sundays beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET. Executive producer is Rand Morrison. DVR Alert! Find out when "Sunday Morning" airs in your city "Sunday Morning" also streams on the CBS News app beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET. (Download it here.) Full episodes of "Sunday Morning" are now available to watch on demand on CBSNews.com, CBS.com and Paramount+, including via Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Chromecast, Amazon FireTV/FireTV stick and Xbox. Follow us on Twitter; Facebook; Instagram; YouTube; TikTok; and at cbssundaymorning.com. You can also download the free "Sunday Morning" audio podcast at iTunes and at Play.it. Now you'll never miss the trumpet! Face the Nation: Warner, Rubio, Demings Blinken to visit Israel and West Bank amid outbreak in violence Warner and Rubio on classified documents, China, TikTok and more U.S.-produced Abrams tanks will take many months before they can get on the ground in Ukraine, John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, told CNN on Jan. 27. Kirby said the U.S. is not going to waste time in providing training and strengthening supply chains to ensure that Ukrainian soldiers are best prepared by the time Abrams tanks arrive in Ukraine. I don't want to get too specific, because we're still working the plans out, but it'll be many months, Kirby said. U.S. President Joe Biden announced the decision to send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine on Jan. 25. The same day, Germany confirmed it would send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and authorize other countries to send their own Germany-produced Leopard 2 tanks. Several countries, including Poland and Canada, announced they would also deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine after that. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Leopard 2 tanks would arrive in Ukraine in late March or early April. Compared with Soviet tanks, which Ukraine and Russia currently use on the battlefield, the mobility and firepower of Western equipment could help Ukraine launch more counteroffensive operations. CHINA-HEILONGJIANG-MOHE-WINTER TOURISM (CN) An early morning view of Beiji Village in Mohe, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on Jan. 8, 2023. Credit - Zhang TaoXinhua/Getty Images Parts of China are experiencing extreme cold this winter: the countrys northernmost city of Mohe logged -63F, the lowest temperature on record. Amid that, a lack of affordable natural gas has left many people struggling to keep warm. Earlier this month, state-run Global Times reported that communities in Hebei province complained of cuts and rationing in the natural gas supply leaving them short-handed. In Shanxi province, a residential building posted red posters akin to those displayed during the Lunar New Year, except these ones said cold, according to Hong Kong-based news outlet HK01. The building reportedly had not been supplied heating and natural gas. How did Chinas gas shortage happen? Experts believe the recent tightening of the energy market is the byproduct of several factors, including the war in Ukraine, which jacked up oil prices globally, and the increase in demand as China reopens following an abrupt discarding of its strict zero-COVID policy. Although China is investing significantly in diversifying and creating its own energy sources, it is still an energy importer unlike the U.S. Official statistics show that in 2022, the country imported 109.25 million metric tons of natural gas. This makes the country vulnerable to price fluctuations globally. Gas prices in the residential sector are tightly regulated. But the cost of natural gas at import terminals can go up to three times the amount set by regulators, says Jenny Zhang, a natural gas expert from the Hong Kong-based energy firm Lantau Group. Energy distributors thus have greater incentive to direct their supplies to industries and businesses that can afford the higher prices, and to cut off supply for households that can only pay below the market rate. Subsidies given by provincial, city, and county governments do not cover the gap between the cost set by regulators and the current market rate, Zhang says. Story continues Beijing is aware of the current gas shortage facing residences. On Jan. 13, Lian Weiliang, vice chairperson of the National Development and Reform Commission, the countrys economic management agency, said that some localities and enterprises failed in implementing measures to ensure energy supply and stabilize prices for peoples livelihoods. Lian said natural gas contracts the government signed before winter ensured enough supply, and if there are insufficient contracts, they will address this. Lian added local officials and energy distributors will be held accountable for the lack of supply in homes, but did not offer specifics. Lian also said the central government will manage underground gas storage facilities and tanks to insulate people from the effects of fluctuating import prices. How can China address the gas shortage? New technologies like biomass fuel may help in the long-term, but to tackle the immediate problem facing cold residents, the country may also allow its residents to burn coal anew. That may threaten the nations green targets, Zhang explains. Although the National Development and Reform Commissions Lian said local governments must alleviate gas supply and price concerns in light of this shortage, budgets are stretched thin after two years of enforcing strict zero-COVID policies. Still, some experts say Beijing may provide funds to local governments to ensure households can receive gas. The central government is concerned about the threat of further unrest, following the first major protests in China late last year amid anger over zero-COVID. Neil Beveridge, senior energy analyst at Alliance Bernstein, says unrest is unlikely if judging by past shortages. This time could be worse, however, with the cold wave across northern Asia expected to persist until the end of January. Industrial plants are poised to ramp up production this year, and with Chinas gas market currently skewed toward addressing industrial demand, Beveridge says, we could be looking at still quite a tight winter. There is some closure for loved ones of a young woman who died after a head-on crash in northeast Mecklenburg County. The driver who caused the wreck in 2020 pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter Thursday in a Mecklenburg County courtroom and got three years of probation. Morgan Wetherbee was 18 years old when she died seven months after the wreck that happened on North Tryon Street. Breeana McClain was driving recklessly, weaving in and out of traffic and going 82 mph in a 55-mph zone when she lost control of the car, prosecutors said. ALSO READ: Man killed in crash after speeding in north Charlotte, police say The car crossed over a median into oncoming traffic and hit Wetherbee head-on. Wetherbee suffered multiple injuries, including a traumatic brain injury. She had about 30 surgeries but eventually succumbed to her injuries. Morgan was one of the most amazing people on this planet, her sister, Katie Wetherbee, said. Wetherbees family and friends were in court demanding justice. Her father told the judge he was angry but did not hate the woman whose actions killed his daughter. I forgive her, the father said. McClain got a chance to speak to the family. (There) hasnt been one day since that tragic evening that I hadnt thought about what I could have done to change the circumstances or the outcome, McClain said. But I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart. The judge questioned the plea deal after hearing that McClain started a GoFundme page and posted on social media that she was the victim of the crash. However, Judge Louis Trosch agreed to the plea deal. The judge told McClain she must share her story 10 times at traffic classes during her probation because she said on social media that she was the victim. Back in late 2018, utility Xcel Energy got out in front of its peers in pledging to eliminate carbon emissions from its electricity production by 2050. But the company made a crucial admission. It could cut 80 percent of emissions by 2030 with existing renewables and battery technology, but getting to 100 percent would require tools that are not cost-effective or commercially available today. On Thursday, Xcel unveiled its first contract for one of those breakthrough clean-energy technologies. The eight-state utility signed definitive agreements to install two novel iron-air battery systems from extremely well-funded startup Form Energy, which aims to make clean power available for days on end. Xcel will place these long-duration energy storage systems at two different coal plants slated for retirement Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo, Colorado, and Sherburne County Generating Station in Becker, Minnesota. The scope and scale of the projects make them a crucial test case in the effort to shore up power grids that are adding cheap but variable wind and solar production while shutting down large fossil-fueled plants. Its also the biggest proof point yet for Form, which launched in 2017 to invent storage devices that cost-effectively store and deliver clean energy over long periods of time, in a way thats not possible with current battery technology. Getting started with Xcel early means we can start to deliver in a valuable way to their system before 2030, Form co-founder and CEO Mateo Jaramillo told Canary Media Thursday. We understand pretty crisply what their portfolio will look like getting to 2030, and we definitely see value as they get there and we build up our production capacity. Each Form project will provide 10 megawatts of instantaneous power for up to 100 hours, meaning they each will store a total of 1,000 megawatt-hours. That makes them small relative to other grid-scale batteries in terms of how much power they can deliver in one moment, but theyll be among the largest in the world in terms of the total amount of energy they can store. Story continues However enormous the size of the proverbial tank, this is still a trial run for the technology. To fully replace the outgoing coal plants, Xcel will need more power capacity. But these long-duration storage units are big enough to give Xcel a meaningful test of the technology in real field conditions, Jaramillo said. It allows them to put a first commercial demonstration at two very relevant sites in their service territory and think about scaling it from there, he noted. The projects, slated to come online in 2025, are 10 times more powerful than Forms first scheduled installation, for Minnesota utility Great River Energy in 2024. Several things need to happen before this vision becomes reality, however. Form is still commercializing its product, so the company needs to wrap up its internal quality validation and complete external certification for relevant safety standards. Form also needs to build the factory that will produce the iron-air batteries; the company chose the former steel town of Weirton, West Virginia as the home for this facility. Gov. Jim Justice (R) endorsed the vision in a December press conference and supports a package of state incentives to get the factory online. The deal with Xcel has been years in the making, Jaramillo said. We knew that there was clear alignment from the executive team all the way down after the company pledged to eliminate carbon emissions from its power production, he noted. The two companies have another point of common interest: Xcel is a backer of Energy Impact Partners, a venture capital fund that raised money from utilities to invest in cleantech startups tackling important energy-related challenges. EIP has invested in Form multiple times, including the $240 million Series D from 2021. Form topped that beefy fundraise with $450 million raised in October 2022. Many startups claim to be building long-duration storage, but Form has little competition in the realm of delivering clean energy for 100 hours or more. Another startup, Noon Energy, is in the early stages of pursuing this goal, and just raised a $28 million Series A to commercialize its laboratory prototype of a battery that uses carbon dioxide to store energy. NEW YORK Mayor Eric Adams said Friday he has been in contact with the White House and mayors across the country as the nation prepares for Tennessee officials to release video footage showing the traffic stop that turned deadly for Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was beaten by Memphis police. As a human being, I am devastated. As a mayor, I am outraged. And as someone who spent decades fighting for police diversity and against police abuse, I feel betrayed by these officers, Adams said Friday night in a live address from City Hall. On Thursday, five Memphis police officers were charged with murder after pulling over Nichols on Jan. 7 and according to officials who have seen the footage beating him so savagely he died in a hospital three days later. With several demonstrations already in the works, Adams urged New Yorkers to express themselves peacefully. My message to New York is to respect the wishes of Mr. Nichols mother. If you need to express your anger and outrage, do so peacefully, he said. My message to the NYPD has been and will continue to be to exercise restraint. Adams said prior to his discussion with the White House, he convened a call with elected officials from across government to discuss the release of the footage. One person familiar with the call said Police Chief Keechant Sewell urged restraint, with the aim of avoiding a repeat of the NYPDs sometimes violent crackdown on the social justice protests of 2020. Several officials voiced support for reforms to the NYPD on the call, while Adams himself mentioned the potential for bad actors to exploit mass gatherings. Adams came into office promising a balance between support for law enforcement and preventing overly aggressive policing that has historically afflicted communities of color. The protests planned for Friday evening could prove a major test of that balancing act. I have stated over and over again that we have a sacred covenant. Our officers must follow the law and be held accountable for their actions, he said. Otherwise there is no law. The editorial board of the Times Union urged Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to call out serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), whom she wholeheartedly endorsed in the 2022 midterms. Donald Trump-loving Stefanik is at the top of the list of the complacent House GOP leaders whove remained silent over the scandals engulfing Santos, the New York state newspapers board wrote in a damning opinion piece Wednesday. Stefanik continued to stiff-arm questions about Santos and stood by as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) placed him on the small business and science, space and technology committees, the editorial noted. The prospect that Mr. Santos will contribute anything useful to either panel is about as poor as the odds that he will become a brain surgeon by spring. (Then again, he might claim to be one.), it cracked. Now is the time for Ms. Stefanik a frequent social-media scourge of any politician accused of wrongdoing who is not a member of her party to show some of the integrity displayed by her state GOP colleagues, it concluded. Read the editorial here. Related... VALERIE MACON - Getty Images As design lovers, we've all been guilty of paying attention to the interiors of an onscreen home more than the actual plot of the movie or television show. Who can blame us for daydreaming about living in the far-flung cottages of romantic comedies or the palatial digs of period pieces? As breathtaking as the homes are, you can't help but question how much the seaside homes in Nancy Meyer's films or the lavish city apartments of Sex and the City cost in real life. Luckily, the La Jolla realtors did the math and figured out the value of some of the most iconic homes from film. To figure out the cost of these onscreen homes, the team of realtors representing San Diego's seaside enclave calculated the average home price of similar homes within the same zip code to reveal how much it would cost to buy the house if it was on sale today. A spokesperson for La Jolla realtors says in a media release, "While many of the homes in our research are fictional, this data gives an indication of how much they would cost in real life in the same area." It should come as no surprise that the exquisite Bel-Air mansion from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air came in at the top of their list at an estimated average price of $9 million. Meanwhile, the quintessentially English cottage owned by Kate Winslet's character in The Holiday came in at a staggering $2.45 million While those whooping prices may be out of budget for most folks, Bella Swan's Forks, Washington home from Twilight came in just under the national average at $305,000. Find the full list from La Jolla realtors here: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Los Angeles; five-bedroom, five-bathroom mansion; $9 million. Home Alone: Winnetka, Illinois; six-bedroom, five-bathroom family house; $3.5 million. Full House: San Francisco; five-bedroom, four-bathroom three-story Victorian house; $3.5 million. The Holiday: Surrey, England; two-bedroom cottage; $2.45 million. Friends: New York City; two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment; $2 million Sex and the City (Carrie's Apartment): New York City; one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment; $700,000. Harry Potter (Dursley House): Surrey, England; three-bedroom, two-bathroom house; $615,000. Hocus Pocus (Max and Dani's House): Salem, Massachusetts; three-bedroom, two-bathroom house; $520,000. The Notebook: Seabrook, South Carolina; five bedrooms, five-bathroom house; $480,000. Twilight (Charlie's house): Forks, Washington; two-bedroom, one-bathroom house; $305,000. You Might Also Like By Dan Peleschuk KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine's ruling party has kicked out a lawmaker from its parliamentary faction after reports he had travelled to Thailand during Ukraine's grinding war with Russia sparked a public outcry. Party spokesperson Yulia Paliychuk said on Friday that Mykola Tyshchenko was expelled from Servant of the People's voting bloc after an announcement appeared briefly on the website of the Ukrainian embassy in Thailand saying Tyshchenko would meet members of the Ukrainian diaspora at a hotel there. Tyshchenko said on Facebook he had been on a business trip in Asia with approval of party leaders, "acting exclusively in the interests of Ukraine". Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said he had approved no such trip. The winter visit to sun-soaked Southeast Asia comes amid a crackdown by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy aimed at projecting an image of greater accountability for officials. More than a dozen senior officials were fired or resigned this week, including a deputy prosecutor who had come under fire in the press for a holiday in Spain, in the biggest shakeup of the Kyiv leadership since the war began. Zelenskiy has announced a ban this week on private trips abroad by officials. Most Ukrainian men aged 18-60 have already been barred from leaving the country under martial law since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Februrary last year. (Reporting by Dan Peleschuk) WESTMINSTER At Zen Yoga and Wellness, anyone of any age and ability has the opportunity to learn mental and physical awareness through the practice of yoga. The local yoga studio gives Westminster residents adult level barre, Pilates, and yoga classes but now they offer a 45 minute children's yoga class every Tuesday and Thursday after school at 3:30 p.m. Yoga instructors Vanessa France and Jessie Tagan lead the kids' yoga sessions with France usually instructing on Tuesdays and Tagan on Thursdays. After school ends at 2:55 p.m., the children registered for yoga get a 15-to-20-minute homework and snack break at the Meeting House School cafeteria before Zen Yoga instructors walk them over to the studio. The studio is at 97 Main St., a short walk from both Westminster Elementary School and Meeting House School. The instructors lead a group of kindergarten to fifth-grade level children. Zen Yoga and Wellness recently added a Thursday children's yoga session along with their Tuesday session. Now kids in the Westminster area have another day to practice mindfulness and breathing. School-age children take part in yoga classes Zen Yoga has been in business for a year and the studio has worked with Westminster Elementary and Meeting House Schools to promote mental and physical health education for children. In early 2022, the yoga studio worked with both schools to offer 30-minute yoga classes during school hours. The class is a great place for children of all ages to have a sense of community, France said, as well as a safe place to reflect on how their bodies and minds are doing. The push to create a children's yoga session came from seeing the effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on kids. France said that now, more than ever, children are experiencing an increase in anxiety and depression. France is a mother of four children, and she was able to see personally how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them. Building community through yoga "We just love working with the students," she said. "A lot of them come both days and have made friendships with the other kids. We just see so much growth with them being able to work through their feelings through the practice." Story continues No child should fear embarrassment because they are not able to do the yoga positions exactly as instructed, France said. She emphasized that each session is a safe space for children of all abilities and if a position is uncomfortable or not easy for a child to do, they have several props used to modify the positions to the child's ability. Zen Yoga and Wellness instructor Vanessa France said the children have expressed that their favorite position is the resting position, savasana. Each session has a wide range of ages and abilities. France said it's beautiful to see how well all the children work together, respect each other, and how the class bonded them together no matter their age. "One of the things that we highlight is don't worry about what your partner or your neighbor looks like on their mat," she said. "Every pose is going to look different, and everybody is different. That's been a really great part of my day with working with them is seeing that bond." Experiencing positive results For 10-year-old Caitilin Prymack, the Zen Yoga class has been a place to work on her breathing and to simply relax with her friends after a long day in school. Prymack started participating in the weekly yoga classes last spring and she has noticed positive results ever since. Prymack said yoga has helped her focus during school and has helped her improve as an athlete. She said the biggest thing yoga has taught her is how to breathe when she is frustrated or anxious. "It's an effective class so I feel a little more flexible and I wasn't getting sore at school, and I feel more calm," she said. "I don't feel like I'm all stressed out or anything. It just makes me so calm and relaxed." Yoga is helpful to child with back problems Fourth grader Meya Duval was diagnosed with severe scoliosis last year and her mother, Pam Duval, said yoga has helped her daughter stabilize the curve in her back. Before the children's yoga classes were available, the Duval family had to travel to other towns for Meya's physical therapy, so having these classes locally has helped them a lot. "We were traveling a lot for physical therapy and at the same time Meya started doing yoga just as an extracurricular activity," she said. "We found out with some of her checkups that the yoga was actually helping her scoliosis stabilize." Meya Duval said she has a lot of fun during the sessions and it's a plus that it also helps her back. To learn more about children's yoga class A kids' four-class pass is $49, and a single drop-in kid class is $15. To learn more about what the studio offers visit zenyogaandwellness.com. This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Zen Yoga offers children's sessions twice a week after school HARARE (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean court granted bail on Friday to 26 opposition party members who were arrested for holding what authorities said was an unlawful gathering. The arrest of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) members, including two Members of Parliament, stoked fears of a crackdown on opposition politicians ahead of a crucial election this year at a yet to be announced date. "This confirms that the arrest was an abuse of process in the first place," CCC spokeswoman Fadzayi Mahere told journalists outside court. "All this shows that the regime's paranoia has reached fever pitch and they notice that they are staring defeat in the face." Zimbabwean police on Jan. 14 fired teargas at the CCC party gathering in Harare and arrested its members. The defendants' lawyers argued that the arrests were unlawful as the gathering was at a private space. Arguing against bail, prosecutors said the party had not sought clearance to hold the meeting. Zimbabwe laws require that political parties apply for approval from police two weeks in advance before holding a gathering. The arrests came after a wave of politically motivated violence against opposition supporters in rural Zimbabwe, raising fears of repression ahead of this year's presidential election. CCC, led by the youthful Nelson Chamisa, will battle President Emmerson Mnangagwa's ZANU-PF for the second time at the poll. The opposition party, born out of the old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), enjoys massive urban support and is seen as a threat to ZANU-PF's 43-year-old stranglehold on power. (Reporting by Nyasha Chingono; Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Peter Graff) APPOMATTOX A Meherrin man was found guilty Thursday of an attempted murder charge after coming onto school property with a gun in a vehicle at Appomattox County High School last March. Mitariq Green, 21, also pleaded guilty Thursday in Appomattox Circuit Court to one felony count each of possessing a firearm as a violent felon, possessing a gun on school property and carrying a concealed weapon, a misdemeanor. Appomattox Deputy Commonwealths Attorney Kia Scott said if the case had gone to trial, evidence would show on March 28, a guidance counselor at the high school contacted a school resource officer after a juvenile student relayed to her the student was being threatened. The juvenile reported Olivia Rose Hurt, of Cartersville, threatened to shoot her and told the student in a phone chat she was on the way to the school, Scott said. The SRO investigated the exchanges between the student and Hurt, later spotted a vehicle on school grounds and called for backup. He and another deputy approached the car, where Hurt was in the drivers seat and Green was in the backseat, Scott said. The juvenile student would have testified she heard Green, while on the phone, say, Hide the gun, and Green and Hurt wouldnt follow officers orders to let the windows down, according to Scott. Hurt sped off, and law enforcement followed in a chase that went into Prince Edward County with speeds from 85 to 115 mph; the two were taken into custody after a crash, Scott said. Green said in an interview with investigators he did not know if there was a gun in the car, Scott said. A firearm and ammunition were recovered from the vehicle, she said. Green told investigators he went with Hurt to the high school but didnt know why they were there, Scott said. The events unfolded because of a series of threatening text messages by Hurt and involving two juvenile girls, Scott said. Hurt wrote to them, Youre fit to die because Im tired of your BS, and threatened to kill them, Scott said. Your honor, it goes on and on and on, Scott told Judge Andy Nelson of the text exchanges. Green was in on the text exchanges and wrote, Im ready to pop my [expletive] now, Scott said. The prosecutor said Green traveled with Hurt from Farmville to Appomattox that day with a firearm as the threats were ongoing. Kevin Bailey, Greens attorney, said the defendant went to the school property expecting Hurt and the girl involved in the text exchanges to fight over him and the pop my ... comment was not a threat to kill anyone. Bailey said there was no question of heightened exchanges in the texts. He was the least culpable of the two, Bailey said. Bailey said he thinks a jury could have reached a verdict of conspiring to kill, as part of the attempted murder charge, in stating in court reasons for the defense supporting the plea deal. A charge against Green of receiving a stolen firearm was dropped in accordance with the agreement. Green faces a maximum of 21 years on the combined charges, but Scott indicated in court his sentence will be capped at eight years and several months. Green previously was convicted in February 2019 on an aggravated malicious wounding charge, according to court records. His sentencing hearing is set for March 30 in Appomattox Circuit Court. Charges against Hurt are scheduled for a jury trial Feb. 3, according to online court records. Hurt is accused of attempted murder, receiving a stolen firearm, eluding police, possessing a firearm at a school, making a threat in writing and one misdemeanor count each of carrying a concealed weapon and reckless driving, court records show. A Lynchburg man was arrested after shots were fired in the city Wednesday evening, but no one was hurt, and no property was damaged, police said. Seandre Demon Bradley, 26, is jailed without bond on charges of possession of a firearm by a violent felon, reckless handling of a firearm, discharging a firearm in the city, and public intoxication, according to a Lynchburg Police Department news release. Just before 9 p.m. Wednesday, several people called 911 about hearing shots fired in the 6200 block of Old Mill Road. Police responded and found a vehicle with the driver's door open, a handgun near the vehicle and several cartridge casings, according to the news release. With the cooperation of witnesses, police identified a suspect, then found him in the area and took him into custody without incident, according to the news release. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to contact Officer J.W. Owen at (434) 455-6060, extension 574, or Crime Stoppers at (888) 798-5900. Enter a tip online at p3tips.com or use the P3 app on a mobile device. Attorney General Jason Miyares said Wednesday that former Virginia Parole Board Chair Adrianne Bennett could have been charged with falsifying parole discharge records, but the alleged violations cannot be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has passed. He also asserted that Bennett "unlawfully suspended" Virginia's "three strikes" parole ineligibility statue, but that Brian Moran, then Virginia's secretary of public safety rejected her bid for "a new, lenient interpretation" of the statute. A new report from Miyares' office asserts that Bennett ignored state code and board policies as the board released dozens of inmates in the spring of 2020. It also criticizes limited Northam-administration-led investigations into related matters. Miyares said during a news conference Wednesday that between February 2020, when Bennett was nominated for a judgeship in Virginia Beach Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, and her investiture in April 2020, that the parole board violated a mandate in Virginia law 83 times when "it did not endeavor diligently to contact victims before making their parole decisions." He said the probe found that the parole board violated Virginia law 66 times in the spring of 2020 by not notifying local prosecutors of an inmate's release. "To be clear, the actions of the Virginia Parole Board endangered public safety," Miyares said. "Every Virginian was impacted by this release." The Office of the State Inspector General in 2020 found the parole board violated law and policy, including not properly notifying victims and prosecutors about people being released from prison on parole. Inquiry into the boards operations began to percolate after the parole board released 95 people from prison in March 2020 the Virginia Parole Board's highest number of monthly releases on record. It coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a justification given by the Northam administration at the time. Miyares called this time period a "parole-granting frenzy." The Attorney General's report found that in that month the parole board released 35 murderers, 11 rapists and 22 people convicted of armed robbery. A previous Virginia government watchdog report said the board violated the law and its own policies in releasing Vincent Martin, who was sentenced to life in prison for killing Richmond police officer Michael Connors in 1979. The new report lists a handful of released people, all who committed violent crimes such as murder, rape or repeated armed robbery. In Martin's case, the report noted that the group reviewed 538 instances of victim opposition to his release from 39 different Virginia localities and nine states. Martins case pops up a few times in the report as some stated Bennetts treatment of him was biased, that she believed he was innocent, and was rushing to release him. Parole Board policy and procedure allowed Vincent Martins parole to be rescinded based on the significant victim opposition," the report says. "However, the Board took no such action." State code outlines the process for the parole board to investigate criminals behaviors while in prison to determine if they could be released. But the report said that Bennett failed to notify victims of Martin's crimes, who are supposed to be able to submit testimony and be aware the incarcerated person may be released. The Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission later investigated Bennett and suspended her from the bench in Virginia Beach. Bennett filed a petition at the Supreme Court in 2021 challenging her suspension. The court denied her request but put the entire file under seal, only opening up portions of the records in April 2022 after the Richmond Times-Dispatch challenged the sealing. The Attorney General's report asserts that Bennett presided over a culture of ignoring the Virginia code, parole board policies and administrative procedures. The report says that when the investigators interviewed board employee Crystal Noakes, who assisted with victim contact efforts, she told them that Bennett would make up policies that were convenient. Noakes is quoted saying that Bennetts policy regarding rape victims was that if it was a rape victim, dont traumatize the victim by contacting them. The report stated that there were also 11 instances of Bennett noting an early discharge request by two employees who oversee the boards post release unit but they say they never made requests. Many of the early discharges that Chair Bennett represented as having been requested by Helen or CalVina had been requested by a different parole officer, but in some cases, there was no request from a parole officer whatsoever, the report said. The report also indicates that Bennett operated as if a change in law had occurred but it didnt. In 2018, Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, briefly carried a bill that would have given the Parole Board chair at liberty discretions, but he ended up tabling it - seeking no further action on the measure - during that session. Bennett and the board went on to implement an unwritten policy that was never posted for public review or review, the report said. Moreover, Secretary Brian Moran," secretary of public safety under Govs. Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, "specifically rejected the change, stating that it would require action by the General Assembly; finally, the General Assembly declined to take such action, as noted above it said. More than lambasting Bennett, the report accuses the Northam administration of bias that obfuscated the actions the parole board took. The Office of the State Inspector General, a body created to investigate ineffectiveness in state government, conducted an investigation into the parole board as well in 2020. Initially, it released a six- page report, but a longer version was leaked months later. This led to the General Assembly approving a $250,000 investigation into the OSIG investigation which the report by the Attorney General's office said was limited and still failed to more deeply explore alleged issues from the parole board. While the General Assembly authorized $250,000, a spokesperson for Herring at the time said the total ended up coming to $232,000. Nixon Peabody, the firm hired by then-Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, left out testimony relating to the parole board from the report because its investigation was focused on OSIG instead. Recommendations The report outlines possible actions that the parole board and state legislature could take. First, it suggests that the parole board establish a code of ethics for its members and asserts that it is not the parole boards purview to investigate whether or not someone was accurately convicted. (Currently, Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, has a second look bill that would allow incarcerated people who have served at least 15 years to petition a judge to see if they are deemed able to be released early). The report also suggests the legislature adjust state code so that the parole board can hold public hearings. It says the parole board should ensure victims are notified if an incarcerated person is eligible for release before the board votes on the matter. It also suggests adjustments to the parole boards structure, additional staffing suggestions and updates to technology that it uses. In noting how former governors pardoned certain offenders, both the Attorney General's report and the parole board would support the General Assembly passing a law to require governors to seek victim input before making pardons. Lawyers for Bennett did not respond with a statement at the time of this publication. Though a statute of limitations may prevent her from being charged for the findings in the report Miyares said "the ball is in the General Assembly's court" if the legislative body seeks to issue articles of impeachment for her current judge role. More than $3 million dollars arrived this week to the Office of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, the state body tasked with the distribution of settlement money coming from the distributors and architects of the nations opioid epidemic. This tranche of cash comes from Mallinckrodt, one of several players who agreed to settlement terms. In total, Mallinckrodt will pay $1.6 billion dollars to the settlements 47 plaintiffs. The company also marketed the drugs in a manner that downplayed their risk and funded purportedly objective literature promoting opioid use, according to a press release from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office. At the Office of Attorney General, we will continue to pursue important settlement funding for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Securing and executing multi-million dollar settlements will significantly impact Virginias fight against the opioid epidemic, said Miyares. Of the overall sum it agreed to last year, $24 million in total will go to Miyares office. This weeks payment is the first of many rounds of payments, which the company has said it will complete within 8 years. In Virginia, settlement money is being distributed to localities through two routes. Some initial payments go directly to localities from the AGs office. A majority, however, will go to a new state agency called the Opioid Abatement Authority. The Authority will then distribute funds on a grant-application basis. Localities with plans to use the money will have to request it from the Authority, which has said it will be transparent and rigorous in how it vets and approves applicants. In total, the authority will manage 55% of the states settlement cash. So far, it has received $72 million in total, said Tony McDowell, executive director of the abatement authority. Guidance on how the money can be spent was included in the original settlement agreement. In December, the Virginia Office of the Auditor of Public Accounts released its own guidance, requiring localities to report to the Abatement Authority if they use money for a non-abatement spending. Our grant application process opened last Thursday, said McDowell. Im curious to see what theyre going to propose. The authority, which is being paid for with funds from the settlement, has hired four new employees, including a director of finance, McDowell said. They may hire more to help with accounting and grant outreach. Many localities have yet to spend the money. McDowell said that each localitys board of supervisors will need to approve its usage. The Authority has yet to receive applications for funding, but McDowell estimates theyll arrive shortly, and that funds will begin to go to localities in late spring or early summer. One locality thats looking forward to the application is Tazewell, a southwest Virginia county that was hammered by opioid abuse in the aughts of the millennium. Eric Young, Tazewell's County Administrator, is leading efforts there to use the funds. Young says they expect to receive $2.3 million in total from the settlement. For Tazewell, its a significant sum, Young said: the countys property taxes bring in about $15 million each year. Still, its bittersweet to receive. There is not a sufficient amount of money we could give to these mothers, or these children, said Young. This was a generational plague for our county. This was a scourge. Tazewell was redefined by opioids. A blue collar region with a low crime rate and many workers in mining adjacent machining industries, opioids like Oxycodone initially helped residents manage pain from physical jobs, before addiction to the painkillers dominated their lives. Young said the Tazewell Countys Sheriffs Office doubled in size during those years. The Tazewell Commonwealth Attorneys office brought in seven additional prosecutors, up from three. The county jail population tripled, and the number of children in need of foster care skyrocketed. The county initially considered using the money to fund a scholarship program for those children, however the abatement requirement attached to the settlement may disallow that use. Young estimated the county will have a better idea of how it will spend the money in a few months Hospitals are now required by federal law to publish the prices of mammograms, CT scans and hundreds of other procedures. But compliance is still lacking. According to a nonprofit watchdog, only 20% of Virginia hospitals were following the law in August. House Bill 2427 would allow patients to sue Virginia hospitals if the hospital knowingly violates the law. A House subcommittee on Thursday approved the measure, which is sponsored by Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, and Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax. The law already includes a punishment hospitals in violation can be fined. But allowing patients to sue provides meaningful penalties, said Marni Jameson Carey, head of a nonprofit called Power to the Patients. There are numerous reasons to expect hospitals to publish their prices, Helmer said. Doing so allows consumers to make an informed decision when choosing a hospital, helps insurers negotiate better prices and stops patients from delaying their care. Roughly 41% of the U.S. population has health care debt, the Kaiser Family Foundation said last year. If we dont control the cost of health care, no ones going to be able to afford it, Helmer said. Health systems across the state are opposed to the bill. The federal law took effect in 2021 and requires most hospitals to publish a machine-readable file of standard charges and either a consumer-friendly file listing at least 300 services or a price estimator tool. At least two hospitals have been punished for violations. Northside Hospital in Atlanta was docked nearly $900,000. In 2022, Virginia added a similar requirement to its law. A report issued last year by Secretary of Health and Human Resources John Littel recommends the state health department monitor compliance and issue plans of correction to hospitals that have broken the law. If the legislature passes a bill and the governor signs it, a patient could sue a hospital that is in violation of the law for as much as three times the cost of the patients medical bill. Numerous hospitals expressed their opposition. If a hospital system were out of compliance for three months, every patient who visited the hospital during those three months could file suit. That would wreck a hospitals finances, said Brent Rawlings of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Such a penalty would be disproportionate to the violation. It upends the policy you all unanimously adopted last year, Rawlings told a House committee. Patients could conceivably file class action lawsuits, and plaintiffs would not have to prove they have been harmed by the hospitals lack of compliance, Rawlings added. Michael Forehand, a vice president for Inova Health, said the current structure functions properly and called the potential for lawsuits an unnecessary and significant burden. Forehand testified that Inova is in compliance with the federal law. The three health systems in the Richmond area HCA Healthcare, Bon Secours and Virginia Commonwealth University Health told the Richmond Times-Dispatch the same thing when asked last summer. If hospitals are in compliance, they shouldnt have to worry about the penalties, Helmer said. For a hospital following the law, the prospect of a lawsuit should be of no concern, he said. The current system is working, Forehand said. But a report by nonprofit Patient Rights Advocate last summer found that just 20% of Virginia hospitals completely followed the law. None was in the Richmond area. Though hospitals publish price lists, they are often incomplete. The state health department also found shortcomings in the efforts of Virginia hospitals. Some hospitals linked their price lists on the footer of their webpage, and others hid their links on hard-to-find pages. Some machine-readable files were missing updates, and price shopping was generally difficult. A survey of pricing lists conducted by The Times-Dispatch in July also showed that price shopping is difficult. To find out how much a hospital charges for a procedure, patients must navigate spreadsheets of 50,000 lines. Procedures appear to be missing, and others are identified by codes and abbreviations. Chippenham Hospitals list included 10 types of colonoscopies. Even if a patient finds the listed price, hospitals say the rates are not guaranteed and may differ from the actual cost. But now that hospitals are required to post machine-readable files, the marketplace for hospital services could be upended. The machine-readable files allow a third party to create a site that gathers data from multiple hospitals and allows customers to shop for the best price. Helmer described it as Expedia for health care. Patients could choose a hospital for a Caesarean section the same way they buy a flight or hotel room. For now, such a service remains hypothetical. No such website exists for Virginia hospitals, Helmer said. U.S. States That Spend the Most on Health and Hospitals U.S. States That Spend the Most on Health and Hospitals Health and hospital spending accounts for nearly 10 percent of state and local government budgets Health and hospital spending per capita is up over 50 percent Vermont and Utah saw the largest increases in health and hospital spending over the past decade 15. Indiana 14. Virginia 13. Michigan 12. Texas 11. California 10. Utah 9. Iowa 8. Washington 7. Missouri 6. Kansas 5. Mississippi 4. Alabama 3. North Carolina 2. Wyoming 1. South Carolina CHARLOTTE, NC Today, Bank of America is announcing a $1 million donation to Discovery Place to provide students and teachers resources and skills for education and career development to meet the growing demand for STEM jobs. In fact, companies will need to fill more than 88,500 STEM related jobs in the Mecklenburg County area by 2028. This partnership will provide the Charlotte area with a workforce pipeline which is essential to the continued economic growth of the region. By establishing the Bank of America STEM Center, a key hub for high quality career STEM education, Discovery Place will provide new programs to more than 7,000 students at various Charlotte Mecklenburg County Title I schools. This partnership will also create new opportunities for the banks employees, with a special focus on the Global Technology team to volunteer with middle and high school students on a more regular basis to encourage STEM careers. Discovery Place plays a critical role in providing the necessary educational resources for the greater Charlotte region, said Kieth Cockrell, President of Bank of America Charlotte. With significant demand in hiring more STEM workers, were committed to making sure young people, particularly underrepresented diverse groups and women, are set up for future career success. We are so grateful for our continued partnership with Bank of America and their investment in this community, which we have had the pleasure of serving for 75 years, said Catherine Wilson Horne, Discovery Place President and CEO. These funds will allow Discovery Place to reach even more youth through our STEM pipeline, in areas like technology and computer science, to help build a homegrown, science-literate workforce for generations to come. This partnership enhances our decades of support of and volunteerism with Discovery Place by addressing our community's need for a robust STEM workforce and access to economic opportunity, said Aditya Bhasin , Bank of America's Chief Technology and Information Officer and Chair of the Discovery Place Board of Trustees. We are pleased our funds will support introducing students to the world of STEM and its career opportunities. Discovery Place and Bank of America have been partners in education for nearly 30 years. Since 2014 the center has supported nearly 14,000 teachers from across North and South Carolina with programs designed to help them teach STEM education. In 2018 the bank donated property at Sixth and Poplar Streets to Discovery Place to develop the Bank of America STEM Center for Career Development. Discovery Place Science Discovery Place Science is the leading hub for science learning in the Carolinasdedicated to the exchange of ideas, scientific exploration and creative expression to stimulate innovative problem-solving and learning. The Museum brings relevant, contemporary science to life through groundbreaking exhibitions, interactive educational programming and hands-on activities. Located in Uptown Charlotte at 301 N. Tryon Street, convenient parking is available in the Museums parking deckthe Carol Grotnes Belk Complexat the corner of Sixth and Church streets. For more information about Discovery Place Science, call 704-372-6261, visit discoveryplace.org , or connect with Discovery Place Science on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube . Bank of America At Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) , were guided by a common purpose to help make financial lives better, through the power of every connection. Were delivering on this through responsible growth with a focus on our environmental, social and governance (ESG) leadership. ESG is embedded across our eight lines of business and reflects how we help fuel the global economy, build trust and credibility, and represent a company that people want to work for, invest in and do business with. Its demonstrated in the inclusive and supportive workplace we create for our employees, the responsible products and services we offer our clients, and the impact we make around the world in helping local economies thrive. An important part of this work is forming strong partnerships with nonprofits and advocacy groups, such as community, consumer and environmental organizations, to bring together our collective networks and expertise to achieve greater impact. Connect with us on Twitter ( @BofA_News ). Lighthouse Bible Church Lighthouse Bible Church, 2136 Fifth Ave., invites the community to participate in our live worship service at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. The Sunday sermon is prerecorded and can be viewed on our website, lighthousemc.com. Dress is casual, and coffee and refreshments are provided. Upcoming events: Prayer and Study, 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Mt. Hope United Methodist Mt. Hope United Methodist Church, 290th and Highway 6, McClelland, would like to invite all to join us on Sunday mornings for our worship service at 9:30 a.m. Children are welcome for the regular worship service and childrens sermon during the worship service. You do not have to be a member to participate in our church activities. Everyone is welcome. Gethsemane Presbyterian Church Gethsemane Presbyterian Church, 224 Wallace Ave., invites you to worship with us. The service runs from 9 to 10 a.m. The Rev. Nancy Ross-Hullinger will deliver the message. Children are invited to participate in Sunday school. Please join us for refreshments following the service. Adult Bible study meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 10 a.m. Our church is collecting Iowa 5 cent-refund cans/bottles for one of our mission projects, the Kanesville Honor Guard Society. Your donations help! Bags can be dropped off anytime at our front door. Our Food Pantry is open on Mondays and Thursdays until 10:30 a.m. Donations are welcome. For more information, contact the church office at 712-366-2513 or visit us on Facebook at gethsemanepresbyterianchurch.org. Timothy Lutheran Church Timothy Lutheran Church, 3112 W. Broadway, offers services at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. The church alternates between traditional services and praise services each week. Bible study and Sunday school at 9:15 a.m. If a month has a fifth Sunday, the church hosts a combined service at 9 a.m. Food and fellowship after service on fifth Sundays and there is no Bible study or Sunday school on those days. The church is handicap accessible. For more information, visit the church website at timothylutheran.net. St. Pauls Evangelical Country Church St. Pauls Evangelical Country Church rings the church bell each Sunday at 10:30 a.m. to welcome people to worship at 11055 Dumfries Ave. There are directional signs from Wabash Avenue and Pioneer Trail leading to the church. We are a growing, caring and friendly, Bible-teaching church led by Pastor Jason Kinney. Sunday school for all ages including adults starts at 9:15. This Sunday, the message is titled, Our Plan, Gods Plan, with the Bible reference James using Chapter 4:13-17. We now have childrens church during our regular service. Greeters will be Dixie Lee Segnar and Connie Tillia. Following worship, we enjoy donuts and coffee in the fellowship hall. The annual business meeting will be Sunday following the worship service. The youth group will meet Wednesday at 7 p.m. The ladies Bible study will be meeting on Wednesday at 1 p.m. Visit our website at www.stpaulsecc.org for more information. We are handicapped accessible. Underwood Lutheran Church On Sunday, Underwood Lutheran Church, 10 Third Ave., will hold Sunday activities. Education begins at 9 a.m. In-person worship begins at 10:15 a.m. The online video will be available later in the day. Pastor Scott Dalen will deliver a sermon based on Matthew 5:1-12. Compass Christian Church Compass Christian Church welcomes you to worship with us Sundays at 10:30 a.m. We are located at 2007 S. Seventh St., just west of the South Expressway. The church is handicap accessible. During worship, a cry room is available, along with childcare for children ages 1-4. Compass Kids grades K-5 meet downstairs for special Bible lessons during the sermon. You may also worship with us at compasscb.online.church or on YouTube. A Monday morning Bible study meets at 10 a.m. weekly. Separate mens and womens Bible study groups meet on Mondays at 7 p.m. The Bridge Young Adults (ages 18-30) meet on the first and third Tuesday of each month. The next meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 7. On Wednesdays, children in grades K-5 and students in grades 6-12 and meet at 6:30 p.m. A Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting is held at 6:30 p.m. For questions or more information, visit our Facebook page, Compass Christian Church CB, our website compasscb.org or call the church office at 712-366-9112. Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church Fifth Avenue United Methodist Church, 1800 Fifth Ave., invites the public to participate in our live worship service at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday mornings. The Sunday worship service will be recorded live and can be viewed on our Facebook page: Fifth Avenue UMC, Council Bluffs. Face masks are optional. Upcoming events: The United Women in Faith will meet at 12:30 p.m. on Feb. 1. Meal & Message will be held at 6 p.m. on Feb. 8. On Feb. 22, Meal & Message will be held at 6 p.m. and the Ash Wednesday Service will be held. The church office can be reached at 712-323-7374 or through our email at fifthaveumchurch@gmail.com. Broadway United Methodist Church Broadway United Methodist, First Street and Broadway, is seeking, growing and serving with unconditional love and acceptance. On Sunday, Jan. 29, we will have a single service at 9:30 a.m. Coffee and donuts will be served in the DeLong Lounge after the service. Our services are held in person and livestreamed to our Facebook page or broadwayunitedmethodist.com/live. Masks are optional. Student Life Breakthrough will be held Sunday at 6:00 p.m. On Mondays, Philips Cupboard, a nonfood pantry, is open noon to 2 p.m. Bibles at Barleys is at 7:30 p.m. on Monday. On Wednesday, the womens study meets at 5 p.m., and the Praise Band rehearses at 5:30 p.m. A community meal is held at 6 p.m., followed by Foundation Groups for all ages, bell choir at 6:30 and choir at 7:30. The Mens Brown Bag Bible Study will be held Thursday at noon. On Friday, the church office is closed but Philips Cupboard is open noon to 2 p.m. For more information, visit our website at broadwayunitedmethodist.com or call the office at 712-322-7741 (closed Fridays). Bethany Presbyterian Church Bethany Presbyterian Church, 1900 S. Seventh St., will have worship at 11 a.m. Pastor Nancy Ross-Hullingers message will be Caring for Each Other. The scripture is Micah 6:1-8. There will be a childrens chat. Cleaning of the church will be done Friday, Jan. 27 at 9 a.m., and Friends of Faith will meet Saturday from 10-11:30 a.m. We are collecting soup and crackers for Souper Bowl in February, as well as hats, gloves, mittens and scarves. Friends of Faith will meet Saturday, Jan. 28 from 10 to 11 a.m. We are a handicap accessible facility. Community of Christ Church Community of Christ Church, 140 W. Kanesville Blvd., invites people to attend Sunday worship at 10:15 a.m. Our theme this week is Discern Wisdom. Scripture readings will be 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; and Matthew 5:1-12. Sunday school starts at 9:15 a.m. We also have prayer service Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Please call our office at 712-323-4498 for any questions. There are virtual ministries out on our World Church Website under Ongoing Ministries at https://www.cofchrist.org. Epworth United Methodist Church You can find a place of worship at Epworth United Methodist Church, 2447 Ave. B. Worship is Sundays at 9:30 a.m. There is room for the little ones in the family to learn about God according to their age. The people are friendly, worship is meaningful and the building is handicap accessible. We will host Lenten Luncheons every Wednesday from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. from Feb. 22-March 29 and everyone is welcome. Masks are not required but are available for those who need/want one. We also invite you to our Bible study on Thursdays at 9 a.m. We are in prayer for the healing of our community and a nation under God. If you want us to pray for you personally, let us know. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Phone: 712-323-3124. You can find us on Facebook at Friends of Epworth UMC-Facebook. Faith Lutheran Church Faith Lutheran Church (LCMS), 2100 S. 11th St., invites you to join us for gospel worship featuring gospel music and Holy Communion at our 9 a.m. Sunday service. On Tuesday, there is a 9:30 a.m. adult Bible study in the downstairs fellowship hall that is open to everyone. Please enter by the rear door. Confirmation will be held Wednesday at 5:45 p.m. The Faith LWML meets Thursday at 1 p.m. in the basement fellowship hall for a contemporary Bible study with Pastor Ron, followed by a brief business meeting to discuss ongoing and potential mission projects. Please enter by the rear door. The LWML is currently accepting donations of coffee for MOHMs Place, and donations can be left in the church narthex or brought to the next LWML meeting on Feb. 2. Worship services are available on Faiths Facebook page and on YouTube by searching for Ron Rosenkaimer. For more information, contact the church office at 323-6445. New Horizon Presbyterian Church On Sunday, Jan. 29, New Horizon Presbyterian will hold one service at 9:30 a.m., with annual meeting afterwards. There will be no Sunday school. On Wednesdays, the Praise Band meets from 5:45 to 6:30 p.m., the Chancel Bell Choir from 6:30 to 7:30 and the Chancel Choir from 7:30 to 8:30. On Thursday, Feb. 2, the Deacons will meet at 6 p.m. If you are ill, please worship from home by watching our Facebook page, facebook.com/NewHorizonPC. Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church, 517 S. 32nd St., welcomes everyone to join us for worship on Sunday, Jan. 29 at 10:30 a.m. The Rev. Portia Iverson will deliver the message Things Seen and Unseen. The Old Testament Lesson will be Isaiah 9:1-4, 6-7, The Government of the Promised Son, and the Gospel Lesson will be Matthew 4:12-23, The Call of the First Disciples. We are handicapped accessible through the northeast door of the church. Corpus Christi Catholic Parish Join us for the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jan. 28-29. The Liturgy of the Word Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13; Psalm 146:6-10; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; and Matthew 5:1-12a. Our Weekend Mass in English is celebrated on Saturday at 4 p.m. and on Sunday at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. at Corpus Christi Queen of Apostles, 3304 Fourth Ave., Council Bluffs; and at 9:30 a.m. at Corpus Christi Our Lady of Carter Lake, 3501 North Ninth St., Carter Lake. Our Sunday Spanish Mass is at noon (Council Bluffs). Daily Mass is celebrated as follows: In English on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 8 a.m. (Council Bluffs) and in Spanish on Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. (Council Bluffs). Eucharistic Adoration is held every Monday and Thursday from 9 am to 5:45 p.m. at Corpus Christi Queen of Apostles. Upcoming events include: Bingo at Corpus Christi Our Lady of Carter Lake will be held on Feb. 11 and will begin with an early bird game at 6:30 p.m. Doors will open at 5:30. The Altar and Rosary Society is sponsoring a Bake Sale and a Craft Sale on Feb. 11-12 after all of the weekend Masses at Corpus Christi Queen of Apostles. There will be a wide assortment of items for sale, with something for everyone. Schedule a Mass Intention in 2023 for your loved ones by calling the parish office. Many dates are still available. For more information, call the parish office at 712-323-2916 or 712-323-4716 (Spanish) or visit our parish website at www.corpuschristiparishiowa.org. Emanuel Lutheran Church Emanuel Lutheran Church, 2444 N. Broadway, welcomes everyone to come as you are and be who you are! You are invited to join us each Sunday for worship and Sunday school at 9:30 a.m. This Sunday we will also have blood press checks with our parish nurse, Crystal. Other events this week include Tai Chi Monday at 10 a.m. in the youth center, Bible study Thursday at 9:30 a.m. in the conference room, and Tai Chi Thursday at 10 a.m. in the youth center. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter to stay up to date on events and view livestreamed services. Visit us online at emanuelcb.org. Saint John Lutheran Church Saint John Lutheran Church, 633 Willow Ave., holds worship at 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays and 8:30 and 11 a.m. on Sundays. Worship is also available to watch on YouTube. Our website is www.SaintJohnELCA.org, and our Facebook page is Saint John Lutheran Church Council Bluffs IA. Wednesday morning Bible study meets at 9 a.m., and Wednesday evening Bible study meets at 6:30 p.m. The bell choir practices at 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays, and the Chancel Choir starts practice at 7:30 p.m. Confirmation students and high school youth also meet Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. The building is handicap accessible. Please call the church office with any questions, 712-323-7173. Broadway Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) The Rev. Carol Hall and members of our congregation invite you to join us for Sunday worship at 9 a.m. at Broadway Christian Church, 2658 Ave. A. We celebrate communion weekly; communion is open to all. A hearing loop is installed for those who need it. Guests are invited to join us in fellowship after worship for coffee and donuts. Overeaters Anonymous meets Mondays at noon. Alcoholics Anonymous meets Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and Fridays at 7:30 p.m. The church is ADA-accessible. Masks are optional. To submit prayer requests or for more information, call the church office at 712-323-7741 or email us at office@bcccb.org. Visit us online at www.bcccb.org or on Facebook. First Congregational UCC Church Come and join us for worship at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at First Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), located at 611 First Ave. Coffee is available. Our service is also provided via Zoom. Please email the church for information on how to join the Zoom meeting: cbfirstcong@gmail.com. First Congregational offers a free Community Dinner the last Friday of each month. Everyone is welcome. Come and enjoy a meal and fellowship! Our Saviors Lutheran Church Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 600 Bluff St., can be reached at 712-322-6655. Everyone is welcome. Worship services are Saturday evening at 5:30 and Sunday morning at 10:30. Adult Sunday school is at 9:15 a.m. and Youth Sunday school is at 9:30 a.m. For more information, see our Facebook page under Our Saviors Lutheran Church of Council Bluffs or the website at oursaviorscb.org. Other activities this week include Al-Anon meetings Monday and Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Education Building. Thursday morning Bible Study will meet from 9:30-11 a.m., and Prayer Team will meet at 11:15 a.m. On Thursday evenings, the bell choir practices at 6:30 p.m. and choir at 7:30. There will also be a Bible Study at 7:30. Food Pantry and Pet Food Pantry are open for appointments Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. To schedule an appointment, please call the Food Pantry directly at 712-522-3522 on the day it is open. There will be a Game Day following worship on Feb. 5. All ages are invited. Bring a snack to share, if you would like. Budget Forum will be held on Feb. 5, and Semiannual meeting will be on Feb. 12. St. Pauls Episcopal Church St. Pauls Episcopal Church is located at 22 Dillman Drive in Council Buffs. Our services are held each Sunday morning beginning at 11 a.m., and we invite visitors to attend and share with us these very enjoyable and enlightening services. For additional information, please contact the church at 712-323-7188. The Community Foundation for Western Iowa launched an 18-month training program Thursday to help nonprofit organizations build their capacity by developing their endowments. The program, called Make It Happen, includes six monthly meetings followed by quarterly Continuing to Make It Happen sessions where participants learn from subject matter experts based on their personal feedback and needs. The training program not only helps ensure long-term viability and strength of our regions nonprofit organizations through fund development, but also strives to create a widespread culture of philanthropy throughout the Community Foundations western Iowa service area, a description from the foundation stated. The foundation used a competitive application process to select nine local nonprofits for the program, which is sponsored by D.A. Davidson, an investment management firm that manages some of the foundations funds. Participating organizations include Avenue Scholars Southwest Iowa, Charles E. Lakin Human Services Campus, Habitat for Humanity of Council Bluffs, Historical Society of Pottawattamie County, Learning for All, Lewis Central Education Foundation, New Visions Homeless Services, Southwest Iowa Families Inc. and Wings of Hope. In the opening session, Donna Dostal, the foundations president and CEO, told participants they need to start communications with donors by telling them because of you, the organizations clients were able to eat, find shelter, find a job or whatever it is the organization helps their clients do. If you talk about the impact of donor dollars, people will want to then support your organization, she said. Were trying to reframe the way we think about how we communicate with our donors, she said. Dostal asked attendees to think about how events their organizations hold that make things happen are received by the community. How are they driving impact in the community? she asked. At fundraisers, a spokesperson should tell attendees, because you were here or because you donated, certain services were provided to clients, Dostal said. Brandy Wallar, CEO of New Visions Homeless Services, said that by asking for sponsorships, New Visions was able to turn its Christmas celebration previously a substantial expense into a fundraiser. In addition, they asked volunteers to work at the event so they could see the impact it had. This is a great way to get them into our facility, she said. The organization has seen a 20% increase in donors during the past few months, Wallar said. John Nania, executive director of Learning for All, agreed that impact is what donors are interested in. They dont donate because they like me, they dont donate because they like the organization, they donate because their dollars make a difference, he said. Dostal said organizations should connect support and impact in their communications with donors and potential donors. She suggested they emphasize that they are driving a kind of impact in the community. Fundraising and communications need to be aligned, she said. Charities face a culture in which they feel theyre not supposed to make a profit, Dostal said. The only thing they teach us to do is, if we do make a profit, show how its going back into our mission, she said. I challenge each one of you to stop thinking of yourselves as nonprofit. Everything you do is having an impact on our community. Thats the introduction to changing the mindset. This is creating an impact, instead of coming from a place of scarcity. Dostal told attendees to build relationships with people and organizations and think about how the relationships can be mutually beneficial. She added that having community members talk about their organization can make a big difference. She asked how organizations make each volunteer feel special. If somebody volunteers for you, theyre more likely to donate, Dostal said. Again, 76% of volunteers turn into donors probably long-term donors. John Hoich, vice president of the Lakin Foundation, suggested those seeking donations try asking people theyve never asked before like the millionaire next door. It makes them feel important, he said. Dostal asked if the organizations represented at the session keep track of the hours their volunteers put in. She encouraged them to do that. Funders love it, said Kim Smith, family services and volunteer coordinator at Habitat for Humanity of Council Bluffs. Hoich said it sometimes helps, when approaching a potential donor, to stroke their ego. Donors, even if theyre anonymous, they take pride in knowing they were a part of it, he said. The 2023 cohort is the second to have taken the training from the foundation, Dostal said during the lunch break. A group of eight organizations went through the series in 2020. The foundation will probably offer the training again in 2025, she said. We feel its part of our mission to create that culture of philanthropy and help the nonprofits in the community, she said. We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. The African Development Bank Group will commit $10 billion over the next five years to boost Africas efforts to end hunger and become a primary food provider for itself and the rest of the world, AfDB President, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, announced at the Dakar 2 Africa Food Summit in Diamniadio, east of the Senegalese capital, Dakar. Adesina called on more than 34 heads of state, 70 government ministers, the private sector, farmers, development partners, and corporate executives to work out compacts that would deliver food and agriculture transformation at scale across Africa. He encouraged them to take collective action to unlock the continents agricultural potential to become a global breadbasket. The AfDB Chief said: Today over 283 million Africans go to bed hungry every day. This is not acceptable. No mother should ever have to struggle with rumbling of the stomach of a hungry child. We must raise the bar. We must raise our ambition. We must arise and say to ourselves: it is time to feed Africa. The timing is right, and the moment is now. Feed Africa; we must, said Adesina. The bank head urged the leaders to turn political will into decisive actions to deliver food security for Africa, We must strongly support farmers, especially smallholder farmers, majority of whom are women, and get more young people into agriculture. And we must take agriculture as a business, not a development activity, and boost support to the private sector. The Dakar 2 summitunder the theme Feed Africa: food sovereignty and resiliencetakes place amid supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Senegal and the African Development Bank Group are co-hosting the summit, eight years after the inaugural Dakar 1 summit where the newly elected Adesina announced the Banks Feed Africa strategy. Opening the summit, President Macky Sallwho is also the African Union chairpersonsaid the time had come for the continent to feed itself by adding value and stepping up the use of technology. From the farm to the plate, we need full food sovereignty, and we must increase land under cultivation and market access to enhance cross-border trade, President Sall said. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat said the Dakar summit was timely and would provide innovative solutions to help Africa become less dependent on food imports. Food sovereignty should be our new weapon of freedom, Mahamat told the gathering. He urged development partners to work together within existing structures, such as Agenda 2063 and the African Continental Free Trade Area, for sustainable transformation. Mahamat commended the African Development Bank for rolling out transformative initiatives, including a $1.5 billion emergency food production facility in 2022 to help African countries avert a potential food crisis following Russias war in Ukraine. In his message to the summit, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged that Africa was currently facing the challenges of climate change and food insecurity, as the Russia-Ukraine war had caused the price of fertilizers to shoot up and made their supply difficult. He pledged the UNs support to help Africa become a global food powerhouse. President Michael D. Higgins of Ireland who attended the summit said with Africas young population accounting for about 20% of the worlds young people, the continent had great potential. He said the rest of the world would look up to it in the future. Let us make this century Africas Century, one which will see the continent become free from hunger, Higgins said. During the three-day summit, private sector players are expected to commit to national food and agriculture delivery compacts, to drive policies, create structural reforms, and attract private sector investment. Central bank governors and finance ministers are expected to develop financing arrangements to implement the food and agriculture delivery compacts, in conjunction with agriculture ministers, private sector players, commercial banks, financial institutions, and multilateral partners and organizations. Frances Foreign ministry Thursday said it has recalled its ambassador to Burkina Faso amid diplomatic tension after the government of the West African country ordered Paris to remove its troops from its soil in rejection of 2018 military agreement between the two countries. In the context of the latest developments in Burkina Faso, we have decided to recall our ambassador to Paris for consultations on the state and perspectives of our bilateral relations, the Foreign ministry said. French authorities Wednesday indicated they have received a formal termination of the 2018 agreement on the status of French armed forces present in the country. According to the terms of the accord, the termination (of the 2018 agreement on the status of French armed forces present in the country) takes effect a month after reception of written notification, a ministry spokeswoman said. We will respect the terms of the agreement by honoring this request. About 400 French special forces are currently based in Burkina Faso in a deployment dubbed Sabre, part of a broader military presence to fight jihadists across the Sahel region. Burkina Faso has followed a similar course to neighboring Mali, falling out with Paris after a military coup brought a junta to power and the French presence became increasingly unpopular among the public. Early this week after Ouagadougou reportedly made the request, French President Emmanuel Macron called on Burkina Faso leader Captain Ibrahim Traore to clarify the decision relayed by media. Off-late, several hundred demonstrators took to the streets of Ouagadougou to demand the departure of the French ambassador to Burkina Faso, Luc Hallade, and the dismantling of Sabre mission. South Africa and its neighbors were at the center of a tussle for influence this week when US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in turn arrived for a diplomatic visit, offering a rare moment of leverage for regional governments intent at using the opportunity to gain concessions and increase trade with both superpowers amid increased competition for Africas resources. For the countries of Southern Africa, which hold very significant trade balances with the EU and US, but still maintain strong ideological and historical sympathies for Russia, that rivalry presents an opportunity. Both top US and Russian officials were on the hunt for broader international support, as the war in Europes east is pitting invading Russian forces against Ukraines army supplied with Western arms. They have the opportunity to play one side off against the other to get concessions; to get more aid, more trade, said Steven Gruzd from the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). Thats precisely what were seeing at the moment. The war in Ukraine has only intensified long-standing great power competition for access to Africas abundant natural resources and the diplomatic prize of its 54 UN votes. But Africas voting patterns at the UN show a continent divided over which side to support in Ukraines war. During Lavrovs visit, South Africa defended joint military drills planned with Russia and China as a natural course of relations between friends, thus thumbing its nose at a Western alliance it regards as too bossy and hegemonic. South Africa, the continents economic powerhouse, has been pushing, alongside Russia and China, for a multipolar world in which geopolitical power is less concentrated around the United States. Morocco and Qatar are negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to strengthen further their economic cooperation, investments and trade exchanges which soared during the past four years to $207 million. The second round of FTA talks was held lately in Doha. The Moroccan delegation was headed by Abdelouahed Rahal, Trade Director at the Ministry of Industry & Commerce, while the Qatari side was headed by Saleh Abdullah al-Mana, Director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Commerce. The first round of talks between two countries was held in Rabat last November. The FTA facilitates the flow of trade, investments, goods and services by eliminating all or most tariffs, quotas, subsidies, and prohibitions. Morocco has already an FTA with USA, the European Union, African Union and several Arab countries. For its part, Qatar has an FTA with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which has sealed similar accords with the EU, Singapore and Arab countries. Morocco OCP group will actively contribute to improving agricultural productivity in Africa, with a commitment to devote to the continent more than 4 million tons of fertilizers in 2023, said the General Manager of OCP Africa, Mohamed Anouar Jamali. This amount represents more than double that provided by OCP to the continent in 2021 and more than a quarter of the total production planned by the group, added Jamali, who was speaking at a panel on the issue of fertilizers, held part of the Dakar 2 Summit on Food Sovereignty, held at the initiative of the African Development Bank, the Government of Senegal and the African Union Commission. In July 2022, OCP launched a large-scale program by making 550,000 tons of fertilizer available to several African countries, said the head of OCP Africa. Food security is perhaps one of the greatest challenges that we will have to meet collectively, said Jamali, noting that the challenge is twofold and is to ensure sufficient food productivity, while meeting the challenges of sustainability and environmental impact of our production systems. OCP, the world leader in the plant nutrition market and the worlds largest producer of phosphate fertilizers, considers that improving yields through a rational use of fertilizers is essential to meet this challenge, he added. The Dakar 2 Summit, held under the theme Feeding Africa: food sovereignty and resilience, opened on Wednesday, under the presidency of the Senegalese Head of State, Macky Sall, in the presence of some fifteen heads of state and three vice-presidents and heads of government, including Moroccos Aziz Akhannouch. In an address before a panel entitled Vision for the transformation of food and agriculture, Aziz Akhannouch highlighted Moroccos public policy in the agricultural sector, with focus on the Green Morocco Plan and the new strategy Generation Green in the transformation and development of this sector. Akhannouch said that the Green Morocco Plan has helped maintain an average growth of 5.5 percent per year in agriculture over the past 10 years, including taking into account the difficult years of lack of rainfall. He said investment is at the heart of the equation, citing, in this regard, investment in seeds, mechanization, fertilizers, land, training and research, an issue that is important to ensure an increase in productivity and added value of our products. He said, moreover, that the second important step in the history of Moroccan agriculture is the new Generation Green Strategy, and that this strategy gives priority to the human element (Social Security) and improving the income of farmers. Lamar and Ruth Vickerstaff, who were both arrested in connection to the death of previously unidentified Opelika Jane Doe, have been extradited to Opelika. With the assistance of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Aviation unit, the Vickerstaffs landed in Opelika Thursday afternoon to be transported to the Lee County Justice Center. On Jan. 17, the couple was arrested in Jacksonville, Fla. Lamar is charged with felony murder and Ruth is charged with failure to report a missing child. Opelika Jane Doe was recently identified by police as Amore Wiggins, more than 10 years after her remains were found in a wooded area behind a mobile home off Hurst Street in Opelika in 2012. Detectives believed she was killed in 2010 or 2011, was about 4 years old and was likely malnourished and physically abused before her death. The autopsy revealed Wiggins had fractures to her skull, arms, legs, shoulders and ribs, making a total of 15 individual fractures. Detectives also believe she was blind in her left eye because of a fracture to her eye socket. Through advanced forensic DNA testing, scientists and law enforcement officers were finally able to identify her and her biological parents. Wiggins was born on Jan. 1, 2006, to Sherry Wiggins, now 37 years old living in Baltimore, Md., and Lamar Vickerstaff Jr., now 50 years old living in Jacksonville, Fla. In a Virginia court in 2009, Vickerstaff and his second wife Ruth were awarded legal and physical custody of three-year-old Amore Wiggins. Sherry Wiggins lost visitation rights and lost contact with her daughter, but continued to pay child support to Vickerstaff since then. She had no idea that she was missing, Opelika Police Chief Shane Healey said at a press conference on Jan. 19. She thought that she was with her father. She didnt know she was missing until we contacted her in December. Detectives found out that Lamar Vickerstaff was born and raised in Opelika and graduated from Opelika High School. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and during his career, he lived in Norfolk, Va., Honolulu, Hawaii and Jacksonville, Fla. Opelika Captain Johnathan Clifton stated at the press conference that Vickerstaff had friends and family that lived in the Opelika area where Amores body was found. In Dec. 2022, Opelika detectives traveled to the Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla., where Lamar Vickerstaff is currently stationed, to notify him of this daughters death, Healey said. During the meeting Vickerstaff did not provide investigators with any information on the identity of Baby Jane Doe. Detectives then met with Lamars wife, Ruth Vickerstaff. Ruth, whos been married to Lamar since May of 2006, advised detectives she did not know Lamars daughter or who may be the mother of Baby Jane. This case remains under investigation. Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the Opelika Police Department Detective Division at 334-705-5220 or the Secret Witness Hotline at 334-745-8665. Anonymous tips can be submitted through the Opelika Police Mobile App. Local Girls Scouts are on a mission to collect donations this weekend to be able to share packages of cookies with hometown heroes including military men and women, veterans, first responders and local nonprofits. Friday kicks off the annual Hometown Heroes weekend. Girls from Opelika, Auburn and throughout southern Alabama will have booths set up to collect donations until Sunday. This weekend is designated to highlight the campaign, but Girl Scouts will still be collecting Hometown Hero donations until March 5. Donations are collected in $5 increments and can be collected by a Girl Scout either at her cookie booth, on her online cookie site or using her order card. To find a Girl Scout booth nearby, visit girlscoutssa.org to use the Cookie Finder. Gwen Black, the troop coordinator for Troop 7283 in Opelika, and her granddaughter Payton, who is a Girl Scout Junior in Troop 7283, are excited to start collecting donations for hometown heroes. I like helping out, Payton said. My mom is a nurse, so I know how kids feel when their mom or dad cant always be there with them. I like donating to military people and first responders. Gwen has been involved with Girl Scouts for over 25 years serving as a troop leader for her daughter and now her nine-year-old granddaughter. Payton is in her fifth year as a Girl Scout, but shes been immersed in the organization her whole life. Payton said she loves being involved in Girl Scout activities with her grandmother and knowing that shes always there. Together theyve participated in the Hometown Heroes campaign in previous years. Its a good time for the girls to go and visit the fire department or the police department or military and make these donations in person, Gwen said. Payton added she has especially enjoyed delivering the cookie packages to the fire department. My uncle used to work at the fire department, and I used to go there all the time to deliver cookies for them. Its a really special memory to me because my uncle died a few years ago, so its really special to me, she said. In 2022, troops in southern Alabama collectively sold 6,540 packages for Hometown Heroes donations. This year they are hoping to beat that number by selling 7,200 cookie packages. Once all the donations have been collected, the Girls Scouts will start identifying the organizations, nonprofits and first responders theyd like to donate to and will set a date to distribute them. The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University became the first American museum to present a solo exhibition by Masaomi Yasunaga, a Japanese artist regarded for his experimental forms, when it opened for the spring semester on Tuesday, Jan. 24. In Holding Close is on view until Sunday, May 7, in the museums Grand Gallery and Fuller E. Calloway Box. Southern-made objects, including more functional ceramics, are contrasted with his work and exhibited concurrently in the Noel and Kathryn Wadsworth Dickinson Gallery and Chi-Omega-Hargis Gallery. Museum administrators scheduled these two engagements around the Alabama Clay Conference, which will meet in Auburn for the first time in its 38-year history. Museum admission is free. Yasunaga is a third-generation student of the avant-garde movement Sodeisha. The artists conceptual approach and technique differ from Eastern ceramic traditions. Translating to Crawling through Mud Association, the style counters simple forms used in daily Japanese life. Rather than building structures from clay, Yasunaga works with glazes, soils and other raw materials, encasing them in sand or clay layers for firing. Once the form cools, he excavates the vessels remains, challenging what is known about sculptural pottery and the concepts of time. Conversely, the companion exhibition of collection objects and loans examines more traditional forms and techniques. As distinctive as Alabama red clay, pottery and stoneware play a significant role in Southern culture. The 40-plus works in Clay BodyPottery and Stoneware of the Southeast are gathered from the university art collection and private lenders, some of whom are alumni. Despite their simplicity, advanced skill is evident. The makers creativity elevates functional objects and sheds light on the state and her people for more than 200 years. As an academic museum, The Jule serves university audiences and the people of Alabama through instruction and outreach, said Cindi Malinick, executive director. When the organizers of the conference named Auburn as the host site for the statewide event, we recognized the opportunity to teach with art objects to reveal a variety of styles and treatments reflecting a wider breadth of what is possible through this medium. Malinick added that the exhibition appeals to students in other disciplines beyond art and design, such as geology, chemistry and history. Located on Auburns campus, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art is the cultural heart of an Alabama public research institution serving students, faculty and Southeastern constituents. The university art collection features works spanning the 17th to 21st centuries and includes photographs, works on paper depicting the South, ceramics and Southern visionary art. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the museum celebrates in 20th Anniversary in August 2023. For more, visit the museums website. Agree! I left a comment exactly as yours without even reading it lol Reply Parent Thread Link He is one beautiful ass man. Reply Parent Thread Link Fine ASF Reply Parent Thread Link one of the most beautiful men alive, he owned the 90's for me, my god I love him being the cutest in something like chungking express tho Reply Parent Thread Link Oooh I'll let my dad know. He liked the film and he's a fan of Chow Yun-fat & Michelle Yeoh. Reply Thread Link lol I'm old enough to have seen this in theatres and I remember my mom taking me to see it and like the little heathen I was I turned to her and said "You didn't tell me there were subtitles" when it started. Of course that quickly seized to matter. Such a brilliant movie. Reply Thread Link *ceased to matter /asshole Reply Parent Thread Link D'oh! LOL thanks for the correction. Reply Parent Thread Link I can't believe this came out over 20 years ago Reply Thread Link I haven't seen Ziyi Zhang in a long time. What has she been up to? Reply Thread Link Motherhood, I think. She did a Chinese TV historical drama a few years ago. Reply Parent Thread Link One of my favorites movies, I will be going to see this again! Reply Thread Link Such a gorgeous (and frustrating) movie. I'd go see it asap if it played anywhere near me but I don't think we're even getting the Titanic anniversary screenings here. Reply Thread Link One of the best theatre experiences! I don't know what I did to deserve this and Titanic back in theatres but I am so excited to relive my youth! Reply Thread Link I was obsessed with this and house of flying daggers. Takeshi Kaneshiro is daddy Reply Thread Link god i haven't seen this in 20 years. it was gorgeous of course, but i hate sad endings. Reply Thread Link I read that as Magical Mythical Romantical tbf... I haven't had much sleep in two days. Fucking arse possum in my wall. Reply Thread Link I love this movie so much. the music is so stunning too. I would love to see it in theatres again. Reply Thread Link I was OBSESSED with this soundtrack when it came out. Reply Parent Thread Link Its so good! Reply Parent Thread Link AND ICONIC SHOTS I've only seen bits and pieces of this movie but I remember seeing the trailer on TVAND ICONIC SHOTS Reply Thread Link I should see this again. I saw it in the theater when it first came out, but couldnt really enjoy it. It was when I was studying for the bar exam and I was hating life; not being able to turn my bran off for a couple of hours because I felt too guilty for taking a break instead of studying. Reply Thread Link It's not really too too grassroots if you have connections to big well-connected names lol. I mentioned it in the previous post but what gets me is how Andrea managed to inspire such support when other bigger more famous celebs have gotten snubbed or shut-out from landing a nomination lol???? That's wild and unbelievable to me!! I wonder if some celebs who are unlucky getting a nom/win are looking at some of their friends like "....UM WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT FOR ME?!?!?!??!" LOOOOOOL!! I like Andrea's talents but I hope this blows up in her face especially if she steals it from Michelle! BA has been between Michelle and Cate.....Cate mentioned support for Andrea during her critic win....so I'm wondering if she's willing to back down in favor of Andrea winning? Reply Thread Link Re: your second point it could also be viewed as Cate offering up Andrea as an alternative choice to Michelle. Like, hey, its been between Cate and Michelle, but maybe funnel all Michelles votes over to Andrea, so it can be Cate v. Andrea. I guess that would be a pretty cynical view, though. I dont think Cate would purposefully do that! But any white woman might inadvertently do it. Reply Parent Thread Link idk...its been mentioned in other posts that Andrea's votes are possibly more likely to come from people who would have voted for Cate? if Michelle nabs it because another white woman split the vote....loooooolllll..... Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I guess I am a cynic then. 100% cate blanchett offered her as an alternative to michelle yeoh. Trust no white. The more I think about it the angrier I get. This is white devilry at the very least and two black actresses were the sacrifice. Really, her and michelle williams are squatting where they shouldnt. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I wonder if some celebs who are unlucky getting a nom/win are looking at some of their friends like "....UM WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT FOR ME?!?!?!??!" LOOOOOOL!! Emily Blunt who seems to be well liked must be thinking this. Also JLo for Hustlers Reply Parent Thread Link I hope the other Best Actress nominees split the White vote and Michelle wins by default. Reply Parent Thread Link what gets me is how Andrea managed to inspire such support when other bigger more famous celebs have gotten snubbed or shut-out from landing a nomination Seriously, this part is baffling to me too. If I had a friend ask me to post every day on social media about some pet project they had I would seriously side eye them. I cant envision a scenario in which Id do it unless it like saved a persons life. And I have like a fraction of a fraction of the followers that these people do! I dont get it. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Someone on the fauxmoi subreddit compared it to astroturfing and that's really what it feels like, lol we ought to help make #AstroturfingAndrea a thing! Reply Parent Thread Link yeah the number of people she got to support her is wild. cates support is one of the wilder ones but i feel like the wildest support andrea was able to get was jamie lee curtis and nobody is talking about it??? especially since people keep talking/acting like jamie is championing michelle yeoh to win this? the whole thing has been bizarre to watch Reply Parent Thread Link I just don't understand how this is worst from what studio's do regularly? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It wasn't grassroots, media - stop saying that! Reply Thread Link honestly, stephanie hsu and bryan tyree henry were the true organic grassroots campaign driven by genuine passion for their performances. Reply Parent Thread Link Best case: Andrea rescinds it herself, with grace, thanks the efforts her friends made and the next person who should be on the ballot moves up. I really want this woman to do the right thing. It would be better than forever being the one who hung onto her nom that was tainted. Her last name is going to be a verb for fake Oscar shenanigans and that will be her legacy. The noise is not going to end, someone will go after the campaign and ask to see every email that went out, every Instagram DM to see if any member of the Academy was improperly contacted Reply Thread Link Lol she deserves for Riseboroughd to be associated with awards lobbying after this!! But truthfully no way shes bowing out of this, its mentioned in the post that a lot of money was most likely invested into this. If she managed to make this line-cutting leap, shell wanna reach the finish line. Reply Parent Thread Link I wish but honestly she deserves this shitstorm. And she was more than likely complicit, shes likely satisfied with herself and white womaning it up to her friends, most likely crying and wondering why she is getting so much shit, she didnt do anything different than anyone else! She seems shameless lol. I only hope she takes out all her fellow white people for this shit especially that frances fischer woman. I would feel bad for the next person in line too, most likely danielle deadwyler. Her nom will have an asterisk too and she doesnt deserve that Reply Parent Thread Link Having watched the movie - Andrea should have been nominated. Danielle and Viola should have been as well. The two who should have been out in my opinion were white Michelle and Ana (even though I didnt see Blonde). I hope people dont get hyper focused on Andrea and remember that the issues arise in the first place due to the Academy seemingly always nominating known folks - even when they dont deserve it; continuing to over look performances be non-white women; overlooking performances in certain genres and indies.. This business with Andrea is simply a symptom of larger and long existing problems with the Academy. While Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett are deservedly the front runners. I think this whole thing might end up helping Cate Blanchett when her third; shes a known quantity and the safe choice. Most of the voters likely havent seen either movie and Tar is seen as the more prestige of the too. Edited at 2023-01-27 08:01 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link I dont think shell back down considering she spent like $10-15k of her own money campaigning. Reply Parent Thread Link the industry trades are all digging into this, because this type of bandwagon campaign threatens the entire ecosystem of awards season events, roundtables, etc that they put a lot of their resources into/makes them money. theyre naming and shaming to try to stop this from becoming common Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I hope she backs out, but after the shameless campaign, I don't think she will Reply Parent Thread Link Shes not gonna step down. By the sound of it, a lot of money (her own and other peoples) was invested in this campaign. The pressure is too much. I dont get it. Instead, I hope her ass gets disqualified. She and her team deserves to be put on blast. Reply Parent Thread Link I hope she gets disqualified. White ppl get away with this stuff too easily. The way they orchestrated this and then came out being like Im shocked omg when it worked... And now you have Frances Fisher backtracking on Twitter/IG to make sure people know she loves Viola/Danielle because she knew she fucked up naming them. Embarrassing for everyone involved Reply Parent Thread Link if the nom for her gets rescinded no one will be nominated on her place, the category just stays at four nominees Reply Parent Thread Link Exactly. She thought she's gonna get a Melissa Leo or a Mo'Nique, now she's getting all this heat from emails and paper trail Reply Parent Thread Link George C. Scott tried this actually and failed spectacularly. He wrote the Acadamy a telegram which read in part: "I respectfully request that you withdraw my name from the list of nominees. My request is in no way intended to denigrate my colleagues." Not only did the Academy refused to rescind his nomination, he actually won. Reply Parent Thread Link BUT Dolly De Leon should have been nominated That was a gross mistake by the academy Along with leaving Nobody like U out of the best songs noms as well We will never get to see 4*Town perform live at the Oscars Shame on the jury Shame! https://youtu.be/VaUsMh1lcds The women king was terribleBUT Dolly De Leon should have been nominatedThat was a gross mistake by the academyAlong with leavingNobody like U out of the best songs noms as wellWe will never get to see 4*Town perform live at the Oscars Shame on the jury Shame! Reply Thread Link *im all over this post.. I guess I have some feelings* Viola Davis maybe isnt a perfect representative for under-appreciated black actors but Deadwyler was great in a part dealing with major historical importance. And historical importance HAS mattered in Oscar campaigns before. How many dead white presidents/WWII figures have been nominated before? It just stings a little that such a great performance about very neglected Black American historical figures is swept away in the name of whatever To Leslie was doing. (Havent seen it, maybe it was great.) Reply Parent Thread Link Also, Im on the Dolly De Leon train, 100%! Reply Parent Thread Link I liked TWK, but it def wasn't among viola's absolute best movies or best performances imo. I can live with her not getting in this year. Danielle, however, absolutely carried that movie and deserves it. Reply Parent Thread Link Im sad more people arent upset about Dolly not being nominated. Reply Parent Thread Link Lmao. This song makes me laugh every time. Get it 4town!! Reply Parent Thread Link It's so annoying seeing this described as grassroots. It reminds of the tea party being called grassroots. Enough with the bullshit this was orchestrated just like any other campaign. I do think Andrea is a good actress and maybe even deserving of an Oscar nom for all I know but this was shady. Well the part that annoyed me the most was Frances telling people to vote for her because Viola and Danielle were locks. Now I'm curious to see what else was in those emails. Reply Thread Link the wild thing is Frances Fisher's original post only had Cate, Michelle, and Viola on it as "locks." She edited it later to add Danielle. Edited at 2023-01-27 03:51 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link that makes me even more suspicious that she knew exactly what she was doing Reply Parent Thread Link that makes her come across as even more calculating. like she realized that danielle was a threat after she had written the initial post and so added her in as a purported lock to sway votes. why else edit her name in after the fact? Reply Parent Thread Link The way celebrities were posting that copy-paste nonsense tweet where there werent working tags should tell you how different this was. Never seen people campaign for fellow actors like this before, its very different from hosting screenings etc. It also creates this weird kind of public-facing pressure for her nomination from some of the biggest Hollywood names, when usually campaigning outside of the chat show circuit etc is low-key. Reply Thread Link Its really fascinating how bold of a move it was. Just totally being transparent about systems that are usually opaque (in the name of ~decency~). Reply Parent Thread Link Im baffled by the whole thing. Its not even like Andrea Riseborough, or Mary McCormack and Michael Morris for that matter, are beloved HW royalty. How are they this influential? Why are all these other actors actually going along with this? Edited at 2023-01-27 10:48 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I thought the same thing, how does Andrea Riseborough have all this power? And if its so straightforward to tweet your way to an Oscar nom, why wasnt this energy used for Amy Adams in Arrival!? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I can connect the dots to some of the tweeters but others I am still baffled. All The West Wing people, I get because of Mary and Allison. Joe Mantagna and Mary do the Capitol Memorial Day concert every year and work with the same Veterans charities. Kate Winslet and Andrea just did a movie together. But I need an article nepo baby style showing me all the connections. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link They don't need to be Hollywood royalty, sometimes they're the middle of the pack, those with years of experience in TV and movies, like character actors for instance. Reply Parent Thread Link Every thing I read about this I just keeping asking, what are all these people getting out of this? Like, what is Cate Blanchett getting out of going to bat for Andrea? Do they have dirt on Cate or something? It's weird. Reply Parent Thread Link Honestly I kind of wonder if this demonstrates the difference between HW Royalty to the general public and HW Royalty to the people actually within HW. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link A lot of people are followers and were probably told by their famous friends to tweet/Instagram. Six degrees of separation. Reply Parent Thread Link I reckon in future theyll just get ChatGPT or some other AI to write a caption in the style of each person theyre asking to post Reply Parent Thread Link I wonder if the people who mentioned her name even watched her movie. Reply Thread Link Most probably didn't. Reply Parent Thread Link I don't think because wouldn't they have more to say about her performance than the same word for word message. Reply Parent Thread Link Doubtful, tbh. Every member of the Academy votes for Best Picture and it seems like every year an anonymous voter admits to either not watching all of the films nominated or voting for other superfluous reasons. Reply Parent Thread Link Some friend of an anonymous producer claimed they only saw TGM and saw it 10 times and LOVED it. Also some other anonymous producer who told someone else Don't Worry Darling was near the top of their ballot. Reply Parent Thread Link No way they did, they all posted pretty much the same thing verbatim. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I mean, we constantly hear voters admitting they didn't watch the movies that got huge releases, let alone the smaller stuff. Maybe there was a big push with screeners? Reply Parent Thread Link That is not much different from most oscar campaigns tho Reply Parent Thread Link I wonder if they are genuinely surprised by the backlash, which would show how out of touch not only HW but also PR companies are. The only thing that worked for them, is the media running with them calling it a grassroots campaign. Edited at 2023-01-27 10:01 am (UTC) Reply Thread Link everyone involved in this looks like a damn fool and what's wild to me is...yeah, you got your Oscar nom....but how is it not completely tainted? she's gone from being a respected actress to looking totally ridiculous, its like the ultimate "you played yourself", i just don't get it (and lol at Frances in damage control "i thought Danielle and Viola were locks" oh come on did you catch brain rot and forget how this industry works? gimme a break) Reply Thread Link I also wonder how many of those who took part in this campaign are going to turn on her now. It's not just her image that got tainted. Reply Parent Thread Link lol Kate Winslet hosted one of the screenings and she and Andrea just got done filming an Oscar-baity war drama together, that awards push is gonna be interesting Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Let's hope so. Reply Parent Thread Link Will be interesting to see if celebs start deleting their posts supporting her. Reply Parent Thread Link Danielle and Viola were locks, but not Cate, who had already been winning awards? Why were Danielle and Viola singled out, and not Cate? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I dont get it either. I dont understand why you would want a nomination this way. Have some self fucking respect Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It's like "nominated, but at what cost?". Before all this, I always thought she was a good and underrated actress, but now I'm meh about her. She ruined her reputation for what? Reply Parent Thread Link I would love to see her get DQed Reply Thread Link I get why and how this so-called grassroots campaign happened, but I dont understand why so many celebs complied with it. Im sure there must have been similar pleas for actors in the past that we never heard about because they didnt work. Why did it work here? Blackmail? Lol Reply Thread Link Righhhhhhht??? Makes me think actors are just relatively lazy to do something this (Id be lazy too). I think Mary McCormack oiling this machine is the big factor here. She already had the connections and rallied Andreas performance as a lets make this a little engine that could story which is a very appealing narrative to a lot of people in general. Lol why isnt Mary doing this for her OWN career. Reply Parent Thread Link Lol mte I haven't seen Mary in forever why doesn't she pull some strings for her acting career. I guess this helps her director husband tho Reply Parent Thread Expand Link This is where Im at. Why her? It has to go beyond just being white, because if that was the case the Amy Adams and Kristen Stewarts of the world wouldnt have so many misses. If so many powerful behind the scenes people were involved then maybe they were like ok if you do this Ill put your name in for this role or something idk this whole thing is ridiculous but its really just taking advantage of the system. I wish all people in the industry mad about this would take this enegry toward category fraud instead. Like at least Andrea is a leading actress at the end of the day. Michelle Williams has no business being there at all. Every year theres something egregious like that but the backlash fades quickly Reply Parent Thread Link Count your days, Mary McCormack Reply Thread Link Me to Frances. I really hate how she brought Viola and Danielle into this mess. Reply Parent Thread Link Yes! Her too!!! Reply Parent Thread Link I know it was many years ago now, but GIRL, HE CHEATED ON YOU! Don't do him no favors!! Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I didn't know this was a real person in the beginning, I thought it was some weird meme. Reply Thread Link https://www.gofugyourself.com/andrea-riseborough-finally-gets-her-red-carpet-retrospective-01-2023 you probably have seen her in stuff, she just changes her whole look all the time Reply Parent Thread Expand Link It's wild to me that in the span of 2 weeks she managed to taint her entire career and went from being a chameleon to this. This campaign is something I would expect for an untalented nepo baby, not for an established actress. Reply Parent Thread Link I remember that she was really boring as Wallis Simpson in that stupid movie Madonna directed. She had a scene with Katie McGrath and that's all I remember. Reply Parent Thread Link what happened in 2017 Reply Parent Thread Link I just watched this whole thing and I still don't think I could recognize her. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link i am kind of impressed at how she can look completely different lol Reply Parent Thread Link I thought it was a collective prank like Goncharov Reply Parent Thread Link "in particular, any tactic that singles out "the competition" by name or title is expressly forbidden." well that's interesting. and something they clearly violated Reply Thread Link we need a scandal name imo Reply Thread Link To Andrea! But yelled like Reply Parent Thread Link Andrea Who: The Eleventh Hour Reply Parent Thread Link The Rising Reply Parent Thread Link The Risening!! The Award she Risen-Borrowed. Reply Parent Thread Link U.S. Postal Service Cited for Repeat, Serious Violations The mail carrier is also facing about $350k in proposed penalties following inspections at three Tennessee facilities. Inspections at three U.S. Postal Service facilities have resulted in citations for multiple violations for the mail carrier. According to a news release, OSHA inspections at the Knoxville Processing and Distribution Center, the Music City Annex in Nashville and the Columbia Post Office, all in Tennessee, revealed a mail processing machine with no guard, overloaded circuits and spaces containing raw sewage due to [b]acked up sewers. OSHA also found issues relating to forklifts and their use. Operators didnt use seatbelts, and some workers required to use the forklifts didnt have training, OSHA said. In addition, they lacked working strobe lights and back up alarms, while other forklifts needing repairs remained in service. In total, the U.S. Postal Service, which had 516,636 postal employees in 2021, received citations for five repeat, four serious and four other-than-serious violations from OSHA and proposed penalties of $350,136. "The U.S. Postal Service's high operational tempo is not a reason to bypass or ignore long-established safety standards. If anything, it's a reason to place greater emphasis on ensuring its workers are protected from recognized hazards and have every opportunity to avoid potential life-altering injuries," said OSHA Area Director William Cochran in Nashville, Tennessee in the news release. "These violations are preventable and continuing to operate in this manner, while ignoring safety requirements, is a recipe for disaster." Per the news release, "The employer has contested the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission." The energy crisis in Europe triggered by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has left the continent short of hydrocarbon supplies and increasingly reliant on liquefied natural gas imports. Norway, the largest oil and gas producer in the region, has stepped up with a record-breaking sanctioning boom on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) that has seen a staggering 35 projects greenlighted in the last two and a half years most at the tail-end of last year. According to Rystad Energy research, Norway will see development spending skyrocket in the short term as the buildout of the project portfolio is estimated to launch a whopping $42.7 billion of greenfield investments. These projects sanctioned under Norways temporary tax regime will help maintain high gas production on the NCS towards 2030. While key producing fields such as Troll, Oseberg and Aasta Hansteen will slowly enter the decline phase in the coming years, tax regime projects such as Aker BPs Yggdrasil Hub (start-up in 2027), Shells Phase 3 of Ormen Lange (start-up in 2025) and Equinors Irpa (start-up in 2026) will be particularly significant in maintaining a steady high flow of gas from Norway to Europe. NCS liquids production is also expected to sustain going forward, which is welcome news as Europe seeks to wean itself off Russian oil imports. From the temporary tax regime, Aker BPs Yggdrasil Hub (start-up in 2027), Equinors Breidablikk (start-up in 2025) and Vaar Energis Balder Future (start-up in 2024) will be the largest contributors in terms of oil output. Most oil production will, however, stem from major fields sanctioned during the standard tax regime, such as Johan Sverdrup particularly since the giant offshore fields second phase came online in December 2022. Together, these projects have pushed back the production decline on the NCS to 2028. According to Rystad Energy research, the additional supply of gas in 2028 will be about 24.9 billion cubic meters (Bcm), equivalent to around 6.225% of demand in the European Union and the UK combined. This increase from 96 Bcm to 121 Bcm means Norway will go from supplying just under a quarter (24%) to close to one-third (30.25%) of all European gas in five years. The outcome of this tax break is three-fold: increased investment on the NCS; increased tax receipts when production starts; and increased supply to Europe at a critical time. Norway will need to consider if this regime is a one-off to attract investment, or if lessons can be learned for the future, says Mathias Schioldborg, upstream analyst at Rystad Energy. Temporary tax regime Norway implemented its temporary tax regime during the Covid-19 pandemic-induced market downturn in 2020 to attract investment and secure future development spending on the NCS. The regime incentivized operators to spend by offering direct expensing and boosting the investment uplift rate on all ongoing investments in 2020 and 2021, as well as on all development projects sanctioned before 2023 up until first oil is realized. Despite a reduction in the uplift rate from 24% in 2020 to 12.4% in 2022, Rystad Energy calculated that the temporary regime still lifts the net present value (NPV) and lowers the breakeven prices of development projects, compared to both the old and new cash flow-based standard regime. With oil prices having recovered substantially from the slump in 2020, NCS operators have been scrambling to get their plans of development and operation (PDO) submitted within the tax window so that their projects can benefit from the favorable financial terms prior to the implementation of the new standard regime at the beginning of 2023. Aggregated, the 35 projects sanctioned within the regime, 24 were greenlighted last year making 2022 a clear record-breaker in terms of the number of sanctioned projects on the NCS in a single calendar year. Last year was also a winner in terms of the total value of projects sanctioned in a single year, expected to total nearly $29 billion. Aker BP operates 17 of the 35 projects on the list, including the Yggdrasil Hub (Munin, Hugin and Fulla), the Valhall PWP-Fenris project, the Skarv Satellites project (Alve North, Idun North and Orn), and the Utsira High tieback developments to Ivar Aasen and Edvard Grieg (Symra, Troldhaugen and Solveig Phase 2). All of Aker BPs projects are in the North Sea, except for Skarv Satellites and Graasel. Equinor follows by operating 11 projects, including Breidablikk, Irpa, Halten East, the electrification of the Njord field, and prolonging the lifetime of the Snohvit gas field in the Barents Sea through its future project. Other noteworthy contributions are Shells installation of a subsea compression system for Phase 3 of the Ormen Lange gas field, Wintershall Deas Dvalin North and ConocoPhillips Eldfisk North. Investment in the NCS set to reach $9.6 billion in 2023 The buildout of the 35 projects will significantly increase short-term spending on the NCS. The peak level of investments resulting from the temporary regime is predicted to reach $9.6 billion this year, mainly boosted by Aker BP beginning its investment scheme for the Yggdrasil and Valhall PWP-Fenris projects. The projects are forecast to cost $12.3 billion and $5.3 billion, respectively. The cost burst at Vaar Energis Balder Future project has also squeezed the short-term greenfield investment level on the NCS. Greenfield spending from the 35 projects is projected to increase steadily over the next three years, reaching $9.1 billion in 2024, $7.4 billion in 2025 and $6.3 billion in 2026. However, a sharp decline is anticipated after 2026, when the majority of the projects come online, although Aker BP's Yggdrasil investment scheme will continue through 2027. Greenfield investments from the regime remain on track to be completed by 2029. Aggregated, the 35 projects are estimated to hold a total of 2.472 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in economically and technically recoverable resources. Of all the projects, Aker BPs Yggdrasil Hub is a clear winner by holding roughly 571 million boe, split between 266 million boe from Munin, 238 million boe from Hugin and 66 million boe from Fulla. The giant North Sea hub holds around 55% oil, 33% gas and 12% natural gas liquids (NGL). Shells development of a subsea compression system at the Ormen Lange gas field follows, as the upgrade will allow for the extraction of about an additional 210 million boe of gas during the fields lifetime. Equinors Breidablikk, Aker BPs Fenris and ConocoPhillips Tommeliten Alpha follow, holding approximately 192 million boe, 140 million boe and 134 million boe, respectively. Measuring by company, Aker BP, Equinor and Vaar take the upper hand by holding 780 million boe, 570 million boe and 265 million boe, respectively, from these projects. ADVERTISEMENT Production from the tax window projects is expected to peak at 921,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day (boepd) in 2028. Production stemming from the regime will not sizably increase before 2025, despite Aker BPs Graasel coming online in 2021, Hod last year, and a few smaller projects slated for launch this and next year. This first lift will be fueled by projects such as Equinors Breidablikk, Vaars Balder Future, and ConocoPhillips Tommeliten Alpha reaching plateau after coming online in 2024, in addition to Shells Phase 3 of Ormen Lange and Aker BPs Tyrving starting up in 2025. A steep ramp-up towards peak is forecast, with production jumping from 300,000 boepd in 2025 to 446,000 boepd in 2026 and 702,000 boepd in 2027, powered sharply by the start-up of Aker BPs Yggdrasil Hub. We expect production to steadily decline from 921,000 boepd at peak to 818,000 boepd in 2029, 659,000 boepd in 2030, and even out at 254,000 boepd in 2035. At this point, Yggdrasil, Ormen Lange, Irpa, Breidablikk and Valhall PWP-Fenris will produce the most. By Rystad Energy More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: European competition authorities are unlikely to put up much of a fight, if at all. Merger and acquisition activity in the United States oil and gas industry last year slumped to the lowest in 17 years as buyers became pickier. But besides being picky, they were also willing to spend, Enverus reported earlier this week. Now, Citi analysts are suggesting they may get even more generous with acquisitions. BP and Shell, the European supermajors, could become acquisition targets for their American peers Exxon and Chevron, the banks analysts said in a note this week, arguing that the Europeans stocks have been affected by attitudes towards ESG investing and the energy transition, turning them into a potential value proposition for the American supermajors. The CoE of European oils remains handcuffed by investor and political headwinds, Citi analyst Alastair Syme said in the note, as quoted by Proactive Investors. What is really needed is for the industry to arbitrage this value itself. We look at the strategic imperative, financial accretion and political headwinds of either of the two US IOCs (Exxon or Chevron) potentially looking to try and acquire one of their key European competitors (BP, Shell or TotalEnergies), Syme also said. According to the bank, the two European supermajors are currently trading at a discount of more than 40 percent to Exxon and Chevron, MarketWatch reported, citing the same note. The analysts, however, noted that most of this discount comes from a general premium that U.S. stocks enjoy over European ones. Related: U.S. Natural Gas Prices Crash By 7% Yet some of the discount comes from the political realities of Europe, where pressure is strong on investors to shun the oil and gas sector like the plague and focus instead on low-carbon energy opportunities. The oil price rally from last year and the upbeat forecasts for current and future oil demand have done nothing to change that sentiment. The prize for the U.S. IOCs would look considerable, with value uplift coming through the ability to fund at a lower [cost of equity] as well as cost-synergies that we estimate in [net present value] terms in the region of 15-30% of target market-cap, the Citi analyst team wrote. This would be quite a lucrative opportunity if Exxon and Chevron start to feel like growing inorganically. They might well do that, too, after a strong year and another on the way as the oil market supply and demand situation remains in precarious balance, with the danger of a shortage always lurking behind the corner. So, the American supermajors may well have the money to snatch BP or Shell, and according to Citi, the European competition authorities are unlikely to put up much of a fight, if at all. In fact, the banks analysts suggested the European political circles may be glad to see the supermajors gone. European politicians would undoubtedly rattle their sabres, but given they have already set out an anti-oil narrative it seems unlikely they would intervene directly. Competition authorities are unlikely to put up blockers, at least not enough to remove the value-accretion potential, Citi said. Of course, as MarketWatch points out, if the hypothetical scenario does materialize and a European supermajor becomes part of an American one, spending on renewables will declineprobably sizeablyand thats hardly something the anti-oil political lobby in the EU would like to see. On the other hand, that would be happening far from European shores, so they might decide to look the other way, pretty much the way they did with all that American wood being shipped to Europe under the label biomass and burned as a renewable source of energy. ADVERTISEMENT The only real question then is whether either Exxon or Chevron are in the mood to make such a huge buy when they can sit and repurchase their own stock and boost dividends as they watch oil prices climb higher. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The proposal will also allow buyers outside of the EU to continue to have access to Western insurance and financing if they comply with the price cap. The bloc is also considering a potential $100 per barrel cap on Russian diesel sold to third countries. The EUs price cap on Russian refined products is set to come into effect on February 5. The European Union is considering setting a $100 a barrel price cap on Russian diesel to limit the potential fallout on global supply after the EU ban on Russian refined products comes into effect on February 5, EU officials have told Reuters. The EU will baneffective February 5seaborne imports of Russian refined oil products, and around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian diesel, naphtha, and other fuels need to find a home elsewhere if Moscow wants to continue getting money for those products. An EU proposal calls for capping the price of Russian diesel sold to third countries at $100 per barrel. Similarly to the price cap on Russian crude, buyers outside the EU will continue to have access to Western insurance and financing for cargoes if they comply with the price cap. The proposal also includes setting a price cap of $45 per barrel for discounted products such as fuel oil. The EU has sent the proposal to the governments of the EU member states and their representatives are expected to discuss the issue on Friday afternoon. Setting price caps on Russian refined products have been more complicated than the $60 price cap on crude oil, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said last week. Its more complicated, but weve been working hard to figure out how to achieve the same objectives, Yellen said, as carried by Reuters. The objectives of the price caps are to reduce Putins revenues from energy exports and, at the same time, keep global oil markets sufficiently supplied. The European Union is buying more diesel from the United States and Saudi Arabia in preparation for the EU ban, yet Europe still remains the biggest buyer of Russian diesel. In December, for example, Russias diesel exports surged to a multi-year high of 1.2 million bpd, of which 720,000 bpd was destined for the EU, according to estimates in the latest Oil Market Report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). After February 5, the diesel markets and the product flows globally are set to change, with Russia looking to place its refined products elsewhere and Europe hauling in more supply from the United States, the Middle East, and Asia, analysts say. ADVERTISEMENT By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: While Armenia has praised the move, the mission has drawn criticism from Russia and Azerbaijan. The EU is looking to expand its role in the South Caucus. The EU will deploy a 100-strong monitoring mission to Armenia's border with Azerbaijan for a term of two years, a more robust version of an earlier short-term mission that ended in December. The Armenian authorities had lobbied for and enthusiastically welcomed the move, seeing it as a deterrent against fresh Azerbaijani offensives. But it remains to be seen how an increasingly assertive Baku can be deterred by a mission of unarmed civilian observers. The move is opposed by Yerevan's strategic ally Russia, which has a decades-long military presence in Armenia and whose peacekeepers have been deployed in the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region since the end of the 2020 war. The decision to deploy the civilian monitoring mission was made at the January 23 meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the EU within the framework of the Common Security and Defense Policy. A European Council press release said the mission's aim was to strengthen stability in the Armenian-Azerbaijani border areas as a complement to EU mediation efforts between the two countries. No precise date was given for the mission's deployment. The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said the launch of the mission marks "a new phase in the EU's engagement in the South Caucasus." Borrell later said about 100 observers would take part in the mission. A previous, limited, iteration of the mission consisted of 40 monitors and operated for a term of two months, from October 20 to December 19, 2022. Its deployment was a response to the worst escalation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border since the end of the 2020 war last September, which caused the death of over 300 military personnel from both sides. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan hailed the news of the second mission, tweeting: "We very much welcome the EU's decision to send a fully-fledged civilian mission to Armenia. We will readily cooperate with the mission and support its activities. This mission will contribute to the peace, stability and security of the region." Ruling party MP Sargis Khandanyan said the mission would "contain the escalation of the situation on the border." While the observers will be unarmed and unable to intervene in case of Azerbaijani offensive, he acknowledged, at least they will "register cases of ceasefire violations and inform the EU about the situation." Azerbaijan received the news coldly. The Foreign Ministry warned that the mission must "duly [take] into account the legitimate interests of Azerbaijan" and "not be exploited for derailing the normalization process between Azerbaijan and Armenia." It also said "some" EU member states, which it did not name, had pursued "biased approaches" during the term of the initial monitoring mission. Earlier, on January 10, President Ilham Aliyev had called the EU's intent to deploy a second mission a "very unpleasant fact." Opposition came from Russia as well. On January 18, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the deployment of a new mission "could only be counterproductive" in building trust since it would not have the approval of the Azerbaijani side. Since Armenia's defeat in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan have been conducted on parallel, even competing paths. One has been led by the EU, with support from the United States, and the other by Russia. ADVERTISEMENT Russia, traditionally Armenia's lone strategic ally, is falling out of favor among Armenians, due in no small part to its refusal to intervene after the Azerbaijani incursions into Armenian territory last September. This could be a factor in the EU's thinking, according to Armenian political scientist Benyamin Poghosyan. "The EU understands that there is dissatisfaction in Armenia towards Russia and now is a good time to use this situation to strengthen its positions and weaken Russia's positions in Armenia," Poghosyan told Eurasianet. By Eurasianet.org More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Eastern Australia is once again under threat of a gas shortage in case LNG producers decide to sell all of their uncontracted gas abroad, a watchdog has warned. The east coast gas supply forecast for 2023 has improved, but the outlook remains uncertain as the LNG producers havent yet committed sufficient volume under firm contracts to address the risk of a domestic shortfall, the chair of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Gina Cass-Gottlieb said today, as quoted by Reuters. Australian LNG producers enjoyed record revenues last year thanks to Europes switch from pipeline gas to LNG, even though Australia did not become a large exporter to the continent. However, as Europe drew cargos that would have otherwise gone to Asia, the latter became an even bigger buyer of Australian liquefied gas. Indeed, one LNG cargo was shipped from Australia to Germany despite the added costs of the long journey. The buyer was freshly nationalized Uniper, and the seller was Woodside. It is because of this export boom that the ACCC has been warning of shortages. Last year, in August, the watchdog also issued a warning that unless the government steps in and limits exports, the east coast would plunge into a gas shortage. In its latest warning, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission noted that there are three LNG producers operating in eastern Australia, and they have been net withdrawers of gas from the domestic market for the last two years, and this has raised the danger of a shortage. In the meantime, the Australian government has introduced price caps on domestic gas in a bid to ease the burden on households and businesses. The gas industry immediately slammed the move as unwise, noting that it would affect future investment decisions, and not in a favorable way. One company, Senex Energy, suspended a gas investment project days after the cap was announced. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com ADVERTISEMENT More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Via AG Metal Miner In steel news, Belgiums NLMK La Louviere is unlikely to resume operations at one of its two hot rolling mills before summer in Belgium. NLMK shuttered the mill after a series of fires in late 2022 knocked it out. One of the two lines does not work at all, a source close to the plant told MetalMiner on Monday. The source also made it clear that two separate fires occurred at the plant in late December. This runs counter to the single fire reported by many steel news sources. Either way, the blazes prompted NLMK La Louviere to declare force majeure on all deliveries. They also left the plant only capable of producing hot rolled coil in gauges less than 2.5mm. Unfortunately, the source could not indicate which of the two mills is off-stream. Steel News Indicates La Louviere Recently Finished Expansion The plant has a listed capacity of 2.2 million metric tons per year of hot rolled coil thanks to its two strip mills. It can produce the coil in gauges as small as 1.2m. This is the result of a 150 million ($163 million+) investment to expand capacity from 1.8 million metric tons per year. Local steel news agencies report that the modernization project finished back in H1 2021. However, MetalMiners source noted that negative market conditions have made it unlikely that the plant will achieve full capacity. Offers on hot rolled coil prices in northern Europe have risen to 700 ($760) per metric ton in the past week. This is an increase from the 660 ($720) reported in December. However, prices remain down by a quarter from the 900-920 ($980-1,000) reported in January 2021. NLMK La Louviere can also roll 400,000 metric tons per year of cold strip. However, the facility is presently only producing full hard. This means that the finished product will not be annealed and, therefore, only suitable for metal coating. Despite attempts, La Louviere officials were unavailable to MetalMiner for steel news commentary. The site is part of NLMK Belgium Holdings (NBH), in which the Russian group and Belgian investment fund Sogepa each hold a 49% stake. The Belgian Treasury holds the remaining 2%. ADVERTISEMENT By Christopher Rivituso More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: European Union officials failed to reach an agreement on Friday about the price cap of Russian crude oil products that go into effect on February 5, but talks will continue next week, Reuters reported. The group is also set to discuss the current crude oil price caps. The group was originally set to review the crude oil price cap level every two months, which meant it was supposed to be reviewed in January, but some nations part of the groupincluding the United Stateswanted to wait until March to review the cap, which is currently set at $60 per barrel. While the cap was originally set at $60 per barrel, the EU agreed last month that the cap should be set at a price that was at least 5% below average market ratesand that it should be reviewed periodically. But not everyone in the group is on board with the current cap or the delay in reviewing it. Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland want a lower cap, arguing that Russian crude oil prices are below the cap, so it effectively is doing nothingthey would like to see a much lower cap between $40 and $50 per barrel to further restrict Russias crude oil income and pressure it into leaking Ukraine. Next week, the EU will continue its talks about the upcoming price cap on diesel, with the EUs Russian fuel import ban going into effect just over a week from now. The European Commission has proposed a $100 per barrel cap on diesel, but the cap is unlikely to be agreed upon without much debate. The EU ban on Russian diesel imports is set to go into effect on February 5 whether or not a price cap is settled on beforehanda price cap that would allow, similar to crude oil, a third party to purchase Russian diesel and insure it ifand only ifit is purchased below the set cap. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Germany saw an increase in crude oil import volumes of 11.1% during the first ten months of last year, new BAFA data showed on Friday, cited by Reuters. But the bill for that volume nearly doubled compared to the year prior at $55.98 billion. Throughout 2022, Germany continued to lean heavily on Russia for crude oil, importing 27.2% of its total crude imports from Russia. Overall, Germany imported 73.6 million tonnes of crude oil in the first ten months of last year from all sourcesup from 66.2 million tonnes in the same months the year prior. The price it paid for that crude oil in 2022, however, was 117.7% more. The average price paid for a tonne increased 66.4% over the year-ago period. Germany also took crude oil from the British and Norwegian Sea (23.5%), from OPEC nations (16.8%), and to a lesser degree, from Kazakhstan and the United States. Germany stopped importing all crude oil from Russia via oil pipeline as of January 1 of this year, making good on its pledge to stop buying all Russian crudeeven though the EU ban doesnt apply to pipeline imports. Germany said earlier this month that it had secured alternate supplies. Russias Tatneft claimed, however, that it had indeed received orders for crude from Germany, despite Germanys assertion that it had not. Germany has a long history of reliance on Russia for its energy supplies, giving it confidence in the past to craft plans to phase out its entire nuclear industry. But last Fall, German lawmakers voted in favor of keeping Germanys three nuclear plants operating until April to provide Germany with a cushion until at least the winter months were behind it. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com ADVERTISEMENT More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Italys Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is expected to travel to Libya on Saturday to discuss more oil and natural gas supply from the North African country, Italian media report. Libyas state energy firm, for its part, said it expected to sign even more deals with foreign companies after the $8B gas deal signed with Eni. During Melonis visit to Tripoli, Italian energy major Eni and Libyas National Oil Corporation (NOC) are expected to sign an agreement on investment from Eni in Libyas gas supply, according to various reports. Eni and NOC could sign on Saturday an $8 billion deal to produce gas from the Mediterranean, NOC chairman Farhat Bengdara said on a television channel earlier this week. It is expected that Enis CEO Claudio Descalzi will travel to Libya to sign the agreement, an Italian source told Reuters. Descalzi and NOCs Bengdara met last August in Rome, where Descalzi expressed the willingness to launch a new phase of investments aimed at increasing the gas output of the Country, Eni said at the time. Descalzi and Italys PM Meloni have just returned from a trip to another North African country, Algeria, as part of a wider Italian push to secure more energy supplies for Italy and for Europe from North Africa. Eni and Algerian state oil and gas firm Sonatrach signed an agreement earlier this week to identify possible measures to improve Algerias energy export capacity to Europe, identify renewable energy development projects, and reduce emissions. The partnership between Italy and Algeria gets stronger today, and Algerias key role as one of Europes main energy suppliers is confirmed, Enis Descalzi said after the signing of the agreements witnessed by Italys Meloni and Algerias President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. Earlier this month, Descalzi told the Financial Times that Europe should look to Africa for a south-north energy axis that would deliver gas from Africa to the EU, which is scrambling to replace Russian pipeline supply. ADVERTISEMENT Eni is a major player in many African countries and has signed several agreements to boost gas supply from Africa to Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the slump in Russias gas deliveries via pipeline. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Norway announced on Friday measures to ensure its security of power supply and could limit some electricity exports to neighboring countries if there is a risk of shortages at home, the government said. The government plans to introduce a mechanism under which electricity producers from hydropower the most common power-generating source in Norway will be responsible for keeping water levels in reservoirs above certain levels. Producers will also be asked to report water reservoir levels on a regular basis, the Norwegian government said. Hydropower accounts for 90% of Norwegian power generation. The remaining around 10% of the electricity supply in Norway comes from wind power. The new plan to keep water levels from falling too low and affecting power generation must be introduced well before the winter of 2023/2024, the government said today. We want to ensure there is always enough water in our reservoirs. There should always be enough power in our sockets (at home) and we should have enough power for our industry, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said at a press conference, as carried by Reuters. The government will set restrictions on power exports if there is a risk of shortages domestically, Norway says. It will not serve any of our neighbours if we reach critically low levels (at our reservoirs), the Norwegian prime minister said. Norway is not part of the EU but is part of the European Economic Area, a common market. ADVERTISEMENT Last summers dry weather across Europe affected Norwegian power generation. While Europe scrambled to procure natural gas for winter power generation and heating, Western Europes biggest oil and gas producer, Norway, had a whole different power problem during the summerdry weather, which depleted water reservoirs for hydropower. Back then, Norways authorities asked operators not to export too much electricity to the rest of Europe as reservoirs were not as full as in previous years, and not to rely on imports from the rest of Europe, which was struggling with energy supply. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Crude oil exports from Russia to India could reach a new record this year if prices and other terms remain favorable, the Times of India reported, citing experts. The upcoming EU embargo on seaborne diesel imports from Russia could also contribute to higher exports of crude to India, where it will be refined into fuels and exported to the European Union. Russia used to be a minor exporter of oil to India until last year when EU sanctions in response to Russias invasion of Ukraine led to a re-routing of Russian oil flows. China became one of the biggest buyers of Russian crude, and India, which relies on imported crude for more than 80 percent of its consumption, was also an obvious alternative destination for Russian crude. Discounts caused by the Wests sanction action increased the attractiveness of Russian oil for Indian buyers, and Russia came to account for about 15 percent of Indias total oil imports last year. That was up from about 1 percent of total oil imports just a year earlier. Saudi Arabia and Iraq remained the two largest suppliers of crude to India last year, but Russia came in third. The overall share of OPEC oil in Indias crude oil import mix fell as a result of these changes to the lowest in a decade, Reuters reported earlier this month. According to refining industry executives who spoke to the Times of India, Saudi and Iraqi oil flows will continue under long-term contracts. Additional purchases of Russian barrels will be made on an ad hoc and opportunistic basis. Its bit of a circular trade going on as India takes Russian crude that Western buyers dont want and refining it into products for resale to the West, Rystad Energys head of downstream oil trading, Mukesh Sahdev, told Bloomberg this week. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com ADVERTISEMENT More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: One of the worlds top commodity traders, Trafigura, is pulling out of a prepayment-for-oil-exports deal with the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq, a source with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg on Friday. The ending of such a deal is another setback for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in its attempts to continue exporting crude oil independently from the federal government of Iraq. Trafigura, which had lent money to KRG in exchange for future oil exports from the region, is still owed $273 million under the prepayment contract, according to Bloombergs source. The KRG has refused to renegotiate the terms of the contract while a meeting between Kurdistans Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and Trafigura at Davos last week was canceled by Barzani at the last minute, the source told Bloomberg. The investment climate in Kurdistan is currently not conducive to major oil industry investments - despite Kurdistan officials claims to the contrary - amid a bitter dispute between the KRG and the federal government of Iraq over who has the right to control the oil resources and revenues in the semi-autonomous region. In February 2022, the Supreme Court of the Federal Government of Iraq ruled that sales of oil and gas by Kurdistan, independent of the central government in Baghdad, are unconstitutional and that the KRG must hand over all oil production to the Federal government. Oil exports account for over 80% of the KRG budget, and without revenues from oil, the region faces even more hardships on top of the limited budget allocations from the federal government in Iraq. Kurdistans crude oil production and exports have declined in recent years, with output down to around 434,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter of 2022 from nearly 470,000 bpd in 2019, according to a Deloitte report commissioned by the KRG. If investments do not return to Kurdistans oil sector, crude available for export could halve to 240,000 bpd by 2027, due to the depletion of old wells, according to the documents seen by Reuters last year. ADVERTISEMENT By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The United States supports South Africas transition to cleaner energy and will help mobilize financing from the private sector to assist the country which is heavily dependent on coal, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said on Friday during a visit to South Africa. Currently, coal is by far the major energy source for South Africa, accounting for around 80 percent of the countrys energy mix. The country is also the worlds fifth-largest coal exporter. But South Africa is going through a major energy crisis with daily rolling power cuts, which cripple the economy, as state firm Eskom has failed to boost generation capacity to keep pace with growing demand in recent years. The South African government has recently started to push for more renewable power generation. The U.S., the UK, France, Germany, and the EU are mobilizing an initial $8.5 billion to catalyze the first phase of South Africas Just Energy Transition (JET) Investment Plan, as part of a long-term Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) signed in 2021. The financial package of $8.5 billion is a substantial down payment. Importantly, it is designed to mobilize additional money from the private sector and philanthropies, and I will meet with representatives from both groups later today, Secretary Yellen said in a speech today. We fully recognize that transitioning the local economy and the economy of South Africa to clean energy will not be without challenges, she added. But the investments that our governments and the private sector will make over the coming years in wind, solar, battery storage, and non-energy infrastructure will pay dividends in terms of well-paying jobs and a growing and cleaner economy. ADVERTISEMENT Under the just transition plan, South Africa will invest in job retraining and reskilling, cash payments to support displaced workers while they find new employment, and redevelopment of former coal mines and coal power plants as clean energy production sites and other productive uses. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: A bill designed to limit the Department of Energys ability to withdraw crude oil from the nations Strategic Petroleum reserve has passed the House, although U.S. President Biden promised previously to veto it. U.S. representatives in the House voted to pass the bill known as The Strategic Response Act, H.R. 21, in a vote 221 to 205, gaining the support of a single Democratic lawmaker. The bill will now go to the Democrat-led Senate, where its passage will be much less certain. If it passes both housesand isnt vetoed by the President, the bill would mean that in order to tap the nations crude oil stockpiles, the U.S. energy secretary would need to come up with a plan to increase oil and gas leasing on federal landsincluding leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. We would like to curtail use of the SPR for only those situations where theres a severe supply interruption, a Republican aide to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce said. Those requirements laid out by the bill wouldnt apply to the Energy Secretary in the event of an emergency, such as a natural disaster that cut into the production of crude oil. President Bidens planwhich has since been fulfilledto sell 180 million barrels of crude oil from the nations strategic reserves drew sharp criticism from the industry and Republican lawmakers. The SPR now has the least amount of crude oil since 1983. Earlier this week, unnamed Energy Intelligence sources claimed that the White House could cancel a 26-million-barrel scheduled sale of crude oil from the SPR this year. The barrels were due to be sold from the SPR prior to September as part of a Congressionally mandated sale. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Two First National Bank of Omaha employees were injured Thursday during a bank robbery. Omaha police responded to the robbery at the FNBO branch at 2625 S. 175th St. around 11:30 a.m. They spoke with employees who said two people armed with handguns had entered the bank, assaulted multiple people and demanded money. No shots were fired during the robbery, but two employees were injured and taken to a hospital, FNBO said in a press release. The robbers fled in a white minivan that was found abandoned near the bank, police said. The bank branch remained closed until further notice Thursday as the investigation continued, FNBO said. Police asked that anyone with information about the robbery contact Omaha Crime Stoppers at 402-444-STOP, at www.omahacrimestoppers.org or on the P3 Tips mobile app. Tips leading to the arrest of bank robbery suspects are eligible for a $20,000 reward. Omaha police arrested two men in connection with a Thursday bank robbery in southwest Omaha in which two employees were injured. The men, ages 26 and 28, were booked Friday morning into the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of robbery and use of a firearm to commit a felony. They are accused of entering First National Bank of Omaha at 2625 S. 175th St. about 11:30 a.m., armed with handguns and demanding money from employees. Police said they assaulted multiple people. Two FNBO employees were injured and taken to a hospital, the company said in a statement. The men fled in a white minivan, which officers found abandoned nearby soon after the robbery. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of January 2023 Organizers of a new event scheduled for Feb. 4, the Black Political Summit, are asking the community to come together to identify the reasons for low voter participation in North Omaha and help come up with strategies to increase civic engagement. Were at the precipice, said Preston Love Jr., founder of Black Votes Matter Institute of Community Engagement in Omaha. He cited low turnout in the November 2022 general election. Only 45% of registered voters in North Omaha, defined by Love for these purposes as City Council Districts 1 and 2, cast ballots in November. That was 9 percentage points lower than overall Douglas County turnout, continuing a historic pattern. Were at a point where our voting bloc, and our voting leverage, is now fast becoming irrelevant, Love said. It doesnt have anything to do with party. It has nothing to do with candidates. It has to do with our dissipation of the power of a voting bloc. The summit is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, at The Venue at the Highlander, 2120 N. 30th St. in Omaha. Its free. Lunch will be provided. The public is invited. People can register at https://bit.ly/BPS2023 More than 125 people had registered by Thursday, but theres room for more, Love said. The summit is politically nonpartisan, and not funded by any political party, Love said. Its not only for Black people, he said, but for all people from North Omaha. Love and a financial co-sponsor of the summit, the Nebraska Civic Engagement Table, are bringing in star power to help attract people. Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Atlanta-based voting rights and community empowerment group Black Voters Matter, will give a lunch speech. Deidre DeJear, who was the 2022 Democratic nominee for Iowa governor, will participate. But the main focus will be not speeches, but workshops in which input is sought from people from all sectors of the community, Love said. He deliberately sought involvement from what he considers key segments in the Black community and the communities of color. Number one, the Black church, Love said. Number two, young professionals. Number three is Black women, who have shown an extraordinary leadership all over this county. Also, our Black leadership, that includes our elected officials, and lastly, grassroots (people). The plan is for people from all those segments to help analyze input from the summit, develop an 18-month strategic plan, present it at another summit this spring, then implement it. The Rev. T. Michael Williams, president of the Omaha chapter of the NAACP, is a co-host of the event. I hope that we can come out of the summit with a strategy for engaging our community, and especially our young people and people who might feel disenfranchised, Williams said. Kimara Snipes, director of equity and community partnerships for Nebraska Civic Engagement Table, said the summit is a great way to bring people together to improve civic health. That involves not only voting, said Snipes, who said she was speaking for herself and not her organization. It includes other aspects of community life, such as volunteering, participating in collective action, building social strength by getting involved in groups like neighborhood associations and building political strength by doing such things as joining public dialogues on issues, signing petitions or showing up at events. Every single day, people are making decisions that affect us, Snipes said. People dont understand how it relates to them. ... You have a right to say who that is (making decisions). While the event is about more than voter registration and turnout, those things are what inspired the summit. Love, who has worked in various aspects of voter participation for nearly 20 years in Omaha and nationally before that, noted that there has been a gap between North Omaha and countywide turnout in elections throughout that time. Love cited the 2008 presidential election. Nearly 63% of voters in City Council District 2 turned out during Barack Obamas candidacy. Thats historically a high turnout for the district but was 10 percentage points less than the countywide turnout, Love said. North Omaha voter turnout was lower in November 2022 than in the 2018 midterm election. In District 2 alone, just 35% of registered voters turned out in the 2022 general election. Love said hes not pointing fingers. He notes that he was involved in get-out-the-vote efforts and said what he did didnt work, although he said turnout would have been worse without voter registration and turnout efforts. Love said that North Omaha has finally started to turn around economically and that people in North Omaha got more unified than he had ever seen them in making a great response to COVID. They need to do that with civic engagement and voting as well for the good of the community, he said. Were not talking about voter turnout in the abstract, Love said. If we become irrelevant as a voting bloc, it has major implications, beside the candidate, beside that we should turn out more. In every area that makes sense for our community, if were fighting for a better criminal justice system, or if were fighting about approaches to mass incarceration, if were fighting for (reducing) health care disparities, if were fighting for reducing educational gaps, or for economic development, none of those things will work well if we dont have any leverage, or if were considered irrelevant, because we cant vote you in and vote you out. Photos: Omaha Freedom Festival in North Omaha celebrates Juneteenth LINCOLN With the youngest of his four children just finishing potty training, State Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha knows firsthand just how many diapers a small child can go through in a week. So he has sympathy with the one in three Nebraska families who struggle to afford enough diapers to keep their children clean, dry, healthy and happy. On Thursday, Cavanaugh presented a proposal before the Legislatures Revenue Committee that would help out parents and caregivers by exempting diapers from sales taxes. Legislative Bill 58 would apply to diapers for babies and children, as well as adult diapers used by some people with disabilities and some older people. The measure would reduce state revenue by about $2.5 million annually, according to legislative estimates, while saving parents about $80 a year per child. Tegan Reed, co-founder and executive director of the Nebraska Diaper Bank, urged support for the bill, saying the diaper bank will distribute some 3 million diapers this year in the Omaha metro area, Lincoln and a number of other Nebraska communities. But the distribution does not reach all parents in need, and not having access to diapers has a big impact on childrens health and well-being, she said. It also can be critical in helping parents keep working. Child care providers require that parents provide diapers for their children, which means that running out of diapers can mean missing work. Reed said a growing number of states exempt diapers from sales tax. The National Diaper Bank Network reported that 16 states, including Iowa, had passed a diaper exemption by June 2022, while five others do not have a sales tax. One state, North Dakota, exempts adult incontinence products but not childrens diapers. Scout Richters with ACLU Nebraska said LB 58 is in line with Nebraskas long-standing policy of exempting groceries from sales tax and the recently passed exemption for feminine hygiene products, such as tampons. All are necessities, she said. Alicia Christensen, director of advocacy and policy for Together, said diapers are not covered by typical public benefit programs, which focus on food assistance or health care. She said Medicaid does cover some products in limited situations. Shannon Petersen, with Kubat HealthCare, said many medical conditions lead to the need for diapers for older children, adults and seniors. She said, as did Christensen, that the cost of diapers and incontinence products shot up during the last couple of years. Diapers for children arent cheap, and adult diapers are even more expensive, Christensen said. The Revenue Committee took no immediate action on the bill but some members expressed interest. Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston said she thought the savings would help families and keep people healthier. Sen. Eliot Bostar of Lincoln said he liked the bill even if the savings were small. But Sen. Brad von Gillern of Omaha questioned whether a sales tax exemption for everyone buying diapers would be the best way to help families in need, and Sen. Tom Briese of Albion said it would be another shrinking of the states sales tax base. Sen. Kathleen Kauth of Omaha called the issue one of personal responsibility. Photos: 2023 Nebraska legislative session LINCOLN A two-day debate over a procedural motion in the Nebraska Legislature foreshadowed one of the biggest battles of the session. State Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha offered the motion, which would have moved a bill banning abortions after about six weeks from the Health and Human Services Committee to the Judiciary Committee. That motion failed on a nearly party-line vote, as did her motion to reconsider the first vote. The motion represented the first of several tactics that abortion rights supporters are expected to use in fighting Legislative Bill 626. Changing committees likely would have slowed but not stopped the measure, which was introduced by Sen. Joni Albrecht of Thurston with almost all of the Republican lawmakers signed on as co-sponsors. The bill would prohibit abortions after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, with narrow exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the woman. Physicians who violate the ban would be subject to losing their professional licenses. The HHS Committee has four Republicans to three Democrats, while the Judiciary Committee has four of each, meaning the bill probably would have stalled there. But abortion rights opponents could have used another procedural motion to pull the bill out of committee to the full Legislature. Hunt accused legislative leaders of referring Legislative Bill 626 to the HHS Committee for political reasons. She argued that it belongs in the Judiciary Committee because it affects criminal law, criminal penalties and constitutional rights. She also said that committee traditionally hears abortion bills. We know this bill will result in women dying. We know this bill will result in criminal prosecution, she said. Sen. John Cavanaugh of Omaha argued that, although LB 626 does not include a criminal penalty for doctors who violate the ban, it would make them vulnerable to criminal charges under existing state law. That law makes it a Class IV felony to perform an abortion by using anything other than accepted medical procedures. This bill, no matter how many gymnastics you go through, implicates this section of the statute, he said. Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln said women getting abortions after six weeks could also be vulnerable to criminal charges under the same law. But Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar defended the decision to send LB 626 to the HHS Committee. She argued that the bill belongs there because it deals entirely with laws governing medical practice. She said there are possible criminal penalties implicated in almost every bill, if read in certain ways. Slama noted that the bill drafting office had recommended referring the bill to the HHS Committee and the Legislatures Executive Board, sitting as the Referencing Committee, had voted 9-0 to accept that recommendation. Sen. Tom Briese of Albion also said not all abortion-related bills have gone to Judiciary Committee in previous years. He pointed to a bill introduced by Hunt last year that would have allowed more health care providers to perform abortions. That measure went to the HHS Committee. Photos: 2023 Nebraska legislative session LINCOLN Dozens of Nebraskans stood in long lines Thursday at the State Capitol to testify for and against the latest attempt to allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Legislative Bill 77, introduced by State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, would allow Nebraskans over age 21 to carry concealed weapons without a permit. Brewer said he has tried to get the Legislature to approve this issue since he first took office in 2017. Measures like this are sometimes called constitutional carry in reference to some gun rights advocates belief that the U.S. Constitution gives people the right to carry concealed guns without a permit. The Judiciary Committee meeting, which started at 1:30 p.m., stretched past 6 p.m. Hundreds of people who didnt attend the hearing in person submitted comments both for and against Brewers proposal. Currently in Nebraska, getting a concealed-carry permit requires passing a criminal background check, paying a $100 fee and taking an eight- to 16-hour gun safety class. Brewer argued Thursday that the fee prevents some Nebraskans from seeking a permit. He said that while he believes training is essential for gun owners, he doesnt think it should be mandatory. He said multiple neighboring states have passed similar measures. Were not trying to make Nebraska a pioneer in this, Brewer said. Brewers attempt to pass similar legislation last year was killed when attempts to end an opposing filibuster failed. Brewer immediately vowed to bring the bill back this session. Brewer referred to LB 77 as a clean constitutional carry bill that has only minor differences from last years bill. He said the biggest difference is that there arent any exceptions for Omaha. An exception was included as an amendment last year as a compromise to gain the support of the Omaha Police Department. The Omaha Police Department and the Omaha police union opposed LB 77, as did a letter signed by five Omaha City Council members. Lincoln Police Chief Teresa Ewins also spoke out against the bill Thursday. Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said he was concerned that the bill would make it easier for people with criminal offenses to access firearms. He pointed out areas like Kansas City that have permitless concealed carry laws in place have higher crime rates than Omaha. Supporters argued the opposite that areas with permitless concealed carry didnt see an increase in violent crime and made it easier for people to respond to emergencies. Schmaderer pushed again to alter the bill with exceptions for Omaha. He said that in rural Nebraska, permitless concealed carry makes more sense, but in bigger cities he believes there are loopholes in the bill that would threaten police and the general public. Omaha is in a different category, Schmaderer said. Brewer said he is boxed into a corner and doesnt see a way to make the changes the police departments want and still adhere to constitutional law. Supporters of LB 77 made several arguments, most commonly bringing up the Second Amendment, referencing the language that says Americans right to bear arms shall not be infringed, which many said Nebraskas current permit law does. Others argued that bill would make state law more consistent, and improve peoples ability to defend themselves from threats. The firearm is our greatest security to life, liberty and property, said supporter Steve Davies. Several LB 77 supporters attacked Nebraskas current process for receiving a concealed-weapons permit, saying it was tedious and the training was inadequate. Supporter Patricia Harrold said eliminating this process may increase the access to better gun education, and supporter Allie French advocated for making firearm safety courses available in Nebraska schools. Supporters also said that the permit process was so slow that it endangers women and other victims of domestic violence. Several testifiers said they knew of women who were in situations where they feared for their lives and were unable to get access to a firearm to defend themselves. Opponents of LB 77 argued that eliminating the permit requirement would only increase the risk for victims. Several other testifiers brought up stories in which they or people they knew were endangered or severely hurt because of a gun. Erin Feichtinger, policy director of the Womens Fund of Omaha, said national research supports a connection between an increase in domestic violence incidents and a decrease in gun regulations. In general, opponents argued that LB 77 would make Nebraska more dangerous, and pointed to the rising trend of mass shootings across the U.S. Two teenagers testified against the bill, saying that although they are comfortable around guns, they are worried about an increased risk of shootings at their school if regulations were eased. Several opponents also rebutted the argument that permitless concealed carry is a constitutional right, noting that the Constitution does not mention the words concealed carry. John Lee, who brought a rifle from 1869 to the Capitol Thursday (although it was not allowed inside the hearing room) said his firearm is the type of weapon the Constitutions drafters were referencing in the right to bear arms. He said the rifle fires one shot at a time and takes up to one minute to reload. Firearms have advanced much further since then, and Lee said now too many people are carrying too many guns. He said he worried LB 77 would allow virtually anyone to carry a firearm without restrictions. (LB 77) adds to a problem that already exists, Lee said. Photos: 2023 Nebraska legislative session OMMEREN, Netherlands A hand-drawn map with a red letter X purportedly showing the location of a buried stash of precious jewelry looted by Nazis from a blown-up bank vault has sparked a modern-day treasure hunt in a tiny Dutch village more than three-quarters of a century later. Wielding metal detectors, shovels and copies of the map on cellphones, prospectors have descended on Ommeren population 715 about 50 miles southeast of Amsterdam to try to dig up a potential World War II trove based on the drawing first published Jan. 3. Yes, it is of course spectacular news that has enthralled the whole village," local resident Marco Roodveldt said. But not only our village, also people who do not come from here. He said that all kinds of people have been spontaneously digging in places where they think that treasure is buried with a metal detector. It wasnt immediately clear if authorities could claim the loot if it was found, or if a prospector could keep it. So far, nobody has reported finding anything. The treasure hunt began this year when the Dutch National Archive published as it does every January thousands of documents for historians to pore over. Most of them went largely unnoticed. But the map, which includes a sketch of a cross section of a country road and another with a red X at the base of one of three trees, was an unexpected viral hit that briefly shattered the mid-winter calm of Ommeren. Were quite astonished about the story itself. But the attention its getting is as well, National Archive researcher Annet Waalkens said as she carefully showed off the map. Photos on social media in early January showed people digging holes more than 3 feet deep, sometimes on private property, in the hope of unearthing a fortune. Buren, the municipality Ommeren falls under, published a statement on its website pointing out that a ban on metal detection is in place for the municipality and warned that the area was a World War II front line. Searching there is dangerous because of possible unexploded bombs, land mines and shells, the municipality said in a statement. We advise against going to look for the Nazi treasure. The latest treasure hunters aren't the first to leave the village empty handed. The story starts, Waalkens said, in the summer of 1944 in the Nazi-occupied city of Arnhem made famous by the star-studded movie A Bridge Too Far when a bomb hit a bank, pierced its vault and scattered its contents including gold jewelry and cash across the street. German soldiers stationed nearby pocket what they can get and they keep it in ammunition boxes, Waalkens said. As World War II nears its end in 1945, the Netherlands' German occupiers were pushed back by Allied advances. The soldiers who had been in Arnhem found themselves in Ommeren and decided to bury the loot. Four ammunition boxes and then just some jewelry that was kept in handkerchiefs or even cash money folded in. And they buried it right there, she said, citing an account by a German soldier who was interviewed after the war by Dutch military authorities in Berlin and who was responsible for the map. The archive doesn't know if the soldier is still alive and hasn't released his name, citing European Union privacy regulations. Dutch authorities using the map and the soldier's account went hunting for the loot in 1947. The first time, the ground was frozen solid and they made no headway. When they went back after the thaw, they found nothing, Waalkens said. After the unsuccesful attempts, the German soldier said he believed that someone else has already excavated the treasure, she added. That detail was largely overlooked by treasure hunters who descended on Ommeren in the days after the map's publication. On a recent visit to the village, there were no diggers to be seen as peace and quiet has returned to Ommeren. But the village's brief brush with fame left a sour taste for some residents. Ria van Tuil van Neerbos said she didn't believe in the treasure story, but understood why some did. If they hear something, theyll head toward it," she said. "But I dont think its good that they just dug into the ground and things like that. Photos: World War II-era map sparks treasure hunt in Dutch village Heartland Theatre presents 'Lifespan of a Fact' NORMAL Heartland Theatre Company will open their show "Lifespan of a Fact" on Thursday, Feb. 2 with a pay-what-you-can preview. The play is by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell and Gordon Farrell. The play is sponsored by Joan and Charles Vanden Eynden, and Chris and Larry Eggan. Tom Dzurison directs the play. He is a first-time director for Heartland and a veteran community and education theater teacher and direction, splitting his time between Chicago and Bloomington-Normal. The play features a three-person cast, including Tracy Willet, Adam Alexander and Rhys Lovell, Heartland's artistic director. Understudies for the play are Lynda Rettick, Nolan J. Rice and Bob Kinsella. The play is about Editor-in-Chief of a sinking New York Magazine, Emily Penrose who is forced to address where you draw the line between fact and fiction as she referees a debate between her fresh-out-of-Harvard fact checker and a writer with an essay that might save the magazine from collapse. Performances will be Feb. 2-4, 9-11, and 16-18 at 7:30 p.m., with matinees on Sunday, Feb. 12 and Saturday, Feb. 18 at 2 p.m. The Feb. 18 show will be the understudy performance. There will be a panel discussion after the show on Feb. 12. There will be two shows on Feb. 18. The panel discussion will feature Kim Kishbaugh, a journalist with 20 years of writing and editing for new media from Oak Park, and Charlie Schlenker, a senior reporter at WGLT for 26 years, who will discuss the difference between "fact" and "truth." And when, if ever, is it okay for a writer to take liberties with facts in a story? Tickets are $17 general admission, $15 for senior and military, and $7 for students. Reservations can be made online, by email at boxoffice@heartlandtheatre.org or by calling 309-452-8709. The theater is located at 1110 Douglas St., One Normal Plaza in the Community Activity Center, Normal. Free event at Peoria Art Guild PEORIA Alex Lamprecht of Thrivent will host a free art event at the Peoria Art Guild. Jan. 26 and Feb. 9. Attendees will be able to make a mini work of art by dripping alcohol ink on canvas. Each guest will make two works of art on their own easel that they can bring home. Both days for the event will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the guild, 203 Harrison St., Peoria. Only 30 spots are available for each date. The events are free to participate but registration is required by Jan. 25 by emailing Lacy.Mitchell@thrivent.com. Must be 18 years or older to participate. Peoria Art Guild members can receive Print Co-op membership PEORIA Peoria Art Guild members can also receive a membership to the Peoria Print Co-op. Cost is $25 for an annual student membership and $50 for an annual individual membership. Benefits include free participation in Co-op meetings, workshops, and work days at PAG and Bradley University; access to the print room; access to the Print Co-op shared equipment, paper, reference materials, type and presses; opportunities to participate in Print Co-op collaborations; and opportunities to book the new print room for print projects or participate in a residency, which required additional cost. Peoria Art Guild announces 2023 classes PEORIA The Peoria Art Guild announced their class line up for 2023. Classes being offering include Intro to Photography - Jan. 25; Color Mixing Blues and Greens - Jan. 27; Solder and Set a Pendant - Feb. 4 & 11; 5-week Watercolor Series - Feb. 7; Creative Arts Discovery Club - Feb. 22 - Ages 5-8; Kids Clay Handbuilding - Feb. 1-22; Preschool Art Fun - Jan. 26-Feb. 16; Inkle Loom Weaving - Feb. 27; Drawing and Painting - Feb. 7-21; and 8-week Pottery Series - Feb. 21-April 11. There is also a metals open studio every Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and drop-in Wednesday mornings from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., which is free for members or $5 for guests. Visit peoriaartguild.org for more information. Lincoln Library to offer sensory friendly afternoon SPRINGFIELD The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum will offer a sensory friendly afternoon on Sunday, Jan. 29. The event is part of the museum's "Abe for All" initiative and for people who may be overwhelmed by intense light, strong sounds and large crowds. The event will run from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Audio will be lowered throughout the museum, and lighting will be adjusted to reduce extremes and create a more fluid atmosphere. Some special effects will be turned off, and a quiet room will be available as well. The museum will still be open to all guests, not just those with sensory difficulties. Regular admission prices will apply. Registration for the event is not required. A pre-visit package that ranks areas of the museum based on their potential to overstimulate is available by emailing ALPLM.GuestEntry@Illinois.gov or by visiting the "Plan Your Visit" section on the website. The museum also offers busy bags with a variety of fidget toys, noise-cancelling headphones, sensory maps and other tools that make visits more comfortable people with sensory issues. Other "sensory friendly Sundays" are scheduled for the last Sunday of July and October. The "Abe for All" initiative is to make President Lincoln's legacy more accessible to everyone, including those who are autistic, deaf, disabled and more. The museum is holding this series of events to learn how it can be more welcoming to people. The initiative launched last year for the deaf community and people with sensory processing issues. Visit PresidentLincoln.Illinois.gov for more information BLOOMINGTON The Bloomington-Normal branch of the NAACP on Friday condemned the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, who died days after a traffic stop by five African American police officers in Memphis, Tennessee. Nichols, who also is Black, was pulled over Jan. 7 for erratic driving and died three days after the confrontation with police. Shelby County, Tennessee, District Attorney Steve Mulroy had said that all five officers are responsible for Nichols' death. "The preliminary reports of the police officers indictment for kidnapping and murder are disturbing and concerning," Linda Foster, president of the NAACP's Bloomington-Normal chapter, said in a news release. "The NAACP adamantly rebukes police brutality, no matter the officers race, creed or color. Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin and Desmon Mills Jr., were fired and charged with second degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. As the world prepares to brace for yet another incident of police brutality against an African American male, we must not remain oblivious to the fact that total disregard for humankind is wreaking havoc throughout the African American community," NAACP 1st Vice President Dr. Carla Campbell-Jackson stated. "We must never tolerate police officers blatant disregard for the sanctity of life, regardless of the officers race. Law enforcements adherence to the NAACPs Ten Principles would have possibly prevented Nichols' tragic death." In a statement issued Friday, Normal Police Chief Steve Petrilli said the actions by the officers in Memphis can not be tolerated" and the Normal Police Department supports the statement from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. According to the association's statement as provided by Petrilli, Nichols' death at the hands of police is appalling and indefensible. The brutality suffered by Mr. Nichols and the failure of any of these individuals to intervene is sickening and leaves everyone, including police officers, disgusted, infuriated, and outraged. Our thoughts go out to Mr. Nichols family, his friends, colleagues, and community. The individuals involved have rightly been fired and criminally charged in the death of Tyre Nichols. There is no excuse for their actions. They have betrayed their oath of office, disgraced the law enforcement profession, and brought shame on the officers across the nation who work selflessly each day to protect their communities. As police leaders we remain committed to emphasizing dignity and respect for all and instilling within our agencies a fundamental commitment to the preservation of human life. But we must, and will, do more. We must remain committed to working together in partnership with community members, advocacy organizations, elected officials, and others to build a future that ensures dignity, security, and justice for all. Bloomington Police Chief Jamal Simington also made a statement Friday evening after the videos showing Nichols' death were released. "I am appalled by what I witnessed in the video which allegedly resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis Police Officers," the statement read. "The men and women of our police department feel the same way. We are saddened for the Nichols' family and friends, as well as for the city of Memphis. The excessive use of force by those officers was abominable. "The noble profession of police service is fragile and is negatively impacted by any police officer's inability to support the oath each of us take to serve our communities, businesses, and residents. This is another deplorable event in this country that brings significant harm to a profession which has tremendous responsibility to appropriately serve and protect the communities. These officers failed to uphold the trust expected of them. I am elated to know the Memphis Police Department and prosecutors acted swiftly to address the officers' misconduct. Honesty, integrity, reverence for law, professionalism, respect for human dignity, and commitment to service are the Bloomington Police Department's Values. The Bloomington Police Department is also committed to the NAACP and Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police's Ten Shared Principles, which include we value the life of every person and consider life to be the highest value and all persons should be treated with dignity and respect. "I understand the community will share our outrage at the Memphis Police Officers' alleged illegal conduct. I would ask the public to express any disappointment responsibly and know the Bloomington Police Department aims to surpass expectations of those we serve in this community. This includes treating everyone with dignity. You have our commitment that the members of the Bloomington Police Department have pride in our work with community members to solve crime and other problems in this city." Photos: The aftermath of the violent arrest, death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis BLOOMINGTON Learning to check blood pressure, perform CPR and wash hands properly could be just the start of a career in nursing for local elementary students. Around 20 Bloomington District 87 fifth and sixth grade students spent an afternoon this week learning the basics of nursing at Irving Elementary through the free Mini Nurse Academy hosted by the Black Nurses Association of Central Illinois. Fifth graders Brylee Hill and Yasriyah Abdul-Ali both said they want to be nurses when they grow up, and were excited to start learning that while students at Irving. "This has always been my dream," Hill said. Both of them were interested to learn some of the hands-on skills they could use to save lives. "I want to be a nurse when I grow up to save lives and help people," Abdul-Ali said. The Mini Nurse Academy is a program of the National Black Nurses Association, with local chapters across the country working on sessions like the ones being held at Irving. It is being funded through a grant from Direct Relief, which pays for supplies and other costs, allowing the program to be offered for free. We already know there is huge interest for us to hold additional Mini Nurse Academies, so we will need to seek funding for that from other areas, said Dameron Beverly, the lead local organizer. The Black Nurses Association of Central Illinois, the local chapter of the National Black Nurses Association, was started in 2015, according to the local website. It is one of 83 chapters across the U.S., Caribbean and Africa, with around 150,000 total active members. The goal is to target the program toward students who might not have as many opportunities to learn about careers in medicine as some of their peers. We wanted to target a school that had a significant population of students that are disadvantaged, Beverly said. BNACI used data from the Illinois Report Card when considering which school to visit, settling on Irving in cooperation with District 87. However, students from several other District 87 schools are also attending the multi-session program. Encouraging students of color to consider careers in nursing is one of the main goals for the program, Beverly said. According to the 2020 National Nurse Workforce Study, fewer than 20% of registered nurses identified as being from minority backgrounds. The sessions include learning about what nurses do, the wide array of settings nurses work in, and some hand-on activities, including learning CPR, first aid and hand hygiene, Beverly said. They plan to host four sessions, with the last including a pinning ceremony for the students. The nurses will also teach students about medical issues, such as diabetes and hypertension, that disproportionately affect people of color. The latter will be the topic of their final project, where they will share what they have learned about preventing hypertension. BNACI is working with the school nurses to select students and carry out the event, said Juanita Smith. She, and the other organizers, have been impressed with how eager District 87 has been to participate in the program. District 87 really just jumped at it, Beverly said. That has not been true across the country, she said. Some chapters have struggled to find schools willing to host the event, so the local group is thankful that District 87 has been willing to work with them. BNACI hopes to work long term with the students who complete the program. After the program is done, our organization is not done with these students, Beverly said. They hope the program can get students interested in health care early on, Smith said. That way students can know going into high school that they might want to pursue a career in medicine, and make decisions about courses to take based on that. Students may not know they need to take chemistry or biology in high school to get ready for a career in medicine, and that is something BNACI wants to help guide students in, she said. For the BNACI members leading the sessions, many had personal events in their lives that led them to nursing. Smith has always enjoyed caring for people and then realized she could do that for a career. Nursing is Beverlys second career, inspired by the care she received after giving birth to premature twins. She now teaches, including at Heartland Community College, helping bring more people into the nursing profession. For Vergetta Harris, treasurer of BNACI, an illness when she was young that left her sick for around two months, being cared for by nurses, led her to a career in the field. Something we do might spark the interest in them to enter the medical profession, Harris said. Pantagraph photographer Clay Jackson contributed to this story. Executive Chairman of the KGL Group and Board Chairman of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Alex Dadey has called on government to focus on diasporan investment as a solution to Ghanas economic challenges. In his opening address on Day 1 of the maiden Kwahu Summit under the theme- AfCFTA: From Ambition to Action- Delivering Prosperity through continental Trade, Alex Dadey recounted his experiences garnered working at the highest corporate levels on both sides of the Atlantic over the past 30 years. He explained, During this period of working in the United Kingdom and over 25 countries around the globe, I have remained passionate about, diaspora socio-economic inclusion and harnessing technology to push boundaries for advancement in businesses across Africa. "Your Excellency, with all this experience across multiple business landscapes and cultures, I can boldly state, without a shred of doubt that the most successful period of my business life has been at home, in Ghana. The opportunities and rewards have been tremendous, and the environment conducive for business. Ghana, like most developing economies, has its share of peculiar challenges, however, for any entrepreneur foreign or diaspora, driven enough to look beyond these challenges, opportunities will always be presented. He added, Ghana is perfectly placed to attract foreign and diaspora investment, to propel growth by leveraging our abundant natural resources, a youthful population of approximately 57% under the age of 25; and a concerted effort backed by the right policies with a sustainable growth strategy. We must be determined to change strategy and focus away from only exporting our abundant natural resources and low-value manufactured products. I believe that the African private sector must be incentivized to invest abroad in developed markets and repatriate profits back home like our foreign competitors do. This is one the surest ways of shoring up our local currency. Ghanas diaspora community have always contributed to the development of the Ghanaian economy, but Alex Dadey believes a more concerted plan in terms of policy needs to be the next step in order to tap into the full potential of this hitherto untapped asset. He highlighted, We need to focus on our Diaspora. They are our most valuable resource. Diaspora Engagement Policies will have to be formulated and incentives given to attract them to invest back home. Diaspora Direct Investment should be our preferred option. The benefits of this approach far outweigh the efforts, compared to that of attracting FDI and loans from Multilateral Institutions like the IMF, which comes with stringent conditionality. Moreover, we should introduce Diaspora investment products like Diaspora Direct Investments, Diaspora Portfolio Investments and Diaspora Philanthropic Investments to our Diaspora, linking them with local entrepreneurs. to realize the diaspora investment potential, and individual experiences of Diasporans across the continent, and present in a collective narrative and mapped to a diasporan investment policy will be crucial in unearthing a multi-billion-dollar opportunity. "As part of our efforts to attract Diaspora Investment, the key will be to leverage the success stories of diasporans like myself, who have returned home to invest and are thriving in businesses across different sectors, presenting them as models to inspire and assist others identify and realize the many amazing opportunities investing back home presents. This is why I always tell the success story of the KGL Group. KGL Group is known for its pioneering advancements in technology, providing state-of-the-art solutions to both private and public sector industries. Most recently, the group has been creating solutions within premix fuel to help support the local fishing industry. KGL Group is a wholly owned Ghanaian group of companies, with interests in Technology Innovation, Fin-Tech, Logistics, Trade, Property Development, Gaming and Commerce. The parent company commands a network of specialized business units that promote efficient solutions and effective tech-based related services to customers across Ghana and partner operating regions. 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 Speakers at a public forum on Ghana's Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) have accused the government of placing too much emphasis on restructuring debt in its attempt to tackle the economic crisis instead of employing fiscal consolidation and structural reforms as a cure. According to them, the country must adopt a "triangular approach" of reducing domestic debt as well as fiscal and structural adjustments to tackle the economic crisis and secure a US$3 billion facility from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is hoped that the facility will stabilise the economy which is currently choked with debts totalling GH467 billion as of December 2022. They argued that too much focus on debt restructuring was unfair because it loads the entire burden of fixing the economy on only a section of society. Forum The forum organised by the Economic Governance Platform today in Accra was themed: "Ghana's Debt Exchange Program in Context: Is it a make or break for an IMF Bailout or there are viable alternatives?". Speakers A Speaker at the forum, Professor Godfred Bokpin said the government had presented the DDEP as the magic bullet for sealing an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme but this was not the case. "If we don't ensure the fair and equitable adjustment between fiscal, structural and debt restructuring then we will be burdening creditors unnecessarily and that is not fair," Prof. Bokpin said. He said the challenges with the economy could rather be traced to poor governance structures that manifest later in economic mismanagement. "Governance reform should be placed even higher ahead of fiscal, ahead of debt. Then the next layer should be a debt restructuring. We have turned it the other way round by saying that debt it rather the saviour". He added that cuts could also be made in the size of government as well as the country's highly commercialised and monetized democracy. An Economist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School urged all Ghanaian citizens to take an interest in the current economic crisis. He called for a broader discussion on how the Ghanaian economy would be run after the next IMF programme. The Director of Research of the Institute of Economic Affairs reiterated calls for an amendment to the current terms of the DDEP. He called for a shorter maturity for funds that will be affected by the DDEP and a new coupon rate of between eight to 12 per cent on existing bonds. He also called the abolition of the 4-year moratorium on the payment of principals. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Domestic Debt Exchange Programme will blight the fortunes of pensioners and erode the gains in private pension funds, Dr. Kofi Anokye OWUSU-DARKO a former Chief Executive Officer-National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) has warned. The value of private pension funds 2nd-Tier and 3rd-Tier stood at GH28billion, 71 percent of the industrys GH39.6billion total assets under management (AUM) in 2021. He however said the DDEP, in its current state and form, will have a negative impact on retirement incomes and erode confidence in the three-tier pensions system, particularly private schemes, if allowed. Labour unions need to touch base with their members since unlike public pensions (tier 1) which may be mandated to take decisions that will collectively bind their members private pension funds, 2nd-Tier and 3rd-Tier, are vested in the individual names of their members and their express consent is needed, Dr. Owusu-Darko said in an article to the B&FT. He said the Programme is an avoidable risk that trustees holding assets in trust should desist from participating in. Similarly, other industry watchers are concerned that the sustained growth in private pension schemes since inception of the three-tier system in 2010 could be jeopardised if private pension funds are roped into the Debt Exchange Programme. Government through the DDEP is requesting holders of bonds to voluntarily swap around GH137billion of domestic notes and bonds for new ones with extended maturity dates. The Programme requires the participation of at least 80 percent of bondholders. The Programme has however been met with resistance from various investor groups including individual bondholders, pension bondholders and financial analysts. For instance, after carefully examining the Programme, the Pensions Chamber concluded that it will be detrimental to the interests of contributors to pension schemes. The Pensions Chamber would like to assure contributors to pension schemes that the industry has not agreed to the Debt Exchange Programme proposed by the Ministry of Finance, it said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Ghana Association of Banks (GAB) and government, earlier this week, reached a significant agreement regarding terms of participation in the DDEP for banks. The agreement includes improvements to the DDEP such as a 5 percent coupon for 2023 and a single coupon rate for each of the 12 new bonds, resulting in an effective coupon rate of 9 percent among others. We are pleased to have reached this agreement with the government of Ghana. It is a significant milestone toward addressing our economic challenges, and will help restore macro-economic stability and accelerate Ghanas economic growth, Chief Executive Officer of GAB, John Awuah, said in a joint statement on the matter. GAB however noted that participation of its member banks in the DDEP, per the new terms, is subject to each individual banks internal governance and approval processes but in any case, they must make their decision not later than January 30, 2023. 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 Police have restored calm and arrested suspect Nana Osei Gyeabour alias Point, for his alleged involvement in violent disturbances which resulted in the death of one person at Krofrom, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. The suspect in the company of some others attacked the deceased victim, Kwabena Azure, on 25th January 2023 and inflicted multiple machete wounds on him. The victim was pronounced dead shortly after arrival at the hospital. Following the death of the victim, on 27th January 2023 a group of people believed to be friends of the deceased besieged the scene at Krofrom where the deceased was attacked and set the place ablaze. The Ghana National Fire Service managed to put out the fire and the Police have since restored calm, law and order in the area. Investigation continues and a manhunt is on to get the remaining suspects who are on the run arrested to face justice. Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The two accused persons in the murder case of Mrs Josephine Asante, a former Marketing and Public Affairs Manager of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), have been discharged. They were discharged Thursday by the TDC District Court in Tema after four years of trial. However, Graphic Online's Benjamin Xornam Glover reports from Tema that they were re-arrested by the police. The two are Amos Apeku, personal driver of the deceased and Christian Adjei, a houseboy. They were arrested in connection with the death of the former Marketing and Public Affairs Manager of GPHA four years ago. However, after years of court processes, the Attorney-General's Department advised that the two suspects be discharged after the case had gone cold. The A-G's advise was read in the court presided over by Benedicta Antwi on Thursday (Jan 26, 2023). But shortly after the court proceedings, the two were re-arrested by personnel from the Cold Case Unit under the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service. Background Ms Asante died on January 13, 2019 at her residence at EMEFS Estates near Afienya in the Greater Accra Region. She was said to have been attacked in her bedroom after returning from a staff party. According to a police report, she was locked inside her room after the alleged murder incident. The body was discovered the following morning after occupants of the house found the keys to her bedroom on the compound. The assailant(s) did not take anything away. The two were arrested as part of police investigations, charged and arraigned at the TDC District Court. They were granted bail by the High Court in Accra. Source: graphic.com.gh Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has reiterated the need to ensure responsible exploitation of the countrys mineral resources. The minister, speaking at the Bongo-Soe Community Mining Scheme (CMS) launch at Bongo-Soe, in the Upper East Region, observed that exploiting natural resources must not be in a manner that destroys the environment. This, he explains, is particularly imperative as government continues to clamp down on illegal mining activities while regularising the small-scale mining industry. More than 3,000 residents are in line to gain employment following the CMS launch. He was upbeat that operations of the Bongo-Soe Community Mining Scheme will help boost economic activities and provide direct and indirect jobs to the people of Bongo and its environs. Mr. Jinapor noted that the northern part of the country is blessed with rich mineral deposits, citing the operations of mining companies such as Cardinal Namdini Resources and Perseus Mining, among others. While mistakes of the past are being corrected through responsible and sustainable mining, he said, government will continue to revamp the sector by raising local giants in the small-scale mining industry. Against this background, he said the Community Mining Scheme is an ideal way of achieving this vision. The CMS, he said, will create employment in the area and improve the peoples livelihoods. The minister however cautioned that all guidelines and requirements in the Community Mining Scheme should be religiously adhered to, adding government will not hesitate to revoke the licence of operators found going contrary to measures stipulated in the manual. He, therefore, urged the Schemes management to work effectively with stakeholders in the area, including local authorities and traditional leaders, to ensure a mutually beneficial relationship. For his part, the Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu, assured that they will implement all measures contained in the CMS manual. He also encouraged the residents commitment to the project so it can succeed. The Paramount Chief of Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Baba Salifu Atamaale, is optimistic that the mine will provide much-needed employment in the area. He also added that mining should be done within the confines of the law. Source: B&FT Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has called for smart investments into the continents critical infrastructure a move he said could accelerate the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). As a continent, we need to produce and trade our way out of poverty and underdevelopment, and we cannot do that without investing in smart infrastructure across the continent, he said at the maiden Africa Prosperity Dialogues dubbed the Kwahu Summit. It was on the theme from ambition to action; delivering prosperity through continental trade. While the last decades have seen some positive investments, the Vice-President argued that there is a need for additional resources to finance the arteries for trade physical infrastructure such as roads, rail, energy and digital infrastructure including data centres to facilitate the digital transformation and financial integration of markets. These investments, he reiterated, will be critical to success for the AfCFTA: It will take concrete, strategic actions by governments and businesses on the continent; the right mix of policies, a greater sense of purpose for more robust intra-African trade must happen to support economic diversification and the continents much-needed industrialisation. Equally important, he said, is the unleashing of what he termed productive capacities which can be achieved by creating platforms for knowledge-brokerage and access to information about critical products and services on the continent. This, Dr. Bawumia added, will allow some 445 million small businesses across the continent to plug into the value chains of these mega-industries. We need to develop Africa into a manufacturing zone that will facilitate the trade of value-added products. These, in my view, will be critical to leapfrog Africas industrialisation and bring enormous socio-economic benefits, he said. Again, the Vice-President emphasised the need to mobilise finance and investments across the continent, saying Africa needs between US$130billion and US$170billion annually to bridge its infrastructure gap and generate sustainable growth at 5 percent per annum or more. This, he explains, can only be realised through private sector participation. The founder and Chairman of Africa Prosperity Network, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko organiser of the Africa Prosperity Dialogues, said AfCFTA has the all-important goal of turning Africa into the worlds largest single market. This, we believe, is the biggest promise this century for the prosperity of Africa and the African. It is potentially, the worlds most exciting economic project this century. And this is what brings us here now, he said. He added that: For our collective ownership and shared benefit, it must be owned by businesses in Africa. The combined voices of Africas businesses big and small must be heard and felt. The aggregate value of enterprises and industries across Africa must be networked, coordinated and impactfully leveraged. On his part, Secretary-General of the AfCFTA, Wamkele Mene, said transforming the continent should be the foremost thing in the minds of governments and businesses in Africa, as predicted by the World Bank. He said all the necessary legal instruments required by traders and businesses on the continent in order to take advantage of the AfCFTA have been established. I see no reason why our continent cannot be the global economic force that it should have been 60 or 70 years ago. The maiden Africa Prosperity Dialogues come against a backdrop of immense economic challenges confronting the continent. Source: B&FT Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video An Accra High Court has ordered the immediate former National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo and a Communication Officer of the party, Kwaku Boahen, to open their defence in a trial in which they are accused of planning to assault the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission and others. The court, presided over by Justice Samuel Asiedu, a Supreme Court judge sitting as an additional High Court judge, gave the order after it held that the prosecution had proved its case against the two, hence they ought to give their side of the story. The order followed the courts decision in applications for submission of no case filed by counsels for the accused persons filed in November last year after the prosecution closed its case, arguing that the prosecution failed to establish the allegations against the accused, hence they had no case to answer. But the court in its ruling rejected the arguments of the defence lawyers and held that the prosecution had made a prima facie case against the accused persons, and subsequently ordered them to open their defence on February 10, 2023. Trial Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo and one of the partys leading communicators, Anthony Kwaku Boahen, are on trial over the tape which captures how the opposition NDC is allegedly planning to commit crimes in the country and turn round to blame them on the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). Among the strategies were the creation of a general state of insecurity in the country through kidnappings, arson and verbal attacks on public officials like the Chairman of the NPC, Prof. Emmanuel Asante, and EC boss, Jean Mensa. Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo has been charged with one count of conspiracy to cause harm and two counts of assault against a public officer. Mr. Boahen, on the other hand, is facing one count of conspiracy to cause harm. Tape The controversial tape which is the subject of the trial was tendered in evidence by the case investigator, Detective Chief Inspector Bernard Berko, in his evidence-in-chief by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Yvonne Atakora-Obuobisa. The over two hours tape which was recorded at a meeting of NDC communicators somewhere last year or so, had Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo telling the party members to make life uncomfortable for the targeted persons who included the Chairpersons of the Electoral Commission (EC) and National Peace Council (NPC). The leaked tape also detailed how the party would approach campaign strategies, including what he described as overt and covert operations in the wake of the disturbances that characterised the Ayawaso West Wuogon bye-election. I want to assure you that as long as I remain the leader of our party, my approach to elections and security has completely changed and we need to marshal all the human and material resources, Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo stated when he took his turn to address the party faithful as captured on the tape. Forensic Examination A forensic examination conducted on the leaked audio tape has confirmed it to be his voice on the tape. The examination which was carried out by the Israeli Forensic Science Institute was to compare the controversial tape to another voice recording of the NDC guru when he addressed supporters of the party at the Police Headquarters in Accra after he was granted police enquiry bail. According to the report, there is 90 per cent probability that the voice of Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo on the tape addressing the party faithful is the same as the voice on the leaked tape. The report also indicated that There is also 85 per cent probability of coincidence of speech features and defects. Alibi Chief Inspector Berko also told the court that while the matter was in court, Kwaku Boahen pleaded an alibi that he was in Bomfa Achiase in the Ashanti Region on February 3, 2019, when the said meeting was held at the NDC headquarters in Accra. He said a team was constituted to investigate the alibi, and a report was produced after the investigations. 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 Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. The Institute for Security Disaster and Emergency Studies (ISDES) has advised the MPs for Tamale South and Asawase Haruna Iddrisu and Muntaka Mubarakrespectively to call their constituents to order. Some irate youth believed to be affiliated with the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and supporters of the two lawmakers on Wednesday protested against the removal of the duo as leaders of the party in Parliament. Speaking to Asaase News on Wednesday (25 January), the president of ISDES, Dr Ishmael Norman called on the security agencies to be tactful in handling the situation. I praise the Ghana police in Tamale South and Asawase because the people are angry, it is possible to get overboard, he said. But the police should exercise professionalism to ensure they reduce tension when they arise, and I believe they will be briefed properly by the IGP, Norman said. Source: Asaaseradio Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A former NDC Constituency Chairman of Ayawaso Central, Greater Accra, Ebenezer Arkutu says contrary to what is being churned out in the media, there is a groundswell of support for Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson as the new Minority Leader in Parliament, especially among the grassroots. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Monday, January 23 named the Ajumako-Enya-Essiam Member of Parliament as the new Minority Leader, replacing Haruna Iddrisu. In a letter to the Speaker of Parliament, the party also stated the names of Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah and Kwame Agbodza as the new Deputy Minority Leader and Chief Whip respectively. The announcement caused a sharp division among members of parliament with a pocket of party supporters protesting against the decision. But there appears to be a sharp turn of event to the protestation following Dr. Ato Forsons first public engagement after his appointment. His call to the rank and file of the party to keep calm seems to have sunk well with a number of party functionaries at the grassroots as many are now beginning to buy into the change. I will appeal to rank and file of the party to keep calm, he made the clarion call at a press conference on Thursday morning flanked by the incoming Minority Chief Whip, Kwame Agbodza, and other MPs. Members of Parliament are in good hands, the soft spoken Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam constituency assured the party. We will work with them [rank and file] in due diligence, obviously we are not new in this house. I have been in this house for 14 years. I know the capabilities of all our colleaguesAnd I can assure you that together we shall succeed, he said. The former Constituency Chairman, Mr. Ebenezer Arkutu told Newstitbits that majority of NDC functionaries he has engaged points clearly to the fact that the party leadership made a good decision. He is actually receiving massive grassroots endorsement and support. His appointment is a statement of recognition of building generational leadership in the party and its a welcoming news to the NDC grassroots. He called on all who are yet to buy into the shake-up to give him and the party leadership the benefit of the doubt and rather forge ahead to annex power from the failed NPP government as the good people of Ghana look up to the NDC to bring them relief. A Ward Chairman in the Northern Region, who doesnt want to be named, also noted that the uproar which immediately followed when the news broke, mainly fueled by the Members of Parliament, also came to him and a number of his colleagues as a shock. All this negative noise by few individuals surrounding his progressive appointment is an attempt to build internal elitism in the NDC party, denying the rising youth the opportunity to serve when the time is due and appropriate, he asserted. Meanwhile, the Leadership of the NDC in the Central Region has congratulated Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson on his appointment. Mr. Gabriel Nii Kommey Adams, the Regional Secretary of the NDC, expressed optimism for the intellect and professionalism of Dr. Forson to steer the affairs of the party for victory in the 2024 election. We have absolute confidence in Dr Forsons ability to perform excellently in his new role of leading the Minority in Parliament to keep the government in check by subjecting them to strict legislative scrutiny to protect the Ghanaian people from the abysmal and appalling governance they have so far offered, he said in a statement on Thursday. 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 Charles Owusu has applauded the Auditor-General for delving into the government expenditure on the Coronavirus pandemic and making the report public. The former Head of Monitoring Unit at the Forestry Commission lauded the Auditor-General for exposing the misappropriation of the COVID-19 funds in his latest audit report. Auditor-General's Report Giving an overview of receipts and utilization of the COVID-19 funds, the Auditor-General revealed that records at the Ministry of Finance, Controller and Accountant-General and Ministry of Health indicate that "the Ministry of Finance mobilised a total amount of GH19,112,318,205.12 in 2020 to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The records showed that an amount of GH1,978,551,137.46 was mobilised in 2021 and GH753,319,842.66 (up to June 2022) to finance the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme and the implementation of the Ghana COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan. In all, a total amount of GH21,844,189,185.24 was mobilised to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana". The report also stated; "The Ministry, without the approval of the Central Tender Review Committee, increased the cost of five contracts with total contract sum of GH24,256,500.00 by GH4,017,000.00 through variation orders." "The Ministry of Health entered into a 25-year Finance Lease Agreement at a total lease value of GH15,265,000.00 in 2020 to be used as a holding and isolation centre in Adaklu in the Volta Region. The works, we noted, include remodelling the existing buildings to be used as holding, treatment and isolation centres but could not use the facility for the intended purpose which resulted in an additional cost of GH20,382,247.70. We recommended to the Chief Director to consider outright acquisition of the buildings," it added. The audit further revealed that the "Ministry of Health on behalf of Government of Ghana paid an amount of US$120,192,379.80 to UNICEF/AVAT for the supply of vaccines. However, 5,109,600.00 doses of vaccines valued at US$38,322,000.00 were supplied to the National Cold Room leaving a difference of US$81,870,379.80 with UNICEF/AVAT". Heads Must Roll Speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show, Charles Owusu called on the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament to take penal action against persons who engaged in financial mismanagement. "I think we all with one voice should commend the Auditor-General and tell our leaders in Parliament - the honorables sitting on the Public Accounts Committee - to take action as there are some people who must be recommended for prosecution and the court must also help us to punish these people for engaging in corruption", he said. He expressed disgust over the findings by the Auditor-General which show the poor use of the COVID-19 funds. "It's sad...we don't care about ourselves. Ghana has become an individual thing; every person is thinking about himself/herself and the other person...Corruption kills people. Corruption destroys a nation", Charles Owusu fumed. To him, heads must roll immediately to serve as a deterrent to other public officials and Ghanaians at large. "We pay COVID tax in this country? Don't we?...Every time we keep on shifting blame. We don't take responsibility. It's like the life we are living; Ghanaians can blame every other person but not themselves. This is the life we are living in this country. So, until we make up our minds to fight things like this, we can't fight it. When we keep on defending it, it will continue." Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video 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 Wharton professor Christian Terwiesch was sitting with his grown children around the dinner table when the subject of artificial intelligence came up. Both of his kids had been experimenting with the nascent technology in their respective fields: "one of them is interested in design...and the other one is interested in computer science." Eventually his son prompted ChatGPT to explain a sorting algorithm "using terms from Homer Simpson." "It was funny," Terwiesch said, adding, "it was, from a computer science perspective, correct, and it was so easy as a user interface." ChatGPT users can input any promptThe Inquirer previously asked it to write a story about Grittyand the tool will respond nearly instantly with an answer written so clearly that it would be easy to believe a human had written it instead of a computer. Some examples show ChatGPT's ability to write essays, legal briefs, and even full songs that mimic an artist's writing style. Terwiesch wanted to test it himself. He fed ChatGPT questions from the final exam for his operations management classa subject he literally wrote the book onto gauge whether the tool could pass an MBA-level course. And it did. Terwiesch rated the bot's "performance as a B to B-," but noted in his research summary that some answers contained "surprising mistakes in relatively simple calculations at the level of sixth-grade math." He said those mathematical shortcomings prove that we're far away from using the current technology to replace trained professionals. "Imagine a medical professional making a decision of what dosage of a drug to give ... If you would automate it as an investment advisor, this thing would be total garbage," Terwiesch said. In these cases, professionals need to "stay away from this technology." Finding utility in an experimental technology Terwiesch, who teaches in Wharton's MBA program, encourages fellow educators to consider "opportunities where we can think about improving our learning process" through using A.I. tools in the classroom. That could include prepping testing materialsTerwiesch asked it to write new exam questions to some success, according to his researchand other ways to lighten educators' workloads across every grade level, including elementary and public schools. "We all see and admire how all these teachers come to work and work their butts off in a very difficult work environment, and so I think we have to find ways to use technology to help them as opposed to just kind of worrying about the cheating point," Terwiesch said, referring to instances where students have already used ChatGPT to cheat on tests, a concern for many critics. When it comes to things like taking a driver's license test or a CPA exam, Terwiesch supports an outright ban, because the purpose of those exams is to certify the test taker is qualified to perform particular skills. But the purpose of teaching, and of learning, is to "engage with the material," not simply recite it. Terwiesch remains optimistic that tech tools can be used for good in the classroom. "Our job as educators is to use the technology to engage [students] differently," Terwiesch said. "We have to find ways in the curriculum where the deepest skill that we really want to teach is taught in a novel way, because if, at the end of the day, we end up as in a status that is as good as prior to the release of ChatGPT, I think we have missed an enormous opportunity." An example he gave was using the tool to act in the place of French philosophers, giving students the opportunity to interview them in "real time." (ChatGPT does, indeed, speak French.) "How can we reimagine teaching French in a world where we have French pen pals available by the dozens?," he asked. ChatGPT's knowledge isn't limitless, Terwiesch warned. That's mainly because it is built on "what it has seen in the past," meaning the technology should be viewed more as a support for developments in fields where it may be useful. "We should not believe that this is the end of human thinking and machines (starting to) take over," Terwiesch said. 2023 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. 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: Dry conditions are likely to resume in northeastern Brazil. Credit: Cacio Murilo/Shutterstock Every two to seven years, the equatorial Pacific Ocean gets up to 3C warmer (what we know as an El Nino event) or colder (La Nina) than usual, triggering a cascade of effects felt around the world. This cycle is called the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) because every El Nino is naturally followed by a La Nina and vice versa, with some months of neutral conditions in between events. The change in sea surface temperature associated with ENSO events might seem marginal, but it is more than enough to disrupt weather patterns globally and even the large-scale circulation of air in the polar stratosphere 8km above the Earth. It is not surprising for La Nina conditions to last two consecutive years, but a three-year La Nina, which the world has had since 2020, is more rare. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has reported that the equatorial Pacific Ocean will return to its neutral state between March and May of 2023, and it is likely that El Nino conditions will develop during the northern hemisphere's autumn and winter. Given the strong influence of ENSO on global patterns of precipitation and temperature, scientists keep a close watch on the status of the tropical Pacific to provide the best possible information. So what can the world expect from the next El Nino event? 1. Likelihood of exceeding 1.5C During an El Nino, the ocean transfers some of that excess heat and moisture to the atmosphere, as when you cook pasta and your kitchen gets steamy. On top of the global warming trend, a strong El Nino can add up to 0.2C to the average temperature of the Earth. The hottest year on record was 2016, during a particularly strong El Nino. A La Nina year can also break heat records, as the warming trend imposed by the increasing accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can mask the cooling effect of natural processes. Since the planet has already warmed by around 1.2C relative to pre-industrial times and El Nino adds some extra heat to the atmosphere, it's possible that Earth's rising temperature will temporarily exceed the 1.5C threshold of the Paris agreement some time after the peak of the El Nino in 2024, though it is too early to know how strong this next event will be. Probability of El Nino (red), La Nina (blue) or ENSO-neutral conditions developing during the coming months. Credit: Climate Prediction Center/NOAA, Author provided 2. More heat, drought and fires in Australia Australia has had three years of above average rainfall due to prolonged La Nina conditions that brought severe floods, especially in the east. During El Nino, scientists expect the opposite: less rain, higher temperatures and increased fire risk, especially during winter and spring in the southern hemisphere. As the globe heats up, some regions are warming faster than others. A good example is Australia, which is 1.4C hotter now than in the early 20th century. Every year, the area of the continent scorched by wildfires increases, fuelled by a dry trend induced by climate change. This occurs despite the anomalous wet years that Australia has experienced during the recent La Nina event. The underlying influence of climate change makes the country extremely vulnerable to the effects of an El Nino. 3. Slower carbon uptake in South America South America is where the effects of ENSO were first documented by Peruvian fishermen centuries ago. Given the proximity to the equatorial Pacific Ocean, South American weather is significantly disrupted every time an El Nino event occurs, with flooding on the west coasts of Peru and Ecuador and drought in the Amazon and northeast, where the consequences of crop failures can reverberate across the continent. During El Nino events, the fall in precipitation and rise in temperature in Colombia has been linked to outbreaks of diseases spread by insects, such as malaria and dengue fever. Higher temperatures during El Nino boost the rates at which mosquitoes breed and bite. As the world has warmed, the hottest years have occurred during El Nino events. Credit: NOAA Climate/NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Author provided Elsewhere during an El Nino, the Amazon rainforest dries and vegetation growth slows so that less CO is absorbed from the atmosphere, a trend repeated in the tropical forests of Africa, India and Australia. 4. Cold winters in northern Europe The balance between high pressure over the Azores and low pressure over Iceland determines where rain goes in Europe during winter by pushing the jet streama band of strong eastward winds that carries rain across the Atlanticnorth or south. During El Nino winters, both pressure centers lose strength, and the jet stream brings wetter conditions to southern Europe. The largest effect is observed in northern Europe, however, where winters become drier and colder. A frosty 2023-24 winter season is likely if El Nino ramps up sufficiently by then. As a result of global warming, scientists expect El Nino's influence over the North Atlantic and northern European winter will strengthen. Understanding the intricacies of the climate system is similar to trying to assemble a big jigsaw puzzle. The oceans talk to each other, and to the atmosphere, which at the same time feeds back to the ocean. Scientists are still unsure how El Nino will behave in the future, but its effects will probably be amplified by climate change in different regions of the world. 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: Five handicapped Jewish prisoners, photographed for propaganda purposes, who arrived in Buchenwald after Kristallnacht. Credit: Holocaust Memorial Museum/Photograph #13132 When Dominic Perrottet admitted to wearing a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday party, he apologized to Jews and veteransbut not to the other groups who were persecuted by the Nazis, including disabled people. However, disabled people were the first victims of the Holocaust. They were murdered in a number of Nazi programs specifically targeting them, as well as those that targeted Jews, Sinti, and Roma. In 2023, International Holocaust Remembrance Day marks 90 years since the Nazis assumed power, and immediately began their persecution of everyone they thought of as "inferior." The Nazis frequently described disabled people as "useless eaters," "empty human shells," and "life unworthy of life." They chose these labels to evoke images of people who were incapable of doing anything, and so needed to be kept in institutions for their entire lives, wasting the tax dollars of non-disabled people. A suite of policies implemented by the Nazis forced disabled people out of German society and into institutions, where they worked until they were murdered. Most disabled people lived in the community In early 20th-century Germany, most disabled people lived in the community. In the mid-1920s, a national government survey of disabled people (the only one conducted during that era) found that few disabled people lived in institutions permanently. In fact, only a minority of disabled people lived in institutions at alland this was often for education or rehabilitation, when they were young. Disabled people were the first victims of the Holocaust. For example, though 17.5% of blind people lived in "schools for the blind," the majority (80.4%) of blind people were adults living in the community. And a third of those disabled people with the highest rates of institutionalizationthe psychologically or intellectually impairedlived in the community. A network of organizations managed by and for disabled people prioritized gaining and maintaining employment. Some, such as the German Association of Blind Academics, established in 1916, focused on a particular profession. Others, such as the Self-help League of the Physically Handicapped, established in 1919, created training and jobs for its members. In 1929, it had a membership of 6,000 throughout Germany, and was a role model for a similar organization in Austria. This trajectory of increasing self-determination and community involvement of disabled people ended when the Nazis came to power in 1933. Exclusion and government hate campaigns One of the first legislative changes that affected all disabled people, as it did all Jews, was their exclusion from the new marriage loans program, which lent money to each newly married couple, and forgave a quarter of the loan for each child they had. Given Germany's economic instability and high rates of unemployment, this financial assistance was significantbut only marriages "in the interest of the national community" were eligible. Both Jewish and disabled people were also ineligible later that year, when farms were made available to people who would not otherwise have an inheritance. These laws were accompanied by a relentless government hate campaign. In schools, libraries, and waiting rooms, there was a succession of posters, pamphlets, and magazines, reminding "Aryans" of their superiority, and of the undesirability of everyone else. Nazi propaganda slide featuring two images of physically disabled children. The caption reads deformed. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Marion Davy Tours through institutions where disabled people were forced into scenes of helplessness became commonplace. These tours were mandatory for anyone who was planning to marry, in order to dissuade the couple from proceeding if there was any chance their child might be "unfit." In this atmosphere, the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, which made the sterilization of disabled people compulsory, encountered little opposition when it was enacted on 14 July 1933. When it officially took effect, on 1 January 1934, movies and traveling exhibitions were added to the hate campaign. These stifled any remaining opposition, and made it impossible for the victims of this law to maintain any privacy about their personal circumstances. Those who objected to their sterilization were labeled unpatriotic. Those who did not object to their sterilization were labeled inferior. And either way, women who were sterilized were then targeted for rape. Foreshadowing the Nazis' increasing incarceration of disabled people, the only way to avoid sterilization was to commit oneself to an institution. It became increasingly dangerous for disabled people to be seen in public, let alone to work. To force them into institutions, it was now only necessary for the Nazis to target the few remaining avenues they had for remaining in the communitymarriage and education. In 1935, one month after sexual contact and marriage was prohibited between "Aryans" and Jews, it was also prohibited between "Aryans" and disabled people. In the same year, disabled people were not permitted to attend school past elementary level. And within two years, they were not permitted to attend school at all unless it was part of an institution. Nazi propaganda, showing four disabled men. The original caption reads: Hereditary illnesses are a heavy burden for the people and the state. Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of G Howard Tellier Aktion T4 and the murder of disabled people The Aktion T4 program targeted disabled adults in Germany and Austria, murdering them in gas chambers attached to institutions. Though it is the most well-known of the programs that specifically targeted disabled people, it was not the first, and not the only one. The murder of disabled children began on July 25 1939, and was soon part of the procedure of designated hospitals throughout Germany and Austria. In September, the Nazis began murdering the patients in the asylums of the countries they occupied, beginning with Poland. The first victims of Aktion T4 were murdered in Octoberthe program had a quota of 70,000 victims. When this quota was reached, most of Aktion T4's staff were assigned to establish the "final solution," and the euthanasia of disabled people was transferred to hospitals. Disabled people were victims of every other Nazi extermination program, too. Whether they had found a way to remain in the community, or became impaired due to Nazi violence or the work they were forced to do, many disabled people were incarcerated in concentration camps and ghettos. 3,200 blind people were deported from Theresienstadt alone. These events are important to remembernot only as history, but as an example of how short the path from exclusion to murder can be. 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: Performance trade-offs of the most efficient strategic national-scale river basinpower system designs. ac, The results for the three intervention strategies. Note, black rectangles on some axes of panels b and c serve as filters of Pareto optimal solutions shown in panel a, thus highlighting some optimized designs (the non-grayed out solutions) based on their performance levels. The first four axes from left to right in a to c correspond to objectives (that is, optimized design metrics), and the remaining four axes show three decision variables of the design problem and one tracked metric (agricultural benefit). The top of panels of ac is the direction of preference for each metric; a straight line across the top of the y axis would indicate a perfect WEFE intervention portfolio. Crossing lines between axes represent trade-offs among metrics, whereas a roughly horizontal line joining two metrics indicates a synergy. ako., Akosombo; US$mln, US$ millions. d, The spatial distribution of infrastructure expansion for one selected efficient compromise solution of strategy three (the bold black line in c), which includes significant levels of infrastructure expansion in Ghanas northern region (for example, a capacity increase of 0.8 GW, corresponding to 76% of the total new bioenergy generation plants installed in the country for the compromise solution). Hydropower providing flexibility services can support high levels of intermittent renewables integration (up to 6.3 GW) and improve power system performance. However, this new role for hydropower would increase hydrological (Hydro.) alteration and decrease agricultural yields up to 5% annually, reducing the agricultural sectors economic revenues by US$169 million per year, strategy one. A mix of intermittent renewable generation and bioenergy technologies can meet electricity demands while improving all-round system performance and decreasing intersectoral conflicts. That is why the red lines (representing the more diverse energy mix of intervention strategy three) are higher up the y axisthey simply enable better performance. vRES, variable (intermittent) renewable energy sources. Credit: Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-01033-0 A new study published today in Nature Sustainability has found that using hydropower dams to generate low emission energy can cause problems for other economic sectors such as food production unless smart designs are employed. Access to sustainable electricity is required to deliver the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, but more than 700 million people around the world still lack reliable electricity access. Renewable energy sources such as hydropower, wind and solar are increasingly being called for to meet rising global electricity demand and climate objectives, and energy planners and investors are rushing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production. The most common large-scale renewable energy today is hydropowerit accounts for 40%, with 55% coming from solar and wind. Hydropower's big advantage is its flexibilitythe ability to turn it on or off quickly means it can act like a vast battery, balancing the grid when wind and solar power are insufficient. When operated strategically, it can allow systems to reply more on those intermittent sources of energy. However, a study led by experts from The University of Manchester has found that operating hydropower exclusively with this goal can have a negative impact on other sectors like food production which rely on the current way most hydropower dams are usedthe production of a consistent supply of "baseload" energy. It highlights how power generation systems are embedded in complex humannatural systems in which changes affect water, food and the environment to differing degrees. The study shows how cleverly diversifying renewable energy sources and connecting them strategically can enable the creation of low emission resource systems that help the global fight to mitigate climate change. In Ghana, the researchers used a design tool assisted by artificial intelligence to show how balanced management and investment strategies can help to calibrate good roles and locations for hydropower, bioenergy, solar and wind energies. They found that the solution is a better design brought about by strategic thinking on a national scale and careful multi-sector analysis. If avoiding multi-sector conflict of hydropower reoperation is an objective from the start, and mitigated with advanced system-scale design methods, excellent solutions can be found which reduce emissions as well as guaranteeing other economic sectors get water when and where they need it. Navigating trade-offs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions requires significant policy and operational integration within governments, typically across multiple ministriesbut few countries, if any, have the ability to identify and negotiate such issues. This design tool will help planners to consider the potentially negative impacts on water, food and ecosystems of inappropriately re-operating energy systems to exclusively increase intermittent renewables. Instead, it helps invest in power systems in a way that balances multisector performance while reducing CO 2 emissions. "Ghana has many development priorities alongside reducing greenhouse gas emissions to meet our commitments under the Paris Agreement," said Dr. Emmanuel Obuobie, Senior Research Scientist at Ghana's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). "This study shows how different environmental, economic and social objectives can be balanced at system scale when selecting infrastructure investments." More information: Jose M. Gonzalez et al, Designing diversified renewable energy systems to balance multisector performance, Nature Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-01033-0 Journal information: Nature Sustainability A man wanted in connection to the shooting of his ex-girlfriend and her son in Pennsylvania was arrested in Hartford on Friday, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. U.S. Marshals and Hartford police arrested Issac Ramos-Perez in a makeshift apartment in an industrial area on Meadow Street in Hartford on Friday, the U.S. Marshals Service said. He was charged as a fugitive from justice by the Hartford Police Department. He is pending extradition back to York, Pennsylvania, where he faces two counts of attempted homicide, two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, felon in possession of a firearm and terroristic threats. Ramos-Perez allegedly visited his ex-girlfriend at her York, Pennsylvania, home on Dec. 23, 2022, and shot her and her son multiple times. He then allegedly contacted friends and family members of the victims and threatened to finish the job and kill anyone who tried to help the victims, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The son was paralyzed in the shooting with permanent facial injuries, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. 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: Sporobolus heterolepis at Bell Bowl Prairie. Credit: cassi saari, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons The fight to preserve Bell Bowl Prairie in Rockford, Illinois, where federally endangered rusty patched bumblebees have been found, ramped up this week, with environmentalists saying they intend to return to federal court. The Natural Land Institute, a nonprofit that opposes the Chicago Rockford International Airport's plan to build a road through the heart of Bell Bowl, said their lawyers had sent a letter to local, state and federal agencies informing them of plans to file a lawsuit alleging violations of the Endangered Species Act. The letter cites the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's own finding that the rusty patched bumblebee is declining due, in part, to the loss of most prairies and grasslands in the Upper Midwest and Northeast. "Notwithstanding this conclusion, USFWS is nowincomprehensiblyauthorizing the type of development and construction on Bell Bowl Prairie (including road construction) that will lead to the extinction of the Bee," says the letter from the Natural Land Institute's attorneys. U.S. Fish & Wildlife did not respond to request for comment and an airport spokesperson declined to comment. Environmentalists, who filed a previous federal lawsuit in August that was dismissed without prejudice (allowing the environmentalists to try again), are running out of options in their 18-month battle to preserve the 15.5-acre prairie, which includes 1.7 acres of particularly well-preserved "high quality" habitat. State and federal assessments were completed in December, with the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Fish & Wildlife and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources all determining that the project is unlikely to negatively affect the rusty patched bumblebee. Only a final written reevaluation by the Federal Aviation Administration remains before the airport can begin construction of a road that would cost the bee 9.3 acres of habitat, including 1.7 acres of the highest-quality prairie. Environmentalists say the road, part of a $50 million airport cargo expansion project, should be rerouted to the east or southeast, where it would avoid the highest-quality prairie and maximize overall prairie preservation. "We're not trying to stop the airport expansion," Natural Land Institute Executive Director Kerry Leigh told the Tribune in 2022. "We're trying to get them to redesign the road and avoid the prairie." The letter announcing the intention to file a lawsuit highlights the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's own previous findings, including that the rusty patched bumblebee is "so imperiled that every remaining population is important for the continued existence of the species." State and federal agencies are allowing the road through Bell Bowl to proceed in part because there are larger, and likely better, rusty patched bumblebee habitats within 10 kilometers of the prairie, according to government documents quoted in the letter. That nearby habitat includes parts of Severson Dells Forest Preserve, Funderburg Forest Preserve, the Levi and Ester Fuller Memorial Forest Preserve, and Howard Colman Hall Creek Preserve. But the authors of the letter argue that the Endangered Species Act doesn't allow U.S. Fish and Wildlife to evaluate the Bell Bowl project on the basis of whether it will "lead to wholesale species extinction." "Instead, USFWS ... must ask whether this project is likely to adversely affect this population of this endangered species. The answer to this question, as the consultation process has shown, is that the project will, by design, impact the Bee's habitat, and would lead to (bee) mortality," the letter says. Rusty patched bumblebees were found foraging at Bell Bowl in August 2021, shortly after environmentalists were alerted to bulldozers near the prairie and learned of the airport's plans to build the road. Leigh said environmentalists still want the airport to apply for funding for a redesign that would move the road and save the heart of the prairie: "The airport authorities can apply for state funding to redesign the road, and they won't. There's also federal funding that they can apply for, and they won't." "All they have to do is apply for the funding, and then this whole lawsuit would go away," Leigh said. 2023 Chicago Tribune. 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: Evidence secured through new forensic instruments can help cases head to court. Credit: PRESSLAB, Shutterstock.com Technological developments in evidence gathering hold out promise of fewer offenses going unpunished. The global success of television dramas like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" has lulled many into thinking that forensic analysis is an all-seeing, speedy science. The reality is that it's much slower than TV lets on, with more limited scope for success. Not like TV TV detectives investigating a rape, for example, are portrayed as finding incriminating DNA evidence easily enough. In the real world, however, the search is often constrained by current forensic methods that can detect only 10% of sperm traces because surfaces absorb evidence and criminals often attempt to wipe it away. Now two European projects have developed technologies to improve ways of finding the microscopic material needed to ensure a conviction. Onefrom French biotechnology company AXO Scienceis a newly formulated spray for detecting evidence at rape scenes. "The spray enables investigators to be really specific in identifying sperm stains and it's three times faster than existing methods for collecting samples," said Benjamin Corgier, AXO Science's director of research and development. "There is less doubt about what's being collected, nothing is missed and no time is wasted on analyzing samples that don't yield results." In Europe, 1 in 10 women over the age of 15 has experienced some form of sexual violence and 1 in 20 women has been raped, according to an EU survey. AXO Science's forensic crime-scene spray, developed as part of the Themis project, could increase the number of rape convictions. A prototype, called STK Spray, is being put to use across Europe and in North America, South America, Japan and China. Oldest crime lab From Lyon, France, home of the world's first police crime laboratory dating to 1910, AXO Science developed the new detection technique for sperm traces after the city's forensics lab asked for help a decade ago. Using a simple solution that is mixed on location, investigators cover the rape scene with the non-toxic STK Spray. They then check the area with a special ultraviolet light that reveals any semen stains as a blue glow. The technique identifies 100% of the bodily fluid across most surfacesfloors, walls, door handles, sinks and even grass and leavesbut not textiles. Within minutes, the spray opens the door to DNA identification of the offender. With forensic experts around the world testing STK Spray, a number of current and cold cases are already heading to court thanks to evidence secured through use of the prototype. France's National Gendarmerie has confirmed the presence of semen in a 25-year-old case using the technique on evidence that had been stored. In the U.S. state of Nevada, the Reno Police Department recently announced that it had arrested and charged a man with sexual assault dating to 2014 with the help of STK Spray. Less strain, more proof In court proceedings, seeing is often believing. That's why the analysis of minute transfers of material invisible to the naked eye is also central to crime-scene investigations. Tiny fragments of physical evidence such as hair, blood, skin cells and clothing fibers can all link a suspect to a victim and a crime scene. But before that happens, many long hours in the lab can be needed to piece the forensic jigsaw together. "It's very time consuming and expensive to extract the relevant tracesand for the technician it's far from pleasant at the beginning of an investigation," said Colonel Gregory Briche, head of the Forensic Department at the National Gendarmerie. "It's tedious work." Briche led a just-completed international effort to develop a forensic toolkit. The initiative was known as SHUTTLE, short for Scientific High-throughput and Unified Toolkit for Trace analysis by forensic Laboratories in Europe. "To analyze crime-scene evidence such as a blanket used to carry a victim's body currently takes weeks," he said. "With our new toolkit, clothes fibers and hair can be looked at simultaneouslyin around a week." A SHUTTLE prototype is being tested in five European countriesFrance, Greece, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Portugalplus Israel. It promises to change the way trace evidence is collected while relieving technicians of the burden of many hours spent staring through a microscope. That's because an automated microscope takes high-quality images of microtraces collected on specially designed tape and algorithms store and classify them on a central database. The database is designed for the national and international exchange of information to help police identify offenders and open new lines of investigation. Forensic technicians will still oversee the work, but without the human strain of hour after hour of microscope work taking its toll on tired eyes and concentration. "The idea of SHUTTLE is to have consistency and no subjectivity caused by tiredness," Briche said. "Technicians have limits, whereas with the toolkit the quality of work is the same whatever the time of day." High expectations The partners in SHUTTLE and Themis, both of which ended in late 2022, are enthusiastic about the potentially dramatic improvements in forensic analysis and the resulting rise in investigations that experts will be freed to handle. With regard to STK Spray in particular, it is still being fine-tuned in the lab and may become ready to manufacture at scale soon. "There is a real "wow effect" for forensic experts when they try the new product," said Corgier at AXO Science. "They never thought this result would be possible." Research in this article was funded by the EU. This article was originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation Magazine. 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: This photo provided by Dan Bartlett shows comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Dec. 19, 2022. It last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It is expected to come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth on Feb. 1, 2023, before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years. Credit: Dan Bartlett via AP A comet is streaking back our way after 50,000 years. The dirty snowball last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It will come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth Wednesday before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years. So do look up, contrary to the title of the killer-comet movie "Don't Look Up." Discovered less than a year ago, this harmless green comet already is visible in the northern night sky with binoculars and small telescopes, and possibly the naked eye in the darkest corners of the Northern Hemisphere. It's expected to brighten as it draws closer and rises higher over the horizon through the end of January, best seen in the predawn hours. By Feb. 10, it will be near Mars, a good landmark. Skygazers in the Southern Hemisphere will have to wait until next month for a glimpse. While plenty of comets have graced the sky over the past year, "this one seems probably a little bit bigger and therefore a little bit brighter and it's coming a little bit closer to the Earth's orbit," said NASA's comet and asteroid-tracking guru, Paul Chodas. Green from all the carbon in the gas cloud, or coma, surrounding the nucleus, this long-period comet was discovered last March by astronomers using the Zwicky Transient Facility, a wide field camera at Caltech's Palomar Observatory. That explains its official, cumbersome name: comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF). On Wednesday, it will hurtle between the orbits of Earth and Mars at a relative speed of 128,500 mph (207,000 kilometers). Its nucleus is thought to be about a mile (1.6 kilometers) across, with its tails extending millions of miles (kilometers). The comet isn't expected to be nearly as bright as Neowise in 2020, or Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid to late 1990s. This photo provided by Dan Bartlett shows comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Dec. 19, 2022. It last visited during Neanderthal times, according to NASA. It is expected to come within 26 million miles (42 million kilometers) of Earth on Feb. 1, 2023, before speeding away again, unlikely to return for millions of years. Credit: Dan Bartlett via AP But "it will be bright by virtue of its close Earth passage ... which allows scientists to do more experiments and the public to be able to see a beautiful comet," University of Hawaii astronomer Karen Meech said in an email. Scientists are confident in their orbital calculations putting the comet's last swing through the solar system's planetary neighborhood at 50,000 years ago. But they don't know how close it came to Earth or whether it was even visible to the Neanderthals, said Chodas, director of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. When it returns, though, is tougher to judge. Every time the comet skirts the sun and planets, their gravitational tugs alter the iceball's path ever so slightly, leading to major course changes over time. Another wild card: jets of dust and gas streaming off the comet as it heats up near the sun. "We don't really know exactly how much they are pushing this comet around," Chodas said. The cometa time capsule from the emerging solar system 4.5 billion years agocame from what's known as the Oort Cloud well beyond Pluto. This deep-freeze haven for comets is believed to stretch more than one-quarter of the way to the next star. While comet ZTF originated in our solar system, we can't be sure it will stay there, Chodas said. If it gets booted out of the solar system, it will never return, he added. Don't fret if you miss it. "In the comet business, you just wait for the next one because there are dozens of these," Chodas said. "And the next one might be bigger, might be brighter, might be closer." 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: Artist impression of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: ESA The JWST is having a problem. One of its instruments, the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS), has gone offline. The NIRISS performs spectroscopy on exoplanet atmospheres, among other things. It's been offline since Sunday, January 15 due to a communications error. The internal communications error led to the software timing out. There's no indication that the instrument is damaged in any way, and the rest of the spacecraft is operating normally. NIRISS complements the other instruments on the JWST by providing "unique observational capabilities between 0.6 and 5 m," according to the Space Telescope Science Institute. It's used to investigate exoplanet atmospheres, to detect first light, aka the Era of Recombination, and to detect exoplanets. It can also capture wide-field instruments to study populations of objects and has multiple filters that increase its versatility. It can also resolve the light from objects that are very close together. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) built the NIRISS as part of its contribution to the JWST mission. It also built the Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS), which is physically combined with the NIRISS but is a separate instrument. It's unclear when the instrument will be back online, but it's bad news for observers. Observing time on the JWST is in high demand, and it's not clear how this delay will affect observations. This isn't the first mishap the JWST has had to deal with. It went into safe mode for about three weeks in December due to a software fault in its attitude control system. The telescope's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) was also briefly non-operational. Those issues were dealt with and resolved. Hopefully, this one will be, too. 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: Sibon canopy is named in honor of the Canopy Family system of reserves, particularly its Canopy Lodge in Valle de Anton, Cocle province, Panama. Credit: Alejandro Arteaga Five new tree-dwelling snake species were discovered in the jungles of Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. Conservationists Leonardo DiCaprio, Brian Sheth, Re:wild, and Nature and Culture International chose the names for three of them in honor of loved ones while raising awareness about the issue of rainforest destruction at the hands of open-pit mining operations. The research was conducted by Ecuadorian biologist Alejandro Arteaga and Panamanian biologist Abel Batista. The mountainous areas of the upper-Amazon rainforest and the Choco-Darien jungles are world-renowned for the wealth of new species continually discovered in this region. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that they also house some of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the proliferation of illegal open-pit gold and copper mining operations in the jungles of Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama reached a critical level and is decimating tree-dwelling snake populations. Neotropical snail-eating snakes (genera Sibon and Dipsas) have a unique lifestyle that makes them particularly prone to the effects of gold and copper mining. First, they are arboreal, so they cannot survive in areas devoid of vegetation, such as in open-pit mines. Second, they feed exclusively on slugs and snails, a soft-bodied type of prey that occurs mostly along streams and rivers and is presumably declining because of the pollution of water bodies. A short video presenting the discovery of five new snail-eating snakes. Credit: Alejandro Arteaga "When I first explored the rainforests of Nangaritza River in 2014, I remember thinking the place was an undiscovered and unspoiled paradise," says Alejandro Arteaga, author of the research study on these snakes, which was published in the journal ZooKeys. "In fact, the place is called Nuevo Paraiso in Spanish, but it is a paradise no more. Hundreds of illegal gold miners using backhoe loaders have now taken possession of the river margins, which are now destroyed and turned into rubble." The presence of a conservation area may not be enough to keep the snail-eating snakes safe. In southeastern Ecuador, illegal miners are closing in on Maycu Reserve, ignoring landowner rights and even making violent threats to anyone opposed to the extraction of gold. Even rangers and their families are tempted to quit their jobs to work in illegal mining, as it is much more lucrative. Dipsas welborni is named after David Welborn, former member of the board of foundation Nature and Culture International. This NGO manages Maycu Reserve, a private conservation area where this snake and many other new species inhabit. Credit: Alejandro Arteaga A local park ranger reports that by extracting gold from the Nangaritza River, local people can earn what would otherwise be a year's salary in just a few weeks. "Sure, it is illegal and out of control, but the authorities are too afraid to intervene," says the park ranger. "Miners are just too violent and unpredictable." In Panama, large-scale copper mining is affecting the habitat of two of the new species: Sibon irmelindicaprioae and S. canopy. Unlike the illegal gold miners in Ecuador and Colombia, the extraction in this case is legal and at the hands of a single corporation: Minera Panama S.A., a subsidiary of the Canadian-based mining and metals company First Quantum Minerals Ltd. Although the forest destruction at the Panamanian mines is larger in extent and can easily be seen from space, its borders are clearly defined and the company is under the purview of local environmental authorities. Sibon irmelindicaprioae, named after Leonardo DiCaprio's mother, is the rarest of the lot. It occurs in the Choco-Darien jungles of eastern Panama and western Colombia. Credit: Alejandro Arteaga "Both legal and illegal open-pit mines are uninhabitable for the snail-eating snakes," says Arteaga, "but the legal mines may be the lesser of two evils. At the very least they respect the limit of nearby protected areas, answer to a higher authority, and are presumably unlikely to enact violence on park rangers, researchers, and conservationists." Sibon canopy, one of the newly described species, appears to have fairly stable populations inside protected areas of Panama, although elsewhere nearly 40% of its habitat has been destroyed. At Parque Nacional Omar Torrijos, where it is found, there has been a reduction in the number of park rangers (already very few for such a large protected area). This makes it easier for loggers and poachers to reach previously unspoiled habitats that are essential for the survival of the snakes. Sibon marleyae, named after conservationist Brian Sheth's daughter was discovered in the most humid and pristine Choco rainforests of Ecuador and Colombia. Credit: Eric Osterman Lack of employment and the high price of gold aggravate the situation. No legal activity can compete against the "gold bonanza." More and more often, farmers, park rangers, and indigenous people are turning to illegal activities to provide for their families, particularly during crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, when NGO funding was at its lowest. "These new species of snake are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new species discoveries in this region, but if illegal mining continues at this rate, there may not be an opportunity to make any future discoveries," concludes Alejandro Arteaga. Sibon vieirai. Credit: Pearl Ee Fortunately, three NGOs in Ecuador and Panama (Khamai, Nature and Culture International, and Adopta Bosque) have already made it their mission to save the snake's habitat from the emerging gold mining frenzy. Supporting these organizations is vital, because their quest for immediate land protection is the only way to save the snakes from extinction. More information: Alejandro Arteaga et al, A consolidated phylogeny of snail-eating snakes (Serpentes, Dipsadini), with the description of five new species from Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama, ZooKeys (2023). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1143.93601 Journal information: ZooKeys 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: Erik Funk with a rosy-finch. Credit: University of Colorado at Boulder Mountaineers who venture high into the Colorado Rockies have likely spotted medium-sized, brown-and-pink birds rummaging around on snow patches for insects and seeds. These high-elevation specialists are rosy finches, a type of bird that's evolved to survive in some of the most rugged places in North America. Researchers are now beginning to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding these unique birds, including the genetic underpinnings that allow them to survive at elevations of up to 14,000 feet and help determine the colors of their feathers. Their findings suggest that the three recognized North American species of rosy finchesthe gray-crowned rosy finch, the black rosy finch and the brown-capped rosy finchmay have evolved within the last 250,000 years, which is a relatively short period in evolutionary terms. Scientists shared more details from their work in a new paper recently published in the journal Evolution. "These results are adding to the way we think about population divergence and speciation," said lead author Erik Funk, who recently earned his doctorate in evolutionary biology from the University of Colorado Boulder and now works as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. Understanding biodiversity Even before Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution by natural selection in 1859, scientists had long pondered the Earth's rich biodiversity. How and why are there so many different types of life on the planet? It's a question they still haven't fully answered but, thanks to recent advancements in genetic sequencing, researchers now have new tools for probing deeper. As a backpacker and climber, Funk has spent a lot of time in the mountains of Colorado and California, where he often observed rosy finches flitting around. But although they often inhabit and breed in high-elevation regions in the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada, they also breed at sea level, such as along the Alaskan coast and among the Aleutian and Pribilof islands. Painting of rosy finches. Credit: Liz Clayton Fuller In addition to these breeding habit differences, the birds have varying feather colors and patterns. Some have brown body feathers, while others have black. Some have a gray patch on the crowns of their heads or on their cheeks, while others do not. Funk wondered if analyzing the birds' genomes could help explain some of these differences. "We wanted to understand: Can we identify genetic regions that are responsible for generating the plumage color differences that exist in rosy finches?" he said. "And there's also this question about the elevational differences. Do the birds that live in Colorado possess some unique genetic differences that allow them to live at high elevations that the birds that live at sea level don't have?" Using blood and tissue samples from the University of Alaska Museum of the North, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and a 2018 field study, Funk created a whole genome dataset that encompassed the full geographic range and all the varying observable characteristics of North American rosy finches. After analyzing the data, he identified unique genomic regionsand, possibly, specific genesthat are probably playing a role in the birds' trait differences. For instance, he found genetic differences between birds with and without gray cheek patches in a region of the genome that influences melanin pigments, which give color to feathers, hair, skin and eyes. Comparing birds that breed at high elevations with those that breed at low elevations, he found genetic differences in a region that contains genes that play a role in a cell's ability to operate at different oxygen levels. The genes he linked with traits are all located in distinct regions of the birds' genome, which means that, over time, they can be reshuffled to form new trait combinations. This supports the theory that different rosy finch populations likely evolved over a relatively short period of time. "Generally, we think of speciation as taking a long timeon the order of millions of years," Funk said. "But if all of this variation exists within rosy finches already, and the genome is able to recombine these different genes to produce new trait combinations, it could potentially happen a lot faster. It's a cool way to think about how different traits or trait combinations might be able to evolve and could have implications on the rate at which populations diverge and new species are generated." More knowledge, more effective conservation efforts Overall, the findings add to scientists' understanding of biodiversity. But beyond that, they may also help inform conservation decisions in the face of human-caused climate change. Brown-capped rosy finches, which live primarily in Colorado, are experiencing population declines and, as such, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has identified them as a species of greatest conservation need. To help stabilize or grow the birds' numbers, scientists and conservationists want to know as much about them as possibleand even genetic knowledge could be helpful. "Understanding what led to the rapid generation of these different phenotypes, how they are related and the genetic variations that underlie them, allows us to better understand how rapidly evolution can generate differences," said study co-author Scott Taylor, a CU Boulder associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and the director of the Mountain Research Station. "And maybe understanding that will help us better understand how these populations might respond to population collapses or changing environments into the future." More information: Erik Funk et al, The genetic basis of plumage coloration and elevation adaptation in a clade of recently diverged alpine and arctic songbirds, Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.1093/evolut/qpac064 Journal information: 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 gate at the entrance to the former Ciba Geigy chemical plant in Toms River, N.J., is filled with warning on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, regarding the contaminated area, which is on the Superfund list of the nation's worst toxic waste sites. A proposed settlement to restore natural resources damaged by the company's dumping is widely opposed as insufficient by residents of Toms River, where childhood cancer rates from the late 1970s through 1990s occurred at elevated rates. Credit: AP Photo/Wayne Parry In hindsight, it's clear that something was very wrong in this suburban town at the Jersey Shore, where many people worked at or lived near a chemical company that was flushing toxic waste into waterways and burying it in the ground. Men would come home from the plant, which made dyes and resins, and their perspiration would be the color of the dye with which they worked. Children swam in the local river, coming up for air in the midst of milky white froth that floated on the water's surface. There seemed to be fewer fish than would be expected; some that were there appeared to be transparent, and others had sores. And children were being diagnosed with cancer at higher-than-normal rates. It wouldn't be until many years later that the truth would come out: Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corp., the town's largest employer, had been flushing chemicals into the Toms River and the Atlantic Ocean, and burying 47,000 drums of toxic waste in the ground. This created a plume of polluted water that has spread beyond the site into residential neighborhoods. It made the area one of America's most notorious Superfund sites, joining the list of the most seriously polluted areas in need of federally supervised cleanup. The state health department found that 87 children in Toms River, which was then known as Dover Township, had been diagnosed with cancer from 1979 through 1995. A study determined the rates of childhood cancers and leukemia in girls in Toms River "were significantly elevated when compared to state rates." No similar rates were found for boys. A gate at the entrance to the former Ciba Geigy chemical plant in Toms River, N.J., displays a warning sign Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023, regarding the contaminated area, which is on the Superfund list of the nation's worst toxic waste sites. A proposed settlement to restore natural resources damaged by the company's dumping is widely opposed as insufficient by residents of Toms River, where childhood cancer rates from the late 1970s through 1990s occurred at elevated rates. Credit: AP Photo/Wayne Parry The company, which was charged criminally, has paid millions of dollars in fines and penalties on top of the $300 million it and its successors have paid so far to clean up the 1,250-acre (506-hectare) sitean ongoing effort with no end in sight. Now, New Jersey has reached a settlement with the site's current owner, BASF Corp., to address damage to natural resources at the site. And residents of Toms River, where "cancer cluster" is part of the local vocabulary and bottled water is the only type many will drink, are not happy with the deal, describing it as woefully insufficient. The settlement must still be finalized by the state Department of Environmental Protection. The agreement commits BASFwhich owns the site as the corporate successor to Ciba-Geigyto restore wetlands and grassy areas; create walking trails, boardwalks and an elevated viewing platform; and build an environmental education center. In addition to doing that work, whose cost has not yet been calculated by the state or the company, BASF will pay the state $100,000 and be allowed to continue to host an array of solar panels on part of the site. Mayor Maurice Hill said Toms River is known for two main things: winning the Little League World Series in 1998, and the Ciba-Geigy Superfund site, blamed by many residents for the town's elevated level of childhood cancer cases. He called the saga "an open wound for Toms River and a great community pain." Janet Tauro, an environmental activist, speaks at a public meeting on Wednesday, Jan., 25, 2023, in Toms River, N.J., about a proposed settlement between the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and BASF Corp to restore natural resources that were damaged by the operations of the former Ciba Geigy chemical plant. She said the area might be converted into a safe, usable park in 100 years. Credit: AP Photo/Wayne Parry The mayor and others said the settlement does not do nearly enough to compensate Toms River and its residents for the decades of pollution and illness they have endured. Hill complained the deal was negotiated without any local input, wants 250 acres (101 hectares) of the site that BASF could develop to instead be given to the township, and says a contingency fund to address any future undiscovered contamination should be part of it. At a public meeting on the proposal hosted Wednesday night by a local environmental group, resident after resident told of the pain of losing loved ones or friendsand not knowing that the water they were swimming in and drinking might make them sick. "I have a friend that has five kids, and four out of the five have cancer," said Gloria Baier, whose father recently died from cancer. "I swam in that water. There was this muck that was whitish and would float on top of the water. You'd pop your head up sometimes into this. "I remember looking down and saying, 'Why does that fish look transparent to me?'" she said. "You could see fish that had sores on them," added Jeff Fackenthal. "You could see that it wasn't right." Christine Girtain, a science teacher in one of Toms River, N.J.'s high schools, speaks at a public meeting in Toms River on Wednesday, Jan., 25, 2023, about a proposed settlement between the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and BASF Corp to restore natural resources that were damaged by the operations of the former Ciba Geigy chemical plant. Girtain wants an environmental education center that will be built as part of the settlement to document the site's history of illegal dumping and the town's history of elevated childhood cancer cases and deaths. Credit: AP Photo/Wayne Parry Summer Bardier's uncle worked at the plant. "He would come home in the summer and he would sweat the color of the dye he was working with," she said. "He was contaminated, and he was contaminating his children." Michael Matthews lost his best friend to a rare childhood cancer at age 12. Another friend died of the same illness. DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said the settlement is not designed to punish anyone, and emphasized that BASF remains obligated to completely finish cleaning up the site under the supervision of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. In 1992, Ciba-Geigy paid $63.8 million to settle criminal charges that it illegally disposed of hazardous waste, and it and two other companies reached a $13.2 million settlement with 69 families whose children were diagnosed with cancer. BASF took over the site in 2010, two decades after plant operations ceased, and emphasizes that it did nothing to contaminate the site. Homes in one of the residential neighborhoods closest to the former Ciba Geigy chemical plant in Toms River, N.J., are shown on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. The contaminated plant area is on the Superfund list of the nation's worst toxic waste sites. A proposed settlement to restore natural resources damaged by the company's dumping is widely opposed as insufficient by residents of Toms River, where childhood cancer rates from the late 1970s through 1990s occurred at elevated rates. Credit: AP Photo/Wayne Parry The current proposed settlement aims to restore natural resources that are the property of all New Jerseyans to a condition where those resources can be used again, LaTourette said. "That's what this is about," he said. "It's not the same as their obligation to clean up the site." He said people instinctively want to put a dollar value on things, which is why the benefits of this settlement can seem hard to grasp. "BASF's primary goal is to restore the site to meet regulatory standards that are protective of human health and the environment," said company spokesperson Molly Birman. "We look forward to implementing the restoration projects and opening new possibilities to encourage recreation, learning and community engagement at the site." But many residents said they won't go anywhere near the site even after remediation work is completed. One man who attended a public hearing on the settlement Wednesday said he won't even drive past the site with his car window rolled down. "This might be a really great park some day," added environmental activist Janet Tauro. "Maybe in 100 years?" Homes in one of the residential neighborhoods closest to the former Ciba Geigy chemical plant in Toms River, N.J., are shown Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. The contaminated plant site is on the Superfund list of the nation's worst toxic waste sites. A proposed settlement to restore natural resources damaged by the company's dumping is widely opposed as insufficient by residents of Toms River, where childhood cancer rates from the late 1970s through 1990s occurred at elevated rates. Credit: AP Photo/Wayne Parry Diane Salkie, a project manager with the EPA who has been overseeing the cleanup since 2011, said a plume of contaminated groundwater is 40% smaller than it originally was, but it still extends underneath some residential communities. BASF is pumping almost a million gallons a day from the ground, treating it to remove contaminants, and discharging it back into the ground. About 341,000 cubic yards (261,000 cubic meters) of soil has been dug up and treated at the siteenough to fill 136,400 pickup truck beds. Salkie said that in 1996, it was estimated the cleanup would take 30 yearswhich would end in 2026. Last week, she said, "I don't think we'll get there. It's just so hard to set a timeline." Christine Girtain, a science teacher at one of Toms River's high schools and the current New Jersey State Teacher of the Year, said the environmental education center should present the full history of Ciba-Geigy's deliberate pollution of the site, and honor those who died as a result of it. "They need to know the names of the people who died because of that pollution," she said. "We lost a lot of children because of Ciba." BASF is "open to including the site's environmental history as part of the educational facility," Birman said. 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: Graphical abstract. Credit: Environmental Science & Technology Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00807 Using ultraviolet germicidal radiation (UVGI) to disinfect indoor spaces is a demonstrably effective way of deactivating various pathogens (including the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus). It deactivates bacteria and viruses by exposing them to high-energy UV radiation through the use of UV lamps. As the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need to disinfect large quantities of both air and various surfaces, hospitals, among other operators, have recently increased the use of UVGI disinfection robots. However, the method may have previously unexplored indirect adverse effects on people. These effects relate to reduced indoor air quality caused by the UV radiation used. "To our knowledge, we conducted the first experimental study of the effects of UVGI devices on indoor air quality," says Doctoral Researcher Frans Graeffe from the University of Helsinki's Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR). "We focused on the effects of UVGI disinfection robots on indoor air quality to better understand the potential adverse effects." Switching on UV lamps for disinfection considerably increased concentration of gases and small particles Solar ultraviolet radiation enables most of the chemical reactions occurring in the atmosphere, including the formation of oxidizers such as ozone (O 3 ) and the hydroxyl radical (OH). Bringing UV radiation indoors in the form of UVGI disinfection robots makes it possible for outdoor reactions to take place indoors. Reactions caused by radiation can form a range of gases and small particles that, when inhaled, are harmful to human health. High particle concentrations have been associated with several diseases (e.g., respiratory diseases). "We brought a UVGI device used in hospitals to the aerosol physics laboratory at the University of Helsinki where, utilizing spectrometers and other modern measuring equipment, we were able to measure the concentration, size and chemical composition of the gases and small particles formed," Graeffe says. "Our measurements clearly show that every time the UV lamps were switched on, as the disinfection was initiated, the amount of both gases and small particles increased considerably." Although both particle and gas concentrations started to decrease, for example, through ventilation, immediately after the UV lamps were switched off, the concentrations returned to their original levels only until 30 to 40 minutes later. "After disinfecting the room, it would be better to wait for a while before entering, or to enter wearing protective gear, such as a sufficiently effective respirator," Graeffe says. Because of the complexity of the formation of gases and small particles caused by UV lamps, the results cannot be applied directly to different environments. The effect of various UVGI devices on air quality depends at least on the intensity, duration and wavelength of the UV radiation emitted by the device, as well as the size, ventilation and air quality of the space to be disinfected. A similar UVGI solution is now also increasingly used in private and public spaces. Even though the radiation in such cases is less intense than that emitted by the device tested, the irradiation last longer. Based on the findings, the effects on air quality must be further investigated before the use of such devices becomes widespread, in order to understand how different UVGI devices affect indoor air quality and how their benefits (control of viruses) compare with their adverse effects (degradation of air quality). The research is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters. More information: Frans Graeffe et al, Unwanted Indoor Air Quality Effects from Using Ultraviolet C Lamps for Disinfection, Environmental Science & Technology Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.2c00807 Journal information: Environmental Science & Technology 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: Artist's impression of an electron spin in a quantum dot, interfaced with light and strongly-coupled nuclear spins (viewed through a lens). Credit: Leon Zaporski - University of Cambridge An international team of scientists have demonstrated a leap in preserving the quantum coherence of quantum dot spin qubits as part of the global push for practical quantum networks and quantum computers. These technologies will be transformative to a broad range of industries and research efforts: from the security of information transfer, through the search for materials and chemicals with novel properties, to measurements of fundamental physical phenomena requiring precise time synchronization among the sensors. Spin-photon interfaces are elementary building blocks for quantum networks that allow converting stationary quantum information (such as the quantum state of an ion or a solid-state spin qubit) into light, namely photons, that can be distributed over large distances. A major challenge is to find an interface that is both good at storing quantum information and efficient at converting it into light. Optically active semiconductor quantum dots are the most efficient spin-photon interface known to date but extending their storage time beyond a few microseconds has puzzled physicists in spite of decade-long research efforts. Now, researchers at the University of Cambridge, the University of Linz and the University of Sheffield have shown that there is a simple material's solution to this problem that improves the storage of quantum information beyond hundred microseconds. Quantum Dots are crystalline structures made out of many thousands of atoms. Each of these atoms' nuclei has a magnetic dipole moment that couples to the quantum dot electron and can cause the loss of quantum information stored in the electron qubit. The research team's finding, reported in Nature Nanotechnology, is that in a device constructed with semiconductor materials that have the same lattice parameter, the nuclei 'felt' the same environment and behaved in unison. As a result, it is now possible to filter out this nuclear noise and achieve a near two-order magnitude improvement in storage time. "This is a completely new regime for optically active quantum dots where we can switch off the interaction with nuclei and refocus the electron spin over and over again to keep its quantum state alive," said Claire Le Gall from Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, who led the project. "We demonstrated hundreds of microseconds in our work, but really, now we are in this regime, we know that much longer coherence times are within reach. For spins in quantum dots, short coherence times were the biggest roadblock to applications, and this finding offers a clear and simple solution to that." While exploring the hundred-microsecond timescales for the first time, the researchers were pleasantly surprised to find that the electron only sees noise from the nuclei as opposed to, say, electrical noise in the device. This is really a great position to be in because the nuclear ensemble is an isolated quantum system, and the coherent electron will be a gateway to quantum phenomena in large nuclear spin ensemble. Another thing that surprised the researchers was the 'sound' that was picked up from the nuclei. It was not quite as harmonious as was initially anticipated, and there is room for further improvement in the system's quantum coherence through further material engineering. "When we started working with the lattice-matched material system employed in this work, getting quantum dots with well-defined properties and good optical quality wasn't easy," says Armando Rastelli, co-author of this paper at the University of Linz. "It is very rewarding to see that an initially curiosity-driven research line on a rather exotic system and the perseverance of skilled team members Santanu Manna and Saimon Covre da Silva led to the devices at the basis of these spectacular results. Now we know what our nanostructures are good for, and we are thrilled by the perspective of further engineering their properties together with our collaborators." "One of the most exciting things about this research is taming a complex quantum system: a hundred thousand nuclei coupling strongly to a well-controlled electron spin," explains Cavendish Ph.D. student, Leon Zaporskithe first author of the paper. "Most researchers approach the problem of isolating qubit from the noise by removing all the interactions. Their qubits become a bit like sedated Schrodinger's cats, that can barely react to anyone pulling on their tail. Our 'cat' is on strong stimulants, whichin practicemeans we can have more fun with it." "Quantum dots now combine high photonic quantum efficiency with long spin coherence times," explains Professor Mete Atature, co-author of this paper. "In the near future, we envisage these devices to enable the creation of entangled light states for all-photonic quantum computing and allow foundational quantum control experiments of the nuclear spin ensemble." More information: Leon Zaporski et al, Ideal refocusing of an optically active spin qubit under strong hyperfine interactions, Nature Nanotechnology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-022-01282-2 Journal information: Nature Nanotechnology 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 quartet of researchers at Pennsylvania State University has assessed differing weathering conditions around the globe in an attempt to better understand the rate-limiting factors for major rock types. In their paper published in the journal Science, S. L. Brantley, Andrew Shaughnessy, Marina Lebedeva and Victor Balashov describe comparing experimental results with tests conducted in the real world to learn more about how much carbon dioxide is pulled from the air by rock weathering. Robert Hilton, with the University of Oxford, has published a Perspective piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team on this new effort. Prior research has shown that as rock is exposed to natural weathering elements such as heat, cold, wind, rain and ice, it releases minerals that eventually sequester atmospheric carbon, but the amount has been difficult to measure. In this new study, the researchers carried out testing at a large number of sites to estimate global carbon dioxide sequestration. When carbon dioxide gas comes into contact with wet rock, carbonic acid is formed. Over time, it leads to the creation of soluble minerals and bicarbonate, a type of carbon. Such products slowly make their way through rivers, streams and groundwater to the ocean, where the minerals and their carbon are locked away. This process has been going on for millions of years, the researchers note, and it explains why the planet has not grown much hotter from all the carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by volcanoes. To gain a better estimate of how much carbon is naturally sequestered by rock weathering, the researchers subjected many types of rocks to artificially induced weather conditions in the lab. They then collected soil samples from 45 sites around the world and analyzed them, comparing their makeup with the materials weathered in the lab. They more clearly identified the factors that inform the amount of carbon that is released or sequestered. They found, for example, that less carbon is released from minerals in cooler places, where mineral supplies are low and where there is little rainfall. More work is required before they can make global estimates, but the researchers note that initial calculations suggest that rock weathering sequestration of carbon dioxide is not nearly enough to offset the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the air by human activities. More information: S. L. Brantley et al, How temperature-dependent silicate weathering acts as Earth's geological thermostat, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.add2922 Robert G. Hilton, Earth's persistent thermostat, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.adf3379 Journal information: Science 2023 Science X Network An Uncasville woman was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of her boyfriend in Montville last October, according to the Connecticut State Police. Diane Nobleza, 55, is facing charges of second-degree reckless manslaughter, first-degree assault of an elderly victim, second-degree breach of the peace with violence or threatening and intentional cruelty to persons after investigations revealed that she shoved her boyfriend into a wall in their home during a dispute, causing him to bleed profusely and die after lying on the ground for several hours in their living room, according to the arrest warrant. The Montville Police Department was called to the apartment on October 13, 2022, after 1:20 p.m. for a report of an unresponsive man. Responding officers found the 64-year-old man unresponsive and cold to the touch. Paramedics began to perform CPR on the man but could not regain a pulse. He was pronounced dead at 1:58 p.m. Investigators spoke with Nobleza, who called the police and was the only person to interact with the man in the hours leading up to his death, according to the warrant. She told police that he fell and hit his head on the refrigerator at 4 a.m., then crawled into the living room where he stayed all morning. She told police he had two cuts on his head and had bled significantly, the warrant said. She said she helped him stop the bleeding with towels. Nobleza allegedly told investigators that the man adamantly refused to go to the hospital when she suggested it, the warrant said. She allegedly said she then left the apartment to go to a methadone clinic around 6 a.m. and he was still on the living room floor when she left and returned . According to the warrant, she said he was still alive when she got back. She allegedly told police she then took a shower at 10 a.m. for half an hour and again found him lying in the same spot, but he was cold to the touch. She said she called the police to report that he was unresponsive, but police records show she did not call until over three hours after her shower supposedly ended, according to the warrant. Nobleza said she also called the mans sister-in-law and told her it was an emergency, I dont think he is breathing I need help, the warrant said. The sister-in-law gave a statement to police saying she got a call at 1:30 p.m. from Nobleza, but did not answer. Police took a written statement from Nobleza on Oct. 13, 2022, which had some inconsistencies with what she told them earlier, according to the warrant. The written statement said Nobleza and the man had been involved in some verbal and minor physical disputes in the months leading up to his death. She also said that both she and her boyfriend had begun drinking the day before around 2 p.m., had dinner at 4 p.m. and continued drinking, before her boyfriend became mean. She said she left the apartment, called her boyfriends sister-in-law and returned at 5:10 p.m., the warrant said. She said the boyfriend was better when she returned but was mean to her again around 10 p.m. She went to her bedroom until 4 a.m. when she heard her boyfriend fall and ran to the kitchen. She said she cleaned up the blood, put a towel under his head in the living room and rolled him onto his side so he could sleep, the warrant said. Nobleza told investigators that she watched him for three hours before taking a shower at 11 a.m. for 15 to 20 minutes, which is an inconsistency from her initial statement. She said she found him unresponsive and cold to the touch after cleaning the towels. She also said that her boyfriend told her he may have a concussion and refused medical attention before she showered, the warrant said. She finished her written statement by saying that she and her boyfriend pushed and shoved each other before she went into her bedroom the night before, but he did not fall, the warrant said. Due to the inconsistencies reported in her statements, police requested to interview her again and she agreed, the warrant said. She met with police at the Montville Police Department around 5:40 p.m. on Oct. 12, 2022. Nobleza allegedly told investigators that she had been involved in several verbal arguments with her boyfriend in the few months leading up to his death. She said she does not work and had been taking care of him full-time because of his medical issues. She allegedly gave a different timeline of events during this interview. According to the warrant, Nobleza said she was arguing with her boyfriend in the living room on Oct. 12 around 8 p.m., when he reportedly grabbed her arm and she pushed him into the wall inside their shared bedroom. She allegedly told police he hit the back of his head in the fall, the warrant said. She told investigators he was not injured in the fall and was able to get up to sit in a chair, the warrant said. She then went to lay down to watch television in their bedroom and did not check on him again until 4 a.m., when she found him lying face up and bleeding from the back of his head. She looked after him for two hours until going to the methadone clinic at 6 a.m., returning around 7 a.m., according to the warrant. During this interview, she allegedly changed the time of her shower and the time of her phone call to the sister-in-law again. She also allegedly said she left a voicemail rather than speaking to the sister-in-law directly in this interview, the warrant said. Police concluded the interview and then obtained permission to reconstruct the scene at her apartment, the warrant said. Nobleza reportedly showed them where the man hit his head, allegedly changing the location of the fall from their shared bedroom to the living room. She told police she shoved him pretty hard into the wall. She allegedly admitted this is when he sustained his head injuries, the warrant said. She also allegedly said she had attempted to clean some of his blood off the wall, according to the warrant. On Dec. 12, 2022, investigators received a report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner stating that the cause of the mans death was Blunt force injuries of head and torso, which caused complications because of cardiovascular disease, and the manner of death as a homicide from an altercation with another. His blood alcohol level was 0.059, below the legal limit, the warrant said. Police then applied for and obtained the warrant charging her with manslaughter. Nobleza was arrested at her apartment in Uncasville on Wednesday and transported to Troop E in Montville without incident, state police said. Nobleza is being held in lieu of a $100,000 bond and was transported to York Correctional Institution in East Lyme. She was scheduled to appear in Norwich Superior Court on Thursday. FORT ANN A Fort Ann upholstery business owner with multiple felony convictions has been arrested again for allegedly failing to complete work. State police said they received a complaint on July 1 that Joseph M. Fusco, 59, took over $1,000 from a customer for an upholstery job. Fusco did not complete the work and failed to return the victims money. Fusco was taken into custody on Tuesday by the Washington County Probation Department and transported to the state police station in Greenwich for processing. He was charged with felony fourth-degree grand larceny and sent to Washington County Jail to await arraignment. Fuscos family has run The Crooked Stitcher in Fort Ann, which does upholstery work for boats. The business has had multiple issues dating back to 2001 with customers complaining that they accept money and dont follow through on jobs. This leaves boats without seating or cushions. Fusco and his wife, Jennie Fusco, have faced charges on at least three occasions in Warren and Washington counties and once in Columbia County, according to Post-Star archives. The family has said they have had some bad luck that has affected their ability to finish jobs. The couple were acquitted in 2001 in Glens Falls City Court but convicted in 2008 in Washington County Court and sentenced to probation. They were convicted again in 2010 and sentenced to state prison, according to prior media reports. Jennie Fusco said she went to prison because she failed to pay the entire $26,000 in restitution in that case. U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, on Wednesday introduced legislation to establish a federal Workforce Pell Grant program. Eligibility for federal Pell grants, traditionally restricted to college students enrolled in degree programs, would be expanded to include short-term workforce training programs offered by credentialed educational institutions. As our country stares down a historic worker shortage, fewer Americans are getting the skills they need to be successful. That is all about to change, Stefanik said in a news release. Programs could be from eight to 15 weeks in duration, providing from 150 to 600 hours of instruction. The proposed legislation requires training programs to report statistics measuring their success to the federal government, which would publish the statistics. The legislation H.R. 496 had four original co-sponsors, all Republican, including Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. Local business leaders and workforce development officials have frequently said that many employers in the region need employees with specialized skills, rather than college graduates, to quickly fill openings due to the labor shortage. At the state level, Gov. Kathy Hochul, in her State of the State plan, proposed the state provide $10 million in grants over two years to school districts, BOCES districts and community colleges to develop workforce training programs aligned with the hiring needs of local employers. In other regional political news: Tonko at White House U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, spoke at the White House on Tuesday at a celebration of enacting a law he introduced to streamline the process for authorizing medical providers to prescribe a drug to treat opioid addiction. Federal law made it easier to prescribe potentially addictive opioids than to treat someone with opioid use disorder. Well, that has come to a turn in the road, Tonko said in a 7-minute speech. Tonko introduced the House version of The Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment Act, which was incorporated into comprehensive budget legislation that passed the House and Senate in December and President Biden recently signed. The legislation eliminated a requirement that medical providers apply for a separate, duplicative waiver from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to be authorized to prescribe buprenorphine, a medication to treat opioid addiction. Santos End Citizens United, a political action committee focused on campaign finance reform, on Jan. 19 urged E-PAC, the political action committee of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, to donate to charity a $5,000 contribution from Rep. George Santos, R-Long Island, who has been criticized for fabricating much of his resume and accused of campaign finance and personal financial indiscretions. Stefaniks campaign did not return repeated requests to comment that The Post-Star left via email and voicemail over several days. Liz Lemery Joy, the Republican candidate in the 20th Congressional District in November, is among those who have said Santos should resign. Time to resign! Joy posted on Facebook on Jan. 18. This isnt about party or majority. This is about right vs. wrong. In a telephone interview on Jan. 20, Joy said she previously called on Santos to resign on Dec. 27. He willfully deceived the voters and the donors on the very essence of who he is, she said. Representatives in Congress must be able to have the trust of the people. He should resign. Overpass renaming State Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, on Wednesday, introduced legislation to name the Charley Hill overpass above the Adirondack Northway in School Lake as the Trooper Lawrence P. Gleason Memorial Bridge, in memory of a state police officer who was killed in the line of duty in 2002. Victim impact State Sen. James Tedisco, R-Glenville, on Wednesday introduced legislation to require that crime victim impact statements be videotaped, and that members of the state Parole Board be required to view the statements before conducted a parole hearing for the individual convicted of the crime. The legislation has four co-sponsors, all Republicans. Joy eyeing 2024 Republican Liz Lemery Joy said she is keeping the option open for a third run for Congress in the 20th District. I have not closed my FEC (campaign fund) account purposely, and I will be making a decision soon, she said in a telephone interview on Jan. 20. Joy, a former blogger and speaker from Schenectady, unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, in 2020 and 2022. Scorecard U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, received an A+ grade, the highest grade possible, on a new congressional scorecard from Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political advocacy organization. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., all received F grades. Grades are based on voting and sponsorship during the 2021-2022 congressional session. FORT EDWARD A public hearing will be held Feb. 6 by Village Board members to discuss dissolving the Fort Edward Police Department. Dissolving the department was a topic of discussion at the September board meeting, and one of the driving forces for dissolving the department is the lack of retention of officers. At a special meeting on Jan. 11, the board accepted the resignations of officers Joe DeAngelo and Morgan Brown as both are starting new positions with the Washington County Sheriffs Office. The proposed resolution states that the abolishment of the department was not an easy decision. The board of trustees has studied the continuance of the village of Fort Edward Police Department, which has suffered from staffing and leadership shortages; and whereas, the board of trustees has arrived at the difficult decision to consider abolishing the village of Fort Edward Police Department, the resolution read. ... The Village Board finds that the proposed local law and the abolishment of the village of Fort Edward Police Department to be in the best interests of the residents, inhabitants and guests of the people of the village of Fort Edward. At the Jan. 11 special meeting, Mayor Matthew Traver said he had discussions with both Fort Edward Police Chief Phil Lindsey and Washington County Sheriff Jeff Murphy about the office space at the back of the village and town office building. I spoke with Chief Lindsey and Sheriff Murphy and originally they said they didnt need the space and everything could be done at the county. After several talks over the weeks they said that they may need one room in case of any walk-ins or (to) take a statement rather than sitting in a police vehicle, he said about the possible transition. The Feb. 6 public hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. FORT EDWARD The Washington County Board of Supervisors approved transferring $1 million in sales tax revenue to the countys capital planning fund at its Jan. 20 monthly meeting, keeping an agreement board members made during the 2022 budget process. Hebron Supervisor Brian Campbell, the county budget officer, wanted to put $1 million in the capital planning fund but other supervisors balked, concerned that pandemic-driven high sales tax revenues in 2021 might not continue in 2022. Supervisors compromised on restoring the $1 million if the years sales tax revenues exceeded $25 million. They came in at $27.7 million, triggering restoration of the funds. The board then moved $200,000 from the capital planning fund to the contingency account for the Middle Falls highway barn project. The board had allocated $250,000 for the first phase of the project, but purchase of adjoining land cost $60,000 and engineering and architectural services came in at $359,000, leaving a deficit of $169,000. In a separate resolution, the board awarded engineering and architectural services to LaBella of Latham, the lowest of six bidders. In other business: The board approved an opioid settlement agreement with Teva, a drug distributor named in the countys lawsuit against Purdue Pharma L.P. and other pharmacy companies. The suit, filed in Suffolk County, alleged that Teva failed to comply with its state and federal obligations to prevent diversion of prescription opioids to pharmacies and others in Washington County. Teva offered to settle with the county as part of a statewide agreement. No amount was named in the boards resolution but some of the funds will be restricted for use in opioid-related issues. The board agreed to write off deleted and uncollectible taxes for tax years 1954 to 1983. The county treasurer and real property tax director had determined that the parcels no longer existed, were roadways, or the taxes were uncollectible under state law. The total was $19,448, which was charged against the countys allowance for bad debt account. Cambridge Supervisor Cassie Fedler recognized Easton resident Kathryn Campbell for earning the Girl Scout Gold Award for community service. Campbells project was the creation of a safe haven for the Snowblazers snowmobile club trail in Cambridge. Campbell arranged for the donation of an 8-foot-by-10-foot shed, a 1971 snowmobile that she helped restore for display on the roof, heaters, tools, first aid kits, a picnic table, fire pit and seating so that riders on the trail have a safe place to rest and warm themselves and tend to minor mishaps. Campbell is also a member of the Greenwich High School Honor Society, a dairy princess alternate, cheerleader for three sports, and has a part-time job, Fedler said. She noted that the board has recognized Boy Scouts who earned their Eagle award but never a Girl Scout for achieving the Gold. The board sent proclamations recognizing responders to the Dec. 14 accident involving a propane truck in Putnam. The half-full truck overturned, injuring the driver, and caught fire. Seventeen agencies from two counties and the state took 17 hours to rescue the driver, extinguish the fire, clear the scene and reopen the road to traffic. Ive worked a few of these in my previous life, said board chairman and Argyle Supervisor Bob Henke, who is a retired conservation officer, and theyre pretty tense and dangerous situations if you dont handle them right. That was worthy of a proclamation. Dresden resident Marilyn Gordon asked the board to fund restoration of the county park at Huletts Landing. The staff has kept the buildings painted but the situation is beyond paint, she said. The park serves many families that dont have lakefront properties on Lake George. Gordon said shed like to see tax money come back to the community. The board approved a settlement with Greenwich Solar 1 LLC, which operates in the town of Easton. In July, the company filed suit in state Supreme Court in Washington County against the Easton assessor, Board of Assessment Review, town of Easton and the county. The terms of the settlement were not cited in the resolution. Calls for service are up 49% year-to-date in January over the same period last year, and arrests are up 101%, Police Chief James Sarkos said at the CitiStat meeting Wednesday. So far there have been 7,011 calls for service, Sarkos said, compared to 4,695 calls for service at the same time in January 2022. There were 205 arrests so far this January, compared to 102 last year, he said. Up to Jan. 22, police have recovered 12 guns this year, Sarkos said. Ten were handguns, one a shotgun and one a ghost gun, he said. Sarkos encouraged people to download the police departments anonymous tip line app called acpd 411 app. Some of the gun recoveries were made thanks to tips that came in through it, he said. The biweekly CitiStat meetings are designed to solve problems and hold municipal department heads accountable. They will rotate between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. this year, officials have said. The next one is 10 a.m. Feb. 8 at the Scarpa Academic Building at Stockton Universitys city campus. Chief praises officers work Sarkos congratulated officers for handling situations over the last two weeks that could have resulted in use of deadly force but, because of the officers dedication and training had safe outcomes. Bravo Platoon 2 officers commanded by Lt. William Tracy responded to the south block of Laclede Place for a ShotSpotter alert, where they encountered an uncooperative suspect under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, Sarkos said. The suspect went into his home and came out with a rifle, but officers negotiated with him and the suspect dropped the weapon, which turned out to be an airsoft rifle. Sarkos said police believe the suspect, who was taken to a hospital for evaluation and has been charged, was attempting to force officers to shoot him. In the second instance Sarkos said Alpha Platoon 2 officers responded to the 1900 block of Bacharach Boulevard for a report of a man with a long gun. Sgt. Mohammed Kaiser talked to the suspect and encouraged him to drop the weapon, which was later found to be fake. The suspect was found to be responsible for one burglary and one attempted burglary in the area, Sarkos said, as he congratulated all officers involved in both cases. Sarkos also reported that police have conducted 92 safety checks in the area of Texas and Florida avenues between Atlantic Avenue and the Boardwalk from Jan. 9 to Jan. 22, after a resident complained of drug dealers using the area at an earlier meeting. A property owner has secured his location to keep people from using it to conduct illegal activities, Sarkos said. Fire house to get new truck Fire Chief Scott Evans reported the fire suppression unit has responded to 223 calls so far this year: 125 rescue and emergency calls; 17 service calls; 33 false alarms; 23 good intent calls; 19 calls about hazardous conditions; and 6 fire calls. The fire prevention division performed 24 fire inspections, 3 reinspections, and issued 13 permits, Evans said. Evans also said Engine 3 fire house will soon take possession of a new fire truck that was ordered about a year ago to be used in the West Side Neighborhood. MAYS LANDING Two brothers pleaded guilty Thursday to assaulting an Egg Harbor Township teen who was later found dead outside of a Pleasantville strip club. John Hands, 30, and his brother, Garnell, 25, both of Pleasantville, pleaded guilty before Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Nancy Ridgway to aggravated assault charges in connection with the death of 19-year-old Irving Mayren-Guzman. Earlier this month, Jamaul Timberlake, 31, of Atlantic City, also pleaded guilty to aggravated assault charges in connection with Mayren-Guzman's death. As part of the plea deal, John Hands faces a sentence of four years in prison, while his brother faces five years in prison. Timberlake faces four years in prison. All three are scheduled to be sentenced on March 3. The Mayren-Guzman family and their supports gathered at the Atlantic County courthouse with "Justicia para Irving" signs, Mexican American flags, and apparel with Mayren-Guzman's face on them. The family expressed their disappointment in the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office for offering the trio plea deal. "Porque quatro anos," said Eulojeo Mayren, the victim's father, as he cried outside the Atlantic County Courthouse. In the court room, Mayren-Guzman's supporters filled one side of the courtroom, and nine members of the Hands' family filled the other. As John Hands admitted to hitting Mayren-Guzman in the head three times during the Jan. 23, 2022, assault, mother Sara Guzman-Mayren started crying. She tried to hold back her tears as she muffled her sobs with a handkerchief. Father Eulojeo Mayren, briefly put his head down to hide his tears. "This case has been a very emotionally charged case since the beginning, and I understand why," said Ridgway. "My condolences go out to the family." The brothers both admitted in court to purposely causing bodily injuries by engaging in a fight with Mayren-Guzman. "If they didn't assault my son, my son would still be here today," said Sara Guzman-Mayren. "I wish we all didn't have to be out here but look at the circumstances." Video surveillance showed an altercation between Mayren-Guzman and the three men at the club. An autopsy that took several months to complete attributed Mayren-Guzmans death to drowning, hypothermia and intoxication. Ridgway granted a motion to release John Hands pending sentencing, but the motion was held for five days in case the state wanted to file an appeal. John Hands' father let out tears of joy hearing his son would be released from prison soon. Centerfolds Cabaret on Delilah Road in Pleasantville, where the assault took place, has been closed since last February after their mercantile license was taken away. EGG HARBOR CITY While Atlantic City officials trumpet plans to become the cannabis capital of the East, a much smaller city about 16 miles west on Route 30 also has plans for the new industry. Last week, the Egg Harbor City Land Use Board approved a site plan and variances for a 63,500-square-foot cannabis cultivation facility on a wooded lot on Moss Mill Road in the citys industrial business park, and downtown, renovations are underway on a former bank building at 201 Philadelphia Ave. to become the countys newest cannabis retail location. When sales to adults without a medical marijuana card began in New Jersey last spring, the only licensed retail locations were already approved for medical marijuana sales, including The Botanist in Egg Harbor Township, currently the only legal spot for recreational sales in Atlantic County. New Jerseys Cannabis Regulatory Commission has been approving new licenses, including a vote in December approving a yearly license for cultivation sites and other businesses. Among them was Med Leaf LLC, the company set to open in Egg Harbor City. Mayor Lisa Jiampetti said she expected the business to be open in the spring. Med Leaf is owned by Kuldip and Viraj Vikani, a married couple, along with Sergio Barraza-Ingstrom, who said Thursday the company received its final approvals from Egg Harbor City last week and is set for a pre-construction meeting with staff members of the Cannabis Regulatory Commission next week. He said the company hopes to be ready to open by April 20, often stylized as 4/20, which has become a cannabis holiday. Barraza-Ingstrom said they expect a lot of business at the location and that he expects the new business to help revitalize the citys downtown. The other cannabis proposal for the city is an application from High Grass Farms LLC for a cannabis cultivation building with a partial second story at 1520 Moss Mill Road. Also operating as Phoenix Health Ventures, the company received city support for its cannabis license application in September 2021. As a member of the citys Land Use Board, Jiampetti voted in favor of the new cannabis cultivation site on Moss Mill Road on Jan. 17. Those plans do not include retail sales, she said, adding that the company appeared poised to get the needed state licenses and start building soon. An attorney representing the company did not respond to a request for interview Thursday. The LLC did not have a listed phone number or a website. The company has a mailing address in Little Egg Harbor Township. Jiampetti said she believed the project would mean an investment of around $6 million. So were excited, she said. Jiampetti said the township will welcome the jobs the facility will bring, as well as the tax revenue and the continued development in the industrial park. Because cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, companies cannot ship between states, even between contiguous states where both have legalized, without risking federal drug trafficking charges. That means New Jersey will need to expand its licensed cultivation centers, like the one proposed in Egg Harbor City, to supply an increasing number of dispensaries. Project information filed as part of the application states that cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and wholesale distribution are permitted uses in Egg Harbor Citys Industrial Business Park zone. The board approved size variances for the proposed building, as well as for the number of parking spaces. The application proposes 56, while 91 are required. The boards approval was conditioned on storm water management improvements at the site. Last year, Atlantic City reviewed multiple cannabis business applications, including a cannabis dispensary and consumption lounge on Atlantic Avenue approved in November. The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, which operates as Atlantic Citys Planning Board, also approved a 125,000-square-foot cultivation facility at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue. Atlantic City approved a Green Zone Redevelopment Plan, making cannabis businesses a permitted use in much of the city, in hopes of drawing economic development from the newly legal industry. Several other area communities also have approved cannabis sales within their municipal limits, although not all have yet seen applications from potential cannabis businesses. ATLANTIC CITY Two city residents were arrested early Wednesday morning after they allegedly assaulted a pair of employees and stole cigarettes and potato chips from a city convenience store. Scotteara Newmones, 30, and SeAira Dixon, 26, are charged with robbery, simple assault and criminal mischief, police said in a news release Thursday. Newmones was separately charged with unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Officers were called to the store in the 1700 block of Atlantic Avenue at 1:58 a.m. Wednesday for a reported fight. Two employees told the officers Newmones and Dixon assaulted also them, then fled in a car. Newmones also allegedly threw a coffee pot at one of the employees during the fight, police said. At 2:12 a.m., officers found Newmones and Dixon in the vehicle after stopping it in the 300 block of North Tennessee Avenue. Both women were subsequently identified as the suspects who committed the alleged crimes at the store, police said. PENNS GROVE One of the states largest advocacy groups of Latinos on Thursday repeated their demand that the state Attorney Generals Office investigate a Millville Municipal Court judges allegations that Latino defendants were being discriminated against in his court. The faith of Millvilles and New Jerseys Latino communities in our judicial system has been profoundly shaken by this blatant discrimination, retaliation and attempted cover-up, Cuqui Rivera, programs coordinator for the Latino Action Network Foundation, said during a press conference on Thursday. We must be assured that this matter is being addressed at the highest levels. The New Jersey Latino Action Network first called for a state attorney probe last month after Millville Municipal Court Judge Jason Witcher publicly criticized what he said was a systematic bias against Latino defendants, or those with Spanish-sounding surnames. Witcher alleged those defendants were being forced to appear in person for court, while other defendants were permitted to appear remotely online. The group wrote a letter to state Attorney General Matthew Platkin on Dec. 22 asking his office to investigate. The Attorney Generals Office has not responded, Rivera said. On Thursday, the group demanded the New Jersey Attorney Generals Office answer whether it would investigate or not. The state Legislative Latino and Black caucuses in December joined calls for an independent investigation into the matter. The Attorney Generals Office does not confirm or deny the existence of any investigation. Virtual appearances have become common courtroom practices since the COVID-19 pandemic began, sending proceedings statewide onto the internet to promote social distancing protocols. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner signed an order Oct. 27 permitting certain municipal court cases to proceed virtually through Zoom. Witcher however alleged that Hispanic defendants were not provided that option in his court when he first spoke publicly, a rarity for a sitting judge. Earlier this month, Witcher repeated his claims in court, saying he was still seeing the trend, NJ.com reported. The states court system has undertaken an investigation into Witchers claims, and expects to issue its findings in an official report next month. The Administrative Office of the Courts first learned about Witchers statements in December, immediately initiating what court spokesperson Pete McAleer said was a comprehensive investigation, with the court hiring an outside attorney who interviewed the judge and others. The courts also are reviewing court calendars dating back to last June, McAleer said. We also are working with the Division on Civil Rights in the Attorney Generals Office as it conducts its own review, McAleer said. The New Jersey Latino Action Network Latino-advocacy organization said it also wants the Attorney Generals Office to investigate allegations that Witcher was retaliated against for making his claims, which it says would violate the Whistleblower Act. The organization also has demanded Rabner assign a retired judge to examine if the Administrative Office of the Courts broke rules by stating to the media that, so far, its investigation into the matter prematurely said no discriminatory acts were identified. Latinos face discrimination in their daily lives, such as in the workplace, school and interactions with law enforcement, LAN President Javier Robles said. However, there must be safeguarded against the courts committing any wrongdoings to minority groups, he said. (Latino Action Network) is committed to fighting injustice and discrimination wherever they appear, and today, we call upon the attorney general and chief justice to join us in this battle, Robles said in a statement read by Rivera. State court officials in December said their investigation found Latinos were still being given both in-person and virtual appearances by the Millville Municipal Court offices. Rivera, however, accused court officials of leaking information about those determinations to the media too soon, saying doing so was an attempt to water down Witchers claims. When we do things like that, were incarcerated, Rivera said of Witchers public allegations. A judge should not have a higher standard than the community. A Hartford woman was sentenced Thursday to three years of supervised release and a fine for trafficking firearms from North Carolina to the Northeast, officials said. Brandi Wiggins, 36, appeared in court in New Haven and was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer to a total of three years of supervised release and a $3,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorneys office. Wiggins, formerly of Glastonbury, purchased several guns in North Carolina that were later found by investigators in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts, officials said. The Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives became aware of Wiggins, who bought the guns between April 2016 and November 2019 and then sold them at pawn shops and through a website that specializes in firearm sales, officials said. Wiggins pleaded guilty in August to engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license, a felony offense, officials said. Judge Meyer handed down a sentence that was below the recommended sentencing guidelines after considering extraordinary circumstances in Wiggins life, including her prior involvement in an abusive relationship with her ex-husband, according to the U.S. Attorneys office. GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP The syrup is starting to flow into the South Jersey. The Stockton Maple Project held a public exhibition at its site on the campus Thursday. Interested onlookers from the area came by to watch the team tap the red maple trees, extract their sap and prepare for the creation of maple syrup. Stockton Mathematics Professor Judith Vogel, the lead on the maple project, spoke to an assembled crowd about how maple-syrup production has traditionally been a cause for community celebration. She explained the scientific process behind maple sugaring and invited the crowd to explore the site. Later, Vogel said she was proud of how the project has developed over the last year. Its very exciting, because as it grows here in production, it is also growing in the community, Vogel said. Were just getting so many more people participating and interested and just learning and thats our goal here. The project uses the red maple trees local to Stocktons campus to produce syrup. The apparatus involved in the sugaring process winds around the bush, with a web of tubing fixed into taps that have been drilled into the trees. Due to the pressure differential, the sap flows through the tubes into a releaser and then a tank. Trucks then collect the sap in the tanks and take it to the sugar shack manufacturing site, where the sap is boiled into syrup. Ryan Hegarty, a Stockton alumnus and the research assistance for the Maple Project, said the project had placed about 400 taps in 382 trees for the project this year. He estimated to collect about 3,500 gallons of sap. The sap is about 2% sugar and every 60 gallons of sap yields one gallon of syrup. I think year was a great year, we learned a lot, Hegarty said. This year we made a lot of improvements to make this an even better season. Chris Pazienza and Janai Reaves-Ortiz, Stockton alumni and community service coordinators for the university and, said they heard about the tapping process and were excited when they found out if was held right on campus. I met these lovely people at university weekend and I was fascinated to see what was going on, Reaves-Ortiz said. Organizers emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of the maple project, assembling different departments at Stockton. Economics Professor Mariam Majd developed an economic and business model for the project, evaluating how it could be an asset in the community. Environmental Science Assistant Professor Matt Olsen was comparing how South Jersey maples produce sap with the sap production of maples from other areas. He said Thursday that the project was a way to introduce the community to his field and pique their curiosity. This is kind of a gateway, in a sense, Olson said. Kind of demystifying nature a little bit. That was certainly the case for some involved in the project. Dylan Budd, a Stockton freshman, had volunteered for the program as part of his service hours. He said the project allowed him to explore the outdoors and interact more with nature. They had a maple-syrup table set up and they just gave me free samples and I was hooked, Budd said. I didnt think (the project) was going to be this big. I came out here and I was like whoa. I think the systems cool. Initially intending to major in economics, the experience played a role in convincing him to switch his major to environmental science. I knew that I liked being outdoors, but being here, I realized I just love being outdoors, working out in the woods, Budd said. People could come onto campus and adopt a tree from which to collect sap and have made into syrup. Brooke Hunt was with her children and had just moved to Egg Harbor Township from Australia. She said the event would be a fun way to celebrate local nature as a family. We wanted to come out and see it for the kids, Hunt said. We like to be outdoors, so this is fun for them. Magda Hunt, Brookes mother, had adopted the trees for the children. She attended the tapping with her grandchildren after seeing the event advertised in the local newspapers and said thought the event would be an experience that could stick with her grandchildren. I just wanted them to just experience the process, Hunt said. They learn through experience. The project is funded by a series of grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture worth over $900,000. The federal grants are designed to stimulate the maple sugaring industry in South Jersey while advancing relevant research and engaging the local community A special focus was placed on engaging area educators and students. Debby Sommers, a Stockton environmental-science graduate and a middle-school science teacher in the township for 31 years, was the education coordinator for the project. Since September, Sommers has been reaching out to area schools to have students involved in the process. She has also visited the schools and held assemblies teaching students about extracting sap and manufacturing syrup from South Jerseys red maples. Krystyne Kennedy, a Science, Technology and STEM supervisor at Barnegat Township School District, was at the tapping Thursday. She said the students were being taught about the technology involved in the sugaring process as well as the different career paths in science. It also complemented a new program for high school students where they will explore and analyze the ecosystem between the Pine Barrens and Barnegat Bay. There are roles in science that they might not have thought of before, Kennedy said. Hopefully it gets them to care about whats around them a little bit more, opening their eyes to whats out there. Vogel said she appreciated both the educational and social value of the program. She said the event has given her new reason to appreciate the winter season as a time for friends and family. We mark our lives by season and what a wonderful way to mark each year of our life to be out here in the woods with friends and some of our family, and I consider so many of you family, Vogel said. So, Im very grateful for this season of maple sugaring and I want you all to know that every part of the community is an important part of this project. Cops with riot gear also deployed near university gate Four Jamia Millia Islamia University students associated with student outfit Students Federation of India (SFI) were detained while classes were suspended after the screening of a controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi was announced at the Mass Communication department in the evening on Wednesday. Meanwhile, police teams with riot gear were also deployed near the varsity gate. The screening of the documentary was scheduled around 6 p.m. However, the varsity had said on Tuesday that the administration will not allow any unauthorised gatherings on campus after the SFI announced the screening. Stone pelting at JNU A high drama prevailed at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus on Tuesday late evening after the students alleged that they were attacked with stones while watching the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. IANS Oreva owner expresses readiness to look after 7 kids, whose parents died in Morbi tragedy The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday said that even if Oreva Group pays compensation to kith and kin of Morbi bridge collapse victims, criminal trial against its director will continue. A bench of Chief Justice Arvind Kumar and Justice A J Shastri made the observation after Oreva group director Jaysukh Patel, in an affidavit submitted to the court, offered to pay suitable compensation to kith and kin of victims. In the affidavit, Patel submitted that he is willingly and unconditionally ready to take responsibility of seven children who have lost their parents in the tragedy. He further said that he took the repair work not for any commercial work but to preserve the heritage and some influential people had helped him to get this work. The director submitted that he is even given maintenance and repair work of Jamsab tower clock in Rajkot. The state government in its reply stated, There are 1441 over bridges across the state, of which 63 major bridges need repair, of total over bridges, 168 major bridges and 180 minor bridges are in the municipal corporation areas, other over bridges are in nagar palika area, of 100 odd bridges, 32 are major bridges, 27 of them are under repair. On October 30, 2022, a suspension bridge on Machchhu river in Morbi collapsed, in which 135 persons were killed. The said bridges repair and maintenance work contract was given to Oreva group by Morbi Nagar palika. Without proper permission and fitness certificate, the Oreva group director had thrown the bridge open for public. The High Court taking suo motu cognisance of the tragic incident, had impleaded Oreva group director as respondent in the PIL. IANS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patel, in affidavit, says he took repair work not for commercial gain but to preserve the heritage. Some influential people had helped him to get it The police had arrested 21 HRS activists, including their leader Dhananjay Desai in the Mohsin Shaikh murder case In a 2014 case involving the murder of 28-year-old Muslim techie Mohsin Shaikh, a court in Pune acquitted all accused suspects, including Dhananjay Jayram Desai nicknamed Bhai, the head of the extreme organisation Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS). Mohsin, a Solapur native, worked as an engineer at a private enterprise in Pune. Youths associated with the HRS allegedly attacked Mohsin while he was walking home with his friend Riyaz Ahmed Mubarak Shendure after offering prayers at a mosque in Hadapsar on the night of June 2, 2014, during the communal clashes that erupted following the circulation of objectionable images of Shivaji Maharaj and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on social media. Mohsin died a few hours later while receiving treatment at a hospital. Mobin Shaikh, his brother, then filed a first information report (FIR) in this matter at the Hadapsar police station. In this instance, the police arrested 21 HRS activists, including their leader Dhananjay Desai, a resident of Parmar Bungalow in Paud. While one of the accused was recognised to be a child, the other twenty were apprehended by authorities. All were eventually released on bail. Following Mohsin, the HRS activists allegedly attacked two additional people: Amin Harun Shaikh and Ejaz Yakub Bagwan. The police recorded their statements, which were also appended to the chargesheet submitted in court against the offenders. The police had included records of past offences against Desai as well as information about his alleged hate statements against Muslims during various public gatherings in the charge sheet. Desai's lawyer contended that he was wrongfully charged in this case despite the fact that he was not present at the crime scene. The court ruled in favour of the accused. "All accused individuals have been acquitted citing lack of evidence," said Desai's lawyer, Milind Pawar. A system coming out of Canada will bring the chance of 1-3 inches of snow on Saturday that will be followed by a blast of arctic air that will drop daytime high temperatures into the teens at least through Thursday, Meteorologist Brian Pierce of the National Weather Service, said Thursday night. The system that will generate the Saturday event just came on shore in British Columbia, Pierce said Thursday night. It will dive down the British Columbia coastline and enter western Washington and then move into southern Idaho and will and continue heading east. Pierce said the system would induce a new low system to develop in the lee of the Rocky Mountains, the side facing away or turned from the wind, and where that low develops will dictate how much snow were going to get in this area. Behind that system is a mass of cold air that will descend on the region and be around at least through Thursday, he added. There will be a little rebound Wednesday, but most of the week the daytime high temperatures will be below 20 degrees, Pierce said. For Friday, there is a chance of snow before 10 a.m. with breezy conditions with a south wind gusting up to 30 mph. This could cause whatever snow may be falling to blow creating issues with visibility for drivers. The high Friday is expected to reach 36 degrees. Snow accumulation is not expected to exceed a half-inch. There is a 20% chance of snow just after midnight with a west wind blowing at 15-20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph. The daytime high Saturday is expected to reach 28 degrees with an east wind blowing at 5-15 mph. Snow accumulations of 1-3 inches was expected based on Thursday nights weather models. The amount of snow the area could get will depend on how the system tracks. Sundays high under partly sunny skies is expected to be 19 degrees with an overnight low into Monday of 7. Mondays high is expected to reach 14 degrees with an overnight low into Tuesday of minus-4 degrees. Tuesdays high is expected to be about 14 degrees with an overnight low of zero. The mercury will rebound somewhat Wednesday with a high of 21 degrees. But the overnight low into Thursday is expected to drop to zero. Thursdays high is expected to be about 17 degrees. A Davenport man with a criminal history that has kept him in prison, on probation or on parole since 2002 was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison after a jury convicted him in August on child pornography and weapons charges. During a sentencing hearing Monday in U.S. District Court, Davenport, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger sentenced Juan Dontae Shelton, 39, to 120 months, or 10 years, in federal prison for being found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm and a concurrent 120 months, 10 years, for possession of child pornography. Ebinger then sentenced Shelton to a concurrent term of 330 months, 27 years, for his conviction on a charge of production of child pornography. Upon completion of his prison sentence, Shelton must serve seven years on federal supervised release. He also must register as a sex offender. There is no parole in the federal system. Shelton will be given credit for the time he has served in custody awaiting trial. The case against Shelton started June 1, 2021. According to the initial criminal complaint filed by Davenport Police Detective Daniel Reeves, Davenport officers were sent to investigate a report of a hit-and-run in a Davenport neighborhood. Scott County Dispatch had informed officers that a black Chevrolet Impala had struck some bushes and landscaping in a yard, as well as a street sign before leaving the area. Dispatch also provided officers with a possible license plate to the vehicle, as well as a description of a Black man wearing body armor and carrying a rifle. A witness told police that Shelton was arguing with passengers in the car when he got out and retrieved a rifle and body armor from the trunk before leaving the scene. Officers located the Impala and identified Shelton as the driver. Officers also saw two women in the car. A squad car attempted to perform a traffic stop on the Impala, but the vehicle refused to stop for several minutes. Officers observed Shelton and the two women making furtive or suspicious movements by bending down and actively reaching around the inside of the car. When the Impala finally came to a halt, officers ordered Shelton out of the car. Officers saw a large item being moved around the inside of the car. When Shelton got out of the car, officers saw he matched the description of the Black male given to dispatch by callers to 911. During a probable-cause search of the car, officers found in the glove box a loaded turquoise 9mm handgun that had been reported stolen in May 2021. Shelton was a suspect in that particular burglary. On the rear passenger floorboard, officers found a loaded Tippman Arms .22-caliber rifle and a purple Sig Sauer handgun that was in a holster. There also was camouflage body armor. The body armor had three ballistic panels inside. From the vehicle, officers seized a Crown Royal alcohol bag that was hidden in a diaper bag in the back seat. The bag contained three plastic bags containing 60.25 grams of marijuana, and seven plastic bags containing 15.65 grams of suspected methamphetamine. There also was a digital scale and wire cutters. As part of the drug investigation, Sheltons cellphone was seized pending a search warrant. While at the scene, Sheltons phone was getting calls from phone numbers that did not have names assigned to them. During a search of Shelton, officers seized $1,445 in cash. Shelton was indicted on the charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. When Sheltons cellphone was searched, it was found to possess child pornography, including multiple videos that he had recorded showing himself with a minor victim engaged in sexual acts. A superseding indictment was filed Jan. 11, 2022, in U.S. District Court, Davenport, with added charges of production of child pornography and possession of child pornography. On Aug 10, a federal jury found Shelton guilty of the charge of felon in possession of a firearm. On Aug. 16, another federal jury found him guilty of the child pornography charges. Sheltons convictions in Scott County District Court include first-degree theft, second-degree robbery and willful injury causing serious injury. Scott County District Court electronic records and Iowa Department of Corrections electronic records show that Shelton violated his probation or parole several times. Shelton was last discharged from parole in Scott County on Sept. 8, 2022. I purchased a new bicycle for my 12-year-old daughter this month and received a tongue lashing from a salesperson in return. The Springfield salesperson asked if she was interested in a cross-through bike. I had no idea what he was talking about. I was familiar with mountain bikes, road bikes and hybrids. But Id never heard the term cross-through. I told him I didnt know what a cross-through bike was. So, he rolled one onto the sales floor. The top bar dipped down toward the pedals. I replied, Oh, you mean a girl's bike. Apparently, Id trod into a linguistic minefield. We dont ascribe genders to inanimate objects, the salesperson said to me in a rather derisive tone. He added, Sometimes elderly men prefer cross-through bikes so they wont have to lift their legs so high. I explained to him that when I was in college, I was a pretty serious biker but I had never heard the term cross-through bike. At this point he eyed my gray hair and said, It looks to me like its been a long time since you were in college. In case you think this was some young whippersnapper, the salesperson appeared to be in his 60s. I was contemplating leaving this family-owned business and buying my daughter a bike at the big-box sporting goods store across town. But as the salesperson and I conversed, my daughter was busy ogling the bicycle in question. She said she loved it and it was the perfect color. I swallowed hard and made the purchase. I made a decision to extend this man some grace, even if he wasnt willing to do the same for me. Why? Well, I didnt want to disappoint my daughter. And even though I was being treated rudely, I didnt necessarily disagree with what the man was saying. Just because I have always heard such bicycles referred to as girls' bikes doesnt mean that is the best terminology. In my decades in journalism, Ive always tried to use inclusive terms such as police officer, firefighter and pastor rather than policeman, fireman, and clergyman. A transgender teenager works at a store I frequent. I always address him by his new name and by his preferred gender. Its a matter of kindness. He always gives me a big smile. And no that doesnt mean I endorse a particular agenda. I just believe when in doubt its best to be kind. In the same vein, the salesperson at the bike shop might have received a better response if he applied some kindness to his own message. He could have said something like, When I was growing up, we called them girls' bikes too. But now we call them cross-throughs because some older men also prefer them. That would have been a polite way to have said it without being ageist or ascribing bad motives to someone using an outdated term. When my parents were growing up, the word negro was the term that educated, polite people used. When the 1970s rolled around, my siblings and I had to keep reminding my dad that Black was the preferred terminology. We reminded him of this gently. Repeatedly. After all, he was not being mean-spirited in clinging a little too long to the word he had been taught was proper. As the lexicon changes, extending grace to others is helpful. And rudeness rarely wins allies to your cause. There is a difference between being oblivious and being hateful. For example, when I was a young reporter, I had a supervisor who used a term for a bundle of sticks to refer to gay people. He chortled when editing obituaries for gay men who died of AIDS. I wish some of the people who are convinced that newsrooms are full of woke left wingers could have met this jerk. No one should have to put up with anyone like that. Hate was behind his words. He knew better. But oftentimes when someone misspeaks or uses an outdated term, its done out of ignorance. Its best to inform rather than condemn. Genesis Medical Center in Davenport has welcomed another hospital to its east campus. Select Specialty Hospital has a 17-year history in Davenport, according to CEO Codie Dillie. It currently is located at 1111 W. Kimberly Road, the former Davenport Osteopathic Hospital. Select is a critical illness recovery hospital, meaning it accepts patients that need continued, complex care. Dillie said these cases could range from needing a ventilator to surgical complications. By transferring to Select, acute-care hospitals, like Genesis, can free up space in the ICU. "They come to us and we can provide a higher level of medical care, and we get a little more time with them to allow them to recover," she said. Genesis Davenport President Jordan Voigt said the move had been in the works for some time. Weve always had ongoing discussions. However, about two years ago, we approached Select and pitched a vision on moving to the East campus," he said. Genesis reconfigured the space by moving the surgical specialty unit and adding a new orthopedic floor to the hospital. Select will now share a floor with the ICU, making the patient transition much faster. Voigt said part of the benefit of subleasing space to Select was it would allow Genesis to admit more critical care patients. In turn, it will benefit patients by allowing them to be transferred to a different side of the hospital, as opposed to being put in an ambulance and going off campus. "By having Select here, we will be able to expedite care for ... those patients down the floor," he said. "Really, it enhances the quality of care here." Dillie reflected that sentiment, saying the stability of being a "hospital within a hospital" means patients will no longer have to travel outside of the building for certain tests and procedures. Dillie said patients were already being transferred to Genesis locally, and moving into the building made natural sense. "Now, instead of loading them into an ambulance ... we will just put them in an elevator and wheel them down the hall," she said. Select accepts patients from as far as the University of Iowa, Dubuque, Cedar Falls and, on the Illinois side, all the way down to Peoria. By moving to Genesis, Select will decrease bed size from 50 to 35. The downsizing was based the the amount of space Genesis had available, Select not filling all 50 beds at its former location and the move being, "good for the community," Dillie said. Equipment is being moved in now, and patients will follow on Tuesday. An East Moline woman whose ex-boyfriend allegedly entered her apartment, struck her in the head with a loaded gun and held her captive was able to escape and call police after he fell asleep. According to a news release issued by East Moline Police Chief Jeff Ramsey, Marshawn Shareesio Pitts, 29, of Davenport, is alleged to have struck his ex-girlfriend in the head with a loaded handgun and held her captive in her apartment. At 4:39 a.m. the woman was able to get out of the apartment and call police after Pitts fell asleep. The woman told police that Pitts was still in the apartment. Officers went to the apartment in the 1000 block of 51st Avenue and set up a perimeter while also evacuating the surrounding apartments for the safety of the residents. A search warrant for the apartment was approved through the Rock Island County States Attorneys Office and signed by a judge. The search warrant was served by the Moline-East Moline Crisis Containment Unit. Pitts was taken into custody without incident. A loaded handgun was located during a search of the apartment. The woman suffered minor injuries during the incident. Pitts is charged in Rock Island County Circuit Court with one count of aggravated domestic battery, a Class 2 felony under Illinois law that carries a prison sentence of 3-7 years. He also is charged with aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery, each a Class 3 felony that carries a prison sentence of 2-5 years. Pitts also is charged with aggravated assault, interfering with reporting domestic violence and criminal damage to property. Each of those charges is a Class A misdemeanor that carries sentence of up to one year in the county jail. Pitts was being held Friday night in the Rock Island County Jail on a bond of $150,000, 10%. Pitts made a first appearance on the charges Saturday morning in circuit court where the judge set a date for a preliminary hearing for Feb. 14, 2023. A New Haven man was found guilty of murder on Thursday in connection with a fatal shooting on Court Street in December 2019, according to the Division of Criminal Justice. New Haven Superior Court jury found Robert Parris, 56, of New Haven, guilty of murder, criminal possession of a firearm and carrying a pistol without a permit. Parris also was convicted of criminal possession of a pistol or revolver in a separate case before the court. On Dec. 19, 2019, the New Haven Police Department was called to 109 Court St. at about 4:15 p.m. on reports of a man shot. When they arrived, they found Michael Rosario, 55, with a gunshot wound to his head. Rosario died the following day at Yale New Haven Hospital, according to the DCJ. Police said it appeared that Rosario and Parris knew one another and that the shooting followed some sort of verbal argument between the two men. At the time of his arrest, Parris also had an active arrest warrant for violating a protective order, according to New Haven police. Our thoughts are with the Rosario family at this time as Michael Rosarios life should not have ended in such a tragedy, States Attorney John Doyle said. While his loss is undoubtedly felt deeply by his family, we hope this verdict eases some of their pain. Parris sentencing is scheduled for April 5 in New Haven Superior Court. DES MOINES A state law advanced Thursday by a three-member panel of House lawmakers would limit the length of freight trains traveling through Iowa. The subcommittee voted unanimously to forward House Study Bill 88 to the full House Transportation Committee for passage that would limit the length of freight trains operating in the state to 8,500 feet, or roughly 1.6 miles. An identical bill cleared initial review in the 2022 Iowa Legislature, but died in committee. Having been stuck, like we all have at a railroad crossing, once I get past 100 cars I get pissy. I do understand that, subcommittee member Rep. Brent Siegrist, R-Council Bluffs, said. Im inclined to move it forward, although Im not sure I will fully support it in committee yet. I want to hear more. I have some questions, but at the same time Im not totally opposed to it. Freight trains have been getting longer nearly 3 miles in some cases. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report from 2019 found the average length increased by about 25 percent since 2008, with average lengths of near 1.4 miles in 2017. That has raised concerns that trains may block traffic more often at road crossings, impeding emergency responders and prompting unsafe pedestrian behavior, such as climbing through stopped trains. Chris Smith, state director for SMART-TD, a union for transportation workers, said 1,468 blocked crossings were reported in Iowa in 2022. Of those, 502 were reported blocked for at least an hour, and several reported blocked for more than a day, he said. Braking and other operations can also be more complex for these longer trains, according to the GAO report. Smith, too, said many of todays train cars were not built and Iowas railroad infrastructure never designed to pull more than 100 to 135 cars. As a result, coupling mechanisms have failed in many cases due to increased stress and fatigue of the metal, Smith said. Now, theyre running 290-car pull trains, he said. The materials, designs, statistics and safety were never tested to the lengths that theyre producing today. Railroad traffic through Iowa also could increase soon with the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. Some officials and residents in cities along the route, including in the Quad Cities and Muscatine, have expressed concern about the increase in the number of trains as well as the increase in their length. We have some problem in Eastern Iowa with the CP/KCS thing, especially for my town in Camanche has a problem with the long trains, said subcommittee member Rep. Tom Determann, R-Clinton. So Im inclined to take it to committee for more discussion. Representatives for the nations largest railroads argue federal law preempts state and local attempts to regulate railroad activities. Under the U.S. Constitution, interstate commerce is regulated by the federal government. All of these arguments are persuasive and they lead to a federal solution and a federal solution only, said lobbyist Michael Triplett, who represents Union Pacific Railroad. Should Iowa or any other state pass conflicting standards regulating the activities of railroads, the supply-chain gets wrecked, Triplett said. If there is to be a solution that is broad enough that can handle the questions of interstate commerce, which is the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government, this should be handled by the Surface Transportation Board or the Federal Railway Administration at the federal level, he said. The railroads also contend trains of all lengths have been safely operated for years, and that longer trains maximize resources and reduce fuel and labor costs. We have a facility in Western Iowa where we do testing while the trains are going through on the track. Its innovative. If theres something that needs to be fixed, we fix it, Triplett said. I dont want you to be left with the impression that we ignore things and we just drag lots of cars through here. That makes no economic sense for us. If makes no logistical sense for us because cars that cant run because weve broken them are cars that we cant use to serve our customers. Limiting the length of trains would only lead to more trains running through communities, said Brad Epperly, a lobbyist representing BNSF Railway Co. I dont think thats going to improve your safety, Epperly said. Smith argued the longer trains are part of a corporate strategy that has driven workers to the breaking point and led to a decimated railroad workforce that is impeding efforts to transport goods. Over the last six years, Class I freight railroads which include BNSF Railway, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern Railway, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific have hemorrhaged a combined 45,000 workers, according to the Surface Transportation Board. Thats nearly 29 percent of their workforce. Epperly argued the union could have negotiated for shorter train lengths during recent collectively bargaining over a new contract, but chose not to. Congress last month passed legislation binding companies and workers to a proposed settlement reached in September, but rejected by some of the 12 unions involved, in order to avert a nationwide rail strike. The Iowa bill now moves to the full House Transportation Committee for consideration. DES MOINES With meat purchases now back on the table, the debate at the Iowa Capitol over proposed additional restrictions on the food assistance program known as SNAP turned to more familiar territory: eligibility and work requirements. Republican state lawmakers advanced legislation Thursday that for the SNAP program a joint operation of the state and federal governments would require an extra layer of identity verification for recipients, require the state to examine records to ensure recipients are still eligible and require recipients to work at least 20 hours a week, with some exceptions. Technically, the bill also still contains a provision that would limit SNAP users to only foods approved for the WIC program for expectant mothers which would eliminate meat, fish, poultry, nuts and many cooking essentials. But Republicans say they plan to amend it and eliminate only candy and soda, except for zero-calorie sodas. Despite that pledge to constrain the food restrictions, the proposal found plenty of detractors at its first legislative hearing at the Capitol. Of the 40 organizations that are formally registered as either supporting or opposing the bill, 37 oppose the proposal while just three support it, according to state lobbying records. Opponents include food assistance and charity groups like food banks, parochial groups and health care organizations. The three supporters are groups that advocate for limited government and spending and lower taxes. United Way of Iowa advocacy officer Dave Stone said the organization opposes the legislation because of a number of provisions that will create additional barriers for eligible families who need these benefits. Cyndi Pederson, a lobbyist for the Iowa Food Bank Association, called the proposal for new testing of a SNAP recipients financial worth very burdensome. Pederson said Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Director Kelly Garcia has done a good job reducing administrative burdens in the department and reducing the error rate in programs like SNAP. She also noted that Pennsylvania in 2015 ditched its asset test for SNAP after a three-year pilot program that saw administrative costs outweigh any reductions in spending: by eliminating the asset test, the state saved $3.5 million annually, state officials said according to news reports. Many states have moved away from an asset limit because its an administrative burden, Pederson said. Proponents of tighter restrictions on food assistance eligibility say the added measures are need to rein in program costs and ensure the people who are receiving the assistance are the ones who genuinely need it. SNAP is funded by the federal government and jointly administered by the federal and state governments to individuals and families who meet income restrictions. Iowas share of the programs administrative costs in the 2020 budget year was $22 million, and its average administrative costs of $27.84 per case per month was 18th-lowest among U.S. states, according to federal data. House Republicans moved the SNAP bill just two days after approving $345 million in new state spending on private school financial aid, a program that has no income restrictions. The intention of this bill is to ensure Iowas welfare programs are sustainable and remain available for the Iowans who truly need them. These programs provide a necessary safety net for low-income Iowans, and the Legislature wants to make sure the Iowans receiving assistance from these programs are truly eligible, Rep. Tom Jeneary, a Republican from Le Mars who ran the hearing, said in his emailed comments on the bill. This bill protects the taxpayer by codifying practices to authenticate identity of applicants and requiring verification information prior to enrollment, Jeneary wrote. This bill importantly requires Iowas welfare program eligibility processes to be merged into one single system that will verify all income information of applicants and make sure there is no fraud in the program. Iowas average monthly SNAP participation of roughly 279,000 in the 2022 budget year was the lowest since 2008, according to federal data. Any legislation that would change Iowas SNAP program would require federal approval. With the two Republicans on a three-member legislative panel signing off on the bill, House File 3 advanced to the full House health and human services committee. Photos and video: Iowa legislators pass governor's private-school funding bill Jordan Blake and David Qualls were hard at work Wednesday morning, fixing a garbage disposal in apartment 102 at Timber Knoll Apartments in Moline, when they heard a loud ringing. The Rent QC workers had no way of knowing when they walked out of the first-floor apartment how important their next steps would be. Fire was ripping through the two-story, 16-unit apartment building. Fifteen of the units were rented to tenants and the ringing Blake and Qualls heard was smoke detectors, signaling them to rapidly spreading flames. The fire was primarily on the second floor when they walked into a first-floor hallway. While the Moline Police Department praised the efforts of those who helped rescue Timber Knoll residents, Qualls and Blake shunned the spotlight. Qualls declined to comment, and Blake was unavailable for comment Thursday. But the owner of Rent QC, J.C. Millman, offered their account. It was around 10:15 a.m., he said, when a call came into the Rent QC offices about a water leak in the building. "Dave (Qualls) and J.J. (Blake) were already in the building, but we sent another maintenance worker over," Millman said. "Here's what I know from what everyone told me: "Dave (Qualls) and J.J. (Blake) walked out into the hallway and there was smoke coming down from the second floor. They tried to go up the stairs, but they were fully engulfed in flames." Qualls and Blake started down the first-floor hallway, knocking on doors to alert tenants. At some point, the smoke became so thick they had to crawl on their bellies. "J.J. (Blake) had to leave the building first because the smoke was too much. Dave (Qualls) stayed and made sure he knocked on all the doors. Then he got out." Once Qualls and Blake were out of the building, Millman said, they turned their attention to the tenants on the second floor. "Dave (Qualls) told J.J. (Blake) to get the ladder from his truck," Millman said. "That's when the guys from Asplundh Tree Service showed up. They were helping Dave and J.J. get people off the second-floor balconies." Millman described how a man and woman reached the balcony with an infant. "The lady was holding her baby and she dropped the baby down to J.J.," Millman said. "Then they got the lady and the man down." Moline Police cruisers quickly arrived and parked beneath another balcony. "They had people jumping down from the balcony to the top of the police cruisers," Millman said. "It was a real team effort all around." He said, "A lot of heroic people" responded to the fire. "What our employees did, and the crew from Asplundh, was just amazing," he said. "And the police, first responders and firefighters were amazing too. We just can't thank everyone enough." Rent QC is working to find alternate housing for the tenants displaced by the fire, Millman said. Police said the fire was arson and arrested Frederick Jermaine McKenzie, 36, of Moline. He was being held Thursday in the Scott County Jail on an interstate warrant and $100,000 cash-only bond. He waived extradition to Rock Island, where he faces charges of arson and aggravated arson. He is a former resident of Timber Knoll, police said. Court records show he was evicted from an apartment there in December. Photos: Fire damages Timber Knoll Apartments in Moline Council Bluffs firefighters found a dead man and a dead dog inside a burning house near Lake Manawa Wednesday. Firefighters were called to 114 Black Hawk St. just before 8:50 p.m., the Council Bluffs Fire Department said in a Thursday press release. Firefighters headed to the fire were told a person may be trapped in the house. When they arrived, smoke and flames were coming from the structure. Fire crews found a dead man and a dead dog inside. The southeast portion of the house sustained heavy damage, and the rest sustained smoke damage, according Dan Roberts, fire investigator at the department. The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Council Bluffs Fire Marshals Office. The identity of the man who died will be confirmed in an autopsy, although requesting an autopsy is standard procedure when there is a fatality in a fire, Roberts said. The Daily Nonpareil's Tim Johnson contributed to this report. Counties with the longest life expectancy in Iowa Counties with the longest life expectancy in Iowa #47. Osceola County #47. Henry County #43. Washington County #43. Howard County #43. 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Winneshiek County Iowa lawmakers are moving forward with setting the states funding rate for K-12 public schools after passing a bill devoting millions to private school education assistance. A bill in the Republican-led Senate, Senate Study Bill 1081, would set the increase in state aid to public K-12 schools to 2%, which is lower than Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed 2.5% increase. House Republicans have not released a bill for school funding. In a statement on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver, R-Grimes, said Senate Republicans have not met to consider school funding for the next year, and the bill is a procedural step to begin the process of setting funding. Lawmakers are required to set school funding within the first month of the legislative session. We will meet next week on school funding and determine the position of the caucus at that time, Whitver said. Our proposed increase in school funding will be sustainable, reliable, and timely, just as it has been for the last six years. The Senate Education Committee is expected to take up the bill on Monday. Republican House Speaker Pat Grassley of New Hartford said House Republicans have not settled on a funding rate they will propose, but he said at no point in time have House Republicans considered a 2% increase. Hopefully next week wed be in a position where we could be able to introduce something, but at this point we really havent landed on a specific number yet, he said. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill into law on Tuesday that would create taxpayer-funded education savings accounts that parents can use to pay for private school and related expenses. Reynolds office estimated they would be valued at $7,598, the states full per-pupil allocation, assuming the Legislature bumps up funding by 2.5% this year. Since 2011, when Republicans gained control of at least one legislative chamber, state aid to schools has increased by an average of 1.9% annually. Democratic leaders told reporters on Thursday the proposed 2% from the Senate was not enough. Weve seen that Republicans are putting private schools and the big corporations that are going to be operating many of them first, and our public schools second, Senate Democratic leader Zach Wahls of Coralville said. Medical malpractice bill advances A measure that would cap cash awards at $1 million for pain, suffering and other non-economic complications from medical malpractice suits continues to advance in the Iowa Legislature. A three-member subcommittee moved Thursday to advance House File 102 and recommend passage by the House Health and Human Services Committee. Rep. Heather Matson, D-Ankeny, declined to sign off on the bill. Matson said she needed more information about how Iowa ranks relative to other states for medical malpractice rates, whether Iowas medical malpractice industry is sitting on a large surplus as some have claimed and a 10-year trend line of medical malpractice jury awards in Iowa. I worry about one-size-fits-all solutions, Matson told the Gazette, echoing concerns from opponents the bill places an arbitrary limit on financial rewards to Iowans who are severely injured during medical procedures and erodes patients rights to just compensation. Speakers representing the medical community said the legislation is needed because without the cap, physicians are hesitant to work in Iowa and it becomes difficult for hospitals and clinics to recruit and retain doctors. And they said without a cap, the cost of insurance can rise high enough to drive hospitals or clinics to close, especially smaller ones in rural areas. Iowa is one of 22 states that does not have a cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice states. Wisconsin, South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri all have caps on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases. Representatives of the medical community pointed in particular to a more than $97 million judgment from 2022 award to a family whose newborn suffered permanent brain damage when its head was crushed due to health care providers using improper procedures during delivery. As a rural legislation with rural hospitals, I am acutely aware of the difficulties it is to bring physicians, physician assistants, nurses in the rural areas, said subcommittee member Rep. Joel Fry, R-Osceola, who voted to move the bill along with Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday recommended passage of a companion bill by the full Senate. House passes 'movie prop money' bill Iowa House lawmakers on Thursday passed a bill 94-1 that would make it a felony to use fake movie prop money to buy goods and services in Iowa. The measure now heads to the Iowa Senate. The bills look authentic, but read For motion picture use only on the front and say copy on the front and back. Because of that disclaimer, the Iowa Court of Appeals in 2018 vacated the sentence of a Black Hawk County man convicted of forgery for purchasing a cellphone using a fake $100 bill that was used as a prop in a movie. Despite the disclaimer, bill floor manager Rep. Jon Dunwell, R-Newton, said Iowa businesses are being purposely defrauded with little legal recourse as individual pass off as real money the prop currency used on stage and screen that can easily be purchased online at places like Amazon Rep. Ken Croken, D-Davenport, recounted receiving a $20 prop bill and trying to use it to purchase groceries unaware it was fake. Its totally convincing and caused an embarrassing moment for me, Croken said on the House floor. Under the House-passed bill, someone who uses movie prop money to buy goods or services could be charged with a simple misdemeanor up to a Class C felony, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine, depending on the value of property or services fraudulently obtained. House lawmakers Thursday also unanimously passed a measure prohibiting non-compete agreements between an employer and a licensed mental health professional. Such agreements limit the ability of mental health professionals to practice in the state at time when Iowa is grappling with a mental health crisis and shortage of providers. Black bear hunting A bill that would make black bears a protected species in Iowa advanced in the Iowa House on Thursday. The bill, House File 89, would make it illegal to shoot, trap or hunt a black bear except when law allows for it. There are no protections currently in Iowa law for black bears, and it is not a crime to hunt them. The bill is an attempt to protect the potential resurgence of the species in Iowa, said Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville, who introduced the bill. The bill would allow the Legislature or DNR to set hunting seasons and regulations for black bears. Black bears are originally native to Iowa, but there has not been a sustained population for more than a century, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. They occasionally wander into northeast Iowa from Wisconsin or Minnesota. There have been more than 40 black bear sightings in Iowa since 2002, and the DNR expects their population may increase in the near future, according to a 2021 press release. The bill unanimously passed out of a three-member subcommittee on Thursday. Child safety seats and drivers tests The Senate committee on transportation advanced a pair of bills proposed by state agencies. The transportation committee approved Senate Study Bill 1026, which was proposed by the state public safety department and would require children to ride in a rear-facing car seat up to 2 years of age, and up to the age of 8 in a safety seat. The committee also approved Senate Study Bill 1028, which was proposed by the state transportation department and would allow behind-the-wheel instructors who are not licensed drivers education classroom instructors to give a final driving examination for drivers license tests. Both bills passed unanimously and are now eligible for floor debate in the Senate. Photos and video: Iowa legislators pass governor's private-school funding bill DECATUR State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, filed a lawsuit challenging the state's semiautomatic weapons ban late Thursday afternoon, marking the latest legal challenge to the two-week old law in a downstate court. The lawsuit was filed in Macon County Circuit Court and lists more than 600 plaintiffs in addition to Caulkins, who in a series of social media posts earlier this week encouraged gun owners to join the suit. Caulkins represents the 88th House District, which includes communities in DeWitt, Macon, McLean and Piatt counties. He said the lawsuit filing was carefully prepared and seeks to challenge the new law on fresh grounds. I am not a lawyer and I dont know how you would say it, but you will see some new claims in there, he said. Hopefully, well get a positive reaction from the court. It is at least the third lawsuit to be filed in state court against the state's ban. Last week, Tom DeVore, the 2022 Republican nominee for attorney general, filed a lawsuit in Effingham County on behalf of more than 850 plaintiffs. A judge later granted a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the ban on those party to that lawsuit. DeVore and former state Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, filed a similar lawsuit on Monday in White County, listing more than 1,600 gun owners and a handful of gun shop owners as plaintiffs. As in those cases, Caulkins and the plaintiffs in this suit will also seek a restraining order shielding them from being subject to the law. Everyone is concerned, said Dan Cooley, the owner of the Bullet Trap in Macon and one of the plaintiffs in the Macon County lawsuit. There's a great deal of pushback on this bill and folks are upset about it. It's a violation of the Second Amendment. Several gun rights organizations, including the Illinois State Rifle Association and the National Rifle Association, are challenging the law in federal court. State lawmakers passed and Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the semiautomatic weapons ban into law two weeks ago. Illinois is now the ninth state with a ban on assault-style firearms. After years of being a third rail in state politics, momentum built up following a mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Highland Park that left seven dead and dozens wounded. And it comes as the nation is still reeling from back-to-back mass shootings in California. And some 39 mass shootings have happened throughout the country in the first three weeks of 2023. Caulkins acknowledged the grim numbers but said the lawsuit was about protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners. Any time someone is murdered is painful, we dont minimize any of that, he said. But this (the lawsuit) is about people, law-abiding citizens, this about people who obey the law. These people are all FOID card holders and they have done the right thing. They have registered with the state, they have gone through the process, and they had to go through a background check to purchase a firearm. These arent the people that are the problem. Pritzker has defended the law as constitutional and did so again in an appearance in Decatur on Tuesday. Responding to a question about the litigation, he said: These are folks who are in the superminority among the public, superminority in terms of elected officials, people who lost elections who, now seeing that they dont like policy that they couldnt win at the ballot box on, now hope they can take to state court and win with a local judge, the governor said. Representing Caulkins and the more than 600 plaintiffs is Decatur attorney Jerry Stocks. Stocks told Herald & Review that they plan to file a motion for a temporary restraining order on Friday and expect a hearing sometime next week. Valerie Wells contributed to this report. Interactive: Find out more about mass killings in the U.S. Interactive: Number of mass killings by year Interactive: Mass killings by location scaled by number of victims Interactive: Search mass killing incidents Interactive: Timeline of mass killings scaled by number of victims killed Interactive: Number of mass killings and victims killed this year compared with previous years Interactive map: People killed by shootings, per 100,000 residents DECATUR Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the state's semiautomatic weapons ban filed a motion in Macon County Circuit Court on Friday seeking either a declaratory judgment that the law is unconstitutional or, at minimum, a temporary reprieve from its enforcement. It comes less than a day after a group of more than 600 plaintiffs, including state Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, and Decatur Jewelry & Antiques owner Perry Lewin, became the latest to challenge the two-week-old ban in a downstate court. Jerry Stocks, the group's attorney, said the motion offers the judge "more alternatives" than the motion for a temporary restraining order that was requested and granted by an Effingham County judge last week in a separate but similar lawsuit challenging the ban. "What they received in Effingham County was a declaration that essentially says 'timeout, we got to study all this before this gets enforced,'" Stocks said. "We're going to try to say something a bit different, that you can declare this unconstitutional, and the whole case kicks up to the appellate court, and not just call a 'timeout' pending other issues to be resolved." A hearing on the motion is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Feb. 3. Macon County Circuit Court Associate Judge Rodney Forbes has been assigned the case. If the motion is granted, Forbes has the option to issue a declaratory judgment, which would be a final legal action at the circuit court level. The case would then likely be elevated to the appellate court. Alternately, he could issue a preliminary injunction, which would block the ban from being enforced on the plaintiffs until the case is resolved, or a temporary restraining order, which would also block enforcement but only for a short amount of time. A hearing on a preliminary injunction is set for Feb. 1 in the Effingham case. The temporary restraining order in that case remains in effect for the time being. State lawmakers passed and Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the semiautomatic weapons ban into law two weeks ago. Illinois is now the ninth state with a ban on assault-style firearms. The measure also bans high-capacity magazines and strengthens the state's "red flag" law, which allows a court to take away someone's weapons temporarily if the person is deemed a danger. Within a week, lawsuits began piling up in federal and state court, with the former focusing on the perceived conflicts between the new law and the Second Amendment, and the latter honing in on the legislative process that proceeded the law's inaction. Tom DeVore, the 2022 Republican nominee for attorney general, is behind two of the state-level lawsuits, including the one in Effingham. At the federal level, groups like the Illinois State Rife Association and the National Rifle Association have filed lawsuits. 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 DES MOINES A rush is on in the Iowa Legislature to fix an oversight resulting from a previously passed property tax reform package that could mean potentially millions of dollars in lost revenue in the coming months for some Iowa cities. Lawmakers in 2013 passed a property tax cut package that, among other provisions, gradually lowered property taxes on multifamily residential units like apartments, nursing homes, mobile home parks and manufactured home communities to where they would be taxed at the same rate as all residential property by 2022. And in 2021, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a law including multi-residential properties in the residential property class beginning in the 2022 assessment year for taxes due in fall 2023 and in spring 2024. The bill eliminated multi-residential as a property tax classification. In doing so, however, no corresponding changes were made to the section of Iowa Code that defines the mathematical formula used to calculate the number used to establish the statewide taxable value for each property class subject to taxation by cities, counties, school districts, community colleges and other taxing entities The result: A higher percentage for residential property as a whole, because former multi-residential was included, said Julie Roisen, with the Iowa Department of Revenues local government services division. She said the department didnt catch the oversight until October, when staff calculated the property tax rollback rate. The rate is set annually by the department and is designed to cap the total taxable value for homes and farms from increasing more than 3 percent. If aggregate property values for homes and farms increase more than 3 percent, their taxable values are "rolled back" so that the total increase statewide is 3 percent. With former multi-residential erroneously included, staff calculated a rollback rate of 56.5 percent compared to what should be 54.6 percent. While that could be an unexpected relief for taxpayers, it could mean local governments have to scramble to find money to support the public services they planned. To fix the oversight, the governors office and the Department of Revenue filed a bill in the Senate that carves out all former multi-residential properties from calculating the property tax rollback rate for 2022 residential property tax assessments. With cities and counties in the throes of setting their budgets to take effect July 1, the error by the state has thrown the process into disarray and may cause cities, counties and school boards to either lose millions of dollar they planned on or raise tax rates more than they wanted. And the clocks ticking to make a fix. In order for the state and the county auditor to have the necessary time to administer the levying of property taxes, cities and counties are required to have their budgets approved and certified to the state and county auditor by March 31. School districts are required to have their budgets set by April 15. "The timing of (the bill) is frustrating as it changes the rollback percentage at the last minute in the budget process, Marion City Manager Ryan Waller told The Gazette. In its current form, (Senate Study Bill 1056) would eliminate more than $437,000 of revenue owed in FY 24 to our community because of our positive growth. Waller and Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany ODonnell, who was at the state Capitol and met with lawmakers Wednesday, said they hope lawmakers will invite Iowas mayors to the table to help find a collaborative and sustainable solution. I am extremely hopeful that mayors are a critical part of this conversation, ODonnell said. As a mayor of the states second-largest city, I am acutely aware of property taxes and the burden it can sometimes place on our citizens. I also know the expectations of our citizens in terms of the services they received and they frankly deserve. City Manager Geoff Fruin told the Iowa City Council this week the community would lose out on $1.7 million in planned revenue under the bill, which effectively sets a lower rollback rate of nearly 2 percentage points less. A majority of that $1.2 million would impact the general fund. At this point, all of the advice that were getting from the state is to proceed ahead with our hearing schedule, but we have to understand that this legislations been introduced, Fruin said. It may be entertained and passed, and if so, we will have that $1.7 million deficit, essentially, out of the gate with this budget. Fruin said the city has enough reserves, more than $5 million, to absorb the impact if the council decides to go that route. We created that emergency reserve for a scenario just like this, Fruin said. Its just unfortunate that its here before us today. At Tuesdays City Council meeting, Fruin said he wasnt ready to recommend any budget changes. He said city staff will work on analyzing options of how to overcome the challenges should the legislation pass, Fruin said. As you can imagine, cities across the state are sounding the alarm bells to their delegation, Fruin said. Were hopeful that nothing will happen, and the rate that they advertised last fall to cities so that we could begin the budget process will be honored. Coralville City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said the Iowa League of Cities met with the governors office this week to talk about the ramifications this would have on cities. The legislation as proposed does not amend any deadlines of the budget process. The Coralville City Council this week voted to table setting a public hearing date on setting the total maximum property tax rate until the councils next meeting Feb. 14. The bill is scheduled for a subcommittee hearing Monday. It is important for taxpayers and local governments to have clarity regarding the residential and multi-residential assessment rollback, said Sen. Dan Dawson, R-Council Bluffs, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Dawson said the committee will begin to evaluate the governors proposal and continue our work to protect the taxpayer. The bill, if passed, takes effect upon enactment and requires the Department of Revenue, within two business, to issue an amended order certifying to the auditor of each county the percentages of actual value at which all property is subject to taxation. "My initial take is this that it will be very detrimental to local communities, said Sen. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, ranking member of the Iowa Senates committee on tax policy. One county auditor, Jochum said, told her the bill would lead that county to increase is tax rate 29 cents to maintain current tax dollars. If not, county revenue would drop by $1.1 million. Gage Miskimen of The Gazette contributed to this report. Transparency is for suckers. Thats the message, loud and clear, from Gov. Kim Reynolds and her Republican enablers in the Legislature. Id suspect that this was another, particularly idiotic manifestation of the trans-phobia that has infected Republican officeholders the past few years. But no, Reynolds and GOP lawmakers are insisting on transparency through various priority bills in the Legislature while keeping the public in the dark. Everybody loves transparency as long as it required of other people. Reynolds recent interview with Amanda Rooker of KCCI-TV made that abundantly clear. Rooker asked Reynolds about the so-called transparency measures she is proposing for public schools. These may include ideas proposed in the past, like requiring teachers to post their lesson plans online or school libraries posting every title on their shelves. Rooker asked if Reynolds would also seek to impose those rules on private schools that receive taxpayer funds from her education savings account proposal. Reynolds stammered. Well, you know theyre held to you know, most of this would deal with public schools, would public schools right now. So you know, they it would just be public schools. That last phrase is the actual answer. Only public schools would have to post course details and library titles and whatever else the governor and GOP lawmakers can think of to demand from public schools. Why not private schools? If were going to dedicate hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to give parents a choice on where to send their kids, shouldnt that be an informed choice? But again, its the parent thats going to be making that decision. So if they feel that the school doesnt meet their expectations, or what theyre looking for, then theyre not going to transfer their child there, she said. So Im going to trust parents to do the research, to, you know, to make the decision of what environment is best for their children. Speaking of those taxpayer dollars that will be going to possibly secretive private schools, Reynolds said she is planning to hire a private company to handle the transfer of state money to parents and oversee how that money is spent. Lawmakers will not be informed about how that would be done and what company would be in charge until after the legislation has passed. And speaking of taxpayer money, House Speaker Pat Grassley told reporters last week that the House doesnt need to send the school scholarship bill through the Appropriations Committee to examine the spending. Why not? Because House Republicans have talked about the cost. Among themselves. In secret. I will tell you that, I probably talk so much about appropriations matters in caucus, I probably drive them nuts how much time we do spend on that, Grassley said. We take this very seriously, whenever we look at any sort of investment like this, and there has been significant time not only since we got to session, but leading up to session on what potential proposals would look like. So its not like we just started yesterday having that conversation. None of those conversations were in public, however. Neither the governor nor legislators discussed details of the current, vastly expanded, scholarship plan during the campaign. Republican and Democratic caucus meetings are held behind closed doors. The Senate did hold an appropriations committee meeting last week, but decided to push forward with the bill without a nonpartisan fiscal analysis. The chambers could send the bill to the governors desk as early as this week, without giving Iowans time to absorb the details. Then, theyll move on to talking about transparency for public school teachers, tax assessors, universities and all those other suckers. Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter. Close Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds hugs her husband First Gentleman Kevin Reynolds at the conclusion of the Condition of the State address, inside the Iowa House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Iowa Senate President Pro Tempore Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, applauds during Gov. Kim Reynolds' Condition of the State address, inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Attendees to Gov. Kim Reynolds' Condition of the State address applaud during the speech, inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber on Jan. 10 at the State Capitol in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds is escorted into the Iowa House of Representatives, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, to give the annual Condition of the State address, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Photos: Gov. Kim Reynolds delivers the condition of the state address Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds hugs her husband First Gentleman Kevin Reynolds at the conclusion of the Condition of the State address, inside the Iowa House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Iowa Senate President Pro Tempore Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, applauds during Gov. Kim Reynolds' Condition of the State address, inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Attendees to Gov. Kim Reynolds' Condition of the State address applaud during the speech, inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber on Jan. 10 at the State Capitol in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds gives the Condition of the State address to members of the Iowa Legislature inside the House Chamber, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. Gov. Kim Reynolds is escorted into the Iowa House of Representatives, on Tuesday evening, Jan. 10, 2023, to give the annual Condition of the State address, at the Iowa State Capitol, in Des Moines. After two days of deliberation, the courtroom erupted in tears of relief Thursday afternoon as a Pennington County jury announced the verdict in a triple murder case against a Bronx, New York man guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. The solemn eight-man, four-woman jury found that almost 2.5 years ago Arnson Absolu killed, with premeditation, Charles Red Willow, 26, of Rapid City, Ashley Nagy, 29, of Greeley, Colo., and Dakota Zaiser, 22, of Rapid City. Per South Dakota state law, Absolu will face a minimum of life in prison. "We're just thrilled," Roxanne Hammond, the lead prosecutor on the case told the Journal after the verdict. Prior to the reading of the verdict, the courtroom buzzed with energy as it filled with the victims' families, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, courthouse employees and personnel. When the judge walked in, the room fell silent anticipating the arrival of the jury. Absolu's body language remained steady through the reading of the verdict, but he let out a sigh as the judge discussed setting his sentencing date, which will take place a 1 p.m. Feb. 24. In the hallway after Absolu was escorted back to the county jail, his attorney, Timothy Rensch, congratulated Hammond on the victory. In return, she told him that he put up a good fight. Barry Young, the lead investigator on the case, and Luke Lang, who assisted Young in the investigation, were both emotional after the verdict. Zaiser's mother hugged the two men, thanking them for their work. In a case where the state spent eight days presenting witness and expert testimony, the defense chose to hold off on taking the floor until closing arguments on Wednesday. Rensch cross-examined the state's witnesses, but the defense did not call any of their own. In closing arguments, the defense worked to poke holes in the state's narrative that Absolu entered the drug scene in Rapid City a few months before the murders as "a man who thought he could be a big fish in a small pond" and recruited several people in the area to sell heroin mixed primarily with fentanyl, two witnesses testified during the trial. Red Willow ultimately owed Absolu money, which he was angry about and threatened to kill Red Willow over, according to witness testimony. Knowing that Red Willow wouldn't answer his calls, he asked Zaiser to contact Red Willow and set up a meeting on Aug. 24, 2020 after Zaiser was released from the Pennington County Jail at about 9 p.m. that evening. After Zaiser and Absolu traveled to Thomson Park in Rapid City to meet Red Willow, Absolu shot Red Willow seven times and Nagy once because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Red Willow and Nagy purchased snacks and drinks at a gas station before arriving at the scene. Absolu then killed Zaiser at an apartment on East Watertown Street in north Rapid City, the state argued, literally and figuratively stabbing him in the back. He then placed Zaiser's body in a plastic tub in the back of a rented blue Chevy Malibu. A 25-year-old man named Shamar Bennett testified he helped Absolu dispose of a bloody chair and rug and bury Bennett in a shallow grave near Sheridan Lake, where he was found badly decomposed on Sept. 22, about a month after his death. Zaiser's cause of death was never determined, but an examination of his bones showed sharp force trauma to vertebrae in his neck and more advanced decay in his neck and back. The defense sought to dismantle Bennett's credibility, pointing out that he lied to investigators over 300 times before finally leading them to the body. That attempt was ultimately not enough for the jury to find Absolu not guilty. Neither was the argument that the murder weapon a .40 caliber black and silver Smith & Wesson found in Rapid Creek didn't match a photo of a gun of the same make and model found on one of Absolu's three phones. Rensch also highlighted to the jury the lack of DNA, fingerprint and blood evidence in the case. Absolu's DNA was not found at the Thomson Park murder scene, and no blood evidence was found at the East Watertown Street apartment or in the fateful rented blue Chevy Malibu. The Malibu fell into one of the elements that Assistant Attorney General Trevor Thielen said during opening arguments led to Absolu's arrest: his missteps. The vehicle, which he rented from Casey's Auto Rental on Fifth Street, had a tracking device in it that led investigators to Absolu in the Bronx where he was arrested on Sept. 4, 2020 and extradited to Rapid City on Jan. 6, 2021. Investigators were able to narrow the investigation to that particular vehicle after viewing video footage of it near the scene, identifying its make, model and year range, and then checking car rentals in the area. The other two elements that prosecutors pointed to were the hard work of law enforcement and luck. What paid off the most is hard to quantify, but the state was ultimately successful in proving its case to a jury that Circuit Court Judge Robert Gusinsky thanked for their hard work and sacrifice before releasing them back into the public. A Sharon man was charged with risk of injury to a minor after a juveniles parent allegedly found sexually suggestive text messages on their childs phone, according to the Connecticut State Police. Leonardo Villanes-Medina, 23, of Sharon was arrested and charged with risk of injury/impairing the morals of a minor. He was arrested on an active warrant after appearing in Torrington Superior Court for an unrelated matter. The charge stems from an incident in August 2022, state police said. Troopers responded to a home in Norfolk after a parent reported that they had discovered a sexually suggestive text message conversation between their child and a person believed to be an older man. After the police arrived, the parents explained they had found the messages, which allegedly indicated that the juvenile had planned to meet up with the unknown texter the night prior at a business near the childs home to drive alcoholic beverages and give each other hickeys, state police said. The person reportedly sent a picture of the back of the business to the juvenile, indicating they had arrived. Further messages suggested that they had met in person on July 31, 2022. One of the messages sent by the juvenile read Im so drunk and parents explained that they had also noticed the juvenile possessed vaping materials, which were more expensive than the child would be able to pay for on their own. The childs cell phone was seized as evidence. During the investigation, police determined the unknown individuals number belonged to Villanes-Medina. Villanes-Medina, who was also known to live at the University of Connecticut Storrs campus, is also the subject of a pending criminal case charging him with second-degree sexual assault. He was also previously arrested by the UConn Police Department in April of 2022 and charged with fourth-degree sexual assault, a case which is also pending, state police said. He was released to Judicial Marshals on a $100,000 bond and arraigned the same day, state police said. One of the key tenets of juvenile justice reform in South Dakota keeping low-level youth offenders out of custody in favor of rehabilitative services and a return to public school attendance is causing headaches for South Dakota education officials, who say they are not equipped to deal with habitual offenders in school settings. That balancing act is the backdrop for Senate Bill 4, one of several proposed bills resulting from a 2022 legislative summer study that explored ways to improve cooperation between schools, law enforcement and courts as the state continues to assess its youth corrections strategy amid major reforms enacted over the past decade. Senate Bill 4 is a proposal to amend existing law so that a juvenile who re-offends after three separate and distinct criminal episodes in a 6-month period be committed to the South Dakota Department of Corrections system, which could mean hard detention, foster care or a placement such as McCrossan Boys Ranch in Sioux Falls or New Beginnings Center in Aberdeen. The bill, which was first considered Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee and continued to Tuesday, could be adjusted to increase the span of violations from six months to a year. The proposal comes as legislators are also considering legislation to study an optional educational path for troubled students and to improve communication between law enforcement and schools when a student is suspected of threatening violence or violating drug or alcohol laws. These issues are the core of South Dakotas quest to find the right balance between consequences for kids who commit serious crimes and encouraging counseling and family services for those determined to be less of a threat. The fact that the latter group frequently returns to public school classrooms has become a source of frustration for educators, who say they end up doling out discipline they feel should be handled by the courts while worrying that some potentially dangerous students may end up in schools. No one wants to go back to the way things were before (reforms were adopted), said Tim Graf, superintendent of the Harrisburg School District, the states third-largest system. For a while, there were too many detentions, but like many things it could be that the pendulum has swung back too far. Were trying to find solutions that are effective for schools and law enforcement while still addressing the initial concern. South Dakota ranked first per capita in the nation for locking up juveniles before implementing the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI) in Minnehaha and Pennington counties in 2010, followed by legislation in 2015 that restricts scenarios in which a youth offender can be detained. The law also offers financial incentives for counties that provide diversion opportunities such as support counseling rather than detention for young offenders. Pennington Countys diversion programs include a teen court, where offender cases are presented to a jury of their peers by teen volunteer attorneys, and a truancy prevention program that addresses the root causes of a childs behavior and links students and families to social services as needed. These methods can be used for juveniles facing charges such as underage drinking, shoplifting, marijuana possession, simple assault and truancy. The state juvenile corrections population has decreased from 520 individuals in Fiscal Year 2015 to 170 in Fiscal Year 2022, with judges more likely to utilize diversion programs, community supervision or house arrest with an ankle monitor unless offenders are viewed as a threat to public safety. In most of these instances, the child is expected to continue to attend public school, although some alternative education opportunities exist. A lot of times the child is released on conditions, and those conditions are going to involve going to school, said Annie Brokenleg of the South Dakota Unified Judicial System, who serves as statewide coordinator of the JDAI. The judge is going to want that kid going to school, because thats a protective factor for that kid. Schools want to see more accountability These diversionary measures are a matter of concern for some school and law enforcement officials, who see a lack of accountability in the courts that can lead to a revolving door of the same juveniles getting arrested and then placed back under parental supervision and in school settings, sparking concerns about disruptions and campus safety. Wade Pogany, executive director of the Associated School Boards of South Dakota, stressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 17 that the concern is with severe delinquency cases that administrators, teachers and counselors are not equipped to handle. Were going to have kids who run away or vape or commit petty crimes; we can handle that, Pogany said. What were really talking about are kids who are repeat offenders involved with serious crimes. I really cant understand how a student can be arrested on a firearms violation or grand theft auto and then be back in the school system again. Its not every day, but its becoming more prevalent that we hear of these things happening. Emma Otterpohl, a deputy public defender in Minnehaha County who specializes in juvenile cases, disputed the notion that a youth on house arrest should not be in a school setting. Sometimes it is simply a case of having run away from home in the past and requiring greater supervision, she said, rather than an indicator of high-level delinquency. Just because youre on an ankle monitor doesnt mean youre automatically a threat or a danger to anyone, Otterpohl said. The judge hears all the evidence at the custody hearing and gets updates as the case proceeds. If the judge believed there was a level of threat to the school or the community, its less likely that the person would be out in the community. If its that serious or violent of an offense, theyre more likely to be held in custody. The legislative focus on juvenile corrections comes at a time of increased truancy and disciplinary episodes in schools, according to educators who testified during the summer study. Tom Culver, superintendent of the Avon School District in southeastern South Dakota, told lawmakers that he has seen a drastic increase in excessive absenteeism over the past decade and that there appears to be a lack of consequences in the juvenile courts. There were 6,047 truancy complaints filed by South Dakota schools in 2021-22, an increase of nearly 300% from 10 years ago (1,558 in 2011-12), according to the Department of Education. Absenteeism rates have been on the rise since the pandemic, with 6.2% of students missing 30 or more days of instruction in 2021-22, up from 3.4% in 2018-19. Rob Monson, executive director of School Administrators of South Dakota, stressed that school officials dont want to lock kids up but would like to see DOCs other options, such as private placement programs, used more frequently for habitual offenders who could pose a safety risk at schools. If youre saying our juvenile justice tool was successful because were not incarcerating as many kids as we have in the past, many people will look and say, Wow, this has been a successful program, Monson said. But looking through a different lens, that of a superintendent or school board member, you might say, Yes, theyre not incarcerated, but these troublemakers are now in our hallways, and we do not have the programming and capacity to work with these students. Adding solar to an already unequal tax does not make it more equal, Harpstreith said. Rep. Clark Stith, R-Rock Springs, said he was surprised that the group which he described as advocating for how we need to tax fairly across the board and not favor one industry over another decided to oppose the bill. I dont understand why you think that its equitable to not have a similar tax on solar as on wind, he said. But the taxpayers association wasnt the only group to challenge that assertion. The developer of Wyomings largest wind energy project, Power Company of Wyoming, now also eyeing solar, took a similar position. The American Clean Power Association warned that the tax would make Wyoming less competitive against other states, and a Casper-based construction company said it could threaten local jobs. Bitterroot College had a 20% increase in enrollment for the spring semester compared to last fall thanks to robust dual enrollment programs and workforce partnerships. The growth in the school's student body was touted by the college's Interim Director Angela Mclean on Tuesday, who presented the information to a roundtable in Hamilton including University of Montana President Seth Bodnar. As I got ready to sit down in this room, I will tell you that I took a look at our spring numbers, and were over 20% from fall, Mclean said. And that is due to a lot of good messaging, really blood and sweat and hard work of our faculty and our staff and our students." UM officials hosted the roundtable of students, educators and valley business leaders at Bitterroot College to highlight the success of dual enrollment programs and workforce partnerships in the health care, biotech and trades/transportation sectors. They also announced the formation of the Bitterroot College Workforce Advisory Committee, to be chaired by Bitterroot Health Chief Transformational Officer Rebecca Conroy Bargfrede. The group is in the early stages of formation and is soliciting members to participate in creating a plan for how to best move forward in meeting the workforce training needs of the Bitterroot Valley. Also in attendance were UM Vice Provost Tom Gallagher, Hamilton Superintendent of Schools Tom Korst, Accelerate Montana Executive Director Paul Gladen, Rocky Mountain Laboratories Associate Director for Science Management Marshall Bloom and Bitterroot Health Workforce Development Coordinator Toby Wilson, among others. Mclean said community partnerships with organizations like RML have opened up broader relationships between Bitterroot College and biotech industries in the valley such as GlaxoSmithKline and Tonix Pharmaceuticals. She also highlighted the development of a certificate training program officials hope to roll out this summer in conjunction with Accelerate Montana as part of a suite of biotech training opportunities. One of the things that I think is most exciting is that as the Bitterroot Valley continues to grow as the hub of biotech, we're going to be ready to serve them because of these partnerships, Mclean said. Those relationships reflect the support Bitterroot College has received from the community and reaffirmed UMs commitment to accessible and affordable higher education for rural Montana residents, she said. When I first came, we knew we had to get the message out that this college was still open for business, Mclean added. So we did what we could with the resources that we had to create that understanding that we're still here, we're not going anywhere in that you could start here and matriculate in your studies, and likely, you could complete here without leaving here. There's a lot of magic in that. UM President Bodnar emphasized the importance of the Bitterroot College to the University of Montana and what he sees as their mission of inclusive prosperity, helping every community member reach their unique and full potential. Higher education is facing new challenges as demographics and industries change in a shifting technological environment, Bodnar said. We have an aging workforce and a major talent crunch across the state. And, you know, we have to adapt in terms of how we deliver education," he said. Online learning has expanded educational opportunities for students and Bitterroot College can be an access point for people in the Bitterroot to the reach the greater Montana University System, Bodnar said, touting the colleges "Start Here, Stay Here" motto. Our vision for UM Bitterroot is not for this to be a separate entity that tries to rebuild everything. That's just not feasible with scale, Bodnar said. Our goal rather is for this campus to meet the unique needs of every learner in the Bitterroot Valley. We should see this as a portal. Why should a learner have to leave the Bitterroot to access the offerings in the Montana University System? UM Vice Provost Gallagher discussed how officials are working to identify industries where there is opportunity in order to build a portfolio of educational offerings that will serve both the growing industries of Ravalli County as well as the people who live here. He also emphasized the importance of recognizing the changing needs of the local workforce beyond a traditional four-year degree, and investment in rapid training programs, workforce certifications and continuing education opportunities. Technology is a big one, but so is construction," he said. Bodnar said Bitterroot College is dedicated to rural education opportunities and emphasized the importance of learning from past challenges in order to find ways to better serve Montana communities. The Bitterroot College in 2009 was officially created, and the mission was to connect a diverse rural community to a wide array of learning opportunities, Bodnar said. That was the mission, and that continues to be the mission today." News Government Agencies 'Dismantle' Hive Ransomware Operations The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday that the Hive ransomware group's international network has been "dismantled." The shutdown effort, which involved working with international law enforcement partners, was said to have disrupted the computer networks used by the Hive ransomware group. Moreover, decryption keys were distributed to the group's victims so that they wouldn't pay a ransom fee and could recover encrypted data. The Hive group tries to extract money both by threatening to expose a victim's sensitive data (extortion) and by encrypting the victim's data and then offering a decryption key for a ransom fee. Hive follows a "ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model" in which they create ransomware for affiliates to use against a victim in exchange for a percentage of the profits (about 20 percent, according to the Justice Department). The announcement didn't mention whether any arrests were made. However, the Hive group's servers used to communicate with other members were seized by German and Dutch police agencies. That action was described as "disrupting Hive's ability to attack and extort victims." "While this is definitely a win, this is by no means the end of ransomware," commented Jordan LaRose, practice director for Infrastructure Security at NCC Group, via e-mail. "We have already seen a reemergence from REvil, and Hive will likely follow suit in some form." Before the disruption, the Hive group had "targeted more than 1,500 victims in over 80 countries around the world, including hospitals, school districts, financial firms, and critical infrastructure," the Justice Department indicated. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was able to infiltrate the Hive group's computer networks, which had been in effect "since late July 2022." By that method, the decryption keys were obtained. The FBI action was said to have thwarted "$130 million in ransom demanded." The Hive group's ransomware attacks used Remote Desktop Protocol and virtual private networks and other remote connection protocols that used "single-factor logins," the Justice Department explained. The Hive group's attack methods are further explained in this November joint Cybersecurity Advisory published by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). According to that Cybersecurity Advisory, the Hive group's initial access to victim networks was carried out by phishing attacks. The group also typically leveraged common vulnerabilities and exposures in Microsoft Exchange Server that Microsoft had issued patches for back in 2021. Microsoft Appeals to IT Pros Coincidentally, the Microsoft Exchange team issued an announcement on Thursday exhorting IT pros maintaining Exchange Server implementations to keep their servers patched with the latest cumulative updates and security updates. "Attackers looking to exploit unpatched Exchange servers are not going to go away," the Exchange team stated. "There are too many aspects of unpatched on-premises Exchange environments that are valuable to bad actors looking to exfiltrate data or commit other malicious acts." Exchange Server exploits can give attackers access to sensitive mailbox data, plus a copy of the organization's address book for use in social engineering attacks. An exploited Exchange Server can also give attackers "deep hooks into and permissions within Active Directory," the team added. Exchange Server upkeep typically involves running manual tasks, and IT pros can use Microsoft's Health Checker to find them. "After installing an update, there may be manual tasks that an admin needs to perform, so always run Health Checker after installing an update to check for such tasks," the team advised. Microsoft is actually soliciting feedback from IT pros about its cumulative update and security update process for Exchange Server. The survey can be found here. Ransomware Stats Ransomware success actually declined last year by about 40.3 percent, according to a report by Chainalysis, a company that investigates cybersecurity breaches and stolen cryptocurrency funds. In 2022, $456.8 million was extorted by ransomware attackers, which is down from $765.6 million extorted in 2021. Ransomware attacks weren't on the decline, though. "Instead, we believe that much of the decline is due to victim organizations increasingly refusing to pay ransomware attackers," the report indicated. The reduction in payments also may be due, in part, to more stringent security underwriting stipulations made by cyberinsurance firms, the report suggested. Chainalysis tracked "10,000 unique strains" of ransomware in "the first half of 2022." However, it surmised that "the actual number of individuals who make up the ransomware ecosystem is likely quite small." Another take on ransomware can be found in "The State of Ransomware 2022" report published by cybersecurity company BlackFog. Its report showed a decline in ransomware attacks happening in December 2022, after peaking in October. The report estimated that the average U.S. ransomware payout was "$258,143k." Top ransomware variants for the year included LockBit, BlackCat and Hive. The top targets of ransomware attackers were located in the United States, representing 46 percent of attacks. A 16-year-old James River High School student has been identified as the victim of a fatal shooting in Chesterfield County on Tuesday. Tyce J. Lewis died after being taken to Chippenham Hospital. Chesterfield police said Friday that they are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the shooting and, at this stage of the investigation, it appears Lewis was shot at Kayvee and Vickilee roads. The location is in a neighborhood east of Courthouse Road. Chesterfield officers responded to the hospital at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday at the request of Richmond police, for a person who arrived suffering from a gunshot wound. The hospital is inside the city limits near the Chesterfield line. At the time, Chesterfield police said they were still working to determine the exact location of the shooting. Police urged anyone with information about the shooting to call the department at (804) 748-1251 or Crime Solvers at (804) 748-0660. Tips can also be provided through the P3 app. From the Archives: The opening of Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Cloverleaf Mall Richmond police confiscated seven firearms and more than a kilo of cocaine in addition to fentanyl from a home in South Richmond occupied by an armed man who police wounded earlier this month while executing a search warrant, Acting Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards said this week. The search was part of a multijurisdictional narcotics investigation. During a news media briefing Wednesday at police headquarters, Edwards identified Sgt. Cody Adams as the officer who shot Douglas Price, 61. Police said Price aimed a gun at Adams after officers entered the home in the 3300 block of McGuire Drive in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 9. Police said officers ordered people inside the house to come out with their hands up. The commands were given 11 times over a loudspeaker, Edwards said. A woman unrelated to the narcotics investigation was also inside the house at the time but does not face any charges, police said. Edwards said Wednesday that he initially could not discuss what police recovered from the home but was able to disclose the details of the seizures after the Richmond Commonwealths Attorneys Office unsealed the inventory of confiscated items. The seized items included 1,300 grams, or 1.3 kilos, of cocaine; 140 grams of pressed fentanyl pills; 28 grams of powdered fentanyl; and 6 pounds of cannabis, Edwards said. In addition to the firearm that police said Price had in his hand when he was shot, investigators recovered a tactical-style shotgun, an AR-style rifle, two AR-style pistols, two regular handguns and five magazines from the home. The name of Metro Richmond Zoo's baby hippo is ... The poll results are in, and the name of the Metro Richmond Zoos baby pygmy hippo is Petunia! Edwards said Adams, who has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, which is standard procedure, is an eight-year veteran of the force currently assigned to the 3rd Precinct and is a member of the departments SWAT team. The Commonwealths Attorneys Office will determine whether the shooting was justified. The review is ongoing, Richmond Commonwealths Attorney Colette McEachin said in an email. Price suffered life-threatening injuries but survived. He was indicted in October on grand larceny and petit larceny charges for offenses that occurred in March 2020, but no charges have been filed against him in the drug investigation or shooting. From the Archives: Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Firefighters Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond Fire Department Richmond police have identified the person killed on the citys South Side on Tuesday. Police said in a statement Thursday that Tegene Birke, 56, of Richmond was shot and killed in the 3400 block of Maury Street. Officers were called to the scene at around 12:55 p.m. for reports of a person shot. They found Birke unresponsive in a parking lot. Richmond police seek tips in armed robbery Richmond police have released an image from a surveillance camera that they said shows an armed robbery suspect. Birke had an apparent gunshot wound and was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. The medical examiners office will determine his cause and manner of death. Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to call Richmond police at (804) 646-0423 or Crime Stoppers at (804) 780-1000. Photos: The aftermath of the violent arrest, death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis A Richmond police officer facing 50 charges of possessing child pornography is scheduled to be in court next month. The preliminary hearing for David Edward Stone is Feb. 17 in Louisa County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. Stone, 51, of Mineral was arrested Wednesday. The arrest came after the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force provided information to the Louisa County Sheriffs Office, which obtained an search warrant for Stones residence on Old Apple Grove Road, authorities said. Investigators seized multiple digital devices containing images of child sexual exploitation, police said. Louisa sheriffs Detective Chuck Love said arrest warrants then were obtained for Stone. Unfortunately, crimes like these happen entirely too much in our society, Love said. It affects everyone in every profession. No one is immune to it. Love said he encourages parents to monitor their childrens digital media. The Richmond Police Department in a statement said: After learning of the existence of arrest warrants, members of the Richmond Police Department arrested Stone and later turned him over to deputies of the Louisa County Sheriffs Office. The Richmond Police Department does not tolerate the abuse of children in any form and this officer will be held accountable for his actions. Stone is on administrative leave without pay, police said. Anyone with information about the investigation is asked to call the Louisa Sheriffs Office at (540) 967-1234 or Crime Solvers at (800) 346-1466. Photos: The aftermath of the violent arrest, death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis Police said the suspect in the fatal November 2021 shooting of a GRTC bus passenger has been arrested in New York. He also faces charges related to the assault of a bus driver a month earlier. Dexter Superville Jr., 24, has been charged with first-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, malicious wounding, strangulation and simple assault. Police said that on Nov. 9, 2021, officers were called to the 4000 block of Hull Street near Southside Plaza in South Richmond for reports of a shooting aboard a GRTC bus. Jonathan Contreras, 22, of Richmond was found with apparent gunshot wounds. He died at a hospital. Police said Superville also assaulted a bus driver in October 2021. James Mercante, a Richmond police spokesman, said they linked Superville to both incidents through witness testimony and surveillance camera footage. Superville was arrested with help from the U.S. Marshals Service and transported to Richmond, police said. Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to call Richmond police at (804) 646-0423 or Crime Stoppers at (804) 646-1000. 17 archive photos of Regency Mall Virginias Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera on Friday visited a Richmond charter school, the Patrick Henry School of Science & Arts, in celebration of National School Choice Week. Despite the administrations push over the past year, Democrats have blocked efforts to expand school choice in Virginia. Every single student in Virginia should have access to a school which is as wonderful as Patrick Henry, Guidera told an assembly of students on Friday morning at the school on Semmes Avenue. Im going to go back to my office inspired to make sure that we make it possible for there to be more Patrick Henrys across the commonwealth. Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are independently operated under their own governing boards and are not under the authority of local school boards. The autonomy gives charter schools more freedom in their curriculum, budget and staffing. Charters are free and open to all students. Virginia, with its restrictive charter school laws, is home to only seven charter schools. Neighboring states North Carolina and Maryland both have upward of 100 charter schools. Gov. Glenn Youngkin before his inauguration announced a plan to launch up to 20 charter schools in his first year in office. The plan did not come to fruition last year when the Senate rejected administration-backed legislation to clear a path for more charter schools in the commonwealth. The most likely path forward for the administrations school choice push is lab schools, which are K-12 schools partnered with a higher education institution to focus on innovative curriculum outside the traditional public education system. Youngkin won a partial victory for his signature lab school proposal last year when Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears broke a tie vote in the Senate to rescue his amendment to triple the number of higher education institutions that can partner with local school divisions. But the Senate then voted to block his proposal to use state per-pupil funds to pay for them. The House Education Committee voted this week to advance an administration-backed school choice bill that would allocate a portion of per-pupil state funding to a savings account for parents to spend on private school tuition or other specified education expenses. But it faces a steep uphill battle in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Senate Democrats are committed to ensuring our public schools get the funding they so need, said Gianni Snidle, spokesman for the Senate Democratic Caucus. Any bills that would funnel money away from our underfunded public schools will not pass. Close 02-18-1949: Belvidere St. and Main St. 05-23-1947 (cutline): Traffic bottleneck on Belvidere--Belvidere Street between Cary and Broad is one of Richmond's worst bottlenecks. At Cary, the street narrows from 56 to 36 feet in width, as shown in the picture. 12-16-1958 (cutline): General view of Belvidere St. ceremonies as Charles G. McKimmie addresses crowd for a ceremony. 1957: Tied for second, Belvidere St. and Idlewood Ave., with 18 accidents. 04-26-1951 (cutline): Belvidere Bottleneck--Traffic conflicts along Belvidere Street and intersecting East-West arteries would be eliminated by the proposed expressway's central grad separation section from Broad to Idlewood, just west of Madison Street. The Madison and northern sections could be completed by 1956. This January 1953 image shows houses on Belvidere Street in Richmond, as seen near Rowe Street, which were to be taken by the city for a proposed war memorial. The row formed the western boundary of a block that city officials were preparing to acquire. The Virginia War Memorial was dedicated in February 1956. In February 1948, the intersection of Cary and Belvidere streets showed the effects of 20 days with snow on the ground. All around the city, streets had been damaged by the lingering snow and freezing temperatures, and a survey was finding that the cost of road repairs was likely to exceed the cost of snow removal. Intersection of Cary and Belvidere broken up by traffic and snow. From the Archives: Belvidere Street Scenes from Belvidere Street in Richmond. 02-18-1949: Belvidere St. and Main St. 05-23-1947 (cutline): Traffic bottleneck on Belvidere--Belvidere Street between Cary and Broad is one of Richmond's worst bottlenecks. At Cary, the street narrows from 56 to 36 feet in width, as shown in the picture. 12-16-1958 (cutline): General view of Belvidere St. ceremonies as Charles G. McKimmie addresses crowd for a ceremony. 1957: Tied for second, Belvidere St. and Idlewood Ave., with 18 accidents. 04-26-1951 (cutline): Belvidere Bottleneck--Traffic conflicts along Belvidere Street and intersecting East-West arteries would be eliminated by the proposed expressway's central grad separation section from Broad to Idlewood, just west of Madison Street. The Madison and northern sections could be completed by 1956. This January 1953 image shows houses on Belvidere Street in Richmond, as seen near Rowe Street, which were to be taken by the city for a proposed war memorial. The row formed the western boundary of a block that city officials were preparing to acquire. The Virginia War Memorial was dedicated in February 1956. In February 1948, the intersection of Cary and Belvidere streets showed the effects of 20 days with snow on the ground. All around the city, streets had been damaged by the lingering snow and freezing temperatures, and a survey was finding that the cost of road repairs was likely to exceed the cost of snow removal. Intersection of Cary and Belvidere broken up by traffic and snow. Penn Badgley will return to Netflix as Joe Goldberg this month for the highly anticipated fourth season of You, which is scheduled to hit the streaming service in two parts. When viewers last saw the lovestruck stalker, he was moving to Paris on the hunt for his Season 3 love interest, Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle). But by the start of Season 4, Joe is residing in London, where he is masquerading as a literature professor at an elite university. Despite his efforts to put his days of murder behind him, danger follows the criminal to Europe when he finds himself targeted by a new killer. New actors to the franchise in the upcoming season include Tilly Keeper, Amy Leigh Hickman, Ed Speelers, Sean Pertwee, Stephen Hagan, Adam James, Ben Wiggins, Allison Pargeter, Eve Austin, Dario Coates, Ozioma Whenu, Lukas Gage and Charlotte Ritchie. The first five episodes of the thriller series will be available for streaming on Netflix Feb. 9 while the latter five episodes will debut March 9. Writer-director Christopher Landons We Have a Ghost also premieres on the platform Feb. 24 at 12 a.m. PT, spotlighting a star-studded cast that features Jennifer Coolidge, David Harbour, Anthony Mackie, Jahi Winston, Tig Notaro and more. The ghost story centers around the discovery of a benign ghoul named Ernest (Harbour) who haunts the newly-purchased family home of a teenager named Kevin (Winston). The two decide to team up to find out the truth behind Ernests death, resulting in them being targeted by the CIA. See the full list of titles below: FEB. 1 Gunthers Millions (Limited Series) FEB. 2 Make My Day (Season 1) Freeridge (Season 1) FEB. 3 True Spirit Infiesto FEB. 8 Bill Russell: Legend (Season 1) FEB. 9 You (Season 4, Episodes 1-5) My Dad the Bounty Hunter (Season 1) FEB. 10 Your Place or Mine 10 Days of a Good Man FEB. 14 In Love All Over Again (Season 1) Perfect Match (Season 1) FEB. 15 African Queens: Njinga (Season 1) Full Swing (Season 1) The Law According to Lidia Poet FEB. 16 Aggretsuko (Season 5) The Upshaws (Part 3) FEB. 17 Community Squad (Season 1) Unlocked FEB. 22 Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (Season 1) FEB. 23 Outer Banks (Season 3) FEB. 24 Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Season 5) We Have a Ghost FEB. 28 Too Hot To Handle: Germany (Season 1) A Virginia Commonwealth University student was struck and killed by a vehicle Friday morning near Altria Theater, a VCU administrator said. Student Mahrokh Khan was hit shortly before 9 a.m. while crossing Laurel and West Main streets on campus, said Aaron J. Hart, VCUs vice president for student affairs. Khan, a senior majoring in psychology, was transported to VCU Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. A statement released by Hart did not provide any information about the driver. Its unclear if the driver remained on the scene. Richmond police are investigating, a VCU spokesperson said, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. VCU students can receive counseling through the university, and other resources are available through the dean of students, telehealth provider TimelyCare and a service for VCU students mental and physical health called You@VCU. An on-campus event scheduled for Friday evening was postponed. This is a time of sorrow for the entire VCU community, Hart said. The vice president reminded students to use crosswalks and to stay alert while crossing streets. The university encourages cyclists and pedestrians not to use phones or earbuds while traveling so that they are not distracted. At least eight pedestrians were killed by vehicles in the city of Richmond in 2022, according to data from the Virginia Department of Transportation, matching the highest number in at least seven years. The intersection of Laurel and Main, near a parking deck and a large dormitory, is a major pedestrian crossing for students. According to VDOT data, this was the first pedestrian-vehicle collision there in at least seven years. The unheeded warnings before a teacher was shot at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News played out like a bad horror movie. The search of a 6-year-olds backpack for a firearm turned up nothing. The students pockets were deemed too small to search. The tears of a boy who said hed seen the gun and been threatened by the student to keep silent were not enough to spur preventive action. Yet another employee who wanted to search the boy was advised to wait because the school day was almost over, all according to The New York Times. The candlelight vigils in the aftermath of the shooting morphed into teacher and parent fury over this curious administrative inaction, which they described as a pattern of passive response to disciplinary problems. Newport News Superintendent George Parker III was fired Wednesday night. The teacher, Abigail Zwerner, is recuperating from her physical wounds; who knows if her psychological ones will ever heal enough for her to return to the classroom. Her lawyer, Diane Toscano, says Zwerner intends to sue the school district. I reached out via text message to a Richmond-area teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, to see if what has been described at Richneck resonated with her or any teacher she knows. Yes, this completely resonates with me, she replied. I had a student a few years ago who likely would have shot me if he had access to a gun. He talked about hurting people and himself. He was very strong for a little guy, and he would hit adults (including me). The student wouldnt have shot her because he didnt like her he did but because of the impulsivity associated with his disability, she said. The family of the boy in Newport News said he has an acute disability. The teacher I spoke with said her student, then 6, was in a general education classroom with 20 other students. She begged to get him into a program for kids with needs like his, but was told that wasnt an option. When I needed backup, Id call and my admins would usually come. Theyd take him to play in one of their offices, and then return him to my room after he calmed down. We had to clear the room several times because of his violent behavior. And then, this teacher said something I didnt expect. He is one of my all-time favorite students, so I keep up with him and his family. They moved, he started attending another school, and then he entered the program I wanted for him all along. Hes thriving now. Given what shed described, how could he have been one of her favorites? Because as hard as he was, I knew it wasnt his fault, she said. He was doing the best that he could, and the system was failing him. On his good days, he worked so hard and he made so much progress. He and I had a special connection, and Ill probably continue checking in on him forever. And there lies the huge heart of a public school teacher. We dump our familial and societal violence, trauma and dysfunction in their classrooms and hope for the best, if we bother to care at all. When it doesnt work out, we turn to the jails and prisons. We mouth occasional platitudes about mental health. Wash, rinse and repeat. Police and school officials in Newport News say the student took his mothers legally purchased 9 mm firearm to school and shot his teacher intentionally. The legality or morality of prosecuting a 6-year-old is dubious at best. But this tragedy is capable of leaving even the most compassionate among us questioning a childs inherent innocence. Teachers cant engage in such ruminations in the abstract; they must attempt to teach or reach whoever lands in their classroom. I honestly dont think any kids are beyond help, but I dont think the school systems are equipped to provide the help they need, said the Richmond-area teacher. Teachers and admins are stretched so thin. To get a kid the help he or she needs generally takes a years worth of data collection and intervention trial and error. Teachers know when kids need more, and the kids shouldnt have to wait while were gathering evidence, she said. I do wish that there was a way to fast-track students into programs that would best serve their needs. Teachers dont feel heard when it comes to these students. We want the best for them, and our voices should be the loudest. Nowadays, the loudest voices are angry parents who feel empowered to pursue grievance, disruption, book banning and bigotry. Public education is treated like a pinata, to be whacked for political gain during a pandemic. How does it feel to be a teacher today? Its exhausting and scary, she said. All of us have probably had that child (or more than one that child), and we realize it could have just as easily been us. The lesson after Richneck should be as obvious as those warnings: When teachers speak, they need to be heard. Close 08-06-1979 (cutline): Antoi Harrington (left) and Robert Winthrow are friends. In October 1954, students crowded into the new Douglas S. Freeman High School in Henrico County. The school, which cost about $1.1 million, opened the previous month and had roughly 500 high school and 500 elementary students. NL Published Caption: Benedictine High School's Cadet Corps in formation behind the school. 10-8-61 50th anniversary In September 1961, students entered Westhampton School in Richmond. That fall, Daisy Jane Cooper became the first African-American student to integrate the junior high school; the following year, she made similar history at Thomas Jefferson High School. In July 1968, a summer session class of journalism students worked on the yearbook, The Sunfire, at the Collegiate Schools in Henrico County. In April 1955, students at Ridge School in Henrico County enjoyed their new merry-go-round. It was presented to the school by the PTA, which had collected donations for playground equipment. In September 1967, students motorcycles lined the parking lot at Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond on the first day of school. In March 1961, Robert K. Crowell, a teacher at George Wythe High School in Richmond, held his first class on communism. The six-week course was reported to be one of the first in the country and drew national attention from newspapers and television. Crowell said his method of teaching the class was to emphasize that communism was not merely an economic system but a way of life. NL Published caption: Children romp at William Fox Elementary School before classes. The Christmas holidays ended today for pupils in the area 08-31-1970 (cutline): Students wait for transfer buses at corner of Westover Hills Blvd. and Forest Hill Ave. 05-03-1979 (cutline): Pupils sit under an atop homemade wooden loft at Cary Elementary School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Miss Susan R. McCandlish greets her fifth graders on their first day at Chimborazo School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Mrs. Gayle Graham (right) calls roll in her fifth grade class at Lakeside Elementary School. 03-29-1971: Young student listeds to playback in reading class. The program was to be used the following fall for first graders in Richmond city schools. 04-18-1982 (cutline): Video equipment used in a visual literacy program, paid for by Title I in Richmond. 09-06-1989 (cutline): Thelma Smith, a former teacher who came to school yesterday to help, pinned bus numbers on pupils at Bellevue Elementary School. 09-03-1985 (cutline): Corey Green on bus, ready to head home after 1st day of school at John B. Cary School. 05-03-1979: John B. Cary Elementary School library. 06-16-1989 (cutline): Doing something--Patricia Lancaster, Boushall Middle School curriculum specialist, is surrounded by some of the pupils taking part in the "Becoming a Woman" program. 07-13-1979 (cutline): In Super Mint factory--Stephanie McIntosh, Becky Blum and Chris Minney (left to right) made Astonishments this week in the Superintendent's School for the Gifted. 09-08-1972: Students cross street on Forest Hill Avenue aided by crossing guard. 09-01-1970 (cutline): "It's different. It's a new experience. Everybody's trying to make it work. I think it will work." These comments by Susan Lippsitz, a new student at Thomas Jefferson High School, are reflective of those by several high and middle school students in their second day of the school term under a new court-ordered desegregation plan. 07-11-1976 (cutline): Blackwell Elementary students examine a bell in front of Treasury building in Washington D.C. The Richmond elementary school class was part of Class-on-Wheels, a summer school program. The federally financed program was designed to give disadvantaged studens the opportunity to travel by bus throughout Virginia. 09-01-1970 (cutline): Students leave a city school bus at Thompson Middle School, where some of them are to board a Virginia Transit Co. bus taking them to Maymont School. Thompson, in the annexed area on Forest Hill Avenue, and Maymont, near Byrd Park, are paired under the city's court-ordered desegregation plan. Some confusion yesterday about busing students to Thompson and then to Maymont was alleviated this morning through a new, direct VTC bus schedule. 10-02-1975 (cutline): Counselor Libby Hoffman uses pictures, recorded story to teach 'self worth.' 05-14-1971 (cutline): Mr. J.C. Binford with his 11th grade American History Class. This was one of the largest classes at George Wythe. From the Archives: A look back at Richmond schools 08-06-1979 (cutline): Antoi Harrington (left) and Robert Winthrow are friends. In October 1954, students crowded into the new Douglas S. Freeman High School in Henrico County. The school, which cost about $1.1 million, opened the previous month and had roughly 500 high school and 500 elementary students. NL Published Caption: Benedictine High School's Cadet Corps in formation behind the school. 10-8-61 50th anniversary In September 1961, students entered Westhampton School in Richmond. That fall, Daisy Jane Cooper became the first African-American student to integrate the junior high school; the following year, she made similar history at Thomas Jefferson High School. In July 1968, a summer session class of journalism students worked on the yearbook, The Sunfire, at the Collegiate Schools in Henrico County. In April 1955, students at Ridge School in Henrico County enjoyed their new merry-go-round. It was presented to the school by the PTA, which had collected donations for playground equipment. In September 1967, students motorcycles lined the parking lot at Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond on the first day of school. In March 1961, Robert K. Crowell, a teacher at George Wythe High School in Richmond, held his first class on communism. The six-week course was reported to be one of the first in the country and drew national attention from newspapers and television. Crowell said his method of teaching the class was to emphasize that communism was not merely an economic system but a way of life. NL Published caption: Children romp at William Fox Elementary School before classes. The Christmas holidays ended today for pupils in the area 08-31-1970 (cutline): Students wait for transfer buses at corner of Westover Hills Blvd. and Forest Hill Ave. 05-03-1979 (cutline): Pupils sit under an atop homemade wooden loft at Cary Elementary School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Miss Susan R. McCandlish greets her fifth graders on their first day at Chimborazo School. 08-30-1971 (cutline): Mrs. Gayle Graham (right) calls roll in her fifth grade class at Lakeside Elementary School. 03-29-1971: Young student listeds to playback in reading class. The program was to be used the following fall for first graders in Richmond city schools. 04-18-1982 (cutline): Video equipment used in a visual literacy program, paid for by Title I in Richmond. 09-06-1989 (cutline): Thelma Smith, a former teacher who came to school yesterday to help, pinned bus numbers on pupils at Bellevue Elementary School. 09-03-1985 (cutline): Corey Green on bus, ready to head home after 1st day of school at John B. Cary School. 05-03-1979: John B. Cary Elementary School library. 06-16-1989 (cutline): Doing something--Patricia Lancaster, Boushall Middle School curriculum specialist, is surrounded by some of the pupils taking part in the "Becoming a Woman" program. 07-13-1979 (cutline): In Super Mint factory--Stephanie McIntosh, Becky Blum and Chris Minney (left to right) made Astonishments this week in the Superintendent's School for the Gifted. 09-08-1972: Students cross street on Forest Hill Avenue aided by crossing guard. 09-01-1970 (cutline): "It's different. It's a new experience. Everybody's trying to make it work. I think it will work." These comments by Susan Lippsitz, a new student at Thomas Jefferson High School, are reflective of those by several high and middle school students in their second day of the school term under a new court-ordered desegregation plan. 07-11-1976 (cutline): Blackwell Elementary students examine a bell in front of Treasury building in Washington D.C. The Richmond elementary school class was part of Class-on-Wheels, a summer school program. The federally financed program was designed to give disadvantaged studens the opportunity to travel by bus throughout Virginia. 09-01-1970 (cutline): Students leave a city school bus at Thompson Middle School, where some of them are to board a Virginia Transit Co. bus taking them to Maymont School. Thompson, in the annexed area on Forest Hill Avenue, and Maymont, near Byrd Park, are paired under the city's court-ordered desegregation plan. Some confusion yesterday about busing students to Thompson and then to Maymont was alleviated this morning through a new, direct VTC bus schedule. 10-02-1975 (cutline): Counselor Libby Hoffman uses pictures, recorded story to teach 'self worth.' 05-14-1971 (cutline): Mr. J.C. Binford with his 11th grade American History Class. This was one of the largest classes at George Wythe. Relocated from its familiar spot next to The American Civil War Museum at Historic Tredegar to make room for a proposed riverfront amphitheater, the statue of Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad is in its new spot at The Valentine. And it looks right at home, Valentine director William J. Martin said Friday. For a temporary location, I think its a perfect one, he said. The statue, which was moved Jan. 7, is now situated in The Valentines 10th Street terrace between Clay and Marshall streets. Martin expects the statue to remain at The Valentine to be its caretaker for a few years. We are grateful to the Valentine Museum for ensuring that this significant work of art will remain accessible to the public, said Doyle Sapp, superintendent of Richmond National Battlefield Park and Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, in a news release earlier this month. The loan will enable the statue and its story to continue to educate and inspire people while the National Park Service and its partners explore options for a new, permanent location. The statue was relocated, the National Park Service said, to make room for a proposed 7,500-seat amphitheater that is still in the planning stages. The statue depicts Lincoln with his arm draped around 12-year-old Tad, resting on a bench during their visit to Richmond on April 4 and 5, 1865, as they toured the burned and Union-occupied former capital of the Confederacy. Less than two weeks later, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Washington. The life-size bronze statue, designed by sculptor David Frech, was unveiled April 5, 2003, to mixed public reaction. The park service had accepted the donation of the statue from the U.S. Historical Society and installed it outside the main entrance of the park services visitor center at Tredegars Pattern Building. The carved granite stones that topped the elliptical wall behind the statue featured a quote from Lincolns second inaugural address: To bind up our nations wounds. The wall did not accompany the statue to The Valentine and will be stored at another location until a permanent home is found, Martin said.The Valentine also was the landing spot for the Jefferson Davis statue on Monument Avenue that was toppled by protesters in June 2020 during unrest following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The Davis statue is on display in a gallery at The Valentine in its 2020 state: on its back and splattered with paint. It is on loan to The Valentine from Richmonds Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia until it goes to Los Angeles in the late fall for an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. So, statues of the 16th president of the United States and the president of the Confederate States of America are, for the time being, residing in the same museum in downtown Richmond, a block from the former White House of the Confederacy. We are honored to be the place where they both find a temporary home for that conversation we all know as a community we need to have, Martin said. He suggested the timing couldnt be better, considering the local removal of Confederate statues in recent years, and The Valentines own work reimagining the studio of sculptor Edward Valentine, who became famous for creating some of the citys Confederate monuments, including the Davis statue, which was erected on Monument Avenue in 1907. The arrival of the Lincoln statue provides the museum another interpretive point as we talk about how monuments have been constructed in Richmond over time and how they represent not only a particular time but the time in which they were created. Following the upheaval surrounding the removal of the Confederate monuments, Martin said having the Lincoln and Davis statues temporarily housed at The Valentine will give the community time to pause before decisions are made about what comes next. I think theres general agreement that letting things rest a moment and letting the community breathe a moment is a priority, he said. So, coming here represents an opportunity to reflect on these two important figures in American history and this significant period in Richmonds history. PHOTOS: Lincoln statue moved from Tredegar to The Valentine Bill Lohmann Follow Bill Lohmann Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today The 50th anniversary of the 1973 signing of the Paris Peace Accords, the beginning of the end of Americas involvement in the Vietnam War, struck Virginia War Memorial director Clay Mountcastle as a good time for an exhibit at the memorial, looking at the lives of Virginias often overlooked Vietnam veterans. So, last spring, the war memorial put out a notice around the state, inviting veterans to send in personal photographs taken during their war-time service in Southeast Asia. Mountcastle wondered if he would get enough photos for an exhibit featuring 50 veterans. The response was overwhelming. The war memorial received more than 1,000 photographs as well as handwritten letters and at least one small piece of a planes instrument panel pierced by a bullet that one veteran had kept through the years from hundreds of veterans representing the various branches of the military and pretty much all corners of Virginia. Memorial staff whittled the number to 50, then held interviews and photo and video sessions around the state partnering with photographer and Navy veteran Laura Hatcher and videographer and Army veteran Pamela Vines to gather material for the exhibit. 50 Years Beyond: The Vietnam Veteran Experience opens Saturday at the war memorial and will continue for at least the next six months. There is no admission charge. Ive always had this feeling that Vietnam veterans for most of their lives have kind of lived in the shadow of The Greatest Generation, and Vietnam vets would be the first tell you the World War II guys were the greatest generation, said Mountcastle, who is the son of a Vietnam vet, Jack Mountcastle, who served two tours. Just how Vietnam veterans have existed for the past few decades has always interested me, so we decided to do an exhibit that highlighted Vietnam veterans and tried to key in on their experience of living as a Vietnam veteran for half a century. Mountcastle said the collection of veteran profiles gathered for the exhibit proves what he thought going in: There was no stereotypical experience for Vietnam veterans. If people have that image of a typical Vietnam veteran in their head that maybe they saw in a movie or on TV, we hope to show them thats not the case, Mountcastle said. Unique experiences across the board. Though Vietnam represented a polarizing period in Americas history and has a complicated legacy, Mountcastle said he didnt sense bitterness among those interviewed for the exhibit, the edges of emotion perhaps softened by the passing of time. What you saw was theyve made up their mind, Mountcastle said. Theyre firm in their convictions. Some feel the war was not a worthwhile effort; some even used the word a waste. Others feel it was a noble effort that just didnt end the way anyone hoped it would, and theyre proud they served and did their best. He did encounter a lot of wisdom, as participants reflected on their military service through the lens of the last half-century of their lives. There is one common thread ... and thats every single one of them really loves this country, he said. That was the one common denominator. Theyre all big believers in this country. Though this began as an effort to create an informative exhibit, it has evolved into a full-blown preservation program for Vietnam veterans and the Vietnam War, Mountcastle said. The war memorial has the components of the exhibit the interviews, photos, videos plus the original 1,000-plus images submitted by all of the veterans, plus letters and even memoirs the veterans sent along. Our archive has grown exponentially with information about Vietnam just through the process of creating this exhibit, he said, noting the exhibit marks the beginning of an ongoing effort to gather and preserve more stories and artifacts about the war. He said the participating veterans seemed to appreciate being the subject of such a pursuit. Because here they are, 50 years later, and many of them have felt that thats never come for them, he said. No ones really asked them their thoughts and [about] their experiences. It wasnt all that long ago, it seems, that Americans put on a push to honor World War II veterans and preserve their stories as their numbers dwindled. Mountcastle said the nation is reaching that point with aging Vietnam veterans. We have to have a sense of urgency about Vietnam now, just like we did a few years back with The Greatest Generation, he said. Time has now come for Vietnam veterans. Top 5 weekend events: 'Hairspray,' Tom Papa & 200 Years, 200 Stories Hairspray Tom Papa 200 Years, 200 Stories at Library of Virginia Peter Pan Artisan Market at Main Line Brewery ABINGDON, Va. A $10,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the capture of two men who walked away from the Southwest Regional Jail Authority in Abingdon at around 2:45 p.m. on Thursday. The U.S. Marshals Service has issued rewards of $5,000 each for the capture of Johnny Shane Brown, 51, of Rogersville, Tennessee, and Albert Lee Ricketson, 31, of Abingdon, Virginia. The two escaped from the jail recreation yard at about 2:45 p.m. and allegedly stole a gold SUV, according to the Washington County Sheriffs Office. Brown is a federal inmate, and Ricketson was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the 2020 slayings of Misty Dawn Bishop, 38, of Bristol, Virginia, and Trevor Alexander Sweat, 24, of Bristol, Tennessee. In 2022, Brown and two other men escaped from the Sullivan County Jail in Blountville. He was recaptured in Wilmington, North Carolina, the same city where two other men were found dead after being involved in a robbery in another city. Brown was originally sentenced to 11 years in jail for distribution of methamphetamine. Brown is described as 182-pound white male who is 5 feet, 11 inches tall with gray hair. Ricketson is described as a 212-pound white male who is 5 feet, 8 inches tall with brown hair. Brown and Ricketson were last seen wearing red jumpsuits, possibly wearing white t-shirts. It is believed they are traveling in a stolen gold Cadillac SUV that has visible damage on the rear of the vehicle. It has Virginia license plates of UDZ-6049. The direction of travel is unknown at this time. The sheriffs office encouraged anyone who sees either man or the vehicle to call 911 immediately and to not engage them, because they are considered armed and dangerous. A House of Delegates panel on Thursday evening voted down a proposed ban on assault-style weapons, signaling likely defeat for a Democratic priority. A House Public Safety subcommittee voted 6-4 along party lines to recommend defeat of House Bill 2240, sponsored by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax. Helmer said in a Twitter post: Gun violence is the #1 cause of death for our children and Republicans have proposed 0 solutions to end this reality. The Virginia Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, says the U.S. Supreme Court has held that any firearm in common use is protected by the Second Amendment and that guns subject to such bills are in common use in the U.S. The actions by the GOP-led House subcommittee counter action in the Democratic-led Senate, where gun restrictions are progressing. On Wednesday, the Senate Finance Committee advanced Senate Bill 1382 from Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, which would bar the sale, possession or manufacture of guns defined as assault firearms and the ammunition devices that would feed the guns. The legislatures divided control, with Democrats holding a four-seat edge in the Senate and Republicans holding a four-seat edge in the House, means most gun bills likely will fail in this session as the votes in each chamber cancel each other out. Among the other Democratic gun bills the House subcommittee voted against: * House Bill 2288 from Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, to set an age requirement of 21 for purchase of an assault-style weapon. * House Bill 2273 from Del. Cliff Hayes, D-Chesapeake, to establish a three-day waiting period for gun purchases, with certain exceptions. * House Bill 2350 from Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, setting standards for storing guns away from minors and setting misdemeanor penalties for violations. * House Bill 1788 from Del. Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, that would require all firearms sold in Virginia beginning in 2025 to be microstamp-enabled in an effort to help trace guns used in crimes. * House Bill 1936 from Del. Ken Plum, D-Fairfax, that would direct Virginia State Police to establish standards for creation of a Virginia Firearm Buy-Back Program. Among the Republican gun bills the panel advanced Thursday evening: * House Bill 1407 from Del. Emily Brewer, R-Suffolk, that would exempt people with concealed weapons permits from the ban on carrying firearms in Capitol Square. * House Bill 1427 from Del. Dave LaRock, R-Loudoun, that would remove a localitys authority to bar firearms from such places as public parks and community centers that the locality owns or operates. * House Bill 2460 from Del. Matt Fariss, R-Campbell, that would limit the number of state agencies that could bar an employee from storing a lawfully possessed firearm and ammunition in the employees locked car at the workplace. Advocates on both sides of the gun debate will make their case to voters in the November elections when all 40 Senate seats and all 100 House seats will be up for election. PHOTOS: Va. General Assembly, January 26 Virginians are generally pleased with Gov. Glenn Youngkins job performance, but a majority does not want him to run for president, according to a new survey from the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University. The survey found that while a plurality of Virginians (45%) think Virginia is headed in the right direction and 50% approve of Youngkins job performance to 36% disapproval a clear majority wants Youngkin to focus on the governorship and not seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. The poll found that 59% say Youngkin should not run for president in 2024 and 29% say he should, while 8% are unsure and 5% say they dont know. Among Republican respondents, 46% back the idea of Youngkin running, while 38% dont support the idea. A majority of independents (58%) oppose the idea of Youngkin running. Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director of the Wason Center, said in a statement: Virginians are generally all right with the direction of the Commonwealth, but have far more negative opinions regarding the direction of the country as a whole. Virginians give Governor Youngkin solid marks as he enters his second year in office. Conversely, they see the nation as headed in the wrong direction and continue to be displeased with the president. And this same dynamic, which has been noted in prior polling, extends to education as well. Virginians are far more satisfied with their own local public schools than they are with the nations public schools in general. This poll also finds they would prefer Governor Youngkin stay right here leading the Commonwealth, rather than venture out in pursuit of the presidency. Youngkin stoked speculation about a GOP presidential bid last summer and fall as he crossed the country campaigning for 15 GOP candidates for governor. Five of the 15 won. The governor has said he is gratified when asked about the prospect of a presidential bid, but that he is focused on his job as governor. Virginia is the only state in which governors may not serve consecutive terms. The only sitting Virginia governor in recent memory to seek the presidency is Democrat Doug Wilder, who briefly sought the 1992 Democratic nomination that went to Bill Clinton. Youngkin has four weeks to go in his second regular General Assembly session in which he is fighting for his priorities including $1 billion in tax cuts and a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest and when the mothers life is in jeopardy. Both priorities face headwinds given the governing split in the General Assembly. The GOP-led House supports the governors initiatives. In the Democratic-led Senate, a committee has defeated the abortion proposal and another panel returned the governors key tax cut proposals to a subcommittee. The survey found that a plurality supports the status quo on abortion, with 43% saying they want to keep state abortion law as is, while 29% would prefer less restrictive laws and 23% want more restrictive abortion laws. A plurality of respondents (48%) support lowering Virginias individual income tax rate, while 43% oppose the idea. A majority (57%) oppose cutting Virginias corporate income tax rate while 37% support the idea. The survey found that the Republican governor remains more popular in Virginia than President Joe Biden. Only 19% of respondents think the nation is on the right track, while 73% say it is on the wrong track. The Democratic presidents approval rating in Virginia is 38%, while 57% disapprove of his job performance. In 2020, Biden beat President Donald Trump in Virginia by about 10 percentage points. The survey was based on 1,038 interviews of registered voters in Virginia between Jan. 13 and Jan. 23. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. Photos: Youngkin appears in Michigan, Nevada Its probably the second-toughest elective job in Virginia: chairman of the governing body of Fairfax County, the states largest locality. Its tougher still because of the guy who has the toughest job: governor. Jeffrey McKay, a Democrat elected countywide to the $100,000-a-year position of chairman of Fairfaxs 10-member board of supervisors, is responsible for 1.2 million people roughly an eighth of Virginias population. Fairfax, separated from Washington, D.C., by the Potomac River but bound to it economically, is among the five wealthiest counties in the country, fatted by federal and corporate largesse. Fairfax, which gets back only 23 cents for every dollar it sends to Richmond, is no longer a bedroom community of D.C.-bound commuters. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020, 56% of Fairfax residents traveled to and from offices in the county, making traffic a headache all day rather than during A.M. and P.M. drive times. Fairfax, like the rest of the state, is hungry for workers. Of 130,000 vacant jobs in metropolitan Washington, over half are in Fairfax. Fairfax, among the bluest places on the planet, also is the United Nations writ small: majority-minority, where more than 100 foreign languages are spoken. Many can be heard in the countys prized public schools, themselves a magnet for economic growth, and which include the elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where eight in 10 students are Asian, Hispanic, Black or multi-ethnic. T.J. is also a lightning rod for criticism by one of the countys Croesus-rich residents, now living in Richmond and apparently eager to move to Washington: Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who perhaps because hes more the culture warrior than the chief executive has an approval rating lower than his winning percentage in 2021. Youngkin is at 50% in a just-out poll by Christopher Newport University. The Republican was elected governor with 51.9%. The governor just goes on the attack on these things without considering the consequences, said McKay, citing Youngkins seeming demonization of Virginias tiny minority of transgender students some 4,000 out of a total enrollment exceeding 1 million through elaborate rules that make them stand out rather than fit in. Attacking people for their lifestyles is not good for economic growth. Friction between a Fairfax board chairman and a Virginia governor NoVa vs. RoVa, if you will is not unique to geopolitics. It occurs in other states, where the promise and problems of a prosperous, diverse and densely populated metro area can ripple across an entire state. The apotheosis of this: New York City and New York state. The citys mayor and the states governor always pledge to cooperate. Reality dictates otherwise. As part of his unofficial campaign for president and continuing claim schools put political correctness ahead of public accountability Youngkin wants the states attorney general to investigate allegations by parents that T.J. intentionally delayed telling more than 250 students they received honors on a national test; and that this holdup denied them a potent selling point on early action college applications and financial aid requests. (Miyares broadened the probe to include additional schools.) Admissions officers interviewed by The Washington Post said the students shouldnt worry; that despite Youngkins claim they were wronged and may be victims of racial bias they would be fully considered for a slot in an incoming class regardless of whether their applications included test honors. T.J., it turns out, isnt alone. More than two dozen Northern Virginia high schools acknowledged failing to promptly inform students of top-score performance on the National Merit Scholarship exam. School officials have apologized and acknowledged there are speedier ways to get those test scores to kids. The Fairfax superintendent, Michelle Reid, whose school system annually spends $500,000 on students test fees, wrote the National Merit Scholarship Corp. and College Board on Jan. 18, asking them to directly contact students rather than rely on the county: There is technology available to systemize (cq) a secure and timely notification process. To McKay, first elected to the board in 2007 and as chairman in 2019, Youngkins criticism of the schools in a jurisdiction where he received about 35% of the vote against fellow Fairfax resident Terry McAuliffe is an indication he is less interested in solving problems that vex Virginia, such as filling thousands of vacant jobs, than scoring points with Republicans elsewhere. The sensationalism of this is laughable, McKay said. What benefit does the governor have in criticizing Fairfax when he says he wants to be an economic development governor? Its just nonsensical. It means that youre giving up on Virginia ... that youre really playing to a national audience. Youngkin would counter hes all in on building out the workforce, moving to consolidate multiple, multimillion-dollar programs under a single agency and demanding the community college system be more nimble in crafting training courses required by industry. Youngkin, though, must reconcile that with the perception in parts of economically ravaged, usually Republican-friendly rural Virginia that hes a job-killer. Youngkin, with 2024 in mind and eager to inoculate himself from possible attacks by opponents for enriching himself through lucrative investments in China as a private equity executive, broke off talks with Ford Motor Co. on an EV battery factory in Pittsylvania County, once a tobacco and textile hub, that would generate more than $3.5 billion in investments and 2,500 jobs. Youngkin claimed Ford, an iconic American brand, was through its partnership with a Chinese technology company a front for the Communist Chinese Party. I think people expected corporate discipline, staying focused on the task at hand and doing everything with a certain calculus, McKay said of Youngkin. Instead, hes getting the attention of a small group of Republican voters. A really small one, too. The University of New Hampshire Survey Center, in a Jan. 19-23 poll of the states primary voters, tested 12 candidates for the Republican presidential nomination. Youngkin was among three at 0%. Recognize anyone? 8 photos from The Times-Dispatch archives Two prominent Virginia Democrats are voicing concerns about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on companies investing in the United States from high-technology industries to agriculture. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, raised similar concerns on Thursday to those made by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. But they stopped short of supporting the Republican governors sudden decision to pull Virginia out of competition for a Ford Motor Co. project expected to invest $3.5 billion in an electric vehicle battery factory in partnership with a Chinese company that specializes in the technology. Warner, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, declined to comment on Youngkins decision to drop a bid to bring the Ford project to the Berry Hill megasite in Pittsylvania County, but he also emphasized the national security risks raised by the Chinese governments control over its companies that do business in the U.S. and other countries. I have huge concerns about the Chinese Communist Partys influence on many of the companies coming from China, he said in a regularly scheduled conference call with regional media organizations in Virginia. I dont think we need sever all ties with China, he said. We have to figure out ways we can work with China, but we need to recognize that the Chinese Communist Party has undue influence ... over Chinese companies. Youngkin has defended his decision to withdraw Virginia from bidding on the Ford project because of the role of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, or CATL, a Chinese company that has patented the battery technology that the new factory would use. In his State of the Commonwealth address to the General Assembly this month, the governor also said he is committed to preventing Chinese acquisition of farmland in Virginia, while not providing specific examples of it happening. Critics have questioned whether Youngkin is acting on real concerns or attempting to match similar moves by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is a potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Spanberger, who touts her role as the only Virginian on the House Agriculture Committee, is a co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress on Wednesday to expand the role of agricultural interests on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which vets companies that could pose national security risks because of influence by other countries. Rep. Ben Cline, R-6th, is a co-sponsor of the bill. Direct foreign investment in American agriculture and infrastructure has skyrocketed and the Chinese Communist Party has driven much of its growth, Spanberger said in a news release on Thursday. In the face of significant foreign investment in American farmland, we need to recognize how foreign actors could pose potential threats to our economic strength, the competitiveness of our ag industry, and our national security. Spanberger, a former CIA case officer, said in a separate statement that she shares Warners concern about protecting emerging 5G telecommunications networks from influence by the Chinese company Huawei, as well as lessening dependence on China for lifesaving pharmaceuticals like penicillin. However, she called on Youngkin who campaigned vigorously but unsuccessfully for her Republican opponent in November to be clear about the specific threats and ties to the CCP that his administration may have encountered before blocking the [Ford] factory from coming to Virginia. This information will help other elected officials make informed decisions down the road, Spanberger said in comments to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Additionally, I look forward to learning more about how Governor Youngkin intends to prioritize economic development and job growth in Southside, as well as all areas of the commonwealth, including for the Virginians I represent. Warner said the debate about Chinese purchase of farmland in North Dakota is less about the land than the location. If that farmland happens to be adjacent to a military installation, I think it raises questions. He also said the challenge for the U.S. is to regain its footing in critical industries, such as semiconductor chips, electric vehicle batteries and solar energy, while getting ahead in other technologies. Were going to dig into this in a meaningful way, so were not chasing the horses after theyre out of the barn, Warner said. Localities with the longest life expectancy in Virginia Counties with the longest life expectancy in Virginia #33. Surry County #33. Bedford County #31. Spotsylvania County #31. Hanover County #29. Rockbridge County #29. Harrisonburg #28. Frederick County #27. Highland County #25. Northumberland County #25. Botetourt County #23. Rockingham County #23. Greene County #18. Montgomery County #18. Charlottesville #18. Powhatan County #18. Stafford County #18. Fauquier County #17. Augusta County #16. Virginia Beach #15. Fluvanna County #14. Falls Church #13. Prince George County #12. Goochland County #11. Rappahannock County #9. Prince William County #9. York County #8. James City County #6. Williamsburg #6. Albemarle County #5. Alexandria #4. Loudoun County #3. Fairfax County #2. Arlington County #1. Manassas Park Cancun journalist escapes unharmed after being victim of targeted shooting Cancun, Q.R. The FGE of Quintana Roo has begun an investigation into the attempted murder of a Cancun journalist. On Thursday night, Ruben N was the target in an attempted shooting in SM 95. The Cancun journalist was driving in his vehicle when he was intercepted by a car that opened fire. At least four shots were fired. In a briefing, the FGE of Quintana Roo reported that they started an investigation for the attack suffered by a journalist in the municipality of Benito Juarez. The Attorney Generals Office is carrying out the corresponding investigative acts. The shooting happened shortly after 7:00 p.m. as he was leaving work. He was not injured in the attack. He was reportedly in the company of bodyguards at the time of the shooting. Mayor announces PDC command centre 70 percent complete Playa del Carmen, Q.R. The upcoming command center is around 70 percent complete announced Playa del Carmen mayor Lili Campos. Campos made the update with Security Secretary Raul Tassinari. Campos says the new command centre will be used to reinforce security in the most visited destination in Quintana Roo. We are ready for another successful vacation season, said the mayor, who also highlighted the installation of new surveillance cameras on Fifth Avenue. She said that cameras have also been installed at the entrances to the three police filters at Cancun-Playa del Carmen, Tulum-Playa del Carmen and Valladolid-Playa del Carmen, as well as the bridges, in the community of Villas del Sol and the main avenues of the city. Campos did not specify how many cameras were installed around the city. There was no anticipated completion date reported for the PDC command centre. Mexico and U.S. aviation authorities agree to continue with safety status recovery process Mexico City, Mexico Mexico and U.S. aviation authorities have agreed to continue with the audit process to recover Mexicos category 1 safety status. The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) agreed to continue with the audit process of the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC). The process will be through an exercise of technical assistance from February 6 to 10, so that Mexico is prepared and can recover Category 1 in terms of air safety as soon as possible. SICT and FAA agreed that the speedy recovery of Category 1 is a priority for the governments of Mexico and the United States, in order to guarantee the air safety of more than 30 million passengers. Jorge Nuno Lara, who heads the SICT, reported on the agreement to continue working to recover the countrys airline safety status. He specifyied that among the actions carried out by Mexico, the initiative for a reform of the Civil Aviation Law to strengthen the powers of the AFAC in verification and operational safety stands out, regulatory investigation of accidents and incidents, issuance, suspension, cancellation or revocation of certificates of psychophysical aptitude, in addition to the incorporation of an area of aviation medicine to evaluate technical-aeronautical personnel. Likewise, he indicated that the AFAC developed a Comprehensive Action Plan to address the final audit phase of the International Aviation Safety Assessment Program. The recovery of Mexicos Category air safety status continues. Photo: SCT Said plan, he emphasized, will facilitate the recovery of Category 1 with the implementation of an updated Platform for the Electronic Notification of Differences System of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), with the modifications to the Aeronautical legislation. National and the adoption of the new amendments to the ICAO standards. As well as responding to the 316 FAA IASA audit questions and self-assessment of possible gaps in all areas of the AFAC and compliance with the 39 findings detected during the review of the past technique. The meeting was chaired by Billy Nolen, interim administrator of the FAA and its technical staff. In view of this, he said that they are working with a joint team of technicians and specialists of the highest level in aviation matters to expedite the review processes in favor of promptly achieving the recategorization of Mexican aviation. During the meeting, a collaboration agreement between the FAA and AFAC was proposed to maintain the best standards and practices of air transport regulatory agencies in the future. The Mexican delegation that attended the high-level meeting that took place in the U.S. capital was also made up of the Undersecretary of Transportation, Rogelio Jimenez Pons, the General Director of the AFAC, Miguel Enrique Vallin Osuna and Mexican Ambassador, Esteban Moctezuma. New INM head for Quintana Roo sworn in Riviera Maya, Q. R. A new head for INM of Quintana Roo has been sworn on. The commissioner of the National Institute of Migration (INM), Francisco Garduno Yanez, sworn in Admiral Carlos Manuel Bandala Gonzalez. Bandala Gonzalez is the new head of the Institutes Representation Office in the state of Quintana Roo. He was part of nine other states who made an INM representation change last week. According to the INM, the change was made in compliance with the Institutional Program for Rotation of Holders and Management Personnel with the aim of promoting training and acquisition of new knowledge on migration. A $14 million settlement has been reached in lawsuits filed by more than 40 people who claimed they or their loved ones were exposed to a deadly viral outbreak while dining at two Famous Anthonys restaurants. Details of the agreement reached on behalf of four patrons who died and others who were sickened when an employee unknowingly spread hepatitis A became public during a hearing late Thursday in Roanokes federal court. The lawsuits were filed in state court, transferred to bankruptcy court after the two Famous Anthonys eateries filed for reorganization, and ultimately wound up before U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski. Urbanski had been asked to decide whether the restaurants insurance carrier was obligated to cover $7 million in claims as it had argued, or $14 million that was sought by Famous Anthonys and its victims. With the case now settled for the maximum coverage amount, the litigation will return to bankruptcy court for a determination of who is entitled to what portion of the sum. That process, which will be handled by a medical claims evaluator, is expected to take several months before a final bankruptcy plan is confirmed. But with a settlement now reached in principle, Urbanski said he hopes it will bring some resolution to this tragic situation. In addition to the four fatalities, other customers at the two restaurants at Grandin Road Extension and Williamson Road were hospitalized, and at least two underwent liver transplants. This has been a difficult case for everyone, said William Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in foodborne illness and represented 31 of the plaintiffs. Cincinnati Insurance Co. agreed that its policy for Famous Anthonys covered the claims made in lawsuits alleging the restaurants were liable for the outbreak, which began in the late summer of 2021. However, the insurance company argued that $7 million in coverage should apply collectively to both restaurants. But it eventually agreed to double that amount, covering each one individually and making more money available to those who were infected. Another snag came late last year, when the victims attorneys sought to expand the lawsuits to include a second claim: That the virus was spread when the infected employee touched surfaces such as doorknobs and tables that the consumers then came into contact with. Initially, the lawsuits had alleged only that patrons had eaten food that had been contaminated by the worker. The unidentified employee had multiple duties, which included working as a cook, waiting on tables and greeting customers as they came into the restaurants. Cincinnati objected to the surface contamination allegation, which it called a theory in search of evidence. But after Urbanski let the plaintiffs file amended lawsuits including both claims in early December, negotiations on the settlement began in earnest. In 2021, the Virginia Health Department said the virus was spread by an employee who worked at three Famous Anthonys locations. Patrons became sick at the Grandin and Williamson road eateries, but not at the third. At the time, the unidentified worker did not know that he or she had hepatitis A, which generally does not produce symptoms for the first two weeks, which is also the period in which it is most contagious. Microscopic amounts of fecal matter from the employee, who is suspected of inadequate hand-washing after using the bathroom, was spread to food and restaurant surfaces and then to customers. Such transmission of hepatitis A, which causes liver inflammation, is rare. The infectious disease is more commonly spread among at-risk populations, particularly the substance use community, injection drug users and the homeless. After nearly a half century in law enforcement and countless cases worked, there are still a few that stick out among the rest for Chuck Mason. I didnt think we were going to find her alive, Mason said recently as he recalled the 2010 abduction of Brittany Smith. The odds of finding someone who has gone missing after 72 hours are almost zero. Smith was abducted from her Roanoke County home near Salem by Jeff Easley after Easley killed her mother Tina Smith. They were spotted in San Francisco by a grocery store clerk a week after the case made national headlines. Mason, a county police lieutenant at the time, was the officer who received the call from San Francisco authorities letting them know Smith and Easley had been located. It was something Ill never forget, he said. Easley was convicted of kidnapping Brittany and murdering Tina, before dying in 2021 while serving a life sentence in Galax. Mason, 66, who retired as assistant chief earlier this month after 48 years with the county, recalled a unique case he oversaw during his days in the Vice department. In late 1999, Operation Babyface was initiated, where Katrina Goodman, as an undercover officer, infiltrated Northside and William Byrd high schools. Posing as a 17-year-old junior, Goodman helped to bring drug-trafficking charges against nine students and two parents over a semester and summer, according to Roanoke Times coverage at the time. Hardly anybody knew about what we were doing at the time, Mason said. It was hard to infiltrate the schools, because we all looked too old, but she was able to pull it off. Mason said one of the hardest things at the time was dumbing down some of Goodmans papers she wrote. She is as smart as can be, but she was posing as a druggie, and they dont usually get straight As, he said. We told her not to write such good stuff and make some mistakes. Now Goodman serves as the chief of investigations in the office of the State Inspector General. Masons love of law enforcement started at a young age, as the idea of helping people had always been something that piqued his interest. I was intrigued with public safety for as long as I can remember, he said. When I was 16, I started as a volunteer at the Cave Spring Rescue Squad. I liked the idea of protecting my community. His career with the county sheriffs office began his last week of high school in 1974, where he split his days between final exams and training to become a dispatcher. Mason held that position for four years while also getting his bachelors degree from Radford University, where he later earned his masters as well. Though Mason is ending his career with the county, he will still be involved with criminal justice as an adjunct professor at Radford University, something hes been doing for years. Lt. Col. Steve Turner, who has worked more than 45 years in the sheriffs office, worked with Mason until the county started its own police department in 1990. Turner, 69, said his longtime friend is one of the best law enforcement officers hes ever known. It didnt take long for him to get established, he said. As Chuck started to move up the ranks, the seriousness of the job was something that was instilled in him. Others who worked with Mason said he was a calming presence, particularly in times of great distress and uncertainty. Theres not a whole lot I can experience in 2023 that Chuck didnt honestly experience in 1983 He brings a wealth of knowledge to the table and when he talks people listen, newly appointed Assistant Chief Mark Tuck said. Tuck said Mason has always been a great problem solver in the department. Hes a great sounding board when Im struggling to wrap my head around something, and he will sit down and say OK, this is how I worked through that, he said. A banquet was held in Masons honor earlier this month and officers from various agencies in the area and in the state spoke about how influential Mason has been to them in his career. Besides jokes about them being children when Mason began his career, they also touched on the void his absence would bring to law enforcement, not just in the county, but all throughout the Roanoke Valley. Turner said the key to having a long career is waking up with the desire to go to work, something Mason echoed when discussing how he lasted so long. I loved what I did every day. To me this was more than just a job, it was a lifelong passion, he said. And thats a passion Mason passed down to his son, Christian, 31, who is a Roanoke County detective. I was the kind of kid in elementary school who knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up, and I have my dad to thank for that, he said. I admired him a lot. I still do. While the younger Mason followed in his fathers footsteps career wise, he doesnt think he will be doing it for as long. Absolutely not, he said with a laugh. I think its a rarity to be in any career for 40 years, let alone almost 50. I think he could lend me some years and I could retire now, too. State police are investigating a Roanoke City Sheriffs Office deputys misconduct. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation in the Virginia State Polices Salem Field Office has been asked by the Roanoke City Sheriff to conduct an investigation involving an incident at the Roanoke City Jail, Rick Garletts, state police public information officer, said in an email Thursday. The internal investigation is related to a deputys alleged misconduct, the sheriffs office said in another Thursday press release. State police were contacted and asked to conduct the investigation to prohibit bias and to ensure transparency. Both agencies have said that the investigation is ongoing, so neither will release additional information regarding the investigation or details related to the alleged misconduct. Sheriff Antonio Hash said he wants the public to know that there are no additional security threats against the agency, detention center, nor the residents within the facility, according to the departments press release. It is believed this is an isolated incident, however, the agency awaits the results of the investigation. Once the state polices investigation is over, the findings will be turned over to the Roanoke City Commonwealth Attorneys Office for adjudication, Garletts said. Montgomery County has received a proposal for construction of a truck stop and travel center beside Interstate 81 in Ironto, which if built would slightly ease a severe shortage of truck parking along the heavily traveled ground shipping corridor. Loves Travel Stops Inc. of Oklahoma has applied to rezone nearly 33 acres of vacant land from agricultural to general business. Separately, the application seeks one special use permit for a travel center and one for three signs. The site is a large open field at North Fork and Pedlar roads, south of the interstates exit 128. Joes Kwik Mark, also a truck stop, is on the north side of the Ironto interchange. The 39-page application is co-signed by Lisa Pendleton. She and Tina Wells own the land and, according to the application, reside in Boones Mill. Neither immediately responded to a voice mail message seeking comment. The Montgomery County Planning Commission is scheduled to take up the proposal Feb. 15, with supervisors scheduled to review it March 13. One of the facilitys proposed signs would stand 190 feet high, while the maximum allowed height without an exception is 40 feet. But the official review will be comprehensive and consider matters other than signs. Dale Bennett, president and CEO of the Virginia Trucking Association, welcomed the proposal, which would add 79 truck parking spaces. Theres no doubt that we have a critical shortage of truck parking spaces all across the country, including along I-81, he said. Any additional spaces is certainly helpful in addressing this issue. Truck drivers are responsible to deliver goods on time and comply with mandated rest periods, a process made difficult by the parking shortage, Bennett said. He finds it difficult to bear, knowing that public opposition has defeated proposals for truck stops in other locations when consumers count on finding goods carried by truck at the store or on the doorstep when they want them. Truck parking is available off I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley at Whites Travel Center in Raphine, which calls itself the East Coasts largest travel center and has more than 700 truck parking spaces. The supply grows thin to the south. A truck stop with 129 parking spaces razed off Interstate 81s exit 150 interchange with U.S. 220 and U.S. 11 at Daleville in 2014. No major new facilities have been built in this region. Loves is a major player in the travel center business, with 600 locations in 42 states, according to its website. The company says its centers provide professional truck drivers and motorists with 24-hour access to clean and safe places to purchase gasoline, diesel fuel, compressed natural gas (CNG), travel items, electronics, snacks, restaurant offerings, and more. Drawings for the Ironto location show a store, restaurant, dog park, tire shop and truck wash. If built as proposed, there will be 11 RV parking spaces in addition to the truck parking, along with about 80 regular parking places. The application is available free on the planning commission website montva.com/departments/planning-gis-intro/planning-commission under an entry dated Monday. State highway officials have endorsed proposed improvements to Roanokes busy Orange Avenue in funding recommendations for the next fiscal year, but a proposed revamp of Williamson Road did not make their cut. Last week, the staff of the Virginia Department of Transportation revealed a long list of road projects they think the state should fund. Among them, VDOT staff favorably recommended a series of improvements to Orange Avenue (U.S. 460) east of the Berglund Center. However, a strategic reworking of part of Williamson Road in Roanoke to enhance safety and traffic flow is in a holding pattern after failing to receive support. The $66 million project remains a possibility in some form. Construction would not begin for years. The recommendations will next go to policymakers at the Commonwealth Transportation Board, who have a final say on priorities and funding. Theyre scheduled to gather in the spring. Williamson Road from near its Orange Avenue intersection northward for one and three-fourths of a mile, or about two-thirds of the way to Hershberger Road, is a relatively perilous byway for motorists and pedestrians. Analysts said that road section experienced 500 wrecks over a five-year period from 2017 to 2021, some leading to death and severe injury. Twelve pedestrians were hit by vehicles and five of them died, while two had serious injuries. State-hired engineers proposed shifting vehicles from Williamson Roads two lanes in each direction to one lane, freeing up space for turning and bike lanes. Crews would also install new crosswalks, rebuild sidewalks and remove several existing stoplights that consultants found arent needed. Some residents and business representatives voiced opposition, saying those changes would gum up traffic. Still, Roanoke City Council voted to request state money in August. Last week, Richmond checked back in. The Williamson Road makeover, priced at $66 million including $21.5 million in construction expense, failed to advance to the next stage of the vetting process. But its failure to earn a VDOT staff thumbs-up doesnt close the matter, said Dwayne DArdenne, transportation division manager for the city. The process is not finished, he said, because the Commonwealth Transportation Board can fund a project that was not recommended. Officials will be putting their heads together on a strategy. Until the final decision, the Williamson Road revamp proposal is in limbo. If it isnt funded in this round, the Williamson Road proposal can be reworked and submitted in the next round, which will take place in two years, DArdenne said. The good news is that VDOT staff did recommend that the Commonwealth Transportation Board fund three traffic improvement projects on Orange Avenue. That urban, four-laned arterial road carries more traffic than Williamson Rd., making those investments a better return on the public dollar, DArdenne said. That doesnt at all discount the need to do something on Williamson, he said. A former Liberty University official is suing the school for what he alleges is an unlawful termination for engaging in whistleblower activities. The university, in a motion to dismiss the suit filed this week in Lynchburg Circuit Court, seeks to have the litigation tossed out. The plaintiff, Bedford County resident John Robert Markley, filed the suit Nov. 17 seeking $20 million in damages and a jury trial. The complaint alleges his June 24 firing was in retaliation for being a whistle-blower on a range of activities the suit states were improper. Markley was hired by LU in 2008 as an adjunct member of the faculty and he became a full-time employee there in March 2017, beginning what was the first of several roles he held in LUs administration, according to the suit. He most recently was administrative dean for academic operations, a role responsible for overseeing critical operations needs such as personnel/human resources functions and administration of compensation, among other duties, the complaint states. Markley was a senior administrator within the Office of the Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Scott Hicks. The suit alleges Markley witnessed numerous improprieties and many acts by LU officials regarding the fundamental management of the entire corporation and his position provided an eye-opening perspective on the inner workings of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that operated to maximize profits without ethics and at the expense of the truth and those willing to fight for it, and to the detriment of students, and professors. A statement from the college said the allegations Markley has raised are without merit. "The university believes the Court will agree," the statement reads. The suit states Markley reported disturbing violations of state and federal laws to LU leadership, including his supervisors, and law enforcement officials and alleges for those efforts he was fired. The complaint states he was interviewed for an hour and a half by lawyers representing the college and disclosed a litany of improper activities he witnessed at LU, provided verbal statements and submitted hundreds of pages of information related to LUs wrongdoing to multiple federal authorities. Dr. Markley reported those issues as he had a good faith belief that they were violations of the law and doing so was in the best interest of the institution, its students, and its academic programs, the lawsuit reads. Liberty's statement said the college will file a point-by-point refutation of the allegations beginning with the fact that Markley was let go as a result of an administrative reorganization. The suit alleges the reorganization claim was a "masked retaliation." "Dr. Markley's separation was wholly unrelated to any allegation of misconduct," LU's statement said. "Liberty only learned of his communication with a Federal agency several months after his separation from the university. We are confident that any fair and impartial review of his claim will determine that the allegations in his complaint are simply inaccurate or false." A motion to dismiss the case filed Monday by attorneys representing LU states Markley failed to plead facts showing that he in good faith reported a violation of any federal or state law or regulation to a supervisor or to any governmental body or law enforcement official. Markleys complaint is insufficient on its face under state code because he fails to enumerate any instance in which he raised a violation of an identifiable federal or state law or regulation to Liberty," the motion states. A graduate of LUs undergraduate program and divinity school, Markley began voicing his concerns as early as 2018 but engaged in an increasing number of protected reports in the years and months leading to his firing, the lawsuit states. The suit includes a summary of alleged improper activities by the college, including the following: unjust enrichment due to potentially fraudulent management of a network of charitable organizations by LU as well as corporate subsidiaries of the college and implementation of faculty textbook selections and sales; improper use of LU assets such as a jet airplane; improper financial account activities and transactions in the Department of Academic Affairs and the Provost Office budget; improper acts to thwart and/or obstruct the aims of Title IX and corrective measures to combat sexual assault on campus; an improper compensation scheme for college business executives; intentional misrepresentation of acceptance rates and enrollment numbers for improper financial gain; intentional concealment of assets and revenue through the use of third-party business entities; conflicts of interest related to parties hired to allegedly investigate incidents of wrongdoing at the college; retaliatory actions against LU employees; misrepresentations to the public and to accreditors regarding colleges academic programs; and intentional destruction of likely relevant evidence and improper and incorrect information regarding employee data submitted to federal customs and immigration officials. The colleges motion to dismiss the suit states Markley claims to have submitted protected reports but the list of alleged improper activities is notable in failing to specify a single federal or state law or regulation that the plaintiff asserted was being violated. The motion states Markleys vague and nonspecific allegations are the type of assertions that Virginia courts do not accept and the suit fails to allege material facts that constitute a cause of action against LU under state code. It also states Markleys suit further lacks specificity regarding the person to whom, if anyone, the plaintiff submitted the alleged multiple reports of unlawful violations. The motion further states as a matter of law the complaint is insufficient on its face to constitute a cause of action under state code because he fails to allege when he reported any violation of law. Liberty cannot even ascertain whether Plaintiffs alleged reports fell within the statute of limitations, the motion states. Markleys suit states he performed his work in exemplary fashion and at least met, if not exceeded, the legitimate business expectations of LU and at no time did he receive workplace discipline or a performance improvement plan from the college. His suit argues he was fired due to his legally protected acts and in violation of state law. Liberty University in court documents is requesting an evidentiary hearing for the court to consider additional evidence, the suit be dismissed with prejudice and to be awarded costs and attorneys fees incurred in defending the suit. A hearing date on the civil matter has not yet been set in Lynchburg Circuit Court, according to court records. In an email seeking comment, Thomas Strelka, Markley's attorney, said "Liberty University does not practice what it preaches." "The defense motions are as threatening as warm tea," Strelka said in the email. "We look forward to advancing this matter to a very public trial so that Liberty Universitys foul play may be known to the world." LU's statement said the college wished Markley well, adding: "We are confident that the university has treated him appropriately and look forward to vigorously defending against these unfounded claims." Best colleges in Virginia Best colleges in Virginia Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Governments Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net Dennis Beaver Practices law in Bakersfield and welcomes comments and questions from readers, which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993, or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1@Gmail.com. Also, visit dennisbeaver.com. A team of engineers from the University of Bath has created a new company, Aerogel Core Ltd, specialising in ultra-light 'aerogels' that can be used as soundproofing and heat-shielding materials for the aerospace and automotive industries. The team has been funded by Innovate UK to spin out the company to commercialise its innovative and environmentally friendly aerogels, which are synthetic, porous materials manufactured by replacing the liquid component normally found in gels with gas. Crucially, the team has found a way to use graphene to produce aerogels that retain their shape and strength, without the gel structure collapsing. As well as tuneable acoustic properties, ultralight aerogels have other functional properties such as thermal, fire and electromagnetic interference shielding. The coupling of both acoustic and other functional properties provides a material that can have a large impact within many industrial sectors. In particular, the material meets the functionalities of specific engineering applications for the aerospace sector, creating the best acoustic properties for a material with incredibly low density. Principal Investigator Professor Michele Meo and Research Fellow Gian-Piero Malfense Fierro, both from the University's Department of Mechanical Engineering, have been awarded funding from the Innovate UK ICURe (Innovation and Commercialisation of University Research) programme. Gian-Piero Malfense Fierro says: "Our initial calculations for a 280 aircraft fleet, like that of British Airways, would see an estimated 30-90 tonne reduction in CO2 emissions per year by using our material, due to reducing the weight of similar materials by up to 50%. "This is ground-breaking for the aerospace industry. We look forward to commercialising the technology and proving the scalability of our manufacturing process." Professor Michele Meo adds: "The funding we have received from Innovate UK proves that our research is not just theoretical or done in the lab but has real-world application and, most importantly, contributes to society. Having spun out we now intend to reach other markets, such as the automotive, marine, and acoustic insulation, further supporting government targets of building back greener." Ali Hadavizadeh, the Technology Transfer Manager who supported the research team to develop their technology from Research and Innovation Services (RIS) at the University, says: "The calculations for CO2 reduction to the aerospace industry go a long way in demonstrating the potential to support the government with their net zero strategy to build back greener, which aims to decarbonise all sectors of the economy by 2050. It also provides an excellent example for our university strategy in supporting our research priority of sustainability and core value of adopting best environmental practice." The team will now focus on proving the scalability of the technology through automation of the manufacturing process and further material development. The awarded Innovate UK grant will provide the first steps towards commercial exploitation and expanding the business case for other markets. Provided by University of Bath COLUMBIA Three chefs were appointed South Carolina Chef Ambassadors for 2023. Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette made the announcement on behalf of Gov. Henry McMaster, along with Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers and Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Director Duane Parrish. We're proud to have these three outstanding chefs represent South Carolina this year as Chef Ambassadors," McMaster said. "The incredible culinary skill of these chefs and other chefs like them around our state greatly strengthens our cultural heritage and helps to bring millions of visitors to our state each year." Chef Ambassadors represent South Carolina through culinary events and promotional opportunities. This is the ninth year of the program, which was enacted in 2014 to highlight South Carolina as a top culinary destination. The program unites agribusiness and tourism, two of the states largest industries, which together contribute tens of billions of dollars to the states economy each year and account for hundreds of thousands of jobs statewide. The Chef Ambassador program is a unique example of collaboration between two industries that drive our economy, bring visitors to South Carolina, and help feed the world, Evette said. South Carolina Chef Ambassadors prepare dishes using Certified South Carolina produce, meats and seafood, supporting local farmers and honoring the states food traditions. Together, chefs and farmers highlight our states agricultural roots and fresh, seasonal foods, Weathers said. The Chef Ambassador program also helps lift up rural South Carolina and support South Carolina agriculture. South Carolinas thriving restaurant industry is a key dimension of its appeal as a global tourism destination. The 2023 South Carolina Chef Ambassadors are: Chef Erica McCier -- Indigenous Underground, Abbeville. Chef Erica, also known as Chef Trudy, is the owner and executive chef of Indigenous Underground in historic downtown Abbeville. Formerly a schoolteacher, Chef Trudy went to culinary school after overcoming major health setbacks, and went on to open a catering business known as Trudys Personal Chef & Catering and co-found Off Tha Hook Seafood & Grill. Her menu at Indigenous Underground mixes Southern food and global influences. Chef Rob Masone -- Kounter, Rock Hill. After building an extensive resume as a chef across the country, Chef Rob returned home to Rock Hill to open Kounter in 2020. The Rock Hill restaurant is home to the historic Friendship Nine Sit-In lunch counter, which has given Chef Rob a landing place for his innovative culinary creations. Chef Marcus Shell -- 39 Rue De Jean, Charleston A New England native with a seafood background and classic French culinary training who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu Boston, Chef Marcus honed his skills in some of Bostons finer establishments. He is now Executive Chef at Charlestons beloved French brasserie, 39 Rue de Jean. The Chef Ambassador program showcases some of the best bites the state has to offer, and the 2023 class is poised to further elevate South Carolinas rich culinary scene," Duane Parrish, director of the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism. The January-February 2023 issue of South Carolina Wildlife magazine ran my story on Edgefield Countys Curryton Magnolia. The old trees close to being a state record magnolia but a magnolia with more state record potential lives at Hampton Plantation in McClellanville. Of course. The name Hampton and big trees go together. They bring Harry Hampton to mind, a man known for his passion for natural resources and trees, big trees. Hes considered the father of our national park, Congaree. Big trees fascinate us. Think of the redwoods. How does a South Carolina tree become a champion? That falls upon the Clemson University SC Champion Tree program. It determines the largest tree of its species according to a formula based on trunk circumference, tree height, and average crown spread. And who are the people who judge potential champions? Foresters. Consider them tree scholars. As I worked on my magnolia story I found myself in familiar territory. The story formed an intersection of sorts for four connections: boyhood days spent roaming woods, my days as a writer at South Carolina DNR, my love for the outdoors, and my high regard for stewards of the environment. As a boy I must have climbed 1,000 trees. Never fell out of one. All my life Ive loved trees. Its no surprise I like nurseries, tree farms, and parks green with trees. Woods and waters made for a childhood playground, growing up in rural reaches as I did. Thanks to a week at a 4-H camp I learned to identify the trees of the South. Tree identification was my one foray into forestry, outside of writing features on trees. I never studied forestry formally but days come when I wish I had. It would make me a better writer. Masses of sunlight-loving, shady trees where would we be without forests? In a world beset with environmental problems we need trees and tree scholars more than ever. We all should appreciate those who study, grow, nurture, and preserve forests, and we need to keep them coming our way. If you know a young person interested in natural resources, an aspiring forester or environmentalist, tell them about Harry Hampton and tell them about the fund that honors him. Tell them how the Harry Hampton Memorial Wildlife Fund, a private, nonprofit corporation, partners with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to promote education, research, management, and the administration of game and fish laws. Tell them how the fund and its partnership with DNR benefit South Carolinas wildlife, marine, and other natural resources. And let them know the fund began simply, with words. Harry Hampton worked as a writer for the State newspaper. He couldnt know it at the time, but his Woods and Waters column would open doors to scholarships for young people interested in natural resources. It all began when his column became a crusade for South Carolinas natural resources that led to speaking engagements around the state where he promoted sportsmanship and wise use of natural resources. It would do something vital years later: help open doors for young people interested in natural resources, among them forestry. Tree scholars do good things and in Harry Hamptons case, scholarship, serves two purposes. The Harry Hampton Wildlife Funds scholarships honor Hamptons legacy. The funds scholarship program helps students further their education in a natural resources discipline such as wildlife biology, fisheries biology, forestry, marine science or environmental science to qualify. March 23, the Harry Hampton Wildlife Fund will hold its annual Wildlife Ball, Wild Game Dinner, and Auction. Proceeds from the auction will help fund its scholarship program. When you stop to consider how we depend on trees, you understand just how much we need tree scholars. And theres another reason we need tree scholars. Forests are planet Earths lungs. They exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen, while cleaning the air and water, producing fruit, lumber, and giving wildlife and man homes. Hampton sure understood it and tree scholars do too. Note: Scholarship application forms and criteria are available as downloadable PDFs at http://www.hamptonwildlifefund.org/scholarship.html . The 2023-2024 applications postmark deadline is Jan. 31. 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. FILE PHOTO: A business jet is refuelled using Jet A fuel at the Henderson Executive Airport during the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) exhibition in Las Vegas By Shariq Khan, Laura Sanicola and Seher Dareen (Reuters) - Jet fuel prices have risen to levels never recorded in January as demand from China's lifting of COVID-19 travel restrictions and U.S. refinery outages, with the surge likely to continue, analysts and refining executives say. Chinese flight activity has more than tripled since early December to more than an average of 10,700 flights per day, according to data from flight tracking firm Airportia. Jet fuel this year will be the largest source of oil demand growth, says the International Energy Agency, which monitors energy consumption. This month's demand should hit 6.6 million barrels per day, the highest reading since February 2020, said Viktor Katona, an analyst at data firm Kpler. Prices are climbing in Asia, Europe and the United States. In Singapore, jet fuel is trading around $122.30 per barrel, up 14% in the last two weeks. Europe's price for the fuel has climbed to $115 per tonne, the highest since June. New York spot prices were quoted on Thursday at $2.45 above U.S. ultra-low sulfur diesel, a premium not seen at this time of the year since at least 2011. Refining outages in the United States are feeding the price run-up. Cold weather along the U.S. Gulf Coast recently knocked out some processing plants and pushed up the premium for jet fuel, said Gary Simmons, chief commercial officer at Valero Energy. "Overall, we expect jet demand to increase significantly this year," he told an earnings call on Thursday, as air travel continues to rise. U.S. East Coast supplies are likely to remain scarce until mid-February, he said. A Feb. 5 European Union embargo on imports of seaborne Russian refined products will also pressure European supplies and will increase the call on U.S. refiners to fill the gap, analysts said. U.S. jet fuel inventories ended last year at 34 million barrels, the lowest since 1990, according to U.S. government data. Total jet fuel supplied, a proxy for demand, stood at 1.56 million barrels per day in 2022, the highest since 2019. (Reporting by Laura Sanicola, Shariq Khan and Seher Dareen; additional reporting Arpan Varghese; Editing by Josie Kao) Rabbit figurines displayed inside the Marina Bay Sands shopping mall in Singapore on January 17. (Photo: Rosland Rahman/AFP/Getty Images) By Kevin Varley (Bloomberg) Tourists visiting Singapore for the Lunar New Year have been greeted with wet weather and plunging temperatures that have locals scratching their heads as the city state records the most rainfall in at least a decade. The culprit behind the heavy rains is a monsoon surge a strengthening of winds over the South China Sea that causes extensive rainclouds to form over the city-state enveloping the surrounding region, according to the Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS). The downpour, unfortunately for travellers, has coincided with the start of the Lunar New Year holidays. The rain was heaviest on the first day of the festive season on 22 Jan, when the rainfall reached a peak of 114.4 millimetres, compared with last years monthly average of 184 mm. The spate of gloomy weather adds tropical Singapore to a list of destinations like New York and Tokyo, which are dealing with extreme weather albeit in wintry conditions. Temperatures on the island fell to 22.3 Celsius (72F) from the usual average of around 28 Celsius. Singapore normally experiences two to four surge occurrences during each northeast monsoon season, with each event lasting one to five days. Expect more rain and cool weather as another surge is forecast to begin 28 Jan. 2023 Bloomberg L.P. State officials this week announced the start of a rental assistance fund that aims to prevent evictions as Connecticut grapples with an ongoing housing crisis thats grown more acute since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The UniteCT Eviction Prevention Fund and rent bank, a combined $12.5 million from federal funds and a state program, will offer up to $5,000 per household to pay rent owed to landlords. Tenants can apply by calling 1-844-864-8328, according to a press release from the state. Theyll first be screened for eligibility then complete applications with help from local resource centers. The Department of Housing program aims to prevent evictions, which can have long-reaching effects on families. The number of evictions in Connecticut rose after pandemic protections expired. Last year, landlords filed the highest number of evictions since at least 2017 the earliest year with available data. They filed 22,749 evictions in 2022, over 2,000 more than 2017, and more than three times as many as 2020, when a moratorium on certain evictions for missed rent was in place. Each filing can represent several people in a household, and families with children are often at a higher risk of facing eviction. Women and people of color, particularly women of color, also are at a disproportionate risk of eviction. In our many efforts to mitigate the growing number of evictions, we are establishing this fund to continue to assist our renters that face financial hardship, DOH Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno said in the statement. With these resources, we expect to assist individuals and families to remain housed while also providing landlords with some financial relief. The program is for tenants who already have evictions filed against them and can cover rent owed back to April 1, 2020, DOH spokesman Aaron Turner said in an email. Tenants are eligible if they earn up to 80% of the area median income. In order to receive the money, theyll have to enter an agreement with the landlord to either stay in the unit until back rent is paid or find a plan to move to a new place, according to a program overview document. Renters who already received up to $15,000 or 12 months of rent from UniteCT, the states emergency rental assistance program, are only eligible for up to $3,500 in additional assistance. If the eviction case were withdrawn or the court orders that a marshal deliver an execution or remove a tenant from the apartment, that renter would no longer be eligible for the program, according to the overview document. People facing eviction who meet the eligibility requirements and dont have legal representation will have access to mediators at Quinnipiac Universitys Center on Dispute Resolution, according to the statement. After Connecticut spent its initial $400 million from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and the American Rescue Plan Act, the state applied for more money. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has been re-allocating rental assistance funds from states such as Arkansas and Alabama that were slower to spend money or states such as Montana and South Dakota with fewer tenants. Connecticut received an addition $11 million from those re-allocated funds. The states Department of Housing combined that money with $1.5 million the state legislature set aside for a rent bank program last session. Ginny Monk is a reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2023 (c) The Connecticut Mirror. GDP 1.4 9 LV5000 GDP5% 16% 415 KeeTa 0.38% 0.26%15% OTT TVB 460460 mReferral_Column - mReferral_Column - KOKO MARE2300 90% 80 85% 3Q Discover high potential talents by using the 3Q indicators 24.2 36.24 826.63 25.69 125.49 35.66 UNIQLO4.5% 2.8% 26% 304 GRAND ISLAND -- A truck owned by Kramers Wrecker Service crashed the cover of a national magazine. The big vehicle is pictured on the front cover of the November issue of Tow Times magazine, which named the truck its 2022 Shine n Star Grand Prize winner. The magazine describes its annual competition as a tow truck beauty contest. The driver of the truck is longtime Kramers employee Robert Woody Stevenson. The pink color and its design pay tribute to Stevensons wife, Michelle, who is a two-time breast cancer survivor. Kramers has owned the 40-foot truck since August 2020. Lisa Bartz, who owns the business with her husband, Tim, designed the exterior. The vinyl wrap was applied by After Hours Grafix of Aurora. Lisa Bartz had been wanting a pink truck in honor of breast cancer awareness. When Michelle Stevenson was battling cancer, Lisa decided to design the truck in her honor. Michelle didnt know the truck would honor her until the day it arrived. Michelle, 47, is now in good health. The winning truck, which was originally white, is a 2019 Peterbilt with a Century 1150 rotator and a knee boom underlift. The rotator is rated to hold up to 50 tons. The vehicle came from Meyer Truck Center in Olathe, Kansas. In 2021, the truck was included in the Shout-Outs section of the Tow Times contest. The magazine invited Kramers to submit the vehicle again for the 2022 competition. Lisas design includes a big pink ribbon on the exterior, along with an illustration of Woody from the Toy Story movies. In the front is Michelles birthday, Feb. 29. Four inspiring words are also featured on the outside: Not without a fight. The truck even has a pink steering wheel. Stevenson, 46, has worked for Kramers Wrecker Service for 17 years. Before that, he worked 16 years at Island Towing, owned by Lisas late brother, Jim. Jim Kramer is the one who gave Stevenson the Woody nickname, inspired by the Toy Story character. The other wrecker Stevenson drives, a 2021 Peterbilt 389, is purple and white. That truck, which is 35 feet long, took first place in a 2022 contest sponsored by Zips AW Direct of New Hampton, Iowa. Stevenson, a graduate of Northwest High School, is on call 24 hours a day. Sometimes, when he gets called out, he doesnt know if hes going to be gone for an hour or 24 hours. Even though he doesnt own the trucks he drives, hes proud of them. I take care of them as if theyre my own, he said. The Lincoln Journal Star's top photos from 2022 When David Windsor and Casey Johnson were looking for story ideas, they discovered they both loved reading obituaries. Wed been writing together for over 20 years and didnt know that about each other, Johnson says. The variety of lives chronicled seemed ripe for a television series. Enter: Not Dead Yet, a look at an obituary writer who is visited by subjects while shes writing about their lives. Starring Jane the Virgins Gina Rodriguez, the comedy finds her back in the newsroom trying to restart the career she left behind five years earlier. Because its the only job available, Rodriguezs Nell takes it and starts to get advice from the dead. She gets to learn from the people around her, too, Rodriguez says, which makes co-workers and friends essential to visiting the lives of others. While Windsor and Johnson admit they dont know the world of obituary writers, they did talk with one and got a sense of the jobs parameters. We had quite a few meetings with newspaper journalists and publishers just to understand how their world worked, to see what it looked like, Windsor says. Wed never been inside a newsroom, so we did a lot of research to make sure that was accurate. The I talk to dead people angle enabled them to educate Nell and help her move ahead in life. A series of guest stars (from Martin Mull to Rhea Perlman) pass through the series episodes. I really like being a part of a project that helps us all take a second and be like, What can I learn? Rodriguez says. Let me rise above blame, shame or guiltand let me blossom because its never too late. Ironically, as Not Dead Yet was beginning, Rodriguez learned she was pregnant. While producers figured out ways to disguise her baby bump, they encouraged her to enjoy the moment. I had so much support from these incredible humans beings on set, she says. It would just make me feel so loved and supported and it was a huge gift. While starring in Jane the Virgin, Rodriguez often told herself she should be more like that character. I would go out into the world and all of the beautiful viewers would be so loving and treat me like I was Jane. I was so lucky to play that character. But to play a character like Nell, who is flawed and learning and making mistakes (has given me this) beautiful space to grow. To give the series dimension, producers created characters with other quirks and included them as co-workers, friends and roommates. Naturally, the actors discussed the idea of ghosts. All had some level of close encounters. Lauren Ash, who plays one of Nells bosses, says she walked into an apartment and found a puddle of water on the floor. The next day, the same thing. And then there was liquid laundry detergent on the floor, she explains. My grandmother had recently passed and she always told me, I will come to you after I die. And then, I was like, Oh, shes here. And it was the greatest. Rodriguezs grandmother died last summer. I had an awesome, spiritual baby shower and my mom was very sad that my grandmother wasnt there. Shes supposed to be here, she kept saying. And Im like, But she is. She totally is. I know that the strength that that woman had toward the end of her life was so visible and commendable. Youd ask her, How are you doing, grandma? and she would always say, Bastante - bien, which means, Im doing just fine. Going into (childbirth), Im just going to keep hearing my grandmother. I have the strength of these women that have come before me. "Not Dead Yet" premieres Feb. 8 on ABC. SIOUX CITY Residents interested in attending a local town hall in 2023 will have to wait just a little longer. Friday afternoon, the Sioux City League of Women Voters announced that it was canceling its first planned Saturday forum of the year at the Sioux City Public Museum due to the threat of a winter storm and an announcement from the City of Sioux City of a snow emergency. SIOUX CITY -- A construction worker injured after coming into contact with a city-owned power line can proceed with a negligence lawsuit against the city of Sibley, a federal appeals court has ruled. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday reversed a lower court's ruling that dismissed Victor Maldonado's claim against the city. A three-judge panel ruled jurors can consider if the city's compliance with grandfathered regulations rather than current rules pertaining to power line heights amounts to a breach of duty to promote safe service to the public. The court reinstated Maldonado's negligence claim as well as a loss of consortium claim filed by his wife, Lidia Ochoa. Maldonado was injured in September 2018 while working on a rain gutter renovation on a building at 839 Third Ave. in Sibley. As he was handling an aluminum downspout, a city-owned and operated electrical distribution line sent a high-voltage current through the downspout and his body, causing him to fall 20 feet off the roof to an alley below. Maldonado, of Worthington, Minnesota, suffered electrical burns, facial and cranial fractures, a brain injury, loss of function in limbs and blindness in one eye. He sued the city in U.S. District Court in Sioux City in May 2020, saying the power line was too close to the building and did not comply with safety codes. Maldonado sought more than $75,000 in damages. In August 2021, U.S. District Judge Linda Reade dismissed the case after granting the city's motion for summary judgment, ruling Iowa's public duty doctrine, which says an individual can't sue a state, county or city for a breach of duty or obligation owed to the public at large, bars Maldonado's claim. The city had argued the power line complied with regulations requiring 8 feet of clearance in place when it was installed sometime in the 1970s. State regulators later increased the requirement to 12.5 feet, and the line at issue was at 10 feet at the time of the accident. The city also argued Maldonado had no grounds for a lawsuit because he was not working on city-owned property, doing work for the city and no city permits were issued for the work he was doing. Reade ruled that though standards for power line clearance had changed, the line in question was grandfathered in under regulations in place at the time it was installed and there was no evidence that the Iowa Utilities Board had ever required the city to raise it. The case has been reopened in the Sioux City court. No date has been set for a trial or other hearings. SIOUX CITY A federal judge has denied a request made by Steve Kings attorneys to reduce the amount of damages a jury ordered the former U.S. congressmans campaign to pay for using a copyrighted photo in the Success Kid meme without the owners permission in a 2020 fundraising ad. U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams also denied a motion by the photos owner to amend the judgment and find King liable for his King for Congress campaigns copyright infringement. In denying Kings motion, Williams said the jury was not given instructions it could reduce damages to as low as $200, and Kings lawyers didnt object to the lack of the instruction during the trial, effectively waiving any argument that jurors should have been told they could award a lower damage amount. There is no guarantee the jury would have reduced the award below $750, let alone to $200, Williams wrote. Steve King book Former Iowa Rep. Steve King holds a copy of his new book, "Walking Through The Fire," while speaking to the Sioux City Rotary Club on Dec. 20, After a four-day trial in federal court in Sioux City in November, jurors ordered King for Congress to pay $750 in damages to Laney Griner, finding the campaign had infringed upon the Florida womans copyright when using the photo of her son Sam in the Success Kid meme, so-called because the picture of the then-toddler captured him with a determined look on his face and a fistful of sand raised in a triumphant motion. Griner sought $150,000 in damages. The ad was posted on a Republican fundraising site as King, a Republican from Kiron, Iowa, was running for re-election. He later lost in the primary to Randy Feenstra, who won the seat in the November election. Though the ad was taken down from the fundraising site and Kings Facebook and campaign pages hours later after Griner demanded its removal, she later sued King and his campaign for copyright infringement, and her son sued for invasion of privacy. Jurors determined King for Congress did infringe on the copyright, but did so unknowingly, and awarded Laney Griner the statutory minimum $750. The jury determined King himself did not infringe upon Griners copyright and also found in Sam Griners claim for invasion of privacy that King for Congress did not use the photo without his consent, though Griner and his mother both testified no one from the campaign had sought their permission to use it. After the trial, Kings lawyers filed a motion to reduce the amount to $200 because the jury found the infringement was committed unknowingly. Griners attorney also filed a post-trial motion, asking Williams to amend the judgment to find King was liable for the copyright infringement of his campaign committee. Griners attorney argued trial evidence proved King for Congress was acting on Kings behalf, making him liable for infringement, too. King testified at trial he was unaware of the photos use, and Williams said in his ruling denying Griners motion that Kings son and campaign manager, Jeff King, also testified to the separation of King from his campaign committee. Williams said it was a reasonable finding by jurors that King was not involved in fundraising decisions, though another jury could reasonably find otherwise. King has appealed the jurys judgment to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. On this weeks edition of the On Iowa Politics podcast: the private school financial aid bill is now state law, meat gets a second chance, the medical malpractice debate is back, and a state snafu has local governments scrambling. On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast that aims to re-create the kinds of conversations that happen when you get political reporters from across Iowa together after the day's deadlines have been met. This weeks show is hosted by The Gazettes Des Moines Bureau Chief Erin Murphy and features Gazette Deputy Bureau Chief Tom Barton, Sarah Watson of the Quad City Times, Lee Des Moines Bureau Chief Caleb McCullough, Jared McNett of the Sioux City Journal, and Gazette Columnist Todd Dorman. The show was produced by Stephen M. Colbert, and the music heard on the podcast is courtesy of Dream Thieves and Copperhead. SIOUX CITY Rod Earleywine has been selected as Sioux City Community School Districts next superintendent. Earleywine is currently serving as the interim superintendent. He was previously the superintendent of the Sergeant Bluff-Luton Community School District. The school board deliberated in closed session for two and a half hours before voting on offering Earleywine a contract in open session Thursday. He was chosen by the board in a 6-1 vote, with Perla Alarcon-Flory against. The other candidate for the position was Geovanny Ponce, the assistant superintendent of high schools for the Houston Independent School District. Dan Greenwell said each candidate had different experiences and both would have brought strength to the district, but needed to pick one. He said the board at the end came to a consensus. We decided that Dr. Earleywine was our choice. Were excited to have him. Hes done great things in the last seven months with this district, Greenwell said. Earleywine and the district will now enter into contract negotiations. Pending the negotiations he will start July 1. Before resigning in February 2022, Earleywine served as superintendent of the Sergeant Bluff-Luton Community School District for 15 years and before that worked for 12 years as Sergeant Bluff-Lutons middle school principal. He was selected as interim superintendent in April 2022 and officially started in July 2022. He holds a doctorate in education administration from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, a specialist degree in educational administration and a bachelors degree in education from Drake University and a masters degree in education administration from the University of Northern Iowa. A few of the changes Earleywine has made as interim superintendent includes rebuilding the culture and climate of the school district, putting in new discipline policies, adding reading back in the middle schools, starting to overhaul the special education program and revamping the English language learners program, Greenwell said. Dr. Earleywine, in our opinion, deserved a chance to continue on and continue to improve and rebuild our district for the next several years, He said. During public interviews on Wednesday, Earleywine said he officially applied for the superintendent position because of his experience so far with the Sioux City Community School District. What Ive learned over the past seven months is this is a very, very good school district, Earleywine said. We have great staff, we have people that truly care about the students and they want to see our students succeed. A community member asked if Earleywine saw the position as a short-term job or a long-term role. He said there is a misconception that he retired from Sergeant Bluff but, in reality, he resigned because he felt he needed to do something different. I never retired, Im not ready to retire, Earleywine said. Each of the board members took a moment to discuss the decision that was made. All of the board members said both candidates were highly qualified and the board had a very extensive conversation on what the district needed and what the feedback from the community was. Each said it was a difficult decision. Perla Alarcon-Flory said all of the board members spent hours of research to come to a decision and took into account all of the feedback from community members, students, parents and staff. Bernie Scolaro said there was a robust discussion weighing the needs of the district and the board did they best they could in the best interest of the community. The district received 23 applications for the position vacated by Paul Gausman in June 2022 for a job as superintendent of the Lincoln Public Schools. With the help of the recruiting firm hired by the district GR Recruiting the school board narrowed it down to five candidates who they interviewed, eventually narrowing it down to the current two. Ponce and Earleywine participated in public interviews on Wednesday as well as interviews with the school board and special interest groups such as students and teachers. The search began in the fall of 2022 with community surveys, followed by in-person input sessions with district staff, students, and the public. Just days after mass shootings in California, Gov. Ned Lamont introduced new measures Thursday as part of a comprehensive gun control package Thursday in an attempt to deter similar shootings. In addition to a group of proposals unveiled Monday, including banning open carry, requiring registration of ghost guns and limiting handgun purchases to one per month, Lamont called for preventing anyone under 21 from buying any gun, requiring registration of previously grandfathered assault weapons and increasing penalties regarding large-capacity magazines. Another round of proposals will be released in the coming days. The proposals Thursday include: Allowing gun purchases only for 21 and older Currently, those 18 and older are allowed to purchase rifles or so-called long guns while handguns are limited to those 21 and older. Under Lamonts plan, no one could buy any type of gun under the age of 21. Those under the age of 21 could still use guns under various laws, but they could not purchase any gun. Assault weapon registration Amid controversy from gun owners, the state legislature passed an assault weapons ban in 1994 and then updated it in 2013 after the shootings that killed 20 schoolchildren and six educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Lamonts proposal calls for the registration of assault weapons that had been grandfathered in the past. Since the weapons currently do not need to be registered, state officials said they do not know how many there are in Connecticut. There is no number, said Marc Pelka, a high-level supervisor in Lamonts budget office. The pre-1994 assault weapons do not have to be registered. They are permitted in the state of Connecticut. That might shock the residents of the state. Increased penalties and fines Advocates and lawmakers scoffed Thursday that the current fine for a first offense of possessing a large-capacity magazine illegally is only $90. The legislature banned all large-capacity magazines in 2013 and required those who already owned one to register it by January 1, 2014. Now, the owners have had almost a decade to either register or discard their magazines, and some still have not done that. As a result, Lamont is calling for dropping the $90 fine, and instead charging the owners with a Class D felony in an attempt to increase enforcement. Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com SIOUX CITY The two finalists for the Sioux City Community School superintendent position, Rod Earleywine and Geovanny Ponce, took time on Wednesday to participate in public interviews. Earleywine currently serves as the districts interim superintendent while Ponce is the assistant superintendent of high schools for the Houston Independent School District in Texas. The two answered both prepared questions and questions from the community. Many of the questions surrounded the diversity within the district and how each would address issues such as achievement gaps, equity and inclusion and parental involvement. The board decided on Thursday to offer a contract to Earleywine in a 6-1 vote, with Perla Alarcon-Flory against. Earleywine Past history Prior to becoming interim Sioux City superintendent in July 2022, Earleywine served as superintendent of the Sergeant Bluff-Luton Community School District for 15 years and resigned in February 2022. Before that, he worked for 12 years as Sergeant Bluff-Lutons middle school principal. Earleywine holds a doctorate in education administration from the University of South Dakota, a specialist degree in educational administration and a bachelors degree in education from Drake University and a masters degree in education administration from the University of Northern Iowa. He said he officially applied for the superintendent position because of his experience so far with the Sioux City Community School District. What Ive learned over the past seven months is this is a very, very good school district, Earleywine said. We have great staff, we have people that truly care about the students and they want to see our students succeed. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Rod Earleywine, interim superintendent, responds to questions from the audience during a community forum with the two candidates for superinte A community member asked if Earleywine saw the position as a short-term job or a long-term role. He said there is a misconception that he retired from Sergeant Bluff but, in reality, he resigned because he felt he needed to do something different. I never retired, Im not ready to retire, Earleywine said. He added he believes he is a good match with the Sioux City schools. Vision and strengths As for his vision for the district, Earleywine said the district should be a place where parents want their kids to go. He said this is a shared vision with the community and district staff. This is a great community, we have a lot of great things going on, he said. Having quality facilities, teachers, administrators and support staff creates a district where people want to go to and stay at, he added. He said his greatest strengths as a superintendent are his ability to work with a wide range of people, and being able to build trust or facilitate healing and mending. The way to build relationships is in person, not through emails, Earleywine said. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Rod Earleywine, responding to questions from the audience during a community forum Wednesday, has been selected as the next superintendent of One of the challenges Earleywine said needs to be addressed immediately is the climate and culture of the district. He said before coming to the district as interim, he watched board meetings and knew the climate and culture needed to be addressed surrounding items such as trust and relationships. These are items he said he has already started working on as an interim. Within the district, he said the best communication is face-to-face. He said he currently meets with the building principals quarterly and travels around the district to visit classrooms and speak with teachers and students. I see great things happening, he said. Really great things are happening. With the community, he said the best communication is also face-to-face but it's also important to keep the website up to date for accessible information. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Rod Earleywine, interim superintendent, responds to questions from the audience during a community forum with the two candidates for superinte Meeting needs The Sioux City Community School District is a minority, majority school district, meaning a majority of the students are from minority groups. The school is made up of 44 percent white students, 36 percent Hispanic students, 8 percent Black students and 3 percent Native American. The remaining 9 percent covers a number of groups. Were not going to be less diverse in five years, were going to be more diverse, so what are we doing, are we planning for that, or are we just waiting for that to happen? Earleywine asked. "I prefer to predict and plan and make sure we have the ability to me the needs of our students." Community members asked several questions about student diversity and achievement gaps within those students. Earleywine said the district already has a committee that is looking at equity within the district and subgroups. He said they use student achievement data and "disproportionalities" in the discipline referrals within the district. He said the first step is recognizing that there are issues within the district and not hiding them. We have to make sure were very transparent, Earleywine said. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Geovanny Ponce responds to questions during a community forum with the two candidates for superintendent of the Sioux City Community School Di Ponce Past history Ponce is currently the assistant superintendent of high schools for the Houston Independent School District and oversees 52 different schools. Before that, he served as an area superintendent and middle and high school principal in Houston. He's also worked as a campus curriculum technologist and bilingual teacher. He holds a doctorate in public school administration from Texas A&M University, a masters degree in educational administration and supervision from the University of Houston, and a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the National Autonomous University of Honduras in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Geovanny Ponce responds to questions during a community forum with the two candidates for superintendent of the Sioux City Community School Di Know how Ponce said he was shocked by how diverse the district is and he wants to be a part of it and part of the way the district embraces diversity. He said he wanted to find a community where his knowledge and expertise could be utilized. When asked about serving a property-poor district, Ponce pointed to the free and reduced lunch numbers, a measure of poverty. His current district's number is 78%. In Sioux City, it's 67%. Future plan Ponce said looking at his resume he is very stable and does not move from district to district. I want to retire from here, Im looking at this as my next home, he said. After retiring, he said he would want to be a substitute teacher in the district because teaching is his passion. If I am selected, you have Ponce for another 23 years, he said. He said he has spoken with his family and they are prepared to stay in Sioux City for the long term if he is selected. He said he loves the community and has felt welcomed. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Geovanny Ponce responds to questions during a community forum with the two candidates for superintendent of the Sioux City Community School Di Strengths Ponce said his greatest strengths as a superintendent are his honesty, transparency and strong communication skills. He also said anything he preaches, he lives, he believes in teamwork and engagement, and every decision he makes is for the students. "Youre going to see me working with the community, engaging with the parents, with the students, with the teachers, I want to participate and be part of it, he said. Ponce said the Sioux City school district is growing and changing rapidly and he wants to see if the district is prepared to me the needs of those students. Are we ready to embrace that?" he asked. What to address Ponce said he has seen achievement numbers of the Sioux City district but wants to walk the district schools and see what the different needs are between the students, teachers and parents so he can build a plan to benefit the students. By having a strong curriculum and instruction plan, the district can focus on certain areas where learning loss is happening and modify it, Ponce said. He said at his current district he spends a significant amount of time in the schools and walks through classrooms to have conversations with students and teachers. Many of the questions Ponce was asked were regarding support for English language learners and diversity. Ponce said he has an extensive history of English learners and bilingual students. He was a bilingual teacher and when he came to the United States, he was an English learner and therefore has first-hand knowledge. Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Geovanny Ponce responds to questions during a community forum with the two candidates for superintendent of the Sioux City Community School Di Superintendent candidates speak at community forum Geovanny Ponce responds to questions during a community forum with the two candidates for superintendent of the Sioux City Community School Di A community member asked how he will make diversity, equity and inclusion a priority in the curriculum. Ponce said the programs need to include people who students of different backgrounds can relate to. He also wants to look at what education can be offered to the teachers to enhance their diversity knowledge, as well as find teachers that are of the same ethnicity and backgrounds of the students. Ponce said he plans to engage everyone in the conversation and decisions. He plans to have coffee with the superintendent to invite parents to meet with him and talk about student education. He said it will then cascade from the top to the bottom, from the superintendent to the teachers to the parents. The Texas Education Agency is attempting to take control of the Houston Independent School District --where Ponce is currently employed due to allegations of trustee misconduct and low educational performance at Phillis Wheatley High School, according to The Texas Tribune. Ponce said he is not in charge of Phillis Wheatley High School. He said all of the schools under his leadership have been excelling and moving in a better direction. Its not about me and its not a reflection of my leadership, Ponce said. The district received 23 applications for the position vacated by Paul Gausman in June 2022 for a job as superintendent of the Lincoln Public Schools. With the help of the recruiting firm hired by the district GR Recruiting school board members narrowed it to five candidates who they interviewed, eventually narrowing it down to the current two. The search began in the fall of 2022 with community surveys, followed by in-person input sessions with district staff, students and the public. SIOUX CITY The Sioux City Council will review some of the biggest spending segments proposed for the 2023-24 fiscal year budget, which includes $66.1 million for annual airport capital projects, annual infrastructure reconstruction, annual resurfacing and more. The council members, during a daylong hearing Saturday, will get a first public review of the projects planned in the capital improvement program, or CIP, budget, which begins July 1. The $66.1 million proposal is a decrease from the current budget years $99.9 million capital budget. Additionally, the $66.1 million is the first year of the proposed five-year CIP, which would spend $468.9 million over the fiscal years through 2024-28. The total proposed first year expenses of $66,128,257 are funded with both city and non-city resources. The total city resources for proposed FY 2024 CIP budget is $57,999,075, an increase of roughly 6% from the approved FY 2023 CIP. Over the combined five years, the CIP would direct $104 million to annual airport capital projects, $45.1 million to annual infrastructure reconstruction and $15.9 million to annual resurfacing. The proposed FY 2024 CIP anticipates 49.8% use of the citys debt capacity at the beginning of the year. According to city documents, the program calls for the issuance of $23.3 million in new general obligation debt and payment of $24.2 million in existing general obligation debt. The proposed FY 2024 debt issuance and payments decrease the percentage of debt capacity used to 49.4%. The documents state that the largest capital projects for Sioux Gateway Airport are typically runway reconstruction projects. In FY 2024, a total of $3.76 million is being requested for annual airport capital projects. That budget includes terminal infrastructure improvements, design of Taxiway A realignment and replacement of jet bridge 2. According to the documents, the projects are subject to receiving federal and or state funds that, on average, pay 90% of the cost with a 10% local match for federal projects and 50% to 100% of the cost with a 0% to 50% match for state projects. The Sioux City Convention Center is seeking $500,000 in FY 2024 for building improvements. City documents state that Kalwall ceiling tiles in the atrium ceiling are failing and need to be replaced. The Parks and Recreation Department is requesting $450,000 for stadium seat replacement at Lewis & Clark Park and $175,000 for caulking in FY 2024, according to the documents. The Sioux City Explorers Ball Club and park are sources of community pride and joy. This project allows for the implementation of improvement programs to ensure a quality facility for future years, the documents state. Last September, the Sioux City Council, in a split decision, voted against a resolution adopting plans, specifications, form of contract and estimated cost for the replacement of 2,300 more plastic seats at the park. The vote was 4 to 1, with Mayor Pro Tem Dan Moore casting the lone vote in favor of the project, which the citys engineer estimated would cost $433,727. Before the vote, Sioux City Parks and Recreation Director Matt Salvatore told the council that the city budgeted around $135,000 to cover the replacement of 770 seats. Those seats were supposed to arrive last August, but Salvatore said they were still in production. Those seats are expected to be installed in the spring. Last April, Explorers owner John Roost told The Journal the team might not play in the city-owned Lewis & Clark Park during the 2022 season if the city didnt replace all 3,070 box and general admission seats. Roost said the deteriorating condition of the plastic seats presents a danger to fans and a financial liability for the team and city. The Explorers home opener went on as scheduled on May 17. The events facilities department is requesting $300,000 for tuckpointing at the Tyson Events Center and $100,000 for LED lighting for the city-owned facility in FY 2024. Plans call for a large chunk of the Tysons interior and/or exterior lighting to be knocked out in FY 2024, according to the documents. Our strategy has been to update sections of the building at a time to create a more energy efficient building, the documents state. Our tuck point project was pushed back a year after the cost exceeded the architect and our prices expectations. This story has been updated to reflect the total city resources for the proposed FY 2024 CIP budget. A 29-year-old woman was arrested after police said she posed as a teenager and attended a New Jersey high school, according to local news outlets. The woman, a resident of New Brunswick, is said to have given a fake birth certificate to the New Brunswick Board of Education with the intent to enroll as a juvenile high-school student, according to a Jan. 25 police news release. Breaking news: An adult woman was arrested after posing as a child and providing fake documents to enroll in New Brunswick High School last week, @aubjohnson111 announced tonight. She attended the school for four days and community members are concerned about her motives. pic.twitter.com/BLOwgFeyss Charlie Kratovil (@Charlie4Change) January 25, 2023 An attorney for the woman could not immediately be reached for comment by McClatchy News. After gaining admittance, the woman attended New Brunswick High School for four days before anyone noticed something was awry, according to 6ABC News. She was arrested Tuesday, Jan. 24, according to CBS News. Last week supposedly the administrators let in a 29-year-old, a student told 6ABC. So basically everybody was scared. Some people gave their personal information to that lady. State statutes direct schools to enroll unaccompanied children lacking proper documentation, though school districts can request documents to verify a childs age, police said. A school district may not prevent or discourage a child, including an unaccompanied child, from enrolling in or attending school because he or she lacks a birth certificate or has records that indicate a foreign place of birth, such as a foreign birth certificate, police said. The New Brunswick Public Schools superintendent said the incident was bothersome, adding that she would closely examine the districts enrollment process, according to News12. The woman was charged with one count of providing a false government document, a third-degree offense, police said. The best school district in every state Intro Alabama: Madison City Schools Alaska: Skagway School District Arizona: Catalina Foothills Unified School District Arkansas: Haas Hall Academy California: Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District Colorado: Cheyenne Mountain School District No. 12 Connecticut: Westport School District Delaware: Cape Henlopen School District Florida: St. Johns County School District Georgia: Buford City Schools Hawaii: Hawaii Department of Education Idaho: McCall-Donnelly School District Illinois: Adlai E. Stevenson High School District No. 125 Indiana: West Lafayette Community School Corporation Iowa: Pleasant Valley Community School District Kansas: Blue Valley Unified School District (Overland Park) Kentucky: Fort Thomas Independent Schools Louisiana: Zachary Community Public Schools Maine: Yarmouth Schools Maryland: Howard County Public Schools Massachusetts: Hopkinton Public Schools Michigan: Novi Community School District Minnesota: Minnetonka Public School District Mississippi: Petal School District Missouri: School District of Clayton Montana: Hobson Public Schools Nebraska: Elkhorn Public Schools Nevada: Eureka County School District New Hampshire: SAU 70 New Jersey: Princeton Public Schools New Mexico: Los Alamos Public Schools New York: Jericho Union Free School District North Carolina: Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools North Dakota: Edmore School District No. 2 Ohio: Indian Hill Exempted Village School District Oklahoma: Jenks Public Schools Oregon: Lake Oswego School District Pennsylvania: Radnor Township School District Rhode Island: Barrington Public Schools South Carolina: Fort Mill School District South Dakota: Brandon Valley School District Tennessee: Collierville Schools Texas: Eanes Independent School District Utah: Northern Utah Academy for Math Engineering & Science (Nuames) Vermont: South Burlington School District Virginia: Falls Church City Public Schools Washington: Mercer Island School District West Virginia: Monongalia County Schools Wisconsin: Elmbrook School District Wyoming: Sheridan County School District No. 2 The best school district in every state Alabama: Madison City Schools Alaska: Skagway School District Arizona: Catalina Foothills Unified School District Arkansas: Haas Hall Academy California: Palo Alto Unified School District Colorado: Cheyenne Mountain School District No. 12 Connecticut: Westport School District Delaware: Appoquinimink School District Florida: St. Johns County School District Georgia: Buford City Schools Hawaii: Monongalia County Schools Idaho: Troy School District Illinois: Adlai E. Stevenson High School District No. 125 Indiana: West Lafayette Community School Corporation Iowa: Pleasant Valley Community School District Kansas: Blue Valley Unified School District (Overland Park) Kentucky: Murray Independent Schools Louisiana: Zachary Community Public Schools Maine: Yarmouth Schools Maryland: Howard County Public Schools Massachusetts: Weston Public Schools Michigan: Novi Community School District Minnesota: Wayzata Public School District Mississippi: Petal School District Missouri: School District of Clayton Montana: Monongalia County Schools Nebraska: Elkhorn Public Schools Nevada: Monongalia County Schools New Hampshire: SAU 70 New Jersey: Millburn Township School District New Mexico: Los Alamos Public Schools New York: Great Neck Public Schools North Carolina: Polk County Schools North Dakota: Edmore School District No. 2 Ohio: Solon City School District Oklahoma: Edmond Public Schools Oregon: West Linn-Wilsonville School District Pennsylvania: Radnor Township School District Rhode Island: Barrington Public Schools South Carolina: Fort Mill School District South Dakota: Brandon Valley School District Tennessee: Maryville City Schools Texas: Eanes Independent School District Utah: Northern Utah Academy for Math Engineering & Science (Nuames) Vermont: South Burlington School District Virginia: Falls Church City Public Schools Washington: Mercer Island School District West Virginia: Monongalia County Schools Wisconsin: Elmbrook School District Wyoming: Sheridan County School District No. 2 Two men remained at the Lancaster County jail Thursday, a day after prosecutors charged them in connection with 645 pounds of marijuana found in their rental truck. Brandon Arrington, 30, of McDonough, Georgia, and Edward Babb of Houston both are facing four felonies: two counts of possession with intent to deliver and two counts of no drug tax stamp. In an affidavit for their arrests, a Lancaster County Sheriff's deputy said he stopped a GMC Penske rental truck with Virginia plates Tuesday after seeing its passenger side tires cross onto the shoulder of Interstate 80 near the Lincoln Airport exit. During the traffic stop, the deputy became suspicious the men were involved in criminal activity. They both denied a request to search the truck, but the deputy deployed his police dog around it after seeing what he believed to be marijuana residue on the floorboard. The search turned up 645 pounds of marijuana and 4.74 pounds of THC vapor pens in the truck's cargo area inside cardboard boxes wrapped in plastic wrap, according to court records. On Wednesday, at their first court appearances on the charges, Lancaster County Judge Matt Acton set their bonds at $250,000. ELMA An Elma man attempted to hide the body of a New Hampton man he allegedly killed at his home in October, according to recently released court records. Sayvonne Lealbert Eugene Jordan, 26, formerly of Waterloo and Charles City, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Jonathan Esparza. Esparza disappeared Oct. 20 when he left his home for a friends house. His remains were found on Jordans property during a November search, according to Howard County sheriffs deputies. Details about the crime remain elusive, but on Monday Howard County Attorney Kevin Schoerberl filed additional charges of going armed with intent and abuse of a corpse. The charges allege Jordan did mutilate, disfigure, or dismember a human corpse with the intent to conceal a crime. Court records allege Jordan killed Esparza with premeditation at his home on Main Street in Elma on Oct. 20, the day Esparza disappeared, sometime between 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. WELLSBURG Four people were killed and others were injured Friday morning when a 15-passenger van rolled on U.S. Highway 20 in Grundy County. The Iowa State Patrol reported that the single-vehicle accident happened at 6:49 a.m. as the van was westbound near the Wellsburg exit. The driver lost control on slick roads and the vehicle entered the median. The van rolled over and came to rest in the eastbound lanes. The 15-passenger van was occupied by 13 passengers. "At this time we are able to confirm four fatalities and multiple others injured," according to a news release from Sgt. Alex Dinkla, the State Patrol's public information officer. "The injured parties have been taken to Waterloo and Grundy County health care facilities." Victims' identities have not been released. More information is expected to be available on the Iowa State Patrol crash reports website. Photos: Homicide, Dawson Street, Jan. 26, 2023 012623jr-homicide-dawson-1 012623jr-homicide-dawson-3 012623jr-homicide-dawson-2 012623jr-homicide-dawson-4 012623jr-homicide-dawson-5 012623jr-homicide-dawson-6 A change in the Iowa Senate last year appears even more immutable as the opening of the current legislative session revealed a more permanent home for press covering the chamber in the public gallery above the Senate floor. Senate Republicans last year barred reporters from the floor, overriding a century-old tradition. This year, the change became permanent with the addition of a press area built into the public gallery, where access to elected officials is severely restricted. For decades, Senate protocol had reporters, photographers and multimedia journalists work at press benches along the front wall of the chamber, facing senators desks. That gave members of the media a good vantage point for capturing legislative debate among the senators. Journalists had ready access to ask questions of state senators without disrupting the legislative process to help bring clarity, accuracy and context to their news reporting. The change is more than an assault on the press it is a gut punch to Iowans. Reporters arent sitting there simply to create content for their publications. They are the eyes and ears of the people, a daily conduit of public access. Iowa is one of just a handful of states that dont allow reporters access to the chamber floor. In most states, the members of the media have a designated seating area, like Iowas press benches. Worth noting the Republican-led Iowa House of Representatives did not make such a change, leaving credentialed reporters on the floor as they have been in years past. Additionally, Iowa Capitol Press Associations annual legislative preview forum had to be canceled this year because Gov. Kim Reynolds, Republican Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver and Republican House Speaker Pat Grassley all declined to attend the event. This forum dates back more than 20 years, beginning with The Associated Press reporters. The press association noted, This decision by Republican statehouse leaders ... continues an unsettling trend of reduced availability to Iowa journalists. The ICPA continues to believe elected officials who craft state laws and operate state government should be accessible to the journalists who monitor that work on behalf of all Iowans. Exactly. Worth noting, all of the legislators from the TH coverage area Republicans and Democrats have been good about responding to Telegraph Herald reporters regarding legislative coverage and made themselves available to reporter Benjamin Fisher when he traveled to Des Moines last week for the sessions opening. The change in the Senate impacts the legislators themselves, as well. For elected representatives, communicating with journalists helps get information to constituents. When seated on the floor, senators easily could hand off documents to reporters or explain proceedings or votes. Now senators mostly come to the House to track down a reporter. Republican Senate leadership has embarked on a troubling pathway that impedes the states longstanding commitment to public access and transparency. In a year such as this one, with myriad issues Iowans are deeply concerned about on the docket, enabling objective reporting on those issues has never been more important. In between two darkly thoughtful courses that chef Andrew Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has designed in The Menu, he asks one of his mega-rich regulars if he can remember any of what hes eaten at Hawthorn in his 11 visits. In the movie, Hawthorn is an intensely sought-after fine-dining reservation that most people could not afford once, much less the 11 times the man has attended. The man cant remember a single course. Id wager decent money that neither can anyone whos seen The Menu. Does anyone remember the sauces that came with no bread? Or what kind of tea that was? Except Id bet the same money you remember the burger. That burger. The burger that saves the day. Advertisement I dont think food has ever saved my life, but a cheeseburger does exactly that in The Menu. When Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) orders one from Slowik as a last-ditch effort to survive the night and the meal, the tone of the film shifts. As the music soars, seemingly conducted by the sizzling meat, Slowik lightens, and the tension in the dining room dims. As the meat cooks, the film glides into slow motion to take in the application of onions and cheese and the flowing juices. Its beautiful. This must be a perfect burger. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Its pure magic and 100 percent pure science, said George Motz, a food historian and the author of several books on burger history, as well as the host of Burger Scholar Sessions for First We Feast. The history of the smash burger is, in fact, a bit of American history worthy of the finesse and love it gets in the film. According to Motz, the movies smash-style burger is the burger that started it allthe original American burger. Around the turn of the 20th century, smash burgers were made for factory workers and fairgoers. Without refrigeration, these small balls of meat pushed hard into a hot pan were a quick cook to feed the masses, but they were considered too lowly for mass appeal. It was a fringe American food invention. Then, in 1921, the smash burger began to climb from socially disreputable status to becoming as American as apple pie. White Castle, the first American burger chain, was established. They were the first to standardize the bun and the cooking. They were the first real fast-food hamburger, Motz said. Advertisement Various iterations of the burger have had the spotlight over the years, but the smash burger has been ascendant lately, thanks in part to exploding chains like Shake Shack. Numerous articles in places like Eater are dedicated to mapping them in cities from New York to Chicago and L.A. Since about 2018, tastes have been shifting away from the thick patty on (for Gods sake) brioche or (shoot me) a pretzel bun. Maybe its because of the sky-high prices, or because we arent genetically made to unhinge our jaws like snakes, or because thin patties cook much quicker and taste better. Motz has his own theories: Its faster, its better, and its authentic, and I think people like that about it, he said. People consider it to be a trend, but people dont realize its existed before. Were going back in time, not creating something new. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Whatever the reason, more independent restaurants are opening around the country that are going back to a thin patty, pushed hard into a hot pan. The Menus burger is so memorable partly because, at the moment, its the burger. The movies version was built by chef John Benhase, who owns own restaurants in Savannah, Georgia, and served as a culinary consultant on The Menu. In his days working at a Jewish delicatessen, we went through a lot of different variations of burgers, he told me. At one point, we were grinding sesame seeds fresh into mayonnaise. We were completely insane. But for this burger, he knew exactly what was needed. Bread, butter, pickles, super white-trash sauce, cheese. Its very technique-driven, very precise in why it works and why its good. Five ingredients cooked very specifically to heighten each of them. Alchemy in a bite. Advertisement In my neighborhood, theres a place that I think Motz and Benhase would appreciate called Bernies, which New York Magazine last year declared like Applebees, but good and which checks a lot of the boxes of American food history. Thin-patty burgers, mozz sticks, pork ribs, and shrimp cocktail are all prominent on just about every table, foods many Americans know better than their extended family, done right with earnest appreciation. Unsurprisingly, the restaurant has a line out the door 20 minutes before opening every night. You can find me there waiting with everyone else. What makes this style of burger so en vogue right now is complex. Or maybe its not at all. The timeless simplicity, and Margots order, wins over even an unhinged fine-dining chef who has turned to murdering bankers and food critics. Its the food that matters the most in The Menu and the burger that matters the most in America right now. As Slowik says to Margot, a smash burger will make you feel as though youre eating the first cheeseburger you ever ate. Sounds perfect to me. Alec Baldwin now faces a criminal charge of involuntary manslaughter for the accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on a New Mexico movie set in October 2021. The charge alleges a criminal degree of negligence. Legally, negligence is a disregard for foreseeable safer actions, the consequences for which can be serious, including death. In the law, negligence can be adjudicated through civil or criminal means. In a civil suit for damages (known as a tort claim), even when the injuries or consequences are serious, the punishment is a financial payment in restitution rather than a criminal conviction and a prison sentence. Advertisement What makes this Baldwin case criminal (a threat to his liberty) rather than civil (a threat to his money)? When negligence is particularly egregiouseither so preventable or evidencing such disregard for the safety of the people affectedit becomes a criminal wrong. When the egregious consequence is a death, that criminal wrong is involuntary manslaughter: homicide without an intention to kill. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Despite its appearance as an accident, prosecutors may have good reasons to believe Baldwins actions pass that bar for egregiousness, and the reasons are specific to the way Hutchins died: a gunshot. The prosecutors have decided that a gun requires a duty of carethe historic legal standard violated in negligence casesthats extremely high. They claim that, as the guns handler, Baldwin acted in egregious disregard of its potential dangers. In the law, this is referred to as the neighbor principle: We owe a duty to our neighbors, and in this case, Baldwin shot his neighbor, Halyna Hutchins. In the prosecutors view, it is his egregious gun-handling that caused this needless death, and that is at the center of the criminal charges. There is always an obligation on anyone who holds a gun and points it at someone else to check beforehand that the gun is unloaded. Advertisement It is in the common understanding that guns are dangerous and are in fact designed to cause death. America continues to grapple with gun violence, logging over 30 mass shootings in January 2023 alone. The charge in this case would almost certainly not be criminal if Hutchins had died by any other means. Advertisement Imagine a movie set where during a scene, an actor is to pull the cord to make a ceiling light go on or off. The light is hanging from the ceiling. After pulling the cord, the light fixture falls, striking and killing a member of the production crew. Subsequent investigation reveals that the light was hung incorrectly by a crew member, and this was the proximate cause of the accident. The actor who pulled the cord reported he had no idea the light would fall as he knows nothing of light-hanging and never considered he should be checking for such things in the circumstance of his job. This death is a consequence of negligence because a duty of care was owed: It is expected that certain movie lights will not fall. Advertisement Advertisement But unlike a gun, a ceiling light is not a deadly weapon. It is not an instrument designed to kill. A falling movie light as a cause of death is an extremely uncommon event and a reasonable person in the position of the actor might not be expected to anticipate this problem if they were not charged with hanging the light to begin with. In this hypothetical instance, it would be practically impossible to ascribe criminal faultonly civil negligence at most. Advertisement Advertisement An actor like Baldwin should not be expected to get on a ladder and check that the overhead lights are secured, but prosecutors will likely argue that anyone who handles a gun should be expected to be certain that gun is safe. Failure to do so in this case raises the level of negligence to something quite beyond a falling light. Advertisement What about the fact that it was a gun on a movie set and that the danger of prop guns on movie sets can be reasonably expected to be lower than real guns in the real world? Shouldnt this fact affect Baldwins level of negligence? The term prop gun generally refers to a nonfunctional weapon used in theater or film. It also refers to real guns loaded with special cartridges that are modified bullets, so-called blanks. Baldwin used a real guna .45 Colt (.45 Long Colt) caliber F.lli Pietta single-action revolverthat was supposed to be loaded with blanks and not real bullets. A single-action gun works by pulling back the hammer until it clicks in place and then squeezing the trigger to release the hammer. The strike of the hammer on the chambered shell needs a specific amount of force to detonate the primer. Baldwin claims he never pulled the trigger, but FBI analysis after the fact disagreed. Testing of this specific gun showed it could not have fired without the trigger being pulled. It has even been suggested that a computer-generated gun image would have sufficed for the scene. Guns of any kind, prop or otherwise, are simply not needed on a modern movie set. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Defense attorneys will likely argue that the fault lies not with Baldwin, but with either the guns manufacturerif it somehow did fire without pulling the triggeror with others on the set responsible for its safety. In negligence cases, the duty of care to your neighbor concerns the risks of the consequence of conductrisks that a person either knows or should reasonably know. Prosecutors in this case may allege that every handler of this object, including Baldwin, had a unique responsibility because of the nature of the object. Again, they will argue: A gun is not a light fixture. Even if the gun was faulty, it is such an obviously dangerous object that its wielder is clearly obligated to his neighbors to handle it with an extreme level of care that Baldwin egregiously disregarded. Advertisement Dying on a movie set is a catastrophic break in the fourth wall; the shock of this death demands action. But will raising the legal heat on Baldwin from a civil wrong to a criminal wrong make any outcome in the case more just? A criminal charge seeks incarceration for Baldwin as a possible outcome. That might be desirable if prosecutors wish to teach a lesson about the circumstance, or to remove a dangerous person from the public. Alec Baldwin is a complex public figure with a well-documented history of aggression, and movie sets can be unsafe places. But there is no evidence that Baldwin fired the gun out of aggression. It seems unlikely to me that the public has much to fear that Baldwin will shoot other cinematographers, or anyone else on a future movie set. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Baldwin made public comments on this case where he asserted that he never pulled the trigger and was in no way responsible for the death of Hutchins. He claims the fault must lie with others. In his desire to gain public sympathy and support, Baldwin runs the risk of actually turning public opinion against him and antagonizing prosecutors. Prosecutor anger or popular public opinion should have no place in a court of law. Baldwin has gone on to sue the films crew for negligence to clear his name. Advertisement The shooting death of Halyna Hutchins was not murder, but it may have been criminal negligence. The handling of a gun creates a duty on everyone who touches it, and a death on a movie set should be considered a never event. Modern negligence, legally, is about violating a duty of care owed to our neighbors. Baldwin says he lacked specific intent to harm a particular person, and we have no cause to disbelieve him. But theres a reason why this wrongful death has been deemed criminal negligence, and why Baldwin is being prosecuted. The reason is the gun. As soon as President Joe Biden entered the White House, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an unprecedented campaign of obstruction to block his agenda in the courts. Paxton took advantage of a quirkreally, a loopholein the federal judiciary: A state can pick the specific judge who will oversee its case by filing in a small division where only one judge sits. Using this strategy, Paxton has positioned his cases before a rotating cast of the same conservative judges, most of them nominated by Donald Trump. They have dutifully played their role in this pantomime of litigation, issuing an unending series of sweeping injunctions that block Biden administration policies nationwide for months or years. Advertisement On Thursday, the administration finally said: enough. In response to yet another Texas lawsuit exploiting this loophole, Bidens Justice Department called out Paxtonand, implicitly, the judges playing along with his scheme. The DOJ highlighted Texas blatant and shameless judge-shopping, urging a transfer to another court in the interests of justice. Naturally, Trump-nominated Judge Drew Tipton is unlikely to oblige; that is, after all, why Paxton hand-picked him for this lawsuit. But the DOJs filing marks a new phase of battle against Republicans judicial gamesmanship: The Justice Department is playing hardball in the lower courts, forcing compromised judges to address their own complicity in a cynical partisan chicanery. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The underlying lawsuit in Texas v. Department of Homeland Security is another frivolous effort to shift control over border policy from the executive branch to a single federal judge. Paxton has pulled this off before: In August 2021, he persuaded another Trump-nominated judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, to block Bidens repeal of a Trump policy that forced U.S.-bound migrants to remain in Mexico. Kacsmaryk even forced U.S. diplomats to negotiate with Mexican officials under threat of sanctions. Texas new suit, filed on Tuesday, seeks to do something similar. The state is infuriated by a new agreement between the Biden administration and Mexico regarding migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela. (The U.S. cannot send these migrants back to their home countries.) The agreement compels most of these migrants to stay on the Mexican side of the border. But it allows a small number of them to enter the U.S. legallyand remain here for a limited periodif they are vetted and have financial supporters in the country already. Advertisement This policy, first implemented in December, has already contributed to a dramatic reduction in unlawful entry among migrants from the four relevant nations. But Texas is furious that the new rules will allow some migrants to enter the U.S. lawfully. So its lawsuit asks the judiciary to strike down the entire policy, blowing up negotiations between the Mexican and American governments. Advertisement Paxton strategically filed the suit in the Victoria Division of the Southern District of Texas, where exactly one judge sits: Tipton, not just a Trump nominee but also a longtime Federalist Society member. This is the seventh case that Paxton has positioned before Tipton. The first, filed two days after Bidens inauguration, sought to block the new presidents 100-day halt on deportations. Tipton swiftly granted a nationwide injunction against the pause. Advertisement Advertisement Paxtons suit is also the 25th time he has exploited the single-judge loophole to get a case before an ideological ally in Texas, according to statistics meticulously compiled by law professor (and Slate contributor) Steve Vladeck. (That count shoots up when you factor in suits filed in other red states with single-judge divisions, like Louisiana.) This plot goes way beyond any Democratic forum-shopping under Trump. Democrats filed in favorable district courts and hoped they drew a left-leaning judge. Paxton, by contrast, zeroes in on a handful of divisions within districts where he is guaranteed to draw a hard-right judge. For nearly two years, the Justice Department largely held its tongue about this abuse of the system. Over the past few months, however, its tone shifted. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogars invective against nationwide injunctions at the Supreme Court in December was inflected with a criticism of states shopping cases to one single district judge in a forum of their choosing. And in October, the DOJ fought back when Oklahoma filed a complaint in Texas about a prisoner in Louisianaeven though the case had literally no connection to Texas. There, the DOJ filed a motion to transfer for the obvious reason that no party had any business litigating in the state. (The judge ultimately skirted the issue by denying jurisdiction.) Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thursdays motion to transfer goes much further. The Justice Department, at last, is tackling Texas blatant forum shopping head-on. Allowing a state to select its preferred judge constitutes cynical gamesmanship, DOJ lawyers explained. This practice undermines public confidence in the administration of justice and the impartiality of the judicial system. It creates the perception that different forms of justice would be available to litigants, depending upon the division in which a suit was filed. Advertisement From the typically staid and restrained Department of Justice, these are fighting words. The DOJ provided three reasons why Tipton should transfer the case. First, it argued that under state and federal law, Texas resides in Austin, the state capital, while the U.S. government resides in the District of Columbia. So Tipton should transfer the case to a federal court in either Austin or D.C., where the plaintiff and defendant are located. Second, the DOJ argued that Tipton should transfer the case to Austin or D.C. under a federal law that permits a change in venue for the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice. These cities are where the relevant documents and any potential witnesses likely reside, and where the relevant state and federal agencies are located. No aspect of the recent migrant-policy case, by contrast, has any connection with Victoria, Texas. So convenience and logic, plus systemic integrity and fairness, require transfer. Advertisement Finally, the Justice Department presented a last-ditch offer: If you wont transfer the case to Austin or D.C., it wrote, at least send it to another division within the Southern District of Texas where multiple judges sit. That way, itll be randomly assigned to one of several judges, foiling Paxtons efforts to pick the jurist wholl oversee his case. This filing is Tiptons moment of truth. In the previous six cases, he could pretend that there was some good reason for Texas to come to his court; after all, the United States did not argue otherwise. Now the government has laid out the scheme in which Tipton is a willing participant, forcing him to confront his complicityreally, his collusionwith Republican corruption of the courts. His total lack of integrity thus far certainly does not bode well in this case. But its a positive sign that Bidens Justice Department is ready to bring this fight to the worst offenders, putting judges like Tipton on notice that it will no longer play along. 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. Have you seen the security camera video of Brandon Tsay in the lobby of Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio, in Alhambra, California, on Saturday night? The twentysomething coder-by-day is in track pants, a hoodie, and a plaid jacket, partway through a nighttime ticket-taking shift at his familys longtime business. When the shooterwho had just, unbeknownst to Tsay, killed 11 people nearbyenters the lobby, Tsay scuffles with him for about a minute and a half before gaining control of the gun, pointing it at the shooter, and forcing him out of frame. This video produces the exact opposite of the rage generated by watching the hand sanitizer cop and his colleagues linger in the hallway of Robb Elementary. Here is someone doing something in the face of a problem that feels insurmountable. Yes! you think. Fuckin get him! Yes! Watching it, I was surprised and confused to find myself on the verge of tears. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement News coverage of mass shootings, in recent years, has been stuck in a loop. Media Matters, which issued a report on the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings in October of 2017, found that television news and talk shows covered that event for about a week, with very few discussions of solutions to gun violence. In November 2018, after the shootings in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California (13 dead, including the shooter), the Atlantics Adam Harris wrote a piece about the typical mass-shooting news cycle. The expert he interviewed, Erica Goode, described it like this: You do the day story, then you do the victim stories, then you profile the shooter. Harris noted that many were starting to wonder whether profiling the shooter is something we should even be doing at all, for fear of a contagion effect. Advertisement Now, with the recent increase in stories about bystanders who stop shooters, we have a new, and much more satisfying, cap to this cycle. We get the first-day story; stories about the community and the victims; maybe a profile of the shooter and his (mostly his) motives; then a wave of pieces about the bystander hero, with as many details as possible, because for the love of God, please tell me something good. A three-days-on story about Abigail Zwerner, the teacher shot by a 6-year-old student in Virginia early this month, describes her as a hero who saved lives by escorting her students out of the classroom even as she was wounded. Stories about Thomas James and Richard M. Fierro, who subdued the attacker at Club Q in Colorado Springs on Nov. 19 of last year, provided some of the only moments of catharsis Ive ever experienced in the course of a shooting-related news cycle. Whoever wrote the slugthe string of words websites use to form the last part of the URL for a piece, hoping to connect with searchers by guessing what keywords they will type into Googlefor the New York Times articles on James, Fierro, and Tsay included the word hero. People are searching for thisliterally, it turns out. I mean, who wouldnt be? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement In the past decade, certain American men have harbored a growing belief that participating in everyday life requires tactical knowledge, that inside every suburban father of toddlers lurks a seasoned operator ready to strike. Tacticool diaper bags and overbuilt trucks are a joke, but these stories about bystanders seem to suggest that maybe these people have a point. Bystander Elisjsha Dicken killed a shooter with a handgun he had concealed-carried into an Indiana mall in July of last year. He engaged the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun, he was very proficient in that, very tactically sound, admired the local police chief in a news conference. Brandon Tsay said he had to make a split-second evaluation of the shooter last weekend, sizing up his weapon like a born gamer: How it was built and customized, I knew it wasnt for robbing money From his body language, his facial expression, his eyes, he was looking for people. In some bystander stories, the military experience of the hero in question strengthens the narrative: The sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub and instincts forged during four combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in, wrote the New York Times Dave Philipps, who usually specializes in writing about actual operators, in his piece about Richard Fierro. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But theres a deeper, more troubling layer to these stories. Our use of the hero bystander as narrative leavening for the horror of the American mass shooting shares DNA with our reliance on GoFundMe as the solution to health care gaps, or our cheerful pitching in for teachers crowdfunding school supplies. Hero is a great narrative, but its also an individualist nations favorite solution to a difficult problem. I feel like people are starting to come to the realization that the only one whos going to protect you is you, a county commissioner in Texas, who teaches concealed-carry classes and who killed a shooter in his church in 2019, told the Times this week. Thats not a slam against law enforcement. They cant be everywhere. At some point in one of these news cycles around guns, I followed a few proSecond Amendment accounts on Instagram, interested in seeing how they represented the events unfolding. One, run by a Georgia man who offers training in hand-to-hand combat and weapons handling, often posts news stories about bystanders or would-be victims who disarm perpetratorspointing out that this could be me, the follower, if Id sign up for a course. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Every time I see such a post, I have to admit, I think about it. But then I remember: This cant be our life. We didnt, as veteran Richard Fierro said after the Q shootings, sign up to live in a combat zone. And while bystanders save people, sometimes they die, too. Riley Howell, a student who tackled a gunman at UNCCharlotte in 2019, died. Six-year-old Jesse Lewis, killed at Sandy Hook, told his classmates to run when the shooters gun jammed; for that, he has a profile on the Fallen Heroes Project, a website where Gold Star families can request a portrait of their loved ones from an artist. Scarlett Lewis, his mother, has said she clings to the story of that moment, getting solace from remembering how Jesse made an impact on the world. I cry thinking about that, just like I do watching Brandon Tsay best the gunman in that lobby. But theyre not, at all, the same kind of tears. Its a bit of a running joke: When writing about the House Rules Committee, one must always label it the powerful House Rules Committee. Yes, it is powerful; its the committee that determines what legislation gets a voteand under what conditionson the House floor. But for the committees individual members, power pretty much exists only on paper. Members of this committee havent had much agencyby design. The majority members are all always handpicked by the speaker to be loyal allies and process the speakers wishes. The minority members remain loyal to the minority leader, who usually doesnt have enough votes to make a difference. In recent decades, its the speakership thats grown more and more powerful. The Rules Committee has served as little more than the speakers instrument. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Thats about to change. Among the reported concessions Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to his right flank during his weeklong battle for the gavel was to give hard-right Freedom Caucus membersor Freedom Caucusadjacent membersthree seats on the Rules Committee. I dont know anything about any of that, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, the incoming chair of the Rules Committee and a loyalist to several Republican speakers over the last decade, told me on Friday, Jan. 6, when reports of the concession were first coming out. Maybe he was just in denial. Theres a world of difference between giving Freedom Caucus members and their fellow travelers three seats on the Rules Committee versus two. The ratio of the committee is nine Republicans to four Democrats. By giving the rabble-rousers three seats, McCarthys six remaining loyalists would be outnumbered by Democrats and the far right. Advertisement I had thought, for that reason, that McCarthy might try to weasel out of this reported concession by nominating, say, a softer Freedom Caucus member who could be easily swayed. But when McCarthy finally announced his Rules Committee appointments this week, that was not the case. The three far-right appointees on his list are genuine hard-asses, members not known for their cooperative spirit. Advertisement South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, for example, was one of the staunchest holdouts of McCarthys bid for speaker. During that weeklong floor fight, I asked Norman what he wanted from McCarthy. Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling? Norman responded. Not exactly a go-along-to-get-along guy to have on your team when youre trying to move a debt ceiling increase to the floor. Advertisement Texas Rep. Chip Roy, one of the leaders of the holdouts who helped negotiate McCarthys ultimate ascension, was also appointed to the Rules Committee. Roy is comfortable playing gadfly and savors moments where he can, for example, be the one member to object to unanimous passage of disaster relief funding. Advertisement Perhaps the most surprising appointment, though, was the ultimate outsider within his own party: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, whos not a member of the Freedom Caucus. An idiosyncratic libertarian from Kentucky now in his seventh term, Massie has earned the nickname Mr. No for his regular votes against just about everything. Just this week, a resolution commending the bravery, courage, and resolve of the women and men of Iran demonstrating in more than 133 cities and risking their safety to speak out against the Iranian regimes human rights abuses passed 420 to 1. Massie was the one. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The appointments of Norman, Roy, and Massie make for a whole new world on the Rules Committeeand in the governance of the Housein which the speaker doesnt have total control of what can be brought to the floor. Such a weakening of the speakership is not a concession any speaker candidate would make unless his back was against the wall, as McCarthys was. The way McCarthy justifies it now, though, is that if a small bloc of members are going to rebel against a bill, they might as well work it out first in the Rules Committee rather than on the floor. Five of them can easily stop the rule going through. So my take to them is, I want you in here. Your goal is you all work together, McCarthy told Punchbowl News. When this comes out of Rules, youve got the microcosm of the conference. There should be no problem on the floor there. Advertisement The new members inclusion on the Rules Committee will mean, at least in the short term, a return to a long-lost way of legislating: by allowing members to offer amendments from the floor. On Thursday, for example, the House considered an oil and gas bill under a so-called modified open rule, which allows any member to offer a floor amendment so long as it had been preprinted in the Congressional Record. It was the first bill considered under a modified open rule since 2016. This is the sort of involvement from the rank and file on the legislative process that holdouts like Roy had fought for. Advertisement Advertisement To consider why its been nearly seven years since theres been an open amendment process, consider what happened nearly seven years ago. An appropriations bill failed in the House after an LGBT rights amendment put forth by Democrats was successfully adopted. Shortly thereafter, then-Speaker Paul Ryan tightened control of the amendment process, turning to the Rules Committee to screen out Democratic amendments that could derail passage of the underlying bill. Many members, uninterested in taking difficult votes on Democratic amendments, celebrated the move. Massie, speaking to The Dispatch this week, called it one of the 10 most depressing moments Ive had in Congress. Advertisement Will this newfound commitment to the freewheeling amendment processesnow enforced by a bloc of previous back-bencher gadflies sitting on the Rules Committeerun into the same problems that led to elimination of the process in the first place? Oh, you can bet your life savings on it. At some point, House Republicans will fail to pass a major bill following Democratic hijinks in the amendment process. The calls to eliminate open rules, once again, will reach a cacophony. And then, these new, rebellious members of the Rules Committee might get a taste of what life is like in leadership roles, and adjust. McCarthy doesnt have a majority big enough to treat the hardliners the way speakers Boehner and Ryan did: by isolating them and getting the votes elsewhere. Boehner and Ryan, in fact, must be terrified to see the day where Thomas Massie is on the Rules Committee. What McCarthy has to do, instead, is keep the gadflies on the inside so they feel they have some buy-in on leadership decisions. Maybe this will all work out ideally for McCarthy. Maybe, just maybe, after a few bruising experiments with open amendment processes, McCarthy turns Mr. No into yet another hardened realist on leadership who recognizes regular order is a pipe dream. Five fired Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal beating of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man whom they had pulled over, earlier this month. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told reporters that while each officers actions were different, they all contributed to Nichols death. They are all responsible, he said. He said the city will release video footage of the incident on Friday at 6 p.m. CST. Advertisement The former officers in the caseTadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith, all of whom are also Blackhave each been charged with aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression. Attorneys for Martin and Mills told reporters they have not yet seen the video footage of the encounter with Nichols, but that no one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mulroy confirmed that Memphis SCORPION Unit, a new unit created by the Memphis Police Department in an effort to address rising violent crime in the city, was involved in Nichols stop. He added that there will be an investigation of the citys special units. At a press conference earlier this week, the Nichols familys attorneys said they have seen the footage, and compared it to the infamous 1991 police beating of Rodney King. Benjamin Crump, one of the attorneys representing the family, said that the race of the officers does not detract from the disparities in how police treat Black motorists. Advertisement Nichols was on his way home from taking photos of the sunset in a local park when police pulled him over, his familys attorneys said Monday. Memphis police previously said that after they pulled him over for alleged reckless driving, there was a confrontation and Nichols tried to run away. Police followed, apprehended him, and there was a second confrontation that ended in his arrest. He was taken to the hospital because he was experiencing shortness of breath, and he died three days later, on Jan. 10, from injuries sustained during the encounter. Nichols family commissioned an independent autopsy of their son, which found he suffered extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating. They had initially wanted nothing less than first-degree murder charges, but his stepfather told the Associated Press Thursday that his family is fine with the second-degree murder charges. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis has acknowledged that Nichols case would provoke a strong emotional response, saying in a statement, I expect you to feel what the Nichols family feels. I expect you to feel outrage. The city is bracing for large-scale protests, and Van Turner, president of the NAACP Memphis branch, spoke to local Memphis media and warned that tearing up your own community wont solve this problem. We here at Sprudge have from time to time been critical of the actions of Starbucks, like for all their recent anti-union posturing, their lack of transparency, and Howard Schultzs whole thing. We have also highlighted the good the coffee company has done as well. Their healthcare package for transgender employees, subsidized backup care plan, and their being on the forefront of mask mandates early in the pandemic, all things weve reported on. The fact of the matter is, whenever the largest coffee company in the world does something, bad or good, it has ripple effects throughout the industry. Todays story about the Big Green Siren falls squarely into the latter camp, with Starbucks bringing in social workers to assist unhoused individuals that come into some of their locations. Reporting on the program in New York City, the recent article in the Guardian examines how the coffee company is filling holes in the US social safety net. The program began back in 2020, rolling out to eight cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Seattle. In New York, the company has partnered with Breaking Ground, a non-profit working toward ending homelessness through affordable housing and outreach programs. As part of the partnership, social workers with Breaking Ground make routine visits to select Starbucks locations in the city to provide aid and assistance to any unhoused individuals that may be there. It may be anything from offering warm clothes during the winter months to pointing folks in the direction of shelters and services. Beyond providing assistance to those who utilize Starbucks as a convenient location for restroom access or simply to sit indoors, the program is a benefit to workers, who have in the past had to act as de facto social workers. While some coffee workers at the company are receive de-escalation training and well as how to use opioid overdose medication Narcan, they are not formally trained nor fully equipped to aid individuals in crisis. By bringing in social workers, the company is able to remove that burden from their employees while also providing actual assistance to those who need it. It would have been easy for Starbucks to follow a more familiar path to addressing issues relating to the unhoused using cafes as shelter: to hire a private security force to keep them out. And the companys relationship with unhoused individuals has been a bit fraught. As the Guardian notes, last year alone they closed 16 stores in the US after reviewing employee complaints over store safety, and was in part related to chronic homeless issues, substance abuse, and social unrests. Still, the move to bring in social workers instead of guards is to be applauded. It addresses a very real, very complicated issue that cafes around the world have to face in a caring, thoughtful, and respectful way. Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/air-raid-sirens-sound-off-in-southern-israel-rocket-interceptions-reported-1106742766.html Air Raid Sirens Sound in Southern Israel, IDF Confirms Two Rockets Intercepted Over Ashkelon Air Raid Sirens Sound in Southern Israel, IDF Confirms Two Rockets Intercepted Over Ashkelon Ten Palestinians, including several children, were reportedly killed by Israeli soldiers during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday. The violence... 26.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-26T22:14+0000 2023-01-26T22:14+0000 2023-01-26T22:37+0000 world sirens israel rocket strikes iron dome anti-missile system /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/04/17/1082710917_0:97:1024:673_1920x0_80_0_0_60efee2e3d5ef5c7e4ff96c882159658.jpg Air raid sirens were reported as sounding in southern Israel north of the Gaza Strip at around midnight on Friday. The sirens were reported in Zikim, Kibbutz Karmia, and the city of Ashkelon, all along the Mediterranean coast.Video posted online purported to show interceptions of several rockets by the Iron Dome air defense system over Ashkelon.The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said on Twitter in a brief statement that the siren reports were "under review." They later confirmed the launches of two rockets from the Gaza Strip as well as their intercept.Hamas Vows 'Response' to Deadly Jenin RaidTensions have risen in Israel and the Palestinian territories since the Israeli elections in November in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a coalition of far-right parties. Anti-Arab extremists have been given prominent places in the new Israeli government, arousing fears of greater violence against Palestinians, including evictions and annexations in the West Bank.The latest violence came earlier on Thursday as the IDF and Shin Bet carried out a joint operation in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. The Israelis said they were there to try and capture three members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad; however, the raid resulted in the deaths of ten Palestinians, including an elderly woman and two children. They were the latest of at least 29 deaths at the hands of Israeli authorities this month.Our resistance will not break, and our response will come soon, he said.IDF chief Herzi Halevi has ordered the army to increase preparedness and continue counter[terrorism] activities as needed." israel Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Fantine Gardinier Fantine Gardinier 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 Fantine Gardinier israel, sirens, air raid, iron dome system https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/blinken-convinced-biden-to-give-ukraine-tanks-to-conceal-nato-rift-over-military-aid-reports-say-1106742490.html Blinken Convinced Biden to Give Ukraine Tanks to Conceal NATO Rift Over Military Aid, Reports Say Blinken Convinced Biden to Give Ukraine Tanks to Conceal NATO Rift Over Military Aid, Reports Say Both US President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin were skeptical about sending main battle tanks to Ukraine, but both were convinced to assent after Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained it was necessary to heal a rift opening in the NATO alliance, reports in US media said on Thursday. 2023-01-26T22:42+0000 2023-01-26T22:42+0000 2023-01-26T22:36+0000 americas m1a2 abrams leopard ii ukraine antony blinken /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/19/1106700896_0:176:2001:1301_1920x0_80_0_0_87bb47876fe594fcbf65d967bc6ab654.jpg Both US President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin were skeptical about sending main battle tanks to Ukraine, but both were convinced to assent after Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained it was necessary to heal a rift opening in the NATO alliance, reports in US media said on Thursday.However, Kiev didnt just ask the US for tanks, it asked other NATO powers as well, and Germany has been wracked with debate about whether to okay other nations to send Kiev some of their Leopard 2 main battle tanks. Tensions rose even higher when Poland said it was willing to give Ukraine tanks, but Germany, which made them and has the right of refusal on their transfer, dragged its feet.According to US media reports, Blinken told Austin and Milley that promising to give Ukraine Abrams tanks would force Berlins hand and heal the growing rift in the alliance. They, in turn, advised Biden to do so, and Biden followed suit.Similar divisions arose during tense talks prior to the start of the conflict in February 2022, as the US refused to take Russian demands seriously, but NATO allies in Europe preferred negotiations with Moscow. After the conflict started, tensions over a boycott of Russian energy exports have followed a similar pattern, with the US better able to weather their losses than European buyers.While the Leopard 2 tanks could arrive by the Spring, the Abrams tanks wont be shipped out for nearly a year, according to reports, seriously watering down the importance of Bidens pledge. A similar dynamic played out with the Patriot air defense system promised to Kiev last month, with the US saying it would take several months to train Ukrainian crews to operate them.Russia launched the special operation in Ukraine in February 2022 after months of attempts at negotiations with Kiev and NATO over Moscows security red lines failed. Moscow has demanded Ukraine declare itself a neutral state, give up its attempts to join NATO, and refuse to host NATO weapons on its soil. It has also called on Kiev to remove the neo-Nazi elements of its government and armed forces, which have long targeted Russophone Ukrainians with violence and discrimination. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230124/what-is-the-m1-abrams-main-battle-tank-biden-wants-to-send-to-ukraine-1106666570.html americas ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Fantine Gardinier Fantine Gardinier 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 Fantine Gardinier antony blinken, joe biden, us military aid, nato, ukraine tanks https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/republicans-back-desantis-by-landslide-numbers-over-trump-for-2024-nomination---poll-1106741118.html Republicans Back DeSantis by Landslide Numbers Over Trump for 2024 Nomination - Poll Republicans Back DeSantis by Landslide Numbers Over Trump for 2024 Nomination - Poll Republicans prefer Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over former President Donald Trump as their 2024 presidential candidate to run against President Joe Biden by a whopping 28% margin, a new national survey revealed on Thursday. 2023-01-26T19:48+0000 2023-01-26T19:48+0000 2023-01-26T19:42+0000 americas ron desantis 2024 us presidential elections donald trump poll /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/09/12/1100915439_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_dc35e9e2687e0191033ebc59b296c52c.jpg Some 64% of Republicans want DeSantis, who won a landslide reelection victory by more than 20% over his predecessor Charlie Crist last November, over former President Trump, who was defeated in his bid for reelection by Biden in 2020, a press release on the poll said. Republican voters also expressed confidence by a more than two-to-one margin of 66% to 32% that US House Republicans can successfully unite behind their new Speaker Kevin McCarthy to govern effectively, the release added. McCarthy is not yet well known to many Americans, with 39% saying they do not know enough to have an opinion of him and so far he is only viewed favorably by 19% and unfavorably by 42% of them, according to the release. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230117/biden-would-defeat-trump-in-2024-but-lose-to-desantis-new-polls-finds-1106439885.html 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 republican, gop, ron desantis, poll, republican nomination, 2023 us election https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/us-kills-key-daesh-operative-in-somalia-raid---senior-official-1106742355.html US Kills Key Daesh Operative in Somalia Raid - Senior Official US Kills Key Daesh Operative in Somalia Raid - Senior Official The United States killed a key Daesh* operative during a nighttime assault in northern Somalia, a senior administration official said. 2023-01-26T21:56+0000 2023-01-26T21:56+0000 2023-02-10T09:05+0000 us somalia death military operation africa military daesh /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105610/42/1056104207_0:54:1025:630_1920x0_80_0_0_9bf7d9c5c662e9df0876b2f546f24f68.jpg Last night, on orders from the president [Joe Biden], the US military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the death of Bilal al-Sudani, a key operative and facilitator for [Daesh's] global network, as well as a number of other [Daesh] operatives, the senior administration official said on Thursday. The operation resulted in neither US nor civilian casualties, the official said. In addition to al-Sudani, the operation killed 10 other Daesh associates.US forces were prepared to capture al-Sudani as part of the operation, but the assault ultimately resulted in his death, the official added.Officials have stated that the operation came about after "many months" of planning, noting that the operation reached its "critical stage" last week. Biden's decision to back the operation came shortly after recommendations from Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organisation outlawed in Russia and many other states somalia africa 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 daesh, somalia, raid, bilal al-sudani https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/at-least-five-people-killed-in-suspected-terror-attack-in-jerusalem-1106774139.html At Least Five People Killed in Suspected Terror Attack in Jerusalem At Least Five People Killed in Suspected Terror Attack in Jerusalem At least five people have been killed in a suspected terror shooting attack in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood in Jerusalem, Israeli medics and police announced on Friday. 2023-01-27T18:47+0000 2023-01-27T18:47+0000 2023-01-27T21:48+0000 world middle east israel jerusalem shooting suspected terror attack palestinians /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106774357_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_522ca8607e04baa3e20582acc563d3eb.jpg At least five people have been killed in a terror shooting attack in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood in Jerusalem, the Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel's national emergency medical service, has confirmed. Another five sustained injuries during the attack. An MDA update detailed that of those injured, two were in critical condition and one in serious condition. Two others were described as being in moderate and moderate to serious condition.However, it's believed two of those injured have since died after the Israel Police issued a new report that the death toll stood at seven, with three others injured. The MDA has yet to issue an updated release.Israeli Police stated the suspected 21-year-old gunman was shot and "neutralized" at the scene, adding the individual appeared to have acted alone. Early findings suggest he was a resident of East Jerusalem.Israeli media reported a security assessment following the attack is in the works.Not long after first reports surfaced of the deadly incident, the US State Department issued a statement decrying the attack as "absolutely horrific," underscoring the Biden administration condemns the "abhorrent terrorist attack in the strongest terms."The rampage occurred a day after 9 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank. The Israeli military said that Israeli forces had come under fire during a "counterterrorism operation to apprehend an Islamic Jihad terror squad" in the Jenin refugee camp and had to shoot several "enemy combatants."The raid on Jenin was followed by Gaza militants launching rockets into Israel, with Tel Aviv carrying out retaliatory airstrikes overnight.Israel said that in response to the missiles fired from the Strip, it "targeted an underground rocket manufacturing site" allegedly belonging to Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave, and a north Gaza military base used by the Palestinian militant group. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/raids-drone-strikes--rockets-the-jenin-raid-and-its-aftermath-1106746054.html israel 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 suspected terror attack, shooting attack, shooting in jerusalem, suspected terror attack in jerusalem, shooting in synagogue https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/four-reasons-leopard-2s--m1-abrams-will-bite-the-dust-in-ukraine-1106772754.html Four Reasons Leopard 2s & M1 Abrams Will Bite the Dust in Ukraine Four Reasons Leopard 2s & M1 Abrams Will Bite the Dust in Ukraine The deployment of the recently-donated main battle tanks (MBT) to the Ukrainian conflict zone is unlikely to change the status quo on the ground, military... 27.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-27T18:00+0000 2023-01-27T18:00+0000 2023-01-27T18:00+0000 us opinion russia ukraine m1a2 abrams leopard 2 t-90 t-90m t-72b3 main battle tank /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105808/85/1058088578_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_125ec2a76ce8cc1af81291f8c5bd5084.jpg "The arrival of NATO tanks in Ukraine is overshadowed by the fact that during the 11 months of the conflict, over 2,000 tanks, including those in service with Ukraine and those supplied to Kiev by the countries of Eastern Europe, were destroyed," explained Russian military expert and analyst Alexey Leonkov."Therefore, the arrival of even a hundred or two hundred tanks is unlikely to change this trend," he continued.According to the military expert, the Ukrainian Armed Forces' MBTs had been largely destroyed with old anti-tank systems and sub-caliber shells. Russia's most modern anti-tank weapons have not been at play in Ukraine yet, he noted.1. Previous Wars Showed NATO Tanks Aren't 'Wonder Weapon'Neither the German-made Leopard 2 nor the US M1 Abrams tanks are invincible, Leonkov continued.The Leopards first combat experience, and battlefield losses, occurred during the US-led war in Afghanistan. In the course of fighting against the Taliban,* three Canadian and six Danish Leopard 2s were irretrievably lost, with another 15 Canadian Leopards were disabled but repaired.Likewise, Turkey deployed dozens of its Leopard 2A4 tanks to northern Syria in 2016 and 2018 to fight against Daesh (ISIS)** and Kurdish militias, where a dozen or more of them were knocked out by IEDs, suicide car bombs, or anti-tank guided missiles. Some of these armored vehicles were reportedly destroyed by the Soviet-era anti-tank guided missiles Malyutka ("small one" in Russian).The M1 Abrams debut was during Operation Desert Storm, the US war with Iraq in 1990 and 1991, that aimed to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Even though the tank performed relatively successfully at the time, several years later, US tank battalions sustained losses in urban combat during Washington's invasion of Iraq. Reportedly, over 80 Abrams had been destroyed by then and 530 more had been forced back to the US for extensive repairs.2. Surprise Surprise! Russia Has Large Arsenal of Anti-Tank WeaponsAccording to Leonkov, both Russia's T-90M and -72B3 main battle tanks are equipped with armor-piercing sub-caliber projectiles which could pose a serious challenge to the NATO MBTs. While T-72B3 is an upgrade of the agingT-72B tanks, the T-90M Propyv-3 has every feature that advanced western tanks enjoy and is quite on par with modern versions of the M1 Abrams and the Leopard 2, according to Russian designers.In addition, a strike version of the Russian-made Marker robot is also due to be deployed to the Ukraine conflict zone. The robot will be capable of automatically detecting and destroying the German and US-made tanks with anti-tank guided missiles, as Dmitry Rogozin, former director general of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, revealed to Sputnik earlier this week.3. Deployment Will Take Time, But Russia Won't WaitMoreover, the German-made and US-made tanks will be sent in batches and are likely to be deployed gradually on the Ukrainian battlefield, Leonid Reshetnikov, retired lieutenant general of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) told Sputnik.4. NATO Tanks to Face New Challenges for the First TimeAt the same time, one shouldn't delude oneself into believing that NATO tanks will be mostly engaged in direct tank duels, Leonkov underscored. International military observers expect that Leopard 2s and M1 Abrams will have to fight in urban conditions and in the fields; amid the spring thaw, summer heat, and winter freeze; against conventional forces, militias, and special operation forces. Some of those challenges the NATO machines will face for the first time, according to observers.New tanks will be deployed to solve a limited range of tasks as they will be incapable of solving certain problems of a serious strategic offensive, according to Leonkov. The advantage is on the side of Russia, he stressed, adding that it virtually impossible to reverse this advantage with the announced deliveries of NATO battle tanks.* An Afghan militia under United Nations sanctions for terrorist activities.** A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/why-sending-leopard-2--m1-abrams-tanks-to-ukraine-is-natos-grave-mistake-1106737387.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230125/german-to-deliver-14-leopard-2-tanks-to-ukraine-cabinet-confirms-1106683573.html russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Ekaterina Blinova Ekaterina Blinova 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 Ekaterina Blinova m1 abrams tank, leopard 2 tank, abrams tank vs t-90m, leopard 2 tank vs t-90m, training of ukrainian troops to operate nato tanks, nato mbts, ukraine, russia's special military operation, anti-tank missiles, air support, air defenses https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/german-fm-comments-create-uproar-german-tanks-for-ukraine-3-4-months-out-eu-deindustrialization-1106743950.html German FM Comments Create Uproar; German Tanks for Ukraine 3-4 Months out; EU Deindustrialization German FM Comments Create Uproar; German Tanks for Ukraine 3-4 Months out; EU Deindustrialization Germany's announcement that it will send tanks to Ukraine has been tempered by the reality that it will take several months for the promise to materialize. 27.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-27T10:52+0000 2023-01-27T10:52+0000 2023-02-03T08:25+0000 the critical hour tanks haiti nato taiwan japan finland radio /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1a/1106743804_0:0:1920:1080_1920x0_80_0_0_50735a8f94233e69723a05b11b61e232.png German FM Comments Create Uproar; German Tanks for Ukraine 3-4 Months out; EU Deindustrialization Germany's announcement that it will send tanks to Ukraine has been tempered by the reality that it will take several months for the promise to materialize. Mark Sleboda, Moscow-based international relations security analyst, joins us to discuss Ukraine. Russian strikes have been reported across Ukraine a day after US and German announcements. Also, Lockheed Martin wants to send fighter aircraft to Ukraine, and the German FM is frothing at the mouth for a new world war.Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, joins us to discuss the issue of Western tanks going to Ukraine. The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argue that the tanks for Ukraine deal will only worsen the Ukraine situation.Dan Lazare, investigative journalist and author of "America's Undeclared War," joins us to discuss NATO arms. Scott argues, "The West's recent approval of more military assistance for Kiev risks nuclear nightmare, fails Ukrainian expectations and rebukes the World War II history enshrined in a prominent Soviet war memorial in Berlin."KJ Noh, peace activist and writer, joins us to discuss China. The Chinese mainland will ultimately decide the outcome of the Taiwan Strait drama. Also, the US is constantly provoking China, and Japan has become the tip of the US spear in Asia.Robert Fantina, journalist and Palestine activist, joins us to discuss The Middle East. President Biden has backed off his plans to act against the de facto Saudi King. Also, the media has helped launder US military public relations information regarding the joint US-Israel military drill.Miko Peled, author, and activist, joins us to discuss Israel. Bibi Netanyahu has dragged Israel into the open in its destruction of democracy. Also, observers are referring to an Israeli raid that killed nine in Jenin as a massacre.Dr. Jemima Pierre, Professor of Black Studies and Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace, and an editor of the "Black Agenda Review" segment of the Black Agenda Report, joins us to discuss Haiti. The Haitian puppet government is still pushing for a UN intervention that the people have been protesting against for months. Also, the US and Canada need to gain their grip on the Haitian narrative.Caleb Maupin, journalist, and political analyst, joins us to discuss the EU and Julian Assange. The EU has enemies inside and outside of the block seeking economic and cultural destruction. Also, the espionage act is meant to keep us enslaved in ignorance.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.comThe views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of Sputnik. haiti japan finland Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Garland Nixon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125302_0:0:239:239_100x100_80_0_0_d5d43c970b0740f228597fbcdb4ffd66.jpg Garland Nixon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125302_0:0:239:239_100x100_80_0_0_d5d43c970b0740f228597fbcdb4ffd66.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 Garland Nixon https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125302_0:0:239:239_100x100_80_0_0_d5d43c970b0740f228597fbcdb4ffd66.jpg tanks, haiti, nato, taiwan, japan, finland, , radio https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/greek-parliament-rejects-vote-of-no-confidence-in-government-of-mitsotakis-1106763571.html Greek Parliament Rejects Vote of No Confidence in Government of Mitsotakis Greek Parliament Rejects Vote of No Confidence in Government of Mitsotakis The Greek parliament rejected on Friday a vote of no confidence in the government led by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the wiretapping scandal. 2023-01-27T13:44+0000 2023-01-27T13:44+0000 2023-01-27T13:44+0000 world greece syriza party government kyriakos mitsotakis alexis tsipras /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106763150_448:0:1602:649_1920x0_80_0_0_335a27cbe9ac5ec5eb099c6370c4fce8.jpg On Wednesday, the leader of Greece's main opposition party SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, submitted a motion of no confidence against the Greek government and accused Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of organizing mass wiretaps of government officials. According to a roll-call vote, some 143 deputies voted in favor of no confidence in the government, while 156 deputies voted against. https://sputnikglobe.com/20221231/greek-citizens-concerned-about-high-energy-prices-blame-eu-policies-1105943958.html greece 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 greece wiretape scandal, government of mitsotakis wiretapping scandal, greece syriza no confidence vote, greece 2023, wiretapping intelligence scandals https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/haitian-pm-reportedly-stays-in-country-after-barely-escaping-from-protesting-police-officers-1106773355.html Haitian PM Reportedly Stays in Country After Barely Escaping From Protesting Police Officers Haitian PM Reportedly Stays in Country After Barely Escaping From Protesting Police Officers Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry stayed in the country and moved to a safe place in the capital city of Port-au-Prince after escaping from protesting police officers. 2023-01-27T18:14+0000 2023-01-27T18:14+0000 2023-01-27T18:14+0000 americas haiti caribbean /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/07/14/1083425605_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_63266c87fff3f0277334661ef598f127.jpg On Thursday, police officers attacked the Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, where the head of the government arrived after the summit in Argentina. Henry, heavily guarded by Haitian and foreign security forces, has left the airport in an unknown direction. The prime minister was forced to cancel his press conference and evacuate to a safe place in Port-au-Prince, after armed demonstrators, some in police uniform and balaclavas, invaded the arrivals and departures halls of the capital airport, a local news portal reported. The prime minister's office and private residence also came under the protesters attack on Thursday. Police officers without uniforms fired shots in the air, and smashed the windshields of several cars near the government building. Police reportedly hold Henry responsible for the deaths of six officers in an armed attack by gangs on police headquarters in the city of Liancourt on Wednesday. Haiti has long been mired in socio-political crisis, which worsened after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. The country's already understaffed law enforcement agencies have struggled to keep crime at bay as gangs continue to gain in strength. Over the past year, the inaction of the authorities has reportedly led to an unprecedented increase in the influence of armed gangs that engage in extortion and kidnapping for ransom. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/protesting-police-officers-besiege-haitis-prime-minister-at-airport---reports-1106746429.html americas haiti caribbean 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 haiti chaos, attack on haiti prime minister, haitian prime minister barely escapes, police protesting in haiti https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/laughing-stock-uk-poised-to-outlaw-laughing-gas-sale-possession-to-curb-anti-social-behavior-1106763443.html Laughing Stock: UK Poised to Outlaw Laughing Gas to Curb 'Anti-Social Behavior' Laughing Stock: UK Poised to Outlaw Laughing Gas to Curb 'Anti-Social Behavior' The new legislation would allow the possession of laughing gas only by people who have a "legitimate reason." 2023-01-27T14:20+0000 2023-01-27T14:20+0000 2023-01-27T14:20+0000 world laughing gas ban legislation united kingdom /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105993/25/1059932523_0:107:2048:1259_1920x0_80_0_0_67d3a8c7e566bf6acafad859a25015c8.jpg London has moved to ban the sale and possession of nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas.A spokesperson for the Home Office said this move is aimed at curbing antisocial behavior that "causes misery in communities," and insisted that the government is "determined to crack down on this scourge to protect our streets."The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) director, Alexis Goosdeel, also warned in November that "the rise in the recreational use of nitrous oxide in some parts of Europe is a cause for concern."While selling the gas for inhaling is already illegal under existing British legislation, the revision of these laws may only allow possession of this substance for those with legitimate reasons, such as doctors who use it as a pain reliever.Under the new rules, however, even those with legitimate reasons to use the gas might be required to procure a license, the media outlet noted, citing a source in the Home Office.The penalty for the illegal possession of the laughing gas reportedly may be up to two years of jail or an "unlimited fine", while those caught supplying it might get locked up in prison for up to 14 years.The use of laughing gas as a party drug is widespread among British youth, with it being the "second-most-commonly used drug among 16 to 24-year-olds," the media outlet suggested. Cannabis is the most common. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/group-suspected-of-operating-slave-labor-cannabis-farms-detained-in-london-1106711113.html united kingdom Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Andrei Dergalin Andrei Dergalin 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 Andrei Dergalin laughing gas ban https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/lavrov-confirms-russias-commitment-to-food-export-obligations-to-african-countries-1106755572.html Lavrov Confirms Russia's Commitment to Food Export Obligations to African Countries Lavrov Confirms Russia's Commitment to Food Export Obligations to African Countries This article is about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirming Russia's commitment to its obligations relative to food exports to African countries in need. 2023-01-27T11:23+0000 2023-01-27T11:23+0000 2023-01-27T11:23+0000 africa russia food exports sergey lavrov obligations /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106755688_0:306:2034:1450_1920x0_80_0_0_033a046e5611cf5e823e5639d8e05a5b.jpg This week, Lavrov traveled to South Africa, Eswatini, Angola and Eritrea, which was the last country on his Sub-Saharan Africa tour. The visit was the first one at foreign minister level since the establishment of Russian-Eritrean diplomatic relations in 1993. Lavrov told the Eritrean leadership about the purposes and objectives of Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine and discussed preparations for the upcoming second Russia-Africa summit, scheduled to take place in St. Petersburg in July. The summit's agenda will include the four key topics of food, energy security, health care and the exchange of technology, the top Russian diplomat said. In July 2022, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations struck a deal to provide a humanitarian maritime corridor for ships with food and fertilizer exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that most of the ships carrying Ukrainian grain did not reach the world's poorest countries and ended up in Europe. At the same time, Putin has voiced his concerns that Russian products are not entering the global markets as promised under the agreement. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/lavrov-says-us-eu-countries-seeking-to-restore-africas-colonial-dependence-1106748711.html africa russia 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 food export, africa and russia, russia's commitment, africa food, food, lavrov visit to africa, lavrov africa, food exports to african countries, exports to african countries https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/lavrov-says-us-eu-countries-seeking-to-restore-africas-colonial-dependence-1106748711.html Lavrov Says US, EU Countries Seeking to Restore Africa's Colonial Dependence Lavrov Says US, EU Countries Seeking to Restore Africa's Colonial Dependence This article is about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remarks that the United States and European countries, requiring African states to stop cooperation with Russia, are seeking to restore the continent's colonial dependence. 2023-01-27T07:17+0000 2023-01-27T07:17+0000 2023-04-12T17:05+0000 africa eritrea russia us colonialism dependence sergey lavrov european union (eu) /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106748849_0:0:2791:1569_1920x0_80_0_0_21992f50e1b572543e997eabc63695ba.jpg "In Africa, we know, American, British, and other European delegations regularly appear, which, with a persistence worthy of better application, require African countries not to cooperate with the Russian Federation, not to go against a general discipline, by which they, the West, understand the restoration of colonial dependence, by and large, but already in a new form," Lavrov told journalists after the visit to Eritrea. The minister noted that the African continent has enormous potential for economic development. The minister added that hybrid wars that are being waged by Western countries will not be able to stop the development of new centers of economic and political power. The minister noted that countries like China and India have already surpassed the US in many aspects. This week, Lavrov visited South Africa, Eswatini, and Angola as a part of his tour across Sub-Saharan Africa, with Eritrea having been the final destination of the minister's tour. africa eritrea russia 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, africa's colonial dependence, the eu, cooperation with russia, restore colonial dependence, colonial west, restore africa's colonial dependence, lavrov, lavrov visits africa, https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/lavrovs-journey-across-africa-highlights-moscows-current-and-future-partnerships-1106757353.html Lavrovs Journey Across Africa Highlights Moscows Current and Future Partnerships Lavrovs Journey Across Africa Highlights Moscows Current and Future Partnerships As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov concludes his six-day trip to South Africa, Eswatini, Angola and Eritrea, Moscows commitment to expand activities in the continent is becoming apparent. 2023-01-27T13:08+0000 2023-01-27T13:08+0000 2023-01-27T13:08+0000 africa southern africa russia sergey lavrov relations visit /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106761086_0:0:3100:1745_1920x0_80_0_0_3fbeb9015433ec7b4047164439e234bd.jpg Russias top diplomat's plane landed in Pretoria early in the morning on Monday. Sergey Lavrovs delegation landed to hold meetings with the countrys foreign minister Naledi Pandor and President Cyril Ramaphosa.African Ideas for BRICS: Moscow & Pretoria Agree on New GoalsSouth Africa is preparing to host this years BRICS summit in Durban. The blocs goals have become an important part of discussions, in which Moscow and Pretoria share a common vision with their Brazilian, Indian and Chinese partners.As South African top diplomat Naledi Pandor was outlining her nations BRICS-related plans at a joint press conference with Minister Lavrov, she pointed at elements of neo-colonialism. In her opinion, these elements are caused by Bretton-Wood rules that are at the base of the worlds political and economic institutions.For his part, Lavrov sided with Pandor on the issue of anti-colonialism and also shared his view on North Americas attempts to intimidate African nations over their cooperation with Russia, saying in response to the question by Sputnik that the West is crossing red lines.Moscow is prepared for broader dialogue with Africa and has its own format for doing so.As per the Russian FM, he discussed the preparations for the second Russia-Africa summit, scheduled to be held in July in St. Petersburg, with his South African colleague.We believe that its results will be based on the work that has been done since the first summit, held in Sochi in the fall of 2019, and will help take our ties to new levels, said Lavrov.A Warm Welcome in MbabaneThe Kingdom of Eswatini was the second destination of Lavrovs journey, with his delegation visiting one of the nations two capitals, Mbabane on Tuesday. It was his first trip to the country, formerly known as Swaziland. The nation is struggling to overcome the consequences of the British colonialist rule, such as the damage to its natural resources. Eswatini became a British protectorate in 1902, losing control over fertile lands due to forced concessions with British companies.Unlike the West, Russia is offering its African partners cooperation beneficial for both sides and which is not aimed at exploiting Eswatinis natural resources. Top diplomats Thulisile Dladla and Lavrov signed an agreement on visa-free movement for holders of Eswatini and Russian diplomatic passports and discussed plans to increase bilateral political and economic cooperation. Russia has announced that it is prepared to train Eswatinis law enforcement agents and peacekeepers.According to Lavrov, who spoke with the media at the joint news conference in Mbabane on Tuesday, a special task force will review cooperation possibilities.Moscows Old Friends in AngolaAngola is one of the African nations where Russian heritage is carefully preserved. The country received military and economic aid from the USSR during its struggle for independence in the 1970s, and there is still a lot of gratitude from Angolans for Moscows help.While visiting Luanda on Wednesday, Lavrov announced that Moscow is increasing the quota for Angolan students in Russias colleges twofold from 150 to 300. Other areas of interest include cooperation in agriculture, telecommunications and space exploration.After talks with the countrys president, Joao Lourenco, Lavrov announced that BRICS nations are considering the creation of their own currency. The idea, which coincideswith monetary reforms within other blocks outside the Anglo-Saxon areas of influence, will be discussed in detail during the organizations summit in Durban in August.When it comes to the bilateral agenda, Lavrov stressed that Moscow and Luanda will continue cooperation despite pressure from the West.Angolan FM Tete Antonio called the negotiations with Lavrov a frank dialogue between friends.Red Sea Coast - Lavrovs African Tour FinaleEritrea was the shortest stop on Lavrovs journey. The minister has never been to the country before, but his four-hour stay on Thursday gave him a chance to become acquainted with the nations leadership. Together with his counterpart, Osman Saleh, Lavrov went on a helicopter tour of the region and paid a visit to Eritreas President Isaias Afwerki.At the meeting with Lavrov, Eritrea's president reportedly said that attempts by the West to create a uni-polar world have failed, and called for an effort to combat the hegemonic and colonial practices that had put the world into jeopardy.Eritrea has supported Russias stance on the special military operation in Ukraine at the UN, and Moscow greatly values its relations with Asmara.Russia's FM summarized the outcome of the talks and areas of mutual interest for the two nations, while speaking with Eritrean media in Asmara on Thursday.Despite the distance, the two countries also have some common cultural and historic heritage.Lavrov and Eritrean officials paid tribute to Russias famous poet Alexander Pushkin, whose monument is located in Asmara.Lavrovs meetings in Africa were watched closely by the western mainstream media, with the minister pointing to the fact that some news outlets presented a distorted picture of Moscows relations with nations on the continent.When asked by Sputnik at a news conference in Eritrea on Thursday whether these distortions have affected the work of the Russian delegation, Lavrov called some coverage not work, but war and underlined that Moscows point of view rarely makes it to the airwaves.During my trip to Africa I watched some western TV channels and there were no arguments by the Russian side there, only the traditional western mottos, said the minister.Lavrovs Africa trip was his second visit to the continent after the beginning of Russias special military operation in Ukraine. In the summer of 2022, Russias top diplomat traveled to the Republic of Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia and Egypt. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230125/lavrov-brics-mulling-own-currency-1106693342.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230124/russian-foreign-minister-lavrov-arrives-in-eswatini-on-visit-1106635783.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230125/fm-lavrov-russian-angolan-relations-tested-by-history-continue-to-develop-1106682314.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/lavrov-says-us-eu-countries-seeking-to-restore-africas-colonial-dependence-1106748711.html africa southern africa russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Denis Bolotsky https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/06/0b/1083128270_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_8cd81dafcbaac1c176c25141f8af1d2a.jpg Denis Bolotsky https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/06/0b/1083128270_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_8cd81dafcbaac1c176c25141f8af1d2a.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Denis Bolotsky https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/06/0b/1083128270_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_8cd81dafcbaac1c176c25141f8af1d2a.jpg lavrovs journey across africa, trip to south africa, eswatini, angola, eritrea, lavrov, africa, russia, russia and africa, Russian MoD: 14 People Killed, 24 Wounded as Result of Ukrainian Missile Strike on Medical Facility in Novoaydar, LPR On January 28, Ukrainian troops launched a deliberate strike using the US-made HIMARS on a hospital in Novoaydar, the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday. As a result, 14 patients of the hospital and medical personnel were killed and 24 others injured. The MoD stressed that all those involved in the planning and execution of the attack will be found and held accountable for the war crime of the Kiev regime. "The deliberate missile attack on a known active civilian medical facility is a grave war crime of the Kiev regime," the ministry stated. The ministry explained that civilian and military doctors at the hospital have been providing the necessary medical assistance to the local population and military personnel for months. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/lockheed-ready-to-boost-f-16-production-to-backfill-any-eu-state-looking-to-send-its-jets-to-kiev-1106747556.html Lockheed Ready to Boost F-16 Production 'to Backfill' Any EU State Looking to Send Its Jets to Kiev Lockheed Ready to Boost F-16 Production 'to Backfill' Any EU State Looking to Send Its Jets to Kiev Thus far, Washington has kept mum about providing Kiev with the F-16 fighters, or allowing other countries to re-export these US-made warplanes to Ukraine. 2023-01-27T06:07+0000 2023-01-27T06:07+0000 2023-01-27T06:07+0000 americas us ukraine netherlands germany volodymyr zelensky olaf scholz joe biden f-16 supply /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106747075_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_082013501b4767f027867fdfd9cb2cf4.jpg Lockheed Martin, the US largest defense contractor, has signaled readiness to boost its production of F-16 fighters as some of Ukraine's allies consider delivering the single-engine jets, which were first introduced in 1978, to Kiev.The aerospace companys chief operating officer Frank St. John told a UK newspaper on Thursday that there was a lot of conversation about third party transfer of F-16s. The British press recalled in this vein that Lockheed Martin is not directly involved in talks pertaining to the potential supply of the fourth-generation F-16 jet fighters to Ukraine.The newspaper also cited an unnamed US defense official as saying that along with our [Washingtons] international allies and partners, we are in regular communication with the Ukrainians on their needs and requests. The remarks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his gratitude to Kievs allies for pledging tank deliveries, but added that he had asked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for more assistance.This followed Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra making it clear last week that Amsterdam looks into delivering the F-16s to Kiev. The Netherlands air force has a fleet of 40 US-made F-16s, with seven other NATO countries in Europe flying the same warplanes, including Poland and Norway. Germany, which doesnt fly the F-16s, ruled out sending its warplanes to Ukraine. "I made clear very early on that we wouldnt be sending combat aircraft and Ill say that again here," Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters.On Wednesday, he greenlighted the delivery of 14 German Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, in what was followed by US President Joe Biden announcing the supply of 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Kiev.Commenting on Berlins move, the Russian embassy in Germany warned in a statement that this extremely dangerous decision shifts the Ukrainian conflict to a new level of standoff. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov for his part told reporters that Western countries arms supplies to Kiev testify to their direct and growing involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.Moscow has repeatedly cautioned that the US and its allies military aid to Kiev adds to prolonging the Ukrainian conflict. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that NATO countries play with fire" by supplying weapons to Kiev, and that any convoy of arms for Ukraine will become a legitimate target for Russian forces. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230125/what-is-the-f-16-falcon-fighter-jet-nato-is-debating-shipping-to-kiev-1106706119.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/why-sending-leopard-2--m1-abrams-tanks-to-ukraine-is-natos-grave-mistake-1106737387.html americas ukraine netherlands germany Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Oleg Burunov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg Oleg Burunov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Oleg Burunov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg us largest defense contractor, lockheed martin's production of f-16 fighter jets. potential supply of f-16s to ukraine, deliveries of leopard 2 and m1 abrams tanks to ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/moscow-gives-latvian-ambassador-two-weeks-to-leave-russia-1106769065.html Moscow Gives Latvian Ambassador Two Weeks to Leave as Riga Downgrades Diplomatic Ties Moscow Gives Latvian Ambassador Two Weeks to Leave as Riga Downgrades Diplomatic Ties Latvian ambassador to Moscow Maris Riekstins has been given two weeks to leave Russia, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. 2023-01-27T15:47+0000 2023-01-27T15:47+0000 2023-01-27T16:12+0000 russia latvia estonia ambassador envoy diplomatic expulsions /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/0d/1105409384_0:93:3071:1820_1920x0_80_0_0_e7cd44ffe7483f7108660f36393abcfe.jpg Latvian Ambassador to Moscow Maris Riekstins has been given two weeks to leave Russia, the Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. The decision was made after the Latvian charge d'affaires was summoned to voice protest over Riga's move to downgrade diplomatic ties with Moscow.The move brings forward his expulsion after Riga planned to end the diplomatic mission by February 24.Earlier this week, Latvia demanded that Russian Ambassador Mikhail Vanin leave the country by February 24, while promising to recall the Latvian ambassador from Moscow by the same date. Latvia argued that its decision was made "in solidarity" with Estonia, which took a similar stance on Monday. The Russian side pledged to "react harshly" to Riga's decision to downgrade diplomatic ties with Moscow, and slammed the "Russophobia of the Latvian leadership and hostility to everything connected with Russia."Russia declared that it does not consider that "solidarity" with other Baltic countries justifies this move, adding that all responsibility for the current situation lies with the leadership of Latvia.Moscow also stressed that it wasn't surprised by Riga's "unfriendly steps," which are "the logical result of the policy of the Latvian ruling elite on the consistent destruction of bilateral relations."On Monday, Moscow lowered the level of diplomatic relations with Estonia after the Estonian Foreign Ministry required that Russia reduce the number of staff in its embassy in Tallinn starting February 1. In addition, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Estonian Ambassador to Russia Margus Laidre and asked him to leave the country by February 7, the same time as the Russian Ambassador to Estonia Vladimir Lipayev would leave Estonia. latvia estonia 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 diplomatic expulsion, ambassador expelled, downgrading diplomatic ties, russia-latvia ties https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/nato-biggest-threat-to-turkeys-independence-and-sovereignty-turkish-observers-say-1106758265.html NATO Biggest Threat to Turkey's Independence and Sovereignty, Turkish Observers Say NATO Biggest Threat to Turkey's Independence and Sovereignty, Turkish Observers Say Turkey celebrated the 70th anniversary of its NATO membership with much fanfare on February 18, 2022. Roughly a year later on January 19, Turkeys Patriotic... 27.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-27T13:09+0000 2023-01-27T13:09+0000 2023-01-27T13:09+0000 us opinion russia turkiye nato cold war recep tayyip erdogan feto ypg kurdistan workers' party (pkk) /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/09/05/1100379634_0:89:1937:1178_1920x0_80_0_0_3948d7df817a462f919441aaf73a8ac4.jpg "After the nationwide 'Let's leave NATO' campaign was launched by our party, the number of collected signatures approached 100,000 in six days and is growing daily," Ozgur Bursali, general secretary of the Vatan Party, told Sputnik. Earlier this week on January 25, Deputy Leader of the Vatan Party Ethem Sancak told the press that Turkey could leave the US-led military bloc in five to six months. He quoted US-Turkey differences in the Middle East and campaigns against the Quran in Sweden and the Netherlands. Sancak referred to recent polls apparently showing that roughly 80% of Turkish respondents believe that the US' policies towards their country are hostile and destructive.However, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogans Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Omer Celik denied Sancak's statement the same day. "This is out of the question. We are one of the founding countries of NATO," stated Celik.Still, it's hard to deny that clouds have been gathering on the horizon of Turkey-NATO relations for quite a while.Turkey's NATO Membership in a NutshellTurkeys membership protocol to NATO was signed on October 17, 1951, and the nation became a NATO member on February 18, 1952. The country has the second-largest army in the bloc and hosts the Allied Land Command Headquarters.Even though Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, maintained friendly ties with the USSR, his successors joined the western bloc at the beginning of the Cold War. Turkey benefitted from the Truman Doctrine (1947) and the Marshall Plan (1948) offered by the US. In 1950, Turkey even sent its troops to fight on the US side in the Korean War (1950-53).With a foot both in Europe and Asia and control over the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, Turkey offered utter geopolitical importance for the transatlantic military alliance. At the same time, however, NATO had to reconcile itself with the decades-long enmity between Turkey and Greece, both alliance members. In July 1974, Turkey militarily intervened into the Republic of Cyprus to thwart a coup d'etat by Greek Cypriots and shield Turkish Cypriot civilians.On November 15, 1983, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was proclaimed. The republics independence was recognized only by Turkey. The UN Security Council condemned the move, while NATO turned a blind eye to the fact that a territorial dispute over Northern Cyprus contradicted its founding principles.Still, during the Cold War, Turkey largely followed NATO's major imperatives considering the Soviet Union an adversary like the rest of the military bloc. The situation drastically changed after the USSR's collapse. Exactly on the day when the USSR ceased to exist, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrote to NATO saying Russia hoped to join the alliance some time in the future. The letter was read at the alliance's headquarters by then-Ambassador to Belgium Nikolai N. Afanasyevsky. (Instead of permitting Russia to join, NATO opted to breach its non-expansion vow and opened the door to Moscow's allies from 1997.) In the aftermath of the USSR's collapse began the era of Russo-Turkish rapprochement.Over the past several decades, Russia and Turkey have intensified economic, political and military cooperation which triggered sharp criticism from the US-led NATO bloc. In particular, Turkey's decision to acquire the Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems in December 2017 led to Ankara's expulsion from the US-led multinational fifth-generation F-35 fighter jet program in 2019 - even though Turkey invested $1.4 billion (TL 24.2 billion) in it. Washington also froze the sale of F-16 fighters to the republic.In response, the Turkish Presidency of Defense Industries signaled in October 2021 that it could acquire Russia's Su-35 and Su-57 fighters instead. To cap it off, Turkey has not joined the anti-Russia sanctions regime spearheaded by the US and its NATO allies following the beginning of Moscow's special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.Likewise, regardless of the displeasure from the US and its NATO allies, Turkey carried out three major operations in northern Syria against Kurdish militias and organizations backed by Washington between 2016 and 2019. In 2018, Berlin expressed discontent with Ankara's use of the German-made Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks against Kurdish militants. European press wrote at the time that the tanks were sold to Turkey on the understanding that they were not used against the Kurds. For its part, Ankara drew attention to massive NATO weapons supplies to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) outlawed in Turkey as terrorists along with the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK).Ankara has also repeatedly expressed concerns over NATO's growing closeness with Greece. The Turkish security expert drew attention to US plans to move main military assets from the Incirlik Air Base to Crete.In July 2022, Greek Defense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos announced that he had discussed Greece's potential entry into the F-35 program with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Sean Burke, the director of the Pentagons F-35 joint program office. Turkey is also dissatisfied with Greece's reported military deployments on the east Aegean islands, which were ceded to Greece by the Ottoman Empire on the specific and strict condition that they be kept demilitarized.The most recent bone of contention between Turkey and the bloc is the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Ankara agreed to green-light Helsinki and Stockholm's NATO membership under a set of conditions concerning the activities of Kurdish and Fethulla Gulen's organizations (FETO), banned by Turkey, in the two European states.Nonetheless, these conditions have not been fully met so far, according to Ankara. To pour more gasoline on the flames, a copy of the Quran was burnt in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21. The police didn't intervene to stop the action. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Sweden on January 23 that it should not expect his backing to join NATO following the incident - which was seen as insulting by Turkey and other Muslim countries.US Politicians Issue Threats to Erdogan Ahead of ElectionsWashington hawks have not concealed their irritation with Ankara's unwillingness to bow down.Last week, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton called on the NATO military alliance to expel Turkey from the bloc. Furthermore, Bolton urged the alliance to support Turkey's opposition parties ahead of the general elections scheduled for May 14, 2023."With Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the helm, Turkey is again 'the sick man of Europe'," Bolton claimed in his January 16 op-ed. "Yet theres a chance he can be stopped, if the West takes bold action to help ensure his domestic opposition gets a fair shake in upcoming presidential elections () No country is entitled to participate in the alliance, and Mr. Erdogan hasnt been behaving like an ally."Bolton is well known as an ardent proponent of regime change operations in the countries not following Washington's dictat. To complicate matters further, some Turkish politicians already have deep suspicions that the US had a hand in the failed military coup d'etat attempt against Erdogan on July 15-16, 2016, along with Turkish scholar Fethullah Gulen's operatives."NATO is an occupation tool of US imperialism," Baris Doster, Turkish political scientist and international relations expert from the University of Marmara, columnist for the major socio-political newspaper Cumhuriyet, told Sputnik. "This is an organization created in order to keep allied countries in the sphere of influence of the United States, to shape not only the foreign policy and national security of these countries but also their domestic policy in accordance with American interests."Doster argued that the interests of the US-NATO and Turkey did not coincide and will never coincide. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230125/ankara-not-discussing-turkeys-withdrawal-from-nato-ruling-party-1106682867.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20190404/russia-nato-membership-1073835574.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20220818/russia-begins-supplies-of-second-s-400-regiment-to-turkey-defense-cooperation-agency-1099728481.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20211018/turkey-can-purchase-russias-su-35-su-57-fighters-if-us-does-not-sell-f-16-official-says-1090000236.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230125/seventy-years-of-membership-what-is-turkeys-role-in-nato-1106692712.html russia turkiye Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Ekaterina Blinova Ekaterina Blinova 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 Ekaterina Blinova turkey's nato membership, cold war, russia-turkey rapprochement, turkey's operations in northern syria, us-backed kurdish militias, turkey acquisition of s-400, greece's militarization, bolton's calls to expel turkey from nato, turkey's opposition to finland and sweden's nato membership https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/never-forget-the-soviet-heroes-who-liberated-auschwitz-1106755245.html Never Forget the Soviet Heroes Who Liberated Auschwitz Never Forget the Soviet Heroes Who Liberated Auschwitz The SS guards abandoned the guard posts surrounding Auschwitz during the night of 20-21 January 1945. 2023-01-27T11:24+0000 2023-01-27T11:24+0000 2023-01-27T11:24+0000 analysis auschwitz holocaust holocaust remembrance day red army soviet red army soviet army /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1b/1106756309_0:186:2746:1731_1920x0_80_0_0_75fa7eddffd5b32c980bf648e4eab05d.jpg At its height, in the summer of 1944, the Auschwitz complex, which comprised three basic camps the main camp, Birkenau and Monowitz and another 40 sub-camps, housed over 105,000 registered prisoners, mostly Jews, and around 30,000 unregistered Jewish inmates of so-called transit camps. By January 20, 1945, there were approximately 9,000 prisoners remaining. In the days that followed the evacuation, SS guards would patrol the camps, shooting 400 prisoners to death, and burning another 300 alive in their barracks. On January 25, the SS gathered approximately 150 prisoners from Birkenau and marched them out of the camp. The next day the SS blew up some warehouses and abandoned the facility altogether.Most of the surviving prisoners were starving, sick, and on the verge of death. The camp medical staff, assisted by the healthier prisoners, did their best to care for the bedridden patients. The camp was besieged by a howling winter storm, with temperatures well below zero and snow drifting around the camp. The survivors were afraid to move around too much regular German troops, falling back in the face of an advancing Soviet Army, made their way through the camp, pillaging as they went, and everyone feared the return of the SS.Auschwitz had been in existence since 1940, when it was used as a concentration camp for Polish prisoners. By 1942 the camp was converted into a combination labor and extermination facility, and Jewish prisoners began to arrive in larger numbers.Historians estimate that around 1,1 million people perished in Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, nearly a million of the Jews, the rest comprising Poles (some 75,000), Gypsies (20,000), Soviet prisoners of war (15,000), and 10,000-15,000 others from different ethnicities.The soldiers of the advancing Soviet Army, however, had no knowledge of the existence of Auschwitz for them, the death camp was simply marked as a barracks on the maps they used to plan their advance. General Kurochkins 60th Army, fresh off the liberation of the Polish city of Krakow, some 45 kilometers to the west of the camp, began pursuing the defeated German Army out of the city on January 25. Their goal was to take Katowice, an industrial city about 25 miles to the northwest of Auschwitz.Trudging through knee-deep snow, the Soviet infantrymen of the three divisions comprising the 60th Army the 107th, the 100th, and the 322nd repeatedly battled German troops dug in along the way. On the morning of January 27, while the 107th division skirted around the northern edge Polish town of Oswiecim, adjacent to the Auschwitz camp, troops from the 100th divisionentered the Monowitz camp, three miles kilometers to the east of Oswiecim. Primo Levi, one of the surviving prisoners, recalled that the first Soviet soldiers who entered the camp had no idea what they had walked into. To the left of the 100th division were the troops of the 322nd division, with the 472nd infantry regiment in the lead. After crossing the Sola River, the men of the 472nd regiment reached Oswiecim, sweeping aside light resistance from the German defenders, before pushing west, toward the railway station. Here the German resistance stiffened, and the Soviets troops had to work hard to dislodge the dug in Germans. Once the Germans had been either killed or retreated, the Soviets resumed their advance, pushing scouts forward to find a way forward.One of the Soviet soldiers, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Martynushkin, recalled that his troops had just defeated the Germans in Oswiecim when, after passing through the village, they "came out onto some kind of enormous field almost completely surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fences and watchtowers." "We saw buildings beyond the barbed wire, Martynushkin noted. And as we got closer, we began to see there were people.Martynushkin and his men had no idea who these people, who appeared very thin, tired, with blackened skin, were. Martynushkin and his men had just liberated the Birkenau camp.Anna Polshchikova, a Russian prisoner who worked at the camp medical facility, recalled her joy in seeing the Soviet soldiers and their confusion. They looked at us with surprise and in dismay. Who are you? they asked. What is this place? We are Russians, I replied, and this is Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. And what are you doing here? they inquired in an unfriendly manner. We were baffled and did not know what to say. We looked wretched and pathetic, so they relented and asked again, in a kinder tone. And what is over there? they said, pointing northwards. Also a concentration camp. And beyond that? Also a camp. And beyond the camp? Over there in, the forest, are the crematoria, and beyond the crematoria, we dont know.The horror of the reality of what they had just discovered only then began to register in the minds of the Soviet liberators.About 7,000 emaciated prisoners were in the Auschwitz main camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz. Another 500 prisoners were discovered in the Auschwitz sub-camps in Stara Kuznia, Blachownia Slaska, Swietochowice, Wesoa, Libiaz, Jawiszowice, and Jaworzno. But inside the camps the Soviets found 1.2 million pieces of clothing, 7.7 tons of human hair and other personal items stripped from murdered prisoners, evidence of the horrors that had transpired there. More than 600 decaying corpses were scattered throughout the grounds, the mortal remains of those prisoners gunned down by the murderous SS guards before they abandoned the camps.But in this nightmare, the humanity of the Soviet soldier shown through. Ten-year-old Eva Mozes Kor, a survivor of Nazi Dr. Joseph Mengeles demented medical experiments, recalled the kindness the Soviets showed to the children of the camp. Some 231 Soviet soldiers lost their lives in the fighting in and around the town of Oswiecim that occurred during the liberation of Auschwitz, including the commander of the 472nd regiment, Colonel Siemen Lvovich Besprozvanny. Their bodies are buried in the Oswiecim municipal cemetery, a permanent reminder of the sacrifice made in liberating the 7,500 survivors of the Auschwitz death camps.On January 27, 2023, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum will commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camps by the Soviet Army. This year, however, Russia wont be invited. Because of the attack on free and independent Ukraine, Pawel Sawicki, a press officer for the museum, told the media, representatives of the Russian Federation have not been invited to participate in this years commemoration event of the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.This decision was attacked by Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, who posted the following reply on her Telegram channel: No matter how our European non-partners contrived in their attempts to rewrite history in a new way, the memory of the Soviet heroes-liberators and horrors of Nazism cannot be erased.Given that the Russian Army is, today, engaged in a life and death struggle inside Ukraine with the progeny of the murderous SS prison guards of Nazi Germany, the decision of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum to prohibit Russia from attending the liberation commemoration is deeply disturbing. One can be rest assured that the descendants of Eva Mozes Kor, Anna Polshchikova, Primo Levi, and the other roughly 7,500 survivors of the death camps whose lives were saved by the sacrifice of Colonel Besprozvanny and the other Soviet soldiers who were killed in the fighting to liberate the camps will never forget who it was who allowed their ancestors to survive that unspeakable horror.Nor should anyone who reads this article. What the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum has done in denying the representatives of Russia their rightful role as the saviors of Auschwitz in the 78th anniversary commemoration of the Soviet liberation of Auschwitz is an abomination. But no matter how hard they might try, Pawel Sawicki and the staff of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum cannot make history disappear.Never forget are words that have meaning. It is a shame that this mantra no longer resonates with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/deliverance-from-evil-78-years-since-soviet-troops-liberated-auschwitz-1106748579.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/putin-on-eve-of-holocaust-remembrance-day-nazi-crimes-should-never-be-forgotten-1106732170.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/russian-diplomats-banned-from-holocaust-remembrance-ceremony-in-amsterdam-embassy-says-1106753056.html auschwitz Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Scott Ritter https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_b457e4e9c850ef224b0cc79059bb38df.jpg Scott Ritter https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_b457e4e9c850ef224b0cc79059bb38df.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 Scott Ritter https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/17/1105733958_0:0:334:334_100x100_80_0_0_b457e4e9c850ef224b0cc79059bb38df.jpg soviet heroes who liberated auschwitz, auschwitz liberation, death camp, auschwitz death camp, soviet army liberated auschwitz, holocaust remembrance day https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/paludan-pledges-to-burn-qurans-every-friday-until-sweden-gets-admitted-to-nato-1106747243.html Hard Line Party Head Paludan Pledges to Burn Qurans 'Every Friday' Until Sweden Is Admitted to NATO Hard Line Party Head Paludan Pledges to Burn Qurans 'Every Friday' Until Sweden Is Admitted to NATO Hard Line party leader Rasmus Paludan described his inflammatory plans as teaching Turkish leader Recep Erdogan a lesson in freedom of speech. 2023-01-27T06:16+0000 2023-01-27T06:16+0000 2023-01-27T06:28+0000 world sweden scandinavia turkiye nato nato expansion nato membership quran /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105418/77/1054187730_0:48:1920:1128_1920x0_80_0_0_669f472b1af54ac13f53a66eda221c3c.jpg Danish right-wing Hard Line party leader and habitual Quran-burner Rasmus Paludan has promised Ankara to burn copies of Islam's sacred book in front of the Turkish embassy "every Friday" until Sweden is granted permission to access NATO.Earlier, Ankara interrupted NATO tripartite negotiations with Sweden and Finland; it decried them as as "meaningless," citing Paludans protest in Stockholm, during which a copy of the Quran was burned, leaving the nations NATO bids hanging in the air.Paludan, whose fringe party runs on an anti-Islam agenda and a promise to ban all non-Western immigration, reiterated the framing of his actions as an exercise in freedom of speech. In recent years, Paludan has made burning and otherwise defacing copies of the Quran an integral part of his political repetoir.Admittedly, he intends to burn three Qurans this Friday in Copenhagen one outside of the Turkish embassy, one near a mosque and one near the Russian embassy. Unlike in Sweden, Paludan doesnt need a permit in Denmark, but must notify the authorities 24 hours before carrying out an action.Paludan also promised to "never in his entire life to burn a Quran in front of the Turkish embassy again" once Sweden is accepted into NATO.Swedens NATO Bid Gets Delayed Amid Internal StrifeIn recent weeks, Sweden's already fraught NATO talks were complicated further by high-profile provocations, including one where an effigy of Turkish President Recep Erdogan was hanged in Stockholm and a cartoon contest was held by a Swedish newspaper to mock the Turkish leader.Amid a strong backlash in Turkey and the Muslim world at large, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson tried to mend fences and condemned the Quran-burning, while offering his "sympathy" to all offended Muslims. He also emphasized the importance of the quickest possible NATO accession and called for a dialog with Turkey.The government's previous readiness to go to considerable lengths to accommodate Turkish demands, including greenlighting arms exports and extraditing people on Ankaras wishlist, has angered the left-wing opposition and human rights groups. However, its handling of the "Qurangate" sparked outrage among its own allies, the Sweden Democrats, which, as the countrys second-largest party, provide key support to the embattled minority government.First, Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson lambasted Turkish leader as an "Islamist dictator" and cautioned the government against going too far in trying to please him a nod to the very same Prime Minister Kristersson previously calling some of Erdogans demands impossible. Subsequently, Richard Jomshof, the chairman of the parliamentary justice committee and Akessons party mate, ventured that the prime ministers apology was a bridge too far and that more vigorous action to defend free speech was needed.At the same time, he emphasized that the national-conservative Sweden Democrats had nothing to do with the Quran burning in Stockholm, even though a journalist with connections to the party paid for Paludan's permit for the demonstration.Incidentally, a similar approach was voiced by Sweden Democrats archrivals, the Greens. Their spokeswoman Marta Stenevi fully supported Paludans right to incendiary action and urged the government to stand up for the freedom of speech.However, the consequences of the Quran-burning may reach even farther than Swedens stalled NATO bid. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, renowned as the highest institution of learning for Sunni Muslims, called for a global boycott of Swedish goods, sparking concerns of potential economic harm to Swedish companies. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230117/swedish-newspaper-launches-cartoon-contest-to-mock-erdogan-as-nato-bid-lingers-1106416217.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 sweden's nato bid, quran burning, political scandal, strained swedish-turkish relations, rasmus paludan, nato expansion https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/putin-ukranian-neo-nazis-terrorize-people-commit-ethnic-cleansing-as-they-forget-wwii-lessons-1106752997.html Putin: Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Terrorize People, Commit Ethnic Cleansing as They Forget WWII Lessons Putin: Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Terrorize People, Commit Ethnic Cleansing as They Forget WWII Lessons Putin warned that attempts to revise Russias role in the WWII victory paves the ground for the revival of Nazisms deadly ideology. 2023-01-27T09:17+0000 2023-01-27T09:17+0000 2023-01-27T11:33+0000 russia russia vladimir putin wwii special operation holocaust /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/05/09/1095366435_0:0:1355:762_1920x0_80_0_0_2199bb8ed6125a56f6fde75b2e5ab899.jpg During Moscows ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, Russian soldiers are fighting the "evil" that became possible due to the forgetting of the lessons of history, President Vladimir Putin has stated.In a telegram to organizers and participants of the events dedicated to the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of Victims of the Holocaust and the 78th anniversary of the liberation by the Red Army of the prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, Putin stressed that it was the Soviet people who put an end to the barbaric actions of the Nazis in 1945.According to the Russian president: We must clearly understand that any attempt to revise our countrys contribution to the Great Victory actually means justifying the crimes of Nazism, and opens the way for the revival of its deadly ideology.Russia mourns the millions who died in the Second World War Jewish people and representatives of other nationalities all those who were killed and tortured, the president added.On January 27, 1945, four Red Army infantry divisions under the command of Marshal Ivan Konev put an end to Auschwitz, the largest concentration camp of the Third Reich. About 1.5 million people, predominantly Jews, as well as thousands of Soviet and Polish prisoners of war, were killed in Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945.Russia has repeatedly cautioned against rethinking WWII history and whitewashing the Nazis and their collaborators in eastern Europe. In 2014, radicals seized power in Ukraine as a result of a coup, which saw the ouster of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, which was followed by Kiev launching the so-called anti-terror operation against self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics in Donbass. The Ukrainian forces fighting the Donbass republics included a number of neo-Nazi battalions. After Moscow launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 following the Donbass republics' request to protect them from Kiev's attacks, Russian troops tracked numerous traces of crimes committed by Ukrainian radicals. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/putin-on-eve-of-holocaust-remembrance-day-nazi-crimes-should-never-be-forgotten-1106732170.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20220509/ukraines-zelensky-uses-image-with-nazi-insignia-in-celebratory-wwii-victory-day-social-media-posts-1095372651.html russia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Oleg Burunov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg Oleg Burunov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Oleg Burunov https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/0b/1080424846_0:0:2048:2048_100x100_80_0_0_3d7b461f8a98586fa3fe739930816aea.jpg wwii lessons, russia's contribution to wwii victory, nazisms deadly ideology", russian president vladimir putin, wwii victory https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/raids-drone-strikes--rockets-the-jenin-raid-and-its-aftermath-1106746054.html Raids, Drone Strikes & Rockets: The IDF's Jenin Operation and Its Aftermath Raids, Drone Strikes & Rockets: The IDF's Jenin Operation and Its Aftermath Ten Palestinians were killed on Thursday during raids on a refugee camp in the city of Jenin, including a 61-year-old woman. It was the deadliest attack on the West Bank in two decades. 2023-01-27T03:47+0000 2023-01-27T03:47+0000 2023-01-27T03:44+0000 world israel palestine gaza violence west bank benjamin netanyahu jenin /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/102651/92/1026519267_0:0:3888:2188_1920x0_80_0_0_5ae708eaf06ababcfede587a5e43c55a.jpg In response, two rockets were fired from Gaza on Friday morning. The rockets were intercepted by Israels Iron Dome missile defense system and no casualties or injuries were reported. Responding to that attack, Israel launched drone strikes at Palestinian sites in the Gaza strip. No reports have yet surfaced of injuries or casualties from either of those attacks.Israel claims the strikes were targeting militant training areas in Gaza.The RaidThe Jenin raid that started the recent escalation of hostilities was the deadliest single event in the West Bank in at least 20 years, according to Palestinian officials. Nine of the Palestinians were killed in the morning on Thursday with the tenth being killed on Thursday night.One of the slain was a 61-year-old woman and another is said to be a civilian. Militant groups claimed the other seven Palestinians who were killed during the initial raid. It is unclear at this time if the individual killed on Thursday night was a militant or a civilian. Israel said it was attempting to arrest militants it claims were planning major attacks against Israel.The raid lasted about five hours, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) claims that Israeli forces raided the government hospital in Jenin and fired tear gas into the pediatric ward. However, Israel denies that it attacked the hospital.In addition to the dead, at least 20 more Palestinians were injured by gunfire or tear gas inhalation, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.ReactionsThe PA called the attack a massacre and said it would add it to the list of complaints it has filed with the UN International Criminal Court. PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared a three-day mourning period.The PA has said t it will suspend its security cooperation with Israel, an already controversial practice that included the PA giving intel on suspected militants to the Israeli government.Meanwhile, the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran strongly condemned the raid, while the US, EU, and UN called for de-escalation and dialog between the two sides.Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently regained power as the head of a new far-right administration in Israel, said that Israel is not looking to escalate the situation but is prepared nonetheless.Israeli parliament member Almog Cohen praised the raid in a highly-criticized tweet. Nice and professional work by the fighters in Jenin, keep killing them, the tweet read, finishing with a flexing emoji.Meanwhile, Palestinians on the streets called the action a crime. BackgroundThe Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on at least since before Israel was formed in 1948, which led to the first Arab-Israeli war. While Israel won that war with significant backing from the West, the conflict has been actively brewing under the surface ever since, frequently boiling over into violence for nearly three-quarters of a century.Jenin has been the site of significant events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before. In 2002, during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, Israel launched a full-scale incursion into the area, which became known as the Battle of Jenin. At least 52 Palestinian militants and civilians were killed, along with 23 Israeli soldiers.The conflict more recently saw a severe uptick in violence and destruction in May 2021, when for just over two weeks both sides carried out rocket strikes until a ceasefire had been implemented. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/sirens-sound-in-southern-israel-after-israeli-forces-carry-out-counterstrikes-in-gaza-strip-1106744848.html israel palestine west bank jenin 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 jenin raid, palestinian, israeli, conflict, west bank, gaza https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/russia-developing-swarm-attack-drones-for-battlefield-rostec-ceo-reveals-1106765908.html Russia Developing Swarm Attack Drones for Battlefield, Rostec CEO Reveals Russia Developing Swarm Attack Drones for Battlefield, Rostec CEO Reveals In this interview with Sputnik, Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov reveals whether claims made by the West and Ukraine about Russia "running out of weapons" are true. 2023-01-27T16:13+0000 2023-01-27T16:13+0000 2023-01-27T16:14+0000 russia rostec drones armed drones ukraine drone swarm weapons /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/102809/69/1028096941_0:0:2048:1153_1920x0_80_0_0_0cd9c75dd145672a75def075414811a0.jpg In this interview with Sputnik, Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov reveals whether claims made by the West and Ukraine about Russia "running out of weapons" are true. He also explains how the corporation is coping with sanctions, what it achieved in 2022, what the company's 2023 plans are, and more.Sputnik: What do you consider to be the main results achieved by Rostec over the past year?Chemezov: We persevered. Contrary to what our enemies expected, we did not stop our conveyors, we did not lay off people, and we did not stop our production programs. On the contrary, we hired specialists, continued to supply military products to the army, and increased production. We were able to fulfill our obligations to the Ministry of Defense in many areas ahead of schedule.We are also continuing all major civilian programs in aircraft construction, engines, electronics and medicine. This is a great credit to our work collectives. They work in several shifts and do their best for the country. I think this is the most important result.Sputnik: Last year, the volume of state defense orders increased significantly. What types of military products were most in demand?Chemezov: Everything that is now massively involved in the zone of the special military operation (SMO), including barrel and rocket artillery, armored vehicles of various classes, attack and transport helicopters, assault aircraft, and fighter jets, heavy flamethrower systems, small arms and ammunition, were most in demand.In the news, you can see many examples of our equipment, which helps to solve the tasks of the SMO. These include T-90M "Proryv" tanks, Iskanders, various types of MLRS, combat air vehicles such as Ka-52 and Mi-28 helicopters, Su-35S and Su-57 fighters, "Kub" and "Lancet" drones, and many others.It is important that we work with the military and get their feedback. This allows us to respond quickly to changing needs, make design changes and improve our products. For example, the AK-12 assault rifle has been significantly improved based on the results of its use in the SMO. It has become more ergonomic. An improved version will be put into production this year.Sputnik: Last year, there was a discussion about the army not having enough drones. How do you address this problem?Chemezov: We are ready to supply drones in accordance with the needs of the Ministry of Defense. For example, the Kalashnikov Concern is very active in this area and is expanding its production. The same "Lancets" are now used intensively and very efficiently in the special military operation zone. Small tactical drones are also being developed, capable of reconnaissance, automatic enemy detection and artillery targeting. They can drop grenades and launch swarm attacks. This technology has changed the nature of warfare. Both the Ministry of Defense and we understand this. We are working closely together on this issue.Sputnik: The special military operation requires an enormous amount of ammunition. Is the defense industry doing well on this front?Chemezov: The talk of our adversaries today about Russia allegedly running out of missiles, shells and other things is complete nonsense. The consumption of ammunition in the air defense zone is indeed high. We are talking about artillery and tank shells, rocket weapons and small arms ammunition. Accordingly, at the request of the Ministry of Defense, we have increased the production of ammunition by several times, and for some types by several orders of magnitude.Sputnik: How successful was the corporation in achieving the financial targets set for 2022, despite the new large-scale anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the West in connection with the special military operation?Chemezov: We have not yet finalized the results, but we can already draw some conclusions. The year before last, we reached a record level of civil revenues: their share was 45.5%. By the end of 2022, we expect to see a slight decline, and the share of civil products will be around 40%. And I think this is a good indicator, considering that the main efforts are now focused on the state defense order.We expect consolidated revenues to exceed 2.1 trillion rubles there is growth, it is less than expected, but we have it despite sanctions and other difficulties.Sputnik: How much profit did the corporation make? And what revenue do you expect in 2023?Chemezov: We'd better refrain from making predictions now, you understand why. Rostec has never been super-profitable. First, our goal is not profit per se, but the development of production and solving state tasks. Second, we are in the defense industry, where pricing is different from banking, raw materials, or trade. Now, when state defense orders prevail, we work at zero in the best case, if not at a loss. That is the requirement of the times.At the same time, it would be wrong to say that we don't think about profits at all. Every company thinks about it. Because its sustainability, its investments and its human resources depend on it. Our strategy provides for progressive growth in financial indicators, including profit. There are benchmarks that we strive for.Sputnik: The sanctions have left manufacturers without components. For example, last year KAMAZ had problems with the production of K5 generation vehicles, and the MC-21 program essentially had to be restarted from scratch. What is your assessment of the current situation?Chemezov: I do not agree about "from scratch," the MC-21 program is actually at the finish line today. We have solved the problem with the engine, with the "black wing". The Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) has approved the main changes to the standard design related to the installation of the PD-14 and the wing made of domestic composite materials. In 2023, we plan to start testing other systems of the aircraft so that by the end of 2024 we could certify a fully Russian-made aircraft and start mass production. Some of these systems are already being tested.As for KAMAZ, the results speak for themselves: almost 44,000 vehicles were produced in 2022. In other words, despite the market situation and all the difficulties, production remained practically at the level of 2021. After western partners left, several thousand components had to be replaced. In particular, the production of diesel engines and transmissions had to be localized completely. As a result, the KAMAZ engineers not only copied foreign technology, but also improved their products. For example, the K5 truck has a lower fuel consumption, it is less noisy, and it can be serviced once in 150,000 instead of 120,000 kilometers, which is a very good indicator, even if it is compared to the well-known world brands.Sputnik: What key projects in both the civil and military segments of the corporation do you expect to complete in 2023?Chemezov: Today, all of our focus is on the national defense order. I think this will remain our top priority in the coming months. Our main goal remains unchanged - 100% fulfillment of the state defense order. The volume has increased many times over and we are doing everything we can to meet this challenge.In the civilian sector, the key tasks remain in aircraft construction. The country needs its own aircraft - modern and in large numbers, so that we can forget about Boeings and Airbuses forever. I have already mentioned the MC-21. Another project is the import substitution of the SuperJet. This year we expect to complete a full set of tests on the PD-8 engine to obtain a type certificate, and then complete tests on this engine as part of the aircraft. The same is true for other systems and units of the aircraft. So next year we can start serial deliveries of the aircraft to airlines. It is a very complex task, and our aviation companies are working at the limits of their capabilities. No one in the world has ever implemented such projects in such a short time.Sputnik: There is a lot of talk about the aviation industry right now, but what about the other industries you work in?Chemezov: There are more than 800 companies in the corporation, and we cover many industries. It is easier to say where we do not work. Another industry where we are very much expected to deliver is the energy industry. After all, the sanctions have completely banned the supply of energy equipment to the country. This year, we are ready to supply Gazprom with the first four GTA-8 gas turbine units for the power plant that supplies the oil and gas platform. Among other things, this equipment is capable of operating in Arctic conditions. There have been no such projects in Russia before, only imported equipment.In addition, just a few days ago we delivered the first GTD-110M series gas turbine. This is a high-capacity turbine for power generation, the only one of its class in Russia now. It is a completely domestic development. It will replace foreign units, such as Siemens and General Electric. I would call it a milestone.I would also like to mention medicine, where we are active in pharmaceuticals (we produce vaccines and immunoprophylaxis) and medical equipment. For example, this year we are launching a new line of "Mobivent" artificial lung ventilators at the Ural Instrument Making Plant. These devices can be used, among other things, to treat premature babies.Sputnik: Rostec celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2022: what are the main "interim" results of the state corporation's work during this serious period? What key tasks for the development of domestic industry have been solved thanks to its creation?Chemezov: The most important result is what Rostec has become. From a scattering of enterprises drowning in losses, we have become the country's largest manufacturing company. Fifteen years ago, almost half of the enterprises that were transferred to us were in crisis. The debts of many enterprises had been accumulating since the 1990s. Production equipment was at a very low level. There were huge problems with civil production and sales. In 2009, our companies' revenues were about half a trillion rubles and their losses were 60 billion rubles.Today, the picture is completely different: modern equipment, new stores, and new types of products. Sales have quadrupled. We have been able to create a company that successfully withstands external pressures and produces thousands of products, both military and civilian, from airplanes to vaccines.Sputnik: Are there any plans to integrate new civilian or military enterprises into Rostec?Chemezov: Increasing the number of companies is not an end in itself. There are two scenarios. Either we enter into a partnership with the company if it has interesting competencies, access to markets and so on. Or there is a state decision and it is necessary to normalize the work of some asset or we need to consolidate competencies, as was the case with aircraft construction. In recent years, KTZ, UVZ, UAC and other companies have joined us on this path. Today all of them are working stably.A striking example is JSC Kurganmashzavod, which produces modern types of armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and other equipment. It was one of the "tractor plants" that became notorious and almost brought down many plants across the country. We literally saved the legendary plant from closure and bankruptcy. Today it is successfully operating as part of High Precision Systems, supplying armored vehicles required by the SMO and in time to fulfill the 2022 State Defense Order for the delivery of BMP-3, BTR-MDM and BMD-4M amphibious armored vehicles.Recently, a decision was made to transfer 15 more assets to us, a significant portion of which is gunpowder factories. These are state-owned enterprises that produce specialty chemicals and ammunition components. We will corporatize them, integrate them into the structure of our two holdings, and modernize and re-equip them. We have been monitoring the activities of these plants since 2022. We have already identified their equipment needs. We plan to invest tens of billions of rubles in their modernization. The aim of these measures is to create a new image of the defense industry.Sputnik: How much does Rosoboronexport plan to export weapons abroad in 2023? Was the special exporter's plan for arms deliveries fulfilled last year?Chemezov: As I said earlier, the main efforts of our enterprises are now focused on fulfilling the state defense order. At the same time, Rostec has reliable partners in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. We appreciate their principled position and are in close contact with them, solving the most complex tasks together. There are plans to expand our cooperation.Traditionally, I will not disclose details, Rosoboronexport works in accordance with the tasks set for us by the president and the government. Overall, I can say that we are doing well, despite the opposition of unfriendly countries. We will not give up our position in the global arms market.Sputnik: How justified is the system of mutual settlements with foreign partners in national currencies? What percentage of arms deals are made in them today?Chemezov: We have repeatedly announced the transition to national currency settlements with our partners. These were timely and, as today's situation shows, justified actions. The share of such agreements is now close to 100%. https://sputnikglobe.com/20220825/soldier-of-the-future-russias-ratnik-helmet-more-reliable-than-nato-analogues---rostec-1099989556.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20220812/russias-rostec-develops-tech-for-creating-combat-robots-from-any-heavy-armor-deputy-ceo-says-1099515464.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20220330/russias-largest-airline-moves-all-aircraft-to-national-jurisdiction-1094319077.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/russias-super-flanker-which-countries-purchase-su-35-aircraft-1106761697.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20220812/russia-completes-development-of-mini-missiles-for-pantsir-air-defense-systems-rostec-1099499229.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20220808/drone-tank-to-debut-at-russias-army-2022-forum-rostec-reveals-1099571871.html 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 rostec ceo, rostec ceo interview, russian weapons, russian drones, special military operation in ukraine, swarm attack drones, swarm attack drones in ukraine, russia developing swarm attack drones "The Russian Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands deeply regrets the decision of the Dutch authorities to prevent the participation of representatives of the embassy in the annual ceremony in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, organized by the Dutch Auschwitz Committee on January 29 in Amsterdam. Whatever the reservations about the current political situation, this decision is highly politicized," the embassy wrote on social media. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/russias-central-bank-assesses-reserve-of-ruble-foreign-currency-liquidity-as-adequate-1106767206.html Russias Central Bank Assesses Reserve of Ruble, Foreign Currency Liquidity as Adequate Russias Central Bank Assesses Reserve of Ruble, Foreign Currency Liquidity as Adequate Russia's Central Bank on Friday assessed the reserve of ruble and foreign currency liquidity in banks as adequate, with available sources of liquidity covering a significant part of customer funds. 2023-01-27T15:07+0000 2023-01-27T15:07+0000 2023-01-27T15:07+0000 russia central bank foreign currency reserves /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/04/15/1094951958_0:320:3072:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_30c9481137fb38e20e6a8ccdf7d04edb.jpg Thus, the total volume of ruble-denominated assets amounted to about 18.9 trillion rubles ($273 billion) by the end of 2022, which is enough to cover 26% of customer ruble funds and 58% of individuals' funds. Banks may borrow another 9.3 trillion rubles, sufficient to cover 13% of customer funds, from the central bank on the security of non-marketable assets, the report on the development of the banking sector of Russia in December 2022 said. It is also noted that in December, 2022, Russian banks tripled their profits compared to 2021, up to 342 billion rubles. 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 central bank, foreign currency reserves, liquidity https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/the-global-establishment-is-hungry-for-a-world-war-iii-scenario-1106743645.html The Global Establishment is Hungry for a World War III Scenario The Global Establishment is Hungry for a World War III Scenario On todays episode of The Backstory, host Lee Stranahan discussed current events including Congress looking into banning Tiktok and France will pull its troops... 27.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-27T10:51+0000 2023-01-27T10:51+0000 2023-02-03T08:25+0000 the backstory nato climate change uranium france january 6 censorship belgium radio /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/1a/1106743499_0:0:1920:1080_1920x0_80_0_0_f9536d821157d5577fcd8a829a3ef097.png The Global Establishment is Hungry for a World War III Scenario On todays episode of The Backstory, host Lee Stranahan discussed current events including Congress looking into banning Tiktok and France will pull its troops from Burkina Faso. Mark Sleboda - International Relations and Security Analyst | Germany Declares War Against Russia, Russian Missile Srike on Ukraine, and Freedom of the PressTed Rall - Political Cartoonist, Syndicated Columnist | The Political Narrative on COVID-19, Questioning the COVID Vaccines, and Climate Change In the first hour, Lee spoke with Mark Sleboda about the Russian military strategy, Crimea, and the fiction of "Ukraine is winning." Mark described the only path to victory for Ukraine and Joe Biden's announcement of American battle tank shipments for Ukraine. Mark commented on the use of depleted uranium and Russia's warning against the use of depleted uranium ammunition.In the second hour, Lee spoke with Ted Rall about the firing of employees who refused the COVID vaccines, strokes possibly related to vaccines, and French words in the English language. Ted discussed the idea of ending the military-industrial complex and weapons manufactured by the military. Ted talked about the proxy war in Ukraine and the profit of war.We'd love to get your feedback at radio@sputniknews.comThe views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of Sputnik. france belgium Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Lee Stranahan https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125222_0:0:293:292_100x100_80_0_0_a8bc846f559660e5bf7574f8a9608a1d.png Lee Stranahan https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125222_0:0:293:292_100x100_80_0_0_a8bc846f559660e5bf7574f8a9608a1d.png News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Lee Stranahan https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/13/1082125222_0:0:293:292_100x100_80_0_0_a8bc846f559660e5bf7574f8a9608a1d.png nato, climate change, uranium, france, january 6, censorship, belgium, , radio https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/time--and-combat-tested-why-china-holds-russias-sukhoi-su-35-fighters-in-high-regard-1106760824.html China's Trump Card? Why Beijing Holds Russia's Sukhoi Su-35 Fighters in High Regard China's Trump Card? Why Beijing Holds Russia's Sukhoi Su-35 Fighters in High Regard The Sukhoi Su-35 has come under the spotlight after reports about Tehran's willingness to acquire the Russia-made fighters. It's not only Iran that has... 27.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-27T13:16+0000 2023-01-27T13:16+0000 2023-01-27T13:38+0000 opinion asia-pacific region china su-35 su-27 j-11 j-16 fighter jet russian warplanes military & intelligence military /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/09/01/1080335587_0:147:2491:1548_1920x0_80_0_0_e8c50bf7bca524f5909374edc8b7538a.jpg "The Su-35 fighter is unique in terms of its combination of maneuverability, the ability to carry a large load, [and] to work both against air and ground targets," director of the Asian Security Project at the PIR Center, Vadim Kozyulin, told Sputnik. "It has a digital complex that allows you to deliver high-precision strikes using cheap unguided bombs. This is a universal machine that has the potential for modernization through the installation of new reconnaissance, electronic warfare, avionics, guidance, etc. It is very important that the advantages of this aircraft were confirmed in combat. This was also recognized by American experts."The single-seat, twin-engine, supermaneuverable aircraft is a version of the Sukhoi Su-27 fighter that has been greatly modernized. The Su-35 is a 4++ generation warplane that uses fifth-generation fighter technology. According to the United Aircraft Corporation, it was designed so that it could fly and fight in conditions where "classic" (4+ generation) fighters were unable to engage in combat.The multi-role warplane combines the qualities of a modern fighter, which boasts high supersonic speed and long range, and a good tactical airplane that can carry a wide range of weapons, including a modern electronic warfare system. In addition, it can both operate independently, or as part of a battle group controlled from an aerial, ground-based or ship-based command center.In addition to the Su-35's combat capabilities, there are several other reasons why the People's Republic of China has taken an interest in the jet fighter.How It All BeganPresently, the core of the People's Liberation Army Air Forces (PLAAF) is formed by the Shenyang J-11 and J-16 jets of various modifications, which originate from Russian prototypes: the Su-27SK and Su-30MKK, according to Vasily Kashin, a senior research fellow at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and an expert on China's military-industrial complex.In addition, the Chinese air forces are also using the Shenyang J-15 fighters which are based on the Su-27 base platform, the production license which was bought by China in 1996, Kashin observed in an interview with Sputnik.In the early 1990s, China acquired a number of the Su-27SK and Su-27UBK from the Russian Federation, but most of them have already been decommissioned, according to the military expert. Even though the Chinese have themselves mastered jet production, they nonetheless turned to Russia in November 2015 to buy 24 Su-35 fighters. In fact, China became the first foreign buyer of the state-of-art fighter jets.Russia is China's 'Natural Ally' in Defense CooperationKashin pointed out that no country could currently provide itself with a complete set of cutting-edge military technologies and therefore everyone has to resort to international cooperation.China's cooperation with the West does not appear realistic given that the US and NATO not only banned the supply of weapons and military technology to the PRC, but declared Beijing a long-term strategic challenge. Under these circumstances, cooperation with Russia comes in handy for the people's republic, according to the expert."China has made significant progress, but [Russia] still has certain advantages in aircraft engines, in the design of aircraft, in certain types of their equipment," Kashin highlighted.The Su-35 Tested in Real Combat"China has made significant progress, but [Russia] still hcertain advantages in aircraft engines, in the design of aircraft, in certain types of their equipment," Kashin highlighted.far in real war conditions, according to Vadim Kozyulin. In contrast, the Sukhoi Su-35 has already proven highly effective both during the Syrian civil war and Russia's special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.In addition, Russian aircraft and other weapon systems are of interest for China because they were specifically designed to endure extreme weather conditions (frost and heat) and ensure easy maintenance of equipment under critical circumstances, in the absence of reliable logistics or qualified support, according to Kozyulin. "Russian technology is reliable, 'unpretentious' and relatively inexpensive, which is important in a real combat environment," the scholar emphasized. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230120/shock-and-awe-why-russias-sukhoi-su-35-fighters-are-nightmare-for-irans-adversaries-1106503010.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20221219/fathers-and-sons-the-expansive-family-of-sukhois-su-27-flanker-fighter-jets-1105622677.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20210721/from-su-57-to-checkmate-new-russian-fifth-generation-fighter-makes-a-splash-in-aerospace-industry-1083430849.html china iran syria ukraine ussr Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Ekaterina Blinova Ekaterina Blinova 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 Ekaterina Blinova china acquisition of su-35, how many su-35 did china buy, su-35 tested in combat, chinese aviation industry, russia's jet engines, su-35 flanker, russian interceptors Significantly, the Italian brand has been clocking double-digit growth in terms of deliveries and India is one of the top performing markets, lapping up the latest Lamborghini models (Photo By Arrangement) PUNE: Italian superluxury carmaker Lamborghini on Friday said it delivered 92 units in India in 2022, registering a 30 per cent yearly growth. It is Lamborghini Indias best-ever annual sales to date driven by its popular Urus SUV. Its global sales also rose by 10 per cent year-on-year to 9,233 units, its highest ever, in calendar year 2022. Significantly, the Italian brand has been clocking double-digit growth in terms of deliveries and India is one of the top performing markets, lapping up the latest Lamborghini models. Last year also saw the Italian brand, whose average car costs over Rs 4 crore in India, surpass the cumulative 400-unit milestone in the Indian market. This is indicative of the fact that a growing segment of car buyers in India are increasingly interested in the high-end luxury segment. Brands like German Mercedes-Benz are also benefiting from this trend where growth is predominantly in the top-end segments. Globally, the United States retained the top market position with 2,721 cars sold followed by China, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan. The Asia-Pacific region, however, accounted for the highest growth of 14 per cent. The US remains in the top spot (2,721 cars delivered, up 10 percent over the previous year), followed by Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong & Macau (1,018 cars delivered, up 9 per cent over the previous year), Germany (808 cars delivered, up 14 per cent over the previous year), the UK (650 cars delivered, up 15 per cent over the previous year) and Japan (546 cars delivered, up 22 per cent over the previous year). https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/us-cities-on-alert-for-blm-unrest-after-atlanta-antifa-riots-1106754195.html US Cities on Alert for BLM Unrest After Atlanta Antifa Riots US Cities on Alert for BLM Unrest After Atlanta Antifa Riots Police in Memphis, Tennessee, are set to release bodycam video of the January 7 arrest of Tyre Nichols, a black man who died in hospital three days later from what one autopsy has described as a "severe beating". 2023-01-27T12:53+0000 2023-01-27T12:53+0000 2023-01-27T12:53+0000 us atlanta memphis police department memphis tennessee georgia blm black lives matter tyre nichols americas /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/05/13/1082938706_0:67:1280:787_1920x0_80_0_0_f9a1c37a38707d31c18f3add477a24aa.jpg Cities across the US have begun preparing for riots after last weekend's violence in Atlanta, Georgia over the death of a black man following his arrest.Georgia state Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Thursday, in force until February 9, and called up 1,000 National Guard troopers in case of further unrest.Cities as far-flung as Austin, Texas, Los Angeles, California and Washington, D.C. were also reportedly getting ready to fend off rioters.The Memphis, Tennessee Police Department is set to release bodycam footage on Friday of five officers, all also black men, recording their arrest of Tyre Nichols on January 7 for reckless driving.Nichols, who ran from one group of officers before being caught by another, died in hospital three days later. Preliminary results from an autopsy commissioned by his family found evidence of "extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating."The five officers have been dismissed, arrested and charged with murder, kidnapping, assault and misconduct.The Austin PD said it "will be moving into tactical alert status beginning Friday morning."The Washington Metropolitan Policer Department (MPD) said it had "fully activated all sworn personnel in preparation for possible First Amendment activities in the District of Columbia," referring to the constitutional protection of freedom of speech.The Nichols case has echoes of the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles Police Department officers after he led a highway patrol car on a high-speed chase through a residential neighbourhood under the influence of drink and drugs and the death of George Floyd in 2020 while he was restrained by officers in Minneapolis during an arrest.The acquittal of the officers who beat King sparked days of riots in LA, while Floyd's death contributed to the country-wide wave of protests and rioting during the 2020 presidential election campaign.Masked, black-clad 'Antifa' rioters took to the streets of Atlanta, more than 300 miles from Memphis, at the weekend in protest at the police killing of an environmental activist who authorities said shot a state trooper.Rioters smashed windows and set off fireworks outside the building where the Atlanta Police Foundation, an NGO which provides planning and training to the city's police department. Local businesses were also attacked.At least six suspects were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism offenses. Some were found in possession of explosives.The six suspects identified, all white, were named as Ivan Ferguson of Nevada; Graham Evatt of Decatur, Georgia; Nadja Geier of Nashville, Tennessee; Madeleine Feola of Spokane, Washington; Francis Carrol, of Kennebunkport, Maine; and Emily Murphy, 37, of Grosse Isle, Michigan. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/murder-in-the-us-everything-to-know-about-tyre-nichols-case-before-release-of-body-cam-footage-1106744264.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230113/los-angeles-police-open-investigation-into-death-of-blm-co-founders-cousin-1106285478.html atlanta memphis tennessee georgia americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 James Tweedie https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png James Tweedie https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 James Tweedie https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/08/1c/1080307270_0:3:397:400_100x100_80_0_0_7777393b9b18802f2e3c5eaa9cbcc612.png us, memphis, atlanta, police, tyre nichols, riots, black lives matter https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/us-lawmakers-demand-protocol-reforms-amid-epidemic-of-classified-file-mishandling-at-white-house-1106771337.html US Lawmakers Demand Protocol Reforms Amid 'Epidemic' of Classified File Mishandling at White House US Lawmakers Demand Protocol Reforms Amid 'Epidemic' of Classified File Mishandling at White House Many in Congress have started demanding greater scrutiny of the ways documents are handled - and called on other past leaders to double-check their files. 2023-01-27T16:40+0000 2023-01-27T16:40+0000 2023-01-27T16:40+0000 americas classified documents mike pence joe biden donald trump us biden classified files /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/0e/1106304401_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_0d0e947cf7e473fac7b9554cf4164c0b.jpg After former US Vice President Mike Pence became the third US leader in recent months to have classified documents found in their personal possession after leaving office, many in Congress have started demanding greater scrutiny of the ways documents are handled - and called on other past leaders to double-check their files.Earlier this week, US media reported that a dozen classified documents had been found at Pences home in Indiana. The files were reportedly used to brief him for foreign trips and were of a low level of classification, but the FBI is nonetheless investigating the situation.That news came after several batches of classified files were found in the family home and former professorial offices of US President Joe Biden in recent weeks, and after the FBI raided former US President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate last August, seizing hundreds of classified files.Those people include former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, and former vice presidents Dick Cheney, Al Gore, and Dan Quayle.The situation has ruffled the feathers of Congress, which commonly handles classified files and works in conjunction with the White House to make leadership decisions based on classified information.Many observers and experts have said they dont see the mishandling of documents as deliberate and suggested the problem lay in how files are sorted when presidents leave the White House. The Presidential Records Act requires presidents leaving office to surrender their files to NARA, which manages their libraries on their behalf."I have seen nothing that would indicate to me that it was anything other than accidental," US Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told US media. "It's easy to do, because paper moves if somebody moves."US Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) similarly pointed to improper procedures involving staffers going through former presidents files.Ernst also said it was a problem that former presidents werent fully aware of which files they did and did not have, signaling a need for greater scrutiny.Although the FBI raided Trumps mansion and considered using a warrant to search Bidens family home for classified files, the Department of Justice has not brought any charges in any of the cases. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230126/doj-was-reportedly-ready-to-use-search-warrant-to-get-classified-files-from-bidens-delaware-home-1106739598.html https://sputnikglobe.com/20230122/all-deny--deflect-bidens-no-regrets-response-to-classified-docs-row-ripped-as-really-dumb--1106564745.html americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Fantine Gardinier Fantine Gardinier 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 Fantine Gardinier classified files, biden classified files, classified documents, classified file mishandling, 'epidemic' of classified file mishandling, classified file mishandling at white house https://sputnikglobe.com/20230127/zaporozhye-authorities-slam-iaea-reports-about-powerful-explosions-at-npp-as-provocation-1106744560.html Zaporozhye Authorities Slam IAEA Reports About Powerful Explosions at NPP as Provocation Zaporozhye Authorities Slam IAEA Reports About Powerful Explosions at NPP as Provocation The IAEA report about powerful explosions in the vicinity of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant is not true and is a provocation, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Zaporozhye regional administration's main council, told Sputnik. 2023-01-27T00:52+0000 2023-01-27T00:52+0000 2023-01-27T00:46+0000 world zaporozhye region international atomic energy agency (iaea) rosenergoatom power plant /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/09/11/1100908111_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_ae2c0be9ec1bd1bad084dc4b4d3a43de.jpg Earlier in the day, the IAEA issued a statement saying that the agency's experts stationed at the plant have reported powerful explosions in the area of the Zaporozhye NPP, "indicating military activities in the vicinity of the site located on the frontline of the ongoing conflict." According to the statement, the experts have been reporting such incidents to HQ in Vienna almost daily in recent days and weeks. The official said the agency aims to question the ability of the Russian military to guarantee safety and protect the NPP from Ukraine's shelling. "One gets the impression that the IAEA is carrying out the political will of the Kiev regime and their masters, who are concerned about the successful offensive actions of the Russian army on the Zaporozhye sections of the front line, so they are trying to slow it down in every way, including by spreading disinformation," Rogov said. Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of Russian state-run nuclear energy agency Rosatom, has told Sputnik that the IAEA's report is aimed at discrediting Russia on the issue of nuclear security and at justifying Ukraine's shelling of the plant. "Here they [experts] say that they heard powerful explosions. At the same time, they never say where these explosions come from. At this point, they have atrophy of both hearing and vision. And everything that is not clear ... is interpreted against the Russian Federation," Karchaa said.Karchaa noted the IAEA staff deliberately does not say where the shelling of the plant comes from to blame Russia. He said that Russia respects the work of the IAEA and Director General Rafael Grossi personally, adding that Moscow has been open to negotiations and cooperation with the agency from the very beginning of the Ukraine conflict and still is. However, he said, Russia's "respectfulness and openness are ultimately interpreted as our weakness." Located on the left bank of the Dnepr River, the ZNPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe by the number of units and output. It went under the control of Russian forces in early March and has since been attacked repeatedly, raising international concerns over a possible nuclear accident. The IAEA has repeatedly stated the need to create a safety zone around the ZNPP. zaporozhye region 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 zaporozhye, international atomic energy agency, nuclear power plant, provocation On the heels of a campaign earning a Dan Patch Award and possible sweep of sophomore pacing colt honours, 2022 OBrien Award finalist Pebble Beach will set sail into a stallion career which was not originally planned for his four-year-old year. Pebble Beach, a colt by Downbytheseaside, was a perfect yearling to trainer Noel Daley and a worthwhile $85,000 acquisition who earned $1.9 million through two seasons. His success, as well as the ease he showed beating his peers in the Breeders Crown at Woodbine Mohawk Park, had Daley and connections plotting to keep Pebble Beach in training for a four-year-old campaign. But an offer rang for Pebble Beach to start stallion duties in a burgeoning jurisdiction, the ever-growing program in Kentucky. Well miss having him around the place, trainer Noel Daley told Trot Insider. To be honest, until he went up for the Breeders Crown, our plan was to bring him back. But in Kentucky, he ended up in a job in a small jurisdiction. And then the offer was made for him...and we had to make the decision to bring him back, but we thought to take it. The people [Joe Sbrocco, Country Club Acres et al.] had good success retiring the other horse; it worked for Downbytheseaside. For Daley, Pebble Beach was a bit of an anomaly. For the last 10 years, a majority of Daleys focus has been on trotting prospects with a few strong pacing fillies. He was the only pacing colt we bought that year, said Daley. Thats because one particular long-term owner had spoiled me on video and asked me to go look at him. I said alright. I loved him when I saw him and so then I had to sort of call around and find some people to buy and I got a few guys to agree to go to $75,000 and maybe go up to $85,000. I think it turned out pretty good. Despite an adventurous debut in an Ohio Sires Stakes at Northfield Park, Pebble Beach demonstrated his talent with every outing to not miss the board in 11 freshman starts. And with his two-year-old finale, a third-place finish in the Breeders Crown, Daley knew the colt needed Lasix. I knew he bled at the end of his two-year-old year. When he was third in the Breeders Crown, he bled that night. When he came back, I never ever caught him bleeding, so I just decided to have him on Lasix as a three-year-old and we always just had him on 3 CCs. Pebble Beach delivered early in his sophomore season, culminating with a display of force in the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup in 1:50. Following a third-place finish in the $350,000 Adios, Pebble Beach shipped to Kentucky for its state-sponsored program. But medication laws in Kentucky forced Pebble Beach to race without Lasix a test he nonetheless overcame to finish no worse than second in his seven Bluegrass State starts, including a win in the $363,500 Tattersalls. Its funny because he was scoping all the time, said Daley. He did bleed. I didn't think it would be an issue when I went to Lexington, and every time I scoped him, he was clean. But he just wasn't finishing the races like he should. Im thinking Huh...is it that or is he not trying? But obviously, I took him back to Canada and put him back on and he was just night and day a better horse. A return to Lasix brought a familiar sight for the Breeders Crown at Woodbine Mohawk Park. Much like his effortless win in the Pepsi North America Cup, Pebble Beach towered over his peers to stroll to a 1:48.1 win in the $911,250 Breeders Crown final. He then churned victories in the $158,200 Matron Pace and in his Progress Pace elimination before blazing a torrid tempo in the $250,000 Progress Pace final, which led to his only off-the-board finish in 29 starts. We nearly didn't go to Dover at all. We won the first race down there and there was discussion whether to race him or not. The race a week before he came out of it, he seemed fine when he won then the next morning he couldn't put his leg on the ground and I thought ,Oh my god, whats going on here? It ended up he had a pus pocket in his foot. In hindsight, I probably shouldnt have started him...but he was sound by the time the final came around there. Hed missed a bit of work or whatever, but I felt he had a strong enough year, he's not going to worry about it...It doesn't matter. We had a pretty good year, so no complaints. So Pebble Beach prepares to stand stud at Diamond Creek Farm of Kentucky alongside their only other stallion Gimpanzee. He is one of six active studs in the state of Kentucky and one of four pacing stallions, sharing the state with Boston Red Rocks, Miso Fast and White Bliss. Hell clean up a lot of mares, said Daley. As I say, he is spot-on correct. Stands great, good looking horse. He just didnt have a lot of size, you wouldn't want to be breeding smaller mares to him. He was 15.1 or 15.2 by the end of it. Great attitude and hes got a wicked turn speed. He was a cool horse to have around. I mean, we miss him in the barn. He's a very likable horse. He just had that little bit of spunk in him, enough that he could be mischievous but not stand there and roar or kick the walls I think he can make it [as a stallion]. Daley also said duties as a shuttle stallion down under may be in the cards for Pebble Beach. We'll just see how it shakes out here. But I do believe that that's the plan, he said. They did a good job getting [Downbytheseaside] good numbers when he went down there to New Zealand. I think the plan is to do the same thing. You want to be a part of a successful stallion, Daley also said. Ive had a few successful ones, but nothing big time. I had Explosive Matter, I had a piece of him. He was okay. The only good pacers, we havent really had many go to stud to be anything. Hes the first one I think Ive had that, for a pacer, thats been commercial. A lot of my better ones happen to be mares for whatever reason. As another highlight for Daleys year, not only did he have a dominant talent in Pebble Beach but he also housed world champion Bulldog Hanover through his residency at The Meadowlands, in which he paced the sport's fastest mile of all time, a 1:45.4 scorcher in the William R. Haughton Memorial. It was a lot of fun, said Daley, who has been friends with Bulldog Hanovers trainer Jack Darling for decades. Basically trained him a trip in [2:]20 every week. My biggest issue was getting him on and off the trailer. He was a lot of fun to have. Standardbred Canada will present the 34th edition of the O'Brien Awards on Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023 at the Hilton Mississauga / Meadowvale Hotel. The year 2023 will be big for local elections and local campaign activity is already in gear. Four-term Orange County Sheriff Mark Amos in a release Wednesday announced he not would seek reelection in November. A day earlier, on Tuesday, the agencys operations captain, Jason Smith, announced his candidacy for the constitutional office, and a challenger has already emerged. Amos started in 1987 as a deputy at the sheriffs office in his native Orange County. He said in the statement he would retire at the end of this year, finishing out the term. Amos, a 1980 graduate of Orange County High School, thanked constituents for putting their trust in him. He was first elected in 2007 and three more times, most recently in 2019, when Amos ran unopposed. I want to start off by thanking the citizens of Orange County for their overwhelming support over my career, Amos said. I have had the incredible opportunity to work for the citizens of Orange County for over 35 years and serve as your Sheriff for over 15 years ... I could not have asked for a better community to be a part of and serve. I am proud of each and every one of my employees and the relationship we have fostered with the community, the sheriff said. Orange County has maintained the lowest crime rate of all the surrounding counties, 14 out of the last 15 years, Amos, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, said. School safety has been a priority, he added, of delegating a School Resource Officer to every Orange County public school. Amos implemented a body camera program for deputies and created the Orange County Citizens Police Academy, teaching over 400 residents since 2007, about basic law enforcement functions and daily operations. He listed among his accomplishments the implementation of new records management and radio systems and the construction of a new public safety building at the airport. I have worked tirelessly with the Orange County Board of Supervisors for pay raises for all our deputies so we may compete with surrounding counties. I hope that I have served you well, Amos said in the statement. It has been a true honor to have served this community. On Tuesday, Orange County Sheriffs Captain Jason Conway Smith, 40, announced his candidacy for the office of Orange County Sheriff. Smith said he, like Amos, would run as an independent in the November election. Smith is also a lifelong resident of the county. I grew up on a family farm in the Lahore area. I still live on this farm today in a house built by my great, great grandparents that my wife, Kristen, and I have lovingly restored over the years, said Smith in a campaign Facebook page post announcing his candidacy. The 2000 graduate of Orange County High School was a high-achieving Eagle Scout and in the OCSO Explorer Program as a teen. Smith graduated in 2003 from Old Dominion University with a degree in criminal justice and sociology. He said he received a Top Overall award during basic training and started in 2004 as a patrol sergeant with the Orange County Sheriffs Office. Smith, during his nearly 20-year career, was promoted to investigations and is now captain of operations, under Amos, overseeing Patrol, Animal Control and School Resource Officer divisions. He said he has also supervised Court Services and completed numerous trainings in firearms instruction, rape aggression defense, SWAT Basic, FEMA Incident Command Crisis Intervention (Behavioral Health), ethics and more. Smith has coordinated the citizens and youth police academies and instructs staff on active shooter response and lockdown procedures, the candidate said. Of all my accomplishments, the one I value most is my family, said Smith, who has been married since 2005. His wife works for Dogwood Village retirement facility in the Town of Orange. The couple has two children, aged 9 and 12, in Orange County Public Schools and two rescue schnauzers, he said. The candidate added his parents, Ronnie and Trudy Smith, have lived and worked in Orange County their entire lives. I believe in the residents of our community and the people that I work with, Smith said. I know the people of Orange County. They have built their legacies with strength, intelligence and faith since 1734. I have witnessed our communitys resilience during times of challenge, and I know first-hand what our citizens go through in the most difficult of moments. And in those moments, I have been there for the people of Orange County. The candidate said he has high expectations for the staff at OCSO. I believe in transparency, training and thorough investigations. I also believe in keeping those traveling upon our highways as safe as we possibly can, Smith said. I look forward to being sworn in as the next Sheriff of Orange County and to a long and happy career in the community that I love. On Jan. 14, also on Facebook, a former Culpeper County deputy, Aaron Adams, announced his candidacy, stating, I am a conservative Christian running for Sheriff in Orange County. The 38-year-old from Waynesboro listed numerous law enforcement associations including the start of his career from 2008-2015 serving under former Culpeper Sheriff Jim Branch. Adams said he worked with the Town of Louisa Police Department from 2015-2019, during which time he helped restart the K9 program and moved with his family to Lake Anna. The candidate said he started with Spotsylvania County Sheriffs Office in January 2020 in patrol and now works in the courts division. Numerous local positions and constitutional officers will on the ballot in November in Culpeper County as well. They are: VA Senate (District 28), VA House (Districts 61 and 62), Clerk of the Court, Commissioner of the Revenue, Commonwealths Attorney, Sheriff, Treasurer, Soil and Water Conservation Director, Board of Supervisors (West Fairfax, East Fairfax, Catalpa and Salem Districts), School Board (West Fairfax, East Fairfax, Catalpa and Salem Districts) and four seats on Town Council. Independent candidates have until June 20 to submit the required paperwork to be on the ballot. The Western Community College Area Board of Governors swore in reelected members, reorganized and approved a 2023-2027 strategic plan at a series of meetings on Wednesday. Dr. Margaret R. Crouse, R.J. Savely Jr., Allan D. Kreman, Coral E. Richards, and Dr. William M. Packard were all sworn in at this time. Other business during the morning work session included presentation of a new strategic plan for Western Nebraska Community College by Interim President John Marrin. The new strategic plan will be in effect from 2023 through 2027, and the plan has been in the works since fall of 2021. Much of the work that went into the colleges new strategic plan revolved around receiving input and feedback from every campus about their unique needs, as well as hosting listening sessions, focus groups, and student lunches to obtain feedback from every stakeholder group. In addition to new vision, mission, and value statements, the strategic plan lists a number of goals and objectives focused on re-envisioning various aspects of the schools performance: student success, academic excellence, community partnerships, and institutional vitality. Specific distribution of responsibilities and methods of quantifying the success of those goals will begin as the new strategic plan is implemented throughout the remainder of 2023. Marrin said that the plan is intended to be a living document that can grow and change over time, a particularly important characteristic considering the ongoing search for a new and permanent president. The strategic plan was approved as presented during the boards regular meeting on Wednesday afternoon, which was rescheduled due to last weeks winter storm. During that meeting, the board also took time to reorganize following the reelection of its members. The reorganization session saw Lynne Klemke reelected as board chair and Karen Anderson reelected as vice chair. The next regular meeting of the WCCA Board of Governors will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 15. An update from the presidential search committee is expected at that time which will present eight to ten recommended semifinalists for the position. Those semifinalists will be interviewed by the search committee in March before being narrowed down once more to three or four finalists, which will then be interviewed by the board of governors before a final decision is announced in April. The rotation of Earth's inner core may have paused and it could even go into reverse, new research suggests. The Earth is formed of the crust, the mantle and the inner and outer cores. The solid inner core is situated about 3,200 miles below the Earth's crust and is separated from the semi-solid mantle by the liquid outer core, which allows the inner core to rotate at a different speed from the rotation of the Earth itself. With a radius of almost 2,200 miles, Earth's core is about the size of Mars. It consists mostly of iron and nickel, and contains about about one-third of Earth's mass. In research published in the journal Nature Geoscience on Monday, Yi Yang, associate research scientist at Peking University, and Xiaodong Song, Peking University chair professor, studied seismic waves from earthquakes that have passed through the Earth's inner core along similar paths since the 1960s to infer how fast the inner core is spinning. What they found was unexpected, they said. Since 2009, seismic records, which previously changed over time, showed little difference. This, they said, suggested that the inner core rotation had paused. "We show surprising observations that indicate the inner core has nearly ceased its rotation in the recent decade and may be experiencing a turning-back," they wrote in the study. "When you look at the decade between 1980 and 1990 you see clear change but when you see 2010 to 2020 you don't see much change," added Song. The spin of the inner core is driven by the magnetic field generated in the outer core and balanced by the gravitational effects of the mantle. Knowing how the inner core rotates could shed light on how these layers interact and other processes deep in the Earth. However, the speed of this rotation, and whether it varies, is debated, said Hrvoje Tkalcic, a geophysicist at the Australian National University, who was not involved in the study, "The inner core doesn't come to a full stop," he said. The study's finding, he said, "means that the inner core is now more in sync with the rest of the planet than a decade ago when it was spinning a bit faster." "Nothing cataclysmic is happening," he added. Song and Yang argue that, based on their calculations, a small imbalance in the electromagnetic and gravitational forces could slow and even reverse the inner core's rotation. They believe this is part of a seven-decade cycle, and that the turning point prior to the one they detected in their data around 2009/2010 occurred in the early 1970s. Tkalcic, who is the author of "The Earth's Inner Core: Revealed by Observational Seismology," said the study's "data analysis is sound." However, the study's findings "should be taken cautiously" as "more data and innovative methods are needed to shed light on this interesting problem." Song and Yang agreed that more research was needed. Studying the Earth's core Tkalcic, who dedicates an entire chapter of his book to the inner core rotation, suggested the inner core's cycle is every 20 to 30 years, rather than the 70 proposed in the latest study. He explained why such variations occur and why it was so difficult to understand what happens in the innermost reaches of the planet. "The objects of our studies are buried thousands of kilometers beneath our feet," he said. "We use geophysical inference methods to infer the Earth's internal properties, and caution must be exercised until multi-disciplinary findings confirm our hypotheses and conceptual frameworks," he explained "You can think of seismologists like medical doctors who study the internal organs of patients' bodies using imperfect or limited equipment. So, despite progress, our image of the inner Earth is still blurry, and we are still in the discovery stage." 50 space terms for understanding the universe 50 space terms for understanding the universe #1. Aberration of light #2. Alpha Centauri #3. Andromeda Galaxy #4. Asteroid #5. Barycenter #6. Big Bang #7. Binary star #8. Black hole #9. Brown dwarf #10. Celestial sphere #11. Comet #12. Constellation #13. Dark energy #14. Dark matter #15. Doppler shift #16. Eclipse #17. Equinox #18. Escape velocity #19. Exoplanet #20. Fermi paradox #21. Galaxy #22. Gamma-ray burst #23. Gravity #24. Hypergalaxy #25. Light-year #26. Magellanic clouds #27. Magnitude #28. Meteor #29. Milky Way #30. Moon #31. Nebula #32. Nebular hypothesis #33. Neutron star #34. Oort Cloud #35. Orbit #36. Parallax #37. Quasar #38. Red giant #39. Red shift #40. Solar system #41. Solar wind #42. Spaghettification #43. Star #44. Star cluster #45. Supernova #46. Telescope #47. Theory of relativity #48. Tides #49. White dwarf #50. Universe 50 space terms for understanding the universe #1. Aberration of light #2. Alpha Centauri #3. Andromeda Galaxy #4. Asteroid #5. Barycenter #6. Big Bang #7. Binary star #8. Black hole #9. Brown dwarf #10. Celestial sphere #11. Comet #12. Constellation #13. Dark energy #14. Dark matter #15. Doppler shift #16. Eclipse #17. Equinox #18. Escape velocity #19. Exoplanet #20. Fermi paradox #21. Galaxy #22. Gamma-ray burst #23. Gravity #24. Hypergalaxy #25. Light-year #26. Magellanic clouds #27. Magnitude #29. Milky Way #30. Moon #31. Nebula #32. Nebular hypothesis #33. Neutron star #34. Oort Cloud #35. Orbit #36. Parallax #37. Quasar #38. Red giant #39. Red shift #40. Solar system #42. Spaghettification #43. Star #44. Star cluster #45. Supernova #46. Telescope #47. Theory of relativity #48. Tides #49. White dwarf #50. Universe 50 space terms for understanding the universe #1. Aberration of light #2. Alpha Centauri #3. Andromeda Galaxy #4. Asteroid #5. Barycenter #6. Big Bang #7. Binary star #8. Black hole #9. Brown dwarf #10. Celestial sphere #11. Comet #12. Constellation #13. Dark energy #14. Dark matter #15. Doppler shift #16. Eclipse #17. Equinox #18. Escape velocity #19. Exoplanet #20. Fermi paradox #21. Galaxy #22. Gamma-ray burst #23. Gravity #24. Hypergalaxy #25. Light-year #26. Magellanic clouds #27. Magnitude #29. Milky Way #30. Moon #31. Nebula #32. Nebular hypothesis #33. Neutron star #34. Oort Cloud #35. Orbit #36. Parallax #37. Quasar #38. Red giant #39. Red shift #40. Solar system #42. Spaghettification #43. Star #44. Star cluster #45. Supernova #46. Telescope #47. Theory of relativity #48. Tides #49. White dwarf #50. Universe Another former Lincoln Police officer is leveling allegations of years of on-the-job sexual discrimination and the systematic ousting of those who report it in a lawsuit filed this week. Angela Sands had been with the Lincoln Police Department for nearly 10 years, most recently as a sergeant, before she was terminated in December 2021. She said Wednesday she continues to move forward with legal complaints, as eight of her colleagues two at Lincoln Fire and Rescue and six at LPD also have done, "because in order to affect long-term change we need to hold abusers and leadership accountable to those they serve. Our officers, and the citizens of Lincoln, deserve better. In the lawsuit, she said LPD's hostility toward her has continued, pointing to a decision on her pension application languishing and a call to 911 about a neighbor threatening to kill her and others left unanswered for nearly two hours. The city hasn't yet responded to the complaint. On Tuesday, Chief Assistant City Attorney Chris Connolly said only: "We are aware of the lawsuit but have no comment at this time." Police Chief Teresa Ewins, who faces criticism in the lawsuit for allegedly allowing it to continue and even promoting those accused of wrongdoing, issued a written statement. "The city of Lincoln and the Lincoln Police Department do not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind," Ewins said in a written statement. "We have strong anti-discrimination policies and work continuously to foster an inclusive and safe workplace for all members. We take all complaints, external or internal, seriously. We recognize and support the right of everyone to have their case judged through the court system." At a news conference in December, Ewins touted the progress LPD had made in its efforts to fulfill recommended changes made by an independent firm that surveyed employees, assessed the department and issued a report in September following a series of allegations of wrongdoing by current and former officers. In the 96-page lawsuit, Sands' attorney, Kelly Brandon, alleged LPD targeted Sands and others for termination for reporting sexual harassment and discrimination within the department. She said out of the four women who filed charges of discrimination and met with Mayor Leirion Gaylor-Baird to discuss sexism at the department in January 2021, only one remains employed at LPD. In fact, at least a half dozen officers faced discipline including internal affairs investigations, suspensions and firings after making formal complaints. Brandon said Sands and her fellow female officers at LPD were subjected to a work environment "so permeated with misogyny that any ordinary person would assume LPD was purposefully excluding women from the police force by making conditions intolerable for them." She alleged officers at every rank expressed misogyny in myriad of ways. Among them: sexual and sexist jokes; rape and other sexual assaults; discussions about sexual conquests; excluding women from particular assignments; comments expressing the belief that women dont belong or arent capable; sexual propositions; reacting to the rejection of such propositions with anger and/or violence; referring to women with sexualized gender slurs; attacking the competence and integrity of women who have reported sexual assaults, harassment or discrimination; and the refusal to provide back-up and other police protection to women who have complained. Brandon said when officers raised concerns or complaints, the complaining officer would face discipline or backlash. Tonya Peters, LPD's legal advisor, and others in the department have called reported incidents of sexual misconduct "urban legends," she said. "By consistently punishing officers who objected, while at the same time fashioning escape hatches to facilitate smooth departures for its worst offenders, LPD leadership supported, reinforced and perpetuated the rampant sexism and hostile work environment within the department," Brandon said. She said LPDs pattern of preferring assailants over victims sent a clear message to anyone who would complain: "Keep quiet and accept the status quo, or you will forfeit your career." Specifically, the complaint alleges that: * A female sergeant encouraged her not to make a formal complaint after a fellow trainee told her she had a "dusty uterus" and joked about her age. * Then-Chief Jim Peschong told Sands to see a psychologist in the aftermath of an officer-involved shooting where she and another officer were shot because she was "more emotional" than the other male officers involved. * An unnamed fellow male officer (who no longer works at LPD) groped Sands' butt and breasts at an outing to support him following a shooting incident in 2016. * Yohance Christie, then a deputy public defender, sent Sands sexually charged texts in 2017 asking her to send him nude photos of herself, despite it being against city policy for public defenders to date police personnel. In 2020, he became city attorney, the agency responsible for defending the city in lawsuits like the one Sands has filed. * A sergeant (who since has retired) in 2020 made sexually inappropriate comments about the gap between Sands' teeth, caused by the on-duty shooting in 2015 and kissed her neck without her consent while playing trivia with other officers while off-duty earlier that year. * Two male officers received only a verbal reprimand after starting a rumor that Sands provided sexual favors to get her promotion to sergeant. More generically, Brandon said throughout Sands' career she saw male officers make light of rape investigations, looking up driver's licenses of rape victims to assess whether they were sufficiently attractive to be "rape-able," or access driver's license photos or body cam footage of attractive women they had encountered on traffic stops for no legitimate reason. She alleged that LPD command staff had received "credible evidence" indicating male officers had planted drugs on confidential informants to extort them into providing the officers with sexual favors. In a statement Wednesday, Sands said she chose the career of service intentionally to contribute to the safety and wellbeing of Lincoln. "I loved being a police officer and found a lot of personal satisfaction providing support and a safe space to women in our community," she said. But she no longer feels LPD is a safe place for officers. For years, Sands said she and her peers have raised numerous concerns that largely have gone unaddressed by leadership. And it has direct consequences on public safety, she said. "If police officers, firefighters and other first responders arent safe on the job, how can our community have confidence when they seek help in emergency situations?" Sands said. PhotoFiles: The blizzard of 1948-49 in Nebraska Only way out Ghost Town Delivering Milk Pattern in the snow Cattle Graze Finding the chicken coop Lending a hand Stranded Locomotives Snow covered windmill A 68-year-old Omaha man was killed in a two-vehicle crash Wednesday afternoon at 38th and Cuming streets. Clarence Hadley was turning left onto North 38th Street in a 2015 Ford Escape when a westbound Infiniti G35x struck the Ford, according to a news release from the Omaha Police Department. Both vehicles came to rest at the northwest corner of the intersection, the release said. Medics transported Hadley to the Nebraska Medical Center with life-saving measures in progress, and he died shortly after arriving at the hospital, police said. The 20-year-old driver of the Infiniti also was transported by medics for minor injuries. PhotoFiles: The blizzard of 1948-49 in Nebraska Only way out Ghost Town Delivering Milk Pattern in the snow Cattle Graze Finding the chicken coop Lending a hand Stranded Locomotives Snow covered windmill In late 2011, John Oliver and his Daily Show cameraman made a trek to my office, then in Providence, Rhode Island, to take me to task. I had recently referred to the Tea Partiers who had pushed America to the brink of a disastrous default as economic terrorists. Oliver had apparently swallowed whole a series of barbs directed my way by a Wall Street Journal blogger who didnt seem to like women much. The blogger kept calling me the Civility diva and a Baroness Catherine Ashton lookalike. (A member of the British parliament, Ashton was said to be homely.) He was quite the wit. The blogger found what he thought was more ammo in learning that I was head of a journalistic organization then formulating something called a civility project. The mission was to debate what made honest opinion writing not to censure robust, withering commentary. The blogger obviously didnt inquire. Nor did The Daily Show. The interview featured Oliver repeatedly blurting a bleeped-out F word, followed by canned laughter, followed by a shot of me supposedly looking shocked. It was on that level. I was not alone in applying the economic terrorist label to a group taking the economy hostage, and mainly because a Democrat, Barack Obama, was president. The New York Times Thomas Friedman, for one, made references to the Republican Hezbollah faction taking the GOP on a suicide mission. We are now 12 years on, and it is gratifying to see a headline in The Times reading, Dont Try to Appease Economic Terrorists. Economist Paul Krugman was pointing at the new team of Republican extremists threatening the full faith and credit of the United States and, by extension, the world economy. Then as now, the vote to raise the debt ceiling has nothing to do with enabling federal spending. Its about making good on the debt already incurred. Note that under Donald Trump, Democrats quietly voted for raising the debt ceiling year after year. This was despite a Trump tax cut that tacked about $2 trillion onto the federal deficit and Trumps signing almost $3 trillion in new spending and that was before COVID even hit. Twelve years ago, an economic cataclysm was averted at the last minute, but the terrorists had still wrought terrible damage. The spectacle of a major political party putting into question Americas willingness to meet its debt obligations astounded the planet, prompting Standard & Poors to take away Americas triple-A rating for the first time in history. The Republican stunt cost the U.S. Treasury, that is, we taxpayers, at least $19 billion in higher interest costs. The final vote, covered live on TV, was unforgettable viewing. There was that famous split screen. On one side you saw Congress casting its votes. On the other, you saw the stock values simultaneously cratering as the political horror show continued without a clear outcome. Given the Republican barfight to choose a House speaker, one holds little hope of a peaceful vote to raise the debt ceiling. Speaker Kevin McCarthy tries to look sane when he calls for negotiations. But what does he want to negotiate? Whether America will default on its debt. And why? Because a Democrat is again president. The voters may not thank Republicans for putting them through another trauma. In the 2012 election, Obama won a second term, and his party gained two seats in the Senate and eight in the House. People who threaten to blow up an airplane if their political demands arent met are political terrorists. People who threaten to blow up the economy if their demands arent met are economic terrorists. Lets not be shy about calling them such. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with others during Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra, in Qazigund, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023.(Photo: PTI) ANANTNAG: There was no security lapse at the Bharat Jodo Yatra, a senior Jammu and Kashmir police official said on Friday while stressing that the organisers had not informed the police about a large crowd joining the march from Banihal. "The Jammu and Kashmir police was not consulted before the Bharat Jodo Yatra was discontinued. We will provide foolproof security (to the yatra)," Additional Director General of Police Vijay Kumar, who is in charge of security in Kashmir Valley, said in a statement. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he had to call off his walk on Friday because police arrangements "unfortunately completely collapsed" when the yatra crossed Banihal into Qazigund in the Valley through the Jawahar tunnel. "Only authorised persons as identified by organisers and frisked crowd were allowed inside towards the route of the yatra. Organisers and managers of the BJY did not intimate about large gathering from Banihal joining the yatra," Kumar said. Crowds, he said, were thronging Qazigund. "Full security arrangements were in place... JK Police was not consulted before taking any decision on discontinuation of the yatra," he added. "The rest of the yatra continued peacefully. There was no security lapse at all," Kumar said in the statement. Commonwealth Attorney Eric Branscom said this week in an official decision that law enforcement involved in the fatal Feb. 6, 2022, shooting of Troy Allen Bain will not be charged. Branscoms opinion, released Jan. 27, includes details of the encounter and the legal analysis he used to conclude the Floyd County Sheriffs Office deputies on-scene were acting in self-defense. It should be noted that this incident occurred before body cameras were available to the Floyd County Sheriffs Office, he said. The fatal encounter started at about 8 p.m. on Feb. 6, 2022, when one of Bains family members contacted off-duty FCSO Investigator James Bohnke to voice concerns about statements Bain had made about harming others, his extended alcohol use and a recent firearm incident. The family member indicated concern that Bain was armed and would not go voluntarily with deputies, Branscom said. Bohnke suggested the family member pursue an Emergency Custody Order, which was granted by a magistrate at 9:28 p.m. Under Virginia law, subjects of ECOS must be detained and transported to a Department of Behavioral Health facility. The order stated probable cause existed that Bain has a mental illness and that a substantial likelihood existed that, as a result of the mental illness, (he) would in the near future cause serious physical harm to himself or others. Sworn statements from a family member said that Bain had been drinking heavily, having severe delusions, accusing others (mostly his elderly mother) of poisoning his trees or water, making threats toward his mother including threatening to kill her, and threatening to shoot anyone who pulls into his driveway, Branscom said. Once the order was issued, the Floyd County Sheriffs Office Emergency Response Team was activated, with the approval of Chief Deputy Chad Harris, due to the potentially dangerous situation. The report said that Bohnke, Capt. Dale Marshall, Investigator Breman Harris and Sgt. Cody Brown joined deputies West and Dean to serve the order on Dogwood Lane in Willis. West and Dean took positions at the back of Bains residence and did not witness the shooting, which Branscom said occurred less than a minute after Bain came to his front door. Branscoms report said the only light the deputies could see at the residence was on the front porch. It said that Bohnke announced the presence of law enforcement and three officers stood on the ground and to the left of the door. Marshall stood in front of the porch and to the right of the door. Bain opened the storm door and stepped onto the deck, wearing only his underwear holding a black semi-automatic handgun in his right hand, Branscom said. The firearm was later found to be loaded, with a round in the chamber. The Virginia State Police investigation could not determine if the safety was on or off. The report said that Bain seemed to start to move back into the trailer, but then took another step toward the deputies after he was ordered to drop his weapon. He then turned toward law enforcement and began to raise his right arm, Branscom said. Deputies discharged their weapons when Bains arm was raised approximately halfway up to a firing position. The 58-year-old was struck three times once in his right hand, once in the right side of his chest and once in his lower back on the left side. Brown performed resuscitation efforts, and the medic unit that was stationed nearby was called to the scene. Bain was pronounced dead at 11:06 p.m. In an interview with the police after the shooting, Willis resident David Dalton said that three days before the deadly altercation, Bain had physically attacked him and discharged a firearm several times in his direction. He also said Bain told him he did not expect to be around much longer. In his legal analysis, Branscom said Bain ignoring orders to drop his weapon and raising it in the direction of deputies contributed to the decision that officers were not at fault. He noted the information deputies were given indicated Bain was intoxicated, had threatened violence, had numerous firearms and demonstrated a willingness to use them, adding that the Sheriffs Office had reason to believe at the time that one or more of them was at great risk of death or serious injury. Video released publicly Friday shows the husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fighting with his assailant for control of a hammer moments before he was struck during a brutal attack in the couple's San Francisco home last year. The body-camera footage shows suspect David DePape wrest the tool from 82-year-old Paul Pelosi and lunge toward him with the hammer over his head. The blow to Pelosi occurs out of view of the camera and the officers one of them cursing rush into the house and jump on DePape. Pelosi, apparently unconscious, can be seen lying face down on the floor in his pajama top and underwear. Officials later said he woke up in a pool of his own blood. The release comes after a coalition of news agencies, including The Associated Press, sought access to the evidence that prosecutors played in open court last month. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office had refused to make the exhibits available to journalists. A state court judge Wednesday ruled there was no reason to keep the video secret. The evidence includes portions of Paul Pelosi's 911 call on Oct. 28, as well as video images from Capitol police surveillance cameras, a body camera worn by one of the two police officers who arrived at the house and a nearly 18-minute audio recording from DePape's interview with police. The Capitol Police video shows DePape walk up to a glass-panel door, leave and then return wearing a large backpack and carrying two other bags. He set all the items down and pulled out a hammer, pausing to put on gloves, and used it to smash the door glass so he could step through an opening. DePape has pleaded not guilty in ongoing state and federal cases. He is being held in jail without bail. He faces charges including attempted murder, elder abuse, and assaulting an immediate family member of a federal official. The San Francisco public defender's office, which is representing DePape, 43, said they planned to issue a statement later Friday. Members of Congress have faced a sharp rise in threats in the two years since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. During the Jan. 6 attack, rioters chanted menacingly for the speaker as they rampaged through the halls trying to halt certification of Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election. One man was convicted this week of eight criminal counts after he put his feet on a desk in Pelosi's office and left a note to her punctuated with a sexist expletive. Paul Pelosi was asleep at the couple's home when DePape allegedly broke in. Nancy Pelosi was in Washington at the time and under the protection of her security detail, which does not extend to family members. Her husband of nearly 60 years later underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands. He has since appeared in public wearing a hat and a glove that covered his wounds. Nancy Pelosi on Thursday told reporters her husband's well-being was paramount and she did not know if she would view the video once it was released. "I don't even know if I will see that," she said. "I mean, it would be a very hard thing to see an assault on my husband's life, but I don't know." San Francisco Officer Kolby Wilmes' body-camera video begins with officers approaching the brick home and rapping on the door. It takes about 20 seconds for the door to open and during that time, the officers discuss whether they have the right house. When the door opens, Paul Pelosi says, "Hi, guys, how are you?" Both men are facing the officers at the door. Initially, the hammer is in the shadows and it takes about five seconds before a flashlight shows DePape holding the handle of a hammer with his right hand and clutching Pelosi's right hand, which is gripping around the hammer head, with his left hand. The struggle is not apparent in the first few seconds. "What's going on, man?" the officer asks. "Everything's good," DePape replies. "Drop the hammer," the officer says. DePape says no and begins to pull it from Pelosi's grip. Pelosi says, "Hey, hey." DePape wins control of the hammer and winds up with his right and delivers a vicious overhand blow as Pelosi disappears out of view and officers rush in. The officers called for backup as they struggled with DePape and Pelosi was lying on the ground. In an interview with San Francisco Police Lt. Carla Hurley after he was taken into custody, DePape said he didn't regret the attack even though it was not on Nancy Pelosi, his intended target. DePape told Hurley he was going after Nancy Pelosi for lying to the American public and that he planned to hold her hostage for her crimes. He believed the discredited conspiracy that Democrats stole the 2020 election from Trump. "Day in, day out, the person who was on the TV lying every day was Pelosi," he said. He said he planned to hold her hostage and would "break her kneecaps" if she lied. He said he was surprised to find Paul Pelosi in the house. DePape said he planned to tie Paul Pelosi up so he could get some sleep, because carrying a heavy backpack to the home had tired him out. When Hurley asked why DePape did not leave when he realized Nancy Pelosi wasn't home and the police were on the way, he compared himself to the Founding Fathers. "They fought the British, they fought the tyranny. They didn't just (expletive) surrender to it. And when I left my house, I went to go fight tyranny, I did not leave to go surrender," he said. The U.S. Capitol Police investigated nearly 10,000 threats to members last year, more than twice the number from four years earlier. Public officials across the U.S., from local school board members to election workers, have also endured harassment and intimidation. This month, a former Republican candidate for a state House seat in New Mexico was arrested in a series of shootings targeting the homes or offices of elected Democratic officials and a Kansas man was convicted of threatening a GOP congressman. Photos: The scene outside the Pelosi home after attack Encouraging news for steelhead fisherman as rivers are dropping into shape and fish appear to be entering most systems in greater numbers. Kokanee fishing at Merwin is still going strong. The word is out so expect some competition this weekend. More folks are beginning to focus on plunking the Columbia River with mixed success. REMINDER: Please verify the regulations before fishing any body of water. Lewis Report At last, the river has fallen into fantastic shape for the upcoming weekend. Flows as of Wednesday are holding steady at 4,500 cubic feet per second and water clarity is excellent. The Hole in the Wall is a good place to throw a plunking set up at this flow rate. Escapement reports this week show Steelhead numbers continue to increase. With the excellent water conditions the chance of a successful steelhead fishing trip should be elevated. Kalama Report Winter hatchery steelhead in the Kalama arrive in the greatest numbers between February and April. The spring chinook run this year is expected to be decent and they should also begin to arrive in February. Cowlitz Report A reader kindly suggested I report the river flows for both Castle Rock and below Mayfield stations. The Toutle River adversely affects the flow downstream and Castle Rock is not the best indicator for the entire system. As of Wednesday afternoon, the flow rate is 7,500 cfs at Mayfield and 10,700 cfs at Castle Rock. During the past week, Tacoma Power employees recovered 288 coho adults, four coho jacks, 49 winter-run steelhead adults, three cutthroat trout, and one summer-run steelhead adult over four days of operations at the Cowlitz salmon hatchery separator. Currently, Washington and Oregon are not recommending recreational smelt fisheries in the Cowlitz or Sandy rivers. Staff will determine if fisheries are warranted after additional freshwater abundance indicators become available. South Fork Toutle Report Whilst I have no specific reports, this river does get a decent wild steelhead run that should begin appearing soon. There is no longer an established winter run steelhead hatchery program. Columbia River The Columbia River is currently listed as open until March 31st for chinook and steelhead. Please be sure to double check the regulations as depending on where you are fishing chinook retention may or may not be allowed. I observed a couple groups of anglers at Martins Bar in Woodland on Monday. No one had any luck, but it was a beautiful morning with no wind. There is plenty of beach to park and plunk, as the high-water mark is near perfect right now. The explanation from WDFW regarding the one chinook salmon counted at Bonneville Dam in January is that it may have been a fall chinook. Reservoir Report The fantastic kokanee fishing at Merwin continues this week. I have received many reports of excellent catches. Countless anglers are describing sporadic moments with many doubles and triples. Be forewarned that the bite is on and then it is off. Water level at Riffe Lake has decreased three feet since last week. That trend is certainly heading in the wrong direction for anglers waiting for boach launches to become accessible. Lake levels and boat launches as of Jan. 25: Riffe Lake 701.83 feet of elevation (maximum of approx. 749 ft) Mossyrock Park boat launch is closed. The day-use area is open. Taidnapam North boat launch is closed. Kosmos boat launch and parking lot are closed. Taidnapam Park boat launch is closed. Lake Report Kress Lake has received over thirty additional Kalama River recycled steelhead since last weeks report. Horseshoe Lake recently received 2,000 stocker rainbow trout from WDFW hatcheries. The recent steelhead transplants combined with the above stocker trout, could provide an interesting opportunity soon. Coastal Report Crabbing Some reports indicate Marine area 1 and Buoy 10 to Tongue Point are excellent. As a reminder, check the regulations for rules related to the jetty. Crabbing is currently permitted but bottom fishing (including surf perch) is closed until the second week March. Clamming There was no news as of Thursday night regarding any new open dates past Jan. 25th. Much like last week, I anticipate a news release from WDFW to arrive after my report is submitted. Surf Perch The early weather report for last week turned out to be very wrong as it was quite the storm that arrived last Saturday. Fishing from the shore should be good once the seas settle down. Weather Prediction Friday and Saturday will bring some precipitation with much cooler temperatures behind it. Sunday should be cool and clear, perfect for spending some time on the water. The Justice Department has charged three men as part of an Iran-backed plot to kill an Iranian American author and activist who has spoken out against human rights abuses, officials said Friday. The men, Rafat Amirov, 43, of Iran, Polad Omarov, 38, of the Czech Republic and Slovenia and Khalid Mehdiyev, 24, of Yonkers, New York, were charged with money laundering and murder-for-hire in a superseding indictment unsealed in federal court in New York. The three men were in custody and one was awaiting extradition to the U.S. Though authorities didn't identify the alleged target by name, Masih Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, confirmed to The Associated Press that she was the target of the plot. As per the 2018 census, India has 2,967 tigers spread out in 53 tiger reserves. This number constitutes 70 per cent of the global number and figures point to the growth of the tigers.(Representational Image) NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that there are 2,967 tigers in the country spread across 53 tiger reserves, according to a 2018 report. The apex court was hearing a petition filed by Advocate Anupam Tripathi in 2017 seeking to save endangered tigers whose numbers are dwindling across the country. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati told a bench of Justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna that a lot of work has been done for the conservation of tigers and increasing their population. The top court took note of the submission and adjourned the matter till March as Tripathi was not present. As per the 2018 census, India has 2,967 tigers spread out in 53 tiger reserves. This number constitutes 70 per cent of the global number and figures point to the growth of the tigers. In the interest of justice, to give an opportunity to the petitioner, list on March 3, the bench said. The top court in 2017 had issued notice to the Ministry of Environment, the National Board for Wildlife and the National Tiger Conservation Authority on the plea which had also sought relocation of people living near tiger reserves. The petition had said tigers were being killed either by poisoning by locals or the authorities, shooting by forest guards or by poaching. How to apply Apply to LCC's bachelors in education program at lowercolumbia.edu/bas to start in the 2023-24 school year. Apply for certificate and associate degrees at lowercolumbia.edu/apply to start classes anytime. "There are no minimum academic requirements for admission to LCC, and applying is always free," reports the college. The Cowlitz County Board of Health Tuesday approved bylaws inconsistent with state law, further restricting who can join as citizen members. The board has been working with legal staff on the new bylaws since July when the three citizen members joined the county commissioners on the expanded board. David Berger, with the county Prosecuting Attorneys office, raised concerns about language requiring all citizen members to have no fiduciary obligation to any health facility, health agency or a conflict of interest. State law requires the non-elected citizen members be selected from three categories provider, public health consumer and other community stakeholder. In counties that include a federally recognized Indian tribes reservation, trust lands or service organization, the board must include a tribal representative. An appointee from the Cowlitz Indian Tribe hasnt yet joined Cowlitz Countys board. The state law prohibits the public health consumer from having a fiduciary obligation to a health facility or other health agency or a material financial interest in the rendering of health services. It doesnt include the same prohibitions for members representing health providers, other community stakeholders or tribes. As written, the county boards bylaws would prevent, for example, a currently employed doctor from joining the board, Berger said. You cant be more strict in saying that every single person who is on the board of health cant have any financial interest in medical services because if you do that it is inconsistent with state law, and youre excluding individuals who are entitled under state law to be board members, he said. Board Chair Kelly Lane said the language was applied to all citizen members to be fair. Commissioner Arne Mortensen said while contrary to the attorneys recommendation, the language is an effort to get board members who are not involved with the system, who represent the citizens not the system or a status quo. If the board needs expert information, it can get that advice from someone who is not a member, he added. Whats important is we dont want someone on the board who has to cast a vote where there may be a semblance of conflict of interest, Mortensen said. Berger said the bylaws also dont address what happens if a member violates them, and the ambiguity could leave the board open to a wrongful termination claim. No matter how laws are structured, the county is subject to a lawsuit, so trying to cover every circumstance doesnt make sense, Mortensen said. The board can amend the bylaws at a future meeting, Lane said. Board member Mary Jane Melink said she was not comfortable moving forward with the bylaws against the attorneys recommendation. Lindy Campbell, who seconded the motion to accept the bylaws, abstained from the vote because she wanted to talk to the attorney more after he confirmed the language is not compatible with state law. The board approved the bylaws in a 3-1 vote, with Rick Dahl, Mortensen and Lane in favor. Commissioner Dennis Weber was absent. Anyone who passed the Cowlitz County Republican Party headquarters in Kelso last year would likely have seen a large banner promoting 11 proposed voter initiatives, including harder drug possession laws and easier police pursuits. The initiatives were a bundle of proposed changes supported by the political action group Lets Go Washington, also known as the Project to Restore Washington. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, spent several months promoting the drive in his Facebook video posts. All 11 measures fell short of the signature requirements to put them on ballots or in front of lawmakers. But several of the changes have been brought ahead as bills in the state Legislature, in some cases with the backing of Southwest Washington conservatives. Which 11 are still alive? Two of the 11 topics are major hot-button conservative issues from the past year: making it easier for police to pursue suspects in vehicles and setting new drug criminalization laws. At least three drug criminalization bills have been introduced in the Senate this year, after lawmakers downgraded simple drug possession from a felony to misdemeanor in 2022 after the state Supreme Court found the previous law unconstitutional. The bills strike different balances in their focus on drug treatment for addicts and criminal charges as a deterrent. Police pursuit bills have been introduced in the House and the Senate by Republicans but have not been scheduled for a hearing yet. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs said Tuesday that there was a risk of those bills not making it far in the session this year. The laws pursuit restrictions were meant to reduce chases that endangered officers and bystanders, but police have said it has contributed to a rise in stolen vehicles. Four of the 11 initiatives were tax reductions or overhauls. One of those changes got a hearing Tuesday afternoon in the Senate Ways and Means Committee. The bill from Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, would exempt the first $250,000 in home value from counting toward property taxes. This is one of the most important of the tax reforms, the tax breaks that are part of the collective of initiatives that will fix whats broken in Washington, Walsh said about the property tax exemption bill during a video in September. The other notable initiative was a limitation on the governors emergency declaration powers. Wilson introduced an emergency powers bill before the session started and said earlier this month that the measure appeared to have stalled out early in the session. A similar emergency powers bill was introduced in the House Tuesday, co-sponsored by Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia. How do initiatives work? A successful initiative to the Legislature guarantees that some action will be taken on the issue. If the Legislature doesnt pass a bill to address the change, the topic will appear on the ballot in November for a statewide vote. There have been three successful initiative campaigns in Washington since 2016, along with hundreds of failed attempts. Brian Heywood led the Lets Go Washington campaign and initiative drive. Heywood wouldnt give an exact number of signatures that the measures received, only saying that it wasnt close to enough to be worth submitting to the Secretary of State. Each petition needed around 320,000 verified signatures for registered voters and the last successful initiatives submitted closer to 400,000 signatures. I dont know if this was a huge pressure on the Legislature, Heywood said. The backlash potential for many of these is strong enough that if they dont get fixed, that would be a catalyst to go again. Heywood blamed the initiatives struggles on being the first year of a grassroots campaign. The campaign never had the budget or interest in hiring a political consultant, so the effort relied heavily on volunteer signature gatherers and word-of-mouth support. Washington health officials are urging blood donations, as the need remains at a critical level, according to the Department of Health. The state and the Northwest Blood Coalition four donations centers serving Washington are encouraging younger volunteers to sign up to give blood multiple times a year. Theres also a high need for Type O donors, according to Bloodworks Northwest. Most people in good health, at least 18 years old and weighing 110 pounds, can donate blood. People ages 16 and 17 may donate in Washington with signed permission forms. Donations are critical for patients undergoing surgeries, cancer treatments, blood disorder treatments, childbirth complications, and other serious and potentially life-threatening conditions and injuries, according to the Department of Health. Bloodworks provides 95% of blood to Pacific Northwest hospitals. The organization does not have a permanent donor center in Cowlitz County the closest is Vancouver but regularly holds pop-up clinics here. People can donate blood once every eight weeks, so the organization holds drives in Cowlitz County every nine to 10 weeks, Lauren Reagan, community engagement liaison. Longview blood drive What: American Red Cross blood drive When: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Friday, Feb. 3 Where: Cowlitz PUD Auditorium, 961 12th Ave., Longview Info: Schedule an appointment at redcrossblood.org for Friday or a future drive. Several Bloodworks and American Red Cross drives are scheduled throughout February and March at the Cowlitz PUD Auditorium at 961 12th Ave. in Longview. The next four drives are on Feb. 3, Feb. 6, Feb. 7 and Feb. 8. People can search for upcoming drives and sign up at bloodworksnw.org or by calling 1-800-398-7888 and redcrossblood.org or by calling 1-800-733-2767. Over the next two months, Bloodworks is also holding blood drives at Mark Morris, R.A. Long and Kelso high schools that are closed to the public. The drives are organized by student groups, who recruit and educate classmates, Reagan said. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Bloodworks lost about 23% of its blood supply gathered from high school and college students, Reagan said. Its exciting to return to high schools for the first time in three years and educate students, some of whom have never been around a blood drive, she said. The most common question from young and first time donors is, Does it hurt?, Reagan said. It doesnt hurt, she said. We have the most amazing team of phlebotomists. We take pride in our care of donors and making sure they have a great experience. Bloodworks Northwest is looking to expand more in Cowlitz County and is using its mobile drive bus for more flexibility, Reagan said. Businesses, church groups, schools or other organizations interested in holding a blood drive can contact Reagan for more information at lreagan@bloodworksnw.org. As February approaches, local sportsmen and women start to think about smelt dipping. Will the popular smelt dip take place on the Cowlitz River this year, or is the run supposed to be too depressed to allow recreational harvest? The prospects are good for at least one dip this year, according to Laura Heironimus, the sturgeon, smelt and lamprey lead for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. We had pretty good ocean conditions the last two years, said Heironimus, and last year was one of the strongest runs weve had in the last few years. Our run expectations for this year are similar to last year. She said most ocean indicators are good, but there are some questions. There is a little bit of uncertainty about the ocean indicators, Heironimus said. Some ocean indicators are really good on the one side, but at the other end there are some indicators that we are not exactly sure how they relate directly to the smelt returns. Generally, I think its still going to be another strong run. She reported that the department will get a much clearer idea of the run size once the commercial nets go in the Columbia River. We use that commercial monitoring data to help inform us on the abundance of fish, she said. Smelt, also called Columbia River eulachon or candlefish, are a small anadromous fish that are known for their high oil content. They are usually from 4 to 8 inches in length. When the schools return to spawn in the winter, usually in February or March, the state determines if the run is strong enough to allow harvest. Unregulated harvest led to a crash of the smelt runs around the turn of this century, and in 2010 they were listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened. Since that time the states have had to closely regulate smelt dipping and the commercial harvest. In 2018 and 2019 there were no open recreational seasons for smelt because the runs were depressed. When there is an opener announced, people line up along the banks of the Cowlitz River and take advantage of the opportunity, dipping the fish up as they migrate close to the shore. While many smelt dippers enjoy them cooked or smoked, a large chunk of the harvest is used as bait by fishermen targeting sturgeon. Smelt dipping is fun, and it draws both men and women of all ages. Many families turn a smelt dip into a multi-generational outing. The typical smelt net has a long, extension handle to allow the fishers to reach out to where the schools are moving through. The net is pulled downstream to catch the fish as they swim upstream. The sport is very popular, and is getting more popular every year. There is a holiday feel to it, and wherever the banks are accessible people tend to gather. We held one dip last year, Heironimus said. In that one day of fishing we had a little over 16,000 people dipping in five hours. Eulachon are found along the coast from the Bering Sea to Monterey Bay, California. Historically they were an important food for native tribes because they returned in the winter, when other fresh food sources were scarce. There are other large rivers in the Northwest that get smelt returns, but the Columbia has the largest commercial fishery. There are also other Columbia River tributaries that see smelt returns, but the Cowlitz is the only river open to dipping in southwest Washington. In years with strong runs the smelt often show up in Oregons Sandy River, too. One of the reasons smelt numbers have been strong is the prevailing La Nina weather pattern. It is a natural pattern that brings colder ocean temperatures. However, scientist report they expect the ocean patterns to switch to an El Nino pattern this year, which Heironimus said is not optimal for smelt. When that happens, survival drops off pretty dramatically, she said. Its usually not great for smelt. The shift in ocean conditions correlates to lower smelt survival out there. That shift can bring about a double whammy for smelt. They become one of a limited number of food sources for other fish, and they see increased predation. Also, the pattern brings a shift in the ocean copepods, a major food source for smelt. Cold-water copepod species are rich in fats and nutrition, but warm water copepods provide less of these nutrients. Copepods are small crustaceans that help form the lower base of the ocean food chain. Right now things look good for a strong return of the silvery fish, and the prospects are very good for at least one dip. The chances for a second dip may depend on how well the fishers do in the first one. Heironimus reported that last years one day dip took in 75 percent of the overall smelt harvest for the year. Given that kind of success, managers may have little room for additional days. As of now, there are few signs of smelt arriving, but there are sea lions gathering in the lower Columbia, and some sea birds are prowling around too. February should bring fresh reports of smelt in the lower Columbia as the run gathers steam. Potential dippers should keep an eye on the WDFW Smelt webpage for opener announcements. A fishing license is not needed to dip smelt. Each fisher must dip his own smelt, and must keep them in a separate container. The limit is 10 pounds of smelt, enough to fill a five-gallon bucket about one quarter full. For more information, check the WDFW smelt dipping website. Public input sought on smelt The WDFW announced Wednesday that it is taking public comment on an environmental analysis of a plan to manage smelt in the Columbia River basin. The new plan identifies current management strategies and makes recommendations for monitoring and evaluation of the population, as well as harvest criteria and communication between state and federal managers. The draft management plan is undergoing a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) public comment period. The SEPA determination, draft plan, and supporting documents are available on WDFWs website. Members of the public can submit comments on the SEPA determination online, by email, or by mail to Lisa Wood, SEPA/NEPA Coordinator, WDFW Habitat Program, Protection Division, P.O. Box 43200, Olympia, WA 98504. Comments must be received by 5 p.m. on Feb. 22. 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: Science Po students found to have used ChatGPT risk being expelled. A top French university on Friday forbade students from using artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT to complete assignments, in the first such ban at a college in the country. The bot from OpenAI, a US company that this week received a massive cash injection from Microsoft, responds to simple prompts with reams of text inspired by data gathered on the internet. The Sciences Po school in Paris, one of the most prestigious universities in France, said anyone found to have used the chatbot would face "sanctions which can go as far as expulsion from the establishment or even from higher learning". "The use, without explicit mention, of ChatGPT or any other tool using AI at Sciences Po is... for the moment strictly forbidden for students producing written or oral assignments," the university said. The only exception was its "educational use under supervision of a teacher", it added in an open letter to students and lecturers, citing concerns about other uses leading to plagiarism. The decision comes after it emerged this week that ChatGPT had passed exams at a US law school after writing essays on topics ranging from constitutional law to taxation and torts. Jonathan Choi, a professor at Minnesota University Law School, gave the bot the same test as students, and it scored a C + overall, just enough to pass. But the professor played down the possibility of students using the bot to cheat, saying that two out of three markers had spotted the bot-written paper. ChatGPT still makes factual mistakes, but education facilities in other countries have rushed to ban the AI tool. Officials in New York and other jurisdictions have forbidden its use in schools. A group of Australian universities have said they would change exam formats to banish AI tools and regard them as cheating. Many universities already use software that detects plagiarism, and at least one programmer is working on an app to detect when a text has been written by ChatGPT. 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: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The jolts from Intel's announced job cuts have intensified with disclosures of plans by the chipmaking giant to slash more jobs in Santa Clara, California, according to new state filings. Spartronics, a maker of printed circuit boards and other electronic equipment, revealed in a separate filing with the state Employment Development Department, that it had decided to shut a Milpitas, California, manufacturing plant. Intel is planning to eliminate 177 jobs in Santa Clara, effective on or after March 15, the tech titan told the EDD in a WARN notice. "All impacted employees are being notified of separation with at least 60 days' notice," Marc Nadler, Intel's director of corporate people movement team, stated in the EDD filing. With these latest job cuts, Intel has now revealed plans to eliminate 378 jobs in the Bay Area, a review of the company's WARN letters shows. These cutbacks by Intel are part of the company's previously announced plans for worldwide staffing reductions. "No employees will have the right to bump or displace other employees, and there is no union representing the affected employees," Nadler stated in the WARN filing. Spartronics intends to cease operations at its Milpitas site on Milmont Drive in October, a shutdown that is expected to eliminate 74 jobs, the company told the EDD. "This action is expected to be permanent," Spartronics stated in the WARN letter. "The entire plant will be closed." 2022 MediaNews Group, Inc. 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: Counterfactuals are claims about what would happen were something to occur in a different way. For instance, we can ask what the world would be like had the internet never been developed. Credit: Shutterstock Artificial intelligence is increasingly being rolled out all around the world to help make decisions in our lives, whether it's loan decisions by banks, medical diagnoses, or US law enforcement predicting a criminal's likelihood of re-offending. Yet many AI systems are black boxes: no one understands how they work. This has led to a demand for "explainable AI," so we can understand why an AI model yielded a specific output, and what biases may have played a role. Explainable AI is a growing branch of AI research. But what's perhaps less well known is the role philosophy plays in its development. Specifically, one idea called "counterfactual explanation" is often put forth as a solution to the black box problems. But once you understand the philosophy behind it, you can start to understand why it falls short. Why explanations matter When AI is used to make life-changing decisions, the people impacted deserve an explanation of how that decision was reached. This was recently recognized through the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which supports an individual's right to explanation. The need for explanation was also highlighted in the Robodebt case in Australia, where an algorithm was used to predict debt levels for individuals receiving social security. The system made many mistakes, placing people into debt who shouldn't have been. It was only once the algorithm was fully explained that the mistake was identifiedbut by then the damage had been done. The outcome was so damaging it led to a royal commission being established in August 2022. In the Robodebt case, the algorithm in question was fairly straightforward and could be explained. We should not expect this to always be the case going forward. Current AI models using machine-learning to process data are much more sophisticated. The big, glaring black box Suppose a person named Sara applies for a loan. The bank asks her to provide information including her marital status, debt level, income, savings, home address and age. The bank then feeds this information into an AI system, which returns a credit score. The score is low and is used to disqualify Sara for the loan, but neither Sara nor the bank employees know why the system scored Sara so low. Unlike with Robodebt, the algorithm being used here may be extremely complicated and not easily explained. There is therefore no straightforward way to know whether it has made a mistake, and Sara has no way to get the information she needs to argue against the decision. This scenario isn't entirely hypothetical: loan decisions are likely to be outsourced to algorithms in the US, and there's a real risk they will encode bias. To mitigate risk, we must try to explain how they work. The counterfactual approach Broadly speaking, there are two types of approaches to explainable AI. One involves cracking open a system and studying its internal components to discern how it works. But this usually isn't possible due to the sheer complexity of many AI systems. The other approach is to leave the system unopened, and instead study its inputs and outputs, looking for patterns. The "counterfactual" method falls under this approach. Counterfactuals are claims about what would happen if things had played out differently. In an AI context, this means considering how the output from an AI system might be different if it receives different inputs. We can then supposedly use this to explain why the system produced the result it did. Suppose the bank feeds its AI system different (manipulated) information about Sara. From this, the bank works out the smallest change Sara would need to get a positive outcome would be to increase her income. The bank can then apparently use this as an explanation: Sara's loan was denied because her income was too low. Had her income been higher, she would have been granted a loan. Such counterfactual explanations are being seriously considered as a way of satisfying the demand for explainable AI, including in cases of loan applications and using AI to make scientific discoveries. However, as researchers have argued, the counterfactual approach is inadequate. Correlation and explanation When we consider changes to the inputs of an AI system and how they translate into outputs, we manage to gather information about correlations. But, as the old adage goes, correlation is not causation. The reason that's a problem is because work in philosophy suggests causation is tightly connected to explanation. To explain why an event occurred, we need to know what caused it. On this basis, it may be a mistake for the bank to tell Sara her loan was denied because her income was too low. All it can really say with confidence is that income and credit score are correlatedand Sara is still left without an explanation for her poor result. What's needed is a way to turn information about counterfactuals and correlations into explanatory information. The future of explainable AI With time we can expect AI to be used more for hiring decisions, visa applications, promotions and state and federal funding decisions, among other things. A lack of explanation for these decisions threatens to substantially increase the injustice people will experience. After all, without explanations we can't correct mistakes made when using AI. Fortunately, philosophy can help. Explanation has been a central topic of philosophical study over the last century. Philosophers have designed a range of methods for extracting explanatory information from a sea of correlations, and have developed sophisticated theories about how explanation works. A great deal of this work has focused on the relationship between counterfactuals and explanation. I've developed work on this myself. By drawing on philosophical insights, we may be able to develop better approaches to explainable AI. At present, however, there's not enough overlap between philosophy and computer science on this topic. If we want to tackle injustice head-on, we'll need a more integrated approach that combines work in these fields. 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: For the ANISO tests, high explosives handlers packed charges of different designs, assembling and detonating more than 50 shots over the course of four days. Shown are different linerless C-4 shaped charges and clip-on PETN boosters, staged for detonation tests on the range. Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers led a multi-institutional team in executing a series of high explosives tests that successfully demonstrated fundamental principles of anisotropy, a possible enabler for improved weapon and munition safety. Working under snowy and frigid conditions on Idaho's Snake River Plain, a 13-member team from LLNL carried out 52 explosives shots over four days in mid-November at the Idaho National Laboratory's (INL) National Security Test Range (NSTR) to complete the study. The broader anisotropy (ANISO) team included high explosives handlers and volunteers from INL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Marine Raiders from the Marine Special Operations Command and members of the U.S. Special Operations Command. The purpose of the study was to explore theoretical methods of creating anisotropic explosivesexplosives that perform differently depending on the direction the detonation wave moves through the explosiveby engineering certain physical features in the charges and obtaining basic data from testing. The work is part of an overall effort by the Lab to develop anisotropic explosives that could be used in munitions to reduce the severity and lethality of an unintended detonation without sacrificing performance. The data gathered from the study will be used to design and construct follow-on experiments at LLNL's High Explosives Applications Facility (HEAF) and validate computer models for future anisotropic assemblies. "This experiment served as an example of an expedient and efficient means of evaluating a new theoretical concept," said Mark Hart, a scientist and engineer in LLNL's Defense Technologies Engineering Division and the study's strategic technical program manager. "In this experiment, anisotropy was demonstrated with detonation performance dependent on the direction of the detonation wave. Conceivably, explosive munitions could be designed using anisotropic explosives to be less damaging and less lethal during an accidental or unintentional detonation." Without a design to start from, a small team at LLNL worked nights and weekends, and off-hours over a span of eight weeks to prepare for the tests, designing, machining and preparing the hundreds of pieces of hardware and equipment needed to carry out the operations. The team crated and shipped the hardware to INL's NSTR, and once unloaded, the study was a "seamless operation," Hart said. Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory "Everyone brought their own special skills to the table," Hart said. Hailing from different parts of the country and representing a variety of disciplines, including data science, the ANISO team members met for the first time during a pre-job briefing on Nov. 13. The following morning, six high explosives handlers quickly went to work, simultaneously packing 20 small, linerless C-4 shaped charges of different designs and firing them on the range later that day. Over the course of three days, the team assembled and detonated a series of designs, firing strings of linerless shaped charges forward and backward, to narrow down which were most likely to demonstrate anisotropic behaviors. The initial tests provided researchers with valuable information on the assemblies' performance and behavior and enabled the team to create and fire six proof-of-principle shots on the study's fourth and final day, demonstratingfor the first time on a macroscopic scalethe principle of anisotropy. Using high speed cameras, the team captured video of the detonations moving in forward and backward directions through a series of eight linerless shaped charges with various gaps between them and compared the results. The videos clearly showed the detonations moved through the assembly faster in one direction and slower in the opposite direction, confirming that high explosive performance could be engineered to vary based on physical features built into the explosive and the direction of the detonation wave moving through the explosive. In addition to aiding design and construction of assemblies for testing in HEAF's 10-kilogram tank, the data from the study will be used to develop and validate artificial intelligence and machine learning-backed computer simulations that can predict performance and help design bulk anisotropic explosive charges. Maitreyee, who hails from Pune, has been given this award for her work in Neuroprosthesis, Brain Computer Interface, and Social Robotics for people with dementia. She was also invited to a breakfast reception at the Palace of Westminster (UK Parliament) to commemorate India-UK educational ties. DC Image Hyderabad: Maitreyee Wairagkar, a neuroscientist and neuroengineer who is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Davis, has added another feather to her cap. She has been conferred with the India-UK Achievers Honours in the science and innovation category. In order to commemorate Indias 75th year of independence and India-UK educational ties, India UK Achievers Honours were organised by @NISAU_UK. NISAU UK is the apex UK organisation representing students, alumni and young professionals of Indian origin. The recognition celebrates 75 Indians educated in UK universities in the last 30 years who have excelled in various walks of life through their impactful work. The winners from as many as five categories include actor Parineeti Chopra and politician Raghav Chadha among others. Maitreyee was one of the 75 at 75 brilliant and inspiring achievers. Maitreyee, who hails from Pune, has been given this award for her work in Neuroprosthesis, Brain Computer Interface, and Social Robotics for people with dementia. She was also invited to a breakfast reception at the Palace of Westminster (UK Parliament) to commemorate India-UK educational ties. Among other educational institutes, she has studied at the University of Reading and Imperial College London. The awards were conferred in a gala ceremony at The Grand, London. "Im extremely honoured to have been conferred the India UK Achievers Honours in the category of Science and Innovation, and humbled to be selected as one of the "75 at 75" brilliant and inspiring achievers. Also shoutout to @imperialcollege, @UKDRI where I developed robotics for dementia with Ravi Vaidyanathan, @PBarnaghi, @Neurosharp. And to @UCDavisHealth where I am currently building neuroprosthetics for speech with @sergeydoestweet @DrDavidBrandman and outstanding @BrainGateTeam. A big thank you to @NasutoSlawek and my mentors @UniofReading for guiding me in my educational journey. Grateful to vice-chancellor @vandenoort for encouragement and thanks to @UniRdg_PhD @UniRdg_Alumni @ReadingBioSci for highlighting my work throughout," (sic) she tweeted. Last year, the announcement of Inspiring Women in Science awards by Nature had come as a moment of pride for India as Maitreyee was declared a runner-up. Bernice A. King was 5 years old when her father, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated, but despite losing her father forever she focused on the impact his life had on the world. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldnt change anything as it relates to my father; even the fact that his life was taken innocently, she said Thursday during Texas A&M Universitys 16th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast at the Memorial Student Center Bethancourt Ballroom. Although I would have liked to have my father growing up and being there I have come to the realization that although I want those things, the world is better because of his life. I wouldnt want to take that from the world. I cant imagine a world without Martin Luther King Jr. I think he was one of the best gifts to the world. Bernice King shared her perspective on her fathers legacy and how he changed society during a discussion with Troy Harden, director of the Race and Ethnic Studies Institute at Texas A&M. The breakfast is organized by Texas A&M and the Memorial Student Center Carter G. Woodson Black Awareness Committee. Harden asked her how it felt to share her father with the world, and even though she said she wouldnt change anything and loves sharing her fathers life, she said it was frustrating to realize how often people misappropriated him. I am challenging people to really study the entire King. We take a little excerpt here and there and never understand the context with which he spoke, she said. My father never condoned violence in any form, and people will take that [out of context] because they just took the quotable King, but not the livable King which is a whole comprehensive King. She went on to share what life was like after her father was killed and the amount of loss she experienced in her life. She praised her mother, Coretta Scott King, as she was an advocate for peace and found the perfect match for a partner in life as she was an inspiration to her father. She really encouraged him with a lot of strategy that was taking place during the [civil rights] movement and she would give him a lot of feedback, Bernice King said. It was her who stood side by side with him to do that. So she was not only the wind beneath the wings, she happened to be the wings. On the topic of nonviolence, Bernice King stressed the importance of removing the dash in the word nonviolence. To this day when we do interviews, they always put the dash there in nonviolence when I am talking, she said. That suggests the absence of violence, and that is not what nonviolence is. Daddy said, True peace is not the absence of tension it is the presence of justice. So nonviolence is the presence of something that is positive and that is powerful. My father felt that nonviolence was the most powerful thing to lead people to transformation. Harden also asked what advice she would give to young people and she said: Dont check out. She emphasized the importance of young people being the stronghold of making change happen, and to express democracy and not give up even when restless. When Harden asked what brings her joy, King responded with something her mother used to tell her often. Baby, the darkest hour is always before the dawn, she recalled. That is what gives me joy, knowing the daybreak is coming and the work I am doing I know we can change this world. Siara Anderson, a Texas A&M freshman studying telecommunication media studies, took what Bernice Kings mother said to heart. Being a minority student on a campus that is as massive as A&M, can be really tough sometimes and sometimes it can feel like I am just one in 77,000 students, she said. Sometimes things can get tough and it can feel lonely and like you dont have anyone in your corner. But like Coretta Scott King said, The darkest hour is before the dawn. So you know that even if things feel like they are going to be tough, it always improves eventually. During Hardens introduction of King, he highlighted her work as a vessel for many. Bernice A. King is a minister, attorney and daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Harden said. Bernice is a global thought leader, strategist, solutionist, orator, peace advocate and CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, also known as the King Center; which was founded by her mother as the official living memorial to the life, work and legacy of her father. Through her work at the King Center, she educates youth and adults around the world about the nonviolent principals and strategies modeled by her parents, Harden said. The Nonviolence365 Education Training and the Beloved Community Talks is a courageous conversation platform about the difficult racial and social justice issues impacting our world, he said. Bernice King holds a doctorate of law, and a Master of Divinity degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and a bachelors degree in psychology from Spelman College. She also received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Wesley College and Clinton College. For more information about the King Center, visit thekingcenter.org. AUSTIN Democratic state Rep. Gene Wu stood inside the Texas Capitol holding a photo of the childhood home in which he grew up in Houston after emigrating from China. Wus family bought the white, single-story house. But a Senate bill from state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican, would prevent any members of Wus family who did not emigrate lawfully, as well as citizens, businesses and governments from China, Iran, North Korea or Russia from buying land in Texas a proposal raising the ire of Wu and others. Gov. Greg Abbott said on Twitter this month he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk this session. Wu was among several Democratic lawmakers who decried the bill as racist Wednesday and said its a painful reminder of similar legislation that was passed by Congress more than a century ago. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned Chinese immigration for 10 years and was repealed in 1943. This is especially painful for the Asian American community because we have been down this road before, Wu said. It is extremely disappointing and extremely painful for the Asian community to see this continue to happen. In a written statement, Kolkhorst said national security and growing foreign ownership of Texas land are top concerns for many Texans, motivating her to file the measure. The bill addresses a national security issue and will preserve our cherished private property rights and constitutional freedoms, she said. This bill will make crystal clear that the prohibitions do not apply to United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. Kolkhorst has not explained how she picked China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. Abbott also defended the bill in a news conference with reporters Wednesday after signing an infrastructure agreement with the U.S. military. He said Wus example of families like his not being able to buy land is a mischaracterization. It doesnt impact at all people who either are citizens or intend to be citizens of the United States, Abbott said. There are people who emigrate lawfully, from China, and it would not impact them at all. As filed, though, Kolkhorsts bill does not make any distinction between people who emigrate from China and those who become U.S. citizens. The bill does specify it applies to an individual who is a citizen of China, Iran, North Korea or Russia, but makes no mention of immigration status. Wu said the part that irks him the most is how foreign citizens would not be able to purchase land until they become U.S. citizens which could lag for several years. The states law on property currently says, An alien has the same real and personal property rights as a United States citizen. In order to become an American citizen, you have to wait patiently while you have a visa to get your green card to get your lawful permanent residency, and while you are a lawful permanent resident, you have to wait patiently to become a United States citizen, Wu said. When this law says citizenship of a foreign nation, what theyre talking about are people who have been waiting patiently in line, sometimes for decades, to become American citizens. Wu held a similar news conference Monday in Houston, supported by at least 100 people protesting Kolkhorsts Senate Bill 147. Her bill follows on the heels of similar appeals by national Republicans. Former President Donald Trump has said he would ban Chinese citizens from owning U.S. farmland and U.S. companies if he were to win a second term in 2024. According to the Food and Drug Administration, more than 35 million acres of farmland in the U.S. are owned by foreign investors. Chinese companies own about 0.2% of American agricultural land, per U.S. Department of Agriculture data. State Rep. Salman Bhojani, a Euless Democrat and an attorney, questioned the bills constitutionality. He also said it would hurt immigrants who start businesses. I know that this will have a negative impact on what is supposed to be the most business friendly state in the union, said Bhojani, one of the six Asian American members in the Legislature. Our job as legislators is to fight for the rights of every single Texan Texans who are born here and Texans who are born in another country. Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that his pandemic-era public health disaster declaration, which has given him unprecedented powers for the past 1,049 days, would stay in place until state legislators pass laws banning COVID-19-related restrictions on Texans and strengthening the states power at the border. Abbotts remarks to syndicated Texas conservative talk radio show host Chad Hasty on Thursday doubled down on his long-standing challenge to lawmakers to prohibit local governments from enacting mask and vaccine mandates and other restrictions on freedom. Im going to keep that in place until the legislators codify my executive orders that ban mask mandates, that ban forced vaccines and things like that, Abbott said. I want to see that get passed. The Republican governor has been intensifying the pressure on legislators to codify those restrictions on cities and counties since banning the practice through an executive order. That order, issued in October 2021, says: I will rescind this executive order upon the effective date of such legislation. Doing so would codify two of his COVID-19-related executive orders, which total more than 35 since the global coronavirus pandemic began three years ago. They all carry the weight of law as long as the disaster declaration stays in effect. After more than 93,000 deaths and 8.2 million COVID-19 cases in Texas in the 34 months since Abbotts declaration was made, the state remains one of about half a dozen still under a statewide declared disaster or public health emergency. Abbotts office has maintained for months that it has no plans to join the ranks of those dropping the orders, releasing a statement in December that doing so would allow local governments to once again enforce occupancy limits, mask mandates and vaccine mandates. Gov. Abbott will not let any government trample Texans right to choose for themselves or their children whether they will wear masks, open their businesses or get vaccinated, spokesperson Renae Eze said in a written statement. Abbott also said Thursday he wants Texas lawmakers to enact a state version of a controversial Trump-era immigration declaration known as Title 42 that is currently locked in a court battle. It allows for the quick return of migrants at the border even those seeking asylum under the auspices of the federal public health emergency. The practice is currently authorized in Texas under a separate Abbott executive order, which could be jeopardized if the disaster declaration is lifted. At least one bill, filed by Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, would create a program like Title 42 in state law. Since [President] Biden is forcing America to live under a Public Health Emergency, Texas is 100% justified in using our public health authority to control who crosses our borders, Harrison said in a tweet on Thursday. Whether Abbott can effectively wield the notion of an endless disaster declaration to bend the lawmakers to his will is unclear. If the Texas Legislature had a problem with disaster declarations and Abbotts behavior under them, it could have rebuked him with legislation in 2021 that would have curtailed his powers in disasters, or it could have required legislative action to declare a disaster or even ended the proclamation. No such bills made it to his desk. Migrants Rights and Welfare Forum's founder-president Kotapati Narasimha Naidu interacts with Telangana migrant workers in Qatar on Friday. (Photo: DC) Hyderabad: Gulf migrant workers from Telangana, have urged the state government to establish a Pravasi Bharat welfare board with a budgetary allocation of Rs 500 crore. They reminded the government that this was a promise made during the previous Assembly elections. Incidentally, around 15 lakh families of migrant workers from the state are eagerly waiting for allocation of funds. These decisions were taken during a meeting of Gulf migrant workers from Telangana state in Qatars Labour City on Friday. Founder-president of migrants rights and welfare forum Kotapati Narasimha Naidu interacted with migrant workers, who also sought financial assistance to Gulf returnees towards self-employment. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle from Qatar, Narasimha Naidu said that youth from north Telangana districts are working in Qatar. Many from undivided Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts are based in Doha, he said. According to him the 15 lakh families of Gulf migrant workers will play a key role in the ensuing Assembly elections. The BRS government will present its second terms last budget a week from now and the migrant workers are eagerly waiting for Rs 500 crore budget allocation, he said. We appeal to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to react positively to the requests of Gulf migrant workers, he said adding that he will be visiting Dubai on Saturday. Telangana Gulf Samithi leaders Patkur Tirupati Reddy, Sanjeev, Thomas, Mahender, Mallesh, Sunil, Sai Kumar, Srinivas, Ajith, Gangadhar, Wadi Sailoo and others were present. Heat-related deaths in Texas last year reached a new high for this century amid a sharp rise in migrant deaths and soaring temperatures enhanced by climate change, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of state data going back to 1999. In 2022, Texas saw its second-hottest summer on record during the states worst drought in more than a decade, according to data provided by state Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M University. Climate change has increased the risk for extreme temperatures across Texas, causing higher overall temperatures and summer heat that starts earlier in the spring and lasts longer into the fall and makes people more likely to experience heat exhaustion and heatstroke. At least 268 heat-related deaths were recorded last year, the highest annual toll for the state since at least 1999, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services. This figure included 135 resident deaths, many of whom were Texans experiencing homelessness and people without air conditioning. In Tarrant County, for example, around 70% of people who died from the heat were experiencing homelessness or did not have a functioning AC unit, according to a county medical examiners report that includes deaths from the first nine months of 2022. The county medical examiners office declined to comment. Just under half of heat-related deaths in Texas last year, 133, were non-residents. According to DSHS, non-residents can mean residents from another state or country. But the fact that counties on or near the Texas-Mexico border including Webb County and Brooks County have led the state in the number of heat-related deaths since 1999 suggests that they are largely migrants who died from heat-related causes while crossing the border. But migration experts, advocates and local officials said the state data is likely a dramatic undercount of the actual number of heat-related deaths among migrants. They attribute the heat-related deaths to border enforcement policies that they say have forced migrants away from preferred crossing points in urban areas toward increasingly remote and dangerous routes. They added that Title 42 a public health emergency order issued in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic that is used to rapidly expel migrants without allowing them to request asylum also increases the number of migrant crossings. At the same time, the danger of crossing the border has been exacerbated by extreme heat that included dozens of triple-digit days last summer. Were seeing a human rights crisis happening along the border, said Fernando Garcia, executive director of El Paso-based advocacy organization Border Network for Human Rights. These deaths are by policy. As the number of migrants apprehended at the border continues to set records, the number of migrant deaths also has reached new highs: The U.S. Border Patrol reported locating 853 bodies along the entire U.S.-Mexico border in the 2022 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30 a number that includes deaths from heat, drowning and other causes. Thats more than three times the number reported in the 2020 fiscal year, and the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, has called the southwest border the deadliest land crossing in the world. Texas also often sees the highest number of recorded migrant deaths among the four states bordering the U.S.-Mexico border, which also include New Mexico, Arizona and California. Im seeing an extreme increase in the number of border-crossing deaths compared to other years, Webb County Medical Examiner Corrine Stern, who serves 11 South Texas counties, told KENS 5 in August. At the time, Stern said her office was holding the bodies of 260 migrants and had stopped accepting additional bodies for the first time in her 20-year career. Stern declined the Tribunes recent interview requests, citing the high number of cases she was handling. The heat-related deaths recorded by the state in these border counties are likely an undercount, experts said, because some migrants who die after crossing the border are never recovered or their bodies are found too late to determine the cause of death. And not all deaths caused by heat are attributed to hyperthermia excessive exposure to natural heat as the primary cause. For example, 53 migrants from Mexico and Central America were found dead on a hot June day inside a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio after their smuggler abandoned them. But DSHS logged fewer than 10 heat-related deaths in Bexar County in the first nine months of 2022, meaning few, if any, of those migrants were captured in the agencys data for hyperthermia deaths. DSHS declined to provide the exact cause of deaths for the migrants, but survivors from the tractor-trailer were later treated at hospitals for heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Sylvia Dee, a climate scientist at Rice University in Houston, said climate change is shifting the entire distribution of temperatures higher. As a result, Texas is exceeding heat indexes dangerous to human health more frequently than it did in the past. People shouldnt be outside in those temperatures at all, Dee said. Some experts also pointed out that extreme weather events fueled by climate change are one reason people decide to migrate in the first place. We hear constantly from migrants engaging in agriculture that the land is not what it used to be, that they cannot plan and cannot harvest [in their home country] anymore, said Luz Maria Garcini, a Rice University assistant professor who researches trauma and the health of immigrant communities. And as global temperatures continue to warm, climate migration will likely become even more common, scientists have warned. According to the U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from 2022, extreme weather events could uproot 143 million people around the world over the next 30 years. About 70 miles north of the border, Brooks County hosts one of the busiest Border Patrol checkpoints in Texas on U.S. 281. To avoid it, migrants walk through miles of ranch land, but many are ill-equipped to trek through the thorny brush. And the journey only gets more perilous with rising temperature and humidity. In the ranches, thats where you see the majority of the deaths, Brooks County Judge Eric Ramos said. Because of the distance from the border, by the time [migrants] get to us, theyre really exhausted. So with the heat, the thickness of the brush just becomes overwhelming. Brooks County, which has around 7,000 residents, has recorded at least 202 heat-related deaths between 1999 and Sept. 30, 2022, according to DSHS data the second-highest number among Texas 254 counties. The agency did not provide updated county-level data for all of 2022. But this is likely to still be a substantial undercount. A 2020 report co-authored by Stephanie Leutert, a migration policy expert from the University of Texas at Austin, found at least 535 recorded migrant deaths in total between 2012 and 2019 in Brooks County. Leutert said a large number of these deaths were likely related to heat, but may have not been counted as heat-related deaths because their cause of death could not have been determined. Some, she said, may have also been assigned a separate cause of death like dehydration, which is often enhanced by heat but can also happen during cold weather. Ramos said the number of bodies has forced Brooks County to build a second morgue that will hold 40 bodies. He added that the county may soon hire more staff to help rescue migrants or, when necessary, recover and identify the bodies of those who died crossing. Its only going to get worse, Ramos said. Eddie Canales, founder of the Brooks County-based South Texas Human Rights Center, said his organization is also trying to increase its capacity to respond to the crisis. Since 2013, his organization has installed about 150 water stations throughout Brooks County and surrounding areas, leaving water in big blue buckets that hold several gallons each. He and his volunteers make weekly trips to refill the water stations. Water is water, Canales said on the phone as he refilled his organizations water stations earlier this month. People sweat, and they are walking for miles. The center also runs a hotline for people searching for loved ones who have gone missing during border crossings and assists in local governments rescue operations and identification of deceased migrants, which Ramos said can require a substantial chunk of the budget of Brooks County one of Texas poorest counties. Everybody deserves some dignity in death, Canales said. 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United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Former Grand Island Public Schools superintendent Tawana Grover will lead an Iowa school district. Effective July 1, Grover will become superintendent of Cedar Rapids Community School District in Iowa. In January the Grand Island Public Schools board approved her resignation. Cedar Rapids Community School Districts board of education unanimously approved her hiring Jan. 26. In a phone interview, at-large board member Marcy Roundtree said, We are very impressed by her and looking forward to the work that she will do here. Roundtree declined to specify when Grover submitted her application to CRCSD or whether anything surrounding her GIPS tenure affected the districts hiring decision, citing legal employment privacy practices. We have done our due diligence to look at her background. During the Jan. 26 school board meeting, CRCS board president David Tominsky said: This board is confident Dr. Grover fits the leadership profile. (She) is well respected with a tremendous amount of community leadership were excited for her to assume this role. Grovers approved contract is for three years, with her salary at $305,000 the first year and that amount or more in subsequent years. Grover resigned her Grand Island superintendent position effective in early January, but will continue her role as a consultant with the district through June 30, when her first contract year ends. Per her contract with GIPS, after that date, she will be available on-call as needed regardless of her employment status. According to GIPS officials: "The only thing affected in the existing agreement with GIPS, if Dr. Grover accepts another job, is GIPS will not continue with the previously agreed health insurance coverage. If she takes another employment opportunity the hiring organization pays the health insurance. She still receives everything else listed in the agreement." The Independent obtained a copy of Grover's contract with CRCSD through a public records request Jan 27. The districts former superintendent, Noreen Bush, died in Oct. 2022 following a two-and-a-half-year battle with cervical cancer, according to local media. Cedar Rapids Community Schools had just over 15,000 students grades K-12 during the 2021-2022 school year, according to district data. Read the contract: A Grand Island dog that was missing for 31 days returned home safely Jan. 14 thanks to the efforts of a whole bunch of people, two rotisserie chickens from Sam's Club and a relentless owner. Connie Ogg never gave up hope that she'd be reunited with Cody, the family's English Springer Spaniel. After Cody went missing Dec. 15, Ogg posted fliers on bulletin boards at area Pump & Pantries. She brought the fliers to law enforcement offices and everywhere else she could think of. She talked to area farmers and ranchers, and posted 50 laminated "lost dog" posters. The top of the poster read, "Devastated family...Please help!" Ogg looked for the dog every day, for up to 11 hours a day. She traveled north of St. Libory. She went south to Doniphan and east to Central City. Her search took a lot of gas. "Six tanks," she says. Voice for Companion Animals, based in Grand Island, played a big role in the search. "We were one of many. It was a great team," said Voice for Companion Animals volunteer Robyn Mays. Ogg retained the services of a pet tracker from Auburn named Karin TarQwyn, who gave good advice. Many farmers and ranchers kept an eye out for the dog. Cody was spotted a few times during his month away from home. But there were no sightings during a 16-day period. No word during such an extended period is usually a bad sign for a missing pet, Mays said. Ogg, though, wasn't rattled. "I didn't ever give up," she says. "I was out every day, driving." Ogg and her husband, Alan, live on West 18th Street. Cody got loose, escaping through the gate in the backyard, on Dec. 15. Their daughter, who was moving, had accidentally left the gate open. The Oggs sprang into action. "We all got in our cars that day," Ogg said. Driving in three cars, they drove around the area with their windows down, calling Cody's name, from 6:30 to 11 p.m. Connie and Alan were in separate cars. In the other vehicle was daughter Kristin and her two kids, Kash, 5, and Kora, who's almost 2. The next day, Ogg paid the first of many visits to the Central Nebraska Humane Society. In addition to driving around, she worked the phones and Facebook. Early on, the dog was spotted near Runza and the Mongolian Grill. Attempting to understand Cody's movements, Ogg tried to think like a dog. Every night, she left the gate open, hoping he'd return. When Ogg ran into people on her search, many people asked if she'd found her dog yet. Hundreds of people were looking for him, Ogg said. On Dec. 25, Cody was spotted near Central Nebraska Regional Airport. Ogg, her husband and their daughter and son-in-law, Sandy and Ben Beberniss, saw the dog that day. But Cody didn't come when called. Dog experts told Ogg that when they're lost for extended periods, dogs go into "flight mode," a state in which they don't act normally. Ogg worried about the dog's health, because his time on the run included two ice storms. "He doesn't like being out in the cold," she said. Good news arrived Thursday, Jan. 12, when a 911 dispatcher called saying Cody had been spotted on West 13th Street, off of Highway 11. He was sitting near the tire of a farmer's pivot. But the dog could not be retrieved. For several days, Cody hung around a farm halfway between Cairo and Wood River, which is where he was finally apprehended. "With the sighting we were able to set up a game camera that sent images to a cell phone. So when something triggered it, an image was sent," Mays said. Beckie King and her husband, Todd, own a live trap, which they deployed at the farm. King is with Voice for Companion Animals. They baited the trap with a rotisserie chicken the group obtained from Sam's Club. The business donated two chickens to Tracie Pfeifle, who's with Voice for Companion Animals. On Friday, Jan. 13, Cody went into the trap but didn't trigger the door. The next day, the trap worked. Cody was taken to the Voice for Companion Animals building in Grand Island, where the dog was reunited with his owners. During his sojourn, Cody had lost 14 pounds. "I was bawling, because he was so skinny. And he was exhausted," Ogg said. Cody's vet said the dog was 10 pounds overweight before he took off. "That's probably what saved him," Ogg said. His stomach was red because he'd been walking through fields of corn stalks. He was muddy and had a lot of burrs attached to his fur and ears. During Cody's time in the wild, volunteers from Voices for Companion Animals drove around a lot, looking for Cody. One of the volunteers was Sharilyn Nelson. A Hall County deputy also helped with the the effort. Mays likes the way Ogg reacted to her dog's disappearance. If a dog goes missing, she said, it's best to get to work immediately. Don't assume he'll return home. Cody is now back to normal, living a comfortable life. The Oggs' other dog, Buddy, was glad to see his pal return. Ogg is particularly close to Cody. She and Alan have four children and five grandkids. "I like the way he watches over the kids," Ogg said. Cody will be 3 in July. The Oggs have owned him since he was 12 weeks old. Her hard work done, Ogg is one happy person. "Oh, I'm relieved like crazy. It's good to have him back." Every session of the Nebraska Legislature features what promises to be a real clunker of a bill. This years prizewinner so far is a proposal to change from a unicameral to a two-house Legislature. Even the sponsor of the measure (LR2CA) admits that the proposed constitutional amendment probably wont get out of committee. Sen. Steve Erdman of Bayard says it will be because of those people living in the east. The Nebraska Republican Party included in its platform a plank calling for a return to a bicameral legislature whereby the upper house has fewer members but larger territorial areas to include a more diverse set of interests in the legislative process. Not only is such apportionment constitutionally suspect, but the measure is also a bad idea, party support or not. Lets take a legislative body that has worked well since 1937 and make it more like Congress, because we know how well thats working out. I guess we should be happy that the measure isnt supporting a theocracy, although I wouldnt put it past some to propose. In case youre scrambling to look it up, thats government by divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. Yes, theyre out there. Erdman says a bicameral legislature would better represent the interest of Nebraskans, particularly those from areas west of Lincoln. It would result in better representation for rural parts of the state. Those areas have lost political power as half of Nebraskas population has concentrated in Lincoln, Omaha and the surrounding areas, a trend expected to continue in the future. If passed by the Legislature, placed on the ballot and approved by voters, the proposal would add a second house to the Legislature with 31 members who represent three counties each, along with a lower house with 62 members representing districts apportioned by population. Excuse me, theres that constitutional problem again. Two houses would function as a better check on one another than the current system, where the people of Nebraska are referred to as the second house, Erdman says, claiming that people rarely have an opportunity to vote on petitions or referendums, and arent likely to make a dent in lawmakers thinking by testifying during committee hearings. Never mind that the outspoken senator from the Panhandle has spent his legislative career arguing in the George W. Norris Legislative Chamber, he says he wants people to know not all Nebraskans think highly of Norris, who is said to have worn out two sets of tires driving across the state to advocate for the unicameral legislature. Norris, who was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1902, later served five terms in the U.S. Senate, changing his party from Republican to independent in 1936. Everybody worships George Norris like he was something special he wasnt, Erdman told members of the press. He was very liberal, the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. His mission wasnt honorable. Why Republican farmer Erdman decided to trash Sen. Norris remains a mystery. But it does prove that he needs a history reminder. Norris is credited with planning the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which provided flood control and created electricity in the region drained by the Tennessee River. More importantly, the TVA was a forerunner of the Rural Electrification Act (REA), which eventually brought electricity to farms and ranches across the nation. Think about that when you go back to the farm senator and turn on the lights. YORK Angela McKinley, 36, a former inmate at the Nebraska Center for Women, will be re-sentenced for assault as she has been found guilty of violating the conditions of her probation. When she was still an inmate, back in 2019, she beat another inmate at the prison and was charged with second degree assault. According to the affidavit filed by an investigator from the prison system, a sergeant at the prison heard a verbal altercation between McKinley and another inmate. The sergeant then allegedly saw them get into a fist fight with one another when they refused to stop as the sergeant commanded, the sergeant deployed pepper spray on them. The affidavit says at that point, the other inmate fell to the ground and McKinley grabbed (the other inmates) hair, pulled her head up and threw closed first punches to her eyes and nose. Eventually, McKinley was restrained. The assault happened in January of 2019 and McKinley was released from prison in February. She had been serving a sentence of 12-20 years in prison for three convictions of burglary, one conviction of possession of a deadly weapon by a felony and one conviction of operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest all convictions had been in Douglas County. She began her sentence at the York prison on Aug. 23, 2007, and was released on Feb. 16, 2019. Later that year, she was sentenced to probation in York County District Court. But now she has to be re-sentenced because of her violations. She is facing the possibility of more prison time. Her re-sentencing has been set for March 21. A Union County couple one a native Southern Illinoisan and the other a transplant from central Illinois who has developed a deep love for the region are helping others share their own affinity for the area. Audrey Sirles and finance Austin Burklund started their company, SOE the name coming from the first letters in the words six, one and eight, with a simple mission: Capture and share the pride people from Southern Illinois have in the region through clothing and other apparel. The pair, who will be getting married in April, landed on the idea of a regional apparel business while traveling together. We noticed that in cities like Nashville or St. Louis and even in other regions, there is all of this apparel showing pride in the city or area. We wanted to do that for Southern Illinois because we love it, Sirles explained. We decided to create a positive company that supports Southern Illinois and promotes it across the region. Sirles said she comes up with the ideas for items and Burklund does all of the graphic design. Originally, the pair contracted printing to another company in the region, but now does all of the sublimation printing of their products themselves producing a line of sweatshirts, T-shirts, hats and more. Many of the companys designs reflect the regions geographic outline or ties to institutions in the region. Others reference Southern Illinois University Carbondale such as two Christmas designs: Maroon and Merry and Santa and Salukis and sports-related slogans (Saturdays are for the Dawgs). Some feature the company logo the numbers 618 inside what could be described as a triangle standing on one point. We decided to go with the upside-down triangle, she explained. Its kind of like a pyramid to reflect Little Egypt and its also sort of the shape of Southern Illinois. Reaction to the company has been overwhelmingly positive, she said. The company has participated in several vendor fairs and markets as well as offering a full catalog on their website. Sirles said she has been surprised by some of the orders. Weve been getting a lot of messages and orders from people in central Illinois, Chicago and even other states, she said. My favorite thing is when we get orders and their address is outside of the area. Sirles said she believes those orders come from former Southern Illinois residents wanting to show their continuing pride in their former region. She added that the pair eventually plans to be intentional in marketing their wares outside of the 618 area code. Eventually well branch out and try to reach out to those other parts of Illinois, but were starting, obviously, right now to all of the locals the people that already live here and love it, she said. We just want to promote how awesome our region is and thats the whole purpose of our brand. We just want everyone to love it as much as we do. Larry Vancil, 74, of Du Quoin, was sentenced by Perry County Circuit Court Judge James W. Campanella on Wednesday to four years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a Class 2 felony. The sentence was announced by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in a media release on Thursday. Vancil was on trial for sexually assaulting a person with an intellectual disability. According to Raoul, Vancil was employed as a bus driver for the South Central Illinois Mass Transit District. In that role, Vancil was responsible for transporting individuals who reside or receive assistance from Five Star Industries, a non-profit that provides housing and employment assistance for individuals with developmental disabilities. While on the job, Vancil sexually abused a passenger, knowing his victim was unable to give consent due to a severe or profound disability. Instead of ensuring a safe environment for some of our most vulnerable residents, the defendant chose to instead violate the rights of an individual that did not have the capacity to speak up and protect themselves, Raoul said. I am committed to holding individuals accountable for taking advantage of people they are responsible for protecting. Vancil was arrested on Jan. 14, 2021 and posted $7,500 bond the same day. Criminally prosecuting abusers of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities sends an important message that those who engage in such conduct will suffer serious consequences and furthers OIGs mission of protecting vulnerable communities, said Peter Neumer, Inspector General for the Illinois Department of Human Services, whose office initially investigated the case. Close A pool of slush formed at Cedar Lake after a snowstorm hit Southern Illinois Tuesday night. An afternoon thaw of Tuesday night's snowstorm dumps hazardous slush onto windshields of motorists. Oftentimes road dangers are closest to home. Here is a lane that did not see the plow before turning into a slippery slush after Tuesday night's snowstorm. 012623-nws-snow photos A pool of slush formed at Cedar Lake after a snowstorm hit Southern Illinois Tuesday night. An afternoon thaw of Tuesday night's snowstorm dumps hazardous slush onto windshields of motorists. Oftentimes road dangers are closest to home. Here is a lane that did not see the plow before turning into a slippery slush after Tuesday night's snowstorm. As long as I am alive, I will continue to work for Telangana. If everyone works together, this time the BJP can come to power in the state. Vijayashanti, actor-turned-politician. (Photo:DC) Hyderabad: "Come back home." With this call, Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar on Friday called on leaders from the party who quit to join the Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and others who are in the ruling party but want to strengthen the BJP, to return, or join the party fold. He was speaking at an event where the party felicitated the actress and party leader Vijayashanti upon completing 25 years in politics. Sanjay stated that those who left the BJP over "minor issues" or "perceived differences" should return, while asserting that by uniting "we can become even stronger and defeat KCR and put an end to his autocratic rule. All those who believe that politics should be based on principles, and who are ideologically inclined towards the BJP, should come and join the party. "The BJP is the only party where a person selling tea can go on to become the Prime Minister, and a common party karyakarta can rise to be the countrys President." Bandi Sanjay Kumar, state BJP president. (Photo: Twitter) The BJP is the only party where a person selling tea can go on to become Prime Minister, and a common party karyakarta can rise to be President," Sanjay remarked. He was speaking at the party headquarters during celebrations of party leader and former MP Vijayashanti completing 25 years in politics. A book, Ramulamma Rajakeeya Prasthanam, was released on the occasion. "As the state party president, if I make a mistake, anyone in the party can question me. The matter can be escalated to the partys higher levels if I do not correct myself. In regional parties like the BRS, this option does not exist as one family controls the party and everyone else must fall in line," Sanjay asserted. Union minister G. Kishan Reddy congratulating Vijayashanti on the milestone, recalled how she had extensively campaigned for the BJP, and never bowed to pressure. "I wish her that she completes 50 years in the party," he added. Party national general secretary Tarun Chugh complimented the actor-turned-politician for her service and recalled how she stood up in the Parliament to support statehood for Telangana. "But at the crucial time, the man who is now the Chief Minister was nowhere to be seen in the Lok Sabha," Chugh remarked. Vijayashanti recalled meeting then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in 1998, and joining the BJP because she was convinced that it was a disciplined party. "I do not chase after posts, and strived to achieve statehood for Telangana. I founded the Talli Telangana party to fight back against people who were against Telangana," she stated. Referring to Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, whose TRS she joined later, she said he tried his best to defeat her and suspended her from the party the day the announcement of Telangana state was made. "As long as I am alive, I will continue to work for Telangana. If everyone works together, this time the BJP can come to power in the state. KCR has no love lost for Telangana and is only focused on looting the state and grabbing the land of the poor," she said. CHICAGO Chicago authorities said Thursday that a deadly fire in a high-rise apartment building was caused by someone smoking in a bedroom. In a brief statement, the Chicago Fire Department called the fire accidental and said investigators traced the cause to "careless use of smoking materials." Investigators also found that a smoke detector in the unit where the blaze broke out was not working. Wednesday's fire in the Kenwood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side killed one person and sent eight more to the hospital. Authorities have not released any information yet on the person who died. Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt said Wednesday that fire detectors inside the building's apartments were battery-operated while those in the hallways were hard-wired. More than 300 fire and Emergency Medical Service workers responded to the blaze, which began on the 15th floor and traveled up to the 24th level as crews worked to contain it. 5 most common causes of reported house fires 5 most common causes of reported house fires #5. Smoking materials #4. Intentional #3. Electrical distribution and lighting equipment #2. Heating equipment #1. Cooking South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh is standing trial for the killings of his wife and son at their hunting estate in June 2021. The murder charges and a slew of others preceding them have led to the unraveling of a lawyer known for multimillion-dollar judgements and whose family dominated the legal scene in a small county for decades. Prosecutors opened the trial Wednesday with a roadmap of their case, which they concede is not open and shut. It will involve cellphone data linking the victims and Murdaugh to the same place, and other circumstantial evidence. Murdaugh's lawyers say investigators immediately and incorrectly focused on Murdaugh and that the lack of direct evidence shows he is innocent. The Rumour Mill 20m bid for Sheffield United striker rejected | 27/01/2023 Everton have had a 23m bid for Senegal international striker Iliman Ndiaye turned down by Sheffield United according to L'Equipe. The 22-year-old has been linked with the Blues in the past week and if this report is correct, it seems the Blues have followed up their interest with Anthony Gordon's imminent sale to Newcastle strengthening the club's ability to sign players this month. Ndiaye has 17 goals in 65 appearances for the Blades, 10 of them this season but his agent recently indicated that the French-born forward was keen to stay in Sheffield to help their push for promotion to the Premier League even if there is a general acknowledgement that he will probably move on this summer. Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer () How to get rid of these ads and support TW ToffeeWeb The parents of Casper Police Lt. Danny Dundas have created a memorial scholarship at Casper College in his honor, awarding two students $1,250 for both the fall and spring semesters. Dundas, a Casper native who became one of the most prominent members of the department, died by suicide in September 2021. He was a 13-year veteran of the department and was widely regarded as compassionate and personable, especially due to his lighthearted presence on social media. Each recipient must have a cumulative GPA of 2.0, be enrolled in a minimum of six credit hours, and be or have been a first responder in fire or law enforcement or be a child of a first responder in fire or law enforcement, a press release from the college says about the scholarship. Dundas was a lifelong learner, it notes, and continued his education by earning job-training certificates throughout his life. In the release, a statement from Dundass mother emphasizes how her son balanced some of the difficult parts of his occupation with the power of laughter. My husband and I established this scholarship to honor him and keep a piece of him alive, Karla Dundas said. We hope that the recipients of this scholarship get on YouTube and watch a Lt. Dundas with Casper Police Department video and get a sense of who he was and how he incorporated wit and humor into a stressful job. Those interested can apply for the scholarship online. A man charged with killing five young people in an Interstate 80 crash Sunday was caught driving with a suspended or revoked license at least four times in the past and as recently as December, court records show. Arthur Andrew Nelson, 57, had a warrant issued for him out of Uintah County, Utah, for driving with no valid license, speeding 85-mph in a 65-mph zone and failing to stay in one lane. This was on Dec. 20 one month before the Wyoming Highway Patrol says he caused the crash near Rawlins after driving the wrong direction on I-80 while intoxicated. Nelsons time spent in-and-out of prison started in Tennessee, where he lived for over two decades and had several encounters with law enforcement. His first serious offense was recorded in Greene County, Tennessee in 1984, where he was found guilty of third-degree burglary, according to a series of Tennessee court documents. One year later, he was convicted of second-degree burglary in Washington County, Tennessee. Nelson was jailed for the burglary for an unknown amount of time, but he tried to escape after serving only one year, court records state. He was released before 2001. That year, he pleaded guilty to driving on a suspended license for the second time, evading arrest and criminal impersonation in Washington County. He was caught driving with a revoked license and charged with felony evading arrest again two years later. His crimes eventually became more serious. He pleaded guilty to 10 counts of statutory rape in Washington County. While that case was being investigated, officials discovered that he was in possession of multiple guns and 109 rounds of ammunition. Nelson wasnt allowed to be in the possession of any of these items because he was already a convicted felon. Records show he was sentenced to 17 years in prison in 2009, which means he would have been set for release around 2026. But he was let out early. Nelson made his way over to Utah sometime after, where he was living in West Jordan, according to a series of Utah court records. His most recent offenses, and only ones found in Utah, were the driving charges against him at the end of last year. The records dont show whether he was ever arrested on the Utah warrant prior to the crash. The Wyoming wreck, which also injured four people including one woman who suffered serious burns was at least the fifth time Nelson had been caught driving without a valid license. Nelson now faces 11 charges, the most serious of which are five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide. Each carries a 20-year prison sentence if he is found guilty. Hes also charged with driving while under the influence causing serious bodily injury, reckless driving, reckless endangerment, and driving the wrong way on a highway. Authorities say he admitted to taking methamphetamine the day before the multi-vehicle crash. He also failed a field sobriety test and was initially arrested for driving under the influence. Nelson is scheduled to appear in Carbon County District Court at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 1 for a preliminary hearing. CHEYENNE While the Wyoming Legislature has cut funding for various projects and programs like the 988 suicide prevention hotline, lawmakers pushed along a bill Thursday that would set aside more than $5 million to pay for the construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and for the removal of people who are not citizens in Texas, Arizona and Florida to sanctuary cities in other states. Senate File 166 passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday in a 3-2 vote. Sens. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, and Mike Gierau, D-Jackson, voted no. All but one person who spoke during public testimony opposed the bill. A bill like Senate File 166 hasnt come up for consideration in Wyomings Legislature before. The bills sponsor, Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, told the Star-Tribune that hed been mulling over the idea for over a year and had thought about trying to do something in the budget last year. He chose to wait and see how the midterm elections panned out before deciding to sponsor the legislation for this session. When faced with an overflowing bathtub, it doesnt make sense to grab the mop, what you have to do is reach for the spigot, Hicks said before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday. We know where the spigot is in this case Mr. Chairman, and its our southern border. So rather (than putting) a continued burden on our state and local governments to try to mop this stuff up, why dont we just shut this thing off at the border. Directing money south The bill would set aside $3 million and $2 million, respectively, to help build a border wall in Texas and Arizona. Of that money, up to $250,000 for each state could be used to move people who are not U.S. citizens to sanctuary cities in other states. Another $250,000 would go to Florida for the same purpose. All of the money would come from the states rainy day fund. While Nethercott, the Cheyenne Republican who voted against the bill, recognized that dealing with the countrys southern border is a pressing problem, she questioned how transporting people to other cities would be beneficial. We are transporting migrants that may or may not be criminals with no documentation and no paperwork throughout the United States on political whim, she said. Lets talk about law enforcement. How are they supposed to track these individuals who are now being bused from Colorado to Washington, D.C. to our urban cities from where they were originally at? Its not the first time Wyoming has tried to get involved in issues involving the southern border. Gov. Mark Gordon has been vocal in the past about supporting states bordering Mexico, most recently joining a multi-state American Governors Border Strike Force meant to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations. The group lambasted President Joe Bidens disastrous border policies. Hicks also brought up complaints about the federal government on Thursday, arguing that when the government fails to comply with its basic mandates of protecting the citizens of the United States, its incumbent upon the states to act. Gordons general counsel and deputy chief of staff Betsy Anderson, speaking on behalf of the governor, was the only person to vouch for the bill during public testimony on Thursday. It has been difficult to do all that we wanted to do in that we didnt have the authority and the funding, and so this legislation will be very helpful for us to continue to support these communities, Anderson said. The bill draws on concerns about fentanyl use in Wyoming, citing that, according to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, law enforcement in Wyoming seized a total of 17,324 grams of fentanyl in 2021. Its not clear how much of that amount was seized from people who arent U.S. citizens, or where it comes from. The Division of Criminal Investigation said it doesnt keep statistics on the former point, and did not respond by deadline on the latter. Critical needs debated Senate File 166 comes as lawmakers mull over how to use roughly half of the $913 million in surplus in the states two checking accounts for multitudes of other projects and programs, many of which people at Thursdays meeting argued should take precedence over matters outside of Wyomings borders. How is this an appropriate use of Wyoming state funds given critical state needs for suicide prevention, WyoLink, postpartum Medicaid coverage, capital construction, mental health problems, substance abuse, on and on and on? Gail Symons, owner of the nonpartisan blog Civics307, questioned. In an impassioned speech, Gierau, the Jackson Democrat, also hounded on this point. Lets talk about priorities: $15,022,556 to reduce the wait list for a comprehensive waiver for citizens in this state to get health care, this committee voted down, $6,329,072, restoration step two and step three cuts, reimbursement on the comprehensive waiver for developmentally disabled kids, this committee voted down, he said. When it came before us to vote (on) money to sue the state of Washington because they were engaging in restraint of trade against this state, I was the first one to sign up and say, You bet. This? This is ridiculous. I frankly think it is offensive, and with all due respect, I think it is misguided at best. One bill thats received considerable attention this year is meant to fund Wyomings 24/7 suicide prevention hotline and other suicide prevention efforts for the long term. The 988 suicide prevention bill, sponsored by the Joint Revenue Committee, had originally set aside $46 million to put in a trust fund for these programs. But last week, lawmakers in the House slashed that funding as well as the trust fund. The House voted to reinstate the trust fund on Wednesday but leave it empty, the idea being that private donors and nonprofits could still put money in the fund, as could lawmakers in the future. We know that we have the highest suicide rate in the nation, and we just saw the defunding of the 988 trust, Tyler Cessor, a Casper resident, said. I would love to see this $5.3 million go towards protecting and saving Wyoming residents lives who are struggling with suicidal ideation. Following the vote, Hicks argued in response to concerns about the use of money that, with an influx of federal dollars in Wyoming, the bill would just offset money to where it probably should have been allocated by the federal government to begin with. Beside worries about how best to use state funds, opponents of the bill brought up humanitarian concerns. Immigrants in Wyoming have always been an important part of our states history, culture and economy but immigrant communities continue to be profiled, harassed, detained and demonized. Bills like Senate File 166 only exacerbate this rhetoric, Antonio Serrano, ACLU of Wyoming advocacy director, said in a Thursday statement. The bill still has to make it through several votes in the Senate and House before it can become law. <&rule> Photos: Biden visits the border for the first time CHEYENNE Two bills that would restrict foreign businesses, governments and individuals from owning land in Wyoming came out of the House Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Committee on Thursday. Members of the committee passed the bills after debating, amending and working through them for nearly three hours. Despite conversations of unconstitutionality, infringing upon property rights and risk of estranging foreign investors, the bills will head to the House floor. A bill prohibiting ownership of land in the state by certain countries was approved 8-1, and a second bill restricting all foreign ownership of agricultural land split the committee, but passed 5-4. Rep. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, was the only committee member to vote no on both. Not only was he concerned with the enforcement of the bills, but he said they go against the Wyoming Constitution under Article 1, Section 29 and the rights of aliens. No distinction shall ever be made by law between resident aliens and citizens as to the possession, taxation, enjoyment and descent of property, he said, quoting the constitution. I think both of these bills have facially unconstitutional provisions built into them because of Section 29. That didnt stop the committee from working the bills to find compromise, even as there were calls for a further study in the interim session. Foreign property ownership Freshman Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, was the sponsor for the first bill considered, and said the issue couldnt wait any longer. He said he believes it is best for the state and a matter of safety. He introduced House Bill 116 to the committee that he sits on, which would restrict foreign businesses, governments and people from Russia, China or a country that has been designated as a state sponsor of terrorism from owning property in Wyoming. He first considered all countries, but said he didnt know where to stop, and the committee could put in here something like a communist country. The U.S. State Department currently recognizes Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba as state sponsors of terrorism. Allemand was asked what would happen to assets if a country was added to the recognized list, and he said they would be held to the same standards within the bill. If these countries are good to us, we have no problem. Well be good to them, he said. We cannot buy land in China. We cannot buy industry in Russia. We cannot buy I dont even think we want to get off the plane in Iran. So, this is just limited to people who hate us. Under Allemands legislation, the definition of land is, real property or real estate in any surface, subsurface, airspace or mineral interest in Wyoming. This means the listed foreign governments, businesses and persons including agents, trustees or a fiduciary wouldnt be able to buy or otherwise acquire land, except for a personal residence that doesnt exceed one acre. If they did own land in Wyoming as of July 1, the listed groups in the bill would have two years to divest all rights, titles and interest in the land. Property that they purchased for a personal residence would have to be registered with the Secretary of States Office, and anyone who failed to do so would be liable for a civil penalty of $5,000 for each day they failed to comply with the law. County clerks would also be responsible for reporting to the Secretary of States Office if a foreign entity, government or person bought or acquired land in their county, or if the clerk suspects there has been a violation. The Secretary of States Office would then report it to the Attorney Generals Office for action. Secretary of State Chuck Gray spoke in support of both bills, which have nearly identical language when it comes to reporting and registration. He said there would be no fiscal impact on his office, and he was confident existing filing capabilities will be able to handle the registration procedures. Agricultural land Gray also noted that six states have banned foreign ownership of U.S. farmland, and said many more are examining similar legislation. House Bill 88 ensures one of Wyomings most important assets maintains its protection, he testified during the House Bill 116 discussion. In the last decade, foreign ownership of agricultural land in the United States has increased exponentially, with the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimating that approximately 38 million acres of the countrys agriculture and timberland are owned by foreign investors. The main sponsor of HB 88 was fellow newly elected Rep. Dalton Banks, R-Cowley, who also is a member of the House Agriculture Committee. Foreign governments and businesses that already own agricultural land in Wyoming would be grandfathered in if the land was held before July 1. Restrictions included in the legislation would still not allow them to sell or otherwise dispose of the land to another foreign government or business, and they would need to register the property. Banks originally had the same language for foreign person included in HB 88, but it was amended out of the bill by the committee before the final vote. The same was not done for HB 116. At the end of 2021, foreign investors owned over 426,000 acres of agricultural land in Wyoming, according to the U.S. Department of Ag Economic Research Service, and that number doubled from 2021 to 2020, testified Banks. And while Wyoming acreage is a small amount of more than 40 acres owned by foreign interests in the United States, it is a rising concern. He said he had spoken with many agricultural producers and organizations from across the state who expressed opposition to foreign ownership, some of which appeared before the committee. Public weighs in Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation Director of Public and Governmental Affairs Brett Moline said his group passed a policy at its annual meeting in November to not have foreign government ownership of land in Wyoming. He said he appreciated both bills, even if they werent perfect. Testimony was also heard from Wyoming Stock Growers Association Executive Vice President Jim Magagna, but only in support of Allemands foreign ownership bill. He said he liked all land being included and the specified countries, but he was concerned with language directed at foreign persons. Allemand said his intent with including individuals was he was afraid they may be representing the Chinese government or Russian government, and no one knows they were being directed by the government. He said he wasnt trying to deprive anyone of the American dream, and thats why he included that they could own one acre and build a residence. Im just concerned that they may be a person who is very capable of going beyond owning an acre for a home, and establishing a very viable business in our country, Magnana responded. Perhaps they brought technology and knowledge with them from one of these foreign countries, but they want to use it on our behalf, not on behalf of the country theyve escaped from. Other stakeholders expressed their concern when it came to discerning who would not be allowed to purchase property, including Wyoming Association of Realtors Government Affairs Director Laurie Urbigkit. She testified on HB 88, and clarified the association didnt take a position on either bill preceding her comments. Urbigkit said they were governed by the Federal Fair Housing Act, and arent able to discriminate based on national origin. She said there may be wiggle room if it is only agricultural land and there is no house, but their code of ethics also prohibits discrimination. We had a lengthy discussion about this at our recent state meeting. And everybody appreciates and understands and supports that we dont want foreign governments owning our ag land, we get that, she said. But we dont want to be the police that figures out whos foreign and whos not. She told lawmakers they will most likely continue to sell real estate in Wyoming the same way as they always had. Urbigkit also said she hoped if someone from a foreign nation bought property and they didnt know, they wouldnt be liable for violating the law. Representatives from the mineral industry whose companies are owned by other foreign entities were also worried their investments may be at risk, whether that be their grazing leases or expanding mining projects in the region. Enforcement The testimonies influenced different amendments to HB 88 before it passed, such as only impacting property ownership and not other forms of land acquisition, as well as the removal of foreign persons. However, the greatest change to both bills was an appropriation of $5 million to each for the Secretary of States Office and county clerks. Crago was greatly concerned with the clerks ability to research and investigate each purchase filing, and said he knew it may take extra manpower, hours and technology. He also recognized a criminal penalty for clerks who dont uphold their responsibilities. County Clerks Association of Wyoming lobbyist Mary Lankford emphasized the difficulty with enforcement altogether. She said county clerks have no authority to investigate foreign ownership, and it would need to be built into any legislation that moves forward. This bill says that its going to restrict foreign ownership of property, (but) by the time that document gets to the County Clerks Office, the property has been transferred. The cows out of the barn. The deals done, she said. it would seem to me that it would make sense to put that investigation ahead of that, at a place before the purchase, or at the purchase, to determine if that really is a foreign entity thats purchasing the property, as opposed to when the when the done deal is being recorded and reported to the public. The closing mechanism for transferring real estate is also different in Wyoming than many other states. A lawyer doesnt have to be involved, and any piece of property can be handed over with the deed. Crago said the state didnt have the statutory framework to flag foreign ownership in advance. Allemand recommended removing the clerks responsibility from the bill in a fight against the $5 million appropriation, but many said it would have no teeth without it. Both bills moved on with enforcement in question, and an interim topic on the table. I do think an interim study would be warranted. And if we took this to the floor, it would kill a good many bills, said House Agriculture Committee Chairman John Eklund, R-Cheyenne, before his no vote. I dont know whether our leadership wants to do that, because this took more time than I anticipated. <&rule> PHOTOS: Opening day of the 67th Wyoming Legislative Session 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins Rep. Jeanette Ward 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins 67th Wyoming Legislative Session begins A winter storm shut down highways across southern Wyoming on Thursday evening. Interstate 25 closed between Cheyenne and Wheatland. As of 8 p.m., the highway wasn't expected to open for 22 to 24 hours, according to the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Interstate 80 closed between Cheyenne and Rock Springs. As of 7 p.m., the highway was expected to be remain closed for 12 to 16 hours. Other closures include: U.S. 287 between Lander and Rawlins; Wyoming 220 between Muddy Gap and Wyoming 487; Wyoming 487; Wyoming 34; U.S. 85 between Cheyenne and Yoder. The National Weather Service forecast snow to fall across western Wyoming beginning Thursday evening. That snowfall will move east Friday, with 6 to 10 inches possible along the Interstate 25 corridor and 4 to 6 inches elsewhere. Strong winds and blowing snow were also likely. The 15 states with the most snow-related driving fatalities States with the most driving fatalities related to snow & ice 15. Colorado 14. Oregon 13. New Hampshire 12. Nebraska 11. Iowa 10. Montana 9. Wisconsin 8. Michigan 7. South Dakota 6. Maine 5. Vermont 4. Minnesota 3. Wyoming 2. North Dakota 1. Alaska 15 states with the most snow-related auto fatalities Telecoms provider Flow will increase prices next month. In a notice to its customers on Wednesday, Flow said the 3.5-per cent increase in its Internet and cable packages will come into effect on May 1. Another notice was sent to customers with multiple cable boxes via e-mail on Wednesday. READY TO SERVE: President-elect Christine Kangaloo receives her Instrument of election from Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bridgid Annisette-George, left, and new President of the Senate, Nigel De Freitas, during a brief ceremony at the Rotunda of the Red house yesterday. Photo: JERMAINE CRUICKSHANK The Government, through its State enterprises, has created new opportunities for artisans, s ON BOARD: New Angostura chief executive officer Laurent Schun, centre, poses with new White Oak ambassador Nailah Blackman and House of Angostura brand ambassador Voice (Aaron St Louis) yesterday after the signing ceremony that made the soca stars official brand ambassadors. The event took place at the House of Angostura, Laventille. Photo: JERMAINE CRUICKSHANK The Government needs to promote discussion and engage the public more on initiatives that have major implications for the people and society of Trinidad and Tobago. One example is the current push towards a cashless society in a world touted as one of financial inclusion. This initiative is being led by the Trinidad and Tobago International Financial Centre (TTIFC), which heads the Governments digitalisation initiatives in the financial services sector, and Visa, one of the worlds biggest names in digital payments. While some people insist on chocolate in their banana bread, I much prefer nuts walnuts, to be exact. Theyre a buttery, crunchy counterpart to the sweet and tender crumbs of the classic quick bread. This particular version is packed with them. Combined with a boost of flavor from brown butter and some extra moisture, thanks to a generous spoonful or two of yogurt, this is sure to be a banana bread recipe youll turn to again and again. Tips for making walnut banana bread Reach for your speckled bananas. The riper the bananas, the better when it comes to banana bread. Itll result in a deeper banana flavor. However, if your bananas show any signs of mold or smell off, they shouldnt be used. Use a lot of walnuts, but not too many. While testing, we confirmed that 2/3 cup is perfect. Its a generous amount that ensures youll get walnut in every bite without having the loaf fall apart when sliced. Toast the walnuts. Toasting the nuts before adding them to the batter draws out their deep, earthy flavor. Banana Walnut Bread Serves 8 to 10; makes 1 (9-by-5-inch) loaf 4 tablespoons unsalted butter 2/3 cup raw walnut halves or pieces (about 2 1/2 ounces) 3 very ripe large bananas (about 1 pound) 1 large egg 2/3 cup packed light or dark brown sugar 1/3 cup whole milk Greek or regular plain yogurt 1/4 cup neutral vegetable oil, such as canola or grapeseed 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1. Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350 F. Line a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with parchment paper to form a sling that hangs over the two long sides. 2. Cut 4 tablespoons unsalted butter into two pieces. Place in a small skillet over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter is toasted brown and has a nutty aroma, 4 to 5 minutes. Immediately scrape the browned butter and the solids into a large heatproof bowl. Set aside to cool while you toast the walnuts. 3. Arrange 2/3 cup raw walnuts in an even layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake, stirring halfway through, until lightly browned and fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes total. Transfer to a cutting board and let cool while you make the batter. 4. Add 3 peeled, ripe bananas to the bowl of brown butter and mash with a fork or potato masher until smooth. Add 1 large egg, 2/3 cup packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup whole milk Greek or plain yogurt, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Stir with a flexible spatula until combined. 5. Add 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Stir with the spatula until just incorporated with no streaks of flour. Coarsely chop the walnuts, add to the batter, and fold until just combined. Transfer to the loaf pan and spread into an even layer. 6. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs attached, 55 to 65 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Grasp the parchment paper sling and lift the bread out of the pan onto a wire rack. Let cool completely before slicing, about 1 hour. Recipe notes Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four days. The bread can also be wrapped tightly in aluminum foil and frozen for up to three months. New Santa Catalina District Ranger Donato Don DelMastro feels a sense of awe and responsibility every time he drives to work looking at the Santa Catalina mountains soaring in front of him. My daughters asked me, are those your mountains? and I said, No, they are not my mountains, but I am responsible for them, DelMastro said. As of December, hes responsible for about 200,000 acres of national forest land, one of most heavily used recreation areas in Arizona. The district includes Sabino Canyon, Pusch Ridge Wilderness, recreational areas and trails along the Catalina Highway to Mount Lemmon, Redington Pass, and parts of the Rincon mountains surrounding Saguaro National Park East. DelMastro has had his eye on the job for a number of years. Thats a funny story, said DelMastro, who came to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service as a transfer from nearby Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. Several years ago, when I was first looking into other federal agencies, someone told me Apply for jobs you are not qualified for to get a feel for other agencies. He applied for the Santa Catalina ranger job which was being advertised at the time. He didnt get it then and I wasnt really qualified, he said. But after that I applied for it every time it was advertised. By the time he got the job, he felt he had enough management experience. DelMastro, a Rhode Island native with a degree in political science, joined the U.S. Army after college with several deployments to Iraq as a counterintelligence agent. He moved to Arizona in 2005 for a civilian job at Fort Huachuca, spending 15 years with Human Intelligence Joint Center of Excellence and then the 11th Military Intelligence Brigade. He transferred to the Air Force in 2020 as training program manager for the 68th Rescue Squadron at Davis-Monthan. I was surprised how similar management is in the Forest Service. The district ranger is a leader within the Forest Service whose job is to build a cohesive team. Coming to the district was coming home. Ranger district staff werent sure what to expect with a military veteran, DelMastro said. Their impressions of military leadership were based on the movies. He leads a staff of about 30 employees including a fire crew (fire management is shared with Saguaro National Park), deputy ranger, wildlife biologist, recreation personnel plus resource assistants (recent university graduates who do a six-month stint with a federal agency and then have competitive status for job hiring). The district also is assisted by about 800 volunteers 300 involved on regular basis with Santa Catalina Volunteer Patrol or Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists. Patrollers hike Sabino and other Catalina trails, providing information, environmental advice, and sometimes emergency help to hikers. The naturalists put on hikes and educational programs (see sabinonaturalists.org for a regular schedule of events). In national and state parks, rangers lead hikes, do talks and work in the visitor center. For the Forest Service, Don is the only ranger in Tucson, said Starr Farrell, Coronado National Forest public affairs officer. Saguaro National Park has dozens of rangers. (In the Park Service, a park superintendent is more similar to a district ranger.) Interacting with people is my favorite part of the job, DelMastro said as he roamed the outdoors patio at Sabino Canyon visitor center, which was teeming with visitors of all backgrounds and ages. Just being in uniform, people will stop and ask questions. It reminds you why you are here and who you work for. The ranger compound and DelMastros office sits behind the visitor center; staff can enter it through a locked gate. But I try in the morning to walk through the visitor center to my office just to interact with people. Active winter visitors and local retirees are very willing to hike the trails in the Santa Catalinas in the winter which is our season when we need people on the ground, DelMastro said. We are truly blessed being so close to Tucson. A variety of non-profit groups and volunteers help maintain district trails. Volunteers with Southern Arizona Rescue Association (SARA) rescue people who get lost or hurt on or off them. During a recent rain event when Catalina canyons suddenly flooded, SARA volunteers walked 14 people out who were stranded in Bear Canyon, DelMastro said. The hikers were routed up along ridges out of the canyon. On Christmas Day, SARA rescued an injured hiker who had slipped off the icy Butterfly Trail (contouring around back side of Mt. Bigelow) and fallen 200 feet. They set up a rope system and were able to pack the person out, he said. The Santa Catalina district is one of five managed by the Coronado National Forest with its Supervisors Office (headquarters) in Tucson. District offices in Douglas, Safford, Nogales and Sierra Vista lack large populations to draw volunteers although all have active programs. The Supervisors Office works in partnership with the districts, DelMastro said. They provide the planning and grant-seeking, and we handle operations, he said. DelMastro is married, lives in Tucson, and has three daughters. Outside of the job, he likes to spend his time with his family, hiking, camping and cooking. Photos: Sabino Canyon through the years PHOENIX Arizonas top two GOP legislators want Gov. Katie Hobbs to put donated money left over from her inaugural celebration into a state account where it cant be used to elect more Democrats. In a hand-delivered letter Thursday, House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen called on the Democratic governor to surrender control of whats left from the more than $1.5 million she collected, as first reported by Capitol Media Services, for the Jan. 5 celebration. The listed costs for the celebration totaled about $207,000. The excess is controlled by a corporation set up under the Internal Revenue Code as a social welfare organization. Under federal law, such proceeds can be used for political purposes. That alarmed the two Republican leaders, who said it isnt right. Nicole DeMont, who was Hobbs campaign manager and now runs that social welfare organization refused to comment on the request. So the money remains where it is and can potentially be used to buy campaign ads in 2024 to elect Democrats and defeat Republicans. In asking Hobbs to surrender the money, Toma and Petersen said she should put any excess into a state Protocol Fund. Under state law, Protocol Fund money can be used for promoting the interests of the state or to promote and encourage citizen public service to this state. Governors also have used it for other purposes, ranging from new office carpeting to gifts for foreign dignitaries. Previous Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, used some of the proceeds of his first inaugural to pay the costs of hiring a transition team, an aide has said. Significantly, any expenditures from the Protocol Fund must be disclosed in an annual public report. Nothing in state law appears to require Hobbs to surrender control of whats left of her inaugural collections. But Toma and Petersen told her she should follow in your predecessors footsteps and transfer the excess to the Protocol Fund. Given this historical practice, as well as the Inaugural Funds own descriptive title, Arizonans would have reasonably anticipated that any excess funds would be used for state interests, they told her. They also hinted that failure to do so could lead to legal challenges. Thats because there was a link on the governors state-run web page where people were given a number they could call if they wanted to become paying sponsors. That, the GOP lawmakers argue, means public resources ... were used to solicit funds for the Inaugural Fund, the leftovers of which, if kept in the social welfare account, could be used in the 2024 election to try to get a Democratic majority at the Arizona Capitol. It would be inappropriate to utilize any monies in the Inaugural Fund to influence an election, Toma and Petersen said, citing state statutes that prohibit public resources to affect the outcome of any vote. There is no evidence that in seeking donations, members of Hobbs inaugural committee made specific promises, either to donors or others, of how any leftover funds would be used. Arizona Public Service, the states largest electric utility, was the biggest donor at $250,000. Company spokesman Mike Philipsen would say only that the company was joining Arizona businesses to support the governors inauguration. He also said the donation is directed specifically to the 2023 gubernatorial inauguration committee, meaning it can be used in support of all inauguration functions. Philipsen did not respond to follow-up questions about how APS felt about the possibility of having some of its donations used to elect Democrats. The rest of the list of donors is made up largely of other special interests and lobbyists with business at the Capitol. Hobbs office said, however, she will surrender whats left in a separate State Inaugural Fund, distinct from the social welfare organization, that received direct donations and pledges of about $85,000. The largest of those was $25,000 from food giant conglomerate Pepsico. Any money left over from that fund after all vendors are paid will be transferred to the Protocol Fund, said Hobbs press aide Josselyn Berry. PHOENIX Senate Republicans are working to greatly boost the penalties for people who supply fentanyl, advancing a bill Thursday that would subject someone who makes, transports or sells the drug to life in prison or the death penalty if someone dies after taking the powerful synthetic opioid. But the proposal from Republican state Sen. Anthony Kern of Glendale got a cold reception from people who testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, along with Democrats, who worried the broad language in the bill could lead to friends or family members of overdose victims being prosecuted. Democrats on the committee also raised concerns that people who provided the drug would avoid calling for medical help for an overdose victim because they fear prosecution, even with provisions in a Good Samaritan law currently on the books. They include Phoenix Sen. Christine Marsh, whose 25-year-old son Landon Marsh died in 2020 after he took what he thought was a prescription opioid that was in fact fentanyl. Timothy Sparling, an attorney with the Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a group that advocates for defendants, said Kerns proposal, Senate Bill 1029, could sweep up family members, friends or others if someone got hold of drugs they had and ended up dying. This would lead to scores of murder convictions for drug users who by virtue of their use, or possession of fentanyl alone, will be a cause of death of another, Sparling told the panel. Sparling said a husband who gave his wife a pill to handle her pain could get life in prison, or friends who are partying together where one ends up overdosing could face first-degree-murder charges. It doesnt matter if it was an accidental overdose, and it will hurt the people who hurt the most from these situations oftentimes, by putting them in prison, he said. Time to put the hammer down The move is prompted by the ongoing opioid epidemic, which has seen nearly 8,000 people die of overdoses in the past five years, according to statistics compiled by the Arizona Department of Health Services. The department does not post a breakdown on how many of those deaths were caused by fentanyl as opposed to other opioids, but for non-fatal overdoses the rate was 64% last year. Kern said it is time to crack down on those who provide the drug to others. We all know of the fentanyl problem out there, he said. I know probably everybody in this room knows of someone that has died of fentanyl, and its time in my opinion to put the hammer down. The proposed law expands what is known as the felony murder rule, which allows prosecutions even if someone was not directly involved in causing a death. Kern said the Good Samaritan law, which bars prosecutions of someone who calls for help for an overdose victim, would bar prosecutions of that person. Sparling disagreed, saying there is no exception to Kerns proposal. Kern acknowledged that courts would be involved in those decisions. If a person is arrested then it has to go through the court process, Kern said. In my understanding everybody except Jan. 6 prisoners and certain Republicans get due process. Kern was referring to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked Congress in an effort to stop lawmakers from confirming Joe Bidens win. Kern was there but has said he did not enter the Capitol and did not take part in the riot. Federal prosecutors have charged more than 900 people with taking part in the attack on Congress, and nearly 500 of them have pleaded guilty, according to The Associated Press. Several dozen have gone to trial and the vast majority have been convicted. Another bill sponsored by Kern greatly reduces the amount of fentanyl needed to merit major felony charges, lowering it from nine grams to two milligrams, and allows major boosts to prison sentences if someone under 15 overdoses. Conflicting proposals? Democratic Sen. Anna Hernandez of Phoenix said the proposals are in conflict with one from Fountain Hills Republican Sen. John Kavanagh that opposes defunding police but also says law enforcement should focus on high-risk offenders, expand rehabilitative programs and work to reduce prison populations. I think that we are looking at using hard criminalization in the wrong way here, Hernandez said. Why are we not also using Sen. Kavanaghs language from his referendum to help us build a better policy to address the fentanyl issue? Kern said that is a different issue. Kavanagh, a committee member, suggested that the provision on sales of fentanyl should be removed to prevent small amounts from triggering major prison sentences, but it remained when he voted along with other GOP committee members to advance Kerns bill. No Democrats backed Kerns bill. Democrats on the committee also raised concerns that someone who provides a drug might not even know it is fentanyl. The opioid has been mixed into many other drugs and sold on the street as other narcotics. Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack of Tucson wasnt buying that, saying she had no problem seeing those who distribute fentanyl subject to the death penalty. I have a real issue with giving any leniency to somebody whos dealing with fentanyl, with other peoples lives, Wadsack said. I dont know that we need to be worrying about how drug dealers can verify that their drugs are safe for the street. WASHINGTON (AP) They are now among the most powerful women in Congress. But when they were first elected in the 1990s, they were often overlooked, or even talked down to. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, remembers that men would avoid asking her questions, addressing other men in the room instead. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., says a male colleague once challenged her at a hearing to describe a military tank engine produced in her district without looking at her notes. (She shot back: "Damn straight I can!") Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, says that one of the first times she chaired a committee hearing, she looked around the room and realized she was the only female senator there. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., recalls being seated on the far edge of the committee dais, with the more senior men making the decisions in the middle. "I remember finally just standing up at the end of the table going, 'Excuse me!' Because you couldn't get their attention," Murray says. "Everything was decided in the middle of this table. I think it's pretty amazing that we're at the middle of the table now." This year, for the first time in history, the four leaders of the two congressional spending committees are women. Granger is chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, while DeLauro is the top Democrat; Murray is Senate Appropriations chairwoman and Collins is the top Republican. The 5 female leaders now overseeing federal spending Shalanda Young Sen. Patty Murray Sen. Susan Collins Rep. Kay Granger Rep. Rosa DeLauro Sitting down with The Associated Press on Thursday for their first joint interview and joined by Shalanda Young, the first Black woman to lead the Office of Management and Budget and a former House aide the women talked like old friends, nodding and laughing in agreement when listening to each others' stories about the way things used to be for women, and sometimes still are. When they were elected, Collins says, men were automatically accepted once they came to Congress but women still had to prove themselves. "That extra barrier that was definitely in place still exists to some extent, but far less than it used to," Collins said. "Women bring different life experiences and different perspectives. And that's why it matters." The women said their camaraderie, friendship and willingness to collaborate will be crucial as they shoulder the massive responsibility of keeping the government running and open an annual task that will be made even harder this year as conservatives in the new GOP House majority are insisting on major spending cuts and the U.S. is at risk of default. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., won his post only after agreeing to several demands of those far-right members, creating a dynamic that could prove perilous for negotiations as Congress must raise the debt ceiling in the coming months. "This is a moment in time," DeLauro says. "You are really looking at five women who have control of the most powerful levers of government." Still, she says, "none of us have our head in the sand. We know there are difficulties that are going to be involved." Granger is in the trickiest position as she tries to balance the demands of the House GOP conference with her own responsibility to keep the government running. One important task ahead, she said, is explaining what appropriators do to the public. While the committees are rarely in the spotlight, they are the beating heart of Congress, writing "must-pass" bills that keep the government running. Decisions about funding levels for almost everything the government pays for from the military to health care to food safety to federal highways pass through the hands of appropriators. Asked about the challenge ahead, Granger says "deadlines are very important" when communicating to the Republican conference. She said there will come a time when she'll have to tell GOP colleagues, "This is when it has to be final." Another key to the negotiations will be Young, who is the former Democratic staff director for the House appropriations panel and has maintained a close relationship with all four women since becoming the Cabinet-level OMB director for President Joe Biden. DeLauro and Granger threw her a baby shower before she gave birth to her daughter in 2021, she says, and "you cannot replace those relationships." Young's relationships were helpful at the end of last year as lawmakers labored to pass a massive, $1.7 trillion spending bill that funded federal agencies through September and provided another significant round of military and economic aid to Ukraine. Signaling potential troubles ahead, though, Granger did not sign off on the final bill as GOP leadership balked. Young joked that the four lawmakers probably wouldn't have invited any other OMB director to do an interview with them. Murray agreed, saying she answers their calls and texts immediately, "and that is new for me." As the OMB director, Young says, one of her jobs is to help the appropriators be successful. "You probably need to pick up the phone every now and then and show up," she says. "And we don't have to start from scratch. I became who I am on the committee that they now lead. So that's a special relationship." The women were gathered in Murray's office, an enviable spot on the West front of the Capitol with a dead-on view of the Washington Monument. It was once the domain of legendary appropriator Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. Murray recalled when she entered the same room just after she was elected in 1992 the so-called "year of the woman" and asked Byrd outright for a seat on the powerful spending panel. As one of the only women in the Senate, Murray immediately won the coveted seat. But she found that she had to assert herself in what was still very much an old boys' club. Thirty years later, she became chairwoman of the panel, replacing now-retired Sen. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy. She also replaced Leahy as the Senate pro tempore, a senior member of the majority who presides over the Senate and is third in line to the presidency. "This office has been inhabited by numerous men who smoke cigars," Murray said as she welcomed her colleagues. "I'm delighted it no longer is." Murray and Collins, in particular, have a long history together. In 2013, they were both key to efforts to end a government shutdown. And as they replaced Leahy and retiring Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama as committee leaders this year, they immediately issued a joint statement calling for a return to the regular process of passing individual spending bills "in a responsible and bipartisan manner," instead of shoving them all into one massive bill at the end of the year. Collins said no one on either side of the aisle, in either chamber wants to fund the government again with a huge, end-of-the-year bill. "I truly believe we can make real progress by working closely together," she said. All of them give credit to their female predecessors on the committees, including former Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat who was the first chairwoman of the Senate appropriations panel and used to invite new senators to her office for what she called a "workshop" on the appropriations process so they could become more familiar with the elaborate workings of the committee. In an interview, Mikulski, who retired in 2017 after 30 years in the Senate, says the women are "brilliant strategists" who may disagree on policy but won't let rancor come between them. "What I'm excited about is that they have not only broken the glass ceiling, but they have the keys to the vault," Mikulski says. During our working years, people are more stimulated and have things to focus on. When retirement comes, our brains need something new to do. At the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, learning every day is what they do. Known as OLLI at OSU, the organization keeps seniors active and social through classes, lectures, workshops, travel opportunities and special events. This member-driven program is designed for adults age 50 and over who are interested in enriching their lives through intellectual experiences. There are no tests and no grades. Members pursue learning for pure pleasure. As we get older, learning creates excitement for life and wakes up the mind. You are engaged with the people and the world around you, said Mona Long, a longtime member and regular OLLI student. OLLI offers in-person courses in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Bartlesville and Stillwater, in addition to online classes, which reach students all over the state and even some outside Oklahomas borders. The schedule for OLLI at OSU runs on what you might recognize as a shortened semester calendar, with courses offered three times a year in the fall, spring and summer. Most classes are one day a week at either 10 a.m. or 1:30 p.m. and run for as little as two weeks and as long as eight weeks. Single classes are also available both online and in person. The upcoming spring session will begin the week of Feb. 13 and includes topics as wide-ranging as fashion history, learning to play canasta and the Space Station. Each city also hosts a weekly OLLI Town Hall, where local leaders, topic experts and University representatives visit. Volunteer instructors include current and retired OSU faculty, museum and facility directors from across the state, authors, historians, astrophysicists, medical professionals, musicians, artists and all other types of subject-matter experts. Travel excursions are also available through the program. The group has been on day trips as well as overnight trips to visit museums, industry and historical locations. The travel program will include international destinations in the near future. Memberships are $40 (a la carte annual membership) or $200 (premium annual membership). All programming is funded through memberships and donations. For more information, visit olli.okstate.edu online, email olli@okstate.edu or call 405.744.5868. This content was produced by Brand Ave. Studios. The news and editorial departments had no role in its creation or display. Brand Ave. Studios connects advertisers with a targeted audience through compelling content programs, from concept to production and distribution. For more information contact sales@brandavestudios.com. A daughter of Tulsa Countys district attorney was found not guilty by reason of mental illness on Friday of charges stemming from the September stabbing of her father. Its clear that Jennifer Kunzweiler, 31, committed the physical acts as alleged in the criminal case, McIntosh County Associate District Judge Brendon Bridges said, but the evidence to show she was not in her right mind during the assault, including testimony from witnesses and a private psychologists evaluation, is overwhelming. Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler quickly recovered from the physical injuries he received in the Sept. 27 assault a slash to his right bicep and a stab wound near his lower ribs and he was the first witness Wagoner County District Attorney Jack Thorp called to the stand in the nonjury trial. Despite his experience as a criminal prosecutor and caring for Jennifer Kunzweiler over the course of her life, Steve Kunzweiler testified that he had never before seen a look like he did in her eyes that day. Holding back tears as he recounted the nightmarish experience, he contrasted the emotionless, irresponsive woman who came toward him with a knife from their kitchen butcher block. I know its my daughter, he tried to explain. But its not Jenny. He said Jennifer Kunzweiler, his middle daughter, is one of the most empathetic and compassionate people I know. Jennifer Kunzweiler moved back in with her parents a few years ago after suffering what her father called horrific domestic violence in a romantic relationship that stripped her of her self-esteem. She began struggling with anxiety and mental illness shortly thereafter, the family has said. Steve Kunzweiler testified that he had seen Jennifer Kunzweiler off to work at a bakery that morning and just made it in to work himself when he received a desperate call from his wife, veterinarian Dr. Christine Kunzweiler. Jennifer Kunzweiler had returned home, and something was wrong, his wife told him. Shes not looking right, the district attorney recounted hearing, explaining that due to the concern in his wifes voice, he knew he needed to drop his work and go to her. He met her with Jennifer Kunzweiler at a psychiatrists office, and as his wife went on to work, he sat in on their daughters evaluation. She was reserved and told the psychiatrist she was having dark thoughts, but she didnt expound on them when given the opportunity, he said. She hadnt been sleeping for several days, and that, combined with her anxiety, was not good, Steve Kunzweiler remembered the psychiatrist saying. The doctor prescribed her an additional medication to help her sleep and stressed the importance of her doing so, he said. Although still acting as though something was unsettling to her, Jennifer Kunzweiler and her father ate a meal at a restaurant, did some detailing at a car wash and went for a walk in their neighborhood before returning home. It wasnt long after Steve Kunzweiler had gone outside to mow the yard that he turned and saw his daughter coming toward him with that look in her eyes and a knife in her hand. He tried to block her thrust of the knife with his right arm, but after she stabbed him, he said, he took the knife from her hand and shoved her back, asking her what she was doing. She looked at him with the same dark look in her eyes, he said, and just matter-of-factly said, I need to kill you. He noticed that she was bleeding from a wound in her abdomen he later determined was self-inflicted, and he began looking for his phone to call 911, he said. Jennifer Kunzweiler seemed confused and perhaps caught up in some type of internal struggle as he requested help, but she began trying to get the knife from him again, he thinks, when she heard the sirens of approaching first responders. The first firefighters at the scene subdued her, and Steve Kunzweiler said he later heard her yelling as she was being loaded into an ambulance, Dad, Dad, youll be OK. Ill make sure nobody hurts you. Jennifer Kunzweiler sat quietly in the courtroom in an orange jumpsuit and shackles as her father and a police officer testified for about two hours. Her attorney, Allen Smallwood, asked that she be found not guilty by reason of mental illness in closing arguments an outcome Thorp said satisfied his pursuit of justice. The judge reminded Jennifer Kunzweiler that she is valuable and explained that her journey is not over. His official finding triggers the involvement of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services for her continuing evaluation and treatment, Thorp said. Jennifer Kunzweiler will remain in custody with periodic court hearings on experts reports to determine whether she can be discharged. Featured video: Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler speaks about mental health after being stabbed by daughter Some 172,000 student loan debt relief applications from Oklahomans have been approved and forwarded for discharge, federal officials say, but their status remains on hold pending the outcome of a legal battle. The state numbers were part of data released this week for the first time by the Biden-Harris administration, which first announced its student debt forgiveness plan last August. Applications were accepted for four weeks before the process was shut down by legal challenges. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in two related court cases in late February that could determine the efforts fate. Overall, 26 million people nationally either applied for one-time debt relief or had already provided sufficient information to be deemed eligible for relief, federal officials said. More than 16 million of those applications were fully approved by the Department of Education and sent to loan servicers for discharge. Of those, borrowers from California and Texas stood to benefit the most, at more than 1.4 million approved from each. In Oklahoma, a total of 270,000 people applied or were deemed automatically eligible for relief. Among Oklahoma residents, about 12.3% have student loan debt and owe on average $31,525, according to educationdata.org. The plan as announced would provide up to $20,000 in debt relief to more than 40 million Americans. When we opened the application for this program in October, we saw tremendous excitement immediately. In fact, in the first weekend alone, 8 million people applied, Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council, said during a media conference call Thursday. Unfortunately, less than a month after we published our application, court challenges brought on by Republican officials and special interests blocked us from accepting more applications or from discharging debt for those borrowers who have been fully approved. Nearly 90% of the benefits of the relief would go to people earning less than $75,000 per year, he said. The pandemic-era debt payment pause will remain in effect through the end of June, followed by a 60-day transition period, Ramamurti said. That should give us enough time after the Supreme Court rules to transition to the next phase of all of this, he said. He said the administration has no backup plan if the court strikes down the plan. But our lawyers and our team are very confident in our legal authority here, he said. We have laid out our arguments in our brief to the Supreme Court. Well see what the other side has to say on that. Opponents of the plan have broadly challenged the executive branchs power to cancel student loan debt en masse. The administration contends that a law passed after 9/11 gives the president the ability to forgive student loan debt in connection with national emergencies. Ramamurti said: We are fighting for the 40 million borrowers eligible and the tens of millions of borrowers who have already applied and should have already gotten the relief that they need. Featured video: With Biden plan in limbo, DOE proposes student loan changes How student loan debt has increased over time How student loan debt has increased over time Student loan debt is the biggest form of debt after mortgages Student loan debt growth is outpacing inflation Student loan debt is outpacing income Growing college costs adding to financial strain Oklahoma lawmakers prefiled almost 3,100 bills and joint resolutions for the first session of the 59th Legislature. The first session of the 59th Legislature will begin noon Feb. 6 with the State of the State address from Gov. Kevin Stitt in the House Chamber. This years total includes 1,116 Senate bills, 18 Senate joint resolutions, 1,901 House bills and 44 House joint resolutions. Those measures will now be assigned to committees in their chambers of origin, with committee chairs generally given the power to decide which are taken up and which are not. Most bills will be sidelined in less than a month, and only about 400 will eventually make it into law. These are just a few highlights from proposed legislation for this session. ATOKA Oklahoma country music superstar Reba McEntire came home for the Thursday grand opening of Rebas Place. Its a new restaurant, live music venue and retail space in downtown Atoka. Its also personal. Confirmation can be found on the third floor of Rebas Place. The third floor is the merch floor, but it also houses a library a sitting area with couches, chairs and rows upon rows of shelved books. The books belonged to McEntires mother, who died in 2020. Those books now are part of the Rebas Place library. Its really a special room, McEntire said. When you walk up there and see it, I hope you feel what I felt. Mamas up there. Grab a seat and grab you a book. Rebas Place is a 100-year-old former Masonic Temple at 319 Court St. The celebrity-branded venue came about through a partnership between McEntire, the city and the Choctaw Nation. The venture was announced in late 2021 and recently became reality. A soft opening was followed by a private grand opening event that began with a press conference featuring McEntire and chef Kurtess Mortensen. McEntire called herself a professional restaurant goer and followed up with this: The best thing I can make is a reservation. But she leaned on Mortensen and they teamed to create a made-from-scratch menu that reflects her tastes. I let chef Kurtess do the menu, McEntire said. I told him the sort of things I really want to have, like beans and cornbread. I love beans. I love cornbread. Certain things like that. And then he kept bringing up other stuff. Mortensen said he sent McEntire a questionnaire to find out what she likes and doesnt like as far as food and beverages and we just kind of built it from there. McEntire said Mortensen kept coming with more things to eat and the menu, which she initially intended to be small, swelled to two pages. Speaking of growth, the opening of Rebas Place is expected to spur economic growth in Atoka. McEntire, who was raised in nearby Chockie and attended school in Kiowa, was asked why she chose Atoka for Rebas Place. Her reply: The people. The people asking. The people who had a passion. You can try and do something by yourself all day long. And thats hard. Its not any fun. But when you have people that are excited about it more than I was excited about it and they kept saying, Its going to help our town. Its going to help our community. Its going to bring jobs in. Well, shoot. I cant say no to that. It kind of snowballed on me there for a little bit, but Im really glad it all worked out like it did. At the beginning of the press conference, McEntire said Rebas Place turned out to be something way beyond her imagination. I just wish Mama and Daddy were here to see it, she said. They would love it. Featured video: Photos: Grand opening of Reba McEntire's new restaurant Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Reba's Place Check out our latest digital-only offer and subscribe now OKLAHOMA CITY Attorney General Gentner Drummond has appointed an independent counsel to review the case of a high-profile death-row inmate who claims to be innocent. Former prosecutor Rex Duncan will review all aspects of the investigation, trial, sentencing and appeals process for Richard Glossip, who is set to be executed for the 1997 beating death of his boss, Oklahoma City motel owner Barry Van Treese, Drummonds office announced Thursday. Glossips attorneys claim that their client was set up by a motel maintenance man who they argue killed Van Treese during a botched robbery and shifted the blame to Glossip to avoid getting the death penalty himself. The maintenance worker, Justin Sneed, confessed to the killing, saying Glossip offered to pay him $10,000 to commit the crime. Drummond said the independent review will help his office prepare for the clemency hearing that will take place weeks before Glossips May 18 execution. The review also will ensure that justice is served for the Van Treese family and the accused, the attorney general said. As my office will represent the State at the clemency hearing, it is my responsibility to ensure that we are appropriately responding to all evidence that has been presented through Mr. Glossips conviction and incarceration, Drummond said in a statement. Circumstances surrounding this case necessitate a thorough review. While I am confident in our judicial system, that does not allow me to ignore evidence. Drummond said he spoke with members of the Van Treese family prior to engaging the independent counsel. Don Knight, Glossips attorney, praised Drummond for appointing an independent counsel. From the beginning of our work on this case, all we have asked for is a fair review of all the evidence, he said in a statement. Glossips attorneys sought a new hearing before the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to present new evidence they said would prove that their client is innocent. The appeals court denied that request in November. A bipartisan group of state lawmakers led by Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, backed the call for a new evidentiary hearing, a request that was not supported by former Attorney General John OConnor. Duncan, a retired Oklahoma Army National Guard colonel and former state lawmaker, served as the district attorney for Osage and Pawnee counties from 2011 to 2019. Glossip has been on death row for more than 20 years and has had his execution date stayed or reprieved multiple times. Featured video: 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 The remains of 4-year-old Athena Brownfield were positively identified Thursday, according to an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation social media post. Her remains were found Jan. 17 near Rush Springs, about 15 miles from Cyril, where she was reported missing, the OSBI said. The search for Athena began earlier this month when a postal carrier found her 5-year-old sister wandering by herself and alerted authorities. Athena is thought to have been beaten to death on Dec. 25 and buried by one of her caregivers, 36-year-old Ivon Adams, according to court documents. Adams was arrested in Arizona and has since been charged with the murder of Athena and child neglect in relation to her sister. The children's other caregiver, Alyisa Adams, 31, was arrested in Oklahoma and has been charged with two counts of child neglect. A service for Athena was held in Enid last week. Video: 988 is the new suicide and crisis helpline Ruth Kaiser Nelson, one of Tulsas most prominent philanthropists and a leading force behind improving public housing in the city, died Wednesday. She was 87. A service is set for noon Friday at Congregation Bnai Emunah. Fitzgerald Ivy Funeral Home is handling arrangements. A member of Tulsas influential Kaiser family a clan of Jewish refugees who made it big in Oklahoma oil Nelson had many philanthropic interests, but none more so than public housing, which became a consuming passion. A longtime leader with the Tulsa Housing Authority, she chaired the agencys board from 1991 to 2016, when she retired as the longest-serving mayoral appointee at the time in the city. Nelson is credited with helping turn the failing public agency around, and under her leadership it earned top marks from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which designated it a high performer. Thousands have had better housing in Tulsa because of her, Mayor G.T. Bynum said Thursday of Nelson. She was a quietly historic figure for Tulsa. She was humble, brilliant and tirelessly committed to helping others. I will always remember, Bynum added, sitting in a packed City Council chamber, watching a room full of people jeer her as she sought to build housing for those who needed it in our city to avoid homelessness. She didnt hide or get angry or yell back; she just sat and listened to every one of them. She got it built, and it has served hundreds of our neighbors who have had better lives because of her work. She led a remarkable life. And I am so grateful she was a Tulsan. Nelson hailed from a family of high performers. Among others, it includes her younger brother, billionaire oilman and philanthropist George Kaiser, and her son, award-winning actor Tim Blake Nelson. Nelsons parents, Herman and Kate Kaiser, made the familys success possible when they decided to immigrate to the United States. With the rise of the Nazi party, they fled Germany in the late 1930s and settled in Tulsa, where they had relatives. It was there that Herman started Kaiser-Francis Oil Co., which his son, George, would eventually take over. Nelson became a successful independent oil and gas producer in her own right, running her own Tulsa-based oil production company. One of Nelsons earliest philanthropic interests was the work of what is now the Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges. She served as board president, and it was in that role that she observed firsthand the Tulsa Housing Authority and some of the problems it faced. The center had partnered with THA on a property next door, from which residents routinely called 911 trying to get help. Getting involved with THA, Nelson helped chart a new future for the beleaguered agency, creating partnerships with other agencies and introducing changes to services and senior management. For residents, long overdue repairs and renovations were completed, vacant units filled and new programs introduced under Nelson. Although new public housing properties were sometimes hotly contested, Nelson defended them. Projects she helped push through included new facilities in north Tulsa, west Tulsa, and a four-story complex just north of Interstate 244 on Yale Avenue, which stirred a lot of public opposition. In 1985, Nelson began a long relationship with Planned Parenthood of Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma. She served on its board as a member and president and was later presented the agencys highest honor, the Founders Award. Nelson also served on the boards of the Magic Empire Council of Girl Scouts and Tulsa Jewish Retirement and Health Center. She was a lifelong supporter of her alma mater, Bryn Mawr College, and served on the universitys Board of Trustees. Nelson promoted higher education locally, as well. Most recently, that included supporting the new Herman & Kate Kaiser Student Success Center, named after her parents, on Tulsa Community Colleges Northeast Campus. TCC President Leigh Goodson said Nelson previously was part of a fundraising campaign that helped TCC raise a record $20 million in 18 months. She leaves a legacy of abundant generosity with her time, energy and support, Goodson said. I worked closely with Ruth over several years for community projects. Her leadership demonstrated great passion and empathy as she focused her efforts to support the communitys youth and our students while working to build stronger families. Among Nelsons many honors, she was a member of the Tulsa Hall of Fame and Tulsa Library Hall of Fame, and in 2016 the City Council awarded her the key to the city in recognition of her work with housing, women and the poor. Beyond Tulsa, she was a recipient of the National Council of Jewish Womens Solomon Award for her social efforts. But despite all the public acknowledgement, most of Nelsons charity efforts were done quietly and anonymously, say those who knew her best. Chea Redditt, THA president and CEO during Nelsons tenure, said of Nelson: Her drive and determination has touched the lives of tens of thousands of Tulsans not Tulsans of wealth or power, but the disabled and the poor. Whether they know it or not, Ruth Nelson has changed their lives. Nelson is survived by her husband, Tom Murphy; brother, George Kaiser; four children, Mike Nelson, Pam Nelson, Randy Nelson and Tim Nelson; and 10 grandchildren. Memorial donations may be made to the Tulsa Center for Individuals with Physical Challenges or Clare House. Featured video: Hanoi earned more than VND1 trillion (US$42.6 million) from 330,000 visitors in five days of the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, according to the citys tourism department. The number of visitors, calculated from January 21 to Thursday, is three-fold that of the same period last year. That included 32,000 international visitors, most of whom came from South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Canada, and 300,000 domestic tourists. The Van Mieu Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature - Imperial Academy) in Dong Da District welcomed 80,000 people, while the same number of visitors came to the Huong Pagoda in My Duc District. The UNESCO-recognized Thang Long Imperial Citadel in Ba Dinh District received 19,680 visitors. About 18,000 people visited the Co Loa relic site in Dong Anh District. Duong Lam Village and the Son Tay ancient fortress citadel in Son Tay Town drew some 15,000 visitors, Hanoi Zoo in Ba Dinh District received 17,235 people. The Hoa Lo Prison relic site in Hoan Kiem District, Hong Van ornamental creature village in Thuong Tin District, Bat Trang pottery village in Gia Lam District, and many temples in the capital city also recorded a sharp increase in visitors. The citys total tourism revenue during the five-day period is estimated at VND1 trillion. The occupancy rate of hotel rooms reaches 40 percent during the same period, according to the Hanoi Department of Tourism, which expects the city to remain a favorite destination for tourists in the coming days, when many attractive festivals begin at famous spiritual tourist attractions. The 2023 Tet break lasted seven days from January 20 to 26 in Vietnam. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Hanoi earned more than VND1 trillion (US$42.6 million) from 330,000 visitors in five days of the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, according to the citys tourism department. The number of visitors, calculated from January 21 to Thursday, is three-fold that of the same period last year. That included 32,000 international visitors, most of whom came from South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Canada, and 300,000 domestic tourists. The Van Mieu Quoc Tu Giam (Temple of Literature - Imperial Academy) in Dong Da District welcomed 80,000 people, while the same number of visitors came to the Huong Pagoda in My Duc District. The UNESCO-recognized Thang Long Imperial Citadel in Ba Dinh District received 19,680 visitors. About 18,000 people visited the Co Loa relic site in Dong Anh District. Duong Lam Village and the Son Tay ancient fortress citadel in Son Tay Town drew some 15,000 visitors, Hanoi Zoo in Ba Dinh District received 17,235 people. The Hoa Lo Prison relic site in Hoan Kiem District, Hong Van ornamental creature village in Thuong Tin District, Bat Trang pottery village in Gia Lam District, and many temples in the capital city also recorded a sharp increase in visitors. The citys total tourism revenue during the five-day period is estimated at VND1 trillion. The occupancy rate of hotel rooms reaches 40 percent during the same period, according to the Hanoi Department of Tourism, which expects the city to remain a favorite destination for tourists in the coming days, when many attractive festivals begin at famous spiritual tourist attractions. The 2023 Tet break lasted seven days from January 20 to 26 in Vietnam. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Climate extremes in the Amazon rainforest are directly affecting those in the Tibetan Plateau, scientists said Thursday, warning that the Himalayan region crucial for the water security of millions was close to a potentially disastrous "tipping point". Planet-heating pollution from human activities is raising global temperatures and scientists have said this is pushing crucial ecosystems and whole regions towards often irreversible changes. Vulnerable areas include melting polar ice sheets that could cause metres of sea-level rise, as well as the Amazon basin, where tropical forests are at risk of turning into savannah. But can one tipping point have a domino effect on another region? Recent research suggests this is already happening. Climate-driven changes in the Amazon basin have knock-on effects on the Tibetan Plateau 20,000 kilometres (12,500 miles) away, scientists in China, Europe and Israel reported in Nature Climate Change earlier this month. "We've been surprised to see how strongly climate extremes in the Amazon are connected to climate extremes in Tibet," said co-author Jurgen Kurths from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The researchers used global near-surface temperature data over the last 40 years to map out a pathway of climate links. They stretched from South America to Southern Africa, on to the Middle East and finally into the Tibetan Plateau. In their study, the researchers then used computer simulations to track how global warming might change these long-distance link-ups out to 2100. They found that when it gets warmer in the Amazon, temperatures also rise in Tibet. But when rain increases in the South American rainforest, snowfall decreases in the Himalayan region, sometimes called the "third pole". 'Tipping cascades' Using snow cover data, the scientists also detected what they say are early warnings the Tibetan Plateau has been approaching a tipping point of its own since 2008. The Tibetan Plateau supplies a substantial proportion of the water needs of almost two billion people across South Asia, Southeast Asia and China. Research published in Nature Climate Change last year said climate change could deplete terrestrial water storage over the Tibetan Plateau, which may ultimately threaten water availability downstream. Other studies have shown a warming trend in recent decades in the region which -- like the Arctic region -- is warming two to three times faster than the global average. But Kurths said the proximity to a potential point-of-no-return transition had been "overlooked so far". The researchers said that while their study suggests a heightened risk of "tipping cascades" it was unlikely that the climate system as a whole would flip into a new state. "Yet, over time, sub-continental tipping events can severely affect entire societies and threaten important parts of the biosphere," said co-author Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from PIK. "This is a risk we should rather avoid." To avoid the worst impacts of warming, countries have agreed to keep temperatures from rising above the limit of well below two degrees Celsius since the mid-1900s, and preferably below 1.5C. For that to be achieved, planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, must decline some 45 percent compared to 2020 levels by the end of this decade, and to net zero by mid-century, according to the UN's climate science advisory body. Climate extremes in the Amazon rainforest are directly affecting those in the Tibetan Plateau, scientists said Thursday, warning that the Himalayan region crucial for the water security of millions was close to a potentially disastrous "tipping point". Planet-heating pollution from human activities is raising global temperatures and scientists have said this is pushing crucial ecosystems and whole regions towards often irreversible changes. Vulnerable areas include melting polar ice sheets that could cause metres of sea-level rise, as well as the Amazon basin, where tropical forests are at risk of turning into savannah. But can one tipping point have a domino effect on another region? Recent research suggests this is already happening. Climate-driven changes in the Amazon basin have knock-on effects on the Tibetan Plateau 20,000 kilometres (12,500 miles) away, scientists in China, Europe and Israel reported in Nature Climate Change earlier this month. "We've been surprised to see how strongly climate extremes in the Amazon are connected to climate extremes in Tibet," said co-author Jurgen Kurths from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The researchers used global near-surface temperature data over the last 40 years to map out a pathway of climate links. They stretched from South America to Southern Africa, on to the Middle East and finally into the Tibetan Plateau. In their study, the researchers then used computer simulations to track how global warming might change these long-distance link-ups out to 2100. They found that when it gets warmer in the Amazon, temperatures also rise in Tibet. But when rain increases in the South American rainforest, snowfall decreases in the Himalayan region, sometimes called the "third pole". 'Tipping cascades' Using snow cover data, the scientists also detected what they say are early warnings the Tibetan Plateau has been approaching a tipping point of its own since 2008. The Tibetan Plateau supplies a substantial proportion of the water needs of almost two billion people across South Asia, Southeast Asia and China. Research published in Nature Climate Change last year said climate change could deplete terrestrial water storage over the Tibetan Plateau, which may ultimately threaten water availability downstream. Other studies have shown a warming trend in recent decades in the region which -- like the Arctic region -- is warming two to three times faster than the global average. But Kurths said the proximity to a potential point-of-no-return transition had been "overlooked so far". The researchers said that while their study suggests a heightened risk of "tipping cascades" it was unlikely that the climate system as a whole would flip into a new state. "Yet, over time, sub-continental tipping events can severely affect entire societies and threaten important parts of the biosphere," said co-author Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from PIK. "This is a risk we should rather avoid." To avoid the worst impacts of warming, countries have agreed to keep temperatures from rising above the limit of well below two degrees Celsius since the mid-1900s, and preferably below 1.5C. For that to be achieved, planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, must decline some 45 percent compared to 2020 levels by the end of this decade, and to net zero by mid-century, according to the UN's climate science advisory body. Read what is in the news in Vietnam today: -- Doctors in northern Phu Tho Province recently successfully treated a ten-year-old patient suffering from severe anaphylactic shock after drinking a carbonated soft drink. -- Border guard officers in central Quang Ngai Province rescued 11 crew members on a drifting ship that was hit by big waves and slammed into a reef on its way carrying rice from southern An Giang Province to northern Hai Phong City on Thursday. -- Eighty-nine people were killed and 111 others were injured in 152 crashes across Vietnam during the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) break starting January 20, the traffic safety agency reported on Thursday. -- Medical facilities across Vietnam received 403 cases requiring medical examination and emergency treatment due to firecracker-related accidents in the first six days of the 2023 Tet holiday, an increase of 139 cases compared to the same period last year. -- Most ways leading to Hanoi were crammed with people and vehicles returning to the city on Thursday after Tet. -- Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Duy Lam has urged the management board of the My Thuan-Can Tho Expressway project to complete building the remaining 45 percent of the 23-kilometer-long route running through the two Mekong Delta provinces of Dong Thap and Vinh Long by August. -- The number of visitors to Hanoi reached 330,000 in the first five days of the 2023 Tet holiday, an increase of more than 200 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the citys tourism department. -- The 2023 Nguyen Hue Tet Flower Street in Ho Chi Minh City welcomed a record number of more than 1.2 million visitors as of Thursday since its opening on January 19, according to the organizing board. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Read what is in the news in Vietnam today: -- Doctors in northern Phu Tho Province recently successfully treated a ten-year-old patient suffering from severe anaphylactic shock after drinking a carbonated soft drink. -- Border guard officers in central Quang Ngai Province rescued 11 crew members on a drifting ship that was hit by big waves and slammed into a reef on its way carrying rice from southern An Giang Province to northern Hai Phong City on Thursday. -- Eighty-nine people were killed and 111 others were injured in 152 crashes across Vietnam during the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) break starting January 20, the traffic safety agency reported on Thursday. -- Medical facilities across Vietnam received 403 cases requiring medical examination and emergency treatment due to firecracker-related accidents in the first six days of the 2023 Tet holiday, an increase of 139 cases compared to the same period last year. -- Most ways leading to Hanoi were crammed with people and vehicles returning to the city on Thursday after Tet. -- Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Duy Lam has urged the management board of the My Thuan-Can Tho Expressway project to complete building the remaining 45 percent of the 23-kilometer-long route running through the two Mekong Delta provinces of Dong Thap and Vinh Long by August. -- The number of visitors to Hanoi reached 330,000 in the first five days of the 2023 Tet holiday, an increase of more than 200 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the citys tourism department. -- The 2023 Nguyen Hue Tet Flower Street in Ho Chi Minh City welcomed a record number of more than 1.2 million visitors as of Thursday since its opening on January 19, according to the organizing board. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Most ways leading to Hanoi were crammed with people and vehicles returning to the Vietnamese capital city on Thursday, the last day of the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday. Compared to normal days, the traffic toward the gateways was heavy but there was no severve congestion. Vehicles began to fill the Phap Van-Cau Gie Expressway, which connects the city center with its southern part, at around 4:00 pm. A section of Ring Road 3 passing through the Khuat Duy Tien intersection in Thanh Xuan District was slightly crowded, with vehicles moving at a low pace. My Dinh and Giap Bat, the two major bus stations in the capital city, were also packed with post-Tet returnees. Numerous vehicles formed long lines on a section of Ngoc Hoi Street near Nuoc Ngam Bus Station in Hoang Mai District as this is the main route for people from southern provinces to the capital city. The holiday ended, now its time to return to the city, said Le Thi Thu, a woman back from northern Nam Dinh Province. The Tet break lasted seven days from January 20 to 26. Below are photos of city dwellers rushing back to Hanoi on Thursday: A post-Tet returnee pulls luggage at a bus station in Hanoi, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre People return to Hanoi after the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre A family returns to Hanoi on a motorbike after the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre People return to Hanoi after the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre Vehicles wait for a red light at the Khuat Duy Tien intersection in Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi, January 26, 2023. Photo: Van Cong / Tuoi Tre Vehicles wait for a red light on Ngoc Hoi Street near Nuoc Ngam Bus Station in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi, January 26, 2023. Photo: Van Cong / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Most ways leading to Hanoi were crammed with people and vehicles returning to the Vietnamese capital city on Thursday, the last day of the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday. Compared to normal days, the traffic toward the gateways was heavy but there was no severve congestion. Vehicles began to fill the Phap Van-Cau Gie Expressway, which connects the city center with its southern part, at around 4:00 pm. A section of Ring Road 3 passing through the Khuat Duy Tien intersection in Thanh Xuan District was slightly crowded, with vehicles moving at a low pace. My Dinh and Giap Bat, the two major bus stations in the capital city, were also packed with post-Tet returnees. Numerous vehicles formed long lines on a section of Ngoc Hoi Street near Nuoc Ngam Bus Station in Hoang Mai District as this is the main route for people from southern provinces to the capital city. The holiday ended, now its time to return to the city, said Le Thi Thu, a woman back from northern Nam Dinh Province. The Tet break lasted seven days from January 20 to 26. Below are photos of city dwellers rushing back to Hanoi on Thursday: A post-Tet returnee pulls luggage at a bus station in Hanoi, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre People return to Hanoi after the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre A family returns to Hanoi on a motorbike after the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre People return to Hanoi after the seven-day 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, January 26, 2023. Photo: Nguyen Bao / Tuoi Tre Vehicles wait for a red light at the Khuat Duy Tien intersection in Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi, January 26, 2023. Photo: Van Cong / Tuoi Tre Vehicles wait for a red light on Ngoc Hoi Street near Nuoc Ngam Bus Station in Hoang Mai District, Hanoi, January 26, 2023. Photo: Van Cong / Tuoi Tre Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Q+A hosted by Stan Grant is back to Mondays, live from Sydney. The first episode includes a live performance by multi-instrumentalist, composer, vocalist, producer, and Queensland Australian of the Year 2023 William Barton. Australians will be asked to vote in a referendum on a First Nations Voice to Parliament, later this year. Some are calling for more detail, while others say this is a diversionary tactic. So can we reach agreement as a nation on this crucial issue? How divisive will the debate be? And what impact will it have on Indigenous Australians? The debate is coinciding with a wave of violence and crime engulfing Alice Springs, amid claims of children as young as five roaming the streets at night. The PM has travelled to the town after local Indigenous politicians made pleas for help should the government step in? And what impact will the crisis have on the discussion about a constitutionally enshrined Voice to Parliament? January 26 is a day that forces us to confront our national identity where weve come from, where were heading and what kind of country we want to be. With the new Kings coronation approaching, does our future lie with the monarchy or as a republic? What impact will Prince Harrys explosive revelations have on the republican movement? Is it time to bid farewell to the royal soap opera? Meanwhile as politicians prepare to return to Canberra, the government is likely to facing other challenges. How will Anthony Albaneses team tackle the wicked problems facing Australians including the cost-of-living crisis, increasing pressure on the health and aged care systems, and climate change? All this and more on our first show for 2023. Panellists: Craig Foster, Chair of the Australian Republican Movement; Malarndirri McCarthy, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians; Bridget McKenzie, Nationals Senate Leader; Lidia Thorpe, Greens Senator for Victoria; and Tom Calma, Senior Australian of the Year 2023 Monday January 30 at 9.35pm on ABC. The figures were seen covered with gold (AFP via Getty Images) A mummy completely covered in layers of gold has been unearthed by archaeologists in Egypt. The major find was unveiled on Thursday, among dozens of archaeologyical discoveries including two ancient tombs, at a Pharaonic necropolis just outside of the capital Cairo. The artefacts, unearthed during a year-long excavation, were found beneath an ancient stone enclosure near the Saqqara pyramids. Egypts most renowned archaeologist and director of the excavation, Zahi Hawass, personally unveiled the new discoveries from the stone enclosure, known as Gisr al-Mudir. A picture shows inside the recently discovered tomb at the Saqqara archaeological site, south of Cairo (AFP via Getty Images) I put my head inside to see what was inside the sarcophagus: A beautiful mummy of a man completely covered in layers of gold, Mr Hawass recalled. The excavation team said the discoveries date back to the fifth and sixth dynasties of the Old Kingdom, spanning from roughly 2500 BC to 2100 BC. One of the uncovered tombs belonged to a priest from the fifth dynasty known as Khnumdjedef, while the other tomb belonged to an official named Meri, a palace official who held the title of the keeper of the secrets, the team said. Other major findings from the excavation include statues, amulets, and a well-preserved sarcophagus. Observers gather by a pyramid (AFP via Getty Images) The Saqqara site is part of a sprawling necropolis at Egypts ancient capital of Memphis that includes the famed Giza Pyramids as well as smaller pyramids at Abu Sir, Dahshur and Abu Ruwaysh. The ruins of Memphis were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1970s. Thursdays unveiling comes amid a flurry of new discoveries announced by Egyptian authorities over the past week. Near the southern city of Luxor, authorities said they found dozens of burial sites from the New Kingdom era, dating from 1800 BC to 1600 BC. Discovered nearby were the ruins of an ancient Roman city, it said. In a separate announcement on Tuesday, a group of scientists from Cairo University revealed previously unknown details about a mummified teenage boy dating to about 300 BC. Story continues (AFP via Getty Images) By using CT scans, the team of scientists were able to shed new light on the boys high social status by affirming the intricate details of the amulets inserted within his mummified body and the type of burial he received. Egypt often publicly touts its ancient discoveries to attract more tourists - a significant source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. The sector suffered a long downturn after the political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising. Egypts tourist industry was also hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and is currently suffering from the fallout from the war in Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine formerly comprised a large source of tourists visiting Egypt. Spanish police on Thursday raided the home of a young Moroccan man held over the machete attacks at two Catholic churches the previous night that left a church officer dead and a priest injured in the southern city of Algeciras. A police investigation directed by a National Court judge considers Wednesday's violence a possible act of terrorism. The suspect is believed to have acted alone. The investigation is continuing along the logical premise that this could be a case of terrorism, but we are in the initial phase and all the possibilities are open, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said after the police completed their search of the suspect's home. The accused is a Moroccan citizen with no prior criminal record either in Spain or any other country, the interior ministry said. He wasn't on the radar of authorities for possible radical activity, Grande-Marlaska added. Authorities identified him as 25-year-old Yassine Kanjaa, an anonymous official with Spains National Police with direct knowledge of the case said. The ministry said that the suspect had been under a deportation order since June last year because of his unauthorised migrant status in Spain. Authorities of neighbouring Gibraltar, which sits across a bay from Algeciras, said that Kanjaa had been arrested in the tiny British territory in August 2019 when he tried to come ashore from a jetski without the necessary documentation. He was deported days later. The attacks have shaken the multicultural city located near the southern tip of Spain. Witnesses said that in the second incident, the assailant jumped on the altar of the Church of Nuestra Senora de La Palma, wielding a machete. He then attacked a staff member tasked with preparing Mass, inside the church and chased him into a town square before killing him. A priest was also injured. The Algeciras town hall identified the deceased sacristan as Diego Valencia and the wounded priest as Antonio Rodriguez. A colleague of the deceased man said he had been struck after confronting the assailant. "Diego got hit with the machete, and then apparently ran away and was chased to the Plaza Alta where he fell over, and that's when he was killed," said Manolo Gonzalez, a sexton at one of the churches. Emmanuel Macron, with Volodymyr Zelensky, as the West considers sending fighter jets to Ukraine (REUTERS) France must leave open the door to sending fighter jets to Ukraine, a senior MP and ally of Emmanuel Macron has said. Thomas Gassilloud, chairman of the National Assemblys National Defence and Armed Forces Committee, added that things are moving fast. He was speaking on a visit to London after the US, Germany and other allies followed Britains lead in agreeing to supply Kyiv with main battle tanks ahead of expected Ukrainian and Russian spring offensives. Ukraines president Volodymyr Zelensky is now pleading with the West to also send fighter jets and longer-range missiles. Asked by the Standard if France could supply aircraft, Mr Gassilloud said: Regarding deliveries to Ukraine, we must study requests on a case by case basis and leave all the doors open. So we will see in the coming weeks what happens next as things are moving fast. Pressed on the supply of planes, he added: The Danes and Eastern Europe countries are thinking about it. Dutch ministers have also signalled that their country may send US-built F-16 jets. Mr Gassilloud, an ally of French president Mr Macron, believes three conditions will be applied when France considers sending fighter jets. They are that any deliveries to Ukraine must not undermine French national and European security, the equipment should be useful for the Ukrainians, and that it does not trigger escalation in the war. Moscow has already reacted angrily to the decision by the US, Germany and other allies to join the UK in supplying tanks to Ukraine. France is considering despatching its Leclerc tanks. But it is far from clear that this will happen given that there are only around 200 of this model and Ukrainian troops would have to be trained to use it, as well as the German-built Leopards. Countries across Europe are estimated to have more than 2,000 Leopards, so it may be simpler to deliver some of them and train Ukrainian forces on them, as well as on the 14 Challenger IIs being sent from the UK. Story continues Mr Zelensky is appealing for 300 battle tanks to force Russian troops out of Ukrainian territory. Britain has been at the forefront of equipping Ukraine with increasingly more heavy weapons to fight Vladimir Putins invasion. France has taken a less hardline approach to Putin than the UK, with more emphasis that negotiations with the Russian president may eventually end the war rather than an outright military defeat. During his visit to London, Mr Gassilloud met Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the Commons Defence Committee. Scientists have solved the mystery of the identity of a 17th century Dutch warship wrecked off the coast of England while carrying slabs of fine Italian marble. The unknown Protected Wreck off the coast of Sussex has been identified as the Dutch warship Klein Hollandia. Built in 1656 and owned by the Admiralty of Rotterdam, the ship was involved in all major battles in the second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-1667). The wreck, which lies on the seabed 32 metres under the surface, was until now known as the Unknown Wreck off Eastbourne. The ship sank in 1672 and was discovered in 2019. It was considered so important that it was granted the highest level of protection in the same year, under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Over the past year, specialists from Historic England, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and the Nautical Archaeology Society have been working on identifying the ship. They used evidence gathered from the wreck by a team of professional and volunteer divers, as well as archival research and tree ring analysis of the wood samples. Heritage minister Lord Parkinson said: The identification of the Klein Hollandia offers a glimpse back into the 17th century, giving us a chance to learn more about the maritime history of this period and to uncover treasures which have been underwater for hundreds of years. I am very pleased that, thanks to this partnership between the UK and the Netherlands, we have been able to solve some of the mysteries linked to this wreck and to protect it for future generations to continue to research. Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: Were delighted that Historic Englands material scientists have played a key part in solving the mystery of this shipwrecks previously hidden identity. Uncovering the story of the warship Klein Hollandia opens up another fascinating chapter in the already rich, shared maritime history between the UK and the Netherlands. Story continues The experts say the wrecks condition is remarkable and could offer a wealth of information about how 17th century Dutch ships were built and the activities of the warship during its final voyage. A large part of the wooden hull, cannons, Italian marble tiles and pieces of Italian pottery were among the material found on the seabed. The marble tiles came from the Apuan Alps quarries close to Carrara in Italy and were conserved by Historic England archaeological conservators before the investigations started. The tiles were bound for the Netherlands and would have been used to build high-status homes. The wreck was discovered by Eastbourne dive operator David Ronnan and reported to Historic England. Mr Ronnan and Mark Beattie-Edwards are the licensees and have been investigating the wreck since its discovery. Mr Beattie-Edwards, chief executive of the Nautical Archaeology Society, said: From our very first dive on the wreck, back in April 2019, we have been fascinated by the range of material on the seabed. The impressive amount of wooden hull structure, the ships cannons, the beautifully cut marble tiles, as well as the pottery finds, all point towards this being a Dutch ship from the late 17th century coming back from Italy. Now, after four years of investigation and research, we can confidently identify the vessel. The DUPs strategy in opposing the Northern Ireland Protocol has been vindicated, party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said. Speaking to party members and supporters in Brookeborough, Co Fermanagh, Sir Jeffrey said that people in London, Dublin and Brussels now recognise that the sacrifice of consensus politics on the altar of the protocol was a mistake. The DUP is blocking the functioning of powersharing at Stormont and has made clear it will not allow devolution to return unless major changes to the protocol are delivered. The Northern Ireland Protocol is opposed by unionists in Northern Ireland (Liam McBurney/PA) Talks remain ongoing between the UK and the EU over the protocol, part of the post-Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland aligned with some EU trade rules, effectively placing a trade border in the Irish Sea. Both sides are keen to strike a deal to break the logjam over the contentious trading arrangements before the 25th anniversary of Northern Irelands historic Good Friday peace agreement in April. Many unionists are fiercely opposed to the treaty which they claim has weakened the regions place within the union. The DUP leader said: We warned London, Washington, Dublin and Brussels in July 2021 that the Northern Ireland Protocol was incompatible with powersharing and our hard-won politically balanced arrangements. We gave time and space for these fundamental concerns to be addressed but that time was not utilised. Instead, some local parties told us that the protocol had to be rigorously implemented. No one is saying that now. We are seeking the restoration of democratic decision-making to the Assembly, replacing the democratic deficit created by the protocol. Why should anyone want to deny the people of Northern Ireland, through their democratically elected representatives, a say or a vote on vast swathes of the laws governing our economy and which affect the people of Northern Ireland so directly? Sir Jeffrey said that the protocol is not and will not be supported by unionists. Story continues He added: It was a mistake for its authors to press ahead with an agreement that has harmed Northern Irelands constitutional and economic place within the United Kingdom. Whilst I welcome that there is public recognition that it was a mistake to ignore the objections of unionists, the greatest misstep would be if the same mistake were to be repeated. Political progress in Northern Ireland has been painstakingly slow at times but it has never been achieved by one side ignoring the concerns of the other. With a divided society, we need to work together. Not one unionist MP or MLA supported the protocol. Such a one-sided approach was never going to work. We need a deal that unionists as well as nationalists can support. The powersharing institutions at Stormont collapsed last year after the DUP withdrew co-operation in protest at the NI Protocol (Liam McBurney/PA) Sir Jeffrey continued: All of this work will only be worthwhile if we can reach a balanced and durable outcome. There will be no solid basis for an Executive and Assembly until the protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore Northern Irelands place in the UK internal market and our constitutional arrangements are respected. Recognising mistakes is one thing but learning the lesson that consensus is the only way forward must be at the forefront of minds in London and Brussels rather than any dates on the calendar. Matthew Horwood - Getty Images Princess Anne has been out to join troops in Estonia, to learn more about an ongoing operation they are taking part in. The Princess Royal joined the The Kings Royal Hussars, who are currently in Estonia as part of Operation CABRIT. The Princess met with soldiers to be briefed on their operation and was given a tour of some of the equipment they were using as part of their deployment. In a photograph shared to the official Royal Family social media channels, Princess Anne can be seen inside a tank, wearing a military helmet and flak jacket, as she is shown some of the equipment's functions by a member of The King's Royal Hussars. A caption explained that Operation CABRIT is "the codename for the UK's deployment and contribution to NATO's enhanced Forward Presence." It added that "The Princess Royal has visited The Kings Royal Hussars, who are currently deployed in Estonia" and that she "had the opportunity to see some of the equipment that is capable of operating in Arctic conditions." Princess Anne was visiting this operation in particular as she is the official Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Royal Hussars, and has been since they were formed in the early nineties. Elsewhere this week, the Prince and Princess of Wales have been busy in Windsor, visiting a local charity and helping prepare food parcels which will be distributed to members of the local community. You Might Also Like Tony's Chocolonely Today, we were absolutely shocked by the news that we've been pronouncing Tony's Chocolonely wrong all these years. It is not, as commonly thought, Tony's ChocoLONEY but Tony's ChocoLONELY. LONELY. Well, we feel a bit silly now. But why the lonely chocolate name? Well, according to the Tony's Chocolonely website, the name came about after Dutch founder Teun van de Keuken (Tony is the English equivalent of Teun) decided to make 5,000 Fairtrade chocolate bars himself. AKA lonely. Teun decided to go on this mission after discovering during his time as a TV journalist that slavery was prominent in the chocolate industry. He (quite rightly) was outraged, and tried to discuss the issue with large chocolate makers. Apparently they ignored him, so he decided to go it alone and create slavery-free chocolate bars all by himself. He says the chocolate industry was a lonely place to be for anti-slavery crusaders like himself. While we're uncovering mysteries about the Tony's Chocolonely bars, we may as well address why they're unequally divided. We love the unequal chunks, but it is a strange way to divide up a chocolate bar, and it's definitely not the norm. Well, Teun says it's because there's so much inequality in the chocolate industry. The uneven chunks serve as a reminder that the profits in the chocolate industry are not split fairly, and don't benefit the workers themselves. Fair dos. There's another meaning about the design of the chocolate bar too. The bottom of the bar represents the equator, then from left to right you have Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Benin, Nigeria and part of Cameroon. Who knew the name, shape and design of a chocolate bar could carry so much meaning! We definitely fancy a big chunk of Tony's ChocoLONELY now... HCM CITY The HCM City Department of Justice has proposed the Ministry of Justice pilot the issuance of electronic civil status records instead of a paper version as part of efforts to enhance satisfaction with civil status registration. Nguyen Trieu Luu, head of the departments Civil Status Registration Agency, said under a 2020 government decree regulating online civil status registration, Vietnamese citizens are able to register for civil status online. But no cities or provinces have been able to implement online civil status registration yet since the electronic civil status database system has not been synchronised nationwide, he added. As a result, the issuance of civil status on paper must still be done in person at the Peoples Committee of the province or commune where the birth was originally registered. According to Luu, it is much more convenient to use electronic civil status documents in transactions, administrative procedures or when travelling by plane. He said, for example, when travelling by plane, parents only need to provide an electronic copy of their childs birth certificate (including a QR Code) instead of a paper version. According to the Ministry of Justice, the ministry would continue improving its electronic civil status registration system to connect with the national population administration database managed by the Ministry of Public Security to enable online civil status registration. According to the law, to register civil status online, people first need to create an account at the national public service portal or provincial public service portals; second, provide information; third, attach images or copies of documents required; then pay the fee online or in other forms; and lastly receive the electronic civil status. Civil status papers include birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate, divorce certificate and certificate of registered partnership, among others. Since June 2022, the city authorities have piloted issuing online copies of civil status papers (or extracts of civil status papers). After three months of implementation, 206,000 copies of civil status papers have been issued electronically. Online civil status registration is expected to help people handle administrative procedures easily without having to queue for a long time. The use of online public services will also help reduce bureaucracy and increase the transparency of State agencies. VNS Dinh Vu port in Hai Phong (Photo: VNA) Hanoi The northern city of Hai Phong aims to become a regional and international logistics centre due to its many advantages as a transportation hub for all five types of traffic, including sea, road, air, railway, and inland waterways. This objective is highlighted in the northern city's service sector development project for 2030, with a long-term vision to 2045, including logistics services. The city is also studying to develop a project to establish a free trade zone, considered a breakthrough solution to exploit the best advantages in the logistics sector of Hai Phong. The Politburo's Resolution 45 on building and development of Hai Phong city by 2030, with a vision to 2045 also states that Hai Phong must be built into a national logistics service centre by 2025. "By 2030, it will become a modern international logistics service centre with sea, air, highway and high-speed rail". According to former Secretary of the Hai Phong city Party Committee Tran Luu Quang, who has been appointed to the Government's Deputy Prime Minister, to develop logistics services, Hai Phong will promote administrative reform and digital transformation in the field of seaports and logistics. It will strengthen investment attraction and trade promotion, and form logistics service chains with high added value and regional linkages. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Hai Phong has great advantages in infrastructure of seaports, fishing ports, warehouses for industrial production, and import and export activities of goods. At the same time, some of 14 industrial parks (IPs) are built on the basis of logistics services to increase connectivity among enterprises at the supply chains. In the past, Hai Phong has focused on investing and upgrading seaport infrastructure in line with the development trend of regional and international shipping. Its transport system is improved and more synchronous. Many projects on developing logistics centres in industrial zones and economic zones (EZs) have also received licences of investment, such as a logistics centre invested by KM Cargo Services Hai Phong Co, Ltd with a capital of 34.8 billion VND; a logistics project with total investment capital of 35 million USD developed by ECPVN Hai Phong 1; JD Property Logistics Park Hai Phong 1 project in the non-tariff zone and Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park with a total investment of 32 million USD. Those have created new opportunities for the logistics service industry in Hai Phong. Quang said that in 2022, traditional and advantageous service sectors such as seaport and logistics services have made strong developments. They have actively contributed to the socio-economic development of Hai Phong and the northern key economic region. Hai Phong's growth rate of logistics services is about 20-23% per year and this sector has accounted for 13-15% of the city's GRDP. The volume of goods through the ports in the city has grown strongly, accounting for a large market share in the seaport system of the country. Pointing to the service's shortcomings, Dan Duc Hiep, former Vice Chairman of the municipal People's Committee, said that Hanoi has about 1,000 enterprises registering to provide logistics services, but they have limited competitiveness and a low market share. The majority of cargo volume via Hai Phong seaport continues to be transported by road, putting great pressure on the transport system. Meanwhile, transporting goods by rail and inland waterway is still weak. There is also the problem of labour shortage, especially high-quality labour. Logistics and production enterprises of Hai Phong are always in a serious shortage, especially logistics sales staff, logistics information technology staff, and staff coordinating transportation and warehouse operations. At the same time, most employees of enterprises lack logistics knowledge and skills. This will be a big challenge for the development of the service in the future. According to forecasts, Hai Phong needs about 369,000 logistics workers by 2025, including 252,600 trained workers. By 2030, this number will increase to 460,000 employees, including 368,000 trained workers. Human resources for the logistics sector in Vietnam in general and Hai Phong in particular will still lack in both quality and quantity for many years in the future. The human resource at present meets only about 40-45% of the industry's needs. Therefore, Hai Phong needs to have a strategy on sustainable development of human resources for the logistics sector, Hiep said. Hai Phong eyes new industrial zones this year The northern port city of Hai Phong planned to establish a number of new industrial zones (IZs) this year, head of the provincial management board of economic zones Pham Van Moi said. Hai Phong attracts over 305 million USD in foreign investment in two months The northern port city of Hai Phong raked in 305.66 million USD worth of foreign capital in the first two months of 2022, given the complex developments of COVID-19. Japanese groups to pour hundreds of millions into projects in Quang Ninh Notably, the Tenma group from Japan has plans to invest $150 million in a factory to produce plastic injection moulds in the province. Hirohiko Hirono, CEO of Tenma, explained that the factory is planned to cover an area of 18 hectares in Song Khoai Industrial Park (IP). Within the framework of the meeting with leaders of Quang Ninh Peoples Committee, Hitoshi Kimura, managing director of Castem Co., shared the plan to develop a $14 million metal casting factory which will cover an area of two hectares. Acting Chairman of Quang Ninh Peoples Committee Cao Huy Tuong said that the province will create the most favourable conditions possible for investors, including land clearance, investment procedures, and other incentives. Earlier on January 13, Yaskawa Electric Group from Japan worked with Huy to present a feasibility report on a $100 million investment to build an automatic machine tool factory in Song Khoai IP. The Japanese company specialises in motion control, robotics, and systems engineering, amongst others. Nakajima Takeo, chief representative of the Hanoi Office of the Japan Trade Promotion Organisation and vice president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam said, With Quang Ninhs strategic location, logistics services, manufacturing, green energy, LNG, aquaculture, and agriculture are all attractive sectors for the Japanese. Within various manufacturing sectors, including automotive and parts, electric and electronics, machinery, semiconductors, and industrial materials, the Japanese have the potential to expand production in Vietnam. The province has invited IP developers to build competitive business sites. Also, the state has invested in ports, roads, and an airport with public funds and private finances, Takeo said. Quang Ninh working to attract new-generation FDI inflows The northeastern province of Quang Ninh has strengthened to attract new-generation foreign direct investment inflows to implement its greener economic development strategy, helping it become a top manufacturing and processing industry hub for Vietnam. Quang Ninh becomes viable option for Japanese investors Vietnams northern province of Quang Ninh is emerging as an attractive investment destination for foreign investors. Nakajima Takeo, chief representative of the Hanoi Office of the Japan Trade Promotion Organisation and vice president of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam, talked to VIRs Minh Anh about Japanese interest in the area and the future trends ahead. Quang Ninh draws almost $2 billion in foreign investment Quang Ninh's foreign investment has exceeded $2 billion for the first time thanks to large-scale projects. Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) HCM City - Domestic steel demand is expected to keep falling due to the property market slump and tightened monetary policy, economic downturn in many export markets and a rise in supply making the outlook for the industry in 2023 poor, analysts said. SSI Securities Corporation said the steel industry had a difficult 2022 with both exports and domestic sales decreasing in the second half of the year, and prices falling from the end of the year. Businesses profits went down significantly as a result. Analysts at VNDirect Securities Company said most steel companies reported dismal results. With the property market remaining in a slump, prospects for 2023 remain gloomy, especially in the first half of the year, they said. SSI Research said the stagnant real estate market and tightened monetary policy would drag down steel demand this year. Citing data from the Ministry of Construction, it said the number of apartment projects licensed for construction in the first three quarters of 2022 plummeted by 41 per cent year-on-year, and delayed projects are likely to be further delayed with developers facing liquidity problems. It forecast domestic demand for finished steel products to decline in single digit in 2023, with the acceleration in public spending possibly making up for the reduced demand from households. VNDirect estimated public spending to increase by 20-25 per cent this year. SSI Research said exports would recover slowly because of the global economic downturn. The World Steel Association said demand is expected to recover by 1 per cent to 1.8 billion tonnes in 2023 after falling by 2.3 per cent in 2022. Demand in the US and European markets is expected to decline this year as a result of the economic downturn, but the Southeast Asian market is likely to remain steady. Vietnams exports to traditional trading partners could be affected by the capacity increases in recent years in neighbouring countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, it warned. So shipments of finished steel products could fall by more than 10 per cent this year, it said. But steel prices might be less volatile in 2023 due to steady demand in China. After falling by 2-4 per cent in 2022, Chinese demand is expected to remain flat or rise by 1-2 per cent, driven by the countrys reopening. Major global manufacturers have cut their output after a long period of losses. These factors could help regional steel prices remain steady though it is unlikely there will be strong rise since Chinas reopening will also see an increase in supply. Current prices are 20-40 per cent higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Steady prices could help steel companies stabilise profits though the weak demand would put pressure on revenues and profit margins and the price gap between Vietnam and other markets is narrowing. SSI said profits would decline in the first half and gradually recover by the end of the year thanks to a possible demand recovery in both domestic and export markets. Steel sector anticipates brighter prospects in 2023 A number of factors are expected to underpin a brighter performance in the steel sector in 2023. Positive prognosis for steel sector in 2023 China's reopening will drive worldwide demand for steel, expedite infrastructure construction, and partially offset the stagnating real estate market. Illustrative image (Photo source: Bangkok Post) Bangkok Thailand and the EU have agreed to pursue free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations in the first quarter this year, after nearly a decade of stagnation. Commerce Minister of Thailand Jurin Laksanawisit made the statement following a meeting in Brussels with the EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis. Dombrovskis wrote on Twitter that both sides want a comprehensive, high-quality agreement, with ambitious and sustainable provisions. The EU is now Thailand's fifth largest trade partner, behind ASEAN, China, the US and Japan. Two-way trade hit 41 billion USD last year, of which, Thailands exports to the EU totaled 22.8 billion USD, mostly computers, equipment and spare parts; gemstones and jewelries, air conditioners and components, rubber products and electronic circuit boards. Thailand currently has 14 FTAs with 18 countries, including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that came into effect early last year. On December 15, 2022, the two sides signed the Thailand-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) to promote bilateral cooperation. Thailand reports first case of XAY.2 variant Thailand has seen its first confirmed case of the XAY.2 variant of COVID-19 but people close to the patient were not infected, the Thai Health Ministrys Department of Medical Sciences said on January 6. Thailand, Japan join hands against climate change 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. McLennan Community College students wanting to check their TikTok feeds for the latest messages and videos will have to do it on their own phones, computers and data plans after the college blocked access to the social media app on MCC networks and college-owned devices. The MCC move follows similar action taken earlier this month by the University of Texas, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of North Texas, Texas A&M University System and other state-supported schools, after Gov. Greg Abbotts Dec. 7 order banning the video-sharing app from state agency computers, phones, networks and other internet-capable devices. Abbotts order, which he said is for cybersecurity reasons, also instructs the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Department of Information Resources to come up with guidelines on the use of TikTok on personal devices. State agencies have until Feb. 15 to come up with their own TikTok policies. The Texas Tribune reported University of Houston and Texas Tech University officials are awaiting guidance from the state before implementing any TikTok policies. Texas State Technical College also has blocked TikTok on the colleges computers and network, spokesperson Daniel Perry said. TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., has about 1 billion active users worldwide, compared to about 3 billion for Facebook and about 2.5 billion each for YouTube and Instagram. Federal and state officials have warned, however, that the companys Chinese ownership means the Chinese government could have access to the personal data gathered by the app, making it a national security concern. ByteDance has said any data collected on its U.S. users stays in the United States. As reported by vox.com and buzzfeednews.com, the company has spent nearly $1 billion for Project Texas, an effort to rebuild American servers to wall off their TikTok data from ByteDance and China. MCCs action means students cannot access the application on college devices or networks, including the colleges Wi-Fi. Students can still use TikTok on their own devices and networks or phone data plans without punishment, spokesperson Lisa Elliott said. MCC also has deactivated its TikTok account, but still maintains accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Baylor University spokesperson Lori Fogleman said the university is evaluating whether it should take any action against TikTok. Like many higher education institutions across the country, Baylor University is continuing to monitor the situation involving TikTok very closely, Fogleman said in a statement. We are certainly aware of the prevalence of TikTok use among our current and prospective student populations. As we continue to monitor this, its important to note that any decision would be one not taken lightly. Despite recent rains and cooler weather, Lake Wacos level continues to plummet, expected to reach a 450-foot trigger point for Stage 3 water restrictions in mid-February. As harsh drought conditions have depleted the reservoir in recent years, officials look to favorable climate conditions and decreased water use as hopeful paths. The lake level rested at 450.39 feet above sea level Thursday, nearly 12 feet below normal. The level has continued to dwindle from 100% full in September 2021 to just 55.5% this week, with brief and sporadic periods of rainfall offering short-lived respite in the interim. Severe drought has put many areas in Texas to the test over the last year with abnormally high temperatures and a lack of rainfall. Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said 2022 was the seventh-driest year on record for McLennan County and the sixth-driest for Bosque County, which encompasses much of the Bosque River that feeds Lake Waco. Houstons Harris County had its driest year. Waco ended 2022 some 16 inches below average for rainfall at just 20.76 inches over the entire year. So far in January the area has seen almost 1 inch of rain, an increase from half an inch in December, but still lagging behind the January monthly average of 2.59 inches. Januarys lack of rainfall is consistent with the National Weather Services seasonal outlook predicting below average totals for February, March and April. The outlook for May through July projects equal chances of below or above average precipitation. Though cooler, wetter conditions and predictions of a loosening La Nina offer hope of some relief, the U.S. Drought Monitor indicated as of Thursday about 98% of McLennan County was still in a severe drought. In his most recent Water Weekly report, Mark Wentzel, Texas Water Development Board hydrologist, said he has monitored three consecutive weeks of drought conditions spreading in areas including Central Texas. Wentzel said he expects most of the state to be back in drought by the end of April, citing an unusually dry start to 2023. La Nina conditions, which have brought hotter, drier climate conditions to Waco for the past three winters, are expected to subside fully by April, Nielsen-Gammon said. Patterns produced by the El Nino-Southern Oscillation have broad impacts on climate patterns based on the natural rise and fall of sea surface temperatures. On track with predictions made in late December, sea surface temperatures are rising steadily, signaling a switch to ENSO-neutral climate conditions, he said. The National Weather Service Climate Prediction Centers most recent prediction says the chance for ENSO-neutral conditions is 82% by May. Nielsen-Gammon said he thinks it is possible for El Nino conditions to rise by next year, marked by cooler, wetter climate conditions in the South. Nielsen-Gammon said day-to-day weather will be the question for Lake Wacos recovery, but he thinks the reservoir could make a full recovery within a few years based on historical trends. Typical annual rainfall amounts are high enough in Central Texas that lakes can fill up fairly frequently, he said. Lake Waco was full as recently as September 2021, so it doesnt take unusual conditions for it to fill up again. Its never been this low either, though. Nielsen-Gammon said the lakes current dam was built in the mid-1960s, more than doubling the capacity of a reservoir the city built in 1929 and 1930. With the new dam, the lake went from 10% of its new capacity in February 1965 to full by May 1965. When the city and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers raised the normal lake level by 7 feet in 2003, well-timed heavy rains filled it almost to its current capacity within a week, rather than the months it was expected to take. Nielsen-Gammon said the lakes next low-level occasion was in December 2006 when it was down to 57% of storage capacity, 115,000 acre-feet. In March 2007, Nielsen-Gammon said the reservoir was still low, at 123,000 acre-feet, yet three weeks later, on April 1, 2007, the lake had exceeded its maximum conservation storage of almost 190,000 acre-feet. Nielsen-Gammon said there is hope for the lake level to recover, however how quickly that happens will depend. If we do get 15 inches of rain tomorrow itll probably help a lot, but if it happens over the next six months, probably not so much, he said. City of Waco water utilities spokesperson Jessica Emmett Sellers said while winter water use has dipped to half of summertime use, the city predicts a move to Stage 3 restrictions by mid-February. Lawn watering is the largest user of water in the summertime, she said. Under Stage 2 restrictions, which have been in place since July, outdoor watering is limited to two days per week. Stage 3 limits outdoor watering to one day per week, among other measures. Sellers agreed with Nielsen-Gammon, saying the city looks at long-term predictions like ENSO, but a return to neutral weather patterns is not necessarily going to end the drought. She said her team takes future outlooks and past results into consideration when making decisions, but a challenge is that they dont have a crystal ball, and predictions are not always perfect. Rather than waiting for the 449-foot trigger point for Stage 3 drought restrictions specified in the citys drought contingency plan, city management would rather be proactive and enact the restrictions at 450 feet, Sellers said. Lets not get into totally dire straits, she said. We want to kind of stay ahead of it. Sitting just half a foot above the mark, the citys main priority is to make sure it is providing enough safe and clean water to meet residents needs, Sellers said. Alzheimers education A free education program on effective strategies for caregivers dealing with early-stage Alzheimers will be held at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Ascension Living Providence Village, 300 W. Highway 6 in Waco. Natalee Oliver, professor of long-term care administration at McLennan Community College, will lead the program. She will discuss signs, symptoms and treatment of Alzheimers and strategies for developing skills for people starting to provide care during early stages of the disease. A second program on early-stages Alzheimers will be held at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 25 at the same location. The free education program is sponsored by the Alzheimers Association. For more information or to register, call 800-272-3900 or 254-761-8048. Free tax preparation AARP Tax-Aide Waco will have free tax preparation workshops from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. starting Feb. 1. AARP membership is not required. For information on sites or to schedule an appointment, call 211 or email atawaco24@gmail.com. Dog training classes Cen-tex Kennel Club is accepting registrations for its next dog training class, which will start at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 2 at Quail Creek Training Center, 703 S. Robinson Drive. The class focuses on teaching manners and control for everyday living. For more information or to register, call Jeanie Davis at 254-717-5325. Spring break coding class Waco Family YMCA, 6800 Harvey Drive, is hosting a spring break coding class for ages 8-15, beginning Monday, March 6. Participants will create and play alongside friends in this intermediate coding class. They must bring their own laptops. The class meets from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Monday through Thursday. Cost is $100 for YMCA members and $150 for non-members. Registration ends February 28. For more information, contact Crystal Hernandez at chernandez@ymcactx.org or 254-776-6612. Free healthy baking class Healthy Baking with Texas A&M Agrilife takes place from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14 at the South Waco Library, 2737 S. 18th St. This class is free and open to the public. Texas A&M Agrilife Extension will be demonstrating how to modify recipes for good health by reducing saturated fats, sodium, and added sugars. Participants will also learn how to modify recipes for common intolerances or allergies. DES MOINES Small and midsized businesses and employees alike are anticipating a recession, but most businesses are not preparing to reduce employee salaries, according to a national survey from Des Moines-based Principal Financial Group. The survey found 70% of businesses and 74% of employees think a recession will likely happen in the next six months. Twenty-nine percent of businesses said they had reduced operating expenses and increased cash reserves, while 26% said they had increased prices for products and services to deal with recessionary pressures. Overall, 58% of businesses said they would not reduce the salaries of employees, according to the survey. Fifty-two percent said they would not reduce benefits offered, and 49% said they would not reduce the employer-paid portion of benefits offered. For small businesses, 64% said they would not reduce salaries, while 49% of large businesses said they would not reduce salaries. The survey polled 500 business owners or leaders at companies with 2-10,000 employees and 200 full-time employees in October 2022. Companies with between 2 and 499 employees were considered small, while companies with 500 to 10,000 were considered large. Amy Friedrich, president of Principals U.S. Insurance Solutions, said in a press release the results signify small and midsize businesses are committed to their employees. While the economic outlook is murky, business owners understand employees are their most valuable asset and theyre continuing to support them with retirement and protection solutions, as well as financial wellness programs, she said. While the survey was national, JD Davis, the vice president of public policy at the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, said Iowas manufacturing industry which is closely tied to agriculture makes the state better suited to sustain recessionary pressures. Workforce shortages are a common concern of Iowa businesses, he said. Member companies are nimble and have adapted to supply chain issues and other headwinds during and coming out of the pandemic, he said in an email. ABI will be engaging Iowa policymakers to continue to work on solutions for needed workforce participants. While the Principal survey found fears of a recession, more businesses were experiencing growth compared to 2021, with 61% of respondents saying they were growing, compared to 51% in 2021. Fifty-three percent of small businesses reported growth, while 73% of large businesses did so. Mental health was also a concern related to a potential recession, with 67% of employees who think a recession is likely saying the concerns negatively impact their mental health. Millennial employees had the highest rate of mental health concerns, with 79% saying recession concerns negatively impact their mental health. Friedrich said there was a disconnect between the concerns of employers and their employees. While employers are more concerned about economic impacts, employees concerns focus on personal health and wellbeing, she said. Employers have an opportunity to focus on understanding and meeting employees needs and addressing them for continued long-term job satisfaction and growth. The survey found more employers were offering financial benefits for full-time employees compared to six months ago. The percentage of companies offering financial benefits were: Paid family and medical leave79% Retirement plan contribution match72% Disability insurance72% Financial wellness program61% Access to digital financial advice platform52% LE MARS, Iowa Wells Enterprises, the second-largest ice cream maker in the U.S. and the source of Le Mars' ice cream-centric identity, is ending more than a century of ownership by the Wells family. A merger between Wells, maker of Blue Bunny ice cream, and the Italian confectioner Ferrero, maker of Nutella, was announced Wednesday. Mike Wells, the CEO and the last remaining member of the Wells family actively involved in the company, will step aside and serve in a somewhat more informal advisory role; Liam Killeen, who was named president of Wells last year, has been named the new CEO. The transaction is expected to close in January. Terms of the deal were not disclosed; because both companies are privately held, there is no legal requirement for them to do so. "Not going to disclose financials, it's the beauty of being private" as Wells put it in an interview with The Journal Wednesday. Mike Wells said that because the companies are not competitors -- up until this transaction, Ferrero was not a major player in the ice cream industry -- the Federal Trade Commission won't have any objections to the deal. "This isn't an ice cream company buying an ice cream company, this is a candy company buying into a category they don't have presence in," he said. Wells Enterprises is expected to maintain a high degree of autonomy within the Ferrero organization, and Mike Wells said that all the company's 2,700 Le Mars employees, both white collar and blue, will retain their positions, their pay and their current titles. The Wells name also will be retained. "When they (Ferrero) purchase companies, they leave them as independent business units," Wells said. "So it will have Wells on the outside of the building, they will utilize all the Wells brands, things like Blue Bunny, Halo Top, Bomb Pop, Blue Ribbon Classics. The management team will have the autonomy to run the business independently. They will report up to an individual inside of Ferrero, but that's the majority of Ferrero's involvement." Ferrero is known mainly for non-ice cream products like the hazelnut-based Nutella chocolate spread, Ferrero Rocher chocolate candies and Tic Tac mints, which they brought to market decades ago. The company held only one ice cream maker prior to the Wells acquisition, a small Spanish manufacturer. By way of introduction The relationship between Wells and Ferrero began in 2019, when Mike Wells went to Europe "on an unrelated business trip," and made his introduction to Ferrero. The two firms became interested in producing ice cream products inspired by Ferrero candies. "They loved the way that we were able to interpret their brands in ice cream," Wells said. For the past two or three years, Wells, 63, said he has been trying "to find a solution for the business going forward." He's been the sole member of the Wells family actively involved in the enterprise since 2007. "Since our 100th anniversary in 2013, I've been thinking about what the next 100 years looks like," Wells said. "And how long the family's involvement could stay there, and what the solution would be the for the next 100 years. And so that was really the crux of this transaction." The pandemic slowed down the conversation, but Wells and Ferrero reconnected early this year: "Talked a little bit about their intent, because they'd said they wanted to expand into ice cream." Wells hosted Ferrero head Giovanni Ferrero during Ice Cream Days in June, and it was around that time that Ferrero asked if Wells would be interested in a sale. Still involved in Le Mars Mike Wells said that he felt "extremely honored" to have found a succession-plan solution for the company "that respected and honored our employees, our community, our family and now the Ferrero family." Wells, who is active in several community groups and the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce, and wife Cheryl, proprietor of the Habitue Coffeehouse in downtown Le Mars, plan to continue their civic engagement. "I couldn't be more honored and more happy for the outcome," he added. "A little bit of a bittersweet moment today to announce it and know that it's the end of this chapter for me, and a new chapter for my wife and I as we commit 100 percent of our efforts to our community and community development and things that we've enjoyed doing more on a part-time basis." Le Mars will retain its ice cream identity, Mike Wells said. "Based on their plans for continued growth and investment in this business, all Le Mars can look forward to is manufacturing more ice cream, having a greater reputation around being the Ice Cream Capital of the World, and being a great place to work, live and play," he said. Wells history The Wells ice cream empire began humbly. Family patriarch Fred H. Wells Jr. decided to move his family back to their native Chicago after a drought struck their South Dakota farm in the summer of 1911. En route, the family ran out of money and stopped in Le Mars, where Wells became a hog farmer. Sometime thereafter a cholera outbreak decimated Wells' herd and he needed a new line of work. The company places its founding-date in 1913, when Fred Wells acquired a horse-and-wagon milk-delivery business in Le Mars. By about 1925, Fred Wells and his sons began producing ice cream and were distributing it to Remsen and Alton, Iowa, by the next year, according to Wells Enterprises. In 1927, Harry C. Wells joined his brother Fred in a partnership to distribute ice cream in Sioux City. The following year, the brothers sold that distribution system to Fairmont Ice Cream. As a result, when they decided to sell ice cream again in Sioux City in the mid-1930s, they no longer held the rights to the Wells name. So the company adopted a new brand name -- Blue Bunny, the end result of a "Name that Ice Cream" contest in The Sioux City Journal. In the late 1950s, Fred H. Wells' nephew, Fred D. Wells, along with Fay Wells and Fay's older brothers, Harold, Roy and Mike, formed a partnership. At the time, Blue Bunny was still a regional brand. Toward the end of 1961, Blue Bunny ice cream products were sold in roughly 1,500 retail outlets across parts of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota. By 1977 Wells Dairy (as it was then called) had absorbed more than 40 small dairies in Northwest Iowa, in the process becoming the largest ice cream manufacturer in the state. At the time it had roughly 350 workers and its distribution area had expanded slightly, to a total of six Midwestern states. In 1991 Blue Bunny products were being test-marketed in Mexico and Japan. At the end of that decade the company was selling its products in all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and 20 other countries. The variety of Wells' product lines also broadened during this time period -- from roughly 27 frozen dessert products in 1961 to a reported 540 by 1990. By the 1990s, the company's growth led to Le Mars being designated the "Ice Cream Capital of the World." The company's plant capacity underwent several expansions in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1995, the company's sales reached about $500 million, half of which was attributed to the Blue Bunny ice cream label. The company opened an ice cream parlor in Le Mars in 1999. More than a decade later the parlor was moved to its current location, a historic brick building in downtown Le Mars which serves as a sort of public-facing outlet for Wells in the community. When both retired in January 2001, Fay and Fred Wells turned over day-to-day management to their sons, the third generation to run the family business. In 2019, Wells made three major acquisitions, in the process transforming itself into the second-largest ice cream maker in the United States -- Fieldbrook Foods, an East Coast ice cream maker, followed by a Nevada plant purchased from rival Unilever and then Halo Top, a low-sugar, high-protein brand of ice cream. Demand for the company's frozen treats has been white-hot in recent years -- in early 2020, Mike Wells said that the company was using nearly all its capacity in Le Mars. With the pandemic came even greater demand. This spring, the company announced a $70 million capital investment, adding new product lines and upgrading its equipment in Le Mars. Around the same time, the company announced it would take up half of the storage capacity of a new cold-storage warehouse being built in the Southbridge Business Park. Who is Ferrero? Ferrero Executive Chairman Giovanni Ferrero said the combination made a great deal of sense. "I strongly believe that Wells and Ferrero are the perfect match and would like to thank Mike Wells and the Wells family for entrusting ownership of this great company to us," Giovanni Ferrero said in a statement. The Ferrero brand was born in Alba, Italy, in 1946, when Pietro Ferrero crafted a cream of hazelnuts and cocoa. According to Giovanni Ferrero, it was a kind of solidified Nutella that had to be cut with a knife. Nutella in its modern form came about in 1964, according to the BBC. An October 2011 story from The Guardian reported that "For every 100 hazelnuts grown on Earth, 15 end up in a Ferrero product." When former Ferrero owner Michele Ferrero died in February 2015, international news agency Agence France-Presse noted the company "employs more than 22,000 workers" and "has an annual turnover of more than 8 billion euros." The Ferrero North America also lists Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Crunch, Famous Amos and Keebler as additional products it oversees in the U.S. In 2018, Ferrero acquired Nestle USA's confectionary business. The company initially got a foothold in the American market with Tic Tac in 1969. PORTLAND, Maine Changes to U.S. rules about the monitoring of Northeast commercial fishing activities are going into effect this month with a goal of providing more accurate information about some of the nation's oldest fisheries. The U.S. mandates observers to work onboard fishing boats to collect data and make sure fishermen adhere to rules and quotas. The relationship between fishermen and observers is sometimes difficult, and fishermen have long complained the monitoring program heaps costs on them. The National Marine Fisheries Service has adopted new monitoring rules for Northeast fishermen of groundfish, like haddock and flounder, to try to improve the accuracy of the data. The fishermen harvest some of the most popular seafood species in the country, and the data are used to craft fishing regulations. The monitoring rules include a plan to reimburse the fishing industry for at-sea monitoring costs in the 2022 fishing year. It also includes a plan to increase the percentage of fishing trips that include monitoring coverage from 80% to 100% for the next four years. That rule would hold as long as funds appropriated by Congress can support government and industry costs, the National Marine Fisheries Service said. The expansion of at-sea monitoring has generated some pushback from fishing interests. The Northeast Seafood Coalition, which represents commercial fishing groups, argued that more information was needed to show that increased monitoring would improve management of fisheries. The fisheries service disagreed, and said the increased monitoring is especially important because some valuable species of fish are in decline. The agency is in the midst of a drive to rebuild the collapsed Atlantic cod stock, for example. "Improved monitoring will contribute to determining the level of interaction between the fishery and stocks," the fisheries service said in a response to industry concerns that was published in the Federal Register. The new monitoring plan also includes the approval of new electronic monitoring technologies to serve as an alternative to workers on board, the fisheries service said. The plan also requires periodic evaluation of the monitoring program. Several conservation groups came out in support of expanding use of electronic monitoring. The Conservation Law Foundation cited the method as a way to reduce the cost of monitoring. The new plan doesn't require adoption of electronic monitoring, but rather provides it as a choice. Several companies are currently looking to help U.S. fishermen comply with the new rules using new tech. MONTEREY PARK, Calif. For decades, Monterey Park has been a haven for Asian immigrants seeking to maintain a strong cultural identity and a culinary heaven worth visiting for anybody near Los Angeles craving authentic Asian cuisine. Signs across the vibrant suburb are written in English and Chinese. Families raise bilingual children. And residents in their golden years enjoy karaoke, the Chinese tile game mah jong and as the outside world learned last week after a horrific mass shooting ballroom dancing. Its a very quiet, humble place. And we mind our own, says Denny Mu, a second-generation American who runs the popular Mandarin Noodle House started by his grandfather. That sense of peace was shattered after a gunman killed 11 people in their 50s, 60s and 70s and wounded nine others last Saturday during a Lunar New Year celebration at the Star Dance Ballroom. But while residents of the tight-knit community work through the trauma just as they did during the coronavirus pandemic, when anti-Asian sentiment rose nationwide the tragedy has only sharpened their feelings about what makes Monterey Park so special, and worth protecting. Kristina Hayes, who started staging tango events at Star Ballroom when the studio reopened after the pandemic, said dance is hugely important for Monterey Parks seniors. Its a pastime, hobby and even competitive but in the best way possible. Mu, whose restaurant is known for its scallion pancakes and beef noodle soup, said he has no plans of leaving Monterey Park, and believes the slowdown in visitors over the past week will be fleeting. Its the food mecca, especially if you like any sort of Asian food, said Mu, who is Chinese. Monterey Parks transformation to a predominantly Asian city was the brainchild of Fred Hsieh, a Chinese immigrant who was also a savvy real estate developer. He is credited with first coining the citys nickname of the Chinese Beverly Hills. In the 70s and 80s, he used that phrase in Asian newspapers abroad to lure people from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the land of opportunity. He cleverly highlighted the citys area code, 818. In Chinese culture, the number eight is seen by some as a symbol of prosperity and good fortune. When Hiseh died in 1999, Monterey Park had at the time become the only U.S. city with an Asian-majority population, with 65% Asian residents, according to an Associated Press obituary. Today, nearly 70% of the residents are Asian, mostly of Chinese descent. As residents deal with the shock and grief that the shooting brought, they hope people will continue to see the city of about 60,000 for the vibrant community it is. The backstory of Mandarin Noodle House, which at 43 years old remains one of the oldest restaurants in Monterey Park, is the story of many Asian immigrant families who have stayed faithful to the community and elevated it beyond some cookie-cutter suburb. For decades, the city has been revered as the flagship location in Southern California for authentic Asian food, particularly Chinese cuisine from various regions. For the 36-year-old Mu, the regular customers at Mandarin Noodle House are one reason he cant see himself leaving Monterey Park. Its nice to go to a restaurant and ask the customer How was your day? How was your kids dance recital? ... All that stuff, Mu said. Its all about community. Hayes said her specialty over the years has been creating dance programs for seniors, especially for those who have lost mobility or have dementia. Some dedicated dancers who came to the ballroom showed up after work and on the weekends. In the Asian American community across the country, seniors have kept ballroom dancing alive, said Hayes, who is white. Kevin Mok, 32 and of Chinese descent, runs Japanese dessert shop Mr. Obanyaki with his parents and brother. Since the shooting, he said he still feels theres a sense of fear in this community," because there are less people on the streets. Its quieter than usual, Mok said, while eating lunch at Mu's restaurant. I feel like my sales have dropped like 15 to 20% at night. Hopefully, it'll come back." The gunman a 72-year-old Asian man known in the community shot and killed himself. Betina Hsieh, a second-generation Taiwanese American and an associate professor at Cal State Long Beachs College of Education, grew up in Santa Clarita, but has deep connections to Monterey Park. Her grandparents lived there or went there for doctors appointments because it was the only place they could find Mandarin-speaking physicians. It was the first ethnoburb in Southern California for Asians, Hsieh said. Monterey Park was this place we had before we even knew how to have an Asian American identity, a place where our families could gather and stay connected to their home and culture. Immigrant-run restaurants and shops flourished in the burgeoning ethnoburb because immigrants are the least likely group to tolerate watered-down versions of their food. Ballroom dancing is also embedded in the city's culture, and Hayes of Star Ballroom is confident the community will rekindle its dance-floor joy. People are going to come,:" she said, "and they are going to dance again." Photos: Mass shooting at Lunar New Year celebration in California Weather Alert .Warming temperatures this weekend will bring renewed snowmelt and streamflow rises, especially for snow covered terrain below about 7000 feet. Creeks that brought impacts this past week are likely to be problematic again and potentially reach higher levels, especially by late Sunday. ...FLOOD WATCH FOR SNOWMELT IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY MORNING... * WHAT...Flooding caused by snowmelt is possible. * WHERE...Portions of California and western Nevada, including the following areas, in California, Greater Lake Tahoe Area, Lassen-Eastern Plumas-Eastern Sierra Counties and Surprise Valley California. In western Nevada, Greater Lake Tahoe Area, Greater Reno-Carson City-Minden Area and Mineral and Southern Lyon Counties. * WHEN...From Saturday afternoon through Monday morning. * IMPACTS...Creeks and streams will be running high and fast. Low-water crossings may be flooded. Minor mainstem flooding along the Susan River, Forks of the Carson River, and the East Walker River below Bridgeport Reservoir cannot be ruled out. Anyone participating in outdoor recreation this weekend should use caution as water will be running high, fast, and potentially out of banks for some creeks and streams. The water will be extremely cold as well, quickly causing shock. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... You should monitor later forecasts and be alert for possible Flood Warnings. Those living in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action should flooding develop. && A neighbor living close to the home of Summer Wells family says they are not acting normally but suspiciously based on the circumstances. The missing girl's residence address is on Ben Hill Road along Beech Creek, Hawkins County, Tennessee. Summer has been missing since June 15, 2021, without leads up to this time. Summer Wells' Family Acting Shady, Neighbor Says Based on a report saying the four-year-old girl was seen at 6:30 pm when getting toys from the basement, as told by her family. Don Wells thinks that his daughter was kidnapped, so the next day, an Amber Alert got issued, reported MEAWW. The girl stayed with her mom, dad, and three brothers the day she went missing. Summer swam with mom, Candus, and grandmother, Candy, at a local creek. It was the last time to see the girl alive, cites Medium. Trevor Lee, 21, a resident near the Wells home, spoke about the girl who has been missing for almost two years. Though not related to the girls, he considers himself an advocate to get her back. He informed that a $2,000 reward was waiting for information that could reveal the missing girl's fate, mentioned WCYB. It was offered in the initial week of the disappearance, took part in many searches on private and public property, and sent fliers in coordination with police. The search was taken further by including social media and other means to find her whereabouts. A missing child alert received made him decide to do something about it. Later went to the command center to offer his assistance. Read Also: What Cops Discover at Bryan Kohberger's Home Family Suspicious Acting Might Imply Foul Play Lee stated that he had never known the missing girl personally but only through the posts on social media and those that knew her. Summer seemed happy and cheerful, smiled a lot, and liked her church class and Paw Patrol toys. These accounts show who the girl was to those who knew her. Discussing the subject of the unresolved disappearance of the girl stressed that the family could be keeping something. Foul play is something that comes up, and it now shows that someone has failed to safeguard the girl. He doubted that anyone would hurt the girl too. Lee added that the TBI and FBI are investigating the case thoroughly, but it's the local police that seems to lack in their efforts to deal with the case. Also, the Hawkins County Sheriff's Office has been known to have corruption. It displeased him that the missing child's case would get cold to hide their alleged corruption. Lee alleges calls from concerned citizens are often ignored, and no relevant update on Summer's disappearance. Indicates their response to the incident is inconsistent that must be more definitive accordingly. An interesting development came about that should have a bearing on the girl going missing just like that. Her Dad, Don Wells, was caught driving under the influence on one occasion but took no drugs during the arrest. He alleged to police that an argument with his wife Candus prompted him to escape her, based on the Daily Mail. He spent 48 hours in jail, with community service, a $350 fine, and revoking his license. The Summer Wells family said their neighbor, because of acting suspiciously, could be hints of secrets and foul play is afoot. Related Article: Missing Oklahoma Girl's Remains Found @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. 6 Flood watch: Jemez River reaches levels not seen in ... ABQnews Seeker Police are looking for a man who was allegedly involved in a road rage incident near the University of New Mexico campus Wednesday afternoon. UNM Police Department were called to the intersection of University and Martin Luther King around 12:30 p.m., according to the Lobo Alert sent by UNMPD. The suspect had fled the scene when officers arrived. APD is now investigating the case, and are asking the public for any information about the incident or the suspects whereabouts. Call APD Crime Stoppers at 505-843-7867. Crime Stoppers offers a $1,000 reward for any tips leading to an arrest. U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury cast votes on the House floor Thursday on crutches. The New Mexico Democrat for more than a week has been walking around Washington, D.C., and Albuquerque on a broken foot before seeking medical treatment on Wednesday. Well, I can honestly say I did not have finding out I have a broken foot on my bingo card for today, Stansbury wrote on Twitter. Hard to believe Ive been walking around on it for weeks. Thankfully, Im getting some excellent care! Thank you to everyone whos been checking in. The Tweet was accompanied by a picture of Stansbury using crutches and her X-ray, showing a broken pinky toe and another toe that was dislocated. Well, I can honestly say I did not have finding out I have a broken foot on my bingo card for today. Hard to believe Ive been walking around on it for weeks. Thankfully, Im getting some excellent care! Thank you to everyone whos been checking in. pic.twitter.com/CCYXdn736z Rep. Melanie Stansbury (@Rep_Stansbury) January 25, 2023 Shes not going to be missing votes if we can help it, said Julia Friedmann, Stansburys spokeswoman. Friedmann said Stansbury is expected to use crutches and then a walking boot during her recovery, which is expected to take six-to-eight weeks. Stansbury doesnt know when exactly when she broke her foot or how. She had a foot injury about 15 years ago and pounds the pavement often, walking to and from Capitol Hill to her Washington apartment, Friedmann said. During a trip to Albuquerque last week, Stansbury did walking tours of the Explora Science Center and Childrens Museum and future sobering center at the Gibson Health Hub. The Journal attended the latter tour and didnt notice the congresswoman limping or grimacing. Friedmann said Stansbury was in pain for about a week-and-a-half before she saw a doctor. Shes been kind of soldiering on. Shes one of those people that doesnt go to the doctor until something gets bad, Friedmann said of Stansbury. And so shes been doing her work until she got it checked out and it turns out there was a problem. She is the second member of New Mexico congressional delegation to recently break a bone while serving in the nations capital. Last year, former Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell broke her arm when she whacked it while hurrying between meetings. SANTA FE The leader of New Mexicos General Services Department is stepping down after just over one year on the job. Cabinet secretary John Garcia said he will leave his position effective Feb. 3 due to personal reasons, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams office announced this week. The Democratic governor appointed Garcia in October 2021 to lead the General Services Department, an agency that oversees state government purchasing, maintenance of state buildings and the states vehicle fleet. Garcia had previously worked as executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico. Before that, he served as secretary of tourism and, later, economic development under then-Republican Gov. Gary Johnson. He also led economic development efforts under former Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry, a Republican, and at the University of New Mexico. In a statement, Lujan Grisham thanked Garcia for his work as part of her administration, which included leading the push last year to expand the in-state preference that New Mexico-based companies get when applying for state contracts. I am very grateful to him for his many years of service to the state, both in my administration and previous ones, and I wish him all the best moving forward, the governor said. Lujan Grisham has seen a recent spate of Cabinet turnover as she enters her second term as governor. In addition to Garcia, the leaders of the Department of Finance and Administration, Indian Affairs Department and Veterans Services Department have also stepped down over the last several months. Lujan Grisham also recently hired a new Department of Health secretary Patrick Allen of Oregon to replace David Scrase, who had been running both that agency and the state Human Services Department for the past year-and-a-half. Meanwhile, the Governors Office also announced Anna Silva, the director of the General Services Departments Facilities Management Division, will be the agencys acting secretary until a new permanent secretary is chosen. SANTA FE Legislation introduced Thursday at the Capitol aims to expand legal protections for transgender students and others in New Mexico setting the stage for a legislative debate this year over LGBTQ rights. The proposal, House Bill 207, would prohibit school districts, government agencies and public contractors from discriminating on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, among other categories, when providing services. The measure comes as lawmakers in neighboring Texas, Arizona and a host of other states propose bills to restrict, not expand, transgender rights. The American Civil Liberties Union contends more than 200 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed throughout the United States. Marshall Martinez, executive director of Equality New Mexico, an advocacy group, said the legislation introduced Thursday is vital in a climate of increased hostility toward LGBTQ individuals. As somebody who was born and raised here, he told the Journal, I think now is the most critical time to say to people here and across the country that hatred and bigotry have never been our values. The New Mexico legislation, he said, would close a loophole in state law that permits discrimination by public agencies in some circumstances. The state protections, Martinez said, go beyond whats in federal law. The legislation would add gender to the list of protected classes in the state Human Rights Act, in addition to revising some definitions. The heart of the bill is a section declaring it illegal for government agencies and groups that receive public funds to limit or put conditions on the provision of services to people in certain protected classes. Discrimination, for example, would be prohibited based on race, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability. The sponsors of the legislation include Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe, Sen. Carrie Hamblen of Las Cruces, Rep. Andrea Romero of Santa Fe and Rep. Kristina Ortez of Taos, all Democrats. This is a discussion thats happening across the country and needs to happen here to make sure theres a level playing field and respect for everyone, Wirth said Thursday. The introduction of the Human Rights Act legislation in New Mexico sets the Roundhouse up for a much different debate than in nearby states. In Texas, for example, legislation has been filed that would add gender-affirming health care for minors to the definition of abuse. A year ago, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed a state agency to investigate reports of gender-affirming care for kids as abuse. In Arizona, legislation would prohibit drag shows on public property or any location where they could be viewed by a minor. A proposal in New Mexico two years ago called for restricting trans participation in school sports, but it didnt advance out of its first committee. A Twitter List by ABQJournal Albuquerque police have arrested two suspects in the shooting death of an Albuquerque Academy student who was killed at a party last month. Jesse Parra, 19, and Cruz Medina, 16, each face an open count of murder and other charges in connection with the shooting death of Jada Gonzales, 18, according to court records. The Albuquerque Police Department announced late Thursday the two teens are in custody. This senseless shooting tragically cut short the life of a promising young teen in our community, Police Chief Harold Medina said in a statement. I am thankful for our dedicated detectives who worked diligently on this case to bring justice to Jadas family. Gonzales was killed at a house party in the 5200 block of La Bajada NW near Pat Hurley Park early on Dec. 18. Police said she was shot in the torso on her right side by a bullet that was shot from outside the party and traveled through the master bedroom and then an interior wall and also struck the fireplace. She was carried out of the house and placed in a vehicle before being taken to a nearby fast food restaurant. There, an ambulance was flagged down and drove Gonzales to University of New Mexico Hospital, where she later died. According to a 20-page arrest warrant affidavit for Parra filed in Metropolitan Court on Thursday, a group of males showed up at the party shortly before midnight on Dec. 17. Witnesses told police the group was carrying firearms and posing for pictures with the guns, as well as flashing gang signs, before they were asked to leave the party. They left while appearing reluctant, embarrassed and angry, according to the affidavit. Minutes after the males were kicked out of the party, shots are heard, an Albuquerque police detective wrote in the affidavit. Surveillance footage from the neighborhood showed a black Dodge Charger with black rims and loud exhaust arriving at the party shortly before the shooting. The video recorded audio of people arguing before a series of gunshots ring out. Police wrote that muzzle flashes are seen coming from the sidewalk area near where the Charger was parked, according to the court document. Later in the day, a forensic analyst with police found an Instagram account where the user had posted a picture of a man holding a large firearm and a picture of a bullet hole in a dark-colored vehicle, according to the affidavit. The man appeared to be one of the people who left the party. At about 4 a.m. that day, the user posted a picture of an Albuquerque police officer driving in a marked vehicle. Police identified that officer and determined he was on a call related to two other shootings that happened in the hours after Gonzales homicide. At one of those shootings, at Desert Springs and Arenal SW, officers saw three males. Two of them ran away and escaped and Parra was detained. Parra was linked to all of three of the shootings because casings found in his vehicle a black Dodge Charger with dark rims matched the one seen on surveillance video at the Gonzales homicide. Police executed a search warrant on Parras Instagram and reviewed his phone records, which showed he arrived in the area of the house party not long before the shooting. It also shows that he left the area shortly after. The police review also showed Parra had communicated with at least one other person who was kicked out of the party, Cruz Medina. Medina was already on Albuquerque polices radar because his social media posts often depicted guns and crimes, according to the affidavit. The search also showed that Parra posted videos from inside the party where Gonzales was killed. In one recording he is seen smoking and holding a gun with a large magazine tucked in his waistband. He also later posted on Instagram about his car being ruined. His car was shot in one of the shootings that happened after Gonzales homicide, according to police. Medina was arrested on Jan. 10 in an unrelated case and agreed to speak with police investigators. During his interview, Medina talked about getting kicked out of a party near Pat Hurley Park right before a shooting took place. He admitted to having his gun at the party and that shots rang out as he was leaving. He said he tried to fire his weapon but said it jammed, according to the affidavit. HONG KONG Rabbits scamper around a play area in a climate-controlled building i n suburban Hong Kong, some climbing a castle made of wood while others explore a cotton tunnel. In one of the worlds most densely populated cities, where most apartments range from small to miniscule, rabbits are popular pets. And when their owners are away, there are rabbit lovers ready to look after their lonely pets at Bunny Style, a luxury rabbit resort. Thats especially evident this month, as the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in Hong Kong is spurring a surge in travel for the Lunar New Year to welcome the Year of the Rabbit. Donna Li, the owner of Bunny Style, said shes fully booked for the holiday and keeps her charges happy with regular exercise, parties, spa treatments and lots of hay. We aim to provide a secure environment, Li said. Li, who has two pet rabbits of her own, set up Bunny Style in June, starting with just a playroom offering space to hop and relief from Hong Kongs hot, humid weather. To begin with, my idea was mainly about setting up a safe indoor play space with a suitable temperature for rabbits, Li said. As the government began lifting COVID-19 restrictions in September, Li sensed a need and swiftly set up boarding facilities. They were full over Christmas and Li has already begun taking bookings for Easter. With 15 rabbits, Li and her staff will be were busy over the holiday, the most important in the Chinese calendar. Apart from feeding some owners order special vegetable cakes in advance there are hair-brushing, nail trimming and exercising to be managed. I think rabbits understand what people say. They can sense whether we are being nice to them and look after them well, Li said. And so when I look after them, I talk to them a lot, telling them how beautiful and cute they are. A livestream and video clips are also provided, so we knew that our rabbit was out actively hopping and enjoying itself, said Rainbow Li, who found Bunny Style on the internet and boarded her rabbit while she and her partner traveled over Christmas. Bunny Style charges about $15 per night, including half an hour of supervised play time. Beauty treatments and special menu items are extra. The animals popularity in Hong Kong has inevitably led to some owners finding theyve bit off more than they can chew. For that, there are shelters such as Tolobunny, set up in 2015 and dedicated to finding new homes for abandoned rabbits, often at public adoption events. Spokesperson Bridget Ng is already anticipating a surge of calls to the shelters 24-hour rescue hotline in the months after the new year. Already, its volunteers are temporarily housing 42 rabbits given up by their owners. Our observation is that throughout the year, especially at festive holidays like Valentines Day, Easter or Christmas, there are more people who want to keep rabbits, but after a few months, there will be more abandoned rabbits, Ng said. Homeless dogs and cats still get more care, but I hope there will be more attention and resources for all kinds of abandoned animals, founder Winky Cheng said. JERUSALEM (AP) A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, and wounding three others before he was shot and killed by police, officials said. It was the deadliest attack on Israelis in years and raised the likelihood of more bloodshed. The attack, which occurred as residents were observing the Jewish sabbath, came a day after an Israeli military raid killed nine Palestinians in the West Bank. Fridays shooting set off celebrations in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where people fired guns into the air, honked horns and distributed sweets. The burst of violence, which also included a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, has posed an early challenge for Israels new government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for a hard line against Palestinian violence. It also cast a cloud over a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region Sunday. Addressing reporters at Israels national police headquarters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had held a security assessment and decided on immediate actions. He said he would convene his Security Cabinet on Saturday night, after the end of the sabbath, to discuss a further response. Netanyahu declined to elaborate but said Israel would act with determination and composure. He called on the public not to take the law into their own hands. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. strongly condemned the attack and was shocked and saddened by the loss of life, noting it came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. U.S. officials said later Friday that President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu to offer U.S. support to the government and people of Israel, calling the shootings an attack against the civilized world. The President stressed the iron-clad U.S. commitment to Israels security, the White House said of the call. Israeli police said the shootings occurred in Neve Yaakov, a settlement with a large ultra-Orthodox population, and that the gunman fled in a car. Police said they chased after him and after an exchange of fire, killed him. Jerusalem police chief Doron Turjeman confirmed seven deaths, in addition to the shooter, and said three people were wounded. Police identified the attacker as a 21-year-old east Jerusalem resident who apparently acted alone. Turjeman promised an aggressive and significant effort to track down anyone who helped him. Police also released a photo of the pistol it said was used by the attacker. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant huddled with Israels military chief and other top security officials and instructed them to assist police and strengthen defenses near Jerusalem and for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israels defense establishment will operate decisively and forcefully against terror and will reach anyone involved in the attack, Gallant said. Israels MADA rescue service said that those killed included five men and two women, among them several who were 60 or older. Jerusalems Hadassah Hospital said a 15-year-old boy was recovering from surgery. The attack was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to the Foreign Ministry. Given the location and timing, it threatened to trigger a tough response from Israel. Overnight Thursday, Gaza militants fired several rockets into southern Israel, with all of them either intercepted or landing in open areas. Israel responded with airstrikes on targets in Gaza. No casualties were reported, and calm had appeared to be taking hold before Friday nights shooting. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. In Gaza, Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the ruling Hamas militant group, said the attack was a revenge and natural response to the deadly military raid Thursday. At several locations across the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians gathered in spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate the Jerusalem attack, with some coming out of dessert shops with large trays of sweets to distribute. In downtown Gaza City, celebratory gunfire could be heard, as cars honked and calls of God is great! wafted from mosque loudspeakers. In various West Bank towns, Palestinians launched fireworks. The attack escalated tensions that were already heightened following Thursdays raid in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin, where nine people, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, were killed. It was the deadliest single raid in the West Bank in two decades. A 10th Palestinian was killed in separate fighting near Jerusalem. Angry Palestinians marched Friday as they buried the last of those killed a day earlier. Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day. That suddenly dissolved with the east Jerusalem shooting, described as horrific and heartbreaking by Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and former prime minister. Neve Yaakov is a religious Jewish settlement that Israel considers to be a neighborhood of its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as a capital of their future state. Blinkens trip will probably now focus heavily on lowering tensions. He is likely to discuss the underlying causes of the conflict, the agenda of Israels new far-right government and the Palestinian Authoritys decision to halt security coordination with Israel in response to the Jenin raid. The Biden administration has been deeply engaged with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, underscoring the urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival forces in 2007. Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group BTselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed. Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israels 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. ___ Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed. OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and other mourners commemorated the 78th anniversary Friday of the Nazi German death camps liberation, some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten. The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland, which was under the occupation of German forces during World War II and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. Today the site, with its barracks, barbed wire and ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the worlds most recognized symbols of evil and a site of pilgrimage for millions. Jewish and Christian prayers for the dead were recited at the memorial site, which lies only 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating death and destruction a conflict on the minds of many this year. Standing here today at this place of remembrance, Birkenau, I follow with horror the news from the east that the Russian army, which liberated us here, is waging a war there in Ukraine. Why? Why? lamented survivor Zdzisawa Wodarczyk during observances Friday. Piotr Cywinski, Auschwitz state museum director, compared Nazi crimes to those the Russians have committed in Ukrainian towns like Bucha and Mariupol. He said they were inspired by a similar sick megalomania and that free people must not remain indifferent. Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators, Cywinski said. Remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances marking the 60th anniversary of the camps liberation in 2005. This year, no Russian official was invited due to the attack on Ukraine. Valentina Matvienko, speaker of Russias upper house of parliament, deplored that as a cynical move. They refused to invite the liberators so that they could pay tribute to the memory of the victims, she said. Of course, this is very worrying. Rabbi Berl Lazar, one of Russias two chief rabbis, said not having any Russian invitees was a humiliation for sure, because we perfectly know and remember the role of the Red Army in the liberation of Auschwitz. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commemorated Holocaust victims at Babi Yar, a ravine in Kyiv where nearly 34,000 Jews were killed within 48 hours in 1941. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred, he said in social media post. Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy. An Israeli teacher, Yossi Michal, paying tribute to the victims with a teachers union delegation, said it was important to remember the past, and while he said what is happening in Ukraine is terrible, he felt each case is unique and they shouldnt be compared. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the post-Word War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, called the Holocaust the abyss of humanity. An evil that touched also our country with the infamy of the racial laws of 1938. Bogdan Bartnikowski, a Pole who was 12 when he was transported to Auschwitz, said the first images he saw on television last February of refugees fleeing Russias invasion of Ukraine triggered traumatic memories. He was stunned seeing a little girl in a large crowd of refugees holding her mother with one hand and grasping a teddy bear in the other. It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll to her chest, Bartnikowski, now 91, said. Bartnikowski was among several survivors of Auschwitz who spoke about their experiences to journalists Thursday. Another, Stefania Wernik, who was born at Auschwitz in November 1944, less than three months before its liberation, spoke of Auschwitz being a hell on earth. She said when she was born she was so tiny that the Nazis tattooed her number 89136 on her thigh. She was washed in cold water, wrapped in rags and subjected to medical experiments. And yet her mother had abundant milk, and they both survived. After the war, her mother returned home and reunited with her husband, and the whole village came to look at us and said its a miracle. She appealed for no more fascism, which brings death, genocide, crimes, slaughter and loss of human dignity. Among those who attended Fridays commemorations was Doug Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Emhoff, the first Jewish person to be married to one of the top two nationally elected U.S. officials, bowed his head at an execution wall at Auschwitz, where he left a wreath of flowers in the U.S. flags colors and the words: From the people of the United States of America. The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the suffering of 6 million innocently murdered Jews remains unforgotten as does the suffering of the survivors. We recall our historic responsibility on Holocaust Memorial Day so that our Never Again endures in future, he wrote on Twitter. The German parliament held a memorial event focused this year on those who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people were incarcerated and killed by the Nazis a fate only publicly recognized decades after WWII. Elsewhere in the world events marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005. In Britain, candles were lit to remember victims of genocide in homes and public buildings, including Buckingham Palace. ___ Associated Press writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report. Russia in another drive to shore up African support in the belief that western colonialism is detrimental to Moscow and the African nations. The visit to Angola is focused on a balanced position regarding international affairs focusing on improving Russo-African affairs. Russia Says Western Colonialism Must End In the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's second visit to Africa, he discussed with Angola President Joao Lourenco and the Foreign Minister of Angola Tete Antonio, noted Al Arabiya. Earlier the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited before him and a month after the US-Africa summit in Washington, intensifying the contest to sway African leaders, remarked VOA News. Lavrov, in his discussion with the Angolan leader, promised the support of Moscow to develop the nation with total commitment. He focused on the attempts of a sliding US trying to push illegal pressures that it is applying with its allies. Western nations are desperate not to let Moscow dominate African affairs. He added that in desperation, the US and its allies are now driven to force Asia, Africa, and Latin America under their heels. Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that the west is still exploiting developing countries. Angola shared this opinion. Lavrov stressed good relations, which are not subject to geopolitical reality, with solidarity and support. He visited Angola after coming from Eswatini and South Africa. Moscow Seeks African Support Portugal gave Angola independence in 1975, leading to the leadership of MPLA, a Marxist liberation movement linked to the former Soviet Union. Read Also: China's Take at US Allegations of Debt Traps In previous years, the oil-rich nation has had close relations with the west, especially since the US can't lose Angola's support, cited Barrons. When the Ukrainian conflict broke out, the US and its allies immediately pushed for sanctions on Moscow when the special operations commenced in Donbas. Many nations had earlier condemned the special operation of Russia in the UN. In October, Angola joined them when they refused to give a vote in an earlier referendum in the international body. Changes have prompted many geopolitical shifts that have shaken the international community. The recent diplomatic efforts by the US and allies to convince the African nations to drop Russia and sanction it after almost a year since the Ukraine conflict has made the seeming success of the Moscow push on Africa. Alarm bells are ringing in western capitals like the US and Europe, knowing they might lose access to their energy resources. China Visits Energy-Rich Continent Beijing began a new push to foster more contact with Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin, and Egypt early in January. The new Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang went on this tour to reach out diplomatically. China has been active in this part of the world, helping poor economies have more improvement, reported Reuters. Many African nations have shown preference over the Chinese support in infrastructure and economic deals seen as then the US. Washington is unwilling to offer China's big bucks and even calls it a debt trap. In 2022, Russian FM Lavrov toured Egypt, Ethiopia, and other countries that have been panned in the west. Russia and its moves to get more African support which is a threat to western colonialism, during the Angola visit. Related Article: US Ambassador Seeks Engagement with Several African Union States @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) A gunman stormed the Azerbaijan Embassy in Irans capital Friday, killing its security chief and wounding two guards in an attack that spiked long-simmering tensions between the two neighboring countries. Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said it would evacuate the diplomatic post, accusing Iran of not taking reported threats against it seriously in the past that include inciting comments in hard-line media over Azerbaijans diplomatic ties to Israel. Tehrans police chief, Gen. Hossein Rahimi, initially blamed the attack on personal and family problems, something quickly repeated across Iranian state media. But within hours Rahimi would lose his position as police chief after footage emerged that appeared to show a security force member doing nothing to stop the attack. Previously, there have been attempts to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran, and it was constantly raised before Iran to take measures to prevent such cases, and to ensure the safety of our diplomatic missions, the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry said. Unfortunately, the last bloody terror attack demonstrates the serious consequences of not showing proper sensitivity to our urgent appeals in this direction. We are of the opinion that the recent anti-Azerbaijani campaign against our country in Iran led to such attack against our diplomatic mission, the ministry added. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called the assault a terrorist attack. He identified the dead security chief as 1st Lt. Orkhan Rizvan Oglu Askarov. We demand that this terrorist act be swiftly investigated and the terrorists punished, Aliyev said in a statement. Terror against diplomatic missions is unacceptable! The attack happened Friday morning, the second day of the Iranian weekend. Surveillance video released in Azerbaijan purportedly showed the gunman arriving by car at the embassy, running into the back of another car parked out front. He exited his car, holding what appeared to be a Kalashnikov-style rifle. From there, details immediately conflict with the Iranian account of the attack. Iranian state TV had quoted Rahimi as saying the gunman had entered the embassy with his two children during the attack. However, surveillance footage from inside the embassy, which matched details of the aftermath and bore a timestamp matching the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministrys statement, showed the gunman burst through the embassys doors alone. Those inside tried to push through metal detectors to take cover. The man opens fire with the rifle, its muzzle flashing, as he chases after the men into the small side office. Another man bursts from a side door and fights the gunman for the rifle as the footage ends. Another surveillance video from outside the embassy, which also corresponded to the same details, showed the gunman slam his car into another in front of the embassy. The gunman then got out and leveled his rifle at a figure inside of the Iranian police stand, likely a security force member, who stood still and did nothing as the man stormed the embassy. Video of the aftermath showed an empty diplomatic police post just near the embassy, with one man apparently wounded in an SUV parked outside. Inside the embassy past a metal detector, paramedics stood over what appeared to be a lifeless body in a small office as blood pooled on the floor beneath. Associated Press journalists later saw the embassys front door pocked with bullet holes after the attack. Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari reportedly said the gunmans wife had disappeared in April after a visit to the embassy. The Iranian judiciarys Mizan news agency quoted Shahriari as saying the gunman believed his wife was still in the diplomatic post at the time of the attack even though it was some eight months later. Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani also said his country strongly condemned the attack, which was under investigation with high priority and sensitivity. Azerbaijan also summoned Irans ambassador there to lodge a protest over the attack as authorities replaced Rahimi, Tehrans police chief, without offering an explanation. Azerbaijan borders Irans northwest and belonged to the Persian Empire until the early 19th century. Ethnic Azeris also number over 12 million people in Iran and represent the Islamic Republics largest minority group making maintaining good relations even more important for Tehran. There have been tensions between the two countries as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran also wants to maintain its 44-kilometer (27-mile) border with landlocked Armenia something that could be threatened if Azerbaijan seizes new territory through warfare. Iran in October launched a military exercise near the Azerbaijan border, flexing its martial might amid the nationwide protests rocking the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan also maintains close ties to Israel, which Tehran views as its top regional enemy. The Islamic Republic and Israel are locked in an ongoing shadow war as Irans nuclear program rapidly enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Israel also offered its condolences to Azerbaijan over the attack. Turkey, which has close ties to Azerbaijan, condemned the attack, called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and for measures to be put in place to prevent similar attacks in the future. Turkey has backed Azerbaijan against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey, which has been subjected to similar attacks in the past, deeply shares the pain of the Azerbaijani people, a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said. Brotherly Azerbaijan is not alone. Our support to Azerbaijan will continue without interruption, as it always has. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said the U.S. condemns the attack. We echo President Aliyevs call for a prompt investigation into this unacceptable violence, he said. We offer our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were killed and injured today. Any attack against diplomats or diplomatic facilities anywhere is unacceptable. ___ Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. Whether you are watching a sitcom on ABC or enjoying a $30 turkey leg at EPCOT, it is important to always remember that Disney owns everything. That being said, their monopoly on American media has produced a couple of positive results over the years. Of course, Frozen, Hercules, Tarzan and other big name films have brought acclaim and dollars to Disney but they are not the only great ones. If you grew up in the VHS era, you have probably seen a few movies a 100 times like I have Finding Nemo so you grow to love it or hate it based off sheer quantity of watches. With that being said, here are five Disney films I believe are underrated. Oliver and Company (1988) The inspiration behind this whole list so it has to be number and it was a great movie. This movie made living in New York City seem like the time of your life even if you did not have money. Dodger is also the coolest dog Disney has ever designed with apologies to Pluto and the 101 Dalmatians because they didnt have the street smarts and they were not voiced by Billy Joel. For any of my younger Disney fans out there, I highly recommend watching this movie The Lion King 1 1/2 (2003) This movie was straight to DVD but nonetheless a really good film to watch. Not only does this film provide a solid backstory to Timon and Pumbaa, it also gives you another perspective of the events that happened in the original The Lion King. Who knew the animals falling to their feet when Simba was lifted was due to Pumbaa passing gas at the wrong time? If you are a Lion King or Disney enthusiast, I believe you will like this film. I would love it if they somehow made a sequel to this movie so hopefully we can get a Lion King 2.5. A Bugs Life (1998) I feel like part of the reason this movie gets somewhat overlooked is because it came out one month after Antz but A Bugs Life is nonetheless a solid movie. Though this film was no Tarzan or Aladdin, there was a decent adventure along with some scary looking grasshopper antagonists. I recommend watching Antz and A Bugs Life together as there were both released in fall 1998 and featured a controversy between Dreamworks and Pixar. Both movies are solid with A Bugs Life being more geared towards kids and families and Antz having more of an adult focus. Recess: Schools Out (2001) This film may not have the highest reviews though it is basically a longer episode of Recess so if you liked the show, you will likely also enjoy the film. I love how diabolical and cartoonish the plot is as the bad guys want to create a permanent Ice Ages to force kids inside all of the time. Recess is one of my favorite cartoons ever as it shows what happens when a team works together and it is definitely up there for me in terms of Disney cartoon to have ever been released. Mulan (1998) I am not sure if Mulan counts as underrated but she definitely gets my vote for best Disney Princess even if she is not technically a princess in the film. I have never met anyone who dislikes Mulan and I would honestly like to keep it that way. In the movie Lilo and Stitch, Nani has a poster of Mulan in her room because Nani knows Mulan is one of the greatest of all time. For my money, Mulan would knock out any other character in Disneys catalog in three rounds or less. WASHINGTON (AP) A man who caused evacuations and an hourslong standoff with police on Capitol Hill when he claimed he had a bomb in his pickup truck outside the Library of Congress pleaded guilty on Friday to a charge of threatening to use an explosive. Floyd Ray Roseberry, of Grover, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to the felony charge in Washington federal court. He faces up to 10 years behind bars and is scheduled to be sentenced in June. An email seeking comment was sent to his attorney on Friday. Roseberry, 52, drove a black pickup truck onto the sidewalk outside the Library of Congress in August 2021 and began shouting to people in the street that he had a bomb. He later made the same bomb threats to police officers and professed a litany of antigovernment grievances as part of a bizarre episode that he livestreamed for a Facebook audience. Police later said they did not find a bomb but did collect possible bomb-making materials. Roseberry surrendered after about five hours. During an initial court appearance, Roseberry told the judge he had not taken his mind medicine and the judge ordered a mental competency hearing. A psychiatrist found that medication that Roseberry had been taking wasnt effectively treating his diagnosed bipolar disorder. A magistrate judge later ruled that the new treatment had been effective and Roseberry was competent to stand trial. David Garcia has never backed down from a challenge. The New Mexico-based filmmaker has been working since December on chronicling the story of Albuquerque-based ensemble, Baracutanga. For 13 years, theyve been moving the needle within music, Garcia says. They are in tune with the music and how it helps build a community. Garcia and his wife, Nikelle, run Halflife* Digital and will be making the trek with the seven-piece band to La Paz, Bolivia. The filmmakers will join the band in its journey back home to Bolivia and capture the trip in a feature-length documentary to share with their fans and followers around the world. They are raising money via Kickstarter to help ease the costs. Were trying to raise $10,000 and thats really low in this industry, Garcia says. My last film was upwards of $100,000. Garcia says it will be a kinetic mix of D.A. Pennebakers Dont Look Back and Wim Wenders Buena Vista Social Club. (The film) will capture a snapshot in time of this remarkable collectives evolution, Garcia says. Baracutanga started 13 years ago as an informal assembly and has slowly, methodically cultivated a musical subculture and a loyal following that is more of a community than a traditional band-audience relationship. After 13 years of playing in New Mexico and the Southwestern U.S., Baracutanga is finally realizing a dream and traveling as a group to Bolivia during Carnival, to reconnect with the bands musical heritage and rediscover their sound. At the helm of the band is Kilko Paz. Paz says Carnaval is an important celebration in Bolivia, as it is also celebrated around the world. Hes also ready to tell the story of the band and come back home for some shows and outreach. Ive never done a film like this in my life, Paz says. Were going to have fun. Thats the whole idea of this trip. The band will do some cultural exchange with students in Bolivia, who wouldnt get the opportunity otherwise. Paz says Baracutanga is a diverse group of musicians. We are green chile stew with a touch of Bolivian corn and Peruvian tortilla, Paz says. Music is like food and if you dont mix things, you might miss things. We juxtapose different styles of music. Garcia says the project is very much a New Mexico project. Weve been filming in New Mexico since December, Garcia says. Its unique and many New Mexicans are above the line. After two weeks in Bolivia, Garcia and crew will continue filming in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos. We want the documentary to go on the festival circuit, Garcia says. Its part in the rise of Albuquerques profile. How to help David Garcia has started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a film on Albuquerque-based Baracutanga. Visit kickstarter.com and search Burque to Bolivia. Cartoneria shower Mexican fiestas and celebrations in a rainbow of dragons, masks and dolls. The papier mache folk art form uses simple materials like paper, paste and cardboard, evolving from religious purposes to create a menagerie of pinatas, skeletons, toys and fantastical animals called alebrijes. These colorful creatures have become integral to Mexican holidays and festivals, including the Day of the Dead, Holy Week and Christmas. Santa Fes Museum of International Folk Art is showing La Cartoneria Mexicana through Nov. 3, 2024. The exhibition focuses on more than 100 items from the museums permanent collection, many of them from the private collection of the modernist designer Alexander Girard, a pivotal figure in the museums founding. Priests likely introduced cartoneria or papier mache sculptures in Mexico during the colonial period to make items for church. The craft developed in the 20th century with artists in Mexico City, namely Pedro Linares and Carmen Caballo Sevilla, who reinvented the traditional forms and created new versions. The word alebrije means imaginary or fantasy, describing a style of animal carvings with riotous paint schemes. Papier mache is often made with inexpensive paper like newspaper, said Nora Dolan, program consultant. The traditional paste is made of flour and water. Artists then use strips of the paper coated in paste to layer it over a mold or structure. Just about everyone knows what a pinata is, but few understand that it is part of an entire branch of traditional handcrafts. Pinatas are a sub-category of cartoneria. Papier mache has been going on for a long time, Dolan continued. It came from China to Europe to Mexico. Artists created papier mache masks for Carnival and swords, dolls, rattles and toy animals for Corpus Christi parades. Corpus Christi is a Roman Catholic observance celebrating the presence of the blood and body of Christ in the Eucharist. Its another very solemn holiday and then the kids get toys after church, Dolan explained. Papier mache toys pre-date plastic, she added. Dolls were very, very popular, Dolan said. The parents would purchase these from folk artists. Artists sold their work in street markets; men would walk the streets dangling toys from long poles to entice buyers. By the 1960s, the figures had become collectible. Pink-face Judas Figure, Bernardo Lemus, CA 1994, Celaya, Mexico, Museum of International Folk Art. (Courtesy of the Museum of International Folk Art/Addison Doty) Wrestler, CA 1960, Celaya, Mexico, Museum of International Folk Art. (Courtesy of the Museum of International Folk Art/Addison Doty) Parrot, CA 1960, Celaya, Mexico, Museum of International Folk Art. (Courtesy of the Museum of International Folk Art/Addison Doty) Prev 1 of 3 Next Artists stuffed Judas effigies with candies, bread and cigarettes to attract the crowds into the business sponsoring the figure. Made from split-cane frames tied with waxed string and papered over before being whitewashed and painted, they included skeletons, harlequins and folk heroes. Artists depicted Judas as a devil, identified him with a corrupt politician and even the coronavirus during Holy Week. Crowds then burned the figures in flames or in fireworks, Dolan said. The political figures sometimes reached 10 feet high. They expanded beyond the traditional Judas figure, she explained. Its not dissimilar to Zozobra in Santa Fe. They attach fireworks to it. Most of the work was made in the two most popular areas for their creation Mexico City and the city of Celaya in the state of Guanajuato. The Indigenous masks came from the state of Nayarit. The exhibition works span a 40-year period between 1960 and 2000, both moving and magical. The folk duo Johanna Hongell-Darsee and Scott Darsee will perform their blend of early traditional Scandinavian/Celtic ballads and tales at Santa Fes First Presbyterian Church on Friday, Feb. 3. Their wanderings have led them from Finland and Iowa respectively through Europe, Scandinavia, India, and the U.S. On the way, they picked up tales and songs that they perform together with the stories behind them, in particular exploring the links between Scandinavian, Celtic, North American and other story singing traditions. Three of their recordings have been nominated for Best Vocal Performance by the New Mexico Music Awards. After relocating to New Mexico from Scandinavia in 2001, the duo have performed all over the U.S. at festivals, theaters, schools, libraries and live broadcasts including Albuquerques Outpost Performance Space, Scandinavian festivals in Colorado, Georgia, Los Angeles and Kansas. Johanna (vocals, woodwinds, stringed instruments, research, translation, arrangements) was born in Finland. Apart from music, she has a background in theater and dance. She studied theater in France and Bharata Natyam dance in India. She has worked as a performing artist for over 30 years in Scandinavia, Europe, India and the U.S. Scott (stringed instruments, arrangements) is a guitarist and creates original musical arrangements and compositions for the couples performances of medieval ballads. Before that, he worked as a medical consultant for ballet companies in the U.S. and Europe. _WebHeadline>EXCERPT: The folk duo Johanna Hongell-Darsee and Scott Darsee will perform their blend of early traditional Scandinavian/Celtic ballads and tales at Santa Fes First Presbyterian Church on Friday, Feb. 3. Like many others, Joseph Tackes enjoys traveling and hiking. Hes also had a love for history and learning about different cultures. Its a perfect fit that Tackes is the new interpretive ranger at Los Luceros Historic Site. I am extremely appreciative to have been given this opportunity to work at Los Luceros, Tackes says. I am excited to share my enthusiasm for the sites history and start this new chapter with NMHS (New Mexico Historic Sites). Along the way, I hope to connect with visitors and the local community to really showcase what Los Luceros Historic Site has to offer. Interpretive rangers are responsible for interpreting the history and culture of the sites through public programming and direct engagement. I am so thrilled to have Joseph as part of our team at Los Luceros Historic Site, said Carly Stewart, the site manager for LLHS. Joseph brings his teaching experience, fluency in Spanish, creative mind and positive energy to the team which we are all so thankful for. I cant wait to see what fantastic programs he comes up with! Tackes was born in Illinois and received a bachelors degree in area studies geography, and Spanish language and literature from Northern Illinois University in 2015. In the time since, he has spent most of his time abroad. Over the past six years, Tackes worked as an English as a second language instructor in Spain, Costa Rica, Honduras and Peru. Joseph Tackes started in the role on Nov. 26, 2022. Jim Kristofic came to Taos with the notion to help people on the Navajo reservation. This may seem that Kristofic is confused about New Mexico geography. He isnt confused. He is in fact a cut-through-the-fog thinker and author. There are not a lot of passive solar buildings on the reservation and the people who live there dont have them. I knew that Taos had that knowledge, Kristofic said in a phone interview. His initial intention with House Gods was to expose Navajos to the possibilities of sustainable building techniques and at the same time lessen the footprint of buildings on the environment. Kristofic was raised on the reservation at Ganado, Arizona. I could spend $30,000 to $40,000 and get a degree in building design, or I could move to Taos and just do it, he added. Kristofic did indeed move there. He spent five years researching and writing House Gods. It is based on his interviews and apprenticeships with a handful of the renegade builders of Taos, Mora and Rio Arriba counties. The books essays make for lively reading. These builders explain how they use the sun and gravity, how they wield a sledgehammer to compact earth into tires, arrange straw into bales, and compress earth into bags. The essays arent just about building materials and designs. Woven into Kristofics informative essays are glimpses of the personal lives of the builders, descriptions of dramatic landscapes, of surviving extreme cold, of relationships with rescued canines, of a look at the history of adobe and of the Navajo world view. These brief sidebars are well-integrated into the essays. The first essay is about builder Willy Groffman. He lives in the rural community of Los Hueros near Ocate in Mora County. Kristofic said an impetus for the books focus grew out of a chance meeting with Groffman in 2014, just prior to the Taos screening of a documentary film. Groffmans passive solar construction techniques were spotlighted in the film. Groffman introduces Kristofic to his greenhouse with its large water barrels along the south wall, catching photons shooting through the windows and heating the water inside the barrels. Thick east and west walls are made of adobe mud and cordwood. A fireplace of cobblestones in his home acts as a heat sink. The informal writing style makes the reader feel at home. For example, Groffman invites the author into the greenhouse, quoting Groffman as saying, Come on into my church. This is where I come to worship the sun This is where I get inspired. I build to the sun. Kristofic refers to Groffmans changing facial expressions: Sometimes youll think youre looking at a Roman general emerged from a wax death mask, talking the truth from the fields of Elysium Other times, Kristofic writes, his grin will pull back his tight, wrinkled face and youll hear his thick Norte accent and swear youre talking to an old cabron whose roots go back into the land. Still other times, Groffman will tilt his face and wink a dopey smile that reminds you that youre also talking to a wise-ass Jewish kid who escaped Chicagos South Side. The one essay that departs from the books theme is Solstice of Cruelty. Its about a New Buffalo (Winter) Solstice Re-Awakening shamanic ceremony. (The New Buffalo was a Taos area commune established in the 1960s.) Kristofic observed the ceremonys attendees: Im in a room of hippies with hip replacements and now Im going to meet a spirit animal. The book takes its title from the House God, or Calling God, who lives at the door of the hogan, or of any house, the prologue states. The House God represents strength, wisdom, good health and integrity. The House Gods of the book are the builders. Kristofic is an English teacher at Taos High School. BOOK OF THE WEEK Instagram Celebrity The 30-year-old New York-born artist, whose real name is Dimitri Leslie Roger, gets the new body art in between his studio session and an interview with local radio in Florida. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - Rich the Kid turns into art to honor Takeoff. More than two months after the Migos member was fatally shot in Texas, the "Girls Have Fun" rapper paid tribute to his late pal by getting himself a new tattoo. The 30-year-old got the tat when he was in Florida. Giving fans a look at the emcee's new ink, which is Takeoff's name written across the back of his hand, was Tattoo MF Red, a Tampa-based artist who specializes in black/grey realism. Sharing a video of the tattoing process, Red wrote, "Memorial tattoo for the homie @richthekid. R.I.P. @yrntakeoff." Meanwhile, he told TMZ that he had finished the ink within 30 minutes, in between the rapper's studio session and an interview with local radio. Rich previously divulged that he met Migos, which also consists of Quavo and Offset, back in 2012 in an Atlanta club. "They were in front of the club, so their DJ [a friend] brought me to meet them," he recalled. Rich, whose real name is Dimitri Leslie Roger, later hung out with the trio, which led to their first collaboration, "Jumpin Like Jordan". The track was dropped in 2013. Takeoff was fatally shot on November 1, 2022 following an "altercation" at the 810 Billiards and Bowling Houston in Texas. One month following the fatal incident, a suspected killer, Patrick Xavier Clark, was arrested. You can share this post! Instagram TV While she failed at an audition for 'SNL', the 'Emily the Criminal' actress ended up as an intern in the NBC sketch show and recalled 'lurking in the shadows' during the internship. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - Aubrey Plaza failed at a "Saturday Night Live" audition. The 38-year-old actress - who served as a guest host on the show last weekend - once tried out for a place on the long-running comedy sketch series but never made it past the preliminary stage of the process. "I didn't make it to the Lorne audition, the famous final audition, but I did like a preliminary, like first-round showcase at UCB," she admitted on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon". "The White Lotus" star still remembered she auditioned as various characters, including a "pill-popping housewife" with her own bizarre talk show, and a "sexy" news reporter. She said, "I remember one character I did was like a Puerto Rican news reporter that was trying to make all the news stories sexy, even if they were like horrific news stories, and I was just trying to sex up the news." "[Another was] a pill-popping housewife who had her own talk show called Celebri-tails, where I would just name celebrities and name what kind of tail they would have. Like I would say, 'Lindsay Lohan would have like a bushy squirrel's tail.' " But while she didn't make it into the cast, Aubrey landed an internship in the design department, where she behaved like a "creepy stalker" who was always "lurking in the shadows." She admitted, "I studied like a sponge. I was just, like, creepy. I was like a creepy stalker. Like now I'm gonna host it so my master plan worked." And despite her lack of interest in the specialty of her internship, the "Emily the Criminal" star insisted that only made her colleagues like her more. She laughed, "They loved me because I did not care about set design at all and they wanted an intern who had no interest in learning what they did because they're moody b*******." You can share this post! The United States military has successfully killed a key facilitator for the ISIS terrorist group, identified as Bilal al-Sudani, along with ten operatives, in a counterterrorism mission that was able to prevent any American casualties, senior administration officials announced on Thursday. They added that following "extensive planning and exquisite execution of the plan, there were no casualties among American service members or civilians." Officials also noted that the ISIS facilitator was involved in funding a network of the group's affiliates worldwide. ISIS Leader Killed in Somalia One person said that al-Sudani was specifically providing funds and working on expanding the terrorist group's in Africa and through the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan. In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed the assault operation. Austin said that al-Sudani was known to be responsible for fostering the growing presence of the terrorist group in Africa and providing financial support for the group's operations elsewhere around the globe, such as in Afghanistan. The American official added that the killing of al-Sudani has left the US and its partners safer and more secure. He said that it reflects the American government's commitment to protecting its people from the threat of terrorism both at home and abroad, as per Fox News. Austin noted that they were grateful to the extraordinary service members, intelligence community, and other interagency partners for their role in the operation. On Thursday afternoon, US Africa Command confirmed the mission as well. It said that a vital part of the command's operations was to protect civilians, which was crucial for promoting greater security for all Africans. The counterterrorism operation resulted from what US authorities called "extraordinary coordination and careful planning" between all elements of the American government for several months. Read Also: Machete Attack in Spain Church Update Counterterrorism Operation Last week, planning of the operation reached a critical stage, and the Pentagon briefed United States President Joe Biden regarding the plan as well as Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy CIA Director David Cohen, Attorney-General Merrick Garland, and other senior members who were part of the White House national security team. The American military troops' operation was conducted in a remote mountainous cave in northern Somalia. According to the New York Times, one official said that the army forces were prepared to capture the ISIS facilitator but argued that the response from his associates resulted in his death. The fact that the United States military deployed commandos to either capture or kill al-Sudani instead of using a safer approach showed how important he was to the terrorist group. Somalia is a harbor for Al Shabab, which is linked to Al Qaeda more than ISIS. The counterterrorism operation came after United States forces killed two top ISIS leaders during an airstrike in Syria late last year. The newest operation represents the Biden administration's continued use of "over-the-horizon" operations to counter terrorist threats. It is seen as a shift in strategy that the Democrat reiterated following the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, said CNN. Related Article: Russia-Ukraine War Update @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Instagram Celebrity The 'LisaRaye: The Real McCoy' star and the Ghanaian can be seen having a slow dancing at the Winter Wonderland Gala 2023 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - It looks like LisaRaye McCoy is no longer single. In a new video shared on Instagram, the "LisaRaye: The Real McCoy" star was caught packing on PDAs with an "African Prince," who actually goes by "King Yahweh." In the clip which was shared on Yahweh's Instagram page, the 55-year-old and King Yahweh could be seen having a slow dancing at the Winter Wonderland Gala 2023 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts. While hugging each other, King Yahweh planted some sweet kisses on her cheeks. While Lisa has yet to confirm whether she and King Yahweh are an item, someone who runs his account referred to the actress as Yahweh's "friend." The message read, "#kingyahweh with his super amazing and beautiful friend @thereallraye1 at the Winter Wonderland Gala 2023 sharing a song together." Fans, however, connected King Yahweh to "Love & Hip Hop" star Shay Johnson. "That's the man Shay be with WTH going on?" one person asked, while another commented, "Y'all hyping it up but that's Shay's (from LHH) BD." Rumors about Yahweh fathering Shay's daughter, Shajiyah, emerged after the Ghanaian attended the reality star's baby shower with his family. Both Yahweh and Shay were close in photos and videos, prompting fans to believe that there's something special between the two. You can share this post! Cover Images/Jennifer Graylock Movie The 'Age of Adaline' actress is trending on the Elon Musk-owned app after it's confirmed that she will star in the big-screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel, with many voicing their shock. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - Blake Lively's upcoming role has sent social media in shambles. The actress has divided her fans after it's revealed that she will next star in the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling novel "It Ends With Us". News broke on Thursday, January 26 that the "Gossip Girl" alum, who is currently pregnant with her fourth child with Ryan Reynolds, is cast in the upcoming movie alongside Justin Baldoni, who is also directing the film. While their roles are yet to be confirmed, the actress and the "Jane the Virgin" alum are expected to play redheaded florist Lily Bloom and doctor Ryle Kincaid, respectively. Per the book's synopsis, "It Ends With Us" follows small-town girl Lily who hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town where she grew up-she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life seems too good to be true. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan - her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. Lively will also serve as executive producer along with Hoover, Steve Sarowitz, Andrew Calof and Baldoni on behalf of Wayfarer, which is also co-financing. Alex Saks will produce for Saks Picture Company, along with Jamey Heath, who will produce on behalf of Wayfarer Studios. The project is currently in development with Wayfarer Studios and Sony Pictures. Following the casting news, Lively's name soon became trending on Twitter, with many voicing their shock. Fans tweeted out memes with the captions that read, "me trying to stop blake lively from doing that colleen hoover movie" and "me going back in time to stop blake lively from auditioning for it ends with us." Another begged with the actress, "blake lively pls don't do it." A fourth fan wrote, "not blake lively playing lily bloom in that colleen hoover movie adaptation please baby i'm gonna get you out of there." One other commented, "BLAKE LIVELY WHERE ANY OTHER JOBS NOT AVAILABLE TF IS THIS." Not a fan of Hoover's book, someone else said, "colleen hoover and her nasty book coming for no other than blake lively like LEAVE MOTHER ALONE." Meanwhile, fans of the novel were excited to hear the news. "IM CRYING I did not expect this at ALL and I am just so happyyyyy," one person reacted. Some TikTokers said Lively reminded them more of the titular character from Colleen's book "Verity", while another fan advocated for Penn Badgley or Logan Lerman to be cast as Atlas, with some saying they pictured Theo James as Ryle. "It Ends With Us" was first published in 2016, but it only recently blew up on TikTok. The novel won the 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance. Hoover released the sequel, "It Starts With Us", in 2022 and it landed on BookTok's top 10 trending searches of the year. You can share this post! Cover Images/HULU/Scoop/Erin Simkin TV Despite condemning the series, which earns 10 Emmy nominations, the 'Baywatch' star appears to have extended an olive branch to Lily James who played her on the series. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - Pamela Anderson is never going to support "Pam & Tommy". The actress even has a few choice words for the creators behind the Hulu series which tackled her and then-husband Tommy Lee's infamous leaked sex tape. During an interview for Variety cover story, the Canadian star was asked to describe the people behind the show. "A**holes," she said. "Salt on the wound." She also stressed that they "still owe me a public apology" for creating the series. Despite condemning the series, which earned 10 Emmy nominations, the "Baywatch" star appeared to have extended an olive branch to Lily James who played her on the series. "I said to Netflix, 'I'd love to invite Lily to the premiere of the movie,' " she revealed, referring to her Netflix documentary "Pamela, a Love Story". "I think it's hard to play somebody when you don't know the whole picture. I've got nothing against Lily James. I think that she's a beautiful girl and she was just doing the job. But the idea of the whole thing happening was just really crushing for me," she added. Elsewhere in the interview, Pamela opened up about being sexually harassed when she worked as a swimsuit model. When flying to Hawaii, Pamela shared that she sat next to the photographer who kept putting his hand on her leg. "He was much older and ruddy, drooly, lecherous," she recounted. "Then he whispered to me that I'd be the only girl, that he chose me that it would be intimate, no need for hair or makeup people or photography assistants. Just him and me. I was sick to my stomach. I knew it was not good." As soon as they landed, she told a flight attendant who later hid her in the airline's back office until she could get on a flight back to Los Angeles by herself. "I hope anyone in danger understands they can go to people for help if they are in an unsafe or uncomfortable situation, especially around a lot of people," she said while reflecting on the incident. "You can get to a safe place." You can share this post! Facebook Celebrity The pregnancy rumor emerges a few weeks after the Houston hottie scored a major victory in felony trial against Tory Lanez over the July 2020 shooting incident. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - Is Megan Thee Stallion having a bun in the oven? If a new report is to be believed, the "Hot Girl Summer" raptress is expecting her first child with her boyfriend Pardison Fontaine. On Thursday, January 26, Media Take Out reported that multiple sources claimed that the Houston hottie has "pregnancy glowing" on her face. One person told the outlet, "Meg was looking pregnant. She had a small belly, and she was glowing." The insider explained that they saw the "Savage" raptress inside Roc Nation's offices in Los Angeles. The informant continued, "Meg looked really happy too. She seems ready to get back to work [making music] and putting all the Tory stuff behind her." A separate inside source spilled that they also believed that Meg is pregnant. The so-called insider said, "[Meg] was giving off pregnancy vibes." If the speculation is true, it would be Meg's first child and the second for Pardi. He has a daughter named Jordy. The rumor emerged after Meg scored a major victory in a felony trial against Tory Lanez over the July 2020 shooting. Tory was found guilty of three counts in connection to the alleged shooting, including felony assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. The Canadian emcee faces up to 22 years and eight months in prison as well as deportation to Canada. He's due to be sentenced on January 27 but the date has since been rescheduled to February 28 due to a change in his legal counsel. More recently, a report claimed that Tory regrets not testifying in his own defense during the trial. A source said that the "Say It" rapper felt his trial lawyer misled him into not testifying in his own defense. The insider also claimed that the rap star wanted to take the witness stand to plead his case directly to jurors but was dissuaded by former defense lawyer George Mgdesyan. You can share this post! Movie The 'Platoon' actor has reportedly entered negotiations to star in the upcoming new take on the vampire classic tale fronted by Lily-Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgard. Jan 27, 2023 AceShowbiz - Willem Dafoe in allegedly in negotiations to join the "Nosferatu" remake. The "Spider-Man" star is reportedly considering a role in the new film version of the horror classic which would reunite him with director Robert Eggers - whom he previously worked with on 2019 film "The Lighthouse" and on last year's Viking epic "The Northman". According to Deadline, Dafoe has had talks to join the production of "Nosferatu" - a remake of the 1922 silent film inspired by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel "Dracula". No details are available on the role Dafoe could be playing. If he secures the deal, Dafoe will join Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgard, and Nicholas Hoult in the cast with Eggers writing and directing the film. "Nosferatu" tells a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman (Depp) in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire (Skarsgard) who stalks her and brings untold horror with him. It has been a passion project of Eggers' for several years and came close in 2019 when Anya Taylor-Joy and Harry Styles were in discussions to star. The story was first told on the big screen by F.W. Murnau as a silent German film in 1922 and was remade by Werner Herzog as "Nosferatu the Vampyre" in 1979. Eggers previously admitted he worries that all the problems he's had with the project could be a bad omen. He said of the remake, "I'm just starting to think that [F.W.] Murnau doesn't want me to make it. It feels like that." "It just feels like it's so hard, and I don't know why. And I think [Werner] Herzog had the right because of German history and German cinema history, to make it. And maybe the ghosts of Murnau and Albin Grau are telling me stop barking up that tree. I don't know. That doesn't mean that that's true. I'm just wondering." You can share this post! Celebrity The 'Fantastic Beasts' actor explains the real reason why he gave up wearing a wedding band on his finger while insisting he's 'incredibly happily married.' Jan 28, 2023 AceShowbiz - Eddie Redmayne is no longer wearing a wedding ring. After losing his original wedding band while shooting his 2015 film "The Danish Girl" and then misplacing the second ring he bought as a replacement, "The Theory of Everything" star - who has been married to Hannah Bagshawe since 2014 - has given up wearing a band on his left hand. "Spotted without his ring!" Eddie joked when speaking to the Guardian before adding, "I am incredibly happily married so I'm afraid there's no scoop there." The 41-year-old actor previously opened up about the loss of his original wedding ring onset just months after walking down the aisle - insisting he tried to take care of it by pinning it to his costume every day but he still managed to lose it. He told E! News, "When you're filming you have to take off these things and I actually lost my wedding ring. So this is a new wedding ring that is being worn. I was pinning it to my costume every day and one day it disappeared ... " He went on to admit he had trouble telling his wife Hannah what had happened, saying, "I sort of skirted around it [the issue of the lost ring]. But anyhow, I like the new one." The new one also disappeared so Eddie has now resolved to remain ring-free. The couple married in a ceremony at a manor house near Bath, England in 2015 and went on to become parents to two children. Eddie previously opened up about how Hannah manages to keep him grounded while he's working in the whirlwind of Hollywood. He told People.com, "I think saint might be the word. She is an absolute saint. And it's a ride for both of us. It's wonderful doing it with someone you love because you also have a second eye on it all. This whole industry is the most joyous, absurd circus. It's great to have someone when you get too immersed in it or drinking the Kool-Aid to say, 'Wait a second?' " You can share this post! ABP Majha, Maharashtras leading news channel, hosted its annual event 'Shourya Puraskar' at BKC Trident in Mumbai on 24th January 2023. This event is an initiative by the channel to recognize and celebrate the courage and heroism of common people across the Maharashtra region. Dedicated to celebrating the bravery of the common people, the event was aired on the occasion of Republic Day today. The event was graced by Eknath Shinde, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Ashok Chavan, Ex-Chief Minister, Maharashtra, Vivek Phansalkar (IPS), Commissioner of Mumbai Police, and Shivaji Satam, Veteran TV & Film Actor, who also felicitated the bravehearts. This year Shourya Puraskars were awarded to eight brave individuals who selflessly put their lives at risk for others. The recipients of the award were - Kishore Gadhe, Namrata Kale, Pravin Rathod, Latabai Koli, Mayur Patil, Sanjana Pavde and Satish Kamble. Kishore Gadhe jumped into a flooded river and saved three lives. jumped into a flooded river and saved three lives. Namrata Kale jumped into a well to save her brothers life. jumped into a well to save her brothers life. Deepak Gharat who was also one of the recipients of the award ran to rescue a family trapped in a fire and saved their lives. who was also one of the recipients of the award ran to rescue a family trapped in a fire and saved their lives. Pravin Rathod was awarded for evacuating 25 people trapped in a fire due to gas leakage. was awarded for evacuating 25 people trapped in a fire due to gas leakage. Latabai Koli saved her life from a leopard by swimming for 13 hours in flood waters. saved her life from a leopard by swimming for 13 hours in flood waters. Mayur Patil received the award for showing exemplary courage by saving the life of a girl from a knife attack while sustaining a few stabs himself. received the award for showing exemplary courage by saving the life of a girl from a knife attack while sustaining a few stabs himself. Sanjana Pavde was awarded as she fought away a leopard to save her husband from certain death. was awarded as she fought away a leopard to save her husband from certain death. Late Satish Kamble was posthumously recognised as he suffered a heart attack while driving a school bus, yet managed to control the bus and stop it, saving the lives of the children inside. The recognition was received by his wife Pramila. These heroes remind us that courage and bravery come at a certain cost but are worth every bit of it. In honour of their heroic acts, ABP Majha felicitated them for their exemplary courage. This felicitation of selfless acts is a part of ABP Majha's vision to serve as a beacon of hope and courage. By honouring their heroism, the channel hopes to inspire others. ABP Majhas Shourya Puraskar was presented by RCC. The event was powered by Dear Lottery and its digital partner was ABP Live. Kinnect, a part of the FCB Group India, India's leading creative, data, and digital media powerhouse, has launched a digital campaign, BeASuperstar, ahead of the festive season in southern India. The campaign aims to shine a light on the advantages of switching to contact lenses in a lighthearted way, while telling a story that is authentic to the market it is set in. A storyline that could resonate with our audience in the Southern region as well as the whole nation. People across the country are fans of the grandeur of the big screen, but in the Southern region of India, fandom ascends to the levels of reverence. Fans look up to their favourite Superstars, and many aspire to be like them. Hence, the premise of the story was set in a larger-than-life world of iconic actors. It was the story of a regular Joe, bespectacled, unassuming, easily-lost-in-a-crowd man, daydreaming about becoming like his favourite Superstar. Speaking on the campaign launch, Sana Lairellakpam, Head of Marketing at Bausch + Lomb, said, Connecting with our consumers has always been a core part of what we do at Bausch + Lomb. Hence on the occasion of Pongal/Sankranti, a key festival in South India, we launched a new campaign to drive regional connections. This time, our narrative takes you to the colourful and larger-than-life world of South Indian cinema and is a celebration of the love and admiration that the people of South India have for their Superstars. The unusual story unfolds in a very memorable manner which should drive relevance of Bausch + Lomb contact lenses in a regional context, strengthening brand recall and awareness. Bausch & Lomb has always given us the freedom to think of ideas that are a bit unexpected for a healthcare brand, which makes it a creatively enriching brand to work on. So, this time, as the focus was more on the South market, our task was to find the perfect setting for the story thats contextual and remains relatable throughout the year. Hence, the world of Southern cinema and the reverence their audience has for their Superstars defined the story's outline said Gitanjali Bhattacharya, Creative Director, Kinnect. In a wide-ranging interaction with business leaders assembled under the aegis of TV9 Progressive Punjab Forum, Bhagwant Mann, the state Chief Minister, said his government was moving fast to cut red tape and ease the process of setting up business. We aim to provide single window clearance to industry. We seek to end red tape. No-objection certificates can be secured easily, Mann told the Progressive Punjab Forum. Mann made several policy announcements at the Forum that witnessed a large number of business leaders join the deliberations. Mann hailed India Inc leaders and their contribution to the India growth story. Businesspeople are true patriots since they create employment, pay taxes and also garner profits. A government should offer solutions instead of being feared by the business community, he averred. Interactivity defined the deliberations as business leaders freely expressed themselves. Mann further added, I have come to Mumbai after many years and I had a close connection with Mumbai, when I was working in television shows. We are planning to set up a film city in Punjab. Therefore, I want to request filmmakers and producers from Mumbai to come and set up their studios here in Punjab because I want to connect the Punjabi cinema industry with Bollywood. This will also help the government generate some revenue. The Forum was attended by business representatives drawn from a cross section of business verticals & even filmmakers. The Chief Minister fielded questions from the Network anchors, and this was followed by two power panel discussions where ideas for investment and growth came up for active discussion. Speaking on the occasion, Raktim Das, Chief Growth Officer (Broadcasting & Digital), TV9 Network said, TV9 Network is committed to hosting state leaders across India to foster a vibrant business and economy landscape leading to further the India economic growth story. Progressive Punjab Forum is a step in that direction, and we are happy to note the constructive level of engagement between the Chief Minister and invited business leaders. Among the top business leaders who joined the Forum deliberations included Rahul Rajendra Agarwal, Director, Donear Group & OCM, veteran industrialist Vijay Kalantri, Anant Singhania, CEO, JK Enterprises and President of IMC Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Dr. Aneel Kashi Murarka, MD, Mirachem Industries, Anuj Sharma, Founder, Alsisar Impact, Ashish Dobhal, India Head, UPL (United Phosphorus Limited), Ragavan Venkatesan, Founder, MD & CEO, Digivriddhi (DGV), and Rupinder Singh Sachdeva, Chair, PHDCCI, Punjab Chapter. Hold on to your CRED coins and mark your calendars as the 2nd edition of Republic of CRED sale goes live on 25 Jan 2023. During the 5 day shopping festival (January 25 - 29), members will get access to premium and unique products at exclusive prices from over 350+ Indian D2C brands, upto 80% mega discounts, cashbacks and chance to win exciting rewards and jackpots. Indian D2C brands have over the years built consumer affinity- fostered by their strong value proposition and quality. The CRED platform will help them expand their brand connect to CRED members - Indias most trusted and creditworthy individuals. Since its launch in 2020, CRED store has been a trusted partner of Indian D2C brands helping them widen their audience base. Participating brands in this edition of Republic of CRED include Bombay Shaving Company, Navvayd, Portronics and Zoff Foods among others. CRED store is a platform where emerging and established brands can engage with CRED members. To enable our brand partners to create higher engagement with shoppers, we build gamified constructs and formats to shop like the Republic Of CRED campaign. We believe these campaigns create discovery through curation and exclusive offers and engagement constructs reduce intent to purchase to transaction drops. " said Abhay Pruthi, Lead, CRED Commerce. We have had an amazing experience selling our products on CRED. The platform has helped us reach a wider audience and has resulted in a significant increase in sales. Their user-friendly interface has made it easy for us to showcase our products and reach our target market. Their dedication to helping sellers succeed is truly unmatched. We are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this community and look forward to continued success with CRED, said Sachin Railhan, Co-Founder of Ambrane Heres a sneak peek into some of the category-specific deals available to members during the sale; Food and beverage: members can buy healthy snacks, munchies and beverages from leading D2C brands including Happilo, Carnival and Open Secret among others members can buy healthy snacks, munchies and beverages from leading D2C brands including among others Electronics and Audio: chose from brands like boAt and Noise at member exclusive discount of upto 80%, range of products from brands like WeCool, Ambrane, and Hammer chose from brands like boAt and Noise at member exclusive discount of upto 80%, range of products from brands like Beauty and personal care: members can access a wide range of skincare, haircare, fragrances and other wellness products starting at 99 from brands including The Man Company, Mojocare and The Bombay Shaving Company What an incredible journey it has been with CRED! Truly evolving the meaning of marketplace with their customer focused approach, unrivalled offers & prompt support, said Angad Sehgal, the Founder of Evolve Snacks Get your shopping wishlists ready and keep watching the CRED app. And if you haven't as yet don't wait, download the CRED app on iOS and Android. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) successfully seized a ransomware gang website that sought to extort 300 victims out of roughly $130 million, said officials on Thursday. Authorities noted that the planned crime was thwarted after they secretly hacked and disrupted the prolific ransomware gang known as Hive. Several high-ranking U.S. officials, Attorney-General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Deputy U.S. Attorney-General Lisa Monaco, announced the news during a news conference. FBI Seizes Ransomware Group's Website The officials said that government-backed hackers broke into the ransomware group's network and placed it under surveillance. They then secretly stole the ransomware group's digital keys to unlock victim organizations' data. Authorities later alerted the victims beforehand to take precautionary measures to protect their systems before the ransomware group demanded payments. Monaco said that the American government, using lawful means, could hack the hackers and turned the tables on Hive, as per Reuters. The news of the government's operation was first leaked on Thursday morning when the ransomware group's website was suddenly replaced with a flashing message. It read that the FBI had successfully seized the site as part of its coordinated law enforcement action against the group. Furthermore, the German Federal Criminal Police and the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit were also able to seize Hive's servers. In a statement, German Police Commissioner Udo Vogel said that intensive cooperation across national borders and continents is crucial in effectively fighting against cybercrime. The recent takedown of the ransomware group's website is unique, even among high-profile ransomware cases that the United States Justice Department announced in the past few years. The list includes a cyber attack in 2021 against the Colonial Pipeline Co. Read Also: California Mass Shooter's Weapons Revealed Taking Down Hive's Ransomware Plan The Hive ransomware group, as of November, extorted roughly $100 million from more than 1,300 companies worldwide. Many of these organizations were in health care, American officials noted, according to CNN. Garland said that one ransomware attack was attributed to the Hive group in August 2021, when a hospital in the U.S. Midwest was forced to turn away patients as COVID-19 surged. Other victim organizations of the group include a 314-bed hospital located in Louisiana. Hospital authorities said they could prevent an attack in October but still lost personal data on roughly 270,000 patients. In a statement, the chief security officer for the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center, Errol Weiss, said that the ransomware group compromised the safety and health of patients in hospitals. He added that when hospitals are the target of attacks that result in medical systems going down, people could die. While no arrests were made, officials noted that to pursue prosecutions, they are currently building a map of the administrators of the ransomware group who manage the software and the affiliates who infect targets and negotiate with their targets. Wray noted that anyone involved with Hive should now be wary because their investigation is ongoing, said Yahoo News. Related Article: Virginia Teacher Shooting Incident Update @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. As of now, ChatGPT cannot be termed perfect just as Bloomberg journalist Joe Weisenthal realised when he asked it to write his obituary. In the days to come, can we expect an error-free and perfect ChatGPT (or other chatbots with much more sophistication or human-like intelligence) which will overwhelm us with its intelligence? Or will an intelligent chatbot with a mind of its own remain restricted within the pages of sci-fi writers or as the unbridled fantasies of futurists? Also read: Decoding ChatGPT Part 1 - Will it dethrone Google? Not really, say experts The short answer, says Nitin Raj, CEO and Co Founder, Riverum, is that while we may expect some progress in AI technology in the coming days, the reality is that an error-free and perfect ChatGPT (or any other one) is still a long way off. He observes that while AI technology is advancing at a rapid pace, it is still limited in its ability to understand and respond to human emotions, which is essential for it to truly be considered an intelligent chatbot. ChatGPT (or any other chatbot) will require vast amounts of data, both informational and conversational, to have any chance of developing the kind of intelligence needed to respond accurately to human emotions. This requires not just data, but also time and effort to properly train the system to recognise and interpret emotional context. In addition, there are still many unknowns in terms of the exact type of data needed, making it difficult to predict just how long it will take to train a system to the level of a perfect ChatGPT. That said, there is hope that in the near future, AI technology will become more advanced and able to better understand and respond to human emotions. However, we are still a long way off from creating a perfect ChatGPT with human-like intelligence, says Raj. The sentient factor Eyebrows were raised when Google engineer Blake Lemoine, who was on its Responsible AI team, said that its conversational AI is sentient. He found that it has feelings, emotions and subjective experiences, a claim refuted by Google, which took action against Blake for breaching confidentiality. Can AI have human emotions? Artificial Intelligence can never replicate or produce those human emotions, asserts TRA CEO Chandra Mouli. He maintains that it is difficult to put algorithms to emotions, humour, sarcasm, irony, etc, which are subtle and human means of communication, and are difficult for AI to decipher yet. AIs inability to experience the said human specifics is a reason it cannot generate it with originality, and experience, and not just learning. This is an essential aspect that will still separate human intelligence from artificial intelligence, he points out. The language factor Another key factor is the machines inability to comprehend the complexity of multiple languages, just as it is unable to capture the subtleties and nuances of human emotions in their entirety. The Atlantic columnist Ian Bogost, for instance, found that ChatGPT doesnt truly understand the complexity of human language. He realises that any responses it generates are likely to be shallow and lacking in depth and insight. It is unlikely that ChatGPT or any other language model will ever be completely error-free and perfect, asserts Nikita Bhate, Director - Digital Integration Strategy at Chimp&z Inc. She feels that language is a complex and nuanced system, and there are always going to be edge cases and exceptions that the model may not be able to handle. Additionally, as language and usage of language are constantly evolving, it will require the model to be retrained and updated to reflect the new information. However, OpenAI and other research organisations are constantly working to improve language models like ChatGPT and make them more accurate and versatile, she adds. Concurring with Bhate on the language part, Hitarth Dadia, Chief Marketing Officer, NOFILTR.GROUP, says that we ourselves dont understand the complexities of language as a concept. The pronunciations of different things have different impacts at places. There is a vast cultural diversity when it comes to language. Also, there is no universal language yet; we all assume values of certain sentences, emphasis, and way because of just how we are wired. Not that we purposely think about it and make those purposeful decisions; its just how we are wired or how we have evolved to communicate. Considering that an AI is tasked with optimising itself again and again and it has data-sets and a sheer quantity of data that it synthesises. No human can possibly do that. So obviously, if there is any room for improvement, it has to be in AI. If anyone could explain depth in terms of language, literature, vocabulary, communication, ironically enough, it would be AI. Because we are articulate enough to understand our language. And the problems that we will face while communicating through AI or with AI, those problems will help us articulate our language better so we'll understand, that this is why it works, this is why it doesn't work. It wont happen anytime soon, since it is AI. But we are still a little far away from that since we are also constantly evolving in our ways. And know yours is the same. If you consider the data that AI also has to synthesise, its going to keep changing. So, its going to evolve at a much faster rate, explains Hitarth Dadia. And it is so pertinent in a country as diverse and disparate as India, points out Anand Chakravarthy, Chief Growth Officer, Omnicom Media Group India. According to him, it is a major lacuna with respect to the usage of language in the Indian context. The future of text and voice search in India is vernacular. As a result, in the Indian context, language is going to be a challenge for ChatGPT as it has been trained in English. While Google Search in languages is not yet perfect, it has made significant progress in this area. So, for ChatGPT to get a large share of searches in India, language is key, and it looks like this progress is some time away, says Chakravarthy. Mitesh Kothari, Co-founder and CCO, White Rivers Media, feels that the technology is in its nascent stage, and as such it is error-prone. He believes that human behaviour is convoluted and when something is meant to function in sync with it, errors are bound to happen. He adds that it is common for any technological revolution like ChatGPT to undergo this initial phase of errors like code 1020, busy servers, inapt responses, built-in biases, etc. It needs to be up to the minute for us to utilise the latest knowledge and come up with trending, fresh content. In the current form, it is also sensitive to tweaks in input phrasing, so the same thing asked differently may yield different responses. We need to wait more as the technology is still in the learning phase. Rectifying steps taken in the precise direction can set things right and we can have a disruptive technology to work with, notes Kothari. The pitfalls At the same time, we should also be talking about the darker side of chatbots like ChatGPT, such as an ability to programme malware and phishing emails. And critics have already pointed out its inherent biases, including declaring that the best scientists are white and male. Another potential danger is that the likes of ChatGPT can be misused or manipulated by those hellbent on indulging in disinformation and hate campaigns. There is only one way to keep a check on such transgressions: Human intervention! Technology can sometimes be scary because of its highly advanced potential to be modulated in any direction, points out Mitesh Kothari. According to him, this is true for any tech innovation and can be solved with human intervention, which is the key to regularising the mechanisms and functioning, especially in the initial phase. He feels that we still need to wait more to see how things unfold for ChatGPT. Systems based on AI depend on the training pool to generate responses, and because humans are involved in selecting and correcting responses, such human biases also become visible in the AI model, says Chandra Mouli. According to him, One key factor which will help in ensuring reducing biases is that the AI trainers should be as diverse as possible. Even very basic, incorrectly and inconsistently worded phishing mails get fooled, and AI software will make those phishing scams seem more real, so it is important that humans become more aware of the possibilities of how scams of the future will change and be prepared. Everyone agrees to the fact that it is prone to be misused. So, it is important to have strong deterrent measures in place. ChatGPT is an extremely powerful conversational chatbot; however no one discounts the fact that it uses an AI language model which operates on an algorithm which reads enormous data and texts; it can be programmed or manipulated, says Chinmay Chandratre. We are already into an era where data privacy is being questioned and are aware how evolution of social media has changed ones behaviour. It definitely manipulates your opinions, views and sentiments. On the similar lines, there are high changes of ChatGPT that can be altered. Hence, it becomes extremely crucial to prevent these AI systems with ethical guidelines, robust regulations and safety measures to avoid being misused, adds Chandratre. Nitin Raj believes that ChatGPT and other AI systems have the potential to be incredibly powerful tools, but also come with a host of potential risks. On the one hand, he points out, AI systems like ChatGPT can be used to create more personalised and efficient communication experiences, providing faster and more accurate responses. On the other hand, these systems have the potential to be manipulated to spread disinformation, or to reflect existing biases in the data they are trained on. I am particularly concerned about the inherent biases of ChatGPT and the way it can be manipulated by agents of disinformation. ChatGPT is trained on certain patterns, and these patterns can be biased towards certain groups or interests. This can lead to a situation where certain narratives become more widely accepted, without any real consideration of their accuracy, Raj elaborates. According to him, AI has the potential to be programmed to create malware and phishing emails with ease and at a much faster rate than humans ever could. If this happens with dedicated effort and funding, the foreseeable outcome of that could lead to a surge in cyber attacks and data breaches and in the worst case scenario resulting in potentially catastrophic consequences, he adds. With every great technology comes the greatest of cons to it, says Hitarth Dadia. This is one of the biggest issues when it comes to AI because an AI is as good as the data-set that is given, and the data-set is as good as the agent or the human being who is programming those data-sets into that AI. So let's say if anyone had malicious intent, they could program a similar data-set into an AI and AI will respond accordingly. It's just going to amplify our best and worst elements as a civilization and as a society and as human beings. If you are scared about all those things, we should be extremely cautious, he says. Dadia stresses that the AI industry has to be extremely cautious. According to him, who gets the power to program an AI has to be unbiased, open, and transparent. So, as long as proper hygiene is being maintained in the kind of data-sets given to AI and the kind of programming done to AI, we don't have anything to worry about. But obviously we don't live in a utopian scenario, and there will be a couple of bad apples. But the good that comes out of this is going to outshine the cons that it provides. Obviously, there will be a lot of hiccups down the way, in terms of its sheer intelligence; it's going to open up so many doors that we haven't even thought about that the cons will be a very small section of it. People are smarter than us. They are definitely working on it. We shouldnt be that scared about malicious intentions because it comes with the territory. Social media itself has so many rotten apples, but we're still dealing with it. It's going to be a similar thing for AI as well, he explains. The threat is certainly real, says Praveen Yeleswarapu, Head - Product Marketing & Engagements, BluSapphire. ChatGPT or similar systems arent capable of distinguishing between truth/false or understanding human emotions. They just work on how baseline AI models are trained. Hence, building robust governance around model training programs is of utmost importance. At the same time, bad guys are always around, so building strong cyber resilience frameworks to contain ever-evolving cyber threats is a necessity, he adds. The right and the wrong What generative AI like ChatGPT gets right and wrong? Nikita Bhate breaks it down this way: Lack of understanding: Generative AI models like ChatGPT are based on statistical patterns, which means that they dont have a deep understanding of the text they are generating. This can lead to nonsensical or irrelevant responses. Bias: Generative AI models can perpetuate and amplify biases present in the data they are trained on. This can lead to unfair or discriminatory responses. Lack of creativity: Generative AI models can only produce text based on patterns it has seen before, which means it cannot generate truly novel ideas or responses. Lack of context: Generative AI models may not be able to understand the nuances of a conversation or the context in which a statement was made, which could lead to inappropriate or offensive responses. Lack of accountability: Generative AI models like ChatGPT are not able to take responsibility for their actions, which makes it difficult to hold them accountable for any harm they may cause. Despite these challenges Nikita Bhate believes that generative AI like ChatGPT has enormous potential to assist in many tasks such as creating text, stories, poetry, and other forms of creative content, as well as natural language processing tasks, such as language translation, summarization, and dialogue systems. It is important to continue to research and develop the technology to address these challenges and to use the technology responsibly and ethically. Concurring with Bhate, Nitin Raj says while recognising and embracing that the potential of AI, including ChatGPT, it is important that measures are taken to ensure that the technology is not misused or abused. We must ensure that AI is developed and used responsibly, and that appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent its misuse, he concludes. DEPT, one of the fastest growing digital agencies in the world, today announced Matt Lynch will take on the role of CEO of EMEA to accelerate growth across Europe. He will support Global CEO, Dimi Albers, and work alongside DEPTs other regional leaders including Missy Foristall for the Americas and Vishnu Mohan for Asia Pacific. Lynchs appointment comes off the back of a year of unprecedented growth for DEPT globally. In 2022, DEPT grew 50% YoY and achieved approx. $500+ million in revenue. DEPT won competitive pitches for clients like BMW, Diageo, Cisco, Constellation Brands, Gucci, Samsung, Inter Milan, and Reckitt Benckiser, and added a number of new agencies (including Hello Monday, Dogstudio, 3Q and Two Bulls) to the family. Always at the forefront of innovation & culture, DEPTs Web3 offering is also thriving, now accounting for 5% of the revenue (a 2.5X increase from 2021). In Europe, DEPTs operations also grew exponentially: the business almost doubled (48% increase in net sales) over the last two years, and accounts for 46% of DEPTs global revenue. Work coming out of the region has been consistently celebrated at global awards for brands including Philips, Amazon Prime, H&M and Eurovision Song Contest, resulting in DEPT receiving the accolade of Network of the Year at the Webby Awards and Agency of the Year at The Lovies. In addition to being true pioneers of marketing and technology, DEPT boasts an incredible team and client roster across Europe, said Lynch. Im incredibly excited to work more closely with the talented and diverse people we have across the region, bringing my experience in running a global business to help DEPT reach its ambitions. Lynch was previously CEO of FEED/DEPT, an agency that specialises in delivering hyper-personalised content at scale for forward thinking brands including eBay, Gumtree and Ancestry. While based in the UK, he will now be responsible for driving growth across EMEA, expanding the agencys service lines, and growing the teams in each market. Europe is historically our home market and has been key to making DEPT the best and most innovative digital native agency in the world. So we created this role to drive collaboration, efficiency and ultimately growth across the region. said Dimi Albers, Global CEO of DEPT. Since Matt and his team joined us, he has played a significant part in further elevating operations and in continuing to grow relationships with existing clients, such as eBay. Hes also been involved in the launch of our creative automation practice and serving as interim Managing Director in Germany. Im stoked to see what he achieves next in this new position. Indias journey has been marked by a series of defining moments, from celebrating national milestones to hosting global events and cementing its reputation as a dynamic and proud nation, commonly referred to as Brand India. In an endeavour to salute Indias glorious spirit with zeal and patriotism and reminisce about some of the nations redefining moments, the Godrej Group, one of Indias trusted and leading conglomerates, released a film #DilSeSalute on the nations 74th Republic Day. Conceptualized and executed by The Godrej Groups Corporate Brand and Communications team along with Creativeland Asia, the film pays an ode to the amalgamation of diverse milestones and glorious moments that have played a significant role in Indias development and progress. The campaign video, backed by stirring visuals and zealous poetry, aims to engage audiences with vibrant reminders of the countrys achievements. In the newly released brand film, children come together and celebrate all the things and achievements they love about the nation by doing #DilSeSalute. And they invite all the citizens of India to join. The Godrej Group has strived to work diligently towards nation-building for over 125 years. With its film #DilSeSalute, the campaign is also a heartfelt expression of the conglomerates gratitude for having been able to contribute to the Nations development. Commenting on the film, Tanya Dubash, Executive Director and Chief Brand Officer, Godrej Group, said, At The Godrej Group, we are honoured to have been an integral contributor in the countrys growth trajectory. Our campaign #DilSeSalute attempts to capture, celebrate and pay respects to the glorious moments that redefined India. The film is also an expression of our undying commitment to nation-building as we continue to explore a plethora of initiatives to further develop Brand India. Anu Joseph, Co-Founder and Creative Vice-Chairman, Creativeland Asia, further added, The campaign #DilSeSalute highlights Indias several pathbreaking moments that have helped the country march towards becoming a superpower. The film engages viewers in acknowledging the efforts of the country and celebrating the various milestones. The Godrej Group has strived to work diligently towards nation-building, whom it has been serving ever since it came into existence 125 years ago. With its brand-new film #DilSeSalute, the campaign is also a heartfelt expression of the conglomerates gratitude for having been able to contribute to the Nations development. Queens Drive Club (QDC), Indias first and only women supercar club is hosting its 3rd Drive on 19th February 2023, as a prelude to the International Women's Day. To uplift and empower women and break the stereotype associated with women and driving, Queens Drive Club was initiated in February 2022 by Mrs Ritika Jatin Ahuja, Founder of QDC and also the Chief Operating Officer and Marketing Head at Big Boy Toyz. The club targets a niche sector and intends to create a coterie of women who not only share similar interests but also desire to interact and network. It currently has 40 committed members and is growing at a steady pace. The members meet at the Big Boy Toyz showroom in Gurgaon at 2:30pm. The drive then commences with a flag off at 3pm, following which the members rally on a decided route and return to the showroom within an hour. They then gather on the roof of Big Boy Toyz for a sundowner with food, music, and fun activities for the women to give them a relaxing and rejuvenating self-care time such as foot and shoulder massages by Levo spa & salon, one of Delhis luxury salons and tarot card reading by Pious Sood. Invites for the same are sponsored by forever52 & My Perfume, packaged & curated by Wishes by Om. This year the event is grander than ever before with women participating from across the country as the club launches its website on the 26th January 2023 where women from anywhere can register themselves to enjoy the drive and become a member of the club with an annual membership fee. Taking it up a notch, this year, 40+ leading women from different walks of life across cities such as Pune, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, are coming together along with their supercars for the Drive. Some of these names include the Founder, Mrs Ritika Jatin Ahuja, Yuvika Chaudhary, actress, Dr. Neharika Yadav, Ducati bike racer and Roshni Misbah, hijab biker & entrepreneur, among others. Mrs. Ritika Ahuja, COO of Big Boy Toyz and Founder of Queens Drive Club, said, Being a car enthusiast, I enjoy going on long drives and talking about cars. This year we are hosting the 3rd drive of the club, bigger and better. The drive not only includes women from different walks of life but also from various cities such as Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune joining us in Gurgaon. We have recently launched our website wherein women across the country can register and join us in the drive and the after party. I know many women who love talking about their cars, their journey and how passionate they are about it. This love, enthusiasm and excitement inculcated the idea of creating a community and continues to be a driving force to empower and encourage all women across age groups to follow their dreams. She further added, This club brings like-minded women together who have left no stone unturned to stand out in the society, who have followed their passion and are leading successful lives. With this years drive, I look forward to expanding and creating a stronger community where women drivers and car fanatics can unite, support each other and be a part of a women led society. Website: www.queensdriveclub.com Sony LIV introduced its viewers to the world-renowned culinary reality series MasterChef India. In the quest to find Indias MasterChef, the most revered cooking show is witnessing many aspiring home cooks who are presenting a platter of delectable dishes week on week. Through unique partnerships and marketing solutions, Sony LIV has brought to life the propositions of brands with various conceptual integrations and tailored content series. In a short time, the show has attracted millions of viewers as well as eminent advertisers on the platform. MasterChef India is Presented by Amul and Co-Powered by Fortune Rice Bran Health Oil. Additionally, Bosch Home Appliances and Dr. Oetker FunFoods have come onboard as Appliances Partner and Partner Sponsor respectively. MasterChef Indias panel features three exceptional judges - Chef Vikas Khanna, Chef Ranveer Brar and Chef Garima Arora. They have been guiding and gracefully mentoring each contestant to become Indias MasterChef. Ranjana Mangla, Head of Ad Sales Revenue, Sony LIV Nothing unites people better than good food, especially in a gastronomically rich country like India. A show like MasterChef India not only engages a huge viewer base but also supports the diverse culinary talent in our country. Through this show, sponsors can integrate and showcase the various uses of their products through contextual sampling as well as create brand awareness among the millions of Indians. We aim to form long-term strategic partnerships with advertisers who share our values and growth strategy, and we look forward to strengthening our relationship in the coming years. Jayen Mehta, Managing Director, Amul Amul has been associated with MasterChef India over several seasons and has in fact been instrumental in seeding the format in the country. We have been pioneers in breaking several format norms in India and leveraging the content to make our range more visible, showcase innovative applications of our products and tell our consumers about Amul products their purity and taste. Being the Taste of India, Amul has always strived to bring good taste, great food to the country. With a few episodes down and going strong we hope Amul Presents MasterChef India carries the torch forward for Amul in assuring our consumers that we are standing tall with them and will always endeavour to give them good quality products and exotic recipes always. Sanjay Adesara Head Media & Digital, Adani Wilmar Ltd Fortune Oils & Foods are thrilled to be associated with MasterChef India, which is the most looked forward season of its time. The show has built a home in the minds and kitchens of the consumers and it is an ideal show for Fortune range of products to associate with. Through this association we have given home chefs a chance to experiment and grow in their journey. Neeraj Bahl, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, BSH Home Appliances (Indian & SAARC) MasterChef is one of the most renowned cooking show franchisees globally and has elevated the way we look at the craft of cooking. As a company that is focused on improving the quality of lives of its consumers, Bosch Home Appliances is thrilled to be the Appliance Partner for MasterChef India streaming on Sony LIV. We are confident that our high-quality, German engineered appliances which are designed for Indian cooking, will provide exceptional cooking experience to all the participants. Noise, Indias leading connected lifestyle tech brand, celebrates the spirit of Make in India with the launch of their new digital film, showcasing the journey of making India's no. 1 smartwatch, this Republic Day. The Made in India, Made for India brand started with the dream to revolutionize the Indian wearable market, and prides itself in being the first mover towards localizing smart wearable production in the country. The brand film highlights the journey of making Indias No.1 smartwatch. It emphasizes on the minutest details and tireless efforts put by our skilled engineers and technicians in making the smartwatch that resonates perfectly with the pulse of the Indian audience, while highlighting the rigorous testing that goes into delivering an innovative, high quality and seamless experience. Amit Khatri, Co-Founder, Noise commented on the campaign, We are proud to call ourselves a true blue Made in India brand and celebrate the spirit of Republic Day in our new digital film. We are grateful to be a part of the fast paced industry which is leading the country's Make in India mission. Being Indias leading bootstrapped brand, we take pride in understanding the core needs of our customers and fulfilling them through innovative products, largely crafted in India. The film is a testament of the strides India is taking to be Atmanirbhar and our efforts towards keeping the nation's Make in India spirit alive. Noise is a market leader in the Indian smartwatch industry and is continuously working towards meeting the dynamic demands of consumers in this space. In addition, they have also successfully made their mark among the Top 3 global smartwatch players as per Counterpoint, reinforcing their position as a category leader and the only Indian brand to have gotten this glory. The brand focuses heavily on innovation in order to build brand love and product preference among consumers. A testament to this is that currently 1 out of 4 smartwatches sold in India are Noise smartwatches, being appreciated for tech and design, and Noises upcoming efforts are also a step further in this direction. Shoppers Stop, Indias leading retail chain, has recently partnered with Kerala-based, a luxurious Ayurveda brand, to launch the worlds first Kumkumadi Oil face sheet mask as well as a wide range of ayurvedic skin care and personal care products. Shoppers Stop will exclusively retail Earthis product portfolio drawing on its experience in the Indian retail sector, distribution, commercial and go-to-market expertise and extensive knowledge of the beauty, fragrances and skincare categories. Earthi is a high-end ayurvedic brand that offers a wide range of products such as ayurvedic oils, serums, creams, lotions, and conditioners. Earthis recent launch and collaboration with Shoppers Stop is in sync with the brands aim to expand its product offerings in Indias fast-growing natural beauty industry. The Kumkumadi Oil Face Sheet Mask is the worlds 1 st face mask to use traditional Kumkumadi oil from plants native to India as its major ingredient. This breakthrough product is poised to revolutionize the cosmetics industry by bringing old-world cures into the modern era. The mask contains 100% natural ingredients to hydrate and revitalize the skin. Kumkumadi oil is rich in antioxidants and vitamins, which aid in the reduction of wrinkles, brightening skin tone, and overall improvement of complexion. Speaking on the launch, Mr. Biju Kassim Customer Care Associate & President Beauty, Shoppers Stop said, Earthi is a perfect complement to Shoppers Stops diverse beauty brand assortment. Our partnership with Earthi will make a significant contribution to our aim of pioneering beauty by bringing to our customers the best in advanced ayurvedic skincare solutions. We are in tune with what our customers are looking for and that includes expanding our extensive premium beauty portfolio to bring curated ayurvedic and natural brand propositions to them. We look forward to scaling our collaboration with Earthi and bringing more exciting initiatives to our discerning customers with high expectations. Ms. Sandhya Vimal, Founder and Director Earthi said; Our exclusive collaboration with Shoppers Stop represents another step forward to bring the best that Ayurveda has to offer to the Indian consumers. We have been thrilled by the response to the brand so far and are excited to deliver an unparalleled product and customer experience with a partner like Shoppers Stop. We look forward to bring our beauty expertise in Ayurveda to life through their pan-India presence, omni channel approach and proven experience in departmental store retail andspecialised beauty format retail which makes them an ideal partner for us. Shoppers Stop has constantly evolved to serve the rapidly growing retail industry in India. Shoppers Stop store retails over 500 of the finest international, national, and exclusive brands spread across multiple categories all under one roof. Price points: 299/- to 3000/- Availability: Available across Shopper stop stores in India. The NEW Shop, Indias largest convenience retail company has appointed Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao as the brand ambassador. In a series of campaigns to expand its footprints across the country, the actor will be featured in a variety of digital and print platforms such as social media, OTT, OOH, and IVR messaging to connect with prospective consumers through physical The New Shop stores and in-app services. Within two years of its inception, The NEW Shop has expanded to over 100 stores with 70+ franchised stores in the last 18 months, while surpassing the ARR mark of INR 100 crores in the past year. Navigating the unexplored convenience retail sector in India, the companys omnichannel presence and hyperlocal services offer a next-gen everyday shopping experience to a wide variety of demographic. With its plans to expand and open new stores in the near future, the company wants to go beyond conventional strategies of consumer engagement through collaboration with Rajkummar Rao. Sharing her excitement on the recent development, Aastha Almast, Co-Founder and Head of Business, at The NEW Shop, said, We are proud to have come a long way since our inception. We are growing rapidly across India through franchise partnerships, but we intend to create 10,000 successful independent stores by 2030. We have so far seen a phenomenal response to our franchise model; thus we want to spread the word even more about this idea. We believe that now is the right time to bring on board a brand ambassador and strengthen our brand-building initiatives. While carving a niche as an actor in Bollywood can be quite daunting, Rajkummar Rao has proven to the world over time and time again that talent is not only a product of merit but a combination of perseverance and diligence. What sets him apart is the unconventionality with which he has navigated through the industry by setting his own rules and striking a chord with the audience. His risks have been nothing less than entrepreneurial, which resonates with the companys organic growth and breaking systemic barriers by providing round-the-clock quality services to consumers. In continuation on the same, Aastha further added, It is quite admirable how Rajkummar Rao has overcome all obstacles to become a renowned Bollywood star. Despite coming from a humble background, he has made his mark through honesty, hard work, dedication, and persistent efforts. And for this reason, audiences connect with him immensely. We are honored to be associated with a celebrity that personifies the entrepreneurial spirit of taking risks and overcoming obstacles with courage and determination. Due to his business savvy and hard-working demeanor, he is the ideal brand ambassador for our brand and franchise partners. We thank Rajkummar Rao for believing in us and being a part of our growth journey. India is the third-largest consumer market in the world with its largest ever adolescent and youth population. A uniform, state-of-the-art convenience retail service that is available everywhere in the country at reasonable prices and catering to millions of Indian customers with regard to time and location is an exciting space for creating business opportunities. The franchise model aims to offer around 70 million traditional shopkeepers, aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses to enable them to build a successful business in convenience retail driven by technology and consumer needs. Expressing his happiness, Rajkummar Rao said, I am thrilled to be partnering with The NEW Shop, a youthful and energetic brand exhibiting rapid growth. I identify with the co-founders' determination to create a brand, ensuring its sustainability, and profitability; and I believe this comes from their prior entrepreneurial experiences. By encouraging our nations workforce to become future entrepreneurs, the brand is on a mission to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Simultaneously, it strives to provide consumers with standardized round-the-clock convenience in the truest sense and makes consistent progress toward reaching the zenith. I am excited to be a part of the brand's journey and look forward to contributing to its success in all ways possible. The NEW Shop offers a wide range of quick-consumption goods, including groceries, OTC, FMCG, and fresh food and beverages. It also offers add-on services such as printing, ATMs, courier, EV charging stations, freshly prepared food, etc. With its aim to provide services in busy transit hubs, office buildings, schools, and densely populated neighborhoods; the company serves clients across all touchpoints, including physical retail, e-commerce (via its website and app), as well as through marketplaces like Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo, owing to its tech-enabled hybrid omnichannel strategy. Customers can use the app to order delivery to their doorstep, visit the nearest store, or even opt for in-store pickup. With a new feather added to the hat, the company's focus in 2023 is to establish a strong pan-India presence and grow 10x capturing more territorial presence in 20+ cities. ONN, a casual wear brand from Lux Industries Limited, has launched its new campaign for polos & tees, created by Wunderman Thompson Kolkata. This is the second time in three years that WT Kolkata has conceptualised a campaign for ONN, driven by a couple of TVCs and supported by OOH. The two new films - Piggyback and Fortune Teller - feature men who are irresistible by virtue of their ONN T-shirt. Each film depicts an intriguing interaction between a male protagonist and a woman who is attracted to him. The men in both films appear completely at ease in the weirdest of situations and in total control thanks to ONN which provides Total Comfort. The campaign reinforces the brands positioning of complete comfort. Shot in Bucharest, Romania, the international location and cast lend a global angle to the brand and add to its aspiration quotient. Commenting on the campaign, Saket Todi, Executive Director, Lux Industries Ltd., said, We always wanted to project the brand as youthful and footloose. We know that to enter the consideration set of our target audience and be preferred by them over other brands in this segment, we had to strike the right balance between premium imagery and easy accessibility. We have kept the brand aspirational and the pricing within reach. The primary objective was to get noticed again after a gap of three years. Which is why, we went ahead with advertising themes, locations and cast which have the potential to grab eyeballs. Commenting on the execution, Arjun Mukherjee, VP & Senior ECD, Wunderman Thompson, Kolkata, said, The biggest challenge was to tell an interesting story with a twist in 20 seconds. Thats why we thought of scripts with minimum or zero dialogue which would establish the product positioning without impeding the pace of the storyline. Similar to our previous films for ONN, international settings and actors have been used to amplify the aspiration levels. Vijay Jacob Parakkal, Senior VP & Managing Partner, Wunderman Thompson, Kolkata, said, Wunderman Thompson Kolkata is glad to have partnered Lux Industries on the latest campaign for ONN. We had set a high benchmark with our first campaign for the brand in 2019. Coming after a gap of three years, the new campaign is an important milestone for the brand in its journey to appropriate comfort. We are very positive that this new campaign will power ONN to a faster growth trajectory. According to three sources familiar with the talks, the US plans to deliver Ukraine the Abrams main battle tank in its more sophisticated M1A2 form rather than the older A1 variant that the military has in storage. However, the 31 tanks destined for Ukraine will not include the secret armor combination that makes the Army's newest version so dangerous, according to sources who spoke anonymously to disclose sensitive discussions. US Abrams Tank As per Politico, the A2 variant's optics and controls are more advanced than the previous A1 version, which the Army plans to retire over the next several years. Externally comparable to the A1, the A2 features a revamped commander's weapon station with enhanced aiming optics and a separate thermal viewer that enables the commander to search independently for targets in all weather and combat situations. The inside has undergone the most significant remodeling to use new technology. The control systems are digitalized, most notably a new inter-vehicle information system that enables cars to continually and automatically communicate information. Using the new technology, commanders can quickly locate friendly vehicles, identify hostile locations, and handle artillery requests. According to a fourth individual with knowledge of the subject, federal regulation prohibits the export of Abrams with classified armor packages used by the US military, which include depleted uranium. Before exporting vehicles to foreign nations, the United States removed this "recipe" for secret armor. There are more armor packages that the United States can supply to international military sales clients. The Pentagon may be concerned about Russia seizing and reverse engineering the tanks. Australia, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia operate A1 models. However, none of them have depleted uranium armor. The A2 version has more complex controls than the previous A1 version, with enhanced aiming optics and a separate thermal viewer that enables the commander to search for targets in all weather and combat situations independently. The A2's control systems have been improved and digitized, including a new "inter-vehicle information system" that enables commanders "more quickly track the whereabouts of friendly vehicles, detect enemy locations, and process artillery orders." Read Also: Machete Attacks in Spain Church Russia Warns West of Supplying Ukraine With Tanks It is unclear how fast the United States will be able to construct the promised tanks for Ukraine, which has indicated an urgent need for them as Russia advances in the country's east. The sole location where tanks are built is a government-owned, General Dynamics-operated factory in Ohio, according to The Telegraph. The plant can construct 12 tanks monthly, but fresh orders from Taiwan and Poland have filled the production line. By arming Kyiv, the West is actively implicated in Russia's conflict in Ukraine, according to the Kremlin. This week, Berlin yielded to pressure from NATO allies by announcing that German-made Leopard 2 tanks may reach Ukraine by the end of March, while US president Joe Biden concurrently committed to send Abrams combat tanks. Moscow's envoy to Germany warned that the action would escalate the situation to a "new level of confrontation." Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of Western weaponry supply, "In Moscow, this is viewed as direct engagement in the conflict, and this perception is developing." Peskov also ridiculed Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's remark that Vladimir Putin is a "nobody" who lives in an "information bubble" and with whom he has no desire to engage in peace negotiations, The Independent reported. Related Article: Abrams Tanks Not an 'Offensive Threat' to Russia @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, January 25: KPF Green Hydrogen and Ammonia Technology Private Limited Group and Greenstat Hydrogen India Private Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today for collaboration on various Green Hydrogen & Ammonia projects. The MoU aims at building a closer strategic partnership between the two companies by jointly exploring business opportunities in Green Hydrogen & Ammonia. The MoU was signed between Mr. Faruk G. Patel (Chairman & Managing Director KP Group) and Mr. Sturle Pedersen (Chairman of the Board Greenstat Hydrogen India PVT LTD). Under this partnership, the companies will develop green Hydrogen & Ammonia solutions, to provide long-term supply of Green Hydrogen/Ammonia to industrial and commercial customers in India. An initial pilot project will be launched in Gujarat. This partnership supports the National Hydrogen Mission to achieve Indias Climate targets & making India a Green Hydrogen Hub.There were other dignitaries present at the occasion including the Chairman and Managing Director of KP Group Mr. Faruk G. Patel and Mr. Sturle Pedersen (Chairman of the Board Greenstat Hydrogen India PVT LTD). Mr. Amir Naviwala (Director KPF Green Hydrogen & Ammonia Technology PVT LTD) Mr. Firoz SYED (Director KPF Green Hydrogen & Ammonia Technology PVT LTD) Mr. Dilip Jawale (Vice President - Greenstat Hydrogen India PVT LTD) Mr. Rakesh Kumar (Project Manager - Greenstat Hydrogen India PVT LTD) Mr. Ravindra Vasisht (Associate Director - Greenstat Hydrogen India PVT LTD) Mr. Viswanath Attaluri (Chief Executive Project & Business - Greenstat Hydrogen India PVT LTD) About KP Group KPF Green Hydrogen & Ammonia Technology Private Limited is fully owned subsidiary of KP Group working in Green Hydrogen & Ammonia business. KP Group is recognised renewable energy sector group of Gujarat, India operating more than 28 Years and have combined turnover of 10 Billion. KP Group and subsidiaries work on many businesses like Renewables - Solar Energy, Wind Energy (IPP & CPP), Telecom & Manufacturing businesses and are among the trusted brands since decades. In KP Group, KPI Green Energy Limited is a NSE as well as a BSE Listed company & KP Energy Limited is listed on BSE. About Greenstat Group Greenstat Hydrogen India Pvt. Ltd. is a green energy firm that facilitates the energy transition throughout the whole value chain of green hydrogen from analysis to implementation. The Greenstat Group comprises Greenstat Hydrogen India Pvt Ltd. The Greenstat Group is a Green Energy and Technology firm headquartered in Bergen, Norway. The Greenstat Group is particularly interested in hydrogen, solar, wind, and zero-emission marine solutions. Greenstat and its subsidiaries work on many business sectors that will help to achieving the company's objective in order to realise it. Greenstat focuses on developing and operating projects related to sustainable energy (GH in particular) and technology, including projects supporting the transition from fossil to renewable energy production and consumption, as well as participating in and investing in companies wholly or partially contributing to this end. Greenstat has a prominent place in the expanding green hydrogen economy in Norway At least ten have died after Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian shooters in the West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday, with the victims including an older woman, said the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The incident prompted the Palestinian Authority to suspend its security coordination with Israel. Initially, there were nine casualties, and the 10th victim was reported several hours later in what police called a "violent disturbance" near Jerusalem. Israel and Palestine Tensions Based on records, the latest casualties on Thursday made the incident the deadliest day for Palestinians in the West Bank in more than a year. The victims' deaths brought the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces just this year to 30, based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The casualties include militants targeted in Israeli raids, individuals who attacked Israelis, and bystanders. In response to the deaths, Israeli security forces said they were operating in Jenin to apprehend a "terror squad" belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization. The released statement noted that they were able to kill three "terrorists" during their operation on Thursday, as per CNN. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israel Security Agency, and Border Police released a joint statement saying that the Islamic Jihad terror operatives were involved heavily in the execution and planning of multiple major terror attacks. These include the shooting attacks on IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians. Officials added that during the so-called operation, security forces "neutralized" two armed suspects fleeing and a third neutralized at the scene. They noted that another suspect surrendered to the forces. There were no reported injuries on the side of the IDF. However, they noted that they were aware of "claims regarding additional casualties during the exchange of fire" and were investigating the situation. Read Also: US Kills ISIS Leader in Somalia Clash Between Forces On the other hand, the Palestinian presidency called the attack of Israeli forces a "massacre" before the announcement of ending security cooperation with Israel. Recently, tensions in the West Bank have risen as Israeli military forces continue what they describe as an anti-terrorism offensive that started last year after a series of deadly attacks on Israel, according to BBC. The Palestinian health ministry later identified three casualties as 61-year-old Magda Obaid, 24-year-old Saez Izreiqi, and 26-year-old Izzidin Salahat. The ministry added that 20 other people were wounded due to the violent confrontation. The house that the IDF said was housing Jihad terrorists could still be smoldering following the clash. The outer walls on the ground floor of the building were reduced to rubble. Tops and a sink in a bathroom were also left exposed. On the other hand, the upper floor was pocked with bullet holes while the stairwell could be seen with a pool of blood. The IDF troops used shoulder-launched missiles and other explosives against the alleged hideout in a tactic known as a "pressure cooker." It is an attempt to flush out the wanted men and bring them out into the open, said the Times of Israel. Related Article: US To Send Abrams Tanks to Ukraine @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Think of the thousands of people working like diabolical ants so we can be reborn in their diabolical image. They have a secret weapon they employ against us. By tearing up the railroad tracks, burning bridges, and putting sugar in our gas tanks, they plan to ensure there is no going back to our old ways. In a page out of history, Cortes burned his ships when he reached the New World to make a point: there was no going back for them, either. The Destroyers know they have limited time to do their mischief before they're found out. Once light shines on them, like cockroaches, they'll scurry to the darkest recesses they can find. These people know that the clock is ticking, and it is getting harder and harder to hide the damage they are doing to us all. Has the damage been enough to us to keep us from turning back the clock? The Destroyers have an annual January convention right out in the open. The World Economic Forum (WEF) holds its annual conclave in Davos, Switzerland to make decisions about its carefully curated world. We weren't invited. Kerry, Yellen, and at least ten other U.S. government officials attended, along with despots, thieves, Hollywood types, and Greenmailers. In a place where globalism and climate change come together, over 1,000 governmental and private aircraft landed to discuss eliminating your fossil fuel footprint. They don't set a good example for mere mortals; rather, as the elite, they always will exempt themselves from what they mandate of others. "Do as I say, not as I do," they tell us. The following concepts and principles will make it hard to return to the America of our forefathers: Patriotism. Start with the premise that patriotism is now anti-woke, and go on from there. This Atlantic article sums it up perfectly. It's okay to be a patriot, not a nationalist. Our definition of patriotism is defined as love of country, and as a nationalist, you love and boost your country as frequently as possible. This is the opposite of what globalists and socialists want. Start with the premise that patriotism is now anti-woke, and go on from there. This Atlantic article sums it up perfectly. It's okay to be a patriot, not a nationalist. Our definition of patriotism is defined as love of country, and as a nationalist, you love and boost your country as frequently as possible. This is the opposite of what globalists and socialists want. Politics in America. One word describes us: divided. How did we get this divided, angry, and self-destructive? Is this something new, or has it always been this way? No, this is not something new. The stridence of individuals frequently relates to their party affiliation. Dems tend to go left today; therefore, those with a strong affinity for the Democrat party are pulled in that direction. The same concept, unfortunately, applies to Republicans. Lost in partisan politics is the foundational truth of who we were and the blessings bestowed on America through those truths. I am a conservative writer, so my bias is toward traditional thinking. This means I am cautious about making quick, radical changes. That's why I'm frightened by what's happened to the Democrat party. People I know have abandoned the far-left-leaning Democrat party as too extreme for them. Growth comes primarily from immigrants and the young, who are blank slates for the Destroyers. One word describes us: divided. How did we get this divided, angry, and self-destructive? Is this something new, or has it always been this way? No, this is not something new. The stridence of individuals frequently relates to their party affiliation. Dems tend to go left today; therefore, those with a strong affinity for the Democrat party are pulled in that direction. The same concept, unfortunately, applies to Republicans. Lost in partisan politics is the foundational truth of who we were and the blessings bestowed on America through those truths. I am a conservative writer, so my bias is toward traditional thinking. This means I am cautious about making quick, radical changes. That's why I'm frightened by what's happened to the Democrat party. People I know have abandoned the far-left-leaning Democrat party as too extreme for them. Growth comes primarily from immigrants and the young, who are blank slates for the Destroyers. Morality. Those working to destroy us don't want they even fear a strongly ethical country. We always come back to the obvious: morality and ethics are essential to keep society on the straight and narrow. We live in a world where 1 + 1 no longer equals two, and where doing the right thing can make you an object of ridicule or, even worse, see you sued, beaten up, or prosecuted. Prosecutors aren't even prosecuting theft, hit and run, or assault in some jurisdictions. Those working to destroy us don't want they even fear a strongly ethical country. We always come back to the obvious: morality and ethics are essential to keep society on the straight and narrow. We live in a world where 1 + 1 no longer equals two, and where doing the right thing can make you an object of ridicule or, even worse, see you sued, beaten up, or prosecuted. Prosecutors aren't even prosecuting theft, hit and run, or assault in some jurisdictions. Debt. We have arrived at Armageddon. We've reached a point where the financial standing of our country has to come into question. Our ability to be subverted by malign actors is ever-present as we face the reality of being an extreme debtor nation. Most Democrats and too many Republicans believe that doing something about our debt crisis is like touching the third rail. There is a real fight within the Republican party to use the debt ceiling issue to force reforms. Ask yourself: if not now, then when? Interest on the debt will soon become the single largest federal government expenditure. We have arrived at Armageddon. We've reached a point where the financial standing of our country has to come into question. Our ability to be subverted by malign actors is ever-present as we face the reality of being an extreme debtor nation. Most Democrats and too many Republicans believe that doing something about our debt crisis is like touching the third rail. There is a real fight within the Republican party to use the debt ceiling issue to force reforms. Ask yourself: if not now, then when? Interest on the debt will soon become the single largest federal government expenditure. Families and Religion. Remember the expression, "Dance with the one who brought you"? One of the distinctive differences for us is our core belief in family and God. Yet the government has been trying desperately to inculcate our children into a system absent God and traditional family values. The government redefined marriage and removed us from the foundational "one nation under God." Our belief in family and God is why we've created the world's largest and ever-growing economy and the largest middle class. Without those principles, we have begun to sink and become just another country with unsolvable problems. It is inevitable that without God and family at our core, we will not survive as a recognizable whole. And that's the Destroyers' intent. Remember the expression, "Dance with the one who brought you"? One of the distinctive differences for us is our core belief in family and God. Yet the government has been trying desperately to inculcate our children into a system absent God and traditional family values. The government redefined marriage and removed us from the foundational "one nation under God." Our belief in family and God is why we've created the world's largest and ever-growing economy and the largest middle class. Without those principles, we have begun to sink and become just another country with unsolvable problems. It is inevitable that without God and family at our core, we will not survive as a recognizable whole. And that's the Destroyers' intent. Education. Perhaps nowhere else have we been so damaged than in our educational systems, from pre-K to doctoral. Termites of evil and misinformation at our schools have eaten away at our traditional foundations, invisible from the outside until they swarm. Our schools are shot through with manipulation, reinvented histories, and strident haters of America. There are many ways we could put a stop to this crisis that will affect the next generation of citizenry. Parents need to regain the power and oversight they ceded all too readily. They must oust those on school boards and in teachers' unions who are complicit in the brainwashing of America. Perhaps nowhere else have we been so damaged than in our educational systems, from pre-K to doctoral. Termites of evil and misinformation at our schools have eaten away at our traditional foundations, invisible from the outside until they swarm. Our schools are shot through with manipulation, reinvented histories, and strident haters of America. There are many ways we could put a stop to this crisis that will affect the next generation of citizenry. Parents need to regain the power and oversight they ceded all too readily. They must oust those on school boards and in teachers' unions who are complicit in the brainwashing of America. Energy . As a pilot for most of my life, I stay up to date with the aviation industry. People will be flying much less in the future, with $20-a-gallon SAF fuel requirements and the false god of electric airplanes being promoted. Even worse is our government's single-minded push for electric vehicles of all kinds, even going so far as electric tanks! As a pilot for most of my life, I stay up to date with the aviation industry. People will be flying much less in the future, with $20-a-gallon SAF fuel requirements and the false god of electric airplanes being promoted. Even worse is our government's single-minded push for electric vehicles of all kinds, even going so far as electric tanks! Media. Mainstream media no longer reliably cover important stories that in any way conflict with the left's hard-left tilt. Read Journalism's Code of Conduct and see how far most journalists diverge from what they espouse. I certainly wish their code had the power of law so we could prosecute lobbyists acting as journalists, making believe they are reporting the news fairly. These are the top categories I could fit in an essay of limited length. Within these selected categories are the actions and policies undertaken to reduce your freedom by dragging us all along a hidden path of no return that will see us all entrapped in a dystopian world of horrors. The way back starts with an understanding of what the Destroyers are doing. We've all been warned. Allan J. Feifer: Patriot, author, businessman, and thinker. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com. Image via Max Pixel. In 1958, Leonard A. Read penned the timeless, iconic essay, "I, Pencil." His eloquent message, told from the perspective of the simple pencil, has served to instruct millions of people on how the complexity and brilliance of the free market economy versus a socialist, centrally planned one has been nothing less than a miracle in the practical application of uplifting mankind. The following is meant to pay homage to Read's formidable use of the first person, this time conveyed from a dangerous psychoactive drug, to demonstrate the destructive consequences of failing to combat criminal enterprises in their aggressive predation of society. I am fentanyl an ordinary chemical of extraordinary power. I am both a useful medicine and a fiendish poison. I was created as a synthetic alternative to the narcotic drugs naturally found in the opium plant. Depending on my molecular variety, or analogue, I can be as much as 10,000 times more potent than morphine. Like heroin, named after the German word "heroic" for its astonishing strength, I am now more powerful and profuse than my opium-based cousin in the human desire for psychoactive "recreation." You may wonder why I should write about my presence and lineage. Well, not only is my story interesting and mysterious, but I also kill tens of thousands of people every year nearly 300 every single day in America and that doesn't include the multitudes of others across the globe that I put into a willing, blissful sleep, never to awaken. Yet, seemingly, your government leaders find it intolerable to fight me through the simple (albeit difficult) enforcement of laws and regulations designed to protect your citizens. Instead, they prefer only the morally soothing remedies of compassion-based programs that avoid "distasteful" measures such as arresting and imprisoning those who deliver me unlawfully. But society's choices concerning illegal drugs are actually not between right and wrong, but between the distasteful and the catastrophic. I, fentanyl, can be snorted, smoked, swallowed, injected, trans-dermally absorbed, or even "hooped" that is, anally inserted to be rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream as well as to bypass the body's filtering systems. This last method of ingestion was made famous by a man renowned, perhaps even deified, for dying with a policeman's knee on the back of his neck. But my presence in George Floyd's system at nearly four times the normal lethal level was wholly ignored by your legacy media. Good for me. We can begin my story with a teenage girl located in Anytown, USA. I killed her. I, and a modern culture too afraid to use the language of morality in telling young people that using illegal drugs is wrong. And it's "wrong," instructed the late social scientist James Q. Wilson, because "it's immoral. And it's immoral because it enslaves the mind and destroys the soul." Also, of course, life. She was given a single pill by her friend, who told her that taking it would be an amazing ride, like experiencing an extended orgasm, like seeing God. The pill contained just a microgram too much of me to make it deadly like so many of the pills secretly made by my criminal makers without the demanding cautions required of such powerful substances. The DEA's Special Testing Laboratory recently found that six of every ten pills sold by dealers today contain a potentially deadly dose of me due to the carelessness of my clandestine producers. And that same agency, overwhelmed and under-supported by its own government, has also said that 379 million deadly doses of me in pill and powder form were seized last year alone enough to kill every person in America, and then some. The pill given to my young victim was sold to her dealer by a local representative of one of the many Mexican drug cartel "emissaries" who have set up shop in her area. In fact, the various cartels single-minded, predatory, violent have a presence in over 3,000 American cities and towns. They are here solely to sell me, and other neurochemical pleasures, to your citizens. There may be no better modern example of Cicero's warning to his fellow Romans about allowing an enemy within the gates. That pill was one of many among ever-increasing numbers of shipments of me in various forms powders, pills, liquids smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border, along with other illegal commodities like methamphetamine, cocaine, and people, almost at will, given the chosen fecklessness of your current White House. This particular shipment of me was manufactured in a crude, makeshift lab in the mountains of Sinaloa, not by chemists, but by unsophisticated thugs merely following a recipe. I was then pressed into pills after being mixed unevenly with binders and fillers that sloppily created countless deadly "hot loads." Often, I am also blended with other drugs to generate infatuation and addiction among the users of cocaine and meth. The cartels' strategy in distributing me is as ruthless as it is terrifyingly effective and profitable. I, fentanyl, was created in this primitive, illicit lab and many others like it across Mexico by cooking my chemical precursor, known as NPP (or its close equivalent, 4-ANPP) with a handful of other essential ingredients, all costing only about $800 to synthesize twenty-five grams of pure dope that is then pressed into enough pills to fetch $800,000 in the neighborhoods across America. Think about that: a profit margin of 1,000 percent! That's why, along with the "godlike" sensations that I can provide to the human brain, I will not be easily given up by either the Mexican cartels or my users. Best of all, my conversion from NPP not only is realized at a one-to-one ratio, but is easier to make than meth! My precursors, like the chemicals my villainous manufacturers acquire to make methamphetamine in ton quantities, come from China. Colluding with their Chinese organized crime partners in the various Triads, my outlaw Mexican makers easily arrange for the acquisition and shipment of their chemicals from one of the nearly 400,000 chemical companies operating in that communist country. China's government, like Mexico's, allows the bad guys to operate through an intricate vortex of corruption that serves the ultimate goals of both the transnational criminal groups and the politicos, while taking you for granted. Again, good for me. So, in short, with such weak or, as some would suggest, complicit Washington leadership responsible for protecting your homeland, I, fentanyl, win, and your people lose. They lose to my astonishing ability to create not just addiction and death, but crime and decay. If you think you can fight me with only your caring and therapeutic programs, think again. Many of your compassion-based arrangements serve only to create and exacerbate suffering and death while fostering proliferating armies of counselors and specialists and health care structures that mostly just allow the harm reduction hordes to feel good about themselves. Should you doubt me, one need only look at how my meteoric rise was spawned by your pharmaceutical industry hoodwinking an entire nation that their every pain must be "managed" by their legal dope. I, fentanyl, know that drug treatment and prevention programs are necessary and can be effective but that they're strategically effective only if simultaneously controlling my availability and those who make it so across your society by enforcing your laws, protecting your borders, and preventing corrupt governments and corrupt elements within your own government from exploiting your citizens. My lesson is simple: given my awesome power to enslave and destroy, you no longer have the luxury (as if you ever did!) of believing in the utopian fantasy of solely controlling the problem of illegal drug use and trafficking through your oft-misplaced compassion, while speciously deriding all enforcement-oriented measures as part of some failed "war." You will subdue my "recreational" abuse only by demanding individual self-control among your people. Any government rubric, whether oriented toward supply or demand, can only ever be part of the solution. You will need to remind your people often that freedom is important not only for doing what you want, but also, and especially, for doing what you ought, as Lord Acton so eloquently warned. Your society indeed, your civilization is worth fighting for. And, whether you wish to recognize it or not, fight you must. Unless your meek and endlessly tolerant society earnestly begins to battle my wicked purveyors, and those criminal, governmental, and commercial structures that support them, I, fentanyl, will destroy everything and everyone in my path. The choice is yours. Jeff Stamm is a 40-year law enforcement veteran, having served as a deputy sheriff in Sacramento County, California; a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; and the executive director of the Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). He is also the author of On Dope: Drug Enforcement and the First Policeman. Image: Me via Flickr, CC BY 2.0. The United States and Israel have had a close political and security relationship for decades, because -- in the main -- they see both democratic norms and the requirement for security as mutually reinforcing. Irans willingness to kill its own citizens in the streets and provide military support to Russias invasion of Ukraine have brought Washington closer to Jerusalems view of the most important and most imminent threat to stability in the region. But it isnt a smooth transition, as American diplomats are still insisting on defining Israels politics in place of and in opposition to Israels voters. Fortunately, the American military establishment appears not to have let that interfere with its national security mission. The U.S. needs Israel to support American and allied operations. Israels experience with Iranian drone attacks began before Ukraines experience with those drones fired by Russian troops. In November 2022, an Iranian Shahed-136 suicide drone attacked an Israeli oil tanker near Oman. Also in November, General Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. CENTCOM, made his fourth visit to Israel since assuming the position only seven months earlier. This was followed by the U.S. and Israeli Air Forces holding a three-day exercise over the Mediterranean Sea and Israel. They are practicing fighter escort and aerial refueling, said a Pentagon spokesman. On January 16 and 17, Gen. Kurilla made his fifth visit, with stops at the Israel Air Force HQ and Air Operations Center for updates on regional threats and opportunities and an overview of integrated air and missile defense. He also met with Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the new IDF Chief of the General Staff, and Yoav Gallant, the new Israeli Defense Minister. That was in advance of this weeks Juniper Oak live fire exercise, including more than 100 U.S. aircraft with fighters, bombers, and refueling aircraft flying alongside 42 Israeli aircraft. The exercise, with more than 6,500 U.S. personnel and nearly 1,100 Israeli personnel participating, covers all the domains of warfare to include space and electronic warfare. Previously, from October 2021 -- August 2022, there were there at least three major drills leading up to this. First was an air exercise that was a melding of EUCOM and CENTCOM, including the UAE Air Force Commander along with France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, the UK, and the United States. A Jordanian pilot was there as well, but that was supposed to be a secret. In February 2022, a massive Red Sea naval drill led by the U.S. Fifth Fleet included Israel for the first time. Countries of the Abraham Accords were there -- UAE, Morocco, and Bahrain. But so were Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Oman, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, with which Israel has no formal relations. In August, there was a joint missile defense test, during which Israel tested its entire defensive array against rockets and ballistic missiles. In parallel, the Americans tested Patriot, AEGIS, and THAAD systems. The simulation was held in a unique testing facility to provide real-time data and enable in-depth debriefing, the Israeli Defense Ministry said. That brings us to Novembers exercise and into 2023. On 1 January, the U.S. deployed six fighter jets to Israel as part of a military tactic to disperse American aircraft to various airbases. They are also there to conduct joint drills with Israels fleet of F-35 stealth fighters and a squadron of intelligence-gathering Gulfstream G550 planes, simulating strikes deep in enemy territory, the IAF said. There is a mighty contrast between CENTCOMs working relations with Israel and the U.S. political echelons fixation on two political matters that are, frankly, not Washingtons business. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced before his January visit, Ill be clear on opposing policies that undermine the two-state solution. Whether or how to achieve two additional states between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea -- or even its desirability in light of the weakness of Jordan and the increasing influence of Iran among Palestinian factions plus increased attacks against Israeli civilians -- is really a security policy best pursued by the democratically elected government of Israel. Speaking of which, before Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Jerusalem, U.S. ambassador Thomas Nides announced that he would talk with his Israeli counterparts about shared values and the importance of strong democratic institutions. Changes to the Israeli judicial system are, again, best left to the democratically elected government of Israel. No Israeli government official -- or anyone else in Israel for that matter -- had anything to say about Democrats threatening to pack the U.S. Supreme Court when they didnt get their way. American analyst David Wurmser noted this week, The mandate is over, and Israel is sovereign. It needs no lectures on democracy. Words to live by as the U.S. and Israel coordinate and cooperate on the real threats to the region: Iran and Russia and their ruthless suppression of rights and lives from Europe through the Middle East. Image: Israeli Defense Forces Senator Lindsey Graham desperately wants more money and weapons for Ukraine. Recently standing in Kyiv alongside two (other?) Democrat senators one who repeatedly lied about his service in Vietnam and another who repeatedly lied about President Trump being a Russian spy Graham demanded American tanks on the ground immediately. "World order is at stake!" he declared. Something serious must be at stake over there; having thrown over a hundred billion dollars to a nation that was known universally as one of the most corrupt in the world before Russia crossed its borders last year, the U.S. government has become "pot committed" to a European war, whether financially struggling Americans care or not. Just what is this "world order" that keeps Ol' Lindsey up at night? Surely he means some combination of American hegemony, military dominance, dollar-denominated financial supremacy, and command over the vaunted "rules-based international system" so-called Western leaders love to defend. You never hear anything about the importance of defending Western rights and liberties, though, do you? Senator Graham-nesty isn't worried about protecting America's borders. He says absolutely nothing about securing Westerners' freedoms from threats of tyranny. Why? Because America has relinquished its status as "leader of the free world." That is not because dementia-addled Joe Biden is merely a figurehead under the unelected Deep State's control. It is because there is no "free world" right now at least not within the jurisdiction of political governments. The political persecution of J6 protesters for "thought crimes," the authoritarian COVID-1984 lockdowns and mandates, and the confirmation through the "Twitter Files" that the U.S. government is heavily invested in censorship and public manipulation all make this damning statement soberingly clear. Friedrich Hayek warned in The Road to Serfdom, "We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes." American independence and the U.S. Constitution embraced this principle. The "American experiment" was not devoted to creating a vast administrative State in which the expertise and benevolence of "public servants" would usher in a future Utopia. "Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness," Ludwig von Mises observed, "no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments." Arguing otherwise has been the fool's gold of both idealists and tyrants for millennia. "Freedom is indivisible," Mises argued. "As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop." The American system broke with tyrannies of the past, and for doing so, an unelected, mercurial, deceptive, and vicious Deep State has spent decades breaking the American system. It is increasingly obvious that the Intelligence Community has used the PATRIOT Act and other patently unconstitutional tools at its disposal to spy expansively on American citizens here at home for their "own good." Social media accounts, private email, search engine histories, banking transactions, location tracking, and countless other pieces of personal data are collected and monitored by the U.S. government with neither warrants nor established probable cause while politicians, judges, and private companies willingly participate in these grotesque violations of Americans' privacy and maintain the cynical pretense that Americans' rights and freedoms remain protected. It has become fashionable now for lawmakers to demand accountability for the social media site TikTok because it is finally being correctly acknowledged as both an intelligence-gathering net and propaganda fire hose for the Chinese Communist Party. The irony, though, is that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google Search provide the U.S. government with identical tools. The D.C. Deep State does not mind if Americans are spied on and psychologically manipulated by government actors; on the contrary, it seeks a total monopoly on such influence operations. To enjoy personal liberty free from the arbitrary intrusions of government nosy-bodies, you have to get pretty far away from the shadow of State authority. Even then, because the national security surveillance structure is pervasive, an isolated campfire in a remote wood is still most likely being caught by somebody's overhead satellite for some unknown reason. If you are unable to escape from the watchful eyes of the government's complex monitoring system, then the inner mind becomes the last refuge for any freethinker so long as those personal thoughts are not communicated out loud. Under the West's new aversion to free speech, "politically incorrect" words have become a physical evidence trail potentially leading to prosecution for promoting "hate" or "misinformation." In a particularly odious example of doublespeak, the New York Times argues that communist China's regime of censorship and mass surveillance offers a healthy "kind of freedom." And you cannot even pray outside in the U.K. these days without the Old Bill demanding to know whether or not your spiritual conversations with a higher power concern the well-being of helpless babes. So freedom is chased farther and farther away from hubs of government tracking, farther and farther into the recesses of one's mind, until it can be exercised only in the silence of one's imagination. Make no mistake: the imposition of "silence" is intentional. Governments understand that the best way to prevent the spread of ideas that might threaten their grip on power is to prevent those ideas from ever being spoken out loud. To silence dissent is to squash opposition. To criminalize thought is to enslave the mind. That's the "freedom" enjoyed by a prisoner, not a living, breathing citizen of any "free world." If you have been corralled into a mental prison against your will, though, then the best question to ask is this: what would you be willing to do to escape? Cameras, computers, artificial intelligence there's just no way out! Do you know that every generation of humans confronted with new technological weapons has said the same thing? Their cannon are too powerful! Their ships are too many! It is futile to resist! Yet people do resist, and over time, they realize that it is ultimately not the technology that threatens their freedom, but rather the governments that would choose to use that technology without respect for human rights or natural liberties. To create and sustain a "free world," citizens actually have to be willing to stand up to their governments and say, "No, you cannot do that; you do not have that power; now go away." Usually, governments (which exist purely because they assert a monopoly over the legitimate use of force) then load their cannon and surround rebellious ports with an overwhelming number of ships as a demonstration of how their "legitimate" force somehow justifies the theft of others' freedoms. For the citizenry on the receiving end of such violence, this translates to nothing more than "might makes right." What they learn in the process is that government power untethered from principle is neither righteous nor worth preserving. The harsher and more unjust governments become toward their citizens, the more likely movements for freedom take hold. When scrappy underdogs prevail over unbeatable foes and "turn the world upside-down," they do so with tremendous help from their tormentors' hubris. Lindsey Graham is right about this much: the world order is at stake. Freedom around the world is under attack from those governments sworn to protect it, and their betrayal imperils peace. I saw a headline recently that blared, "Rogue Hog Turns Tables, Kills Butcher." Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the news had nothing to do with politics. Although, given that the homicidal hog had been repeatedly shocked with a stun gun and kept in a tiny enclosure on his way to becoming BBQ, his story could be a prudent allegory after all. Image: Pashi via Pixabay, Pixabay License. California lawmakers are pushing legislation that would impose yet another new tax on the state's wealthiest residents even if they've already moved to another part of the country. (You can run, but you can't hide!) Assemblyman Alex Lee, a progressive Democrat (is there any other kind?), recently introduced a bill in the California state Legislature that would impose an extra annual 1.5% tax on those with a worldwide net worth above $1 billion, starting as early as next year. Moreover, as soon as 2026, the threshold for being taxed would drop dramatically: those with a "worldwide net worth" exceeding $50 million would be hit with a 1% annual tax on wealth. "Worldwide net worth," or wealth, extends far beyond annual income to include holdings such as farm assets, arts and other collectibles, stocks and hedge fund interest, and other assets. The legislation just introduced includes measures that would allow the state to impose wealth taxes on residents even years after they leave the state and move to somewhere less repressive and tyrannical! Remarkably, exit taxes aren't new in California. But this bill goes farther, including provisions to create contractual claims tied to the assets of well-to-do taxpayers who don't have the cash to pay their annual wealth tax bill because the majority of their assets aren't "liquid" and therefore aren't easily turned into cash. These claims would require the taxpayer to make annual filings with California's Franchise Tax Board and eventually pay the wealth taxes owed, even if they've moved to another state. Of course, this bill, if passed, will just further hasten the exodus of successful people out of the formerly Golden State. If California stays on its current trajectory, it is likely that the next bill proposed by its progressive Democrats (as if there is another kind today) will seek to impose a tax on anyone who has ever visited the state and perhaps those who simply pass through on the way to Arizona, Nevada, or Oregon. (California Democrats could do this by accessing the visitor sign-in logs at national parks and utilizing the bazillion cameras around the state, etc.) People once rushed to California when it held the promise of riches. Now they run from California (in what may soon be a vain attempt) to protect what they've already earned. Image: PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay, Pixabay License. Under personal injury and torts law, they would probably call this "false light" reporting. According to Campus Reform: For the second time, California Governor Gavin Newsom is under fire for misrepresenting a pro-life student in a pro-abortion video released by the Office of the Governor. In a Jan. 21 tweet, Gov. Newsom posted the pro-abortion, anti-GOP video. "Our basic rights are being stripped away. It's not just reproductive rights. The @GOP are fighting to take away fundamental freedoms the freedom of speech. To vote. To live without gun violence," Newsom's tweet reads. Lee University student Macy Petty, the victim of Newsom's political ad, is portrayed as a crying pro-abortion protestor the day of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, as the words "I would say panic is the primary reaction" are spoken. Although Petty was emotional the day Roe was overturned, the true reason she was shedding tears was different than what is portrayed in the video. "[Newsom is] manipulating my image to encourage the killing of innocent children. That is EXTREMELY harmful to who I am both in character and in image," Petty told Campus Reform. Wow. What kind of an ass would use a pro-life woman's picture in an ad, portraying her tears of joy at the scrapping of Roe v. Wade, as the leftist bawlings of misery over abortion's end, all to sell more abortion to the public? Here's one of the ads (there are two), and it's still up on Twitter: Across the US, rights are being stripped away. It's not just reproductive rights - it's voting rights, gun safety laws, the freedom to choose what to read... But that's not the reality in California. Here, we expand rights, protect values, and pave the way to a better future. pic.twitter.com/hoVo76kGUW Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) January 21, 2023 Does Newsom think people aren't going to notice this? Does he think he's above basic libel law, and can engage in the "rape of will," so to speak, of another American, putting phony words in her mouth, just because he wants to make a campaign ad? It's amazing what Newsom thinks he can get away with. Here's the young woman's response: Panic? Sad? Try ecstatic, blown away by Gods grace on this country. Please stop using my face to kill the babies Ive dedicated my life to protect #prolife @GavinNewsom @HillaryClinton @CA_Dem pic.twitter.com/SjaMS37L7d Macy Petty (@macypetty0416) January 23, 2023 According to Campus Reform, Petty has paired up with an NGO called the California Family Council to challenge this use of her face in the ad, and right now they are calling for the removal of the picture and an apology. That certainly lets Newsom off easy, as anyone can make a mistake in the creation of an ad, while replacing Petty's picture with a bawling leftist is easy stuff for a professional video editor to do. But for some reason they won't do it, and they even repeated the error in a second ad almost as if they wanted to cause her more distress. Or because they were profiting from it politically and wanted to keep the profits flowing. This smells of "lawsuit," and while there are fine distinctions on who's a public figure and the license of government officials exempting them from lawsuits in some instances, it also looks like a classic definition of at least "false light" reporting, or possibly the even harder "defamation" element of First Amendment and personal injury law. According to FindLaw, here's the actual definition of false light reporting: In a false light claim, the plaintiff must prove the following elements: The defendant published some information about the plaintiff. The information must portray the plaintiff in a false or misleading light. The information is highly offensive or embarrassing to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities. The defendant must have published the information with reckless disregard for its offensiveness. A false light claim is usually easier to bring than a defamation claim. Take, for example, a newspaper article about the issue of child molestation in certain churches. If the editor includes a photograph of an innocent priest who has not been accused of (or otherwise associated with) child molestation, the newspaper may be liable for false light. This is the case because including the photograph implies that the priest is involved in child molestation. In a defamation action, the newspaper would simply assert that no statement was actually made about the photographed priest and child molestation. As you can probably tell, false light is a powerful cause of action for a plaintiff because it allows for a complete and total assessment of published information and the context in which such information is placed. A great deal of commentary that is likely to cause injury merely implies false statement. It does not need to cause injury directly. It may do so by implication alone. When I was at Columbia Journalism School, I remember how the great Floyd Abrams taught us in First Amendment law class that even something like a media outlet claiming that a woman was pregnant when she was not pregnant could be actionable under the "false light" clause. Portraying someone as pro-choice and sticking her in an ad to sell abortion to the public is a bit worse than claiming someone's pregnant who's not pregnant. In Petty's interview with Campus Reform, she uses the term "EXTREMELY harmful" in the headline, which sounds like a legal term, so perhaps she's issuing a legal warning shot to the clown in the California governor's chair to be prepared for a lawsuit. All the Newsom team needs to do is yank the ad, put a different picture in it, and make a little apology. That they don't sounds like a coming legal problem for them, yet they don't seem to care. Maybe there is a legal clause they can use that exempts them from allegations of defamatory or false light harm, or maybe Newsom feels that putting the taxpayers on the hook for whatever payout she gets in court is not his problem. Whatever it is, it's unethical as heck and tells us a lot about Newsom's political character. They don't respect people whose views differ in any way from their own awful perspectives. They just keep running the dishonest ads. Image: Twitter screen shot. Five former Memphis police officers who were fired earlier this month for their behavior during the arrest of Tyre Nichols were charged Thursday on counts including murder and kidnapping, according to Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy. Mulroy stated that the former policemen Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, and Desmond Mills Jr. were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and one count of official oppression. Tyre Nichols Death Suspects In Tennessee, second-degree murder is defined as the "intentional murder of another" and is a Class A felony punished by 15 to 60 years in prison. About three weeks have passed since Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was hospitalized following a traffic stop and "confrontation" with Memphis police, which family attorneys have described as a brutal assault. Authorities said that Nichols died of his injuries on January 10, three days after his arrest, as per CNN. Thursday evening, four police officers remained in prison after being processed into the Shelby County Jail. Bond was set at $350,000 for Haley, 30, and Martin, 30, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and $250,000 for Bean, 24, and Smith, 28. According to prison records, Mills, 32, secured a $250,000 bail Thursday evening and was freed. Blake Ballin, an attorney representing Mills, and William Massey, an attorney for Martin, stated that they had yet to view the footage of the police incident, which is likely to be presented to the public on Friday. Ballin characterized Mills as a "respectful parent" who was "devastated" by the murder accusation. Mills, a former jailer in Mississippi and Tennessee, was posting bond Thursday to ensure his release, and his attorney said he intends to submit a not-guilty plea in court. Ballin stated that he had not discussed Nichols with Mills. Since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter protest movement, police around the nation have been subjected to heightened scrutiny for how they treat Black people. Due to Nichols' death, Memphis officials are preparing for potential civil upheaval and have urged peaceful demonstrations. In a statement released on Thursday, President Joe Biden described the murder as "a terrible reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to its promise of fair and impartial justice, equitable treatment, and dignity for all." Read Also: Who May Receive $7,500 Tax Credit? Memphis Police Arrest Footage During his Thursday briefing, District Attorney Mulroy called the situation as a tragedy and described Nichols as an "almost perfect son." Friday after 6 p.m., Memphis time, the bodycam footage of Nichols' ultimately tragic arrest will be made public, according to Mulroy. The family of Nichols and their attorneys have viewed a police video of his arrest, but the tape has not been disclosed to the general public. Per Daily Mail, he stated that the indictment against the five cops "does not exclude" further charges. Mulroy stated on Tuesday that state and local investigators desired to conduct as many interviews as possible before the video's release. Some activists expected the footage to be published once Nichols' family and the family's attorneys saw it on Monday. As state and federal investigations continue, Memphis Police Chief CJ Davis has pledged his department's "full and total cooperation" in determining the circumstances surrounding Nichols' death. Crump stated that the video indicated that Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx employee, and father, was shocked, pepper-sprayed, and held during a traffic check near his residence. He was coming home after photographing the sunset at a suburban park. The legal team alleged that cops assaulted Nichols for three minutes in a "savage" confrontation reminiscent of the 1991 police beating of Los Angeles driver Rodney King. Authorities have only stated that Nichols suffered a medical emergency, despite his claimed heart attack and renal failure. Davis stated that she anticipates a community response when the arrest footage is made public. Several public authorities in the case pledged that the body camera footage of the arrest would be made public as soon as Nichols' family and their attorney, the famed civil rights attorney Ben Crump, had a chance to study the footage privately. Initially, officials looked to be walking back this promise. After stating on Monday morning that they had met with the Nichols family to "enable a review of video records," the Memphis Police Department stated that it was not yet ready to disclose the footage to the public. Mulroy made a similar statement, claiming that releasing the footage may compromise the investigation and that the tape could be disclosed later this week or early next week. The impending release of the video was announced the day before five former Memphis police officers were charged with second-degree murder in the death of Nichols, The Independent reported. Related Article: Alabama Airport Crew Killed by Plane Engine @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In "'Farha' film on Netflix brings Palestinian lens to a broad audience" (1/23/23), Washington Post reporter Claire Healy can't hide her determination to report news from the Palestinian point of view. The article is about a movie based on a Palestinian story by director Darin Sallam. Sallam admits that "the movie is based in part on a story related by a Palestinian girl" (emphasis added) to Sallam's mother...who obviously relayed it to Sallam. Not exactly the criteria historians would use to instill confidence in its accuracy. Not only does Healy report the Palestinian hearsay as fact, but she does so from a uniquely Palestinian perspective. In particular, when Healy states that a war began after Israel declared Independence, she conveniently neglects to mention that the war was started by local Arabs (who now call themselves Palestinians) and five neighboring Arab armies with the expressly genocidal goal of destroying the nascent Israeli state and exterminating its Jewish inhabitants. In that war, Jews and Arabs were both displaced, and many of the Arabs fled to clear a path for what they thought (and were told) was a conquering Arab army. Yes, there were Palestinians as well as Jews who lost their homes. But the Washington Post falsely claimed that 750,000 local Arabs were part of a "forced exodus." The Palestinians are entitled to their bias, but a news reporter is expected to meet a higher standard. The overriding tragedy omitted from the Post article is the fact that if the Palestinians hadn't started the war, no one would have been displaced. Yes, the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) "story" is "rarely included in mainstream media in the United States," as the Post article states, but they neglect the reason: it is false! Arab aggression started the war, and had the Arabs won, the Jewish people would have been subjected to a second Holocaust. Is it a catastrophe for the military aggressor in a war to lose? Does it make sense for the attacker to cry foul when its bloodthirsty plan backfires? That's what happened not a pretty picture. So what are they to do? In this case, the losing side stooped to the level of struggling to rewrite history with a propaganda film. And the Post gladly came along for the ride. The Post article is littered with even more omissions. Israel didn't "seize" the West Bank and Gaza. It took it from Jordan not the Palestinians while defending against a Jordanian attack. The director said the movie "represents the Palestinians who had to move on and live with all the pain and losses." But they didn't have had to "move on." They could have opted for peace instead of war. The true Nakba (catastrophe) is that the few surviving Palestinian refugees and millions of their descendants are presently held (virtually imprisoned) in camps by their Arab brethren in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan in addition to the West Bank. In the neighboring countries, many are restricted in that they are not allowed to purchase homes, hold many occupations, or live a normal life. In the West Bank, Palestinians are crowded into areas, deprived of international aid meant for them but siphoned away by Palestinian leaders who use the largess to build opulent mansions for themselves and live like kings. How about a movie that exposes the Arab mistreatment of fellow Arabs which has gone on for 75 years? Bring that to the mainstream media, spark outrage, and help cure their self-inflicted malady. That would genuinely help the Palestinians "move on" instead of supporting their habit of grinding an axe against Israel. Dr. Michael Berenhaus is a freelance watchdog activist who works tirelessly to combat anti-Israel bias in the media. He has been widely published in news sources such as The Economist, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Image via Max Pixel. The Minnesota House recently voted to pass legislation establishing an unlimited "right" to abortion on demand. The so-called Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act asserts a woman's "fundamental right" to "obtain an abortion, and to make autonomous decisions about how to exercise this fundamental right." It also preposterously asserts that this "right" can be found in the "principles of individual liberty, personal privacy, and equality" in the Minnesota Constitution. Furthermore, the North Star State's Democrats claim that localities are therefore forbidden from "regulat[ing] an individual's ability to freely exercise the fundamental rights set forth in this section in a manner that is more restrictive than that set forth in this section." Department of Redundancy Department. Minnesota's House Democrats are not just crazed abortion zealots; they are gifted writers as well! Democrats were apparently responding to an amendment, previously proposed by Republicans, that would have limited late-term and partial-birth abortions, but that was rejected by something called the Minnesota House Health Finance and Policy Committee. Responding to the Democrats' PRO Act passing the House, Cathy Blaeser, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life co-executive director, said: "Let's be clear: The PRO Act would mean it's legal for any baby to be aborted, for any reason and at any time up to birth. The absolutist extremism of this bill would put Minnesota in the company of just a handful of countries worldwide, among them China and North Korea. Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach." Unfortunately, Ms. Blaeser doesn't appear to understand that Minnesota Democrats consider it high praise indeed to be compared to such exemplars of human "rights" as China and North Korea. What do Minnesota's Democrats want? Unfettered abortion! When do they want it? Now! No longer shy about publicly supporting a holocaust on innocent life in the womb, these Democrats now scream that abortion should be legal, safe, and...ubiquitous! If many "preemies" can now survive and thrive even those born many weeks before their due date and yet Democrats want to make abortion perfectly legal until the moment of normally expected birth around week 40, the PRO Act is simply, and inarguably, a license to murder a child for one's own convenience. But, remarkably, even that isn't enough to satisfy today's Democrats' appetite for slaughter. Most approve of what is effectively "after-birth abortion." In fact, all but two of them in the U.S. House recently voted against legislation that would require immediate medical attention for babies who are born alive after an attempt was made to abort them. The House did pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which states that any infant born alive after an attempted abortion is a "legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States" and would require doctors to care for those infants as a "reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive." The bill passed 220-210, with all 210 of the "no" votes coming from Democrats. Only one Democrat voted for the bill, that being Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. Another, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, simply voted "present." The rest voted for mass genocide over personal responsibility. Image via Pxhere. Just yesterday, the Washington Free Beacon reported that former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul may have used privileged information to cut their losses in the stock market. Financial disclosure filings that Nancy submitted to the House Ethics Committee revealed that Paul sold 30,000 shares of Google worth approximately $3 million between Dec. 20 and Dec. 28. A month later, on Jan. 24, 2023, the Justice Department and attorneys general from eight states including Pelosi's home state of California sued Google for monopolizing digital advertising technologies via serial acquisitions and engaging in other anti-competitive practices. The lawsuit may compel Google to break up into smaller units and have other restrictions instituted. The news of the lawsuit caused the price of Google's stock to plummet by 6 percent. This trade is the latest in a string of questionable transactions by the Pelosi couple. A Washington Free Beacon analysis revealed that the Pelosi couple have seen their fortune grow to $140 million since 2008 due to Paul's stock trades. Pelosi's stock market charades have sparked calls for tougher regulations on members of Congress cashing in on their positions of power. A House speaker's disclosure report from last year revealed that Paul invested $5 million in 20,000 shares of NVIDIA, a firm known for designing and manufacturing graphics-processing chips. The Daily Caller revealed that Paul's stock purchase was prior to a vote on a bill that would deliver massive grants, subsidies, and tax credits to chip manufacturing. Clearly, Speaker Pelosi was aware of the contents of the bill and the fact that it was heading for a vote in the Senate. Paul and Nancy saved roughly $600,000 in June by selling shares of microchip maker NVIDIA weeks before the U.S. government placed restrictions on the company's business in China and Russia. Back in 2021, Paul made over $5 million after trading stocks in Google parent company Alphabet Inc., Amazon, and Apple, prior to the House Judiciary Committee's vote to advance five antitrust bills against the tech giants. Paul is not the only offender. Lawmakers from both parties invested in sectors whose importance was elevated following the COVID-19 pandemic. They also sold investments from sectors adversely affected by the pandemic. Their investments were obviously based on prior knowledge of the emergency bills scheduled to be passed during the pandemic. Business Insider's Conflicted Congress investigation report from December 2021 revealed dozens of STOCK Act violations, numerous potential conflicts of interest driven by lawmakers' stock holdings, and measly enforcement of antiinsider trading rules. Forty-nine members of Congress and 182 senior congressional staffers were found to have violated laws aimed at preventing insider trading, but they received no punishment. What happens beyond D.C.? A Netflix employee was sentenced to 14 months in prison and $10,000 in fines for insider trading, while the husband of a former Amazon employee was sentenced to 26 months in prison for the same offense. In 2004, Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison and two years of supervised release along with $30,000 in fines for similar offenses. The laws do not apply to those who make the laws. So what is being done to combat this? Last September, House Democrat Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas introduced a bill that banned members of Congress and other government officials, including Supreme Court justices, from owning or trading stocks. But the vote on the bill was delayed, by thenHouse majority leader Steny Hoyer, known to be a close Pelosi ally. The excuse for the postponement was that there was not enough time to read the 26-page bill. The same House passed an omnibus spending bill last December that runs into 4,155 pages in a matter of hours. Pelosi, who initially rejected the idea of a stock trading ban, claimed to have had a change of mind. But instead of simply supporting Rep. Spanberger's bill, Pelosi engaged in the usual skullduggery and subterfuge to kill the legislation. So why should elected leaders and other government officials be banned from trading? Shouldn't every individual, regardless of the organization he works for, be allowed to invest as he pleases in a free-market economy? A free-market economy works only when it is grounded in fairness. The stock markets are fair only when all potential investors have identical access to the same information and some among them apply acumen to reap profits. Government officials, both elected and unelected, often have access to information about actions to be taken by the government or laws to be passed that could affect certain sectors of business. Engaging in trade after this prior knowledge gives them an unfair advantage and is tantamount to abuse of office. In light of the ongoing failure of even laws to police them, they must now refrain from misusing their position in government to reap profits. They are always free to resign from their positions and dedicate their lives to making millions in the stock market. But hope for fairness may be on the way. GOP senator Josh Hawley from Missouri recently introduced the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act, also aptly named the PELOSI Act. The goal behind the act is to prohibit members of Congress and their spouses from "holding, acquiring, or selling stocks or equivalent economic interests during their tenure in elected office." Hawley said the following: For too long, politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system they write the rules for, turning profits for themselves at the expense of the American people. As members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives are tasked with providing oversight of the same companies they invest in, yet they continually buy and sell stocks, outperforming the market time and again. There are some major challenges to the bill. Passing it through the House and Senate and getting signed by Biden is not going to be easy. There must be numerous rogue lawmakers in both parties who will be keen to kill the bill. It will take some astute stewardship from House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other leading members of the House to pass the bill. The previously failed legislation aimed to prevent insider trading by government officials had 71 co-sponsors, from MAGA Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Hence, there may be scope for bipartisanship here. Will Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and minority leader Mitch McConnell lead the way to get the bill passed in the Senate, and most importantly, will Joe Biden sign the bill to make it a law? Experience would suggest that we don't hold our breath for that to occur. If by some miracle the bill is passed, the challenge is to ensure that these laws and other existing laws are enforced to punish the offenders. Still, the fact that another attempt is being made to ensure order, fairness, and accountability in D.C. must be lauded. Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License. The incredible undercover video of a senior Pfizer executive boasting about mutating the Covid virus released Wednesday by Project Veritas is making waves, even though the corporate media have completely ignored it as Google suppresses searches for it. Here is the original video itself of Pfizer's Jordon Trishton Walker regaling his companion, unaware that he was being recorded. Twitter video screengrab BREAKING: @Pfizer Exploring "Mutating" COVID-19 Virus For New Vaccines "Don't tell anyone this...There is a risk...have to be very controlled to make sure this virus you mutate doesn't create something...the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest."#DirectedEvolution pic.twitter.com/xaRvlD5qTo Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) January 26, 2023 And here is Tucker Carlson last night explaining the total suppression of the video despite 12 million online views and the tech oligopolists' suppression of searches for it. Pfizers CEO Albert Bourla, questioned about the video by Rebel News, clammed up and dismissed the question with Thank-you very much and Have a nice day. But new video released yesterday afternoon by Project Veritas shows Walker being confronted by Project Veritas head James OKeefe, shown video of the encounter on an iPad, and going thug on him and others from Project Veritas, who were openly recording the encounter. The entire video is 10 minutes long, and begins with what might be called highlights, before a more complete record of the encounter. It is worth your time to watch, but in case you are in a hurry, there are some screengrabs below. (All from YouTube screengrabs) Walker at first claims he was lying, just trying to impress a date, which is an interesting confession of sleaziness, if accurate. He also denies being a scientist, stating he was hired from a consulting firm. It will be interesting to find out which one, if this is true. But it is when Walker tries to grab the iPad, slams it to the ground, and engages physically with PV staff that it gets interesting, and potentially criminal. Here he grabs the iPad: And here it goes flying to the floor: After tussling with the PV crew, he ends up on the floor himself: Walker instructs the owner of the cafe to call the police and lock the doors and prevent OKeefe and company from leaving, which in most states constitutes kidnapping or unlawful detention. Its odd because he is the only person potentially committing crimes. The PV crew does leave, and when they do, Walker goes outside and tries to block a car he mistakenly believes they are riding in. When police do come and are show video of the encounter an officer states that they would arrest Walker if James OKeefe were still present on the scene, though he had left by this time. In my opinion, Walker became crazed and desperate, realizing that he had probably torpedoed his career and might be in for some even worse consequences. I expect Walker may face a subpoena from the House Committee investigating Covid. He and other Pfizer executives need to be placed under oath and explain what, if any, mutations they have been creating out of the Covid virus. Just remember, since the year 2000, Pfizer has been assessed nearly $10.3 billion in penalties for criminal activities and other violations. Those 90 records include false claims, safety violations, fraud, workplace and environmental violations, foreign corrupt practices, kickbacks, and bribery. Do you trust them? I dont. Since the beginning of 2020, the federal government has awarded contracts to Pfizer valued at nearly $23.4 billion. $20 billion of that is for Covid-19 vaccines and the rest for routine adult and pediatric vaccines, medical supplies, and cancer drugs. The federal government obviously trusts Pfizer with our money and our health. By now, tens of millions have viewed the Project Veritas video wherein Jordon Walker, Pfizers Director for Research & Development Strategic Operations discusses a new direction in virology research on the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) virus. BREAKING: @Pfizer Exploring "Mutating" COVID-19 Virus For New Vaccines "Don't tell anyone this...There is a risk...have to be very controlled to make sure this virus you mutate doesn't create something...the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest."#DirectedEvolution pic.twitter.com/xaRvlD5qTo Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) January 26, 2023 Ill leave others to parse the veracity of all he said, including his later denials, and discuss the next steps called for by Congress and the American public. Dr. Walker is a Yale graduate who received his MD at the University of Texas Southwestern medical school. His immediate supervisor reports to Pfizers CEO. Given his education, and his high rank within the company, I tend to believe he was completely accurate in describing what Pfizer has going on. The removal of his LinkedIn page (related to me by a friend) reinforces my belief. Dr. Walker stated, One of the things were exploring is like, why dont we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create, preemptively develop new vaccines, right? He goes on to discuss directed evolution and selected directional mutations. At one point, he appears to equate this work with gain of function research but, at another, he says it is not gain of function. Whats obvious to me is that one cannot create a vaccine until one has the infection in hand. Heres where concerns about biosecurity, a subset of national security, come in. SARS-associated coronavirus is identified as a Federal (HHS) Select Agent. The 2020 Federal Select Agent Program report is quite detailed about how such agents are to be registered and managed. The FSAP is a congressionally-mandated program. When Congress drills down into whats going on, the members need to discover whether Pfizer adheres to these requirements. Current guidance on handling and processing cultures of SARS-CoV-2 is that they should be handled in a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory using BSL-3 practices and that inoculation of animals with infectious wild-type SARS-CoV-2 should be conducted in an Animal Biosafety Level 3 (ABSL-3) facility using ABSL-3 practices and respiratory protection. If Dr. Walkers initial statements are valid, however, Pfizer plans to force the virus in primates to mutate/evolve. This doesnt sound like wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus. BSL-4 laboratories are used to study infectious agents or toxins that pose a high risk of aerosol-transmitted laboratory infections and life-threatening diseases for which no vaccines or therapies are available. Its pretty well concluded that gain of function research was being done on what ultimately became Covid-19 when it walked out of the BSL-4 laboratory In Wuhan. Millions died. The currently approved vaccines do not stop the acquisition of, contagion with, transmission of, or suffering from this virus. In January 2022, the NIH asked the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to review gain of function research. The NSABB released a draft report just a week ago that recommends more stringent biosecurity oversight of this sort of research. News-medical.net has an excellent overview here. There are nine Biosafety Level 4 facilities in the United States; none of them run by Pfizer. Congress should have NIH and members of NSABB in to discuss updating biosafety requirements for gain of function research for SARS-associated coronaviruses. Congress should also find out if NIH or CDC knew about Pfizers pushing for the mutation of this genetic material in primates. Last fall, Boston Universitys National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory got into a pickle over altering the SARS CoV-2 virus. At the end of the day, just a couple of weeks ago, in fact, the NIH said the experiments were funded with private funds and were not subject to NIH review. Weasel words, for sure, but accurate. The FSAP is managed by a division of HHS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), not HHS/National Institutes of Health (NIH). Congress needs to call the correct personnel to testify. And when Pfizer says its not conducting gain of function research? Whether one calls it directed evolution, forced mutation, or research involving potential pandemic pathogens, its still categorized as gain of function. Dont let them off the hook just because they try to redefine a well-known activity. Insufficient biosecurity for this type of research is a threat to us all. Many more could die. Not to mention that this sounds like its meant to push a virus to the point where it will need a new money-making gene therapy. Im glad to see so many in Washington calling for the facts. Not on your watch, 118th. Anony Mee is the nom de blog of a retired public servant. Image: Twitter screen grab. Following a court order, we finally have the footage of the attack on Paul Pelosi at his and Nancys San Francisco home. If you hate to see a young man batter an old man in the head with a hammer, dont watch it. In the few seconds that attack plays out, its very disturbing. However, there are a few strange things in the video, although I hesitate to assign any significance to them. Here's the full video and, as I warned, its disturbing because it shows a frenzied violent attack that left Paul Pelosi unconscious and needing significant brain surgery, followed by a stint in the ICU and a long recovery: BREAKING: The Paul Pelosi bodycam video has been released. Here is the full video. pic.twitter.com/Z254Q8NGIM Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023 Fox was also able to obtain the surveillance video from the house, showing David DePape breaking in and the 911 call is public too: And here is Paul Pelosis 911 call. pic.twitter.com/IyHHfvPQcg Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 27, 2023 All suspicions that Pelosi invited DePape in should be allayed by the break-in video. The 911 call is strange. Pelosi sounds remarkably relaxed and mellow throughout the call, even a little perplexed as to whether he should be making the call at all. However, a little over halfway through, Pelosi says that the intruder says that he (Pelosi) shouldnt be on the phone. At that point, it sounds as if DePape is threatening Pelosi and calling the shotsbut if thats the case, how and why did Pelosi make the 911 call in the first place? At one point, when the 911 operator asks if Pelosi knows the man, DePape, in the background, cheerfully says his name is David. However, by the calls end, its very clear that Pelosi is in danger, which is obviously why the police showed up. In his last words to the operator, while still sounding calm, Pelosi tells the operator he doesnt know the guy and hangs up because He wants me to get the hell off the phone. Theres something odd about the bodycam, too. When the police ring the doorbell, almost 20 seconds go by before its opened. The camera shows DePape, fully dressed, and Pelosi, dressed in a long-sleeved PJ shirt and boxers, both answering the door. Each has his right hand around a hammer. The police officer says, Hi, how are you doing? Pelosi, again sounding mellow, answers, How are you? The police officer asks, Whats going on, man? DePape answers, Everythings good. Pelosi doesnt respond immediately. Instead, he smiles at the police and then says, Hi. The police officer commands, Drop the hammer. DePape says Nope, and tugs at the hammer, leading Pelosi to say, Heyhey, hey, hey, and struggle with the hammer for a moment. During that brief struggle, you see that Pelosi clutches a glass in his left hand. Things happen quickly then: Pelosi loses control of the hammer, at which point DePape turns on him and begins hammering violently at his head. The police instantly dive into action, tugging at DePape, who continues hammering and, once hes pulled off Pelosi, tries to fight off the police. Pelosi, at this point, lies on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. The glass he was holding is also on the floor, with spilled liquid and ice around it. A terrible moaning, groaning sound fills the air, although I have no idea if it came from Pelosi or DePape. So again, Paul Pelosi sustained a brutal hammer attack to the head at the hands of someone who smashed his way into the house. However, Paul Pelosis behavior, beginning with the 911 call and up until the moment of the attack, is justwell, for want of a better word, strange. I can imagine a scenario in which Pelosi called 911 without DePape being aware but, once DePape realized what happened, he told Pelosi to behave normally and make it sound as if the 911 call was something of a mistake. That could explain why Pelosi cycled through sounding befuddled, indecisive, and as if DePape controlled him. But none of those explanations seem to cover Pelosis response at the door, which was equally strange. If DePape was threatening him, how was he able to open the door so casually to the police? And why were both he and DePape smiling and even sociable with the police? Im fortunate that Ive never had to face a home intruder or other attacker. I have no idea how I would respond if I were in that situation. Pelosi may just be someone who goes into a cool, slow mode in stressful situations. But its stillstrange. Image: Pelosi body cam footage. Matt Taibbi has just dropped Twitter Files #15 (embedded at the end of this post), and its a humdinger. It turns out that one of the most aggressive sites to push the Russia hoax and to use its status to silence anyone who challenged the hoax or supported Trump and his agenda was always full of fecal matter. Twitter knew it but refused to act and, when it delicately tried to let the mainstream media know that a major source of pro-Russia hoax information was fake, the media (surprise!) did nothing. In 2017, when the Russian collusion hoax against Donald Trump was in full flower, a website called Hamilton 68 made big waves. It identified itself as a website capable of tracking Russian-backed propaganda on Twitter. Heres Reuters, in August 2017, puffing it up: A website launched on Wednesday seeks to track Russian-supported propaganda and disinformation on Twitter, part of a growing non-governmental effort to diminish Moscows ability to meddle in future elections in the United States and Europe. The Hamilton 68 dashboard was built by researchers working with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan, transatlantic project set up last month to counter Russian disinformation campaigns. The website, supported by the German Marshall Fund, displays a near real-time analysis of English-language tweets from a pool of 600 Twitter accounts that analysts identified as users that spread Russian propaganda. Reuters made a point of noting that the site came along just as the (impliedly guilty) Trump administration has shown reluctance to address Russian cyber attacks during ongoing investigations into whether his campaign colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election. Image: Chris Watts of Hamilton 68. Twitter screen grab. Hamilton 68 had some interesting people behind it. Clint Watts, a one-time FBI counterintelligence official and now an MSNBC contributor, headed the project. The money came from the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), with an advisory council including fanatic Trump hater Bill Kristol, Obama-era ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, Hillarys crony John Podesta, and various former CIA, NSA, and DHS high officials. It would be accurate to call them career disinformation specialists. Hamilton 68 was ultimately a repository for former Deep State employees and their allies. With those credentials, all of which were music to Democrat ears, Hamilton 68 had huge reach for years, with the mainstream media constantly citing it to attack Trump and, when he seemed likely to be a Democrat nominee, Bernie Sanders. Academia and politicians relied on it too. For all of them, it was a boon that Hamilton 68 shot down as the product of Russian bots anything that challenged the Russia collusion narrative or supported Donald Trump. When Hamilton 68 launched, reports Reuters, Twitter said it was not involved in the project. It had no other comment. ] It turns out, though, that if Twitter had commented, it would have said that the site was unadulterated bulls***. Or at least, it knew the truth by October 2017, just a short time after it launched. As Yoel Roth, no friend to Trump, wrote in an internal email, Virtually any conclusion drawn from it will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian. Hamilton 68 was a scam. To their individual credit, some Twitter executives, including Yoel Roth, wanted to out it as wrong, irresponsible, and biased. However, they were afraid of running afoul of the ASD. Despite Hamilton 68s incredible, dishonest reach, Twitter kept silent. The most it did was delicately try to give reporters off the record information. Those reporters did nothing. They liked Hamilton 68s narrative and were not going to destroy it. The same was true for academia (Harvard, Princeton, NYU, etc.), which also relied on Hamilton 68 and refused to acknowledge any problems. In sum, Twitter knew that Hamilton 68 was a disinformation operation against Trump and the Republicans. However, the powerful former Deep State cabal behind Hamilton 68 frightened Twitter executives so much that they did nothing other than quietly whisper their concerns to reporters and academics, who refused to listen. As you think of that, remember, too, that the Russia hoax sucked up much of Trumps time, energy and, importantly, political capital. This hampered his ability to make good on his campaign promises and dogged him going into the 2020 election. Twitter was a coward; the media and academia were evil. 2.I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is. pic.twitter.com/q2n6pCZRzv Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 4.Virtually any conclusion drawn from it will take conversations in conservative circles on Twitter and accuse them of being Russian. pic.twitter.com/g7Ozzj4ST8 Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 6.The dashboard was headed by former FBI counterintelligence official (and current MSNBC contributor) Clint Watts, and funded by a neoliberal think tank, the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD). pic.twitter.com/XW4JXfAlGM Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 https://t.co/0yk0y7VlGX outlets for years cited Watts and Hamilton 68 when claiming Russian bots were amplifying an endless parade of social media causes against strikes in Syria, in support of Fox host Laura Ingraham, the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. pic.twitter.com/Qwf5UuKUkb Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 10. The secret ingredient to Hamilton 68s analytical method? A list: Our analysis has linked 600 Twitter accounts to Russian influence activities online, was how the site put it at launch. pic.twitter.com/8ipRLSfzOm Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 12. Twitter executives were in a unique position to recreate Hamiltons list, reverse-engineering it from the sites requests for Twitter data. Concerned about the deluge of Hamilton-based news stories, they did so and what they found shocked them. pic.twitter.com/qRZyylALUe Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 14. In laymans terms, the Hamilton 68 barely had any Russians. In fact, apart from a few RT accounts, its mostly full of ordinary Americans, Canadians, and British. Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 16. Twitter immediately recognized these Hamilton-driven news stories posed a major ethical problem, potentially implicating them. Real people need to know theyve been unilaterally labeled Russian stooges without evidence or recourse, Roth wrote. pic.twitter.com/JSDowtPzHY Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 18.Yoel Roth wanted a confrontation. My recommendation at this stage is an ultimatum: you release the list or we do, he wrote. However, there were internal concerns about taking on the politically connected Alliance for Securing Democracy. pic.twitter.com/Ejg1VcH73R Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 20.I also have been very frustrated in not calling out Hamilton 68 more publicly, but understand we have to play a longer game here, wrote Carlos Monje, the future senior advisor to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. pic.twitter.com/JvfSkyUlfL Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 22.Im shocked, says Sonia Monsour, who as a child lived through civil war in Lebanon. Supposedly in a free world, we are being watched at many levels, by what we say online. Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 24. When I was growing up, my father told me about the McCarthyite blacklist, says Oregon native Jacob Levich. As a child it would never have occurred to me that this would come back, in force and broadly, in a way designed to undermine rights we hold dear. Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 26. Im listed as a foreign bot? said conservative media figure Dennis Michael Lynch. As a proud taxpaying citizen, charitable family man, and honest son of a U.S. Marine, I deserve better. We all do! pic.twitter.com/HhKE9FPfpO Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 28.What makes this an important story is the sheer scale of the news footprint left by Hamilton 68s digital McCarthyism. The quantity of headlines and TV segments dwarfs the impact of individual fabulists like Jayson Blair or Stephen Glass. pic.twitter.com/zfyjLb5Tkq Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 30.These stories raised fears in the population, and most insidious of all, were used to smear people like Tulsi Gabbard as foreign assets, and drum up sympathy for political causes like Joe Bidens campaign by describing critics as Russian-aligned. pic.twitter.com/3lsuG1ZTrd Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 https://t.co/FAazMoLnTO was a lie. The illusion of Russian support was created by tracking people like Joe Lauria, Sonia Monsour, and Dave Shestokas. Virtually every major American news organization cited these fake tales even fact-checking sites like Snopes and Politifact. pic.twitter.com/zleliOsckq Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 34.Roth was offended by the idea that tweets on certain themes suggested subversion. Can we talk about how incredibly condescending? If you talk about these themes, you must have been duped by Russian propaganda. pic.twitter.com/gxRWq6jr4G Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 https://t.co/6uoBuoT66e least two other research institutions that used similar methodologies and were cited as sources in news stories were also criticized in Twitter email correspondence. Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 38.This was an academic scandal as well, as Harvard, Princeton, Temple, NYU, GWU, and other universities promoted Hamilton 68 as a source: pic.twitter.com/CyzGnVUjh5 Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 40.The mix of digital McCarthyism and fraud did great damage to American politics and culture. News outlets that don't disavow these stories, or still pay Hamilton vets as analysts, shouldn't be trusted. Every subscriber to those outlets to write to editors about the issue. Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 42. For more on this story, read the detailed new story at https://t.co/GqjouRjgmR Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023 Samsungs January 2023 security update is live for a couple of mid-range Galaxy smartphones. The company has released the latest Android security patch for the Galaxy A33 5G and the 2019 model in the same lineup, i.e. the Galaxy A30. The rollout is currently limited to select markets but a wider release may follow soon. As of this writing, the January SMR (Security Maintenance Release) for the Galaxy A33 5G is only available in Samsungs homeland South Korea. Units on all wireless carriers in the country are picking up the new update. The build number for the latest firmware release is A336NKSS2BWA2. The device isnt receiving anything else here. The update only brings this months vulnerability patches. The Galaxy A30, on the other hand, is initially receiving the January security update in Asia. The rollout has begun in India, Sri Lanka, and a few other countries in the region with the firmware version A305FDDS6CWA3. Once again, there are no user-facing changes in tow. Samsung isnt seeding anything apart from the vulnerability patches that are part of the January SMR to this aging mid-range device. Galaxy A33 5G and Galaxy A30 get the January update in some markets The latest update for the Galaxy A33 5G and Galaxy A30 may or may not reach other markets. We say may not because neither model is eligible for monthly security patches. The former debuted last year and was put on the quarterly schedule from day one (one update every three months). The latter, meanwhile, is almost four years old now. It arrived in early 2019 and received quarterly updates initially. However, the device has since been dropped to biannual security patches (two updates in a year). Advertisement This essentially means Samsung may skip a few security releases for these phones in some markets. The January update may not reach them anywhere, with users in some regions directly getting the February or March release. The Galaxy A33 5G will get security updates for at least three more years, with a couple more Android OS releases also to come. The Galaxy A30, meanwhile, is on its last legs and will soon lose official support from Samsung. It may get one more security update at best. If youre using either of these Samsung mid-range smartphones, you can check for updates from the Settings app. Go to the Software update menu and tap on Download and install. If you dont see any updates today, check again in a few days. Samsung has been awarded for its resilience and business continuity efforts during the semiconductor downturn in recent years. The British Standards Institution (BSI) has honored the Korean firms Device Solutions (DS) division, which encompasses the semiconductor business, with the ISO 22301 Certificate for its international standard Business Continuity Management System (BCMS). This certificate recognizes an organizations ability to resume its business after a crisis. BSI awards companies when their crisis resilience meets global standards. Samsung certified for its business continuity efforts The semiconductor market has faced several hurdles over the past few years. The supply chain constraints due to the coronavirus lockdowns in China, coupled with the recent economic headwinds, have resulted in low demand globally. Samsung, which is one of the biggest stakeholders in this industry, has found it difficult to stay afloat. It has taken a massive profit hit in recent quarters. The company doesnt hope for things to improve anytime soon. The Korean behemoth sees sluggish sales continuing throughout 2023. Samsung is expecting its semiconductors profits to be halved this year. However, the company hasnt stopped or reduced its investment in semiconductor R&D (research and development) even during these tough times. Bad times can become good opportunities, Samsungs co-CEO and head of the semiconductor division said last year, adding that continued innovation is key to overcoming such slowdowns. As part of this strategy, the Korean firm advanced its BCMS for Hwaseong Campus in its home country to meet global standards. It evaluated various risks in the industry and prepared for them through precautionary exercises, including emergency drills. These efforts have bore fruit. Samsung has received global recognition for its BCMS for Hwaseong Campus. The ISO 22301 certificate represents the highest level of commitment to business continuity and disaster preparedness. Samsung showed strong will in having a robust business continuity management system, and displayed world-class crisis monitoring and response capabilities, said SeongHwan Lim, Chief Operating Officer of BSI Korea. Advertisement We will continue to enhance our business resilience and maintain a robust business continuity management system to handle not only conventional crises but also newly emerging issues such as global supply chain disturbance, said Taeyang Yoon, Executive Vice President and Chief Safety Officer (CSO) of Samsungs DS division. Through these efforts, our customers can rely on our leading semiconductor technology even in the most unexpected circumstances. The company is planning to attain ISO 22301 certifications for its other semiconductor campuses this year, including those located abroad. A federal jury found an Islamic extremist responsible for eight people's death after intentionally speeding a lorry down a New York City bike path in 2017 guilty of all murder charges. The suspect, 34-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, shouted the phrase "God is great" in Arabic as he came out of the truck during his rampage in Manhattan. The man, who is an Uzbekistan native, was later shot by police officers and requested for an Islamic State group flag to be hung on his hospital bed. NYC Bike Path Killings Suspect Saipov could face the death penalty for the murders he committed that was part of the city's deadliest terrorist attack since the 9/11 incident. The last time state authorities ordered the death penalty against a defendant was in 1963. The bike path attack, which occurred around Halloween, caused the immediate death of six people, and two others were brought to the hospital. Furthermore, the incident resulted in the injury of twelve other individuals, as per BBC. Five of the fatalities belonged to a group of nine Argentine friends who were visiting the city. Another victim was a 31-year-old woman who was visiting from Belgium. Among the deaths were two Americans, a 32-year-old financial worker and a 23-year-old software engineer. In a statement on Tuesday, prosecutor Jason Richman said that Saipov turned a bike path into his battlefield. He added that the suspect was happy about the terrorist attack he conducted. The suspect's defense attorney said that his client had expected to lose his life and become a martyr following the incident. Shortly after Saipov's terrorist rampage, then-President Donald Trump called for the suspect's execution and, in 2020, reinstated federal executions following a 17-year moratorium. Under Joe Biden's administration, such executions were once again suspended. But the Justice Department last autumn said that it would consider the death penalty for Saipov. Read Also: FBI Hacks Ransomware Group's Website Potential Death Penalty The jury that convicted the defendant of the murder charges will be the same one deliberating over whether or not he will be given the death penalty. For the execution to take place, the jury must have a unanimous decision. The trial's penalty phase is set to start on February 6, according to CNN. The defendant was convicted on Thursday in the Southern District of New York on several charges. These include murder in aid of racketeering activity, assault with a dangerous weapon and attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity, provision of material support to ISIS, and violence and destruction of a motor vehicle. During closing arguments, David Patton, the defense attorney, did not dispute the facts of the terrorist attack that his client is accused of committing. However, the defense team denied the prosecution's claim that the suspect was motivated to conduct the activities to get into ISIS. Furthermore, while Patton said that Saipov's actions were senseless and horrific, he requested that the racketeering charges be dropped. Despite the mass amount of ISIS propaganda found on the defendant's devices and home, the attorney argued his client was not working with the terrorist group, said NBC News. Related Article: Tyre Nichols Death Update @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 27 - A 34-year-old Brazilian woman was arrested Friday in the recent murder in Brazil of 41-year-old Italo-Brazilian businessman Antonio Maiorano. The Sao Paulo murder squad has charged the woman with murdering the man in a dispute over her job, which was being paid off the books. Maiorano's charred body was found last week in a burned out car at Embu das Artes near Sao Paulo. "It was a row over work issus," police commissioner Alfredo Jang told ANSA. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 26 - Palestinian Ambassador to Italy Abeer Odeh on Thursday called on Rome to condemn the latest violence in the occupied West Bank flashpoint town of Jenin where nine Palestinians including an elderly woman were killed in an Israeli army raid. "The indifference of the world encourages the government of Israel to carry out massacres in front of everyone's eyes, because they are eyes that do not want to see," said Adeh. "The Embassy of Palestine appeals to the government, political forces, civil society and the media of Italy, a friendly country, to condemn this violence and act immediately to protect our people and stop the extermination". Odeh denounced what he called "the ongoing massacre in Jenin". (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 27 - Italian police on Friday cited 20 people including an Italian celebrity chef for making online slurs against 92-year-old Holocaust survivor and life Senator Liliana Segre, judicial sources said on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The suspects including Chef Rubio have been charged by the Milan Carabinieri for insults posted on the web against Senator Segre, the sources said. Gabriele Rubini, 39, known professionally as Chef Rubio, is a former semi-professional Italian rugby player and television presenter for DMAX, where he hosts a cooking programme. The charge, for all of them, is defamation by 'telematic' means with the aggravating circumstance of religious, ethnic or racial motivations. Last month Segre reported 24 people including Rubini for making the latest in a string of anti-Semitic attacks on her on social media. Segre, said Chef Rubio had slammed her for not defending the Palestinians in her recent remarks on Israel, which he called a "fascist" state. Rubio accused Segre of "a deafening silence over the plight of Palestine". Israel Honorary Consul Marco Carrai said it was "disappointing that so many young people follow a figure who incites social hate like this chef," and added that unlike Rubio's many tattoos, the one on Segre's arm had been inscribed when she reached Auschwitz as a girl. Milan prosecutors opened a probe on the basis of Segre's 24 complaints, into death threats and aggravated defamation. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 27 - A 55-year-old jailed anarchist leader whose health is fast worsening after 100 days of hunger strike against his unprecedentedly tough mafia-style prison regime must be urgently moved to a facility able to give him adequate treatment, Italy's inmates ombudsman said Friday. Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) leader Alfredo Cospito is having trouble walking and is using a wheelchair after losing over 40 kg on his strike against the 41 bis regime, the first Italian anarchist to be so treated. Cospito fell in the shower and broke his nose two nights ago and lawyers and magistrates have sounded the alarm over his health, while his doctor has said he will be dead by April 20 unless he stops the strike. There is an urgent need for Cospito to be transferred to a facility that can guarantee immediate medical care, said the National Guarantor for Persons Deprived of their Liberty, Mauro Palma. Palma has visited Cospito twice since he began his strike on October 20 and said Thursday his condition is "in progressive deterioration". He added that "Sassari Prison (in northern Sardinia) is not fully equipped to treat him properly". Cospito has been sliding ever deeper into poorer health because of his protest, said his lawyer, Flavio Rossi Albertini, on Thursday, after his fall the the previous night. "All his (blood) values are falling and there is a risk of cerebral oedema", said Rossi Albertini. Cospito's doctor Angelica Milia said Wednesday that if his current slide continues he will be dead "by April 20". After his fall, she said that "he lost a lot of blood, he's weak, he's finding it hard to have a normal regulation of his body heat". A high court appeal hearing by Cospito on his prison treatment was set for April 20 on Wednesday, prompting his lawyer immediately file a plea to bring forward the high court hearing due to his concerning physical condition. Amnesty International on Tuesday made a fresh appeal for Cospito, saying "we reiterate that it is the duty of the Italian authorities to fulfil their obligations to protect and respect the detainee's human rights, also taking into account the harsh conditions of the 41 bis regime to which he is subjected." Cospito, who has been sentenced to four years of 41 bis while he is serving two sentences totalling 30 years for terror attacks, recently saw an appeal turned down by a Rome surveillance court. His lawyer said a fresh appeal to Justice Minister Carlo Nordio was "based on new information, not submitted to the Rome surveillance court". As sit-ins and demos in favour of Cospito continue daily, judicial sources said the case would first have to go to Turin prosecutors again before Nordio can examine the plea. There have been several recent FAI attacks in support of Cospito. Judges recently ruled that Cospito should stay under the 41 bis conditions because otherwise there was a risk of his running FAI operations from inside jail. On December 9 Greek anarchists linked to FAI claimed responsibility for the firebombing of two cars belonging to an Italian diplomat in the Greek capital a week previously. The Greek group, which calls itself after a protester killed by a Carabiniere in self-defence at the 2001 Genoa G8 riots, said they were acting in solidarity with Cospito. The group, Carlo Giuliani Vendetta Nucleus, said it was supporting the hunger strike of Cospito, who is serving 20 years for a bomb attack on a Carabinieri training academy at Fossano near Cuneo in Piedmont in 2006 and a further 10 years and eight months for wounding Ansaldo Nucleare Managing Director Roberto Adinolfi in Genoa in 2012. The carbomb attacks against Athens embassy counsellor Susanna Schlein, sister of centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leadership candidate Elly Schlein, took place at dawn on Friday December 2 and were soon attributed to anarchists like the FAI, who had shouted threatening slogans during Cospito's recent appeals trial. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Schlein survived the attacks "by a miracle". Both Schlein sisters have now been assigned police protection. After the firebombings, FAI militants issued the mocking message "Susanna Schlein should learn to park". Rome prosecutors said last month they were opening a probe into arson attacks on ATMs and rubbish containers in two parts of the Italian capital on a recent Saturday night by Cospito supporters. (ANSA). (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 27 - A 34-year-old US tourist drove a hire car onto the iconic Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence on Thursday afternoon, sources said Friday. The California man told police he had been looking for a parking space and had not realized he was on the medieval bridge. He was fined for driving in a pedestrian zone and reported for driving without an international license. The Ponte Vecchio ("Old Bridge") s a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy. The only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during the Second World War, it is noted for the shops built along it; building shops on such bridges was once a common practice. Butchers, tanners, and farmers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers, and souvenir sellers. (ANSA). NASA announced successful tests of a new propulsion system designed for deep space travel and could be used by astronauts for future trips to the distant planet of Mars. The tests come as the space agency is gearing up for a return trip to the moon with the Artemis mission. Authorities said that NASA researchers successfully developed and tested a new type of supersonic rocket engine known as a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). NASA's Rocket Propulsion System Test The new rocket engine can generate thrust with detonation, where a supersonic exothermic front accelerates, which in turn produces thrust. This is similar to how a shockwave travels through our planet's atmosphere after something like a bomb explodes. The space agency said the new design uses less fuel and provides much more thrust than currently available propulsion systems. NASA added that the RDRE could be used to power human landers and crewed missions that seek to travel to the moon, Mars, and deep space, as per Gizmodo. The test of NASA's RDRE featured 3D-printed parts made out of a copper alloy known as GRCop-42 that the space agency developed. During the test, the new propulsion system could withstand the high temperatures and pressures generated by the detonation process, producing more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute. The space agency said the new rocket design could move more mass into deep space while requiring less fuel. This means that it could make space travel even more sustainable. With the success of the recent tests, NASA engineers will now work on a fully reusable 10,000-pound RDRE to compare its performance to traditional liquid rocket engines. Read Also: James Webb Telescope Captures Coldest Ices in History Sending Astronauts to Mars Engineers from the space agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and primary collaborator IN Space LLC in West Lafayette, Indiana, confirmed the tests of the RDRE. According to NASA, they noted that the engine was fired more than a dozen times and had a total duration of nearly 10 minutes. NASA also noted that the new propulsion system achieved other milestones during the test, including the successful performance of both deep throttling and internal ignition. The test results bring the newly-developed system closer to being used in future spacecraft. The situation comes as NASA is also planning to join a military program to develop nuclear thermal propulsion systems. In an influential report published in 2021, the space agency concluded that its only chance to put humans on Mars was using nuclear propulsion. This type of propulsion involves a rocket engine in which a nuclear reactor is in place of the combustion chamber and is responsible for burning liquid hydrogen used as fuel. This process uses less fuel than typical chemical propulsion, often less than 500 metric tons, to reach Mars. Roughly three years ago, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) showed its intent to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system. Earlier this week, NASA announced that it was partnering with DARPA to join the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) project, said ARSTechnica. Related Article: Earth's Core Appears To Slow Down, Turn in Other Direction @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Migrants: EU Commission will not finance wall with Turkey Announcement during daily press briefing (ANSA) - BELGRADE, JAN 27 - The European Commission will not fund the construction of a border fence between Bulgaria and Turkey in order to prevent migration. "The Commission will not finance walls," spokesman Eric Mamer said during the daily press briefing. "It is up to the member states to determine what are the best ways to fulfill their border protection obligations. (ANSA). Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved Slovenia: irregular migration more than tripled last year Afghanistan was the biggest single source country (ANSA) - BELGRADE, JAN 24 - According to the Slovenian news agency STA, the Slovenian police stopped more than 32,000 illegal immigrants at the border with Croatia in 2022. This was a 214% increase from the year before. Recent statistics show that most of the increase is due to a large number of people from Afghanistan, Burundi, India, Pakistan, and Russia taking the so-called Balkan Route. According to STA, Afghanistan was the largest single source country, with 6,010 migrants recorded, nearly doubling the number recorded a year ago. More than 5,000 came from Burundi, where nationals took advantage of a now-closed loophole that allowed them to travel visa-free to Serbia, and then to the EU. Indian nationals can also travel to Western Balkan countries without a visa, and they made up the third largest group of migrants. Last year, nearly 3,900 people entered Slovenia, up from only 73 in 2021, the agency noted. (ANSA). Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved Lithuania: Ambassador to Italy meets the Mayor of Trieste Meeting between Port Authorities (ANSA) - UDINE, JAN 27 - The Mayor of Trieste, Roberto Dipiazza, received the newly appointed Ambassador of Lithuania to Italy, Dalia Kreiviene, and a delegation from the Port Authority of the city of Klaipeda. The board came to Trieste at a meeting between the Port System Authority of the Eastern Adriatic Sea and the Port Authority of the Lithuanian port. The Municipality of Trieste announced. Kreiviene, on his first visit to the city of Trieste, wished to underline its beauty, "a sign - he said - of an excellent administration." Director General of the Klaipeda Port Authority, Algis Lataka, accompanied Kreiviene. (ANSA). Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved NAPLES - Mitigation solutions aim to reduce dolphin depredation in the Mediterranean Dolphins are known around the world for their intelligence and their curiosity. Across the Mediterranean Sea, they approach fishing vessels and attempt to remove catch directly from fishing gear. The phenomenon is called depredation, and has been a growing concern for fishermen over the last few decades. Dolphins, meanwhile, risk injury and even death as they can get entangled or entrapped, with implications for the species' long-term survival. For fishermen dealing with declining fish stocks, dolphins pose a risk to their livelihoods, as depredation impacts both gear and capture, significantly lowering values and revenues. Understanding and mitigating depredation has become a priority for many organizations. The Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and contiguous Atlantic area (ACCOBAMS) and FAO's General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), together with the Specially Protected Areas Regional Activity Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme/Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP- SPA/RAC) and Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE), ran a project in five Mediterranean countries between 2018 and 2022. "It is an important issue for ACCOBAMS because the impacts caused by dolphins can undermine efforts towards the conservation of the cetaceans themselves," says Celia Le Ravallec, ACCOBAMS Programme Officer. "The objective is to find solutions that will allow fishers to limit the economic impacts they suffer, while also ensuring the conservation of dolphins." As part of the project, fishermen and scientists tested various mitigation solutions. In Tunisia, Spain and Malta, they used acoustic and visual pingers, aimed at deterring dolphins from approaching the fishing gear. In Morocco, the focus was on strengthening the net itself, so that it could better withstand dolphin interactions. In Italy, a national partner to the project extensively tested an alarm system that can warn fishers when dolphins are close to their boats, so that they can pull their nets out of the water and avoid any interaction. The project was funded by the MAVA Foundation, which supports conservation projects in the Mediterranean and other parts of the world. It looked at assessing when and where interactions occur, to better document dolphin behavior and their reaction to particular types of fishing gear, while determining the economic losses suffered by fishermen, and ultimately sought solutions to reduce this phenomenon. The socioeconomic impacts of damaged fishing gear and lost catch create conflicts between fishers and dolphins, undermining the conservation and sustainability efforts promoted by regional organizations. "We designed a protocol, which allows for replicability and comparisons among fisheries across the region to facilitate and improve data collection in a harmonized and standardized way," says Paolo Carpentieri, GFCM Fishery Resources Monitoring Specialist, who developed the methodology. "This process will be realized through onboard observations, questionnaires at landing sites and self-reporting activities." The protocol provides a means for sharing knowledge, information and evidence for subsequent decision-making. Input from fishermen is also vital. They are an important source of information on dolphin behaviour and their interactions with fishing activities, given their knowledge of local resources, fishing practices and the marine environment. Efficient reporting and monitoring of depredation will enable scientists, conservationists and administrators to obtain a more complete overview of the situation and to set priorities for action and better management. The GFCM has issued methodologies to help improve data collection on dolphin depredation. While no mitigation technique is foolproof and depredation cannot be stopped altogether, some of the solutions show real promise. France: pension reform strike cuts power supply Caused by EDF workers at nuclear plant (ANSAmed) - PARIS, 27 GEN - A nationwide strike in France against President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform led overnight to a new fall in electricity output caused by a walkout of EDF workers at the nuclear power plant of Paluel. The fall in output did not have consequences for users but affected the company's finances. The pension reform is opposed by all French unions and debate will start Monday in Parliament. It provides, among other things, for the suppression of special pension regimes of large groups like EDF (Electricite de France) or Engie (ex-GDF Suez). The employees of these companies would be forced, in perspective, to a controversial increase in the retirement age from 62 to 64. After a major protest last week, which registered the participation of more than one million people, the second day of demonstrations on January 31 is expected to affect all sectors: schools, public companies, transportation and services. However, labour union CGT means to do more in the energy sector, organizing additional strikes and demonstrations like the one carried out last night. Production drops and cuts in the electrical sector are to be expected on Friday too, warned Fabrice Coudour, the federal secretary of FNME-CGT, ruling out however power cuts for citizens. CGT "means to look for even more workers to strike on the 31st and to show we control the tool of work", he explained. (ANSAmed). High tension after Jenin deaths, rockets and air raids Overnight; army strikes Hamas targets in Gaza Strip (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, 27 GEN - Tension has peaked in the Middle East after 10 Palestinian died in an operation carried out Thursday by Israeli soldiers in Jenin, West Bank. According to Hamas security sources, 15 raids were carried out against targets, without injuries. According to Israel, five rockets were launched overnight, including three that were intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system while one fell in an open area and another inside the Gaza Strip. Israel's air force responded, striking Hamas targets in the northern area of the Strip, including an underground facility for the construction of rockets in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. The rocket launch from Gaza occurred after the incident Thursday in Jenin, West Bank, in which nine Palestinians died, including an elderly woman, in a gunfight between the army and the Islamic Jihad. The gunfight Thursday in Jenin - which lasted about three hours - started when the Israeli army entered the northern town of the Territories to capture "a terrorist cell of the Islamic Jihad heavily involved in planning and carrying out multiple terrorist attacks, including shootings of soldiers and Israeli civilians", said a military spokesman. According to military sources, the cell is headed by local commanders of the Islamic Jihad. In the armed clashes, Palestinian militants were able to down an army drone and in the prolonged gunfight a Palestinian woman, aged approximately 60, died in an incident currently investigated by the army. A tenth Palestinian died overnight in clashes in a neighbouring village. Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu said "Israel does not aim for an escalation" but security forces, he warned, "are ready to deal with any development on various fronts to guarantee the security of citizens. Israel "will pay a price for Jenin's massacre", warned for his part Hamas' deputy, Saleh al-Arouri. (ANSAmed). BRUSSELS - The European Commission will not fund the construction of a wall between Bulgaria and Turkey, spokesman Eric Mamer said during a daily briefing with the press. "The Commission will not fund walls", he said, replying to a question. "It is up to member States to determine the best way to fulfil their obligation to protect borders. The EU is there to support them in this framework. The Commission finances measures and actions, which contribute to the good protection of its borders, including mobile and fixed infrastructures" but it "will not finance the construction of walls". "With "wall", he clarified later, "we are speaking about a permanent infrastructure which keeps people out" - "made of bricks or any other material". Mamer added that "talking about fences is a different thing". "However, apart from words, we are talking about the fact that we would (not) finance an infrastructure that we consider a wall, or something that keeps people out", he noted. "In any case, member States have the obligation of guaranteeing that people who are seeking a safe shelter in Europe can come to Europe to register an asylum request, so these are not black and white matters", he concluded. Eni investment in Libya to set 25-year record - NOC head $8bn to develop two oilfields in three and a half years (ANSA) - ROME, JAN 27 - Eni's eight-billion-dollar investment in Libya to be announced in Tripoli Saturday will be its highest in the north African country for 25 years, the president of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Farhat Bengdara, said according to Bloomberg. Premier Giorgia Meloni may visit Tripoli to help announce the investment in the Libyan energy sector amid the Ukraine war, it said. It will take about three and a half years to develop the two oilfields that are the subject of the investment, said Bengdara. "The energy sector has not seen an investment of this scope for more than a quarter of a century," he said. "It is a clear message to the international business community that the Libyan state has overcome its phase of political risks". (ANSA). BRUSSELS - While NGO-run migrant-rescue vessels are continuing to operate in the Mediterranean, with the Geo Barents operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) sailing towards La Spezia, EU interior ministers gathered Thursday in Stockholm, under Sweden's rotating presidency, for an informal meeting. The objective was to work on repatriations. All members agree they should be increased - only 20% of those who are expelled actually return to their country of origin - but it is still unclear how. The improvement of repatriation procedures is part of the new Pact on migration, which should reform the Dublin treaty. But the issue is that many countries of origin don't take their citizens back once expulsion procedures kick in because someone doesn't have a right to international protection (asylum). Sweden, through Immigration Minister Maria Malmer Stenegard, has clarified that "all means at disposal" must be used, both diplomatic and more 'muscular' ones, for example by intervening on trade, agreements on visas and aid to development: those who don't cooperate could see their funding cut. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi presented a proposal: repatriation with reintegration. This would be an alternative to the voluntary or forced repatriations currently in use. The proposed 'third way' would still amount to a forced repatriation in the country of origin but associated with a "reintegration project", which according to the minister could "help the collaboration of the foreigner, stimulating third countries of provenance to strengthen cooperation and help fight the deep-rooted causes of immigration". Migrants: Commission will not fund wall with Turkey, EU In Bulgaria. 'States must decide how to protect borders (ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, 27 GEN - The European Commission will not fund the construction of a wall between Bulgaria and Turkey, spokesman Eric Mamer said during a daily briefing with the press. "The Commission will not fund walls", he said, replying to a question. "It is up to member States to determine the best way to fulfil their obligation to protect borders. The EU is there to support them in this framework. The Commission finances measures and actions, which contribute to the good protection of its borders, including mobile and fixed infrastructures" but it "will not finance the construction of walls". "With "wall", he clarified later, "we are speaking about a permanent infrastructure which keeps people out" - "made of bricks or any other material". Mamer added that "talking about fences is a different thing". "However, apart from words, we are talking about the fact that we would (not) finance an infrastructure that we consider a wall, or something that keeps people out", he noted. "In any case, member States have the obligation of guaranteeing that people who are seeking a safe shelter in Europe can come to Europe to register an asylum request, so these are not black and white matters", he concluded. (ANSAmed). It has been claimed that King Charles III has ordered the Duke of York he can no longer use his suite of chambers at Buckingham Palace. During the $48 million renovation of the palace, Prince Andrew's things have reportedly been removed and will not be restored. According to The Sun, the disgraced duke has been informed that there is "no place" for him in the palace and that he must relocate if he wishes to remain in London. Prince Andrew Was Evicted From Buckingham A source stated, "The King has made it obvious that Prince Andrew does not belong at Buckingham Palace." Prince Andrew is reportedly planning a court challenge to his deal with Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexually abusing her while she was a minor. The prince has angrily refuted all allegations and said he is unfamiliar with Giuffre. He made a multimillion-pound deal with her the previous year to avoid a civil trial. This week, sources close to Prince Andrew voiced concern about the royal, adding they believe he is "becoming a hermit" because he is "alone" in Royal Lodge in Windsor. Friends warned that if the duke decided to contest the settlement, he would be forced to incur further legal fees. The Sun said that the most prestigious royal residence in London, St. James' Palace, may be a choice for Prince Andrew. In December last year, Prince Andrew was allegedly told he could no longer have an office or use the palace as an address. Last year, he also lost his right to taxpayer-funded armed protection after being stripped of his military titles, royal patronages, and senior royal status. His Royal Highness (HRH) is no longer permitted in any official capacity. A source told The Independent that Prince Andrew is "desperate" to redeem himself but "does not comprehend the humility and repentance he must demonstrate in light of the situation." Per NY Post, Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson also share a 31-room Windsor property named Royal Lodge. In December, a source said, "There is no longer any presence at the palace." "The king has been explicit. He is not an active royal. He is by himself." Virginia Giuffre, who had long alleged that Epstein forced her to engage in "disgusting" sex with the prince three times beginning in 2001 when she was 17 years old, filed a sexual assault suit against Prince Andrew. This led to the removal of his formal royal titles. Prince Andrew's attorneys state that he "categorically refutes Giuffre's fraudulent accusations against him." In February of last year, he resolved the matter out of court for an unknown amount. Prince Andrew, who was infamously pictured by The Post strolling with the pedophile in 2011 after Epstein's initial release from jail, has denied any knowledge of Epstein's illicit activity. Prince Harry recently criticized his uncle's ties to Epstein in his new memoir, 'Spare.' Read Also: Jeremy Renner Tries To Save Nephew Virginia Giuffre to Release Memoir Before King Charles' Coronation There are mounting concerns that King Charles' coronation may be overshadowed by Prince Andrew's sex abuse accuser, Virginia Giuffre, following rumors that her memoir may be published only weeks before the historic ceremony. According to many sources, Giuffre, who under US law has accused the Duke of York of sexually assaulting her while she was a teenager, has secured a multimillion-dollar book contract. A year after settling her civil rape suit against him, she and Prince Andrew, who has repeatedly rejected the charges, allegedly agreed to a gag agreement that would expire in March. The publisher of Giuffre wants to capitalize on the fact that a global audience will be discussing the coronation on May 6 and what royal celebrations Andrew will be invited to. Giuffre's memoir, which reportedly took 12 years to write, may not directly repeat her charges against the prince. However, according to a source, it will nevertheless "throw additional shame on Andrew, the royals, and the biggest day of his own brother's life," according to a source. It also follows allegations that Prince Andrew has collected a ten-million-pound war fund in preparation for a judicial battle to his settlement with Giuffre, as per Daily Mail. Related Article: Prince Harry Not Invited to King Charless III's Coronation? @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries has been accused by Parliaments anti-corruption watchdog of breaking Government rules by not consulting the body before taking a new job at TalkTV. Ms Dorries will host a new Friday-night talk show on TalkTV but in a letter to the Conservative MP the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) chair Lord Pickles said failing to seek and await advice before the role was announced or taken up in this case is a breach of the Governments rules and the requirements set out in the ministerial code. The first instalment of her weekly hour-long programme, titled Friday Night With Nadine, will feature an exclusive interview with former prime minister Boris Johnson. Lord Pickles said that Acoba was informed on Friday of her decision to take up the new role. In a separate letter to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Oliver Dowden, Lord Pickles recommended that given the transparent nature of the role, it would be disproportionate to take any further action in this case. However, he added that the case was a further illustration of how out of date the Governments rules are. Under the current rules, Ms Dorries should seek clearance from Acoba for any new employment or appointments she takes on within two years of leaving office. Lord Pickles told the Mid Bedfordshire MP that the risks under the rules in these types of appointments are usually limited. He said that had you approached Acoba in good time before agreeing to the 26-week contract or publicising the role in the media it would have allowed us to advise you appropriately in advance. The Cabinet Office is expected to respond to the letter in due course Ms Dorries joins a roster that also includes Piers Morgan, Jeremy Kyle, Vanessa Feltz and Sharon Osbourne. She said: As someone whos never been afraid to speak their mind, Im delighted to be joining the team at TalkTV for Friday Night with Nadine, where Ill be putting my 23-year political career and experiences at the despatch box to good use. Boris Johnson continues to dominate so much of the political narrative since his departure from No 10. Nows the time to find out what he really thinks about a whole range of pressing issues. Labours Anneliese Dodds said: Once again the Conservatives think the rules dont apply to them. The party chair said: Its no surprise that Rishi Sunaks MPs are looking for new jobs, but the least we could expect is for former ministers to follow the guidance around appointments. Rishi Sunak has been too weak to deal with his MPs and ministers so far. Is he strong enough to take action against Nadine Dorries? TalkTV described her upcoming show as an irreverent look at the weeks news and a lively mix of topical chat with guests from the world of politics, culture and sport. In October, she briefly stood in for Morgan on his Uncensored show while the former Good Morning Britain presenter was on holiday. Richard Wallace, head of TV, news broadcasting, said: Nadine has a unique voice in British politics and will bring that unique voice to our air. She has had a seat at the top table of British politics during extraordinary times; knows all the key players and has true insight into how the corridors of power actually work. As a former nurse, shes one of very few politicians to have held down a proper job and worried about paying the bills, so our audience will relish her take. It comes after fellow Tory MP and Johnson supporter Jacob Rees-Mogg announced he was joining GB News to host his own show. Friday Night with Nadine starts on February 3 on TalkTV from 8pm. Actress Eva Green was sometimes unrealistic with her expectations and wanted to hire expensive staff for an independent sci-fi movie that was later shuttered, the films director has told the High Court. The Casino Royale star, 42, is accused of making excessive creative and financial demands and having incompatible expectations with the budget of the film A Patriot, which was shut down in October 2019. She is suing production company White Lantern Films, claiming she is entitled to her one million dollar (810,000) fee for the abandoned film, despite its cancellation. White Lantern Films is bringing a counterclaim against the French actress, alleging she undermined the independent films production. On Friday, Dan Pringle, who was the writer and director of the shuttered film, gave evidence at the High Court in London during the second day of the trial. In his witness statement, Mr Pringle said that Ms Green was our first choice for the role in the dystopian thriller when considering actresses for the lead. The film was also due to feature Game Of Thrones star Charles Dance and Twister star Helen Hunt, with Oscar winner Kathy Bates attached to the movie at one point. Mr Pringle said that the proposed budget had been reduced from the 10 million dollars (8 million) discussed with Ms Green to a lower estimate of 5.3 million euros (4.6 million). The court heard that the production had failed to get a subsidy from the Irish film development agency Screen Ireland, and a 1.2 million dollar (970,000) funding deal with Sky was lost. Max Mallin KC, for White Lantern, suggested there was a discrepancy between on the one hand what Ms Green wanted and on the other hand what the budget could afford. Mr Pringle said in his written evidence: We were also seeking talented people and Eva had her own high standards. This was the cause of a certain amount of frustration for all of us. There came a point where I considered that we may have to lower our sights to those with experience at slightly lower budget levels, and with less pedigree in our specific genre, however Eva desired that we keep pushing to secure those meeting our initial requirements. Mr Pringle told the court that Ms Green would say they should reach for the stars and that if the bid for a particular person failed they would then move on to another potential target. I didnt know her well enough to know how serious she was being with some of her suggestions, Mr Pringle added. He said that one idea was to hire a director of photography known for working with Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan. The director continued in his written evidence: I think it is fair to say that Eva was at times a little unrealistic about some of her suggestions of heads of departments/key crew because the individuals were either too high-profile and/or too expensive for an independent production of our kind with a second-time director making a significant leap up. However, Mr Pringle added: Ultimately, I think Evas choices of those key crew that we were able to secure demonstrated that she was prepared to approve realistic candidates that the production could afford, in line with the financial resources we had available whilst we were planning to shoot in Ireland. Under questioning from Mr Mallin, Mr Pringle said that he did not think that asking for specific crew members was a breach of contract and that Ms Green was committed to this film in a way that goes beyond just being an actress. At the start of the trial on Thursday, Mr Mallin claimed that Ms Green, who is due to attend court on Monday, had an animosity towards a vision for the film held by one of the films executive producers, Jake Seal. The barrister said that in exchanges with her agent and Mr Pringle, Ms Green claimed Mr Seal was planning to make a cheap B movie, describing him as the devil and evil, production manager Terry Bird as a f****** moron, and local crew members as shitty peasants from Hampshire. However on Friday, Mr Pringle said: The peasants comment doesnt necessarily relate to Jakes staff at Black Hangar [Studios], its a comment about crewing from the local population. Its a comment about whether Jake was going to hire people who knew the roles. Ms Greens barrister Edmund Cullen KC previously said the actress bent over backwards to make the film but the financial plan was never going to work. He later told the court that Ms Green had been painted as a diva to win headlines and damage her reputation. The nine-day trial continues, with Mr Justice Michael Green expected to give his decision at a later date. Jeremy Renner was trying to stop a six-tonne snowplough from crashing into his nephew when he became trapped and crushed by the machine, a police report has disclosed. The Marvel actor, 52, was using the PistenBully plough to help Alexander Fries free his car from the snow when the large vehicle began to roll down the hill. Renner, known for playing bow-wielding Marvel superhero Hawkeye, sustained injuries to his torso, face, extremities and head during the incident, the report from Washoe county sheriffs department said. The actor previously said that he had broken more than 30 bones in the incident, but they would grow stronger, just like the love and bond with family and friends deepens. The incident took place around the new year, near the Mount Rose Highway, which links Lake Tahoe and south Reno as it straddles the Nevada-California border in the US. A report by deputy Garret Leone, obtained by the PA news agency, said that after he had arrived at the scene of the accident, he had spoken to Fries who had been the only one present. Jeremy is his uncle and was helping him get the Ford pickup truck out of the driveway. The pickup truck got stuck multiple times, so they used the PistenBully to pull the truck out of the driveway, the report said. They had a chain connected to the back of the PistenBully and to the front of the Ford pickup. They got the pickup truck out of the driveway and Alexander parked in the middle of the street. Jeremy turned the PistenBully around further west on Drive. Once turned around, Jeremy exited the PistenBully in an attempt to speak to Alexander. Alexander observed the PistenBully traveling eastbound on Drive directly towards him with nobody inside driving the vehicle. While running towards the truck, Alexander observed Jeremy jumping on the tracks of the PistenBully to get in the cab of the vehicle. Alexander said Jeremy got caught on the PistenBully trucks and was ultimately run over by the PistenBully. Fries had begun screaming for help as he did not have his phone and was helped by two neighbours who provided towels and assistance to Renner while medical personnel arrived. Another report from deputy Jonathan Miller added that in an attempt to keep the PistenBully from striking Fries, (Renner) attempted to step up on the track in order to divert the PistenBully or get it stopped. Renner was pulled under the PistenBully, and the track rolled over him, the report said. The actor has kept fans updated with his recovery process and on Saturday thanked those who sent him messages of support. Posting a photo on Instagram of him receiving treatment while lying in a hospital bed he wrote: Morning workouts, resolutions all changed this particular new years Spawned from tragedy for my entire family, and quickly focused into uniting actionable love. I want to thank EVERYONE for their messages and thoughtfulness for my family and I. Much love and appreciation to you all. These 30 plus broken bones will mend, grow stronger, just like the love and bond with family and friends deepens. Love and blessings to you all. A serving Met Police officer has been sacked from the force after asking for and receiving a photo of a dead man. Pc Bonnie Murphy, who asked colleague Jamie Lewis to send her a photo of a decomposed body to show her family, was dismissed without notice. Lewis would have been dismissed had he not already been sacked and jailed for two years and nine months in December 2021 for taking pictures of two murder victims Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry. The two women had been celebrating Ms Henrys birthday in a park in Wembley, north-west London, in June 2020 when they were stabbed to death by Danyal Hussein. Lewis was one of the officers in charge of guarding the bodies but took selfies with them and shared the pictures over WhatsApp. Jamie Lewis would have been dismissed had he not already been sacked and jailed in December 2021 for taking pictures of the murdered women (Metropolitan Police/PA) An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which ran from July 2020 to October 2021, found that Lewis had received and passed on to Pc Murphy the photo of a decomposed body in Newham, east London, at her request. He also helped her to cheat on a police driving test. The day after Lewis was arrested over the Wembley incident, Pc Murphy told her supervisor that Lewis had sent her WhatsApp messages asking if she wanted the answers to the police basic driver written exam. When she agreed, Lewis sent her previous police driving exam material and the answer sheet to the exam he had taken the previous month. She also used Google during the exam. A disciplinary panel ruled that they had both breached the standards of police professional behaviour and had acted with gross misconduct. IOPC regional director Sal Naseem said: The period after a persons death is already difficult enough for their loved ones, so to learn that an image has been taken and shared inappropriately by police officers only compounds their grief, undermines their confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service and the profession as a whole. We welcome the panels decision and hope todays outcome demonstrates that this behaviour is not treated lightly and can result in serious consequences for the officers involved. Though Pc Murphy was fairly new to her role, she had undertaken multiple training courses and would have known her request to obtain a death scene photo for personal purposes was in breach of professional standards. Lewis failed to challenge Pc Murphys behaviour and was willing to help her cheat in an exam. Both officers also showed a complete lack of respect to this deceased man and his family. Lewis has already been jailed for his disgraceful actions by taking and sharing photos of murder victims, and this investigation further illustrates that he was unfit to serve as a police officer. Our thoughts remain with the family at this difficult time. Pc Murphy will be placed on the College of Policings barred list. Former Pc Lewis was already placed on the barred list following an accelerated hearing organised by the Met Police after he was convicted and jailed. The officer who took the photo of the dead man had a disciplinary meeting for misconduct in August 2022 and was ordered to take the reflective practice review process to learn and reflect on their actions. Nine new banking hubs have been recommended by ATM network Link, under an initiative to help maintain the cash network. Banking hubs are a shared banking space on the high street, with dedicated rooms where customers can see community bankers from their own bank. The community bankers work on rotation, with a different banking provider available on each day of the week. Link has recommended new banking hubs in Barnoldswick (Lancashire), Clay Cross (Derbyshire), Earlestown (Merseyside), Heywood, Horwich (both in Greater Manchester), Oakham (East Midlands), Shoreham-by-Sea (West Sussex), Stapleford (Nottinghamshire) and Watton (Norfolk). There are currently four banking hubs up and running across the UK so far, in Brixham (Devon), Cambuslang (South Lanarkshire), Cottingham (East Riding of Yorkshire) and Rochford (Essex). Link has also recommended new deposit services in six communities Keswick (Cumbria), Ripley (Derbyshire), Littlehampton (West Sussex), Whitstable (Kent), Dagenham (Greater London) and Colwyn Bay (Clwyd). The new deposit services will provide consumers and businesses with accessible ways to deposit cash without having to visit a bank branch. Cash Access UK, a bank-owned company, will now open the new hubs and deposit services. The total number of new cash services recommended by Link is now 76 comprised of 38 banking hubs and 38 deposit services. The banking hubs scheme is funded by banks. Hubs can be set up where suitable locations are found. Waves of bank branch closures have fuelled concerns about peoples ability to access their own money easily.Earlier this week, NatWest announced the closure of 23 branches, including branches in Horwich and Shoreham-by-Sea two of the new locations which Link has recommended for banking hubs. As Lloyds, TSB and Barclays announced closures earlier this month, NatWests announcement meant that 87 bank branch closures had been announced so far this year, less than a month in. Various other initiatives have been taken place to plug the gaps, including cashback in shops. People can also do their everyday banking over the Post Offices counters, under an agreement with several banks. The Government has said it will legislate to protect the future of cash. John Howells, CEO, Link, said: Access to cash and face-to-face banking services continues to be important for millions of people across the UK. Not everyone can or is able to go digital yet, so were pleased to announce new cash services to support these communities. Jenny Ross, Which? Money editor, said: With thousands of bank branches shutting their doors in recent years, those who rely on cash and in-person banking services need alternative forms of access, so its encouraging to see that more banking hubs are set to open. As cash makes a comeback by helping many people to manage their finances during the cost-of-living crisis, the rollout of these banking hubs must be speeded up. They simply arent opening quickly enough to offset the impact of hundreds of branches closing every year. Which? also recognises the importance of deposit facilities, especially for small businesses, and looks forward to learning more about how they will function. Ultimately, however, whats needed most is long-awaited Government legislation to protect access to cash, with guaranteed minimum levels of free access to it, so people dont have to fork out to get hold of their own money. The DUPs strategy in opposing the Northern Ireland Protocol has been vindicated, party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said. Speaking to party members and supporters in Brookeborough, Co Fermanagh, Sir Jeffrey said that people in London, Dublin and Brussels now recognise that the sacrifice of consensus politics on the altar of the protocol was a mistake. The DUP is blocking the functioning of powersharing at Stormont and has made clear it will not allow devolution to return unless major changes to the protocol are delivered. The Northern Ireland Protocol is opposed by unionists in Northern Ireland (Liam McBurney/PA) Talks remain ongoing between the UK and the EU over the protocol, part of the post-Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland aligned with some EU trade rules, effectively placing a trade border in the Irish Sea. Both sides are keen to strike a deal to break the logjam over the contentious trading arrangements before the 25th anniversary of Northern Irelands historic Good Friday peace agreement in April. Many unionists are fiercely opposed to the treaty which they claim has weakened the regions place within the union. The DUP leader said: We warned London, Washington, Dublin and Brussels in July 2021 that the Northern Ireland Protocol was incompatible with powersharing and our hard-won politically balanced arrangements. We gave time and space for these fundamental concerns to be addressed but that time was not utilised. Instead, some local parties told us that the protocol had to be rigorously implemented. No one is saying that now. We are seeking the restoration of democratic decision-making to the Assembly, replacing the democratic deficit created by the protocol. Why should anyone want to deny the people of Northern Ireland, through their democratically elected representatives, a say or a vote on vast swathes of the laws governing our economy and which affect the people of Northern Ireland so directly? Sir Jeffrey said that the protocol is not and will not be supported by unionists. He added: It was a mistake for its authors to press ahead with an agreement that has harmed Northern Irelands constitutional and economic place within the United Kingdom. Whilst I welcome that there is public recognition that it was a mistake to ignore the objections of unionists, the greatest misstep would be if the same mistake were to be repeated. Political progress in Northern Ireland has been painstakingly slow at times but it has never been achieved by one side ignoring the concerns of the other. With a divided society, we need to work together. Not one unionist MP or MLA supported the protocol. Such a one-sided approach was never going to work. We need a deal that unionists as well as nationalists can support. The powersharing institutions at Stormont collapsed last year after the DUP withdrew co-operation in protest at the NI Protocol (Liam McBurney/PA) Sir Jeffrey continued: All of this work will only be worthwhile if we can reach a balanced and durable outcome. There will be no solid basis for an Executive and Assembly until the protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore Northern Irelands place in the UK internal market and our constitutional arrangements are respected. Recognising mistakes is one thing but learning the lesson that consensus is the only way forward must be at the forefront of minds in London and Brussels rather than any dates on the calendar. Sir Elton Johns husband, David Furnish, has urged the UK Government to really step up to champion the value of British culture internationally. The Canadian filmmaker, who has been married to Sir Elton since 2014, said emerging British artists and their crews needed to be allowed to tour without bureaucracy and red tape. Furnish posted on Instagram following a discussion with the UK Trade and Business Commission about the arts and cultural sector. The message to the government was loud and clear, he wrote. We need the DCMS to really step up, recognise and champion the financial and diplomatic value of British culture internationally, particularly when its become increasingly difficult within Europe. Emerging British artists and their crews must be allowed to tour without bureaucracy and red tape. It is good for us, good for our European neighbours and essential for the next generation of talent forging a career in music. Furnish highlighted that the number of British acts playing at European festivals had plummeted by 45% since Brexit, adding that our future festival headliners need to be supported and protected. It comes after Sir Eltons final North American tour shows late last year in Los Angeles, at which he was joined by Furnish and their children. This isnt just an economic issue, our world-beating arts and culture is essential for our continued soft power and position in a changing world, Furnish said. Nothing brings the world together like music, art and sport. Our government needs to step up and realise the real power, the diplomatic power and the unifying power of the arts. Were only going to move this planet forward if we all pull together. Furnish and Sir Elton have been in a civil partnership since 2005, but formalised their marriage in 2014 after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales. The Department for International Trade has made progress towards selling the UK as an investment destination, but needs to co-ordinate better with other authorities, the Governments official auditors have said. The National Audit Office (NAO) found that the department known by its acronym DIT has supported considerably fewer cases of direct investment from abroad, but that the value of these projects has grown in recent years. Increasing inward investment is critical for UK productivity, which in turn supports economic growth and the amount of money available for public services, said NAO boss Gareth Davies. Success in attracting greater investment in part relies on knowing UK strengths compared with its competitors. The auditors said that there has been a 37% drop in the number of foreign direct investment projects that the DIT supported since the financial year ending in spring of 2017, the year the Brexit vote happened. The number of projects since the UK left the European Union in the 2020 financial year has fallen by 19% to 1,174. But since then the forecast economic benefits have risen by 128% to 7 billion. The NAO said that the department needs better co-ordination across central government, devolved nations and other local bodies. Mr Davies said: Better understanding across the UKs nations and regions can help present a coherent offer to prospective investors, and improving co-ordination across Whitehall could reap rewards. Doing more of what works and stopping what doesnt is critical for success, so evaluating economic predictions against outcomes can help DIT refine its approach. In the financial year ending last March, the DIT was involved in nearly three quarters (74%) of all the foreign direct investment projects in the UK. However, three quarters of these said that they would definitely or probably have invested anyway without DIT support. The 33-year-old man suspected of stabbing to death two teens and wounding five other passengers on a train in northern Germany was freed from pretrial prison a week ago and had prior convictions, according to officials conducting the investigation. The suspect, identified as Ibrahim A., a stateless Palestinian who arrived in Germany in 2014, reportedly attacked many individuals aboard a regional train going from Kiel to Hamburg on Wednesday afternoon. Knife Attack on Train in Northern Germany According to officials, a 17-year-old girl and a 19-year-old male died from their injuries. Two victims remained in critical condition, while two others were seriously hurt. According to authorities, one person had minor injuries. Other passengers overpowered the man, who was treated for minor injuries at a hospital and is now in police custody, Kiel police said at a news conference. According to Fox News, police and prosecutors said the suspect's criminal history includes convictions for a previous stabbing incident, sexual assault, severe bodily injury, and stealing. According to the German news agency dpa, he spent a year in pretrial detention for another knife incident in Hamburg before being freed a week ago. Before moving to Kiel, the suspect resided in Hamburg and the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The incident occurred as the train reached the town of Brokstedt, and police and prosecutors were examining possible motivations. Multiple media reports stated that the assailant chased passengers through four separate railway cars and that blood was recovered in four of them. Other people attempted to protect themselves by hurling their luggage at him. The interior minister of Schleswig-Holstein state, where Brokstedt is located, Sabine Suetterlin-Waack, stated that the parents of the two adolescent victims had been told of their deaths. She said that not all other injured people had been recognized by Thursday lunchtime. She stated that detectives were under intense pressure to "get all the information." Thursday's session of the state legislature opened with a minute of mourning for the victims of the assault. Per The Independent, the incident occurred as the train reached the town of Brokstedt, and police and prosecutors were examining potential motivations. Read Also: US Abrams Tanks Don't Have Secret Armor Fatal Train Attack Leads to Deaths of 2 Teens The interior minister of Schleswig-Holstein state, where Brokstedt is located, Sabine Suetterlin-Waack, stated that the parents of the two teen victims had been told of their deaths. She stated that detectives were under intense pressure to "get all the information." Thursday's session of the state legislature opened with a minute of mourning for the victims of the assault. Juergen Henningsen, a police spokesperson from the adjacent city of Flensburg, stated that two of the victims had died due to the attack, ABC reported. Three persons had severe injuries, while four others sustained minor injuries. No information was provided concerning the victims' identities. According to authorities, the attacker was also hurt and sent to the hospital. They reported being notified of the incident for the first time before 3 p.m. when numerous people aboard the train made emergency calls. According to the police, the train was stopped, and the assailant was apprehended outside the train. Sabine Suetterlin-Waack, the interior minister of Schleswig-Holstein, expressed shock at the attack. Deutsche Bahn said on Twitter that the Brokstedt railway station was closed for several hours while police investigated the event and that certain trains between Hamburg and Kiel had been canceled. Deutsche Bahn offered condolences on Wednesday evening, stating, "Our sincere sympathies go out to the victims' families. We wish the injured a complete and fast recovery." Related Article: Machete Attack in Spain Church @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Romania has jumped from being the 86th most common non-UK country of birth to the fourth in the space of 20 years, while Jamaica and Kenya have tumbled out of the top 10, census data shows. Other new entries in the top 10 include Poland and Nigeria, but there have been sharp drops for Australia and Canada. New analysis of the 2021 census has been released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showing how the top non-UK countries of birth in England and Wales have changed in recent decades. India was the most common non-UK country at both the 2021 and 2011 census, and the second most common in 2001. Ireland has slipped from first place in 2001 to fourth in 2011 and fifth in 2021. The rest of the top 10 has seen major changes, however. Romania ranked 86th in 2001 and by 2011 had climbed to 26, before jumping to fourth place in 2021. Poland has risen from 18th in 2001 to second in 2021, while Nigeria is up from 14th to eighth. But Jamaica has fallen out of top 10, dropping from sixth place in 2001 to 20th in 2021, along with the United States (from seventh to 11th) and Kenya (ninth to 21st). (PA Graphics) The rise in position of both Poland and Romania is likely because they joined the EU in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and therefore gained entitlement to free movement, the ONS said. These changes over the last 20 years reflect a notably different picture of international migration over time. This is borne out by trends further down the rankings, which show China rising from being the 25th most common non-UK country of birth in England and Wales at the 2001 census to 12th in 2021, with other notable jumps for Spain (up from 23rd to 13th), Portugal (34th to 15th) and the Philippines (30th to 17th). By contrast, leaving the top 20 are Australia, which has fallen from 11th place in 2001 to 26th in 2021, Cyprus (down from 15th to 37th) and Canada (17th to 38th). Further down the rankings, Afghanistan is a new entry in the top 40, jumping from 55th place in 2001 to 33rd in 2021. Both Hungary and Brazil have risen 27 places, with Hungary up from 57th to 30th while Brazil has gone from 54th to 27th. The census takes place across the UK every 10 years and provides the most accurate estimate of all the people and households in the country. The latest census was filled out by more than 24 million households across England and Wales on March 21 2021, and came at a time that saw changes to immigration rules in the UK following Brexit, as well as restrictions on movement due to the coronavirus pandemic. People born in EU2 (Romania and Bulgaria) and EU8 countries have the highest employment rates. EU8 is Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. pic.twitter.com/CXiSptFXki Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) January 27, 2023 The new data also provides an insight into the employment status of people aged 16 and over living in England and Wales who were born outside the UK, or who do not hold British passports. There were high rates of employment at the 2021 census for people born in parts of the eastern Europe, as well as for those born in Antarctica and Oceania, which includes countries such as Australia and New Zealand. The rate stood at 80% for people from Bulgaria and Romania, and 79% for people from the group of countries known as the EU8: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. For people both in Antarctica and Oceania the rate was 75%. All of these figures are higher than that for people born in the UK (56%), though the ONS said this is to be expected as the older UK-born population has a higher proportion of economically inactive people, at 35%. Vehicle repairs, retail and wholesale was the most common line of work at the 2021 census for both UK-born and non-UK-born migrants, followed by roles in health and social care. Migrant workers from non-EU countries are much more likely to be in health and social work (accounting for 19.5% of all employees) and information and communication (6.4%) than UK or EU-born workers. Both EU and non-EU-born workers are underrepresented in education, public administration and defence compared with people born in the UK. Bass Drum of Death Is a Wicked One-Man Punk Band on 'Crawling After You' I had kind of just run out of ideas doing things completely by myself. This is what John Barrett, the founder of Bass Drum of Death, tells me when I ask why his fifth full-length album is the first non-solo LP from the often one-man band. More from Spin: Say I Wont was written, demoed, and recorded with Barrets guitarist brother Jim and drummer Ian Kirkpatrick BDODs official touring team. Appropriately, the albums name comes from a schoolyard provocation used solely in group settings. Its basically an inside joke between my friends and me. Its one of those things that you would say in, like, middle school when you were trying to fight somebody or pressing someone to dare you to do something. Its like, say I wont do it. For the incoming collection of boisterous yet sonically fastidious songs, Barrett also recruited Patrick Carney of the Black Keys to implement some production genius. What resulted is an inspired assemblage of songs with mainstream competence and purposeful scuzziness that keeps the music grounded in its roots. However, handing over the reins wasnt always an easy feat for Barrett who had long become accustomed to consulting with himself. (Credit: Steve Gullick) Ive always been pretty possessive of my songs, and, you know, thats just kind of been one of the habits I acquired from doing it by myself for so long. But doing it this way really taught me to let go and let other people do their thing. It was kind of hard for me, but [everyone I worked with on this] is really good at what they do, so I had to say to myself, like, Yo, just let them be good. Stop trying to micromanage everything. An Oxford, Miss. native, Barrett moved to New York before releasing Bass Drum of Deaths first album GB City in 2011 with Fat Possum Records. Through the next decade, Barrett and the band would experience the common ebbs and flows that often define the life of musicians new labels, member turnover, releasing albums, touring, etc. Then, the pandemic hit. It was during this time that Barrett returned to Mississippi to reset and reassess, ultimately finishing up the fifth full-length that BDOD had started writing in Brooklyn in 2020 and re-signing with Fat Possum Records. When I started, I just wanted to play in a punk band and drink beers and travel around. I didnt really think much past that. And I got really burned out. When I moved back home, I started writing songs again, just for fun. I realized I wanted this record to have more of a hometown feel. The switch back to Fat Possum was easy. Its much better working with people I know and love and love everything they do. Regarding his favorite track from the album, Barrett tells me that while its a difficult verdict, the titular track a heavily-rhythmic song that incites an involuntary stank face within seconds may take the cake. Say I Wont came from a super loose demo. That one and Swerving were two tracks that we took from almost nothing just a verse and a chorus and developed entirely in the studio. The way we did it was so different and so fun because the rest of the songs were kind of mapped out. Whats more, Say Your Prayers, a collaboration with Mike Kerr of Royal Blood, showcases Bass Drum of Deaths propensity for inspiring raw emotion. Quick rhymes layer atop one another, swelling with anticipation, before spilling nay, gushing into a masterfully enjambed chorus. (Credit: Steve Gullick) As the garage-rock band gears up for a cross-country tour starting Feb. 8 the latter half of which features Brooklyn band Dead Tooth I probe Barrett about the bands affinity for globetrotting. Bass Drum of Death has, after all, rarely missed an opportunity to travel its tracks. My first two records were made quickly and cheaply as an excuse to tour. Growing up in Mississippi and then kind of staying around Oxford after high school, touring was a way for me to get out, you know? Now, as Ive gotten older, its kind of flipped a little bit; I really enjoy making songs and figuring things out in the studio. But were really excited to get back out there and play some new and old stuff. Say I Wont which is out Jan. 27 closes with a song called Too Cold to Hold, a common exclamation when referring to a freezing beer in a chilled glass (though thats not what the song is about). But, these days, the full-time musician has a more sober perspective. This time around, Im not getting caught up in any unnecessary stuff. Im focused on devoting the right amount of time and mental resources to make sure that the music is good. To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here. The post Bass Drum of Death Is a Wicked One-Man Punk Band on Crawling After You appeared first on SPIN. FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German crude oil import volumes rose 11.1% in the first 10 months of 2022 on a year-on-year basis as the economy recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, while the bill more than doubled due to higher prices, official data showed on Friday. Russia remained the top supplier, holding a 27.2% share of Germany's oil imports in the period, monthly statistics from the BAFA foreign trade office showed. On Dec. 5 2022, the European Union banned Russian crude imports and G7 countries set a price cap on Russian seaborne exports, reducing subsequent arrivals from Russia. The sanctions were part of Western nations' response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine last February. Some 23.5% of German oil imports in the January-Oct period came from the British and Norwegian North Sea, while imports from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) contributed 16.8%. The rest was shared among other sources, including Kazakhstan and the United States. BAFA releases import data with a few months' delay meaning the effect of sanctions and Russian counter actions in energy flows specifically on Germany, the EU's biggest economy, is appearing only gradually. Germany's oil imports in January through October from all origins increased to 73.6 million tonnes from 66.2 million in the same months of 2021, BAFA said. The country spent 51.6 billion euros ($55.98 billion) on crude oil imports in the 10 months, 117.7% more than in the comparable year-earlier period. The average price paid per tonne on the border over the 10 months rose 66.4% compared with the same period a year earlier, standing at 701.73 euros, BAFA said. Global oil prices rose on Friday on track for a third straight week of gains. China has shown signs of more buying and traders have worried that sanctions against Russia could tighten supply.[O/R] ($1 = 0.9218 euros) (Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by Frances Kerry) A Holocaust survivor has warned Britons to be vigilant against antisemitism as the country remembers the genocide of six million Jews on Holocaust Memorial Day. John Dobai, 89, lived through the Second World War as a child in Budapest, Hungary, but five of his family members were killed two grandfathers, two aunts and a cousin, who was just 17. Mr Dobai has lived in Britain since 1948 and, speaking from his home in Kew, west London, he told the PA News Agency that antisemitism is as prominent in modern Britain as it has ever been. He said: I have lived in this house for over 60 years and for 59 years I did not see any sign of antisemitism. But in the last 12 to 18 months we had graffiti on benches along the towpath saying Holocaust: six million lies and similar graffiti on walls and benches in the neighbourhood. Some people I have met in this area have also declared that people from north London are very difficult. In my talks I conclude by calling on the audience to become witnesses and, if they see examples of racial discrimination, not to be silent. To deny any racial slur whether its against people of colour or other belief systems and to speak up. Raised as a Catholic only child by parents of Jewish descent, Mr Dobais father was separated from the family and sent to a forced labour camp during the Second World War. In 1944, Germany invaded Hungary after it learned of secret attempts to make peace with the Allies and quickly introduced harsh antisemitic policies. Holocaust survivor, John Dobai at his home in London (Jonathan Brady/PA) All Jews in Budapest were forced to live in ghettos, wore yellow stars of David on their clothes and could not go to school. I was sent out by mother to buy something from the shops, Mr Dobai remembers. On the way I met a classmate and I said to him, Im looking forward to going back to school. And he said he had been told he was going back to school but I was not because I was a dirty, stinking Jew. I protested that I was Roman Catholic and he repeated the dirty, stinking Jew. I went home crying and my mother had to explain to me that in fact I came from a Jewish family. This was a tremendous shock. When his mothers letters to rural family members kept being returned unopened, she realised rumours of genocide were true and soon after this the Nazis started to round up Budapests Jews for deportation to the death camps. Mr Dobai said: We were told to form up a column in front of the house to be taken to a relatively nearby railway station. But on the way some administrative problem arose and we were pushed into an empty apartment, about 25 people to a room. When I was in this column, a man came up to me and said, I hope you die. This was a tremendous shock because I didnt know the man, I had never met him and never spoke to him. How could he have such hate towards us? As the Soviets advanced on Hungarys frontiers, Mr Dobais father was released from the forced labour camp and returned to Budapest, where he was one of many Jews who acquired papers from Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg allowing them to move into a protected safehouse. Between 25,000 and 100,000 lives are believed to have been saved by Mr Wallenbergs actions during the war. Battersea Power Station in London, lit up in purple for Holocaust Memorial Day (Ian West/PA) But Mr Dobai was not safe yet. As the Soviets neared Budapest, the Germans and Hungarian fascists commenced a brutal campaign of killings against the 60,000 Jews living in the international ghetto of safehouses. The Nazis were emptying houses, taking people down to the Danube and tying three people together, he recalls. They would shoot the centre one so the dead body would drag the other two down into the river. I remember looking out of the flat we were in and Jews being led towards the Danube and then about 10 minutes later hearing the rattle of machine guns. And then the fascists would come back. I remember that they were carrying the machine guns wrapped in sacking because the barrels were still hot. Mr Dobais grandparents were two of 45,000 Jews massacred in this way, and he and his parents were only saved when the Soviets took control of the city before the killings were complete. After emigrating to Britain in 1948, Mr Dobai finished school, attended Durham University and raised two children with his wife Joan, who died last year. Since retiring in 1998, he has given more than 180 talks about his experiences, including in schools and colleges, working with the Holocaust Educational Trust. He said: It is an opportunity for me to remember those people who were murdered, the only reason being that Germany and Hungary declared them to be enemies of their countries. They were innocent of all criminal or any other proclivity against the state. They were murdered because those countries decided that the happiness of Germans and Austrians and Hungarians depended on the total destruction of Jews. The second reason is I want to show that racial or colour discrimination can lead to severe discord within society. Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: Today we mark Holocaust Memorial Day on the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the former Nazi concentration and death camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau. She added: We also pay tribute to the incredible survivors, many of whom still share their testimony day in and day out to ensure that future generations never forget the horrors of the past. Boise State University says it has laid off some administrative employees to save money. The university eliminated four full-time, two part-time and three vacant positions in Human Resource Services in January, Boise State spokesperson Mike Sharp told the Idaho Statesman on Thursday. Boise State employs more than 5,000 people. Sharp said 45 people are still employed in HR, and the department still has two open positions. He said the university made the reduction in force to save about $275,000 per year. This is not an irregular thing, he said. The (Idaho State Board of Education) has charged us with an ongoing effort of program prioritization to maintain efficiency. Sharp also said Boise State is in the process of searching for a chief human resources officer who will make further decisions about the office. While the university is assisting the people who have been laid off in finding new positions, he said, theyll not be given severance packages, pursuant to Idaho code. Boise State has received 9 donations of at least $1M. How is that money being used? Gov. Brad Little wants to boost Idahos teacher pay to rank among top 10 nationally Idahos largest for-profit employer is laying off workers next year. What we know As sunlight leaked on Thursday morning through window blinds on the second floor of the U.S. District Court building in Fort Worth, the discussion was of the tumult that resulted when aircraft were thrust into a Southeast Asian sea and an Ethiopian field. Thirteen people who are relatives of victims of Boeing 737 Max crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 told Judge Reed OConnor of memories they held and of plans that were upended by the catastrophes. They relayed the various purposes of the victims travel and the broader purposes of their lives. All 189 passengers and crew on board the first flight, Lion Air 610, died. In the second flight, Ethiopian Airlines 302, all 157 passengers and crew on board died. Several victim representatives described sleep disrupted by thoughts of the experience of rushing to death inside a plane falling out of the sky. After recounting biography and grief, many of the relatives turned to their assessment of a deferred prosecution agreement between federal prosecutors and The Boeing Company. The relatives said that the agreement, under which Boeing will pay about $2.5 billion in a criminal penalty, compensation payments to Boeings 737 MAX airline customers and to a crash-victim beneficiaries fund, was crafted without consulting them. It falls short of holding accountable a company that they allege was motivated by greed. Paul Kiernan told OConnor that he had lost his soulmate. Our future together will never happen, Kiernan said of his partner, Joanna Toole. Toole and the other victims were the human cost in what he said was Boeings calculation that passenger safety was inferior to its own interests. The deferred prosecution agreement is not justice because it was never intended to be justice, said Kiernan, who lives in Ireland. They knew, Kiernan said of Boeing, and did nothing. Clariss Moore, right, holds Paul Njoroges arm following an arraignment involving Boeing on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. They both lost family members in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plane crash in 2019. Numerous family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted the company immunity from criminal prosecution. The agreement was reached in January 2021, when the U.S. Department of Justice charged Boeing with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Such agreements often call for prosecutors to seek the dismissal of a charge when the terms of the agreement are satisfied. The matter was filed in the Northern District of Texas because the fraud at least in part occurred in the district. Boeing admitted that two of its 737 MAX flight technical pilots deceived the Federal Aviation Administrations aircraft evaluation group about an important aircraft part known as MCAS that affected the flight control system of the Boeing 737 MAX. Because of the deception, a key document published by the FAA lacked information about the part, and in turn, airplane manuals and pilot-training materials for U.S.-based airlines lacked information about it, the U.S. Attorneys Office in Dallas has said. In November 2016, two of Boeings 737 MAX flight technical pilots discovered information about an important change to the control system part. Rather than sharing information about this change with the FAA, Boeing concealed the information and deceived the FAA about the part. Victim representatives on Thursday repeatedly criticized the deferred prosecution agreement at an initial appearance hearing that OConnor ordered last week. Zipporah Kuria, a London resident whose father, Joseph Kuria, died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said outside the courthouse that it had been disappointing to hear Boeing and the Justice Department sing from the same script during arguments on conditions of release. Zipporah Kuria walks into the Fort Worth federal courthouse while holding a photograph of her father, Joseph Kuria Waithaka, on Thursday, January 26, 2023. Kurias father was one of the 346 people killed in two plane crashes involving a Boeing 737 MAX. She and other family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted them immunity from criminal prosecution. Paul Cassell, an attorney for the victims relatives, sought three such conditions. A standard requirement that the defendant not commit new federal, state or local crimes; a monitor to evaluate Boeings agreement compliance; and the public release of the substance of Boeings agreement compliance efforts. Lorinda Laryea, the principal deputy chief of the U.S. Department of Justice criminal fraud section, argued that the second and third conditions were unprecedented, unnecessary and inappropriate. Indeed, as they developed the agreement, fraud section prosecutors determined that an independent compliance monitor was unnecessary. Benjamin Hatch, a Boeing attorney, said that agreement compliance was a matter of regular discussion with prosecutors. The company pleaded not guilty. OConnor ordered a condition prohibiting the company from committing a new crime, and said he would later issue an order on the other conditions. The families have challenged elements of the agreement and have sought an order from OConnor that would rescind its immunity provision. The victim representatives assert that the agreement violates the Crime Victims Rights Act because prosecutors did not confer with victims relatives before entering into it. OConnor interrupted Catherine Berthet, the second victim representative to speak at the arraignment hearing, to ask how much remained of her lengthy statement on her daughter, Camille Geoffroy. Ill give you one more minute, so wrap it up, OConnor said. When Berthet continued beyond the limit, OConnor again interrupted and she briefly insisted on continuing. Please. maam, step on back, the judge instructed. Paul Njoroge, who lost multiple family members in a plane crash involving a Boeing 737 MAX, speaks to the media following an arraignment at the federal courthouse in Fort Worth on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at the federal court in Fort Worth. He and other family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted them immunity from criminal prosecution. Paul Njoroges three children, wife and mother-in-law died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. The question that always lingers on my mind is why does the Department of Justice try to protect Boeing? the Canadian man said in an interview with reporters outside the courthouse. Nadia Millerson, the mother of Samya Stumo who was killed in one of the two plane crashes involving a Boeing 737 MAX, unfurls a banner with photographs of some of the victims following an arraignment at the federal courthouse in Fort Worth on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at the federal court in Fort Worth. She and other family members attended an arraignment challenging the plea agreement Boeing made with the Justice Department that granted them immunity from criminal prosecution. The citys murder rate was soaring and residents were clamoring for action when the Memphis Police Department announced a new anti-violence unit with a fearsome name. MPDs New SCORPION UNIT Launched! read a post on the departments Facebook page in November 2021, along with a video clip showing a group of officers in tactical vests at a roll call. The name stands for the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods. Now its known for inflicting deadly violence on one of the citys residents. Authorities confirmed Thursday that officers from Scorpion were among those responsible in the alleged beating death of Tyre Nichols after a Jan. 7 traffic stop. The Scorpion unit was involved, Shelby County, Tennessee, District Attorney Steve Mulroy said Thursday at a news conference where he announced murder charges against five officers. The attack on Nichols, which Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis has called heinous, reckless and inhumane, has increased scrutiny of the citys reliance on specialized units to suppress violent crime. This hot spot approach has been used by cities around the country but some police reform advocates have said it contributes to use of force and weakens public trust. This week, Davis announced a review of all of the police departments specialized units, including Scorpion, in response to Nichols death. The police department declined to comment further on the Scorpion unit Thursday. Nichols, 29, died Jan. 10, three days after the traffic stop in Memphis Hickory Hill neighborhood for alleged reckless driving, authorities said. A confrontation followed, which led to Nichols getting pepper-sprayed and running from officers before he was beaten, Mulroy said. Tyre Nichols. (Courtesy Ben Crump Law) City officials said a video of the beating would be released to the public after 6 p.m. Friday. Memphis Scorpion unit was created in October 2021 under the police departments Organized Crime Unit. Made up of 40 officers divided into four 10-member teams, the unit was tasked not only with addressing violent crime, but also with investigating car thefts and gangs. The officers crime suppression assignments changed depending on where crime was worst. Memphis set a record for homicides in 2021 for the second year in a row. The police department reported 346 in 2021 up from 332 the previous year. Mayor Jim Strickland promoted the new Scorpion unit as part of the solution in his January 2022 State of the City speech. He touted it as part of an anti-crime strategy that also included a gun violence intervention program and more money for the police department. In its first three months, Scorpion made hundreds of arrests and seized hundreds of cars and weapons, Strickland said. Scorpion-led operations promoted on the police departments Facebook page provide a glimpse into its work: arrests that begin with traffic stops, escalate into more serious confrontations and end with arrests of people for drugs and guns. The unit also busted an alleged stolen car chop shop after having tracked a stolen car, searched the scene of a burglary and found drugs and guns, and it took a suspected carjacker into custody. Mark LeSure, a former Memphis police sergeant who retired in 2021, said he began to see a large number of relatively inexperienced officers being put on specialized units as a lot of the police force started leaving in recent years. Such units did not have enough senior staff members training the new officers, he said, adding that that was concerning to him. Rookies were getting put on specialized units where they had no business being, he said. LeSure said former colleagues still at the department have told him that the Scorpion unit, which launched after he retired, is known for having a zero tolerance policy on crime which he said meant the officers do what they can to arrest people. The officers charged in Nichols death were hired from 2017 to 2020. They are 24 to 32 years old. Five Memphis police officers were fired in connection with a traffic stop that led to the death of Tyre Nichols. Clockwise from top left: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Desmond Mills Jr. (Memphis Police Department via AP) E. Winslow Buddy Chapman, who was the director of the police department from 1976 to 1983, said he was surprised to hear that officers who were young and inexperienced were placed on a unit like Scorpion. When he led the force, officers were not considered for specialized units without at least seven years on the job, he said. Youre using officers to send a message that were here and were not going to tolerate criminal activity anymore, said Chapman, who is the executive director of CrimeStoppers of Memphis and Shelby County, which offers cash for tips about crimes. In that context, it can very easily go overboard, which it obviously did in this case. Chelsea Glass, an organizer with Decarcerate Memphis, which advocates for reform of the criminal justice system, said Scorpion was a rebranding of a common police tactic: a street crime-fighting team that relied on low-level traffic stops as pretexts to find violent criminals and weapons. They harass everyday residents, and theyre calling this high-level policing, Glass said. But its really just stop-and-frisk on wheels. It doesnt matter what name you slap on it. Keedran Franklin, a Memphis community organizer, said Scorpion was like other specialized police units including the county-run Multi-Agency Gang Unit in that the officers seemed to stoke fear and distrust by the way they confronted people. The way they move in unmarked cars, looking like regular guys, bumping to rap music, they got on hoodies, theyre really looking the part, like theyre a part of the community, but theyre police, Franklin said. Then someone maybe slips up, smokes weed or doesnt have their seat belt on or a headlight is out, and they jump out and stop them and want to go through their car. Only after the officers got out of their cars would people see SCORPION on the backs of their vests. Theyre their own internal little gang, Franklin added. When they turn them loose on the streets, how does that affect ordinary citizens? Part old-school theme park attraction, part love letter to animation and part modern showcase of projection technology, Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway at long last landed in Disneyland's Toontown, its second but most-fitting home. The Walt Disney World import is a nostalgia-fueled charmer, albeit one that celebrates the Walt Disney Co.'s most recent animated shorts featuring the corporation's biggest star since more or less 1928. There are plenty of nods to modern theme park flourishes in the trackless attraction characters look at us, talk to us, direct us, dance with us and give the illusion of responding to us but the newest addition to Toontown, opening Friday, is an immediate stand-out in the Anaheim park's portfolio for its they-don't-make-'em-like-they-used-to ethos. Aboard Disneyland's new ride, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times) Relatively slow-moving, family friendly and full of tiny, blacklighted details, the attraction serves as a fully realized animated short sprung to life. While overrun with screens, Walt Disney Imagineers worked to ensure this wasn't a flat, passive, 2-D theater, as digitally animated water fountains sprout around us and tropical flowers seem to open and close among us. If nostalgia is often a ruling factor at Disneyland, Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway works because it transcends it, focusing on the winning, hyper-active animated style of the company's most recent "Mickey Mouse" series. And yet it still manages to tonally feel more like a screwball 1930s short, with a train springing apart and taking riders into tropical hideways, down waterfalls and into a dance lesson with Daisy Duck. It isn't deep but it is silly, focusing on light themes of friendship and love, culminating in a romantic outing between Mickey and Minnie Mouse that makes its pre-Valentine's Day opening ideal for lovers and perhaps less so for those struggling with heartbreak. But even the ride's happily-ever-after comes with a few Goofy-fueled hiccups. Walt Disney Imagineers spoke of the ride as fitting in with a lineage that dates back to the earliest attractions in Fantasyland, home to rides themed after "Peter Pan" and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" films. "This particular attraction is really important to us because it sticks to that traditional storytelling while looking to the future of how we can modernize it," says Marnie Burress, a portfolio project management executive with Imagineering, the division of the company responsible for theme park experiences. Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway has a theme of friendship and light romance. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times) Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway follows a school of theme park design where vignettes take precedence over a definitive plot. The ride definitely has the latter a Mickey Mouse accident causes the train to split but after its opening moments we're whisked from scene to scene, one minute in a carnival and the next a factory. It deviates, blissfully, from the more cinematic school of attraction design to focus on what theme parks do best, which is transport us to various environments that can enhance, exaggerate or put a heavily fantastical spin on our own. It also serves as a work of alternative history. While the ride itself is virtually identical to its Florida counterpart, the ride's extensive queue is significantly different. Here, we enter a museum housed inside a theater, one said to be curated by Minnie Mouse, of Mickey Mouse history. There are nods to many of the once rascally rodent's appearances "Steamboat Willie," "Fantasia" and "Mickey and the Beanstalk" are just a few of the dozens of works mentioned. Befitting of its Toontown setting, works such as "The Skeleton Dance" are treated as ones created and crafted by living toons rather than skilled animators. It's a museum-like setting, but don't expect an animated history lesson, as plaques are filled will eye-roll-worthy puns rather than any true facts. Still, clever details abound, such as a tiny robotic figurine of a lesser-known character such as Erica, a cruise director in the Mickey short "Shipped Out," in the concession stand's popcorn machine. "This is a Mickey Mouse exhibit that we call 'Through the Ears' and put on by Minnie and the Hysterical Society of Toontown to commemorate the occasion," said Imagineer Manny Chavez. "The Disney history buffs will find so much in this queue," as there are allusions to Mickey's disco era, "The Goofy Movie" and even "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." Daisy Duck dances with us on Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway. (Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times) Pre-show special effects abound, such as a ghostly mirror and, carried over from Florida, a theatrical screen being blown apart. Across the country, the attraction is housed in the resorts Disney's Hollywood Studios. But Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway feels as if was always destined for Toontown, where it will join the somewhat underrated Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin as the land's second showcase attraction. Both are celebrations of animation, but Roger Rabbit does so with physical sets while Runaway Railway uses the art of animation itself. When the ride debuted in Florida in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic forced theme parks the world over to close, Runaway Railway there faced the unenviable task of replacing that park's The Great Movie Ride, an audio-animatronic showcase that was a cheerleader for the legacy of live action cinema. Runaway Railway further altered that park's theme, pushing it away from cinema history and movie-making into a collection of Disney-owned properties, and it did so by replacing a fan favorite, unique attraction with elements of live theater. No such hurdles are present at Disneyland, where Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway is a new addition that will anchor a remodeled Toontown, set to fully reopen in March. For a park that was largely originally envisioned by animators who were thrust into a new craft of theme park creation, Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway is an honorable tribute to the medium that built the Walt Disney Co.'s first 100 years. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Flavien Prat rides Flightline to victory during the Breeders' Cup Classic race at the Keenelend Race Course in November. (Darron Cummings / Associated Press) Flightline, whose brief two-year, six-race career drew comparisons to Secretariat, was given horse racings highest annual honor on Thursday when he was given the Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year. He also was named top Older Dirt Male among the 17 horse and human awards announced at a ceremony in Palm Beach, Fla. Flightline finished his career with a record-breaking 8-length win at the Breeders Cup Classic at Keeneland on Nov. 5. He was based at Santa Anita and trained by John Sadler. Flightline was undefeated in six races, winning by a total of 71 lengths. The owners of Flightline, part of a sport that is in desperate needs of stars, did what is usually done, retired him to stallion duty the day after the Classic. The horse can make more money in the breeding shed than racing. Flightline took 239 of the 242 ballots cast for Horse of the Year. "Obviously, Flightline is a horse of a generation," said Sadler. "And in the words of [race caller] Trevor Denman, 'We may not see this again.' He's a fabulous horse and I feel so blessed to have trained him." Flightline was the only representative of Southern California racing to win an award, a steep decline from recent years. The Eclipse Awards that honored horses racing in 2018, which included Triple Crown winner Justify, had eight winners from horses usually based at Santa Anita and Del Mar. The category with the biggest question mark proved to be not much of a contest as Epicenter easily finished ahead of Taiba for the 3-Year-Old Male award with 155 first-place votes to 66 for the Bob Baffert/Tim Yakteen trainee. Taiba was the only 3-year-old to win three Grade 1 races. The closest race for an Eclipse Award was for trainer, where Todd Pletcher beat Chad Brown in first-place ballots, 108-95. Brown had slightly more earnings, wins and graded stakes victories than Pletcher but Pletcher trained three Eclipse Award winners in Forte, Malathaat and Nest. Brown had a controversial off-track year as he was arrested in August for allegedly choking a former girlfriend. In November, he plead guilty to a lesser charge of harassment, which carried no jail time. The only other category in which a Santa Anita-based horse was named a finalist was 2-Year-Old Male where Forte beat the Baffert-trained Cave Rock, 243-2. Forte beat the favored Cave Rock in the Breeders Cup Juvenile. Irad Ortiz Jr. has won jockey of the year. (Douglas P. DeFelice / Getty Images) Other equine winners were: Wonder Wheel (2-Year-Old Filly), Nest (3-Year-Old Filly), Malathaat (Older Dirt Female), Elite Power (Male Sprinter), Goodnight Olive (Female Sprinter), Modern Games (Male Turf Horse), Royal Glory (Female Turf Classic) and Hewick (Steeplechase). Other human winners were: Irad Ortiz Jr. (Jockey), Jose Antonio Gomez (Apprentice Jockey) and Godolphin LLC (Owner and Breeder). Godolphin is the racing stable of the ruling royal family of Dubai. A special Eclipse Award was presented to Jay Privman, who recently retired from the Daily Racing Form. He has been a staple of racing coverage both nationally and in the Southern California market for more than four decades. He started his turf writing career at the L.A. Daily News in 1980. The awards were voted on by the members of the Daily Racing Form, National Thoroughbred Racing Assn., and the National Turf Writers and Broadcasters. (The Times is a member of the NTWAB.) There were 246 voters for the awards. Not every category was voted on by all members. There were 29 abstentions in the Steeplechase, which is infrequently run in the U.S., and 19 abstentions for Apprentice Jockey. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Soon, the emergency benefits that helped increase SNAP during the COVID-19 pandemic will stop, leaving households with less money and higher food prices. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. SNAP Payments to Last Until March Since nearly three years ago, households have received an additional $95 or more than their standard allocation. In seventeen states, these supplemental emergency benefits have expired as of January 2023, according to MSN. According to the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, these states include Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming. The emergency allocation in South Carolina will expire with the January 2023 payments. According to the FNS, the remaining 32 states, Washington, DC, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands, will no longer get the additional funds beginning in March 2023. After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, SNAP max benefits were established. Each month, recipients receive a second payment at the end of the month. According to KFOR, Director of Adult and Family Services at DHS, Deborah Smith stated that the second payment usually is $95. In Fiscal Year 2022, the government indicated that 408,000 households and 855,000 people participated in SNAP. Smith stated that certain Oklahomans might be affected more than others by this new adjustment. With the passing of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, the benefits ended. Instead of providing more SNAP benefits, the funds would fund a permanent summer meal program for children. Chris Bernard, chief executive officer of Hunger Free Oklahoma, stated that the lunch program is excellent news, but it does not replace the SNAP maximum. Hunger Free Oklahoma is a nonprofit organization that connects individuals to federal nutrition programs. Since the SNAP emergency benefit has ended, local groups that help give services to families will need assistance more than before. According to experts, increased Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments for low-income New Yorkers, which began in the early days of the pandemic, are scheduled to expire at the end of February, which might exacerbate Long Island's food insecurity situation. Since April 2020, shortly after the commencement of COVID-19 lockdowns, emergency allocations of the government program known as SNAP have been in effect. SNAP recipients earned an additional $95 per month or benefited up to the maximum for their household size, whichever was more significant. In March, SNAP payments will revert to their pre-pandemic levels due to a December legislative budget bill that eliminated the emergency allocations out of fear that the monies may discourage job searchers. The benefit amount will once again be determined by a recipient's household income as opposed to the household size, as per News Day. Read Also: Prince Andrew Evicted from Buckingham Palace Decreased SNAP Benefits in Colorado In the coming months, hundreds of thousands of Coloradans will experience significant cuts to their food stamp benefits. Karla Maraccini, director of the Department of Food and Energy Assistance at the Colorado Department of Human Services, discussed the impact of the reduction in benefits on Coloradans in an interview with 9NEWS. During the three years of the pandemic, we have been granting this emergency or maximum allotment benefit. It raises all household incomes to the maximum level for their size. If they had already reached the maximum amount allowed, it increased their total by $95. This cannot be appealed since it is deemed a mass change and is implemented nationwide. Both the local office of human services and the state office of human services can alter this decision. There are around 289,000 SNAP-participating families in Colorado, including approximately 554,000 persons, and this will result in a reduction of roughly $90 per person per family. A family of four, for example, will likely see a $360 cut beginning in March. Statewide, it will be around $55 million each month. Not only will this have a disastrous effect on SNAP households, but it will also have a significant negative impact on the Colorado economy, supported by local grocers, merchants, farmers, producers, and ranchers. Related Article: Who May Receive $7,500 Tax Credit? @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. 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. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. A photo exhibition dedicated to the 79th anniversary of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad was opened at the Dom Moskvy (House of Moscow) Cultural-Business Center in Yerevan. The exhibition features materials from Sergey Larenkovs The Invisible Blockaded Leningrad photo-project. Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergei Kopyrkin also attended the ceremony. He attached importance to preserving the baton of memory and relaying it to the new generations. Id like to remind that Armenia provided real help to residents of Leningrad, by taking in more than 300 children of the blockaded city. There is a memorial in Yerevan dedicated to that years, where we lay flowers every year. I once again thank Armenia and the Armenian people for everything theyve done on the battlefield and in the rear, the Russian ambassador said. The exhibition is dedicated to the 79th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from Nazi blockade and the 80th anniversary of the lifting of the blockade. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. The City of Yerevan named a street after Maria Jacobsen, the Danish missionary who saved thousands of Armenian orphans during the Armenian Genocide. The 51 Street in Arabkir district was officially renamed Maria Jacobsen street. Vice Mayor of Yerevan Tigran Avinyan said in his remarks at the ceremony that having unnamed streets is a luxury when the Armenian nation has devotees and friends in its history, one of whom is Maria Jacobsen. We value the people who stood by the Armenian people during the most difficult moments. Maria Jacobsen is one of the people who saved and educated thousands of Armenian children during the years of the genocide, and I think this is a small opportunity of commemoration that our city can and must give to Maria Jacobsen. We must remember and record such people in the pages of our history, so that our children and grandchildren know them, Avinyan said. The new Ambassador of Denmark to Armenia Anne Toft Srensen said that this is the first event she is participating in as Ambassador to Armenia. Descendants of Maria Jacobsen were among the participants of the event. At least one person got hurt in a large apartment fire that broke out early Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, according to local authorities. The fire broke out around 5:30 pm at 2800 West 7th Street, requiring a significant number of firemen to respond, per ABC 7. More than 100 firemen battled the large fire incident, thick black smoke ascended above the two-story apartment building in the Westlake District area, according to media reports. Emergency responders employed "surround and drown" to extinguish the massive fire and keep it from spreading. LAFD Assistant Chief Dean Zipperman said that they had firefighters operating inside, while some units were positioned on the roof to ventilate the burning building. The building's remaining occupants have been safely evacuated, according to Fox News. Read Also: SNAP Benefits 2023 Latest Info Police Arrest Suspect, Accused of Battery Authorities arrested a man Thursday afternoon after a massive and intense fire broke out at an apartment building. The man is thought to have started the fire on purpose. Tensions escalated during an arrest of a 45-year-old man whom police say was suspected of violence, prompting them to call for fire rescue services. Police were involved in a prolonged confrontation. Eyewitness News captured the guy switching balconies. Ponce said the suspect tossed furniture, clothing, and even burning rubbish at cops. The official said they identified the suspect as the battery victim's brother, who broke into her residence. The Los Angeles Police Department has said that the suspect for starting the fire may be charged with arson and assault with a lethal weapon against a police officer, per NBC Los Angeles. Related Article: Germany Train Attack Update @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. Russian 18th seed Karen Khachanov, who is of Armenian descent, thanked the fans who were waving Armenian flags during his matches at the Australian Open. Im grateful for them to cheer, to support, to come over, said Khachanov after the match. And also Russian fans, they were not allowed to bring any flags, Belarusian as well, but I heard them. There were many Russians screaming and supporting me all the way. Im just really happy to see everybody on that court and to give me love all the way until the end. Stefanos Tsitsipas won at the Australian Open semi-final on his fourth attempt Friday to reach the decider at Melbourne Park with victory over Russian 18th seed Karen Khachanov of Armenian descent. The Greek third seed defeated Khachanov 7-6 (7/2), 6-4, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3. In his words: "I am just a professional writer, which means I don't do blogs and try and get money for whatever I write." In healthy democracies, allegations will be argued over. They shouldnt be subject to a total niqab being drawn over them He hid the breakage of his heart This poet of love and loss. His poise and purpose remained smart Unlike the two thieves on the cross And yet I read between the lines The pain in surreal perverse The illogic of his language pines For the shroud of sorrow in his verse. From The Trick of Balan Singh, by Bachchoo Politicians dont like criticism and unlike the British royalty they dont ever ignore it. In the rough and tumble (or is it bluff and jumble?) of democratic politics, its perfectly acceptable and right for the media and the Opposition to exercise the right to free speech and scrutiny. No media outlet in Russia is allowed to criticise Vladimir Putin or condemn his sanctioned, purposeless and doomed genocide of civilians in Ukraine. That criticism can only come from outside Russia, and it does. Of course, Russians are not allowed to access any of it. And what of Kim (King?) Jong Un of North Korea and Xi Jinping? Did Un do away with his half-brother? Are the Muslim Uyghurs happy in their work/concentration camps? Turning a blind eye to genocide, murder and any atrocities may be punished in heaven or hell, but the wilfully blind get away with it in this life -- unless of course karma works and deprives the wilfully blind of their actual eyesight. (Now theres a chilling threat for believers in the Hindu doctrine of karma!) These considerations, gentle reader, are occasioned by the fact that in even partially functioning democracies, the truth is debated and allegations examined. The powerful shouldnt be immune from scrutiny and punishment. Take the case of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Hedgie Sunak, who, during a staged publicity stunt, was filmed in a car not wearing a seat belt. The Lancashire police counted it as an offence and Hedgie apologised and was fined 100 which must have seriously dented his few-billion-pound hoard. There, we have it? The workings of true democracy -- all equal before the law? Or was it a deliberate publicity stunt to harmlessly and sportingly demonstrate just that? Maybe. There is a distinct odour of one of those creatures the cats sniff out. Not so in several other cases in the sceptred isle to which I shall refer below. Yes, this happy breed of men, this other Eden, has been exposed in the last few days and weeks as possibly (one has to be so careful these days!) not being quite free of corruption in high places. There is the fact that Nadim Zahawi, a member of Hedgies Cabinet, has paid over 4 million in hitherto unpaid (criminally dodged?) taxes to His Majestys Revenue Collection (HMRC). When this misdemeanour was exposed, Mr Zahawi, who was briefly chancellor of the exchequer and so in charge of HMRC, pleaded that it was an oversight rather than an attempt to dodge tax. The Labour Partys leading hound, one Anneliese Dodds, wasnt buying it. She persistently called for an investigation into the whole affair and Mr Zahawi has been urged to stand down while it takes place and even to resign from the government. He claims that the shares he owned in an off-shore company actually belonged to his father, but somehow, he neglected to mention the transfer of very lucrative shares from his own accounts. Another case of appearing very guilty while protesting innocence? Then theres the chumocracy turned corrupt. Alexander Boris Johnson (yes, the scandal has revealed that BoJo has a first name shortened to Al by his pals). Al was assisted by a banker friend, Richard Sharp, to secure an 800,000 loan through a third friend, also a banker. Mr Sharp was allegedly instrumental in securing such a loan for the broke BoJo, who then as Prime Minister, in consultation with his cultural secretary Nadine Dories (who wouldnt know Bach from Bite?) appointed him to the very prestigious post of chairman of the BBC. This post, at least nominally, makes Mr Sharp the guardian of the BBCs mission and neutrality. All three of these involved, or not involved, in the loan affair deny any quid-pro-quo in Mr Sharps appointment to be overseer of the nations voice. They plead that Jesus didnt appoint Peter as Pope because he helped him secure a loan, but on Peters suitability for the job. They dont really plead this, but they could. So, on to the as-yet partially dormant scandal of the taxpayers money handed out to private health firms to shore up the failings of the National Health Service. It is now alleged that these billions have been paid to firms in which Tory cronies, even Tory MPs, have shares. Tut and more tut! In healthy democracies, allegations will be argued over. They shouldnt be subject to a total niqab being drawn over them. The BBC has issued a documentary accusing Indias PM, Narendra Modi ji, of several very nasty things. The documentary has been banned in India and the social media has been proscribed from discussing it. The Indian government censors should realise that these bans will undoubtedly contribute to the conviction that some truth is being hidden. Much better to publicise the documentary, have an open debate in which those who deny the allegations about Mr Modis complicity in riots etc. can forward detailed, refutation of every allegation and demonstrate, if they can, the BBCs bias. They could even complain to Richard Sharp -- if hes still there. by Vladimir Rozanskij Azattyk, an emanation of Radio Svoboda, in the government's crosshairs. The accusation is that it covered border clashes with Tajikistan. In Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan was the only country with a minimum of freedom of expression. Moscow (AsiaNews) - The government of Kyrgyzstan has asked a court to put an end to the activities of the Azattyk Media agency, a local branch of Radio Svoboda, as a mass media outlet. The reason is the journalists' refusal to remove video material concerning border clashes between Biskek and Tajik troops last summer. The decision on 23 January provoked a strong reaction throughout the journalistic sector and Kyrgyz society, where attempts to restrict freedom of the press and expression have long been denounced. The closure of Azattyk, according to an appeal shared by many organisations, would not only mean a restriction on freedom and pluralism in the world of information, but also 'a violation of the citizens' right to have access to news about the most important and decisive events in the life of the nation'. The appeal is addressed to the Ministry of Culture in Biskek, to annul the court order and put an end to the pressure on the agency, whose activities and administration have been blocked for two months now by government measures. Azattyk's journalists are convinced that they have acted professionally, and that they intend to "continue to carry out our service for our large and loyal audience", as Jamie Fly, president and CEO of Radio Svoboda, also confirmed. Zanarbek Akaev, an opposition MP from Zogorku Kenes (Parliament), intervened, asking 'who is afraid of Azattyk? The thieves and those who want to hide their crimes, those who do not want to talk about the mistakes made in questionable and dramatic situations, such as border clashes... one cannot believe that they really want to close it down'. Radio Svoboda publishes information in 30 countries and 27 different languages. It is often an almost exclusive source in areas of the world with very limited access, such as the former Soviet countries of Central Asia. Reporters Without Borders has also intervened in its defence, publishing an appeal on its official website, in which they recall that Azattyk's blockade 'intersects with the illegal deportation to Russia of the investigative journalist Bolot Temirov'. On 23 November, Temirov, a correspondent of Azattyk, was boarded on a plane to Moscow, as he holds dual nationality, and placed under house arrest at his mother's home in the Russian capital. The Kyrgyz authorities took the decision on the basis of 'secret relations' between the security apparatus, without giving any explanation. According to the director of Reporters Without Borders' section for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Jeanne Cavelier, 'Kyrgyzstan was until now considered an exception in the region, a country with a relatively free press, but is now taking a decidedly authoritarian turn'. The accusation supported by the Kyrgyz ministry is based on the rule that 'excludes propaganda of war, violence and cruelty, religious and nationalist intolerance, and intolerance towards other nations and peoples'. The entire Radio Svoboda team, Fly assures, is intent on using all legal means at its disposal to prevent the closure of Azattyk in Kyrgyzstan, and to continue to support freedom of journalistic investigation in every country. The fight for freedom of expression is not just about one country or one region of the world, but about human dignity at all latitudes, which must remain a pole star in Kyrgyzstan as well. Israeli action left 10 people dead in the West Bank yesterday, nine in a raid against a refugee camp, and a protester killed north of Jerusalem. Israel also carried out airstrikes in Gaza in response to rocket fire. For Fr Deibes, the matter-of-factness of these events is cause for shame. Jerusalem (AsiaNews) The atmosphere in Jenin is apparently calm following yesterdays bloody raid by the Israeli military, which triggered protests and clashes across Palestine, including rockets launched from Gaza into Israel, this according to Fr Labib Deibes, parish priest at the Church of the Holy Redeemer speaking to AsiaNews. The objective of the Israeli raid was an Islamic Jihad cell in the Jenin refugee camp, but the operation turned into an open clash between the military and civilians, with the latter throwing stones. About nine people died including two brothers, Muhammad and Nureddin Ghoneim, and a third person suspected of affiliation with Islamic Jihad and at least 20 wounded, including four seriously who were hospitalised at Jenins Ibn Sina Hospital. In the afternoon, a 22-year-old man died in Al-Ram, north of Jerusalem, shot by Israeli security forces during protests that broke out in the area as well as elsewhere in the West Bank. After yesterday's serious violence triggered by the arrival of the Israeli military", the situation is now calmer, Fr Deibes said. The soldiers action constitutes "a crime" against the population, but nowadays, people do not harbour any special fear because we are used to violence. Perhaps the matter-of-factness of such events constitutes a reason to be ashamed. In the West, in Europe, the talk is about energy, about prices, while here even before freedom we need to be rid of this constant occupation that endangers Christians as well. Many Christians look more and more at fleeing, emigrating. Pray for us, asked the clergyman, because in the past we fought with stones, today with weapons and there is a strong risk of a further bloodshed. The year that just ended was one of death; 2023 seems to have started even worse. Tensions that rose yesterday continued overnight with Israel's air force hitting various targets in Gaza in response to rockets launched from the Strip into the south of the country. Hamas report 15 sites hit by Israeli planes, but no casualties or wounded. Earlier, at least two rockets fired from the Gaza Strip towards the Jewish state shortly before midnight were immediately intercepted and destroyed by the Iron Dome defence system. In the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon and kibbutz Zikim and Karnia sirens were sounded for possible rocket attacks, but no damages or wounded were reported. So far this year, 26 Palestinians have died; for its part, the Palestinian Authority has cut security relations with Israel. What is worrying is the intransigent approach of Benjamin Netanyahu's new Israeli government, made up of religious and far-right parties that are not shy about using force, thus fuelling tensions in the holy sites in Jerusalem. Jenin, where yesterdays raid took place, is the Palestinian town where Christian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed on 11 May 2022 in similar circumstances, hit by a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier during an operation. Two days later, during the procession carrying her body from St Joseph Hospital to the burial site, police in riot gear attacked the crowd, almost overturning the coffin in the scuffle. The family, who met the pope, appealed to the International Criminal Court to obtain justice, while Israel classified the results of its investigation. Largely ignored by the international community, her death symbolises a year of violence and death. She died in a place that shares the same challenges that most Palestinian cities face, namely occupation with road blockades, economic woes and high youth unemployment, displacement in other parts of Palestine and abroad. Jenin has a population of 50,000, with about 150 Christians, all Catholics. The Congregation of the Daughters of St Anne is present in the area. A kindergarten with about 90 Christian and Muslim children is run by a Christian woman, and four educators, two Muslims and two Christians. by Melani Manel Perera In February 1823 the British rulers moved thousands of workers from South India to Sri Lanka as cheap labour. The complaint of 'Voice of Plantation People': 'Two centuries later in the districts of Galle and Matara their condition has not changed: they still live without land rights or a home of their own'. Colombo (Asia News) - The year 2023 marks 200 years since the plantation people or 'malayagam' began making a major contribution to Sri Lanka's economy. Yet they are still deprived of basic rights and face many social, economic, cultural and political problems. This is the complaint of the Voice of Plantation People organisation, which handed over a petition to the President of Sri Lanka on the occasion of this bicentenary. At a press conference in Colombo, association head Anthony Jesudasan recalled how historical records show that these Tamils, who have been contributing significantly to Sri Lanka's economic development for 200 years, were brought to the island from South India by the British colonial governments in February 1823 to work as cheap labour in the plantation industry: "It is arguable that these Tamil workers, who have lived for 200 years and have been given their shoulders to the economy of this country, contributed to the national income of the country have been entitled to the rights enjoyed by other citizens living in the same country. And that they have to be called a group of people who are living the most oppressive lives socially, politically, culturally, and economically in this country." The problem particularly affects the Malayagam who live in the southern districts of Galle and Matara. "After the disaster of 2003,' adds Anton Vanathaiah, secretary of Voice of Plantation People, 'the victims were allocated a plot of land, but despite the fact that almost twenty years have passed, they have not even been given a piece of paper attesting to their right to that land. There is no document even in the relevant government offices'. "There are five Tamil schools in Matara district, but they are located in very difficult areas: the parents cannot afford the expenses to reach them. Therefore, they have to be sent to the nearest Sinhala school and have to study Buddhism instead of Hinduism. There is a shortage of teachers for subjects such as mathematics and English, so the higher education of the Tamil plantation children has been severely compromised so far'. Meanwhile, the authorities in New Delhi are pressing for the implementation of measures in favour of the plantation workers, mostly Tamils of Indian origin. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe convened a new all-party meeting as part of the negotiations launched last month with the Tamil National Alliance. The head of state had expressed the ambitious goal of reaching an understanding by 4 February, the 75th anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence. by Shafique Khokhar The latest episode on 18 January in Karachi, with an assault on a centre and damage to the minaret. In December, the security forces had struck another community in Gujranwala. Radical groups call for the enforcement of blasphemy laws against the minority. Christian and Ahmadi activists claim the right to religious freedom and respect for treaties. Toba Tek Singh (AsiaNews) - The Ahmadi minority is once again the target of extremist groups in Pakistan, who attack and demolish their places of worship. The latest episode took place on January 18 in Karachi, where the headquarters of the local community was attacked at 3:45 in the afternoon: some men armed with sticks gathered outside the gate chanting slogans and threats, then climbed over the fence and ransacked the interior, damaging the minaret. An Ahmadi member, Zaheer Ahmed, who was present at the time of the assault filed a complaint, but so far there have been no developments and the assailants remain unpunished. Previously, on 7 December, the authorities had ordered the demolition of the minaret of an Ahmadi place of worship in Baghbanpura (Gujranwala, Punjab). The security forces surrounded the building and switched off the lighting in the area, before proceeding with the demolition. On 12 September, the Islamist Tehreek-e-Labbaik movement had denounced the minority prayer centres as "illegal" and the worshippers guilty of "blasphemy" under Article 295-C of the Penal Code. Among the other Ahmadi places of worship targeted by extremists and at risk of attack is the one in the village of Aadha, in Gojra (the scene in 2009 of a bloody anti-Christian raid, with residents being burned alive), built in 1964 and capable of accommodating up to 100 people. The Ahmadis (about 2% of Pakistan's population) are an Islamic-inspired religious movement that arose in the late 19th century, whose founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, believed himself to be a prophet who appeared after Muhammad, which is why Sunnis consider them heretics. They are the most persecuted community in the country. According to a 2018 report, between 1984 and 2017, 260 worshippers were killed, 27 religious places demolished, 33 others closed, 22 set on fire or damaged, and 17 forcibly occupied. Aamir Mehmood, an Ahmadi activist interviewed by AsiaNews, denounces "the suffering" the minority is subjected to and loudly raises the right to "religious freedom". However, he adds, "the police are afraid of fundamentalists and that is why they hit the Ahmadis, who are a weak target. The country is experiencing the worst economic crisis in history, but the police and fundamentalists prefer to hit defenceless minorities'. Among those condemning the attacks is Christian activist Naveed Walter, president of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (Hrfp), who calls for an end "to the violations against minorities, including Ahmadis, Christians and Hindus". Walter adds that 'the state must act swiftly against the atrocities and pay attention to development, economic stability, and the promotion and implementation of the fundamental rights of every citizen, in accordance with the vision of the founder [of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah], the treaties and commitments signed with the international community'. The Cambodian prime minister addressed celebrations marking the centenary of the first Evangelical mission, saying that the kingdom grants broad rights and freedoms". He urged Christians to contribute to "political stability and social order". Meanwhile, a well-known Christian activist is still serving six years in prison for supporting the opposition. Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen spoke at an event marking the centenary of the presence of Evangelical communities in the country. Meanwhile, Theary Seng, a well-known Christian activist who worked on a new Khmer translation of the Bible, is still serving six years in prison for "treason". The prime minister, who has ruled the country for almost 40 years, stressed that the Royal Government supports and grants broad rights and freedoms to all religions in the kingdom, adding that religious differences are not an obstacle to the nation's development. Please do not force someone to change their belief.. The two-day Gospel Centennial Celebration in the capital Phnom Penh commemorates the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries in 1923. That is more recent than the Catholic Church whose first roots can be traced back to a Portuguese friar, Gaspar da Cruz, who tried to start a mission as early as 1555. After severe persecution, a community was reconstituted in 1790 in Battambang. Several religious confessions have flourished in the country since the end of the countrys civil war, noted Prime Minister Sen. Before that, during the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979) almost all churches were razed to the ground while the Catholic cemetery near Phnom Penh cathedral was turned into a banana plantation. During the time of war, religion also suffers. Look at what has happened in Ukraine. For Cambodia, thanks to peace, we are prospering, Hun Sen said. There must be no division in the Christian community, he added. The prime minister went on to ask everyone to participate in activities related to the development of our country and to continue to maintain peace, political stability, security, and social order [. . .] to ensure that all religions, especially among our Christians, enjoy peace and prosperity. While Christians are a small minority in Cambodia, Evangelical communities are experiencing slow by steady growth; for example, centenary celebrations were organised by an executive committee with, unlike in the past, only three foreign members; and three quarters of the US$ 228,000 raised for the event comes from local donations, Christianity Today reports. Still, it is not all rosy. Theary Seng, a Christian woman who backed former opposition leader Saim Rainsy, remains in prison after the Supreme Court upheld a six-year sentence imposed in October of last year. Working conditions for rideshare drivers in the US have been an issue for a while now, and different states have various ways of tackling the issue. For Massachusetts, however, its politicians are pushing for better working conditions for cab drivers. Massachusetts Steering Toward Drivers Following the lawsuit that Massachusetts filed against Lyft and Uber. The state House and Senate hold new bills that will provide drivers with bargaining rights with ridesharing companies, on top of what is already within their power. The bills would guarantee a minimum wage, paid sick leaves, and other important benefits. Ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyft will also cover some of the drivers' expenses as well as contribute to the unemployment insurance system according to Engadget. Certain benefits will be included as opposed to previous bills wherein drivers would have to negotiate first. It also won't matter if workers are independent contractors or employees, as they will have the same requirements, as mentioned by Senate bill co-sponsor Jaso Lewis. This protects the drivers from going through the same incident back in 2020. Drivers were allegedly classified as contractors which denied them protections provided by state labor law. The state Supreme Judicial Court rejected the companies' proposal to resolve the issue. Read Also: Two New Yorkers Conspiring with Russian Hackers to Cheat the JFK Taxi System Arrested How It Is for Other States While Massachusetts is going in a direction where drivers would benefit, the same cannot be said for other states. Earlier this January, a New York State judge sided with Uber and denied the pay raise that drivers were asking for. Justice Arthur Engorgon of the New York State Supreme Court agreed that the Taxi and Limousine Commission used a faulty methodology to calculate the wage hike, considering that they included the factors like the price increase in gas prices which had already gone down. Drivers expressed their disappointment with the matter, saying that they deserved the raise. An Uber driver said that the increase would make a $200 to $300 addition to his current wage, which would amount to $1,800 to $1,900 a week. He broke down his expenses and measured that they increased to about $750 a week, compared to $550 a year before that. The driver sends money to his family in Burkina Faso to support them, according to The New York Times. California is faring well when it comes to the welfare of its drivers. The State Governor Gavin Newsom sign signed Assembly Bill 5 into law. Drivers can now undergo tests to determine whether they classify as contract workers or employees. This prevents workers from being misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees. This allows companies to deny their workers of certain protections like minimum wage, paid sick days, and health insurance benefits. According to Governor Newsom's signing statement, the next step would be to make it possible for workers to form a union, where they can collectively bargain to earn more and have a stronger voice in their workplace. Related: Court in New York City Denies Uber and Lyft Drivers' Pay Raise I'm fine, as I'm very fortunate to own my home I own, but I'm feeling the pinch on my mortgage with other inflation costs I rent and it's expensive, but it could be worse I'm seriously considering leaving the valley if something doesn't give Vote View Results Photo: Ducati Adaptive Cruise Control The most recent touring machine to enter the stables is the 2023 Multistrada V4 Rally . Announced since September last year, the motorcycle is now officially in production at the Borgo Panigale facility, with the Italians saying were to see the first ones on dealerships lots starting February.Shaped like most other Ducati motorcycles but more than capable of sustaining rides off the beating path and for long periods of time, the Multistrada V4 Rally packs in its frame a 1,158cc V4 Granturismo engine, capable of developing 170 hp and 121 Nm of torque.One of the engines most notable attributes is, as we mentioned back when we first ran a story on this bike, the cylinder deactivation system. Its something the standard V4 already has on, but the Rally adds an extra twist: not only can the system shut down the rear cylinder while the motorcycle is stationary, but it can do so while the bike is on the move, a first for a production motorcycle of any kind.Once deactivated, the cylinder stays so in certain operating conditions, but springs back to life as soon as the speed of the bike increases or when the throttle grips send a certain power request to the engine.This capability should drop the bikes fuel consumption by about 10 percent, say the Italians, and this can translate into a longer range for the ride, an extremely important aspect for a machine meant to do its thing far from gas stations. To add even more miles, the fuel tank has increased its capacity as well, and is now capable of holding 30 liters (eight gallons).This unique engine feature is not the only thing the Rally brings to the table. Compared to the standard V4, the Rally comes with semi-active suspension with 200 mm of travel. The bike makes the connection to the ground with the help of lighter spoked wheels, while a redesigned and larger windshield (it gained 40 mm in height and 20 mm in width) is more than capable of shielding the rider from some of the elements.Also in front of the rider, theres a 6.5-inch color TFT screen complete with map navigation functions (it works with the Ducati Connect app), music listening, and even calls, when backed by an intercom-equipped helmet.Ducati will offer the 2023 Multistrada V4 Rally starting next month in two color combinations, Ducati Red and Brushed Aluminium with Matt Black. In all, depending on equipment, there will be three versions of the bike: the, packingand Blind Spot Detection,, which builds on the previous one and adds aluminum side cases, heated grips and saddles, and the, which tops all of the above off with an Akrapovic silencer and carbon fiber front mudguard.All three models are already available to configure on most of Ducatis global websites, including the American one. Sadly, at the time of writing none of them come with price stickers attached. SUV AMG The #MercedesBenz #GLE is getting an update. Catch a first glimpse now and see the entire car on 31 January at 6 p.m. Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/TPlRbdEkCj Mercedes-Benz Press (@MB_Press) January 26, 2023 So, when is it due? That would be next week, according to the automaker, on January 31. The crossover, which will continue to rival the likes of the BMW X5 and Audi Q7, was teased in both body styles, the normal and the GLE Coupe , and this probably means that the two will be unveiled at the same time. The latter will still differentiate itself from the former by featuring a sloping roofline, smaller cargo area, and less headroom for those sitting at the back, just like the X6 and Q8.The changes are predictable, as this is a facelift after all. Thus, it will feature new headlights, grille, and front bumper, the latest scooped prototypes have revealed. This is where they had camouflage, and the stickers were also applied to the rear, partially covering up the new taillights. You should also expect a new bumper, and probably a fresh diffuser attached to it too, and chances are that the updated GLE family will comprise new colors and wheels. Dont hold your breath for anything major in the cabin, where the new steering wheel, as well as updated software for the infotainment system and digital instrument cluster, might be the only novelties, with emphasis on might of course.Future customers of the facelifted GLE family should expect the same powertrain family, although some units could have been updated in order to burn less fuel and become less polluting. It is likely that the 2.0-liter four-cylinder and 3.0-liter six-cylinder mills, with turbocharging, will make up the drivetrain lineup. The twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 should still power the top-of-the-line version of the high-rider, in the Mercedes-GLE 63 configuration, which will gun for the likes of the BMW X5 M. If the latest reports turn out to be correct, then this engine will not become more powerful. But keep in mind that these are rumors, and that the Stuttgart brand hasnt said anything about the cars firepower for now.By the time it arrives in the United States, it is likely that the facelifted Mercedes GLE will be a 2024 model. A small price bump is expected in our market, where the GLE 350 and 350 4Matic currently start at $57,700 and $60,200 respectively. For the 450 4Matic and 580 4Matic, you are looking at a minimum of $66,450 and $83,850 respectively, excluding destination. The Mercedes-AMG GLE 53 4Matic+ comes from $76,950, and the 63 S from $116,850. SUV As you can observe after going through the photos in the gallery, there are not that many clues that link this vehicle to the Peugeot brand. Sure, we have a portion of the front grille that is visible and it resembles the pattern used by the Sochaux brand, as well as a set of headlights that may look like they come from Peugeot, but might as well be from something else.Fortunately, there was one giveaway of the identity of this vehicle, and that was the kind of element that most people will not think twice about. You will miss it immediately if it is taken from your vehicle, but there are many people out there who may not care. With the riddle out of the way, we are referring to the badge on the center cap of the alloy wheels.Just one of the wheels on the vehicle still had its Peugeot-badged center cap. It is unclear why someone went through the trouble of removing the other three and somehow forgot to remove the fourth. But it happened anyway, and thanks to that, we know what the upcoming Peugeot 2008 will be like. This model is reportedly built in Argentina, and its internal-combustion-engined versions come with a turbocharged engine made by Fiat.It is clear as daylight that we are dealing with a crossover, again, so there is no sudden change of heart for the carmaker. With crossovers that have an-style look being as popular as they are today, it is a small wonder that manufacturers are still doing anything else.For the sake of diversity in the automotive world, we can only hope that other body styles will continue to be at least as popular as they are today in the future as well.This test mule is covered in camouflage, and its body has large elements in key areas, such as the bumpers, fenders, and even its doors, so we cannot distinguish any relevant features. Fortunately for us, we will continue to see prototypes as they get developed, so it is just a matter of time until the finished product is revealed. We do know that the model is built on the CMP platform and that it is set to be offered in South America in a more affordable version with less expensive materials. It will arrive this year in markets like Argentina, sources claim. The sighting of the next-generation Peugeot 2008 came on the day when the French firm announced its E-Lion Project . The latter is a plan that involves launching five electric vehicles in the next two years.Yes, the peeps at Peugeot are going to be busy in the next 24 months, and the firm also wants to introduce a 48-volt hybrid system for the models that are not EVs.We already know that Peugeot intends to make all the passenger cars sold in its European lineup electric vehicles by 2030, so the hybrids will eventually become the last internal combustion-engined vehicles in the range.This will be a process that takes time, so do not expect an overnight shift, as each model involved has a predetermined production life, which needs to happen to ensure that it has the best chance at achieving its sales goal and ensuring it covers the development cost. The world's first AI-powered "robot lawyer" won't be making a public appearance anytime soon. Joshua Browder, the CEO of New York Startup DoNotPay, recently announced that his company's AI-powered robot lawyer, DoNotPay A.I., will not be going to court to take part in the proceedings. Browder established DoNotPay in 2015 to help people contest parking tickets, but had since expanded to include helping people with various legal issues, from consumer protection to even immigration rights, per Pagan Research. DoNotPay AI Court Debut Denied Good morning! Bad news: after receiving threats from State Bar prosecutors, it seems likely they will put me in jail for 6 months if I follow through with bringing a robot lawyer into a physical courtroom. DoNotPay is postponing our court case and sticking to consumer rights: Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) January 25, 2023 Browder announced through his official Twitter account that he is pulling DoNotPay's AI from representing a defendant trying to contest a traffic ticket in the courtroom on Feb. 22 due to threats from State Bar prosecutors. He mentioned that should he push through with his plan on representing the defendant, they would put him in jail for six months with criminal charges, per Browder's interview with NPR. Here's how the proceedings would go: the defendant would wear smart glasses that record court proceedings and dictate responses into their ear from a small speaker embedded into it. These responses are generated by a system relying on a few AI text generators, including ChatGPT and DaVinci. The defendant would then repeat the AI's responses to the judge to move the proceedings along, hopefully gaining some sort of win in the court. On February 22nd at 1.30PM, history will be made. For the first time ever, a robot will represent someone in a US courtroom. DoNotPay A.I will whisper in someone's ear exactly what to say. We will release the results and share more after it happens. Wish us luck! Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) January 21, 2023 Browder then announced this event in a tweet he posted on Jan. 21, saying that "history would be made" on Feb. 22 because DoNotPay's AI would represent someone in a US courtroom. Read More: Lauren Sanchez to Lead an All-Woman Crew Aboard Blue Origin Spacecraft However, the news eventually spread and reached various state bar officials, which sent angry letters threatening Browder should he not pull out his DoNotPay AI from the case. Browder even said that a referral to the district attorney's office, prosecution, and prison time would be possible if he did not pull back. Meanwhile, Engadget reports that multiple state bar associations threatened DoNotPay, with one even stating that Browder could face a six-month imprisonment if he did not pull back DoNotPay's AI from the case. State bar officials and associations do have an argument. A CBS News report mentioned that DoNotPay's AI is illegal in most courtrooms and that in some states, all parties must consent to be recorded - an act that the smart glasses must do to relay responses. The thought of being imprisoned spooked Browder into pulling back his DoNotPay AI from the case, with him saying that even if he wouldn't go to prison, the threat of criminal charges was enough for him to give up the case. What's Next For DoNotPay? While Browder decided to pull back his DoNotPay AI from the case, it doesn't spell its end. The DoNotPay CEO will instead focus that AI on helping people with issues related to consumer rights, specifically lowering medical bills, canceling subscriptions, and disputing credit reports, among others. He also hopes that AI could eventually help people in the courtroom, allowing those who couldn't afford a lawyer to defend themselves in court without worrying about payment. Related Article: Frustrated About Facebook, PayPal Ban? New 'Robot Lawyer' Helps You Unban Your Social Media Account [Price, How to Use] That place where you can only find custom Harleys is called in this case Bad Land . The crew has been in the business of giving new looks to Milwaukee machines for years now, and for a long time, weve constantly been bringing its work to light.As far I remember, the only time in the past couple of years when we stumbled upon a non-Harley ride modified by Bad Land was at the end of 2021, when a Ducati Diavel caught our attention in the garages portfolio. It was a purple one and for one reason or another (probably something that has to do with a Japanese apparel outlet called so) was presented to the world as the Army Girl Thats the exact same name the modified 2012 Indian we have here is wearing. Bike number 77 in Bad Lands portfolio, its so heavily altered and so in sync with the style of this builder that you can hardly say this is something other than its usual work.The Indian Army Girl is meant to capture attention instantly. The usual dark colors Bad Land goes for are perfectly highlighted by the many chrome elements included on the build. With a large wheel at the rear, a fuel tank descending into the seat at a rather steep angle, and the front wheel mounted visibly away from the frame, at the tip of a shiny fork, the bike looks like one youll probably not miss when it passes by.Both wheels on the ride wear Avon Cobra tires, are made by Ricks Motorcycles and are sized 21 inches at the front and 18 inches at the rear, with this one also being 300 mm wide. The same parts supplier is also responsible for the control kit that goes on the Army Girl, while the foot controls have been sourced from Performance Machine.A maker of custom parts as well, Bad Land created specifically for the Army Girl a series of one-off elements. The list includes the fenders that go over the two wheels, the cover for the air cleaner, or the handlebar.All of these are mostly visual upgrades though. Compared to stock, the Indian was altered at a frame level, hence the more imposing stance we now get. The fuel tank that goes onto the frame is also made by Bad Land, and so is the wide swingarm. The exhaust visible to one side is also the fruit of the custom garages imagination.Because the Indian Army Girl is an older Bad Land build its impossible to know the bikes current whereabouts. The cost of making it is a mystery as well, as the Japanese never tell. Not a long time, for example, many people came across a bug that made it impossible to run Waze on Android Auto. The navigation app was launching with a black screen instead of the map, and despite all the workarounds that users have been trying, no solution is known to exist.The black screen is a long-time glitch on Android Auto, and it gradually affected many other applications running on the platform. Google Maps also struggled with a black screen at one point, and so did Spotify, with app updates eventually bringing things back to normal for everybody.Discovered in the summer of 2022, the Waze problem has obviously been around for quite some time. At one point, users came across a solution that did restore the navigation app: going back to Android Auto 7.7 brought things back to normal.Unfortunately, this didnt work long, as Google eventually enforced the update to newer versions of Android Auto (this is something the company occasionally does, as it wants to focus on the latest app releases and new features). In other words, Android Auto 7.7 ended up being blocked and requested an update to continue to run.But at the same time, the aforementioned workaround also confirmed that Android Auto was the one to blame for the whole thing. So at least, Google knew where to look for a fix.The search company quietly resolved the glitch with the most recent Android Auto and Waze updates, though for the time being, only beta users are getting the fix. The beta builds of Android Auto 8.8 and Waze 4.91 bring things back to normal, with no black screen whatsoever.For the time being, given the new versions are still in the beta development stage, only testers can try them out, but its all just a matter of time until Google ships the updates to production devices as well.If youre comfortable with sideloading the latest builds on your device, you can always download the APK installers for the new versions as well. If youre not, then the new updates should go live for everybody in just a few weeks.An official announcement doesnt exist just yet, probably as Google still wants to see if the implemented fixes address the black screen in Waze for everybody.Waze 4.91 beta also comes with another major update. The navigation app now supports the Coolwalk redesign on Android Auto, as it can run in the dedicated navigation card in the split-view screen. Coolwalk is currently shipping to Android Auto users out there in stages, with the rollout controlled by Google with a server-side approach. Photo: Gulfstream Aerospace Photo: Gulfstream Aerospace Photo: Gulfstream Aerospace As the new G700 made a tour around the world, timing the journeys between each destination, the new twin-jet's results were nothing short of astonishing. Proceedings began with a takeoff near Gulfstream's production facility in Savannah, Georgia, USA. Precisely 12 hours and 36 minutes later, the plane landed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The G700's stellar average speed of Mach 0.9, or 90 percent the speed of sound, ensured proceedings started with a bang.The run from Istanbul, Turkey, to Vietnam's Van Don International Airport was completed in a similarly spectacular nine hours and two minutes. Matching its average speed over the trip of 90 percent of the sound barrier from the first leg once again. But perhaps the most astonishing stats were the times measured between Riyadh and Sydney, Australia, and Christchurch, New Zealand, to Los Angeles, California. Completed in 13 hours and 39 minutes, and 12 hours 30 minutes, respectively.Compared to the Boeing and Airbus passenger jets, which most common folks are stuck flying, they seem bloated and slow compared to the G700. "The G700 world tour was a tremendous success," exclaimed Mark Burns, president of Gulfstream, after completing the G700's world tour. "We knew the aircraft would perform exceptionally well, and they exceeded even our own high expectations for both reliability and performance across various routes. Showcasing the outfitted aircraft to our customers and prospects around the world bolstered the already strong demand we see for the G700."The G700's airframe might be all-new. But that doesn't mean the G700 does carry a few heaping helpings of heritage alongside all the people in suits. In truth, Gulfstream itself began its existence as a passenger jet design initiative under an entirely different company, Grumman Aerospace of Bethpage, New York.The first Turboprop-powered Grumman Gulfstream I was a spectacular airframe in its day. Its first flight in 1958 was followed by a production run of 200 units sporting Rolls-Royce Dart Turbine engines. The Grumman Gulfstream I was followed up by the turbofan-powered Gulfstream II. With this jet, Gulfstream formally separated from Grumman, left New York, and became its own Georgia-based aerospace manufacturer.Under their new independent design team, Gulfstream continued to build their second-gen business jet while working simultaneously on its successor, the Gulfstream III, introduced in 1980. This was followed up followed by the Gulfstream IV in 1985 and the Gulfstream V in 1997. It's 50 years' worth of aeronautical development that spawned the jet on which the G650, on which the G700 is based.First flown in November 2009, the G650 set the precedent of bonking the ragged edge of the sound barrier with every flight. Test flights revealed the airframe could tolerate speeds up to Mach 0.995, although no outside adjudication confirmed whether this was a new world record. Any closer to the limit, and the airframe would sonic boom its way across any flight route it traveled along.With the same Honeywell Primus Epic touch-screen flight deck with fly-by-wire control surfaces as the G650, the real improvements come in the forms of two new Rolls-Royce Pearl 700 turbofan engines cranking out 18,250 lbf (81.2 kN) each. Newer, more efficient engines add a further 1,350 lbs (6 Kn) of thrust over the outgoing G650, while providing up to 500 nautical miles (926 km, 575.3 mi) more range out of the G700's fuel tanks.Cabin volume is also up over the G650 in the G700. With 2,603 cubic feet (73.7 m3) to work with over 2,138 cu ft (60.5 m3) in both the early and late G650s, there is enough room for 13 people and an extra champagne cooler or two. Or more like an entire bedroom suite plus a bathroom with a shower.You know, like a luxury hotel suite in the gosh darn sky. Maybe an open bar if it's "that" kind of private company. Compared to stiff competition from the likes of Embraer's Legacy/Praetor line and Dassault's Falcon series, the G700 manages to have an appeal all its own.Neither of these two competitors manages to reach the same ludicrous speeds as the Gulfstream, although the Falcon 7x might get close. But airplane specs on a stat sheet are like a drag race in your mind. Everyone only cares about which one comes in first. The notion of a business jet that could likely go supersonic if it was hooned on just a bit has an appeal few passenger jets can even come close to.As of late 2021, there were twelve Gulfstream G700 airframes completed with an MSRP starting at $78 million. The cost to operate the jet for 500 hours? That'd be $3.5 million in itself. No wonder only people like Elon Musk and his ilk bother buying these planes. Just know whenever Elon claims his private jet is being tracked and posted to Twitter, chances are good he's doing so while getting a foot massage in his custom G700.If that isn't the most intense 21st-century flex of the millennium, we don't know what is. All we do know is that most of us nine-to-fivers would be lucky if we caught sight of a G700 taxiing while you're waiting to board your Spirit Airlines flight. Hope you enjoy the extra fee for baggage (not). ADAS ABS National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Adaptive Cruise Control GVWR Back in July 2021, the Yokohama-based outfit began production of interim 2022 model year N-Series diesel trucks and their Chevrolet-branded counterparts. Marketed as the Low Cab Forward, the Chevrolet variant is a cab-over commercial vehicle available in many flavors. The lineup kicks off with the 3500, which uses a small block, whereas the 7500 XD comes with a 6.7-liter Cummins inline-six diesel.Unlike the initial batch of 2022 models, the interim 2022 model year is equipped with electronic stability control as standard.technology is optionally available. Back in August 2022, the company received a question from an independent upfitter who intended to extend the wheelbase of an N-Series. More specifically, the upfitter in question wanted to know if the ADAS camera needed recalibrating.Through September 2002, various engineering and product planning employees looked into this concern. Isuzu needed an answer real quick because the Japanese manufacturer also offers a factory option to have the frames extended from 176 to 200 or 212 inches (4,470, 5,080, and 5,385 millimeters).One more investigation later, Isuzu North America Corporation confirmed in December 2022 that subject vehicles could be affected by a lack of ADAS camera recalibration. In the first week of January 2023, the company received confirmation that themodule which includes the ESC function - also needed recalibrating. On the upside, Isuzu hasnt received any field reports on this problem.Thewas informed that no fewer than 242 trucks will be called back, starting with eight examples of the NQR Class 5 diesel truck. The remainder consists of 172 examples of the NRR, 2 units of the Chevrolet Low Cab Forward 5500 HD, 41 units of the 5500 XD, and 19 examples of the Hino S52 diesel truck.Due to incorrect calibration of the ADAS camera and ABS module, owners of subject vehicles may experience a delayed activation of the automatic emergency braking system when driving in a curve. Themay reduce the following distance by 8 to 10 meters (26 to 33 feet), and ESC may activate incorrectly as well.Dealers were informed of this problem a few days ago, including Chevrolet and Hino dealers. Affected owners, on the other hand, will be notified by first-class mail no later than March 10th, 2023. The Japanese manufacturer isnt aware of any crashes or injuries associated with this issue.As a brief refresher, the most capable N-Series diesel is the NRR Class 5 thanks to a gross vehicle weight rating of 19,500 pounds (8,845 kilograms). Over at Chevrolet, the Low Cab Forward 7500 XD offers 33,000 pounds (14,969 kilos), mirroring theof the Isuzu FVR diesel truck. Back in October 2021, a spacecraft called Lucy took off from Cape Canaveral. Named after the remnants of a female Australopithecus afarensis discovered in Africa in the 1970s, it is supposed to shed more light on the origins of our solar system by visiting the Trojan asteroids. Were talking about a 12-year journey Lucy embarked on, and given the very long time theres a good chance there will be surprises on the way. 8 photos Photo: NASA Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile SUV EV Codenamed P417 or P419 (the Chinese media is not sure about which one is correct), the Polestar 4 uses the PMA platform, which would be pretty close to Geelys Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA). The Lotus Envya and the Jidu ROBO-01 have similar underpinnings, which may explain why they were all parked side by side.The Swedish brand said it would start selling the Polestar 4 in 2023, so thecoupe must be pretty close to its official presentation. Before these pictures emerged on Weibo, we had only seen a mule of the Polestar 4 that looked like a lowered XC40.There are two main rumors about the new SUV coupe. One of them states it will be just the Polestar 3 with a lower roof and sportier looks as the C40 is to the XC40. Another one says it would work as an SUV version of the Polestar 2. That may seem that important, but it is crucial in determining how big the newwill be.The Polestar 2 is 4.61 meters (181.4 inches) long, while the Polestar 3 is 4.98 m (196.02 in) long. The truth may be somewhere between the two rumors, as the Polestar 4s length must be. The Jidu ROBO-01 is 4.85 m (190.9 in) long and so should be the new Polestar and the new Lotus, aka Type 133.That makes even more sense when you consider that Polestar is currently a one-hit b(r)and. The Polestar 1 is no longer for sale, the Polestar 3 is yet to reach the market, and the only vehicle the automaker should present apart from the 3 and 4 is obviously the 5. It would not make sense to create two different shapes for the same market segment. That said, the Polestar 4 should stand in its own league, without any other brand product with similar dimensions. Besides, the Polestar 3 already looks like an SUV coupe.Were now left with trying to discover when the Polestar 4 will be officially introduced. If the company intends to sell it in China before other markets or even simultaneously, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) may help.Any vehicle sold in that country must file information and pictures with the MIIT before it is put for sale. Considering the prototypes were photographed there, we would not be surprised if the first images also came from Xi Jinpings country. Photo: Mecum Photo: Mecum Photo: Mecum It was what it was, that show, but as it happened with all others, not quite the same thing as an in-person event. Sure, buyers were more than capable of interacting with manufacturers to see innovative new products, check out top SEMA Show builds, and take in industry-leading educational offerings, but it didnt provide that touch-and-feel experience we were used to. More importantly, some great builds slipped through the cracks and were denied the exposure they needed at the time.Some could say the heavily modified Ford F-1 we have here is one of those that went unnoticed. Fret not, as the thing is now back in the spotlight, on account of it becoming available to collectors on the open market.As most of you already know, the current range of Ford F-Series trucks traces its roots back to the pickups made immediately after the end of the Second World War. Born as the Ford Bonus-Built in 1948, the first half-ton F-Series was also known as the F-1 until 1952, when the second generation came along and changed that to F-100.The truck youre now looking at is part of that first-generation F-1 . Were told it originally came with the usual cab and bed assembly, and a 6-cylinder flathead engine under the hood, running a 3-speed manual transmission.Like all other vehicles of this kind, it was put to use immediately after rolling off the assembly lines, and received an aluminum box at the rear. That was meant to support the transportation of goods performed back in the 1950s by a Denver, Colorado business called Happy Home Delivery Service.It apparently served the needs of said enterprise for about 16 years, and then it went on to cater to the needs of a plumbing company. Its unclear how much it was used to carry plumbing equipment, but it eventually disappeared from The Centennial States roads. Like it so often happens with vehicles, it was most likely abandoned.The truck is one of the lucky ones, as someone came across it in a salvage yard and decided it was worth a salvage. Were told that, when found, it came with no driveline, plenty of holes in the bodywork, and an overall decrepit state.The ones who saved it go by the name Pot O'Gold Kustoms. Its a crew thats been around since the early 1980s, presently in the business of making LS swaps, diesel conversions, upgrades, and the works.In the case of the Ford truck, which was shown at SEMA360 , these guys went overboard. Few of the trucks original parts are still around, and the thing now looks so bonkers it kind of makes one feel its time to rush over to Glendale, Arizona, and bid whatever it takes during the Mecum auction taking place there at the end of March.The work performed on the truck was extensive and included everything from fitting a new engine to the reskinning of the body. As usual, well start from the ground up by letting you know the machine now rides on Detroit Steel wheels. They are sized 20 inches at the front and 22 inches at the rear, giving this bread truck, as its makers call it, a menacing, forward-leaning appearance.The front wheels are supported by an independent suspension system, while the ones at the back are tied to a narrowed Ford 9-inch rear end with a 4-link suspension. Its the Airlift system, though, that makes the massive truck capable of sitting so close to the ground when stationary.Under the hood, the original 6-cylinder flathead has been replaced by a much more potent Cummins 4-cylinder engine. Its unclear how much power it develops, but all of it is harnessed in controlled bursts by a Turbo 400 automatic transmission.The bulging eyes of the truck, its projector headlights, are of Harley-Davidson make, while the rear ones come as LEDs. Only the front end of the truck is painted black (in something called Sherwin Williams Blackish Green Mica) to match the color of the wheels, while the rest of the bodywork remains bare metal, creating a delicious disconnect.Its like looking at a hybrid between the beautiful front end of a custom, show-ready F-1 and the rear of a hauling machine meant for use in a factory somewhere, with visible rivets and the words Pot O'Gold Kustoms written in an apparently careless manner on the sides.The interior is as spartan as it gets, despite the brown leather with diamond stitching used here and there, and it almost makes one feel like they're climbing inside a main battle tank.Were told that in the years that have passed since the truck was completed, it was used as a shop and for advertising purposes. Itll probably continue to do so, but for a different owner, if it manages to sell to the right person in March. Well come back on the story as soon as we learn if and for how much this bad boy went. NHTSA The vehicles in question all three equipped with 360-degree camera systems had already been fixed as part of a recall. The remedy consisted of new software for image processing module B. The product development and customer service teams identified an issue with the service tool used for the software update. Come January 2022, theprovided FoMoCo with five additional VOQs.Given these circumstances, the Dearborn-based automaker tasked its Critical Concern Review Group with investigating the problem. At that time, the Ford Motor Company was aware of no fewer than 13 vehicle owner questionnaires.From June 2022 through October 2022, the second-largest automaker in the United States and suppliers continued analyzing claims relating to the blue screen issue. During this period, two unique failure modes were identified, namely a full blue screen or a rearview-only blue image.But as fate would have it, engineers couldnt replicate the concern until December 2022. To date, Ford is aware of at least 21 vehicle owner questionnaires, of which 16 were confirmed to have occurred after the software update. More worryingly, the Ford Motor Company is also aware of 17 minor accidents resulting from the aforementioned issue.As one would expect, Ford has prepared yet another software update that will hopefully eliminate the symptom. Version LB5T-14F017-AY was designed to reinitialize the rearview camera of vehicles equipped with 360-degree camera systems when a loss of video frames is detected.The image processing modules that need this update are supplied by Valeo, a French company from Paris that supplies a wide range of OEM and aftermarket goodies. An estimated 382,759 sport utility vehicles from both Ford and Lincoln are called back, starting with the Ford Explorer 279,700 units of the mid-size utility vehicle are called back, Explores built in the period between October 2018 to January 2023. The remainder comprises the Ford Explorer-based Lincoln Aviator (72,699 units) and Ford Escape-based Lincoln Corsair (30,360 units) as per the attached report.The replacement for the MKC started production in August 2019 for the 2020 model year. It currently retails at $38,690 sans taxes and options, which is a lot for a compact crossover with the underpinnings of a $27,500 Escape.Higher up the spectrum, the Explorer is Fords best-selling utility vehicle stateside. Codenamed U625, the sixth generation made the switch back to rear-wheel drive. Unfortunately for the Ford Motor Company, the Explorers rollout for 2020 was dare I say it a colossal disaster.Plagued with issues before it even arrived at dealers, the Explorer is priced at $36,760 right off the bat, placing it between the Ranger-based Bronco off-roader and Edge in the Ford Motor Companys lineup. Last but certainly not least, the Lincoln Aviator is currently going for $53,340. Full Self-Driving FSD The auto industry has been boasting about autonomous driving for a long time. Many years ago, when I was young, the German part supplier Bosch introduced me to automated driving for the first time. The engineers explained to me what the five SAE levels of autonomy mean and informed me that by 2018, the auto industry would reach Level 4 autonomy. By 2025, having a driver behind the wheel will not be necessary. Since Mercedes-Benz works with Bosch for its Drive Pilot SAE Level 3 driver assist system, Im baffled to see how little their technology has progressed for the past ten years.Yes, Mercedes-Benz has certified its Drive Pilot as an SAE Level 3 driver assist system in the U.S., as it has been bragging for the past year or so. However, this doesnt mean much because the system still has severe limitations. Drive Pilot can drive itself, no problem, but only on a pre-mapped highway in Nevada when youre traveling below 40 mph (64 kph) and theres a car in front to follow. Ah, and when the conditions are clear, and no sun blinds the cars cameras.Saying that the Mercedes-Benz S-Class (or the EQS) has been certified to drive autonomously under these conditions is like me telling my daughter she can go to a party only if its in the same neighborhood, ends before noon, and theres nobody else coming. And Im not the only one thinking like that. Tesla fans are laughing right now reading about the limitations of the Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot system.Im not sure why Mercedes-Benz wanted to certify the Drive Pilot system for anything, let alone in the U.S. Its probably because of the over-cautious nature of the Germans or because it wanted to make the news. As Elon Musk once said, explaining why its more difficult to launch software in Europe , theres no need to get approval in the U.S. for things that are not specifically regulated.Things are a little different in the U.S. Like in the U.S., things are legal by default, and in Europe, theyre illegal by default, so we have to get approval beforehand; whereas in the U.S. you can kind of do it on your own cognizance more or less, said Musk in March.If you want to see how the Level-3 certified Drive Pilot system works, watch the video below. Youll notice that the instructor has difficulty explaining why the system fails to engage. And yet, this system has been judged to be superior to Teslas FSD by the guys at Consumer Reports. Based on the CR evaluation, the Drive Pilot has received a 10/10 score for Capabilities and Performance, while thereceived a 9/10 on the same assessment. Cancer is a disease that can be difficult to treat. There's no medicine a person takes two times a day for a week and suddenly they're cured. However, researchers have been working on certain innovative ideas and inventions that might just make treatment for cancer easier and more effective. Project InnerEye Tumor cells are extracted from the blood of a cancer patient so an oncologist can sequence their DNA and decide on a course of treatment. Still, doctors can't analyze the patient's mutations and results while also combing through countless studies and clinical trials. Artificial Intelligence can scan through millions of data on the internet in a second, which is why it is a great tool that can aid with patient treatment. For instance, Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge uses an AI deep-learning tool called Project InnerEye. The AI is capable of analyzing patient data and identifying the tumors on their scans. It processes CTs and generates possible treatments faster, cutting the usual time it takes by 90%. Dutch researchers used an algorithm with intelligent search behavior to make this possible. DaVinci Precision is just among the things that can be programmable, that is why surgical robots can help with surgical techniques that are impossible for a person alone. The robots will manage the maneuvers and the doctors will hold the knowledge and experience of surgery. With this kind of precision in surgery, tumors that are hard to extract due to their proximity to sensitive organs may become more possible. It's capable of suturing, dissecting, and retracting tissue, as mentioned by Medical Futurist, leaving little room for error. Real-Time Imaging Device One of the ways a patient can get rid of their cancer is by undergoing surgery and having it removed. However, it's entirely possible for some cancer to be left behind, causing patients to return for a second operation., which happens to 20% of breast cancer operations. OncoRes Medical's imaging device uses AI to identify tumors and healthy tissue. This provides essential information for surgeons who will perform a lumpectomy. This can reduce the percentage of operations that return because of undetected malignant cancer cells. Read Also: Scientists Have Engineered Parasitic Worms That Can Kill Cancer Cells Cryo-EM Cryo-electron microscopy is capable of capturing images that are 1/10,000 the width of a human hair. It will take hundreds of thousands of photos and researchers will scan through these to find one of quality that will be reconstructed into 3D images of molecules. They can then study how the molecules behave, which can lead to discovering how cancer cells grow, survive, replicate, and react to therapies and other cells. This could provide medical experts with information that can help create more forms of treatment. CRISPR Last but not least is CRISPR. It is a technology that can be used to change the genetic code of living cells. According to Cancer.gov, it can precisely delete, insert, and edit specific parts of DNA inside cells. The key discoveries were made by Drs. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. There are already clinical trials with CRISPR-made cancer immunotherapies. Cancer is caused by changes in a person's DNA, also called genetic changes. Gene editing can be a powerful tool to make a significant difference in cancer research. Related: UV Nail Polish Lamps May Cause Mutations Found in Skin Cancer Patients EV Photo: Tesla Not stopping here Photo: Jorgen Hendriksen on Unsplash But whats up with the 80% discount? SUV Photo: Tesla 44,990 ($49,026) for a Model 3 RWD; 52,990 ($57,743) for a Model 3 Long Range; 59,990 ($65,371) for a Model 3 Performance; 46,990 ($51,205) for a Model Y RWD; 53,990 ($58,830) for a Model Y Long Range; 63,990 ($69,726) for a Model Y Performance; 112,970 ($123,097) for a Model S Dual Motor; 137,970 ($150,339) for a Model S Plaid; 120,970 ($131,814) for a Model X Dual Motor; 140,970 ($153,608) for a Model X Plaid. But it is not as simple as it may look at first glance. Around a fortnight ago, Tesla slashed prices for its entire lineup. It wasnt just a friendly discount. The Model S Plaid became $21,000 cheaper, while the very popular five-seater Model Y Long Range was brought to a price point that allowed it to be eligible for the newtax credit (aka the clean vehicle credit).This was one unexpected solution, considering that the three-row Model Y Long Range qualified for the federal fiscal advantage thanks to its 1.1-inch increase in ride height over the five-seater model. Today, the Model Y Long Range is $500 more expensive and is the only vehicle in Teslas current portfolio that received a modest hike. Most likely, the automaker did this because it wanted people to order some Model 3s as well. Interest in Model Y was at an all-time high just a couple of days ago.The whole discounting strategy was astonishing, considering that many customers who had bought a Tesla in December of 2022 or earlier were stupefied by the brands decision to slash all its vehicles prices. At the same time, it was a genius move. While competitors were still struggling with dealership hikes, Tesla showed everybody that it could give up on some profit margin on a random midweek afternoon. This surely triggered some alarm bells at Ford. Some of the Michigan-based manufacturers dealers tried to sell the F-150 Lightning for some insane prices that included unbelievable 'market adjustments.'But the outcome of Teslas updated pricing policy was not only about an increase in demand while the economy is slowing and talks of a recession have kept progressively intensifying. It also had a ripple effect on the used car market.The value of some Model 3s and Model Ys, for example, dropped overnight by over $10,000 on platforms like CarMax. This also led to some very weird situations where a second-hand 2021 Model Y ended up costing more than a brand-new one on Carvanas website.And if youre one of our frequent readers, then youll know that we anticipated this to the letter. Last summer, a couple of prospective customers, influencers, and some media outlets were enraged by Teslas price hikes. In a market where the demand was insanely high while the supply chain issues and parts shortages were kings, that was the normal thing to do. The automaker couldnt afford to have an insane backlog that couldve pushed deliveries of 2022 model-year units well beyond the middle of the current year.So, we told you that the price cuts will eventually come. If you are among those who waited Well, congrats! You might feel a lot better about yourself, especially as you discover that the average price of a new Tesla sold in the last three months of 2022 was $52,573.Before adding $500 to the price of the Model Y Long Range in the U.S., the automaker adjusted the costs of its cars in Europe by nearly 1% to the upside. It was a slight increase across the board for those living over the pond. There wasnt any good explanation for this adjustment, so we refrained from speculating.When the EV maker applied this small hike in the Eastern European country of Romania, someone working behind the counter managed to raise prices to unbelievable levels. We compared the new values with what other high-end and very exclusive manufacturers charged for their models. We discovered that a base-spec Tesla Model 3 RWD was as expensive as a Lamborghini Huracan EVO RWD Spyder. Thats a convertible with a V10 in the rear.To put things better into perspective, a fully loaded Tesla Model X Plaid ended up costing more than a new Rolls-Royce Phantom. The EV makersmight be plenty fast, but its no equal to the British ultra-luxury marque that makes great use of silky smooth V12 powertrains and is on track to launch its first battery-electric vehicle the Spectre.That didnt make any sense, so we investigated and found out that the error was related to conversion rates. Or non-conversion rates for the matter. Essentially, Tesla published the prices in the countrys local currency instead of euros. It added the wrong symbol and that created a lot of confusion.Even though it is a small market for Tesla, people living in Romania showed an interest in EVs. Since the price cuts were made available to them as well, some may have experienced the fear of missing out. The countrys government offers a 10,000 ($10,907) rebate, which essentially drops the base price of an all-wheel-drive Model Y Long Range to 43,990 ($47,977) with the value-added tax (VAT) included. But accessing the automakers online platform and seeing an eye-watering price of 267,410 ($291,624) left many wondering.Fortunately, Tesla corrected the pricing error by applying a discount of 79.8% across the board and now, the numbers are similar to what other Europeans are seeing on the carmakers online configurator.At the time of writing, the company charges Romanians:Finally, it is now clear that it was just an unfortunate mishap. But it did provide the local market with some new reasons to talk about the EV makers vehicles, so thats another free advertising win for Teslas inexistent marketing department. Photo: WTHR on YouTube/Alissa Smart If by now you have not heard about the Kia Boyz Challenge, then you might be one of the lucky persons out there who does not own an older Hyundai or Kia. A video that spread like wildfire on TikTok last year shows just how easy it is to turn on a vehicle made by the two automakers between 2010 and 2021.Essentially, it showed everyone that hot-wiring a Kia or a Hyundai that does not have an immobilizer can be performed with an iPhone charger or almost any other USB cable for that matter. Whats worse is that nefarious parties who end up doing this illegal challenge may not even want to steal the vehicle they just want to be a part of the latest internet craze. Unfortunately, it wasnt just a fad.Now, the Seattle City Attorney announced that both Hyundai and Kia are going to have to deal with another federal lawsuit. In the filing, it is said that even though the auto companies know about this vulnerability, they chose to not take meaningful steps to address the problem.From 2021 to 2022, thefts of Kia and Hyundai cars increased by 363% and 503%, respectively, in Seattle. In July 2023, alone, the Seattle Police Department reported a 620% increase in reports of stolen Hyundais and Kias, explained Ann Davison in a press release.Seattle City Attorney said that Police had to deal with an increased number of issues because Hyundai and Kia chose to cut corners and cut costs, which is affecting law enforcements resources. Davison intends to recover damages for the city and wants to force manufacturers to act faster by providing a reliable solution.The trend picked up steam thanks to the social networks algorithm that may reward tons of views to those who follow it. Although illegal and morally corrupt, the challenge slowly started to become a major problem in the U.S. It has spurred the rise of Kia and Hyundai car thefts in the last couple of months. Whats worse is that it does not show any signs of stopping. More and more reports are pouring in about vehicles made by South Korean manufacturers which are being stolen.In some cases, the thieves cant perform the said trick. So, they leave the cars with broken windows and messed-up dashes. This has caused serious problems for many Americans who rely on their cars to go to work, as people who had a Hyundai or a Kia have previously said that they have even been fired from their job because they werent able to drive.But both Hyundai and Kia told Americans in September last year that they are going to provide a solution that should prevent such thefts or joy rides from happening. The security kit in question was supposed to be installed at dealerships across the country. However, it looks like not many people have heard about the initiative, nor have they learned about the steering wheel locks which were to be supplied after the brands consulted with police forces. Kia and Hyundai are supposedly providing free steering wheel locks for buyers whose cars do not have immobilizers. But recent customer reports say that getting their hands on one has been complicated.Surprisingly, Canadians arent dealing with this issue. That may be thanks to anti-theft devices becoming mandatory in 2007.Immobilizers became standard on Hyundais and Kias sold in the U.S. in November 2021.Finally, another lawsuit targeting Kia and Hyundai was announced last year, in September. Multiple owners filed a national class action lawsuit against the companies for selling vehicles with this vulnerability. It was filed in a federal court in Orange County, California. EV ICE Just recently as Chiron production just wound down the exotic French automaker (now a subsidiary of the new Bugatti Rimac entity) has been carefully touring the world with the W16 Mistral , the two-door convertible that marks the end of the line for the incredible W16 engine. It is not a cabriolet version of the Chiron, though, and the fastest roadster in the world is a rather unique open-top take on the whole series, including the Chiron, Divo, and Centodieci featuring the ubiquitous 8.0-liter quad-turbo 1,578-hp W16 mill.Now, what if the next Bugatti is not only gloriously exotic, but also a lot more sustainable, perhaps even an? Something in the same vein as the Rolls-Royce Spectre not being a mass-market offering, but rather the hero type that lifts the entire brand on its shoulders and carries it from the sinking-powered boat across the horizon in search of the EV revolutions shore. I am being sentimental, I know, but this unofficial project only induces thoughts of glamour and paradise resort retreats.So, the good folks over at Car Design Sketch (aka cardesignsketch on social media) have directed our attention to Fletcher Nas glorious Bugatti Speedster project. The artist (aka nafletcher) is not only a student at Frances State Ecole de Design (MATD), but also has actual automotive experience because he serves/served as an intern with various carmakers (from BMW to Byton, and from Mercedes to JLR). As such, we can trust his flair a little bit toward making Bugatti pose as a proper contender in the rarefied Speedster field.There, it would fight with and certainly trump all other ritzy rivals, including the likes of Aston Martin V12 Speedster, McLaren Elva, or Bentley Bacalar, plus the initiators of the new-age current, the Ferrari Monza SP1/SP2 twins. Sure, it might not even fill a limited production slot and it would still be even more glorious than the Lamborghini Squadra Corse SC20 one-off , itself much more than just a roofless version of the track-only SCV12. Plus, Bugattis rich heritage would easily give this project historic meaning, including the open-top (and wheel) Formula One variety.Unfortunately, this is merely wishful thinking. And it may forever remain just a figment of the pixel masters imagination no matter how we dream it, with another last hurrah of the W16 or as a novel introduction into the EV arena. Well, hopefully, someone with enough money will see it and dare to ask Bugatti to adapt a W16 Mistral in this Speedster guise . But thats certainly something for the 0.1% of the one-percenter crowd! Photo: Stephen Goodenough for Studio Well Architecture Photo: Stephen Goodenough for Studio Well Architecture Photo: Stephen Goodenough for Studio Well Architecture The Kereru Retreat is also completely off-grid, which is another plus for those looking to minimize their carbon footprint. Downsizing does have the advantage of enabling a more affordable lifestyle, but when it started out in the early 2000s, its main goal was sustainability. If the years in between then and now were a race to peak sustainability, the Kereru Retreat is the winner.Right now, this micro-cabin is located on Mount Hutt on the South Island of New Zealand, nestled among ancient trees and surrounded by the most picturesque scenery. It sits on privately-owned farmland, close to hiking and biking trails, and a short driving distance from Methven and Christchurch. Chances are it wont be relocating anywhere else soon, since its being offered as a rental unit for weekend adventurers, couples looking for a romantic retreat, and people who might be interested in transitioning to tiny house living but are yet undecided about making the step.A few nights stay at this retreat would be just the thing to give them a taste of the experience, bearing in mind that it would be a very minimalist, bare-bones one. Kereru Retreat offers only basic functionality with a very striking aesthetic, which means, in plainer terms, that its not for everyone. But for those who believe that less is more, it might just be the closest thing to perfection.Offering 17.3 square meters (186 square feet) of living space, the tiny presents itself as a very rustic cabin from the outside, thanks to its wood and galvanized iron exterior, with barn-style opening shutters for privacy. Inside, you get a small living room that integrates the dinette and the kitchen, an elevated sleeping area, and another small loft that could, at least in theory, hold another bed for one guest, but which is now left empty.The interior is done in salvaged untreated timber, which gives it a log cabin feel and makes up for the constricted layout . Finishing touches like the handcrafted faucets with exposed pipes in the bathroom and kitchen add an extra rugged vibe to the place, but without taking it into industrial style territory. The bathroom is the best example of this interesting mix of utilitarian and cozy, particularly the shower area, which features a steel enclosure with timber slats for the floor.If one is to condense the entire philosophy of downsizing, one would probably get something very much like the Kereru Retreat. The kitchen offers basic functionality, with a two-burner gas stove, a hidden mini fridge, a kettle for the morning brew, and some overhead storage. Its not the kind of kitchen you could cook large meals in, but its enough for self-catering when youre on vacation. The dining nook to the side is comprised of a fold-down table for two, and round seats.The master bed sits on an elevated area accessed by means of a few steps, with a small, storage-integrating couch placed down below, facing the wood-burning stove. The only (and most important) highlight in the bedroom is the large picture window that makes up most of the exterior wall just perfect for stargazing or lazy mornings watching the sunrise.The Kereru Retreat is fully self-sufficient, thanks to solar panels on the roof, a rainwater collection system, a composting toilet, and the wood-burning stove. No mention is made of autonomy, but the owners note that guests must be mindful of their energy consumption while staying there; however, they do guarantee enough power for the kitchen appliances and water heater, and charging of personal devices like phones and laptops. eSTOLs are seen as a new class of aircraft that are similar to helicopters in terms of operational flexibility, and better than fixed-wing aircraft in terms of both performance and costs.One of their main advantages is the ability to operate from remote landing strips, which means that they can reach areas that would be challenging for conventional aircraft. Unlike eVTOLs, they are fitted with hybrid-electric propulsion, which add the benefit of an extended range. Plus, in the future, conventional fuel could be replaced with SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) which would make them even greener.All of these features made the Electra eSTOL particularly attractive for military cargo applications. This small but rugged aircraft could deliver essential supplies and other cargo to various military units that are far apart, even in so-called contested environments. And it would be able to do that with fewer emissions, and with reduced costs.Its also important to note that the airplanes and helicopters that are currently carrying out similar tasks within USAF are insufficient for the demand, in addition to burning fossil fuel and having certain operational restrictions. In other words, these cargo fleets need to be renewed, and the armed forces are looking at new-generation alternatives.Its been a few years since both NASA and USAF first showed interest in this new type of aircraft. In the meantime, the manufacturer continued to develop the hybrid-electric powertrain, distributed electric propulsion, advanced flight controls, and the specific blown-lift aerodynamics.At this point, its ready to build a full-scale prototype of the aircraft. Once thats completed, Electra will kick off flight tests which it says will be a world-first. The two-seat piloted aircraft will demonstrate the eSTOL technology in trailblazing flight tests, in preparation for the next production phase.As you can imagine, this costs a lot of money. Luckily, the eSTOL developer secured $85 million precisely for that, after receiving a STRATFI (Strategic Funding Increase) from USAFs innovation arm, AFWERX. The sum includes government funding, private investments, and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding.Although perfectly suited for military cargo operations, the future Electra eSTOL is also versatile enough for various commercial applications, where it brings the same main benefits of flexible operation, affordable maintenance, and increased range. Authorities have arrested the Dutch hacker who stole confidential information and tried selling it. The private information belonged to nearly nine million Austrian citizens. In comparison, has a population of around 9.1 million people. The Arrest The hacker, who was 25 years old at the time of the arrest, was caught in November in Amsterdam. The defendant also reportedly had similar data sets from countries like the Netherlands, Italy, and Colombia. The threat actor is already known by the international police, according to Engadget. Although the hacker was arrested way back in May 2020, it is only being made public now to avoid interference with the ongoing investigation. According to the police, the hacker already published the stolen information online, which consists of names, addresses, and dates of birth. They added that since it has been posted on the Internet, people must assume that the data are in the hands of criminals. It's also possible that the hacker obtained other types of data like patient information from medical records, according to The Sun Daily. Countries like Thailand, China, and Britain may also be part of the list of countries where the hacker stole data. So far, the records show that the hacker did not manage to steal any financial information from the nearly nine million victims. Still, there are many ways that people can still be at risk with the kinds of information that were posted. Read Also: Understanding Cybersecurity Attacks and Regulations The Risk of Having Your Information on the Internet It's not a secret that having personal information readily available on the Internet is a dangerous thing, and as the report said, the hacker posted the personal information online. The best thing to do for those who were impacted by the hacker's actions is to look out for phishing attacks. For one, having your address online can subject you the real-life dangers. Phishing attacks happen in different ways, and some already resort to physical mail instead of emails and phone calls. You might mail from people with malicious intentions. They can do so by impersonating government officials or institutions and sending offers that will require you to send them money. They could say that you've won something and will ask for bank information to transfer the winnings, as mentioned in McAfee. Thieves can also use the change-of-address system in the Postal Service in the US, so your mail will be redirected to an address they chose. Certain mail will contain more sensitive information that they can use to defraud you. If you're nervous about the possibility that your name, address, and date of birth are being used, you can always go through measures to make sure that no one else is accessing your accounts or using your name to do so. You can monitor your credit and see if there are unusual activities on them. In the event that you do see one, you can alert the proper authorities or your bank about the incident so they can take measures to protect you from fraudulent activities. Related: Worried About Phishing Scams, Email Attacks? 8 Warning Signs You're in Danger, 4 Ways to Stop It Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. By Azernews Qabil Ashirov Azerbaijani company Glassica JSC exported over 250,000 glass bottles to Romania and Moldova for the first time, Azernews exports, referring to Emil Asgarov, the company director. He noted that the annual production capacity of the enterprise is 60-90m of different colored glass bottles. Glassica JSC currently provides 30-40 percent of Azerbaijan's demand for glass bottles. We are planning to build another plant in Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park in March 2023. Its production capacity will be higher than the current plant, and the investment cost will be AZN60m ($35m). The plant will be built in approximately 14 months, Asgarov said. He also added that with the establishment of the enterprise, agreements on the sale of products were signed with two foreign and five local companies. Notably, currently, the enterprise provides 140 people with permanent jobs and has made over 3m glass containers so far. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) presented a bill on Wednesday to limit the use of the widely used TikTok app. Because of this, the White House is now under increasing pressure from Congress to outlaw the popular Chinese-owned video-sharing platform nationwide. The Legislation Follows Major Security Risk Concerns From The State In the past, a similar bill to ban TikTok in the US was submitted during the previous Congressional session, but neither chamber approved it. According to Gizmodo, The No TikTok on United States Devices Act would prohibit access to the app on all devices, but it might encounter opposition in the coming weeks from a divided Congress. The Chinese business ByteDance, which introduced TikTok in 2016, has come under fire from federal authorities. They claim that the software poses a security concern to the country since it allows China access to American data. It is important to note that the use of TikTok on government-owned smartphones is currently prohibited for all federal employees. Additionally, the video content creation app has already been prohibited in 28 states on devices provided by the states. It can be remembered that Last month, President Joe Biden approved a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package that included a provision prohibiting the use of the app on any device used by the executive branch. However, this provision did not affect members of Congress or their staff despite concerns of high risk due to a number of security issues across the government. Read More: US Government Bans TikTok On Most Federal Government-Owned Devices TikTok Pushes Back Against The US Legislation Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, alerted the federal government of the United States that China might utilize TikTok to manipulate or control users' devices. At the Josh Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture last month, he discussed the issue and informed the students that TikTok poses a national security risk. According to Wray, China can exploit TikTok's recommendation algorithm to trick or persuade users, gather user information "for traditional espionage operations," and use the app for "malicious cyber activity." In recent months, at least 20 public institutions have also taken action to block access to TikTok on school computers, mobile devices, and when using school WiFi, Gizmodo details. However, Sen. Hawley's planned nationwide TikTok ban is not being implemented properly, according to a spokeswoman for the app. "Senator Hawley's call for a total ban of TikTok takes a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online harms," the spokesperson claims. TikTok hopes that Wray will concentrate his efforts on initiatives to address those problems holistically rather than claiming that outlawing a single service would answer all of his concerns or make Americans any safer. It is important to note that concerns about national security have been discussed by TikTok and the US Committee on Foreign Investment for two years. This involves "corporate governance, content recommendation and moderation, data security, and system access" in order to prevent the platform from being manipulated, the spokesperson adds. Related Article: Several US Universities Restrict Access to TikTok on Campus Oregon Coast Geologist on Cape Kiwanda Sinkhole: Why, How and Its Future Published 01/27/23 at 5:20 PM By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Pacific City, Oregon) For some 18 million years or so, Cape Kiwanda has been around in one way or another. It's a geologic oddity along the Oregon coast: certainly this section. Just about all headlands or outcroppings are made of basalt here, frozen lava from some 14 million years ago. But Kiwanda is made of something softer: a form of sandstone that's harder than the sandstone down around Newport (it's actually all part of the same formation), but a lot less resilient than basalt. (Above: a sea cave somewhere here may have been the cause of the sinkhole. Photo Oregon Coast Beach Connection) So it's no surprise Pacfic City's star attraction is falling apart. This last week a large sinkhole opened up, and that is likely to get bigger. Oregon coast officials may have a handful to deal with here. See N. Oregon Coast's Cape Kiwanda Develops Dangerous Sinkhole - Video Yet what's causing this? Oregon Coast Beach Connection connected with one prominent geologist. Sinkhole photos courtesy Oregon State Parks North Oregon coast geologist Tom Horning is a rather famous name in the Pacific Northwest for not just his wide range of knowledge about the coast and his willingness to share it, but he was integral to Seaside's groundbreaking tsunami preparedness programs two decades ago. He's also led tours around the coastline, including geologic looks at Cape Kiwanda. To be clear, he hasn't examined the hole himself, but Horning knows the area well and a geologist can tell quite a bit by some photos. He explained there was once another sinkhole in that spot and it was filled up at one point. Now, whatever was holding things together underneath has given away. It's an old sinkhole that was filled in with dune sand, and it's been recently undermined by the surf gaining access, either through the sandstone to the northwest of it or farther along the southwest through a fissure of some kind, Horning told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Essentially, some sea cave underneath has given way perhaps very recently, perhaps it was a while ago. Horning said he could tell by the fine grains of sand in the walls of the hole just by looking at the photos. That sand is finer because it was under pressure for a long time. That means it was a depression area filled in by dunes somewhere in the past, he said. Don't know if that was a hundred years ago or five thousand years ago. That sinkhole likely goes deep down, as much as 50 feet, maybe more. Whatever was holding it up was down at sea level. It doesn't bode well for the future safety of the area. Oregon State Parks and Recreation has cordoned it off and is telling people to stay away. But they may have to try harder with safety sometime down the road. The hole will probably get bigger with time, as not that much sand blows through this area as it has in the past, Horning said. Something down there is washing away, Horning said. It could be a rock that was blocking a sea cave beneath, and it in turn was holding the sand in place. Maybe some big waves and a high tide got together and loosened that, he said, noting these ideas are all conjecture at this time. See Cape Kiwanda geology. Horning does know there are sea caves down there, some in really long configurations, like one that's approximately 150 feet long. The small spouting horn at the mini cove at the southwestern edge of Cape Kiwanda is proof of that. Horning could tell some channel was underneath everything, feeding water beneath the crack that allows the water to shoot through. A few parts around the tip of Cape Kiwanda have fallen apart in recent years. A large arch collapsed in 2011, and in the last two years another chunk in that spot fell apart. Complete Guide: Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area Horning thinks it's a possibility this had something to do with the sinkhole reopening. Events like this can redirect or even increase wave energy hitting the cape. In any case, that sinkhole is there to stay and probably worsen. Whatever allowed sand to wash away has finally accomplished its goal and allowed the hole to be developed, he told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. There was a hole there already, so there was past erosion. Then it got plugged up with sand. Then only with the recent event that it washed away things to allow water to carry away the dune sand. Hotels in Pacific City - Where to eat - Pacific City Maps and Virtual Tours MORE PHOTOS BELOW More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast. LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted Back row (l to r) Ulster University's Jun Liu, Karen Delgado and Chris Nugent, and in the front row, Thomas Gray, chief technology officer at Kainos and practice lead Ruth McGuinness. The IT company, which is based in Belfast and employs nearly 3,000 people, said it was committed to helping the development of research and skills in Northern Ireland. And Kainos and the university said it hoped their collaboration could inspire the next generation to use AI to improve society. The centre aims to bolster teaching at the university and drive innovation in using AI to address problems in a range of areas. Ruth McGuinness, data and AI practice lead at Kainos, said: At Kainos we provide AI services to many customers globally, enabling them to work smarter, faster and better. "For us, the emphasis is on ethical, trustworthy and responsible AI, in line with Kainos ethos of delivering change for good. Were excited to partner with Ulster University on this project and we look forward to working with local research talent on initiatives to drive innovation. Professor Chris Nugent, head of the school of computing, Ulster University added: The artificial intelligence research centre in partnership with Kainos will be a hub for the development of innovative AI technology leading to tools, designs, prototypes, and systems that can deliver practical solutions for many sectors. "The work will help to deliver benefits for the economy and society and develop Northern Irelands position at the forefront of AI technology. "Its exciting to extend our partnership with Kainos, which spans research, student placements, graduate opportunities, executive leadership programmes, guest lectures and input into curriculum development." Kainos is the only Northern Ireland company listed on the main London Stock Exchange, and is part of the FTSE 250 index. In its most recent half-year results in November last year, it reported a 16% increase in profits to 34m, while sales were up 26% to 180m. Black Panther star Angela Bassett will be presented with a special honour at the 25th Costume Designers Guild Awards (CDGA), it has been announced. The award-winning actress, who stars as Queen Ramonda in the blockbuster sequel, will receive the Spotlight Award at the annual ceremony next month. The Spotlight Award honours an actor whose talent and career personify an enduring commitment to excellence, including a special awareness of the role and importance of costume design. The award-winning actress will receive the Spotlight Award at the annual ceremony next month (Jordan Strauss/AP) Jordan Strauss Past recipients include Andrew Garfield, Charlize Theron, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts, Amy Adams, Anne Hathaway and Halle Berry. Bassett has already won much acclaim for her performance in Ryan Cooglers Marvel film, having won both a Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for best supporting actress. Earlier this week she was also nominated for an Academy Award, also for best supporting actress. The New York-born actress has been appearing on film and television since the late 1980s (PA) PA Bassett will be honoured alongside costume designers Deborah L Scott, who will receive the Career Achievement Award, and Rachael M Stanley, who will receive the Distinguished Service Award. The CDGA celebrates excellence in film, television, and short form costume design. The 25th annual ceremony is due to take place live on Monday, February 27 at The Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. Claire Foy has said she reprised her role as the Queen in the latest series of The Crown because of her love for Imelda Staunton and because it is a lovely thing to do. The actress, 38, appears in a flashback scene that opens the fifth series of the Netflix drama, showing the late Queens visit to Clydebank in 1953 to launch the Royal Yacht Britannia. Foy portrayed the Queen in the first two series, Olivia Colman took over for series three and four, and Staunton stars in series five and six. Imelda Staunton (Ian West/PA) Ian West Appearing on The Graham Norton Show, she said: I went back and did it again because it is a lovely thing to do and I really love Imelda, I think she is amazing. Production is under way for the sixth and final series of The Crown, with scenes being filmed this week at Winchester Cathedral. Foy also discussed her film Women Talking, about a group of women in an isolated religious colony who attempt to bring to light a series of sexual assaults by some of its male members. The film, which was inspired by real-life events in Bolivia, also stars Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand, and has been nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Claire Foy and Sarah Michelle Gellar on The Graham Norton Show (Matt Crossick/PA) Matt Crossick Asked whether she would be attending the ceremony in March, Foy said: I dont know. There are 12 of us in the cast so it depends on who they pick to go with them. Its my childs birthday that day so I probably shouldnt go. Either way Ill have a great time. Asked about playing a member of the Mennonite community, she added: We had no hair and make-up at all and wore polyester dresses, so what got us through filming was the thought of a party at the end when we could wear make-up and shave our legs. I thought not worrying about shaving would be a real moment of empowerment, but actually it was horrible and reminded me of puberty. The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One and iPlayer on Friday January 27 at 10.40pm. Donald Trelford, former editor of The Observer newspaper, has died aged 85 following a long illness. The journalist, author and academic died on Friday morning in Majorca where he had lived for more than a decade, his wife Claire said. Mr Trelford was editor of The Observer for 18 years during which time the publication won various press awards including newspaper of the year, while he was commended as international editor of the year in 1984. The Observer newspaper in 2006 (Matt Gore/iconphotos/PA) Matt Gore/iconphotos He was the author of a number of books and helped Russian chess great and anti-Putin political activist Garry Kasparov write his autobiography. His wife Claire told the PA news agency: He was a man who loved his sport, his family, and loved being in Majorca. He lived life to the full. He was a great storyteller and raconteur. I think all his friends know most of his stories. Friends of all ages wanted to be with him so he could share his life stories. And they in the end were the ones who pushed him to write his memoirs. Speaking about his career in journalism, she added: He was tenacious. He didnt come up the conventional way. Although he had been to Cambridge and it was unusual, he was a working class lad from Coventry. He had done national service in the RAF and I think that opened up his eyes. But he was able to speak to anybody. He was as much a friend of the guy working in the lift as he was (to those) from journalism. Mr Trelford was born in Coventry in November 1937 and educated at Bablake School, where he was head boy. He studied at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and also undertook National Service in the RAF. After Cambridge he worked for newspapers in Coventry and Sheffield before being appointed editor of the Nyasaland Times, later the Times of Malawi, at the age of 25. He joined The Observer in London in 1966 as assistant news editor before rising to succeed David Astor as editor in 1975 After leaving The Observer in 1993, he helped launch a new department of journalism studies at Sheffield University. In his later years he lived Majorca. He married three times and has six children, one of whom predeceased him. The 23rd Belfast Telegraph Business Awards in partnership with Ulster Bank features a new chair of the judging panel Mark Crimmins, head of Ulster Bank, Northern Ireland, and Belfast Telegraph business editor Margaret Canning, launch the 2023 Belfast Telegraph Business Awards. Ulster Bank is the event's headline sponsor for the seventh year in a row The Belfast Telegraph Business Awards 2023 in partnership with Ulster Bank have launched with new categories including Tourism & Hospitality Company of the Year and Employer of the Year. There are also categories for small, medium and large businesses, as well as start-up and emerging companies, exporters, retail businesses and the food and drink sector, to name a few. This is Ulster Banks seventh year as overall sponsor of the awards, which recognise and celebrate the successes of individuals and organisations in the Northern Ireland business community. Read more Belfast Telegraph Business Awards 2023 Enter now Now in their 23rd year, the awards attract entries from across all sectors and sizes of business. This years awards welcome a refreshed judging panel including a new panel chair, Clare Guinness, innovation district director at Innovation City Belfast. Clare will be joined by experts from across a range of sectors in the Northern Ireland business community. As well as 17 categories that companies can enter, there will also be an Outstanding Business of the Year award presented with the winner selected from the category winners, and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Last years winners of these awards were Almac and Patrick McAliskey, chairman of Outsource Group. Mark Crimmins, head of Ulster Bank, NI said: The role of honour for the Belfast Telegraph Business Awards in partnership with Ulster Bank serves as an important and timely reminder of the talent, innovation and expertise demonstrated daily by firms and business leaders right across Northern Ireland. Looking back at what the business community has achieved here throughout the last 12 months, I have every confidence that this years cohort of winners will be equally impressive as those we have previously celebrated, and we are proud to partner with the Belfast Telegraph once again to give them the recognition they so richly deserve. Regardless of size or sector, the awards present a unique opportunity for companies to showcase their accomplishments and I would encourage all businesses to put themselves forward for consideration especially to our new categories which reward excellence in workplace health and wellbeing, travel and tourism, and sustainable business practices. Eoin Brannigan, editor in chief of the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Life, said: We are delighted to again join forces with Ulster Bank for the 2023 Belfast Telegraph Business Awards. Theres no question the last 12 months have been tough for companies but theres no shortage of resilient businesses that have managed to flourish against the odds. Thank you to Ulster Bank for its support, and to our new judging panel chairperson, Clare Guinness, for coming on board and bringing her vast experience to the role. Safari, the web browser used by Apple, has some filters in place to prevent users from accessing certain websites. The censorship is managed by the Chinese company Tencent, and it appears that this will be the case for users in Hong Kong as well. Websites Being Blocked in HK Users who use Safari in Hong Kong are receiving error messages when they try to visit certain websites, stating that the website they're visiting is blocked for safety reasons. No further explanations were provided as to why that was the case. GitLab, which is an online platform for open-source code, was no longer accessible on December 30th. The block was spotted by software engineer Chu La-Cheong, who was also a former employee of Apple, according to 9To5Mac. The web browser indicated that the website was blocked due to it having unverified information. The website became available again after a few days, following a report that was sent to the company. Neither Tencent nor Apple explained why it was banned. This calls into question whether Hong Kong will also experience the same level of privacy, or lack thereof, that users in China are going through. This contradicts Apple's selling point, which is how they take privacy and data security very seriously. For now, it is still unknown how many websites are banned, or if they will become accessible again as GitLab did. Although, this wasn't the first time that Apple complied with censorship demanded by certain countries. Read Also: China's Newest Regulations Target Livestreamers and Content Creators, Set Qualifications to Post Medical, Law, and Finance Content App Censorship Just a little over a month ago, Apple was also the center of a controversy involving app censorship. Reports say that Apple was willing to comply with authoritarian demands in order to stay in the country's market. The iPhone manufacturers were said to have censored leading apps in Hong Kong and Russia to maintain a good relationship with the country, which include those that fall under the LGBTQ+ category and apps that relate to VPN, according to Digital Information World. The new system in Apple's App Store in Russia forcefully removed around 25 LGBTQ+ apps, more or less 30 VPN apps, and apps linked to foreign media and news. Although, this was all before Apple left the Russian market following its attack on Ukraine. It was found that there were also certain limitations to the App Store in Hong Kong. Although it's not as strict as the App Store in Russia, there are apps that were banned that appeared to be available in 173 App Stores in other countries. More than 50 VPN and private browsing apps were unavailable in the country's App Store in November 2022. Apps that were related to media and information were also removed globally in the last two years, according to Apple Censorship. Benjamin Ismail, the director of the Apple Censorship project, Apple should be clear about the actions it will or will not take, and that they need to ensure that Apple will not be a part of the movement toward censorship and erosion of democracy worldwide. Related: China Boosts Cyber Censorship, Requires Sites to Recruit Content Moderators The three men accused of murdering Shane Whitla were back in court on Friday. Appearing separately at Craigavon Magistrates Court via video-link from jail, a prosecuting lawyer said the full file against 27-year-old Jake OBrien, Joshua Cotter (29) and 25-year-old Kevin Conway is not due until March 6 and she would be seeking a four-week adjournment. Conway, from Deeny Walk in Lurgan, OBrien, of Church Walk in Lurgan, and Cotter, from Madrid Street in Belfast, are charged with the murder of the father-of-four on January 12. All three deny any involvement. OBrien is also accused of having a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life, which he denies. Mr Whitla (39) was shot in an alleyway off Woodville Street, but was able to make his way to Lord Lurgan Park where he was found dead. Previous court hearings were told how police obtained CCTV footage and indicative samples of cartridge discharge residue from clothing seized from OBrien. The PSNI had said the victim left his home and walked towards the alleyway after receiving a phone call at 19.35, adding that they believe they can link the phone number to OBrien. After he arrived, 23 seconds later two men can be seen running down the alleyway. Police believe that from CCTV footage captured half an hour before the shooting, those individuals are OBrien and Cotter. It was told that while OBrien has refused to confirm its him in footage taken at 19.06, Cotter does accept that he appears on it, but emphatically denies the murder. Lawyers for Cotter and Conway were due to apply for bail on Friday, but a detective constable said police have not yet had an opportunity to assess the suitability of proposed bail addresses. Defence solicitor Paul McCrudden, acting for Cotter, highlighted that officers had visited the defendants father three times and had taken a statement from him. While the detective constable said he was aware of that, he added that he didnt know where the father lived. District Judge Bernie Kelly said she could not deal with applications without approved bail addresses so adjourned the case against Cotter and Conway for a week. OBrien was also remanded back into custody, with his case put back to February 24. Council need to 'think again' over plan for Bangor costal path Just a short walk along one of Northern Irelands most popular coastal routes at the centre of a council row has revealed the extent of public anger in a Co Down town. Local residents enjoying a stroll along the scenic North Down Coastal Path in Bangor on Thursday had strong opinions on controversial plans to incorporate it into a multi-million pound greenway expansion project. Susan Fair branded the proposals a disgrace as she asked the question that seemed to be on everyones lips in the city. Why do they want to butcher this place? Im on this path twice a day in all weather it is absolutely beautiful and the wildlife is gorgeous. There is no need to ruin and destroy. The beloved walkway is renowned as a place of tranquillity. But it has become embroiled in a storm that has sparked a debate transcending far beyond environmental issues. There is a prevailing belief that Ards and North Down Borough Council needs to be reminded how democracy works after it was accused of ignoring the ratepayers it is supposed to serve. Anger has been simmering in the seaside city since the local authority submitted a planning application in June 2020 to connect Holywood and Donaghadee. It boiled over when around 150 people had the door of Bangor Castle slammed in their faces before a public meeting to discuss the unpopular proposals got underway earlier this week. There were more people outside than inside, councillor Ray McKimm told this newspaper. Theyd hired these tiny little spaces believing only a few people would come along. They even said they werent consultation meetings. The independent representative described the atmosphere in the gatherings as being on par with a major sporting final due to the amount of people shouting. And these were nice polite people, he clarified. Mr McKimm pleaded with the council please do not take a sledgehammer to crack a nut before a motion to withdraw the existing application was brought forward. All politicians are paying close attention to the spectacle which has elevated itself onto the radar of MLAs including the DUPs Stephen Dunne who has been raising objections for a number of years now. Theres real concerns about changing what is a lovely natural area of rugged coastal path right across our coastline into what has been described as a tarmac race track, he said. Many people agree with Mr Dunne who believes that there is a need for modest improvements on the routes which narrow in places and share his view that they must be sympathetic to bio-diversity. They also share his view that there is certainly lessons to be learned by council officials. What the council needs to do is stop and think again. Despite being avid walkers, many path users regard the councils plans as a step too far. One dog walker branded the project disgusting in light of what he described as the state of the high street in the city. They are spending millions on something nobody wants, when theres a town over there with no shops in it, they said. I just cant understand it. The path is not busy enough to justify widening it. I walk it every single day and sometimes I cycle it I have never had an issue getting around anyone. The walkway is surrounded by sprawling parkland and an abundance of flora and fauna including grey seals often spotted just offshore. Protesters who gathered outside Bangor Castle on Thursday night also expressed concerns for otter populations which have been observed in the area. Kathy Smith, who has been co-leading the For Another Path group set up to oppose the plans, said it is obvious they were drawn up by people who failed to understand the special affinity residents have with the path. We are not incensed by just one particular aspect of this plan the whole thing is monstrous, she said. It takes away everything that is beautiful and magical about this route. Other activists claimed the devil is in the detail of the planning application which was described as appalling by some. Even the one person who expressed support for the proposals on Thursday was critical of the local authority. I support the plans, I know Im in a minority, but Im all in favour, they said. But the way this has been handled is awful and there is no denying that. Those meetings were well advertised with flyers in almost every coffee shop sure what was the point if people couldnt attend the meetings. The council now has the mammoth task of building another path to forge a way forward one that restores public confidence and wins support from seething residents. The public has been very clear about how the local authority can do that and it can be summed up in just three words; Consult, listen and reconsider. The next Moderator of the Presbyterian Church is set to be revealed next week. Rev Richard Murray of Drumreagh Presbyterian Church, near Ballymoney, is one of two men whose names have been put forward for formal nomination. He is a contemporary of Rev Dr Sam Mawhinney, of Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church in Dublin, who is also in the race. Both ministers studied together at Union Theological College and were called to their first congregations in the same year, 1997. Clerk of the General Assembly and General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), Rev Trevor Gribben, said the successful candidate is traditionally chosen on the first Tuesday in February. However, they will then need to be elected by members of the General Assembly when they meet in June. The way in which we select our Moderator is a relatively simple process and one that is, in the best sense of Presbyterianism, a democratic one as well, Rev Gribben explained. This year we have two names for presbyteries to prayerfully consider and each one may be proposed, seconded and voted on at Februarys meeting. The candidate who has received the majority support of those voting then becomes the person for whom that presbytery has registered their vote for, and the person with the backing of the most of our 19 presbyteries becomes our Moderator-Designate." The Moderator of the General Assembly is the most senior office-bearer of the church and serves as its principal public representative. Nominees are put forward by presbyteries which begin to suggest names in late Autumn before a long list is compiled before it is confirmed they would be willing to serve if shortlisted. The next Moderator will succeed the Right Reverend Dr John Kirkpatrick when they become ninth office holder. I always look forward to the first Tuesday in February as this annual event is part of PCIs denominational DNA and there is always a sense of anticipation in Assembly Buildings that evening as we wait for each presbytery to phone through their vote, Rev Gribben said. "Whoever is selected, I very much look forward to working with them when they take on their new responsibilities in June. As they step away from their congregations to lead and encourage the Church, playing an important role in the life and ministry of PCI, much of which is often unseen, one thing will remain unchanged. The new Moderator-Designate is expected to be revealed at around 9pm on Tuesday. Council need to 'think again' over plan for Bangor costal path Plans for a controversial greenway route in Co Down will be shelved after council members voted in favour of a proposal to withdraw the planning application. The motion to shelve the greenway, which would link Holywood and Donaghadee, was put forward by Councillor Ray McKimm and debated at a meeting of Ards and North Down council on Thursday evening. Thirty councillors voted for the proposal to withdraw the plans, with no votes against. There were three abstentions and seven councillors were absent. The debate, which lasted several hours, saw almost all present councillors make their feelings known about the plan, with the majority indicating their support for the project to be scrapped. The live application seeks to incorporate new 3m and 4m wide asphalt paths to the North Down Coastal Path and expand existing routes. It has split opinion in the area. Some people supported the project while others had concerns over the coastal path being compromised. Some councillors also expressed concerns over damage to wildlife habitats and the areas natural beauty if the greenway proceeded. A previous meeting, which included the results of a survey on the greenways proposals, saw large queues outside, with members of the public reportedly turned away due to the venue being at capacity. Earlier on Thursday, the Belfast Telegraph reported Mr McKimm had submitted a proposal for the current greenway planning application to be withdrawn to allow for significant changes to be made. He said withdrawing the application would allow changes to be incorporated that the public clearly want. In a speech prior to the vote, Mr McKimm said the community had lost trust with the council and wouldnt be satisfied with tweaks to the project. "What the community is asking for is radical changes and for the greenway to be taken out of the red lines and put somewhere else... something this radical requires a withdrawal of the planning application. "What they are saying is there are few enough green spaces in the borough - dont cover them with asphalt to make them a greenway. "The message is clear, withdraw this application. To assume we cant change it to the extent required is an error. His seconder, Councillor Stephen Dunlop, also read a plea from a young man who expressed his love for the area and didnt want to see a greenway implemented. During the debate, many councillors in support of withdrawing the proposal accused others of flip-flopping on their decision with some alluding to deleted social media posts which indicated previous support for the greenway. Prior to the meeting, the Green Partys Rachel Woods said they would be seconding the motion to pause the planning application for the greenway. She said while she was in favour of greenways across Northern Ireland the current plans for the Kinnegar to Donaghadee greenway represent significant and disastrous environmental damage to certain areas of our coastal path. This whole process has shown the failings of our planning system. We have tick-box exercises instead of genuine community consultation, we have no equal rights of appeal, and environmental protections can be ignored. The whole system is opaque, confusing and subject to misinterpretation. A working group will now be set up to explore future plans. A spike in the number of house fires which have claimed eight lives within the past three months has prompted a warning about the risks posed by open fires, portable heaters and electric blankets. The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) has issued a stark warning amid a 14% rise in the number of reported incidents. There has also been a 15% increase in chimney fires this December compared to last year. The number of fatalities only accounts for fire related deaths since November. The most common causes of accidental house fires include cooking, electrics and smoking materials. However, NIFRS has warned about risks associated with increased reliance on open fires, stoves, portable heaters, electric blankets and candles this winter. It is now urging the public to do everything they can to keep themselves and others safe against the backdrop of the cost of living crisis and energy crisis. Assistant Chief Fire and Rescue Officer Aidan Jennings is directly asking people to check in on elderly relatives or neighbours and ensure they have working smoke alarms fitted. The thoughts and sympathies of NIFRS continue to be with the family and friends of those who have tragically lost loved ones in accidental house fires, he said. We are acutely aware of fire safety at this time of year and we are appealing to the public to help us keep you, your families and neighbours safe by reducing the risk of fire in the home. Mr Jennings it is also important that older people are aware of the items in their home which can cause a fire and that they know how to use them safely especially those who live alone. The winter months are always much busier for us and this year with the increased cost of living, we know many people will be trying to save money when heating their homes," he said. We want to ensure people dont put themselves at additional fire risk as a result. Simple steps to reduce the risks include keeping warm safely by ensuring portable heaters and electric blankets are in good working order and keeping such items far away from soft furnishings including curtains, blankets or arm chairs. Hiring a chimney sweep before using a fire is also recommended in addition to using fire guards and having a Carbon Monoxide alarm in rooms where fuel is burning. I would also urge everyone to ensure they have working smoke alarms and test them regularly. If you dont have working alarms this will affect your ability to notice a fire and escape quickly - especially at night, Mr Jennings continued. Id like to encourage any member of the public who is over 50, or anyone with impaired mobility or a disability to contact us to arrange a free Home Fire Safety Check. If you think someone you know might be at risk, please take time to ask them about their fire safety and if you have any concerns please get in touch with us. Fire prevention is at the heart of what we do at NIFRS. Please remember that we are here to support you. You can reduce the risk of fire by following our STOP Fire message: Smoke alarms Make sure you have working smoke alarms in your home. Test alarms weekly Test your smoke alarms at least once a week. Obvious dangers Be aware of the items in your home that might cause a fire and ensure youre using them safely. Plan your escape Have an escape plan in place if a fire does occur. The Army could be deployed to cover absences in the event of a firefighter strike in Northern Ireland The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service has said its exploring the possibility of Army deployment here as part of contingency options ahead of a potential strike next month. A ballot for strike action has been initiated by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), It began on December 5 and is due to close on January 30. Interim chief fire and rescue officer Andy Hearn said discussions with the FBU over special arrangements were continuing. "This is a national issue. I fully support a pay increase for our firefighters and I will continue to advocate for that. While I hope that we can avoid any strike action, I do respect the right of every union member to participate in peaceful industrial action, he said. "As an organisation, we have a legal responsibility to prepare for strike action and a legal responsibility to deliver our statutory duty. "All contingency options have been thoroughly considered and risk assessed against firefighter and public safety. Discussions continue with the FBU to reach clarity about the special arrangements they are prepared to agree for NIFRS which would enable firefighters to respond to certain categories of high-risk calls, should a strike go ahead. "Should agreement not be reached with the FBU, the need to request military aid to civil authorities from the Ministry of Defence will be progressed through further discussions with our sponsoring Department, the Department of Health. "We will continue to engage closely with the FBU, the Department of Health, the National Joint Council and other key stakeholders in the days and weeks ahead. TUV spokesperson for south Antrim, Mel Lucas, said the ability of the Army to cover in the event of strikes showed the benefits of being part of the UK. Even at a time of industrial action, we see the benefits of being part of the UK as we have a world-class military able and willing to fill the gap when it comes to the vital service, he said. Having served with distinction across the globe and risen to many challenges, I have no doubt that His Majesty's Armed Forces will be able to plug the gap during this period. "There is, however, obviously an onus both on the government and the unions to resolve this issue as quickly as possible." People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll said the government had ample opportunity to avoid strike action. "These workers put their lives and health at risk to keep people safe. They have kept the fire service afloat despite years of drastic government cuts, he added. Tory policy is the biggest threat to peoples wellbeing, both in the health service and the fire service. If those in power want to ensure so-called minimum service levels, they should pay frontline workers what theyre worth. Alliance MLA Paula Bradshaw said: I would encourage the leadership of the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service to engage proactively with the FBU to reach an agreement on derogations in the event there is strike action. We have seen similar arrangements put in place for nursing and ambulance crews in the current industrial action, so we believe such derogations could be agreed in this instance. It is in everyone's interest to reach a local agreement which respects the right to strike, while ensuring safety. The SDLP said the government needed to take action to avert strike action. This can be avoided if the British government acknowledges the pressures facing firefighters due to the cost-of-living emergency and works with employers to award them a fair pay rise, a spokesperson said. Firefighters have suffered a significant real terms pay cut in recent years and reports that some are being forced to rely on foodbanks and take on second jobs are disgraceful given the demands of the role. The government needs to sit down with employers and unions to facilitate a fair pay agreement to avert this strike action. DUP Upper Bann MLA Diane Dodds said money spent on NI Protocol-related paperwork could help provide firefighters with a pay uplift. People need fairly paid for the vital, lifesaving public service they provide. The protocol is not disconnected from our public services, she said. What we spend on protocol paperwork in one day could employ 10 highly-experienced nurses, police officers or firefighters for a year. It comes after The Guardian reported that hundreds of troops could return to Northern Ireland if unions were unable to agree to cover high-risk calls during potential strike action. The outcome of the FBUs ballot is expected on Monday. A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland health service told The Guardian when asked if troops would be called in that all options are open, saying: The department has not requested back-up from the Ministry of Defence, however all options remain under consideration. The Emirati minister of state and the CEO of Abu Dhabis state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber talks at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition Conference (Kamran Jebreili/PA) AP Hundreds of climate and environmental groups have criticised the nomination of an oil executive to oversee the United Nations climate negotiations at Cop28 this year. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), host of the UN climate talks this year, named Sultan al-Jaber to the presidency of the conference from November 30 to December 12. The company he runs as chief executive, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, produces four million barrels of crude oil per day and hopes to expand to five million daily by the end of the decade. Revenues generated from the sale of that oil are critical to the economic health of the UAE, which is among the worlds top 10 oil producers. And the burning of that oil creates carbon dioxide emissions while the climate crisis is worsening. Activists said the selection of Mr al-Jaber threatens the legitimacy and efficacy of the conference. There is no honour in appointing a fossil fuel executive who profits immensely off of fuelling the climate crisis, to oversee the global response to climate change, read the letter to UN officials. The letter goes on to say the nomination of an oil executive to oversee the climate talks exemplifies the influence that fossil fuel companies have over international climate policy. Some of the worlds largest environmental and climate action groups, such as 350.org, Friends of the Earth International and Greenpeace, signed the letter, along with five of the nine coalitions of non-governmental organisations that represent different sectors of the global population at the climate talks. The groups said leadership of the climate talks must be free of fossil fuel influence. In addition, they demanded fossil fuel companies be excluded from sponsorships, partnerships and rule-making processes at the conference and that it needs to focus on those most affected by climate change in the negotiations and solutions. Before the letter, several others had weighed in on the nomination of Mr al-Jaber. John Kerry, the United States climate envoy, backed the nomination. Former US vice president and climate leader Al Gore criticised the selection of Mr al-Jaber during the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this month. Activists with the youth climate action group Fridays for Future also voiced their unhappiness with the move while in Davos. Fire and smoke rises following an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip (Fatima Shbair/AP) Fatima Shbair Israels defence minister has signalled that the military would stop its air strikes if Palestinian militant groups halted rocket attacks, a day after the deadliest Israeli raid in decades raised the prospect of a major flare-up in fighting. After a limited exchange of Palestinian rockets and Israeli air strikes on Gaza overnight, residents of Jerusalem were on edge on Friday morning as they waited to see what comes next. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant instructed the military to prepare for new strikes in the Gaza Strip if necessary. The bombardments followed an Israeli raid in the flashpoint Jenin refugee camp, which turned into a gun battle that killed at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman and sparked clashes elsewhere that saw Israeli forces kill a 22-year-old north of Jerusalem. Palestinians burn tyres and wave the national flag during a protest against a Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, along the border fence with Israel, east of Gaza City (Fatima Shbair/AP) Fatima Shbair The escalation in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict created an early test for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus new far-right government, which came to office as tensions with the Palestinians soared and has vowed to take a hard line. The raid also prompted the Palestinian Authority to halt security co-ordination with Israel and drew deep concern from the US State Department just days before US secretary of state Antony Blinken was expected to visit the region. So far, the hostilities have followed a familiar pattern that allows both sides to respond without forcing the other side into a major escalation. Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza towards the south of Israel. Israel retaliated with non-lethal air strikes on militant targets in Gaza, such as training camps and an underground rocket manufacturing site. Mr Gallant claimed the military dealt a tough blow to Palestinian militants in Gaza and said the army was preparing to strike high-quality targets until peace is restored to the citizens of Israel. An uneasy calm prevailed around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, revered by Jews as Temple Mount. Palestinian demonstrators burn tyres in a protest in the West Bank city of Bethlehem (Mahmoud Illean/AP) Mahmoud Illean Tensions at the volatile Jerusalem holy site have triggered violence in the past, including a bloody Gaza war in 2021. The site is considered both the third-most sacred site in Islam, as well as the site of an ancient Jewish temple that is the holiest place in Judaism. Israeli police were out in force at entrances to the limestone alleys that lead to the sacred compound, apparently bracing for violence as they searched Palestinian passers-by before weekly noon prayers. Fadi, a 41-year-old shopkeeper near Al-Aqsa, said he felt the outbreak of violence had frightened residents and subdued the usual Friday morning shopping frenzy. He declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals. The Old City is empty because of all the problems, he said. Were just trying to work and this happens. Its like were trapped in every way. Palestinians clash with Israeli forces following an army raid in the West Bank city of Jenin (Majdi Mohammed/AP) Majdi Mohammed The night before, scuffles erupted between young religious Jews and Palestinians at restaurants and shops in the area. Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group BTselem. The same year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting against the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed. Palestinians clash with Israeli forces (Majdi Mohammed/AP) Majdi Mohammed So far this year, nearly half of the Palestinians killed by Israeli troops or civilians have been claimed as members of militant groups. Gulf Arab nations offered harsh criticism over the military raid. Anwar Gargash, a senior diplomat in the United Arab Emirates, warned on Friday that the Israeli escalation in Jenin is dangerous and disturbing and undermines international efforts to advance the priority of the peace agenda. The UAE recognised Israel in 2020 along with Bahrain, which has remained silent on the surge in violence. At the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, young Palestinians milled around as usual and women hawked raisins from their fields. Palestinians clash with Israeli forces following an army raid in Jenin (Majdi Mohammed/AP) Majdi Mohammed News of the nine killed in Jenin and the overnight rockets blared from phones and radios. Ibrahim Salameh, a 21-year-old smoking on the steps of Damascus Gate, said he had never been so scared. Two days ago, he said, his teenage neighbour was killed as police entered the Shuafat refugee camp to demolish an attackers home. Every day theres more and more fear, more tension, he said. Somehow Im living with this idea that at any moment I could be shot dead. Palestinian rescuers inspect the site of a damaged building following an Israeli forces raid in Jenin (Majdi Mohammed/AP) Majdi Mohammed Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. In the West Bank, Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the territory, announced a general strike and most shops were closed in Palestinian cities. The PA declared on Thursday that it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants. Previous threats have been short-lived, in part because of the benefits the authority enjoys from the relationship, and also due to US and Israeli pressure. The PA has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds such as the Jenin camp. Jenin, a city in the north of the West Bank, was an important militant stronghold during the 2000-2005 intifada. Over the last year, it again emerged as a stronghold of Palestinian militancy and epicentre of Israeli military operations. Mourners carry the bodies of eight Palestinians, some draped in the flag of the Islamic Jihad militant group, during a joint funeral in the West Bank city of Jenin (Majdi Mohammed/AP) Majdi Mohammed Several of the Palestinians who killed Israelis in attacks last spring were from the Jenin region in the northern West Bank. Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israels 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians claim those territories for their hoped-for state. Israel has established dozens of settlements in the West Bank that now house 500,000 people. The Palestinians and much of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace, even as talks to end the conflict have been moribund for more than a decade. The cutbacks to frontline policing should come as no surprise. Chief Constable Simon Byrne has been warning of risks to services for some time. Browsing using Google Chrome's Incognito Mode will soon be safer for users. The California-based search giant recently announced it would release a new Google Chrome Android feature that locks away incognito mode when the user switches to another app. Although Google already launched this new feature, many people worldwide have yet to receive it on their Android phones. Google Chrome Incognito Mode Biometric Lock Details Google mentioned in its recent blog post that Google Chrome users on Android can now make the app require a biometric authentication when they resume an interrupted incognito session rather than automatically closing it within a certain period of inactivity. Simply put, people who are privately browsing the web on their Android phones can continue where they left off should they switch to another app or close their phones. This new feature prevents anyone other than the Android phone's user to see what the user is browsing when in Incognito mode. This feature was already available on Google Chrome's iOS version since Sept. 16, 2022, according to 9to5Google. The feature works by instantly locking all open incognito pages behind a biometric authentication lock. Once the user or anyone other than them opens Google Chrome, a gray screen will appear with the Incognito logo at the center. Tapping on the "Unlock Incognito" button opens the system fingerprint sheet to "Verify it's You." Read More: Hulu Drops 'Solar Opposites,' 'Koala Man' Co-Creator Justin Roiland Due to Domestic Violence Charges At this point, only the user could open Google Chrome's incognito mode through a fingerprint scan. However, if their fingerprint couldn't be scanned for some reason, the option to enter the device's PIN is also available in the screen's bottom-left corner. To activate this biometric authentication lock on Google Chrome's Incognito mode, Google Chrome Android users should head over to the app's settings, tap on "Privacy & Security," and toggle the "Lock Incognito tabs when you close Chrome" option to On. Although the feature should be available to all Google Chrome users on Android, Engadget notes that the feature isn't available to them as of the publishing of their article. The feature's absence means that Google is slowly rolling out the feature to all Google Chrome users on Android, though the company didn't mention how soon the feature will be available to everyone worldwide. As such, Google Chrome users on Android should be on the lookout for the feature's arrival on their phones to see if they have it or not. What Does Incognito Mode Do? Google Chrome's Incognito mode is a way for people to browse the internet without leaving a history of what they've been browsing through it. The feature also doesn't save cookies, site data, and information entered in forms when it is being used to surf the web. However, activating Incognito mode isn't the same as using a VPN. Google's disclaimer on an Incognito Mode tab that their online activity is still visible to the websites they visit while the mode is in use, their employer or school, and their internet service provider. If you want to prevent websites, your employer/school, and your internet service provider to see your online activity, you may want to consider getting a VPN. Related Article: DOJ Sues Google for Anti-Competitive Practices on the Digital Advertising Market Children attend school in Dhaka, Aug. 24, 2022. Bangladeshs High Court has ruled that mothers can be listed as the sole legal guardian on education forms. A Bangladesh court ruling recognizing that a mother alone can be her childrens legal guardian is drawing praise from women who cannot identify biological fathers and activists who say its a step forward for the Muslim-majority nation of 160 million. The High Court this week ruled on a petition filed 14 years ago after a regional education board barred a student from sitting for high school exams because her fathers name was not listed on an information form. The students single mother raised her by herself in Thakurgaon, a northern district. Despite the ruling on Tuesday, the lawyer representing the government in the case said its scope was narrow. A student can now use the name of their mother or any other legal custodian as their guardian, instead of their father, on any mandatory forms related to high school exams, Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta told BenarNews. The court ruled that if this right wasnt established, a student could be denied the right to education, undermining a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution, Gupta said. The ruling will only be applicable in educational settings, but the full verdict will bring more clarity on the subject. In its verdict, the court observed that this type of discrimination was not acceptable anywhere, leading to speculation that there could be more details in the final verdict to be released at an unspecified date. In 2009, the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), an advocacy group, and two womens rights organizations filed a petition with the High Court challenging the education boards policy. The student involved with the school exams was not identified in the petition. The petitioners attorney, Ainun Nahar Siddiqui, disputed Guptas assertion. According to Siddiqui, the ruling would be extended to cover all official forms, including passport applications which previously required the fathers name. Because of the constitutional guarantee of equality, one has the right to use either their fathers or mothers name on any official forms, Siddiqui told BenarNews, adding that private institutions could adhere to the ruling voluntarily. BLAST and other plaintiffs also cited the cases of female sex workers, such as Ashrafi Jahan, whose children cannot trace their biological fathers. Ashrafi Jahan, a sex worker in Dhaka, explained how the ruling helps her family. Our children are normally deprived of societal privileges afforded to others. We always wanted our children to receive a normal institutional education, but that was never possible, Jahan told BenarNews. Its difficult for me to know who my childrens biological father is, she said. If the court has issued a verdict that ensures no one would ask our children to reveal their fathers name in schools, it would be a delightful development for us that others cannot even imagine. Maleka Banu, secretary general of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad (the Bangladesh Womens Council), one of the plaintiffs, hailed the ruling as historic. In our country, guardianship-related official rules are discriminatory. This verdict could help us rein in that discrimination to some extent, she said. The government has not signaled whether it will challenge the verdict before the Supreme Courts appellate division. Women in power Bangladesh, considered a tolerant predominantly Muslim nation, has been ruled for decades by two women, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her arch-rival, Khaleda Zia. Since the early 1990s, when parliamentary democracy was restored, the prime minister and opposition leader in the parliament have always been women. When Hasina returned to power in 2009, she appointed women to key portfolios in her cabinet such as the interior and foreign ministries. In 2014, when she was reelected, she chose men to run those ministries. Another woman, Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, who is the parliament speaker and third highest office holder in the country, could be elected to replace the countrys term-limited president, Md. Abdul Hamid, in next months election, according to local media. Nominations are due on Feb. 12 for the election a week later. On a micro-level, women lag behind in terms of legal rights and opportunities while efforts to elevate them have often proved politically sensitive. The country is ranked 131st in the Gender Inequality Index by the United Nations Development Program as part of its Human Development Report. As late as 1998 only fathers were recognized as guardians on school exam registration forms. In 2004 school diplomas started featuring the names of students mothers along with their fathers. In 2011, Hasinas administration proposed changes to the countrys property inheritance laws which would have brought womens rights in line with those enjoyed by men as part of the National Women Development Policy. The move angered conservative Muslims who protested that it would violate Islamic rules on inheritance recognized by colonial-era domestic laws. The revised and adopted version of the policy did not include those changes. In subsequent years, the government softened its secular posture in what was seen as a broader trend to reconcile with conservative Islamists, who held considerable influence and appeal. In 2014, Hasinas cabinet pushed to lower the minimum age of marriage for girls to 16 in the country that had one of the highest rates of child marriage. The move drew high-profile international rebukes and some accused the government of trying to placate conservatives following a general election that major opposition parties boycotted. UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (right) speaks to then-party Vice President Hishammuddin Hussein, who was suspended on Friday, at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, May 14, 2018. Senior UMNO heads rolled on Friday as party boss Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in one fell swoop expelled or suspended those who had recently challenged his decisions or his primacy. Outspoken COVID czar and former Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin was thrown out along with Noh Omar, who is the former Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative minister and ex-head of the United Malays National Organization in Selangor state. Hishammuddin Hussein, the former defense minister who married into royalty and is a son of a former prime minister, found himself suspended for six years, along with the partys former information chief and two others. UMNO members who have been sacked based on disciplinary breaches, according to the UMNO Constitution, due to wrongdoings during the 15th General Election are Noh Omar and Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, the party said in a statement after its Supreme Council met on Friday night. UMNO members whose rights in the party have been suspended for six years are Hishammuddin Hussein, Maulizan Bujang, Mohd Salim Sharif and Shahril Sufian Hamdan. Khairy responded on social media. Tonight I was sacked by the party I love, to which I owe allegiance. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken, he wrote on Twitter. The sackings and suspensions would not have come as a complete surprise to many because Zahid on Thursday announced there would be a purge. The party would carry out a large-scale cleansing, targeting those who had sabotaged the organization and shot themselves in the foot, Zahid told reporters then. Those who havent felt the heat yet, they will, tomorrow night. UMNOs statement did not list these members disciplinary breaches, but their so-called transgressions were well-publicized. Noh had stepped down as Selangor UMNO chief because he was dropped as a candidate in the election, and said he had lost confidence in the president [Zahid]. Hishammuddin had been dead-set against UMNO allying with the coalition headed by arch-enemy Anwar Ibrahim to form a government after the election. As for Khairy, he had called for Zahids resignation as party president following UMNOs disastrous showing in the November general election. The Oxford-educated former UMNO Youth chief had also described as madness the decision to leave Zahids post uncontested in the organizational elections that must be held by May. Khairy had said he was planning to run for the presidents post. Then-Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin addresses the media during a press conference, Kuala Lumpur, Sept. 7, 2022. [S. Mahfuz/BenarNews] It was these upcoming party elections that prompted the purge, said Lau Zhe Wei, an analyst from the International Islamic University of Malaysia. The party election is the main reason why they sacked and suspended them, Lau told BenarNews. With this move, it means that the party election will be safe for Zahid and his gang. It serves as a warning to those who intend to rebel or be critical. Even Khairy can be sacked. Hishammuddin can be suspended. Another analyst, Bridget Welsh of the University of Nottingham Malaysia, said Fridays developments would weaken the already divided party even further. It will push the pressure of divisions down into the party itself. Force those inside the party who are unhappy to leave the party, which would weaken the party, Welsh told BenarNews. The sackings and suspensions, she said, reflect an insecure leader who is removing potential challengers. Hes assuring the grassroots that they have been disempowered. First, voters left UMNO; now, grassroots may leave UMNO, not all, but many. This is not how you go about strengthening the party, Welsh said. Who chooses to lacerate a wound in the party instead of dealing with the infection inside UMNO? Storage tanks for contaminated water at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture are pictured on Jan. 20, 2023. Officials from Pacific island nations will meet Japans prime minister in March in an effort to halt the planned release of water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, a regional leader said. Plans to dispose of Fukushima water over four decades are a source of tension between Japan and Pacific island nations and a possible complication for the efforts of the United States and its allies to show a renewed commitment to the Pacific region as Chinas influence grows. The planned discharges are a very serious issue that our leaders have accepted must be stopped at all costs, Henry Puna, secretary-general of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum, said Thursday at a press conference in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara. The Japanese governments timetable for disposal of Fukushima water indicates that releases could begin as soon as April this year part of an effort to decommission the stricken power station over several decades. Water contaminated by the nuclear reactors damaged in a 2011 tsunami is stored in dozens of large tanks at the coastal Fukushima plant. Japans method involves putting the contaminated water through a purification process known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which it says will reduce all radioactive elements except tritium to below regulatory levels. The treated water would then be diluted by more than 100 times to reduce the level of tritium radioactive hydrogen used to create glow-in-the-dark lighting and signs. Japanese authorities and the Fukushima plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, have said radiation released into the ocean would be a minute fraction of naturally occurring radiation in the environment. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency which describes itself as promoting safe use of nuclear energy, has said the Fukushima process is technically feasible and in line with international practice. Pacific island leaders are unconvinced the discharges will be safe and some scientists have called for the Fukushima plant to continue storing treated water on site rather than releasing it. Japan has said storage space is running out as an Olympic swimming pools worth of radioactive water is generated about every two weeks from water used to cool reactor fuel debris and groundwater contamination. Data doubts Five scientists working with the Pacific Islands Forum last week criticized the quality of data they had received from Tokyo Electric on the treated water in the tanks and expressed doubts about how well the purification process works. Over more than four years, only a quarter of tanks had been tested for radiation, and testing rarely covered more than nine types of radiation out of 64 types that should be tested for, said the five scientists, who include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions senior scientist Ken Buesseler. The accident is not over; this is not normal operations for a reactor. Therefore, extraordinary efforts should be made to prove operations are safe and will not cause harm to the environment, the scientists presentation said. The Pacific Islands Forum has described the scientists as independent nuclear experts. The forums secretariat didnt respond to a question about whether the scientists are compensated for their work with the forum. Nigel Marks, a materials scientist at Australias Curtin University and former nuclear reactor engineer, who is not advising the forum, said he is sympathetic to concerns that Tokyo Electrics data could be more complete. But at the same time some recognition for Japans unique situation must be acknowledged, he said. The authorities have done their very best that technology allows. Eventually they reach a point where there is too much water to store. Puna said the Pacific islands delegation would meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida around March 7. They want a delay in water releases, at the very least, while more research is carried out, he said. There are serious gaps in the scientific evidence on the safety or otherwise of the proposed release, Puna said. I am pleased that the Japanese prime minister has finally agreed to meet with a high-level delegation from our region. Decades of Fukushima water discharges, Puna said, could damage our livelihoods, our fisheries livelihoods, our livelihood as people who are dependent very much and connected to the ocean in our culture and identity. A mushroom cloud rises during the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands in 1946. [Reuters/U.S. Library of Congress/Handout via Reuters] Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at Australias Lowy Institute, said its hard to imagine a more alarming proposition for Pacific island nations given the toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing and waste dumping in the Pacific. The timing, amidst regional geopolitical competition that has traditional powers falling over themselves to demonstrate whos a better partner to the Pacific, could scarcely be worse, Sora said. The United States, United Kingdom and France carried out more than 300 nuclear detonations in the Pacific from 1946 to 1966, according to the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University in New York, which exposed thousands of military personnel and civilians to radiation and made some atolls uninhabitable. Decades of hard-won regional goodwill towards Japanese Pacific engagement are at risk with this single policy initiative, Sora said. Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it welcomes Japans commitment to a thorough scientific assessment to ensure there are no adverse environmental and health effects. Australia is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum. A State Department spokesperson said the United States welcomes Japans continued openness as it prepares to disperse the treated water in a manner that appears to be in line with internationally accepted nuclear safety standards. Japans embassy in Suva, Fiji didnt respond to a request for comment. Relatives of drug war victims hold photographs of their slain loved ones with placards calling for justice, during a protest to mark President Rodrigo Duterte's final year in office, in Manila, June 30, 2021. The Philippines on Friday lambasted the International Criminal Courts decision to re-open a probe into the countrys deadly drug war as a slight to its sovereignty, saying it would appeal the move. The ICC on Thursday approved its prosecutors request to restart the investigation into the thousands of killings allegedly linked to ex-President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs. In late 2021, when Duterte was still in office, The Hague-based court suspended its investigation saying it would assess a Philippines request for it to defer to Manilas own investigation into the drug war. The Philippine justice secretary slammed the ICCs latest decision as unreasonable, while the solicitor general said the government would exhaust all legal remedies to appeal before the ICCs appellate chamber against a resumption of the probe. The Philippines and the Department of Justice will not stand for any of these antics that tend to question our sovereignty and our status as a sovereign country, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said at a news conference, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency. We are doing what it takes to fix the system. We have a functional judicial system and I dont see where they can come in unless they want to take over our legal system and take over our country. I dont see that happening, Remulla added. Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra, who was justice secretary in the Duterte administration, said the Philippines can show that despite structural and resource limitations in our legal system, it is still a well-functioning system that yields positive results in its own time. About 8,000 suspected addicts and dealers died during the drug war under the Duterte administration (2016-22), according to official government numbers, but human rights groups have said the figure could be three times higher. An internal investigation by the justice department in 2021 said that in many cases, police officers involved in the killings did not follow protocol and could be prosecuted. ICC not satisfied On Thursday, the ICCs pre-trial chamber granted the prosecutors request to resume investigation into the situation of the Republic of the Philippines, the court said in a statement. The ICC said it had examined all the submissions of the Philippine government, the prosecutor as well as the families of the victims. It concluded that the various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the courts investigation, the ICC said. Following a careful analysis of the materials provided by the Philippines, the Chamber is not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Courts investigations, it added. Duterte is facing two complaints at the ICC. One was filed by a former police officer and a self-styled assassin who accused Duterte of ordering the deaths of opponents and criminals when he was mayor of southern Davao city. The second was filed by relatives of several people killed during the counter-narcotics campaign. Like his predecessor Duterte, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. also opposes an ICC probe. Marcos has said the country could conduct its own investigation and has also rejected calls from human rights groups for the Philippines to rejoin the ICC, after Duterte pulled the country out in 2019. While in office, Duterte repeatedly insisted that the ICC no longer had jurisdiction over the Southeast Asian nation because Manila had officially cut ties with the international court. ICC offers a path forward Human rights groups and activists meanwhile welcomed the ICCs decision to resume the investigation. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the ICC probe was the only credible avenue for justice for the victims and their families. As the courts judges agreed, Philippine authorities are not undertaking relevant investigations into these crimes, Robertson said. The ICC offers a path forward to fill the accountability vacuum. In Manila, opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros welcomed with renewed hope the ICCs decision to press on with the probe. I hope the president adheres to international law and the Rome Statute as part of our commitment to the community of nations against state sponsored impunity, she stressed, referring to President Marcos. There is overwhelming evidence that the war on drugs carried out widespread and systematic violations of human rights. Let justice be done, she added. Human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares urged Marcos to tread a different path from his predecessor and instead respect human rights and due process. He shouldnt be blindly obedient to Duterte. Such a move will not only be for the interest of justice but would also show the international community that the Philippines does not tolerate human rights abuses and impunity, the lawyer, who belongs to the Bayan Muna political party, told BenarNews. This is a positive development as victims of the fake drug war of the Duterte administration can still get justice even outside Philippine courts. Richelle V. Umel in Iligan city, southern Philippines, contributed to this report. Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers introduced bills with the intention of legalizing Bitcoin as a form of currency in Arizona. This is the second time that the senator wants the state to accept cryptocurrency as a legal form of payment. Bitcoin Treated Like Money The legalization of Bitcoin as a currency people can use for payments is far from impossible. Should Arizona go through with it, its citizens will be able to use it to pay debts, taxes, rent, penalties, and other fees. State agencies will also accept it as payment. Although cryptocurrency is still not stable as people would like, there are still those who believe that it can have future potential, and that's considering its huge decline of 60% in the past year, as mentioned in Interesting Engineering. The bill described the currency as a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency, meaning that the government has no control over it. It simply operates on a network, which is recorded on a public ledger that is the Bitcoin blockchain. The first time that Senator Rogers proposed the bill was back in January 2022, but it was not passed. There are still no indications whether or not the bill would be passed this time. If it does go through, then Arizona will be the first state to do so. Read Also: Italian Fashion Brand Gucci Now Accepts Cryptocurrency for Payment Should They Approve the Bill? There are many factors to be considered before making a big move like accepting Bitcoin as a legal tender. It's important to acknowledge that the exchange, or cryptocurrency in general, is still not as stable as fiat currencies. Thomas Dimpfl, a professor of economics at the University of Hohenheim in Germany, said that a good legal tinder is reliable. He added that the biggest risk is that the exchange is so volatile, and that may cause problems. As mentioned in Spectrum, the value of cryptocurrencies fluctuates wildly. It can drop thousands in just one day. That becomes a problem when the holder of the digital currency will have to exchange it for fiat currency and use it outside the state. For instance, El Salvador has already adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender, spending $104 million for it. Then there was the crash in the crypto market, causing Bitcoin's value to drop, leading to the value of the assets that El Salvador bought dropping to just $67.9 million. The International Monetary Fund strongly feels that digital currency is "a step too far." An article from the IMF stated that it requires significant investments and difficult policy choices. As mentioned before, the investment did not turn out well for El Salvador. Although cryptocurrency is easier to access, secure, and cheap in terms of transactions, the IMF believes that the risks and costs still outweigh the potential benefits. The article even mentioned Bitcoin as an example, and how it crashed to less than half in value in two months. There's also the issue of using cryptocurrency for money laundering, wherein criminals can convert fiat currencies to digital assets. It can also be used for other crimes like evading taxes and even funding terrorism. Related: Mastercard Introduces Its Crypto Secure Service: Here's What You Should Know 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. From left, actors Heo Sung-tae, Lee Elijah and Jang Keun-suk pose during a press conference for Coupang Play's new original series "The Bait," in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap By Lee Gyu-lee Actor Jang Keun-suk said that his small screen return after five years to play the lead role of Ku Do-han in Coupang Play's new original series, "The Bait," was a new challenge in his career to break him out of his comfort zone. "Since this series is my comeback after a long time, I thought about what I can bring to the role. So I felt deviating from the established image of me by playing Koo Do-han could be a new challenge," he said during a press conference for the series, held in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, Wednesday. "So I grew my beard and reined in my emotions to create a tough character." The crime thriller series revolves around Koo (Jang), a detective who used to be a lawyer. He takes a serial murder case linked to a major fraud case from years earlier. As he deepens his investigation into the murder, he finds clues pointing to the prime suspect, notorious con artist No Sang-cheon (Heo Sung-tae), who was believed to have died eight years earlier. Jang took some time off from his acting career in 2018 to serve his public service duty as an alternative to mandatory military service, making the legal series "Switch: Change the World," aired earlier in that year, his last work. He said that he took the time to recharge, leading to him feeling the urge to reinvent himself as an actor. "As an actor, I had the urge to break my own mold. When I starred in the film 'Where the Truth Lies,' people were saying 'I didn't know he was capable of such actions.' And I wanted to feel that catharsis I had at that time," he said. A scene from the new series "The Bait" / Courtesy of Coupang Play A special town meeting will be held Feb. 28 on whether to move ahead with the proposed $22.5 million Williamstown Fire District headquarters, as depicted in this architectural rendering. NEW MARLBOROUGH Wayne Eline spent 19 of his 34 years in education as a chemistry teacher. But today, you can find him studying the molecules of a specimen you won't find in a high school classroom: wine.On a recent afternoon, Eline held a Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. A boy opens up his milk container during lunch period last year at Williams Elementary School in Pittsfield. Advocates are pushing to make the pandemic-era free school meals program permanent in the state. Korea plans to sell 4 trillion won ($3.25 billion) worth of Treasury bills next month to finance the government's fiscal spending, the finance ministry said Friday. The bills, which have a maturity of 63 days, will be sold in four separate auctions in February, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Treasury bills are usually floated to raise money to cover short-term financial shortfalls and are generally sold with a maturity of less than a year. The debts should be repaid within the year of issuance. (Yonhap) There are many themes throughout the Torah, yet Gods loving relationship with humanity remains the central theme of the Torah. From this central theme, we see various other major concepts emerge, such as, creation, Gods faithfulness, sinfulness versus righteousness, God as the only true living God, the story of Gods chosen people and His covenants with them, and the plan of redemption that God has put in place to save all creation. In the Torah, as Gods loving relationship with humanity unfolds, there is a cycle that continues to play out. It is the cycle of Israels faithfulness, their idolatry and sinfulness, and the judgment and consequences as a result. We see this same cycle happening throughout the entire Old Testament. It may be easy for us today to read the Torah and judge the Israelites lack of faith and sinful tendencies. However, as we learn about the Israelites, it is important to recognize that we can actually see ourselves in their story. God invites us to faithfulness, yet we sin and put other things before God, and end up suffering the consequences of our sins. The Torah invites believers to break the cycle, ridding their lives of idolatry and sin, to enjoy devotion to the Lord. Christians today live in Christs saving grace, knowing that Jesus death and resurrection conquered all death and sin. Through Jesus, our sins are removed and we are put in right standing with God. The Torah alludes to Gods plan of redemption that we know was set into motion when Jesus came. The Torah Is Relevant for Us Today The Torah does not have to be confusing or mistakenly believed to be irrelevant for Christians today. On the contrary, we find Jesus affirming the Scriptures and teaching that He had come to fulfill them, not abolish them. We find Gods precious words throughout the Torah which are relevant to us today for teaching, correcting, and rebuking (see 2 Timothy 3:16). The Torah contains the first five books of the Bible, and the central theme of Gods loving relationship with humanity arises and points us to the redemption and salvation found in Jesus Christ. Jesus truly is the fulfillment of all Scriptures and gives life to those who believe in Him. Photo credit: Getty Images/pcess609 Jeon Byung-mok, center, head of the special committee on financial projection of the national pension, gives a briefing at the government complex in Seoul, Jan. 27. Yonhap South Korea's state pension operator said Friday its fund is anticipated to be depleted in 2055 should the country maintain the current system amid the critically low birth rates and the aging population. The fund is also set to post a shortfall starting in 2041, according to the latest projection released by the National Pension Service (NPS). In 2018, the NPS expected the fund to post a deficit starting in 2042, before reaching depletion in 2057. The adjustment came as South Korea has been struggling with its critically low birth rates. Over the January-November period of 2022, a total number of 231,863 babies were born, down 4.7 percent from a year earlier, separate data released by Statistics Korea showed earlier this week. Its total fertility rate the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime came to just 0.79 in the third quarter. It was far below 2.1 that would keep the country's population stable at 51.5 million. The value of the fund operated by the NPS, estimated at 915 trillion won ($741.7 billion) in October 2022, is expected to peak at 1,755 trillion won in 2040, the operator added. The amount is below 1,778 trillion won estimated in 2018. The government plans to announce a report including various scenarios for the future of the fund in March, and come up a detailed plan for the operation of the pension in October. (Yonhap) PRIVACY POLICY: Cream della Cream Switzerland GmbH DATE: 24 MAY 2018 Welcome to the Billionairecouture.com website. At Billionairecouture.com we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This notice sets out key information regarding Billionairecouture.com and how any personal data you provide to us will be processed. For all other information regarding our services, please refer to our Terms & Conditions. If you would like more information about how we collect, use and store your personal data, you can contact us at any time by emailing onlineservice@philipp-plein.com or writing to the Privacy Team at Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH, Via Pietro Capelli 18, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland. About us The Billionairecouture.com website is owned and run by Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH. Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH (referred to here as "we", "our", "us") is part of Philipp Plein International AG. If we use the term "our Group", this means us and our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries (or any of them). The term "our online services" refers to Plein.com, Pleinoutlet.com, Pleinsport.com, Pleinkids.com, Billionairecouture.com our mobile and tablet applications, our pages on third party social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and any other websites or apps we own or run from time to time. If you use any of our services, we will refer to you using the terms "user", "visitor", "you", "your", "yours" in this policy. For the purpose of the General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR), the data controllers for any personal information we hold about you are Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH Via Pietro Capelli 18, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland and Philipp Plein International AG, Via Pietro Capelli 18, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland. What personal data do we collect and why? We collect your personal data when you place an order, call our Customer Care team, sign up for our marketing communications, browse our website or use the other services offered by our website (www.Billionairecouture.com). The data we collect includes details you provide to us, such as your given name and surname and your shipping and billing addresses. We also collect data regarding your shopping habits and the pages and products you have viewed from your use of the website. We use this data to: Take your orders, process your payments and deliver the items you have purchased; Provide any additional services you have requested, such as our marketing communications; Give you access to services reserved for registered users, such as Wish Lists and product notifications; Deliver your Billionairecouture.com POST, if you are a customer or account holder; Provide you with help and assistance via our Customer Care team; Personalize your visit to the website and ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer. Under the Law, we must have a valid legal basis to process your data. In most instances, we will process your data because we have a contract with you e.g. to deliver your purchases or Billionairecouture.com POST, or to provide you with other services you have requested. We will also use your personal data to send you sales and marketing communications that we believe may be of interest to you if we have your explicit consent for this activity, or if you are an existing customer where we have a legitimate interest in communicating with you. You can opt out of sales and marketing communications from us at any time. Who will process your data? Your personal data will be processed by Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH and Philipp Plein International AG, as the data controllers, and may also be processed by other Group companies acting under our instructions. We may also retain the services of external suppliers to help meet our business needs and may share your data with these suppliers. These suppliers have been selected after a rigorous evaluation process and chosen for their security, reliability and competence. They will process your data only under our instructions. Some of these suppliers and some Group companies may be based in non-EU countries. Where this is the case, the transfer of your personal data to these countries is carried out in compliance with the guarantees provided by law. How long do we keep your data? We will not retain your personal data for longer than is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which you provided that personal data, unless the law permits or requires that we retain it for longer. The retention period varies depending on the purpose of the processing. For example, the data collected during your purchase of goods on www.Billionairecouture.com are retained in accordance with local tax law, while those data used to send you our marketing communications are retained until you ask to be unsubscribed. What are your rights regarding your personal data? Under the Law, you have the right to: Know what personal data of yours we are processing, where that data came from and how we are using that data; Ask us to update, correct or supplement the data we hold about you; Withdraw consent for processing for a specified purpose; Ask us to delete or erase your data from our systems; Limit or oppose our processing of your data; Ask us to supply the personal data we hold about you in an easy readable electronic format or transfer that data direct to a third party nominated by you. You can exercise these rights at any time by emailing onlineservice@philipp-plein.com or writing to the Privacy Team at Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH, Via Pietro Capelli 18, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland. If you believe that the processing of your personal data has been carried out unlawfully, you can file a complaint with the supervisory authority responsible for compliance with the rules on personal data protection in your jurisdiction. This Privacy Policy may undergo changes and additions from time to time. Where possible we will inform you of any changes, but please check the contents periodically. The date of issue and version number are shown at the beginning of the notice. 1. Who is the data controller? Under the data protection law, the data controller is responsible for ensuring that your data is held securely, that you are given accurate information about how your data is used, and that your rights regarding your data are respected. The Billionairecouture.com website is owned and run by Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH. For the purpose of the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR Law), the data controllers for any personal data we hold about you are Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH (referred to here as "we", "our", "us") is part of Philipp Plein International AG. If we use the term "our Group", this means us and our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries (or any of them). 2. What personal data do we collect? We collect and process only the data that is required to allow us to provide our services to you. We collect the following data when you browse or shop at www.Billionairecouture.com: a) We process the personal data required to complete and dispatch your purchase, including your name, billing address, delivery address, payment details, mobile number, telephone number and email address. We collect your email address in order to send you confirmation of your order; we collect your telephone number so that we can contact you if there are any issues with the order. b) We collect your email address when you sign up to receive Newsletters c) If you register for a Billionairecouture.com account, we collect your name, email address, password, country and additional data regarding your marketing preferences. d) When you contact our Customer Care team, we may collect additional data to help us resolve any queries relating to your order, delivery, payments, marketing, the website or any other queries. e) We collect and process data about your browsing on www.Billionairecouture.com, including the pages you visit and how you interact with these pages. If you have registered for an account, we collect browsing data about your access to the dedicated areas of the website. f) If you are a customer of www.Billionairecouture.com, or if you have given us your consent, we collect and process your personal data for direct marketing activities. g) If you provide us with someone else's data - for example, if you purchase a product to be delivered to a friend or as a gift - we will collect and process the personal data required to complete the transaction such as the name, delivery address and other contact details for your friend. If you are receiving an item as a gift, we will process your data only to fulfil the gift request and our contractual obligations. h) When you call our Customer Care team, your call will be recorded for training and fraud prevention purposes. 3. How do we use the personal data we collect? We collect and process your personal data for the following purposes: a) When you purchase a product from www.Billionairecouture.com we ask you for the personal data necessary to allow us to fulfil our contract with you including taking payment, any related anti-fraud checks if you choose to pay by credit/debit card, billing, shipping and delivery of the product and possible handling of the return. b) When you visit www.Billionairecouture.com, we will collect the minimum personal data necessary to allow us to provide you with the services of the website, such as placing and holding items in your shopping bag. c) When you visit www.Billionairecouture.com, we will use some data about your use of the website to help us improve the website and our promotion of the website. This will include data about how you came to the website; the date and time of your visit; products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction data (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page. d) We also collect data about your use of www.Billionairecouture.com by using cookies. More information about how we use cookies and how you can, if you wish, turn off cookies is included in our Cookie Policy. e) When you register on www.Billionairecouture.com, we will collect the data necessary to ensure that we can recognize you on return visits and provide you with the services registration offers, such as creating a Wish List or subscribing to emails. If you would prefer not to continue receiving these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link on the bottom of the email, or by contacting our Customer Care team. f) When you sign up for our marketing communications, we will ask you for your email address. If you would prefer not to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link on the bottom of the email, or by contacting our Customer Care team. g) If you have purchased from www.Billionairecouture.com, we will use the personal data we hold about you, including your purchase history, to contact you regarding products and services that may be of interest to you. This contact will normally be via email, but in certain circumstances we may contact you via other methods e.g. we may call you if an item we know you have been eager to purchase comes back into stock. If you would prefer not to be contacted in this way, you can unsubscribe from emails at any time using the link on the bottom of the email or update your contact preferences on www.Billionairecouture.com or by contacting our Customer Care team. h) We analyze contact data, purchase history, web browsing data and lifestyle data to tailor our marketing communications, web site presentation and internet advertising to meet your preferences. For example, if you have been browsing or have previously purchased a particular shoe model we may send you an email to tell you that these are now on sale or display similar products to you as part of our internet advertising. i) When you contact our Customer Care team, we will use the personal data you provide and that we have collected to respond to your requests for help or information. 4. What is our legal basis for processing your personal data? Under the Law we must have a valid reason for using your personal data and we may not collect, store or use data about you that is not compatible with that reason. There are four valid reasons for our use of your personal data: I. Most of the data we collect from you is necessary to allow us to fulfil our contract with you or to enter into a contract with you e.g. you provide a billing address and email address when your purchase an item from www.Billionairecouture.com so that we can process your payment and send you your order confirmation. II. In certain circumstances we will ask for your permission or consent to use your personal data e.g. if we would like to send you marketing information about items we believe may be of interest to you via email. If you have given your consent to our use of your personal data, you are entitled to withdraw this consent at any time. III. We may also have a legitimate interest in using your personal data e.g. to ensure that the content of our website is presented to you and your device as effectively as possible, or to ensure that our marketing communications are relevant to your interests. If this is our reason for using your data, we must make sure that our interests do not override yours and you are entitled to object to this use of your data. IV. Lastly, we may be required to use your data to meet a legal obligation or to protect your interests e.g. we may exchange data with other specialist organizations for the purposes of fraud detection and credit risk reduction and we will retain financial data long term to meet our statutory obligations. The legal basis for each of the ways in which we use your personal data is as follows: Our use of your data Our legal basis for processing a) When you purchase a product from www.Billionairecouture.com we ask you for the personal data necessary to allow us to fulfil our contract with you including taking payment, completing any related anti-fraud checks if you choose to pay by credit/debit card, billing, shipping and delivery of the product and possible handling of the return. 1.The provision of your personal data for these activities is a contractual obligation. You are free to communicate your data or not, but in the absence of the requested data it will not be possible to finalize or execute the contract and your requests. This means that while you will continue to be able to browse www.Billionairecouture.com, you will not be able to purchase products and you will not be able to use the services of our website such as the Wish List. 2. When you make a purchase at www.Billionairecouture.com, we are required to process your personal data to meet our legal obligations in accordance with the tax provisions and other statutory rules which apply. You are free to decide whether or not to purchase from us, but if you do make a purchase this use of your data will be necessary to meet our legal obligations. 3. When you make a purchase at www.Billionairecouture.com, we will use some of your personal data to carry out anti-fraud activities: we have a legitimate interest in carrying out this activity to prevent and prosecute any fraudulent activity. b) When you visit www.Billionairecouture.com, we will collect the personal data necessary to allow us to provide you with the services of the website, such as placing and holding items in your shopping bag. Our use of your data is necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that the service we provide to you is managed correctly. c) When you visit www.Billionairecouture.com, we will use some data about your use of the website to help us improve the website and our promotion of the website. This will include data about how you came to the website; the date and time of your visit; products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction data (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page. Our use of your data is necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that the service we provide to you is managed correctly. d) We also collect data about your use of www.Billionairecouture.com by using cookies. More information about how we use cookies and how you can, if you wish, turn off cookies is included in our Cookie Policy. You have given your consent to our use of cookies via the cookie banner that appears on the website. You can choose which cookies to accept via our Cookie Policy. Some cookies are necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that the service we provide to you is administered correctly e.g. retaining items in your shopping basket. e) When you register on www.Billionairecouture.com, we will collect the data necessary to ensure that we can recognize you on return visits and provide you with the services registration offers, such as creating a Wish List or subscribing to emails. If you would prefer not to continue receiving these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link on the bottom of the email, or by contacting our Customer Care team. The provision of your personal data for these activities is a contractual obligation. You are free to communicate your data or not, but in the absence of the requested data it will not be possible to finalize or execute the contract and your requests. This means that while you will continue to be able to browse www.Billionairecouture.com, you will not be able to use the services of our website such as the wish list or alerts about new arrivals f) When you sign up for our marketing communications, we will ask you for your email address to enable delivery of our marketing communications. If you would prefer not to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time using the link on the bottom of the email, or by contacting our Customer Care team. You have given your consent and asked us to send you our marketing communications. g) If you have purchased from www.Billionairecouture.com, we will use the personal data we hold about you, including your purchase history, to contact you regarding products and services that may be of interest to you. This contact will normally be via email, but in certain circumstances we may contact you via other methods e.g. we may call you if an item you have been eager to purchase comes back into stock. If you would prefer not to be contacted in this way, you can unsubscribe from emails at any time using the link on the bottom of the email or update your preferences via www.Billionairecouture.com or by contacting our Customer Care team. Our use of your data is necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that you receive information about goods and services that may be of interest to you. h) We analyze contact data, purchase histories, web browsing data and lifestyle data to tailor our marketing communications, web site presentation and internet advertising to meet your preferences. For example, if you have been browsing or have previously purchased a particular shoe, we may send you an email to tell you that these are now on sale or display similar products to you as part of our internet advertising. Our use of your data is necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that you receive information about goods and services that may be of interest to you. i) When you contact our Customer Care team, we will use the personal data you provide and that we have collected to respond to your requests for help or information. The provision of your personal data for these activities is a contractual obligation. You are free to communicate your data or not, but in the absence of the requested data it will not be possible to finalize or execute the contract and your requests. j) When you call the Customer Care team, your call will be recorded for training and fraud prevention purposes. Our use of your data is necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that our employees receive adequate training and for fraud prevention. k) We will use the contact information that you provide to deliver service messages such as any change to our Terms and Conditions or Privacy Policy, delivery updates or other non-marketing communications such as fraud prevention checks. Our use of your data is necessary for our legitimate interest in ensuring that you receive information relating to our contract with you. 5. Who will process your data? Your personal data will be processed by the internal staff of Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH who have been specifically trained and authorized for this processing. In carrying out the processing, the data may also be transmitted to companies belonging to Philipp Plein International AG, to which Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH belongs. Your personal data will also be transmitted to third parties that we use to provide our services; these parties have been rigorously assessed and offer a guarantee of compliance with the legislation on the processing of personal data. These parties have been designated as data processors and carry out their activities according to the instructions given by Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH and Philipp Plein International AG and under our control. The third parties in question belong to the following categories: banking operators, internet providers, companies specializing in IT and telematics services; couriers; companies that carry out marketing activities, including social media organizations; companies specializing in market research and data processing; companies offering contact center services; companies providing publishing and distribution services. Under some circumstances we may be required to disclose or share your data without your consent, for example if we are required by the police, the courts or for other legal reasons. Your data may be transmitted to the police, judicial and administrative authorities, in accordance with the law, for the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the prevention of and protection from threats to public security, to allow Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH to ascertain, exercise or defend a right in court, as well as for other reasons related to the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. 6. Data transfer outside the European union Some of the third parties listed in the previous paragraph 'Who will process your data?' may be located in countries outside the European Union that nevertheless offer an adequate level of data protection as offering adequate levels of protection will be performed only: I. after the completion between Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH and said parties of specific agreements containing safeguard clauses and appropriate guarantees for the protection of your personal data (known as "standard contractual clauses" and approved by the European Commission), or II. if the transfer is necessary for the completion and execution of a contract between you and Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH (for the purchase of goods offered on our website, for registration on the website or use of services on the website), or III. for the management of your requests. 7. How long do we keep your data? We keep your personal data for a limited period of time in line with our data retention policy. The specific retention period will vary according to the reason for processing your personal data. After this period, your data will be permanently erased or otherwise irreversibly rendered anonymous. Your personal data are retained in accordance with the following criteria: When you have purchased goods from www.Billionairecouture.com, we will retain the billing data until the end of the relevant accounting period. When you make a payment, we will retain your payment details up to the certification of the payment and the completion of the relevant administrative-accounting formalities regarding your right of withdrawal and the terms applied for the disputing of the payment; When you provide us with personal data in order to use the services of www.Billionairecouture.com, such as marketing communications, we will keep your data for this purpose until the termination of the service or until you cancel your subscription to the service; When we use your personal data and browsing history to analyze your behavior in order to customize the website and to show you personalized sales offers, we will keep the data for analytical purposes until you ask us to delete it; When we use personal data for market research and satisfaction surveys, we will keep the data until you ask us to stop. When you contact our Customer Care team, we will keep any additional personal data you provide that is specific to your enquiry for as long as you remain an active customer of www.Billionairecouture.com. When you contact our Customer Care team, we might keep the call recording up to 3 Moths. Credit card details are not recorded as part of the call. 8. Your rights You have the right to request a copy of the data that we hold about you (and we will provide this to you free of charge once we have confirmed your identity). If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal data, please email or write to us using the contact details in this policy. If we do hold data about you we will: give you a description of it tell you why we are holding it tell you who it could be shared with tell you how long we will keep the data if the data was not provided by you, we will give you any available information such as the source of the data tell you if the data has been used for automated decision making tell you if the data is stored outside of the European Economic Area, and if so what safeguards are in place to protect your personal data You have the right to ask us to correct any inaccuracies in the personal data we hold about you and to stop us using your data until it has been corrected. We want to make sure that your personal data is accurate and up to date and we will be happy to correct or remove data you think is inaccurate. If you have given us your consent to use your personal data for marketing, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by calling our Customer Care team, clicking "unsubscribe" on a marketing email. You may receive a small number of further communications immediately after unsubscribing but we will implement your request as quickly as possible. You have the right at any time to oppose our processing of your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest. You will need to explain the reasons behind your request and allow us to consider your request and respond. You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data. After receiving and reviewing your request, if legitimate it will be our responsibility to cease processing promptly and to delete your personal data. You have the right to receive a copy of your data that we process based on your consent or on the basis of a contract with you in a standard format. If you wish, where technically possible, we can transfer your data directly to a third party indicated by you. To exercise any of these rights, you can sign in to your account, contact our Customer Care team at onlineservice@philipp-plein.com write to our Privacy Team at Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH, Via Pietro Capelli 18, 6900, Lugano, Switzerland. To ensure that the data of our users are not subject to breaches or illegitimate use by third parties, we will ask you to confirm your identity before carrying out your request. Security We protect your personal data with specific technical and organizational security measures aimed at preventing your personal data from being used illegitimately or fraudulently. In particular, we use security measures that guarantee: encryption or pseudonymization of your data; the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data as well as the resilience of the systems and services that process them; the ability to restore data in the event of a data breach. Furthermore, Cream Della Cream Switzerland GmbH undertakes to test, verify and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of technical and organizational measures in order to guarantee continuous improvement in the safety of processing. 10) CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review in order to reflect changes in our services and in privacy regulation. This Privacy Policy was last updated on 24 May 2018 How this information may be used Whenever you give us your personal information we will use it in accordance with applicable privacy laws and for the purposes set out in this policy, on the data entry forms you complete, in any relevant terms and conditions and on pages or emails which link to the data entry forms. When you use our services: If you use any of our services, register for or attend one of our events, set up, look at or change your account details or contact your personal shopper or a member of our Customer Care team, we will record your personal details. Your information will be used in the first place to provide the products, services or information you have asked for and to provide you with a personalized shopping experience. We keep the information you provide and may use it for several purposes, including: (i) accounting, billing, reporting and audit; (ii) credit checking or screening; (iii) authentication and identity checks; (iv) credit, debit or other payment card verification and screening; (v) debt collection; (vi) safety, security, health, training, administrative and legal purposes; (vii) data matching and dedupe, statistical and market analysis, and marketing information; (viii) advertising and marketing for us, our Group and third parties; (ix) developing, testing and maintaining systems; (x) studies, research and development; (xi) customer surveys; (xii) customer care and to help us in any future dealings with you, for example by identifying your requirements and preferences; (xiii) where required by law or in connection with legal proceeding or disputes; and (iv) any other uses set out in the terms and conditions for use of our services. For these purposes we may disclose your information to one or more of the other organizations listed in the section called "who we will share your personal information with". Saved payment card details will only be shared with our payment partner and not with any other third parties and will only be used to process your order, using our payment partner's systems. We may also use your personal information to send you marketing updates, as detailed in the next section. Tracking how our online services are used: We collect and use third parties to collect and share with us, information from lots of visitors to our online services and analyze it to build up a picture of how people use our websites. This helps us improve the services we offer. We may also give anonymous statistics about visitors to other, reputable organizations, but the information we provide will not include details that would allow these organizations to identify you. For more information on our use of cookies, please read our cookie policy. Customization of our online services and advert targeting: We may use the information you give us about yourself and the information we collect via cookies when you use our online services to build up a picture of your interests. We may then use this information to try to make sure that when we send you marketing communications and when you visit our websites or use our online services, you don't miss offers and information that might interest you. This information may also be used by our third-party advertising agencies and networks, to advertise our own or third-party products and services to you when you visit third party websites and online services. This is called advert targeting or interest-based advertising. For more information on how to reject targeted advertising or interest-based advertising cookies please read our cookie policy. Testimonials: If you give us feedback, we may use it to improve our services and we may publish it online or offline to promote our business and our services. We will ask for your permission before we publish it. Comments and reviews submitted to our online services: If you wish to submit a comment or feedback on a blog or article featured on our services, we may (but are not obliged to) publish your comment online or offline to promote our business and our services. We will collect your name or username which will be displayed next to your comment and e-mail address, which will not be published, but which we may use to contact you in relation to your comment. Social networks: If you follow us or interact with us on any of our pages on third party social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, information you provide will be subject to the third party's privacy policy, as well as this privacy policy. Direct marketing: For information on how we may market to you, please read the section called "marketing opt-in and opt-out provisions". Customer surveys: Every now and again, we may ask you for your opinion on our services and the products you have purchased through our services. When we do research or surveys, we may use cookies and may combine the information collected by those cookies with your answers. Who we will share your personal information with We will share your information with other companies in our Group, who may use it for their own business purposes, as set out in their privacy policy. These purposes may include financial reporting and analysis, strategic planning, the development of customer segmentation and metrics to provide a consistent view of our customer base, research and analytics, to help us source the right products in future and make better product recommendations, more effective targeting of our marketing campaigns, the creation of inspiring content and editorial features, the development of new products and collaboration opportunities with designer brands. It will also be used to provide more tailored marketing by phone, post, email, SMS or any other means (electronic or otherwise) and you expressly agree to such use. From time to time, we may engage third party business partners to provide information about you or to collect personal information on our behalf. We may also share or match your data with third party business partners to provide you with the products, services or information you ask for or for interest-based advertising. We may pass your information onto one or more of the following organizations: (i) data processing companies, mailing houses and other third party suppliers working on our Group's behalf; (ii) ad-serving agencies and other advertising intermediaries; (iii) credit reference or fraud prevention agencies, which may keep a record of that information; (iv) research students, universities and other research and development organizations; (v) regulatory bodies, government and enforcement agencies, such as the police. Every now and again, we receive requests for information from government departments, the police and other enforcement agencies. If this happens, and there is a proper legal basis for providing your personal information, we will provide it to the organization asking for it. We collate information about site traffic, sales, wish lists, and other commercial information which we may pass onto third parties, but this information does not include any details which can identify you personally. Where we process your personal information When we use your information as described in this policy, this may involve sending your information outside the European Economic Area (EEA). When we do this, we make sure that appropriate steps are taken to protect your personal information and your rights. By providing us with your personal information, you agree that we may transfer, store and process your information outside the EEA. Governments in certain countries such as the USA have broad powers to access data for security, crime prevention and detection and law enforcement purposes. Marketing opt-in and opt-out provision We offer you the chance to receive news and updates which, depending on your preferences, we will discuss with you by phone or live chat or send to you via email, SMS and/or direct mail. These include alerts for new products, features, enhancements, special offers, upgrade opportunities, contests, events of interest, and one-off marketing promotions. You can opt-out of receiving these updates, if you wish. We, or our third-party business partners, may also ask you if you want to receive marketing if you enter a promotion or attend an event thrown or sponsored by us. Other companies in our Group may also pass your personal information to us for marketing use. Marketing communications you subscribe to will only be sent by our Group. You have the right to ask us not to use your personal information for marketing. At all times, we will offer you the opportunity to unsubscribe from any service or update to which you have subscribed, if you change your mind. Whenever you receive direct marketing from us, we will tell you how to unsubscribe or by email at onlineservice@philipp-plein.com. If you tell us that you do not want to receive direct marketing, we will still contact you in order to provide you with products and services you request and for administration purposes. Safeguarding your personal information We will take reasonable care to maintain appropriate safeguards to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of the information you have provided to us. We have put in place technology and security policies which are designed to protect the personal information we hold about you. We also follow the security procedures that applicable privacy laws require. These covers storing, using and releasing any information you have provided and, as well as measures designed to prevent unauthorized access or use. When you place an order or access your account information, we use a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption which encrypts your information before it is sent to us to protect it from unauthorized use. How we can make changes to this policy We may update this privacy policy from time to time so you may want to check it each time you give us personal information or use our websites. If you require more information, please contact our privacy officer at onlineservice@philipp-plein.com Cookie Policy What is a cookie and what is its purpose? A cookie is a small file that is sent to the browser and saved on your device when you visit a website like Billionairecouture.com ("the website"). Cookies allow the site to function efficiently and improve its services, in addition to providing information to the site owner for statistical or advertising purposes, primarily to personalize your navigation experience by remembering your preferences (for example, remembering the language and currency you set, in order to recognize you at the next visit, etc.) Which cookies do we use and for what purposes? Our website uses various types of cookies and similar technologies, each of which has a specific function. Below is a table explaining them. Type of cookie function 1. Navigation cookies From the first access these cookies allow the website to function correctly and allow you to view content on your device by recognizing the language and market of the country from which you've chosen to connect. If you are a registered user, they will allow you to be recognized and to access the services offered from the dedicated areas. Navigation cookies are technical cookies and are needed for the functioning of the website. 2. Functional cookies These cookies allow, based on your express request, for you to be recognized when you subsequently access the website, so that you do not have to enter your information each time (for example: Remember me"). If you have added items into your Shopping Bag and closed the session without completing the purchase and without eliminating those items, these cookies allow you to continue the shopping experience the next time you access the website (within a limited period,) finding the same articles that were selected. Functional cookies are not essential to the functioning of the website, but rather improve navigation quality and experience. 3. Analytical cookies These cookies are used to prepare statistical analyses on the navigation methods of our website's users. Cream della Cream Switzerland GmbH treats the results of these analyses anonymously and exclusively for statistical purposes only if the service provider uses the cookies to connect to the browser used or other devices used to navigate on the website. The website uses certain third-party services which, entirely independently, install their own cookies. Our own and third-party marketing and profiling cookies These cookies are aimed at creating user-related profiles to send commercial messages that meet the preferences shown during the visit, or to improve your navigation experience: while you navigate on our website, these cookies are useful for showing you products of interest to you or which are similar to those you have viewed. Third party cookies are those that have been sent by our trusted third-party companies. These cookies allow you to be provided with our commercial offering on other affiliated websites (retargeting). With third party cookies we do not have control of the information provided by the cookie and we do not have access to this data. This information is entirely controlled by third party cookies as described in the respective privacy policy. 4. Social Network cookies These cookies are necessary to allow your social account to interact with our website. For example, they are used to express your appreciation and to share it with your social networking friends. The social network cookies are not needed for navigation. Tonight's rundown: Talking Points Memo: Joe Biden continues to decline with the world watching and remains out of the press reach Presidential Historian Larry Cook weighs in on how Bidens relationship with the press compares to past presidents US Special Forces have been confirmed to be in Ukraine OReilly describes Democrats hosting the DNC in Chicago as Crazy Arrogant The trial of Fox News gets underway 58% of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck even as inflation begins to cool off Smart Life: Utilizing Kelly Blue Book when searching for a new car This Day in History: FDR dies in office Final Thought: what to do when someone is disrespectful to you In Case You Missed It: Read Bill's latest column, "Reason to Believe" Join 'Team Normal!' Order your gear now at BillOReilly.com! Pre-order Bills next bestseller Killing the Witches NOW Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices NIB organises National Summit on Quality of Biologicals to bring together stakeholders While virtually inaugurating the National Summit on Quality of Biologicals, organised by the National Institute of Biologicals (NIB) in New Delhi, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya urged NIB to further strengthen the training programs to prepare qualified human resource in this particular field. Dr Mandaviya also highlighted the need to initiate studies using state-of-the-art analytical platforms to promote the development of pharmacopeial monographs for new biologicals made from updated technologies. He said that if such products are developed indigenously, the treatments will become more affordable for the common man and also our public health system will become stronger. Industry, academia and the regulatory network will have to work together to spur indigenous development of new biological medicines, including existing drugs for the treatment of rare and neglected diseases, innovation on new product categories such as gene therapy, stem cell therapy and personalised medicines, he stated. Further, highlighting the need to adopt digital interventions in the biopharma industry, Dr Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, urged the biopharma manufacturers to evolve keeping disruptive changes in mind, and build bioprocess models for the future. The regulators as well as the testing laboratories should also keep in pace with the emerging technologies and practices so that lifesaving medicines are introduced into the market at fastest possible pathway. She also urged the industry representatives to focus on increased thrust on R&D and innovation, self-reliance in API, upgrading quality standards, increased digitisation, regulatory simplification and increased thrust towards exports. The call for the Arts and Culture Trust (Act) Nyoloha Scholarship Programme (NSP) 2023 is now open and will run until 10 March 2023. Applicants who wish to study towards a performing, visual or digital arts degree starting in the 2024 academic year must be between the ages of 17 to 25 years with a matric (university exemption), and not be currently registered at a tertiary or accredited institution. The Act NSP 2023 programme includes a category for digital arts candidates who should prepare to submit their portfolios comprising four artworks, while candidates in the performing arts category should prepare to submit two audition videos fitting the criteria. This joint initiative creates an opportunity to fund higher education for young South African performers and visual and digital artists. One successful applicant in each category, ie performing arts and visual or digital arts will receive a fully paid scholarship valued at no more than R350,000 to study at a tertiary or accredited South African arts institution of their choice. To qualify for the scholarship, you must not be considered a professional artist and cannot already be registered and studying at a tertiary or accredited institution. Parental or guardian consent and a registration fee of R100 are required when applying to audition for a spot on the premium 2023 programme. Shortlisted applicants will be invited for virtual interviews via Zoom at a date and time to be scheduled. The programme is comprised of online training and mentorship with industry experts. Participants are required to engage actively and participate in tasks, which will be evaluated monthly using a rating system to choose the 15 programme finalists who will compete in a final performance showcase and visual or digital art exhibition where the winners in each of the two categories will be revealed. The 15 finalists will all travel to Johannesburg for the final week of training and gala preparation with Act covering flights, ground travel, accommodation and catering. Historically, the arts and culture sector has positively impacted the shaping of futures for so many, but where does talent go without knowledge or education?. Across various disciplines, the arts have nurtured and developed talent and have contributed significantly to job creation. A tertiary education exposes artists to a wide range of knowledge, resources and networks which greatly impacts the professional trajectory of a young artist, says Act interim CEO, Jessica Denyschen. Fortnightly activities for the Act NSP will be managed by Act-appointed mentors who will engage regularly with mentees and provide professional support. In the final week of each month, the work undertaken by the mentees will be rated as part of the shortlisting exercise. Students who dont make the ratings will continue with the programme, but they will not be eligible for the finals. The final week will be comprised of masterclasses facilitated by industry leaders and will be attended by the 15 finalists, culminating in a gala function to announce the two winners of a fully paid scholarship to study at an arts institution of their choice in South Africa. Tobie Badenhorst, head of group sponsorships and cause marketing at Nedbank says, Whether you are in the visual and digital arts, dance, drama, music, singing and performance, we encourage you to apply. In addition to giving yourself a chance at winning one of the scholarships, up to 75 applicants will receive life-changing professional training and mentorship to help them graduate as global citizens in the arts who not only excel in their artform but are also well prepared for the world of work. The goal of the Act Nyoloha scholarship programme is to help all of you to achieve a successful and sustainable career. Go here to apply. Total Energies SA has for the second year running, partnered with Afrika Tikkun to donate stationery and backpacks to school-going young people from Afrika Tikkun's five community centres. The donation, valued at R1m, benefitted 2,726 children and young people in our learners of our Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Child and Youth Development (CYD) programmes at our centres in Braampark, Orange Farm, Diepsloot, and Alexandra in Gauteng, and Mfuleni in the Western Cape. The backpacks and stationery were distributed in concurrent events at the centres on 19 January 2023. This generous donation is part of Total Energies corporate social investment programme that has Youth Inclusion and Education as one of its key focus areas. Total Energies values long-term partnerships with non-profit organisations such as Afrika Tikkun, as a means to bring about meaningful and sustainable change in the communities they serve. Our ability to enable children to go to school is only possible through the generosity of corporates such as Total Energies, explained Agnes Sibanda, the chief executive officer of Afrika Tikkun Foundation. She also acknowledged the long-standing partnership between Total Energies and Afrika Tikkun Foundation and expressed the Foundations gratitude for the support. Total Energies has been supporting Afrika Tikkuns Child and Youth Development Programme for several years. Speaking during the handover of stationery to the beneficiaries, Julia Thobakgale the Child and Youth Development Programme manager at Afrika Tikkuns Wings of Life Centre in Diepsloot said: The beginning of the school year is an expensive time for most low-income families in the Diepsloot community. Most children are likely to fall behind due to a lack of basic school stationery, which they do not get at school. This kind gesture by Total Energies gives our children a fair shot at academic success, and we are truly grateful for the donation. For brands to achieve maximum exposure coupled with consumer 'buy-in', they not only need to identify premium media locations, but identify those locations that provide access to a desired target audience. This is key to ensuring that advertising campaigns are effective in keeping consumers engaged and ultimately making purchases. This is where the Out of Home (OOH) industry is getting it right with a strategic focus on big data designed specifically to elevate clients' advertising campaigns. Street Network, a Provantage company, has partnered with Lightstone, a leader in property and automotive data, to launch a holistic street furniture advertising audience measurement. The proprietary audience measurement will be critical in helping brands and advertisers connect with targeted consumers, while simultaneously being able to quantify campaign reach and impressions. This strategic investment in data is led by our desire to keep the OOH industry moving forward and constantly innovating, says John Faia, general manager of Street Network at Provantage. Research already illustrates the effectiveness of street furniture. One in three people exposed to street furniture campaigns recall the advert, with 62% of them having purchased the advertised product online or in-store [ProFusion 2022*]. This new audience data tool can predict which target audiences will see the street furniture advert through real world location data. For quick decision making, the audience has also been segmented into different target markets (affluent, upper and middle markets), and can be drilled down further to provide details pertaining to household income, size and other demographic parameters, including home language. This allows us to supply the right audience for optimum exposure to all our clients, notes Faia. In line with OOH audience measurement standards, Street Networks measurement is built on multiple independent data layers ranging from Tracker data, national AutoParc numbers, vehicle occupancy rates (as used by SANRAL), latest census data and Lightstone property data. Data is collected for each road segment on first-time vehicles and returning vehicles throughout the month. It then compares the total number of trips for distinct vehicles and calculates an average frequency rate. Impacts are calculated on a likelihood to see measure, as not every person who passes a bus shelter, bin or pole advert will take notice. To identify the most appropriate locations and quantify audiences, data is overlayed onto national geographic regions where Street Networks inventory is strategically placed. The coverage areas are defined and other considerations including budgets applied. All necessary data layers are included, which not only indicates the audience type to be reached, but also the reach, impact and frequency. Faia adds that this measurement method highlights Street Networks passion for an audience first approach. We want to connect with audiences where they eat, live and play through our hyper local engagement strategy. Our new proprietary data brings this to life, as this approach is now possible with accurate, reliable, and transparent data. Gauteng currently provides the highest overall reach figures of over 24 million, primarily around the Marshall, Anderson, Fox and Sauer Street environments in the Johannesburg CBD. High reach figures in other areas are also noted as follows: KwaZulu-Natal - In Glenwood around Helen Joseph and Esther Roberts Roads (12,902,948). Western Cape The highest reach figures are achieved in the CBD area around Roeland, Buitenkant, Hanover, Keizersgracht, Strand, Longmarket, Loop, Long and Darling Streets (7,941,950). Free State - Reach figures of up to 4,233,764 are attained in Bloemfontein around Nelson Mandela Drive, Oosburger, and Hill Streets. Eastern Cape - Humansdorp provides a reach of 441,543 within the Voortrekker Road and Siebert Street environments. On average, a bus shelter in Gauteng yields 3,293,891 likely impacts, 522,042 likely reach and a frequency of 7, while equivalent figures in the Western Cape reflect 1,641,894 impacts, 167,998 reach and a frequency of 10. Based on the specific target market and location requirements of brands and advertisers, Street Network strategically packages media solutions to enable the highest audience exposure. Reaching the right people in suburbs, cities and on the streets has just become easier, with big data taking advertising campaigns to the next level. Street network is not only big on impacts, but also big on data, ensuring impacts turn into action, concludes Faia. *Provantage Proprietary Data Fusion statistics Applications have opened for the eThekwini Furniture Cluster and KwaZulu-Natal Clothing & Textile Cluster business accelerators, and promising Black-owned businesses in the relevant sectors are encouraged to apply. The Clothing & Textile Cluster accelerator allows SMEs from the clothing and textile sector the opportunity to pitch their business to leading local retailers including Mr Price Sport, Miladys, Mr Price, Pepkor Speciality and Woolworths, which are looking for garment manufacturing specialists as well as unique sustainability offerings incorporating innovative packaging, logistics and raw materials into their value propositions to customers. For the eThekwini Furniture Cluster accelerator, SMEs from the furniture sector will have the opportunity to pitch to Homewood, Mr Price Home and @Home, which are eager to find suppliers capable of designing and manufacturing products for their end consumers, especially where sustainable and cost-effective packaging, raw materials, and innovative logistics offerings can be incorporated. Connecting SMEs with customers and mentors The purpose of the business accelerator is to connect high potential, Black-owned small businesses with large customers in their sector," explains Kyle Ballard, head of the accelerators at BMA. He elaborates, The outcomes of these partnerships are two-fold: the SMEs gain market access, world-class mentorship from industry experts, opportunities to secure investment and/or preferential loans, as well as invaluable exposure to industry leaders. Big business gains through access to cutting-edge innovation in their local supply chains and optimising their BBBEE scorecard. The accelerator is facilitated through industrial manufacturing clusters, representing various sectors and follows a process of applications i.e. short-listing of applicants, pitch development support, Dragons Den event, business case development and mentorship. eThekwini Municipality is a key sponsor of the accelerator under the guidance of Ravesha Govender, who says, High potential SMEs are identified through the application and screening processes and are then invited to a 'Capacity Building' workshop. Here, SME participants develop their business cases in preparation for the Dragons Den event under the guidance of industry specialists. At the Dragons Den, participants present their business cases to the Dragons who are top executives from the big businesses in each sector, eager to find new high potential, local suppliers. There are cash prizes up for grabs on the day but more importantly, this is where SMEs have the chance to demonstrate their potential to large customers to win the much bigger prize of procurement and supplier partnerships. Applications for both accelerators close on 28 February 2023. For the eThekwini Furniture Cluster, apply here and download the info pack here. For the KwaZulu-Natal Clothing & Textile Cluster, apply here and download the info pack here. Octotel is the Western Cape's largest open-access network, offering uncapped Fibre To The Home (FTTH) and Fibre To The Business (FTTB) services through South Africa's leading Internet Service Providers. They strive to make fibre internet more accessible to all. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh speaks during a media briefing at the Pentagon, Jan. 26, in Washington. AP-Yonhap U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will underscore the U.S.' commitment to the security of South Korea during his upcoming trip to Seoul, a Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday. Sabrina Singh, principal deputy spokesperson for the defense department, also noted the U.S. defense chief looks forward to meeting with his South Korean counterparts, but said she had nothing to offer when asked if Austin will also be meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. "I think you will see the secretary certainly highlight our commitment to the region," she told a daily press briefing, adding, "Our commitment to South Korea remains rock solid." Austin is scheduled to depart Sunday, according to Singh, on the trip that the defense department earlier said will include a visit to the Philippines. His trip to Seoul, first of its kind since May 2022, follows an unprecedented number of ballistic missiles fired by North Korea. Pyongyang launched over 90 missiles in 2022 alone, including 69 ballistic missiles that mark the largest number of ballistic missile fired by North Korea in a single year. Austin and his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup, are scheduled to hold talks at Seoul's defense ministry Tuesday, according to a ministry official. Their talks will be followed by a joint press conference. "At the meeting, the two sides plan to discuss various pending alliance issues, including policy coordination over North Korea and the strengthening of the credibility of the U.S.' extended deterrence," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. Extended deterrence means America's commitment to use the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear, to defend its ally. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh speaks during a media briefing at the Pentagon, Thursday, in Washington, Jan. 26. AP-Yonhap Sydney Seiler, national intelligence officer for North Korea at the National Intelligence Council, is seen speaking at a webinar hosted by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies in this captured image, Jan. 26. Yonhap North Korea is well expected to continue making provocations and nuclear threats this year following its unprecedented number of missile tests in 2022 as it seeks to leverage its military capabilities diplomatically, a U.S. intelligence official insisted Thursday. Sydney Seiler, top intelligence official for North Korea at the National Intelligence Council, also noted that Pyongyang will likely conduct its much anticipated nuclear test if and when it sees the need to. "So when you look at where we are today, it obviously makes sense to look at what's transpired the past year," Seiler said in a webinar hosted by the Center for Strategic and Intelligence Studies, a think tank based in Washington. North Korea fired over 90 missiles in 2022, including 69 ballistic missiles that marked the largest number ballistic missiles fired in a single year. The North's previous annual record of ballistic missile launches was 25. "Bottom line up front, (20)22 should not have surprised us as we have looked at the evolution of the North Korean nuclear threat, in terms of capabilities and intent, and how North Korea is intending to leverage its nuclear capabilities in the diplomatic realm," said Seiler. "So we move through this pattern of announcing capabilities as possible parading capabilities, demonstrating them, fielding, developing the doctrine and training them so that, you know, gradually the deterrent becomes more real, more established and more threatening and more valuable to the North diplomatically," he added. Seiler noted the North will seek to continue building on its nuclear leverage this year with more provocations and threats directed toward South Korea and the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. In this Dec. 27, 2022 file photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during a plenary meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea at the party headquarters in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP-Yonhap North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, center, waves as he departs Dong Dang railway station in Dong Dang, a Vietnamese border town, in this March 2, 2019, file photo. The Ministry of Unification said Friday that it will begin various projects this year with Vietnam's authorities to renew peace efforts for the Korean Peninsula. AP-Yonhap Ministry of Unification plans projects with Vietnam, key partner of both Koreas By Jung Min-ho After more than three years of no progress on the issue of peace for the Korean Peninsula, Seoul is now exploring ways to renew efforts in the country where it came to a sudden halt Vietnam. In an effort to create something meaningful after the fruitless 2019 summit between Washington and Pyongyang in Hanoi, the Ministry of Unification will begin various projects this year with the authorities in Vietnam, such as building up an archive of how the Southeast Asian nation became an economic success story through its radical reforms. According to a written plan Unification Minister Kwon Young-se submitted to President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday, the ministry also seeks to set up a joint advisory group with Vietnam and strengthen ties with experts and scholars in that country. Speaking to reporters the previous day, a high-ranking official at the ministry said authorities in Vietnam agreed to cooperate for the noteworthy cause and meet their South Korean counterparts to discuss possible joint projects. "As we have learned lessons from German reunification over the past 30 years, North Korea took their lessons from Vietnam's example. We need to study what they study to learn what the North has learned so as to better comprehend its views," the official said. Unification Minister Kwon Young-se speaks during a press conference at the government complex in Seoul, Friday, following his presentation to President Yoon Suk Yeol. Yonhap Citing Vietnam's decision to introduce "Doi Moi," the economic reforms initiated in 1986 to create a "socialist-oriented market economy," the official also mentioned the possibility that North Korea might consider emulating the same path eventually. In fact, Vietnam has much know-how to share with North Korea. It fought a war with the U.S. for 20 years before its reunification in 1975 and suffered from harsh economic sanctions (for occupying Cambodia) by many countries afterward. However, since adopting a strategy of integrating itself into the world's free-market economic system, Vietnam has become richer and more stable. In the process, it also restored relations with the U.S. while maintaining friendly ties with North Korea and a one-party system. There were signs that North Korea was willing to learn from its "communist comrade" state. In 2018, North Korea's then-Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho visited Vietnam to study its reforms. It was also reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's delegation informed Vietnam's government that he was interested in visiting a Samsung factory in the country ahead of his summit with then-U.S. President Donald Trump. Yoon asked the ministry to stay optimistic and be prepared for the possibility of Korea's unification, which many now believe is improbable. "The opportunity for unification could come suddenly and it would be achievable only if we were prepared," Yoon said. A man reads a copy of the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's official newspaper, on a bus in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this Jan. 11, 2021, file photo. The Ministry of Unification plans to give the public better access to North Korean media. AFP-Yonhap MEMOIR Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory Janet Malcolm Text, $29.99 I began reading Janet Malcolm as did many a budding non-fiction writer with The Journalist and the Murderer. It was an affront to my cherished ideal that contributing to the record was inherently noble. To Malcolm, the journalist is half traitor, half parasite. They seduce their subject, leech their story then publish it as their own. What about when the author is the subject? If an autobiography is to be even minimally readable, the autobiographer must step in and subdue what you could call memorys autism, its passion for the tedious, she said in 2010. For a writer, tedium is a sin worse even than treachery. Janet Malcolm with her parents as they leave Czechoslovakia. Credit: Under such a harsh light comes Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory, Malcolms posthumously published autobiography. She avoids becoming marooned in minutiae by leading each chapter with a photograph. This exchanges waffle for intimacy and the reader will feel they and the author are on a plush couch leafing through an old photo album. Rarely do you get such clear evidence of such a catastrophic failure of public policy. On Friday, the NSW government revealed the number of feral horses in the Kosciuszko National Park had increased over the past two years by more than 30 per cent from an estimated 14,380 to 18,814. At this rate of growth, the herd could reach 50,000 in the next seven to eight years, the Invasive Species Council warns. Brumbies in the high grasslands near Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains. Credit: Nick Moir Numbers have surged because rain has increased feed and because efforts to cull the animals have been halted by political interference in what should be scientifically driven management of the national park. A group of shoppers have thwarted the plans of two armed robbers by pinning them down in a dramatic citizens arrest in Sydneys west. The pair entered a tobacconist in Town Terrace shopping centre at Glenmore Park about 2.10pm on Thursday and allegedly threatened an employee with a gun before stealing packets of cigarettes, cash and lighters. While the men allegedly robbed the store, a 56-year-old woman noticed their car was parked outside and removed the keys from the ignition. As the pair fled the shop, multiple passersby stopped the men, pinning them to the ground until police arrived at the scene. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size As another Australia Day passes and we debate our past, present and future, an exhibition of 100 images of Queenslands capital from the past 200 years offers Brisbanites the chance to think. Which places symbolise modern Brisbane? Making Place: 100 Views of Brisbane sits in the Museum of Brisbane in City Hall, competing for attention as families rush past to tour the clock tower. William Bustards 1928 painting of Brisbane from Highgate Hill looks over South Brisbane and the old Victoria Bridge. Credit:Artwork William Bustard 1928 City of Brisbane Collection, photo by Tony Moore. The exhibition, from the City of Brisbane Collection, charts Brisbane evolving from an Indigenous hunting ground to a roughhouse penal colony in May 1825 to a 20th century centre of commerce. In one example, English painter William Bustard depicts Brisbane from Highgate Hill in 1928 two years before City Hall was complete. Stephanie Taylor from Brisbane on Highgate Hill in a scene replicating the view of Brisbane depicted in Englishman William Bustards oil painting from 1928. Credit:Tony Moore Advertisement Almost 100 years later former Sydneysider Stephanie Taylor stands in the same spot. Today tall buildings blot out the river, the Victoria Bridge and City Hall. Her generation knows Kurilpa is the Indigenous name for the region, and she comes to the site frequently. Its pretty nuts here. Brisbane is one of the smaller cities and when you see how it has been industrialised, it is nowhere like Sydney or Melbourne. Making Place curator Christine Clark said Bustards 1928 oil painting was being re-examined by historians after Brisbane First Nations adviser Aunty Raelene Baker questioned Aboriginal aspects. Museum of Brisbane head curator Christine Clark. Credit:Photo Tony Moore The humpy is more from the southern states and the shields are from the rainforest shields from north Queensland, Clark said. The feeling is that he has seen images, and he has transposed them. So, he is obviously not painting what he saw of Brisbane. Advertisement Bustards sense of Brisbane place had been recreated second-hand, Clark said, a reminder as the exhibition notes that: Artists are often not drawn by accuracy when interpreting place. Sydney oil painter Cedric Flowers also depicts Brisbane 1830 as a relaxed, idyllic sliver of lawn with boats, the Spring Hill Windmill, the Commissariat Store and other early buildings. Cedric Flowers painted European Brisbanes earliest days as a relaxed place where boats calmly bobbed on the river and Indigenous people watched. Credit:Image City of Brisbane Collection 1965. Photo by Tony Moore He worked from sketches of the time to paint in 1965 an outsiders view of Brisbanes brutally cruel penal colony, Clark said. It is told through the eyes of the colonisers, she said. How they represent First Nations people and that idyllic look of the colony; there is someone having fun fishing, boats are bobbing up and down the river. That is really what this exhibition does. Families are coming to see it and the grandmother will say: I remember that, and then that really starts to generate peoples own stories about their own histories. Advertisement Drama students Peyton Ryder and Leef Hirst had no idea European Brisbane began 200 years ago on the opposite bank of the river as they enjoyed a day out in cosplay outfits. Drama students Peyton Ryder and Leef Hirst say there is no way they could identify that modern Brisbane began on the opposite shores of the river. Credit:Tony Moore Looking over there, you can tell the difference between the new stuff and the old stuff, but now that we know thats where it started, you couldnt figure it out before, Ryder said. The 100 paintings in the exhibition are arranged in themes, augmented by postcards, sketchbooks and small photographs, woven with the knowledge of one of Brisbanes First Nations advisers, Aunty Raelene Baker, a Jagera woman. The Brisbane River has always been central to Brisbanes sense of place. Graphic design company Liquid Interactive constructed a visual compilation of Aboriginal sites in inner-city Brisbane, according to Indigenous researcher Dr Ray Kerkhove. Advertisement The graphic, at the front door of the exhibition, includes rainforests (green), campgrounds (flames) and burial sites at Milton, Kangaroo Point and Eagle Street before European settlement. One part shows a cross-river bridge for Aboriginal people between South Brisbane and Milton, where the Kurilpa Bridge now stands. Today, a plaque nominates the site as where explorer John Oxley may have landed to look for water from swamps at either Milton, near City Hall, or at North Quay. An audio artwork by Lawrence English brings buses, trains, birds, boats and muted conversations to life, while Larrakia woman Jenna Lee links the works with paper flowers in an artwork called Growing Place. The exhibition is told in those multiple narratives, but overlaid on that, is those First Nations stories, Clark said. Awful truths are also brought to light: people were hung from the Spring Hill Windmill in the 1840s. Advertisement The teal independents who swept into Canberra last year through grassroots campaigning will have a friendly competition to see who can gain the highest yes vote in their electorate in the Voice to parliament referendum. A number of us have taken on the responsibility to have record high yes votes to counter areas that have low votes. Theres a little bit of a competition going on among us, Warringah MP Zali Steggall said. The independent member for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, says she wants the highest yes vote in the country. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen We really represent the sensible centre voice and we want to have a fact-based, educated debate. The re-activation of the teal army will complement a grassroots push by a Yes campaign body, Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition, that wants to combine an on-the-ground presence with a well-funded messaging campaign using advertising and prominent leaders. Leder added: These are thugs who are trying to intimidate and put fear into people. If theyre allowed to keep on doing this, it justifies it in the eyes of the public. There has to be a law to stop it. The salute is already restricted in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland and Sweden. The push to outlaw the gesture in Victoria comes after a neo-Nazi group attempted to disrupt an Indigenous mourning ceremony at Coburg Town Hall on Thursday morning. In footage of the incident, four police officers form a line between the neo-Nazi group and ceremony attendees before proceedings were shifted inside. None of the black-clad people involved in the stunt were arrested. The neo-Nazi group was later spotted in a number of locations around Melbournes inner north brandishing banners with white supremacist slogans, which The Age has chosen not to reproduce. Police say they are reviewing body-worn camera footage to determine whether any offences occurred, but said the banner did not constitute an offence under racial vilification laws. Friday marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Australia. Last year, the Andrews government outlawed the Hakenkreuz, or Nazi swastika, and became the first jurisdiction in Australia to do so. Anyone who intentionally displays the Nazi symbol in public faces a year in prison or a $22,000 fine. The ban acted on the recommendation from a cross-party parliamentary inquiry into anti-vilification laws, which called for the display of Nazi symbology to be criminalised. However, it fell short of outlawing other hate symbols such as the salute. Abramovich, who was involved in the initial campaign to outlaw the symbol, said the swastika ban was intended as a first step towards addressing the surge in hate-filled ideology. There was a very strong and unequivocal indication from the government at that time that they are certainly open and willing to look at banning other Nazi symbols, he said. Symes has since reached out to Abramovich to set up a meeting to discuss the logistics of expanding the legislation. Loading Weve been clear theres no place for this hateful ideology in Victoria public demonstrations and displays such as these do nothing but cause further pain and division. Vilification has no place in our community, a government spokesman said. The government will continue to monitor the use of hate symbols and vilification and may consider further legislative reforms at a later stage. But shadow Attorney-General Michael OBrien said it would be hard to believe that existing laws cant deal with this conduct and have the individuals charged. Victorias equal opportunity, anti-vilification, and public order laws should be able to deal with these attempted provocations from a sad little rabble, he said. Many Australians lost their lives in wars fighting against fascism. So it is appalling to see neo-Nazis disrupting public events on Australia Day. Acts of intimidation and racial intolerance have no place in our community and will never be tolerated. Daniel Aghion, president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, backed the push to ban the Nazi salute. But he added that any reform needs to extend to the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act. Aghion, who works as a barrister, said there had only been one prosecution under the act which deals with instances of religious and racial hatred since its introduction in 2001. Its failing because at the moment what you have to do is you have to prove intent to incite racial hatred against a person, he said. The trouble is, its very hard to meet that test. Loading Josh Roose, an extremism expert and associate professor at Deakin University, said neo-Nazi groups had become more active using the salute following the banning of the swastika. They exploit those jurisdictional fault lines and legislative fault lines all the time, he said. So its just a matter of cleaning up or mopping up an oversight and extending [the ban]. Roose said white supremacist groups have other symbols they can use instead, but few have the power and historical significance of the salute which is used to identify and recruit other members. Earlier this month, white supremacist Thomas Sewell flashed a Nazi salute while speaking to the media outside Melbourne Magistrates Court. A man connected with a secretive and ultra-conservative Pentecostal church in Geelong has cried in court after handing himself into police for alleged child sexual abuse offences. The lawyer for the 36-year-old East Geelong man told Geelong Magistrates Court on Friday that his client had made admissions to police and that more alleged victims would likely come forward. A man connected with an ultra-conservative Pentecostal church in Geelong has cried in court after handing himself into police for alleged child sexual abuse offences. Credit: Louie Douvis The man, who is a member of the controversial Geelong Revival Centre, walked into a local police station to self-report his alleged crimes earlier this week. His charges include sexual penetration of a child under 16, three counts of sexual assault and possessing child abuse material. School uniforms in Victoria are evolving to meet student demands, with pants and shorts for girls, trans-seasonal and green uniforms becoming more common. Pant and shorts options for girls became compulsory in state schools in 2018, to increase students comfort and physical activity, and non-government schools are following suit. Year 12 Cornish College students Darcy and Mailli Atkins wearing their new school uniforms. Credit: Penny Stephens An increasing number of Victorian private schools are ditching the requirement for girls to wear dresses or skirts, a survey of close to 150 non-government schools has found. More than one in two now offer pants and short options for girls, a further 36 per cent offer pants to girls but not shorts, and only 10 per cent require dresses or skirts. West Australian Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds has launched defamation action against Brittany Higgins partner David Sharaz, after vowing to vindicate her reputation following the former Liberal staffers rape allegations. Reynolds lawyers at Perth firm Bennett have filed a writ in WAs Supreme Court against Sharaz, claiming the former press gallery journalist posted two tweets last year that were falsely defamatory of her. Brittany Higgins (left), Linda Reynolds and David Sharaz. Credit: Nine. The former defence minister is now demanding damages, as well as aggravated damages, and wants an injunction preventing the material from ever seeing the light of day again. With the trial of Higgins accused aborted, and a $3 million compensation settlement reached between Higgins and the federal government, Reynolds told WAtoday she was now in a position to vindicate her reputation. Tickner, who had lived in the main city of Yangon since 2012, documented the protests that followed the military takeover for his employer Frontier Magazine. In the first few weeks of the coup, the atmosphere was quite amazing. People poured into the streets in their tens and hundreds of thousands every day, day after day. It was like a street party it was amazing to experience it, he says. I remember my editor [and I] we were discussing this and I said, Look, everything seems great on the streets. But the military, I think, was a bit caught flat-footed by the response, and [I told him] it was going to take them a few weeks to build up resources in Yangon, militarily and the police. And in the end, the hammer was going to come down. And thats what happened. Police seek out anti-government demonstrators following the coup. Credit: Steve Tickner The juntas forces were soon gunning down protesters in the street and hauling others away to be tortured. On Myanmars Armed Forces Day, on March 27 that year, up to 163 anti-government protesters including children were slaughtered in a single, bloody day. Tickner was no stranger to conflict zones. A former photographer with the Newcastle Herald and Gold Coast Bulletin, he worked in Afghanistan. In East Timor, he was the last foreign photographer as pro-Indonesian militia embarked on a murderous rampage following the vote for independence from Jakarta in 1999. Later, Tickner was at a temple in Bangkok where six Red Shirt anti-government demonstrators were fatally shot by the Thai military in 2010, and in 2013 he was a Walkley award finalist for his pictures of the Myanmar militarys attack on the Kachin Independence Army, which controls large areas in the countrys north, near the border with China. When the crackdown turned deadly in Yangon, however, it began a ruthless, barbaric campaign to cling to power. Tickner covering a political rally for Aung San Suu Kyi in 2015. One day, after helping an older man who had fallen over in the street as protesters were fired upon, Tickner realised events had taken a frightening turn. We were then running back again towards where the students and the activists were and I got shot in the back of the head, he says. Not, fortunately, by a live round. I still have no idea what it was. But I do know it bled quite a bit and I got quite a large size-of-an-egg lump in the back of my head. It could have been a catapult, it could have been one of those bean[bag] rounds, something like that. After that it became quite difficult. We all had to be on our toes. I was somebody they wanted to get their hands on Members of the media came under increased risk of arrest in the aftermath of the coup as the junta tried in vain in the internet and social media age to prevent news of its savagery reaching the world. Dozens of mostly Burmese journalists have been detained, but foreigners have also been locked up. Tickners American editor, Danny Fenster, spent almost six months in jail, while Japanese documentary maker Toru Kubota was behind bars for 3 months until he was freed in November in an amnesty which also included the release of Australian economist Sean Turnell. An injured demonstrator is carried away amid the initial protests against the military takeover. Credit: Steve Tickner Tickner faced additional scrutiny because he had already been blacklisted by Suu Kyis government in 2020 for visiting forbidden places, a reference to border areas he had travelled to for work that were considered out of bounds. He couldnt simply just go to the airport. Operating without a visa from then on and desperate to avoid being sent to the citys notorious Insein Prison, he carefully avoided spot checks on the street and slipped away from police on three occasions after being chased. One day last June a senior officer noticed him at the hotel where he had been quietly living, raising an eyebrow at seeing a Western face. Tickner was able to wander off without trouble but discovered later that the officer had asked the hotel for his passport. At the same time, an inflamed stomach had been causing him grief and three days after that run-in with the policeman his health deteriorated. Fortunately, as it turned out, it was after collapsing and being rushed to hospital that authorities closed in. When I was about two days into recovery in Yangon hospital after the emergency surgery, the hotel was raided by senior police and senior immigration [officers] looking for me, he said. Obviously, when they got my passport they realised I was somebody they really wanted to get their hands on. So in a way by passing out and ending up in hospital, I dodged a bullet. They didnt know where I was. Having watched two people in the beds around him die, he was then kicked out of the hospital after 10 days its limit for patients unable to foot the steep bill and barely able to walk. It was only after a group of foreign journalists in Thailand heard of his predicament and started a fund for him that he could pay for the tumour-removing operation he had undergone and, with the assistance of unexpected friends, take shelter in a monastery. Tickner would spend months there and at another secret location in Yangon before eventually getting out last month. He wont divulge the mode and details of his departure, which he said was carried out with considerable subterfuge and planning. His concern is that if he did reveal how he left Myanmar it could give up weaknesses in the system to the military regime and expose those who assisted him. Tickner had lived and worked in Myanmar since 2012. They were people who were almost strangers who came in and stepped in and helped me, he says. I was really quite touched by that. These were Burmese people. They knew they were putting themselves at extreme risk by associating with me. There were foreign journalists in Thailand ... and the IFJ [International Federation of Journalists]. A lot of these people, I dont even know who they were. I feel really sorry for the Burmese people While Tickner is safe now, his health problems are not over. He may still require further surgery. But his mind is still very much on the people of Myanmar, whose plight he was committed to ensuring was not overlooked. I really feel sorry for the Burmese population. Theyre going through such an awful experience, he says. And you cant sleep at night because if the military turn up, you want to be wide awake. It has taken me a month to get back to not sleeping in the daytime and being able to sleep at night. This is not just me. This was all of my Burmese friends. A lot of people were just suffering insomnia. The sound you didnt want to hear at 12 oclock at night was military trucks in the street or the local dogs barking, because that meant they were going to raid. That was their favourite time to raid houses. While Tickner obviously wont be heading back to Myanmar anytime soon, his deep care for the countrys future is such that he has compiled a strategic document based on his on-the-ground knowledge and sent it to Foreign Minister Penny Wong. But as the latest period of military leadership enters its third year, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing shows no sign of being brought to heel. Hong Kong: Concert companies prosecuted The Labour Department has brought prosecutions against companies involved in the concert incident at the Hong Kong Coliseum in July last year. The department has completed investigations into the accidents that occurred during the preparation and performance of the concert in respect of occupational safety and health as well as employees' compensation. The investigation revealed that the relevant occupiers and employers, ie Engineering Impact, Hip Hing Loong Stage Engineering Company and Studiodanz Company, were suspected of breaching the Occupational Safety & Health Ordinance and the Employees' Compensation Ordinance. The offences include failure to provide the employees with safe plant and systems of work, and failure to notify the Commissioner for Labour of accidents and to take out employees' compensation insurance for workers. Having consulted the Department of Justice, the Labour Department has initiated a total of 15 prosecutions against the companies. It applied to the court on January 17 for issuing the summonses and the case has been scheduled for fresh hearing at the Kowloon City Magistrates' Courts on March 27. The Labour Department said it will not tolerate the illegal acts, and will strictly enforce the law and do its utmost to protect the occupational safety and health as well as statutory rights of employees. This story has been published on: 2023-01-27. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. By Azernews Qabil Ashirov The Azersky satellite is monitoring water management areas in Azerbaijan, Azernews reports. Within the framework of the cooperation agreement, signed between Azercosmos and the Azerbaijani Amelioration and Water Management OJSC, water management areas are being monitored with the images obtained from the Azersky satellite. The Ministry of Digital Development and Transport released information that the 34km Valvalachay-Taxtakorpu water canal was monitored at the initial stage. The ministry added that the condition of the hydro-technical facilities on the channel was evaluated through satellite images. Changes that may occur in the surrounding areas of the canal as a result of the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors have been analyzed, and appropriate schematic plans have been prepared. Notably, water resources in Azerbaijan are continuously monitored through the Azersky satellite. Based on the monitoring results of satellite images, important projects are being implemented in the direction of determining the volume of water reservoirs, the effect of climate changes on the water balance in lakes and rivers, improving water supply, and meeting the demand for irrigation water of agricultural fields. Azercosmos also monitors reservoirs, mountain lakes, and rivers in the region with satellite images for the efficient use of water resources in the liberated territories. Korea's top diplomat said Thursday it would be ideal for Japanese companies to voluntarily participate in compensation of Korean victims of wartime forced labor under 2018 rulings by Seoul's Supreme Court. Last month, Seoul formally floated the idea of using a public foundation based in Korea to pay the compensation for Korean victims who won lawsuits against two Japanese firms Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp. Seoul and Tokyo have held several rounds of working-level consultations on ways to resolve the issue. In an interview with Korean broadcaster SBS Thursday, Foreign Minister Park Jin said it would be "desirable for Japanese companies to take measures of responding voluntarily and sincerely with a sense of historical consciousness." In response to opposition by victims and civic groups to the idea of using a Korean foundation, Park said "the most important thing is to listen attentively to the opinions of the victims." Park also expressed regret over Tokyo's latest move to have a mine linked to forced labor of Koreans listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He urged Japan to implement its pledge from 2015 to honor and recognize wartime forced labor victims at the country's industrial revolution sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list. (Yonhap) Washington: Dramatic body camera footage of the night Nancy Pelosis husband was viciously attacked has been released, capturing the harrowing moment he was bludgeoned with a hammer by a conspiracy theorist looking for the then-US Speaker of the House of Representatives. Three months after the incident, a San Francisco court on Friday (Saturday AEDT) released audio and video recordings showing the moments before, during and after the attack, including the 911 call Paul Pelosi made while the intruder was in the couples house, and the moment he attempted to grab the weapon from his assailant. This image from video from police body-worn camera footage. Credit: San Francisco Police Department The body camera was worn by San Francisco police officer Colby Wilmes, and shows him and another officer knocking on the door of the Pelosi home in Pacific Heights, an affluent neighbourhood in San Francisco, on October 28. Paul Pelosi opens the door in a night shirt and shorts, standing next to intruder David DePape, who is wearing shorts and a jumper with his hair tied back in a ponytail. Each of the men have their hands on a hammer. New York: Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with murder in the death of a Black motorist, Tyre Nichols, from injuries he sustained in a violent encounter following a traffic stop, prosecutors said. Nichols, a 29-year-old father, died while hospitalised on January 10, three days after the confrontation during his arrest by the five police officers. Rodney Wells, stepfather of Tyre Nichols speaks during a memorial service for the 29-year-old. Credit: AP Officials were expected on Friday evening (Saturday AEDT) to release police body-worn camera video of the incident, which a lawyer for Nichols family likened to the notorious footage of Los Angeles police officers beating Black motorist Rodney King more than 30 years ago. Were here today because of a tragedy that wounds one family deeply but also hurts us all, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said at a news conference announcing the charges. Italian automaker Automobili Lamborghini on Friday reported record sales in India with 92 units in 2022, growing at 33 per cent from the previous year. The company, which sells a range of super luxury cars with prices starting from Rs 3.16 crore in India, had recorded its previous best-ever sales in the country in 2021 with 69 units. Before that its best sales was in 2019 when it had sold a total of 52 units. Globally, the company said 2022 saw the best sales figure ever and delivered 9,233 cars worldwide, an increase of 10 per cent over the previous year. "In all the macro-regions the sign was clearly positive, maintaining a homogeneous and consistent distribution, with Asia registering a 14 per cent, followed by America with (over) 10 per cent and EMEA with (over) 7 per cent compared to 2021. Sales in the key markets broke all records," Automobili Lamborghini said in a statement. Further, the company said, "Along with the Chinese Mainland, which is one of the markets that contributed to the substantial sales performance in Asia Pacific region, India also recorded a significant increase of 33 per cent and attributed to 92 cars delivered in 2022." The US continued to be its top market with 2,721 cars delivered, up 10 per cent, followed by Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong and Macau at 1,018 units, up 9 per cent and Germany with 808 units, a growth of 14 per cent. In the UK, the company sold 650 cars, up 15 per cent and in Japan 546 cars were delivered at a growth of 22 per cent over the previous year. Also Read High taxation limits growth of India's super luxury car market: Lamborghini Lambo accelerates India plans, goes full throttle on Tier-I, -II cities Lamborghini launches Urus Performante in India priced at Rs 4.22 cr Apple gets Lamborghini veteran onboard to help boost EV programme Auto sales up 57% during Navratri as all categories put up strong show JK Tyre launches specialised product range, sees demand from EV, SUVs Tata Motors to hike prices of passenger vehicles by 1.2% from Feb Toyota commences bookings of new multipurpose diesel vehicle Innova Crysta Maruti to roll out its first EV next fiscal, five more by FY30: Suzuki Weak exports remain an overhang in the near term for Bajaj Auto "Our trend of growth and development continues, and this shows that our direction is sound and our choices are on the mark...We have been able to carefully and meticulously manage an extraordinary order intake, pursuing a clear strategy with the primary objective of maintaining controlled growth to protect the exclusivity of our brand," Automobili Lamborghini Chairman and CEO Stephan Winkelmann said. Automobili Lamborghini Asia Pacific Regional Director, Francesco Scardaoni said it was an incredible year for Lamborghini Asia Pacific region as the company witnessed a positive growth across key markets such as Chinese Mainland, Hongkong and Macau, Japan and similarly in India as well. "In the latter, indeed, we have also noticed a double-digit growth in terms of deliveries and it is one of the top performing regional markets that recorded the most in terms of order collection on our latest Lamborghini models," he added. On the outlook, Winkelmann said 2023 is going to be "a year of challenges and changes that we are ready to confront by always pushing ourselves beyond." He further said, "We now have the opportunity to focus on our next objectives also thanks to an 18-month waiting list, which enables us to look to the future and the upcoming goals with confidence. The startups said that the company is using the same "playbook" it employed in Europe and South Korea and exploiting "loopholes" to comply with the order that came into effect on January 26. The recent changes by Google to its Android operating system and Play Store policies are "delaying tactics" and "cosmetic in nature", Indians internet starups said, according to a report in the Economic Times (ET). The tech giant has appealed against the order of Competition Commission of India (CCI) that imposed a fine of Rs 1,337 crore for anti-competitive practices. "Implementation of these changes across the ecosystem will be a complex process and will require significant work at our end and, in many cases, significant efforts from partners, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and developers," Google said in a blog post. Google announced five changes to the way it operates on Wednesday. These include allowing device makers in India to license its individual apps for pre-installation and giving an option to users to choose their default search engine. "Despite CCI's directive, why is Google not allowing users to uninstall Google Maps and other apps and why is Google not allowing other app stores to be distributed through Google Play Store?" Rohan Verma, CEO of MapMyIndia, told ET. The company, according to ET, has started the process of complying with the conditions laid down by CCI. On January 19, the Supreme Court denied giving interim relief to the tech giant and asked it to pay 10 per cent of the fine. Also Read Google may face a third CCI fine in less than a month. Now for Android TV Indian developers benefit from Android, Play: Google on CCI penalty Google says CCI's orders strike blow at digital adoption in India Indian app developers hail CCI penalty on Google as 'collective victory' Why does Google find itself in CCI's crosshairs? Rolls-Royce's performance 'unsustainable', says CEO Tufan Erginbilgic Hindenburg vs Adani: Short selling not shareholder activism, says InGovern Microsoft partners with global solar leader Qcells to curb carbon emissions BharatPe loses Rs 5,610 cr in FY22 after change in fair value of CCPS Air India's progress has been nothing short of stunning: CEO Wilson The company on Friday launched low-resistance tyres for EVs; it also introduced smart tyres that give real-time updates about pressure, temperature and punctures to a drivers mobile phone app. Tyres that give electric vehicles (EV) a longer run on a single charge by reducing resistance: JK Tyre is betting there is a market for such specialised products. Anuj Kathuria, president (India) at JK Tyre & Industries said the industry focus is on making fuel-efficient engines, but tyres can too can help. This becomes more relevant as the adoption of EVs increases. In an EV either one can reduce the dead-weight (batteries are a large part of EV weight) or one can overcome the rolling resistance, Kathuria said. It is in talks with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for Ranger HPe tyres meant for EV customers. The Ranger X-AT tyres, designed to handle extreme terrains, are made for the SUV segment of the passenger car market. Kathuria said that any JK Tyre can be retrofitted to be converted into a smart tyre. The cost of changing four tyres of a vehicle into sensor-fitted smart tyres would cost around Rs 3,000. Its smart tyres have sensors that will send alerts to a drivers mobile app in case the temperature or pressure is beyond safety limits or there is a puncture. These sensors will be made by Treel, a subsidiary of JK Tyres. Also Read OnePlus Monitor X 27, Monitor E 24 launched in India: Know price and specs OnePlus Monitor X 27, Monitor E 24 set to launch in India on December 12 Realme Flat Monitor FullHD review: Basic, but makes a good secondary screen Better grip on future for tyre stocks: Tread on easing input cost, demand Tyre stocks on a roll; Apollo Tyres hits record high, Ceat 52-week high DGCA slaps Rs 10 lakh fine on Go First for Bangalore airport incident SAIL-Bhilai Steel Plant crosses 1 MT in plate production in FY23 Vedanta's Q3 net profit falls 42%, announces dividend of Rs 12.5 a share Anupam Rasayan net profit jumps 43.61% to Rs 54.43 crore in Dec qtr Glenmark Life Sciences profit rises 1% in Dec quarter on API strength The company will launch a smart tyre variant for commercial vehicles (CVs) to track location with GPS. It is working with large fleet owners for this product. JK sells around 300,000 passenger car tyres in the replacement market every month. If light trucks and some other vehicles are are included the number expands to 700,000 units every month, Kathuria said. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday, while presiding over a 'Hatey Khori' event held in the state on the occasion of Saraswati Puja, said Bengali is the 2nd-largest spoken language in Asia and 5th in the world. "We must remember that we should learn our mother tongue no matter where we live," she added. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also congratulated West Bengal governor Dr CV Ananda Bose for taking a particular interest in Bengali. "I want to congratulate the Governor for taking special interest in our mother tongue," she said. The West Bengal chief minister was attending Governor Bose's 'Hatey Khori' event at Raj Bhavan in Kolkata. The 74th Republic Day was celebrated with characteristic fervour and enthusiasm across West Bengal on Thursday, with Governor Bose presiding over an hour-long parade by the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, policemen, and civilians, including students. Also Read On teachers' day, President Murmu bats for teaching in mother tongue Uphold dignity of India's democratic values: Mamata Banerjee on I-Day CJI Lalit restored public confidence in judicial system: CM Mamata Mamata Banerjee to attend PM-convened meeting in New Delhi on Dec 5 Govt completes mother tongue survey of 576 languages across country US instrumental partner during India's transformative journey: Ambassador Inspired by PM's resolve, UP made significant efforts to foster sports: CM Egypt may allocate land to Indian industries in Suez Canal Economic Zone 13 students detained at Jamia not yet released by police, says SFI Republic Day an occasion to rededicate to constitutional values: Kharge A military helicopter showered rose petals on Red Road, the venue of the official programme. The Governor hoisted the Tricolour. Also present on the occasion, apart from Banerjee were her Cabinet colleagues, senior officials of the state, and the three wings of the Indian Armed Forces. Congress on Friday demanded discussion in the Parliament during budget session on losing 26 patrolling points at the LAC in Ladakh, and alleged that after 17 rounds of talks, the restoration of status quo was not done. Citing three-day Annual DGP-IGP's Conference in which a detailed Security Research Paper was submitted for discussion, the Congress alleged that it revealed shocking facts about the rank apathy by Modi Govt to China's illegal occupation of India's territory in the region. Addressing a press conference, Media Chairman of the party Pawan Khera said, "India lost access to 26 out of 65 Patrolling Points (PP), which was not the case before May 2020, and the subsequent Galwan clash where 20 bravehearts sacrificed their lives. He stated as per the paper "Presently, there are 65 PPs starting from Karakoram pass to Chumur which are to be patrolled regularly by the ISFs (Indian Security Forces). Out of 65 PPs, our presence has been lost in 26 PPs (i.e. PP no. 5-17, 24-32, 37, 51,52,62) due to restrictive or no patrolling by the ISFs (Indian Security Forces). Later on, China forces us to accept the fact that, as, such areas have not seen the presence of ISFs or civilians since long, the Chinese were present in these areas. This leads to a shift in the border under control of ISFs towards Indian side and a buffer zone is created in all such pockets which ultimately leads to loss of control over these areas by India. This tactic of PLA to grab land inch-by-inch is known as Salami Slicing." He said PLA has taken advantage of the buffer areas in this de-escalation talks by placing their best cameras on the highest peaks and is monitoring the movements of Indian forces. This peculiar situation can be seen at Black top, Helmet top mountains in Chushul, at Demchok, at Kakjung, at Gogra Hills in Hot Springs and at Depsang Plains near Chip Chip river. Khera said as per the paper "Till September 2021, senior officers of district administration and security forces would easily patrol till Karakoram Pass (35 km from Daulat Beg Oldie) in the DBO sector, however, restrictions in the form of check posts were placed by the Indian Army since December 2021 at DBO itself to stop any such movement towards Karakoram Pass as PLA had installed cameras and they would immediately raise objections on the movement from Indian side if not informed beforehand by." Also Read Delhi Police intensifies patrolling in national capital ahead of Diwali Budget 2023-24: Manufacturing sector eyes revised taxations, new PLIs Union Budget 2023: Experts don't expect surprises in social sector outlay Budget 2023: A look back at some major announcements in previous Budget Crypto industry wants 0.1% TDS, Sebi-like regulator in Budget 2023 Bharat Jodo Yatra suspended temporarily in Kashmir due to security concerns Govt needs to lead and set global agenda on smuggling: Think tank report Unnao rape case: HC modifies order, shortens Sengar's interim bail period Toolkit that spreads lies, propaganda, says RSS on BBC documentary Police files charge-sheet on Morbi bridge collapse case in Gujarat The unfenced borders have been serving as pastures for the nomadic community of Changthang region (Rebos) and given the scarcity of the rich pastures, they would traditionally venture into the areas close to the PPs. He alleged that the paper said: "Since 2014, enhanced restrictions on the grazing movement and areas have been imposed on the Rebos by ISFs and this has caused some resentment against them. The soldiers are especially deployed in disguise to stop the movement of Rebos to the higher reaches that could be objected by the PLA and similarly the development works in the border villages like Demchok, Koyul which are under direct electronic surveillance of the PLA suffer, as they raise objections promptly." --IANS miz/uk/ gettyimagesbank By Asoke Mukerji Asoke Mukerji India is one of the 51 original founders of the United Nations (UN). Following its independence from Britain on Aug. 15, 1947, India has "continued" as an original member. Vijayalakshmi Pandit delivered independent India's first major statement in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Sept. 19, 1947. She noted that "the great Powers, instead of coming closer together, are drifting farther apart. There is tension, suspense and anxiety, and an uneasy awareness that things are perhaps moving towards some new and annihilating disaster for mankind," rejecting attempts to make India part of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War, Pandit said that "ideology is less important than practice. We cannot eat an ideology; we cannot brandish an ideology and feel that we are clothed and housed. Food, clothing, shelter, education, medical services these are the things we need." Independent India had clearly articulated its vision of the UN as providing a supportive global framework for the socio-economic transformation of India. This vision has been sustained for the past 75 years. Two major achievements stand as a legacy of India's contribution to the UN so far. First, the successful campaign to democratize international relations, enabled former colonial countries to become independent members of the UNGA with the historic unanimous Decolonization Resolution adopted by the UNGA in December 1960. Second, the incremental positioning of sustainable development issues firmly on the central agenda of the UN and its specialized agencies, encapsulated in the UNGA's unanimous adoption of Agenda 2030 with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015. The SDGs represent a holistic matrix of human endeavor, covering health, education, gender, energy, employment, infrastructure, inequalities, urban growth, consumption, and the environment on land, sea and air. These two achievements were made possible by India's proactive diplomatic engagement with other member-states of the UNGA on the basis of shared values and interests. In 1961, India became a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) that rejected getting mired in the confrontational bloc politics of the Cold War. The NAM today has 120 of the 193 member-states of the UNGA as its members. In 1964, India joined 77 newly independent developing countries to establish the Group of 77 (G77), which currently has 134 member-states in the UNGA. The driving force of the G-77 is the creation of an equitable new international order, based on the Charter of Algiers adopted in 1967, and Agenda 2030 which is the G77's core interest in the UN. The inclusion of democracy and sustainable development added substance to the activities of the UN and its specialized agencies over the past 75 years. The Preamble of the UN's Agenda 2030 underscores that "There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development." Yet, international peace and security are increasingly under threat, primarily due to an increasingly ineffective UN Security Council (UNSC). Currently, over 50 conflicts are on the agenda of the UNSC, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya, Syria, Yemen, the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Ukraine. These conflicts have displaced almost 90 million people across the continents. In South Asia, the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, brought about by the UNSC's refusal to uphold the Doha Agreement endorsed by UNSC resolution 2513 in March 2020, has left half of Afghanistan's population (about 20 million women) without the basic human rights of education and employment, which are integral to the implementation of Agenda 2030. Responding to these challenges to international peace, security and development, Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi proposed an ambitious project to "reform multilateralism", to make it human-centric during the 75th anniversary Summit of the UN in September 2020. The two main objectives of this are reforms within the UN, particularly of the UNSC; and reforms of interlinked multilateral organizations (the UN, its specialized agencies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and the World Trade Organization) to create a coherent global framework to respond to common challenges facing mankind. Developing countries, which form the vast majority of the UN membership, have a direct stake in reforming the UN and other multilateral institutions to make them more efficient and responsive. Agenda 2030's SDG 16.8 contains the unanimous commitment of the UNGA to reform multilateral institutions to "broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance." On Jan. 12-13 2023, India hosted a virtual "Voice of the Global South for Human-centric Development" summit. A measure of the importance of India's initiative can be gauged from the fact that 125 countries responded to this initiative, including 47 from Africa, 31 from Asia, 29 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 11 from Oceania, and 7 from Europe. Participating countries were linked by common concerns regarding issues of sustainable development of priority to them, on which existing multilateral institutions have failed to provide significant outcomes. The outcome of the New Delhi Global South Summit will be integrated into the G20 process by India, which is the current chair of the G20. Significantly, the next two chairs of the G20 are also prominent participants in the New Delhi Global South Summit, with Brazil taking the chair in 2024, and South Africa in 2025. In parallel, India's initiative provides a major input into the preparations for the UN's "Summit of the Future," planned to be held in New York in September 2024. Achieving "reformed multilateralism" through these processes would require world leaders to review the international situation after the disruptions caused by nature and humanity over the past three years, which have set back the momentum of constructive international cooperation. In this context, a decision by the UN's "Summit of the Future" to convene a General Conference of the UN in 2025, when the organization marks its 80th anniversary, would be appropriate. As a leading voice for diplomacy, dialogue and development, India must play a major role in ensuring this objective. Asoke Mukerji is a retired diplomat of India, who retired as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York in December 2015 after over 37 years in the Indian Foreign Service. In the aftermath of its defeat in the MCD polls, the senior leaders of Delhi BJP will take stock of the existing organisational issues within the party at a state executive meeting on Friday. The two-day executive committee meeting will also discuss roadmaps for the upcoming events including the 2024 Parliamentary and 2025 Delhi Assembly elections, a senior party functionary said. A political proposal will be presented in the meeting that will seek to "expose" the Kejriwal government's alleged "corruption and failure to deliver" besides highlighting various initiatives and development works in Delhi by the BJP-ruled central government, he said. A discussion on the party's performance in the past six months will include its defeat in the 2022 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections at the hands of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), an office bearer said. Some announcements of programmes in view of the 2024 Lok Sabha and assembly polls are also expected, he said. The first day of the meeting will be held at the Delhi BJP office on Pant Marg. Working president Virendra Sachdeva will chair the meeting to be attended by senior state office bearers and the party's MPs and MLAs in Delhi. Also Read Two-day national executive meeting of BJP to be held from Jan 16-17 Have to win all 9 state polls in 2023: Nadda at BJP national executive RBI Meeting: All you need to know about additional monetary policy meet BJP's state executive to meet in Lucknow today to discuss 2024 poll plan India's best era is coming: PM Modi at BJP national executive meet BBC documentary: Student's outfit calls for screening in DU's North Campus Mayoral elections: SC to list for hearing AAP candidate's petition on Feb 3 Air India urination case: Court adjourns accused's bail plea to Jan 30 Peaceful screening of BBC documentary at Jadavpur University in Kolkata DLF plans to launch Rs 7,500 cr-worth premium housing project in Gurugram Union minister Anurag Thakur will address the second day of the executive meeting at Ambedkar International Centre on Janpath Road, party leaders added. The vaccine has been approved for use as a primary as well as a heterologous (mix-and-match) booster dose in India. India launched its first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine named iNCOVACC, on Thursday, January 26. Manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, the intranasal vaccine was launched by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Union Minister of Science & Technology Jitendra Singh on India's 74th Republic Day. What is iNCOVACC? Here's everything you need to know about India's first intranasal vaccine for coronavirus: The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) approved the vaccine for limited emergency use as a heterologous booster dose in adults in November last year. iNCOVACC (BBV154) is India's first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine, and can be used for easy and painless immunisation against coronavirus. According to its manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, iNCOVACC blocks both infection and transmission of coronavirus by stimulating a broad immune response. Also Read Nasal vaccines for Covid-19: How do they work and what are their benefits? Bharat Biotech awaits booster dose nod for intranasal vaccine iNCOVACC What are nasal vaccines and how do they work? Bharat Biotech rolls out India's first intra-nasal Covid vaccine iNCOVACC Bharat Biotech says Phase 3 trial over, intranasal vaccine 'safe' India records 99 new Covid-19 cases, active count declines to 1,896 Health Minister Mandaviya launches Bharat Biotech's nasal Covid-19 vaccine India reports 132 new coronavirus cases, active tally decline to 1,906 Booster dose of Covishield offers best immune response: Lancet study India records 102 new coronavirus cases, active tally dips to 1,922 "The launch of Incovacc is an important milestone under Aatmanirbhar Bharat efforts; today, India contributes 65 per cent of the vaccines for the world," Mandaviya said at the vaccine's launch on Thursday. The launch of iNCOVACC comes alongside increased concerns of a new coronavirus variant, BF.7. that has led to a surge of Covid cases in China and may spread in India. What is the price of iNCOVACC ? The intranasal Covid vaccine was initially to be administered at private hospitals only. However, Bharat Biotech later announced that iNCOVACC has been priced at Rs 325 for national and state governments, while for private hospitals and institutions, it is available at Rs 800 per dose. The intranasal vaccine is now also available on CoWIN, says its manufacturer Bharat Biotech. It should be noted that iNCOVACC does not require syringes, alcohol wipes, bandage, etc, thus saving the costs related to procurement, distribution, storage, and biomedical waste disposal. India's political leadership is committed to working closely with the Prachanda-led government in Nepal for giving further impetus to bilateral ties, India's Ambassador here Naveen Srivastava has said. Hosting an event to celebrate the 74th Republic Day on Thursday, Srivastava said the exchange of high-level visits from both the countries had added a new dimension to Indo-Nepal relations. Vice President of Nepal Nanda Bahadur Pun, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' along with ministers, parliament members, former prime ministers, leaders of various political parties, were among those who attended the reception. India's political leadership was committed to working in close relation with the Prachanda-led government for giving further impetus to the bilateral ties, he underlined. Prachanda, who was sworn in as Prime Minister last month, has said that he will travel to India on his first foreign visit. Earlier in the morning at a special function, Ambassador Srivastava unfurled the Indian national flag and read out an address to the nation from the President of India Droupadi Murmu. Also Read Nepal PM 'Prachanda' expands cabinet to 23 with 6 women in ministry Nepal PM to visit India soon; Prachanda's first foreign trip after polls Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda set to take oath as Nepal's new PM today Prachanda set to become Nepal's next PM with support from Oli-led CPN-UML Indian envoy hands over PM Modi's message to Nepal counterpart Prachanda Bharat Jodo Yatra aimed at changing India's situation: Omar Abdullah Budget session: Cong seeks discussion on losing 26 patrolling points at LAC India important partner of choice, says Biden admin ahead of Doval's visit Bharat Jodo Yatra suspended temporarily in Kashmir due to security concerns Govt needs to lead and set global agenda on smuggling: Think tank report On the occasion, he felicitated war widows and next of kins of deceased soldiers by disbursing their dues of NRs. 46 million and blankets. The ambassador also gifted books to various 23 institutions on the occasion. The embassy also unveiled the Bhu Puu-2022 magazine covering the welfare initiatives of the Government of India for ex-servicemen domiciled in Nepal. The celebrations witnessed renditions of patriotic songs and performances by students of Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre of the Embassy and Kendriya Vidyalaya School in Kathmandu. India on Friday issued a notice to Pakistan, blaming it of "intransigence" on the implementation of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), according to reports. Reports quoting sources said that the "notice of modification" was sent to Islamabad on January 25. India and Pakistan had signed the IWT in September 1960 after nine-year-long negotiations. The World Bank was a signatory of the pact. The IWT envisages a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two countries regarding the use of waters of a number of rivers. The reports quoted sources as saying that India has always been a steadfast supporter and a responsible partner in implementing the IWT in letter and spirit. Also Read World Bank steps in to mediate water dispute between India and Pakistan India issues notice to Pakistan seeking modification to Indus Waters Treaty Indus Towers to raise Rs 2,000 crore via NCDs after weak Q2 result Indus Waters Treaty: World Bank appoints chairman of Court of Arbitration Vi to lose access to towers if it fails to clear dues, says Indus Towers As batter focuses on ball, students should focus, shun pressure: PM Modi India signs pact with S Africa to bring 12 more cheetahs in February Forces like PFI not comfortable with 'New India': Tamil Nadu Governor BBC series screening: Left students stage protest at JNU against ABVP Classes to remain suspended at Jamia Millia Islamia today: Varsity order Pakistan's actions however have adversely impinged on the provisions of IWT and their implementation and forced India to issue an appropriate notice for modification of the pact, reports quoting sources said. In 2015, Pakistan had called for appointment of a neutral expert to its technical objections to Kishenganga and Ratle Hydro Electric Projects in India. In 2016 however, it retracted the request and sought a court of arbitration to adjudicate its objections. This unilateral action by Pakistan was in contravention of the graded mechanism of dispute settlement envisaged by Article IX of the IWT, reports quoting sources said. Consequently India made a separate request for the matter to be referred to a neutral expert. The initiation of two simultaneous processes on the same questions and the potential of their inconsistent or contradictory outcomes creates an unprecedented and legally untenable situation, which risks endangering the IWT itself, reports quoting sources said. "The World Bank acknowledged this itself in 2016, and took a decision to 'pause' the initiation of two parallel processes and request India and Pakistan to seek an amicable way out," the sources were quoted as per reports. --IANS ans/ksk/ Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made women-led development one of the main agendas of his government, Union Minister Smriti Irani told a group of eminent women leaders from India and the US. In a virtual address to the first-ever US-India Alliance for Women's Economic Empowerment Shatter Summit here, Irani, the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, said There's a cause for all of us to celebrate, as India leads the G20 presidency. I am proud that Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi has made women-led development one of the main agendas and not limited to a side-line, Irani said. In her keynote address to the half-day-summit being held at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department, Irani highlighted some of the key steps being taken by the Modi government towards empowering women in the country. As an Indian woman, I can proudly say that Prime Minister Modi has been central to his governance plan the issues of women, Irani said at summit, which is an initiative of the US-India Alliance for Women's Economic Empowerment, a public-private partnership between US Department of State, USAI, USISPF, and George Washington University that aims to catalyse private sector, civil society, and government commitments in the US and India to advance women's economic empowerment in India. India's Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu said, the emergence of women achievers in India is not happening in isolation. Rather it is taking place in the backdrop of a series of government initiatives, and targeted efforts to facilitate Nari Shakti (women power). We still have miles to go. Our journey is not finished, till every single woman is able to make her own choices in every way, and achieve them. Gender discrimination, and gender stereotyping need to end. As long as there are still glass ceilings left to be broken, our efforts must continue, he said. In the words of PM Modi, we cannot achieve success if 50 per cent of our population, being women, is locked at home'. Women-led development is a central dimension of India's progress, he said. Also Read 'Steel man of India' passes away at 86: Who was Jamshed J Irani? Goa bar row: No licence issued in favour of Irani, her daughter, says HC Made allegation against Irani, family on Goa restaurant based on connection Delete tweets on Smriti Irani's daughter: Delhi HC to Congress leaders No report of starvation deaths from states and UTs, Smriti Irani tells LS India important partner of choice for US, says Biden administration US 'closely monitoring' India-China border situation: State Department Inspired by PM's resolve, UP made significant efforts to foster sports: CM KPCC screens BBC documentary at the Shanghumugham beach for public India's renewed relations with Egypt: A perspective of 2 developing nations As the largest and oldest democracies, India and the US have a strong commitment to advance women empowerment, Sandhu said as he complimented the US-India Alliance and the Shatter Foundation, for organising the event. As G20 Chair, India has identified women-led development as one of the high-priority subjects. Women20' is focused on gender equity, he said. The group aims to ensure that gender considerations are mainstreamed into G20 discussions and translated into the G20 Leaders' Declaration. We look forward to working with like-minded partners like the United States in this endeavour, Sandhu said. Participating in the panel discussion, Nivruti Rai, CEO, Intel India suggested creating a digital corridor between India and the United States. Shamina Singh, founder and president Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth told the audience that they should never underestimate the power of an Indian woman. Observing that the mental health of both men and women is a serious challenge these days, Art of Living founder and spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar emphasised mental hygiene. Few breathing exercises and yoga postures, along with meditation will go a long way in restoring physical and mental health, he asserted. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the annual NCC PM rally at the Cariappa Parade Ground in Delhi on Saturday, at around 5 This year, NCC is celebrating the 75th year of its inception. During the event, Prime Minister will release a special Day Cover and a commemorative specially minted coin of Rs 75/- denomination, commemorating 75 successful years of NCC. The rally will be held as a hybrid day and night event and will also include a cultural programme on the theme 'Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat'. In the true Indian spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, 196 officers and cadets from 19 foreign countries have been invited to participate in the celebrations. Indonesian Ambassador to Korea Gandi Sulistiyanto speaks during an online event kicking off the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Indonesia, Thursday. Courtesy of the Embassy of Indonesia in Seoul By Kwon Mee-yoo Indonesia marked the beginning of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Indonesia through an online event connecting the two countries on Thursday. Korean and Indonesian diplomats and government officials gathered virtually to celebrate the occasion, and discussed economic partnerships and the creative economy during the event. Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said in a video message that, "this anniversary calls for a closer friendship and partnership," which includes building a greener and more sustainable economy, as well as promoting peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region. Korea's Foreign Minister Park Jin highlighted how cultural and creative collaboration between people is flourishing, as are trade and investment cooperation activities. Indonesian Ambassador to Korea Gandi Sulistiyanto emphasized the strong cooperation between the two countries in the creative and digital economy as well as in trade relations. "Indonesia's total trade with the world from January-November 2022 reached $485.24 billion, which recorded a 26.46 percent year-on-year increase from $384.09 billion. Korea has become Indonesia's seventh largest trading partner behind China, Japan, the U.S., Singapore, India and Malaysia" Sulistiyanto said. Ambassador Sulistiyanto, who took office in January 2022, created a specific unit at the embassy focusing on creative and digital economies and start-ups, encompassing industries such as fashion, music, film, culinary, animations, games and e-sports. "The collaborations between Indonesian and South Korean actors of creative and digital industries are designed to open a path to more productive cooperation so as to foster the Indonesian Wave and Korean Wave side by side," he said. A special anniversary logo commemorating 50 years of diplomatic relations was also revealed at the event. The logo, designed by Agus Istianto, was selected through a competition held last autumn to raise awareness among the general public about Korea-Indonesia relations. According to the embassy, the design symbolizes the long-standing friendship between the two nations as seen from the motif of the Garuda Bird, representing Indonesia's national coat of arms, and the Taegeuk circle, which represents Korea. The embassy said a series of activities are being planned in celebration of the 50th anniversary throughout the year. The event was followed by a morning talk program with two themes: "Highlights of Indonesia-Korea Economic Partnership" and "Highlights of Creative Economy and Cultural Cooperation: In Promoting Closer Ties between Indonesia and Korea," with various government officials from both countries as speakers. Union Home Minister Amit Shah will visit poll-bound Karnataka on Saturday during which he is expected to inaugurate and participate in various programmes in Dharwad and Belagavi cities. Shah will be landing in Hubballi city on Friday evening on one-day visit. Besides attending a mega road show, the BJP leader will also address a massive public rally in Belagavi. With his visit, the party's Karnataka unit is likely to get a boost within the region, considered as a bastion of BJP. Party sources confirmed that Amit Shah is holding a series of meetings to further strengthen the party in north Karnataka region. Apart from inaugurating the indoor stadium of BVB Engineering college of Karnataka Lingayat Society (KLE), he will also take part in Amrit Mahotsav organised on the occasion of completion of 75 years of KLE. Later, the minister will lay the foundation stone for the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Dharwad. He will take part in 'Vijaya Sankalp Yatra' in Kundagol and offer worship in the 300-year-old ancient Shambhuling temple there. He will pay a visit to Basavanna Mutt later. Also Read Karnataka CM Bommai releases logo and mascot of National Youth Festival Karnataka assembly winter session to begin tomorrow amid border dispute Not appropriate for Maharashtra ministers to visit Belagavi: Karnataka CM Maharashtra will pass resolution on border dispute next week: Minister Amid border row, K'taka winter Assembly session begins Monday in Belagavi Crores of students are taking my test too: PM Modi on 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' Delhi BJP to discuss organisational issues in 2-day executive meet BBC documentary: Student's outfit calls for screening in DU's North Campus Mayoral elections: SC to list for hearing AAP candidate's petition on Feb 3 Air India urination case: Court adjourns accused's bail plea to Jan 30 The party has organised a mega road show for one-and-a-half a kilometer and will distribute handbills of the party to a few houses. Minister Shah will address a massive public rally in M.K. Hubballi of Kittur assembly constituency and delivered a speech. The HM will interact with senior members of Sangh Parivar and hold three meetings with party leaders to strategise for the party in the region. As per party insiders, the agitation by the Panchamasali Lingayat sub sect has created challenges for the party and is likely to damage the Lingayat vote bank, which is supporting BJP in the region. --IANS mka/shb/ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would welcome any future opportunity to engage with his South Korean counterpart, a state department spokesperson said Thursday. Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the state department, however, said he had nothing to announce when asked about a possible meeting between Blinken and South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin in Washington. "The secretary has had the opportunity to engage with the foreign minister on a number of occasions in bilateral settings and multilateral settings, and we, of course, would look forward to any future opportunity to do that as well," the spokesperson told a daily press briefing. "But I don't have any specifics to offer," he added. Diplomatic sources in Seoul earlier said the top South Korean diplomat was seeking to visit Washington before Blinken takes his planned trip to China on Feb. 5-6. State department officials, including press secretary Ned Price, have said North Korea will be a key topic of talks between Blinken and his Chinese counterpart. (Yonhap) HarperCollins Publishers and the union representing some 250 striking employees have agreed to enter into federal mediation, the first sign of a possible settlement since the work stoppage began in early November. We are excited to have this opportunity to continue bargaining with HarperCollins and hope they finally are ready to put a fair offer on the table, Olga Brudastova, president of Local 2110 UAW, said in a statement on Thursday. We have been on strike for over two months at this point. It is time for us to resolve any outstanding differences and attempt to reset our relationship. HarperCollins, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, issued a statement saying it hoped that meeting with an outside mediator would provide a path forward. The publisher had not met with union negotiators in months. We entered negotiations eager to find common ground, and we have remained committed to achieving a fair and reasonable contract throughout this process, the company's statement reads in part. We are hopeful that a mutually agreed upon mediator can help find the solutions that have eluded us so far. HarperCollins has had a union for 80 years, with a long history of successful and fair contract negotiations. The company has the exact same goal now, and is actively working to achieve it. Also Read Courts extremely burdened, mediation necessary: Justice Chandrachud Pre-mediation process mandatory in commercial cases, says Supreme Court SC to consider mediation plea to settle SpiceJet & Kalanithi Maran dispute Mumbai taxi and auto drivers to go on an indefinite strike from Sep 15 Gaza strike that killed 5 minors was carried out by Israel: Reports Palestine retaliation: Israeli forces on high alert around West Bank, Gaza Amazon rainforest deteriorating too fast for species, climate to adapt Sustainable development only way to durable peace: Deputy UN chief Hive Ransomware seized after a global sting by US-German law enforcement Google commits to complying with EU rules, says European Commission As defined by the government, federal mediation is a voluntary process through which a neutral third party tries to help labour and management reach an agreement. HarperCollins and the UAW have disagreed on union protections, workplace diversity and wages, with the UAW asking the publisher to raise the starting salary from USD 45,000 to USD 50,000 a range comparable to what other large New York publishers pay. HarperCollins union members who include editorial assistants, marketers and other mid- and entry-level staffers had been working without a contract since last spring. They staged a one-day strike over the summer and walked off indefinitely on November 10. Last week, more than 100 workers held a rally in front of News Corp headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The impasse has highlighted an ongoing debate over working conditions in book publishing, which has long offered low pay to younger employees, making it hard for many to live in the New York City area. Neil Gaiman, Lauren Groff and Angie Thomas are among the many writers who have expressed support for the HarperCollins staffers, and more than 150 agents had said they would not send book proposals to the publisher until a settlement was reached. HarperCollins is the only company among the so-called Big Five New York publishers to have a union, which last went on strike in 1974, for 2 1/2 weeks. The Army chiefs of South Korea and the United States have signed a "strategic vision" statement to broaden areas of their cooperation to include space security and other novel areas, officials here said Friday. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Park Jeong-hwan and his U.S. counterpart Gen. James C. McConville inked it at the U.S. Army's headquarters at the Pentagon on Wednesday (Washington time). Park visited the country Saturday for a nine-day trip. The statement outlines security cooperation between the two sides in areas such as military science, technology and space, in line with efforts to upgrade bilateral ties to a "global comprehensive strategic alliance" as agreed by their leaders in a summit in May last year. Following the document's signing, Park held discussions with U.S. Army generals on ways to boost ties as well as deepen exchange and cooperation. The previous day, Park met with Lt. Gen. Daniel Karbler, commander of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), at the unit in Alabama, according to the U.S. Army. "Through our visit to SMDC, we would like to expand our space field exchanges and cooperation with the U.S. Army to draw a blueprint for ROK army space power," Park was quoted as saying. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea. (Yonhap) MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's Adani Enterprises Ltd began a record $2.45 billion secondary share sale for retail investors on Friday, days after the Adani conglomerate - controlled by one of the world's richest men - was attacked by a short seller. Adani Group firms lost $11 billion in market capitalisation on Wednesday after New York-based Hindenburg Research flagged concerns in a report about debt levels and the use of tax havens. Adani Group dismissed the report as baseless. Adani Enterprises, the flagship company of a conglomerate led by world's fourth-richest man, Gautam Adani, aims to use the share sale proceeds for capital expenditure and to pay debt. The anchor portion of the sale saw participation from investors including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority on Wednesday. Bidding for retail investors started on Friday and will close on Jan. 31. The firm has set a floor price of 3,112 rupees ($38.22) a share and a cap of 3,276 rupees. Adani Enterprises' shares fell nearly 6% to 3,189.55 rupees -- their lowest since mid-October -- in early Mumbai trade on Friday. Indian markets were shut on Thursday for a holiday. In its report, Hindenburg said key listed Adani Group companies had "substantial debt", putting the conglomerate on a "precarious financial footing", and that "sky-high valuations" had pushed the share prices of seven listed Adani companies as much as 85% beyond actual value. Also Read Hindenburg says it holds short positions in Adani Group, flags risks Three trends suggest India is adding short to its video-first market Gautam Adani becomes world's third-richest person, first Asian to do so CreditSights finds calculation errors in debt report on Adani Group firms Adani group to invest $150 billion in pursuit of $1 trillion valuation Banks under pressure; Nifty Bank, PSU Bank indices crack up to 5% in 2 days Adani Group stocks sink up to 20%; CLSA sees limited risk to banks Tata Motors surges 6%, hits over 4-month high on strong Q3 performance MARKET LIVE: Sensex drops 600 pts; TaMo soars 7%, Adani stocks extend slump Stocks to Watch: Adani Group, Tata Motors, Dr.Reddy's, DLF, Airtel, IGL Hindenburg said it held short positions in Adani through its U.S.-traded bonds and non-Indian-traded derivative instruments, meaning it is betting that their price would fall. Adani Group has repeatedly faced and dismissed concern about debt levels. It defended itself in a presentation titled "Myths of Short Seller" on Thursday, saying deleveraging by promoters - or key shareholders - was "in a high growth phase". "I don't see much effect of the Hindenburg report," Esquire Capital Investment Advisors Chief Executive Samrat Dasgupta told Reuters. The share sale "should sail through successfully." Jefferies in a client note said Adani Group had shared details of debt and leverage levels, and that it does not "see material risk arising to the Indian banking sector". Adani Group's consolidated gross debt stood at 1.9 trillion rupees ($23.34 billion), Jefferies said. Adani has said its debt is at a manageable level and that no investor has raised any concern. (Reporting by M. Sriram and Chris Thomas; Editing by Aditya Kalra, Christopher Cushing and Kim Coghill) At its meeting held on 27 January 2023The Board of Vedanta at its meeting held on 27 January 2023 has approved plans for the Group to source 91 MW Hybrid Renewable Power (50 MW for Aluminium Operations, 16 MW for Copper Operations and 25 MW for Oil & Gas Operations) and 600 MW Solar Power (for Aluminium Operations) (Renewable Energy) for its Aluminium Jharsuguda, Copper and Oil & Gas operations across India. Accordingly, the Company will execute Power Delivery Agreements (PDA) through special purpose vehicles (SPVs), i.e., affiliates of Serentica Renewables India (SRIPL) (erstwhile Sterlite Power Technologies) - a company engaged in the business to supply Renewable Energy based on Solar, Wind and Battery Storage solutions. Aligned with Vedanta's ESG vision of Transforming for Good, the move marks the beginning in the series of actions by the Company to deliver on its goal of becoming Net Zero Carbon by 2050 or sooner and using 2.5 GW of Round the Clock (RTC) Renewable Energy for its operations by 2030. Vedanta aims to achieve substantial consumption of Renewable Energy for smelting and associated operations, and meeting power requirements of capacity expansion at Vedanta - Aluminium Jharsuguda, Copper and Oil & Gas Operations. Once this power supply comes online, it has the potential to prevent about 38 million tons of GHG emissions over PDA term from entering the atmosphere. In line with prevailing market practices, these projects will be built on Captive model and Build Own Operate (BOO) basis. The term of the power delivery agreement will be for a period of 25 years from the Date of Commissioning (COD) of the project. The SPVs are expected to start delivering the power within 24 months of the PDA signing. This will be helpful in securing continuous supply of power through Renewable Energy source and insulate our business from commodity market volatility. The project will be funded on 70:30 debt to Equity basis; Vedanta and its subsidiaries will own 26% of equity in the respective SPVs. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Central Bank of India is quoting at Rs 28.5, down 4.2% on the day as on 13:19 IST on the NSE. The stock jumped 24.36% in last one year as compared to a 2.66% rally in NIFTY and a 31.98% spurt in the Nifty Pharma index. Central Bank of India fell for a fifth straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 28.5, down 4.2% on the day as on 13:19 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 1.88% on the day, quoting at 17556.4. The Sensex is at 59263.69, down 1.56%.Central Bank of India has lost around 9.38% in last one month.Meanwhile, Nifty Pharma index of which Central Bank of India is a constituent, has eased around 9.49% in last one month and is currently quoting at 4040.3, down 5.37% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 51.99 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 133.84 lakh shares in last one month. The PE of the stock is 16.17 based on TTM earnings ending December 22. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) anounced that its board in its meeting held on 24 January 2022, has appointed Arun Kumar Singh as chief executive officer (CEO) of the company.The PSU company informed that Arun Kumar Singh has been designated as chairman & CEO of the company. Singh has headed various business units and entities in Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) viz. retail, LPG, pipelines and supply chain optimization etc. He has experience of over 35 years in the oil & gas industry. He also held the position of President (Africa & Australasia) in Bharat Petro Resources, a wholly owned subsidiary of BPCL, engaged in exploration of oil & gas, largely overseas. The company's consolidated net profit declined 54% to Rs 8,299.37 crore despite of Rs 38.2% jump in net sales to Rs 1,68,656.13 crore in Q2 FY23 over Q2 FY22. ONGC is engaged in exploration, development and production of crude oil, natural gas and value added products. The scrip declined 1.67% to 150.15 on the BSE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Election officials in Meghalaya seized over Rs 8 lakh cash and alcohol in West Garo Hills district, Chief Electoral Officer F R Kharkongor said on Friday. Election to the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly is scheduled for February 27 and the model code of conduct is in force in the state. "Unaccounted cash of Rs 8.96 lakh and alcohol worth over Rs 8,000 were seized in West Garo Hills district on Thursday," Kharkongor told PTI. With this, officials have seized cash amounting to over Rs 29 lakh from across the state after the model code of conduct came into force, the CEO said. A senior district police officer said the cash was seized from a person who was driving into the state from Assam. As the person carrying the cash could not provide any satisfactory and valid documents for the same the money was seized. According to the CEO, at least 34 assembly constituencies across the state have been identified as "expenditure sensitive" and flying squads are observing strict monitoring of movement of people in these segments. Two Chinese fighter jets flew through the overlapping parts of the air defense identification zones of South Korea and China earlier this week, prompting the military here to scramble its warplanes to the scene, officials here said Friday. Their flight on Thursday came just before the Pentagon announced Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup, next week in what could be an occasion to highlight their commitment to cementing the bilateral alliance. The Chinese fighters entered the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) at 10:30 a.m. and 11:10 a.m., respectively, from an area southwest of Ieo Islet, a submerged rock south of the southern island of Jeju, and exited it at around noon, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). One of the fighters reentered the KADIZ at 3 p.m. and left it about 30 minutes later. Both jets did not violate the South's air space, according to the JCS. When the two approached the KADIZ, the South Korean Air Force was ready to scramble F-15K combat aircraft and others in a tactical step against a potential accidental situation. The air defense zone is not territorial airspace but is delineated to call on foreign planes to identify themselves so as to prevent accidental clashes. (Yonhap) Bartek Ingredients advances its plans to strengthen its position as the worlds largest producer of malic and food-grade fumaric acid with the groundbreaking of its state-of-the-art, $175 million malic and fumaric acid production facility. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005653/en/ Left to right: Tim Larson (Bartek), Minister Neil Lumsden, MP Chad Collins, Minister Lisa Thompson, Hamid Goli (Bartek), Jose Kafie (Bartek), John Burrows (Bartek), Jim Vincent (Bartek), Steven Chambers (Bartek), Minister Vic Fedeli. (Photo: Business Wire) The company held a groundbreaking ceremony on Jan. 12 with Canadian government officials and local community leaders to celebrate the official commencement of the construction project. We are thrilled to be breaking ground on our new facility which will set a new global benchmark for safety, efficiency, and environmental performance, Bartek President and CEO John Burrows said. We are pleased to be investing in the community of Stoney Creek and proud to play an integral part in supporting local industries and the local economy. We are thankful for our partnerships with the provincial and federal government and Environment Hamilton and their support and guidance throughout the process. Among those in attendance at the groundbreaking were Neil Lumsden, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport and Member of Provincial Parliament for Hamilton East, Victor Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Lisa Thompson, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and Chad Collins, Member of Federal Parliament for Hamilton East-Stoney Creek. Congratulations to everyone at Bartek Ingredients on this exciting milestone, Minister Fedeli said. Barteks $175 million investment will ensure that the company can continue to expand and create more good-paying jobs in Hamilton and the surrounding region. Together, were building a stronger Ontario with opportunities for all people. The facility will double Barteks production capacity and propel new product development and other innovation efforts. It is also being built with sustainability in mind and is expected to be the most environmentally sustainable facility in the industry projected to reduce per unit greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80 percent. Ontario has a clean energy advantage and is a sustainable and predictable place to do business, Minister Piccini said. As a result, were attracting the jobs of tomorrow. My Ministry was proud to work closely with Bartek through the permitting and approvals process to help secure this significant investment to Ontario. Minister Thompson added: Barteks new state-of-the-art facility will be a shining example of Ontarios robust agri-food manufacturing and processing sector. This major investment will create good-paying jobs in the local community and further strengthen Ontarios value-added food supply chain. Through this project, Bartek will inject $100 million into the local Stoney Creek economy. The facility is expected to be fully operational at the beginning of 2024. Hamiltons Bartek facility will soon become one of the worlds largest malic and food-grade acid production plants, Minister Lumsden said. Our government is excited to see local manufacturers, such as Bartek, invest in Ontario to grow and create more good-paying jobs right here in Hamilton! For more information, please visit bartek.ca or contact Bartek at [email protected]. About Bartek Ingredients For over 50 years, Bartek Ingredients Inc. has been a leading global manufacturer of malic acid, fumaric acid, and maleic anhydride. Headquartered in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, Bartek employs 120 people across its two production facilities in Southern Ontario. Barteks facilities are registered to the ISO 9001:2015 Standard. Bartek also holds the BRC Global Standard for Food Safety certification, and it distributes to more than 40 countries around the world. With new ownership in 2019 and significant investments, Barteks presence in the food and beverage space continues to be bolstered by highly innovative products and services that utilize deep product expertise and application knowledge to offer solutions to industry needs. For more information about Bartek, visit bartek.ca/. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005653/en/ Crown Bioscience, a global contract research organization (CRO) and a JSR Life Sciences company, has announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the IndivuServ business unit of Indivumed GmbH. A Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) between both parties was executed on December 29, 2022, and subject to customary closing adjustments the transaction is expected to close in April 2023. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005114/en/ Indivumed GmbH, founded in Germany in 2002, has an industry-leading and global reputation for the provision and analysis of clinical biospecimens. The transaction will generate two separate Indivumed entities, Indivumed Therapeutics and Indivumed Services. The latter, which is the current IndivuServ business unit of the company, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crown Bioscience and will incorporate all associated laboratory operations and staff located in Hamburg, Germany and Frederick, MD, USA. Indivumed Therapeutics, currently known as the IndivuType business unit will continue its groundbreaking work of translating high-quality biospecimens into multi-omics data and focus together with its international clinical partners on data- and AI-driven therapy development in oncology. Crown Biosciences proposed acquisition of Indivumed Services includes both the expertly curated and characterized biobank comprising of almost one million samples with associated clinical data, and an extensive network of more than 60 clinical divisions in the US, Europe, and Asia. This network provides direct and controlled access to surgical biospecimens and blood samples annotated with comprehensive clinical data, all obtained in accordance with Indivumeds unique SOPs to assure unrivaled quality, and thereby be suitable for multi-omics analyses and model development. The collection and associated network will also enable and support further expansion of Crown Biosciences biomarker development service offerings, as well as market-leading patient-derived xenograft (PDX), ex vivo patient tissue (EVPT), and in vitro tumor organoid platforms. Indivumed Therapeutics will continue its global clinical cooperation with leading cancer clinics in Europe, Americas, and Asia and leverage its unique multi-omics database and advanced AI analytics to focus on identifying and validating novel targets and biomarkers to develop individualized cancer therapies. As part of the Agreement announced today, Indivumed Therapeutics and Crown Bioscience with Indivumed Services have additionally committed to a multi-year strategic partnership covering sample access and CRO service provision, while Hartmut Juhl, Founder and CEO of Indivumed Group, will join Crown Biosciences Scientific Advisory Board. Commenting on the Acquisition, Armin Spura, PhD, CEO of Crown Bioscience stated; The acquisition of Indivumed Services reflects Crown Biosciences commitment to expanding our translational research platforms to provide our customers with superior options for bridging the gap between preclinical and clinical research. Everyone at Crown Bioscience is delighted to be welcoming the talented staff of Indivumed Services to the company, and excited about the long-term potential of our new relationship. Prof. Dr. Hartmut Juhl, Founder and CEO of Indivumed Group, added I am thrilled about the strategic partnership with Crown Bioscience, the first-in-class CRO. For 20 years Indivumed has driven the advancement of precision oncology by both its CRO services and its own R&D activities. Now, we can focus on our data analytics-driven drug and diagnostic development while we also benefit from the enhanced strength of Crown Biosciences R&D oncology offerings. With this partnership Crown Bioscience and Indivumed create a powerhouse for the advancement of precision oncology. Further, it fills me with great pride that my hometown Hamburg is emerging as a leading oncology biotech location. About Crown Bioscience Crown Bioscience, a JSR Life Sciences company, is a global CRO that provides preclinical and translational platforms to help our customers advance their research and development in oncology, immuno-oncology, and immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. We are the exclusive preclinical CRO to offer tumor organoid services with the well-established Hubrecht Organoid Technology. In addition, we have developed the largest commercially available PDX collection in the world. We focus on helping our customers develop novel therapies to maximize the chances that patients receive the right treatment at the right time. Founded in 2006, Crown Bioscience has 13 facilities across the United States, Europe, and Asia. For more information or to get in touch, please visit www.crownbio.com. About Indivumed Driven by our mission to unveil the complex mechanisms of cancer and to advance precision oncology, Indivumed combines the worlds most comprehensive multi-omics data with extensive medical experience, bioinformatics expertise, and AI-integrated advanced analytics. Our global clinical network enables us to collect and analyze thousands of patient samples using a standardized approach to ensure biospecimen quality across our business areas. The unparalleled depth and quality of our data coupled with our robust product and service offerings gives us the ability to obtain novel insights and accelerate cancer research. For more information, visit www.indivumed.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005114/en/ Boomis award-winning integration platform as a service (iPaaS) was chosen for its versatility, development speed, and ease of use Boomi to simplify and streamline integration of applications and data across Geekplus network of shippers and third-party logistics companies Boomi, the intelligent connectivity and automation leader, today announced that Geekplus Co., Ltd. (Geekplus), which has held the top market share in Japan for four consecutive years in automated guided vehicles (AGV), has selected the Boomi AtomSphere Platform to automate its next generation smart logistics platform. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005893/en/ Geekplus, Japans Leader In Automated Guided Vehicles, Selects Boomi To Automate Smart Logistics System (Graphic: Business Wire) Geekplus was established in Japan in 2017 as a joint venture between Beijing Geekplus Technology Company Limited, a unicorn company with the world's largest market share in autonomous mobile robots (AMR), and Japanese capital. The company contributes to improving the corporate value of logistics companies by providing services such as sales, installation, 24/7/365 maintenance, and productivity improvement consulting. With customers in retail, apparel, pharmaceuticals, automotive, lithium batteries, photovoltaics, electronics, and more in thousands of locations worldwide, and approximately a hundred in Japan, Geekplus wanted to expand and generate new revenue streams to lead the company into its next phase of growth. Leveraging its strengths in the supply chain industry, the company is working to build a smart logistics platform in-house for its network of shippers and third-party logistics (3PL) providers. Faced with the complexity of various data formats and the introduction of technologies such as internet of things (IoT), Geekplus needed a tool to simplify and streamline the integration of all its applications and data. We are aiming to co-create a new logistics standard by utilizing next-generation robotics technology to solve the increasingly serious labor shortage in Japan and the gap between the growth of ecommerce demand and the growth of physical volume, said Mr. Yusuke Arima, System Development Group, Geekplus. After evaluating various integration platforms, Geekplus chose Boomis intelligent, low-code, cloud-native platform for its versatility, development speed, and ease of use. The Boomi platform will enable us to connect our operations with our shippers, suppliers, and partners, while mitigating potential real-time supply chain issues. Geekplus is shaping the smart logistics revolution and needed a unified integration solution to remove complexities, said Kazunori Hori, Director, Japan at Boomi. Our platform provides a single conduit of data sets across all technologies and processes throughout their global partner network, allowing Geekplus to quickly and easily connect with its shipping and 3PLs operating and warehouse systems. As a category-leading, global software as a service (SaaS) company with the largest customer base among integration platform vendors, Boomi touts a growing user community of more than 100,000 members, a worldwide network of approximately 800 partners, and one of the largest arrays of global systems integrators (GSIs) in the iPaaS space. The company recently expanded its global footprint in Japan to address growing demand across Asia-Pacific, while earning recognition on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and Inc. 5000 lists as one of Americas fastest growing and most innovative technology companies. Boomi has also won two International Stevie Awards, for Company of the Year and Product Innovation; the Gold Globee Award in the Platform as a Service (PaaS) category; the Merit Award for Technology in the Cloud Services category; the Stratus Award as a Global Leader in Cloud Computing 2022, and received the prestigious 5-star rating in the CRN Partner Program Guide. Additional Resources About Boomi Boomi aims to make the world a better place by connecting everyone to everything, anywhere. The pioneer of cloud-based integration platform as a service (iPaaS), and now a category-leading, global software as a service (SaaS) company, Boomi touts the largest customer base among integration platform vendors and a worldwide network of approximately 800 partners including Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, SAP, and Snowflake. Global organizations turn to Boomis award-winning platform to discover, manage, and orchestrate data, while connecting applications, processes, and people for better, faster outcomes. For more information, visit http://www.boomi.com. 2023 Boomi, LP. Boomi, the B logo, Boomiverse, and AtomSphere are trademarks of Boomi, LP or its subsidiaries or affiliates. All rights reserved. Other names or marks may be the trademarks of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005893/en/ German music fans will be able to enjoy a new selection of music TV channels as HIGH VIEW, an independent Munich-based media company, and SES has expanded their long-term partnership. Under the new multi-year agreement, HIGH VIEW will be leasing additional satellite capacity on SESs prime TV neighborhood at ASTRA 19.2 degrees East to broadcast four free-to-air SD channels. Starting 1 February, HIGH VIEW will further grow their established DELUXE MUSIC brand and broadcast DELUXE DANCE by Kontor, DELUXE FLASHBACK, DELUXE ROCK, and DELUXE RAP. "The launch of the four new free-to-air music channels marks an important milestone in expanding HIGH VIEWs music offerings to address the diverse musical tastes of our German audience. With the wide reach satellites can offer, SES and their ASTRA satellites are an essential and reliable partner for building our DELUXE MUSIC brand and making sure we continue to deliver new content to our loyal viewers and listeners," said Ulrike Unseld, responsible for sales and the music portfolio at HIGH VIEW. "We are delighted to expand our partnership with HIGH VIEW with another multi-year contract to carry their new free-to-air suite of channels on our satellites," said Christoph Muhleib, Managing Director of SES Germany. "Without a doubt, DELUXE MUSIC is one of the most popular and iconic music brands in Germany. With their four new channels, HIGH VIEW can leverage the 17 million TV household reach of our ASTRA satellites at 19.2 degrees East to ensure their diverse and entertaining musical content is enjoyed by the widest audience possible." Follow us on: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn | Instagram Read our Blogs > Visit the Media Gallery > About SES SES has a bold vision to deliver amazing experiences everywhere on earth by distributing the highest quality video content and providing seamless connectivity around the world. As the leader in global content connectivity solutions, SES operates the worlds only multi-orbit constellation of satellites with the unique combination of global coverage and high performance, including the commercially-proven, low-latency Medium Earth Orbit O3b system. By leveraging a vast and intelligent, cloud-enabled network, SES is able to deliver high-quality connectivity solutions anywhere on land, at sea or in the air, and is a trusted partner to the worlds leading telecommunications companies, mobile network operators, governments, connectivity and cloud service providers, broadcasters, video platform operators and content owners. SESs video network carries ~8,000 channels and has an unparalleled reach of 366 million households, delivering managed media services for both linear and non-linear content. The company is listed on Paris and Luxembourg stock exchanges (Ticker: SESG). Further information is available at: www.ses.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005880/en/ Saudi Arabia reiterated its commitment to build bridges across geopolitical and economic divides at the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week. His Highness Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister of Foreign Affairs, led the Saudi delegation of nine ministers and high-level officials, and told the world that geopolitical stability is key to energy security, and the Kingdom has become the meeting place between East and West. During the week, Saudi Arabia hosted a dialogue titled Toward a Resilient Urban Resource Nexus, with key international public and private sector stakeholders from regional and global organizations discussing the sustainability of future cities. His Highness Prince Faisal, Her Royal Highness Princess Reema, His Excellency Alswaha, His Excellency Alkhorayef and His Excellency Alibrahim participated in a multilateral meeting with WEF leadership, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman, and Brge Brende, President, to explore areas of mutual interest. During the meeting, His Excellency Alswaha, Chairman of the Board of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and Chairman of the Board of The Research, Development and Innovation Authority (RDIA) and Brende, signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to establish a new accelerator program to help ignite innovation in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi delegates highlighted the Kingdom's role as a Pioneering Partner in the Forum's Global Collaboration Village, which will leverage the Metaverse to serve the global community. Separately, the Ministry of Investment, in coordination with the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, organized a high-level dialogue for executives from the energy, petrochemicals and mining sectors to discuss the impact of the energy transition, the role of petrochemical industries and investments needed to achieve net zero by 2060. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabias Ministry of Economy and Planning in collaboration with the WEF open innovation platform UpLink launched a challenge to crowdsource transformative solutions to secure local food in countries impacted by low rainfall, drought and desertification. The Food Ecosystems and Arid Climates Challenge is a global call for food entrepreneurs, start-ups, social ventures, and SMEs to submit solutions that incorporate low or high technologies or ancestral responses. Also during the week, Saudi Arabia represented by the Ministry of Economy and Planning joined the WEF Jobs Consortium, a coalition of CEOs, IOs, ministers and other leaders with a common aim to promote a better future of work for all by enabling job creation and job transitions. The Saudi Arabian delegation also engaged in a wide range of bilateral meetings, dialogues with global leaders, ministers and CEOs and for the first time public panel sessions as part of WEFs Open Forum. These included discussions with high-level public and private sector representatives from several countries and were an opportunity to share the Kingdoms vision while exploring potential partnerships and areas of collaboration. *Source: AETOSWire View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005752/en/ Wemades blockbuster mobile MMORPG MIR4 released a new battlefield, Snowfield Area, on January 26th. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005414/en/ MIR4 New Battlefield Snowfield Area opened (Graphic: Wemade) Snowfield Area is divided into 5 parts: Nine Dragon Ice Field, Nine Dragon Ice Palace, Nine Dragon Labyrinth, Sagittarion Valley, and Sagittarion Temple. Players can clear new quests in Snowfield Area and begin new adventures to find the lost Princess Cheonpa. Max. character Level has been increased to 180. The Max. level for Constitution has also been increased to 19, and Inner Force to 18. Upon reaching Lv. 180, characters will be able to obtain 'Level Reward Coffer' which contains 'Mystic Mystical Piece Summon Box', 'Epic Divine Dragon's Enhancement Stone', and more, as well as 'Legendary Blue Dragon Statue'. The first Party Leader Spirit, Small White Dragon Chunryu, has also been added. The spirit's effects are applied to all nearby party members when a character that this spirit summoned becomes the party leader. The Legendary Water Spirit increases party members' ATK DMG and reduces DMG received from boss monsters. It can also increase Hunting EXP Boost, Antidemon Power, Item Drop Chance and more. From My Battle, To Our War! Detailed information on MIR4 can be found on the official website. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005414/en/ Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, talks to reporters at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, Jan. 27. Yonhap Seoul's top education official was given a suspended prison term Friday for abusing his power in the reinstatement of fired teachers, a punishment heavy enough to result in the loss of his seat if confirmed by the Supreme Court. The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Cho Hee-yeon, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, to one year and six months in prison, suspended for two years, for abuse of power and violating the State Public Officials Act. The progressive education chief was indicted on charges of exerting undue influence in reinstating five dismissed teachers, including former members of a teachers' labor union, in 2018. One of the five teachers helped Cho's election campaign in 2018 when he was reelected. By law, an education official with a confirmed conviction of imprisonment is subject to retirement. "I'm disappointed with the ruling," Cho told reporters following the verdict, adding he will immediately file an appeal. The probe into Cho's allegations was first launched by the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) for High-ranking Officials, a state investigative agency separate from the prosecution service. The investigation was the inaugural case handled by the CIO, which was launched in 2021. (Yonhap) The 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju, the bloody 1948-1954 suppression of a civilian uprising on Jeju Island, and Japan's wartime sexual slavery have been included in the latest textbook guidelines, the education ministry said Friday. The new guidelines, which will serve as a key reference for writers of elementary, middle and high school textbooks, have been finalized by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation and other state think tanks, the ministry said. In the case of history textbooks, the guidelines specifically demanded that the May 18 Democratization Movement, the Jeju April 3 incident and the issue of Korean women sexually enslaved by the Japanese military, who are euphemistically called "comfort women," be mentioned to help improve the textbook quality. The announcement came after the ministry said last month that descriptions of the May 18 uprising will be omitted in the new writing guidelines for history textbooks. On May 18, 1980, the military cracked down on Gwangju demonstrators protesting against then President Chun Doo-hwan, who had taken power in a military coup a year earlier. The harsh quelling of the uprising left more than 200 dead and 1,800 others wounded. The Jeju April 3 Incident occurred on April 3, 1948, when Jeju islanders began protesting against U.S. military-led rule following Korea's liberation from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule. The then government distorted the uprising as a communist riot and massacred an estimated up to 30,000 civilians in armed crackdowns over the subsequent years. Historians say that around 200,000 Asian "comfort women," mostly Koreans, were forcibly sent to front-line brothels to provide sex services for Japanese soldiers. (Yonhap) Twelve Korean websites attacked by a Chinese hacking group remain unable to be accessed five days after the incident, industry sources said Friday. The Chinese attackers, identifying themselves as Xiaoqiying, hacked into the websites of 12 academic organizations and institutions Sunday, including the Korea Research Institute for Construction Policy, the Korean Archaeological Society and the Korean Academy of Basic Medicine Health Science. The attack took place in the middle of the four-day Lunar New Year holiday that began last Saturday. According to the Korean internet safety watchdog, the hackers used the SQL injection technique to exploit a security vulnerability in the websites' software and corrupt the database contents. After the breach, most of the attacked websites showed an error page or a warning message by the hacking group. "We are working on determining the exact cause of the case and restoring the damage, but it takes some time," said an official from the cybersecurity authorities, asking for anonymity. The Korean government is now looking into some 40 files disclosed by the Chinese hacking group Thursday. The group claimed it had stolen the data from Korea's government and public institutions. It also said it had successfully compromised the computer networks of 70 Korean educational institutions around the Lunar New Year holiday that ran from Saturday to Tuesday. (Yonhap) Soldats francais AA Images Burkina Faso requested that France withdraw its military in line with transition governments vision for Burkinabe people to defend their country ANKARA (AA) France will withdraw its troops from Burkina Faso within a month, local media reported Wednesday. Burkina Faso on Monday requested that France withdraw its military, which was deployed to help local forces battle insurgents linked to the al-Qaeda and Daesh/ISIS terrorist organizations. The West African country said it has decided to end a military pact that allowed the presence of French troops because it is in line with the transition governments vision for the Burkinabe people to defend their country. It noted, however, that the request does not mean the end of diplomatic ties between the two countries. A French diplomatic source revealed that the request regarding the agreement of 2018 on the status of the French forces in the country will take effect next month, French radio broadcaster Europe 1 reported. "We will respect the terms of the agreement and proceed with the request," the source said. Relations between France and Burkina Faso have been low since soldiers seized control of the African country in September last year. Several demonstrations have been reported against the French military presence in the country on perceptions that it has been ineffective against the terrorism that has been raging in the country since 2015. Previously, authorities in Burkina Faso also demanded "a new interlocutor" to replace the French ambassador. France maintains 400 special forces based in the country. Nur Asena Erturk/AA France recalls ambassador from Burkina Faso - African country requested France to withdraw troops By Nur Asena Erturk ANKARA (AA) France has recalled its ambassador from Burkina Faso, local media reported Thursday. Daily Le Figaro quoted an official from the Foreign Ministry that the ambassador to Ouagadougou has been recalled. "In the context of the latest developments in Burkina Faso, we have decided to recall our ambassador, to consult on the state and prospects of our bilateral cooperation," the official said. Ambassador Luc Hallade was appointed to Burkina Faso in 2019. Burkina Faso on Monday requested that France withdraw its troops, which were deployed to help local forces battle insurgents linked to the al-Qaeda and Daesh/ISIS terrorist organizations. The West African country said it has decided to end a military pact that allowed the presence of French troops because it is in line with the transition governments vision for the Burkinabe people to defend their country. A French diplomatic source revealed that the request regarding the agreement of 2018 on the status of the French forces in the country will take effect next month and that Paris will respect the terms of the agreement and proceed with the request." Relations between France and Burkina Faso have been volatile since soldiers seized control of the African country in September last year. Several demonstrations have been reported against the French military presence in the country on perceptions that it has been ineffective against the terrorism that has been raging in the country since 2015. Previously, authorities in Burkina Faso also demanded "a new interlocutor" to replace the French ambassador. France maintains 400 special forces based in the country.. A German Leopard 2 Tank Archives C'est ce qui ressort d'une declaration du porte-parole de la Presidence russe commentant la decision d'envoi de chars en Ukraine par quelques pays occidentaux Le porte-parole du Kremlin (Presidence russe), Dmitri Peskov, a declare que son pays considere l'envoi d'armes, y compris des chars, par les Etats-Unis et les pays europeens a l'Ukraine comme une "implication directe dans le conflit". C'est ce qui ressort d'une declaration accordee a la presse dans la capitale russe, Moscou, dans laquelle il a commente la decision de certains pays occidentaux, les Etats-Unis et l'Allemagne en tete, d'envoyer des chars en Ukraine. "De nombreuses declarations ont ete faites par les capitales europeennes et Washington, selon lesquelles l'envoi de divers systemes d'armes, y compris des chars, en Ukraine ne signifie en aucun cas l'implication de ces pays ou de l'OTAN dans le conflit en Ukraine. Nous ne sommes absolument pas d'accord avec cela", a declare Peskov. L'envoi de la cargaison en question signifie, pour lui, une implication directe dans le conflit en Ukraine, ajoutant : "Nous considerons tout ce que l'OTAN et les pays concernes font comme une participation directe au conflit". Auparavant, le chancelier allemand Olaf Scholz avait annonce que son pays avait decide d'envoyer des chars Leopard 2 en Ukraine, tandis que le president americain Joe Biden avait decide de lui livrer 31 chars Abrams. AA/Moscou Moscow calls tanks deliveries to Ukraine 'direct involvement' of European countries, NATO in 'conflict' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says 'involvement' of European, NATO countries in 'conflict' in Ukraine is 'growing' MOSCOW (AA) - Raising the specter of escalation of the Ukraine war, a Kremlin spokesman said Thursday that Russia sees European and NATO countries supplying weapons to Ukraine including a host of just-announced tank supplies as their "direct involvement" in the "conflict." "Statements are constantly being made from European capitals and Washington that sending various weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine in no case means that these countries or the alliance are involved in the fighting that is taking place in Ukraine. We categorically disagree with this," Dmitry Peskov told a press briefing in Moscow. "In Moscow, everything that the alliance and the capitals I mentioned are doing is perceived as direct involvement in the conflict," he explained. He added that Moscow noted that this involvement has been growing. The US announced on Wednesday that it will send Abrams tanks to Ukraine, while Germany, Spain, and Norway said they will supply heavy Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. Ukraine has been pressing for the tanks for some time, along with other weapons, arguing that they are needed to fight off an expected Russian offensive this spring. However, Russia does not plan to change the status of "special military operation" following the decision on tank deliveries, Peskov said. The spokesman confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a conversation with German businessman Matthias Warnig, managing director of Nord Stream AG company, after the beginning of the "special military operation," but did not give any details on what topics were discussed at the meeting. Warnig said in an interview with the German Die Zeit newspaper that he tried to persuade Putin to stop fighting in Ukraine. Commenting on the statement by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he is not interested in contacts with Putin, Peskov said: "He (Zelenskyy) himself has long ceased to be a possible counterpart (for discussions) with President Putin." "We know with what promises Zelenskyy was elected president... He did not solve the problem of Donbass, he did not fulfill the Minsk agreements, moreover, as it turned out, he was not going to fulfill them, he was preparing for war," Peskov added. In October 2022, Zelenskyy approved the law, prohibiting peace talks with Russia while Vladimir Putin serves as its president. In a separate statement, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev echoed Peskov, saying, "events in Ukraine are a result of the US long-term preparation for a hybrid war" against Russia. "Now Western countries are waging a campaign against Russia using the puppet Kyiv regime," Patrushev said. According to him, even when the war in Ukraine is over, "the Anglo-Saxon world will not stop the proxy war against Russia and its allies." Elena Teslova/AA Activists fighting for sexual minorities attend an event to commemorate International Transgender Day of Visibility, held on March. 31, 2021 in central Seoul. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul By Lee Yeon-woo Government agencies declined to accept a recommendation by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) to compile statistics on sexual minorities, the state commission said Thursday. "The prime minister, health and welfare minister, interior minister, minister of gender equality and family and commissioner of Statistic Korea declined the recommendation of the commission," the NHRCK said in a press release on Thursday. Last March 16, ahead of the International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, the NHRCK requested the then-prime minister to prepare guidelines for identifying sexual minorities when compiling government statistics. The commission asked the other three ministries to develop and add a new category, related to sexual orientation when compiling statistical data in the future. The NHRCK also recommended the commissioner of Statistics Korea eliminate transsexualism from the mental disorder list in the "Korean Standard Classification of Diseases" (KCD). The government statistics agency is in charge of the classification. International organizations such as the World Health Organization, have not classified transsexualism as a mental disorder since 2019. The request was made during the leadership transition period. President Yoon Suk Yeol took office on May 10, two months after he won the March 9 presidential election. None of the Cabinet ministries immediately followed the measures. They said, "It's hard to retrieve meaningful results from investigating sexual minorities because their samples are small." Statistics Korea, which conducts population and housing censuses annually, added that the investigation requires a "careful approach." "The number of people who refuse to respond to categories which they believe threaten to invade their privacy is increasing. The investigation needs a careful approach. It should consider social consensus, whether it's possible to conduct an on-the-spot survey, or even refusal to cooperate," it responded. The government statistics agency also declined to eliminate transsexualism from the mental disorder list. It said it is unable to immediately reflect the recommendation to the updated KCD, which is set to be applied in 2026. But it added it will "consider" it in the future when reflecting the 11th version of the International Classification of Disease (ICD) to the KCD. But the human rights watchdog continued pressuring the Cabinet ministries from April to December to take follow-up measures. The NHRCK formed a standing committee on Dec. 28, 2022, and concluded that the ministries declined to accept the recommendation. Because of the uncooperative Cabinet ministries, the NHRCK said sexual minorities were excluded from the beneficiaries of government policies. It stressed that investigating their scale and situation is important so that they can be reflected in future policies. "We want to clarify again that the existence of sexual minorities, including transgender people, should not be denied or be subject to discrimination and hatred," it said. "To eliminate discrimination, such as excluding social minority groups from government policies, identifying the group's scale and needs should come first," it added. By Sabina Mammadli A call by Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan to resolve the situation around the Lachin road militarily is a serious threat, Azernews reports per the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. The ministry made the remarks in a statement in response to the Armenian foreign ministers remarks at the European Parliaments Foreign Relations Committee on January 24. Official Baku classified the remarks of the Armenian official as a vivid example of hypocrisy. Armenian leaders are not calling to war for the first time. Back in 2019, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that `Karabakh is Armenia' and former Defense Minister Tonoyan announced a `new war for new lands'. Foreign Minister Mirzoyan's proposal for a military solution shows that Armenia has not learned a lesson from history and still does not realize the consequences of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories for 30 years. It is necessary to prevent this adventure of the Armenian side, the ministry outlined. Further, the ministry emphasized that Azerbaijan has numerously presented irrefutable evidence of a gross violation of the obligations that Armenia agreed to, such as the incomplete withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijani territories, the ongoing illegalities there, the misuse of the Lachin road and the rotation of military personnel, the persistence of the mine threat in Azerbaijan, the illegal exploitation of natural resources, the creation of conditions for the illegal passage of citizens of third countries to Azerbaijan's territory and others. The ministry noted that these facts have not received due attention and condemnation, which encourages Armenia. At the same time, it is clear that the latest remarks of the Armenian foreign minister were inspired by incorrect, bellicose, and revenge-inciting statements of a number of international circles on the situation around the Lachin road, the statement said. The statement pointed out the absurdity of the fact that Armenia, which has been carrying out military aggression and massacres against Azerbaijans internationally recognized territories, refers to the norms of international law, appeals to international organizations and calls for intervention after Azerbaijan liberated its own lands. The ministry refuted Mirzoyans comments about Armenias commitment to the trilateral statement, noting that Armenia did not respond to Azerbaijans appeals for months after the proposal of the peace treaty, as well as did not take practical steps to advance the process, and constantly slowed down the process under various pretexts. Besides, the ministry reiterated that Armenias remarks about Azerbaijans alleged demands for an "extraterritorial corridor" are unfounded. We remind you once again that, according to paragraph 9 of the tripartite statement, Armenia is obliged to `establish transport links between the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to organize the unhindered movement of citizens, vehicles, and goods in both directions'. Armenia has agreed to ensure unhindered movement within its territory and must fulfill this obligation. It is surprising that Armenia, which still holds under occupation 8 villages and dozens of sq. km. of Azerbaijani lands, declares that Azerbaijan is not committed to the delimitation process, the statement underlined. The ministry further added that it is unacceptable that a country that has built its national policy on the basis of hatred towards Azerbaijanis and Turks and demonstrates this in all its actions, in general, destroyed and deported all ethnicities from its territory, accuses Azerbaijan of hatred towards Armenians. Talking about Azerbaijans goal being ethnic cleansing and deportation, the ministry recalled that Armenia, which has committed such crimes for decades, has no moral basis to talk about human rights. The ministry reiterated that the peaceful picketing on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan on the Lachin road against the illicit exploitation of Azerbaijan's natural resources is the legitimate right of the people of Azerbaijan. The illegal activities in the Azerbaijani territories, where Armenian residents live, pose a threat to the national security of Azerbaijan, and such activities must be stopped, the ministry added. Azerbaijan will continue to take all necessary measures to protect its national interests and security," the statement concluded. Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon speaks to the press after his first sentence at Seoul Central District Court, southern Seoul, Friday. Yonhap By Lee Yeon-woo Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) Superintendent Cho Hee-yeon received a suspended prison term for abusing his power in the reinstatement of five teachers who had been fired. If the district court's ruling is upheld by a higher court, Cho will lose his position as superintendent. Under the current law, elected politicians will be removed from their elective posts if they receive a jail term. On Friday, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced Cho to a year and a half in prison, which was suspended for two years, for abusing his power and violating the Government Officials Act. "Even though Cho has the duty to transparently lead and supervise the procedure of special employment, he abused his power in disguise of a fair and competitive procedure, while damaging the transparency and fairness of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's hiring process," the court said. Cho was accused of ordering the reinstatement of five former teachers, including members of the teachers' labor union, who were convicted of violating the Public Official Election Act. The five were affiliated with the leftist Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union. One of the five was once Cho's rival who declared a bid to run in the election for superintendent of Seoul. He later withdrew his bid to support Cho in the race. The court discovered that Cho pushed to re-hire them as teachers through a special hiring process in 2018, despite protests from SMOE officials. It viewed the process as a means of disguising their re-employment. In court, Cho claimed that he did not unfairly intervene in the hiring process. He said that hiring the former teachers was part of a "proactive exercise of power to achieve social cohesion and integration," Cho said he will appeal the ruling. "The prosecution had gone too far by indicting me, so I had hoped that the court could right the wrong. But the ruling betrayed my wish," he said. "I will appeal to right the wrong." Well, it took Geely Philippines long enough. About two years after we said they needed a sub-compact crossover to penetrate the local market... President Yoon Suk Yeol, right, and first lady Kim Keon Hee wave goodbye at Zurich Airport before boarding a flight back to Korea after a four-day visit to Switzerland, Jan. 20. Yonhap First lady Kim Keon Hee met with a group of female lawmakers of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) on Friday and discussed areas of mutual interest, including helping the socially vulnerable and women's political participation, multiple attendees said. The luncheon was held at the official presidential residence with the participation of all nine female PPP lawmakers with constituencies and one female lawmaker with a proportional representation seat. The 10 lawmakers were Reps. Kim Young-sun, Kim Jung-jae, Lim Lee-ja, Kim Mi-ae, Bae Hyun-jin, Yang Kum-hee, Lee In-seon, Cho Eun-hee, Hwangbo Seung-hee and Cho Su-jin. It was the first time the first lady held her own formal meeting with politicians. "I enjoy listening to people's stories," she was quoted as saying by one attendee. "If each of you comfortably share your stories, I will listen closely." During the two-hour luncheon, Kim talked about her recent trip with President Yoon Suk Yeol to the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland. While mentioning UAE women, she asked the lawmakers what difficulties Korean women face and about the lives of female lawmakers, according to the attendees. Rep. Yang, a party spokesperson, told reporters the group asked Kim to continue to play an active role in helping the socially weak and to use her high profile to promote national interests. One lawmaker also asked the first lady to continue to use Korean-made goods, citing her recent use of a bag made by a small local firm. Kim said she has a deep interest in working with the disabled and promised to visit them more often. (Yonhap) Brombergs lawyer Emmanuel Mercinier said that they are considering an appeal of the sentence, which he described as far from lenient. In addition to the five-year sentence, Brombergs company Lobster Films was fined 150,000, a figure requested by the prosecution. Bromberg was put on trial for manslaughter, involuntary injury, endangerment of others, and involuntary destruction of property by fire in November of last year. According to Frances TV5 Monde, during the summer of 2020, he was storing nitrate film reels in the basement of a building that didnt have a fire alarm or appropriate climate controls to house such flammable materials. When the reels caught fire, one person living in an apartment above the basement was killed by the flames and another died jumping from the fourth floor trying to escape. On the third day of the trial, Bromberg himself took the stand and accepted full responsibility for the fire and the two resulting deaths saying, I would like to say that I am solely responsible for this tragedy. It is my fault and it is exclusively my fault. I am unforgivable and I hardly dare to ask for forgiveness. The operation of Jeju International Airport, the gateway to the southern resort island, was again disrupted by inclement weather Friday, only three days after its operational paralysis. At present, wind shear and strong wind warnings are in effect for the airport. According to the Jeju branch of the Korea Airports, 50 flights to and from the Jeju airport 18 departures and 32 arrivals had been canceled as of 10 a.m., while nine other flights were delayed. A total of 445 domestic flights 222 departures and 223 arrivals were scheduled for Friday. Earlier on Tuesday, heavy snow accompanied by strong winds caused all flights to and from the Jeju airport 466 domestic flights and 10 international flights to be canceled. (Yonhap) Barossa gas field in Australia / Courtesy of SK E&S By Park Jae-hyuk The Korea Trade Insurance Corp. (K-Sure) decided recently to continue guaranteeing 400 billion won ($325 million) worth of financial support for a drilling project at Barossa offshore gas field in Australia, reducing uncertainties surrounding SK E&S that has participated in the project with Australia's Santos and Japan's JERA. The state-run financial institution's latest decision indicates the Korean government's intention to prioritize energy security by standing with the energy firm against environmental activists who have pointed out that the drilling project could destroy the marine ecosystem and cultural heritage of indigenous Australians. According to industry officials, K-Sure's decision was made a day before the expiration of the guarantee it had given for the project in December 2021. This also came a couple of weeks after Australia's National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) ordered the project participants to halt their works on the pipeline until they submit a report on the construction's impact on indigenous cultural heritage. In June last year, the aboriginal Australians filed a lawsuit against the project participants, citing insufficient talks with them. The Australian court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the companies to stop drilling. Amid the lingering dispute, concerns have grown that SK E&S may face setbacks in its plan to start producing blue hydrogen in Korea from 2025 with liquefied natural gas (LNG) imported from the Barossa gas field. The subsidiary of SK Group invested 350 billion won in 2012 to gain a 37.5 percent stake in the gas field. It made the final decision on its investment in March 2021 and started participating in the project to produce LNG at up to eight gas fields in the Timor Sea to the north of Australia. Solutions for Our Climate criticized K-Sure, describing its decision as irresponsible. The environmental group has urged K-Sure and the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) to stop investing in the gas field project. Earlier this year, the activists also asked the Board of Audit and Inspection to audit the two state-run financial institutions regarding this issue. However, calls have grown for the necessity of the government's financial support to exploit natural resources overseas. "Although a small number of conglomerates have pushed ahead with exploiting natural resources overseas, it is difficult for most private enterprises to invest in resource development projects without government support," said Sung Dong-won, a researcher at the Eximbank's Overseas Economic Research Institute. Energy industry officials also emphasized that Korea needs to develop gas fields overseas because the country relies heavily on imports of natural resources. "The rising heating costs caused by the global LNG price hike proved the need to exploit gas fields overseas," an industry official said on condition of anonymity. "Once SK E&S begins to import LNG from the Barossa gas field, the company will be able to supply LNG in Korea at much lower prices." The Technical College System of Georgia announced that eligible Georgians can now earn their high school equivalency diploma for free.Last year, the Georgia General Assembly passed, and Gov. Brian P. Kemp signed into law, a bill establishing the HOPE High School Equivalency (HSE) Examination Grant Program. Eligible Georgians will receive an award of up to $200 to cover exam fees for the GED exam.We are grateful to have this additional funding opportunity to offer our students, said Dr.Heidi Popham, GNTC president. The HOPE HSE Grant will assist GNTC in removing a barrier that could possibly be the only thing standing in the way of a student accomplishing his or her goal of earning a high school credential.Officials said, "There are just over one million adults ages 18 and older in Georgia without a high school diploma or equivalency. For some test-takers, this grant will remove the last barrier they face before earning their HSE diploma. The HOPE HSE Examination Grant is fully funded by the Georgia Lottery for Education and is available for the GED exam."Make this the year that you complete your goal of finishing high school and obtaining the High School Equivalency, said Lisa Shaw, vice president of Adult Education at GNTC. Thanks to the HOPE HSE grant, those who qualify can take the exams for free.For an individual to be eligible to receive a HOPE HSE Examination Grant, they must meet general HOPE requirements and TCSGs HSE test readiness standards. Georgians can apply once per subject area exam.Adult Education providers across the state also offer free classes with flexible schedules to help Georgians prepare for their HSE test. Grant funds are subject to annual state appropriation and availability of funds.To learn more, visit www.HSEtest4Free.com. Terri Woodruff Hannah Cannon Laurie Shaw Previous Next The Anna Shaw Childrens Institute, part of Hamilton Health Care System, will host a Language Acquisition through Motor Planning workshop on Friday, Feb. 10, from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. The program is in conjunction with The Center for AAC & Autism. "This workshop is open to the community and is an excellent opportunity for caregivers and educators to learn strategies to communicate with non-speaking individuals, said Terri Woodruff, executive director of ASCI. LAMP is an augmentative alternative communication approach designed to give individuals who are nonverbal or have limited verbal abilities a method of independently expressing themselves through the use of a speech-generating device. There are no cognitive prerequisites for implementing the LAMP approach. Intervention can begin at the cause-and-effect level and systematically build upon the stages of natural language development. This course covers implementation rationale and strategies with an introduction to the LAMP Words for Life language system. The cost of the class is $139. A discounted rate of $69.50 is available for students and parents. Seating is limited. Two 15-minute breaks and a one-hour lunch break will be provided. During the lunch break, participants have the option of eating in the Hamilton Medical Center cafeteria, bringing a lunch or leaving the campus for lunch. Two of the five LAMP-certified professionals in the state of Georgia are therapists at ASCI. They include Hannah Cannon, lead pediatric therapist, and Laurie Shaw, speech therapist. Hannah and Laurie are stellar therapists, said Ms. Woodruff. To have 40 percent of Georgias LAMP-certified professionals providing care at Anna Shaw Childrens Institute speaks to the dedication of our providers and the quality of services we offer. To register, click here. Korean battery maker SK On is set to open an IT facility in the U.S. state of Georgia later this month, according to Georgia governor's office Friday, as part of its major investment in the region that includes the establishment of two electric vehicle (EV) battery plants. The IT facility, located in Roswell, will serve as a management center for SK On's battery manufacturing facilities across the United States, including the Georgia plants, a press release by the office of Gov. Brian Kemp showed. SK Battery America, the U.S. unit of the Seoul-based company, is expected to invest around $19 million for the facility over the next few years, which will help create 200 high-tech jobs, the office said. SK On has invested $2.6 billion in the two EV battery manufacturing facilities in Georgia, as it seeks to bolster its presence in America. The output from the Georgia plants is used in Ford F-150 Lightning pickup trucks and Volkswagen ID.4 crossover SUVs. SK On, the world's fifth-largest battery maker, is building three other EV battery plants two in Kentucky and another in Tennessee in a joint $11.4 billion venture with Ford Motor. (Yonhap) William Lee Dr. Mark Walker Casey Cole Higginbotham Tony Stewart Previous Next Lee Universitys spring Convocation will begin on Sunday and end on Wednesday. This is a special time for the entire university to come together in worship, prayer, and spiritual reflection. The theme for this semesters Convocation is Urgency, which is based on the scriptures Hebrews 10:19-39. "There is an urgency in the Kingdom and desperation in humanity that demands our attention and our perseverance, said Rob Fultz, campus pastor and director of spiritual life at Lee. Let us seal in our hearts and minds this truth and let us live by the power of the Holy Spirit with this urgency, In just a little while, he who is coming will come and will not delay. During Convocation, there will be a different speaker for each service, beginning with the universitys president Dr. Mark Walker and ending with Bishop Tony Stewart, senior pastor of citylife church in Tampa, Fl. Before becoming president of Lee, Dr. Walker served as vice president of Ministerial Development, chair of Department of Christian Ministries, and a member of Lee's Board of Directors. Prior to Lee, Dr. Walker served as the senior pastor of Mount Paran North Church of God, and he has been a frequent speaker for Convocation throughout the years. Casey Cole Higginbotham, a Lee alumna, will bring the Word for the Monday evening service. Higginbotham served as a lecturer in theology at Lee until the spring of 2022. She has founded and directed six teen-to-child mentoring programs. Ms. Higginbotham is a speaker and a writer, and she now lives in Athens, Ga., with her husband Wade. Bishop William Lee, also a Lee alum, will speak at the Tuesday evening service. He is the pastor of Victorious Life Church in Conyers, Ga., and currently serves on the Church of God International Executive Council. He has also pastored churches in Rhode Island, Maryland, and the island of Bermuda and authored All The Kings Men: Chronicles in the Life of King David. Bishop Stewart will conclude Convocation on Wednesday evening. In addition to pastoring the multi-generational citylife church, Stewart serves as the Second Assistant General Overseer of the Church of God. He has also served on the Church of God International World Missions Board. Convocation will take place each night at 7:30 p.m. in the Conn Center. Livestream viewing will be available in the Dixon Center for the Monday and Tuesday evening services. Lee encourages all students and guests to attend and participate in this semesters Convocation. For those wishing to view online, services will be available via livestream at leeu.live and on Facebook. For more information about Convocation and other chapel events, contact the Campus Ministries Office at 614-8420 or visit leeuniversity.edu/events/. Erlanger Health System officials announced Thursday that the hospital is redirecting $13 million in previously budgeted funds to boost salaries of nurses. The pay hikes, which go into effect on Feb. 5, include both RNs and LPNs, Chief Nursing Executive Rachel Harris said. She said long-term nurses will also benefit with the cap extended "to those who have been with us for 30 or 40 years." Ms. Harris said, "With this investment, we anticipate increasing employee retention and expediting recruiting, leading to our ability to more effectively balance capacity with the healthcare needs of our region. "This will support Erlanger's vision of building a sustainable healthcare system that will stand the test of time as a mission-based organization." Ms. Harris said it is hoped that the higher pay will lure back some of the senior nurses that Erlanger has lost over the past several years. She said Erlanger, like other hospitals, had struggled with keeping nurses. However, the hospital recently has been able to drop to only a 15 percent turnover rate. Sheila Boyington, board of trustees chair, said, "The action of the board this evening solidifies Erlanger's commitment to our employees and our community, both short and long term. With this action, Erlanger is again leading with the future in mind." Jim Coleman, president and CEO, said, "We are pleased that we can make this salary adjustment for nurses and are committed to continuously reviewing how we can most effectively meet the overall needs of our workforce." The Tivoli Theatre Foundation unveiled a newly completed economic impact report that demonstrates the significant impact the organization has on the Chattanooga and Hamilton County economy. Our vision is to always be creative, said Nick Wilkinson, CEO of the Tivoli Theatre Foundation. For more than 100 years, the Tivoli has been the centerpiece for arts and culture in our community. The Tivoli Theatre, along with the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Auditorium and the Walker Theatre, are top tier economic and cultural generators. This newly released report, prepared by Dr. Rachel J.C. Fu, chair and professor of the Department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management at the University of Florida, shows the strength of the Tivoli Theatre Foundation venues. The study also projects the impact when renovations are completed at the Tivoli Theatre in 2024 and following the opening of a new performing arts center with classic and artistic cinema and year-round performing arts education. 2022 Significant Impact In 2022, there were over 155,000 tickets sold for more than 220 shows in the three venues. Even with the Tivoli Theatre closed for half of the year, attendance reflects the positive impact of the diverse schedule of events. Attendees came from all 50 states, as well as Canada and Mexico. These numbers show the strength of the Tivoli Theatre Foundation as a driver of the local economy coming out of the pandemic, thanks to diverse programming at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Auditorium, the Walker Theatre, and limited use of the Tivoli Theatre before construction began, said officials. $43.6 million - Visitors provided $25.3 million in direct expenditures. Their activities and events generate another $11 million in indirect and $7.3 million from induced sales. 404 fulltime equivalent jobs contributed by the Tivoli Theatre Foundation. $24.1 million in added value for Hamilton County from total sales $2.2 million - Tivoli Theatre Foundation visitors contributed $2.2 million in state and local taxes. 2025 Forecasted Impact With the completion of the renovations at the Tivoli Theatre and the opening of the new Tivoli Performing Arts Center, these are the expected economic impacts in 2025. $81.8 million - Visitors to the Tivoli Theatre Foundations four venues are estimated to provide $47.4 million in direct expenditures that impact the Hamilton County economy. Their activities and events will generate an additional $20.6 million in indirect and $13.7 million in induced sales. 759 fulltime equivalent jobs contributed by the Tivoli Theatre Foundation from all visitors $45.3 million in total added value for Hamilton County from all sales $4.1 million - The Tivoli Theatre Foundation visitors contribution of $4.1 state and local taxes. The creation of the Tivoli Theatre Foundation in 2015 renewed and revitalized the three historic venues and their impact on the community. As we enter our second century, our vision is only limited by the ability to be imaginative when bringing the performing arts to life, Mr. Wilkinson said. The Tivoli Performing Arts Center, located in the former Fowler Brothers building, will include ground floor retail, a rooftop bar, the new Bobby Stone Theatre, and educational programming for students and teachers. The new center and restored Tivoli Theatre will be the lynchpin piece in bringing the Riverfront and the Southside together in the city center, he said. The Tivoli Theatre Foundation was created in 2015 to renovate and reimagine these historic venues while retaining relationships with the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera, the Chattanooga Ballet, the Chattanooga Boys Choir, and other non-profit organizations. The Tivoli Theatre opened March 19, 1921. It was designed by Rapp and Rapp and R.H. Hunt, who also designed the Memorial Auditorium that opened in 1922. A link to the recently released report can be found here. Georgia Northwestern Technical College announces the students on the Presidents and Deans Lists for the 2022 fall semester.To be eligible for the Presidents List, the student must maintain a GPA of 3.8 or higher during the semester with a course load of at least 12 credit hours. To be eligible for the Deans List, the student must maintain a GPA of 3.5 to 3.79 during the semester with a course load of at least 12 credit hours.President's List Students for:Catoosa County: Latosha Allen, Mckenley Baggett, Brittany Baskette, Autumn Beaty, Irina Bonnell, Abigail Brown, Christopher Cabe, Alyssa Caroland, Emily D'amico, James Deen, Mariana Easley, Ashley Farley, Sarah Goins, Johnathan Harold, Misty Harris, Holly Hogan, Tracy Hughley-Profitt, Nancy Johnson, Jacob McCorkle, Easton Meadows, Demesvar Noel, Helen Pope, Tabitha Pullum, Natasha Randolph, Katelyn Rhodes, Kristin Riggs, Aleshia Rininger, Megan Stewart, Lyndsey Teague, Makenzie Ward and Alexia Young.Chattooga County: Crystal Bevel, William Bishop, John Bridgeman, Melissa Bruce, Savannah Calhoun, Jessica Cofer, Karlie DeBoard, Mindy Edge, Jared Guinn, Brandy Hawkins, Ashlyn Hodges, Austin Jones, Darrian Jones, Lisa Logan, Bielman Lopez, Danika Mitchell, Graci Murdock, Ally O'Neal, Ivey O'Neal, Ernest Richardson, Hailey Rogers, Caden Smith, Landon Stephens, Savannah Wentz and Brianna Willis.Dade County: Alannah Gray, Autumn Holden, Sidney Jones, Shyann King, Margaret Mims, Kayci Moore, Paisley Pearson, Molly Ragon, Pamela Shrader, Carissa Shrum, Macey Smith, Zoie Smith, Josie Thomas, Tori Williams and Mary Workman.Floyd County: Abbie Acree, Alexis Alexander, O'quan Allen-Miller, Savannah Almond, Isabelle Baker, Ella Bartlett, Ashley Bennett, Anna Black, Jacey Blanton, Alicia Blyth, Cassandra Brown, Hannah Bryson, Andrea Burchard, Jeffrey Burdette, Oralia Caldera, Vannessa Calhoun, Cassidy Causey, Angel Cawthon, Josue Chacon Alvarez, Ethron Crawford, Ariel Crider, Emily Cromer, Riley Davis, Keely DiPrima, Abigail Douglas, Sarai Eubanks, Nathan Faircloth, Stephanie Fountain, Estephany Gomez, Eric Gossett, Anna Graham, Madison Graham, Shandi Graham, Jonathan Guerrero, Anna Harrell, Ridge Holcomb, Steven Hopper, Claudine Iskander, Samantha Jones, Andrea Jordan, Brandon Juarez Pelico, Alicia Kelley, Latasha King, Kacey Leblanc, Preston Lockhart, Thomas Luthi, Breana Mack, Kevin Mateo, Mark Mathis, Tara Maurer, Matthew McGinnis, Alexandria Meek, Baylee Morgan, Macy Morris, Heather Murray, Brittany Nally, Brandis Nelson, Samantha Nguyen, Tanner Nutter, Elizabeth Ogle, William Peranteau, Logan Pledger, Gabriela Reyes-Pizano, Brett Rhinehart, Kelly Rickett, Calli Rickman, Diamond Roberts, Aixa Rodriguez, Jennifer Rubio, Osmar Sales, Aryn Santos, Ethan Sharpe, Auriel Sheffield, Verlon Shirley, Audrey Smith, Kinsey Swann, Katlin Thompson, Mitchell Towns, Malachi Veillon, Angela Walter, Joshua Weeks, Geoffrey White, Meagan White, Carly Wigley, Paisley Williams and Dolores Young.Gordon County: Jorge Alvarez, Susan Awad, Sarah Barnette, Erica Barton, Gisselle Beltran, Amber Bravo, Cheyenne Brown, Priscilla Camacho, Zachary Cooper, Jonathan Cortes, Diego Cortes Hernandez, Yadira De Leon-Matute, Miguel Domingo, Taylor Dotson, Paul Duhaime, Kristen Findley, Amanda Floyd, Jeremiah Freeman, Jeshua Freeman, Rene Gonzalez, Zacary Goodwin, Mckaelyn Haney, Edwin Herrera, Amanda Hill, Samuel Hufstetler, Viviana Jaramillo, Maria Jaramillo Forcado, Kailee Jenkins, Rebeca Jones, Mason Mann, Erica McGowan, Chloe Mcbee, Kevin Mendez, Kimsey Nesbitt, Maria Paez, Raven Pasley, Jessica Phillips, Gary Pruitt, Bradley Putnam, Haillie Randolph, Tommy Roden, Stefany Rodriguez, Iris Roman, Kristopher Rooks, Katherine Rosas, Sara Scott, Noelianis Sierra Palermo, Stephanie Silva, Anna Smith, Kolbey Smith, Julia Stanley, Ashlyn Starkey, Lindsay Stieber, Shaina Tadvi, Brianna Talley, Dawson Townsend, Jesus Trenti and Marisa Young.Murray County: Adara Abdelrazzaq, Jamie Beasley, Jonathan Bennett, Jennifer Bermudez-Gutierrez, Luke Brock, Shelby Cline, Lisa Deloach, Lana Grindstaff, Clayton Hullender, Austin Johnson, Bobby Johnson, Elijah Kruse, Trina Leonard, Anna Owenby, Kayden Parker, Fernando Sanchez, Brittany Simpson, Cristian Tirador Cervantes, Logan Weaver and Nicholas Wooldridge.Polk County: Britt Baxter, Jacquelyn Beck, Rio Cameron, Leah Campbell, Caleb Cason, Jeffery Durham, Cindy Flores, Alexis Garmon, Allison Hodgins, Morgan Howard, Martin Mangan, Blanche McCluskey, Stephen Mears, Amanda Mohon, Rita Molina Gutierrez, Jerry Morillon-Vanegas, Cody Munn, Carter Norton, Marisela Nunez-Cruz, Ashley Paramo-Carmona, Zaylee Peek, Ivone Pineda-Pineda, Francisco Ramirez-Rodriguez, Cendi Reyes Rangel, Christina Robinson, Ciera Salter, Jessica Sandoval, Haileigh Sealock, Selena Segura, Amber Sexton, Jose Soto, Jordan Stone-Delvalle, Mark Tillery, Dylan Trovillion, Adrea Watson and Ava Wheeler.Walker County: Jacey Baker, Daisy Ball, Sarah Barton, Ashley Blaksley, Mary Bryan, Clara Byrd, Amy Camp, Lacey Carmon, Amanda Crowder, Robert Davis, Carly Deck, Noah Denson, Sarah Denson, Elijah Dickson, Chelsie Eaton, Ashley Elliott, Maren English, Brezsea Fugate, Emma Funderburk, Marissa Garrett, Nickolas Green, Yejun Gu, Julia Hader, Joseph Hicks, Caleb Hopkins, Daniel Howell, Misty Hunter, Austin Johnson, Megan Lawrence, Kalista Martin, Harley McKinney, Jerry McRae, Bryanna Middleton, Aiden Monshor, Adrienne Padgett, Nathan Patty, Cayla Pemberton, Mary Pemberton, Rachel Plaster, Kiarra Pulanco, Jessica Quinn, Justin Race, Selena Rodriguez, Maryalyson Salosky, Austin Sears, Jonathan Shook, Sierra Skinner, Chelsey Smallan, Charles Talbott, Chloe Taylor, Tara Taylor, Zachary Templeton, Colby Thompson, Emily Thompson, Joseph Thompson, Kaylee Tomlin, Chloe Vick, Hayley Volek, Nicole Waters, Tyler West, Joshua Williams, Haley Wilson, Khloe Wilson, Destany Worley and Brooklyn Yancey.Whitfield County: Jessica Allen, Jennifer Ayala, Caylin Beavers, Mallory Bolden, Katelyn Boyd, William Bradley, Savannah Brumbelow, Joshua Bryson, Ariana Camp, Kadie Cardin, Ricardo Castro, Adriana Cisneros, Jennifer Cisneros, Hannah Cordell, Kenneth Cordell, Audrey Crowder, Ivan Cruz Juarez, Susan Davis, Sebastian De Santiago, Austin Deas, Fabian Diaz, Christopher Flores, Raul Garcia, Desiree Gonzalez, Juan Gonzalez Barrios, Abigail Gulledge, Charles Haven, Sean Henery, Lisbeth Hernandez, Rhonda Hopkins, Susana Huerta, Tania Huerta, Jacob Jackson, Joshua Kregel, Saul Lara Perez, Tun Len, Joceline Locke, Devin Long, Henry Lopez, Josue Lopez, Gavin Lowery, Danielle Maffetone, Elizabeth Manriquez, Deanna Marquez, Josh McCraven, Daisy Mendez, Osvaldo Mendiola-Aguilar, Angel Montoya, Caden Moore, Ashley Morris, Tara Moss, Steve Nunez, Crystal Osorio, Ronnie Paloblanco, Bhoomikaben Patel, Rakesh Patel, Glory Perez, Lilian Phillips, Cristian Ramirez-Martinez, Tracey Reece, Christian Rendon, Jessica Resendiz, Jonathan Rios, Andrea Rodriguez, Alejandra Sandoval, Sophia Shepherd, Abbie Smith, Gavin Smith, Gisell Soto, Rhonda Tate, Manuel Trejo, Gabrielle Vasquez, Manuel Vega, Betty Young and David Young.Other Counties: Kiley Abernathy, Krystal Akerley, Mckinley Anderson, Francely Ang, Maria Bass, Bristol Bell, Michael Bonds, John Boshears, Rebecca Caviness, Duncan Cheeves, Hiden Cherrico, Amber Cole, Mary Crowe, Joel Cruz, Maleah Daniell, Joseph Dennihy, Jacen Dixon, Joel Dobbins, Brandon Ensley, Rachel Francis, Connie Fraser, Lizzie Garcia Berrios, Jennavieve Goslin, Thomas Hartley, Candace Hasty, Shannon Hicks, Megan Holcomb, Kristen Hudson, Dalton Jackson, Joanna Jacobs, Meredith Jacobs, Christopher Keever, Johnathan Kown, Tanner Kretschmer, Savannah Lawson, Connor Layton, Tiffany Lucas, Chloe Marks, Corey Matthews, Devonta Mckenzie, Nicole Moore, Kendyll Mulkey, Amber Newton, Thuan Nguyen, Elizabeth Nycum, Chadwick Parkman, Pamela Perry, Le Anh Khoa Pham, Samantha Prewett, Sierra Reynolds, Kaitlyn Richey, Briana Ricker, Nicole Romo-Wright, Adrienne Shular, Jarrad Smith, Matthew Tolar, Hanna Tzimenatos, Demonica Underwood, Kaylynn Williams, Payton Woodring and Janie Yarbrough.Dean's List Students for:Catoosa County: Jess Aldridge, Emily Austin, Thomas Bell, Jennifer Bickley, Stephanie Driggers, Jacob Fugate, Meagan Harris, Sharon Holliday, Joan Rivera Cruz, Declan Ryan, Meagan Stoddard, William Talbott, Tiffany Thomas, Matthew Thompson, Husein Vajzovic and Brody Whitley.Chattooga County: Shanna Brown, Colton Cabe, Emily Humphrey, Reagan Miller, Brody Mobbs, William Price, Lacy Ramey, Issaic Stewart, Charla Welch, Dayna Whitaker, Brittany Woods Maynard and Hayley Wooten.Dade County: Jayda Belue, Jasmine Crabtree, Anastiastia Davies, Abigail Dwyer, Makayla Heard, Alesha Huffstuttler, Kenadi Nichols, Paul Phillips, Leonard Riby and Kali Vaughn.Floyd County: Savannah Adams, Allie Arrington, Courtney Avila, Camilla Bice, Mattie Blalock, Leandro Borges, Victoria Calvert, Lauren Carden, Aviana Carlton, Winston Cash, John David Cunningham, Isjah Davis, Alea Donaldson, Jesse Drobisch, Lavern Feltson, Allison Hall, Elizabeth Holcomb, Monica Hunter, Arturo Leon, Jessica Lopez, Elijah Lovvorn, Ricky Mendoza Bartolome, William Minshew, Madison Moats, Weston Moore, Justen Orr, Edgar Perez Ramos, Christian Ramirez Perez, Heber Ramos-Ramirez, Taylor Ray, Anthony Reyes, Nallely Reyes, Connor Rowell, Giulio Secciani, Haley Snyder, Andrea Trevino, Jenesis Trevino, Karli Turner and Samantha Wiggins.Gordon County: Luis Alarcon, Luisa Almonte Deleon, Spencer Amos, Bobby Baggett, Casey Baggett, Giovanny Barragan, Ronald Bond, Hannah Brackett, Jackson Bridges, Nick Burchett, Megann Burkhardt, Oliver Cardona, Melissa Chance, Virginia Cloer, Sarai Comi Silis, Ashley Daum, Heather Douthitt, Christian Elrod, Taylor Evans, Ivy Gonzales, Cathrine Greeson, Paige Hall, Lydia Jaime, Jada Juarez Rodriguez, Zachary MacKay, Iesha Marshall, Michelle Mondragon, Johana Nunez, Alfredo Perez-Lopez, Kayla Quiroz, Trinity Reyes, Erwin Romero, Brittany Spear, Morgan Taylor, Kitana Walton, Emalee Weldon, Hannah West and Wallace Wilson.Murray County: Aaron Barnes, Kayla Caldwell, Ashley Dodson, Cristian Espinoza, Faith Langford, Emily Maddox, Lissette Salmon, Jorden Smith and Brooklyn White.Polk County: Morgan Daniell, Robert Dodd, Houston Edwards, Ansleigh England, Omar Escutia Chavez, Cristian Gomez Ramirez, Katelin Graves, Hernestina Gutierrez, Ja-Juanna Johnson, Katrina King, Anna Lewis, Elia Lucas Vail, Katlin McCrary, Jayden Nale, Makayla Peek, Yohana Perez Monzon, Jarett Raine, Sara Robinson, Jenifer Segura, Owen Smith, Elizabeth Stone and Cara Swindall.Walker County: Megan Bethune, Alexis Chastain, Jessie Davis, Adam Everette, Jacob Gilbreath, Summer Goins, Kashayla Grant, Tori Hakes, Jathan Harding, Taylor Heatherly, Maison Hinson, Savannah Howington, Alicia Johnson, Sterling Johnson, Jacob Kelly, Chance Lynn, Hannah Mason, Stasha Maury, Olivia Moses, Layla Newbille, Christopher Reyes, Natalie Shell, Christian Sloope, Tehya Stanley, John Stilwell, Destiny Velazquez, Mason Walker, Kaylee Waters and Lindsay Whited.Whitfield County: Alan Aleman, Jiset Alvarez, Tabitha Anderson, Rosalyn Andrews, Vanesa Arredondo, Sonia Avalos, Jesenia Azbill, Daisy Azua, Bianca Bailon, Blanca Banda, Matthew Carter, Victor Cervantes, Helen Childers, Tavin Clinton, Dena Cross, Markell Dawson, Elvis Flores, Elizabeth Garcia, Fernando Guerrero, Jessica Haynes, Abagael Henderson, Gabriela Hernandez, Juan Hernandez Sierra, Diego Herrera Barajas, Benjamin Johnson, Kristi Kelley, Kelsey Kirk, Mario Linares, Mary Lopez, Esmeralda Mendoza, Brittany Moore, Pedro Morales, Emily Nesper, Francois Xavier Onana Atangana, Anthony Palacios, David Palacios, Brandy Paniagua, Edwina Pascual, Thomas Ramirez, Morgan Reardon, Adelia Robinson, David Rosales, Patricia Smith, Jocelyn Torres, Jackee Walters, Camilla Webb, Carmen Wheat and Bradley Wheeler.Other Counties: Hermetta Askew, Jacqueline Aviles Delcarmen, Joseph Baker, Reagan Barrere, Brittney Bedwell, Brooklyn Bowen, Donald Briggs, John Burnette, Lindsey Byrd, Hannah Carr, Jonathan Clegg, Kaitlyn Coley, Mandy Conner, Gelsley Dasinger, Zachary Davis, Adrian Flores, Britni Ford, Zackery Garmon, Makina Gorham, Alexander Green, Selina-Kyle Gritman, Halie Hemmerling, Jamison Hendrix, Aleah Hicks, Matthew Hoover, Sarah Ishee, Tracie Jones, Mariah Key, Anthony Kretschmer, Destiny Langley, Emily Lippincott, Alyssa Menchaca, Emily Muccitelli, Shana Perez, Taliyah Printup, Hugo Ramirez, Madeline Reitz, Katelyn Russell, Ashley Schleicher, Brett Standard, Rachel Sullivan, Kasie Taylor, Ethan Warnack, Kyle Weaver and Lexie White. Here is the upcoming City Council agenda for Tuesday: I. Call to Order by Chairman Ledford. II. Pledge of Allegiance/Invocation (Councilwoman Coonrod). III. Special Presentation. Proclamation - Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month Presented by Councilman Chip Henderson IV. Minute Approval. Order of Business for City Council V. Ordinances Final Reading: PLANNING a. 2022-0237 Landon Kennedy (Southern Part to U-RM-3 and Northern Part to U-CX-3). An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, Part II, Chapter 38, Zoning Ordinance, so as to rezone properties located at 420 thru 422 East 16th Street, from the southern part of the property to U-RM-3 and the northern part to U-CX-3. (District 7) (Recommended for approval by Planning Commission and denial by Staff)VI. Ordinances First Reading: PUBLIC WORKSa. MR-2022-0249 Collier Construction Company c/o Stacey Gilbreath (Abandonment). An ordinance closing and abandoning a portion of the unopened right-of-way adjacent to the 1500 block of South Lyerly Street, as detailed on the attached map, subject to certain conditions. (District 9) (Recommended for approval by Planning Commission and Public Works)VII. Resolutions:ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTa. A resolution authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into a Third Agreement to Exercise Option to Renew with Cromwell Development 1, LLC, in substantially the form attached, for an additional term of one (1) year, through March 31, 2024, for the use of the gymnasium at Cromwell Hills Apartments to operate programs for youth, young adults, and families on the property located at 3940 Camellia Drive and further identified as a portion of Tax Map No. 137E-A-001. (District 5)b. A resolution authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into Lease Amendment No. 2 to the Lease Agreement with Greenleaf Investment Partners L081, LLC, Greenleaf Investment Partners L083, LLC, and Greenleaf Investment Partners L055, LLC, in substantially the form attached, to allow for the landlord to complete the leasehold improvements at the Midtown Office Park in accordance with the architectural drawings on a date no later than April 30, 2023, with a rent commencement date of February 1, 2023. (District 6)c. A resolution authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into a Third Agreement to Exercise Option to Renew with the Chattanooga Housing Authority, in substantially the form attached, for an additional term of one (1) year, through March 31, 2024, for the use of the Sheila Jennings Wellness Center to operate programs for youth, young adults, and families on the property located at 1201 Poplar Street and further identified as a portion of Tax Map No. 145F-A-002. (District 7)d. A resolution authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into a Non-Profit Lease Standard Form Agreement with Forgotten Child Fund, Inc., in substantially the form attached, to lease approximately 1,142 square feet of office space at 1715 E. Main Street, identified as Tax Map No. 156B-D-011, for the six-month term of February 1, 2023, through July 31, 2023, for the rent of $1.00 per term, with the option to renew for two (2) additional terms of three (3) months each. (District 8)e. A resolution authorizing the Mayor or his designee to enter into a Non-Profit Lease Standard Form Agreement with Forgotten Child Fund, Inc., in substantially the form attached, to lease approximately 19,516 square feet of warehouse space at 1815 E. Main Street, identified as Tax Map No. 156B-D-009, for the six-month term of February 1, 2023, through July 31, 2023, for the rent of $1.00 per term, with the option to renew for two (2) additional terms of three (3) months each. (District 8)HUMAN RESOURCESf. A resolution authorizing revisions and additional policies to the Employee Information Guide (EIG) to be effective February 1, 2023, by adding a new multi-factor authentication policy; revisions to dress code, leave donation, PTO, purpose, nepotism, fill in pay, work out of class, employee pay, General Pension, request for job evaluation, bereavement and updates to section titles, and Table of Contents.A resolution authorizing revisions and additional policies to the Employee Information Guide (EIG) to be effective February 1, 2023, by adding a new multi-factor authentication policy; revisions to dress code, leave donation, PTO, purpose, nepotism, fill in pay, work out of class, employee pay, General Pension, request for job evaluation, bereavement and updates to section titles, and Table of Contents. (REDLINE VERSION)LEGALg. A resolution authorizing and directing the Clerk of the Council to advertise for public hearing on March 7, 2023, the annexation of certain property, containing approximately 1.27 acres, more or less adjacent to Clark Road, Harrison, TN 37341, Hamilton County, Tennessee, contiguous to the City limits, the property owner of which area, Ross Timoshchuk (Iron Horse Properties TN, LLC) has petitioned the City of Chattanooga to be annexed.PLANNINGh. Ankurkumar Patel and Dharmesh Patel d/b/a Northgate Liquor (Special Exceptions Permit). A resolution approving a new Special Exceptions Permit adding partners for a liquor store located at 5301 Highway 153. (District 3)PUBLIC WORKS AND TRANSPORTATIONPublic Worksi. A resolution authorizing the Administrator for the Department of Public Works to award Contract No. F-22-002-201, Roof Replacement Fire Station No. 21, to Tri-State Roofing Contractors, LLC, of Chattanooga, TN, in the amount of $157,922.00, with a contingency in the amount of $15,800.00, for a total amount of $173,722.00. (District 4)Transportationj. A resolution authorizing payment to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) for the Citys share of the Construction Engineering and Inspection (CEI) contract cost for Ragan Smith Associates for the Lake Resort Drive Project (T-19-004, PIN 129441.04), with the Citys portion in the amount of $686,677.48, for a total cost estimate of $838,758.62. (District 3)k. A resolution authorizing the Administrator for the Department of Public Works to enter into a construction contract with Dement Construction Company, LLC to construct a bridge along Lake Resort Drive (T-19-004, PIN 129441.04) at the location of continuing slope movement, in the amount of $5,891,601.72, plus a contingency in the amount of $589,160.17, for a total contract amount of $6,480,761.89. (District 3)l. A resolution authorizing payment to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) for the TDOT Engineering Services (TDOT-ES) expenses for the Lake Resort Drive Project (T-19-004, PIN 129441.04), for mandatory testing and oversite work for federally funded transportation projects, in the amount of $55,000.00. (District 3)VIII. Purchases.IX. Committee Reports.X. Other Business. (Items Listed Below):? REPORT ON DEBT OBLIGATION WIFIA Loan? CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE - Ankurkumar Patel and Dharmesh Pateld/b/a Northgate Liquor, 5301 Highway 153, Suite 101 (District 3).XI. Recognition of Persons Wishing to Address the Council.XII. Adjournment.TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2023 CITY COUNCIL PROPOSED AGENDA 6:00 PM1. Call to Order by Chairman Ledford.2. Pledge of Allegiance/Invocation (Councilman Henderson).3. Special Presentation.4. Minute Approval.Proposed Order of Business for City Council5. Ordinances - Final Reading:PLANNINGa. 2022-0247 Kali & Kali, LLC (R-1 Residential Zone to R-T/Z Residential Townhouse/Zero Lot Line Zone). An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, Part II, Chapter 38, Zoning Ordinance, so as to rezone property located at 1622 Bradt Street, from R-1 Residential Zone to R-T/Z Residential Townhouse/Zero Lot Line Zone, subject to certain conditions. (District 8) (Recommended for approval by Planning Commission and Staff) (Deferred from 01-17-2023 and 01-24-2023)b. 2022-0261 Jelani Henry (R-2 Residential Zone to R-T/Z Residential Townhouse/Zero Lot Line Zone). An ordinance to amend Chattanooga City Code, Part II, Chapter 38, Zoning Ordinance, so as to rezone properties located at 612 Dodson Avenue and an unaddressed parcel in the 600 block of Dodson Avenue, from R-2 Residential Zone to R-T/Z Residential Townhouse/Zero Lot Line Zone, subject to certain conditions. (District 8) (Recommended for approval by Planning Commission and Staff) (Deferred from 01-17-2023 and 01-24-2023)6. Ordinances - First Reading: (None)7. Resolutions: FIREa. A resolution authorizing the Fire Department to apply for, and if awarded, accept a grant from the 2022 Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) which is funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to purchase three (3) vehicles, including a heavy rescue apparatus, a light and air combination trailer, and a full size van to be used as a rehabilitation unit to enhance regional response capability, but would be deployed locally, with the Citys ten (10%) percent match up to $191,500.00, for an amount not to exceed $1,915,000.00.PUBLIC WORKSTransportationb. A resolution authorizing the Department of Public Works to erect commemorative, secondary street name signs on W. 46th Street from Tennessee Avenue to the dead end designating this section of W. 46th Street as Commemorative Doris Bruce Kelly Way. (District 7)8. Purchases.9. Committee Reports.10. Recognition of Persons Wishing to Address the Council.11. Adjournment. Walgreens has paid $7 million to the United States and the state of Tennessee to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims to TennCare - the Medicaid program for the State of Tennessee - and knowingly retaining overpayments for specialty Hepatitis C medications dispensed to TennCare enrollees who did not meet TennCares clinical criteria for coverage and payment. Walgreens operates retail pharmacies throughout Tennessee. TennCare pays prescription drug benefits for a variety of covered prescription drugs, including drugs prescribed for enrollees with Hepatitis C. Prior to 2019, TennCare required prior authorization based on clinical eligibility criteria related to disease severity and substance use before approving coverage for certain Hepatitis C direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medications. The False Claims Act prohibits a pharmacy from knowingly submitting claims for payment for medications dispensed to patients who do not meet Medicaid coverage and payment requirements, and from knowingly retaining payments that were improperly made in violation of such requirements. In a complaint filed with the United States District Court in May 2021, the United States and the state of Tennessee alleged that, from October 2014 through December 2016, a former pharmacist and store manager at Walgreens specialty pharmacy in Kingsport, Tennessee falsified prior authorization requests and supporting clinical records for 65 TennCare enrollees who failed to meet TennCare prior authorization requirements for the DAAs. The complaint further alleged that Walgreens improperly billed TennCare for DAAs dispensed to the TennCare enrollees based on the falsified requests, and that Walgreens knowingly retained the resulting overpayments after the misconduct of its former store manager came to light. As part of the settlement, the parties filed a joint stipulation of dismissal with the United States District Court, dismissing the complaint. U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III of the Eastern District of Tennessee made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert C. McConkey, III and Joseph C. Rodriguez represented the United States. Assistant Attorneys General David Rudolph and Tony Hullender represented the State of Tennessee. Robert Wesley Pearigen, Ph.D., C76, the president of Millsaps College "known for his commitment to academic excellence, community partnerships and diversity," and a former leader at the University of the South has been named the universitys 18th vice-chancellor and president. The Board of Trustees elected Dr. Pearigen unanimously on Friday following a national search that began in March 2022. Dr. Pearigen, who previously served Sewanee in several executive and academic positions, including leading university relations from 2005-2010 before assuming the Millsaps presidency, will take office as vice-chancellor on July 1, 2023. It will be my great privilege and pleasure to serve the University that has played such a formative role in my life and career and that of my family, Dr. Pearigen said. Though this is, in many ways, a homecoming of sorts, I am grateful to be returning to a place that has grown and evolved in vital ways over the past decade. I admire the progress Sewanee has made during the past 13 years and I look forward to helping lead its advancement in the years ahead. To dwell together in unity is our motto and in our DNA; we have the opportunity and responsibility now to manifest what is best about relationships, community, and humanity, and to live fully into all that Sewanee is and can be in the future. I am thrilled to be leading the University into its next chapter. Board of Regents Chair James D. Folds Jr., C86, observed, We are excited and fortunate to be able to hire a sitting president with over a decade of experience leading through incredibly challenging times and who also has extensive knowledge of our community. Rob is well-prepared to engage with the entire community to drive our future priorities and propel the University to achieve its tremendous potential. Dr. Pearigen has had a distinguished tenure as Millsaps president. Located in Jackson, Mississippi, the private liberal arts college, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, is consistently ranked as one of the best values in higher education and is one of Loren Popes 40 Colleges that Change Lives. Notable achievements at Millsaps during Dr. Pearigens tenure include: a comprehensive strategic plan and redesign of the curriculum; a significant increase in diversity of the student population, with students of color now comprising 40 percent of the population; expansion of the colleges partnerships with the local community; tripling of annual fund donations to the college and expansion of alumni engagement; completion of $25 million in capital projects, all fully funded in private donations; and development of plans and $2.5 million raised to create a campus solution to Jacksons water crisis. Dr. Pearigen succeeds Reuben E. Brigety II, who stepped down as vice-chancellor and president in December 2021 to be nominated by President Joe Biden as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, a role to which he was subsequently confirmed. The Board of Regents elected Provost Nancy Berner acting vice-chancellor and president in January 2022, and she will continue to serve in this role until Dr. Pearigen takes office. On behalf of the Board of Regents and the Board of Trustees, I extend gratitude and appreciation to Nancy for her continued leadership and service during this time of transition, Folds said. She and her team are ensuring the Universitys steady progress and have positioned the University well for the next era. Board of Regents member Mary Claire Murphy, C82, and Board of Trustees member Rev. Katie Pearson, C89, T17, co-chaired the Vice-Chancellor Search Committee. More than 1,000 members of the Sewanee community participated in the search process, which attracted candidates from across the country. Rob Pearigen brings to us a deep love for and understanding of Sewanee, years of experience in higher education, a passion for student success, over a decade of presidential leadership in the liberal arts, and a vision for continuing to move Sewanee through the 21st century, Rev. Pearson said. Add to that Rob's warmth, humility, and humor, and it is clear that Sewanee is poised for great things in the coming years. Dr. Pearigens family connections to Sewanee run deep. His wife, Phoebe, served for years as an adjunct professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and made significant contributions to dance programs in the community, including founding the Sewanee Conservatory and initiating the student-led dance organization Perpetual Motion. The couples two children, Carolyn, C14, and Wes, C17, are both actively engaged alumni. Dr. Pearigens proven leadership and his intimate knowledge of and deep abiding love for Sewanee will be invaluable in leading the university as it examines its past and looks to its future, said Dr. Renia Dotson, C88, a member of the Board of Regents and of the Search Committee. Robs commitment to a liberal arts education and his profound understanding that the cherished relationships developed while on the Mountain are what makes Sewanee unique will serve him well as he guides the University during this very transformative time in its history. Dr. Pearigen graduated from Sewanee Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor of arts in political science. At Sewanee, he was a proctor and president of the universitys academic honor society, the Order of the Gown. He earned his masters and doctoral degrees in political science from Duke University. In his postgraduate research, he focused on constitutional law, judicial process, and political theory, particularly the work of Plato and Aristotle. Dr. Pearigen returned to Sewanee in 1987 as dean of men and as a member of the political science faculty. Over the next 23 years, he served as dean of students and then as vice president for university relations. In that role, he led the institutions largest fundraising effort ever at that time, a $200 million comprehensive campaign that exceeded its goal. He also led a campaign to raise funds to acquire the 3,000-acre Lost Cove tract. Throughout his career as a leader and administrator,Dr. Pearigen also has continued to teach, including courses in constitutional law, civil rights and liberties, jurisprudence, and political theory. He plans to continue to teach upon his return to Sewanee. Dr. earigen is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Universitys Associated Alumni in 2001. Also, in recognition of his dedication to the academic success and social well-being of students as Dean of Students, the Universitys Student Life Cabinet established the Pearigen Commitment to Community Award which is awarded to students who demonstrate exemplary service and leadership to the Sewanee community. East Ridge City Manager Scott Miller updated the council on the multi-modal project being built along Ringgold Road. The work on the south side of the street is 70 percent complete and, when that side is finished, the work will begin on the north side which is expected to be in late April or May. That whole section of the road should be complete some time in October 2023.8 The council approved several change orders for the multi-modal work. ASA Engineering was given an additional 156 days to extend the construction before finishing. And additional cost of $13,315 is needed for work on the WWTA sewer main. This unexpected cost to fix their infrastructure will be invoiced to WWTA. And, it will cost $41,000 more than planned for repairs to a box culvert that has been found to be extremely deteriorated. Tennessee Department of Transportation, TDOT is responsible for repairs of the road needed from curb to curb. The council was told that about 75-85 percent of the box culvert work is in TDOT right-of-way, so they will be asked to reimburse the city for three-quarters of $41,000. TDOT will also be asked to repay the city for $77,000 of additional costs cause by the 156-day extension that will be needed to complete the work. Building permits for two large commercial projects have been issued. Mr. Miller said that Homes2 Suites, an extended stay hotel by Hilton, and a stand-alone emergency medical facility by Parkridge Health System, will both be built on Camp Jordan Parkway. A request for proposal for a boardwalk and pier at a small lake in Camp Jordan have been put out and are due near the beginning of February. The boardwalk and pier will be built with a $250,000 grant from Tennessee American Water. A request for qualifications is also due at the beginning of February for an architect to design the citys new animal shelter. Wording in the city code relating to the animal shelter was changed with a unanimous vote. The words humanely destroyed and humanely euthanized are replaced with adopted and otherwise transferred. The city council approved the execution of a development agreement with True Life Center, LLC. The group has bought 4104 Ringgold Road, the former location of the Salvation Army. Plans are to build a coffee shop and bakery there that will also sell other merchandise. City Attorney Mark Litchford said the development meets the qualification to be included in the Boarder Region District agreement. The cost of the property was about $1 million. There are four and a half more years before the border region status expires. Projected sales revenue is about $150,000 with a two percent growth rate for the next 24 years. The recommendation is for a 70/30 split in state sales taxes collected. Mr. Litchford noted that this is an example that the border region agreements are available to small businesses and not only to big box retailers. The location of this business also is near the central part of the city where East Ridge wants to encourage growth. The East Ridge Library opened in March 1973. A 50-year celebration is being planned for April this year and the council approved a request for $1,400 to fund it. The council also voted to let the Chattanooga Autism Center to use the East Ridge Community Center for no cost, to celebrate Autism Awareness Day. UNION CITY Kirklands Home, a company that sells home furnishings in 355 stores in 35 states, has its headquarters in Nashville, but its roots and its landmark legacy are in Union City in West Tennessee. That legacy is Discovery Park of America, an attraction thats difficult to describe briefly, regardless of how conspicuously it stands out in a flatland region of soybean, corn and cotton fields. The star attraction of the $100 million facility is Discovery Center, a gleaming white 100,000-square-foot building with nine interactive exhibit galleries and a tower from which you might glimpse the Mississippi River less than 15 miles away. Furnishing Discovery Center and decorating the grounds around it, including a 50-acre heritage park with a collection of historic buildings, go way beyond the scope of any Kirklands Home store. The stores dont stock skeletons of prehistoric mammoths, replicas of Gutenbergs printing press, PT-17 Stearman biplanes, earthquake simulators, logs to reconstruct an 1800s pioneer gristmill, a railroad locomotive or a Titan 1 rocket. Discovery Park is so diverse that it may sound disjointed, but there is logic to the variety. It is a gift to the community from a small-town boy who got to travel the world and wanted to share the wonder. The facilitys mission is on prominent display as you enter its main space: To inspire children and adults to see beyond. Discovery Parks website explains that Robert Kirkland started his business in rented space in Union City. His desk was a wooden door resting on two sawhorses. He made a fortune in home decor, then in imports. His international travel sparked the idea of a place where people could see sights and be exposed to ideas beyond the limitations of where they lived. Displays delve into natural science, outer space, Native American history, pioneer settlement, military equipment, aviation and historical figures. There is a display about David Crocketts roots in West Tennessee and artifacts about the prowess of Charles Taylor, an area hunting guide whose weapon of choice earned him the nickname of Slingshot Charlie. An unflinching video explores Reconstruction and the indignities of the Jim Crow era, while a progressively changing map shows the pioneer push across Tennessee. In the mid-1700s, the land on the map that would become Tennessee was all bronze, representing Native American residence. Green, representing treaty land, began to appear in 1773, and blue replaced green to show pioneer settlement. By 1838, the map is all blue. Science experiments attract young minds, and an earthquake simulator intrigues almost everyone. Why would Discovery Park highlight earthquakes? Earthquakes are part of the regions relatively recent history. In the winter of 1811-1812, the earth shook so much and so violently that church bells rang in Philadelphia and the Mississippi River flowed backward to create Discovery Parks neighbor, Reelfoot Lake. Reelfoot Lake is one of Tennessees natural wonders, and Robert Kirkland and his wife, Jenny, knew that story had to be prominent among the many in their science center/history museum/cultural central/playground. For all of the informative, captivating and alluring artifacts and exhibits, take time to find the wall decorated with portraits of Discovery Centers board of directors. Its past the apatosaurus skeleton and near the hallway to the gallery where a replica of the Wright brothers first airplane hangs from the ceiling. How could volunteers portraits be interesting? These arent stiff photos. No, they are colorful, distorted paintings that look like reflections in a funhouse mirror. They are more proof that surprises are around every corner here. Enjoy Tom Adkinsons Tennessee Traveler destination articles the second and fourth Friday every month. Adkinson, author of 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, is a Marco Polo member of SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers. Discovery Park of America is at 830 Everett Blvd. in Union City, about 170 northwest of downtown Nashville. Attraction information is at DiscoveryParkOfAmerica.com, and regional travel information is at ObionCounty.org and TNvacation.com. Glass Onion Star Dave Bautista Is A Little Embarrassed by His Tattoo That Looks Like Cillian Murphy Glass Onion star Dave Bautista has come a long way from bad boy wrestler to international TV and film star. But his performance in the new Netflix hit show proves his rise to stardom is well-earned. Despite his rise to fame via 2014s Guardians of the Galaxy, the star maintains a connection with his personal history. In fact, its pretty easy for the 54-year-old since so much of it is inked onto his skin. Bautistas iconic tattoos are a signature part of his look, and many of them have deep personal meaning to him. That doesnt mean there arent a few tattoos hes a little embarrassed by along the way. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery star Dave Bautista | Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI Dave Bautistas life story on his skin via tattoos Bautista recently took fans on a tour of his tattoos during an interview with GQ. While a good amount of the actors skin is covered in ink, he only has three tattoos. Most of the art on Bautistas body are large works of art though they were done in increments. Especially during his wrestling career, he would often have to wait months to get a tattoo finished. His match schedule never left time for them to heal. The stars tattoos mainly carry deep personal meaning or commemorate important moments throughout his life. His left arm flies both the Greek and Filipino flags to honor his heritage. On his right thigh are detailed, realistic portraits of three of his dogs. Hes picked up new dogs since they were inked though luckily hes got some open canvas underneath to add three more. On his hands, the star carries iconography from The Avengers and Spectre since they were both huge forces in his early career. One of his knuckles even has the logo for Wu-Tang Clan since founding member RZA was so instrumental in helping Bautista make the transition from wrestler to actor. Dave Bautista does have a few regrets Bautista readily admits that he has a lot of cover-ups under his ink. Theres at least one ex-girlfriend covered up on there, as well as an ex-wife on his knuckle. Even the stars first tattoo is covered up now: a concrete heart on his butt that said heart of stone. Regret may be a little understandable there. I never wanted to be the next Rock. I just want to be a good fking actor. A respected actor. Read @DaveBautista's #GQHype cover story by @yanggoh here: https://t.co/dh5PGoCBjO pic.twitter.com/3vj5O0LVvC GQ Magazine (@GQMagazine) January 4, 2023 Thats not to say hes had every tattoo he has reservations about covered up or removed. Bautistas left thigh has a large portrait of a young man in early 20th-century streetwear sandwiched between the words Gentleman Hooligan. While Bautista said he did this because he grew up relatively poor and always still felt like that kid from the streets, hes become a little embarrassed with how uncannily the piece resembles Cillian Murphy. It does because Bautista originally found a picture of Murphy from Peaky Blinders that he liked. He asked his artist to use it as a reference and change up the face so it didnt look like Murphy. Unfortunately, when the star first shared the ink on social media, fans quickly pointed out how cool it was that Dave Bautista had a tattoo of Cillian Murphy. While Bautista seems to realize that having another actors tattoo on his leg is a little cringe, he still loves the piece. "I basically have Cillian Murphy tattooed on my thigh." @DaveBautista dishes on the significance of new 'Gentleman Hooligan' thigh tattoo. pic.twitter.com/aiOoIsFmgX The Talk (@TheTalkCBS) August 3, 2020 Related Jason Momoa Confirms Buddy Cop Movie in the Works With Dave Bautista Bautistas tattoo shop: DC Society Ink Bautista has spent most of his life amassing the tattoo collection on his body, but he still feels like he should be closer to tattoo culture. The star enjoys hanging out around tattoo shops so much that he bought his own in Tampa, Florida: DC Society Ink. The name has a double meaning to Bautista. He is originally from Washington D.C., but he also frequently uses #DreamChaser as a theme on his social media and as a motto for his life. Its always been a dream of mine to own a tattoo shop, the former wrestler told GQ. Just because I love the culture, I love the environment. I love sitting around tattoo shops. Luckily, thatll make it plenty easy for the star to finish filling up his canvas. Theres still some blank space on there and plenty of history left to tell in his career. This file photo taken Jan. 26, shows Hyundai Motor and Kia's headquarters buildings in Yangjae, southern Seoul. Yonhap A Seattle City attorney has filed a lawsuit against Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia for the lack of anti-theft technology in some of their models, the carmakers said Friday. In the suit filed in the federal court, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison argued the carmakers' failures to install anti-theft technology in some vehicles led to a sharp increase of their car theft in Seattle and other regions. The city said from 2021 to 2022, thefts of Hyundai and Kia cars increased by 503 percent and 363 percent, respectively. Hyundai and Kia expressed regret over the legal action in Seattle while apologizing for the inconvenience to affected customers. "In response to increasing thefts targeting our vehicles without push-button ignitions and immobilizing anti-theft devices in the United States, Hyundai Motor America has made engine immobilizers standard on all vehicles produced as of November 2021," Hyundai said in a statement. In addition, the company has taken a series of actions to deter thefts of affected vehicles, including an upcoming software update set to be available from next month and provided at no cost to customers, it said. Kia said it has been developing and testing enhanced security software for vehicles not originally equipped with an immobilizer and has started notifying owners of certain models of the availability of this software upgrade at no cost to customers. Kia plans to make software upgrades available for most affected vehicles by mid-2023. (Yonhap) Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista has made many of his dreams come true, from making it big in the WWE to appearing in some of the biggest movies. Now, the actor can count another dream fulfilled: owning a tattoo studio. And its name has a double meaning. Why Dave Bautista named his tattoo studio DC Society Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery star Dave Bautista | Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI Dave Bautistas tattoo studio, located in Tampa, Florida, is called DC Society. The name pays homage to the actors roots. He grew up in Washington, D.C., and had the nickname Dream Chaser. It has a double meaning To a lot of people, it might sound hokey, but I live by it, Bautista explained to Florida outlet Fox13 Tampa Bay. But you chase your dreams no matter what, no matter what people tell you, you chase your dreams. The Glass Onion star continued, Im chasing my dreams, Im living my dreams, and theyre happening. Its all coming true, and Im in a comfortable place in my life, but what really feels good is allowing other people to chase their dreams and help them and employ people. What was Dave Bautistas original plan for his tattoo shop? Although the Guardians of the Galaxy actor has always wanted to open a tattoo studio, he revealed his initial plan was slightly different. Instead of just a tattoo shop, he also wanted the space to house a barbershop. Originally, that was my vision because I love tattoos, and I grew up in a barber chair, he told WFLA. My grandfather was a barber, my uncles were barbers, and I have barber chairs all over my house. Just very fond memories of being in a barbershop. How he and his partner are changing perceptions about tattoo shops Tonight at 4 and 6 Ill take you inside @DaveBautista new tattoo shop in Tampa DC Society Ink! For him its about promoting the art of tattooing and helping others chase their dreams! ? pic.twitter.com/SfBbLMkvct Josh Cascio Fox13 (@joshcascio) July 25, 2022 Dave Bautista opened DC Society with John Kural, a longtime friend and tattoo artist. The two had been talking about launching a studio since they met in 2006 but didnt start taking the idea seriously until a couple of years ago. DC Society has been the culmination of many years of dreaming for Bautista and Kural, and theyre excited to change peoples perception of tattoo studios. Tattoo shops have a reputation of being holes in the wall, Kural told Mens Journal. We wanted to change that by opening a classy shop that was enjoyable rather than a place youre scared to go in Dave and I wanted to make this more professional than whats out there. The pair also talked about the importance of custom tattoos for clients because people have stories they want to remember for a lifetime, and our team wants to help them do that, Kural said. Its sad when youre doing a portrait of someone whos passed away, and you can feel how much the person youre tattooing is hurting, but youre helping them keep their loved ones memory alive, Kural added. Clients arent just leaving with a tattoo theyre leaving with a little piece of our souls. And Im honored that they are. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close More than one-third of American evangelicals believe that climate change is a pressing problem, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. One of the groups mobilizing believers on this issue, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA), celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2022. National organizer and spokesperson Tori Goebel spoke to CT about what has changed in the last decade and how younger Christians are pursing activism as an expression of love and hope. What was the evangelical conversation about climate change like in 2012 when Young Evangelicals for Climate Action started? One of the reasons YECA was founded was that climate change was not really being discussed. Remember, 2012 was an election year and climate change wasnt coming up in the campaigns and the debates. We also werent talking about it in our churches. As an evangelical, I see how climate change activism connects to a core mandate of my faith: to love God and care for our neighbors. So why arent churches talking about it? Climate change seemed to be off-limits. But when our churches dont seem to care that we are impacting our climate in a way thats going to have a detrimental impact on our neighbors, thats really frustrating. So the motivation for starting YECA was to empower young people and equip young people to talk to their churches and have these conversationsstart the conversation. We could help the church understand that this is a way to live our values, to care for our neighbors and Gods creation. How has the conversation changed in the last 10 years? At the beginning, a lot of the conversations were What is climate change? Climate science 101: Is this even happening and are humans contributing? We were having those really important but very basic, starter-level discussions. Now, it has shifted. When I talk to college students and church groups about the theology of creation care and the issues with climate change, the questions are about how to respond, what are good policies to support, and what role can Christians play, bringing their faith to this space. They want to know What difference can I make? What can my church do? The young evangelicals that we talk to are looking for hope and avenues for action. Article continues below A recent Pew Research survey said that roughly a third of American evangelicals think that climate change is real and caused by burning fossil fuels, a third believe the climate is warming but disagree with the majority of climate scientists on why, and the rest are divided between dont believe and unsure. What do you make of those numbers? I think what it tells me is that theres still work to be done, but Im encouraged that public perception is changing and evangelicals are more open. I feel like were headed in the right direction, even if I wish it were quicker. Tell me a little about how you came to see climate change activism as part of your faith. I grew up in a wonderful conservative Christian home. We recycled. We explored nature. But we werent talking about climate change at home or at church. So I wasnt aware of the climate crisis until I was at Gordon College. One of the required classes, developed by Dr. Dorothy Boorse, was on energy and the environment. We studied how our lifestyles, here in the United States, involve the extraction and burning of fossil fuel and [how] that was contributing to this global problem. I never felt like the reality of climate change challenged my faith or created any tension; it just raised questions about how I was supposed to love my neighbor and concerns about the silence of our churches on this issue. The pastors I grew up with talked a lot about mission trips, caring for the poor, making sure our neighbors were taken care of. So climate change didnt seem different than that to me. But there was a tension with the leaders and their apparent lack of concern in this area. I think for an older generation of evangelicals, climate science seemed more partisan, and they didnt trust the science as much or maybe didnt understand it. That does become an issue for young people. In my experience, the number one reason young people leave the church isnt hatred of the faith or loss of faith but frustration at perceived and real hypocrisy. Is the discussion of climate crisis less partisan now than it used to be? I see more and more bipartisanship: There are solutions that are bipartisan, there are Republicans who care about this, and there is a bipartisan Climate Solutions caucus and conversations across the aisle. In the past, there were intentional disinformation campaigns around the issue, undermining trust in the science and encouraging people to think its all political. That has permeated our churches. A lot of it targeted evangelicals. Theres also been a fear of solutions that look like they always require bigger government and the loss of freedom. Having a conversation across the aisle, with different people offering different solutions, helps depoliticize the conversation. Anything that contributes to depoliticizing the issue is good, from my perspective. Article continues below What are the big accomplishments YECA is celebrating at 10 years? The growth in our college fellows program is a huge success. Weve had 90 fellows from 40 different colleges and universities. Were really proud of our involvement in the policy landscape. In 2015, we had a letter-writing campaign to denominational leaders and the National Association of Evangelicals, which helped lead to the NAE adopting a statement on creation care and climate action. In 2016, YECA hosted prayer rallies at every Republican presidential debate and interacted with the candidates, letting them know there are Christians who care about the climate. In 2019, YECA was invited to testify before Congress, and weve worked a lot in the last year and a half on infrastructure and climate issues in the Build Back Better legislation. We also look back at our presence at UN climate conferences. We help run the Christian Climate Observers Program there, which is a leadership development program that serves young people around the world, helping to develop a new generation of leaders on the national stage. A lot of climate activists talk about being overwhelmed by despair. How do Christian activists deal with that? Eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-grief are all too real. Im not immune to it, and neither are the young people we work with. I feel anxious about the future. I feel discouraged by the lack of action. I think thats what makes it important for YECA to talk about. But we can learn to hold despair in tension with hope, feeling this overwhelming sense of fear about the severity of the problem but also understanding that hope is important to taking action and combating that fear. I think thats where, as a Christian organization, we bring something unique to the movement. We have a unique sense of hope and purpose. We understand this as part of our faith, part of our identity as followers of Christ. We try to name it and create space for self-care and to pray for it, pray about it, and pour into our communities. And we remember that action can be a form of hope. Prayer outside abortion facilities is drawing prosecution in multiple cases across the UK. Adam Smith-Connor prayed silently on a public street in Bournemouth, England, earlier this month, his back to an abortion clinic. When community safety officers asked what he was doing, he told them he was praying for [his] son, who is deceased. The officers expressed condolences but then said Smith-Connor, a 49-year-old physical therapist and British army veteran, was in breach of a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO), according to a video of the incident. Later he was fined. The PSPO at issue is a local ordinance enacted in October 2022 establishing a safe zone comprising multiple city blocks surrounding the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) abortion clinic. The ordinance prohibits protesting whether by yourself or with others, and it defines protesting to include prayer. The deceased son Smith-Connor referenced to the officers was aborted nearly three decades ago, he explained in a release from Alliance Defending Freedom International (ADFI), a conservative legal group supporting him. Smith-Connor paid for the abortion but now regrets it and believes the procedure harms babies, women, and families. I would never have imagined being in a position to risk a criminal record for praying silently, Smith-Connor said. Smith-Connor isnt the only UK resident to be punished recently for silent prayer outside an abortion clinic. Pro-life activist Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested in Birmingham in December for violating a similar PSPO. When asked by authorities what she was doing near an abortion facility, she replied that she might have been praying. She was asked to go to a police station for questioning and was arrested when she refused. A third UK resident, Rosa Lalor, was arrested in 2021 for prayer walking silently outside an abortion clinic in the city of Merseyside. Her arrest was based on alleged violations of COVID-19 protocols against protestingthough she was outdoors, socially distanced, and maskedrather than a PSPO. Police later dropped the charges. These incidents represent a new frontier in the assault on religious liberty, according to ADFI. For Christians, the right to freedom of speech is crucial because it is the very right that allows us to freely share the gospel, and given the very clear mandate of the Great Commission, Christians, of all people, should be spearheading the defense of the right to freedom of speech, ADFI legal counsel Jeremiah Igunnubole said. Adam and Isabels cases provide the clearest evidence that societys failure to robustly protect the frontiers of free speech has resulted in the state machinery now feeling emboldened to interfere with our most basic rightfreedom of thought. The threat to pro-life activism in the UK may be broader than these two cases. Five British cities have enacted PSPOs: Manchester, Richmond, Ealing, Birmingham, and Bournemouth. Similar laws are being considered in Scotland and Northern Ireland, along with national legislation in the UK parliament. The nationwide legislation has been approved by the House of Commons, the lower chamber in the UKs governmental system, but awaits passage by the upper chamber, the House of Lords. Clause 9 of the Public Order Bill would establish a 150-meter buffer zone around every abortion clinic and prohibit interference with access to or provision of abortion services within that zone. The bill, which does not mention prayer explicitly, says a person is guilty of interference who informs or attempts to inform about abortion services by any means in a buffer zone. A government fact sheet on the bill states, These are sensible and proportionate measures designed to allow the police to better balance the rights of protestors and the public. Igunnubole disagrees. He says the possibility of national abortion clinic buffer zones is both perplexing and an about-face in terms of government policy. Since 2018, there have been yearly calls to implement national censorship zones in England and Wales, he said. Until now, these calls have been rejected due to a review by the Home Secretary in 2018 finding that there is a weak evidential base to support the imposition of national censorship zones, such as to make its introduction disproportionate. That review was government policy up until as recently as September 2022. The government has not formally changed its policy, which is why it is perplexing that [they] have supported clause 9 through parliament. The UK records more than 200,000 abortions annually. The nations rate of 17 abortions per 1,000 women is slightly less than the USs 20 and well behind Russias 50-plus abortions per 1,000 women, according to a data compilation by the World Population Review. Similar abortion clinic buffer zone laws exist in France, the Netherlands, and Germanythough a German appellate court ruled in August that silent prayer gatherings near an abortion counseling facility cannot be prohibited. In the German city of Pforzheim, the group 40 Days for Life had conducted prayer vigils twice annually outside an abortion facility. The city banned such vigils in 2019, but the court said that ban violated a German right to freedom of assembly. We welcome the courts judgment, which reaffirms freedom of assembly and other fundamental freedoms as the foundation of a free democracy, said ADFI legal officer Lidia Rieder. This is a clear victory not just for 40 Days for Life, but also for all concerned with the protection of fundamental human rights. The German people have the right to peaceful assembly and expression, including silent prayer, on their public streets. In the UK, the path ahead for religious liberty could be bleak, Igunnubole said, unless basic human rights are reemphasized. We are seeing the growing enforcement of progressive culture and viewpoint uniformity by threat of criminal prosecution, he said. This is the first step on a very bleak path. David Roach is a freelance reporter for CT and pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama. Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston and wife Bobbie selling clothes, furniture online Shortly after selling their $4.5 million home in Australia, embattled Hillsong Church founders Brian Houston and his wife, Bobbie, are now hosting a fire sale of their used designer clothes, furniture and other home goods described as pre-loved online. The sale was announced by Bobbie Houston on Instagram Wednesday, in a message that directed her followers to ClosetBabyCloset where an array of couches, boots, jackets, bags, cushions and designer shirts are on display. ITS NO SECRET THAT WEVE SOLD OUR HOME. We have gifted & donated things our entire lives, and will continue to do so a good friend will help get some of these items to college students & local charity drop offs but right now we are selling in order to move things properly and efficiently, Bobbie Houston said in her announcement of the sale. The sale comes days after she shared a photo of her injured and bloodied eyebrow on Sunday, telling her followers that she had taken a wee tumble a day earlier. Fell down my stairs and landed amongst a stack of Cmas decorations! No head or facial damage, just a few bruises & a wee gash. I do have a 2mth old stress fracture in my foot (of course), so maybe that compromised my wondrous agility and finesse on the stairs, she explained. The Houstons put their home up for sale in September 2022, only months after Brian Houston formally resigned on March 23, 2022, as global senior pastor of Hillsong Church in the wake of revelations that two women had made serious complaints of misconduct against him in the last 10 years. Brian Houston, who is now fighting criminal charges in Australia that he covered up his fathers child sexual abuse, has since blamed public statements made by the churchs board for his abrupt resignation instead of any mistakes he made in ministry. He argued that the board's statements led to public speculation and allowed peoples imagination to run wild and draw their own conclusions about his departure from Hillsong. I want to be clear. The media and others incorrectly say I resigned because I breached the Hillsong code of conduct, but thats just not true. I didnt resign because of my mistakes. I resigned because of the announcements and statements that had been made, which Bobbie and I felt made my position untenable. And I spelled out my reasons for my resignation in my resignation letter to the Hillsong Church board, Brian Houston said in a Facebook video last November. He added that when he offered to resign last March, he was expecting the board to reject it and fight for him, understanding how much pressure he was facing at the time. I guess a big part of me hoped that the board, knowing the pressure I was under, would reject my offer and continue to fight for me, but that was not to be, he said. We certainly did not want to just abandon the Hillsong congregation, as some have suggested. We adore the people of Hillsong Church, and to be honest, we miss you all terribly. Fla. megachurch requiring members agree to statement affirming biblical definition of marriage A Florida megachurch is requiring members to sign in agreement with a statement defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman and stating there are only two biological genders. First Baptist Church of Jacksonville has garnered controversy in recent days for its new statement of "biblical sexuality," which reads as follows: "As a member of First Baptist Church, I believe that God creates people in his image as either male or female, and that this creation is a fixed matter of human biology, not individual choice. I believe marriage is instituted by God, not government, is between one man and one woman, and is the only context for sexual desire and expression." First Baptist Senior Pastor Heath Lambert told The Christian Post Friday that church leadership had "been considering such a statement for a while," believing that "now was the right time to have a clear statement on these controversial issues." "Our church is in a strong and stable place. We are not in conflict on these issues, and we do not want to be. So, we wanted to clarify our position now," said Lambert. The new requirement for membership "was a decision made by our entire congregation," Lambert said. "It had the unanimous support of our pastors and all of our lay leadership," the pastor added. "The church approved this unanimously," he continued. "That means, by definition, that our entire church stands behind this. I have heard of a few people who have said they are leaving our church, but our church as a whole is excited about the statement and supportive of it." First Baptist's statement comes at a time when other churches and Protestant denominations have faced or are facing intense debate and schisms as some push for their churches to reflect modern social views on marriage and sexuality. Last year, the United Methodist Church saw over 1,800 congregations leave the denomination amid an ongoing internal debate over LGBT issues. Progressives within the UMC have long sought to change the denomination's stance to be more accepting of same-sex marriage and the ordination of openly gay individuals. Earlier this month, the Church of England announced plans to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions in their congregations but retained a traditional definition of marriage. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby acknowledged in a statement that he was "under no illusions" that proposed change for the Church of England "will appear to go too far for some and not nearly far enough for others, but it is my hope that what we have agreed will be received in a spirit of generosity, seeking the common good." Responding to allegations his church is being intolerant of different views on gender and sexuality, Lambert told CP that "we are living in a day when everyone is expressing their views on sexuality." "Americans, in particular, have grown used to all manner of businesses from coffee shops to dance halls to social media outlets expressing their opinion on sexuality and making ethical requirements of their employees," said Lambert. "Those requirements are themselves exclusive and intolerant of Christian views. The hateful responses to our statement, including violence and bomb threats, are themselves quite intolerant to say the absolute least." Lambert believes "Christians have just as much a right to express their understanding of the Bible as any secular voice does." The primary issue "is our faithfulness to the unchanging Word of God." "This is a statement for the members of our church, who are free to sign it or not. If people don't like our statement, they can ignore us. They [can] go to any other church or to no church," he added. "We might disagree with their position as strongly as they disagree with us, but we will not hate them or mistreat them in any way. Instead, we want to love them and serve them in any way we can. As Christians, we know what a lost world often forgets: you can love people who are different than you and with whom you disagree." By Kim Hyun-bin KT&G unveiled the group's goals to become a global top-tier company at the KT&G future vision proclamation ceremony held at KT&G Sangsang Planet in Seoul, Thursday. CEO Baek Bok-in unveiled the "2027 KT&G Vision," focusing on three core businesses: next-generation products (NGP), dry foods (health functional food) and the global conventional cigarette (CC). KT&G plans to nurture NGP and dry foods as the company's core growth businesses through its new business portfolio strategy. CEO Baek Bok-in speaks about the company's vision during a ceremony held at KT&G Sangsang Planet in Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of KT&G Over 1,800 churches left United Methodist Church in 2022 The United Methodist Church lost over 1,800 congregations in 2022, mainly due to the denomination's ongoing schism over homosexuality, according to a recent report. Church disaffiliation data recently compiled by UM News shows a cumulative total of 1,825 congregations had their disaffiliation votes approved by their respective conferences last year. This includes 308 churches granted disaffiliation during the regular process in 2022, plus 1,517 granted disaffiliation during special sessions held last year by various regional bodies. Factoring in churches granted disaffiliation since 2019, the total number of churches that have left the second-largest Protestant denomination in the United States goes up to 2,003. The data was compiled through a UM News review of U.S. annual conference reports and reports from the 17 special annual conference sessions. The UMC General Council on Finance and Administration, the denomination's finance agency, also collects data on disaffiliations and church closures. However, the agency's count on disaffiliations "lags behind UM News' data because it must wait for annual conferences to submit official reports," according to UM News. For the 2022 special sessions, the Texas Conference had the most significant loss of congregations, as 294 congregations voted to disaffiliate. The North Carolina Conference was not far behind, with 249 congregations disaffiliating from the UMC. The North Georgia Conference had 71 congregations leave during its regular 2022 session, but then leadership decided to pause the disaffiliation process, claiming that churches were being misled about the issue. Other Conferences that saw large quantities of churches leave as part of special sessions last year included North Alabama (198 disaffiliations), Northwest Texas (145 disaffiliations), Indiana (105 disaffiliations), Central Texas (81 disaffiliations) and West Ohio (80 disaffiliations). Over the past several years, the UMC has been embroiled in a divisive debate over whether to change its official stance labeling homosexuality "incompatible with Christian teaching," which includes a ban on the blessing of gay unions and prohibiting noncelibate homosexuals from becoming clergy. Although efforts to change the UMC Book of Discipline's stance on these issues have failed, many theological liberal leaders in the denomination have either refused to follow or enforce the denomination's rules. For example, last November, the UMC Western Jurisdiction voted to make the Rev. Cedrick D. Bridgeforth of the California-Pacific Conference a bishop, even though he is in a same-sex marriage. Frustrations over the debate led many conservatives to conclude that it would be better to form their own Methodist denomination or become nondenominational. Last year, the Global Methodist Church officially launched as a theologically conservative alternative to the mainline Protestant UMC. While most of the departing congregations have opted to join the GMC, some, including the megachurch White's Chapel of Southlake, Texas, have become nondenominational. "Today, we are experiencing the UMC as a broken institution. As well, the alternatives we have been given don't seem to align with our context or our theology. These are reasons we are exploring a 'realignment,'" explained White's Chapel in a document released in advance of the vote to leave. "We hope to align with other Methodist churches in a cooperative manner in both mission and ministry. We envision a new form of connectionalism, defined by shared ministry, equal accountability, and practical governance." In some cases, church votes to leave the UMC have been rejected by regional bodies. In December, the First United Methodist Church of Jonesboro, Arkansas, filed a lawsuit against the Arkansas Conference after the conference voted to reject the church's disaffiliation and suspended its pastor. First UMC was among three congregations that had their disaffiliation voters rejected by the conference in November, although it approved the disaffiliation requests of 35 other congregations. Last July, over 100 churches filed a lawsuit against the UMC Florida Annual Conference, claiming that it requires departing congregations to pay a "sum of money" to retain control of their church properties. The lead plaintiff is Grace United Methodist Church of Lawtey, which contends that it should not have to pay the conference for property it purchased long before the UMC was founded in 1968. 'Pagan idol to abortion': Critics lambast NYC's Ruth Bader Ginsburg statue as 'satanic' A sculpture of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg atop a New York City courthouse is attracting criticism, with observers claiming the statue has a "demonic" appearance and celebratory nature towards abortion. The sculpture, titled "NOW," was designed by Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander, who claims that the statue is part of an "urgent" and "necessary cultural reckoning" in New York. The citizens of New York should be outraged that their hard-earned tax dollars have been used for such an offensive display, Penny Nance, CEO of the social conservative activist group Concerned Women for America, the nations largest womens public policy organization, told The Christian Post in an email. This is the same city that just tore down a statue of Teddy Roosevelt because it was too controversial but a satanic symbol to glorify the murder of a child in the womb is not? No wonder New Yorkers are leaving in droves. No one should be forced to look at this disgusting graven image of evil. Tear down this statue. Billy Gribbin, communications director for Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., wrote in a Wednesday tweet that "[t]hey turned abortion into a pagan idol to worship and put it on a courthouse." A new statue atop a New York City courthouse. The artist says its part of an urgent and necessary cultural reckoning underway as New York reconsiders traditional representations of power in public spaces and recasts civic structures to better reflect 21st-century social mores. pic.twitter.com/4IFRj7hCsf Andrew Beck (@AndrewBeckUSA) January 25, 2023 New Founding and American Firebrand digital director Logan Hall also took issue with the statue, writing that "decline is a choice" in a Wednesday tweet. "NYC is taking down a statue honoring teddy roosevelt and putting up a statue honoring some hideous abortion idol," Hall wrote. In another tweet critiquing the statue, Micaiah Bilger, a staff writer for LifeNews.com, called the figure "demonic." "When Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer and others promise to 'fight like hell' for abortion, I think we need to start taking them literally," Bilger wrote. "Abortion is demonic." The statue of Ginsburg was installed last week on the roof of the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State, First Department on Madison Avenue. Sikander's artwork depicts the justice with braided hair in the shape of rams horns, skeletal branches protruding from each side like tiny arms, and wearing a lace apron resembling the one Ginsburg wore over her robe. Daily Wire podcast host and author Andrew Klavan tweeted that the "New York Courthouse has added this aesthetic atrocity to its sculptures of great lawmakers." "It is meant to honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg's pro-abortion stance by depicting a woman with demonic goat-horns who has clearly lost the power to reproduce," Klavan wrote. "Or something." According to a Wednesday profile of the statue by The New York Times, it marks the first female figure to adorn the court's building. The courthouse's plinths contained statues of male lawgivers before the recent addition of Ginsburg. "She is a fierce woman and a form of resistance in a space that has historically been dominated by patriarchal representation," Sikander told NYT. The artist said that the statue is titled "NOW" because it's needed "now" as states enact abortion restrictions due to the overturn of Roe v. Wade last summer. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to abortion, restoring regulatory authority over the practice to the states. Another statue Sikander designed is an 18-foot tall recreation of the same statue, except this piece depicts Ginsburg wearing a metal cage as a hoop skirt. The statue, titled "Witness," is located in Madison Square Park across from the court building. "Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won," Sikander wrote in a tweet last week. "'You earn it and win it in every generation.' Never fading words by Coretta Scott King. Inspired and humbled that Havah..to breathe, air, life' 'NOW' & 'Witness' are open on MLK day Jan16, 2023." While Ginsburg consistently voted to strike down abortion restrictions during her tenure on the nation's high court, the late justice voiced objections to the reach of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and its impact. During a talk at the University of Chicago Law School on May 11, 2013, Ginsburg stated, "Roe isn't really about the woman's choice, is it? It's about the doctor's freedom to practice. It wasn't woman-centered, it was physician-centered." "My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum on the side of change," Ginsburg added. In 2019, Ginsburg recalled when President Bill Clinton considered nominating her to the Supreme Court in 1993 during an appearance on "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations." The justice claimed that the Texas abortion law before the Roe ruling was the most "extreme" in the nation, only permitting abortion if the mother's life was in danger. "I thought that Roe v. Wade was an easy case and the Supreme Court could have held that most extreme law unconstitutional and put down its pen," she said. "Instead, the court wrote an opinion that made every abortion restriction in the country illegal in one fell swoop, and that was not the way that the court ordinarily operates." Catholic priest convicted of blocking Planned Parenthood entrance, could face prison time A Catholic priest was found guilty in federal court of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for placing locks on the entrance to a Long Island Planned Parenthood abortion facility in July 2022. Father Fidelis Moscinski faces the possibility of six months in federal prison after being convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Monday. The FACE Act prohibits "violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services." A Thursday press release from the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit law firm representing Moscinski, highlighted arguments from the firm's Special Counsel Christopher Ferrara, who claimed there is no "jurisdictional basis" for the application of the FACE Act. "Planned Parenthood's own witness admitted that no appointments were cancelled that day, and there was no significant effect on its business," Ferrara noted. "Father Moscinski's purely local, non-violent conduct at most constituted disorderly conduct under the New York Penal Law and had no impact on interstate commerce, which is the supposed basis for Congress' authority to enact the FACE Act." The priest is scheduled to be sentenced on April 24, 2023. The Thomas More Society intends to file an appeal on Moscinski's behalf. After the local fire department removed the locks Moscinski had placed on the facility's entrance gate in July, the Catholic priest laid in the driveway before local police arrested him for obstructing traffic. In September 2022, the Department of Justice charged Moscinski with violating the FACE Act. Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, alleged that the pro-life advocate "attempted to prevent women from accessing their legal right to vital reproductive and pregnancy services." The Thomas More Society, in addition to other pro-life groups, feel that the DOJ's enforcement of the law is unfair, raising concerns about what they think is an inadequate response to the wave of violence against pro-life organizations and churches. "At Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, we are very concerned about a weaponized Department of Justice using the law against pro-life Americans as well as ignoring crimes against them," Kristi Hamrick, vice president of media and policy for Students for Life Action, told The Christian Post in a Friday statement. Hamrick, who also serves as the chief media and policy strategist for Students for Life of America, highlighted an incident in December where the abortion activist collective Jane's Revenge allegedly left a note on a Nebraska-based Catholic ministry center threatening to carry out a mass shooting if the state passed an abortion ban. Jane's Revenge claimed responsibility for various attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches following the leak of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization last May. The ruling, which came in June, overturned the 1973 decision that made abortion a national right. Hamrick questioned the authorities' apparent lack of concern over the threatening message and other cases of vandalism and threats of violence against pro-life Americans. The note was placed on the door of the St. John Paul II Newman Center, where Students for Life members planned to meet and discuss strategies for closing a late-term abortion facility in Bellevue, Nebraska, via the organization's Campaign for Abortion Free Cities. "If our right to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempt to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed we will shoot up your Newman center with our new AR74 rifles," the message read. Before the incident, eight cities in Nebraska had declared themselves "sanctuary cities for the unborn," ordinances prohibiting abortions from taking place within city limits. Students for Life of America is pushing for the ordinance to be enacted in Bellevue. The Students for Life leader also criticized the DOJ permitting the U.S. Postal Service to mail abortion drugs, which Hamrick said is "an extraordinary dereliction of duty." Hamrick believes Moscinski's case "adds to the impression that the DOJ has thrown out the law in exchange for abortion activism. "We support Congressional investigations into DOJ activity," she said. As The Christian Post reported, the DOJ announced Monday that two individuals had been indicted in connection with the vandalism of three pregnancy resource centers in Florida. The grand jury for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida indicted Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, for engaging "in a conspiracy to prevent employees of reproductive health services facilities from providing those services." If convicted, the individuals face up to 12 years in prison and fines of up to $350,000. However, no arrests have been made related to the firebombing of a pro-life pregnancy center near Buffalo, New York, last year. Spirited North Carolina preacher goes skydiving for his 98th birthday At 98 years old, longtime North Carolina preacher Roy Jernigan doesnt have a doctor, hasnt had a physical exam in 15 years and is on no medication but the good Lord and black coffee. And to celebrate his longevity on Tuesday, he went skydiving with his family for his birthday and plans to do it again when he turns 100. My advice to anyone, if God blesses you and gives you the number of years that hes given me, burn out your life living for others. Youll never regret it, Jernigan told WECT News 6 after completing the challenge with his daughter and granddaughter. Jernigan, who served as a Naval Corpsman during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and was an understudy as a clown in the Ringling Brothers Circus at the start of World War II, told WRAL News that he was never a thrill seeker but decided to take on the challenge which his family claims started out as a joke. I didnt think hed go through with it [...] not much surprises me these days from him. Hes a risk taker I guess, granddaughter April Lintner told WECT News 6. Prior to Jernigans jump in Southport, Pastor Scott Netterville of Ambassador Baptist Ministries in Bourbonnais, Illinois, told The Christian Post that he wasnt surprised that the man who resigned from full-time preaching in Texas just over a year ago would decide to go skydiving. That sounds like something Jernigan would do, said Netterville who has known Jernigan for approximately six years. The first time I met him it was summertime down in South Texas. He was up on a ladder working on the siding on his house. I think he was 92 years old, he said. He is a very fit man. On Monday night, hours before his first skydiving experience, Jernigan talked about his birthday celebration on his Preacher Roy Ministries Facebook page. Before I get into tonight, tomorrow is my 98th birthday. I had a lovely, lovely, birthday party on Saturday night at Parkers barbeque in Wilson. There were 75 people there. I didnt know I had that many friends in the world but what a joy and a blessing, he quipped. I certainly appreciate everyone who was there. He explained that he never anticipated getting to the age of 98, but counts it a real blessing. He then shared his quirky reasoning for deciding to go skydiving. A lot of people say why in the world are you at your age [going skydiving]. I said because I couldnt get up the nerve any younger. Its a challenge and Im not gonna say a whole lot more about that tonight, but Lord willing nothing happens on Thursday night Ill give you a report of the experience. And as I told my son, Larry, when he was talking to me about this, I said, I have walked on water but I have never flown through the air. Got to give that a chance, Jernigan said. He said, When did you walk on water? Well, I was in the Arctic Ocean and we were frozen in and I walked around the ship. The water was real cold, as a matter of fact it was ice but it was water. Jernigan, who Lives in La Grange with his daughter, Linda, told WRAL that his mind is so sharp, "I can remember when I was two years old. I can quote the Gettysburg address." I mean its, its awesome because hes able to do. Hes able to go and come. And I told him the other day, I said, talk about 100. And he said, Oh, I dont want to live to 100. I said, Why not? Youve got good health, youve got a good mind. And so you know theres no reason that you couldnt just do what youre doing now even in two more years, his daughter told WECT 6 that she urged he preacher father after the jump. It was a good experience, something I had never done, Jernigan said when he landed. I can tell people how it feels to find out if youre gonna hit it or not. Florida church to teach banned AP African American Studies course: 'Our way of evangelism' A Florida church has offered space for teaching an Advanced Placement African-American Studies course rejected by the Florida Department of Education due to course content the DeSantis administration considers "indoctrination." Pastor Andy Oliver of Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg is offering his church as a space to teach AP African American Studies after the state's Department of Education informed the College Board that it was not going to add the course to the state's Course Code Directory. In an interview with The Christian Post, Oliver said he sees teaching the content of the course as essential to his congregation's mission. "We have an important job as Christians to know our history, to know the history of harm specifically that African Americans have experienced in this country," he said. "I lead a congregation that sees it as a central part of our faith to stand with those who are marginalized and oppressed because that's where Jesus always located himself." When asked how his congregation will come up with the resources necessary to teach the course, Oliver remarked, "It's central to our faith so that we will foot the bill." "This is part of discipleship; this is our way of evangelism. This is central to our mission," he said. Oliver told CP that although the church is still finalizing the plan for the course and where it will take place, "we're moving forward with it." The church's plans "are not concrete yet, but we've talked to almost a half-dozen teachers and looking at a team-teaching approach," Oliver said. The individuals Oliver has talked to about possibly teaching the course include three people who are either "part of our congregation" or people he personally knows and three additional "members of the community." He said that "it's yet to be seen whether we do this in a partnership with a private school and students can get credit for it or if we just offer it broadly to anyone who wants to take it and it's not necessarily for credit." "Either way, I think there will probably be an online component to it," he said. The church's offer comes after the Florida Department of Education's Office of Articulation wrote a Jan. 12 letter to the College Board informing the oversight body that the course doesn't comply with state law. "The content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and lacks educational value," the letter reads. The relevant state law, known as the Stop WOKE Act, outlines a list of concepts that schools must not teach because they constitute discrimination based on "race, color, national origin, or sex." This is the letter sent by the DeSantis administration to the College Board, informing them that a proposed new African American Studies AP curriculum runs afoul of FL law & has been rejected in its current form. We wrote about this yesterday: https://t.co/2Qm5rjdYszpic.twitter.com/GfiftuwWoD Guy Benson (@guypbenson) January 20, 2023 Specifically, the law bans any "training or instruction" advancing ideas insisting that "Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex," "a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously," or "a person's moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex." The ideas prohibited by the Stop WOKE Act correspond with the ideology of critical race theory. Encyclopedia Brittanica defines critical race theory as an "intellectual and social movement and loosely organized framework of legal analysis based on the premise that race is not a natural, biologically grounded feature of physically distinct subgroups of human beings but a socially constructed (culturally invented) category that is used to oppress and exploit people of color." Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz elaborated on the concerns with the course's curriculum in a tweet last week, saying it is "filled with Critical Race Theory" and an example of "woke indoctrination masquerading as education." One topic included in the course deals with "Intersectionality and Activism." The Department of Education described the idea of intersectionality as "foundational to CRT," noting that it "ranks people based on their race, wealth, gender, and sexual orientation." Despite the lies from the Biden White House, Florida rejected an AP course filled with Critical Race Theory and other obvious violations of Florida law. We proudly require the teaching of African American history. We do not accept woke indoctrination masquerading as education. pic.twitter.com/Anw7Ui2JJv Manny Diaz Jr. (@SenMannyDiazJr) January 20, 2023 The Department of Education expressed reservations about the inclusion of works by Angela Davis, a "self-identified Communist and Marxist," and Kimberle Crenshaw, the "'founder' of intersectionality," in the course curriculum. Additional topics that concerned the state include "Black Queer Studies," "Black Feminist Literary Thought," "The Reparations Movement," "Black Study and Black Struggle in the 21st Century," as well as "Movements for Black Lives." "Movement for Black Lives is an organization with stated objectives that include eliminating prisons and jails, ending pretrial detention, and concluding 'the war on Black trans, queer, gender non-conforming, and intersex people," the department explained. Additional readings flagged by the Florida Department of Education advance narratives of "white supremacist superstructures" and a "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" while the unit on reparations provides "no critical perspective or balancing opinion." Diaz vowed, "if College Board decides to revise its course to comply with Florida law, we will come back to the table." In a tweet Tuesday, Bryan Griffin, the press secretary for Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, retweeted a story announcing that the College Board plans to issue a revised framework for the AP African American Studies course, attributing the development to DeSantis's "principled stand for education over identity politics." Excellent news. Thanks to @GovRonDeSantis' principled stand for education over identity politics, the College Board will be revising the course for the entire nation. The Florida Department of Education (@EducationFL) will review the changes for compliance once resubmitted. https://t.co/p4JWwsKGay Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) January 24, 2023 DeSantis, widely seen as a contender for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, addressed the controversy in remarks Monday. Pushing back on the implication that not approving the course amounted to an effort to prevent schools from teaching African American history, DeSantis stressed that "In the state of Florida, our education standards not only don't prevent but they require teaching black history." Education is about the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of ideology or the advancement of a political agenda. pic.twitter.com/Hete9aeHlF Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) January 23, 2023 Oliver believes DeSantis's potential presidential aspirations played a role in his decision to oppose the AP African American studies class. "The state is led by someone who's running for president, and unfortunately, he's doing so on the backs of black and brown people and transgender persons," Oliver said. DeSantis has yet to announce his 2024 candidacy officially. Oliver described the College Board's effort to "restructure the class in order to accommodate Florida" as "a shame." He indicated that his church plans to "offer the full course as it was intended to be taught" even if the state of Florida approved a revised version of the class. "It very well may not be an official class. It may be more of a 'this is what this class was all about,'" Oliver said. 5 important facts about Holocaust Remembrance Day Friday marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual international observance that honors the memory of the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust. This year, the United Nations announced that it will host a ceremony at the United Nations General Assembly Hall that will center on the theme of Home and Belonging. The theme Home and Belonging highlights the humanity of the Holocaust victims and survivors, who had their home and sense of belonging ripped from them by the perpetrators of the Holocaust, explained the global body. The violence of exclusion began with disinformation and hate speech that lent support to systemic injustice and discrimination, and marginalization and ended with genocidal killing. The U.N. went on to note that this years theme reminds us of our responsibility to respond with humanity to the victims of atrocity crimes, to counter hate speech, antisemitism, Holocaust distortion and denial, and prejudice to do all we can to prevent genocide. Here are five important facts about Holocaust Remembrance Day, including why Jan. 27 is the date for the international observance, why Israel observes it on a different day, and how much Americans know about the World War II-era genocide. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next Pastor Jack Hibbs says mother tried to abort him but God had another plan for his life During a sermon Sunday, megachurch Pastor Jack Hibbs shared with his congregation that he is a survivor of a failed abortion in which his mother used a heated coat hanger after facing pressure from his father. The 65-year-old pastor of California's Calvary Chapel Chino Hills shared his support for the pro-life stance in a Jan. 22 sermon on the 50th anniversary of the since-overturned Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a national right. In the sermon titled "The Sanctity of Life," he detailed his mother's struggles that led to the abortion attempt several years before abortion was made a national right. "On Dec. 24, 1957, my mom was alone, putting my brother and my sister to bed, [and she] boiled a coat hanger in San Diego and attempted an abortion because she was terrified," Hibbs told the congregation. "She didn't know anybody. She didn't know when my dad would be back after his deployment or his detail in Alaska. All she knew was, my dad said, 'when I come back, there better not be three kids in this home,'" Hibbs continued. "And [my father] was gone for a year. And when he came home, he came home to a three-month-old and my mom's abortion attempt failed. So, this is what's really beautiful about God redeeming things and forgiving." For those who have been involved in abortion in any way, Hibbs said there is room for God's grace if they repent. "God wound up forgiving my mom. I watched it happen. He wound up forgiving my dad which is very ironic. Isn't it? The very one who said: 'I don't want his life in my world. Get rid of him.' It's this reject that wound up leading my dad to Christ before he died and went to Heaven," Hibbs added, as his congregation erupted in cheers and clapping. [My dad was] redeemable. You're redeemable. I'm redeemable. There's not one thing that you could have committed or done in life that's beyond the forgiving blood of Christ. Not one thing. The decision is yours today. Your mind and your emotions and your heart and your soul is in the valley of decisions right now, to choose what you will do with what's before you." "God says, 'choose life and live,'" Hibbs said, adding that if a woman in his church is pregnant, they should say something to receive help. "If you find yourself pregnant, let us know. We'll keep it quiet. We'll find a family. We'll take care of it, and we'll take care of you. We will not be a church that says: 'don't do that,' and then don't supply the needs, and then you can't obey," he said. Because of his mothers experience, Hibbs said he is able to sympathize with the fear that pregnant women experience who are being pressured to get abortions. "I understand a woman who has been harassed and is terrified and mortified," he said. "My mother was terrified when she attempted abortion on me. She was scared to death. I understand that," Hibbs admitted. "My heart goes out to those that are being bullied. But, those who perform abortions lie about it, and then it's defended by a series of lies. It's big money, you know." The pastor recited Isaiah 5:18 in reference to medical professionals who perform abortions as being those who engage in "wickedness" and "mock" God. "Life is God's business," he said, but "man destroys it." Hibbs asserted that Christians who worship God should believe in the sanctity of life. "If we believe in the sanctity of life, then we believe that God was in the womb: Psalm 139; assembling the baby parts together. Before mom even knew she was pregnant, God was at work," Hibbs said. As he concluded, Hibbs delivered a closing prayer. "Father, we pray in Jesus' name that you, Almighty God, would continue the success that's happening in America today where abortions are decreasing, lives are being saved, people are given the chance, and the adoption industry is busy," Hibbs prayed. "But, dear God, we pray that you forgive us as a nation. And that should restore, father, to our land: reverence of God, preservation of human life, the love for one another, even our enemies may we love them with all of our hearts. And Father, may we put ourselves in the position that as a nation, having repented, we might find your favor once again." Hibbs previously told Calvary Chapel Magazine that he was born 21 days after his mother was hospitalized because "God saw fit to let me come into a world where I wasn't wanted." "I was a severe stutterer from a very young age. I didn't blend in with other kids because I stuttered so much and therefore was teased, mistreated, and abused. Growing up, I never felt close to my dad," he said. "I could tell that he didn't really like me, and I felt rejected and hurt. I grew up an angry child and later, as a teen, became violent. One day, I accidently overheard my mother telling someone on the phone about the abortion attempt. At the time, I was a junior in high school and didn't really care, although I never forgot about it." "A few years later, on June 20, 1977, I saw many young people going into a building, and I decided to follow them in. I had inadvertently stumbled into Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa," he added. "I had never been to church, and I was curious and excited to see a young hippie pastor named Greg Laurie teaching the Word of God." Hibbs said Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, shared the message of John 3:3: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." This was the first time Hibbs had heard the Gospel and gave his life to Christ that evening. Nat'l Prayer Breakfast to be 'smaller,' 'more intimate' in return to its origins; the Family no longer hosting Event will have 2 surprise guest speakers, no international guests The National Prayer Breakfast will undergo changes this year to its format, including renowned Christian ministry no longer being in charge of the annual observance and a much smaller guest list. An annual tradition that goes back to 1953, the Breakfast is held every first Thursday in February and often features speeches by special guests and the president of the United States. A new organization known as the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation will oversee the event, with the attendees being limited to members of Congress, the Biden administration, their families and constituent guests. This year's event will also be held at a facility that is part of the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C., rather than a hotel, as has been customary in past years. Mark Pryor, a former Arkansas attorney general who served in the U.S. Senate from 2003-2015, serves as president of the board of the new Foundation. In an interview with The Christian Post, Pryor explained that the changes were made as the result of ongoing discussions in the House and Senate for more than 10 years. There's been conversations about whether we should take the National Prayer Breakfast and set it up in a single purpose entity. Before this, it was never an entity, he said. It legally wasn't an entity, it wasn't a corporation, it wasn't a nonprofit, it wasn't a foundation, it was what was it? It was just an event. The Congress decided to establish a legal entity that will hold the National Prayer Breakfast and so that was really the origin of this." Although past breakfasts could have as many as 3,500 guests, Pryor noted that the present confirmed attendance was around 250, with RSVPs still coming in, with no international figures being invited. Pryor told CP that this was not really anti-international as much as a reflection of Congress desire to return the National Prayer Breakfast back to its origins. Back with President Eisenhower really was just the president and just members of Congress, House and Senate. And so, that's what they wanted to get back to, explained Pryor. Pryor described the intended setting as being smaller, more intimate, with this following the wishes of the House and Senate to restore it back to what it used to be." As with past national breakfasts, next weeks event will still be live streamed online and on C-SPAN, with two still to be announced guest speakers scheduled to give remarks. Pryor was optimistic that the event will still be a time of unity, as well as nonpartisanship, adding that this country needs some moments of unity and hopefully this will be one of those. And so, we think its going to be a very nice event and we think its going to be meaningful and we hope that thousands maybe millions of people around the country and around the world will have a chance to watch it, he added. Originally called the Presidential Prayer Breakfast, the National Prayer Breakfast was first held in 1953 under President Dwight Eisenhower, with the encouragement of the Rev. Billy Graham. While the event has never garnered any serious litigation against it, some church and state watchdog groups have voiced concerns about the governments ties to the religious gathering. For decades, the event was organized by a secretive Christian group, sometimes known as the Fellowship or the Family, which had been overseen by influential evangelist Doug Coe from 1969 until his death in 2017. In August 2019, the Family was the subject of a Netflix documentary series, which included interviews and perspectives from both supporters and critics of the D.C.-area ministry. For this year, the group, which is also called the International Foundation, will be hosting a separate observance, known as The Gathering, which will include multiple events over two days. Youth Pastor Arresting In Sex Trafficking Sting, Miracle Rescue Of Diver Lost At Sea, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Statue Is 'Demonic' link to download the audio instead. link to download the audio instead. 07:23 07:23 Authorities in Texas have arrested nearly 50 people, including one high school teacher and a youth pastor, as part of a sting operation aimed at combatting sex trafficking. A 22-year-old spear fisherman from Key West, Florida, who got lost at sea for two hours last Thursday after he was pulled away from the coast by the Gulf Stream is celebrating a miracle" after he was rescued alive by his own family before authorities could reach him. A three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled against Christian baker Jack Phillips, having concluded that he was wrong to refuse, on religious grounds, to bake a cake celebrating transgenderism. A sculpture of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg atop a New York City courthouse is attracting criticism, with observers claiming the statue has a demonic" appearance and celebratory nature towards abortion. Colorado appeals court rules against Jack Phillips, Masterpiece Cakeshop in trans cake case; baker to appeal A three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled against Christian baker Jack Phillips, having concluded that he was wrong to refuse, on religious grounds, to bake a cake celebrating transgenderism. In a decision released Thursday, Judge Timothy Schutz authored the panel's opinion affirming an earlier trial court decision against Phillips, concluding that the baker violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by not creating a cake to celebrate a person's new trans identity. A complaint was lodged against Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop after a man who self-identified as a woman and changed his name to Autumn Scardina demanded that the baker create a cake with the colors of the trans flag in pink and blue frosting to celebrate Scardinas self-professed sexual identity. Scardina testified [he] requested a custom pink and blue cake with no message or other design elements. The trial court found that Debra agreed to make that cake but then retracted the commitment once Scardina told her what the cake was for, wrote Schutz. It was only after Scardina disclosed that [he] was transgender and intended to use the cake to celebrate both [his] birthday and [his] transition that Masterpiece and Phillips refused to provide the cake. Thus, it was Scardinas transgender status, and [his] desire to use the cake in celebration of that status, that caused Masterpiece and Phillips to refuse to provide the cake. The appeals court rejected Phillips claims that he was being forced to convey a message that went against his beliefs because the cake he was asked to make expressed no message, adding that not all conduct constitutes speech. Phillips had previously won a United States Supreme Court case in 2018 that centered on his refusal to bake a wedding cake that celebrated a same-sex marriage in 2012 when same-sex marriage was not legal in Colorado. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Phillips, denounced the appeals courts decision and vowed to appeal it, considering part of a broader campaign of harassment against the Christian baker. Over a decade ago, Colorado officials began targeting Jack, misusing state law to force him to say things he does not believe. Then an activist attorney continued that crusade. This cruelty must stop, said ADF Senior Counsel Jake Warner, in a statement shared with The Christian Post. One need not agree with Jacks views to agree that all Americans should be free to say what they believe, even if the government disagrees with those beliefs. In 2019, Scardina filed a complaint against Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop over their refusal to make a cake celebrating his trans identity. Although the suit had originally claimed that Phillips violated both CADA and the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, a judge dismissed the latter claim in March 2021. In June 2021, Denver District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that Phillips had violated CADA when he refused to make the cake for Scardina, with the court noting that the analysis would be different if the cake design had been more intricate, artistically involved, or overtly stated a message attributable to Defendants. Defendants expressive conduct argument fails because Defendants presented no evidence that a reasonable observer would attribute any message that was conveyed by the cake to Defendants, continued Jones in his 2021 decision. He added, Defendants have failed to carry their burden to show that providing the requested cake constituted any type of symbolic or expressive speech protected by the First Amendment. Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong, second from left, and Hamid Naim Khudair Abdullah Al-Ghazi, third from left, Iraq's interior ministry secretary general pose for a photo in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday (local time). Yonhap By Lee Kyung-min Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong is accelerating efforts to win overseas construction orders in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Qatar, the ministry said on Friday. Won met with trade, transport and interior authorities in the three Middle Eastern countries during his trip from Wednesday to Thursday (local time) to fortify cooperation in smart-city planning and infrastructure construction. Won met with Atheer Dawoud Salman Al Ghrairy, trade minister of Iraq, Wednesday and agreed to hold a Korea-Iraq joint committee in the first half of this year, almost five years since the last meeting held in Baghdad in 2017. Won also met with Taliv Abdulah Baeish Al-Saad, deputy transport minister, and Hamid Naim Khudair Abdullah Al-Ghazi, the country's interior ministry secretary-general, and shared the latest developments on ongoing major projects including the construction of a railway system. The minister's efforts are expected to increase the chance of many strong local players winning major construction projects in the Middle Eastern country long bogged down by delays in infrastructure building initiatives, due to military conflicts and subsequent political unrest. The meeting with high-level officials was followed by another attended by Korean employees working at the regional headquarters there. Won met with about 50 officials of Hanwha, a local conglomerate facing hurdles concerning a project to build a new city in Bismayah, about 10 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. The next day, Won arrived in Doha, Qatar, and met with Abdullah Al Subaie, the country's interior minister, and continued efforts to promote the strength of Korea's infrastructure-building abilities. He stressed the importance of resolving outstanding issues between Korean builders overseeing the city railway construction, and their Qatari project partners. Minister Al Subaie sought assistance and cooperation with Korea in the fields of food security, a concern Won said can be eased with close ties in knowledge sharing and exchange programs through Korea's agriculture authorities. Korea's experience in smart farming and spatial information sectors will be of great help, he said. Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, Qatar's energy minister, and Jassim bin Saif bin Ahmed Al Sulaiti, the country's transport minister, agreed with Won to accelerate cooperation in the construction of green projects encompassing offshore wind power, as well as railway construction. Won raised concerns expressed by Korean firms about the continued delay in expressway building projects with the transport minister, who said that the issue will be examined and resolved immediately. "Korea will fortify cooperation not only in infrastructure building but also in energy sectors with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and countries where Korean firms can find growth opportunities, as underpinned by years of strong ties over the past few decades," the ministry said. Just 29% of white parents see college degree as important, while most minority parents still do In June 2021, comedian and political commentator Bill Maher slammed college as a racket on his political talk show "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. Now that graduation season has ended and we wont be spoiling anyones big day, lets talk about what higher education in America really is a racket that sells you a very expensive ticket to the upper middle class, Maher declared to wide applause and cheers. The comedian has not been alone in his criticism. A few months later in December of that year, partially paralyzed former Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who attended a Christian college for one semester before dropping out, urged conservative youth to drop out of college if they arent studying medicine, law or engineering because higher education is a scam. I am proudly a college dropout. If you are not becoming an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, I highly encourage you to drop out. Its a scam, Cawthorn said at AmericaFest 2021. Like Cawthorn, many men citing the diminishing returns to having a college degree are also now choosing to forgo what many families previously treated as a rite of passage into adulthood. While some 32% of the U.S. population 25 years of age and older holds at least a bachelors degree, according to data from the American Community Survey, new data from a Pew Research Center study show that only a minority of white parents view a college degree as extremely or very important for their children while most minority parents do. In Parenting in America Today released on Tuesday, Pew researchers Rachel Minkin and Juliana Horowitz highlighted this and other findings collected from a survey conducted from Sept. 20 to Oct. 2, 2022, of 3,757 U.S. parents with children younger than 18. The data was collected as part of a larger survey to better understand how American parents approach parenting. The survey showed that only about 41% of parents say its extremely or very important that their children earn a college degree. When broken down by race, the data shows stark disparities between how white parents and minority parents value higher education. When it comes to the importance parents place on their children graduating from college: 70% of Asian parents say this is extremely or very important to them, compared with 57% of Hispanic parents, 51% of black parents, and just 29% of white parents, the researchers wrote. Data from a Pew Research Center Survey conducted in 2015 showed that a majority of parents in general, including white parents, said it was either extremely important or very important that their children earn a college degree. According to that survey, 86% of Hispanic parents, 79% of black parents and 67% of white parents agreed on this. Researcher Renee Stepler suggested at the time that the reason for the gaps in the views on college between the racial groups may be linked to how each group saw a college degrees importance in moving up the economic ladder. Roughly half (49%) of Hispanics and 43% of blacks say that a college education is a requirement to be part of the middle class, compared with just 22% of whites. However, white adults are more likely than black or Hispanic adults to already be in the middle class or higher, which may account in part for the fact that fewer whites see college as essential, Stepler argued. Jean Eddy, president and CEO of the national nonprofit American Student Assistance, told The Christian Post in a statement that she is not surprised that parents are thinking outside of the college degree when it comes to mapping financial success for their children. Its not surprising that parents are thinking outside of the college degree, as more and more young people are increasingly skeptical of the high school-to-college route and desire more flexible post-secondary education pathways, Eddy said. In the spring of 2022, there were 662,000 fewer students enrolled in undergraduate programs compared to the previous year, and a recent study found that just 53% of todays high schoolers say they are likely to attend college. Mom sues school district for 'socially transitioning' daughter to male behind her back A California mom is suing her daughter's school district, alleging that district officials went behind her back to affirm her daughter's stated gender identity as a male, which she believes violates her parental rights. The Center for American Liberty has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Aurora Regino, whose daughter attends classes at the Chico Unified School District in Chico, California. The complaint alleges that the school district has a "Parental Secrecy Policy," which allows schools to "socially transition students who express a desire to live as a gender different from that associated with their biological sex while ... keeping the social transitioning secret from their parents unless the student specifically authorizes the school to inform them." The school district has denied the existence of such a policy. Regino's daughter, referred to in the lawsuit as "A.S.," told a school counselor in early 2022 that she "felt like a boy." The counselor allegedly encouraged the then-fifth-grade student to adopt a name and identity consistent with her new gender identity as a male and informed the child's teacher about her new identity. The complaint maintained that the district did not notify Regino of the affirmation of her child's expressed gender identity. "After several weeks of A.S. identifying as a boy at school, Ms. Regino learned about A.S.'s new gender identity," the lawsuit reads. "Ms. Regino was supportive of A.S. but upset that the school had not even informed her that it was socially transitioning her daughter from a girl to a boy. She tried to encourage the District to abandon the Parental Secrecy Policy in favor of a policy that would involve parents in students' gender transitions, but she was told that this policy was required by California law. This is false." The court filing claims that district officials pointed to Assembly Bill 1266 as why the schools must abide by a "Parental Secrecy Policy." The document notes that the district's director of elementary education sent Regino a link to a frequently-asked-questions page about the law, which declared that "schools must consult with [the] transgender student to determine who can and will be informed of the student's transgender status, if anyone, including the student's family." Regino's legal team rejected the idea that the law requires the "Parental Secrecy Policy," stressing that the text of Assembly Bill 1266 only gives trans-identified students the right to "participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities and use facilities consistent with [their] gender identity." The lawsuit characterizes the school's actions as a violation of parental rights under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to "direct the upbringing of their children; to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children; to direct the medical and mental health decision making for their children; and to make private familial decisions regarding their children without undue interference by the state." Regino is asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California to declare the school's actions unconstitutional and issue an order preventing the school district from enforcing such a policy. Defendants in the lawsuit include the Chico Unified School District's Board of Education and its individual members as well as Chico Unified School District Superintendent Kelly Staley. Although Regino didn't consent to the school's efforts to socially transition her daughter, she did give permission for her child to attend a "Girls Group" after the child had voiced concerns about anxiety and depression. The lawsuit contends that the "Girls Group" was pitched as an "arts and crafts" group but quickly morphed into discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity after Regino's daughter expressed reservations about her gender. During the spring semester, the child had additional one-on-one meetings with the school counselor, who provided the child with resources related to a male identity and even brought up the topic of "breast binding." Although the child wanted to inform her mother of her new gender identity, the school counselor was allegedly not supportive of that course of action and encouraged her to speak with other family members first. The lawsuit contends that the counselor never told the child to discuss her feelings with a mental health professional. The complaint further alleges that the school counselor had encouraged students to explore their gender identity in class before having one-on-one meetings with the student. The complaint implied that Regino's daughter began experiencing gender confusion due to the counselor's comments in class. Regino's daughter is currently in sixth grade and now attends a different school in the district. Her gender dysphoria has subsided to the point where she no longer identifies as a boy. The plaintiff's other daughter has been transferred to another school in the district. In a statement, Superintendent Staley assured parents that the school district doesn't have a "Parental Secrecy Policy." "In regard to the lawsuit, we value our community and will thoroughly review and investigate any claims. As you know, Chico Unified continues to focus on family engagement and works hard to maintain open and transparent communication. We highly value the relationships our families have built with their schools," she said. Staley urged parents to "reach out to our District Office if they have specific questions regarding our curriculum, instruction or policies." Regino's lawsuit comes at a time when many public school districts face increased scrutiny for policies requiring teachers to keep parents in the dark about their child's gender identity if the child prefers his or her parents not to be told. In 2021, January and Jeffrey Littlejohn filed a similar lawsuit against the public school district in Leon County, Florida, insisting that district officials embraced their daughter's gender identity behind their backs by "colluding with [our] daughter to deceive us so that we would never have known she was going by an alternate name." These concerns prompted the state of Florida to pass legislation requiring schools to notify parents about changes to their physical or mental health and forbidding them from withholding information from parents. Last August, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, seeking to stop a school district policy forcing teachers to withhold information about students' gender identity from parents. Topless woman vandalizes church, damages Jesus statue A woman has been accused of vandalizing a North Dakota church building while topless and barefoot, allegedly damaging a statue of Jesus in the process, according to authorities. Brittney Marie Reynolds, 35, allegedly broke into St. Marys Cathedral of Fargo on Tuesday evening and vandalized a statue of Jesus before police arrested her fleeing the scene. Reynolds was held at Cass County Jail and made her first court appearance on Wednesday, with officials also accusing her of assaulting staff at Essentia Health Emergency Room, reported Valley News Live/Gray News. The estimated cost of the damage comes out to $11,500, according to Fargo police. Paul Braun, the director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Fargo, told The Christian Post that the statue, Christ in Death, was located at the Cathedrals southside entrance. We hope the suspect in this incident gets the help she apparently needs, and we are praying for her well-being, Braun said. Braun told CP that the cathedral is located near homeless shelters and a hospital, and that oftentimes people will enter the building to warm up, noting their doors are open to all during the day. This was also not the first time that St. Marys has been the subject of vandalism, noted Braun, as they have had a few recent incidents of vandalism. A man came in off the street and security cameras showed him ascending the altar, sitting in the bishops chair, and knocking a marble crucifix off of the altar and onto the floor. He was charged, he said. Another incident involved a young woman who had previous run-ins with authorities. She spray-painted our statue of Jesus located outside the Cathedral with black paint. She was detained and sent for medical and mental evaluation. Not all efforts to damage statues have been successful, as a man in Mexico recently found out when he allegedly attempted to steal a statue of St. Michael the Archangel. According a report translated by the Catholic News Agency, 32-year-old Carlos Alonso allegedly went to Christ the King Parish of Monterrey earlier this month to rob the church while intoxicated. However, as he tried to get away, he tripped and landed on the sword that the St. Michael statue was holding, cutting his neck and requiring him to be hospitalized before being handed over to authorities. American life expectancy continues to fall According to a CDC report released in December, the life expectancy of Americans fell by about seven months in 2021, reaching the lowest point in two decades. Although researchers expected a major drop in the wake of COVID-19, many industrialized nations are seeing signs of recovery. The U.S., however, despite spending more on healthcare than any other country, continues a trend in the wrong direction. More importantly, while COVID-19 remains a leading cause of death in the U.S., deaths from cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and drug overdoses increased over the last year. In fact, even if the COVID death numbers are to be believed, this downward trend in the life expectancy of Americans predates the pandemic. In 2019, a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association detailed U.S. life expectancy over the previous 60 years. "The general trend," wrote Joel Achenbach in The Washington Post, was that "life expectancy improved a great deal for several decades, particularly in the 1970s, then slowed down, leveled off and finally reversed course after 2014, decreasing three years in a row." The last time that life expectancy decreased for three straight years in the United States was during World War I and the Spanish flu. The spiral has continued since, as has the contributing factor of what is often called "deaths of despair." In 2021, there were over 100,000 deaths from drug overdoses, an increase of 15% from the previous year. Deaths from suicide and liver disease also increased, the latter a symptom of the same kind of self-destructive behaviors increasingly taking the lives of young Americans. Ellen Meara, a health policy professor at Dartmouth, told The Washington Post, "Theres something more fundamental about how people are feeling at some level People are feeling worse about themselves and their futures, and thats leading them to do things that are self-destructive." Despite our ever-advancing potential to deliver medicine to those who need it, Americans are increasingly lonely, purposeless, and prone to reckless behavior. The connection between mental and physical health is well documented, and Christians of all people should know the complex and inextricable links between body and spirit, as well as individual and community. In this cultural moment, it should also be noted that such despair is taking hold at a time when we have almost unlimited access to fun, pleasure, and distraction. As G.K. Chesterton famously wrote in The Everlasting Man, "Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other the good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless." Or as journalist Andrew Sullivan summed up in a piece written about the national opioid epidemic: "America, having pioneered the modern way of life, is now in the midst of trying to escape it." It may be that, faced as we are with decreasing life spans, a life of purposeful, selfless faithfulness could have an incredible impact. The greatest commandment, Jesus said, is to love God with our whole selves hearts, souls, minds, and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves. As we obey, we turn both upward and outward. The upward turn both reveals and offers purpose. The outward turn offers a joy that is far better than momentary pleasures. Of course, God never promises to preserve physical health. But hear the words of Solomon: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones." Originally published at BreakPoint. Andy Stanley and his troubling message as spiritual shepherd of the flock A little more than a fortnight ago, I wrote a column for The Christian Post titled Free Speech and the State of American Culture. In that column, I discussed The American Worldview Inventory, which is researched and published by George Barna, the director of research with the Cultural Research Center located at Arizona Christian University. Barna and his team compiled exhaustive research in order to analyze the bedrock doctrines of the Christian faith to ascertain the current state of American Protestant Christianity. Barna and his teams research results were, and are, devastating. For example, Barna found that among Evangelical pastors, only 61% believed in the concept of absolute truth (some things are always right and some things are always wrong). And the Evangelicals are the conservative, Bible-believing Protestants. Barnas research was among pastors, not church members at large. If the pastors, the shepherds of the flock, have succumbed to sub-biblical worldviews, who is going to lead the people and teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded you? (Matt. 8:18-20) If people are not hearing a sure, certain, and uncompromising word from the pulpit, where will they find truth in this increasingly secular age in which Americans find themselves immersed? Let us always remember that the Prince of Darkness, the Great Deceiver, is able to transform himself into an angel of light (II Cor. 11:14) and that Christians must put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (Eph. 6:11) And the devil is wily, deceitful and strategic. If Satan can deceive and neutralize a pastor, it is the spiritual equivalent of an expert sniper neutralizing or taking out the commander of a military unit. This is one of many reasons we should pray for our pastors, indeed all pastors, every day. It is a certainty they are going to get the special attention of Lucifer and his demonic minions. It is with profound sadness that I bring to your attention a subtle, but profound example of a devastating, anti-biblical teaching coming from one of the leading Evangelical pulpiteers in America todayAndy Stanley. The Rev. Stanley, the influential pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, and the leader of North Point Ministries, during North Points Drive Conference last May, made some rather astounding comments that have now gone viral on social media. Stanley declared, A gay person who still wants to attend church after the way theyve been treated. Im telling you they have more faith than I do. They have more faith than a lot of you. Here is the most troubling part of the message from this shepherd of the flock. The Rev. Stanley spoke of the gay men and gay women whove come to faith in Christ as adults, who want to participate in our church. After acknowledging and dismissing with a casual wave of his hand and the equally dismissive statement, I know I Corinthians 6, and I know Leviticus, and I know Romans 1, so interesting to talk about all that stuff, Stanley declared, But just, oh my goodness, a gay man or woman who wants to worship their Heavenly Father, who did not answer the cry of their heart when they were 12 and 13 and 14 and 15. God said, No, and they still love God! He then declares, We have something to learn from a group of men and women who love Jesus that much and who want to worship with us. Frankly, this is an astounding statement from a leading Evangelical pastor. When God did not answer the cry of their heart, is he saying that God was wrong in not accepting their sexual orientation, or is he saying that God should have answered their prayer by changing that orientation? Either option is blasphemous. When people of whatever background, behavior, or orientation come to God, they must come without reservation, forsaking all to follow Jesus as Savior. We throw ourselves on His mercy and trust Jesus and Jesus alone for salvation. He is Lord and Savior, and we come on His terms, not oursit is not a negotiation. I fear the Rev. Stanley has drifted farther than he is aware from the biblical foundations of his youth, and all of his Christian brothers and sisters should pray for him, and all the Christians whom he influences, without ceasing. So, if Andy Stanleys approach to the LBGTQ community is wrong, and it is, what should the Christian attitude be to a gay man or a gay woman who wants to come and worship in your church, but wants to do so while still embracing and practicing same-gender sexual relationships, expecting you and our Heavenly Father to accept such behavior? It just so happens that I had some experience in addressing just that question many years ago before the LGBTQ community had received the acceptance it has achieved in todays America. In the early 1970s, I was the pastor of a storefront Baptist church in the French Quarter of New Orleans. At the time, there was a significant resident homosexual population in the French Quarter, supplemented significantly by LGBTQ visitors and tourists on a daily basis. Around the corner from the church was a gay bar and a drag queen costume shop was across the street. This was during the Jesus Movement and most of my church members were recent converts to the Christian faith. At least 90% of the churchs membership were fairly new Christians and a high percentage of them had been addicted to drugs in the fairly recent past. It was a multi-ethnic church as well, and my fiance (now my wife) and I were known as the straights. My church members took their transformative Christian faith very seriously which meant, among other things, they were witnessing machines. I had a difficult time keeping them supplied with tracts and other witnessing materials. Several homosexuals were converted to faith in Jesus as their Lord and Saviorsome from one-to-one witnessing and some through attending church services and hearing evangelistic sermons. We always welcomed anyone in our churchs worship services, Bible studies, and other outreach programs, whether they were church members or not. Christians should never discourage anyone from coming to their church for worship and spiritual sustenance. However, that is different than accepting the lifestyles they bring with them. Our church would never accept anyone into membership (which was by baptism by immersion, subsequent to a profession of faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, unless by letter of recommendation from a sister Baptist church). I baptized some converts who had still not come to a conclusion about being church members. I baptized them as an act of obedience and witness to the Lord Jesus with a commitment from them that they would join a local congregation of believers when they felt convicted about when and where to join a church. (We most often counseled new converts who were not from New Orleans, many of whom were in their late teens and early 20s and who had run away from home before becoming Christians.) We felt, with good reason, that there were a great many negative influences in New Orleansa truly wicked citythat they were better off separating themselves from physically. We never turned anyone away who came to worship, gay, drug addicts, Satan worshipers, prostituteswe had them allbecause the ground is level at the foot of the cross and they needed to be where the Gospel was being proclaimed and taught. However, we made it clear that we loved and accepted them because Jesus did, but that neither Jesus nor we accepted those things in their lives that were condemned as sinful by our Savior. So even if they had experienced a conversion experience, until they removed such behaviors, they could not be church members or in positions of leadership. I believe that is the way the churches should have dealt with homosexual and lesbian believers then and now. Those people you truly love, you tell the truth. You are not telling them the truth when you lead them to believe that God accepts their behavior. I am not diminishing their anguish or the fact that same-sex attraction is powerful. I lived with people dealing with this issue on a daily basis for more than two years, and on a regular basis since then. However, as an ordained minister, and as a Christian brother, I have an obligation to my Savior, in whose army I serve, and to my fellow brothers and sisters, to be a truth-teller. And according to Holy Scripture, God does not accept or bless same-sex unions or behavior, whatever ones sexual orientation may be. What hath 50 years of Roe wrought? The Declaration of Independence says were endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech promoting abortion over the weekend, she cited our nations founding document and the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But she conveniently left out the right to life even though that is the first right listed. She also left out the Creator the source of all our rights. This is just one example among many of the ways that 50 years of the abortion ethic have undermined our right to life as a nation. January 22, 2023, was the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the infamous Supreme Court decision that gave us abortion on demand. Here are just a few examples of some of the fallout of that decision. Undermining the Constitution Roe v. Wade abused the Constitution by claiming that somehow the 9th and the 14th Amendments could be so twisted as to allow for abortion on demand. Huh? The 14th Amendment even mentions the right to life. The Supreme Court has made mistakes through the years. In 1857, they said in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sanford decision, The Constitution of the United States recognizes slaves as property. We fought a Civil War and saw about 700,000 American die in part to correct that dreadful decision. But Roe has also damaged our governance as a nation under the Constitution. Father Frank Pavone, founder and director of Priests for Life, who was recently laicized by an increasingly liberal Vatican, told me: Roe v. Wade has distorted our entire process of self-governance, replacing the will of the people with the imposition of a fake constitutional right, and allowing abortion, as the only medical procedure with such a status, to grotesquely disfigure everything from city council meetings to Supreme Court confirmation processes. Degrading human life We were told before Roe that if abortion were legal, then every child would be wanted and therefore child abuse would go down. But child abuse has skyrocketed since Roe. And why not? It deadens the maternal instinct. As Mother Teresa once observed, If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell others not to kill one another? Since Roe was overturned, we have seen an acceleration in chemical abortions. Many of these are done by the women themselves in their own homes without the benefit of a physician to observe. Abby Johnson, former head of a Planned Parenthood clinic and one-time Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year, is strongly pro-life today because she saw a sonogram of an abortion in her own clinic. This wasnt a blob of tissue fighting for his life it was a baby. Her story can be found in the book she wrote with Cindy Lambert, Unplanned, and the subsequent movie. She gave me a statement for this article on 50 years of legalized abortion in America: One of the biggest fallouts from Roe is that every woman's bathroom will now become an abortion clinic if she decides to use the abortion pill to end her unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. These pills are marketed as safe. But she warns, The use of the abortion pill is about to skyrocket and I don't think the nation is ready for both emotional and physical ramifications of such sweeping actions. I think it's going to be horrific, and the pro-life movement needs to be there for these women who need love the most when they are considering abortion and in the aftermath of their decision. Abortion has undermined the Hippocratic Oath, more than 2000 years old in Western medicine that physicians are to do no harm since abortionists are actively taking a life. Eric Scheidler is the founder of the Pro-Life Action League. He told me, [A]fter two generations of abortion without limits, one of the most extreme policies on the face of the Earth, we have a scene of devastation on our hands. Sixty-four million unborn babies dead Millions of mothers have participated in the destruction of their own preborn babies. Some have been hardened in their hearts by the process. Others have felt terrible regret. Abortion is bad for women and babies, notes Evangelist Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She admits she had two abortions and now is so grateful for the forgiveness of Jesus in her life. She warns against others making this same mistake. In fact, she told me in a recent radio segment, Life should be celebrated and acknowledged and appreciated from the womb to the tomb into eternity. Alveda has now started the organization, Speak for Life. Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court took a terribly wrong turn in Roe. Thankfully, that has been overturned, but we have much ground to cover in America to see a resurgence of the right to life. Death to Christians: 2 churches attacked in Spain; 1 dead, 4 injured At least one person was killed and four injured after a man entered two churches in Spain and attacked the congregations with a machete, an act authorities are investigating as terrorism. An individual assaulted clergymen on Wednesday at San Isidro Church and Nuestra Senora de La Palma Church in downtown Algeciras, reported Reuters. Local media reports that the arrested suspect is a 25-year-old Moroccan, though police have not released details. Francisco Garcia, secretary general of Spain's Episcopal Conference, expressed "great pain" over the attack on the two priests. "These are sad times of suffering; we are united by the pain of the victims' families and for the Cadiz Diocese," he stated, as quoted by Reuters. Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez offered condolences on social media while Algeciras Mayor Jose Ignacio Landaluce declared a day of mourning for the city. Witnesses heard the suspect shout "Allahu akbar" and "death to Christians" as he attacked the churches, according to The Telegraph. One of the priests is still in serious condition after being stabbed in the neck. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said he believes the suspect, identified by some as Yasine Kanjaa, likely acted alone "with no third parties involved in the facts," as quoted by the Telegraph. Christian and Muslim organizations in Spain have condemned the attacks, while Spain's Vox Party reportedly blamed the government's allegedly lax immigration policies. Last October, the Migration Policy Institute published a report describing Spain as "one of Europe's largest migrant destinations," as approximately 7.3 million of its residents were immigrants. "[R]esponsibility for immigrant integration has largely been handed to Spain's 17 autonomous communities, which enjoy wide authority as result of the country's devolved political system," noted the report. "Matters relating to asylum, border control, and legal status are exclusive to the national government, but policies key to integration including social services, housing, and employment have been granted to subnational governments." According to a 2018 report from the British Broadcasting Corporation, more than 30,000 individuals illegally entered Spain that year, "the highest in more than a decade." "Once they reach Spain, they keep on moving some continue to other European countries, others try to start a new life in Spain," reported the BBC at the time. Across Europe, hate crimes against Christians have escalated in recent years. According to a report released last fall by the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, there were over 519 incidents classified as hate crimes against Christians in 2021, with 30 occurring in Spain. Reclaiming lost history: 25 years of the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art The 1998 international guidelines forever changed the discourse about Nazi-confiscated art, and continue to guide the Christies Restitution Department today From 30 November to 3 December 1998, representatives from 44 countries together with participants from NGOs and observers from the art market gathered in the United States capital for the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era-Assets. More than 50 years after the end of the Nazi-era, the world had yet to address the full range of issues raised by art looting during that time. The Washington Conference was a watershed moment. It established the Washington Principles, 11 guidelines to address the ways in which Nazi-confiscated property could be returned to its rightful owners. The Principles provided a framework for nations to respond to issues of unresolved restitution, and the return of property confiscated during the war. They encouraged governments to identify, research and return looted works of art; they promoted transparency and the creation of a central database of relevant information and they advocated for the establishment of official commissions and processes, particularly to facilitate alternative dispute resolutions. Open a larger version of this image Left: US Under Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat with Russian delegate Valery Kulishov at the opening ceremony for the Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets at the US Holocaust Museum November 30, 1998 in Washington, DC. Photo by Richard Ellis / Alamy Stock Photo. Right: J.D. Bindenagel, Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, November 30-December 3, 1998, Proceedings Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat the then-United States Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs was the main architect of the Conference and Principles, which he organized, negotiated and drafted. To mark the 25th anniversary of the Washington Principles, Christies Restitution Department is proud to host Reflecting on Restitution, a global programme of events and initiatives to honour the lasting impact of the Conference. Beginning with an inaugural exhibition at Christies galleries in Paris on 27 January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the programme will include in-person conversations, stories of important restitutions, virtual tours of historic sites throughout Berlin and other opportunities to exchange stories and ideas. History erased It was the greatest cultural theft in history, Ambassador Eizenstat said in a recent conversation with Christies. What the Nazis attempted to do was wipe out every element of Jewish culture ritual objects, books and artwork. These stolen objects represented not just valuable treasures or personal belongings but connections to a past that the Nazis wanted to erase. Open a larger version of this image Art historian Karol Estreicher, American MFAA officer Lt. Frank P. Albright, and two other GIs look at Leonardo da Vincis 'Lady with an Ermine' before its return to a museum in Krakow after being stolen by Nazi Germany in World War 2, 1945. Photo by Shawshots / Alamy Stock Photo The Washington Principles are not legally binding but call on the signatory countries to act within an ethical framework, underscoring the moral element of restitution. This continues to resonate today, 90 years on from the advent of the Third Reich. The Washington Principles reminded people that Nazi looting wasnt incidental to the Nazi project of extermination and murder of the Jewish population of Europe, Anne Webber, Co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, tells Christie's, it was absolutely central to it. Webbers organization, created two months after the enactment of the Washington Principles, works with governments and institutions throughout the world to implement the guidelines and also represents those looking to identify and recover stolen property. Since its inception, the Commission has restituted over 3,500 objects to their rightful owners. Each time something is returned to a family, you are restoring something of that history, says Webber. It was the greatest cultural theft in history. What the Nazis attempted to do was wipe out every element of Jewish culture Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat Many organizations like Webbers were formed in the wake of the 1998 conference, and accessible databases like the German Lost Art database, the Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume and provenance databases like that of the Getty Research Institute have been published online. Taken together, these advances help victims and their heirs today to piece together the lost histories of their families and the objects they once owned, reminding us that the seizure of personal property was another means of oppression and control, and underlines the human element of these cases. An art market leader in restitution and provenance research In the 25 years since the establishment of the Washington Principles, Christies is proud to be an art market leader in the network of expert researchers and advocates, guided by the Washington Principles. Marc Porter, Chairman of Christies Americas, attended the 1998 conference and has been deeply involved in creating and strengthening the work of the Restitution Department. The Principles, he says, bent the arc of the art world toward ensuring that family histories and the provenance of objects would be unearthed and preserved, and new paths to the resolution of ownership questions could be opened and pursued. Since then, many hands have been involved in the efforts of the Restitution Department, including Ambassador Eizenstat himself, who serves on the company's Advisory Board. Open a larger version of this image Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Meules de Ble, 1888. Gouache, watercolor, pen and brush and black ink over pencil on paper. 19 x 23 in. (48.5 x 60.4 cm.). Sold for $35,855,000 on 10 November 2021 at Christies in New York Richard Aronowitz, Christies Global Head of Restitution, says that his work is informed in every way by the Washington Principles, which act as the ethical precept under which his department operates. The Restitution team looks at nearly every object that comes up for sale, conducting provenance research and examining transfers of ownership between 1933 and 1945. If research raises a concern, the team launches a comprehensive investigation into the objects provenance. If needed, they then focus on facilitating a dialogue to find a just and fair solution, as outlined in the Principles. We are treading a delicate path, because often the current holder of a work has bought it in entirely good faith, says Aronowitz. In these instances, there is no one solution, and the team liaises between the former owner or heirs and the current owner towards a fair settlement. Christies Restitution Department has researched thousands of artworks, adding to the scholarship and ownership history. The department has also facilitated resolution to hundreds of Nazi-era claims, including major works of art. Examples include Vincent van Gogh's Meules de ble (1888), a case settled between the Cox Collection and the heir of Max Meirowsky and heirs of Alexandrine de Rothschild. Christies has also been pleased to work with claimants in presenting artworks such as El Greco's Portrait of a Gentleman (1570), which was restituted thanks to the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. It becomes very much one's life mission, says Aronowitz, not just a job. The ripple effect The ongoing impact of the Washington Principles continues today, and their cultural significance is extensive. The Principles recognised that the looting that was undertaken by the Nazis and by their collaborators represented a crime against humanity, and it is a continuing crime, says Webber. Open a larger version of this image Domenikos Theotokopoulos, called El Greco (1541-1614), Portrait of a Gentleman, Half-length, in Black, His Right Hand Resting on a Book. Oil on canvas. 39 x 32 in (100 x 82.8 cm). Sold for 1,222,500 on 7 December 2021 at Christies in London. Restituted thanks to the Commission for Looted Art in Europe While discussion around whether the Principles go far enough in holding countries accountable is ongoing, Ambassador Eizenstat remains optimistic about their achievements and future. Thousands of stolen cultural works have been restituted since 1998, an ever-growing body of information continues to be accessible online and five countries the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom have established claims commissions to process restitution cases. The ripple effect of the Washington Principles continues now 25 years later, says Ambassador Eizenstat. The fact that a number of countries like the Dutch, the French and the Germans are returning colonial-era art, the fact that art is still being returned under the Washington Principles, indicates that these voluntary Principles have had a lasting impact beyond anything we could have imagined at the time. Above all, they are a reminder of the importance of striving for justice. The best exhibitions and openings of 2023: North America From the Year of Picasso to new solo presentations by Georgia O'Keeffe, Diego Rivera and Maria Berrio these North American exhibitions are must-sees in 2023 1 Maria Berrio: The Childrens Crusade 16 February to 6 August 2023 Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston Maria Berrio creates immersive large-scale works, collaging layers of torn Japanese paper, sequins and watercolours to create intricate utopias. Inspired by magical realism and folklore, her fairytale-like scenes are populated by women, children and animals dreamy worlds where humanity and nature exist in harmony. Yet within these idealised scenes, Berrio brings to light the harsh present-day realities of political issues like global migration and family separation. Open a larger version of this image Maria Berrio (b. 1982), Cavalry, 2022. Collage with Japanese paper and watercolour paint on canvas. 72 x 90 in (182.9 x 228.6 cm). Courtesy of the Artist and Victoria Miro This exhibition is no exception: presenting a selection of new and existing works from her series The Childrens Crusade, the work blends the history of the 13th-century Childrens Crusade and the mystical legends, fables, songs and artwork surrounding it with the current mass migrations of peoples across the Mediterranean and the US border. As Berrio explains, The main focus and the main characters are children and their perceptions as seen through fantasy and magical realism. As the children embark on this arduous journey, they infuse the ordinary with the mythic, as their innocent and imagined interpretation of the world bumps against stark realities. 2 Diego Riveras America 11 March to 31 July 2023 Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Diego Rivera was at the forefront of Mexican Muralism in the early-20th century. His public frescoes and murals, with their sprawling and highly detailed narrative scenes, extolled the lives of Mexicos working people and the countrys Indigenous cultures. Influenced by the decade he spent amongst the avant-garde in Paris, his work promoted the revitalization of Mexican culture after the Mexican Revolution. Open a larger version of this image Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Woman with Calla Lilies, 1945. Oil on masonite, 47 x 47 in (120.9 x 120.6 cm). Private collection, U.S.A, courtesy of Galeria Interart Diego Riveras America is the most in-depth examination of the artists work in over two decades, bringing together rarely seen works from private collections; major paintings on loan from museums; studies for pivotal mural projects in Mexico City, San Francisco, Detroit and New York; and large-scale digital projections that convey the immersive quality of his epic murals. Ten thematic galleries are dedicated to subjects that captured the artists imagination, from labour and industry to street markets. The exhibition focuses on Riveras work from the 1920s to the mid-1940s, when he was conceiving a new vision for North America, informed by his travels in Mexico and the United States. 3 Jannis Kounellis In Six Acts 1 April to 17 September 2023 Museo Jumex, Mexico City A forefather of the Arte Povera movement, the Greek artist Jannis Kounellis undermined the sanctity of the gallery space as he juxtaposed materials like soil, coal, burlap, meat hooks, glass bottles, and even live animals. One of his most famous pieces featured 12 horses, which turned the exhibition space into a barn. While his practice spanned painting, sculpture, performance and installation, Kounellis insisted in 2016, Everything I do is painting, even if I dont touch a brush. I tell my truth as a painter. Jannis Kounellis In Six Acts, which includes some 50 works, offers the most extensive assessment of the artists career to date and is the first comprehensive survey of his work in Mexico. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue present his work as he wanted it to be seen as a wide-ranging analysis of painting as a medium. The show revisits Kounelliss work through key stages of his trajectory, examining his paintings, sculptural projects, found objects, and large-scale installations combining iconic works with pieces that have never been seen by the public until now. 4 Juan de Pareja: Afro-Hispanic Painter 3 April to 16 July 2023 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York This exhibition is the first to explore the life and work of the Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja (c. 1608-1670), widely known as the subject of Diego Velazquezs iconic 1650 portrait. Pareja was enslaved for over 20 years in Velazquezs studio and forced to work as his assistant; once released from bondage, Pareja spent the rest of his life working as an artist in his own right. Open a larger version of this image Juan de Pareja (1608-1670), Calling of Saint Matthew, 1661. Oil on canvas, 88 x 10 ft 7 in (225 x 325 cm). Museo Nacional del Prado The show is unprecedented in its unflinching interrogation of enslaved labour and multiracial society during Spains so-called Golden age. Portraits of Spains Black and Morisco populations by Francisco de Zurbaran, Bartolome Esteban Murillo, and Velazquez, join pieces that chart the ubiquity of enslaved labour across media, from sculpture to jewellery. Velazquezs portrait of Pareja is contextualised by his other portraits of the time, as well as the contract he wrote granting Pareja his freedom. The exhibition culminates with the first public collection of Parejas paintings. In his time, critics dismissed his work as a mere reflection of Velazquezs style, but this collection shows the variety and innovation within the oeuvre of Pareja, who bridged the art of the Western canon and the African diaspora. 5 Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue 4 April to 9 July 2023 Getty Center, Los Angeles Dawoud Bey and Carrie Mae Weems have been friends and colleagues since they first met in a photography class in Harlem over 40 years ago. Both artists explore race, oppressive power structures, gender identity and class in their work, through the prism of Black history and the daily realities that speak to the human condition. Open a larger version of this image Dawoud Bey (b. 1953), American, 1988. Gelatin silver print. 20 x 24 in. (50.8 x 61 cm). Courtesy of Stephen Daiter Gallery Open a larger version of this image Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953), American, 1975. Gelatin silver print. 8 x 8 in. (21.9 x 21.9 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York Bey is known for his psychologically compelling portraits of communities that have been underrepresented in mainstream media and recorded history, and the empathy he brings to his subjects. Weems employs a rich tapestry of media forms, but her activism and adeptness at storytelling come to the fore in her photography. Famed for her Kitchen Table Series, where she positions herself as the subject with the kitchen table functioning as a stage for her to explore the different roles of Black womanhood, she uses this alter ego throughout her work to stand in for both the artist and audience. Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems: In Dialogue brings these artists work together in five thematic groupings to shed light on their mutual engagement and shared visions. 6 Georgia OKeeffe: To See Takes Time 9 April to 12 August 2023 Museum of Modern Art, New York Although best known for her flower paintings, Georgia OKeeffe also made extraordinary works in charcoal, pencil, watercolour and pastel. The Museum of Modern Art in New York will showcase 120 of these works on paper, usually seen individually, along with key paintings. The first exhibition to ever focus on the artists drawings, it will give viewers a deeper insight into her belief that to see takes time. Open a larger version of this image Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), Evening Star No. III, 1917. Watercolour on paper mounted on board, 8 x 11 in (22.7 x 30.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Straus Fund, 1958 OKeeffe experimented and refined her vision on paper between 1915 and 1918, with her progressions of bold lines, frank nudes, and charcoal drawings, but even as she turned increasingly to painting on canvas, paper continued to give her the freedom to capture natures rhythms in a way that the permanence of the canvas would not allow. On sheets of paper, she could trace in series the spiralling trajectory of the sun as it descended or the changing aerial view from an airplane window. As Samantha Friedman, the shows curator, puts it, She recognised the necessity of slowing down for her vision, and in turn her sequences of drawings invite us to take time in looking. 7 Josh Kline: Project for a New American Century 19 April to 1 August 2023 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Josh Kline is renowned for his immersive installations that use video, sculpture, photography and design to interrogate how technology is changing what it means to be human in the 21st century. He often employs the very technologies and practices that he is scrutinizing from deep-fake computer software to commercial advertising turning them back on themselves. His work is frequently punctuated with body parts, pharmaceuticals and sanitizing products. In his installation, Nine to Five, Eight to Four, Seven to Three, for example, janitor carts are piled high with disembodied human heads, feet and hands, lying amongst the cleaning supplies. Open a larger version of this image Josh Kline (b. 1979), In Stock (Walmart Worker's Arms), 2018. 3D-printed sculpture in acrylic-based photopolymer resin, Walmart shopping cart, custom cardboard boxes, 39 x 26 x 44 in (99.06 x 66.04 x 111.76 cm). Courtesy of 47 Canal, New York, and Modern Art, London. Photograph by Joerg Lohse At its core, his work focusses on work and class, and how the most pressing issues of today from disease to the weakening of democracy affect the people who inevitably have to pick up the pieces: the labour force. This exhibition will be Klines first museum survey, incorporating over a decade of his output with new installations and moving image works that look at the climate crisis from the perspective of essential workers. 8 Young Picasso in Paris 12 May to 6 August 2023 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Pablo Picasso first arrived in Paris in autumn 1900, during the final weeks of the Exposition Universelle. At just 19, he threw himself headfirst into city life. Over the course of his two-month stay, and again when he returned the following spring, he frequented not just the galleries but also the bohemian cafes, nightclubs, and sensational dance halls of Montmartre. Open a larger version of this image Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Le Moulin de la Galette, 1900. Oil on canvas, 35 x 46 in (89.7 x 116.8 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Gift of Justin K. Thannhauser The Guggenheims Young Picasso in Paris exhibition, which centres around the 1900 painting of the eponymous dancehall Le Moulin de la Galette, will explore the transformations spurred by Picassos first Parisian pilgrimage while demonstrating his shrewd exercises in character study. The exhibition will be one of many celebrating Picasso this year. Since 8 April 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of the artists death, a commission organised by the French and Spanish governments has declared 2023 the Year of Picasso and commissioned 42 exhibitions and events across Europe and the US to commemorate his legacy. 9 Van Goghs Cypresses 22 May to 27 August 2023 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Van Goghs paintings of cypress trees are instantly recognizable, but this is the first exhibition to focus solely on this distinctive motif of the Dutch artist. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has curated a collection of 40 works showcasing the trajectory of Van Goghs fascination with the towering cypresses that surrounded him in the South of France. The exhibition spans the course of two years, from the Post-Impressionist artists initial sighting of the trees in Arles to when he realised their full, evocative potential at the asylum in Saint-Remy. Open a larger version of this image Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889. Oil on canvas, 28 x 36 in (73.2 x 93.4 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of The Annenberg Foundation, 1993 Iconic paintings like Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889) and The Starry Night (1889) form the centrepiece of the exhibition, contextualised by drawings and illustrated letters that give an unprecedented look at the back-story of these works. 10 Portable Universe: Thought and Splendour of Indigenous Colombia 3 June to 1 October 2023 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts This exhibition brings together over 400 works of Colombian art from 1500 BCE to the present day, drawing from contemporary Indigenous concepts to present a vision of the world in which ancient works of art and teachings are relevant today and in the future. Open a larger version of this image Votive figure (Tunjo) in form of a man sitting on a stool, Colombia, Eastern Cordillera, 800-1600 CE (Muisca tradition), tumbaga (gold-copper alloy). Museum of fine arts, Houston, gift of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. The culmination of several years of collaboration between the exhibitions curatorial team and the Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region in northern Colombia, the survey features some of the most remarkable artworks ever made in the region, ranging from hammered gold masks to ceramic effigies of mystical creatures to contemporary watercolours. Contextualised by image projections and a soundscape of ancient ocarinas, the art and objects of these Indigenous cultures are presented as vital today as they were thousands of years ago. 11 A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur 11 June to 10 September 2023 Cleveland Museum of Art In 1700, the artists of Udaipur, a court in northwest India, moved away from intimate illustrated manuscripts and began creating large, immersive paintings to convey the mood or, bhava of the citys palaces, lakes and mountains. Open a larger version of this image Maharana Swarup Singh and Courtiers Play Holi at the City Palace, c. 1851. Tara. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper; 92.2 125.5 cm. The City Palace Museum, Udaipur, 2012.19.0012 A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur showcases these dazzling works on paper and cloth. Most of the paintings have never been exhibited publicly, and none have been shown in the United States until now. Spanning a period of over 200 years, from Mughal to colonial India, the collection gives new insight into how artists depicted places, mapped terrains, and triggered memories to foster political and personal attachments to land, amid the tumultuous political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia. The exhibition is organised as a journey that begins at Udaipurs centre and charts outwards: first to the city, then to the countryside, and finally to the cosmos. We have some of the best in the world: Londons new gallery devoted to British photographers The Centre for British Photography privately funded, but free to all will showcase more than 3,000 works from the extraordinary collection of Claire and James Hyman It is early January, and on Londons venerable Jermyn Street, a stones throw from St Jamess Palace, the sounds of drilling can be heard emanating through the glass doors of number 49. As workers toil to complete the construction, one thing is clear: at 8,000 square feet (743 square metres), when the new Centre for British Photography opens its doors on 26 January, it will be the worlds largest gallery devoted to the subject. The centre has been founded by Claire and James Hyman to house their collection of more than 3,000 works, assembled over the past 27 years. It features more than 100 British artists, including Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Martin Parr and Daniel Meadows, Jo Spence, Karen Knorr and Anna Fox. Open a larger version of this image Bert Hardy, Children of the Gorbals (Gorbal Boys), 1948. Vintage gelatin silver print. 26 x 36.3 cm. Bert Hardy Estate. Courtesy Centre for British Photography, London The new gallery, until recently the site of a gentlemens tailor, contains an array of new spaces for showing photography and new media. The low-ceilinged entrance opens out into a double-height space that will provide the area for the main exhibition, starting with a show titled Headstrong curated by Fast Forward, an advocacy group dedicated to increasing the number of women in photography. Upstairs, on the first floor, are three in focus spaces featuring the work of the feminist photographer Jo Spence, self-portraits by Heather Agyepong, and Natasha Caruanas wedding images framed against a bubblegum-pink wall. A further exhibition space in the basement features documentary photography about British life. Open a larger version of this image Natasha Caruana, Fairy Tale for Sale, 2011-13. Inkjet prints, dimensions variable. Natasha Caruana. Courtesy Centre for British Photography, London So why is there a need for a centre of British photography? Quite simply because it is neglected and under-appreciated in this country, says James Hyman. I think we have some of the best photographers in the world, and yet there has been a tendency to celebrate what is happening in New York, Tokyo or Paris rather than what is around us. Hyman is quick to dismiss the suggestion that the focus on Britain has anything to do with nationalism or Brexit. I am the child of a refugee, he says. As an academic and an art dealer, I have been interested in the contributions made by people from elsewhere, whether that has been by the School of London painters Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, or black artists from the Windrush generation [of immigrants from the Caribbean]. I am very interested in the way that cultures are enriched by different kinds of communities. When you believe in an artist, you want to show everyone this wonderful discovery James Hyman He does concede, however, that there is a British aesthetic. There is a strand of documentary photography loved by the British which is epitomised by Bill Brandt, he says. It is often quite quirky and narrative and reflects contemporary life. It has been a huge influence on photographers in this country. That idiosyncratic style can be seen in the centres basement show, inspired by Brandts 1936 book The English at Home. The opening of a free central London gallery by private benefactors presents an intriguing commentary on the current state of art spaces in Britain. With public funding for the arts reduced to a thin gruel, there has been a lot of discussion about the role of patrons and their influence on the nations art. It is something that Hyman feels keenly. Open a larger version of this image Thurston Hopkins, La Dolce Vita, Knightsbridge, 1953. Vintage gelatin silver print. 20.96 x 28.89 cm. Thurston Hopkins Estate. Courtesy Centre for British Photography, London If you believe, like I do, in the public sector and free access to all, then the question is: how do you achieve that without building a monument to yourself? The answer is to not have your name over the door, allow other people to shape your programme, and give access to art that would otherwise be locked away in a plan chest or a storage unit. The centre has a research institute and runs an educational programme of a kind more readily associated with publicly funded museums. It recently teamed up with Imperial College London to deliver a course on the history of British photography, and further educational projects are being planned with Birkbeck University and the University of the Arts London. All this reflects the Hymans commitment to supporting contemporary British photographers from a range of backgrounds and cultures. We are trying to be inclusive and pluralistic. It is important that the narrative shifts from the traditional black-and-white photography by men to one that is more diverse. Open a larger version of this image Bill Brandt, The Perfect Parlourmaid - English Parlourmaid (Evening), 1935. Vintage gelatin silver print. 25.1 x 22.2 cm. Bill Brandt Estate Open a larger version of this image Sarah Maple, Self Portrait with Pocket Square, 2021. Sarah Maple. Both images courtesy Centre for British Photography, London There will also be a shop, with all profits from the sale of books and photographs going towards supporting the charitable activities of the Hyman Foundation, including research and grants for photographers. With the rise of smartphones and social media, Hyman says it is harder to be a photographer today than ever before. Trying to communicate something meaningful in this medium is incredibly difficult. It is not enough to be a beautiful craftsman any more. It takes a fraction of a second to take a photograph, but it has to have some profundity that goes beyond that momentary sensation. Open a larger version of this image Anna Fox, Country Girls, 1996-2001. C-type photograph mounted on aluminium. 102 x 142 cm. Anna Fox. Courtesy Centre for British Photography, London In a recent interview, Christies former deputy chairman Philippe Garner noted how the market for photography has exploded in the past few years. How does Hyman view these changes? When I started going to auctions in the early 1990s, they were encyclopaedic, he says. You could learn everything about the history of photography, from the Victorian era up to the present day. Today is very different: it is all about contemporary photographers. Auction houses will tell you it is because the supply of early photography has dried up, but I would argue that it is also about the bottom line. As a dealer you are trying to build a market. When you believe in an artist, you want to show everyone this wonderful discovery. The focus has shifted. Open a larger version of this image Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr, June Street, Salford, 1973. Gelatin silver print. 61 x 61 cm. Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr. Courtesy Centre for British Photography, London Luxury fashion brand Thom Browne will establish a new company in Korea, officials from Samsung CT said Friday, in a move to take stronger control of its business in the country. Ermenegildo Zegna NV, an Italian fashion house that owns the brand, will establish a new company called Thom Browne Korea on July 1, it said. Thom Browne will directly manage its business in Korea, with external support from Samsung CT in the distribution and management of 17 brand stores in the country. Samsung CT, the trading and construction arm of Samsung Group, was the exclusive Korean distributor of Thom Browne for the past 12 years. "The form of the contract may have changed (between Samsung CT and Thom Browne), but our partnership will remain unchanged," said an official from the Korean company. The namesake brand known for tailored suits and its signature four stripes has been growing by double digits in sales every year since entering Korea in 2011, an official from Samsung CT said. Samsung CT did not provide the exact figures, citing an industry practice. (Yonhap) An aerial view of the former Pool 6 site, which has been chosen as Science Norths preferred site for their new building. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form People check a destroyed house after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Jan. 26. AP-Yonhap Russia pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones, killing at least 11 people, according to officials, after Western allies pledged tanks to Kyiv in its fight against Moscow's invasion. Air raid alarms sounded across Ukraine on Thursday as people headed to work. In the capital Kyiv, crowds took cover for a time in underground metro stations. "Not a single room is left intact, everything got hit," said Halyna Panosyan, 67, surveying twisted sheets of corrugated metal, crumpled masonry and a large missile crater outside her ruined house in Hlevakha near Kyiv. "There was an extremely loud strike that made me jump up. I was in the bedroom ... I was saved by the fact that the bedroom is to the other side of the house." Russian forces trained tank, mortar and artillery fire on more than 60 towns and villages in an arc of territory extending from Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north through Kharkiv region in the northeast and in the focal points of Russian attempts to advance in Donetsk region in the east Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Ukraine's military said it shot down 47 of 59 Russian missiles some fired from Tu-95 strategic bombers in the Russian Arctic. Russia also launched 37 air strikes, 17 of them using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. All drones were downed, the military general staff said. Eleven people were killed and 11 wounded in the drone and missile strikes, which spanned 11 regions and also damaged 35 buildings, a State Emergency Service spokesperson said. Russia responded with fury to news on Wednesday that Germany and the United States would send dozens of modern tanks to Ukraine. More tanks will come from Canada, Poland, Britain, Finland and Norway while several more allies including France, Spain and the Netherlands were considering sending tanks too. People clean a destroyed residential area after a Russian rocket attack in Hlevakha, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Jan. 26. AP-Yonhap By Azernews Fatima Hasanova Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Hissein Brahim Taha discussed the Azerbaijani-OIC cooperation, relevant topics on the organization's agenda, and reviewed plans for the near future, Azernews reports per the ministry. During the phone conversation, Jeyhun Bayramov emphasized the cooperation between Azerbaijan and the OIC in a variety of areas, including politics, economics, culture, and education. He praised the discussions that took place during the UN General Assembly as well as in the course of the secretary-general's visit to Azerbaijan. The officials highlighted events scheduled for 2023, including preparations for the 49th Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers, to be held in Mauritania in March 2023, and underlined the successful organization of joint events held over the previous year. They emphasized the value of cooperation and the need for the OIC member states to work together in the fight against issues like poverty, terrorism, and other threats to international peace and security, such as intercultural and interreligious dialogue. The parties also discussed various regional issues. FBI Director Christopher Wray announces the seizure of Hive ransomware's website off the so-called dark-web at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., Jan. 26. EPA-Yonhap The FBI and international partners have at least temporarily disrupted the network of a prolific ransomware gang they infiltrated last year, saving victims including hospitals and school districts a potential $130 million in ransom payments, Attorney General Merrick Garland and other U.S. officials announced Thursday. ''Simply put, using lawful means we hacked the hackers,'' Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference. Officials said the targeted syndicate, known as Hive, is among the world's top five ransomware networks and has heavily targeted health care. The FBI quietly accessed its control panel in July and was able to obtain software keys it used with German and other partners to decrypt networks of some 1,300 victims globally, said FBI Director Christopher Wray. How the takedown will affect Hive's long-term operations is unclear. Officials announced no arrests but said, to pursue prosecutions, they were building a map of the administrators who manage the software and the affiliates who infect targets and negotiate with victims. ''I think anyone involved with Hive should be concerned because this investigation is ongoing,'' Wray said. On Wednesday night, FBI agents seized computer servers in Los Angeles used to support the network. Two Hive dark web sites were seized: one used for leaking data of non-paying victims, the other for negotiating extortion payments. ''Cybercrime is a constantly evolving threat, but as I have said before, the Justice Department will spare no resource to bring to justice anyone anywhere that targets the United States with a ransomware attack,'' Garland said. He said the infiltration, led by the FBI's Tampa office, allowed agents in one instance to disrupt a Hive attack against a Texas school district, stopping it from making a $5 million payment. It's a big win for the Justice Department. Ransomware is the world's biggest cybercrime headache with everything from Britain's postal service and Ireland's national health network to Costa Rica's government crippled by Russian-speaking syndicates that enjoy Kremlin protection. The criminals lock up, or encrypt, victims' networks, steal sensitive data and demand large sums. Their extortion has evolve to where data is pilfered before ransomware is activated, then effectively held hostage. Pay up in cryptocurrency or it is released publicly. A TV screen displays Hive ransomware's website on the so-called dark-web after its seizure by the FBI, during a press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., Jan. 26. EPA-Yonhap U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden congratulate the Choy Wun Lion dance troupe after their performance during a reception to celebrate the Lunar New Year, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., Jan. 26, AFP-Yonhap During the White House's first celebration of the Lunar New Year, President Joe Biden and his wife again offered condolences to the Asian American community in the wake of a mass shooting in California that killed 11 during celebrations for the Asian holiday. "Our joy has been shattered by two horrifying mass shootings this week," first lady Jill Biden said. "Our prayers are with the families of those lost in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay. We grieve with broken hearts alongside every member of this community." Switching to a more celebratory mood, the president received a robust ovation from the crowd when he said, "It's an honor to be with all of you here for the first Lunar New Year reception at the White House." Lunar New Year celebrations got underway earlier this week and are celebrated in a number of countries, typically for four weeks as part of the Spring Festival Holiday. A total of 11 people were killed and another nine were injured during a mass shooting at a ballroom dance studio in Monterey Park, Calif., late Saturday. Many of the patrons there at the time were celebrating the start of the Lunar New Year. President Biden singled out Brandon Tsay on Thursday for his heroic actions. The 26-year-old was confronted by the gunman at a second location following the shooting, wrestling the gun away from suspect Huu Can Tran. Tran later died from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. "In that moment, he followed his instinct and he followed his courage," the president said about Tsay. "For all the progress, this [Asian American] community has experienced profound hate, pain, and violence and loss," Biden said at the event. "As I've said before, hate can have no safe harbor in America. No person deserves to be treated in a hateful way." (UPI) Canadas payroll employment increases, as strong hiring continues Asheesh Moosapeta Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A Across 10 out of 15 sectors, payroll employment (the number of employees receiving pay or receiving benefits from their employer) increased in November 2022a good indication of a strong hiring climate, and a returning to pre-COVID economic output in Canada. Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration As a result, many industries also saw a decrease in job vacanciesas employers were more effectively able to hire to fill openings, in the face of looming labour shortages. Overall payroll employment increased by 7,100 jobs, as increases in the professional scientific and technical services, public administration, and finance and insurance sectors were offset by significant decreases in the retail trade space. Total job vacancies were down by 20,700 positions in November 2022, leading to a cumulative 850,300 vacancies across Canada. This represents a decrease of 151,900 job openings since the record high 1 million vacancies seen in May of 2022. This can be interpreted as a sign that economic production of goods and services is continuing to recover to pre-pandemic levels. An increase in payroll employment is (more specifically) a good indication that companies are hiring and have the necessity for more workersa gauge of economic growth as more people overall can contribute to the economy through increased employment. In this sense it may be pertinent for newcomers to understand which sectors are increasing payroll employment now, to recognize which kind of businesses are experiencing surges in hiring in Canada. The sectors which recorded the biggest gains in payroll employment in November included: Persistent job vacancies Despite strong growth in payroll employment in November 2022, Canada still faced a high number of job vacancies across multiple sectors. Healthcare and social assistance (131,800 vacancies)a persistent problem for Canada currently is finding more healthcare workers, as the high number of vacancies indicates. Despite decreasing vacancies by 19,300 jobs in the total number of job vacancies in the space remain elevated, up nearly 45% from March 2020; This need for workers in the space is further reflected in policy changes the Canadian government has undertaken: including targeting more streamlined accreditation for foreign-educated healthcare professionals and reducing immigration barriers to physicians. Construction (79,000 vacancies)It is interesting to note the persistent vacancies in the construction space. Despite making strong gains in payroll employment in November, job vacancies remain elevated in this sector. This may indicate both an increase in business output, but also a persistent need for workers in the space. In fact, vacancies in the construction sector in November of 2021 were virtually unchanged (73,900), indicating this is another sector where Canada has a persistent need for workers, especially as economic recovery continues. Again, policy changes like Canadas recent commitment to helping out-of-status construction workers, communicates the importance of such labour to the countrys economy Professional, scientific, and technical services (52,000 vacancies)similar to the construction sector, the Professional, scientific and technical sector experienced good gains in payroll employmentbut still suffers from an increased number of job vacancies. Again, this shows both strong hiring, and continued demand for workers in the space within Canada. In fact, the sector has experienced positive employment gains since October of 2020. In the face of such a high number of job vacancies, this is a strong indicator of enduringly high demand for these workers within Canada. Immigration will be crucial to address these labour shortages, as Canadian demographics currently cannot support filling current job vacancies. Following the ascension of Bill C-19 in 2022, the Honorable Sean Fraser (as Minister of Immigration) is now able to create groups in the federal Express Entry pool (possibly based on criteria such as the occupations, educations, or language ability of candidates)and issue invitations to apply (ITAs) to these individuals to more directly address Canadas economic and social needs. Professions with persistent job vacancies stand a strong chance of being targeted in these draws. Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration CIC News All Rights Reserved. Visit CanadaVisa.com to discover your Canadian immigration options. Poll shows more people than ever want to immigrate to Canada Edana Robitaille Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif Sans Font Size A A For the first time, Canada has polled as the second most popular destination for potential newcomers after the United States in the most recent poll by Gallup, a global analytics and advice firm. This is the first time Gallup has released data on this topic since 2018. The poll says that in 2021, 900 million people would move to another country permanently, given the opportunity. This is the highest percentage recorded since the firm began collecting data in 2011. Overall, between 2011 and 2021, there was a jump in the number of people who would like to move to another country permanently from 12% to 16%. Only countries in the European Union and throughout East Asia showed a decrease in those who would like to leave their home country. Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration The data suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic did not deter peoples desire to migrate. This is evident based on the speed at which migration has resumed since pandemic travel restrictions began to ease. For example, between 2021-2022, net international migration exceeded one million residents in the United States. Canada gaining in popularity Canada has become a more popular destination for immigrants over the past five years, with 8% of respondents in 2021 saying they would like to immigrate to Canada instead of the United States. The trend started in 2017, not long after former president Donald Trump was elected. His anti-immigration stance caused many to abandon the United States as an immigration option and look elsewhere. As a result, 8% of potential immigrants said they would choose Canada over any other country, a spike from 5% in 2011. During the same period of time, the number of immigrants who would choose the United States dropped to 18% from 22%. Even at 8%, Canada still sits in the second spot in terms of preferred destinations for immigrants. Germany, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan are all between 3-7%. The highest percentage of people who would like to leave their country was in Sierra Leone, where 76% of respondents said they would consider leaving. Lebanon had the second highest percentage at 63%, outstripping Afghanistans 53%. Still, the region with the highest overall increase in people who would move permanently to another country was Latin America and the Caribbean, which showed a 19% increase between 2011 and 2021. More than 45% of respondents in Honduras, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic would immigrate if they had the opportunity. The poll notes that there is a difference between respondents who would like to leave their home country and those who do so. Many people who would like to immigrate are hampered by circumstances such as finances, family, and job opportunities and are never able to leave their country. Canada seeking more immigrants Canadas well-publicized immigration targets are likely a factor in its popularity as a destination for newcomers. Canada needs immigrants to combat a chronic labour shortage caused by an aging workforce and one of the lowest global birth rates. Without immigrants, Canada would not have a large enough tax base to maintain social services such as healthcare and education. In response, each year, Canada releases an Immigration Levels Plan that sets targets for the number of new permanent residents the country plans to welcome from any of its immigration pathways in a given year. In 2022, Canada welcomed over 437,000 permanent residents. This target is set higher for 2023 to 465,000 and rises as high as 500,000 per year by 2025. To meet these targets, Canada will need to invite more newcomers and process applications more quickly. This means Canada may be seen to have a less stringent immigration process than other countries. Discover if You Are Eligible for Canadian Immigration CIC News All Rights Reserved. Visit CanadaVisa.com to discover your Canadian immigration options. When Pete Torres transitioned to the IT industry after serving in the military, he encountered a noticeable lack of Hispanic representation at conferences and events he attended. Even when he was young, the idea of a career in technology was not really an option, he says, owing in part to the IT industrys decades-long issues with Hispanic and Latinx representation. Now a director of engineering at Capital One, Torres is among many of his generation seeking to change the equation and to inspire Hispanic and Latinx students to consider IT as a viable option for developing a meaningful career. For Torres, having children of his own was a turning point, and he began to think about the importance of instilling an interest in STEM fields at a young age. He considered what he wished he knew when he was younger and looked at how to propose this potential career path to other people that might not be aware of it, starting him on a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) journey that continues to this day. Inspiring a new generation and diversifying the talent pipeline According to Pew Research, Hispanic and Latinx professionals fill only 8% of STEM roles in the US workforce, despite representing 17% of the total job market. Furthermore, their labor is valued less by employers, with Hispanic IT professionals earning just 83% of what their White colleagues make, a number that has dipped from 85% in 2016. All this, despite industry-wide efforts in recent years to rectify diversity issues in IT and STEM. Pete Torres, director of engineering, Capital One Capital One For Torres, the path forward requires operating on two timelines at once. First, Torres has worked to strengthen diversity at a professional level at Capital One. And second is his work to help create opportunities for young people to embark on careers in tech. Through Capital Ones Hispanic employee resource group (ERG), Torres and his colleagues have spent a lot of time reaching out to the youth and driving diversity of thought across the organization. This work includes helping to create a more diverse talent pipeline, as evidenced by Capital Ones efforts to connect underrepresented students at the college level with technology opportunities, as well as local chapters work with elementary schools. This outreach gives young people a chance to see people working in IT who share their last name or similar upbringing, out there talking in a suit and tie it just brings confidence and lets them know that [IT] is now a career path and an opportunity, he says. PAC Mexico to Hold Fuji Open House at UTE in Monterrey Published: 27 January 2023 by Tyler Hanes by Tyler Hanes MONTERREY, MEXICO PAC Mexico recently announced the development of a brand new diploma program at the Universidad Tecnologica Escobedo for students who want to learn more about the SMT industry. The 80 hour training program is designed to give students hands on experience with manufacturing equipment and help facilitate career development once students graduate. To garner interest from students and industry leaders alike, PAC is hosting an open house at UTE on February 7th at 10am (CST), where students can network with industry professionals and learn more about the SMT program. As part of the program at UTE, the university will also be home to Fuji flagship placement platform, the NXTIII, allowing students to get hands-on experience with industry standard machinery, expanding their skillsets and assisting with job placement after graduation. Management from Fuji America Corporation will also be present at the UTE open house to field questions and provide guidance to students. Fuji and PAC want to prepare recent graduate students to be ready for the production floor and help our customers fill their need of skilled technicians and engineers, said Everardo Jaime, Service Manager for PAC Mexico. We sincerely thank UTE for their interest in collaborating with the industrial community in Northeast Mexico and for hosting this event. Fuji Corporation is a market-leading supplier of Surface Mount Technology (SMT) Pick & Place solutions, and has designed and manufactured many ground-breaking innovations in the circuit board assembly world. PAC Global, based in Dallas, Texas, was established in 1973 as a manufacturing representative for top-tier manufacturing equipment providers in the electronics industry. PACs mission is to provide solutions for manufacturers of printed circuit boards. Our highly skilled professional sales associates and technical service engineers utilize superior training and state of the art demo facilities to rise above industry standards. The Anthracite Heritage Foundation presented its annual Monsignor John J. Curran Lecture on Thursday at Kings College in Wilkes-Barre. The event, which was presented as part of Anthracite Mining Heritage Month, featured remarks from Philip Mosley, professor emeritus, Penn State-Scranton, as he discussed his new book, Telling of the Anthracite: A Pennsylvania Post history. Prior to the lecture, attendees were welcomed by the Rev. Thomas P. Looney, president of Kings College, and Bob Wolensky of the Anthracite Heritage Foundation. Local artist Sue Hands painting of the Dorrance Colliery Breaker, which once stood near Kings College, was also presented. TOP: Richard Fitzsimmons of Falls examines Hands painting. ABOVE: Mosley discusses his new book during the event. Close Primeste notificari pe email Nota bene: Adresele email cu extensia .ru nu sunt acceptate. Contractare si Achizitie Bunuri Anunturi de Angajare Granturi - Finantari Burse de studiu Stagii Profesionale Oportunitati de voluntariat Toate Articolele A documentary based on a controversial book about the charity sector will be released in the coming months, its author has announced. This week, US fundraiser and activist Dan Pallotta announced his film, Uncharitable, is set to be released on streaming services this May. The documentary is based on his book of the same name, which was released over a decade ago and criticises the double standards of what is deemed acceptable for the for-profit sector as opposed to the non-profit sector. This dichotomy in beliefs actually prevents civil society from achieving its goals, Pallotta argues. We have two rulebooks, one for the non-profit sector and another for the rest of the economic world, he says in the trailer. In a TED Talk also based on his book, The Way we Think About Charity is Dead Wrong , Pallotta said these different rules discriminate against the non-profit sector. We don't like non-profits to use money to incentivise people to produce more in social service. We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people, he said in the talk. But we do not feel this way about people who profit while not working to help other people, he said. Film liberates charity from its Puritan constraints The documentary was directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. It features actor Edward Norton, chief executive of TED Chris Anderson, chief executive of One Love Foundation Katie Hood and many more leaders in the US charity sector. Funded through private donations, the film will change you and everything youve ever thought or been taught about charity, giving [and] solving the great problems of human suffering, its website claims. Gary Hart, former United States senator and scholar in residence of the University of Colorado, called the upcoming film revolutionary. Challenging hallowed premises is difficult; challenging the foundational premises underlying our understanding of charity is even more so. Dan Pallotta has done exactly that and, in doing so, requires us all to rethink the very nature of what it means to be charitable and how charity actually functions. He liberates charity from its Puritan constraints and cogently attaches it to entrepreneurship in a way that should make us all take two steps back and imagine a new philosophy and theory of charity itself. This is nothing less than a revolutionary work. Five years in the making. Announcing, Uncharitable, a documentary movie to liberate the nonprofit sector's true power. Premiers in NY at Lincoln Center 3-28, in L.A. at the Director's Guild 3-30. In select theaters in April. Streaming in May. Trailer: https://t.co/ECe9iaBBDE danpallotta (@danpallotta) January 23, 2023 sign up to receive the Civil Society News daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, French luxury goods maker LVMH reported a record year in 2022, with revenues rising by almost an annual 25 percent to around 79.2 billion ($86 billion). LVMH earned a fifth of its revenues from brands like Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Rimowa. All other parts of the company also reported double-digit sales growth. Group chief executive Bernard Arnault is considered the richest person in the world according to the latest rankings, with Forbes magazine estimating his worth at $203 billion on January. Last year, LVMH increased its operating profit by almost a quarter to around 21 billion but also faced higher marketing and distribution costs. Its perfume business was the only segment that saw profits fall. In all, LVMH earned nearly 14.1 billion, 17 percent more than in 2021. Analysts had expected more in terms of operating profit and net income, however. (dpa) Happy Friday dear readers, and buckle your seatbelts for more news of the plentiful goings on in charity land. Speaking of seatbelts, a certain 42-year-old failed to do his up last week. This may not have been very newsworthy if it hadnt been any other than prime minister Rishi Sunak. Brake, a Yorkshire-based safety charity, scolded Sunak for a video that showed him failing to do so, which is against the law dont ya know. Thats two offenses that Mr Sunak now has to his name, which is a record for British PMs. What's next? Pigolas Cage RSPCA's adopt a farm animal page has some superstars on it this week, with none other than Pigolas Cage. Pigolas, alongside many other farm animals, is looking for a new home. Due to his famous status, he is currently in private boarding in Suffolk. The description for Pigolas is not entirely helpful, with his breed being enlisted as pig and colour natural (what is the natural colour of a pig, Diary asks? One would think it would be pink, but Pigolas is black has Peppa just popularised a myth? So many questions). Whatever the answers may be, all Diary knows is that he was great in Face/Off. Henry VIII was a disabled king says National Trust National Trust gave Daily Mail a field day last week when they released a video in conjunction with Leicester University explaining that Henry VIII was a disabled king. Gen-Z readers may be taken aback by this statement, as king is often used as a slang term of endearment (e.g. a nice short man = a short king). In this sense, how was Henry a disabled king? He certainly didnt seem to do much for disability empowerment, or feminism, or Well, the list goes on. However, Henry VIII had a disability ever since he was in a jousting accident at 44, says the NT. His armoured horse landed on him and crushed his legs, which were then plagued by ulcers for the rest of his life. He subsequently gained weight and became obese. He often used walking sticks and wheelchairs to assist him in everyday life. Handsome memorabilia The Soldiers, Sailors & Airmens Families Association (SSAFA), the armed forces charity, is honouring King Charles III by launching its Coronation memorabilia range next month. In what SSAFA calls its handsome designs (bit weird, if Diary may say so) the range includes mugs, tea towels, magnets, coasters and other bits of paraphernalia that are destined to decorate homes across the country and gather dust. Vagina Museum receives 69 donation The Vagina Museum received a 69 donation this week, so thanked the donor with a personalised drawing of a vagina saying Nice! The specific donation number has not gone unnoticed, with many Twitter users also responding with nice. Do they know something Diary doesnt? The mind boggles. when someone makes a donation of exactly 69, we make sure we thank them appropriately pic.twitter.com/1M9G4imV0J Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) January 24, 2023 sign up to receive the Civil Society News daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, Editors note: This column, part of Covering Climate Now, is published in collaboration with the Korea Press Foundation. The February issue of KPFs Newspaper & Broadcasting magazine digs into how journalists everywhere are covering the climate story and how that coverage might improve. Learn more about KPF here and check out their full February issue, in Korean, here. When covid-19 struck in 2020, news outlets around the world rapidly transformed to meet the moment. Some changes were practical necessities: social-distanced interviews became the norm, and print teams retooled to produce newspapers and magazines remotely. Other changes were creative in nature, aiming to help audiences grapple with the scope of the pandemic and its consequences. On Web homepages, modules tracking infections became fixtures. Outlets terminated long-standing paywalls, to help ensure accurate coronavirus information was widely available. And not a few newsrooms experimented with new formats and surprising graphics to arrest audiences attention; in May 2020, for example, as covid-19 fatalities in the United States approached 100,000, the New York Times ran a striking front page filled with victims names, calling their deaths an incalculable loss. As devastating as the coronavirus pandemic has been, its tragically only a preview of the chaos that the climate crisis has in store. Yet, historically, journalisms response to climate change has been comparatively muted. For many years, news organizations treated the climate as only a niche concern. To appear objective, they indulged climate denial, pitting established science against provably false arguments by the fossil fuel industry and its defenders. As the crisis grew worse, and as inaction remained the norm from world leaders, outlets defended their own inaction with outdated claims that audiences simply werent interested in climate change. Thankfully, thats all starting to change. In recent years, newsrooms across the world have announced fresh commitments to the climate story, hiring scores of reporters and launching a diverse array of climate desks and programming. At Covering Climate Now, a global journalism nonprofit cofounded in the US by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation, were proud to have played a humble part in this evolution. We started in 2019, dedicated to the belief that stronger climate reporting was needed to help save a world on the brink. Along with our partnerswhich hail from more than fifty countries and include many of the biggest names in news, like Reuters, Bloomberg, and Al Jazeeraweve worked to identify and spread climate coverage best practices. We offer a range of journalistic resources and we highlight great work where we see it, so that journalists everywhere can learn by example. More hard work remains to be done, of course. If anything, the cascade of climate-change-fueled disasters in 2022 further emphasized the urgent need for excellent climate journalism. According to Europes Copernicus Climate Change Service, last year was the fifth hottest ever recorded, with eight of the planets ten hottest years having come in the past decade. Our oceans, too, are hotter than everwhich lays the groundwork for more powerful hurricanes and typhoonsand sea ice at the poles is at all-time lows. Throughout 2022, monster heat waves engulfed swaths of Europe, India, and China; prolonged drought in East Africa gave way to deadly food and water shortages; and unprecedented flooding in Pakistan left a staggering one-third of the country submerged. Scientists are unequivocal that climate change is making weather-related disasters like these worse. And the disasters human consequences are impossible to deny. The United Nations estimates an average of 25.1 million people are forced out of their homes every year due to extreme weather; in 2021, it was 59.1 million people, which one UN expert described as an intolerable tide of displacement. World leaders, finally, seem to be getting the memo. Beyond disasters, last year saw many promising developments, including, not least, major climate legislation from the US, the worlds largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. As the disappointing outcome of Novembers cop27 climate summit in Egypt demonstrated, thougha breakthrough deal to compensate poorer countries for climate damage notwithstandingthe worlds most powerful countries remain more talk than action. The world still needs a giant leap on climate ambition, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said at the summits conclusion. As humanity strives for better, journalists have an indispensable role to play. For one, were needed to hold leaders accountable for their lofty climate pledges, a charge that goes for emissions-heavy corporations as much as for governments. Were also needed to educate our audiences, not just about the dangers of failing to cut emissions but the hope and promise of climate solutions. Like with covid-19, these tasks call for better than journalism-as-usual. Indeed, despite the leaps-and-bounds improvements news organizations have made, climate change is still dramatically under-covered, relative to the size of the problem. In a December study by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, roughly half of news consumers in eight diverse countries said they hadnt seen or heard any news about climate change in the past week; for others, it had been much longer. Better climate coverage isnt only a matter of more coverage, however. To do the climate story justice, well need big ideas and outside-the-box thinking. On this front, several outlets are setting encouraging examples. In the UK, The Guardian, which serves as Covering Climate Nows lead news partner, last year issued its own robust climate pledge, promising not just to keep up its standard-bearing climate reporting but to fully decouple its business and finances from fossil fuel companies (the newspaper already stopped accepting fossil fuel advertising in 2020) and to slash its emissions by two-thirds by 2030. The Bloomberg offshoot Bloomberg Green operates an impressive data dashboard that aims to capture the state of climate change with up-to-the-minute facts and figures, similar to the market statistics that are hallmarks of business reporting. And in Japan last year, dozens of news organizations, including top newspapers and TV stations, set aside competition to participate in a campaign called Promise of 1.5 degrees: Act now to stop global warming; the joint effort aimed to explain the critical importance of the worlds goal to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, as well as the behaviors that organizations and everyday citizens could change to do their part. The language journalists use also merits thoughtful reconsideration. In 2019, The Guardian updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world. Specifically, the newspaper instructed journalists that climate crisis and climate emergency would be preferred above the less urgent climate change. The phrase climate change sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity, Guardian editor in chief Katharine Viner explained. Thousands of scientists around the world, in fact, have saidin peer-reviewed journals and elsewherethat we face a climate emergency and, worse, that its accelerating faster than they historically predicted. Consequently, Covering Climate Now, in 2021, issued a statement, signed jointly by some of our top partners, calling on outlets everywhere to follow The Guardians lead in recognizing that the climate emergency is here. The word emergency, we wrote, conveys both the need for immediate action and the fact that the time to act is running short. Dozens of newsrooms worldwide have since added their outlets name to Covering Climate Nows statement. To be sure, theres good evidence that stronger wording like this will resonate with audiences. A recent survey by the UN Development Programme, for example, which polled 1.2 million people in more than fifty countries, found that two-thirds of the worlds citizens believe climate change constitutes a global emergency. That said, journalists shouldnt give audiences the impression that all is lost. We want to describe the climate threat accurately, but, equally important, we must emphasize that solutions to the crisis are available to humanity now, if we choose them. From clean energy to plant-based proteins, from electric vehicles to energy-efficient buildings, the climate story is full of causes for hope. And many solutions are ones that can be implemented in our daily lives. By highlighting ways to reduce emissions in our homes and communities, we empower audiences to find their place in a story that can so often otherwise feel abstract. Of course, other solutions can only be implemented through broad-scale change, by government and industry. By covering thesethe policy proposals, the regulations, and the cutting-edge technologieswe help set standards of accountability for our leaders. Critically, covering climate solutions doesnt mean cheerleading any one solution in particular. Given the gravity of the climate crisis, the solutions deserve the same journalistic skepticism and scrutiny that we apply to every other coverage area. Journalists should ask: What does each solution promise to accomplish? Is it delivering on that promise? And, most importantly, does it meet the pressing demands of climate science? In the coming years, climate solutions will likely entail big changes for how we live. Weve known for years that poorer countries and peoplescommunities of color and Indigenous groups, especiallywill be hit first and hardest by the climate crisis. So whos served by these big changes is another essential plotline for journalists on the climate beat. As societies move to address climate change, will we aim to mend the injustices of the present? Or will our future instead deliver safety and riches to only the already rich and powerful? To cover all this well will involve every journalist in the newsroom. The climate story is enormoustoo big to be relegated to climate journalists or publications science desks alone. Climate change overarches and unites beats, from politics to business, health to sports; as we say often at Covering Climate Now, its a story for every beat. Accordingly, it deserves investment and support from the top down, from every editor and executive. This is, in truth, an exciting time for climate storytelling. Against the odds, the world is making progress, in fits and starts. But success is far from guaranteed. If whole newsrooms agree to cover climate to the utmost, we can redeem past failures and help audiences grasp, finally, the dangers and opportunities of this moment, before its too late. Andrew McCormick is an independent journalist and former CJR Delacorte Fellow. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the South China Morning Post, and more. Follow him on Twitter @AndrewMcCormck. Its been a horrible week of gun violence in America, which is to say that its been much like every other week. Two mass shootings in Californiaone in Monterey Park, outside of Los Angeles; the other in Half Moon Bay, near San Franciscoresulted in the deaths of nineteen people (including one of the gunmen) and kicked off the prescribed media response: breaking-news scramble, then outrage, then frustrated calls made of elected officials, who pledged that the response this time would be different. Change the channel, turn the page. This year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, more than thirteen hundred Americans have died by gun violence as of this morning, a rate of more than fifty people every day. If the numbers continue at the pace of the past couple of yearsand theres no reason to believe they wontmore than twenty thousand of us will die a violent gun death in 2023, according to the Archive. And even more people will die by suicide with a gun. ICYMI: A Recession by Any Other Name All of which makes our repetitive media response so infuriatingly lacking. This week was not an aberration; the shooters are not people on the fringe; this is not something that just doesnt happen here. Gun carnage has become a foundational part of life in America. So why does some of the press continue to cover it as if its not? Nearly two years ago, CJR launched a project to try to break this cycle. It is time to radically reconsider how guns and gun deaths are covered by the press in America, I wrote then, as we convened a summit of reporters and health experts to talk about how the press should change its approach. We also placed news boxes around New York City filled with broadsheets, titled The Inevitable News, featuring fourteen pages of identical, fill-in-the-blanks news stories about mass shootings since 2018, with only the location and the names of the victims changed in each case. The week that we launched that effort, eighteen people died in two mass shootings: ten at a grocery store in Boulder; eight, six of them Asian women, at massage spas in the Atlanta area. The conversation that we convened resulted in a list of ways in which reporters could change how they report on gun violence. The recommendations included covering gun violence like the health crisis it is, devoting adequate newsroom resources to cover the story, acknowledging the racism inherent in much gun coverage, and contextualizing mass shootings as one part of a bigger problem: Sign up for CJR 's daily email Mass shootings represent a small percentage of gun deaths in the US but constitute a majority of the coverage. We acknowledge that dramatic, mass shooting events warrant attention. But they need to be covered as high-profile manifestations of a much larger, systemic problem, and made into an opportunity to educate the public on the thousands of people who are dying outside of the media spotlight. We then did something unusual, for a news organization like CJR: we asked other newsrooms to sign on to a commitment to change their coverage, responding to the shortcomings we identified in the discussion. Many thousands of people read our stories and watched the conversation on livestream. And yet almost no one signed up to change their approach. There are many explanations for thatfrom the pressing distraction of the pandemic at the time to the fact that journalists are constitutionally resistant to joining causes. Understandable reasons, all. But that resistance nevertheless points to the bigger problem, which is the unwillingness to shift the status quo when it comes to gun coverage. Journalism in America is missing the story, which isnt only about mass shootings or a six-year-old wounding his teacher, but relentless bloodshed that disproportionately touches communities of color. Every decent-size newsroom in the country should have a gun beat. Every mass-shooting story needs to contextualize the outrage within the bigger epidemic. Every lawmaker at every level needs to be held to account on why they arent doing more. On the day you read this, fifty Americans will die from gun violence. Thats a story that deserves telling. In April 2021, around the time of our gun-coverage summit, I interviewed Manuel and Patricia Oliverwhose son Joaquin was murdered in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Floridafor CJRs podcast The Kicker. The Olivers have a lot to say about gun violence and the rote way in which the media covers it, and their nonprofit, Change the Ref, has been among the most effective at drawing attention to the ongoing problem. Last year, Manuel Oliver made headlines when he interrupted President Biden during a speech at the White House. Olivers plea? You have to do more. You can listen to my interview with the Olivers here, and review CJRs gun coverage commitment here. Other notable stories: ICYMI: A BBC documentary highlights growing social media censorship in India Correction: This column has been amended to reflect that a six-year-old shot and wounded his teacher in Virginia. He did not kill her. Kyle Pope is the editor in chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. Veronique Wright stood in the operating room at a clinic in Rabat, Morocco, staring at a scan of a patient's brain. The patient was prepped for surgery, and the neurosurgeon mentoring Wright asked her to identify what was wrong. Wright panicked for a moment. "He wants me to tell him what is wrong? It was mind-blowing," she said. But the Carnegie Mellon University student was up to the task. "Another student and I went through a process of: What looks different? What looks abnormal? We were able to find a cerebral fluid leak in the brain. The surgeon was like, 'Great! Amazing! I didn't expect you to get it, but that's amazing!'" For Wright, a senior pursuing a combined degree in biological sciences(opens in new window) and psychology(opens in new window) with plans to apply to medical school, volunteering at the Clinique La Capitale brought greater clarity to her future. "The entire experience solidified why I want to do medicine, more specifically maybe surgery," she said. "After getting this hands-on experience, it is definitely what I want to do. I don't see myself doing anything else." Wright's Moroccan service abroad experience was funded by the Jennings Family Brave Companions Fund(opens in new window). Established by Carnegie Mellon trustee and alumnus Larry Jennings Jr. and his wife, Katherine, the fund annually provides students financial support to travel to developing countries during their summer breaks to study, travel, conduct research and/or participate in service work. "I am so grateful to the Jennings," Wright said. "Without the scholarship, it was never a possibility for me to go abroad and do something like this." Wright spent four weeks in the small clinic in Morocco's capital city. She started in the midwifery unit, where she expected to be a hands-off observer. By the second day, the nurses changed that assumption. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) Kickstarting and scaling your business is no easy feat. And for these three inspiring entrepreneurs, eCommerce pioneer Lazada has been pivotal in taking their small businesses to the next level. Michael dela Cruz of Jophiel's Collection, Joven Ganaden of MR mabenta, and Juvy Apura of Vy On Style all took a leap of faith to be able to give their families a better future, through hard work and Lazadas wide range of tools that empower anyone to be an entrepreneur. Jophiel's Collection Michael dela Cruz, owner of Jophiel's Collection, and his family. Photo from Lazada Michael, for instance, had no experience in running a business. He put up his footwear store Jophiels Collection during the height of the pandemic by circumstance, after his work as a wedding video editor came to a screeching halt. Searching for answers, Michael turned to his in-laws who have been manufacturing sandals for 20 years. They, too, were impacted by the pandemic when their partners closed shop. Michael thought of helping both of their causes by selling the products online, paving the way for the launch of Jophiels Collection. From a one-man team, now more than 10 na kami, he says, adding that his shop has added a wider range of footwear selections. The business was such a hit that Jophiels Collection crossed the 1-million-peso mark in sales in just six months. He adds that their small business continues to do well keeping up with the latest trends in fashion and crafting custom-made pairs that cater to the needs of their loyal customers. Some of the footwears available at Jophiel's Collection. Photo from Lazada Michael credits Lazadas vital role in his success. He vouches for the platform as the best choice to kickstart a business, pointing to its wide and established customer base. He adds that the tools and resources Lazada provides also makes it much easier to start and scale small businesses. Today, the shop has even expanded to supplying to resellers. Through Lazada, Michael also got a new definition for success. "Its not even about having money or any material thing anymore," he says. "Rather, its being able to enjoy the luxury of spending time with the family while making a living." MR mabenta Joven Ganaden, owner of MR mabenta, and his family. Photo from Lazada Its the same winning approach that brought great things to Joven Ganaden of motorcycle parts shop MR mabenta. Set on giving the best for his family no matter the cost, Joven worked as a garbage collector, a courier, including for Lazada, and a wet market vendor. It was during one his deliveries as a Lazada rider, however, when Joven got the idea of transitioning into online selling. Meron akong pinipick-upan na seller, nakikita ko kung gaano siya ka-successful, kung gaano ka-kumportable ang buhay niya, he says. In-encourage niya din ako maging seller nun, kaya na-inspire ako at nag-decide na magbenta sa Lazada. MR mabenta orders being prepared to be shipped to customers. Photo from Lazada Joven chose to sell motorcycle parts. After almost four years of being a full-time Lazada seller, he has been able to acquire his own property. Joven also bought a car after a month of selling inflatable swimming pools during the summers in lockdown, recognizing that people missed going to swimming trips. Of all the support he gets from Lazada in running his business, Joven trusts Lazada Sponsored Solutions. The program is a comprehensive suite of paid visibility tools that help drive effective exposure and conversion for brands and sellers. Vy On Style Juvy Apura, owner of Vy on Style. Photo from Lazada Much like those who approach Joven in the hopes of replicating his accomplishments, Juvy Apura of womens clothing shop Vy On Style wanted to achieve more. After working in the manufacturing industry for 15 years, Juvy started attending to her family full-time in 2018 when she gave birth to her third child. But she always believed that she could contribute more to her family. I love being a mom, pero marami pa akong kayang gawin bukod sa paglalaba, luto, plantsa, at iba pang gawaing bahay, she says. Kaya nag-set ako ng goal na makatulong sa husband ko. Talagang motivated ako to build a business that time, at nakilala ko si Lazada. With a strong resolve that she could excel in online selling, Juvy began selling everything from clothes to food. She then tapped into her inner fashionista and focused on womens apparel. Juvy recalls Vy On Styles first hit product being the Chalis terno coordinates, a versatile pambahay-pangalis outfit. From there, the shops offerings grew more wide-ranging, including plus-size collections and other items. A product from Vy On Style. Photo from Lazada I came from literally zero from 2020 when I started, and now I have 7,000 followers and counting with good ratings, she says, adding she hit 3 million in sales last year. This year, Juvy is aiming for a million per quarter. Its a goal made possible through the massive reach of Lazada. Juvy says her business grew from parang kaliwaan lang ang sales to catering nationwide. She also credits Lazadas easy and efficient logistics services that streamlined her operations. Success, for me, is a five-star review on my page, she says. Customers being happy and satisfied with the services and products that I offer is the meaning of success to me as a business owner. For all the support it provides, Lazada serves as the preferred destination for MSMEs to start and grow their business. The platform is a bona fide partner of sellers with a range of tools and resources that help them thrive, including charging 0% commission for new sellers for up to 3 months. Couple these with best-in-class technology and a supportive community, its easy to see why dreamers turn to Lazada. Start your journey as a Lazada seller today by visiting https://lzd.co/LazPHSSU. If youre looking for sulitipid deals, check out Lazadas 2.2 Feb-Ibig Sale today! Keep posted on the latest updates by following Lazadas Facebook and Instagram pages. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) A barbershop owned by a queer couple in Binan, Laguna is offering Sexual Orientation Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) training for its barbers, seen as a significant step in the male-dominated industry. "Barbierro Barbershop" mixes the terms "barbie" and "barbero (barber)," words that are generally associated with femininity and masculinity, respectively, in Philippine society. As barbers trained on SOGIE, shop employees make sure to ask their customers' preferred pronouns so they can be properly addressed. "We would make sure that our barbers are trained in terms of SOGIE and sex characteristics so they're very well aware. I mean it's a foreign concept usually for heterosexual straight men," Barbierro Barbershop owner Paul Sumayao told CNN Philippines. The barbershop recently trended on Twitter after it claimed to be the first queer barbershop in the country. The owner said they are also eyeing to hire queer barbers in the future as the industry remains dominated by men. "It was late na nalaman ko na it's really difficult to source or hire barbers in the Philippines. Most of themthat I wanted for us, pumupunta na sila abroad," he said. [Translation: It was only recent when I found out that it's hard to source or hire barbers in the Philippines. Most of those that I wanted to hire are moving abroad.] Opened in 2022, the business advocates safe spaces for queers when they go to barbershops. Sumayao said they are addressing the gap of having LGBT-friendly barbershops in the Philippines. "One of the reasons why we wanted to be here is that we want to amplify the voices in the entrepreneurial community that queers can sort of make significant change in perceiving masculine or feminine spaces," he said. Although gender-sensitive ordinances have been enacted locally, the Philippines has yet to pass the proposed SOGIE bill amid strong opposition from religious groups. RELATED: SOGIE Equality Bill protects everyone, not only LGBTQIA+ members equality rights advocate Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, a former Philippine National Police chief and among the accused in the International Criminal Court's investigation on the bloody war on drugs, blamed what he called "anti-Duterte forces" for the resumption of the probe. In an online media interview on Friday, Dela Rosa said these critics who want to "get revenge from" former President Rodrigo Duterte and other officials of his administration are the ones insisting on the probe. "There are some forces na nagtutulak sa kanila (ICC), na ituloy nila. Kahit na yung Filipino people ay walang effort na, hindi nagkukumahog na mag-conduct ng investigation," Dela Rosa said. [Translation: There are some forces pushing the ICC to continue with the probe. Even if the Filipino people are not making an effort, not in a hurry to conduct an investigation.] "Galit sila dahil tinamaan sila nang husto ng Duterte administration. Yung kaliwa, basta lahat ng anti-Duterte forces," he added. [Translation: They are angry because the Duterte administration hit them hard. The left, all the anti-Duterte forces.] Asked if he's considering any legal action against the accusers, Dela Rosa said, "they do not deserve my attention." "Bigyan ko sila ng importansya? Manigas sila. Bahala sila sa buhay nila. Wala akong pakialam," Dela Rosa said. [Translation: Why should I give them importance? Rot in there. I don't care.] He did not name names, but noted that former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV was among those who filed a complaint at the ICC. Trillanes, along with former Magdalo Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, in a supplemental complaint, said over a thousand were killed by the so-called Davao Death Squad when Duterte was mayor, while thousands more died in the war on drugs during his presidency. Dela Rosa reiterated that Duterte never ordered the killings but merely asked law enforcers to defend themselves. He also maintained that local courts and authorities "are working" to investigate and prosecute alleged human rights violations. A year after suspending the probe at the request of the Philippine government, the ICC's pre-trial chamber said it is "not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Court's investigations." Human rights advocates and minority lawmakers are now calling on President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to cooperate with the ICC. "The government itself cannot credibly investigate murders allegedly committed by government agents as part of government policy. Justice requires that an impartial body investigate killings connected to the so-called war on drugs," opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros said in a statement. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) The Philippines is awaiting comment from Japan about one of its citizens who went by the alias "Luffy" the alleged mastermind behind a robbery ring who was reportedly nabbed by the Bureau of Immigration (BI), Justice Secretary Jesus "Boying" Remulla said on Friday. As reported by the Japan Times, the alleged mastermind behind the string of robbery cases in Japan had been sending instructions via smartphone from an immigration detention center in Manila. One of the cases saw 35 million (around 14.7 million) in cash and gold bars stolen. Another resulted in the murder of a 90-year-old-woman. "It's not proper for me to discuss it yet. They haven't made contact yet when the issue started coming to my office. The situation here is that Japan is the requesting party, we are waiting for the request to push through," Remulla told reporters. He said that he still had to discuss the matter with the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines. A briefer from the Department of Justice (DOJ) said that a Japanese national named Imamura Kiyoto with the alias "Luffy" was first intercepted by the BI in 2019. On Jan. 30, 2020, a deportation order was filed against him as he was a robbery fugitive fleeing from justice in Japan. A criminal case was filed against him for violence against women and children. This was dismissed by a Makati court on Wednesday, Jan. 25. Following the dismissal, he will soon be deported. Kiyoto was originally thought to be the mastermind behind the robbery gang in Japan. However, two years later on Apr. 19, 2021, one Yuki Watanabe who also went by the alias "Luffy" was caught by immigration. A deportation order was filed against him on May 28, 2021 for illegally entering the country and for fleeing the law in Japan. Like Kiyoto, Watanabe has a pending criminal case for violence against women and children. Watanabe is now thought to be the mastermind "Luffy" and Kiyoto just a member of the gang, the DOJ briefer said. Remulla said that the BI had many foreigners under detention and that the DOJ was working to identify the true identity of "Luffy." He added that he could not discuss the subject further. Meanwhile, the BI was directed to strictly monitor and prohibit Watanabe's access to communication devices. CNN Philippines will publish the comments of the Japanese nationals or their lawyers if they become available. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) The International Criminal Courts (ICC) pre-trial chamber on Friday authorized the resumption of investigation into the controversial drug war in the Philippines. Over a year after it halted the inquiry, the ICC said it is not convinced that the Philippine government is making a real or genuine effort to conduct probes and criminal prosecutions regarding the matter. Following a careful analysis of the materials provided by the Philippines, the Chamber is not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Courts investigations on the basis of the complementarity principle, it said. After examining materials submitted by the ICC prosecutor, the government and victims observations, the chamber concluded that initiatives done by the government do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the Courts investigation. For one, the ICC noted that while there have been some steps taken, these only primarily concern low-ranking enforcement personnel. In September 2021, the chamber approved the start of an investigation into the crimes allegedly committed from November 2011 to March 2019 in the context of the Duterte administrations war on drugs. This time frame covers extrajudicial killings reportedly carried out in the Davao region by the "Davao Death Squad," which allegedly involved law enforcement units. In November 2021, however, the international body temporarily suspended its probe, following a request from the Philippine government. The government maintained that the ICC may only exercise jurisdiction where national legal systems fail to do so, saying this is "certainly not the case in the Philippines." ICC Prosecutor Karim Khans initial request to reopen the investigation in 2022 was also rejected by the current administration, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declaring that the country has no intentions of rejoining the international body. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla previously pointed out that the Philippines is not obliged to formally respond to the ICC as it already withdrew during Dutertes term, effective March 2019. ICC said that the conclusion to continue the probe does not stop the Philippines from offering other information to help the prosecution or the chamber in its decisions. This conclusion does not preclude the Philippines from providing material in the future in order for the Prosecution, or the Chamber, to determine inadmissibility of the investigation or of any actual case, if and when needed, it said. PH to appeal decision The Marcos administration will exhaust legal remedies to counter the resumption of the probe, including by elevating the matter to the ICC appeals chamber, said Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra. In a statement, he stressed that the countrys domestic investigative and judicial processes should take precedence. We can show that despite structural and resource limitations in our legal system, it is still a well-functioning system that yields positive results in its own time, he said. Remulla meanwhile told reporters that while the government is still open to a dialogue with the ICC, it will not accept impositions. Definitely, I do not welcome this move of theirs, and I will not welcome them to the Philippines unless they make clear that they will respect us in this regard, the Justice Secretary said. I will not stand for any of these antics that will tend to question our sovereignty, our status as a sovereign country. We will not accept that. The Department of Foreign Affairs said it defers to the Department of Justice and the Office of the Solicitor General on the appropriate action regarding any legal or procedural issues raised by the pre-trial chamber. If necessary, the Department stands ready to make appropriate representations through our Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, the DFA said. For the international non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), the ICC investigation is the only credible avenue for justice for the drug wars victims and their families. During Duterte's term, government monitoring platform RealNumbersPH showed that over 6,000 people died in anti-illegal drug operations. Local and international human rights organizations, however, estimate an even higher tally of between 12,000 and 30,000. As the courts judges agreed, Philippine authorities are not undertaking relevant investigations into these crimes or making a real or genuine effort to carry these investigations out," HRW Asia Deputy Director Phil Robertson said. "The ICC offers a path forward to fill the accountability vacuum, he added. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will be flying to France for a state visit some time in June after accepting the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron. This was revealed by French Ambassador Michele Boccoz during the celebration of the Elysee Treaty on Friday. Speaking to reporters, the envoy said preparations are underway for the state visit. The last state visit in Paris by a Philippine president was in 1989. "Our President has sent a written letter of invitation for President Marcos which I conveyed to Malacanang Palace, which could take place on the half of the year," Boccoz said. "It's really a landmark to our bilateral relations, and we want to be as fruitful as possible," she added. The ambassador said Philippine and French officials will meet on March 8 to iron out the details of the state visit. Boccoz added that as far as they know, Marcos has accepted the invitation and they are only looking for a suitable time and date. "We will be having high level discussion to set the agenda, the program, the dates and so on," Boccoz said. The French diplomat added that June is the initial target for the state visit, saying it is the perfect time to visit France. Among possible agreements to be signed during the visit could involve film collaborations, information and communication and technology deals, and energy and climate change solutions. "Maritime and security sector, food security issue, energy security and all the global issues these are some of the priority areas," the French envoy added. This is not the first time Marcos would meet Macron. The two met on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Thailand last November. The two leaders initially discussed agricultural, energy, and defense cooperation. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) The family of Jullebee Ranara the 35-year-old overseas Filipino worker (OFW) killed in Kuwait has requested for the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to conduct an autopsy on her remains, the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said. The DMW reported that Ranara's burnt body was found in the Al-Salmi desert in Kuwait on Saturday, Jan. 21. It added that her family had lost contact with her on the same day. READ: DMW vows justice for slain OFW in Kuwait "Maraming (There are many) speculations about the cause of death, the motive. The family gave me permission to share with you the information that they have requested an autopsy once the remains arrive here in the Philippines to be done by the NBI," DMW Secretary Susan Ople told reporters on Friday. Ranara's remains will be repatriated to the Philippines at around 9:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27. READ: Remains of OFW killed in Kuwait to be brought home on Friday According to Ople, Ranara's bereaved family has asked that the arrival of the body be treated as a private affair. The autopsy will be conducted as soon as the body of the slain OFW arrives in the country. "Kaya Sunday na yung start ng wake kasi [That is why the wake will start on Sunday, because] they would need time to autopsy and i-prepare yung [the] remains for the wake and eventual burial," Ople added. Reports from foreign media Kuwaiti publication The Arab Times reported that an autopsy conducted by local authorities determined that Ranara was pregnant when she died. It also said that she had been sexually assaulted. Ople said that despite the foreign reports, the DMW had not seen documentation on the claims and that they would wait for the NBI's autopsy results before issuing an official statement on the killing. "I personally have not yet seen official documentation to that effect which is why we also want to discuss the elements of this criminal case with a Kuwaiti lawyer, with our ambassador, and with our MWO (Migrant Workers Office) senior staff so we have a firmer understanding of the legal battle that lies ahead so that we can explain it properly," Ople explained. The main suspect in the killing is the 17-year-old son of Ranara's employer. The DMW said that he had been arrested by Kuwaiti authorities and that no other suspects were under investigation for Ranara's death. Meanwhile, the DMW prohibited Renara's employer from hiring other FIlipino workers after it established "ground for the imposition of a disciplinary action in relation to the administrative case filed against them." READ: DMW imposes preventive suspension on employer of OFW killed in Kuwait Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) The Philippine embassy in Israel has warned Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to be vigilant amid the lethal raid in West Bank, Israel that killed and wounded several Palestinians. RELATED: Lethal Israeli raid marks deadliest day in over a year In a Facebook post on Thursday, OFWs were reminded to avoid several areas until Jan. 28. These include the West Bank, areas in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights and borders of Lebanon and Gala. Citing the Palestinian Ministry Head, CNN International reported that Israeli forces killed 10 and wounded several Palestinians in a refugee camp in the West Bank of Jenin on Thursday. According to the Israeli security forces, the raid was conducted to apprehend a terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization, which resulted in the killing of three terrorists. The Philippine Embassy in Israel advised OFWs to avoid Israeli security forces in the conflict areas and to avoid taking any recordings. It also posted emergency hotlines should OFWs need help. Meanwhile, OFWs were urged to avoid going to crowded places and to be cautious when riding public transportation. They were also reminded to follow the orders of Israeli security forces and the Home Front Command. In an exchange with CNN Philippines, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said there are no known Filipino casualties in the recent raid in Israel. The Philippine Embassy in Amman and in Tel Aviv have been closely monitoring the security situation and the welfare of Filipinos in Gaza and southern Israel, it said According to DFA, there are an estimated 29,000 Filipinos in Israel, while there are about 100 Filipinos in Gaza, Palestine. *CNN Philippines Correspondent Tristan Nodalo contributed to this report. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) Former President Rodrigo Duterte stands firm on his position to only face local courts in connection with cases linked to his administration's drug war, his former spokesperson said Friday following the International Criminal Court's (ICC) decision to resume the probe into the controversial campaign. "Former President Duterte reiterates his position that he would never allow foreigners to sit in judgment of him as long as Philippine courts are willing and able to do so," Atty. Harry Roque said in a statement, adding that Duterte has "shrugged off" the ICC's latest move. "He [Duterte] would humbly submit to the prosecution and judgment of any local court. He is ready to face any of his accusers," Roque added. Duterte launched the war on drugs when he sat in office in 2016. Government data showed over 6,000 people have died in the conduct of the campaign, but human rights groups believe the toll is much higher. The ICC suspended its drug war probe in November 2021 following a deferral request from the Philippine government. But the court noted that it was "not satisfied" with developments in the local investigations, prompting the pre-trial chamber to approve the resumption of its own inquiry. RELATED: Dela Rosa blames 'anti-Duterte forces' for resumption of ICC probe Echoing the sentiments of Duterte, Roque said he believes the ICC's move is just a "waste of time and resources." "The ICC should focus instead on the war crimes and crimes against humanity that are actually happening in places like Ukraine and some African countries," Roque stressed. Meanwhile, the administration of Duterte's successor, Ferdinand Marcos. Jr., said it will study its next steps on the matter including exhausting legal remedies to counter the probe. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 27) United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III will be in Manila next week for an official trip, the US Department of Defense announced on Friday. The department said Austin will depart on Jan. 29 (US time) to visit South Korea and the Philippines. There is no official announcement yet on the date of his arrival, but Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel "Babe" Romualdez said Austin is expected to be in the country in the first week of February. Austin will meet with senior Philippine government and military officials to further strengthen defense partnerships between the two countries and advance regional stability, the US defense department said. This trip reaffirms the deep commitment of the United States to work in concert with allies and partners in support of the shared vision of preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific, it added. It will come over two months after US Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Philippines. In November 2022, Harris flew to Manila before making a historic trip to Palawan where she reaffirmed Washingtons support for the country amid tensions with China in the West Philippine Sea. (CNN) A US military operation killed a senior ISIS leader and 10 members of the terror group in northern Somalia on Wednesday, two senior Biden administration officials said on Thursday. "From a mountainous cave complex in northern Somalia, Bilal al-Sudani is assessed to have supported ISIS' expansion and activities across Africa and beyond the continent," the first senior administration official said. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that al-Sudani had been killed in a statement later on Thursday. "On January 25, on orders from the President, the U.S. military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the death of a number of ISIS members, including Bilal-al-Sudani, an ISIS leader in Somalia and a key facilitator for ISIS's global network. Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group's operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan," Austin said. "No civilians were harmed as a result of this operation. We are grateful to our extraordinary service members as well as our intelligence community and other interagency partners for their support to this successful counterterrorism operation," Austin added. US forces, according to the official, were prepared to capture al-Sudani but the "hostile force's response" ultimately resulted in his death. No US troops or civilians were killed, although one service member was injured during the operation after being bitten by an American military dog.The second official said that the US notified two counterterrorism partners, including the Somali government. It's unusual for the US to carry out an operation against ISIS in Somalia, where military operations have typically focused on al-Shabaab fighters, the dominant terror group in Somalia. The strike comes after US forces killed two top ISIS leaders in an airstrike in Syria near the end of last year. The operation represents the continuation of the Biden administration's strategy to counter terrorist threats through "over-the-horizon" operations like this, a shift in strategy the president made clear following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Al-Sudani was sanctioned by the US treasury in 2012 for helping foreign fighters travel to an al-Shabaab training camp and facilitating financing, according to the first official. The operation, according to the first official, is expected to provide "valuable information" for the US intelligence community, although they declined to go into specifics. The operation was announced by US Africa Command (AFRICOM) on Thursday, which said only that the US military "conducted a successful counterterrorism operation in Somalia" and that "no civilians were injured or killed." The second senior administration official said on Thursday that senior members of President Joe Biden's national security team were first briefed on the intelligence that led to this operation a "number of months ago." Biden authorized the operation earlier this week. The first official declined to provide details on the service members who were involved in the operation but emphasized their "exceptional preparation" for the mission. (CNN) South Africa has signed an agreement with India to reintroduce dozens of cheetahs to the South Asian country after eight of the big cats were sent from neighboring Namibia in 2022. The first batch of 12 cheetahs is to be flown over in February, according to a statement Thursday from South Africas environmental department, which added the plan was to relocate a further 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years. The statement said the aim was to achieve a number of ecological objectives, including restoring the role of the cheetah within India, where the endangered cats used to roam, and enhancing the livelihood options and economies of the local communities. Cheetahs were declared extinct in India in 1952 and are the only large carnivore in the country to have suffered that fate. According to a statement from Indias environment ministry, this was a result of overhunting and loss of habitat. In the statement, released last year, Indias Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was keen on the protection and conservation of seven major big cats including cheetah. Project Cheetah aims to bring back independent Indias only extinct large mammal the cheetah. As part of the project, 50 cheetahs will be introduced in various National Parks over five years, Yadav was quoted saying in the statement. Today, cheetahs are found in southern and eastern Africa, particularly in Namibia, Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). But the spotted felines used to have a much larger range. Historically, cheetahs roamed throughout the Middle East and central India as well as most of sub-Saharan Africa. Habitat loss, poaching, and conflict with humans have greatly reduced their populations. There are now less than 7,000 cheetahs left in the wild, according to the WWF. This story was first published on CNN.com, "South Africa to send dozens of cheetahs to India under new deal" "The @DeptofDefense has repeatedly ignored my request for a meeting with Secretary Austin about the Space Command basing decision," U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet tweeted after the vote. "For that reason, I voted against Brendan Owens nomination tonight, and will consider holds on other Pentagon nominees until a meeting takes place." 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. Would you like to receive our news updates? Signup today! Sign up to receive notifications when a new Columbia Gorge News e-Edition is published. Error! There was an error processing your request. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Gorge Social Information from the News and our advertisers (Want to add your business to this to this feed?) Are you a current print subscriber to Columbia Gorge News? If so, you qualify for free access to all content on columbiagorgenews.com. Simply verify with your subscriber id to receive free access. Your subscriber id may be found on your bill or mailing label. 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 Need to make a quiz, survey, registration form, order form, or other web page that gathers feedback from co-workers, customers, or others? You can design and deploy one right from your web browser with Google Forms. Its integrated with Google Drive to store your forms in the cloud. Anyone with a Google account can use Forms for free. Its also part of Google Workspace, Google's subscription-based collection of online office apps for business and enterprise customers that includes Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, and more. Forms is lesser known than these other productivity apps, but it's a useful tool to know how to use. This guide takes you through designing a form, deploying it online, and viewing the responses it gathers. Starting a new form First, sign into your Google or Google Workspace account if you havent already. You can create a new form in a variety of ways. In Google Drive: From the home screen of your Google Drive, click the New button at the upper left and select Google Forms. The Google Forms web app will open in a new browser tab, displaying a blank form. Alternatively, you can start with a template, modifying it to suit your needs. On the Google Drive home screen, click the New button and, to the right of Google Forms, select the right-pointing arrow and then click From a template. You're taken to a gallery where you can pick a ready-made template. These have been designed to gather certain data from people, such as their available time to attend a meeting, contact information, or feedback about something. In Google Forms: At the top of the home screen, click the Blank thumbnail, choose one of the template thumbnails to the right, or click Template gallery to open the template gallery page as described above. Howard Wen/IDG Creating a form from the Google Forms home page. (Click image to enlarge it.) In Google Sheets: You can insert a form into a spreadsheet. When people fill out this form, their responses will be recorded onto a new sheet of your spreadsheet. First, open a spreadsheet in Google Sheets. Then, in the menu bar above your spreadsheet, select Tools > Create a new form. This opens the Google Forms web app in a new browser tab. Go to Forms.new: Going to Forms.new will immediately open a new, blank form inside a new browser tab. Building your form Here well walk through building a form from scratch. If youve started a form from a template, just use the same tools described below to edit the items that are already included with a template. Howard Wen/IDG A new blank form. (Click image to enlarge it.) At the top of the page is the main title-and-description box for your form. Click the Untitled form line to enter a title for your form. In the line below the title, you can enter words that describe your form with a little more detail. Below the title/description box is where one or more element boxes appear. Working with questions The element box that you need to familiarize yourself with the most is the question box. In a new, blank form, a question box appears below the title/description box, with the default format of multiple choice. To change this to another question format, click the question box to select it. Click Multiple choice. This will open a menu listing other question formats that you can choose from. Howard Wen/IDG Google Forms offers an array of question formats to choose from. (Click image to enlarge it.) Short answer or Paragraph: Respondents type answers into a text field. The Paragraph field is larger than the Short answer field. or Respondents type answers into a text field. The Paragraph field is larger than the Short answer field. Multiple choice , Checkboxes , or Dropdown: Respondents choose options from a list you provide. With multiple choice (radio button) and dropdown lists, respondents can select only one option. With checkboxes, they can choose multiple options. , , or Respondents choose options from a list you provide. With multiple choice (radio button) and dropdown lists, respondents can select only one option. With checkboxes, they can choose multiple options. File upload: This allows respondents to upload a file to your Google Drive for example, you design a form for job applicants, and you want them to upload a PDF of their resume. (Respondents must be signed in with a Google user account to upload a file.) This allows respondents to upload a file to your Google Drive for example, you design a form for job applicants, and you want them to upload a PDF of their resume. (Respondents must be signed in with a Google user account to upload a file.) Linear scale: Respondents are asked to rate something on a scale, such as from 1 to 5. Respondents are asked to rate something on a scale, such as from 1 to 5. Multiple choice grid or Checkbox grid: Respondents choose from answers that are arranged in a grid layout. With multiple choice (radio button) grids, respondents can select only one option. With checkbox grids, they can choose multiple options. or Respondents choose from answers that are arranged in a grid layout. With multiple choice (radio button) grids, respondents can select only one option. With checkbox grids, they can choose multiple options. Date or Time: The person enters a date or time, which can be in the past or the future. For example, you might ask whats the earliest date they are available to meet. The form includes a calendar or clock tool that the person can use to enter their response. After youve selected a question format, click the Untitled Question line and type the question you want your respondents to read. You can add an image to go with this question by clicking the picture icon to the right of the line. Youll be able to upload an image file from your PC or Google Drive. To add a description for the question: Click the three-dot icon on the lower right and select Description. This will open a Description line that you can fill out below the question. Howard Wen/IDG You can optionally add a description to appear below a question. (Click image to enlarge it.) To add response choices: Below the question, click the Option 1 line and type an answer that you want your respondents to consider choosing. You can include an image with this choice by clicking the picture icon to the right of this line. Click Add option to add another answer choice, or click add Other to add a choice with a blank line where your respondents can type in a response. To require respondents to answer this question: Click the Required switch on the lower right. If respondents dont answer this question, they will not be able to submit any of their other responses to your form. To add another question box to your form, click the + button at the top of the floating toolbar to the right of your form. You can keep adding questions and responses this way till your questionnaire is complete. Using the quiz format If you want to test your respondents knowledge for instance, at the end of a training session you can format a form as a quiz. Your respondents have to choose the correct answer(s) for each question and are awarded points for doing so. To set a form as a quiz: Toward the top of the page, click Settings. On the next page, click the Make this a quiz switch. Howard Wen/IDG Changing a form into quiz format. (Click image to enlarge it.) Now when you click any question box, youll see Answer key in the lower-left corner of the box. Howard Wen/IDG A question in quiz format. (Click image to enlarge it.) Clicking Answer key will take you to a panel where you click the correct answer (or answers) to the question. You also enter how many points this question is worth if answered correctly. Youll need to set the answer key for every question in a quiz. Howard Wen/IDG Setting the answer key for a quiz question. (Click image to enlarge it.) Adding other elements: titles/descriptions, pictures, or video In addition to questions, there are three more types of element boxes you can add to your form. Click these buttons on the toolbar to the right of your form. Add title and description: This box is like the one at the top of your form. It has its own title and description areas that you can fill out. A title/description box can be useful if you want to add a few categories or provide more information for your respondents to read before interacting with a question box. (Adding sections to your form, as described below, may be better for breaking apart a long, more complex form. Ultimately, this is your personal design choice.) Add image: A panel appears that lets you select an image file from your PC or Google Drive. You can adjust the size of the embedded image by clicking to select it and dragging the corners of the frame that surrounds it. Add video: From the panel that opens, you can search YouTube or paste in the URL for the YouTube video you want to embed. Your respondents will be able to click to play it. Managing element boxes Since you can design a form to have several questions, title/descriptions, images, and YouTube videos, it helps to know how to manage their boxes. To move an element box: Move the cursor to the top of the box and click-and-hold the six-dot icon that appears. Drag the box down or up, then let go where you want it to appear. (Note: You cannot move the text/description box at the top of the form or a section.) To copy or delete an element box: Click the box to select it. Click the Duplicate (two pieces of paper) or Delete (trash can) icon. These icons appear along the bottom of a question box, and on the upper right of the other types of element boxes. If you duplicate an element box, its copy will appear below it. Working with sections Your form may benefit from being divided into sections for instance, if it has a lot of questions and images on it, it may look overwhelming for your respondents to go through. To add a new section: Click an element box to select it. On the toolbar to the right of your form, click the Add section button at the bottom. A new section heading box will be added below. It has its own title/description box that you can fill out. Every element box that is already below this box, or that you add or move below it, will be considered part of this section. Howard Wen/IDG Adding a new section to a form. (Click image to enlarge it.) To manage a section: Click the three-dot icon at the upper right of the section heading box. On the menu that opens, youll see options to duplicate, move, or delete the section, or to merge it with the section above. Note that when you select any of these, it affects all the element boxes that are below this section heading box. So if you choose to delete a section, every element box below it will be deleted. To preserve those elements while getting rid of the section divider, choose the Merge with above option. Disclosure: Microsoft is a client of the author. Microsofts decision to move away from mixed reality (where it was arguably the leader and market-maker for augmented reality with HoloLens) was a big surprise. And its massive investment in OpenAI and ChatGPT was equally surprising, given the companys advanced internal AI efforts. What were seeing, I suspect, is a company girding for war and working to make sure what happened to it when the internet, iPhone, and Google arrived doesnt repeat with the arrival of generative AI. While Microsoft may not succeed, it wont be for lack of trying. What will be fascinating is whether getting an early, aggressive jump on this technology will turn out better than its past efforts to catch a wave from behind. Its recent bold moves remind me of approach it took with the internet, when Microsoft took the browser market so aggressively from Netscape that Netscape didnt survive. Here's how the coming generative AI war is likely to affect Microsoft. A mixed reality failure? In many ways, Microsoft approached mixed reality (MR) the right way, at least at first. It developed HoloLens as an industrial-level product that, while expensive, gained a foothold with customers like the Lawrence Livermore lab. The effort was marginally profitable, with sales successes in aerospace, microprocessor FABS, general manufacturing and even the military (though the military trial ran into serious problems). Microsoft approached virtual reality (VR) differently; it had more of a consumer focus, but with technology that didnt meet the minimum bar. Facebooks attempts were arguably better, but Facebook poured more down than the money hole than Microsoft did. So, while VR was arguably a failure for Microsoft, it could have been much worse. For a business to make sense to Microsoft, it needs to see sales in the millions. With AR, the company never seemed to get to those numbers. The issues included a heavy headset, a lack of occlusion, ghost-like virtual objects, poor field of view, less-than-stellar battery life, the lack of accurate hand indexing, and unfocused applications. Even so, it was arguably the best AR solution on the market. (Things might have turned out different if Microsoft had spent more on marketing to get a critical mass in sales.) Remember, Xbox was initially a huge money loser, too. But Microsoft fought to make it successful. So why not ride out the AR and VR troubles, as well? Simple: generative AI scared the hell out of the company. Windows and MacOS the GUI problem Back when Microsoft was just getting started, one major technology change helped ensure the companys success. Computers started moving away from command lines and embraced Xeroxs concept for a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Apple was convinced GUI was the future, and when the market started to pivot away from the command line, it scared the hell out of a lot of big players. IBM licensed DOS, Microsoft wrapped it with the Windows GUI, and the OS wars began. After a few years, Microsoft prevailed with Windows 95; it was both an example of marketing excellence and a warning that the industry particularly Microsoft didnt yet know how to handle the service requirements of an OS decoupled from hardware. Microsoft came out of that effort significantly stronger, but did so by buying, not building, DOS. Microsoft moved early, but it was still chasing Apple. The web browser fight When Netscape launched and the internet became a reality, Microsoft was caught napping. It pivoted hard by buying a browser to compete, pivoted its MSN efforts away from CompuServe and AOL, and again successfully weathered the storm to become dominant. It didnt help that Netscapes management made the same kind of errors Microsoft would later on with the Zune later and tried to chase Microsofts market dominance. Netscape failed. If Microsoft hadnt pivoted fast and effectively, Netscape might not have made that mistake, and Microsoft would either be gone now or be far weaker. Compared to obvious failures like Zune, the Microsoft Phone, Plays-For-Sure, and others what made the difference was seeing a threat early, responding to it quickly, and adequately funding the effort. And now, generative AI Generative AI has the potential to reshuffle the tech landscape because, like the GUI OS wars, it promises to change how we interact with computers, and, like the browser wars, it promises to change how we interact with remote services. In fact, it may well be more disruptive as it matures than either the OS and browser wars combined. If Microsoft wants to come out ahead now, it needs to acquire a leading technology and then focus company resources on making it a defining competitive advantage across the Microsoft ecosystem. The potential benefits of being able to talk to a computer on subjects ranging from office products to telesales should boost productivity for the former and be cost effective with higher close rates for the latter. Both are only a taste of the disruptive potential for generative AI technology. As it moves to market, generative AI could well launch the next Google and kill any tech firm that doesnt adapt to whats coming. Microsoft wants a shot at the former and hopes to avoid the latter. Thats why its shifting away from marginal, long-term opportunities toward generative AI. Decisions, decisions A company and its CEO are often defined by the choices they make. Though he was amazing with operations (and brilliant as an individual), former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will forever be defined by the failed Yahoo merger (a response to Google), the Nokia acquisition failure (in response to Apple) and the Zune. Current CEO Satya Nadella has so far been defined by the massive success of Azure, but this is the first time hes faced a major threat that requires a corporate pivot. Among the risks: ChatGPT might not be the leading technology; Nadella might underfund the shift; or, as with mixed reality, he may have moved too soon. That last issue seems unlikely it looks as if funding is adequate and, given the nature of generative AI and its gathering popularity, the market-making requirement is reduced. We wont know for a while whether Nadellas embrace of ChatGPT is the right move, but it looks like a reasonable bet. In the end, we are watching a company pivot to war before that fight really kicks off, and regardless of how it all turns out, Microsoft should be better for it. But the outcome is anything but certain. India celebrates 74th Republic Day event with Egypt President as chief guest India has celebrated its 74th Republic Day on a revamped ceremonial boulevard in Delhi, with Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as a guest of honour. Egyptian President el-Sisi, in a blue suit and matching tie, looked on as he was flanked by President of India Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo courtesy: Twitter/@PMOIndia Tens of thousands of people endured a winter chill and mist yesterday as they gathered to watch a parade in New Delhi, showcasing the countrys defence capability and cultural heritage. The public holiday marks the anniversary of India officially adopting its constitution and becoming a sovereign republic in 1950, three years after it gained independence from British rule. Several thousand people, braving the cold on a foggy morning in New Delhi, watched the parade from their seats around Kartavya Path or path of duty while millions more watched on television. Accompanied by marching bands, troops from the countrys military, border and police forces paced in perfect synchronisation towards the dais where Indias President Droupadi Murmu took the salute. Her Egyptian counterpart el-Sisi, in a blue suit and matching tie, looked on as he was flanked by Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wore a saffron-and-yellow-coloured turban. The countrys rich and diverse heritage was showcased in vibrant tableaux from different states and ministries, highlighting the central theme of nari shakti or women power. Several thousand people, braving the cold on a foggy morning in New Delhi, watched the parade from their seats around Kartavya Path or path of duty while millions more watched on television. Photo courtesy: Twitter/@narendramodi The armys tableaux comprised only locally-made weapons, reflecting Indias drive to become more self-reliant in the defence sector. In recent years, tableaus by states governed by Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have mostly included Hindu supremacist symbols and narratives. One such tableau by the northern Uttar Pradesh state Indias most populous with 200 million residents had a religious festival in the temple town of Ayodhya as its theme. It was in this town that a Mughal-era mosque was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992, triggering deadly nationwide riots. The event climaxed with a flypast by 45 aircraft of the Indian Air Force, with French-made Rafales, Russian-made Su-30s and the Indian-made Tejas fighter jets putting on an impressive aeronautical display. But foggy weather spoilt the spectacle, as people struggled to catch a glimpse of the aircraft roaring overhead. Earlier in the day, Modi, accompanied by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and the service chiefs, paid homage to martyred soldiers at the National War Memorial in the capital. The day is special this year because we are celebrating it during the Amrit Mahotsav of independence, Modi tweeted in Hindi, referring to how his government has branded the 75th anniversary of Indias freedom. El-Sisi, who is on a three-day visit to India, became the first Egyptian president to be invited for the Republic Day celebrations. On Wednesday, the Egyptian leader congratulated the Indians and said it was a great privilege to be the guest of honour on such a glorious national day. The relations between Egypt and India have been characterised by balance and stability. We have only seen constructive development. We have been all along evolving very positively, he said. This year, India and Egypt, who are longtime trade partners, are seeking closer ties, mainly on security. By Azernews Sabina Mammadli Russia and Turkiye have reacted to the treacherous armed attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, which killed the chief of the embassy security guard and wounded two others. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has expressed her condolences over the killing of the chief of the security team of the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran, Azernews reports. "We are shocked by another attack on the Azerbaijani embassy, during which a security officer was killed. We express our condolences and support to our Azerbaijani colleagues!" Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. She noted that a more detailed commentary will be provided later. Similarly, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu condemned the fatal attack on the Azerbaijani embassy. "I condemn the treacherous attack on the Tehran Embassy of Azerbaijan. I wish God's mercy on our martyred brother, my condolences to his relatives and the people of Azerbaijan, and a speedy recovery to the injured. Azerbaijan is never alone. #TekMillet?kiDevlet @Bayramov_Jeyhun," the minister tweeted. As reported earlier, the head of the security guard of the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran was killed in the armed attack on the building on January 27 at about 0830 hours (GMT+4). "An individual with a Kalashnikov assault rifle attacked the security post and killed the head of the security guard. Two embassy guards were also wounded while preventing the attack. Their conditions are satisfactory. This treacherous attack is currently being investigated. The public will be provided with detailed extra information," the foreign ministry said in a statement. As elites globais se reuniram em Davos na semana passada para discutir o destino e o futuro do capitalismo. Com a economia mundial assolada pela inflacao e pela instabilidade, prevaleceu um clima de pessimismo. Precisamos de uma revolucao para tira-los de seu estresse. [Source] Os grandes e os bons se reuniram na Suica na semana passada para a ultima reuniao do Forum Economico Mundial (WEF em suas siglas inglesas) uma conferencia (normalmente) anual que o ex-lider trabalhista Jeremy Corbyn descreveu com precisao como um congresso de escoteiros de bilionarios. O evento deste ano foi a primeira cupula de Davos desde o inicio da pandemia. E muita coisa claramente mudou desde entao. A palavra policrise fornece um resumo justo das discussoes no #WEF23 usada por varios palestrantes durante os cinco dias para descrever a concatenacao de perigos e ameacas que a economia global enfrenta atualmente. As crises economicas, ambientais, sociais e geopoliticas estao convergindo e se fundindo, declarou o fundador do WEF, Klaus Schwab, abrindo o simposio deste ano das elites internacionais. Essa mensagem desanimadora foi reiterada no relatorio anual de riscos globais do WEF, publicado antes do ultimo encontro de CEOs, banqueiros e politicos do establishment. O risco de recessao; a crescente dificuldade de endividamento; uma crise continua do custo de vida; sociedades polarizadas habilitadas pela desinformacao; um hiato na acao climatica rapida; e guerra geoeconomica de soma zero a lista continua. Tudo isso, e muito mais, estava nas mentes dos delegados de Davos esta semana um reflexo do profundo pessimismo que domina a classe dominante e das terriveis perspectivas para o capitalismo nos proximos meses. Agarrando-se as palhas Como o anfitriao de qualquer boa festa, Schwab estava determinado a nao deixar que um pouco das intemperies estragasse o evento. Tentando em vao levantar o animo, o chefe do WEF exortou os participantes a se libertarem de sua mentalidade de crise. O unico problema e que havia poucas noticias positivas para seus convidados comentar. Agarrando-se as palhas, Kristalina Georgieva, diretora-gerente do Fundo Monetario Internacional, disse ao publico que as perspectivas para a economia mundial melhoraram ligeiramente nas ultimas semanas. Mas ela rapidamente voltou atras, extinguindo qualquer esperanca do surgimento de brotos verdes, acrescentando que menos ruim ainda nao significa bom. A chefe do FMI observou que a inflacao global parecia estar caindo e que a saida da China de seu bloqueio de covid zero deveria dar um impulso ao crescimento economico global. Mas em ambos os casos, Georgieva colocou uma nota de cautela. Embora os aumentos de precos tenham diminuido ligeiramente, ela enfatizou que eles ainda estao subindo a uma taxa muito acima da meta de 2% dos bancos centrais. E a abordagem linha-dura adotada pelo Federal Reserve dos EUA, Banco Central Europeu (BCE) e outros aumentar as taxas de juros na tentativa de conter a inflacao e quase certo que levara as economias de todos os lugares a recessao. De fato, apenas algumas semanas atras, a diretora do FMI estimou que um terco da economia mundial provavelmente sofreria uma desaceleracao no proximo ano, com tres grandes economias EUA, UE e China todas desacelerando simultaneamente. Mesmo os paises que nao estao em recessao, continuou Georgieva, se sentiriam em recessao envolvendo centenas de milhoes de pessoas. Uma imagem cor-de-rosa de fato! Mas nao e sequer o caso de cair da frigideira direto no fogo, observou a chefe do FMI, falando no painel na sessao de encerramento do #WEF23. Com as pressoes inflacionarias continuas e com a guerra na Ucrania e o colapso do comercio mundial afirmou ela, e provavel que acabemos com o pior dos dois mundos: queda economica junto com precos crescentes. O desemprego vai aumentar, declarou Georgieva. Mas a inflacao nao sera necessariamente reprimida. Uma crise do custo de vida e um emprego ja e um desastre para as pessoas comuns, disse ela. Uma crise de custo de vida e nenhum emprego e uma catastrofe. A China salvara o capitalismo? De forma similar, a chefe do FMI alertou que a reabertura da China pode ser uma faca de dois gumes para o resto do mundo. Por um lado, disse ela, a demanda chinesa por materias-primas provavelmente impulsionara o crescimento dos paises que exportam essas commodities primarias. Por outro lado, esse mesmo aumento da demanda principalmente por fontes de energia pode atuar para aumentar a inflacao internacionalmente. Isso forcaria os bancos centrais a aumentar ainda mais as taxas de juros: aumentando os custos dos emprestimos para familias, empresas e paises endividados; e empurrando as economias (fora da China) ainda mais fundo na recessao. Mesmo com essa ressalva, no entanto, as previsoes dos economistas burgueses provavelmente se mostrarao excessivamente otimistas. O regime em Pequim pode ter abandonado sua politica de covid zero. Mas isso nao significa que a economia chinesa voltara a crescer rapidamente. A classe dominante tinha esperancas semelhantes em 2021, quando os bloqueios terminaram no Ocidente e os governos disseram aos cidadaos para aprender a viver com o virus. Naquela epoca, comentaristas otimistas falavam sobre as perspectivas de uma nova decada, prevendo uma forte recuperacao depois do colapso decorrente da pandemia. Em vez disso, no entanto, uma breve recuperacao alimentada pela demanda reprimida, financiamento do defict e impressao monetaria deu lugar a uma nova era de inflacao, instabilidade e crise para o capitalismo. E a China deve seguir essa mesma trajetoria, embora com um pequeno atraso. Assim como no resto do mundo, o virus e os bloqueios associados nao sao a unica coisa que prejudicou a economia chinesa nos ultimos anos. Subjacente ao caos do covid esta a crise organica do capitalismo, que se expressa na China principalmente em termos da massiva bolha no mercado imobiliario. O regime de Xi Jinping pode tentar impedir o estouro dessa bolha, mas apenas criando mais contradicoes e turbulencias para o capitalismo chines. Aqueles que procuram a China para resgatar o resto da economia mundial como fez ela, parcialmente, na sequencia do crash de 2008, com seu programa de gastos keynesiano sem precedentes ficarao, portanto, profundamente desapontados. De fato, sao precisamente as medidas intervencionistas e as politicas inflacionarias do estado chines na ultima decada e meia e pelas classes dominantes em todos os lugares em resposta a toda e qualquer crise que abriram o caminho para a bagunca em que o capitalismo e seus representantes se encontram hoje. Como sempre, a arrogancia burguesa logo se transformara em crise. O fim da globalizacao Ao longo dos procedimentos em Davos deste ano, um medo em particular se destacou: o aumento do protecionismo e a ruptura do mercado mundial. Sera que estamos vendo o fim da globalizacao? Essa era a pergunta na boca de todos. E, apesar das tentativas de varios palestrantes de acalmar os nervos, aqueles que prestaram atencao ao #WEF23 nao ficarao tranquilos. E necessaria uma acao coletiva concertada antes que os riscos cheguem a um ponto critico, instou o relatorio pre-cupula do WEF. Grande parte possibilidade de se aumentar o otimismo depende das pessoas nesta sala, afirmou Kristalina Georgieva, do FMI, apelando para sua audiencia de lideres empresariais e formuladores de politicas. Seja pragmatico, colabore, faca a coisa certa, mantenha a economia global integrada para o beneficio de todos nos. Mas suas suplicas cairam em ouvidos surdos. De fato, parafraseando o famoso proverbio, nao ha ninguem mais surdo do que aqueles que nao querem ouvir. E com a economia mundial caindo e os mercados encolhendo, os politicos burgueses nao estao dispostos a cooperar uns com os outros. Em vez disso, e cada um por si, e o diabo vai pegar quem ficar por ultimo. Do Brexit ao programa Made in America de Biden, o nacionalismo economico esta sendo servido pais apos pais, a medida que cada classe dominante implementa politicas de empobrecer seu vizinho em um esforco para exportar a crise. E, a medida que as cadeias de suprimentos sao reorganizadas, as industrias sao reestruturadas e as tarifas sao impostas, os custos aumentam, alimentando ainda mais a inflacao, com os trabalhadores pagando a conta. Mais uma vez, vemos uma demonstracao contundente de como o Estado-nacao ao lado da propriedade privada se coloca como uma barreira fundamental no caminho do desenvolvimento das forcas produtivas, ja que o protecionismo ameaca transformar a iminente recessao mundial em uma depressao ainda mais sinistra. Explosoes revolucionarias O verdadeiro rinoceronte na sala, porem, era a luta de classes. Do Sri Lanka ao Peru; do Ira a China; da Gra-Bretanha a Franca, a classe trabalhadora esta comecando a se mover pelo mundo. E essas greves e movimentos sao apenas o comeco. Os estrategistas do capital podem sentir a precariedade de seu sistema. Ao mesmo tempo, eles nao tem solucoes; nao tem outra alternativa senao impor austeridade e ataques exigindo que os trabalhadores paguem por esta crise. Isso esta provocando e preparando explosoes revolucionarias em todos os paises. Os bilionarios, patroes e banqueiros de Davos, portanto, tem todos os motivos para estar apavorados. A year ago Russia was on the brink of attacking Ukraine and the Western military consensus was that Kyiv would fall within three days of the invaders crossing the border. Yet as we approach the first anniversary of the worst conflagration on European soil since World War II, the Ukrainian capital remains unconquered and weapons are pouring into Ukraine as it gears up for an early spring offensive to take back the land the Russians still occupy. It is a remarkable achievement by Ukraine, a testament to the grit, tenacity and patriotism of its people and the bravery and professionalism of its armed forces. Of course it could not have survived without the military hardware provided by its Western allies, which continues to be supplied in ever greater quantities and lethality. Ukrainian rescuers working at the site of a residential building hit by shelling in Dnipro, southeastern Ukraine on January 14 Heat of battle: Ukrainian artillery unit attacks Russian position near Bakhmut in the east of the country It means President Putin has lost his second great gamble in under 12 months. The first was that Ukraine would quickly crumble in the face of Russian might. He was speedily disabused of that in the forests north of Kyiv, where his forces had to retreat in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance. His 'three-day war' is now, as I write, on day 337. His second failed gamble was that, even if the war did drift on, Western unity would dissolve over time. He wasn't alone in thinking that. Last autumn I bumped into a former Labour defence secretary a staunch supporter of Ukraine who opined that the West's united front would fracture as energy prices soared and public opinion soured. He and the many politicians and pundits who thought like him could not have been more wrong. Far from falling out, Ukraine's allies have today never been more united. Yes, there have been hiccups along the way, most notably German prevarication and France's perennial desire to do its own thing. This has sometimes delayed supplying weapons that Ukraine desperately needs. But, overall, the pro-Ukraine alliance has not just stayed firm, it has ramped up its support, as this week's agreement (after weeks of dithering on Germany's part) to send a variety of Western main battle tanks has underlined. The scale of military aid going to Ukraine now is staggering. And much more, I'm assured, than is being made public. Germany's belated decision to send its highly regarded Leopard 2 tanks unlocks the ability of Poland, Spain and others to send their Leopards too. Holland is talking about buying the 18 Leopard 2s it leases from Germany, then donating them to Ukraine. Andrew Neil (pictured) is chairman of The Spectator magazine and presenter of The Andrew Neil Show on Channel 4 Meanwhile, Britain has already committed to providing 14 of its Challenger tanks. America will send its M1 Abrams tanks too, on top of 200 well-armed fighting vehicles already on their way. Denmark is handing over the entire stock of its French-made Caesar howitzers. All this and more will be crucial if Ukraine's early spring offensive on Russian forces dug in across the east of the country is to succeed. Even with the array of sophisticated armour and artillery now being mustered by Ukraine, it will not be easy. Putin's autumn mobilisation resulted in the call up of 300,000 fresh troops. More will follow. They will not be properly trained or armed. But Putin, in his third great gamble, is betting that sheer numbers will determine the outcome. He is resorting to the Joseph Stalin way of war. During World War II, Russia's great dictator sent wave after wave of Russian troops to attack the invading Nazis, with no regard for casualties. It worked, though at a cost in lives lost measured in millions. Stalin didn't care. Neither does Putin. He's even resurrected Stalin's old war leader title Supreme Commander-in-Chief for himself. The Great Patriotic War, as the Kremlin describes the war against the Nazis, is now officially deemed to be the most important event in Russia's long history. With 60 per cent of Russians now regarding Stalin positively more than any other Russian, even Peter the Great this is all designed to resonate to Putin's advantage with Russian opinion. He has even revived Stalin's creation of 'penal battalions' made up of prisoners released to fight and promised freedom if they survive their deployment as cannon fodder. Sometimes Putin even manages to surpass his hero's barbarity. Stalin had deserters shot if they ran away from the front line. In Ukraine their heads are smashed with sledgehammers. So Ukraine will be up against a huge, formidable, if somewhat ragtag, force. Putin's human-wave kamikaze tactics have already resulted in the Russians taking the eastern town of Soledar, though at incredible cost in lost Russian lives. But the discipline and battle-hardened professionalism of Ukraine's forces, coupled with the heavy modern weapons increasingly at their disposal, should allow it to prevail. We should hope so, for this brutal and unnecessary war will not end as long as Russia occupies the huge chunks of eastern Ukraine it still does. The Ukrainian strategy is to take back as much of the east as it can, including striking south-east to the Sea of Azov, cutting off the land-bridge between Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia proper, and retaking its eastern coastline. All this is the minimum Kyiv requires before it will contemplate peace negotiations. President Zelensky also talks as if the return of Crimea (which Russia occupied in 2014) and the eastern part of the Donbas (which borders Russia and was under effective Russian control before the invasion) are also prerequisites for peace. The Americans are not so sure. Washington fears that attempts to retake Crimea by force could be a step too far for Ukraine. The State Department, the Pentagon and the National Security Council are all hard at work devising a post-war architecture for Ukraine. Though nothing has been finally decided, the broad outlines are clear. 'President Putin (pictured) has lost his second great gamble in under 12 months. The first was that Ukraine would quickly crumble in the face of Russian might,' writes Andrew Neil The return of all Ukrainian lands seized by Russia since the invasion (regarded as non-negotiable); possible demilitarised, autonomous status within Ukraine for eastern Donbas; and a demilitarised Crimea whose political status would be deferred, perhaps pending a UN-regulated referendum allowing its people to determine if they want to be Russian or Ukrainian. America is determined that Ukraine will never again be vulnerable to Russian invasion so plans are being devised to create a modern, well-armed Ukrainian military, with an economic Marshall Plan, part- financed by Russian reparations, to rebuild the country's infrastructure. Washington is also keen that Ukraine be allowed to join the EU (though not, so far, Nato). America's public position is that the substance of any peace settlement is a matter for Ukraine. But the U.S. has provided more military hardware to Ukraine than its 50-odd other allies Britain included put together. Ukraine would be in no position to mount any kind of spring offensive but for America. This will give the U.S. clout in Kyiv when it comes to the contours of a peace deal. Whether Putin could stomach any kind of arrangement acceptable to Ukraine and the Americans is another matter. There is less concern in Washington about what he might do with his back to the wall. It regards Moscow's constant hints about resorting to nuclear weapons as Kremlin disinformation designed to intimidate the more frit members of the Western alliance and move attention away from the appalling performance of Russia's conventional forces. Whether Putin survives or departs, its Ukrainian escapade has set Russia back for a generation. It is a fossil-fuel power in a net zero world with a fast declining population and an economy which generates almost no goods or services that the rest of the world wants. As Ukraine is rebuilt after the war, the contrast between the two countries will be ever more stark. Not just Ukraine will be transformed post-war. So will the balance of power in Europe. The locus of that power is shifting east. From the start of this war, support for Ukraine has been rallied by Poland and the Baltic States. A young boy looks at a crater next to damaged residential houses following Russian missile attacks on January 26, 2023 in an urban-type settlement Hlevakha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine A worker stands at a damaged entrance gate at an industrial area following a morning Russian missile strike that left one person dead and two wounded on January 26 in Kyiv It is they who have driven policy, filling the vacuum left by Germany and France, two countries paralysed into inaction, agonising about how best to maintain the ties with Moscow that they had spent so long cultivating and which they cherished so much. By contrast, Eastern Europe's memories are dominated by its recent and long Soviet occupation. It had no desire to return to life under the Russian yoke. Indeed, it wasn't very keen to cede too much power to Brussels either. It felt vindicated in its warnings that Putin's Russia had imperialist ambitions, that the Russian president had the makings of a dictatorial aggressor and that Germany was making a huge strategic error by becoming over-reliant on Russian gas. For years Berlin and Paris ignored these fears or refused to take them seriously. When countries such as Poland warned invasion was imminent, France and Germany denied it would happen. As Poland and the Baltic states tried to muster a robust Western response to the invasion, President Macron was still trying to appease Putin and Germany was trying to come to terms with the fact that its foreign and energy strategies were smashed to smithereens. Ironically, the one west European country that took Eastern Europe's warnings seriously was Britain. To his credit, Boris Johnson shared their analysis of the Russian threat and the need to come to Ukraine's aid. This will stand Britain in good stead in the years to come, as power in Europe moves east. Paris and Berlin have been in command of the EU since its inception as the Common Market but it is hard to see, post-Ukraine, their status continuing unaffected. With neutral Sweden and Finland seeking membership of Nato, a new alliance of Nordic, East European and Baltic states is emerging to which power will gravitate. In many ways London is closer in attitudes to this alliance than Paris or Berlin. So even outside the EU, Britain can still play a vital part in Europe's future. The new European power brokers of the east and north will welcome it. So will America, which often finds Eastern Europe more on its wavelength than most west European nations. Washington is especially impressed that Poland is in the process of doubling the size of its armed forces. It's delighted that Sweden and Finland want to join Nato. France, not so much. When America and Nato are dominant in European affairs, France feels sidelined because it is often hostile to American power and only semi-attached to the military alliance it dominates. President Macron's dream of a European defence 'autonomous' of the American shield is in tatters. The East Europeans don't trust the rest of Europe to defend them. They are more fully invested in Nato, which guarantees their freedom. That makes America, which dominates Nato, and Britain, the biggest Nato military power in Europe, natural allies for Europe's new alliance of the North and East. The war in Ukraine will redraw the map of Europe in a good way. Power will move from 'old' Europe to 'new' Europe, invigorating the continent in the process as it gradually escapes the dead hands of Paris and Berlin. It will result in a Europe which America will feel more inclined to continue to support. For Brexit Britain it will create fresh opportunities and the prospect of new friends. In such a context, it is vital that our politicians raise their horizons and realise a brave new world is beckoning in ways nobody could have imagined 12 short months ago. She is the number one New York Times bestselling author who rose to fame through BookTok videos propelling her to global stardom. Yet, while Colleen Hoover, from Saltillo, Texas, is a worldwide publishing sensation who sold more than James Patterson and John Grisham combined in 2022 - outside the world of TikTik and younger people - she is much less well known. The 43-year-old writer and former social worker has now sold 20 million books worldwide in total after self-publishing her first novel in 2011, and six of the top 10 best-selling books of 2022 were her novels, according to Forbes. But while she has won over a generation of fans, some have criticised her books as being very simple and marketed towards people who don't normally read, and the subject matter is certainly not for snowflakes - with one character trying to abort her unborn babies with a coat hanger so they don't take away her husband's attention. Colleen began writing as a hobby in 2011 while working as a social worker, and she had no plans to make it her full-time job at the time The books are mostly aimed at young adults and often focus on love and destructive relationships, but the level of writing is increasingly being criticised online. Recently, an American on TikTok reviewed her work, saying: 'Simply written, they do not stimulate your imagination or make you step outside of your comfort zone. 'They trap new readers and make them feel like they're only capable of reading her books. 'They're literally books written for people who don't read because they are easy to read. 'Go to a beach and you'll see a bunch of people reading them. 'Why? Because that's the one place people who don't usually read read. 'Furthermore representation is non-existent.' Colleen Hoover has written 22 books and is considered America's top bestselling author - but is relatively unknown in the UK Many on TikTok are divided over whether the writing is good or not - but positive BookToks were key to Hoover's success While another said the writing style was 'very simple' with not many complicated words. He added: 'There aren't going to be sentences that blow you away.' Hoover's novels cover dark themes, such as abortion and miscarriage, and people who get together because of shared trauma. But the topics are often covered - according to some - in a relatively flippant way. This is in part because Hoover has ADHD so writes in a fast-paced style, leaving out details she finds boring. But she has been increasingly criticised by those who say her books can demean issues such as rape and domestic violence. In her 2014 novel, Ugly Love, the book explores the idea of sleeping with a man for long enough until he falls in love with you. While in It Ends With Us, there are violent scenes in a relationship. Lines in her books include men using physical force against women and holding them down, and women 'selling themselves short' to keep their men, even though they know they deserve better. In her novel Verity, the main character tries to kill her own unborn twins by drinking, taking pills and falling down the stairs because she's worried they will take her husband's attention away from her. This has led to some people - often young women - making BookTok videos in an attempt to explain and defend violence perpetrated by the characters, with the videos often getting many likes. Some of TikTok have criticised the author for her simple writing style, something which she attributes to having ADHD The author has a huge social media following, with many posting BookTok reviews of her latest releases She announced the drawing book was inspired by the book It Ends With Us, which is centred around domestic violence The author was also slammed after she revealed plans to release an adult colouring book based on her novel about domestic violence. She planned to use material from It Ends With Us, but fans accused her of cashing in on domestic violence in an attempt to keep her popularity up. Hoover then cancelled the project following the criticism. She wrote: 'The coloring book was developed with Lilys strength in mind, but I can absolutely see how this was tone-deaf. 'I hear you guys and I agree with you. No excuses. No finger pointing. 'I have contacted the publisher to let them know I would prefer we dont move forward with it. Thank you for the respectful discourse and accountability. Nothing but love.' After one day of criticism, she apologized for the insensitive activity book and noted that she was working with publishers to cease the project The publisher Atria Books then also confirmed that the project was being cancelled following criticism from readers. In an Instagram post, a spokesperson for the company wrote: 'Atria Books will not move forward with the publication of The Official It Ends with Us Coloring Book. 'Thank you for the honest conversation and passion for the world Colleen has created in her books and the characters within.' It Ends With Us tells the story of a young woman who is assaulted by her husband and finds herself fighting to break the cycle of abuse. The novel was based on the troubled marriage of Hoover's parents and gained traction when social media users took to TikTok to gush about the best-seller. Despite the criticisms surrounding her work, however, there is little doubt Hoover is a staggering success. Now with 22 novels to her name, including psychological thrillers, in 2022, she took six of the top 10 bestselling spots of 2022. Undoubtedly, the Covid pandemic helped boost her popularity, with many posting videos about her older books, which then re-entered the charts. But the author was still caught by surprise, with her Twitter bio reading: 'I don't get it either.' Her latest novel, It Starts With Us, released in October set a company record for first day fiction sales. It reportedly sold a total of more than 800,000 copies on the day it was released. Despite all of the success - she sold more books last year than James Patterson and John Grisham combined - Hoover still enjoys a low-key life. And she has upended the publishing industrys most entrenched assumptions about what sells books. Following Hoovers apology, the publisher Atria Books also confirmed that the project was being cancelled following criticism from readers Colleen Hoover has sold more books this year than James Patterson and John Grisham combined Author Colleen Hoover has been slammed after she announced plans to create a coloring book based one of her best-selling novels When she self-published her first young-adult novel, Slammed, in January 2012, Hoover was making minimum wage as a social worker, living in a trailer with her husband, a long-distance truck driver, and their three sons. She was elated when she made a small sum in royalties as it was enough to pay the water bill. Hoover didnt have a publisher, an agent or any of the usual machinery that goes into engineering a bestseller: the six-figure marketing campaigns, the talk-show and podcast tours, the speaking gigs and literary awards, the glowing reviews from mainstream book critics. But seven months later, Slammed hit the bestseller list. By May, Hoover had made 31,000 in royalties, money she used to pay back her stepfather for the trailer. By the summer, with two books on the bestseller list Slammed and a sequel, Point of Retreat she quit her job to write full time. Her success has happened largely on her terms, led by readers who act as her evangelists, driving sales through ecstatic online reviews and viral reaction videos. Her fans, who are mostly women, call themselves CoHorts and post gushing reactions to her books devastating climaxes. One CoHo fan said on TikTok: I want Colleen Hoover to punch me in the face. That would hurt less than these books. Her top-selling book, It Ends With Us (pictured), a drama about a florist who falls for a brooding, abusive neurosurgeon, came out six years ago So far in 2022, five of the top ten bestselling print books of any genre are Hoovers, according to NPD BookScan, and many of her current bestsellers came out years ago, a phenomenon almost unheard of in publishing. Shes defying the laws of how the market works, says publishing industry analyst Peter Hildick-Smith. Most blockbuster authors break out because of a popular series, such as Twilight or Harry Potter, or build a brand by writing in a recognisable genre. Hoover is eclectic. She has written romances, a steamy psychological thriller, a ghost story, harrowing novels about domestic violence, drug abuse, homelessness and poverty. Although her books are hard to categorise, most of them have an addictive combination of sex, drama and outrageous plot twists. I kept being told that authors need to brand themselves as one thing. And I was like, Well, why cant I brand myself as everything? Hoover says. Why cant I just brand myself as Colleen Hoover? Hoovers devoted fanbase has given her a degree of control over her work that is unusual in publishing. Hoovers deft use of social media, where she has 3.9 million followers across platforms and posts goofy, self-deprecating videos, helped grow her audience. So did timing: although she built a strong fanbase early in her career, her sales soared during the pandemic, when her books became a sensation on TikTok. To date, the hashtag #colleenhoover has amassed more than 2.4 billion views. Libby McGuire, head of Hoovers main publisher, called the phenomenon the reverse of the Oprah book club. Whereas Oprah Winfrey was one woman making a recommendation, and sometimes selling two million books, now its 100 people making a recommendation and selling four million books, McGuire says. Were all just sitting back going, OK, whats the next one theyre going to pick? Hoover, who says she has ADHD and suffers from the worst case of impostor syndrome in the world, seems bewildered by it all. I read other peoples books, and Im so envious. Im thinking, Oh, my God, these are so much better, why are mine selling the way they are? she said. Its not me, she added. The readers are controlling what is selling right now. A beauty trend that sees moms-to-be wearing full face while in labor has been reignited after The Hills star Heidi Montag shared a TikTok video showing her getting her makeup done during the recent arrival of her second child. The 36-year-old reality star even hired a professional makeup artist to ensure she looked good while she pushed, and uploaded a clip of her birthing beauty session to TikTok. The video has been watched more than six million times since it was uploaded last November with viewers leaving a slew of hilarious and complimentary comments. 'Love this. I looked like the girl from the Exorcist - green puke included,' one person wrote. TikTok creator @la.tania.ftn2 reveals a very glamorous delivery room makeover Instagrammer @mua_passion said of this photo: 'Getting my lips right in between some of my most painful contractions I've ever felt. Make-up helped me stay distracted' Heidi Montag reignited the trend for delivery room makeup sessions after the recent arrival of her second child Poll Would you wear makeup during childbirth? Yes No I would put it on after Would you wear makeup during childbirth? Yes 23 votes No 103 votes I would put it on after 16 votes Now share your opinion Another added: 'You look amazing I don't think I even brushed my hair before going to hospital.' As reported exclusively by DailyMail.com, Heidi also had a hospital makeup session for the birth of her first child in 2017. 'I just wanted to be camera ready,' she said at the time. And it appears a band of other moms-to-be have followed in her footsteps, contouring between contractions and powdering while they push. Numerous TikTok videos and Instagram posts show expectant moms getting to grips with their cosmetic bags while wearing hospital gowns. Creator @Dvtsroxii uploaded a 'throwback' clip of herself applying eyeshadow while laying in a hospital bed and wearing an oxygen mask. She captioned the clip: 'Throw back to the time when I did my make-up before giving birth. Thank god for [an] epidural, mama has to look good too.' Daisy Wood uploaded a clip to TikTok from a live photo her husband took of her preening herself before the birth of their child @Dvtsroxii uploaded a 'throwback' clip of herself applying eyeshadow while in hospital, left, while @ACRCGlobal posted a glam shot of a mom-in-waiting, right TikToker Lae Harris showed her transformation from start to finish in a timelapse video Creator @makeupbygel_ said she went into the ER wearing makeup for the birth of her son as she works as a makeup artist Instagrammer @mamakrazie239 posted this photo to Instagram saying she 'went into labor with a beat face' thanks to a selection of products from her cosmetics bag The video has garnered more than 4,000 comments, with many women saying they would do a similar thing in her situation. One TikTok user imagined a comical scene in the delivery room, writing: '"PUSH" "Hold on, I need to blend in my foundation."' Meanwhile another person wrote in support of @Dvtsroxii: '[She] wants to make a good impression when she meets her new baby, because first impressions matter.' In another TikTok, creator @la.tania.ftn2 reveals a very glamorous delivery room makeover. Starting out with a fresh face, she carefully applies a selection of products before her epidural with the look including false lashes, pink sparkly eyeshadow and a dark lip color. Her clip quickly garnered hundreds of comments, with many viewers deeming her 'beautiful' and 'amazing.' TikToker Lae Harris also showed her transformation from start to finish by posting a timelapse video. In 2019, influencer and YouTube beauty star Emily Noel went into labor with her makeup done and says the products she used can hold for more than 24 hours without touch-ups Her birthing makeup video shows her sweating, crying and wiping her face during birth, but her impressive look is not ruined She explains in the caption: 'I did my make-up before birthing my baby. I wanted her to meet the queen in full face.' While some of the women said it was important to look good for their newborns, others said doing their makeup helped keep their mind off the pain. Southern California makeup artist @mua_passion uploaded a photograph of herself applying lipstick in her hospital bed. She explained: 'Getting my lips right in between some of my most painful contractions I've ever felt. Make-up helped me stay distracted.' In 2019, influencer and YouTube beauty star Emily Noel went into labor with her makeup done and shared her tips for birth-proof makeup, which she says can hold for more than 24 hours without touch-ups. She had a glamorous look with a bright lip and eyeshadow for her birth, and revealed the products she used in a makeup tutorial video. Products used included Maybelline Superstay foundation, Urban Decay All Nighter setting spray, long-lasting waterproof mascara, and eyeshadow primer. Her birthing makeup video shows her sweating, crying and wiping her face during birth, but her impressive look is not ruined. A 63-pound pup who was deemed 'too big' and 'too strong' has finally found his forever home after an 'unlucky streak' of 14 failed adoptions. Ronald, a playful mixed breed, was transferred to the SPCA of Wake County, a non-profit animal rescue in Raleigh, North Carolina, from a nearby municipal shelter on December 7, 2022, Fox News reported. Within a month, the one-year-old went home with three different families for trial adoptions and was requested by 11 others, but his boisterous energy and size seemed to be a turnoff for potential owners. 'He is basically your typical puppy. He is playful and clumsy and goofy and still learning his manners,' Samantha Ranlet, a spokesperson for SPCA of Wake County, told the outlet. Ronald, a one-year-old mixed breed pup, had 14 failed adoptions within a month The playful dog was transferred to the SPCA of Wake County, a non-profit animal rescue in Raleigh, North Carolina, from a nearby municipal shelter on December 7, 2022 Samantha Ranlet, a spokesperson for SPCA of Wake County, told Fox News that Ronald was 'just a lot for people' because he is 'so big and still a 'clumsy puppy' 'But because he is just so big that in combination with his clumsy puppy behavior was just a lot for people.' The SPCA of Wake County turned to Facebook on January 11 to share Ronald's story along with photos of the sweet pup. 'Help us break Ronald's unlucky streak! 14 adoptions have fallen through for this lovely guy mostly due to being too big/strong,' the team wrote. 'It's true, he's a big boy! But for his large frame, he only weighs 63 lbs.' The SPCA of Wake County went on to describe the pup's many endearing attributes, including his aptitude for learning. 'Ronald knows his commands, takes treats super gently, and is 100% sweet. He truly is a very good boy,' the animal rescue shared. 'Now and then, if he gets excited, he might stand up and put his front paws on you or become a little mouthy. But he is a big puppy, after all! The SPCA of Wake County turned to Facebook on January 11 to share Ronald's story along with photos of the sweet pup The animal rescue received over 800 messages from people inquiring about adopting him, including Kiersten Davis, a nurse and mother of two Davis and her husband, Corey Pierce, have two young sons, Kason and Cohen, as well as a three-year-old Australian Shepherd, Billie 'As soon as I brought him home and saw him with the boys and our other dog, I knew we would finalize the adoption,' Davis told Fox News 'As long as you have reasonably sturdy footing, you'll have no problem with Ronald. Plus, he loves treats and practicing his tricks, so he'll be a great student for any training.' The post went viral and has been shared nearly 70,000 times on Facebook, where dog lovers flocked to the comments to gush over the dog. Ranlet told Fox News that they received over 800 messages from people inquiring about adopting him, including Kiersten Davis. The nurse from Raeford, North Carolina, and her husband, Corey Pierce, have two young sons, Kason and Cohen, as well as a three-year-old Australian Shepherd, Billie. After being put on a waitlist, Davis was contacted by the SPCA of Wake County and told that Ronald's latest adoption had fallen through. She left work early and drove to Raleigh that day to pick him up. The family officially adopted Ronald on January 17, six days after he went viral 'Ronald's unlucky streak has officially ended!!! Look how happy he looks,' the team at the SPCA Wake County wrote on Facebook The shelter also thanked the tens of thousands of people who shared the original post about Ronald, saying 'his whole world changed' overnight 'As soon as I brought him home and saw him with the boys and our other dog, I knew we would finalize the adoption,' she told Fox News. The family officially adopted Ronald on January 17, six days after he went viral. The SPCA of Wake County celebrated the news with a heartwarming Facebook post featuring snapshots of Ronald in his new home and getting a hug from Davis's four-year-old son. Ronald's unlucky streak has officially ended!!! Look how happy he looks. His new family says he is doing so great with the kids, and they are just obsessed with him,' the team wrote. 'Thank you all so very much for sharing Ronald's story we were overwhelmed by your words of encouragement and generous offers to help him. 'In the first day, the wide reach of your shares helped Ronald reach almost a million people. Just like that, literally overnight, his whole world changed. It never ceases to amaze us the power that you all have to change a life with the power of your keyboard!' From a sequined jacket to sparkly gold trousers, staff at a top corporate law firm are being encouraged to scrap their dress code - and bring their personality to work instead. Employees working for top divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag have been told to choose their clothes for work as if they were going to Annabels nightclub. The reference to outfits worthy of the Mayfair venue popular with celebrities and royalty was made in a memo which she sent to staff. It also says that pink hair, scarlet Doc Martens boots and gold leather trousers would be fine to wear when not in court. Staff at a corporate law firm are being encouraged to ditch their usual uniform and 'dress like they were going to Annabel's - but what does that really mean? Here FEMAIL reveals how glamorous attendees of the exclusive member's club nail business chic Miss Vardag,54, who has been dubbed the Diva of Divorce, wrote: Times change and Vardags keeps moving there was a time for our dress code with double cuffs and cufflinks, formal dark suits and jackets. But now business suits are so much the domain of bankers and estate agents that theyre eschewed by some of the funkier London clubs. So well move on to a dress code more like Annabels the essence being ELEGANCE. Private members club Annabels is a favourite of many A-list celebrities and has previously hosted everyone from Princess Beatrice and the late Queen Elizabeth II to Damien Hirst and Lady Gaga. Employees working for top divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag have been told to choose their clothes for work as if they were going to Annabels nightclub (pictured, Vicky Lee at the club in 2020) Attendees of the exclusive venue in Mayfair, which has an annual membership fee of 3,250, often wear ultra-chic outfits, from leather trousers (left) to trendy monochrome ensembles (right) Ms Vardag told staff they should 'show their personalities' while not in court by dressing like attendees of the club - who oft wear trend-led outfits and smart ensembles (pictured, Rosie Tapner and Frankie Herbert) Guests such as Downton Abbey actress Jessica Brown Findlay and This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby have attended the club in smart mini dresses with colourful blazers (left and right) Bridgerton actress Phoebe Dynevor donned a smart black dress as she visited the Mayfair club in September 2021 Would YOU wear these looks to the office? Other stars including Pixie Lott (left) and Elfie Reigate (right) have donned mini dresses and leather shorts to the club The annual membership fee is 3,250, with a one-time joining cost of 1,750. The club, which is situated at 46 Berkeley Square in Mayfair, first opened in 1963 and was refurbished and expanded in 2018. The super exclusive venue is thought to have a membership waiting list of more than 10,000, and around 8,000 people are currently thought to be members. Attendees often dress up for their nights out at the venue, donning trendy suits and jazzy patterns for lavish events at the club. Here FEMAIL reveals the ultra-glamorous looks from Annabel's which could pass under Vardag's new dress code. Attendees like Alexa Chung (left) and Raye (right) often dress up for their nights out at the venue, donning trendy suits and jazzy patterns for lavish events at the club One attendee at an event in September 2021 opted for a coordinated baby pink ensemble at the venue Business chic? While the business woman may have suggested employees get rid of their corporate style, many attendees of the exclusive venue wear trendy suits to the club (left, Sam Rollinson and right Rita Ora) And it's not just suits! A number of attendees of events at the club opt for floaty midi dresses in distinctive patterns (pictured, Ella Eyre at the venue) Meanwhile the boss encouraged employees to show their personalities - even mentioning Dr Martens as a style of shoe which they could look to wear (pictured, Paloma Faith at an event at Annabel's wearing a similar style) As Prince Harry and William's relationship gets even worse after the publication of his memoir, Daily Mail royal expert Claire Cisotti remembers five of the brothers' most poignant moments. Her recollections show just how far the brothers' relationship has fallen as she delves into touching moments from the boys laughing together with Prince Charles at Harry's Invictus Games in 2014 to their charity visit to Lesotho. Watch it here: Princess Charlene appeared with her twins, eight, for Sainte Devote celebrations Princess Charlene of Monaco cut a solitary figure while attending mass today, after her husband Prince Albert II tested positive for Covid earlier this week. The Princess, 45, looked elegant in an all-grey ensemble as she arrived for the service for Saint Devote, Monaco's patron saint whose feast day is today. But after the service, the Princess and her husband reunited, along with their children Princess Gabriella and Prince Jacques, to mark the celebrations as a family. Prince Albert, who has been isolating, made the unexpected appearance wearing a mask and a couple of feet from his eight-year-old twins and his wife. The Monagasque royal family gathered on the palace balcony today to mark the feast day of the country's patron saint The young Prince and Princess giggled as they looked out from the Palace during the traditional Sainte Devote procession in Monaco, watched over by their mother. Paying tribute to the saint, the family made the sign of the cross, with Prince Jacques dutifully pressing his hands together in prayer. The family looked typically smart for the occasion, with Princess Gabriella wearing a bottle green overcoat and Prince Jacques a black one with a white shirt collar peeking through. His father donned a similar black coat and scarf - as well as a white surgical mask - as he tried to stay warm and keep the virus away from his family during his bout of ill-health. The eight-year-old twins paid attention as the traditional Sainte Devote procession went by The family were put on a united front, albeit with a small distance between them and with Prince Albert II wearing a mask This is the third time the crown prince, 64, has tested positive for the virus, meaning he was forced to cancel all of his public engagements around the Saint Devote festivities. The palace said the Prince has experienced no symptoms, but will be remaining at home until he tests negative. While he was well enough to make an appearance on the open-air balcony, the monarch understandably did not attend a gathering this morning, which his wife went to alone. The Princess appeared composed and in good spirits as she was greeted by the country's archbishop and other dignitaries at the Cathedral of Monaco. Melanie-Antoinette Costello de Massy, who is a second cousin of Prince Albert, welcomed the Princess to the Cathedral ahead of the service The Princess appeared composed and in good spirits as she was greeted by the country's archbishop and other dignitaries at the Cathedral of Monaco Charlene smiled for the cameras as she stepped out of her car and was shown into the Mass service, a key part of the festivities which take place every year. She was wrapped up against the chilly January weather with a double-breasted grey woolen blazer, which she matched with a light charcoal turtleneck. The grey look was paired with a grey-brown suede asymmetric skirt and slouchy heeled boots of a similar material. She accessorised the look with black leather gloves and large diamond studs. The grey look was paired with a grey-brown suede asymmetric skirt and slouchy heeled boots of a similar material Charlene smiled for the cameras as she stepped out of her car and was shown into the Mass service, a key part of the festivities which take place every year. With her husband absent, a supportive friend of the royal stepped in to accompany Charlene to the service. Melanie-Antoinette Costello de Massy, who is a second cousin of Prince Albert, welcomed the Princess to the Cathedral ahead of the service. The relative of the monarch, whose mother was his late father's niece, was regularly pictured with him while his wife was unable to attend royal events during her treatment for ill-health. Charlene wore simple diamond studs as she attended the mass. She was shown into the Cathedral by dignitaries In December, Charlene said she felt 'much better' after almost a year away from the Monaco in her native South Africa, where she had been undergoing treatment for an unspecified condition. Last night, Charlene was pictured with her and the Prince's two children enjoying the first festivities of the two-day holiday in honour of Sainte Devote. They took part in the annual boat burning ceremony - an event which has a long and popular history in the Mediterranean principality, and which Albert would have been sorry to miss. The children stole the show as they hugged and larked about while they watched the boat go up in flames for the celebration, which takes place every year on 26 and 27 January. A video shows the adorable moment when Queen Camilla pretended to light her candle after King Charles's candle didn't light the first time. The King and the Queen Consort met with two survivors of genocide at Buckingham Palace this morning as they marked Holocaust Memorial Day, on the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Charles, 74, and Camilla. 75, were solemn as they spoke with Dr Martin Stern and Amouna Adam, before lighting candles in lighting a candle in remembrance of victims of genocide. The Queen Consort waited for her husband to light his candle after his taper went out the first time, saying: 'We will do it again, to do it in conjunction.' The King and the Queen Consort held an Audience at Buckingham Palace this morning to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, on the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau After successfully lighting the candle, the King said: 'I hope this will be one way of trying to remember all those poor people who had to suffer such horrors for so many years - and still do.' The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in November 2005 establishing the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and chose January 27 - the day that Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. It commemorates the lives of the six million Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of others killed under Nazi persecution and during subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. The royal couple bore witness to the testimonies of Dr Martin, who was taken to a Nazi concentration camp at five years old. Dr Stern, who was born to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, survived the Westerbork transit camp and Theresienstadt ghetto in Nazi-occupied Netherlands after being taken away by officers at the age of five. His father died in a separate camp in 1945, and his mother died due to an infection during childbirth in 1942. Speaking of the meeting, he said: 'We talked about the importance of education about the Holocaust and about other genocides. Charles, 74, and Camilla, 75, joined Dr Martin Stern and Amouna Adam in lighting a candle in remembrance of victims of genocide 'The King was very insistent on inquiring about other genocides as well, and so was the Queen Consort. 'So, the importance of education the importance of starting that education at an early age.' Speaking about the lighting of the candles, he added: 'That is immensely important. The perpetrators would like that we would just forget about it, move on to other things so they get on quietly with doing more of their horrific crimes. 'Lighting a candle publicly is a marker that makes it hard for tyrants and state criminals to perpetuate their mass crimes quietly.' At 4pm, households across Britain will light a candle in their window as they remember the Holocaust The King spoke of the importance of remembering the Holocaust and other genocides during the meeting earlier today Charles and Camilla also met with Amouna, from the persecuted Fur tribe, who survived genocide in Darfur in western Sudan, as well as representatives of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust Charles and Camilla also met with Amouna Adam, from the persecuted Fur tribe, who survived genocide in Darfur in western Sudan, as well as representatives of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust. They discussed ongoing work to ensure the lessons learned during genocides are not forgotten. Laura Marks, chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust, said: 'What the King was able to offer us, to share with us, was his interest in both in the Holocaust, but also, in the other genocides and the work that he's doing. 'And he's been the patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day trust for many, many years as Prince of Wales, and we were talking to him about how important that is for us as a charity because it adds so much credibility and so much weight when a charity has as a patron like that.' The couple received the two survivors of genocide, and representatives of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, to hear about their experiences and the ongoing work to ensure the lessons of the past are not forgotten She added: 'The King is so powerful, so important in being able to bring attention, focus attention on the dangers of hate speech, hatred today and he was just magnificent on that one.' This afternoon at 4pm, candles will be lit in windows across the United Kingdom to 'Light The Darkness', in a national moment of commemoration and solidarity. Earlier this week, Dr Martin spoke about why commemorating the 78th anniversary of the atrocity is particularly important amid mass killings which are still being committed around the world, including in Ukraine. During a Holocaust Memorial Day event in central London attended by Cabinet ministers, MPs and faith leaders, Dr Martin Stern spoke about his wartime experience surviving horrific conditions in Netherlands Nazi camps. Second gentleman of US Douglas Emhoff attends the 78th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, January 27, 2023 He addressed an audience which included Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi, Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Speaking at the Westminster event two days prior, Dr Stern said it saddened him that decades on genocides are still being committed around the world - but he still has hope for a brighter future. 'We have a gigantic task ahead,' he said. 'Each of these memorial events can only do a small amount. 'The key to solving the problem of recurring genocides has to lie in the education of every human child, everywhere in the world, forever. People walk next to the ''Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Sets You Free) gate at the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz, Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, January 26, 2023 Early morning on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the former Auschwitz concentration camp site in Oswiecim, Poland, January 27, 2023 'It is a huge task, but not a hopeless one. The human race has made progress, but boy does it need to make more.' Dr Stern also said that Holocaust survivors were saddened to hear 'gangster criminal' Vladimir Putin accusing his opponents of being 'Neo-Nazis' to justify his invasion. Speaking about Russia, Dr Stern said: 'The biggest state on earth is ruled by a gangster. 'Not only do they not have democracy, they have allowed the direction of their country to be controlled exclusively by a gangster criminal.' The train tracks leading to Auschwitz concentration camp where 1.1 million people were killed, Oswiecim, Poland, January 26, 2023 The 78th anniversary marks the liberation of Aushwitz and the horrors of the Second World War. The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered. Under the occupation of German forces during the Second World War, Auschwitz became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27 1945. German representatives attend a memorial ceremony commemorating the victims of the Holocaust on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the lower house of the parliament or Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, January 27, 2023 Today the site, with its barracks and barbed wire and the ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the world's most recognised symbols of evil and an admonition of 'Never Again' that has been a site of pilgrimage for millions. Elsewhere in the world on Friday events were planned to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005. About six million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust and millions more were killed in the global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. Skinny jeans are not going out of the style, according to the CEO of Levi's. The head of the popular clothing brand recently told investors that skintight denim pants were still the company's biggest sellers, despite the upswing in demand for grunge-inspired baggy alternatives. Charles 'Chip' V. Bergh, who took over as CEO of Levi's in 2011, shared the company's biggest sellers while discussing its fourth-quarter earnings during a recent call, per Bloomberg, and he revealed that skinny jeans still reigned on top, despite previous reports that they were declining in popularity. While looser denim trousers made up half the brand's revenue over the past quarter, the two most-purchased pants from the company were both part of their skinny jean collection. According to the CEO of Levis, skinny jeans are not going out of the style despite contrary belief. Khloe Kardashian is seen in skinny jeans last May The head of the popular clothing brand, Charles 'Chip' V. Bergh, recently told investors that skin-tight denim pants are still the company's biggest sellers He shared the company's biggest sellers while discussing its fourth-quarter earnings during a recent call, per Bloomberg, and he revealed that skinny jeans still reigned on top 'Skinny jeans will never die,' Bergh said. 'Half of our revenues on bottoms this past quarter came from the looser, baggier fits, but our top two women's bottoms items were the 311 and the 721. So the skinny jean is not going anywhere, anytime soon.' Poll Which do YOU prefer - skinny jeans or baggy jeans? Skinny jeans Baggy jeans Which do YOU prefer - skinny jeans or baggy jeans? Skinny jeans 73 votes Baggy jeans 22 votes Now share your opinion The 311 Shaping Skinny Women's Jeans cost $69.50 and are described as 'supportive, soft' denim pants that 'sculpt and lift to celebrate your features.' The 721 High Rise Skinny Women's Jeans cost the same, and are 'a little less skinny' than other pairs, according to the website. 'The same form-flattering fit you love with a figure-hugging 10-inch rise, they're made with an innovative stretch fabric that still has denim's authentic look and feel,' its description reads. 'A high-rise jean that's designed to flatter, hold and lift, it embraces your figure, lengthens your legs and holds your shape perfectly.' While skinny jeans practically reigned supreme during the 2000s and 2010s, the fad seemed like it was coming to an end in recent years, with Medium theorizing that 'Gen Z was going to cancel' them once and for all - something Bergh has now debunked. While looser denim trousers made up half the brand's revenue over the past quarter, the two most purchased pants skinny jeans. Hailey Bieber is seen in baggy jeans earlier this month Levi's top two jeans were the 311 Shaping Skinny Women's Jeans (seen) and the 721 High Rise Skinny Women's Jeans While skinny jeans practically reigned supreme during the 2000s and 2010s, the fad seemed like it was coming to an end in recent years. The Jonas Brothers are seen wearing them in 2009 Skinny jeans were hailed as the most popular denim style for years, but in 2021, 'straight-leg jeans became the best-selling fit.' Olivia Rodrigo is seen left and Minka Kelly is seen right At the time, the outlet explained that the pandemic had played a huge part in the fall of the skinny jean since 'people were staying home most of the time and preferred dressing more comfortably.' Skinny jeans first became popular in the 1950s, and at first, they were 'synonymous with rock 'n' roll and the "bad boy culture,"' according to the publication. While they certainly weren't as tight then, the idea of skinny jeans first became popular in the 1950s, and at first, they were 'synonymous with rock 'n' roll and the "bad boy" culture,' with stars like Elvis Presley (seen), James Dean, and Marlon Brando sporting them 'Many male sex symbols of the time, such as Elvis Presley, James Dean, and Marlon Brando, wore the tight jeans trend,' Medium added. They soon became a style staple. However, when the '70s rolled around, in came the bell-bottoms and out went the skinny jeans. The pants made a comeback in the early 2000s, thanks in part, to boybands like Green Day and the Jonas Brothers, who often rocked tight-fitting denim. While skinny jeans were hailed as the most popular fit for denim for most of the 2000s and 2010s, QZ.com reported that they were on the decline in early 2022. The outlet said that 'straight-leg jeans had become the best-selling fit among American women in 2021,' but according to Levi's sales, they are now back on the rise. While skinny jeans appear to be coming back, there is one trend that is on the decline - high-rise pants. 'Rises are now coming down. We're not quite at hip-hugger territory yet, but the mid-rise jean is kind of the hottest item right now,' Bergh said. 'I think we're going to continue to see the shift from high to mid, and maybe even mid to lower rises as we go forward.' An Australian mum has issued a concerning warning about a new Kmart toy that has parts a young child could choke on. The Brisbane mum bought the $3.50 foam gliders before realising they have small ball bearings in nose of the plane. She shared her discovery to popular Facebook group Kmart Hacks & Decor urging parents to 'be careful' with the toy around kids. A Brisbane mum has issues a warning to parents after she found small ball bearings in a $3.50 Kmart toy she said small children could choke on 'As much fun as these planes are be very careful with little ones. Found out yesterday they have ball bearings in them,' she said. The box the gliders are packaged in state they are suitable for children aged three and up and includes a warning: 'Choking hazard. Small parts'. One mum said her child had managed to get one of the ball bearings when her son was chewing on the tip. The box the gliders are packaged in state they are suitable for children aged three and up and includes a warning: 'Choking hazard. Small parts' 'Yes I found this out the hard way! My son chewed the tip. The ball is in the tip of the nose,' she said. 'This happened to us and I found one in the hand of my 12 month old! My three-year-old had pulled the top off where it goes for the weight! Straight in the bin!' a second wrote. 'Good to know, even kids over three could choke so good pick up,' a third pointed out. Others debated the safety of the toy with some arguing the balls are not exposed and difficult for kids to get to. One mum said she found the balls when her son chewing on the nose of the plane but some parents debated the safety of the toy with some arguing the weights are hard for kids to get to 'They are covered by Styrofoam. It is only if you deliberately break the plane that they will be exposed - it wasn't deliberately broken,' one woman wrote. 'It wasn't deliberately broken. It came unstuck on its own!' the mum replied. 'The boys play with theirs every day and there's no sign of breakage etc so I think they'd have to be intentionally bent in half to break. I don't see them as a danger, they're ripper little planes,' another responded. A Kmart spokesperson responded to the concerns say they are looking into the issue. 'We take feedback on the safety and quality of our products very seriously and are looking into these comments with our quality team,' they tole FEMAIL. 'We encourage any customers that have a concern with one of our products to reach out to our friendly customer care team at kmartcustomerservice@kmart.com.au to ensure that it can be investigated properly.' Chef Tom Kerridge has come full circle. Thirteen years ago he was an anxious competitor on the BBC's Great British Menu; now he's an established judge on the show, which returns this week. Back in 2010, he'd just set up his first restaurant, working 90-hour weeks and living above it in one room with his wife Beth, never imagining he'd one day become a judge on Britain's leading cookery show. Nor did Beth, a sculptor who'd put her work on hold to be Tom's handyman, electrician, front-of-house, bartender and accountant. She may have ended up leaving him three times in the first year of them working together, but their marriage and the business have more than stood the test of time. They now have a seven-year-old son and a booming Michelin-starred restaurant empire. And what's more, Beth has become a global celebrity artist in her own right. Thirteen years Tom Kerridge (pictured) was an anxious competitor on the BBC's Great British Menu; now he's an established judge on the show, which returns this week 'It was a husband-and-wife business when I started and I had to basically beg, steal and borrow to make things work,' recalls Tom, 49. 'I was 31 and it put huge pressure on us as husband and wife, but it also made our bond really strong because we knew we could do anything. 'Now it's come full circle, not just for me as a judge on Great British Menu but also for Beth. Her career has taken off in a colossal way and she's now recognised as Beth Cullen Kerridge the artist, not Tom Kerridge's wife. I very much like being in her world because no one knows nor cares who I am.' Tom joined the Great British Menu judging panel last year alongside TV chef Nisha Katona and comedian Ed Gamble, having won in 2010 with a main course of slow-cooked Aylesbury duck, duck fat chips and gravy. A year later he won again, this time with a hog roast. 'To be a judge is incredible,' he says. 'It's a lot easier than being a competitor! I enjoyed competing but I know just how stressful it is, particularly early on. You're desperate not to go home first and can feel the pressure in that kitchen with the nerves and the new environment. I love this show because it's all about incredible regional talent and great British produce, creating food of the highest standard.' Tom joined the Great British Menu judging panel last year alongside TV chef Nisha Katona (both pictured) and comedian Ed Gamble Tom and wife Beth (pictured in 2022) have a seven-year-old son and a booming Michelin-starred restaurant empire. And what's more, Beth has become a global celebrity artist in her own right. In this year's series, inspired by Paddington Bear's 65th birthday, 32 professional chefs will compete over nine weeks for a place cooking at the six-course banquet finale celebrating the best of British animation and illustration. They'll be whittled down to just eight for Finals Week. 'In Finals Week we're trying to find that wafer-thin difference between those dishes fit for a banquet and those that aren't,' says Tom. 'There may be just one or two points between first place and eighth, but the reality is they're so close everyone's a winner.' It's all a long way from Tom's first foray into the kitchen as a youngster. 'I come from a single-parent background and my mum had a day job and an evening job, so I'd cook tea for me and my younger brother normally a fish finger sandwich or a Pot Noodle,' he recalls. 'But it gave me a sense of reward. And my passion for hospitality comes from my mum, who'd bake a roll of sausage meat as if it was a Sunday joint, because we couldn't afford a real one. We loved it and never felt we were missing out on Sunday lunch. Our house was the one where all the estate kids would hang out. It's always been about hospitality for me.' After a brief flirtation with acting when he left school at 15 (he was a borstal inmate in a TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's They Do It With Mirrors), his mother suggested catering college, and it was there that he found his calling. 'For me it's about cooking something that's got heart, soul and passion those are the things that make a difference, as you can taste that energy,' he says. The big difference between Tom today and when he was competing on Great British Menu is that he's 12st lighter. Back then he was sinking up to 15 pints a day and weighed 30st. 'When I reached 40, a friend said to me, "We're halfway to death now", and I thought, "I'm much closer than that if I don't do something about it." I needed a complete life change, so I gave up drinking and tried to get fitter. I'm a completely different person now after ten years of not drinking. 'But I think the reason I've been successful over the past ten years is that I'm not a cartoon version of the real me. The only difference between me and the TV me is that I don't swear as much on TV or at least it's edited out!' Great British Menu, Tuesday-Thursday, 8pm, BBC2. A former flight attendant has revealed the terrifying moment her car went flying through the air after she nicked a concrete curb on the highway going 110kms per hour, and how her air emergency training saved her life. Speaking to FEMAIL, Lee Holmes who left life in the sky to become a nutritionist, described the terrifying moment her car ricocheted through the air before crashing through bushland beside the road and landing on its roof. 'I was left crushed inside. When I came to, I saw what I thought was steam or smoke coming from the car so my flight attendant training kicked in and I activated flight attendant mode,' she said from her hospital bed on Thursday. The 55-year-old Sydney-based nutritionist, who has 57,000 followers on Instagram, was running errands and borrowed a friend's car while visiting Byron Bay when she crashed on Tuesday. She says her seatbelt saved her life. Lee had been to the dentist to have a couple 'broken temporary teeth' fixed, which required numbing medication then waited an hour for it to 'wear off' before driving again. She was headed inland to Mullumbimby going 110km an hour - the legal speed limit - when she crashed. Lee Holmes is counting her blessings after being in a freak car accident on January 24 (pictured in hospital after crash). Miraculously she didn't break any bones The vehicle 'nicked a concrete bollard then ricocheted' into the air, hitting several trees and flipped itself over before coming to a stop 'I was left crushed inside. When I came to, I saw what I thought was steam or smoke coming from the car so my flight attendant training kicked in and I activated flight attendant mode,' Lee told FEMAIL 'I was driving along and the next thing I remember were big trees and bush land whooshing past me, it sounded a bit like nails on a chalk board with the branches scratching and clawing at the windows of the car,' Lee said. In the moments after she recalls seeing a white tunnel, but can't confirm when this occurred or if the car had stopped moving yet. 'It was just a couple of seconds after that, when everything went eerily quiet and my eyes seemed to fixate on a white tunnel ahead. I recollect it being bright and illuminating and beckoning. At that moment I felt an usual sense of calm and peacefulness wash over me it wasn't scary, more inviting and familiar,' she said. Police officers and an ambulance arrived at the scene and took Lee to Tweed hospital. 'I could hear the murmur of voices coming in and out of my head. I remember the police officer and medics saying I was lucky to be alive and the fact I was wearing a seatbelt that had saved me,' she said When she regained consciousness she had to quickly focus her vision in the upside down car, and her survival instincts kicked in. 'I unbuckled my seatbelt then somehow checked my body for any blood or injury. I realised I was still alive and scoured around with my eyes for a way out,' she said. 'It was then I started to panic but thankfully I noticed a half opened window that I was able to crawl through.' 'I am still very shaken up but it's an absolute miracle I survived and am alive to tell this story,' she said (pictured months before the crash) With her legs wobbly like jelly, she stood up and started to walk then spotted a lady walking towards her who asked if she was okay. 'I think I said I was ok and I managed to drag myself down towards the road but then my legs started to buckle and I said no I don't think I am ok actually. It was at this point I fell on the ground and just needed to lie down,' she said. Police officers and an ambulance arrived at the scene and took Lee to Tweed hospital. 'I could hear the murmur of voices coming in and out of my head. I remember the police officer and medics saying I was lucky to be alive and the fact I was wearing a seatbelt that had saved me,' she said. In the morning on the day of the accident Lee had started her morning with a gratitude prayer for being alive, which she finds incredibly 'surreal' (pictured before crash) Doctors assisted immediately to assess whether Lee had any critical injuries. 'In hospital I was placed on a large table and I could hear about six people checking all the different areas of my body and pointing them out.. ankles, check, knees check,' she continued. 'I heard someone say they would need to cut me out of my clothes - it felt like a watching myself in a crime show.' Miraculously Lee had no broken bones but sustains an injury to her sternum and clavicle and also soft tissue injuries. 'I am still very shaken up but it's an absolute miracle I survived and am alive to tell this story,' she said. In the morning on the day of the accident Lee had started her morning with a gratitude prayer for being alive, which she finds incredibly 'surreal'. This has led to a nationwide shortage as of November 2022 Ozempic - an injectable drug - is being used by people wanting to lose weight Mum Nama Winston is living with diabetes and can't buy her regular medication A mum living with diabetes claims she's struggling to find her life-saving medication at pharmacies due to a nationwide shortage because it's 'in demand' for weight loss. Nama Winston claims it took her 'years' to find affordable life-saving medication, and now it's been 'ripped away' from her and has become increasingly difficult to buy. The single parent told Kidspot she takes Ozempic - an injectable drug that helps to suppress hunger - and she can't just 'eat better' food as an alternative solution. 'Not having access to this drug suddenly - which I use for diabetes - is making me feel like s**t. I need this drug NOW.' Mum Nama Winston (pictured) is struggling to find her life-saving medication used for her diabetes. The nationwide shortage of the injectable drug Ozempic (semaglutide) is due to people using it to lose weight Nama told Kidspot it took her 'years' to find affordable life-saving medication, and now it's been 'ripped away' from her and has become increasingly difficult to find She explained users need to build up to the maximum, most effective dose over a few weeks. 'So that when you go to the pharmacy and are put on a wait-list to get your injection in a fortnight, you effectively have to start again. And you really don't feel well in the meantime,' she said. Nama said she's constantly worried about her blood sugar levels that can quickly become 'out of control', with symptoms including fatigue, irritable bowel and nausea. Not only that, she said she 'can't afford' to go without it. Nama said she's constantly worried about her blood sugar levels that can quickly become 'out of control', with symptoms including fatigue, irritable bowel and nausea. Not only that, she said she 'can't afford' to go without it 'The trouble with the shortage is that Ozempic is one of those drugs that you need to build up to, so your body tolerates the maximum, most effective dose,' Nama said In November 2022, Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk informed the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) that Ozempic (semaglutide) will not be available in Australia from mid-November 2022 until the end of March 2023. Patients who are prescribed the drug are urged to contact their doctor immediately to have their treatment reassessed. According to the Department of Health and Aged Care, the TGA is working with Novo Nordisk and the relevant health professional organisations to manage this serious shortage. Pharmacy Guild of Australia president Trent Twomey told 2GB this month that Ozempic was used for weight loss but it is only approved for people with type 2 diabetes as prescribed by their doctor. 'So what the drug Ozempic has been approved for use in Australia [on the PBS] for - it's strictly for those with type 2 diabetes,' he said. 'There's been these entrepreneurial GPs who are popping up these apps that are issuing a script without them ever seeing a patient,' Mr Twomey said. The US is in the midst of a catastrophic fentanyl epidemic that is causing an eye-watering number of deaths and tearing the fabric of American society apart. The ultra-strong opioid being cut with virtually every street drug in the country killed a record 75,000 Americans in 2021, the equivalent of 1,500 lives lost every week. Fentanyl - which is 100 times more potent than morphine - started off as a cheap and potent alternative to heroin and was used by only the most hardcore drug addicts in the US, who mainly injected it or smoked it through a pipe. But its cheap manufacturing costs and potency have made it the go-to cutting agent for cartels and drug dealers in the US looking to stretch their supply. It's now found n everything from cocaine to molly and street benzodiazepines like Xanax. Fentanyl has now infected almost every major city in America, turning once-thriving streets in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia into wastelands. Scenes of zombified addicts shooting up or smoking the drug in front of children are increasingly becoming a part of everyday life. The inner city district has long been a magnet for drug users seeking their next high, but the scale of problems caused by xylazine is shocking even to locals who have become accustomed to such distressing scenes Deaths caused by fentanyl in the US surged in the 2010s. At the start of the decade, 2,666 Americans died of a fentanyl overdose. This figure shot up to 19,413 by 2016. Covid made the situation worse, with a record 72,484 deaths recorded in 2021 The fentanyl crisis has helped fuel the steep drop in American life expectancy in recent years. Americans now live 76.4 years on average, down from 78.8 years in 2019. In the UK, which suffered the Covid pandemic just as the US did, but does not suffer a fentanyl crisis, life expectancy slightly increased from 81.3 years in 2019 to 81.52 in 2021. Fentanyl is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, one of the most commonly used pain-reliever in the world. It takes just a small dose of fentanyl to cause an overdose. Just two milligrams - the equivalent of five grains of salt - is enough to cause death. Because it is cut into other popular drugs, many people who die of overdoses do not know they are taking fentanyl. Fentanyl has been partially blamed for America's sharp fall in life-expectancy over the past three years. 'Substance use is more dangerous than it has ever been, as fentanyl has continued to permeate the illicit drug supply, increasing the risk for overdoses among both people with substance use disorders as well as those who use drugs occasionally,' Dr Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said last month. Experts have described the drop in life expectancy from 78.8 in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021 as 'dramatic' and 'substantial'. Officials in Washington state say they run out of space in morgues and crematoriums as the drug tears through local communities. Dr Paul Christo, a pain medicine specialist at Johns Hopkins University, told DailyMail.com the fentanyl crisis was the equivalent of the 9/11 tragedy - the biggest terror attack in US history which killed 2,900 Americans - happening every fortnight. 'You don't need very much of [fentanyl] in order to stop breathing... it's really the doses that make it so deadly,' Dr Christo explained. 'It gives a more intense high [than other opioids],' he continued, explaining why it is often used as a cutting agent. He also explained that there is 'no quality control on the street', making lethal doses surprisingly common. Fentanyl was invented in the US in 1959 as a cheaper alternative to other painkillers used in hospitals and health centers worldwide. Three chemicals, benzylfentanyl, 4-anilinopiperidine and norfentanyl and considered to be precursors to fentanyl by the DEA - meaning they are primary ingredients to the drug's creation. It binds to opioid receptors in a person's nervous system, which are responsible for giving the body a pleasurable feeling when activated. Dr Christo explains that fentanyl acts faster than other opioids, and can quickly pass the brain's blood-barrier and attach to receptors in the brain. It acts faster and creates stronger sensations, which can lead to a denial of oxygen to the brain and a deadly overdose. Fentanyl's high potency makes it an excellent choice for use in hospitals. Dr Christo explains that it is an FDA approved drug often used as an anesthetic in surgeries to help relieve pain. It can also be given in pill form, or through skin patches, for patients in extreme pain. While it is most often used for cancer patients, the drug is widely available to many seeking relief from pain. But the extreme potency of the drug has also made it popular as an illicit street drug. The drug was initially produced in India and China and mailed to recipients across North America. Makeshift labs have since sprung up in Mexico to receive the precursor chemicals from Asia, mix them or press them into pills, and smuggle them into the US Federal drug agents seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every American US drug agents seized 379million potentially fatal does of fentanyl in 2022 enough to kill every American. The Drug Enforcement Administration said it had captured 50.6 million fake prescription pills laced with fentanyl and 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder during the year, calling it the equivalent of 'more than 379 million potentially deadly doses.' Owing to its low price and relative ease of production, fentanyl has supplanted prescription opioids and heroin in the illegal drugs market. A potentially fatal dose is just two milligrams. It was the major reason for the more than 107,000 overdose deaths across the United States from July 2021 to June 2022, according to official data. The DEA said the deadly man-made opioid, which caused only a fraction of overdose deaths a decade ago, is now the 'deadliest drug threat facing this country.' 'It is a highly addictive man-made opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin. Just two milligrams of fentanyl, the small amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially deadly dose,' it said. The DEA's finds were more than double the amount they seized in 2021 enough to kill all 330 million of those living in the US. Advertisement Its street use began to rise in the early 2010s. It can be taken as a pill, and its powder form can be smoked. Cartels and drug smuggling organizations have also found that it can be manufactured cheaply and used as a cutting agent to increase the drug's potency cheaply. More than 10,000 fentanyl pills were confiscated by border agents each day in 2022 - with officials fearing that is only a fraction of the amount of the drug entering America. This would be enough fentanyl to kill every single American. The product is manufactured by Mexican drug cartels in makeshift laboratories south of the border. They are believed to purchase the raw materials from India and China, convert them into fentanyl, and then traffic the drugs into the lucrative American market. According to most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the drug was responsible for 73,102 deaths from August 2021 to August 2022. In 2021, it killed 72,484 Americans. It is killing 1,500 Americans every week, as the synthetic opioid is fueling an American drug crisis that is causing as many deaths as diabetes does. The DEA now describes it as the 'deadliest drug threat facing this country'. Its prevalence in the illicit drug supply surged during the 2010s, though. In 2011, 2,666 deaths were caused by fentanyl - a figure that has dramatically increased nearly every year since. The fentanyl crisis took off in 2016, where annual deaths more than doubled to 19,413, up from 9,580 a year earlier. In 2017, deaths caused by the synthetic opioid reached 28,466. Covid accelerated the fentanyl epidemic and caused surges in deaths in back-to-back years. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, deaths caused by fentanyl rose 52 percent to 55,516 from 36,359 in 2019. The crisis worsened in 2021, with death figures jumping to another 30 percent to 72,484. Kensington, which up until the 1950s was a bustling industrial district, is now described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as 'the poorest neighborhood in America's poorest big city' Already In the first three weeks of 2023, 35 overdose deaths have occurred in King County, Washington, according to local outlets. Pictured: A man in Seattle smokes fentanyl A surge in overdose deaths has impacted America's life expectancy - which is now shrinking. While the Covid pandemic certainly played a role, America's peer nations did not suffer this type of massive decline in life expectancy. The UK, for example, saw its average lifespan jump to 81.5 years in 2021, from 81.3 in 2019. It was also struck by Covid, but is not suffering from a surge in synthetic opioid use. America's homeless population has been among the hardest struck by the nation's fentanyl crisis. In King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, officials say the number of fentanyl deaths among the city's homeless have left morgues out of room to store bodies. 'A key indication of just how bad things are at the end of 2022 and likely to get worse [in] 2023, the medical examiner's office is now struggling with the issue of storing bodies because the fentanyl-related death toll continues to climb,' Seattle-King County Public Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan recently said. It comes amid a startling report on the number of homeless deaths in Seattle in 2022, which reached 310 by year's end. The previous record was 195 in 2018. According to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, fentanyl contributed to more than half of the deaths and many individuals had a mix of multiple drugs in their system, including cocaine and methamphetamine. The comments from Dr. Khan regarding the limited space in the morgues came during a Board of Health meeting last week. 'Obviously, they have finite space in the coolers they use, and that space is now being exceeded on a regular basis,' Khan said. The health director said the overdoses are the largest issue facing the county. On the east coast, in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, local residents describe the calamitous scene of seeing dozens of homeless people hunched over in a stupor or passed out on the streets in broad daylight as a result of drug abuse. Aria Marquez, four months, has been left orphaned after her parents Sam Marquez, 24, and Karina Rodriguez died from a fentanyl-laced cocaine overdose on Sunday Cops said the alleged drug deal ended sophomore student Victoria Jones' life prematurely, after the youngsters became acquainted at their local church 'I've never seen human beings remain in these kinds of conditions,' said Sarah Laurel, who runs Philadelphia outreach organization Savage Sisters. In recent months, drug dealers on the East Coast have started to cut fentanyl with a new cutting agent - the animal tranquilizer xylazine. The combination of fentanyl and 'tranq' has ravaged Philadelphia's homeless population. The drug has also torn through rural communities across the US too. Last year, Gasden County, Florida, suffered nine overdose deaths over July 4 weekend alone - a shock for a county of less than 45,000 residents. 'It's shaken the entire community. I feel their pain,' Morris Young, Gasden's Sherriff, said at the time. 'I'm really treating this like we had a hurricane coming into town. It means that much to me that we could lose people in such a short period of time.' Pamlico County, North Carolina, which runs along the state's east coast has also suffered a surge in fentanyl deaths. The 12,000 residents of the state suffered 10 drug overdose deaths in 2021, and an all-time high of 12 in 2020. Tim Buck, who serves as County Manager, told Kaiser Health News last year: 'Most folks know these individuals or know somebody who knows them. 'We all feel it and we hate it when our folks hurt.' The county will receive $773,000 over the next 20 years as part of settlements with opioid manufacturers for the state's ailment. But, he says this is not enough to quell the issue. 'It is not a lot of funds per year. But I'm glad we have something to try to reduce that overdose number.' Deaths caused by fentanyl include that of Sam Marquez, 24, and Karina Rodriguez, 28, of Denver, Colorado, last year. The couple died at a party, along with three others, after using cocaine laced with fentanyl. They are survived by their one-year-old daughter, Aria, who was orphaned and was present at the fatal party. 'No drug is safe right now,' Colorado District Attorney Brian Mason said at the time. Victoria Jones, 16, of Ozark, Missouri, died in September after taking an ecstasy pill laced with fentanyl. Her mother found her dead the morning of September 4. Authorities reported finding a rolled-up $20 bill and a cut blue pill on her nightstand when they arrived. Jacob Sayre, 17, is being charged with second-degree murder for allegedly selling her the fatal pill. Covid isn't over yet, but scientists fear the next pandemic is already lurking just around the corner waiting to pounce. Deadly diseases like Ebola and Nipah which kill up to 75 per cent of people they strike are two of the biggest threats. Others pathogenic hazards, which could theoretically sweep the world if given the opportunity, include bird flu, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) and the plague. UK health officials are constantly monitoring the threats around the planet, in order not to be caught off-guard. The data published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) revealed that there are 15 different diseases that account for each country's high consequence infectious disease. Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, the biggest disease threat in Argentina, was the most widely reported disease threat, accounting for a HCID disease in 60 different countries What are the world's deadliest disease threats? In its latest update, UKHSA listed 15 different lethal pathogens that pose the biggest infection threat to each country worldwide. These are: Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) Plague Marburg Junin virus Andes virus Avian influenza Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) Nipah virus Lassa fever Machupo virus Severe fever with thrombocytopaenia syndrome (SFTS) Ebola Monkeypox (Mpox) Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Lujo virus Advertisement The UK Health Security Agency's (UKHSA) list, updated this week, includes 15 of the most frightening infectious diseases. These are known as high consequence infectious diseases (HCID). For a pathogen to be given this category, it typically has a high fatality rate and requires an official organised response to ensure it is managed effectively, because symptoms are often difficult to recognise. The list breaks the data down country by country and shows if human cases have been spotted. Yet it warns that locally acquired HCIDs can re-emerge in countries where they were previously eradicated 'if the necessary transmission factors are present'. But in the same fashion, for countries where the only 'supporting evidence' of a HCID is 'human serology' - the study of blood - the true risk 'may be lower and the data should be interpreted with caution', UKHSA advised. The data was created to allow health professionals to assess the infection risk to each country. But it is also publicly available for anyone to access online. China has the most known HCIDs at seven, including three different strains of Avian influenza A, commonly known as bird flu. These were H5N1, H7N9 and H5N6. Fears of a potentially devastating bird flu pandemic were heightened last week after a 'worrisome' outbreak among mink. For decades, scientists have warned that the disease is the most likely contender for triggering the next pandemic. Experts say this is because of the threat of recombination which could see a deadly strain of bird flu merge with a transmissible seasonal flu. Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF), severe fever with thrombocytopaenia syndrome (SFTS), SARS and the plague accounted for the final four HCIDs in China. SFTS, or severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, is a disease transmitted by bites from a certain group of virus-carrying ticks. It triggers symptoms including severe fever, vomiting, and diarrhoea. Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a viral disease which is also mainly transmitted by ticks, which can prove fatal for up to 40 per cent of cases. The Ebola-like disease shares similar symptoms at the start of infection including muscle ache, abdominal pain, a sore throat and vomiting among numerous others. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease caused by a SARS-associated coronavirus. It is the earlier, more deadly cousin of SARS-COV-2, commonly known now as Covid, which first originated in China in 2002. SFTS, or severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, is a disease transmitted by bites from a certain group of virus-carrying ticks CCHF was the most widely reported disease threat, listed in 60 different countries including Afghanistan, Argentina, Croatia and Portugal. Among the rarest HCIDs reported included Lassa fever, a rodent-borne disease, in 13 countries, Marburg in seven, the original clade of monkeypox (Mpox) in five and Lujo virus in just one - Zambia. People usually become infected with Lassa fever after exposure to food or household items contaminated with urine or faeces of infected rats. But the virus, which can make women bleed from their vagina and trigger seizures, can also be transmitted via bodily fluids. A deadly cousin of Ebola, Marburg kills between a quarter and 90 per cent of everyone who gets infected. Infected patients become 'ghost-like', often developing deep-set eyes and expressionless faces. This is usually accompanied by bleeding from multiple orifices including the nose, gums, eyes and vagina. Monkeypox is usually spread by infected rodents including rats, mice and even squirrels. Humans can catch the illness which comes from the same family as smallpox if they're bitten by infected animals, touch their blood, bodily fluids, or scabs, or eat wild game or bush meat. It differs starkly to the surge in cases seen last year in the UK, which predominantly infected gay men and spread through close contact. Lujo virus was first identified in 2008 after a small but severe outbreak in Africa, but little is known about the rodent-borne disease. The other seven lethal diseases mentioned on the list that pose the highest infection threat include: the plague, Ebola, Junin virus, Andes virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Nipah virus and Machupo virus. But UKHSA noted that for countries where the only 'supporting evidence' of a HCID is 'human serology' - the study of blood - the true risk 'may be lower and the data should be interpreted with caution'. Some 104 countries recorded no known HCIDs, including Australia, France, Tonga and Singapore. The UK and US both reported bird flu strain H5N1 as their only known HCID risk. Gay and bisexual men will soon no longer have to abstain from sex in order to donate blood in the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Thursday. The move comes after widespread calls from members of Congress, the American Red Cross and LGBT organizations to drop the ban put in place during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Men who had sex with another man (MSM) in the past three months, or women who had sex with one of those men, are not allowed to donate blood under current rules. This is because those men were struck hardest by America's AIDS outbreak decades ago. These rules have widely been panned as homophobic by critics. The UK and Canada lifted similar bans in recent years. Calls to lift these rules increased last year when America was facing a critical shortage of blood. The FDA will soon allow for gay and bisexual men who have had sex with another man in the past three months to donate blood, reversing rules set during the AIDS epidemic (file photo) The FDA is expected to propose the changes in the coming days, before finalizing them after a short period for public comment. Restrictions on MSM donating blood date as far back as 1983 in America. At the time, HIV and AIDS were new diseases that were running rampant among gay men, though the world did not have a strong understanding of the diseases. An increased stigma was placed on gay men during this time, and fears of HIV and AIDS entering the blood supply led to restrictions going into place. The prevalence of HIV has dropped significantly over time, though, as people are more aware of the condition now, how to prevent it, and many in the developed world now have access to technology that helps prevent transmission of the virus. Last year, a group of 22 US senators - including Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren - called for the rule to be lifted. They described it as 'discriminatory and wrong,' they wrote in a letter to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes the FDA. 'While no single solution can fully solve these challenges, the FDA has the ability to take a simple and science-based step to dramatically increase the donor base and help address this crisis,' the letter reads. '... any policy that continues to categorically single out the LGBTQ+ community is discriminatory and wrong.' Last year, a group of 22 Senators called for the FDA and HHS to lift restrictions on gay and bisexual men donating blood (file photo) Currently, any MSM who has been active in the past three months is barred from donating blood. They are removed from candidacy from a mandatory screening people fill out before donation in America. 'Given advances in blood screening and safety technology, a time-based policy for gay and bisexual men is not scientifically sound, continues to effectively exclude an entire group of people, and does not meet the urgent demands of the moment,' the letter says. An increased stigma was placed on gay men at the time, and fears of HIV and AIDS entering the blood supply led to restrictions going into place. The prevalence of HIV has dropped significantly over time, though, as people are more aware of the condition now, how to prevent it, and many in the developed world now have access to technology that helps prevent transmission of the virus. 'With increased uptake of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), which significantly reduces the likelihood that an HIV-negative individual will acquire HIV, many more gay and bisexual men are aware of their HIV status and are taking steps to eliminate their personal risk,' the Senators' letter reads. 'Instead of the current categorical deferral guidelines, we must adopt evidence-based policies focused on assessment of an individuals risk, not inaccurate and antiquated stereotypes.' Per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 15,000 Americans died of HIV or Aids in 2019, a far drop from the peak of over 40,000 deaths in the late 1980s. In 2015, the FDA and HHS revised rules to allow MSM to donate blood as long as it had been 12 months since their last sexual activity. Covid cases are in freefall across the UK despite gloomy warnings of impending 'Kraken' chaos. Top statisticians estimate close to 1.1million Brits were infected with the virus on any given day last week. This was down by 39 per cent on the week before, marking the lowest toll since late November, according to the Office for National Statistics. Michelle Bowen, head of health surveillance dissemination and strategy at the ONS, said: 'The picture is generally a positive one.' Top statisticians estimate close to 1.1million Brits were infected with the virus on any given day last week. This was down by 39 per cent on the week before, marking the lowest toll since late November, according to the Office for National Statistics The agency tasked with tracking the coronavirus across Britain will 'continue to monitor the data closely'. Today's surveillance data flies in the face of concerns that the XBB.1.5 variant would drive a resurgence that cripples the NHS even further. Health advisers described the 'Kraken', as it is nicknamed, as the most transmissible strain yet. Some experts wanted face masks and pandemic-era restrictions brought back into British life to stifle the Omicron relative, which, they claim, burst onto the scene at the worst possible time given the NHS winter crisis and 'flu-nami'. Despite virus cases dropping, hospital admissions appear to have flattened off after being in freefall since before Christmas. NHS data tracking Covid patients, which can include people who just so happen to test positive and aren't primarily ill, can lag behind the true state of play. Estimates derived by the ONS, released every week, include test samples from over 100,000 people in private households. It marks the only accurate way of judging the state of the virus, given that free tests are no longer dished out. The latest surveillance data suggests that one in 60 people in England were infected with Covid on any day in the week ending January 17. Similar rates were seen in Scotland and Wales (both one in 55) but prevalence was twice as high in Northern Ireland (one in 30). Added together, the ONS estimated 1.1million people were infected across the UK. It was down on the 1.8m the week before, and 2.7m before that. Infections peaked at approximately 3m towards the end of December, following a pre-Christmas surge. This is below the levels reached in previous waves, however. Infections hit 4.3m last winter during the spread of the original Omicron but this was topped a few months later, when the number reached a record 4.9m. Despite the blip, advisers have warned the virus will be with society forevermore. It means further waves are inevitable. COVID DEATHS IN ENGLAND SINCE THE PANDEMIC BEGAN: Only fatalities where the coronavirus was mentioned on a death certificate will now be included in the main toll. It spells an end to using the method of counting anyone who died within 28 days of testing positive Yet health chiefs are confident that, pending the spawning of any doomsday strains, Britain won't need any return to draconian measures. This is because of the wall of immunity built up from vaccines and numerous waves, which have drastically blunted the virus and morphed it into a milder disease which closer resembles the flu. Health chiefs this week revealed they were winding down the universal Covid jab programme. It marked another step towards a post-pandemic life, with ministers instead advised to stick to targeted seasonal inoculation campaigns instead of the current 365-days a year system. Meanwhile, last night it was revealed that Britain is changing how it officially counts Covid deaths. Only fatalities where the coronavirus was mentioned on a death certificate will now be included in the main toll. It spells an end to using the method of counting anyone who died within 28 days of testing positive. The UK Health Security Agency's (UKHSA) overhaul will mean that the primary Covid death toll actually goes up by almost 4,000. But thousands fewer Covid fatalities will recorded moving forward, experts predict. An average of 142 occurred per day during the last full week of data in England with the 28-day positive test method. For comparison, 87 were logged in the same spell using the new one. The UKHSA claimed the gap between the two tallies has been steadily growing over the past year. It added the new method was a more 'reliable indicator' of the true situation 'at this stage in the pandemic'. 'With high levels of immunity in the population and Covid continuing to circulate, it is not uncommon for people who die of other causes to have a Covid infection recorded at or around the time of their death,' the agency said. 'These deaths would be reported in the "deaths within 28 days of a positive test" measure but not counted in the death registrations.' Under the latter method, clinicians registering the death decide what factors they think were to blame. This could include heart disease, dementia or Covid as primary causes. The virus itself could also be listed as a contributing factor, if the doctor decides it played a role in the victim's demise. More than half of UK adults were hit by Royal Mail delays over Christmas, according to charity Citizens Advice. Many Royal Mail workers went on strike for 18 days over the festive period. Letter volumes fell by 7 per cent in the final three months of 2022, while parcel volumes dropped by 23.6 per cent, according to Royal Mail owner International Distributions Services today. Royal Mail strikes over the festive period pushed back deliveries of many letters and parcels The charity said 31 million people had late post over Christmas. Around 6.2 million people missed important mail like health appointment letters. Eleven per cent of people missed an important document such as an insurance letter or legal document in December. A further 8 per cent said they missed a health appointment. Between mid-December 2021 and mid-January 2022, the charity found that 28 per cent of households experienced letter delays. A further 31 per cent were also left waiting for post in January 2021. The Royal Mail is exempt from its normal delivery targets over the busy Christmas period. Citizens Advice is now calling for communications regulator Ofcom to consider dropping this Christmas exemption. The charity is also pushing for the Royal Mail to stop raising the price of stamps until service improves. Citizens Advice chief executive Clare Moriarty said: 'Letter delays have real and worrying consequences, especially when people miss medical appointments or get bills late. 'Royal Mail's virtual monopoly on letters means that Ofcom needs to take action to protect consumers from further harm. It must investigate Royal Mail's culture of poor performance and stop letting the company off the hook over the festive season.' Royal Mail has been approached for comment. The average asking rent outside of London has hit a record of 1,172 per month, according to data from Rightmove, equating to a 9.7 per cent increase over 2022. It said there were still more tenants in need of homes than there were properties available, even though the number of rental homes rose 13 per cent over the year. Rightmove predicts rents will rise by another 5 per cent over 2023 unless there is a 'significant addition of available homes to rent.' It said the number of people enquiring about a rental property was up by 7 per cent compared with the previous year, and up by 53 per cent compared with pre-pandemic in 2019. But the rise in available homes meant overall competition between potential tenants for properties has dropped by 6 per cent compared to January 2022, and by a third (33 per cent) compared to the September peak. Rightmove's director of property science Tim Bannister said: 'Although the fierce competition among tenants to find a home is starting to ease, it is still double the level it was back in 2019. 'Letting agents are seeing extremely high volumes of tenant enquiries and dealing with tens of potential tenants for each available property. 'Landlords will need to balance any rent rises with what tenants can afford to pay in their local area, to continue to find tenants quickly and avoid any periods where their home is empty due to tenants not being able to meet the asking rent. 'We're forecasting that the pace of annual growth will ease to around 5 per cent by the end of the year nationally, although this would still significantly exceed the average of 2 per cent that we saw during the five years before the pandemic.' In London, average asking rents accelerated in the final three months of the year, rising by 5.8 per cent. This took average asking rents for new tenants to a fresh record of 2,480 a month. This is a 15.7 per cent rise on the year before. Asking rents rose in every quarter last year but slowed in the final three months Higher rents could lead to further difficulty for those already struggling to meet the rising cost of living. Over half of private renters in poverty (51 per cent) are pulled into poverty by their housing costs, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's 2023 UK Poverty report. It said that nearly a third (29 per cent) of those in poverty now live in the private rented sector, up from 17 per cent in 1994-95. Compared with 25 years ago, the UK's private rented sector is now home to three times as many families with children, increasing from under a tenth to just over a fifth of these families, it said. Rising rents also hurt prospective first time buyers, who are unable to put money aside from a deposit as more of their income goes on their housing. The number of first-time buyers shrank by 9 per cent last year, while the average price they paid for a home rose, new figures from Yorkshire Building Society reveal. Across Great Britain the average yield - or financial return - for landlords in the final three months of 2022 was 5.7 per cent, a 0.3 per cent rise from the year before. Landlords in the North East of the country saw the highest yields, an average of 7.9 per cent, while those in London saw the least at 5.1 per cent. Former Chancellors are making headlines. George Osborne has attracted attention for efforts to seal a deal with Athens over the Elgin marbles. Nadhim Zahawi is under investigation for the handling of his tax affairs. Gordon Brown wrote a recent report on constitutional reform for Labour leader Keir Starmer. And Philip Hammond is under the spotlight over a decision to take on the chairmanship of Swiss-based crypto currency start-up firm Copper. Crypto job: Former chancellor Philip Hammond is under the spotlight over his decision to take on the chairmanship of Swiss-based crypto currency start-up firm Copper He has declared a small stake. Hammond is in good company, since investors include Barclays and billionaire hedge fund entrepreneur Alan Howard. Hammond says the firm based itself in Switzerland because the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) , has been slow to approve registration. He fears the UK is in danger of losing out to Europe and other centres in the fintech-crypto space because of its caution. Maybe. But a timely report from the Treasury Select Committee suggests there is good reason to keep the brakes on. Some 85 per cent of crypto firms who applied to the FCA for some kind of registration were unable to demonstrate they have the systems and standards under its anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing laws. It found key personnel lacked the knowledge, skills and experience to carry out their roles and controls effectively. No one will doubt that Hammond, an effective Chancellor who kept the public finances on a sound footing, will bring all kinds of governance and judgement skills to his new job. More questionable, however, is the whole credibility of crypto. From the mysteries and power consumption of bitcoin mining to the alleged fraud at FTX and bankruptcies in the industry, its credentials have been seriously undermined. Crypto firms have much to teach traditional finance. The blockchain or distributed ledger is widely praised. Nevertheless, the transparency it is said to provide failed to save the day at FTX and offered new opportunity for hiding stuff. As matters stand, the bitcoin and crypto markets are highly volatile and an unsafe space. After falling 60 per cent last year, bitcoin has surged nearly 40 per cent in 2023 and some crypto exchange traded funds (ETFs) have jumped more than 80 per cent. Crypto is a market for speculators and rogues. The FCA is right to give it the cold shoulder. Banks and hedge funds can afford the odd side bet but former finance ministers need to preserve their greatest asset. There is nothing more important than a good name. Down the hatch Under the leadership of Ivan Menezes, Diageo has been transformed. North America is the star with the share of the spirits market climbing from 36 per cent pre-pandemic to 44 per cent now, a performance the taciturn Sir Ivan describes as amazing. There has been much focus recently on excursions into the new areas with Casamigos Tequila, bought from George Clooney and others, among the big winners. Diageo also has added bourbons such as Bulleit to its portfolio. The real stars are its core brands. Guinness at 4-plus a pint is the British Isles top beer tipple. Johnnie Walker is delivering. Diageos greatest skill has been to encourage its whisky drinkers to move upmarket with Black Label and even Blue Label in great demand. It has conquered the US in a way that few British companies manage, boosting our cash exports. But a slowdown in sales growth in the first half of the current year disappointed and the shares suffered a setback. Dont expect this to dampen its spirits as it continues to add boutique brands to a luxury portfolio. New clothes Provident Financial, the 140-year-old doorstep lender, was in a parlous state when Malcolm Le May took over five years ago. It was under regulatory scrutiny and an alumni, John van Kuffeler, had launched an audacious takeover bid. With the help of FCA and this paper the assault was repelled. Le May is standing down and the Provvy, shorn of its doorstep lending, has rebuilt itself through the Vanquis credit card for the less well-off. It is a pity when traditional names vanish. But in this case the rebuild as Vanquis Banking Group may be just as well. Natwest will axe 23 more bank branches before June in another blow to bank customers who rely on over-the-counter services. The move by the state-backed firm run by chief executive Alison Rose is on top of the 43 branches it had already planned to shut. And it brings the total number of branch closures by banks this year to 263. Since 2015, banks have axed 5,201 sites 53 per cent of all branches according to analysis from the consumer rights group Which?. Closures: Natwest, run by chief exec Alison Rose (pictured) will axe 23 more bank branches before June Last year 662 closed, it found. Barclays shut the most 184. Many towns and villages no longer have a bank branch, leaving communities without access to cash and basic banking services. Critics have lambasted the banks for leaving older and vulnerable people without a financial lifeline. Caroline Abrahams, of charity Age UK, said that it would be a particularly serious blow for the millions of older people who rely on bank branches due to a lack of confidence with mobile banking. She said: The scale of the bank branch cull over recent years just seems to be getting worse. With about 2.5m older people reliant on cash and the Government legislating to protect access, its always disappointing to see services slashed and people being left unable to manage their money. The majority of the closures announced by NatWest are in southern England, with three in Kent and three in West Sussex. The most northerly branch to close is Heslington in North Yorkshire, and the most southerly is Torquay in Devon. It comes less than a week after Lloyds said it will shut 40 branches across England and Wales between April and June. HSBC is due to close 114 sites this year, Barclays will axe 26 branches, and Santander will shut five. According to Which? there were 9,869 bank branches in 2015. But since then banks have shut, or announced plans to close, 5,464 of those locations. It means more than half of all branches have vanished, with lenders blaming a shift to mobile and online banking as the reason for axing their network. Meanwhile, the number of cash machines across Britain fell by 1,294 last year to 51,253. Despite that, withdrawals were up for the first time in more than a decade. A total of 83billion was taken out from ATMs in 2022, compared with 79billion in 2021, according to data from cash machine network Link. Experts suggest people are turning to cash to help them manage their finances better during the cost of living crisis. A blazing row has broken out between Wise and money-transferring newcomer Atlantic Money over pricing. Wise, which offers international transfers, publishes an exchange rate comparison, showing customers the cheapest options. But the company, one of the UK's largest fintech companies which was valued at nearly 9billion in its 2021 London listing, last week booted Atlantic off its list. Wise, which offers international transfers, publishes an exchange rate comparison, showing customers the cheapest options Atlantic claims this was because its rates were more competitive. It has written to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regulator to accuse Wise of 'poorly managed conflicts of interest' and 'anti-competitive conduct'. Atlantic launched in the UK last year and was founded by Neeraj Baid and Patrick Kavanagh. It wants the CMA to look at Wise's management of comparison sites, said to include 30 separate sites. Wise said: 'We removed Atlantic for a number of operational reasons, including queries received from customers about their business. We take compliance with all applicable laws very seriously.' The CMA declined to comment. More than 4,000 Asda staff are facing pay cuts while hundreds more have seen their jobs put at risk amid a major shake-up. The grocer is axing staff in its 23 in-store Post Office branches by a fifth and reducing the opening hours at four sites. It is also closing seven of its 254 pharmacies, which will see 14 pharmacists jobs cut. Cuts: Asda is axing staff in its 23 in-store Post Office branches by a fifth and reducing the opening hours at four sites. It is also closing seven of its 254 pharmacies And it is moving 4,137 hourly workers from its overnight shifts for which they are paid a premium to less lucrative day shifts. As part of the change, 211 night shift manager roles will also be cut. The four affected post offices are in Livingston, Edinburgh, Plymouth and Tweedmouth. The pharmacies being closed are in Southampton, Seaham, Feltham, Blackburn, Adel, West Bradford and Weston-super-Mare. The grocer said the overhaul is aimed at improving the customer experience. Retail director Ken Towle said: Retail is evolving at pace and it is vital we review changing customer preferences, along with our own ways of working, to ensure we are operating as efficiently as possible, so that we can continue to invest and grow our business. We are entering a period of consultation with our colleagues on these proposals. The changes mean frozen, tinned goods and dried pasta aisles will not be restocked at night at 184 smaller stores, with workers doing so during the day instead. Rivals Lidl and Aldi already have staff restocking shelves during the day. And last year Tesco unveiled plans to remove overnight stocking from more than a 100 stores, risking up to 1,600 jobs. Asda said the changes would help it drive sustainable growth at a time when supermarkets are under pressure from soaring costs and declining household income. The London Stock Exchanges decline over the past 25 years has been breathtaking and British stocks are no longer seen as must-own assets, a damning report has found. The Investor Forum, which represents shareholders with more than 680billion in UK equities including US giant Blackrock and Norways sovereign wealth fund, warned in its annual review that the UK market needs reform. It said the UK has been hampered by disagreements over executive pay, the ESG agenda and box ticking on corporate governance. Decline: The Investor Forum, which represents shareholders with more than 680bn in UK equities, warned in its annual review that the UK market needs reform The Investor Forum, which represents shareholders with more than 680billion in UK equities warned in its annual review that the UK market needs reform. Boards, investors and regulators must do more to attract investment, it said. Executive director Andy Griffiths said: The declining relevance of UK equity markets over the last 25 years has been breathtaking. 'It is crucial the focus of reform recognises the global nature of financing and seeks to create an environment in which UK-listed companies can again thrive. 'We cant simply hope for a better outcome. Practical steps are needed from companies, investors and regulators if we are to create a vibrant marketplace to attract capital. It comes as the Government works with regulators and the stock exchange to improve rules governing British markets, and develop businesses from start-ups to a point where they would list. When will you get your state pension? Experts warn some workers may have to wait till they are 74... read our guide to find out how a new report affects you Nearly 80 years after the Holocaust, a man who hid from the Nazis when he was a young boy visited the home in Brussels where he secretly hid with his mother. David Rossler, now 83, was five-years-old when his mother Haja Sura Zoltak was hidden by the Bourlet family, Georges Bourlet and his four children: Paul, Jacques, Anne-Marie and Christiane. David met up with the descendants of the Bourlet family and visited his former safe haven. The extraordinary meeting - that took place two months ago -would not have happened if it weren't for the persistence of David's son, Lionel, 55. Lionel spent years trying to find the family who saved his father and grandmother to no avail. It had become a race against time. His father's health was declining rapidly and he was concerned that he would never be able to thank his saviors family in person. Until a genealogist from MyHeritage.com responded to his social media. Lionel was elated to grant his father his lifelong wish. L-R back: Bernard Moens, Anne Moens, Pascale MoensL-R front: Christine Moens, David Rossler, Xavier Dedoncker 'Well, hello everybody,' David said to the grandchildren of George Bourlet: Anne, Pascale, Bernard and Christine Moens, and Xavier Dedoncker,' who were eagerly waiting to greet him. As he looked at the house - the towering three-story home with its large windows and wrought iron balconies - that looked almost the same as he remembered - he was overcome with emotion. Suddenly more than seven decades of memories came rushing back. 'It's been 80 years since I last saw this house,' he said with great emotion. 'It's not just a good deed it's risking your life- pure and simple.' 'I was there when the tanks came from the side,' he said pointing upwards. 'When the Allies liberated Brussels. On the second floor was my father,' he said standing on the home's walking path. When he walked inside, he started to point out things he remembered. 'In the corner of the room, there was a radio set. The radio on which we heard of the liberation of Brussels, and everything.' 'You couldn't go 100 meters in the city without meeting the Germans.' He then spoke about the courageous and compassionate people who risked their lives to save others during World War II. 'It's not often said ... people who protected Jews were simply risking their lives. You wouldn't end up in jail, but in Auschwitz ... and in Auschwitz, you didn't end up anywhere but in the crematoria,' he said. One of those truly remarkable human beings was his surrogate father Georges Bourlet. He shared how he managed to keep him, and his mother hidden from the Germans. 'Mr. Bourlet, who worked in an administrative position, in reality he would leave in the morning and come back in the evening. There was nothing unusual about it,' David said. 'And then we learned that for almost a month he did not go to work. He would go to the local cafe. He wasn't drinking alcohol, but he spent his time in the cafe so that he wouldn't be seen and then he would go back home,' David wept. 'Because he was afraid that he had been denounced as having Jews hidden in his home.' The home in Brussels where David lived in secret with his mother Haja Sura Zoltak (also known as Sabine) after they were rescued by the Bourlet family Lionel Rossler, 55, spent years looking for the Bourlet family with no success until 2022 when he took to social media and a genealogist from MyHeritage told him she 'believed she could help.' He expressed how grateful he was to Marie and to MyHeritage 'for making it possible' A photo of a young David with his father. According to MyHeritage, David's father was not arrested like his brother and father. He went into hiding and later became ill and died Lionel explained that Georges never revealed to his family, what he was doing, and it was only after the war that he told his grandmother and his father what he did for them. 'Because of his heroic action, Georges was able to save the lives of my father and grandmother,' Lionel said. 'Nine people were saved thanks to what he did; my brother, myself and our children would not be here today if not for his courage and kindness.' Lionel said his father was born David Langa in 1938. The family lived in Brussels when the persecution of the Jewish community began. He said and his family moved several times over the course of the war. His grandfather and uncle were arrested by the Nazis during a raid deported and then taken to Auschwitz - never to be seen again. His father who was hiding elsewhere, later became ill and died. David and his mother hid in a shelter in a Catholic convent in Brussels; but then, the convent was raided. With the help of Mother Superior they were able to escape. Mother Superior was later granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations. After their evacuation from the convent, David and his mother were taken in by the Bourlet family, who was believed to have some connection with the convent. The mother and son secretly lived in the home located in Auderghem, an area in Brussels, during the spring and summer of 1944, until the liberation of Brussels in 1945. Lionel said the children of Mr. Bourlet were like brothers and sisters to his father. 'They took good care of him, entertaining him with stories and keeping him busy while he couldnt venture out of course,' he said. 'They even told him where to go and what to do if he had to escape.' After the war, David's mother remarried, and his father took the last name of his stepfather, who was a survivor of Auschwitz. He said the family moved to Austria and then lost touch with the Bourlet family. A photo of the Bourlet family located in Auderghen, Brussels taken sometime in the 1930s or 1940s. After Marie Cappart, the genealogist for MyHeritage.com, connected with Lionel on Facebook, she started her research, browsing records and cross-referencing data. She found Ann-Marie Bourlet born in Auderghem in 1929 and then learned that Anne-Marie married someone with the surname Dedoncker and had five children, all of them still possibly alive, MyHeritage.com spokesperson Sarah Vanunu told DailyMail.com. Cappart said: 'I really felt for David's story and also the fact that it was a race against time to fulfill his last wish to find the family.' After more searching, Marie found Xavier, one of Georges Bourlet's grandsons, and managed to contact him. She learned that Xavier had heard a little about this story, and from there Cappart was able to reach out to the other descendants of Georges, including the ones who still owned the family home in Auderghem. That was when they all decided to meet at the home. Lionel expressed much gratitude to Marie and MyHeritage for 'making it possible.' 'I was able to see, with my own eyes, the place where my father was kept safe from the Germans all those years ago,' Lionel said, 'It was an incredibly emotional day and one I will never forget.' David Rossler and geneologist Marie Cappart pictured here during the reunion. Cappart helped bring the family together An undated photo of Georges Bourlet, the man who helped hide David and his mother from the Nazi's during World War II- David's grandfather and uncle were killed in Auschwitz A photo of Georges Bourlet and daughters Anne-Marie and Christiane in an undated photo Georges Bourlet frolicking in the hay with some of his children 'In Jewish tradition, there is a saying that 'He who saves one life saves all of humanity,'' Georges Bourlet saved humanity nine times over,' he said. The family plans to submit their testimony to Yad Vashem in hopes that Georges Bourlet will be recognized for his heroism and granted the title of Righteous Among the Nations. 'The cost of war, as he experienced it, was too great. We hope and pray that this message will be heard, for the sake of all those still suffering from violence.' David's remarkable story marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day today - January 27. The day remembers the victims and murder of six million Jews, two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population, and millions of others, during the Holocaust between 1933 and 1945, by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. In closing, Lionel said: 'It's important to my father for younger generations to hear his story and understand that there must be no more hate and no more war,' he said. The family of American businessman Zack Shahin, wrongfully detained in the United Arab Emirates for the last 15 years, are making a last-ditch plea to officials in Washington for his release. Shahin, 58, has been hospitalized for nearly four months to treat complications from rotting flesh on his body. A recent analysis of his health records prompted a US doctor to say Shahin could die 'within weeks' and has pushed his family's campaign to free him to new frantic heights. Earlier this week Shahin's sister-in-law, Aida Dagher, and Shahin's wife, Soha Shahin, told DailyMail.com they went to the UAE Consulate in Houston, TX after receiving no response by phone and email. The Consul General told them he was unable the accept the letter, telling them that Shahin's case did not technically fall under his 'responsibilities' at the consulate. The new mercy letter written from the entire Shahin family - Shahin's 85-year-old -mother Samia Shahin; wife Soha, 54; son Ramy, 30; daughter Meera, 25, Shahin's sister Roula Shahin and brother Hicham Shahin- share their compelling and urgent request to release their loved one. This eleventh hour letter will be delivered by Dagher alone, traveling from her home in Houston to Washington. 'My sister can no longer cope. She has been crying every day for 15 years ... totally broken mentally and psychologically,' Dagher said. Zack Shahin, 58, is serving a 53-year-prison sentence on charges of fraud, embezzlement and other financial crimes. His heartbroken family insists he is innocent and being illegally detained for crimes that are false and politically motivated The new mercy letter that Aida Dagher is hand delivering to the UAE Embassy in Washington on Friday. The letter seen here is written in Arabic Dagher said she spoke to Shahin from his hospital bed on Wednesday and said that 'he was in a bad state.' 'It breaks my heart every-time I hear his voice. He was hardly able to speak,' she said. 'His health is worsening. He is filled with liquids. It was in his abdomen a few days ago and now it is near his heart. It is so frightening.' A portion of the emotional letter reads: 'We appeal to you also on behalf of a sick man still at Rashid hospital for almost the last 3 months during which he had several surgeries that resulted in serious complications that in spite of the medical care he has been receiving might be further aggravated,' 'This family is terrified of losing Zack even without a final goodbye. Nothing was left for us to do but appeal to your Highness for a special pardon to have him released and sent back to the USA to continue with the medical treatment with the love and support of his family around hoping this will help alleviate his pain. 'We appeal to your Highness for forgiveness as God is forgiving. Your Highness.' The heartbroken family has hit numerous roadblocks in their quest to get aid for their loved one and had to do much of the work on their own. 'We asked the state department for his medical report three months ago and they said it was a long process but we managed to get the report,' Dagher said. The report they were able to obtain was reviewed by Houston-based cardiologist Dr. Sanford Lubetkin, who revealed shocking details about Shahin's deteriorating health. The doctor said two recent surgeries had resulted in complications, including an infection that has spread to his lungs. Continual bleeding is threatening Shahin's kidneys. He also developed a hernia and is also suffering from thyroid, gastro and prostate illnesses along with a multitude of neurological issues. Lubetkin sent a letter to US Secretary Antony Blinken telling the State Department that if Shahin is not returned to get care at an American hospital he will likely die in a few weeks. The letter also stated that Shahin needs spinal surgery on multiple vertebrae 'as a result of his living conditions - which he was told not to have done in the UAE due to its 'archaic techniques'. 'This patient has disease in multiple organ systems, and his long-term prognosis is dire. His overall health conditions are unacceptable at best. Mr. Shahin needs to be closely monitored and managed to avoid sudden organ failure,' Lubetkin wrote. 'I urge you to take whatever action is necessary and appropriate to facilitate a compassionate medical release so that Zack can return to Houston.' Dagher said Shahin was first admitted to Rashid hospital on October 16, 2022. She said he was discharged three days later and brought back to the Al-Awir Central Prison where he has been held for more than a decade. On October 21, 2022, he went back to the ER, and after receiving treatment was released from the hospital five days later and taken back to prison. She said on October 28, 2022, he was rushed back to the ER where he has been since. 'He told me, 'I am going to stay in prison I rather die,' Dagher said. She also revealed that if by some miracle he survives and he is sent back to prison, he may do something drastic, and go on a hunger strike, but this time, she said he would do it with no water. Dagher said other hunger strikes he has gone on was in May of 2012 for 50 days and in June 2021 for 22 days. A policeman enters Dubai's Al-Awir central prison in the United Arab Emirates, on May 21, 2020. This is the prison (pictured) where Shahin is being held, according to his family Zack Shahin pictured with his two children has been in a Dubai prison for 15 years. His son Ramy told Fox News 'they completely abandoned us they completely pushed us to the side.' 'Maybe we're not newsworthy enough for them we're not famous, we're just an ordinary family and they just left us' Zack Shahin, 58, is serving a 53-year-sentence at Al-Awir prison in Duba i, after being illegally detained for crimes that are false and politically motivated, the family say. Massive coronary disease, an infection in his lungs, rotting flesh and skin sores from a deadly pseudomonas infection he contracted via unsterile operating equipment are some of the diseases he is trying to fight. His children - Ramy, 30 and Meera, 26 - told DailyMail.com said their father is 'rotting from the inside out' and if the State Department does not intervene they will lose him. 'He is broken without much hope, and on one seems to care,' said Ramy, who was only 15 years old when his dad was jailed. He said he speaks to his father at least once a day and that it is so painful to hear him suffer so much. 'I just want to try and help my dad to get the care he needs otherwise he will die.' Three mercy letters were sent on December 6, 2022, by Shahin's family - written by Ramy, his grandma Samia Chahine (his father's mother) and Diane Foley, president and founder of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. Foley's son, James, was an American journalist kidnapped and later beheaded by members of the Islamic State in Syria in 2014. The letters had first been sent on November 21, 2022, but the family was asked to translate them to Arabic and then revise them several more times, Ramy said. The family has so far been bitterly disappointed by the State Department's response to their pleas for help. The Shahin family shared the email response they received. 'Good Afternoon Ramy, Thank you for sending this information. We are not medical experts but it is always helpful to have a more complete picture of your father's current health status,' a state department official said. 'We continue to work on your father's case and I will be sure to circle back when I have substantive updates to share.' Ramy told DailyMail.com. 'They gave me the same dry, nonchalant response I have gotten in the last three- and-a-half years,' he said. 'The sense of urgency in me is through the roof. I speak to my dad and is he is hollow and empty.' 'He is in a government hospital rotting from the inside out. He needs to come home and spend whatever amount of days he has left with his family. 'I am frustrated and upset with President Biden and the State Department and Secretary Blinken. There is lack of action and no sense of urgency to just help us out. I am calling on them to do more for my dad and bring him home. It's time.' While this back and forth was ongoing, the Shahin's were unaware the US had been negotiating the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner - who was freed from a Russian prison December 8, 2022 after the US agreed to return international arms dealer, Viktor Bout through a trade the UAE helped facilitate. 'When I submitted the mercy pleas on December 8 the State Department said that they will follow up so I thought there may be some communication with the UAE and the US but then we found out Brittney Griner was released.' He said he feels the State Department has abandoned his family and pushed them aside. 'Maybe we're not newsworthy enough for them we're not famous, we're just an ordinary family and they just left us,' he said. Son: Ramy Shahin has been fighting for his father's release. He was only 15 years-old when his father was imprisoned. 'He is broken without much hope, and on one seems to care. I just want to try and help my dad to get the care he needs otherwise he will die' Wife/Mother: Soha Shahin, 54, (pictured) and Zack Shahin married in 1991. She shared how devastated it has been without her husband as she raises their two children alone. 'My husband is dying. I am without my life partner and the love of my life,' she said. 'Please, I am begging the American government to help bring my husband home. He is an innocent man, and is in detrimental health conditions without the proper care' Daughter: Meera Shahin (pictured) almost 26, was 10-years-old when her dad was taken away from her. She has spent nearly half her life without her father Sister-in-law: Aida Dagher (pictured) makes a desperate plea for her brother-in-laws release traveling from her home in Houston to Washington on Friday to the UAE Embassy Mercy letter from Samia Chahine, Ramy's grandmother and Zack Shahin's mother Ramy's heartfelt mercy letter to the State Department. He writes, in part, 'my dad died long ago in prison. The sick old man left in his place, now rotting in your cells, is but a shadow of him.' He said the sentence his father was given has 'destroyed our entire family' Diane Foley, Founder/President of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation wrote 'Zack Shahin has already paid for any financial crimes with his 15-year-imprisonment. He now stands on the verge of paying with his life.... in short, we humbly ask for your mercy in releasing Zack Shahin to be reunited with his long-suffering family' A policeman entering Dubai's Al-Awir central prison in the United Arab Emirates, on May 21, 2020. This is the prison (pictured) where Shahin is being held, according to his family The building of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington, DC seen in this photo The UAE Consulate General in Houston seen here is where Dagher and her sister, Soha Shahin went to on Monday where they met the Consul General who told them he was unable the accept the letter due telling them that Shahin's case did not technically fall under his 'responsibilities' at the consulate Meera Shahin, now almost 26, was only ten-years-old when her dad was ripped from their family. She told DailyMail.com she has always been a daddy's girl and has been waiting for years to see her father. 'Every milestone in life I've turned to see if my dad could possibly be home. From middle school graduation, to high school graduation with missing a father daughter dance for the seniors, graduating college, and then graduating with my master's from NYU. What next?,' she said. 'I'm getting married this year and dream of having my father walk me down the aisle. However, I fear that with his current illnesses and his dire condition, he may not even make it to see that, even if he comes home,' she said. 'I am begging our government to do something urgently so we can get my dad the proper care he needs to be together again, alive and not in a body bag.' Their mother, Soha Shahin, 54, who married their father in 1991 shared how devastated it has been without her husband as she raised their two children alone. 'My husband is dying. I am without my life partner and the love of my life,' Soha said. 'Please, I am begging the American government to help bring my husband home. He is an innocent man, and is in detrimental health conditions without the proper care.' Senator Ted Cruz, who has been in touch with the Shahin family, the State Department and the UAE advocating for Mr. Shahin's release, issued a statement to DailyMail.com last week. 'It's well past time for Zack Shahin to come home and be reunited with his family. I've seen the reports about his health and hospitalization, and the undeniable fact is that he is getting worse not better,' Cruz said. 'This issue is no longer about alleged wrongdoings but basic humanitarian compassion. The Emirates are close and valuable allies, and Americans are watching closely to make sure they do the right thing.' A State Department spokesperson issued the following statement to DailyMail.com last week. 'We have no greater priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas. We take seriously our commitment to assist U.S. citizens abroad and are providing all appropriate assistance.' 'We last communicated with Mr. Shahin on January 18, and we remain in regular communication with his family. We will continue to monitor Mr. Shahin's case and health closely and provide all appropriate consular assistance. 'We have and will continue to engage with UAE authorities to ensure that Mr. Shahin receives fair treatment and appropriate medical care. We have conveyed multiple requests on behalf of his family requesting Mr. Shahin's release on health grounds.' 'Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment at this time.' Brittney Griner was released on December 8, 2022 from a Russian prison after the US reached a prisoner swap deal returning international arms dealer Viktor Bout. After President Biden gave final approval, the swap took place in the UAE James W. Foley was an American journalist and the first American citizen killed by ISIS. He was murdered by decapitation August 2014 Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped and later beheaded by members of the Islamic State in Syria in 2014, speaks to reporters outside of the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse after the announcement of the guilty verdict for Islamic State member El Shafee Elsheikh April 14, 2022 in Alexandria, Virginia Martin Lonergan, a British activist who met Shahin while he was in prison, told Fox News it as a 'dungeon' a place that is 'where you are pushed away to be forgotten about.' 'He is rotting, Longeran said. 'If you can imagine a man is dying because he's rotting they're cutting bits of Zack away, and he's dying trying to fight the infection.' He added: 'I have never in my life witnessed such injustice.' Shahin, a Lebanese-born married father of two, had joined PepsiCo as an executive in 1989 and traveled to Dubai in 1992 as a merchandising manager for the company. In 2004, he was recruited by the country's minister of finance and chairman of the Dubai Islamic Bank, Deyaar Mohammed Khalfan bin Kharbashi. Under his father's leadership - 2004 to 2008- he said the $5 million private firm became a $1.5 billion publicly traded company, and the second-largest publicly traded real estate company on the Dubai Stock Exchange. But, when power shifted in Dubai, Shahin's success became a liability. In late 2007, Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani, a political ally of the new regime and leader of a competing real estate firm, sought to recruit Shahin, who instead chose to remain with Deyaar. Ramy said after his father resigned from the bank in early March 2008, the family traveled to America for two weeks with plans to move to Houston so that he and his sister could go to university in America. But when they returned to the Middle East, he said his father had a meeting where he was taken prisoner by state security and charged with fraud, embezzlement and other financial crimes, which the family maintain, he never committed. Ramy said a mob of six men - he described as CIDs -cops in disguise - busted into their house late at night and ransacked the property. 'My father still had his suit on and was shackled from his ankles to his hands,' he said. 'My dad never did anything wrong in his life. They treated him like a serial killer.' He said he after he left their home that night, he and his family didn't know where he was for 17 days until the consulate located him in Bar Dubai prison. At one point, he said his father was out on bail and fled to Yemen in fear of his life. He said the US consulate intervened and his father was granted a passport and ticket to America. 'My dad called me and said he was waiting for his flight,' Ramy recalled. 'Then state security stormed into the airport, took my father at gunpoint and put him on a flight right back to Dubai.' His family said he was detained for 13 months before formal charges were filed against him. He was released on bail, then spent the next nine years in jail before he was finally convicted in 2017. He was sentenced to 49 years in prison, which didn't include time served. The family said the big four global accountancy firms audited Deyaar for the years Shahin was CEO and found no financial losses or evidence of the crimes he was accused. 'My dad's mind is tortured, and it's slowly destroying my mum and sister,' Ramy said. 'We aren't sure how much longer he can survive physically, and his rapidly deteriorating mental health has been diagnosed, although the UAE still doesn't recognize mental health issues.' Ramy told DailyMail.com that two human rights barristers based in the UK - Rhys Davies and Ben Keith - have been actively involved in trying to secure his father's release on a pro-bono basis for the past year, and are very committed and dedicated to his father's cause. 'Mr. Martin Lonergan, a British activist is also a key driver in all that we do on a daily basis and takes a lead role in this entire campaign,' he said. 'He has walked roughly 2000 miles from Houston, TX to Washington, DC to deliver a petition to the White House on behalf of my father.' Detained International, a British organization that provides pro bono legal services to prisoners, said Shahin is the longest-serving American white-collar prisoner overseas. In July, when President Biden supported an existing hostage recovery law, the family became a bit more hopeful. The law directs US agencies to communicate more with families of Americans unlawfully detained overseas and allow for their captors to face sanctions. But, their request for advocacy for their loved one under the law, the Levinson Act, was denied within five days. 'I think the Biden administration and the State Department should look at our case and treat it with a little more respect,' Ramy said. 'Because we haven't even been given any of that.' Human Rights Watch, Detained International and the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation are some of the human rights organizations that have been trying to raise awareness of the inhumane and appalling conditions of Shahin's imprisonment. But, the groups claim they have gotten no response from the US government. Dagher said that her family is completely consumed by their loved one's state and deteriorating health and are praying that their plea for his release will finally be granted. 'It is terrible what is happening. He is a good man. Fifteen years. Oh my god,' Dagher said. 'Day and night...we are obsessed and waiting for some glimpse of light ...from anywhere.' Late last summer, a plot of land on the edge of a small farming community in southern Russia began to fill with scores of newly dug graves of fighters killed in Ukraine. The resting places were adorned with simple wooden crosses and brightly coloured wreaths that bore the insignia of Russia's Wagner Group - a feared and secretive private army. There were around 200 graves at the site on the outskirts of Bakinskaya village in Krasnodar region when Reuters visited in late January. The news agency matched the names of at least 39 of the dead here and at three other nearby cemeteries to Russian court records, publicly available databases and social media accounts. Reuters also spoke to family, friends and lawyers of some of the dead. Graves of Russian Wagner mercenary group fighters are seen in a cemetery near the village of Bakinskaya in Krasnodar region Many of the men buried at Bakinskaya were convicts who were recruited by Wagner last year after its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, promised a pardon if prisoners survived six months at the front, this reporting showed. They included a contract killer, murderers, career criminals and people with alcohol problems. For months, Wagner has been locked in a bloody battle of attrition to take the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Western and Ukrainian officials have said it is using convicts as cannon fodder to overwhelm Ukraine's defences. Toughening sanctions on Wagner this month, White House national security spokesman John Kirby branded the group 'a criminal organisation that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses.' In a short open reply to the U.S. government, Prigozhin asked Kirby to 'please clarify what crime was committed' by Wagner. Videos and photographs of the graves first appeared on social media channels in the Krasnodar region in December. NOVEMBER 2021: Satellite images show an empty plot of land where the cemetery is now located NOVEMBER 2022: Aerial photos show three rows of graves dug on the edge of the farming community January 2023: The cemetery is now completely full of graves after scores of Wagner soldiers were killed Reuters geolocated these images to the Bakinskaya cemetery and reviewed satellite imagery of the site from Maxar Technologies and Capella Space. Satellite pictures show that the Wagner plot was empty in the summer, had three rows of graves by the end of November and was three-quarters full by early January. Virtually the entire plot was used by January 24. Local activist Vitaly Votanovsky, who took the first pictures and has documented soldiers killed in Ukraine and buried in Krasnodar region graveyards, told Reuters he observed a truck delivering bodies to the cemetery. He said gravediggers told him the bodies had come from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, close to Russia's border with Donetsk region. When Reuters visited the cemetery in January, fences and security cameras were being installed around the plot and another burial was underway. Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti published footage in early January of Prigozhin visiting the cemetery, crossing himself and laying flowers on one grave. He told local media that the men buried there had expressed a wish to be laid to rest at a Wagner chapel outside the nearby town of Goryachiy Klyuch, rather than having their bodies returned to relatives. One of the youngest, buried at the nearby Martanskaya cemetery, is Vadim Pushnya (pictured) who was imprisoned for burgling garages, a beer shop and a cement factory The birthdate on Pushnya's grave matches the date given on his social media accounts and in court records Videos and photographs of the graves first appeared on social media channels in the Krasnodar region in December The Bakinskaya plot was provided by the local authorities, he said, after the chapel ran out of space. In 2019, Reuters reported on the existence of a Wagner training camp in the village of Molkino, around 5 miles from Bakinskaya. Of the 39 convicts Reuters identified, 10 had been imprisoned for murder or manslaughter, 24 for robbery and two for grievous bodily harm. Other crimes included manufacturing or dealing in drugs and blackmail. Among the convicts were citizens of Ukraine, Moldova, and the Russian-backed breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia. Wooden markers on their graves at Bakinskaya and three nearby cemeteries show the men perished between July and December 2022, at the height of the battle for Bakhmut. One of the youngest, buried at the nearby Martanskaya cemetery, is Vadim Pushnya. He was just 25 years old when he died on November 19. Pushnya was imprisoned in 2020 for burgling garages, a beer shop and a cement factory in his hometown of Goryachiy Klyuch, close to the Wagner chapel. The birthdate on Pushnya's grave matches the date given on his social media accounts and in court records. The oldest, Fail Nabiev, was serving one-and-a-half years for burglary in Ivanovo region's Penal Colony No. 2, 200 miles northeast of Moscow, at least his second such prison spell. He had been convicted in May 2022 by a court in the picturesque tourist town of Suzdal of stealing a string trimmer and a sanding machine valued at a total of 5,500 roubles ($80) from a garage. According to his simple wooden grave marker, emblazoned with an Islamic crescent moon, Nabiev died in October, less than five months after being sentenced. He was 60. Nabiev's common-law wife, Olga Viktorova, confirmed to Reuters that Nabiev had been killed while serving with Wagner in the military campaign in Ukraine. She said that her husband had been nearing the end of his prison term, and that he had substantial credit card debts that she was now left to pay. She said she did not know that her husband had joined Wagner until after his death. Russian independent news site iStories has reported that Prigozhin visited Penal Colony No. 2 to recruit fighters in August. Reuters couldn't independently verify the report. 'He always had crazy ideas. An incorrigible optimist,' Viktorova said. Nabiev probably 'thought that he'd take a quick trip to Ukraine and earn some money.' The Kremlin, Russia's Defence Ministry and Russian prison authorities did not reply to questions for this article. The Russian government has in the past praised the 'courageous and selfless actions' of Wagner fighters. Vyacheslav Kochas (pictured), was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a St. Petersburg court for murder and armed robbery in 2020 Wooden markers on their graves at Bakinskaya and three nearby cemeteries show the men perished between July and December 2022 A chapel is seen next to the graveyard of Russian Wagner mercenary group fighters near the village of Bakinskaya Many of the men buried at Bakinskaya were convicts who were recruited by Wagner last year by its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin (pictured left) Wagner's founder Prigozhin, who also didn't comment, has said previously he is giving convicts 'a second chance at life.' Though Reuters was unable to confirm where exactly the men died, the mother of one said that her son was killed in the Donetsk region. The social media accounts of several others also indicate that they were in Ukraine prior to their deaths. Since the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine, the previously secretive Wagner and founder Prigozhin have assumed an increasingly public profile. In the past, Wagner fighters have deployed to Syria, Libya and the Central African Republic in support of Russia's allies. Prigozhin, known in Russia as 'Putin's chef' because of his Kremlin catering contracts, consistently denied any links to Wagner. Then, last September, he confirmed he founded the private army, which he described as a 'group of patriots.' Since then, Prigozhin has repeatedly visited the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, while also criticising Russia's military leadership and some senior officials, and personally spearheading a drive to recruit fighters from Russia's sprawling penal system. According to a regular report published by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, Russia's penal colony population decreased by about 8% from 353,210 in August to 324,906 in early November, the largest drop in more than a decade. The report gave no reasons for the sudden, sharp decline, which coincided with the beginning of Wagner's prison recruitment push. The Federal Penitentiary Service did not reply to detailed questions for this article. Yury Danilyuk (pictured) was sentenced in 2016 to nine years and eight months in prison on drugs charges Last month, Reuters reported that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Wagner had approximately 40,000 prisoner recruits deployed in Ukraine as of December, accounting for the vast majority of Wagner personnel in the country. Wagner has not commented on the figure or provided any information on fighter numbers. In a January 14 video message, Prigozhin described Wagner as a fully independent force with its own aircraft, tanks, rockets and artillery. It is 'probably the most experienced army that exists in the world today,' he said. Some of the convicts identified by Reuters were violent offenders who had spent much of their adult life in prison or were facing long sentences. Court papers reviewed by Reuters also portray men who had struggled with alcohol problems. The names of some others are on banking black lists, suggesting personal financial troubles. Their lives bring into bleak focus the realities of Russia's criminal underclass. Wagner founder Prigozhin in December told Russian news site RBC that he is giving convicts an opportunity 'to redeem themselves.' In January, he appeared alongside the first group of fighters to be pardoned, having survived their stints in Ukraine. A few weeks later, he wrote an open letter to the speaker of Russia's parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, asking him to criminalise any actions or publications that discredit Wagner fighters and to outlaw public disclosure of their criminal pasts. Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti published footage in early January of Prigozhin visiting the cemetery Some of the convicts identified by Reuters were violent offenders who had spent much of their adult life in prison or were facing long sentences He wrote that those 'who are risking their lives every day and dying for the Motherland are being portrayed as second-class people, stripping them of the right to atone for their guilt.' Volodin did not reply to Reuters' request for comment. Among the prisoners identified by Reuters was 43-year-old Anatoly Bodenkov. He was serving a 16-year sentence after his conviction as a contract killer, court papers show. According to a local news report on the case, in 2016 Bodenkov murdered a local real estate agent in the northern city of Kirovo-Chepetsk with a sawn-off shotgun for 400,000 roubles ($5,720). The grave marker says Bodenkov died on November 27, 2022. It doesn't say where. A second prisoner, Viktor Deshko, 40, was sentenced to 10 years for a murder in 2021, according to court documents and local media reports. He cut a woman's throat during a drunken argument over money in the forests near the mining town of Shakhty, close to the border with the Russian-controlled Donbas. Court documents describe Deshko as 'an aggressive person, given to abusing alcohol.' He was on probation at the time of the killing, having previously served three and a half years for assault with a deadly weapon. For Bodenkov and Deshko, the full names and dates of birth on the grave markers matched their social media and court records. Reuters was not able to contact friends or family of the two men, and their lawyers did not reply to requests for comment. Since the beginning of Russia's war in Ukraine, the previously secretive Wagner and founder Prigozhin have assumed an increasingly public profile Vitaly Votanovsky, who took the first pictures and has documented soldiers killed in Ukraine and buried in Krasnodar region graveyards, told Reuters he observed a truck delivering bodies to the cemetery A third man, Vyacheslav Kochas, was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a St. Petersburg court for murder and armed robbery in 2020, when he was 23. According to Russian court documents, Kochas and another man burst into the apartment of an acquaintance while drunk in an attempted robbery. He beat the acquaintance and a female victim unconscious, using an iron and a metal clothes horse. Kochas then set fire to an item of clothing and threw it at the unconscious man. Much of the apartment was gutted by the fire, and the man succumbed to his wounds two days later. Photographs of Kochas on social media show a baby-faced man. In some he is embracing an unidentified young woman. Kochas' profile on VKontakte, Russia's Facebook equivalent, now reads: 'Killed in the Donbas.' Kochas' grave marker at Bakinskaya gives his date of death as July 21, shortly after his 25th birthday and in the earliest days of Russia's push towards Bakhmut. Kochas' lawyer, Stepan Akimov, described his former client as 'a really ordinary guy' whom he said had been unfairly convicted. The last he heard from Kochas was a text message after his appeal failed, thanking Akimov for his help. Akimov learned from Reuters that his ex-client had joined Wagner. 'I can imagine, given the length of his sentence, and how young he was, it seemed to him a way to go free,' said Akimov. 'When a prisoner has a double digit sentence, here they're offering release in six months. Apparently, Vyacheslav thought this offer was a way out.' Reuters was unable to reach Kochas' surviving relatives. Russia has one of the world's largest prison populations per capita. Mark Galeotti, author of The Vory: Russia's super mafia, a book on Russia's criminal and prison cultures, says the potential appeal of Wagner to inmates is wider than just a bid for clemency. Wagner has been locked in a bloody battle of attrition to take the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region Service with Wagner, he said, offers pride and a sense of purpose to convicts with few prospects after release, people who have spent time in a prison culture suffused with 'a very strong Russian nationalist tinge.' 'Yes, this will give you the chance to get out of prison, but also it gives you the chance to actually be someone,' said Galeotti. 'This is a way in which actually Wagner can appeal to people who definitely are, or believe themselves to be, marginalised, outsiders, losers in some way in the system, and gives them the chance to think of themselves as becoming winners.' At least one of the men buried at Bakinskaya concealed their criminal record and prison time from loved ones. For over half a decade after she got married and left her hometown of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, Svitlana Holyk believed that her brother Yury Danilyuk was working somewhere in the far north of Russia. The two Ukrainian-born siblings had few living relatives and rarely spoke after Russian-backed proxies seized their home city in 2014, she said. Svitlana knew only that her brother travelled regularly for work to the Russian border city of Bryansk, 500 miles away. But while Svitlana was building a new life in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Yury was using social media to subscribe to pro-Russian groups supporting the Donbas separatist insurgency, his online activity shows. In 2016, having been out of touch for a year and a half, Yury told his sister that he had moved to Russia's Arctic north. She said his messages were short, and he said little about his life. 'I suspected then that something had happened, that he might have some troubles that he did not want to or could not talk about for some reason,' she told Reuters, speaking Ukrainian, in a telephone call from Dnipro. The city is now a major logistics hub for the Ukrainian army fighting in the Donbas, and a constant target of Russian missiles. A close friend of Yury Danilyuk spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. The friend said that Yury lied to his sister, whom he deeply loved, to avoid upsetting her with news of his imprisonment. In reality, he had been sentenced in 2016 to nine years and eight months in prison on drugs charges. The two men were incarcerated together in Krasnodar region's Penal Colony No. 6. The friend said he last spoke to Yury in September 2022 and heard later that month from other inmates that Yury had joined Wagner. Olga Romanova, a prisoners-rights activist with the Russia Behind Bars watchdog group, told Reuters that Yevgeny Prigozhin has visited Penal Colony No. 6 to recruit inmates on two separate occasions. Reuters couldn't independently verify these visits. The friend said that during his time in jail, Yury fell in with a faction of prisoners who refuse to cooperate with prison authorities on principle - a common phenomenon in Russia's penitentiary system. That meant Yury forfeited the chance of early release for good behaviour. He said Yury's decision to join Wagner was motivated by the knowledge that he would likely otherwise serve his long sentence in full. According to his grave, Yury Danilyuk died on November 30, 2022. He was 28. Danilyuk's sister, Svitlana, said she had known nothing of her brother's prison sentence, service with Wagner, and eventual death during Russia's war against the country of their birth until contacted by Reuters journalists. Holyk said: 'The fact that Yury died I learned from you. I re-read your message several times when you wrote to me. Somehow I couldn't believe it.' The inmate friend recalled Yury as a fierce patriot of his native Donbas, with a passion for cars. 'I blame it all on him not wanting to cooperate with the prison authorities,' the friend said. 'If he had agreed, he'd be alive. But he refused, so he's a fool.' A wholesale rewrite of Australia's Constitution, a $12.50 weekly 'rent' fee for home-owners and 10 Aboriginal-only seats in Parliament are at the centre of Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe's 'treaty' agenda for Australia. The Greens senator and Indigenous rights campaigner brandished a 'battle stick' during a fiery speech at an Invasion Day protest march in Melbourne on Thursday where she claimed Australian governments are waging a 'war' on Indigenous communities. 'This is a war. They are still killing us. They are still killing our babies,' Ms Thorpe said. 'What do we have to celebrate in our country?' The firebrand politician - who was outed as having a secret relationship with a former senior Rebels bikie Dean Martin late last year - has an answer for how her alleged 'war' could end. Ms Thorpe is pushing for First Nations people to have 'real power', which she says can be achieved through a treaty and then an Aboriginal-led Republic - as well as the removal of all 'racist' aspects of the Constitution. The senator has also called for better representation of Indigenous people in Parliament with 10 independent seats going towards First Nations people to help maintain their 'sovereignty'. A rewrite of Australia's Constitution, an Aboriginal-led Republic and 'real power' are just some of the changes Lidia Thorpe is pushing for after declaring there was a 'war' against Indigenous Australians Lidia Thorpe's war manifesto Australian property owners paying 'rent' tax to Indigenous groups: Based on their claim to land, the 'Pay the rent' model would see Aussie home-owners pay a weekly tax to First Nations people. One per cent of weekly wages is the level suggested by Robbie Thorpe, a veteran Aboriginal rights activist from Melbourne who ran a similar scheme in Fitzroy in the 1990s. The scheme could then be extended further to all users of the land - people having weddings or holding concerts would also be encouraged to hand over money. Mr Thorpe told media the rent scheme is 'a rational, reasonable, responsible means of reconciling 200 years of unchecked genocide, as far as I'm concerned'. The 'Pay the Rent' tax could apply to Indigenous people too. Anyone who owns property would pay because it would operate as a form of land tax. Rewrite of the Australian Constitution: Lidia Thorpe believes the Australian Constitution should be rewritten, or updated to remove all of the 'racist' aspects. She said given it was written in 1901, many aspects of life in Australia had changed. 'Lets update the Constitution to fit with this country today, because when it was written, when it was established in 1901, is very different to where it is in 2022,' she told Junkee. Treaty and an Aboriginal-led Republic: Ms Thorpe has publicly criticised the call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, saying Indigenous people deserve to be more than an 'advisory body'. She said First Nations people deserved to have 'real power', which could be achieved through a treaty. The treaty would allow First Nations people to maintain their sovereignty The senator said a Republic would allow First Nations people to 'take back what was ours in the first place and share it in a way that we know how best to do'. 'I mean our whole culture is based on sharing and caring. So a Blak Republic would ensure that everybody in this country is looked after,' she told the publication. 'Everybody in this country understands the true history of this country, understands or has some basic knowledge around how to look after the land that you are on and how we've looked after it.' 10 black seats in Parliament: Ms Thorpe said First Nations people needed to have 'real power' and representation in Parliament. 'From the federal parliament - the poisoned chalice that it is - right through the everyday streets that we walk down, we have to rid racism and heal this country, bring everyone together through a sovereign treaty,' she said at Thursday's Invasion Day rally. 'They want to put the colonial constitution on top of the oldest constitution on the planet ... we are sovereign and this is our land. And we deserve better than an advisory body. 'We have an opportunity to have a treaty that could put 10 independent Blak seats in the parliament today. We want real power and we won't settle for anything less.' Advertisement One campaign she is behind is a 'Pay the Rent' scheme that urges Australian property owners to pay a weekly 'rent' tax to Indigenous groups based on their ancestral claim to the land. Under the scheme, homeowners would voluntarily pay a percentage of their income to a body led by Aboriginal elders and administered without any government oversight or intervention. One per cent of weekly wages is the level suggested by Robbie Thorpe, a veteran Aboriginal rights activist from Melbourne who ran a similar scheme in Fitzroy in the 1990s. Government statistics from last August that say the median Australian employee's earnings were $1,250 per week. So spread evenly, all Australian wage earners could pay a median 'rent' of $12.50 a week, adding up to $650 a year. The 'Pay the Rent' tax could apply to Indigenous people too. Anyone who owns property would pay because it would operate as a form of land tax. Ms Thorpe and feminist author Clementine Ford have publicly supported the proposal. Lidia Thorpe brandished a 'battle stick' as she addressed a crowd on the steps of the Victorian Parliament on Thursday in an Invasion Day protest Ms Thorpe is supporting a 'Pay the Rent' campaign that urges Australian property owners to pay a weekly 'rent' tax to Indigenous groups based on their ancestral claim to the land 'Pay the Rent' was developed as a policy by the National Aboriginal and Islander Health Organisation (NAIHO). Pictured above, a NAIHO document 'Pay the rent from grassroots for grassroots. No strings attached to government agenda. It assists sovereign grassroots fight the many campaigns and struggles we face everyday,' Ms Thorpe said. Also in the senator's agenda is a complete rewrite of the Australian Constitution. 'Let's rewrite the Constitution, or let's take out everything that is racist in the Constitution,' she told Junkee in December. 'Let's update the Constitution to fit with this country today, because when it was written, when it was established in 1901, is very different to where it is in 2022.' Her call for a change to the Constitution stems from her desire for Indigenous Australians to have 'real power.' Ms Thorpe has publicly criticised the call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, saying Indigenous people deserve to be more than an 'advisory body' Ms Thorpe has publicly criticised the call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, saying Indigenous people deserve to be more than an 'advisory body'. Instead she is leading the push for a treaty that could see 10 seats in Parliament go to First Nations people, and lead to an Aboriginal-led 'Blak Republic'. 'From the federal parliament - the poisoned chalice that it is - right through the everyday streets that we walk down, we have to rid racism and heal this country, bring everyone together through a sovereign treaty,' she said at Thursday's rally. 'They want to put the colonial constitution on top of the oldest constitution on the planet ... we are sovereign and this is our land. And we deserve better than an advisory body. 'We have an opportunity to have a treaty that could put 10 independent Blak seats in the parliament today. We want real power and we won't settle for anything less.' When speaking to Junkee, Ms Thorpe said the Federal government was 'not about to give us real power'. 'So a treaty will negotiate real power through shared sovereignty and going to the republic, we'll have a new constitution or an updated constitution that actually has equal power with the others who say that they are sovereign, and that's the parliament here,' she said. The senator said a Republic would allow First Nations people to 'take back what was ours in the first place and share it in a way that we know how best to do'. 'I mean our whole culture is based on sharing and caring. So a Blak Republic would ensure that everybody in this country is looked after,' she told the publication. 'Everybody in this country understands the true history of this country, understands or has some basic knowledge around how to look after the land that you are on and how we've looked after it.' With growing controversy surrounding celebrating January 26, Ms Thorpe said another date should instead be put forward to honour Australia. She is hoping that date could be known as the Treaty Republic Day. The Prime Minister will update the situation in the country on Friday, January 27 at around 14 h. This is from a statement from the National Crisis Committee today. This body wishes to remind the public and citizens in general that in accordance with the Order issued under Clause 16 (2)(a) of the NDRRM Act, the public must compulsorily remain safe and not venture outside, with the exception of those authorized and hired within the NDRRM. Essential and Emergency Services. This measure has been implemented in the interest of ensuring the safety of every citizen. The National Crisis Committee, which is in constant communication with the Prime Minister, continues to monitor the situation closely and coordinate ongoing operations, emphasizes the statement. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires First lady Jill Biden coaxed President Joe Biden onstage Thursday evening at the White House during a Lunar New Year celebration to mark the conclusion of a dragon dance performance. 'Are you going to dance?' the president asked the first lady as the troupe ended their performance and there was an awkward pause. 'No, you're going to come up. ... Come on up Joe! No, you're not going to dance,' Dr. Biden replied, as the president teased he might do so. 'Believe me, you don't want to ruin the evening,' the first lady added. Dr. Biden then invited the audience to a reception and expertly walked between her husband and reporters as they shouted questions about the documents debacle and whether he'd allow the FBI to search their Rehoboth Beach home. The president touted that the White House was hosting the 'first Lunar New Year reception of this scale' during the Thursday evening affair and added that he had received California Rep. Judy Chu's blessing to hold the joyous event - in the aftermath of two mass shootings that took place in Asian-American communities. 'I spoke with Judy several days ago. I said, "Judy what should I do? Should I continue - should I be in California or should I still have this celebration?" And she felt very strongly,' the president said. 'She said we have to move forward. Her message was don't give into fear and sorrow. Don't do that. Stand in solidarity and the spirit of toughness, that's what this holiday is all about.' President Joe Biden watches the Choy Wun Lion Dance Troupe perform a dragon dance at the White House's Lunar New Year celebration Thursday evening Dr. Biden had coaxed her husband back onstage at the conclusion of the troup's performance - but jokingly told him no dancing President Joe Biden greet attendees Thursday as he departs the Lunar New Year event, but didn't answer any reporters' questions about the classified document debacle Across the country, Lunar New Year celebrations have been marked with sadness after a gunman killed 11 people in Monterey Park, California at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, after an all-day Lunar New Year festival was held in an adjacent street on Saturday. Chu represents Monterey Park in the House. The shooter, identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, then tried to kill more people at the nearby Lai Lai Ballroom, but a worker scared him off. Biden said he had called 26-year-old Brandon Tsay, who had put a stop to the rampage. The president remarked that Tsay had 'followed his courage.' 'It's pretty profound,' Biden noted. The gunman was found dead in his car of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The incident, while not racially motivated, caused security to be increased at Lunar New Year celebrations around the country - as anti-Asian sentiment has increased since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Vice President Kamala Harris brought a bouquet of flowers to a makeshift memorial outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio while visiting Monterey Park, California on Wednesday Vice President Kamala Harris looks at the makeshift memorial for shooting victims that was constructed outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California after a gunman killed 11 people on Saturday The president acknowledged the increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans during the event. 'Silence is complicity,' he told the East Room crowd. Vice President Kamala Harris, who represented California in the U.S. Senate, paid her condolences to family members in Monterey Park Wednesday. Biden noted that Harris has 'deep ties to the area' and was just getting back. Additionally, on Monday, another gunman, identified as 66-year-old Chunli Zhao, opened fire at two farms in the heavily Asian-American community. The president and first lady held a moment of silence for the victims. They then turned to the more spirited part of the program First lady Jill Biden (right) reaches out to Elaine Tso (center), CEO of Asian Services in Action, who introduced President Joe Biden (left) at the Lunar New Year event President Joe Biden cheers on a dragon dance performed by the Choy Wun Lion Dance Troupe in the White House's East Room Thursday evening President Joe Biden stood front row to watch the dragon dance, after boasting that his White House was the first to host a Lunar New Year event 'of this scale' The dancers made the dragon stand completely up during the dance and unrolled a scroll wishing health and prosperity during the new year 'Jill and I are honored to welcome you to the first Lunar New Year reception of this scale held in the White House, your home,' the president said, adding, 'Jill and I are very temporary residents in this home.' An audience member shouted back: 'Not too temporary.' 'God, love you,' the president responded back. He noted how in many Asian cultures it's the year of the rabbit, but in Vietnam it's the year of the cat, applauding the animal for being 'magestic' and its 'persistence.' 'By the way that sounds like our cat Willow,' the president remarked. 'Willow may walk in here any time now. She has no limits. You think I'm kidding - I'm not. Especially in the middle of the night when she climbs up and lays on top of my head.' He also applauded the film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, with its largely Asian cast, walked away with 11 Academy Award nominations. And while he talked about how it was a time for celebrating, he interrupted himself telling the crowd, 'no firecrackers tonight.' 'No I'm serious. I was thinking about that, you know? If things hadn't been like they've been the last couple years we should have been fireworks outside,' Biden said. 'Celebrating with firecrackers and dance - we've got dance.' The White House had the Choy Wun Lion Dance Troupe perform a dragon dance for several minutes as the president marveled from the front row. A small town desperate to pin down a doctor has offered anyone willing to take the job an annual salary package of nearly $1million and a four-bedroom house, rent-free. Quairading, in Western Australia's Wheatbelt region, is only a two-hour drive east of Perth but the country town has struggled for months to find a permanent general practitioner. The desperate town's council confirmed it would cover all running and staff costs for the practice for the right candidate, meaning the doctor could earn more than $800,000 in gross billings. There are extra government incentives for staying in the job including up to $12,000 a year if they stay for more than two years and a $23,000 if they stay longer than five years. The incentive is targeted at eligible doctors to find work in rural areas and the amount paid is linked to the how isolated and small the town the doctor practices in. The Quairading Shire (pictured, Shire Hall), east of Perth, is offering a $800,000 salary and a four bedroom house rent-free in a desperate plea to hire a GP for the town of 619 residents The rural town is one of many small towns in the Wheatbelt region struggling to find a GP with nearby Toodyay having to shut its medical office last year (pictured, Quairading) The town only has 619 residents and is the latest in a long line of communities across Australia struggling to find a doctor. Australia is in the grips of a national GP shortage, forcing some towns to shut medical centre doors. A town northwest of Quairading, Toodyay, had to shut its doctor's surgery in November last year because the town couldn't find any GPs to keep it open. 'The council will not stand by idle when the community has such a critical need,' Quairading Shire President Peter Smith told The West. 'If we don't have a doctor, we won't have a medical clinic, then we won't have a hospital, we won't have a chemist and so the demise will begin.' The shire said it would post the job offer in West Australian medical publications next week before extending it to publications on the east coast if it failed to get any interest. Only 14 per cent of Australian medical students seek out specialisation as a GP, and only 4.5 per cent of students are looking to work in a small town. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners WA Chair Dr Ramya Raman warned rural towns trying to attract doctors needed to address housing, schooling, childcare and work for a GP's partner to entice potential candidates. Dr Ramya Raman called on Australia to support rural doctors 'Supporting junior doctors to have that opportunity to trial general practice as a career option (is important)' she told the publication. 'And in addition to that, fast tracking the entry for international doctors. 'The other aspect of it is working very closely with the communities in trying to enhance the retention of these doctors.' WA shadow health minister, Libby Mettam, called on the state government - led by Premier Mark McGowan - to provide incentives for doctors to practice in rural towns. 'These concerns are backed up by the latest figures which indicate we have a below average number of GPs per population and the lowest rate in remote WA,' Ms Mettam said. 'This is a primary health concern which has implications for our hospital system when it is not addressed, as well as the economic development of our regions.' An experienced news reporter has broken down on live TV as he made a desperate plea for action to be taken on the out-of-control crime wave gripping Alice Springs. Sky News Darwin bureau chief Matt Cunningham held back back tears as he stood in front of the central Australia city's welcome sign on Friday. The respected Cunningham has been a working journalist in the Northern Territory for more than 12 years an has been Sky News' Chief Northern Australia Correspondent since 2016. 'Have a look at this place, it is the most beautiful place in the world, the heart of this country, but it's breaking at the moment,' he said. The Northern Territory community is in the grip of a spate of break-ins, robberies and violent crimes, committed primarily by youth, since alcohol bans were lifted in July. Sky News Darwin bureau chief Matt Cunningham choked back tears as he stood in front of the Alice Springs welcome sign on Friday The Northern Territory community is in the grip of a spate of break-ins, robberies and violent crimes, committed primarily by youth, since alcohol bans were lifted in July Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Tuesday temporary restrictions would be brought in for the next three months in an effort to stem the crime wave. Cunningham - the former editor of the NT News - took in a deep breath as he bravely tried to maintain his composure, saying the crimewave had been going on for too long. 'I've been reporting on this stuff for a long time,' he said. 'I see the country that cares for about five minutes and then it moves on, it doesn't care anymore. 'Maybe we've got a chance here that we are focused on this for once and maybe something will actually happen and something will change.' The issues are particularly close for Cunningham who has frequently reported on the town's problems. He covered the murder of Alena Kukla and her baby child who were killed by her partner Bernard John Alice around the same time the alcohol ban was lifted last year. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Tuesday temporary restrictions would be brought in for the next three months in an effort to stem the crime wave (pictured, resident drinking a 'hand sanitiser cocktail') Cunningham had been presenting the segment on Friday as concerns increased about the ineffectiveness of an alcohol ban (pictured, a destroyed fence as a result of uncontrollable crime in Alice Springs) Alice had a history of domestic violence and shot Ms Kukla and murdered her baby boy before he turned the gun on himself. Cunningham had been presenting the segment on Friday as concerns increased about the ineffectiveness of an alcohol ban. Some residents are expected to exploit loopholes in the ban by driving to neighbouring towns to pick up alcohol. There are also fears there are too few liquor inspectors to enforce the ban. Alice Springs locals were quick to mock Anthony Albanese as the 'fly-in fly-out' or 'FIFO' PM after his whirlwind visit to the troubled community on Tuesday. After the visit lasting just a few hours, Mr Albanese was accused of failing to get any in-depth appreciation of the increasing anarchy on the city's streets. After the visit lasting just a few hours, Mr Albanese was accused of failing to get any in-depth appreciation of the increasing anarchy on the city's streets (pictured, a fight in a car park on the same day Mr Albanese flew into Alice Springs) A Northern Territory homeowner released CCTV footage after his house was broken into this month Crime and lawlessness in the iconic Outback city entered the national spotlight this week amid reports up to 200 children roam the streets at night, breaking into homes and businesses and stealing and burnings cars. According to videos posted on the Action for Alice Facebook page, the PM's visit coincided with a stabbing in the Coles-Liquorland car park, and open drinking of a 'hand sanitiser cocktail' by a woman in front of children on a main street. One person posted a picture of the jet stream of the PM's plane, writing 'Albo leaving 5 mins after the press conference', which prompted the response: 'Albo loves his jets. He's never out of them.' Another joked 'what was the John Denver song ... I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again', and one person questioned if 'Albo and the rest of the fly in fly outs' saw the ambulances gathered for an emergency on the town's main street. Others posted 'Did any of them visit business owners in town' and 'word is he was only in town 2 hours then gone'. The Harvard-educated banker had just filed for divorce. He is shown in a photo from his LinkedIn page A Connecticut financier who jumped to his death from the roof of a Times Square bar on Wednesday evening had filed for divorce the day before and had explosive rows about money several years ago, it has emerged. Dale Cheney, 46, threw himself from the 54th-floor bar above the Hyatt hotel - the second person to take their own life from the bar in three months. Cheney, the father of three adult children, lived with his wife Lauren, 44, in a $3.8 million house in New Canaan, Connecticut. But on Thursday it emerged that he had filed for divorce the day before his suicide, and had such significant money problems police were called to the house amid rows. Dale Cheney, 46, committed suicide on Wednesday at 6.30pm, leaping from Bar 54 (pictured) at the Hyatt Centric in Times Square Cheney is the second person to take their own life from the bar in three months. In October, aspiring model Elizabeth Gaglewski, 26, took her own life at the same bar An NYPD source told The New York Post that they were called twice in 2008 to the Upper East Side apartment where he was living at the time. They were called for domestic disturbances, which they noted were about money. Cheney moved out of Manhattan, to Connecticut, in 2010, property records show. They bought their home in 2018 for $1.6 million. Lauren Cheney was not at the property on Thursday, the paper reported. Cheney was a respected money manager, who was a board member and investor at six different companies in four states, according to his LinkedIn page. Cheney previously lived at this Upper East Side building. Police were twice called in 2008, amid domestic disturbances centered on money Cheney's sprawling home in New Canaan, Connecticut. The property is worth an estimated $3.5million The Harvard-educated financier had a Master's in business administration. From 2005 to 2007 he worked at Goldman Sachs, before moving to work as an investment principal at Citicorp Venture Capital. Cheney founded T-street Capital in 2013 in Darien, Connecticut. The company describes itself as 'an independent growth equity firm that works in partnership with founders and management teams to grow their businesses through a combination of capital investment, acquisitions, and other opportunistic and strategic initiatives.' In June 2019, T-street announced that it had closed a deal that raised $75 million for a new fund, 'to continue its focus on growth equity investments.' Cheney's family is yet to comment on his death. The bar said in a statement that it was 'truly heartbroken', but it is yet to confirm if it will make any changes to its outdoor deck to prevent any additional suicides. 'We are truly heartbroken at the situation that occurred this evening outside our rooftop bar, and we are keeping the victim's family and friends in our thoughts and hearts,' said Tom Bundell, general manager. In October, 26-year-old Elizabeth Gaglewski jumped to her death from the same bar In October, aspiring model Elizabeth Gaglewski, 26, took her own life at the same bar. They added that she had 'struggled to cope' after the death of her father, and had suffered with depression. She landed on a 27th-floor balcony but did not survive. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. Horrendous footage has captured the moment a little boy was struck by lightning while enjoying a family day out at the beach. The boy - believed to be aged eight - was hit by the strike at Barrack Point in Shellharbour on the NSW south coast at 5.30pm on Thursday. A video shows the boy walking out into the water with his parents and younger brother. Moments later lightning strikes and he suddenly crumples. It is understood the boy is English with his family only arriving in Australia a week ago. A young boy - believed to be aged eight - was hit by lightning (above) at Barrack Point on NSW's south coast on Thursday The boy was rushed to The Children's Hospital at Westmead and is in a critical but stable condition. 'It was just like a shock out of nowhere and at the time I looked out to the inlet and everyone was unaware of what had occurred,' a witness Simon Young told 9News. 'A young child just fell to the ground in the water and his family and siblings ran to his aid to grab him as fast as possible.' A witness said they heard the lightning strike before turning around to see the injured boy being cradled by his parents. Intensive care paramedic Terry Morrow said the boy was pulled from the water by surf lifesavers. The young boy (circled above) was pulled from the ocean by lifesavers and is in a critical but stable condition Paramedics were able to resuscitate the boy at the scene (above) before he was rushed to The Children's Hospital at Westmead 'When paramedics arrived, they took over and were able to resuscitate the boy,' said Inspector Morrow. 'The actions of those lifesavers played a crucial role in the boy's resuscitation. 'The child also had burns across his chest which were treated on scene by paramedics and the critical care medical team who arrived via the Toll Ambulance Rescue Helicopter. 'While this is a rare and unfortunate incident, it is a reminder that when there are electrical storms in the area you should avoid being in bodies of water and that indoors is the safest place to be.' Parts of NSW including the Greater Wollongong area were impacted by severe thunderstorm cells on Thursday afternoon. Other storms impacted the Greater Sydney area including parts of Western Sydney and the Northern Beaches. Witnesses have described the terrifying moment a young boy went into cardiac arrest after a lightning bolt struck him while swimming at a NSW beach. The eight-year-old boy was badly burnt across his chest by the strike at Warilla Beach in Shellharbour on the NSW south coast around 5.30pm on Thursday. Lifeguards dragged him from the water and gave him CPR for 30 minutes, along with an off-duty doctor, as they fought to save his life before paramedics arrived. 'People were yelling and screaming for help, the lifeguards rushed to the assistance of the young man, he was in full cardiac arrest, unconscious and unresponsive,' said intensive care paramedic Terry Morrow. 'He did have burns to his chest from the electrical conduction that went through his body. It is rare you get somebody electrocuted while they're in the water. 'When the ambulance officers arrived they continued to do resuscitation and got a heartbeat back.' The boy is believed to be English and his family had only landed in Australia a week ago. He was hit by the lightning just moments after they arrived at the beach. The eight-year-old boy was badly burnt across his chest by the strike at Warilla Beach in Shellharbour on the NSW south coast around 5.30pm on Thursday 'I heard the mum and obviously the dad there, saying "Help, help". They were trying to resuscitate him,' said witness Mohammed Sohel. 'It was bad.' Beachgoers revealed the storm struck suddenly without warning before anyone could take shelter. 'It was so unexpected,' beachgoer Jaymee Atkinson told Daily Mail Australia. 'There were hardly any clouds in the sky and no signs of a storm. 'I was further down the beach but I was facing that way when all of a sudden there was this vertical lightning bolt, it was so loud and so quick, it scared everybody. 'It was that loud the kids started to scatter back up to the tents because they were scared. It even made us adults jump. The boy is believed to be English and it's understood his family had only arrived in Australia a week ago Beachgoer Jaymee Atkinson revealed the storm struck suddenly without warning before anyone could take shelter 'Reports of the boy seem good this morning - hes still alive. Thats all that matters.' She added: 'It is so amazing he is still alive because it was that big, its a miracle! Not many people live to tell that story.' 'Its so unfortunate. Its a total freak accident. No one couldve ever seen this coming in a million years. 'It was such a good day for everyone that was at that beach until then. 'Everyone was having so much fun and everyone was laughing and enjoying themselves. 'The Illawarra storm chasers said it was a genuine bolt from the blue.' Steve Pearce, chief executive of Surf Life Saving New South Wales, revealed the lifeguards' desperate battle to save the child's life. Steve Pearce (pictured), chief executive of Surf Life Saving New South Wales, revealed the lifeguards' desperate battle to save the child's life 'Unfortunately the young boy was struck by lightning in the surf,' he told ABC 24. 'He very visibly had burns from the lightning strike. 'Shellharbour lifeguards were on the scene in 30 seconds. They pulled the boy out and did CPR for 30 minutes. 'If it wasn't for the actions of the lifeguards, it would've been much more of a terrible outcome. 'The lifeguards were able to go to his assistance straightaway and started performing life-saving CPR until the paramedics and doctors could arrive.' Witness Mohammed Sohel (pictured) described the terrifying moment a young boy went into cardiac arrest after a lightning bolt struck him while swimming at a NSW beach Paramedics and a critical care medical team performed CPR on the boy and treated him for burns to his chest while at the scene. An air ambulance helicopter ferried a doctor to the scene but the worsening storm prevented the child from being airlifted to hospital. He was taken to Westmead Children's Hospital by road in an ambulance in a critical but stable condition. Parts of NSW including the Greater Wollongong area were impacted by severe thunderstorm cells on Thursday afternoon. Other storms impacted the Greater Sydney area including parts of Western Sydney and the Northern Beaches. Nadhim Zahawi faced pressure last night to disclose who supplied 30million in unsecured loans to his wifes company. The loans were made to a business called Zahawi and Zahawi, and reportedly used to fund part of a large property portfolio including commercial and retail units in Birmingham, Brighton, London and Walton-on-Thames in Surrey. Zahawi and Zahawi was owned jointly by the MP and his wife Lana Saib until he transferred his shares to her when he became a minister in 2018. The loans are declared in company accounts from 2017 to 2021 but there is no information about their source. Nadhim Zahawi, pictured Wednesday, faced pressure last night to disclose who supplied 30million in unsecured loans to his wifes company Dan Neidle, a tax lawyer and founder of the Tax Policy Associates think-tank which has investigated Mr Zahawis finances, told The Guardian: The fact that an MPs family can receive 30million of unsecured loans I find incredible. 'Those loans could be from Elvis for all we know. But it is a fact that a person or persons unknown has loaned the Zahawi family 30million and we dont get to know who. A spokesman for Mr Zahawi told the paper he had stood down from all of his outside interests upon becoming a minister, in line with the ministerial code. Zahawi and Zahawi was owned jointly by the MP and his wife Lana Saib until he transferred his shares to her when he became a minister in 2018 The spokesman referred to a previous statement, in which the Tory party chairman said: I welcome the Prime Ministers referral of this matter to the independent adviser on ministerial standards. 'I look forward to explaining the facts of this issue to Sir Laurie Magnus and his team. I am confident I acted properly throughout and look forward to answering any and all specific questions. The order comes hours after the five former Memphis Police officers were charged in connection to the death of Tyre Nichols 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops will be mobilized as needed The order is in response to ongoing protests over a police training facility The governor of Georgia on Thursday issued a state of emergency order over continued protests in connection to a proposed Atlanta police training facility. The order from Governor Brian Kemp will last 15 days and includes the mobilization of 1,000 Georgia National Guards troops. This comes a week after 26-year-old Manuel Teran, a protestor, allegedly shot a state trooper before gunfire was returned and he was killed. The trooper is expected to survive. 'Georgians respect peaceful protest, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property,' the state of emergency issued Thursday reads. Protests have been going on for months in connection to the proposed Atlanta Police Training Facility which has been dubbed 'Cop City' Several days ago, the Republican governor spoke with Fox Business about the training facility, calling it a 'little bit controversial.' 'There have been some folks that are environmental protestors, most of that group has been peaceful. But some domestic terrorists, anarchists - whatever you want to call them - you know, really have been damaging property, assaulting workers, state employees and other people,' Kemp said. The protests are over the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, dubbed 'Cop City.' On January 21, six people were arrested after protests turned violent in the city. Protestors began damaging property and even set a police cruiser on fire. In his order, Kemp specifically mentioned the burnt car. 'Masked activists threw rocks, launched fireworks and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation office building,' the declaration read. 'Georgians respect peaceful protests, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property,' it continued. At the time, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said some in attendance were found with explosives. Protests took a violent turn last week when one protestor was shot and killed after shooting at Georgia State Troopers A protester is detained during demonstrations related to the death of Manuel Teran 26-year-old Manuel Teran, a protestor, allegedly shot a state trooper before gunfire was returned and he was killed Protestors began damaging property and even set a police cruiser on fire. In his order, Kemp specifically mentioned the burnt car The order, issued by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, will last 15 days Protestors have been at the site for months but turned deadly on January 18 when Teran shot at Georgia State Troopers. The trooper's identity is not being revealed over safety concerns. The state of emergency order signed Thursday 'grants the Governor authority to empower the Georgia National Guard to subdue riot and unlawful assembly.' In a statement, the Atlanta Police Department said they are 'closely monitoring' the Memphis situation and are preparing for protests in their own city. 'We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols,' the department wrote in part. 'Police officers are expected to conduct themselves in a compassionate, competent, and constitutional manner and these officers failed Tyre, their communities and their profession. We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful,' the statement read. This was the scene in Atlanta on January 21 Violent protestors clashed with police and law enforcement downtown The order signed by Kemp mobilizes up to 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops Protestors hold signs during demonstrations related to the death of Manuel Teran who was killed during a police raid inside Weelaunee People's Park Early Thursday morning, the five fired Memphis police officers were charged on Thursday with second-degree murder over the death of Tyre Nichols - who died three days after being beaten during a January 7 traffic stop. Demetrius Haley, Tadarrius Bean, Desmond Mills, Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith are now in custody. In addition to second-degree murder, the five were also charged with aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct, and official oppression. On Thursday afternoon DA Steve Mulroy briefed the press, saying his team had moved 'swiftly, but also fairly' to review the case that led to the charges against the five officers. He added that the police bodycam footage of the incident will be released sometime after 6pm Central Time on Friday. Second-degree murder, described by the Memphis District Attorney as a 'knowing murder,' is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Tyre Nichols is pictured in hospital after the incident. The 29-year-old from Memphis died on January 10 from cardiac arrest and kidney failure, three days after he was pulled over for reckless driving by police in unmarked cars This combo of booking images provided by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office shows, from top row from left, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, bottom row from left, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. The five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop, records showed Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023 This portrait of Tyre Nichols was displayed at a memorial service for him on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. Family Attorney Ben Crump said police bodycam footage showed Nichols being shocked, pepper sprayed and restrained after he was pulled over minutes away from his home LaRay Honeycutt, center, along with family members attend a memorial service for her grandson Tyre Nichols, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023, in Memphis, Tennessee All five former cops were detained on bonds of up to $350,000. Court records don't list attorneys for Smith, Bean or Haley. Martin's lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mills' lawyer, Blake Ballin, said they planned to discuss the charges at a news conference later Thursday. Nichols, a 29-year-old FedEx driver, was pulled over on January 7 by the Memphis police for what was initially reported as reckless driving. That interaction led to a violent confrontation that put him in the hospital, where he would die three days later (January 10) due to 'extensive bleeding caused by a severe beating,' according to preliminary results of an autopsy commissioned by attorneys for his family. He reportedly suffered cardiac arrest and kidney failure following the allegedly brutal interaction with the officers. A crowd has pelted police with bottles, bricks and rocks in two ugly clashes resulting in several arrests to end Australia Day celebrations. Rioters unleashed on authorities at Perth's main train station around 10pm on Thursday night and again in Moore Street in the city's east after 1am on Friday morning. The unrest followed an anti-Australia Day rally attended by more than 1,000 protesters held near the CBD station. One of the rioters brandished a tomahawk during the intense stand-off, police said. The vision showed officers standing out on the street as rioters abused police (pictured) Footage of the first disturbance was posted to social media showing police running with protective gear towards protesters before retreating (pictured) Authorities at the first disturbance were up against a crowd of 150 people who battered officers with rocks and bottles. Police were reportedly trying to disperse two large groups who had been fighting. Footage was posted to social media showing officers running with protective gear towards protesters before retreating. The vision also showed police standing out on the street as rioters shouted abuse. Video taken by 7News crews showed police wearing helmets and riot gear as officers tried to control the crowds. No injuries were reported but several arrests were made. Protesters later threw bricks and broken pavers at police in Moore Street, east Perth near McIver train station at 1.20am the next day. Authorities were attempting to disperse the crowd when the rioters launched the projectiles at police. Two officers were sent to hospital after being hurt in the second brawl, one with a shoulder injury and the other with a head wound (pictured, officers attempting to disperse crowds during the riots) Two officers were sent to hospital after being hurt in the brawl, one with a shoulder injury and the other with a head wound. WA Police Senior Sergeant Adrian Fuller told ABC the safety of the public and police were put at risk. 'Police got additional resources and formed up some lines tactically to separate the persons and execute some arrests,' Senior Sergeant Fuller said. 'Those people were conveyed to Perth watch house to be charged.' The riots came after a protest opposing Australia Day celebrations took place earlier in Forrest Place, the same location as the first riot. Authorities were attempting to disperse the crowd when the rioters launched the projectiles at officers, police said (pictured, rioters at the scene) Speakers called out authorities on social justice issues and talked about deaths in custody at the event. The protest included traditional dance, a smoking ceremony and live music. The Regional Operations Group (ROG), which assists police in public order incidents, bolstered police at both locations. An 'Out of Control Gathering' was declared in the areas of the two incidents. Investigations are ongoing. Meanwhile, 100,000 people gathered to celebrate Australia Day at Perth's Swan River in the CBD at 830pm, Perth Now reported. Crowds enjoyed fireworks, drones and music on the night. The ex-wife of TV weatherman Steve Jacobs has avoided jail for what she described as a 'stupid decision' to drive on a suspended licence after her high-profile divorce. Travel journalist Rosie Jacobs pleaded guilty to driving her Audi Q3 three times in the course of just four months last year while her licence was suspended for previous offences. She had been driving along Darlinghurst Road in Sydney's eastern suburbs on the morning of August 25 when she was stopped by police. The 43-year-old's driving permit had been suspended in May, after she racked up five traffic violations in nine months while on a good behaviour licence. Travel journalist Rosie Jacobs pleaded guilty to driving her white Audi Q3 three times while her licence had been suspended over the course of just four months last year Less than three months later, Jacobs was busted by police again on Campbell Parade at Bondi. After officers used lights and warning signs to pull her over, court documents reveal Jacobs told police she was 'going through a lot at the moment' and 'not well'. Only four days later, she was pulled over again at Randwick. When police asked why she was driving without a licence, she replied 'no comment'. Jacobs faced Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court on Friday wearing a white blouse and orange dress, where she was sentenced to a community corrections order. Magistrate Megan Greenwood recorded a conviction and also handed Jacobs $1,650 in fines, 75 hours of community service and disqualified her from driving for three months. Rosie married Steve (above) in 2010 three years after meeting on the set of Today, where he was a star weather presenter and she worked behind-the-scenes as a producer 'If you don't do what community corrections order (states) you can be jailed for this offending,' Ms Greenwood said. Jacobs was due to be sentenced weeks earlier but had told the court she needed more time to complete her traffic offenders program. In a lengthy social media post earlier in January, the former television personality addressed the charges and explained she had been going through a 'traumatic' time. She told followers she had experienced 'challenging times' with high anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder following her divorce. 'It's been a shocker!!' she vented to her thousands of followers on Instagram. 'To top it all off, I made some stupid decisions to drive my car to the hospital post-surgery while on a suspended licence. I regret that decision.' The self-described 'sassy sober mama' explained she was 'in a lot of pain' at the time of the offence and made the regrettable choice to drive. Magistrate Megan Greenwood recorded a conviction and also handed Jacobs $1,650 in fines, 75 hours of community service and disqualified her from driving for three months 'I wish I could undo those moments. But I can't,' said Jacobs, who has hosted a variety of shows on Nine, 10, Foxtel and The Weather Channel. Despite the charges, Jacobs said she was optimistic about her future and determined to make the most of her life. 'I choose to start every day filled with gratitude for the world that I live in and for the proactive work I choose to do with my own mental health and happiness,' she wrote. Jacobs started her career as a television producer and has hosted shows for the Nine and Ten Networks, Foxtel and The Weather Channel. She married Steve in 2010 three years after meeting on the set of Today, where he was a star weather presenter and she worked behind-the-scenes as a producer. The couple separated in late 2017, months after relocating to Vanuatu in what friends described as a 'last-ditch attempt' to save their marriage, and divorced in 2019. A growing national restaurant chain is hoping to reel in seafood lovers in the Lehigh Valley. Red Crab Juicy Seafood, with 19 locations open or coming soon in seven states, is looking to open two area restaurants within the next few months, franchisee Eddie Zhang said. The first restaurant is set to open Tuesday in the Whitehall Square shopping center at 2180 MacArthur Road, while the second restaurant is expected to open early next year in the Northampton Crossings shopping center at 3768 Easton-Nazareth Highway in Lower Nazareth Township, Zhang said. The Lehigh Valleys first Red Crab Juicy Seafood restaurant is set to open Tuesday at 2180 MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. The chain serves a wide array of fresh seafood, including crawfish, raw and steamed oysters, shrimp, catfish, tilapia, mussels, blue crabs and lobster tails. Both restaurants will feature new flooring, furniture, kitchen equipment and maritime decor, including fishing nets, life preservers and artificial marine life such as a crabs, sharks and lobsters hanging from the ceilings and walls. Red Crab is known for fresh seafood served just the way you like it, and thats what customers of the Lehigh Valleys first location in Whitehall can expect, Zhang said. Red Crab, established in Florida in 2014, aims to offer tasty seafood in a friendly, casual, and fun atmosphere, according to the companys website. Its growing number of family-owned and -operated restaurants invites customers to have a taste of the best seafood dishes on the East Coast. The Lehigh Valleys first Red Crab Juicy Seafood restaurant is set to open Tuesday at 2180 MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. Another location of the chain, which has 19 locations open or coming soon in seven states, is expected to open early next year on Route 248 in Lower Nazareth Township. The key to our success is simple: providing quality consistent food that taste great every single time, all while having fun, a message on the business website reads. We pride ourselves on serving our customers delicious genuine dishes like: fresh crawfish, juicy shrimps, and blue crabs cooked perfectly in our signature spice. Red Crab, which has a slogan of juicy never tasted so delicious, offers appetizers such as raw and steamed oysters, hush puppies and breaded and unbreaded chicken wings; fried baskets such as catfish, tilapia and chicken tenders; and sides such as Cajun fries, corn-on-the-cob and boiled eggs. Get Your Hands Dirty seafood selections, which are served with corn and potato, include blue crab, clams, crawfish, snow crab legs, shrimp, mussels and more. Sauce options include Cajun, lemon pepper, garlic butter or juicy special (all of the above). You even have the freedom to put your own spin on each meal, a message on the website reads. After you pick out the seafood you want, you can choose your ideal seasonings and level of spiciness. The Lehigh Valleys first Red Crab Juicy Seafood restaurant is set to open Tuesday at 2180 MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. Another location of the chain, which has 19 locations open or coming soon in seven states, is expected to open early next year on Route 248 in Lower Nazareth Township. The Whitehall Red Crab will occupy the former Cicis Pizza space, while the Lower Nazareth Township restaurant will occupy part of the former Northampton Hibachi Buffet & Grill. Both restaurants will feature full bars, although the Whitehall location will sell only beer for the first few months as the liquor license is updated from eating place to restaurant, Zhang said. The Whitehall restaurant, which is still hiring for all front-of-house positions, will offer daily specials, including a half pound of crawfish, half pound of shrimp and half pound of snow crabs for $28.49 on Tuesdays. Hours will be noon to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and noon to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Info: 610-351-3939. The Lehigh Valleys first Red Crab Juicy Seafood restaurant is set to open Tuesday at 2180 MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. Another location of the chain, which has 19 locations open or coming soon in seven states, is expected to open early next year on Route 248 in Lower Nazareth Township. The Lehigh Valleys first Red Crab Juicy Seafood restaurant is set to open Tuesday at 2180 MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township. The chain serves a wide array of fresh seafood, including crawfish, raw and steamed oysters, shrimp, catfish, tilapia, mussels, blue crabs and lobster tails. The 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh was observed by the FBI meeting with a convicted Islamic State supporter after both men were released from US prison, according to a recently unsealed court filing. The FBI photographed Lindh meeting with Ali Shukri Amin on three different occasions in August and October of 2021 for about three hours, according to the filing reviewed by DailyMail.com. The document does not state where the meetings occurred, but both Lindh and Amin were residing in northern Virginia at the time. The meetings violate a condition of Amin's lifetime term of supervised release, which bars him from meeting with known extremists, prosecutors said. Lindh has not been charged with violating the terms of his release, even though the meetings occurred while he was on supervised release. Lindh is no longer subject to supervision, as his term of supervised release expired last year. The 'American Taliban' John Walker Lindh (left) was observed by the FBI meeting with Ali Shukri Amin (right), a convicted Islamic State supporter, court filings say Lindh, a US citizen, was captured as an enemy combatant during the initial US invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001, and admitted to fighting for the Taliban It's not entirely clear why authorities used the meeting as a basis to claim a violation against Amin but not against Lindh, given that they both were barred from meeting with other extremists. Lindh, a US citizen, was captured as an enemy combatant during the initial US invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001 and admitted to fighting for the Taliban in pleading guilty to two felony counts. The new court filing says that Lindh, who was released from federal prison in 2019, 'remains a known extremist and is believed by the FBI to hold extremist ideations.' The court documents also show that authorities had other reasons to be concerned about Amin beyond his meetings with Lindh. Amin, who lives in Dumfries, is also accused of corresponding online with an unnamed British individual described as a 'known extremist' until that person was arrested in February 2022 by British authorities. In his conversations with the British individual, authorities say Amin provided guidance related to the teachings of two Islamic preachers considered extremists by the FBI, Amad Musa Jabril and Abula Al-Azzam, according to the court document. Amin (left and right) was 17 when he pleaded guilty in 2015 to helping the Islamic State group by using social media to provide advice and encouragement to the group and its supporters The document also accuses Amin of using a virtual private network to conceal his online activity and evade the supervision of his parole officer. Michael Jensen, an investigator with the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said terrorism defendants are assigned to veteran probation officers who devote significant time and energy to helping them transition back into their communities, and it's unusual to petition for revocation of supervised release. '(I)f a probation officer is petitioning the court to revoke supervised release, then they have significant concerns that the individual is not reintegrating into their community successfully and that they remain a potential threat,' he said. It is clear, though, that the FBI and other agencies also continue to harbor concerns about Lindh's activity, ideology, and continued radicalization after his release from prison in 2019. Lindh was the first American to face major terrorism charges after the attacks on September 11, 2001. He was convicted of supplying services to the Taliban after he was captured in Afghanistan in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks fighting with Taliban forces against the US-backed Northern Alliance. John Walker Lindh (L) is led away by a Northern Alliance soldier after he was captured among al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners following an uprising at the Fort Qali-i-Janghi prison in 2001 This image made from television footage made in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, December 1, 2001, shows John Walker Lindh at right, claiming to be an American Taliban volunteer He was sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of a plea deal and was released from custody in 2019 after serving about 85% of his sentence, with the remainder reduced for good behavior. Shortly before he was released, a judge imposed additional restrictions on his three-year period of supervised release, in addition to the original conditions that included the ban on meeting with known extremists. The new requirements included monitoring software on his internet devices, requiring that his online communications be conducted in English, and forbidding him from possessing extremist material, holding a passport or leaving the US. Amin's case was notable primarily because of his age. It's rare for federal prosecutors to seek and obtain convictions against people under the age of 18. Amin's case was notable primarily because of his age. He was 17 when he pleaded guilty But Amin was 17 when he pleaded guilty in 2015 to helping the Islamic State group by using social media to provide advice and encouragement to the group and its supporters under the Twitter handle @Amreekiwitness. Amreeki translates to 'American.' He also admitted to helping a classmate, 18-year-old Reza Niknejad, travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group. He was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison but later had his sentence reduced to six years, and was released in May 2020, prison records show. Still, he filed multiple lawsuits and petitions seeking to have his conviction overturned. In one lawsuit he accused the FBI of 'manipulating his underdeveloped juvenile brain' and contributing to his radicalization by placing his online activities under surveillance at a young age. Even though he admitted his guilt, he argued that his online activities should have been protected free speech and that he was wrongly prosecuted 'based on his profession of views which do not conform to the normative scope of American bipartisan consensus.' Amin, who has been working in a part-time information technology job, was re-arrested on January 11 on suspicion of violating the terms of his supervised release. A hearing on whether to revoke Amin's supervised release is scheduled for February 13. Amin's lawyer, Jessica Carmichael, declined to comment but is expected to file a motion on her client's behalf ahead of the hearing. Judges have the option to send defendants back to prison or to extend their time on supervision, though in Amin's case he has already been sentenced to lifetime supervision. A Fox News reporter has returned to the air 10 months after narrowly surviving an attack in Ukraine that killed two colleagues. Benjamin Hall, 40, suffered devastating injuries when his team came under a Russian barrage of shells outside Kyiv on March 14. Veteran Fox cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, a 55-year-old Irishman, and local Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, 24, were killed. On Thursday, Hall, a British-born father of three young daughters, made his first live television appearance since he was evacuated from Ukraine, and told his Fox News colleagues he felt 'more confident than I ever have.' Hall urged others in similar situations to 'never give up' and said adversity could be overcome 'no matter how painful something is.' Benjamin Hall, 40, appeared on live television on Thursday for the first time since his March injury Hall was badly injured, revealing on Twitter that he 'lost sight in one eye, half a leg on one side and a foot on the other' He has now written a book about his experiences, Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home. Hall's book is published on March 23 'I think that when you've gone through something like I've gone through, the highs, the lows, you have to have a target, you have to get something to fight for,' said Hall. 'And this is it, trying to get back, trying to speak to you, trying to be on air and trying to tell people the stories, so perhaps it can help them. 'I've got one leg, I've got no feet, I see through one eye, one workable hand. I was burned all over, and I feel strong, I feel more confident than I ever have.' Hall said that the thought of his daughters kept him going. 'When you have to know there's good on the other side, that if you work hard, if you dedicate yourself to getting somewhere and you don't stop trying to achieve that, you will get that and no matter how painful something is, no matter how hard it is,' he said. 'If you really want to and you have the support to do it, you can get there, never give up. Never assume it's all over. It's inside you and it's always good on the other side.' Hall has three daughters with his wife Alicia Meller, an Australian fashion businesswoman Hall is pictured on his wedding day in 2015 alongside wife Alicia Meller Hall together with his wife and three daughters are pictured on a family vacation Irish cameraman Pierre Zakrewski died along with producer Oleksandra Kurshynova in the attack. They were both working with Hall He added: 'I think that you learn a lot going through things like this. And I'm surrounded by so many wonderful people that that's why I'm here today and I looking forward to everything that comes ahead.' Hall was evacuated to Poland, and spent months in recovery at Brooke Army Medical Center outside of San Antonio, Texas. He has tweeted that he lost half a leg, his foot on the other leg, and that his hearing was 'pretty blown.' According to HarperCollins, Hall will write about his prior experiences in Syria and Afghanistan among other countries, his decision for 'one last' return to a war zone when he agreed to report from Ukraine and the extraordinary efforts to save his life. A far-Right journalist with links to Putin's Russia is accused of organising the Koran-burning stunt that sparked a diplomatic row between Turkey and Sweden threatening the Scandinavian country's bid to join NATO. Chang Frick, who runs the populist site Nyheter Idag and previously worked for Russia Today (RT), is alleged to have paid the fee for the demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm where Swedish-Danish politician Rasmus Paludan set the book alight. Furious that Paludan had been permitted by Swedish police to carry out the protest, Ankara cancelled a visit by Sweden's defence minister and summoned Stockholm's ambassador. The stunt further damaged relations as Stockholm tries to convince Turkey to approve Sweden and Finland joining NATO in light of the Kremlins' invasion of Ukraine. Chang Frick, who runs the populist site Nyheter Idag and previously worked for Russia Today (RT), is alleged to have paid the fee for the demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm Frick posing in a Putin t-shirt Rasmus Paludan burning the Koran outside of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm Paludan told Swedish media that Frick paid for the stunt and claimed the journalist - whose Twitter feed includes photos of him posing in a Putin T-shirt and showing off a Putin calendar - promised to cover any damages he incurred as a result of the demonstration. In 2019, Frick accused the New York Times of misrepresentation on Twitter after the newspaper profiled him in a story on how Moscow was trying to sow political discord in Sweden, the Telegraph reported. Frick said RT was his client but not his employer and told the paper he had been invited to meet Putin. He denied working for Russia. MailOnline has approached Frick for comment. Paludan, a Swedish-Danish activist who has already been convicted for racist abuse, provoked rioting in Sweden last year when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of the Koran. Protesters burn a Swedish flag in front of the Consulate General of Sweden during a protest in Istanbul Dozens of protesters gathered late Saturday in front of the Swedish consulate in Istanbul, where they burned a Swedish flag and called on Turkey to sever diplomatic ties with Stockholm. Sweden's bid has been stalled amid Ankara's demands that Stockholm hand over Kurdish activists and prevent rallies attacking Turkey's leadership. Many Muslim countries said they were outraged by the burning of the Koran on Saturday. Morocco said it was 'astonished' the authorities had allowed it to take place 'in front of the Swedish forces of order'. Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also condemned it, as did the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Jakarta said 'the act of blasphemy against the holy book has hurt and tarnished religious tolerance', adding that 'freedom of expression must be exercised in a responsible manner'. The CEO and president of one of the top children's hospitals in Canada made a stir when she offered her white, female friends a book about anti-racism. Julia Hanigsberg, the head of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, promoted a book by authors Saira Rao and Regina Jackson called 'White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better (With a Guide to Start the Unlearning).' She wrote: 'If you're my friend - and a white woman - I may have a present for you. #WhiteWomen #Race2Dinner #DeconstructingKaren.' Hanigsberg - who has held her position at the hospital for eight years and is also on the board of Children's Healthcare Canada - added a link to the book. Julia Hanigsberg, the head of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto, promoted a book by authors Saira Rao and Regina Jackson The book is titled: 'White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better (With a Guide to Start the Unlearning).' The book promotes itself as a way to 'deconstruct and analyze nine aspects of traditional white woman behavior - from tone-policing to weaponizing tears - that uphold white supremacy society, and hurt all of us who are trying to live a freer, more equitable life.' It asks readers questions, including: 'how has being 'nice' helped black women, Indigenous women and other women of color? How has being 'nice' helped you in your quest to end sexism? Has being 'nice' earned you economic parity with white men?' 'White Women' shot to the New York Times bestseller list upon its release. The backlash on Twitter was pretty swift in retaliation, with writer Noam Blum saying: 'You have no friends.' Podcaster Miller Frost added: 'Welcome to the face of hysterical white liberals, with their incessant need to virtue-signal, and their poisonous self-loathing and white shame.' Another reader jokingly chimed in: 'Hey friend, wanna a decent way of intellectualizing your self-hatred? Boy do I have a book for you!' One simply used a popular Twitter joke format, saying 'Narrator: she had no friends.' She wrote: 'If you're my friend - and a white woman - I may have a present for you. #WhiteWomen #Race2Dinner #DeconstructingKaren' Hanigsberg has held her position at the Holland Bloorview Hospital in Toronto for eight years and is also on the board of Children's Healthcare Canada Race 2 Dinner, the organization Rao and Jackson founded, tweeted about the controversy as well, saying: 'If you want to SEE how badly white people need this book, just read the comments. MY LORD.' Hanigsberg responded to their tweet: 'Oh my! I have the trolls FIRED UP and I didn't even write the damn book. Imagine what @reginajacksonme and @sairasameerarao deal with on the daily.' Her hospital provides care for 'kids with disabilities, kids needing rehabilitation after illness or trauma, kids whose medical complexity requires a kind of care they cant get elsewhere,' according to its website. The book has received praise from liberal comedian Chelsea Handler and actress Anna Paquin. Rao has herself caused outrage in the past with wild statements like 'American schools are white supremacy factories,' 'white supremacy is behind all violence' and even 'if you idolize Nancy Pelosi, you may as well declare allegiance to David Duke.' She also ran a failed campaign for Congress in Colorado, losing in a Democratic primary in 2018. Australia's new low-cost airline has launched a massive sale with tickets going for as low as $49 for flights to tropical destinations. As part of its launch into the market, budget airline Bonza is offering savings to holidaymakers wishing to travel to 12 destinations across NSW and Queensland. Bonza chief commercial officer Carly Povey said it was time for travellers to see 'more of your own backyard for less'. Australia's new low-cost airline has launched a massive sale with tickets going for as low as $49 for flights to tropical destinations (pictured, Port Macquarie) Budget airline Bonza is offering savings to holidaymakers wishing to travel to 12 destinations across NSW and Queensland (pictured, Whitsunday Coast) Flights from the Sunshine Coast to Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie and Rockhampton have the lowest prices, starting at $49. A quick dash to the Whitsunday Coast, Mackay or Newcastle, also taking off from the Sunshine Coast, will only set travellers back $59 while flights to Albury and Townsville will cost a money-saving $69. A plane to Avalon, Cairns or Mildura from the Sunshine Coast is priced at $79 with the cost leaving plenty of leftover money to spend on tours, accommodation or nights out. 'We're delighted to be delivering on our commitment to make air travel more accessible,' Ms Povey said. 'We promised choice and better connectivity to the regions for less and we've been beyond delighted with the support for our mission. 'Today we start making travel a possibility for the many, not the few. Flights from the Sunshine Coast to Coffs Harbour (pictured), Port Macquarie and Rockhampton have the lowest prices, starting at $49 Bonza will gradually roll out out more destinations after the airline was granted its Air Operator Certificate by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority on January 12. Gladstone, Bundaberg and Toowoomba Wellcamp will be added to its list of stops in Queensland, and Avalon and Tamworth will be included in NSW. Melbourne will also be included in its flight path with locals able to travel to 10 different places from the city. Travellers looking to snag a cheap airfare can purchase flights through the Fly Bonza app or a travel agent. A quick dash to the Whitsunday Coast, Mackay or Newcastle, leaving from the Sunshine Coast, will only set travellers back $59 while flights to Albury (pictured) and Townsville from the same place will cost a money-saving $69 Bonza CEO Tim Jordan said the airline is focused on 'average Australians' such as 'tradies, teachers, kids and carers'. 'The excitement for what we are about to deliver is palpable and the timing couldn't be better,' Mr Jordan said. 'Demand for domestic travel is high and Aussies deserve for travel to be a basic right for many, not a luxury for the few. Mr Jordan added the approval was 'historic' for the nation's aviation sector as it marked the first new major airline for Australia since the introduction of Tiger Airways in 2007. Volodymyr Zelensky last night dramatically ruled out peace talks with Putin's Russia, even as British ministers revealed that tanks pledged to Ukraine will not arrive in the war-torn country until the end of March. Speaking to Sky News, the Ukrainian President declared: 'They don't want any talks, and this was the case before the invasion. President Putin decided so. He doesn't want negotiations because he doesn't want peace. 'I am convinced that Ukraine is just the first step for him. I am convinced that he is waging a big war. But after Ukraine there will be further steps, there will be other countries, if we fail to withstand. I think we will manage, we will get support and we will win.' Britain, the US and Germany have pledged tanks to Ukraine, but their arrival will be delayed, while NATO ally France suggested it might send fighter jets to Kyiv after it tried to wriggle out of sending other heavy weaponry to help the country fend off Russian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out peace talks with Russia in a new interview Zelensky said Vladimir Putin 'doesn't want negotiations because he doesn't want peace' The UK was the first country to promise modern NATO tanks to Ukraine, with Germany and the US now also committed to supply Volodymyr Zelensky's forces with dozens of vehicles. Thomas Gassilloud, chairman of the French defence committee, has said there are conditions to France sending jets to Ukraine but did not rule it out. Following talks with British defence ministers, Mr Gassilloud said: 'Regarding deliveries to Ukraine, we must study requests on a case-by-case basis and leave all the doors open. 'So we will see in the coming weeks what happens next as things are moving fast.' France has so far agreed to send AMX-10 RCs armoured combat vehicles, but stopped short of committing to sending their Leclerc main battle tanks. Paris argues that, unlike the German Leopards, which are omnipresent across Europe with as many as 2,000 available, there are only about 200 Leclercs. They are also no longer produced. Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesperson admitted the US does not 'have these tanks available in excess in our US stocks'. The means it could take months before the tanks, which President Biden called the most capable in the world, reach their destination. President Zelensky said in a statement last night: 'This Russian aggression can and should be stopped only with adequate weapons. Challenger 2 tanks supplied by the UK to Ukraine are expected to arrive at the end of March French President Emmanuel Macron has not yet committed to sending tanks to Ukraine 'The terrorist state will not understand anything else. Weapons on the battlefield. Weapons that protect our skies. 'New sanctions against Russia, i.e. political and economic weapons. And legal weapons - we need to work even harder to establish a tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine. 'Every Russian missile against our cities, every Iranian drone used by terrorists is an argument why we need more weapons.' Rishi Sunak said at Chequers yesterday: 'Everyone should feel very proud of the leadership role that we here in the UK have played.' He added: 'We are now in dialogue with the Ukrainians about how best to provide those tanks and make sure their troops get the training they need on them as well. 'Those conversations are happening, everything is going according to plan.' In the Commons, defence minister Alex Chalk said the UK will begin training Ukrainian soldiers in how to use and repair the tanks 'on Monday'. On when Challenger 2 tanks would arrive in Ukraine, he added: 'The intention is that it will be at the end of March, and between now and then a really significant programme of training, not just for the tank crews who are to operate this vehicle, but also for those who will be charged with maintaining it.' He stressed that equipping Ukraine to push Russia out of its territory is 'as important as equipping them to defend what they already have'. The US will supply M1A2 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, but it could take up to a year for them to get there Responding to Mr Chalk's statement, Labour welcomed the move by the UK and Nato allies to send tanks to Ukraine but also urged ministers to replenish the UK's supply of arms after its donations. Shadow defence minister Rachel Hopkins said: 'The UK remains united in its support of Ukraine. The first package of UK military assistance for 2023 with tanks, artillery, infantry vehicles, ammunition, and missiles has Labour's fullest support.' She then pressed the minister on what steps he is taking to 'ramp up production of ammunition and equipment to restock our own armed forces and to support Ukraine'. 'It took 287 days into the start of the invasion for the Defence Secretary to get his act together and sign a new contract to replenish N-Laws [anti-tank weapons] for our armed forces and for Ukraine,' she said. 'So how many more contracts have been signed to replenish UK stockpiles of other weapons sent to Ukraine?' He said: 'On the issue of restocking, she is right. She will understand that there are operational sensitivities which mean that I can't go into the detail of exactly what is going to be restocked and when. 'But she will know - and the privy councillors including from the Opposition have been given a briefing on that - that is exactly what we should be doing to ensure that those who need to know these sensitive details are told what they properly can be.' Meanwhile, Labour MP Kevan Jones also spoke about the 'effects of these donations on our Army's capability'. 'He talks about 227 Challenger 2 tanks. He knows that actual operational it's far less than 100. 'So what is he going to do to actually ensure that those alarm bells that have been sounded by the Chief of the General Staff are met with new capabilities so we can meet our Nato commitment?' he asked. Mr Chalk said it is 'important' to make the point that 'weapons that we supply have the effect of degrading the very adversary that was noted in the IR [Integrated Review]'. He added: 'So, not only is this a just war where we are there to stand up for the international rule of law - we are there to make a statement that might is not always right, that you can't remake borders by force - but also it's there to degrade the forces of our principal adversary as identified in the IR.' He then pointed to comments made by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace that a further squadron of Challenger tanks will be brought to higher readiness, 'ready to deploy in the defence of this nation'. A Metropolitan Police officer could be dismissed from the force after she allegedly asked a colleague to capture and send a photograph of a decomposed corpse. PC Bonnie Murphy reportedly told fellow officer PC Jamie Lewis that she 'wanted to send her a photograph from a possible crime scene,' a hearing was told. Lewis received the image from another officer before forwarding it on to Murphy, according to The Times. He was later jailed for allegedly taking selfies next two the bodies of two murdered sisters. Murphy, who before a disciplinary panel in central London yesterday, is also accused of cheating on a police driving exam by reviewing previous exams provided by Lewis and Googling test answers. Murphy, who faces dismissal, has denied allegations of gross misconduct. PC Bonnie Murphy (not pictured) could be dismissed from the Met Police force after she allegedly asked her colleague PC Jamie Lewis (pictured in December 2021) to capture and send a photograph of a decomposed corpse Lewis and another officer were sentenced to two years and nine months in jail in December 2021 after they shared photos of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry (pictured) to their colleagues via WhatsApp One in ten police officers shouldn't have made it through vetting, top watchdog says: READ MORE HERE PC David Carrick served as a Met officer for 20 years before being unmasked as one of the country's most prolific sex offenders Advertisement Police found the decomposed body at a property in north east London in January 2020 after neighbours reported a smell. The individual had died of natural causes. An officer photographed the corpse for work practices before passing it on to Lewis, the hearing was told. Lewis then sent the image to Murphy, then 20, via WhatsApp after she messaged him requesting crime scene photos to share with her mother. The officer reportedly responded 'haha' when messaging about the case. She had a similar response - typing 'lol' - when discussing her driving exam. Eva Niculiu, defending, claims Murphy had no intention of sharing the picture with her mother and 'did not do so.' She attributed Murphy's request to apparent 'morbid curiosity.' She also argued her client thought it was 'quite normal' for officers to cheat during driving exams. Ms Niculiu blamed Lewis for 'grooming' Murphy and said the young officer 'was under his influence.' She further attributed Murphy's behaviours to her age and the impacts of team culture. Lewis has not participated in Murphy's hearing as he is currently in prison. Murphy's hearing will continue today. It is unclear if the officer who sent Lewis the original image is involved in the hearing. The Telegraph claims that cop did keep his job but was told to undergo 'reflective practice'. Meanwhile, Lewis and PC Deniz Jaffer were sentenced to two years and nine months in jail in December 2021 after they shared photos of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry over WhatsApp. Henry, 46, and Smallman, 27, were stabbed to death in Fryent Country Park in a random attack. Six officers were sent images of their bodies or made aware of their existence. Lewis also sent a series of other pictures from the crime scene - which did not show their corpses - to a group chat with more than 40 colleagues. Murphy's hearing will continue today. Parents going through a divorce could soon be given time off from work under a new scheme. Bosses will change HR policies to state that separation is akin to a family death or illness under the Positive Parenting Alliance's scheme backed by employers including Tesco, Asda and NatWest. The scheme was revealed at an event in Parliament yesterday, The Times newspaper reported. Parents going through a divorce could soon be given time off from work under a new scheme (stock image) It came after a study showed that 90 per cent of workers surveyed said their work was badly affected when they divorced, while 95 per cent said their mental health also suffered. The Times said around three-quarters said they were less efficient at work, while around 40 per cent said that they had taken time off work as a result of their separation. Mustafa Faruqi, the head of employee relations at Tesco, said the supermarket business had a 'responsibility to influence the lives of lots of working people in a positive way'. Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the family division of the High Court, said that employers should be 'treating separation as a significant life event, like bereavement or serious illness'. Boris Johnson has been given an advance of half a million pounds for his memoir. The former Tory PMs latest entry in Parliaments Register of Members Interests states he received 510,000 as an advance on an upcoming book. The autobiography is set to tell of his dramatic spell in No10, covering the pandemic, the Partygate scandal and the war in Ukraine. Publishers HarperCollins have acquired the rights. The former Tory PMs latest entry in Parliaments Register of Members Interests states he received 510,000 as an advance on an upcoming book Mr Johnson also reportedly received a 500,000 advance for a biography of the bard, entitled Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius Mr Johnson, 58, is eventually expected to earn millions from the memoir. Labour PM Tony Blair reportedly received 4.6million for his book A Journey. Former David Cameron was said to have earned 1.5million for his memoir, For The Record, while Gordon Brown is understood to have received more than 400,000 for My Life, Our Times. Former health secretary Matt Hancock published his own version of the Governments handling of the pandemic late last year with his Pandemic Diaries. Journalist Mr Johnson has already written several books, including the international bestseller The Churchill Factor, a biography of the wartime leader, and a comic political novel Seventy-Two Virgins. Mr Johnson reportedly received a 500,000 advance for a biography of the bard, entitled Shakespeare: The Riddle of Genius. The book was due to be published in 2016, but has yet to hit the shelves. As a backbencher he has also significantly topped-up his MP salary by touring the speaking circuit, declaring more than 1million in speaking fees since leaving office in September. David Campbell has admitted the Today Extra show picked the wrong guests for its panel discussion on the Australia Day 'change the date' controversy and the Indigenous Voice to Parliament - by excluding any Aboriginal input. Despite his disclaimer, the Today Extra segment went ahead on Friday morning with just himself, co-host Sylvia Jeffreys, and journalists Tom Tilley and Jess Ridley. 'I want to acknowledge the fact we are four white people talking about this so we're not going to speak for the Indigenous people here,' Campbell said before the discussion began. Footage of some of the 'Invasion Day' protests across Australia on Thursday were broadcast as Campbell made the admission. He then quickly moved on to ask Tilley about Aboriginal lawyer Teela Reid, who is a prominent supporter of The Voice, and her stance on January 26. Poll Do you think the date of Australia Day should be changed? Yes No Do you think the date of Australia Day should be changed? Yes 192 votes No 725 votes Now share your opinion 'She doesn't think we should change the date yet because we don't have anything to celebrate in her eyes,' the former Triple J Hack presenter said. 'She wants us to move forward on something like the Voice, or a Republic before we find a new date to celebrate.' Indigenous leader Warren Mundine said it was 'a bit nutty' the panel did not feature any First Nations peoples. 'You need a mixture on a panel so you're getting different viewpoints,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'David is right, it's a bit odd. You can't say you want a voice and put someone else on to try and channel someone else.' Mr Mundine added it was 'healthy' that people from various backgrounds were speaking about such an important topic but the oversight was glaring. 'If they're going to talk about these things, they need to have a serious discussion and they need to have all sides,' he said. Campbell's disclaimer may have been prompted by memories of the outcry that rival Seven program Sunrise faced in March 2018 for a discussion on the Stolen Generations debate. The show was forced to apologise over a remark in the discussion between host Sam Armytage, outspoken commentator Prue MacSween, and radio host Ben Davis. David Campbell has addressed the moment he discussed the controversy around the date of Australia Day on a panel without any Indigenous Australians Sunrise host Samantha Armytage (centre) and commentators Prue MacSween (left) and Ben Davis (right) came under fire after a controversial debate over Aboriginal adoption The discussion came after federal Assistant Minister for Children and Families David Gillespie called for a relaxation of rules prohibiting indigenous children from being adopted by non-Aboriginal families. 'Just like the first Stolen Generation, where a lot of kids were taken for their wellbeing, we need to do it again,' MacSween said in the on-air discussion. The comments ignited protests outside Sunrise's Sydney studio and the Australian Communication and Media Authority found it had breached the Commercial Television Industry Code Of Practice. Critics of the 'Stolen Generations' policy under which some children were taken from Aboriginal families to be fostered by white families or put in boarding homes say it was not for their well being, but a policy of forced assimilation to white norms. Sunrise later apologised for the segment. 'Opinions were expressed during the segment which referred to the stolen generation [sic] and which were offensive to some viewers, including Indigenous Australians. The panel discussed changing the date of Australia and the proposal for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament 'Channel Seven, the Sunrise team and our commentators Prue MacSween and Ben Davis apologise for those comments and the harm they have caused.' Meanwhile, debate rages on among indigenous groups as to whether they want the Voice to Parliament or resist it and push for more impactful representation. Australians are expected to vote in the second half of 2023 on Indigenous recognition in the Constitution and the establishment of an Indigenous body to advise parliament on issues that affect First Nations people. Greens Senator and Indigenous rights activist Lidia Thorpe has publicly criticised the move, and said there needs to be more than an 'advisory body'. 'We have an opportunity to have a treaty that could put 10 independent Blak seats in the parliament today. We want real power and we won't settle for anything less,' she said during a rally in Melbourne on Thursday. On the Today Extra discussion, Tilley added that January 26 had become 'uncomfortable' for a lot of Australians who were now unsure on how to celebrate the national holiday. 'I think (Ms Reid) would argue that's a good thing,' he said. Tilley spoke to Ms Reid on an episode of his podcast The Briefing, which aired on Thursday. In the episode, Ms Reid said 'everyday for us is Invasion Day', and that the tension felt on January 26 was not a one-off. 'I personally don't think we can rewrite the fact that this awful history has happened in our nation's story,' she said. 'Australia day as a celebration should be abolished and it should be marked as a day of mourning. 'What's there to celebrate? I don't think Australia has earned the right to celebrate.' Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel Nine for comment. In time for the new year, the 19th Street Theatre in Allentown is unveiling two new series for movie lovers. First up is the New York Film Critics Series, a monthly event that will revolve around the premiere of a movie before it opens in New York or Los Angeles. Following the screenings, there will be live broadcasts of interviews among the movies participants and Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers. The initial entry is The Book of Love, which will unreel at 7 p.m. Jan. 11 at Theatre514. The dramedy pivots on a depressed architect (Jason Sudeikis) who attempts to cope with the death of his wife (Jessica Biel) by striking up a friendship with a teenager (Maisie Williams) building a raft to sail across the Atlantic. Biels husband Justin Timberlake composed the score. The second series is Thursday Classics, a monthly presentation of a time-honored treat from the past. The fun begins Jan. 12 on with a screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from 1969. Next up is A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) on Feb. 9 and Rashomon (1950) on March 30. Screenings begin at 7 p.m. Even though the films are available on Blu-ray and DVD, these classics are visual delights that gain plenty of power and emotion on the big screen. It may be hard to believe now but Butch Cassidy had lots of mediocre reviews when it was first released. Critics complained about the white-washing of real-life outlaws Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford). Its a criticism that melts away in the brilliance of Newmans and Redfords performances. The actors have such remarkable chemistry that the movie is less about their bank-robbing exploits in Bolivia than about their unique friendship. A Streetcar Named Desire, Elia Kazans adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, is a much more ferocious movie even though the action takes place almost entirely within the confines of a cramped apartment. Marlon Brando, who starred in the groundbreaking Broadway production, plays the brutish Stanley Kowalski who is pitted against his fragile sister-in-law Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) in a battle of wills and wiles. Set in New Orleans in the midst of a heat wave, the entire cast is on high boil. Even after more than 60 years, Streetcar can still take a piece out of you. Akira Kurosawas masterful Rashomon unfolds in 9th century Japan and centers on a bandit (Toshiro Mifune) who rapes a woman (Machiko Kyo) in the woods and murders her husband (Masayuki Mori). At the trial, three participants describe the crime from their wildly different perspectives. Afterward, a witness offers yet another, more objective view of what occurred. Essential viewing for film fans, Rashomon has a lot on its mind. As Peter Travers once noted, the movie reveals the nature of truth and human fallibility. Tickets are $10. Info: www.civictheatre.com/category/film. Amy Longsdorf is a freelance writer. jodi.duckett@mcall.com 610-820-6704 Prince Andrew's eviction from his Buckingham Palace bedroom along with his beloved teddies is part of King Charles's plan to convert the Palace from the monarch's home to offices, function rooms and a museum, whispers a royal source. The 369million ten-year rebuilding project has switched emphasis since the death of the Queen to allow a radical rethink of the Palace's role as Monarchy HQ. Since Charles's accession he has used Buck House for audiences, a state visit and the annual diplomatic reception. 'The King and Queen Consort wish to stay at Clarence House as their private home,' adds my source. Charles is also considering raising substantial funds by eventually opening the palace to the public all year around. With Andrew possibly located in nearby St James's Palace might he follow his brother's example and open a teddy bear museum to help his cash flow? Prince Andrew seen driving on Windsor Castle grounds Sir Tom Stoppard paid his respects to former Times editor Charlie Wilson at his St Brides memorial service yesterday. Charlie, a Bristol Evening World trainee with Stoppard, also shared a flat with the playwright. First wife Anne Robinson recalled their time together at the Daily Mail when Charlie was her boss. 'I would cook his breakfast and tidy up when he went to the office,' she said. 'He then sacked me over a company rule forbidding married couples working together.' A propos Charlie's farewell, he died in August aged 87 and would have been gratified that Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth read her father's fulsome tribute at the service. Former Times political editor Philip Webster said that despite his fearsome reputation Wilson had only fired three people in his five-year editorship, adding: 'And one of those was Boris Johnson.' Acclaimed British conductor Alice Farnham recalls on BBC Radio 4 being told by a fellow musician: 'Women can't conduct because their breasts get in the way.' Doesn't seem to cause any impediment for Oscar-nominated Cate Blanchett, pictured, manically wielding the baton in Tar. Actor and presenter Joanna Lumley at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, on August 22, 2018 in Edinburgh, Scotland Joanna Lumley issues a public apology to Sir Mick Jagger on her new podcast Joanna and the Maestro after her composer husband Stephen Barlow admits he doesn't like The Rolling Stones. 'I don't want Mick ringing up and saying, 'Why didn't Stephen like me?',' she says. Has Dame Joanna been sipping the Delusions of Grandeur coffee again? Legitimately lauded for her Andrew interview, Emily Maitlis was less successful interrogating the Dalai Lama. 'I asked him what he had learned as a living God,' she recalls. 'And he said, ''I am more bold.'' I said, ''Oh that is amazing.'' He has now realised and tapped the side of his head and said, ''No, bald. No hair, no hair''.' Rescuers searching for Julian had to ground helicopters due to strong winds Julian Sands was reported missing on January 13 in the Baldy Bowl area Strong winds in California have again grounded helicopters in the search for a British actor who disappeared while hiking. Julian Sands, 65, was reported missing on a hiking trip in the Baldy Bowl area of the San Gabriel mountains on January 13 and has not been seen for 14 days, as temperatures in the area hover just above the freezing mark. Since then, rescue teams have scoured for clues to the father-of-three's whereabouts, but only his car has been found close to where he disappeared. Now, rescuers searching for Julian have had to ground their helicopters due to strong winds. Julian Sands, 65, (pictured) was reported missing on a hiking trip in the Baldy Bowl area of the San Gabriel mountains and has not been seen for 14 days, as temperatures in the area hover just above the freezing mark Pictured: Sands traversing the stunning 14,783ft Alpine peak while wearing a helmet and crampons, using ropes and with a rucksack strapped to his back Rescuers have been hampered by storms in the region, which already claimed the life of an experienced hiker earlier this month. Aerial efforts resumed briefly on Wednesday, with authorities using new technology that can detect electronic devices and credit cards. San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said it was 'hopeful' that the technology would be able to more accurately pinpoint an area on which to focus efforts. But a spokesperson for the department said strong winds had meant air searches could not be continued. The department previously said that fresh searches on higher ground for Sands were still not possible due to poor conditions. General views of the rocky snow-swept area in Angeles National Forest where British actor Julian Sands has been missing since January 13 JULIAN SANDS: FROM THE YORKSHIRE DALES TO THE BRIGHT LIGHTS OF LOS ANGELES Sands starred alongside Helena Bonham Carter in A Room With A View (1986) Julian Sands was born in Otley, Yorkshire, in 1958 and moved to Los Angeles in 2020. His breakout role came as the free-spirited George in the period drama A Room With A View, in which he starred opposite Helena Bonham Carter. He later made the move to the horror genre, featuring in films such as Leaving Las Vegas, Warlock and Arachnophobia, as well as parts on television. More recently he played the chief medical officer in the 2021 Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi-led drama Benediction. From 1984 to 1987 Sands was married to future Evening Standard and Today editor Sarah Sands, with whom he has a son. He also has two daughters with journalist Evgenia Citkowitz, whom he married in 1990. Advertisement On Wednesday, the sheriff's department had tweeted: 'The search for Julian Sands continues by air only. 'The California Highway Patrol Valley Division Air Ops from Auburn, California, is currently assisting us in the search using a Recco device. 'Recco technology can detect Recco reflective material, electronics, and in some cases, credit cards. 'We are hopeful our partners, Officers Hertzell & Calcutt, can pinpoint an area where we can focus our search efforts, and we thank them for their assistance.' Infrared devices have also been used by authorities previously, but to no effect. Julian's family previously praised the 'heroic' efforts of Californian authorities conducting the search efforts. In a statement, also shared by the sheriff's department, his family said they were 'deeply touched' by the support they had received in the days since his disappearance. Earlier this week, Sands' brother Nick said he believes in heart 'he had gone'. But financial adviser Nick, who grew up with Julian and their single mother near the village of Gargrave, Yorkshire, said he still hoped his brother would prove his growing fears wrong and make it home alive. He said: 'He has not yet been declared missing, presumed dead, but I know in my heart that he has gone. Julian liked to say, "I have never had a holiday but I do rest occasionally" well he's resting now in a place he would truly approve of. 'However sibling rivalry being what it is, it would be just like him to walk out of there and prove me wrong.' Julian made his home in Los Angeles with his wife Evgenia Citkowitz, 59, after starring in critically acclaimed films throughout the 80s and 90s. And Mr Sands said his brother had been particularly fond of hiking the Baldy mountain range after picking up a love of walking in the Yorkshire Dales as a youngster. Julian made his home in Los Angeles with his wife Evgenia Citkowitz, 59, (pictured together) after starring in critically acclaimed films throughout the 80s and 90s He added: 'When in LA, the Mt Baldy mountain range was his favorite place, he would go there as often as he could. 'It was the hills and mountains where Julian really revived, hiking in England's Yorkshire Dales leading on to him climbing iconic mountains like the Matterhorn and the Eiger, technically challenging but high reward. 'When he recently walked the full length of the Pennine Way, he took just a small tent and averaged over 30 miles a day, not bad for a guy over 60. 'Last year, like most years, he came to Gargrave on three occasions every time walking up Sharphaw to view Gargrave and the beauty of the Craven Fault, also, not a bad effort for a guy who lives in Hollywood.' Mr Sands said despite living in the US, Julian would make frequent trips back to Gargrave to visit his brothers and family. And though Julian won a scholarship to a private school and had a Hollywood film career, he said his brother had remained humble as a 'jobbing' actor. He added: 'After attending the London School of Speech and Drama he went on to act in over 70 feature films and more than 50 television shows. 'Over the last 10 years he has travelled the world doing his one-man show on the poetry of Harold Pinter, while more recently his show on Keats and Shelley has had rave reviews. 'His films and parts were many and varied some to critical acclaim and some absolutely awful. Julian would say to me, "that's the life of a jobbing actor, can't be too proud".' Julian's breakout role came in the period drama A Room With A View, in which he starred opposite Helena Bonham Carter, though he later moved to the horror genre, featuring in films such as Warlock and Arachnophobia. More recently he played the chief medical officer in the 2021 Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi-led drama Benediction. Advertisement A vicar has been left 'broken' this morning after a huge inferno engulfed her north London church, described as an 'architectural treasure' complete with stunning mosaics last night, leaving it gutted and charred after the roof completely collapsed. Kate Harrison has been the vicar at St Mark's Church since 2015, and posted a heartbreaking message on Twitter in the early hours of Friday, simply saying 'I'm broken.' She also asked for prayers to be sent to her community, saying that the building is 'horrifically damaged'. Dozens of firefighters were battling the blaze at the Grade II* listed building known for its educational and literary history. Some 80 firefighters were sent to the church in Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) said, after being alerted to the blaze at 11.19pm. The entire church was engulfed in flames, destroying the roof of the Grade II* listed building completely The inside of the church has been totally gutted, aerial images showed on Friday morning, after the roof fell in and flames engulfed the entire building The whole of the two-storey building was alight, with residents asked to keep doors and windows closed due to the significant amount of smoke being produced. The LFB said it was using three ladders, including the tallest in Europe at around 210ft, as towers to distribute water evenly. Footage from the scene showed flames engulfing the entire building and billowing out of the church's windows. Eyewitnesses described the blaze as 'terrible', adding they were saddened at the extraordinary damage. The fire was under control by 2.22am on Friday. Vicar Kate Harrison said: 'If you've seen the news about the fire at our church, everyone is ok. 'The church building is horrifically damaged. Please pray for the community here, if that's your thing. 'So many people will be feeling sad, not just the congregation.' People from the local community and previous visitors to the church expressed shock and horror online, with some saying they have been left 'speechless'. Meanwhile St John's School in Leatherhead, which was founded at the church in 1851, said its community is 'saddened' by the news. 'Our thoughts are with those affected,' a statement added. Vicar Kate Harrison said she has been left 'broken' after the fire all but completely destroyed her church on Thursday night The church's stone structure remains intact, if charred, but everything else is believed to have been destroyed Firefighters remained on scene well into Friday morning, continuing to damp down flames and ensuring the fire was completely out Firefighters were pictured on Friday morning rescuing some of the items left miraculously unharmed, including candlesticks Shattered windows and doors surrounded by charred bits of rubble are all that is left after the devastating blaze People carry the few remaining items from the church which survived the fire away from the scene Images from the scene show the entire roof has been destroyed, as well as many of the windows, with the interior thought to be gutted Firefighters were still working hard at the site as London was waking up this morning Images on Friday morning began to show the extent of the damage, with the church's windows and roof completely destroyed Smoke remained in the air at the scene of a fire at St Mark's Church in Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood this morning The charred remains of the 177-year-old church was still smoking on Friday morning as the investigation into the cause of the fire began Local resident Shohaib Shah said he was 'devastated' watching the church burn on Thursday evening, adding that it will be 'sorely missed by the community'. 'I thought a family member may have burnt something when making food... I took a look outside where I could see lots of smoke covering the street and an orange light in the sky and emergency services going around the corner towards Abercorn Place,' the 21-year-old said. 'When I arrived there at 12:22am, the fire was ferocious and I could see that it wouldn't stop any time soon because it looked like it was re-igniting every few minutes. 'I'm devastated, I remember seeing children and families going in and sometimes during the summer you would see families sitting and relaxing outside in the gardens - it's going to be sorely missed in the community.' The area's MP for Westminster North, Karen Buck, described the fire as 'heartbreaking', and thanked firefighters for their 'magnificent efforts'. The exact extent of the damage remains unclear but is thought to be significant. Images from the scene show the entire roof has been destroyed, as well as many of the windows, with the interior thought to be gutted. Photographs showed shattered doors and piles of charred rubble, with the exterior of the church covered in soot. No injuries have been reported and the exact cause of the fire remains unknown at this stage. Police also attended the scene and set up a wide cordon due to the extent of the fire. By 10am on Friday, firefighters were seen taking the few objects left untouched by the flames from the building. The National Churches Trust told MailOnline: 'St Mark's church in Hamilton Terrace, St John's Wood, London has been severely damaged by a fire on the night of Thursday 26 January 2023. 'Our thoughts are with the vicar, Kate Harrison, the congregation and all the local people who know and love the church. 'St Mark's is an outstandingly beautiful Victorian church that is Listed Grade II*. It is one of the landmarks of the area [and] is packed with beautiful mosaics and memorials.' The Trust added it hopes some of the mosaics may have survived the blaze: 'The church has been very badly damaged. 'However, mosaics and metal work is often heat resistant so it is to very much hoped that some of the precious interior decoration of the church can be salvaged and re-used if the church can be rebuilt.' It added that one of the mosaics at risk is of former curate of the church Joseph Hobling, who was an army chaplain taken prisoner during the Second World War in 1940. On 18 December 1944, a US bomber mistook the camp for a German training centre and the British Surgery and Chapel were destroyed, killing 61 POWs including Hobling, who was fatally wounded in the head. Fire crews from North Kensington, Paddington, West Hampstead and surrounding fire stations attended the scene The church had been described as an 'architectural treasure' by the National Churches Trust and had famous mosaics Flames and smoke could be seen billowing into the sky as the tower caught fire, with dozens of firefighters tackling the fire Twelve fire engines and around 80 firefighters were called in to tackle the blaze, which took three hours to get under control Residents were told to keep their doors and windows shut overnight due to the amount of smoke coming from the blaze The church was consecrated in June 1847, and it has reportedly enjoyed a 'history of education and literary associations' during its history The church is known for its stunning mosaics, including of the patron saint of music, St Cecilia. It is not known whether any of the mosaics remain Even the church tower was totally engulfed in flames in the early hours of Friday morning Around 80 firefighters were scrambled last night to tackle a massive blaze in a church in north London. Flames from St Mark's Church could be seen lighting up the night sky as twelve fire engines were rushed to the scene A local resident described the fire as 'terrible', adding the church is 'very old' and is now 'ruined' A local resident told the BBC: 'It's terrible, the whole church was on fire - smoke everywhere. It's extremely sad because it's a very old church and it's ruined now.' St Andrew's Church in Hampstead, London, shared their condolences with the St Mark's congregation online: 'Our prayers and sympathy for the congregation and priests of St Mark's for this awful fire and for all the fire crews attending.' The National Churches Trust lists St Mark's as a Grade II* Victorian church, containing 'stunning' mosaics by the Salviati family as well as highly decorative marble flooring in the chancel. The Anglican church is located near Abbey Road Studios and Lord's Cricket Ground, and has links to author Lewis Carroll and Queen Victoria's son Prince Leopold. The trust describes it as an 'architectural and historical treasure', which finished construction between 1846 and 1847 in the Gothic style to the design of architect Thomas Cundy Junior. It was originally built to seat up to 1,450 people. As well as impressive mosaics and windows, St Mark's Church also had beautiful artwork in its interior The church was closely connected to the founding of St John's School in Leatherhead and Lewis Carroll's works such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland The church had beautiful stained glass windows depicting patron saints, which are now thought to be destroyed The church, which is just a short walk away from Abbey Road Studios and Lord's Cricket Ground, was consecrated in June 1847, and it has reportedly enjoyed a 'history of education and literary associations' during its history. It was closely connected to the founding of St John's School in Leatherhead and Lewis Carroll's works such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The church is currently run by vicar Kate Harrison, who first took over in 2015. London Fire Brigade said: 'Twelve fire engines and around 80 firefighters have been called to a church fire on Hamilton Terrace in St John's Wood. The whole of the two-storey building is alight. 'The fire is producing a significant amount of smoke in the local area and residents are advised to keep their windows and doors closed. 'Firefighters are using two of the Brigade's new 32-metre turntable ladders and a 64-metre turntable ladder (the tallest in Europe) at the scene as water towers, to get water on to the building externally. 'The Brigade's 999 Control Officers have taken almost 30 calls to the blaze. 'The Brigade was called at 11.19pm. Fire crews from North Kensington, Paddington, West Hampstead and surrounding fire stations are at the scene. The cause of the fire is not known at this time.' They later added: 'There were no reports of any injuries. Fire Investigators are on scene to begin their investigation into the cause of the blaze.' A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said it sent an ambulance crew, a medic in a fast response car and members of its hazardous area response team to the scene. 'The incident is ongoing and we are working with our emergency service colleagues,' the spokesperson added. Republican AGs from 23 states say the change puts retirement savings at risk The Republican attorneys general from 25 US states have filed a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's plan to allow retirement fund managers to make 'socially conscious' investment decisions. The federal suit filed on Thursday in US District Court for Northern Texas seeks to halt the implementation of the Department of Labor rule, which allows private benefit plans to invest in funds focused on environmental, social, or governance (ESG) issues. The suit alleges the new rule 'undermines key protections for retirement savings of 152 million workers... totaling $12 trillion in assets' in the name of social policies, including addressing climate change. The rule, set to take effect on January 30, reverses a restriction imposed during the Trump administration that requires retirement plans to consider only financial factors in making investment decisions and exercising shareholder rights. 'The Biden Administration is promoting its climate change agenda by putting everyday people's retirement money at risk,' said Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, who is leading the suit, in a statement to DailyMail.com. Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes is leading 24 other GOP attorneys general in a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's rule easing restrictions on ESG investments The Labor Department and Biden's Labor Secretary Marty Walsh (above) are named as defendants in the suit, which was filed on Thursday in US District Court for Northern Texas 'Permitting asset managers to direct hard-working Americans' money to ESG investments puts trillions of dollars of retirement savings at risk in exchange for someone else's political agenda,' he added. 'We are acting with urgency on this case because this illegal rule is set to take effect next week. It must be stopped,' said Reyes. The Labor Department and Biden's Labor Secretary Marty Walsh are named as defendants in the suit. A spokesman for Walsh referred requests for comment to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to a message late Thursday night. The final rule at the heart of the dispute is known as the 'Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights' and took up 65 pages in the Federal Register when it was published on December 1. If it takes effect as planned on Monday, it would rescind a 2020 Trump-era rule that had been criticized by some business groups and the financial industry. The Labor Department has argued the Trump-era rule restricting investments in ESG funds failed to account for the positive impact that ESG considerations can have on long-term investment returns. The new rule also allows plan fiduciaries to consider ESG factors when proxy voting on behalf of shareholders. The Labor Department has argued the Trump-era rule being rescinded failed to account for the positive impact that ESG considerations can have on long-term investment returns (file photo) The plaintiffs in the suit are 25 Republican state attorneys general, as well as several private employers with benefits plans, and one individual enrolled in an ERISA plan Lisa Gomez, who heads the Labor Department office that issued the rule, previously told Reuters that the new policy would remove needless barriers to investing based on ESG principles and end 'the chilling effect created by the prior administration.' The Labor Department argues the rule, which only applies to private retirement plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), does not allow retirement plans to pursue social goals at the expense of financial returns. 'Outside the ERISA context, investors may choose to invest in funds that promote collateral objectives, and even choose to sacrifice return or increase risk to achieve those objectives,' the department's commentary on the rule states. 'Such conduct, however, would be impermissible for ERISA plan fiduciaries, who cannot sacrifice return or increase risk for the purpose of promoting collateral goals unrelated to the economic interests of plan participants in their benefits,' it adds. The ERISA Industry Committee, which represents employee benefit plans, has been cautiously supportive of the new Biden administration rule, after opposing certain language in earlier drafts. '[T]he final rule does not establish a mandate to consider any specific factor in every circumstance or put a thumb on the scale when selecting investments, leaving fiduciaries to manage plans for the best interests of workers and retirees,' Andy Banducci, the group's senior vice president said in a statement in November. 'This rule is an affront to every American concerned about their retirement account,' said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a plaintiff in the suit But the rule change has provoked fury from Republicans, who argue that it will unleash activist retirement plan managers to squander workers' savings. 'This rule is an affront to every American concerned about their retirement account,' said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a plaintiff in the suit, in a statement on Thursday. 'The fact that the Biden Administration is now opting to risk the financial security of working-class Americans to advance a woke political agenda is insulting and illegal,' he added. The lawsuit comes amid growing debates over ESG investing, with investment industry stalwarts such as Blackrock facing backlash over their ESG goals. Meanwhile, some public companies have faced increasing pressure from activist shareholders to address ESG issues that could pose threats to their stock value, such as carbon emissions and workplace diversity. Funds adhering to ESG principles oversee an estimated $6.5 trillion in assets, according to Reuters, though they experienced an unprecedented drop in investments last year amid the market downturn. The case is 2:23-cv-00016-Z in United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza on Friday in response to militant rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave, as tensions rise following the deadliest army raid on the occupied West Bank in years. The current flare in violence began on Thursday, when Israel launched a raid on the refugee camp of Jenin, killing nine people. In response, rockets were fired from Gaza hours later and blocked by the Iron Dome. Israel then launched air strikes into Gaza, in the early hours of Friday morning. 'The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) is currently striking in the Gaza strip,' an army statement read. It was the first such attack from the militant Hamas-ruled territory since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a far-right government that has pledged a tough line against Palestinian militancy. Israeli forces fire tear gas on Friday to disperse Palestinian demonstrators as they protest against the expropriation of Palestinian land on the northern entrance to the city of Ramallah, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, in the occupied West Bank Following his November 1 election win, Benjamin Netanyahu secured a mandate to form a government backed by ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties and an extreme-right bloc. Friday's barrage marked the first time Gaza attacked Israel since Netanyahu returned UPDATE: Israel and Hamas on verge of another war. Israel bombing Gaza now and Palestinian factions firing rockets towards Israel. Sirens activated, 4:12 am local time: pic.twitter.com/EAdSovF6kI Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) January 27, 2023 Security sources in Hamas Islamist-controlled Gaza told AFP there had been 15 strikes targeting militant sites, with no injuries reported. The Israeli army said an initial two rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel around midnight. Shortly after Israel launched retaliatory strikes several hours later, another three rockets were fired from the strip, the army said. Another round of air-raid sirens then sounded in southern Israel. Most of the Gaza rockets were intercepted by Israel's air defense system, the army said, adding that one landed in an open area and another fell inside Gaza. No group has claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad had earlier vowed to respond to Thursday's army raid in Jenin, which killed nine Palestinians. Israel described the raid as a 'counter-terrorism' operation. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they launched the raid in Jenin in response to terrorist activity. They published this video, which they said showed gunmen firing at the army IDF & Israeli security forces operated in Jenin to apprehend an Islamic Jihad terrorist squad planning imminent terrorist attacks earlier today. Armed gunmen fired heavily at our soldiers from civilian rooftops as they carried out their critical mission. See for yourself: pic.twitter.com/Yi8Qgr4f4K Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 26, 2023 The raid in the Jenin refugee camp and the rocket fire increases the risk of a major flare-up in Israeli-Palestinian fighting, pose a test for Israel's new hard-line government, and casts a shadow on Secretary of State Antony Blinken's expected trip to the region next week. Raising the stakes, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants. Previous threats have been short-lived, in part because of the benefits the authority enjoys from the relationship and also due to U.S. and Israeli pressure to maintain it. The P.A. already has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds such as the Jenin camp. But the announcement could pave the way for Israel to step up operations it says are needed to prevent attacks. Violent escalations in the West Bank have previously triggered retaliatory rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Palestinians burn tires and wave the national flag during a protest against Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Friday Palestinians are seen on Thursday near Gaza City, protesting against the raid in Jenin A Palestinian is engulfed by smoke on Thursday during a protest in Gaza City Palestinian flags are waves and tires burnt near Gaza City on Thursday in protest at the Jenin raid Israeli forces in the West Bank and on the Gaza frontier went on heightened alert. Palestinians filled the streets, chanting in solidarity with Jenin, and President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning. In the refugee camp, residents dug a mass grave for the dead. PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said Abbas had decided to cut security co-ordination in 'light of the repeated aggression against our people, and the undermining of signed agreements', referring to commitments from the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. He also said the Palestinians planned to file complaints with the UN Security Council, International Criminal Court, and other international bodies. The PA last cut security coordination with Israel in 2020, over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's drive to annex the occupied West Bank, which would make a future Palestinian state all but impossible. But six months later, the PA resumed cooperation, signaling the financial importance of the relationship and the Palestinians' relief at the election of Joe Biden. There have been no serious peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in well over a decade. Thursday's gunbattle that left nine dead and 20 wounded erupted when Israel's military conducted a rare daytime operation in the Jenin camp that it said was meant to prevent an imminent attack on Israelis. 'IDF & Israeli security forces operated in Jenin to apprehend an Islamic Jihad terrorist squad planning imminent terrorist attacks earlier today,' the IDF tweeted on Thursday, explaining the Jenin raid IDF published more documentation of airstrikes overnight in the #Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire at #Israel. pic.twitter.com/CrRi7cQ5Ah Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) January 27, 2023 The camp, where the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group has a major foothold, has been a focus of near-nightly Israeli arrest raids. Hamas's armed wing claimed four of the dead as members, while Islamic Jihad said three others belonged to the group. An earlier statement from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia loosely affiliated with Abbas's secular Fatah party, claimed one of the dead was a fighter named Izz al-Din Salahat, but it was unclear if he was among those seven militants. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the 61-year-old woman killed as Magda Obaid, and the Israeli military said it was looking into reports of her death. The Israeli military circulated aerial video it said was taken during the battle, showing what appeared to be Palestinians on rooftops hurling stones and firebombs on Israeli forces below. At least one Palestinian can be seen opening fire from a rooftop. IDF says it struck a Hamas underground rocket-manufacturing site in response to the rocket fire on the south. During the strikes, three more rockets fired at the south: 1 intercepted, 1 landed in open area, 1 fell short in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/mBNbwws456 Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) January 27, 2023 Later in the day, Israeli forces fatally shot a 22-year-old, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, as young Palestinians confronted Israeli troops north of Jerusalem to protest over Thursday's raid. Israel's paramilitary Border Police said they opened fire on Palestinians who launched fireworks at them from close range. Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks. The conflict has only intensified this month, as Israel's far-right government came to office and pledged a hard line against the Palestinians. Israel's new national security minister, far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who seeks to grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot Palestinians, posted a video of himself beaming triumphantly and congratulating security forces. The raid left a trail of destruction in Jenin. The Israeli rights group B'Tselem said Thursday marked the single bloodiest West Bank incursion since 2002, at the height of an intense wave of violence known as the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which left scars still visible in Jenin. UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was 'deeply alarmed and saddened' by the violence. Condemnations came from the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation and Turkey, which recently re-established full diplomatic ties with Israel, as well as from neighboring Jordan. Saudi Arabia criticized the raid, saying it rejected the 'serious violations of international law by the Israeli occupation forces'. Qatar, Kuwait and Oman added condemnations. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to B'Tselem. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed. Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting against the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed. Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israel's 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians claim those territories for their hoped-for state. Israel has established dozens of settlements in the West Bank that now house 500,000 people. The Palestinians and much of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace, even as talks to end the conflict have been moribund for more than a decade. An official cause of death has not been released at this time Skyler died on January 9 from injuries 'related to abuse sustained by his parents' North Carolina parents have been arrested and charged for allegedly performing an exorcism on their four-year-old son who later died. Joseph Paul 'Joe' Wilson, 41, and Jodi Ann Wilson, 38, of Surry County, North Carolina were arrested on January 13 after their adoptive son, Skyler, died on January 9. According to local media, the couple alleged to have restrained and isolated Skyler and performed an exorcism, in addition to other instances of 'abuse.' In warrants obtained by WFMY, Jodi is accused of sending a picture to her husband of Skyler wrapped in a sheet facedown on the floor with duct tape holding the blanket to the ground. This is Skyler Wilson, 4, who died from injuries 'related to abuse sustained by his parents' Law enforcement officials say Skyler was brought into a local hospital on January 5 and Child Protective Services was called on January 6 after sustaining 'injuries related to the abuse' from his parents. The Wilsons are being held in the Surry County Detention Center without bond. According to local outlets, Joseph called 911 on January 5, reporting that Skyler was having a seizure. During the call, a Surry County detective said a woman, purportedly Jodi, could be heard in the background saying, 'it's my fault.' When EMS arrived, Skyler was not breathing. The boy was taken to the Intensive Care Unit at Brenner Children's Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he remained until his death. A doctor told law enforcement the boy's brain had sustained damage from a lack of oxygen caused by restriction. Joseph Wilson, 41, and Jodi Wilson, 38, have been arrested and charged Hours before Joe called 911 on January 5 is when investigators say the photo was sent from Jodi to Joe's phone, officials said. Along with the photo of the boy wrapped in a blanket duct-taped to the floor, Jodi allegedly wrote that something had happened while swaddling their son. Swaddling is a soothing technique used to help babies fall asleep. The tool includes firmly wrapping a blanket around a baby's body so they are unable to move. The technique has been correlated to increased chances of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and is not encouraged for children old enough to roll over. WFMY spoke with related parties who said that the death came nearly one month to the day after a former foster parent filed a report with the Department of Social Services. The parent told the outlet they were concerned for the child's wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of the other children in the home, based on things Jodi had said. 'He was so tiny and small but had a heart three times bigger than he was,' Skyler's former foster mom said The former foster parent said Jodi mentioned the swaddling, food restriction, and exorcisms of the kids. During searches of the home, investigators said they found wrist and ankle restraints. Law enforcement also took digital records from computers and phones. Records included home surveillance videos that show abuse prior to the murder. 'This is a tragic event that resulted in the death of a precious child way too soon,' Surry County Sheriff Steve C. Hiatt said in a statement. Skyler's former foster mother who spoke with Fox 8 in North Carolina described him as a social butterfly with a big heart. 'He was so tiny and small but had a heart three times bigger than he was,' she said. 'I want to love unconditionally and remember his smile and the little things.' Skyler's former foster mother said Tuesday. 'I want justice to be served.' The boy's speech therapist told Fox 8 she was shocked and heartbroken to learn of his murder. 'He had been improving so much, and even if a child did have certain behaviors, there's still no need for something that drastic at all,' she said. 'That's why it's so heartbreaking and confusing,' she said. The Wilsons will next appear in court on February 2. Other children were in the couple's custody at the time of the incident. The Surry County Sheriff's Office said those children are currently in the care of the Department of Social Services. Australian beachgoers at a popular beach were shocked to see a man pulling a shark into the ocean by its tail. The fearless man was seen gripping the shark's tail with both hands and slowly backing into the surf at White Hills Beach in Bouvard, south of Perth, on Thursday. The reef shark, which looked around two metres in length, thrashed around and as the water got deeper, the man had to reach down and and hold the shark's dorsal fin to prevent it from lashing out at him. Bystanders said the shark was accidentally caught by people fishing from the beach. It comes after a pair of swimmers were forced out of the water after being stalked by two sharks at a south-west WA beach. The sharks were spotted by beachgoers 30m from the shore at Gnarabup Beach at about 12.40pm and again by diners at a beachfront cafe. A total of 25 sharks were spotted offshore across WA on Thursday, including great whites. One five metre monster was seen from the sand at Bunbury Beach - just a one hour drive south from White Hills Beach. A Western Australian man was spotted dragging a large reef shark back into the ocean by its dorsal fin (above) Jane Wishaw said she was just about to head into the water when she saw two sharks lurking in the shallows. 'I was completely stunned as the sharks appeared literally out of the blue as I was standing in calf deep water about to dive and swim out to deeper water and set off to the point,' she told Perth Now. 'It was quite terrifying actually as the sharks came within 4-5 metres off shore, clearly visible in the crystal clear water, then continued into shore going into the seaweed where they completely disappeared from sight. 'I thought 'yikes' we couldn't see them, but we knew they were there, they were so well camouflaged. They then reappeared further out.' Negotiators spoke to the man before cops rushed home Heavily-armed cops have stormed a Brisbane home after a routine welfare check turned into an hours-long siege. Queensland Police allege a 25-year-old man armed with a knife kept a woman, 26, captive at a home in Sunnybank Hills. Negotiators rushed to the scene following reports a man and a woman were holed up inside the property. Officers spoke to the pair before specialist police stormed the home around 2.30pm local time. A 26-year-old woman was transported to hospital suffering shock after allegedly being held captive by a 25-year-old man in a Sunnybank Hills home (pictured) An emergency declaration was declared before it revoked by police when the man was taken into custody. He is currently being treated with non-life threatening injuries to the leg and is assisting police with their investigations into the incident. The 26-year-old woman has been transported to hospital suffering from shock. Police had been sent to the home on Thursday following an alert from a member from the public that a woman had been allegedly assaulted by a man in a car, Detective Superintendent Andrew Massingham told the Courier Mail. When police arrived at the property neither the man nor woman could be found, he said. Police returned at 11am on Friday to conduct a welfare check and upon gaining entry to the home found a 25-year-old man armed with a knife, as well as a 26-year-old woman. Queensland police negotiators attempted to communicate with the two inside the home, before specialist police broke into the bathroom following safety concerns for the woman 'Upon observing police inside the residence, he has taken hold of the female and dragged her into a nearby bathroom where he has secured the door,' Det Supt Massingham said. 'At that time, he was threatening harm to the female.' After leaving the property, police negotiators attempted to communicate with the pair inside. 'Specialist police were deployed to the street,' he said. 'Approximately 1.45pm we had some success where the male and female were communicating with us through the locked door.' 'Unfortunately, at around 2.25pm those conversations broke down and we had significant concerns for that female.' An emergency declaration was announced just after 1pm on Friday with Bradman Street (pictured) closed to traffic and pedestrians, people in the surrounding area urged to stay indoors Specialist police forced their way into the bathroom at this time where the man and woman were locked inside, Det Supt Massingham said. 'Very shortly thereafter, the male was taken into custody lying in bathtub in the bathroom,' he said. 'He has suffered some injuries to the leg as a result of police forcing entry to that area but I'm happy to report that the 26-year-old female is out and is safe.' All roads between Bellrick and Peterkin Streets in the Sunnybank Hills area were closed off to traffic and pedestrians. The house's owner, Theresa Avison, who sublets a room in the house, told the Courier Mail she was concerned for the people inside. 'There's no word to describe my feeling', she said. 'I hope no-one is hurt. No one can understand this stress.' Criminal charges are expected to be laid against the man. The Republican later posted video of his announcement to Facebook but edited out the moment when his wife collapsed In the video, Roberts takes several seconds before moving to help his wife Rollan Roberts II was giving reasons why constituents should vote for him when his wife, Rebecca, who is five months pregnant, fainted A West Virginia businessman's presidential bid took a dramatic turn recently when his pregnant wife collapsed during his official announcement. Rollan Roberts II was several minutes into his speech his White House goal when his wife, Rebecca Lea Roberts, began to stumble before fully falling and taking down the American flag right next to her. Rebecca, who is five months pregnant with the couple's first child, laid on the ground for several seconds before Roberts moved to help her after several aids stepped in. The Republican who has never been elected to public office has since been mocked mercilessly on social media for his hesitation to help her. This is Rollan Roberts II (right) and his wife Rebecca Lea Roberts (left) To make matters worse, Rollan faced backlash for his campaign's decision to edit out the faint from the video which was shared to his Facebook account. 'You probably missed this but another Republican announced he was running for President while his pregnant wife literally passed out in the background,' said one verified Twitter user who shared the full video of the incident. The faint came seven minutes or so into the announcement from the Republican businessman who was describing the reasons constituents should vote for him. In the video, Rebecca can be seen beginning to stumble to the side. At one point, the businessman's wife knocks directly into an American flag before her knees give out and she hits the floor of the West Virginia State Capitol. As Rebecca goes down, taking the American flag with her, an aide standing next to her attempts to hold her up and then lift the flag off of her. Roberts stands at the podium for several seconds as others on both sides of him rush to her side to make sure she is okay and help her. The faint came seven minutes or so into the announcement from the Republican businessman who was describing the reasons constituents should vote for him In the video, Rebecca can be seen beginning to stumbling to the side At one point, the businessman's wife knocks directly into an American flag before her knees give out and she hits the floor of the West Virginia State Capitol As Rebecca goes down, taking the American flag with her, an aide standing next to her attempted to hold her up and then lift the flag off of her Once the situation had been sorted, Roberts gave a shoutout to those who stepped in to help. 'Can we give a hand to the medical team for their assistance? She (Rebecca) is five months pregnant,' Mr Roberts said. 'Her blood pressure is fine, so we thank the Lord,' he continued. It was a rough start for the 'American businessman' who then faced backlash for editing the whole ordeal out of the video he shared on his campaign's Facebook page. 'NICE HOW AT THE 7:30 MARK YOU EDITED OUT THE PART WHERE YOUR WIFE FAINTED IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR SPEECH, AND YOU JUST STOOD THERE, WONDERING WHETHER OR NOT TO KEEP TALKING, WHILE YOUR AIDS TRIED TO HELP HER. OH WELL, AT LEAST YOU WERE THE **FIFTH**PERSON TO COME TO HER SIDE, EH?' one Facebook commenter responded to the video. Rollan Roberts II is an 'American businessman' according to his campaign website That was just one response of many criticizing and mocking the candidate. 'Hes going to need to work on those Dad reflexes!' said one Twitter user. This is not Roberts' first child, however, according to his campaign website. He has two daughters from a previous marriage. 'Not sure I recall a time when a candidate announced their intention to run for office and have that campaign end at the exact same moment,' wrote another person. 'I thought for a moment he wasn't going to leave the podium,' said one person. 'Wow! I counted a full 5-seconds before he made a move toward her. I hope she's okay,' said another. 'He stood there and looked at her as if she was interrupting him,' wrote another. One person shared the news of his announcement saying 'his pregnant wife literally passed out in the background' Commenters piled on to Roberts II on Twitter Social media users both mocked and criticized the presidential candidate Roberts is being backed by his father, Rollan Roberts I, a West Virginia state senator. 'It gives me great pleasure to introduce my son to you today,' the state senator said. 'He has an announcement to make that will change the course of his life, challenge his stamina and fiber, and culminate in success because he is following God's will,' he continued, introducing his son during the event. Agnes was 11 when she was pushed onto an old cattle cart bound for Auschwitz with 87 other Jews, the chained door sliding shut behind them. Over a traumatic four days, this little girl watched many of the Jews die in front of her from dehydration and was unable to move away from them as they were all cramped so tightly together in the dark cart. 'The thing that was worse than the dead people was the few who went mad, they'd flail their arms around, shout and scream,' Agnes Kaposi, now 90, tells MailOnline as the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day today. The smell was horrific in the small cart - they were forced to use an oil drum as a toilet and Agnes recalls them using her grandmother's ladle to empty it through a small gap in the sliding door of the train. Agnes and her family had no idea that their train from a Hungarian ghetto was bound for Auschwitz - or that it was diverted away to Strasshof transit camp in Austria at the last minute in a move that would end up saving their lives. Agnes was 11 when she was pushed onto an old cattle cart bound for Auschwitz with 87 other Jews, the chained door sliding shut behind them. Over a traumatic four days, this little girl watched many of the Jews die in front of her from dehydration and was unable to move away from them as they were all cramped so tightly together in the dark cart 'The thing that was worse than the dead people was the few who went mad, they'd flail their arms around, shout and scream,' Agnes Kaposi, now 90, tells MailOnline as the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day today The smell was horrific in the small cart - they were forced to use an oil drum as a toilet and Agnes recalls them using her grandmother's ladle to empty it through a small gap in the sliding door of the train. Pictured: A train wagon that would have been like the one Agnes and her family travelled in In the year that followed, they were forced to work as a slave labourer at a farm and then later a factory manufacturing anti-aircraft guns for the Nazis before returning to Strasshof. When Soviet soldiers finally liberated their transit camp, the initial joy of finally being free was quickly replaced with terror. The Russian soldiers brought a fresh horror as they dragged the Jewish women away and raped them. Agnes says her grandmother hid her every night so the soldiers wouldn't rape her. 'The women would be taken away by the soldiers and came back bruised,' Agnes says. 'I didn't understand what had happened because I was 12, but I now know they raped scores of Jewish women there.' Across the border in Hungary, Tomi Komoly spent his early childhood hiding from German soldiers and living in a 'safe house' set up by an embassy with his mother and 35 other people. Tomi and his mother escaped from the 'safe house' as German soldiers closed in on them and fled to a protestant family's home in the suburbs of Budapest. Tomi, now 86, recalls spending weeks hiding in the family's cellar in the winter of 1944. 'We could only come up late at night when nobody would see us,' Tomi tells MailOnline. 'If any of the neighbours got hold of the idea that we were there, they would report us and we would be taken away. It was tough. 'First of all, it was cold and secondly, it was cold. We didn't see daylight for a while.' Tomi, whose father was arrested by the Nazis and never seen again, says the Holocaust was 'devastating' for his family. He says he 'lost his childhood' as he was never able to play with children his age. 'I only knew knew one male member of the family who survived the war on both my mother's and on my father's side. Everyone else perished,' Tomi says. Across the border in Hungary, Tomi Komoly (pictured as a young boy top left with his family) spent his early childhood hiding from German soldiers and living in a 'safe house' set up by an embassy with his mother and 35 other people Tomi, whose father was arrested by the Nazis and never seen again, says the Holocaust was 'devastating' for his family In Slovakia, Uri Winterstein was a month old when his parents put him in the care of a non-Jewish woman as they realised it was impossible to keep him quiet when they went into hiding. Uri's sister and parents were captured by the Nazis and deported to Terezin concentration camp in what is today the Czech Republic - and when the Russian army was approaching Bratislava the woman who was caring for Uri gave him to a local peasant woman who was unable to properly care for him. Uri, now 79 and living in Chiswick, England, with his wife, said when his family found him after being freed from Terezin camp nearly two years later, he could not speak or walk. 'I couldn't walk at all, I didn't speak a single word and the only thing I ate was a roll dipped in coffee,' Uri says. 'But the bottom line is, this woman risked her life in looking after me.' Uri, whose first word was 'coffee', learned later that nine of his close family members, including his aunt and uncle and his nine-year-old cousin Miriam, were killed in Auschwitz concentration camp. Many of them were sent to the gas chambers immediately after arriving there. In Slovakia, Uri Winterstein (pictured with his parents and sister after the war) was a month old when his parents put him in the care of a non-Jewish woman as they realised it was impossible to keep him quiet when they went into hiding Uri (pictured), now 79 and living in Chiswick, England, with his wife, said when his family found him after being freed from Terezin camp nearly two years later, he could not speak or walk Agnes, Tomi and Uri are telling their stories of survival - and the horrors they witnessed and endured - as the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day and honours the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis. The survivors, who teach children across the UK about Holocaust through the Holocaust Educational Trust's Outreach Programme, have warned that the same horrors could happen again. 'I am speaking about the past, but I'm really speaking to you about the future. This is what happens in a society if it allows its prejudices to harden and the hatred and extreme ideologies to flourish,' Uri, whose family fled to Brazil after the war, says. 'We are not born with knowledge. Each generation has to learn anew. Genocide doesn't happen in a day. It starts with language where a certain group in society are called vermin. That's the start of a potentially slippery slope.' Tomi and Agnes say that that the prejudices against Jews continued after their families returned to their homes in Hungary. Hungarian soldiers had fought alongside the Nazis and for years before the Holocaust, Jews had faced anti-semitic laws. 'We were all aware, even as children, that the Hungarian people were deeply in everything that happened to us,' Tomi says. 'So you wouldn't talk to anyone about being Jewish.' Tomi says he didn't tell anyone he was Jewish for 20 years. He only began speaking about his past when he moved to England to live with his wife in 1966. When Agnes returned to Budapest with her family, after walking for a month from Strasshof transit camp in Austria, on 1 May, 1945, she was not met with joy. Instead, Hungarian soldiers told them: 'Couldn't you have stayed where you were? Hitler should have finished the job instead of you coming here to spoil the air.' Agnes was also bullied at school by the students and one teacher, a Nazi, would ruin the young girl's artwork and make her do it again and again. Uri, whose first word was 'coffee', learned later that nine of his close family members, including his aunt and uncle and his nine-year-old cousin Miriam, were killed in Auschwitz concentration camp. Pictured: Children are imprisoned in Auschwitz Agnes later learned that 27 men in her family had been killed fighting as forced labourers for the Hungarian army. She says she only survived the Holocaust because the train she was on, which was bound for Auschwitz, was diverted to the Strasshof transit camp. 'It means that every time I look at my grandchildren, I am aware of their miraculous existence. Never mind me, but if I wouldn't be here, they wouldn't be here and they are an absolute wonderful bunch of five. 'And how good is it for the world that they are here and the tragedy it would have been if they wouldn't have existed. These young, talented people wouldn't exist.' On their return, Agnes, Tomi and Uri's family's rarely spoke about what happened to them. 'Everyone tried to push what had happened out of their minds,' Tomi says. He recalls going to a family gathering and his mother telling him that if he saw a woman with numbers on her arm, he was not allowed - under any circumstances - to ask her what it was about.' Uri says his parents and sister rarely spoke of what happened to them in Terezin concentration camp. He remembers being eight-years-old when his mother told him a little about what happened to the family. 'But then there was silence,' he says. His sister only told him about a 'magical puppet show' at the camp. Uri learned later that this puppet show was put on as a charade to fool an international Red Cross Committee that was visiting. The Nazis used Terezina as a 'show camp' for the outside world to try and hide the horrors they were committing against millions of people. Uri says his parents and sister rarely spoke of what happened to them in Terezin concentration camp (pictured together) Uri says that now, 78 years after Auschwitz was liberated, he worries about the rise in hate speech. 'It felt like our world was getting better and yet suddenly, in the last few years, it has felt like it's slipped away again. 'In America there's the Trump movement and these movements thrive on hate. People saw his rhetoric as permission to show and act on their prejudices,' Uri says, point to the Capitol Hill riots. 'People thought, the President of the United States can talk like that to people, why can't I?' He adds: 'We need to talk about the need for tolerance. The things we share in common are so much greater than the things that separate us. But prejudice has a way of concentrating on that difference and making it much bigger.' Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, says it's incredibly important for Holocaust survivors to continue to share their experiences. Pollok tells MailOnline: 'On Holocaust Memorial Day we also pay tribute to the incredible survivors, many of whom still share their testimony day in and day out to ensure that future generations never forget the horrors of the past. 'This year, tens of thousands of people from across the country will hear from a survivor as part of their commemorations. 'In hearing a witness, they will become a witness, invested with a powerful responsibility to share what they have learnt and to speak out against the antisemitism and hatred that allowed the Holocaust to happen.' An early Friday fire in Center City Allentown routed two people from their corner row home. There were no injuries reported, city fire department Capt. John Christopher said. The Red Cross is assisting the two men who were displaced. About 2:30 a.m., city crews responded to 725 N. Seventh St. for a report of a fire, Christopher said. A second alarm was struck, possibly for additional manpower, but the fire was out relatively quickly, he said. The home was left with a small to moderate amount of fire damage in the third floor hallway and ceiling, as well as smoke damage to the second and third floors, Christopher said. There was water damage throughout. There was no damage to neighboring homes, he said. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Morning Call reporter Molly Bilinski can be reached at mbilinski@mcall.com. Trans sex offender Isla Bryson has been slung into Scotland's most notorious men's prison housing killers, gangsters and two other male rapists who also want to become women, MailOnline can reveal today. Bryson, 31, was removed out of Cornton Vale in Stirling yesterday and taken 40 miles to HMP Edinburgh after an extraordinary U-turn by Nicola Sturgeon. The First Minister was forced into a climbdown after she admitted Bryson should not be incarcerated in Scotlands only all-female jail just a day after her justice secretary backed the decision. The sex offender Bryson, who still has a penis, had raped two women while living as a man, Adam Graham, and only began transitioning after being charged with using his 'muscular' frame to abuse the two women. The former DJs estranged wife Shonna Graham even dismissed her husbands transition as a sham and told MailOnline Bryson was bullsh***ing the authorities to avoid a mens prison. But today the defendant is waking up in a male jail housing many of Scotland's most violent prisoners including murderers and sex offenders. Transgender rapist Isla Bryson was sent to a women's prison despite carrying out the crimes as a man and transitioning after being charge. The sex offender woke in a male prison today Serial killer Peter Tobin died in October after becoming unwell at HMP Edinburgh where he was serving three life sentences Rapist Jonathon Mallon is said to now want to be called Charlene and told inmates that he hopes to be moved into a Scottish women's jail by Easter. Murderer Paris Green was moved from Cornton Vale women's jail to HMP Edinburgh amid reports the killer was having sex with female prisoners HMP Edinburgh, also known as Saughton Prison, was for many years the home of serial killer and paedophile Peter Tobin, who once boasted that he'd killed 48 women. He died in October. Assassin James McDonald, is serving 35 years - the longest jail term in Scottish history and was sent there for shooting members of the rival Lyons crime clan in a drive-by. In 2017 at HMP Edinburgh he left fellow murderer Raymond Cartwright with stab wounds to his face and stomach, hit another man with 'a blunt instrument' and head-butted a prison guard in the five man brawl. Limbs in the Loch killer William Beggs is serving a life sentence in Saughton Prison, Edinburgh, for raping, murdering and dismembering Barry Wallace, 18, in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, in 1999. The teenager's limbs and torso were found in Loch Lomond and his head was dumped in the sea off the Ayrshire coast. Bryson is also in the same jail as two other sex offenders who say they want to be women. Rapist Albert Caballero, 50, is now wishing to be known as Claire and asked guards for lipstick and eye make-up to make him look more feminine. Serial rapist Jonathon Mallon, 40, has declared that he now wants to be called Charlene and told inmates that he hopes to be moved into a Scottish women's jail by Easter. The predator was caged for life in 2014 after a 14-year reign of attacks on a string of vulnerable women. HMP Edinburgh also has a separate wing for women but Bryson was not allowed in there despite initially being placed in a women's jail by the Scottish Prison Service. Gangster James McDonald (left), serving the longest jail term in Scottish history, 35 years, for shooting members of the rival Lyons crime clan served in HMP Edinburgh, where Bryson, previously known as Adam Graham (right), is now housed Limbs in the Loch killer William Beggs is serving a life sentence in Saughton Prison The scene at HMP Edinburgh last night where Bryson arrived in time for dinner Bryson, 31, was moved to a male prison after outrage from campaigners, politicians and a United Nations human rights expert. The rapist will return to court for sentencing next month. Pictured: A prison van believed to be transporting Isla Bryson to a men's prison is seen leaving Cornton Vale women's prison in Stirling on Thursday Isla Bryson enrolled on a beauty course with unsuspecting teenage female students AFTER being charged for sex attacks Advertisement It contains pre-op trans killer Paris Green. Green, who was born Peter Laing, who helped torture a man to death after a row over a bag of chips. The killer was moved to the women's wing at HMP Edinburgh after being thrown out of Cornton Vale, where Bryson was held, after reports about having sex with female prisoners in the cells. Rachel Trelfa is also held there. She and her then civil partner Nyomi Fee chained two-year-old Liam Fee to a cage in a room filled with snakes and rats before murdering him in 2014. Liam Trelfa's son was beaten so severely that medics likened his injuries to those usually sustained by car crash victims. As Bryson was moved yesterday it emerged the sex offender had enrolled in a beauty course while awaiting trial. The convicted rapist began taking the beauty course at Ayrshire College's Kilwinning Campus, which reportedly involved both classroom work and practical applications, after having been charged for sex attacks. Bryson, 31, was convicted this week of raping two women in 2016 and 2019 following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Bryson will return to court for sentencing next month. Nicola Sturgeon (pictured yesterday) confirmed that Isla Bryson will not remain in a women's prison while speaking to the Scottish Parliament Isla Bryson (pictured on Monday) attended Ayrshire College's Kilwinning Campus in 2021 while awaiting trial for rape Bryson was enrolled at the college for a three-month period in 2021 and is no longer enrolled, Ayrshire College spokesperson told MailOnline. The spokesperson added: 'Ayrshire College had no prior knowledge of this individual being charged with any offences. 'We will not be making any further comment on this matter.' Bryson's course was almost exclusively comprised of female students, most of whom were 'much younger' than the convicted rapist, reports indicate. Susan Smith, of the campaign group For Women Scotland, suspects the rapist's classmates did not know about the charges because they were filed under Bryson's 'original name.' 'Presumably they knew him by his new name, so they probably wouldn't have been able to find out anything about this person,' Ms Smith told STV News today, adding that it is 'absolutely terrifying that people can hide their identities and gain access to young women in this way.' News of Bryson's enrolment at Ayrshire College comes just hours after the rapist was moved out of Scotland's only all-women's prison to a male jail within hours of a humiliating U-turn by Nicola Sturgeon. Ms Sturgeon told First Minister's Questions: 'I don't think it's possible to have a rapist within a women's prison'. A vehicle believed to be transporting Bryson was pictured leaving Cornton Vale jail in Stirling at around 2.30pm and it arrived at a replacement facility at 5.20pm. The SNP leader revealed the U-turn just 24 hours after her own justice secretary Keith Brown backed the Scottish Prison Service's decision to put the transgender double rapist with female inmates in Cornton Vale. The move comes after campaigners, politicians and a United Nations human rights expert all raised concerns over Bryson being housed in a women's prison. MPs and MSPs warned that female inmates could be at risk and the move sent a signal that male sex offenders could 'game the system'. Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said: 'It should not have taken public disgust and a slew of negative headlines about a double rapist being sent to a women's prison for Nicola Sturgeon to realise this was completely unacceptable and wrong.' Bryson had only started to transition after appearing in court on the rape charges. The rapist's estranged wife Shonna Graham, 31, previously told MailOnline her former partner's transition was a 'sham for attention' and he was 'bull******** the authorities' to avoid a male prison. Bryson's case comes weeks after the Scottish parliament passed a bill to make it easier for people to change their legal gender, drawing criticism from some women's rights campaigners who argue that predatory men could use it to access single-sex spaces such as bathrooms. The controversial bill, passed in December, made Scotland the first nation of the UK to back a self-identification process for changing gender, including removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and lowering the minimum age to 16 from 18. The bill has deepened a rift with the government of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, with the two already at loggerheads over whether Scotland can hold another independence referendum. Scotland's devolved parliament can make its own laws, but the UK can veto legislation if it deems it to interfere with matters within the national jurisdiction. Britain's move to block the gender bill is the first time it has invoked that power. Ms Sturgeon has called the UK's blocking of the bill a 'full-frontal attack' on the Scottish Parliament. A Colorado man 'intentionally' rammed his pickup truck through the front doors of a police station after he claimed people were 'following him,' causing up to $1million of damage, police said. Nathan David Chacon, 45, crashed his 2007 Chevrolet Silverado through the glass doors and into the lobby of the Grand Junction Police Station at around 12.30pm on Wednesday before coming to a stop at the counter, footage released by the department shows. There were 11 employees working in offices behind the counter at the time, according to Chacon's affidavit. Incredibly, nobody was injured by the vehicle. Officers ran to the lobby pointing their guns and ordered Chacon to exit the full-size pickup, the footage reveals. After being ordered to get on the floor by one armed officer, the man can be seen lying face down with his arms spread. Officers ran to the lobby pointing their guns and ordered Nathan David Chacon, 45, to exit the full-size pickup, the footage shows After being ordered to get on the floor by one armed officer, the man can be seen lying face down with his arms spread Chacon was taken into custody without incident. He did not require medical assistance and was put in a holding cell where he voluntarily talked to the police. Chacon was arrested and charged with attempted murder, attempted assault, attempted vehicular assault, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. According to the affidavit, there have been at least 90 calls for Chacon over the last few years, during which he reported 'strange happenings that have been unfounded'. He had called the police several times in the days leading up to the crash and would swear at officers over the phone and then hang up angrily, according to the arrest affidavit. It is not clear what he had reported to them. Chacon told police that on Thursday morning he was 'being followed' by multiple vehicles as he drove out of Colorado, causing him to take side strides to avoid them. Footage from outside of the police department shows the vehicle driving into the parking lot before taking a sharp left turn through the front doors. Grand Junction Police Station posted about the incident on social media on January 25 Footage from outside of the police department shows the vehicle drive into the parking lot In the parking lot Chacon took a sharp left turn through the front doors of the Grand Junction Police Station Chacon crashed his 2007 Chevrolet Silverado through glass doors and into the lobby of the police station at around 12:30pm on Wednesday Chacon came to a stop at the counter, footage released by the department shows An officer aimed a gun at Chacon and ordered him to get down on the floor Chacon followed the orders. He was then taken into custody without incident. Chacon was arrested and charged with attempted murder, attempted assault, attempted vehicular assault, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment Chacon told police officers that when he drove into the parking lot 'he did not want to be killed, so he chose to drive into the lobby'. He said he was aware that it was a 'dumb' idea, but he felt compelled to do it 'in order to be heard'. The Grand Junction police department said in a social media post on Wednesday that the lobby is closed for an unknown period of time but the department remains operational. Damages to the lobby, entrance doors and bulletproof window panes are estimated to be between $100,000 and $1,000,000, police said. Last week, a huge pileup involving nine semi-trucks and 12 cars in Colorado shut down a 160-mile stretch of the I-70. The disruption came on Wednesday afternoon as a winter storm struck the Denver area, bringing violent winds and leaving roads covered in snow. Some of the semis involved in the crash suffered from damaged gas tanks and hazmat teams were deployed in an attempt to contain spills, a spokesperson for the Colorado State Patrol said. An aide told CNN there was no pre-planned meeting with Musk scheduled McCarthy was cryptic about meeting and said Musk wished him happy birthday Musk said he met with Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries at Capitol Hill Elon Musk has had a surprise meeting with the Republican and Democrat House leaders to discuss the future of Twitter. Musk said he had met with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to discuss 'ensuring that Twitter is fair to both parties'. But McCarthy was cryptic about his meeting with Musk and told Bloomberg: 'He came to wish me a happy birthday.' McCarthy, who turned 58 on Thursday, added: 'We've been friends for years.' And an aide to Jeffries told CNN there was no pre-planned meeting with Musk scheduled. Elon Musk has had a surprise meeting with the Republican and Democrat House leaders to discuss the future of Twitter Musk said he had met with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (pictured) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to discuss 'ensuring that Twitter is fair to both parties' Musk tweeted he had a meeting with the pair to discuss 'ensuring that Twitter is fair to both parties' 'Jeffries was meeting with McCarthy in the Speaker's office and, as it was ending, Musk came in,' the aide said. 'They didn't have a meeting. They met. It was mostly jus an introduction.' It comes as Twitter is facing a series of lawsuits over unpaid rent at the company's headquarters in San Francisco and its British offices - in the latest sign that Musk's extreme cost-cutting strategy includes simply not paying bills. Musk's $44billion takeover of Twitter last October has been mired in controversy after the entrepreneur sacked thousands of staff without notice. Twitter is now facing a lawsuit over allegations it failed to pay rent for its head office, according to California court documents. The owner of its premises in central London, meanwhile, said its taking the company to court over rental debt. Twitter has already been taken to court this month for falling behind on rent at another San Francisco office. It's the latest legal headache for Musk, who has been testifying in recent days in a separate class-action lawsuit from Tesla investors alleging his 2017 tweet misled them about funding to take the electric carmaker private. And an aide to Jeffries (pictured) told CNN there was no pre-planned meeting with Musk scheduled The billionaire Tesla CEOs cost-cutting strategy for Twitter also has included gutting the company's workforce and auctioning off memorabilia and office furniture. Chairs from the company's offices were being sold for more than $1,000. Last week, it emerged that Twitter has suffered a 40 percent drop in revenue since last year, as more than 500 advertisers pause spending on the microblogging site. In the first quarter of 2022, Twitter generated $1.2billion in revenue - or the equivalent of $13.3million a day. If its revenue is now running 40 percent below that, it would currently be making $8million a day. Meanwhile, more than 500 advertisers have paused spending with the site since Musk's takeover, reports The Information. Twitter revenue has dropped 40 percent, insiders claim, meaning daily revenue is estimated to be around $8million, based on figures from the first quarter of 2022 Advertisers have been spooked by the company's mass lay-offs and Musk's rush to implement a paid verification feature that resulted in scammers impersonating companies on Twitter. The social media platform also recently reversed its 2019 ban on political ads and said that it would relax advertising policy for 'cause-based ads' in the United States and align its ad policy with TV and other media outlets. In November, Musk admitted there had been issues with advertising revenue, telling his followers: 'Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation, and we did everything we could to appease the activists.' He added: 'Extremely messed up! They're trying to destroy free speech in America.' Musk has already axed 75 percent of its 7,500-strong workforce, resulting in dozens of laid-off workers now trying to sue the company for firing them without warning. A seething wife has been caught storming into a brothel and attacking a naked sex worker who had been romping with her husband. The incandescent woman reportedly found pictures of the pair on her partner's phone and then followed him to the massage parlour in Phuket, Thailand, on Wednesday. The cheating husband had already left the brothel but the woman discovered the petite prostitute sitting on a chair. Footage shows how the woman ripped a towel from the young sex worker, exposing her naked body before launching a volley of raging kicks and slaps for more than five minutes. The cheating husband had already left the massage parlour in Thailand before his wife arrived At one point the wife was standing on top of the shaken masseuse and grappling with her to snatch her phone while pulling her hair. Several other women stood around and watched. The younger woman was heard repeatedly apologising and asking for forgiveness. She says 'I didn't know he had a wife' and 'I will stop seeing him'. There were a number of sex toys, mirrors, sex chairs, and used tissues seen around the room, with customers paying around 2,000 Baht (49) for an hour with one of the women. Police are now investigating the alleged assault on the popular holiday island known for its beaches and raunchy nightlife. Colonel Sarawut Chuprasit, the Mueang Phuket Provincial Police Station, said today that officers were investigating the incident. He said: 'Officers are checking where the incident occurred. Nobody recognises that massage place. 'There have been no complaints from any of the people involved but I encourage the victim to report the incident to police. We will investigate it urgently for them.' Police are investigating the incident, though say they don't know exactly where the parlour is The woman ripped a towel from the young sex worker, exposing her body before kicking her Lawyer Anantarak Pathin said details of the alleged attack had been leaked to him. He said it happened at a brothel in Phuket, where the younger woman was caught having an affair with the attacker's husband. Anantarak said: 'The assault is a criminal offence and the victim can report it to the police. 'I think the attack is extremely severe because several people were in the room and witnessed the slapping and stripping. 'It was unacceptable that the woman was stripped naked. It should be investigated fully.' Russia is now 'at war against NATO and the West' and has taken the invasion of Ukraine to a 'different stage', a senior EU official has admitted, raising the terrifying spectre of a global conflict. The 'game-changing' deal among Western leaders to pump sophisticated tanks into the country to blast through the Kremlin's invading forces has sparked fury in Moscow which has threatened to escalate the war beyond Ukraine's borders. Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European Union's European External Action Service, said Vladimir Putin will increase indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets and retaliate against the West. Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo as part of an Asia-Pacific tour, he said Putin had 'moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West'. A Ukrainian tank fires towards a Russian position near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region, yesterday The official defended the US and German tank provisions, saying they are not intended as an attack but rather to help Ukrainians defend themselves. He said: 'I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia started moving the war into a different stage.' He added that Russia is making 'indiscriminate attacks' on civilians and cities and no longer military targets. The EU is not looking to escalate hostilities but is 'just giving the possibility of saving lives and allowing the Ukrainians to defend (themselves) from these barbaric attacks', Mr Sannino said. Meanwhile, the Kremlin said today the US holds the key to ending the war in Ukraine but refuses to use it. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Joe Biden of 'pumping weapons into Ukraine' when he could instead be instigating a ceasefire. Germany and the US announced on Wednesday they will send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine, offering what one expert called an 'armoured punching force' to help Kyiv break combat stalemates as the Russian invasion enters its 12th month. Local residents remove debris from a house of their neighbour damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine A woman takes photos with her mobile phone next to ruined houses following Russian missile attacks A German-made Leopard tank is pictured on exercises in Canada, and will soon be deployed to the battlefield The announcement marked the first stage of a co-ordinated effort by the West to provide dozens of the heavy weapons, which Ukrainian military commanders said would enable counter-offensives, reduce casualties and help restore dwindling ammunition supplies. Joe Biden said his country will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks, reversing months of persistent arguments by Washington that they were too difficult for Ukrainian troops to operate and maintain. The US decision followed Germany's agreement to send 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks from its own stocks. In response, Russia has stepped up attempts to break through Ukraine's defences with heavy fighting in the east of the country. The Ukrainian military said fierce battles were under way, a day after Russian missiles and drones killed at least 11 people in retaliation to the tank deal. Volodymyr Zelensky thanked allies for their support but renewed calls for tougher sanctions on Moscow and made clear his country needed more weapons to repel the invaders in the twelfth month of the war. 'This evil, this Russian aggression can and should be stopped only with adequate weapons. The terrorist state will not understand anything else,' Zelensky said in his nightly television address on Thursday. Putin (pictured yesterday) has stepped up attempts to break through Ukraine's defences with heavy fighting in the east of the country 'Weapons on the battlefield. Weapons that protect our skies. New sanctions against Russia, i.e. political and economic weapons.' Ukraine's military said it shot down 47 of 59 Russian missiles on Thursday. Russia also launched 37 air strikes, 17 of them using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. All drones were downed, it said. Eleven people were killed in the drone and missile strikes, which spanned multiple regions and also damaged dozens of buildings, a State Emergency Service spokesperson said. Local officials on Friday reported heavy shelling in the north, northeast and east of Ukraine, scene of some of the heaviest combat since Russia launched its invasion. 'Fierce fighting continues along the front lines. Our defenders are firmly holding their positions and inflicting losses to the enemy,' said Oleh Synehubov, governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv. Oleksandr Musiyenko, head of the Military and Strategic Research Centre of Ukraine, said Russia was sending in more reinforcements to block Ukrainian advances. 'They are mostly sending infantry and artillery forces into battle, made up mainly of conscripts. But they do not have the level of artillery and tank support they had on February 24,' Musiyenko told Ukrainian television. 'They have fewer resources. They are relying on the numerical superiority of their troops.' Front lines have remained largely frozen over the past two months, with Russia trying to gain more ground in the east after occupying much of what is known as the Donbas region and protect a corridor of land it has occupied in southern Ukraine. Britain said in a regular intelligence update on Friday that Russian forces had probably conducted probing attacks near Orikhiv in the southeast and in Vuhledar in the east, but were unlikely to have achieved 'substantive advances.' Both sides are widely expected to launch a spring offensive. 'Where will the main (Russian) strike occur? For now, we have no idea. Diversionary strikes are possible in all sectors and, in one or two, mass strikes aimed at punching a corridor through Ukraine,' Mykola Sunhurovskiy, director of military programmes at Ukraine's Razumkov Centre think tank, told the nv.ua website. Russia has in the past reacted to Ukrainian successes with heavy air strikes that left millions without light, heat or water. Ukrainian soldiers are seen riding on a T-72 Soviet-era tank, used widely in the ongoing conflict, in the Donetsk region, January 20 Ukrainian soldiers are seen at their mortar position on the Donbass frontline yesterday An APC drives threw retaken town Lyman in Donetsk region yesterday at a key moment in the war On Thursday, it appeared to follow that pattern. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Russia's attacks targeted energy plants. The Kremlin said it saw the promised delivery of Western tanks as evidence of growing 'direct involvement' of the United States and Europe in the war, something both deny. Western allies have committed about 150 tanks while Ukraine has said it needs hundreds to break Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the south and east. Both Moscow and Kyiv, which have relied on Soviet-era T-72 tanks, are expected to mount new ground offensives in the spring. After being promised modern tanks, Ukraine is now seeking Western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the U.S. F-16, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister said. The United States on Thursday formally designated the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary company, as a transnational criminal organisation, freezing its U.S. assets for helping Russia's military in Ukraine. The head of a Russian-controlled part of the Donetsk region said on Wednesday that Wagner units were advancing in the town of Bakhmut. A senior Ukrainian official said fighting in Bakhmut and in Vuhledar was intensifying. Since invading Ukraine 11 months ago, Russia has shifted the focus of its rhetoric from 'denazifying' and 'demilitarising' its neighbour to confronting what is says is an aggressive and expansionist U.S.-led NATO alliance. Transport for London have faced pressure to cut down on costs Labour London Assembly members have blocked free loos at London Underground stations, rejecting the Green party amendment to invest 20million into new public facilities. There have been increasing debates regarding free bathrooms on the London Underground following Labour party officials' rejection of the initiative. The London Assembly Labour Group have refused the 20million amendment introduced by the Green party which would see new toilet facilities being put in place across Transport for London stations. According to Green London assembly member Caroline Russell, the proposals could be paid out of TfL cash reserves - which in turn would increase fares. Labour London Assembly members have blocked free toilet facilities at London Underground stations, rejecting the Green party amendment to invest 20million into them 'Despite warm words and many years of cross-party support for more loos for London, the Labour group today chose to vote against my amendment. 'This was a fully costed and feasible plan for new, free toilets at TfL stations, which would mean more accessible toilets for everyone if the Mayor took it up', she said according to The Telegraph. Sadiq Khan faces furious backlash over plans for biggest transport and council tax rises in a decade Advertisement She added that the Labour party are unwilling to act on their word, and as a result they will need to answer to those who will be suffering the consequences of their decision, such as older and disabled people. Labour's decision comes at a time where Mr Khan faces an increasing pressure to manage finances at the transport authority. The Mayor and Chairman of TfL recently faced bankruptcy and was obligated to ask the government at Westminster for billions of pounds in state cash to keep the company afloat. As a result of the aid, TfL now faces the conditional agreement to freeze fares. Due to the increasing popularity of working from home resulting from the pandemic, demand for public transport in London continues to remain below pre-pandemic levels. On average, passenger numbers on the Underground are between 60per cent and 80per cent and bus levels at 80per cent to 90per cent - as a result of this, fare returns are lower and TfL are forced to cut costs. Former minister Norman Baker from the Campaign for Better Transport told the Telegraph: 'More public toilets would be welcome on the London Underground though we do understand TfL is not flush with money.' Mr Baker added that it is understandable with the increasing fares, members of the public are already spending a considerable amount to travel on the underground services. Transport for London have been contacted for a comment. Labour's decision comes at a time where Mr Khan faces an increasing pressure to manage finances at the transport authority Rishi Sunak is risking another Cabinet row over foreign students with plans to allow them to work longer hours to help the UK's ailing economy. The PM is considering plans to allow those who come to Britain's universities form overseas to do more paid work around their studies, with more hours and a wider range of jobs on offer. Ministers are hoping to use British and overseas students to deal with shortages in areas such as hospitality and retail. Currently, Britains 680,000 overseas students are limited to 20 hours of paid work a week during term time to prevent student visas from being used as back routes to jobs in the country. But the government wants to raise this cap to 30 hours, or remove it entirely, as Rishi Sunak is concerned a surge in job vacancies will block his pledge for economic growth. But he is likely to run into opposition from Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She is keen to reduce the number of foreign students in the UK and increase curbs on their outside work. This wee it was revealed she wants to reduce the time they can stay in the UK on a student visa after they complete their studies from two years to six months. The PM (pictured at Chequers yesterday) is considering plans to allow those who come to Britain's universities form overseas to do more paid work around their studies, with more hours and a wider range of jobs on offer. But he is likely to run into opposition from Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She is keen to reduce the number of foreign students in the UK and increase curbs on their outside work. There are nine million economically inactive people with 1.3 million empty posts and students are seen as a way of filling vacancies in hospitality and retail which are particularly struggling with recruitment. International students made up 476,000 of the 1.1 million migrants who arrived in the year to last June. Government sources told The Times ministers were looking at what more we can do to remove barriers and encourage students to work. Some universities describe the plans as positive news for overseas students struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and chancellors hoping to boost the numbers of foreign students. However, other academics warned The Times, too many working hours isnt good for study and some universities are likely to oppose it for that reason. The recruitment drive among foreign students was part of a swathe of ideas being considered, but the initiative risks contradicting Suella Bravermans calls to reduce the number of foreign students. The home secretary is likely to be wary of measures that will make visas more attractive to those wanting to come to Britain to work. Ms Braverman has proposed to reduce the number of foreign students to meet Sunaks pledge of cutting overall immigration after net migration reached an all-time high of 504,000 last year. Braverman plans to reduce the time foreign students can stay in the UK after finishing their course from two years to six months. Mr Burton lost his hearing being blown out of bed in the war during The Blitz Police, fire crews and gas workers were stationed at his house for several days A pensioner who died in an explosion at his home which 'shook nearby houses like an earthquake' had accidentally cut into a gas pipe with a power saw, an inquest has heard. Father-of-two Frank Burton, 91, was found dead following the 'huge' blast in Wythenshawe, south Manchester, on March 31 last year. The retired car mechanic's death sparked a large-scale emergency response, with police, fire crews and gas workers stationed at his semi-detached house on Brownley Lane for several days. A hearing at Manchester Coroners' Court was told Mr Burton, a widower whose wife Brenda died a decade ago, was cutting a worktop with a power saw in his kitchen when he accidentally 'penetrated a gas pipe underneath'. Father-of-two Frank Burton, 91, was found dead following the 'huge' blast in Wythenshawe, south Manchester, on March 31 last year The retired car mechanic's death sparked a large-scale emergency response, with police, fire crews and gas workers stationed at his semi-detached house on Brownley Lane for several days A number of homes were left without power following the explosion in March last year Senior coroner Nigel Meadows said: 'This led to an escape of gas which ignited and caused an explosion and a fire killing the deceased in the kitchen.' The court heard Mr Burton died as a result of extensive burns and smoke inhalation, with Mr Meadows concluding his death was accidental. A major incident was declared for a short time following the blast, which left Mr Burton's house completely destroyed. Several neighbours were evacuated from their homes for a number of hours. Eyewitnesses reported hearing a 'huge' bang which 'shook their houses like an earthquake' as the house exploded. It was initially feared by Mr Burton's family that he had been using an appliance to help with a cold weather snap, but the inquest heard that this did not play a part in the explosion. Paying tribute, Mr Burton's brother, Philip, described him as a 'good character' and a 'good guy.' Philip said previously: 'Frank was in the motor industry, he used to do body work and was highly skilled and respected. He was a dad-of-two. 'This is a chap who when he was working once went ballooning over the Grand Canyon. He was an occasional visitor to Las Vegas. I haven't been able to reach Frank for some time, he was deaf. He was deaf because he got blown out of bed during the war during The Blitz in Manchester.' Mr Burton's son, Paul, penned his own heartbreaking tribute to his father, who he said gave him a 'grand upbringing.' In a statement issued through police, Paul said his dad had lived in the house on Brownley Road for 66 years. He said he grew up in Hulme, before moving to Northenden and then to his mother-in-law's house in Wythenshawe with Brenda. Paul said: 'My dad was a young eight-year-old boy when the Second World War broke out and survived being bombed out twice.' Mr Burton, a widower whose wife Brenda (pictured together on their wedding day) died a decade ago, was cutting a worktop with a power saw in his kitchen when he accidentally 'penetrated a gas pipe underneath' Several neighbours were evacuated from their homes for a number of hours A major incident was declared for a short time following the blast, which left Mr Burton's house completely destroyed Emergency services at the scene of the gas explosion in Wythenshawe last year He said the family would enjoy holidays when Paul was younger, then Paul and his father would travel to the United States together every year after the death of his mother. Paul added: 'Saying that my dad was very artistic was an understatement. He was able to repair almost anything that people gave him - especially broken jewellery. 'When I was little, I would hear him in his workshop, with the door firmly closed - once, out came a handmade life-sized Dalek. 'I don't have any regrets at all, as I can't say 'I wished I had done this or that', I did everything I possibly could for both my parents and have very very happy memories of a grand upbringing. Goodnight Dad. Love from your son, Paul.' Parents and students slammed a school's decision to barricade toilets during lesson time claiming it's 'against human rights'. Photographs show metal gates were installed across the entrances to Castle View School's toilets with locks barring students from entering. One parent has branded the decision taken by school officials at the Essex school to 'tackle bad behaviour ' as 'disgusting'. Officials at the comprehensive in Canvey, have defended the move. The gates pictured above were installed by Castle View School in an attempt to tackle 'bad behaviour' and have told pupils they will need a 'pass' to go They gates are locked during lesson times but this controverisal decision sparked fury among parents and students as one parent said it is 'against human rights' One mum whose children go to the school, who asked not to be named, said: 'It is against human rights and is disgusting. 'It is like they are in a prison.' She claims the decision has caused long queues to form during break and lunch times. The mum continued: 'It is an absolute nightmare. 'My child felt sick at lunchtime and was left to just stand and queue. 'My child nearly had to be sick in the hallway, which is so embarrassing. 'These gates are on all the toilet blocks. 'I don't know any other secondary schools that have put an actual physical gate that can be locked.' According to one mum the decision to install the gates was not communicated to parents or the students The mum also said no parents were alerted to the controversial new plans. She said: 'We haven't had any letters or emails about it, it is just so wrong. 'They don't always open all of them at lunch or break either because a teacher has to open them. 'So there are always long queues, and some days my child doesn't even eat because there isn't time to queue for food and the toilet. 'My child has anxiety around going to the toilet now, it is so bad.' A 14-year-old student, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'We are children, we don't need to be locked up. 'It shows an extreme lack of trust, which is understandable as we are kids, but the level they are going at is getting out of control. 'We understand why it was put in place to stop vaping and because of safeguarding issues. A 14-year-old Caste View student, who wished to remain anonymous, said: 'We are children, we don't need to be locked up 'But if you want to stop that then put smoke detectors closer and use thermal cameras like other schools are. 'Alongside this, we are now having to ask to drink water and if we don't we get a detention. 'My mate got 10 minutes for drinking, it's a joke. 'I understand there is a duty of care but what I don't understand is why they're going to this level.' A spokesperson for Castle View School said: 'Pupils are able to access all toilets before school, break times, lunch times, and after school. 'If a pupil requires access to the toilet during lesson time, they simply request a pass from their teacher and are allowed access. This requirement does not apply to pupils with any specific or additional medical needs.' Schools across Essex have been attempting to tackle 'bad behaviour' by closing toilets during lesson time. Shoebury High School in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, has previously used the same method, along with Mayflower High School in Billericay, Essex. Meanwhile, the Deanes School in Thundersley, Essex, have created toilet pass cards to be used. A Canadian woman ended up with a set of car keys lodged in her face after her friend threw them to her. Renee Lariviere, 24, was about to leave her apartment complex in the city of Sudbury in northern Canada to go to McDonald's when one of her friends threw her car keys to her. But as Renee grabbed the car key, she somehow stabbed herself in the face in a 'freak accident'. Horrifying photos show the metal of the key disappear in Renee's cheek, leaving the handle sticking out awkwardly while an x-ray shows it buried an inch-and-a half deep into her nasal cavity. Renee Lariviere, 24, was left with her car keys lodged in her face after a friend tossed them to her in a 'freak accident' Keyhole surgery: Horrifying photos show the metal of the key disappear in Renee's cheek, leaving the handle to stick out awkwardly while an x-ray shows it buried deep below her eyeball Renee Lariviere, 24, was about to leave her apartment complex in the city of Sudbury in northern Canada to go to McDonald's when one of her friends threw her car keys to her Renee said she didn't believe that the key had punctured her face to begin with, as the adrenaline prevented her from feeling any pain. However, after looking in the mirror and seeing the key lodged in her cheek, Renee's first fear was blindness. The group of panicked friends called the emergency services, and an ambulance arrived minutes later to take Renee to the Health Sciences North Hospital. Renee, who works for a landscaping company, said doctors and nurses were 'amazed' by the 'fluke accident' and now use photos of her as an example to prove 'anything can happen'. She said: 'I felt a pressure, but I felt like I just got hit [with the keys] in the face, like I missed my catch. 'My friend looked at me and said, "Oh my God, don't move", and he started panicking. An x-ray showed how the key burrowed an inch-and-a-half deep into her nasal cavity 'I guess the adrenaline is pumping, so you don't feel it right away. I actually didn't believe him, so I walked to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. 'I was scared. My concern was my eye.' Renee added: 'I couldn't care less about a scar. Scars, if you take care of them properly, will go away. That wasn't my concern. My concern was, 'am I going to be able to see?'. 'It felt like pressure was there constantly, like severe pressure, as if something heavy was on [my] face. 'The doctors there were amazed. There were doctors coming from different departments to see, because they couldn't believe it. 'I had one of them come and ask to take pictures so he could show his students. He was an emergency room doctor, so he was trying to show [them] that anything could happen.' Renee was immediately seen by medical professionals when she arrived at the hospital, who gave her a CT scan and called in a plastic surgeon to remove the key and stitch up the wound. Renee said the surgeon confirmed that the key had buried itself within her nasal cavities. She has since fully recovered without complications and without scarring. Renee was immediately seen by medical professionals when she arrived at the hospital, who gave her a CT scan and called in a plastic surgeon to remove the key and stitch up the wound. She has since fully recovered without complications and without scarring Now, Renee believes that people should be more careful as they go about their day-to-day lives, as she admits that that incident was a 'near miss'. Renee said: 'Looking at it now, I'd think there's no way that could even happen. 'Like what are the odds of that happening, or [it's] just dumb luck I guess, because there is a bit of luck that nothing bad actually happened. 'It was a near miss. If it had hit somewhere else, it could have done quite a bit of damage. 'At no point did I lose any eyesight, but I was scared of where they [would] take it out, or that if I moved a certain way it would touch something. But that didn't happen luckily. 'It was a relief as soon as they got the results back from the CT scan and said everything was fine. 'I definitely think people should be more careful. Fluke accidents happen all the time, and I think we don't realize that. 'We're so busy living our day-to-day life, and we don't realize how many things could happen each day and how much they could hurt us.' Authorities announced the Friday release of police video depicting five officers beating a Black man whose death prompted murder charges against them and provoked outrage at the countrys latest instance of police brutality. Family members of Tyre Nichols pleaded for any protests to remain peaceful. The officers, all of whom are Black, were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Nichols, a motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop on Jan. 7. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the killing, they are all responsible. Nichols family members and their lawyers said the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis described the officers actions as heinous, reckless and inhumane, and said Friday that her department has been unable to substantiate the reckless driving allegation that prompted the stop. As far as I know today, I do believe that the stop itself was very questionable, she told Good Morning America. Video of the traffic stop will be released to the public sometime Friday evening, Mulroy said, noting that local and state investigators wanted to complete as many interviews as possible before releasing it. Nichols family members viewed the footage on Monday. Davis told GMA that she and other local officials decided it would be best to release the video later in the day Friday after schools have let out and people are home from work, given that protests are expected to erupt. As a precaution, Memphis area schools canceled all after-class activities and postponed a school event scheduled for Saturday morning. Other early closures include the Memphis power companys community offices and the University of Memphis. Nichols mother, RowVaughn Wells, who said her family is grief-stricken, warned supporters of the horrific nature of the video but pleaded for peaceful protests. I dont want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because thats not what my son stood for, she said Thursday. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. Davis also urged calm after the videos release. I expect our citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to protest, to demand actions and results, but we need to ensure our community is safe in this process, she said Thursday. None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens. Andre E. Johnson, pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries and a local activist, noted that past protests in Memphis have largely been peaceful. He said the anticipation of unrest is different from when white people storm the Capitol or show up at any statehouse with weapons, and said people in the community see the contrast. Memphis has been known as a nonviolent city, he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. We have tried to live the life and the legacy and teaching of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Any time any violence has ever happened in this city, more than likely it has come from the police. I pray that the police tonight will not be violent, and I pray that all goes well. On Thursday night, several dozen supporters joined Rodney and RowVaughn Wells for a peaceful candlelight vigil and prayer service at a Memphis skate park. Nichols, who had a 4-year-old son, was an avid skateboarder. Activists and clergy led the group in prayer and a drummer played a steady rhythm to lead into the spoken part of the vigil. Afterward, skaters rode their boards as the Wellses watched. Earlier Thursday, Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, told the AP by phone that he and RowVaughn Wells discussed the second-degree murder charges and are fine with it. They had sought first-degree murder charges. Theres other charges, so Im all right with that, he said, adding that he was ecstatic about how quickly the officers were fired and charged. Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody. The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond as of Friday morning and had been released from custody, according to court and jail records. Martins lawyer, William Massey, and Mills lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. Lawyers for Smith, Bean and Haley could not be reached. No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die, Massey said. Both lawyers said they had not seen the video. We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is, Ballin said. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Lt. Essica Cage-Rosario, president of the Memphis Police Association, the union representing officers, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. The attorneys for Nichols family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, issued a statement saying that Nichols lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop. At the White House, President Joe Biden said the Nichols family and the city of Memphis deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation. Public trust is the foundation of public safety, and there are still too many places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken, Biden said in a statement. Davis said other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. In addition, she said a complete and independent review will be conducted of the departments specialized units, without providing further details. Two fire department workers were also removed from duty over the Nichols arrest. As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police departments full and complete cooperation to determine what contributed to Nichols Jan. 10 death. Crump said the video showed that Nichols was shocked, pepper-sprayed and restrained when he was pulled over near his home. He was returning home from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset. Police have said Nichols was stopped for reckless driving and at some point fled from the scene. Relatives have accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure. Authorities have only said Nichols experienced a medical emergency. One of the officers, Haley, was accused previously of using excessive force. He was named as a defendant in a 2016 federal civil rights lawsuit while employed by the Shelby County Division of Corrections. The claims were ultimately dismissed after a judge ruled that the plaintiff had failed to file a grievance against the officers within 30 days of the incident. Of the Memphis Police Departments 2,006 commissioned officers, 1,194, or 59.5%, are Black, Memphis Police spokesperson Karen Rudolph said. Associated Press reporters Aaron Morrison in New York, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Rebecca Reynolds in Lexington, Kentucky, contributed to this report. A Missouri woman was dragged for eight miles in her car on a road after getting trapped underneath a truck on an icy winter morning. Police in Leawood, Kansas, are investigating after receiving reports at around 3.40am on Wednesday that a truck, driving westbound on Interstate 435 (I-435), was dragging a silver Kia under the edge of its trailer, according to NBC. Captain Brad Robbins told local media he believed the truck was passing through a green light, when the Kia, which was heading south, skidded through a red light, hitting the back wheels of the trailer. Footage shows multiple cars flashing their lights to alert the truck driver. After around eight miles, he pulled over. The Kia driver, a 28-year-old from Kansas City, somehow survived her ordeal and received treatment in hospital before being released. The car was badly damaged in the accident. The Kia driver, a 28-year-old from Kansas City, received treatment in hospital but has since been released Footage shows multiple cars flashing their lights to alert the truck driver. After around eight miles, he pulled over One image shows the car's front badly damaged and trapped underneath the truck at the side of the road. Police audio, published by local newspaper The Kansas City Star, revealed individuals told dispatchers they 'think someone is inside the vehicle that's stuck underneath the truck', after two police officers were sent to the 'unknown accident'. Ambulance and fire crews also responded but were initially unable to find the driver's pulse, according to The Star. When the driver regained consciousness she said she was in a great deal of pain. A day later, two were killed in a crash near the same road. Overland Police said two vehicles collided, with one hitting a cement barrier and overturning several times after coming off the I-435. Both individuals were pronounced dead at the scene. Police believe the crash was caused by the car trying to change lane on Highway 69. Police in Leawood, Kansas, are investigating after receiving reports at around 3.40am on Wednesday that a truck, driving westbound on Interstate 435 (I-435), was dragging a silver Kia under the edge of its trailer, according to NBC Captain Brad Robbins told local media he believed the truck was passing through a green light, when the Kia, which was heading south, skidded through a red light, hitting the back wheels of the trailer, according to reports Police audio, published by local newspaper The Kansas City Star, revealed individuals told dispatchers they 'think someone is inside the vehicle that's stuck underneath the truck', after two police officers were sent to the 'unknown accident' In February last year, a 13-year-old girl was killed after being dragged for several miles when she tried to jump out of her family's SUV after a carjacker stole it from outside a restaurant in Wichita, Kansas. Police said the girl, who was not publicly identified, got caught in her seat belt while trying to escape the car. Kevin Palmer, 34, was charged with felony murder over the girl's death. A five-year-old boy has been rushed to hospital after being hit by a car outside a primary school. Police and emergency crews were called to the scene near Antonine Primary School in Bonnybridge, Scotland just after 3pm on Wednesday. The boy was taken to hospital by ambulance and a 26-year-old woman will be 'reported in connection with a road traffic offence', police said. Broomhill Road, where the collision took place, was closed for nearly an hour. Police and emergency crews were called to the scene near Antonine Primary School in Bonnybridge, Scotland just after 3pm on Wednesday A Police Scotland spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Officers were called to Broomhill Road, Bonnybridge at around 3.15pm on Wednesday, 25 January, 2023 following a collision involving a child pedestrian and car. 'Emergency services attended and the five-year-old boy was taken to hospital by ambulance. The road was closed for a short time and re-opened by 4.05pm. 'A 26-year-old woman will be reported in connection with a road traffic offence.' The boy's current condition is not known. A Labour council leader has called out the Mayor of London as the city braces itself to pay 12.50 a day for driving polluting cars. Plans to extend London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) sparked questions from the Councillor for Barking and Dagenham last night who suggested that the cost-of-living crisis should be better considered. The borough leader, Darren Rodwell, said that while the initiative to combat poor air quality should be taken seriously, it 'must take full account of how people will be affected financially'. He tweeted: 'As part of the Mayor's consultation last summer the council raised concerns on behalf of residents and businesses who will be impacted by the expansion of ULEZ. Councillor for Barking and Dagenham, Darren Rodwell, said that while measures to combat poor air quality should be seriously considered, the ULEZ 'must take full account of how people will be affected financially' 'The government objectives at COP26, through to the funding deal the government agreed with Transport for London, is pushing the expansion forward. 'A 100m scrappage scheme has been proposed, but we have made the case to TfL that we need a much more comprehensive and generous scrappage and support scheme for outer London, and a greater lead-in time for people to take advantage of any schemes given the cost of living pressures facing people at the moment. 'I also want to make clear that the council does not believe there is the legal basis to challenge ULEZ expansion, as some other authorities have expressed. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has planned to include all of London's 32 boroughs in the ULEZ, with drivers having to pay 12.50 per day if their vehicles do not meet emissions criteria The ultra-low emission zone is to be expanded in August to cover the whole of Greater London - seen here in purple Although the ULEZ has been celebrated by as a way to tackle climate change, it has been criticised for putting even more pressure on those grappling with the cost of living crisis 'We must take air quality seriously, but any initiatives must take full account of how people will be affected financially and must do as much as possible to mitigate that.' Drivers will have to pay 12.50 per day for driving in any of London's 32 boroughs if their vehicles do not meet emissions criteria. Darren Rodwell expressed his thoughts on London's ULEZ expansion on Twitter last night Sadiq Khan faces furious backlash over plans for biggest transport and council tax rises in a decade Advertisement Heavier vehicles are also to be charged 100, with the ULEZ applying every day of the year except Christmas. Although the ULEZ has been celebrated by as a way to tackle climate change, it has also been criticised for putting even more pressure on those grappling with the cost-of-living crisis. Barking and Dagenham council is just one of a number of London authorities that have voiced their concerns on the ULEZ expansion. Bromley council leader Colin Smith said his borough would work alongside Harrow, Bexley, and Hillingdon to 'examine the legal basis' of the ULEZ expansion. Croydon, Sutton, Bromley, Bexley, Havering and Kingston have also expressed a willingness to challenge City Hall over the controversial scheme that will see around 200,000 motorists with older vehicles hit with daily 12.50 charges. Both Sutton and Harrow have already confirmed they will refuse to sign 'Section 8' agreements that will allow TfL to install cameras on roads under council control. The Japanese man who went viral for his 19,000 wolf costume has unmasked himself, saying that it makes him feel 'no longer human' as he relaxes in the suit at home. Toru Ueda, a highway engineer from Tokyo, spent a staggering three million Yen (nearly 19,000) on the custom-made costume to transform into the grey-furred predator. Ueda, 32, previously hid his identity but has now spoken out about how enjoys life in the costume. The engineer stressed that he doesn't wear the suit for fancy dress parties, cosplay, or to casually walk around the streets of Tokyo. Instead, he slips on the tailor-made wolf suit to relax and forget all his troubles. Toru Ueda previously hid his identity but has now spoken out about how he can relax in his new wolf suit Toru Ueda spent a staggering 3 million Japanese yen to fulfill his childhood dream of being a wolf The wolf fanatic described how he invites friends over to his house and will dress up in his wolf costume. 'When I wear my costume I feel I'm no longer human,' Ueda told the Times. 'I'm free of human relationships. All kinds of troubles, related to work and other things - I can forget about them.' Ueda commissioned the costume from Zeppet, a specialist production and modelling company that usually provides costumes and figures for TV commercials and films. It took Zeppet more than 50 days to complete the costume, and Ueda said he was 'amazed' at the final product. The wolf fanatic described how he invites friends over to his house and will dress up in his wolf costume It took Zeppet more than 50 days to complete the costume, and Ueda said he was 'amazed' at the final product The 32-year-old said that it was a powerful experience to put on the suit. READ MORE: Japanese man who spent over 12,000 to transform into a dog Advertisement 'When I look in the mirror, I see a wolf, and that is very moving,' said Ueda. 'I'm not a werewolf - that's a kind of monster, and I am not a monster.' Ueda remained anonymous before revealing himself to the world. Hiding his identity, the engineer previously told Zeppet's website: 'Because of my love for animals since childhood and some realistic animal suits appearing on TV, I dreamed of being one someday. 'At the final fitting, I was amazed at my transformed self in the mirror. It was a moment when my dream came true.' Ueda added: 'My order to 'look like a real wolf walking on hind legs' was difficult to say the least but the complete suit looked exactly like what I imagined.' 'Not only did the specs perfectly cover all of my preferences, but the ventilation slit for the wearer's comfort and the devices that let the wearer put it on without help showed me that the designers paid close attention to the wearer's comfort.' Ueda wanted his wolf costume to be as realistic as possible, and the Zeppet team met with him three times in face-to-face meetings as well as over 40 emails exchanged between them. The animal fanatic wanted the wolf costume to be as life-like as possible, so compiled a book filled with photographs of the creatures. Zeppet, the Tokyo company who made the suit, said it has seen and increase in customers commissioning the life-like suits from them. The company said they had more than 50 people request similar suits to Ueda that are intended for personal use. Toru Ueda said that it was a powerful experience to put on the wolf suit Toru Ueda asked Japanese special modelling company Zeppet to make the suit for him, which took them 50 days to complete The personal service appears to have become so profitable for the company that they've started making 'pet clones'. For a few thousand pounds, customers can request reproductions of their deceased pets. One of the four-legged commissions was from a man who identified himself as Toko. Last year, Toko spent two million Yen (12,500) to transform into a dog. The specialist modelling company spent 40 days making the bespoke Collie costume. Following the outfit's completion, Toko posted the photos of himself online with an accompanying video on YouTube. He wrote: I made it a Collie because it looks real when I put it on. 'I thought that a big animal close to my size would be good - considering that it would be a realistic model, so I decided to make it a dog.' A cannabis-addicted father posted a string of sickening tributes after murdering his eight-week-old son - including one of a new neck tattoo featuring the tot's name. Oliver Mailey, 26, of Burnley, Lancashire, was arrested by police after he shook Abel-Jax to death on November 27, 2021, but was freed under investigation. The posts emerged after Mailey was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years after he was found guilty of murder at Preston Crown Court. He tried to portray himself as a devastated father by posting a series of pictures and messages calling his victim 'Spud' and saying how much he loved and missed him. Oliver Mailey (pictured), 26, of Burnley, Lancashire, was arrested by police after he shook Abel-Jax to death on November 27, 2021 , but was freed under investigation The posts emerged after Mailey was jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years after he was found guilty of murder at Preston Crown Court One post on Facebook showed Mailey cuddling Abel-Jax in his arms saying: 'Words couldn't explain how much I need you and miss you spud daddy loves you and will never stop doing.' Another showed him sporting a tattoo on his neck, which he had done after the murder, paying tribute to Abel-Jax. It featured the baby's name inked alongside a pair of angel wings and a baby handprint. When the infant's unsuspecting mother Mollie Gorton organised a GoFundMe appeal to raise cash for Abel-Jax's funeral, Mailey posted: 'Please can everyone help me to lay my little spud to rest a little donations. 'We are struggling to to lay him to rest and give him the best send off he needs.' In response Leanne Guest posted: 'You killed him?? And you're sick enough to post pictures like your father of the f***ing year.' Paige Chadwick added: 'You've got to be joking me. How sick and twisted can one person be!!!!!! You've taken peoples money to fund the poor boys funeral who you killed. Horrific lowest of the low. I hope to God you get everything you deserve.' Tom Horne said: 'Kills his kid then gets a tattoo of his name, that is sickening. That poor baby - I hope your time is prison is absolutely horrific.' The court was told Mailey had previously shaken little Abel-Jax causing him seven fractured ribs and a bleed on the brain. At that time the baby was not taken to hospital and was heard making a 'wincing and hurting' cry as Mailey and Mollie picked him up and cuddled him. A Facebook post showed him sporting a tattoo on his neck, which he had done after the murder, paying tribute to Abel-Jax. It featured the baby's name inked alongside a pair of angel wings and a baby handprint. He tried to portray himself as a devastated father by posting a series of pictures and messages calling his victim 'Spud' and saying how much he loved and missed him When the infant's unsuspecting mother Mollie Gorton organised a GoFundMe appeal to raise cash for Abekl Jax's funeral, Mailey posted: 'Please can everyone help me to lay my little spud to rest a little donations' Pictured: Mailey celebrating the gender reveal for Abel-Jax in the weeks before the tot was born On the day of the killing itself - around ten days later - Mollie had gone to work at Burnley FC's stadium Turf Moor leaving Abel-Jax with his father. Within 45 minutes of her leaving, Mailey was calling her telling her there was something wrong with their son. In a video call between the pair, Mollie could see Abel-Jax on Mailey's knee, his body was limp and lifeless. Mailey told Mollie he had been changing him and he felt limp, so he went to feed him but then his arms went floppy and he felt 'weird'. Abel-Jax was rushed to Royal Blackburn Hospital before being transferred to Manchester Children's Hospital for further treatment where he died two days later. Doctors concluded he died of a brain injury having been shaken with the 'force of a car crash.' Mailey was arrested on the evening of November 28 before being charged with murder the following July. He initially denied wrongdoing and pointed suspicion towards Mollie. At his trial he eventually confessed to shaking his son in a 'moment of madness' as Abel-Jax wouldn't stop crying. Mollie, 26, was initially accused of murdering Abel-Jax but was cleared of any wrongdoing. In a statement she said: 'I had to plan my baby's funeral and I didn't know where to start or how to do it. 'My home haunts me as it is filled with so many memories. I live in my bedroom upstairs because I don't like to be downstairs. I don't like being alone because when I am on my own I think about it. I do not trust people and don't think I will trust a man anymore. The court was told Mailey had previously shaken the little Abel-Jax causing him seven fractured ribs and a bleed on the brain At his trial he eventually confessed to shaking his son in a 'moment of madness' as Abel-Jax wouldn't stop crying Doctors concluded he died of a brain injury having been shaken with the 'force of a car crash' 'I feel like I am stuck and not getting to my destination. I'm still numb and can't process it. It would help if I could talk to someone but I was told not to. All I am focusing on now is trying to rebuild my life.' Sentencing Mailey the judge Mr Justice Barry Cotter told him: 'You knew you had injured a seven-and-a-half-week-old baby badly, he was limp, not breathing properly, if at all, and unresponsive, yet you did not take the immediate and obvious step until two people had told you do so. 'You had already decided to lie, you lied to the paramedics and continued to lie at the hospital. Mollie accused you of hurting Abel but you denied that you harmed him and appeared to suggest her son had harmed him. 'Eventually the medical evidence showed an overall pattern of injuries to the brain, eyes and nervous system which was consistent with deliberate and forceful shaking on the morning of 28 November 2021. 'The injuries caused by shaking, the oxygen starvation, bleeding and swelling, led to Abel-Jax's collapse and subsequent death. 'The triad of brain swelling, brain bleeding and eye injuries were consistent with non-accidental head-injury. 'Abel was not a particularly difficult child - he had a good regime and was a good sleeper, there's nothing about his behaviour that could come close to driving you to what has been described as your wit's end. 'The reason he was crying so much in the days before his death was because you had broken his ribs. You had been woken in the night a couple of times, but this is part and parcel of having a baby. The shaking on both occasions was clearly very violent and you subsequently lied to save your own skin.' After the case Katie Marsden, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West, said: 'This is a truly tragic case. In his very short life Abel-Jax was subjected to appalling injuries on more than one occasion at the hands of his father; one of the very people who should have kept him safe.' Det Ch Insp Jane Webb, of Lancashire Police's Force Major Investigation Team, said: 'Abel-Jax's death is utterly tragic and heart-breaking. It has left his family devastated and no words can describe the unimaginable pain they have suffered and continue to suffer. 'As Abel-Jax's father, Oliver Mailey was in a position of trust, there to provide love, support and care. On that day, Mailey abused that trust in the most violent and horrific way. He carried out a shocking attack, which tragically led to Abel-Jax's death. 'When interviewed by police, he repeatedly denied knowing anything about how Abel-Jax had come by his injuries. It was only in recent months he admitted shaking Abel-Jax and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, claiming he did not intend to kill or cause serious harm. 'Mailey is a coward and his actions alone led to the death of his son. We welcome the verdict at court and would like to thank the jury for their careful consideration and giving Abel-Jax a voice.' A man was kidnapped, brutally attacked and shot by a balaclava-clad gang who demanded a ransom from his relative who had scooped a 50,000 jackpot. The three thugs grinned and laughed at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday as they were handed lengthy prison sentences that totaled 56 years for their crimes. The victim, Jacob Clough-Massey from Halewood, was forced from his home at gunpoint on December 15, 2020 by Carl MacDowall, Carlton Mullen and Kieran Kristensen. Mr Clough-Massey was repeatedly punched in the face at his front door by the masked aggressors before a shotgun was jabbed into his chest and he was dragged into a Ford Fiesta. The three masked assailants (Carl MacDowall, Kieran Kristensen and Carlton Mullen) who dragged Jacob Clough-Massey from his home in a horror ordeal that saw the victim beaten, kicked, shot and dumped on a road For hours, the 23-year-old assailants physically abused a 'dazed' and bloody Mr Clough-Massey, whilst attempting to force his cousin, James Clough, to hand over his recent fortune of 50,000. A month earlier, Mr Clough had won the dazzling cash prize in a Facebook competition - a jackpot that it was reported 'everybody knew about'. The attack continued as the gang drove to Hale Village in order to drop off one of the co-defendants, Kristensen, at his home to avoid missing his electronically-monitored 7pm curfew. Having failed to extort the cash, the thugs drove to a quiet country lane, shot the victim in the thigh and and dumped him on the dark road near to Halewood Waste Transfer Station. Already heavily wounded, Mr Clough-Massey reported hearing a 'big bang' and 'feeling a sensation in his leg', which then went numb. Despite the severity of his injuries, he was able to crawl towards a busier road and seek help from a passing motorist. He now walks with the aid of stick after being left with permanent nerve damage and suffers flashbacks from his terrifying ordeal. The site where Mr Clough-Massey was abandoned after a brutal but failed attempt to secure a 50,000 ransom MacDowall and Mullen - both already three-time convicted felons - were also convicted of drug trafficking offences following a police raid in May, 2020. The pair had been using a house as a drug den and managed to flee flee out the window as officers discovered 1,000 of crack cocaine, as well as MacDowall's phone which exposed texts advertising drug sales. Mullen's lawyer speaking on behalf of his defendant said: 'There is time for this defendant to be rehabilitated in the prison system so that, when he is to be released, he does not pose a significant risk of serious harm to the public. 'His family are devastated by his current predicament and the sentence he is about to receive.' The lawyer of MacDowall, who is a father to a young daughter, told the court: 'References speak of another side to Carl MacDowall - of his positive attributes, of what he has done which is good, praiseworthy and worthwhile. 'He became a father and more of a family man.' Kristensen, who was dropped off during the vicious attack, has six convictions for 14 offences and is currently serving a four-and-a-half year sentence for drug supply matters. His counsel pleaded that: 'There was nothing in his track record to predict that he would offend in this way. It is unlikely, given the age he will be on his release, that he would reoffend in this way again.' The fated three, who appeared via video link from HMP Liverpool, were told off by the judge for 'grinning and laughing' throughout the hearing. They were found guilty of kidnapping, wounding with intent and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence by a jury. MacDowall and Mullen who were also convicted of drug charges, were handed 20 years each plus an extended three-year licence period. Kristensen was jailed for 16 years on top of his current term and given an additional three years on licence. HMP Liverpool - the prison where the three criminals convicted of the brutal kidnap and assault on Mr Clough-Massey are held Sentencing, Judge Trevor Jones said: 'You hatched a plan to kidnap Jacob Clough-Massey and demand a ransom of some 5,000 for his return. You took a shotgun with you and it was loaded. 'You attacked him. You struck him and forced him into his own car. You continued to assault him. From beginning to end, he was held at gunpoint. There was sustained violence. In the event, you failed to persuade the family to pay up.' The judge continued: 'Your patience ran out. You shot him in the thigh before leaving him there at the entrance to the water treatment works, a secluded location, in darkness. 'None of you have shown any element of remorse for your actions and you have each maintained your innocence to the end.' Their total sentences amount to 56 years behind bars. A glamorous mother-of-three is facing up to eight years in a hellhole Spanish jail if convicted over a massive holiday food poisoning scam. Laura Holmes Cameron can expect one of the tougher sentences of the group of eight Britons if she is proved to be the ringleader of the alleged racket. The 43-year-old Essex-born expat describes herself on social media as an entrepreneur who now works in travel and trade and 'turns passions into pay cheques'. She was charged with fraud and membership of a criminal gang this week after a long-running probe and police arrests in Majorca in September 2017. Laura Holmes Cameron, Essex-born owner of a notorious Magaluf bar, now faces trial Well-placed insiders told MailOnline yesterday the type of fraud she is accused of aggravated fraud carries a prison sentence of up to six years in Spain and the second charge comes with a maximum jail sentence of two years. One said: 'She's probably looking at five to eight years if convicted of both crimes. That's likely to be the sort of sentence prosecutors will be seeking.' The investigating judge who charged Laura, under her maiden surname rather than her married name of Joyce, accused her in a six-page written ruling of 'leading the profit-motivated organised gang' with her brother Marc Cameron Grimstead through a Spanish company called Elite Project Marketing SL. Palma-based Maria Perez Ruiz also accused the pair of hiring accomplices paid on commission to get British tourists on the holiday island to put in false food poisoning claims. Detectives were said at the time of their arrests to have estimated the losses of the hotel groups whose fraud claims sparked a police crackdown dubbed Operation Claims at around 9.5 million. MailOnline understands the final figure hoteliers and a state prosecutor will demand as compensation has not yet been finalised. Pregnant Laura Holmes Cameron is pictured arriving at court in Majorca, September 7, 2017, at a previous hearing in relation to the alleged scam Fellow accused members of the alleged ring include Susan Lyle (left) and Tegan Summerlee (right), pictured outside court Holmes Cameron was arrested at a luxury villa in upmarket Bendinat near the glamorous Majorcan port of Puerto Portals (pictured) The investigating judge made it clear in the ruling made public on Wednesday the payouts obtained in the UK from the alleged fraud in 2016 and 2017 'notably exceeded' 176,000. Prosecutors are expected to be invited to submit their indictments by the end of next month. Highly-respected Majorca based lawyer Jaime Campaner is representing the island's hotel federation, which launched its own legal action running separately to the state prosecutor's as part of the same criminal case. Holmes Cameron's lawyer is experienced Gabriel Llado, who said after his client appeared in court in May 2018 in a closed hearing that she had admitted to passing on the names and phone numbers of holidaymakers for payment but insisted it was part of a pure market research exercise. He also insisted neither the alleged gang leaders or the so-called 'claims farmers' used to gather data of tourists Holmes Cameron passed on to others in the UK, encouraged the holidaymakers to get chemist's receipts so they could make fake food poisoning claims as police and hoteliers' representatives have claimed. Laura Holmes Cameron (right) and her mother Deborah Cameron, who was previously held in the probe but no further action was taken Laura Holmes Cameron and husband Stuart Holmes' bar Heroes in Puerto Portals, was raided by police in 2017 Laura Holmes Cameron (left ) is pictured with her mother Deborah who was investigated but not charged A source close to the case said: 'A fraud conviction would result in a fine as well as a prison sentence. 'Prosecutors will obviously also be seeking compensation for the amount they say has been defrauded. 'The final figure may not end up being included in indictments but it will be made public at trial.' The other six Brits charged have been named as Ryan Bridge; Simon Robert Flanagan; Tegan Jewel Summerlee; Susan Amanda Lyle; Nicola Marie Sanderson; and Peter Carl Murphy. Bridge, previously referred to as the sole director of UK holiday claims, has been described as 'one of the people tasked in England with processing the false claims'. The other five Brits have been described as people paid on commission 'hired by the two siblings to go to different hotels and get tourists' personal details including details that would enable the consumption of meals in hotels to be linked to supposed food poisoning.' The case against four other Brits who had been identified as part of the investigation has been provisionally archived but only because their whereabouts is unknown and they have not been formally questioned. The judge said in her ruling that only 38 of the 800 holidaymakers staying at Club Mac Alcudia (pictured) who submitted compensation claims had asked for medical assistance Former Magaluf bar owner Laura, who spends most of her time in the UK now although it is thought she has to sign on at a court in Palma every few weeks as part of her conditional release conditions, was arrested at a luxury villa in upmarket Bendinat near the glamorous Majorcan port of Puerto Portals. After she was held, it emerged her bar Playhouse had been identified as the venue where a British tourist was filmed performing sex acts on 24 men for a cheap drink in the summer of 2014. The fallout from the infamous video sparked a crackdown on bar crawls in Magaluf after regional governors described the 'outrageous' sex scenes as giving the area and women 'a terrible image' and promised to 'stop it whichever way' they could. Holmes Cameron, who was not at her bar when the incident occurred, shut Playhouse down soon after. The British government announced new measures to clamp down on fake holiday sickness claims as a result of scandals like the Majorca fake food poisoning scam. Peter Carl Murphy (left) is among the other suspects alleged to have been involved in the fraud Eight Britons including Susan Lyle (left) and Peter Murphy (right) have been charged with fraud and membership of a criminal gang this week after a long-running probe The same year of the Majorca arrests, Benidorm hotel association HOSBEC estimated British guests' were costing Spanish hotels around 55million in bogus food poisoning claims. Some reports at the time even claimed Brits were facing a holiday ban in some all-inclusive Costa hotels. Many fraudsters were caught out after private detectives hired by hotels affected trawled their social media and discovered they had been posting photos of themselves eating and drinking when they later claimed to insurers they had been in bed with diarrhoea. One family who claimed their holiday was ruined by food poisoning were jailed in February 2021 after Facebook photos revealed them enjoying the waterslide and bar throughout the trip. Christopher Byng, 38, Barbara Byng, 64, Linda Lane, 36, and Anthony Byng, 66, submitted false gastric illness claims against Jet2holidays following an all-inclusive trip to the Canary Islands in November 2016. Christopher, Barbara and Anthony Byng were all jailed for four months. Lane received a suspended sentence. The mother of a murdered 18-year-old who attended court on Wednesday wearing a T-shirt of her daughter's mutilated body has explained why she did it. 'It was painful to show those images, but I had no choice,' said Alessandra Verni, who has been seeking justice for her daughter for the last five years. Convicted murderer Innocent Oseghale appeared to contest additional charges that he sexually assaulted Pamela Mastropietro before killing her. A successful appeal is likely to reduce the life sentence. Verni has fought an uphill battle with the justice system since 2018, as delays and appeals have prevented her from finding closure after her daughter was dismembered and then murdered by Oseghale. The mother said she 'couldn't take it anymore' and 'exploded' with anger after a hearing was again postponed to 22 February and had the T-shirt printed to bravely confront Oseghale in court. 'I go to bed every night to dream of Pamela,' she told La Stampa. 'That is why I showed that photo.' Alessandra Verni attended court wearing a T-shirt of her daughter's dismembered body Pamela Mastropietro was murdered and dismembered in January 2018 by a drug dealer Mother Alessandra Verni said: 'After five years I am losing faith in justice. I wanted to give a wake-up call. 'I wonder what is the point of re-prosecuting Oseghale, questioning sexual violence and opening up the possibility of a sentence reduction. 'Did he not exercise enough violence to merit life imprisonment?' Mastropietro's mother attended the appeal court in Perugia earlier this week wearing a T-shirt that showed the horrific images of her daughter's body. The photos on the shirt had not so far been shared with the public. La Stampa reported they were autopsy images taken by forensics. Ms Verni told the Italian outlet, 'anyone who saw those images knew that if they were made public they would shake consciences.' She said the courts must now confirm life imprisonment for the man who was last year convicted of the 'murder and vilification' of Pamela Mastropietro. Oseghale (pictured) was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019, with eighteen months in solitary confinement Mastropietro mutilated and dismembered body was found inside suitcases left in a ditch Verni is still seeking justice five years after the death of her daughter. In 2019, she said after a hearing that a fast-track trial would be good so long as 'all the truth comes out'. 'Because it was not only him,' she said, referring to Oseghale. Four years later, Verni appealed for a search for accomplices. She told La Stampa, 'there were other people with Osenghale the day he killed Pamela [...] I feel that no one is being investigated. No one is looking for these men.' In another interview, the distraught mother said: 'No one is looking for the accomplices of the murderer. 'In my battles for justice, I always have my daughter's friends by my side. Watching them grow up is like watching her grow up.' Pamela Mastropietro was murdered and dismembered in 2018 by drug dealer Oseghale Mastropietro's parents Stefano and Alessandra Verni stand by a memorial for their daughter The T-shirt worn on Wednesday showed Mastropietro's dismembered head. The series of harrowing pictures were also formed so that the detached body parts made up the structure of a body. Oseghale, 32, was found guilty and sentenced to jail in 2019 for murdering 18-year-old Mastropietro, and is appealing against part of his conviction for rape. The judge asked Oseghale if he intended to participate in the next hearing in February. After discussing with his lawyer, he told the court that he would not. Verni, who was in the court room at the time wearing the T-shirt, yelled aloud: 'Now even an executioner is asked if he wants to participate in the hearing or not. 'Let's throw out a red carpet at this point as well,' she added. Both were removed by courtroom police after clashing. Oseghale's life sentence will likely be shortened if the court of appeals finds him innocent of rape. Pamela Mastropietro (second left) with her family. She was murdered and her body dismembered in January Pamela Mastropietro (pictured with her mother) was killed after she left an addiction recovery centre in Macerata in the Marche region in early 2018 An autopsy showed that Pamela Mastropietro died due to successive abdominal stabbings. It also found that her body was dismembered while she was still alive Mastropietro was killed after she left an addiction recovery centre in Macerata in the Marche region in early 2018. Investigators understood that she had decided to leave the facility and made the journey to the local train station on foot. Having left the recovery centre, Mastropietro attempted to find drugs in Macerata. She then met Oseghale, a local drug dealer, then aged 29. A day later, a passer-by noticed two abandoned suitcases in a small ditch. Mastropietro's mutilated and dismembered body was found inside the case. Drug dealer Oseghale was accused of selling Mastropietro drugs, before he then detained, raped, and stabbed her. In 2019, courts heard Mastropietro was still alive when Oseghale 'tried to tear her to pieces'. Police found Mastropietro's bloodied clothing at Oseghale's home. Oseghale claimed in his testimony that Mastropietro died from a heroin overdose. However, an autopsy showed that she died due to successive abdominal stabbings. It also found that her body was dismembered while she was still alive. Oseghale was accused of murder, sexual assault, concealment, and destruction of a body. He disputed the charges at the trial in February 2019. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, with eighteen months in solitary confinement. Two young female students today described being ogled by transgender double rapist Isla Bryson after being ordered to strip during a beauty class 'full of young girls'. Rachel Ferguson, 21, and Abi Nixon, 18, have said they feel 'sick and violated' because they got 'practically naked' for spray tan sessions in front of the sex attacker at Ayrshire College's Kilwinning Campus in 2021. Bryson, 31, who began identifying as a woman after being charged with sexual offences but still has a penis, was found guilty of raping two women at the High Court in Glasgow this week. But horrifyingly it has emerged that the defendant, was able to enrol in a beauty course while awaiting trial, using the name Annie Bryson. Students described Bryson as 'overpowering' and 'disruptive', saying classmates were repeatedly branded homophobic when questioning the abuser's behaviour before Bryson was finally asked to leave the course. Rachel Ferguson, 21, and Abi Nixon, 18, have said they feel 'sick and violated' because they got 'practically naked' for spray tan sessions in front of rapist Isla Bryson Isla Bryson, 31, formerly known as Adam Graham, but only began identifying as a woman after being charged with rape Now two former Ayrshire College students who trained to become beauticians alongside Bryson have demanded answers from college chiefs, who deny knowing about the rape charges, while women's rights campaigners have called for better protection for students. Rachel Ferguson, 21, said: 'It really scares me to look back and realise (Bryson) was watching me with no clothes on after being charged with this. 'It makes me feel physically sick and violated. We should have known about these charges. It's not right that we didn't know.' Bryson, then known as Adam Graham, first appeared in court more than three years ago. Victims in the case told jurors how they asked 'muscular' Graham to stop before he forced himself upon them. Students at Ayrshire College's Kilwinning Campus say they studied alongside Bryson, then known to them as Annie, in 2021. Miss Ferguson, a nail technician from Dundonald, South Ayrshire, said she missed three weeks of classes because Bryson 'kept coming at me', adding that the way Bryson 'spoke to the lecturers was disgusting'. Ms Ferguson said her experience of being required to remove her clothes in front of Bryson had left her 'sickened'. Ms Ferguson continued: 'Being a beauty course, you need to take your clothes off for some of it. We were doing spray tanning at one point and I was a model. You need to stand practically naked. 'Looking back, with what we know now, it's so scary. Someone should have told a class full of young women what was going on. Anything could have happened.' Ms Ferguson said Bryson was later asked to leave the course, which she understood was due to the allegations Bryson was making about fellow students. Another former student Abi Nixon, 18, from Ardrossan, told of her shock at learning of Bryson's conviction this week. Ms Nixon said: 'We all did the one-day spray tanning course. We had next to nothing on and this was before 'Annie' had been removed from the course. The criminal was moved to a male prison after outrage from campaigners, politicians and a United Nations human rights expert. Bryson will return to court for sentencing next month. Isla Bryson (pictured on Monday) attended Ayrshire College's Kilwinning Campus in 2021 while awaiting trial for rape Bryson began taking a beauty course at Ayrshire College (pictured), which reportedly involved both classroom work and practical applications, after having been charged for sex attacks Bryson was enrolled at the college for a three-month period in 2021 and is no longer enrolled, Ayrshire College spokesperson told MailOnline today. The spokesperson added: 'Ayrshire College had no prior knowledge of this individual being charged with any offences. 'We will not be making any further comment on this matter.' Bryson's course was almost exclusively comprised of female students, most of whom were 'much younger' than the convicted rapist, reports indicate. Susan Smith, of the campaign group For Women Scotland, suspects the rapist's classmates did not know about the charges because they were filed under Bryson's 'original name.' 'Presumably they knew him by his new name, so they probably wouldn't have been able to find out anything about this person,' Ms Smith told STV News today, adding that it is 'absolutely terrifying that people can hide their identities and gain access to young women in this way.' Bryson, 31, was moved to a male prison today after outrage from campaigners, politicians and a United Nations human rights expert. The rapist will return to court for sentencing next month. Pictured: A prison van believed to be transporting Isla Bryson to a men's prison is seen leaving Cornton Vale women's prison in Stirling at 2.30pm this afternoon The vehicle is understood to have reached the new facility at around 5.20pm Transgender double rapist Isla Bryson leaves women's prison after 48 hours: CLICK HERE TO READ MORE Transgender rapist Isla Bryson has today been moved out of Scotland's only all-women's prison to a male jail within hours of a humiliating U-turn by Nicola Sturgeon Advertisement News of Bryson's enrolment at Ayrshire College comes just hours after the rapist was moved out of Scotland's only all-women's prison to a male jail within hours of a humiliating U-turn by Nicola Sturgeon. Ms Sturgeon told First Minister's Questions: 'I don't think it's possible to have a rapist within a women's prison'. A vehicle believed to be transporting Bryson was pictured leaving Cornton Vale jail in Stirling at around 2.30pm and it arrived at a replacement facility at 5.20pm. The SNP leader revealed the U-turn just 24 hours after her own justice secretary Keith Brown backed the Scottish Prison Service's decision to put the transgender double rapist with female inmates in Cornton Vale. The move comes after campaigners, politicians and a United Nations human rights expert all raised concerns over Bryson being housed in a women's prison. MPs and MSPs warned that female inmates could be at risk and the move sent a signal that male sex offenders could 'game the system'. Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said : 'It should not have taken public disgust and a slew of negative headlines about a double rapist being sent to a women's prison for Nicola Sturgeon to realise this was completely unacceptable and wrong.' Bryson had only started to transition after appearing in court on the rape charges. The rapist's estranged wife Shonna Graham, 31, previously told MailOnline her former partner's transition was a 'sham for attention' and he was 'bull******** the authorities' to avoid a male prison. Transgender rapist Isla Bryson was sent to a women's prison despite carrying out the crimes as a man and transitioning after being charge Bryson's estranged wife Shonna Graham, 31, previously told MailOnline her former partner's transition was a 'sham for attention' and he was 'bull******** the authorities' to avoid a male prison. Pictured: Shonna Graham and Isla Bryson - then Adam Graham - on their wedding day Nicola Sturgeon (pictured today) confirmed that Isla Bryson will not remain in a women's prison while speaking to the Scottish Parliament today Bryson's case comes weeks after the Scottish parliament passed a bill to make it easier for people to change their legal gender, drawing criticism from some women's rights campaigners who argue that predatory men could use it to access single-sex spaces such as bathrooms. The controversial bill, passed in December, made Scotland the first nation of the UK to back a self-identification process for changing gender, including removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and lowering the minimum age to 16 from 18. The bill has deepened a rift with the government of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, with the two already at loggerheads over whether Scotland can hold another independence referendum. Scotland's devolved parliament can make its own laws, but the UK can veto legislation if it deems it to interfere with matters within the national jurisdiction. Britain's move to block the gender bill is the first time it has invoked that power. Ms Sturgeon has called the UK's blocking of the bill a 'full-frontal attack' on the Scottish Parliament. Alan Cumming has given back an OBE awarded to him in 2009 after slamming the 'toxicity' of the British Empire. The Emmy-nominated star handed back the honour he received 14 years ago following the Queen's death which he claims 'really opened [his] eyes' to the history of the monarchy. The 58-year-old actor was first honoured on the Queen's Birthday at Buckingham Palace in 2009 for his 'activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community'. Making the Instagram announcement on his birthday, he said: 'The Queens death and the ensuing conversations about the role of monarchy and especially the way the British Empire profited at the expense (and death) of indigenous peoples across the world really opened my eyes. Alan Cumming has given back an OBE given to him in 2009 after slamming the 'toxicity' of the British Empire 'Also, thankfully, times and laws in the US have changed, and the great good the award brought to the LGBTQ+ cause back in 2009 is now less potent than the misgivings I have being associated with the toxicity of empire (OBE stands for Officer of the British Empire).' Looking back on his acceptance of the honour, he also emphasised his 'great gratitude for being given it in the first place'. He said: 'Back then the Defence of Marriage Act ensured that same sex couples couldnt get married or enjoy the same basic legal rights as straight people, and Dont Ask, Dont Tell ensured that openly gay, lesbian or bisexual people were barred from serving in the military. (Incidentally both these policies were instituted by the Clinton administration). The 58-year-old actor was given the award on the Queen's Birthday at Buckingham Palace in 2009 for his 'activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community' Making the Instagram announcement on his birthday, Alan Cumming emphasised his 'great gratitude for being given it in the first place' 'This is the statement I made at the time: "I am really shocked and delighted to receive this honour. I am especially happy to be honoured for my activism as much as for my work. "The fight for equality for the LGBT community in the US is something I am very passionate about, and I see this honour as encouragement to go on fighting for what I believe is right and for what I take for granted as a UK citizen. "Thank you to the Queen and those who make up her Birthday honours list for bringing attention to the inaction of the US government on this issue. It makes me very proud to be British, and galvanised as an American".' Cumming is not the first to voice views against the awardance of OBEs based on the history of the British Empire. Three years ago, a woman who campaigned to make upskirting illegal turned down an OBE from the Queen on believing the British Empire has 'deep and unsettling race issues'. An activist who received a British Empire Medal for their work in Birmingham also handed back their award after being inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Cumming is now presenting The Traitors US on BBC iplayer - a reality TV game of 'trust and treachery'. He added: 'Im now back to being plain old Alan Cumming again.' By Azernews Fatima Hasanova The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry shared a tweet in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Azernews reports. "On this day, we remember and mourn the victims of one of the most revolting atrocities in human history - the Holocaust. We stand united against religious and ethnic hatred, genocide, and crimes against humanity," the tweet said. As designated by UN General Assembly, January 27 - the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau - is marked around the world as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this annual day of remembrance, the UN urges all member states to remember the 6 million Jewish Holocaust victims and millions of other victims of Nazism, as well as to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides. Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked in Azerbaijan annually. A Bath man who robbed a bank, but was caught when he stopped for gas as he made his getaway, will serve five to 10 years in state prison. Cleon Edwards, who has a lengthy criminal record, received the sentence Friday from Northampton County Judge Craig Dally after previously pleading guilty to robbery. On Jan. 6, Edwards wore a ski mask, a green jacket and gloves when he held up the PNC Bank on North Walnut Street, according to court records. Edwards, 49, represented he had a gun, demanded cash, and got $2,150 before fleeing in a tan minivan, authorities said. But Edwards didnt get far. He was found a mile away at the gas station on Beth-Bath Pike in East Allen Township, police said. He had the mask, the jacket and the gloves with him, as well as the money and a toy gun, according to prosecutors. riley.yates@mcall.com Twitter @riley_yates 610-253-5751 Shocking CCTV footage shows a father driving recklessly through a red light with his 16-month-old daughter - neither of them are wearing a helmet. The footage, released by Humberside Police, captures James Giles with his daughter perched on the petrol tank of the bike on May 8 last year. Giles, 24, was jailed earlier this month after admitting dangerous driving and exposing a child under two to harm or danger. He admitted he had no explanation for his decision to take his baby out on the bike and collapsed in tears upon hearing his sentence. Footage captures James Giles, 24, with his daughter perched on the petrol tank of the bike on May 8 last year In the video, Giles is seen weaving in and out of traffic at the busy Mount Pleasant junction in Hull. Another motorist caught Giles on their dashcam and posted the video on social media. He can be seen racing down a cycle lane and undertaking vehicles with the baby on board. Giles, of Crane Road, Kingswood, dropped off his daughter after about five minutes, before carrying on his dangerous ride. He then fails to stop at red lights and nearly crashes into another motorbike before attempting to do a wheelie. During his sentencing on January 16, prosecutor Stephen Robinson told Hull Crown Court: 'The defendant attempted to do a wheelie and was speeding. He nearly crashed into a motorcycle after going through a red light.' Giles was jailed after admitting to dangerous driving and exposing a child under two to harm or danger Mr Robinson read out a statement from the driver who captured Giles on his dashcam. They said: 'I saw the man riding with a child, who must have been no older than two with a dummy in her mouth. I was very angry by what I had seen. I posted the video on social media and I reported it to police a couple of days later.' By this stage, Giles was aware of the video circulating and voluntarily handed himself into police. He said he knew what they wanted to speak to him about and said the video had gone viral. He admitted to taking his daughter out and also admitted to riding dangerously. He told officers: 'I made a very big mistake that day'. Giles had no previous convictions and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. Benjamin Donnell, mitigating, told the court his client suffered from mental health issues and had submitted glowing character references from his mother, stepfather and a family friend. He said: 'My client accepts what he did that day was wholly unacceptable and grossly negligent. He knows there was no justification for what he did. While this was deliberate conduct, what he did was not designed to harm his child. 'When he was young his dad died in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban. This has had a profound effect on his life. He suffers from depression and attention deficit disorder.' Giles had been using cannabis and stopped taking prescribed medication, which had made him more impulsive. He had cleaned up his act and had a job with a timber company. Mr Donnell added: 'There is no excuse for what he did but he is addressing his issues. We have a young man who has done something very wrong but he is remorseful and taking steps to address his difficulties.' Judge Kate Rayfield accepted the mitigation but told Giles prison was unavoidable due to the serious nature of the offence. She said: 'You made a decision to put your 16-month-old child on the front of your off-road bike on a busy road with no helmet for either of you. It is hard to fathom what you were thinking when you put her on the bike. 'You then went on to ride the motorbike in a dangerous way and I have watched the footage as you weaved through traffic, went through a red light and undertook vehicles. 'It must have been obvious to you that you could have killed your daughter and you exposed her to such a dangerous risk. She was too young to understand the risks and, as her father, you had a duty to keep her safe which you did not.' Judge Rayfield said she believed the public would expect her to impose an 'appropriate sentence'. He has been banned from driving for two years and eight months. Vladimir Putin today used Holocaust Remembrance Day to claim 'neo-Nazis' were operating in Ukraine, as he continues his attempt to justify his barbaric war in Ukraine. The Russian President, whose horrific war continues to shatter peace in Europe, repeated his claim on the day when the world remembers the unimaginable horrors that killed 6 million Jews across German-occupied Europe. Survivors of Auschwitz today gathered to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Germany death camp, with Putin continuing to be unwelcome at the memorial site. As the Kremlin continued to try and justify its abhorrent war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the anniversary of the horrors by warning that 'indifference and hatred can kill'. Footage posted on his Instagram page showed Mr Zelensky laying a red ornament at a Holocaust memorial site in Ukraine. The Kremlin continued to try and justify its abhorrent war. Pictured: Putin in Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow today Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the solemn event with a post on his official Telegram feed and Instagram page that alluded to his own country's situation The Russian President said: 'Forgetting the lessons of history leads to the repetition of terrible tragedies. 'This is evidenced by the crimes against civilians, ethnic cleansing and punitive actions organized by neo-Nazis in Ukraine. It is against that evil that our soldiers are bravely fighting.' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the solemn event with a post on his official Telegram feed and Instagram page that alluded to his own country's situation. 'We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred,' he said. 'Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy.' Footage posted on his Instagram page showed Mr Zelensky laying a red ornament at a Holocaust memorial site in Ukraine. Mr Zelensky laid a red ornament at a Holocaust memorial site in Ukraine Putin's horrific war continues to shatter peace in Europe. Pictured: A Ukrainian tank fires toward Russian position near the town of Bakhmut, Donetsk region on January 26, 2023 Ukrainian soldiers are seen at their mortar position on the Donbass frontline, during Russia and Ukraine war in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on January 26, 2023 The Kremlin has alleged that Ukraine's treatment of Russian speakers in the country is comparable with the actions of Nazi Germany. Putin originally claimed that he was launching what he called a 'special military operation' in Ukraine because he wanted to 'de-Nazify' it - a claim that has been continually used as a justification. The Ukrainian government, the country's Jewish population, and world leaders have all denounced the claims. The 78th anniversary marking the liberation of Aushwitz and the horrors of the Second World War comes as a senior EU official warned that Putin's conflict would be taken to a 'different stage' that would raise the terrifying spectre of global conflict. Having already shattered peace in Europe, Putin has threatened to escalate his brutal war beyond Ukraine's borders. Western leaders earlier this week agreed to send sophisticated tanks into Ukraine that would significantly increase the capabilities of Kyiv's forces., infuriating the Kremlin. Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European Union's European External Action Service, said Vladimir Putin will increase indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets and retaliate against the West. Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo as part of an Asia-Pacific tour, he said Putin had 'moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West'. The prospect of global conflict provides a stark comparison on the day when the world looks back at the horrors of the Second World War. The main entrance gate to Auschwitz with the sign above reading 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Sets You Free) Survivors and the management of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum commemorate the victims by laying wreaths and lighting candles at the Wall of Death, Oswiecim, Poland, January 27, 2023 Holocaust survivor Eva Umlauf speaks during a ceremony of the 78th anniversary of liberation of Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Oswiecim, Poland January 27, 2023 Visitors enter in a train car, at the "Track 21" memorial, the site where most of the deportation trains from Italy were boarded during the Holocaust, at the train station in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2023 Musician Carmelo Leotta plays an improvisational piece on a contrabass at the Gleis 17 memorial in commemoration on Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2023 in Berlin, Germany Flowers left by participants lie on the railway tracks at the Gleis 17 memorial during a small commemoration gathering on Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2023 in Berlin, Germany Across Europe, people marked Holocaust Remembrance Day with a series of ceremonies, laying wreaths, candles and flowers at former Nazi-occupied sites - now used to remember victims. In Berlin, Germany, ceremonies took place at the Gleis 17 (Platform 17) memorial where the Nazis deported thousands by rail to the Auschwitz and Theresienstadt concentration camps during the Second World War. A cellist played an improvisational piece on the train tracks as others laid white flowers from the platform. Under the occupation of German forces during the Second World War, Auschwitz became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. Holocaust survivors and representatives gathered at the former concentration and extermination camp located in the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland. Survivors and representatives laid wreaths and lit candles at the Wall of Death at the former Auschwitz camp today during the anniversary. Many of them wore hats and scarves part of the blue and white uniform that Nazis forced them to wear in the concentration camp. Husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff represented the US alongside the ambassador to Poland. Mr Emhoff lit a candle to place at the former concentration camp. The former concentration camp site, with its barracks and barbed wire and the ruins of gas chambers, now stands as one of the world's most recognised symbols of evil and an admonition of 'Never Again' that has been a site of pilgrimage for millions. Yet it lies only 300 kilometres (185 miles) from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating unthinkable death and destruction - a conflict on the minds of many of those paying tribute to the victims of eight decades ago. Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, left, visits the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp during ceremonies marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, Oswiecim, Poland, January 27, 2023 Husband of US Vice President Kamala Harris, Douglas Emhoff (centre), with the US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski (left) at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, Oswiecim, Poland, 27 January 2023 US Ambassador in Poland Mark Brzezinski (right) and the Second Gentleman of the United States Douglas Emhoff (left) hold candles during the commemorations on International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Memorial and Museum in Auschwitz, January 27, 2023 Second gentleman of US Douglas Emhoff attends the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Oswiecim, Poland, January 27, 2023 Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances marking the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation in 2005, but has been told he is welcome at the memorial site. This year, no Russian official at all was invited due to Russia's attack on Ukraine, according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum. 'Russia will need an extremely long time and very deep self-examination after this conflict in order to return to gatherings of the civilised world,' said Piotr Sawicki, a spokesman for the museum at the site of the former camp. Survivors of the Holocaust also met yesterday in Oswiecim, Poland to commemorate the anniversary. Bogdan Bartnikowski, a Pole who was 12 years old when he was transported to Auschwitz, said the first images he saw on television last February of refugees fleeing after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered traumatic memories. He was stunned seeing a little girl in a large crowd of refugees holding her mother with one hand and grasping a teddy bear in the other. 'It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll to her chest,' Mr Bartnikowski, now 91, said. Mr Bartnikowski was among several survivors of Auschwitz who spoke about their experiences to journalists on the eve of Friday's commemorations. People walk next to the ''Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Sets You Free) gate at the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz, Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, January 26, 2023 Early morning on Holocaust Remembrance Day at the former Auschwitz concentration camp site in Oswiecim, Poland, January 27, 2023 The train tracks leading to Auschwitz concentration camp where 1.1 million people were killed, Oswiecim, Poland, January 26, 2023 The former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, January 26, 2023 One of the others, Stefania Wernik, who was born at Auschwitz in November 1944, less than three months before its liberation, spoke of Auschwitz being a 'hell on earth'. She said when she was born she was so tiny that the Nazis tattooed her number - 89136 - on her thigh. Ms Wernik was washed in cold water, wrapped in rags and subjected to medical experiments. And yet her mother had abundant milk, and they both survived. After the war, her mother returned home and reunited with her husband, and 'the whole village came to look at us and said it's a miracle'. Ms Wernik read out an appeal to the next generations to be vigilant about insidious ideologies. 'No more fascism, which brings death, genocide, crimes, slaughter and loss of human dignity,' she said. The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said 'the suffering of six million innocently murdered Jews remains unforgotten - as does the suffering of the survivors'. Holocaust survivor Rozette Kats speaks during a special session of the Bundestag to commemorate victims of the Nazis during Holocaust Remembrance Day, Berlin, Germany January 27, 2023 German representatives attend a memorial ceremony commemorating the victims of the Holocaust on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the lower house of the parliament or Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, January 27, 2023 Rozette Kats, a survivor of the Holocaust, speaks at the hour of remembrance at the Bundestag, Berlin, Germany, January 27, 2023 'We recall our historic responsibility on Holocaust Memorial Day so that our Never Again endures in future,' he wrote on Twitter. The German parliament was holding a memorial event focused this year on those who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people were incarcerated and killed by the Nazis. Their fate was only publicly recognised decades after the end of the Second World War. Elsewhere in the world on Friday events were planned to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005. About six million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust and millions more were killed in the global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. A state of emergency has been declared in Auckland following an onslaught torrential rain with homes evacuated and the city's airport flooded. Auckland's Mayor Wayne Brown declared a state of emergency due to the extent of the 'damage, displacement and disruption' caused by the weather. 'This declaration reflects the extent of damage, displacement and disruption caused by this evening's severe weather event,' he said in a statement. 'The region has experienced widespread damage from flooding and torrential rain, with reports of slips and inundation. 'Infrastructure and emergency services alike have been overwhelmed by the impacts of the storm.' A state of emergency was declared in Auckland on Friday due to devastating floods fuelled by torrential rain (pictured, an emergency worker and residents wade in through flood in Auckland) Both the domestic and international airport were closed because of the flooding in Auckland (pictured, stranded passengers) Social media photos (above) show the check-in area in the International Terminal knee-deep in flood water Hundreds of residents have been evacuated from their homes but overwhelmed emergency services urged anyone safe to stay home to do so (pictured, flooded roads in Auckland) Both the domestic and international airports were closed because of the flooding, with social media photos showing the check-in area in the International Terminal is knee-deep in flood water. New Zealand meteorology centre Met Service said 154mm of rain fell over the airport between 9am and 8pm on Friday. The 12-hour record for the area is 161.8mm. 'Due to the damage, no domestic or international flights will be arriving or departing from Auckland Airport before noon Saturday, 28 January,' the airport tweeted. 'We sincerely apologise to any travellers impacted by the closure. We encourage you to get in touch with your airline or check your airline travel app for the latest information and for any impacts on your travel plans.' Videos on social media show firefighters, police and defence force staff rescuing stranded people from flooded homes using ropes and rescue boats. No details were immediately available on how many people have been evacuated so far. MetService Red Warning for Auckland More details at https://t.co/HZ2TSD5rV7 For clarification it is for rain and we also have a thunderstorm warning in place. pic.twitter.com/pyD4KxoiOW MetService (@MetService) January 27, 2023 Some 40,000 Elton John fans have been left disappointed as the devastating floods saw the singer cancel his Auckland concert (pictured, the road following the concert cancellation) Passengers travelling out of Auckland have been left stranded as floodwater engulfs the international and domestic airports (pictured, the airport check-in) Major roads around Auckland have been blocked by the floods, causing long traffic queues on highways (pictured, residents walking through floodwater) Mayor Brown expressed his sympathy in a late-night press conference after a body was discovered by a member of the public in Wairau Valley at about 7.25pm. It is understood the body was found in a culvert. Auckland Emergency Management said in a post on Twitter that northern, northwestern and western parts of the city were affected by significant flooding with conditions expected to worsen. AEM's duty controller Andrew Clark warned the city is forecast to cop more severe weather on Saturday morning. 'There are reports that some parts of the region have experienced a summer's worth of rain in a few hours and that has resulted in significant flooding,' he said, the NZ Herald reports. 'We continue to urge people to be vigilant and keep an eye on the weather forecast and your property. 'If it is safe to stay home, please do so. If you need to evacuate and can stay with family and friends, please do so in the first instance.' Widespread flooding has hit Auckland, closing its domestic and international airports (above) Travellers have been left stranded at Auckland international and domestic airports as floodwater rises (above) New Zealand meteorology centre Met Service said 154mm of rain fell over the airport (above) between 9am and 8pm on Friday - the 12-hour record for the area is 161.8mm He told anyone without a safe place to evacuate or in need of assistance to head to the Civil Defence Centre that's been set up in Kelston, in the city's west. Two more shelters later opened at the North Shore Events Centre at Manu Tukutuku. 'If you do need to evacuate, please take essential items, like medicines, with you,' he said. The drastic nature of the wide-spread floods has led to questioning over why Auckland Mayor Brown didn't declare a state of emergency sooner. 'There has been some speculation I could have acted sooner but I couldn't have. This is a formal process, not to be taken lightly,' he told reporters on Friday night. 'I've listened to the professionals in the field. We have been on standby to receive the correct time for me to sign it and immediately after I was given that call to make that decision, I did.' 'Everybody finds these (events) very traumatic and difficult, you have to take your role seriously. 'My role isn't to rush out with buckets. It's to be here ensuring that the centre is well organised and that we are taking the appropriate steps at the appropriate time, not rushing into them In response to noise outside.' Auckland Emergency Management Andrew Clark anyone without a safe place to evacuate or in need of assistance to head to the Civil Defence Centre that's been set up in Kelston (pictured, residents in floodwater) Authorities warned Auckland is forecast to cop more heavy rain on Saturday morning (pictured, a flooded shop in Glenfield, Auckland) Major roads were also blocked by the floods, causing long traffic queues on highways. Police said they were working with Fire and Emergency New Zealand to respond to calls and asked people to stay off the roads if possible. Live traffic updates are available at the NZ Transport Agency website. Elton John's concert in the city, which was expected to by attended by about 40,000 people, was cancelled on Friday due to the floods. 'Given the weather, tonight's show has been cancelled. Our operations team is working to redirect special event buses to help get people back home,' Auckland Transport said in a statement on Twitter. National civil defence minister, Kieran McAnulty tweeted 'a number of people have been evacuated and are being given the support that they need'. 'Id urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information,' he said. A gunman armed with a Kalashnikov-style rifle has killed one and wounded two others after storming the Azerbaijan Embassy in Iran where his wife allegedly vanished last year. The attacker gunned down the head of the security at the diplomatic post in Tehran today because of 'personal and family problems', police chief Gen. Hossein Rahimi said. Shocking footage shows the killer barging into the embassy and pointing his firearm at the terrified staff. Those inside tried to push through metal detectors to take cover. The man opens fire with the rifle, its muzzle flashing, as he chases after the men into the small side office. A gunman armed with a Kalashnikov-style rifle has killed one and wounded two others after storming the Azerbaijan Embassy in Iran Then a hero employee bursts from a side door and fights the gunman, trying to wrestle the rifle off him. Another surveillance video from outside the embassy showed the gunman slam his car into another in front of the embassy. The gunman then got out and levelled his rifle at a figure inside of the Iranian police stand, who stood still and did nothing as the man stormed the embassy. Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Shahriari reportedly said that the gunman's wife had disappeared in April after a visit to the embassy. The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency quoted Shahriari as saying the gunman believed his wife was still in the embassy at the time of the attack - even though it was some eight months later. The assault comes as tensions have been high for months between neighboring Azerbaijan and Iran. Shocking footage shows the killer barging into the embassy and pointing his firearm at the terrified staff The attacker gunned down the head of the security at the diplomatic post in Tehran today Then a hero bursts from a side door and fights the gunman, trying to wrestle the rifle off him A statement from Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry said that 'an investigation is currently underway into this treacherous attack.' The ministry also described the attacker as destroying a guard post with assault rifle fire before being stopped by the wounded guards, whom authorities described as being in a 'satisfactory' condition after being shot. 'We demand that this terrorist act be investigated and the terrorist be punished,' Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said in statement. 'A terrorist attack against diplomatic missions is unacceptable!' Associated Press journalists saw the embassy's front door pocked with bullet holes after the attack. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, also said his country strongly condemned the attack, which was under investigation with 'high priority and sensitivity.' Iranian police stand guard in front of the Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran after today's attack A man gestures at bullet holes left after an attack at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran Azerbaijan borders Iran's northwest. There have been tensions between the two countries as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran in October launched a military exercise near the Azerbaijan border, flexing its martial might amid the nationwide protests rocking the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan also maintains close ties to Israel, which Tehran views as its top regional enemy. The Islamic Republic and Israel are locked in an ongoing shadow war as Iran's nuclear program rapidly enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Turkey, which has close ties to Azerbaijan, condemned the attack, called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and for measures to be put in place to prevent similar attacks in the future. Turkey has backed Azerbaijan against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. 'Turkey, which has been subjected to similar attacks in the past, deeply shares the pain of the Azerbaijani people,' a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said. 'Brotherly Azerbaijan is not alone. Our support to Azerbaijan will continue without interruption, as it always has.' He did not enter pleas to charges, which also included possessing imitation gun A student nurse has appeared in court accused of planning a terrorist attack at an RAF base after he was allegedly found with a pressure cooker bomb outside a hospital in Leeds. Mohammad Farooq, 27, was allegedly inspired by radical Islam and Jihad when he carried out 'hostile reconnaissance' of the military base in Yorkshire on January 10 and 18 as well as online research. Prosecutors say he chose the target because of online encouragement to carry out a 'lone wolf' attack at the site. Farooq is said to have constructed a viable bomb made from a pressure cooker, 13.7kg of a homemade low explosive mixture and a length of pyrotechnic fuse. Farooq was arrested in the early hours of last Friday outside the maternity unit at St James's University Hospital in Leeds. Pictured: A police officer and the bomb disposal van at the scene Police confirmed a 27-year-old man has now been arrested on terror charges in connection with the incident after being detained on Friday. Pictured: A member of the bomb disposal unit He was arrested in the early hours of last Friday outside the maternity unit at St James's University Hospital in Leeds, where he had been due to work a shift. His actions at the hospital are not alleged to have been motivated by terrorism but a grudge towards another member of staff. Farooq, from Leeds, appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday from a police station in Bradford wearing a grey tracksuit. He spoke to confirm his name, address and date of birth but was not asked to enter pleas to the three charges he faces. Farooq is charged with one count of engaging in conduct with the intention of committing acts of terrorism between July 12 and last year and January 20. St James's Hospital in Leeds was evacuated as a bomb squad and army specialists entered the building Prosecutor Mark Luckett said he allegedly had instructions to assemble a homemade explosive device, bought equipment and made the bomb, researched the RAF base online, and engaged in reconnaissance of the alleged target. He is also charged with possessing an explosive substance namely 13.7 kg of a homemade low explosive mixture, a pressure cooker and a length of pyrotechnic fuse on January 20 with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property. Farooq faces a further count of possessing an imitation firearm: a Gediz 9mm PAK semi-automatic pistol; with intent to cause fear of violence on the same date. There was no application for bail and chief magistrate Paul Goldspring remanded him in custody ahead of his next appearance at the Old Bailey next Friday. The motorist was shocked after the CCTV showed he had no other choice A driver was fined neary 200 by the council for moving into a bus lane to let a police van pass through traffic. Stephen James, 37, was charged 195 for driving into the lane along Forest Road in Wathamstow, East London on September, 13, 2022. Stephen moved into the lane because a police van was weaving in and out of traffic trying to get past him and so needed more space. CCTV stills show the van unable to get past while an oncoming motorist slows down. CCTV stills shows Stephen James pulling into the bus lane after to let the van pass him Stephen was shocked after a letter from Waltham Forest Council appeared in the post enclosing a fine. This letter was the second as he had missed the first. After hearing of a similar incident ending in the fine being revoked, Stephen appealed but was shocked when it failed. Stephen told the Metro: 'When I got the second one I looked at the evidence and thought its rubbish that I've not seen the first one but should be OK to appeal this one looking at the evidence.' He said: 'You see [the police van] coming up and you know you need to do something to help in that situation. 'They weren't going to be able to speed past so some action was needed.' 'I done it trying to the right thing, and I've been penalised for that.' A council spokesperson said: 'The rules in London are very clear about entering bus lanes, and it is the responsibility of drivers to know and follow them. 'The driver can be seen moving into the bus lane to let the emergency vehicle pass, before proceeding to drive the length of the bus lane despite having the opportunity to re-enter the road. 'Had the driver re-entered the road, they would not have received a fine.' The Snowman creator Raymond Briggs has left nearly all of his 6m estate to charity following his death last year. The illustrator passed away in August aged 88, having spent his final weeks under the care of staff at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. Mr Briggs enjoyed a long and successful career and is best known as the 'grumpy' genius behind the hit 1978 children's classic, which remains a staple of the festive season to this day. The wordless picture book has sold more than 5.5million copies around the world since its release and is still reproduced as a televised production every Christmas. The Snowman creator Raymond Briggs has left nearly all of his 6m estate to charity following his death last year The illustrator passed away in August aged 88 , having spent his final weeks under the care of staff at the Royal Sussex County Hospital The wordless picture book, The Snowman, has since sold more than 5.5million copies around the world and is reproduced as a televised production every Christmas Now it has emerged Mr Briggs left the bulk of his 6,019,502 fortune - with the exception of some gifts - for his trustees to distribute between different charities. His will reads: 'I give free of tax all my personal chattels to my Trustees and I wish but without imposing any binding trust or obligation that they distribute them within two years of my death in accordance with any wishes expressed by me or included in any note to be found with this will or among my papers. 'Any chattels not so distributed shall form the residue of my estate.' Mr Briggs also gave 1,000 free of tax to Hilda Wheeler, 500 to Barry Newman and 5,000 to Susan Thompson, all of Sussex. His house, known as Green Cross house, was given to Thomas and Clare Benjamin - the children of his late partner - in equal shares, with any costs paid for from his estate. It is not know exactly which charities will benefit from his generosity but in December the late artist was thanked by Blood Cancer UK for the 'generous gift' in his will in memory of his wife Jean, who died of leukaemia in 1973. They said: 'Raymond was right when he said 'we all die', but sometimes, the good we do lives on after we're gone. 'Raymond hasn't just left us with his wonderful stories. He also left us at Blood Cancer UK a generous gift in his will, in memory of hiswife, Jean. 'So this Christmas, as we're watching The Snowman, we won't just be feeling sad that Raymond has gone we'll be feeling grateful for what he's left behind.' Mr Briggs died on August 10, 2022, aged 88. The Fungus the Bogeyman author also decreed that his gravestone read: 'Raymond is not a normal person' - a favourite saying of his uttered by the three year old granddaughter of his partner of 40 years in 1997. The quote is to be credited to 'Connie Benjamin, aged 3 years 6 months, in 1997'. He asked for this to be on the same size stone and shape as his late partner Liz's. Speaking to Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs in 2005, he confirmed that he would like this inscribed. He said: 'It all seems very normal to the point of being boring to me but she was only three and a half when she said this. 'It's rather strange all sitting round having lunch, there was a slight pause and she just looked across the table and said: 'Raymond is not a normal person.' 'Brilliant. Terrific. Best compliment I have ever had in my life! Who wants to be normal?' Over the past five decades, the best-selling author shifted millions of copies of his famous works including When The Wind Blows, Fungus The Bogeyman, Father Christmas and Ethel & Ernest Relatives confirmed the illustrator (pictured above) spent his finals weeks at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, as they praised the 'kind and thoughtful care' of the staff there Mr Briggs is pictured outside Downing Street (second from left) in 1985 as a group of authors and publishers including Caroline Blackwood urged action from then-PM Margaret Thatcher on Nuclear Disarmament Mr Briggs illustrated his first collection of nursery rhymes, The Mother Goose Trilogy in 1996 which earned him the Kate Greenaway medal. Later classics include Father Christmas (1973), Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) and The Snowman (1978) Despite his fortune, he lived simply, driving an old car and buying his clothes from a charity shop. His books were known for often having sad endings and gallows humour. Speaking to Sue Lawley, he continued: 'Most endings are sad anyway. It ends in death. 'The Snowman melts, the bear goes back to the Arctic and everyone dies at the end of When the Wind Blows. 'That's what we've all got to face.' Born in Wimbledon Park, London, Briggs was the only child of a lady's maid and a milkman. At 15, he enrolled at Wimbledon School of Art hoping to become a cartoonist before studying oil painting and figure drawing. He made his name with the Mother Goose Treasury in 1966 - for which he did 897 illustrations and won the Kate Greenaway Medal. He married Jean Taprell Clark in 1963, another artist who had schizophrenia and died of leukaemia in 1973. He later wrote and illustrated Father Christmas (1973), Father Christmas Goes on Holiday (1975), Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) and The Snowman (1978). From his home near Lewes, East Sussex, he worked at a large desk overlooking the Sussex Weald doing everything for his books, including the lettering, by hand. Liz Benjamin was his partner for over 40 years until her death in 2015 and he became an unofficial stepfather to her children Tom and Clare and grandfather to Connie, Tilly and Miles. He won prizes across his career including the Children's Book of the Year, the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award, a CBE and was the first person to be inducted into the British Comic Awards' hall of fame. Inquest said 'inadequacies' in Met did possibly cause or contribute to her death The family of a missing woman from London found dead in Wales have called for changes in the Metropolitan Police after inquest heard 'multiple missed opportunities' could have led to her death. Hannah Warren, 28, was found dead near the entrance of Port Talbot docks on February 4, 2016, around 100m away from where her car was found in a lock. The inquest, which started on Monday January 16, heard how the young marketing director was allegedly raped by a colleague a year before her death. Her family issued a statement at the conclusion of the inquest in Swansea paying tribute to her 'natural style, charisma and flair' and called for changes in the Met Police to ensure that 'multiple missed opportunities to intercept Hannah' were not repeated in future. Hannah Warren, 28, was found dead near the entrance of Port Talbot docks on February 4, 2016 The hearing before a jury was told how the London police force had been carrying out an investigation to locate her as a medium-risk missing person after she was reported missing the previous day. The status was later changed to high-risk. Ms Warren's black Mini Cooper car had not been located but activated an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera in the Margam area at 3.23am on February 4, the inquest was told. CCTV footage captured her car entering the dock at 3.48am - nearly 15 hours after she drove from her home in southwest London at 11.16am on February 3 2016. Assistant coroner Edward Ramsay has vowed to carry out a 'full and fearless investigation' into the circumstances surrounding Miss Warren's death and whether she intended to take her own life. In the hours which led up to her disappearance, it was heard how she had been acting irrationally and displayed signs of delusion, believing she had spoken to former US president Barack Obama, had hacked into a government website and was being chased by government officials. Her family issued a statement at the conclusion of the inquest in Swansea paying tribute to Ms Warren's 'natural style, charisma and flair' In the 15 hours that Ms Warren drove her car, the inquest heard how she travelled from London to Brighton, then to Exeter and Weston-super-Mare. She then joined back onto the M5 before joining the M4 to south Wales. The inquest heard how the Met Police did not contact Ms Warren's family and therefore did not determine if she had any family or social connections to the areas. During the inquest's conclusion on Thursday, January 26, the jury recorded Ms Warren's medical cause of death as 1A drowning and 1B head injury. They said 'inadequacies in the Met Police investigation [did] possibly cause or contribute to her death.' The force also admitted five shortcomings in the investigation, which are the following: On the overnight response team shift, which received the handover from Insp Holliday, there was a lack of action taken to progress the missing person investigation; There was insufficient and insufficiently timely use of the ANPR Bureau by officers investigating the missing person investigation; There was a failure to contact Ms Warren's family, in particular to check whether Ms Warren had any known friends or family members in the west of England; There was a shortcoming in the flow of communication from calls received into the Met Police by regional police forces to the response team investigating the missing persons investigation; The ACT placed on the Police National Computer directing a stop of the vehicle was marked as low-grade when it could have been marked as medium-grade. In their statement, Ms Warren's family said they would endeavour to pursue that changes are made in the force 'to prevent a similar outcome'. The inquest heard how the young marketing director was allegedly raped by a colleague a year before her death It reads: 'Seven years ago, after an uninterrupted five-hundred-mile journey, Hannah's life tragically ended in an unsafe dock at Port Talbot, Wales. Two Independent Investigations (IPCC) into the Metropolitan Police found there to be no failings, learnings, or recommendations. 'This inquest, however, has found multiple missed opportunities to intercept Hannah and five admitted shortcomings from the Met Police. 'It is our belief that should this situation arise again, changes within the Met Police are not yet sufficient to prevent a similar outcome. For Hannah's legacy, we will endeavour to pursue that changes are made. 'The family would like to thank DS Nigel Morgan of South Wales Police for his continued support and Coroner Edward Ramsey for his extensive work into compassionately exposing the complexities surrounding Hannah's death. 'We would also like to thank our legal representatives, friends, family and any person(s) involved in supporting us through this process. Hannah's natural style, charisma and flair gave her the rare ability to mean so much to so many people. 'Words cannot express the gaping hole that has been left in our family and we miss her dearly. After seven years, we are grateful she can now rest in peace. Where we saw the crescent, she saw the whole of the moon.' Previously Ms Warren's mother, Jane Barnes, said her daughter died almost a year to the day after she was allegedly attacked by a work colleague. A previous hearing was told the family lodged an official complaint with police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), regarding the force's handling of the case. Her death came after Hannah worked at an office design company in London called Oktra but had intended to resign. Her mother described as a 'very sociable party person' - but had been raped by a work colleague in February 2015 almost exactly a year to the day before she died. She said: 'Hannah was raped by a colleague at work but I didn't know about it until after she had died. She had told her younger brother James and it was James who told me.' In response to MailOnline a spokesperson for Met Police said: 'An inquest has concluded into the death of Hannah Warren, 28, who died in Wales in February 2016. The Met fully respects the finding of the jury and will seek to learn any lessons that may come from the hearing.' Chief Superintendent Colin Wingrove, lead for policing on the Central South Basic Command Unit, said: 'Ms Warren's death is a tragedy. I cannot begin to imagine the pain her loved ones have gone through and still keenly feel. Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this time. 'It is important we acknowledge the findings of the Inquest. I hope to be able to apologise in person to the family for the identified shortcomings in the police response. 'We have made contact with the family's legal representatives to establish whether they wish to meet with us. 'We await to hear whether there will be a Preventing Future Deaths report. Should there be one, we will carefully consider its contents to ensure we take every opportunity to improve the service we provide to the public.' Tory MP Jake Berry - Zahawi's predecessor as party chairman - said he should go Chancellor Jeremy Hunt twice declined to say whether he has paid a tax penalty, as ministers' financial affairs come under scrutiny amid the furore surrounding Nadhim Zahawi. Mr Hunt insisted on Friday that journalists would not find anything 'interesting' in his tax affairs and claimed the public are not 'remotely interested' in the subject. He was responding to questions amid growing calls for Mr Zahawi to step aside as Tory party chairman while under investigation for settling a multimillion-pound tax dispute while chancellor. Mr Zahawi has authorised HM Revenue and Customs to discuss his settlement - estimated to be worth 4.8 million and include a penalty - with the investigation ordered by Rishi Sunak. Pressure on ministers only grew after HMRC boss Jim Harra told MPs there are 'no penalties for innocent errors in your tax affairs'. Under questioning after a Bloomberg speech, Mr Hunt said: 'I'm not going to talk about my personal tax affairs, but I don't think there's anything you'd find interesting to write about if I can put it that way.' He declined to answer when pressed again and added: 'By the way, I don't think people at home are remotely interested in personal tax affairs, they are interested in these things,' gesturing towards the Government's five priorities. Mr Hunt insisted on Friday that journalists would not find anything 'interesting' in his tax affairs and claimed the public are not 'remotely interested' in the subject. Mr Zahawi has authorised HM Revenue and Customs to discuss his settlement - estimated to be worth 4.8 million and include a penalty - with the investigation ordered by Rishi Sunak. Senior Tory MP Sir Jake Berry - Mr Zahawi's predecessor as party chairman - has said it is 'unsustainable' for him to remain in the job, arguing it was necessary to step aside while under investigation so the public can have faith in the process. Senior Tory MP Sir Jake Berry - Mr Zahawi's predecessor as party chairman - has said it is 'unsustainable' for him to remain in the job, arguing it was necessary to step aside while under investigation so the public can have faith in the process. The former minister told BBC Question Time: 'Even though he is a friend of mine, I'm not going to allow that from a view I've put forward consistently. 'The Government needs to find a mechanism for ministers and MPs who are under investigation in this way to step aside, to clear their name, and then to come back into government if that is appropriate. 'I think from Nadhim, great individual that he is, that would be the right thing to do now. 'I do think it's unsustainable for a minister to stay in this post while this investigation goes on.' Mr Sunak has refused calls from Labour and other senior Tories including Caroline Nokes to remove Mr Zahawi's post either permanently or temporarily. On Thursday, a source close to Mr Zahawi said he would permit HMRC to share details of his case with ministerial standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus. The revelation came after Mr Harra told the Public Accounts Committee the department could only co-operate with the investigation if given approval by Mr Zahawi. 'There are no penalties for innocent errors in your tax affairs,' the HMRC chief executive added. The Guardian reported that Mr Zahawi's penalty stood at 30% of the settlement, which he dealt with while chancellor. Mr Sunak maintained his position on Thursday that he will 'await the findings' of the investigation into whether Mr Zahawi broke the ministerial code. Speaking during a Cabinet away day at Chequers, the Prime Minister told broadcasters: 'I'm not going to pre-judge the outcome of the investigation, it's important that the independent adviser is able to do his work. 'That's what he's currently doing, that's what I've asked him to do and I'll await the findings of that investigation.' A week ago, Mr Sunak told Prime Minister's Questions that Mr Zahawi had addressed the fiasco 'in full'. But he went on to launch an investigation by Sir Laurie, his independent adviser on ministers' interests, admitting there were 'questions that need answering' after the penalty was revealed. Mr Sunak insisted that 'no issues were raised with me' when he appointed Mr Zahawi to his current role, amid questions over his political judgment. Nicola Sturgeon today refused to rule out a 'blanket' ban on biologically male rapists being held in female jails despite a humiliating U-turn in the Isla Bryson case yesterday. The First Minister also let fly at critics of her ailing Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, claiming some are 'transphobic', 'deeply misogynist' and 'possibly racist as well'. She is said to have backed the decision that the transgender sex attacker should be moved to the male section of HMP Edinburgh following days of fury after she was remanded in Cornton Vale - Scotland's only female prison. Addressing the Scottish Parliament yesterday she said: 'I don't see how it's possible to have a rapist within a women's prison'. But in an interview with The News Agents, Ms Sturgeon appeared to oppose any 'blanket approach'. She said she backed the 'general principle [that] someone who rapes a woman should not be in a women's prison'. Leaving the door open to exceptions, she said that there's a 'danger with a blanket approach because you catch cases that you shouldn't'. Cybernats group Wings over Scotland, which is pro-independence but anti Ms Sturgeon, tweeted: 'Which cases of rapists in women's prisons SHOULDN'T you catch? Which rapists should you be allowing into women's prisons? Just the *nice* rapists?' Speaking to Globals The News Agents podcast, the First Minister said there's a 'danger with a blanket approach' to the 'general principle [that] someone who rapes a woman should not be in a women's prison' Isla Bryson, 31, raped two vulnerable women before transitioning in 2020. Between 2016 and 2019, when the attacks happened, Bryson was a shaven-headed thug by the name of Adam Graham (pictured) Ms Sturgeon also told LBC that some critics of her Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill are using the 'cloak of caring about women's rights' to hide their 'misogyny and racism'. 'That's not everybody who opposes this bill. I want to be very clear about that. But there are people who have opposed this bill that cloak themselves in women's rights to make it acceptable, but just as they're transphobic you'll also find that they're deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well', she said. Revealed: SNP's flip-flopping over Isla Bryson decision Tuesday: Bryson is convicted for the rape of a woman in Clydebank, East Dunbartonshire, in 2016 and a rape against a second woman in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019. She is moved to Cornton Vale women's prison in Stirling for sentencing. Wednesday: Following an outcry from women's campaigners, Number 10 weighs in to express concern about the placement, with Rishi Sunak's spokesman saying he 'understands the concerns'. However, SNP Justice Minister Keith Brown expresses his confidence in the Scottish Prison Service and refuses to intervene. He adds that the controversial Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would have no implication on which prisons transgender people are held in. Thursday: In a 'screeching' u-turn within 24 hours of Mr Brown's comments, Nicola Sturgeon announces that Bryson will be transferred from Scotland's only all-women's prison to a male jail. Friday: Ms Sturgeon tells LBC she backed the 'general principle [that] someone who rapes a woman should not be in a women's prison'. But leaving the door open to exceptions, she said that there's a 'danger with a blanket approach because you catch cases that you shouldn't'. Advertisement Her words may be a move to try to rescue her controversial trans laws that were left in disarray by the decision to move Isla Bryson away from the women's prison estate to a male jail. But Scottish Tory Leader Douglas Ross said: 'This is desperate from the First Minister. 'If you disagree with Nicola Sturgeons policy that risks the safety of women and girls she brands you homophobic, racist and transphobic. 'Utterly shameful language that shows just how far from public opinion she is'. Last night critics said the Bryson case had highlighted dangers posed by the Bill to women's safety and inconsistencies in Ms Sturgeon's position. The U-turn happened just a day after her justice secretary backed the decision by the Scottish Prison Service. Isla Bryson raped two women while living as a man, and began transitioning from male to female in 2020, after she was charged with the two sex attacks. The former DJ's estranged wife Shonna Graham has dismissed her husband's transition as a 'sham' and told the Mail this week Bryson was 'bullsh***ing the authorities' to avoid a men's prison. The extraordinary case enraged opponents to Ms Sturgeon's Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, who said it demonstrated the potential risks of allowing gender self-identification without the need for medical evidence or diagnosis. Speaking during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon confirmed Bryson would not be kept at Cornton Vale women's prison, near Stirling. She failed, however, to mention the facility is due to shut from the end of next month anyway. She said the decision had been taken by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) but added: 'I don't think it's possible to have a rapist within a women's prison.' Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross questioned why Bryson was initially been placed in the segregation unit of the female-only jail. Mr Ross said: 'This double rapist only decided to change gender after he was charged by the police. 'It took the threat of jail for this criminal to decide to change his gender. That's not a coincidence, that is a conscious decision. A van arrives at HMP Edinburgh last night where Isla Bryson is now incarcerated 'We think it is wrong that a rapist is sent to a women's prison. We believe a rapist having access to a women's single-sex space is a threat.' Scottish Tory MSP Jamie Halcrow Johnston said: 'It is shameful that Nicola Sturgeon refuses to admit that her government and her own SNP ministers have allowed a double rapist to be held in a women's prison.' Female students were told to strip naked for spray tan sessions in college beauty class in front of transgender rapist Advertisement His colleague Tess White added: 'A predatory double rapist being held in a women's prison for any length of time is dangerous. An SNP minister defended the decision one day then Nicola Sturgeon backtracked the next. What would have happened if there hadn't been a public backlash?' Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government had not given any 'formal direction' to the SPS over Bryson's imprisonment but it is understood representations were made in the background. She said: 'This individual case is not about whether they are trans or not, in this individual case this is a person who's been convicted of rape, so this individual is a rapist and a sex offender and that is what's important.' Last week, Westminister said it would use powers known as a Section 35 order to stop the GRR bill gaining royal assent on the basis it would cut across UK-wide equality legislation. Scottish Conservative equalities spokesman Rachael Hamilton said: 'The case of Isla Bryson has been the ultimate illustration of the dangers of Nicola Sturgeon's GRR Bill. 'Legal experts have warned that it would be near impossible to exclude male sex offenders seeking to abuse the prison system, once they are armed with a Gender Recognition Certificate. 'Under Nicola Sturgeon's reckless gender ID reforms, a predator could get one in just three months vastly less time than most rape trials take. 'The First Minister will be putting vulnerable women and girls at risk unless she finally bans sex offenders awaiting trial and those already convicted from obtaining a new Gender ID a Scottish Conservative amendment the SNP shamefully voted against in December. 'The UK Government's Section 35 order is the chance for the SNP to learn from this disgraceful case and fix the dangerous errors in this Bill.' Bryson was convicted this week for the rape of a woman in Clydebank, East Dunbartonshire, in 2016 and a rape against a second woman in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019. HMP Edinburgh, also known as Saughton Prison, houses some 900 inmates and holds both men and women in different units, known as halls. Inmates have included serial killer Peter Tobin, who was given a life sentence for the murders of Polish student Angelika Kluk and teenagers Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18. Russia is now engaged in a war against Nato and the West, the European Unions defence chief said yesterday as Canada became the 12th country to commit tanks to Ukraine. Stefano Sannino, the secretary general of the EUs external action service, suggested Vladimir Putin had moved beyond his initial special military operation and was moving the war into a different stage. Mr Sannino was speaking as Canada became the latest country to pledge tanks and Poland said it would give an additional 60 to the 14 it has already committed to the war effort. Spain and Norway are expected to announce how many Leopard 2s they will send to Ukraine in the coming days. Russia test launches the feared Sarmat 'Satan 2' missile in April last year, as the nuclear threat remains high The Kremlin test launches an 'unstoppable' nuclear Zircon hypersonic missile from the Admiral Gorshkov Stefano Sannino (pictured), the secretary general of the EUs external action service, suggested Vladimir Putin was moving the war into a different stage Belgium announced a new package of military aid, promising cash, missiles, machineguns and armoured vehicles, but had to admit it has no main battle tanks to match the offers from its Nato allies. Ukraine is also seeking Western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the US F-16, although this remains an unlikely prospect. Mr Sannino said Ukraines allies had been forced to increase and upgrade their military support to Kyiv in response to Moscow shifting the focus of the war to the West. Addressing reporters in Tokyo, he said: I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia has started moving the war into a different stage. Putin (pictured yesterday) has stepped up attempts to break through Ukraine's defences with heavy fighting in the east of the country The spectre of nuclear war looms over the world after the West supplied state-of-the-art tanks to Ukraine to the fury of Vladimir Putin He added that Russia was making indiscriminate attacks on civilians and cities. The country was desperate to gain momentum on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine before the Western tank squadrons arrive. In the past 48 hours, Moscows forces have been attempting to break through Ukraines frontlines in the Donbas region. From Thursday night into yesterday morning Russia also subjected Ukrainian cities to more bomb attacks. Some 47 of the 59 missiles were intercepted but 11 people are understood to have been killed in explosions caused by the Russian ordnance which penetrated Ukraines air defence systems. Russia also launched 37 air strikes. In response to the provision of Western tanks to Ukraine, Russia accused US President Joe Biden of pumping weapons into the country when he could be instigating a ceasefire. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said the promised delivery of Western tanks to Ukraine was evidence of the growing direct involvement of the United States and Europe in the war. Western allies have committed around 150 tanks. Peskov said: There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington DC that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, in no way signifies the involvement of these countries or the [Nato] alliance in hostilities in Ukraine. After weeks of dithering, Germany finally agreed to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks (pictured) Local residents remove debris from a house of their neighbour damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine A woman takes photos with her mobile phone next to ruined houses following Russian missile attacks We categorically disagree with this, and in Moscow everything [theyre doing] is seen as a direct involvement. We see that this is growing. North Korea also condemned the decision by the US to supply Ukraine with tanks, saying Washington was escalating a sinister proxy war aimed at destroying Moscow. Meanwhile Hungary, which is a Nato member and EU state, suggested Western countries have drifted into becoming active participants in the conflict. Prime minister Viktor Orban, who has been widely condemned for alleged attempts to reduce democratic freedoms in Hungary, said the West should pursue a ceasefire and peace talks rather than arming Ukraine. He added: It started with the Germans saying they were willing to send helmets but they would not send lethal aid, since that represented participation in the conflict. A German-made Leopard tank is pictured on exercises in Canada, and will soon be deployed to the battlefield Ukrainian soldiers are seen at their mortar position on the Donbass frontline yesterday Now were at battle tanks and there are discussions about planes. Hungary has refused to send weapons to Ukraine and has boosted the Kremlins coffers by purchasing Russian gas, oil and nuclear fuel. Asked if Hungary would get more involved, Mr Orban said: This is out of the question as long as I am prime minister. But the others [other European countries] have already been swept away. If you send weapons no matter what you say, you are in the war. It comes as Ukraine is to set up drone assault companies within its armed forces in a joint venture with billionaire Elon Musks satellite communications company. Kyiv announced yesterday it had signed off on a deal with Starlink satellite communications, which is operated by Mr Musks SpaceX organisation. Ukraine wants to develop a futuristic army of drones to conduct attacks behind Russian lines. In a statement on its Facebook page yesterday, Starlink said the most professional [Ukrainian] servicemen have been chosen to lead the assault companies which will be equipped with uncrewed aerial vehicles and explosives. Starlink added: We are doing everything to provide soldiers with modern technologies. Unmanned aircraft have already played a crucial role on both sides since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Moscow has used hundreds of Iranian-made suicide drones to attack Ukrainian cities, while Kyivs forces have used drones to drop small explosives on Russian forces and to monitor their movements. Ukrainian soldiers are seen riding on a T-72 Soviet-era tank, used widely in the ongoing conflict, in the Donetsk region, January 20 An APC drives threw retaken town Lyman in Donetsk region yesterday at a key moment in the war Case back in court as MoD apply to commit him to prison for contempt of court Brian Muyepa claimed injuries to his feet so severe he'd been rendered disabled An ex-soldier who brought a record 3.7m trench foot claim against the Ministry of Defence, saying he was left 'waddling like a penguin' could now face jail after video showed him dancing at a barbecue. Brian Muyepa, 34, claimed 'non-freezing cold injuries' to his feet - sustained on duty - were so severe he had been rendered disabled. But last October, Mr Justice Cotter dismissed his claim at the High Court, finding his case to have been 'fundamentally dishonest' due to him 'hugely exaggerating' his injuries. Mr Muyepa was handed a 180,000 court bill for the case, but could now also be jailed after the MoD began a bid to have him locked up for contempt of court. Brian Muyepa, 34, claimed 'non-freezing cold injuries' to his feet - sustained on duty - were so severe he had been rendered disabled MoD lawyers told the High Court yesterday that 79 separate allegations of misleading statements and documents had been put forward, in an 'egregious' example of dishonesty in a court claim. Mr Muyepa, who was based at Salisbury and denies any wrongdoing, initially sued the MoD for around 3.7m compensation - thought to be the highest ever damages claimed for trench foot. The former Royal Artillery gunner's case revolved around a promotion exercise in a cold water-filled tunnel in Sennybridge, Wales, in March 2016, after which he was left in wet boots for five-and-a-half hours. He was later diagnosed with non-freezing cold injury, a disabling condition which is characterised by pain in the extremities and an oversensitivity to cold. Most commonly experienced by servicemen, it was first noted in the trenches of Europe during the First World War, resulting in its more commonly used description as 'trench foot.' Following his diagnosis, it was recommended that he be protected from cold in future, but he was exposed again at Salisbury Plain in 2017, when he spent much of his time working outdoors on vehicles, he claimed. His condition subsequently worsened and he was diagnosed as having 'very severe' cold sensitivity in his feet. Claiming around 3.7m damages, but later dropping it to 3m and then 1.7m, Mr Muyepa told the judge that the injury had severely impacted on most aspects of his everyday life. He almost always requires a walking stick, sometimes cannot get out of bed, suffers sleeplessness and often feels 'like a prisoner' in his home, he said. My Muyepa had insisted that his injury left him so disabled that he was reduced to shuffling about and relying on a walking stick or his wife to help him get around. Above: The former soldier with his wife Racheal He also claimed his walking gait was also affected leading to him waddling 'like a penguin'. But cross-examining him, MoD barrister Andrew Ward suggested that Mr Muyepa had told a pack of 'lies' to inflate the value of his compensation claim. The barrister produced a stream of videos, taken from Facebook or from covertly recorded surveillance, which he said showed Mr Muyepa had 'ramped up and exaggerated' an 'extravagant claim.' In one video, Mr Muyepa could be seen in an apron, marinating chicken at a barbecue, while dancing around to loud music. He was accused of lying to experts about his condition, but claimed he was not dancing enthusiastically, more 'like a penguin, from side to side.' At the end of the trial, Mr Justice Cotter found that Mr Muyepa had suffered minor genuine non-freezing cold injures during his army service and would have been entitled to damages of 97,595.33. But he stripped him of that compensation and handed him a massive costs bill after finding that he had seriously exaggerated the impact of his condition. 'He fundamentally and persistently transformed the claim by dishonest exaggeration,' he said. 'His dishonesty tainted the whole claim from the outset. 'He deliberately exaggerated symptoms and functional limitations for financial gain. 'He was dishonest from a very early stage and before the case was commenced.' Mr Muyepa, who was based at Salisbury and denies any wrongdoing, initially sued the MoD for around 3.7m compensation - thought to be the highest ever damages claimed for trench foot The case returned to court yesterday after the MoD began an application to commit My Muyepa to prison for contempt of court. But Mr Justice Cotter declined to hear the application, pointing out that he had found Mr Muyepa dishonest using the civil standard of proof and that the allegations would have to be proven to the higher criminal standard for contempt to be found. 'The difficulty in this case is that the defendant admitted nothing - at no stage did he admit misleading the court, the experts or anyone,' he said. The judge gave directions for the hearing of the contempt application by a different judge at a later date. If found in contempt, Mr Muyepa could face a sentence of up to two years' imprisonment. The mother of a baby who died following multiple failures by hospital staff has said a record fine handed to the NHS trust responsible was a 'clear message' that patient safety must be prioritised. Sarah Andrews' first child, Wynter, died 23 minutes after being born on September 15 2019 due to lack of oxygen to the brain following an emergency caesarean section, something which an inquest found could have been prevented had staff at the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham acted sooner. On Friday, the Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust, which runs the QMC, was fined 800,000, the highest fine ever issued for failings in maternity care, after pleading guilty at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on Wednesday to two charges relating to Wynter and Mrs Andrews of being a registered person who failed to provide care or treatment in a safe way resulting in harm or loss. Mrs Andrews previously said she and her daughter were failed 'in the most cruel way' and in a statement on Friday added: 'We thank the judge, and recognise the delicate balance that has to be made to impose this significant fine, which we hope sends a clear message to trust managers that they must hold patient safety in the highest regard. Wynter Sophia Andrews died at Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, on September 15 2019 Sarah and Gary Andrews are pictured outside Nottingham Magistrates' Court after Nottingham University Hospital Trust was fined following the death of their baby, Wynter 'Sadly, we are not the only family harmed by the trust's failings. 'We feel that this sentence isn't just for Wynter, but for all the other babies that have gone before and after her.' The fine represents only the second time a trust has been prosecuted for failings in maternity care, after East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust was fined 733,000 following a baby's death in June 2021. It is also the first time the NUH trust has been criminally prosecuted for any offence. As well as the fine, which will be paid within two years, the NUH trust must also pay 13,668.65 in prosecution costs and a 181 victim surcharge. Ryan Donoghue, prosecuting on behalf of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), previously told the court that staff failed to follow the trust's own guidelines on a number of issues. Bernard Thorogood, mitigating, had said that the trust accepted that staff training was an issue but that staff shortages, highlighted as a key reason behind the incident, were a national problem and that maternity care was now fully funded. Passing sentence - which could have been a maximum of an unlimited fine - District Judge Grace Leong said: 'Ultimately the catalogue of failings and errors exposed Mrs Andrews and her baby to a significant risk of harm which was avoidable. Mr and Mrs Andrews are pictured speaking to the press following the verdict on Friday Ms Andrews had started having contractions and experiencing pain six days before being admitted to the maternity ward in Queen's Medical Centre on September 14 'Such errors ultimately resulted in the death of Wynter and post-traumatic stress for Mrs Andrews as well as Mr Andrews. 'My assessment is that the level of culpability is high, where offences on Wynter and Mrs Andrews are concerned. 'There were systems in place, but there were so many procedures and practices where guidance was not followed or adhered to or implemented.' However, passing judgement on the fine, she added she was 'acutely aware' the trust was already operating in a deficit, stating that the negative impact of any fine on patient care must be considered. The trust accepted wrongdoing to the CQC at the earliest stage of its investigation, and in a statement, its chief executive, Anthony May, said: 'I am truly sorry for the pain and grief that we caused Mr and Mrs Andrews due to failings in the maternity care we provided. 'These were serious failings that led to the worst possible outcome and we let them down at what should have been a joyous time in their lives. 'I want to pay tribute to Mr and Mrs Andrews, who have shown incredible courage during this process despite the fact that it has brought additional pain and suffering. Baby Wynter's mother Sarah Andrews said she felt 'humiliated, worthless and forgotten' after arriving at the hospital 'On Wednesday we pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility for the findings of the CQC and today we accept, in full, the sentence of the court. 'While words will never be enough, I can assure our communities that staff across NUH are committed to providing good quality care every day and we are working hard to make the necessary improvements, including engaging fully and openly with Donna Ockenden and her team on their ongoing independent review into our maternity services.' The trust also said that multiple improvements had been made following the incident, including improved digital systems for staff, greater investment in equipment, a strengthened senior clinical team, continued recruitment and retention of midwives and improvements to staff feedback services, among others. The provision of maternity care across the trust is currently under review by Donna Ockenden, a senior midwife, following concerns raised by several families, with Wynter's case forming part of the review. A tragic inquest in 2020 found the infant died from hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy - a loss of oxygen flow to the brain - 23 minutes and 30 seconds after being born. This could have been prevented had staff at the QMC in Nottingham delivered her earlier. The Care Quality Commission, which regulates health services in England, announced in July last year that it would prosecute the trust on two counts, one in relation to Wynter and another to her mother, Mrs Andrews. Speaking at the inquest into Wynter's death in 2020, Mrs Andrews said she felt 'humiliated, worthless and forgotten' after arriving at the hospital. She had started having contractions and experiencing pain six days before being admitted to the maternity ward on September 14. Jo Taylor, a midwife at King's Mill Hospital who had conducted a home visit, made the call to midwife Clare Lee at the hospital on Sarah's behalf, the court heard. Ms Lee said she hadn't taken into consideration that the contractions had started days prior. This led to Ms Andrews being placed on a ward where she was only seen by midwives, and not clinicians. A Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch report into Wynter's death also found Ms Lee had failed to act on two high blood pressure readings. These should have led to a medical examination for Ms Andrews. To date, dozens of babies are believed to have died or been left with serious injuries as a result of care at the trust, which runs Nottingham's City Hospital and Queen's Medical Centre Donna Ockenden is set to lead the investigation after some 100 mothers wrote to the then health secretary Sajid Javid to criticise the thematic review of maternity incidents at Nottingham University Hospitals Ms Lee passed the care of Sarah over to Adele Kirk, a midwife who was working the night shift, and she was given diamorphine, which requires a doctor's approval. This was approved without Ms Kirk speaking or seeing the doctor herself, as she says she believed this had happened beforehand. Diamorphine can slow down contractions and can cause the baby not to breathe properly. Both midwives told the court they had made a mistake by believing Ms Andrews was in latent labour and not established labour. The first stage of labour is broken down into to the latent phase and the established phase. Latent labour is the initial part of the first stage of labour where there are irregular contractions. Ms Andrews gave birth later that day on September 15 via a caesarean, but Wynter passed away shortly after being delivered. Dozens of babies are believed to have died or been left with serious injuries due to poor care at the trust. Donna Ockenden was appointed by ex-Health Secretary Sajid Javid to investigate the horrific stories at Nottingham University Hospitals Ms Ockenden had previously chaired a damning review into two decades of appalling care at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust. The Memphis Police Chief has warned that footage of five officers beating Tyre Nichols to death is worse than that of Rodney King. King was brutally attacked by LAPD officers in 1991, with their acquittal the following year sparking one of the worst race riots in US history. Tyre, 29, died in hospital on January 10, three days after five officers viciously beat him during a traffic stop. Footage of the incident will be uploaded to YouTube by the police department at 7pm EST with authorities bracing for widespread protests. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said the footage is the worst she has witnessed in her career. 'We are going to see acts that defy humanity, a disregard for life, duty of care and a level of physical interaction that is above and beyond what is required in law enforcement,' she said Friday morning. Tyre Nichols is pictured in hospital after the incident. The 29-year-old from Memphis died on January 10 from cardiac arrest and kidney failure, three days after he was pulled over for reckless driving by police in unmarked cars TOP L-R: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III. BOTTOM L-R: Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith Four of the five Memphis Police officers charged in the death of Tyre have been released on a combined $1million bond after being arrested yesterday. Justin Smith, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Tadarrius Bean were released from Shelby County Jail, according to court records. Demetrius Haley is still in jail with a $350,000 bond after all five were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and official oppression. Shelby County District attorney Steve Mutlroy said Tyre was left 'bloody and bruised' after he was pepper sprayed and beaten just yards from his home. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation conducted an independent investigation into the use of force by Memphis police. All five were fired last Friday for violation of police, with City officials saying they were notified on January 15. Davis said the cops were 'amped up' when they stopped Tyre, with two of the officers from a special team designed to stop street crime. I was outraged. It was incomprehensible to me. It was unconscionable... I don't think I've witnessed anything of that nature my entire career. Memphis Police Chief tells @donlemon officers absolutely did everything wrong in their arrest of Tyre Nichols pic.twitter.com/7GHZLpZU4M CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) January 27, 2023 Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said that the video of the attack on Nichol's was the worst of her career Tyre Nichols, 29, died in hospital on January 10, three days after a traffic stop that ended with him being severely injured TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN NICHOLS' DEATH January 7: Police pull over Tyre Nichols on suspicion of reckless driving at 8.30pm. Tyre fled on foot after a confrontation but was apprehended by cops soon after. An ambulance was called to the scene after Tyre complained of shortness of breath, and was transferred to hospital in a critical condition. January 10: Three days after the stop Tyre, 29, died from his injuries sustained in the incident. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that they were looking into his death. January 15: Five officers are relieved of duty while the investigation into their use of force continues. Preliminary findings indicate the serious nature of the offences. All of the officers were given a notice regarding the impeding administrative actions. January 18: The Department of Justice announces that a civil rights investigation has been opened into the death of Tyre. January 20: Memphis Police Department identifies, and fires five offices involved in the traffic stop, due to their violation of multiple department polices. Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr, and Justin Smith's jobs were terminated for failing in their excessive use of force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid. Two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols 'initial patient care' were also fired. January 23: The family of Tyre Nichols and their attorney, Ben Crump, view the footage of his arrest for the first time. Crump compares it to the assault of Rodney King by LAPD officers in 1991. January 26: All five officers are charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression. January 27: Four of the former officers each paid bond of $250,000 each to be released after their arrest. Advertisement She said the nature of the stop was 'very aggressive' and it just 'escalated from there.' Davis told CNN that the video of the attack left her 'outraged' and that the level of violence was 'incomprehensible' to her. 'I'm sure that individuals watching will feel what the family felt. And if you don't, then you're not a human being,' she said. 'I would say it is about the same if not worse than the 1991 beating of Rodney King. A group think mentality.' The police chief revealed there is 'no proof' that Tyre was driving recklessly when he was pulled over. Davis said she heard Tyre call out for his mother in the video, which will be released Friday evening. Tyre's family has hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump to represent them, and also compared the beating of the FedEx worker to that of Rodney King. Speaking to CNN, his mother RowVaughn Wells said her son was 'beat like a pinata'. 'Yes, he cried out for me, because I'm his mother. He was trying to get home to safety. He was a mamma's boy,' she said through tears. 'He loves me to death. He has my name tattooed on his arm. He had Crohn's disease, and he had surgery in 2013. 'I told my husband my stomach is hurting so bad, and once I found out what happened, it was just the fact that I was feeling my son's pain. 'I was feeling my son's pain as they were beating him to death.' RowVaughn hit out at the officers involved in her son's death. 'They brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the black community', she said. 'I don't hate anybody. That's not in my nature, I just feel sorry for them because they did something horrendous.' RowVaughn also told Don Lemon that she was unable to view the footage, leaving Tyre's step-father, Rodney Wells to watch the 'horrific' footage. The family has set up a GoFundMe in Tyre's name to help raise money for his funeral and case. Davis said Tyre was able flee the officers after the initial stop, but they found him again at another location. 'There was an amount of aggression that was unexplainable,' she said. The top cop said she does not believe the incident was 'racist' - adding that it 'takes off the table that issues and problems in law enforcement is about race.' She went on: 'It is about human dignity, integrity, accountability and the duty to protect. As this video will show it doesn't matter whose wearing the uniform.' Memphis Police Chief tells @donlemon the video of Tyre Nichols' beating at the hands of Memphis Police is "about the same if not worse" than the 1991 police beating of Rodney King, which led to riots in Los Angeles: pic.twitter.com/cmB7fcD1br CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) January 27, 2023 Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks at a news conference with the family of Tyre Nichols on Thursday Memphis Police confirmed that they planned to release the video late on Friday to avoid any 'peaceful protest' causing disruptions to members of the community. King's daughter warned Tyre's family that they will be in for a 'world of hurt' once the footage is made public. Lora King told TMZ that the footage would be playing 'on a loop' in their heads after they view it. She was only seven when her father was attacked, with the police brutality sparking violent riots when the officers involved were acquitted. Lora warned that there is 'no way to be normal' after the video is made public. A year after the rioting in LA, four officers stood trial in federal court on civil rights charges, with two being acquitted and two found guilty. They were sentenced to 30 months in prison, with King also suing the city of Los Angeles and was awarded $3.8 million in damages. RowVaughn Wells said that her son was 'beat like a pinata' by the officers who dragged him out of his car People attend a candlelight vigil in memory of Tyre Nichols at the Tobey Skate Park on January 26 in Memphis "It's about human dignity, integrity, accountability, and the duty to protect our community." Memphis Police Chief tells @donlemon she does not believe race was a factor in Tyre Nichols' violent arrest pic.twitter.com/icbIG39leS CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) January 27, 2023 Dozens of people peacefully paid tribute to the murdered Fed-Ex worker, with police gearing up to deal with potential violence after footage of the incident is released David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, described the video as 'absolutely appalling.' He said: 'Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing. This was wrong, and this was criminal.' In addition to the five officers charged Thursday, Davis said in the statement that other officers also are under investigation. Two Memphis Fire Department personnel also have been relieved of duty pending an investigation. President Biden has also called for calm ahead of the release of the video adding: 'Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable.' He said: 'As Americans grieve, the Department of Justice conducts its investigation, and state authorities continue their work, I join Tyre's family in calling for peaceful protest. President Biden urged for calm before the video release, saying: 'Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice' In addition to the five officers charged Thursday, Davis said in the statement that other officers also are under investigation Tyre's parents attended a candlelight vigil for their son on January 26 ahead of a video being released on January 27 'Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice.' 'Tyre's death is a painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all. 'We also cannot ignore the fact that fatal encounters with law enforcement have disparately impacted Black and Brown people.' Schools in Memphis are canceling all after-school activities on Friday in the 'interest of public safety' with a showcase being postponed for a week because of the footage release. It comes as major US cities are bracing for possible violence after the release of the footage, with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp activating the National Guard in a state of emergency in Atlanta. He has called in 1,000 troops to combat anticipated unrest and chaos which is expected to be even more extreme than last week's riots. Please see the important message from MSCS. We understand that students and staff may have questions or need support regarding these traumatic events, and we have provided principals resources that staff may use to help support our students. pic.twitter.com/0sjTr3amHA Toni Williams (@SuptCFOToni) January 27, 2023 Capitol Police officials are also beefing up security on the Hill amid heightened concerns over the release of the video She also told Don Lemon that she was unable to watch the footage, leaving Tyre's father Rodney RowVaughn Wells to witness the 'horrific' footage The order said the state of emergency was declared because of 'unlawful assemblage, violence, overt threats of violence, disruption of the peace and tranquility of this state and danger existing to persons and property.' Protestors took to the streets of Atlanta after the death of activist Manuel Terna, 26, who was shot and killed by Georgia State Patrol after allegedly shooting a state trooper who was trying to clear protesters from the area. Authorities were trying to clear the construction site of a new $90million public safety training center dubbed 'Cop City' which has come under fierce opposition from demonstrators. Police departments in Austin, LA, and Washington are all preparing for possible unrest after the release of the footage. Austin cops are monitoring the situation and will be 'will be moving into tactical alert status beginning Friday morning'. The NYPD also confirmed that they are monitoring the situation in Memphis. Capitol Police officials are also beefing up security on the Hill amid heightened concerns over the release of the video. Workers were spotted on Thursday evening unloading fencing near the Capitol which are usually used for crowd control. Jay Leno has broken his collar bone, two ribs and cracked both kneecaps in a motorcycle accident - just two months after suffering devastating burns when a steam engine exploded in his face. The comedian, 72, was riding a vintage motorcycle in Las Vegas on January 17 when he pulled into a parking lot and was wiped out by a piece of wire that was strung across the roadway without a sign over it. His CNBC motor show was also canceled this week - adding to a string of bad fortune for Leno. He told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: 'Just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle. So Ive got a broken collarbone. Ive got two broken ribs. Ive got two cracked kneecaps. 'But Im OK! Im OK, Im working. Im working this weekend. Leno was badly hurt after crashing a vintage motorbike on January 17, just two months after suffering serious burns when an engine exploded in his face. He's pictured in a promo photo for his CNBC series Jay Leno's Garage - which was scrapped this week, adding to the star's run of bad luck Temporary skin grafts from 'human cadaver skin' were added to the comedian's body after he suffered horrific burns when an engine exploded in his face on November 12 A doctor performed skin grafts on the star, removing his burnt skin and replacing it with skin from a skin bank 'I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it. 'So, you know, I didnt see it until it was too late. It just clotheslined me and, boom, knocked me off the bike. 'The bike kept going, and you know how that works out.' The crash is the second serious accident for Leno in as many months - and adds to a run of bad luck that's also seen his CNBC motor show axed. CNBC axed his series Jay Leno's Garage this week, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Just months after his fiery accident that left him with severe burns all over his face, CNBC reportedly canceled his series Jay Leno's Garage Leno, 72, had hosted Jay Leno's Garage since 2014. It was first aired online just months after his final episode of NBC's The Tonight Show aired in February 2014 Jay Leno's Garage first started as a web series for NBC.com in 2014, before a special aired on CNBC in August 2014 that prompted an upgrade to full-time series (pictured with guest Charlie Sheen on the show) Leno suffered devastating burns to his face after a vintage steam car engine he was working on exploded. The iconic TV host and his friend Dave Killackey were working on one of his beloved vintage cars at his LA mansion on November 12 when his 1907 White Steam Car erupted into flames. Leno credits his friend Killackey with saving his life. Killackey jumped into action and wrapped his arms around Leno, smothering the fire. Leno was rushed to the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills Hospital in LA where he was treated for third-degree burns and spent 10 days receiving treatment. Describing that incident in a previous interview, Leno said: 'The fuel line was clogged so I was underneath it. It sounded clogged and I said, "Blow some air through the line,' and so he did:" Leno had to cancel a performance in Las Vegas after the November incident 'And suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas. And then the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire.' Shocking photos of Leno's wounds from the explosion show his face was covered in excruciating burns - and his entire face had to be wrapped in bandages. Dr. Peter Grossman told NBC News that Leno suffered 'relatively serious' burns to 'approximately seven percent of his body,' including his face, chest and hands. He performed skin grafts on the star, removing his burnt skin and replacing it with skin from a skin bank. He noted that 'much of the thickness of the skin was injured.' Leno said his most recent crash won't stop him from working - and he's slated to headline a comedy show at the Encore Theater for the first time on March 31. Jay Leno's Garage, which he's hosted since 2014, was canned this week. The show - filmed at Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage in Burbank - is described as, 'a star-studded, action-packed exploration of all things automotive.' The seventh and final season debuted in September 2022, though neither CNBC nor Leno have commented on the cancelation yet. An emotional Doug Emhoff wiped away tears on Friday as he laid a wreath at the death wall in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where Nazis killed millions of Jews during World War II. Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, was visiting the camp to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. He's on a six-day trip to Poland and Germany to discuss combatting the rising tide of anti-semitism in the world. The trip was personal for Emhoff, who is the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president. He was visibly emotional at many points during the tour, shaking his head in disbelief at parts and bowing his head as he laid a stone, a Jewish mourning ritual, at the site of a demolished crematorium. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff wipes away a tear after laying a wreath at the death wall at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp Doug Emhoff holds onto the ribbons of the wreath he laid, which read 'From the people of the United States of America' But the most emotional moment was at Death Wall, where SS officers shot and killed thousands of prisoners between 1941-1943. Wearing a yarmulke, the second gentleman bowed his head before the wall and stood in silence. He laid a wreath with a sash reading 'From the people of the United States of America,' tugging at its ribbons as he stood there. The he wiped away tears as he walked away. Emhoff has family ties to the region - his great grandparents fled persecution from the are that is now known as Poland in the early 19th century. This tour is his highest profile solo event to date and comes as he steps up his own role within President Joe Biden's administration, becoming its most prominent voice on combatting antisemitism. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Nazis killed 1.1 million Jews during World War II, Emhoff toured a gas chamber and the crematorium. He left a long message in the guest book after his tour. The weather fit the somber day and occasion - the skies were gray and snow flurries fell as Emhoff and his guide walked around the camp. Temperatures were below freezing. Doug Emhoff walked through the notorious entrance gate at Auschwitz, bearing the German phrase 'Arbeits Macht Frei' (work makes you free) Doug Emhoff was visibly emotional throughout many parts of the camp tour The second gentleman laid a stone, a Jewish mourning ritual, at the site of a demolished crematorium Doug Emhoff visited Auschwitz-Birkenau to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day Emhoff walked through the notorious entrance gate, bearing the German phrase 'Arbeits Macht Frei' (work makes you free). He paused before entering, shaking his head as he listened his guide talk about the camp. He also visited the railroad tracks where prisoners were shipped in during the war. He stood near a single, wooden rail car displayed in front of the ruins of barracks. His face was heavy with emotion as stood in front of the chamber. A nearby sign explained this was where prisoners were lined up after arriving by train. In the selection process, an SS doctor would pick able-bodied prisoners to work in the camps and all others were immediately sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. Many parts of the camp were dismantled by the Nazis as the war came to an end. Some features rebuilt after the war when the camp was turned into a memorial and World Heritage sit. The Nazis destroyed parts of the Death Wall, the gas chamber, and crematorium that operated from March 1943 to November 1944 to remove evidence of atrocities. Emhoff visited the ruins of the crematorium, where he pulled a stone from his pocket and placed it on moss-covered bricks at his feet. He paused in silence and then took one last look around the vast ruins of buildings and barbed wire before continuing the tour. To wrap up his tour, Emhoff and other American officials - Deborah Lipstadt, the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism; U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski; and Ellen Germain, US special envoy for Holocaust issues - lit candles at a large stone memorial. The second gentleman than joined a memorial service commemorating the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Two camp survivors spoke during the commemoration event: Dr. Eva Umlauf and Zdzisawa Wodarczyk. At the outdoor ceremony, a group of 18 survivors were wrapped up in wool blankets to help keep them warm on the bitter cold day. Emhoff joined them in placing a candle by the ruins. Doug Emhoff speaks with Holocaust survivor, Marian Turski during the memorial ceremony US Ambassador in Poland Mark Brzezinski (right) and the Second Gentleman of the United States Doug Emhoff (left) hold candles during the commemorations on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day Doug Emhoff joins Holocaust survivors in placing candles at a memorial wall Auschwitz, which is the name of the complex of over 40 concentration camps and death camps, is located in Southern Poland, less than 200 miles from the border with Ukraine. During World War II, it was a major site of the Nazis' 'final solution' and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and Roma. As the extent of the Nazis atrocities became known after World War II ended, Auschwitz became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. The camp was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances at the camp in 2005, marking the 60th anniversary of its liberation. This year, no Russian official was invited due to Russia's attack on Ukraine. A national charity is suing a vile sex offender who preyed on little girls in a childrens home he managed in the 1970s and 80s. Paedophile Maurice Berry, 67, was jailed for thirteen years in 2019 for seventeen counts of indecent assault, indecency with a child, and two rapes, after a trial at York Crown Court. The jury heard he prowled corridors at night like the Gestapo and enforced rigid discipline. Two of the victims were little girls when he sexually abused them at May Lodge childrens home near Scarborough, where he was deputy manager, according to a High Court writ. Maurice Berry, 67, was jailed for thirteen years for seventeen counts of indecent assault, indecency with a child, and two rapes He climbed into their beds at night and touched them, exposed himself to them, and also tried to rape one of the little girls. Judge Sean Morris told Berry: You were preying firstly on two little girls. They were all alone in the world in a big, rambling Victorian childrens home. And you were wandering around, with your keys, taking your pleasure from these little girls in their beds at night. It was wicked. He said Berry had conditioned and manipulated a third victim - an older teenage girl who was raped - to such an extent that it was submission. The judge said although Berry had moved on in his life and had not offended since, he had left damaged lives behind. After his conviction, the two younger victims now grown women claimed damages for personal injury from charity Action for Children, formerly called the National Childrens Home, saying it was vicariously liable for Berrys offence. Now the charity whose patron is Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, is trying to get back the nearly 160,000 compensation and legal fees compensation from Berry. If it wins the legal battle, the charity will be able to enforce any judgment against his assets, which could include money in bank accounts or property. Two of the victims were little girls when he sexually abused them at May Lodge childrens home near Scarborough (pictured) Berry, who was in his early 20s at the time, raped the teenager following a grooming campaign in which he showered her with compliments and pretended to be her boyfriend. By his own admission he was a strict martinet and on one occasion ordered a girl to sleep on the floor of the laundry room as a punishment. He was arrested at his home in Lincolnshire after one or more of the victims, by then middle-aged women, finally came forward to police in 2017. One of Berrys victims, now a mother, said her life had been turned upside down. Another, who ended up having a nervous breakdown, said that while abusing her, Berry would tell her that thousands of dads did that sort of thing. All my life I felt dirty, like (it was) a stain on me, she added. The third victim, also a married mother, said: I remember how petrified I would be when I went to bed at night. Action for Children settled the womens claims through its insurers Ecclesiastical, which paid one woman 42,500 compensation, and her legal costs of 45,000 as well as legal expenses of 174. The second victim was paid 50,000 as well as legal costs bringing the total to 66,774. Now Action for Children is seeking payment of a total of 154,448 from Berry, who is serving his sentence at HMP Moorland near Doncaster. It plans to pass on any money recovered to the insurers. Action for Children says it has tried to seek agreement with Berry but he has failed to engage and it has taken court action as a last resort. Action for Children is also seeking interest and its legal costs from Berry, who lived in North Somercotes, Lincs before he was jailed and placed on the sex offenders register for life. Berry, who was married with two children, had worked at a school for disabled children, a Dr Barnardos school in Scotland, and another childrens home before joining May Lodge. He later worked as a bus driver, a housing liaison officer with Grimsby Borough Council, and then as a chartered surveyor. Action for children has 7,000 staff serving around 370,000 vulnerable children and young people and their families. It includes among its celebrity ambassadors actresses Jenny Agutter, Diane Keen and Shirley Anne Field, along with TV journalists Sir Trevor McDonald, Emily Maitlis and Michael Buerk. Prosecutors alleged Murdaugh shot his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, in his South Carolina hunting lodge to distract from his legal troubles Newly released images from Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial shows the disgraced attorney speaking to police on the night of his wife and son's killings. Murdaugh, who is accused of shooting his wife, Maggie, 52, and younger son Paul, 22, on June 7, 2021, at their sprawling hunting lodge, appeared distraught as he spoke to officers while wearing a loose fitting white T-shirt and black shorts. The white shirt was also void of any signs of blood from the brutal crime scene, echoing police testimony that Murdaugh was clean when cops arrived at the lodge. This is despite first responders in court Thursday describing in gruesome detail to the jury how his wife and son had been found 'in pools of blood' after they were shot in the head - with his son's 'brains down by his ankles'. Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh carried out the murders to gain sympathy and distract attention away from his damning financial crimes. His clean look has been scrutinized during the fifth day of his trial. New images from police body cam footage shows Alex Murdaugh (right) wearing a clean white shirt on the night of his wife and son's murder Other images show drone shots of the crime scene, including the buildings where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh's bloody bodies were found. Maggie was found by the red-roof building Pictured: The dog kennel where police found Paul's body in a pool of blood Harrowing police body camera footage shown as first witness takes the stand in Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial. @evapilgrim reports on the explosive testimony. pic.twitter.com/ys52LnccAK Good Morning America (@GMA) January 27, 2023 Det. Laura Rutland confirmed in court Friday that Murdaugh told police he checked Paul and Maggie's body for a pulse when he found them, but that the disgraced legal scion didn't have a speck of blood on him when officer's arrived. She said his hands, arms, T-shirt, shorts, and shoes were all clean. Rutland said she didn't know how Murdaugh checked their pulses as she didn't see any footprints or kneeprints around the bodies. 'Is the individual that you describe as clean head to toe sitting in this courtroom,' prosecutors asked Rutland. 'Yes,' she replied, pointing to Murdaugh. Defense attorney Jim Griffin, however, questioned how Murdaugh could be clean of any blood if he allegedly shot and murdered his son and wife, suggesting that the defendant should have been covered in blood and brain matter if he had. When questioned again by prosecutors, Rutland said it looked like Murdaugh changed clothes following the murders. She also noted that it was odd that Murdaugh was sweating when police arrive but that his clothes were 'dry.' Along with the images of Murdaugh, new pictures also show areal shots of the crime scene, including the buildings were Maggie and Paul's body were found. It comes as attorneys in the case agreed on Thursday to release redacted versions of the body cam footage submitted to the court. The full body cam video was presented to jurors on Thursday, allowing them to see what happened when police arrived at the family's lodge. The video seen in the courtroom featured the gruesome discovery of the 'butchered' bodies of Maggie and Paul, causing the jury to cover their mouths and Murdaugh to break down in court. Colleton County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Daniel Greene, who was the first on the scene, appears in the video questioning Murdaugh. Greene had previously stated that when he arrived he could see Murdaugh at the end of the driveway. He had sped over in his patrol car after Murdaugh called 911. 'As I was approaching towards [Murdaugh] I could see the male lying on the ground to my left, and the female victim to my right. 'There was a large deal of blood that had pooled around his body, same for the female victim, also a lot of blood pooled around the body.' Greene added that there was 'a large amount of blood, as well as brain matter.' Alex Murdaugh cries as the murder of his wife and son is described by Colleton County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Daniel Greene The prosecution's first witness Sgt. Daniel Greene shows the shotgun that he found Murdaugh holding at the scene which he took into his vehicle as Murdaugh appeared 'upset and anxious' The cop said there was also what appeared to be a large volume of water around the bodies, despite the fact it was not raining when he arrived. Fire chief Barry McRoy told the court that when he arrived Paul's 'brains were down by his ankles' and that he checked neither victim because 'both had injuries that were incompatible with life.' Greene added that he secured the shotgun, a Benelli Super Black Eagle 12-gauge, that Murdaugh was holding - taking it to his vehicle. He noted that shotgun shells were strewn across the driveway. The gun was later given to investigators and Greene stated he did not unload or modify the weapon before turning it over. He said he also noticed a number of tire tracks in the wet grass, more than could be explained by the vehicles at the scene. Murdaugh said he only came in and out of the property in a single vehicle. Greene said he lifted Paul's body as he continued to investigate the scene. Officers were working to rule out the possibility that Paul shot his mother before killing himself. Greene added that he noticed there were rifle rounds, .300 blackout cases, surrounding Maggie's body, but did not appear to be many around Paul's body. In the footage a deputy can be heard remarking that there could not be a gun under Paul's body 'unless it's the shortest .300 Blackout that's ever been made.' The prosecution's case is that Murdaugh shot his son first with a shotgun before shooting Maggie with the AR-15-style rifle. The rifle has never been found. Murdaugh claimed he had been visiting his elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimer's and arrived home to find Maggie and Paul dead near the estate's dog kennels Fire chief Barry McRoy (left) told jurors that when he arrived Paul's 'brains were down by his ankles' and that he checked neither victim because 'both had injuries that were incompatible with life.' Police officer Capt. Jason Chapman (right) said he found Paul lying facedown, his hands under his body and a smartphone propped on his back. His clothes were saturated in blood and water - Chapman said it was not clear where the water came from. It hadn't rained yet Murdaugh's attorney Dick Harpootlian, however, grilled McRoy about tire tracks the fire chief said he spotted nearby. McRoy said he mentioned the tracks to one of the deputies but it did not appear they were taped off despite other vehicles arriving. Harpootlian also ripped Sgt. Daniel Greene for not taking photos of tire tracks or footprints, and not putting anything on his feet to preserve blood and brains spattered on the ground. The defense theory is that somebody else killed Murdaugh's wife and son in revenge for a boat crash during which Paul had been driving under the influence, killing a 19-year-old woman, in February 2019. A shed near the dog kennels at Moselle Hunting Lodge where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were gunned down Murdaugh claimed he had been visiting his mother who suffers from Alzheimer's and arrived home to find Maggie and Paul dead near the estate's dog kennels. But prosecutors say cell phone pings will show Murdaugh was at the property when the pair were killed. In a horrifying 911 call, Murdaugh told the dispatcher through sobs: 'I can tell [Paul's] shot in the head and he's shot really bad... He's got blood everywhere. I can see his brains.' He went on to describe how his wife was lying down nearby, telling the dispatcher 'she's got a hole in her head.' Murdaugh told the dispatcher his son 'has been being threatened for months and months and months'. Greene, told jurors he could not see any blood on Murdaugh and although he appeared upset, he did not see any tears either. Murdaugh sounded lucid as the officer questioned him and is even heard casually greeting an officer arriving on the scene, saying: 'How ya doin?' Greene, who said he saw multiple tire tracks incompatible with the number of vehicles at the hunting lodge, admitted that he did not photograph the tracks or footprints at the scene. He said he did not inform SLED (state law enforcement) about the evidence because it was 'not part of my job description.' A 33-year-old man in Detroit has been shot dead after pointing a laser and firing a rifle at a police helicopter avoiding a potentially disastrous crash. Footage released by Michigan State Police reveals the aircraft circling a residential area at about 7.30 Tuesday night just north of downtown Detroit. A green laser, which police say could have blinded the pilot, is seen being aimed at the helicopter before a man with a 'long gun' emerges from the home located in the 12800 block of Terry Street and started firing. Two state police troopers shot and killed the man, who had recently moved into the abandoned home, and recovered five firearms and stashes of ammunition. A 33-year-old man in Detroit has been shot dead after pointing a laser and firing a rifle at a police helicopter There were no injuries to troopers or members of the public. Trooper Two (Helicopter) was not hit in the incident. Below is part of the video in the incident. It may be disturbing to some. 3/ pic.twitter.com/hCe46s4O2X MSP Second District (@mspmetrodet) January 25, 2023 'If the pilot had been blinded and crashed into this neighborhood, it would have been a lot worse,' Michigan State Police Lieutenant Mike Shaw told Fox 2. Investigators said that the helicopter had been circling the block when personnel called in a laser that had been targeting the chopper. In the video, the 33-year-old emerged from the second-story window and pointed a green laser at the aircraft. 'We got somebody hitting us with a green laser on the rear of the house, upper window,' the helicopter pilot said. Moments later, the man exited the house and aimed a gun toward the hovering helicopter before opening fire. 'Now there's somebody standing at the back door. Right now, they're in the backyard,' the pilot is heard saying in the footage released by police. 'He actually might, he might be armed. He almost looks like he's holding a long gun pointed at us right now. Yeah, he's shooting at us right now. He's firing rounds. He's got a long gun, extended magazine.' Investigators said that the helicopter had been circling the block when personnel called in a laser that had been targeting the chopper In the video, the 33-year-old emerged from the second-story window and pointed a green laser at the aircraft Police quickly locked down the now-deceased suspect and engaged in crossfire. five firearms including the one used in the incident were recovered as well as ammunition stashes Police quickly locked down the now-deceased suspect and engaged in crossfire. 'Troopers returned fire,' Shaw said. 'The suspect was hit and went down. We had our emergency support team show up and went up to approach the house. There were concerns because he was still armed and was laying there. 'They found multiple weapons and ammunition stashes throughout the home as if it were set up for some type of ambush or security purposes or whatever.' No troopers were injured in the incident and the helicopter was not damaged. 'The two troopers involved this incident have nine and two years of service. They are currently on leave,' police said in a post to Twitter. 'This investigation is ongoing and when completed will be submitted to the prosecutor for review.' Alex Murdaugh suggested a farmhand who boasted of killing for the FBI may have been responsible for murdering his wife and son in his first police interview. The disgraced attorney, who was heavily addicted to opioids at the time, told detectives Paul had been attacked and threatened a 'lot' after crashing a boat while drunk, killing a 19-year-old woman. He then claimed a worker at the family's sprawling estate in Islandton, South Carolina, had recently boasted to his son about killing 'radical Black Panthers' for the FBI. Murdaugh is accused of shooting his wife, Maggie, 52, and younger son Paul, 22, at the property on June 7, 2021, in a bid to gain sympathy and distract attention away from financial crimes at his law firm. The defense theory is that somebody killed Paul and Maggie in revenge for the boating accident which left Mallory Beach dead in February, 2019. At the time of his death, Paul was facing trial for the fatal crash. But jurors Friday heard from Detective Laura Rutland who said Murdaugh was 'clean' from head to toe, despite telling them he had touched the blood-soaked bodies of Maggie and Paul - even trying to roll his son over. Rutland added that it looked like Murdaugh had changed following the murders, noting that she found it odd the defendant was sweating but his clothes were 'dry.' Scroll down for video. NIGHT OF THE MURDER: New images from police body cam footage shows Alex Murdaugh (right) wearing a clean white shirt on the night of his wife and son's murder 'I knew it was really bad,' Murdaugh said in the back of a police car as he was interviewed by detectives. 'I could see his brain.' The defense theory is that somebody killed Paul and Maggie in revenge for the boating accident in February 2019 that left 19-year-old Mallory Beach (pictured) dead. Alex Murdaugh pictured with his wife Maggie and their two sons Paul (left) and Buster Melinda Worley, a forensic analyst for SLED (state law enforcement), said Murdaugh's white t-shirt and khaki shorts reacted positive to a test for blood. However, she admitted that the test can also be triggered by bleach and rust. Forensic evidence of the horrific crime scene was laid out by Rutland who - referring to her notes from the investigation - observed strands of brown hair in Maggie's hands, as well as what appeared to be scratches and a bruise on Paul's cheek. Worley later described images of pieces of skull, hair strands, blood, tissue and brain matter scattered across the feed room of the kennel where the bodies were found. Worley said the two shotgun shells recovered at the scene were both 12-gauge shells, but from different brands, one Winchester and the other Federal. The forensic expert said she found a .300 Blackout rifle round underneath Maggie's knee, differing to the shotguns shells around Paul's body. The prosecution say Murdaugh first shot Paul twice with a shotgun, hitting him in the chest and head, before shooting Maggie twice in the head with an AR-15-style rifle. Murdaugh rocked back and forth and cried as Worley described the scene. Worley said police found blood in Murdaugh's SUV, along with a 16-gauge shotgun shell in the rear. She told the court the Chevrolet Suburban tested presumptive for blood after swabs were taken from the steering wheel, edge of the driver's seat and lock button. At 1am on the night of the killings, Murdaugh sat with detectives, telling them his relationship with Paul as 'as good as it could be' and he 'had a wonderful marriage' with Maggie. During the 30-minute interview he described at length the threats and violence Paul had suffered in the aftermath of the boating accident. Murdaugh said his son 'didn't know' some of the people menacing him because much of it was coming from online due to 'negative publicity' from the accident. He said people had threatened to 'kick his a**' and said Paul had gone out in Charleston a couple of months ago and received a black eye. Murdaugh describe Paul as a 'man's man' but said he was unable to fight back because he was facing trial over the fatal boat accident. He then described how farmhand, CB Rowe, had recently confided in Paul that he had 'killed radical Black Panthers' while working undercover for the FBI. Defendant Alex Murdaugh, seated between his two layers Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, cries during the testimony Melinda Worley, SLED foot and tire tread expert, holds shotgun shells found at the crime scene Buster Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh's sole surviving son, listens to testimony Friday Murdaugh told cops: 'He told Paul a story the other day about how when he was in high school he got in a fight with some black guys. 'And the FBI undercover team observed him fighting with those guys and put him on an undercover team with three Navy Seals and their job was to kill radical Black Panthers and they did that from Myrtle Beach to Savannah.' But Murdaugh quickly added: 'I actually do not think in all honesty it's him but I know y'all got to talk to him.' The legal scion said 'Paul was so taken aback' by Rowe's story that he recorded the farmhand on his phone saying some of it. Murdaugh said that he had hired Rowe at the farm about two months ago but he 'wasn't cutting the mustard' and Paul was having to tidy up a shoddy job the farmhand had done with sunflower fields on the estate. Asked about how his son was coping after the boat crash, Murdaugh told cops: 'I've never been prouder of him than the way he's handled the pressures and adversity in that situation. I mean Paul is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful kid. He can do almost anything. He gets along with almost anybody.' Describing his relationship with Maggie, Murdaugh said they 'had a wonderful marriage, wonderful relationship.' Grainy footage of Murdaugh standing with his arms folded, wearing a white t-shirt and khaki shorts on the night of the murders The camo shotgun that was taken from Murdaugh by the first officer who arrived at the scene Photos showing the exterior of the kennels and out houses at the estate, where footprints were discovered by investigators A photo taken by investigators showing water inside the kennels. Jurors have heard that the body of Paul Murdaugh was saturated with both blood and water despite it not having rained Earlier it was revealed that redacted body-worn camera footage from the investigation is due to be released, after new images showed Murdaugh talking to cops wearing a pristine white T-shirt, as well as drone footage of the crime scene. The T-shirt formed a central part of the evidence this morning, with Detective Rutland repeatedly asked about Murdaugh's clothing, arms and hands, and answering that all were 'clean.' Murdaugh told the cops he had checked Maggie and Paul's bodies for pulses and even tried to roll Paul over - causing his phone to pop out of his son's pocket. Murdaugh said he briefly attempted to do something with the phone before placing the device back on top of Paul. Rutland also said she did not see any footprints or kneeling marks on the ground in the kennels where the bodies were discovered, despite there being pools of blood. 'Is the individual that you describe as clean head to toe sitting in this courtroom,' the prosecutor asked Rutland. 'Yes,' she replied, pointing to Murdaugh. The defense theory is that somebody else killed Murdaugh's wife and son in revenge for a boat crash (the Murdaugh boat Sea Hunt is pictured) during which Paul had been driving under the influence, killing a 19-year-old woman, in February 2019 Murdaugh getting out of the black prison van on Day Five of the double murder trial in South Carolina. Murdaugh draped his blazer over his wrists - concealing the handcuffs binding them - as sheriffs escorted him inside. Defense attorney Jim Griffin then grilled Rutland about the evidence, attempting to turn the cleanliness she noted in Murdaugh's favor. 'Did he look like someone who blew his son's head off,' Griffin asked. Rutland replied that distance would have been a factor in whether Murdaugh would have been covered in blood spatter if he fired the shots. Griffin also questioned why a dirty shirt was not found despite Murdaugh giving officials 'carte blanche' to search the estate and examine his cell phone. Rutland confirmed that Murdaugh did allow police to fully search his property. Rutland noted that she canvased the land on an ATV and that other investigators dove in ponds near the property. Griffin then asked if Murdaugh was a suspect that night. Rutland replied: 'That night, everybody was a suspect.' Griffin also asked the detective if she was aware that investigators left some 30 shotgun pellets behind in the feed room of the kennels when they left the property. Rutland said she did not know that. During his interview with cops, Murdaugh said that there were probably 25 guns on the estate. He said that in addition to the camo shotgun officers took off him when they arrived there were 'all kinds of rifles.' He added: 'I mean you name 'em, we have 'em.' KEY FACTS IN THE MURDAUGH TRIAL ON DAY FIVE: MURDAUGH TELLS COPS ABOUT BOAT ACCIDENT Murdaugh told 911 about his Paul's boat accident claiming that his son had 'been threatened for months.' The first cop to arrive said Murdaugh 'immediately started telling' him about the February 2019 accident. 'I know that's what this is,' he said. At the time of Paul's death, the 22-year-old was facing trial for driving under the influence at the time of the crash, which left a 19-year-old woman dead. The defense theory is that somebody killed Maggie and Paul Murdaugh as revenge for the accident. Prosecutors claim Murdaugh deliberately made the comments to divert suspicion away from himself. MURDAUGH DID NOT CRY The first responders so far have all agreed that Murdaugh was not crying. Although he appeared and sounded upset, police officers and firemen have stated that there were no tears in the attorney's eyes. Murdaugh's demeanour will play a central role in the case. Prosecutor Creighton Waters told jurors on the opening day to watch the body worn footage 'closely.' 'Watch those closely. Watch his expressions. Listen to what he's saying and what he's not saying,' Waters said. Murdaugh sounded lucid throughout his dealings with officers that night, even greeting one by saying: 'How ya doin?' The defense has argued that Murdaugh was distraught after the killings and had just an hour before the killings been having a 'bonding experience' with his son. NO BLOOD ON HIS WHITE T-SHIRT Murdaugh had no visible blood on his white t-shirt, first responders have told the court. Police described seeing pools of blood under the bodies of Maggie and Paul. His defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, described to jurors how Paul's head 'literally exploded ... like a watermelon.' Murdaugh earlier told 911 he had checked his wife and son's pulses - but when cops arrived they saw no blood on him. The prosecution has also drawn jurors attention to significant volumes of water pooled around the deceased despite it not having rained yet that night. GRUESOME GUN WOUNDS OF MAGGIE AND PAUL Horrifying body cam footage of the 'butchered' bodies of Maggie and Paul has been played to jurors. The 12 men and women have covered their mouths at times while Murdaugh has hunched forward to weep. Fire chief Barry McRoy told the court that when he arrived Paul's 'brains were down by his ankles' and that he checked neither victim because 'both had injuries that were incompatible with life.' The defense argue that given the brutality of these execution-style killings, it is simply 'not believable' that Murdaugh - a 'loving' husband and father - could have carried them out. FOOTPRINTS AND TIRE TRACKS 'NOT PRESERVED' Murdaugh's defense team have attacked several first responders already over their failure to preserve footprints and tire tracks found at the scene. Sgt. Daniel Greene even noted there were multiple tire tracks in the wet grass which were incompatible with the number of vehicles at the property. He said he did not inform SLED (state law enforcement) about the evidence because it was 'not part of my job description'. Harpootlian tore into Greene for failing to take photographs and put anything on his feet to preserve the blood and brains spattered on the ground. He later ripped another officer for the same reason, telling him: 'You don't know what you're doing.' Despite his failure to preserve evidence, Greene told the attorney he was 'not aware' of any evidence being destroyed or contaminated. MURDAUGH'S CELL PHONE DATA In the body-worn footage, Murdaugh is heard telling the first cop on the scene that he head been visiting his mother with late stage Alzheimer's. He said Maggie and Paul had been at the kennels when he left, but they were not back home when he came back. But Waters told jurors that data from 'cell phones are going to show otherwise.' The prosecutor stressed that phone records will be critical in the case and the jury will hear that the Murdaughs were 'prolific' cell phone users. Advertisement Other images show drone shots of the crime scene, including the buildings where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh's bloody bodies were found. Maggie was found by the red-roof building Pictured: The dog kennel where police found Paul's body in a pool of blood On Thursday, fire chief Barry McRoy told the court that when he arrived Paul's 'brains were down by his ankles' and that he checked neither victim because 'both had injuries that were incompatible with life.' Police officer Capt. Jason Chapman said he found Paul lying facedown, his hands under his body and a smartphone propped on his back. His clothes were saturated in blood and water - Chapman said it was not clear where the water came from. It hadn't rained yet. Murdaugh earlier told 911 he had checked his wife and son's pulses - but Chapman noted there was no blood on his shirt or hands. He described Murdaugh as upset but said he was not crying, corroborating earlier deputies' testimony. Chapman told jurors that Murdaugh appeared to fixate more on Paul's body than Maggie's while he was observing him at the scene. The police captain was asked by the prosecutor about whether there was anything in Murdaugh's 911 call that stood out. The officer said 'it struck me as odd' when the defendant hung up and told the dispatcher he needed to call his family. Murdaugh's attorney Dick Harpootlian grilled McRoy about tire tracks the fire chief said he spotted nearby. McRoy said he mentioned the tracks to one of the deputies but it did not appear they were taped off despite other vehicles arriving. Harpootlian earlier ripped Sgt. Daniel Greene for not taking photos of tire tracks or footprints, and not putting anything on his feet to preserve blood and brains spattered on the ground. Murdaugh listens to the evidence on Day Five. The court was played a recording of an interview with detectives in which Murdaugh described how Paul had been beaten up while out in Charleston before sensationally casting suspicion on a farmhand who had recently boasted to his son that he was a killer Buster Murdaugh listens to the evidence on Day Five of the trial in South Carolina Buster Murdaugh, Alex's sole surviving son, and brother John arrive at court Friday Buster Murdaugh, showing support for his father in the second day of testimony. @WCBD pic.twitter.com/VRmOjzZsCv Lexi Moore (@LexiMooreNews) January 27, 2023 Murdaugh claimed he had been visiting his mother who suffers from Alzheimer's and arrived home to find Maggie and Paul dead near the estate's dog kennels. But prosecutors say cell phone pings will show Murdaugh was at the property when the pair were killed. In a horrifying 911 call, Murdaugh told the dispatcher through sobs: 'I can tell [Paul's] shot in the head and he's shot really bad ... He's got blood everywhere. I can see his brains.' He went on to describe how his wife was lying down nearby, telling the dispatcher 'she's got a hole in her head.' Murdaugh told the dispatcher his son 'has been being threatened for months and months and months'. Earlier the first police officer on the scene, Greene, told jurors he could not see any blood on Murdaugh and although he appeared upset, he did not see any tears either. Murdaugh sounded lucid as the officer questioned him and is even heard casually greeting an officer arriving on the scene, saying: 'How ya doin?' Greene, who said he saw multiple tire tracks incompatible with the number of vehicles at the hunting lodge, admitted that he did not photograph the tracks or footprints at the scene. He said he did not inform SLED (state law enforcement) about the evidence because it was 'not part of my job description'. The officer also showed jurors a shotgun Murdaugh was holding when he arrived - he secured the weapon in his patrol car because the defendant appeared 'upset and anxious'. Paul was shot in the feed room connected to the Moselle properties dog kennels, while his mother was shot five times, including in the back of the head, with a semiautomatic rifle the pair dying just 30 yards from one another Murdaugh claimed he had been visiting his elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimer's and arrived home to find Maggie and Paul dead near the estate's dog kennels A shed near the dog kennels at Moselle Hunting Lodge where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were gunned down Greene said that as he approached Murdaugh his 'immediate reaction was to start telling me about his son - about a boating accident'. At the time of his death, Paul was facing trial for the drunken boat crash which killed Mallory Beach. During cross examination, Harpootlian attempted to skewer Greene about why he did not make a record or notify investigators of footprints and tire tracks in the wet grass. 'If you are standing in the spot and there was evidence there and tire tracks that evidence could help incriminate somebody or exculpate somebody. That is why you do not do these things, correct?' Harpootlian asked. Greene replied: 'That's why you do not contaminate the evidence, correct.' 'He [Murdaugh] talked about the tire tracks coming and going, and he told you those weren't his tire tracks correct,' Harpootlian said. Greene confirmed the defendant did say that. The officer said the extent of his job was to put up yellow tape to ensure no outsiders disturbed the scene. Despite his failure to preserve evidence, Greene told the attorney he was 'not aware' of any evidence being destroyed or contaminated. Cpl. Chad McDowell, of the Colleton County Sheriff's Office, was the second witness to the stand Thursday. Prosecutors shared his body camera footage, showing that he was the person whom Murdaugh greeted when he arrived on the scene. But McDowell said he had never met Murdaugh before. Bottles and cans of beer found aboard the boat which Paul Murdaugh was driving under the influence Buster Murdaugh, Alex's sole surviving son, listens to the harrowing evidence Thursday McDowell testified that he was careful not to step on any evidence as he assisted other officers in covering the bodies. He said he turned on his light in an effort to ensure he knew where he was treading and was 'careful' to avoid any shell casings or footprints. If he had noticed any evidence where he was walking, McDowell said, he would have 'stopped and notified detectives'. Under cross-examination, Harpootlian went after McDowell as he did with Greene, suggesting that he could have easily disrupted the crime scene. McDowell admitted he was not wearing plastic covering his feet, and acknowledged there may have been microscopic evidence he could not identify with his naked eye and a flash light. Harpootlian ripped the officer, saying: 'You don't know what you're doing.' Greene had previously stated that when he arrived he could see Murdaugh at the end of the driveway. He had sped over in his patrol car after Murdaugh called 911. 'As I was approaching towards [Murdaugh] I could see the male lying on the ground to my left, and the female victim to my right. 'There was a large deal of blood that had pooled around his body, same for the female victim, also a lot of blood pooled around the body.' Greene added that there was 'a large amount of blood, as well as brain matter.' The cop said there was also what appeared to be a large volume of water around the bodies, despite the fact it was not raining when he arrived. The officer said he secured the shotgun, a Benelli Super Black Eagle 12-gauge, that Murdaugh was holding - taking it to his vehicle. He noted that shotgun shells were strewn across the driveway. The gun was later given to investigators and Greene stated he did not unload or modify the weapon before turning it over. He said he also noticed a number of tire tracks in the wet grass, more than could be explained by the vehicles at the scene. Murdaugh says he only came in and out of the property in a single vehicle. Cpl. Chad McDowell, of the Colleton County Sheriff's Office, was the second witness to the stand. Under cross-examination, Harpootlian went after McDowell as he did with Greene, suggesting that he could have easily disrupted the crime scene. Harpootlian ripped the officer, saying: 'You don't know what you're doing.' Greene said he lifted Paul's body as he continued to investigate the scene. Officers were working to rule out the possibility that Paul shot his mother before killing himself. Greene said he noticed there were rifle rounds, .300 blackout cases, surrounding Maggie's body, but did not appear to be many around Paul's body. In the footage a deputy can be heard remarking that there could not be a gun under Paul's body 'unless it's the shortest .300 Blackout that's ever been made.' The prosecution's case is that Murdaugh shot his son first with a shotgun before shooting Maggie with the AR-15-style rifle. The rifle has never been found. Murdaugh bowed his head forward as the body-worn footage was played, bobbing back and forth and biting his lip. In the video, Murdaugh is heard telling the cop he had been visiting his mother with late stage Alzheimer's. He said Maggie and Paul had been at the kennels when he left, but they were not back home when he came back. He said Maggie was not answering her phone and that when he arrived at the kennels to check on them he found their bodies. At one point Murdaugh is heard asking the cop whether he had checked his wife and son. 'Did you check them?' Murdaugh says. The cop replies, telling him that paramedics are on their way. 'What are they doing? Can they hurry?' Murdaugh asks. Speaking to the prosecutor, Greene said any reasonable person would have assumed the victims were dead at the scene. The body cam picked up Murdaugh calling his brother Randy on the phone, telling them Maggie and Paul are both dead. Then an officer walks by and Murdaugh pauses to greet him, saying: 'How ya' doin?' In the recording Murdaugh earlier told Greene: '[Paul's] been getting threats most of it's been benign stuff - we didn't take serious. 'He's been getting punched. I know that's what it is about.' Greene told the court that he had not asked Murdaugh about any boating accident. Murdaugh, right, pleaded not guilty to the murders of Maggie, second from left, and Paul, second from right, in June but now his surviving son, Buster, left, could testify against him Buster, Maggie, Paul and Alex Murdaugh in a photo posted by Maggie online for Father's Day in 2020 The trial is taking place at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, a sleepy, rural town 50 miles west of Charleston in a low-lying region of South Carolina over which the Murdaugh family has wielded immense judicial and political power. Indeed, in the courtroom where Murdaugh faces judgment a portrait of his late grandfather - legendary longtime 14th Circuit Solicitor Buster Murdaugh Jr. - had hung on the wall before it was removed ahead of the trial. Prosecutors have said Murdaugh killed his wife and child to generate sympathy and distract from his financial crimes, an alleged motive that Murdaugh's lawyers have argued doesn't make sense. But he has adamantly insisted from the moment he found the bodies of his wife and youngest son shot multiple times that he was not the killer. Following the murder trial, Murdaugh will have to face more than 100 additional criminal charges, ranging from drug trafficking to allegations that he stole nearly $9 million from clients and other attorneys. Prosecutors say Murdaugh lured his wife and son to their 1,700-acre hunting lodge and shot them dead. The court also claims that his life was spiraling out of control amid years of opioid addiction and ballooning debts. Murdaugh pleaded not guilty in June, and the blockbuster trial is expected to include wild allegations of dark family secrets, financial ruin and hedonistic excess. In total, over 220 people could testify against Murdaugh in the trial, it was revealed Tuesday. Memphis Chief of Police says that it is the worst she has witnessed in her career Four of the five officers have since been released on bail for the offenses The heartbroken mother of Tyre Nichols sobbed as she revealed that her son cried out for her three times as he was brutally beaten by five police officers. Tyre, 29, died in hospital on January 10, three days after a traffic stop that ended with him being severely injured. Four of the five Memphis Police officers charged with his death have since been released on a combined $1million bond after being arrested yesterday. His mother RowVaughn Wells describes feeling her son's pain as the officers viciously beat him just a few blocks from their home with Tyre letting out 'gut-wrenching screams' for his mother. She breaks down as she says the five black officers beat her 150lb son 'like a pinata' adding that his assault was like that of Rodney King in 1991. The heartbroken mother of Tyre Nichols sobbed as she revealed that her son cried out for her three times as he was beaten by cops "They beat my son like a pinata. My son, he had Crohn's disease, he had surgery in 2013. My son weighed a buck 50."@donlemon speaks to Tyre Nichols' parents ahead of release of police beating video pic.twitter.com/GSzIGcKdP9 CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) January 27, 2023 RowVaughn told Don Lemon: 'Yes, he cried out for me, because I'm his mother. He was trying to get home to safety. He was a mamma's boy 'He loves me to death. He has my name tattooed on his arm. He had Chron's disease, and he had surgery in 2013. 'I told my husband my stomach is hurting so bad, and once I found out what happened, it was just the fact that I was feeling my son's pain 'I was feeling my son's pain as they were beating him to death. They brought shame to their own families. They brought shame to the black community. 'I don't hate anybody. That's not in my nature, I just feel sorry for them because they did something horrendous.' Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis added that she heard Tyre call out for his mother on the video, which is set to be released at 7pm EST. Tyre Nichols is pictured in hospital after the incident. The 29-year-old from Memphis died on January 10 from cardiac arrest and kidney failure, three days after he was pulled over for reckless driving by police in unmarked cars Tyre Nichols, 29, died in hospital on January 10, three days after a traffic stop that ended with him being severely injured She said: 'I heard him call out for his mom. I did. Just the disregard for humanity. 'I think that's what really just pulls at your heartstrings and makes you wonder - why was a sense of care and concerned for this individual just absent from this situation.' The footage will be uploaded onto YouTube by the police department at 7pm EST - with actions being taken to prepare for violent protests. Justin Smith, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Tadarrius Bean have all now been released from Shelby County Jail, according to court records. A fifth office, Demetrius Haley is still in jail with a $350,000 bond, with all five charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and official oppression. Shelby County District attorney Steve Mutlroy said Tyre was left bloody and bruised after he was pepper sprayed and beaten just yards from his home. RowVaughn Wells said that her son was 'beat like a pinata' by the officers who dragged him out of his car Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation conducted an independent investigation into the use of force by Memphis cops. All five were fired last Friday for violation of police, with City officials saying they were notified on January 15. RowVaughn Wells admitted to not seeing the footage herself, but described seeing her son in hospital as 'horrible'. She said: 'People don't know what those five police officers did to our family, and they really don't know what they did to their own families. They have put their own families in harm's way. 'They have brought shame to their own families. They have brought same to the black community. I feel sorry for them I really do. 'Because they didn't have to do this, and they have brough a lot of shame to their own families. Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis said that the video of the attack on Nichol's was the worst of her career The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation conducted an independent investigation into the use of force by Memphis cops on Tyre Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks at a news conference with the family of Tyre Nichols on Thursday 'Once you see this video and I know I didn't see it but from what I ha rots horrified. And the humanity of it all where was the humanity. The family has set up a GoFundMe in Tyre's name to help raise money for his funeral and case. Davis told CNN that the video of the attack left her 'outraged' and that the level of violence was 'incomprehensible' to her. Tyre's family has hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump to represent them, and also compared the beating of the FedEx worker to that of Rodney King. Tyre was reportedly able to get away from the officers after the initial stop, but they found him again at another location, with Davis adding: 'there was an amount of aggression that was unexplainable.' Tyre's parents attended a candlelight vigil for their son on January 26 ahead of a video being released on January 27 Dozens of people peacefully paid tribute to the murdered Fed-Ex worker, with police gearing up to deal with potential violence after footage of the incident is released Memphis Police confirmed that they planned to release the video late on Friday to avoid any 'peaceful protest' disruptions to members of the community. The daughter of Rodney King, who was beaten by LAPD officers in 1991 has warned Tyre's family that they will be in for a 'world of hurt' once the footage is made public. Lora King told TMZ that the whole thing would be playing 'on a loop' in their heads after seeing the footage. She was only seven when her father was attacked, with the police brutality sparking riots when the officers involved were acquitted. David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, described the video as 'absolutely appalling.' He said: 'Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing. This was wrong, and this was criminal.' In addition to the five officers charged Thursday, Davis said in the statement that other officers also are under investigation. Two Memphis Fire Department personnel also have been relieved of duty pending an investigation. A woman who claimed she was assaulted on mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor's yacht has had her car torched, MailOnline can reveal. Samantha Murphy 40, has launched a civil and criminal case against McGregor after the alleged incident last summer. Ms Murphy claims she suffered a broken arm after she was forced to jump from McGregor's yacht while it was anchored off the coast of the Spanish island of Formentara. Details of the incident emerged a few days ago but MailOnline has learnt that Irish police officers are also investigating the attack on her car earlier this month. A woman who claimed she was assaulted on mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor's yacht has had her car torched. The MMA fighter is pictured on his yacht in Ibiza in July last year A statement from the Irish police to MailOnline said: 'Gardai are investigating a suspected criminal damage by fire incident that occurred at approximately 10pm on Thursday, January 19, 2023 at a residential premises in Drimnagh, Dublin 12. 'No injuries were reported during the course of this incident. No arrests have been made at this stage. Investigations are ongoing.' It is not known if the two incidents are connected, and police are said to be keeping an 'open mind' on the incident which happened in a leafy residential suburb. At the same time MailOnline has also learned Ms Murphy has filed a civil case in Dublin's High Court to be heard on February 27 against McGregor, 34 relating to the alleged yacht incident. The case was lodged the day after the arson attack and regards the safe keeping of any CCTV, camera phone footage and other material evidence relevant to her claims on the yacht. Ms Murphy claims that she and several others had been invited back to McGregor's yacht as part of his 34th birthday celebrations last summer (pictured outside court in Dublin in November for a separate case) She initially reported the incident to Spanish police, but detectives there archived the case but have now reopened it after a statement she gave to Irish authorities was forwarded to them. In it, Ms Murphy claims that she and several others had been invited back to McGregor's yacht as part of his 34th birthday celebrations last summer. She says that things turned violent, and she suffered a broken arm and extensive bruising after leaping from the yacht to escape the attack. Samantha's mother, who declined to give her name, and who lives a short distance away, told MailOnline:' She's very upset by what happened and it's taken her a long time to come to terms with it. 'We have photos of her injuries, and they will be part of the case, she wouldn't like me talking about it without her permission. 'We just want to wait and see what happens with the court case.' When asked about the arson attack, she told MailOnline: 'That was very scary. I was at my daughter's at the time and someone tried to set her car on fire. Ms Murphy claims she suffered a broken arm after she was forced to jump from McGregor's yacht (pictured: his yacht in St Tropez) 'We had to call the police and they came out to deal with it and what with the case it's made her very jumpy.' Her lawyer Alvaro Blasco confirmed to MailOnline the Dublin High Court claim had been lodged but refused to discuss any further details about the case. A spokesperson for McGregor said he 'steadfastly denies' any accusations made by a guest on his boat. A woman who answered the door at Ms Murphy's home told MailOnline:' She's not here. She's away. She doesn't want to talk about this at the moment.' Neighbours said they had not seen here for 'several weeks' and none were aware of the arson attack on her car. The two times UFC champion has not fought since 2021 but is expected to make a comeback later this year after overcoming a leg injury. In an Instagram post his partner Dee Devlin appeared to stand by him as she shared a video of the Luther Vandross ballad Never Too Much. She wrote: 'I love you deep babe ! My one and only forever. A British neo-Nazi who inspired a mass shooting from his grandfather's bedroom was expelled from school at age seven and produced a 'stream of terrorist bile' while 'left to his own devices', a court heard. Daniel Harris, 19, from Derbyshire was today jailed for 11 years for posting videos promoting racist violence, which were shared by self-declared white supremacist Payton Gendron, who murdered 10 black people in Buffalo, New York in May 2022. At Manchester Crown Court today, the shocking extent of his fall into radicalisation and his desperation to spread hate rhetoric online - having declared that his 'whole life has been a disaster' - was laid bare. Harris was born in London, but had barely any formal education after he was taken withdrawn from school at the age of seven by his mother and sent to live with his grandfather in Glossop. Daniel Harris, 19, from Derbyshire was today jailed for 11 years for posting videos promoting racist violence The house in Glossop from where Harris would share videos and spread hate rhetoric online Teenage extremist Daniel Harris has been sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in jail, and a further 3 years on licence, for five counts of encouraging terrorism and possessing a 3D printer for purposes of terrorism A timeline of Harris' run-ins with the law June 2019: Harris is arrested and accused of attacking four people during the attempted robbery of a mobile phone and later convicted of common assault. July 2020: Harris spray painted racial insults on a mural in Manchester commemorating George Floyd. January 2021: The teenager is given a youth supervision order after he was found guilty of possessing prohibited images of children. February 2021: Harris returns to the Floyd memorial, dressed all in black, and spray painted the words 'kill' and a racial epithet. May 2022: He is arrested at his grandfather's home following a police sting operation. December 2022: Harris is found guilty of five counts of encouraging terrorism and one count of possession of material for terrorist purposes. Advertisement He spent much of his time on the computer and was looking at extremist internet sites by the age of 11, including material about a 'white genocide'. The court was told he was 'left to his own devices' by being home-schooled and would spend up to 14 hours a day on the internet on a home PC in the spare bedroom. In mitigation for Harris, James Walker spoke of 'some malevolent forces' in the teenager's life and described 'quite disgraceful failings' by his family and the local authority. He never had a job and had 'deficits in social communication skills,' according to a psychiatric report. 'Not having the ability to mix with other children, he reported developing social anxiety. He reported a fear of strangers and he said he was afraid to leave the house,' the report added. 'He explained that he began to look at websites concerning self-harm and suicide and said he considered ending his life, but was unable to.' Harris told the psychiatrist: 'My life was stuck when I stopped attending school, I felt I hadn't changed or progressed.' He was arrested for approaching unknown women and touching their hair and was reported to be unable to understand the distress it might have caused to his victims. When he was working with a probation officer from the Youth Offending Team he was asked why he had done what he did and told them: 'My whole life had been a disaster.' Daniel John Harris also tried to make a gun with a 3D printer. The 19-year-old made and uploaded five videos to an online channel, between February 2021 and March 2022 Daniel Harris a teenage Neo-Nazi who was able to inspire gun massacres by white supremacists in the US despite being under 'supervision' by probation officers in the UK for racism offences The court also heard how Harris has 'no concept of what is appropriate' and 'admits he has a mental disorder but has repeatedly refused to be assessed for autism.' In June 2019, aged 15 Harris was arrested and accused of attacking four people during the attempted robbery of a mobile phone. He was convicted of common assault in 2020 but the following January, he was back in court and given a youth supervision order after he was found guilty of possessing prohibited images of children. Then in June 2021, when he was 17, he was referred to the government's Prevent de-radicalisation programme after receiving convictions for attempted criminal damage and two charges of racially aggravated criminal damage. He had been caught by police as he spray painted racial insults on a mural in Manchester commemorating George Floyd, whose death at the hands of an arresting police officer in Minneapolis, in May 2020, sparked protests by the Black Lives Matter movement. Harris, described as a 'gifted artist and photographer with an above average IQ - was ordered by a judge to wear an electronic tag, with a 7pm-to-7am curfew and was places under the supervision of the Youth Offending Service for 18 months. Pictured is the George Floyd Mural which Daniel Harris vandalised in his vile racist attack How police snared him Police uncovered Harris' activities following a 'sting operation' at a motorway service station when officers spotted messages the teenager had left celebrating the Buffalo attack. An undercover officer called Tony, adopted aliases to engage with Harris as someone interested in the far right and went on to communicate regularly via an encrypted email account. After an attempt to 'prise some information' which might reveal Harris's identity, Tony placed an order with Harris for a video celebrating Jo Cox's killer, Mair. They agreed that Tony would pay 60 in cash for his services and arranged an area for the money to be left for Harris to collect. Six 10 notes were left in a red plastic bag underneath a bag of builders' soil in a hedgerow at Woolley Services on the northbound M1 and precise instructions were sent to Harris about where to find it, including a What Three Words grid reference Tony sent precise instructions about the service station to Bookanon via Protonmail, about where to find the cash, including images of the route from the service station to the gap in the hedge where the cash had been deposited, and a What Three Word grid reference. However, the police had also put in place a hidden camera and when Harris came to collect the cash, they were able to identify and, subsequently, arrest him. Advertisement However, unbeknown to the authorities, he went on to produce videos glorifying white supremacist murderers - including Norwegian Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant who killed 51 people outside two mosques in New Zealand - and encouraging others to emulate them by carrying out similar attacks. Harris deceived the operative who worked with him on the deradicalisation programme by claiming his behaviour was a 'blip' and denying having any interest in politics. At the time he made those claims, however, the court heard, he was creating a video homage to Thomas Mair, who murdered MP Jo Cox. Another video, called How to Achieve Victory, said there was a need for 'total extermination of sub-humans once and for all', the court was told. Judge Field said the teenager, who used the online alias BookAnon, had demonstrated 'a level of deceit and cunning'. He added: 'You were, throughout that time, a propagandist for an extremist right-wing ideology. You were in close touch with other right-wing extremists online and there can be little doubt that you shared ideas between you.' Police uncovered Harris' activities following a 'sting operation' at a motorway service station when officers spotted messages the teenager had left celebrating the Buffalo attack. An undercover officer called Tony, adopted the aliases 'Heimdall' and 'SupremeBeing' to engage with Harris online as someone interested in the far right in November 2021, six months before the Buffalo killings. He went on to communicate with Harris regularly via an encrypted email account called Protonmail and on the World Truth Videos platform. After an attempt to 'prise some information' which might reveal Harris's identity, Tony placed an order with Harris for a video celebrating Jo Cox's killer, Mair. They agreed that Tony would pay 60 in cash for BookAnon's services and arranged an area for the cash to be left for Harris to collect. On March 22 last year, Tony left six 10 notes in a red plastic bag underneath a bag of builders' soil in a hedgerow at Woolley Services on the northbound M1. Payton Gendron killed 10 black people in a racially-motivated mass shooting in May last year Tony sent precise instructions about the service station to Bookanon via Protonmail, about where to find the cash, including images of the route from the service station to the gap in the hedge where the cash had been deposited, and a What Three Words grid reference. 'Unfortunately for Mr Harris, the police had also put in place a hidden camera and it was clear that he did not come across it by accident, he pulled his hood down and collected the money.' When police raided his grandfather's house, where he was living, in May they made a 'rather chilling discovery' of attempts to make component parts of a firearm on his 3D printer, which 'showed a clear intent to create a deadly weapon,' they said. Harris was found guilty in December of five counts of encouraging terrorism and one count of possession of material for terrorist purposes. 'The Triumph of Spirit' creators made the film to educate people who cannot visit A holocaust survivor cried as he relived the horrors of the Auschwitz death camp through virtual reality for the first time. Menachem Haberman, 95, was sent to Auschwitz in 1944 on a cattle train, and recently took part in a group viewing of 'The Triumph of the Spirit', a VR film providing an immersive experience of the death camp. 'I felt like I returned to that same period from the start,' Menachem said. 'I saw all these things, and I was reminded of some things that to this day I can't forget.' The film's co-creator, Miriam Cohen, 30, said she made 'The Triumph of the Spirit' to 'bring this experience, which can be so powerful and profound, to all those who cannot go and to as many people as possible.' Born in 1927, Menachem Haberman was only a child when he was deported to Auschwitz Holocaust survivor Menachem Haberman, 95, participates in a virtual guided tour of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was deported to in 1944 Menachem Haberman saw his mother and five siblings die at the Auschwitz deathcamp More than 1,100,000 people were killed at Auschwitz, a concentration camp and later extermination camp in Poland used by the Nazis in World War II. Auschwitz today is a memorial and museum, open to the public. Today, two million visit each year to learn about the systematic killing of Jews, Poles, Romani and other groups. When the Hungarians annexed his hometown of Munkacs on 10 November 1938, the Jews of the town reportedly 'blessed the return of Hungarian rule'. However, the Jewish communities were persecuted, beaten and robbed, and forced into labour. Menachem Haberman's father was sent to the eastern front. In 1944, Menachem and 20 family members were sent to live in a two-bedroom flat in the Munkacs ghetto. They were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp months later, where he became separated from his family. Menachem's mother and five siblings were sent to gas chambers, while his sister died of illness, leaving him as the last member of his family. He was sent on a death march in January 1945 where many of his friends died. Survivors were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany. Insufficient food, poor conditions and executions took the lives of 56,545 of the 280,000 prisoners it housed. During the virtual reality experience, Menachem said he recalled an area where medical experiments were conducted on prisoners and a wall in front of which people were shot. He cried as he removed the virtual reality goggles. Filmmakers used 360 degree cameras to capture the full environment at Auschwitz The camp in Poland, now a memorial and museum, is visited by two million people each year David Bitton, a 16-year-old Jewish seminary student, watched the film in Jerusalem. He said: 'When you watch it, it's like a nightmare that you don't want to be in.' A poll in 2019 found 5% of UK adults do not believe the Holocaust took place. 45% did not know how many had been killed, and one in 12 believed the true figure of six million had been exaggerated. Much has been written to discredit misinformation surrounding the Holocaust. Haberman, 95, cried after watching the virtual reality film and removing his goggles Miriam Cohen, the creative director and co-founder of Triumph of the Spirit, gestures to a participant during a virtual guided tour of the former concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau A group participates in a virtual guided tour of the former Nazi German concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau and Polish Jewry before the Holocaust by using Virtual Reality headsets A report by the World Zionist Organization ahead of Friday's International Holocaust Remembrance Day describes a rise in global anti-Semitism after the COVID-19 pandemic created a 'new reality' as activity diverted to social networks. The three film-makers behind the project hope that technologies like VR will have a positive impact. They are offering the experience to groups who can book a screening and individual users can watch the film at a mall in Jerusalem. Viewers get a guided tour of Jewish life in Poland before the Holocaust, visit the Nazi extermination camp and then a tour of Israel while hearing survivor stories. The VR tour will premiere in the United Kingdom next week at an event attended by members of the House of Lords. Hollywood star Eva Green made 'crazy' suggestions about hiring elite staff including Batman and Inception director Christopher Nolan's director of photography for a doomed sci-fi movie she is accused of sabotaging, the High Court heard today. The former Bond girl has also been blamed for losing Oscar winners Kathy Bates and Tim Robbins from the project due to her TV filming schedule. The actress, 42, is embroiled in a bitter legal battle with the makers of A Patriot, a 4million movie about the 'climate catastrophe', with each side blaming the other for the production's demise. Ms Green best known for playing Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale opposite Daniel Craig as 007 was the star of the feature before production shut down in 2019 and she now wants to claim her 810,000 ($1million) fee. Giving evidence to the High Court today, the film's writer and director Dan Pringle said her fee hampered efforts to make the film. He also said she made 'unrealistic' suggestions about crew that could be hired, which he called 'crazy' and 'Hail Marys'. Mr Pringle claimed that Ms Green said they should 'reach for the stars' and approach Christopher Nolan's director of photography for the job. 'It was not realistic, then we would move on to another potential target', he said of her suggestions. Bond girl Eva Green, pictured in Casino Royale with Daniel Craig, is at the High Court in a legal battle over the demise of a 4 million film project Former Bond girl Eva Green (pictured) ranted that 'my name is Cruella', called a movie producer a 'f****** moron' and labelled the financial backers of her film 'a***holes' before the 4 million project fell apart, court documents reveal The court heard that Kathy Bates and Tim Robbins and Game of Thrones star Ed Skrein were attached to the project. But Ms Green's filming schedule for TV series The Luminaries ended up losing them funding from Sky, it was said. The High Court also heard she signed on to A Patriot with Helen Hunt and Charles Dance in 2019, but they had both dropped out by the time of its collapse in autumn of that year. The project was revived in 2019 but then shut down in October 2019. Ms Green claims she is owed $1million. The actress is being 'painted as a diva' by a production company she is suing over a failed sci-fi film, her lawyers told the High Court yesterday. Production company White Lantern Film claim she made 'excessive creative and financial demands' and had expectations that were 'incompatible' with the budget of the 4million project, the High Court was told. The Casino Royale star, 42, had been due to star in sci-fi film A Patriot before production was shut down in October 2019. She is suing production company White Lantern Films and a second defendant, SMC Specialty Finance LLC, claiming she is entitled to her million-dollar (approximately 810,000) fee for the movie, despite its cancellation. Ms Green, who was also executive producer on the project, claims she is owed the money under a so-called 'pay or play' provision which guarantees the individual payment regardless of whether or not the work is completed. White Lantern Films is defending the case and bringing a counterclaim against the French actress, alleging she repeatedly made 'unreasonable demands' and undermined the film's production. Producers Terry Bird (left) and Jake Seal were mentioned in the texts and slated by Ms Green Ms Green played foreign liaison agent Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale A scene from the iconic 2006 film featuring the actress with Daniel Craig Lawyers for the company and its lender SMC Speciality Finance claim she expressed 'sheer hostility' in messages referring to members of the production, and conspired with the director and producer to secure the film rights and make a different film. On the first day of a trial in London on Thursday, Max Mallin KC, for White Lantern Films, accepted Ms Green had a commitment to making a film but one 'she wanted to make'. He said she had 'not only not a commitment, but a vitriolic aversion to making a film that White Lantern could and was going to make'. 'We have got a critical split between the expectation of Eva Green and the film she wanted to make and what the budget could afford,' the barrister said. Mr Mallin said that Ms Green, who was not present at court on Thursday, had 'animosity' towards a vision for the film held by one of the film's executive producers, Jake Seal. In written arguments, the lawyer said the 'adequately resourced' film 'could and would have been produced had the lead actor and essential element not pulled out'. 'Ms Green's expectations for the film were incompatible with its budget: it was an independent film in contrast to the large-budget studio films to which Ms Green was then accustomed,' Mr Mallin said. Ms Green is understood to risk facing a legal bill of more than 4 million if she loses the case Sparks flew during the summer of 2019 after the film's producers haggled over the rates of pay to meet the demands of Ms Green's preferred team Ms Green pictured in London in June 2021 during filming for a mystery project He added: 'The clash between Ms Green's expectations and reality was demonstrated continually by Ms Green's failure to engage responsibly in pre-production and her repeatedly making unreasonable demands of White Lantern.' Mr Mallin alleged that Ms Green had made a 'fraudulent misrepresentation' that she was 'ready, willing and able' to fulfil her contract. He claimed a 'scheme' was devised between the actress, writer and director Dan Pringle and producer Adam Merrifield - allegedly described by the latter as 'Operation Fake It!' - to secure her fee and make a separate film without SMC involved. In a message to Mr Pringle, Ms Green claimed her 'soul will die' if she was to make the film with Mr Seal at the Black Hangar production facility in Hampshire, Mr Mallin said. Ms Green is due to give evidence on Monday next week, but did not attend yesterday's hearing due to a scheduling conflict. At the start of the eight-day trial on Thursday, Ms Green's barrister Edmund Cullen KC told the court Ms Green wanted to get the film made but 'the financial plan was never going to work'. He added: 'This was, for her, a passion project. The theme of the film concerns an issue of great concern to her, namely the climate catastrophe. 'She loved the script and wanted the film to be made, she bent over backwards to get this done.' In their written defence, lawyers for White Lantern Films said Ms Green had expressed 'a lack of confidence and dissatisfaction' with some of the production crew. Max Mallin KC, for White Lantern, claimed she was 'increasingly reluctant to be involved in the production', in breach of contract. In text messages used in White Lantern's claim, Ms Green is said to refer to one of the film's executive producers, Jake Seal, as 'evil', a 'devious sociopath' and 'a liar and a mad man'. 'I cannot believe that Moron Jake... pure vomit,' read another message said to be from Ms Green sent in August 2019. She is also said to have called production manager Terry Bird 'a f****** moron' and described Mr Seal and Mr Bird as 'total a***holes'. Mr Justice Michael Green is expected to give his decision at a later date. The trial continues. President Joe Biden on Friday confirmed that his longstanding advisor and chief of staff Ron Klain was leaving the White House and being replaced by Jeff Zients, his former COVID czar. The transition comes at a fraught time when the president is positioning for a reelection campaign while facing an onslaught of investigations about classified documents found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and former office in Washington, D.C. Klain, in his resignation letter to Biden, said it was the 'right time' for a transition after the president's 'indisputably historic' first two years in office. A longtime member of Biden's extremely close-knit political circle, Klain has been part of the White House's successes and challenges since the president took office including the passage of the Democrats' climate, healthcare and tax laws - as well as scores of judges confirmed. Conversely, he also saw the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. Biden hailed departing chief of staff Ron Klain as a 'once-in-a-generation talent,' and confirmed that Jeff Zients would be succeeding him 'I've known Ron Klain since he was a third-year law student. He came to work for me on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I knew the moment he started that he was a once-in-a-generation talent with a fierce and brilliant intellect,' Biden gushed in his statement. 'Just as important, he has a really big heart,' he said, thanking Klain's wife and family. The president said it was important to replace him with someone who 'understands what it means to lead a team, and who is as focused on getting things done,' before gushing more about incoming chief Jeff Zients. 'I'm confident that Jeff will continue Ron's example of smart, steady leadership, as we continue to work hard every day for the people we were sent here to serve,' Biden said in a statement, adding that Zients, like Klain, 'understands what it means to lead a team' and 'is as focused on getting things done.' Outgoing Chief of Staff Ron Klain (left) will step down within weeks. Klain has worked with Biden in government for decades Biden called outgoing chief Ron Klain 'a once-in-a-generation talent with a fierce and brilliant intellect' Covid response coordinator Jeff Zients helped organize vaccine rollouts, free testing kits, and sought to tackle vaccine resistance among the public even as new variants emerged Zients also has support from both sides of the political aisle - a decided rarity in the 118th Congress. 'I respect him enormously,' Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who spoke regularly with Zients during his stint as COVID-19 response coordinator, said this week. 'He's a very bright guy. I expect to be able to communicate with him.' Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York echoed that sentiment: 'Jeff is the epitome of what an outstanding chief of staff should be.' Yet, Zients has his detractors and there are concerns that social media companies could see special privilege with the White House - or vice versa - by the promotion of Zients. 'Joe Biden hiring a chief of staff, who is the top staffer in our government, while having deep ties to Facebook should be very concerning to Republicans and Democrats who are concerned about the growing influence Big Tech has over our government and country,' a former House Judiciary aide told DailyMail.com. 'Implications for this run very deep, having someone with such close ties to Facebook could lead to Facebook having special access, killing legislation to rein in Big Tech, or simply filling government jobs with people more friendly to Big Tech.' President Biden is bolstering his White House's Big Tech ties by tapping Jeff Zients, who formerly served on Facebook's board of directors, as his new chief of staff Visitors take photos in front of the Meta (Facebook) sign at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California One year into Zients' role coordinating the White House's coronavirus response, the Revolving Door Project, a project of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) which reviews executive branch appointments, published an article calling for the then-COVID czar to be fired. It described him as a 'former corporate executive whose track record bolsters the worst possible impulses for a Biden appointee in command of the federal government's resources.' 'Taken together, an examination of the companies that made Zients rich paints a picture of a man who seized on medical providers as a way to capitalize on the suffering of sick Americans. In the end, it seems to have all paid off,' the report stated. Zients is worth between about $90 million and $400 million, according to the financial disclosure he filed when he entered the White House in 2021. A man has been seriously injured after being 'trapped' and 'crushed' by a 'telescopic' public urinal near Trafalgar Square in central London. Emergency services were called at 1.10pm to the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross road outside the Palace Theatre in London's theatre district. An air ambulance was seen landing in Trafalgar Square while a large number of ambulances and fire engines attended the scene. A crane was brought to the scene in an attempt by rescuers to lift the entire device out of the ground. Met Police told MailOnline that officers had been called 'to a seriously injured man at Cambridge Circus, W1'. A man has been seriously injured after being 'trapped' and 'crushed' by a 'telescopic' public urinal at Cambridge Circus in central London Four fire engines, 25 firefighters and multiple ambulances attended the scene A crane was brought to the scene in an attempt to lift the entire device out of the ground They added: 'The man is thought to have sustained crush injuries while working on a "telescopic urinal" at the location. 'LFB, LAS and London's Air Ambulance are in attendance. Officers are assisting with road closures.' A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said: 'We were called today (27 January) at 1:05pm to reports of an incident on Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross. 'We sent a number of resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, members of our hazardous area response team (HART), members of our tactical response unit and a medic in a fast response car. We also dispatched London's Air Ambulance. The incident is still ongoing.' The incident has taken place near The Palace Theatre, which is where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is performed Whats happened at Cambridge Circus ??? Huge emergency response.. pic.twitter.com/Oihm9RNfm4 Louise Allain (@louiseallain) January 27, 2023 Firefighters tirelessly attempted to rescue the man, who was trapped under the device Major incident out side the Harry Porter theatre in central London, road closed Shaftesbury Avenue - lots of police, Firefighters and ambulances here . pic.twitter.com/qPuRKlPHdY Paul Brown Browns fan London News Vlogger (@PaulBrown_UK) January 27, 2023 Telescopic urinals are pop-up facilities that rise up from the pavement for those out in London at night The incident took place outside of The Palace Theatre, where the stage show of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is performed. Currently the theatre is unsure whether tonight's 7pm performance will take place. A spokesperson for the theatre's stage door department said: 'At this point we don't have the information to give out to people and it is an ongoing situation. We will try and give as much notice as possible' London Fire Brigade told MailOnline: 'Firefighters have been called to a person trapped on Charing Cross Road in central London. 'The man trapped under street level under a hydraulic urinal on Cambridge Circus has been freed. He has been left in the care of the Ambulance Service. 'The Brigade was called at 1305. Four fire engines and around 25 firefighters from Soho, Euston and Dowgate fire stations are at the scene.' It is thought that the man was working on a pop-up urinal which rises from the pavement for those out in London at night. An air ambulance was seen landing in Trafalgar Square while a large number of ambulances and fire engines attended the scene A Canadian honeymooner has been placed on a ventilator after she was struck by a rogue wave at a Mexico beach that left her with a severe spinal injury. Cory Moe, 26, of Carnduff, Saskatchewan, is fighting for her life in the ICU at Hospital Joya Marina in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, after she was critically injured on January 17. Cory and Dalton got married in December 2021, but held off their honeymoon due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. On the third day of their honeymoon, the couple decided to go boogie boarding when Cory was swept off her board and taken underwater. 'A rogue wave is what took her in,' Cory's older sister Brianne Fitzpatrick told CTV News Regina. 'It overturned her in the water, but we don't know how exactly.' Dalton rushed to pull his wife out of the water and dragged her to shore, where they were met by two vacationing nurses who helped stabilize the bride until emergency services arrived. Cory, a registered nurse herself, suffered a cervical spine injury and was taken to the hospital in critical condition. She underwent surgery on a vertebra in her neck to relieve the pressure placed on her spinal cord, according to her sister. Cory Moe, 26, of Carnduff, Saskatchewan, is fighting for her life in the ICU at Hospital Joya Marina in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, (pictured) after she was critically injured on January 17 On the third day of Cory and Dalton's honeymoon, the couple decided to go boogie boarding when Cory was swept off her board and taken underwater. 'A rogue wave is what took her in,' Cory's older sister Brianne Fitzpatrick said. 'It overturned her in the water, but we don't know how exactly' Cory could experience swelling around her spinal cord for up to six weeks, according to CTV News Regina, and while they wait for get better, she has been placed on a ventilator. The newlywed is currently seven days post-operation and has begun physical therapy, according to the GoFundMe, which has raised $58,000 of its $75,000 goal. Cory is unable to speak on the ventilator, but was able to before her surgery, according to Brianne. 'Before her surgery, she said to her surgeon: "I believe in you. You have the knowledge, you have skills and I have faith in you,"' Brianne told CTV News Regina. 'Even in her darkest and hardest hours through this she still remains to be just such a bright light for others and lifts everyone up.' Cory's father and other sister have flown to Mexico to be with the couple, while Brianne and her mother Brenda have stayed home in Canada for the time being. They wait anxiously by their phones for updates, but said they are still holding out on hope as Cory is showing 'promising signs.' The young woman has begun to move her fingers and toes since coming out of surgery. 'It's going to be a long, hard, uncertain road ahead,' Brianne told the Canadian outlet. 'Its definitely not a recovery thats going to be measured in hours or in days, maybe not even weeks.' The family is drawing on their injured daughter's hope and resilience to get through this tough time. The couple married in December 2021, but held off their honeymoon due to travel restrictions. Dalton was the one to pull his wife out of the water after the wave hit, where they were met by two vacationing nurses who helped stabilize the bride until emergency services arrived Cory, a registered nurse herself, suffered a cervical spine injury and was taken to the hospital in critical condition. She underwent surgery on a vertebra in her neck to relieve the pressure placed on her spinal cord It's not the first time Cory has faced spinal issues, as nearly 13 years ago she underwent treatment for scoliosis, which earned her the title of the 'toughest Fitzpatrick,' according to CTV News Regina. 'She endured a lot of pain with it. She's small, but mighty,' her mother Brenda told the Canadian outlet. 'Shes 100 pounds dripping wet, but shes the toughest of all of us. She gives us all inspiration.' Their local community has also surrounded the family with support and love, as they have received plenty of phone calls and messages telling them they're rooting for 'Team Cory.' 'It's been completely overwhelming,' Brenda told CTV News Regina. 'We cant express how fortunate we are to live in such a tight community, and it is just a testament of what a beautiful soul she is that so many people are reaching out.' JK Rowling today launched a new and extraordinary attack on Nicola Sturgeon branding her Orwellian after the First Minister accused critics of her transgender Bill of being misogynistic, homophobic and racist. The Harry Potter author has torn holes in the SNP leader's handling of the Isla Bryson scandal after the transgender double rapist spent days in Scotland's female prison before being moved to male prison, HMP Edinburgh. Ms Rowling claims that Ms Sturgeon must now move Katie Dolatowski a transgender paedophile born a man who tried to covertly film, abduct and rape schoolchildren who is still held at Cornton Vale womens jail in Stirling. With critics claiming the scandal could bring down the Government's Gender Recognition Reform Bill and even the First Minister herself Ms Rowling pointed out inconsistencies in Ms Sturgeon's position and calling Bryson a man. She tweeted: 'So in Nicola Sturgeons Scotland, trans women ARENT women if theyre convicted double rapists, like Adam Isla Bryson Graham. 'However, trans woman and paedophile Katie Dolatowski, who covertly filmed a 12-year-old and attempted to rape a 10-year-old, both offences committed in womens public bathrooms, IS a woman and remains in the womens prison from which Adam Graham is to be removed. Isla Bryson, 31, (right), who was born Adam Graham (left), was convicted of raping two woman. Bryson was initially sent to a women's jail but moved after an outcry Katie Dolatowski a transgender paedophile born a man who managed to stay at Leeds Women's Aid refuge for 71 days is also held at Cornton Vale womens jail JK Rowling has used her Twitter account, with 14million followers, to hammer Nicola Sturgeon and her Orwellian politics Revealed: SNP's flip-flopping over Isla Bryson decision Tuesday: Bryson is convicted for the rape of a woman in Clydebank, East Dunbartonshire, in 2016 and a rape against a second woman in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019. She is moved to Cornton Vale women's prison in Stirling for sentencing. Wednesday: Following an outcry from women's campaigners, Number 10 weighs in to express concern about the placement, with Rishi Sunak's spokesman saying he 'understands the concerns'. However, SNP Justice Minister Keith Brown expresses his confidence in the Scottish Prison Service and refuses to intervene. He adds that the controversial Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would have no implication on which prisons transgender people are held in. Thursday: In a 'screeching' u-turn within 24 hours of Mr Brown's comments, Nicola Sturgeon announces that Bryson will be transferred from Scotland's only all-women's prison to a male jail. Friday: Ms Sturgeon tells LBC she backed the 'general principle [that] someone who rapes a woman should not be in a women's prison'. But leaving the door open to exceptions, she said that there's a 'danger with a blanket approach because you catch cases that you shouldn't'. Advertisement 'Never forget, Sturgeon, her government and supporters have insisted that it is ludicrous to imagine anyone would dress in womens clothes to get access to vulnerable women and girls. Wouldnt happen. Everyone is who they say they are. To question this is hate'. She then quoted George Orwell's 1984: 'The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.' Ms Rowling has been highly critical of the SNP's Gender Recognition Bill, warning that 'all a man needs to "become a woman" is to say he's one'. She also threw her weight behind Scottish campaigners who marched on Holyrood in a protest against controversial transgender plans, wearing a T-shirt with the message 'Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights'. Ms Sturgeon today refused to rule out a 'blanket' ban on biologically male rapists being held in female jails despite a humiliating U-turn in the Isla Bryson case yesterday. The First Minister also let fly at critics of her ailing Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, claiming some are 'transphobic', 'deeply misogynist' and 'possibly racist as well'. She is said to have backed the decision that the transgender sex attacker should be moved to the male section of HMP Edinburgh following days of fury after she was remanded in Cornton Vale Scotland's only female prison. Addressing the Scottish Parliament yesterday she said: 'I don't see how it's possible to have a rapist within a women's prison'. But in an interview with The News Agents, Ms Sturgeon appeared to oppose any 'blanket approach'. She said she backed the 'general principle [that] someone who rapes a woman should not be in a women's prison'. Leaving the door open to exceptions, she said that there's a 'danger with a blanket approach because you catch cases that you shouldn't'. Cybernats group Wings over Scotland, which is pro-independence but anti Ms Sturgeon, tweeted: 'Which cases of rapists in women's prisons SHOULDN'T you catch? Which rapists should you be allowing into women's prisons? Just the *nice* rapists?' JK Rowling (pictured wearing a t-shirt with the message 'Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights) has thrown her weight behind Scottish campaigners who marched on Holyrood in a protest against controversial transgender plans Speaking to Globals The News Agents podcast, the First Minister said there's a 'danger with a blanket approach' to the 'general principle [that] someone who rapes a woman should not be in a women's prison' Isla Bryson, 31, raped two vulnerable women before transitioning in 2020. Between 2016 and 2019, when the attacks happened, Bryson was a shaven-headed thug by the name of Adam Graham (pictured) Ms Sturgeon also told LBC that some critics of her Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill are using the 'cloak of caring about women's rights' to hide their 'misogyny and racism'. 'That's not everybody who opposes this bill. I want to be very clear about that. But there are people who have opposed this bill that cloak themselves in women's rights to make it acceptable, but just as they're transphobic you'll also find that they're deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well', she said. Female students were told to strip naked for spray tan sessions in college beauty class in front of transgender rapist Rachel Ferguson says she was forced to undress in front of Isla Bryson Advertisement Her words may be a move to try to rescue her controversial trans laws that were left in disarray by the decision to move Isla Bryson away from the women's prison estate to a male jail. But Scottish Tory Leader Douglas Ross said: 'This is desperate from the First Minister. 'If you disagree with Nicola Sturgeons policy that risks the safety of women and girls she brands you homophobic, racist and transphobic. 'Utterly shameful language that shows just how far from public opinion she is'. Last night critics said the Bryson case had highlighted dangers posed by the Bill to women's safety and inconsistencies in Ms Sturgeon's position. The U-turn happened just a day after her justice secretary backed the decision by the Scottish Prison Service. Isla Bryson raped two women while living as a man, and began transitioning from male to female in 2020, after she was charged with the two sex attacks. The former DJ's estranged wife Shonna Graham has dismissed her husband's transition as a 'sham' and told the Mail this week Bryson was 'bullsh***ing the authorities' to avoid a men's prison. The extraordinary case enraged opponents to Ms Sturgeon's Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill, who said it demonstrated the potential risks of allowing gender self-identification without the need for medical evidence or diagnosis. Speaking during First Minister's Questions at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon confirmed Bryson would not be kept at Cornton Vale women's prison, near Stirling. She failed, however, to mention the facility is due to shut from the end of next month anyway. She said the decision had been taken by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) but added: 'I don't think it's possible to have a rapist within a women's prison.' Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross questioned why Bryson was initially been placed in the segregation unit of the female-only jail. Mr Ross said: 'This double rapist only decided to change gender after he was charged by the police. 'It took the threat of jail for this criminal to decide to change his gender. That's not a coincidence, that is a conscious decision. A van arrives at HMP Edinburgh last night where Isla Bryson is now incarcerated 'We think it is wrong that a rapist is sent to a women's prison. We believe a rapist having access to a women's single-sex space is a threat.' Scottish Tory MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston said: 'It is shameful that Nicola Sturgeon refuses to admit that her government and her own SNP ministers have allowed a double rapist to be held in a women's prison.' His colleague Tess White added: 'A predatory double rapist being held in a women's prison for any length of time is dangerous. An SNP minister defended the decision one day then Nicola Sturgeon backtracked the next. What would have happened if there hadn't been a public backlash?' Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government had not given any 'formal direction' to the SPS over Bryson's imprisonment but it is understood representations were made in the background. She said: 'This individual case is not about whether they are trans or not, in this individual case this is a person who's been convicted of rape, so this individual is a rapist and a sex offender and that is what's important.' Last week, Westminster said it would use powers known as a Section 35 order to stop the GRR bill gaining royal assent on the basis it would cut across UK-wide equality legislation. Scottish Conservative equalities spokesman Rachael Hamilton said: 'The case of Isla Bryson has been the ultimate illustration of the dangers of Nicola Sturgeon's GRR Bill. 'Legal experts have warned that it would be near impossible to exclude male sex offenders seeking to abuse the prison system, once they are armed with a Gender Recognition Certificate. 'Under Nicola Sturgeon's reckless gender ID reforms, a predator could get one in just three months vastly less time than most rape trials take. 'The First Minister will be putting vulnerable women and girls at risk unless she finally bans sex offenders awaiting trial and those already convicted from obtaining a new Gender ID a Scottish Conservative amendment the SNP shamefully voted against in December. 'The UK Government's Section 35 order is the chance for the SNP to learn from this disgraceful case and fix the dangerous errors in this Bill.' The Brazilian conducts funerals and wanted to see what his own would be like Have you ever wondered what your own funeral will be like, or who might turn up? Well, a curious Brazilian man has faked his own death to find out. Baltazar Lemos, 60, from Curitiba, Parana, announced his death on social media and set up a hoax funeral for his friends and family. Lemos frequently conducts funerals, and has overseen hundreds of ceremonies commemorating the life of other people. He recounted how saddened he had been after conducting a service with just two people in attendance compared to other services where more than 500 were present. So, just like the episode in Friends where Ross Geller held a fake funeral to see which of his old college mates would attend, Lemos pulled the hoax to see who would show up. Unfortunately for the 60-year-old Brazilian, his funeral produced similarly disastrous results to that of the fictional paleontologist. Baltazar Lemos, 60, from Curitiba, Parana, announced his death on social media and set up a hoax funeral So, just like the episode in Friends where Ross Geller held a fake funeral to see which of his old college mates would attend, Lemos pulled the hoax to see who would show up Earlier this month, Lemos posted a seemingly innocent and cheery photo of himself on his Facebook page, sharing 'prayers and good vibes with everyone'. However, Lemos' friends could see from the background of the image that he was at Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo, suggesting that he had been admitted there. Another post then went up a day later, announcing that he had died. 'At the beginning of this sad afternoon, Baltazar Lemos left us. More information coming soon,' the social media post read. This left Lemos' family in shock. They had been unaware that he was ill. His nephew rushed to the Sao Paulo hospital to ask the medical staff about him. But as he had never been admitted and was not actually dead, hospital staff had no record of him being there. Concerned friends became distressed about his passing - including his wheelchair bound octogenarian mother - and started to pay tribute to him and his life. Many commented on the post to ask about the details of his death and the cause, but no further information was given. The funeral and wake details for a ceremony commemorating Lemos' life were soon posted to the Facebook page. 'At the beginning of this sad afternoon, Baltazar Lemos left us. More information coming soon,' a social media post announcing his death read Baltazar Lemos frequently conducts funerals, and has overseen hundreds of ceremonies commemorating the life of other people Friends and family soon gathered to pay their respects to the Brazilian at a chapel in his hometown of Curitiba. But no sooner had the ceremony started that Lemos' voice started bellowing out from the speakers, detailing his 60 years of life. Those in attendance were in shock and tears started pouring from many people's eyes. The mourners thought that Lemos had recorded the tape before his supposed death. Alter doors then flung open and Lemos' friends and family were confronted by the man. The mourners were aghast and confused, as tears continued to pour from many of those in attendance. The hoax funeral didn't appear to have the results Lemos was expecting. As he tried to explain what had happened, and why he wanted to fake his death, the congregation who had been sorrowful over his passing were now incandescent with rage and started to accuse him of cruelty. If it was any consolation for Lemos, more people showed up to his funeral than the two old college friends who gathered for Ross Geller's wake. 'I had no intention of hurting, offending, or causing any harm to anyone,' Lemos said Lemos told Brazilian outlet Otempo: 'I had the idea five months ago. I wanted to make it look like I really died. People interpreted it in their own way. The truth is that I wanted to know who would come to my wake.' He also apologised for his antics. 'I didn't tell anyone, because I hoped it would work out. I had no intention of hurting, offending, or causing any harm to anyone. I truly apologise to these people.' Social media users quickly learned of the disastrous funeral. One wrote: 'You got what you wanted Baltazar, to draw attention. In all the groups of event photographers, people are talking about your 'death'. Everyone was mourning. What a ridiculous joke! I think you should take a picture with everyone who mourned your supposed death. I don't know you personally and I hope I don't ever meet you.' Another of his friends told Otempo: 'I've known him since 2001. I thought the story was horrible. I spent one day sad and the other very indignant. For me, he died on the 17th [the day the fake death was announced], when I found out everything. It was in very bad taste.' FIVE suspected carjackers targeting motorists while masquerading as genuine travellers in Harare and Beitbridge have been arrested. The suspects were mainly targeting taxi drivers and robbing them of their cars and valuables. CID acting spokesperson Detective Assistant Inspector Rachel Muteweri said the same carjacking gang was operating in central Harare and Beitbridge between April last year and this month. This prompted the Zimbabwe Republic Police to launch a manhunt. On 16 January 2023, Bill Tirihama alias Machingura aged 26 of 1447, Chinamano, Epworth, Harare, Narvick Nhowa aged 28 and John Kamba aged 42 all of Highfield, Harare; John Allan Nyoni aged 21 and Tichaona Dhava aged 26 of Beitbridge were arrested after detectives from CID Braeside intercepted them driving a Honda Fit, she said. She said further investigations revealed that the vehicle was reportedly stolen from Beitbridge and that the suspects had committed similar offences in Harare and Beitbridge. The suspects later led a team of detectives to a bushy area near Mangava Shopping Centre in Beitbridge where a pellet gun and toy gun used in the commission of the crimes were recovered. The accused persons are now clearing four cases of robbery of motor vehicles. In one robbery on December 21 last year at about 4am, the gang approached a taxi parked at Mashakada Shopping Centre, Beitbridge and hired the driver to New Stands in Beitbridge. Along the way, they robbed him of his motor vehicle at gunpoint and drove off leaving him stranded, Detective Asst Insp Muteweri said. She said using the same modus operandi, the suspects robbed another complainant of his Toyota Sienta on December 24 at 10.20pm in Harare. They hired the driver from a night club in central Harare to Lochnivar. Along the way, they robbed him of his vehicle at gun point, shoved him out of the vehicle and drove off. The five have since appeared before Magistrate Mr Stanford Mambanje at Harare Magistrates Court where they were remanded in custody to today for routine remand. As the Zimbabwe Republic Police, we continue to encourage motorists to maintain a high level of security on their vehicles by installing alarm systems, anti-hijack systems and tracking devices. Keys should be removed from the ignition port and doors locked whenever the motor vehicle is left unattended. To taxi operators, it is advisable to always vet customers before offering services to them. For more information feel free to contact CID Vehicle Theft Squad (VTS) on 0242 665524, CID VTS Bulawayo on 0292 64047, PGHQ Whatsapp number 0712 800 197 or the National Complaints Desk on 0242 703631, Detective Asst Insp Muteweri said. Herald A far-right activist has burned a Koran outside a mosque in Copenhagen and in front of a Turkish embassy, further infuriating the Muslim world after a similar stunt last week in Sweden. Rasmus Paludan, who holds both Danish and Swedish citizenship, first staged the incendiary protest on Saturday outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm after being granted permission by authorities. The convicted extremist repeated the protest today in Denmark and has vowed to do so every day until Sweden is admitted to NATO. The provocative demonstration has endangered Sweden's bid to join the security organisation after Turkey postponed planned accession talks. Far-right politician Rasmus Paludan burns a copy of Kuran in front of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen today Far-right journalist Chang Frick, who runs the populist site Nyheter Idag and previously worked for Russia Today (RT), is alleged to have paid the fee for the demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm last week. His involvement has led to unproven claims that Russia could be behind the row to prevent Sweden and Finland joining NATO. During Paludan's protest outside the mosque today, loud music blared from inside the holy building in an apparent attempt to drown him out. The politician, who has police protection and was then driven away by officers, said in a live broadcast today: 'This mosque has no place in Denmark.' The activist, who has police protection, was then driven away in a police car. In his live feed, he said he would repeat the demonstration outside the Turkish and Russian embassies. The activist is pictured burning another Koran outside a mosque in Noerrebro, Copenhagen, today The convicted extremist repeated the protest today in Denmark and has vowed to do so every day until Sweden is admitted to NATO People react as far-right politician Paludan burns a Koran copy in front of a mosque in Copenhagen Police secure the area in front of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen ahead of today's protest Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said the Danish ambassador was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry where Turkish officials 'strongly condemned the permission given to this provocative act which clearly constitutes a hate crime'. The ambassador was told that 'Denmark's attitude is unacceptable' and that Turkey expected that the permission be revoked, according to Anadolu. Danish foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Danish media that the incident would not change Denmark's 'good relationship' with Turkey, adding that Copenhagen intended to talk to Ankara about Denmark's laws upholding freedoms. 'Our task now is to talk to Turkey about how the conditions are in Denmark with our open democracy, and that there is a difference between Denmark as a country - and our people as such - and then about individual people who have strongly divergent views,' Mr Lokke Rasmussen said. Paludan's action last week caused fury in Turkey, which criticised Swedish authorities for allowing the demonstration to take place outside the Turkish embassy. Iranians burn Sweden's flag during an anti-Sweden rally after the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran today In Pakistan, thousands took to the street today to protest Sweden's decision to allow the demonstration Taliban security forces stand guard as Afghans shout slogans during a protest against the burning of the Koran today Turkey's president cast serious doubt on NATO's expansion, warning Sweden not to expect support for its membership bid in the military alliance. Turkey also indefinitely postponed a key meeting in Brussels that would have discussed Sweden and Finland's NATO's membership, saying such a meeting would have been 'meaningless'. Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing policies of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership after Russian forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. NATO member Turkey, which is pressing the two countries to crack down on Kurdish militants and other groups it considers terrorists, has not yet endorsed their accession, which requires unanimous approval from all existing alliance members. A lawyer, Paludan established far-right parties in both Sweden and Denmark that have failed to win any seats in national, regional or municipal elections. In last year's parliamentary election in Sweden, his party received just 156 votes nationwide. Protesters hold up a bloodstained effigy of Paludan during a protest in Karachi, Pakistan, today His burning of the Quran sparked counter-protests in Turkey, where demonstrators burned his photograph and a Swedish flag Rasmus Paludan is pictured burning the Koran outside of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm last week 'This is (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan's fault. Now that he doesn't want to let Sweden into Nato, I have to teach him about freedom of speech until he does,' Paludan told Aftonbladet. Earlier this week, Paludan told Swedish media that Frick paid for the stunt and claimed the journalist - whose Twitter feed includes photos of him posing in a Putin T-shirt and showing off a Putin calendar - promised to cover any damages he incurred as a result of the demonstration. In 2019, Frick accused the New York Times of misrepresentation on Twitter after the newspaper profiled him in a story on how Moscow was trying to sow political discord in Sweden, the Telegraph reported. Frick said RT was his client but not his employer and told the paper he had been invited to meet Putin. He denied working for Russia. MailOnline has approached Frick for comment. Paludan, a Swedish-Danish activist who has already been convicted for racist abuse, provoked rioting in Sweden last year when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burned copies of the Koran. Morocco said it was 'astonished' the authorities had allowed it to take place 'in front of the Swedish forces of order'. Chang Frick, who runs the populist site Nyheter Idag and previously worked for Russia Today (RT), is alleged to have paid the fee for the demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm Frick posing in a Putin t-shirt Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also condemned it, as did the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Jakarta said 'the act of blasphemy against the holy book has hurt and tarnished religious tolerance', adding that 'freedom of expression must be exercised in a responsible manner'. Thousands of Afghans also took to the streets today in protest against his provocations. 'Today, Kabul residents in different parts of the city held protests,' Kabul's police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said on Friday afternoon. In the northern province of Badakshan, a spokesperson for the provincial government said thousands had gathered after Friday prayers to protest. 'They were saying 'Death to Sweden, U.S.A and U.N'.,' said Mahzudden Ahmadi. 'They said such actions shouldn't be repeated, also they asked Islamic Emirate to have a strong position against such actions,' he added, referring to the Taliban administration. Earlier in the week, the Taliban-run Afghan foreign ministry had called on the Swedish government to punish the individual and to prevent any similar incidents taking place. The son of the Texas man, who is being held in a Colombian jail for allegedly killing his DJ girlfriend, was once a special guest of former House Speaker Paul Ryan at the 2018 State of the Union address after he had recovered from a rare form of cancer. John Poulos allegedly stuffed a suitcase with the dead body of Valentina Trespalacios, 23, into the trunk of a rental car before he abandoned it in a dumpster in the Colombian capital of Bogota this week. Five years prior, Poulos and his wife Ashley accompanied their son Jackson, who was six years old at the time, to the House Chamber for former President Donald Trump's message to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 30, 2018. A tweet that is still on the former speaker's account shows the then Congressman sharing a hug with the boy while his parents stand to the side smiling. '6-year-old Jackson Poulos from Wisconsin is a fighter who beat a very rare form of cancer,' Ryan wrote. He's now received a clear scan, and I'm happy to have him as my #SOTU guest.' The family, who have two other children, posed with Ryan in honor of the occasion. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan with Ashley Poulos (left), Jackson Poulos (center) and John Poulos (right) John Poulos (pictured) was taken into custody in Panama on Tuesday moments before he was about to board a flight to Turkey and then connect to Montenegro. On Wednesday, a Colombian judge approved a request by the Office of the Attorney General in Colombia that was required to present to Panamanian authorities to process Poulo's extradition Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) had been dating John Poulos for eight months DailyMail.com was able to confirm that a now defunct GoFundMe account that was set up in August 2016 was active as early as Wednesday - a day after John Poulos was taken into custody in Panama. Colombian National Police launched a manhunt for his capture for beating and strangling to death Trespalacios. A well-known DJ in Colombia, Trespalacios was found stuffed into a suitcase that was inside a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogota on Sunday. John Poulos then fled on a flight to Panama City, Panama, and was arrested Tuesday moments before he was set to board a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where he then had to wait until Thursday for a connecting flight to Montenegro, where there is no extradition treaty with Colombia. Poulos told authorities in Panama that the defunct Medellin Cartel was behind Trespalacios murder and that he had fled Colombia because cartel members wanted to kill him. According to the defunct GoFundMe page, Jackson was four years old when doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma in his GI tract and abdomen. The cancer is very rare, with only about 350 cases a year in the United States. In 2017, Jackson Poulos underwent a 13-hour operation in which the surgeon removed more than 150 tumors that were detected in his pelvis, sigmoid colon, appendix, spleen and gallbladder. The parents sought the help of family, friends and strangers to raise funds to hire a babysitter to assist the family with the care of their two other children while they worked. At the time, the concerned parents stated they would be undergoing 'genome testing to try to gain extra tools for treatment as well as bring on some specialists to fine-tune his care regimen.' The Poulos family was able to raise $59,577 on GoFundMe, but the account was shut down by Thursday. DailyMail.com reached out to GoFundMe for comment. Poulos and his wife Ashley accompanied their son Jackson, who was six years old at the time, to the House Chamber for former President Donald Trump's message to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 30, 2018 One of the mugshots of John Poulos shows that he has a large scratch on the left side of his face, perhaps a sign that his girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios, fought for her life before she was killed John Poulos is facing four counts - aggravated femicide, concealment, alteration and destruction of evidence. He had been in Colombia for about a week, according to Trespalacios' family, and had rented out an apartment in the north side of Bogota to move in with Trespalacios, who he was planning on marrying. The couple had met eight months ago, the young woman's family aid. Trespalacios' hairstylist, Veronica Jimenez, confirmed to DailyMail.com that Poulos was married and had three children, but that that mother of the kids had reportedly filed a restraining order against him because he was violent. She said that Poulos had become increasingly jealous and was upset with Trespalacios because she refused his demands to go public with their relationship on her social media accounts. Trespalacios had explained to him that her network was only to promote her DJ work. Poulos arrived at the apartment Thursday and moved in with Trespalacios on Friday evening. He accompanied her to a DJ gig early Saturday morning at Nexxus bar. Valentina Trespalacios was beaten and strangled to death before she was stuffed into a suitcase that was dumped in a construction waste container near a park in Bogota, Colombia, on Sunday. The 23-year-old was dating John Poulos, a resident from Texas, who is accused of killing her and made his first court appearance Thursday Turkish Airlines ticket purchased by John Poulos to travel from Panama City, Panama, to Istanbul, Turkey. The 35-year-old from Texas also had a connecting flight to Montenegro A homeless man was searching through a waste container in the Bogota neighborhood of Los Cambulos when he discovered the suitcase with Valentina Trespalacios' body Surveillance camera footage showed Poulos pushing a foot cart with their luggage bags in it, one of them was covered with a sheet and reportedly contained Trespalacios' dead body. Poulos placed the suitcase in the trunk of a Volkswagen Voyager and drove off. A security camera near a park in the south side of Bogota showed him tossing the bag into the dumpster and escaping. A homeless person searching a dumpster for recyclables Sunday afternoon discovered a blue suitcase with Trespalacios' head sticking out from the side. Poulos arrived in Bogota early Thursday morning and made his first court appearance Thursday evening. The hearing lasted about five hours and was interrupted on several occasions because the court appointed interpreter was having issues properly translating since Poulos is not fluent in Spanish. John Poulos (left) had plans of living in Colombia full time and marrying his DJ girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios (right). He was arrested in Panama on Tuesday, two days after her body was found inside a suitcase in a dumpster in the Colombian capital city of Bogota Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) was dating her boyfriend John Poulos for eight months before her violent death It was revealed that he didn't want to be represented by a public defender and that his parents hired a lawyer. 'They denied me a lawyer in Panama, when I got to the airport I asked to speak to the US Embassy, which took a long time,' Poulos said during the hearing. 'Only an hour before the hearing my defense attorney arrived, which is not what a normal person would want in my situation.' He also complained to the judge that he didn't feel safe in the Bogota jail because of the case's notoriety and demanded additional security. The alleged murderer questioned the judge as to why he was escorted by heavily armed officers when he arrived in Bogota, but was only guarded by a few officers near his jail cell. He was diving for molluscs, which are in high demand in the area Lopez, who is in his 50s, had his head torn off in the horrific shark attack anuel Lopez was scuba diving for molluscs when he was attacked by a shark A diver was decapitated by a great white shark in front of horrified fisherman off the coast of Mexico in the first fatal shark attack of the year. Manuel Lopez was scuba diving for molluscs near San Jose Beach in Tobari Bay on the western coast of Mexico when the 19ft-long shark attacked him on January 5. Lopez, who was in his 50s, had his head torn off by the shark in the horrific attack in Paredon Colorado, Sonora. The shark also bit both of the fishermans shoulders. 'He was diving when the animal attacked him, ripping off his head and biting both shoulders,' fisherman Jose Bernal, who witnessed the attack, told Tracking Sharks. Manuel Lopez was killed by a shark while fishing for molluscs off the coast of western Mexico on January 5 Fishermen spotted a shark off the coast of the western Mexico coastal town of Paredon Colorado last Saturday, two weeks after Manuel Lopez was attacked and killed by a shark while fishing for molluscs Lopez had been diving without an air tank to a depth of around 59 feet to collect ax tripe, a mollusc which is like a scallop, from the ocean floor when the predator attacked him. Bernal said some sharks had been seen in the area in the days before the attack and the crew of fishermen had been on high alert. 'Local divers had been warned about the presence of sharks in the area and most had not been out for several days,' Bernal said. Many anglers had been staying onshore due to the sightings of great white sharks. But a shortage of seafood in the area has created a high demand and Lopez, with his economic future at stake, decided to dive in what would be his final trip out. It was the second deadly incident since February 12, 2022 when Victor Estrella, 56, was fishing for scallops and was attacked by a shark in the Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of the Sonora town of Yavaros. Great White Sharks can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to 2 tons and have up to 300 razor sharp serrated teeth arranged in rows in its giant jaws. Lopez, who was in his 50s, had his head torn off by the shark in the horrific attack Manuel Lopez was scuba diving for molluscs near San Jose Beach in Tobari Bay on the western coast of Mexico when the 19ft-long shark attacked him on January. Picture: file image of a great white shark The predator when attacking can swim at up to 35mph guided by an extremely powerful sense of smell but normally prey on seals, sea lions, dolphins and turtles. Humans are often mistaken for seals especially when wearing wet suits and attacks are said by experts not to be intentional but 'experimental' when they bite. They usually move away after biting once when they realize the human is not their natural prey but the damage done by just one powerful bite is often fatal. 'Great white sharks are most prevalent in the Gulf of California during December and January when pregnant female sharks enter the area,' Tracking Sharks said. 'The sharks will often search for fat-filled sea lions to feed upon due to their high caloric count.' The assistant director of Rust is expected to testify against Alec Baldwin when the star faces trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter following the shooting death of director of photography Halyna Hutchins on set in October 2021. Prosecutors have secured David Halls' testimony in their case against Baldwin and Rust's armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, reports Variety. Baldwin accidentally shot-and-killed Hutchins after being given a loaded gun during filming. Previous witnesses have said that Halls handed Baldwin the gun and that he declared it a 'cold gun' despite the presence of live ammo in the chamber, according to a search warrant. 'Cold gun' is a term used on sets to notify that live ammo isn't being used. In a December deposition with the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau, Halls denied giving Baldwin the gun, saying he gave it to Gutierrez-Reed. He also accused Gutierrez-Reed of declaring 'cold gun.' Halls also compared the death of Hutchins as comparable to a plane crash in that it wasn't any one person's fault but rather 'a system failure.' David Halls, the first assistant director on the set of Rust, is likely to testify against Alec Baldwin In November, Baldwin had launched a lawsuit against Halls, in addition to other production staff Halls has signed a plea agreement for the negligent use of a deadly weapon in the case that included six months of probation. The New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau launched a lawsuit against Rust's producers following the shooting. Halls told the deposition that he had no 'recollection' of saying 'cold gun' adding, 'I have recollections of Hannah saying it.' 'Its just like what they say about an airplane crash. Its like its just not one thing, yknow. It's a system failure.' Heather Brewer, spokeswoman for the Santa Fe district attorney, told Variety, 'We are aware of the apparent contradictions in the testimony. However, we are confident that there is more than enough evidence to demonstrate negligence and to secure justice for Halyna Hutchins.' Gutierrez-Reed has previously told investigators that she gave the gun to Halls not knowing it contained a live round. She said she never said 'cold gun' on set. She told the deposition: 'I don't like the term "cold gun." I know it got thrown around a lot on the set. That was mostly Dave's terminology.' Hutchins was the cinematography director of the film and is shown here on her Instagram page Baldwin has openly defied pulling the trigger, but this contradicted an FBI analysis of the vintage Colt handgun that fired the fatal shot 'If any one of these three people - Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed or David Halls - had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It's that simple,' said Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor appointed by the DA to the case, earlier this month. Baldwin has vowed to fight the charges - and blame for who was responsible for the shooting has already been playing out in the courts. In November, Baldwin filed a lawsuit against Gutierrez Reed, Halls, prop supplier Seth Kenney and prop master Sarah Zachry. He alleges negligence and seeks damages to be determined at trial for the 'immense grief' he endured. His lawsuit stems from a previous suit in which another member of the crew, Mami Mitchell, sued Baldwin and others for emotional distress and negligence for ignoring red flags over firearms safety on set. She will be allowed to pursue damages against Baldwin and his production company El Dorado Pictures. And in a third civil case, Hutchins' widow in October reached an undisclosed settlement in the wrongful death lawsuit filed Baldwin and others. FBI testing uncovered a total of five live rounds of ammunition among the movie's prop weapons, six if you count the bullet that went off, killing Hutchins and wounding writer-director Joel Souza. Producer and actor Baldwin fired the prop gun (pictured) that killed one crew member and injured another on the set of the movie 'Rust' in New Mexico The DA's case will primarily focus on the actions of Baldwin, assistant director Dave Halls, who Baldwin claims handed him the weapon and armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who was responsible for equipping the firearms on the movie Baldwin has openly denied pulling the trigger, but this was contradicted an FBI analysis of the vintage Colt handgun that fired the fatal shot. 'With the hammer at full cock, the revolver could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger while the working internal components were intact and functional,' according to the report. The FBI analysis confirmed there were several other live rounds of .45 calibre ammunition present on the Rust set on the day Hutchins died, some of them on costumes of other actors in the scene. All the bullets were embossed with the 'Starline Brass' logo, a company that supplies materials for homemade bullets. Two loose.45 rounds were collected from the top of a prop cart. A third was in a bandolier worn by one of the performers, and a fourth was found in a brown holster, according to the outlet. Hutchins died on the set of the film 'Rust,' after being shot by a gun being held by Alec Baldwin The 42-year-old cinematographer was killed on October 21, 2021, on set at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Sante Fe during rehearsals of the American Western Film The report didn't indicate which belt belonged to which actor, but a source close to the production told Vanity Fair the bandolier belonged to the character played by Supernatural actor Jensen Ackles, and the holster was Baldwin's. The fifth live round was found in a box of dummy ammunition, fake bullets made to look like the real thing. This container 'is the suspected box Hannah was loading the firearm with,' the report states. 'This box contained 36 suspected dummy rounds, and one suspected live round, which is the cartridge that was tested.' It remains unclear how the bullet got into the container, but the report included a fingerprint testing of the box. 'Hannah is identified as the only person of interest with positive result identification of latent prints on the ammunition box.' A fingerprint analysis of the bullet had not been done, something Gutierrez Reed's attorney, Jason Bowles, questioned. Gutierrez Reed's father, longtime movie armorer Thell Reed, had reached out to investigators to suggest that the live ammunition may have been introduced to the set by prop supplier Seth Kenney. Investigators searched his Albuquerque shop in November 2021 to examine live rounds Thell Reed said the supplier had once used to train actors at a shooting range. 'The chemistry testing revealed all the powder in these cartridges were uniform, however did not match the cartridges collected on the set of Rust,' the report stated. The phones of Gutierrez Reed, Halls, and other figures in the case were examined by detectives, and messages about safety concerns before the shooting were also included in the report. It comes following r epeated bombshell claims about many of his relatives Result of poll says majority of those surveyed think Harry should go Prince Harry should be invited to King Charles' coronation in May, a new survey suggested today. According to the research, 60 per cent of adults think the Duke of Sussex deserves to be invited to come to the Royal ceremony. And just 30 percent of respondents think he should not be given invited to attend. It comes following Harry's repeated bombshell claims about many of his relatives. Harry and Meghan have made a number of claims about the Royal Family According to the research 60 per cent of adults think the Duke of Sussex deserves to be invited to come to the Royal ceremony King Charles, pictured during the Queen's Platinum Party, is said to want a party that celebrates the nation's diverse nature Just as in Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, King Charles III will take part in a lengthy procession after being crowned as King The survey carried out by Ipsos for the Evening Standard showed a disparity of opinion in different age groups on Harry. The poll found a striking age gap on whether he should be at the coronation. Younger respondents aged from 18 to 34 numbered 75 per cent in favour of him being invited Three quarters of 18 to 34-year-olds say the Prince should be invited, with 15 per cent against. In the age group from 35 to 54, 65 per cent supporting Harry to get an invite, while 26 per cent do not. Both King Charles and the Queen Consort will be crowned during the Westminster Abbey ceremony in a break with royal tradition Out with the old! King Charles to shun traditional royal garb King Charles III is set to break with tradition when he attends his coronation in May by opting for his military uniform instead of standard royal dress, it was claimed last night. His Majesty, 74, will reportedly not wear silk stockings and breeches as they 'look too dated' and he wants the ceremony to reflect a 'modern 21st century monarchy'. Charles was said to be 'happy' to wear the same garments as his grandfather and great-grandfather, however senior aides said 'he should not wear them'. The monarch is allegedly expected to arrive in the uniform of the Admiral of the Fleet, which He wore during the State Opening of Parliament last year. He will also wear St Edward's Crown, which was made in 1661 for the coronation of King Charles II. It is made of solid gold and features more than 400 gemstones, including six sapphires, and 12 rubies. It weighs nearly 5lbs (2.23kg). Advertisement The older generation are more finely split with those over 55 having 47 per cent saying he should be invited and 42 per cent saying he should not. Findings in the survey of over 1,001 people show that William is now by far the most popular royal, ahead of his father Charles, his wife Kate and then Harry. Gideon Skinner, of Ipsos UK, said: 'Despite not being as popular as he once was, most Britons still think Harry should be invited to the coronation in May, which suggests some hope for reconciliation.' The King will be anointed and crowned at Westminster Abbey in an ancient ceremony steeped in pageantry in just over three months' time. It will form part of a weekend of celebrations which includes a procession from the Palace, a balcony appearance and a concert at Windsor Castle. The dazzling celebrations are said to reflect Charles' desire to be the 'people's King'. It will also give representatives from the Commonwealth and NHS workers a chance to shine, before members of the public are encouraged to spend time volunteering on the nation's extra Bank Holiday. The three-day extravaganza will give millions of Brits a day off, with tens of thousands expected to line the streets in central London to watch the ceremony - the first of its kind in more than 70 years. It comes as royal insiders claimed last night that Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle are 'unlikely' to appear on the Buckingham Palace balcony, should they attend the event at all following the fallout of the Duke's bombshell memoirs. A 15-year-old boy was found exhausted but safe after falling asleep in a shipping container and waking up six days later 2,000 miles from where he started. The young man found himself stuck in the container during a game of hide and seek with friends in Chittagong, Bangladesh, on 11 January. After falling asleep, he was locked in the container and sailed with the Integra container ship across the Indian Ocean the next day. He was found by Malaysian port staff and police in Port Klang nearly a week later, on 17 January, exhausted, dehydrated and crying for food. The boy, identified only as Fahim, was found with a fever and taken to Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital nearby for treatment, where his condition has since been described as stable. The moment police freed a young boy after he spent five days locked in a shipping container as it crossed the Indian Ocean for nearly 2,000 miles from Bangladesh to Malaysia in January Fahim was discovered after a member of staff heard knocking on one of the containers. The Marine Police Force, local immigration department and health department came to investigate. Fahim was filmed getting out of the crate surrounded by staff and local authorities. In the video, he is clearly dehydrated and confused, and unable to speak the local language. He talks to appear to locals before being placed on a stretcher, scratching, and covered with a blanket. Fahim is then taken to the hospital, where he remains for now. Police in Port Klang, Malaysia, freed the boy after a worker heard a knocking sound while inspecting the container on 17 January Video footage of the moment the boy - named Fahim - was freed shows him blinking at the sunlight and appearing to be exhausted and unsteady Authorities at first feared Fahim was the victim of human trafficking, but soon managed to communicate with the boy, who is making a recovery. Assistant Commissioner of Police Cha Hoong Fong said: 'There was no foul play in the incident.' Minister of Home Affairs Saifuddin Nasution bin Ismail told local media: 'When the vessel arrived at West Port and the container was unloaded, authorities found the boy inside. 'He is the only one found inside the container. A police report has been lodged and the boy, who has a fever, was taken for a medical examination. 'We are now in the process of repatriating him. 'We are not linking this to human trafficking because the initial investigation found that he entered the container, fell asleep, and (was transported to) Malaysia.' Police added that Fahim's case had been passed on to immigration officials so he could be sent back home on the same vessel. He allegedly hit woman, who was eight months pregnant, with car in Bucharest Aboungab, 24, was detained at Cluj International Airport in northern Romania A British man has been arrested as he allegedly tried to flee Romania after he drove into a heavily pregnant woman on a pedestrian crossing and caused her to miscarry in a hit-and-run. Ali Aboungab, 24, was detained at Cluj International Airport in northern Romania in the early hours of this morning after trying to leave the country following the crash. Aboungab allegedly hit a woman, who was eight months pregnant, with his black Mercedes as she walked across a pedestrian crossing in central Bucharest last night. The injured pregnant victim was rushed to St. Pantelimon Hospital in the Romanian capital but medics were not able to save her baby, reports news site Gandul. Aboungab allegedly hit a woman, who was eight months pregnant, with his black Mercedes as she walked across a pedestrian crossing in central Bucharest last night. File photo of Bucharest Aboungab, who is originally from Lebanon, fled the scene in his Mercedes, which has now been found by police officers. Police put out an alert for Aboungab's arrest and border guards at Cluj International Airport detained him as he was going through passport control. Aboungab has been about to board a 6am flight to Luton airport when he was arrested. Earlier, police said they were called to reports of a woman who had been hit by a car in District 3 of Bucharest. 'From the first investigations, it was established that a female person was injured by a car whose driver did not stay at the scene of the accident,' a police officer told the news site. 'The pedestrian was injured, a pregnant, and she was transported to the hospital for medical car.' Officer said that Aboungab had been arrested at the airport and will be driven to a police station where he will be questioned. MailOnline has contact the UK's Foreign Office for comment. JK Rowling magicked up hundreds of thousands of pounds to save more than a hundred female lawyers and their families facing murder in Afghanistan. The Harry Potter author made her huge donation when Britain and America pulled out of Kabul at speed, leaving hundreds of women judges, prosecutors and defence counsel under threat from the Taliban. Along with a million dollars from businessman and philanthropist Lord Michael Hintze, plus large sums from other prominent figures and smaller donations from the public, it meant a total of 508 Afghans could be flown to safety. In a life-or-death cloak and dagger operation the female lawyers and their families had to hide in basements before they were smuggled to airports and flown to freedom. Harry Potter author JK Rowling made her huge donation when Britain and America pulled out of Kabul at speed, leaving hundreds of women judges, prosecutors and defence counsel under threat from the Taliban Pictured: Women and children are made to crouch and wait outside the Taliban controlled check point near the Abbey Gate, before making their way towards the British military controlled entrance of the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 25, 2021 The generosity of Miss Rowling, author of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban among other titles, in the 2021 rescue only emerged on Thursday in a House of Lords debate. Lord David Alton told the chamber how the writer and Lord Hintze 'in a Schindler's list moment' came forward to help when veteran human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy needed money to rescue female lawyers - mainly judges - and their families. Lord Alton said that, thanks to 'spontaneous, generous and very substantial' private funding; 'Some 500 people were evacuated - 103 were women lawyers, all of whom, with their children and husbands, were on Taliban kill lists. 'I have met some of the women judges and know that the noble Lord's intervention, and that of the author JK Rowling, undoubtedly saved many lives.' Baroness Kennedy last night told the Daily Mail she had become close to lawyers in Afghanistan after helping introduce female judges to the country's legal system when the Taliban were overthrown by America, Britain and their allies in 2001. But when US President Joe Biden withdrew his forces from the troubled country in August 2021, and Britain followed, those female lawyers were facing assassination. Baroness Kennedy (pictured) last night told the Daily Mail she had become close to lawyers in Afghanistan after helping introduce female judges to the country's legal system when the Taliban were overthrown by America, Britain and their allies in 2001 Pictured: Mothers along with babies who suffer from malnutrition wait to receive help and check-up at a clinic that run by the World Food Programme in Kabul, Afghanistan on January 26, 2023 Baroness Kennedy, a director of the Institute of Human Rights for the International Bar Assocation, said: 'Two years ago exactly, two women judges in Kabul's supreme court were assassinated - that really terrified all the women judges. 'Then in the August of that year, when there was the military evacuation from Afghanistan, I started receiving desperate phone calls from women judges hiding in their basements. 'Taliban had been released from prison and were making threats and coming after these women, some of whom had jailed them for domestic violence and other crimes. 'It was clear these women were high on the list of those at risk of being killed, but only a handful got on to military planes.' Baroness Kennedy soon discovered chartering a plane to fly out of Afghanistan would cost 650,000 a trip. The 508 people she was ultimately able to help filled three flights, but also needed safe houses and clandestine transport to airports. They then had to be accommodated in Athens - chosen because its president had been a female judge - while they sought asylum worldwide. It meant a total of 4million was needed. The generosity of Miss Rowling, author of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban among other titles, in the 2021 rescue only emerged on Thursday in a House of Lords debate Lord Hintze, a former Goldman Sachs hedge fund tycoon of Australian origin now based in Britain, stumped up 800,000 after Baroness Kennedy told him it was 'a Schindler's list moment'. And Miss Rowling, fabulously wealthy thanks to the success of her books and the resulting films about boy wizard Harry Potter, fast responded to the desperate cries of female judges in Afghanistan. Baroness Kennedy said: 'JK Rowling just said 'I want to help these women'. 'She gave me hundreds of thousands of pounds, a very significant sum, to pay for hostel accommodation and people's living expenses.' Baroness Kennedy said of the 508 rescued, around 60 were now living in Britain. Miss Rowling, 57, has in recent years come under attack for expressing concerns that women's rights are threatened by trans rights. In poverty-stricken Afghanistan, the Taliban has become increasingly hardline since 2021 and have banned women from working for aid agencies and barred girls from going to secondary school and university. Nicola Sturgeon today claimed Sir Keir Starmer would 'bite the hand off' the SNP in order to put himself into No10 after the next general election. The Scottish First Minister dismissed the Labour leader's past declaration that he would strike 'no deals' with the SNP before or after the next election. 'I don't believe Keir Starmer on that,' Ms Sturgeon said, as she rejected his 'ridiculous' stance on forming a potential SNP-Labour pact. The SNP leader also swiped at Sir Keir for being a 'pale imitation' and called on him to 'have a bit more principle' and 'more guts' to challenge the Tories at Westminster. But, responding to Ms Sturgeon's attack, the Labour leader told her to 'roll up her sleeves and concentrate on the health service' amid Scotland's ambulance crisis. Nicola Sturgeon dismissed Sir Keir Starmer's past declaration that he would strike 'no deals' with the SNP before or after the next election Sir Keir, pictured on a visit to Harlow, Essex with Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner today, has ruled out ever doing a deal with the SNP amid Tory warnings of a 'coalition of chaos' Last summer, Sir Keir was forced to rule out ever doing a deal with the SNP after the Tories revived their warnings of a 'coalition of chaos' governing the UK. If the next election results in a hung Parliament - with the Conservatives' currently trailing Labour in the polls - the SNP could be left as kingmakers at Westminster. Sir Keir might then have a choice between trying to govern as a minority Labour administration, or to strike a deal with the SNP - and possibly the Liberal Democrats as well - to prop up a Labour government. Speaking to The News Agents podcast, Ms Sturgeon insisted she would always offer her party's support to topple the Conservatives from power. 'I've always said, if the parliamentary arithmetic lends itself to this, I will always have the SNP vote in a way that locks the Tories out of Downing Street,' she said. 'That's my position and that will continue to be my position.' The Scottish First Minister also dismissed Sir Keir's past claims he would not forge an alliance with her party in order to make himself prime minister. 'Is Keir Starmer in that position going to not take the opportunity to get the Tories out because he won't talk to the SNP? I think that is ridiculous,' she added. 'Of course he needs to talk to the SNP if we were to hold the balance of power. 'I don't believe Keir Starmer on that - I think if we get into this scenario, he will be biting the hand off of the SNP leader to try to work together.' Ms Sturgeon rejected a suggestion it was 'inevitable' Labour would win the next general election, despite Sir Keir's current healthy poll lead over the Tories. She also added to recent criticism of Sir Keir - including from his party's left-wing - for abandoning a series of pledges on which he campaigned to be Labour leader. Suggesting Sir Keir was 'unprincipled', Ms Sturgeon said: 'I don't know how you can go from the Keir Starmer that I and the SNP worked with over Brexit... to be somebody who won't even countenance the possibility of going back into the single market and say you've got principles.' She added: 'If I was in Labour, I'd really worry. Why would people vote for the pale imitation? 'He needs to have a bit more principle, a bit more difference and actually a bit more guts to take on the Tories and to take on the right-wing media.' Sir Keir hit back at Ms Sturgeon when asked about her comments and told the SNP leader to focus on her domestic struggles. 'Can I gently suggest to Nicola Sturgeon that she might want to roll up her sleeves and concentrate on the health service in Scotland,' the Labour leader told LBC Radio. 'There's been an ambulance crisis in Scotland for a very long time... the education system is on its knees. 'So I think Nicola Sturgeon may want to spend a bit of time fixing some of the problems that are actually under her control in Scotland.' A 93-year-old woman was flung into the air and killed by a hit-and-run driver in broad daylight in crime-ridden Chicago on Thursday. The victim, who has not been identified, left behind a single silver snowboot on the side of the road after she was struck by a silver Porsche at around 12.20 in the city's Austin neighborhood. Local residents were left horrified by the collision as a neighbor and friend of the victim told Fox32 she was 'scared of crossing the street'. Chicago cops are hunting the owner of a silver Porsche who mowed down a 93-year-old in broad daylight on Thursday The victim's single silver snowboot was left at the scene of the fatal hit and run It comes as crime continues to surge in Chicago, with reports of lawbreaking increasing by 12 percent in 2022. The incident happened 300 block of South Laramie Avenue. After being hit by the vehicle, the victim was taken to the nearby Mount Sinai Hospital where she later died. Detectives were seen removing evidence from the scene, including the sole boot as well as car parts from the Porsche. The Chicago Police Department said on Friday they were still looking for the suspect and an investigation was ongoing. Neighbor Thelma Ramsey revealed she knew the elderly victim well. 'We met four years ago. She was my neighbor and friend," Ramsey told Fox32. 'I just talked to her last week. We were talking about going to work. She had a part-time job.' Neighbor Thelma Ramsey tells journalists the victim was a 'friend', adding drivers frequently sped down the road She added that drivers often sped down Laramie Avenue, ignoring the road's stop signs. 'Its scary. Im scared crossing the street, so I just stand and wait. Its bad,' Ramsey said. Authorities added that the Porsche did not stop to provide information and fled the scene. The Porsche displayed the license plate: CZ60617. Cops recovered other debris at the scene including car parts from the Porsche Investigations are ongoing as cops hunt the suspect involved Images of the vehicle's license plate has been released by cops 'On Thursday, January 26, 2023, at approximately 12:23 p.m., a 2008 silver Porsche Cayenne, traveled northbound in the 300 block of South Laramie Ave,' read a statement from the force. 'At the same time, a 93 year-old pedestrian was crossing Laramie Ave. eastbound at Gladys Ave. 'Another vehicle yielded to the victim as she crossed the street. 'The Porsche then failed to stop at the stop sign at W. Gladys Ave., drove into the bike lane and around the vehicle that had stopped for the pedestrian in the crosswalk. 'The Porsche struck the pedestrian, throwing her into the air.' Chicago has been suffering from a rampant crime wave in recent years, recording 732 murders and more than 2,800 shootings in 2022. Overall crime leapt by 12 percent between 2021 and 2022. The issue has become a sticking point in the city's upcoming mayoral elections on Feb 28. Current mayor Lori Lightfoot has come under fire for not getting a tighter grip on the crisis, with homicides hitting a 25-year high under her watch. A man is facing life behind bars after he battered his elderly father to death with a bottle of Bollinger in a drunken rage. Deekan Singh Vig was found guilty of murdering father Arjan Singh, 86, at the family home in Southgate, north London, on October 30, 2021 after he had consumed half a bottle of whisky. The Old Bailey previously heard that officers found Mr Vig on the floor of his son's bedroom with his 'head caved in' as his son stood over him naked and surrounded by around 100 bottles of Champagne, including blood stained bottles of Veuve Cliquot and Bollinger. Deekan Vig, 54, (pictured) beat his father to death with a bottle of Bollinger champagne Prosecutor Deanna Heer, KC, previously told the court the victim had been hit repeatedly in the head and face with a full bottle of Champagne, which caused extensive injuries and almost immediate death. Vig had lived with his father and mother, 85-year-old Damanjit Vig, in their four-bedroom detached home for around 40. His younger sister, Rippan Vig, lived with her partner. The family moved to the UK from Uganda when Vig was five years old. Mr Vig was a qualified accountant and his mother, a zoologist, worked as a teacher. Vig helped his father to run the family business. The court had heard that Vig began drinking alcohol during lockdown. On the evening of Mr Vig's death, Vig's parents were at home when they heard vomiting noises coming from his room. He told her he had consumed half a bottle of whisky. He later admitted to police that he had drunk 500mls of Whisky. The court was told that the last thing Mrs Vig saw was her husband comforting their son. Giving evidence, Vig told the court a fight erupted after his father returned home from an afternoon at a Sikh temple and discovered his son's secret booze stash. The clash ended up with Mr Vig using his feet to 'pummel' the defendant's chest, leaving him 'struggling to breathe'. (Stock Image) Vig initially denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the second day of his trail at The Old Bailey The incident took place at the family home in Chelmsford Road, Southgate (pictured) She then called her daughter and 999 because Vig appeared to be 'out of control' and 'drunk'. When police arrived, an officer tried to push open the defendant's bedroom door and, when looing through the gap, saw Mr Vig's head covered in blood. Vig told officers he could not open the door and said: 'You're too late. He's been dead for an hour.' When officers entered the bedroom, they found that Mr Vig's head had been 'severely caved in' and it was cleared that he was deceased. Vig, who was naked with blood on his hands, feet and legs, was Tasered and detained in handcuffs after becoming verbally abusive and aggressive. The court heard that he later wept, saying: 'My dad is dead. I killed my dad. I hit him over the head with a f***ing bloody bottle of Bollinger champagne. Why did I kill my dad? 'Oh s**t. I killed my dad. He could have just died from a heart attack. I f***ing hit him with a bottle of f***ing Champagne... I hate French Champagne'. Officers found 100 bottles of Champagne, 10 Amazon delivery boxes of whisky bottles and an empty bottle of Talisker Scotch on the bed. Next to Mr Vig's body were two bottles - one of Veuve Cliquot Champagne and the other Bollinger - each with a 'significant amount' of blood on them. A post-mortem examination identified injuries which were 'entirely consistent with an assault with a full Champagne bottle' Ms Heer told the court. Vig initially denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the second day of his trial on the basis that he did not intend to cause his father really serious harm. He also said he had autism and claimed that his father had attacked him. A jury deliberated for less than a day before finding him guilty of murder on Friday. Judge Angela Rafferty adjourned sentencing until February 10. Vig was remanded into custody until that time. The two heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee want access to the classified documents uncovered at Mar-a-Lago and at President Joe Biden's Wilmington home to make their own assessment of any security risks. The senators, Democratic Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia and Republican Vice Chair Marco Rubio, are pushing Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to provide the information as the Justice Department withholds information on the substance of the documents pending its investigation. Warner told CBS in a joint interview that the status quo 'cannot stand.' He said they had no timeline on when they may get access to the document. 'Our job is not to figure out if somebody mishandled those,' said Warner, who gets briefed on the nation's most closely held secrets. 'Our job is to make sure there's not an intelligence compromise.' He spoke after Haines briefed lawmakers on the situation. It all comes after the National Archives is considering requiring all living former presidents and vice presidents to conduct a search for government material. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is demanding the DNI brief Senate Intelligence Committee members on the contents of classified documents uncovered at former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home as well as Joe Biden's home and office 'And while the director of national intelligence had been willing to brief us earlier, now that you've got the special counsel, the notion that we're going to be left in limbo and we can't do our job that just cannot stand,' he added, speaking to CBS 'Face the Nation' in an interview set to air Sunday. Rubio made a similar pitch. Their panel maintains oversight over the intelligence community. 'These are probably materials we already have access to,' he observed. 'We just don't know which ones they are. And it's not being nosy. You know, here's the bottom line: If, in fact, those documents were very sensitive materials, were sensitive, and they pose a counterintelligence or national security threat, then the intelligence agencies are tasked with the job of coming up with ways to mitigate that.' 'These are probably materials we already have access to,' said Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio The two leaders of the Senate Intel panel want access to the information to assess any security risk There have been limited details through leaks about what is included in the documents that have been uncovered over a period of months. Among the hundreds of documents marked 'classified' uncovered during an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago are former President Donald Trump's 'love letters' with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and the letter former President Obama left inside the Resolute Desk on Trump's first day in office. Documents uncovered at Biden's Penn Biden center office include material from his time as vice president and as a U.S. senator. DOJ has had the Trump documents for six months, Warner noted, with the Biden documents about half that time. Documents uncovered in former Vice President Mike Pence's Indiana home reportedly include briefing materials for foreign trips he took as VP. Their push comes after a series of lawmakers, including Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, have begun criticizing Biden for having material marked classified inside his Wilmington garage and former D.C. office. The DNI's office will have to weigh the potential for leaks from Capitol Hill in the highly charged investigations, as well as whether sharing the content of the information could interfere with separate probes being conducted by Special Counsels Jack Smith and Robert Hur into Trump and Biden, respectively. The DNI's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A San Francisco court has released the shocking police bodycam footage showing the moment Paul Pelosi was violently assaulted with a hammer in his home in October. Paul, the husband of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was asleep at their San Francisco home just before 2:00am on October 28 when 42-year-old David DePape broke in and beat him with a hammer, prosecutors allege. The video shows two police officers arriving at the Pelosi's home, knocking on the door and waiting around 20 seconds before it is answered. Paul, in a pajama top and boxer shorts, answers the door as he and DePape both vie for control of a hammer. They each have a hand on the weapon while Paul has a drink in his left hand. The video was released alongside Paul's 911 call and the release of surveillance video showing the suspect outside of the family's home. Paul Pelosi appears to answer the door in boxer shorts and a pajama top while David DePape stands behind him The pair both appear to be holding on to a hammer, vying for control of it An officer asks, 'What's going on man?' DePape replies, 'Everything's good.' The officer says, 'Drop the hammer.' The suspect tells them, 'Ummm... nope.' Then, Paul attempts to twist the hammer out of DePape's hand, but the suspect regains control of the weapon and begins to strike multiple times. The two police officers rush in and tackle DePape, shouting, 'Give me your f*****g hands.' They restrain the attacker as Paul lies collapsed and prone on the floor with liquid and ice on the ground around the two men. Officials later said Paul Pelosi woke up in a pool of his own blood. The indictment in the case said that blood was 'swelling' out of the victim's head and that Paul required surgery on a skull fracture in two places and was treated for serious injuries to his right arm and hands. Paul makes an attempt to twist the hammer out of DePape's hand but loses control DePape is able to overpower the 82-year-old before attacking Pelosi The moment when DePape begins to strike Paul Pelosi Paul Pelosi is hit multiple times with the hammer leaving him unconscious as the officers rush in and arrest DePape The 911 call, which was also released Friday, reveals Paul telling an emergency dispatcher that someone came into his home. Paul is heard trying to alert the dispatcher to who he is and the danger he's in as he says, 'There's a gentleman here just waiting for my wife to come back, Nancy Pelosi.' When the dispatcher asks who the man is, DePape says, 'I'm a friend of theirs.' The over two minute long 911 call comes to an end as Paul tells the dispatcher the suspect had told him to get off the phone. The 911 dispatcher was identified as Heather Grives at the time of DePape's arrest by San Francisco Police Chief William Scott. She is a dispatch supervisor with more than 23 years experience in the city's Department of Emergency Management. The call came during a 16 hours shift for Grives. The department's director Mary Ellen Carroll tweeted following the incident that '[Grives] utilized her training, experience and intuition to save a life.' Following the arrest, officers called in a Code 3 meaning that the situation was a medical emergency requiring immediate response. DePape was asked in an interview with detectives about why he didn't leave when he knew Paul had called 911. He responded by saying, 'It's like the founding fathers. They fought the British. They fought the tyranny; they didn't just f*****g turn into it.' He continued, 'And when I left my house, I went to fight tyranny, I did not leave to surrender. I'm not going to surrender. I'm here for the fight.' A screenshot of Capitol Police security footage shows David DePape outside the Pelosi home Released footage from Capitol Police surveillance cameras that had been set up showed that DePape lurked outside the home for around four minutes. The recordings were not watched by officers in real time. The video shows DePape walk up to a glass-panel door, leave and then return wearing a large backpack and carrying two other bags. He set all the items down and pulled out a hammer, pausing to put on gloves, and used it to smash the door glass so he could step through an opening. Speaking with detectives later, DePape said he injured his hand in breaking the glass. David DePape has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges stemming from the October assault In response to the release, DePape's lawyer, public defender Adam Lipson, said it was a 'terrible mistake.' He said in a statement, 'Releasing this footage is disrespectful to Mr. Pelosi, and serves no purpose except to feed the public desire for spectacle and violence.' Lipson continued: 'The footage is inflammatory and could feed unfounded theories about this case, and we are extremely concerned about Mr. DePape's ability to get a fair trial.' DePape told detectives he planned to 'interrogate' the former speaker and to break her knee caps if he felt he was being lied to. He also believed that Nancy Pelosi was the 'leader of the pack of lies' told by the Democratic Party and his actions were to 'show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions.' DePape, center, records Gypsy Taub being led away by police after her nude wedding outside San Francisco's City Hall DePape also said that he wasn't trying to get away with his actions. He went on to accuse the Democratic Party of being on a 'crime spree' in an attempt to undermine Donald Trump's presidency which resulted in the 'stolen election' of 2020. DePape described his first interaction with Paul Pelosi saying: 'He was asking me, 'So what do you want to do?' I was like, 'Can I just tie you up? I just want to go to f*****g sleep.'' The release comes following Judge Stephen M. Murphy's order on Wednesday which ruled that there was no legal reason to keep the footage private, against prosecutors wishes. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill following the release of the video, Pelosi said that she had not intention of viewing the footage or listening to the 911 call. The day before the release, the California Democrat said, 'I mean, it would be a very hard thing to see an assault on my husband's life.' Although she still said that she 'respected' the system. Rep. Nancy Pelosi pictured on Friday, she told reporters that she has no intention of watching the video of the attack on her husband Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Pelosi said that she would find if 'very difficult' to watch the footage of the attack Aerial footage showed broken panes and shattered glass at the backdoor of Pelosi's home Media requests for access to the material had been denied by the district attorney's office thus adding to the wealth of conspiracy theories and false information spread about the attack in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. Reporters were able to pick up copies of the video and audio at the clerks at the Hall of Justice alongside a criminal records request form and a payment of $25. The video and audio has already been played in open court during a preliminary hearing against DePape in December. In that hearing, prosecutors played portions of Paul Pelosi's 911 call plus footage from Capitol police surveillance cameras, body cameras worn by the two police officers who arrived at the house, and video from DePape's interview with police. San Francisco-based attorney Thomas Burke disagreed with the earlier decisions not to release the video and audio. He told the Associated Press, 'You don't eliminate the public right of access just because of concerns about conspiracy theories.' When asked about her husband's prognosis on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi told reporters: 'It's one day at a time. He's made some progress but it will be three more months, I think, before he's back to normal.' FBI agents work outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband Paul Pelosi was 'violently assaulted' after a break-in at their house. Pictured October 28, 2022 A view of the home of Nancy and Paul Pelosi in San Francisco following October's attack Last week, the couple's daughter, Alexandra revealed in an interview that her mother held exorcisms at the family's home over Thanksgiving in the wake of the attack in an attempt to rid the home of evil spirits. DePape pleaded not guilty last month to six charges, including attempted murder. Police have said DePape told them there was 'evil in Washington' and he wanted to harm Nancy Pelosi because she was second in line to the presidency. His case is pending. Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives after the midterm elections. Republicans elected California Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker. Pelosi will remain in Congress, but she stepped down as Democratic leader. She was replaced by Hakeem Jeffries from New York. In a Nov. 17 interview with reporters after she announced she would not seek re-election to a Democratic leadership position, Pelosi described the severity of her husband's wounds and the 'traumatic effect' of the intrusion. 'If he had fallen or slipped on the ice in an accident and hit his head, it would be horrible. But to have it be an assault on him because they were looking for me is really - call it survivor's guilt or something. But the traumatic effect on him, this happened in our house, in our home, a crime scene,' Pelosi said. Seen for the first time since his former tenant was arrested for the murder of Microsoft Executive Jared Bridegan, 33, Mario Fernandez today broke cover but refused to comment on the biggest break in the high-profile case to date. Exclusive pictures obtained by DailyMail.com show Fernandez casually dressed in maroon shorts and muscle shirt in front of his brother Guillermo's, home in Orlando, Florida. Back inside after a brief and bizarre few moments during which he crouched close to the ground and shaved with an electric razor, Fernandez, 33, would not come to the door. Instead he remained in the background to hear DailyMail.com's repeated questions for a response to the news that Henry Tenon, 61, has been charged on four counts in relation to Bridegan's callous killing on February, 16, 2022. Tenon has been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to a capital felony and felony child abuse with State's Attorney Melissa Nelson stating categorically that authorities know he did not act alone. DailyMail.com spotted Mario Fernandez looking casual and shaving Friday in the front yard of his brother's home in Orlando, Florida But he made it clear he wasn't interested in talking about the arrest of his tenant Henry Tenon, 61, for the murder of Jared Bridegan, his estranged wife Shanna 's ex husband Mario is now living apart from Shanna who has moved across country to Washington State Exclusive pictures obtained by DailyMail.com show Fernandez casually dressed in maroon shorts and muscle shirt On Friday, Fernandez's brother shielded him from questions. Fernandez is understood to have split from Bridegan's ex-wife Shanna, 34, in the months since the targeted murder. Mario Fernandez does not have a criminal record, but a police report obtained by DailyMail.com and filed shortly after he and Shanna married shows that he was the subject of an investigation into animal cruelty resulting in death. Mario does not have a criminal record, but a police report obtained by DailyMail.com and filed shortly after he and Shanna married shows that he was the subject of an investigation into animal cruelty resulting in death. A source who spoke to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity explained that Fernandez was accused of shooting and killing a cat with a BB gun. According to the report the cats owner took it to the vet where pellets were found in its leg and abdomen. The source also said that people in the Jacksonville Beach neighborhood where he and Shanna lived, were scared of Fernandez. They said, Mario was always having run-ins with people who fed local strays. He was always threatening to kill the cats and he had a BB gun with a scope that he said he would use on them. The Jacksonville Beach Police Department officer who wrote the report and spoke with Fernandez at length noted, He stated that he was upset because there were people feeding stray cats. he said he had cats in his backyard, and it was making his dog bark in the middle of the night. Fernandez also said he tried putting pepper on the fence as well as shooting the cats with a BB gun. Fernandez is understood to have split from Bridegan's ex-wife Shanna, 34, in the months since the targeted murder Shanna has now moved across country to West Richland, Washington, while her second husband Mario remains in Florida Shanna is now living in this house in Washington state since moving across country with the two children she had with Jared When the officer told him that would be considered animal cruelty and that he could be prosecuted, Fernandez stated, that if it did not get better soon, he would take more extreme actions. The officer noted that Fernandez seemed very aggravated during the conversation. No action was ultimately taken as police attempts to follow up with him were unsuccessful. According to the report the cats owner took it to the vet where BB gun pellets were found in its leg and abdomen. Henry Tenon, 61, is charged with murder in the death of Jared Bridegan, 33 The source also said that people in the Jacksonville Beach neighborhood where he and Shanna lived, were scared of Fernandez. They said, Mario was always having run-ins with people who fed local strays. He was always threatening to kill them [the cats] and he had a BB gun with a scope that he said he would use on them. The Jacksonville Beach Police Department officer who wrote the report and spoke with Fernandez at length noted, He stated that he was upset because there were people feeding stray cats. he said he had cats in his backyard, and it was making his dog bark in the middle of the night. Fernandez also said he tried putting pepper on the fence as well as shooting the cats with a BB gun. When the officer told him that would be considered animal cruelty and that he could be prosecuted, Fernandez stated, that if it did not get better soon, he would take more extreme actions. The officer noted that Fernandez seemed very aggravated during the conversation. No action was ultimately taken as police attempts to follow up with him were unsuccessful. While Fernandez has remained in Florida his estranged wife, mother of Bridegan's two oldest children, has moved to Washington State. She has not commented on the news of Tenon's arrest or rumors of her split from Fernandez but DailyMail.com has learned that they have been living separately since September. The following month she put their marital home in Jacksonville Beach just minutes from where Bridegan was killed up for sale. She took the property off the market in January. Bridegan was killed on February 16, 2022, while driving from Jacksonville Beach, Florida, to his home in St. Augustine, after dropping off his 10-year-old twins with their mother Kirsten told DailyMail.com on Thursday that she has a message for anyone involved in her husband's killing: 'Enjoy your freedom while you can' The Microsoft executive was found 2.2miles from Shanna's home after dropping off the kids on February 16 Bridegan was shot at point blank range as he took his usual route back to Saint Augustine and his wife Kirsten who was at home with their six-month old daughter, London. He had just dropped his ten-year-old twins Abbie and Liam back at his ex's house after a 'date night,' part of their contentious custody agreement following their divorce in 2016. The agreement stated that each had one week on, one week off parenting and on the alternate weeks the parent who did not have custody had a regular Wednesday 'date night' with the kids. A tire was left in the middle of a narrow section of road in the quiet residential enclave of the Sanctuary forcing Bridegan to exit his Volkswagen Atlas to move it. His then two-year old daughter Bexley his first child with Kirsten - was strapped in the vehicle when her father was ambushed and murdered. Thursday, Kirsten, 31, spoke to DailyMail.com alongside her brother-in-law Adam Bridegan, 36, as they digest the most significant development yet in the investigation into Jared's murder. Kirsten had a message to anyone who was involved in her husband Jared's brutal killing and still at large 'Enjoy your freedom while you can.' She said, 'We were fortunate, we were informed a bit ahead of time that they had arrested someone. It's hard to describe [that moment]. Your stomach just drops. You have a whole bunch of questions. How did you find this person? What do they look like?' Kirsten asked to see a picture of Tenon a man of whom she had never heard before police gave a press conference to announce the news yesterday. The revelation that he had a connection to Fernandez is information that she and the rest of Bridegan's family are still processing. She said, 'It's sickening because we do know Mario and so the fact that Henry is connected to him. It's pretty sickening.' Kirsten has always been certain that whoever shot her husband lured to get out of his car in a quiet stretch of road by a tire left there as a trap was not acting alone. On Wednesday, State Attorney Melissa Nelson doubled down on that with the assertion that authorities know Tenon was not a sole actor but a co-conspirator with another person or persons. GMA hosts are now in mediation talks with the network as they fight to save their jobs but a source says no decision has been reached ABC bosses initially kept them on air and said they had done 'nothing wrong' DailyMail.com revealed that TJ Holmes and Amy Robach had been secretly dating for months TJ Holmes and Amy Robach are still in discussion with ABC bosses about their future - three months after DailyMail.com revealed their illicit off-screen affair. The TV anchors are still to reach an agreement with the network over their roles at Good Morning America and potential payouts if they were cut loose. 'A decision over their future has not yet been reached, sources told DailyMail.com The hosts are accused of having an affair by their respective partners, with Holmes officially filing for divorce in January. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes are still in discussion with ABC reps over their future at Good Morning America Holmes officially filed for divorce from his wife in January, with news breaking as he was enjoying time with his new squeeze Robach (pictured together in Miami) Robach, 49, and Holmes, 45, have been accused by bosses of not handling their romance appropriately and waiting too long to disclose it to executives. Sources say the network felt that their 'behavior on set' was 'uncomfortable' for ABC staff. After the affair was made public by DailyMail.com, ABC initially backed their two stars saying that they had not broken any rules. ABC has refrained from giving a public update on the decisions around the future of the hosts with their replacement continuing to say that they were 'filling in'. The co-anchors were suspended from the show after initially weathering the storm, after exclusive DailyMail.com photos showed them getting cozy in November 2022. Initially they returned to the air on December 1, just a day after the scandal broke, and appeared to make subtle quips about their situation. Robach, 49, and Holmes, 45, are accused of having an affair by their respective partners, with Holmes officially filing for divorce in January. The tried to keep a low profile on January 24 At first Robach and Holmes seemed determined to brazen it out with TJ sparking disbelief when he appeared alongside Robach and made light of the scandal after their relationship became public Four days later president of ABC Kim Godwin announced that they would not appear on air because their relationship was a 'internal and external distraction.' Robach and Holmes were last seen together at a New York City pub on Monday, appearing to try to keep their relationship under wraps. The two met up for drinks at The Full Shilling bar on Pearl Street, not too far from Holmes's Financial District apartment where Amy has been spending a lot of time in recent weeks, exclusive DailyMail.com photos show. They arrived separately and once inside opted for the bar's very cozy and private seating area, also known as a 'snug' - a small enclosed room typically found at traditional old Irish pubs where patrons could drink discreetly. ABC has refrained from giving a public update on the decisions around the future of the hosts with their replacement continuing to say that they were 'filling in' Sources say that the network felt that their 'behavior on set' was 'uncomfortable' for ABC staff who witnessed it Both Holmes and Robach have been married to their respective spouses since 2010. It is not known when or how Holmes's wife, 44-year-old attorney, Marilee Fiebig, (pictured together in 2012) and Robach's husband, former Melrose Place actor Andrew Shue, 55, (pictured right in March 2022) learned of the romance, but both couples are said to have split up in August this year DailyMail.com revealed Holmes and Robach's friendly relationship on air has evolved into a full blown secret romance off-screen, in recent months. The two are pictured having flirty post-filming drinks at a New York City bar on Thursday November 10 The couple was seen having a relaxing break over Christmas together, and were pictured by DailyMail.com kissing as they went for lunch in Miami, Florida. They had tried to keep their distance in the immediate aftermath of the story breaking, as sources questioned whether the relationship could survive the onslaught of attention. After DailyMail.com revealed that both the married co-anchors were having an affair, both Holmes' and Robach's 12-year marriages were left in tatters with both couples splitting after learning of the illicit romance. Robach shares daughters Ava, 19, and Analise, 16, with ex-husband Tim McIntosh. The duo also divorced in 2008. Just days before Christmas, they were seen enjoying a low-key lunch at the Capital Grill near Holmes's apartment in the Financial District. Good Morning America co-hosts T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach spent a weekend shacked up in a cozy cottage in the Shawangunk Mountain region, checking out of their rental on Sunday November 13. Holmes was seen giving his lover a playful squeeze from behind as she packed up the car The secret lovers did not spend Thanksgiving together, but wasted no time reuniting, when they were snapped traveling back and forth between each other's apartments in Manhattan on November 28 At first Robach and Holmes seemed determined to brazen it out with TJ sparking disbelief when he appeared alongside Robach and made light of the scandal after their relationship became public. Then, speaking on Friday December 2, he joked that it had been 'a great week' and that he wished it would 'just keep going.' Their next move was to claim that they were 'openly dating' and speak about 'growing their relationship.' When Holmes was first approached for comment by DailyMail.com, his knee-jerk reaction was a career-saving attempt to 'adamantly deny' the relationship existed at all. Sources later told DailyMail.com that while the two have accepted the fate of their marriages, they don't want to 'jeopardize their futures with the network any more than they already have.' Woke teachers union boss Randi Weingarten has been blasted for re-tweeting a post saying 'most parents don't like culture wars' - despite spearheading divisive school policies across the nation. Weingarten's policies, including pushing critical race theory in classrooms and enforcing strict pandemic rules, have sparked fury among many parents in recent years. Her claim that parents are uninterested in 'culture wars' debates was seen by many as an attempt to dismiss concerns raised by parents over her politicized stances. President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, pictured, has come under fire for politicizing classroom policies in recent years The teachers union chief sparked fury this week by claiming 'most parents don't like school culture wars' The union chief caught the ire of parents and activists this week after she tweeted a TIME article with the headline: 'Poll: Most Parents Don't Like School Culture Wars'. The poll referenced in the article was from Democratic pollsters Hart Research Associates, which found just one in five respondents felt that teachers promote wokeness in classrooms. The article also referenced findings that two thirds of parents see the 'culture wars' as a distraction from education. However, Weingarten's use of the poll angered many, who feel her draconian Covid-19 policies, such as support for mandatory vaccination and rampant school closures, were far more of a distraction to education than culture debates. 'Then stop politicizing education,' education activist Corey DeAngelis said. 'Parents don't like how you fought to keep schools closed.' Non-profit organization Americans for Public Trust said: 'Most parents don't like that you wrote @CDC's guidance that kept schools closed. 'Perhaps you should sit this one out'. Parents rights campaigner Nicki Neily also replied: 'Reality: Most Parents Don't Like Teachers Unions Locking Their Kids Out of School.' Weingarten earns more than $530,000 a year in her role, eight times the average salary of the 1.7 million pre-K through 12th grade teachers she leads Education activist Corey DeAngelis and Mom's for Liberty founder Tiffany Justice were among those who have criticised Weingarten, with Justice branding her an arsonist that pretends to be a firefighter' Education activist Corey DeAngelis slammed the union boss for 'politicizing education' in recent years Weingarten was appointed to her eighth term as president of the American Federation of Teachers last year. She earns more than $530,000 a year in her role, eight times the average salary of the 1.7 million pre-K through 12th grade teachers she leads. Weingarten has come under fire for supporting numerous policies in public schools that have angered parents, including strict enforcement of masking in schools. She even demanded in 2022 that mask policies should only be lifted when there is 'no transmission in schools' whatsoever. The union boss pushed back on re-opening schools post pandemic, while many disagreed with her union's support of Critical Race Theory in classroom curriculums. She also blamed politicians for turning America's teachers into 'social justice warriors' during a town hall with President Biden's Education Secretary last year. 'Very few teachers thought that they were going into teaching to be social justice warriors,' she said. Weingarten then insisted that many teachers 'can't teach' certain topics while acting as 'masks police' in classrooms. Numerous parents and education activists criticized Weingarten's tweet, with Americans for Public Trust telling her to 'sit this one out' Connor Boyack, president of libertarian think-tank Libertas, responded to her inflammatory tweet this week by noting the rapid rise in homeschooling in America In a podcast appearance with radio host Rick Smith in April, Weingarten again came under fire after commenting on GOP policies on CRT and gender-identity issues. 'This is propaganda, this is misinformation. This is the way in which wars start', she said. 'Were not indoctrinating. Were not grooming What were doing is making sure we educate kids. 'We keep them safe. We keep them welcome. And we teach them how to think, not what to think.' Connor Boyack, president of libertarian think-tank Libertas, responded to Weingarten's inflammatory tweet this week by blaming her for the rapid rise in homeschooling in America. 'Perhaps this is why 60 percent of American parents want alternatives to public school now', he said. 'Could also be a reason why homeschooling has tripled in America.' Mom's for Liberty, a national education advocacy group, also responded by saying: 'You started this Randi and now we are going to end it'. Speaking to DailyMail.com last year, the group's founder Tiffany Justice described the teacher's union leader as 'an arsonist that pretends to be a firefighter'. 'Over and over she will say it's political activists who are causing teachers to want to leave. That's just nonsense. It's the iron claw of woke projection driven by the unions. 'The truth of the matter is that teachers' unions have controlled the schools and the school boards for a very long time, and they can't admit that they're the ones on whose shoulders educational failure falls.' A man has been crushed to death by a hydraulic urinal while working on the device in London's West End this afternoon. Emergency services tried to save the man, who has not been named, but he died at the scene at Cambridge Circus on the junction between Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road - outside the Palace Theatre, where the Harry Potter play is being shown. The victim was performing maintenance on the pop-up urinal which rises from the pavement for those out in London at night. The theatre is uncertain whether tonight's performance of the stage show at 7pm will take place, a spokesman said, adding: 'It is an ongoing situation. We will try and give as much notice as possible.' A man has been killed after being 'trapped' and 'crushed' by a 'telescopic' public urinal in Cambridge Circus in central London Telescopic urinals are pop-up facilities that rise up from the pavement for those out in London at night Four fire engines, 25 firefighters and multiple ambulances attended the scene. A police tent has been put up at the scene Ambulance crews, an air ambulance and firefighters were dispatched at 1.05pm and police were called five minutes later. The man was freed earlier on Friday but was pronounced dead soon after. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'We're sorry to have to update that, despite the efforts of emergency services, the man who was critically injured in Cambridge Circus was pronounced dead at the scene. 'His next of kin have been informed. Cordons remain in place at the location. 'Police were called at around 1.10pm on Friday January 27, to a seriously injured man at Cambridge Circus, W1. 'The man is thought to have sustained crush injuries while working on a telescopic urinal at the location.' A crane was brought to the scene in an attempt by rescuers to lift the entire device out of the ground The incident has taken place near The Palace Theatre, which is where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is performed A London Ambulance Service spokesman said: 'We were called today at 1.05pm to reports of an incident on Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross. 'We sent a number of resources to the scene, including an ambulance crew, members of our hazardous area response team, members of our tactical response unit and a medic in a fast response car. 'We also dispatched London's Air Ambulance. 'Sadly, despite the best efforts of our crews, a man was pronounced dead at the scene.' A London Fire Brigade spokesman said: 'Firefighters were called to a person trapped on Charing Cross Road in central London. Firefighters tirelessly attempted to rescue the man, who was trapped under the device An air ambulance was seen landing in Trafalgar Square while a large number of ambulances and fire engines attended the scene London Ambulance Service dispatched an Air Ambulance A crane was brought to the scene in an attempt by rescuers to lift the entire device out of the ground 'A man was trapped below street level underneath a hydraulic urinal. 'Firefighters worked with partner agencies and used a winch to free him. 'He was left in the care of London Ambulance Service and was sadly pronounced dead at the scene. 'The brigade was called at 1.05pm and the incident was over by 3.41pm. Four fire engines and around 25 firefighters from Soho, Euston and Dowgate fire stations were at the scene.' An air ambulance was seen landing in Trafalgar Square while a large number of ambulances and fire engines attended the scene. A crane was brought to the scene in an attempt by rescuers to lift the entire device out of the ground. Hydraulic, pop-up urinals were brought into use by Westminster City Council about 20 years ago in an attempt to discourage street urination. Top Republicans have swatted away the idea of abolishing the IRS and replacing federal income tax with a national sales tax. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill this week he would not get behind the Fair Tax Act, a bill proposed by some in his caucus that would impose up to a 30 percent tax on all sales. When pressed if he would bring the bill up for a floor vote, McCarthy said it 'would have to go through committee.' A vote on the bill was reportedly promised as part of the deal to get McCarthy the Speaker's gavel. The bill, introduced by Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., has so far amassed 30 co-sponsors. It would eliminate all income taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes in favor of the one flat tax that would render the IRS obsolete. The bill, introduced by Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., has so far amassed 30 co-sponsors. It would eliminate all income taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes and gift taxes in favor of the one flat tax that would render the IRS obsolete But Majority Leader Steve Scalise is not on board either - instead he told The Hill he backs making permanent the tax cuts from President Trump's 2017 bill. 'We made the code more simplified and got rid of a lot of loopholes, and so I want to see us continue focusing on the fairness and simplicity of a tax code,' Scalise argued. He also seemed to cast doubt on whether the bill would make it to the House floor. 'Any member can file a bill,' Scalise said. 'That doesn't mean the bill is going to pass the committee or pass the floor.' 'That's why we went back to regular order,' he added. 'We got rid of a lot of the [former Speaker Nancy] Pelosi [(D-Calif.)] rules, where a bill is written in the Speaker's office and dumped on everybody. You know, take it or leave it. That's not how we're doing business.' Proponents of a consumption tax argue that the system allows Americans to choose how much they pay in taxes by choosing how much they spend - thus incentivizing savings and investment. The bill came on the heels of a vote to claw back $72billion of some $80billion in additional funding Democrats gave to the IRS last Congress, much of which is slated to hire 87,000 new IRS agents. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters they are not behind the Fair Tax Act The IRS's fiscal year 2022 budget request was a mere $13billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the GOP-approved bill would add around $114billion to the deficit. 'This transforms the US tax code from a mandatory, progressive, and convoluted system to a fully transparent and unbiased system which does away with the IRS as we know it. It is good for our economy because it encourages work, savings, and investment,' said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., a co-sponsor of the legislation, in a statement. Filing taxes in the US is far more costly and time-consuming than in other advanced economies - Americans spend 2.6billion hours and $209billion per year doing so, according to a 2022 estimate from the American Action Forum. Larry Kudlow, the former Director of Donald Trump's National Economic Council, called the plan a 'lousy idea' when he interviewed McCarthy this week. During a recent speech, Biden mocked the idea: 'National sales tax, that's a great idea...go home and tell your moms, they're going to be really excited about that.' Grover Norquist, a tax reduction advocate, told Semafor the plan amounted to a 'political gift to Biden and Democrats.' Liberal lawmakers have been relishing in the proposal. 'This so-called fair tax plan is the craziest yet. It's a real doozy,' Senate Majority Chuck Schumer told reporters as he appeared alongside House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a new conference dedicated to knocking the bill. 'Just the biggest lollapalooza I have ever seen around here.' Democrats have tried to shift focus away from the fact Americans would get to keep their whole paycheck and focus only on the increase in costs. 'The Republican tax plan would raise the cost of buying a house by $125,000. It would raise the cost of buying a car by $10,000. It would raise your average grocery bill by $3,500 a year at a time when people are already worried about the high price of groceries. How can they do this?' Schumer said. 'Things like eggs are already too expensive, but Republicans want to slap another $1.50 to that price. The plan would make a gallon of milk cost another $1.70 more,' he added. 'You wonder who is sitting in some dungeon, some laboratory, some basement cooking up these extreme ideas to try jam them down the throats of the American people,' Jeffries added. Asked about the GOP proposal, centrist Sen. Joe Manchin asked reporters at the Capitol - 'Are you serious?' The Tax Policy Center, part of the left-leaning Brookings Institution, found the proposal would amount to a tax increase for 80 percent of Americans and a tax cut for the wealthiest 20 percent. Asked about Democratic guffaws at the bill earlier this month, Carter told DailyMail.com: 'Our current tax system is a laughing stock, and the IRS is the butt of the joke. The only people with something to gain from maintaining a behemoth IRS are the bureaucracy-loving Washington Democrats, who want armed, unelected agents to have more control over your paycheck than you do.' Former Republican Rep. Doug Collins criticized first lady Jill Biden Friday morning for stepping between her husband, President Joe Biden, and reporters who were asking questions about the classified documents debacle. 'This has really gotten concerning because nobody, frankly in all fairness to the first lady, nobody elected her to answer questions for the president on issues that the press may have questioned,' Collins said on Fox & Friends. The Bidens hosted a Lunar New Year event Thursday evening in the East Room and as they departed ignored a slew of questions about the classified documents discovery, including whether the president would green light a search of the Rehoboth Beach home. First lady Jill Biden stepped between reporters and her husband, President Joe Biden, as they departed the White House's Lunar New Year celebration Thursday night - as he was asked if he'd allow a search for classified documents to be carried out at his Rehoboth Beach home Earlier, Dr. Biden coaxed the president onstage to mark the conclusion of a dragon dance performance. 'Are you going to dance?' the president asked the first lady as the troupe ended their performance and there was an awkward pause. 'No, you're going to come up. ... Come on up Joe! No, you're not going to dance,' Dr. Biden replied, as the president teased he might do so. 'Believe me, you don't want to ruin the evening,' the first lady added. The president touted that the White House was hosting the 'first Lunar New Year reception of this scale' during the Thursday evening affair and added that he had received California Rep. Judy Chu's blessing to hold the joyous event - in the aftermath of two mass shootings that took place in Asian-American communities. 'I spoke with Judy several days ago. I said, "Judy what should I do? Should I continue - should I be in California or should I still have this celebration?" And she felt very strongly,' the president said. 'She said we have to move forward. Her message was don't give into fear and sorrow. Don't do that. Stand in solidarity and the spirit of toughness, that's what this holiday is all about.' President Joe Biden watches the Choy Wun Lion Dance Troupe perform a dragon dance at the White House's Lunar New Year celebration Thursday evening Dr. Biden had coaxed her husband back onstage at the conclusion of the troup's performance - but jokingly told him no dancing President Joe Biden greet attendees Thursday as he departs the Lunar New Year event, but didn't answer any reporters' questions about the classified document debacle 'This has really gotten concerning because nobody, frankly in all fairness to the first lady, nobody elected her to answer questions for the president on issues that the press may have questioned,' former Rep. Doug Collins (left) said Friday morning on Fox & Friends Across the country, Lunar New Year celebrations have been marked with sadness after a gunman killed 11 people in Monterey Park, California at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, after an all-day Lunar New Year festival was held in an adjacent street on Saturday. Chu represents Monterey Park in the House. The shooter, identified as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, then tried to kill more people at the nearby Lai Lai Ballroom, but a worker scared him off. Biden said he had called 26-year-old Brandon Tsay, who had put a stop to the rampage. The president remarked that Tsay had 'followed his courage.' 'It's pretty profound,' Biden noted. The gunman was found dead in his car of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The incident, while not racially motivated, caused security to be increased at Lunar New Year celebrations around the country - as anti-Asian sentiment has increased since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Vice President Kamala Harris brought a bouquet of flowers to a makeshift memorial outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio while visiting Monterey Park, California on Wednesday Vice President Kamala Harris looks at the makeshift memorial for shooting victims that was constructed outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, California after a gunman killed 11 people on Saturday The president acknowledged the increase in hate crimes against Asian-Americans during the event. 'Silence is complicity,' he told the East Room crowd. Vice President Kamala Harris, who represented California in the U.S. Senate, paid her condolences to family members in Monterey Park Wednesday. Biden noted that Harris has 'deep ties to the area' and was just getting back. Additionally, on Monday, another gunman, identified as 66-year-old Chunli Zhao, opened fire at two farms in the heavily Asian-American community. The president and first lady held a moment of silence for the victims. They then turned to the more spirited part of the program First lady Jill Biden (right) reaches out to Elaine Tso (center), CEO of Asian Services in Action, who introduced President Joe Biden (left) at the Lunar New Year event President Joe Biden cheers on a dragon dance performed by the Choy Wun Lion Dance Troupe in the White House's East Room Thursday evening President Joe Biden stood front row to watch the dragon dance, after boasting that his White House was the first to host a Lunar New Year event 'of this scale' The dancers made the dragon stand completely up during the dance and unrolled a scroll wishing health and prosperity during the new year 'Jill and I are honored to welcome you to the first Lunar New Year reception of this scale held in the White House, your home,' the president said, adding, 'Jill and I are very temporary residents in this home.' An audience member shouted back: 'Not too temporary.' 'God, love you,' the president responded back. He noted how in many Asian cultures it's the year of the rabbit, but in Vietnam it's the year of the cat, applauding the animal for being 'majestic' and its 'persistence.' 'By the way that sounds like our cat Willow,' the president remarked. 'Willow may walk in here any time now. She has no limits. You think I'm kidding - I'm not. Especially in the middle of the night when she climbs up and lays on top of my head.' He also applauded the film, Everything Everywhere All at Once, with its largely Asian cast, walked away with 11 Academy Award nominations. And while he talked about how it was a time for celebrating, he interrupted himself telling the crowd, 'no firecrackers tonight.' 'No I'm serious. I was thinking about that, you know? If things hadn't been like they've been the last couple years we should have been fireworks outside,' Biden said. 'Celebrating with firecrackers and dance - we've got dance.' The White House had the Choy Wun Lion Dance Troupe perform a dragon dance for several minutes as the president marveled from the front row. A man has been arrested on suspicion of kidnap after a car was stolen with a child inside. South Wales Police received a report at 6.30pm on Thursday that a vehicle had been taken from Crwys Terrace in Penlan, Swansea, with a child in the back seat. Officers, including from the roads policing unit and firearms unit, began searching the area with the police helicopter. The child walked back to their family a short time later and was unharmed while the car was later found abandoned. South Wales Police received a report at 6.30pm on Thursday, January 26, of a car with a child in the back seat having been stolen at Crwys Terrace, Penlan, Swansea Detective Inspector Gareth Jones confirmed that a 39-year-old man from Fforestfach, Swansea, had been arrested on suspicion of kidnap and was in police custody. 'South Wales Police received a report at 6.30pm last night, Thursday 26th January, of a car having been stolen at Crwys Terrace, Penlan, with a child in the back seat,' he said. 'Local police officers alongside officers from our roads policing unit, joint firearms unit, and National Police Air Service made an area search. 'The car was located abandoned and has been seized for forensic examination. CID are leading the ongoing enquiries. 'The child walked back into their family home a short time later and was found to be unharmed. 'This was clearly a terrifying incident, as it would be for any parent, and we are investigating this incident as a child abduction as well as a motor vehicle theft.' Anyone with information, or who may have been in the surrounding area at the time of the incident, is asked to contact the force quoting occurrence 2300027422. A firefighter has died four days after being critically injured tackling a blaze in the historic Jenners building in Edinburgh. Barry Martin, 38, sustained serious injuries and remained in a critical condition at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said. He was one of five firefighters taken to hospital following the fire at the former department store on Monday morning. Two were treated for burns and two for smoke inhalation and have since been discharged. Barry Martin, 38, has died after sustaining serious injuries and being in a critical condition at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary A police officer was taken to the same hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation and later released. At its height, 22 fire appliances were sent Rose Street, with more than 100 firefighters battling the blaze which was reported at about 11:30am. Witnesses saw a soot-covered firefighter being helped from the building by colleagues. One fire appliance remains on site to help monitor the building for potential hotspots. At its height, 22 fire appliances were sent Rose Street, with more than 100 firefighters battling the blaze which was reported at about 11:30am First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described Mr Martin's death in the line of duty as 'dreadfully sad news'. 'This is a terrible tragedy for all who loved him - but also a reminder of the selfless courage our firefighters demonstrate in the line of duty each and every day,' she said. Fire service interim chief officer Ross Haggart said: 'This was undoubtedly a serious and complex fire. 'Our thoughts are very much with Barry and his family and, indeed, with all of our colleagues who were injured in responding to this incident. 'Barry is a firefighter based in Edinburgh and we ask that everyone please respect his family's privacy at this time. 'We continue to provide all possible support to our colleagues and their families, as well as all staff involved. 'We are liaising with appropriate partners to ensure a full and thorough investigation is undertaken into this incident.' Mr Martin was one of five firefighters taken to hospital following the fire at the former department store on Monday morning He thanked those caring for Mr Martin and the other casualties and praised 'our dedicated crews and staff for their professionalism in responding to this challenging incident'. Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, Edinburgh City Council leader Cammy Day said: 'The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, along with the surveying team, were looking into that overnight so we don't yet know the cause. 'Obviously, there was construction work happening on the old Jenners building, so we'll find out in the next coming days.' Mr Day added: 'I sure I say this on behalf of the whole city, that our thoughts are with the firefighters who risked their lives to save the building and save the people around the city as well, so our thoughts are with their families today.' The council will assess the building's structural integrity, Mr Day said, adding: 'That is a question we don't have the answer to yet.' Asked if the building - which has stood in Princes Street since the 19th century - will survive, Mr Day was unable to be definitive. 'That will be subject to these surveys. I'm hopeful that where we saw the fire yesterday was to the rear of the building and I hope that can be salvaged,' he said. Police Scotland said inquiries continue into the cause of the fire. Scotland's community safety minister Elena Whitham paid tribute to the firefighters who tackled the blaze, saying: 'Their sheer bravery and professionalism must be commended. 'Scotland's communities are lucky to have our valued firefighters, who stand ready to put their personal safety at risk in order to save others. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.' Members of the Republican National Committee handed Ronna McDaniel a fourth term as chairwoman on Friday, despite a strong challenge from a Trump-linked lawyer who said the party had to rein in lavish spending and do better in elections. McDaniel, who had the private support of former President Donald Trump, beat Harmeet Dhillon by 111 to 51 votes after just one round of voting. MyPillow founder and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell won just four votes. Members were selecting a party chief executive who will manage fundraising and build much of the national infrastructure for the 2024 campaign. It marked a test of Trump's grip on the party, pitting McDaniel, whom he propelled to power, against other elements of his MAGA movement. Ronna McDaniel easily beat Harmeet Dhillon on Friday to secure a fourth term as Republican National Committee chairwoman, after a bitter campaign amid allegations of mismanagement Defeated candidates Mike Lindell and Dhillon joined McDaniel on stage after the result for a group hug and a show of unity, after a bitter campaign McDaniel issued a call for unity immediately after the results were announced in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach, California. 'We need all of us. We heard you grassroots,' she said. 'We know. We heard Harmeet, we heard Mike Lindell but with us united and all of us going together the Democrats are going to hear us in 2024 when we take back the White House and the Senate.' But the contest revealed deep divisions between different wings of the party. And Dhillon repeated her claims that the grassroots had been ignored and the apparatus of the RNC had lined up behind McDaniel. 'I'm committed to healing and coming together with folks,' she told reporters. 'But at the end of the day, if our party is perceived as totally out of touch with the grassroots, which I think some may take away from this, we have some work to do.' MyPillow chief executive and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell secured enough support to make it on to the ballot but won just four votes in Friday's ballot McDaniel's campaign has for months said they had the support of more than 100 of the 168 committee members and were confident of victory on the first ballot on Friday Donald Trump quietly offered support to McDaniel, but elements of his MAGA base lined up in favour of Dhillon, who offered herself as the candidate of the grassroots It is the first time the post has been contested in a decade, as critics of McDaniel lined up to say the RNC had to do a better job after disappointing election results in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Dhillon ran an aggressive campaign. Dhillon set the blame for the midterms at McDaniel's door, saying the RNC failed to mobilize the vote as well as the Democratic Party, which was able to hold the Senate and limit losses in the House. She also accused the incumbent of chronic misspending, wasting tens of millions of dollars on consultants, and religious bigotry against Dhillon's Sikh faith all claims that McDaniel denied. But McDaniel's supporters argued that the midterm problems lay with weak candidates, and has said she is the candidate of unity. Ahead of the vote, she said the midterms had gone better than the headline results suggested. 'We won the popular vote by four million votes,' she told RNC members 'If this had been a presidential year. we would have won the Electoral College with 297 votes. That's a really good sign as we head into 2024.' Rooms start at more than $820 plus a $55-a-night resort charge and taxes The battle was the latest display of division in the party, coming soon after members of Congress almost came to blows this month before finally electing Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on the 15th vote. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was one the high-profile figures backing Dhillon. He said the grass roots was tired of losing. 'The general sentiment is like, okay, you raise massive amounts of money . You spend it a time as questionably, and then what do you have to show for it like a four seat majority in the House and you lose the Senate,' he said. 'And I think that's completely and totally unacceptable. I think the stakes have never been higher for our country.' Speaking before the result, he said he would not be able to tell his supporters to back the RNC if McDaniel remained in place. 'If she wins, I can't in good faith say to my audience, our members, or our students, to continue to support the RNC financially or otherwise,' he said. 'And I don't say that in some celebratory fashion or with a heart for arson, because you need a strong RNC.' #BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis praises Harmeet Dhillon (@pnjaban) in bid for RNC chair "I think we need a change, I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of DC [...] We need some fresh thinking." pic.twitter.com/Y5W78v4RC6 Floridas Voice (@FLVoiceNews) January 26, 2023 But without substantive change their money will not help deliver wins, he added. x Dhillon's campaign received a boost on Thursday when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was time for 'new blood' at the top of the RNC and that he liked some of her plans. 'We've had three substandard election cycles in a row - '18, '20, and '22,' DeSantis told Florida's Voice. 'And I would say of all three of those, '22 was probably the worst given the political environment of a very unpopular president in Biden. 'Huge majorities of the people think the country is going in the wrong direction. 'That is an environment that's tailor made to make gains in the House and the Senate and state houses all across the country. And yet that didn't happen. 'In fact we lost ground in the Senate.' Fast food lovers are flying thousands of miles to eat 'Britain's largest portion of fish and chips' which weighs in at more than a stone and contains a whopping 4,500 calories. The Chip Inn, in Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire, are famed for their humongous food boxes and have now claimed they offer the largest fish and chip dinner in the country. The chippy created the 20-inch Codfather which consists of four battered cods, three portions of chips, eight sausages, four fish cakes and ten different sauces. The gluttonous meal, that would set you back 40, weighs in at around one stone and four pounds, the same as a 43inch TV, and the box has to be wrapped in tape so it doesn't burst open. The Chip Inn created the 20-inch Codfather which consists of four battered cods, three portions of chips, eight sausages, four fish cakes and ten different sauces (pictured) The Chip Inn, in Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire (pictured), are famed for their humongous food boxes and have now claimed they offer the largest fish and chip dinner in the country The daily recommended calorie intake for women is 2,000 calories-a-day and for men it is 2,500, with the monstrous meal coming in a whopping 4,500 calories alone. Megann Altinoz, 42, who owns the shop with husband Erdal, 45, said: 'It's the largest UK fish and chip box in the UK. 'I haven't seen another one that big. People compete for the biggest kebab but not fish and chips. The box is really, really big. 'It's hard to describe how heavy the boxes are but the 20-inch ones are a struggle to lift when they're ready. I have to get some someone to help me lift it. 'It's like a work out. They're so full that we have to wrap them in tape and force them shut. 'A lot of people see them online and say they can do it, and then their friends usually say they want to have a go as well. 'No-one has been able to finish the box yet.' The chip shop initially shot to fame in 2019 for selling the 'world's largest kebab' which contained 5,350 calories. The takeaway say customers flock from as far as Florida, USA, which is over 4000 miles away, to get their hands on the meal. Beast: The meal is a whopping 4,500 calories, which is more than double the recommended intake for women Mrs Altinoz added: 'We've had people come from the USA. They were travelling to London and came to our shop because they had heard about it online. 'We went viral for our kebab box, which was the largest in the world. The Codfather box is actually bigger than that one by five inches. 'It's amazing that people from around the world know us because of our boxes. We definitely have American style portions. 'If we notice a different accent in the shop we'll ask if they've travelled far, and we still get people coming from far away. 'We have had people from Scotland and Cornwall come and try them.' Mrs Altinoz added: 'The shop has been a family business for about 24 years. We took over in 2010 and we started doing the different food boxes in 2017. 'The idea came about when a customer came in and ordered a kebab and she asked if we could put it in a pizza box. 'We took a video if it and shared it on Facebook and it went from there. Now our weekends are absolutely crazy and we get people queuing outside.' The huge meals range from fish feasts to burger boxes, as well as a meat special which features doner kebab, chicken meat, and two large portions of chips. However, Mrs Altinoz claims the most popular is the famous burger box, which consists of a ten-inch pizza topped with four burgers. The 30 meal also comes with doner and chicken meat, onion rings and chicken nuggets. The videos of the meals posted by the couple have gained millions of views, with one gaining over 25,000 comments. 'We have a lot of people who comment on the videos on Facebook,' Mrs Altinoz added. 'We have even have had someone tag Gordon Ramsay in one of the videos to see if he if he would do a TikTok video about them. 'We've also had Will Mellor sharing them. It's all gone crazy.' A British woman has been found dead along with a Swedish man in a tourist apartment in Portugal. Local reports said the people were aged between 40 and 50 and had both been living in London. Their bodies were found inside a tourist flat in the northern city of Porto. The pair are said to have arrived at the property a few days ago. The alarm was sounded just after 1pm today. Local reports said the people were aged between 40 and 50 and had both been living in London. Their bodies were found inside a tourist flat in the northern city of Porto The pair are said to have arrived at the property a few days ago Officers from Portugal's PJ police force are investigating. They have not yet made any official comment. Unconfirmed local reports said investigators believed the deaths could be drug-related and there were no obvious signs of any violence or weapons found. Post-mortems are due to take place over the weekend. Neither of the two people found dead have been named. The family of Tyre Nichols is calling for the swift arrest of five officers involved in his death to be the 'new blueprint' for how cops respond to police brutality in the future. Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump praised Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis for her 'quick justice' in firing the officers who violently beat the 29-year-old after a traffic stop on January 10. He said that the arrest of Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith should be the 'blueprint' going forward in America when a police officer commits a crime. All five were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and official oppression. Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump praised Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn Davis for her 'quick justice' in firing the five officers Tyre Nichols is pictured in hospital after the incident. The 29-year-old from Memphis died on January 10 from cardiac arrest and kidney failure, three days after he was pulled over for reckless driving by police in unmarked cars Crump spoke at a press conference on Friday, ahead of the graphic body cam footage of Tyre being beaten to death by the officers being released by authorities at 7pm EST. He said: 'We applaud the DA for bringing these charges. Let me be exceedingly clear on this point. 'When we look at how these five black officers who were caught on camera committing a crime, and when we look at how fast the police chief and the department terminated them, and how swiftly the DA brought charges against them in less than 20 days we want to proclaim this as the blueprint going forward. 'Any time any officers, whether black or white, are held accountable, you can no longer tell us that we have to wait six months to a year when we have a video of excessive force. 'No more can you tell us that. With these five black officers, you are moving swiftly, and as the chief said, it was important for the community that they took swift action. 'When it is a white officer, it is also important that there is swift action. We won't let black officers be treated differently than white officers. Crump spoke at a press conference on Friday, ahead of the graphic body cam footage of Tyre being beaten to death by the officers being released by authorities at 7pm EST He said that the arrest of Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith should be the 'blueprint' going forward in America when a police officer commits a crime Five former Memphis police officers have been charged with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN NICHOLS' DEATH January 7: Police pull over Tyre Nichols on suspicion of reckless driving at 8.30pm. Tyre fled on foot after a 'confrontation' but was apprehended by cops soon after. An ambulance was called to the scene after Tyre complained of shortness of breath, and was transferred to hospital in a critical condition. January 10: Three days after the stop Tyre, 29, died from his injuries sustained in the incident. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced that they were looking into his death. January 15: Five officers are relieved of duty while the investigation into their use of force continues. Preliminary findings indicate the serious nature of the offences. All of the officers were given a notice regarding the impeding administrative actions. January 18: The Department of Justice announces that a civil rights investigation has been opened into the death of Tyre. January 20: Memphis Police Department identifies, and fires five offices involved in the traffic stop, due to their violation of multiple department polices. Officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr, and Justin Smith's jobs were terminated for failing in their 'excessive use of force, duty to intervene, and duty to render aid'. Two Memphis Fire Department employees who were part of Nichols' 'initial patient care' were also fired. January 23: The family of Tyre Nichols and their attorney, Ben Crump, view the footage of his arrest for the first time. Crump compares it to the assault of Rodney King by LAPD officers in 1991. January 26: All five officers are charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression. January 27: Four of the former officers each paid bond of $250,000 each to be released after their arrest. Advertisement 'We have the blueprint now America, and we won't accept anything less in the future there will be equal justice under the law. 'We now have a precedent that has been set here in Memphis, and we intend to hold this blueprint for all of America on this day forth.' Shelby County District attorney Steve Mutlroy said Tyre was left 'bloody and bruised' after he was pepper sprayed and beaten just yards from his home. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation conducted an independent investigation into the use of force by Memphis police. All five were fired last Friday for violation of police, with City officials saying they were notified on January 15. Davis said the cops were 'amped up' when they stopped Tyre, with two of the officers from a special team designed to stop street crime. During the conference at Mount Olive Baptist Church, Crump called for the creation of a 'Tyre law'. He hopes it could 'emphasize the importance of police officers ... to have a duty to intervene when they see crimes being committed even if those crimes are being committed by their fellow officers.' Crump added: 'That will be the appropriate legacy that we give Tyre Nichols; if we really think we want justice for justice, it's not justice for one family, it's justice for all of us.' Another lawyer for the family branded the definition of the kidnapping charges as 'terrorism'. Aggravated kidnapping is when the crime is committed to facilitate any other felony, it interferes with governmental function, it is intended to seriously injure or terrorize the victim, inflict bodily injury on the victim or possess or threaten to use a deadly weapon. Antonio Romanucci also called for police unions to wade in on the arrests of the officers, adding: 'When you think of 9/11, what's the word that comes to mind? Terrorism. 'When you think of other heinous acts that have happened in churches across this country, any act of terrorism, what does that instill in you? 'That, ladies and gentlemen, is the definition that we are dealing with here on this kidnapping charge. It is terrorism. It was designed to terrorize the victim.' He also demanded the disbanding of he 'SCORPION' unit in Memphis, which is meant to clamp down on street crimes. Romanucci added that they have been 'corrupted' and is calling for reviews on all of the units across the country. Memphis Police confirmed that they planned to release the video late on Friday to avoid any 'peaceful protest' causing disruptions to members of the community. David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, described the video as 'absolutely appalling.' He said: 'Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing. This was wrong, and this was criminal.' Tyre Nichols, 29, died in hospital on January 10, three days after a traffic stop that ended with him being severely injured TOP L-R: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III. BOTTOM L-R: Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith In addition to the five officers charged Thursday, Davis said in the statement that other officers also are under investigation. Two Memphis Fire Department personnel also have been relieved of duty pending an investigation. President Biden has also called for calm ahead of the release of the video adding: 'Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable.' He said: 'As Americans grieve, the Department of Justice conducts its investigation, and state authorities continue their work, I join Tyre's family in calling for peaceful protest. 'Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice.' President Biden urged for calm before the video release, saying: 'Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice' Dozens of people peacefully paid tribute to the murdered Fed-Ex worker, with police gearing up to deal with potential violence after footage of the incident is released 'Tyre's death is a painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all. 'We also cannot ignore the fact that fatal encounters with law enforcement have disparately impacted Black and Brown people.' Schools in Memphis are canceling all after-school activities on Friday in the 'interest of public safety' with a showcase being postponed for a week because of the footage release. It comes as major US cities are bracing for possible violence after the release of the footage, with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp activating the National Guard in a state of emergency in Atlanta. He has called in 1,000 troops to combat anticipated unrest and chaos which is expected to be even more extreme than last week's riots. Millions of children face being turned away from class during teacher strike action next week. Half of state schools in England and Wales as many as 12,000 in all are set to close on Wednesday in a pay dispute. Six more days of walkouts are planned over the coming months. Around 4.5million youngsters will be affected. School staff will join 100,000 civil servants, 70,000 university staff and thousands of train drivers also staging industrial action on Wednesday in what experts fear is effectively the first general strike since 1926. Half of state schools in England and Wales as many as 12,000 in all are set to close on Wednesday in a pay dispute Jonathan Gullis, a former schools minister, said: Pupils are having their education once again disrupted, harming their life chances. It is a shameful day for the profession. A source in the National Education Union said half of all primary and secondary state schools, along with some nurseries, were at risk of partially or fully closing on February 1. At least 120,000 teachers are poised to walk out, and are expected to be joined by tens of thousands more after nine out of ten union members who voted in the ballot backed strike action. In Scotland teachers are continuing their first campaign of industrial action in four decades. They are on strike for 16 consecutive days in January and February with today being day ten. Around 10.6million children attend UK schools and nurseries with around 95 per cent at state-funded institutions, according to government figures. But nearly half now face being forced to stay at home, leaving many parents stranded without childcare. Jonathan Gullis (pictured), a former schools minister called the strikes 'a shameful day for the profession. More than 30,000 disgruntled teachers have signed up to the NEU since it announced strike action last week, with the aim of joining the walkouts. Striking teachers can wait as late as Wednesday morning to decide to strike, leaving parents and headteachers face days of limbo. Hundreds of schools have already confirmed that they will be unable to open to all pupils, the Mail can reveal. Letters were being sent out to parents warning them of possible disruption. In Cardiff, more than 111 schools have confirmed they will be partially or fully closed on Wednesday. And dozens of institutions have declared they will not be open to all pupils in Yorkshire, Cumbria, Gloucestershire and the West Midlands. Experts urged ministers and union bosses to prioritise children amid fears the most disadvantaged would be the most affected. Jon Andrews, head of analysis at the Education Policy Institute, said: Given the severe disruption and learning losses caused by Covid, the Government and teaching unions must prioritise avoiding any further disruption to young peoples education. Ministers and teaching unions must now engage in constructive dialogue in order to reach a solution. Leaders of the National Education Union are expected to meet Education Secretary Gillian Keegan (pictured) on Monday in last-minute talks. Molly Kingsley of UsForThem, a campaign group for childrens welfare, said pupils had suffered enough. She added: After just emerging from the greatest period of educational disruption since the Victorians introduced compulsory schooling we should not be asking children to miss another day of lessons. Schools are as critical a part of our national infrastructure as any blue-light service and must be kept open to all children. Leaders of the National Education Union are expected to meet Education Secretary Gillian Keegan on Monday in last-minute talks. Union leaders say teachers have sustained 23 per cent pay cuts in real terms since 2010, forcing educators to leave the profession in their droves. Last week, union leaders spent six hours with officials at the Department for Education with no deal made. Joint general secretary Mary Bousted said: Teachers only take strike action as a last resort. Twelve years of underfunding of schools, childrens services has made teacher workload unsustainable. The 12-year decline in teacher pay has contributed greatly to what Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector, has called a workforce crisis in schools which children and young people are bearing the brunt of. Joint general secretary Mary Bousted (pictured) said: Teachers only take strike action as a last resort' Government, even at this last minute, could enter into negotiations to avert the strike but ministers have sat on their hands. There have been no meetings this week with union leaders. We stand ready to negotiate. Lets hope ministers make the time to do so to end this serious dispute. Heads have been accused of refusing to make contingency plans to cope with staff shortages despite guidance from the Department for Education. The Government urged school bosses to prioritise vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers by bringing in volunteers if necessary. Robin Walker, who chairs the Commons education committee, pleaded with heads to keep schools open. Any closure of schools is mostly to be regretted in these circumstances, especially where catch-up is so important and children have missed so much school during the pandemic, he said. I know that hundreds of thousands of teachers who did not vote to strike will want to do everything in their power to keep schools open. I would urge them to work together to keep schools open. Universities face 18 days of chaos starting on Wednesday with striking academics set to bring the higher education sector to a halt. Train drivers also plan to inflict further misery on millions of commuters with more national rail strikes, followed by another round two days later to cause maximum disruption. And 100,000 civil servants will also walk out as part of a long-running dispute over pay and conditions. The Department for Education was contacted for comment. Socialite James Stunt faces a wait of more than 18 months before he goes on trial for the second time on a money laundering charge. The ex-husband of F1 heiress Petra Ecclestone told Leeds Crown Court he was not well today and appeared by videolink in navy blue pyjamas, lying in bed. Former public schoolboy Stunt, 41 was found not guilty of forgery at the court in December, following a seven-month trial, but a jury failed to reach a verdict on a money-laundering charge. Today, Judge Andrew Stubbs KC said his retrial will begin on September 30, 2024 and it is expected to last several months. Socialite James Stunt faces a wait of more than 18 months before he goes on trial for the second time on a money laundering charge He will go on trial with five other defendants, again at Leeds Crown Court. The first trial, which included seven other defendants, was in relation to an alleged criminal network which prosecutors said saw 266 million deposited in the bank account of Bradford gold dealer Fowler Oldfield from 2014 to 2016. The judge said there will be a further case management hearing on September 1, 2023. Stunt denies one count of money laundering. Judge Andrew Stubbs KC agreed, in the meantime, that Stunt could have his passport returned and be allowed to leave the country if approved by the prosecution. The ex-husband of F1 heiress Petra Ecclestone (pictured) told Leeds Crown Court he was not well today and appeared by videolink in navy blue pyjamas, lying in bed Though he did warn any defendants trying to leave the country without prior notice could be remanded in custody. The defendant married Ms Ecclestone, daughter of F1 tycoon Bernie Ecclestone, in Italy in 2011. They had three children together a daughter followed by twin boys but divorced in 2017. In the first trial, four of the defendants - Paul Miller, 45; Heidi Buckler, 45; Alexander Tulloch, 41 and Francesca Sota, 34 - were cleared of money laundering. Ms Sota was also cleared of forgery. Prosecutors had claimed the eight defendants were part of a scheme to turn the proceeds of crime into untraceable gold. Jurors heard that, between 2014 and 2016, cash was brought from all over the country to Fowler Oldfield and Stunt's business premises in London. It was alleged the defendants then hid its origin by washing it through a company bank account and using the proceeds to buy gold, which was shipped to Dubai. But all the defendants denied the claims. Stunt went into a business partnership with Fowler Oldfield's directors Frankel and Rawson after being introduced to them at the Sheffield Assay Office, where he was building a refinery as part of his business plan to manufacture branded gold bars. A janitor accused of spreading incurable herpes to 13 female co-workers after rubbing his penis inside their water bottles is being sued for $1 million. Lucio Diaz, 50, was caught on video sticking his genitals into water bottles belonging to women in the doctor's office where he worked in East Houston. A lawsuit filed on Thursday confirmed he is being sued by 13 women who all subsequently tested positive for 'incurable sexually transmitted diseases that will forever affect their lives.' Lucio Diaz, 50, was arrested and charged with indecent assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after sticking his penis into an employee's water bottle and peeing in it One woman revealed the condition had left her unable to kiss her babies. Diaz has admitted to the act with malicious intent, claiming he had a 'sickness' and had committed the crime in his former workplaces too. However he denied knowing he was suffering from chlamydia and herpes simplex virus 1 - the latter of which is incurable and causes cold sores. Attorneys said the lurid act had simply become part of his 'daily cleaning ritual.' The plaintiffs are seeking damages from Diaz, his employer, the building owners and the building property management company. Employees at the office first became suspicious of Diaz after noticing water bottles and dispensers in the office were often filled with yellow liquid and were emanating a foul smell. One woman, identified by police as M.A., complained to her doctor and a urinalysis test confirmed her water bottle had traces of urine in it. M.A. then installed spy cameras which captured the janitor sneaking into her office and purposefully rubbing his genitals on her water bottle. They alerted managers of the building where he worked but it took them six days to notify other offices. In the meantime Diaz - who claims he was unaware he had any STDs - was caught doing it again to another employee's water bottle. Attorneys said this move gave Diaz 'free rein' to commit another assault meaning more people came into contact with his bodily fluids. He was arrested on October 5 and charged with 'aggravated assault - bodily injury with a deadly weapon'. He was then tested positive for the STDs. One employee, known as M.A., installed security cameras in her office and caught him in the act M.A.,(pictured), accused him of peeing in her water and tainting the office water dispenser in separate incidents in August and September. Court records show Diaz was granted a $75,000 bond after his arrest. The lawsuit was initially filed on behalf of four women but nine others have since come forward. They are being represented by law firm Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner. One of the victims said in a statement given to the Sacramento Bee: 'I (can) no longer leave my water bottles anywhere or my cups at a party ... because I dont want no one to catch what I have because a monster decided to do what he did to me without my consent.' 'But what hurts me the most is that every time my babies want to kiss me I have to turn my face and tell them kiss mommy in the forehead or I have to kiss my babies in their back and not in their cheeks ... they are too little to understand what happen to their mommy.' M.A., also spoke to ABC-13 when Diaz was first arrested - though her face was obscured to protect her identity. 'This individual is a sick man,' she said. 'I want this to go to trial. I want him to be exposed for who he is, and I want him to pay for what he's done to me and then be deported.' The chilling audio from Paul Pelosi's 911 call after an intruder broke into his San Francisco home was released on Friday, with the 82-year-old heard calmly telling the operator 'I've got a problem.' Pelosi can be heard tactfully trying to explain the frightening situation while the intruder, David DePape, warns him to hang up the phone. DePape is heard saying 'I'm a friend' when the dispatcher asks Pelosi if he knew who the strange man was. The husband of former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, made the desperate 911 call moments before cops arrived at the home and he was violently assaulted with a hammer in October. Paul Pelosi answer the door of his San Francisco home in boxer shorts and a pajama top while intruder David DePape stands behind him Capitol Police security cameras captured David DePape outside the home Pelosi shares with wife and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi The nearly-three-minute call was made public on Friday after a judge ordered its release, alongside shocking police body camera footage of the moment Pelosi was attacked. Pelosi is heard speaking calmly with the operator, identified as Heather Grives, as he attempts to subtly warn her that he is in danger. 'There is a gentleman here waiting for my wife to come back,' he said. 'She's not going to be here for a day, so I guess we'll have to wait.' 'Is the Capitol Police around? Theyre usually here at the house protecting my wife.' The dispatcher then informs Pelosi he is calling the San Francisco police, leading him to ask DePape: 'What do you think?' Following a brief muffled conversation, the intruder bluntly tells Pelosi: 'I think we're ok.' 'He thinks everything's good, I've got a problem, but he thinks everything's good,' Pelosi relays to the dispatcher. The shocking bodycam footage shows Pelosi, 82, on the ground after being hit with the hammer which left him with a skull fracture in two places and for serious injuries to his right arm and hand DePape (right) allegedly broke into Paul Pelosi's home as he wanted to find his wife, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi When the operator then tells Pelosi to call back if the situation changes, he quickly cuts her off, telling her: 'No, this gentleman just came into my house, and he wants to wait for my wife to come home.' 'I don't know who he is. 'He's telling me not to do anything.' 'He's telling me to put the phone down, and to do what he says.' In a bizarre exchange, DePape then tells the 911 operator that he is 'a friend' of the Pelosi's. 'He says he's a friend, but I don't know him,' responds Pelosi. 'He's telling me I'm being very leading, so I have to stop talking to you ok?' She offers to stay on the line with the 82-year-old, but Pelosi then quickly ends the conversation, appearing to tell the operator DePape wants him 'to get the hell off the phone.' David DePape has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges stemming from the October assault Full Paul Pelosi 911 call transcript Operator: 'San Francisco police.' Pelosi: 'I guess, I guess I told them (inaudible). Who is this?' Operator: 'This is San Francisco police, do you need help?' Pelosi: 'Well, there is a gentleman here who is just waiting for my wife to come back, Nancy Pelosi. 'He is just waiting for her to come back, she's not going to be here for a day so I guess we'll have to wait.' Operator: 'Ok, do you need police, fire or medical for anything?' Pelosi: 'I don't think so, I don't think so. 'Is the Capitol Police around? They're usually here at the house protecting my wife.' Operator: 'No, this is San Francisco police.' Pelosi: 'No, I understand that. Ok, well I don't know what do you think?' DePape: 'I think we're ok.' Pelosi: 'He thinks everything is good, I've got a problem but he thinks everything is good.' Operator: 'Ok, call us back if you change your mind.' Pelosi: 'No, no, this gentleman just came into the house, and he wants to wait here for my wife to come home.' Operator: 'Do you know who the person is?' Pelosi: 'No I don't know who he is (inaudible) 'He's telling me not to do anything.' Operator: 'What is your address sir?' Pelosi: '2640 Broadway' Operator: 'What is your name?' Pelosi: 'My name is Paul Pelosi. 'Anyway this gentleman says that (inaudible)... He's telling me to put the phone down, and to do what he says. OK? Operator: 'What is the gentleman's name?' DePape: 'My name is David.' Operator: 'OK and who is David?' Pelosi: 'I don't know' DePape: 'I'm a friend of theirs.' Pelosi: 'He says he's a friend, but I don't know him.' Operator: 'You don't know who he is?' Pelosi: 'No ma'am... he's telling me I'm being very leading, so I have to stop talking to you ok?' Operator: 'Are you sure? I can stay on the phone with you just to make sure everything is ok.' Pelosi: 'No he wants me to get the hell off the phone.' Advertisement Prosecutors allege that Pelosi was asleep in his San Francisco home just before 2:00am on October 28 when 42-year-old DePape broke in looking for his wife. Shocking bodycam footage released alongside the chilling 911 call revealed the moment Pelosi was violently assaulted by DePape after police arrive at his home. The video shows two police officers arriving at the home, knocking on the door and waiting around 20 seconds before it is answered. Pelosi, in a pajama top and boxer shorts, answers the door as he and DePape both struggle for control of a hammer. They each have a hand on the weapon while Pelosihas a drink in his left hand. When an officer asks, 'What's going on man?' DePape replies, 'Everything's good.' After the officer says: 'Drop the hammer,' the intruder tells them, 'Ummm... nope.' Then, Pelosi attempts to twist the hammer out of DePape's hand, but the suspect regains control of the weapon and strikes him multiple times. The two police officers rush in and tackle DePape, shouting, 'Give me your f*****g hands.' Eventually, they restrain the attacker as Paul Pelosi lies collapsed and prone on the floor. The indictment in the case said that blood was 'swelling' out of the victim's head. The video shows liquid and ice on the ground around the two men. In the aftermath of the attack, Pelosi required surgery on a skull fracture in two places and was treated for serious injuries to his right arm and hands. The release comes after Judge Stephen M. Murphy's ordered on Wednesday that there was no legal reason to keep the footage private. The decision was argued against by the prosecutors. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Nancy Pelosi said that she would find if 'very difficult' to watch the footage of the assault on her husband. 'I mean, it would be a very hard thing to see an assault on my husbands life,' she said. The federal six-page indictment in the attack described DePape and Paul Pelosi fighting over the hammer when the police arrived. Media requests for access to the material had been denied by the district attorney's office, which added to the string of conspiracy theories and misinformation which spread about the attack in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. DePape is alleged to have been targeting Nancy Pelosi, who was not at home, in his attack. Prosecutors say he planned to 'interrogate' her and to break her kneecaps if he felt he was being lied to. Today's released video and audio have already been played in open court during a preliminary hearing against DePape in December. In that hearing, prosecutors played portions of Paul Pelosis 911 call plus footage from Capitol police surveillance cameras, body cameras worn by the two police officers who arrived at the house, and video from DePapes police interview. DePape broke into the Pelosi's San Francisco home in October FBI agents work outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband Paul Pelosi was 'violently assaulted' after a break-in at their house. Pictured October 28, 2022 DePape pleaded not guilty last month to six charges, including attempted murder San Francisco-based attorney Thomas Burke disagreed with the earlier decisions not to release the video and audio. He told the Associated Press, 'You dont eliminate the public right of access just because of concerns about conspiracy theories.' When asked about her husband's prognosis on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi told reporters: 'It's one day at a time. He's made some progress, but it will be three more months, I think, before he's back to normal.' Last week, the couple's daughter Alexandra revealed in an interview that her mother held exorcisms at the family's home over Thanksgiving in the wake of the attack in an attempt to rid the home of evil spirits. DePape pleaded not guilty last month to six charges, including attempted murder. Police have said DePape told them there was 'evil in Washington' and he wanted to harm Nancy Pelosi because she was in line to the presidency. His case is pending. Extinction Rebellion activists who caused 100,000 of damage by smashing windows of a Barclays bank in London have been spared jail - as a protestor called the violent stunt a 'message of love'. Zoe Cohen, 52, said she tried 40 years of lawful action with no result while speaking from a pink lectern outside Southwark Crown Court. She was sentenced alongside five other women after being convicted of criminal damage for smashing the windows of the bank's London headquarters on April 7 last year. During the sentence, Judge David Milne called the protest at Barclays a 'stunt' and a 'gimmick' and said smashing their windows is not going to stop climate change. Six Extinction Rebellion activists who caused 100,000 of damage by smashing windows of a Barclays bank in London have been spared jail Cohen told a crowd of dozens of supporters: 'He said in his comments, just before he gave us our sentence, that effectively we are correct that the scientific consensus agrees that climate change is real and that action is really needed. 'That lifted my heart for a moment. So he, in this judicial double-standards crazy world, agrees that we need desperate action, but then in the same breath called our action a stunt and a gimmick. 'When I was giving evidence I explained I've spent 40 years doing lawful actions trying to get stuff done and it doesn't make any difference. 'That's why I resorted to doing what I did, to send a message of love to Barclays, the whole banking industry, that this political economy must change, it's driving us off a cliff. We all know that.' Police officers detained activists from Extinction Rebellion outside the Barclays in Canary Wharf Inside court Cohen, who had represented herself, took issue with comments by the probation officer calling her a climate protester and instead described herself as a 'climate defender'. Her co-defendant Sophie Cowen, 32, said she feels beholden to a higher law and was ready to go to prison. She said: 'We need to look and step outside of our roles and our commitments to our job, whether you're the banker or the judge, and commit to being a human. I think we talked about that message again and again and again. 'He said we're beholden to the law. Well there's actually a higher law, there's a bigger law. 'The universal law is that everything should continue to live and survive, that is actually the law that I'm beholden to. 'The most powerful thing we've got is just speaking the truth and the heart and the love. 'I was ready for them to give us anything, I was really ready to go to prison, I was, you know, in a way had become fine with it in my head. Women activists gathered around defendants (left to right) Rosemary Webster, Carol Wood, Lucy Porter, Zoe Cohen and Sophie Cowen 'Because I get so much strength from just knowing and feeling that this is the work that we need to do and the work that we need to continue doing. 'And that's much stronger than anything they could have given us.' Carol Wood, 54, Cowen, 32, Lucy Porter, 48, Gabriella Ditton, 29, Rosemary Webster, 64, and Cohen, 52, were all convicted of criminal damage on Monday over the incident. Porter, Ditton and Webster were all on bail at the time and have been given a suspended sentence of eight months. Meanwhile, Wood and Cohen were given a suspended sentence of seven months and Cowan a suspended sentence of six months. The sentences for all the women have been suspended for two years. The protestors argued that Barclays staff would have consented to the damage if they were fully informed about the climate crisis In April last year, the group spread out along the front of Barclays bank in Canary Wharf, east London, before using chisels and hammers to break the large glass panels that made up the outside of the bank. More than 20 supporters whooped and clapped as Judge David Milne KC concluded the hearing at Southwark Crown Court today. During their trial the protestors argued that Barclays staff would have consented to the damage if they were fully informed about the climate crisis - and said they did not mean to cause as much damage as they did. Owen Grenhall, defending Wood, said: 'There is a difference between a protester and those who are normally before the court in other matters of criminality. 'There is evidence of some planning of the protest. Much of the planning went to aspects of safety. Their planning was to ensure the action was carried out as safe as possible. 'In terms of whether very serious damage was caused, my submission is they did not intend to cause damage at the financial levels which resulted in this case. 'Yes, they intended to break the glass, but the consistent evidence was that they were very surprised that the glass broke that much.' He added that there was no evidence of any distress caused, saying: 'The value has to be assessed in the context of the event and one cannot ignore the fact that the income and profits made by Barclays are of an order greater than... it is hard to think of a comparable institution.' Police in Spain discovered a bomb-making workshop in the home of a 74-year-old man charged with terrorism for sending letter bombs to high-profile diplomatic and government targets, the Interior Ministry has said. Spain's National Court said it had charged the retiree - thought to be affiliated with a radical Russian militant group - with six offences for allegedly sending the explosive packages to the country's prime minister and to the US and Ukrainian embassies in Madrid. An Interior Ministry statement issued as the suspect appeared in court on Friday detailed items in the man's home that indicated meticulous planning had gone into making the letter bombs. 'Inside the house, the investigators found a workshop with tools, welding, metal elements and screws,' the statement said. Preparations were underway 'aimed at the manufacture of new devices', according to the ministry. In this file photo taken on December 1, 2022 Spanish police stand guard near the US embassy in Madrid, after they have received a letter bomb, similar to one which went off at the Ukrainian embassy Spanish police officers stand guard outside a building after the arrest of a man suspected of being the sender of letter-bombs in November and December to the Ukrainian and U.S. embassies and several institutions in Spain, in Miranda de Ebro, Spain January 25, 2023 The suspect, referred to only by the initials PGP in court documents, was arrested in the northern city of Miranda de Ebro on Wednesday. He was charged with the manufacture and use of explosive devices for terrorist purposes, according to court documents. Two of the alleged offences were classified as aggravated as they involved members of the government. The six letter bombs were sent in November and December and required the intervention of bomb-disposal experts. One was destroyed after being dispatched by regular mail to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Letters with similar characteristics were sent to the Defence Ministry, a European Union satellite centre at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base outside Madrid, and an arms factory in north-eastern Spain thamakes grenades sent to Ukraine. An envelope intercepted at the US embassy's security screening point in December was destroyed by a bomb squad after a wide area in the centre of the capital was cordoned off. 'This person was very active on social networks and according to National Police investigators, he has technical and computer expertise,' an interior ministry statement said. 'Although it is presumed that the detainee made and sent the explosive devices alone, the police do not rule out the participation or influence of other people.' Nobody was killed by the six letter bombs sent in late November and early December to various sites in Spain, but a Ukrainian embassy employee was lightly injured while opening one of the packages. The six letter bombs were sent in November and December and required the intervention of bomb-disposal experts. One was destroyed after being dispatched by regular mail to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (pictured) Investigators suspect the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), a radical group with members and associates across Europe, is behind the letter bomb campaign. The group - which is designated a global terrorist organisation by the United States - is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. 'Important members of the group have been in Spain, and the police there have tracked its ties with far-right Spanish organisations,' the newspaper said. According to Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, RIM 'maintains contacts with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups across Europe'. 'The group has provided paramilitary training to Russian nationals and members of like-minded organisations from other countries at its facilities in St. Petersburg,' it added. After the embassy attack, Ukraine's ambassador to Spain, Serhii Pohoreltsev, appeared to point the finger at Russia. 'We are well aware of the terrorist methods of the aggressor country,' he told Spanish public television on November 30 just hours after the incident. Russia's embassy to Spain condemned the letter bomb campaign. After congratulating police on the arrest, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said investigators were 'looking at all possibilities'. In addition to sending arms to Ukraine in its fight against Russia's nearly year-long war, Spain is also training Ukrainian troops as part of a European Union programme and providing humanitarian aid. A Palestinian gunman killed at least seven people and wounded three others in a synagogue on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Friday in an attack that heightened fears of a spiral in violence, a day after the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in years. Police said the gunman arrived at around 8.15 p.m. and opened fire, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police. TV footage showed several victims lying in the road outside the synagogue being tended to by emergency workers. The attack, which police described as a 'terrorist incident', underlined fears of an escalation in violence after months of clashes in the West Bank culminating in an Israeli raid in Jenin on Thursday that killed at least nine Palestinians. A police spokesman said the death toll stands at seven, with others injured. The gunman was shot and killed at the scene. The Magen David Adom emergency response service reported a total of 10 gunshot victims, including a 70-year-old and a 14-year-old boy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir - leader of one of the hardline nationalist parties in Netanyahu's new government - visited the site of the attack and were greeted with a mixture of cheers and boos. Victims of a shooting attack are covered on the ground near a synagogue in Jerusalem, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. Israeli forces work near the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaacov Israeli emergency service personnel and security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in a settler neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on January 27, 2023. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaacov 'I heard a lot of bullets,' Matanel Almalem, an 18-year-old student who lives near the synagogue, told AFP. Israel's extreme-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir attended the scene shortly after, an AFP photographer reported. Police were dismantling a white vehicle believed to have belonged to the shooter. There was no initial claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but a spokesman for the Islamist movement Hamas said the attack was connected with the Jenin raid. 'This operation is a response to the crime conducted by the occupation in Jenin and a natural response to the occupation criminal actions,' Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said. The smaller militant group Islamic Jihad also praised the attack without claiming responsibility. The United States meanwhile condemned the 'absolutely horrific' attack. 'Our commitment to Israel's security remains ironclad, and we are in direct touch with our Israeli partners,' State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters. Just hours earlier, Washington had urged 'de-escalation' over the West Bank violence and Gaza rocket fire. Palestinian officials said CIA director William Burns, who was visiting Israel and the West Bank on a trip arranged before the latest violence, would meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday. No comment was immediately available from U.S. officials in Jerusalem. British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly described the attack as 'appalling', adding that Britain 'stands with our Israeli friends.' Israeli border police clash with Palestinian stone throwers in A-Ram town, north of Jerusalem, 27 January 2023, as Palestinians all over the West Bank protested to condemn the killing of nine Palestinians in Jenin refugee camp during an Israeli raid on 26 January 2023 Israeli security forces search a car at the site of a reported attack in a settler neighbourhood of East Jerusalem Emergency services work at the scene of a shooting at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov area of Jerusalem, Israel, 27 January 2023 Palestinians had earlier marched in anger as they buried the last of 10 people killed by Israeli fire on Thursday, but the likelihood of a major conflagration had appeared to ebb after the deadliest Israeli raid in two decades. Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Thursday's raid in the Jenin refugee camp descended into a gun battle that killed at least nine Palestinians, while clashes elsewhere left a 10th dead. Gaza militants then fired rockets and Israel carried out air strikes overnight, but the exchange was limited, following a familiar pattern that allows both sides to respond without leading to a major flare-up. Israel's defence minister instructed the military to prepare for new strikes in the Gaza Strip 'if necessary' - also appearing to leave open the possibility that violence would subside. Israeli emergency service personnel and security forces stand near a covered body at the site of a reported attack in a settler neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, on January 27, 2023 Members of Zaka Rescue and Recovery team evacuate a body after a shooting attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem While residents of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank remained on edge on Friday, midday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, often a catalyst for clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police, passed in relative calm. At the funeral of the 22-year-old, crowds of Palestinians waved the flags of Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, and militant Hamas, which rules Gaza. In the streets of the town called al-Ram, masked Palestinians threw stones and set off fireworks at Israeli police, who responded with tear gas. But the Palestinian rockets and Israeli air strikes seemed limited to prevent growing into a full-blown war. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. The Palestinians' rockets were fired toward southern Israel, while Israel's non-lethal air strikes were on targets in Gaza, such as training camps and an underground rocket-manufacturing site. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant claimed the military dealt a 'tough blow' to Palestinian militants in Gaza and said the army was preparing to strike 'high-quality targets... until peace is restored to the citizens of Israel'. Israeli police were out in force in Jerusalem as scores of Muslim worshippers gathered for prayers in the stone courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and chanted in solidarity with those killed in the Jenin raid. Tensions at the holy site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, have triggered violence in the past, including a bloody Gaza war in 2021. The site is considered the third-most sacred in Islam and the holiest place in Judaism. Forensic work by victims of a shooting attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023 Israel's Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks with Israeli forces near the scene of a shooting attack in Neve Yaacov Israeli security forces cordon-off the site of a reported attack in a settler neighbourhood Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks. Jenin, which was an important militant stronghold during the 2000-05 intifada and has again emerged as one, has been the focus of many of the Israeli operations. Among the dead in Thursday's raid were seven militants and a 61-year-old woman. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by the Associated Press. Israel says most of the dead were militants, but youths protesting against the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed. Footage from US Capitol Police cameras reveals the moments when suspect David DePape appears to sneak around Nancy and Paul Pelosi's property before smashing his way into the San Francisco home before the violent attack on the former House Speaker's husband. The black and white footage allegedly shows DePape looking around the property. At one point he appears to be eyeing a glass door that he allegedly smashed to gain entrance to the property. But the highly suspicious activity did not prompt immediate action. It was not being monitored in real time. Capitol Police said in November that personnel were not actively monitoring the video feed because then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in Washington at the time her husband was attacked by the hammer wielding suspect. The Oct. 28, 2022 security footage, released by a California judge and obtained by Fox News, came on the same night police bodycam footage revealed the stunning moment when officers confronted DePape after responding to a 911 call. A screenshot of Capitol Police security footage shows David DePape outside the home of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on October 28, 2022, in San Francisco. The suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, can be seen slamming an object into a glass door the night of the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi After police ask the suspect to put down the hammer, he can be seen quickly raising it above his head and lunging toward Paul Pelosi, who is next seen lying on the floor and breathing heavily. Pelosi said Friday she has 'no intention' of viewing the dramatic attack on her husband. 'As you know today there was a release of some information. I have not heard the 911 call, I have not heard the confession, I have not seen the break in, and I have absolutely no intention of seeing the deadly assault on my husbands life,' she told reporters. The law enforcement footage also appears to show the suspect trying to jimmy open a door or window, then wailing on a plane of glass to gain entry. The Capitol Police, who provide Nancy Pelosi with a security detail, explained after the attack how the appearance of an intruder did not immediately trigger a 911 call. 'While the Speaker was with her security detail in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco cameras were not actively monitored as they are when the Speaker is at the residence, the agency said in a statement. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she has 'no intention' of viewing the dramatic attack on her husband 'The Command Center personnel noticed the police activity on the screen and used the feeds to monitor the response and assist investigators,' the statement continued. The agency has also been struggling to keep up with a string of threats against lawmakers, including after the January 6 Capitol attack. The Speaker had 24-hour security protection for herself at the time of the attack on her home. The police footage first shows the suspect slowly approaching the home, with hands on hips. Then, after examining the home, he walks away returning with a large bag in one hand and wearing a backpack. He occasionally looks behind him, and takes his time sorting through the bags. He eventually puts on globes, and grabs and object, which he can be seen slamming into the home. The clip, which shows the suspect entering the home, is six minutes long. A San Francisco court has released the shocking police bodycam footage showing the moment Paul Pelosi was violently assaulted with a hammer in his home in October. Paul Pelosi appears to answer the door in boxer shorts and a pajama top while David DePape stands behind him The pair both appear to be holding on to a hammer, vying for control of it Paul Pelosi makes an attempt to twist the hammer out of DePape's hand but loses control Paul, the husband of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was asleep at their San Francisco home just before 2:00am on October 28 when 42-year-old David DePape broke in and beat him with a hammer, prosecutors allege. The video shows two police officers arriving at the Pelosi's home, knocking on the door and waiting around 20 seconds before it is answered. Paul, in a pajama top and boxer shorts, answers the door as he and DePape both vie for control of a hammer. They each have a hand on the weapon while Paul has a drink in his left hand. An officer asks, 'What's going on man?' DePape replies, 'Everything's good.' The officer says, 'Drop the hammer.' The suspect tells them, 'Ummm... nope.' Then, Paul attempts to twist the hammer out of DePape's hand, but the suspect regains control of the weapon and begins to strike multiple times. The two police officers rush in and tackle DePape, shouting, 'Give me your f*****g hands.' They restrain the attacker as Paul lies collapsed and prone on the floor with liquid and ice on the ground around the two men. The indictment in the case said that blood was 'swelling' out of the victim's head and that Paul required surgery on a skull fracture in two places and was treated for serious injuries to his right arm and hands. DePape is able to overpower the 82-year-old before attacking Pelosi The moment when DePape begins to strike Paul Pelosi Paul Pelosi is hit multiple times with the hammer leaving him unconscious as the officers rush in and arrest DePape The 911 call, which was also released Friday, reveals Paul telling an emergency dispatcher that someone came into his home. Paul is heard trying to alert the dispatcher to who he is and the danger he's in as he says, 'There's a gentleman here just waiting for my wife to come back, Nancy Pelosi.' When the dispatcher asks who the man is, DePape says, 'I'm a friend of theirs.' The over two minute long 911 call comes to an end as Paul tells the dispatcher the suspect has told him to get off the phone. Following the arrest, officers called in a Code 3 meaning that the situation was a medical emergency requiring immediate response. The release comes following Judge Stephen M. Murphy's order on Wednesday which ruled that there was no legal reason to keep the footage private, against prosecutors wishes. Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Pelosi said that she would find if 'very difficult' to watch the footage of the attack. The California Democrat said, 'I mean, it would be a very hard thing to see an assault on my husbands life.' Although she still said that she 'respected' the system. Released footage from Capitol Police surveillance cameras that had been set up outside showed that DePape lurked outside the home for around four minutes. The video was not watched by officers in real time. A screenshot of Capitol Police security footage shows David DePape outside the Pelosi home Media requests for access to the material had been denied by the district attorney's office thus adding to the wealth of conspiracy theories and false information spread about the attack in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. DePape is alleged to have been targeting Nancy Pelosi, who was not at home, in his attack. Prosecutors say he planned to 'interrogate' her and to break her knee caps if he felt he was being lied to. He later told police that he believed Nancy Pelosi was the 'leader of the pack of lies' told by the Democratic Party and his actions were to 'show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions.' David DePape has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges stemming from the October assault Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill earlier this week, Pelosi said that she would find if 'very difficult' to watch the footage of the attack Aerial footage showed broken panes and shattered glass at the backdoor of Pelosi's home FBI agents work outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband Paul Pelosi was 'violently assaulted' after a break-in at their house. Pictured October 28, 2022 A view of the home of Nancy and Paul Pelosi in San Francisco following October's attack Reporters were able to pick up copies of the video and audio at the clerks at the Hall of Justice alongside a criminal records request form and a payment of $25. The video and audio has already been played in open court during a preliminary hearing against DePape in December. In that hearing, prosecutors played portions of Paul Pelosis 911 call plus footage from Capitol police surveillance cameras, body cameras worn by the two police officers who arrived at the house, and video from DePapes interview with police. San Francisco-based attorney Thomas Burke disagreed with the earlier decisions not to release the video and audio. He told the Associated Press, 'You dont eliminate the public right of access just because of concerns about conspiracy theories.' When asked about her husband's prognosis on Thursday, Nancy Pelosi told reporters: 'It's one day at a time. He's made some progress but it will be three more months, I think, before he's back to normal.' Last week, the couple's daughter, Alexandra revealed in an interview that her mother held exorcisms at the family's home over Thanksgiving in the wake of the attack in an attempt to rid the home of evil spirits. DePape pleaded not guilty last month to six charges, including attempted murder. Police have said DePape told them there was 'evil in Washington' and he wanted to harm Nancy Pelosi because she was second in line to the presidency. His case is pending. Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives after the midterm elections. Republicans elected California Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker. Pelosi will remain in Congress, but she stepped down as Democratic leader. She was replaced by Hakeem Jeffries from New York. The House on Friday passed a bill that requires new federal lands and waters leases for oil and gas companies each time the Energy Secretary releases oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The measure passed 221-205, with one Democrat - Rep. Jared Golden of Maine - joining Republicans in voting for the bill. Senate Republicans introduced a companion bill in the upper chamber Friday, but it's unlikely to get a vote under Democratic control. The proposal would allow the Energy secretary to sell, exchange or loan federal crude without offering a plan to offer more federal leases to drillers only in the case of emergencies. The House on Friday passed a bill that requires new federal lands and waters leases for oil and gas companies each time the Energy Secretary releases oil from the SPR The Friday bill passed after hours of voting on amendments, as the legislation was voted on through 'modified open rule,' meaning any House member could offer their own amendment. It was the first time in seven years legislation had been voted on that way after Republicans took control. Dozens of amendments got votes, and a handful were passed, including ones that restricted leasing in coastal areas and increased congressional oversight over the leasing process. The bill came after House Republicans earlier this month voted to ban the president from selling SPR reserves to China. With that vote 113 Democrats joined Republicans in voting for the bill. An amendment on Friday's bill expanded the ban from just China to include more U.S. adversaries like Russia and Iran. The Biden administration last year drained the SPR more than any other president in modern history, selling off 180 million barrels of oil to counter supply snags brought on by Russia's war with Ukraine. As a result stocks of federal oil this month dropped to half the reserve's capacity of 714 million barrels, the lowest level since 1983. 'More than 250 million barrels of oil, approximately 40% of the reserve, has been drawn down in less than two yearsmore than all former presidents in history, combined, all to cover up historically high gas prices in an election year,' Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and co-sponsor of the bill, said on the House floor. 'That's irresponsible.' Rep. Frank Pallone, ranking member of the Energy Committee, defended the releases. 'By releasing from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Biden administration helped bring down gas prices by over $1.50 a gallon,' he said on the floor. 'Republicans call that politicizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but I call that providing real relief for the American people at the gas pump.' Republicans criticized Biden draining the reserve and blamed the president for discouraging domestic oil production. They were irate at reports that the Biden administration in July sold nearly a million barrels to a state-owned Chinese firm which Hunter Biden's private equity firm held a $1.7 billion stake, reports say. At the same time it emerged five million barrels of oil have been sent abroad, after the White House claimed releasing them would help ease Americans' pain at the pump. A female Metropolitan Police officer has been sacked after asking for a photo of a decomposed corpse from a shamed cop who took selfies of two sisters murdered in Wembley park. PC Bonnie Murphy, who asked colleague Jamie Lewis to send her a photo of a decomposed body to show her family, was dismissed without notice. Lewis was sacked and jailed for two years and nine months in December 2021 for taking pictures of two murder victims - Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry. The two women had been celebrating Ms Henry's birthday in a park in Wembley, north-west London, in June 2020 when they were stabbed to death by Danyal Hussein. Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were celebrating Ms Henry's birthday in a park in Wembley, north-west London, in June 2020 when they were stabbed to death by Danyal Hussein Lewis was one of the officers in charge of guarding the bodies but took selfies with them and shared the pictures over WhatsApp. An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which ran from July 2020 to October 2021, found that Lewis had received and passed on to PC Murphy the photo of a decomposed body in Newham, east London, at her request. He also helped her to cheat on a police driving test. The day after Lewis was arrested over the Wembley incident, PC Murphy told her supervisor that Lewis had sent her WhatsApp messages asking if she wanted the answers to the police basic driver written exam. When she agreed, Lewis sent her previous police driving exam material and the answer sheet to the exam he had taken the previous month. She also used Google during the exam. Jamie Lewis was sacked and jailed for two years and nine months in December 2021 for taking pictures of two murder victims A disciplinary panel ruled that they had both breached the standards of police professional behaviour and had acted with gross misconduct. IOPC regional director Sal Naseem said: 'The period after a person's death is already difficult enough for their loved ones, so to learn that an image has been taken and shared inappropriately by police officers only compounds their grief, undermines their confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service and the profession as a whole. 'We welcome the panel's decision and hope today's outcome demonstrates that this behaviour is not treated lightly and can result in serious consequences for the officers involved. 'Though Pc Murphy was fairly new to her role, she had undertaken multiple training courses and would have known her request to obtain a death scene photo for personal purposes was in breach of professional standards. 'Lewis failed to challenge Pc Murphy's behaviour and was willing to help her cheat in an exam. Both officers also showed a complete lack of respect to this deceased man and his family.' They added: 'Lewis has already been jailed for his disgraceful actions by taking and sharing photos of murder victims, and this investigation further illustrates that he was unfit to serve as a police officer. 'Our thoughts remain with the family at this difficult time.' Pc Murphy will be placed on the College of Policing's barred list.' The officer who took the photo of the dead man had a disciplinary meeting for misconduct in August 2022 and was ordered to take the reflective practice review process to learn and reflect on their actions. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department has charged three men in an alleged plot that originated in Iran to kill an Iranian American author and activist who has spoken out against human rights abuses there, officials said Friday. The men, Rafat Amirov, 43, of Iran, Polad Omarov, 38, of the Czech Republic and Slovenia and Khalid Mehdiyev, 24, of Yonkers, New York, were charged with money laundering and murder-for-hire in an indictment unsealed in federal court in New York. The three men were in custody and one was awaiting extradition to the U.S. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian opposition activist and writer in exile in New York City, confirmed to The Associated Press that she was the intended target. "Im not scared," Alinejad told the AP after U.S. authorities announced the charges. "I want to tell you that the Iranian regime thinks by trying to kill me, they will silence me, or silence other women. But they only strengthen me, make me more powerful to fight for democracy and give voice to brave women who are facing guns and bullets in the streets to get rid of the Islamic Republic." She said FBI officials had read her the messages that the plotters exchanged between themselves, including a final one: "Its going to be done today." Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the charges. Iranian state media did not immediately acknowledge the alleged plot late Friday. FILE - Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad gestures as she speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in New York. The Justice Department has charged three men in a plot to kill the Iranian American author and activist who has spoken out against human rights abuses in Iran. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the charges on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. Though authorities didn't identify the alleged target by name, Alinejad confirmed to The Associated Press that she was the target of the plot. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) While the man who allegedly orchestrated the plot lives in Iran, the indictment does not directly accuse the countrys theocracy of being behind the alleged murder-for-hire. Still, the case "follows a disturbing pattern of Iranian government-sponsored efforts to kill, torture, and intimidate into silence activists for speaking out for the fundamental rights and freedoms of Iranians around the world," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. Mehdiyev was arrested last year after he was found driving around Masihs Brooklyn neighborhood with a loaded "AK-47-style" rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition. Alinejad told The Associated Press at the time that authorities told her the man was looking for her, and that a home security video had caught him skulking outside her front door. "The government of Iran has previously targeted dissidents around the world, including the victim, who oppose the regimes violations of human rights," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in announcing the charges. He said "individuals in Iran" had tasked the defendants with carrying out the plot to kill the activist. Federal officials also learned that photos were taken of her home. "The victim publicized the Iranian governments human rights abuses, discriminatory treatment of women, suppression of democratic participation and expression and use of arbitrary imprisonment, torture and execution," Garland said. In 2019, "this activity posed such a threat to the government of Iran that the chief judge of Irans Revolutionary courts warned that anyone who sent videos to the victim criticizing the regime would be sentenced to prison." Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, to discuss recent law enforcement action in transnational security threats case. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, left, and FBI Director Christopher Wray, listen. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) In 2021, an Iranian intelligence official and three others were charged with plotting to kidnap the victim, he said. All three defendants are natives of Azerbaijan, which shares a border and cultural ties with Iran. An attorney for Mehdiyev declined to comment on Friday. Amirov was expected to make an initial appearance in New York federal court on Friday, and Omarov was arrested in the Czech Republic earlier this month. It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys to speak on their behalf. "This case also highlights the evolving threat and the increasingly brazen conduct emanating from Iran," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. She also pointed to charges filed against members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an alleged plot to kill a former U.S. national security adviser, as well as as charges against Iranian hackers accused of targeting utility companies. In recent years, Iranian intelligence and security services have stepped up the use of "transnational repression tactics" to target political opponents and critics, said FBI Director Christopher Wray. Along with kidnapping and assassination plots, tactics have included surveillance, cyber operations and intimidation of family and friends in Iran, he said. "The Iranian governments efforts to silence its critics arent confined to the borders of Iran," Wray said. Tensions between the United States and Iran are even higher than usual, with the Biden administrations attempts to revive a 2015 deal limiting Irans nuclear program falling apart and the U.S. denouncing Irans targeting of protesters there. Iran also is accused of providing Russia with drones that are playing a significant role in Russian attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, to discuss recent law enforcement action in transnational security threats case. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Activist Masih Alinejad speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is taking place in Davos from Jan. 16 until Jan. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Alinejad told the AP she hoped that the ruthlessness of Iranians plotting to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil would convince President Joe Biden to act on calls by some in Congress and elsewhere to place Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the U.S. list of terrorist entities. "They are actually challenging the U.S. authorities to see what the consequence is going to be if there is no punishment, and there is no reason for them to stop killing innocent Americans or innocent Iranians," she said. Alinejad, who worked for years as a journalist in Iran, long has been targeted by its theocracy after fleeing the country following its disputed 2009 presidential election and crackdown. She is a prominent figure on Farsi-language satellite channels abroad that critically view Iran and has worked as a contractor for U.S.-funded Voice of Americas Farsi-language network since 2015. She became a U.S. citizen in October 2019. Her "White Wednesday" and "My Stealthy Freedom" campaigns have seen women film themselves without head coverings, or hijabs, in public in Iran, which can bring arrests and fines. She also has been amplifying the voices of those protesting in Iran since the September death of Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by the morality police. Attorney General Merrick Garland, left, listens as FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023, to discuss recent law enforcement action in transnational security threats case. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Attorney General Merrick Garland listens during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. The Justice Department has charged three men in a plot to kill an Iranian American author and activist who has spoken out against human rights abuses in Iran, officials said Friday. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) The three defendants, meanwhile, are members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran who were enlisted to assassinate Alinejad in 2022, according to court papers. Amirov, a leader of the group living in Iran, "was tasked" with targeting her by unnamed people there, the indictment states. He turned to Omarov, who lives in Eastern Europe, and they brought in the New York-based Mehdiyev, giving him $30,000 in cash. Mehdiyev got the rifle and began watching her house in July, U.S. authorities said. He took photos and video and thought up ways to try to lure her outside for more than a week, the indictment states. At one point, Mehdiyev described himself as being "at the crime scene." But on July 28, Alinejad left her home after seeing something suspicious. When Mehdiyev tried to drive away shortly after, he was stopped by a New York police officer. Police found the gun, ammunition magazines, cash and a black ski mask. He was arrested on a federal firearms charge. ___ Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. The dramatic police bodycam footage showing the violent attack on Paul Pelosi finally provides a glimpse of the incident which triggered a string of conspiracy theories. A court ordered the release of the video despite protests from the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, who said it could be manipulated to spread misinformation. Ironically, the delay in sharing the footage prompted a stream of speculation and some baseless claims about the attack. In the footage, we see the moment police officers Kolby Wilmes and Kyle Cagney approached the grandiose Pelosi residence at around 2:31am on Friday, October 28, after Paul Pelosi dialed 911. Previous court documents have revealed his attacker, David DePape, smashed a downstairs window to gain entry to the mansion while Pelosi was asleep upstairs. After a confrontation in which DePape said he was searching for Nancy, Paul Pelosi was able to make the 911 call at 2.23am - a transcript of which was also released today - from his bathroom. The bodycam video shows Wilmes and Colby approach the entrance to the property and knock several times. It takes about 17 seconds before the door is answered and the officers are faced with Pelosi and DePape stood side-by-side in the hallway of the home. DePape is wielding the hammer and Pelosi appears to be holding onto it with his right hand. Pelosi is also holding a drink and at one point appears to smile as an officer asks: 'What's going on, man?' DePape responds, 'everything's good', before an officer shines a flashlight which shows the hammer. Police then order DePape to 'drop the hammer' but he responds, 'erm, nope', and after a brief struggle with Pelosi, unleashes the brutal attack. A key question that was raised before the video's release was why Pelosi didn't immediately tell police it was an emergency and that he was in danger. The incident was perceived as unusual because the attack came after police arrived. The video appears to show that Pelosi had been attempting to keep DePape calm before police arrived and was reluctant to do anything that might aggravate his attacker. Pelosi is holding a drink and smiles at the police officers after answering the door - but he also has a hand on DePape's hammer, apparently trying to prevent an attack There are only a matter second between the door being answered and DePape launching his attack. Pelosi attempts to wrestle the hammer from DePape's hands - and by the time police storm into the property, it's too late to stop the attacker striking Pelosi over the head Paul Pelosi was left unconscious after he was struck with the hammer, before the officers rush in and arrested DePape He keeps one hand on the hammer in DePape's hand, apparently in an attempt to prevent the attack. The responding officers were seemingly unaware exactly what was going on in the home before they arrived - and despite their efforts to make DePape drop the weapon, the attack unfolds quickly. Nevertheless, there was a split-second when the officers could have rushed at DePape before he was able to land the devastating strike which fractured Pelosi's skull. Pelosi's smile and seemingly relaxed nature, along with the drink in his hand, also raise questions about what happened before officers arrived. Aerial footage showed broken panes and shatter glass at the backdoor of Pelosi's home, where DePape gained entry. Some commentators said the glass scattered outside of the property suggested it could have been broken from outside Further footage revealed today shows DePape scoped out the Pelosi home before returning with the tools to break in by smashing a window and climbing through David DePape has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges stemming from the October assault FBI agents work outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi where her husband Paul Pelosi was 'violently assaulted' after a break-in at their house Other disproven theories have suggested Paul Pelosi knew his attacker. High-profile figures including Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. shared posts on Twitter which alluded to outrageous conspiracy theories about a so-called relationship between DePape and Pelosi. The 911 call reveals Pelosi told operator Heather Grimes he didn't know the man who broke into his home. Pelosi tells Grimes that the man, who is heard on the call saying his name is David, was looking for Nancy. Pelosi tells the operator, 'I've got a problem' and adds: 'There is a gentleman here waiting for my wife to come back.' He says he doesn't know the man and that his wife is Nancy Pelosi. The tone and contents of the call also align with what we know of how Pelosi attempted to keep his attacker calm while alerting police to the situation. The response of the officers suggests police may not have discerned the threat. Former U.S. Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks to reporters inside the U.S. Capitol Building about her husband Paul Pelosi's recovery on January 27, 2023 in Washington, DC Another disproven suggestion was that the window where DePape gained entry to the house may have been smashed from the inside. Aerial footage of the scene in the aftermath of the incident showed glass scattered outside the downstairs window, which some online theories suggested was evidence it was broken from inside. But further footage released today also captures the moment DePape smashed the window using a hammer and forced it with his shoulder. The footage from US Capitol Police cameras reveals the moment DePape appeared to sneak around the Pelosi property before smashing his way in. The police footage first shows the suspect slowly approaching the home, with hands on hips. Then, after examining the home, he walks away returning with a large bag in one hand and wearing a backpack. He eventually puts on gloves, and grabs the hammer from his bag, which he can be seen slamming into the home, before climbing through the window frame. A screenshot of Capitol Police security footage shows David DePape outside the Pelosi home Fuel was also added to the theories about the incident after NBC pulled a report about the attack from one of its leading journalists, who was also suspended. Some commentators pounced on the fiasco as evidence of a cover-up. The NBC News report by Emmy Award-winning journalist Miguel Almaguer (pictured) was pulled just hours after it aired The report by Emmy Award-winning journalist Miguel Almaguer claimed the Pelosi 'walked several feet back' away from police and towards DePape after the door was opened - but the video shows Pelosi standing right next to DePape as the door opened. Almaguer cited sources who said it was 'unclear' whether Pelosi was injured or 'what his mental state was'. The report said it was unclear why Pelosi didn't tell the officers he was 'in distress'. However, the video shows Almaguer was accurate when he originally reported Pelosi 'did not immediately declare an emergency or leave his home' when cops arrived, and that he told officers 'everythings good' before a struggle 'instantaneously ensued.' NBC suspended Almaguer, who has since returned to work, and said the piece 'did not meet NBC News reporting standards'. The network later said 'the main source for the information was unreliable regarding the question of the circumstances that the police encountered when they arrived at the house, specifically what the police saw and how far the attacker was from the door'. The body cam footage reveals the claim Pelosi stepped away from the police officers was wrong. Australians have so far been treated to a summer that can't make up its mind, from unseasonably cold days to the more humid, oppressive ones we're more familiar with at this time of year. That pattern is set to continue as parts of the country will swelter through 30-degree plus days before a new round of heavy thunderstorms and rain. Here's the forecast near you. Sunday will see a high of 30C in Sydney before the chance of rainfall will steadily increase, with and 80 per cent chance of up to 35mm predicted on Monday (pictured, Bondi Beach) NSW/ACT A severe weather warning is currently in place for residents of the Central Tablelands and northeast NSW, as the possibility of damaging winds, large hail and heavy rainfall is predicted. Severe Thunderstorm Warning issued for the Central Tablelands and northeast NSW. Damaging winds, large hail and heavy rainfall are possible. #Tamworth, #Walcha. Latest warnings: https://t.co/Ss766eSCrL pic.twitter.com/49qMJZJzCv Bureau of Meteorology, New South Wales (@BOM_NSW) January 27, 2023 Over the weekend, the south and far west can expect fine and mostly sunny conditions, but cooler evenings. Sunday will see cooler south to south-westerly winds developing in the state's west and south, with a high of 30 degrees in Sydney. After the weekend, the chance of rainfall in Sydney will steadily increase, with and 80 per cent chance of up to 35mm predicted on Monday. Scattered showers will continue through to Tuesday, with possible thunderstorms in the eastern areas and northern ranges. A week of persistent rain will ease slightly towards the middle of the week, with the chance of rain dropping to 40 per cent for up to 1mm. There will be light winds throughout the week, blowing 15-20km during the day, however average temperatures will reach a maximum of 27 degrees each day. Showers are forecast for Sydney most of next week as the sunshine disappears. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Seb Haggett Thunderstorms and heavy rain are forecast for many parts of Australia's east coast next week Victoria Following the states thunderstorm warning earlier in the week, Victoria will see a mostly sunny Saturday morning, with cloud increasing in the afternoon. Showers will develop over the southwest in the evening, but Melbourne residents can expect a high of 35 degrees. On Sunday, the rain will start, with a 50 per cent chance of up to 2mm forecast for the CBD. Light winds in the east of the state will move southerly over central and western parts, bringing fresh conditions to the coast. On Monday, the state will see scattered showers around the eastern ranges and possible thunderstorms in the far northeast. Sunny conditions will develop in the south after a morning of partial cloud. In Melbourne, temperatures will drop from 24 degrees on Sunday down to 22 in the middle of the week. The Severe Thunderstorm Warning for #Victoria has been contracted to eastern Victoria, with heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding a risk. For more see: https://t.co/HLs2UYFQyQ pic.twitter.com/X4CKFwu68k Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) January 24, 2023 Hot temperatures in Melbourne will soon drop back down to around 22 degrees mid week Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling South Australia A warm start to the weekend will see Adelaide residents swelter through another hot 30 degree day, but an 80 per cent chance of up to 15mm of rain could spoil the summer fun. The Riverland and Murrayland will have a dry day, but the west of the state is likely to see heavy falls. On Sunday, showers and rain will extend over the rest of the state, and through to the north during the afternoon. The CBD will see a maximum of 26 degrees and a relatively cloudy, wet day. The start of the new week dries up the rain, with a clear 27 degrees in Adelaide, with moderate winds along the coast. On Tuesday, mostly sunny conditions return to the state's capital, with another top of 27 degrees. Queensland The BOM has issued the potential for a severe weather warning to be issued, as satellites show storms over the southern interior and the far north. The risk of isolated thunderstorms over the southeastern inland will increase on Sunday, as partly cloudy conditions spread across the rest of the state. Brisbane will stick to the maximum temperature of 31 degrees until Monday, with a 20 per cent chance of rain early in the week. The rain will increase on Tuesday to a 50 per cent chance of up to 10mm, and potential thunderstorm conditions. Scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue towards the end of the week, with below average daytime temperatures across the state. Afternoon satellite check shows storms over the southern interior, #Capricornia and #FNQ. Cloud over #SEQ has suppressed activity today. No severe thunderstorm warnings current, but remains possible in the southern interior for the remainder of today. https://t.co/l3kCoJ1bPD pic.twitter.com/XSyeNcwSBs Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland (@BOM_Qld) January 27, 2023 Brisbane will stick to the maximum temperature of 31 degrees until Monday, with a 20 per cent chance of rain early in the week Western Australia A severe weather warning for heavy rain is current for parts of Western Australia into South Australia, as tropical moisture moves around the country. Rain and storms will increase over broad areas of #WA, the #NT and #SA as tropical moisture moves over the continent. A Severe Weather Warning for heavy rain is current for parts of WA and SA. Latest: https://t.co/G4pbBpbrOE pic.twitter.com/kNDwqjeEg0 Bureau of Meteorology, Australia (@BOM_au) January 27, 2023 Mostly sunny conditions with a high of 31 degrees kickstarts Perth's weekend, with no chance of rain the state's capital. However, the Kimberley region should expect showers and gusty thunderstorms throughout the weekend. Thunderstorms across Pilbara, Interior, Gascoyne, western Goldfields and the northern and central parts of the South West Land Division will continue through until Monday at the earliest. The temperature really begins to warm up in Perth throughout the week, with Sunday's high of 33 degrees raised to 34 with the slight chance of a thunderstorm in the evening on Monday. The Metropolitan Police chief is praising an officer for her 'incredibly bravery' after she reported how she was raped by David Carrick two decades ago but didn't come forward because the 'culture' in the force made her fear she 'would not be believed.' The officer, who is referred to as Michelle to protect her identity, claims Carrick attacked her at his home in 2004 but she didn't come forward until 2021 after he was charged with another rape. Carrick, 48, was exposed as one of Britain's most prolific rapists last week after admitting 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape, while serving with the force between 2003 and 2020. Michelle, speaking to The Times about the trauma she endured, said she finally came forward because 'I thought I owed it to the victims.' A Met Police officer, who is referred to as Michelle to protect her identity, claims David Carrick (pictured) attacked her at his home in 2004 but she didn't come forward until 2021 after he was charged with another rape Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told MailOnline that Michelle has 'shown incredible bravery' and 'I fully support her decision to share her experiences and courageously speak out about the abuse she endured' Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley told MailOnline that Michelle has 'shown incredible bravery.' 'I fully support her decision to share her experiences and courageously speak out about the abuse she endured,' he said. 'We know that many victims and survivors of sexual violence and abuse suffer in silence. 'We are determined not only to root out those who corrupt the Met, but to do everything we can to ensure women, both those who work at the Met and Londoners, have more confidence to report domestic and sexual abuse and to know that when they come forward, action will be taken.' Michelle said Carrick, who was in his 20s at the time of her alleged rape, was a 'womaniser' who would 'slap a womans a**e as they walked past' or 'blow kisses' at females. However, she noted that 'quite a few male police officers did that.' Michelle told the newspaper she was initially 'flattered' when Carrick began flirting with her, but quickly noticed his controlling behaviours. She said he would keep tabs on what she was doing and who she was socialising with, as well as lock arms with her to 'perhaps signal to people, "shes mine."' Michelle said Carrick would flirt with many women, but didn't allow her to do the same. She said that she was 'exclusive to him' but the pair never labelled their relationship. One night, after the pair finished working a long shift, Carrick reportedly invited Michelle back to his London home and raped her. 'It wasnt violent but it was forced,' Michelle told The Times. 'I said "no" numerous times but for him it was a "yes".' Michelle said Carrick, (pictured) who was in his 20s at the time of her alleged rape, was a 'womaniser' who would 'slap a womans a**e as they walked past' or 'blow kisses' at females Michelle believed that had she spoken out about the incident at the time, 'it would have probably ruined my career.' She said Met Police was 'very male-dominated' and that 'women werent encouraged to speak up about officers misconduct' Police forces in England and Wales record the highest ever number of rapes and sexual offences in 2022: CLICK HERE TO READ MORE There were 199,021 sex crimes logged by forces in the year to September 2022, according to ONS figures Advertisement After the alleged attack, the pair had to work together for two weeks - which Michelle described as being 'difficult' - before they returned to their role at police stations 'in opposite parts of London.' Michelle took steps to ensure she was never alone with Carrick and refused to acknowledge his presence. She claims he also ignored her and after they returned to their respective posts she 'never saw him in person again.' The next time Michelle saw Carrick was when he was mentioned in a news report in October 2021, after a first victim had accused him of rape. Michelle said she 'instantly recognised him' and was left in 'shock.' The publicity of the case ultimately inspired other women come forward, including Michelle. The officer said she didn't initially see herself as a victim because 'I was a police officer.' She also feels 'guilty' because if she had reported her rape 'maybe I could have prevented Carricks attacks on more victims.' Michelle said she knows that even if she had reported the attack nearly 20 years ago, that it is unlikely much would have come of it considering 'very few rape cases made it to court at that time.' She also believed that had she spoken out about the incident, 'it would have probably ruined my career.' She said the force was 'very male-dominated' and that 'women werent encouraged to speak up about officers misconduct.' She says female officers were reminded they were 'cops' and not 'victims.' Carrick, pictured here in an artists impression in court, was exposed as one of Britain's most prolific rapists last week after admitting 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape, while serving with the force between 2003 and 2020 Carrick (pictured) faced complaints about his behaviour before he joined the Met in 2001, then again as a probationer in 2002 and several times throughout his policing career until 2021. He was only suspended from duty in October 2021 when arrested for rape Carrick attacked at least a dozen women over an 18-year period throughout his career with the Met, using his position to gain their trust and scare them into staying silent. His pay was stopped when he pleaded guilty to the bulk of the criminal charges in December but there is no mechanism to strip him of his pension. Current rules only apply when crimes are directly connected to the offenders police service. The former armed officer faced complaints about his behaviour before he joined the Met in 2001, then again as a probationer in 2002 and several times throughout his policing career until 2021. He was only suspended from duty in October 2021 when arrested for rape. Sir Mark previously said weak policies and decisions meant Carrick was able to stay in the force for 20 years, despite repeated complaints being made against him. Now, more than 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers and staff previously accused of domestic violence and sexual offences are having the allegations reviewed in the wake of Carrick's case. Massive protests took place across the country Friday night following the release of the Tyre Nichols bodycam footage. One demonstrator was spotting hurling a firework at an LAPD cruiser during a huge march in the city. Meanwhile in New York City a man was photographed standing atop a smashed in police vehicle windshield. Officers quickly dragging him down and arrested him. At least three have been taken into custody in the Big Apple as part of the protests, according to NBC New York. Another stood over a cop car with a tattered American flag. Antifa has issued a call to arms for protestors to light up New York City on Friday night. In Memphis, protesters chanted: 'Say his name! Tyre Nichols!' and several dozen protesters blocked a heavily traveled bridge on Interstate 55 that is one of two main spans connecting Arkansas and Tennessee over the Mississippi River. One demonstrator was spotting hurling a firework at an LAPD cruiser during a huge march in the city One protester was seen standing over a clearly smashed police car front window in New York City Police officers take a smiling demonstrator, who smashed the window of a police car, into custody during the protest against the police assault of Tyre Nichols at Times Square in New York, United States on January 27, 2023 NYPD officers were soon after seen trying to drag him down from atop the vehicle and eventually arrested him Another stood over a cop car with a tattered American flag Protestors become violent damaging a NYPD cruzer as they march in Times Square demanding justice for the death of Tyre Nichols Massive protests have begun in Memphis Friday night following the release of the Tyre Nichols bodycam footage as cities around the country brace for violent riots A poster shows the group calling upon demonstrators to gather at various locations in the Big Apple and 'Burn It All Down'. Cities across America are anticipating widespread protests following the release of the distressing footage. Federal employees in Memphis and Portland have been told to go home early, and workers have begun boarding up buildings. The mayor of New York City on Friday evening urged protesters to remain peaceful, and NYPD has made extensive preparations, including asking officers to stay on and work overtime when their shift finishes on Friday. Protesters gathered in a park near the White House, in Memphis and other cities including Philadelphia, Boston and Seattle as the video was released. One protester was seen standing over a clearly smashed police car front window in New York City. Protesters march down the street Friday in Memphis following the release of the video of Tyre Nichols' deadly interaction with police People participate in a demonstration Friday January 27, 2023, in Center City Philadelphia, after the release of Memphis Police bodycam video showing the traffic stop of Tyre Nichols who died three days later Protesters hold placards and banners in Downtown Boston as they march over the police killing of Tyre Nichols Protesters march by the Massachusetts State Capitol Building with placards in protest of the police killing of Tyre Nichols Nichols' death resulted in murder charges and provoked outrage at the country's latest instance of police brutality Demonstrators were shutting down highways just outside the city while chanting: 'Say his name - Tyre Nichols' Protesters rally against the the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols in Washington Protestors in Seattle chanted and marched from Capitol Hill to the Space Needle disrupting traffic before returning to the Seattle Police East Precinct and blocking the intersection Over 80 people peacefully marched from Cal Anderson Park to the Space Needle in Seattle and back to Capitol Hill to demand justice for Nichols In Memphis, protesters chanted: 'Say his name! Tyre Nichols!' and several dozen protesters blocked a heavily traveled bridge on Interstate 55 that is one of two main spans connecting Arkansas and Tennessee over the Mississippi River. Unions in California and Hawaii issued a joint statement calling the actions of the officers 'repugnant and the complete antithesis of how honorable law enforcement professionals conduct themselves.' The Prosecutors Alliance of California calls the killing senseless and in Californias capitol of Sacramento, Mayor Darrell Steinberg said: 'I am filled with anger, with sorrow and revulsion.' Memphis Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins watched a televised interview on Friday of Tyre Nichols mother speaking about the loss of her son, and lost control of his emotions. Lora Dene King, daughter of Rodney King, speaks as Najee Ali listens during a viewing of the video showing the beating of Tyre Nichols Protesters gather in Lafayette Park outside the White House in Washington Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols in Lafayette Square A security guard looks out of a window as protesters project an image of Tyre Nichols Left wing activists carry a banner during a protest on the day of the release in New York City's Times Square The protesters often espoused left wing causes in addition to calls for racial justice, with one of the marchers holding up a sign for the the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Another read: 'Defund the police? Smash the capitalist state through workers' revolution.' Still another called the courts, officers and the justice system a product of 'bosses' and the need for a 'workers' government.' In downtown Atlanta, marchers used the protest as a chance to advocate for the end to 'Cop City,' a $90million Atlanta Public Safety Training Centre. The protesters often espoused left wing causes in addition to calls for racial justice, with one of the marchers holding up a sign for the the Party for Socialism and Liberation Another read: 'Defund the police? Smash the capitalist state through workers' revolution' In downtown Atlanta, marchers used the protest as a chance to advocate for the end to 'Cop City,' a $90million Atlanta Public Safety Training Centre The Nichols family has urged those angered by the footage to remain calm, emphasizing that they support the judicial process and approve of the firing of the five officers. They have stressed that Nichols himself would have hated to see rioting in his name. Joe Biden on Friday night said he hopes the family's wishes are respected. 'Let the courts make the judgement,' he said, adding that protests must remain peaceful. Yet Antifa is expected to take advantage of the chaos, with the group ordering followers to bring a list of weapons including rocks, kerosene and pipes. Tyre Nichols, 29, was beaten like a 'human pinata' by five Memphis, Tennessee, police officers on January 7 and died three days later in the hospital from kidney failure and cardiac arrest An image of Tyre Nichols is displayed on a building in Washington DC as people gather to protest over his death on Friday night Businesses in multiple cities have been boarded up in anticipation for the release of the shocking footage Federal buildings in Memphis and Portland have been evacuated and businesses are being boarded up ahead of the potential violence and looting Workers are seen boarding up buildings ahead of expected protests Federal buildings are being evacuated ahead of the riots, while businesses in Memphis and Portland are already boarded up to protect from the expected looting. Ahead of Antifa taking to the streets, New York City mayor Eric Adams urged people to 'peacefully voice their concern if the video is what we anticipate it to be'. The NYPD is telling officers to stay on duty rather than clock off on Friday when their shifts end due to 'robust protests', which are expected once the tape is released. 'They want them on standby,' a source told NY Daily News. Adams on Friday condemned the five officers, saying they 'make it harder' for all decent police officers. He praised the Memphis police chief for her swift firing of the five, and praised prosecutors for charging them. 'We should be able to express our sorrow and our rage, but we must take all that pain and turn it into purpose,' he said. 'My message to New Yorkers is to respect the wishes of Mr Nichols's mother. If you need to protest, do it peacefully.' Antifa on Friday urged protesters to bring knives, pipes, kerosene and lighters to riot in New York City Ryan Kellum, center, and Ricky Noe install plywood boards over windows at Caliber Collision in Memphis on Friday Members of the media stand next to one boarded up business in downtown Memphis ahead of the release of body cam video Eric Adams, mayor of New York City and a former police officer, said he was horrified by the actions of the five Memphis police, and urged protesters to stay calm As a human being, I am devastated. As a mayor, I am outraged. And as someone who spent decades fighting for police diversity and against police abuse, I feel betrayed. My heart goes out to Tyre Nichols family, friends and the people of Memphis. pic.twitter.com/HwHT40WeU4 Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) January 27, 2023 Joe Biden on Friday night urged protesters to remain calm and show their anger in a peaceful manner Government officials are calling for peace ahead of what could be a night of mayhem, while Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, has activated 1,000 National Guard troops. 'We are closely monitoring the events in Memphis and are prepared to support peaceful protests in our city,' Atlanta police told CBS News. 'We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols. 'Police officers are expected to conduct themselves in a compassionate, competent, and constitutional manner and these officers failed Tyre, their communities and their profession. We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful.' The governor's emergency order said the state 'respects peaceful protests, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property.' Over the weekend, masked protesters threw rocks, launched fireworks, and burned a police vehicle outside the Atlanta Police Federation building after activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, who is reportedly apart of far-left group Antifa, was shot and killed during a protest against a new police training facility in Atlanta, according to Fox News. Protesters had dubbed Atlanta 'cop city' and called for a 'night of rage' after the police-involved incident. The police bodycam footage has been described as 'worse than Rodney King', and its release is expected to ignite widespread outrage across the nation. Nichols, 29, was beaten like a 'human pinata,' the family lawyer said, by five Memphis police officers, who were all African American, on January 7. He died three days later in the hospital from kidney failure and cardiac arrest. Ben Crump, the attorney representing the Nichols, is seen on Friday addressing a press conference beside Nichols's weeping mother RowVaughn Wells, the mother of Tyre Nichols, is comforted by relatives during Friday's press conference Footage of the moment Nichols was beaten by the police is predicted to kick Antifa into action, as the group's call to arms orders rioters to 'wear all black' and 'cover your face'. Nichols's mother RowVaughn Wells urged those gathered at a memorial for her son on Thursday night to protest peacefully. 'When that tape comes out tomorrow, it's going to be horrific,' Wells told the crowd. 'I didn't see it, but from what I hear, it's going to be horrific. But I want each and every one of you to protest in peace. 'I don't want us burning up our cities, tearing up the streets, because that's not what my son stood for,' she said. 'And if you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. You can get your point across, but we don't need to tear up our cities, people, because we do have to live in them.' Five police officers, who are all African American, were fired from the Memphis Police Department. Their names are: Tadarrius Bean (middle), Demetrius Haley (left), Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr.(right), and Justin Smith All the officers, who were hired between 2017 and 2020, and face multiple charges, including second-degree murder (pictured L-R: Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith) Washington DC is also on high alert ahead of the demonstrations, with President Biden urging the nation to be calm ahead of the footage's release. The president said Nichols's death is a 'painful reminder' that the U.S. justice system has seen many 'fatal encounters with law enforcement [that] have disparately impacted black and brown people.' 'To deliver real change, we must have accountability when law enforcement officers violate their oaths, and we need to build lasting trust between law enforcement, the vast majority of whom wear the badge honorably, and the communities they are sworn to serve and protect,' the president said. 'As Americans grieve, the Department of Justice conducts its investigation, and state authorities continue their work, I join Tyre's family in calling for peaceful protest. The bodycam footage of his January 7 interaction with five Memphis police officers will be released tonight at 7pm on the department's YouTube page 'Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable. Violence is destructive and against the law. It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice.' The five officers who beat Nichols on the footage have been named as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. The group have been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct, and official oppression. Four out of the five have been released from custody on a combined $1million bond. Authorities had withheld the bodycam footage since the attack due to fears that it will spark protests. The footage, which has been viewed by some of the family, shows Nichols being shocked, pepper sprayed, and restrained. The 29-year-old FedEx worker moved to Memphis from California in February 2020 after his friends convinced him to start fresh. He was pulled over in his car, minutes away from his home. They are, as she famously recounted, like the conjoined palm trees on their Montecito lawn, profoundly 'connected'. Indeed, so much of the mythology and 'branding' of Harry and Meghan's new philanthropic, post-royal life has been built on this one central image: H&M, an inseparable, intertwined unit, portraying their unique rock-solid bond as existing on a higher emotional plane than that occupied by most mere mortals. Yet as Harry has embarked on his most significant project to date, the record-breaking, best-selling memoir Spare, he's done it mostly solo. Meghan is nowhere to be seen. The former actress hasn't once accompanied him on his exhaustive tour of TV studios and interviews to promote the book, despite undeniably excelling at life in the spotlight. As Harry has embarked on his most significant project to date, the record-breaking, best-selling memoir Spare, he's done it mostly solo Meghan is nowhere to be seen. The former actress hasn't once accompanied Harry on his exhaustive tour of TV studios and interviews to promote his book When one considers how nervous Harry is about public speaking as he explains himself in Spare and given the extraordinarily high stakes of what he had to say, on tricky subjects as wide-ranging as being physically attacked by his brother to his frost-bitten manhood, it seems unusual that his normally ever-present wife remains firmly behind the scenes. He even wrote a tribute to Meghan in Spare, saying: 'This book would've been impossible, logistically, physically, emotionally, spiritually without you. Most things would be impossible without you.' Surely, then, at this point of all points, he would need Meghan by his side? So where is she? The couple have not been seen in public together since December 7, in New York, where they received the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award for their work on racial justice and mental health. Harry was grimacing and grinning in a lounge suit, while Meghan dazzled in white, wearing an aquamarine ring which once belonged to Princess Diana. Some believe that Penguin Random House, Harry's publishers, would have expected Meghan to be more visible of late, to help push the book's sales. One senior media executive tells me: 'What most people have concluded is that Penguin would have told her from the get go that Harry needed to be front and centre during his book tour that it's his journey and that he needs to shine. Meghan Markle has been seen far less frequently in the wake of the release of Spare 'However, most people also know that the two of them together generates far more headlines all famous couples do and I cannot imagine Penguin would have wanted her to be quite this absent.' Since they were last seen in public, of course, their six-hour long Netflix series has shown them on the small screen sitting side-by-side, linking hands, soupily and soppily inseparable. But Meghan wasn't present, on or off camera, during his interviews with ITV's Tom Bradby and CNN's Anderson Cooper. These two set-piece, sit-down chats were actually filmed in the week before Christmas in the 5,700-a-night Churchill Cottage at the San Ysidro Ranch, in Montecito, California. We know that Meghan loves it there it was the venue for her interview and photoshoot with Hollywood bible Variety in October. However, she wasn't anywhere on the property when Harry poured his heart out in those two lengthy TV interviews, sources say. The couple have not been seen in public together since December 7, in New York Meghan wasn't present, on or off camera, during his interviews with ITV's Tom Bradby and CNN's Anderson Cooper Similarly, when Harry faced the quick wit of Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on the eve of Spare's publication in New York, he was without his wife, who was neither there to pep him up beforehand, or to decant his experience afterwards. Into this vacuum has emerged a wide variety of theories. The internet, as one would expect, is ablaze with unfounded, cruel and hysterical suggestions for the reasons for Meghan's whereabouts. Others in the mainstream media have posited ideas, too. The Daily Telegraph's Victoria Ward suggested last weekend that 'media-savvy Meghan was more circumspect about the concept of a memoir, and may have raised gentle concerns about whether it was the right move'. Yet I can reveal that Meghan's public absence is something more strategic, not borne out of vague 'concerns' least of all any sort of schism in their relationship. Indeed, they have been as together as ever in private, apparently spending the festive season having immolated the reputations of the Royal Family enjoying family time at Baker's Bay in the Bahamas. No, Meghan's retreat from the public eye is, say well-placed sources, part of a carefully considered three-pronged PR approach to neutralise some critics as well as to lay the ground for future lucrative projects. Meghan's public absence is something more strategic, not borne out of vague 'concerns' least of all any sort of schism in their relationship First and foremost, I'm told that Meghan's absence was planned to escape the immediate problem of the poisonous narrative which surrounds them, suggesting that Harry is manipulated by his wife. The couple understandably deplore this thinking, seeing it as nothing short of unfounded misogynistic and racist trolling. Perhaps the best way to sum up this school of thought, which is commonplace in some internet circles, is to talk about 'The Claw', the phrase critics of Meghan use to describe the hand she is in the habit of laying on his back, presumably to reassure him on public outings. A friend of the couple tells me that the pair are keen to halt this toxic theorising, adding: 'They usually leave each other to promote their own solo projects, so I don't really see Spare as any different to, say, the podcast which Meghan did magazine covers for etc, but we didn't really hear anything from Harry. 'Plus, they did the Netflix series four weeks before the book came out, so that was her telling her part of the story already.' He adds: 'I know she's always been supportive of Spare so I don't believe there to be a bigger story there certainly no 'divide'.' Another source, who knows the couple via broadcasting, suggests Meghan's absence is part of a long-term approach to be a star in her own right. And her model for this? Well, their theory is Harry and Meghan are following the 'Obama playbook' of former U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. It requires them to conduct public-facing engagements separately, so the woman can burnish her own reputation and escape the shadow cast by the established male figure. This could explain why Meghan laid flowers after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on her own, while Harry laid a wreath at Pearl Harbor without her last year. The source added: 'Harry's book deal does not involve Meghan. If she had been involved in promoting the book, it would have invited the usual misogynist pile-on, particularly on social media. In those circumstances, you can understand why she's wanted to duck out.' But will she stay silent for long? That brings us to another part of the long-term PR plan. This one indicates that her absence on the Spare tour was in part to keep her powder dry for her own memoir. What an extraordinary and profitable story that promises to be. Meghan also has projects in development with Spotify and Netflix although the scale and finance of these remains moot. In short: it's worth her keeping quiet now, with an eye to her future plans. All of these will, inevitably, involve her having her say once again about how impossible she found life inside the Royal Family. It's the story she has to tell, and the currency she has to sell. There will, of course, be select public events which Harry and Meghan will attend together. The big focus for them as a couple this year is the Invictus Games in Dusseldorf, Germany, in September. But the publication of Spare appears to mark a more nuanced phase for their public activities one where they are not always seen as embodying those now notorious palm trees, and where that image of 'The Claw' is not available for online mockery. Anyone who has made it to the end of Harry's book, where he recounts what Meghan wrote in her journal after he helped at the birth of Lili, can be in no doubt of how significantly she has strengthened him. The climax of the memoir is when she tells him: 'That was everything. That is a man. That is not a spare.' This is the validation he says he spent a lifetime failing to get from his family. And it's this strength which is powering them on to win over the world and, vitally, yet more well-paid deals both as a powerful pair and as distinct solo personalities. As far as the councillors of the London Borough of Haringey are concerned, they are simply erasing a shameful blot from the neighbourhood map. Surely, they reason, it is time for an enlightened and progressive 21st-century authority to expunge this legacy of an unhappy, bygone age. And so, as of this week, Black Boy Lane in Tottenham as it has been for as long as anyone can remember is no more. A road which is home to hundreds of people and a regular thoroughfare for thousands of passengers on two important bus routes has now been renamed La Rose Lane, after local writer and activist John La Rose. Theresa Campbell has lived round the corner for years, she explains, and has come to visit an elderly friend who is very confused about the change Berris Raynor, 83, is equally dismissive. 'Black Boy Lane? White Boy Lane?,' he laughs. 'Who cares?' After all, this is one of Britain's most diverse and multicultural areas, a district in which 43 per cent of people describe themselves as non-white. So never mind the original budget of a mind-boggling 186,000 for changing a few road signs, including an 'inconvenience' payment of 300 to every home along the route. And even though the council has since assured me only 100,000 was spent of that figure, that's still a vast sum for half a dozen road signs. Indeed, it's only public money. And there are important virtues to be signalled here. As the Labour-led council points out on its website, this follows 'a consultation started in the wake of the death of George Floyd'. This is one of Britain's most diverse and multicultural areas, a district in which 43 per cent of people describe themselves as non-white Within 24 hours of this week's ribbon-cutting, one of the new 'La Rose Lane' street signs had been defaced In fact, 81 per cent of residents on Black Boy Lane rejected the idea when the council finally got round to asking for their opinions Perhaps, by linking the renaming of this half-mile stretch of the 67 and 341 bus routes to the most notorious episode of racial injustice in recent U.S. history thus invoking the spirit of the Black Lives Matter movement Haringey Council hopes that it might win round the locals. For the awkward truth is that very few people have had any enthusiasm for this idea, let alone any problem with the old name. In fact, 81 per cent of residents on Black Boy Lane rejected the idea when the council finally got round to asking for their opinions. Across this entire multicultural borough home to Tottenham Hotspur's famous White Hart Lane ground and now the club's gleaming new stadium a total of 78 per cent came out against the idea. You'd have to have a heart of stone (or a Guardian subscription) not to laugh. Most problematic of all for the culture warriors on the council, however, was when objections were broken down by ethnicity. At which point, opposition to abolishing Black Boy Lane rose to 100 per cent among local respondents identifying themselves as black. That's right. Nul points. No one is entirely sure how the street got its name in the first place. There certainly used to be a pub at the top called The Black Boy, although, as the council admits, 'the historical origin of the pub's name is not clear'. In the 1980s, it became The Black Grape following complaints about the pub sign (featuring a black face), but is now boarded up. Whether the pub took its name from the street or vice versa is unclear. Some have argued that the name was inspired by chimney sweeps, others that it was a nickname for King Charles II (a reference to his black locks). The council points to historical records which show a pub on the site as far back as the 17th century. 'This was a time when Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade was nearing its peak, and there were notable Tottenham residents with links to the slave trade.' And councils know best. So, undaunted by the residents' opposition and the sketchy historical evidence, Haringey pressed on in their noble endeavour, culminating in this week's opening ceremony and some nice headlines in the local media. 'People didn't want this. I've lived here 25 years and no one ever mentioned the name. But then the council said they were going to do it anyway,' Jonathan Barnby said 'I have lived here for 25 years and it's a nice name. It's part of our heritage. Leave it alone,' says cinema worker Joubert Roberts Just one problem, though: those pesky locals. Within 24 hours of this week's ribbon-cutting, one of the new 'La Rose Lane' street signs had been defaced. Meanwhile, dozens of homes have now erected new metal signs saying 'Black Boy Lane'. So much for those 300 bungs and the council's insistence that this is all designed to 'address inequality and celebrate the rich diversity of our borough'. Don't these ingrates know what's good for them? Much as the battalions of wokery might want to point the finger of blame at pockets of recidivist racism, the truth turns out to be very different. The more I dig into this story, the more it boils down to a tale not of botched race relations, but of patronising attitudes in local government. The council insists it took the decision to rename the street 'following calls from Haringey residents, in recognition of the negative impact the racist connotations attached to the name have had on residents'. But when I ask, the council is unable to tell me how many 'calls' it actually received. I take to the streets myself. And in the course of walking up and down this road for hours, I find that almost everyone thinks the name change is a rotten idea. 'I have lived here for 25 years and it's a nice name. It's part of our heritage. Leave it alone,' says cinema worker Joubert Roberts. Born in Jamaica, he has absolutely no problem with the old name and doesn't know anyone who does. 'Besides, I like to tell the children that the street is named after my great-grandfather!' The sign that was vandalised earlier in the week has now been scrubbed clean. While I am examining it, former English teacher Theresa Campbell comes up to impart her own views and to give me a 'Happy New Year' hug, too. She has lived round the corner for years, she explains, and has come to visit an elderly friend who is very confused about the change. 'My trade is right down now. People don't come through and business is down,' says Ismail Demirci, 39 These residents all expect their local authority to deploy its limited resources on running local amenities, emptying the bins and keeping the streets lit at night not renaming them by day Both she and her friend are members of the black community. 'It's just b******s,' she says, bursting into infectious laughter. 'I mean, what's the world coming to?' Fellow resident, Berris Raynor, 83, is equally dismissive. 'Black Boy Lane? White Boy Lane?,' he laughs. 'Who cares?' Black Boy/La Rose Lane runs from a bustling shopping area along West Green Road down to the far end of Chestnuts Park. Theresa points over to the other side of West Green Road. 'If the council has all this money to spend, why not spend it on the community centre over there. It's crying out for help.' A recurring point, made by everyone I meet, is that the council is forever pleading hardship. So these residents all expect their local authority to deploy its limited resources on running local amenities, emptying the bins and keeping the streets lit at night not renaming them by day. 'There are people getting burgled. We're coming out of Covid. And the council could do so much more with 186,000,' says Marcus Matthews, 42, a nurse in a local NHS unit. Mr Matthews, who happens to be black, says he is delighted that a man like John La Rose 'a great guy' is receiving recognition. However, he believes that the council could easily have put his name on something new somewhere else (the late Mr La Rose was, in any case, based in another part of the borough) and put this money to better use. Everyone I meet agrees that the Trinidad-born writer should receive a posthumous honour. He arrived in Britain in 1961, set up this country's first Caribbean publishing house and, until his death in 2006, devoted his life to campaigning on behalf of the younger generation through organisations such as the Black Education Movement. His grandson, Renaldo La Rose, attended this week's renaming ceremony and spoke of the family's pride. However, some of John La Rose's old friends at the George Padmore Institute, the educational centre which he helped found in 1991, have called the renaming 'tokenistic'. And many are unhappy that Mr La Rose should now be associated with an unpopular road debate rather than something positive. 'I feel sorry for the man. He shouldn't be remembered for this,' says film director Wayne Holloway, a local resident walking past Chestnuts Park. He says he is not bothered about the change of name and that it was 'probably about time', despite the fact no one voted for it. 'You get morons on every council and this is just virtue-signalling,' he says. What irks him, and many others round here much more, are the other new signs warning drivers that the lower end of the road is now a Low Traffic Neighbourhood, with a fine of 130 for those who come this way. 'My trade is right down now. People don't come through and business is down,' says Ismail Demirci, 39, behind the counter of his corner shop halfway down the lane. The new name is the final straw. 'I've got to change everything now,' he says, pointing at all his payment devices for things such as the Lotto and Transport for London's Oyster cards. I knock on the doors of some of the homes which now have 'Black Boy Lane' signs in windows or attached to walls. The council gave residents a say in the new name, offering them a choice between John La Rose and Jocelyn Barrow It turns out that one resident, a sign-maker, has produced them and handed them out free of charge. Marketing researcher Jonathan Barnby speaks for many when he points out that his main objection has been the way the council has handled this. 'People didn't want this. I've lived here 25 years and no one ever mentioned the name. But then the council said they were going to do it anyway,' he says. Having encountered stiff resistance first time round, he says, the council gave residents a say in the new name, offering them a choice between John La Rose and Jocelyn Barrow (the late Barbados-born activist and BBC governor). 'They offered us one or the other positive bias in other words but no choice in whether we wanted the change at all,' says Jonathan. 'Surely that money could have been better spent on food banks.' He is unmoved by the 'voluntary inconvenience payment' of 300 to all 183 homes along the road (which, by my maths, could employ two nurses for an entire year). Jonathan points to the list of things which now need to be changed, from passports and bank account details to a newly acquired visa for India. In bureaucratic terms, it is not unlike moving house, but without actually moving an inch. Surely there must be some fans? Indeed, I find three of them (all white and all at the younger end of the spectrum). David, 34, and Celia, 35, who both work in events management, are on a walk to the park. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of all this is not that people are more accepting of British history, warts and all, than the culture warriors imagine They don't live in the street but say they approve. 'I did find it jarring when I was on the bus and the announcement said: 'Next stop: Black Boy Lane',' says David. Knocking on one door, with a 'Black Boy Lane' sign in the window, I meet Caroline Rocha, 20. She explains that her mother put the sign up but says she quite likes the change. 'I just like the name 'La Rose'. It sounds prettier,' she says. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of all this is not that people are more accepting of British history, warts and all, than the culture warriors imagine; nor that human beings of every creed and background don't much like unnecessary change. What I find fascinating are the minutes of Haringey council's corporate committee, which enacted all this at a meeting in February last year and has since spent a year pushing it through. They passed a resolution 'to consider the feedback from the further consultation and the previous consultation', then resolved 'to consider and take into account the Equalities Impact Assessment (at Appendix 1) of the proposed change on protected groups' and then, in the same breath, resolved 'to make an Order under the London Building Acts (Amendment) Act 1939 Section 6(1) to rename Black Boy Lane to La Rose Lane'. In other words, 'it couldn't matter two hoots what the people think because we're doing it anyway'. In a statement, council leader Peray Ahmet insists: 'I understand that this is a decision that has generated passionate responses, but this is a change that was long overdue, both to honour John La Rose's legacy, and to remove a street name that for so long has been a source of hurt for black people in our borough.' No matter that the council's own evidence says otherwise. In today's woke world, it's the virtue that counts. Earlier inquiry concluded the attack had taken place but did not assign blame The global chemical weapons watchdog has said its investigators found 'reasonable grounds to believe' Syria's air force dropped two cylinders containing chlorine gas on the city of Douma in April 2018, killing 43 people. A report by a team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ruled that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons during his country's grinding civil war. The latest inquiry identified four alleged perpetrators in one air force unit, but their names were not made public. 'The use of chemical weapons in Douma - and anywhere - is unacceptable and a breach of international law,' OPCW director-general Fernando Arias said. Syrian officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the findings from AP and Reuters. FILE - In this Monday, April 16, 2018 file photo, people stand in front of damaged buildings, in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria Medical workers clean individuals caught in an April 2018 gas attack in Syria Medical workers treating Syrian children after deadly gas attack in 2018 A previous investigation by the OPCW had already concluded in March 2019 that a chemical attack had taken place in Douma, but that inquiry had not been mandated to assign blame. Weaponising chlorine is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention, ratified by Syria in 2013. Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 under pressure from the international community after being blamed for another deadly chemical weapon attack, but does not recognise the investigation team's authority and has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. Bringing perpetrators in Syria to justice remains a long way off. Syria's ally Russia has in the past blocked efforts by the UN Security Council to order an International Criminal Court investigation in Syria. 'At least one helicopter of the Syrian Tiger Forces' Elite Unit dropped two yellow cylinders containing toxic chlorine gas on two apartment buildings in a civilian-inhabited area in Douma, killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more,' a summary of the report said. The Tiger Forces are elite Syrian troops generally used in offensive operations in the war. 'The world now knows the facts. It is up to the international community to take action, at the OPCW and beyond,' Mr Arias, a veteran Spanish diplomat, said. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (L) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a meeting in the Kremlin The OPCW team previously identified Syrian forces as responsible for three chemical attacks in Latamneh in March 2017 and one in Saraqeb in February 2018. The organisation said 'reasonable grounds to believe' is the standard of proof consistently adopted by international fact-finding bodies and commissions of inquiry that investigate potential violations of international law. Friday's report said that standard was met through evidence indicating at least one Syrian air force Mi8/17 helicopter dropped two yellow cylinders on Douma during a government military offensive to recapture the city. One of the cylinders hit the roof of a three-storey residential building and ruptured, 'rapidly released toxic gas, chlorine, in very high concentrations, which rapidly dispersed within the building killing 43 named individuals and affecting dozens more', according to the report. A second cylinder burst through the roof of another building into an apartment below and only partially ruptured, 'mildly affecting those who first arrived at the scene', the report added. Syrian authorities refused the investigation team access to the sites of the chlorine attacks. The country had its OPCW voting rights suspended in 2021 as punishment for the repeated use of toxic gas, the first such sanction imposed on a member nation. A Syrian man wears an oxygen mask at a make-shift hospital following a reported gas attack on the rebel-held besieged town of Douma in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus in 2018 The investigation by the organisation's team, which was set up to identify perpetrators of chemical weapon attacks in Syria, built on earlier findings by an OPCW fact-finding mission that chlorine was used as a weapon in Douma. The investigators interviewed dozens of witnesses and studied the blood and urine of survivors as well as samples of soil and building materials, according to the watchdog agency. As part of the probe, they also assessed and rejected alternative theories for what happened, including Syria's claim that the attack was staged and that bodies of people killed elsewhere in Syria were taken to Douma to look like victims of a gas attack. The report found that the two cylinders carrying chlorine were modified and filled at the Dumayr air base and the helicopter or helicopters that dropped them were under control of the Syrian military's elite Tiger Force. The OPCW team 'considered a range of possible scenarios and tested their validity against the evidence they gathered and analysed to reach their conclusion: that the Syrian Arab Air Forces are the perpetrators of this attack', the organisation said in a statement. British diplomats at the OPCW tweeted that they were studying the report, adding: 'We will work with partners on next steps.' People stand in front of damaged buildings, in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria, Monday, April 16, 2018 Activists said many of the dead were found with foam around their mouths, an indicator of suffocation. Medical workers said they treated people for symptoms that included difficulty breathing and fainting. The United States, Britain and France blamed Syrian government forces and launched punitive air strikes. Syria denied responsibility. Douma was the final target of the government's sweeping campaign to seize back control of the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus from rebels after seven years of revolt. Militants gave up the town days after the alleged attack. The OPCW's Investigation and Identification Team effectively replaced an earlier investigative mechanism set up between the United Nations and the OPCW in 2015 that was disbanded in 2017 after Russia vetoed an extension of its mandate in the Security Council. In an attempt to ensure accountability for crimes in Syria, the United Nations has established an 'international, impartial and independent mechanism'. It is mandated to preserve and analyse evidence of crimes and prepare files for trials in 'national, regional or international courts or tribunals that have or may in the future have jurisdiction over these crimes, in accordance with international law'. The ongoing conflict that started in Syria more than a decade ago has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced half the country's pre-war population of 23 million. He has no shortage of palaces in which to rest his head the night before he is crowned. But Charles III may also take up the once-in-a-lifetime chance to sleep in a unique bedroom at Parliament on the eve of his coronation. The Mail can reveal that he is to be offered the use of a bed fit for a king and which mysteriously went missing inside the grandest residence in Westminster, ahead of the May 6 ceremony. The State Bed, within the State Apartments of Speakers House, was built to honour the tradition dating back to William the Conqueror that the monarch slept at the Palace of Westminster the night before the coronation in nearby Westminster Abbey. King Charles III may take up the once-in-a-lifetime chance to sleep in a unique bedroom at Parliament on the eve of his coronation In 1979, the bed was found when its owners Ron and Wendy Martin said they had slept in the national treasure for 20 years - and that their son Benedict was born in it If the King does sleep at Westminster the night before his coronation, he will be reviving a tradition dating back to William the Conqueror However, George IV is the only royal to have actually done so at the Speakers House, in 1821 and that was in a different bed. The old Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire in 1834 and their Gothic Revival replacement wasnt ready for Queen Victorias accession. Designed by Augustus Pugin, the State Bed was carved from walnut by John Braund in 1859. Measuring 12ft high and 7ft 6ins wide, it has a large intricate canopy and gilt inlay and features the royal crest. It remained in the State Bedroom on the first floor of Speakers House until 1943 when it is thought to have been moved into a store. From there, the bed was sold and forgotten about. It was only rediscovered decades later in a woollen mill in west Wales after an appeal by the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1979, it was found when its owners Ron and Wendy Martin admitted they had slept in the national treasure for 20 years and that their son Benedict was born in it at their manor house in Northamptonshire. They then moved to a cottage in Maesllyn, Ceredigion where the bed was too large. So they stored it in the mill nextdoor. The couple had bought the bed for less than 100 at an auction in the 1950s but turned down an offer from the Government of an estimated 5,000 for it. But they sold it in 1981 and it was restored with cash from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. About 1,500 members of the public will get to see the State Bed ahead of the coronation as tickets have just gone on sale for tours of the State Apartments between April 1 and 15. And last night, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said: Visitors to Speakers House are always surprised when they see this huge, beautifully carved bed with its embroidered fabric, and hear about its fascinating history. We believe that it was stored away with other heritage furniture during the Second World War to keep it safe from bombing raids, which destroyed the House of Commons Chamber in 1941. The fact that something as big as this could go missing and end up in a Welsh woollen mill years later seems quite incredible, but it just adds to the intrigue surrounding the bed. It really is a national treasure, and I am delighted even more people will be able to see it during tours of Speakers House. Book tickets at: ukparliament.seetickets.com/timeslot/the-state-apartments -of-speaker-s-house-tour Designed by Augustus Pugin, the State Bed was carved from walnut by John Braund in 1859 William and Camilla watch as King Charles signs an oath to uphold the security of the Church in Scotland, during a meeting to proclaim him as the new King in September last year King Charles III's coronation: A timeline May 6 The King and Queen Consort will proceed to Westminster Abbey for the coronation ceremony. After the ceremony they will take part in a second procession to Buckingham Palace, before appearing on the balcony. May 7 Britons are encouraged to hold street parties and take part in the Big Lunch. A celebratory concert will take place at Windsor Castle, featuring an exclusive performance from the Coronation Choir. May 8 An extra bank holiday has been scheduled for May 8. Members of the public are encouraged to spend time volunteering for charity as part of the Big Help Out. Advertisement Queen Elizabeth II pictured at her coronation in 1953 holding the Orb and sceptre while wearing the Imperial state crown The prosecutor told Poulos that he could serve 500 to 600 months in prison if he is found guilty or 375 months if he agrees to a guilty plea Trespalacios, a well-known DJ residing in Bogota, Colombia, was found reportedly put inside a suitcase by Poulos before he tossed it in a dumpster A Colombian government prosecutor has revealed that the Texas man who is accused of killing his DJ girlfriend had 'forced' her to have sex before he beat and choked her to death. John Poulos, 35, made his second court appearance Friday afternoon in the capital city of Bogota, just five days after the body of Valentina Trespalacios, 23, was found inside a suitcase in a dumpster. Poulos, the father of one boy and two girls in the United States, declined to plea guilty to one count of aggravated femicide and another of concealment, alteration or destruction of evidence of a crime scene. 'I am aware of my decision, and do not accept the charges,' he said. Daniel Gomez, the lead prosecutor appointed by the Office of the Attorney General, disclosed that Poulos attacked Trespalacios after he forced her to have sex and then repeatedly struck her body with his fists. He then wrapped his hands around her neck until he strangled her to death. 'There was a cycle of psychological violence that preceded the crime, which was represented in all the activity of jealousy and control over Valentina's social life,' Gomez. 'You took her life as the result of a jealousy process.' John Poulos (center) returned to court Friday for a court hearing as he is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Valentina Trespalacios Valentina Trespalacios, a DJ in Bogota, Colombia, was allegedly murdered by her Texas boyfriend, John Poulos. Her body was found in a suitcase that was tossed into a dumpster allegedly by Poulos last Sunday before he purchased a flight to flee from Colombia to Panama Former House Speaker Paul Ryan with Ashley Poulos (left), Jackson Poulos (center) and John Poulos (right) Poulos appeared to be calm, at times leaning back on his chair and resting his hands behind his head while he sat next to his lawyer and a court appointed interpreter while Gomez made the shocking revelations. He added that Poulos bent Trespalacios' body in order to make her fit into the suitcase. However, he left her head sticking out of the luggage bag and covered the bag with a towel. Gomez added that Poulos had hired a private investigator to follow Trespalacios. He said it was a 'behavior that must be understood as violent, given that it affected the physical, moral and psychological integrity of the victim, since it exploited her status as a woman.' On Sunday, Poulos was captured on camera placing the suitcase into the trunk of a Volkswagen Voyager in the garage of the Bogota north side apartment building and then driving away. He drove to the south side of Bogota, where he tossed the luggage bag inside a dumpster next to a park, and drove towards the airport. Before boarding a flight to Panama City, Panama, as part of his escape, Gomez said that Poulos threw away Trespalacios' cellphone at El Dorado International Airport. Poulos' plan to avoid capture included the purchase with cash of two airplane tickets, one from Panama City to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to throw off the Colombian National Police's international manhunt and a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where he would connect to a plane to Montenegro, where there is no extradition treaty with Colombia. Panamanian immigration agents and the Interpol arrested him Tuesday night at Tocumen International Airport moments before he was about to board Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. Poulos told authorities in Panama that the defunct Medellin Cartel was behind Trespalacios' murder and that he had fled Colombia because cartel members wanted to kill him. Gomez explained to Poulos that if he decided to go to trial, he could be sentenced 500 to 600 months should he be found guilty of murdering Trespalacios. He could face up to 48 months in prison for concealment, alteration or destruction of evidence. However, the prosecution left open an offer that would reduce the sentence to 375 months if he accepted a guilty plea for femicide as well as a reduction of 24 months for the other charge. The judge would have to accept the terms of the agreement and Poulos wouldn't be allowed to back out of it if he agreed. An autopsy report showed that Colombian DJ Valentina Trespalacios was strangled and beaten A homeless man was searching through a waste container in the Bogota neighborhood of Los Cambulos when he discovered the suitcase with Valentina Trespalacios' body Trespalacios' hairstylist, Veronica Jimenez, confirmed to DailyMail.com that Poulos was married and had three children in the United States, but that that mother of the kids had reportedly filed a restraining order against him because he was violent. He got divorced in 2021 and had been dating Trespalacios for eight months and planned to marry her. Poulos' oldest son, Jackson Poulos, was only four years old when doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 Rhabdomyosarcoma in his GI tract and abdomen. The cancer is very rare, with only about 350 cases a year in the United States. In 2017, the child underwent a 13-hour operation in which the surgeon removed more than 150 tumors that were detected in his pelvis, sigmoid colon, appendix, spleen and gallbladder. Valentina Trespalacios (pictured) was dating her boyfriend John Poulos for eight months John Poulos (pictured) was taken into custody in Panama on Tuesday moments before he was about to board a flight to Turkey and then connect to Montenegro The boy was a special guest of former House Speaker Paul Ryan at the House Chamber for former President Donald Trump's message to a joint session of the United States Congress on January 30, 2018. Jimenez said that Poulos had become increasingly jealous and was upset with Trespalacios because she refused his demands to go public with their relationship on her social media accounts. Trespalacios had explained to him that her network was only to promote her DJ work. Poulos arrived at the apartment Thursday and moved in with Trespalacios on Friday evening. He accompanied her to a DJ gig early Saturday morning at Nexxus bar. A homeless person searching a dumpster for recyclables Sunday afternoon discovered a blue suitcase with Trespalacios' head sticking out from the side. Canadians pride themselves on the beauty of their country and the generosity of their people. And as you pass by rows of sparkling glass towers framed by the snow-capped Rockies and the Pacific waters of the Burrard Inlet, Vancouver is undeniably breathtaking widely regarded as one of the worlds most desirable cities to live in. But drive down East Hastings Street and all such optimism is dispelled. For block after block in this downtown neighbourhood has been surrendered to hundreds of desperate drug addicts. Medics attend to an overdose victim in Vancouver in May 2022. A bystander saw the man collapse and called for help Addicts use a supervised consumption site in the city. The sites addicts who use fentanyl, opioids, crystal methamphetamine and other drugs a place to use and get harm reduction supplies Their tents line the doorways of every building that hasnt bribed them to move on or pleaded for the police to intervene. The goods they have stolen to feed their drug cravings litter the pavement, waiting for someone who might buy them. The addicts hunch in doorways, openly injecting, cooking and smoking hard drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth and fentanyl the lethal synthetic opioid that is 50 times stronger than heroin and has killed hundreds of thousands across North America. Others lie senseless on the pavement, even in the rain, or stagger around looking for their next fix. Were driving not walking down East Hastings, mind. My guide, Dr Julian Somers, one of Canadas leading experts on drug addiction, assures me that you dont want to walk here if you can help it, even in daytime. Assaults by crazed addicts on random passers-by have become so common that even ambulance crews are now demanding special protection. And, say Dr Somers and other experts, the crisis is about to get even worse thanks to the ruinously misguided, woke politics of Canadas ruling class. For the province of British Columbia which includes Vancouver is about to start a three-year experiment to decriminalise all hard drugs. In its sheer radicalism, its a move without precedent anywhere in the world. And yet, in an almost laughable coincidence, the policy comes into force on Tuesday, just days after Canadas ultra-progressive federal government recommended citizens have no more than two drinks a week under some of the strictest alcohol consumption guidelines in the West. Canada which last year also announced plans to put alerts such as poison in every puff on cigarette packets as well as warning labels on fatty or salty foods is more than happy to stigmatise drinkers, smokers and obese people in the interest of improving their health. But, bizarrely, hardcore drug use with all its attendant crime and squalor seems to be an entirely different matter. British Columbia, and especially Vancouver, has become a mecca for liberal Canadians, who have elected a provincial government that believes society is too judgmental about addicts. Decriminalisation will eliminate the shame of drug use, they insist. Predictably, the policy is backed enthusiastically by the national Liberal Party headed up by endlessly worthy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Health officials say its all about breaking down the barriers and stigma of drug addiction and reducing the rising number of fatal overdoses by ensuring that drug users can access pure supplies safely manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Some 14,000 people have died from fatal overdoses in British Columbia currently an average of five a day since the province, which has a population of 5.3 million, declared a public health emergency in 2016. In 2021, fentanyl which dealers mix into other drugs because it is cheap and incredibly strong was involved in 87 per cent of these deaths. In Vancouver alone, at least 2,200 addicts live in tents. But the decriminalisation scheme applies not only to hardened addicts but anyone 18 and over who wants to take hard drugs including, inevitably, those who were previously deterred by their illegality. Anyone will be able to inject, smoke, snort or swallow whatever and wherever they like even sitting on the swings next to children in a playground if they want. And as long as they have no more than 2.5 grams of a drug in their possession, the police will have no power to stop them. Jerry Martin, a former cocaine user whose brother recently died of an overdose on East Hastings, has already announced plans to open a shop selling heroin, crack and powder cocaine, and MDMA This may sound like an utterly mad decision but given that Vancouver has been crowned Canadas smug capital it is not an entirely surprising one. This is, as I discovered, a city where motorists drive down streets full of raving addicts without batting an eye but will honk in outrage if a pedestrian dares to sneak across a red light. Decriminalising drugs (as London Mayor Sadiq Khan reportedly wants to try with cannabis) is different to legalisation as it will still be a criminal offence to sell them, but critics fear that the distinction is unlikely to hold up when the floodgates open. Jerry Martin, a former cocaine user whose brother recently died of an overdose on East Hastings, has already announced plans to open a shop selling heroin, crack and powder cocaine, and MDMA (aka Ecstasy) in Vancouvers Downtown Eastside. He says he has already secured supplies that have been tested for contaminants as well as bulletproof vests for staff to cope with the violent robbers he expects will be inevitable. London Mayor Sadiq Khan reportedly wants to decriminalise cannabis in the British capital Martin, who insists his main aim isnt to make money but to ensure addicts can access untainted drugs, told the Mail that he certainly wont be alone. Oh, theres a ton out there who will copy me. I hear it everywhere, he said. While it will remain illegal to sell hard drugs in this way (as it would entail stocking more than the 2.5 grams the law will allow), he remains adamant he will follow through on his plan, saying that if he is arrested when his shop opens he will launch legal action. Meanwhile, Vancouver charities and clinics some of which already offer prescription heroin and fentanyl to addicts are being urged to increase the free drugs they distribute at supervised injection sites where facilities include trained nurses and crack-pipe vending machines. A major report by the Stanford-Lancet Commission, formed in response to the opioid crisis in the U.S. and Canada, has warned against the influence of the pharmaceutical industry Although exactly what theyll be allowed to prescribe remains unclear, doctors and pharmacists in British Columbia will begin dispensing hard drugs to addicts on a larger scale from Tuesday. Many GPs, citing their Hippocratic oath to do no harm, are understandably reluctant. Sceptics also note that the real winners in all this will be the big pharmaceutical companies which stand to make billions from producing their own medical grade narcotics to be doled out to addicts. A major report by the Stanford-Lancet Commission, formed in response to the opioid crisis in the U.S. and Canada, has warned against the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, highlighting its cosy links with politicians and officials determining drug policies. The fashionable notion that Big Pharmas drugs will displace illicit and more lethal supplies is also being challenged. As I reported for the Mail last year, the legalisation of cannabis in California has led to an increase in illegal sales, due to the higher price of legal alternatives. Theres another problem, too, which the government is blithely ignoring for the sake of political posturing, opponents say. Drug users have been pouring in to Vancouver from across Canada, with decriminalisation likely to attract even more. And can you blame them? After all, which addict isnt going to take advantage of free drugs, administered by a friendly medical staff who make sure they dont overdose and with no risk of arrest? In fact, when you cut through all the moralising about destigmatisation, critics say the decriminalisation plan isnt remotely progressive. It will actually reinforce an existing two-tier system in which those addicts who are wealthy are urged to access expensive rehab treatment as they always have been while the poor and destitute will find it even easier to keep taking drugs and not clean themselves up. The governments detractors say it is simply doubling down on a harm reduction and safe supply policy that has been failing for years to counter the soaring numbers of fatalities. The jaw-dropping squalor in places such as East Hastings Street, where addicts sleep in their own faeces night after night, has been obvious for years. The government is guilty of extraordinary neglect, said addiction expert Dr Somers, of Vancouvers Simon Fraser University. Giuseppe Ganci, a former addict who now helps run a drug rehabilitation centre outside Vancouver, feels the same. The worlds gone bonkers, he said of the decriminalisation policy. Its 100 per cent misplaced progressiveness. Assuming that by removing the criminal stigma of drugs addicts will get treatment is so naive it is like the worst Disney movie ever with no happy ending, he added. On the contrary, his own experience and that of many others has taught him that addicts need to experience some sort of stigma and discover that their dependency has consequences before they can sober up, he said. Canadas Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, also predicts major increases in overdoses and a massive increase in crime Perhaps the most shocking prediction is that the move will create an army of new hard-drug users whod previously been deterred by illegality. The number and diversity of drug buyers university students like my sons who might say Ive always been interested in trying heroin will go up, said Dr Somers. Interestingly, Jerry Martin, the ex-coke user setting up his hard drugs store, agreed. Ninety-five per cent of people are good people they want to try something but they dont want to break the law, he said. I think a lot of young kids will now be going out and taking MDMA thinking its pure but everythings laced with fentanyl. Canadas Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, also predicts major increases in overdoses and a massive increase in crime, accusing his opponents of flooding the streets with poison. So, as Prime Minister Trudeau and his righteous acolytes push ahead with their ill-advised policy, they look set only to fan the flames of the war against drugs rather than douse them. She describes herself as 'old, very old but not an idiot.' And now San Francisco-born Maria Branyas Morera can officially call herself the world's oldest person, having survived two world wars, two pandemics and a civil war. The 115-year-old was handed the title following the death of French nun Sister Andre, 118, earlier this month. San-Francisco born MAria Branyas has become the world's oldest person aged 115 Morera was born in San Francisco in 1907 though she moved to Catalonia, Spain, as a child and has spent the last 22 years of her life in a nursing home there. At the time of her birth San Francisco was suffering from a second wave of the Bubonic plague. She is now considered a 'supercentenarian' - a title given to people once they pass 110. Morera, who has three children, 11 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, attributes her old age to 'order, tranquility' and 'staying away from toxic people'. And despite her age, she is active on social media, frequently posting on Twitter with the help of her daughter. She is also a keen piano player. Marero, pictured on her wedding day in 1931 aged 24, has survived two world wars, a civil war and two pandemics Responding to her record-breaking age, she wrote on the micro-blogging site: 'Sorry for not responding individually. 'I am surprised and grateful for the expectation generated by the fact that I am the oldest living person in the world. 'Thank you very much to everyone for the interest shown, although I have not done any merit. These days have been very overwhelming.' Marero posts frequently on Twitter. Pictured here with her mother in 1922 when she was 15 She added she would not be responding to any more journalist requests for interviews, adding she needed 'peace and tranquility' After surviving both World Wars, the Spanish Civil War, and the Spanish Flu pandemic, Marero also successfully fought after Covid-19 after becoming infected in 2020. She contracted the virus weeks after celebrating her 113th birthday - though she recovered within days. Marero became the world's oldest living person following the death of French nun Sister Andre earlier this month. Both of them survived a bout of Covid-19 It made her the world's oldest Covid-19 survivor but that record was broken by Sister Andre later that year. Marero married a Catalan doctor named Joan Moret in 1931. The day was an eventful one, Marero recalled on Twitter, as they waited hours for the priest who they later found out had unexpectedly died. She said: 'There was no phone. A car had to go down to Girona to look for an available chaplain. 'At that time, in the entire province of Girona there must have been around 50 cars.' Her husband died when more than 46 years ago when he was 71. Morera now lives in a nursing home in Catalonia, Spain, where they plan to hold a small, private celebration to celebrate her new record She wrote on his anniversary that she will 'always carry him in my heart every day'. On New Year's Day this year, she posted: 'Life is not eternal for anyone At my age, a new year is a gift, a humble celebration, a new adventure, a beautiful journey, a moment of happiness. Lets enjoy life together.' Morera's nursing home Residencia Santa Maria del Tura told the Guinness Book of World Records that they would be hosting a 'small celebration behind closed doors' to commemorate the achievement. The title of the oldest person to have ever lived belongs to Jeanne Louise Calment whose life spanned 122 years and 164 days, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Capitol rioter Julian Khater has been sentenced to 80 months in prison for his role in the bear spray assault of police officer Brian Sicknick, who died the day after the January 6, 2021 riot. The sentence is slightly less than the 90 months prosecutors were seeking for Khater, 32, who deployed the pepper spray against Sicknick and two other police officers and pleaded guilty last year to two counts of assaulting police. Khater will also have to pay a $10,000 fine. 'I've taken every change I possibly could to better myself as a person,' Khater said. 'What happened on Jan. 6 - there are no words for it ... I wish I could take it back.' Sicknick died of a stroke the next day. Although the medical examiner, Francisco J. Diaz, later attributed his death to natural causes, he told the Washington Post he believed 'all that transpired' on January 6, 2021, played a role in his death. Thousands of Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol that day in an attempt to overturn his election loss. George Tanios, 41, of Morgantown, West Virginia, has been sentenced to time served after pleading guilty last year to lesser misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct on restricted grounds. Prosecutors had been asking the judge to give him credit for time served in pre-trial detention. His lawyers have told the judge their client 'deeply regrets' his actions. Capitol rioter Julian Khater (pictured left) has been sentenced to 80 months in prison for his role in the pepper-spray assault of police officer Brian Sicknick (pictured right), who died the day after the January 6, 2021 riot George Tanios (pictured), 41, of Morgantown, West Virginia, has been sentenced to time served after pleading guilty last year to lesser misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct on restricted grounds. Prosecutors had been asking the judge to give him credit for time served in pre-trial detention Ahead of Friday's sentencing, Sicknick's family members submitted letters to U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, asking him to impose the harshest possible sentences. 'I don't know what kind of upbringing you had ... what might have happened in your childhood that contributed to your deluded sense of right and wrong,' Sicknick's mother Gladys Sicknick wrote, addressing her son's attacker. 'If I were your mother, I'd be embarrassed to have a son like you. I couldn't bear to look at you -- ever again. Which is how I feel right now. Let this be the last time, Mr. Khater.' In his letter, Brian Sicknick's brother Kenneth Sicknick refused to call both defendants by their names. 'Humans have names. Dogs have names. Pet rocks are given names. The two defendants are not worthy of having names or being addressed as such,' he wrote. Khater and Tanios are two of the more than 950 people who have been charged in connection with the assault on the Capitol. Four participants died during the chaos and five police officers, including Sicknick, died afterward, some by suicide. Prosecutors have said Tanios drove from his home in West Virginia to pick Khater up in New Jersey before proceeding to Washington ahead of the riot. The sentence is slightly less than the 90 months prosecutors were seeking for Khater, 32, who deployed the pepper spray against Sicknick and two other police officers and pleaded guilty last year to two counts of assaulting police. Khater will also have to pay a $10,000 fine Brianne Chapman protests during the sentencing hearing for Julian Khater and George Tanios After attending a rally, they joined the mob heading towards the Capitol, though there is no evidence they planned to enter the building or block the certification of electoral votes. They arrived with two canisters of bear spray, which they did not use, and two containers of pepper-spray, one of which Khater did use. In a video, Khater can be heard saying 'Give me that bear shit' before reaching into Tanios' backpack. 'Office Sicknick's tragic demise, so close in time to the traumatic events of that day, underscores the seriousness of the offense committed by Khater,' prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo to the judge. Khater's attorney is also asking the judge to impose a sentence of time served, noting his client has been locked up since his March 2021 arrest, has been subjected to 'inhumane conditions,' and already suffers from anxiety dating to his family's escape from Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war. Gladys Sicknick, the mother of fallen U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, arrives for the sentencing hearing for Julian Khater and George Tanios U.S. Capitol police officers arrive for the sentencing in Washington Friday Charles Sicknick, the father of fallen U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, arrives for the sentencing hearing 'Whether it was simply the heat of that moment or the addition of some trauma which still lingered from having fled Lebanon while under bombardment, something in Julian was triggered,' his attorney Chad Seigel wrote in his sentencing memo to the judge. Dozens of uniformed and plain-clothed Capitol Police officers attended the jam-packed sentencing hearing on Friday, which spanned more than four hours. One of the people in attendance left small packets of tissues for police officers to use during the emotionally-charged hearing. Five of Sicknick's relatives and Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, who was also a victim of Khater's pepper spray attack, addressed the court. Edwards, who received the Presidential Citizens Medal earlier this year for her bravery during the Capitol attack, tearfully told the judge she suffers from 'survivor's guilt' over her colleague's death. 'I felt like the worst kind of officer,' she said. 'Someone who didn't help their friend - couldn't help their friend.' Hogan said he could not sentence Khater over Sicknick's death because there was no basis to do so in the coroner's report. However, he said he was distressed by Khater's behavior. 'I can't find a basis for accepting an assault with a dangerous weapon on a police officer,' he said. 'It makes no sense to me.' The watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed a complaint Friday saying that Rep. Adam Schiff should be investigated for using footage of himself delivering a floor speech when announcing his bid for the U.S. Senate. Schiff's two-minute video shows the California Democrat speaking to senators in his role of impeachment manager during former President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. House members are prohitibed from using House and Senate floor video for campaign purposes - even if the footage comes from a news outlet. 'This is a clear violation of House Ethics Rules and Federal law. Rep. Schiff has been in Congress for over two decades and undoubtedly knows that official government resources cannot be used for political purposes,' FACT's Executive Director Kendra Arnold said in a statement. 'Rep. Schiff must immediately take down the video and cease distribution of the footage, and the Office of Congressional Ethics should move swiftly to investigate and sanction Rep. Schiff for this breach,' she added. The watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed a complaint Friday saying that Rep. Adam Schiff should be investigated for using footage of himself delivering a floor speech when announcing his bid for the U.S. Senate Our democracy is at great risk. Because GOP leaders care more about power than anything else. And because our economy isnt working for millions of hard working Americans. Were in the fight of our livesa fight Im ready to lead as Californias next U.S. Senator. pic.twitter.com/H0Pa0EhhMu Adam Schiff (@AdamSchiff) January 26, 2023 Schiff announced a run Thursday, launching a bid to take the place of 89-year-old incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Schiff's announcement video heavily promotes his prominent role in Trump's first impeachment. 'I wish I could say the threat of MAGA extremists is over,' he says in the two-minute spot. 'It is not. Today's Republican Party is gutting the middle class, threatening our democracy. They arent going to stop. We have to stop them.' Schiff is the second Democrat to officially jump in the California race, while Feinstein hasn't said she's retiring. It comes two days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed Schiff, the former chairman, from the House Intelligence Committee, with the California Republican accusing the Democrat of lying about Russiagate and the veracity of Hunter Biden's laptop. Rep. Adam Schiff announced Thursday that he was running for Senate, launching a bid to talk the place of 89-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein The 89-year-old incumbent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, has yet to announce her retirement, yet Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff have already announced their intentions to run for her seat With Schiff's entry into the race, there will likely be a protracted primary. Earlier this month, Rep. Katie Porter said she would run. At the same time, Rep. Barbara Lee has told lawmakers she plans to enter the race, though has not made an official announcement, Axios reported. And it could get ugly. A 'source close to Adam Schiff' called it an 'incredible mistake' for Porter to announce her candidacy at that time, as California was reeling from dangerous rains and flooding. NBC reported in the same story that Schiff had met with Feinstein to tell her he planned to run. Feinstein told the Los Angeles Times in December that she planned to serve out her term and would announce her plans for 2024 'at the appropriate time.' For months, Feinstein's been plagued by reports that her memory is fading. If she left her post early, California Gov. Gavin Newsom could name a temporary replacement. The state's other senator, Sen. Alex Padilla, was first appointed to his position, taking the place of now Vice President Kamala Harris after she was sworn-in. Earlier this month, Democratic Rep. Katie Porter announced via a video posted to Twitter that she was seeking the seat, arguing that 'California needs a warrior in the Senate' Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who served as Sen. Bernie Sanders' national co-chair in the 2020 presidential primary, told NBC he'd make his decision about jumping in the Senate race in the next few months. Schiff became one of the most high-profile House Democrats during the Trump years - so much that he earned a nickname from the former president, 'little pencil neck,' which Schiff included in his campaign launch video. Fellow Californian, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, named him lead impeachment manager during Trump's first impeachment in January 2020. He pointed to that role Wednesday during a press conference after McCarthy removed both he and Rep. Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee. 'The cardinal sin appears to be that I led the impeachment of his master in Mar-a-Lago, for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid from Ukraine, a nation that was even then at war with Russia, in order to extort that country into helping Donald Trump's reelection campaign,' Schiff said. McCarthy said he removed Schiff because he 'lied to the American public.' 'When Devin Nunes put out a memo, [Schiff] said it was false. When we had a laptop, he used it before an election to [play] politics and say that it was false and said it was the Russians when he knew different,' the House speaker said. 'He used his position as chairman, knowing he has information the rest of American does not, and lied to the American public,' McCarthy continued. Given their religious taboos, it was a particularly humiliating fate for Jews herded into pigsties, of all places. But much worse was to come for the inmates of this makeshift concentration camp on what had been a state farm. Eleven thousand of them were crammed into a space deemed fit for only 7,000 pigs, then callously abandoned. After bartering their clothes for food that never arrived, they were left virtually naked, just rags and scraps of newspaper to cover them, as temperatures in the winter of 1941 plunged to minus 40. They starved and froze to death. Their plight was a matter of amusement for the local government official, who would drop in to inspect 'the Yids', as he called them. He'd divert himself by taking pictures of them 'grazing' on their hands and knees, forced to find whatever sustenance they could from plant roots, twigs, leaves, human excrement and even dead bodies. Rape by their guards was commonplace. So was suicide. Graffiti: 'Jew (closed)' on a shop window in Oslo, Norway in 1941 Victims: A Jewish family in Holland forced from their home, among the 100,000 deported to be killed with the help of the Dutch civil service Here was a different type of mass murder from the way the Holocaust is normally reported in conventional histories, which concentrate our minds on the 'industrialised' killing in death camps such as Auschwitz, the so-called 'final solution', with trainloads arriving and being almost instantaneously dispatched to the gas chambers and the crematoria. But this was only part of the story, argues leading Holocaust specialist Professor Dan Stone, in a new book that turns on their head some of the widely-held notions about that terrible era of genocide 80 years ago. We certainly tend to get wrong just how widespread the Holocaust was, argues Stone, who is director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London. The fact that we need to get our heads around and which many countries still find uncomfortable and refuse to recognise is that the Holocaust was not solely a German project, but a pan-European crime with tens of thousands of active perpetrators all over the continent. The horrific killings described above took place beyond the boundaries of the Third Reich and its annexed satellites, in Transnistria, part of the western edge of Ukraine occupied by Romania. Indeed, it was in remote Transnistria that the single largest massacre of the Holocaust took place carried out not by Germans, but by Romanian gendarmes, Ukrainian auxiliaries and local militia. An outbreak of typhus in a camp, spread by lice and fleas, was the excuse to butcher the bulk of the 54,000 inmates. They were forced into two locked stables, which were doused with petrol and set ablaze, while others were led to a ravine in a nearby forest where they were shot. The remaining Jews were made to dig pits to bury the dead, doing so with their bare hands in the bitter cold. Thousands more froze to death. Stone writes: 'Although the persecution of the Jews that led to the Holocaust was a German project a point which cannot be overemphasised it chimed with the programs of many European fascist and authoritarian regimes. Without the willing participation of so many collaborators across Europe, the Germans would have found it much harder to kill so many Jews.' On the basis of recent research, Stone says, rather than a tale of German occupation, deportation and murder in death camps, the Holocaust should really be seen as a series of interlocking local genocides. The Holocaust was certainly driven, and largely perpetrated by Germans, but actual participation went much further. Countries such as France, Norway, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania persecuted, expelled and killed Jews. And they did so, not under duress from Berlin, but because to do so fitted with their own long-held anti-Semitic views and nationalist aspiration. How else, Stone asks, can you explain how the Nazis were able to deport Jews across Europe and beyond, from Norway to Crete, Alderney to the Caucasus, the Baltic states to North Africa? Collaboration and complicity were everywhere. To make his point, Stone quotes a riddle. 'What do a Swiss banker and a Polish peasant have in common? Answer: a golden tooth extracted from the jaws of a Jewish corpse.' It is not always recognised that German Jews made up no more than a few per cent of the Holocaust's six million victims. The vast majority were traditional, observant Jews living in small towns or shtetls in Eastern Europe. Moreover, most of them were slaughtered face-to-face before the SS-run death camps were even fully conceived, let alone operational. The arrival of Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in German-occupied Poland, June 1944. Between May 2nd and July 9th, more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz. They are all wearing a star emblem to identify them as Jewish Jewish woman from Zagreb wearing the newly introduced yellow star and the initial of the Croatian word for 'Jew' in 1941 Millions died not in gas chambers, but gunned down en masse in fields, forests and swamps. Many more were starved and worked to death. As land in the East fell to the German army advancing into the Soviet Union after June 1941 and areas containing vast numbers of Jews were overrun, special mobile SS killing units, the Einsatzgruppen, followed up, forcing them out of their homes at gunpoint to be massacred in cold blood. After one such operation and there were thousands of them a German soldier described to his wife in a letter home how 'with the first truckload of women and children, my hand shook somewhat as I fired, but one gets used to it. At the tenth truckload, I aimed calmly and shot straight. Infants flew through the air in high arches, and we shot them in mid-air before they fell.' In another town not far away, another soldier recorded in his diary how he volunteered willingly for the task as a thousand Jews assembled in the town square and were marched to a deep trench full of water in a nearby swamp. 'The first ten had to place themselves next to this trench and undress, then they had to get into the water and the firing squad, that's to say we, were standing over them. 'Ten shots, ten Jews brought down. We kept going until we had finished them all. Only a few managed to keep their composure. Women clung to their men and children to their mothers. It was a spectacle we won't forget quickly.' A few days later, the same soldier was involved in another execution, 'but here there was no swamp, just some sandy ground. So we 'inserted' the Jews there in the sand'. A horrified local recalled how for days afterwards, blood kept rising to the top of the pit, 'like the ground was breathing . . . it was alive'. Mass, face-to-face killings like this such as Babi Yar in Ukraine, where 34,000 were put to death over a 36-hour period were the norm. By skipping over incidents like this, and concentrating on Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka and the other death camps while not diminishing in any way how monstrous those places were we are in danger of misrepresenting the Holocaust and perhaps even underplaying some of its true horrors. We have failed unflinchingly to face the terrible reality of the Holocaust, Stone writes, not least when coverage of it focuses on the heroism of survivors. The Nazis had a genocidal fantasy of a 'world without Jews' that they wanted to make a reality. But so, too, did many other European countries, whose dreams of creating ethnically pure nations chimed with Hitler's goals. Nazi movements such as Norway's Nasjonal Samling or the Dutch Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging (NSB) believed in his vision of a racially cleansed Europe, and thought their national interests were best served in a Europe united under German hegemony. Now, more than 70 years on, some are still in denial about this history. This week, analysis by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany revealed that the number of Dutch adults who believe the Holocaust is a myth was higher than any country previously surveyed. These numbers are particularly high among Dutch Millennials and Gen Z, where nearly one-quarter (23 per cent) believe the Holocaust is a myth, or the number of Jews killed has been greatly exaggerated, while 12 per cent are unsure. Wartime fascist regimes in Slovakia and Croatia displayed outright hostility towards the Jews. In Croatia, they were forced to wear a 'Z' mark on their front and back; one of the country's leaders described Jews as 'insatiable and poisonous parasites'. Individuals from Denmark to Bosnia signed up to join the Waffen-SS. Ukrainians acted as camp guards. In Greece, the occupying German forces relied heavily on local assistance to deport the 56,000 Jews of Salonika to their deaths in Auschwitz. Jewish children in Ghetto Lodz in Litzmannstadt, Poland in 1940 In Norway, France and Hungary, local police rounded up, guarded and deported Jews; in Slovakia, the impetus to deport Jews came from the local fascist regime rather than from the Germans. In Romania, the regime grasped the opportunity provided by the German plans to carry out a Holocaust of its own in Transnistria. Unlike occupied Poland, where the state was overrun by the Nazis, these were independent, or quasi-independent, states choosing to participate and finding reasons and resources to do so. Bulgaria is remembered for refusing to surrender 'its' Jews to the Nazis, but that didn't stop its leaders from handing over Jews in neighbouring Thrace and Macedonia that it had just occupied. Seven thousand of them died in Treblinka. Hungary also refused to surrender its Jewish populations to the Germans though it hardly treated them well, forcing them into labour battalions. But it lost that independent decision-making when the Germans marched in and took over in 1944. Among the first arrivals in Budapest was the dreaded Adolf Eichmann, with his Sonderkommando unit of 150 to 200 men, who were experts in extermination. Less than two months later, 437,000 people almost all the Jews of Hungary had been dispatched to Auschwitz, their rapid deportation assisted by Hungarian collaborators. The fact is that the genocide of the Jews could not have been so thorough and brutal without active collaboration across a Europe that was widely anti-Semitic, as we can see from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Encyclopedia Of Camps And Ghettos. This lists sites where Jews were held and died. It is more than 900 pages long and contains information on almost 700 places from the far north of Norway to the Atlas Mountains, from Brittany to Ukraine with not a single one of them a camp administered by the Germans. Some governments took the initiative themselves. The Vichy government in France, for example, pre-empted the Nazis by introducing its Statut des Juifs, the legislation to arrest and deport Jews from France, without the Nazis' encouragement. In the Netherlands, the Germans deported 75 per cent of its Jews, just over 100,000 people, to be killed, the highest proportion in Western Europe helped by the efficiency of the Dutch civil service, and their willingness to do the job without considering the moral implications of their actions. In Norway, there was considerable resistance to Nazi rule, but in November 1942, Norwegian plainclothes policemen rounded up 532 Jews in Oslo and drove them in taxis to a German ship waiting in the harbour. They were shipped to Germany and then sent by train to Auschwitz and gassed on arrival. A German soldier about to shoot a Jewish man in Vinnytsia, Ukraine in 1941. The victim is sitting on the edge of an excavation with many dead bodies inside. This image is titled 'The last Jew in Vinnitsa' The Holocaust even spread beyond the boundaries of Europe. Jews in North Africa were subjected to French and Italian racial laws, had their property stolen, and were interned and made to perform forced labour. Some ended up in death camps in Europe. Nor did that deep-rooted racism disappear with the defeat of the Nazis. When displaced Jews the few who had survived, that is returned to Poland they were subjected to violent attacks. Hungarian Jews were met with incredulity and disdain by those who had stolen their homes and were unwilling to hand them back. Recognising that the scope of the Holocaust implicates the whole of Europe, Stone argues, is important because some countries are now attempting to whitewash their past. The Polish government has tried to silence historians who have uncovered information about Poles who handed Jews over to the Nazi occupiers. Similarly, memorials and museums in Hungary selectively interpret the past to make that nation appear an innocent victim or rescuer of Jews, rather than the active participant that it was. But what troubles him even more is his fear that the Holocaust as a subject of study and of remembrance is being filed away in a far too convenient box, its horrors contained, treated as a one-off that can be laid at the door of the Nazi regime and a few quislings. It is being consigned to 'history', something that happened a long time ago, never to be repeated, with no relevance to today. Acknowledging how widespread the collaboration went in Europe, and how easily so many nations drifted into doing unspeakable things is important, he argues, because we live in an age of increasing nationalism, Right-wing populism and xenophobia. The lesson he wants us to press home from the Holocaust, is not just about intolerance or hatred or the dangers of bullying, which, he fears, is what conventional Holocaust education and commemoration teaches. It is that deep and irrational passions can move human beings to collude in terrible things. And nothing in the end can stop people from supporting these dark forces in times of crisis. Dismissing the Holocaust as vicious actions of a mad regime is complacent and dangerous. There were political, religious, cultural and social reasons that enabled it to happen and these circumstances, Stone insists, threaten us again. 'Fascism is not yet in power, but it is knocking on the door. If we refuse to deal with this challenge, then the post-war order built on internationalism and individual freedom will be decisively done away with and we will have sleepwalked into authoritarianism.' Again! A hard-left Corbynite who was once forced to apologise for an anti-Semitic comment is tipped to become leader of the National Education Union, the Mail can reveal. Daniel Kebede, a trade unionist and former primary school teacher, is campaigning to take over the leadership of the largest teaching union. A self-professed anti-racist, he was once compelled to say sorry for using an anti-Semitic phrase while defending disgraced former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn online. Mr Kebede, 35, claimed those close to the downfall of Mr Corbyn were being paid 30 pieces of silver for book deals the price for which Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus Christ in the Bible. Comrades: Trade unionist Daniel Kebede, left, and RMT chief Mick Lynch Daniel Kebede, a trade unionist and former primary school teacher, is campaigning to take over the leadership of the largest teaching union The phrase was used by the Nazis to suggest that the Jews were traitors and responsible for Christs death. He has posed in absolute solidarity with Mick Lynch and told of his privilege of watching the RMT baron run rings around the media while he caused misery to millions with strikes. His anti-Semitic remark and eagerness to strike were last night slammed by MPs who said Mr Kebede was another looney-Lefty within the unions ranks. Former education minister Sir John Hayes said: The last thing we want is for teachers, who for the most part do such a great job, having a Bolshevik represent their interests. Jonathan Gullis said Mr Kebede was only concerned with pushing his own political agenda. Mr Kebede was once compelled to say sorry for using an anti-Semitic phrase while defending disgraced former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn online His elevation to general secretary would see him become the most senior Corbynite in the NEU - despite the union claiming no political affiliation. Mr Kebede told the Mail that he has learnt from his anti-Semitic mistake: I did not know at the time that can be read as anti-Semitic. As soon as I learned this, I deleted it and my apology remains on my Twitter feed. Nominated by 101 union districts, Mr Kebede will run against Niamh Sweeney, a sixth-form college teacher and Labour councillor in Cambridge. The election runs from February 6 until March 31. The winner will take over in September for a five-year term. A landmark luxury development in Chelsea that claims to be 'Europe's greenest' is home to Britain's biggest electricity users, new data has revealed. Chelsea Barracks, which has a house for sale for 53million, is promoted on a glossy website as a 'future proof' design that sets 'a new standard for sustainable living in London'. But it appears this message hasn't got through to the residents - with the SW1W 8BT postcode that houses the Whistler Square part of the development racking up the highest average electricity consumption in the UK. Chelsea Barracks, which has a house for sale for 53million, is promoted on a glossy website as a 'future proof' design that sets 'a new standard for sustainable living in London' A map showing the five local authority areas with the highest electricity consumption in the UK, and the five lowest Official data for 2021 from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) - first reported on by the Telegraph - reveals there were seven electricity meters in the postcode and the average consumption was 53,748.3 kWh - 15 times the UK average. The second highest mean consumption was 45,361.1 kWh for RH13 0AT - Kinsbrook in Horsham, West Sussex, which has five meters. Lygon Place, Grosvenor Crescent and Clerks Place, which are all in London, finished off the top five. At the other end of the scale was EH6 7FL in Edinburgh, which had an average consumption of 125.6 kwh. The average consumption for a home in Great Britain is 3,709.3 kWh. Chelsea Barracks has made much of its green credentials, and in April 2021 shared a press release on its website titled 'The Most Sustainable Development in Europe'. The statement noted that the site had been awarded the LEED Platinum certificate, which had only been awarded to '16 developments in the world'. The SW1W 8BT postcode that houses the Whistler Square part of the development has racked up the highest average electricity consumption in the UK It continued: 'Chelsea Barracks' design principles respond to the needs of its occupants, wider community and also the long-term sustainability agenda. 'Achieving LEED Platinum ensures existing residents and future tenants will occupy healthy, future proof homes. 'It is the highest global standard of sustainability to be judged on and has set a new benchmark for developers around the world.' The original Chelsea Barracks was built in 1862 but closed in 2008, with the site bought for 959million by property tycoon Christian and Nick Candy and the Qatari state investment fund. The plan had been to turn the former Ministry of Defence site into a 3billion luxury apartment complex - but this idea was scrapped by the Candys after Prince Charles complained about the 'awful' design of the proposed development. The Qataris reportedly withdrew the planning application and produced a more traditional design. As a result, the Candy brothers sought legal action in 2010, with their lawyer accusing their former business partners of 'scandalous' behaviour, before settling the matter out of court. A redesigned version of the plans then went ahead without their involvement, with Qatari Diar - the property arm of the sovereign fund of Qatar - owning the project outright. However, despite the previous legal battle, Christian Candy is believed to have purchased multiple units in Whistler Square worth 75million. A property source was reported as claiming that the purchases represented a 'stamp of approval' in the redesigned development. It comes as the National Grid launched a scheme that saw up to a million households paid for cutting their electricity usage at peak hours. By ensuring National Grid did not have to resort to drastic measures such as turning to coal-fired power plants to boost energy supplies, households were rewarded with credits against their bills totalling more than 2million. However, the cash boost for individual households was in most cases about 2; in exceptional cases as high as 20 - unlikely to be enough to attract the likes of the multi-millionaire residents of Chelsea Barracks. Stand down, Bruce Willis, as the London bus-sized asteroid heading towards Earth has safely sailed past us. As it only came within 2,200 miles (3,600 km) of our planet, this fortunately meant that no one needed to be sent up to destroy it with a bomb, like in 'Armageddon'. It did, however, mark the fourth closest approach of an asteroid on record. The space rock, which measured 12.4 by 27.8 feet (3.8 by 8.5 metres), flew by at 33,000 mph at 00:29 GMT, before heading into space. Last night, an asteroid the size of a London bus whizzed by 2,200 miles (3,600 km) above South America. Pictured: 2023 BU photographed by the Virtual Telescope Project when it was 22,300 miles (37,000 km) from Earth The space rock, which measured 12.4 by 27.8 feet (3.8 by 8.5 metres), flew by at 33,000 mph before heading into space HOW COULD WE DEFLECT AN ASTEROID FROM EARTH? - Read more Strike it with DART spacecraft Nuclear explosion Laser ablation Gravity tractor Ion beam deflection Solar energy Multiple bumps from projectiles 'Painting' the asteroid Advertisement While it was only discovered last Saturday, scientists at NASA quickly confirmed that its trajectory would not threaten our planet. The asteroid, dubbed '2023 BU', came closest to the southern tip of South America at around 00:29 GMT on Friday (19:29 ET on Thursday). NASA deems it a 'near-Earth object' (NEO) because its orbit sees it come within 120 million miles (195 million km) of the sun, but it is not a 'potentially hazardous asteroid' because it is not large enough to cause significant damage in the event of impact. The Virtual Telescope Project (VTP) in Italy successfully imaged 2023 BU when it was 22,300 miles (37,000 km) from Earth, however it was a tricky feat as the sky was cloudy. Gianluca Masi, an astronomer with VTP, said: 'The telescope tracked the very fast apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars look like long trails while the asteroid is a bright, sharp dot of light.' The asteroid was first reported by amateur stargazer Gennadiy Borisov at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea. He is famous for spotting the first comet ever seen that had travelled into the solar system from interstellar space, called 2I/Borisov. The space rock measures about 12.4 by 27.8 feet, which is around the same size as the original Routemaster London bus What is a 'potentially hazardous' asteroid? A potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) is an asteroid whose orbit comes nearer than 0.05AU (about 7.5 million km) to the Earth. It also is at least 100 metres (300 feet) in diameter. The International Astronomical Union claims there are around 1,500 potential hazardous asteroids. Although these are not a risk to Earth as of yet, asteroid this large have the potential to cause devastation if they were to land on our planet, especially in highly-populated areas. It is believed one hits Earth once every 200-300 years. Advertisement NASAs Scout impact hazard assessment system, which is maintained by NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), quickly determined that 2023 BU would miss Earth. Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer who developed Scout, said: 'Scout quickly ruled out 2023 BU as an impactor, but despite the very few observations, it was nonetheless able to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach with Earth. 'In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded.' However, even if our planet was in its path, there would still be no need to deploy any asteroid deflection techniques, like last year's DART mission. Space rocks that are smaller than 82 feet (25 metres) across, like 2023 BU, most likely burn up if they enter the Earth's atmosphere, NASA says. This would cause little to no damage on the ground, but some of the bigger debris may fall as small meteorites. Although it did not impact us, by some definitions, the asteroid did pass through the uppermost region of our planet's atmosphere known as the 'exosphere'. This extends from around 6,000 miles (10,000 km) up to a maximum distance of 120,000 miles (193,000 km) above Earth. However, most scientists don't consider this region to be a true part of the Earth's atmosphere because the air is so thin. Nevertheless, asteroid 2023 BU skated past the planet at a quarter of the height of many of the geostationary satellites that make our telephones and car navigation systems work. But it was still far away from the International Space Station at 250 miles (400 km) from the Earth. This was the fourth closest pass of our planet out of more than 35,000 past and future asteroid approaches, according to CNEOS, which holds data covering the period of 300 years from 1900 to 2200. Most asteroids pass beyond the distance of the moon which is 240,000 miles away but this one is far closer. NASAs Scout system shows the deflection of asteroid 2023 BUs trajectory (red) caused by Earths gravity. The orbit of geosynchronous satellites (green) and the orbit of the Moon are also depicted (grey) The close call will have left a more lasting impact on the asteroid itself, NASA's scientists said. Earth's gravity will have affected the object's orbit, lengthening the amount of time it takes for 2023 BU to go around the Sun, from 359 days to a more leisurely 425 days. It will have also changed the shape of its orbit from a circular path to a more elliptical one. It will next pass relatively close to us on December 6, 2036, but on that occasion will be well beyond the orbit of the moon. This was the fourth closest pass of our planet out of more than 35,000 past and future asteroid approaches, according to CNEOS Last year, experts warned that some asteroids can 'sneak up' on us thanks to a quirk of the Earth's rotation that makes them seem like they are barely moving making them hard to detect. In fact, they said up to half of asteroids approaching Earth from a danger zone east of 'opposition' likely undergo periods of such apparent slow motion. The NASA-funded experts investigated how telescopes nearly missed a 328-feet-wide asteroid that came within 43,500 miles of Earth back in 2019. As any schoolchild knows, Paddington comes from Peru. Or does he? This quirky picture from Mars seems to have captured the marmalade sandwich devotee smiling back at us from the fractured surface of the Red Planet. The image was taken by a Nasa orbiter from 155 miles above Mars. The spacecraft used its HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera; the most powerful ever sent to another planet. This quirky picture from Mars seems to have captured the marmalade sandwich devotee smiling back at us from the fractured surface of the Red Planet As any schoolchild knows, Paddington comes from Peru. Or does he? The space agency explained: A Bear on Mars? This feature looks a bit like a bears face. What is it really? Theres a hill with a V-shaped collapse structure (the nose), two craters (the eyes), and a circular fracture pattern (the head). The circular fracture pattern might be due to the settling of a deposit over a buried impact crater. Maybe the nose is a volcanic or mud vent and the deposit could be lava or mud flows? Maybe just grin and bear it, they add. Scientists have solved the mystery of the identity of a 17th century Dutch warship wrecked off the coast of England while carrying slabs of fine Italian marble. The unknown Protected Wreck off the coast of Sussex has been identified as the Dutch warship Klein Hollandia. Built in 1656 and owned by the Admiralty of Rotterdam, the ship was involved in all major battles in the second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-1667). The wreck, which lies on the seabed 32 metres under the surface, was until now known as the 'Unknown Wreck off Eastbourne'. Scientists have solved the mystery of the identity of a 17th century Dutch warship wrecked off the coast of England while carrying slabs of fine Italian marble The unknown Protected Wreck off the coast of Sussex has been identified as the Dutch warship Klein Hollandia. Pictured: pieces of Italian pottery found at the wreck The Klein Hollandia The Klein Hollandia, owned by the Admiralty of Rotterdam, was involved in all major battles in the second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-1667). In 1672, the ship was part of the squadron of Admiral de Haese to escort the Smyrna fleet while sailing from the Mediterranean into the English Channel, en-route for the Netherlands. At the Isle of Wight, the squadron was attacked by an English squadron under Admiral Holmes. A fierce battle broke out on the second day, March 23, resulting in the Klein Hollandia being damaged severely. The commander of the ship, Jan Van Nes was killed in action. The ship was boarded and conquered by the English, but shortly after the Klein Hollandia sank with both English and Dutch sailors on board. This surprise action by the small squadron under Sir Robert Holmes and Sir Frecheville Holles contributed to the start of the Third Anglo-Dutch War. Source: Historic England Advertisement The ship sank in 1672 and was discovered in 2019. It was considered so important that it was granted the highest level of protection in the same year, under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Over the past year, specialists from Historic England, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and the Nautical Archaeology Society have been working on identifying the ship. They used evidence gathered from the wreck by a team of professional and volunteer divers, as well as archival research and tree ring analysis of the wood samples. Heritage minister Lord Parkinson said: 'The identification of the Klein Hollandia offers a glimpse back into the 17th century, giving us a chance to learn more about the maritime history of this period and to uncover treasures which have been underwater for hundreds of years. 'I am very pleased that, thanks to this partnership between the UK and the Netherlands, we have been able to solve some of the mysteries linked to this wreck and to protect it for future generations to continue to research.' Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: 'We're delighted that Historic England's material scientists have played a key part in solving the mystery of this shipwreck's previously hidden identity. 'Uncovering the story of the warship Klein Hollandia opens up another fascinating chapter in the already rich, shared maritime history between the UK and the Netherlands.' The experts say the wreck's condition is remarkable and could offer a wealth of information about how 17th century Dutch ships were built and the activities of the warship during its final voyage. A large part of the wooden hull, cannons, Italian marble tiles (pictured) and pieces of Italian pottery were among the material found on the seabed The wreck was discovered by Eastbourne dive operator David Ronnan and reported to Historic England The Klein Hollandia, owned by the Admiralty of Rotterdam, was involved in all major battles in the second Anglo-Dutch war (1665-1667) A large part of the wooden hull, cannons, Italian marble tiles and pieces of Italian pottery were among the material found on the seabed. The marble tiles came from the Apuan Alps quarries close to Carrara in Italy and were conserved by Historic England archaeological conservators before the investigations started. The tiles were bound for the Netherlands and would have been used to build high-status homes. The wreck was discovered by Eastbourne dive operator David Ronnan and reported to Historic England. The tiles were bound for the Netherlands and would have been used to build high-status homes Over the past year, specialists from Historic England, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) and the Nautical Archaeology Society have been working on identifying the ship. Pictured: Italian pottery found at the wreck Experts used evidence gathered from the wreck by a team of professional and volunteer divers, as well as archival research and tree ring analysis of the wood samples Mr Ronnan and Mark Beattie-Edwards are the licensees and have been investigating the wreck since its discovery. Mr Beattie-Edwards, chief executive of the Nautical Archaeology Society, said: 'From our very first dive on the wreck, back in April 2019, we have been fascinated by the range of material on the seabed. 'The impressive amount of wooden hull structure, the ship's cannons, the beautifully cut marble tiles, as well as the pottery finds, all point towards this being a Dutch ship from the late 17th century coming back from Italy. 'Now, after four years of investigation and research, we can confidently identify the vessel.' Children who are taught well during their first year of primary school are likely to earn more than their peers in later life, a study has shown. Pupils in the most effective reception classes can expect to earn between 2,000 and 7,500 more on average than their peers, research by Durham University and the Department for Education suggests. The study estimates that the top 2.5 per cent reception classes of 27 pupils could add between 50,000 and 200,000 to the UK economy the equivalent of around 4,400 per pupil. Research by Durham University has previously shown that children who were taught well in their first year of primary school go on to achieve better GCSE results in English and maths. Children who are taught well during their first year of primary school are likely to earn more than their peers in later life, a study has shown (stock image) Read more: ALL pupils must study maths to the age of 18, declares Rishi Sunak Pupils will be forced to take some form of maths delivered through new courses or existing qualifications Advertisement The latest report titled The economic benefits of effective Reception classes in England suggests future earnings are influenced by teachers when children are as young as four. The social and economic returns from investments in high-quality reception classes may also be 'much larger' than the study's estimates, especially for disadvantaged pupils, the paper says. Professor Peter Tymms, from Durham University's School of Education, said: 'We have previously shown that exceptional teaching in reception can have a long-term impact up to GCSE level but now, working with the Department for Education, we have been able to show that it has an influence on later earnings too. 'Many will be surprised to see this but it shows the importance of great teachers working with young children.' Researchers used two previous studies one on the impact of reception classes on GCSE attainment and the other on earnings returns associated with GCSEs to estimate the changes in earnings. A range of social and economic factors that could have skewed the results were taken into account including children's age, sex, ethnicity, special needs, English as an additional language and deprivation. Pupils in the most effective reception classes can expect to earn between 2,000 and 7,500 more on average than their peers (stock image) James Bowen, director of policy for school leaders' union NAHT, said: 'As this report shows, the early years of a child's education are crucial to setting children up for the best success, both in terms of their future academic attainment and their life chances. 'While we should not be trying to 'hothouse' young children, it is clear that great teachers in reception classes make a real difference. 'However, we also need to recognise that the years before a child enters reception are just as important, and the challenges some children face start well before they arrive at school.' A Department for Education spokesperson said: 'Early literacy and numeracy can improve life chances, and findings from this analysis report shows the importance of investing in maths and English in primary schools. 'Our approach as a Government over the last decade has been on raising standards, particularly in primary schools, which is why we have introduced the phonics screening and multiplication tables checks, to improve children's fluency in literacy and mathematics.' 'Spotify snooping' has become the new technique to spy on crushes to 'see' what they are doing, how they feel and even get a glimpse into who they are - all without them knowing. This is because many users have 'Friend Activity' activated on their accounts, which publicly displays their recently played songs, tunes they have liked and curated playlists. TikTokers and Tweeters are sharing secrets they have uncovered with the stealth move. Some have 'ghosted' a potential mate after learning their music taste, others found their crush has found another lover and many uncovered cheating significant others. However, you will first need to find the username of your target - which 'requires some good stalking skills.' The trick was recently shared by TikTok user michellevillafilipina, who explained Spotify snooping Friend Activity was initially launched to let people share music with friends, but the internet has found a more devious use for it. A video was created by TikTok user michellevillafilipina, which details how someone can snoop using Spotify. 'If you know their Spotify username, or if you're good at stalking to find their account, if their playlists are not private, then you can see the playlists that they have made,' she said in the video. 'You can follow them too and see their activity if they allow for that.' @farisdaries They be listening to cute r&b It should have been me. It should have been me. original sound - BloodMan Social media is sharing how the trick is a great way to get to know people. While other users note they found out their significant other was cheating Users are taking advantage of a feature to spy on their crushes and friends. If your target has 'Friends Activity' activated, you can see their recently played songs, tunes they have liked and curated playlists Another user by the name of farisdaries shared a video of what they found out while snooping on their crush. The caption on the clip describes how his crush recently made a new playlist titled 'Since you want it so bad' that includes songs by Mac Dmarco, Burno Major and Daniel Caesar. The video's description reads: 'They be listening to cure r&b it should have been me,' which suggests their crush has another lover in mind. A commenter on the video shared that they also snooped on someone's profile. 'bruh the guy i talked to last had 43 playlists with most of the same songs on them with different quirky titles so i ghosted him,' the comment reads. And 'Veronique' shared that this is how she 'found out [her] ex was dating someone new. Regina Ticoalu, an 18-year-old college student in Colorado, told The Wall Street Journal that she uses the trick to get closer to friends and learn more about acquaintances. However, she admitted using it to 'check on people no longer in her life.' She told WSJ that she used the feature to look up her ex-boyfriend's account in November. She saw he was listening to 'Glimpse of Us' by Joji, a song about starting to date again after a relationship ended. And because the two recently went their separate ways, Ticoalu is sure the song is about her. On the other hand, music artists have found this tool helpful in seeing who has downloaded their songs. Peyton Stilling snooped to find where her song 'Healing' is being heard, finding several accounts with the tune. On the other hand, music artists have found this tool helpful in seeing who has downloaded their songs. Peyton Stilling snooped to find where her song 'Healing' is being heard, finding several accounts with the tune. The Friend Activity was added to Spotify in 2015, but has recently gained traction a people looking to take a deeper look into someone's life. Spotify snooping gives you a window into how someone may feel or even what they are doing. But it is not available in the mobile app There's no Friend Activity view on mobile devices, though the music you play on mobile is shared. However, you can turn off your activity in the app. To deactivate the feature in the app, go to Home, tap settings and you can toggle the option to off under Privacy & Social for iOS and just Social for Android. Study follows reports of the soaring price of glass bottles delivered to UK homes For decades in Britain, milk has been delivered in glass pint bottles in the wee hours by the cheery milkman. But soaring costs and the pressure to switch to alternative packaging could replace this valued tradition once and for all. Now, a new study shows milk's packaging really does influence its flavour and that glass is best if you want to fully appreciate it. Scientists found trendy paperboard cartons which are increasingly being used for milk sold in supermarkets don't preserve its freshness or flavour as well as glass. In experiments in the US, glass and plastic were found to be the best for preserving flavour and freshness of milk (file photo) Scientists found trendy paperboard cartons - increasingly being used for milk sold in supermarkets - don't preserve its freshness or flavour as well as glass. Pictured, dairy and non-dairy milk options sold in paperboard cartons Milk storage options - Glass (bottles) - Paperboard (cartons) - Hard plastic (cartons) - Soft plastic (bags) Advertisement Paperboard cartons are widely used in schools, especially in the US, so the findings suggest a switch to glass could help children enjoy their milk more. Glass and plastic, meanwhile, were the best for preserving flavour and freshness, according to the study, which follows figures last year illustrating the soaring price of glass bottles delivered to UK homes. 'Milk is more susceptible to packaging-related off-flavours than many other beverages because of its mild, delicate taste,' said study author Mary-Anne Drake at North Carolina State University. '[We found] milk's taste can be impacted by the exchange of the packaging's compounds into the milk and by the packaging absorbing food flavours and aromas from the surrounding refrigeration environment.' To investigate the flavour impacts of packaging, the researchers examined pasteurised whole and skimmed milk stored in six half pint containers. Aside from glass, the team used paperboard cartons, three plastic cartons or jugs (made from different plastics) and a plastic bag, known as a milk bag. Plastic bags containing milk - known as 'milk bags' - in a grocery store in Ontario, Canada (file photo) No more pints of milk? Soaring prices threaten to kill off the traditional pint with cost of bottles delivered to homes rising by 22% to 84p - read more Soaring milk prices could signal the death of the traditional pint Advertisement All milk was stored in total darkness to control for light oxidation which is also known to affect milk's flavour and kept cold at 4C (39F). The samples were tasted and analysed on the first day of the experiments, then again at five, 10, and 15 days after. A trained panel examined the sensory properties of each sample, while the researchers extracted compounds to see how the packaging was intermingling with the milk. Finally, the samples underwent a blind consumer taste test on day 10 to see whether tasters could tell any difference between milk stored in the paperboard carton or the plastic jugs compared with the milk in glass. Of the different packaging types, paperboard cartons and the plastic bag preserved milk flavour and freshness the least, the researchers found. Milk packaged in paperboard cartons had distinct off-flavours such as 'refrigerator' and 'stale' as well as lower sweet aromatic flavours, while the presence of compounds from the paperboard was also present. Overall, off-flavours in milks detected by the tastings were correlated with increased migration of volatile compounds (from the packaging into the liquid). Interestingly, skimmed milk was found to be more susceptible to flavour impacts than whole milk due to its fat 'matrix', found the study, which has been published in the Journal of Dairy Science. Paperboard cartons (pictured) are widely used in school meal programmes in the US (file photo) It's worth noting that the milk in the experiment was stored in the dark, which is crucial to maintaining its flavour if in clear glass. A problem with a clear glass bottle is it allows light oxidation the chemical reaction of fat molecules with oxygen, catalysed by light. Because light oxidation impacts milk's flavour, dairy companies have been switching to dark glass that blocks the light. Glass bottles are also said to be worse for the environment than plastic because manufacturing glass uses more energy and resources. This is why trendy eco-friendly breweries are increasingly making the switch from glass bottles to cans. However, glass milk bottles that are delivered to customers doors are typically collected, cleaned and reused many times over by milk delivery companies making them a particularly environmentally-friendly option. Frank Lampard has broken his silence on Instagram after he was sacked by Everton earlier this week and returned to Merseyside on Thursday to say his goodbyes. The Chelsea legend was sacked on Monday after a 2-0 defeat at West Ham Evertons 11th loss in their last 14 games in all competitions. On Thursday night, Lampard took to social media in which he admitted he was 'disappointed' that he couldn't achieve more at Goodison Park. Frank Lampard was sacked by Everton on Monday after a poor run of 11 losses in 14 games Lampard has taken to Instagram with a message alongside this picture to break his silence Alongside a photo of him celebrating alongside Everton fans, he wrote: 'Coming in to Everton last year I knew we were in a tough moment and I will always be proud of the incredible work and support from everyone involved to keep the team in the Premier League last season. 'Thanks to everybody that played their part as the whole club came together. I will never forget the incredible night against Palace that we shared. 'I want to thank all Evertonians for the welcome that you gave to myself, my staff, and my family. It truly is a special club with a huge heart, and an incredible history. 'Im disappointed that we couldnt achieve more together and wish all the players and everyone at Everton FC the very best for the future.' Lampard was back on Merseyside on Thursday to bid farewell to those at the club and say his goodbyes. The former Chelsea and Derby boss was told his 357 day spell in charge had come to an end during a phone call with Farhad Moshiri, Evertons major shareholder. It was the inevitable conclusion following weeks in which he has been on the brink, with Marcelo Bielsa Everton's number one pick to take over the role despite his concerns that the team don't suit his style of play. Former Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa is Everton's number one pick to take over the role Bielsa was pictured arriving at Heathrow as he is set to step up talks with Everton, though Carlo Ancelotti's son Davide is an alternative option. Lampard was initially able to turn Everton's fortunes around after replacing Rafael Benitez as manager. Everton produced a stunning comeback to beat Crystal Palace 3-2 last May to ensure their survival in the Premier League. However, they are in another fight to avoid the drop and are 19th in the table - joint with bottom-of-the-league Southampton. Marcelo Bielsa has told Everton he doesn't want to take over at Goodison Park, despite holding positive talks with the club, Sportsmail understands. The former Leeds United boss emerged as the Toffees' top target to replace Frank Lampard, who was sacked earlier this week following one win from 14 matches, and jetted into London on Thursday for discussions with the club's hierarchy. Everton had already feared that Bielsa would reject the role over fears about the squad's lack of pace amid their battle against relegation - with the team slipping to 19th in their turbulent season under Lampard. Marcelo Bielsa has informed Everton he does not want to replace Frank Lampard as manager Farhad Moshiri is looking to make a quick appointment with the Toffees in relegation trouble And now the Argentinian is expected to tell the Everton board - led by majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri and chairman Bill Kenwright - that he does not want the role at this time and would prefer to take charge in July. Everton need somebody in now though as they face an uphill battle to avoid slipping into the Championship. Taking over in the summer would allow him to have a proper pre-season with the players and start from scratch rather than thrust himself into a difficult situation and risk having a relegation on his CV. Bielsa's teams are known for playing a high-energy style - which is why he holds reservations over Everton's group of players - that takes hours on the training pitch to implement succcessfully. Bielsa was pictured arriving in London on Thursday in exclusive pictures from Sportsmail Former Burnley boss Sean Dyche is now in pole position for the job having also been high on the board's list of candidates. However, there is still work to be done to secure a deal - with the 51-year-old seeking a longer term contract. Whoever does take the hot seat would also have to deal with the increasingly toxic atmosphere at the club, with fans venting their anger at Moshiri and the rest of the board in recent weeks. Following a dismal run of results, supporters turned on the board and held a sit-in protest after their most recent home match against Southampton. Sean Dyche is now in pole position to take the Everton job but wants a longer term contract Prior to the match, Everton released a statement claiming that their board members had been told to stay away from Goodison Park due to 'fears for their safety'. This followed reports that the club's CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale had been put in a headlock by a supporter after Everton's defeat against Brighton earlier this month, although Merseyside Police confirmed the alleged incident was not reported to them. The split between the fans and the board has only widened since that afternoon, and the new man in charge would have a difficult job getting the fans back on side. There will be no easy transition period either, with Everton hosting league leaders Arsenal on February 4, before travelling to Anfield to play Liverpool nine days later. It comes after axed boss Lampard broke his silence on his exit from Goodison Park, saying he was 'disappointed we couldn't achieve more' as he revealed his pride to have managed the club. Frank Lampard was sacked by Everton on Monday after a poor run of 11 losses in 14 games 'Coming in to Everton last year I knew we were in a tough moment and I will always be proud of the incredible work and support from everyone involved to keep the team in the Premier League last season,' he said on social media. 'Thanks to everybody that played their part as the whole club came together. I will never forget the incredible night against Palace that we shared. 'I want to thank all Evertonians for the welcome that you gave to myself, my staff, and my family. It truly is a special club with a huge heart, and an incredible history. 'Im disappointed that we couldnt achieve more together and wish all the players and everyone at Everton FC the very best for the future.' Premier League protagonists Manchester City and Arsenal are set to square off in the pick of the FA Cup fourth-round fixtures. Arsenal sit five points above City with a game in hand in the Premier League, but they travel to Manchester on Friday night having lost six games on the bounce at the Etihad Stadium. The two sides are yet to meet this season, with their initial October date pushed back due to Arsenal's Europa League commitments. Friday's encounter is now the first of three intriguing clashes to come. Mikel Arteta (left) and Pep Guardiola (right) meet on Friday night as Man City host Arsenal in the FA Cup Mikel Arteta and his former mentor Pep Guardiola are both expected to make changes to their teams on Friday night, though to what extent remains to be seen. Arsenal are in the driving seat to win their first Premier League title since the 2003-04 season, but with Gabriel Jesus, Cedric Soares, Reiss Nelson and Mohamed Elneny all unavailble, Arteta doesn't have quite as many options to rotate as his counterpart. Emile Smith Rowe is also reportedly out of the tie having picked up a thigh injury in training. Arteta is however expected to hand Leandro Trossard his first start for Arsenal, having made his debut off the bench in the 3-2 home win over Manchester United last weekend. Leandro Trossard is expected to make his first start for Arsenal after making his debut against Manchester United 'Straight away he had a beautiful impact on the team to help us to win,' Arteta said of Trossard in his pre-match press conference on Wednesday. 'That's what I like. I see a player that is willing to make things happen and he is especially composed in the final third and is something we needed to add to the team.' Arteta could also thrust new signing Jakub Kiwior straight into the action in place of Gabriel Magalhaes following his 21million arrival from Serie A side Spezia. Takehiro Tomiyasu, Rob Holding and Kieran Tierney could also start in defence in place of Ben White, William Saliba and Oleksandr Zinchenko. There could also be a change between the sticks, with Matt Turner starting in place of Aaron Ramsdale. Fabio Vieira could meanwhile replace Martin Odegaard in midfield. New signing Jakub Kiwior could make his debut, starting over Gabriel Magalhaes in defence As for Manchester City, their only injury concern is Phil Foden, who is sitll recovering from a foot injury sustained at Old Trafford earlier in the month. Guardiola has revealed the midfielder is improving, though. The Spaniard otherwise has a full squad to choose from and indicated he will play a strong team as he previewed the clash. 'We have to prove ourselves, how far away or how close we are and the best way to notice is to perform at our best level,' he said. 'Otherwise, against a team in that moment, it will be difficult.' Stefan Ortega is expected to return to the Manchester City starting lineup against Arsenal Bernardo Silva could also start from the off with Kevin De Bruyne potentially rested Guardiola is expected to name Stefan Ortega in goal, as he did in the third-round win over Chelsea, while Bernardo Silva could return to the side. Ruben Dias is in contention to make his first start since November, though John Stones and Aymeric Laporte could be preferred. Erling Haaland was left out of the strating lineup against Chelsea but could be called upon for a match of such significance. Predicted Man City XI: Ortega; Walker, Stones, Laporte, Ake; Rodri, Silva; Mahrez, De Bruyne, Grealish; Haaland. Predicted Arsenal: Turner; Tomiyasu, Holding, Kiwior, Tierney; Vieira, Partey, Xhaka; Saka, Nketiah, Trossard. Ukraines last representative in the Australian Open has spoken of her hurt at the pro-Russian demonstrations that broke out at Melbourne Park. Marta Kostyuk was beaten in the semi-finals of the womens doubles alongside Gabriele Ruse, and was appalled by the sight of Putin sympathisers present at Novak Djokovics quarter final on Wednesday. The 20-year-old also mentioned her reluctance to comment on the storm around his father Srdjan associating with them, after being subjected to a torrent of hate from the Serbian stars fans. Marta Kostyuk has spoken of her hurt at pro-Russian demonstrations at the Australian Open A fan at the tournament was pictured wearing Russia's ultra-nationalist 'Z' war symbol Novak Djokovic's father Srdjan was also seen in footage with a Russian flag at the tournament It hurts a lot because there were specific rules that were printed out outside, you're not allowed to bring out the flags and so on, she said after going down 6-2 6-2 to Czechs Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova. Asked about Srdjan Djokovic associating with the fringe element of fans declaring support for Russian she was reluctant to comment, even though she has been outspoken about matters relating to her home country. I think these kind of things cannot be left unseen, because it doesn't matter who you are, no one is allowed to do it. It's very upsetting. I cannot give you an answer what the tournament should do. Kostyuk was the last Ukrainian in the Open and she was appalled at seeing Putin sympathisers A group of fans also chanted 'Russia, Serbia' in relation to the two countries' close cultural ties First of all, it's not in my power. Second of all, no matter what I say, I'm going to be hated the rest of my life, especially by very aggressive Novak fans. 'People know that, (although) not all of them, Novak has very aggressive fans. I know this because I experienced this in the past. I got so much hate especially from Serbian fans. With Wimbledon weighing up over the coming months whether to reverse its bans on players from Russia and Belarus, she is inclined to think that it should stay. Djokovic (left) with father Srdjan. After watching his son's quarter-final win at the Australian Open Srdjan was seen posing with a Russian flag featuring Vladimir Putin's face For me it is going to be a difficult moment for Wimbledon, she said. I think yes. Because I cannot imagine if someone Russian or Belarusian wins the tournament and then I think yes. 'Because I cannot imagine if someone Russian or Belarusian wins the tournament and then royal family has to hold the trophies with them. I hardly imagine this. 'This is one of the big reasons they actually banned them. So I think yes. All in an evenings work for Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open: moving into the final and then insisting his fathers associations with Russian sympathisers at Melbourne Park had been misinterpreted. The Serb will seek a 10th title which would draw him level with Rafael Nadal again on 22 Grand Slam singles titles and not even the distraction of a family member posing in front of a Russian flag with Vladimir Putins face on it, next to a man wearing a T-shirt with the pro-war Z symbol, has been enough to derail him. Djokovic outclassed American Tommy Paul 7-5, 6-1, 6-2 to set up a meeting with Stefanos Tsitsipas, with his father, Srdjan, staying away from the stadium to reduce attention following his appearance in a pro-Russian YouTube video. Tennis star Novak Djokovic has broken his silence on the outrage surrounding his father, Srdjan The 35-year-old, who would regain the world No 1 spot by taking the title, described his father as having been misused by people expressing support for Russia outside Rod Laver Arena. It was unfortunate that the misinterpretation of what happened has escalated to such a high level, he said. It has got to me, of course, as well. I was not aware of it until last night. Then I was not pleased to see that. My whole family and myself have been through several wars during the 1990s. As my father put in a statement, we are against the war. We know how devastating it is for people in any country going through war. 'My father has been going after every match to meet with my fans, to thank them for the support, and make photos. The photo he made, he was passing through. There were a lot of Serbian flags around. He thought he was making a photo with somebody from Serbia. He was misused in this situation by this group of people. Novak Djokovic's father was seen with a pro-Russia advocate after his quarter final triumph What was said on the video is disputed, but the player insisted: He said: Cheers. Unfortunately some of the media interpreted that in a really wrong way. Djokovic added: Its not pleasant to go through this with what I had to deal with last year and this year in Australia. It is a considerable stretch to claim Srdjan could not have been aware of the sort of people with which he was consorting. Especially with the kind of things being chanted and the T-shirt being worn. It was unobservant, to say the least. Srdjan decided to stay away from Rod Laver Arena for Djokovic's semi-final victory on Friday I am here to support my son only. I had no intention of causing such disruption, he had stated in an earlier release, announcing his decision to stay away from Friday's semi-final. He made a similar point about having lived through wars. It was strange it took so long for the family to come up with any response. Djokovic had been way too good for world No 35 Paul, though he did betray signs of agitation when he let a 5-1 lead slip in the first set after getting involved in a row about when the shot clock should start between points. The way the crowd were rooting for a relatively obscure American suggested Wednesdays episode had dented Djokovics standing. When he clinched the first set and cocked his ear to the crowd, boos rang out around the arena. Tsitsipas, like Djokovic, stands to be No 1 tomorrow if he wins, and should prove a completely different proposition. He reached the Melbourne final by beating Russian Karen Khachanov 7-6, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3. There may be some relief within the confines of the tournament that the popular Greek is through, rather than a player from Russia. Mens final 8.30am Sunday LIVE on Eurosport 1. The 35-year-old insists that his father was 'misused' by pro-Russian supporters in Melbourne Advertisement There's no such thing as bad weather, they say, just bad clothing. So it was lucky my waterproofs kept me mostly dry as I hiked through a cracking storm in the beautiful countryside of Upper Teesdale. Swirls of mist clung to the hillsides and fat raindrops slapped me in the face. But in this picturesque corner of County Durham, there were several benefits to that. One was that the High Force waterfall, a ten-minute walk from my hotel, was in full flow. It was so powerful, in fact, that it had split into two overnight, with the River Tees thundering 70 feet left and right over the edge to create a ground-shaking force that made the soles of my boots quiver. Hikers' haven: Will Hide checked into the High Force Hotel (above) and hiked through the beautiful countryside of Upper Teesdale The thundering High Force waterfall, above, is a 10-minute walk from High Force Hotel The second is that once back at High Force Hotel, you get to dry out by one of two crackling log fires, lingering over a pint or a cup of tea and a copy of the local newspaper, the Teesdale Mercury. There are 11 bedrooms in this whitewashed building some 14 miles north-west of Barnard Castle, which once housed Victorian shooting parties, one of which included the future Edward VII. The interiors have been brought thoroughly up to date with a dash of country-pad casual under the personal direction of Lady Barnard, who, along with her husband, Lord Barnard, owns the imposing Raby Castle and Estate, of which the hotel is part. Its well worth a visit. The hotel lies some 14 miles north-west of Barnard Castle, pictured above High Force Hotel is part of the imposing Raby Castle and Estate, owned by Lord and Lady Barnard. 'Its well worth a visit,' says Will Youll find extra-wide double beds, antique dressers and paintings, comfortable reupholstered chairs, powerful showers and bathtubs in which to soak after a days exploring. Some rooms can accommodate dogs alongside their owners. Behind the bar, a friendly cohort of local staff, overseen by manager Andrew and his partner George, can recommend nearby attractions and walks. Hiking is a popular pastime in the Upper Teesdale Valley. It forms part of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with undulating dry-stone walls, rippling green dales flecked with sheep, as well as hay meadows and high moorland. The interiors have been brought thoroughly up to date with a dash of country-pad casual under the personal direction of Lady Barnard, Will reveals Youll find extra-wide double beds, antique dressers and paintings, and comfortable reupholstered chairs at the hotel From February to May you might see black grouse lekking, when males strut and display their tail feathers to court females. Theres a rich carpet of flowers too, especially in spring: the area overlaps the northern-most zone for some southern wildflowers and the southern-most region for those that extend from the north. You wont see rare spring gentians anywhere else in the UK. In the hotel's restaurant, Will dined on a dinner of steak and ale pie with mash, followed by sticky-toffee pudding and ice cream The hotel has powerful showers and bathtubs in which to soak after a days exploring Back at the hotel, bag a fireside spot for a pint of Black Sheep ale or a bottle of Raby Estate beer before tucking into dinner. My steak and ale pie with mash was exactly what I needed after my soaking, and miraculously I found space for sticky-toffee pudding and ice cream. Because of cloudy skies there was no stargazing during my stay its a popular spot for that thanks to low light pollution so instead I chatted fireside with a young couple from North Carolina who were bowled over by the area. Next morning the full English breakfast hit all the right spots, and was plenty to fuel a day exploring this uncrowded corner of County Durham. He and his fellow passengers use advanced oceanographic technology to explore the secrets of the Lakes Mark Jones and his wife climb aboard Viking Octantis in Milwaukee for their trip around the Great Lakes Advertisement Milwaukee is not the most glamorous place to begin a cruise. Its an unpretentious, mid-size, blue-collar city lying on the west bank of Lake Michigan, some 100 miles north of Chicago. But as a jumping-off point to explore North Americas Great Lakes, its just about perfect. The night before our voyage my wife and I have a raucous night out in the historic Third Ward district (it goes all the way back to the 1850s). We eat excellent fish and chips at the Oyster Bar and sample the product which, according to a memorable slogan and the Jerry Lee Lewis song, made Milwaukee famous beer. Our ship, the Viking Octantis, is waiting for us next morning at the citys airport. This once-bustling hub serving Americas Rust Belt is now a slightly lonely place surrounded by freeways and the huge mounds of salt that keep the roads open in the harsh Lakes winter. On the water: From Milwaukee, Mark Jones and his wife set off on a cruise around the Great Lakes, travelling north to Mackinac, where the tips of lakes Michigan and Huron merge. Above is the lighthouse on Round Island, which lies near Mackinac Island on Lake Michigan 'The night before our voyage my wife and I have a raucous night out in the "historic" Third Ward district (it goes all the way back to the 1850s) in Milwaukee,' writes Mark It was quite a lot colder 14,000 years ago. Then, the ice sheets of Hudson Bay melted and coursed down through what is now Ontario and into the north-eastern U.S. states. As the meltwater retreated, it left the Great Lakes: five huge splodges on the map filled with 5,439 cubic miles of freshwater, which is 21 per cent of the Earths total. The biggest splodge, Superior, is the most northerly. Two long splodges, Michigan and Huron, flow to Chicago and Detroit. The minor splodges of Ontario and Erie mark the southern boundary huge bodies of water in themselves but dwarfed by Superior which, with a surface area of more than 30,000 square miles, is the worlds largest body of freshwater. Our voyage takes us north to Mackinac, where the tips of lakes Michigan and Huron merge. Following an afternoon on that historic island made rich by fur trading and tourism, and the site of a major British victory in the almost-forgotten 1812 war with America, we head east overnight along Huron. Mark says that Milwaukee, pictured, is a 'perfect' jumping-off point to explore North Americas Great Lakes Mark travels on Viking Octantis, a vessel that has been designed to slip through the narrow channels and locks Mark describes the Great Lakes as 'five huge splodges on the map filled with 5,439 cubic miles of freshwater' There, we drop anchor (although actual anchors on these modern ships are purely for show) and begin to enjoy off-boat and onshore activities: canoeing, hiking and guided tours by the Octantis experts. Then it is back west and north through the Soo Locks into the mysteries of Superior itself. In all, we spend eight days and seven nights on board before reaching Thunder Bay, a workmanlike Canadian city that makes Milwaukee look like Monte Carlo. The experience could not be more different from those cruises where you hop off and on at one famous port stop after another. If you want shows, shopping and sites, this isnt for you. Apart from Mackinac, our only land experiences are lunches at two wilderness lodges and the old copper mining settlement of Silver Islet. Its about soaking up a landscape thats newly carved (by those Ice Age glaciers) and dizzyingly old (the Canadian Shield rocks date back more than four billion years in places). And its about using some of the most advanced oceanographic technology around to explore the secrets of the Lakes. Because, for all their importance to the ecology of the world, theres a lot we dont know about these majestic, fragile places. Horse-drawn carriages on Mackinac Island. Mark reveals: 'Apart from Mackinac, our only land experiences are lunches at two wilderness lodges and the old copper mining settlement of Silver Islet' After eight days on board, Mark's cruise reaches the 'workmanlike' Canadian city of Thunder Bay, pictured Looking out over Killarney in Ontario, which lies on Lake Huron (file photo) The upmarket Norwegian line Viking decided to take the Great Lakes plunge when looking for a destination where its Antarctic exploration ships could spend the northern summer months. The Lakes are not a major destination for cruises: we didnt see anything bigger than a fishing boat. The Octantis, launched early in 2022, is not huge by the standards of modern liners: 665ft long, six decks, 189 staterooms. It has been designed to slip through the narrow channels and locks, as well as combat the polar icefields. Its luxurious but in a Nordic way. Nothing show-offy. To reach our cabin, we pass through the Explorers lounge: part bar, part lounge, part library, part gallery. Our stateroom has blonde wood, cream leather sofas, woollen throws and a floor-to-ceiling panoramic window. Most of the voyage, the same scene passes by like one of those slow TV programmes: gently rippling, deep blue water, a horizon of low wooded hills bounded by ancient rocks. There are lots of hidden wardrobes and cupboards. Not that you will need them. The passengers, mainly over 60, a large majority North American and all well-off, are past caring about impressing fellow guests with posh togs, whether in the all-day World Cafe or two fine-dining restaurants. The Viking Octantis ship passing through the Welland Canal in Ontario The expedition ship sailed 'into the mysteries' of Lake Superior. Above is the Sibley Peninsula jutting into the lake My wife and I make an effort for the captains table dinner (an Indian feast). Im the only one wearing a jacket and Annabels are the only high heels on show. Later, we meet a couple of semi-retired chaps from San Diego who use a part of their tech industry fortunes to take a couple of Viking cruises a year. They tell us they love the discreet vibe, the absence of forced jollity, the terrific (and all-included) food and drink and, they frankly admit, the no-children rule. We see our new friends every day as they take a walk around the observation deck. But the Octantis is designed to stretch minds as well as legs. There are 18 expedition crew on board, including geologists, geophysicists and ornithologists. As we mill around the lower decks, heading back from an excursion or off to dinner, the experts are on hand with their charts and specimens to explain what were seeing. There are lectures in the evening and the emphasis is on learning. The Octantis is also a Polar Class 6 expedition ship. At water level, there is a science lab and the kind of hangar Q inhabits in James Bond movies. It houses millions of dollars worth of gear designed to measure the Lakes water, earth, air and biology. Theres a Special Operations Boat equipped with a three-sector broadband multibeam echo sounder; the sonar maps the bottom of the Great Lakes in great detail. Its more fun than it sounds, reaching terrific speeds as it bounds through the waves, and we amateur scientists hang on for dear life. The hangar is also where John lives. John is a yellow submarine. There are four others in the Viking fleet Paul, George and Ringo. One of the submarines that passengers and crew use to explore the depths of the lakes. 'The scene underwater here in the heart of the Great Lakes is not exactly the Great Barrier Reef,' writes Mark 'Its luxurious but in a Nordic way. Nothing show-offy,' Mark says of Viking Octantis. The vessel is not huge by the standards of modern liners - it's 665ft long with six decks and 189 staterooms TRAVEL FACTS The eight-day voyage goes from Milwaukee to Thunder Bay and starts at 5,795 pp including flights from the UK. This includes meals, drinks, excursions, tips and lectures (viking.com). Advertisement The subs do important work investigating the 1,300ft-deep waters in Lake Superior. Guests get to be submariners for an hour in a much shallower part of Lake Huron. We squeeze down a ladder and take our seats. Its even more of a squeeze for the pilot, Aled, a strapping Welsh lad. His frame is huddled over what looks like a video-game control. He equalises the pressure, activates the thrusters and we descend gently to the bottom. The scene underwater here in the heart of the Great Lakes is not exactly the Great Barrier Reef. Theres some sediment, a clump or two of seagrass and some minnows flitting about. But, still, for the six of us on board, we have completed our first submarine dive and done our bit for science. On the last day, we anchor at misty Silver Islet, go ashore and test our land legs. Its a short cruise to Thunder Bay, where after dinner its still light. Theres one last chance to go on deck and drink in the Great Lakes palette: icy blue sky, a tangerine glow on the horizon, the setting sun gilding the decks. I realise that, unlike other cruises, the water isnt just the means to transfer you from place to place. These vast, mysterious expanses are the very reason to be here. Kyle Sandilands has revealed he was desperate to hire American rapper Snoop Dogg as a judge on the Australian Idol reboot. The radio king, 51, said he worked 'really hard' to get Snoop, 51, on board, but the deal fell through due to his prior drug convictions, which prevented him from touring Australia in 2007. 'We couldn't make it happen due to Snoop being banned in Australia,' Kyle told the I've Got News for You podcast. Kyle Sandilands has revealed he was desperate to hire American rapper Snoop Dogg as a judge on the Australian Idol reboot. (Pictured L-R: Australian Idol judges Kyle Sandilands, Meghan Trainor, Amy Shark and Harry Connick Jr.) Kyle then said producers tried to book hip-hop superstar 50 Cent, but when they couldn't get him either they were able to to secure Harry Connick Jr. 'Harry's people came back and were like, "Yep, Harry would love to do it." It was a case of first in, best dressed,' Kyle said. The father of one said once Harry was confirmed they simply had to 'lock in' fellow judges Amy Shark and Meghan Trainor and they could start filming. Kyle said he worked 'really hard' to get Snoop Dogg (pictured) on board, but the deal fell through due to his prior drug convictions, which prevented him from touring Australia in 2007 Last year, the KIIS FM presenter promised viewers they won't be getting a politically correct Kyle when he returns to screens as a judge on Australian Idol. 'Oh, my God, are you kidding?' he told Daily Mail Australia when asked if he'd let woke culture stifle his famously unfiltered persona on the family-friendly show. Kyle added that his role on the judging panel is to 'cut through the rubbish'. Last year, the KIIS FM presenter promised viewers they won't be getting a politically correct Kyle when he returns to screens as a judge on Australian Idol Channel Seven first announced plans for an Australian Idol reboot back in 2020. At the time, the network slated the show for a 2022 release, but it's now going ahead in the first quarter of 2023 instead. Australian Idol premieres on Channel Seven and 7plus on Monday, January 30, from 7.30pm and continues on Tuesday and Wednesday Heather Rae El Moussa showed off her growing baby bump as she took her dog for a walk in Newport Beach, California, on Thursday afternoon. The 35-year-old reality television personality checked her phone and listened to music on her AirPods while strolling along the pavement. The Selling Sunset cast member, who revealed that she was expecting last July, also revealed the premiere date for her upcoming series, The Flipping El Moussas, on her Instagram account on Thursday. There she is: Heather Rae El Moussa, 35, showed off her growing baby bump as she took her dog for a walk in Newport Beach, California, on Thursday afternoon El Moussa concealed her stomach with a green crewneck sweater that was paired with a set of matching sweatpants, both of which were contrasted with bright white sneakers. The real estate agent accessorized with a stylish pair of sunglasses and kept a small purse slung over her right shoulder. Her typically free-flowing blonde hair was tied into a single braid for the length of her stroll. Keeping it consistent: El Moussa concealed her stomach with a green crewneck sweater that was paired with a set of matching sweatpants, both of which were contrasted with bright white sneakers Big news: The Selling Sunset cast member, who revealed that she was expecting to welcome a baby into her life last July, also revealed the premiere date for her upcoming series, The Flipping El Moussas, on her Instagram account El Moussa shared a promotional image for The Flipping El Moussas to her Instagram account on Thursday morning. In the snap, the reality television personality was seen while holding her baby bump and spending quality time with her husband Tarek, 41, and her stepchildren Taylor and Brayden, aged 12 and seven, respectively. The real estate agent's spouse shares his children with his former wife and business partner, Christina Haack. El Moussa also penned a message that began with an allusion to the forthcoming birth of her child, which read: 'The announcement so many of you have been waiting for is here!!!! Ok maybe not THAT announcement.' Speaking her mind: El Moussa also penned a message that began with an allusion to the forthcoming birth of her child, which began with 'the announcement so many of you have been waiting for is here!!!! Ok maybe not THAT announcement' She continued: 'The family flipping business is growing! You can definitely expect some battles of budget versus design choices but I think what you guys will have the most fun seeing is how much laughter, chaos, and love that's in our family as we also grow our family too.' The Selling Sunset star wrote that 'we truly love being together & working together & are basically joined at the hip.' She concluded by writing: 'We KNOW you guys are going to love it and we're so excited for this adventure in our lives!!' The former Playboy model also shared a video to her Instagram Story where she expressed her excitement about the program, the development of which was first revealed to the public last year. Ready for it: The former Playboy model also shared a video to her Instagram Story where she expressed her excitement about the program, the development of which was first revealed to the public last year El Moussa and her husband issued an official statement regarding their upcoming show, and the latter stated via Popculture that he and his wife were looking forward to the premiere of their new program. He said: 'We are ecstatic that we will flip some next-level homes in spectacular locations, all while getting to spend more time together as a family.' Heather added: 'We'll have some battles of budget versus design choices, but in the end it will make us stronger in business and in life as we navigate our busy lives as we await our new baby boy.' The Flipping El Moussas is set to make its debut on HGTV on March 2, and it will also be made available for streaming on the Discovery+ streaming service. Love Island Australia's Anna McEvoy may have booked her dream wedding venue, but there's just one problem: she hasn't seen it yet. The 30-year-old opened up about her destination wedding plans on her podcast Where's Your Head At?, which she co-hosts with Matt Zukowski. Anna revealed she'd paid the deposit for the venue, located on the Greek island of Corfu, and was excited about planning the rest of her wedding, after getting engaged to her fiance Michael Staples in October. Love Island Australia's Anna McEvoy may have booked her dream wedding venue, but there's just one problem: she hasn't seen it yet. (Pictured: Anna and her fiance Michael Staples) The couple decided to marry in Corfu after travelling through other Greek islands in the past. Their wedding venue is part of a fully renovated nine-bedroom estate, where the bride and groom's family and close friends will be staying. 'We put a deposit down on a wedding venue in Corfu, but Michael and I have both never been to Corfu,' she said. The 30-year-old opened up about her destination wedding plans on her podcast Where's Your Head At? (She is pictured with Michael at the Australian Open in Melbourne on January 18) The couple acknowledged a lot of people wouldn't be able to attend their wedding due to the distance. So an intimate engagement party for family and friends will be held in April. Anna and Michael are planning a large affair with up to 90 guests so those who can't fly to Greece will be able to celebrate with them. Anna revealed she'd paid the deposit for the venue, located on the Greek island of Corfu, and was excited to plan the rest of her wedding, after getting engaged to Michael in October With both venues now booked, Anna and Michael have ticked off two main priorities from their wedding to-do list. Anna said she had done a lot of research on Greece, and thought there would be heaps of suitable venues, but only a few caught her eye. She rose to fame on season two of Love Island Australia, and won the show with Josh Packham but they split in December 2020. Nicky Hilton bundled up against the cold streets of New York City while walking home from lunch on Thursday. The 39-year-old daughter of fashion designer Kathy Hilton strutted the pavement in a warm ensemble only days after congratulating her sister Paris Hilton, 41, on the birth of her first child. Her outfit consisted of a cream turtleneck sweater underneath a brown boucle jacket, wide-legged jeans, and brown boots. Strutting: Nicky Hilton bundled up against the cold streets of NYC on Thursday She carried a matching brown purse and accessorized with a pair of sunglasses and silver hoop earrings. The beauty's blonde hair was styled in a bun, and she went for a very minimal and natural makeup look. The outing comes only days after her older sister Paris announced the birth of her first child via surrogate. Staying warm: The 39-year-old socialite strutted the streets of SoHo on her way home from lunch Stylish: The beauty donned a cream turtleneck sweater underneath a brown boucle jacket, wide-legged jeans, and brown boots Paris shared a photo to her Instagram on Tuesday evening of her hand and her new baby boy's hand and wrote in the caption: 'You are already loved beyond words.' Nicky then took to social media to congratulate her sister with a flashback photo of her and Paris with their mother, Kathy Hilton, from the 1980s. She wrote: 'Welcome to mommyhood @parishilton! So so incredibly happy for youuu! Its the most beautiful ride. There is no greater love. You are going to be the best mommy. What a lucky boy!' Paris is married to author and entrepreneur Carter Reum. They had been family friends for most of their lives but only started dating in November 2019. On the go: Nicky carried a matching brown purse and accessorized with a pair of sunglasses and silver hoop earrings The pair tied the knot in November 2022 with a lavish three-day wedding in Santa Monica, California wedding. The socialite revealed to PEOPLE that becoming a mom was a lifelong dream of hers. 'It's always been my dream to be a mother and I'm so happy that Carter and I found each other.' She went on to say: 'We are so excited to start our family together and our hearts are exploding with love for our baby boy.' Family: Nicky recently congratulated her older sister Paris on the birth of her first child via surrogate. She took to Instagram to share a throwback photo of the two of them with their mom Kathy Hilton Love: Paris and her husband Carter Reum tied the knot in November 2022 with a lavish three-day wedding in Santa Monica, California wedding; seen together at the LACMA Art + Film Gala in 2021 The House of Wax star used a surrogate to have her baby after undergoing IVF procedures to retrieve her eggs. Nicky is currently a mom to two daughters, Lily-Grace, 6, and Teddy Marilyn, 4, and a seven-month-old son, whose name has yet to be shared with the public. The beauty married founder and managing partner of Tru Arrow Partners, James Rothschild, in 2015. She celebrated the birth of her first child via a surrogate earlier this week. And Paris Hilton engaged in some nostalgia following the major life change on Thursday when she shared a photo of herself posing with an adorable picture taken when she was just a child. The 41-year-old socialite was joined by models and stars including Gigi Hadid, Naomi Campbell and Demi Lovato as they all shared pictures of themselves as children for a new Boss summer campaign. The fashion house unveiled the new campaign on social media on Thursday, while sharing several of the striking portraits to its own social media accounts. Blast from the past: After welcoming her first child via a surrogate, Paris Hilton, 41, joined a Boss campaign on Thursday in which stars posed with childhood photos of themselves Paris opted to represent the the fashion house in her photo via a navy blue hoodie that she wore which featured 'BOSS' in block letters on her chest that were enlivened with brown, white and black stripes. The blond beauty also wore a set of black fingerless gloves a style she has repeatedly returned to as she held a black-and-white photo of herself in a dress with a lacy white satin collar. The adorable child version of her showed off a sweet mile and had a lace-covered flower placed in her hair. The House Of Wax actress complemented her old photo by wearing her long hair in thick curls cascading down her shoulders. Sweet: Paris was getting back to business after revealing that she had welcomed her first child. On Tuesday, she shared a photo of her elegantly manicured hand as her new baby gripped her thumb tightly Loved-up: Paris will be raising her baby boy whose name she has not yet revealed with her husband Carter Reum, whom she tied the knot with in 2021; seen in November 2022 Paris was getting back to business after revealing that she had welcomed her first child. On Tuesday, she shared a photo of her elegantly manicured hand as her new baby gripped her thumb tightly. She was inundated with kind words from her friends and admirers on social media, including her former employee and one-time frenemy Kim Kardashian. Paris will be raising her baby boy whose name she has not yet revealed with her husband Carter Reum, whom she tied the knot with in 2021. Superstar: Gigi Hadid was another high-profile star joining the Boss campaign. She appeared to wearing a plunging black blazer without a shirt and covered her eye as did all the other famous faces with her throwback photo What a difference! Naomi Campbell opted for an elegant touch with a brown blazer with peaked lapels and a white shirt for her photo. Her old-school picture showed her with her natural hair tied up, though she opted to wearing long pin-straight hair in her current image Gigi Hadid was another high-profile star joining the BOSS campaign. She appeared to wearing a plunging black blazer without a shirt and covered her eye as did all the other famous faces with her throwback photo. Naomi Campbell opted for an elegant touch with a brown blazer with peaked lapels and a white shirt for her photo. Her old-school picture showed her with her natural hair tied up, though she opted to wearing long pin-straight hair in her current image. Switching things up: Demi Lovato flipped the script by sharing a current black-and-white photo and a color throwback of herself Flower power: Bella Thorne appeared to wear the same top, along with a thick metal heart-shaped necklace, while her young picture showed her wearing an adorable flower-covered headband Short hair, don't care: Christina Ricci was also a fan of the same blouse. She contrasted her long hair in her childhood photo with her stylishly severe blunt-cut bob Demi Lovato flipped the script by sharing a current black-and-white photo and a color throwback of herself. She looked effortlessly cool in a patterned BOSS top with her lustrous raven tresses swept back, while her old-school photo featured a cute contrasting smile. Bella Thorne appeared to wear the same top, along with a thick metal heart-shaped necklace, while her young picture showed her wearing an adorable flower-covered headband. Christina Ricci was also a fan of the same top. She contrasted her long hair in her childhood photo with her stylishly severe blunt-cut bob. Change of pace: Candice Swanepoel wore her long blond hair tied in a ponytail and showed off a soft smile. She revealed a somewhat more artistic throwback photo that showed her gazing off into the distance Sensing a pattern: The former Nickelodeon star Victoria just also rocked the same BOSS sweater Olympian physique: Riverdale star Charles Melton was seen in the same shirt as well, though his photo was focused on his chiseled jaw and wet, slicked back hair Suited up: DJ Khaled rounded out some of the celebrity portraits with a simple white 'BOSS' hoodie. Unlike some of the other stars who posted photos of themselves as children, he appeared to be a teen in the picture, which showed him wearing a black tuxedo Candice Swanepoel wore her long blond hair tied in a ponytail and showed off a soft smile. She revealed a somewhat more artistic throwback photo that showed her gazing off into the distance. The former Nickelodeon star Victoria just also rocked the same BOSS sweater. Although her old-school photo looked remarkably like her now, she showed off bangs in the black-and-white image while wearing her long brunette locks with a middle part in the present day. Riverdale star Charles Melton was seen in the same shirt as well, though his photo was focused on his chiseled jaw and wet, slicked back hair. DJ Khaled rounded out some of the celebrity portraits with a simple white 'BOSS' hoodie. Unlike some of the other stars who posted photos of themselves as children, he appeared to be a teen in the picture, which showed him wearing a black tuxedo. By Azernews Sabina Mammadli Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusohglu discussed the brutal attack on the nation's embassy in Tehran during a phone call, Azernews reports. During the call, Cavusoglu strongly condemned the treacherous terrorist attack, emphasizing that Azerbaijan is not alone, as Turkiye has always been there for the fraternal country. In turn, Bayramov thanked his Turkish colleague for the words of brotherhood and solidarity and noted that Azerbaijan will make every effort to ensure that all those guilty of the monstrous crime are brought to justice as soon as possible. As reported earlier, the head of the security guard of the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran was killed in the armed attack on the building on January 27 at about 0830 hours (GMT+4). An individual with a Kalashnikov assault rifle attacked the security post and killed the head of the security guard. Two embassy guards were also wounded while preventing the attack. The investigation into the act of terror is underway. Irina Shayk meant business as she hit the catwalk for Thierry Mugler's Paris Fashion Week show on Thursday. The model, 37, looked incredible in a black off-the-shoulder minidress from the fashion designer's Haute Couture 2023 collection. It's been a busy week for Irina who has modelled for Ludovic de Saint Sernin and Schiaparelli. Walk this way: Irina Shayk meant business as she hit the catwalk for Thierry Mugler's Paris Fashion Week show on Thursday Proving she is every inch a style comedian, Irina emulated high-octane glamour in the corset minidress which had an extravagant bow train on the side. The model strutted down the runway in knee-high heeled boots, while her dark hair was slicked back into a ponytail. Sporting a red lip, Irina maintained her poker face as she sashayed down the catwalk alongside the likes of Shalom Harlow, Eva Herzigova and Amber Valletta. Strutting her stuff: The model, 37, looked incredible in a black off-the-shoulder minidress from the fashion designer's Haute Couture 2023 collection She's got style: Proving she is every inch a style comedian, Irina emulated high-octane glamour in the corset minidress which had an extravagant bow train on the side Head-turner: The model strutted down the runway in knee-high heeled boots, while her dark hair was slicked back into a ponytail Commanding attention: Sporting a red lip, Irina maintained her poker face as she sashayed down the catwalk alongside the likes of Shalom Harlow, Eva Herzigova and Amber Valletta Behind-the-scenes, Irina shared a laugh with Shalom after showcasing the designer's edit to the world. Irina rose to fame walking for many major fashion brands and becoming the face of the lingerie brand Intimissimi back in 2007. Thierry Mugler's latest collection was awash with structured corsets, satin bows and racy cut out detailing. Having fun: Behind-the-scenes, Irina shared a laugh with Shalom after showcasing the designer's edit to the world Racy: Eva Herzigova walks the runway in a sexy PVC catsuit with silk bow Model behaviour: Eva appeared in her element as she tottered down the runway with hand on hip In the 1970s, Mugler launched his eponymous fashion house; and quickly rose to prominence in the following decades for his avant-garde and theatrical approach to haute couture. At the beginning of his career he designed signature looks for Michael Jackson, Madonna and Grace Jones. Mugler created what was named 'the most famous dress of the 1990s' - Demi Moore's dress from the 1993 movie Indecent Proposal. Daring: Amber Valletta wowed as she went braless in a cut-out black dress Rocking it: Omahyra Mota walks the runway during the Thierry Mugler Haute Couture Spring Summer 2023 show Looking good: One model turned heads in a white shirt with a black leather train and matching heels Runway: One model wore a blak leather corset and matching leggingswhile another sported a sheer plunging body suit and lace tights Quirky: Two modes sported sheer lace bodysuits that covered their faces as they posed on the runway The fashion show comes before Irina made her grand return to the cover of Vogue Spain, which she first fronted in 2013. Snapped by Elizaveta Porodina, the 37-year-old Russian supermodel treated the camera to a tantalizing come-hither stare. During an interview with Vogue Magazine, Irina said, 'I think that fashion has totally changed in the last five years.' Fashion muse: Shalom Harlow wore a completely sheer bodysuit with extravagant skirt Designer: In the 1970s, Mugler launched his eponymous fashion house; and quickly rose to prominence in the following decades for his avant-garde approach to haute couture 'And part of that process is accepting that women are beautiful well past their 20s.' Irina insisted: 'We must celebrate and support that variety. I just turned 37. I don't think I have to reach a certain age at which I'm considered finished. She cited the 1990s Supermodels, whose number includes Cindy Crawford, who is still a glamour icon at the age of 56. Irina, who shares her daughter Lea De Seine, five, with Bradley Cooper, said the old Supermodels 'are all working, and they are fantastic.' One of author Stephen King's more beloved short stories - Children of the Corn - will be heading back to the big screen this spring. A new adaptation of the story - first published in the March 1977 issue of Penthouse and then in King's 1978 collection Night Shift - was acquired for distribution by RJLE Films and the Shudder streaming service, via Deadline. The author King himself isn't involved as a producer on this, which comes months after he admitted Michael Bay's Transformers was the only movie he ever walked out of. New adaptation: One of author Stephen King's more beloved short stories - Children of the Corn - will be heading back to the big screen this spring Acquired: A new adaptation of the story - first published in the March 1977 issue of Penthouse and then in King's 1978 collection Night Shift - was acquired for distribution by RJLE Films and the Shudder streaming service, via Deadline The original short story follows a couple trying to save their marriage, driving to California for a vacation, though their plans are abruptly altered in Nebraska, when they run over a young boy. They soon discover the nearby town of Gatlin, Nebraska is run by a group of sadistic children who killed all the town's adults and now no one is allowed to live past their 19th birthday. The short story was originally adapted into the 1984 feature film of the same name starring Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton as the couple, Burt and Vicky. Original story: The original short story follows a couple trying to save their marriage, driving to California for a vacation, though their plans are abruptly altered in Nebraska, when they run over a young boy First adaptation: The short story was originally adapted into the 1984 feature film of the same name starring Peter Horton and Linda Hamilton as the couple, Burt and Vicky Producer Lucas Foster revealed in 2020 that this adaptation has, 'almost nothing to do' with the original adaptation, which seems clear since there don't appear to be any Burt or Vicky characters in this new production. This project is said to focus on the events leading up to the massacre of the adults in Gatlin, after their irresponsibility lead to the corn crop being ruined and their future in jeopardy. The story follows a 12 year old girl, 'who is possessed by a spirit in a dying cornfield,' and ultimately, 'recruits the other children in her small town to go on a bloody rampage and kill all the adults and anyone else who opposes her.' New story: Producer Lucas Foster revealed in 2020 that this adaptation has, 'almost nothing to do' with the original adaptation, which seems clear since there don't appear to be any Burt or Vicky characters in this new production Possessed: The story follows a 12 year old girl, 'who is possessed by a spirit in a dying cornfield,' and ultimately, 'recruits the other children in her small town to go on a bloody rampage and kill all the adults and anyone else who opposes her' Production started in March 2020 in New South Wales, Australia, though, unlike practically every other film, it didn't shut down due to COVID-19. Using stringent health and safety protocols, filming wrapped in June, with the film getting a small theatrical release in October 2020 at two theaters in Sarasota, Florida. Elena Kampouris (Before I Fall), Kate Moyer (Station Eleven), Callan Mulvey (The Gray Man) and Bruce Spence (The Road Warrior) star in the film that was written and directed by Kurt Wimmer (Salt). No shutdown: Production started in March 2020 in New South Wales, Australia, though, unlike practically every other film, it didn't shut down due to COVID-19 Cast: Elena Kampouris (Before I Fall), Kate Moyer (Station Eleven), Callan Mulvey (The Gray Man) and Bruce Spence (The Road Warrior) star in the film that was written and directed by Kurt Wimmer (Salt) 'Were thrilled to work with Kurt Wimmer and bring his vision of this classic Stephen King story to new audiences, said Mark Ward, Chief Acquisitions Officer of RLJE Films. Lucas Foster produced alongside Doug Barry and John Baldecchi, with the films digital visual effects were all produced in-house by Digital Domain. RLJE Films has set a March 3 theatrical release date, with just an 18-day theatrical window before it arrives on digital and on demand formats March 21. 2006 Assange creates Wikileaks with a group of like-minded activists and IT experts to provide a secure way for whistleblowers to leak information. He quickly becomes its figurehead and a lightning rod for criticism. 2010 March: U.S. authorities allege Assange engaged in a conspiracy to hack a classified U.S. government computer with former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. July: Wikileaks starts releasing tens of thousands of top secrets documents, including a video of U.S. helicopter pilots gunning down 12 civilians in Baghdad in 2007. What followed was the release of more than 90,000 classified US military files from the Afghan war and 400,000 from Iraq that included the names of informants. August: Two Swedish women claim that they each had consensual sex with Assange in separate instances when he was on a 10-day trip to Stockholm. They allege the sex became non-consensual when Assange refused to wear a condom. First woman claims Assange was staying at her apartment in Stockholm when he ripped off her clothes. She told police that when she realized Assange was trying to have unprotected sex with her, she demanded he use a condom. She claims he ripped the condom before having sex. Second Swedish woman claims she had sex with Assange at her apartment in Stockholm and she made him wear a condom. She alleges that she later woke up to find Assange having unprotected sex with her. He was questioned by police in Stockholm and denied the allegations. Assange was granted permission by Swedish authorities to fly back to the U.K. November: A Swedish court ruled that the investigation should be reopened and Assange should be detained for questioning on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. An international arrest warrant is issued by Swedish police through Interpol. Wikileaks releases its cache of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. December: Assange presents himself to London police and appears at an extradition hearing where he is remanded in custody. Assange is granted conditional bail at the High Court in London after his supporters pay 240,000 in cash and sureties. 2011 February: A British judge rules Assange should be extradited to Sweden but Wikileaks found vows to fight the decision. April: A cache of classified U.S. military documents is released by Wikileaks, including intelligence assessments on nearly all of the 779 people who are detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. November: Assange loses High Court appeal against the decision to extradite him. 2012 June: Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London requesting political asylum. August: Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador. 2013 June: Assange tells a group of journalists he will not leave the embassy even if sex charges against him are dropped out of fear he will be extradited to the U.S. 2015 August: Swedish prosecutors drop investigation into some of the sex allegations against Assange due to time restrictions. The investigation into suspected rape remains active. 2016 July: Wikileaks begins leaking emails U.S. Democratic Party officials favoring Hillary Clinton. November: Assange is questioned over the sex allegation at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the presence of Sweden's assistant prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and police inspector Cecilia Redell. The interview spans two days. 2017 January: Barack Obama agrees to free whistleblower Chelsea Manning from prison. Her pending release prompts speculation Assange will end his self-imposed exile after Wikileaks tweeted he would agree to U.S. extradition. April: Lenin Moreno becomes the new president of Ecuador who was known to want to improve diplomatic relations between his country and the U.S. May: An investigation into a sex allegation against Assange is suddenly dropped by Swedish prosecutors. 2018 January: Ecuador confirms it has granted citizenship to Assange following his request. February: Assange is visited by Pamela Anderson and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel. March: The Ecuadorian Embassy suspends Assange's internet access because he wasn't complying with a promise he made the previous year to 'not send messages which entailed interference in relation to other states'. August: U.S. Senate committee asks to interview Assange as part of their investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. September: Assange steps down as editor of WikiLeaks. October: Assange reveals he will launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his 'fundamental rights and freedoms'. November: U.S. Justice Department inadvertently names Assange in a court document that says he has been charged in secret. 2019 January: Assange's lawyers say they are taking action to make President Trump's administration reveal charges 'secretly filed' against him. April 6: WikiLeaks tweets that a high level Ecuadorian source has told them Assange will be expelled from the embassy within 'hours or days'. But a senior Ecuadorian official says no decision has been made to remove him from the London building. April 11: Assange has his diplomatic asylum revoked by Ecuador and he is arrested by the Metropolitan Police; he is remanded in custody by a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court. April 12: He is found guilty of breaching his bail terms. May 1: Sentenced to 11 months in jail. May 2: Court hearing takes place over Assange's proposed extradition to the U.S. He tells a court he does not consent to the extradition and the case is adjourned until May 30. May 13: Swedish prosecutors reopen rape case saying they still want to question Assange. June 3: Swedish court rules against detaining him in absentia, setting back the extradition case. June 12 Home Secretary Sajid Javid signs an extradition request from the US. June 13 A hearing sets out the date for Assange's full extradition hearing - February next year. November Swedish prosecutors stop investigation into an allegation of rape against Mr Assange November 25 - Medics say without correct medical care Assange 'could die' in Belmarsh December 13 - Hearing in London hears he is being blocked from seeing key evidence in case December 19 - Appears at Westminster Magistrates Court via video-link where his lawyer claims US bid to extradite him is 'political'. 2020 February 24 -Assange faces an extradition hearing at Woolwich Crown Court. Assange's representatives argue he cannot legally be handed to the US for 'political offences' because of a 2003 extradition treaty. March 2 - Assange appears by video link at Westminster Magistrates Court, where he is refused bail amid the coronavirus crisis. April 11 - Stella Moris, Assange's partner, who gave birth to his two children while he was living inside the Ecuadorian embassy, issues a plea for his release amid fears for his health. June 24 - The US Department of Justice issues an updated 18-count indictment, over Assange's alleged role in 'one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States'. August 25 - Ms Moris visits her partner in Belmarsh prison for the first time in almost six months. September 7 - Assange's extradition hearings resume at the Old Bailey. They are expected to go on for up to four weeks. October 1 - Judge Vanessa Baraitser adjourned the case at the Old Bailey until January 4. January 4 - Judge Baraitser strikes down US extradition bid. 2021 October - Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, sitting with Lord Justice Holroyde, hears two-day appeal from US. December 10 - They rule in favour of the US and overturn decision not to extradite Assange. 2022 January - High Court gives Assange permission to ask the Supreme Court to consider his case. April - After years of legal toing and froing, Westminster Magistrates' Court formally issued an order to extradite the WikiLeaks founder June - Priti Patel signs an order to extradite Julian Assange to the US to face espionage charge Pregnant Peta Murgatroyd announced that she is 'more confident than ever' with her body when she flaunted her blossoming baby bump on Thursday. The Dancing with the Stars pro, 36 who recently announced that she is expecting her second child with husband Maksim Chmerkovskiy, 43 showcased her tummy during a lengthy Instagram Story. Captioning video of her bump, Peta wrote: 'It's funny how this pregnancy is so different with nerves and anxiety, yet I'm more confident than ever with my body.' Glowing with confidence: Peta Murgatroyd, 36, said she is 'more confident than ever' with her body when she flaunted her baby bump on Thursday. She wrote, 'It's funny how this pregnancy is so different with nerves and anxiety, yet I'm more confident than ever with my body' Dressed in a cream-colored cardigan and a black ball cap, the New Zealand native posed in front of the camera as Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder played in the background. Peta's flawless complexion glowed with perfect glam, but she went makeup-free at the beginning of her Instagram Story. Addressing her followers with bare features, the beauty wore spectacles as she spoke about her recent skin troubles. 'I want to know what you guys have done treatment-wise for your face whilst you've been pregnant,' she said. 'Because my skin is not great right now. Definitely got a filter on my skin.' Blossoming belly: The Dancing with the Stars pro who recently announced that she is expecting her second child with husband Maksim Chmerkovskiy, 43 showcased her tummy during a lengthy Instagram Story Isn't She Lovely: Dressed in a cream-colored cardigan and a black ball cap, the New Zealand native posed in front of the camera as Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder played in the background The Peta Jane Beauty founder went on to describe her 'tiny little breakouts' all over her 'head and neck.' 'They're tiny,' she said, 'but they're everywhere.' The star also referenced her fertility struggles, saying: 'How did [her pregnancy] happen? I don't know. So... anyway... God is good and we're super grateful.' Peta soon returned to her story sporting a fresh face of makeup. 'Okay, this is more like it,' she said. 'So much better.' The dancer also included a video of her talking about her pregnancy cravings, specifically her love of hummus, as she munched on a carrot dipped in it. 'I don't crave sweets a lot,' she explained. 'I crave Nutella a little bit, but I'm trying not to give into that. Mostly savory stuff.' Transformation: Peta began her Instagram Story makeup-free, but eventually sported a face of flawless glam Pregnancy cravings: The dancer also included a video of herself talking about her pregnancy cravings, specifically her love of hummus, as she ate a carrot. 'I don't crave sweets a lot,' she explained. 'I crave Nutella a little bit, but I'm trying not to give into that. Mostly savory stuff' Peta flashed her bump again when she was promoting Beam's hot chocolate powder with CBD to help her sleep. Brewing a cup of the healthy hot chocolate, Peta picked up a kettle and showed off her bump to the camera, saying: 'Baby is popping by the way.' She went on to tell a funny story, describing how her six-year-old son Shai stuck a frother in her hair. Peta shares Shai with her husband of five years, Maksim Chmerkovskiy. The DWTS couple tied the knot in July 2017 at City Hall in New York City. The influencer ended her Instagram Story by modeling some comfortable loungewear and a revealing scoop bralette that gives 'the tatas a nice little hoist.' Baby popping: Peta flashed her bump again when she was promoting Beam's hot chocolate powder with CBD to help her sleep. Brewing a cup of the healthy hot chocolate, she picked up a kettle and showed off her bump to the camera, saying, 'Baby is popping by the way' Full view: The influencer ended her Instagram Story by modeling a scoop bralette that gives 'the tatas a nice little hoist' Just months after his fiery accident that left him with severe burns all over his face, Jay Leno is now seemingly out of work, with CNBC reportedly canceling his series Jay Leno's Garage. Leno, 72, had hosted Jay Leno's Garage since 2014, just months after his final episode of NBC's The Tonight Show aired in February 2014. The cancellation (via The Hollywood Reporter) would bring an end to a 30-year streak of Leno programs airing on NBCUniversal's networks, since Leno started hosting The Tonight Show in 1992. Canceled: Just months after his fiery accident that left him with severe burns all over his face, Jay Leno is now seemingly out of work, with CNBC reportedly canceling his series Jay Leno's Garage Jay: Leno, 72, had hosted Jay Leno's Garage since 2014, just months after his final episode of NBC's The Tonight Show aired in February 2014. Jay Leno's Garage first started as a web series for NBC.com in 2014, before a special aired on CNBC in August 2014 that prompted an upgrade to full-time series. The show - filmed at Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage in Burbank - is described as, 'a star-studded, action-packed exploration of all things automotive.' Many episodes featured celebrity car fanatics like Leno, with the seventh and final season featuring Brie Larson, Post Malone, Gaten Matarazzo, Kelly Clarkson, Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Pitbull, James Marsden, Danica Patrick, Alfonso Ribeiro, Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias, Tig Notaro, Reggie Watts, Tony Hawk, Mike Rowe, Jim Jefferies, Jeff Dunham and Diego Boneta. Web series: Jay Leno's Garage first started as a web series for NBC.com in 2014, before a special aired on CNBC in August 2014 that prompted an upgrade to full-time series The seventh and final season debuted in September 2022, though neither CNBC nor Leno have commented on the cancelation yet. The cancellation also comes just months after he suffered severe facial burns after an accident at his garage, while he was working on restoring a 1907 White Steam car. ''The fuel line was clogged so I was underneath it. It sounded clogged and I said, "Blow some air through the line," and suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas. And then the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire,' Leno explained to Hoda Kotb on Today last month. Final season: The seventh and final season debuted in September 2022, though neither CNBC nor Leno have commented on the cancelation yet Leno was working alongside his friend Dave Killackey, who was quick to act when the accident happened. 'I said to my friend, I said, "Dave, I'm on fire." And then, "Oh, my God." Dave, my friend, pulled me out and jumped on top of me and kind of smothered the fire,' Leno explained. Leno was treated for third-degree burns at the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills, California in the wake of the incident, remaining at the facility for 10 days amid his recovery. Working: Leno was working alongside his friend Dave Killackey, who was quick to act when the accident happened The comedy icon had 'relatively serious' burns to 'approximately 7 percent of his body,' spanning his face, chest and hands, the director of the medical facility, Dr. Peter Grossman, told NBC News last month. Leno later joked in a column for The Wall Street Journal, 'You have to joke about it. There's nothing worse than whiny celebrities. If you joke about it, people laugh along with you.' He said that he 'had a brand new face' eight days after the accident, joking, 'It's better than what was there before.' Simu Liu flaunted his ripped abs on Thursday while joining A-list guests at the Tiffany & Co. event in Toronto, Canada. The Marvel star, 33 who recently thanked his petite girlfriend Allison Hsu for making him feel tall looked like a superhero as he let his chiseled torso take center stage on the red carpet. Showing up to support Tiffany & Co.'s dazzling LOCK collection, Simu went shirtless under a gray blazer with matching slacks. Diamonds and abs: Simu Liu, 33, flaunted his ripped abs on Thursday when he wore a blazer with no shirt to Tiffany & Co.'s LOCK event in Toronto Sporting a huge diamond on his lapel, Simu smoldered for the cameras. Stylish chains adorned his neck and his hair was lightly styled. He went without a belt, keeping it casual and sexy. Making his way into the event, the We Were Dreamers author hung out with runway sensations Hailey Bieber, Kate Bock and Reign Judge. The Ontario native's look for the evening brought him back to his days as an Abercrombie & Fitch model. Superhero: The Marvel star looked like a superhero with his washboard stomach at the A-list soiree. Showing up to support Tiffany & Co.'s dazzling LOCK collection, Simu commanded attention in his gray blazer, matching slacks, and no dress shirt Speaking to Narcity about his A&F beginnings, Simu said: 'When I was in college, I really wanted to work for Abercrombie, and I remember I would hear stories of some of my friends who would go shopping, and they would get scouted to work.' The Barbie star went on to describe how he would go to his local mall and pretend to shop, hoping to be scouted. In the end, Simu got 'fed up of waiting' and 'walked in with a resume.' He 'point-blank' asked for an interview and 'ended up getting the chance to work for Abercrombie.' During his appearance on Hot Ones, Simu summed up his drive: 'I remember I wanted to be hot and cool so bad that I would go to stores just to hang out waiting to get scouted. I would do my hair and it never happened.' Man of the hour: Making his way into the event, the We Were Dreamers author hung out with runway sensations Hailey Bieber (26, far left) Kate Bock (34, middle right) and Reign Judge (21, far right) Striking: Simu and Kate Bock made quite a striking pair in their chic gray suits Simu is certainly 'hot and cool' these days, with a thriving career in a Hollywood and a brand new relationship with Allison Hsu. The Shang-Chi star and his girlfriend who is a digital marketing manager at Interscope Records went public with their romance on December 1 when they made their red carpet debut at the premiere of Christmas horror flick Violent Night in Los Angeles. The couple have since spent a significant amount of time together, hitting up Disneyland with his family and sitting courtside at a Los Angeles Clippers game. Previously, Liu was romantically linked to actress Jade Bender, 25. New love: The Shang-Chi star is in a brand new relationship with Allison Hsu, who is a digital marketing manager at Interscope Records She's found a career as an influencer after leaving prison. And Schapelle Corby showed off her social media credentials as posted photos of her hair makeover on Friday. The 45-year-old, who spent nearly a decade behind bars for trafficking drugs to Bali, revealed her new hairstyle to her Instagram, with fans flocking to the comments to praise how good it looked. Schapelle Corby (pictured) showed off her social media credentials as posted photos of her hair makeover on Friday. The 45-year-old, who spent nearly a decade behind bars for trafficking drugs to Bali, revealed her new hairstyle to her Instagram, with fans flocking to the comments to praise how good it looked 'My phone camera gone a bit haywire. This I feel is not my face. 'My hair is like this at the moment, full salty hair, swimming in the ocean everyday. 'What do you think?' Fans were quick to praise the style, calling it 'gorgeous' and 'stunning', noting she'd coloured her hair from black to red last year. Fans were quick to praise the style, calling it 'gorgeous' and 'stunning'. Pictured before transforming her hair red 'I think you look as young as my 13year old grand daughter! I think I'd like to see pics without filters as you're a natural beauty,' said one. 'You look gorgeous live your best life Shappelle,' added another. 'That colour is gorgeous on you! Nailed it,' commented a dan. Another added: 'For me I love that salty hair feel because it thickens up my hair, however on you I think it LOOKS gorgeous'. Schapelle (pictured in April 2005) was infamously convicted of smuggling cannabis into Indonesia before being incarcerated for nine years at Bali's Kerobokan Prison It comes after Schapelle urged her fans to err on the side of caution if going on holiday over the summer. The star took to Instagram to tell her followers to lock up their bags if they plan to fly abroad. 'If you're going to travel, make sure you keep your bags locked,' she said in a video that was filmed in her backyard on the Gold Coast. Schapelle recently urged her fans to err on the side of caution this holiday season as she shared her Christmas travel tips on Instagram 'If you go outside your motel, which of course you will, self-distance at the airport. Travel safe. 'Remember my name... Corby... and don't drink too much.' Many of Schapelle's fans were amused by the video, which was clearly a joke about her own ill-fated trip to Indonesia in 2004. 'Always get your bags plastic wrapped at the airport,' one fan commented. The 45-year-old, who spent nearly a decade behind bars for trafficking drugs to Bali, told her followers to keep their bags locked if they plan to fly abroad 'I will never go to Bali because of what you went through there... freaks me out something fierce,' added another. 'My board bags will have heavy duty Chubb padlocks. they're heavier then the boards,' a third wrote. Schapelle was infamously convicted of smuggling cannabis into Indonesia before being incarcerated for nine years at Bali's Kerobokan Prison. Following her arrest at Bali airport in October 2004, Schapelle said she did not know anything about the drugs that were found in her boogie board bag. After a series of sentence reductions, she was released on parole in 2014 and three years later was deported to Australia, where she now works as a clock-maker. Hollyoaks revealed a sneak peak at it's new opening titles ahead of it's E4 debut at 7pm on Friday. The new sequence establishes a whole host of characters within the village, including Jason Donovan's daughter Jemma, 22, who plays Rayne Royce. The newly arrived Chester residents can be seen having fun in a retro photo booth before posing at the the village's bus stop. Posing: Hollyoaks revealed a sneak peak at it's new opening titles ahead of it's E4 debut at 7pm on Friday (Owen Warner pictured with new addition Gemma Donovan) Joining Jemma's character are Lacey Lloyd (Annabelle Davis) Shing Lin Leong (Izzie Yip) Beau Ramsay (Jon-Paul Bell) and Zain Rizwaan (Jonas Khan). Jemma looked sensational in a plunging wine coloured leather dress which hugged every inch of her svelte figure. Accentuating her gorgeous features with make-up she styled her blonde tresses loose and let them fall across her shoulders. New additions: The new sequence establishes a whole host of characters within the village, including Jason Donovan's daughter Jemma who plays Rayne Fun! The newly arrived Chester residents can be seen having fun in a retro photo booth before posing at the the village's bus stop The new footage also sees Hunter McQueen (Theo Graham) making his return to the show as well as Norma Crow (Glynis Barber) featuring in the opening for the first time. Gushing about joining the show last October Jemma said: 'I am thrilled to be joining the cast of Hollyoaks!'. 'I'm so grateful for this opportunity to be able to bring something unique and fun to a new role and I can't wait to be a part of the Hollyoaks family.' Say cheese: Jemma looked sensational in a plunging wine coloured leather dress which hugged every inch of her svelte figure (pictured with Lacey Lloyd played by Annabelle Davis) Brand new: Joining Jemma's character are Lacey Lloyd (Annabelle Davis) Shing Lin Leong (Izzie Yip) Beau Ramsay (Jon-Paul Bell) and Zain Rizwaan (Jonas Khan) Back for more: The new footage also sees Hunter McQueen (Thro Graham) making his return to the show as well as Norma Crow (Glynis Barber) featuring in the opening for the first time Cast (L-R): Shing Lin (played by Izzie Yip) Ella Richardson (Erin Palmer) and Leah Barnes (Ela-May-Demircan) The stunner who plays party girl and influencer Rayne joined the show following her three-year stint as Harlow Robinson in axed Aussie soap Neighbours. It comes after actor Warwick Davis paid tribute to his daughter Annabelle after she made her Hollyoaks debut. The actress, who was born with Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), a rare genetic form of dwarfism, made her first appearance on the Channel 4 soap earlier this month. Daddy's girl: Gushing about joining the show last October Jemma said: 'I am thrilled to be joining the cast of Hollyoaks!' (pictured with father Jason Donovan) Beaming: The actors beamed for the camera as they also posed for publicity shots Drama: The cast posed for a dramatic snap in the moonlit village Beau in blue: Beau Ramsay (Jon-Paul Bell) also makes his debut in the opening Neighbours: The stunner who plays party girl and influencer Rayne joined the show following her three-year stint as Harlow Robinson in axed Aussie soap Neighbours (pictured in 2019) Showing his support, Warwick, 52, penned on Twitter: 'Shout out to my daughter, @AnnabelleLDavis who debuts in the British Soap, @Hollyoaks tonight. Never seen the show but will be watching tonight!' She is believed to be the first Hollyoaks actor with dwarfism. Lacey and new pal Rayne will be moving into a shared house with Romeo ( Owen Warner ), Prince (Malique Thompson Dwyer), and Nadira (Ashling O'Shea). Say Cheese! The opening titles aeppeared fun and they all said cheese for the camera Hurry up! They all chased one another during the footage Sparkles: Peri Lomax (Played by Ruby O'Donnell) looked gorgeous in a blue sequinned frock I'm A Celeb: Owen Warner a regular on the show looked smart in a printed shirt Lacey is fiercely loyal and a great friend who brings the calm and common sense, whilst best friend Rayne brings the chaos. Driven, forthright and funny, Lacey is a budding paralegal and will interview for a position at Dee Valley Law, but will she manage to keep her cool when she's under James' scrutiny. Talking about joining the Channel 4 soap, Annabelle, 25, said: 'I'm so excited for you to meet Lacey! She's fun, career driven, training to be a Lawyer and now looking for a job. Fingers crossed she it 'I've had a great time filming with the Hollyoaks gang and look forward to what Lacey gets up too.' Hollyoaks airs every weeknight at 7PM on E4, and 6:30PM on Channel 4 April Banbury put on a busty display on Thursday evening as she attended the Berta bridal fashion show with her pal Vicky Pattison at the Bulgari hotel in London. The Married At First Sight UK star, 33, showed off her ample cleavage and toned midriff as she stepped out in the daring number. April showcased her incredible figure in the skimpy black lace bralet and covered herself with a black blazer. Sensational: April Banbury put on a busty display on Thursday evening as she attended the Berta bridal fashion show at the Bulgari hotel in London She paired the look with black high waisted trousers and added inches to her enviable frame with sparkly gold heels. The reality star applied a perfect palette of makeup to showcase her beauty and styled her dark tresses in a high bun with a huge tiara on top. Toting her essentials, the wedding dress designer also carried a black sparkly Chanel bag to finish her gorgeous look. Making her way out of the show, April was joined by pal Vicky who looked the epitome of chic in a grey trouser suit. Gorgeous pair: Making her way out of the show, the reality star was joined by Vicky Pattison, who looked the epitome of chic in a grey trouser suit Wow: April turned heads in the daring number as she flashed her cleavage and toned midriff The former Geordie Shore star layered a black top under the oversized suit as she faced the cold winter temperatures. Adding a pair of black heels to her ensemble, she looked radiant as she stepped out of the event. She carried a leather black handbag in one hand and left her brunette locks to fall freely from a middle parting as they were styled poker straight. Vicky is set to wed beau Ercan Ramadan after a sweet proposal in Dubai last year. Stunning: April looked incredible as she showcased her figure in the skimpy black lace bralet and covered herself with a black blazer Chic: The former Geordie Shore star layered a black top under the oversized suit as she faced the cold winter temperatures Beaming: Adding a pair of black heels to her ensemble, she looked radiant as she stepped out of the event Also at the star studded event was Zara Holland and Francesca Allen who both looked stunning as they stepped out of the event. April's appearance comes after she revealed the reasoning for her and former co-star Whitney Hughes decision not to take part in the MAFS Christmas special. Speaking on an episode of Scott McGlynn's Instagram series, Celebrity Skin Talk, the star admitted that they 'didn't want to go through it again'. Star studded: Also at the star studded event was former Love Islander Zara Holland who looked great in all black Fendi girl! Francesca Allen also looked stunning as she stepped out of the event in her Fendi shoes and matching bag April's on-screen husband George Roberts was arrested in October on suspicion of controlling and coercive behaviour, the couple are no longer in a relationship. Speaking about the decision she told the host: 'I'm not going to lie I'm going to be completely honest, what me and Whitney went through it was traumatic, going through what we went through on the show, and the aftermath'. She continued: 'We didn't want to be put ourselves in that situation, surrounding ourselves with the negativity, them dinner parties were hard, they were awful I would dread them, Whitney didn't want to do it without me, and I don't blame her, she didn't want to walk in there on her own'. 'A certain person was going it was the right decision' - possibly alluding to Whitney's explosive row with Adrian Sanderson in the final episode. He always cuts a very smart figure in sharp suits when presenting the weather on Good Morning Britain. But Alex Beresford left viewers swooning on Instagram on Friday when she showcased his ripped torso in shirtless snaps from Singapore. The presenter, 41, looked in incredible shape as he posed by the Fullerton Hotel pool. Good Morning Britain's Alex Beresford showcased his impressive ripped torso in shirtless snaps from his Singapore trip on Instagram on Friday Making for an impressive sight, Alex wore only a pair of blue swimming shorts and black sunglasses to shield his eyes. Sharing the racy snap with his 128,000 followers, he wrote: 'Thank you Singapore! See you again soon' Alex's trip to Singapore comes after he celebrated his one-year engagement anniversary earlier this month. Alex, who married Imogen McKay in October after they began dating in August 2020, shared a series of sweet throwback snaps. Impressive: The presenter, 41, looked in incredible shape as he posed by the Fullterton Hotel pool in his blue swimming trunks The pictures included a loved-up shot of the couple on holiday in Deia, Mallorca, after his proposal on New Year's Day last year, a close-up of the ring and a joyful photograph of the newlyweds after their nuptials. Alex asked Imogen to marry him in a cove as they enjoyed a New Year's break together. They decided to return to Majorca for their wedding in October, enjoying a lavish celebration with their nearest and dearest. Alex captioned the post: 'On this morning last year as the sun lit up a beautiful little cove in Deia I got down on one knee and asked Imogen to marry me and 9 months later we had the most amazing day.' Main man: The presenter is known to millions thanks to his role as Good Morning Britain weatherman and part-time host Alex and Imogen began dating in August 2020 after a mutual friend set them up on a blind date. He told HELLO! magazine: 'I'd been on my own for a while and was ready for a new relationship. But I was adamant I didn't want to try a dating website. 'I'm of an age where before social media, you met a girl, took her phone number and called to invite her out.' Professional: Viewers are used to seeing the presenter covered up in a smart suit He explained that he asked a friend if she knew anyone he would get on with, to which she replied: 'I do - but she's way too good for you'. The presenter said he laughed along and told her "She's the one that I want!" Reflecting on the beginning of their relationship, he said: 'We hit it off from the start. We talked every day about our shared values and goals, and our love for our families. We've always been on the same page.' Imogen grew up in Australia and works in e-commerce operations for a top London restaurant. Happy memories: It comes after Alex celebrated his engagement anniversary with wife Imogen on Instagram and shared a gallery of photos of his proposal and wedding day She revealed that she had never seen Beresford on television before meeting him and refrained from looking him up beforehand as she wanted to find out for herself what he was like. Recalling their first date in Bristol, where Beresford lives, she said: 'When we met, it felt as if we'd known each other for ages. Holding hands and laughing together just came naturally.' The couple had a long-distance relationship moving between Bristol and London before their engagement. Beresford described the "amazing moment" when he popped the question to McKay while they were walking along the beach in Majorca. He said: 'The weather was sunny and warm, and the sea was crystal clear. "This is it," I thought. 'Imogen's not one for taking photos, but as I persuaded her to pose for a picture overlooking the sea, I kneeled down to take the engagement ring I'd hidden inside my rucksack. 'When she turned around, I was on one knee, and asked her the biggest question of my life - and she said yes. It was an amazing moment.' Sarah Michelle Gellar has said she rose to fame during a time when it was 'difficult' for young actors on set. The actress, 45, has recently returned to the limelight with her role in the new supernatural drama Wolf Pack and said she wants to create a 'safe' environment for the younger actors on the show. Speaking on The Graham Norton Show, Sarah added that she wants to 'protect' the cast, which comes after claims of bullying on the set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer became public in recent years. Interview: Sarah Michelle Gellar has said she rose to fame during a time when it was 'difficult' for young actors on set Asked about being an executive producer on the series, she said: 'It is important to me to be able to protect the material and, more than that, I can protect the cast. 'I came up in Hollywood at a time when it was difficult for young actors. It's still not perfect but I can help create a safe work environment.' Graham asked the star if she hesitated before joining another teen drama, with Sarah admitting she initially didn't want to do the show. She said: 'I had no intention of reading it, but then we got deeper in the conversation around mental health, which is very timely. The werewolves are a metaphor for teenage anxiety.' Show: Sarah added that she wants to 'protect' the cast, which comes after claims of bullying on the set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer became public last year Sarah also discussed her time on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, which aired from 1997 to 2003 and brought her global fame. The star joked: 'People love to remind me that it is 20 years. I love that people still reference it, but I don't need the actual date and passage of time so people realise how old I am!' In 2021, allegations of 'toxic behaviour' on the set of Buffy emerged, directed at the show's creator Joss Whedon. Actress Charisma Carpenter originally hit out at Whedon in a lengthy Twitter post, claiming he called her fat and killed her character off after she had a baby. Interview: The actress, 45, has recently returned to the limelight with her role in the new supernatural drama Wolf Pack (L-R Claire Foy, Sarah, M Night Shyamalan, Rob Beckett and Sam Smith) Sarah said: 'It is important to me to be able to protect the material and, more than that, I can protect the cast' The actress, 50, who portrayed Cordelia Chase on the show for three seasons and in its spin-off Angel, made the allegations in a Twitter post. Charisma said she decided to speak out to show solidarity with actor Ray Fisher. Fisher previously accused Whedon of 'abuse' and 'unacceptable behavior' while on the set of Justice League in 2017. She said: 'For nearly two decades, I have held my tongue and even made excuses for certain events that traumatize me to this day. 'Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working together on the sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Speaking out: Actress Charisma Carpenter originally hit out at Buffy creator Joss Whedon in a lengthy Twitter post, claiming he called her fat and killed her character off after she had a baby 'While he found his misconduct amusing, it only served to intensify my performance anxiety, disempower me, and alienate me from my peers.' Citing a series of 'disturbing incidents', Charisma claimed her interactions with Whedon, 56, triggered an unspecified 'chronic physical condition' that she said she still suffers from today, some 20 years later. 'Last summer, when Ray Fisher publicly accused Joss of abusive and unprofessional behavior toward the cast and crew during reshoots on the Justice League set in 2017, it gutted me,' she continued. 'Joss has a history of being casually cruel. He has created hostile and toxic work environments since his early career. I know because I experienced it first-hand. Repeatedly.' She wrote: 'For nearly two decades, I have held my tongue and even made excuses for certain events that traumatize me to this day' Lasting effects: Citing a series of 'disturbing incidents', Charisma claimed her interactions with Whedon triggered an unspecified 'chronic physical condition' that she still allegedly suffers from today, some 20 years later Charisma claimed Whedon would regularly make 'passive-aggressive' threats to fire her throughout the filming of the two shows, which she said 'wreaks havoc on a young actor's self-esteem.' The actress further alleged that Whedon would 'callously' mock her and call her fat to other members of the cast and crew when she was four months pregnant, despite weighing just 126 lbs, she said. 'He was mean and biting, disparaging about others openly, and often played favorites, pitting people against one another to compete and vie for his attention and approval.' She claimed in one instance Whedon called her in for a sit-down meeting to 'interrogate and berate' her regarding a tattoo she had gotten during filming to help her cope with 'a volatile work climate that affected me physically.' Corroboration: Sarah appeared to validate Charisma's claims in an Instagram post (pictured) Charisma had previously accused Whedon of writing her character off Angel during its fourth season back in 2003 because he was 'upset' she had gotten pregnant. She also accused Whedon of 'intentionally refusing multiple calls from my agents making it impossible to connect with him to tell him the news that I was pregnant.' Sarah appeared to validate Carpenter's claims in an Instagram post. She wrote: 'While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon. 'I am more focused on raising my family and surviving a pandemic right now, so I will not be making any further statements at this time. 'But I stand with all survivors of abuse and of proud of them for speaking out.' The Graham Norton Show, BBC One, Friday 27th January 10.40pm. Also available on BBC iPlayer. Fred Sirieix celebrated his 51st birthday on Friday by enjoying a romantic trip to Amsterdam with his fiancee Fruitcake. The First Dates maitre d'hotel shared a slew of snaps from the city break - including late night canal walks and a playful evening in the bath. Fred and his partner got engaged in March 2020, though he has never revealed her identity, simply referring to her as 'fruitcake'. Birthday boy! Fred Sirieix celebrated his 51st birthday on Friday by enjoying a romantic trip to Amsterdam with his fiancee Fruitcake Taking to Instagram, Fred told his followers that the lead-up to his birthday was 'amazing'. He said: 'I'm 51! The last few days have been amazing!!!! @fruitcake_fundamentals organised the most wonderful trip in #Amsterdam. 'My first time ever there! What a fantastic city - so beautiful, so neat and so clean. 'The crisp and cold air added to the charm as we walked and walked and walked along the canals to discover the city. I even learned that Amstel wasnt just a beer but a river too!' Playful: The First Dates maitre d'hotel shared a slew of snaps from the city break - including late night canal walks and a playful one in the bath In one snap, the pair are seen at a bar overlooking the river. Fred looks particularly suave as he pairs a tan blazer with a casual t-shirt and jeans. The pair then appeared in another amusing snap while Fred enjoyed a relaxing bubble bath, He could be seen beaming and laughing as his fiancee playfully gets a selfie with him in the water sticking his leg out. Fruitcake and I: The couple got engaged in March 2020, but Fred has never revealed his partner's identity, simply referring to her as 'fruitcake' In another selfie, the couple get cosy as they wrap up warm in turtleneck jumpers and big coats and scarfs. Earlier in the week, Fred gave his 832,000 followers a sneak peak at their trip as the duo enjoyed a day of sightseeing as they explored the city on foot. They wrapped up warm for the trip, with Fred donning a padded navy jacket with a grey beanie hat. At night: Earlier in the week, Fred gave his 832,000 followers a sneak peak at their trip as the duo enjoyed a day of sightseeing as they explored the city on foot Fighting the cold: The pair wrapped up warm for the trip, with Fred donning a padded navy jacket with a grey beanie hat While his fiancee opted for a lilac coat with a matching pastel checked scarf, ribbed beanie and black gloves. But the beauty, who goes by @fruitcake_fundamentals on Instagram, added some glamour to the look with giant silver hoop earrings. The couple are staying at the city's Doubletree By Hilton hotel, with Fred sharing a snap from their room to show the gorgeous view of the city. Sweet: Fred shared a slew of snaps from the trip, which appears to be a pre-birthday holiday ahead of him turning 51 on Friday, with his Instagram followers Despite a jam-packed day of sight-seeing, the pair ensured to make plenty of stops as Fred enjoyed a pint of beer during one pit stop. While they enjoyed a bite to eat at Mandarin restaurant New King, with Fred dubbing the eatery 'excellent'. It comes after the couple enjoyed a night out Cirque Du Soleil's KURIOS premiere in London last week. Bundled up: They wrapped up warm for the trip, as Fred's fiancee opted for a lilac coat with a matching pastel checked scarf, ribbed beanie and black gloves During the night out, the duo made a rare red carpet appearance as they beamed for a snap together. Fred opted for a deep burgundy blazer and matching trousers with a crisp white shirt and tan velvet coat layered on top. Fruitcake complimented Fred, wearing a fur coat of the same hue with a bold patterned gown. She accessorised with a pair of statement earrings and opted for a slick of bronze lip gloss to complete her stunning look. Bill Gates was back attending another day of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Friday night. The billionaire, who also appeared at earlier matches this week, watched the semifinal singles game between Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Tommy Paul of the United States at Melbourne Park. The 67-year-old blended in with the locals as he sat in the stands, wearing a simple black T-shirt. Bill Gates (pictured) was back attending another day of the Australian Open in Melbourne on Friday night The tech tycoon added a cap with a white logo on the front, and paired the ensemble with dark shorts. Bill wore a pair of spectacles and had a pass hanging around his neck from a lanyard. The Microsoft founder looked quite animated at times and was clearly deeply invested in the match. The billionaire, who also appeared at earlier matches this week, watched the semifinal between Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Tommy Paul of the United States at Melbourne Park The 67-year-old blended in with the locals as he sat in the stands, wearing a simple black T-shirt The tech tycoon added a cap with a white logo on the front Gates is visiting the country with the Gates Foundation and representatives from his Breakthrough Energy company, which drives innovation in sustainable energy and in technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He thanked and commended the prime minister for his 'great partnership' on international health issues, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Gates also made headlines on his trip after warning that Australia had to be ready for the next pandemic, which he said could be man-made and far more brutal than Covid-19. The Microsoft founder looked quite animated at times and was clearly deeply invested in the match Bill wore a pair of spectacles and had a pass hanging around his neck from a lanyard Gates is visiting the country with the Gates Foundation and representatives from his Breakthrough Energy company, which drives innovation in sustainable energy and in technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions He thanked and commended the prime minister for his 'great partnership' on international health issues, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria Speaking to the Lowry Institute in Sydney earlier this week, Gates said political leaders needed to set aside their differences and work together to prepare for the next virus. 'With the pandemic we were foolish not to have the tools, the practice and global capacity to be on standby like we do with fire or earthquakes,' he said. The billionaire philanthropist called for greater global cooperation and said that the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of how countries could improve on their response if they worked together. Gates also made headlines on his trip after warning that Australia had to be ready for the next pandemic, which he said could be man-made and far more brutal than Covid-19 Speaking to the Lowry Institute in Sydney earlier this week, Gates said political leaders needed to set aside their differences and work together to prepare for the next virus 'With the pandemic we were foolish not to have the tools, the practice and global capacity to be on standby like we do with fire or earthquakes,' he said But the tech pioneer has also been criticised for the use of his $70 million private jet while continuing to preach about the dangers of climate change. The $70m Gulfstream, which was spotted on the tarmac at Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport, burns around 1,700 litres of fuel per hour. Gates owns one private jet, which has drawn criticism from some of his critics. However, he is known to offset his carbon emissions by using sustainable jet fuel and providing funds to a direct air capture company to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Elton John's Auckland gig was cancelled on Friday after torrential rain battered the New Zealand city. About 40,000 people were due to watch the Rocket Man, 75, sing as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. But moments before it was due to start, the gig was cancelled with promoters Frontier Touring tweeting: 'Auckland, due to unsafe weather conditions, tonight's Elton John concert for Friday 27 January will not be proceeding. Elton John's Auckland gig was cancelled on Friday after torrential rain battered the New Zealand city. Elton is pictured 'The team is assessing things and will keep everyone across with further updates here. Thank you for your understanding.' Frontier Promotions and Elton John have not revealed if the gig will be rescheduled or if those due to attend will get refunds. Auckland Transport added that they were helping redirect special event buses to help people get home. Thousands of fans braved wet weather only to be disappointed after arriving at the Mt Smart Stadium. It's not clear whether Elton's second gig in the city on Saturday will be going ahead. About 40,000 people were due to watch the Rocket Man, 75, sing as part of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour Auckland Transport added that they were helping redirect special event buses to help people get home. Thousands of fans braved wet weather only to be disappointed after arriving at the Mt Smart Stadium 'Elton should have been cancelled hours ago. Put a lot of people at risk with no transport options - other than cars which are actually being washed away from Mt Smart,' said one fan on Twitter. 'You should have cancelled hours ago when things started to get dire in Aux. What were you thinking?' added another. 'Should have been cancelled earlier. We have travelled down from Northland and can't get home. We even contemplated not coming. We could tell it was going to a weather bomb. Thankfully have friends to help us but there will be hundreds of out of town people stuck,' commented one concert goer. Elton John Auckland concert cancelled. Floods of people exit the flooded Mt. Smart Stadium. pic.twitter.com/DLqhZgyYcH Jesse Wood (@jrhwood) January 27, 2023 Emergency workers and a man wade through flood waters in Auckland on Friday 'This was obvious well before 7.10pm when people were already in their seats. Dont suppose youre planning on refunding people for the cost of Ubers, babysitters, transport which could have been avoided had your announced this a few hours earlier?! Appalling management,' added one fan. 'This is costing a lot of people in accommodation that cant be refunded. You really should have made this decision sooner not when the water got up to peoples ankles,' said one. A state of emergency has been declared in Auckland following torrential rain with homes evacuated and the city's airport flooded. Both the domestic and international airport were closed because of the flooding in Auckland Auckland's Mayor Wayne Brown declared a state of emergency due to the extent of the 'damage, displacement and disruption' caused by the weather. Both the domestic and international airport were closed because of the flooding, with social media photos showing the check-in area in the International Terminal knee-deep in flood water. Videos on social media showed firefighters, police and defence force staff rescuing stranded people from flooded homes using ropes and rescue boats. No details were immediately available on how many people had been evacuated so far. Elton recently played his last ever shows in Australia. After wrapping up in New Zealand he'll head to the UK for finish off the gigs. Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes enjoyed a day out at an Australian landmark this week. The Hollywood power couple stopped by Scenic World at the Blue Mountains in NSW with their children in tow. They enjoyed the World Heritage-listed views and stunning vistas at the attraction, which includes a Scenic Cableway that rides high above the valley. Ryan Gosling (centre) and Eva Mendes enjoyed a day out at an Australian landmark this week. The Hollywood power couple stopped by Scenic World at the Blue Mountains in NSW with their children in tow The official Instagram account for Scenic World could not stop raving about the pair on Friday. 'We were so thrilled that Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and their family chose to visit Scenic World' the wrote in their caption. 'They were the most charming, warm, and wonderful guests - so interested in all elements of the Blue Mountains including the native flora, fauna, geology, World Heritage status, Indigenous culture and history of the region and Scenic World.' The official Instagram account for Scenic World could not stop raving about the pair on Friday. 'We were so thrilled that Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and their family chose to visit Scenic World' the wrote in their caption. Both pictured They enjoyed the World Heritage-listed views and stunning vistas at the attraction, which includes a Scenic Cableway that rides high above the valley They continued: If the whole Hollywood thing doesnt work out for them, they would make incredible guides here at Scenic World! 'Ryan actually left with one of our team members' hats as a souvenir, so hed be ready to start. They will always be welcome back here.' Ryan, 42, and Eva, 48, were with their children, daughters Esmeralda, eight, and Amada, six. It comes after Sydney residents expressed outrage when a large part of the city was shut down last week for Ryan to shoot stunts for his new film, The Fall Guy. It comes after Sydney residents expressed outrage when a large part of the city was shut down last week for Ryan to shoot stunts for his new film, The Fall Guy The Sydney Harbour Bridge was closed in both directions from 3am to 10am on Sunday, while the cycleway and footpath was closed from 5.30am to 10am. Frustrated Sydney residents took to Twitter to blast the production for causing major traffic delays across the city. 'Great to see the closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge - eight lanes, plus cycle/pedestrian lanes - so they could film a f**king movie. But it's great that they can use an iconic bridge in a film because that bridge needs a bit of exposure,' one Sydneysider tweeted. 'I just want to know how much they paid the government for such an inconvenience,' another tweeted, while a third added: 'Surely with movie technology, this could've been filmed elsewhere and then rejigged to appear as if filmed on the Harbour Bridge.' Louise Thompson has called out men who criticise mothers who work from home and choose to hire childcare in an impassioned post. The former Made In Chelsea star, 32, took to Instagram on Friday to clap back at the attitude, claiming it underestimated the responsibilities involved in child-rearing. Louise - who shares her son Leo, 14 months, with fiance Ryan Libbey - went on to insist that looking after a baby is a full-time job in itself. 'Looking after a baby is a full time job': Louise Thompson has called out men who criticised mothers who work from home and to hire childcare She shared her candid opinions in a lengthy caption alongside a glamorous snap of herself sporting a spotted co-ord set embellished with white lace. In the post, titled 'having children and a career', she wrote: 'Anyone who says that you can look after a baby and work at the same time has CLEARLY never looked after a baby.' She continued: 'Looking after a baby is a FULL TIME JOB. You can't take an important meeting that requires concentration and communication with your colleagues whilst managing a screaming (tired/hungry?!?) baby... It just doesn't work like that.' The mother-of-one specifically hit out at men in her post, arguing it was a predominately male assumption that women should 'juggle' work and motherhood. Family: Louise - who shares her son Leo, 14 months, with fiance Ryan Libbey - insisted that looking after a baby is a full-time job in itself Candid: The former Made In Chelsea star, 32, took to Instagram on Friday to clap back at the attitude, claiming it underestimated the responsibilities involved in child-rearing She wrote: 'This assumption that women should be able to juggle work AND motherhood (as well as housework) is made even more frustrating by the fact that it's often men who share this attitude.' But Louise was quick to add that she knew this wasn't an attitude 'held by all men' as she admitted she was 'stereotyping' in her comments. She wrote: 'I know I'm stereotyping, because this is not every man. Ryan [Libbey, her boyfriend] isn't like this. And neither are any of my male friends maybe it's a generational thing?' Louise explained she was inspired to post her opinions after hearing that her friend's father had questioned his daughter's decision to hire extra help. Opinions: The mother-of-one specifically hit out at men in her post, arguing it was a predominately male assumption that women should 'juggle' work and motherhood She wrote: 'He implied that my friend could 'simply work from home whilst her baby sat in the bouncer in the background all day, easily dipping in and out of meetings whilst 'parenting' at the same time.' 'He went on to say that 'surely she didn't require any extra money for a nanny or for a nursery education because she could handle both herself?' The reality star explained the comment had 'annoyed' her because it appeared to her as unwarranted advice. Support: The ex-reality star's post received great praise from her pals including from MIC castmate Binky Felstead and entrepreneur Natalie Ellis She added: 'The cheek of it. She wasn't asking him for money OR for help, so it felt like unsolicited advice to me.' 'Until you stay at home regularly, getting your hands down and dirty with a day full of baby care, nappies, feeding, bathing, playing on the floor, reading, teaching, battling with sleep and tantrums etc. you just don't know how mind bogglingly time consuming it can be. ' The London socialite turned fitness guru's post was met with praise from her pals and fans. Ex-MIC castmate Binky Felstead commented: 'YOU GO GLEN COCO', a reference from 2004 film Mean Girls. Difficulties: The post comes days after the mother opened up to her followers about her traumatic post-birth experience after welcoming her son Leo in November 2021 Entrepreneur Natalie Ellis wrote: 'Amen...women are expected to work like they don't have children, and look after their children as though they don't work.' The post comes days after the mother opened up to her followers about her traumatic post-birth experience, revealing she felt like she 'died and came back in someone else's body' after giving birth for the first time. She said: 'It's been a nightmare...I feel exhausted after 10 hours sleeps. My body aches and I feel like an 80-year-old peeling myself off the floor. I've never known anything but pure 100% health, until Leo. ' Louise, who spent a month in intensive care after welcoming her son Leo, still suffers from PTSD and post-natal anxiety after a near-death birthing experience. The star has previously said she 'couldn't think of anything worse' than the prospect of being pregnant again and having to give birth. Alongside her near death experience, PTSD, and anxiety, some 'physical' reasons why she isn't keen on having anymore children including a scarred uterus, lupus and hasn't had a period for two years, amongst other issues. Simon Cowell looked strikingly different when he walked the red carpet at the official Britain's Got Talent launch at the London Palladium on Friday. He wore a pair of round RayBan sunglasses as he paused for pictures and continued to showcase his slim physique after adopting a healthier lifestyle. Keeping out the cold, Simon, 63, wore two blue T-shirts pulled down tight over his trademark high-waisted black trousers. Slim: Simon Cowell looked strikingly different in round sunglasses as he walked the red carpet at the official Britain's Got Talent launch at London's Palladium on Friday And he added some height to his frame with slightly heeled smart shoes. He was in good company on the day as he arrived at the iconic London venue, three days after ITV started filming the auditions there. Simon was joined by new judge Bruno Tonioli, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon. Keeping out the cold: Simon, 63, wore two blue T-shirts pulled down tight over his trademark high-waisted black trousers Alesha looked incredible wearing a black leather biker gown which suited her perfectly, as well as a pair of matching thigh-high boots. And Amanda was wearing the same blue suit jacket she wore on Tuesday for continuity purposes, as well as a pair of black platform heels. Hosts Ant and Dec were also seen making a playful arrival on the red carpet. Holy moly! In recent times Simon has sparked concern with his radically different facial features , looking unrecognisable notably in a Britain's Got Talent promo Meanwhile, new judge is believed to have joked that he was 'told off' during his first day filming for the Britain's Got Talent auditions on Tuesday. The 67-year-old had an eventful first day at the London Palladium after taking on his new job as he pushed the golden buzzer too early for one act. And Bruno reportedly turned to the audience to joke that he had already been 'told off' as he gushed over how much he was enjoying being a judge already. Slide me Then and now: Simon Cowell in an early publicity photo from 2002 (L) and appearing on America's Got Talent in 2022 (R) Alesha - who joins him on the panel with Simon and Amanda - reportedly had to rein in Bruno as he became over excited during the auditions. According to The Sun, Bruno told the audience: 'I've had so much fun, I've already been told off. I'm loving it!' It was claimed Bruno had to be rapped on the knuckles after he couldn't help but jump to his feet during filming, with Alesha, 44, reportedly telling him to sit down. Red carpet rocker! Alesha Dixon made sure all eyes are on her as she wore a leather biker gown and thigh-high boots at the Britain's Got Talent auditions at the London Palladium on Friday Bruno appeared to be just as thrilled after filming on Wednesday as he flashed a massive grin while leaving the London Palladium after the second day of auditions. During the first day of filming, Bruno created some trouble when he pushed the golden buzzer too early, warm-up act Adam Khan reported. They said Bruno had pressed the Golden Buzzer too early to avoid being beaten to the chase by Simon Cowell and Alesha Dixon, and so had pressed it during the act. Here he comes: New judge Bruno Tonioli seemed in good spirits as he hit the red carpet Legs eleven! Amanda Holden showed off her tanned and toned pins in a denim blazer dress As a result, the moment had to be recorded all over again so that the cameras could be set up properly. Adam tweeted: 'So I just witnessed #BGT history!!! An act came on it was pretty clear Alesha and Simon both wanted to press the#GoldenBuzzer... 'So Bruno beat them to it and pressed it *during the act*! They were performing with confetti falling on them and the BGT theme playing in the back!' 'We now have to re-record the #GoldenBuzzer moment because no cameras were properly in place as nobody expected it to happen during the act.' Team: Simon was joined by new judge Bruno Tonioli, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon Lauren Goodger was spotted pushing daughter Laorse in her pram as she headed to brunch with mum Cheryl in Essex on Friday. The former TOWIE star, 36, wrapped up in a leather jacket for the outing, layering the look over black leggings and a beige sweater. Doting mum Lauren - who shares the 18-month-old with ex Charles Drury, 25 -appeared in deep conversation as they headed for a bite to eat. Ladies day: Lauren Goodger, 35 was spotted pushing daughter Laorse, 18-months, in her pram as she headed to brunch with mum Cheryl in Essex on Friday Slipping her feet into trainers Lauren swept her brown tresses into a half-up half-down style and donned a full face of make-up. Meanwhile the tot took in her surrounding and was wrapped up warm in a pink padded jacket with fur trim. Lauren made sure the little one was secure in the stylish slate pram as they made their way along the busy street. Stroll: The TOWIE star (left) wrapped up in a leather jacket for the outing, layering the look over black leggings and a beige sweater Stroll: Doting mum Lauren - who shares the 18-month-old with ex Charles Drury, 25 -appeared in deep conversation as they headed for a bite to eat Casual style: Slipping her feet into trainers Lauren swept her brown tresses into a half-up half-down style and donned a full face of make-up The outing comes after Lauren revealed attended a holistic 'healing' session on Wednesday after a difficult year which included the tragic loss of her baby daughter Lorena. The reality star took to her Instagram Stories to give an insight into her energy 'healing' as she posted a short clip from the session. In the video, shared to Instagram by Holistic Guidance, Lauren could be seen lying with her eyes closed with a crystal placed on her forehead. Doting: Lauren made sure the little one was secured in the stylish slate pram Cute: Meanwhile the tot took in her surrounding and was wrapped up warm in a pink padded jacket with fur trim The practitioner appeared to be doing reiki on Lauren, which is a Japanese form of energy 'healing' for stress reduction and relaxation. In text printed across the video, the company wrote: 'Healing is a journey, not a destination. The more we heal, the harder we chase our dreams.' Sharing the video to her own Stories, Lauren admitted she was 'exhausted' as she thanked Holistic Guidance for the treatment. Later: Lauren later slipped on a chic faux fur gillet to keep warm as they enjoyed a stroll Chatting: Lauren and her mum chatted away happily as they headed home from brunch Her 'healing' session comes after Lauren opened up about her 'hellish' 2022 after the tragic loss of her baby daughter Lorena and a bitter split with her partner. Speaking to MailOnline at The Inspiration Awards in London last week, Lauren reflected on the 'massive trauma' she has been through over the past 12 months. She said: 'I've been through massive trauma, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it but everyone knows and I feel like one day I want to inspire other women.' 'Healing':The outing comes after Lauren revealed attended a holistic 'healing' session on Wednesday after a difficult year which included the tragic loss of her baby daughter Lorena It is understood that their relationship ended bitterly last year, and at the funeral of their second daughter Lorena, it is alleged Lauren was attacked. Charles, 25, was later arrested and bailed following the incident. She said: 'Larose, my daughter, I think being a mum to the most amazing little girl I've ever had in my life. 'Like, she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I am a very strong person. I've been through a lot. And I feel like I want to be there... 'I'm strong, independent and I want to inspire young girls and other mum that are going through similar things. And just you know like, everything happens for a reason and just don't like... life goes on.' Robert Rinder gave a talk to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at Exeter Cathedral in Devon on Friday. The TV personality, 44, known as Judge Rinder, also lit a candle in remembrance of the six million Jews who were killed in the atrocity. Rinder was born into a Jewish family and received an MBE last year - along with his mother Angela Cohen - in recognition of their services to Holocaust education. Lighting a candle: Judge Robert Rinder gave a talk to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at Exeter Cathedral in Devon on Friday The UK's Holocaust Memorial Day was first held on January 27, 2001 and has been held on the same day every year since. The date is the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945. Rinder's mother Angela is head of the '45 Aid Society, a charity set up in 1963 by Holocaust survivors. The society preserves the stories of more than 700 Jewish children who were brought to the UK after the end of World War Two. Speech: The TV personality, 44, known as Judge Rinder, also lit a candle in remembrance of the six million Jews who were killed in the atrocity Upon receiving his MBE, Rinder said it was 'a gift to share this with my mum who has taught me always to see the best in humankind.' In 2020, Rinder made the documentary My Family, The Holocaust and Me in which he and his mother explored Jewish families' stories and speak in schools alongside survivors. Some three million viewers watched the documentary, which follows second and third generations of three families affected by the Holocaust. Rinder learned how seven of his relatives were slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps in the Second World War while delving into his family history on a 2018 episode of the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are? Annual: The UK's Holocaust Memorial Day was first held on January 27, 2001 and has been held on the same day every year since Family: Rinder's mother Angela is head of the '45 Aid Society, a charity set up in 1963 by Holocaust survivors Royal ceremony: The TV judge and his mother both received MBEs last year from the then Prince of Wales, in recognition of their services to Holocaust education The TV judge was told how his great-grandparents and five of their children were killed in the Holocaust, with his grandfather, Morris Malenicky, the only member of the family to survive the war. The star discovered how Morris' parents, his four sisters and his brother all died at the Treblinka Camp in Poland in 1940, six months after war was declared. Morris, who eventually passed away in London in 2001 at the age of 78, was a teenager at the time, and escaped the same fate as the rest of his family after being deemed strong enough to work and put into forced labour at a glass factory in Piotrkow. He was later sent to the Buchenwald and Schlieben camps in Germany, and finally to Theresienstadt in German-occupied Czechoslovakia, which was liberated by the Russian Army in 1945 three weeks after Morris arrived. After being brought to the UK by a Jewish charity, Morris met and fell in love with Judge Rinder's grandmother, Lottie. Geordie Shore's Sophie Kasaei has lead fans to believe she might be pregnant during her recent trip to Antigua with beau and TOWIE star Jordan Brook. According to The Sun The reality star, 33, who went public with the Essex reality star, 25, in November, briefly referred to her beau as 'baby-daddy' in one post which led much speculation on social media. Jordan then gushed that he was on 'cloud nine' and his exotic trip with Sophie had made him the 'happiest he had ever been'. Loved up: Geordie Shore's Sophie Kasaei has lead fans to believe she might be pregnant during her recent trip to Antigua with beau and TOWIE star Jordan Brook Sharing a loved up snap of the pair Jordan penned: 'Someone once told me, with the right woman by your side you can achieve anything!'. 'I didnt believe them till now. Im on cloud 9! And its all thanks to you @SophieKasaei you truly are my Little Rock! Having you by my side this week has made me the happiest Ive ever been! 'Heres to our first holiday! And many more to come! Love you always special'. Sophie replied: 'Stop it oh my god I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! Where did I find you Jord my forever'. MailOnline have contacted Sophie's reps for comment. Expecting? The reality star, 33, who went public with the Essex reality star, 25, in November, briefly referred to her beau as 'baby-daddy' which led much on social media. Happy bunny: Jordan then gushed that he was on 'cloud nine' and his exotic trip with Sophie had made him the 'happiest he had ever been' Loved up: Sophie replied: 'Stop it oh my god I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! Where did I find you Jord my forever' Fans were thrilled to see the loved up couple sharing an into their relationship with one writing: 'Love this for you Sophie'. While another added: 'I'm so happy you found happiness' and 'So happy for you Sophie'. A fourth added: 'Awww so lovely Sophie deserves to be treated like a princess, we love her. Love: Fans were thrilled to see the loved up couple sharing an into their relationship with one writing: 'Love this for you Sophie' It comes after the reality star shared a series of racy pictures of herself on Instagram this week. In one image, Sophie looked incredible as she showed off her toned figure in a racy string bikini and in another looks like the ultimate beach babe as she feeds a pig at the beach. Sophie sizzled as she posed in a grey butterfly print bikini, which featured neon green straps. If you've got it! It comes after the reality star shared a series of racy pictures of herself on Instagram this week She stood by a tree and held one hand over her head, showing off her incredibly toned figure. In another image, the brunette poses in a bright blue backless costume as she feeds a pig in the shallow water. 'Just two greedy pigs,' her post was captioned. Liam Hemsworth was spotted on set shooting his new movie in Malibu, California, on Friday. The Hunger Games actor, 33, was in the middle of filming scenes on the beach for his upcoming Netflix movie Lonely Planet after his ex-wife Miley Cyrus' revenge song Flowers hit number one. While on set, Liam donned a thin green button-up shirt with a white shirt underneath, black pants, and white sneakers. Hunky: Liam Hemsworth clenched both fists as he was spotted on set of his new movie Lonely Planet on Friday He sported a silver watch on one wrist and, on the other, a silver bracelet. The Independence Day: Resurgence star made his way around the beach while conversing with several people working on the set. The crew set up different shots, including one with a camel and another focused on him sitting in the sand and looking out at the ocean. Lonely Planet is a romance film set in Morocco and stars Liam and Laura Dern (Jurassic World Dominion) in the leading roles. Take it all in: The 33-year-old actor was filming on a beach in Malibu, California Camel sighting: The Hunger Games actor shot scenes with a camel as well as sitting solemnly on the beach Beach man: For filming he wore a thin green button-up shirt with a white shirt underneath, black pants, and white sneakers Netflix has kept the plot under wraps, but the film is written and directed by Susannah Grant (Catch and Release, The 5th Wave, Unbelievable). This spotting comes around the same time as Miley's newest song, Flowers, which is speculated to be about him, hit number one in over 20 countries and snatched the coveted top spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. On January 20, one week after its release, it became the most-streamed song in a single week on Spotify, with over 83 million plays. The Wrecking Ball songstress released her new single on Liam's birthday, January 13, and included a few possible nods to her ex in the song and the music video. Stopping for a chat: Netflix has kept the plot under wraps, but Lonely Planet is a romance set in Morocco Filming: Lonely Planet is written and directed by Susannah Grant and stars Liam and Laura Dern as the two lead characters One of those nods was an outfit she chose to wear in the video, which had an uncanny resemblance to a dress worn by Jennifer Lawrence at the Hunger Games premiere in 2012. Fans spotted the hidden message in the video, which hints that there may have been a possible fling between Liam and his Hunger Games co-star. Miley's older sister Brandi recently talked about the single on her podcast Your Favorite Thing, which she hosts alongside Wells Adams. 'The song did come out on his birthday was that on purpose? I dont know, cant say. Genius though,' she said. Drama: Liam was on set only a few days after his ex-wife Miley Cyrus's new song Flowers hit number one Hitmaker: The song is speculated to be about Liam since it was released on his birthday and features a few possible nods to him 'I love Miley fans so much, they go hard in the paint. The fans on TikTok just keep creating narrative after narrative and it is so funny. 'It makes Miley seem like an absolute genius, and its just too good. Every day I wake up to a new one.' However, she did not specifically say whether or not the song was about Liam. Instead, she said: 'Im letting this play out. Only Miley knows the truth.' Happy Endings alum Casey Wilson and her husband David Caspe have welcomed a baby girl called Frankie Rose via surrogate. The 42-year-old actress, who shot to fame on Saturday Night Live, joyfully broke the news on Instagram this week with an album of the baby girl. 'This is the dawning of the Age Of Aquarius!' the mother-of-three crowed in the caption. 'Our angel Frances "Frankie" Rose Caspe is here!' Baby mine: Happy Endings alum Casey Wilson and her husband David Caspe have welcomed a baby girl called Frankie Rose via surrogate Casey tied the knot with her husband, the creator of Happy Endings, in a ceremony in Ojai, California in 2014 after the sitcom had ended. They then welcomed two little boys into the world, seven-year-old Max and five-year-old Henry, before adding a daughter to the family this month. Casey gushed that Frankie was 'Delivered by another angel, our surrogate and friend, Stacy whom we love and are immeasurably grateful for.' She declared: 'Surrogacy is women supporting women in its highest form and it has been a profound experience. Uplifting and inspiring.' Family time: The news was accompanied by an Instagram album that included pictures of newborn Frankie with her mother and her two older brothers Max, seven, and Henry, five Joy: 'This is the dawning of the Age Of Aquarius!' the mother-of-three crowed in the caption, adding: 'Our angel Frances "Frankie" Rose Caspe is here!' Turning her attention to her daughter, Casey effervesced: 'Frankie Rose is more than I could have ever imagined.' The proud mother wrote that her daughter 'completes the sacred circle of mother and daughter I have longed for. Im on the other side this time- wishing Grandma Kathy could see her and hoping (knowing) she can.' Casey was just 25 years old when she lost her own mother Kathy, a political activist, who struggled with obesity, to a heart attack in 2005. 'Uplifting and inspiring': She declared: 'Surrogacy is women supporting women in its highest form and it has been a profound experience' 'Healing and joyful': The proud mother wrote that her daughter 'completes the sacred circle of mother and daughter I have longed for' On Instagram this week, Casey said her little girl's 'arrival is healing and joyful. We move forth! Hand in hand. With women ushering us in and onward.' The message was accompanied by a heartwarming album that included pictures of newborn Frankie with her mother and her two older brothers. A few years ago Casey wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about experiencing 'motherhood imposter syndrome' with her boys. When Max developed symptoms of what was eventually diagnosed as celiac disease, Casey initially placed the blame squarely on herself. Longtime couple: Casey tied the knot with her husband, the creator of Happy Endings, in a ceremony in Ojai, California at the dawn of summer 2014; pictured 2016 'I maintained the situation was absolutely dire and it was my fault, that what needed fixing was me,' she wrote in the op-ed. Once the diagnosis finally came and she discovered Max had celiac disease she 'was really mainly flooded with relief in the sense of having an answer.' Since then her impostor syndrome has 'lifted so much' and 'I have less tolerance for beating myself up. We're all trying our best.' Eddie Redmayne has revealed that he took part in a workshop for transgender actors after he received backlash for his role in The Danish Girl. The British actor, 41, played trans artist Lili Elbe, who is thought to be one of the first people to have sex reassignment surgery, in the 2015 movie. He later claimed it was a 'mistake' after critics argued the role should've gone to a LGBT actor and in a new interview revealed that he agrees with the criticism. Supportive: Eddie Redmayne has revealed that he took part in a workshop for transgender actors after he received backlash for his role in The Danish Girl Speaking to The Guardian, Eddie said: 'A few years ago, I did a workshop with trans actors at the Central School of Speech and Drama. A lot of them were quite rightly interrogating me about my choice to do The Danish Girl, and pointing out that many trans actors don't go to drama school because they don't see it as an opportunity. 'Unless there are parts that you think are possible for you to play, why would you? 'I believe everyone wants to be able to play everything. That's what we dream of as actors, and should do. 'No one wants to be limited by their gender or sexuality but, historically, these communities haven't had a seat at the table. Until there's a levelling, there are certain parts I wouldn't play.' One to watch: The British actor, 41, played trans artist Lili Elbe, who is thought to be one of the first people to have sex reassignment surgery, in the 2015 movie At the time of Eddie's casting, there was an argument, which still persists today, that LGBT+ roles should be played by LGBT+ actors. Redmayne himself told IndieWire at the time: 'I think its an incredibly important discussion. And I think its also representative of a lot of discrimination against trans people in the work place generally. 'I think there has been years of cisgender success on the back of trans stories.' In 2020, The Fantastic Beast And Where To Find Them star joined in the chorus of critics towards J.K Rowling after she tweeted about an article entitled 'Creating a more equal post COVID-19 world for people who menstruate.' Rowling wrote: 'People who menstruate. I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?' In a statement released to Variety, Eddie responded: 'As someone who has worked with both J.K. Rowling and members of the trans community... 'I wanted to make it absolutely clear where I stand. I disagree with Jo's comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men and non-binary identities are valid.' Pregnant Amy Childs enjoyed a lavish lunch with boyfriend Belly Delbosq on Friday. The reality star, 32, sported a grey jumpsuit with a tie round the waist for the outing to Cecconis in Mayfair. Their outing came after the couple, who are expecting twins, filmed scenes for the new series of TOWIE earlier in the day, joining the likes of James Locke and Harry Derbridge. Lunch date: Pregnant Amy Childs enjoyed a lavish lunch with boyfriend Belly Delbosq on Friday Love: The reality star, 32, sported a grey jumpsuit with a tie round the waist for the outing to Cecconis in Mayfair Amy paired her look with a puffy black furry jacket, putting her strawberry blonde locks into loose waves. She toted her essentials in a large Prada bag, also sporting a pair of chunky heeled boots. Amy completed her look with a pair of large sunglasses and was later seen deep in conversation with Billy as she enjoyed lunch in the swanky establishment. The reality star later took to her Instagram story to reveal that she and Billy had a very busy week and that their trip out was 'very much needed.' Strolls: Amy paired her look with a puffy black furry jacket as she walked to the restaurant through Central London Glam: The reality star put her strawberry blonde locks into loose waves for the afternoon out in London Stylish: She toted her essentials in a large Prada bag, also sporting a pair of chunky heeled boots It comes after Amy led arrivals at filming for TOWIE on Friday morning, cradling her baby bump ahead of shooting a scene with partner Billy. Other stars who were seen arriving to set included the likes of Chloe Meadows, James Locke, Amber Turner and Amy's cousin, Harry Derbidge. Amy looked chic on the day, wearing a pair of black leggings with a cape dress and boots. Yum: Amy was seen enjoying lunch at Cecconis with Billy after a morning of filming the new series of TOWIE Relaxing: The stylish star took some time to rest and relax with her boyfriend after what she described as a very busy week Amy, who is expecting twins - a boy and a girl, revealed last week that she plans to have two baby showers and doesn't plan to stop the celebrations there. Speaking to OK! she said: 'TOWIE are going to be filming the baby shower. They really want to do it and I thought, you know what, it would be lovely.' 'I've given them all my contacts for things like a beautiful five-tier cake. With this probably being my last baby shower, I thought I'll go all out.' Chill time: The television personality revealed that her other children Polly, four, and Richie, five, from a previous relationship, had both been ill this week Weekend fun: Amy has been dating Billy since October 2021, with the two regularly taking time out to enjoy each other's company Mother-to-be: Amy is looking forward to having her baby showers and they will be filmed for TOWIE She also admitted that she's still determining when the baby shower's would happen. However, she is looking forward to having it on screen for the rest of her life. Amy and Billy have been an item since October 2021, just two months after the mother-of-two split from her ex-boyfriend Tim following 14 months together. Amy shares daughter Polly, five, with ex-boyfriend Bradley Wright and is also mum to son Ritchie Jr, two. Love: Amy and Billy are seen inside the swanky establishment enjoying a Friday treat lunch out together Pensive: The star looked pensive in Cecconis, holding her hands together as she took time for lunch Glam: The star has been busy filming TOWIE with her partner as the new series production gets underway It comes after Amy revealed she was recently rushed to hospital after being unable to feel her twin babies kicking. The star made the revelation during an Instagram live earlier this month this week. Amy said: 'I will honestly say I didn't feel it kick' which led to her phoning her midwife and taking the terrifying dash to hospital. Swish: Amy sat among a group of other diners enjoying her lavish lunch with Billy in London on Friday Together: Amy, whose cousin Harry is also in the show, spent her afternoon appreciating time with partner Billy Chat: The star appeared to be deep in conversation with her love of almost two years at the restaurant Speaking to mambaby_uk, Amy admitted: 'I don't get a lot of movement'. 'There were a few people messaging me the other day, when I said 'I have a not a lot of movement', and because I'm getting big there is not a lot of room in there'. The mum-to-be went on to say: 'I will honestly say I didn't feel it kick, I rang the midwife straight away, of course I got checked. It was fine'. Pretty: The gorgeous television star looked glowing on her childfree lunch out with her beau on Friday Honest: Taking to her Instagram story later on Friday, Amy wrote that she was glad to have a few hours to herself with Billy after a chaotic week But admitted that the fear of complications 'never goes away'. Also earlier this month, the reality star said she thought she was going into labour after getting 'really painful' contractions. Despite being due due in April, Amy thought that she could be going into an early labour. Describing the scare, Amy said boyfriend Billy was terrified and 'panicking' but she knew it was Braxton Hicks - contractions and relaxation of the uterine muscle. Heading home: Later, Billy grinned as the couple headed back to their home in Essex after a fun day out together She said: 'It was really painful. While he was panicking, Im glad Billy saw what was happening so he can prepare for when I gave birth.' The former Celebrity Big Brother housemate recently confirmed her boyfriend Billy is joining TOWIE as a full time cast member. Amy revealed she's 'really looking forward' to having her partner film with her, adding that TOWIE bosses were keen to have him join the show. Happiness: The couple walked arm in arm as they strolled to the Elizabeth line in the station on Friday The TV personality recently said her third 'whirlwind' pregnancy is very 'different' to when she was expecting her other two children. Amy and Billy, 38, have been an item since October 2021, just two months after the mother-of-two split from her ex-boyfriend Tim following 14 months together. During the last season of TOWIE, Billy flew to the Dominican Republic to surprise the Essex star for their first anniversary. Amy, who shares daughter Polly, five, with ex-Bradley Wright, started dating TOWIE newcomer Billy following her split from former partner Tim last July. She is also a mum to Ritchie Jr from her relationship with businessmen Ritchie, but unlike Polly, who regularly features on TOWIE, her son remains out of the spotlight. Harrison Ford wants to work on a film with his wife Calista Flockhart, but they are holding out for the right project. The 80-year-old actor said at the premiere of his new Apple TV+ comedy series Shrinking in Los Angeles on Thursday: 'We'd love to find one we could do together.' The star of the Indiana Jones franchise also revealed that the Ally McBeal alum, 58, has started to act again after devoting the past 20 years to raising their son Liam, now 22. 'Haven't found one yet': Harrison Ford, 80, wants to work on a film with his wife Calista Flockhart, 58, but they're holding out for the right project The Star Wars alum told People that although the longtime couple - who celebrated their 12-year wedding anniversary last summer - want to venture their success into a collaborative acting project, they 'haven't found one yet.' 'I'm hoping we will find something to do together,' the screen icon said on the topic of working with his wife. He also spoke about how Flockhart had recently started acting again after taking the time off to raise their son. Working together: The Star Wars alum told People that although the longtime couple - who celebrated their 12-year wedding anniversary last summer - want to venture their success into a collaborative acting project, they 'haven't found one yet' 'She's just going back to work after having devoted herself to the raising of our son, Liam, for the last 20 years,' he said. 'And she's enjoying going back to work,' he added. Previously, the pair began dating after meeting at the 59th Golden Globe Awards in 2002. Raising their son: The star of the Indiana Jones franchise also revealed that the Ally McBeal alum, 58, has started to act again after devoting the past 20 years to raising their son Liam, now 22; seen in 2017 Flockhart adopted Liam - her only child - a year prior to meeting and dating Ford. Eight years later, Ford and Flockhart tied the knot in July 2010. During February 2020, Ford revealed his secret to a long-lasting marriage. 'Don't talk,' he told Parade just ahead of celebrating his tenth wedding anniversary. 'Nod your head.' Longtime couple: Previously, the pair began dating after meeting at the 59th Golden Globe Awards in 2002; seen in 2015 Ford also shares two sons - Ben, 55, and William, 53 - with his first wife. He was married to Mary Marquardt from 1964 to 1979. The actor has one son - Malcolm, 35 - and one daughter - Georgia, 32 - with his second wife, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, who died at the age of 65 in 2015. Ford and Mathison were married from 1983 to 2004. Pamela Anderson's fourth ex-husband Jon Peters - who she was wed to for a mere 12 days - has revealed he will leave her $10million in his will 'whether she needs it or not.' The Batman movie producer, 77, who tied the knot with the Baywatch icon, 55, in 2020, told Variety: 'I will always love Pamela, always in my heart. As a matter of fact, I left her $10 million in my will. The A Star is Born producer - whose union with Anderson was never legal due to paperwork not being filed, added: 'And she doesnt even know that. Nobody knows that. Im just saying it for the first time with you. 'I probably shouldnt be saying it. So thats for her, whether she needs it or not.' Generous gift: Pamela Anderson's ex-husband Jon Peters, says he 'will always love' his ex-wife and is leaving her $10 million in his will, 'whether she needs it or not' The former hairdresser, who has amassed a fortune of some $200 million, according to therichest.com, can certainly afford the gift, but it's unclear how his four adult children feel about it. The City Hunter actress spoke fondly of her longtime friend, declaring, 'Hes great and has been a huge influence on my life. I love him to death.' Pamela was first married to rocker Tommy Lee from 1995-1998. The pair share sons Brandon, 26, and Dylan, 25. The blonde bombshell and Motley Crue drummer had initially tied the knot even though the two had only known each other for a total of four days. 'We just wanted to have babies and be together forever,' she had written. Longtime friends: Pamela and the A Star Is Born producer have been longtime friends. They walked down the aisle in 2020, but the marriage lasted only 12 days (Pictured in Los Angeles in December 1989) Happier times: Pamela was first married to rocker Tommy Lee from 1995-1998. The pair share sons Brandon, 26, and Dylan, 25. (pictured 1995) 'My relationship with Tommy may have been the only time I was ever truly in love,' Pamela added. When talking about the sex tape scandal, she emotionally penned, 'It ruined lives, starting with our relationship,' adding that it was, 'unforgivable that people, still to this day, think they can profit from such a terrible experience, let alone a crime.' Towards the end of their marriage, Tommy had been arrested due to 'spousal abuse' and served six months in a Los Angeles County Jail in 1998. She recalled the incident that had made her call the police, explaining that the drummer had 'twisted her arm' while she was holding their son Dylan. 'Tommy ripped Brandon off me and threw me and Dylan into a wall,' she penned in the memoir, adding that, 'Our hell began.' Brief union: She was then wed to Kid Rock from 2006-2007 (pictured 2006) Married twice: Anderson wed Rick Salomon twice, the first time in 2007 before an annulment in 2008, before tying the knot again in 2014 and then divorcing the next year (pictured 2013) Husband number five: Pamela married Dan Hayhurst from 2020-2022 - but split after 13 months of marriage Later that same year, their divorce was finalized, which Pamela wrote, 'was the hardest, lowest, most difficult point of my life. I was crushed. I still couldn't believe that the person I loved the most was capable of what had happened that night.' The star added that, 'We were both devastated, but I had to protect my babies,' and despite their past, they still, 'check in, every once in a while,' with each other. She was then wed to Kid Rock from 2006-2007. Anderson wed Rick Salomon twice, the first time in 2007 before an annulment in 2008, before tying the knot again in 2014 and then divorcing the next year. Anderson and fifth husband and bodyguard Dan Hayhurst wed in 2020 but called it quits after just 13 months of marriage. Documentary: The book will be published on the say day the documentary Pamela, A Love Story debuts on Netflix. Pamela's son Brandon, 26, produced the film The split came almost a year after DailyMail.com broke the news that Anderson had made it official with her bodyguard after the two fell in love at the beginning of the 2020 coronavirus lockdown. The pair tied the knot in an intimate Christmas Eve ceremony on the grounds of Anderson's home on Vancouver Island, Canada. But an insider told the magazine 'Pamela loves as authentically as she lives,' and that the 'pandemic whirlwind' romance had run its course. The former Playboy cover model will reveal more about her life in an upcoming documentary and memoir. Love, Pamela, will hit store shelves on January 31, the same day Pamela, a Love Story debuts on Netflix. The film was produced by her son Brandon, 26. and Dylan, 25. The Canadian beauty has voiced her dismay at the Hulu series Pam and Tommy, which focused on her relationship with the Motley Crue rocker, and has refused to watch the show. However, the animal activist, who now calls Vancouver, BC home, said she isn't angry with actress Lily James, who portrayed her in the eight episode limited series. 'I think its hard to play somebody when you dont know the whole picture. Ive got nothing against Lily James. I think that shes a beautiful girl and she was just doing the job. But the idea of the whole thing happening was just really crushing for me.' Nicole Kidman and Maya Erskine are teaming up for the new thriller The Perfect Nanny. Maya, 35, who is the creator and a writer on the limited series, is also starring as a seemingly perfect caretaker with two young children in her charge, until her personality deteriorates into something sinister. Deadline reported the suspense-filled series, which will be shown on HBO, is based on the book by the same name. Teaming up: Nicole Kidman, 55, and Maya Erskine, 35, will team up for the HBO series The Perfect Nanny. Maya will star as a seemingly perfect caretaker with two young children in her charge, until her personality deteriorates into something sinister The project has a grim connection to reality as it was inspired by the deadly murder of two children by their nanny in 2012. The book by Leila Slimani has won rave reviews around the world including the Prix Goncourt in France. The New York Times listed it as on of 2018's Best Books of the Year. The tome, titled Lullaby in the UK, was named Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards 2019. Bestseller: The series is based on the bestseller The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani. Both Nicole and Maya will executive produce the limited series The inciteful writing in The Perfect Nanny has been praised for its exploration of race and class divisions against the background of the ghastly tragedy. Nicole, 55, will not only star in the series, but executive produce via her Blossom Films company. The Oscar winner has a list of TV projects that will be released in the near future, including the Amazon Prime series, Expats, about a group of ex-patriots living in Hong Kong, and the spy series Lioness, with Zoe Saldana, for Paramount+. Producer: Nicole is adding to her producer credentials. She will not only star in the series, but executive produce via her Blossom Films company (Pictured in New York in December 2021) The Australian beauty is working as an executive producer on both projects, as well as the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which has a release set for Christmas day. Maya has been kicking up a storm in the Amazon Prime series Mr. and Mrs. Smith, opposite Donald Glover, about a pair of married spies. She replaced co-creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who left the production due to creative differences. Drake's sprawling Beverly Hills mansion was reportedly burgled Thursday night and a suspect has been arrested. The 36-year-old music star was out of the house when the home invasion is said to have taken place, law enforcement sources informed TMZ. His security team purportedly called the police after spotting a strange man exiting the property with an object from the house. Trouble: Drake's sprawling Los Angeles mansion was reportedly burgled Thursday night and a suspect has been arrested; the superstar is pictured last year The suspect vanished before the authorities got to the house, so the police searched the area and after a few hours came upon a man matching his description. According to law enforcement insiders, the man was discovered walking up the road, still holding the object that was allegedly removed from Drake's mansion. Drake bought the 10 bedroom, 22 bathroom estate from English pop act Robbie Williams just last year, with reports claiming he paid up to $75 million. The purported burglary took place about a week after Drake jetted to New York, where Page Six reports he stayed at a $75,000-per-night suite at the Mark Hotel. Luxe; The 36-year-old music star was out of the house when the home invasion is said to have taken place, TMZ reported citing law enforcement sources With a grand piano, four fireplaces, a steam room and a dining room that seats 24, the five-bedroom six-bathroom suite is thought to be the priciest in the country. His entourage were booked into other rooms in the Mark Hotel, a tony Upper East Side establishment overlooking Madison Avenue. Drake was in New York for a brace of concerts at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater last weekend - days before his Beverly Hills home is said to have been robbed. It currently unclear whether Drake, who also keeps a mansion in his native Toronto, was still in New York when the alleged burglary took place. Showman: Last weekend Drake was in New York City for a brace of concerts at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater, where he is pictured onstage Last year, just months after Drake bought his Beverly Hills spread, a 23-year-old claiming to be his son was arrested after making it onto the backyard. One of Drake's employees caught sight of the intruder, who was subsequently apprehended by police for misdemeanor trespassing, according to TMZ. Drake at the time was in Sweden and his team had to shoot down a flurry of internet rumors that he was arrested at a Stockholm nightclub. Heston's fiancee is thought to be in her 30s and worked with him Diners at his three Michelin star restaurant, The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, can look forward to such mouth-watering surprises as ice-cream curry and fish eyeball cocktail. Heston Blumenthal's love life is, however, even more unpredictable. Three days ago, I revealed that the TV chef, 56, had split up with Stephanie Gouveia, the mother of his youngest child who had been regularly described as his 'wife'. 'I have found my other half': Heston Blumenthal announces he's engaged to French businesswoman Melanie Ceysson Friends of the French estate agent told me she had, in fact, never legally married Blumenthal, who is 21 years her senior. Now, I can disclose that he's found love with another French woman, Melanie Ceysson. And they're already engaged. 'I have found my other half,' he tells me from France, where they are living in a national park. Split! Earlier this week, it was revealed Heston had split from his 'wife' and the mother of his youngest child Stephanie Gouveia after they unofficially married in 2018 Blumenthal's spokeswoman was reported to have said that he married his previous girlfriend, Stephanie, in the Maldives in 2018. However, her spokesman told me this week: 'Marriage should be recognised by legal authorities. This wasn't. What happened does not constitute a marriage in a legally binding sense.' This time, the chef insists the ceremony will be legally binding. 'I am going to get officially married to Melanie,' he tells me. Blumenthal, who attended 22,530-per year Latymer Upper School in West London, declines to give more details about his new fiancee. Ex: The TV chef and French estate agent Stephanie went their separate ways 'some time ago' They are understood to have been a couple for some months. She is thought to be in her 30s and worked with him, having previously been employed in the hospitality business in France. In addition to his five-year-old with Stephanie, Blumenthal has three children with ex-wife, Zanna, whom he divorced in 2016. During their marriage, he had an affair with U.S. cookery writer Suzanne Pirret, who has said her favourite things are 'food and sex'. Happier times: Friends of Stephanie say she never legally married Heston, who is 21 years her senior, even though his spokesman was reported to have said they exchanged vows in 2018 Zanna stood by Heston during his rise to cheffing stardom and he admits she brought up their three children as he grafted in the kitchen. When asked why their marriage ended during an interview with the times, Heston said: 'Who knows? People always search for one reason and life is more complex. 'Certainly, my ex-wife was a huge reason for the success of the Duck Someone had to take the kids to school and do all that work and look after the house, because I was never there.' During their marriage, Heston had an affair with U.S. cookery writer Suzanne Pirret, who has said her favourite things are 'food and sex'. Heston moved to Provence, France, in 2018 in order to live near L'Oustau de Baumaniere, the three-Michelin-starred restaurant he first visited age 16. He credits the restaurant for kickstarting his desire to become a chef. Heston claims he returned to 'rediscover the magic' of cooking after falling out of love with it. Heston remains strongly connected with his UK restaurants including the Fat Duck. Jeremy Clarkson's grovelling apology to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was the media story of last week. A source confides: 'He did the big mea culpa because Amazon threatened to pull or cancel everything immediately if he didn't... and then it was feared ITV would, too.' Clarkson is due to start filming the next series of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on Thursday, February 9, in Salford, with the show scheduled to go out in September. Walking on thin ice: Jeremy Clarkson is due to start filming the next series of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on February 9 after grovelling apology to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex There are hopes for a celebrity special, too, which could screen in June. But there are rumours some celebs may pull out. Clarkson has been supported by ITV's Director of Television, Kevin Lygo, who regards him as a 'consummate broadcaster' but what does the network's right-on chief executive Carolyn McCall think of his behaviour? Amazon has made no official comment, but has briefed that it will honour current commitments Clarkson's Farm and Grand Tour but will not be working with him after that. Awful: Clarkson ended up in this mess after a newspaper column in December in which he talked about hating Meghan 'at a cellular level' and suggested she be subjected to a Game Of Thrones 'walk of shame' Clarkson ended up in this mess after a newspaper column in December in which he talked about hating Meghan 'at a cellular level' and suggested she be subjected to a Game Of Thrones 'walk of shame'. In total, IPSO said it had received more than 17,500 complaints as of 9am on Tuesday - rising to 20,800 by 5pm. The reaction surpassed the total number of complaints the media regulator received in 2021 - 14,355. On Friday, the newspaper said in a statement: 'In last Saturday's Sun, Jeremy Clarkson wrote a comment article about the Duchess of Sussex. It provoked a strong response and led to a large number of complaints to Ipso, the independent press regulator. Tense: Clarkson's column attracted criticism from high-profile figures, politicians, and his own daughter, Emily Clarkson 'In a tweet earlier this week, Jeremy said he had made a ''clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones'', which had ''gone down badly with a great many people'' and he was ''horrified to have caused so much hurt''. He also said he will be more careful in future. 'Columnists' opinions are their own, but as a publisher we realise that with free expression comes responsibility. We at The Sun regret the publication of this article and we are sincerely sorry.' The newspaper added the article had also been removed from their archives as well as their website. The statement continued: 'The Sun has a proud history of campaigning, from Help for Heroes to Jabs Army, Who Cares Wins and over 50 years of working in partnership with charities, our campaigns have helped change Britain for the better. 'Working with our readers, The Sun has helped to bring about new legislation on domestic abuse, provided beds in refuges, closed harmful loopholes in the law and empowered survivors of abuse to come forward and seek help. We will continue to campaign for good causes on behalf of our readers in 2023.' In the piece, Clarkson wrote that he despised the Duchess of Sussex 'on a cellular level ' and expressed that he wanted to see 'people throwing lumps of excrement at her'. 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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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacts with students, teachers and parents during a 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' programme, in New Delhi, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. (Photo: PTI) NEW DELHI: Never take the shortcut, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his message to students on Friday, cautioning that cheating may help them in an exam or two but not in the long run. Responding to questions from students during the sixth edition of 'Pariksha Pe Charcha', his annual interaction with students on issues such as exam stress, at Talkatora Stadium here, he said they should maintain focus on their work. He cautioned students against excessive use of gadgets and asked them to believe in their smartness and not of their mobile phones. "Don't be distracted by technology. Keep a separate time when you will use mobile phones for interaction on social media platforms," he said. The prime minister also spoke strongly against the use of unfair practices in exams and advised students against boasting about how well their exam went to avoid stress. "Cheating may help someone in an exam or two but not in life in the long run. Never take the shortcut. The hard work of students will always help them advance in life. Students should at times analyse the pressure applied on them to see if they are underestimating their strengths," he said. Modi said it is natural for family members to have expectations but it is wrong if they are linked to consciousness about social class or status. "Exam results are not the end of life," he told the students. Students should concentrate on their studies like a batter focuses on the ball thrown to him, ignoring the shouts for fours and sixes from the crowd, he added. "One of the reasons for stress is boasting about how well we did in our exam. Parents start believing in what the children say and start telling this to people around them. Avoid giving a wrong impression about your performance in exams," the PM said. Underlining the need for students to expand their horizons, Modi advised parents to give their children some money after class 10 and 12 exams to travel to a few places and ask them to write about it. "Students should be encouraged to go and meet people from different strata of society. Students should not be bound by many restrictions. We should allow them to expand their horizons," he said. The prime minister advised teachers to welcome students who ask questions. "When a student asks questions, that means he or she is inquisitive. This is a good sign," he said. A record 38 lakh students registered this year for participation in 'Pariksha Pe Charcha'. The number of registrations is at least 15 lakh more than last year, according to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The first edition of the prime minister's interactive programme with school and college students was held on February 16, 2018. Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. (File Photo: Twitter) Vijayawada: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has advised officials to fully implement the Family Doctor concept across the state from March 1. MLAs and public representatives must start visiting hospitals from the same day, to oversee its implementation, he said. The Chief Minister said distribution of ragi malt to children should be done thrice a week as part of the Gorumudda from March 1. Cathlabs must be set up along with ensuring the installation of cancer prevention equipment and treatments in all existing and newly constructed teaching hospitals, he said. Jagan Mohan Reddy reviewed the medical and health department affairs with officials at the CMs Camp Office on Friday. He said YSR Congress MLAs and other peoples representatives should start visiting hospitals and interacting with the patients and hospital staff in order to monitor the quality of the medical services. "This will help the officials take suitable steps to strengthen the functioning of hospitals and the public health system, after the feedback from the peoples representatives," he said. He asked officials to follow his orders in the past to give only WHO or GMP authorised medicines to patients in hospitals. Officials must also ensure availability of medicines and surgical equipment in sufficient quantities. Develop the state as a role model for the country in the public health system," he told the officials. The Chief Minister said that there should be proper coordination between Medical and Health and Women and Child Welfare departments in identifying the anaemic children and mothers at the village secretariat level and serving them with nutritious food and medicines to improve their health condition. "Officials must work closely with schools, hostels and Anganwadi Kendras to achieve this end," the CM said. Jagan Mohan Reddy said mandal-level officials, JCs and district collectors should monitor the functioning of the Village Clinics and solve their problems. There should be daily monitoring on the working of 104 and 108 services. He stressed the need to incorporate the subjects of sanitation, cleanliness, drinking water and pollution-free environs in the SOPs of Village Clinics. These clinics should conduct outreach programmes, meeting families and listing their available timings, treatment methods and services rendered in detail. The high-risk cases should be identified in advance and such patients should be shifted to well-equipped hospitals in advance. He said the government was spending Rs 700 crore to reduce the incidence of kidney ailments in Uddhanam and establish a Kidney Research Center at Palasa besides spending Rs 265 crore for Palakonda. Jagan Mohan asked officials to appoint necessary staff at the Kidney Research Center and at the 200-bed hospital at Palasa on a priority basis besides providing necessary infrastructure. He also asked the officials to ensure that people suffering from non-communicable diseases must regularly take their medicines. He suggested some changes to the Aarogyasri App that would be launched soon. Health minister Vidadala Rajani, chief secretary Jawahar Reddy and other officials were present. Taraka Rathna being shifted to the Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru. (Photo by arrangement) ANANTAPUR: Actor Nandamuri Taraka Rathna suffered a massive heart attack and fell down while in Nara Lokeshs padayatra in Kuppam on Friday. He was coming out of a local mosque along with Lokesh and a huge crowd. The party cadres immediately shifted him to the KC hospital from where he was rushed to PES Medical College. The actor-turned-leader was found to have multiple blockages that led to the massive heart attack. Doctors performed a CPR as his pulse rate went down. Later, they conducted an angiogram and a stent was fixed for proper blood circulation. With no chance to shift him via air ambulance from Kuppam, his uncle Nandamuri Balakrishna sought the Karnataka governments help to shift the patient to the Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru through green channel. Taraka Rathna, who had visited Paritala Ghat a couple of days ago to offer tributes to slain Paritala Ravindra at Venkatapuram in Ramagiri mandal of Satya Sai district, reached Hindupur on Thursday. He was with his uncle Balakrishna, who was on an official visit to the Hindupur Assembly segment. On Friday morning, Taraka Rathna along with Balakrishna travelled to Kuppam for participation in Nara Lokeshs Yuva Galam padayatra. Taraka Rathna was with Lokesh to offer puja at the Varadaraja Swamy temple and they later offered prayers at a local mosque in Kuppam town. While coming out of the mosque, Taraka Rathna collapsed and went into an unconscious state. One of the doctors, Manju, said the actors pulse rate improved after the CPR was done at the emergency ward. Jr. NTR along with several family members of Nandamuri family called up Balakrishna to enquire about the condition of Taraka Rathna. TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu also spoke to Balakrishna and doctors. TD senior leader Gorantla Buchaiah Chowdary, who was with Balakrishna, said later that the actor was out of danger. "But we are shifting him to Bengaluru for better medical care," he said. BJP MLA from Huzurabad Etala Rajendar. (DC) HYDERABAD: A day after the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president A. Revanth Reddy invited Huzurabad legislator Etala Rajendar to join the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Huzurabad MLA on Friday rejected the offer, saying he was "not the type of politician who switches parties." "I am not the kind who changes my party every year," he told reporters in New Delhi. "The BJP welcomed me when I was thrown out of the TRS. I do not need the sympathy of anyone, I have the support of people," he said in a subtle dig at Revanth Reddy. Rajendar criticised Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, claiming that he does try to gain a "place in the hearts of people" but rather employed "coverts" among other parties to get information about what his rivals were doing. "His strategy is to reduce the presence of other parties and make himself appear as a bigger leader. This is how he swallowed the Congress, CPI, and BSP in Telangana. He does not believe in democracy, and places faith in the police intelligence gathering system, conspiracies, and luring people using money. Anyone who questions him is kicked out of his party," Rajendar alleged. He claimed that after joining the BJP, the "Chief Minister spent a whopping Rs 800 crore" to ensure his defeat in the Huzurabad byelection, but the people in his constituency were aware of the conspiracy and came together to support him, ensuring his victory. "The people of Telangana know my history and I will always have their support," Rajendar proclaimed. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee chief A. Revanth Reddy. (Twitter) HYDERABAD: Accusing the BRS of failing to provide proper facilities to people, TPCC chief A. Revanth Reddy said that the Congress would not ask for votes where there are no Indiramma houses and challenged the BRS leaders not to ask for votes where there are no 2BHK houses. He also announced that he would begin his statewide padayatra on February 6. As part of the Haath Se Haath Jodo Abhiyaan, the TPCC chief on Friday visited Maddur, Daultabad, Kothapalli, Gundumal and Kosgi mandals in Kodangal constituency. Addressing party leaders, he said that apart from the development that had happened when he represented the constituency as its MLA, nothing has been done to promote Kodangal in the last five years. He said that it was only to oppose him that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao had put aside the Narayanpet lift scheme. Unless it is completed, there will not be any water supply to Kodangal, he said. BRS leaders were collecting bribes from panchayats in Kodangal. Finance minister T. Harish Rao had assured to allot a junior college in Daulatabad, but it was yet to see the light of day. Chandrasekhar Rao who promised to give water to Palamuru Ranga Reddy had not given anything in eight years. "Why did we not get Krishna water and railway line," he asked. "Is it a mistake of the people who vote for BRS? Let's ensure a Congress win and develop Kodangal," Reddy said. He said that the BRS and the BJP were creating rifts between castes, religions and regions. People's lives have been destroyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chandrasekhar Rao, he said. There is no protection for women and minorities. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had undertaken the Bharat Jodo Yatra to bring the country out of such a dire situation, Revanth Reddy said. BRS president and Telangana CM K. Chandrashekhar Rao. (File Photo: DC) Chief of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao should seriously and immediately end his ongoing open boycott of his political rivals to the point where his government decides to not organise the celebrations of Indias Republic Day. Even as the entire country was prepared for celebrating the Republic Day with the most popular and iconic celebrations being held in the national capital and every state organising it as per the guidelines of the ministry of defence, the unfortunate thinking initially within the Telangana state government seems to have been to avoid it. The reason for the ongoing political confrontation between the state party, the name of which was recently changed from TRS to BRS in order to give Mr Rao a platform to express his national aspirations, and the Centre is his opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been growing rapidly and stridently in Telangana in the last few years. It is a potential challenger to the BRS in the Assembly elections slated for the end of this year. This rivalry between the BJP and the BRS, with the saffron party threatening the pink party in Telangana and the BRS, in turn, gearing up to assert that it would challenge the Mr Modi-led BJP at the Centre, is normal in any democracy parties oppose and fight elections against each other routinely but Mr Rao has taken this rivalry to mean a total standoff, including the breaking of all personal ties and relationships, as well as observing a carte blanche boycott of constitutional duties, events and visits, while regularly flouting protocol. Mr Rao has refused to visit, meet, participate in any Central event featuring or receive Prime Minister Narendra Modi for over a year. Delegating the task to a minister instead, he has ensured that, as a CM, he is totally unavailable to the PM even when he visits the state. The state has also been staying away from various events called by the Prime Minister, including CM meetings, chief secretary meetings and even party president interactions. The customary governors address was cancelled on the rather facetious claim that the state Assembly has only been adjourned and hence there will not be a new session. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has also complained of how the state does not allow her to function smoothly. Her requests for transport and security are not met with adequately and officers dont attend meetings she calls. There is a clear distinction between an office and the person holding it, and decorum must be maintained. Even if someone cannot get along with a person holding an office, owing to personal or political differences, they are obliged to respect the office and follow the basic charter of duties. But if a state government has to be directed by the high court to observe the Republic Day, and even then the chief minister and his entire Cabinet boycott the function, it is highly condemnable, not to mention a letdown for all citizens. A health team is working right now to find the cause of these deaths but we suspect it may be related to the sea or water as the goth (village) where these deaths have taken place is close to the coastal belt. (Representational Image) KARACHI: A mysterious illness has killed 18 people, mostly children, in Karachi's Kemari area with health officials in this southern Pakistani port city still unable to find the cause of the deaths. Director Health Services Abdul Hameed Jumani confirmed on Friday that 18 people, including 14 children, died from the mysterious illness in the Mawach Goth area in Kemari between January 10 and 25. A health team is working right now to find the cause of these deaths but we suspect it may be related to the sea or water as the goth (village) where these deaths have taken place is close to the coastal belt, he said. Mawach Goth is a slum area with inhabitants mostly daily wage earners or fishermen. Jumani said that the families of the deceased had confirmed that before their deaths their loved ones had high fever, swelling in throats and faced difficulty in breathing. Some residents have also complained that in the last two weeks there is a strange smell in the area, the official said. Deputy Commissioner Kemari, Mukhtar Ali Abro, said they had also detained a factory owner for questioning. We have called the provincial environmental agency as well which has collected samples from three factories which were operating in the area, he said. The deceased include six people from one family including three children while a man lost his wife and three children to the mysterious illness. Head of the Sindh centre for chemical sciences Iqbal Chaudhary said they had also collected some samples of soya bean from the factories and they felt the deaths could have been caused by soya allergy. Even particles of soya bean dust in the air can cause serious illnesses and deaths and air pollution and weather play a big role. We are yet to reach a definite finding but the samples are being examined, Chaudhary said. Billionaire Gautam Adani met the country's power minister R K Singh on Friday in New Delhi, according to a source familiar with the matter. Also Read What really worries Indians about Adanis empire The agenda of the meeting was not immediately known. Also Read Adani stocks sink up to 20% after Hindenburg report Adani's meeting comes amid a heavy selloff in his group of companies after a scathing attack by a US-based short seller. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's senior leader Fawad Chaudhry was on Friday remanded to judicial remand and sent to Adiala jail by a local court here on charges of "inciting violence" against a constitutional institution. Fawad, a close aide of PTI party chief and former prime minister Imran Khan, was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on Wednesday from his residence in Lahore after a case was registered against him at Islamabad's Kohsar Police Station on the complaint of the Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The Dawn newspaper reported that the Islamabad district and sessions court sent Fawad, 52, to the high-security Adiala jail on a 14-day judicial remand in the case over alleged incitement of violence against a constitutional institution. The court on Wednesday night had granted police an initial two-day physical remand of Fawad, hours after he was arrested. The ECPs plea for an extension to Fawads physical remand was heard by Judge Raja Waqas Ahmed on Friday. At the hearing, the election commissions lawyer Saad Hassan, the prosecutor in the case, informed the court that the PTI leaders voice matching had been completed. He requested an extension in remand, saying that Fawad had to be taken to Lahore for a photogrammetric test. The prosecutor contended before the court that the former federal minister incited hatred against a constitutional institution. Fawad is trying to create unrest, he said. The statement threatens the lives of the election commissions workers. The ECP lawyer argued that an extension to the PTI leaders remand was imperative to carry out further investigation in the case. A day had already passed when the remand was approved at 12am, the investigation officer said. The ECP lawyer told the court that Fawads statement was available on record, adding that the PTI leader had also acknowledged his speech. No one can object to the speech. The accused has accepted his statement. At this, Fawads counsel Babar Awan accused the election commission of colluding with the government against PTI. We are being blamed and pressured, he said. The ECP lawyer responded that Fawad was a senior politician but no one is above the law. He told the court that it was mandatory to search his home. It is important to recover Fawads laptop and mobile phone in his presence, he said. Fawads statement is not one persons statement but an entire groups narrative, the ECP lawyer said. A campaign has not only been launched against the ECP but also against the top officials of the election commission, said. Separately, a bail application was filed by Fawad on the argument that the case against him was based on mala fide intention and ulterior motives, and filed only to harass, pressurise (sic) and blackmail him. It adds that the allegations levelled in the FIR were absolutely false, frivolous and baseless. The petitioner was arrested illegally, unlawfully and without any justification in negation to the law and constitutional rights of the petitioner. The arrest of Fawad further deepens political fault lines in Pakistan where the Khan-led opposition is demanding snap polls. The general elections in Pakistan are due after August. However, Khan is demanding snap polls. Protests were held on Friday in several predominantly Muslim countries to denounce the recent desecration of Islam's holy book by far-right activists in Sweden and the Netherlands. The protests in countries including Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon ended with people dispersing peacefully. In Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, police officers stopped some demonstrators trying to march toward the Swedish Embassy. In Beirut, about 200 angry protesters burned the flags of Sweden and the Netherlands outside the blue-domed Mohammed Al-Amin mosque at Beirut's central Martyrs Square. Swedish officials have stressed that freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Swedish Constitution and gives people extensive rights to express their views publicly, though incitement to violence or hate speech isn't allowed. Demonstrators must apply to police for a permit for a public gathering. Police can deny such permits only on exceptional grounds, such as risks to public safety. Iraq's powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr asked in comments released Friday whether freedom of speech means offending other people's beliefs. He asked why doesn't the burning of the gays' rainbow flag represent freedom of expression. The cleric added that burning the Quran will bring divine anger. Hundreds of his supporters gathered outside a mosque in Baghdad waving copies of the Quran. Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday it had ordered Latvia's envoy to leave the country within two weeks following a decision by Riga earlier this week to expel Moscow's ambassador. The ministry said it had summoned the Latvian charge d'affaires to protest over Riga's decision to downgrade relations with Russia. Latvia said on Monday it had acted out of solidarity with its Baltic neighbour Estonia, which also expelled its Russian envoy, prompting a tit-for-tat response from Moscow. In its statement, the Russian ministry said it saw "solidarity" only in the Baltic states' "total Russophobia and a desire to be the initiator of hostile steps towards Russia, which are encouraged by the United States and some other countries that are unfriendly to us". Also Read | Holocaust Remembrance Day: Putin slams 'neo-Nazis' in Ukraine The ministry also criticised what it said were measures to restrict the Russian language in Latvia and the destruction of Soviet-era memorials and cultural legacy. Latvia is home to a large ethnic Russian minority. The three Baltic states, which also include Lithuania and which were all once part of the Soviet Union, have been among a group of NATO allies arguing strongly for more Western tanks to be sent to Ukraine to help it fight Russian forces. Lithuania expelled its Russian envoy in April and downgraded its diplomatic representation. Syrian Kurdish-led forces captured a local commander of the Islamic State group in eastern Syria as part of an ongoing operation targeting sleeper cells in the city of Raqqa, the US-backed forces announced on Thursday. The commander served as the chief of the extremist group's faction for Raqqa and was among the 68 militants detained in the operation, the Syrian Democratic Forces said. The operation started earlier this week, in response to a December attack by IS that targeted military and security buildings in Raqqa and killed at least six Syrian Kurdish fighters. A Kurdish commander, Mazloum Abdi, said they had indications of serious preparations" by IS for attacks. Also Read | Turkish offensive in Syria 'possible any time': Ankara The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition war monitor, said IS militants also targeted a military intelligence prison holding some 200 militants in the December attack. IS lost all territorial control in Iraq and Syria in 2019, following a yearslong US-backed campaign that defeated the so-called caliphate, where Raqqa was once the IS de facto capital. However, militant sleeper cells persist and have since killed scores of Iraqis and Syrians. Syrian Kurdish and US forces frequently conduct raids targeting IS sleeper cells in northern and eastern Syria. The captured IS commander was identified as Atallah al-Maythan. Syrian Kurdish forces said he headed the militant group's operations across Raqqa province, and allegedly confessed to his involvement in planning and leading terrorist acts," extorted money from residents in the area and kept IS sleeper cells in contact. Some 5,000 Syrian Kurdish-led fighters are involved in the operation, and have already raided some 80 locations, their spokesperson, Farhad Shami, told The Associated Press. The US-led coalition was providing air support, reconnaissance, and gathering intelligence, Shami added. This is the second recent operation by the US-backed forces in Syria. In late December, the Syrian Kurdish-led fighters targeted IS cells cells in al-Hol and Tal Hamis, following a surge in militant attacks. The US Central Command said that 215 militants from the Islamic State group were arrested last year and 466 were killed in Syria. There are roughly 900 US troops in Syria.(A) RUP President Joe Bidens administration has subtly expressed its disagreement with the decision of Prime Minister Narendra Modis government in New Delhi to get YouTube and Twitter to block links to a BBC documentary on the 2002 riots in Gujarat. A spokesperson of the Biden Administration said that the United States had in the past conveyed to India the importance of freedom of expression and human rights for both democracies. We support the importance of a free press around the world, Ned Price, a spokesperson of the US Department of State, told journalists in Washington DC on Wednesday. He was responding to a question by a journalist from Pakistan about a recently aired BBC documentary, which claimed that a probe by the diplomats of the United Kingdom after the 2002 communal clashes in Gujarat had found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had been the Chief Minister of the State then, had been directly responsible for the systematic campaign of violence. The Government of India already dismissed the BBC documentary, titled India: The Modi Question as propaganda designed to push a discredited narrative. The Modi Government used emergency powers under the Information Technology rules 2021 to block multiple clips of the BBC documentary on YouTube and Twitter. We continue to highlight the importance of democratic principles, such as freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, as human rights that contribute to the strengthening of our democracies, Price said, adding: This is a point we make in our relationships around the world. Its certainly a point weve made in India as well. He was apparently referring to the Biden Administrations talks with the Modi Government on the perception in the US about the backsliding of democracy in India. Bidens Secretary of State Antony Blinken had on April 12 last year said that the US was monitoring some recent concerning developments in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials. He had made the remark while sharing the podium with Jaishankar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and the US Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, during a news conference after the India-US 2+2 dialogue in Washington DC He had followed it up on June 2, 2022, stating that India, the worlds largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, had seen rising attacks on people and places of worship. He made the remark after releasing the US State Departments 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom. Rashad Hussain, the US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, had also said at the same event that some officials in India were ignoring or even supporting rising attacks on people and places of worship. The US State Departments report also highlighted the purported rise in religious intolerance in India. Biden, himself, as well as his Vice President Kamala Harris, had subtly nudged the prime minister to protect the democratic principles of India, when they had hosted him in Washington DC on September 24, 2021. The think tanks and nonprofit entities, as well as international organizations, too had been expressing concerns about the alleged erosion of democratic values in India. Egypt may allot a special area of land in its Suez Canal Economic Zone for industrial units to be set up by companies from India as the Arab Republic seeks more investment from the South Asian nation. A dedicated industrial estate in the Suez Canal Economic Zone will help companies from India to expand investments in Egypt and use the Arab Republic as a hub to tap the markets, not only in West Asia and North Africa but also in Europe. China already established a 7.34 sq km industrial estate within the zone for its companies to take advantage of the strategic location of Egypt. A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi set a target to raise annual bilateral trade volume from $ 7.26 billion in 2021-22 to $ 12 billion within the next five years, a joint statement issued by both sides noted that the two leaders also agreed to encourage companies from India to invest in Egypt and vice versa. Egyptian side considers the possibility of allocating a special area of land for the Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone and the Indian side can arrange for the master plan, according to the joint statement issued on Thursday. Sisi flew from Cairo to New Delhi on Tuesday on an invitation from President Droupadi Murmu to be the chief guest in the Republic Day ceremony. He joined Murmu and Modi to witness the parade on the Kartavya Path here on Thursday. Indian investment in Egypt at present stands at $ 3.15 billion. The Egyptian companies on the other hand invested $ 37 million in India. We look forward to an increase in Indian investments in Egypt in an array of fields in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, particularly after noting the intent of Indian companies operating in Egypt to further boost their presence, and the interest of Indian companies specialized in promising fields to inject their investments in Egypt, Sisi said while joining Modi to address media-persons in New Delhi on Wednesday. The Suez Canal Economic Zone is spread over a 461 sq km area and comprises six ports strategically located along one of the worlds main trading routes. Cairo is keen to turn it into an international commercial hub to connect 1.6 billion consumers across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Gulf and Egypts own market of about 90 million people. Modi and Sisi agreed to strengthen cooperation in renewable energy, particularly green hydrogen and welcomed the recent signing of a Framework Agreement and MoUs between Indian companies and the Egyptian authorities for the establishment of large-scale green hydrogen and green ammonia projects in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. They reiterated the significance of the clean energy transition and agreed to strengthen cooperation in the clean energy sector between the two countries, according to the joint statement issued on Thursday. The Egyptian President will leave New Delhi and fly back to Cairo on Friday. Pakistans multiple crises are worsening by the day. On the internal security front, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which pulled out of the ceasefire with the government late last year, has escalated attacks on civilians and security forces. The situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces is dire. Meanwhile, relations with the Taliban regime continue to fray; Afghanistans new rulers, once proteges of Pakistans ISI, are refusing to toe Pakistans line and have shown no inclination to rein in the TTP or oust it from its sanctuaries on Afghan soil. Meanwhile, the Pakistani economy is in a state of free fall. Forex reserves are haemorrhaging; they dropped to a meagre $3.68 billion on January 20. Early this week, Pakistani cities reeled under a nationwide power outage, paralysing daily life and shutting down an already-sick economy. Although Pakistan has enough installed power generation capacity, it lacks resources to run its power plants as the sector is in deep debt. Also Read | India issues notice to Pakistan seeking modification to Indus Waters Treaty Some of the power infrastructure was built as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) but the projects did not come cheap. Consequently, even as CPEC has improved Pakistans infrastructure, it has run the country into debt such that it cannot even operate that infrastructure and benefit from it. Amid the crises, Pakistans Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed interest in serious and sincere talks with India last week. Pounded by pressure on multiple fronts, Sharif is likely seeing wisdom in making peace with India. While India is irked by Sharifs addition of the rider that Delhi would have to reverse its revocation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir for talks to begin, India must explore the possibility of formal talks seriously. Pakistan needs the talks desperately, but India too can gain from it, especially in the context of tensions with China. India has reached out to other South Asian countries to bail them out of their economic crises. Pakistan needs such help, too, apart from calm on its border with India. Delhi could offer it such help as part of a larger strategy to settle the Kashmir dispute and establish peace between the two countries. As loathsome as it may be to deal with a Pakistani establishment that has for long hosted and supported anti-India terrorist groups, letting our nuclear-armed neighbour go under and possibly into the hands of Islamist radicals is a worse prospect. Prime Minister Narendra Modi must consider this. When he made an unscheduled stopover in Lahore to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday in 2018 as a goodwill gesture, he signalled capacity to take risks and think out of the box. He can and should do that again, if Pakistan shows sincere intent. After nearly nine years of Narendra Modis helmsmanship, the Indian Republic is in deep crisis. Several institutions of our democracy stand destroyed, or their independence compromised, since he took office as Prime Minister in mid-2014. One of his first acts was to abolish the Planning Commission. That official economic think-tank, which traced its origins back to Subash Chandra Bose, had been soundly alive even during NDA-1 under Prime Minister A B Vajpayee. No explanation was given as to why it was killed. Then came the exit of Raghuram Rajan as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. The central bank as an independent monetary policy-setting entity is vital to managing a sound economy. The mismanagement of the economy that has subsequently followed can be traced back to that moment. The Election Commission, it is widely felt, has been packed with officials who had been close to Modi. The polling agenda in UP, Bengal and other states was seen to be set to favour the BJPs star campaigners. Before 2014, few governors ever went out of their way to court controversy by obstructing the functioning of duly elected state governments and legislatures. Never before have we seen the kind of crass conduct on the part of governors as we have in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Tripura, West Bengal and other non-BJP-ruled states as witnessed in recent months. The electronic media is now almost entirely controlled by entities close to the BJP and to Modi. Meanwhile, weve witnessed disastrous decisions, such as the note-ban/demonetisation and the sudden Covid lockdown decisions that caused innumerable deaths and economic hardship. There have been arrests under concocted charges of intellectuals and dissenters, such as Prof G N Saibaba and many others. India is dropping in several human development and freedom indices. Now, Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar and Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju have mounted an assault on the Constitution and the judiciary. The Basic Structure of the Constitution was something that BJP stalwarts such as Vajpayee, L K Advani and Arun Jaitley have sworn by. Several NGOs rendering yeoman service to disadvantaged groups now find themselves bound and gagged, not least by using the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act as a weapon against them. But there is hope, too: The spectacular farmers protests, and the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi and Bengalurus Bilal Bagh. Sections of the print media have maintained independence. On the one hand, history shows that fascist and quasi-fascist regimes eventually crumble: Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan -- to mention but a few have seen this. Alas, it also presents us with examples of those lingering for long: North Korea, China, vast parts of West Asia, including democratic Israel, and others. Fascism, majoritarianism and racism are on the rise in Europe too -- not only in Italy, Hungary or Poland but also in France and in the home of the mother of parliaments, Britain. The people of India, armed as yet with a model Constitution authored by visionaries such as Babasaheb Ambedkar, might well be able to reclaim the republic from majoritarian fanatics and fascists whove been seeking to destroy it. But well need to work hard to do so. Freedom from the British was hard-fought and lasted several decades. Reclaiming the idea of India as envisaged in the Constitution will have to be fought for too, relentlessly and over a long period. Modi has not faced a single press conference nor an unscripted interview since becoming Prime Minister. He rarely attends parliament, which itself is summoned or prorogued at will. Bills are being passed with hardly any legislative scrutiny. Time was when bills had to be vetted by non-partisan legislative committees, discussed in both houses of legislature or parliament, and only then put to vote. Of late, bills turn into laws at the Centre and in BJP-ruled states with almost no legislative discussion or scrutiny. This writer remembers that during Indira Gandhis 1975-77 Emergency, when parliamentary proceedings stood suspended and she took recourse to ordinances, some underground pamphlets distributed in Karnataka by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of which Modi has been a life-long member, said in Kannada: Sugreevajnegalinda aalalu idu kapigala rajyavalla, meaning this is not a kingdom of monkeys to be ruled by dictats (ordinances) (alluding to the Ramayana character, Sugreeva, the monkey king). Since 2014, the only way the Prime Minister has been addressing Indian citizens is through his monthly Mann ki baat broadcast via Prasar Bharati and other channels obliged to do so but mercifully limited to 30-40 minutes or so. Surely, not the best way in a country of 1.4 billion now? (The writer is a senior journalist) For cities to develop it is essential that decision-making power is given to the local administration holistic and sustainable city-specific development cannot happen in a top-down approach where the Centre or state decides A prerequisite for development is uniformity in the governance structures from top to bottom. This is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while inaugurating a metro project in Mumbai on January 19. He called upon the people of Mumbai to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the municipal corporation elections, which are long overdue. He exhorted that the triple engine governance model the Centre, the state, and the Mumbai corporation should be run directly or in partnership with the BJP for the development in the metro city. What can be inferred from Modis statement is that if the people of Mumbai fail to elect the BJP and/or its partners, there could be a lack of development, and the people will have to suffer. Isnt this a form of intimidation? Coercing the voters that unless they cast their ballot in favour of the ruling dispensation, development will not take place. Election or not, can leaders, especially the Prime Minister, make such statements? Also Read | Young India had better get ready to grow old This goes against the basic spirit of the Constitution. Charles Correa, the chairman of the National Commission on Urbanisation in the mid-80s, vehemently opposed this idea. Correa in his several interventions said that there should be a competition between the state and the city leadership for the development of the cities, and the cities would grow better if there was competition. Right from the Centre to the state, the BJP does not want to lose control of the cities, particularly the large urban agglomerates. The control is taken administratively, and now they intend to have political control as well. Delhi, one of the largest cities in India, continues to be largely under the control of the Centre, despite an elected state government, and now a municipal administration. This control is through the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which controls the planning of the city, and owns most of the land there. Likewise, all the cities and towns are controlled by the state governments through the bureaucrats appointed by them. It is in this background that the 74th Constitutional Amendment must be seen, which was brought in the mid-90s. There are 18 subjects that should have been transferred to the cities. Not more than three functions have been universally transferred to the city administrations. The amendment also focuses on the three Fs: functions, functionaries, and finances. A permanent municipal cadre continues to be a distant dream. The appointment of almost all the functional posts in the city is done by the state government. Right from the engineers to Group IV functionaries. The city has limited choices. The financial situation of city administrations is appalling; 90 percent of the city governments are unable to even bear the financial burden of salaries and pensions of their staff through their internal sources. This happens despite 85 percent government revenues and around 63 percent of Indias GDP is contributed by urban India. Empower Cities The answer is empowering cities, and their residents. Cities must be empowered to plan independently, and must not be under duress or coercion as is now the case. The problem here is not the priority of projects, but the focus must be on the processes that need to be changed. From the 90s to date, and through the plethora of schemes such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, the smart cities project, Atal Mission For Rejuvenation and Urban Transformationinvariably all of them pushing for centralised reforms-linked projects have shown that the models are unsustainable. The Union Finance Ministers Budget 2022 speech is a pointer in this regard. Nirmala Sitharaman said that the current model of urbanisation is unsustainable, and a paradigm shift is required. There was no mention of smart cities, which were supposed to be the lighthouses of urban development in India. This could be because it was a flawed top-down design Modis triple engine also smacks of the same. Way Ahead What is required is a decentralised approach to democratise the city administrations and its people. Take, for example, South Africa, where the city administrations are at par with the national government, and both have the same status. Even Nepal has brought five lists of governance. What we require is another list apart from the Union, state, concurrent we need a local bodies list that describes the functions of local bodies. The Prime Minister must realise that New Delhi should neither govern nor run the city administration of Mumbai. Let the Mumbaikars do it for themselves. Let the cities decide their own futures; the Centre must facilitate it, and not coerce their development trajectory. (Tikender Singh Panwar is former deputy mayor of Shimla.) The views expressed are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH. Derry woman, Rosaline Callaghan, was diagnosed in 2019, with the rare condition known as hereditary amyloidosis. It is a condition geographically specific to North West Donegal. Rosaline chats to Derry News about her condition, the support she has received from The Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership (NIRDP) and living with a rare diagnosis. "In the rare disease community; the names of the conditions are so unheard of and so complicated that it is often difficult for those living with rare conditions to really explain to people what their life is actually like," Rosaline explained. "If you say you have cancer, it is a well-known disease. It is awful but people know how to react. When you say you have a rare disease, people give you a blank look and rightly so; they don't know what to say. "Outside friends and family, you have the added challenge of explaining to the general population." Rosaline's condition is called hereditary amyloidosis. The condition originates from a 15 mile coastline in Donegal. Rosaline desrcibes it as a "ravaging condition" and it is only in recent years that treatment has become available, "I am the first in my family to receive treatment due to incredible scientific breakthroughs," Rosaline continued. "There is now medication that slows down the often rapid progression of the condition." Rosaline was diagnosed with hereditary amyloidosis - Donegal Amy for short- in October of 2019. People with hereditary ATTR amyloidosis carry mutations in the TTR gene. This means their bodies produce abnormal TTR proteins throughout their lives, which can form amyloid deposits. These usually affect the nerves or the heart, or both. Rosaline said: "When I was diagnosed, I just came home and held my head in my hands thinking, 'What do I do?' I had so many questions. My father sadly passed away from the condition and spent the last 22 months of his life in Foyle Hospice. He received tremendous care and we are forever grateful to them. "Receiving a diagnosis, especially of a rare condition, can be so terrifying and exhausting, and quite stressful. You go from being a healthy person to navigating a whole new landscape. "I am fortunate enough to have received incredible support from the NIRDP. There is also a Facebook Support Group which was an amazing help as when you are diagnosed it can be a very lonely place. "When I found the NIRDP, it was the first glimmer of hope and light in the tunnel. I contacted Sandra and the rest is history." Rosaline now works for NIRDP part-time advocating for those who live with her condition and other rare diseases, "They do so much amazing work and we have lots of work still to do. We want to connect, educate and raise awareness for the rare disease community. "With my condition, the dream and end goal is to continue to raise awareness of this condition and in turn- early diagnosis. I want to advocate for genetic testing. Currently, it takes around five years to be diagnosed. However, if people were diagnosed sooner and received treatment earlier on in the process; it would be so much better for their quality of life." Donegal Amy is all the more unusual as it is geographically specific; all of those diagnosed have familial connection to the North West of Donegal. People are diagnosed all across the world but whenever they trace their ancestors; they always have connections to the area. In the 1980s a cluster of people were diagnosed. Rosaline's auntie was the first person to have a recorded diagnosis. "Rosaline added: "My family throughout the years have been diagnosed. It is a late onset condition and people usually start to show signs around the age of 50. It has similar symptoms to Motor Neuron Disease (MND). It is slow, relentless and progressive. There are only a few thousand people in the world with this condition, but we are helping each other through it. "It can be very isolating and confusing when a diagnosis of Amyloidosis is made within the family, especially for the first time- but there is support available. "I will keep advocating for the community and all of those living with a rare condition. You are not alone." 1 in 17 people in Northern Ireland are living with a rare disease with an estimated 110,000 diagnoses across the country. If you, like Rosaline are living with hereditary amyloidosis, you can contact Rosaline via: irishrosaline@gmail.com Rosaline also released a book about her condition called 'Donegal Amy' which is available via: https://wildstoryteller.com/product/donegal-amy You can also join the support group via Facebook: ATTR Amyloidosis All Ireland Support Group You can also contact Northern Ireland Rare Disease Partnership (NIRDP) via: https://nirdp.org.uk/ if you are living with any rare disease or condition. Rosaline published a book about her condition Wednesday night last saw a beautiful Interdenominational Service for Christian Unity as part of the 30th birthday celebrations of the north-wests only Integrated College at Oakgrove when a capacity attendance shared in prayer and worship. The event, a collaboration between Oakgrove Integrated College and The Corrymeela Community, was led in prayer by Rev. Dr. Alexander Wimberly, leader of the community. It was planned to focus on the close of the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity. Hosted in the schools assembly hall, pupils and staff from Oakgrove College, St. Josephs Boys School and St. Marys College were joined by staff from Longtower PS, St. Patricks PS, Oakgrove PS and other primary schools as well as members of the local community in the service. Corrymeela is a movement of people based in Ballycastle, overlooking Rathlin Island, who rally around one inspirational idea that Together is better. Founded in 1965 by Ray Davey, John Morrow and Alex Watson, they seek to aid individuals and communities whove suffered through the violence and polarisation of the Northern Irish conflict. Members of the Board of Governors of Oakgrove Integrated College. pictured at Wednesdays event. Every year the group welcome over 8,000 people from all walks of life into their programmes in communities and schools around Northern Ireland. Oakgrove Integrated College was opened by parents in 1992 in the hope of promoting reconciliation by educating together young people from different backgrounds. Speaking after Wednesdays successful event, Acting School Principal, Mr. John Harkin said: It was an honour to host Corrymeela in our school. Staff and students from St. Josephs Boys School taking part in Wednesdays event. Throughout our 30-year history, some of our most powerful experiences in integration happened with the support of The Corrymeela Community. Our anniversary is about celebrating the journey to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. At our service, we prayed together in thanks for all the friendships between Protestant, Catholic and other. We took time out together to remember that we must humanise, not categorise. Mr. Brendan McGinn, Principal, and Ms. Roisin Rice, Vice Principal, St. Marys College pictured with Year 14 students Shannon, Leah, Lucy and Tara at Wednesdays Interdenominational Service for Christian Unity at Oakgrove Integrated College. Mr. Harkin also thanked Rev. Dr. Alexander Wimberly and his Corrymeela group for coming along to share their experience and take part in the prayer and workshop event. And he concluded by appealing to past pupils to get involved in this years litany of celebration events, adding: Oakgroves programme of activities for its 30th anniversary continues throughout 2023 and if you would like to be involved, please contact the school office on (028) 71860443 and we would be delighted to hear from you. SDLP Jobs and Economy spokesperson Sinead McLaughlin MLA and South Belfast MP Claire Hanna have met with the Interim Chief Executive of Invest NI following the release of the independent review of the organisation. It follows the news that the Invest NI Chair appointment process will soon begin with the tenure of Rose Mary Stalker coming to an end this month. Following the meeting, Foyle MLA Sinead McLaughlin said: I was pleased to meet with the Interim Chief Executive of Invest NI Mel Chittock to make clear that the damning findings of the independent review must be acted upon without delay. In particular, I pressed him and the team on the need to do much better for areas like the North-West, including through sub-regional targets. "I took the opportunity to reiterate my strong view that such targets are necessary to rebalance our economy and bring the jobs and investment that is so badly needed to those communities that have been left behind. The many failings of the organisation over several years have seriously damaged confidence in Invest NI in the North-West and the recent findings of the independent review confirmed what many of us had been calling out for years, that Invest NI had become much too Belfast-centric and was making virtually no difference to the living standards of the people that I represent. "Worse still, the abject failures of the organisation were being allowed to unfold in plain sight under the purview of successive DUP Ministers with deeply damaging consequences. However, as damning as the reviews conclusions were for the leadership of Invest NI, the release of this report represents an opportunity for our economy as we can now finally start to build an organisation that is fit for purpose and delivers for all of our communities across the North. "We need to see transparency and accountability on the action plan that is to be put in place by the Department for the Economy and Invest NI, and the implementation of the many recommendations that will be key to rebuilding public trust in this organisation. Claire Hanna MP said: "It is clear that Invest NI needs substantial and profound change. This meeting was an opportunity to press the organisation on the pace of that change and I was pleased that the Chief Executive was able to discuss a number of the important issues in detail, including how the organisation will begin to implement the recommendations of the independent review. This moment of reform for Invest NI offers so much opportunity for our economy as the organisations activity is core to the many pressing economic issues that demand our attention. "From the move to net-zero, to cross-border collaboration and the need for good and well-paid jobs, Northern Ireland desperately needs an economic development agency that is fit for purpose. The review represents a vital step in rebuilding this organisation so we can begin to address these challenges. The DUPs strategy in opposing the Northern Ireland Protocol has been vindicated, party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has said. Speaking to party members and supporters in Brookeborough, Co Fermanagh, Sir Jeffrey said that people in London, Dublin and Brussels now recognise that the sacrifice of consensus politics on the altar of the protocol was a mistake. The DUP is blocking the functioning of powersharing at Stormont and has made clear it will not allow devolution to return unless major changes to the protocol are delivered. Talks remain ongoing between the UK and the EU over the protocol, part of the post-Brexit deal which keeps Northern Ireland aligned with some EU trade rules, effectively placing a trade border in the Irish Sea. Both sides are keen to strike a deal to break the logjam over the contentious trading arrangements before the 25th anniversary of Northern Irelands historic Good Friday peace agreement in April. Many unionists are fiercely opposed to the treaty which they claim has weakened the regions place within the union. The DUP leader said: We warned London, Washington, Dublin and Brussels in July 2021 that the Northern Ireland Protocol was incompatible with powersharing and our hard-won politically balanced arrangements. We gave time and space for these fundamental concerns to be addressed but that time was not utilised. Instead, some local parties told us that the protocol had to be rigorously implemented. No one is saying that now. We are seeking the restoration of democratic decision-making to the Assembly, replacing the democratic deficit created by the protocol. Why should anyone want to deny the people of Northern Ireland, through their democratically elected representatives, a say or a vote on vast swathes of the laws governing our economy and which affect the people of Northern Ireland so directly? Sir Jeffrey said that the protocol is not and will not be supported by unionists. He added: It was a mistake for its authors to press ahead with an agreement that has harmed Northern Irelands constitutional and economic place within the United Kingdom. Whilst I welcome that there is public recognition that it was a mistake to ignore the objections of unionists, the greatest misstep would be if the same mistake were to be repeated. Political progress in Northern Ireland has been painstakingly slow at times but it has never been achieved by one side ignoring the concerns of the other. With a divided society, we need to work together. Not one unionist MP or MLA supported the protocol. Such a one-sided approach was never going to work. We need a deal that unionists as well as nationalists can support. Sir Jeffrey continued: All of this work will only be worthwhile if we can reach a balanced and durable outcome. There will be no solid basis for an Executive and Assembly until the protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore Northern Irelands place in the UK internal market and our constitutional arrangements are respected. Recognising mistakes is one thing but learning the lesson that consensus is the only way forward must be at the forefront of minds in London and Brussels rather than any dates on the calendar. US-Ireland Working Holiday programme to be extended Press release Minister of State for European Affairs and Defence, Peter Burke T.D., today signed a Statement of Intent with US Ambassador to Ireland, H.E. Claire Cronin, committing to extend the US-Ireland Working Holiday/Intern Work & Travel programme for a further five years. A formal exchange of diplomatic notes officially extending the programme will take place in Washington, DC, next week. First established in 2008, the Intern Work and Travel programme allows Irish citizens or permanent residents, who are students or recent graduates, to spend up to 12 months living and working in the US. Likewise, eligible people in the US are welcome to take advantage of the programme to come to Ireland for up to a year also. Minister Burke stated: This programme offers an unrivalled opportunity to current students and recent graduates to experience a way of life on the other side of the Atlantic. Ireland and the US enjoy a long-standing warm and mutually beneficial relationship, and the working holiday/Intern Work & Travel programme allows us to further strengthen our close people-to-people links. Overseas experiences create memories and connections that can last a lifetime. I encourage all those eligible, especially our young people, to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity for cultural exchange. Irelands Strategy for the United States and Canada, 2019-2025, commits to making it easier to travel, work and live in Ireland. Increasing the numbers availing of the Intern Work and Travel programme is a valuable way towards achieving this commitment. The Government of Ireland will continue to cooperate closely with the Government of the US to increase participation in the programme to further consolidate the long-running connections between our two countries. The signing ceremony today represents a revitalisation of the programme and a reaffirmation of the shared commitment to its continued success. ENDS Press Office 26 January 2023 Previous Item | Next Item Google has announced that it will let device makers in India license their own apps for pre-installation and will also let users pick their own default search engines. This comes after the Supreme Court announced antitrust directives last week. The court also rejected Googles challenge against Competition Commission of India ruling stating that the tech giant abused its market position. Google is now changing the way the Android system operates. "Implementation of these changes across the ecosystem will be a complex process and will require significant work at our end and, in many cases, significant efforts from partners, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and developers," Google announced in a blog post. What is the Competition Commission of India ruling? Counterpoint Research states that 97% of 600 million smartphones in India run on Android. The same research states that 75% of the 550 million smartphones in Europe run on Android. The CCI ruling states that Google exploits its dominant position in the market. It also asked the company to remove restrictions placed on device makers related to the pre-installation of apps. It also fined Google $161 million (which is around Rs. 1,300 crores). Google tried to block these directions by warning the Supreme Court that its Android ecosystem would be hampered due to this. The company explained that it would have to change its arrangements with over 1,100 device manufacturers and app developers. Whats happening now? The Supreme Court dismissed Googles plea and asked the company to pay the fine by March 31st. "We continue to respectfully appeal certain aspects of the CCI's decisions," Google said. The tech giant is working on changing its Android system operations. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. Samsung is just four days away from its Unpacked Event where the company will unveil the Samsung Galaxy S23 series. There are not many confirmed details about the Samsung Galaxy S23 series on the internet but it is confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S23 series will feature Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection. Corning has confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy S23 series used Gorilla Glass Victus 2 as usual. The Samsung Galaxy S23 series will be the first device to feature Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The Gorilla Glass Victus 2 is the successor of Gorilla Glass Victus+ which was used in the Samsung Galaxy S22 series. The Victus 2 was launched by Corning on December 22. The company claims that it can survive a fall of one metre on a concrete surface and a two-metre fall on asphalt. Gorilla Glass Victus 2 also provides 4x better scratch performance compared to its competitors. Gorilla Glass Victus 2 also prioritises the environment by receiving an Environmental Claim Validation as it is made of an average of 22% pre-consumer recycled content, which Underwriters Laboratories (UL) has even verified. The Vice President and General Manager of Gorilla Glass, David Velasquez said, Todays consumers expect damage-resistant smartphone displays. For more than a decade, Gorilla Glass has met the needs of smartphone users, setting the standard for tough cover materials. We are proud to continue our long partnership with Samsung and have our latest innovations play a vital role in Samsungs newest Galaxy smartphones. Were committed to integrating sustainability throughout our product lifecycle, working with like-minded partners such as Corning to improve performance while reducing our environmental impact. Our next generation of Galaxy flagship smartphones are the first devices to use Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, offering better durability and improved sustainability at the same time. claimed Stephanie Choi, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Samsung MX. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. Android tipster Kuba Wojciechowski has recently revealed that there will be a single version of the Pixel Tablet, as opposed to earlier speculations regarding there being vanilla and Pro versions. The concept of the Pixel Tablet was first revealed at the I/O 2022 event in May 2022. Wojciechowski has posted images of the first-generation Tensor chip and the Tensor G2 chips. Google Pixel Tablet updates It was believed that the Pixel Tablet and Pixel Tablet Pro are called Tangor and Tangorpro, respectively. However, according to Wojciechowski, the Tangor project has been cancelled. We may only see variants of the Pixel Tablet that will be equipped with the Tensor G2 chip. The tablet is also claimed to offer 8 GB of Samsung LPDDR5 RAM and 256 GB of Kioxia UFS storage. It may also come with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner. I have also been provided with a few photos of the device. pic.twitter.com/ctKWQoVDCT Kuba Wojciechowski(@Za_Raczke) January 26, 2023 Google Pixel Tablet specifications (expected) According to the tipster, the Google Pixel Tablet will have a 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution. This display comes from China Star Optoelectronics (CSOT) and is also supported by a Richtek RT4539 six-channel LED driver. Based on this, we can assume that the Google Pixel Tablet will not have an AMOLED screen. The screen is also believed to be an 11-inch one. Finally, it is also believed that there will be two types of docks for this tablet. The Yuzu / Y4 dock will support charging while the Korlan / K6 dock will have a speaker. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. 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 convicted rapist who fathered a son with his estranged daughter after she met him in her late teens, was last week jailed for nine years at Dundalk Circuit Court. Judge Patrick Quinn was told the 50 year old County Louth man, who cant be named for legal reasons, does not accept the verdict of the jury, who convicted him of incest last February following a five day trial. The court heard the grandmother of the child contacted gardai in 2015 after discovering her daughter was pregnant. Her daughter was in her late teens when she met her estranged father through a relative. The court was told the woman wasnt keen on the contact taking place and her daughter ultimately left the family home and moved into an apartment with her father. The alleged victim met gardai by arrangement and vigorously denied that her dad had fathered her then unborn child but consented to the babys DNA being taken when the time arose. The defendant also allowed his DNA to be taken twice as part of the investigation. The court heard it was 23 million times more likely that the boy was the son of the defendant and his daughter, than being the womans son with any other male. Apart from cooperating in providing DNA evidence, the victims cooperation with the garda investigation was minimal and she did not give a victim impact statement. Judge Quinn heard the 50 year old was jailed by the Central Criminal Court for six years in 1996 for rape and for three and a half years by Dundalk Circuit Court in 2003 for sexual assault. He also had previous historic convictions for larceny and burglary. The Senior Defence counsel told Judge Quinn her client, who appeared by videolink, was not involved in the victims upbringing and does not accept the verdict of the jury. The barrister asked the court to consider that the DNA evidence provided by her client was fundamentally the only evidence of paternity. Judge Quinn imposed a 10 year sentence with the final year suspended for 10 years, on condition that the defendant has no contact with his daughter during that period. Make-A-Wish Ireland, the charity who grant wishes to seriously ill children throughout the country, are issuing an urgent appeal to the public for volunteers from Louth to support them by offering their time on Wish Day, 28th April 2023. Wish Day, taking place on Friday, 28th April 2023, is Make-A-Wishs annual donation day. As well as raising important funds to help Make-A-Wish grant magical wishes to children living with life-threatening illnesses, it raises awareness of childhood illnesses and acknowledges the bravery of wish children and their families. With a 100,000 target to raise, Dunnes Stores has given permission to Make-A-Wish Ireland to carry out bucket collections in their stores nationwide on Wish Day 28th April 2023. With over 20 sites to coordinate, including in Dundalk and Drogheda, Make-A-Wish desperately needs volunteer support from generous members of the public nationwide. Volunteer shifts will run across two, four-hour blocks from 9-1pm and 1-5pm at participating Dunnes Stores throughout Wish Day, 28th April, and all volunteers will be provided with training, t-shirts and collection buckets. In Louth, volunteers are needed for Dunnes Stores at Marshes Shopping Centre in Dundalk and Scotch Hall Shopping Centre in Drogheda. Susan McQuaid-ODwyer, CEO of Make-A-Wish Ireland said; Wish Week is one of the most important weeks in our calendar. With over 200 children on our waiting list and after a challenging few years of fundraising due to the global pandemic, we want to make 2023 our most successful year yet. "Ireland is well-known for its generous spirit, and we hope we can attract volunteers nationwide to help us deliver on this very important day for seriously ill children. Make-A-Wish receive no government funding and we rely entirely on the generosity of the public and on corporate support. To sign up as a Wish Day volunteer, contact Mary Murphy at mary@makeawish.ie or call 01- 2052007. Louth County Council was well represented at the annual IPB Pride of Place awards ceremony held in the Clayton Hotel, Burlington Road, Dublin on Saturday 21st January 2023, hosted by RTEs Marty Whelan. The Reddoor project was honoured at the ceremony by receiving a runner up award in the Community Wellbeing Initiative category. The judging panel said the project made an immediate impression on the judges who met with an enthusiastic team of dedicated professional workers who have made a significant difference to many peoples lives within their community, over the last number of years." Creative Spark, Dundalk, were nominated by Louth County Council in the Creative Place Initiative Category and were in attendance, but unfortunately didnt make a podium finish, this year. The Pride of Place awards, described as the Oscars of the Community Sector, celebrates the often unsung work of community groups that selflessly work to make local communities a better place to live in, work in or visit. Both local groups were among 86 groups to have been nominated by thirty four Local Authorities across Ireland on the 20th anniversary of the awards. Sponsored by IPB, this all-island competition acknowledges the invaluable work undertaken by local communities to create civic-pride in their area. It focuses on people coming together to shape, improve and enjoy all that is good about their area. It has grown into the largest competition recognising and celebrating community development achievements on the island of Ireland. Speaking about the awards Cathaoirleach of Louth County Council Cllr. Conor Keelan said: Louth has a strong tradition of community action and volunteerism and we have taken part for many years in this Pride of Place competition. This awards ceremony recognises the invaluable efforts of all those involved in their communities who really make a difference. I want to congratulate both groups and thank them for representing Louth with such pride. It is a wonderful competition which showcases all that is best and innovative in communities throughout the island of Ireland that we will continue to support. Joan Martin, Chief Executive, Louth County Council said: County Louth has been very successful over the years in the All Ireland Pride of Place competition and I congratulate The Reddoor Project on their incredible success in the 2022 competition. It has been a pleasure for Louth County Council to work with both nominees over the years and we are extremely proud of their many achievements. We wish them every success in the future A 28 year old Dublin man who produced a screwdriver during a robbery on the main Dublin/Belfast road in Northern Ireland and rammed a number of garda patrol cars which intercepted him on the M1 was jailed for three years at Dundalk Circuit Court and banned from driving for 15 years. Alan Melia of Cherry Orchard Avenue, Ballyfermot pleaded guilty to robbing 717 sterling and about 480 at Applegreen, Tullynacross, Lisburn on August 23rd 2020, causing criminal damage to a garda vehicle on the M1 at Newtownbalregan, Dundalk on the same date and two counts of dangerous driving on the motorway at Braganstown and Drumleck. The defendant, who was armed with a screwdriver, and another individual entered the filling station shortly before 3pm and escaped with the tills in a black Ford Focus, which had the back window smashed in. Its registration was passed on to Gardai in the Dundalk district, with one crew in an unmarked patrol car driving slowly on the M1. The getaway car subsequently passed them and the defendant stopped, on the blue lights and siren being activated, when the observer in the patrol car got out, he had to jump out of the way, as the car reversed smashing into the patrol car. Other members joined the pursuit, and the Ford Focus turned at Applegreen Castlebellingham southbound, and travelled northbound, forcing one motorist to brake to avoid a head-on collision. Two further Garda vehicles were damaged in intercepting Alan Melia, including one used by the Armed Support Unit. The defendant claimed that hed been asleep in the car, and made no admissions in the course of a number of Garda interviews. He had 92 previous convictions including robbery and dangerous driving, and was under a 15 year driving ban at the time of the offences before the court. The Defence barrister, who stressed that no guards or members of the public were injured in the incident, said his client was very easily led and has an immaturity that is unbelievable. The counsel added the birth of his son 15 months ago has been a wakening moment for Alan Melia, who wants to make a better life for himself, his partner and their son. Judge Patrick Quinn imposed a four year sentence for the endangerment offence with the final two years suspended on Mr. Melia entering a bond to be of good behaviour for 12 months. He also disqualified the defendant from driving for 15 years. Concurrent sentences of 12 months and four months respectively were imposed for causing criminal damage to the first patrol car that was hit and both dangerous driving charges. Survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau have commemorated the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp in the final months of the Second World War, with some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten. The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland, which during the Second World War was under the occupation of German forces and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on January 27 1945. Today the site, with its barracks and barbed wire and the ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the worlds most recognised symbols of evil and an admonition of Never Again that has been a site of pilgrimage for millions. Yet it lies only 300 kilometres from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating unthinkable death and destruction a conflict on the minds of many of those paying tribute to the victims of eight decades ago. One survivor, Zdzislawa Wlodarczyk, said during observances on Friday that the war has created a feeling of horror in her. Piotr Cywinski, Auschwitz state museum director, compared Nazi crimes to those the Russians have committed in Ukrainian towns such as Bucha and Mariupol. He said they were inspired by a similar sick megalomania and that free people must not remain indifferent. Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators, Mr Cywinski said. Remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances marking the 60th anniversary of the camps liberation in 2005, but he has been unwelcome for years now. This year, no Russian official at all was invited due to Russias attack on Ukraine, according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the event with a post on his official Telegram feed that alluded to his own countrys situation. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred, he said. Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the post-Second World War neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, called the Holocaust the abyss of humanity. An evil that touched also our country with the infamy of the racial laws of 1938. Bogdan Bartnikowski, a Pole who was 12 years old when he was transported to Auschwitz, said the first images he saw on television last February of refugees fleeing after Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered traumatic memories. He was stunned seeing a little girl in a large crowd of refugees holding her mother with one hand and grasping a teddy bear in the other. It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll to her chest, Mr Bartnikowski, now 91, said. Mr Bartnikowski was among several survivors of Auschwitz who spoke about their experiences to journalists on the eve of Fridays commemorations. One of the others, Stefania Wernik, who was born at Auschwitz in November 1944, less than three months before its liberation, spoke of Auschwitz being a hell on earth. She said when she was born she was so tiny that the Nazis tattooed her number 89136 on her thigh. Ms Wernik was washed in cold water, wrapped in rags and subjected to medical experiments. And yet her mother had abundant milk, and they both survived. After the war, her mother returned home and reunited with her husband, and the whole village came to look at us and said its a miracle. Ms Wernik read out an appeal to the next generations to be vigilant about insidious ideologies. No more fascism, which brings death, genocide, crimes, slaughter and loss of human dignity, she said. Among those who attended Fridays commemorations was Doug Emhoff, the husband of US vice president Kamala Harris. Mr Emhoff, the first Jewish person to be married to one of the top two nationally elected US officials, bowed his head at an execution wall at Auschwitz, where he left a wreath of flowers in the US flags colours and the words: From the people of the United States of America. The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the suffering of six million innocently murdered Jews remains unforgotten as does the suffering of the survivors. We recall our historic responsibility on Holocaust Memorial Day so that our Never Again endures in future, he wrote on Twitter. The German parliament was holding a memorial event focused this year on those who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people were incarcerated and killed by the Nazis. Their fate was only publicly recognised decades after the end of the Second World War. Elsewhere in the world on Friday events were planned to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005. About six million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust and millions more were killed in the global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. By Azernews Sabina Mammadli Azerbaijan has summoned Iranian Ambassador Seyed Abbas Mousavi to the Foreign Ministry over the terror act on the country's embassy in Tehran on the morning of January 27, Azernews reports, citing the ministry. During the meeting, the ministry sharply condemned the act of terror, adding that attacks on diplomatic missions are unacceptable. The ministry emphasized that based on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the duty of the host country is to protect the building of the diplomatic mission from any attacks and ensure the safety of its employees. The ministry also expressed its regret about the systematic anti-Azerbaijani campaign recently carried out in Iran, which further exacerbates the already difficult relations. In his turn, Mousavi sharply condemned the terrorist attack and expressed deep regret over the incident, as well as deep condolences to the family of the deceased, the government, and the people of Azerbaijan. The ambassador also stressed that the relevant authorities of Iran immediately responded to the incident, and the relevant law-enforcement agencies are currently investigating the case, details will be released after the completion of the investigation process. As reported earlier, the head of the security guard of the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran was killed in the armed attack on the building on January 27 at about 0830 hours (GMT+4). An individual with a Kalashnikov assault rifle attacked the security post and killed the head of the security guard. Two embassy security guards were also wounded while preventing the attack. The government is "absolutely determined" to see those responsible for the killing of a peacekeeper in Lebanon brought to justice. Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin was speaking as he visited Ireland's peacekeeping troops at Camp Shamrock in the country. The Tanaiste laid a wreath at a memorial to Private Sean Rooney who was killed in a shooting incident in December. Mr Martin, who was also due to meet the Lebanese ministers for foreign affairs and defence, said he will "impress upon them the need to ensure that the Lebanese investigation is as thorough and complete as possible". Mr Martin previously visited the base during his term as Taoiseach. He told peacekeepers the death of Private Rooney, who was from Co Donegal, made returning even more important to him. "Private Rooney's death was a shocking reminder to all of Ireland of the risks taken by each and every one of you, in discharging your duty and maintaining our country's proud record and reputation," he said. "I'm conscious that all of you have lost a comrade and a friend. It is to your immense credit that, notwithstanding your personal loss, you have continued to perform with the professionalism we have come to expect from our Defence Forces. "Nonetheless, I would encourage you to reach out and seek support if you need it, especially when you return home. Support services are available, don't hesitate to use them. "You have come through a very difficult experience and you need to mind yourselves." Mr Martin also acknowledged those who were injured in the incident at Al-Aqbiya, particularly Trooper Shane Kearney, who was critically injured. Tpr Kearney from Killeagh suffered a serious head injury when his convoy came under attack while travelling to Beirut last December. He returned to Ireland just before Christmas in a specially equipped, contracted medical aircraft. The young peacekeeper was then taken by ambulance to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin for ongoing medical treatment. Private Kearney joined the Defence Forces in October 2018, and his home Unit is 1 Cavalry Squadron in Collins Barracks Cork. He previously served overseas with the 117 Infantry Battalion UNIFIL. Read More Cork woman settles high court action over care at Mercy hospital for 375k "We are all immensely grateful that Trooper Kearney is now back in Ireland and making good progress with his recovery," he said. "It goes without saying that we wish him continued progress in the coming weeks and months." Mr Martin said lines of inquiry are being pursued by the Defence Forces Multi-disciplinary Team into the killing of Private Rooney, as well as three separate parallel investigations into the facts and circumstances of the matter by the Lebanese authorities, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and Irish police. "The government is absolutely determined that all of the facts and circumstances of the incident are fully established and that no stone will be left unturned to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice," he said. He added: "On behalf of the Irish people, may I thank each and every one of you for the part you are playing in continuing the proud tradition of generations of Irish peacekeepers." University College Cork (UCC) unveiled a portrait of the late Vicky Phelan ahead of a panel discussion on cervical cancer on Thursday evening. The event was held as part of UCC's programme to increase awareness about cervical cancer and cervical cancer screening available. The triptych portrait, painted by artist Vincent Devine, will go on view in UCC's Library for three weeks as part of a national campaign to honour Vicky Phelans legacy and to educate people about cervical cancer. While revealing the portrait, Vincent Devine shared his insights into the collaboration with Vicky which led to the creation of the triptych portrait. The portrait tells the story of Vicky Phelan's life in three panels. When it was first unveiled, Vicky said the painting "meant the world" and is something that will "live on forever." The portrait was purchased at a charity auction by Vicky's lifelong friend and fellow Kilkenny native David Brennan. Both Vincent Devine and David Brennan discussed each panel of the portrait in detail as each was revealed during the event at the Aula Maxima. In the middle panel of the portrait, Vicky is portrayed in an anatomical way, with each part of her body representative of an important part of her life journey. Marking European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week, a panel discussion on cervical cancer awareness, campaigning, and women's health advocacy was hosted by the Irish Examiners Niamh Griffin. The panel featured Cian O'Carroll, solicitor and Vickys legal representative, Stephen Teap, healthcare campaigner whose wife Irene Teap died of cervical cancer in 2017, and Roisin Ni Cadhla, secondary school student at Ardscoil a Mara who conducted a survey of public attitudes to CervicalCheck and the HPV vaccine as part of her BT Young Scientist project. The parents of Vicky Phelan, John and Gaby Kelly view the painting by artist Vincent Devine which went on dispaly at the Aula Maxima, UCC Cork. - Picture; David Creedon Cian O'Carroll said he has been involved in many cancer misdiagnosis cases, which he specialises in, but that people had an instant reaction to Vicky as a communicator. He said that women have a sense that there is a problem in womens health and that there are recurring signs of that still. Roisin Ni Cadhla said both Vicky and Laura Brennan inspired her project which found that over half of the general population of Ireland did not have a good understanding of the causes of cervical cancer. Roisin said she is proud to have played a small part in the fact that Ireland now has one of the best uptakes of the HPV vaccine in the world. THE postman from Clonakilty entered the sub-post office at Darrara, about four miles from the town, and found the postmaster, Jerome OReilly, dead yesterday morning, the Echo reported 100 years ago today, on Saturday, January 27, 1923. His body bore several bullet marks. The police were speedily informed and the military authorities were quickly on the scene. Deceased was a young man much respected in the district. His mother, an aged woman, was the only other occupant of the house. Massive Bridge Explosion An attempt was made at about 3am to blow up Willisons Bridge between Blarney and Tower. Beyond some damage to the walls on either side, the bridge is intact and still usable by vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The explosion was so enormous that it was plainly heard in the city. Firing at Stations Before midnight last night, the military guards stationed at Upton and Innishannon on the Cork and Bandon railway line were attacked. Heavy firing continued for more than an hour, but no significant damage was caused and there were no casualties. New Police Headquarters Corks two policing bodies, the Civic Guard and the Cork Civic Patrol, are busy moving from the School of Music on Union Quay to their new quarters across the river on Morrisons Island. All departments have been transferred to Moores Hotel. The School of Music had been commandeered and is being returned to its representatives. Ad in the Echo on Jan 27, 1923 Youghal Mystery Ship The mystery ship Duchess anchored at Youghal last night with an armed guard on board. To-day, additional troops boarded and after weighing anchor she steamed up the Blackwater with a cargo destined for Cappoquin. Flour Millers Strike The strike by flour milling operatives continues. There is, so far, no prospect of negotiations being opened up. In relation to the dockers strike, employers met this morning at their rooms on the South Mall. The dockers werent represented. Both sides report that no progress has been made towards a settlement. Starvation threat in Cork At the Cork Corporation meeting last night, D. Barry said the country was going through terrible times and starvation was facing some people. Referring to the dock strike, he said merchants were trying to hound down the working class and the longer the strike went on, the wider the breach between them was growing. He moved that the Corporation appoint a deputation to foster a settlement. Simon Daly seconded this. J. Kelleher said Sir John Scott had shown a good example by calling his men in. If the other merchants followed, there would be contentment in Cork. The reduction in wages the employers were trying to force would not benefit the consumer but the merchants themselves. The only way was to ask the merchants to follow Sir Johns lead (applause form the gallery). Sir John said notice should always be given so sides have the opportunity to discuss and prevent strike and the suffering it causes. Mr Egan said Sir John had made a hero of himself. Sir John replied spare my blushes. Robert Day said the reduction in labour costs on a 500 ton cargo of coal would be 1 1s 8d, about a halfpenny in the ton. That benefit would not go to the people. The dockers were out on a matter of principle and would fight it. The following deputation was appointed: Deputy Lord Mayor, Sean Nolan, M. Egan, D. Barry and M.J. ORiordan. Infants Body Found Coroner Horgan held an inquest at Douglas this morning on the body of an infant found in the churchyard the day before yesterday. Daniel Kiely, cemetery caretaker, said he noticed a spot of freshly dug earth from which part of a box protruded. He took it up and found it contained the body of a baby wrapped in flannel. Dr James Lynch deposed that the child was stillborn and had not reached maturity. He said there was no sign of violence of any kind. The jury reached a verdict in accordance with the medical testimony. John McCormack in Dublin It is in excess of a dozen years since John McCormack sang in Dublin or Cork! No wonder Dublins Theatre Royal was so crowded over the past week. It turned out a swell affair, though one not easily within the pockets of those outside the moneyed and leisurely classes. Long lanes of Daimlers and Rolls-Royces lined approaches to the theatre. McCormack once again captivated all with the magic of his voice. Experts profess to hearing improved phrasing and marvellous breath control. The Maestros surpassing art today springs from the same tap roots as when he won his first Feis Ceoil Medal - a singularly pellucid voice, perfect articulation and superb talent in interpreting the spirit of a song. Those expecting increased voice volume and long sustained thrilling top notes a la Caruso went away disappointed. McCormack sang The Snowy Breasted Pearl (Pearla an brollagh bhan) with all his old brilliancy. Of all his songs, this, his first masterpiece, goes most directly and deeply into the souls of his audience. Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. In a sobering first for the U.S., an environmental activist was shot and killed by police in Atlanta, Georgia, in an ongoing struggle over the future of a portion of that citys urban forest. Twenty-six-year-old Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, who went by Tortuguita, was shot and killed around 9:04 a.m. on last Wednesday by an unknown officer as part of a police raid on protestors occupying Georgias Weelaunee Forest to protect it from city plans to transform it into a police training center, as The Guardian reported. Killings of environmental activists by the state are depressingly common in other countries, like Brazil, Honduras, Nigeria, author and Northwestern University history professor Keith Woodhouse told The Guardian. But this has never happened in the US. Am I scared of the state? Pretty silly not to be. Im a brown person. I might be killed by the police for existing in certain spaces. [But] fear is the mind killer you cant let the fear stop you from doing things, from living, from existing, from resisting. Tortuguita pic.twitter.com/RodTldwQGT Defend the Atlanta Forest (@defendATLforest) January 23, 2023 Atlanta has the largest proportional tree canopy of any city in the U.S., but two planned developments put part of that canopy at risk, according to Defend the Atlanta Forest. One is the so-called Cop City, a proposed training facility for the Atlanta Police Department that would include a mock city and require the clearing of 300 acres of forest. The other is an airport and soundstage for film production company Shadowbox Studies, formerly Blackhall Studios, which will require cutting 170 acres of trees. The developments are planned for the South River Foresta wooded area just outside Atlanta that was called the Weelaunee by its original Muscogee (Creek) inhabitants before they were forced out along the Trail of Tears in the 1830s, as Atlanta Magazine explained. The forest is now surrounded by majority Black communities who have already had to contend with environmentally unjust developments such as six nearby landfills. The movement to oppose the new developments began as soon as then Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced the plans for the Cop City towards the end of 2021, according to The Guardian. This development overwrote earlier plans to preserve the forest in order to help Atlanta respond to the climate crisis. Opponents of the development included mainstream environmental and community groups, as well as the forest defenders who decided to occupy the area with their bodies, Atlanta Magazine pointed out. One of them was Tortuguita. I fell in love with the woods and I also fell in love with the community, they told The Bitter Southerner. In a statement, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said that Tortuguita was shot during a multi-agency operation on the protest site after they first shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper from their tent in the woods. The trooper was injured and taken to a local hospital. On Saturday, the GBI released an image of a handgun they claimed was in Tortuguitas possession and said it matched the bullet recovered from the wounded trooper. On Monday, they said they had proof that Tortuguita had purchased the firearm legally. However, activists on the ground have challenged the police narrative, as WABE reported. They also demanded body camera footage, which the police said was not available. The officers who were near the incident at the time of shooting were not wearing body worn cameras. Although the shooting is not captured on bodycam, there is bodycam footage of the aftermath, GBI said in a statement Monday. At least six activists present at the time said that they only heard one round of shots and thought the trooper might have been a victim of friendly fire, according to The Guardian. Tortuguitas motherBelkis Teranwho lives in Panama Cityis convinced of his innocence. Im going to clear Manuels name. They killed him like they tear down trees in the forest a forest Manuel loved with passion, she said, according to The Guardian. During last Wednesdays operation, seven people were arrested under charges of domestic terrorism and criminal trespass, according to GBI. This follows the arrest of six other forest defenders under the domestic terrorism charge in December of 2022, as The Guardian reported. Civil Liberties Defense Center founder Lauren Regan told The Guardian that these charges were also unprecedented for environmental activists in the U.S. They are trying to separate the tree sitters from all of us, an anonymous protestor said in a press release from the Atlanta Community Press Collective responding to the December arrests. They represent the movement to them so they are charging them with terrorism. But we are all forest defenders. We are all in the movement. And we wont be scared away from this. A solidarity statement posted after Tortuguitas death has been signed by more than 1,000 organizations and individuals. Hundreds of organizations & individuals have signed in solidarity with #StopCopCity "The struggle that is playing out in Atlanta is a contest for the futureIt is up to us to create a peaceful society that does not treat human life as expendable."https://t.co/BvfkaicNC1 Defend the Atlanta Forest (@defendATLforest) January 22, 2023 The struggle that is playing out in Atlanta is a contest for the future, the statement reads. As the catastrophic effects of climate change hammer our communities with hurricanes, heat waves, and forest fires, the stakes of this contest are clearer than ever. It will determine whether those who come after us inherit an inhabitable Earth or a police state nightmare. It is up to us to create a peaceful society that does not treat human life as expendable. 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. Deep sea sponges and other creatures live on and among valuable manganese nodules like this one that could be mined from the seafloor. ROV KIEL 6000 / GEOMAR By Scott Shackelford, Christiana Ochoa, David Bosco and Kerry Krutilla As companies race to expand renewable energy and the batteries to store it, finding sufficient amounts of rare earth metals to build the technology is no easy feat. Thats leading mining companies to take a closer look at a largely unexplored frontier the deep ocean seabed. A wealth of these metals can be found in manganese nodules that look like cobblestones scattered across wide areas of deep ocean seabed. But the fragile ecosystems deep in the oceans are little understood, and the mining codes to sustainably mine these areas are in their infancy. A fierce debate is now playing out as a Canadian company makes plans to launch the first commercial deep sea mining operation in the Pacific Ocean. The Metals Company completed an exploratory project in the Pacific Ocean in fall 2022. Under a treaty governing the deep sea floor, the international agency overseeing these areas could be forced to approve provisional mining there as soon as spring 2023, but several countries and companies are urging a delay until more research can be done. France and New Zealand have called for a ban on deep sea mining. As scholars who have long focused on the economic, political and legal challenges posed by deep seabed mining, we have each studied and written on this economic frontier with concern for the regulatory and ecological challenges it poses. Manganese nodules on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, between Hawaii and Mexico, captured on camera by a remote vehicle in 2015. ROV KIEL 6000 / GEOMAR / CC BY Whats Down There, and Why Should We Care? A curious journey began in the summer of 1974. Sailing from Long Beach, California, a revolutionary ship funded by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes set course for the Pacific to open a new frontier deep seabed mining. Widespread media coverage of the expedition helped to focus the attention of businesses and policymakers on the promise of deep seabed mining, which is notable given that the expedition was actually an elaborate cover for a CIA operation. The real target was a Soviet ballistic missile submarine that had sunk in 1968 with all hands and what was believed to be a treasure trove of Soviet state secrets and tech onboard. The expedition, called Project Azorian by the CIA, recovered at least part of the submarine and it also brought up several manganese nodules from the seafloor. Manganese nodules are roughly the size of potatoes and can be found across vast areas of seafloor in parts of the Pacific and Indian oceans and deep abyssal plains in the Atlantic. They are valuable because they are exceptionally rich in 37 metals, including nickel, cobalt and copper, which are essential for most large batteries and several renewable energy technologies. Manganese nodules form as metals accumulate around a shell or part of another nodule. Thomas Walter / GEOMAR These nodules form over millennia as metals nucleate around shells or broken nodules. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, between Mexico and Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, where the mining test took place, has been estimated to have over 21 billion metric tons of nodules that could provide twice as much nickel and three times more cobalt than all the reserves on land. Mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone could be some 10 times richer than comparable mineral deposits on land. All told, estimates place the value of this new industry at some US$30 billion annually by 2030. It could be instrumental in feeding the surging global demand for cobalt that lies at the heart of lithium-ion batteries. Yet, as several scientists have noted, we still know more about the surface of the moon than what lies at the bottom of the deep seabed. Deep Seabed Ecology Less than 10% of the deep seabed has been mapped thoroughly enough to understand even the basic features of the structure and contents of the ocean floor, let alone the life and ecosystems therein. Even the most thoroughly studied region, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, is still best characterized by the persistent novelty of what is found there. Brightly colored sea cucumbers and many other unusual deep sea creatures live among the nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. ROV KIEL 6000 / GEOMAR Between 70% and 90% of living things collected in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone have never been seen before, leaving scientists to speculate about what percentage of all living species in the region has never been seen or collected. Exploratory expeditions regularly return with images or samples of creatures that would richly animate science fiction stories, like a 6-foot-long bioluminescent shark. Also unknown is the impact that deep sea mining would have on these creatures. An experiment in 2021 in water about 3 miles (5 kilometers) deep off Mexico found that seabed mining equipment created sediment plumes of up to about 6.5 feet (2 meters) high. But the project authors stressed that they didnt study the ecological impact. A similar earlier experiment was conducted off Peru in 1989. When scientists returned to that site in 2015, they found some species still hadnt fully recovered. Environmentalists have questioned whether seafloor creatures could be smothered by sediment plumes and whether the sediment in the water column could effect island communities that rely on healthy oceanic ecosystems. The Metals Company has argued that its impact is less than terrestrial mining. Given humanitys lack of knowledge of the ocean, it is not currently possible to set environmental baselines for oceanic health that could be used to weigh the economic benefits against the environmental harms of seabed mining. Scarcity and the Economic Case for Mining The economic case for deep seabed mining reflects both possibility and uncertainty. On the positive side, it could displace some highly destructive terrestrial mining and augment the global supply of minerals used in clean energy sources such as wind turbines, photovoltaic cells and electric vehicles. Terrestrial mining imposes significant environmental damage and costs to human health of both the miners themselves and the surrounding communities. Additionally, mines are sometimes located in politically unstable regions. The Democratic Republic of Congo produces 60% of the global supply of cobalt, for example, and China owns or finances 80% of industrial mines in that country. China also accounts for 60% of the global supply of rare earth element production and much of its processing. Having one nation able to exert such control over a critical resource has raised concerns. Deep seabed mining comes with significant uncertainties, however, particularly given the technologys relatively early state. First are the risks associated with commercializing a new technology. Until deep sea mining technology is demonstrated, discoveries cannot be listed as reserves in firms asset valuations. Without that value defined, it can be difficult to line up the significant financing needed to build mining infrastructure, which lessens the first-mover advantage and incentivizes firms to wait for someone else to take the lead. Commodity prices are also difficult to predict. Technology innovation can reduce or even eliminate the projected demand for a mineral. New mineral deposits on land can also boost supply: Sweden announced in January 2023 that it had just discovered the largest deposit of rare earth oxides in Europe. In all, embarking on deep seabed mining involves sinking significant costs into new technology for uncertain returns, while posing risks to a natural environment that is likely to rise in value. Who Gets to Decide the Future of Seafloor Mining? The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in the early 1990s, provides the basic rules for ocean resources. It allows countries to control economic activities, including any mining, within 200 miles of their coastlines, accounting for approximately 35% of the ocean. Beyond national waters, countries around the world established the International Seabed Authority, or ISA, based in Jamaica, to regulate deep seabed mining. Critically, the ISA framework calls for some of the profits derived from commercial mining to be shared with the international community. In this way, even countries that did not have the resources to mine the deep seabed could share in its benefits. This part of the ISAs mandate was controversial, and it was one reason that the United States did not join the Convention on the Law of the Sea. A map shows the distribution of manganese nodules, with areas of the greatest concentrations circled. Sven Petersen / GEOMAR With little public attention, the ISA worked slowly for several decades to develop regulations for exploration of undersea minerals, and those rules still arent completed. More than a dozen companies and countries have received exploration contracts, including The Metals Companys work under the sponsorship of the island nation of Nauru. ISAs work has started to draw criticism as companies have sought to initiate commercial mining. A recent New York Times investigation of internal ISA documents suggested the agencys leadership has downplayed environmental concerns and shared confidential information with some of the companies that would be involved in seabed mining. The ISA hasnt finalized environmental rules for mining. Much of the coverage of deep seabed mining has been framed to highlight the climate benefits. But this overlooks the dangers this activity could pose for the Earths largest pristine ecology the deep sea. We believe it would be wise to better understand this existing, fragile ecosystem better before rushing to mine it. Scott Shackelford: Professor of Business Law and Ethics, Indiana University, Christiana Ochoa: Professor of Law, Indiana University, David Bosco: Associate Professor of International Studies, Indiana University, Kerry Krutilla: Professor of Environmental and Energy Policy, Indiana University. Disclosure statements: Scott Shackelford is a principal investigator on grants from the Hewlett Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, National Science Foundation, and the Microsoft Corporation supporting both the Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance and the Indiana University Cybersecurity Clinic. David Bosco has received funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts for research on the work of the International Seabed Authority. Kerry Krutilla was the principal investigator for a World-Bank sponsored project on deep seabed mining. Christiana Ochoa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Reposted with permission from The Conversation. When Bowers & Wilkins announced its Px7 S2 headphones last year, the company made it clear that it already had a more premium offering nearly ready for prime time. Three months later, the Px8 arrived. While the Px8 carries a similar look to its predecessor, Bowers & Wilkins crafted this set of headphones out of more luxurious materials and managed to improve what was already great sound quality. However, the upgrades come at a steep price: the $699 Px8 is $300 more than the Px7 S2. Design At a glance, the Px8 looks nearly identical to the Px7 S2 Bowers & Wilkins debuted last year. Upon close inspection though, the differences become apparent. The Px8 has a slightly more refined aesthetic, with soft leather replacing the woven fabric on the outside of the headband and ear cups. The outermost panels of the earcups, where the companys wordmark resides, is now metal instead of plastic. And the arms and headband slider are cast aluminum, further complementing the more premium design. Bowers & Wilkins Bowers & Wilkins Px8 SCORE 83 Engadget 83 Critics - Not yet scored N/A Users - Not yet scored N/A Pros Excellent battery life Pristine sound Solid ANC Refined design Cons Expensive Not as comfortable as the Px7 S2 Automatic pausing still needs work The Px8 weighs 13 grams more than the Px7 S2, which is probably (at least partially) due to the change in materials. Memory foam ear cushions keep things comfy, but you can feel the extra load if youre doing a side-by-side comparison. For that reason, I give a slight edge to the S2 if you need something to wear for several hours at a time. After a Vegas to Atlanta flight this month, I was starting to feel the added weight and also the rings around the ear cups. On-board controls are still physical buttons on the Px8, and theyre in the exact same locations as the Px7 S2. On the right, a power/pairing slider sits above a trio of buttons for volume, playback and calls. Over on the left side, a single control toggles between active noise cancellation (ANC), transparency mode and both off. While some companies have nixed buttons in favor of touch panels, those arent always reliable, but what Bowers & Wilkins offers here certainly gets the job done. Software Subscribe to the Engadget Deals Newsletter Great deals on consumer electronics delivered straight to your inbox, curated by Engadgets editorial team. See latest Subscribe Please enter a valid email address Please select a newsletter By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. Billy Steele/Engadget The Bowers & Wilkins Music app gives you access to all of the settings on the Px8, just like it has for the companys previous headphones. On the main screen, theres up-to-date battery status with noise mode selection just below (ANC, Pass-through and off). You can also manage connections here as the Px8 supports multipoint Bluetooth with two devices. Lastly, the company has put media controls (if you link compatible services), tone settings, a quick start guide and product support right on that first panel. Once you dive deeper into the settings section, battery life percentage and noise mode (or Environmental Control as the company calls it) are prominently displayed once more. Treble and bass sliders are there as well, allowing for very basic EQ tweaks. The company hasnt provided any presets here, so youre left with those two variables to adjust. The ability to manage connections is repeated here as well, just above the option to reassign the Quick Action button on the left earcup. By default, it cycles between sound modes. However, if you prefer, you can make it summon a voice assistant. The last two notable items have to do with power management. First, Bowers & WIlkins offers an automatic standby feature that activates a low power state after 15 minutes of inactivity. You can switch it off if youd like. The second tool is the ability to activate or disable the wear sensor for automatic pausing. The company says this should pause music when you lift one earcup, but that isnt always the case. Bowers & Wilkins gives you three sensitivity options to help fine-tune it (low, medium and high), but none of those remedy the fact that the Px8 like the Px7 S2 is slow to pause when you lift an ear cup or take them off your head. This could still use some work so that at the very least audio resumes quicker after a break. Sound quality Billy Steele/Engadget One key area the Px8 differs from the Px7 S2 is sound quality. Where the latter packs in a pair of 40mm bio cellulose drivers, the former is equipped with two carbon units of the same size. Ill admit I dont know enough about headphone construction to tell you if one is technically better than the other, but what I do know is that the Px8 sounds incredible. The Px7 S2 already had great audio quality, but Bowers & Wilkins somehow manages to take things a step further with this model. Theres a warmth to the sound profile that invites you to sit and listen a while, no matter the genre. An almost extreme clarity to the audio keeps the most chaotic metal perfectly organized, allowing you to pick out individual instruments. And in the case of Underoaths Voyuerist, its easy to distinguish the backing synth even when its very subtle or laid underneath the full band going flat out. The amount of detail the Px8 exudes from bluegrass and jazz tracks is staggering, making it seem like youre in the room with Bela Fleck as he recorded My Bluegrass Heart. Its not just banjo, guitar, bass, mandolin and fiddle. You can hear the nuance in the sound of each one as they envelope you. Gallery: Bowers & Wilkins Px8 headphones review | 12 Photos /12 Gallery: Bowers & Wilkins Px8 headphones review | 12 Photos /12 And its more than the clarity and detail. The Px8 is a well-tuned powerhouse for bass-heavy electronic music and hip-hop too. When a track demands it, these headphones tap into a stash of low-end that rivals some of the best. And like everything else, you can hear the subtlety in the kick drum, drum machine and bass line. Thats true across the board, whether its bombastic beats of RTJ4 or the intricate synth work on Sylvan Essos No Rules Sandy. In terms of active noise cancellation, the Px8 does an admirable job. Its not miles better than the Px7 S2, but in nearly every circumstance including on an airplane these headphones are up to the task. Bose and Sony manage to block out more on the QuietComfort 45 and the WH-1000XM5 respectively, but Bowers & Wilkins didnt phone it in here. Theres some solid ANC performance, its just not the absolute best. Call quality Bowers & Wilkins says it moved two of the six on-board microphones closer together and re-angled them to improve voice quality. The company explained that these tweaks should also reduce wind noise. Call audio for the person on the other end was already good on the Px7 S2, but the lack of a natural-sounding transparency mode made me feel a bit shouty during voice and video chats. On the Px8, that pass-through audio is still good, but not great, and not as natural sounding as the AirPods Max. The Px8 does a great job of cutting down on background noise, though, so the headphones will help whoever is on the other end focus on your voice. However, overall voice quality isnt great as youll still sound like youre on speaker phone rather than having a decent mic near your face. Are they fine for most video and voice calls? Sure. If youre doing those things often should you consider these as your primary tool? Probably not. Battery life Billy Steele/Engadget Bowers & Wilkins has a track record of under promising and over delivering when it comes to battery life on its headphones. The company consistently outperforms the stated figure by a mile and the same is true on the Px8. Much like the Px7 S2, this model still had 40 percent left in the tank at the 30-hour mark the companys official rating. And yes, thats with active noise cancellation turned on over the course of a few days, plus the occasional use of transparency mode for calls. After 30 hours on the Px7 S2, there was 33 percent left, so the Px8 seems to be slightly more efficient than its more affordable sibling or perhaps has a slightly bigger battery. The company has included a quick-charge feature that gives you seven hours of listening time in 15 minutes. Thats nice if you find yourself in a pinch, but with well over 30 hours of ANC use available, Im only charging once a week after using the Px8 a few hours each day. The battery life here stacks up well against the best you can get in noise-canceling headphones right now. The competition At $699, the Px8 is the most expensive set of wireless noise-canceling headphones Ive reviewed. Even Master & Dynamics priciest model is $100 cheaper (the MW75). You have to really dig what Bowers & Wilkins is putting down to dive in here. Simply put, there are great alternatives available for less some of which offer more features. Heck, Id argue the companys own Px7 S2 is a better value at $399. The Px7 S2 may not have the high-end look of the Px8, but it does have excellent sound quality, solid ANC performance and better-than-advertised battery life. The companys warm, crisp and clear audio is on display on the more affordable model and its more comfortable to wear for long periods of time. Aside from the boost in overall sound quality and that refined design, the Px7 S2 has every other feature you get on the Px8 for a lot less. At this point, Sonys WH-1000XM5 is still the best you can buy, mostly for the mix of audio and noise-canceling performance, with a long list of handy features on the side. The two most notable are the M5s ability to automatically change sound modes based on your location or activity and the Speak-to-Chat tool that pauses the audio when you begin to speak. Simply put, no other company comes close to packing in as much as Sony. Wrap-up When a pair of headphones costs $699, I start to expect things. Mainly that they need to be damn near perfect for me to recommend them. The Px8 nearly is when it comes to sound quality, but there are other areas where they fall short of the companys previous model and some of the competition. Automatic pausing is still in need of refinement, even with the sensitivity settings. And overall, the Px7 S2 is much more comfortable to wear for long periods of time. Bowers & Wilkins impresses with this most premium offering, but there are still some rough edges to smooth out. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing. Google agrees to provide clearer information on its services to EU users It will make changes to Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Store and Google Play. Google has agreed to provide clearer information to users browsing Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels and Google Flights in Europe, the EU Commission announced in a press release. It will soon show whether it's acting as an intermediary or selling products directly, and better inform consumers about deliveries, returns and repairs and more. It's making the moves to comply with EU regulations following a dialogue with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) that started in 2021. "EU consumers are entitled to clear, complete information so that they can make informed choices," said commissioner for justice Didier Reynders in a statement. "The commitments made by Google are a step forward in this direction." Google Flights and Google Hotels will soon make clear to consumers whether they're selling directly or merely acting as an intermediary for other companies. They must also state what was used as a reference price for discounts, and clarify that Google Hotels reviews aren't verified. Finally, they must conform to the same transparency rules followed by other platforms like Expedia.com. Meanwhile, Google Store and Google Play Store must provide "clear pre-contractual information" on delivery prices, right of withdrawal and repair or replacement options. They must also make it easy to find information on vendors including their legal name and address, along with "direct and effective" methods of contact, like live telephone agents. Subscribe to the Engadget Deals Newsletter Great deals on consumer electronics delivered straight to your inbox, curated by Engadgets editorial team. See latest Subscribe Please enter a valid email address Please select a newsletter By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. Finally, it must show users how to provide different country versions of the Google Play Store to conform to EU geo-blocking regulations, while allowing them to use payment from any EU country. As it stands now, Google restricts changes to country of residence to once a year, which can cause users to lose content or any credit. The change is designed to let consumers "enjoy the same rights and access the same content, wherever they are in the EU." Neither Google nor the EU Commission have yet to say when the changes will go into effect. Samsung is holding its first Unpacked event of 2023 on February 1st, and many expect the Galaxy S23 family to be the centerpiece. The company has even teased a few details, such as camera and performance upgrades. But will this phone lineup be a major revision, or a modest yearly refresh? Lets take a look at what youre likely to see when Samsung takes to the stage in San Francisco. Galaxy S23 Ultra If the Galaxy S22 Ultras main appeal was its Note-style pen functionality, the S23 Ultra may revolve around its camera system. Rumors from leaker Ice Universe and others have long pointed to the highest-end S23 model sporting a 200-megapixel main camera, and Samsung added fuel to the discussion by unveiling a sensor that could fit the bill. The ISOCELL HP2 promises extremely detailed photos and 8K video at 30 frames per second while still offering solid low-light capabilities. It might also capture more accurate colors in brightly-lit scenarios. The front camera may get a slight bump to 12MP as well. It wont surprise you to hear that Samsung is poised to give the S23 family a speed boost with Qualcomms Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Its supposedly over 25 percent faster than Gen 1 while offering hardware-accelerated ray tracing for more realistic lighting in games. You may see up to a fourfold improvement in AI processing, too. Qualcomm claims Gen 2 is up to 40 percent more energy efficient, and you might get emergency satellite communication in addition to WiFi 7 networking. However, the biggest shock may be where you find that chip. Well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims Samsung will use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to power the Galaxy S23 in every country, rather than using its in-house Exynos chips in regions like Asia and Europe. Critics have routinely knocked Exynos-based Galaxy phones for having worse performance and battery life than their Snapdragon counterparts, but that might not be an issue this time around. Subscribe to the Engadget Deals Newsletter Great deals on consumer electronics delivered straight to your inbox, curated by Engadgets editorial team. See latest Subscribe Please enter a valid email address Please select a newsletter By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. You may not see other sweeping changes, but thats not necessarily a problem. If leaked images at Nieuwe Mobiel are accurate, the Galaxy S23 Ultra will have a slightly flatter design than its predecessor, addressing complaints about the 6.8-inch screens curved edges. Youd still find a 12MP ultra-wide camera, dual 10MP telephoto lenses, an S-Pen and up to 12GB of RAM. You may get a 1TB storage option, though, so you might not have to worry as much about that 8K footage chewing up all your free space. Galaxy S23 and S23+ Samsung Samsungs more mainstream smartphones arent expected to receive as dramatic an update, but there could still be meaningful improvements. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and the rumored 12MP front camera might arrive alongside an ever-so-slightly larger battery. The phones could also ship with 256GB of storage as the baseline important if youd rather not spend extra just to hold a sizable media collection. Otherwise well probably get the familiar 6.1- and 6.6-inch displays of the Galaxy S22 line, not to mention a 50MP main rear camera, a 12MP ultra-wide and a lone 10MP telephoto. Leaked pictures at Nieuwe Mobiel suggest Samsung is redesigning the camera array to look more like that of the Ultra family, so the conspicuous camera hump of the S21 and S22 may vanish. Galaxy Book 3 Ultra The Tech Outlook Samsung rarely sticks to phone introductions at Unpacked events, and there are signs a high-end laptop may be the other star of the show. Samsungs reservation page hints at a new Galaxy Book range, while the companys mobile experience president TM Roh makes clear in a blog post that there will be Ultra products in more device categories besides phones. Expect an Ultra laptop, then. Provided a leak at The Tech Outlook is authentic, that new model would be the Galaxy Book 3 Ultra. Its not entirely clear what that laptop might deliver, but Samsung Display said the high-end Galaxy Book line will feature OLED screens with built-in touch, much like smartphones. The Ultra is also expected to arrive in tandem with a more conventional Galaxy Book 3 Pro and a Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 convertible with pen support. Wed expect improved performance, and possibly extras like pen input and advanced display technology (this is Samsung, after all). Wildcards: New Galaxy Tabs and Galaxy Buds Sam Rutherford/Engadget There hasnt been much talk of other product unveilings at Unpacked, and there are even rumors casting doubt on potential releases. The Elec sources claim Samsung has pushed out the launch of a Galaxy Tab S9 family, possibly due to economic uncertainty and poor sales of the Tab S8 series. As it is, the company tends to wait longer between tablet revisions than it does phones the Tab S8 arrived in early 2022 where its S7 predecessor arrived in summer 2020. We also wouldnt count on new earbuds. Samsung introduced the regular Galaxy Buds 2 in summer 2021, and the Buds 2 Pro a year later. Short of a revamp of the so-so Galaxy Buds Live, theres no pressure on the company to update its in-ear audio roster. Other products are only likely to appear at Samsungs later events. Dont brace yourself for new Galaxy Z foldables, Galaxy A budget phones or Galaxy Watch timepieces this early in the year. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing. Samsung's Galaxy Buds 2 are $55 off right now Grab them in all color variants for $95. All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing. With the launch of the Galaxy Buds 2 last year, Samsung brought premium features like active noise cancellation (ANC) to its entry-level headphones, while keeping the same $150 price as the Galaxy Buds+. If that's still too much money, you can now grab a pair at Amazon in multiple colors for just $95, for a savings of $55 or 37 percent. The Galaxy Buds 2 received a solid 84 Engadget Review score thanks to a number of big improvements. The biggest is the addition of ANC, along with an adjustable ambient sounds mode. While the ANC doesn't block external sounds as well as more expensive earbuds, it's a big improvement over simple passive noise cancellation They also offer improved sound quality, with ample base and balanced sound. It also offers EQ presets and the ability to control features using the Galaxy Watch 4. They're 15 percent small and 20 percent lighter than the Galaxy Buds+, making them he company's smallest and most comfortable earbuds to date. Battery life isn't incredible at 5 hours (with ANC enabled), but the case holds an additional three full charges and it supports Qi wireless charging as well. Call quality is solid thanks to AI that helps reduce background noise. All those features make the Galaxy Buds 2 a very solid buy, particularly at the $95 sale price that's just off the all-time low. They're designed to work best with Android devices, though so iPhone users will probably want to look elsewhere. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice. The Morning After: Will AI be your next lawyer? Probably not, but it might scrape through legal exams. In a new study, University of Minnesota law professors used ChatGPT AI chatbot to answer graduate exams at four courses in their school. The AI passed all four, but with an average grade of C+. The University of Minnesota group noted ChatGPT was good at addressing "basic legal rules" and summaries, but it floundered when trying to pinpoint issues relevant in a case. When faced with business management questions in a different study, the generator was "amazing" with simple operations management and process analysis questions, but it couldn't handle advanced process questions. It even made mistakes with sixth-grade-level math something other AI authors have struggled with. If you're unsure whether we're ready for robot lawyers, you're not the only one. DoNotPay is a free AI-powered chatbot that can draft letters and fill out forms for various legal matters, including appeals for parking tickets. Joshua Browder, the CEO of the New York startup, announced his company's bot would represent a defendant fighting a traffic ticket in the courtroom on February 22nd. However, he received multiple jail threats from state bar prosecutors if he was to go through with his plan. DoNotPay is postponing its court case. Browder told NPR "The truth is most people can't afford lawyers. This could've shifted the balance and allowed people to use tools like ChatGPT in the courtroom that maybe could've helped them win cases." Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed Subscribe to the Engadget Deals Newsletter Great deals on consumer electronics delivered straight to your inbox, curated by Engadgets editorial team. See latest Subscribe Please enter a valid email address Please select a newsletter By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. The electric pickup will only be available in small numbers this year. During a conference call discussing Tesla's latest earnings, company chief Elon Musk said mass production of the Cybertruck, its electric pickup, won't begin until 2024. He still expects manufacturing to kick off "sometime this summer" but warned output would be "very slow" early on. Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019. Continue reading. A nicer screen, way better performance, but double the price. For people intrigued by the Steam Deck but want something with a bit more performance, the Ayaneo 2 is a great little (pricey) portable gaming PC, says Engadget's Sam Rutherford. It features a newer Ryzen 7 6800U CPU that pumps out frame rates between 25 to 40 percent higher than the Steam Deck, while its sophisticated hall sensor joysticks deliver even more responsive controls. The Ayaneo 2 also features a seven-inch bezel-less LCD display with a higher 1,920 x 1,200 resolution and tons of connectivity, thanks to three USB-C ports. Crucially, it's based on Windows 11 instead of SteamOS, which means it should run practically any game you can think of. The main downsides are somewhat short battery life (about two and a half hours on a charge), the lack of built-in touchpads and a starting price $450 higher than the Steam Deck. Yeah, that's about double. Continue reading. The agency claims the infiltration has thwarted over $130 million in ransom demands. The US Department of Justice has spent months infiltrating and disrupting the Hive ransomware group, the agency announced on Thursday. The DOJ says Hive has targeted over 1,500 victims in 80-plus countries, extorting hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments. It first infiltrated Hive's network in July 2022, providing over 300 decryption keys to Hive's current victims and more than 1,000 keys to previous victims preventing over $130 million in ransom payments. Continue reading. The personal data includes full names, addresses and dates of birth. Dutch authorities arrested a hacker for obtaining and trying to sell the personal information of nearly every Austrian citizen in May 2020 and the defendant had also offered "similar data sets" from Italy, the Netherlands and Colombia. Authorities say the hacker posted in an online forum the nine million data sets, which police say consists of "registration data" residents must provide to authorities: full names, addresses and dates of birth but no financial info. "Since this data was freely available on the internet, it must absolutely be assumed that these registration data are, in full or in part, irrevocably in the hands of criminals," the police said. Continue reading. There's never been a better time to jump into virtual reality. Headsets have come a long way since the launch of the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive six years ago. The Meta Quest 2 has already been around for two years, and it's proven to be a very capable portable VR experience. And if you're looking for a more immersive experience, high-end PC headsets are getting cheaper (and there's the new PS VR 2 to look forward to). Read on for our top picks. Continue reading. Aflurry of statements from the Minister of Law and Justice and the Chief Justice of India have rekindled the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) versus collegium debate. This is not the place to discuss the merits/demerits of each system, since this has been discussed quite often. Instead, one may put forth some of the observations with respect to the Supreme Court collegiums recent recommendations (re-recommendation would be a more appropriate word) of advocates for appointment as judges in high courts. On 18 January 2023, the Supreme Court collegium once again recommended the names of Amitesh Banerjee and Sakya Sen to be elevated as judges of the Calcutta High Court. Moreover, the collegium also recommended other individuals to be elevated to the position of judge in various high courts. The recommendation of advocate Saurabh Kirpal made headlines, who would be the first openly gay judge in India, if the collegiums recommendation is accepted by the Department of Justice. The European Union wants swift accountability for 'horrific' crimes in Ukraine, EU justice ministers said, even as they differed over the methods in a debate about how to bring prosecutions, seek evidence or fund war damage repairs. Cant Forget the 22 Young Victims, From 12 to 19, of Serial Killer Bill Bonin, the Infamous Freeway Killer Los Angeles, CASo often the innocent victims of serial or mass killers are forgotten, that is why the authors of the most recent Bill Bonin Freeway Killer historical biography, Without Redemption, sought to include as much about them as possible. Each of them had a family, friends and communities they belonged to, some more than others as a number were runaways lost on the streets and thus easy pickings for the manipulations of Bonin. Without Redemption in Kindle & Nook on Sale for 99 Cents Till March 31, 2023 Today, over 40 years later, many might be husbands, fathers or grandfathers, men who enjoyed the beauties of life while also suffering its vicissitudes, but they would have lived they're lives but for William Bonin. Families left behind were torn apart, some literally, by the Freeway Killer and his five accomplices, one who escaped justice for double-murder with Bonin's help. This fact was uncovered in one of the most detailed serial killer historical biographies ever written, Without Redemption: Creation & Deeds of Freeway Killer Bill Bonin, His Five Accomplices & How One Who Escaped Justice by Vonda Pelto, Ph.D. and Michael B. Butler Here are the names of those young boys and men torn from life by Bonin: Mark Shelton (17) August 4, 1979 Marcus Grabs (17) August 5, 1979 Robert Wirostek (16) August 20, 1979 Donald Hyden (15) August 27, 1979 David Murillo (17) September 9, 1979 Wallace Tanner, November 14, 1979 John Doe (14-20) November 30, 1979 Dennis Frank Fox (17) December 2, 1979 John Kilpatrick (15) December 10, 1979 Michael McDonald (16) January 1, 1980 James Moore, February 1, 1980 Charles Miranda (14) February 3, 1980 James Macabe (12) February 3, 1980 Ronald Gatlin (18) March 14, 1980 Glen Barker (14) March 21, 1980 Russell Rugh (15) March 21, 1980 Harry Todd Turner (15) -- March 24, 1980 Steven Wood (16) April 10, 1980 Darin Lee Kendrick (19) April 29, 1980 Larry Sharp, May 18, 1980 Sean King (14) May 19, 1980 Steven Wells (18) June 2, 1980 Without Redemption Book Trailer Radio Show Video of Vonda Pelto on Gary Nolan Radio Show A new historical biography of Freeway Killer Bill Bonin, Without Redemption: Creation & Deeds of Freeway Killer Bill Bonin, His Five Accomplices & How One Escaped Justice, is tailor made for a multi-episode mini-series or docudrama. The co-authors, one a Clinical Psychologist who had extensive dealings with Bonin before and during his trial, solved two 40-year-old murder mysteries and created a book which tracks the evolution of his personality for an early age till execution. Employing a treasure trove of the killer's diaries detailing the murders of 22 teenage boys, Vonda Pelto, Ph.D. and Michael B. Butler reveal how the notorious Bonin masterminded his killing spree in 1979/80. Bonin was arrested THREE TIMES during his reign of terror and let go every time. Without Redemption, using documents from variety of sources, including Bonin's own writings, brings the reader into the back and forth with witnesses, lawyers, media, jailhouse snitches, friends, friends, family, inmates at Los Angeles Men's Central Jail and Bonin's co-murderers. The book was written on a number of parallel tracks that constantly intersect: First, it is the most detailed historical biography ever written about Bill Bonin, the notorious Freeway Killer responsible for murdering 22 teenage boys over ten-months in 1979-80. Second, it is a psychological roadmap which charts the evolution of Bonin's personality from abused child to sexual predator to serial killer. This is accomplished using documents from his childhood, war service, multiple California government mental health and penal institutions, witness testimony and the expertise of Clinical Psychologist Vonda Pelto, Ph.D., who had many sessions with Bonin and two of his accomplices while working in Los Angeles Men's Central Jail. Third, it is a narrative which, using long hidden documents, reveals the inner workings of Bonin's mind, showing how he thought, felt, planned and viewed the world. The narrative displays Bonin, an abused high school dropout, cleverly manipulating lawyers, judges, doctors, social workers, friends, family, probation officers, government bureaucrats, detectives, journalists and, most tragically, the innocent victims of his rage. Fourth, Without Redemption reveals the complex story of what happened after Bonin's final arrest, when so much was in flux and so many moving parts were swirling about. Archived investigative documents, collected from a variety of sources, brings to light a number of surprising, shocking, sad and even funny events from those ten tumultuous months from June 1980 to March 1981. Finally, it is a book which solves two 40-year-old murder mysteries and unlocks how one day of crossroads and coincidences, in the midst of the murder spree, profoundly impacted many lives and future events. The most detailed bio of serial killer Bill Bonin ever written using previously hidden documents. How childhood abuse & Vietnam War service helped create what followed. How Bonin manipulated California judicial, mental health & prison systems for nine years before the killings. Interviews of Bonin, Miley & Munro with Vonda Pelto, Ph.D. before, during & after his Los Angeles trial. Bonin's jailhouse writings offer new perspective on his brutality, methods, thoughts and personality. How & Why Bonin covered for accomplice Eric Wijnaendts, who helped him with two murders. How & Why March 24, 1980 is a key date in the Bill Bonin story. Without Redemption: Creation & Deeds of Freeway Killer Bill Bonin, His Five Accomplices & How One Escaped Justice, Paperback ISBN: 979-8841931249, Hard Cover ISBN: 979-8844477775. For more info go to www.WithoutRedemption.com and purchase copies at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Media Contact: For interviews or to request review copies contact Flotsam PR at 213-534-7292 or flotsampr@pm.me. About the Authors: Vonda Pelto, Ph.D., author of Without Remorse and co-author of Without Redemption, was born and raised in the small town of Needles, California, in the barren desert. Brought up in a strict Southern Baptist household, her sheltered childhood and family life meant Vonda was in for a rude awakening when she was hired for a unique job. After the unexpected January 1981 jailhouse suicide of Freeway Killer Vernon Butts, the Los Angeles County Mental Health & Sheriff's Departments needed a new strategy to prevent this from happening with any other high-profile inmates awaiting or standing trial. Michael B. Butler, author of A World Flight Over Russia, is a professional photographer who has worked extensively in book, travel and corporate PR. His assignments documenting the 50th Anniversaries of Pearl Harbor and D-Day, flying around the world across Russia on the World Flight in July 1992, documenting a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land with 700 Christians in 2013 and multiple PR junkets to Ireland and Tahiti added ample materials to his media library. Thursday, January 26, 2023 Islamic funeral traditions and Jewish funeral traditions are remarkably similar. There are approximately eight million Muslims in the United States, double the number of Jews in the U.S. What do Americans need to know about the different observances of these two religions? Dr. Ahmad-Rufai Abdullah speaks with host Gail Rubin on The Doyenne of Death Podcast about Muslim traditions regarding funerals and burials. Topics discussed on this program include: The key elements of Islamic funeral and burial traditions What the Janazah process of body preparation involves Who does Muslim body preparations and who performs funerals When funerals and burials are prohibited Mourning traditions and how they vary by sect and culture How to respond to a bereaved member of the Islamic faith Listen to both parts of the program: Dr. Ahmad-Rufai Abdullah immigrated to the United States in 1992 to pursue graduate education at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He is the founder/president/CEO of Luba Group Inc. and the Foundation for Human Development. He is a leader of the Islamic Burial Society of North America, formed in 2006, and has trained hundreds of volunteers to conduct the Islamic Janazah ritual to prepare the deceased for burial. This interview was originally recorded September 25, 2013. You can find additional information about Islamic funeral traditions at this post on The Family Plot Blog. Powered by RedCircle About The Doyenne of Death New episodes of The Doyenne of Death podcast are released every Thursday. Episodes are available on the podcast playlist on YouTube as well as wherever you get your podcasts. Recent shows focus on Greek Orthodox funeral traditions, Near Death Experiences (NDEs), the physical impacts of grief, and an interview about the book Last Rites: The Evolution of the American Funeral. Gail Rubin is a Certified Thanatologist, a Certified Funeral Celebrant, an award-winning author and speaker, creator of Newly-Dead The Game and five-time coordinator of the Before I Die New Mexico Festival. Learn more about Gail Rubin, the podcast, and her work in death education. Sign up for a free planning form and get more information at www.AGoodGoodbye.com. Related Fairfield, MT (59436) Today Intervals of clouds and sunshine in the morning with more clouds for later in the day. A few flurries or snow showers possible. High 46F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds early will give way to generally clear conditions overnight. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 23F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Reports that the HS2 train line may not go all the way to London Euston have 'thrown into sharp focus' what farmers living on the route have had to endure 'day in-day out'. The NFU has responded to a report in The Sun which claims that the project may not run into London Euston and some sections of the line may be scrapped altogether. HS2 was originally intended to connect London with Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The Leeds leg has since been cancelled. The NFU said farming families living on the route have had to experience disruption and delays, as well witness first hand the spiralling cost of the project. "They will be dismayed about more uncertainty right along the route," said NFU vice president, David Exwood, It is completely unacceptable that still, after all this time, the communication and lack of engagement between HS2 and farmers remains so very poor. "HS2 is still failing to provide relevant information to farmers meaning they do not know what land is being taken as part of this project, for how long, and when it will be returned." In addition, concluding claims and receiving compensation is taking years, leading to mounting financial pressures for farming businesses. This comes at a time when farmers and growers are already facing significant increased costs and uncertainty for their business. Last year, the NFU launched a petition, which was sent to parliament, highlighting the need for 'unprecedented measures' to be taken to restrict the powers of HS2 Ltd. The petition covered everything from how compulsory purchase powers are used for permanent and temporary land take, and powers to only take rights for utility works. It also looked at the issues of drainage and flooding, weed control, and the prolonged occupation of farmland. The NFU recognises the importance of investing in the nations transport infrastructure," Mr Exwood said. "However, it is essential Britains farming business owners are treated fairly and with respect, meaning farm businesses must be left in a strong, viable condition where land can still be farmed productively. Researchers are seeking to enrol veterinary practices as they begin a study to determine and benchmark individual and herd-level passive transfer status across UK dairy herds. This is the first study to examine the issue from a UK-wide perspective, with an ultimate aim to inform best practice to benefit both farmers and vets. Colostrum is essential for the provision of maternally derived antibodies to the new-born calf. This process, known as passive transfer, ensures that neonatal calves are provided a degree of immune protection during early life. However, within the UK, the prevalence of failure of passive transfer at the individual-calf level remains high. This is evidenced by recent studies performed in Scotland and southern England, which identified failure of passive transfer in 14% and 21% of calves, respectively. Those studies draw on a relatively low number of farms, all located within a specific region, which makes extrapolation to a national context difficult. The study, led by the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), is hoped will be the largest of its kind within the UK, which will increase understanding of the herd-level prevalence of passive transfer in UK dairy herds. Working with participants, the project will harvest and compile prospective total protein data routinely collected by practitioners from calves between one and seven days old. This data, combined with a brief questionnaire, will be used to determine how farmers are managing the harvesting, storage and feeding of colostrum and benchmark enrolled herds. Breed and gender differences will also be assessed, and the herd-level prevalence of failure of passive transfer determined. The project, funded by the Barham Benevolent Foundation, will also determine the achievability of recently updated thresholds suggested by consensus of North American experts. Practices which sign up are expected to collect consent from farmers prior to routine serum total protein sampling, and record and store the results of any analysis alongside calf age, gender, breed, and farm. A questionnaire, taking approximately 20 minutes, must be completed for each farm once during the study period. After agreeing to participate, practices who sign up will be contacted on a quarterly basis for collection of the data. Once collated, researchers will anonymise and benchmark each farm, with the results provided to participating practices. The study is being led by PhD student George Lindley, who conceived the idea while working as a farm practitioner during a European College of Bovine Health Management (ECBHM) residency at the RVC. George Lindley, PhD student at the RVC, said: There is a wealth of information being collected routinely by farm vets regarding passive transfer which, if compiled, may provide helpful information regarding the health and welfare of calves born on dairy farms within the UK. "With this study we hope to harvest that data in a way that adds little extra work to vets and practices involved but provides useful information for those stakeholders involved and the industry as a whole. The project started in October 2022 and is seeking practice participation until October 2023, with the target for publication during early 2024. Practices with any number of dairy clients within England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland are encouraged to consider signing up by emailing ptresearch@rvc.ac.uk. The new Food and Drink Export Council has held its first meeting as the sector looks to increase British food exports by 30% by 2030. Following significant lobbying from the industry to boost exports, the government has delivered on its pledge to establish the council. Members of it, which includes the NFU, Defra, a selection of SMEs and others, have now met for the first time to set objectives for the UK's future export strategy. The aim of the meeting was to bring together industry experts and devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to promote exports from all parts of the UK. The council's establishment is seen as a crucial step towards promoting farmers' interests overseas. The body's purpose is provide strategic oversight and co-ordination to help identify additional measures that will help deliver increased exports. It is expected the council will have a strong focus on the development and delivery of a long-term strategic plan to drive growth in agriculture, food and drink exports. NFU director of trade Nick von Westenholz, who attended the first council meeting, said work had stated to get British food on plates across the world. The quality of British food is globally renowned, and the NFU has an ambition to increase British food exports by 30% by 2030," he added. The NFU has campaigned for a Food and Drink Export Council to help achieve that ambition, and so we're delighted that its work starts today. "I look forward to the government and farming industry working together to get more climate-friendly, British food on plates across the world." It comes as exports of British food to major non-EU markets have soared above pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Overall, exports of UK food and drink products globally were worth 5.3 billion in Q1 2022, a rise of nearly 31 percent compared to Q1 2021. The Welsh government has confirmed an inquiry into the planned closure of 2 Sisters' Llangefni-based poultry factory. It was announced on Wednesday that the poultry processing plant in Anglesey would shut, threatening 730 jobs. Wales' Economy Minister Vaughan Gething has now confirmed that a task force would be formed to analyse the firm's decision. The minister added that the task force would gather on 3 February to find "a way forward." Bodies such as the local authority, the Welsh government, Business Wales and trade union representatives will form the group. "This is a clearly a worrying situation facing not just the workers, but the wider community," Mr Gething said. "We are determined to do all we can and to pull all possible levers to offer support to people affected by these recent developments." 2 Sisters Food Group said the Llangefni site was 'not sustainable' as the firm continues to battle the bird flu crisis and surging production costs. A spokesperson for the poultry processor - one of the UK's largest - said the factory was "old, one of our smallest sites and lacking space to be efficient." "The cost to produce here is higher, and it would require significant investment to bring it up to the standards of our other factories. "Our products can be made more efficiently elsewhere across our estate," the spokesperson said. Productivity on UK dairy farms have fallen over the last decade, while other major dairy producing countries have seen stable or increasing productivity. Data from the International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN) shows that productivity on the typical UK dairy farm has declined. Productivity is the amount of output produced, compared with the amount of input required it is a measure of efficiency. Looking at productivity as pence per litre (ppl) of output versus input for a typical 160 cow herd in North-West England shows a downward trend in the last decade. The UK is not alone in this, with IFCN's data showing a typical North German farm experiencing a similar downturn. However, farms elsewhere are seeing productivity growth, including in herds in long established dairy exporting countries such as Denmark and Belgium. Productivity has also increased in growing export nations such as Spain, Poland and Belarus. (Source: IFCN, AHDB) Weaker productivity makes it hard to produce at a competitive price while still making a profit, leaving UK dairy products vulnerable to being undercut by countries with more efficient production. With current high input prices, farms may struggle to improve productivity in the immediate future, at least in terms of ppl outputs versus inputs. Analysing the IFCN's data, the AHDB said: "International productivity comparisons like this often raise two comments. "The first being that UK productivity was higher to begin with, so some other countries are simply catching up. "This may be partly true, but the data does suggest farms in a few of these countries have now overtaken the UK in terms of efficiency." The AHDB added: "A second question often asked is, given that a lot of British milk is sold within the UK, why would this matter to farmers here? "The direct impact is that poorer productivity means lower profits because herds use more inputs to make less." The indirect impact is that imports and exports expose the UK to global dairy prices, the AHDB said, so UK herds are operating in the same market as herds in Poland, Spain and any other dairy exporting country. "Costly inputs do focus the mind on efficiency and farms will be carefully considering whether the output is worth the input," the levy board explained. "The key is to maintain that renewed focus on efficiency should things improve, leading to better profits, productivity and competitiveness in the future." Charles William Bopp, III known to all as Trip was 24 years old when he was killed April 22, 2021, on a farm near Remington where he worked and lived. He was the son of Sue Bopp and Charles Bopp, Jr., who retired as a major from the Fauquier County Sheriffs Office in 2020. He has no connection to any of the defendants, according to the sheriffs office. Instead, investigators allege, the suspects intended to rob a nearby residence but had the wrong address. At an early age, Trip knew he wanted to be a farmer as he shared the passion with his grandfather and uncle on Cool Lawn Farm and cousins near and far, said Bopps obituary. Living on his family farm, he was up early taking care of his dairy cattle before school and would get on his John Deere tractor as soon as school was out. At the time he was killed, the obituary said, Trip was working with Jonathan Tufts at Springs Valley Farm running a commercial hay production business and developing new products to assist in preserving the environment. Trip embraced the values of farming and spent as much time outdoors as he could, learning and appreciating the importance of caring for animals, the land and open spaces. Sentiment in the German economy has brightened with the business climate index rising up to 90.2 points in January, as per the Ifo Institute for Economic Research. The index for January was up from 88.6 points in December. The surge in Germanys business climate index is due to considerably less pessimistic expectations. Companies were, however, somewhat less satisfied with their current situation, according to a press release by Ifo. Sentiment in the German economy has brightened with the business climate index rising up to 90.2 points in January, as per Ifo. The index for January was up from 88.6 points in December. The surge in Germany's business climate index is due to considerably less pessimistic expectations. In manufacturing, the index continued along its upward trajectory. In manufacturing, the index continued along its upward trajectory. Companies assessed their current situation as better. Their expectations for the coming six months were also noticeably brighter. Order volumes are declining but remain at a high level. Production is set to increase in the months ahead. In trade, the index increased notably. Expectations improved particularly strongly. Businesses continued to assess their current situation as mildly positive. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (NB) A new still from Rani Mukerji's upcoming film Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway is out now. On Thursday, the makers of the movie released it's first still on Instagram.The post was captioned, "On the auspicious occasion of Saraswati Puja, here's an exclusive still from Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway, now releasing on 17th March 2023. Get ready to witness a woman's resolve to fight against all odds & take on a country to protect her children at all costs."In the still, Rani is seen spending some time with her children while holding a baby in her arms and another child is sitting beside her while they take a selfie in a Durga puja set-up. Rani is wearing a yellow sari which she accessorised with a long neck chain, yellow, red and white bangles with a yellow flower on her hair along with a small red bindi.While the baby in her arms is seen matching her outfit with her as she is seen wearing a red and turmeric yellow outfit. The other kid can be seen in a yellow kurta.Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway is an upcoming Bollywood film starring Rani Mukerji and Anirban Bhattacharya. The film is directed by Ashima Chibber and is the true story of an Indian couple whose children were taken away from them by Norwegian welfare services in 2011.The film is set to be released in theatres on March 17, 2023. ABU DHABI, UAE, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sungrow, the global leading inverter and energy storage system solution supplier, signed a strategic distribution agreement for PV inverter solutions with the reputed Al-Babtain Leblanc, further facilitating Saudi Vision 2030 ambitions to accelerate the energy transition and achieve sustainability goals, proven their level of commitment with the region. The distribution agreement plays a vital role in positioning Al-Babtain LeBlanc as the "partner of choice" for the KSA market as a new distributor in the country for residential, commercial, and industrial solar energy products. In line with its vision to develop a sustainable environment for a greener tomorrow, Al-Babtain LeBlanc, through innovative, energy-efficient, eco-friendly, and reliable quality serves to the best their valued customers in KSA. Together with Sungrow, Al-Babtain LeBlanc will meet a wide range of distributed applications with a comprehensive product portfolio covering commercial and industrial, residential, and hybrid market needs. Commenting on the agreement, Mr. Saleh Al Bedaiwi, General Manager at Al-Babtain LeBlanc said, "Sungrow has profound and sustained research and high level of localization on the distributed market in the Middle East. The signing of the strategic distribution agreement with Sungrow will further deepen our cooperation relationship, it is hoped that we can cooperatively expand the distribution PV market of KSA and accelerate the local energy transition." Mr. Alvin Shi, Managing Director of Sungrow MENA, said, "We appreciate Al-Babtain LeBlanc's support and trust. Sungrow always attaches great importance to the development of clean energy in MENA region, KSA takes prominent part. And we have been deeply cultivating in KSA market with advanced products, attentive service and professional local team. Together with Al-Babtain LeBlanc, we are looking forward to jointly shaping a greener KSA in the near future." About Sungrow Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. ("Sungrow") is the world's most bankable inverter brand with over 269GW installed worldwide as of June 2022. Founded in 1997 by Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial & industrial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions, NEV driving solutions, EV charging station solutions and renewable hydrogen production systems. With a strong 25-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow products power over 150 countries worldwide. Learn more about Sungrow by visiting www.sungrowpower.com. About Al-Babtain LeBlanc For the past 30 years, Al-Babtain LeBlanc has provided highly developed communication infrastructure systems across the MENA region. Today, the company has the scale and agility to offer our clients a total solution across the sectors of communication, infrastructure, renewable energy, security, mobility, power, building, sports, marine, and more with a well-earned reputation in the industry. Al-Babtain LeBlanc included the solar solutions to its portfolio as an expansion strategy in line with Saudi Arabia's vision 2030 for renewable energy and sustainability. Our trusted reputation revolves around industry knowledge, experience and state of the art facilities that yield top-notch quality for our clients. Learn more about Al-Babtain LeBlanc by visiting www.abltel.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990919/Sungrow_Signs_Distribution_Agreement_in_the_Kingdom_of_Saudi_Arabia_with_Al_Babtain_LeBlanc.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1344575/Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/sungrow-signs-distribution-agreement-in-the-kingdom-of-saudi-arabia-with-al-babtain-leblanc-301732163.html The International Tourism Fair closes an edition that has exceeded all expectations, highlighting the good prospects for world tourism activity The excellent figures confirm the growth pathof tourism worldwide, and the leadership and global reach of FITUR, which has registered significant growth in all its parameters, practically equalling its record FITUR 2023 closes its doors with a balance of massive success that demonstrates the great dynamism of the entire value chain of the tourism industry, and the good prospects for growth of this activity worldwide. In addition to the satisfaction expressed by the participants, the high figures of this edition have exceeded all expectations, reaching parameters to the historical record of FITUR 2020 FITUR attracted a total of 222,000 attendees, representing a growth of 99.6%, almost double that of 2022. In terms of the profile of these participants, 136,000 professionals have been registered, representing an increase of 68% and an estimated 86,000 visitors, after today's closing of its two public days, which is practically three times more than last year's figure. In terms of participation, the fair brought together 8,500 companies, 131 countries, 755 exhibitors, in 8 halls of the exhibition centre, which represented a net exhibition area of 66,900 m2, equalling the occupation of 2020. It is estimated that this movement of arrivals at FITUR will generate an impact on Madrid's economy of approximately 400 million euros FITUR also registered a major milestone in the digital sphere, with traffic to the IFEMA MADRID websitereaching an all-time record of 146,000 visits. The FITUR LIVEConnect digital platform, which complements the fair with a hybrid format had more than 56,000 registrations The impact of FITUR 2023 has also been reflected in the large press attendance and international media coverage recorded during the days of the fair, with 6,374 journalists accredited, of which 5,861 were national, and 513 international journalists from 46 countries Ecuador to be Fitur Partner Country in 2024 The Fitur Partner already has a protagonist for the next edition of FITUR, as was revealed during the celebration of the fair, which was announced by the Minister of Tourism of Ecuador, Niels Olsen and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of IFEMA MADRID, Jose Vicente de los Mozos, who signed the collaboration agreement whereby Ecuador will be 'FITUR Partner Country' at the next edition. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005911/en/ Contacts: Andrea Martinez amartinez@cciba.net +34915757121 Key landowner federations declare 3rd party intervention in support of Arctic Mineral Resources' appeal to the Supreme Court in the case against Nordic Rutile AS (NRU), a wholly owned subsidiary of Nordic Mining ASA (NOM). Arnold Rrholt, lawyer and AMR's Chairman, welcomes the 3rd party intervention in favour of AMR: "The intervention will ensure that the Supreme Court, as opposed to the courts of lower instance, appreciates the principal nature of the case and the Constitutional issues underpinning it, and interprets the Mineral Act in light of these to the favour of AMR." "The Western part of the Engeb garnet and rutile province contains around half of the proven reserves in the Engeb deposit, as well as a majority of inferred resources and will support a highly profitable 50 years plus fully underground mining project without a need for deposits on land or in the sea" continues Rrholt. Arctic Mineral Resources (AMR) and the federations argue that the two mineral categories owned by the landowners and the state, respectively have equal rights. Neither obliterate nor take preference over the other. NOM/NRU argues that extraction rights to state-owned minerals eliminate the need to obtain rights to landowner-owned minerals in a given deposit. AMR and the federations argue that AMR's mineral rights to garnet prohibit NRU from mining the Western half of the Engeb garnet and rutile deposit. The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Fisheries is currently processing AMR's application for an operating licence in AMR's part of the deposit. The judgement in the case from the Courts of lower instance gave AMR a partial win; garnet in the Engeb mineral province is owned by the landowners. The verdict opened for NRU to extract ore on AMR's mineral lease area; however, if AMR could prove to the authorities the commercial viability of mining garnet on a stand-alone basis, NRU would be obliged to compensate AMR for the value of garnet less a share of its operating costs. AMR has appealed the judgement to the Supreme Court. Two of the key landowner federations in Norway, NORSKOG and the Norwegian Forest Owners' Federation ('Norges Skogeierforbund'), have now declared 3rd party intervention to AMR's benefit in the appeal before the Supreme Court, as the outcome of the appeal is important to their 35 000 members. This means that they will appear before the Supreme Court with their own lawyers to argue against upholding the judgement from the Courts of lower instance. Upholding the verdict would represent a confiscation or a limitation of private property interest in violation of the Constitution of Norway, with a profound negative impact on numerous Norwegian landowners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005122/en/ Contacts: Arnold Rrholt Chairman of the board Tel:+47 465 44 691 Email: aro@arcminres.no An initiative to to help consumers signpost their way to salon safety LONDON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Currently, lack of legislation in the UK beauty industry means there is nothing to stop someone with little or no training from establishing themselves as a seemingly professional therapist. BABTAC ran a consumer survey* to determine their understanding of the state of regulation and training standards of the beauty industry, for which the results were very concerning with only 38% aware that it isn't regulated. Beauty Backed ran a further comparison survey**, revealing that 56% still believed the industry was regulated. These results are a stark reminder of how low consumer awareness remains about the lack of regulation and standardisation of qualifications and training. A similar number of consumers from both surveys believed that their therapists held relevant qualifications (70%), although very tellingly over 90% would not feel comfortable asking to see their therapists' qualifications, and 71% stated they didn't know the difference between a regulated qualification and a non-regulated short course. Most notably, almost all consumers from both surveys believed that the industry should be regulated and that there should be a recognisable certification applied to fit for purpose training. So how can consumers be sure that the training a therapist has received is fit for purpose? BABTAC launched its T.I.M.E initiative at the Houses of Parliament supported by several influential bodies and key figures, including industry icon Caroline Hirons, Millie Kendall OBE of the British Beauty Council, skincare expert Dija Ayodele, and Skin Group International Founder Candice Glanville. A regulatory checklist, T.I.M.E will provide the framework necessary to ensure that consumers are aware of what to be mindful of when booking a service with a beauty therapist. T RAINING - What training and qualifications, including continual professional development (CPD) do you and all your staff have? RAINING - What training and qualifications, including continual professional development (CPD) do you and all your staff have? I NSURANCE - Are you insured and who by? NSURANCE - Are you insured and who by? MONITORING - Do you carry out important pre and post appointment processes such as patch tests, consultations and aftercare? EVIDENCE - Can you provide certified proof of training and insurance and client testimonials? Lesley Blair MBE, Chair at BABTAC says, "We're so pleased to be launching the TIME initiative, as lack of regulation in our industry means that consumers are being exposed to potentially unsafe situations all too often, and so we've seen a wave of 'botched' beauty treatments in recent years as a result. This regulatory checklist aims to serve as a simple but effective reminder for consumers to help them choose evidence-based, professional fit for purpose services, whilst minimising any risk." Caroline Hirons, industry expert, and founder of Beauty Backed Trust says, "The TIME initiative is launching at such an important time for the beauty industry. After a difficult two years, we've seen hundreds of beauty professionals and businesses approach the Beauty Backed Trust for support with accessing training or help getting back on their feet. The TIME initiative will help to elevate this valuable industry, whilst empowering consumers to understand how to safely identify trained professionals when choosing their treatments." Millie Kendall OBE, founder and CEO of the British Beauty Council says, "It's worrying that such a high percentage of consumers are completely unaware that the beauty industry remains largely unregulated and demonstrates the need for a widespread education. We're pleased to be supporting the TIME initiative, which will help inform consumers on what they should be looking for when choosing a treatment, the questions they should be asking their therapist, and the potential implications that can arise when seeking services from unqualified individuals." *2000 respondents surveyed ** Beauty Backed survey of 1,134 respondents Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1991042/BABTACxTIME_Panel.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/babtac-british-association-of-beauty-therapy--cosmetology-launches-time-301732261.html Macky Kyle and his team, at Greater Reach Marketing, help dentists, and dental clinic owners leverage powerful, content marketing media exposure campaigns to reach potential patients and grow practice revenue by boosting client brand reputation, visibility, and authority. Pinehurst, North Carolina--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Content marketing and media strategist, Macky Kyle, of Greater Reach Marketing, announced the release of new innovative media marketing exposure campaigns for dentists, and dental clinics in Florida. The content marketing campaigns are created specifically for dental professionals to build their online visibility, reputation, and credibility. More information about the media exposure campaigns by Greater Reach Marketing can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYDcQOxGt-k Florida Dentist Media Exposure Advertising Announced by Greater Reach Marketing To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/152693_829f8d6334a009ff_001full.jpg The hyper-local media exposure campaigns created by Macky Kyle and his team at Greater Reach Marketing, empower dentists, cosmetic dentists, endodontists, orthodontists, pedodontists, dental surgeons, periodontists, and dental clinic owners to gain online exposure, garner new patients, and grow practice revenue. Macky Kyle, of Greater Reach Marketing, shared: "Our media exposure and visibility campaigns create opportunities for sharing the story of your brand and attracting new patients for your dental clinic. They are an extremely effective tool for reaching and engaging your target audience in your local community. Many of our clients consider them to be the key to growing a successful dental practice on auto-pilot." Greater Reach Marketing is a bespoke dental marketing agency specializing in local dental media marketing campaigns that are geared to fast-track the business growth of client dental practices by increasing visibility, reputation, and authority across the internet. All Greater Reach Marketing media marketing services are completely customized to a client's specific needs and goals. Clients will find the media marketing campaign ROI to be extremely cost-effective. Interested parties can schedule a consultation with Macky and his team at https://www.greaterreachmarketing.com/marketing-for-dental/ Contact Info: Name: Macky Kyle Email: macky@greaterreachmarketing.com Organization: Greater Reach Marketing Address: 222 Central Park Ave, Ste E - 505, Pinehurst, NC 28374, United States Website: https://www.greaterreachmarketing.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152693 MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - The United States has imposed sanctions against individuals and entities linked to Russia's para-military Wagner Group and its head, Yevgeniy Prigozhin. Those targeted include Wagner's key infrastructure and associated front companies, its battlefield operations in Ukraine, producers of Russia's weapons, and those administering Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine. Announcing the State Department's decision, State Secretary Antony Blinken said this action supports U.S. goal to degrade Moscow's capacity to wage war against Ukraine, to promote accountability for those responsible for Russia's war of aggression and associated abuses, and to place further pressure on Russia's defense sector. The Department of State has designated five entities and one individual linked to the Wagner Group and Prigozhin. This includes a range of Wagner's key infrastructure - including an aviation firm used by Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies. Concurrently, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has designated Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it is designating Wagner for targeting civilians, including women and children, through violence, or abduction, forced displacement, or attacks on schools, hospitals, religious sites, or locations where civilians are seeking refuge, in the Central African Republic. OFAC is also designating persons and entities based in CAR, China, Luxembourg, and the United Arab Emirates that are connected to Wagner's operations around the world. The Department is also designating three individuals for their roles as heads of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, which has been reported to facilitate the recruitment of Russian prisoners into the Wagner Group. It is also designating a Deputy Prime Minister who also serves as the Minister of Industry and Trade and the Chairman of the Election Commission of the Rostov Region. OFAC has designated one individual and four entities associated with Russian Oligarch Vladimir Potanin, and Sergei Adonev, a financier of Russian President Putin, alongside several associated entities and individuals. OFAC took action against Spacety Luxembourg S.A., Spacety China's Luxembourg-based subsidiary. Joint Stock Company Research and Production Concern BARL (AO BARL) is a Russian space company supporting Russia's military activities in Ukraine. AO BARL has shared foreign high-resolution satellite imagery with Russia's military. The Department is also identifying two yachts and one aircraft associated with Adonev as blocked property. Additionally, Aktsionernoye Obshchestvo Dalnevostochnyy TsentrSudostroyeniya i Sudoremonta and its eight subsidiaries, known for building and servicing Russia's military, including its Pacific Fleet, were targeted. The State Department is announcing steps to impose visa restrictions on 531 members of the Russian military for their role in attacking Ukraine. The Treasury has designated a number of entities and individuals on multiple continents that support the Wagner Group's military operations. They include Russia-based technology firm Terra Tech, China's Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co. Ltd, Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Manly, Australia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - The upcoming launch of the educational blockchain channel Web3TV has been announced, with their first release slated for Jan. 30th, 2023. The new Web3TV channel will provide educational Web3 content for businesses looking to make the switch from legacy Web2 tech to blockchain-based Web3 systems. The channel will host weekly video content on a wide variety of DeFi topics, presented in a beginner-friendly format in order to help those unfamiliar with the topic become acquainted with the core concepts at hand. To learn more, visit https://web3tv.com.au Educational Blockchain Channel With Explainers & Interviews Announced By Web3TV To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/152572_e0a21846649769a6_001full.jpg This channel's launch is intended to support businesses who may not fully understand the potential value of Web3 technologies. They will accomplish this by sharing stories and information regarding successful and versatile implementation of blockchain systems from across many different industries and scenarios. Specifically, Web3TV is intended to push against the inaccessible nature of blockchain technology, which the channel's proprietors say is the main barrier of entry for many who could otherwise benefit from Web3 implementations. They have also stated that the content they will be producing is not only for business applications, but for aspiring developers, individuals, and students looking to bolster their Web3 knowledge. The content they intend to produce in the near future will prominently feature AMAs and interviews with professionals around the globe. The individuals they intend to interview are those changemakers and early adopters who have seen massive successes with Web3 technology, or who have seen a significant shift in their personal or professional philosophy as a result of adopting these tools. They will cover a wide range of concepts in their soon-to-be-released content, including the broad spectrum of Web3 tech that businesses are commonly adopting as part of their day-to-day operations. These include NFTs and DApps, DeFi gaming, Metaverse tech, DAOs, tokens, and any other commonly encountered buzzwords which might confuse the layman. The company's values center heavily around improving accessibility and education in the world of blockchain tech. "Web3TV is looking to simplify the complexity of web 3.0 so that anyone, in any country can understand how it can meaningfully improve their lives, business operations or community," says co-founder Andrew McCombe. This new channel is supported by Utiliti, a global leader in blockchain consulting, infrastructure and tooling services who help businesses integrate Web3 tech into their operations. The Web3TV YouTube channel is currently live, though the official launch of their content schedule will take place on Jan 30th. Interested parties can subscribe now to be notified of new video releases in the future. For more, visit https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5KySVx603dkSHc1Dr78UhQ Contact Info: Name: Andrew McCombe Email: info@web3tv.com.au Organization: Web3TV Address: PO Box 1229, Manly, NSW 2095, Australia Website: https://web3tv.com.au/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152572 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. Summit Partners, a leading alternative investment firm, today announced the promotion of 14 professionals across the firm's global offices. Scott Ferguson, Paul Furer, Mark Nordstrom, Dayton Ogden and Sophia Popova have been promoted to Partner; Chris Bon, Ali Dowd, Mark Hexamer, Chelsea Jurman, Nick Oppedisano and Jono Pagden have been promoted to Principal; and Jonathan Gilman, Andy Lee and Irina Muller have been promoted to Vice President. "We are very pleased to recognize the achievements of our colleagues with these well-deserved promotions," said Peter Chung, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Summit Partners. "Each of these professionals represents well the culture and values of our firm. We are very confident they will continue to serve our investors and our portfolio companies with distinction." Scott Ferguson has been promoted to Partner. Scott joined Summit's Menlo Park office as an Associate in 2009 and is a member of the Technology team. His investment and board experience includes Calypso Technology (acquired by Thoma Bravo), HelpSystems (acquired by H.I.G. Capital), MercuryGate, Perforce Software (acquired by Clearlake Capital), Teaching Strategies (acquired by KKR) and Trintech. Prior to Summit, Scott worked in the Technology Investment Banking Group at Piper Jaffray. Scott holds a BS in finance from the University of Kansas and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Paul Furer has been promoted to Partner. Paul joined Summit's Boston office as an Associate in 2011 and is a member of the Growth Products Services team. His investment and board experience includes 48forty Solutions, Beyond Risk, FineLine Technologies (acquired by L Squared Capital Partners and Leonard Green Partners), Harvey Performance Company (acquired by Berkshire Partners), Parts Town (acquired by Berkshire Partners and Leonard Green Partners), Patriot Growth Insurance Services, Solo Brands (NYSE: DTC), and Vivint Smart Home (NYSE: VVNT). Prior to Summit, Paul worked for Jefferies and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Paul holds a BS in finance from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Mark Nordstrom has been promoted to Partner. Mark joined Summit's Boston office as an Associate in 2010. Today, Mark serves as the Head of our Capital Markets team and in this capacity leads the firm's capital markets activities for existing portfolio companies and new acquisitions. Additionally, he helps Summit manage its commercial and investment banking relationships. Prior to Summit, Mark worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and State Street Corporation. Mark holds a BA in economics from Wesleyan University. In addition, he is a CFA charterholder. Dayton Ogden has been promoted to Partner. Dayton joined Summit's Boston office as the Head of Talent Recruiting in 2014. Dayton works with Summit's portfolio companies and investment teams to identify and recruit high-impact senior executives and board members. Prior to Summit, Dayton led the venture capital and growth equity practice at executive search firm CTPartners. Previously, he was a co-founder of Fortis Partners and a senior associate at Spencer Stuart. Dayton holds a BA in American Studies, with highest distinction, from Wittenberg University. Sophia Popova has been promoted to Partner. Sophia joined Summit's Boston office as a Vice President in 2017 and is a member of the Technology team. Her investment and board experience includes Invicti Security, Klaviyo, Markforged (NYSE: MKFG), Mavrck, PrismHR (acquired by Stone Point), Sifted, StackAdapt and Ylopo. Prior to Summit, Sophia worked at Morgan Stanley and led product management at several technology startups, including Contactive. Sophia holds a BA in economics and mathematics from Yale University and an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. Chris Bon has been promoted to Principal. Chris joined Summit's London office as an Associate in 2016 and is a member of the Growth Products Services team. His investment and board experience includes Energy Aspects, GRESB, Normec (acquired by Astorg), OnRobot, ProGlove (acquired by Nordic Capital) and Sipartech (acquired by Blackstone). Prior to Summit, Chris worked in M&A advisory at J.P. Morgan. Chris holds a BCom in economics from the University of Toronto and an MSc in finance from HEC Paris. Ali Dowd has been promoted to Principal. Ali joined Summit's Boston office as a Vice President in 2021 and is a member of the Healthcare Life Sciences team. Her investment experience includes Veranex. Prior to Summit, Ali worked in the Healthcare Group at Thomas H. Lee Partners. Previously, she worked at TA Associates. Ali holds a BA in economics, cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. Mark Hexamer has been promoted to Principal. Mark joined Summit's Menlo Park office as a Vice President in 2014. As a member of the Talent Recruiting team, Mark works with Summit's portfolio companies and investment teams to identify and recruit high-impact senior executives and board members. Prior to Summit, Mark was a founding member of the venture capital and growth equity practice at executive search firm CTPartners, a partner at Fortis Partners and a cofounder of Swap.com and Sidebar Software. Mark holds a BA in history from the University of Notre Dame and a JD/MBA from Boston College. Chelsea Jurman has been promoted to Principal. Chelsea joined Summit's Boston office as a Vice President in 2019 and is a member of the Growth Products Services team. Her investment and board experience includes Adviser Investments, Brooklinen, Halborn and ShipMonk. Prior to Summit, Chelsea worked in Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs, in the Technology group. Chelsea holds a BA in political science, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Baker Scholar. Nick Oppedisano has been promoted to Principal. Nick joined Summit's Menlo Park Office as a Vice President in 2019 and is a member of the Technology team. His investment and board experience includes CoderPad, Foxen, Jobber, PriceLabs and Recharge. Prior to Summit, Nick worked on Goldman Sachs' tech, media, telecom investment banking team and Centerview Partners' tech investment banking team. Nick holds a BA in business administration, honors, from Ivey Business School and a BS in engineering from the University of Western Ontario. Jono Pagden has been promoted to Principal. Jono joined Summit's London office as an Associate in 2016 and is a member of the Healthcare Life Sciences team. His investment experience includes Advance Medical (acquired by Teladoc), CluePoints, Fortis Life Sciences and zahneins (acquired by PAI Partners). Prior to Summit, Jono worked on the Retail/Healthcare and U.K. M&A teams at Goldman Sachs. Jono holds a Bachelor of Business Science, with honors, in accounting and finance from the University of Cape Town. Jonathan Gilman has been promoted to Vice President. Jonathan joined Summit's Boston office as an Associate in 2018 and is a member of the Healthcare Life Sciences team. His investment experience includes Abode Healthcare (acquired by BrightSpring Health Services), Fortis Life Sciences, InnovaCare Health, Leon Medical Centers, TurningPoint Healthcare Solutions and U.S. Renal Care. Prior to Summit, Jonathan worked in the Global Healthcare Group in the Investment Banking Division at Jefferies. Jonathan holds a BS in finance and economics from New York University's Stern School of Business. Andy Lee has been promoted to Vice President. Andy joined Summit's Boston Office as an Associate in 2018 and is a member of the Growth Products Services team. His investment and board experience includes Beyond Risk and Patriot Growth Insurance Services. Prior to Summit, Andy worked for Fisher Lynch Capital and Fidelity Investments. Andy holds a BA, cum laude, in psychology from Dartmouth College. Irina Muller has been promoted to Vice President. Irina joined Summit's London office as an Associate in 2019 and is a member of the Technology team. Her investment experience includes Appway (acquired by FNZ), ProGlove (acquired by Nordic Capital) and Solactive. Prior to Summit, Irina worked in the M&A Group at Houlihan Lokey. Irina holds a BA in business administration and an MA in banking and finance from the University of St. Gallen. About Summit Partners Founded in 1984, Summit Partners is a global alternative investment firm that is currently managing more than $35 billion in capital dedicated to growth equity, fixed income, and public equity opportunities. Summit invests across growth sectors of the economy and has invested in more than 550 companies in healthcare, technology, and other growth industries. Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe and invests in companies around the world. For more information, please see www.summitpartners.com or Follow on LinkedIn. In the United States of America, Summit Partners operates as an SEC-registered investment advisor. In the United Kingdom, this document is issued by Summit Partners LLP, a firm authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Summit Partners LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC388179 and its registered office is at 11-12 Hanover Square, London, W1S 1JJ, UK. This document is intended solely to provide information regarding Summit Partners' potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126006012/en/ Contacts: Media Contact: Susan Barr sbarr@summitpartners.com John brings thirty years' experience of senior executive roles in large, international companies, most recently as CEO of Ferguson plc (formerly Wolseley plc), the FTSE 100 distribution business John has served as CFO of Wolseley plc, Hays plc and Travelex Group, and is currently non-executive director of Ocado Group plc Vertical Aerospace (Vertical) [NYSE: EVTL], a global aerospace and technology company that is pioneering zero-emissions aviation, today announces it has strengthened its executive leadership team with the appointment of John Martin as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). John joins Vertical after a successful thirty year career in senior operational and financial management roles of large, international businesses. John takes up the role at Vertical on 20 February 2023. John contributed significantly to building profitability and generating shareholder value for several prominent businesses, helping transform them into high-growth market leaders, including FTSE 100 Ferguson plc (formerly Wolseley plc), FTSE 250 Hays plc and the private Travelex Group. John's significant experience in strategic development and driving excellence in operational performance will allow him to provide unique support for Vertical's Founder CEO, Stephen Fitzpatrick, in scaling the company through certification and industrialisation. John is a Chartered Accountant and earlier in his career was Group Controller of The Stationary Office Group upon its privatisation in 1996, having earlier spent nine years at Arthur Andersen. John also served briefly as Chair of Countryside Properties plc. John currently serves as an independent non-executive director of Ocado Group plc, a market leading technology and robotics business, and member of the FTSE 100. This announcement follows the resignation of Vinny Casey as Vertical's CFO, effective 20 February 2023. Vinny will remain on Vertical's Board as a non-executive director, and returns to OVO Energy, a leading independent UK energy supplier. As part of the evolution of the Vertical Board, Michael Cervenka has stepped down from the Board, effective from 26 January 2023, and has a new role in the business as Chief Technology Officer, focused on building Vertical's future engineering and technology pipelines, as well as continuing to lead strategic supply chain partner activities. Stephen Fitzpatrick, Founder and CEO of Vertical, commented,"I am delighted to welcome John to Vertical Aerospace. His experience leading public companies will be critical as we scale Vertical both to certification and industrialisation. John's appointment further strengthens Vertical's executive team to deliver the VX4 into entry into service and beyond. I would also like to thank Vinny Casey for his commitment to Vertical and look forward to continuing working with him on the Vertical Board." John Martin said, "I am delighted to be joining such an innovative and exciting company at this time. The experience that Vertical Aerospace has brought to the challenge of zero operating emissions urban air mobility is truly remarkable and I am really looking forward to supporting this world-class team in achieving its mission and building the future of sustainable aviation." -Ends- About Vertical Aerospace Vertical Aerospace is pioneering electric aviation. The company was founded in 2016 by Stephen Fitzpatrick, an established entrepreneur best known as the founder of the Ovo Group, a leading energy and technology group and Europe's largest independent energy retailer. Vertical has focused on building the most experienced and senior team in the eVTOL industry, who have over 1,700 combined years of engineering experience, and have certified and supported over 30 different civil and military aircraft and propulsion systems. Vertical's top-tier partner ecosystem is expected to de-risk operational execution and its pathway to certification allows for a lean cost structure and enables production at scale. Vertical has a market-leading pre-order book by value for more than 1,400 aircraft from global customers creating multiple potential near term and actionable routes to market. Customers include American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Avolon, Bristow, Marubeni, Iberojet and FLYINGGROUP, as well as Japan Airlines (JAL), Gol, Air Greenland, Gozen Holding and AirAsia, through Avolon's VX4 placements. Having been issued with its Permit to Fly from the UK's Civil Aviation Authority in September 2022, Vertical's VX4 prototype has successfully undertaken piloted flight tests. The flight test programme will continue over the coming months, reaching higher altitudes and speeds, as well as demonstrating the transition from vertical to horizontal flight. Vertical's ordinary shares and warrants commenced trading on the NYSE in December 2021 under the tickers "EVTL" and "EVTLW," respectively. About the VX4 eVTOL Aircraft The VX4 is projected to be capable of transporting a pilot and up to four passengers, traveling distances of 100 miles, and achieving top speeds of over 200 miles per hour, while producing minimal noise and zero operating emissions. The VX4 is expected to open up advanced air mobility to a whole new range of passengers and transform how we travel. Find out more: vertical-aerospace.com Vertical Media Kit Available here Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any express or implied statements contained in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding Mr Martin's impact on Vertical's executive leadership team as its Chief Financial Officer, expectations surrounding pre-orders and commitments, the features and capabilities of the VX4, certification and the commercialization of the VX4 and related timelines, the transition towards a net-zero emissions economy, expected financial performance and operational performance as well as statements that include the words "expect," "intend," "plan," "believe," "project," "forecast," "estimate," "may," "should," "anticipate," "will," "aim," "potential," "continue," "are likely to" and similar statements of a future or forward-looking nature. Forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, including, without limitation: Vertical's limited operating history without manufactured non-prototype aircraft or completed eVTOL aircraft customer order; Vertical's history of losses and the expectation to incur significant expenses and continuing losses for the foreseeable future; the market for eVTOL aircraft being in a relatively early stage; the potential inability of Vertical to produce or launch aircraft in the volumes and on timelines projected; the potential inability of Vertical to obtain the necessary certifications on the timelines projected; any accidents or incidents involving eVTOL aircraft could harm Vertical's business; Vertical's dependence on partners and suppliers for the components in its aircraft and for operational needs; the potential that certain of Vertical's strategic partnerships may not materialize into long-term partnership arrangements; pre-orders Vertical has received for its aircraft are conditional and may be terminated at any time in writing prior to certain specified dates; any potential failure by Vertical to effectively manage its growth; the impact of COVID-19 on Vertical's business; Vertical has identified material weaknesses in its internal controls over financial reporting and may be unable to remediate the material weaknesses; Vertical's dependence on our senior management team and other highly skilled personnel; as a foreign private issuer Vertical follows certain home country corporate governance rules, is not subject to U.S. proxy rules and is subject to Exchange Act reporting obligations that, to some extent, are more lenient and less frequent than those of a U.S. domestic public company; and the other important factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on April 29, 2022, as such factors may be updated from time to time in Vertical's other filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof and accordingly undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Vertical disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than to the extent required by applicable law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005151/en/ Contacts: For more information: Vertical Media Harry Roxburgh nepeanverticalteam@nepean.co.uk +44 7814 372 664 Vertical Investors Eduardo Royes investors@vertical-aerospace.com +1 646 200 8871 PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Shares of SCOR SE (SZCRF.PK) were losing around 6 percent in the morning trading in Paris after the French reinsurer's Chief Executive Officer Laurent Rousseau resigned from his position as CEO and from the Board. The company announced the appointment of Thierry Leger, former Swiss Re executive, as its Chief Executive Officer with effect from May 1. Meanwhile, Swiss Re announced that its Group Chief Underwriting Officer Leger is stepping down as member of the Group Executive Committee and from the role as Group CUO with immediate effect to pursue a role outside the company. The SCOR Board of Directors will propose that Leger join the Board at the 2023 General Meeting. In the meantime, Francois de Varenne is appointed Interim CEO of SCOR with immediate effect until Leger takes up his post. de Varenne is the company's Executive Committee member in charge of Investments, Technology, Transformation and Group Corporate Finance. Rousseau, who had succeeded Denis Kessler as CEO on June 30, 2021, is leaving the Group to pursue other professional opportunities. The Board has asked its Chairman Denis Kessler to lend his support to Francois de Varenne and then Leger, to ensure the smooth running of this change in executive management. Leger, who holds 25 years of experience in the reinsurance sector, has expertise in life reinsurance, P&C reinsurance and alternative reinsurance. Denis Kessler, Chairman of SCOR, said, 'Having held key positions at a major global reinsurance company, he has all the skills required to lead the SCOR group and forge a new strategic vision for the company, while pursuing an underwriting policy based entirely on technical profitability.' The January 1, 2023 P&C renewals, which took place in a favorable environment for property & casualty reinsurance, will be presented on February 7. The fourth-quarter results will be released as scheduled on March 2. In Paris, SCOR shares were losing around 5.8 percent to trade at 22.43 euros. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Galleon Gold Corp. (TSXV: GGO) (the "Company") is pleased to outline its plans for 2023 as the Company develops its flagship West Cache Gold Project in the prolific Timmins Gold Belt in Timmins, Ontario. Comment from CEO David Russell, President and CEO of Galleon Gold commented, "We enter 2023 with an ambitious agenda; our permit application work is in full swing and we are well into the detailed engineering of the portal and decline for the underground bulk sample. This progression to the test mining stage is an important step for West Cache as we continue to de-risk the project. Not only should the gold produced from the bulk sample cover the development costs; but the data collected from the stope development, milling and gold recoveries will support pre-feasibility work." Looking Into 2023 The Company anticipates 2023 to be a watershed year as it transitions from exploration and resource development to test mining and pre-development. The geotechnical overburden drill program is close to completion and information from this program, along with third-party detailed engineering work, will be included in the permit application . . The updated mine plan for the bulk sample details Single Panel Transverse Longhole Open Stoping based on a two-production level and a four-stope plan. The bulk sample is estimated at 86,500 tonnes of sulphide mineralization grading 8.13 g/t gold and containing an estimated 22,600 ounces of gold . Figure 1 provides a broad overview of the bulk sample location in relation to currently recognized mineral envelopes at West Cache. . provides a broad overview of the bulk sample location in relation to currently recognized mineral envelopes at West Cache. Public consultation meetings will be announced in the next few months and pending approval of the permit(s) the Company plans to start construction. Detailed progress reports will be provided as work advances, including power line drop and connections, infrastructure builds, and the progress of the portal and decline . . From an exploration perspective, there is still much work to do as the project is less than 10% drill tested and mineralization is open in all directions and at depth. In addition to infill drilling the resource, new targets to the north and south of the known mineralization are starting to emerge with new interpretation of soil sampling programs. 2022 Laid the Groundwork (Milestones & Highlights) Published the first Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the West Cache project, prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 by P&E Mining Consultants of Brampton, Ontario, Canada, with an effective date of January 10, 2022. The PEA highlighted strong project economics with a pre-tax NPV at a 5% discount rate ("NPV5%") of $378 million and IRR of 33.7%. Cash costs of US$814 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of US$987 per ounce for 940,200 ounces of gold mined over Life of Mine ("LOM") of 11 years with average annual production of 85,500 ounces. Recovered gold is estimated at 893,200 ounces over the LOM. See press release dated February 23, 2022. ("PEA") for the West Cache project, prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 by P&E Mining Consultants of Brampton, Ontario, Canada, with an effective date of January 10, 2022. The PEA highlighted strong project economics with a pre-tax NPV at a 5% discount rate ("NPV5%") of $378 million and IRR of 33.7%. Cash costs of US$814 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of US$987 per ounce for 940,200 ounces of gold mined over Life of Mine ("LOM") of 11 years with average annual production of 85,500 ounces. Recovered gold is estimated at 893,200 ounces over the LOM. See press release dated February 23, 2022. Provided an updated Mineral Resource Estimate significantly increasing the grade and total ounces in the Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource classification. significantly increasing the grade and total ounces in the Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource classification. Acquired additional mining claims adjacent to the West Cache project, expanding the total claim package to 10,370 hectares . . Commenced an exploration drilling program and announced one of the best Zone #9 intercepts to date (determined by grade x thickness) of 15.6 g/t Au over 7.6 m within broader zone of 7.41 g/t Au over 18.1 meter s. Also discovered additional ounces of gold in the South Area with intercepts of 13.29 g/t Au over 4.5 m (incl. 79.2 g/t Au over 0.7 m) and 5.23 g/t Au over 5.7 m . s. Also discovered additional ounces of gold in the South Area with intercepts of (incl. 79.2 g/t Au over 0.7 m) and . Received a new 21- year mining lease - an important milestone for the West Cache project. Lease status is required before mining activities such as infrastructure development and ore extraction can be conducted on the property. - an important milestone for the West Cache project. Lease status is required before mining activities such as infrastructure development and ore extraction can be conducted on the property. Progressed the underground bulk sample permitting and baselines studies; initiated geomechanical and geotechnical drill programs in support of the detailed design of the 1) box cut and portal design, 2) ground support recommendations, 3) stope size and dilution estimates. Figure 1: West Cache Bulk Sample Location To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/1014/152644_b75f720bc413b864_001full.jpg Option Grants The Company also announces, pursuant to the Company's stock option plan, a total of 815,000 stock options have been granted to directors, officers, employees and consultants of the Company. The options are exercisable into one common share of the Company at a price of $0.23, vest immediately and expire on January 27, 2028. The Board of Directors of Galleon Gold is solely compensated via stock options that are typically granted once a year. Technical Content and Qualified Persons The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by West Cache Gold Chief Operating Officer, Tim Smith, P. Eng. and Project Manager Leah Page, P. Geo. (APGNS #217) both "Qualified Persons" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. About the West Cache Gold Project The West Cache Gold Project is an advanced-stage gold exploration project covering approximately 10,370 ha located 13 km west of Timmins Ontario on Provincial Highway 101. It is situated in the Western Porcupine Gold Camp along the Destor-Porcupine Fault Zone within the Abitibi greenstone belt, approximately 7 km northeast of Pan American Silver's Timmins West Mine. The mining lease area hosts the current mineral resource estimate near the center, with additional exploration targets to the north and south. The mineral resource estimate is contained within the Porcupine Sedimentary Basin, a favourable litho-structural corridor with over 5 km of strike-length on the Property. Mineralization is open in all directions and at depth. About Galleon Gold Galleon Gold is an exploration and development company focused on advancing the West Cache Gold Project in Timmins, Ontario. The West Cache Gold Project is located 7 km northeast of Pan American Silver's Timmins West Mine and 14 km southwest of Newmont's Hollinger Mine. A 2022 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) for the project demonstrates strong economics. Detail engineering design and baseline studies in support of a permit application for an underground bulk sample are underway. For further information: Galleon Gold R. David Russell Chairman and CEO T. (416) 644-0066 info@galleongold.com www.galleongold.com Investor Relations Harbor Access Graham Farrell T. (416) 842-9003 Graham.Farrell@harbor-access.com Forward-Looking Statements This document contains certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views and/or expectations of Galleon Gold with respect to its long-term strategy, proposed work, plans and other reports including the PEA for its projects. Forward-looking statements are based on the then-current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about the business and the markets in which Galleon Gold operates. Some of the statements contained herein may be forward-looking statements which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and resources, exploration results, expectations, plans, and objectives of Galleon Gold are forward-looking statements that involve various risks. The following are important factors that could cause Galleon Gold's actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements: changes in the world-wide price of mineral commodities, general market conditions, risks inherent in mineral exploration, risks associated with development, construction and mining operations, risks related to infectious diseases, including COVID-19 and the uncertainty of future exploration activities and cash flows, and the uncertainty of access to additional capital. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events may differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Galleon Gold undertakes no obligation to update such forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. 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. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152644 SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / Quality Industrial Corp. (OTC PINK:QIND), is a Mergers and Acquisitions company focused primarily on the Industrial and Oil and Gas sectors. QIND is a majority owned subsidiary of ILUS International Inc. (Ilustrato Pictures International Inc; OTC: ILUS). The company confirms that on the 18th of January 2023, it signed a definitive Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) to acquire 52% of Quality International Co Ltd FZC. Headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, Quality International has been manufacturing for more than two decades and now operates from approximately 10 million square feet of manufacturing facilities, employing aworkforce of more than 1000. The company delivers turnkey integrated solutions for the Oil and Gas, Energy, Water Desalination, Wastewater and Offshore sectors and boasts an extensive list of reference customers, including the likes of BP, Shell, Total, Chevron, Sonatrach, Sasol, ADNOC and many more. Chairman of Quality International Co Ltd FZC, Adnan Sharafi, commented: "We welcome ILUS International Inc. and the Quality Industrial Corp team in joining hands with Quality International in its exciting growth journey and to scaling new heights in our customer delivery experience. Our aim is to provide the best in class equipment to each of our customers who place their trust in our engineering and manufacturing capabilities and be their longstanding preferred supply partner of choice". Historically, Quality International has delivered approximately $100 million in annual revenue and holds a current order book of over $150 million. The company is also working on closing additional orders from an active project list of over $2 billion. Quality International is experiencing a powerful resurgence following the Covid-19 pandemic as the Oil and Gas industry expects record profits in 2023, aided by increased investment in infrastructure for strategy fulfilment in 2023 and beyond. Quality International is on several global preferred vendor lists and is one of very few with all the required Oil and Gas industry certifications and large-scale manufacturing facilities in place. Furthermore, the company is now also actively engaged in delivering equipment for green hydrogen projects in the region The total price for acquisition of the majority stake in Quality International will be up-to $137,000,000 paid in six tranche payments with the final three tranche payments conditional upon EBITDA targets being met in 2023 and 2024. Further details on the signed Share Purchase Agreement can be found within the QIND's 8-K filing on 18 January 2023. John-Paul Backwell, QIND Chief Executive Officer said: "We are extremely pleased to welcome all of Quality International's more than 1,000 employees to the ILUS and QIND family. Having worked closely with the Quality International management team and personally reviewed the impressive confirmed order books for 2023, I am confident that the company will exceed its growth targets. This is a powerful acquisition for QIND with further aligned acquisitions to be added in due course." This Press Release does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature about the Company. You can identify these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "is/are likely to," "future" or other similar expressions. The Company has based these forward-looking statements primarily on the Company's current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that the Company believes may affect Company's financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, and financial needs. There is no assurance that the Company's current expectations and projections are accurate. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on the Company's information on the date hereof. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statements. The Company operates in a rapidly evolving environment. New risk factors emerge from time to time. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise the forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. This press release does not constitute or form part of any offer or invitation to purchase, otherwise acquire, issue, subscribe for, sell, or otherwise dispose of any securities, nor any solicitation of any offer to purchase, otherwise acquire, issue, subscribe for, sell, or otherwise dispose of any securities of the Company. The release, publication, or distribution of this announcement in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law and therefore persons in such jurisdictions into which this announcement is released, published, or distributed should inform themselves about and observe such restrictions. CONTACT Quality Industrial Corp. 315 Montgomery Street, San Francisco CA 94104, USA Phone: +1-800-706-0806 Email: info@qualityindustrialcorp.com Investor site: https://qualityindustrialcorp.com Twitter: @ QualityIndCorp @ILUS_INTL SOURCE: Quality Industrial Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737024/Quality-Industrial-Corp-is-Acquiring-the-Majority-Stake-of-Quality-International-Co-Ltd-FZC The North America orthopedic implants market is expected to grow by 2025 due to the increasing geriatric population in the region. The metallic biomaterials sub-segment is expected to be the most profitable. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Research Dive has added a new report to its offering titled, "North America Orthopedic Implants Market by Product Type (Reconstructive Joint Replacements, Spinal Implants, Dental Implants, Trauma, Orthobiologics, and Others), Biomaterial (Metallic, Ceramic, Polymeric, and Others), and Type (Knee, Hip, Wrist & Shoulder, Dental, Spine, Ankle, and Others): North America Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018-2025". As per the report, the North America orthopedic implants market is predicted to grow at a noteworthy CAGR of 3.9% in the 2018-2025 timeframe, thereby gathering $30,646 million by 2025. Request an Exclusive PDF Sample of North America Orthopedic Implants Market Dynamics of the Market Drivers: The steadily rising geriatric population across the region is expected to be the primary growth driver of the North America orthopedic implants market in the forecast period. Along with this, the shift from conventional surgical procedures to the use of modern fixation and prosthetic devices is predicted to help this market grow in the forecast period. Opportunities: Increasing research and development in the field of orthopedic implants is anticipated to offer huge growth opportunities to the market in the forecast period. Moreover, increase in the elderly population in the North America region is anticipated to push the growth rate of the market even higher. Restraints: High costs of medical procedures involved with orthopedic implantations, however, might restrict the growth of the North America orthopedic implants market. Segments of the Market: The report has fragmented the North America orthopedic implants market into different segments based on product type, biomaterial, and country. By product type, the reconstructive joint replacements sub-segment is predicted to be the most dominant sub-segment in the North America region. The increase in the prevalence of osteoporosis & osteoarthritis along with innovations in joint replacement therapies are expected to be the two main factors behind the growth of this sub-segment in the forecast period. region. The increase in the prevalence of osteoporosis & osteoarthritis along with innovations in joint replacement therapies are expected to be the two main factors behind the growth of this sub-segment in the forecast period. By biomaterial, the metallic biomaterials sub-segment of the North America orthopedic implants market is expected to be the most dominant during the forecast period. The wide usage of metallic biomaterials to manufacture various orthopedic implants such as screws, plates, vertebral compression fracture (VCF) devices, etc. is expected to be the important factor behind the growth of this sub-segment. orthopedic implants market is expected to be the most dominant during the forecast period. The wide usage of metallic biomaterials to manufacture various orthopedic implants such as screws, plates, vertebral compression fracture (VCF) devices, etc. is expected to be the important factor behind the growth of this sub-segment. By country, the North America orthopedic implants market is studied across U.S., Canada , and Mexico . Speak with an Analyst or Schedule a call to get more Industry Insights on the North America Orthopedic Implants Market Significant Market Players The significant market players in the North America orthopedic implants market are Johnson & Johnson (DePuy Synthes) Smith and Nephew Plc. Arthrex Inc. Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc. Wright Medical Group N.V. DJO Finance LLC Stryker Corporation CONMED Corporation Globus Medical Inc. Medtronic Plc These key market players are developing different business strategies like product development, merger and acquisitions, collaborations and partnerships to gain a commanding position in the market. For instance, in May 2021, Shalby, an Indian hospital chain, announced that it was acquiring certain assets of Consensus Orthopedics, a leading orthopedic implants manufacturer in Sacramento, California. This acquisition will help Shalby to enter in the North America orthopedic implants industry and consolidate its position in the market in the coming period. Granular Research on Specific Regions or Segments of North America Orthopedic Implants Market & Avail 10%OFF The Research Dive report also summarizes many crucial aspects of the North America orthopedic implants market including SWOT analysis, latest strategic developments, financial performance of the key players, and product portfolio. More about North America Orthopedic Implants Market: How Are Companies Transforming the Face of North America Orthopedic Implants Market? North America Orthopedic Implants Market to Witness Huge Growth Due to Acquisitions Like That of Simplify Medical by NuVasive Some Trending Reports: The Global Bronchial Thermoplasty Catheter Market Size is predicted to be valued at $5416.8 million by 2031 The Global Surgical Table Market Size is predicted to be valued at $2,452.8 million by 2031 at a noteworthy CAGR of 7.0% The Global Hydrocolloid Dressing Market Size is predicted to be valued at $4,725.9 million by 2031 About Research Dive Research Dive is a market research firm based in Pune, India. Maintaining the integrity and authenticity of the services, the firm provides the services that are solely based on its exclusive data model, compelled by the 360-degree research methodology, which guarantees comprehensive and accurate analysis. With an unprecedented access to several paid data resources, team of expert researchers, and strict work ethic, the firm offers insights that are extremely precise and reliable. Scrutinizing relevant news releases, government publications, decades of trade data, and technical & white papers, Research dive deliver the required services to its clients well within the required timeframe. Its expertise is focused on examining niche markets, targeting its major driving factors, and spotting threatening hindrances. Complementarily, it also has a seamless collaboration with the major industry aficionado that further offers its research an edge. Contact: Mr. Abhishek Paliwal Research Dive 30 Wall St. 8th Floor, New York NY 10005 (P) +91-(788)-802-9103 (India) +1-(917)-444-1262 (US) Toll Free: 1-888-961-4454 E-mail: support@researchdive.com Website: https://www.researchdive.com Blog: https://www.researchdive.com/blog/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/research-dive/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResearchDive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Research-Dive-1385542314927521 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/997523/Research_Dive_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/north-america-orthopedic-implants-market-predicted-to-gather-30-646-million-by-2025--growing-at-a-cagr-of-3-9-in-2018-2025-timeframe-90-pages--published-by-research-dive-301732181.html MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - Ukraine has claimed to have shot down most of dozens of missiles and drones launched by Russian Thursday. In the latest round of Russian attack, around 70 missiles were sent by Russian forces targeting cities across Ukraine. The Ukrainian Armed Forces said in its daily operational update on Facebook that its troops intercepted 47 of them.It also said that 18 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones were shot down. At least 11 people were killed and an equal number of others were hurt in attacks mainly targeting Ukraine's energy facilities. Some regions experienced black out as a result, reports say. Russian forces launched these aerial attacks shortly after Germany and the United States announced plans to send modern M-1 Abrams and Leopards tanks to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday that it would take 'months to transfer' the M1A2 tanks, an advanced version of the Abrams. The US does not have these tanks available in excess in our US stocks, she said, adding them to Ukraine. The Kremlin warned that it sees the delivery of Western battle tanks to Ukraine as 'direct involvement' in the conflict. Russian attack on Ukraine had its repercussions on other fronts too. Japan on Friday announced additional sanctions against Russia. Tokyo banned the export of key strategic goods and froze the assets of Russian politicians, military personnel, businessmen, and companies. 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. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Forum Energy Metals Corp. (TSXV: FMC) (OTCQB: FDCFF) ("Forum" or "the Company") is pleased to invite shareholders and investors to the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) this coming week and the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) Annual Convention this March in Toronto. Forum's President & CEO, Richard Mazur and newly appointed Vice President, Exploration, Dr. Rebecca Hunter will be in attendance to answer questions on its: Uranium portfolio in the Athabasca Basin, Saskatchewan, Newly acquired uranium project in the Thelon Basin, Nunavut, a geological environment comparable to the Athabasca for high grade unconformity-related uranium deposits, and Critical Minerals portfolio of Copper, Nickel, and Cobalt projects. Details are provided below. Figure 1 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/4908/152678_forumfigure1.jpg About Forum Energy Metals Forum Energy Metals Corp. (TSXV: FMC) (OTCQB: FDCFF) is a diversified energy metal company with uranium, copper, nickel, and cobalt projects in Saskatchewan, Canada's Number One Rated mining province for exploration and development, a strategic uranium land position in Nunavut and a strategic cobalt land position in the Idaho Cobalt Belt. For further information: https://www.forumenergymetals.com/ ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Richard J. Mazur, P.Geo. President & CEO 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. For further information contact: Rick Mazur, P.Geo., President & CEO mazur@forumenergymetals.com Tel: 604-630-1585 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152678 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Playgon Games Inc. (TSXV: DEAL) (OTC Pink: PLGNF) (FSE: 7CR) ("Playgon" or the "Company"), a propriety SaaS technology company delivering mobile live dealer technology to online gaming operators globally, is pleased to announce that it will be attending ICE-London February 7-9th, the Global Gaming Hub for all B2B industry experts. ICE-London continues to be unrivaled as the leading gaming technology event for business growth, development, and networking with over 35,000 worldwide attendees and in excess of 650 exhibitors. This premier global gaming event is the backbone for network opportunities in online gaming. This annual event has been the Company's most successful conference in showcasing its iGaming software solutions, including its proprietary Live Dealer games. Playgon looks forward to the upcoming gaming conference, the worlds largest and most comprehensible collaboration of product and Casino operators from across the globe. With over $1B in bets wagered on our software in the past 13 months and surpassing 100,000 bets per day, the anticipated industry recognition and acceptance of our mobile live dealer product (VegasLounge) has the Company excited for its growth potential for 2023 and beyond. Darcy Krogh, President and CEO of Playgon Games, said, "We look forward to meeting Industry at ICE-London face to face post COVID and the potential licensing opportunities and strategic partnerships that may get consummated." About Playgon Games Inc. Playgon is a SaaS technology company focused on developing and licensing digital content for the growing iGaming market. The Company provides a multi-tenant gateway that allows online operators the ability to offer their customers innovative iGaming software solutions. Its current software platform includes Live Dealer Casino, E-Table games and Daily Fantasy Sports, which, through a seamless integration at the operator level, allows customer access without having to share or compromise any sensitive customer data. As a true business-to-business digital content provider, the Company's products are ideal turn-key solutions for online casinos, sportsbook operators, land-based operators, media groups, and big database companies. For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.playgon.com. For further information, contact: Mike Marrandino, Director Tel: (604) 722-5225 Email: mikem@playgon.com Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements, including with respect to the Company's intended use of proceeds from the Offering and the Company's intention to complete a second tranche closing of the Offering. Forward-looking statements, without limitation, may contain the words believes, expects, anticipates, estimates, intends, plans, or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guaranteeing of future performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Except for historical facts, the statements in this news release, as well as oral statements or other written statements made or to be made by Playgon, are forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties. In the context of any forward-looking information please refer to risk factors detailed in, as well as other information contained in the Company's audited financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2021 and Management Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2021 and other filings with Canadian securities regulators ( www.sedar.com ). Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release represents Playgon's current expectations. Playgon disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, except if required by applicable securities laws. 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/152682 Kelowna, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Strathmore Plus Uranium (TSXV: SUU) (OTC Pink: SUUFF) (the "Company") is pleased to report that it has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement (the "Financing") for aggregate gross proceeds of $2,000,000 through the issuance of 5,000,000 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.40 per unit. Each Unit consists of one common share and one-half common share purchase warrant. Each whole share purchase warrant ("Warrant") is exercisable into one common share at a price of $0.50 per share for a period of 2 years following the date of issuance. The Company will pay 7% cash commissions to certain qualified Finders in connection with subscriptions from subscribers introduced to the Offering for a total of $38,850. Certain insiders of the Company acquired a total of 1,000,000 Units in the Offering. This participation by insiders in the Private Placement constitute a "related party transaction" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). However, the Company considers such participation would be exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as the fair market value of the Shares subscribed for by the insiders, nor the consideration for the Shares paid by such insiders, would exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization. All securities issued under the Financing will be subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day from the date of issuance. The Company confirms there is no material information pending disclosure. The proceeds of the Financing are intended to fund ongoing exploration at the Company's Night Owl and Agate property and for general working capital. The closing of the Financing is subject to receipt of TSX Venture Exchange final approval. About Strathmore Plus Uranium Corp. Strathmore Plus is a uranium exploration company, focused on in-situ recoverable uranium deposits in the State of Wyoming. Strathmore Plus Uranium Corp. Contact Information: Investor Relations Telephone: 1 888 882 8177 Email: info@strathmoreplus.com ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Dev Randhawa" Dev Randhawa, CEO This News Release contains forward-looking information and statements ("forward-looking statements") under applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included or incorporated by reference in this News Release are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the completion of the private placement, completion of exploration work on projects and licenses and results of that exploration work, , events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "will", "expect", "intend", "plan", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "promising", "encouraging" or "continue" or similar words or the negative thereof. The material assumptions that were applied in making the forward-looking statements in this News Release include expectations as to the Company's future strategy and business plan and execution of the Company's existing plans. There can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which these forward-looking statements are based will occur. We caution readers of this News Release not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this News Release, which are not a guarantee of performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include general economic and market conditions, changes in law, regulatory processes, the status of Strathmore's assets and financial condition, actions of competitors and the ability to implement business strategies and pursue business opportunities. The forward-looking statements contained in this News Release are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this News Release are made as of the date of this News Release and Strathmore undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise, except as required by law. Shareholders are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties and for a more detailed discussion of such risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, refer to the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators available on www.sedar.com. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. These securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from registration is available. This announcement does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in this private placement within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined under Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act). To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152688 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) -Premium Nickel Resources Ltd. (TSXV: PNRL) (OTCQX: PNRLF) ("PNRL" or the "Company") is pleased to report additional assay results from the Company's 2022 diamond drilling program at its 100% owned Selebi nickel-copper-cobalt ("Ni-Cu-Co") sulphide mine in Botswana. The Company's Phase 1 drilling program was successfully completed in January 2023. The purpose of this Phase 1 program was to demonstrate the upside potential of the Selebi Mine mineralized structures within the 3-kilometer area between the Selebi historical mine workings to the south and the Selebi North historic mine workings to the north (see Figure 1). The results of the drilling program, in conjunction with the borehole electromagnetic ("BHEM") program, have provided significant evidence that the Selebi and Selebi North deposits are part of one large mineralized system and that mineralization is present in at least two mineralized amphibolite hosted horizons: the Upper Interval and Lower Interval. The Company has completed approximately 15,074 metres of diamond drilling in Phase 1 of the drill program at the Selebi Mine resulting in multiple high-grade intercepts as reported in previously released assays. The Company is now pleased to announce the receipt of results for an additional two drillholes, SMD-22-008a and SMD-22-009a, which are reported herein. Notable highlights include: SMD-22-009a-W2: 16.75 metres of 1.72% NiEq (1.00% Ni, 2.05% Cu, 0.04% Co) including 9.35 metres of 2.39% NiEq (1.34% Ni, 3.01% Cu, 0.05% Co) and 2.20 metres of 1.76% NiEq (1.33% Ni, 1.11% Cu, 0.05% Co) SMD-22-008a-W2: 9.90 metres of 0.73% NiEq (0.35% Ni, 1.13% Cu, 0.01% Co) including 6.00 metres of 0.78% NiEq (0.26% Ni, 1.58% Cu, 0.01% Co) BHEM and drilling data provide considerable evidence that the Selebi and Selebi North deposits are part of one large mineralized system. Keith Morrison, CEO commented: "PNRL's previous drill holes on the Selebi Mine revealed substantial expansion potential and continuity of mineralization along strike, down dip and down plunge of the 2016 SAMREC resource estimate reported at Selebi (see "Historical Estimate"). The previous holes were designed to test the upside potential of the Selebi mineralization, while the holes in this release were drilled up-dip and down-dip of previous mineralization. By reducing the distance between holes, the Company is gaining a deeper understanding of the structural controls on mineralization and making progress towards defining a potential inferred mineral resource that may be used in a future PEA prepared in accordance with NI 43-101. The intersection in SMD-22-009a, located 140 metres up-dip of sd119, highlights the potential dip extent of substantial mineralization widths." The Company previously released results from seven holes, including SMD-22-001, SMD-22-002 and SMD 22-001-W1, SMD-22-006a, SMD-22-006a-W2, SMD-22-007a and the extension of historic hole sd145x (see news releases dated August 17, 2022, September 13, 2022 and December 22, 2022). Assay results are still pending from one additional hole, SMD-22-012, which was drilled between widely spaced historic holes and intersected 170 metres northeast of sd119. The Company's program of cleaning holes and completing BHEM will continue with the drill currently focusing on the area north of Selebi North, near the northern property boundary. Exploration Update The Phase 1 exploration program focused on an area at the western down dip edge of the 2016 South African Mineral Resource Committee ("SAMREC") resource estimate reported on Selebi, comprising: measured mineral resources of 0.37 Mt of 1.01% Ni and 2.19% Cu; indicated mineral resources of 6.82 Mt of 1.05 % Ni and 2.29 % Cu; and inferred mineral resources of 4.09 Mt of 0.86% Ni, as outlined in black on Figure 2 (see "Historical Estimate"). Historic drill hole sd119 (estimated true thickness interval of 38.5 metres averaging 1.58% Ni and 2.44% Cu, including 21.4 metres of 2.34% Ni and 3.39% Cu) is located approximately 300 metres north from the closest Selebi mine underground infrastructure, and is used as PNRL's point of reference for this initial drill program to help communicate step-out distances and geometries of additional drill hole pierce points. (see "Historic Data"). The drilling to date has not fully defined the plunge direction or dip extent of the structurally controlled thickening of the mineralization. BHEM and drill data indicate that the plunge direction is turning towards the west with depth and indicates a down-dip extension of the mineralization in both the upper and lower intervals. The BHEM data from all holes is currently being integrated with the updated structural model to refine the location of the controlling structures for more precise resource drilling planned for 2023. A summary of assays and drill collar information are provided in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. Drill hole locations and drilling results are provided as Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, and Figure 4, respectively. Figures may be viewed using the link provided with this news release. Table 1: Assay Results Selebi Mine Hole-ID From (m) To (m) Length (m) Ni (%) Cu (%) Co (%) S (%) NiEq (%) SMD-22-008a 1465.10 1475.00 9.90 0.35 1.13 0.01 4.37 0.73 including 1469.00 1475.00 6.00 0.26 1.58 0.01 3.95 0.78 SMD-22-009a 1185.75 1187.80 2.05 0.81 0.44 0.03 9.38 1.00 including 1185.75 1186.80 1.05 1.14 0.83 0.04 13.55 1.47 SMD-22-009a 1202.65 1219.40 16.75 1.00 2.05 0.04 13.42 1.72 including 1202.65 1212.00 9.35 1.34 3.01 0.05 18.62 2.39 and 1216.00 1218.20 2.20 1.33 1.11 0.05 16.44 1.76 Notes: -Length refers to drillhole length and not true width. True width is interpreted to be approximately 85% of drill hole length. -NiEq% = Ni% + Cu% x $4.20/$13.04 + Co% x $21.80/$13.04. Prices based in US$ obtained by LME as at January 25, 2023 -No adjustments were made for recovery or payability. Table 2: Drill Collar Information Selebi Mine HOLE ID UTM EAST UTM NORTH elevation hole length comment SMD-22-008a 582819.24 7563066.68 903.96 1571.72 Re-start of SMD-22-008, hole completed SMD-22-009a 582998.35 7562689.63 904.03 1324.24 re-start of SMD-22-009 - hole completed Further details of drilling completed at the Selebi deposit are outlined below. SMD-22-008a intersected mineralized amphibolite 130 metres downdip from SMD-22-001. The hole intersected multiple mineralized intervals, including remobilized chalcopyrite rich pyrrhotite veins along the upper gneiss/amphibolite contact, measuring 0.30 metres in width from 1449.20 to 1449.50 metres. The strongest mineralization, present as veins, blebs and disseminations within an altered amphibolite, returned 0.35 % Ni, 1.23% Cu and 0.01 % Co over 9.90 metres from 1465.10 to 1475.00 metres, including 6.00 metres grading 0.26 % Ni, 1.58% Cu and 0.01 % Co from 1469.00 to 1475.00 metres. SMD-22-009a targeted a large un-evaluated area up-dip of historic drill hole sd119 and north of a modeled cross cutting dolerite dike. The hole intersected significant mineralization 140 meters up-dip of historic drill hole sd119 (downhole length of 48.5 metres grading 1.52% Ni, 2.50% Cu). This intercept occurs 150 metres down dip of the 1050L sill drive. The hole intersected 35.30 metres of disseminated to massive sulphide mineralization from 1185.75 to 1221.05 metres within a hydrated amphibolite. At the top of the intersection, from 1185.75 to 1187.80 metres, narrow veins within a brecciated zone of garnetiferous amphibolite returned 2.05 metres grading 0.81 % Ni, 0.44% Cu and 0.03% Co, including 1.14% Ni, 0.83% Cu, 0.04% Co over 1.05 metres from 1185.75 to 1186.80 metres. Further downhole, from 1202.65 to 1219.40m, an interval of patchy to semi massive to massive sulphide mineralization returned 1.00% Ni, 2.05% Cu and 0.04% Co over 16.75 metres. This 16.75 metre interval included two higher grade intervals: 1.34% Ni, 3.01% Cu and 0.05% Co over 9.35 metres from 1202.65 to 1212.00 meters and 1.33% Ni, 1.11 % Cu and 0.05% Co over 2.20 metres from 1216.00 to 1218.20 metres. A second mineralized horizon, hosted within an altered amphibolite was intersected between 1235.45 to 1247.45 metres but returned no significant values. These assay results, combined with ongoing geophysical surveys using the Crone PEM system and structural data, will aid in defining and supporting the upcoming underground drilling programs at the Selebi Mine. The BHEM surveys were conducted by local staff using a 3-component fluxgate probe collecting full waveform data with time bases between 50 and 1000 ms (0.25Hz to 4.5Hz). The data has been processed to better quantify conductive sources, which has proven valuable due to the size of the highly conductive mineralized system. Quality Control The drilling was carried out by Mitchell Drilling of Botswana utilizing a Sandvik UDR1500 diamond drill rig coring NQ size drill core (47.75 mm) and Discovery Drilling using a DS2500 diamond drill coring BQ sized drill core (36.5mm). All samples were cut in half on site using a diamond saw, with one half retained for reference purposes. Sampling was done at intervals of 1.0 to 1.5 meters or less as deemed necessary by the site geologists. Sample preparation and lab analysis was completed at the ALS Chemex in Johannesburg, South Africa. To ensure accuracy, commercially prepared blank samples and certified Cu/Ni sulphide analytical control standards with a range of grades are inserted in every batch of 20 samples or a minimum of one set per sample batch. Analyses for Ni, Cu and Co were completed using a peroxide fusion preparation and ICP-AES finish (ME-ICP81). Holes are numbered as follows: SMD (Selebi Main Diamond) + year + hole number starting at 1. The addition of W indicates a wedge was used to deflect the hole, either back toward its intended target, or to splay a daughter hole from the parent hole. The addition of an 'x' indicates that a hole was extended. Qualified Person The scientific and technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Sharon Taylor, Chief Geophysicist of the Company, who is a "qualified person" for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"). Technical Report Scientific and technical information relating to the Selebi Mine is supported by the technical report titled "Technical Report on the Selebi Mines, Central District, Republic of Botswana, Report for NI 43-101", dated June 16, 2022 (effective date of March 1, 2022) (the "Selebi Technical Report"), and prepared by SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd. for PNRL. Reference should be made to the full text of the Selebi Technical Report, including to review the assumptions, limitations and data verification relating to the historic data compilation presented in this news release, which was prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and is available electronically on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) under PNRL's issuer profile. Historic Data The work undertaken by the Company and SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd. to verify the historic data compilation is further described in the Selebi Technical Report. While (i) visual estimates of oxidized sulphides appear to correlate well with logged intercepts and analytical values, and (ii) analytical values compared between the logs and the digital database appear to compare well, the technical team continues to collect, compile, review and validate historic technical data relevant to the project. To that end, the Selebi Technical Report recommends continued compilation and verification to confirm that the QA/QC program results are adequate to support the inclusion of the historical drill hole information in a mineral resource estimate in accordance with NI 43-101. Historical down-dip drill hole sd140 was re-opened between October 19, 2021 and November 14, 2022 to facilitate new gyro and BHEM surveys. The hole failed to intersect mineralization and also failed to intersect the host amphibolite at the anomaly depth. Historical Estimate The historical SAMREC mineral resource estimate (the "Historic SAMREC Resource") reported herein was calculated for the Selebi Mine in 2016 and does not comply with NI 43-101. To that end, the Historic SAMREC Resource is considered to be historical in nature and should not be relied upon as a current mineral resource estimate. While management believes that the Historic SAMREC Resource could be indicative of the presence of mineralization on the Selebi deposit, a qualified person for purposes of NI 43-101 has not completed sufficient work to classify the historical mineral estimate as a current mineral resource estimate and PNRL is not treating the historical mineral estimates as current mineral resource estimate. About Premium Nickel Resources Ltd. PNRL is a mineral exploration and development company focused on the discovery and advancement of high-quality nickel copper + cobalt resources. We believe that the medium to long-term demand for these metals will continue to grow, driven by global urbanization and the increasing replacement of internal combustion engines with electric motors. These metals play a crucial role in a low-carbon future. Our global strategy is to identify the best Ni-Cu-Co-PGE projects and to acquire or invest in opportunities that have high prospectivity in mining friendly jurisdictions located in low-risk countries with rule-of-law, supportive foreign investment and resource acts. We maintain a variety of global projects (Botswana, Greenland, Canada and Morocco) which complements our flagship Selebi Ni-Cu-Co sulphide mine located in Selebi-Phikwe, Botswana. PNRL is committed to governance through transparent accountability and open communication within our team and our stakeholders. The Company maintains a skilled team that has worked on over 100 projects collectively, accumulating over 400 years of resource discoveries, mine development and mine re-engineering experience on projects like Selebi and Selkirk. PNRL's team members have on average more than 20 years of experience in every single aspect of mine discovery and development, from geology to operations. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Keith Morrison Chief Executive Officer Premium Nickel Resources Ltd. For further information about Premium Nickel Resources Ltd., please contact: Jaclyn Ruptash Vice President Business Development +1 (604) 770-4334 Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain statements contained in this news release may be considered "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including anticipated assay results; the ability of exploration results (including drilling) to accurately predict mineralization; the significance of exploration (including drilling) results; the objectives of the first phase of drilling; the ability of the Company to prepare a PEA on Selebi; the ability of the Company to transition to underground resource drilling at Selebi North and Selebi; the ability of assay results to indicate mine horizons and mineralization, at all, including beyond the limits of legacy production; management's interpretation of BHEM data; the ability of the Company to use exploration drifts; the ability of the Company to verify historic data; the potential for establishing a mineral resource estimate on the Selebi deposit at depth; the Company's ability to re-characterize the historic work on the Selebi Mine; the potential for continuity and significant mineralization expansion of the Selebi Mine; the potential of the Selebi and Selkirk mines, in general, including related infrastructure; the veracity of previously unsampled core; the Company's ability to identify additional mineral resources; and the business and prospects of the Company. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, require the Company to make certain assumptions and necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. Words such as "may", "will", "would", "could", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "continue", or the negative or comparable terminology, as well as terms usually used in the future and the conditional, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Information contained in forward-looking statements, including the anticipated work programs, assay results, historical data, management's interpretation and understanding of geology, management's understanding of the acquired properties and infrastructure, are based upon certain material assumptions that were applied in drawing a conclusion or making a forecast or projection, including management's perceptions of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, current information available to the management of the Company, public disclosure from operators of the relevant mines, as well as other considerations that are believed to be appropriate in the circumstances. The Company considers its assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available but cautions the reader that their assumptions regarding future events, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, may ultimately prove to be incorrect since they are subject to risks and uncertainties that affect the Company and its businesses. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements made in this news release concerning the Company, see (i) the section entitled "Risks and Uncertainties" in the most recent management discussion and analysis of the Company, and (ii) the risk factors outlined in the filing statement of the Company dated July 22, 2022, both of which are available electronically on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) under Premium Nickel Resource Ltd's issuer profile. The forward-looking statements set forth herein concerning the Company reflect management's expectations as at the date of this news release and are subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Figure 1. Drill hole location map To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7759/152704_bc99c9da3489ba9c_002full.jpg Figure 2. Selebi and Selebi North Long Section: Drilling and Modeled BHEM Conductors To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7759/152704_bc99c9da3489ba9c_003full.jpg Figure 3. Selebi Drill Results: Vertical Cross Section through SDM-22-008a at the Selebi Deposit To view an enhanced version of Figure 3, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7759/152704_bc99c9da3489ba9c_004full.jpg Figure 4. Selebi Drill Results: Vertical Cross Section through SDM-22-009a at the Selebi Deposit To view an enhanced version of Figure 4, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/7759/152704_bc99c9da3489ba9c_005full.jpg To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152704 CONSHOHOCKEN, PA / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / Good Neighbor Pharmacy (GNP), a national independent pharmacy network offered through AmerisourceBergen, in partnership with the AmerisourceBergen Foundation, an independent not-for-profit charitable giving organization focused on supporting health-related causes, announce the launch of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship program. The newly formed program aims to assist Black and African American graduate students pursuing a Pharmacy Doctorate Degree, preferably at a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). The Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship is accepting applications now through February 28, 2023, at 3pm CT via Scholarship America . Recipients will be announced in April, with all scholarships benefiting students starting in the 2023-24 school year. To commemorate the first year of the program, four pharmacy school students (one rising P1, P2, P3, and P4) will be selected to receive $25,000 for each remaining academic year of their four-year Doctor of Pharmacy program. In the case of the P1 student, the scholarship will provide a $100,000 total investment towards their education. In subsequent years, a new rising P1 student will be selected to join the pool of previous winners, filling the space left by the graduating P4 student. "At Good Neighbor Pharmacy, we firmly believe that advancing health equity starts at the community level, and that pharmacies - which are highly trusted, accessible and ingrained in their communities - are leading this charge," said Jennifer Zilka, President of Good Neighbor Pharmacy. "We are keenly focused on supporting our Good Neighbor Pharmacy customers in their endeavors to ensure equitable healthcare access, and with the launch of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship, we are extending that focus to support historically underrepresented groups within pharmacy practice. This program isjust one small step in advancing inclusion across the pharmacy industry - but we remain committed to being active participants in this journey." Initially announced at ThoughtSpot 2022, the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship program is the product of the AmerisourceBergen Foundation and Good Neighbor Pharmacy's shared commitment to the advancement of inclusion across the pharmacy profession, where there remains a marked lack of diversity. "Today, less than 22% of all licensed pharmacists in the United States are non-white - and only 5% are African American," said Ann Anaya, AmerisourceBergen's SVP & Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer. "And while the total number of Black and African American students enrolled in pharmacy schools has increased in recent years, this group represents only 9% of the total pharmacy school population. Diversity in healthcare is essential to advancing health equity and supporting cultural competencies within specific communities - and as this data implies, there is still more work to be done to build a pharmacy workforce that is truly representative of the diverse patients and communities that pharmacists care for every day." The AmerisourceBergen Foundation and Good Neighbor Pharmacy's shared effort to encourage a more diverse pharmacy workforce through the creation of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship aligns with AmerisourceBergen's expanded commitment to supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in various aspects of its business. AmerisourceBergen's Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council was created to provide strategic direction, best practice sharing, and accountability to advance business results through a global DEI strategy. The Global DEI Council works to amplify the DEI strategic plan, influence culture change and model cultural competency and global mindset. "The AmerisourceBergen Foundation endeavors to advance health equity and access to healthcare through strategic investments in organizations focused on improving diversity, equity and inclusiveness in their industries, as well as the communities they serve," said Gina Clark, President of the AmerisourceBergen Foundation. "Good Neighbor Pharmacy is a fierce advocate for independent community pharmacies, and a firm believer of their position and potential to address health disparities. We see how GNP's sustained push to expand the pharmacist's role in patient care has resulted in them being more widely and rightfully regarded as healthcare providers. That's why the AB Foundation is eager to partner with the network on the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship. By empowering and uplifting the next generation of Black and African American pharmacists and pharmacy owners, we come one step closer to ensuring equitable and culturally competent care for all." To access the Good Neighbor Pharmacy Scholarship application and learn more about criteria for eligible students, click here. About AmerisourceBergen AmerisourceBergen is a leading global pharmaceutical solutions organization centered on improving the lives of people and animals around the world. We partner with pharmaceutical innovators across the value chain to facilitate and optimize market access to therapies. Care providers depend on us for the secure, reliable delivery of pharmaceuticals, healthcare products, and solutions. Our 44,000+ worldwide team members contribute to positive health outcomes through the power our purpose: We are united in our responsibility to create healthier futures. AmerisourceBergen is ranked #10 on the Fortune 500 and #21 on the Global Fortune 500 with more than $200 billion in annual revenue. Learn more at www.amerisourcebergen.com. About the AmerisourceBergen Foundation As the philanthropic arm of AmerisourceBergen Corporation, the Foundation is aligned in its mission to support efficient and safe access to pharmaceutical care around the globe. The AmerisourceBergen Foundation supports nonprofits year-round through a robust grantmaking process which includes proactive disaster response support to strategic partners: Americares, Direct Relief, Healthcare Ready, National Disaster Search Dog Foundation, NCPA Foundation, NOMV, and Wings of Rescue. During times of need, it is the collection of AmerisourceBergen, its associates, and the Foundation that come together united in a responsibility to create healthier futures and effectively support relief efforts. Together, these organizations work tirelessly around the clock to expand access to quality healthcare, improve patient outcomes and ensure that healthcare providers are able to receive the products they rely on to treat those who are immediately impacted. For more information about the AmerisourceBergen Foundation, visit www.amerisourcebergenfoundation.org. Read more. Media Contact: Mackenzie Liberatori Phone: 267-252-5704 View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from AmerisourceBergen on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: AmerisourceBergen Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/amerisourcebergen Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: AmerisourceBergen View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737048/The-AmerisourceBergen-Foundation-Good-Neighbor-Pharmacy-Launch-Scholarship-Program-To-Support-Aspiring-Black-and-African-American-Pharmacists Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) is pleased to announce that the company is presenting a live virtual corporate update hosted by Red Cloud Financial Services on January 31st, 2023 at 4:00pm 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-bgd/. Join Barton Gold Managing Director Alex Scanlon to discuss the Company's 1.1Moz Au + Mill existing development platform, major ongoing growth programs, and plans for 2023 and beyond as they build South Australia's largest independent gold producer. Commodities to be covered: Gold About Barton Gold Barton Gold is an ASX listed Australian gold exploration company with a total attributable ~1.1Moz Au JORC (2012) Mineral Resources endowment (28.68Mt @ 1.2 g/t Au), a pipeline of advanced exploration projects and brownfield mines, and 100% ownership of the only regional gold mill in the central Gawler Craton of South Australia. Barton is well funded and is aggressively expanding its Tarcoola and Tunkillia Gold Projects in support of large-scale development options. The Company's ambition is to establish a +2Moz Au Resources base and develop South Australia's largest independent gold producer (+150,000ozpa) within 5 years. Barton's Central Gawler Mill processed ore from its Tarcoola Gold Project during 2017 - 2018 with ~94% recoveries, providing a platform for earlier 'Stage 1' operations and toll milling options for multiple regional explorers. 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: Barton Gold Alexander Scanlon, MD &CEO +61 425 226 649 a.scanlon@bartongold.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 27, 2023) - Copland Road Capital Corporation (CSE: CRCC) ("Copland Road" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has completed a non-brokered private placement financing (the "Offering") through the issuance of 2,713,500 common shares (the "Common Shares") in the capital of the Company at a price of $0.25 per Common Share for gross proceeds of $678,375. The gross proceeds raised from the Offering will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes. The securities issued upon closing of the Offering will be subject to a hold period of four months plus a day from the date of closing, pursuant to applicable securities laws. The closing of the Offering is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and other approvals, including the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to sell 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 unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. The Offering constituted a related party transaction within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101") insiders of the Company subscribed for an aggregate of 783,500 Common Shares pursuant to the Offering. The Company is relying on the exemptions from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 contained in sections 5.5(b) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, as the Company is not listed on a specified market and the fair market value of the participation in the Offering by the insiders does not exceed 25% of the market capitalization of the Company in accordance with MI 61-101. The Company did not file a material change report in respect of the related party transaction at least 21 days before the closing of the of the Offering, which the Company deems reasonable in the circumstances in order to complete the Offering in an expeditious manner. As a result of participating in the Offering, Mr. Kelly's holdings increased to approximately 10.45% of the Company's issued and outstanding Common Shares on a non-diluted basis and approximately 10.75% of the Company's issued and outstanding Common Shares on a partially basis. A copy of the early warning report will be available on the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. About Copland Road Capital Corporation Copland Road is a Canadian investment firm that invests in assets across multiple industries, with the aim of creating tangible value for its shareholders. For more information, please visit https://copland-road.com For inquiries, please contact: Bruce Langstaff, Executive Chairman langstaff@copland-road.com (647) 242-4258 Forward-Looking Statements This news release includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of that phrase under Canadian securities laws. Without limitation, statements regarding future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking statements that involve various degrees of risk. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current views with respect to possible future events and conditions and, by their nature, are based on management's beliefs and assumptions and subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific to the Company. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements and such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding the material factors and assumptions that were applied in making these forward-looking statements as well as the various risks and uncertainties are described in greater detail in the "Risk Factors" section of the annual Management's Discussion and Analysis of the Company and other continuous disclosure documents and financial statements under its profile available at www.sedar.com. The Company undertakes no obligation to update this forward-looking information except as required by applicable law. The Company relies on litigation protection for forward-looking statements. Neither the Canadian Securities Purchase nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Purchase) 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/152691 OVERLAND PARK, KS / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / As climate change supercharges hurricanes, flooding and drought, U.S. businesses realize the potentially high cost of vulnerability, with flooding a prime example. According to a study by First Street Foundation and Arup, about 730,000 U.S. retail, office and multi-unit residential properties are at risk of flood damage. The potential structural damage associated with this probabilistic flooding is $13.5 billion, and lost working days could total 3 million. Compounding matters is that local economies would lose nearly $50 billion due to lost business output and indirect impacts that create cascading effects down the economic chain. While worst-case scenarios are ominous, the global community amplified the use of clean renewable energy and electric vehicles in 2022, which slashed carbon emission totals. Doing their part, companies are developing climate-adaptive, sustainable business models. Black & Veatch recommends they integrate resilience into their infrastructure and across their operational culture, starting with these five targeted actions: 1. Manage climate vulnerability Climate analytics help enterprises identify the likelihood of climate hazards and the resulting impacts on their operations. With this knowledge, businesses prioritize funding towards adapting or mitigating their buildings, systems or functions to the predicted risk. Recently, Black & Veatch evaluated how hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions could damage infrastructure belonging to a major East Coast utility. In-house meteorologists studied 70 years of tropical systems and developed a tropical "storm scale" that measured storm intensity, overall aerial coverage, flooding and impacts on the utility's service territory. Black & Veatch used a combined total scoring index for this data to develop a recurrence interval for the utility's current service area. This comprehensive analysis resulted in the 20-year storm damage index modeled with historical storm cost analysis. The utility is using the final storm reserve analysis to understand its vulnerability, inform adaptation and mitigation efforts, and plan financially for the potential costs of climate change. Businesses can reduce their exposure with a similar application. 2. Decarbonize energy and reduce water consumption In the U.S., the commercial sector accounts for 12 percent of the total energy consumption, and some commercial facilities such as data centers use a whopping 3 to 5 million gallons of water per day. It's no surprise that businesses often focus on resource reduction and decarbonization to cut costs, build resilience and decrease their impact on the environment. With the right engineering alchemy, many technologies can provide compound benefits in one application. Consider the Nautilus Data Center in Port of Stockton, California. The facility uses recirculated water from a nearby source to cool the data center, and the water body becomes a heat sink. Innovative designs mean that Nautilus consumes no water, produces no wastewater and requires no refrigerants, water treatment chemicals, cooling towers or computer room air handlers. The technology uses less than one-third of the power that traditional computer room air-conditioning would use for cooling. Through Nautilus' innovation and Black & Veatch engineering, California is host to the world's first zero-water consumption data center. 3. Draw on Ecological Resilience Sustainability actions often occur within the operational confines of a business, community or service district. But the best plans for sustainable systems work across geography and ecology to emphasize an area's natural resilience features and work in sync with Mother Nature. Babcock Ranch, Florida, serves as a great example. Hurricane Ian, the Category 4 storm that slammed into Florida in October, knocked out electricity to 2.6 million Floridians. However, shops, offices, grocery stores, restaurants and homes in Babcock Ranch sustained no power or internet loss despite being about 20 miles from the storm's landfall. At the heart of Babcock Ranch's resilience are sustainable design engineering and construction practices. For example, previously drained cattle ranchland was allowed to revert to natural wetlands, which function like retention ponds to uptake excess rain and floodwater. Native plants comprise 75 percent of the community's landscaping, which withstand high winds and soggy conditions to lessen storm impacts. The Babcock Ranch Solar Energy Center and Babcock Preserve Solar Energy Center are at the community's energy core. Built on 870 acres, each center can generate 75 megawatts (MW) of clean energy capacity via 680,000 solar panels, augmented by a 1-MW battery energy storage system. Despite hurricane wind gusts of 150 miles per hour, Babcock Ranch's solar panels remained intact and functional, providing resilient, decarbonized energy. Perhaps as Mother Nature intended, communities are embracing ecological processes and designing hardscapes that align with the environment - and for good reason. Streets that direct water away from homes and businesses, hardy native vegetation and underground electric distribution wires and communication infrastructure protect critical services and functions, building resilience. 4. Use data to increase project value When businesses plan to develop or upgrade their infrastructure, tools such as Envision, an infrastructure rating tool, can be helpful. Envision measures and tracks resource use to identify options to use local sourcing and cut emissions, energy and water use, optimizing the long-term project costs. Businesses set and achieve environmental and resilience goals, increasing resource stewardship without sacrificing functionality or cost. Data helps businesses align their activities to local conditions to support regional environmental goals or reduce hazard vulnerability. For example, wind energy is of growing interest to businesses and institutions. Recently, Alliant Energy became the first wind farm developer to receive Platinum Envision verification for its Upland Prairie and English Hills projects. Black & Veatch assembled an integrated team of accredited Envision Sustainability specialists alongside environmental permitting, water and renewable energy engineering experts to deliver five utility-scale wind farms totaling 470 MWs across Iowa. 5. Create a culture of sustainability Building resilience often means introducing new technologies, such as an electric fleet or clean energy systems. If the end users do not embrace, learn and adopt the new way of doing things, sustainable operations will not succeed, nor will they achieve the expected return on investment. An organizational strategy to guide sustainable practices will help determine and manage operational impacts, keep morale high as new technologies are introduced, ensure staff skills evolve to support new operations, and align outcomes with goals. A good plan clearly articulates strategic business goals and leaves room for flexibility if something is not working and needs to be adjusted. While the International Energy Administration indicates substantial progress in the global effort to control carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the need persists for greener, resilient and adaptive infrastructure in commercial businesses and beyond. Design and engineering innovation are leading these changes, creating cleaner, resilient versions of essential systems that work in sync with the built and natural environments. Editor's Notes: To read the flood risk assessment study by First Street Foundation and ARUP, click here. About Black & Veatch Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Our revenues in 2021 exceeded US$3.3 billion. Follow us on www.bv.com and on social media. Media Contact Information: MEGHAN LOCKNER | +1 201-977-1628 | locknerm@bv.com 24-HOUR MEDIA CONTACT | Media@bv.com View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Black & Veatch on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Black & Veatch Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/black-veatch Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Black & Veatch View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737050/Black-Veatch-Build-Business-Resilience-with-Climate-Adaptive-Infrastructure Wien/Berlin (ots) -with Brett Scott (economist and author of the book Cloudmoney), Gerhard Starsich (CEO of the Austrian Mint)during theWorld Money Fair on 2 February 2023, Estrel Hotel, Sonnenallee 255, Berlin at 11:00Participation in the Media Roundtable can also take place virtually via a video conferencing service(you will receive dial-in data after your registration).According to the World Bank and the Federal Reserve, more than 13 million people in Europe and 63 million in the United States are unbanked or excluded from the financial system. In an increasingly digital world, the use of cash may seem like a relic of the past. Yet while the transition to cashless payments may be more convenient, it also raises important concerns about access, privacy and security, as well as social equity and how to deal with vulnerable individuals who are excluded from cashless payment systems. While the transition to cashless systems is ever quicker in most countries, some countries such as the United States (New York and Philadelphia), Sweden and the United Kingdom have taken a step back and adopted regulations granting the right to make cash payments or withdrawals in order to protect citizens. Our guest author and economist Brett Scott (Cloudmoney) argues that the move to cashless payments is more a result of increasing digitization and the strategy of a few companies than a matter of practicality. He defends cash against the increasing centralization of the digital payment system and warns against it.How will other nations react when increasing inequality and today's difficult economic situation are pressing more and more people into being excluded from the so-called modern financial system? What will the future of payment systems look like worldwide and how can we guarantee and promote the use of cash as a payment option to ensure social equality, security and privacy? These questions and many more will be discussed during our press briefing on the importance of cash payments for our society. Journalists are invited to put questions to the panelists after an initial discussion.Join us for a discussion on the risk of the current trend towards cashless payments and its impact on different groups in society, including unbanked, underbanked and vulnerable populations, on 2 February 2023, either in person at the Estrel Hotel, Sonnenallee 255, Berlin at 11:00 or online.Registration is now open:You can register via this link (https://www.ots.at/redirect/muenze)or by replying to this emailOn stage:Brett Scott - Author and economistGerhard Starsich - CEO of the Austrian Mint AGAgenda: 5 Minutes Welcoming10 Minutes Book presentation Cloudmoney by Brett Scott30 Minutes Panel discussionBrett ScottGerhard Starsich"Back to cash - why cash payments are important for our society"Invitation to the Media Roundtablewith Brett Scott (economist and author of the book Cloudmoney), Gerhard Starsich (CEO of Munze Osterreich)during the World Money Fair on 2 February 2023,Estrel Hotel, Sonnenallee 255, Berlin at 11:00Join us for a discussion on the risk of the current trend towards cashless payments and its impact on different groups in society, including unbanked, underbanked and vulnerable populations, on 2 February 2023, either in person at the Estrel Hotel, Sonnenallee 255, Berlin at 11:00 or online.Datum: 03.02.2023, 11:00 - 12:00 UhrOrt: World Money Fair, Hotel Estrel Berlin, You will receive dial-in data after your registrationSonnenallee 225 Berlin, Berlin Berlin, DeutschlandUrl:https://event.instinctif.de/pressegespraech-zur-world-money-fair-in-berlin/registrierungsformularPressekontakt:Andrea LangMUNZE OSTERREICH AGAm Heumarkt 1 1030 Vienna AustriaTelephone +43 1 717 15 149 Mobile +43 6649629821andrea.lang@muenzeoesterreich.atwww.muenzeoesterreich.at.atOriginal-Content von: Munze Osterreich AG, ubermittelt durch news aktuellOriginalmeldung: https://www.presseportal.de/pm/112323/5427393 Aberforth Smaller Companies Trust plc (the "Company") Dividend Declaration The Board of Aberforth Smaller Companies Trust plc today announced a proposed final ordinary dividend of 26.95p per share, together with a special dividend of 8.30p per share, in respect of the year ended 31 December 2022. Subject to shareholder approval at the AGM to be held on 2 March 2023, the dividends will be paid on 8 March 2023 to shareholders on the register at the close of business on 10 February 2023. The ex-dividend date is 9 February 2023. The Company also operates a Dividend Reinvestment Plan and elections must be received by the Company's registrars by 5.30pm on 23 February 2023. Aberforth Partners LLP, Secretaries (Tel 0131 220 0733) 27 January 2023 -- Company Progressing on Several Fronts -- WATERTOWN, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / 1812 BREWING COMPANY, INC. (OTC Markets:KEGS) (the "Company" or "KEGS") is pleased to update its shareholders and the market on several fronts as the Company progresses forward with its strategy. 1812 Brewing Company has presented a potential acquisition candidate an Indication of Interest ("IOI") letter, which has led to in-person meetings with top management at the target. We expect these meetings to occur in the following weeks, and we seek to derive from them a binding Letter of Intent ("LOI"). This acquisition - if transacted - would be potentially transformational for 1812 Brewing Company in that it would allow the Company to show "proof of concept" with our brewery network strategy. The deal is contingent upon final terms and financing. 1812 Brewing Company's entrance into the Canadian market is progressing. As stated previously, the Company has chosen to enter the market in the Province of Ontario and, as such, is applying for product approvals with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario ("LCBO"). As products are approved it would clear the pathway for any to be sold at up to 450 of The Beer Store (www.thebeerstore.ca) locations and possibly through the LCBO's own stores (Wine Spirits Beer | LCBO), which are approximately 650. As this process continues, management will be sure to update shareholders. Management is also considering investments and acquisitions outside the beer market with beverages that we feel are complementary to our own. To this end, we have begun initial discussions with a bourbon brand that has achieved numerous awards and gained immense popularity in a relatively short period. The talks have just begun, and we will be sure to also update you if these discussions develop further. Finally, also as previously announced, 1812's flagship product continues to be sold on TapRm.com's website direct-to-consumers in 45 states plus Washington DC at: https://1812-brewing.taprm.com/all-products Sales at TapRm.com remain strong, and we hope to add additional products to our portfolio there. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to updating you all on the Company's developments and continued progress. About 1812 Brewing Company ("KEGS or the "Company") : KEGS is an operator of and investor in companies in the craft beer industry. The Company seeks to build a nation-wide network of craft breweries to develop and foster respective brand growth at the local, regional, and national level. KEGS looks to build a network wherein certain economies of scale can be shared across it such as production, distribution footprint expansion, inter-member contract brewing, new product development, sharing of best brewery practices and scale logistics and transportation. The network is to be built through investment by 1812 Brewing Company while maintaining the members' respective local and regional uniqueness, brand autonomy and direct involvement with its consumers. The Company seeks to be an "incubator" of growth for its holdings in the industry. The Company's current holding, 1812 Brewing Co., produces award-winning beers such as War of 1812 Amber Ale ("1812 Amber Ale"), 1812 Light, Hazy Oasis Pale Ale, Thousand Islands IPA, Malicious Intent XX IPA, Route 11 Lager, Railroad Red Ale, Helles Bells Pilsner, St. Stephens Stout, Third Rail Porter, Featherhammer Maibock. For more updates follow us on our Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin. https://www.kegsnetwork.com/ https://www.facebook.com/kegsnetwork/ https://www.instagram.com/kegsnetwork/ https://twitter.com/kegsnetwork https://www.1812ale.com/ https://www.facebook.com/1812brewingcompany/ https://www.instagram.com/1812brewingcompany/ https://twitter.com/1812Brewing https://www.linkedin.com/company/1812brewingcompany/ Contact Name: Tom Scozzafava Contact Phone Number: 315-788-1812 Contact Email Address: contact@1812ale.com Safe Harbor: This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 27E of the Securities Act of 1934. Statements contained in this release that are not historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain. Actual performance and results may differ materially from that projected or suggested herein due to certain risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, ability to obtain financing and regulatory and shareholder approval for anticipated actions. SOURCE: 1812 Brewing Company Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737052/1812-Brewing-Company-Shareholder-Update VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / CMC Metals Ltd. (TSX-V:CMB)(Frankfurt:ZM5P)(OTCQB:CMCXF) ("CMC" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a review of its exploration activities conducted on its properties in 2022 and an outline of its proposed activities for 2023 (see in our website at https://cmcmetals.ca/ceo-corner/updates-from-the-ceo/hello-investors/ - CEO Corner - Updates from the CEO - "Hello Investors, January 2023 edition"). The Company is also providing a reminder that it will be exhibiting and presenting at events in Vancouver including the Metals Investor Forum, January 27-28, and in the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference January 29-30. About CMC Metals Ltd. CMC Metals Ltd. is a growth stage exploration company focused on opportunities for high grade polymetallic deposits in Yukon, British Columbia and Newfoundland. Our polymetallic silver-lead-zinc CRD prospects in the Rancheria Silver District include the Silver Hart Deposit and Blue Heaven claims (Yukon), Amy and Silverknife claims (British Columbia). Our polymetallic projects with potential for copper-silver-gold and other metals include Bridal Veil, Terra Nova and Rodney Pond (central Newfoundland) and Logjam (Yukon). On behalf of the Board: "John Bossio" John Bossio, Chairman CMC METALS LTD. For Further Information and Investor Inquiries: Kevin Brewer, P. Geo., MBA, B.Sc.(Hons), Dip. Mine Eng. President, CEO and Director Tel: (+52) 669 198 8503 kbrewer80@hotmail.com Suite 1000-409 Granville St., Vancouver, BC, V6C 1T2 To be added to CMC's news distribution list, please send an email to info@cmcmetals.ca or contact Mr. Kevin Brewer directly. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. "This news release may contain certain statements that constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law, including without limitation, statements that address the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles and exploitation activities and developments. In this release disclosure regarding the potential to undertake future exploration work comprise forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and are necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions. While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks, including the ability of the Company to raise the funds necessary to fund its projects, to carry out the work and, accordingly, may not occur as described herein or at all. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, the timing and receipt of government and regulatory approvals, the impact of the constantly evolving COVID-19 pandemic crisis and continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions. Readers are referred to the Company's filings with the Canadian securities regulators for information on these and other risk factors, available at www.sedar.com. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and, accordingly are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty of such statements. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation." SOURCE: CMC Metals Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737036/CMC-Metals-Provides-Review-of-2022-Activities-and-Update-of-Proposed-Activities-for-2023 NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / Originally published on Bristol Myers Squibb News & Perspectives A decade ago, the evolution of immuno-oncology transformed the landscape of therapy for patients with many cancers. Although individual immunotherapies have helped to improve outcomes for patients, the addition of rational combinations of more than one immunotherapy regimen has led to more treatment options and the potential for longer survival. Not all patients have been reached by these advances though and there is an urgency to achieve more. Bristol Myers Squibb has been a pioneer in bringing immunotherapy, including dual immunotherapy combinations, forward to patients, and continues to examine the immune system from multiple perspectives in order to find potentially complementary combinations of therapies. Building upon existing therapies that overcome immune inhibition Bristol Myers Squibb has pursued a number of ways to address the immune response and leverage it to attack tumors. CTLA-4 and PD-1 are immune checkpoints that inhibit the immune response and, in a healthy person, work to keep the immune system in check. In patients with cancer, tumor cells can potentially manipulate immune checkpoints to evade attack from T cells, or the body's immune response. Existing therapies have successfully leveraged inhibition of these immune checkpoints to release the "brakes" from T cells and allow them to recognize and to attack tumors. LAG-3 is another immune checkpoint, and it is a focus of research efforts at Bristol Myers Squibb. LAG-3, a protein found on the surface of certain T cells, may promote T cell exhaustion, which can allow tumors to evade the immune system. Researchers have found that blocking the LAG-3 receptor on T cells may help them to overcome exhaustion, another way of releasing the "brakes" from T cells. The strategy of leveraging LAG-3 to fight cancer seems particularly promising when used in combination with existing immunotherapies. The decision to pursue various combinations is made based on scientific rationale and deep knowledge of how different mechanisms of action can work together. Bristol Myers Squibb is exploring doublet and triplet combinations that bring together LAG-3 with existing therapies. We believe we have the opportunity to leverage therapies with similar mechanisms of action, as well as those with complementary mechanisms of action. Exploring the promise of immunostimulatory therapy Research has also focused on immunotherapies that directly stimulate the immune system, as opposed to those that work by overcoming inhibition of the immune response. For example, therapies leveraging the IL-2 pathway may directly activate, or agonize, the immune system. They step on the "gas" of the immune system. "We believe that immunostimulatory therapies may show promise when used in combination with existing therapies that overcome immune inhibition. We are well positioned to bring these types of dual immunotherapy regimens forward," said Gary Grossfeld, Global Development Project Leader at Bristol Myers Squibb. "Leveraging more than one pathway can potentially improve the immune system response to cancer, thereby building on the efficacy of single agent therapy while maintaining a favorable safety profile." The importance of precision medicine Part of bringing new therapies forward is ensuring that they are targeted to specific diseases and patient populations. Certain biomarkers - whether genetic or protein based - may give an indication that one type of therapy or combination will work better in some patients versus others. "Our study protocols are filled with exploratory biomarker work aimed at understanding which patients are likely to benefit from certain treatments. We are dedicated to a precision medicine approach in our development programs, and I expect we may see great progress in the next several years," said Grossfeld. Grossfeld believes that a focus on precision medicine, as well as a strategic approach to building on existing therapies with investigational agents, have positioned Bristol Myers Squibb at the forefront of immuno-oncology research. Despite advances in treatment of cancer with immunotherapy, a large number of unmet clinical needs remain. The goal is always to move the needle for patients. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Bristol Myers Squibb Company on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Bristol Myers Squibb Company Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/bristol-myers-squibb-company Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Bristol Myers Squibb Company View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737055/The-Power-of-Dual-Immunotherapy Harris Williams, a global investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services, announces it advised Prima Solutions on its sale to Total Specific Solutions (TSS), a subsidiary of Topicus.com (TSXV:TOI; Topicus) and part of Constellation Software Inc. (TSX:CSU; Constellation). Prima Solutions is a leading European insurtech company that helps insurance professionals transform existing legacy systems and streamline core business processes, thereby speeding up their digital transformation. The transaction was led by Julien Oussadon and Luke Clifford of the Harris Williams Technology Group. "Prima Solutions' leadership position in France, blue-chip customer base, strong recurring revenue growth and cloud-based solutions were key to attracting interest from a variety of strategic partners. We're excited to see Prima Solutions' growth continue into the next phase as part of TSS," said Julien Oussadon, a managing director at Harris Williams. Hugues Delannoy, founder and president of Prima Solutions, added, "Harris Williams provided exceptional advice and support at every stage of the transaction and has been pivotal to its success. I am very excited for the future of Prima Solutions as we partner with TSS and continue our mission to digitally transform the French insurance industry." Prima Solutions designs software for insurance professionals, covering all business processes in the non-life, health, protection and mortgage insurance verticals. The group serves more than 50 customers and works with a global network of partners. It helps insurance companies go digital and manage their operations more efficiently through a highly configurable, modular, and cloud-based software suite. TSS is the leading provider of IT business solutions and consists of independent business units that deliver products and services to their specific vertical market segments. This market expertise is based on decades of experience. TSS is part of Constellation, a public company listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange. Topicus is a leading pan-European provider of vertical market software and vertical market platforms to clients in public and private sector markets. Operating and investing in countries and markets across Europe with long-term growth potential, Topicus acquires, builds, and manages leading software companies providing specialized, mission-critical, and high-impact software solutions that address the particular needs of customers. Constellation's common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CSU." Constellation acquires, manages and builds vertical market software businesses. Harris Williams is a global investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services. Clients worldwide rely on us to help unlock value in their business and turn ambitious goals into reality. We approach every engagement with boundless collaboration, pooling expertise and relationships across industries and geographies to uncover the unique story of each company. Technology is ubiquitous in today's global economy, with most sectors and industries rapidly adopting software and data solutions as companies seek to increase competitiveness and enhance productivity. Led by seasoned and passionate professionals with strong vertical and horizontal experience, the Harris Williams Technology Group partners with both growth capital and private equity investors as well as company leaders around the globe. Our clients rely on us to navigate the ever-evolving technology M&A landscape and help them turn ambitious goals into reality. Our Technology Group has deep expertise across application and vertical software as well as technology and data services. Harris Williams LLC is a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Harris Williams Co. Ltd is a private limited company incorporated under English law with its registered office at 8th Floor, 20 Farringdon Street, London EC4A 4AB, UK, registered with the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales (registration number 07078852). Harris Williams Co. Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Harris Williams Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH is registered in the commercial register of the local court of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under HRB 107540. The registered address is Bockenheimer Landstrasse 33-35, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany (email address: hwgermany@harriswilliams.com). Geschaftsfuhrer/Directors: Jeffery H. Perkins, Paul Poggi. (VAT No. DE321666994). Harris Williams is a trade name under which Harris Williams LLC, Harris Williams Co. Ltd and Harris Williams Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH conduct business. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005292/en/ Contacts: For media inquiries, please contact Julia Moore at media@harriswilliams.com Eric Mower Shifts Role to Executive Chairman, Remaining Active with Company SYRACUSE, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / Mower, one of the leading independent marketing communications agencies in the U.S., today announced that Stephanie Crockett has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of the firm. Crockett assumes the CEO title from Eric Mower, who becomes Executive Chairman of the agency that he has guided since 1968. Crockett joined the agency 18 years ago and was named President and Chief Operating Officer of the company in June 2021. Crockett, 49, is active in a number of professional, business and community organizations. She is immediate past-Chairperson of the United Way of Central New York Board of Directors, a member of the CenterState CEO Board of Directors, the Women Presidents Organization and the National Advertising Review Board. It was recently announced she will receive the Central New York Sales & Marketing Executives 2023 Crystal Ball Award, an honor that Eric Mower received in 1984. A graduate of SUNY Geneseo, prior to joining Mower, she had marketing roles at agencies and on the client side. In August 2022, Eric Mower sold the company to a newly established employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). This announcement marks the most recent point in a long-in-the-making ownership transition and succession plan that began nearly 10 years ago when Eric Mower first considered an ESOP as an alternative to an outside sale. "Mower continues to build on a 55-year heritage as an independent strategic creative resource for our clients. Eric created something unique -- an integrated communications firm producing award winning campaigns for an amazing list of clients," Crockett said. "Our industry continues to evolve, and now as an ESOP, Mower is structured to flourish in this new environment. We have a spectacular team of professionals that produce results for the brands we represent." Mower is coming off of a very successful 2022. In recent months Mower was selected as the ANA Mid-Sized Agency of the Year; listed among the PRNews Agency Elite Top 100 and Chief Marketer CM200; named as a PRWeek Best Places to Work; and ranked again on City & State's Political PR Power 50. "This announcement is further evidence of a carefully calculated transition for the agency. Stephanie Crockett is our time-tested and most evident candidate to head a group of strong and competent leaders at Mower for the future. She is a consummate professional that has my trust as well as the trust of our staff and our clients," Eric Mower said. The balance of the agency's executive leadership team remains in place, including Doug Bean, Vice Chairman; Chris Steenstra, Chief Administrative Officer; Cheryl Duggan, Chief Financial Officer; Doug Kamp, Chief Creative Officer; and Rick Lyke, Executive Vice President, Managing Director, Public Relations and Public Affairs. About Mower Mower is a digitally integrated independent marketing, advertising and public relations agency with professional staff in New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Denver, Miami and Buffalo, Rochester, Albany and Syracuse, N.Y. Mower delivers strategic insights and counsel, digital solutions, smart creative and award-winning results to clients in a wide range of industries and service sectors. It has earned top industry accolades from Clio, Cannes, and ANA B2 awards and is the only full-service agency ranked in Ad Age, B2B Marketing, PRWeek and Chief Marketer. Mower is employee-owned and part of two global agency networks - thenetworkone and IPREX - as well as the 4A's. CONTACT: Julie Thomas Mower 212.980.9064 jthomas@mower.com SOURCE: Mower View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737020/Mower-Names-Stephanie-Crockett-as-President-and-Chief-Executive-Officer NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / U.S. Bank announces the hire of Guillaume Mascotto as the company's head of Sustainable Finance. In this new leadership role, Mascotto will build and lead a new team focused on identifying sustainable finance opportunities across the entire enterprise. Based in New York, Mascotto is part of the U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation (USBCDC) leadership team reporting to its CEO, Zack Boyers. Originally published on U.S. Bank company blog This new team will bring specialized expertise and support to enable U.S. Bank business lines to capture sustainable finance opportunities. Working alongside leaders from around the bank, it will help identify and launch products and services that meet customers' growing sustainable financing needs, including lending and investment activities that empower communities, support inclusive growth, and help transition to a low-carbon economy. It will also play a critical role in helping U.S. Bank mobilize capital toward meeting many of the social and environmental commitments it's made, including priorities around environmental finance, Net Zero and Access CommitmentTM. "Customers all across U.S. Bank are increasingly talking to us about sustainable finance products and services that can help them meet their social and environmental goals," Boyers said. "Under Guillaume's leadership, this new team will engage all our business lines to help meet customers' sustainable finance needs. It's important work, not only for our customers but also for our communities and the environment." Mascotto joins U.S. Bank from Jennison Associates where he most recently was managing director and global head of environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy, responsible for setting the strategic direction and daily management of Jennison's ESG activities. Prior to that he was vice president and head of ESG and Investment Stewardship with American Century Investments; vice president, ESG credit research and portfolio management with Pacific Investment Management Co. and held ESG roles at several other companies. Mascotto earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in international affairs from the University of Quebec at Montreal. He also holds a master's degree in international business and economics from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. "There is such great need from companies for assistance as they review new and updated ESG standards and look to capture sustainable finance opportunities to help transition to a low-carbon economy and elevate communities through inclusive access and growth," said Mascotto. "I'm excited to partner across U.S. Bank on products and services that will help customers achieve their sustainability goals." About U.S. Bank U.S. Bancorp, with approximately 70,000 employees and $601 billion in assets as of September 30, 2022, is the parent company of U.S. Bank National Association. The Minneapolis-based company serves millions of customers locally, nationally and globally through a diversified mix of businesses: Consumer and Business Banking; Payment Services; Corporate & Commercial Banking; and Wealth Management and Investment Services. Union Bank, consisting primarily of retail banking branches on the West Coast, joined U.S. Bancorp in 2022. The company has been recognized for its approach to digital innovation, social responsibility, and customer service, including being named one of the 2022 World's Most Ethical Companies and Fortune's most admired superregional bank. Learn more at usbank.com/about. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from U.S. Bank on 3blmedia.com Contact Info: Spokesperson: U.S. Bank Cassie Wagner, U.S. Bank Communications Cassie.wagner@usbank.com Spokesperson: U.S. Bank Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/us-bank Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: U.S. Bank View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737062/US-Bank-Adds-Guillaume-Mascotto-As-Head-of-Sustainable-Finance NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As per Facts and Factors study, The global hospital lighting market size was worth around USD 5.43 billion in 2021 and is predicted to grow to around USD 9.76 billion by 2030 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of roughly 8.7% between 2022 and 2030. Hospital Lighting Market: Overview Hospital lighting includes a very important section of the hospital structure that directly relates to the visibility that is provided inside the hospital. The rehabilitation and management of the patients directly depend upon the provisions that have been made regarding hospital lighting. Other factors that are affected by this market include operation management, cost control, and the relationship between doctors and patients. The construction of the hospital structure includes the setup and provisions that are required for lighting. The increasing demand for the digitalization of various systems in hospitals has also helped the hospital lighting market to record significant revenue. Rapid utilization of tablets and laptops in the healthcare industry to provide better services to people has helped boost the global hospital lighting market to a great extent. The lights that are utilized within the health care setups are manufactured according to the requirements that need to be fulfilled during a procedure. The materials that are utilized for manufacturing these lights are quite durable as they must undergo cleaning processes regularly. The materials that are utilized are usually resistant to chemicals and water. The active participation of the government has boosted the growth of the market to a great extent. Get a Free Sample Report with All Related Graphs & Charts (with COVID 19 Impact Analysis): https://www.fnfresearch.com/sample/hospital-lighting-market Our Free Sample Report Includes: As per the analysis shared by the research analyst, the global hospital lighting market is estimated to grow annually at a CAGR of around 8.7% over the forecast period (2022-2030) In terms of revenue, the global hospital lighting market size was valued at around USD 5.43 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 9.76 billion , by 2030. in 2021 and is projected to reach , by 2030. The market is projected to grow at a significant rate due to the growing applications in modern architecture to provide better facilities for patients. By application, ICUs and patient wards witnessed the maximum market share in 2021. By technology, LED lights were the leading segment in 2021. Based on region, North America was the leading revenue generator in 2021. Facts and Factors published the latest report titled "Hospital Lighting Market Size, Share, Growth Analysis Report By Application (Surgical Suites, ICUs and Patient Wards, Examination Rooms, and Others), By Technology (LED Lights, Fluorescent Lights, Renewable Lights, and Others), and By Region - Global and Regional Industry Insights, Overview, Comprehensive Analysis, Trends, Statistical Research, Market Intelligence, Historical Data and Forecast 2022 - 2030" into their research database. Industry Dynamics: Hospital Lighting Market: Growth Drivers Growing applications in multispecialty hospitals to drive market demand. To provide multiple services under a single roof, multi-specialty hospitals have been erected, especially in developed countries. These multi-specialty hospitals include different sectors such as ophthalmology, radiology, operation theaters, dentistry, and many others, which require special lighting facilities. Better illumination proves to be beneficial for the progress of the patient, which drives the growth of the market. The utilization of better illumination in the hospital sector proves to be beneficial for the health of the patients. A crucial role is played by hospital lighting in recovering the patient, as it improves sleep patterns, reduces depression, and hence, helps to balance the circadian rhythm of the body. Hospital Lighting Market: Restraints Better illumination proves to be beneficial for the progress of the patient, which drives the growth of the market. Skilled professionals are required for maintaining the lighting infrastructure which is a major restraining factor. The absence of a skilled technician may damage the lighting infrastructure, which will increase the cost of maintenance. The availability of cheaper alternatives hampers the growth of the market. The alternatives in the market are available at considerably lower prices, which proves to be a restraining factor for the market. This comparison attracts hospitals and clinics as it helps them to earn greater profits. Directly Purchase a Copy of the Report @ https://www.fnfresearch.com/buynow/su/hospital-lighting-market Global Hospital Lighting Market: Opportunities Increase in the number of hospitals will prove to be an opportunity for growth. A rapid increase in the number of hospitals all over the world has emerged as a lucrative opportunity for the growth of the global hospital lighting market during the forecast period. An increasing number of patients is proving to be a major opportunity for the growth of the market. The number of patients suffering from chronic diseases is also on the rise, which will emerge as a major opportunity for the market during the forecast period. Increase in demand for modern infrastructure to provide growth opportunities. Because of modernization, the increasing demand for advanced architecture has helped boost the market for hospital lighting. This has increased the demand for LED lights that consume less electricity and hence, prove to be cost-effective. The availability of modern infrastructure and lighting systems has a direct impact on the services that are provided to the people. Global Hospital Lighting Market: Challenges High cost associated with the advanced hospital lighting options. The cost of LED lights is comparatively higher, which emerges as a major challenge for the growth of the market. The life expectancy of LED lights is considerably longer, which hampers the demand and supply chain in the long run. The maintenance cost which is associated with the lighting fixtures proves to be a major challenge for the growth of the market. The presence of alternatives acts as a major challenge Various cheaper alternatives are available in the global market, which is a major challenge for the hospital lighting market. Increasing competition proves to be another major challenge for the growth of the market. These cheaper options help the hospital sector to boost its profit margin, but in turn, hamper the growth of the market in the long run. Global Hospital Lighting Market: Segmentation The global hospital lighting market is segmented on the basis of application, technology, and region. By application, the global hospital lighting market has been segmented into surgical suites, ICUs & patient wards, examination rooms, and others. The market has recorded considerable revenue based on the ICUs and patient wards, which is a result of the special facilities that are provided to the patients as per their requirements. Multiple beds are set up inside a patient's ward to provide specific medical facilities to the patients. Special lighting systems are required in the hospital for performing various visual procedures. Multiple factors such as safety, hygiene, and efficiency are directly related to the lighting facilities that are provided in hospitals. A crucial role is played by the lighting facilities as they are directly related to the services that are provided to the patient. By technology, the global hospital lighting market has been segmented into LED lights, fluorescent lights, renewable lights, and others. The rapid expansion of the hospital lighting market is attributed to the supremacy of LED lights over traditional systems. LED lights provide better illumination and hence are a better choice over the other alternatives in the market. The lighting system in the hospital sector plays a very important role, which accounts for approximately 10% of the total energy utilized. LED lights are an integral part of the green technologies that have been adopted all over the world. These prove to be an intelligent option in the hospital lighting system and hence help to boost the size of the market considerably. Get More Insight before Buying@: https://www.fnfresearch.com/inquiry/hospital-lighting-market List of Key Players in Hospital Lighting Market: Acuity Brands Lighting Inc. Cree Inc. Eaton Corporation PLC GE Lighting Herbert Waldmann GmbH & Co. Kg Hubbell Incorporation KLS Martin Group Koninklijke Philips N.V. Trilux Lighting Ltd. Zumtobel Group AG Key questions answered in this report: What are the growth rate forecast and market size for Hospital Lighting Market? What are the key driving factors propelling the Hospital Lighting Market forward? What are the most important companies in the Hospital Lighting Market Industry? What segments does the Hospital Lighting Market cover? How can I receive a free copy of the Hospital Lighting Market sample report and company profiles? Report Scope: Report Attribute Details Market size value in 2021 USD 5.43 Billion Revenue forecast in 2030 USD 9.76 Billion Growth Rate CAGR of almost 8.7 % 2022-2030 Base Year 2020 Historic Years 2016 - 2021 Forecast Years 2022 - 2030 Segments Covered By Application, Technology, and Region Forecast Units Value (USD Billion), and Volume (Units) Quantitative Units Revenue in USD million/billion and CAGR from 2022 to 2030 Regions Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa, and Rest of World Countries Covered U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, GCC Countries, and South Africa, among others Companies Covered Acuity Brands Lighting Inc., Cree Inc., Eaton Corporation PLC, GE Lighting, Herbert Waldmann GmbH & Co. Kg, Hubbell Incorporation, KLS Martin Group, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Trilux Lighting Ltd., Zumtobel Group AG., and others. Report Coverage Market growth drivers, restraints, opportunities, Porter's five forces analysis, PEST analysis, value chain analysis, regulatory landscape, market attractiveness analysis by segments and region, company market share analysis, and COVID-19 impact analysis. Customization Scope Avail of customized purchase options to meet your exact research needs. https://www.fnfresearch.com/customization/hospital-lighting-market Free Brochure: https://www.fnfresearch.com/ask-to-analyst/hospital-lighting-market Recent Developments In 2021 - A collaboration took place between Lutron Electronics and Cree lighting. The purpose of this collaboration was to introduce a wide range of hospital lighting products as per requirement. A collaboration took place between Lutron Electronics and Cree lighting. The purpose of this collaboration was to introduce a wide range of hospital lighting products as per requirement. In 2021 - Giovanni Traverso and Paola Vighy which are lighting designers collaborated with Zumtobel for combining natural light with artificial systems which will be able to provide a balanced illumination solution. Regional Dominance: North America to lead with the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The increasing adoption of advanced technology and energy-saving options by the government have emerged as major driving forces for the growth of the North American hospital lighting market. The increasing number of hospitals in the region of North America is expected to boost the size of the hospital lighting market. The active participation of the government to encourage the utilization of renewable sources of energy will help to boost the size of the market considerably. The modernization of the hospital lighting industry is supported by various initiatives taken up by the government. The European market has experienced tremendous growth over the period because of the advanced healthcare facilities that are provided to the people. Faster growth has been experienced in the Asia Pacific market because of the increasing number of patients suffering from chronic diseases. Increasing demand for advanced healthcare facilities in this region has also helped the market to record significant revenue. Increasing demand for energy saving has boosted the size of the market considerably. The primary motive of the Asia-Pacific region is to reduce the operational cost that is involved with medical facilities. Global Hospital Lighting Market is segmented as follows: Hospital Lighting Market: By Application Outlook (2022-2030) Surgical suites ICUs and patient wards Examination rooms Hospital Lighting Market: By Technology Outlook (2022-2030) LED lights Fluorescent lights Renewable lights Others Hospital Lighting Market: By Region Outlook (2022-2030) North America The U.S. Canada Europe France The UK Spain Germany Italy Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India South Korea Southeast Asia Rest of Asia Pacific Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Middle East & Africa GCC South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa Press Release for Hospital Lighting Market: https://www.fnfresearch.com/news/global-hospital-lighting-market Browse Other Related Research Reports from Facts and Factors Needle-free Injection System Market Report 2022 - 2030 : According to the report published by Facts Factors, the global needle-free injection system market size was worth around USD 129.9 million in 2021 and is predicted to grow to around USD 412.1 million by 2030 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of roughly 20.12% between 2022 and 2030. 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Contact Us: Facts and Factors Tel: +1 347 690-0211 USA/Canada Toll-Free No. +44 2032 894158 Email: sales@fnfresearch.com Website: https://www.fnfresearch.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1981423/FnF_Research_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/hospital-lighting-market-global-size-global-demand--global-share-to-surpass-usd-9-76-billion-by-2030--exhibit-a-cagr-of-8-7--industry-trends-growth-value-segment-analysis--forecast-report-by-fact-and-factors-301732439.html NEW YORK, NY and MIAMI, FL / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / MSNBC and Noticias Telemundo hosted town halls on the National Day of Racial Healing on January 17, 2023. The live studio audience events, sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), broadcasted from the iconic Studio BE, a cultural landmark in New Orleans. The special events are a culmination of an editorial initiative between the NBCUniversal News Group and WKKF that began in June 2022. Sponsored by WKKF, the town halls focus on the subject of advancing racial equity through the experience of racial healing. MSNBC broadcasted National Day of Racial Healing: An MSNBC Town Hall on January 17 at 10 p.m. ET. MSNBC's Joy Reid, Chris Hayes and Trymaine Lee was joined by Minnijean Brown-Trickey, activist and member of the Little Rock Nine, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the landmark 1619 Project, and White House Infrastructure Coordinator former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, among others. The MSNBC town hall streamed live on Peacock and is also available on-demand. CNBC featured excerpts from the town hall that focus on economic inequality. Noticias Telemundo's Johana Suarez and Lori Montenegro moderated Foro contra el Racismo: Dia de Sanacion, a Spanish-language town hall set to stream from Studio BE at 7 p.m. ET on NoticiasTelemundo.com, Noticias Telemundo's YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and available on-demand on Peacock the next day. They were joined by Max Moreno of the New Orleans Hispanic Heritage Foundation, Tanya Kateri Hernandez, professor of law at Fordham University, and Xochitl M. Flores-Marcial, associate professor at California State University, among others. The town halls are an ongoing News Group initiative, sponsored by WKKF, to introduce racial healing to a broader audience, address the legacy of racism in the country and inspire people to work towards racial equity in their community. In the past year, the News Group and WKKF hosted special sessions at the Aspen Ideas Festival examining America's history of individual and systemic racism. It was followed by a 14-part NBCNews.com series entitled Changing The Narrative, which was produced by the News Group's Race, Equality and Justice Unit and utilized the News Group's extensive collection of news outlets and premier journalists to elevate stories focused on racial healing. "The National Day of Racial Healing is held each year on the Tuesday following Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and offers families, neighbors, communities, and organizations a chance to reflect, connect and build relationships across difference," said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF). "These are essential ingredients for building and sustaining year-round efforts to advance racial healing as a key pathway to achieving racial equity." In addition to viewing the national town halls, communities across the United States hosted local events, including artistic performances, panel discussions, coffee house conversations, tours of historic sites and racial healing circles. WKKF offers resources for those interested in organizing events or activities in their professional setting, classroom, library, park and recreation space or faith community at any time of year. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Comcast Corporation on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Comcast Corporation Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/comcast-corporation Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Comcast Corporation View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737070/MSNBC-and-Noticias-Telemundo-Host-National-Day-of-Racial-Healing-Town-Halls-on-Jan-17-From-New-Orleans MAGMA is a revolutionary, flexible, modular glass production system MAGMA complements O-I's heritage production network, set to deliver far-reaching benefits for O-I and its customers Video provides first look at Generation 1 and Generation 2 MAGMA Technology PERRYSBURG, OH / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / O-I Glass, Inc. O-I Glass, Inc. ("O-I Glass" or "O-I") today released a video (https://youtu.be/jajQKkzcD_I) offering a first look at existing MAGMA operations as the company prepares for its first, purpose-built MAGMA factory in Bowling Green, KY. The video combines live footage of MAGMA lines with insight as to the transformational nature of the new technology. "MAGMA will set new standards in glass manufacturing, allowing us to use renewable sources of energy and more recycled content, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste," said Ludovic Valette, O-I VP of Global Technology and Engineering. "It provides scalability and rapid deployment, as well as lower capital intensity, mobility, flexibility, and consequently supply chain efficiency." O-I recently announced the construction of a new greenfield glass plant in Bowling Green, KY that will be the first facility purposely built for the revolutionary MAGMA technology. Enabled by advanced technologies and innovative processes, the state-of-the-art site is expected to come on stream mid 2024 and further enhance O-I's customer service, flexibility, and sustainability. ABOUT O-I Glass At O-I Glass, Inc. (NYSE:OI), we love glass and we're proud to be one of the leading producers of glass bottles and jars around the globe. Glass is not only beautiful, it's also pure, healthy and completely recyclable; making it the most sustainable rigid packaging material. Headquartered in Perrysburg, Ohio (USA), O-I is the preferred partner for many of the world's leading food and beverage brands. We innovate in line with customers' needs to create iconic packaging that builds brands around the world. Led by our diverse team of approximately 24,000 people across 70?plants in 19 countries, O-I achieved revenues of $6.4 billion in 2021. Recognizing the tremendous benefits of glass, the United Nations has designated 2022 as the International Year of Glass to celebrate the past, present, and future of this transformative material. Learn more about us: o-i.com /?Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / LinkedIn Contact: Chris Manuel Vice President of Investor Relations Chris.Manuel@O-I.com 567.336.2600 Jim Woods Public Relations Lead James.Woods@o-i.com 724.732.5748 View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from O-I Glass, Inc. on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: O-I Glass, Inc. Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/o-i-glass-inc Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: O-I Glass, Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737076/O-I-Provides-Inside-Look-at-Transformational-MAGMA-Glass-Technology Regulatory News: MaaT Pharma(EURONEXT: MAAT the "Company"), a French clinical-stage biotech and a pioneer in the development of Microbiome Ecosystem TherapiesTM (MET) dedicated to improving survival outcomes for patients with cancer, today announces the initiation of coverage of its stock by Kepler Cheuvreux. With a research report named "The Microbiome revolution", Kepler Cheuvreuxtoday initiates coverage of MaaT Pharma with a Buy recommendation. This new coverage strengthens the visibility of MaaT Pharma's share among French and international institutional investors and is in addition to those already carried out by the brokerage firms KBC Securities, Kempen and Portzamparc/Groupe BNP Paribas. About MaaT Pharma MaaT Pharma, a clinical stage biotechnology company, has established a complete approach to restoring patient-microbiome symbiosis in oncology. Committed to treating cancer and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), a serious complication of allogeneic stem cell transplantation, MaaT Pharma has launched, in March 2022, an open-label, single arm Phase 3 clinical trial in patients with acute GvHD, following the achievement of its proof of concept in a Phase 2 trial. Its powerful discovery and analysis platform, gutPrint, supports the development and expansion of its pipeline by determining novel disease targets, evaluating drug candidates, and identifying biomarkers for microbiome-related conditions. The company's Microbiome Ecosystem Therapies are produced through a standardized cGMP manufacturing and quality control process to safely deliver the full diversity of the microbiome, in liquid and oral formulations. MaaT Pharma benefits from the commitment of world-leading scientists and established relationships with regulators to support the integration of the use of microbiome therapies in clinical practice. MaaT Pharma is listed on Euronext Paris (ticker: MAAT). View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005247/en/ Contacts: MaaT Pharma Investor Relations Herve AFFAGARD Co-Founder and CEO Sian CROUZET, COO/ CFO +33 4 28 29 14 00 invest@maat-pharma.com MaaT Pharma Media Relations Pauline RICHAUD Senior PR Corporate Communications Manager +33 6 14 06 45 92 media@maat-pharma.com Trophic Communications Corporate and Medical Communications Gretchen SCHWEITZER or Charlotte SPITZ +49 171 351 27 33 maat@trophic.eu VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / SILVER X MINING CORP. (TSX-V:AGX)(OTC QB:AGXPF)(F:WPZ) ("Silver X" or the "Company") is pleased to announce their participation at The Metals Investor Forum & Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Investors and interested parties are invited to meet with management for an update on the Company's key milestones and upcoming catalysts. The events will be held in person on the following days: Metals Investor Forum - January 27-28 at Fairmont Pacific Rim, Vancouver, BC. Silver X will be presenting on January 28th at 3:40 pm PST during Session 4 with Chen Lin as the host. Vancouver Resource Investment Conference - January 29-30 Vancouver Convention Centre Vancouver, BC. Booth 235 About Silver X Silver X is a high-growth silver developer and producer in South America, currently producing silver, gold, lead, and zinc from its 100% owned Tangana project within The Recuperada Silver District in Central Peru while advancing the Plata-Esperanza Mine to restart production in 2024. The Company owns a large >20,000 hectares land package, containing up to 200 Moz AgEq in 14.4 MT of high-grade ore. With a 720 tpd fully operational plant, the Company has the vision to reach 5 Moz AgEq* by 2025. In January 2023, the company declared commercial production at the Project after a successful commissioning period over the year 2022, which included the ramp-up of mining and processing activities at the Project to sustainable metal throughput levels. The Company will continue to seek opportunities to further optimize the throughput and availabilities to achieve and ultimately exceed the Mine's current 720 tonnes per day design nameplate capacity. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Jose M. Garcia CEO and Director For further information, please contact: SILVER X MINING CORP. info@silverxmining.com https://www.silverxmining.com/ Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation ("forward-looking information"). Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain acts, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". All information contained in this press release, other than statements of current and historical fact, is forward looking information. Forward-looking information contained in this press release may include, without limitation, exploration plans, results of operations, expected performance at the Project, the ability of the new zones at the Project to feed production at the Company's Nueva Recuperada Plant in the near term, the Company's belief that the Tangana system will provide considerable resource expansion potential, that the Company will be able to mine the Tangana Mining Unit in an economic manner, and the expected financial performance of the Company. The following are some of the assumptions upon which forward-looking information is based: that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner; demand for, and stable or improving price for the commodities we produce; receipt of regulatory and governmental approvals, permits and renewals in a timely manner; that the Company will not experience any material accident, labour dispute or failure of plant or equipment or other material disruption in the Company's operations at the Project and Nueva Recuperada Plant; the availability of financing for operations and development; the Company's ability to procure equipment and operating supplies in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis; that the estimates of the resources at the Project and the geological, operational and price assumptions on which these and the Company's operations are based are within reasonable bounds of accuracy (including with respect to size, grade and recovery); the Company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel and directors; and the ability of management to execute strategic goals. Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to those risks described in the Company's annual and interim MD&As and in its public documents filed on www.sedar.com from time to time. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. SOURCE: Silver X Mining Corp. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737082/Silver-X-To-Participate-in-the-Metals-Investor-Forum-Vancouver-Resource-Investment-Conference WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / Today, The American Conservative Values ETF (NYSE:ACVF) announced it will opportunistically divest its holdings of and has initiated "Refuse to Buy" ratings for AT&T Inc. (T) as well as UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) ACVF attempts to dynamically align with the concerns of politically conservative investors without sacrificing performance.[ACVF Factsheet] [Videos] "We do not want to invest in Disney, Meta, Blackrock, Google We do not want to give these companies that are eagerly working to destroy conservative values our hard-earned investment dollars, and neither should you," states ACVF CEO and co-founder William Flaig. [List of current Boycotts] In a post on his Truth Social network, former President Donald Trump wrote: "WOW. AT&T DIRECTV REMOVES NEWSMAX FROM ITS CHANNEL LINEUP. This disgusting move comes after "deplatforming" OAN last year. The Radical Left seems to have taken over the mind and soul of AT&T. This is a big blow to the Republican Party, and to America itself." [Click here for full story] ACVF's President and co-founder, Tom Carter, stated: "We have a long history with AT&T. They were one of our inaugural boycotts when we launched. Following AT&T's divesture of CNN last year, we reevaluated and removed ACVF's boycott of AT&T in October 2022 placing them on probation. [Press Release]" ACVF has been keeping an eye on AT&T since, and it didn't take long for them to show their true colors, dropping Newsmax as they had done previously to One America Network (OAN). This action by AT&T resulted in the management team's decision to opportunistically liquidate ACVF's holdings of AT&T (T) in response. Every January, in solidarity with the "National March for Life Movement" and the "National Prayer Vigil for Life," ACVF reviews its healthcare holdings for opportunities to expand its Sanctity of Life advocacy. After reviewing ACVF's relative performance and risk to the S&P 500 the management team concluded that ACVF had the capacity to increase its Sanctity of Life advocacy. [Ideology] "We strongly feel that we are in a position to meaningfully increase our commitment to conservative right-to-life values," said Flaig. After a thorough review, the team decided upon the liquidation of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) and Pfizer Inc. (PFE) as part of ACVF's periodic portfolio reconstitution and rebalancing. The adviser will determine the best course of action to sell our existing holdings under the most favorable conditions. "Giving conservative investors the power to respond to such concerns is an example of why we built ACVF," said ACVF President and co-founder Tom Carter, adding that "the management team continually seeks to better understand politically conservative investors' sentiments and opinions as corporate reputations are impacted by news events and market performance." "We must hold these companies accountable for their actions and insist on transparency. We need to vote with our wallets. Politically conservative consumers and investors have started to react, boycotting goods and services as well as denying them access to the capital they need. ACVF is currently refusing to invest in 33 such companies," said CEO and co-founder William Flaig, adding "I'm proud to offer an alternative to the S&P 500, which currently keeps 25 cents of every invested dollar from these companies." Links InvestConservative.com Fund Material About ACVF The American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF) is based on the conviction that politically active companies negatively impact their shareholder returns as well as support issues and causes that conflict with our conservative political ideals, beliefs, and values. ACVF's priority is shareholder returns and providing an investment alternative for politically conservative investors. Simply put, ACVF seeks to boycott as many companies hostile to conservative values as possible without sacrificing performance. ACVF is designed to replace your current large-cap investments. To schedule an interview with Mr. Flaig or Mr. Carter, please contact them at wflaig@ridgelineresearch.com 301-685-7121 tcarter@ridgelineresearch.com 301-685-7122 www.InvestConservative.com SOURCE: American Conservative Values ETF View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737084/American-Conservative-Values-ETF-Agrees-with-Trump-and-Dumps-ATT Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Pool Safe Inc. (TSXV: POOL) ("Pool Safe" or the "Company") announces that, further to its news release dated December 29, 2022 (the "Press Release"), the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") approved the issuance of 750,000 common shares in the capital of the Company (the "Common Shares") in exchange for $22,500 of certain existing debt owed to a director of the Company (the "Debt Conversion"). The Common Shares issued pursuant to the Debt Conversion are subject to a four month plus one day hold period. In addition, the Company received approval from the Exchange for the proposed amendments to the Debentures and Bonus Warrants (as defined and previously announced in the Press Release). Following the receipt of the Exchange's approval, the Repayment Day (as defined in the Press Release) of the Debenture and expiry date of the Bonus Warrants has been amended to December 31, 2023, respectively. All other terms of the Debenture and Bonus Warrants remained unchanged. The Company further announces that it has issued 250,000 restricted share units (the "RSUs") to a certain director of the Company in accordance with the Company's Omnibus Incentive Plan. The RSUs will fully vest on the date that is one year from the date of grant. Once vested, each RSUs represents the right to receive one (1) common share of the Company. Related Party Transaction An insider of the Company participated in the Debt Conversion as a creditor. Such participation is considered a "related party transaction" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Debt Settlements ("MI 61-101"). The Company is relying on an exemption from the formal valuation requirements of MI 61-101 available because the fair market value of the Debt Conversion pertain to the insider does not exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization, as determined in accordance with Mi 61-101. The Company did not file a material change report related to the Debt Conversion more than 21 days before the expected closing of the Debt Conversion as required by MI 61-101 since the details of the Debt Conversion were not settled until shortly prior to the closing of the Debt Conversion and the Company wishes to close on an expedited basis for sound business reasons. About Pool Safe Inc. Pool Safe Inc. designs, develops and distributes a product known as the "LounGenie", which functions as a multi-purpose personal poolside attendant. The LounGenie is designed to provide safety, convenience and peace of mind for hotels, resorts, waterparks and cruise ship guests. Functions include: lockable safe, solar-powered charger for USB compatible electronic devices including phones, cameras and tablets in addition to a server call-button, a beverage cooler and holders. Conveniently located alongside pool or beach lounge chairs, the LounGenie is a unique way of providing vacationers with a comforting sense of security for their belongings, while they enjoy their vacation. For more information, please visit www.poolsafeinc.com. Pool Safe Inc. is a fully reporting publicly traded company which is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol POOL. Forward-Looking Statements Some of the statements in this press release that depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or that include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes", "estimates", or similar expressions, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations of the Company. These statements are not historical facts but instead represent only the Company's expectations, estimates, and projections regarding future events. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this presentation or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. Pool Safe Inc. Steven Glaser C.O.O. | C.F.O. E: sglaser@poolsafeinc.com T: 416-630-2444 Neither the Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Not for distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States. Any failure to comply with this restriction may constitute a violation of U.S. Securities laws. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152728 VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / The Power Play by The Market Herald has announced the release of new interviews with Pharmala Biotech Holdings, Nextech AR Solutions and Enertopia discussing their latest news. The Power Play by The Market Herald provides investors with a quick snapshot of what they need to know about the company's latest press release through exclusive insights and interviews with company executives. PharmAla Biotech (CSE:MDMA) granted an export permit for 300 grams of LaNeo MDMA PharmAla Biotech (MDMA) and its manufacturing partners have received an export permit for 300 grams of its LaNeo MDMA. PharmAla believes this is the largest single Health Canada export permit ever granted. Nicholas Kadysh, CEO of PharmAla, met with Sabrina Cuthbert to discuss the news. For the full interview with Nicholas Kadysh and to learn about PharmAla Biotech, click here. Nextech AR Solutions (CSE:NTAR) (OTCQX:NEXCF) announces upgrade to AI powered SaaS platform, Toggle3D Nextech AR Solutions (NTAR) announced a major upgrade to its AI-powered SaaS platform, Toggle3D. Toggle3D enables the creation, design, configuration and deployment of 3D models at scale using CAD files. Dasha Vdovina, Chief Product Officer of Nextech, met with Sabrina Cuthbert to discuss the upgrade. For the full interview with Dasha Vdovina and to learn about Nextech AR Solutions, click here. Enertopia (CSE:ENRT) provides project update Enertopia Corporation (ENRT) has provided updates from the West Tonopah Lithium project in Nevada. After completing the 2023 drilling program, the company will commission an inaugural 43-101 report for the West Tonopah Project. The company may look at completing a preliminary feasibility study in 2024. Company President Robert McAllister sat down with Sabrina Cuthbert to discuss the updates. For the full interview with Robert McAllister and to learn about Enertopia Corporation, click here. Interviews for The Power Play by The Market Herald are released daily. To learn more about the companies featured in The Power Play or to explore our other interviews visit? The Power Play by The Market Herald. About The Market Herald The Market Herald Canada is the leading source of authoritative breaking stock market news for self-directed investors. 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CONTACT: The Market Herald marketing@themarketherald.ca themarketherald.ca SOURCE:?The Market Herald View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/737092/The-Power-Play-by-The-Market-Herald-Releases-New-Interviews-with-Pharmala-Biotech-Holdings-Nextech-AR-Solutions-and-Enertopia-Discussing-Their-Latest-News EQS-Ad-hoc: Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 Designated Activity Company / Key word(s): Miscellaneous Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 Designated Activity Company (the 'Issuer') issuance of 60,000,000 Subordinated Promissory Notes 27-Jan-2023 / 19:25 CET/CEST Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. MAR Notification - Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 Designated Activity Company The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Disclosure of insider information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 Designated Activity Company (the "Issuer") issuance of 60,000,000 Subordinated Promissory Notes Dublin, January 27, 2023 - Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 Designated Activity Company (Vienna MTF, ISIN: IE0006JEKY98), a designated activity company limited by shares incorporated under the laws of Ireland and established to, inter alia, acquire, manage, hold, sell, dispose of, finance and trade in all forms of financial assets and to carry on the business of a qualifying company within the meaning of section 110 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 (as amended) of Ireland. Pursuant to the terms of an amendment deed entered into between, among others, HPS Investment Partners CLO (UK) LLP and the Issuer dated 13 January 2023, certain amendments have been made to the warehouse deed dated 16 September 2021 to adjust the allocation and calculation of realised and unrealised gains and losses. - End of Insider Information - Contact: The Directors Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 Designated Activity Company 32 Molesworth Street Dublin 2 Ireland Telephone: +353 697 3200 Email: mfdublin@maples.com Disclaimer This release may contain forward-looking statements and information concerning Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 DAC and its business. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and certain assumptions, which may be subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties. The results actually achieved by Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 DAC may substantially differ from these forward-looking statements. Aqueduct European CLO 7-2022 DAC assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements or to correct them in case of developments, which differ from those, anticipated. 27-Jan-2023 CET/CEST News transmitted by EQS Group AG. www.eqs.com Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Cybeats Technologies Corp. (CSE: CYBT) ("Cybeats' or the "Company") is pleased to report that after the signing of recent commercial contracts, 75% of all organizations that have completed SBOM Studio1 pilot evaluation periods have moved on to sign commercial licence agreements with the Company. SBOM Studio is defining and pioneering the future of automated SBOM management, helping organizations proactively improve visibility and security across the software supply chain and efficiently implement SBOMs at scale. Cybeats has announced several commercial agreements with Fortune 500 customers over the past two months, including its third major contract in the industrial technology sector and a contract with a top medical device company. "Our high success rate in converting SBOM Studio pilots into commercial sales is driven by the immediate value our solution provides to customers from Day 1 of deployment," said Dmitry Raidman, CTO, Cybeats. "Many are able to generate SBOMs, but managing and operationalizing those SBOMs at global scale is a new practice for everyone. Our customer feedback is consistent in that SBOM Studio's features and capabilities meet and exceed their SBOM management needs." "Achieving a strong pilot conversion rate is a critically important metric that validates the value organizations get from SBOM Studio and demonstrates our ability to win over large enterprise clients," said Bob Lyle, CRO, Cybeats. "Converting 75% of pilots, from a wide variety of industry verticals, positions us well to rapidly scale our commercial growth from our growing pipeline of large opportunities." The six previously announced contracts comprising the 75% conversion rate include: Three-Year Contract with Building Automation and Technology Company from January 17, 2023 Annual SaaS contract with global medical device and diagnostics leader from January 13, 2023 2 Three-year agreement with a global leader in energy management and digital automation won on November 29, 2022 3 Annual SaaS contract with Industrial technology company which commenced on November 14, 2022, 4 Two-year software licence with Integral Ad Sciences, executed on December 3, 2022 5 SaaS licence contract with a cryptocurrency exchange that commenced in May, 2022 SBOM Studio - Managing the Lifecycle of your SBOMs Cybeats' SBOM Studio is a comprehensive solution designed to manage and distribute software bill of materials (SBOMs) in a single platform. It provides organizations with a centralized view of cybersecurity vulnerabilities, enabling them to improve the visibility and security of their software supply chain. SBOM Studio is useful for organizations of all sizes and industries, as it helps them to improve their vulnerability management processes, reduce the cost of protection, and enhance compliance. Some of the key product features include: Automated SBOM management Accelerated vulnerability management Improved workflow for security operations SBOM sharing and exchange Data-driven business decisions Regulatory compliance and licence infringement Cybeats Technologies To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/3927/152804_e99f1ad0d47cba17_001full.jpg SBOM Studio Pilot Evaluations As with several SaaS businesses, a pilot or trial is often a prerequisite step prior to signing on for a commercial engagement. To visit our product page, or prospective clients looking to book a product demo, please visit: https://www.cybeats.com/sbom-studio Upcoming Events Join us at the CISO Forum Canada in Toronto, Ontario from January 30 to 31 as Cybeats leads a panel discussion on Software Supply Chain Security with cybersecurity leaders from CN Rail, Craft Ventures and SAP: https://www.siberx.org/event/ciso-forum-canada-2023/ Join us at the Fira Gran Via, Barcelona from 27 February - 2 March, 2023 at MWC Barcelona6, the world's most influential exhibition for the device connectivity and security industry: https://www.mwcbarcelona.com/ Come meet us at S4x23 in Miami February 13-16! Discover new ideas and come up with innovative ways to use these new ideas to deploy secure and resilient industrial control systems7: https://s4xevents.com/ About Cybeats Cybeats is a cybersecurity company providing SBOM management and software supply chain intelligence technology, helping organizations to manage risk, meet compliance requirements, and secure their software from procurement to development and operation. Our platform gives customers comprehensive visibility and transparency into their software supply chain, enabling them to improve operational efficiency and increase revenue. Cybeats. Software Made Certain. Website: https://cybeats.com SUBSCRIBE: For more information, or to subscribe to the Company's mail list, visit: https://www.cybeats.com/investors Contact: James Van Staveren Corporate Development Phone: 1-888-713-SBOM (7266) Email: ir @cybeats.com Forward-looking Information Cautionary Statement Except for statements of historic fact, 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" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the commercialization plans for the technology described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Company filings are available at sedar.com. 1 https://www.cybeats.com/sbom-studio 2 https://www.cybeats.com/news/cybeats-signs-commercial-agreement-with-a-top-3-global-medical-device-and-diagnostics-company 3 https://www.cybeats.com/news/cybeats-signs-its-largest-commercial-agreement-to-date-through-new-multi-year-contract-with-leading-global-provider-of-energy-management-and-automation-solutions 4 https://www.cybeats.com/news/cybeats-announces-new-commercial-agreement-with-fortune-500-industrial-technology-company 5 https://www.cybeats.com/news/cybeats-announces-two-year-commercial-engagement-with-global-leader-in-digital-advertising-technology 6 https://www.mwcbarcelona.com/ 7 https://s4xevents.com/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152804 Forma Vision, a Seattle, WA-based provider of live-streamed, volumetric video technology that enables 3D holographic images of people, objects and environments to be beamed into the metaverse from any office, home or other location, received an investment from Accenture Ventures. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to consolidate its position, accelerate growth and expand operations. Led by founder and CEO Adam Kirk, Forma Vision provides a holographic meeting platform that offers face-to-face remote meeting experiences for collaboration to the metaverse. With its real-time volumetric service, remote users meet and work in immersive 3D, just like real-life. Instead of avatars, users look like themselves, making a Forma Vision meeting more authentic and engaging. Its enterprise service operates on todays commodity hardware and networks, and calls can be viewed on any device. For example, Accenture and others have conducted executive town-halls, training, and small group meetings using Forma Vision. Forma Vision is the latest company to join Accenture Ventures Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program focused on investing in companies that create or apply disruptive enterprise technologies. In addition to funding, Project Spotlight connects emerging technology startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps and offers extensive access to Accentures domain expertise and enterprise clients, helping startups harness human creativity and deliver on the promise of their technology. In March 2022, Accenture formed the Accenture Metaverse Continuum business group, which combines metaverse-skilled professionals with deep capabilities in customer experience, digital commerce, extended reality, blockchain, digital twins, artificial intelligence and computer vision to help clients design, execute and accelerate their metaverse journeys. FinSMEs 27/01/2023 Photo by fauxels Being an entrepreneur can be both a rewarding and challenging experience. It requires hard work, dedication, and commitment to make it successful. However, the rewards of being an entrepreneur are numerous and can help you grow as a person, achieve financial success, gain more control over your life, and find meaning in your work. One of the biggest benefits of being an entrepreneur is that you have full control over your business decisions. You have the ability to make decisions quickly without consulting with others or waiting for approval from higher-ups. This gives you the freedom to take risks and pursue opportunities that may not be available in traditional jobs. Being an entrepreneur also allows you to pursue something meaningful in life while still making a living at it. When working for someone elses business, oftentimes there isnt much room for personal growth or creativity; however as an entrepreneur, you are able to create something unique that has value beyond just a paycheck. Finally, entrepreneurship gives people the chance to create something new and exciting while helping others by providing products or services they need or want; this sense of purpose can bring great satisfaction into ones life as well as benefiting society as a whole. It is not important if you own a casino site like the German casino owned by Rootz Ltd or if you make furniture from wood, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need a good team of people. Here are some hiring tips for young entrepreneurs that will help you hire the right people for your business. You Should Avoid Hiring Family Members And Friends Hiring family members and friends can be a tricky situation, as it can lead to a lot of potential issues. For starters, there is the risk of favoritism. If you are hiring someone close to you, it may be difficult for you to remain impartial when making decisions about their performance or salary. This could create tension between other employees who feel that they are not being treated fairly. Additionally, if the person hired does not perform well in their role, it could cause strain on your personal relationship with them. It can also be difficult to provide constructive criticism or feedback without hurting feelings or damaging the relationship. Finally, if the employee leaves their job for any reason, this could have an impact on your personal relationship as well. All these factors should be taken into consideration before deciding whether or not to hire family members and friends. Hire Passionate People Hiring passionate people is a great way to ensure that your team is motivated and engaged in their work. Passionate people are driven by their enthusiasm for the job, which can help them stay focused and productive. They also tend to be more creative and innovative, as they are constantly looking for ways to improve processes or come up with new ideas. Additionally, passionate people have a strong sense of commitment to their work, which means they will go above and beyond what is expected of them in order to get the job done right. This type of dedication can be invaluable when it comes to meeting deadlines. Finally, passionate people bring an infectious energy into the workplace that can help boost morale and create a positive working environment for everyone involved. Ask For Recommendations When it comes to hiring people for your business, recommendations can be a great way to ensure that you are getting the best possible candidate. Recommendations from previous employers or colleagues can provide valuable insight into the individuals work ethic, skillset, and overall character. This information can help you make an informed decision about whether or not they would be a good fit for your company. Additionally, recommendations can also give you an idea of how well the person works with others and if they have any special talents that could benefit your business. Furthermore, recommendations can also provide you with a better understanding of the individuals past experiences and successes in similar roles. This knowledge will allow you to determine if they are capable of handling the responsibilities associated with the position you are looking to fill. In the end, searching for recommendations when hiring people for your business is important because it allows you to make more informed decisions about who is right for the job. Reading CVs is important, of course, but if you want to hire the right people for your business, you need to do the things we discussed today. ProovStation, a Lion, France-based provider of automated vehicle testing solutions assisted by Artificial Intelligence, raised 10.4M in funding. The round was led by Supernova Invest, with participation from Otium Capital, and Credit Agricole Creation. The company intends to use the funds to consolidate its role and to establish itself internationally as a key player in the used vehicles market. Led by Cedric Bernard, CEO, CFO Anton Komyza and General Director Gabriel Tissandier, ProovStation is an industrial deeptech startup which has developed the first automobile scanner that fully automates the inspection and valuation process for used vehicles. The companys stations, built in France, use a new generation AI based on the latest NVIDIA graphic cards and a optronic system which allow them to perform a 360 scan of the vehicle in three seconds. More than 300 photos are taken and analysed by its algorithms before making a complete diagnosis. Covering all viewing angles, the station identifies all defects with millimetre precision and automatically generates an exhaustive and quantified inspection report listing the vehicles defects. The ProovStation network already has more than 130 stations under deployment in 13 countries on three continents at well-known groups such as SiXT, le Groupe BERNARD, le Groupe Starterre, le Groupe Charles Andre and BCA Group. The automobile scanners, enhanced by the MICHELIN Quickscan technology which automatically tests tire wear, are already available free-of-charge for self-service in the parking lots of several Carrefour hypermarkets in France. These allow car owners to obtain an instantaneous firm offer (non-binding unless specifically approved by them), guaranteed by BCA Group, for their vehicle at a fair price relative to the market based on the objective evaluation of its condition. FinSMEs 26/01/2023 Roots Homes, a Las Vegas, NV-based proptech company providing fractional homeownership, raised $2.2M in funding. The round was led by Other Ventures, with participation from Behind Genius Ventures and Waveline VC. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the growth of its Las Vegas operations following the beta launch late last year. Led by Lauren Self, Founder and CEO, Roots provides a fractional homeownership service by allowing renters to purchase shares in their home each month. The company provides customers with a shopping budget to find a home. When they find one, Roots will buy it for them so they can move in. The equity a renter builds can be held long-term, go towards a downpayment, or be cashed out if they choose to move out. The company will buy most homes in Las Vegas for their customers, allowing them to test drive a home to see if they like it before committing to buy it. Terms are 12 months and can be renewed year after year until a customer decides to either move out or purchase the home from Roots. FinSMEs 27/01/2023 By Azernews Fatima Hasanova Messages of sympathy and condolences are pouring in from around the world over the deadly armed attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, which killed one security officer and wounded two others, Azernews reports. "We call on Iran to solve the crime and capture the attackers of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran," Turkiye's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavushoglu said in an interview with the Turkish media. Cahit Bagci, Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan, expressed condolences on the death of the head of the Azerbaijani embassy's security service in Iran as a result of the attack on the embassy. "We condemn the treacherous attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran. I express my condolences to the families of the deceased and the Azerbaijani people, and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded," the Turkish diplomat tweeted. Azerbaijani Ambassador to France Leyla Abdullayeva also reacted to the incident in a Twitter post. "We strongly condemn any attacks on diplomatic missions and call for the implementation of the Vienna Convention by the host country," she wrote. French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Anne Boillon also reacted to the terror attack. "Deeply saddened by the attack this morning at the Azerbaijani Embassy in Teheran. On behalf of @FranceBakou I extend my sincere condolences to @AzerbaijanMFA colleagues and to the family of Orkhan Asgarov," wrote Boillon. EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Peter Michalko stated that the attack on diplomatic missions is unacceptable. "I was horrified by the reports about the armed attack on the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran that caused a loss of life and injuries. Attacks on diplomatic missions are unacceptable. I express condolences to the families of the victims and wish a swift recovery to those wounded," he wrote on his Twitter account. UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan Vladanka Andreeva on behalf of the UN strongly condemned the attack on the Azerbaijani embassy "I strongly condemn the attack at Azerbaijan's Embassy in Iran. Attacks against civilians and civilian facilities, including diplomatic missions, are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law," she tweeted. German Ambassador to Azerbaijan Ralf Horlemann reacted with shock to the news of the attack. "We are shocked by the news of the deadly attack on the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran and we condemn all forms of violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims," he said in a tweet. British Ambassador Fergus Auld also tweeted about the armed attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Iran. "I was shocked by the news of the armed attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Iran and the death of an embassy employee. I express my condolences to the family of the deceased, and wish healing to the wounded," Auld said. Chairman of the Council of Elders of the Organization of Turkic States Binali Yildirim on Twitter condemned the attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran and expressed condolences to the families of the victims. "I condemn the attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran. I express my condolences to the relatives and friends of the deceased, and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded," Yildirim said. The Israeli ambassador in Azerbaijan also supported Azerbaijan. "The Embassy of Israel stands in solidarity with the people of Azerbaijan in this difficult hour," the ambassador of Israel to Azerbaijan George Deek said in a tweet. The Swedish embassy expressed condolences to the deceased Orkhan Asgarov. "The Swedish Embassy is appalled by the attack on the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran. We express our deepest condolences to the family of Orkhan Asgarov and wish a swift recovery to those wounded," said the statement. The Embassy of Kyrgyzstan also joined in the condemnation of the attack and expressed condolences for the victim. "We condemn the armed attack on the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Islamic Republic of Iran and express our support and condolences to the Azerbaijani side in connection with the death of the head of the security service. We call for a thorough and objective investigation into the incident and bringing to book those responsible to justice," said the embassy in a tweet. Slovak Foreign Ministry also condemned the attack on the embassy on its Twitter account. #Slovakia resolutely condemns todays armed attack on the Embassy of #Azerbaijan in #Tehran. We offer our sincere condolences to the victims' families and wish a swift recovery to those wounded," the tweet said. Similarly, Ukraine expressed support and condolences to Azerbaijan. "Ukraine strongly condemns todays attack on the embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran, which resulted in one death and left several security personnel injured. We offer our sincere condolences to the loved ones of the victim, and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded," Ukrainian Spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Twitter. As reported earlier, the head of the security guard of the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran was killed in the armed attack on the building on January 27 at about 0830 hours (GMT+4). "An individual with a Kalashnikov assault rifle attacked the security post and killed the head of the security guard. Two embassy guards were also wounded while preventing the attack. Their conditions are satisfactory. This treacherous attack is currently being investigated. The public will be provided with detailed extra information," the foreign ministry said in a statement. On January 10, 2023 local time, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali met with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Addis Ababa. Abiy once again extended warm congratulations on the successful conclusion of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and expressed his deep admiration for President Xi Jinping's outstanding leadership and political wisdom. He said that Ethiopia looks forward to strengthening exchanges of experience in state governance with China, so as to unite and lead all Ethiopian people in upholding independence and accelerating national revitalization. Abiy said that Qin Gang's choice of Ethiopia as the first stop of his first overseas visit since taking office fully demonstrates the profound friendship between the two countries and the importance of bilateral relations. Ethiopia's cooperation with China in such areas as infrastructure, green economy, agriculture and industrial park construction has been exemplary and produced remarkable results, helping Ethiopia to rank among the fastest-growing economies in Africa. More Chinese enterprises are welcome to invest and do business in Ethiopia. Qin Gang said, with President Xi Jinping at the helm, China will press ahead with its modernization with Chinese characteristics on all fronts, unswervingly follow the path of peaceful development, remain committed to the fundamental national policy of opening up to the outside world and a mutually beneficial strategy of opening-up, adding certainty, stability and positive energy to a world in the midst of changes and turbulence and bringing new opportunities for the development of all countries. Qin Gang said, since China and Ethiopia established diplomatic relations more than half a century ago, the two countries have always helped each other and moved forward side by side no matter how the international situation changed, setting a fine example of solidarity and cooperation among developing countries. China supports Ethiopia in pursuing a development path suited to its own national conditions. Leaders of the two countries have maintained close exchanges in recent years, charting the course for the development of China-Ethiopia relations under the new circumstances. As major developing countries sharing visions and joining hands in the pursuit of modernization, China and Ethiopia need to be partners that firmly support each other, pursue common development and uphold international fairness and justice. China is ready to deepen and expand bilateral cooperation in various fields and encourage more Chinese enterprises to invest in Ethiopia and participate in Ethiopia's reconstruction. Qin Gang expressed his hope that Ethiopia will provide a sound business environment and take effective measures to protect the security and safety as well as the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese personnel and institutions. During his visit, Qin Gang also held talks with Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen Hassen. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding on political consultation between the two foreign ministries and other cooperation documents. Your Excellency Mr. Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, It gives me great pleasure to attend the completion ceremony for the Africa CDC headquarters, a flagship project of China-Africa cooperation announced by President Xi Jinping at the FOCAC Beijing Summit in 2018. Like the AU Conference Center, it is yet another landmark of China-Africa cooperation. At the outset, I wish to extend warm congratulations to the AU, and to the African countries and peoples. I also want to thank the AU Commission and the Ethiopian government for their strong support, and pay high tribute to the Chinese and African engineers and workers who have participated in the project. I learned from my colleagues about the many challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to the project during construction. But our two sides have surmounted the difficulties and topped out the buildings ahead of schedule. This is indeed a new miracle in China-Africa cooperation. I believe with the joint efforts of our two sides, the Africa CDC will make greater contribution to public health in Africa and the health and wellbeing of the African people. It will also write a new, splendid chapter in the history of China-Africa relations. This is my first overseas trip, and my first visit to Africa and the AU headquarters as the Chinese Foreign Minister. This is also the 33rd consecutive year that the Chinese Foreign Minister visits Africa on the first overseas trip of the new year, which is a fine tradition of Chinas diplomacy. With this opportunity, I wish to reiterate that strengthening solidarity and cooperation with African countries will always be a diplomatic priority for China. No matter how the international environment changes, China and Africa will always be a community with a shared future. Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, We are in the 10th year since President Xi Jinping put forth, in 2013, the principles of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith, and of pursuing the greater good and shared interests for Chinas relations with Africa. Over the past decade, with the joint guidance and commitment of Chinese and African leaders, China-Africa relations have made historic achievements that impressed the whole world, and entered a new era of building a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future. President Xi Jinping has visited Africa four times. The FOCAC Summit has been held twice. Our two sides have worked together to advance the ten cooperation plans, eight major initiatives and nine programs. Our cooperation against COVID-19 has delivered good results. All this embodies the vibrant spirit of China-Africa friendship and cooperation. China has remained Africas largest trading partner for 13 years in a row. Two-way trade in 2022 is expected to exceed 260 billion US dollars. Once again, Chinas imports from Africa grow faster than its exports to Africa. Fifty-two African countries and the AU Commission have signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with China. Landmark projects like the AU Conference Center, the Africa CDC headquarters, the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway keep emerging. Joint projects of highways, electricity, communications and ports span across Africa. Such cooperation has helped enhance Africas capacity for independent and sustainable development. As the new year begins, everything takes on a new look. China will embark on a new journey to build a modern socialist country on all fronts, and the AU and African countries will also embrace the celebratory moment of the 60th anniversary of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). At this new historical starting point, I wish to make a four-point proposal on the development of China-Africa relations. First, let us intensify our in-person interactions and connectivity of ideas. The pandemic will be over, and we can see light of hope ahead. China will continue to follow the principles of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith, and of pursuing the greater good and shared interests. We will expand exchange and cooperation with Africa in various fields and at all levels, including between the governments, legislatures, political parties, militaries and localities. We will encourage Chinese companies and people to come to Africa for investment and tourism. We will provide more facilitation to restore two-way personnel exchanges at a faster pace. African political leaders, AU Commission officials at various levels and Africans in the political, business and academic circles are most welcome to visit in due course. China supports South Africa in its rotating BRICS presidency, and supports Uganda in hosting the Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Non-Aligned Movement. China will work with Africa to further deepen experience sharing and mutual learning on governance and development, and firmly support each other on issues concerning our core interests and major concerns, to lay a solid foundation for building a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future. Second, let us further deepen the friendly relations between China and the AU. The AU is one of the most influential intergovernmental organizations in the world. It is a banner of African countries seeking strength through unity and of developing countries pursuing progress in solidarity. Over the past six decades, the AU and its predecessor the OAU have led African countries in making proud strides on the path of development, revitalization and integration, demonstrating African strength and winning international acclaim. Both China and Africa have the right and the confidence to achieve greater development and modernization. China will provide Africa with new opportunities through Chinese modernization, and supports the AU in leading African countries in pursuing development paths suited to their national conditions. To help advance African integration, China will continue to work with African countries and the AU Commission to forge strong synergy between Belt and Road cooperation, the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative put forward by President Xi Jinping and Agenda 2063 of the AU, the African Continental Free Trade Area and the development strategies of African countries. China is the first country to support the AU in joining the G20, and will encourage the G20 to take robust steps to support a greater role of the AU and African countries in the global governance system. Third, let us do more to upgrade and elevate China-Africa cooperation. Africas needs are the priorities in China-Africa cooperation. China will further study how to better align with Africas development strategies such as the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa and the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme. To give more support to Africas economic and social development, we will fully leverage the long-term strength of the Chinese economy, speed up the delivery of the outcomes of the eighth FOCAC Ministerial Conference, continue to expand Chinas trade with Africa, promote high-quality development of China-Africa financing and investment cooperation, and boost the new dynamics in health, green development, the digital economy and other sectors. China makes no empty promises, still less presses others against their own will. When it is handed over to our African friends, the Africa CDC headquarters will be wholly run and managed by the AU without any interference from China. Should the African side have any need, we will do our best to provide support and help. Fourth, let us stand firm in defending the unity and cooperation of developing countries. Today, our world, our times and history are changing in ways like never before. The collective rise of developing countries is irreversible, and the advent of an Asian century and an African century is no longer a distant dream. Both China and Africa should reinforce confidence, strength and self-reliance, uphold humanitys common values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom, oppose hegemony, bullying, highhandedness and racial discrimination, and jointly safeguard true multilateralism and promote greater democracy in international relations. We should boost the representation and voice of developing countries, especially those of African countries, in the UN Security Council and other international organizations, pool greater strength for the cause of global development and security, and work together to make the global governance system more just and equitable. Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, Right behind us is the towering Africa CDC headquarters. It is a new monument built with the traditional friendship and hard work of Chinese and African brothers and sisters. It stands as an irrefutable proof to the world that China always supports Africa with concrete actions and that the China-Africa relationship is bound to have a brighter future. During my trip, I visited the AU headquarters, and met with and held the eighth China-AU Strategic Dialogue with Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat. We had an in-depth and candid exchange of views on a wide range of issues of mutual concern and reached a lot of consensus. This has strengthened my confidence in the future of China-Africa relations and China-AU relations. I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank the AU and Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat for the warm and friendly hospitality accorded to me and my delegation. May Africa enjoy prosperity and its people happiness! May China-Africa friendship last forever and our cooperation grow from strength to strength! Thank you. The Joy of Djembe Drumming Ensemble will perform twice in February at Fort Bend County Libraries. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. English Dutch French German EINDHOVEN, the Netherlands, LAUSANNE, Switzerland, and BOSTON, MA USA, Jan. 23, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ONWARD Medical N.V. (Euronext: ONWD), the medical technology company creating innovative therapies to restore movement, independence, and health in people with spinal cord injury (SCI), today announced two key appointments to its leadership team to drive the Companys clinical research and commercial activities. Both new hires will be based in the US and will report to Dave Marver, CEO. New VP Global Clinical & Regulatory Erika Ross, PhD Erika Ross will join ONWARD as Vice President, Global Clinical & Regulatory, effective January 23, 2023. In this newly created role, Erika will assume global leadership of ONWARDs clinical and regulatory activities. Erika joins ONWARD from Abbott Neuromodulation, where she was Director, Global Clinical & Applied Research. Previously, as Neuroscience Director at Cala Health, she managed the scientific research program that led to de novo clearance and launch of the companys neurostimulation technology. Erika also served as Deputy Director, Medical Device Innovation Accelerator, Department of Surgery and Assistant Professor, Department of Neurologic Surgery at Mayo Clinic. Erika holds a BSc in Biology and Business and an MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Denver, and a PhD in Neuroscience from Mayo Clinic. I am delighted to welcome Erika to our leadership team, said Dave Marver, Chief Executive Officer. Her deep expertise in neuromodulation will strengthen our company as we prepare to commercialize the many promising therapies in our pipeline. Erika also brings outstanding relationships with researchers and clinicians, forged during her years working in neuroscience and neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic and continuing after she transitioned to industry. I am humbled by the opportunity to help advance ONWARDs therapies to address critical unmet needs for people who have experienced spinal cord injury. I am also thrilled to join this passionate and highly capable leadership team, which is driven to make these important therapies accessible as soon as possible, commented Erika Ross. New VP, Global Marketing Sarah Moore Sarah Moore will join ONWARD as Vice President, Global Marketing, effective February 1, 2023. In this role, Sarah will be responsible for ONWARDs global marketing operations, including product management and launch planning. Sarah comes to ONWARD from Nevro, an implantable neuromodulation company, where she served as Head of Commercial Marketing. Prior to that, she held various leadership roles in global marketing across multiple Johnson & Johnson medical device franchises, most recently as the business unit leader for J&Js Advanced Imaging business. Sarah earned an MBA from Duke University and a BA in German from Washington and Lee University. Sarahs extensive background in the marketing of medical devices, and particularly neuromodulation therapies, will be invaluable as we prepare to commercialize our first therapy later this year, said Dave Marver. She brings a broad range of capabilities that extend beyond marketing which will help us scale. I am inspired by the ONWARD mission, and its an honor to join this world-class team focused on restoring function in people with spinal cord injury. I am looking forward to partnering with the clinical community to bring this game-changing therapy to market, added Sarah Moore. About ONWARD Medical ONWARD is a medical technology company creating innovative therapies to restore movement, independence, and health in people with spinal cord injuries. ONWARDs work builds on more than a decade of basic science and preclinical research conducted at the worlds leading neuroscience laboratories. ONWARDs ARC Therapy, which can be delivered by implantable (ARC-IM) or external (ARC-EX) systems, is designed to deliver targeted, programmed spinal cord stimulation to restore movement and other functions in people with spinal cord injury, ultimately improving their quality of life. ONWARD has received five Breakthrough Device Designations from the US FDA encompassing both ARC-IM and ARC-EX. ARC-EX is an external, non-invasive platform consisting of a wearable stimulator and wireless programmer. Positive top-line data were reported in 2022 from the companys first pivotal study, called Up-LIFT, evaluating the ability of transcutaneous ARC Therapy to improve upper extremity strength and function. The company is now preparing marketing approval submissions for the US and Europe. ARC-IM consists of an implantable pulse generator and lead that is placed near the spinal cord. The company completed its first-in-human use of the ARC-IM neurostimulator in 2022. ONWARD is headquartered in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. It maintains a Science and Engineering Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has a growing US presence in Boston, Massachusetts. The company has an academic partnership with .NeuroRestore, a collaboration between the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). For additional information about the company, please visit ONWD.com. To access our 2023 Financial Calendar, please visit IR.ONWD.com. For Company Enquiries: info@onw d.com For Media Enquiries: MC Services AG US: Laurie Doyle, P: +1 339 832 0752 Europe: Dr. Johanna Kobler, Katja Arnold, Kaja Skorka, P: +49 89 210 228 0 media@onwd.com For Investor Enquiries: investors@onwd.com Disclaimer Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect the Company or, as appropriate, the Company directors current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve several risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition, and technology, can cause actual events, performance, or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. As a result, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions, or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. Neither the Company nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such persons officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Lindon, Utah, Jan. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Renewable Innovations (RI) (OTC: REII), a leader in the zero-carbon, green solutions alternative fuel industry, announced today that on January 20, 2023 the company was featured in a lengthy MotorTrend article titled This Solar Power Station Kept the EVs Juiced at Performance Vehicle of the Year. The companys 53-foot long solar-powered EV charging station, the Mobile Energy Command (or MEC-S) helped power the six EVs evaluated at MotorTrends 2023 Performance Vehicle of the Year. Renewable innovations powered the cars with a self-contained portable unit that can be trucked in and set up within a matter of hours to provide electricity for the likes of music festivals, data centers, military outposts or virtually any temporary location. There is also a 220-kilowatt-hour battery for storing excess energy and providing power when the sun isn't shining. The modular and scalable zero-carbon power systems can operate in remote locations that are entirely off grid. As the article suggests, the companys core business is built around its successful hydrogen technology although it possesses powerful products across the renewable energy spectrum. Renewable Innovations MEC-H2EV packs hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-ion batteries, and DC fast chargers into a semi-trailer that delivers far more power than the MEC-S. As stated in the MotorTrend article GM is also a customer of Renewable Innovations. The MEC-H2EV delivers EV charging with its mobile, rapid power generation capability anytime, anywhere. Fast EV charging is just one part of the Renewable Innovations product portfolio. Today during peak demand times electricity requirements are higher than the grids capacity to provide. When demand is greater than supply this creates a shortfall, an incapacity, or a grid gap. The global need for clean, sustainable energy will lead to situations where Renewable Innovations will be at the forefront of meeting these power demands. The alternative is massively expensive, nearly non-fundable upgrades to the current electrical infrastructure. To view the article, please visit https://www.motortrend.com/news/renewable-innovations-solar-ev-charger-performance-vehicle-of-the-year/ About Renewable Innovations Renewable Innovations is accelerating the growth and opportunities within the renewable economy. Their team of industry leaders brings extensive experience and invaluable connections across the Renewable, Hydrogen, and Alternative Energy sectors. Along with their partners, investors, and clients, they are making major technological advancements with products and solutions to lead the world into a new and exciting carbon-free future. Learn more at Renewable-Innovations.com. Forward Looking Statement This news release contains 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, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words like plans, expects, will, anticipates, believes, intends, projects, targets, estimates or other words of similar meaning. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events which may not be accurate or realized, and involve risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Renewable Innovations control, including but not limited to regulatory approvals and market conditions. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is included in Renewable Innovations filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Renewable Innovations disclaims and does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable law. Brokers and Analysts Chesapeake Group 410-825-3930 info@chesapeakegp.com Rahul Gandhi accuses J&K administration of 'big security lapse' (2nd Ld) IANS Srinagar More Rahul Gandhi accuses J&K administration of 'big security lapse' (2nd Ld) Senior Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused J&K administration of a 'big security lapse' at the Banihal tunnel. Senior Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused J&K administration of a 'big security lapse' at the Banihal tunnel. Addressing a press conference in Khanabal area of Anantnag district, Rahul said that when the Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed Banihal tunnel, there was not a single police man to manage or control the huge crowd that had come to receive him. He said that his security guards advised him not to go ahead asserting that he cannot go against the advice of his security guards. He said that he was hopeful that security arrangements would be elaborate for his future programmes those includes the culmination of the Yatra at Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) office in Srinagar where he is scheduled to hoist the National flag on January 30 and address a public rally. Senior Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh told the media that Rahul was supposed to walk 16 kms today, but he could walk only 4 kms due to breach of security. He said that administration must ensure proper security for the Yatra in the days ahead, especially when it reaches Srinagar. He alleged that due to the wrong policies of BJP and RSS, India as a nation is falling apart and the Yatra is an effort to bring people together. For Latest Updates Please- Join us on Follow us on MORE... MORE... MORE... 172.31.16.186 SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Jan. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Siemens and Skyway are working together to determine the electrical and digital infrastructure needed to support vertiport operations. Vertiports are hubs for VTOLs (vertical take-off and landing vehicles) such as air taxis and drones. The scope of collaboration involves both companies researching the energy demands of vertiports and developing sustainable electrical supply, standard charging processes, and a system of systems to support aircraft operations. Innovation around vertiport infrastructure will be critical to the future scalability of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flight operations. A main objective of the collaborative effort is to develop vertiports. This includes researching, developing, planning, and being part of the construction and operation of them, with each company bringing its own strength and experience to the effort. Skyway has a vast knowledge of airspace mission planning and management, air traffic navigation, and unmanned aircraft operations, and Siemens has infrastructure expertise in electrification, vehicle charging, and facility operations. Together, the two will work together to design and engineer a universal eVTOL charging process by evaluating the charging, power, and software requirements to ensure reliable and efficient operations. In addition, Siemens and Skyway will collaborate on innovative ideas to standardize overall vertiport planning and design and reduce energy consumption. "Sustainable energy solutions will be the foundation and the necessity for adoption of Urban Air Mobility with the electrification of eVTOL aircraft," says Clifford Cruz, Skyway CEO. "Combining our companies' resources and industry foresight can influence vertiport construction efforts and general UAM solutions on an industry-wide scale while setting a new precedent for modern transportation." "It is exciting for Siemens to contribute to the evolution of the Urban Air Mobility Industry," says John Kasuda, Head of Airports at Siemens Smart Infrastructure North America. "The development and efficient operations of vertiports will require innovative solutions to meet the expected demands of fast aircraft turnaround times and a network of varying landing facilities." The aviation industry is evolving with innovations being made in both flight and air traffic operations. eVTOLs bring a new mobility market that positively impacts communities through traffic decongestion and connection to areas not well served by the current aviation system. Contact Information: Allison Britt Siemens Marketing Contact allison.britt@siemens.com +1-630-399-2587 Whitney Harris Marketing Director whitney@goskyway.com Related Images Image 1: Siemens/Skyway Vertiport Concept Render This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment MELBOURNE, Jan. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- " Glass Curtain Wall Market " is the title of a new report from Data Bridge Market Research. Key growth strategies, drivers, opportunities, key segments, Porter's Five Forces analysis, and competitive environment are all dissected in detail in the research. The persuasive Glass Curtain Wall market research report is generated with a nice blend of industry insight, talent solutions, practical solutions, and the use of technology to advance user experience. Competitive analysis is one of the major aspects of the market research report and by understanding this, many points are covered here including strategic profiling of key players in the market, analyze of their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. When it comes to estimating general market conditions, the growth prospects in the market, possible restrictions, significant industry trends, market size, market share, sales volume, and future trends, the finest Glass Curtain Wall market report comes into the picture. Global Glass Curtain Wall Market was valued at USD 48.06 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach USD 101.85 billion by 2029, registering a CAGR of 7.80% during the forecast period of 2022-2029. In addition to the insights on market scenarios such as market value, growth rate, segmentation, geographical coverage, and major players, the market reports curated by the Data Bridge Market Research also include in-depth expert analysis, geographically represented company-wise production and capacity, network layouts of distributors and partners, detailed and updated price trend analysis and deficit analysis of supply chain and demand. Download Access to Sample PDF of the Glass Curtain Wall Market @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/request-a-sample/?dbmr=global-glass-curtain-wall-market The glass or metal panels built of thin aluminum-framed facades are referred to as glass curtain walls . Wind-resistant materials make up a portion of the wall system or are utilized to enclose a building. Depending on the customer's needs, glass curtain walls are found in conventional prefabricated systems and bigger customized wall sections. Over the last few years, the curtain wall industry has experienced tremendous expansion due to strong commercial and residential construction demand. Therefore, as the real estate sector grows, the curtain wall market will also experience considerable growth in the years to come. The Global Market Is Analyzed in Depth in the Latest Study. Taking into account the current level of competition and its projected evolution over the next few years. Rapidly increasing demands, a rise in industrialization, consumer awareness, growing sectors, and technical improvements are fueling the expansion of the global Glass Curtain Wall market. Sales and revenue in this sector have increased at an exponential rate. The market's size and growth are both expected to increase thanks to the factors driving the market's expansion over the projected period. Leading businesses in the worldwide Glass Curtain Wall market are investing heavily in R&D in order to build a larger client base and expand their share of the market by reintroducing improved products to consumers. All of the companies' strategy, as well as their financial health, revenue, gross margin, and growth rate, are detailed in the study. Recent Development In August 2021, for an unknown sum, Dynamic Glass purchased Colorado Window Systems (CWS), a renowned US-based provider of glass, glazing, and metal panel services. With a primary focus on improved service capabilities in Colorado, this acquisition will assist Dynamic Glass in broadening its glass and glazing range. CWS is a significant business that offers the best general contractors in Colorado top-notch glass and glazing services. The Glass Curtain Wall Market is Dominated by Firms Such as Nippon Sheet Glass Co., Ltd., (Japan) AGC Inc., (Japan) Central Glass Co. Ltd., (Japan) Xinyi Glass Holdings Limited., (China) Cardinal Glass Industries, Inc., (U.S.) CEVITAL (Algeria) China Glass Holdings Limited (China) GUARDIAN INDUSTRIES (U.S.) Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co., Ltd., (China) Saint-Gobain (France) SCHOTT AG (Germany) Sisecam (Turkey) Taiwan Glass Ind. Corp. (Taiwan) Beijing Northglass Technologies Co. Ltd., (China) arcon Flach- und Sicherheitsglas GmbH & Co. KG (Germany) Dellner Romag Ltd., (UK) Qingdao Tsing Glass Co. Limited (China) Guangzhou Topo Glass Co., Ltd., (China) Download the Complete Research Study Here in PDF Format @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/checkout/buy/enterprise/global-glass-curtain-wall-market Opportunities Research and Development (R&D) and Investments Furthermore, the major manufacturers are working on novel glass curtain wall variations that support large glass sizes and intricate geometries through research and development (R&D) operations, which extend profitable opportunities to the market players in the forecast period of 2022 to 2029. Additionally, the growing investment in the development of green buildings coupled with the extensive investments in smart cities will further expand the future growth of the glass curtain wall market. Key Influence of this Market: Comprehensive assessment of all opportunities and risk in this Market This Market recent innovations and major events Detailed study of business strategies for growth of this Market-leading players Conclusive study about the growth plot of the Market for forthcoming years In-depth understanding of this Market-particular drivers, constraints and major micro markets Favourable impression inside vital technological and market latest trends striking this Market To provide country level analysis of the market with respect to the current market size and future prospective Key Market Segments Covered in Glass Curtain Wall Industry Research Type Unitized Curtain Wall Stick Curtain Wall Product Type Double Glazed Type Three Glazed Type Single Glazed Type End-Use Residential Commercial Public Sectors Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-glass-curtain-wall-market Key Industry Drivers: Increased Applications of Glass Curtain Wall The glass curtain wall gives a sleek and contemporary appearance and allow natural light to enter the structure, making them a desirable glazing choice for both commercial and residential applications. As they are built and engineered to stop air and water filtering and shield the building structure from wind and forces brought on by earthquakes and other vibrations, glass curtain walls have recently gained popularity. The owners of homes, businesses, and offices pay designers to plan, create, and oversee the interiors of their construction projects across the globe. People have been focusing on remodeling their houses and offices in accordance with their individual tastes, practical requirements, and financial capabilities. The increase in applications of the glass curtain wall will boost the market's overall growth. Furthermore, the growth in the awareness about using energy-efficient construction facilities and the growing preference for green building materials will further propel the growth rate of glass curtain wall market. Additionally, the rise in consumer spending on home remodeling will also drive market value growth. Glass Curtain Wall Market Regional Analysis/Insights: The countries covered in the curtain wall market report are U.S., Canada and Mexico in North America, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Rest of Europe in Europe, China, Japan, India, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific (APAC) in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), Saudi Arabia, U.A.E, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) as a part of Middle East and Africa (MEA), Brazil, Argentina and Rest of South America as part of South America. North America dominates the market in terms of market share and market revenue and will continue to flourish its dominance during the forecast period of 2022-2029. The market growth over this region is attributed to the foreign investment, the rising number of construction activities, and the growing industrial sector within the region. Asia-Pacific, on the other hand, is estimated to show lucrative growth over the forecast period of 2022-2029, due to the increasing aesthetic appeal of the infrastructure and aerospace in the emerging economies in the region. The main factor influencing the market in Asia Pacific is the significant increase in building and infrastructure development in emerging economies. Table of Contents: Introduction Market Segmentation Executive Summary Premium Insights Global Glass Curtain Wall Market : Regulations Market Overview Global Glass Curtain Wall Market, By Type Global Glass Curtain Wall Market, By Product Type Global Glass Curtain Wall Market, By End User Global Glass Curtain Wall Market, By Region Global Glass Curtain Wall Market: Company Landscape SWOT Analyses Company Profile Questionnaires Related Reports Get the Full Table of Contents @ https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/toc/?dbmr=global-glass-curtain-wall-market Explore More Reports: Fiberglass Pipes Market , By Type (Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic (GRP) Pipes, Glass Reinforced Epoxy (GRE) Pipes and Others), Fibre Type (E-Glass and T-Glass/S-Glass/R-Glass), Application (Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Sewage, Irrigation and Others), Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Germany, France, Italy, U.K., Belgium, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Netherlands, Switzerland, Rest of 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Arabia, Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Rest of Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-self-cleaning-glass-market Impact Resistant Glass Market , By Interlayer (Ionoplast Polymer, Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, Polyvinyl Butyral, Others), End Use (Automotive and Transportation, Construction and Infrastructure and Others) Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Australia And New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, South Africa, And Rest Of Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-impact-resistant-glass-market Flat Glass Coatings Market , By Resin Type (Polyurethane Resin, Acrylic, Epoxy and Others), Technology (Solvent-Based Coatings, Water-Based Coatings and Nano Coatings Technology), Application (Architectural, Automotive and Transportation, Decorative, Mirror, Solar Power and Others) Country (U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Russia, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Rest of Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, India, Australia And New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, South Africa, And Rest Of the Middle East and Africa) https://www.databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-flat-glass-coatings-market About Data Bridge Market Research: An absolute way to forecast what the future holds is to comprehend the trend today! 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Contact Us: Farmington, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global Pantyhose and Tights Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 2.5% from 2023 to 2030. Pantyhose and tights are the most prevalent types of hosiery worn by ladies daily, at parties, and for other occasions. From 2023 to 2030, the worldwide pantyhose and tights market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 2.5%. This is due to reasons such as the increasing demand for trendy hosiery items in developing nations and the robust expansion in the APAC region. Request Sample Copy of the Report Pantyhose and Tights Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Opportunities, Future Trends, Covid-19 Impact, SWOT Analysis, Competition, and Forecasts 2022 to 2030 , published by Contrive Datum Insights. Pantyhose and tights are garments that cover the lower legs and extend from the waist to the feet. Use, denier count, opacity, garment type, and material thickness distinguish these two garments from one another. Tights and pantyhose are seen as uncommon attire that women wear to special occasions. These garments are popular with women since they are comfy, flattering, and fit well. Pantyhose and tights are the most prevalent types of hosiery worn by ladies daily, at parties, and for other occasions. Pantyhose and Tights Market Recent Developments: In June 2021 - Delta Galil Industries Ltd., a global manufacturer, and distributor of branded and private label apparel products for men, women, and children, announced a new licensing agreement with Wolford, a market leader in high-end tights, SKIN WEAR, lingerie, and body wear, to design, manufacture, and distribute new women's lingerie and swimwear collections. In Spring/Summer 2022, the Wolford collections will be launched globally via Wolford boutiques, leading department stores, selected multi-brand and specialty shops, and key online retail platforms. - Delta Galil Industries Ltd., a global manufacturer, and distributor of branded and private label apparel products for men, women, and children, announced a new licensing agreement with Wolford, a market leader in high-end tights, SKIN WEAR, lingerie, and body wear, to design, manufacture, and distribute new women's lingerie and swimwear collections. In Spring/Summer 2022, the Wolford collections will be launched globally via Wolford boutiques, leading department stores, selected multi-brand and specialty shops, and key online retail platforms. In October 2017 - Hanes Hosiery, the largest producer and distributor of women's hosiery, is revolutionizing legwear with the launch of the Perfect Tights collection. Featuring COMFORT FLEX knitting, these anatomically correct, luxury tights flex to the body for ultimate comfort and fit. Pantyhose and Tights Market Segmentation Analysis: The wearer of fishnet pantyhose and tights appears sensuous and exposing. It can be used as a base layer for clubbing parties and evening outings beneath skirts, shorts, and dresses. Fishnets are available in a variety of colours, including black, white, pink, etc., which contributes to their exquisite appearance. People prefer sheer pantyhose and tights because they are lightweight and comfy. They are also comfortable against the skin. In addition, they are attractive and come in a variety of colours, such as red, blue, black, etc., making them suitable for parties and other informal circumstances. As undergarments or foundation layers for skirts, shorts, dresses, etc., people favour opaque pantyhose and tights. They are opaque and have full-length legs to provide warmth during the winter. Pantyhose and tights are worn with dresses, skirts, shorts, etc. as undergarments or foundation pieces. They give warmth during the winter months because to the soft fabric that makes them comfortable throughout the day. Pantyhose and tights are essential components of party dresses for ladies since they enhance their appearance at weddings, parties, etc. They enhance the wearer's appearance by making them feel gorgeous through the employment of various colours and patterns. Regional Outlook: During the time covered by the forecasts, North America is anticipated to be the largest market in terms of both size and value. In North America, it is anticipated that the United States will play a significant role in the creation of jobs that enable a big number of women to enter the workforce and produce hosiery items such as pantyhose and tights. During this period, it is anticipated that Latin America would have the highest growth rate in both value and volume (2023-2030). It is anticipated that Brazil will be a key source of jobs in Latin America, allowing a huge number of women to enter the workforce and produce hosiery items such as pantyhose and tights. The value and size of the European market are anticipated to increase at a moderate rate as a result of technical developments that enable the production of novel and appealing items. In the coming years, China and India are anticipated to have significant growth rates in the Asia-Pacific area due to their expanding incomes. Buy this Premium Research Report@ https://www.contrivedatuminsights.com/buy/248405/?Mode=TM Scope of Report: Report Attributes Details Growth Rate 2.5% from 2023 to 2030 By Type Fishnet Pantyhose and Tights, Sheer Pantyhose and Tights, Opaque Pantyhose and Tights By Applications Daily Dressing, Party, Other By Companies SPANX, Wolford AG, Hanes Brands, Bonas, Danjiya, Wacoal, GERBE, Fengli Group, Gold Toe, Cervin, L Brands, Aristoc, Jockey International, and Others Base Year 2022 Historical Year 2017 to 2021 Forecast Year 2023 to 2030 Market Dynamics: The global pantyhose and tights industry is expanding as more people move to cities, more women gain employment, disposable money rises, and people's lifestyles change. The expansion of the market is attributable to the expansion of e-commerce, the expansion of the supply network, and a shift in customer preferences. Changes in culture, psychology, and behaviour, as well as the fact that people experiment with new clothing styles and interact with those from various cultures and social systems, will provide a substantial market opening. However, the availability of stockings and leggings reduces the demand for pantyhose and tights. Market Growth: Increasing discretionary spending and a flourishing fashion sector, particularly in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and South Africa, are propelling the pantyhose and tights market. This sort of product is projected to be driven in the next years by the increasing number of women who work as a result of industrialization, as well as by technical advancements that lead to innovative new items. Additionally, demand from the middle class in Latin American nations such as Brazil and Mexico has contributed to their rapid expansion throughout this time (2021-2030). Pantyhose and Tights Market Key Segments Covered: Top Market Players: SPANX, Wolford AG, Hanes Brands, Bonas, Danjiya, Wacoal, GERBE, Fengli Group, Gold Toe, Cervin, L Brands, Aristoc, Jockey International, and Others. By Type Fishnet Pantyhose and Tights Sheer Pantyhose and Tights Opaque Pantyhose and Tights By Application Daily Dressing Party Other Regions and Countries Covered North America: (US, Canada, Mexico, and Rest of North America) (US, Canada, Mexico, and Rest of North America) Europe: (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Nordic Countries, Benelux Union, Rest of Europe) (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, Nordic Countries, Benelux Union, Rest of Europe) Asia-Pacific: (Japan, China, India, Australia, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Rest of Asia-Pacific) (Japan, China, India, Australia, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Rest of Asia-Pacific) The Middle East & Africa: (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, South Africa, Rest of the Middle East & Africa) (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, South Africa, Rest of the Middle East & Africa) Latin America: (Brazil, Argentina, Rest of Latin America) (Brazil, Argentina, Rest of Latin America) Rest Of the World Check out more related studies published by Contrive Datum Insights: Online Fashion Retail Market - The Online Fashion Retail Market is anticipated to progress at a CAGR of 18.3% from 2022 to 2030. The online fashion retail market in the Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. The market in India is expected to witness significant growth owing to the growing e-commerce market and increasing usage of smartphones. The Online Fashion Retail Market is anticipated to progress at a CAGR of 18.3% from 2022 to 2030. The online fashion retail market in the Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. The market in India is expected to witness significant growth owing to the growing e-commerce market and increasing usage of smartphones. Duty Free Retailing Market - The global Duty-Free Retailing Market size was valued at USD 35.87 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 72.23 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 9.17% during the forecast period. The duty-free Retailing market in Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth throughout the forecast period. Recent developments in Asian countries may present potential opportunities for existing and future duty-free shops to introduce a wide range of innovative products. For example, in the June 1, 2020 master plan, the Chinese central government announced multiple policies aimed at establishing the Hainan Free Trade Port (Hainan Free Trade Port) on China's southern coast. The global Duty-Free Retailing Market size was valued at USD 35.87 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 72.23 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 9.17% during the forecast period. The duty-free Retailing market in Asia Pacific is expected to witness significant growth throughout the forecast period. Recent developments in Asian countries may present potential opportunities for existing and future duty-free shops to introduce a wide range of innovative products. For example, in the June 1, 2020 master plan, the Chinese central government announced multiple policies aimed at establishing the Hainan Free Trade Port (Hainan Free Trade Port) on China's southern coast. Stacked Cmos Image Sensor Market - The global stacked CMOS image sensor market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2022 to 2030. North America is expected to hold the largest stacked CMOS image sensor market share due to the trio of innovations, significant investments by major players to develop new technologies and adoption of new technologies. - The global stacked CMOS image sensor market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2022 to 2030. North America is expected to hold the largest stacked CMOS image sensor market share due to the trio of innovations, significant investments by major players to develop new technologies and adoption of new technologies. Reinforced Isolated Amplifiers Market - The global Reinforced Isolated Amplifiers Market is projected to grow from USD 891.4 Million in 2022 to USD 2.560 Billion in 2030 and is growing at a CAGR of 16.3%. Considering the geographical location, North America has been dominating the international market for reinforced isolated amplifiers owing to its mature telecommunication industry and rapid urbanization. The widespread emergence of smart transportation and smart buildings further boosts the growth of the reinforced isolation amplifier market. Europe follows North America's lead. Asia Pacific was the third-largest market for reinforced isolation amplifiers in 2015. Customization of the Report: The report can be customized as per client needs or requirements. For any queries, you can contact us at anna@contrivedatuminsights.com or +1 215-297-4078. Our sales executives will be happy to understand your needs and provide you with the most suitable reports. About Us: Contrive Datum Insights (CDI) is a global delivery partner of market intelligence and consulting services to officials at various sectors such as investment, information technology, telecommunication, consumer technology, and manufacturing markets. CDI assists investment communities, business executives, and IT professionals to undertake statistics-based accurate decisions on technology purchases and advance strong growth tactics to sustain market competitiveness. Comprising of a team size of more than 100 analysts and cumulative market experience of more than 200 years, Contrive Datum Insights guarantees the delivery of industry knowledge combined with global and country-level expertise. Social: Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter Contact Us: Anna B. | Head Of Sales Contrive Datum Insights Phone: +91 9834816757 | +1 2152974078 Email: anna@contrivedatuminsights.com Vancouver, BC, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recharge Resources Ltd. (Recharge) (RR: CSE) (RECHF: OTC) (SL50: Frankfurt) announced that Paradigm drillers arrived on site today for the Companys fully-funded winter drill program at Recharges 100% owned Brussels Creek Gold-Copper-Palladium Project in Kamloops, BC, Canada. Paradigm Drilling delivered the skid mount, Boyles 25 model drill rig to the staging area near the Brussels Creek Property with drilling about to commence to complete 900 meters of NQ size core drilling in 3 holes. Of these 900 meters, hole collar angles will be between -50 and -90 degrees, and borehole depths will not exceed 350 meters. The aim of the 900-meter NQ drill program is to test the potential for copper-gold mineralization similar to that present at the adjacent New Afton Mine owned by New Gold Inc. NGD.V ($1.11 billion market capitalization). The New Afton Mine occupies the site of the historic Afton Open Pit Mine, which operated from 1977 to 1997. The present mine and concentrator facility commenced production in July 2012. The mine is a block caving operation. In 2021, the mine produced 52,542 oz Au and 61,700,000 lbs Cu. The Company is currently awaiting weather conditions to improve for access purposes in order to commence drilling. CEO, David Greenway, summarized, "While data compilation is underway at Georgia Lake Lithium and the Company awaits additional data from Pocitos 1, we are pushing forward on all fronts with drills now on site at the Brussels Creek Copper-Palladium-Gold Project. We thank Mr. Shearer and all those involved in the consultation and drill planning process. Recharge is committed to sustainable exploration and mining practices. This is a pivotal time for the Brussels Creek Project in BC, and we look forward to the upcoming drill program. Brussels Creek Project The BC property is an early-stage exploration property, located approximately 24 kilometres west of Kamloops, and is immediately adjacent to New Gold's New Afton Mine. The property has 17 claims (66 cells) covering 1,350.43 hectares. The geological setting of the property is very similar to New Afton, a silica-saturated copper-gold alkalic porphyry-style deposit, as well as the Highland Valley, Mount Polly, Kemess and Galore Creek deposits. Recent field observations noted the presence of a substantial mineralized quartz-feldspar porphyry body intruding the overlying Nicola group volcanics. Historic sampling and mapping on the property, in 1983 and 1984, located a broad anomalous zone (200 metres by 400 metres) with gold values up to 3.5 grams per tonne. Grab samples taken from the property in 2019 include values of 10.1 g/t Au (with 0.7 g/t palladium) and 11.5 g/t Au. Brussels Creek Web Page: https://recharge-resources.com/projects/brussels-creek/ Recharges management cautions that past results or discoveries on properties in proximity to Recharge may not necessarily be indicative of the presence of mineralization on the company's properties. Qualified Person Johan T Shearer, P. Geo., Consulting Geologist, is the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 responsible for the technical content of this release, and consents to its release. Market ing A greement Further, the Company has engaged TD Media LLC dba Life Water Media LLC, of Houston, Texas ("TD Media"). The services to be provided by TD Media include digital media, marketing strategies, advertising, and awareness campaigns. The engagement of TD Media will extend for a period of six months, commencing on January 23, 2023, for a fee of US$350,000. Neither TD Media nor any of its principals currently own any interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company. About Recharge Resources Recharge Resources is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on exploring and developing the production of high-value battery metals to create green, renewable energy to meet the demands of the advancing electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle market. All stakeholders are encouraged to follow the company on its social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. On Behalf of the Board of Directors, David Greenway David Greenway, CEO. For further information, please contact: Recharge Resources Ltd. Joel Warawa Phone: 778-588-5473 E-Mail: info@recharge-resources.com Website: recharge-resources.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which reflect the expectations of management regarding Recharges intention to continue to identify potential transactions and make certain corporate changes and applications. Forward looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits Recharge will obtain from them. These forward-looking statements reflect managements current views and are based on certain expectations, estimates and assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including Recharges results of exploration or review of properties that Recharge does acquire. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and Recharge assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results differed from those projected in the forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. ACWORTH, Ga., Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Veterans for Trump aka Veterans for America First (VFAF.ORG) has named Stan Fitzgerald of Acworth Georgia the organizations new president. Fitzgerald is a retired police detective, business owner, member of Legacy PAC and has been the veteran's group political director for two years. "Our organization represents both veterans and first responders. Stan Fitzgerald, while not a vet, was a highly decorated police officer who clearly understands how to effectively represent the needs of both vets and first responders," said Vlad Lemets VFAF co-founder. Veterans for Trump was founded in 2015 as a grassroots movement supporting Donald J. Trump for the 45th president of the United States. Admiral Chuck Kubic is credited by Steven Bannon and Corey R. Lewandowski as being the original leader of the movement. General Flynn also played a role but did not stay with the organization. Admiral Kubic currently serves as National Spokesman of VFAF. The organizational co-founders Joshua Macias and Vladimir Lemets created the VFAF Non-profit and focused on veterans' issues while promoting a secure border. The organization has many high pro-file Ambassadors; Tom Homan former Ice director, Tana Goertz former Trump advisor, Kevin Sorbo actor, and Debbie Dooley tea party co-founder are some listed on the site. Stan Fitzgerald took over the political direction of the organization focusing on the America First agenda. Fitzgerald threw the organizational support behind the 2022 Team Trump Georgia bus tour which he and his wife Donna with Angie Wong sponsored. Working closely with Admiral Kubic the organization had made numerous endorsements in the 2022 cycle of candidates nationwide. Speaking for millions of conservative vets the VFAF endorsement resulted in significant primary wins. "I think for any 'America First' endorsements the success rate should be measured in the primary results. At VFAF we had over 60 primary winners through the power of our endorsement," said Angie Wong, national media rep for Veterans for Trump and President of Legacy PAC. The first VFAF endorsement of the 2024 cycle was issued for Donald J. Trump for 47th President of the United States. The President shared the endorsement news on his Truth Social Platform, The Fitzgerald's and Wong were invited to Mar-A-Lago for the presidential campaign announcement. Veterans for Trump will be functioning as part of the Trump campaign collation. Fitzgerald created the concept of opening VFAF state chapters for better regional direction to lead boots on the ground organizing the movement and promote local events with candidates. The first state scheduled for VFAF chapter is Georgia, with attorney Jared Craig tasked to lead the chapter. "We have organized some of the most effective and influential people in the America First movement through our efforts in Georgia and we will aggressively work on the presidential election," said Jared Craig VFAF Ambassador and Legacy PAC member. Fitzgerald also recommended the organization dissolve the non-profit status and transition back to its grass roots activism to better support the presidential campaign while simultaneously launching a separate new PAC. "It makes perfect sense to get back to organizing our boots on the ground nationwide network supporting President Trumps campaign as that was our foundation in this movement," said VFAF Co-founder Joshua Macias. "It is with great honor I accept this position as president working with movement leaders Admiral Kubic, Vlad Lemets and Josh Macias to get back to organizing grass roots America First politics. This organizational success would not have been possible without the support of my wife Donna Fitzgerald who also serves as a VFAF Ambassador. My immediate focus as president will be the Trump campaign collation. We will provide logistical support and utilize our PACS to help see President Trump as 47. We plan on supporting vital firms such as The Center for Renewing America run by Russ Vought of the former Trump Administration. I will be maintaining a dual role as political director as this position is temporary and will be overseeing the transition from nonprofit to political action committee," said Stan Fitzgerald. Contact: Vlad Lemets Chairman@vfaf.org Contact Information: Stan Fitzgerald Chief Political Advisor for VFAF forgetthegouge@aol.com Related Images Image 1: Stan Fitzgerald president Veterans For Trump Stand Fitzgerald of Acworth Georgia This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Dublin, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Local Anesthesia Drugs Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2022-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global local anesthesia drugs market size reached US$ 2.77 Billion in 2021. Looking forward, the publisher expects the market to reach US$ 3.62 Billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 4.56% during 2021-2027. Keeping in mind the uncertainties of COVID-19, we are continuously tracking and evaluating the direct as well as the indirect influence of the pandemic. These insights are included in the report as a major market contributor. Local anesthesia drugs are chemical compounds producing anesthesia by inhibiting the excitation of nerve endings or blocking conduction in peripheral nerves. They are generally available as topical creams or administered via injections or sprays during minor surgeries, biopsies, dental care, labor and delivery, and obstetrical procedures. They help treat painful conditions, such as mouth ulcers and sore throat, and relieve itching caused by cuts, minor burns, sunburns, scratches, insect bites, and poison ivy. They also assist in rapid and effective pain relief during gastritis, esophagitis, hiatus hernia, and heartburn of peptic ulcer. Local Anesthesia Drugs Market Trends: The rising prevalence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and other chronic diseases that need several procedures, such as cochlear implantation, laparoscopic colectomy, laparoscopic hysterectomy, secondary hip replacement, and knee replacement, represents one of the key factors bolstering the market growth. Furthermore, the growing geriatric population undergoing surgical interventions that require post-operative pain relief is catalyzing the demand for local anesthesia drugs across the globe. Moreover, the increasing number of dental surgeries, in confluence with the introduction of novel and effective medicines like articaine, levobupivacaine and ropivacaine, is propelling the market growth. Apart from this, due to the increasing consciousness about physical appearance among individuals, there is a rise in the demand for minimally invasive (MI) cosmetic surgical procedures, such as botulinum toxin and facial filler injections, which is contributing to the market growth. In addition to this, expanding medical tourism activities, along with developments in the healthcare infrastructure, are creating a positive market outlook. Besides this, technological advancements, including computer-based local anesthetic delivery and vibrotactile devices, are anticipated to provide a positive thrust to the market. Competitive Landscape: The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Baxter International Inc., Endo International plc, Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, Hikma Pharmaceuticals plc, Pacira Biosciences Inc., Pfizer Inc., Pierrel S.p.A. and Septodont. Key Questions Answered in This Report: How has the global local anesthesia drugs market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years? What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global local anesthesia drugs market? What are the key regional markets? What is the breakup of the market based on the drug type? What is the breakup of the market based on the mode of administration? What is the breakup of the market based on the distribution channel? What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry? What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry? What is the structure of the global local anesthesia drugs market and who are the key players? What is the degree of competition in the industry? Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 143 Forecast Period 2021 - 2027 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2021 $2.77 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2027 $3.62 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 4.5% Regions Covered Global Key Topics Covered: 1 Preface 2 Scope and Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Introduction 4.1 Overview 4.2 Key Industry Trends 5 Global Local Anesthesia Drugs Market 5.1 Market Overview 5.2 Market Performance 5.3 Impact of COVID-19 5.4 Market Forecast 6 Market Breakup by Drug Type 6.1 Lidocaine 6.1.1 Market Trends 6.1.2 Market Forecast 6.2 Bupivacaine 6.2.1 Market Trends 6.2.2 Market Forecast 6.3 Benzocaine 6.3.1 Market Trends 6.3.2 Market Forecast 6.4 Ropivacaine 6.4.1 Market Trends 6.4.2 Market Forecast 6.5 Prilocaine 6.5.1 Market Trends 6.5.2 Market Forecast 6.6 Chloroprocaine 6.6.1 Market Trends 6.6.2 Market Forecast 6.7 Others 6.7.1 Market Trends 6.7.2 Market Forecast 7 Market Breakup by Mode of Administration 7.1 Injectables 7.1.1 Market Trends 7.1.2 Market Forecast 7.2 Surface Anesthetic 7.2.1 Market Trends 7.2.2 Market Forecast 8 Market Breakup by Distribution Channel 8.1 Hospital Pharmacy 8.1.1 Market Trends 8.1.2 Market Forecast 8.2 Pharmacy Stores 8.2.1 Market Trends 8.2.2 Market Forecast 8.3 Others 8.3.1 Market Trends 8.3.2 Market Forecast 9 Market Breakup by Region 10 SWOT Analysis 11 Value Chain Analysis 12 Porters Five Forces Analysis 13 Price Analysis 14 Competitive Landscape 14.1 Market Structure 14.2 Key Players 14.3 Profiles of Key Players 14.3.1 Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited 14.3.1.1 Company Overview 14.3.1.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.1.3 Financials 14.3.1.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.2 B. Braun Melsungen AG 14.3.2.1 Company Overview 14.3.2.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.2.3 SWOT Analysis 14.3.3 Baxter International Inc. 14.3.3.1 Company Overview 14.3.3.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.3.3 Financials 14.3.3.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.4 Endo International plc 14.3.4.1 Company Overview 14.3.4.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.4.3 Financials 14.3.4.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.5 Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA 14.3.5.1 Company Overview 14.3.5.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.5.3 Financials 14.3.5.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.6 Hikma Pharmaceuticals plc 14.3.6.1 Company Overview 14.3.6.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.6.3 Financials 14.3.6.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.7 Pacira Biosciences Inc. 14.3.7.1 Company Overview 14.3.7.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.7.3 Financials 14.3.7.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.8 Pfizer Inc. 14.3.8.1 Company Overview 14.3.8.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.8.3 Financials 14.3.8.4 SWOT Analysis 14.3.9 Pierrel S.p.A. 14.3.9.1 Company Overview 14.3.9.2 Drug Type Portfolio 14.3.9.3 Financials 14.3.10 Septodont 14.3.10.1 Company Overview 14.3.10.2 Drug Type Portfolio For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/rfs43n-anesthesia?w=12 Attachment Dublin, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Testing Market By Process, By Packaging Type, By Application: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global outsourced semiconductor assembly and test market was valued at $34,553.5 million in 2021, and is projected to reach $60,334.5 million by 2031, registering a CAGR of 6.32% from 2022 to 2031. Outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) are the number of companies that offers third-party IC-packaging as well as test services. IDMs and foundries often outsource a certain percentage of their IC-packaging production to OSATs with internal packaging operations. OSAT mainly emphasizes on providing advanced packaging as well as test solutions for semiconductor companies in various markets such as consumer goods, communications, and computing along with emerging markets such as Internet of Things (IoT), automotive electronics, and wearable devices. The global outsourced semiconductor assembly and test market is mainly driven by increase in demand for consumer electronics and surge in degree of urbanization. In addition, increase in adoption of smartphones significantly fuels the market growth. However, high cost associated with OSAT services may hamper growth of the market during forecast period. On the other hand, growth in the chip market is anticipated to provide a huge opportunity for OSAT companies. The assembly segment was the largest revenue contributor in 2021, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.46% from 2022 to 2031. This is attributed to rise in need for effective supply chain management in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. By packaging type, the ball grid array segment was the leading largest contributor of revenue in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.63% from 2022 to 2031. Technological advancements in the semiconductor industry has led to surge in demand for thinner and lighter electronics products. This factor primarily drives growth of the ball grid array type of packaging, owing to several miniaturization advantages that it offers. By region, the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test market trends have been analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. The analysis identified that North America contributed for the maximum revenue in 2021. This is attributed to increase in industrialization as well as rapid development in automotive and telecommunication industries. The key players profiled in the report include Advanced Silicon S.A., Alphacore Inc., Amkor Technology, Inc., Device Engineering Inc., HiDensity Group (HMT microelectronic AG), Luminar Technologies, Inc. (Black Forest Engineering), Presto Engineering Group, Sencio BV, ShortLink group, and SiFive, Inc. (OpenFive). Market players have adopted various strategies such as product launch, expansion, collaboration, partnership, and acquisition to strengthen their foothold in the outsourced semiconductor assembly and test industry. Key Benefits For Stakeholders This report provides a quantitative analysis of the market segments, current trends, estimations, and dynamics of the outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing market analysis from 2021 to 2031 to identify the prevailing outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing market opportunities. The market research is offered along with information related to key drivers, restraints, and opportunities. Porter's five forces analysis highlights the potency of buyers and suppliers to enable stakeholders make profit-oriented business decisions and strengthen their supplier-buyer network. In-depth analysis of the outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing market segmentation assists to determine the prevailing market opportunities. Major countries in each region are mapped according to their revenue contribution to the global market. Market player positioning facilitates benchmarking and provides a clear understanding of the present position of the market players. The report includes the analysis of the regional as well as global outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing market trends, key players, market segments, application areas, and market growth strategies. Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 225 Forecast Period 2021 - 2031 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2021 $34553.5 million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2031 $60334.5 million Compound Annual Growth Rate 5.7% Regions Covered Global Key Topics Covered: CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 2: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY CHAPTER 3: MARKET OVERVIEW 3.1. Market definition and scope 3.2. Key findings 3.2.1. Top investment pockets 3.3. Porter's five forces analysis 3.4. Top player positioning 3.5. Market dynamics 3.5.1. Drivers 3.5.2. Restraints 3.5.3. Opportunities 3.6. COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the market CHAPTER 4: OUTSOURCED SEMICONDUCTOR ASSEMBLY AND TESTING MARKET, BY PROCESS 4.1 Overview 4.1.1 Market size and forecast 4.2 Sawing 4.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.2.3 Market analysis by country 4.3 Sorting 4.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.3.3 Market analysis by country 4.4 Testing 4.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.4.3 Market analysis by country 4.5 Assembly 4.5.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 4.5.2 Market size and forecast, by region 4.5.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 5: OUTSOURCED SEMICONDUCTOR ASSEMBLY AND TESTING MARKET, BY PACKAGING TYPE 5.1 Overview 5.1.1 Market size and forecast 5.2 Ball grid array 5.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.2.3 Market analysis by country 5.3 Chip scale package 5.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.3.3 Market analysis by country 5.4 Multi-package 5.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.4.3 Market analysis by country 5.5 Stacked die 5.5.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.5.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.5.3 Market analysis by country 5.6 Quad and dual 5.6.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 5.6.2 Market size and forecast, by region 5.6.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 6: OUTSOURCED SEMICONDUCTOR ASSEMBLY AND TESTING MARKET, BY APPLICATION 6.1 Overview 6.1.1 Market size and forecast 6.2 Automotive 6.2.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.2.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.2.3 Market analysis by country 6.3 Consumer electronics 6.3.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.3.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.3.3 Market analysis by country 6.4 Industrial 6.4.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.4.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.4.3 Market analysis by country 6.5 Telecommunication 6.5.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.5.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.5.3 Market analysis by country 6.6 Aerospace and defense 6.6.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.6.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.6.3 Market analysis by country 6.7 Medical and healthcare 6.7.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.7.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.7.3 Market analysis by country 6.8 Logistics and transportation 6.8.1 Key market trends, growth factors and opportunities 6.8.2 Market size and forecast, by region 6.8.3 Market analysis by country CHAPTER 7: OUTSOURCED SEMICONDUCTOR ASSEMBLY AND TESTING MARKET, BY REGION CHAPTER 8: COMPANY LANDSCAPE 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Top winning strategies 8.3. Product Mapping of Top 10 Player 8.4. Competitive Dashboard 8.5. Competitive Heatmap 8.6. Key developments CHAPTER 9: COMPANY PROFILES 9.1 ADVANCED SILICON S. A. 9.1.1 Company overview 9.1.2 Company snapshot 9.1.3 Operating business segments 9.1.4 Product portfolio 9.1.5 Business performance 9.1.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.2 ALPHACORE INC. 9.2.1 Company overview 9.2.2 Company snapshot 9.2.3 Operating business segments 9.2.4 Product portfolio 9.2.5 Business performance 9.2.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.3 AMKOR TECHNOLOGY, INC 9.3.1 Company overview 9.3.2 Company snapshot 9.3.3 Operating business segments 9.3.4 Product portfolio 9.3.5 Business performance 9.3.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.4 DEVICE ENGINEERING INC. 9.4.1 Company overview 9.4.2 Company snapshot 9.4.3 Operating business segments 9.4.4 Product portfolio 9.4.5 Business performance 9.4.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.5 HIDENSITY GROUP (HMT MICROELECTRONIC AG) 9.5.1 Company overview 9.5.2 Company snapshot 9.5.3 Operating business segments 9.5.4 Product portfolio 9.5.5 Business performance 9.5.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.6 PRESTO ENGINEERING GROUP 9.6.1 Company overview 9.6.2 Company snapshot 9.6.3 Operating business segments 9.6.4 Product portfolio 9.6.5 Business performance 9.6.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.7 Sencio BV 9.7.1 Company overview 9.7.2 Company snapshot 9.7.3 Operating business segments 9.7.4 Product portfolio 9.7.5 Business performance 9.7.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.8 SHORTLINK GROUP 9.8.1 Company overview 9.8.2 Company snapshot 9.8.3 Operating business segments 9.8.4 Product portfolio 9.8.5 Business performance 9.8.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.9 SIFIVE, INC. (OPENFIVE) 9.9.1 Company overview 9.9.2 Company snapshot 9.9.3 Operating business segments 9.9.4 Product portfolio 9.9.5 Business performance 9.9.6 Key strategic moves and developments 9.10 LUMINAR TECHNOLOGIES, INC. (BLACK FOREST ENGINEERING) 9.10.1 Company overview 9.10.2 Company snapshot 9.10.3 Operating business segments 9.10.4 Product portfolio 9.10.5 Business performance 9.10.6 Key strategic moves and developments For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/19vj3p Attachment New York, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to The Insight Partners, 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends anf Global Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Component (Small Cell, 5G Mobile Core Network, and Radio Access Network), Location (Ground Tower and Rooftop Tower), Frequency Band (Low Band, Medium Band, and High Band), and Small Cell Tower (Femto Cells, Pico Cells, and Micro Cells); the global 5G network and tower deployment market size is expected to grow from USD 9.21 billion in 2022 to USD 17.78 billion by 2028; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11.6% from 2022 to 2028. Get Sample Report at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00013527 Global 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Report Scope: Market Size Value in USD 9.21 billion in 2022 Market Size Value by USD 17.78 billion by 2028 Growth rate CAGR of 11.6% from 2022 to 2028 Forecast Period 2022-2028 Base Year 2022 No. of Pages 208 No. of Tables 110 No. of Charts & Figures 92 Historical data available Yes Segments covered Component, Location, Frequency Band, and Small Cell Tower Global 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Analysis: Competitive Landscape and Key Developments American Tower Corporation, Crown Castle International Corp, CTI Towers Inc., Dish Network L.L.C., SBA Communications Corporation, CommScope Inc., Mavenir, Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc., and Qualcomm Technologies Inc. are among the key 5G network and tower deployment market players profiled in this market study. Several other essential 5G network and tower deployment market players were studied and analyzed to get a holistic view of the market size and its ecosystem. In 2022, Nokia was awarded a five-year contract to provide 5G network infrastructure to Norwegian mobile operator Ice. In 2022, Ericsson entered a strategic partnership with Bouygues Telecom to supply 5G Standalone (5G SA) connectivity. Inquiry Before Purchase: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPRE00013527 Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Growth The COVID-19 crisis has drastically affected two huge markets in APACIndia and China. Though the pandemic has affected the economy, it did not impact the 5G developments extensively. The COVID-19 crisis has caused the authorities and local governments in many Asian countries to use 5G technology to fight against the spread of the disease. 5G has motivated them to bring new methods of conducting surveillance and patrol in public areas. 5G technology has opened up prospects for using drones. In China, 5G-powered drones equipped with voice broadcast systems are installed to broadcast health warnings and operate aerial patrols in public areas. Similarly, in Malaysia, over 10 units of drones equipped with speakers and heat-sensing technology are installed to control and monitor the public to ensure contactless temperature screening of massive crowds. Moreover, in China, schools have used 5G remote education, including Live Distance Education and Cloud Video Distance Education, to avoid mass gatherings of students and lower the spread of infections. Due to cloud capabilities and 5G bandwidth, the education sector in China has successfully worked on lowering the spread of the virus. Speak to Research Expert: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/speak-to-analyst/TIPRE00013527 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Study: Regional Overview North America has been the pioneer in the rapid adoption of new and advanced technologies over the years. The presence of multiple industries, continuous investment by market players in technological advancements, and the rise in demand for fast data transmission from commercial and residential broadband subscribers are propelling the requirement for 5G networks across the region, thereby boosting the growth of the 5G network and tower deployment market The 5G network and tower deployment market in Asia Pacific is segmented into China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, and the Rest of APAC. Asia Pacific is an early adopter of 5G, with countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China seeming to be ahead in the 5G wave. Other countries, including India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam, appear to develop significantly. South Korea, Australia, and China are the first in the world to launch commercial 5G services. For instance, South Korea deployed the first 5G network in April 2019 and is expected to have increased penetration of the technology, with almost 60% of mobile subscriptions in South Korea will be for 5G networks by 2025. Japan had been trialing 5G network technology since 2010 before launching a decade later. GSMA states that 5G will contribute significantly to the Asia Pacific economy by 2034, with key industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, utilities, retail, and financial services, and the public sector benefitting the most from the new technology for digital transformation, Industry 4.0, and enterprise 4.0. Due to the growing demand for 5G technology by various industries, earnings from 5G services in Asia Pacific will increase to US$ 8 billion (a 137% increase) in 2026 from US$ 106 million in 2021. Thus, 5G is vibrant in Asia Pacific, with many deployments planned for both emerging and mature markets. This is contributing to the 5G network and tower deployment market growth in Asia Pacific Buy Premium Copy of 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Growth Report (2022-2028) at: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00013527 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Study: Location Overview Based on location, the 5G network and tower deployment market analysis is segmented into ground tower and rooftop tower. The ground tower segment dominated the 5G network and tower deployment market in 2022, whereas the rooftop tower segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. 5G ground towers are telecommunication sites that are used to boost wireless signals at an increased speed than that of 4G. 5G operates in a high-frequency band of the wireless spectrum. Major companies such as Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia are working to ensure that the 5G tower radio gear features as multiple standards as possible while keeping it compact and lightweight. Operators have supported any measure that promotes investment in the 5G ground tower infrastructure, which is driving the market for the segment. For instance, in February 2022, the FAA, Verizon, and AT&T decided on procedures enabling additional towers to deliver 5G services. The introduction of additional 5G service in significant areas across the US will allow wireless operators to switch to more towers securely. Browse other research published by The Insight Partners: 5G Market - The global 5G market size is expected to grow from US$ 2.56 billion in 2020 to US$ 23.95 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 56.39% between 2020 and 2025. 5G Infrastructure Market - The global 5G infrastructure market size was valued at US$ 963.74 million in 2021; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 64.8% from 2022 to 2028. 5G Fixed Wireless Access Market - The global 5G fixed wireless access market size is expected to grow from US$ 425.26 million in 2021 to US$ 90,563.22 million by 2028 at a CAGR of 85.2% between 2022 and 2028. 5G Antenna Market - 5G antennas are also referred to as digital antenna arrays, adaptive array antennas, or multiple antennas. 5G Services Market - "Global 5G Services Market Analysis To 2028" is a specialized and in-depth study of the 5G services industry with a special focus on the global market trend analysis. 5G in Defense Market - 5G technology provides higher network speed and lower latency, thereby increasing the implementation of 5G in defense sector. Small Cell 5G Network Market - Small Cells are short-range, low power transmission systems that cover a small geographic area. Small cells are used 5G to tackle several challenges, such as high data speed, reliability, and other latency specifications. Voice-over-5G (Vo5G) Market - Voice-over-5G (Vo5G) is referred to as voice services via the fifth generation of mobile networking technologies. 5G enterprise Market - 5G (short for 5th Generation) is a term for specific advanced wireless systems.5G technology utilizes a higher-frequency band of the wireless spectrum which allows data to be transferred more rapidly than the lower-frequency band dedicated to 4G. 5G Industrial IoT Market - 5G is the latest trend adopted rapidly in order to improve connectivity. The combination of IoT and 5G technology will help to overcome all the obstacles in various industries. About Us: The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We specialize in industries such as Semiconductor and Electronics, Aerospace and Defense, Automotive and Transportation, Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Manufacturing and Construction, Medical Device, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Chemicals and Materials. Contact Us: If you have any queries about this report or if you would like further information, please contact us: CHICAGO, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) recently reviewed Savistas revenue cycle services using the Peer Review process. After undergoing the rigorous review, Savista has been awarded the Peer Reviewed by HFMA designation. Savista has delivered revenue cycle management services to healthcare providers including healthcare systems, community hospitals, and physician groups for more than 30 years. The company works alongside healthcare organizations to understand their challenges and finds the right-sized solution, offering audit and assessments, and staffing in areas of Eligibility and Enrollment, CDM, Coding, AR and more. Savista touts one of the most highly trained workforces in the industry with an average of 7.5 years of experience and more than 20+ accreditations including Epic certified trainers. Savista incorporates its clients existing software into their processes, eliminating the need for additional costly tech investments. Key findings from HFMA Peer Review evaluation include: 100 percent of respondents agreed Savista meets expectations. 96 percent said Savista satisfies industry needs. 96 percent feel Savista is easy to partner with. We are honored that our revenue cycle services have met the requirements of the Peer Review process, the most rigorous and prestigious in the industry, said Jan Grimm, CEO of Savista. This designation is a testament of our dedication to the healthcare industry and commitment to our clients success. We are excited to continue to provide new and innovative ways to drive results for our clients across the country. HFMA's Peer Review process provides healthcare financial managers with an objective, third-party evaluation of business solutions used in the healthcare workplace. The rigorous, 11-step process includes a Peer Review panel review composed of current customers, prospects who have not made a purchase, and industry experts. The Peer Review status of the healthcare business solution and its performance claims are based on effectiveness, quality and usability, price, value, and customer and technical support. Were pleased to have Savista achieve their HFMA Peer Reviewed designation, said HFMA President and CEO Joseph J. Fifer, FHFMA, CPA. The HFMA Peer Review process assures our members, through a rigorous evaluation, that the reviewed healthcare business solution meets an objective, third-party assessment of overall effectiveness, quality, and value." About HFMA The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) equips its more than 96,000 members nationwide to navigate a complex healthcare landscape. Finance professionals in the full range of work settings, including hospitals, health systems, physician practices and health plans, trust HFMA to provide the guidance and tools to help them lead their organizations, and the industry, forward. HFMA is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that advances healthcare by collaborating with other key stakeholders to address industry challenges and providing guidance, education, practical tools and solutions, and thought leadership. We lead the financial management of healthcare. About Savista Savista is a prominent provider of healthcare revenue cycle management services, partnering with hospitals, systems, physician practices and ambulatory surgery centers for more than 30 years. The company solves revenue cycle challenges through its comprehensive audits and assessments and expert staffing solutions that span eligibility and enrollment, CDM, coding, AR and more. Its global organization delivers custom solutions to more than 300 clients at 770+ facilities across 49 states. To learn more about Savista please visit SavistaRCM.com. Press inquiries should be directed to: Brad Dennison Healthcare Financial Management Association (708) 492-3385 bdennison@hfma.org Kim Wiethorn Savista (513) 884-7597 kim.wiethorn@savistarcm.com Pune India, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The market has been studied for the below mentioned-segmentation and regional analysis for North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and the Middle East and Africa. These are the key regions where the high-temperature insulation wool market is operating and is predicted to expand soon. The manufacturers and suppliers involved in the high-temperature insulation wool market are present across various countries in the above-mentioned regions. Get Sample Copy of This Report @ https://greyviews.com/reports/high-temperature-insulation-wool-market/459/request-sample The report provides a detailed understanding of the market segments which have been formed by combining different prospects such as the type, application, and region. Apart from this, the key driving factors, restraints, potential growth opportunities, and market challenges are also discussed in the below paragraphs. The significant players operating in the global high-temperature insulation wool market are Unifrax LLC, Morgan Thermal Ceramics, Shangdong Luyang Co. Ltd, Promat GmbH, BNZ Materials Inc., Zircar, Pyrotek, Isolite, and Skamol among other. To achieve a substantial market share in the worldwide high-temperature insulation wool market and strengthen their position, manufacturers are pursuing expansion methods such as current developments, mergers and acquisitions, product innovations, collaborations, and partnerships, joint ventures. High-temperature insulation wool refers to materials that aid in obstructing the transfer of heat and energy in many industrial applications. It contains materials including ceramic fibers, insulating firebricks, and calcium silicate that are utilized in high-pressure steam pipelines, flanges, boilers, dryers, furnaces, and turbines. These materials protect the equipment from extreme temperature swings while reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere. As a result, they are used for a variety of purposes in the commercial, residential, and industrial sectors. The world is undergoing rapid industrialization, which is one of the key drivers of the market's growth. In line with this, the petrochemical industry's rise is also contributing to market growth. The pressure- and heat-resistant wools are often used as insulating and fire-proof linings in industrial boards, cast objects, and textile products. The growing environmental consciousness, which includes concerns about the depletion of conventional energy sources, is another factor propelling expansion. Environmentally friendly HTI wools that withstand high temperatures and compressive pressure are highly valued by manufacturers. Because of this, recyclable and reusable bio-based substitutes like seagrass, cellulose flakes, hemp matting, and sheep wool have gained popularity and helped the market grow. Additional factors, such as growing product usage in the aerospace and automotive industries and considerable research and development (R&D) initiatives, are predicted to further fuel the market. Enquiry Before Buying This Report @ https://greyviews.com/inquiry/459 Scope of High-Temperature Insulation Wool Market Report Report Metric Information Study Period 2022-2030 Base Year 2022 Forecast Period 2023-2030 Market Share Unit USD Billion Segments Covered Type, Application and Regions Regions Covered North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, and Middle-East and Africa Major Players Unifrax LLC, Morgan Thermal Ceramics, Shangdong Luyang Co. Ltd, Promat GmbH, BNZ Materials Inc., Zircar, Pyrotek, Isolite, and Skamol among other Segmentation Analysis The polycrystalline wool segment is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in 2022. The type segment is alkaline earth silicate wool, aluminum silicate wool, and polycrystalline wool. The polycrystalline wool segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. Polycrystalline wool is mineral fibre that has many crystals. A synthetic or natural gel is melted to generate it, and the resulting fibres are spun. Polycrystalline wool is suitable for use in applications involving high temperatures because of its high melting point. Given that it is also resistant to chemical attacks, it is a superb choice for industrial applications. The heat treatment plants segment is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in 2022. The application segment is industrial furnaces, heat treatment plants, and others. The heat treatment plants segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period. High-Temperature Insulation Wool is used in heat treatment facilities to protect machinery from heat. The facade of the building has it installed so that it can reflect and absorb heat. The machinery is shielded by keeping the plant at a safe temperature. In order to help maintain the right temperature for the process, they are also used in steel mills and foundries. Regional Analysis The regional analysis provides a detailed perception of the key regions and the countries. Some of the key countries analyzed for the high-temperature insulation wool include the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Russia, China, Japan, India, Brazil, Peru, UAE, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. The Asia Pacific region witnessed a major share. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to dominate the market, mostly due to China. The manufacturing industry makes a significant contribution to the economy of the country. China's construction business grew quickly in 2019 despite a year-over-year decline compared to 2018. The construction sector has contributed to the nation's economic growth. Though this increase was smaller than the sector's average growth over the previous ten years, it was nonetheless a significant decline. Country Analysis Germany Germany's high-temperature insulation wool market size was valued at USD 0.23 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 0.34 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 5.2% from 2023 to 2030. The government's ongoing initiatives to rebuild the manufacturing industry are what are driving the market's continued growth in these regions. The ability of the industrial sector to drive economic growth and recovery is the cause of this. China Chinas high-temperature insulation wool market size was valued at USD 0.30 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 0.46 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 5.5% from 2023 to 2030. The middle-class population's increasing disposable income and greater demand from countries that import electronics from China are both expected to expand electronics production in China. Along with the electronics and construction industries, the demand for high-temperature insulation is predicted to increase. China is the largest petrochemical producer in the world. Chinese investments in the olefins and aromatics supply chains are causing the petrochemical industry to grow. India India's high-temperature insulation wool market size was valued at USD 0.23 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 0.35 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2023 to 2030. Owing to the rapidly expanding economies of the region, active manufacturing across key end-user sector applications, and improvements in environmental laws and regulations. Covid-19 Impact Covid-19 had a major impact on almost all industries, such as electronics, semiconductors, manufacturing, automobile, etc. However, several companies operating in the technology sector have seen increased revenue due to significant changes in consumer preferences toward technological services. In addition, the pandemic has led to significant growth in technology across developing and developed countries. Furthermore, the growth of the high-temperature insulation wool market is mainly driven by the rise in production. Buy Now Full Report @ https://greyviews.com/checkout/459/single_user_license Contact Us Rocky Shah GreyViews Pune India Phone: (+44) 162-237-1047 Email: sales@greyviews.com Web: https://greyviews.com/ Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter Browse Related Reports: Portland Cement Market Size By Type (Blended, Portland, and Others), By Application (Residential, Infrastructure, Construction, and Industrial), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/portland-cement-market/463 High Temperature Insulation Wool Market Size By Type (Alkaline Earth Silicate Wool, Aluminum Silicate Wool, and Polycrystalline Wool), By Application (Industrial Furnaces, Heat Treatment Plants, and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/high-temperature-insulation-wool-market/459 Dye Sublimation Paper Market Size By Product Type (Without Coating and With Coating), By Application (Advertising, Household, Clothing & Textiles, and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/dye-sublimation-paper-market/456 Ceramic Armor Market Size By Material (Ceramic Metal Composite, Alumina, Boron Carbide, SiC, and Others), By Application (Defense Armor, Body Armor, Marine Armor, and Aircraft Armor), By Platform (Civilians, Defense, and Homeland Security), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/ceramic-armor-market/445 Polymer Resin Market Size By Type (Polystyrene, Polyvinylchloride, Polypropylene, Polyethylene, Expandable Polystyrene, and Others), By Application (Construction, Medical, Automotive, Consumer, Industrial, Electrical & Electronics, Packaging, and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/polymer-resin-market/429 Metal Fabrication Market Size By Type (Welding, Cutting and Machining), By Application (Automotive, Construction, Aerospace & Defence, Electronics and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/metal-fabrication-market/426 Industrial Protective Clothing Market Size By Product Type (Disposable and Durable), By End-User (Healthcare, Construction, Manufacturing and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/industrial-protective-clothing-market/418 Furan Resins Market Size By Type (Furfuryl Alcohol Resin, Furfural Resin, Bran Ketone Resin, and Branone Formaldehyde Resin), By Application (Automobile, Paint & Coating, Adhesive & Sealant, Foundry, Plastic, and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/furan-resins-market/408 Air & Gas Compressor Market Size By Type (Portable and Stationary), By Application (Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Petrochemical and Chemical Industry, Power Sector, and Others), Regions, Segmentation, and Projection till 2030 https://greyviews.com/reports/air-gas-compressor-market/406 Bloomfield Hills, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bloomfield Hills, Michigan - Kirsch Daskas Law Group PLLC protects innocence while preventing wrongful convictions one client at a time. Kirsch Daskas Law Group is a client-centered criminal law firm representing adults and juveniles falsely accused of crimes or at risk of losing their children. Sex crimes and child abuse cases require unique legal representation and without the services of highly specialized attorneys and expert witnesses, a legal team cannot properly prepare for the case. There have been many instances of verdicts in trial cases being vacated on appeal as a result. In a recent Michigan Court of Appeals case concerning the ineffective assistance of an attorney on an abuse and neglect case, the respondent-father was granted a motion for an evidentiary hearing against his termination of parental rights as a result of the testimony presented by attorney Lisa Kirsch Satawa of Kirsch Daskas Law Group PLLC. Ms. Kirsch Satawa specializes in child abuse and child sexual assault cases, including both criminal and child protective proceeding cases, and routinely consults and employs experts in forensic interview methodologies. Earlier, the trial court found that the respondent's attorney was not ineffective and that clear and convincing evidence was presented to support statutory grounds for termination of the respondent-father's parental rights. As part of the respondent's ineffective assistance claim, Ms. Kirsch Satawa testified as an expert witness and elaborated on how she would have prepared for the case, including red flags she identified, specialists she consulted to set the framework for the fundamental standard of practice that the trial attorney should have followed. The trial judge gave little credence to Ms. Kirsch Satawas testimony, stating that her entire focus was on the three forensic interviews, rather than a broader view that would have included the adjudication trial and dispositional hearing. The Court of Appeals disagreed with the trial judge and found that the respondent-fathers trial counsel was ineffective and that the trial judge should have relied on Ms. Kirsch Satawas testimony rather than ignoring it outright. The Court granted the respondent-parents request and vacated the order terminating the respondent-fathers parental rights. The Court of Appeals sent this case back to the trial court where it will be retried. As a result of Ms. Kirsch Satawas testimony, the respondent-father now has a chance to be fairly defended. It was determined that the trial court should have listened to Ms. Kirsch-Satawa as a credible expert witness who had not engaged in hindsight bias and critically had described what an effective and competent attorney should have done. For more information, visit https://www.kdlawgroup.com/ Lisa Kirsch Satawa is trained to incorporate knowledge of cognitive development, linguistics, psychology, medicine, and the law into a cohesive defense theory. In many cases, she has consulted for attorneys in Michigan and across the country and provided a creative perspective and strategy for each case. She is also a frequent lecturer across the United States and in Michigan, presenting topics that include child witnesses, child abuse injuries, suggestibility of children, forensic interviewing, and the use of experts and investigators. Her knowledge of the subject matter was evident in her testimony during the Ginther hearing, where she alluded to many discrepancies in the evidence presented, including the credibility of the reports made by the victim. Significantly, the failure to exercise reasonable professional judgment in not investigating the possibility of an expert to refute evidential allegations renders the respondent denied effective assistance by the trial counsel. Her testimony was, however, dismissed. The role of an attorney trained and experienced in handling cases of adults and juveniles accused of sex crimes and child abuse is crucial in protecting the rights of innocent people. Lisa Kirsch Satawa, a top attorney, and consultant at Kirsch Daskas Law Group, works hand-in-hand with clients to establish the facts and build a strong case for defense. About the Firm: Kirsch Daskas Law Group PLLC is a boutique firm located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The firm has the highest regard for the attorney-client relationship and believes in giving clients peace of mind through knowledge through the most difficult of times. Attorneys at the firm will guide clients through each stage of a case, ensuring they have the information needed to confidently make important decisions. ### For more information about Kirsch Daskas Law Group PLLC, contact the company here: Kirsch Daskas Law Group PLLC Lisa Kirsch Satawa 248-792-0450 katherine.frohoff@rockhurst.edu 1133 W Long Lake Rd #150, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302, U.S. PASCAGOULA, Miss., Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HII (NYSE: HII) announced that Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday visited the companys Ingalls Shipbuilding division on Thursday, Jan. 26 during a trip to the Gulf Coast. While in Pascagoula, Gilday met with Ingalls leadership and toured the shipyard including amphibious assault ship Richard M. McCool Jr. (LPD 29) and guided missile destroyer Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125). Our team was honored to have Adm. Gilday invest time in our shipyard, Ingalls Shipbuilding President Kari Wilkinson said. We value the opportunity to reinforce our commitment as a dedicated partner in national security, and that we are ready for whatever the future may bring. Gilday last visited Ingalls in March 2020 for the christening of Jack H. Lucas, the Navys first Flight III destroyer and most capable and sophisticated surface combatant being built to date. Since the christening, Jack H. Lucas completed the initial builders sea trials, testing Flight III systems underway for the first time. In December, Ingalls was awarded a complex change of integrating conventional prompt strike modernizations on Zumwalt-class destroyers USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) and Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001). Great visit yesterday to our arsenal on the Gulf Coast, Gilday said. Really appreciate the incredible effort and teamwork from our industry partners. For nearly 85 years, Ingalls has designed, built and maintained amphibious ships, destroyers, and cutters for the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard. Ingalls is simultaneously building four classes of ships and has pioneered the development and production of technologically advanced, highly capable ships for the surface Navy fleet for decades. A photo accompanying this release is available at: https://hii.com/news/hii-hosts-chief-of-naval-operations-adm-michael-gilday-at-ingalls-shipbuilding. Recently, nearly $1 billion was invested in infrastructure, facility and toolsets at Ingalls enabling shipbuilders to improve product flow and process and efficiency, and enhancing product quality. Ingalls is supported by over 1,200 suppliers across 49 states and is the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi and a major contributor to the economic growth of Alabama. About HII HII is a global, all-domain defense provider. HIIs mission is to deliver the worlds most powerful ships and all-domain solutions in service of the nation, creating the advantage for our customers to protect peace and freedom around the world. As the nations largest military shipbuilder, and with a more than 135-year history of advancing U.S. national security, HII delivers critical capabilities extending from ships to unmanned systems, cyber, ISR, AI/ML and synthetic training. Headquartered in Virginia, HIIs workforce is 43,000 strong. For more information, visit: HII on the web: https://www.HII.com/ HII on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamHII HII on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/WeAreHII HII on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WeAreHII Contact: Kimberly Aguillard Kimberly.K.Aguillard@hii-co.com (228) 935-6821 A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4eea2b4a-45c9-468d-a0da-f42050a27934 TORONTO, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Item 1 - Security and Reporting Issuer This press release relates to common shares (the Shares) of Triple Flag Precious Metals Corp. (the Issuer). The Issuers address is: Triple Flag Precious Metals Corp. TD Canada Trust Tower 161 Bay Street, Suite 4535 Toronto, ON M5J 2S1 Item 2 - Identity of the Acquiror This press release is filed on behalf of Elliott Investment Management L.P. (Elliott Investment Management), the investment manager of Elliott Associates, L.P. (Elliott Associates) and Elliott International, L.P. (Elliott International). A majority of the limited partnership interests of Elliott International are held by Elliott International Limited (EIL). Elliott Investment Management directly or indirectly has direction and control over all of the Shares held by the Acquiror (as defined below). This press release is also filed on behalf of European Investments Holding Company S.a r.l. (EIHC), the sole shareholder of Triple Flag Mining Aggregator S.a r.l. (TFM Aggregator). EIHC is majority-owned by Elliott International, and directly or indirectly has beneficial ownership of all of the Shares held by TFM Aggregator and Triple Flag Co- Invest Luxembourg Investment Company S.a r.l. (Co-Invest Luxco). Elliott Investment Management, Elliott International, EIL, Elliott Associates, EIHC, TFM Aggregator and Co-Invest Luxco are collectively referred to as the Acquiror. The address of the Acquiror is as follows: c/o Elliott Investment Management L.P. 360 S. Rosemary Ave. 18th floor West Palm Beach, FL 33401 USA This press release is being filed on a voluntary basis to report the updated current ownership percentage of Shares of the Issuer held by the Acquiror, taking into account: (i) the closing of the acquisition by the Issuer of all of the issued and outstanding shares of Maverix Metals Inc. (Maverix) on January 19, 2023 by way of a statutory plan of arrangement under the Canada Business Corporations Act pursuant to the terms of an arrangement agreement entered into by the Issuer and Maverix (the Arrangement) and the issuance of Shares by the Issuer as consideration under the Arrangement; and (ii) the number of Shares of the Issuer that are currently issued and outstanding, which has changed since a previously filed early warning report dated February 25, 2022 (the Original Report). Item 3 - Interest in Securities of the Reporting Issuer The Original Report disclosed that the Acquiror beneficially owned, and had control or direction over, Shares representing approximately 84.3% of the Issuers issued and outstanding Shares. Following the closing of the Arrangement on January 19, 2023, the Acquiror beneficially owns, and has control and direction over, 129,917,637 Shares, representing approximately 64.7% of the Issuers issued and outstanding Shares, based on 200,782,983 Shares outstanding as of January 19, 2023 (based on information received from the Issuer regarding the number of Shares currently outstanding). This represents a decrease of approximately 19.6% from the Acquirors securityholding percentage of the Shares disclosed in the Original Report. Elliott Associates and Elliott International are parties to cash settled swap agreements with a third-party broker (collectively, the Swap Contracts) in respect of an aggregate of 99,224 notional Shares. The Swap Contracts have an average reference price of US$9.6509 per notional Share. The Swap Contracts each have an expiry date of January 25, 2027. The Swap Contracts may only be settled by cash settlement and Elliott Associates and Elliott International do not have any right to physical settlement. The Swap Contracts provide Elliott Associates and Elliott International with economic results that are comparable to the economic ownership of the notional amount of the Shares. Neither of the Swap Contracts give Elliott Associates and Elliott International direct or indirect voting, investment or dispositive control over any Shares of the Issuer or require the counterparty thereto to acquire, hold, vote or dispose of any Shares of the Issuer. Item 5 - Purpose of the Transaction As of the date of this press release, the Acquiror has no current plans or future intentions to acquire or dispose of securities of the Issuer, but the Acquiror may or may not purchase or sell securities of the Issuer in the future on the open market or in private transactions in the ordinary course and may or may not adopt an automatic trading plan for such purpose, depending on market conditions and other relevant factors material to the Acquirors investment decision. As of the date of this press release, the Acquiror does not have any specific current plan or future intention to participate in a transaction or other material change relating to the Issuer, but may decide to do so in the event that a firm proposal for a transaction or other material change is advanced by the Issuer, or any other party, on terms satisfactory to the Acquiror. Item 6 - Agreements, Arrangements, Commitments or Understandings With Respect to Securities of the Reporting Issuer As previously disclosed, TFM Aggregator and Co-Invest Luxco (together, the Principal Shareholders) are parties to an agreement with the Issuer dated May 26, 2021, as amended by an amending agreement dated November 9, 2022 (Investor Rights Agreement). Effective upon the closing of the Arrangement, the Investor Rights Agreement entitles the Principal Shareholders to nominate 33% of the Issuers directors (rounded up to the next whole number), subject to reductions on the percentage of directors that may be appointed based on reductions in the percentage of Shares owned. The Investor Rights Agreement also provides the Principal Shareholders and their permitted affiliates with certain piggy-back registration rights, demand registration rights and shelf registration rights under Canadian and U.S. securities laws. Further, for so long as the Principal Shareholders and their permitted affiliates hold at least 10% of the outstanding Shares, calculated on a non-diluted basis, they are entitled to the benefit of certain subscription rights in the event of issuances of Shares or securities convertible into Shares intended to permit them to maintain their proportionate percentage ownership of Shares. The foregoing summary of the provisions of the Investor Rights Agreement is qualified in its entirety by the full text of the agreement, which is available on the Issuers SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. The shareholders of Co-Invest Luxco are TFM Aggregator and certain employees of the Issuer (the Management Investors). TFM Aggregator owns ordinary shares, Class A shares and Class B shares of Co-Invest Luxco and the Management Investors own Class B shares of Co-Invest Luxco. The Class B shares of Co-Invest Luxco held by the Management Investors are subject to vesting and vest on the third anniversary of July 24, 2020 (the Vesting Date), provided that the applicable Management Investor has not retired, resigned or been terminated for cause. At any time within 60 days after the Vesting Date, the Management Investors, jointly, will have the right to require TFM Aggregator to purchase, and TFM Aggregator shall have the right to require the Management Investors to sell to TFM Aggregator, all of the Management Investors Class B shares of Co-Invest Luxco that are vested at such time, in exchange for (i) such number of Shares owned by TFM Aggregator determined by multiplying (A) 2,279,260 Shares (representing 6% of the number of Shares held by Co-Invest Luxco immediately prior to closing of the initial public offering of the Issuer, the IPO) by (B) the aggregate number of Class B shares of Co-Invest Luxco that are vested at such time divided by the aggregate number of Class B shares outstanding as of the closing of the IPO and (ii) a cash amount equal to (A) the amount of dividends paid by the Issuer in respect of such Shares since closing of the IPO and prior to the Vesting Date and (B) any dividends declared by the Issuer but not yet paid on such Shares that have an ex-dividend date prior to the Vesting Date. See the IPO prospectus of the Issuer dated May 19, 2021 for additional information. For further details or to obtain a copy of the early warning report filed in connection with the above, please visit www.sedar.com or contact: ELLIOTT MANAGEMENT CORPORATION Jeffrey Blum Tel: (212) 974-6000 Email: jblum@elliottmgmt.com NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tane, a Web3 incubator based in Dubai, New York, and Tokyo, announces an approximately $8 million in financing today. Investors include DEEPCORE Inc., XTech Ventures Co. Ltd, DeNA Co. Ltd, B Dash Ventures Inc., and individual investors. Tane makes investments and business contributions to seed and early-stage Web3 startups and projects under the leadership of Managing Partner Ikuma Mutobe, a serial entrepreneur in Japan. Some key features of the company include: 1: Contribution by experienced and proven builders Tane members have extensive experience in entrepreneurship, finance, engineering, and business development. They also have a wide range of practical experience with Web3 projects, including developing Web3 services and tokenomics. 2: Active globally Dubai, New York, and Tokyo Dubai, New York, and Tokyo are the bases of our core members. Tane will support Web3 projects attracting global attention from these three locations. 3: Focus Areas Infrastructure (Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain), privacy, cross-chain solutions, security, consumer applications x tokenomics, DAO, NFT, Defi. Investors in this round include DEEPCORE Inc., XTech Ventures Co. Ltd, DeNA Co. Ltd, B Dash Ventures Inc., and individual investors. "Tane has a team of engineers and designers, led by a partner with experience in tokenomics design, and as a builder's incubator, is able to support Web3 projects from the beginning. Mr. Mutobe has not only expertise in the Web3 industry, but also experience in a wide range of areas, including major business companies, the financial industry, the startup industry, and entrepreneurial experience, and his multifaceted perspective and sense of balance are also strengths of the team," said Katsumasa Niki, President & CEO of DEEPCORE Inc. Tomoko Namba, Founder and Executive Chairman of DeNA Co. Ltd, stated, "We are thrilled to be able to contribute to the development of the Web3 industry through Tane Labs, led by Mr. Mutobe and Mr. Oishi. The Web3 field can be controversial and see significant differences of opinion. As insiders in the global Web3 community, including Dubai and New York, the team at Tane Labs has a keen eye for the real thing, and we are looking forward to seeing them create new value." Team members Ikuma Mutobe Ikuma is a Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Tane. He had been an entrepreneur since 2009 in the consumer internet space. Before being an entrepreneur, he was involved in investment and M&A at SoftBank and UBS Investment Bank. Involved in the Bitcoin community since 2014, actively investing and participating in DeFi, Blue-chip NFT and DAO. Blog: https://tanelabs.com/articles/vnmlg3tx0f Other members: https://xn--tan-dma.com/team About Tane Tane is an incubator specializing in the Web3 industry based in Dubai, New York, and Tokyo. Tane invests in and provides business support to seed and early-stage Web3, blockchain, and crypto-related startups and projects. Website: tane.com Portfolio: https://xn--tan-dma.com/portfolio Twitter: twitter.com/tanelabs Contact: https://tanelabs.com/contact Contact Information: Ikuma Mutobe CEO admin@tanelabs.com Related Files Tane Announces First Close of Approximately $8 Million to Invest in Web3 Startups (1).pdf Related Images Image 1 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment There are 60,654 registered users of the Mobile Banking service in Turkmenistan as of the beginning of January 2023, Turkmen Central Bank reports. According to the information, the largest number of registered users of this service lives in Mary (15,666 users) and Lebap (15,648 users) regions, as well as in the city of Ashgabat (12,963 users). Halkbank Joint-Stock Commercial Bank has the largest number of users in the reporting period - 16,206 registered users. Turkmenistan State Commercial Bank (13,245 users) and Dayhanbank State Commercial Bank (11,726 users) follow this indicator. Turkmenistan's financial sector is constantly expanding. In particular, mobile applications are being introduced to pay for various services and goods, the number of transactions is increasing, and payment methods are being offered through bank payment terminals. DDEP: Govt reaches agreement with Securities Industry Association Business Desk Report Business News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 18:14 Government has reached an understanding with the Ghana Securities Industry Association (GSIA) on the terms for participation by capital market operators in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP). The agreement entails extending the improved terms of DDEP agreed with the banks to all GSIA members. Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) and individuals who hold bonds in Trust accounts with Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved firms, would be offered an enhanced commercial terms agreed with, or exemptions granted to, Individual Bondholders. Government commits to providing support to GSIA members impacted by the DDEP via both the liquidity and solvency window of the Ghana Financial Stability Fund (GFSF). The removal of all clauses in the Exchange Memorandum that empowers the Republic to, at its sole discretion, vary the terms of the exchange. In a joint statement issued by the Ministry of Finance with GSIA in Accra today (January 27), it said GSIA believes this agreement is necessary to restore market normalcy and confidence in the economy. GSIA urges its members to seek all required internal approvals and clients consent to participate in the DDEP per new terms in the updated Exchange Memorandum. It said with this agreement, the Government has conducted negotiations with a significant group of Bondholders. Government views this program as very important towards restoring macroeconomic stability as we reset the economy on a path of strong growth and economic transformation, it said. GIISDEC engages Jasikan Catholic Diocese over Iron Ore exploration in Oti Region Kester Aburam Korankye Business News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 14:39 Following concerns raised by the Jasikan Catholic Diocese that there has not been an extensive stakeholder consultation ahead of a planned iron ore exploration activity in the Jasikan area of the Oti Region, the Ghana Integrated Iron and Steel Development Corporation (GIISDEC) has moved in to engage the church. GIISDEC has explained to the Catholic Diocese of Jasikan that it is committed to responsible activities and best practices in the area. GIISDEC has consequently agreed to deepen and broaden stakeholder consultation in the area. The Bishop, Clergy and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Jasikan had in an earlier statement raised concerns over the government's intention to start iron ore exploration activities in the region and its impact on the livelihood of the people. After a meeting between GIISDEC, the Catholic Diocese of Jasikan and the Oti Regional Minister on December 13, 2022, the parties issued a communique dated January 20, 2023. The joint agreement was signed by the Chief Executive Officer of GIISDEC, Kwabena Bonsu Fordwor and the Catholic Bishop of Jasikan, Most Rev. Gabriel A. A. Mante as well as the Oti Regional Minister, Joshua G. Makubu. Terms Under the agreement, GIISDEC is to broaden the stakeholder engagements across the entire region while the regional minister and GIISDEC are to ensure that the Mineral Resource Estimation (MRE) activities in the region are conducted in accordance with the relevant environmental laws and procedures. GIISDEC is also expected to undertake extensive public education on Iron Ore exploration and related matters through the mass media and other channels of communication while fostering dialogue and discussion with stakeholders. Sensitisation The agreement also committed the Bishop to use his office to rally the support of the people in the region for the governments venture. That, the Lord Bishop will use his good offices to sensitise the public about the mandate of GIISDEC in representing the interests of Government of Ghana regarding Iron Ore exploration in the Region. That all the Parties have agreed to the above in good faith in the anticipation that this will strengthen the collective bond of the parties in promoting the development of effective and sustainable Iron Ore exploration in the Region in the best interests of stakeholders, the joint communique said. Iron Ore More iron deposits have been discovered at Nkwanta in the Oti Region, adding up to the recent discovery of the mineral resource in that region around Gyamurume and Wawaso in commercial quantities. Ten investors have also been selected to conduct mineral resource estimation (MRE) in 10 iron ore blocks in the Akpafu Range in the Oti Region. The companies are expected to invest about $10 million in the geoscientific studies, which encompass assessing the tonnage, grade and value of iron ore deposits. The MRE, which GIISDEC is currently embarking on is a crucial step mining development, as it bridges the gap between mineral exploration and commodity production. Telecel plans IPO after takeover of Vodafone Ghana Charles Benoni Okine Business News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 14:56 Senior officials of Telecel say they intend to use the Vodafone Ghana acquisition as a launch pad to the capital markets to raise funds for its operations in Ghana. Telecel has, therefore, indicated that it plans to issue an Initial Public Offer (IPO) once the acquisition goes through all regulatory approvals from the government for it to acquire majority stake in Vodafone Ghana. The $500 million all-cash deal is part of Telecels expansion strategy into Africa. A Bloomberg report quoted the head of Telecel Group, an Africa-focused telecommunications company part-owned by French tycoon Hugues Mulliez, as saying that the purchase of Vodafone Group Plcs operations in Ghana was part of a plan to expand its African operations and go public within the next five years. The move, when consummated, is expected to make Telecel the second player after MTN Ghana to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). The Telecel CEO said the company would pursue more deals in West Africa. By way of improving the quality of service, Telecel plans to install 2,000 additional towers in the country over the next two years after it starts operations in the country. Takeover approval The National Communications Authority (NCA) granted a conditional approval to Telecel, subject to concessions made by Vodafone and representations made by the company. It was pursuant to the evaluation of the revised proposal from Telecel Group which made its intentions known early last year. In January 2022, the NCA received an application from Vodafone Ghana for the transfer of 70 per cent of its majority shares held by Vodafone to Telecel. In accordance with due process, the NCA evaluated the application on various criteria and engaged both Vodafone Ghana and Telecel. Telecel is acquiring Vodafone Ghanas operations in what has been described as an all-cash-deal. An all-cash deal refers to any transaction where cash is exchanged for an asset. The buyer offers the seller cash and there is no use of financing to purchase the asset or any other means, such as an exchange of stock. Capital injection Telecel intends to spend about $500 million in the first three years to expand and refinance Vodafones network across the country. The move is necessary because Vodafone Ghana has been starved of cash by its shareholders for many years, creating a lot of financial challenges for the company which finds itself within a highly competitive market. Vodafone entered Ghana in 2008, when it paid the government $900 million for 70 per cent of Ghana Telecommunications Company. The state retains a 30 per cent minority shares in the business but has since not contributed additional funds needed to recapitalise the ailing company. Tullow to invest $300 million in Ghana operations Charles Benoni Okine Business News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 19:41 Independent oil and gas, exploration and production group, Tullow, has projected to invest $300 million in its operations in Ghana. The money will be spent mainly on its Jubilee operations and will include over $100 million in infrastructure. The companys planned investment in Ghana is part of a $400 million amount the company intends to spend this year on its operations in Africa. Breakdown An amount of $40 million will be spent in Gabon; $20 million in Cote dIvoire; $10 million in Kenya and $30 million on exploration and appraisal activities. The companys annual expenditure is an increase of $50 million compared to 2022 as a consequence of deferrals from that year, increased equity in Ghana for the full year, and ongoing infrastructure investment in Jubilee South East, which will account for 40 per cent of Ghana capital spend in 2023. Other expenses The company said its decommissioning expenditure is expected to be $90 million in the United Kingdom (UK) and Mauritania, including deferrals from 2022, with less than $30 million of decommissioning liabilities in the UK and Mauritania remaining at the end of 2023. Additionally, starting in 2023, $30 million is expected to be paid annually into escrow for future decommissioning of currently producing assets in Ghana and parts of the non-operated portfolio, it said. It said, cash taxes are expected to be in excess of $300 million in in the year under review (at $80/bbl) as historical capital allowances in Ghana will have been fully utilised in the first quarter of 2023. Cash flow Tullow said free cash flow for the full year 2023, post hedging, is expected to be $200 million at an average oil price of $100/bbl ($100 million at $80/bbl); this assumes revenue receipts for 15 cargos lifted from the Jubilee field and four cargos lifted from the TEN fields in Ghana during the year. Capital investment in 2023, particularly in Ghana, is expected to support production growth through to 2025 and free cash flow generation of $700-800 million at 80/bbl for the two years 2024 and 2025 based on 2P reserves only, which will further reduce net debt and strengthen Tullows balance sheet, it said. It said Tullows commodity hedge portfolio provides oil price downside protection at $55/bbl for 64 per cent of forecast sales volumes to May 2023 and 40 per cent of forecast sales volumes from June 2023 through to May 2024. The company added that with the majority of hedges executed as part of the 2021 debt refinancing rolling off, Tullow will have increased exposure to higher oil prices from May 2023 onwards. Tullow plans to build out its commodity hedge portfolio for the second half of 2023 and into 2024, looking to maintain material upside exposure whilst securing protection against a severe oil price downturn, it added. Three ways to get your movies on NETFLIX Tony Asankomah Showbiz News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 18:22 Getting your film on Netflix can be a challenging task, but there are few ways to increase the chances of it being accepted on the streaming platform. It is important to keep in mind that the process is highly competitive and dependent on many factors. Here are three possible ways you can get your film on the streaming giant. Submitting your film to film festivals and getting picked up by a distribution company: One way to get your film on Netflix is to submit it to film festivals and try to get it picked up by a distribution company that already has a relationship with Netflix. These distribution companies can then negotiate a deal with Netflix to have your film added to their streaming platform. However, this can be a difficult and competitive process, as there are many films submitted to festivals each year. 2016s Moonlight is an example of a film that was submitted to film festivals and picked up by a distribution company. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2016 and won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the Miami International Film Festival. It was later picked up by A24, a distribution company with a relationship with Netflix, which helped the film to be available on Netflix. Working with a sales agent or distributor: Another option is to work with a sales agent or distributor who can shop your film to various streaming platforms, including Netflix. Sales agents and distributors have relationships with streaming platforms, and can use their connections to get your film to Netflix. However, its important to keep in mind that working with a sales agent or distributor usually comes at a cost. The Irishman which stars Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci is an example of a film that was shopped to various streaming platforms, including Netflix, by a sales agent or distributor. The film was produced and directed by Martin Scorsese and was distributed by STX films, who later on sold the distribution rights to Netflix. Pitching an Idea to Netflix directly: Netflix also produces its own content, which are known as Netflix Originals. Some of these productions are a result of pitches from creators, but the process is not open to general public and its often done through industry connections, agents, or production companies that have a pre-existing relationship with Netflix. If you have an idea, game, script, screenplay, or production already in development that youd like to pitch to Netflix, you must work through a licensed agent, producer, attorney, manager, or industry executive, as appropriate, who already has a relationship with Netflix. It is often easier to get your project through these channels but Netflix is often very much tight lipped about how a particular film idea or project was introduced or selected. Only Occupy Jubilee House can halt the rot Enimil Ashon Opinion Jan - 27 - 2023 , 11:58 Once again, an Auditor General Report is out. Revelations galore! The 119 page COVID-19 audit report confirms one fact about the inordinate greed that has gripped Ghana in the last decade or so. For every multi-billion dollar project funded by government, someone in government or a cabal of untouchable civil servants who sign off on the expenditure, and politicians whose names never appear on invoices, receipts or vouchers - will build a private mansion that can never be traced to them. In the name of saving lives during the dangerous days of the COVID-19 pandemic, while there were sounds of wailing in many homes as the lives of loved ones were lost, some Ghanaians in privileged positions (as accountants or faceless power-brokers) were living off our suffering. Report According to the report, the Ministry of Health paid an amount of US$120,192,379.80 to United Nations Childrens Fund/African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (UNICEF/AVAT) for the supply of vaccines; however, just 5,109,600 doses of vaccines valued at $38,322,000.00 were supplied to the National Cold Room." Another; A total of US$607,419.02 out of US$4,049,460.12 was paid for the purchase of 26 ambulances that were never delivered. As usual, as is our custom, Ghanaians are kicking up a storm. We are beating the air, swearing and gesticulating, beside themselves with rage. For how long and to what effect? To all of the above and much more rot in the report, hear the nice words of assurance by the Finance Ministry: Government will continue to apply its best efforts to enforce and enhance expenditure management and accountability to ensure proper utilisation of tax revenue to the full benefit of citizens, using established budgetary and accountability systems in government. To avoid hearing the laughter of intelligent thieves gloating over their loot, I have a suggestion to organised labour and civil society organisations. Left to governments, stolen state money will never be recovered: the thieves are always left to be dealt with by the next government formed by a different political party. Organised labour and civil society groups can do it. I am calling on this class of people to be angry enough to mobilise in their masses and refuse to go to work until concrete action is taken by government to retrieve stolen monies belonging to the state. For instance, workers should picket and continue to occupy Jubilee House until: 1. Chairman Wontumi is brought to trial 2. Ghana is told the details of the contract with the company that collected the COVID-19 money at the airport 3. The Airbus scandal is fully and thoroughly investigated and the culprits punished. How can we live in a country where one political party warns that reprisals will be visited against any judge who handles the airbus scandal? Exposing corruption is all we have specialised in. It is not enough. People must, IN ADDITION TO going to jail, cough out the stolen money. Law Going forward, we need a law that will ensure that officials pay back all ill-gotten monies a law akin to the one on narcotic drugs, in which case the drug baron not only goes to jail but loses all his property to the state. We all pray that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) money will come. When it does come, we will see many projects. But will infrastructure development solve our number one problem of greed and corruption? Body of Tanzanian killed in Ukraine returns home International News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:56 The body of a Tanzanian national who was killed in Ukraine fighting with Russian forces returned to his home country on Friday. Nemes Tarimo, 37, died three months ago after agreeing to sign up with the Russian mercenary group Wagner. His body was received by his family at the main airport in Dar es Salaam with burial scheduled for Saturday in his home village in the southern highlands of country. Mr Tarimo had been in Moscow as a business informatics master's student at the Russian Technological University. But he was then imprisoned sometime after January 2021 for what were described as drug-related offences. Last year, he was enticed with a deal: sign up with the Russian mercenary group Wagner and be pardoned or stay in prison. Tanzanian killed in Ukraine: We told him not to go Nemes Tarimo's family in Tanzania warned him against agreeing to fight with Russian forces in Ukraine, but the 37-year-old had a big incentive to sign up. It is now three weeks since his relatives learnt of the news that confirmed their worst fears. He had died in combat. Everyone at the family home in the city of Dar es Salaam looks exhausted as they wait for news about when his body might come back. The waiting is taking its toll. There are about 15 people in the compound, and relatives are coming in and out all day wanting to hear if there are any updates. One says they last heard from him in October when he had said he had agreed to sign up with the Russian mercenary group Wagner. "Nemes informed me and some other family members about joining Wagner, and we advised him not to," the family member, who did not want to give their name, tells the BBC. But for the young man, who relatives describe as polite, God-fearing and supportive, there was an offer that was hard to resist. The family says that Tarimo, who had ambitions to be an MP with the opposition Chadema party, had been in Moscow as an ICT master's student at the Russian Technological University. But he was then imprisoned some time after January 2021 for what were described as drugs-related offences. Last year, he was enticed with a deal: sign up and be pardoned or stay in prison. "He said he would join to free himself," the relative says. This case echoes that of 23-year-old Zambian student Lemekhani Nyirenda, who had also been in prison in Russia and died last year fighting with Wagner. Zambian Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo told parliament that he had been informed about how prisoners could be pardoned if they agreed to fight. Last September, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin was seen in leaked footage outlining the rules of fighting, such as no deserting or sexual contact with Ukrainian women, and then giving the prisoners five minutes to decide if they want to sign up. Tarimo's family has learnt that he died at the end of October while on a combat mission in Ukraine with Wagner. "We last communicated with him on 17 October, when he was already a member of Wagner. "We then got information in December from his friends over his death," which according to media reports, was a result of Ukrainian artillery fire. The Federal News Agency, a Russian broadcaster used by Mr Prigozhin to boost his group's reputation, has published a video of what it said was Tarimo's memorial service in a chapel in the town of Goryachiy Klyuch. It reported that he had died on 24 October near Bakhmut, the scene of intense fighting in recent months. Russia's state-owned domestic news agency, Ria Novosti, interviewed someone who said he had fought alongside Tarimo. He said the Tanzanian had died while trying to help a wounded soldier. The Federal News Agency says that Tarimo was awarded a posthumous medal "for courage" by the Wagner Group. Relatives have been in touch with the embassy in Moscow, but the Tanzanian government, which has remained neutral on the conflict in Ukraine, has yet to publicly comment on the student's death. The family want to bury Tarimo in their village in the Southern Highlands region, but for now they are just left waiting. "We don't want to believe that he is gone until we receive the body," one relative says. His aunt, Roida Sambulika, adds: "We are sad to lose our son. We still don't know when the body will arrive, but we have been ready for a week now to receive it and lay him in his eternal home." Short story: Alice, the game changer Junior Graphic Junior News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 15:06 Alice started her new school amid fear and uncertainty. She had heard many horrid things about the school and was ready to experience the worst. Alice used to live with her parents in Kumasi. However, when her father got a lifetime opportunity to work in Canada he left. Four years later, Alices mother had to join him so arrangements were made for Alice to live with her uncle and his wife in a town in the Central Region. The town had two schools. Students in one school were studious and obedient to authority while most of the students in the other school were recalcitrant and were feared even by their teachers. It was the latter school that Alice enrolled in and she was filled with trepidation on her first day at school. She had wanted to attend the first school but they had closed admission and the headmaster of the school could not make any promises because the class Alice had to join was already full. However, he asked Alice and his uncle to return during the second term because at that time, they would have known the vacancies available after the students had reported. Alices uncle enrolled her in the second school with the intention that when there was a vacancy in the first school she would be transferred there. The first thing Alice noticed in her new school was that most of the children in the various classes were older, apart from that, they could not speak or write good English and because of that, they found it difficult to understand whatever their teachers taught. Because the students were disrespectful, the teachers never went the extra mile to assist them in their academic work. For instance, in her class, JHS Two, more than half of her mates were 17 years. Some of them lived on their own, they schooled and worked at the same time to fend for themselves and also pay their fees. Her first month in school was a disaster. Nobody spoke to her and when she starts a conversation, she was ignored because she spoke English while they preferred to speak Twi. Alice did not give up but in the second month, she started speaking Twi too. One day, she boldly walked up to the student everybody feared, Danso, to chat with him. Alice thought that if she became friendly with him all the others can also become her friends. Speak good English: How to use AND Junior Graphic Junior News Jan - 27 - 2023 , 12:28 Last week I gave out some questions to determine whether or not you understood the topics we had gone through over the past year or so. Now, let's see how you fared in that exercise. Note that whether you had all your answers correct or not, we are all still learning. We said sentence 1 is incorrect because the subject preparations does not agree with the verb is while preparations is plural, the verb is singular. The correct sentence should be: Preparations towards the upcoming trip to the UK are on course. Issues concerning education and health must be addressed well by governments because it is important for the citizenry. This sentence is incorrect because, like the first sentence, the subject is issues, which is plural, but both the pronoun it and the verb is are singular and so they don't agree with the subject. The correct sentence is: Issues concerning education and health....because they are important to the citizenry. A book and calculator have been stolen from my school bag. This is another incorrect sentence. Here, the subject, a book and calculator, is supposed to be plural, hence the use of the plural verb have. But as the subject is written: a book and calculator, it is grammatically singular because the second item, calculator, is not preceeded by an article as the first one, book, is. To make the subject plural, the item calculator must be preceeded by the indefinite article a, so that we have: A book and a calculator have been stolen from my school bag. Let's understand that the expressions: my father and mother a man and woman the teacher and student your brother and sister his friend and brother our gate man and neighbour the doctor and nurse a preacher and organist are all grammatically singular, not plural, and so if we make them agree with plural verbs, it is incorrect, as in: A preacher and organist are among the delegation from Accra. The doctor and nurse have come to see the sick man. If we want the expressions to be grammatically plural, then we must precede each second item with an article or a determiner, as in: your brother and your/my sister the teacher and his/the/a student Egs: The teacher and a student are involved in the issue. My mother and my/your/her father have gone to the school. Ghana Education News 750 Acres of UCC land encroached Shirley Asiedu-Addo Education Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:27 About 750 acres of the 3,690 acres of the University of Cape Coast land area have been encroached on by private developers. Along some communities, the pillars on the universitys boundaries have been removed and houses fully constructed on those parcels of land. Authorities of the university say the situation has reached alarming proportions, with hundreds of new projects springing up, as the encroachment continues almost daily in spite of several efforts to contain it. Members of the universitys Governing Council yesterday toured the sites to ascertain the level of encroachment and to decide the next level of action as part of efforts to seek lasting solution to the problem. Situation Property owners on the encroached lands, according to the anti-land encroachment unit of the university, include workers of the university who have bought the lands from the traditional authorities and developed them into private residential facilities and hostels. The hostels are accommodating huge numbers of students of the university to complement the institutions accommodation facilities. The universitys in-out-out-out residential accommodation policy requires all continuing students to seek accommodation outside the traditional halls of residence. The Vice-Chancellor of the UCC, Prof. Johnson Nyarko Boampong, said lands demarcated for future projects, including the universitys teaching hospital, had all been encroached. He stated that the university remained a critical regional and national asset, employing about 5,000 people and producing thousands of graduates every year, and urged the public to be part of efforts to protect the land. Prof. Boampong indicated that while the adjoining communities whose lands were taken were asking for re-demarcation of the lands, it did not lie in the power of the university to do so. He noted that aggrieved parties may have to initiate processes of renegotiation with the government. Land acquisition The Head of the Anti-land Encroachment Unit, Amankwah Twumasi, said 2,900 acres were initially acquired for the university by Executive Instrument (E.I.) 87 in 1969. He said in 1972 it was reviewed by E.I. 13, which gave the university 3,980.8 acres. He said this was further reviewed in 1987 by the government through a certificate of allocation, giving 3,690.24 acres to the university. In recent times, however, the communities whose lands were taken have raised issues over the boundaries, calling on the government to renegotiate the lands to allow the communities to access some of them. They indicated that relocating the communities as agreed with the government was not done. Late last year, for instance, some of the communities embarked on a demonstration, calling on the government to intervene in boundary disputes between them and the university. Collapsed Mampong-Ejura bridge to be fixed soon - Roads Minister Emmanuel Baah Jan - 27 - 2023 , 09:37 A collapsed bridge that connects Mampong and Ejura in the Ashanti Region will be fixed soon, the Minister of Roads and Highways, Kwasi Amoako-Attah, has said. Barely eight months ago, the bridge which links Kumasi through Mampong to Ejura and Yeji in the Bono East Region caved in following consistent spill over of Tatafro, a stream that runs under the concrete bridge. With time, the bridge became weak and finally got submerged by the water and subsequently overflowed its banks unto the major street and some nearby farms. The development has since affected road users, most especially traders who on daily basis visit Ejura, a major food basket of the country. Now, road users are left with no option but to use the Mampong township road through the Amaniampong Senior High School and the Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (AAMUSTED) route in order to access the major highway. The situation continues to heighten traffic congestion within the Mampong township, especially on Mondays which is a market day at Ejura. Working visit The minister gave the assurance when he, together with the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, and some experts from the Ghana Highway Authority, inspected the caved-in bridge, as part of his one day working visit to the Ashanti Region on Tuesday, January 24, 2023. The rest include Kwaku Ampratwum-Sarpong, the Member of Parliament for Mampong who is also a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration; and the Municipal Chief Executives of Mampong, Thomas Appiah Kubi, and Ejura-Sekyedumase, Dr Kingsley Osei. Mr Amoako-Attah assured the people of the governments commitment to construct other road networks within the metropolis, including the deplorable stretch leading to the dam, the main source of water for residents of Mampong and its neighbouring communities. The delegation earlier called on the Mamponghene, Daasebre Osei Bonsu II, at his palace where he expressed gratitude to the government for its intention to fix the bridge, which he admitted had adversely affected economic activities in the area. The minister later inspected 9.5 kilometer township roads (75 per cent complete), at Kenyasi in the Kwabre East District, as well as the ongoing Atonsu-Lake Road project, which is also progressing steadily. Curbing vigilantism: Court halts sentencing of accused over plea Elizabeth Konadu-Boakye Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:28 An Accra Circuit Court was compelled to halt sentencing one of the persons convicted of engaging in violent activities at the National Democratic Congress (NDC) National Youth and Womens Organisers elections held in Cape Coast on December 10, last year. That was after lawyers for the accused fiercely contested his plea of being guilty of engaging in vigilante activities. Dauda Mohammed Nazir had pleaded guilty to the count when he first appeared in court on January 10, this year. Lawyer for the accused, Beatrice Annangfio argued that her client did not fully understand what it meant to plead guilty to the offence adding that the court clerk, who is not a certified interpretor, did not communicate to the understanding of the accused whose native language is Hausa. All three accused persons have however been granted bail by the court presided over by Samuel Bright Acquah to the sum of GH50,000 with two sureties each. The three, Dauda Mohammed Nazir, Abdul Halid Shaibu, aka Olu, and Razak Ibrahim, aka Oga are three out of 16 persons who are suspected to have caused disturbances at the NDCs elections. The other 14 persons are currently on the run. They are to reappear on February 15, this year. Not guilty, sin Lawyer for the accused, Ms Annangfio further stated that her client was not given the right to be represented by a counsel when the case was first called. She added that in a conference with the accused, the accused said when he was asked if he was guilty or not, he assumed he was being asked if he was present at the conference and that was why he replied yes. From our conference with our client, his understanding was that, he was at the conference and he said yes and not he being guilty to the offence. He was also not given right to counsel by the prosecution and before the court, he was not represented. We should be given the rights to fair hearing. The duty of the prosecution is to administer justice and not to secure convictions. I wish to say that you exercise magnanimity and retake his plea, Ms Annangfio said. In response, the state prosecutor, Superintendent of Police (SP) Sylvester Asare, who vehemently opposed the prayer, said the business of the court was to sentence the accused person by his own plea adding that the prayer of the accused persons lawyer was alien and a sin. Court erred The Presiding Judge in his response to the prayer said it was clear on records that the court did not do enough to let the accused know his right, adding that the court should have found out if he wanted to go without counsel. The court erred and if the court erred, does it have the right to correct that? Yes. Trial ends at sentencing not conviction. Prosecution does not lose anything. In this case, I will allow the plea of the convict to be retaken, Mr Acquah said. EOCO hunts for Lebanese fugitive Naji Khalil Emelia Ennin Abbey Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:23 The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has launched a manhunt for a Lebanese described as a member of an international organised criminal syndicate that defrauds people. Naji Khalil has been on the wanted list of EOCO since June 2022, after he was jailed for five years in absentia for fraud by an Accra Circuit Court. Khalil, according to EOCO in a news statement released yesterday, was put before the court after investigations into a case reported established that he was a member of a notorious international organised criminal group. He was alleged to be a member of a gang which included another Lebanese, Nabil Zayani, a Jordanian identified as Abraham Faouri, and Tony Michaelis, whose nationality is unknown. Charges Khalil and his accomplices were charged with conspiracy to defraud by false pretence, defrauding by false pretence, participating in organised criminal group, conspiracy to commit crime, to wit money laundering, and money laundering. Khalil was put before the Accra Circuit Court, while his three accomplices were on the run. On June 22, 2022, the court presided over by Justice Emmanuel Essandoh sentenced Khalil in absentia to five years imprisonment with hard labour on two counts of conspiracy to defraud by false pretence and defrauding by false pretence after he had jumped bail during the trial. The court then issued a bench warrant for his arrest. Victim's report The facts of the case as presented to the court indicated that an Algerian, identified as Dr Khadidja Katir, reported to EOCO in April 2019, alleging that she had been defrauded by an organised crime group based in Ghana consisting of four persons. The names of the suspects were given as Naji Khalil, Nabil Zayani, Abraham Faouri and Tony Michaelis. She claimed she had been defrauded of $138,000 under the pretext of airlifting rough crystals worth $4 billion to her in Malta. After she had transferred the money to them, the four persons refused to answer her calls on a number of occasions. However, when they finally answered her call, they threatened to kill her if she ever set her foot in Ghana. Dr Katir, however, came to Ghana and reported the case to EOCO. In the statement, EOCO said investigations found that the suspects were members of an international organised criminal syndicate that defrauded unsuspecting persons. EOCO has, therefore, appealed to the public to assist to get the convict arrested to serve his prison term. It urged any person with information on the whereabouts of the convict to contact the office directly or through a helpline 0257044779 or its official WhatsApp line 057979066. 2023 Declared Year of Digital Severious Kale-Dery Jan - 26 - 2023 , 15:28 The Ghana Library Authority has declared 2023 as a Year of Digital Reading, with a tagline - Digital reading, a springboard to eradicate learning poverty. The authority declared 2019 as a Year of Reading to encourage the youth to develop the habit of reading; 2020 was the Year of Learning to connect the youth to knowledge resources through innovation, and 2021, the Year of Literacy to reduce learning poverty in the country while 2022 was declared the Year of Books. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the authority, Hayford Siaw, was recounting activities under his stewardship since he took over as the CEO of the authority in 2017, in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra. According to him, "this year, after making sure that we have some books on the shelves of our public libraries and digital libraries, we decided to declare this year a year of digital reading to encourage people to make use of technology devices at our disposal to access relevant learning resources. Increase in stock We managed to increase the book stock from 1,195,008 to 1,281,839 by the end of year 2022, an increase by some 86,831 books," the CEO said. He added that the authority also worked with stakeholders to undertake some programmes to promote literacy in the country. According to him, those interventions helped to increase patronage of public libraries across the country, adding that they managed to improve library visits from 1,137813, in 2021, to 1,423910 in 2022. Mr Siaw further said in 2022, the authority with support of UNICEF embarked on a project in which youth engagement centres were created leading to the renovation of 10 libraries across the country. Some of the centres are located in Accra Central, Tema, Secondi, Kumasi, Tamale, Bolgatanga and Wa. As part of the initiative, the youth were also trained in entrepreneurship while others were provided with opportunities to learn through a massive open online platform. In all, a total of 14,000 youth benefited from the project, including 5,495 others who also benefited from our massive open online course platforms, he added. Mr Siaw further said that there was an increase in mobile library van visits to schools from 1,126 in 2021, to 1,148 schools in 2022. UN bodies laud Ghana for commitment to education Emmanuel Bonney Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:51 Six United Nations organisations have commended the government for its commitment to provide quality and inclusive education to children in the country in spite of economic challenges. They said what was even more fascinating is that, despite the economic recession, the government is committed to ensuring that key flagship interventions such as the free senior high and technical vocational education and training (TVET) education are maintained and strengthened". The six organisations are the UNESCO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, the World Food Programme, UNHCR and the UNFPA. They said this in a joint statement read by the UNESCO Representative to Ghana, Abdourahamane Diallo, at two separate events to mark this year's International Day of Education in Accra last Tuesday. Schools The events were held at the St Thomas Aquinas SHS and the Osu Presbyterian Girls Basic School. Accompanying the UN officials to interact with the schoolchildren included officials from the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service and the British High Commission. They were treated to some cultural performances at the Osu Presbyterian Girls Basic Schools. After the pupils and students were put into different groups to interact with the officials separately, the kindergarten pupils were presented with exercise books, pencils, crayons, erasers and sharpeners. International Education Day held on January 24 every year is in recognition of the central role education plays in building sustainable and resilient societies as well as in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Partner Mr Diallo said as the world marked the fifth edition of the International Day of Education, the UN family in Ghana was happy to partner the Ministry of Education and its agencies, development partners and other stakeholders in the education sector. As most of us here may be aware, January 24 has been declared by the United Nations General Assembly as International Day of Education. This is in recognition of the central role education plays in building sustainable and resilient societies as well as in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, he said. Mr Diallo said through the agenda, the UN was partnering both state and non-state actors to reimagine education that was fit for purpose and which would lead to the achievement of education goals, especially those enshrined in the SDGs. In Ghana, the UN family is happy to be playing a strong role in Ghana's educational agenda. We appreciate the government's (particularly the Ministry of Education's) leadership role and commitment in the provision of quality and inclusive education to all children in the country. This year (2023) marks the mid-point since the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda for people, planet and prosperity, with its 17 interlocked goals that will come up for review at the SDG Summit in September, he said. He said building on the global momentum generated by the UN Transforming Education Summit (TES) in September 2022, member states were encouraged to ensure strong political mobilisation around education and chart the way to translate commitments and global initiatives into action. The acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Divine Yaw Andie, advised the children to take advantage of the support of their parents and government to learn. The Director of Administration for Ghana Education Service, Stephen Kwaku Owusu, reminded the children that education was the only way through which the country could develop and transform. Waakye Kills 5: Suspected food poisoning, 40 others affected Mary Anane-Amponsah Jan - 27 - 2023 , 11:28 Five people have reportedly died after eating a meal of rice and beans, popularly known as waakye, they bought from a food joint at Oyibi Bush Canteen Junction, in Accra. About 40 people were reportedly affected, out of which five, including a pregnant woman and a lotto vendor, died. The victims including the waakye seller, popularly known as Yellow Sisi, and some of her family members were rushed to the Valley View Hospital, Oyibi Hospital, Dodowa Hospital and other facilities when they complained of severe stomach ache after they had eaten the food last week Friday. The Yellow Sisi Waakye joint is considered to be one of the popular food joints at Oyibi Bush Canteen. Food joint When the Daily Graphic team visited the area, it observed that the joint was quiet and the kiosk locked. Some shops close to the food joint were also closed as it is believed that the shop owners who also patronised the food that day and suffered the side effects, were also said to be receiving treatment in hospital. Confirmation, investigation When the Daily Graphic followed up at the Valley View Hospital for confirmation, hospital officials did confirm the incident, indicating that a number of patients were rushed to the hospital in bad condition but as of today, all the patients have been discharged, an official said. The Valley View Hospital officials could not provide enough information as to the number of people who might have been affected but only indicated that the data from the hospital had been forwarded to the Kpone Katamanso District Hospital where further investigation was ongoing to ascertain the cause of the problem. Officials at the district hospital confirmed the story but said they were conducting further tests on patients to find out whether it was indeed a case of food poisoning or something else. As at now, some other people are still visiting the hospital and, therefore, until all the necessary laboratory tests are complete, we cannot give specific data on the number of people who have been affected or whether it was indeed a case of food poisoning, Dr Esther Danquah from the district hospital said. Victims narration One of the victims who gave his name as Justice Ankomah said he started experiencing stomach ache and then diarrhoea later in the day, but did not consider it as a big deal and took some medication to treat himself. However, he pointed out that three other residents who operated shops around the joint and also patronised the waakye, as they often did, fell very sick and ended up being admitted to the hospital and had not been able to return to open their shops for business since last Friday. The wife of one of the deceased that the Daily Graphic met and who only gave her husbands name as Kennedy, disclosed that her husband died last Monday at the St Johns Hospital at Amrahia, when he was rushed there after complaining of stomach ache and diarrhoea. He started complaining that Friday that he was not feeling well, but we thought it was a normal thing. It was later when it became severe that we rushed him to the hospital but he did not survive, the widow disclosed. She said later on they heard the news that many other people had been affected and were at different hospitals within the community. Some relatives of Kennedy were spotted at the Oyibi Police Station following up on the issue. They, however, refused to talk to the Daily Graphic about the incident as they said the police were investigating. At the Oyibi Police Station, although there was confirmation that a case of food poisoning had been reported there, the police declined to brief the Daily Graphic team but rather, directed the them to seek further information from the police headquarters. Zonta Club of Accra renovates, stocks library for Dome schools Vicky Wireko-Andoh Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:56 The Zonta Club of Accra has donated a fully furnished and fully stocked library worth GH35,000 to a cluster of schools in the Ga East Municipality. The schools included the Dome MA 1 & 2 and Dome Anglican 1 & 2 schools in the Dome, Taifa and Abokobi sub-municipalities in the Greater Accra. The donation was to commemorate last years International Literary Day which fell on September 8, 2022. The theme for the celebration was: Transforming literacy learning spaces; Exploring opportunities and possibilities. The theme was to help inform people of the importance of literary learning space to build inclusive education for all. Handing over In an event to hand over the furnished library to the school, the President of Zonta Club of Accra, Madam Vivienne Idun-Ogde, said despite some issues that delayed the presentation, the clubs pressing commitment to literacy, especially in deprived communities, was paramount to bringing the laudable project to completion. She elaborated on the importance of literacy, saying: It is a powerful tool to eradicate poverty as well as being a strong means for social and human progress, and quoted a former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, as saying: Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. The Zonta President said the project hoped to transform education from reading materials to improving literacy, adding that a library was an essential tool in providing quality education and the promotion of a culture of reading. Madam Idum-Ogde said the club would continue to add on as and when necessary, promising a future addition of ICT equipment and accessories. The books for restocking the Library included donations from EPP Books and Kingdom Books Ltd, as well as individual Zontians. Response The Headmaster of Dome Anglican 1 & 2 School, Vincent Amartey, thanked the Zonta Club of Accra for the timely intervention in refurbishing and stocking the library for the cluster of schools. He noted that a library was important in learning institutions and referred to it as a knowledge cathedral where knowledge could be sought and acquired. He advised the children to take very good care of the books. Present at the handover ceremony were a past District Governor, Zonta International District 18, Professor Miranda Greenstreet, executives and some members of Zonta Club of Accra, the Municipal Director of Education, Harriet Lomotey, PTA Executives and Circuit supervisors. EQS-Ad-hoc: Paion AG / Key word(s): Miscellaneous PAION receives positive CHMP opinion recommending approval of remimazolam for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia in adults 27-Jan-2023 / 12:59 CET/CEST Disclosure of an inside information acc. to Article 17 MAR of the Regulation (EU) No 596/2014, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. PAION receives positive CHMP opinion recommending approval of remimazolam for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia in adults Aachen (Germany), 27 January 2023 The specialty pharmaceutical company PAION AG (ISIN DE000A0B65S3; Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Prime Standard: PA8) announces that today the European Medicines Agencys Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) has published a positive opinion recommending the approval of remimazolam for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia in adults. The European Commission will review the CHMP recommendation and a final decision on the Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for remimazolam in the EU (including European Economic Area (EEA) countries) is expected in the first half of 2023. In addition, the UK Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will also consider a potential approval in Great Britain. Information and Explanation of the Issuer to this announcement: The positive CHMP opinion for remimazolam is based on the data from a comprehensive clinical program in general anesthesia. Remimazolam was already approved in Japan and South Korea for general anesthesia. Gregor Siebert, CEO at PAION AG, commented: This positive CHMP opinion for remimazolam brings us closer to our ambition to delivering the first innovative treatment option for anesthesia in Europe for decades. We will drive forward the necessary preparations to make the product available very soon to patients and physicians for general anesthesia with a plan to launch in the second half of 2023. Contact Ralf Penner Senior Vice President Investor Relations & Corporate Communications PAION AG Heussstrasse 25 52078 Aachen Germany Phone +49 241 4453-152 E-mail r.penner@paion.com www.paion.com Disclaimer: This release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning the future business of PAION AG. These forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the current expectations, estimates and projections of PAION AGs management as of the date of this release. They are subject to a number of assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Should actual conditions differ from PAION AG's assumptions, actual results and actions may differ materially from any future results and developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Considering the risks, uncertainties and other factors involved, recipients should not rely unreasonably upon these forward-looking statements. PAION AG has no obligation to periodically update any such forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments. 27-Jan-2023 CET/CEST The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.eqs-news.com III ensure Bawumia wins NPP flagbearer contest - Nana Obiri Boahen Samuel Duodu Politics Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:15 A former Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahen, has said he would ensure that the sitting Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, wins the partys flagbearer contest and subsequently the 2024 general elections to become the next President of Ghana. Nana Obiri Boahen, who described himself as a president of the global movement for Dr Bawumia for President, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that he has not gone for any appointment from the Vice President. Instead, he was doing so on his own volition. No man born of a woman can beat Dr Bawumia he said, adding: I am borrowing the words of William Shakespeare from his book, Macbeth, to buttress his point. Contest Nana Obiri Boahen was, however, quick to add that so far, all the flagbearer aspirants who had declared their intention to contest for the partys flagbearership were competent and capable of leading the party but I am of the strong conviction that Dr Bawumia will win the contest and go ahead to win the national elections. I know the volume of work I am doing for Dr Bawumia and everywhere I go, I receive a lot of encouragement from the people concerning Dr Bawumia, he stated. The NPP former Deputy General Secretary said: I am going to set this nation ablaze. What I mean is that I am going to set this country politically ablaze by ensuring that Vice President Bawumia wins the NPP presidential primary and win the national elections. Minority leadership reshuffle Asked what his thoughts were about the National Democratic Congress (NDC) reshuffle of its leadership in Parliament, Nana Obiri Boahen said the NDC as a political party had the right to change its leadership in Parliament, if the party thought it would inure to its benefit. We need to be honest with ourselves. The NDC is a political party and at any point in time, they can change leadership. They have only decided to re-strategise and restructure, and for me there is no big deal about it, he said. With due respect, I will not criticise the NDC for choosing to change its parliamentary leadership. I am a matured and a discerning politician and I wont buy into that. The NDC is a political party with 137 Members of Paliament and they can take a decision on their own, anytime. They decided to change their party leadership and we dont need to drag this through the media, he added. Nana Obiri Boahen also said that he was not concerned about the happenings in the NDC, but rather that of his political party, the NPP, and his focus was to ensure that Dr Bawumia wins the flagbearership and also the national elections to break the eight. I know for sure that the NDC will present John Mahama as their flagbearer, but I can also assure you that Dr Bawumia is set to beat him in the national elections, he asserted. Reshuffle of NDC leadership in Parliament: Volta youth wing welcomes decision Dickson Worlanyo Dotse Politics Jan - 27 - 2023 , 10:21 The Volta Regional Youth Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the reshuffling of the partys parliamentary leadership as proactive and decisive. A statement signed by the regions Youth Organiser, Mathias Alagbo, said the new leaders would freshen and strengthen the partys frontline in the legislature as it prepared to recapture power in the upcoming 2024 general election. They, therefore, called on the rank and file of the party to support the new leadership as it repositioned itself for victory. We have absolute confidence in both the party and our parliamentary leadership and now call on the rank and file of the NDC, including our Members of Parliament (MPs) and their supporters, party executives and members across the strata and all sympathisers of the NDC and all well-meaning Ghanaians, to accept the new leadership changes effected in good faith and join hands with the new Minority Leadership in Parliament to hold the ruling government accountable as we approach the 2024 must-win elections, the statement said. Congratulations The statement, therefore, congratulated Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, Kwame Governs Agbodza, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah and the rest of the new leadership of the Minority Caucus in Parliament on the confidence reposed in them. We are particularly proud of our former Chairman of the Regional Youth Working Committee, Kwame Governs Agbodza, MP for Adaklu, who is now elevated to the post of the Minority Chief Whip. Your integrity, commitment and fidelity to the cause of the NDC is not in doubt and we are confident that individually and collectively, you will succeed, it added. The youth wing also commended Haruna Iddrisu, Dr James Klutse Avedzi and Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka for their stellar performance as leaders of the NDC in Parliament for the past six years. Related development In a related development, the Old Mawuli Students Union (OMSU) has congratulated Mr Agbodza on his appointment as the Minority Chief Whip as part of the reshuffle. We in the OMSU community always knew you were destined for great heights. We are all inspired by your achievements and pray for Gods wisdom and guidance in your new position. May the same hard work and tenacity of purpose that got you this far continue to take you even higher, it added. Leadership changes The main opposition party last Tuesday announced some changes to its leadership in Parliament with the Ranking Member of the Finance Committee and the MP for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam Constituency in the Central Region, Dr Forson, replacing Tamale South MP, Mr Iddrisu as the Minority Leader. The MP for the Ellembelle Constituency, Mr Buah, replaced Ketu North MP, James Klutse Avedzi, as the Deputy Minority Leader while the MP for Adaklu, Mr Agbodza also replaced the MP for Asawase, Alhaji Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka as the Minority Chief Whip. Why former President Mahama is not against debt restructuring but... Graphic.com.gh Politics Jan - 27 - 2023 , 18:54 Former President John Dramani Mahama says he is not against the debt restructuring programme currently being implemented by the government but says he was against the absence of dialogue. Mr Mahama also said the government failed to heed to numerous pieces of advice from the opposition on cutting down borrowing and spending scarce resources prudently. In an address at Chatham House in London today, Mr Mahama said Ghana has to restructure its debt to revive the economy but lamented the wrong procedure adopted by the Finance Minister which he said has led to the massive rejection of the programme by Individual Bondholders and various labour unions. He was speaking on the theme Africas Strategic Priorities and Global Role. The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award some $118 million in funding for 17 projects to accelerate the production of sustainable biofuels. Made from widely available domestic feedstocks and advanced refining technologies, energy-dense biofuels provide a pathway for low-carbon fuels that can lower greenhouse gas emissions throughout the transportation sector and accelerate the bioeconomy. Financing for novel biorefinery process systems can be a barrier to commercializing advanced biofuels, and this funding will reduce technological uncertainties and enable industry deployment. The projects also support the US Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge goal of enabling the production of three billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel annually by 2030 and 35 billion gallons annually by 2050. The selections, which are subject to final award negotiations and additional eligibility vetting, will be administered by DOEs Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). Over the past two years, DOE has invested more than $500 million in bioenergy and biorefinery research and development through BETO. Award amounts range from $500,000 to $80 million, with most receiving at least $2 million. The 17 selected projects fall into four areas: Pre-Pilot Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefineries, Pilot Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefineries, Demonstration Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefineries, and Gen-1 Corn Ethanol Emission Reduction. Topic Area 1: Pre-Pilot Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefineries Algenesis Corporation, Pre-Pilot Scale Production of Algae-based Jet Fuel and Polyurethane Monomers, $4,987,974. The goal of the project is to continue to develop a circular carbon economy that replaces the petroleum-based chemicals in consumer products with algae-derived and biodegradable polymers. Under this project, Algenesis will demonstrate a scaled supply process for generating polyurethane monomers at sufficient quantity to produce a line of prototype consumer products with our corporate partners. It will valorize the economic production of algae-based biofuels and de-risk the mass manufacturing of algae-based polyurethanes, and associated consumer products. To accomplish this, the company proposes to: 1) Develop a refining process that utilizes differential precipitation (winterization) of crude algae oil, derived from biomass grown utilizing direct air capture, to separate saturated and unsaturated fatty acids; 2) Chemical processing of the recovered fatty acids into biofuels (saturated FA) and polyurethane precursors (unsaturatedFA); and 3) Production of ASTM certified renewable jet fuels and finished polyurethane products that meet industrial standards, from these precursors. Captis Aire LLC, Renewable Blending Components to Enable 100% Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), $2,000,000. This project will demonstrate the conversion of gaseous carbon wood wastes (terpenes) to renewable Terpenes SAF blending components. Captis will blend these with fuels from previously ASTM-approved SAF production pathways, for example Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene (HEFA-SPK), to provide fully formulated, backwards compatible, 100% SAF, also termed drop-in SAF. Currently, SAF is typically blended with fossil fuels. This diminishes the sustainability of the resulting fuel. This issue has motivated R&D toward the development of the fully formulated, drop-in Terpenes SAF. This approach enables 100% SAF for the three most technically mature SAF pathways, termed Leader Pathways. The SAF blends are expected to meet not only minimum ASTM specification requirements, but also density requirements. Hundreds of millions of gallons of drop-in 100% SAF will be unlocked. Comstock Inc., Production of Renewable Diesel, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, Gasoline, and Marine Fuel from Lignocellulosic Biomass at Dramatically Improved Yield, Efficiency, and Cost, $2,000,000. Comstock proposes to build a pre-pilot scale system to demonstrate a novel new pathway to convert its biointermediates from forestry residues and other forms of lignocellulosic biomass into renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel, gasoline, and marine fuel at dramatically improved yield, efficiency, and cost. Comstocks proposed pre-pilot scale system will validate best-in-class renewable fuel yields exceeding 80 gallons per dry ton (on a gasoline gallon equivalent basis), carbon efficiencies exceeding 40%, and a minimum fuel selling price of less than $2.65 per GGE, with lifecycle emissions reductions exceeding 80% over petroleum. Global Algae Innovations, Algae Direct Air Capture Scale-up to Multi-Acre Raceways, $3,600,000. In this project, the recently developed technology for algae cultivation solely on carbon dioxide supplied through direct-air-capture will be scaled to a 12-acre raceway with a 50,000 gallons per year biofuel intermediate production rate. With this approach, carbon dioxide is directly absorbed from the atmosphere into the open raceways so that no separate carbon dioxide concentrating or distribution system. Direct air capture of carbon dioxide is a key technology that not only reduces the cost of algae biofuel production, but greatly increases the volume of algae biofuel that can be produced by enabling algae farms to be located anywhere. This technology will be scaled a validated through the integrated cultivation and harvesting with full media recycle in a new cultivation facility located in Shandon, CA. The advanced cultivation will be operated for 12 months to demonstrate the efficacy of the process and generate key performance parameters to validate the projected minimum fuel selling price of $2.50/gallon with over 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. MicroBio Engineering Inc., Attached Algae Flow Ways for Biofuels Production Utilizing Air-CO 2 , $3,978,199. This project will develop and demonstrate, at the pre-pilot scale , an innovative microalgae biomass and biofuels production process using air-CO 2 and Attached Algae Flow Ways (AAFW). Tthis project will cultivate selected filamentous algal species to maximize 1) biomass production, 2) air-CO 2 utilization, 3) biofuel yields, and 4) nutrients (N and P) recovery. The project will demonstrate 12,500 GGE algae biofuels production potential on air-CO 2 at an operating facility. Research Triangle Institute, A Corn Stover Pyrolysis Pathway for Sustainable Aviation Fuel, $2,000,000. RTI International and partners at POET Research, Inc. and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (the MagLab) at Florida State University (FSU) will leverage existing capabilities to develop and demonstrate an integrated process to convert preprocessed corn stover into SAF through a catalytic fast pyrolysis (CFP), biocrude intermediate upgrading pathway. The integrated technology consists of a novel corn stover preprocessing step to remove alkali and alkaline earth metals, corn stover CFP, biocrude hydroprocessing, and distillation for SAF recovery. University of California Riverside, Scale-up Demonstration of Hybrid Catalytic Biorefining of Biomass to Sustainable Aviation and Marine Fuels, $2,000,000. This project aims to build and demonstrate a scaled-up CELF (co-solvent enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation) pretreatment and lignin fractionation operation within the hybrid catalytic biorefining (HCB) architecture capable of processing at least 0.5 dry ton equivalents of hardwood biomass per day (0.5 TPD) to produce high-quality lignin intermediates suitable for the production of renewable jet fuels and marine fuels. A primary objective of this project is to also demonstrate the reliable and continuous on-stream operation of 100 h while collecting critical operational data over 500 h cumulative to inform larger future scale-up demonstration projects. The pre-pilot will also feature a custom-made solvent recovery system to recover and re-use the solvent and fractionate the CELF lignin simultaneously into low and high MW cuts. The project will be underpinned by technoeconomic and lifecycle analysis simulations that will aid in optimizing process configurations for reducing carbon intensity and operating costs. University of Utah, Entrained-Flow Biomass Gasification with Syngas Fermentation for Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels $2,000,000. This project will scale up and demonstrate that biomass can be efficiently processed in a pressurized entrained-flow gasifier to produce syngas suitable for production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Expected outcomes include (1) showing that liquifying lignocellulosic biomass and sorted municipal solid waste by pyrolytic liquefaction enables it to be pumped and fed to a high-pressure gasifier, (2) demonstrating that conversion in an entrained-flow gasifier achieves more than 98% conversion of carbon to syngas, (3) proving that the syngas has negligible tar and soot and is suitable for fermentation to ethanol, and (4) verifying that SAF production via entrained-flow gasification with syngas fermentation can achieve a fuel selling price cost-competitive with petroleum-based fuels, with greater than 50% conversion of biogenic carbon to fuel, and GHG reductions of at least 70% relative to petroleum-based equivalents. Viridos, Inc., Pre-pilot Integrated Sustainable Aviation Fuels Algae Biorefinery, $2,000,000. This project will deliver a demonstrated scalable, deployment-ready oil-extraction system focused on creating a low carbon-intensity pathway to algae-based sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). The envisioned system will be developed to support production of at least 0.5 dry ton per day algal biomass at Viridos California Advanced Algal Facility (CAAF), in Calipatria, CA, and processing and extracting oil using NRELs pilot plants to meet the equivalent target of at least 35 gallons of upgrading-ready oils. Viridos, formerly Synthetic Genomics, is a leader in the field of synthetic biology and innovative algae farming. Topic Area 2: Pilot Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefineries LanzaTech, Inc., RESTORE: Replenishing EcoSystems by Transforming Residues to Energy, $1,640,286. LanzaTech proposes to pilot an integrated field-deployable, zero-discharge, biorefinery concept for distributed production of ethanolas feedstock for larger LanzaJet alcohol-to-jet SAF facilitiesand biochar for soil amendment. One target application is processing residues and small-bore trees removed by the US Forest Service (USFS) to reduce wildfire risk. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will assess ecosystem services impacts at the watershed level and Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) will advise on requirements for sustainability certification. The pilot will consist of a low cost, easy to operate, air blown gasifier coupled with LanzaTechs second generation bioreactor (2GBR). The ethanol will be converted to sustainable aviation fuel at LanzaJets Freedom Pines Fuels facility, in Soperton, Georgia. USDAs Agricultural Research Laboratory (ARS) in Corvallis, Oregon will assess biochar quality for soil uses, including returning carbon to forest. MicroBio Engineering Inc., Scale-up of Hydrothermal Liquefaction with Supercritical Water Oxidation in an Integrated Biorefinery, $579,673. This project will integrate hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) with supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) technologies in an innovative integrated HTL-SCWO biorefinery approach, in which municipal wastewater sludges are converted to biocrude oil, to be upgraded to sustainable marine, diesel and aviation fuels. Co-products recovered from the process include phosphorus fertilizers and reclaimed water free of recalcitrant organic contaminants such as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), microplastics and residual toxic organics generated in the HTL process. The SCWO process requires no catalysts and generates heat that can be recovered for use in HTL process, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 70% compared to fossil fuels. In the HTL process the wastewater sludge (at approximately 20% solids and 80% water) is fed into the reactor heated to near 350 C at about 250 atmospheres pressure, with the resulting products separated by filtration and decantation after cooling into the crude oil, water, solids and gaseous phases. The recovered oil phase contains about 50% of the initial organic carbon and near two-thirds of the energy content of the sludge feed. Topic Area 3: Demonstration Scale-Up of Integrated Biorefineries Alder Fuels, LLC, Decarbonizing the Skies Sustainable Aviation Fuel from Alder Biocrude Oil, $2,000,000. Alder Fuels approach to scaling SAF integrates commercial fast pyrolysis technology into existing refinery infrastructure. Alder builds upon decades of technical learning within the pyrolysis community to separate highly reactive components in fast pyrolysis oil that plug hydrotreaters into an aqueous phase and convert the remaining organic components into hydrocarbons. This enables downstream distillate hydroprocessing using commercial sulfided, base-metal catalysts as practiced today to process fats, oils, grease (FOG) and petroleum. Alder biocrude can be co-hydroprocessed with esters and fatty acids (HEFA) to deliver SAF with exceptional energy density, reduced sooting tendency, and polymer seal swell. The goal of Phase One is to complete the engineering design work to establish the first Alder Fuels demonstration facility in the southeastern US, which will be rated to process 120 dry metric tonnes per day (MTD) of forest residuals and produce 3 million gallons per year (MGPY) of liquid hydrocarbon biofuel. Critically, 2 MGPY will be sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). Success at the demonstration scale will enable Alder Fuels to rapidly scale to commercial levels and produce SAF with more than a 70% reduction in the carbon intensity and minimum fuel selling price below $4/gallon. AVAPCO LLC, AVAP Biorefinery: Enabling Net Zero, $80,000,000. The proposed project will construct and operate a 1.2 million gallon per year equivalent fully integrated biomass to cellulosic Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel demonstration plant. Valuable co-products will include second generation (2G) cellulosic sugars for conversion to biochemicals and a nanocellulose rubber masterbatch, the Nanocellulose Dispersion Composite (NDC), for the tire and rubber goods industries. The project would be Phase 2 of AVAPCOs ABBA: Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts with AVAP project awarded for Phase 1 (Design Phase) under the DOEs 2016 FOA: Project Development for Pilot and Demonstration Scale Manufacturing of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biopower. Project partners include Petron Scientech, Byogy Renewables, Birla Carbon, and Clark Atlanta University. Topic Area 4: Gen-1 Corn Ethanol Emission Reduction Green Plains, Emissions Reduction Technologies for Green Plains Biorefineries $500,000. This project will validate three different technology platforms at Green Plains facilities, in a means to reduce their life cycle GHG emissions from Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. The technologies include on site renewable synthesis gas production (Scope 1), wind and solar generation/utilization (Scope 2), and reduction of farm-level emissions utilizing advanced crop management practices and reduced fertilizer use (Scope 3). Lincolnway Energy LLC, Reduced Carbon Intensity Ethanol via Biogas from Stillage & Other Feedstocks, $453,000. This project will evaluate the feasibility of deploying biogas (anaerobic digestion) technology using various forms of stillage and/or corn stover in a sitespecific design to provide an integrated analysis to scaleup biogas technology with cornethanol production. The project design and learnings can be applied across the entire US corn ethanol industry upon successful commercialization of this technology, as well as future ethanol derivatives such as sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Marquis, Inc, Carbon Refining: Corn Ethanol 2.0, $8,547,047. Marquis will host, commission, and operate a LanzaTech skid-mounted gas fermentation pilot plant at its Hennepin, IL biorefinery, sourcing CO 2 from operations and low CI H 2 to produce low CI ethanol at >70% GHG emissions relative to petroleum-based alternatives. This collaboration can lower the CI and increase ethanol yield by 50% without additional land and/or fertilizers of 1G ethanol biorefineries. RenewCO2 Inc, Integrated Electrocatalytic Conversion of CO 2 from Bio-Ethanol Emissions into Carbon-Negative Chemicals, $499,953. The objective of the project is to conduct a feasibility study for converting waste CO 2 from bioethanol production to a value-added plastics monomer with RenewCO2s electrochemical process to (i) reduce the carbon footprint of the biofuel by more than 70% compared with gasoline and (ii) achieve a cost-competitive Minimum Fuel selling Price (MFSP). Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Book3 series of laptops will arrive alongside the Galaxy S23 series at the company's February 1 Unpacked event, and it's shaping to be an equally exciting lineup. Now we can add some finishing touches thanks to these leaked high-quality renders. They're of the Galaxy Book3 360, the Galaxy Book3 Pro, and the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360. We still don't have high-quality images of the range-topping Galaxy Book3 Ultra. All three models will have 2880x1800px (16:10) Super AMOLED touchscreen displays, backlit keyboards, Intel's 13th-gen processors, allowing for two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. The laptops will also have a USB-A port, an HDMI port, an audio jack, and a microSD slot. The Galaxy Book3 360 will have a 14-inch screen, the Galaxy Book3 Pro has both 14-inch and 16-inch variants, while the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 has a 16-inch panel. All models will have a choice between the Core i5-1340P and Core i7-1360P and will have 16GB LPDDR5 RAM and up to 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Unsurprisingly, all models will boot Windows 11 with Samsung's Galaxy ecosystem additions like Multi Control, Quick Share, Private Share, and Galaxy Notes. The 14-inch models will have 63WH batteries, while the 16-inch models will have 76WH batteries - all models will come with 65W USB-C PD charging straight from the box. The Galaxy Book3 360 will also support the S Pen. The Galaxy Book3 Pro likely won't have the digitizer needed for the stylus, but the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 will reportedly support it. The Galaxy Book3 Pro and Book3 Pro 360 That just leaves the Galaxy Book3 Ultra, which is expected to have a more robust configuration with a 45W Core i9-13900H CPU, Nvidia RTX 4070 GPU, up to 32GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of PCIe 4.0 SSD. It will have a 76WH battery with 136W charging. Source Russias mysterious special purpose 14,000/24,000 ton (on the surface/submerged) nuclear submarine Belgorod (K-329) has shown up again. Commercial satellite photos showed the Belgorod on the surface off the northeastern Russian coast, where several ports used by the Northern Fleet are located. Russia reported in early January that Belgorod was testing mockups of its primary weapon, the Poseidon torpedo, to make sure they could be carried and launched by Belgorod. These tests also confirmed that the nuclear propulsion system worked as expected. Belgorod is a larger and heavier Oscar class sub but it still uses the same power plant as the other Oscars. The Poseidon torpedo is too large to be carried inside Belgorod and launched from a torpedo tube, and are instead affixed to the underside of the sub and released by the sub commander. The dummy Poseidon is the same size and weight of the real one. The size and weight of the Poseidon attached to the bottom of the Belgorod changes the performance characteristics of the Belgorod and tests were done to note and fix any problems. The actual Poseidon torpedoes, which are described as a doomsday weapon, are being built and not expected to be ready for another year or two. Belgorod was launched in 2019 and entered service in mid-2022. After that, nothing (that could be detected). Between 2019 and 2022 Belgorod had special equipment installed and tested before this modified Oscar class SSGN (nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine) was ready for service. Belgorod wont work for the navy like other subs, but for the GUGI (Main Department of Deep-Water Researches) which works for the intelligence services and is attached to the Navy for ship and crew support. Belgorod has come a long way since construction began in 1982. At one point the sub was canceled while still under construction. In 2006 Russia announced it would not finish construction of the Belgorod, the last of nine Type 949A SSGNs. Known in the West as the Oscar II class, these boats began entering service just as the Cold War ended. Three were in commission when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Construction continued on six more, and by 1997, eight were in service. But, at that point the navy had run out of the money, with the Belgorod not quite complete. Another $100 million was needed to complete Belgorod and the government (although not the navy) felt it wasn't worth it. Seven Oscar IIs remain in service, as the Kursk was lost in 2000, to a well-publicized accident. Work then resumed on Belgorod. That did not last long because the money was not there and not likely to be in the immediate future. Then in 2012 it was announced that the Belgorod, which had not been scrapped but put in storage, was once more scheduled for completion. This time there would be some major revisions that turned Belgorod into something more than an SSGN. The original Oscars were designed as "carrier destroyers" with long-range cruise missiles that could, in theory, take out an American aircraft carrier. The Oscar II class boats have a surface displacement of 14,000 tons. They have eight torpedo tubes (four 650mm, four 533mm), and 24 SS-N-19/P-700 Shipwreck missiles. These anti-ship missiles have a range of 550 kilometers, a speed of 1600 kilometers an hour, and a 750 kg (1,650-pound) high-explosive warhead (or a nuclear warhead of 350 or 500 kilotons as an option). The Oscar's crew of 107 contains 48 officers. That's because of the high degree of automation, and the need to offer officers pay and accommodations to attract the technical talent required to keep these boats going. The new Belgorod was 11 meters longer (at 184 meters) and several tons heavier than the other Oscars. It no longer carried the 24 cruise missiles but instead was equipped to handle a number of new systems. These included four to eight Poseidon AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) that are armed with very powerful nuclear warheads designed to release more radiation than normal. Poseidons are also nuclear-powered and purportedly programmed to travel autonomously to enemy coastal cities, detonate underwater and somehow create large waves that cause enormous damage and spread radioactivity along the nearby coasts. The Poseidon can travel thousands of kilometers underwater on its own, at very high speed for a torpedo (hence its own nuclear reactor) before detonating the two-megaton warhead while on the seabed of the continental shelf. Such doomsday weapons would allegedly be used only if Russia lost a nuclear war in order to punish its opponents even more. In that sense Poseidon is a psychological terror weapon, something the Russians have long been fond of. Its an expensive obsession because creating the Belgorod and Poseidon torpedoes and their Cobalt radiation warheads cost billions of dollars for a weapon that may never be used and if it does get used, may not work as expected. After all, how do you test the Cobalt super bomb to confirm that it works? With that in mind, Belgorod also can transport a new (since 2003), smaller (65 meters long) and nuclear-powered Losharik mini-sub underneath it. This mini-sub can perform various operations using remotely controlled arms. It carries a crew of 25 to great depths (up to 6,000 meters) and has a top speed (for emergencies only) of 72 kilometers an hour. Losharik is believed to be for checking Russian underwater data cables for bugs (or damage in general) and tampering with underwater cables and other equipment belonging to the United States and other Western states. Because Losharik can dive deeper than any other sub and is quite large for a deep-diving sub, it can find and retrieve useful items that end up in very deep waters (electronics from Western aircraft or ships). Losharik can also survey very deep sea-bottoms for suitable sites for placing various electronic devices. Belgorod can also transport a Shelf nuclear power plant that can be placed on the ocean floor to power the Harmony system of underwater sensors or any other new tech that needs to be powered for a long time. Power supplies similar to Shelf have been used in space satellites that require a lot of power (like those equipped with radar). Belgorod is also equipped to carry combat divers (similar to U.S. SEALS) and Harpsichord AUVs that are the size of standard torpedoes but contain side-scan sonar and other sensors that can operate while up to 2,000 meters underwater. Belgorod is also designed to tow objects behind it. These can be a towed array sonar or other items. Russia already has some specialized subs equipped for special operations. These are conversions of existing subs while Belgorod was custom designed and built for the special operations tasks. In late 2016 Russia finally sent its second special operations SSN, the Podmoskovie (BS64), to sea for trials. This sub is actually a Delta IV class SSBN (nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine) that began its career in 1986 as K64 Podmoskovie. Since 1999, K64 has been undergoing conversion to BS64, which appears to be something similar to customized U.S. SSNs that have been in service since the 1970s. The current American example of this is the USS Carter, a Seawolf-class SSN converted (while under construction) to be 30 percent longer and 20 percent heavier than the other two Seawolfs. The additional space was to hold mini-subs for the fifty SEALs it can carry, or to tap into underwater communications cables and perform other intelligence gathering tasks. The Carter entered service in 2005 and replaced an older Sturgeon class SSN (USS Parche) that entered service in 1991 and was retired in 2004. The Parche replaced earlier SSNs that had performed these intel missions throughout the Cold War. The 13,500-ton Podmoskovie had its 16 ballistic missile silos replaced with facilities for launching remotely controlled mini-subs for intelligence missions. The renovations resulted in the sub becoming about five percent longer. This meant that the converted Podmoskovie was somewhat lighter (probably about 12,000 tons). The first Russian SSBN to undergo a similar conversion was the K129 Orenberg, a Delta III class SSBN whose conversion (to BS136) began in 1994 and entered service in 2008. The Delta III is about the same size and displacement as the Delta IV but the Podmoskovie conversion seems to be more extensive than the Orenberg. Both the Orenberg and Podmoskovie carry the Losharik minisub beneath it. The United States has also converted four SSBNs, but not for intelligence work. In early 2011 the USS Florida, an American Ohio class SSGN, fired its Tomahawk TLAM-E cruise missiles in combat for the first time off Libya. Most of the hundred or so Tomahawks launched that day were fired by the Ohio. This was not the first-time nuclear subs have fired cruise missiles in wartime as U.S. SSNs have fired Tomahawks several times. But the Ohio class SSGNs carry 154 cruise missiles, more than ten times the number carried by some SSNs. The four Ohio class SSGNs are SSBNs converted to cruise missile submarines (SSGN) and these first entered service in 2006. Each of these Ohio class boats now carries cruise missiles as well as many as 66 commandos (usually SEALs) and their equipment. The idea of converting ballistic missile subs, that would have to be scrapped to fulfill disarmament agreements, has been bouncing around since the 1990s. After September 11, 2001, the idea got some traction. The navy submariners love this one because they lost a lot of their reason for being with the end of the Cold War. The United States had built a powerful nuclear submarine force during the Cold War, but with the rapid disappearance of the Soviet navy in the 1990s, there was little reason to keep over a hundred nuclear subs in commission. These boats are expensive, costing over a billion each to build and over a million dollars a week to operate. The four Ohio class SSBN being converted each have at least twenty years of life left in them. The idea of a sub, armed with 154 highly accurate cruise missiles, and capable of rapidly traveling underwater (ignoring weather, or observation) at a speed of over 1,200 kilometers a day to a far off hotspot, had great appeal in the post-Cold War world. The ability to carry a large force of commandos as well was also attractive. In one sub you have your choice of hammer or scalpel. More capable cruise missiles are in the works as well. Whether or not this multi-billion dollar investment will pay off remains to be seen, but it certainly worked off Libya. The SSGNs are carrying a new version of Tomahawk, the RGM-109E Block IV Surface Ship Vertical Launched Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. Each of these weighs 1.2 tons, has a range of 1,600 kilometers and travels at 600-900 kilometers an hour. Flying at an altitude of 17-32 meters (50-100 feet), they will hit within 10 meters (32 feet) of their aim point. The Block IV Tomahawk can be reprogrammed in flight to hit another target and carry a vidcam to allow a missile to check on prospective targets. The Russian special operations boats are certainly special with their nuclear-powered mini subs and AUV nuclear-armed mini-subs as well as the sensor equipped smaller mini-subs. Japan and Netherlands are joining the US in chip restrictions on China Japan and the Netherlands will join the United States in imposing chip bans on China, Bloomberg reports. The goal is to undercut Beijings ambition to build its own domestic chip capabilities, according to the outlet's sources. The Dutch company ASML Holding HV will be prevented from transferring deep ultraviolet lithography machines used for chip manufacturing, and similar restrictions will be imposed on the Japanese Nikon Corp. The joint effort is an expansion on US President Joe Bidens policy to limit Chinas ability to manufacture and develop its own semiconductors, used for AI and machine learning in the military, but will also affect the mobile technology industry as well. US equipment makers complained that preventing only American companies from trading with China is affecting their competitiveness, which lead to Dutch and Japanese government reconsidering how ASML, alongside Tokyo Electron, are exporting such machinery. Peter Wennink, CEO at ASML, warned that US-led control on the export of lithography machinery would eventually push China to develop its own advanced tech. That will take time, but eventually, theyll get there, said the executive. Source Samsung and Qualcomm have struck a deal and the upcoming Galaxy S23 series will use an exclusive chipset whose official name will be Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy. Thats quite a mouthful, isnt it? Dont worry, Samsung has prepared a more concise way to remind people of the bespoke chipset powering its new flagships. The modified Snapdragon logo includes Galaxy branding The modified Snapdragon logo will be used in relevant promo images. Speaking of, some promo images have already leaked justdays ahead of the official unveiling on February 1. Be prepared to see this kind of thing on many billboards and around the web starting next week: The chipset will be exclusive to Samsung, certainly at launch and maybe forever, details about the deal with Qualcomm are vague for now. This Snapdragon for Galaxy thing is expected to extend into next year with the Galaxy S24 generation as well. After that, Samsung MX might jump ship and start using its in-house chipset. Source Incoming military families stationed at Naval Base Guam will be required to live on the base if housing is available, under a policy announced this week. The mandatory assignment policy was implemented to maximize the use of on-base military family housing and minimize any real or perceived market pressurization created by the militarys need for off-base family housing, said Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson, commander of Joint Region Marianas. We are closely monitoring the dynamic housing situation in Guam and will continue to coordinate with the government of Guam to ensure military housing policy decisions are made in the best interest of the entire community who call Guam home. The policy is effective Feb. 20 and will remain in effect when the occupancy rate in each bedroom category is at or below 90%, according to a memo issued by Capt. Michael Luckett, the base commander. The change aligns the bases assignment policy closely with Andersen Air Force Base, and is also in line with the majority of overseas installations which have government-owned housing including Yokosuka, Sasebo, and Naples, said Theresa Merto Cepeda, Naval Base Guam public affairs officer. Housing inventory While the base doesnt have enough housing to support all the military families stationed there, the goal is to make sure we are fully utilizing the military family housing available on base, Cepeda said. As of Jan. 19, occupancy rates on base ranged from 64% for three-bedroom units to 92% for four-bedroom units. Cepeda said the bases housing inventory can support about half of the military families assigned there. The policy was mentioned at a meeting of real estate professionals hosted by the Guam Association of Realtors Friday. Although the policy was meant to relieve pressure on the local market, the real estate professionals said off-base homes and apartments still will be needed. I do not believe theres enough supply (on base) said Cornerstone Valuation President Siska Hutapea. If anything, they really do need the private sector to step up and provide more housing. Judith Won Pat has been appointed acting superintendent for the Guam Department of Education until Kenneth Erik Swanson begins as superintendent on July 1. The Board of Education approved the four-year contract for Swanson on Friday evening. Swanson requested a salary of $170,000, which according to Board Chairwoman Mary Okada is within the range for the position. In addition to his salary, Swanson will be provided with two economy class tickets from Georgia and transport of up to 2,500 pounds of household goods, not including a vehicle. Although they approved the details of his offer Friday night, board members will ask if Swanson can start on March 1. Won Pat, a former legislative speaker and recent candidate for congressional delegate, was named to the position during the Guam Board of Education meeting Friday evening Board member Ron McNinch said it is important that whoever fills the acting superintendent position will be able to help navigate the budget negotiations at the Legislature in the next few months. Sen. Chris Barnett, who chairs the legislative Committee on Education, Public Safety and the Arts, issued a statement supporting the appointment Friday night. To say Speaker Won Pat brings a lot of experience to the table is quite an understatement," Barnett said. "Im excited for a productive partnership. She told me shes going to work tirelessly for our children. Thats the kind of commitment its going to take from all of us to make the improvements our students and our schools desperately need. Published on 2023/01/26 | Source Actor Han Ki-woong will join KBS2 drama "Woman in a Veil". He will fill the gap left by Eru, who was dropped out due to drunk driving. Advertisement "Woman in a Veil" tells the story of a woman who lost her sight due to her husband and her lover and falling into a locked-in syndrome (conscious systemic paralysis) and then becomes associated with an heiress. This is the second story of "A Man in a Veil" (2020-2021), and writer Lee Jeong-dae and director Shin Chang-seok will once again work together. It is scheduled to air in the first half of the year. Han Ki-woong serves as the successor of YJ Group, Nam Yoo-jin. Although he married Jeong Gyeo-wool (Shin Go-eun) because of his grandfather Nam Man-joong (Im Hyuk), threatening to exclude him as his successor, he continues his relationship with his mistress Joo Ae-ra (Lee Chae-young). Eru was originally cast as Yoo-jin, but he was dropped out due to a controversy over drunk driving. At that time, "Woman in a Veil" reportedly had not entered the first filming, only conducting the entire script reading. On the other hand, Eru was charged with violating the Road Traffic Act (drinking and driving) on December 20th last year. Published on 2023/01/26 | Source Actress Lee Da-in is joining the drama "Lover - Drama". Advertisement Lee Da-in will appear in MBC's new drama "Lover - Drama". She will return to the drama for the first time in three years since "Alice" in 2020. "Lover - Drama" tells the story of a lover thrown into the path of the Manchu War of 1636, a time they missed and loved and the people who raised hope in hardship. Hwang Jin-yeong, who wrote historical dramas such as "The Daughter of the Emperor" and "Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People" will join forces with Kim Sung-yong of "The Veil" to create a luxury historical drama. Earlier, Namkoong Min and Ahn Eun-jin confirmed their appearances as Lee Jang-hyeon and Yoo Gil-chae, respectively. Published on 2023/01/26 | Source New stills added for the Korean drama "Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist - Season 2" (2022). Advertisement Directed by Kang Hee-ju, Park Won-gook Written by Choi Min-ho-II, Lee Bom-I, Park Seul-gi-I Network: tvN With Kim Min-jae-I, Kim Hyang-gi, Kim Sang-kyung, Ahn Chang-hwan, Jeon Guk-hyang, Yeon Bo-ra,... 10 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:30 Synopsis Adapted from a novel and follow-up to "Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist" Yoo Se-poong, a well-known physician of the medical center, was kicked out after being involved in a royal conspiracy. He turns into a true physician from the heart after meeting Gye Ji-han and Seo Eun-woo. Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2023/01/11 In light of the ongoing security chaos in the "settlement" areas, two members of the "Military Intelligence" branch of the Damascus forces were shot dead by unknown persons over targeting a military vehicle carrying members of the division in the city of Daraa, al-Mahatta, while the gunmen fled to an unknown destination. On the other hand, a young man was shot by unknown gunmen in the city of Nawa in Daraa countryside. Unidentified gunmen also targeted, with an explosive device, a car in the northern neighborhood of Daraa city, the damage was limited to material. Thus, the outcome of the attacks in Daraa, since the beginning of January, according to the Syrian Observatory, reached 32, all of which were carried out in different ways and methods, and caused the death of 23 people, they are: 5 citizens, including two women, and 11 of the Damascus forces and its security services and those collaborating with it, a former fighter who made "settlements" and did not join any military party, 4 of the ISIS mercenaries, and 2 of the former fighters who made "settlements" and joined the regime's security services. a.k ANHA Today, Friday, the Executive Council of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in al-Jazira region received the US State Department envoy to north and east Syria, Nicholas Granger, and his accompanying delegation at the council's headquarters in Amuda district of Qamishlo canton. The delegation was received by the co-chair of the Executive Council of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in region, Talaat Younes, the deputy co-presidency of the Council, Muhammad al-Barrak, and the advisor to the co-presidency of the Council, Jihan Khalil. During the visit, the two parties held a meeting closed to the media, which lasted about two hours. After completing the visit, the co-chair of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in region, Talaat Younes, explained to our agency that the discussions centered on the challenges facing the Autonomous Administration, and continuing to support the Syrian Democratic Forces in the face of ISIS mercenaries. support the stability of the region During the visit, the delegation of the US State Department's envoy to north and east Syria, Nicholas Granger, blessed the ninth anniversary of the establishment of the Democratic Autonomous Administration in region, pointing to the Autonomous Administration's insistence in facing all challenges and attacks. While the delegation emphasized their continued support and alliance with the Syrian Democratic Forces (QSD) in the face of "terrorism", and that they "will consolidate all their capabilities to protect the stability of the region and continue to support the Autonomous Administration and the SDF forces until ending the threat of ISIS in the region", and their attempts to resolve the Syrian crisis, and their continued support stability in the region. Take a stand on the Turkish attacks In turn, the Democratic Autonomous Administration in al-Jazeera region assured the delegation of the US State Department's envoy to north and east Syria, Nicholas Granger, to continue its efforts to confront "terrorism." The Autonomous Administration stressed the need for the US State Department to take a strict stance towards the danger of the Turkish attacks against the regions of northern and eastern Syria, and the need to take a stand against the daily attacks and targeting of the Turkish marches and their attempts to occupy the region, in addition to the need to support the Autonomous Administration and its institutions in the face of the economic challenges it faces. For its part, the delegation of the US State Department's envoy to north and east Syria, Nicholas Granger, confirmed their continuation of their efforts to prevent any attack against the regions of north and east Syria. A ANHA On January 26, 2015, the People's and Women's Protection Units announced the liberation of the city of Kobani from ISIS, which is supported by the Turkish occupation state. This constituted a turning point in the course of the war in Syria and Iraq against "terrorism", especially after the two countries lost vast areas of their lands in favor of ISIS. No less than 70% of the city's area of 7 km2 was destroyed, 30% of which was completely destroyed in the north and center of the city, while 40% was partially destroyed; As a result of the battles that lasted for months. Why did ISIS target Kobani and what is the role of regional countries in the attack? ISIS siege on Kobani canton came for more than a year; The Autonomous Administration announced 3 main cantons in Rojava (Qamishlo, Kobani, and Afrin) in early 2013. ISIS occupied a third of Iraq, including its second largest city, Mosul, within two days, with tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers fleeing during its advance. On the Syrian side, ISIS was able, through its policy of intimidation, to occupy the entire region of Raqqa and other areas in Aleppo, Hasakah, and Deir al-Zor, with the almost complete collapse of the Damascus government forces. The Turkish occupation state was the main bridge for tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries from different countries around the world to cross and join ISIS. According to official documents, 40,000 ISIS militants entered Syria and Iraq through Turkish territory, and the cities of Adana, Antep, Raha (Urfa) and Istanbul turned into hotspots for ISIS activity under Turkish sponsorship. ISIS seized heavy and medium weapons, logistical materials, money and gold from the Syrian and Iraqi governments; As a result of the collapse of the government system in a number of cities, it benefited from this in recruiting thousands of young men; in favor of its plans. Before heading to Kobani, the number of ISIS mercenaries reached 300,000 in Syria and Iraq. The Turkish occupation state was drawing a plan for ISIS's occupation of Kobani and hitting one of the 3 provinces announced in northern Syria in an indirect Turkish war inside Syrian territory. The city of Kobane has great symbolism. It is the first city in Rojava, which received the leader Abdullah Ocalan in the summer of 1979, where the leader spent 3 months in one of the houses of the village of Alblour, which was bombed by the Turkish occupation state two years ago, in the context of destroying the sanctities of the Kurdish people, in addition to that sparking the July 19 revolution, "revolution Rojava "was launched in Kobani, when hundreds of the people of the canton took control of the buildings and institutions of the Damascus government in 2012. From the battle of Kobani.. An Arab-Kurdish alliance led to the formation of SDF ISIS dragged the war to Kobani, and thousands of mercenaries began a bloody battle, the most violent in the Syrian war, by attacking the canton from 3 directions, until they occupied more than 200 villages, and arrived in the city on October 5, 2014. Hundreds of fighters of the People's and Women's Protection Units, alongside Arab forces, fought for the first time in a joint battle against ISIS in the neighborhoods of Kobani, with the active participation of the PKK fighters and international fighters. The general mobilization launched by the leader Abdullah Ocalan to protect Kobani and prevent its fall played a pivotal role in fueling the fire of resistance against ISIS and its allies, so that the Kurdish and international fighters were able to bury the dreams of the Turkish occupation state and its mercenaries under the rubble of the city. The Kurds and nations sympathetic to the Kurdish cause turned dozens of cities in Turkey and around the world into flaming arenas of daily protests against Turkish support for ISIS and the silence of international powers regarding Turkey's plans under the guise of ISIS. The battle of Kobani, in which more than 6,000 mercenaries were killed over a period of about 5 months, inside the city adjacent to the border with Bakur (Northern Kurdistan), was a turning point in breaking the thorn of ISIS despite the Turkish support to control the city. Months after the battle, the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces was announced on October 10, 2015. The Syrian cities, towns, and villages were liberated, one after the other, and ISIS collapsed after losing cities, such as Manbij, Tabqa, and Raqqa, until it was besieged in a geographical area of no more than 1,000 square meters in Al-Baghouz, as 3 thousand ISIS mercenaries surrendered to the Syrian Democratic Forces, except for thousands of their families, after fierce battles for months. As the year 2019 witnessed the most important events in the framework of eliminating global terrorism; represented by ISIS, where the Syrian Democratic Forces fought battles to eliminate ISIS in its last stronghold in the town of Al-Baghouz, after about 63 months of continuous battles in NE Syria. For 10 years, the battle has not stopped in Kobani Tens of tons of explosives fell on the city of Kobani and its countryside during 10 years of continuous war, and hundreds of thousands are still living in this canton under the danger posed by the Turkish occupation state. The attacks of "Jabhat al-Nusra" and ISIS against Kobani between 2012 and 2015 were nothing but a Turkish plan to occupy Kobani, which is symbolic to the Kurdish people, as it turned into a global symbol of resistance after the defeat of ISIS in the city. The Turkish occupation state is still experiencing the shock of the defeat of ISIS in Kobani. It even opened the border crossing for ISIS to commit the massacre of June 25, 2015, in which 250 citizens were killed, most of them women and children, not only that, during the past 3 years, the Turkish occupation state has used warplanes and drones 22 times in bombing inside the city and its countryside, leaving 31 civilians dead or wounded, in addition to the almost daily exposure of dozens of villages in the western and eastern countryside to the continuous Turkish ground bombardment. All of this comes within the framework of seeking to displace tens of thousands of people from Kobani canton and empty the region in order to occupy it, and this is what the Turkish occupation state failed to do, in addition to the economic war by cutting off the water of the Euphrates River, which is the lifeblood of the canton, and the private war by promoting narcotics and other tools to tarnish the image of Kobani. Kobani canton lives in a state of stability despite the threats and sporadic attacks of the Turkish occupation state, where the people are working to activate the experience of the Autonomous Administration and the democratic project at high levels while preparing for the people's revolutionary war against any ground attack that Turkey and its allies might carry out At a time when the international forces are turning their backs on the brutality of the Turkish occupation state and what it practices against this boycott, thousands are still taking to the streets and raising the flag of resistance in the face of the Turkish occupation, and expressing their support and confidence in their sons and daughters in the Syrian Democratic Forces and their belief in the comprehensive revolutionary war against the occupation. a.k ANHA The data shows that the number of births fell by 4,661 from the previous year to 44,933, its lowest level in more than 150 years. The number of deaths contrastively jumped by 5,227 from the previous year to 62,886, representing a new high in the post-war era. STATISTICS FINLAND on Thursday released preliminary data revealing that immigration was the sole driver of population growth in Finland in 2022. The number of deaths was high particularly in January (5,864) and December (5,820) but low in June (4,519). The life expectancy of newborn boys fell by 0.5 years to 78.6 years and that of girls by 0.6 years to 83.8 years in 2022, representing new lows since 2017 and 2013, respectively. Such drops in life expectancies had not been recorded since 1957, according to Statistics Finland. The number of immigrants to the country surged by 11,700 year-on-year to an all-time record high of 48,086. As the number of people who emigrated stood at only 13,306, Finland registered a net migration gain of 35,000, a number that more than made up for the widening gap (18,000) between births and deaths. Ukrainians granted temporary protection are not included in the data, as it consists of only people who have a home municipality in Finland. Regionally, Uusimaa saw its population grow the most, by 19,000. The preliminary data also shows that the number of residents increased in Pirkanmaa, Southwest Finland, North Ostrobothnia, Ostrobothnia and Aland. Kymenlaakso registered the largest population decline both in absolute and relative terms, as its population contracted by 1,862 or 1.16 per cent from the previous year. Aleksi Teivainen HT Researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research in London used biochemical profiling technology and mathematical analysis to demonstrate how genetic variations affect cancer cell growth and how these variations might be taken advantage of by future therapies. Researchers have found that cancer cells can alter their size to survive medication therapy or other environmental stressors. The researchers believe smaller cells could be more vulnerable to DNA-damaging agents like chemotherapy combined with targeted drugs, while larger cancer cells might respond better to immunotherapy. The study was published in the journal Science Advances. It combined innovative high-powered image analysis with examination of DNA and proteins to study size control in millions of skin cancer cells. The skin cancer melanoma is driven by two different genetic mutations - 60 per cent of cases are caused by a BRAF gene mutation, while 20 to 30 per cent of cases are caused by an NRAS mutation. The researchers set out to investigate the differences in size and shape of skin cancer cells harbouring the two mutations, by using mathematical algorithms to analyse huge amounts of data on DNA and proteins. The major difference was cell size. BRAF-mutant cancer cells were very small whereas NRAS-mutant cancer cells were much bigger. Drug resistant NRAS cells were even bigger. Smaller cells appear to be able to tolerate higher levels of DNA damage, as they are very concentrated with proteins that repair DNA - like PARP, BRCA1, or ATM1 proteins. The ICR researchers believe that this could make them more vulnerable to drugs like PARP inhibitors - drugs blocking proteins responsible for repairing DNA damage - especially when combined with DNA-damaging agents such as chemotherapy. In contrast, the larger NRAS-mutant cancer cells contained damage to their DNA instead of repairing it, accumulating mutations and enlarging. These larger cells were not as reliant on DNA repair machinery, so using chemotherapy and PARP inhibitors against them might not be as effective. Scientists believe larger cells could be more responsive to immunotherapy - because their larger number of mutations could make them look more alien to the body. They are already exploring this theory with further studies. The researchers believe BRAF and NRAS mutations may be driving the differences in cell size by regulating levels of a protein known as CCND1 - which is involved in cell division, growth and maintaining the cytoskeleton - and its interactions with other proteins. While the study focused on skin cancer cells, researchers suspect that this size-shifting ability and its impact on treatment response is common to multiple cancer types. They have already identified similar mechanisms in breast cancer and are now investigating whether the findings could apply to head and neck cancers. The discovery provides new insight into how the size of cancer cells affects the overall disease, allowing for better predictions of how people with cancer will respond to different treatments simply by analysing cell size. Existing drugs could even be used to force cancer cells into a desired size prior to treatments like immunotherapy or radiotherapy, which could improve their effectiveness. Study leader Professor Chris Bakal, Professor of Cancer Morphodynamics at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said, "We think of cancer as out of control and unpredictable, but we used image analysis and proteomics to show for the first time that certain genetic and protein changes lead to a controlled change in the size of cancer cells. Cancer cells can shrink or grow to enhance their ability to repair or contain DNA damage, and that in turn can make them resistant to certain treatments. "We think our research has real diagnostic potential. By looking at cell size, pathologists could predict whether a drug will work, or if the cells will be resistant. In the future, it might even be possible to use AI to help guide the pathologist, by making a rapid assessment about the size of cells and so the treatments that are most likely to work. "We also hope our discovery will lead to new treatment strategies - for example creating drugs to target the proteins that regulate cell size." Professor Kristian Helin, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said, "This intriguing, fundamental study provides a correlation between genetic alterations in skin cancer cells and cell size. It opens the potential of using genetic alterations and cell size as biomarkers for how skin cancer will respond to treatments. It's particularly exciting that cell size could also be an important biomarker for how other cancers, such as breast or head and neck cancers, respond to treatments." HT Source: ANI A COUPLE are setting up a charity to help dogs in the south Caribbean following the death of a stray dog they hoped to bring to the UK. Colette and Tommy Moran, from Peppard, were visiting Canouan, a small island in St Vincent and the Grenadines, earlier this month when they came across the malnourished and sick dog, which they named Vincent. They eventually found a vet to help him but the animal died before they could start organising for him to be flown to Britain. Now the couple and their daughter Jess Koch Moran and her husband Kai, who had accompanied them, plan to establish a charity on the island to help other dogs. The family is currently sending money to support monthly clinics for dogs whose owners cant afford veterinary fees to be examined and treated and for stray dogs to be adopted. They first came across Vincent while on a walking tour in Charlestown and they stopped at a cafe on the beach next to the Soho House Beach Club, where they were staying. They were ordering when the dog came up and begged them for food, so they ordered a sausage for him. Mrs Moran said: His condition was one of those harrowing images you carry with you for the rest of your days and I felt a sense of guilt when we thought of our own dogs at home, living like royalty in comparison. He was skeletal, had pus seeping from his nose and eyes, one eye completely blocked extremely sick, yet was the sweetest, gentlest and most affectionate little boy with a wagging tail. She said she felt it was fate meeting Vincent as they had been due to stop earlier at a bakery but the owners were asleep. The family spoke to the woman who owns the cafe who said the dog had been showing up since November when he looked healthier but was still malnourished. She would look out for him and give him food and Vincent would sleep close by the cafe most nights. But she was not there for most of December and on her return she found the dogs health had deteriorated. Mrs Moran, who is the director of Alchemy By Effect Doctors in Henley, believes that Vincent was abandoned rather than born a stray because of how affectionate he was. She said: He had some affectionate qualities that its difficult to believe any true stray would develop. He would rest his paw on your leg or foot to ask for more head rubs and bury his head into the bend of your knee. We learnt from Nicola [the cafe owner] that dog abandonment is common. The turnaround of workers on the island is quick and they bring their dogs and then depart for work elsewhere, leaving their dogs behind to fend for themselves and breed. The day after visiting the cafe she discovered there are no animal welfare organisations or vets on the island, only the equivalent of the RSPCA on the island of St Vincent. Mrs Koch Moran contacted the organisation via Facebook but it said there was nothing it could do. Mrs Moran said: Families willing to adopt in St Vincent and the Grenadines are now saturated and the VSPCA receives very limited funding, which it says is spent solely on transporting dogs for adoption from the island to the US. The VSPCA later advised us that the dog should be euthanised, which came as a shock. The family contacted an animal welfare organisation on Mayreau, another small island which provided a volunteer vet from the UK to examine Vincent and supplied the medicine he prescribed in return for a donation. Mrs Moran said: The vets forecast wasnt too promising and he didnt expect Vincent to respond to the medicines as he was very poorly. At this point we really wanted Vincent back in Peppard, safely adopted. We knew if he was to have a chance of survival, he needed a veterinary space on the main island before he could travel to the UK. The family flew home a few days later determined to secure some help for Vincent quickly, especially as they felt the attention they gave Vincent wasnt welcomed by residents of Canouan. Mrs Moran said: His presence at the cafe was already costing Nicola trade as locals were disgusted by his state. In those last few days we overheard comments from locals threatening to kill him. One evening we found people lurking round him, passing comments like tomorrow hell be gone and six feet under. One afternoon, he was tied up on a short string out of sight only for him to recognise our voices and bark so that we would find him. Otherwise he would probably have starved to death. They finally found help for Vincent thanks to Dr Eric Audain, a vet who agreed to board Vincent on the main island for his recovery. He visited Canouan to assess the dogs condition and run a free clinic for others. Beforehand, Vincent spent two days at the Sandy Lane Yacht Club, thanks to David and Mandy Gaynor, from Harpsden, who are friends of the Morans and were staying there. He was diagnosed with anaemia, pneumonia, a urinary tract infection, mange and fungus, internal parasite infestation, conjunctivitis and ulcer of the cornea. He was undergoing treatment when the Morans received a call to say he had passed away. Mrs Moran said: We are so devastated. We were in tears the whole day. I dont know what it was about him but he just captured our hearts completely. Although it is too late for Vincent, there are so many other dogs that Eric wants to help. He is so fantastic, so dedicated and so concerned about the wellbeing of these animals. We feel like we are still supposed to start something and give hope to other animals on the islands. The family plan to establish a registered charity and in the meantime have set up a Just Giving page to help Dr Audains clinic. To make a donation, visit https://gofund.me/e8dbe38a The Facebook and Instagram pages can be found by searching for Vincents Animal Welfare Fund Finland has issued the first commercial export license for military material to Turkiye since 2019, a key demand for Ankara to approve Helsinki's NATO bid, the country's defense ministry said Wednesday. Riikka Pitkanen, a special adviser at Finland's defense ministry, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the export license granted concerned steel that would be used for armor. The move comes amid a spat that saw Turkiye on Tuesday indefinitely postponing upcoming talks with Finland and Sweden on their application to join the military alliance after a weekend protest in Stockholm that drew condemnation from Ankara. The three nations reached an agreement on how to proceed in Madrid last June, but President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has said Sweden, in particular, is not keeping its side of the bargain. On Monday, Erdogan said that Sweden should not expect Turkiye's support for its NATO membership after a protest near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on the weekend including the burning of the Quran. Of NATO's 30 members, only the parliaments of Turkiye and Hungary have not ratified entry for Sweden and Finland. The two countries formally applied to join NATO last year. Turkiye has voiced objections due to the two countries' tolerance and support for terrorist groups. Ankara also requested the lifting of the arms export restrictions that Sweden and Finland imposed after Turkiye's military operation seeking to clear northern Syria east of the Euphrates of the PKK terrorist group and its Syrian offshoot YPG in 2019. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen previously said that they would consider resuming arms exports to Turkiye. Swedish authorities in September last year authorized the resumption of exports of military equipment to Turkiye. "Since October 2019, no commercial export licenses have been issued to Turkey," Pitkanen said. Jonathan Wigley, CEO of the Absolute Hotel Services Group, has signed an agreement with Mr Damrong Pitaksit, Miss Peerada Pitaksit, and Miss Peachaya Pitaksit of SMC Land Company Limited to launch the very first Eastin Estates branded property, Eastin Estates Hua Hin. The 140-key luxury pet-friendly residential development provides an extended stay residential community experience to meet the growing needs of the active senior market, with services and facilities for residents that encourage health and social connections. Eastin Estates Hua Hin will feature a resident's lounge, restaurant, convenience store, swimming pool, gym, walking track and wellness clinic and is just 30 minutes away from Bangkok Hospital Hua Hin and 30 minutes from the bustle of downtown Hua Hin. The project is currently under development and has a planned opening in late 2023. Hotel website The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas -Texas' first and Dallas' only five-star hotel - proudly announces the appointment of Sean Blanchette as Executive Chef, adding to its distinguished food and beverage team. In this role, Blanchette will utilize his wealth of experience, innovation, and enthusiasm to oversee all culinary programming at the prestigious luxury hotel including the award-winning Fearing's Restaurant, the Pool Bar, the Club Lounge, In-Room Dining, and high-volume luxury event catering. Blanchette brings an illustrious 15-year career to The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, where he previously served as the hotel's Executive Sous Chef. During his tenure with The Ritz-Carlton brand, he has held leading culinary positions in several acclaimed hotels, including The Ritz-Carlton, Orlando and The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman. Blanchette began his career at Le Cordon Bleu of Culinary Art before going on to fine-tune his professional cooking and kitchen management skills staging at luxury establishments across Europe including Hotel Arts Barcelona and the Michelin Star restaurant, Miramar. Chef Blanchette returns to his "home hotel," The Ritz-Carlton, Dallas, where 14 years ago he cultivated his passion and set the foundation for his career as a line cook. What is the Hybrid Workplace? The hybrid workplace is one that is flexible in terms of where work is done. An employee whos doing hybrid work might spend some of their time in a physical workplace, like an office, and some of their time working remotely, maybe from home or a coffee shop or some other workspace. The hybrid worker may spend two days a week in the physical workplace and three working from home, or four days at home and one in the office; ultimately, it depends on the circumstances in a given job. COVID-19s Impact on the Workplace Hybrid working has seen a huge increase in popularity recently. By some measures, a majority of Americans have the option of hybrid work, and over 70% of employees plan to expand their hybrid working options over the next three years. This figure is lower in developing countries such as Thailand, where a smaller proportion of jobs can be performed with a laptop and internet connection, but it still represents a revolution in how we approach the workplace. In forcing millions of people to work from home, COVID-19 simply accelerated the prevalence of the hybrid work model. Its likely that many companies would have panicked if you had told them, prior to the pandemic, that most of their employees would soon be working from home. Yet many made the switch seamlessly. The hybrid work model is now extremely popular with employees, making for many a happy workplace, and shows no sign of going anywhere. The establishment of this sudden change in how we work has become known as the New Normal. Adapting to the New Normal An understandable concern for many businesses making the switch to hybrid work is that any disruption to productivity is minimized. Some employees are expected to work on a set schedule, regardless of location. Others may be given more freedom by their manager. In either case, communication is key. This dynamic approach to working style is part of a wider set of changes known as the agile workplace. The agile workplace encourages flexibility in relation to things like office hours, how technology is used, the physical nature of the workplace, and how we work. These freedoms inevitably contribute to greater work-life balance. The big idea behind agility is that such an approach will result in a more dynamic and productive work culture. Source: CBRE Hotels New Challenges One of the major challenges of the overnight shift to working from home was the need for employees to learn how to use the many new technologies that entered their lives. Video conferencing software such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, in addition to other programs and apps such as file-sharing software, were suddenly ubiquitous, and it was vital that employees demonstrated their agility by being able to adapt to the new ways of doing things. The challenges didnt end there. A good example relates to the optimization of office space. Companies are increasingly moving away from the tradition of assigned seats and becoming more flexible about who sits where, as employees no longer have to be at a desk Monday to Friday, nine to five. Its worth remembering that one of the most important functions of the office is to enable collaboration, and this has led to a number of new developments. Companies increasingly desire conference rooms equipped with video conferencing software and so-called huddle areas dotted around the workplace to allow for quick, casual meetings. For more formal meetings, its now common to have conference room booking systems so employees can reserve spaces. This not only requires new software, such as a specific booking app, employees also need to learn how to use it. Health, Wellness, and the Hybrid Workplace Before the pandemic most employees enjoyed multiple interactions with friends and colleagues in the office and experienced a commute that acted as a kind of pressure chamber between home and the workplace, easing the person into their workday. These things likely reduced the kinds of stress everyone naturally experiences at work, contributing to a happy workplace. The hybrid work model brings many positives to the table, but the loss of these stress reducers may be significantparticularly for people who live aloneand greater awareness of this work-life balance and support for employees in such situations are other areas that need addressing. Greater appreciation for public health in the post-COVID world means that companies and employees now think more about how the work environment impacts our bodiesthe air quality in an office building being a good example. Employees may have higher expectations for their office after getting a taste of working at home and in other places where they feel comfortable. This has translated into greater demand from companies for health and safety certifications, such as WELL. These things contribute significantly to creating a happy workplace and can be leveraged to attract new talent. The Future The seamlessness with which so many industries have adapted to the new normal is encouraging. The job for employees and businesses now is to utilize the lessons learned and to understand that hybrid work is here to stay, that communication, flexibility, and agility are fundamental, that work-life balance is key, and to consider the physical and psychological impact such dramatic changes are having on every companys most valuable resource: its people. About CBRE Group, Inc. CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 revenue). The company has more than 105,000 employees (excluding Turner & Townsend employees) serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE serves a diverse range of clients with an integrated suite of services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com. View source Visitors from China and Japan account for a sizeable share of international travelers into the U.S., but in recent years COVID-induced travel bans caused trans-Pacific travel to nearly halt. Last winter, the number of inbound travelers from China and Japan hovered around 5% of 2019 levels. As restrictions have fallen away, notably the U.S. no longer requiring a negative COVID test beginning last June, travel from China and Japan has steadily increased. The return of East Asian visitors will be a plus for the American hotels, especially in Hawaii, major West Coast markets, and premier leisure destinations like Las Vegas and Orlando. In addition to the hotel markets surprising resilience in recent quarters, we expect further demand growth, especially from visitors from China and Japan, as more travel restrictions ease. Source: CBRE Hotels About CBRE Group, Inc. CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Dallas, is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 revenue). The company has more than 105,000 employees (excluding Turner & Townsend employees) serving clients in more than 100 countries. CBRE serves a diverse range of clients with an integrated suite of services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com. View source Wait! Before you go Please sign up for our Evening Digest and Breaking Newsletters Success! 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Subscribers to Register-Star or The Daily Mail are eligible to receive full access to HudsonValley360. If you have an existing print subscription, please make sure your email address on file matches your HudsonValley360 account email. Indie Label Spotlight: 2022 was a good year at Nettwerk Records The growing success of indie Nettwerk Records is demonstrated by these noteworthy artists rise to fame, covering a variety of genres and taking social media by storm. from Nettwork Records via A2IM Nettwerk Music Group is a full-service artist development and brand builder with a history spanning almost 40 years. Nettwerk operates a global organization with offices in major cities around the world and an infrastructure to match. At Nettwerk, we pride ourselves on our ability to anticipate shifts in consumer behavior and to effectively leverage technology in order to place great music in the hands of fans around the world. We work across a variety of genres with an overarching philosophy to help inspiring artists grow their careers and realize their creative vision. Check out some highlights from their current roster Vacations Hailing from Newcastle, Australia, VACATIONS is an indie alt band making waves across the globe whose music encapsulates a dreamy intention, soundtracking moments in everyday life. Their song Young has 2M+ video uses + 7B views on TikTok and a cumulative 750M streams, and they sold out their debut 32-date U.S. Spring tour (over 14k tickets) + follow-up 11-date west coast US tour. Wild Rivers Wild Rivers new album Sidelines captures the band as they navigate their twenties, moving from the college years into the uncharted territories of adulthood. Co-produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Sharon van Etten), it landed at #9 in the U.S. on the Spotify Debut Album Chart, received praise from Line of Best Fit, Under The Radar, Wonderland and more, and was supported by a sold-out North American tour. Theyve earned over 250 million streams and a devoted fanbase for their expertly crafted harmonies, introspective lyricism, and incredible live show. Braxton Cook Braxton Cook is one of this generations most exciting voices. The Juilliard-trained and uniquely talented vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer blends jazz, soul and alt-R&B in a fresh new sound all his own, as heard on his latest acclaimed EP, Black Mona Lisa, which received acclaim from the likes of Billboard, NPR Music, PAPER, OkayPlayer, Jazziz, and more. Theyve earned over 250 million streams and a devoted fanbase for their expertly crafted harmonies, introspective lyricism, and incredible live show. Miya Folick Miya Folick first attracted acclaim with two 2015s Strange Darling and 2017s Give It To Me EP. Her 2018 debut album Premonitions drew critical praise from NPR, GQ, Pitchfork, The FADER and many more; landed her a Tiny Desk Concert for NPR and saw her sell out headline shows and play festivals the world over. She recently released her latest acclaimed EP 2007, and spent the remainder of 2022 playing headline shows and supporting Tove Lo across Europe. Old Sea Brigade Ben Cramer describes 5 AM Paradise, his vivid and moving third album as Old Sea Brigade, as a coming-of-age record: ten songs that balance youthful abandon with maturity and restraint, full of imaginative flourishes, evocative textures, and graceful melodies that lend magnitude to mundane moments. He capped a triumphant 2022 with a gripping three-song performance on CBS Saturday Morning, marking the Nashville-based and Georgia-born musicians national television debut. St. Lucia Led by husband-and-wife duo, Jean-Philip Grobler and Patti Beranek, synth-pop group St. Lucia has arrived with their long awaited fourth studio album, Utopia. Equal parts colorful disco, 70s funk, and 80s pop, the Utopia LP is a luminous palette of synths, pulsating with vibrant sonics that have come to characterize St. Lucias genre-defying career, earning praise from Paper, Billboard, Under The Radar, FLOOD, Ladygunn and more. Luke Sital-Singh Luke Sital-Singh recently released Dressing Like A Stranger, an eleven-song collection penned by the London-born songwriter as he moved halfway across the globe to Los Angeles just before the world shut down. With praise from Forbes, Under The Radar, WNYC, NPR Music and more, Sital-Singh shines with perhaps his most celebrated work to date. Michal Leah Michal Leah might be only 19 years old, but the Chicago-born soul-pop songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is a superstar on the rise, singing with the wisdom, range, and intuition of an artist withdecades more experience. Her viral single, The Way I Love You, was written with the esteemed Elsa Curran and Grammy-nominated producer Yakob. The Way I Love You sound on Tik-Tok has already garnered over 60 million views, as well as recognition from Meghan Trainor, Lauren Spencer Smith, Camylio, and more. Share on: Top 100 Music Producers Worldwide Jaxta has named the worlds 100 most successful producers worldwide in 2022. The rankings are based on statistics from its 340+ data partners, including record labels, publishers, distributors, industry associations, and charts providers, using a weighted algorithm that takes into account each producers chart performance, Spotify streams, GRAMMY wins and nominations, RIAA certifications, and number of producer credits over the past year. Jaxstas database includes 17 million producer credits. The 100 most successful producers of 2022 with commentary from Jaxta. Tyler Johnson As youd expect of the man at the top of our Honors List, Tyler Johnson has had a phenomenal 12 months After all, he did co-produce 2022s biggest hit Harry Styles As It Was. No big deal. Not only did he co-produce the global smash song, he also co-wrote it and played the drum machine, piano and synthesizer on it what an undeniable Jack of all trades! Johnson has had a stellar 2022, being nominated for three GRAMMY Awards including Album Of The Year for his production work on Harrys House by Harry Styles, Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year for As It Was off that same album. Additionally, he produced records that reached Multi-Platinum sales in 2022 including Burning House by CAM (3x), Sign of the Times by Harry Styles (5x), Adore You by Harry Styles (5x), The Thrill Of It All by Sam Smith (2x) and Ripcord by Keith Urban (2x). Tainy One of the key players in the rise of Latin music globally, its no wonder that Puerto Rican producer and songwriter Marco Tainy Masis continues to reach astronomical heights. Key to that success and his growing number of Gold, Platinum and RIAA Latin certifications was his work with longtime collaborator Bad Bunny (Un Verano Sin Ti) as well as artists like J Balvin, Daddy Yankee and Rauw Alejandro. Kid Harpoon Take a look at the Gold and Multi-Platinum awards GRAMMY-nominated producer Kid Harpoon has accumulated over the past 12 months: from his work with Harry Styles (As It Was, Late Night Talking, She, Adore You for starters), Calvin Harris (Sweet Nothing) and Shawn Mendes (Illuminate) and 2 Chainz (Good Drank). Add in a slew of additional production credits with artists such as Maggie Rogers (Surrender), Florence + The Machine (Dance Fever) and Marcus Mumford ((self-titled)) and youve got yourself a pretty tidy 12 months. Taylor Swift She is the artist that needs little introduction. From becoming the first musician to hold all ten spots on the Billboard Charts Hot 100 Chart to being 2022s RIAA Top-Certified album, Taylor Swifts Midnights is the gift that keeps on giving. Even though it must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero, know that we will always root for you Taylor! From becoming the first musician to hold all ten spots on the Billboard Charts Hot 100 Chart to being 2022s RIAA Top-Certified album, Taylor Swifts Midnights is the gift that keeps on giving Max Martin The man, the myth, the legend. Max Martin may well have had to construct a few new walls in his house specifically for the number of Multi-Platinum and Gold records hes received over the past 12 months from his work with Adele (30) and The Weeknd (After Hours, Starboy, Blinding Lights and Cant Feel My Face). The super-producer also spent the past 12 months haunting the charts thanks to his work on Never Gonna Not Dance Again by P!nk and 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) by Lizzo. All in a days work for Max Martin. Blake Slatkin From The Kid LAROI and Justin Biebers 2021 STAY to 24kGoldn and iann diors 2021 Mood, there is no denying Slatkins sheer talent for producing mega hits. 2022 proves this fact with his production work appearing on acclaimed releases by artists like Lizzo (Special), Sam Smith & Kim Petras (Unholy) and SZA (SOS). The Weeknd The Weeknd kicked off 2022 with a bang with his surprise release Dawn FM, and didnt look back breaking many records in his wake such as having the most songs (a whopping 24!) charting on the Billboard Global 200 Chart by a solo male artist. For most that would be enough, but The Weeknd also continued to rack up Gold, Multi-Platinum and Diamond awards for his tracks like Blinding Lights and Die For You. Not only that, the Starboys production talents have branched over to the world of television, displayed by his executive producer, co-writing and starring credits in the highly anticipated HBO show The Idol which will also feature legendary producer Mike Dean! Cirkut From FKA twigs (CAPRISONGS) to Lil Nas X (STAR WALKIN'), Cirkut (real name: Henry Walter)s discography is best described as kaleidoscopic with the acclaimed producer racking numerous Gold, Multi-Platinum and Diamond certifications with tracks like Pitbull & Keshas Timber and Ava Maxs Sweet But Psycho. Jack Antonoff Hes the man who nabbed the #1 spot of our Honors List: Producers last year and hes the man behind many of your favorite songs. 2022 continued to be a wildly busy and successful year for Jack Antonoff from credits on Taylor Swifts Midnights to Lana Del Reys Did you know that theres a tunnel under Ocean Blvd. Lets raise a glass to Jack! Greg Kurstin Another legend in our top 10! The multi-GRAMMY-winning producer has been behind numerous #1 hits like Adeles 2015 ballad Hello and her recent hit single Easy On Me which broke charting and streaming records left, right and center. And 2022 was no different with Greg obtaining countless Gold and Multi-Platinum certifications with his work on releases by artists like Halsey (hopeless fountain kingdom), Ellie Goulding (Halcyon) and Kali Uchis (Isolation). Omer Fedi Beyonce Ricky Reed Jahaan Sweet Ye Ryan Tedder David Guetta Louis Bell Metro Boomin Ovy On The Drums Boi-1da Edgar Barrera Charlie Puth Mauricio Rengifo Andres Torres Roget Chahayed Dr. Luke Sky ROSALIA Andrew Watt John Nathaniel Fred Again.. Oscar Holter FNZ Noah Goldstein Cashmere Cat Mike Dean Ludwig Goransson Jason Evigan Yeti Beats Sam Smith Daniel Nigro Tricky Stewart Jimmy Napes Ed Sheeran Sounwave Brent Kutzle MAG Daddy Yankee Gaby Music benny blanco Allen Ritter Shakira Dave Bayley Steve Lacy Raphael Saadiq Ian Fitchuk DaHeala (Jason Quenneville) Post Malone Carter Lang Noah 40 Shebib Wheezy Tiesto Take A Daytrip Ging (fka Frank Dukes) Rob Bisel RedOne Smash David Finneas OConnell Monsters & Strangerz Steve Mac Peter Lee Johnson Murda Beatz DMile Alexander 23 Jon Bellion Joey Moi Vaughn Oliver Keanu Beats DJ Khaled Mattman & Robin Crate Classics Lostboy Eminem Danny Ocean Lady Gaga Calvin Harris will.i.am KBeaZy The-Dream Marshmello Pharrell Williams Oneohtrix Point Never Dave Cobb Bizzarap PopNick Maneskin Aaron Dessner Andrew Wells Swedish House Mafia Photo: Cedrick Jones, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music. Share on: PITTSFIELD, Mass. Berkshire Community College honored the first graduates of its January nursing program on Thursday evening in a pinning ceremony held in the college's Boland Theatre. The ceremony marked the work of the 19 graduates over the past two years. It took a week longer than usual after being postponed because of a snow storm last week. "Tonight students celebrate their hard work in a nursing tradition dating back to the 1800s. It is the faculty's favorite time as they watched as their students have grown over the years," said Dean of Nursing Lori Moon. "Tonight is very important and each one of you worked hard to be seen on the stage. So take a deep breath and enjoy the moment. This nursing pinning ceremony isn't just a tradition. It's a rite of passage. A sacred ceremony that honors and celebrates nursing students and their hard work and dedication." Completing the nursing program is not an easy feat, as it should be, she said, because it is preparing students for a career that can be hard, stressful, and sometimes frustrating. But a nursing career is also rewarding and humbling, and Moon said she could not imagine not being a nurse. Students had selected Thomas Carey, a professor emeritus in the Allied Health program, to give the keynote speech. Carey said working in the medical field can at times be emotional. These future nurses will run into sad situations so it is important to laugh when the time calls for it, he said. Sharing stories from his career, Carey offered the graduates some advice be kind, patient and compassionate, and take their nursing exam right away. "Finally, go make a difference in people's lives. And I know you will," he said. The audience erupted into cheers as each student walked across the stage to be pinned by a nurse who had inspired or mentored them. BCC has for years held its associate's degree pinning ceremony in the spring; this pinning was the inaugural for a new January cohort, who began in the spring semester and graduated in the fall. The new program was introduced last January for 25 students after the fall cohort of 56 was filled. "You are the inaugural class for the January associate's degree in nursing cohort, the first," said college President Ellen Kennedy. "Worthy of celebration, worthy of praise." Graduate Brittany Duma, in closing remarks, recalled the hard work of getting through the program and how they still had to grapple with jobs, family and finding time for themselves. "It was tough, but we did it. We should all be extremely proud of ourselves," she said. She encouraged her classmates to remember the first time they made difference in a patient's life and that when they get down to remember all the work they put into their education. "Take a deep breath. And remember we know way more than we can ever give ourselves credit for." Upcoming Nursing Accreditation Review Visit at BCC PITTSFIELD, Mass. Berkshire Community College (BCC) has announced that it will host a site visit for continuing accreditation of its Associates Degree Nursing program by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN). The community is invited to meet with the site visit team and share their comments about the program in person at a meeting scheduled at 1:30-2:00 pm on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, in G-12 located at 1350 West St. This meeting is also available remotely using zoom - https://zoom.us/j/94368462033 Written comments are also welcome and should be submitted directly to: Dr. Nell Ard, Interim Chief Executive Officer Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing 3390 Peachtree Road Northeast, Suite 1400 Atlanta, GA 30326 All written comments should be received by the ACEN by Feb. 28, 2023. More than a dozen cats were abandoned on back roads a year ago. The woman who owned them has pleaded guilty to counts of animal cruelty. Owner of Abandoned Cats Pleads Guilty to Animal Cruelty PITTSFIELD, Mass. A woman accused of abandoning more than a dozen cats during snowstorm a year ago has pleaded guilty. Kelly Hathaway of Pittsfield pleaded guilty on Friday to two counts of animal cruelty in Central Berkshire District Court as part of a plea agreement. Following the plea agreement, she was ordered to have a mental health evaluation and follow any after care as instructed by the court. She was placed on two years probation and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service. She is not allowed to possess any animals and was ordered to surrender any she has in her care. She is also prohibited from volunteering with any animal groups. Hathaway and another defendant were charged last March with abandoning 15 cats on back roads in Richmond and Lanesborough after an investigation by Lanesborough Police, Lanesborough Animal Control and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Two of the cats died, possibly from exposure, and another was never found. Temperatures ranged from about minus-6 to 28 degrees on the weekend of Jan. 28 and the cats found in Richmond were undernourished and dehydrated. According to the police report, Hathaway said her landlord had told her to remove the animals because of the smell. The cats were discovered by a motorist on Jan. 31 and he, animal control, volunteers and the Berkshire Humane Society worked to get the cats to safety. They were later adopted out by the Humane Society. The animal cruelty charges could have meant fines of up to $5,000 and time in jail or prison. The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Aleah Fisher and Megan Rose. The Berkshire District Attorney's Office thanked the agencies involved for the assistance in the investigation, including the State Police. "We are very pleased that we can bring this case to a resolution. MSPCA was very pleased with the outcome as we took into consideration the defendant's intellectual disability and willingness to accept responsibility," said Rose. "Thank you to the Berkshire Humane Society for their assistance with finding homes for the abandoned animals." This publication is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in the Indian market and includes a gu... Iran is ready to provide gas facilities to Pakistan in a bid to resolve Pakistans energy problems. The South Asian country is facing an energy crisis and came out of a debilitating two-day nationwide power crisis just this week. The Iranian Consul-General in Quetta, Balochistan, Hassan Darvaish told Quetta-based journalists on Wednesday that his country plans to start direct flights between Balochistan capital Quetta and Tehran soon. He added that an Iranian company is ready to start the flights which would give a boost to tourism and the economy. Separately in the port city Gwadar, which faces a massive shortage of water and power, Iran plans to provide an extra 100 MW of power. Gwadar is important for Pakistan as the port is being built by China under its China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. Iran to provide extra 100 MWs power supply to Gwadarhttps://t.co/FjzViEh2Ha pic.twitter.com/PyZLf5K5fR Quetta Voice (@VoiceQuetta) January 26, 2023 The shortage of basic necessities has made the people of Gwadar revolt against the Pakistani authorities. People had staged mass protests in 2021 against both China and Pakistan which were finally broken up after an agreement. However, as the promises were not all fulfilled, the people once again held protests in November 2022 which were broken up after two months through force and arrests. Director-General of the Gwadar Development Authority (GDA), Mujeeb ur Rehman Qambrani said that additional power supply from Iran will allow the government to provide 24 hours power supply to Gwadar which will help in promoting business and industry. Pakistan hopes to connect Gwadar to the national grid for the first time by importing Iranian electricity for which it is constructing additional transmission lines. Despite the strategic importance of Gwadar for Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Pakistan has not been able to set-up basic facilities. Almost all the power comes through Iran while the local people have to buy water through tankers. Even fuel in Balochistan is brought by local people across the border, often illegally, from Iran. Sunni Pakistan and Shia Iran have a uneasy relations despite sectarian problems. Islamabad has often alleged in the past couple of years that Iran has been supporting the Baloch insurgency. On the other hand, Tehran has said that Pakistani agencies have been instigating Sunni violence inside its territory. The Pakistan-Iran border, also called the Goldsmith Line, divides the Baloch community into two. Despite Pakistani forces on the border and the presence of a fence, the Baloch people continue to maintain family relations across the porous border. A considerable amount of trade across the Pakistan-Iran border is done to be able to meet the basic needs of the impoverished Baloch community in Pakistan. Earlier this week Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had met Iranian Foreign Minister Hussain Amir Abdullahian at the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to discuss free trade agreement and strengthening trade and commerce. The two nations have set a trade target of $5 billion for this year. iWorld | OTT "A blogger is a human, not a number or follower count. So, a brand needs to meet them as a human first" Blogchatter is a blogging community. Blogchatter is a platform for bloggers and social media influencers alike to discover and get discovered by others. Founded in 2016, Blogchatter has created countless campaigns for communities and brands over the years by curating a blogger and social media universe around us. Read More... Television | TV Channels 2% growth in GEC ad volumes: TAM AdEx report TAM AdEx has released a report for ad spending in the general entertainment channels (GEC). According to the report, trends in GEC ad volumes witnessed a 29 per cent rise in 2022 compared to 2018. It further reported that compared to 2021 the growth in 2022 was two per cent for GEC advertising. Read More... Television | TV Channels Bharat Express appoints Nishant Mishra as marketing head ahead of its official launch Before its official launch, Upendrra Rai's upcoming national Hindi news channel Bharat Express has appointed Nishant Mishra as its marketing head. In his new role, he will be closely working with the management for the launch of the channel to create a successful brand strategy, curate content-led events and IPs, form strategic alliances, and create customised brand solutions for the channel. Read More... Television | TV Channels Prasar Bharati and NMA Egypt join hands for TV and radio programmes India and Egypt signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Wednesday to facilitate content exchange, capacity building, and co-productions between Prasar Bharati and the National Media Authority of Egypt. Read More... The land subsidence that has left thousands of people in the Uttarakhand town of Joshimath homeless in the past few weeks may not be limited to there. According to a report by The Times of India, several houses in Karnaprayag, located around 80km from Joshimath, where work is ongoing for the Centre's ambitious Rishikesh-Karnaprayag rail line and the Char Dham all-weather road, have developed large cracks and become uninhabitable. REUTERS Cracks on houses in Rishikesh, Tehri Garhwal According to Karnaprayag tehsildar, Surendra Dev, CMP Bend, ITI Colony and Bahuguna Nagar are the worst-affected areas. Over two dozen houses in Bahuguna Nagar, situated on the Badrinath highway, have developed large cracks and the roofs of a few homes are hanging precariously. In Rishikesh, cracks have developed in at least 85 houses in Atali village. Locals claim it was due to the ongoing railway tunnel work as part of the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag rail project. Villagers said cracks have appeared in almost all houses and agricultural fields. In Tehri Garhwal also, there are reports of cracks in buildings and land subsidence, especially in and around Chamba. REUTERS Cracks on Badrinath National Highway Earlier this week, fresh cracks were reported on Badrinath National Highway. According to locals, the subsidence of the highway can be seen in the areas of Singhdhar ward on the bypass road, the motorway leading to Narsingh temple, Gorang and Marwari. Chamoli District Disaster Management Officer Nand Kishore Joshi said the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is assessing the situation. AFP He said the road is damaged due to the landslides, but the traffic here is going on as before. During the Char Dham pilgrimage that starts in April-May, heavy traffic is witnessed on the highway every year. Joshimath residents continue NTPC go back demand Meanwhile, on Republic Day, residents of Joshimath continued with their 'NTPC go back' protest. Locals have been blaming the construction of the National Thermal Power Corporation's 12-km tunnel for the 520 MW Tapovan Vishnugarh hydroelectric project for the crisis that has left them displaced. REUTERS Earlier this month, the Uttarakhand High Court had asked the state government to implement the ban on construction in Joshimath strictly. The NTPC has maintained that its tunnel has nothing to do with the landslide in Joshimath. "The tunnel of Tapovan Vishnugad Hydropower project is also being held responsible for the landslide in Joshimath town. It is clarified that the tunnel constructed by NTPC is not passing under Joshimath town," NTPC has said in a statement. AFP An initial report by the National Institute of Hydrology also found that the profiles of water samples taken from the JP colony in Joshimath and the NTPC project site differ. For more on news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News. The FTX fiasco that rattled the already struggling crypto industry last year still remains largely unresolved. The now bankrupt crypto exchange's former CEO had apologised for the collapse when it happened in November 2021, but has pleaded "not guilty" in court. And the depth of this fiasco still remains uncertain, with even the Terra Luna crash of 2022 being linked to FTX's former CEO, Sam Bankman Fried. And that's not all. FTX Owes Money To Every Major Tech Giant AFP Now it's learned that Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Twitter, and Apple are included in the list of companies the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX owes money to in the aftermath of its catastrophic collapse. A new "creditor matrix," published by FTXs lawyers to the United States Bankruptcy Court of Delaware this week, runs 115 pages long and contains thousands of names, as per a Forbes report. The extensive list shows just how many people, companies, media outlets, governments, and other entities are owed money by FTX an attempt to map the millions of customers that engaged with the exchange before its founder Sam Bankman-Fried and executives were accused of fraud and deceiving investors. Netflix, TikTok & LinkedIn Also In The List Its unclear how much money is allegedly owed to the tech companies; that information is not provided in the matrix. Other names included Netflix, LinkedIn, and Tiktok. (Lawyers for FTX previously objected to the inclusion of creditor identities, and nearly 10 million names were withheld from the new document. FTX heavily promoted itself through advertising campaigns, sponsorships, and paid partnerships. As per the report, its possible that some or all of these companies are owed ad fees, as the exchange had accounts on Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter, or cloud hosting fees in the case of Amazon. getty/bbc Also Read: 5 Crypto Firms That Filed For Bankruptcy Besides FTX Not Everyone A Creditor In The List? In a later court filing on January 26, FTX reportedly clarified that the "inclusion of a name on the Creditor Matrix does not necessarily indicate that the party is a creditor." According to a Netflix spokesperson, Emily Feingold, the company was "not aware of ever having any business relationship with FTX and do not understand why they would have listed us as a creditor." As per the report, FTX does not appear to have run Facebook ads, according to the platforms ad library. Also Read: Why Goldman Sachs Is On The Hunt To Invest Millions In Crypto For the latest and interesting financial news, keep reading Indiatimes Worth. Click here. As part of its new package of sanctions, the government of Japan has prohibited exports of radioactive materials, vaccines, medical goods and robots to Russia, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a statement on Friday. The ban also includes equipment for atomic facilities and for oil and gas prospecting. It also bars exports of various chemicals, including tear gas and fingerprint powder. Overall, the new list has over 80 entries. The measures will come into force on February 3. Japan has so far imposed several sets of sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, which target more than 900 individuals and over 50 entities. Tokyo has also frozen the assets of Otkritie Bank, Novikombank, Sovcombank, VTB, Rossiya Bank, Promsvyazbank, VEB.RF, Sberbank and Alfa-Bank as well as of about 40 Russian organizations and companies. The list of goods and technologies prohibited for export includes some 500 items. Among them are semiconductors, communications equipment, software, oil refining equipment, cargo vehicles, and processing machines. Exports of luxury items to Russia, as well as Russian gold imports, were also banned. In addition, some chemicals, such as chlorine, methanol, acetone, ethylene, and sodium hypochlorite, were prohibited for export to Russia. Moreover, Steffensen has a strong passion for social justice, dedicating years of advocating for inclusivity in the corporate workplace and making corporate Australia more accessible for those who are diversified by culture, age, gender, race, religion, or ability. She is currently a member of Women on Boards and Women of Colour Australia (WoCA) and volunteers for not-for-profit organisations, such as StandTall Australia, Wayside Chapel, and Leichhardt Uniting Church. I want to be able to get home in the evenings at a reasonable time to be with my family, sometimes, that means looking at my calendar to see if I really need to be at a certain meeting or trip. Aran Buchan joins Alliant Insurance Services in Seattle, has extensive experience providing property and casualty insurance and risk management solutions to businesses across a range of industries and disciplines. #AlliantInsurance https://t.co/cI8TsuUfa4 pic.twitter.com/7ej2ROSDkn Alliant Insurance (@AlliantIns) January 20, 2023 On Buchans appointment, Bennetsen said: Arans ability to assess risks, pinpoint potential issues, and develop viable solutions that provide maximum protection at an acceptable cost makes him a powerful partner for his clients. [He brings] a great deal of strength to our team in the Northwest. Inszone Insurance Services was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Sacramento, California. It is a full-service brokerage supplying property & casualty insurance as well as employee benefit solutions across the country. Since its establishment, Inszone has expanded to close to 40 locations across the states of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, and California through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions. Given the long history of our firm, we wanted to find a partner that could provide a path for our people and business to scale both within the state and nationally, added Tanenbaum-Harber of Florida president Fred Jove. Risk Strategies, having both a strong presence in key areas within our home state and more than 30 specialty practices nationally, presented both a great business and cultural fit. When I did have someone make the courtesy of an introduction to [WIA], and saw what the vision and planning was, I made the decision that that would be a better way to go, because I could take the reins as CEO, take the acquisitions that they had made, continue to grow, and grow it beyond where it is today, Kerr said. Cyber risk is a dynamic and fast-moving domain, which in turn requires smart, responsive action Oliver Wyman and the wider Marsh McLennan group has the breadth and depth of expertise to deliver the right solutions for our clients across both the private and public sector, said Michael Zeltkevic, the global head of capabilities at Oliver Wyman. We are delighted that Souheil will add his 30+ years of experience to helping corral the best of our firms capabilities to meet our clients most important challenges and opportunities. Gerry Boyle has taken over the position of chair of AgriSearch, the Northern Ireland Agricultural Research and Development Council, at its recent AGM. A collection of the latest news, views and analysis from the farming desk on the topic of Agribusiness and technology. Mr Boyle is the former director of Teagasc, leading the organisation from 2007 to 2021, during which time he received the bestowal of the Academic Palm by the French government in 2017, and the conferring of an honorary degree in science by University College Cork in 2019. In 2018 he was elected president of EURAGRI, the EU network for public agri-food research and innovation organisations, and from 2017-2022 he served as an ex-officio member of the Climate Change Advisory Council. New vice-chairs Meanwhile, Norman McMordie and Ian McCluggage have been appointed as joint vice-chairs of AgriSearch. Mr McMordie was brought up on a Co Down beef farm, home to the Solpoll herd of pedigree Herefords. An agriculture graduate of Queens University Belfast, he commenced his career at Richardsons Fertilisers before moving to Dalgety Agriculture in the mid-1980s. After Dalgety left Northern Ireland in 1998 he joined the Veterinary Surgeons Supply Company, a wholesale business representing all the major pharmaceutical suppliers of drugs and vaccines to Northern Ireland vets. After managing the company for 20 years, he retired as managing director in 2018, and remains a director. Meanwhile, Mr McCluggage was brought up on a Co Antrim dairy farm. He was head of branch for knowledge and technology transfer operational policy at CAFRE and previously served as head of dairy advisory for many years. He has served as president of the Ulster Grassland Society and president of the Northern Ireland Institute of Agricultural Science. In 2021 he was awarded the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' at the annual Farming Life Awards. Other appointments At the AGM, Crosby Cleland was appointed to the board. Mr Cleland is a sheep farmer from Saintfield. At the AGM the appointments of Sam Chesney and Alan McCay were confirmed, having both been co-opted onto the board since the last AGM. Mr Chesney is a beef and sheep farmer from Kircubbin. He is a previous chair of the UFU beef and lamb committee and a member of the UFU board. Mr McCay is a dairy farmer from Strabane, and is currently vice-chair of Lakeland Dairies. New AgriSearch chair Gerry Boyle said: I would like to warmly welcome Crosby, Sam, and Alan to the board of trustees and look forward to working with them. "The Northern Ireland ruminant livestock sector is facing a time of unprecedented challenges and AgriSearch is privileged to have secured the services of three such well-qualified and experienced trustees who will be invaluable in helping AgriSearch adapt to continue to meet the needs of the sector." Mr Boyle also thanked Seamus McCaffrey for chairing the organisation over the past two years. "In addition, I extend my thanks to Wilbert Mayne, who stood down from the board at the AGM, and Martyn Blair and Peter Morrow, who both stood down earlier in the year, for the valuable contribution they made to the board," Mr Boyle added. My husband and I used to joke that we could teach our three babies all sorts. Drunk on parent power, we laughed about depriving them of language altogether, save for expletives. Oh, the fun we could have with our innocent bubs! It was a joke but behind the joke lurks the reality that parents in Ireland are constitutionally entitled to determine and design their childs education. A report released this week highlights a sub-set of parents who wish to remove their children from objective relationship and sex education in school. Teachers and students welcome the inclusion of new material in the subject, but some parents do not. International human rights standards are clear on the topic; religious freedom should not entitle a parent to remove a child from objective and impartial information. But in Ireland, regardless of consequences, the parent decides. The only instance, of which Im aware, when the State attempted to usurp the primary role of the parent in education occurred in 1942 when the Minister for Education, Thomas Derrig TD, sought to amend the 1926 Act to tackle Traveller absenteeism. The bill threatened the parents of Traveller children with imprisonment if they didnt register their offspring at the local Garda station. The child would also be taken and sent to a special Traveller school. The law never passed of course because it was unconstitutional. In the case of the Traveller community, our constitution worked for the greater good. Draconian State control of education is dangerous and problematic. But what about Enoch Burke? How has he fared in this country of ours that permits parents to singlehandedly educate their children? Former Teacher Enoch Burke is driven to Wilsons Hospital School in Heathland, Co. Westmeath, by his father this morning. Mr Burke was dismissed from his position at the school last week. Photograph: Sasko Lazarov / RollingNews.ie Was baby Enoch fairly served by this State? Because its easy to forget that when Enoch Burke was born, he did not bring with him a capacity to recite the Book of Leviticus to use against the LGBTQ+ community. That capacity was absolutely educated into him by his parents, and it was reinforced by some or all of his siblings, all home-schooled by their mother Martina who runs Burke Christian School, all kept within the very narrow confines of that singular world view. This, to me at least, is the antithesis of education. Did baby Enoch ever really have a hope of becoming anything other than what he has become? In Germany, home-schooling is banned. I visited a small island off Ireland recently. German families home-schooling their children make up a considerable percentage of the dwindling population there. Its no wonder. In many other countries, home schooling is allowed but with restrictions. Elsewhere, you cant do it without teaching qualifications. Here, being a parent is seemingly enough. Of course, some parents are excellent home-schoolers. But in cases where they are not, the Irish State offers only guidance. Parents do not need a formal teaching qualification. They do not need to follow the national curriculum. They are advised to provide a certain minimum education, of which no definition is given. It is suggested only that they provide a reasonably balanced range of learning experiences, so that no one aspect of your childs learning is emphasised to the exclusion of others. Over-burdened and under-resourced, Tusla is charged with overseeing this provision. Since 2004 (Baby Enoch came too early) they have kept a register of children being home-schooled. Assessments are carried out beforehand. If this is a preliminary assessment, the authorised person does not need to visit the home or interview the child. A conversation with the parent is enough. A more comprehensive assessment is possible but not mandatory. A review might not happen for a few years. I wonder if our constitutional protection of the parent in education, in some cases, amounts to child abandonment. Because a parent passing on a singular world view without any exposure to the beliefs of others is indoctrination, not education, not even minimum education. As Michael Clifford said when discussing the Burkes in this paper, One wonders whether a little more effort should have been spent on subjects like civics, that they might have come to understand that when the world is not marching to your beat, it does not automatically follow that the world is out of step. I agree. But is the whole sorry Enoch Burke saga not a monster of this States own making? The newly proposed Planning Bill aimed at overhauling current obstacles in the system instead threatens to limit access to justice, one of Ireland's leading environmental lawyers has warned. Donnchadh Woulfe said he had grave concerns about the planning reforms announced this week which Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien claimed would make the system "efficient and effective" and "fit for purpose for a modern-day Ireland" in the midst of the housing crisis. Mr Woulfe was one of the speakers at a conference hosted by the Climate Bar Association in conjunction with the Southern Law Association that focused on the likes of water pollution, derelict buildings, and arming citizens and groups with knowledge of the law in the age of climate change mitigation. Mr Woulfe told the Irish Examiner: "There are definite concerns about the manner in which the bill seems aimed at limiting access to justice. It limits the ways planning decisions can be challenged for environmental reasons. "It places limitations on environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in terms of how long they have been around, in order to give them standing to challenge planning decisions that might affect the environment, no matter how big those effects might be. There doesnt seem to be any good reason for those restrictions." Mr Woulfe added that the proposals put the obligation more on individuals to enforce compliance with environmental law, including European law. "This could be where residential groups, for example, almost have to put forward an individual as the plaintiff, and that puts an awful lot of pressure on people. Its a stressful business going to court, its very costly. To put that pressure on a single individual rather than the residents who might be affected is going to limit the number of cases," said Mr Woulfe. Chilling effect This could have a chilling effect, a term to describe a situation where the legal rights of an individual or organisation are discouraged because of the potential burden down the road. "Its certainly worrying because it says under S250 of the bill that orders for costs wont be available, even if a local resident is successful in the case. That is very difficult if they have to fund litigation, which is enormously expensive, often involving a huge amount of work for lawyers because of the complexity of the planning law. "In relation to the Galway ring road, even as it was under the current regime, many residents simply werent in a position to fund a challenge even though it was clearly illegal. It fell upon the Friends of the Irish Environment to take that case. We cant always rely on NGOs to take these cases," said Mr Woulfe. The Galway ring road was a 600m project scrapped because An Bord Pleanala accepted that it did not consider the Climate Act of 2021 following a High Court case taken by Friends of the Irish Environment. An alleged member of a dissident republican paramilitary group has persuaded the Supreme Court to hear his appeal against an order permitting his extradition to the UK. Sean Walsh, aged 56, is wanted in the North to face charges of IRA membership stemming from a police surveillance operation on a meeting of senior paramilitaries in Omagh, Co Tyrone, in July 2020. Fighting the extradition request, Mr Walsh submitted to the Supreme Court that he faces a real risk of being subjected to covert surveillance of his legal consultations and phone calls while detained in Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim. This, he argued, would be a breach of his rights, including his constitutional rights under Article 38, which requires criminal trials to be conducted in accordance with the law. He also contends his rights would be breached, as legislation providing that people convicted of terrorism offences are not permitted release under licence at the half-way point of their sentence was found to be incompatible with Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) but nevertheless remains in force. The High Court rejected Mr Walshs submission that recent British government actions cause a concern that the UK government will not respect their commitments to the ECHR. In resisting the application for a direct appeal to the Supreme Court, Ireland's Minister for Justice contended that Article 7 was not engaged in this case. The lawfulness of the legislation governing terrorism offences is to be examined by the UK Supreme Court, which is more appropriately placed to consider the matter than the Irish Supreme Court, the minister added. Public importance A Supreme Court panel, comprising Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne, Ms Justice Marie Baker, and Mr Justice Brian Murray, found a matter of general public importance arises in the appeal. The court granted leave to appeal on the issue of whether it would be a breach of Article 38 of the Constitution for Mr Walsh to be sent to Northern Ireland to face charges over 2021 events in circumstances where the law governing sentence remission has changed in a way that potentially adversely affects his interests. It will also consider the question arising under Article 7 of the ECHR. Mr Walsh, of Ballinlough, Douglas, Cork, faces four charges including that he was an IRA member, that he was involved in directing IRA activities, and that he was involved in a conspiracy to direct a terrorist organisation. DELOITTE LEADERSHIP SERIES: Alan Holland, founder & CEO of Keelvar Achieving greater efficiencies with computer science and AI Keelvar has become a company with an enviable international recognition after only a decade in business. Utilising artificial intelligence and data science to provide intelligent automation solutions for more effective and efficient procurement decisions, its client list includes many multinational brands such as Coca-Cola, Siemens, Associated British Foods, Tesco and Nestle. Our global customers must constantly make smart decisions about supplier choices that weigh many cost and non-cost factors, Alan explains. Keelvar brings intelligent automation to help strategic sourcing teams be significantly more effective in making supplier decisions, while driving more savings and reducing risk to their business. Beyond its technology, the company is focused on attaining a high standard of customer service and driven to be agile, responsive and supportive in all aspects of the business. What was becoming evident even ten years ago was how much commerce was moving to the internet, which was producing opportunities and challenges. If you are a large company like Siemens, Nestle, Coca-Cola or Amazon, you have supply chains with thousands of suppliers and hundreds of thousands of products, and how do you negotiate with them at scale? And that, in essence, is the challenge we help our customers deal with how to find efficiencies in markets that are becoming more and more complex. The key is having computational systems capable of embracing this complexity and simplifying these big complex jigsaw puzzles via computer science and AI. If you want to be good at managing and negotiating with suppliers, youve got to have advanced systems and that is why we work with some of the biggest companies in the world. Keelvar has raised over 40 million from investors since 2020, with 24 million raised last May, as the company targets the U.S. market with its offering to major conglomerates of rich information to help avoid waste and reduce costs. We have a relatively low profile locally, but if you look at many brands with immediate international recognition such as Mercedes Benz, Caterpillar, Samsung, Microsoft and Volvo effectively a long list of the worlds top companies who choose to work with us when they are designing their supply chains. The companys current 115 employees are a long way from the start-up situation a decade ago of just two. Things certainly were not easy back then, and there wasnt a lot of capital floating around. It was a tough slog in the early days, sourcing projects and making things flow successfully from end to end. We kept to a tight team for the first five years, building the product for a small number of customers who recognised what we were good at. An entrepreneurial itch in need of scratching John, who recently returned to Deloitte after a year in industry, provides audit and advisory services to clients across a variety of industries including pharmaceutical, healthcare, education and manufacturing. John also experienced a mid-life career change, having retired from professional rugby following a decade playing for Munster and Ireland, and initiating a new career in accountancy in 2008. John Kelly was recently appointed a partner in Deloitte Ireland's audit and assurance practice, and is based in their Cork office. He wondered how challenging it was for Alan to make a similar transition from the relative peace of academia to taking Keelvar into the high-risk environment of international business. It was an itch I needed to scratch and helped by the fact that companies who were familiar with our work were knocking on our door asking for solutions to their problems. Allied to that was the fact that I had grown up in an entrepreneurial family. His father left a position with Carbery Milk Products to set up his own chemical business while Alan was still in school, allowing him a front-row seat to the trials and triumphs of private enterprise. All of us in the family pitched in and played a part, whether it was designing a logo, acting as receptionist or helping with the accounts. There was no such thing as venture capital available in the 1980s, we did whatever it took to make it work. Having gotten his first computer in his early teens, an early aptitude for mathematics brought him to third level computer science and a PhD at UCCs new AI lab, which led in turn to seven years lecturing there. His interest in the fields of artificial intelligence and e-commerce eventually prompted the formation of Keelvar itself inspired by the Irish word ciallmhar translating as sensible. I was following in my fathers footsteps in some ways by starting up Keelvar. We did lack experience but managed to successfully conclude a number of early deals with companies like Logitech, Associated British Foods and Siemens that were strong enough to give our then small team security to keep going. There was a mutual trust among us, we knew each others respective strengths, we were all fully committed and knew we could deliver. We never lost any of that core team, we were all very united and strong. A steady and assured pace of growth characterised Keelvar in the early years, we were content to develop in third or fourth gear while other companies in fifth gear sometimes had to reverse, he recalled. In the same way he had experienced success through every individual pulling their weight in his family firm, Alan maintained a grounded approach in his management style: We look for people who want to solve problems, not hero types who come in all guns blazing. We prefer to trust people to do the job and not be micromanaged. I like to hire people who know more about a subject than I do. Leadership by transparency and simplicity Deal by deal, Keelvars growth continued, as the addition of new clients saw the companys employee numbers increase accordingly. Gathering speed and scale, we were getting stronger and stronger. Transparency was key. Customers looked at us, saw the products potential and the brains behind it. Everything we built would benefit all customers. The simplicity of that strategy encouraged the buy-in to Keelvar. And it is a simple strategy that keeps our people united. Having overly complex arrangements doesnt engineer trust effectively whereas having simple rules of thumb does. Given the companys current growth to a workforce of 115, and with further increases to come, John wondered how Alans leadership style has changed to stay in tune with expanding facilities and personnel numbers. Your business isnt scaling properly if youre still trying to do the things you did when the employee numbers were 15 and under. What you need is your leadership team replicating the same approach, so I spend a lot of time with that team reinforcing our ways of working. And while you do need to formalise processes that in the past were informal, you need to do it while minimising those formalities. In its current growth phase, Keelvar leadership is keeping a keen eye to future opportunities, while maintaining those previous strategies which provided the bedrock of its success. Its about keeping what we had when we were smaller and growing it as we move forward. Staying focused on whats ahead is key, but always remembering the good things that got us here. Keelvar was recently ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards 2022. As one of Irelands leading technology award programmes, the initiative ranks the 50 fastest growing technology companies across the island of Ireland. This year marks 23 years of the programme celebrating innovation and entrepreneurship in Irelands indigenous technology sector. You can learn more about the programme and express interest in applying at www.fast50.ie. Five fired Memphis police officers have been charged with murder and other crimes over the death of a black driver three days after a traffic stop. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the death of Tyre Nichols, they are all responsible. The officers, who are all black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Video of the January 7 traffic stop will be released to the public sometime on Friday evening, Mr Mulroy said. Top row from left: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Emmitt Martin III; Bottom row from left: Desmond Mills, Jr and Justin Smith (Shelby County Sheriffs Office/AP) The victims family and their lawyers said the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles driver Rodney King. His family urged supporters to protest peacefully. Mr Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, told The Associated Press by phone that he and his wife, RowVaughn Wells, who is Mr Nichols mother, discussed the second-degree murder charges and are fine with it. They had sought first-degree murder charges. Theres other charges, so Im all right with that, he said. Asked about the kidnapping charges, the district attorney said: If it was a legal detention to begin with, it certainly became illegal at a certain point and was an unlawful detention. Tyre Nichols stepfather Rodney Wells, right, holds a photo of Mr Nichols in the hospital after his arrest (Jordan James/WREG/AP) David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said he saw the video and found it absolutely appalling. Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing. This was wrong. This was criminal, Mr Rausch said during the news conference. Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody. Mr Martins lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mr Mills lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. Lawyers for Mr Smith, Mr Bean and Mr Haley could not be reached. RowVaughn Wells with Tyre Nicholss stepfather Rodney Wells (Gerald Herbert/AP) No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die, Mr Massey said. Both lawyers said they had not seen the video. We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is, Mr Ballin said. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Later on Thursday, Mr Nichols mother and stepfather were joined by several dozen supporters on a cold night for a candlelight vigil and prayer service at a Memphis skate park. Mr Nichols, who had a four-year-old son, was an avid skateboarder. His mother thanked those who attended, then added that her family is grief stricken. Kenyana Dixon tearfully addresses a crowd gathered during a rally for her brother Tyre Nichols at the National Civil Rights Museum (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian/AP) She warned supporters of the horrific nature of the video set to be released on Friday, but she pleaded with supporters to protest in peace. I dont want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because thats not what my son stood for, she said. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. You can get your point across but we dont need to tear up our cities, people, because we do have to live in them. The lawyers for Mr Nichols family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, issued a statement saying that Mr Nichols lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop. Rev Andre E Johnson, of the Gifts of Life Ministries, preaches at a candlelight vigil for Tyre Nichols (Gerald Herbert/AP) At the White House, President Joe Biden said the Nichols family and the city of Memphis deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation. Public trust is the foundation of public safety, and there are still too many places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken, Mr Biden said in a statement. The Memphis police chief has called the officers actions that night heinous, reckless and inhumane. This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual, Memphis Police Director Cerelyn CJ Davis said in a video statement released late on Wednesday on social media. Ms Davis said the five officers found to be directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr Nichols, were fired last week, but other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. Burma Myanmar Juntas New Electoral Law Condemned as Death Knell for Political Parties USDP members and supporters rally in Naypyitaw during a campaign ahead of the 2020 general election. / The Irrawaddy The Myanmar military regimes promulgation of a new Political Parties Registration Law has been condemned by parties and political observers as it effectively dissolves existing political parties in favor of the militarys proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). The regime is planning to hold a poll later this year after seizing power from the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government in 2021. The new law, announced on Thursday, requires political parties to reregister within 60 days or face dissolution. Political parties contesting at the Union level must recruit at least 100,000 members within 90 days of their registration being approved, and must open offices in at least 150 of the countrys 330 townships within six months, the new law states. It also requires them to deposit 100 million kyats (about US$35,000 at the unofficial rate) with a state-owned bank. Parties that are unable to meet these new requirements are not eligible to register. Political parties say the new law was designed in favor of the military-backed USDP, and that it is utterly impossible for other parties to rally 100,000 members within three months given the current political situation. Under the new law, only the USDP and the National League for Democracy (NLD) have the resources and capacity to run at the Union level. The NLD has rejected the juntas proposed poll and refuses to work with the junta-appointed Union Election Commission, saying it is illegal, like the regime itself. The new law appears to be an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, as the NLD will be automatically dissolved if it fails to reregister. Political parties contesting in a single region or state are required to rally at least 1,000 members within three months. The regime has relaxed the rules for them because they dont pose a threat to the USDP in the nationwide election, suggested observers. The juntas planned election has been condemned locally and internationally as a sham. There are currently 91 registered political parties, and the new law will effectively dissolve some of them, said political observers. Burma Sagaing Resistance Groups Target Myanmar Junta Militias Regime soldiers train Pyu Saw Htee recruits in Sagaing in 2022. Resistance groups in Sagaing Region have attacked the junta-allied Pyu Saw Htee militia, including a failed assassination attempt on a monk who organized pro-regime forces. Resistance forces said they killed at least 34 Pyu Saw Htee members. On Saturday, Taze Revolution Force (TRF) and other groups attempted to assassinate U Wah Thawa, a monk in Kantbula who led the Pyu Saw Htee in the township. The resistance groups attacked his vehicle with a remote-controlled bomb between Hmaw Taw to Taw Ka Shat villages. The TRF said the monk was in a different vehicle. A militia member was injured in the attack. Resistance groups in Shwebo Township attacked a Pyu Saw Htee base in Tal Thee Taw village on Sunday. Resistance groups, including Shwebo Peoples Defense Force (PDF), the Northern Brotherhood Alliance Squad and Flying Dragon Force, were involved. The Pyu Saw Htee base in Tal Thee Taw village was led by a retired soldier and a militia leader, Maung San. We seized the camp, killed 20 Pyu Saw Htee members and injured 15, said Bo Kyar Yine of Shwebo PDF. The resistance fighters said they retreated in the evening without suffering any casualties. The Irrawaddy could not independently verify the reports. On Monday resistance troops in Pale Township attacked a Pyu Saw Htee base in Zee Pyu Kone village and killed at least four militia members, according to the Yoma Yarzar resistance group. On Wednesday Shwebo PDF attacked a Pyu Saw Htee base in Myin See village in the township, which was led by an ex-soldier, Htay Aung Oo. There were more than 30 militia members in the village and the resistance groups said at least 10 were killed. Two of our members were injured and we killed at least 10 and detained others, said Bo Kyar Yine. Myanmars Crisis & the World Australia Deeply Concerned Over Myanmar Junta Summons for Sean Turnell Sean Turnell, second from right, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong in December. / Ha Vu Facebook The Australian government said it is deeply concerned after the Myanmar junta revoked a pardon for economist Sean Turnell and summoned him to appear before a court for criticizing the regime. The junta released the Australian economist in November last year after jailing him for 650 days following the coup. He was convicted of violating the State Secrets Act after serving as economic adviser to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) government was ousted by the February 2021 military coup. He was granted amnesty in consideration of bilateral relations and on humanitarian grounds, the regime said at the time of his release. However, the pardon was revoked in December after Turnell criticized the junta in media interviews and social media posts. It is a tragic and terrible thing that the nicest people I have encountered anywhere are ruled over by such knaves and fools, the economist wrote on Facebook soon after his release. A leaked internal junta announcement at the time said Turnell would have to serve the remainder of his sentence plus any new jail time should he commit another offense for making false statements about Myanmar on social media and in media interviews while on probation. The revocation of the pardon was followed by the court summons. Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement that the government is deeply concerned that Myanmar authorities have annulled Professor Turnells amnesty and issued a subpoena for him to appear in a Myanmar court. Turnell was not available for comment on Friday. He told The Irrawaddy in December that he would not comment further on the revocation for fear of repercussions to friends and colleagues in Myanmar. When time is right, I will respond very fully. Its a real dilemma this one!! he added. Myanmars Crisis & the World Norwegian Fund Divests From Chinese, Indian Firms With Junta Ties Coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing at an aircraft-commissioning event. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, the worlds largest, announced it has excluded two companies from China and India from its portfolio for selling weapons to the Myanmar junta. The fund said it had divested from AviChina Industry & Technology and Bharat Electronics due to the unacceptable risk that the companies are selling weapons to a state that uses these weapons in ways that constitute serious and systematic breaches of the international rules on the conduct of hostilities. The background for the decision is sales of light airplanes and other military material respectively to the military in Myanmar, said Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the fund, adding that the decision was made based on recommendations issued by the funds Council on Ethics. The council said that AviChina, a Chinese company that engages in the development and sale of aircraft and aviation products, delivered several K-8 light combat aircraft to the Myanmar military in December 2021. Bharat Electronics, an Indian producer of aviation and defense electronics, delivered a remote-controlled weapons station to the Myanmar military in July 2021, it said. The fund, valued at 13.2 trillion kroner (US$1.3 trillion) on Wednesday, owned 0.37 percent of the Chinese group and 0.32 percent of the Indian company at the end of 2021. The fund, in which the Norwegian states oil revenues are placed, is one of the biggest investors in the world with stakes in more than 9,000 companies. The fund in December last year cut ties with Thai oil company PTT and its subsidiary PTTOR for having probable links to the Myanmar junta. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military staged a coup in February 2021, with swathes of the country engulfed by fighting. More than 2,890 people have been killed by the juntas forces since the coup. Rights groups say this includes massacres, mass extrajudicial killings, torturing prisoners to death, arson attacks and air strikes on civilians. War Against the Junta Karen Resistance Forces Hail Resounding Victory Over Myanmar Junta Troops Lion Battalion Commando troops after the six days of clashes in Kawkareik Township. / Lion Battalion Commando. Karen rebel groups claim Myanmar junta forces suffered heavy losses and were driven from villages over seven days in Kawkareik Township, Karen State. Around 150 regime troops raided several villages near the town of Kyondoe and approximately 90 of them were killed and 50 injured while three resistance fighters had died, the Lion Battalion Commando, which took part in the fighting, said on Thursday. The Irrawaddy could not independently verify the reports. The two armed wings of the Karen National Union (KNU), the Karen National Liberation Army and Karen National Defense Organization, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army and various resistance groups attacked the regime forces since January 20. Junta forces fired more than 200 shells and MI-35 helicopters and fighter jets conducted more than 10 airstrikes, according to the Lion Battalion. Thousands of residents have fled Kann Ni, Mi Galon, Nyaung Yeik Thar and Kaw Bein villages and numerous houses were destroyed. On Monday, the Payathonzu Guerrilla Force raided and burned down the junta-run general administration department and other offices in the town of Payathonzu on the Thai border in Kyainseikgyi Township, Karen State. On Tuesday, the Lion Battalion said it ambushed junta reinforcements heading from Kyainseikgyi to Payathonzu. Karen rebels have said they would escalate attacks this month in Karen and Mon states and Tanintharyi and Bago regions. The KNUs spokesman Padoh Saw Taw Nee last week told The Irrawaddy that resistance forces would expand their attacks beyond the groups territory. Other ethnic minority groups and Myanmars civilian National Unity Government also vowed in their New Years messages to uproot the regime during 2023. War Against the Junta KIA Raids Myanmar Junta Outposts in Jade-Mining Hub The Kachin Independence Army. / The Irrawaddy The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and resistance allies attacked four junta outposts on Wednesday and Thursday in the jade-mining hub of Hpakant in Kachin State. Junta troops and Shanni Nationalities Army (SNA) allies were reportedly deployed in those outposts. KIA-led resistance forces overran and torched a police outpost at a Buddhist monastery in Hpakant on Wednesday evening, a town resident told The Irrawaddy. The police outpost had been there a long time. I heard gunfire. Junta troops withdrew and the outpost was torched. I dont know about casualties, she said. Resistance forces attacked a junta and SNA outpost in a pre-dawn raid on Thursday near Sel Zin village in Hpakant Township. Weapons and food were seized, according to a KIA source. The attack took place in the early morning. The attackers probably did not want to attract air attacks. I dont know about casualties, said the source. The KIA also attacked a hilltop outpost and a position in Karmine town in the east of the township on Thursday morning, according to KIA sources. Junta forces reportedly suffered casualties. The Irrawaddy could not independently confirm those reports. There were media reports that three other junta and SNA outposts were seized near Sel Zin village. The KIA and regime have been fighting to control the lucrative Hpakant jade mines. Several unsolved murders have occurred in the town since the 2021 coup, said a Hpakant resident. Junta troops shot dead two men outside a restaurant in Lone Khin village on January 11, according to residents. A resident said: There have been skirmishes everywhere across Hpakant. Gunfights and murders take place almost every day. This month seems worse. We feel increasingly unsafe. Unidentified bodies are dumped by the roads with bullet wounds. KIA Brigade 9 is based in Hpakant. At least 60 KIA members and civilians were killed in October when junta aircraft bombed a Hpakant Township music concert to mark the 62nd anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization. The KIA has vowed to retaliate. War Against the Junta Over 100 Myanmar Junta Forces Killed in Six Days of Resistance Attacks Resistance forces after forcing junta troops from villages in Kawkareik Township on Thursday / Lion Battalion Commando At least 125 Myanmar junta forces including pro-regime Pyu Saw Htee militia members were reportedly killed in the last six days as Peoples Defense Forces (PDFs) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) stepped up their attacks on regime targets across the country. In one case, Karen rebel groups and allied resistance forces heavily clashed with regime forces in Kawkareik Township, Karen State for six days. Incidents were reported in Karen, Kachin, Shan and Chin states and Sagaing, Magwe, Mandalay and Bago regions. The Irrawaddy has rounded up the following reports of significant attacks from PDFs and EAOs. Some military casualties could not be independently verified. 90 junta troops killed in six days of intense clashes in Karen At least 90 regime forces were killed and 50 others injured during six days of intense clashes with combined ethnic Karen and resistance forces in Kawkareik Township, Karen State, claimed the resistance group Lion Battalion Commando, which took part in the clashes. Clashes started on Jan. 20 when the resistance forces attacked a military detachment of 150 troops invading villages near the town of Kyondoe. In the clashes, two Karen National Union armed wingsthe Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Karen National Defense Organization (KNDO)and another Karen army, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), joined the resistance groups attacking regime forces. During the clashes, junta artillery units nearby used more than 200 artillery rounds to shell the villages while helicopter gunships and fighter jets conducted more than 10 air strikes. Civilian buildings in the villages were burned down by the junta shelling. On Thursday, regime forces retreated from the area. In the clashes, three resistance fighters were also killed, said Lion Battalion Commando. Three junta checkpoints raided, burned down in Kachin The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and allied PDF forces raided and burned down three military checkpoints of junta forces and militia group the Shanni National Army in Hpakant Township, Kachin State on Wednesday and Thursday, according to local residents. The KIA also attacked a military base and a strategic junta outpost on a mountain in the east of Hpakant on Thursday morning. However, casualties on both sides were unknown. Six regime forces killed in PDF ambush in Mandalay Local PDF group 27 Revolution Force claimed it and another resistance group killed two junta soldiers and four policemen as they used a cluster of seven land mines to ambush regime forces on five motorbikes on a road in Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region on Wednesday night. Bodies of regime forces were transported in an ambulance, the PDF group said. Three regime forces killed by PDF land mines in Magwe Two junta soldiers and a pro-regime Pyu Saw Htee militia member were killed and five others injured in Myaing Township, Magwe Region on Thursday when two PDF groups used seven landmines to ambush an advance unit of 15 regime forces. The regime forces were ambushed while they were heading to Thaegyi Village from an oil drilling site in the township. After the ambush, regime forces burned down two houses nearby. Resistance forces continued to conduct drone strikes on 50 regime forces stationed at the monastery in Thaegyi Village. Regime forces opened fire at random. Four junta troops killed in PDF drone strike in Sagaing A PDF drone drops a bomb on regime targets in Wetlet Township on Wednesday. / NDRF Local resistance group Ngwe Dwin Revolution Forces claimed to have killed four regime forces in Wetlet Township, Sagaing Region on Wednesday when it used a drone to drop a bomb on a military detachment of 60 troops. The regime forces were bombed while resting at a home on farmland. Five regime forces killed in PDF shelling in Sagaing At least five junta troops were killed in Khin-U Township, Sagaing Region on Wednesday when Khin U Special Force Organization used 18 improvised mortar rounds to shell two regime camps. There were no resistance casualties in the operations. Military vehicle ambushed with land mines in Sagaing At least two regime soldiers were killed in Sagaing Township, Sagaing Region on Thursday when three PDF groups used six land mines to ambush a military vehicle, said Zero Guerrilla Force, which joined the attack. The military vehicle was ambushed between two villages on the Monywa-Sagaing road while returning to its base after removing land mines planted by the PDF groups. Ten pro-regime militia members killed in PDF raids in Sagaing At least 10 pro-regime Pyu Saw Htee militia members were killed and some others arrested in Shwebo Township, Sagaing Region on Wednesday night when local combined PDF groups raided the pro-regime village of Myinsee, said Shwebo Local PDF. All PDF forces retreated from the raid when junta reinforcements in two vehicles arrived at the village. Regime camps raided in southern Shan Battalion 3 of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) claimed it and Mobye People Defense Forces jointly conducted raids on two military camps in the town of Mobye in Pekon Township, southern Shan State on Tuesday. They raided two military camps in the town at the same time on Tuesday night. Many regime forces are thought to have been killed or injured, the resistance group said. There were no resistance casualties. Two junta troops killed in Chin state capital Two regime forces were killed and a firearm seized in Chin States capital Hakha on Wednesday when Chinland Defense Force-Hakha ambushed regime forces sending food boxes to junta sentries in the town, according to local media citing a statement issued by the resistance group in the Chin language. Three alleged junta informants assassinated in Bago Bago Region PDF claimed its member PDF groups assassinated three pro-regime Pyu Saw Htee militia members in Phyu and Nyaung Lay Pin townships in Bago Region on Wednesday. Phyu-PDF group killed pro-regime militia member Myo Zaw Oo, 25, at his brothers house in Satt Kone Village in Phyu Township on Wednesday evening. The victims brother is also a junta-appointed village administrator. The victim was providing financial support to regime forces by running gambling businesses, said Bago Region PDF. On the same day, Nyaung Lay Pin PDF group killed pro-regime militia member and criminal Ko Min Aung and his wife Ma Ei Mon in Nyaung Lay Pin Township while they were returning home from gambling. The couple were informants and supplied regime forces in the township with the proceeds of their gambling businesses. The US has taken down the Hive ransomware group that attacks Windows, the Department of Justice claims, adding that the campaign to effect this had been going on since July last year. In an announcement on Thursday, the DoJ said Hive had targeted more than 1500 victims in 80 countries, with hospitals, school districts, financial firms and critical infrastructure among those attacked. The servers of the ransomware gang, which were seized as part of the operation, were hosted in Los Angeles, according to the DoJ chargesheet. The DoJ said the FBI had penetrated the gang's networks, stolen decryption keys and provided them to victims, saving them some US$130 million (A$182.73 million) in potential ransom payments. It said more than 300 decryption keys had been provided to victims who were under attack and an additional 1000 decryption keys were offered to previous Hive victims. The servers had been taken down in in co-ordination with German law enforcement (the German Federal Criminal Police and Reutlingen Police Headquarters-CID Esslingen) and the Netherlands National High Tech Crime Unit. Also taken down were websites that Hive used to communicate with its members. US Attorney-General Merrick Garland said in a statement: "...the Justice Department dismantled an international ransomware network responsible for extorting and attempting to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from victims in the US and around the world. Cyber crime is a constantly evolving threat. But as I have said before, the Justice Department will spare no resource to identify and bring to justice, anyone, anywhere, who targets the US with a ransomware attack. "We will continue to work both to prevent these attacks and to provide support to victims who have been targeted. And together with our international partners, we will continue to disrupt the criminal networks that deploy these attacks." Deputy Attorney-General Lisa Monaco said: The DoJs disruption of the Hive ransomware group should speak as clearly to victims of cyber crime as it does to perpetrators. In a 21st century cyber stakeout, our investigative team turned the tables on Hive, swiping their decryption keys, passing them to victims, and ultimately averting more than US$130 million dollars in ransomware payments. "We will continue to strike back against cyber crime using any means possible and place victims at the centre of our efforts to mitigate the cyber threat. Contacted for comment, ransomware threat researcher Brett Callow, of the security firm Emsisoft, said: "While the people behind Hive will very likely be back with a new ransomware operation, the disruption is nonetheless significant. "Its prevented millions of bucks from falling into the criminals hands and has hopefully enabled law enforcement to collect a trove of intel that can be used to disrupt other areas of the ecosystem. "Ransomware used to be a safe bet. Criminals could make lots of money and had a nearzero chance of ever being prosecuted. Thats starting to change. Theres now less reward and more risk in the risk-reward ratio." Satnam Narang, a senior staff research engineer at security firm Tenable, said the US actions were an unprecedented step in the fight against ransomware, which had steadily remained the biggest threat facing most organisations today. "While this may signal the end of the Hive ransomware group, its members and affiliates remain a threat. If theres anything weve learned after past disruptive actions against ransomware groups, it's that other groups will rise to fill the void left behind," he said. Affiliates, which are typically responsible for conducting most of these attacks, can easily pivot to other affiliate programs of groups that remain operational and ransomware group members can also take their knowledge to these groups. "One of the key ways ransomware groups gain attention and notoriety is by publishing their successful attacks on data leak sites on the dark web. It wouldnt surprise me if ransomware groups see the threat posed by maintaining these sites and stop publicly listing these attacks in an attempt to stay under the radar. Container port company Tianjin Port Group and Chinese multinational corporation Huawei are collaborating to build a digital twin of the Port of Tianjin to make it more automated and intelligent, both companies announced. Tianjin Port Group vice president Yang Jiemin explained that this plan consists of three parts: construction of automated terminals, upgrading traditional terminals, ang digital transformation. Part of the new solution is combining 5G and L4 autonomous driving technologies, powering the Section C Terminal in the Beijiang Port Area of the Port of Tianjin, which has been stably operating over since it entered commercial operations in October 2021. Container cranes operate automatically and intelligent robots of the horizontal transportation system frequently come and go. Remotely controlled quay cranes lift loaded containers from cargo ships and are transferred onto the intelligent robots to be transported. Supported by the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, these robots are guided to automatic locking/unlocking stations to unlock containers and then to the container yard along optimal driving routes that are calculated in real time. According to Yang, the terminals 5G and L4 have provided a model for upgrading and transforming existing traditional container terminals worldwide. "These innovations being used at the Port of Tianjin are having a huge impact on the port industry, creating new value for ports by improving operating environments, driving green and low-carbon development, and increasing operational efficiency. We believe that these practices will promote the intelligent development of the global port industry," said Yang. Section C Terminal of the Port of Tianjin has now been operating stably for over one year. This proves that 5G and L4 autonomous driving have already been successfully adopted by industries in China, and are creating true commercial and social value, said Huawei chief technology officer smart road waterway and port BU Yue Kun. As a major modern port, the Port of Tianjin boasts 300,000-ton-class terminals with a channel depth of 22 metres. It has 213 berths of various types. In 2022, its container throughput exceeded 21 million TEUs, ranking among the top 10 ports worldwide. GUEST OPINION: Despite the recent wave of high-profile cyberattacks targeting businesses, schools also need to ensure that they are constantly aware of the risks they face. The State of Cyber Resilience in Australia 2022 survey of Australian workers found the majority of employees do not understand the threats that can exist within emails and could unwittingly cause significant damage and losses to their institutions. The survey results are based on responses from more than 500 staff in Australian organisations of at least 50 employees. Of those surveyed, 60% said they believed clicking on links contained in emails was safe while more than half (52%) admitted they would click on a link if the email appeared to come from a sender that they trusted. The results are also a wake-up call for schools and show there is a pressing need for more cybersecurity awareness training. Staff need to understand the dangers that can be contained within emails and the steps that should be taken to minimise risks. The need for training has been made even more acute with the shift to hybrid working patterns in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. When working from home, teaching staff are no longer protected by network firewalls and other measures and are thus more susceptible to attacks. Concerningly, more than half (51%) of survey respondents admitted they had suffered a cybersecurity breach during the past 12 months with a further 16% saying this had occurred within the past year. Whats phishing all about? Of the attacks that can be mounted via email, phishing remains the most dominant type being experienced by Australian organisations. The increasing sophistication of cybercriminals means phishing emails can be very difficult to distinguish from legitimate messages. Some can entice users to click on links and divulge personal information. Others come with attachments containing malicious code. Once opened, this code can rapidly infest the users device and then spread to wider corporate systems. Of the survey respondents who admitted to have clicked on a malicious link within an email, almost half (48%) said they realised their mistake when they found themselves redirected to a suspicious website or service that requested details from them. More encouragingly, 41% said the link was flagged as malicious by their organisations IT systems while a further 21% said a red flag was raised by their web browser. Less than a quarter (20%) said they became aware only after their device had become infected by malware or ransomware. Aim for a top grade in training When mapping out their staff training schedules for the coming year, the survey highlights the need for schools to allocate more time and resources to cybersecurity awareness. The survey found 92% of employees believe cybersecurity is either very or extremely important, however more than one in three (37%) said they had not received training in any aspect of the topic. Of those that had received training, 42% said it had been focused on phishing attacks while email security was nominated by 40% of respondents. This was followed by malware (29%) and ransomware (23%). Asked to reveal the number of hours they had spent in cybersecurity awareness training during the past year, 43% admitted it had either been none at all or less than one hour. A further 32% of respondents said they had received between one and three hours with just 9% receiving four and five hours. When it comes to sharing the results of cybersecurity awareness training with other staff, 43% of those surveyed said this did occur. A further 34% said this didnt happen while 23% were unsure. Experience shows that sharing results can be a good way to reinforce staff awareness and understanding of the scale of the shared security challenge faced by everyone. It also reinforces the message that a school is taking the challenge seriously and undertaking steps to ensure that overall security standards are being raised. By increasing the focus on cybersecurity training, school management teams can ensure their institutions are better placed to avoid potentially damaging attacks. The result will be greater awareness among staff and a more secure workplace. Were all part of the cyber risk ecosystem Interestingly, the survey also revealed that senior employees are more likely to cause security issues than more junior members. This is because a higher proportion of the former group admitted they circumvent security controls as part of their day-to-day activity. When asked whether they use unauthorised third-party software or cloud services, more than half (52%) of senior workers confirmed this was the case compared with an average of 44% across all survey respondents. The gap was even more stark when it came to carrying out computer system updates where 63% of senior employees admitted they had done this. This compared to 32% of all respondents. These results are particularly surprising considering the fact that the survey found 66% of senior staff considered they were extremely aware of the importance of cybersecurity compared with the survey average of 53%. Its clear that more managers need to lead by example. The risk for schools of experiencing a significant cyberattack will continue to climb in coming months. Taking the time now to improve both teacher and student awareness can help to reduce the likelihood of a damaging event occurring. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. MBABANE Following the spate of arson attacks, which targeted some of the OK Foods stores, the outlet has shown resilience by opening its ninth branch at Msunduza, Mbabane. The branches include OK Foods at Checkers, Msunduza, Ezulwini, Luyengo, Kwaluseni, Mhlaleni, Logoba, Manzini and Ngwane Park. Lincoln Motsa, who is the franchise Director in the country, stated that the torching of their properties at the height of the unrest had scared the management as they least expected such. Motsa said he did not think emaSwati could let down the businesses that helped them. However, he said they picked themselves up to focus on the business strategy. This strategy, he said, was to take their business out of the city centres to occupy the peri-urban and semi-urban areas. Motsa said they targeted densely populated areas, hence Msunduza was considered a suitable place. We are saying, let us bring the services to the people. I & D Investment will rent out the shopping complex premises to OK Foods. A representative of I&D, Eddie Abner, promised that they would render their best support to the business and trusted that the community would also support it. Furthermore, he said they were pleased that when hiring, the store considered the residents of the area as priority. Abner assured that the location was safe and that the people of Msunduza were the ones who saw the need for the business to come to the area. Meanwhile, OK Foods Divisional Operations Manager Bevan Pfiel said the business was a wonderful adventure for the community as the service offered was different. Country General Manager Wilhelm Dekoker stated that the shop belonged to the community. SITEKI Siphofaneni Member of Parliament (MP) Nomalungelo LaZwide Simelane and her children have been taken to a safe place following warnings that she was in a purported hit list. News about the existence of the hit list started circulating on social media platforms after the shooting and killing of Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Maseko. LaZwides husband and former Siphofaneni MP Mduduzi Gawuzela Simelane, confirmed that his wife had to find an alternative place of safety as a precautionary measure. When asked if she had left the country and if her parliamentary duties would not be affected, Gawuzela said his wife was in Eswatini, hence she would perform all her Parliament duties accordingly. We have crossed this bridge before and we shall cross it once again by Gods grace. For a full four months, before petition deliveries, I lived with threats of assassination and God carried me and my family through. Once again, the God who carried us through during that time shall carry us through even now, he said. Threatening When further asked if his wife knew the people who had the hit list and if they had called or sent threatening messages to her, Gawuzela did not elaborate but insisted that the MP would report the threats in Parliament when the time was right. However, he was doubtful if such an action would help. When further asked if his wife had reported the threats to the police, he did not respond. Addressing the late Masekos family yesterday, as members of the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO) mourned with the family at KaLuhleko in Bhunya, the Siphofaneni MP called for unity among emaSwati. LaZwide urged the nation to pray for peace in the country and went on to state that the killings happening in the kingdom were exacerbated by the fact that people were calling for democratic reforms and dialogue. She said she heard that her name was on the now famous hit list. However, she said she would not go into hiding after the threatening news. She urged the countrys authorities to heed the voice of the masses and convene the national dialogue. She said: It appears that our government has been entrusted to hear the people and also resolve the current impasse. As an MP, I was elected at a time when emaSwati wanted to be heard and their wishes of how they wanted to be governed. As I am standing here, I am standing on blood spilt for speaking what they want. We must not fear death as emaSwati. I urge the nation to stand firm and resolute as we need to unite and be together. We wont retreat, but continue to fight as one. We are not turning back, even if being threatened with death, we wont stop as more people died for voicing out what they want, she said. LaZwide also expressed belief that Masekos death was politically motivated. Thulani would be alive if he wasnt talking politics. I know that I am next on the list that is being held by someone, but I will not be afraid, nor run away. It is better to die for the purpose that God called you for. Let us not be afraid as all of us must unite at this time, she concluded. When asked if she knew those who were threatening her, she did not respond. Money Meanwhile, LaZwide dismissed talks that the Parliament seat was meant for the Simelane family as there was money involved. Siphofaneni Indvuna Yenkhundla Mzimela Simelane said he was not aware that LaZwide was taken into a safe place after safety concerns. I am not aware and I have tried to call her but I was not successful (in getting through to her), the indvuna said. The House of Assembly Speaker, Petros Mavimbela, said the matter had not been reported to his office. A close source said LaZwide and her children were taken to the safe place after the threatening news started circulating on social media platforms. I think the death of Thulani prompted the Simelane family to do something about the safety of LaZwide and the children. It is at this time that they took the drastic measure to ensure that they were safe, said the source. SWALIMO Spokesperson Thantaza Silolo said they received the information that the Siphofaneni MP was allegedly next on the purported hit list. Silolo said subsequent to the information, she had to be taken to a safe place. We condemn this new trend of killing as a solution to the political and security challenges facing the country. We strongly believed that dialogue and a negotiated settlement should be the path to take, for we all know the reasons behind the strife in this beautiful nation, the spokesperson said. When asked if he knew where the threats came from, Silolo did not elaborate on the subject matter. Gilgal MP Sandla Fakudze said he knew about the threats after he saw them circulating on social media platforms. I was not aware that she went into a safe place after the circulating threats on social media, he said. His counterpart at Nkilongo, Timothy Myeni, said he was neither aware of the threats, nor that the Siphofaneni MP had gone into a safe place. Myeni encouraged LaZwide to trust in God for protection. The legislator further mentioned that it was disheartening that there was a way to resolve this current political situation in the country through dialogue, but it was being ignored. He said he heard Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Thuli Dladla encouraging Russia and Ukraine to engage in dialogue to resolve their differences. Dialogue Myeni said government should do the same and ensure that a dialogue was held to resolve the political impasse in the country. People want to talk and should be given that platform. Government should take that initiative and host the dialogue, he said. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said police gave protection to every person in need of such. Meanwhile, Maxwell Nkambule, the Siphofaneni-based lawyer, who was shot at with a hail of bullets by unknown people in December last month, had to go to a safe place for his safety. PUDEMO National Organising Secretary Penuel Malinga, together with his wife and son, also left the country for safety reasons, after the recent shooting incident at their family house at Mobeni Flats in Matsapha. MBABANE Indicators from the Ministry of Agriculture have shown that Eswatini could experience maize shortage after this years harvest. This means that prices for maize products would increase as opposed to dropping to the normal prices after harvest. It also means a threat to food security, which is embodied in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No:2. Goal No: 2 seeks sustainable solutions to end hunger in all forms by 2030 and to achieve food security. The main aim is to ensure that everyone, everywhere, has enough good quality food to live a healthy life. Achieving this goal would require better access to food and the widespread promotion of sustainable agriculture. Speaking on national radio yesterday morning, the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Sydney Simelane, said for self-sufficiency, the country needed to produce at least 144 000 metric tonnes of maize, something the ministry had anticipated this year. He said the ministry had anticipated an increase from the 127 000 metric tonnes that the country produced last year. He attributed the anticipation to the good rains the country received at the start of the rainy season. Rainfall It should be noted that the Meteorological Service Department predicted normal to above normal rainfall this year. However, Simelane stated that indicators had shown that Eswatini would get a lower harvest than it had anticipated due to the recent high temperatures, which resulted in the country experiencing no rains for two weeks. Experts in the Meteorological Service Department maintained that the high temperatures cannot be equated to a heat wave for now. A heat wave occurs when there is high pressure in the atmosphere that forces hot air downward and traps it near the ground. The high pressure system acts like a lock that prevents the hot air from rising. Consequently, rain cannot form and the hot air gets hotter. The PS shared that in a bid to bring awareness to the nation, the ministry had started taking samples from some regional development areas (RDAs) in order to respond appropriately. He stated that samples which were taken from Madlangampisi RDA had pointed out that farmers were likely to lose 30 per cent of their produce in 10 000 hectares. Simelane stated that the anticipated loss was attributed to the extreme temperatures experienced in the past weeks. He shared that maize hardly survived in a temperature that was above 260C. Worth noting was that temperatures rose up to 390C in the lowveld. Loss Simelane also attributed the high temperatures to climate change. The PS acknowledged that the recent high temperatures had caused a major loss to farmers who were earning a living through farming. He said the loss was also felt by all emaSwati as farm inputs were purchased at higher prices. In random checks, in some shops, it was discovered that a bag of 50kg fertiliser that was sold at around E450 in the past years, had now increased to over E1 050 each, depending on the brand. However, Simelane warned farmers against destroying their affected crops for now. He said the crops might pick up after the expected rainfall. Early this week, the Meteorological Service Department shared that the recent high temperatures were just a dry spell resulting from many factors. Speaking on national radio, Dudu Nhlengetfwa, said dry spells were common during the course of the rainy season. She said the dry spell could come early or at a later stage of the rainy season. She made an example that the country experienced the same around February last year. Farmers have already registered their worry about the extreme heat wave which they felt had caused damage to crops. NHLANGANO At least 28 family members had to seek refuge at a police station after they were attacked by community members at Mkhitsini on Wednesday. The community was initially attacking one David Ngwenya, who was the secretary of the local administration under embattled Chief Mfukama, who killed his nephew. Ngwenya was accused of being an informant of the chief who was found guilty by the court of killing his nephew. However, there were other allegations regarding his conduct, leading to his attack, which would not be mentioned for now as they had not been proven. During the attack, three homes belonging to Ngwenya and his two sons were torched by the angry Mkhitsini community members. Ngwenya found himself in the same plight with Chief Mfukama, whose homes were gutted by fire, after which he was expelled from the area. Sources alleged that he was still informing the chief about matters that were happening at Mkhitsini, yet they wanted a total disconnect from him as well as other people who were connected to him. On the day of the attack, it was said that some community members were praying in the mountain, after which they convened a meeting about Ngwenyas conduct in the community. They shared that in that meeting, it was resolved that he was supposed to be chucked out of the community. The community then headed to his home after their meeting. It was said that one person raised the alarm and alerted the Ngwenyas who ran into hiding as soon as they received the warning. Upon arrival, the community members are said to have searched for him in nearby forests. By then, it was said that a convoy of police cars had arrived in the community to restore peace and order. It was gathered that some of the Ngwenya family members were able to go into their homes to grab some clothing, in the presence of the police. Police then left with them, but just as they had driven about 500 metres away from the homes, the houses were all set alight, narrated the source. It was said that one house in Ngwenyas home had been initially targeted, though they ended up torching all the others. The family members spent the night in one of the police stations for safety reasons. Yesterday, police went back to Mkhitsini to investigate the crime. Police It was established that police recorded statements from different people around the community before heading back. When called for comment, Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the arson incident. She further confirmed that there was a family that was attacked at Mkhitsini and police officers took the family members to safety. When asked if there were any arrests, Vilakati responded to the negative and stated that they were still investigating the matter. This is the second arson incident to happen at Mkhitsini. In the first incident, the community members torched Chief Mfukamas home after he shot dead his nephew. They were initially in fields disputes, which was when the later was shot dead on the spot. The Gambian government said Thursday that three soldiers charged with treason over an alleged coup attempt last month had been exonerated, though several others still face charges. Captain Ebrima Baldeh, 2nd Lieutenant Omar M. Colly and Corporal Bakary Njie were absolved Wednesday of any responsibility for the attempt and have been released from custody, the government said in a statement. But four other soldiers and a police officer also accused of taking part in the uprising attempt faced new indictments before the High Court in Banjul. Lance Corporal Sana Fadera, Petty Officer Gibril Darboe, Corporal Ebrima Sanno, Corporal Omar Njie and Police Sub-Inspector Fakebba Jawara were charged with treason, concealment of treason, conspiracy and inciting mutiny, the statement said. The suspects had previously been charged by the Banjul Magistrate's Court, before the case was transferred to the higher court. The government announced on December 21 that it had foiled an attempted coup the previous day and had detained members of the security forces. It was an alarming incident for the fragile West African democracy after 22 years of dictatorship under former president Yahya Jammeh. Opposition politician Momodou Sabally, a former minister of presidential affairs under Jammeh, was arrested and later released. Jammeh was defeated in a presidential election in December 2016 by political newcomer Adama Barrow and fled to Equatorial Guinea, but retains influential back home. The attempted coup followed Barrow's re-election in December 2021 for a second five-year term. National security adviser Abubakarr Suleiman Jeng said the plotters aimed to "arrest cabinet ministers and senior government officials to use them as hostages to prevent any foreign intervention." "They also had plans to retire all senior military officers from the rank of major and above and restructure" the army, he told reporters in the capital, Banjul. A fifth member of the military who is suspected of taking part in the coup attempt, Lamin Jadama of the Gambian navy, remains "at large", the government has said, adding that Interpol has issued a red notice for his arrest and extradition. The country's Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, which was launched after Jammeh's ouster, recommended the government overhaul the security sector. The Gambia's international partners have also urged Barrow to push ahead with reforms to strengthen the country's democracy, including an overhaul of the security services. Two years almost to the day after a full Finnish court set foot in Liberia to try a former Sierra Leonean rebel for crimes against humanity and war crimes, Finnish judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers are back in the Liberian capital Monrovia. After the trial court acquitted Massaquoi, an appeal panel is due to land there on 31 January. For some of them, such as prosecutors Tom Laitinen and Matias Londen or defence lawyer Kaarle Gummerus, the place is familiar: they already spent many months there in 2021. For the new panel of judges, however, it is an unusual judicial adventure. This appeal trial, which began in early January in Turku, on the southwest coast of Finland, is expected to be very similar to the one in 2021. Upon arrival, the entire court will travel to the northern part of the country, to the province of Lofa, where several scenes of the alleged crimes are located. It will then visit the scene of the alleged crimes in Monrovia, in the Waterside area of the city centre. On 6 February, the hearings will open in the same hotel in the suburbs of Monrovia as two years ago. The court plans to stay there for about two months, before returning to Turku in April, and leaving for a fortnight in Sierra Leone in May. That is if the timetable does not change between now and then, and if the Sierra Leonean authorities agree to the Finnish court's visit as part of a bilateral judicial assistance agreement. No new evidence Between these two trials, there has been no new investigation. According to prosecutor Laitinen, interviewed by Justice Info, exactly the same prosecution witnesses are expected to testify in Monrovia. There is no new evidence. Some witnesses, however, are no more. The 2021 statements of two of them, who have since died, were heard in Turku before the court left for West Africa. Others have not yet confirmed their agreement to testify again. The only new testimony requested by the prosecution will be that of a criminology expert, whose testimony is scheduled for 14 April in Turku. The defence, for its part, is announcing some new witnesses, including former guards at the safe house of a UN tribunal where Massaquoi was officially staying in 2003, in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown. The former head of witness protection of that UN court that sat in Sierra Leone between 2002 and 2013, Saleem Vahidy, whose testimony could not be heard at the first trial, is again on the list of witnesses scheduled for April. Paula Sallinen, Massaquoi's second lawyer, cautiously announced that they would attack the case "bit by bit". "We are confident," she told Justice Info. "The trial court verdict is very meticulous, it is a bit easier to prepare because last time we had only police summaries" of witness statements. Inevitably, there is the feeling that 2023 will be a repeat of 2021. However, there are some notable differences. The first, of course, is that this trial opens against the backdrop of a unanimous acquittal of the accused in the first instance. So Massaquoi will attend this second trial as a free man. This allows his two lawyers to be present in Monrovia while the accused will follow the hearings alone from a courtroom in Turku, in electronic contact with his counsels. There is also an important absence: Thomas Elfgren, the police officer who led all the investigations in this case and who, in 2021, acted as an omnipresent taskmaster for the logistical organisation of the hearings, access to witnesses and relations with the media, is now retired. This intriguing figure, an outspoken advocate of Massaquoi's guilt, used all his charisma to influence the interpretation of the testimonies given in court. Prosecution theory The style of Finnish justice is always marked by moderation and avoidance of dramatic statements. So prosecutor Laitinen weighs each word carefully: "We believe the events probably took place in Monrovia in the summer of 2003. We believe the events in Lofa probably took place in July-August 2001. But the court can choose another date, he says. "We can't say we are going to win. We just disagreed on the findings of the trial court. It's more a question of how you should interpret the witness statements. The trial court said all witnesses were reliable, they didn't lie, but that the evidence was not sufficient. That's what we disagree on. That's why we have a new expert witness. How much can you demand from a witness, taking into account what they have experienced? That's the main reason why we have taken the case to appeal. The fact remains that the prosecution comes back to court with a historical and logistical theory that is considered far-fetched - at least for the crimes in Monrovia - by experts on the Sierra Leonean and Liberian conflicts of 20 years ago, as well as its theory on the singular path of Massaquoi, a former rebel commander who became a protected informant of the UN tribunal (which led to his being granted asylum in Finland and a complaint lodged by NGOs led to his arrest in 2020). But the prosecutor can still hope for judges who are less alert to certain historical realities or who are more sensitive to the relationship he wants to establish between trauma and the credibility of testimony. The International Criminal Court said Thursday it had authorised the reopening of an inquiry into the brutal anti-drugs campaign by former Philippines' president Rodrigo Duterte which left thousands dead. Duterte pulled the Philippines out of the Hague-based tribunal in 2019, a year after the ICC began a preliminary probe into the crackdown. The ICC then launched a formal inquiry in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of police, hitmen and vigilantes. Officially, 6,181 people were killed in Duterte's "war on drugs" but rights group say that up to 30,000 may have been killed, some innocent victims, and that corruption was rife among security forces that acted with impunity. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan asked to restart the inquiry in June 2022, saying the Philippine government under Duterte's successor, President Ferdinand Marcos, had not provided enough evidence it was carrying out thorough inquiries. In a statement Thursday, the ICC said its pre-trial chamber "is not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the court's investigations". "The various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps," it added. Marcos has vowed to continue the drug war but with a focus on prevention and rehabilitation, though so far he has ruled out rejoining the ICC. In November, a Philippine police officer was jailed for planting evidence and torturing two teenagers killed at the height of Duterte's drug war, a rare conviction of an enforcer of the crackdown. MBABANE The late Human Rights Lawyer Thulani Masekos family is of the view that the gun that was used to kill him was similar to those used in the military. Yesterday, the family had Masekos autopsy done in order to confirm the cause of death, which was the three bullets that were fired at him. The deceased succumbed to three gunshot wounds which were aimed and fired towards him on Saturday, at around 9:10pm, in a cold-blooded murder. He was killed while at his parental home at KaLuhleko, which is a community located about 50 kilometres south-west of Manzini and about 10 kilometres from Bhunya. Bullets Two of the bullets pierced his head while the third hit his rib cage. In an interview at the Mbabane Government Hospital, where the autopsy was performed, Barnes Dlamini said the Maseko family wanted the autopsy performed in order for them to get to know what really transpired during the night in question. We have since confirmed that indeed Maseko was shot, but what we dont know is who killed him and why, said Dlamini. Dlamini, who is the Chairperson of the Institute for Democracy and Leadership (IDEAL), said the doctors or pathologists confirmed that indeed Maseko died due to the gunshots and were of the view that these were fired with the intention to kill him. He said they also voiced out their opinion that the gun used in killing the lawyer was not just a simple gun but a big assault rifle. He alleged that as a family, based on the accuracy and the velocity of the shots fired towards Maseko, one would say it was a gun used in the military. On Tuesday, this publication reported that the bullet shells, according to sources, were of an assault rifle. It was reported that the sources further explained that the gun was an automatic assault rifle as the first two shots which went through Masekos head had been fired simultaneously. They claimed that the carnage left by the bullets, depicted same, unlike a pistol which makes insertions and did not exit the body with large chunks of flesh. Shooting Meanwhile, on Monday, this publication quoted senior family members of the deceased, claiming that Tanele (wife to the deceased), had informed them that leading to the shooting, she had seen the gun and it appeared huge. Ballistics experts suggested that the assault rifle used to kill Maseko might have had a night vision device, which could be handheld but many were head-mounted and attached to helmets. They suggested that when used with firearms, an IR laser sight was often mounted to the users weapon. They suggested that these devices might have assisted in aiming at Maseko, despite that it was at night and the shots were able to be accurate in hitting the target. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said the investigation into Masekos death was still ongoing. Vilakati had been asked about the allegations that Dlamini made, to the effect that the weapon used to kill Maseko was more or less like those used in the military and the latest developments regarding the investigation into the murder of Maseko. Hopeful Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Themba Nhlanganiso Masuku also touched on Masekos death during a press conference yesterday afternoon. He stated that as government, they were hopeful that even in this particular case of Maseko, the police would make an arrest and his killers would be brought to justice. Masuku said the late lawyers case was on government or the polices priority, just like any other high profile cases. The love month is finally approaching, and there are more romantic K-dramas that viewers should anticipate this February 2023. If January offered various series such as "Crash Course in Romance," "Payback," and "Kokdu: Season of Deity, the whole of February will be filled with another set of exciting dramas. From Kim Nam Gil's "Island 2" to Lee Sung Kyung's "Call It Love," here are the six Korean contents to premiere next month. 'Our Blooming Youth' Returning to primetime this 2023 is Park Hyung Sik who will immerse himself in the character of Crown Prince Lee Hwan that falls in love with an intelligent woman, Min Jae Yi (Jeon So Nee), who's framed for the murder of her family. This historical romance series will meet the audience starting February 6 on tvN. 'The Heavenly Idol' This fantasy romance drama starring Kim Min Gyu and Go Bo Gyeol is set to premiere on February 15. This webtoon-based series depicts the story of a high priest from another world who travels to earth and wakes up in the human body of an unpopular K-pop idol. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Kim Min Gyu Transforms Into Priest-Turned-Idol in New Drama With Go Bo Gyeol 'Love To Hate You' Debuting on primetime this coming February 10, this enemies-to-lovers romance series narrates the story of Yeo Mi Ran (Kim Ok Vin), an attorney who hates losing to men, and Nam Gang Ho (Yoo Teo) a popular actor who doesn't trust women. "Love To Hate You" will meet the viewers through the famous online streaming site Netflix. 'Taxi Driver 2' Up for another adventure with his squad, Kim Do Ki (Lee Je Hoon) returns to the screen for the drama's second installment. The Rainbow Taxi agency continues its journey for revenge and justice. "Taxi Driver 2" will air starting February 17 on SBS. 'Call It Love' This series tells the romantic story of two individuals who never sound have met. Shim Woo Joo (Lee Sung Kyung), is a woman who bravely plans for revenge, which is far from her innate personality, and Han Dong Jin (Kim Young Kwang) a guy who is the target of her revenge. "Call It Love" is expected to air on Disney+ starting February 22. 'Island 2' Van (Kim Nam Gil) and Yohan (Cha Eun Woo) will continue their thrilling journey of protecting Won Mi Ho (Lee Da Hee) on the island of Jeju. After their dangerous fight against Gong Tan (Sung Joon) and the evil spirits, the trio joins forces to defeat their upcoming enemies. "Island 2" makes a primetime comeback this coming February 24 on TVING. Which of these K-dramas are you excited to watch this coming February? Share your thoughts/replies in the comments! For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news and updates, keep your tabs open here at Kdramastars. Kdramastars owns this article. Shai Collins wrote this. The Cannes winner "Decision To Leave" fails to impress the public after it was ignored at the Academy Awards, garnering no nominations at any category. Compared to Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite," the 2022 film is considered a letdown. Here's what the director and the critics said. 'Decision To Leave' Ignored At The Academy Awards Park Hae Il and Tang Wei's "Decision To Leave" is deliberately ignored at the Oscars nomination. On January 24, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) revealed the list of the official nominations for the 95th Academy Awards. Unfortunately, Park Chan Wook's "Decision To Leave" wasn't included in the list. The film depicts a love story that touches the hearts of the viewers, transcending time and fate. It was previously named as one of South Korea's entries for the Best International Feature Film, however, it was excluded from the final nominations. Many film enthusiasts are depressed with the decision of the board of judges of the Oscars, especially when "Decision To Leave" was selected as the Best Drama of 2022. It also garnered the Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film nominations at the British Academy (BAFTA). "One of the most surprising things this year that got me to open my eyes wide this morning," one of the fans stated. "The Oscars' decision to ignore the film is an absolute crime." Many viewers believed that the 2022 film would be the next South Korean title that would bag an Oscar, following "Parasite." This issue became a hot topic around the world, trending at third place in Twitter worldwide. Though "Decision To Leave" didn't make it to the Oscars nominations, the film has proved itself and its potential at the Cannes film festival. It also earned Park Chan Wook the Best Director award at the Florida Film Critics Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Buil Film Awards and Cannes Film Festival. 'Decision To Leave' Sweeps Awards At Blue Dragon Film 2022 Apart from the aforementioned awards shows, "Decision To Leave" also took home six trophies from the Blue Dragon Film Awards in 2022 including Best Film, Best Actors and more. Park Hae Il was hailed Best Actor of the year, thanks to his impressive performance as Jang Hae Jun. Meanwhile, Tang Wei, the actress who headlined the film, became the first foreign actress to win at the prestigious event. Park Hae Il and Tang Wei offered their thanks to every viewer who supported them and their film, "Decision To Leave." This 2023, the production unit of the film hopes to bag major awards at the British Academy Film Awards, which will be held on February 19 at the Royal Festival Hall in London. ALSO READ: Lee Da In Confirmed To Couple Up With Namgoong Min In New Romance Drama KDramaStars owns this article. Written by Elijah Mully. Ahead of their drama comeback, forthcoming onscreen couple Lee Junho and YoonA are leaving Seoul for Thailand. Keep on reading the article for more details. 'King the Land' Stars & Crew Head To Thailand For Filming Lee Junho and YoonA are reported to depart for an overseas activity. On January 26, based on Nate, the Korean stars will leave Seoul for Thailand on January 27 to continue filming their upcoming drama "King the Land." Often, K-dramas focus on capturing the picturesque landscapes in Korea, including Jeju Island. This time, the cast and crew of "King the Land" flew to Thailand to catch the perfect visual combination of the lead stars as well as the compelling story between the characters. What To Anticipate From Lee Junho & YoonA's First Drama Pairing "King the Land" features the story between Cheon Sa Rang, a hotelier who always puts on a bright smile despite the condition of her work, and Goo Won, a chaebol heir who can't stand a fake smile. Following his magnificent performance in playing the role of a crown prince in the megahit series "The Red Sleeve," Lee Junho will have a character transformation in the modern world as a handsome, smart, and rich guy. He takes the role of Goo Won, the man who almost has it all, except for one thing, he lacks a sense of love. However, his world will turn upside down after he crosses paths with Cheon Sa Rang, to be played by SNSD's YoonA. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Lee Junho Reveals Jaw-Dropping Pictorial For Dior After Being Tapped As Newest Ambassador For Brand She exudes confidence and charm that can brighten the world. She works at the King Hotel, where most of her happiest childhood memories happened. Apart from them, K-stars Ahn Se Ha, Kim Ga Eun, and Kim Jae Woon are participating in the series. Why 'King the Land' Is One of Much-Awaited K-Dramas in 2023 "King the Land" is considered as one of the most anticipated K-dramas this year as it stars Lee Junho and Lim YoonA, who impressed the viewers with their previous performances in "The Red Sleeve" and "Big Mouth," respectively. Apart from the broadcasting company, JTBC, it is also in discussion that "King the Land" will be available on the famous streaming giant Netflix in the first half of 2023. What can you say about Lee Junho and Im YoonA's upcoming rom-com drama? 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. "Single's Inferno" Season 2 male participants are gaining attention on TikTok after a user exposed their supposed "true personalities." According to the TikTok user named Anita (@anitacorbalann), some of the cast members are different in real life. While the first season took the world by storm, the second season also received the same attention as the Netflix reality show introduced 12 good-looking and very single participants with different personalities who came from various fields. "Single's Inferno" season 2 cast includes Shin Seul Ki, Park Se Jeong, Lee So E, Lee Nadine, Choi Seo Eun, Lim Min Su, and for male contestants, they are Kim Han Bin, Shin Dong Woo, Kim Jin Young, Kim Se Jun, Choi Jong Woo, Jo Yoong Jae, and Kim Se Jun. However, as the Netflix reality dating show continues to gain interest from viewers, a TikToker revealed their true colors 'Single's Inferno' Season 2 Male Participants Are Far From Being Gentlemen, Says TikToker In a post, the TikTok user, who has been living in Korea for over a year, revealed what it's like to meet some of the participants before joining "Single's Inferno" season 2. "This is for people who are watching Single's Inferno, don't live in Korea, and don't know how this country works," she said, as translated by a media outlet. In a post, she said that South Korea is a small country and has met "at least two male contestants from Single's Inferno 2." IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Kim Se Jun Responds to 'Skinship' With Lee So E in 'Single's Inferno Season 2' The user then mentioned that she saw a male contestant at parties numerous times and even described him as a "f**kboy." At some point, she recalled an incident where she was with a different male participant and was hanging out at a friend's house. She mentioned that the person reportedly wanted to sleep with her friend and after seeing him on TV, the TikTok user said that she couldn't stand to watch Single's Inferno 2. "He's another piece of filth like everyone else here," she said, describing the second person, adding, "And I love how they act in the series. I mean, I just can't even watch it because the first season still caught me like that, but it's just that now I watch it and say, 'But what a fake.'" Netizens Speculate Who Among the Male Participants Are Behind the Controversial TikTok After exposing the truth about the cast members, people then wanted the user to spill the names, but others had their speculations. In the same outlet, netizens flocked to Reddit and mentioned who among the participants would be the possible cast members that the TikTok user mentioned. Some cited that it might not be Kim Se Jun because she posted it at the time when he was introduced on the island. Others think that it might be Shin Dong Woo because he gives off that "f**kboy" vibe, while some think it's probably Kim Han Bin or Choi Jong Woo since they are the youngest male participants. Who among the "Singles Inferno" Season 2 cast members was the TikTok user referring to? Tell us your guesses in the comments! KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills While busy preparing for his projects, Cha Eun Woo gave a sneak peek at his forthcoming photo exhibit to be held in Seoul. Cha Eun Woo To Hold 1st Photo Exhibit 'ARCHIVE' This February A media outlet excitedly announced Cha Eun Woo's solo photo exhibition happening this year. According to the news, from February 13 to 26, the idol-actor will hold his 1st photo exhibit, "ARCHIVE" at The Seoul Lightium Exhibition Hall 1. Ahead of the scheduled exhibit on January 26, teaser images were uploaded by his agency Fantagio on social media. Cha Eun Woo's refreshing visuals and fresh atmosphere were captured, giving excitement to his fans. His ordinary day appearance, holding a camera in his hand while looking at the art drawn on the wall, adds to his warm visuals. Through his upcoming photo exhibit, Cha Eun Woo plans to show the daily life he captured through images and present happiness to his fans. Expectations are high on what kind of stories the heartthrob will tell with the various snaps he is about to unveil. Furthermore, tickets can be reserved through Apple Music until January 31. What's Next For Cha Eun Woo: 'Island 2,' 'A Good Day To Be A Dog,' More Meanwhile, the actor is also working on his other solo projects. Cha Eun Woo is expected to make his immediate comeback to the small screen through the fantasy action series "Island 2." He will return alongside original cast members Kim Nam Gil, Lee Da Hee, and Sung Joon starting February 24 on TVING. Adding to his future work is the webtoon-based drama "A Good Day To Be A Dog," where he was already spotted filming with co-star Park Gyu Young. The production team has not released any statement yet regarding the release of the drama adaptation. Recently, the idol-actor was reported to headline the new crime series "Bulk." His agency confirmed that Cha Eun Woo received a casting offer to participate in the drama. However, it is yet to confirm whether the ASTRO member will accept the project or not. When he agreed to star in "Bulk," Cha Eun Woo will work for the first time with "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" actress Ha Yoon Kyung and veteran actor Jo Woo Jin. Besides his upcoming acting activities, Cha Eun Woo is also active in the fashion industry. Recently, he participated in various magazine pictorials and fashion shows overseas. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Cha Eun Woo Reportedly To Lead New Crime Drama With THIS 'Extraordinary Attorney Woo' Star For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramastars. KDramastars owns this article. Shai Collins wrote this. The value of exports of Bahrain origin products increased 24%, reaching BD4.967 billion ($13.18 billion) during 2022, compared to BD3.994 billion in the previous year. The value of imports into Bahrain increased 10% in 2022, reaching to BD5.842 billion ($15.5 billion), compared to BD5.316 billion for the previous year, said the foreign trade report of 2022 released by the Information &eGovernment Authority (iGA). Bahrain recorded a trade deficit of BD155 million ($411.26 million) during 2022 compared to a deficit of BD643 million for the previous year. The top 10 countries accounted for 69% of the value of imports, while the remaining countries accounted for 31%, According to the report, imports from China ranked first with a total value of BD845 million, Brazil was the second with BD620 million, and Australia was the third with BD509 million. Non-agglomerated iron ores and concentrates was the top product imported into Bahrain with a total value of BD698 million, while aluminum oxide was second with BD468 million, and parts for airplanes third with BD168 million. The top 10 countries in terms of the value of exports of national origin accounted for 72% of the total value, while the remaining countries accounting for 28%, the report said. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ranked first among countries receiving Bahraini exports of national origin, importing BD983 million from Bahrain. The US was second with BD694 million and the UAE was third with BD465 million. Unwrought aluminum alloys emerged as the top products exported during 2022 with a value of BD1.75 billion, agglomerated iron ores and concentrates alloyed was second with a value of BD798 million and unwrought aluminum not alloyed third with BD245 million. The total value of re-exports increased by 6% to reach BD720 million during 2022, compared with BD679 million for the previous year. The top 10 countries accounted for 83% of the re-exported value, while the remaining countries accounted for the 17%. Saudi Arabia ranked first with BD163 million, the UAE second with BD152 million, and Singapore third with BD104 million. Airplane parts was the top product re-exported from Bahrain worth BD113 million. - TradeArabia News Service Award-winning chef, author encourages exploration of roots in lecture at Kennesaw State KENNESAW, Ga. | Jan 27, 2023 Michael Twitty For renowned chef, culinary historian and writer Michael Twitty, living at the intersection of multiple identities provides an opportunity to educate - and his medium is food. The James Beard Award-winning author and longtime Hebrew educator spoke Thursday on living as a queer, African American Jew during the 10th anniversary of Kennesaw State Universitys Paul and Beverly Radow Lecture Series on Jewish Life. His message to each person in the crowd at KSUs Stillwell Theatre was to live fully in their identity and to learn about their cross-sections of lineage and culture. I belong to all different kinds of peoples and intersections, and thats not weird because everybody in this audience does. Nobody is free from intersectionality, Twitty said. Someone has to talk about the ideas behind the import of food, and not just the food itself. The food is a vehicle to understanding each other. Twitty noted how heavily influenced food of the American South is by its history of slavery, and how family recipes or food preferences can often be traced back to a combination of ethnic roots. He also stressed the importance of not putting people into boxes, no matter their race, gender, religion, culture or combination thereof. That, he said, is how the history of communities with unique cultures are lost. Norman Radow and Michael Twitty If you have a story, and you think its a niche story, record it - document it. Dont let people say years from now, They didnt exist, he said. Tell these stories. Make sure the world understands. Talk about what it means to have a Nigerian daddy and a momma from Georgia, because thats complicated. Norman Radow historian, longtime KSU benefactor and namesake of the Radow College of Humanities and Social Sciences praised Twittys lecture as representative of many different perspectives of the American experience. Michael is such a unique individual, and I think he did a great job of entertaining and making his lecture so personal, Radow said. Radow College Dean Katie Kaukinen agreed, noting Twittys ability to use food as a metaphor and medium for cross-cultural understanding and appreciation. She noted his example of the variety of ingredients that may appear in a potato salad depending on a familys cultural and ethnic background and how different that same dish may turn out if prepared by a diverse group. I think the takeaway is were not one or the other. People cant be put into boxes in terms of who they are as human beings, Kaukinen said. Michael reminds us that we have to own all those spaces to which we belong, but we also have to be forceful in asking others to respect those spaces. Kaukinen also credited Twitty with broadening the understanding of what historians and those in the humanities do. Though two people might be neighbors in Georgia, she said, studying the food they eat could tell vastly different stories about those individuals. I think the way he articulated that was profound, she said. Twitty is the first African American to win the James Beard Award for best writing and Book of the Year in 2018 for The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History of the Old South. The Cooking Gene was released in 2017 and traced his ancestry through food from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. His follow-up book, KosherSoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew, was published in 2022 and was named the national Jewish Book of the Year by the Jewish Book Council. Twittys media appearances include Netflixs High on the Hog, Bizarre Foods America, with Andrew Zimmern, Many Rivers to Cross, with Henry Louis Gates, and Taste the Nation, with Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef. He also teaches a course entitled, Tracing Your Roots through Food, which can be found on MasterClass, YouTube, ClassCentral and other sites. By Thomas Hartwell Photos by Darnell Wilburn This lecture was supported by Georgia Humanities, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Economic Development, through funding from the Georgia General Assembly. Related Stories A leader in innovative teaching and learning, Kennesaw State University offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees to its more than 43,000 students. Kennesaw State is a member of the University System of Georgia with 11 academic colleges. The universitys vibrant campus culture, diverse population, strong global ties and entrepreneurial spirit draw students from throughout the country and the world. Kennesaw State is a Carnegie-designated doctoral research institution (R2), placing it among an elite group of only 7 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with an R1 or R2 status. For more information, visit kennesaw.edu. An experienced forensic pathologist who testified about the poisoning death of Julie Jensen Friday during the jury retrial of Mark Jensen, the Pleasant Prairie man accused of killing his wife in 1998, said she may have died by suicide. Dr. Lindsay Thomas, who examined the autopsy report done by a previous medical examiner and studied the case at length, said there are reasons to believe Julie Jensen died by suicide. The expert witness was called to the stand by Mark Jensens defense team during the end of the third week of trial. I couldnt come up with an exact cause (of death) though I certainly think the ethylene glycol played a significant role, Thomas testified Friday morning in Kenosha County Circuit Court. I dont believe theres conclusive evidence that her death was a homicide. Thomas said theres a lot of evidence to support that her death could have been a suicide. She said her opinions are based on a reasonable degree of medical certainty. Mark Jensen, now 63, was convicted in February 2008 for the murder of his wife inside their Carol Beach neighborhood home near the lakefront. He is standing trial again here after years of appeals and battles in state and federal courts. Mark Jensen, according to prosecutors, killed the 40-year-old mother of two over three days in December 1998 by poisoning her with odorless ethylene glycol, more commonly known as antifreeze, and then suffocating her by sitting on her while she laid in bed dying and gasping for air in order to make it easier for him to be with a woman he was having an affair with. They also allege he killed Julie Jensen out of deep anger and obsession over a previous sexual affair she had with a coworker years before, along with other marriage issues. Mark Jensen, a former stock broker, searched the internet for ways to make Julie Jensens death look like a suicide and terrorized her for years with strategically placed pornography, emails and phone calls, according to prosecutors. Mark Jensen, however, has maintained his innocence ever since his wifes death. His attorneys have argued Julie Jensen was deeply depressed and died by suicide after framing her husband for her death. Expert witness Defense attorney Jeremy Perri also questioned Thomas about asphyxia from strangulation or homicidal suffocation. Its my opinion theres no evidence of either of those, either homicidal suffocation or strangulation, Thomas said. It is my opinion that positional asphyxia could have occurred if her face was in a pillow. Positional asphyxia occurs when someones position prevents them from being able to breathe properly. Thomas said the ethylene glycol was the most significant finding from the toxicology reports she examined. That is an unexpected finding and certainly likely to cause ones death, Thomas testified, adding she found the Ambien, Paxil and other drugs in Julie Jensens body significant. None of them were in high levels, some of them were in very low levels, but those are all potentially sedating drugs so I would think in combination with the toxic effects of the ethylene glycol (they) could certainly result, if she ended up face down in a pillow, it might have been hard for her to wake herself up enough to get into a safe breathing position. She said the drugs were likely in pill form and swallowed by Julie Jensen without Mark Jensen forcing her to take them. I dont see that theres any evidence of (force) in this case, Thomas said. Thomas said Julie Jensen had a history of depression and there are reasons to believe she died by suicide. Mrs. Jensen had a history of depression and other psychiatric issues that in her case dated back at least until 1990, and then she also has a very significant family history of mental health issues with her mother and brother. She had been in counseling before and shed been on an anti-depressant, so in terms of when we look at what are the risk factors for someone dying by suicide, one of the major ones is, Well, do they have psychiatric history, a history of depression? Things like that, Thomas said. Secondly, she had been diagnosed in September by Dr. Borman with depression of 1998. So not only historically, but more recently. And then, two days before her death she saw Dr. Borman and to me this is the most significant because Dr. Borman is a trained physician, hes known Mrs. Jensen for many, many years, hes seen her through all kinds of life experiences, and he was very concerned about her that day. He described her as frantic and distraught and just more upset than he had ever seen her. Dr. Richard Borman, the Jensen family physician, testified earlier this week. He diagnosed Julie Jensen with depression and anxiety. However, lead prosecutor Robert Jambois took issue with Thomas opinions. He brought up Mark Jensens affair with a woman in the months before Julie Jensens death and his alleged conversations with a former coworker during a business trip out of state where he spoke about researching poisons on the internet to kill his wife. He asked if Mark Jensen was working to drive her crazy with years of harassment. Jambois said Mark Jensen had a strong motive to kill his wife. Sister testifies Mark Jensens younger sister Laura Koster testified Friday afternoon. Koster said Julie Jensen was her sister-in-law and best friend. Koster said she cared for the Jensens' two boys the day Julie Jensen died. When she finally saw Mark Jensen in person she said he was overwhelmed and upset. I dont think he ever realized how much Julie did, or how to do it, Koster said. I helped him get his bearings. Koster said her brother was lost in general about how to move forward. He didnt like break down and cry in front of me on a regular basis or anything like that. I was there helping him and we were working on getting things done, Koster said. She also said Mark Jensen grieved at the wake and funeral for his wife. He was crying, for sure, she said. Its a sad situation. Reason for new trial The original prosecutor, Jambois, a former Kenosha County District attorney, is serving as special prosecutor before Judge Anthony Milisauskas, now the third Kenosha County Circuit Court judge to preside over the matter. Mark Jensen is represented by a team of defense attorneys led by Bridget Krause. A Kenosha County judge vacated Mark Jensens conviction in April 2021 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Jensen deserved a new trial. The court found that a letter his wife wrote incriminating him in the event something should happen to her could not be used by the prosecution as it was in the first trial. In early 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court helped pave the way for this new trial when it declined to hear an appeal of the Wisconsin Supreme Courts ruling. The so-called letter from the grave in which Julie Jensen wrote that if anything happens to me that her husband would be my first suspect will not be allowed into evidence during this lengthy trial. The high-profile case has sparked headlines across the nation. Attorneys with the defense said they could rest their case next week. They also intend to call the Jensens oldest son David Jensen, who was just eight years old at the time of his mothers death, early next week. Mark Jensen is not expected to testify. The prosecution rested earlier this week after calling 38 witnesses to the stand and playing lengthy videos of some of the men and women who testified during the first trial but were unable to testify again or had died. Among those who testified during the first two weeks of trial for the prosecution included local law enforcement officials, former coworkers of Mark Jensen, former neighbors of the Jensens, a brother of Julie Jensen, medical examiners and inmates who Mark Jensen reportedly told of his alleged actions. Mark Jensen, who is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in his wifes death, remains in custody on a $1.2 million cash bond in Kenosha County. He faces life in prison. Further Reading Week 3 of Mark Jensen retrial: Julie Jensens psychotherapist testifies about her mental state Week 3 of Mark Jensen retrial: Former local medical examiner testifies about antifreeze evidence found in Julie Jensens body Week 3 of Kenosha County homicide retrial: Inmate Mark Jensen allegedly told of crimes against wife testifies Week 2 of Mark Jensen Trial: Man who had brief affair with Julie Jensen testifies Report from the day of the 2008 guilty verdict of Mark Jensen from the Kenosha News archives Week 2 Mark Jensen Trial: Digital analyst recovers search terms, data on home computer Jury video of Jensen home on day of Julie Jensens death Mark Jensen retrial begins with opening statements after jury sworn in UPDATED PHOTOS & VIDEO: New Week 3 images of Kenosha County homicide retrial of Mark Jensen Mark D. Jensen, of Pleasant Prairie, who was convicted in February 2008 of the murder of 40-year-old Julie Jensen inside their Carol Beach home, is standing trial again in Kenosha County Circuit Court after years of appeals and battles in state and federal courts. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Dr. Mary Mainland, former Kenosha County Medical Examiner, testifies in Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Dr. Mary Mainland, former Kenosha County Medical Examiner, testifies in Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Dr. Mary Mainland, former Kenosha County Medical Examiner, right, goes over her notes with Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois, center, and Jere Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Special Prosecutor Robert Jambois, left, and Jeremy Perri, one of Mark Jensens attorneys, argue about how the previous trial should be referr Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Mark Jensen, center, listens as Dr. Mary Mainland, former Kenosha County Medical Examiner, testifies during the trial at the Kenosha County Co Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Dr. Mary Mainland, former Kenosha County Medical Examiner makes her way to the witness stand during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Dr. Mary Mainland, former Kenosha County Medical Examiner, points to a line on a medicine cup with her index finger as she talks about ethylen Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Lori Ranker testifies how she knew Aaron Dillard during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Dillar Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Mark Jensen, right, smiles at Jolynn Blei as she passes after testifying in his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 20 Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Jolynn Blei, who worked at the law office of Mark Jensen's attorney in the 2008 trial, testifies in Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Court Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Special Prosecutor Robert Jamobis indicates that the state rests during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Mark Jensen, center, stands with his attorney, Mackenzie Renner, left, as the jury returns to the room during his trial at the Kenosha County Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Mark Jensen, left, waits with one of his attorneys, Mackenzie Renner, center, for the jury to return during his trial at the Kenosha County Co Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRIAL DAY 11 Mark Jensen listens as his defense team motions to dismiss the trial based on lack of evidence at the end of the day's proceedings at the Keno Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Judge Anthony Milisauskas make a ruling on what components of witness David Thompson's' background can be given to the jury during Mark Jensen Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Jeremy Perri, center, argues about witness David Thompson's criminal background during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Judge Anthony Milisauskas, right, makes ruling on witness David Thompson's background and how attorneys can question him during Mark Jensen's Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 David Thompson, who as an inmate with Mark Jensen in the Kenosha County Jail in 2007, walks away from the witness stand after testifying durin Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Paul Griffin, Julie Jensen's brother, talks about Julie as he testifies during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Paul Griffin, Julie Jensen's brother, talks about Julie as he testifies during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Paul Griffin, Julie Jensen's brother, talks about Julie as he testifies during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 David Thompson, who as an inmate with Mark Jensen in the Kenosha County Jail in 2007, testifies during Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Co Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Jeremy Perri, center right, and Bridget Krause, center left, both attorneys of Mark Jensen, speak during his trial at the Kenosha County Court Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Lynley Kapellusch, a former co-worker of Mark Jensen, testifies during Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Jan. 23, . Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Mark Jensen, left, speaks with Mackenzie Renner, one of his attorneys, during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Mark Jensen, left, talks with his former attorney Craig Albee, center, during a break in his trail at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Mark Jensen, left, talks with his former attorney Craig Albee, center, during a break in his trail at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Aaron Dillard, left, is sworn in by Judge Anthony Milisauskas before being cross-examined during Mark Jensens trial at the Kenosha County Cou Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Mark Jensen, center, stands as the jury enters the room during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Criag Albee, Mark Jensen's attorney in his 2008 trial, sits in the gallery to listen to Aaron Dillard's testimony during Jensen's trial at the Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Jeremy Perri, center, questions Aaron Dillard during Mark Jensens trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday. Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Criag Albee, Mark Jensen's attorney in his 2008 trial, right, sits in the gallery to listen to Aaron Dillard's testimony during Jensen's trial Uploaded-photos MARK JENSEN TRAIL DAY 10 Aaron Dillard answers questions during cross-examination during Mark Jensen's trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. Mark Jensen Kenosha murder trial; state rests, defense begins case Prosecutors on Tuesday, Jan. 24 rested their case against a man being retried for allegedly poisoning and killing his wife more than two decades ago. Mark Jensen Kenosha murder trial; police interview played in court Mark Jensen maintains he's innocent and that his wife killed herself. Prosecutors say Jensen poisoned his wife with antifreeze, drugged her an Mark Jensen Kenosha murder trial; computer expert, felon testify The new homicide trial for Mark Jensen, accused of killing his wife more than two decades ago, reached its ninth day of testimony Friday, Jan. 20. Mark Jensen Kenosha murder trial: Jailhouse confession revealed Prosecutors in the Mark Jensen murder trial in Kenosha say it is a jailhouse confession. The defense said do not trust everything you're about Mark Jensen Kenosha murder trial: Defendant's computer use probed Mark Jensen says he is innocent and that his wife killed herself more than 20 years ago. Prosecutors say Jensen killed her poisoning her wit Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! David Alfery is a cardiac anesthesiologist who shares his experiences in the operating room and intensive care unit. In this discussion, he reflects on the lessons he learned about life, death, and the balance in between through his encounters with patients. He offers a unique perspective on the profession, providing insight into the secrets and experiences of life as a cardiac anesthesiologist. Tune in to hear more about his journey in this field and the impact his patients have had on his life and career. David Alfery is a cardiac anesthesiologist. He shares his story and discusses his book, Saving Grace: What Patients Teach Their Doctors about Life, Death, and the Balance in Between. The Podcast by KevinMD is brought to you by the Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience. With so many demands on their time, physicians today report record levels of burnout. Burnout is caused by many factors, one of which is clinical documentation. Studies indicate physicians spend two hours documenting care for every hour spent with patients. At Nuance, we are committed to helping physicians do what you love care for patients and spend less time on clinical documentation. The Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience, or DAX for short, is an AI-powered, ambient clinical intelligence solution that automatically captures patient encounters securely and accurately at the point of care. Physicians who use DAX have reported a 50 percent decrease in documentation time and a 70 percent reduction in feelings of burnout, and 83 percent of patients say their physician is more personable and conversational. Rediscover the joy of medicine with clinical documentation that writes itself, all within the EHR. VISIT SPONSOR https://nuance.com/daxinaction SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST https://www.kevinmd.com/podcast RATE AND REVIEW https://www.kevinmd.com/rate FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/kevinphomd FOLLOW ON TIKTOK https://www.tiktok.com/@kevinphomd GET CME FOR THIS EPISODE https://earnc.me/MVgnNu Powered by CMEfy. Pediatric mental health is a growing epidemic. Heres how Illinois is leading the way to solve that. 17 Shares Share One of my friends in middle school was known for her uncanny ability to brighten up any space she walked into. But when we hit high school, she had become more withdrawn and dejected, and her self-esteem plummeted. She was clearly struggling, but at the time, I didnt know what the signs of depression were and was at a loss for how to support her. She and I had no idea who to talk to for support. I still think about how we struggled to find her care and support. This story is not uncommon many of us have watched friends suffer or even lost loved ones at a young age to their battles with mental health. Now, as a medical student at the University of Chicago, I encountered Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthys and the City Club of Chicagos recent talk on youth mental health. He spoke on how many issues of intersecting identities, self-worth, anxiety, and depression have been impacting Illinois youth. The COVID-19 pandemic has largely exacerbated youth mental health issues. In fact, Illinois experienced a 59 percent surge in ER visits for suicidal thoughts for children aged 5 to 18 between 2016 and 2021. Schools report more students accessing mental health care, yet only around half of schools have the resources to support them across the country. Schools are at capacity. The children need help. Its time we urge our legislators to push for more support for pediatric mental health. I wanted to highlight recent Illinois policies here to show how we have positioned ourselves as leaders in pediatric mental health policies. Illinois is one of only 12 states that allow children to take five mental health days off from school. School counselors reach out to parents when the second mental health day is used. This policy acknowledges that students mental health, like their physical health, is indispensable to their academic achievement/education. This November, Illinois launched a 2.5 million dollar effort to increase mental health services for children. This funding will support school-based health providers and emergency department providers who often are on the frontlines when children are in need. This program forms part of a broader investment in Illinois to support the integration of psychiatry in primary care settings. With a focus on screening and early treatment, we can ensure children are plugged into care faster. Co-sponsors for these policies included senators with backgrounds in K-12 education, social work, and youth program involvement. In Dr. Murthys talk, Illinois Senator Mike Simmons mentioned that youth council sessions often include voicing and sharing their issues openly with legislators. Such a youth-centered approach is critical to feasible and sustainable initiatives, as was the case for SB4028, which mandated a mental health curriculum that includes education for K-12 students on how to find mental health providers. Detractors might argue that these policies will increase mental health visits, overburdening thinly stretched schools. Moreover, some would also argue: why institute more mandates and curriculum changes for our struggling schools? However, schools and emergency rooms are the front lines where we will first see mental health issues. Therefore, it makes sense to invest in resources to support these programs. Illinois has now launched these policies to increase mental health literacy, screening, access, and fortify existing resources for children. These policies are game changers. While Illinois has a positive momentum for progressive pediatric mental health policies, more work needs to be done. In terms of funding and allocating resources for mental health counselors in schools, how can we address the disparities in pediatric mental health? How do we ensure that schools that need this funding have the right infrastructure to address these issues, especially in rural Illinois? Chicago already has a strong infrastructure for developing trauma-informed care centers with community organizations across 77 neighborhoods. These networks increase access to care including mental health regardless of insurance and immigration status. Can such models be scaled up statewide throughout Illinois? There is still more work needed to understand the impact of these policies longitudinally, and I urge researchers and public health officials to begin tracking the outcomes of such policies. Pediatric mental health impacts our country and can have consequences further down the line in terms of employment and education. Illinois proudly champions abortion rights and LGBTQ+ advocacy/equity in the Midwest. We can serve as a beacon of hope for pediatric mental health. Shirking this responsibility would be harmful. Nitin Vidyasagar is a medical student. Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili and Jonathan Djanogly, the Chair of the United Kingdom All-Party Parliamentary Group on Georgia on Thursday discussed the strong inter-parliamentary relations between the two countries and the support of the British Parliament demonstrated to Georgia. At the meeting, their discussions also focused on the visit of the UK Parliamentary Group in Georgia, the sides also highlighting the cooperation at the legislative level and mutual support in multilateral formats, the Foreign Ministry said. The officials also welcomed the format of the Wadrops Strategic Dialogue and highly appraised the meetings, being held within the framework of the dialogue. Tokyo, Jan 27 (UNI) Tokyo on Friday froze the assets of 22 Russian individuals and 3 companies against the background of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, according to a statement on the Japanese Foreign Ministry's website. "Asset Freeze measures: Measures (i) and (ii) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Notice (promulgated on January 27) will come into effect for individuals and entities of the Russian Federation (22 individuals and 3 entities); and individuals considered to be directly involved in the 'annexation' of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol or the destabilization of Eastern Part of Ukraine, as well as individuals of eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, who are considered to be directly involved in the purported 'incorporation' by Russia (14 individuals)," the statement read. The list of individuals, among others, includes Russian Children Ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova, Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko, the head of the Russian Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, and Alexander Malkevich, the deputy chair of a public oversight coordination center at Russias Civic Chamber. The list also includes Russian manufacturer of trucks, buses, and engines KAMAZ, the Irkut aircraft manufacturer, and Moscow-based manufacturer and supplier of missiles Avangard. Tokyo also banned exports to 49 Russian entities, as well as banned exports of dual-use items "which could contribute to the development of military capacity." UNI/SPUTNIK GNK A new art therapist is helping patients at St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny. Tara Walsh is an MA Art Therapy student on placement in St Luke's Hospital until May. She comes to the hospital from the Crawford College of Art MTU in Cork. Tara will offer art therapy sessions to patients attending the Paediatric Diabetic and Gastroenterology Outpatients clinics and will also support inpatients in the Paediatric ward. She may also offer an Art Therapy weekly support group for parents of Paediatric patients. Art therapists work with families, supporting parents and siblings with their emotional resilience around difficult diagnosis or life-changing illnesses. Art therapists help children who experience, needle stick, or phobia and recently St Luke's had a breakthrough with one of the longer-term patients attending for regular blood tests; she is now less stressed and it is easier for staff to take her bloods and she is so much happier coming to her regular appointments. Art therapists also work with patients with all sorts of complex physical and emotional healthcare challenges and help support them towards wellness. Fort Polk, LA (71446) Today Generally sunny despite a few afternoon clouds. High 82F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy skies early will become overcast later during the night. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. More than 7,500 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti have been approved to come to the United States under a program set up by the Biden administration earlier this month. A Border Patrol is pictured at the US-Mexico border fence in December 2022. The shooter was neutralized at the scene and some of the injured are in critical condition, Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency rescue services said. The Kia was dragged eight miles on the interstate before the semi driver noticed. The woman inside suffered only minor injuries. Yes, by at least $1 Yes, by $2 or more No Vote View Results The Indiana General Assembly appears likely to resolve a separation-of-powers dispute among two branches of Lake County government that's wound through the court system for nearly three years. The Senate Committee on Local Government voted 9-1 Thursday in favor of legislation that would keep the county's purchasing and data processing agencies under control of the board of commissioners instead of transferring management to the county council. Senate Bill 154, which next goes to the full Senate, explicitly authorizes the commissioners, who have overseen Lake County purchasing and data for decades, to continue doing so in accordance with their duties as the county's three-person executive. That ability was in doubt after the seven-member council enacted a 2020 ordinance over the commissioners' veto taking the two agencies from the commissioners as provided by a never-implemented 1981 state law authorizing the transfer. Subsequent litigation in the Lake Superior Court and the Indiana Court of Appeals was decided in favor of the council. The commissioners' pending appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court was dropped Tuesday in connection with the legislative action. "We're trying to put this back where this was," said Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, the sponsor. "For the past 40-some years the county commissioners have been the purchasing agent for the county." Regardless of the 1981 law, Niemeyer said, it's bad policy for the county's legislative body to be in charge of appropriating money to county agencies and contracting to spend that money. Purchasing is a task that properly belongs to the county executive, he said. Ray Szarmach, attorney for the county council, unsuccessfully urged the panel to not rush into taking control of purchasing and data processing away from the council now that the commissioners have dropped their lawsuit. "Leaving the law as it is would work well for the citizens of Lake County," Szarmach said. Commissioner Jerry Tippy, R-Schererville, disputed that claim. He said confusion over who is in charge of purchasing has forced the county to slow payments to some vendors and leave others temporarily unpaid. "We need to do something to get this back on track," Tippy said. The purchasing dispute originated in part with the council objecting to the commissioners repeatedly declining to award contracts to buy costly law enforcement equipment requested by Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr., including a nearly $800,000 Lake Michigan patrol boat, even though the council appropriated money for the purchases. After stealing viewers' attention during her stint at "Girls Planet 999," Guinn Myah suddenly "disappeared" from K-pop fans' radar, and rarely had updates. About more than a year after failing to debut as Kep1er, what's next for the idol trainee? Guinn Myah in 2021 to 2022: 'Girls Planet 999,' Top Media Trainee In 2021, American-Korean Guinn Myah entered the K-pop scene at the young age of 15 by joining Mnet's survival show, "Girls Planet 99," representing the agency, TOP Media. Despite being the youngest trainee among Korean participants, Myah immediately built her own fandom thanks to her solid skills as well as her goofy and bubbly personality. Her visuals became the talk of the town as well, flaunting a unique beauty of a mixed-race trainee. With her excellent abilities, Myah maintained her position in the program until the finale. Unfortunately, she was behind two rankings among trainees after final votes from fans, ending at No. 11. Due to this, she failed to join the TOP9, which debuted as Kep1er members. Following this, Myah reportedly returned to TOP Media and continued her trainee life. As she didn't open any social media platforms which are prohibited among trainees, fans were positive she was preparing for her debut. At the time, she was supposedly going to debut with An Jeongmin, a former SM trainee who also entered Myah's agency. However, 2022 came but there's still no update about TOP Media's new girl group. The launch became hazier when Jeongmin allegedly left the company. In the same year, fans and netizens had a "Myah" drought and were only getting updates from the trainee's friends and mom. According to her mother, Myah is working hard and is still a trainee at TOP Media. Her friends would also occasionally post photos with the idol. So glad to see myah but I need her to debut pic.twitter.com/W1wvCC6T7r wheres guinn myah (@luv_u_myah) July 18, 2022 On Twitter, a user who interacted with Myah's mother also hinted at her possible debut in 2023. I spoke with her mommy 2 days ago, and she told me that Myah unnie might debut in February~April 2023. Myah unnie was predicted to debut during the Summer of 2022 by Ms. Tia but uhm yeah, you can tell that never happened. T^T Eva Kim Greener/() (@wonder_greener) October 14, 2022 So far, Myah's last update in 2022 was when her co-"Girls Planet 999" trainee, Yeeun, uploaded Instagram stories with her in November and December. Where Is Guinn Myah in 2023? Idol Trainee Rumored To Debut This Year Although there's no official news about her, K-pop fans are claiming that the trainee will possibly debut this year. On January 3, Myah became a hot topic on Twitter after it was mentioned in Korean web communities, such as DC Gallery, that she transferred agency and is now a trainee under Belift Lab. The rumor started when an ex-trainee from the same label mentioned that she and Myah have a good relationship. | RUMOR rumors have surfaced from dcgall that indicate that myah may be a trainee at Belift Lab. maybe we got myah on iland2? pic.twitter.com/c1HoW5a67B (slow) (@MyahThinkr) January 2, 2023 With this, speculations arose that Myah will join her second survival program, which would be "I-Land 2," the female counterpart of the show which produced ENHYPEN. In another rumor, some are expecting Guinn Myah to join tripleS, a multi-member global group whose group and sub-units will depend on the song's concept and fan votes. and if we actually get the tripleS guinn myah??? (@yooyeonatic) January 2, 2023 But based on how TOP Media is keeping quiet about it, it is safe to assume that Guinn Myah is still working hard to debut under the company. Fans are really hoping for official news soon! For more K-Pop news and artist updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz. KpopStarz owns this article. Written by Eunice Dawson. slide 2 of 6 TWICE members Momo, Mina, and Sana showed off their extraordinary beauty for Vogue Japan's March 2023 issue. On the 26th, Vogue Japan released the pictorial shots of the three beautiful TWICE members. BTS's fans, ARMYs, reacted to reports of NewJeans "replacing" BTS due to their success and popularity. Here's what people are saying. NewJeans To 'Replace' BTS in Terms of Success, According to Reports On January 26, ARMYs discussed in a forum regarding media reports, stating that NewJeans will "replace" BTS in the near future. Fans took notice of this topic, and pointed out that the reports are claiming that the rookie girl group is filling BTS's spot. In the forum, they highlighted certain points from the reports, such as NewJeans taking over the charts BTS left open when they laid low in group activities. With the BTS members turning over a new chapter, along with member Jin's military enlistment, media reports focused on how NewJeans are helping HYBE's stocks and succeed financially. The reports also emphasized that HYBE's target price climbed by 23 percent, with NewJeans restoring HYBE's prospects. Fans even quoted the reports: "They filled BTS' empty seat to the rim thanks to NewJeans, HYBE's stocks experienced a new wind." "BTS left an empty spot?" NewJeans sweeping charts, they're working for real." "'Even when BTS joined the army" The reason why HYBE's target price climbed by 23%?" "The "NEXT BTS" turns out to be NewJeans, HYBE found their best answer." "NewJeans achieved in only 6 months what BTS achieved in 8 years." ARMYs React, Call Out HYBE & Unlikely Replacement of BTS Upon seeing the claims, ARMYs were frustrated by the media and HYBE Labels. They elaborated that without BTS, HYBE wouldn't be able to flourish as a company and manifest the success they have today. Fans even suspected of HYBE doing a media play to gain attention from the general public. They stressed out that despite BTS's massive contribution to the agency, HYBE is allegedly "bringing down" BTS. Furthermore, some ARMYs preferred BTS members not renewing their contracts in HYBE Labels. See their comments below: "But without BTS, there would've been no HYBE to start with. The way they wrote is pitiful." "The way they're trying to bring down BTS is foul. But we don't care. I wish BTS can leave soon." "Let's see what HYBE will do if BTS leaves them. They're so bizarre. They're doing well indeed, but at least spread the truth about why you're doing well." "HYBE pi**es me off more and more, I can't trust them anymore. Please BTS, don't renew your contract anymore, and just come out." "Anyone can tell that these are just media play by HYBE. The way they're denying reality is ugly. Don't they know who even rose HYBE stocks in the first place." "Why do they resort to this type of media play?" What was your reaction to NewJeans seemingly "replacing" BTS? Do you agree with the reports? Tell us in the comments below! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news. KpopStarz owns this article Written by Israel Monte TXT will appear in "Melon Spotlight" to promote their upcoming album "The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION." See more of the details here! TXT Confirmed To Appear on 'Melon Spotlight' For Album 'The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION' On January 27, Melon announced that K-pop group TXT will appear on 'Melon Spotlight' to promote their album "The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION." "Melon Spotlight" is a newly-released service from Melon, which will help artists efficiently promote their releases on various Melon channels, including the Melon app. The platform will introduce TXT's new album through an LED screen transmission on K-POP LIVE, located at Samsung Station. It will be viewed from Melon Station's "HYBE LABELS," where HYBE's affiliation with Melon is established. The videos will feature a total of two episodes. In its first episode, TXT will introduce the album's title track "Sugar Rush Ride." The members will also share their thoughts on the album, the choreography's "killing" parts, and their music video filming's behind-the-scenes. According to Melon, TXT added that "Sugar Rush Ride" is a masterpiece, expressing new confidence in the track. The episode will also feature a glimpse of the bond that members have cultivated throughout the years. Furthermore, TXT Huening Kai greeted their fans, MOAs, and expressed how happy he is to introduce a new album as kickstart for 2023. "I'm happy to greet you with a new album in the new year." On its second episode, the group will introduce the rest of the album's songs, starting from the track "Devil by the Window," to the final song "Leaving Neverland." TXT will also share what goals they have in mind for 2023. Melon also announced that with "Melon Spotlight," fans are expected to see TXT's interview video on 'Ask Me Anything,' comeback greeting, official album photos, and even separate pictures that are only exclusive to Melon. TXT Soobin & Taehyun Share Specific Goals For 2023 On January 23, TXT appeared for a pictorial in Esquire Korea, where they graced the shoot with their alluring visuals and dashing outfits. They also took time to answer several interview questions. The questions included what goals TXT will have for 2023 as a group and individually. TXT leader Soobin shared that while it may seem too ambitious, the group is planning to win a daesang (grand prize) this 2023. Meanwhile, Taehyun shared that he plans to introduce his own music. He further explained that there were times their production didn't satisfy his music taste. "I know this can come off as too ambitious, but winning a Daesang is our next goal." - Soobin "I want to present my music to fans, since I've made a good deal of music. There are times where my thirst for music wasn't quenched during music production." - Taehyun Are you looking forward to TXT's appearance in Melon Spotlight? Tell us in the comments below! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news. KpopStarz owns this article Written by Israel Monte Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Like the other candidates running for governor this year, state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, held a fundraiser at the Washington Mardi Gras on Jan. 26, 2023. She is talking with John Davis, who is married to Rep. Paula Davis, R-Baton Rouge. (Photo by Mark Ballard, The Advocate) As Team Europe, the EU and its Member States will invest more than 280 million in grants in South Africa, including 87.75 million from the EU budget, to support policy reforms on green recovery, unlock green investments and build a knowledge-based transition in the framework of the Just and Green Recovery Team Europe Initiative for South Africa launched today in Pretoria as part of Global Gateway. Through this partnership with South Africa, the Just and Green Recovery Team Europe Initiative will support the country in achieving its national goal to tackle the country's pressing socio-economic challenges through policy dialogue, facilitating investment, including for public infrastructure and to unlock a sustainable, biodiversity friendly and circular economy and combat climate change. For example, 40 million of EU grant funding will be used to facilitate investment in public infrastructure in South Africa through blended finance. The EU will also support projects to boost greening of municipal services across South Africa. EU member states will also work on the repurposing of coal power plants for the green transition, improving energy efficiency in public buildings and accelerating circular economy start-ups. Additionally, under the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), Germany, France and the EU will provide financing of more than $3 billion to South Africa. The JETP will contribute to the objectives of the Team Europe Initiative for Just and Green Recovery. Both will be mutually reinforcing. Background Under Global Gateway, the EU and its Member States aim to mobilise up to 300 billion together with the European financial institutions to support the twin green and digital transitions in partner countries and bridge the funding gap for infrastructure for development. This includes 150 billion in Africa, with a considerable emphasis on renewable energy and on climate adaptation. Under Global Gateway, the EU's strategy for sustainable and trusted connections with partner countries, this new Team Europe Initiative with South Africa aims to foster an attractive investment climate and just energy transition that will in turn bring growth and jobs to the country. The Team Europe Initiative, launched officially in Pretoria on 27 January in the margins of the Ministerial-level meeting between EU and South Africa, brings together the EU and Member States, namely Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. This collaboration with South Africa is an example of the EU's wider agenda on climate action, with the EU providing the largest contribution to global climate finance - 23 billion in 2021. The EU and its partners face the visible and palpable consequences of climate change that pose an existential threat to our societies. Together, the EU and our partner countries must do everything possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C by the end of this century. Across all EU development and cooperation activities, including the Global Europe financial instrument (the primary financial instrument of the EU for partnerships outside Europe), 35% of support will contribute to climate-change objectives. New Delhi [India], January 27 (ANI/PRNewswire): The NEW Shop, India's largest convenience retail company has appointed Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao as the brand ambassador. In a series of campaigns to expand its footprints across the country, the actor will be featured in a variety of digital and print platforms such as social media, OTT, OOH, and IVR messaging to connect with prospective consumers through physical The New Shop stores and in-app services. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbAi6M_B1YQ Also Read | NewJeans Minji Spills On How Meeting Danielle Led To A Unique Language Challenge Latest Tweet by Koreaboo. Within two years of its inception, The NEW Shop has expanded to over 100 stores with 70+ franchised stores in the last 18 months, while surpassing the ARR mark of INR 100 crores in the past year. Navigating the unexplored convenience retail sector in India, the company's omnichannel presence and hyperlocal services offer a "next-gen everyday shopping" experience to a wide variety of demographic. With its plans to expand and open new stores in the near future, the company wants to go beyond conventional strategies of consumer engagement through collaboration with Rajkummar Rao. Sharing her excitement on the recent development, Aastha Almast, Co-Founder and Head of Business, at The NEW Shop, said, "We are proud to have come a long way since our inception. We are growing rapidly across India through franchise partnerships, but we intend to create 10,000 successful independent stores by 2030. We have so far seen a phenomenal response to our franchise model; thus we want to spread the word even more about this idea. We believe that now is the right time to bring on board a brand ambassador and strengthen our brand-building initiatives." Also Read | Ali Fazal Opens Up About Not Being Part of Fukrey 3, Says 'Once a Fukra, Always a Fukra'. While carving a niche as an actor in Bollywood can be quite daunting, Rajkummar Rao has proven to the world over time and time again that talent is not only a product of merit but a combination of perseverance and diligence. What sets him apart is the unconventionality with which he has navigated through the industry by setting his own rules and striking a chord with the audience. His risks have been nothing less than entrepreneurial, which resonates with the company's organic growth and breaking systemic barriers by providing round-the-clock quality services to consumers. In continuation on the same, Aastha further added, "It is quite admirable how Rajkummar Rao has overcome all obstacles to become a renowned Bollywood star. Despite coming from a humble background, he has made his mark through honesty, hard work, dedication, and persistent efforts. And for this reason, audiences connect with him immensely. We are honored to be associated with a celebrity that personifies the entrepreneurial spirit of taking risks and overcoming obstacles with courage and determination. Due to his business savvy and hard-working demeanor, he is the ideal brand ambassador for our brand and franchise partners. We thank Rajkummar Rao for believing in us and being a part of our growth journey." India is the third-largest consumer market in the world with its largest ever adolescent and youth population. A uniform, state-of-the-art convenience retail service that is available everywhere in the country at reasonable prices and catering to millions of Indian customers with regard to time and location is an exciting space for creating business opportunities. The franchise model aims to offer around 70 million traditional shopkeepers, aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses to enable them to build a successful business in convenience retail driven by technology and consumer needs. Expressing his happiness, Rajkummar Rao said, "I am thrilled to be partnering with The NEW Shop, a youthful and energetic brand exhibiting rapid growth. I identify with the co-founders' determination to create a brand, ensuring its sustainability, and profitability; and I believe this comes from their prior entrepreneurial experiences. By encouraging our nation's workforce to become future entrepreneurs, the brand is on a mission to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Simultaneously, it strives to provide consumers with standardized round-the-clock convenience in the truest sense and makes consistent progress toward reaching the zenith. I am excited to be a part of the brand's journey and look forward to contributing to its success in all ways possible." The NEW Shop offers a wide range of quick-consumption goods, including groceries, OTC, FMCG, and fresh food and beverages. It also offers add-on services such as printing, ATMs, courier, EV charging stations, freshly prepared food, etc. With its aim to provide services in busy transit hubs, office buildings, schools, and densely populated neighborhoods; the company serves clients across all touchpoints, including physical retail, e-commerce (via its website and app), as well as through marketplaces like Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo, owing to its tech-enabled hybrid omnichannel strategy. Customers can use the app to order delivery to their doorstep, visit the nearest store, or even opt for in-store pickup. With a new feather added to the hat, the company's focus in 2023 is to establish a strong pan-India presence and grow 10x capturing more territorial presence in 20+ cities. The New Shop The New Shop is India's largest omnichannel convenience retail platform with instant hyperlocal deliveries solving for quick, standardized, and 24x7 access in India. It offers franchise-as-a-service to upgrade 70 million aspiring entrepreneurs, traditional shopkeepers and small businesses (eg, local sweetshops, QSRs, dhabas, milk shops, printers and photocopiers, grocery shops, and courier shops) to help them build successful retail business in convenience retail fueled by the modern consumer's need. The New Shop provides location selection, Information Technology, and marketing services, licensing and compliance, brand partnerships, training, financing, branding, and omnichannel support to all its franchise partners. The company sets up stores in high-density neighborhoods, mass transit hubs, and educational institutions that offer and deliver fresh food cafe services, supermarket, and grocery services, stationery, over-the-counter medicines, neighborhood services like printing, ATM, courier, and other necessities all under one roof. The New Shop is the brainchild of Aastha Almast (Co-founder and Head of Business), Charak Almast (Co-founder and Head of Operations), and Mani Dev Gyawali (Co-founder and Head of Technology). All the stores have a sleek and contemporary design and are equipped with state-of-the-art technology that makes shopping a seamless and enjoyable, convenient experience. So far, The New Shop has 100+ operating outlets in India, spreading across 10 metro and tier 2 & 3 cities such as Delhi & NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Meerut, Rohtak, and Agra. Find The New Shop on:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenewshopofficial Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thenewshopofficial Linkedin: https://in.linkedin.com/company/thenewshopofficial Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_new_shop For media enquiries contact: Bhuvana K+91-9869788246Bhuvaneshwari@value360india.com Dolly Prajesh+91-8130887592Dolly@value360india.com This story is provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PRNewswire) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi [India], January 27 (ANI): Delhi's Patiala House Court on Friday adjourned the bail plea of Shankar Mishra, accused of urinating on a woman on board an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi. The Court listed the hearing for January 30. The Additional Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla on Friday adjourned the matter and noted that Investigation Officer is not present. Complainant Lady's Lawyer wasn't supplied with a copy of the plea, Court noted. Also Read | BharOS: Everything You Need To Know About India's Own Operating System and Rival to Android and iOS. Senior Lawyer Ramesh Gupta appearing for Shankar Mishra objected to the adjournment of the hearing and said, if the matter is getting adjourned then please grant him interim bail. It can't be a reason that the investigating officer is not here, so adjourn. Recently Mishra's bail plea was dismissed by the Magistrate court. He was arrested by the Delhi Police on January 6 and is presently in judicial custody. Also Read | Prashant Kishor Reveals Why Nitish Kumar Dumped BJP and Forged Alliance With Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar. On January 11, the Magistrate Court of Delhi's Patiala House Court dismissed the bail plea of accused Shankar Mishra. It said the alleged act of the accused of relieving himself upon the complainant is utterly "disgusting and repulsive". "The alleged act in itself is sufficient to outrage the modesty of any woman. Egregious conduct of the accused has shocked the civic consciousness and needs to be deprecated, said Metropolitan Magistrate Komal Garg. As per the allegations, the accused was voluntarily drunk and had consumed alcohol during the flight and the said fact has not been denied by the applicant. The alleged act in itself prima facie reflects the accused's intention, added the Magistrate. Recently senior advocate Ramesh Gupta appearing for Shankar Mishra alleged that "the complainant woman's seat was blocked. It was not possible for him (Mishra) to go there. The woman has a problem with incontinence. She urinated on herself." Raising questions over the Delhi Police investigation, advocate Gupta submitted that there must be someone else. She herself urinated. The seating system was such that no one could go to her seat. The passenger sitting behind the complainant did not make any such complaint, he added. On this allegation, the complainant issued a statement stating that the accused has adopted a campaign of spreading misinformation and falsities with the intent of further harassing the victim "Accused, instead of being remorseful for the utterly disgusting act committed byhim has adopted a campaign of spreading misinformation and falsities with the intent of further harassing the victim, said the complainant through her lawyer Ankur Mahendru. Mishra had allegedly urinated on a 70-year-old woman in an intoxicated condition in business class of an Air India flight on November 26 last year. Delhi Police had registered an FIR against him on January 4 on a complaint given by the woman to Air India. The police registered an FIR under sections 354, 509, and 510 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 23 of the Indian Aircraft Act. Both the accused and the victim are from outside Delhi. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Legal experts have punched holes in the judgement, claiming that the courts reasoning is not as per law. TCN Correspondent Support TwoCircles NEW DELHI Apparently based on presumption, a court in Gujarat sentenced 22-year-old Mohammad Ameen to rigorous life imprisonment for illegally transporting cows for the purpose of slaughter. Ironically, there is no provision for a life term for unauthorised transportation of bovines in Gujarats anti-cow slaughter law. The latest amendment, which was brought in 2017 in the 1954 legislation (the principal Act), provides for a maximum punishment of 10 years with a fine that may extend to Rs 5 lakh but shall not be less than Rs 1 lakh for the offence of transporting bovines without requisite papers. Sessions Judge Samir Vinodchandra Vyas presiding over the District Court at Vyara in Tapi found him guilty of violating sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 1954 read with Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 2011 and sections 6 (a)(1) and 8 (2) of the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, 2017. Apart from rigorous punishment to life, he has also been slapped with a fine of Rs 5 lakh. If he fails to pay the fine, he will have to undergo rigorous punishment of five more years, the court ruled. But legal experts punch holes in the judgement, claiming the court reasoning is not as per law, appreciation of evidence is against the established principle of the Evidence Act and presumption of the act is against the criminal jurisprudence. They also said the lawyer provided to the accused by the legal aid of the state government failed to perform what was expected from him as a defence counsellor effectively rebutting the assumption or argument made by the prosecution despite the fact that he was given complete liberty to offer arguments and proceed with means of cross-examination. No single witness, they alleged, was produced by the defence and not any reassignment or certification was obtained which is highlighted all over the 24-page order. Brief details of the case From the facts of the case, the accused a truck driver from Malegaon in Maharashtras Nashik district was transporting 12 cows and four bullocks from Gujarat to Maharashtra through a vehicle, which was beyond its capacity to carry 16 cattle at a time. On July 18, 2020, the truck was making its way through a road between Nava (in Tapi district) and Ashrava (in Banas Kantha district) villages. It was stopped by a police team near a trisection at 3:45 a.m. on July 18 last year for routine checking. The night patrol police team comprised Head Constable Bipinbhai Rustambhai Chaudhari from Nirjhar police station and Narendrabhai Rajeshbhai and Jigneshbhai Ravindrabhai from the Home Guard. The police vehicle was being driven by one Dineshbhai Gangaram. Upon not getting satisfactory answers to his questions, the cop with his two subordinates went to the rear side of the truck to examine it. In the meantime, the driver taking advantage of the darkness of dawn allegedly fled the spot. He was later arrested on August 27, 2020. It was alleged that the truck was comparatively smaller than the required size, which ensures each cattle has at least two square meters of space for them to move and be comfortable. It did not have any proper arrangements for transportation with regard to the comfort of food and water. The cattle were allegedly packed tightly within the truck space, and they were tied with a small rope that restricted their movement leading to several instances of criminality against the dumb animals. Due to the alleged prevailing circumstances, one bullock and one cow were also found dead during the investigation. The driver allegedly did not have the certification issued by concerned competent authorities as required under the law of the state of Gujarat. Due to the alleged lack of evidence or any proper documentation regarding the transportation of the cattle, the court presumed that such an illegal attempt of transportation was being made for the sake of slaughtering and thereby the accused was subjected to such a harsh punishment. Accused wrongly framed? Firstly, the public prosecutor of the state resigned a long time ago. No new appointment was made by the government since then, and thereby the accused was left in jail for over two years without any initiation of arguments on the side of the plaintiff. Justice is already delayed. As per the oral evidence by Bipinbhai Rustambhai Chaudhari, who was on duty at Nijhar police station as an unarmed head constable at the time of the commission of the crime, the witness (Chaudhari himself) along with three others stopped the vehicle for investigation, and the driver was not giving proper replies to the question. When they went to the rear side of the truck, the driver slipped into the darkness. Upon the cross-examination of the witness by the defence, the witness assured that he has seen the accused in light as he was asked to get down from the vehicle and that he has rightly identified the accused. But the fact that the police constable on duty failed to take notice that the accused had fled away due to darkness, there is less assurance of the truth asserted by the witness. When it was so dark to even see the driver fleeing the spot, it makes the credibility of the identification of the accused by the witness questionable, Advocate Mobashshir Aneeq, a lawyer associated with the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) that deals with such matters, told TwoCircles.net. It is very uncommon for the driver he said to step down the vehicle before the search has been made. The fact that the driver, who might or might not be the accused, was made to get down from the vehicle was also not asserted by any other witness; hence, the credibility of testimony should have been challenged by the defence, he pointed out. Ahmedabad-based criminal lawyer Bilal Kagzi too finds the prosecutions case doubtful. The police, as per the case file, did not call panch (independent witnesses) and prepare a panchnama (seizer memo) at the place of the incident. The panch witnesses were called at the police station where the memo was prepared. It made the recovery of animals doubtful, he added. Alleging that it might be a case of framing, he said, Not conducting an identification parade of the accused makes the veracity of Ameen (the alleged driver) really being the accused doubtful. Veterinary Officer Ravibhai Bhandasbhai Gondaliya, in his oral submission, purportedly made a statement of having seen the animals (12 cows and 4 bullocks) being taken off the vehicle. He allegedly asserted that nine cows and three bullocks were in a weak condition and that three cows and one bullock were found dead, on whom he performed the postmortem. The statements made by the officer alleged Aneeq are in contravention of the evidence found and the statement made by the other officers that asserted the death of only two cattle. He said Gondaliya pointed out the death of four animals, but the defence failed to cross-examine him adequately to identify the discrepancy made in his statements. There was a requirement on the part of counsel to bring up the data and assert the contravention. The defence yet again has failed to do the required minimum, he added. The prosecution brought Balrajbhai Bhaidasbhai Gulale as one of the independent witnesses who among other panchs was called to the police station and a memo of the physical condition of the accused was made in their presence. The prosecution also brought on record the oral submission of witness Raj Sang Hirabhai Loh, a police inspector. He at the time of the commission of the crime was discharging his duty at Nijhar police station, and the police station officer had declared the facts of the case to him. He was the in-charge of the investigations, and he was suspended for reasons independent of this case. Their cross-examinations revealed that the witness was not present when the accused was found carrying the animals in the vehicle. The fact that the accused could not be arrested from the spot was maintained by him. A test identification parade of the accused was also not conducted. These facts are again inconsistent with the requirement of the law. The court has accepted that the investigation was made as per the law, although the cross-examination revealed otherwise. The defence was required to act by the law and bring a challenge to the testimony. There is also some inclusion of hearsay evidence, as the facts were conveyed to the officer, which may not be the best form of evidence and the same needs to be proved in strict guidelines, said Advocate Aneeq. He added the defence has let the lacunae and shortcomings of the witness testimony and did not pay heed despite the fact that there is enough space and ground on part of the defence to bring in different facts of the case and decide upon the credibility of evidence produced by the prosecution. Advocate Kagzi said there are many contradictions between the prosecution complaint and the panch witness dispositions. Looking at the case, there is no allegation of these animals were taken to the slaughterhouse. In a criminal trial, the prosecution has to prove the ingredients of sections which are invoked against the accused. In the instant case, the prosecution failed to prove the charge of transportation of animals for slaughter without reasonable doubt, he told TwoCircles.net. The lawyer alleged that the courts reasoning in the judgement is not as per law, appreciation of evidence is against the established principle of the Evidence Act and the presumption of this Act is against the criminal jurisprudence. Based on the presumption, the court cannot convict any person. The presumption can not become a law. It is contrary to criminal jurisprudence, he added. Ineffective defence The court, while holding the accused guilty of violating the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 1954 and its amendments, observed that the defence has not been able to bring on record any facts so as to give convincing reasons to doubt the evidence. Therefore, said the judge, he believes that the evidence submitted by the plaintiff proves the case against the accused without any doubt. Notably, the accused was represented by the states legal aid counsel. It is a classic example of the quality and competence of a legal aid scheme, said both the advocates quoted above. They said the defence failed to make attempts to further cross-examine and ask about the facts he observed at the time when he first saw the driver. There are points that could have been rebutted by the defence counsel, but he apparently chose to accept the testimonies, they alleged. Advocate Aneeq said the defence could have brought forward the contention that animals were not tied with short rope as there was no evidence to prove any marks on the neck of the animals other than one animal having a vertebral fracture which could have been caused by the hustle and tussle amongst the animals or it could be during the journey. It would have helped in reducing the sentence and fine upon the accused as it diminishes the assertion of cruelty against the animals, he said. Though Kagzi found no evidence of animals were taken to slaughter, Aneeq said the driver could not produce any required permit for the transportation of the animals; the evidence of possession of the cattle could not be found; and therefore, the accused was presumed to be the owner of animals that were being transported at that time. Since the defence failed to bring about the evidence of any proper certification of the competent authority which authorized the transportation of the animals; hence, the court presumed that such transportation was taking place so that the animals could be slaughtered. The defence did not make any attempt to rebut the presumption; and therefore, the accused was held liable under Section 6 (a) of the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 1954, he explained. However, he said there is a possibility of infringement of several rights in this procedure. The case may be framed, but the credibility of evidence given by witnesses is challenge worthy and should not have been upheld to form the criminality of the accused, he concluded. Life term without provision in law? The Gujarat assembly in March 2017 toughened (in fact toughest in the country) its anti-cow slaughter legislation by making the offence made non-bailable and punishable with a life sentence. The Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act, 2017, was passed amid the suspension of the Opposition, the Congress, and legislators from the house for the entire day and with the visitors gallery of the House packed with saffron-clad Hindu priests. The amendment in the 1954 law (the principal Act) provides for a maximum punishment of up to life imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh if one is held guilty of slaughtering cows, calves, bulls and bullocks. Notably, sections 6A and 6B of the amended Act ban the transportation of the livestock animals without any requisite permission and have a provision of imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years but shall not be less than seven years and with a fine which may extend to Rs 5 lakh but shall not be less than Rs 1 lakh. Earlier, the maximum punishment for the same was three years. The law also provides for permanent forfeiture of vehicles involved in the illegal transportation of progeny of cows and beef. It has put curbs on the transportation of cows in the state during night hours. Even legal, licensed movement is not be allowed between 7 pm and 5 am. As per the 2017 amendment, the maximum sentence for unauthorised transportation is 10 years. The court, without any substantial evidence on record, presumed that the animals were transported for slaughter and sentenced the accused to rigorous life imprisonment even before the commission of the alleged crime, said Advocate Kagzi, adding that mere presumption cannot be the basis of such a harsh punishment. Zango The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA) has announced plans to invest over 1 billion US dollars in economic projects in Angola. The intention is to boost the country's economy, said the commercial director of the Investment Forum for Angola (FIPA), Mohamed Dialo, has said. Mohamed Dialo, who made the statement at the end of the 1st Angolan Investment Forum held on January 23-24 in Luanda, noted the amount is part of the USD 20 billion available for similar projects in Africa. Dialo said Angola has great economic potential and added that the country wants to cooperate in several areas of the economy, as soon as the indicators to invest in key areas arise. Also addressing the event, Manuel Francisco Pedro, Luanda/Bengo Special Economic Zone (ZEE) CEO said the investments in infrastructure, as well as bank loans are some of the solutions for future challenges in the economic sector. Pedro added that one of the ZEE's strategies is to align itself to increase exports and attract more investors to the country, having underscored the need to find partners capable of responding to the challenges that the sector poses. The ZEE CEO said the meeting also aimed to identify the real needs to further move to signing of financing agreements. He stressed the importance of the contact made with BADEA, taking into account the number of financial facilities it possesses that could help Angola. Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 27 (ANI): Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Friday triggered a fresh row, calling Hindu seers 'terrorists' and 'devils'. Speaking to ANI on Friday, Maurya said, "Those who threatened to slit my neck and tongue were seers or were from a particular caste. Had the same threat been made by a person belonging to some other religion, he would have been called a terrorist. Are the seers threatening to slit my tongue and neck not terrorists devils, and executioners? If they had, indeed, believed in the religion that they claim to espouse, they couldn't have said such things." Also Read | Delhi Weather Forecast: IMD Predicts Light Rainfall in National Capital on January 29. Earlier this month, the SP leader sparked a major controversy after he demanded the deletion of "insulting comments and sarcasm" targeted at particular castes and sects in Ramcharitmanas, a poem based on the epic Ramayana. Speaking to ANI, the former BJP leader had said, "I don't have any issue with Ramcharitramanas but parts of it have insulting comments and sarcasm directed at particular castes and sects. Those should be removed." Also Read | Kamal Haasan's Party Makkal Needhi Maiam's Website Hacked, Denies Miscreants' Claim of Party's Merger With Congress. Maurya further claimed that in the Ramcharitmanas, which was composed by Tulsidas, there are words hurting the sentiments of the Dalit community. "The government should take effective action and show sensitivity. It should see that the sentiments of any community are not hurt," he added. While Maurya's remarks gave fresh ammunition to the BJP, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav distanced himself from the remark. An FIR was filed against the former Cabinet minister over his remark. The case against Maurya was filed at the Hazratganj police station for allegedly outraging religious feelings with his remark. Maurya left the ruling BJP last year, in January, and joined the SP ahead of the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) By Aashique Hussain New Delhi [India], January 27 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Kisan Morcha National Executive meeting will be held under the chairmanship of Kisan Morcha National President Rajkumar Chahar in Karnataka's Belagavi on January 29 and 30. Also Read | Delhi Weather Forecast: IMD Predicts Light Rainfall in National Capital on January 29. The Morcha will also work to spread the scheme of the Government of India in the remote areas of the country. BJP National Organization General Secretary BL Santosh will address the closing session of the Morcha office bearers in the meeting. Also Read | Kamal Haasan's Party Makkal Needhi Maiam's Website Hacked, Denies Miscreants' Claim of Party's Merger With Congress. Apart from them, the Morcha President of every state and the Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai will also participate. BJP Kisan Morcha National Executive meeting will be attended by the national office bearers, national executive members, state presidents and state general secretaries of all the states. Various topics of the organization will be reviewed in the national executive meeting and the outline of the upcoming program will be decided, especially by making natural farming a mass movement by taking it to every village. Kisan Morcha's media convenor Manoj Yadav said, "All the office bearers of the Morcha will participate in the meeting. Natural farming, as well as the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024, participation of farmers in G20 and the Modi government's schemes reaching villages and farmers, will be discussed in the meeting." Yadav further said that along with making natural farming a mass movement, the workers of the Morcha will take part in the outreach programme in which one lakh villages in the country will be covered. "Training will be given to one thousand farmers in the country for natural farming and seminars will be organized for this in every district of the country," he added. The Kisan Morcha will also work to spread the scheme of the Government of India in the remote areas of the country. Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the farmers to emphasize on natural farming and do it through many platforms. Notably, the Assembly elections are likely to be held in Karnataka in April-May this year. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Residents of the building rush out following the fire (Photo/ANI) Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 27 (ANI): A level 2 fire broke out at the RA Residency Tower in the Dadar East area of Mumbai, said BMC in a statement. The incident was reported at around 8.30 pm on Thursday night following which fire tenders were pressed into service. Also Read | Uttar Pradesh Shocker: Couple Dies by Suicide by Jumping Before Moving Train Over Trivial Dispute in Kanpur. Fire broke out in the 42nd floor of 44 storied building. The overnight operation of dousing the flames continued till 4 am in the morning of January 27. No injuries have been reported yet, said BMC. Also Read | Uttar Pradesh: Government Teacher Refuses To Sing National Anthem During Republic Day Celebrations in Aligarh; Probe Ordered. As per the latest reports, the fire has been doused. The residents of the high-rise building were seen rushing out of the building as fire engulfed it and fire-fighters went inside to bring the situation under control. According to BMC, the building fire fighting system is not in a working condition and currently cooling operation is underway in the residency tower. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], January 27 (ANI): Five people, accused in connection to the 1994 ISRO espionage case, appeared before the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) in Thiruvananthapuram for questioning on Friday. The five accused, Sibi Mathews, former Kerala Director General of Police (DGP); R B Sreekumar, former Gujarat Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Thampi S Durga Dutt, Deputy Superintendent of Police; P S Jayaprakash, former intelligence officer; and S Vijayan, (retd) Circle Inspector, appeared before the CBI for questioning, said officials. Also Read | BharOS: Everything You Need To Know About India's Own Operating System and Rival to Android and iOS. Earlier this month, two accused Siby Mathews and R B Sreekumar were granted anticipatory bail by the Kerala High Court. A single bench of Justice K Babu granted anticipatory bail to former Kerala police officers S Vijayan and Thampi S Durga Dutt, and retired intelligence official PS Jayaprakash, with conditions. Also Read | Prashant Kishor Reveals Why Nitish Kumar Dumped BJP and Forged Alliance With Tejashwi Yadav in Bihar. The HC held a fresh hearing on the bail applications of the five accused after its earlier order, granting them pre-arrest bail in 2021, was set aside by the Supreme Court in December 2022. The Supreme Court referred the matter back to the high court, observing that the previous order was passed without considering certain aspects. "The accused must appear before the CBI for interrogation on January 27 between 10.00 am and 11.00 am. They shall continue to appear before the interrogating officer on Mondays and Fridays for a further period of two weeks. They shall continue to report before the investigating officer for interrogation as and when required. If arrested, they shall be released on bail on executing bonds for Rs 1 lakh each with two solvent sureties each for the like sum," HC said on January 20, laying out the conditions for granting anticipatory bail. "The accused cannot leave India without the permission of a jurisdictional court. They shall not influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence. They shall fully corporate with the investigation subjecting themselves to deemed custody as observed in Gurbachan Singh and Sushila Aggarwal cases for the purpose of discovery or identification if any," the single bench ruled further. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) The five persons who were arrested in connection with the incident. (Photo/ANI) New Delhi (India), January 27 (ANI): In a near rerun of the Khanjawala hit-and-drag incident, a motorist allegedly rammed his car into a scooter and dragged the rider on its roof for about 350 metres in the Keshav Puram area of the national capital on Friday. According to the FIR registered at the Keshav Puram police station, such was the impact of the collision that the scooter rider was thrown off the pilot seat of his two-wheeler and landed on the vehicle's roof, while the pillion rider died on the spot. Also Read | Delhi Weather Forecast: IMD Predicts Light Rainfall in National Capital on January 29. The biker was then allegedly dragged for 350 metres, the police said, adding the five persons were arrested in connection with the incident. The biker was rushed to a nearby hospital, the police informed further. Also Read | Kamal Haasan's Party Makkal Needhi Maiam's Website Hacked, Denies Miscreants' Claim of Party's Merger With Congress. There were two people riding the scooty, one of them died in the accident while the other one is hospitalised. In a similar incident at Khanjawala on New Year's night, 20-year-old Anjali Singh, who was driving a scooter, was allegedly rammed by a car and dragged for several kilometres as she held on to the vehicle in Outer Delhi's Kanjhawala area. The woman was found dead in the middle of the road, with her clothes tattered and torn. A total of seven persons, including the five occupants of the car, were arrested in connection with the incident. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Lakhimpur Kheri (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 27 (ANI): Ashish Mishra, the main accused in the Tikunia incident in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh and son of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni, has been released from the district jail late on Friday evening. Instead of the main gate, Ashish Mishra was secretly taken out through the side passage. Ashish Mishra's close relatives had reached the residential colony built on the jail premises by car. He secretly rode out of the jail premises and reached his residence in the city. The gate of the house was closed as soon as he arrived. Also Read | Delhi Weather Forecast: IMD Predicts Light Rainfall in National Capital on January 29. On October 3, 2021, thousands of farmers were protesting against the visit of Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav Prasad Maurya in the Tikonia area of Lakhimpur Kheri district. It is alleged that Ashish Mishra's car had run over the protesting farmers, in which four farmers died. After this, the protesters attacked the people riding the SUV, in which the driver of the car and two BJP workers were killed. A total of eight people lost their lives in the case, including the death of a journalist during the violence. Ashish Mishra is the main accused in this case. Ashish Mishra had filed a petition in the Allahabad High Court for bail, which the High Court approved. Still, the Supreme Court directed the High Court to decide on the bail petition only after giving sufficient opportunity to the aggrieved party. Also Read | Kamal Haasan's Party Makkal Needhi Maiam's Website Hacked, Denies Miscreants' Claim of Party's Merger With Congress. After this, the High Court again heard the matter and dismissed the bail plea of Ashish Mishra. Ashish Mishra had moved the Supreme Court on this. As of now, Ashish Mishra has now got conditional bail for eight weeks. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Palghar (Maharashtra) [India], January 27 (ANI): A 36-year-old tribal woman and four others were arrested for allegedly killing the woman's husband over his alleged extramarital affair in Maharashtra's Palghar, said the police. The deceased was identified as Santosh Tokre. He was killed while he was asleep. Also Read | RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat Says 'Necessary To Bring Sense of Equality With Freedom'. According to the police, the man was found dead in his home at Kondle-Bandanpada village of Wada taluka around 10 pm on January 20. The police registered a case under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. An autopsy showed that he had been strangulated and had internal head injuries. Also Read | Assam Road Accident: Four-Wheeler Collides With Truck and Two Motorcycles in Dhubri; Two Killed and Five Injured. He was attacked on his head with a sharp-edged weapon. The police took the dead body into their possession and sent it for post-mortem. According to the police, the victim was in a relationship with another woman which angered his wife. She then took the help of four men to kill him, stated the official. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Bhiwandi (Maharashtra) [India], January 27 (ANI): A man was killed, while another was injured after a portion of a building collapsed in Bhiwandi, Thane Municipal Corporation said on Friday. According to Thane Municipal Corporation officials, one person was safely rescued and has been shifted to a hospital. Also Read | Hidenburg Report on Adani Group: Congress Demands Probe by SEBI. The exact reason behind the collapse incident is yet to be ascertained, civic body officials said. Further details are awaited. (ANI) Also Read | Uttar Pradesh: 70-Year-Old Man Marries His 28-Year-Old Daughter-in-Law in Gorakhpur, Photos of Couple Go Viral. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Ramallah [Palestine], January 27 (ANI): Nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, were killed by Israeli forces on Thursday during clashes in the refugee camp of Jenin, CNN reported, referring to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The raid that took place in the West Bank city took the overall toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to 29 this year. Also Read | US: FBI Raids Secret Chinese Police Station in New York. Israeli military claimed there had been no injuries on their side, but they added that they were looking into "reports regarding more casualties during the exchange of fire." According to the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC), Israeli forces first made it impossible for medical personnel to get to the Jenin camp, where four injured people were in serious condition. Also Read | Republic Day 2023 Wishes: France President Emmanuel Macron, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Other World Leaders Extend Warm Greetings to India on Its 74th R-Day. It went on to say that Israeli forces also shot tear gas canisters at the Jenin Government Hospital, resulting in children suffering from inhalation injuries, according to CNN. However, the Israeli force refuted claims of innocent Palestinians being killed in the raid and added that they were operating in Jenin Thursday to catch a "terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization," saying in a statement that it killed three "terrorists," the American broadcaster CNN reported. As bloodshed continues to remain a part of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh called on the United Nations and international human rights organizations to "intervene urgently to provide protection to the children, youth and women." (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Suva [Fiji], January 27 (ANI): There is no need for Chinese state security personnel to continue working with the Fiji Police Force as the systems are different, The Fiji Times reported citing Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. Referring to the memorandum of understanding that Fiji and China signed in 2011, Fiji's PM said, "There's no need for us to continue, our systems are different." Also Read | Mexico: Missing Girl Found Stripped Naked and Tied Up Inside Plastic Bag at Garbage Dump Site, Says Was Held Captive With Many Young Girls. For the first time ever, any country's leader so publicly revokes an existing Chinese security agreement, according to The Fiji Times. The MoU, linked in 2011, resulted in Fijian police officers undergoing training in China and Chinese officers being deployed to Fiji on attachment programs for three to six months. Also Read | Raja Chari, Indian-American Astronaut Nominated by US President Joe Biden for Promotion to Air Force Brigadier General on Moon Mission Team. In September 2021, police cooperation efforts between the two countries reached new heights following the appointment of a Chinese Police Liaison officer to be based in Fiji. "Our system of democracy and justice systems are different so we will go back to those that have similar systems with us." He said officers from other countries like Australia and New Zealand could stay because their systems were similar to Fiji, reported The Fiji Times. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) South Africa's Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana meets with U.S. Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen. Luanda Russian Federation announced its availability to maintain cooperation with Angola, with a view to developing bilateral relations in different fields. The Russia's stance was announced by that country's minister of Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, while speaking to the press at the end of a meeting with the Angolan President, Joao Lourenco. The almost two-hour audience, focused on common interest and the international events, with stress to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. "We had a long and consistent dialogue. We discussed our bilateral relations in detail", said Sergey Lavrov. He explained that during the talk they outlined the guidance to be followed toward the implementation of strategic cooperation between the two countries in various domains. As for the conflict in Ukraine, Sergey Lavrov slammed the West trend to use colonialist methods. Cooperation ties Privileged relations between Angola and Russia date back since October 8, 1976, the date on which the countries signed Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in Moscow, at the time capital of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). On 16 November 2004, the two countries signed, in Luanda, an agreement on re-launch of cooperation in the economic and technical-scientific domains. On the following day, they created the intergovernmental commission for economic, technical-scientific and commercial cooperation. Currently, the cooperation is most significant in the sectors of energy, geology and mining, higher education, staff training, defence and security, telecommunications and information technologies, fisheries, transport, finance and banking. By this time, it is estimated that at least 1,000 Russians are living in Angola, while 1,500 Angolans reside in Russia. Russia is members of a group of 61 countries covered by the procedures for simplifying administrative acts for the granting of tourist visas. In 2019, the Angolan President Joao Lourenco visited to Russia, where he held a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. In the same period, the two countries delegations held high level talks on the strengthening and expanding bilateral cooperation. However, until the second half of 2019, trade between Angola and Russia stood at US$26 million. There was a 40% drop compared to the previous period. New Delhi, January 27: A Delhi court on Friday adjourned a hearing on the bail plea of Shankar Mishra, who is accused of urinating on an elderly female co-passenger in a drunken state on a New York-Delhi Air India flight last November, until January 30. Additional Sessions Judge of the Patiala House Courts, Harjyot Singh Bhalla adjourned the matter after the woman's advocate Ankur Mahindro informed the court that he has not been handed a copy of the bail plea. Air India Pee-Gate: Airline Bans Accused Shankar Mishra for Four Months For Urinating on Elderly Woman. Representing the accused, senior advocate Ramesh Gupta said: "If the court is inclined to adjourn it then please grant me interim bail. This is not fair. It can't be a reason that the investigating officer is not here." He further asked the court to list the matter later at 2 p.m. The court however, adjourned it. Currently in judicial custody, Mishra moved the court on Wednesday seeking bail against Metropolitan Magistrate Komal Garg's order, who had earlier rejected his plea, saying that the alleged act of accused of relieving himself upon the complainant is "utterly disgusting and repulsive" and the act itself is sufficient to outrage the modesty of a woman. On January 21, Mishra's judicial custody was extended by 14 days. In a recent development, Air India said that the crew made a judgment call to record the matter as a non-reportable in-flight incident for many reasons. Air India Pee-Gate: Delhi Court Extends Shankar Mishras Judicial Custody by 14 Days in Urinating Incident. The airline said that the alleged perpetrator was calm, co-operative and professed ignorance of the allegation (of urinating on a co-passenger). He posed no risk to flight safety in the judgment of the crew, said the airline. Earlier, in the wake of Air India's decision to ban Mishra from flying for four months on the basis of the internal committee's report, his legal counsel had opposed the findings of the committee and said that they are ready to file an appeal. "We respect the authority and mandate of the Internal Inquiry Committee, but we disagree with their findings and are already in the process of appealing this decision in accordance with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's Civil Aviation Requirements for Unruly Passengers," Mishra's lawyers had said. Aviation regulator DGCA had also imposed a fine of Rs 30 lakhs on Air India and suspended the license of pilot-in-command for three months in connection with the Air India urination case. Moreover, the regulator had imposed a penalty of Rs 3 lakhs on Director, inflight services of Air India for failing to discharge her duties on November 26, 2022. Meanwhile, the flag carrier has also banned Mishra for four months on the basis of a report by the internal committee. After Mishra claimed that the complainant had soiled her own seat, the latter rubbished the allegation saying that it was "completely false and concocted". On January 13, Mishra told the court that he was not the accused. "There must be someone else who peed or it must be her who urinated," he had said. He further claimed that the woman was suffering from some prostate-related disease. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 27, 2023 12:06 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). Gopalganj, January 27: Political Analyst Prashant Kishor on Friday took a dig at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and revealed that he had told the latter about the alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal in March 2022. Prashant Kishor also said that Kumar had invited him to join the 'Mahagathbandhan'. "Nitish Kumar chose Tejashwi Yadav because he knows after 2025 he won't be the Chief Minister and want the condition of Bihar to turn worse as then people would think Nitish Kumar was better and then choose him again. He wants to continue his legacy that's why he does not want someone better than him to come to power," Prashant Kishor said. Nitish Kumar Resigns as Chief Minister of Bihar, Breaks Alliance With BJP. He further said, "When Nitish Kumar met me in Delhi in March 2022, he told me about the Mahagathbandhan and requested me to join. He knew that if he continued his alliance with BJP, after winning the 2024 polls, he would be removed and the BJP would choose a Chief Minister from their own party." Bihar: RJD Workers Celebrate in Patna After Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi Yadav Stake Claim To Form Govt (Watch Video). Nitish Kumar is of the ideology that if Yadav comes to power and Lalu Yadav's jungle raj returns in the state, people would want Kumar to come back and think that he has been better, Prashant Kishor stressed. The JD(U) and RJD together constitute a majority in the 243-member state assembly. JD(U) has 45 and the RJD has 79 MLAs. They also have the support of smaller parties like Jitan Manjhi's HAM. The BJP has 77 MLAs in the state assembly. Nitish Kumar on August 9, 2022, broke his alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) following a meeting of JD-U leaders and legislators. He then sought time from Governor Phagu Chauhan and tendered his resignation. While lashing out at the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Kumar had also said, "Everything was going good after we broke the NDA alliance earlier, but then we made the mistake of joining hands with them again in 2017, due to which many people from some states parted ways from us. But now that we split again, many of them said good going." In 2020, the BJP-JD(U) fought election in an alliance and went on to form the government with Nitish Kumar being given the Chief Minister's post. In less than two years' time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a 'Grand Alliance' government in Bihar. The Delhi police has apprehended a 14-year-old boy for snatching a groom's 'money garland' decorated with Rs 500 denomination notes totalling Rs 1,64,500 in Mayapuri area of West Delhi, an official said on Friday. The incident occurred on Wednesday. PM Orban: Hungary to veto EU sanctions on Russia's nuclear energy. "We will not allow the plan to include nuclear energy into the sanctions to be implemented," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio, cited by Reuters on Jan. 27. "This is out of the question." The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 27, 2023 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) SNAP benefits program is made to address the food needs of low-income families, with each state coming with its own ways and schedules of distribution of payments. Just like any federal program, it has its eligibility rules and requirements before the food stamp payment can be used by SNAP benefits recipients. Some of the eligible items that SNAP benefits can buy include fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, bread, cereals, snack foods, seeds, and plants, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website. Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes, or tobacco products are ineligible items when using SNAP benefits. SNAP benefits cannot also buy live animals, cleaning supplies, hygiene items, and other household supplies. Other ineligible items are hot foods, vitamins, medicines, and supplements. Some states offer hot foods under the Restaurant Meals Program, which can be used by certain SNAP clients who might not be able to prepare meals for themselves. These states include California, Arizona, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland, and Rhode Island. Despite vitamins, medicines, and supplements being ineligible SNAP items, there are drugstore chains that offer to accept SNAP benefits when procuring other items from their store. READ NEXT: SNAP Benefits 2023: $344.1 Million Approved for January Food Stamp Payments in Texas SNAP Benefits Medicine Store Items that can be bought in a drug store are considered to be eligible for SNAP benefits such as dairy products and other snack foods, despite not accepting payments for medicine, vitamins, and supplements. Stores accepting SNAP payments through Electronic Benefits Transfer cards includes CVS stores, with over 9,000 branches of CVS offering meal essentials, healthy snacks, and other beverages, according to Go Banking Rates. However, SNAP benefits recipients cannot order and pay for the items online at CVS with their EBT cards. Walgreens also offers the same service to SNAP beneficiaries. The drugstore chain also allows SNAP payments for SNAP-eligible items with the recipients' EBT cards. However, not all Walgreen locations accept SNAP benefits for payment and it is advised to call ahead to confirm. Another drugstore chain accepting SNAP benefits is Rite Aid but does not also accept SNAP payments online. Rite Aid Customer Care suggests that customers call ahead to the store location to find out which locations offer SNAP EBT. SNAP Benefits Update SNAP benefits emergency allotments are coming to an end in March 2023 after the Consolidated Appropriations Act was recently passed by Congress, effectively halting the temporary funding. Some states are ending the emergency allotments earlier such as the case in South Caroline, wherein SNAP benefits emergency allotments will be removed in February 2023. South Carolina SNAP recipients will receive their normal benefits for all SNAP households. In addition, their SNAP benefit may decrease due to their higher Social Security payments. It is also possible that some SNAP households will no longer receive SNAP benefits due to the Social Security increase if their threshold reaches the limit of income eligibility. Some states have already ended their SNAP benefits emergency allotments, such as Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Montana, Idaho, Tennessee, and Wyoming. READ MORE: Disaster SNAP Benefits Update: Are You Eligible for New Florida Payments? This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Emergency SNAP benefits ending in March - from NBC4 Columbus Over the past few months, Donald Trump has launched a series of racist attacks against the woman who once served as his own Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao, the wife of Mitch McConnell. The former president had been giving her demeaning names, but she has had enough. Trump's attacks were not just directed toward her, but also her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He had called her "Coco Chow" as a way to demean her, as well as called her Mitch McConnell's "China-loving wife" to accuse her of ties with the Chinese Communist government. Now, Chao is speaking out and talking to Politico. In a statement, she told the outlet about the racism she had experienced, saying, "When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation." She added that Trump does now seem to understand the challenge that Asian Americans are facing, and added that it "says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans." Chao mostly keeps out of the political spotlight, even though she is married to the U.S. Senate's highest-ranking Republican. This makes her statement a rarity, especially as she is making this against her former boss. The statement also came when high-profile shootings of Asian Americans are at an all-time high, and Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric certainly does not help. READ NEXT: White Supremacist Mass Shooter Dylan Roof's Appeal Rejected by Supreme Court Elaine Chow Blasted Media for Repeating Donald Trump's Anti-Asian Racism Donald Trump's attacks on the Republican power couple are nothing new, as he usually uses Chao to lambast McConnell over actions he does not like. This includes a racist Truth Social post which Chao first pushed back on in late December. She appeared on "CNN This Morning" and told host Kaitlan Collins, "I think it's very helpful if the media does not repeat that racist tweet." She clarified that if any other racist word, such as the N-word, were used, the media would not repeat it. However, she blasted news networks for continuously repeating Trump's racist taunting. According to The Hill, that Truth Social post came after McConnell voted in favor of the $1.7 trillion omnibus package to fund the government into 2023. Aside from his racist remarks about his wife, Trump also accused the Kentucky senator of surrendering to the "Marxist Democrats." Republicans Mostly Silent About Donald Trump's Anti-Asian Rhetoric Chao's latest pushback against Trump is viewed by many as one of the latest key Republican pushbacks against the former president who is viewed by many as the current leader of the Republican Party. However, aside from her husband, it was only Chao who was pushing back against Trump's anti-Asian rhetoric, as MSNBC pointed out. Former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney seemed to be the only Republican backing Chao and McConnel, calling Trump's words "despicable" racism. Florida Senator Rick Scott downplayed Trump's rhetoric against Chao, saying Trump simply "likes to give people nicknames." READ MORE: Anti-Hispanic Mass Shooter to Plead Guilty to Hate Crimes This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Elaine Chao tells Jan. 6 committee why she resigned from the Trump administration - CBS News Prince Andrew was reportedly removed from Buckingham Palace by his brother King Charles. One source noted that King Charles has made it clear that "Buckingham Palace" is no place for his younger brother, the Duke of York. The insider noted that Andrew's office closed last year and now his sleeping quarters, adding that the younger brother of the king "loved having a suite" at the palace. The source went on to say that Andrew brought back girlfriends to his home in the palace, even model Caprice. King Charles reportedly told his younger brother that Andrew could stay at the royal residence of St. James if he wishes to stay in London. A spokesperson for King Charles has yet to comment on the matter while Buckingham Palace representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Several royal experts noted that they have heard things about a royal eviction, adding that they were not surprised. Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams noted that Andrew's eviction will "doubtless" be explained away as part of the 10-year renovation of the palace. Fitzwilliams added that Andrew is also a danger to the monarchy with his "refusal to accept what he brought about by his disastrous" personal connections and decisions. READ NEXT: Prince Andrew Says New 'Development' on the Way to Restore Disgraced Reputation After Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Prince Andrew Buckingham Palace Eviction It was reported that the Duke of York was not using his Buckingham Palace suites and still living at the Royal Lodge at Windsor with Sarah Ferguson. There are no immediate plans to remove Andrew from the Windsor Royal Lodge now. It is unclear how royal security will be handled in the future, according to ET Online. One source noted that it was surprising that Andrew still received royal benefits after he was ordered to step back from his royal duties years ago. Andrew's security detail remains to be a point of argument after Prince Harry and Meghan were stripped of their security when they step down as royal seniors. Royal expert Kinsey Schofield Charles would like to see Buckingham Palace turned into a museum, which could be why Andrew was removed from the Palace quarters. In addition, it aligns with Charles' coronation, which would take place on May 6. Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein Scandal The late Queen Elizabeth authorized the removal of Andrew's private office amid the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Barclays at the time also announced that it was withdrawing its support from Andrew's entrepreneurship project, which was "Pitch@Palace" due to his current scandal. Other companies such as KPMG, Cisco, Standard Chartered, Huddersfield College, and Melbourne Tech Institute also decided to sever their ties with the Duke of York. Andrew released a statement last November saying that it has become clear to him that his connections with Epstein "has become a major disruption to my family's work." He went on to say that he "unequivocally regret" his ill-judged relations with Epstein. Andrew was accused of sexual harassment by Epstein victim Virginia Roberts in a U.S. lawsuit. READ MORE: Prince Andrew Reportedly "To Be Banished" From Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee Celebration This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Prince Andrew forced to leave Royal Palace - from Sky News Australia The opening statements from both sides in Alex Murdaugh's trial for the double murder of his wife and son caused a commotion in the courtroom. As he faces trial for the double murder of his wife and son, disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was visibly upset in court. In their opening arguments on Wednesday, the prosecution detailed the evidence they believe would prove he murdered his wife, Maggie, and then his youngest son, Paul, in June 2021 at their home. "They were shot at close range, and they did not have defensive wounds," prosecutor Creighton Waters said. The prosecution also presented evidence involving cell phone data. Videos sent on Snapchat will also play a pivotal role, as they claimed that the evidence will place Murdaugh at the crime scene, ABC7 reported. Waters noted that Murdaugh "was there" with Maggie and Paul "just minutes before their cell phones go silent forever" despite telling people he was "never at the kennels." Waters added that their mobile phones were going to show otherwise. The state also claimed that gunshot residue was found in Murdaugh's truck. Days after the murder, Murdaugh was reportedly spotted with a blue raincoat or tarp covered in gunshot residue. Murdaugh, however, pleaded not guilty. "He didn't do it. He didn't kill, butcher his son and wife. There's no direct evidence. There is no eyewitness; there's no camera; there are no fingerprints, and there's no forensics tying him to the crime. None," defense attorney Dick Harpootlian noted. The defense claimed that Murdaugh could never murder his family because he loved them. READ NEXT: Idaho Murders: Surviving Roommate Did Not Call 911 After Chilling Encounter With Killer Murdaugh Trial Details Alex Murdaugh's Interaction With the Police at Night of Murders The prosecution showed body cam footage of Alex Murdaugh on Thursday, when he unsolicited revealed a possible motive for the murders of his wife and kid, according to WYFF4. Murdaugh was led into the courthouse around 9 a.m. Eventually, his son Buster and other relatives entered and took seats behind Murdaugh after a brief wait. On the night Maggie and Paul were murdered, Sgt. Daniel Greene of the Colleton County Sheriff's Office was dispatched to the scene. Murdaugh's body cam footage shows him providing an unsolicited explanation. "This is a long story. My son was in a boat wreck a few months back," Murdaugh told Greene, adding that his son has received death threats, and almost all of them have been in denial about some issues, but they did not give it much thought. "He's been getting, like, punched. I know that. I know that's what it is," Murdaugh said. Before Greene's arrival, he gave the same reason to the 911 dispatcher. "Did your son make a report of this at all?" the dispatcher asked. "Yes, ma'am," replied Murdaugh. A prosecutor questioned Greene about his encounter with Murdaugh that evening. Greene said Murdaugh asked him if his wife and son were dead multiple times at the scene and that the lawyer did not shed any physical tears. During graphic testimony, images of Murdaugh's son and wife's bodies appeared on the body cam footage. As police officers and first responders talked about how his wife's head had a big hole enough to see her skull cavity and his son's brain was ripped away by the shotgun blast and was found by his feet, Murdaugh appeared to be distraught and sometimes wiped his eyes. Alex Murdaugh Trial for Double Murder Case The murders of Alex Murdaugh's wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, are just the beginning of the criminal and civil charges he will inevitably face. The Murdaugh family has been part of the legal system in South Carolina for generations. The downfall of the Murdaugh dynasty and the beginning of the more significant story began with these two deaths, according to Greenville News. Questions about Murdaugh's background, the claims, Murdaugh trial updates, and more arise as the defense and prosecution present evidence and testimony. Alex Murdaugh has been charged with two counts of murder and also faces over 100 charges related to other crimes, including money laundering and stealing millions from clients. READ MORE: Raiders Icon Is Worried About Potential Tom Brady Move This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: Cellphone Video Could Prove to Be Crucial in Alex Murdaugh Murder Trial - From NBC News A California judge ruled on Wednesday that the footage of the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, be made public. The attack on Paul by David DePape, who is consumed by right-wing propaganda, has rocked American politics as more Democrats become the target of attacks from right-wingers. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Stephen M. Murphy said there was no reason to keep the footage a secret after he denied prosecutors' request to keep it secret. According to the Associated Press, the prosecutors played the footage in open court last month during a preliminary hearing. Footage from Capitol police surveillance cameras and body cameras worn by two responding cops were played alongside a recording of Paul Pelosi's 911 call. A video from DePape's interview with police was also played during the preliminary hearing. In line with his decision, Murphy asked the court clerk's office to distribute the footage to the media. The San Francisco District Attorney's Office handed over the evidence to the judge Wednesday after a court hearing. The footage may be released to the media as early as Thursday. READ NEXT: Paul Pelosi Attacker on a Suicide Mission Footage of David DePape's Attack Hopes to End Conspiracy Theory About Him Being Paul Pelosi's Gay Lover The attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband sparked several conspiracy theories online, with Twitter CEO Elon Musk being one who helped spread these conspiracy theories by tweeting a link to an article with unfounded, homophobic allegations. According to Yahoo! News, these conspiracy theories claimed that David DePape was not a deranged right-winger who broke into the Pelosi home in San Francisco an attempt to kidnap her and break her knees but was actually Paul Pelosi's gay lover. The conspiracy theory then claimed that the two had a lovers' spat, with DePape attacking Pelosi with a hammer. These claims have been debunked by DePape's statements and statements from the Pelosi neighbors. However, these theories have already proliferated on the internet as influential right-wing figures like Senator Ted Cruz and media outlets like Fox News widely shared them. The release of the video footage of the attack may stop some of these conspiracy theories as it showed proof that DePape broke into the home. It will also include the conversation between him and Paul during the terrifying October home invasion assault. David DePape Pleads Not Guilty to Attacking Paul Pelosi with a Hammer David DePape is facing multiple federal and state charges, including attempted murder, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. DePape has pleaded not guilty to all federal and state charges. According to CBS News, the suspect also waived his right to a speedy trial last month. His next court appearance is scheduled for February 23. Murphy has already heard hours of testimony from investigators and saw footage of the attack. The evidence also includes DePape's hitlist of famous personalities like Tom Hanks and California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. Officers arrived at the scene as the two struggled to control DePape's hammer. When police told the men to drop the weapon, Pelosi complied, but DePape did not and instead hit the elderly Pelosi with the hammer. READ MORE: David DePape's Hitlist Revealed This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: A Look Into David DePape's Most Recent Bay Area Address - From NBC Bay Area Angry protests reportedly started in several neighborhoods of Port-Au-Prince in Haiti on Thursday following the recent killings of police officers by Haitian gangs. Citing local media reports, Al Jazeera reported that several barricades of burning tires were installed around the city's capital, disrupting public transportation and forcing several schools to close. Some protesters were even shooting guns into the air. In November, the United Nations noted that armed gangs in Haiti controlled around 60% of the country's capital, where murder, kidnappings, and sexual violence became rampant in their campaign to expand influence and terrorize residents. The Haitian National Police noted that Haitian gangs killed more than 10 police officers in the past week, while one is still missing and another suffered from severe bullet wounds. A video, which was obtained by The Associated Press and likely recorded by Haitian gangs, showed the naked and bloodied bodies of six officers lying on the dirt, with their guns on their chests. Police said the gang who killed the officers were members of Gan Griff, who still has the officers' bodies. An armed group of current and former police officers, Fantom 509, demanded better conditions for officers. Dozens of Fantom 509 members wearing hoods with police uniforms, flak jackets, rifles, and automatic weapons reportedly joined the protests in Port-au-Prince on Thursday. READ NEXT: Haiti Receives Canada's Assessment Mission Team Amid Security Crisis in Nation Police Officers Protest in Haiti More than 100 demonstrators, including the rebel police officers, blocked streets, burned tires, broke security cameras, and damaged vehicles in Port-au-Prince on Thursday in protest of several colleagues' killings by Haitian gangs. According to BBC News, several officers were also reported to have broken through the gates of the prime minister's residence and tried to enter Haiti's international airport. The National Union of Haitian Police Officers said more than a dozen officers had been killed since the year started in different gang attacks at police stations. Haiti's National Police said seven officers were killed in a shootout on Wednesday alone. According to local media outlet Vant Bef Info, some of the demonstrators went to the official residence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. When protesters found it empty, they headed to Haiti's National Airport, where Henry had just landed after his summit in Argentina. The demonstrators broke the airport's window in an attempt to gain access to the airport. Henry managed to slip away. Haitian Gangs Between January and October 2022, there were 1,107 reported cases of kidnappings in Haiti, according to the United Nations. Some gangs resort to kidnappings as their primary income stream, with ransoms worth up to $1 million. Most of the victims come back alive if the ransom is paid. However, they are made to suffer. Gedeon Jean of Haiti's Centre for Analysis and Research in Human Rights said men are beaten and burned with materials like melted plastic. Women, on the other hand, are subjected to gang rape. Jean added that sometimes kidnappers would call the relatives so they could hear the rape being carried out on the phone. Ulrika Richardson, the U.N. humanitarian chief, noted that Haitian gangs use "very terrifying levels of sexual violence as a weapon" to control and instill fear among people. Richardson added that around 1,000 of the 2,000 Haitian are also facing starvation in the capital. READ MORE: 4 of Haiti President Jovenel Moise's 'Presumed Assassins' Killed, 2 Arrested by Police This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Haiti Police Officers Block Roads, Break Into Main Airport to Protest Officer Killings - From Global News The multi-purpose Lekki Deep Sea Port at the Lagos Free Zone provides support for commercial operations across the west Africa region. Abuja Nigerian authorities have hailed the launch of a deepwater seaport in Lagos they say will create 300,000 jobs and reduce shipping bottlenecks. While the new port is expected to reduce losses due to congestion, shipping industry experts say Nigeria's poor roads and rail connections to ports also must be improved. The launch by President Mohammadu Buhari during his two-day visit this week to Lagos signaled his government's effort to grow Nigeria's economy through infrastructural development. The 1.5-billion-dollar, Chinese-built Lekki Deep Sea Port sits on 90 hectares of land in the Lagos Free Trade Zone -- the biggest port by size in West Africa. Authorities say ships docking at the port could be up to four times the size of vessels at the state's Tin Can and Apapa ports. They expect it will ease delays and congestion at ports and increase earnings by up to $360 billion in coming years. Efioita Ephraim is a manager at Ports and Terminal Nigeria, Ltd. "The current ports we have in the country are located along rivers, tributaries and that's why there are limitations. It's a welcome development to have an infrastructure like this in our country. With this, larger vessels will be able to berth at our ports and we shall be in competition with neighboring countries such as Cotonou [Benin]," said Ephraim. Most of Nigeria's seaports were built many decades ago and are either closed or operating below capacity. Nigeria loses an estimated $1 billion a year to delays and bottlenecks at ports. To address the problem, the Nigerian Ports Authority launched an automated process for clearing cargo at ports. Abiodun Gbadamosi is the former general manager of Nigeria's western ports. He said the new deep sea port at Lagos will add to Nigeria's economic progress and create jobs. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Business Governance 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. The country's bureau of statistics says Nigeria's unemployment rate is 33 percent. "What Nigeria needs now are jobs, jobs and more jobs, and that's going to go a very long way. It's going to improve the commerce around that area. It's highly commendable and it's going to actually propel the state. Then Nigeria can now push forward the idea of being hub for the region," he said. Ephraim said authorities must improve road and rail accessibility to the area. "If the items are to be conveyed out of the port and into the port by road, then I would expect the multimodal mode of transportation be encouraged to and from the Lekki deep sea port, rail water and road transportation." China is one of Nigeria's biggest lenders and has been funding rail, road and power projects. The first commercial vessel is expected to arrive in the port this Sunday. The ex-boyfriend of embattled New York Rep. George Santos has spoken out about the Republican lawmaker, who is facing growing calls to resign for lying about his past. When he ran for office, Santos did speak truthfully about being openly gay who is married to another man. However, his ex-boyfriend Pedro Vilarva spilled some juicy secrets to CNN after agreeing to an interview request. Vilarva told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront" Thursday that he first met Santos in 2014 when he was 18, and the future New York Representative was 26. He said Santos was married to a woman at the time. He noted that they started dating and moved in together shortly after he graduated high school. Vilarva said they soon broke up after Santos repeatedly promised to take him to Hawaii and propose, but he never did. He also believed that the soon-to-be congressman had stolen his phone and sold it for cash. According to Vilarva, he was not surprised that Santos is now a lawmaker as he always looked for 'fame and power," and "that's all he cared about." He said Santos' ego is 'too big" and will never resign, despite all the criticisms from Democrats and fellow Republicans. He also revealed that he learned that Santos was married to a woman after he moved out of Santos' home. He said the controversial lawmaker was married to a woman for the whole duration of their relationship. After reviewing official records, CNN verified that Santos was indeed married to a woman from 2012 to 2019. As new reports reveal the scope of Santos' lies, Vilarva noted that the situation weighed heavier on him. "It's very shocking. It's disturbing a little bit as well. It's something that happened nine years ago... It all comes back all at once," he told CNN. READ NEXT: George Santos Outed as a Brazilian Drag Queen George Santos Feuding With Famous Drag Queen Trixie Mattel One of his biggest scandals is that he used to be a drag queen who went by the name "Kitara Revache," while living in Brazil more than a decade ago. George Santos initially denied this despite a photo and a video showing him in drag and joining a Pride parade in 2008. Santos eventually admitted to having dressed in drag back in Brazil but downplayed it, telling reporters, "I was young and had fun at a festival." Recently, Santos got into a fight with RuPaul's "Drag Race All Stars 3" winner Trixie Mattel. The feud came after Santos complained about the performance of comedians who have impersonated him on television, making fun of his lies. "I have now been enshrined in late night TV history with all these impersonations, but they are all TERRIBLE so far. Jon Lovitz is supposed to be one of the greatest comedians of all time and that was embarrassing - for him not me! These comedians need to step their game up," Santos tweeted on Monday, I have now been enshrined in late night TV history with all these impersonations, but they are all TERRIBLE so far. Jon Lovitz is supposed to be one of the greatest comedians of all time and that was embarrassing for him not me! These comedians need to step their game up. George Santos (@Santos4Congress) January 23, 2023 The New York congressman was referring to a skit featured on the episode of NBC's "The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon" on Friday. Mattel replied to the tweet, telling the lawmaker, "Maybe the source material was weak." Santos then responded, "Clearly you know all about weak acting skills @trixiemattel." However, the famous drag queen snapped back, saying, "I am not an actor! I was young and I had fun at a festival!" I am not an actor! I was young and I had fun at a festival! Trixie Mattel (@trixiemattel) January 24, 2023 Mattel had paraphrased the lawmaker's words when previously asked whether he was a drag queen in Brazil. George Santos Loves Comparison to Leonardo DiCaprio's Con Man Role But Misses the Point Some people have compared George Santos to the main character of Leonardo DiCaprio's film, "Catch Me If You Can," which Steven Spielberg directed. According to TMZ, the film is about infamous con man Frank Abganale who pretended to be an airline pilot, doctor, teacher, and prosecutor. Santos admitted to loving the comparison with DiCaprio, but it seemed he completely missed the point as he was being compared to DiCaprio's character as an infamous liar and con man. The congressman said he has yet to watch the film but added that he wished he had the actor's bank account. READ MORE: George Santos Stole Money From a Veteran's Dying Service Dog This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Actor Who Played George Santos on Late Night Describes Playing the Part - From CNN The bodies of two missing Arizona teens were found in a water retention basin over the weekend, according to local authorities. In a statement, the Mesa Police Department said the bodies of Kamryn Meyers, 15, and Sitlalli Avelar, 17, were recovered by police at around 6 p.m. on January 21 after a man walking his dog informed the authorities of what he thought was a mannequin in a Mesa water retention basic. According to the New York Post, the two Arizona teens were reported missing on January 7 from Powerhouse Youth Facility, Inc., a group home agency that provides care for troubled youths. Mesa police said the Arizona teens' cause of death has yet to be determined by the medical examiner. However, the bodies' condition suggested they had been in the water for an extended period before they were discovered. It is still unclear if foul play is suspected in the deaths of the two Arizona teens. READ NEXT: Idaho Murder Suspect Bryan Kohberger's Motive Not Important to Be Convicted Missing Arizona Teens The police department said the two Arizona teens were listed as runaways from the group home. Brad Miller, an attorney for the group home, noted that the teens had a history of leaving such facilities. He said the teens were overheard talking about leaving the facility on January 6. Miller added that the staff tried to convince them to stay, but they still left the next day. The lawyer noted that the group home followed protocols and notified agencies, including Mesa police and the Arizona Department of Child Safety. The staff reportedly met with police on January 10 when the two failed to return to the group home. According to Miller, Powerhouse is a state-licensed facility, and by law, it cannot force children to stay. Mesa resident Cathy Catalfo said there is so much life ahead of the two and "so much opportunity and growth and learning." Catalfo noted that the first thing that came to her mind was, "who enticed you to leave?" and questions such as what made them "leave a safe environment." Arizona Teens in Group Home Miller said one of the girls had been living at the Mesa location for a month while the other had just recently logged in two months ago. The attorney for the group home noted that the organization is not allowed to lock the children in the facilities. He added that most of the time, children are free to leave. Local police have yet to piece together the information regarding the disappearance and discoveries of the bodies of the missing Arizona teens. Mesa Police Det. Richard Encinas said the department's detectives have continued to work on the case, adding that they do not want to wait for the medical examiner's report to guide their direction. Encinas noted that many of them in the force have children, adding that most are teenagers around the same age as the missing Arizona teens. Powerhouse Youth Facility Inc. has several locations in Arizona. Its website said the home hopes to provide a "comprehensive focus of moving abused and neglected children towards self-sufficiency." READ MORE: Idaho Murders: Surviving Roommate Did Not Call 911 After Chilling Encounter With Killer This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Two Missing Teens Found Dead in Mesa, Police Say - From ABC15 Arizona The Board of the U.S. Federal Reserve System - the referee of the U.S. economy - released a set of draft principles with recommendations in December on how best to protect the U.S. financial system from catastrophic climate disasters that threaten the U.S. economy. The Fed invited public comment on these guidelines for only the larger U.S.- based banks, and 350.org and its supporters mobilized around the report. Climate activists sent an unprecedented 10,000 comments via email and fax over the last three weeks to ensure that the Fed is making climate change a bigger priority. While the proposed guidance is a starting point, activists are urging the Fed to do more in this time of climate emergency. READ NEXT: 350.org Responds to Police Murder of an Atlanta Forest Defender The Significant Number of Comments Submitted Included: Request for large financial institutions to take meaningful action on protecting their customers and communities by divesting from fossil fuels Shift these "guidelines" to requirements, not recommendations Implement a timeline for banks to enact the requirements on mitigating climate risk An emphasis on the importance of managing transition risk by phasing out funding of fossil fuels and investing in sustainable energy projects, with particular attention to ensuring that new infrastructure and technology is accessible and affordable for all - particularly lower-income, frontline, and BIPOC communities. Urges the Federal Reserve to take steps to make sure that frontline communities are not forgotten, ensuring that climate risk assessments do not lead to divestment from BIPOC communities or any furthering of the inequities of historical redlining by banking and mortgage institutions. Following the initial outpouring of public comments, the Fed provided additional details on how its pilot climate scenario analysis exercise will be conducted and the information on risk management practices that will be gathered by the six largest U.S. banks. While this development proves the Fed is paying attention to this overwhelming number of comments from climate activists, even their response shows the disconnect between the Fed's attitude towards climate change and the true risks the climate crisis poses to all of us, including our economy. Activists at 350.org and its affiliates 350 Wisconsin and 350 Colorado have been calling on the Federal Reserve to account for climate risk for the last two years, urging the Federal Reserve to end bank fossil fuel finance. Among their demands have been to: End Fossil Fuel Bank Finance by using regulatory tools to limit and phase down the financing of emissions. Divest the Fed's spending and asset purchases from fossil fuels and invest in climate solutions. Urge banks to invest in climate solutions and work to limit global temperatures to 1.5 C, with an emphasis on lending to low income and communities of color. Emily Park, campaign manager of 350 U.S. Fossil Free Federal Reserve Campaign and organizer with 350 Wisconsin made the following statement: "Understanding the role of the Fed and the role it can have on influencing climate finance is certainly wonky, but over the last two years, we have shed light for the public on why the referee of the U.S. economy must set clear requirements for all banks to divest from fossil fuels. With more severe climate impacts happening year by year, every single U.S. institution must do its part to protect communities from the worst of the climate crisis. That means that our financial institutions and banks need to stop funding fossil fuels that are directly causing climate chaos. In addition, our financial institutions need to start investing in climate solutions and supporting communities in a just transition to clean energy. The Fed has the power to make these changes happen. By mobilizing to submit over ten thousand comments on the Fed's draft principles on climate risk, we are sending a clear message that our communities are watching and they are demanding change at every level." Jeff Ordower, North America Director at 350 U.S. said: "The financiers in suits think we're not watching but we are. The Federal Reserve was bombarded with so many emails and faxes over the last few weeks and they even released additional details about their climate risk analysis. This is a true example that people power works. A message has been sent loud and clear to the Fed that people across the United States want a financial system that is just and fair, and that is contributing to real climate solutions, not smeared with dirty oil. A cleaner economy in the U.S. will also contribute to slowing the climate crisis in the most impacted communities around the world, including the Global South - a necessary contribution from the United States for their culpability in creating global climate chaos." To learn more about 350.org's Fossil Free Federal Reserve Campaign, go here. READ MORE: 350.org on Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision Comments on Climate Coalition of 52 Northern Groups (CNG) has raised the alarm over an alleged plot by some powerful elements to scuttle the February 25 presidential election following the upsurge in the frequency of attacks on public facilities, the lingering fuel crisis and the controversy trailing the Naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), among others. The coalition spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, who addressed a press conference in Abuja, yesterday, noted the unrelenting disturbances in the South-East, encouraged by certain powerful interests entrenched in the current administration in the form of escalated violence using the banned Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other authors of mindless violence and separatism. He said as the representatives of various interest groups from Northern Nigeria, the CNG has watched and studied these events carefully and with considerable restraint and maturity, until recently, when suspicions of a grand plot to scuttle the 2023 polls reached a point whereby silence has become complicity and inaction no longer an option. He noted particularly, the ratification and vigorous pursuit of a regime of harsh unrealistic economic and financial policies by the Central Bank of Nigeria less than a month to the election, inflicting pains on the electorates and heating up the political atmosphere. "Another hard proof of potential threat to a peaceful transition through an acceptable electoral process, is having fuel scarcity grounding activities and frustrating the population a month to the election. Already many Nigerian families and businesses are groaning over the scarcity of fuel and the hike in the pump price ranging from N270 to N400 per litre in recent weeks, a move seen by many as the handiwork of high-profile saboteurs bent on throwing a wedge in the nation's democratic process by derailing the coming elections. "At the same time, embarking on Naira Exchange and making the new currency scarce by the CBN is another latent ground for suspicion. The timing for the implementation of such a policy in a country in which the total number of deposit money bank branches is just 5,437 with a concentration 1,624 branches in Lagos alone, other southern states 2,235, and the entire Northern Nigerian states 1,188, Abuja 390 is certainly a calculated effort to bring about general confusion that would threaten the 2023 polls. "Noteworthy as well is that, of the 109 million adults in Nigeria, only 56 million have BVNs, leaving 53 million Nigerian adults without access to digital payment systems when little cash is available. Emefiele's apparent arrogant stance on no going back on the January 31st deadline despite the patriotic intervention of the Nigerian Senate urging the CBN to extend the deadline by 6 months, the outright rejection of the policy by the House of Representatives and the Nigerian Governors Forum, has inadvertently made the situation all the more suspicious. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. "Electricity tariff went up, a month to the general election and suddenly, public tertiary institutions commenced an exorbitant hike in students' tuition, adding to other factors that are making life difficult for Nigerians as a people. Most disturbing is the CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele's rigid 31 January 2023 deadline for the old and new currency exchange when just about 10 percent of the population of 225m people have touched or seen the new currency," he said. Consequent upon the foregone observations, he warned that any attempt from any quarters, to hoist any form of undemocratic arrangement short of a transparent, free and fair elections will be roundly resisted and rejected. He also warned that all manifestations of schemes by political opportunists desperate to cover their tracks of corruption and wanton abuses by scuttling the elections would face stiff resistance. He called on Nigerians to prepare to defend the nation's hard-earned democracy from any attempt to tamper with the democratic electoral process be it in the form of interim government arrangement or military intervention under whatever pretext and cautioned all political parties and their candidates to eschew personal interests and insist on a peaceful democratic transition and reject any form of undemocratic arrangement. A Laois woman is playing a central role in celebrations to mark St Brigids Day, Irelands first ever national holiday dedicated to a woman. Herstory poet-in-residence is Laura Murphy is part of a project to celebrate St Brigid's qualities as environmentalist, feminist, activist, humanitarian, pioneer, healer, poet, creatrix and wisdom weaver. Laura was inspired to write Is Mise Brid while working on their three-year campaign to make Brigids Day a national holiday. Brigid was a guiding light for some of Irelands greatest humanitarians and revolutionaries including Grace O Malley, Lady Gregory and Maud Gonne. She is an inspiration in my life too," says the Laois woman. She continues: "Brigid offers us a powerful template for living a purposeful life. She teaches us how to care for ourselves, each other and the planet. Brigid doesnt want to be worshipped, She wants her qualities to be lived," she says. Laura explains her poem. "Is Mise Brid is about embodying Brigids essence. When we do this, we ignite the inner fires of creativity, inspiration and passion that are needed for the flourishing of ourselves and our planet, she says. Herstory leads the national St. Brigids Day celebrations with a spectacular Herstory Festival of Light, illuminating iconic landmarks with the beautiful art of women. The full programme of free events as well as school artivism project, articles, art and lots of ideas on how the nation can celebrate Brigid and mna na hEireann can be found on www.brigidsday.org Melanie Lynch, Herstory CEO, and Laura Murphy join Derry Girls star Siobhan McSweeney as she gathers a mnasome group of women including former president Mary McAleese in her quest for the Real Brigid. Tune in to watch RTEs epic new documentary Finding Brigid on Tuesday, January 31 on RTE One at 10.15pm Laura's work is centred around the ancient Irish poetic practice of Imbas Forosnai which means inspiration that illuminates. It is comparable to what we know today as flow-state. The ancient poets of Ireland used this practice to bring healing to society and truth to power. Lauras work has been featured in the critically-acclaimed production Home: Part One by the Abbey Theatre, the Herstory Light Shows and most recently in the campaign to make Brigids Day a national holiday. The Portlaoise-based poet composed a powerful tribute to the county, In Laois I Fly Free which was launched online in 2022. Laura spoke about her county at the time. Ive spent a lot of my life being reminded that the best things about Laois are either the prison or the road out of it. Like everywhere, Laois has its bad points, but there is also incredible beauty and magic about the place. Laois is synonymous with captivity, but when I was landlocked in Laois during lockdown I realised that freedom is a state of mind that can be experienced anywhere and in any circumstance, she said. In Laois I Fly Free was filmed at the Rock of Dunamase, Slieve Bloom Mountains, Oughaval Woods and Portlaoise. The poem, soundscape and video work together to bring forth the golden threads of magic that run through Laoiss ancient past and present alike. An evocative and inspiring piece that is sure to stir the people of Laois and beyond. . The out-of-hours GP service in Laois and other Midlands counties is part of an example of an expensive, inconsistent, and ad hoc system such care is delivered around Ireland, according to the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. That's the view he expressed in the Dail when asked about the Midoc service which is in limbo after a private company responsible for delivering doctors pulled the plug at Christmas. The Fine Gael Taoiseach, who is a doctor, also said change is needed not just in the Midlands but nationally that works for rural and urban areas. He was responding to points raised by Laois Offaly TD Brian Stanley. Dep Stanley outlined the situation to Mr Varadkar in recent days in relation to Midoc which the Leinster Express Laois Live revealed costs the HSE up to 8 million to run in 2022. On Christmas Eve, Midoc, a private company which provides out-of-hours GP services in the Midlands, ceased trading. The company was paid nearly 8 million last year. HSE management has had to rush in and put a temporary service in place. I give them credit for that, but it was a day-to-day service in place until 15 January. Since then, they have been trying to tie up a contract with an agency for a temporary solution but that is still not in place. The public and the HSE had the rug pulled from under them by this company in terms of out-of-hours GP services in the Midlands, he said. The Laois Offaly TD also highlighted the variety of ways urgent GP care is delivered when surgeries are shut. I have found out that there are six different models of providing out-of-hours GP services across the State. This is no way to provide emergency health services. It is at the whim of private companies which can provide the services or pull the rug," he said. Dep Stanley asked if the Taoiseach wound ensure the Minister for Health deals with out-of-hours GP services in the Midlands and gives some certainty to how it would be delivered. In reply, the Taoiseachs said he contact Minister Donnelly regarding to Midoc and out-of-hours services in the Midlands. He made clear that he was not satisfied the situation in the Midlands or elsewhere. "Out-of-hours GP services, which are really important, have evolved on an ad hoc basis. Back in the day when my dad was a GP, GPs did their own calls and were out every night. Nobody would expect anyone to do that anymore. When I was a GP, the co-ops started being set up but it is ad hoc. Sometimes they are run by GPs, sometimes by the HSE, and sometimes by private companies. That means an inconsistent type and level of service across the country, and it is not cheap either. We need to look at it in the round and come up with a model of care that works for urban Ireland, as well as for rural Ireland where the needs are different," he said. The HSE confirmed to the Leinster Express Laois Live that upwards of 8 million is being spent on out-of-hours care in Laois, Offaly, Longford and Westmeath. Figures show that 40% of this goes to the provision of doctors. The HSE says the service will continue to be available to patients regardless of the fact that Midoc GP CLG, which provided GPs, has ceased trading. More than a year since Laois was prioritised to get a domestic abuse shelter after the murder of Aisling Murphy in Offaly, the county is still one of nine with no refuge centre for abused women and children. Shelters in other counties are being forced to turn away hundreds of women and children because they are full. This week RTE New revealed that families areturned away at over half of the 20 refuge centres in other counties. That includes the nearest centres to Laois which are in Westmeath and Tipperary. Neighbours Offaly and Carlow also have no refuges. In Westmeath, Esker House is the only refuge in the midlands, and in 2022 they had 189 requests for emergency refuge that were not met. Esker House is also identified as a priority area for more refuge spaces. Deirdre Berry Manager at Esker House, said the situation is "really bleak". "It means that as a service and the other domestic violence services in Ireland, we work very closely with, we all have to work more creatively to keep women safer in their own homes and their communities." Ms Berry said due to the shortage of accommodation, there needs to be more effort made to keep women safe in their homes. "What we need to look at now is responding in a more appropriate way, where perpetrators are removed, where perpetrators are made accountable for their behaviour. "That we're twisting narratives, and we're asking the perpetrator, why are they doing this? Instead of saying to the women, 'why don't you just leave?" "House prices are going up. There's no houses there. There's no available social housing, so all of the areas that women could have an opportunity to move if staying at home isn't an option, they've all been dwindling for us, and even non-existent at the moment. "It is really important for anybody out there that is experiencing something that they do reach out for help. If you feel that something [is] not right, please reach out for support, please reach out." Laois is earmarked to get a 1.75m new shelter built in Portlaoise with eight secure units for families, but it is likely not to be open until at least 2025. A site is in the process of being purchased, but it will have to undergo design, planning and construction stages before it can opened. The nine counties still without a refuge are Laois, Carlow, Cavan, Leitrim, Longford, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon and Sligo. Along with Laois Domestic Abuse Service, they all each have domestic violence support services, where staff work with refuges around the country to find any safe housing available to people who present to them. RTE News found that women who present needing emergency refuge may only need the room for a few days, but usually it takes a couple of weeks to make sure the woman is safe and to put in place court orders, financial support, alternative housing and counselling. However, most refuges reported clients having to stay for months. Over half said the longest resident currently in the refuge is there over four months. Others say women move out but into further homeless emergency accommodation. The reason is the lack of available housing. In 2022 Sonas Refuge in Dublin, had to refuse 470 people. Aoibhneas Refuge in Dublin had 402 refusals. Kildare's Teach Tearmainn refuge had to refuse 213 requests. Cuan Saor in Clonmel, Tipperary, said they were unable to admit 191 women and 203 children. A TUSLA review published in 2022 showed that over 1.2 million people in Ireland are more than 30 minutes away from a unit or family place, and those who are furthest away from refuge accommodation were those in the midlands and north-west. Domestic violence support services often look for emergency B&B accommodation for women, or there is a rent supplement for victims of domestic violence. The Department of Social Protection said 140 people availed of that supplement in 2022. Anne Clarke is Manager of Offaly Domestic Violence Support Service. "What really happens most of the time is the person remains in the abusive home because we don't have any other options," she told RTE. Ms Clarke said their support service which helps men too, was "extremely busy" throughout 2022. There is no dedicated refuge for men in Ireland. In June 2022 the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee published the Zero Tolerance Strategy that aims to ensure that everybody who needs a refuge space will get one. She intends to deliver an additional 98 refuge units in priority locations, including Laois, by 2025, and 280 by 2026, double what currently exists. However, RTE says that according to the Istanbul convention against violence against women and domestic violence, which Ireland has signed up to, the country needs 476 refuge units in total. Laois Domestic Abuse Service provides support, information and advocacy to women and children/young people subjected to domestic abuse and coercive control. For help, call them on 057 86 71100 or email lina@laoisdomesticabuseservice.ie Operation Transformation is continuing its focus on Laois this season, with the next location of their community Ad Break Challenge announced as Park Ratheniska GAA Club. The club is urging everyone to come along and follow OT fitness expert Karl Henry with the film cameras rolling, to show Ireland how to get off the couch and exercise during ad breaks. They have announced a local community man as their Ad Break Hero. Retired county councillor James Deegan from Stradbally will be on stage with Karl leading the exercises. He served as a councillor from 1993 to 2014, but Mr Deegan has also personally created a local woodlands for the good of the community and nature. "Were delighted to be hosting Operation Transformation and the Ad Break Challenge this Friday night with local hero James Deegan. "James has dedicated a huge part of his life to Public Service and through his work in his Carrigmeal Woods he continues to do so to this day. The Woods are an incredible amenity in the heart of our community. "Theres been great turn outs around Laois so far for Karl and his team and we look forward to the Park/Ratheniska community turning out for James on Friday from 7-8pm!," they said. The Ad Break Challenge will be shown on the following week's Operation Transformation episode of Wednesday, February 1 at 9.35pm on RTE One television. Operation Transformation is based in Laois this season, hosted by SVT Activity and Wellness Hub, with weekly weigh-ins at the Maltings in Stradbally. A Laois woman is also one of the five brave leaders this season. Read more below. Carrigmeal Woodlands is owned by James and Toni Deegan and was awarded 2nd prize in the 2022 all-Ireland Community Woodlands competition. It won the award in recognition of best practice in forestry management for woodlands that are open to the public for walking and leisure pursuits. The 65-acre woodland was planted in 1994 and is a biodiversity site with 19 different species of mostly native hardwood. The woodlands lie between Stradbally and Portlaoise, overlooking the Rock of Dunamase. They added hard core paths, picnic areas, walking trails, a viewing stand with a tree house and swings. By Isabel Hayes and Sonya McLean A woman who was allegedly trafficked and required to work as a prostitute in rural Ireland including in Portarlington amid threats and a debt bondage situation has told a jury that she often kept a knife close by to defend herself from violent clients. The woman, who can't be named for legal reasons, was giving evidence in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial of Natalia Nogueira Da Silva and Ivanilce (Lisa) Vailones Fidelis. She told the court she was moved to a different rural town every week and that in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, a man tried to break into the house, while in Tralee, Co Kerry, the men there were very violent. She also outlined a situation in Portarlington, Co Laois, when a client demanded his money back and beat her up after the service was provided. It was this incident that led to her decision to always keep a knife by her bed. Ms Da Silva (32), of Cairn Hill View, Drumlish, Co Longford, has pleaded not guilty to one count of human trafficking a woman at an unknown location within the State, on dates between March 31, 2019 and May 18, 2019. She has pleaded guilty in front of the jury to one count of organising prostitution at an unknown location within the State on dates between December 5, 2018 and May 18, 2019. She has also admitted one count of facilitating the entry into the State of a person she knew to be illegal on March 31, 2019 at Dublin Airport, along with 33 counts of money laundering the proceeds of crime on dates between March 2020 and May 2021. Ms Vailones Fidelis (46) of Castle Manor, Racecourse Road, Roscommon, has pleaded not guilty to all 18 counts against her. She has denied two counts of human trafficking two women at various locations within the State on dates between December 2018 and May 2019. She has pleaded not guilty to one count of organising prostitution during the same time period. Ms Vailones Fidelis has further pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of money laundering the proceeds of crime on dates between January 2015 and December 2020 and one count of removing proceeds of crime from the State during the same time period. The State alleges the two accused trafficked two vulnerable Brazilian women for the purposes of exploiting those women and taking advantage of their vulnerability to such an extent as to cause the trafficked person to have no real or acceptable alternative but to submit to being trafficked. Garnet Orange SC, prosecuting, told the jury they would hear the women were in a debt bondage situation, whereby they owed money for their plane tickets and other expenses and were being charged exorbitant rent for their accommodation. The prosecution also alleges the women were threatened. The first complainant in the case continued giving evidence today/yesterday (WEDS). She has given evidence that her plane ticket was bought by a woman named Lisa and that she was met at the airport by a woman named Natalia and brought to an apartment in Portarlington. Giving evidence via video-link through an interpreter, the 35-year-old woman outlined three very traumatising incidents for her. She said she became very fearful following one incident in Portarlington. I would always keep a knife close to the bed so I could protect myself. This happened after a client beat her up after he demanded his money back after she had provided the service. To defend myself I got a knife and tried to get him out of the apartment. During this time, I called Lisa. I had a knife in one hand and the phone in the other. She told me not to do anything to the client and I should let him leave, the woman said. She was very worried about the client. She later told me I should never react when a client wanted to beat me or wanted the money back, the complainant continued. She said Lisa was not worried about her. The second incident happened in Enniscorthy when a a guy wanted to come in who appeared to be very out of himself. She said she called the women and told them that she had a knife. They threatened to call immigration on her if she was violent towards any man because that would bring complications. She said Lisa then called her and told her that she was not supposed to hurt the man. She was very offensive and she threatened me, the complainant said. She said in her final week in Portarlington she had a sore throat and a fever and Lisa told her that a client wanted her to perform oral sex without protection. She told Lisa that she was unwell but she said Lisa didnt mind. The woman told Mr Orange that when the client arrived, she told him she was in no condition to provide that service, so he started to assault me physically. It was a very intense fight. I had injuries, bruises all over my body. She said she managed to get the knife, and when the man said he wanted his money back she held up the knife. He stopped what he was doing to me. At this moment he knew I was very serious. That I was intent on defending myself so he put his hands up and left the apartment, she said. She said she was completely fearful and in terror and left the apartment because she was afraid the man would come back. She went to a local coffee shop and called Lisa. She told Lisa she was very ill but she wasnt allowed visit a doctor or get access to medication. She said Lisa was only worried about the client. She never asked if I was OK. The trial continues before Judge Patricia Ryan and a jury. Earlier, the woman told the jury that Lisa phoned her the morning after her arrival and told her men would be coming to the apartment and that Lisa would phone her and tell her when to open the door. During the call she told me I should do this or that way because this would attract more clients. The woman told the jury she was given instructions on how much the men had to pay according to what services they wanted me to perform. I never had option to say if I wasn't to do it, she (Lisa) was the one deciding, the woman said. The woman said she couldn't recall how many men visited her in the apartment in Portarlington. At the end of the week, she said she was instructed that she would be driven by a man to a house in Enniscorthy, where she performed the same work. She said she was then moved to a house in Tralee. Every week I would be sent to a new location, she said. When asked if she was given a choice about moving, the woman replied: I didn't have an option. I didn't know anyone here. I didn't speak English. If she said I had to go, I had to go. The woman described an alleged incident in Enniscorthy where a man tried to break into the house where she was staying on her own. I was very frightened, she said. In relation to Tralee, the woman said there was another woman staying with her in the house that week. The men there were quite violent, she said. They wanted to break in or steal things, so myself and other girl there had to be watching out all the time. In relation to payment for her work, the woman told the court she was instructed to receive cash from the men when they arrived and hide it in the apartment. At the end of the week, she said she was instructed to deposit it into an account via a bank cash machine. The woman said she got a receipt every time she made a deposit, which she said was made into a different bank account every time. She said she kept the receipts and later handed them in to gardai. The woman said Lisa and Natalia seemed to share the phone and took turns calling her and giving her instructions. She said they mostly communicated via Whatsapp and that Lisa told her to delete their chats, take a screengrab showing the chat had been deleted and send it back to her as proof. Sometimes I would take a picture of a receipt or screenshot or picture of the chat so I could share it with police, the woman told the court. I handed in everything I had to gardai. The woman said she only saw Natalia the one time, when she was picked up at the airport. She said she never met Lisa in person, nor saw any pictures of her. The Irish government is absolutely determined to see those responsible for the killing of a peacekeeper in Lebanon brought to justice. Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin was speaking as he visited Irelands peacekeeping troops at Camp Shamrock in the country. The Tanaiste laid a wreath at a memorial to Private Sean Rooney who was killed in a shooting incident in December. Mr Martin also met the Lebanese ministers for foreign affairs, Dr Abdullah Bou Habib, and defence, Maurice Sleem, in Beirut. Thanking them for their governments expressions of sympathy over Pte Rooneys death, Mr Martin described the meeting as an opportunity to underline the need to ensure that the ongoing Lebanese investigation into Private Rooneys death is as thorough and complete as possible. Mr Martin previously visited the base during his term as Taoiseach. He told peacekeepers the death of Private Rooney, who was from Co Donegal, made returning even more important to him. Private Rooneys death was a shocking reminder to all of Ireland of the risks taken by each and every one of you, in discharging your duty and maintaining our countrys proud record and reputation, he said. Im conscious that all of you have lost a comrade and a friend. It is to your immense credit that, notwithstanding your personal loss, you have continued to perform with the professionalism we have come to expect from our Defence Forces. Nonetheless, I would encourage you to reach out and seek support if you need it, especially when you return home. Support services are available, dont hesitate to use them. You have come through a very difficult experience and you need to mind yourselves. Today we remember someone who made the ultimate sacrifice in the quest for peace. Today we remember Pte Sean Rooney, and all those members of the Irish Defence Forces who lost their lives in the month of January. pic.twitter.com/H8uy1NdhOt Micheal Martin (@MichealMartinTD) January 26, 2023 Mr Martin also acknowledged those who were injured in the incident at Al-Aqbiya, particularly Trooper Shane Kearney, who was critically injured. We are all immensely grateful that Trooper Kearney is now back in Ireland and making good progress with his recovery, he said. It goes without saying that we wish him continued progress in the coming weeks and months. Mr Martin said lines of inquiry are being pursued by the Defence Forces Multi-disciplinary Team into the killing of Private Rooney, as well as three separate parallel investigations into the facts and circumstances of the matter by the Lebanese authorities, United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and Irish police. The government is absolutely determined that all of the facts and circumstances of the incident are fully established and that no stone will be left unturned to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice, he said. He added: On behalf of the Irish people, may I thank each and every one of you for the part you are playing in continuing the proud tradition of generations of Irish peacekeepers. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh OBrien TD, and the President of The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, Charlotte Sheridan, today launched the 'Town Centre Living Architectural Design Competitions for the design of four social housing schemes, with one in each of four town centre sites across the country. The competitions aim to encourage innovative design for social housing within town centres and progress the Governments Town Centre First policys objectives of compact growth and town-centre revitalisation. The competitions also seek to encourage more architectural firms to compete for social housing design projects. Following an open invitation to, and close liaison with local authorities, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has selected four town-centre sites that will each have a separate social housing design competition. All four competitions will run concurrently. The winning architectural practice for each competition will, in addition to prize money, be awarded the design commission for the project. The winning proposals will be progressed by the various local authorities as live projects funded by DHLGH, through to construction and delivery. The sites are at: Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan Kildare Town, Co. Kildare Roscrea, Co. Tipperary Sligo Town, Co. Sligo Launching the competitions today, Minister OBrien said: Im delighted to launch these housing competitions today which will promote high-quality social housing design and support the Governments Town Centre First approach which strives to make our town centres vibrant places in which to live, work and visit, with increased housing at the heart of that offering. Promoting town centre living close to existing infrastructure and services supports our national action endeavours against climate change. I want to thank all in my department, the RIAI and the local authorities for organising these competitions and I encourage architectural practices across the country to compete and submit exciting new ideas for the design of social housing in Ireland. The President of The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, Charlotte Sheridan, said: The RIAI are pleased to be working with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to deliver the Town Centre Living Competitions with four town-centre sites to be developed around the country. We know that competitions are excellent for fostering innovation and identifying real-world solutions which can deliver tangible change. Architectural competitions are a demonstration of the professions commitment to innovation and are assessed on design quality. Irelands new National Policy on Architecture, Places for People, further highlights the important role that Architectural Design Competitions play in setting a quality agenda for our built environment. When developed, these four sites will provide quality homes close to amenities and services, thereby also contributing to sustainable living and climate action change. In February 2022, the Government launched Town Centre First, a major new policy that aims to tackle vacancy, combat dereliction and breathe new life into our town centres. The policy is underpinned by multi-billion euro investment spread across major Government schemes such as the Rural Regeneration and Development Fund, the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund, Croi Conaithe (Towns) Fund and the Town and Village Renewal Scheme. The policy contains 33 unique actions which will give our towns the tools and resources they need to become more viable and attractive places in which to live, work, visit and run a business. Housing for All, the Governments housing plan to 2030, committed to publishing the policy. The winners of the competitions are expected to be announced during Quarter 2 2023. Labour justice spokesperson Aodhan O Riordain has expressed immense concern at reports that half of womens refuges across the country are almost full. Deputy O Riordain said: Alarm bells must be ringing in the Department of Justice following reports that many womens refuge centres across the country are full. "Last June, the Justice Minister announced a strategy to transform Irelands approach to protecting and supporting victims and survivors of domestic, gender and sexual violence. However, it appears that the party of law and order Fine Gael is all talk and no action when it comes to protecting some of the most vulnerable people in society. It is a damning indictment of the frailty of our State-infrastructure, that should be preventing and responding to domestic violence. Labour is demanding that the Justice Minister commits to opening a refuge space in each and every county to help victims of domestic abuse, and enable them to stay in their community with the support of friends and family. Last November, the Justice Minister said she was confident that the State would surpass its early targets to increase the number of refuge spaces. Its clear that Fine Gael is failing fast . Of course, we are all too aware of the impact that the housing crisis is having on victims of domestic violence. Pressures on the refuge spaces are exacerbated by Fianna Fails failure to meet its self-imposed housing targets which means many women cannot transition out of refuges to more permanent accommodation. Domestic violence is undeniably a major cause of homelessness for women. Where the civil and criminal justice system fail to provide protection for women in the home, as we see happening in Ireland, women become forced to leave home and make themselves and their children homeless. "When there are no suitable refuge spaces for them, they may either be forced either to return home to danger; or to use inappropriate emergency bed and breakfast accommodation, where they will not get the support or security that they and their children need. Ireland lags far below the European standard for provision of refuge spaces. It is imperative that Fine Gael deliver on its promise to provide shelter and support for women fleeing domestic violence. Its time to recognise the needs of women and children who are subject to abuse in their homes and take action now provide a refuge for victims in their community. Four men have appeared before Kilkenny District court charged in connection with an ongoing Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation probe into organised deception and fraudulent practices relating to the tampering of identification passports and microchips of horses presented for slaughter. Garda Brian Dunne of the GNBCI told the court that he had arrested and charged one of the accused men, James Derwin. Mr Derwin, Auburn, Dublin Road, Athlone, Co Westmeath is accused of conspiracy to defraud contrary to common law, deception, possession of a false instrument, using a false instrument and the breach of an EU directive in relation to the regulation of the equine industry. The offences are alleged to have taken place on dates between January 2017 and June 2019 at Emerald Isle Limited, Thomastown, Co Kilkenny. It is alleged that the four men conspired to defraud Emerald Isle Foods Limited through a scheme to alter the identity of horses contrary to common law. The garda told the court that he had no objection to bail on the condition that the accused would not associate with any of the co-accused, James Mee, Derek Nolan, Philip O'Neill and another named person who was not before the court. The court heard that the DPP had directed trial on indictment. Judge Geraldine Carthy remanded the defendant on bail on his own bond of 10,000, on the condition he does not associate directly or indirectly with the co-accused men and another named man, to appear before Kilkenny District Court on March 27, 2023 for the service of a book of evidence. Detective Sergeant Michelle Gillick of the GNBCI gave evidence that she had arrested and charged James Mee, Drumnore, Clonee, Co Leitrim with conspiracy to defraud contrary to common law and of deception on dates between December 2017 and June 2019 at Emerald Isle Limited, Thomastown. The sergeant told the court that he had no objection to bail on the condition that the accused would not associate with any of the co-accused and another named person who was not before the court. The court heard that the DPP had directed trial on indictment. Judge Geraldine Carthy remanded the defendant on bail on his own bond of 10,000, on the condition he does not associate directly or indirectly with the co-accused men and another named man, to appear before Kilkenny District Court on March 27, 2023 for the service of a book of evidence. The sergeant also gave evidence that she had arrested and charged Derek Nolan of Lisduff, Mount Talbot, Roscommon Co Roscommon with conspiracy to defraud contrary to common law, possession of a false instrument and the breach of an EU regulation in relation to the regulation of the equine industry. The court heard that the DPP had directed trial on indictment. Judge Geraldine Carthy remanded the defendant on bail on his own bond of 10,000, on the condition he does not associate directly or indirectly with the co-accused men and another named man, to appear before Kilkenny District Court on March 27, 2023 for the service of a book of evidence. Detective Garda Michelle Keogan of the GNBCI gave evidence of arresting and charging Philip O'Neill, Leam, Boyle, Co Roscommon with conspiracy to defraud, deception, possession of a false instrument, the use of a false instrument and the breach of an EU regulation in relation to the regulation of the equine industry. The court heard that the DPP had directed trial on indictment. Judge Geraldine Carthy remanded the defendant on bail on his own bond of 10,000, on the condition he does not associate directly or indirectly with the co-accused men and another named man, to appear before Kilkenny District Court on March 27, 2023 for the service of a book of evidence. Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda 'My stories have had a major impact.' It was only a few days after I had arrived at a Ugandan refugee camp with my family in mid-2016 that I received the devastating news: Our house back home in South Sudan had been broken into, burgled, and destroyed. I had just endured a terrifying few weeks. Our hometown had emptied as clashes between the South Sudanese army and unknown gunmen encroached. The security situation was so volatile that we had to spend nights hiding in distant villages. But it was this news about my looted home that kickstarted a period of depression and trauma. I was 28 years old. Me and my husband had lost everything, including our jobs. We didn't know how we were going to raise our newborn son in exile. Yet after several years passed living in Bidi Bidi resettlement camp - which is in northern Uganda and is one of the largest refugee camps in the world - I finally found a lifeline: writing and journalism. I had previously worked as a reporter in South Sudan, and managed to bring my skills to Bidi Bidi. In recent years, I have covered all kinds of issues, from the impact of COVID-19 and aid ration cuts on refugees to the plight of women and girls here. Writing has helped restore my confidence and overcome the trauma of leaving South Sudan. It has given me space to tell stories about the strength of other refugees in Bidi Bidi, as well as the pain that many have suffered. Yet while journalism has provided a refuge, it has also proved a challenge. Sometimes when I want to write stories, people tell me that I am a refugee and a woman who should just sit quietly and depend on the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. The lack of a media outlet in Bidi Bidi also restricts me. In South Sudan, I was chief editor of a community radio station and responsible for managing more than 20 people. But work here is hard to find, and my movement outside the settlement is limited. Still, my future plan is to write a book about my experiences in South Sudan and Bidi Bidi. I also hope to start a blog that brings refugee stories to the world, and set up a charity organisation that helps disadvantaged women and girls. Leaving home It was 14 July 2016 at 11am that myself and my husband decided to leave South Sudan. Our only other options were dying of hunger or from bullets. As war escalated, millions of other South Sudanese were making the same decision. It was a long way from our home town of Morobo to Uganda - the journey would have taken two to three days on foot. We had to sell my laptop cheaply to afford transport and some milk and food for my six-month old son, who was sick at the time. I will never forget some of the moments I endured on the way to Uganda. I went days without eating a proper meal. At one stage, a flask of porridge I had for my son was kicked out of my hand and broke. It was painful to see my child crying of hunger. When we finally reached the Ugandan border, it was dark. My husband searched for shops to find something for our child. But a vendor sold him expired juice and my son developed terrible diarrhoea. We nearly lost him. The year after our arrival in Bidi Bidi was the toughest that I experienced at the camp. As well as the news about my house, it was rainy season in Uganda. The tents and semi-permanent houses we lived in were no match for the storms. We had decided to leave our belongings behind in South Sudan, hoping the move would be temporary. But the situation did not improve. Days turned into weeks, and then to months and years. My son is now six, and my daughter was born here. I am now 35. The impact of my work Opportunities did start to arise. In 2017, a donor that funded the station I worked for in South Sudan traced those of us who had fled abroad. They helped us produce a new show for Ugandan radio, but it ended after nine months due to mismanagement. After this, I decided to try my luck with Ugandan media outlets outside Bidi Bidi. But they paid very little, and I could not afford accommodation outside my settlement, nor forgo the protection I was given there. I next looked for opportunities with international journalists visiting Bidi Bidi. Many were interested in collaborating, and the connections I built led to me to publish my own work in foreign media. I began to have hope that I would survive this difficult period. My stories have had a major impact. After I wrote about HIV sufferers in Bidi Bidi not taking their medicine because of a lack of food (the pills don't sit well on an empty stomach), aid groups gave them supplementary food and additional seeds. In 2018, I produced a video on menstrual health and hygiene that was shown at an event in South Africa. My work led to aid organisations distributing dignity kits and reusable pads to women and girls here. My most recent story - published by The New Humanitarian - raised questions of humanitarian agencies that have cut rations for refugees in Uganda for the third time since 2020. I hope this piece will have an impact too. The challenges I face However, being a journalist while being a refugee has not been easy. Without a computer, I've had to depend on my smartphone. But I have limited access to power, and my phone often breaks down, causing me to lose my work. Interviewing fellow refugees is difficult too. Many are reluctant to give information because they do not know how they will benefit. If they were able to access information through newspapers or radio, they might see the advantages more clearly. Interviewees also often fear that I am investigating them, while others expect payment for the information they provide. I have also faced harassment when trying to interview male sources. People's assumptions about me as a refugee and a woman also get in the way. I often see interesting stories that I want to do, but people don't take me seriously. They will say "you are a refugee, why would you write about us?". Working as a female journalist is especially challenging because there are not many of us with this career in Bidi Bidi. Sometimes, I even get bad comments that put me off pursuing a project. Sources tend to give information more readily when I am working alongside a foreign journalist. Yet fellow refugees see me differently because of these collaborations. They think I have a lot of money, even though I am facing the same struggles that they are. My relationships with foreign journalists have been good. But some reporters I have worked with haven't paid me very much, even though I was the brains behind a certain story. Telling positive stories The lack of a media outlet in Bidi Bidi has consequences too. I would love to cover daily news from the camp, and stories about the lives of the nearly 250,000 refugees living here. Writing these stories would help change negative narratives and stereotypes. Most times where we are mentioned it is by foreign correspondents or journalists who only write pieces when something bad has happened. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines South Sudan Women Refugees 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. But there are many great stories that can be told here - stories about refugees who have positively impacted Uganda and about individuals who have improved their lives despite the difficult conditions. For example, there is a refugee in Bidi Bidi who is planting trees to improve the environment. The settlement was like a forest where we first arrived, but many trees were cut for wood and fuel. This individual is using his skills to unite refugees with host communities. He plants trees for free in these communities, hoping that refugee women who venture out of the camp to collect firewood won't be chased away. We also have refugee youth who are using sport to unite people in the settlement, and to preach peace and oneness. And we have a youth group that founded a dance troupe to cope with trauma. The future My long-term plan is to continue in journalism and to try and win an award for my work. I also want to advance the role of female reporters, because their voices are rarely heard in the media, especially in South Sudan. For now, however, there are pressing stories that I want to explore. Aid groups, for example, recently suspended a programme providing menstrual health kits to refugees - the impact of that decision on women and girls needs investigating. I also want to write a story about the situation back home. Elections are supposed to take place in South Sudan next year following the end of the transition period. But are refugees going to participate, and do any feel safe enough to return? Examining these issues will not be easy for me, because I am impacted too. When I describe the pain of camp residents in my writing, I am describing to the world my pain. But these stories are urgent, and I will do everything I can to tell them. A cheetah inside a quarantine section at a reserve near Bella Bella, South Africa in September 2022. DENIS FARRELL / AP India will receive 12 cheetahs from South Africa next month, which will join eight others it received from Namibia in September as part of an ambitious plan to reintroduce the animals in the country after 70 years. Cheetahs were once widespread in India but disappeared by 1952 because of hunting and loss of habitat. India plans to transport an additional 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years as part of an agreement signed by the two African countries, India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said Friday. Cheetah populations in most countries are declining. South Africa, where the cats are running out of space, is an exception. South Africa's National Biodiversity Institute, National Parks, the Cheetah Range Expansion Project and the Endangered Wildlife Trust will collaborate with their Indian counterparts, the ministry said in a statement. A cheetah lies inside a transport cage before traveling to India, at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Otjiwarongo, Namibia, Friday, September 16, 2022. DIRK HEINRICH / AP The eight cheetahs flown from Namibia in September were released in sprawling Kuno National Park in central India. India hopes that importing African cheetahs will aid efforts to conserve the country's threatened and largely neglected grasslands. There are fewer than 7,000 adult cheetahs in the wild globally, and they now inhabit less than 9% of their original range. Shrinking habitat, due to the increasing human population and climate change, is a huge threat. Le Monde with AP Police stay guard in front of the Azerbaijan embassy in Tehran on January 27, 2023, following an attack. - / AFP A gunman stormed Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran on Friday, January 27, killing the mission's head of security in an attack Iran said was motivated by personal reasons but Baku labeled an act of "terrorism". Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said "responsibility" for the shooting, which also wounded two embassy security guards, lied with Iran. A spokesman with the ministry said a recent anti-Azerbaijani campaign in Iran had "encouraged the attack". Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Twitter: "I strongly condemn the terrorist attack". In a statement earlier on Friday, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said "a man armed with a Kalashnikov killed the head of the diplomatic mission's guard." It said that two guards injured by the attacker were in a "satisfactory" condition and an investigation had been launched. Leaked video footage from the embassy, widely shared on social media, showed two men parking a car and entering the building before a speeding car approached and crashed into the rear of their vehicle. A man holding what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle was seen emerging from the second car and motioning to a security guard before forcing his way into the embassy. Sour relations The attacker has been arrested and is an Iranian man married to an Azerbaijani woman, Tehran's police chief General Hossein Rahimi said. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said Tehran strongly condemned "the armed attack... which unfortunately resulted in the death of one person." "According to the preliminary investigation, these are personal motives," he added. Iran is home to millions of Turkic-speaking, ethnic Azerbaijanis and it has long accused Baku of fomenting separatist sentiments in its territory. Relations between the two countries have traditionally been sour, with the former Soviet republic a close ally of Iran's historical rival Turkey. Tehran also fears that Azerbaijani territory could be used for a possible offensive against Iran by Israel, a major supplier of arms to Baku. Le Monde with AFP Israeli troops aim their weapons during confrontations with Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank town of Al-Ram on January 27, 2023, a day after a deadly Israeli raid on the Jenin camp. AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP The White House said on Friday, January 27, it was "deeply concerned" by escalating violence in the West Bank a day after an Israeli raid there killed 9 and left many others wounded. "We're certainly deeply concerned by this escalating cycle of violence in the West Bank, as well as by the rockets that have been apparently launched from Gaza," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, urging "de-escalation." Gaza militants fired rockets and Israel carried out airstrikes early on Friday as tensions soared following Thursday's raid. It was the deadliest single raid in the territory in over two decades. The flare-up in violence poses an early test for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government and casts a shadow on Secretary of State Antony Blinkens expected trip to the region next week. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Netanyahu seeks to reassure Jordan about far-right allies Le Monde with AFP A LIMERICK designer won two awards at the annual Showcase - Irelands International Creative Exhibition in the RDS, which is now in its 48th year. Linda Wilson Knitwear, who creates her own designs in her Limerick city studio, took home the award for best product in the fashion category, as well as The Design & Crafts Council of Ireland (DCCI) Design Ireland Award. Linda, who owns her own small knitwear business under her own name, won the Showcase Best Product Award in the fashion category with her Large Wrap Scarf. She said: Im a sole trader, not a large manufacturing company - so to win awards like this, it is lovely to see that other people appreciate what youre doing as much as you appreciate it, As much as anything I think its that acceptance of people actually liking what you create that makes a difference for me. Linda added. Over 4,000 buyers from across the world attended the event, with an estimated generation of sales orders of over 20 million over the three days. Finding the exhibition helpful in terms of sales, Linda said: Its been a really good show, really busy - they reduced the show from four days to three which I think is a really positive thing because people are here to do business, Everyone is optimistic about the coming year - Ive picked up some new stocklists in Canada, America and in France as well as new customers in Ireland, so Im really happy! A panel of independent judges selected Linda for both awards, after assessing the Design Ireland exhibitors for design and display, product quality and overall suitability. The Showcase exhibition was founded in 1976 by DCCI and is in association with Enterprise Ireland, who promote the trade show internationally through their networks overseas, and the Local Enterprise Offices nationwide. A SIGNIFICANT expansion to a Limerick school has been announced. A design team has been appointed for a significant extension to Castletroy College, Minister for Education Norma Foley announced on her visit to the Limerick secondary school last Friday afternoon. The extension will include seven classrooms, four special education rooms, two graphics rooms, one art and craft room, one home economics room and one science lab. The principal of Castletroy College Padraig Flanagan welcomed the announcement saying :The extension is a result of an increase in student population. We were built in the year 2000 and had an extension built in 2008. Our capacity is 1,000 students but we now have 1,250 students and growing. Were at capacity and are serving our local community only, Mr Flanagan said. Mr Flanagan said the extension is the result of being 25% over capacity at the school. Weve been offered some temporary modular accommodation to tide us over in the meantime. We will be keeping it tight until the extension is completed. By just serving our local community we will be looking at having 1300 students this year so we certainly do need some temporary modular accommodation. Fianna Fail TD Willie ODea attended last week's ministerial visit. I very much welcome the announcement by Minister for Education, Norma Foley, who on a visit to the school has announced that a design team has been appointed for a significant extension to Castletroy College secondary school. The school has gone from strength to strength since it was founded in the year 2000, with a current enrolment of over 1200 pupils. Well done to the Principal, Padraig Flanagan, the Board of Management and all involved in bringing the project to this stage, Deputy ODea added. Speaking to students and staff, Minister Foley said: Its a great joy for me to be part of your story here today. The very ambitious project that the Department has announced for the school is a significant one, with a multi-million euro investment in the school. It is a project that matches the ambition that you have shown here since the year 2000, as you have grown and grown. It is an extraordinary vote of confidence by the local community in this school that students continue to come in great, great numbers. But they come as a reflection of the work that happens here every day. I look forward to this project moving at pace, enhancing all the more and giving greater opportunities to students who will come here in the coming years. Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board anticipates the development of an exciting and innovative design to provide a quality educational environment to meet current and future educational needs of Castletroy College students. Chief Executive, George OCallaghan, said: We are delighted as an ETB to support this school in every way we can in the provision of education, including through resources and building facilities. The most important element of any school are the students and teachers. I congratulate the teachers of Castletroy College for the fine job that they do in terms of teaching and learning and the students for all that you do and for your commitment. He continued: As an ETB we have a commitment to all of the students in our care. Part of that is our policy to ensure that all of our schools also have modern Special Education Needs facilities and Special Class provision. I am delighted to be able to say that Castletroy College is also committed to that provision and to the provision of Special Class education from September 2023. We are delighted that our policy of inclusivity, reaching out to everybody in our care and ensuring that they get the best possible education, is happening here. I commend the school on its results but also on the care and support it gives to its students. The new extension will feature a 2-classroom SEN facility, several General Classrooms, DCG Room, Science Laboratory, Art/Craft Room, Home Economics Room, Technology Room and multiple ancillary spaces. ORGANISERS of the University Hospital Limerick protest have vowed that last Saturday's march through the city centre is "only the beginning". Saturday saw one of the largest protests to ever take to the streets of Limerick where concerned and angry members of the public voiced their anger over the current conditions at UHL. The 11,000 people that attended the march raised questions about the current overcrowding crisis at UHL and called on the government and the HSE to reinstate the Emergency Departments at St Johns, Ennis and Nenagh hospitals. If our politicians dont do anything regarding the UHL crisis we will have no choice but to up the pressure, said Mid-West Hospital Campaign co-ordinator Mary Cahillane. And if that doesnt do anything then were looking at more protests and other actions that we can take, she added. This Tuesday, there were 60 patients waiting on trolleys at UHL according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation trolley watch figures as overcrowding in the Limerick hospital continues. Were having a meeting next week between all of us who organised the protest, Ms Cahillane said. We put a call out at the protest for people to email their TDs. Some of those replies are coming back to us now. An awful lot of the TDs turned up to the protest. We know many of the TDs are concerned about the issue What is very hard to do is get a straight answer from these politicians as to whether they support the reopening of the Emergency Departments in the Mid-West, Ms Cahillane added. Mike Daly, organiser of the protest addressed the crowd last Saturday. Thank you all for coming here today. I hope it results with the HSE reversing their decision to close the three A&Es and reopen them. But if they dont then this is not the end, this is only the beginning of a campaign of people power that will force change in the healthcare in the Mid-West. For 14 years we have watched as they have closed our A&Es, robbed us of hospital beds and watched our people die on trolleys. Well no more, the time has come for change because we deserve better, our health system deserves better, Mr Daly added. Following the protest, the Limerick Leader spoke to Fianna Fail Minister of State Niall Collins who believes the protest was an "absolutely powerful demonstration of how people feel". The current government since we came to office in the last two and a half years has been building capacity, hiring more consultants, more doctors, more nurses, putting on additional places for medicine in college I know people are calling for the A&E in Nenagh and Ennis to be reopened, they were closed at a time on the advice of experts who said that they werent clinically safe environments for people to present, Deputy Collins added. Mr Daly believes that the A&Es being clinically unsafe is a load of rubbish. Thats just an excuse, Mr Daly said. If they can put billions together to build a new childrens hospital in Dublin, they can get in enough contractors to make any A&E safe and operable. The money is there, theres no excuse, Mr Daly added. The people in charge need to step in immediately to alleviate the waiting times. Everything the government put in place may be good in the long-term but we need action now. Ms Cahillane said that the protest last Saturday wasnt the largest health-based protest in Limerick. We had a protest of 20,000 people in Limerick in 1988 when they closed Barringtons Hospital. We had small protests when they closed the A&Es in 2009. We had a protest in 2020 and we had our protest on Saturday. Since 1988 the people of Limerick have been protesting about healthcare. I think thats quite shocking. Generations of families have been let down by the system because even when they closed Barringtons Hospital we still havent replaced those beds, Ms Cahillane added. Limerick city and Sinn Fein TD Maurice Quinlivan was at the protest on Saturday and said it was great to see people come out over the crisis weve had in our hospitals. The amalgamation [of A&Es] back in 2009 clearly hasnt worked 18,000 people were on trolleys last year and this month is going to be record-breaking again. I think [the protest] is a wake-up call for the government but I think theyve been woken up since the Christmas crisis The winter plan didnt work We need to retain the staff we have in the hospitals, thats crucial number one, theyre leaving in droves. We need to ensure we can recruit the additional number of staff we need for the hospitals and we need to fast-track here in UHL, theres a proposal for three 96-bed units, one is under construction but we need the other two to get the commitment from the government that it will be funded Deputy Quinlivan added. The Mid-West Hospital Campaign would like to thank everyone who came out and supported Saturdays protest. We are going to continue on with this campaign, Ms Cahillane said. This campaign is not going away. We are going to be here for as long as it takes to get better health care in the Mid-West. RECENTLY-appointed Minister of State Kieran O'Donnell has confirmed it's the intention of government to publish legislation before Easter which will pave the way for a Directly-Elected Mayor in Limerick. The Limerick City TD, who was appointed to government before Christmas, made his comments in response to a query from Green Party TD Brian Leddin. "The Local Government (Directly Elected Mayor with Executive Functions in Limerick city and county) Bill is well advanced and has been identified as a priority and he (Minister Darragh O'Brien) is working towards the Bill being published in April this year," said the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Welcoming the comments, Deputy Leddin said: It has been almost four years since the people of Limerick voted to elect their mayor directly and to bring more functions and powers to the local level. While it is significant that the legislation is for a directly elected mayor with a democratic mandate, what is more important is the executive functions - the powers - that will come with the new role. We need to see more powers being devolved to local authorities in areas such as health care, education, policing and transport. The Green Party TD added that he believes it is essential that the office (of the new mayor) has real powers and resources to make a difference. "Local councils were previously responsible for significant aspects of education, water services and health. As the government became more centralised, more and more of these powers were stripped away from local councils. Currently, local government includes certain responsibilities in the areas of planning, local roads, libraries, the arts, and the environment with the local authority and the councillors acting more or less as administrators for the national government and national agencies. We are witnessing how centralised health services and a one-size-fits-all approach has led to poor outcomes for the Mid-West region and this is something that is manifesting acutely at the moment in Limerick. Vedanta Ltd on Friday reported 42 per cent decline in consolidated net profit to 3,092 crore for the December 2022 quarter. This is against a net profit of 5,354 crore in the year-ago period, Vedanta said in a regulatory filing. The consolidated revenue of Vedanta declined by 0.017 per cent to 33,69 crore in the quarter under review from 33,697 crore a year ago. The board of directors of Vedanta has approved the fourth interim dividend of 12.50 per equity share. The record date is set as February 4, 2023. The Board of Directors of the Company has approved the Fourth Interim Dividend of 12.50 per equity share i.e. 1250% on face value of Re. 1/ per share for the financial year 202223 amounting to 4,647 Crores. The record date for the purpose of payment of dividend is Saturday, February 04, 2023. The interim dividend will be paid within the stipulated timelines as prescribed under law," said Vedanta in its filing. However, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, net profit grew 15 per cent to 3,092 crore from 2,690 crore. Consolidated quarterly EBITDA of 7,100 crore with EBITDA margin of 24%. "We have delivered a strong set of financial results and steady operational performance in challenging macroeconomic environment. Our quarterly Profit after tax grew 15% on sequential basis to 3,092 crore; free cash flow (pre capex) stood at 6,504 crore with focus on working capital and cost optimization. Our ESG initiatives have been recognized by several major external rating agencies. We have approved plans for another 941 MW RE power under group captive RE power development program. I am also happy to share that Vedanta and Hindustan Zinc Limited Boards have taken strategic initiative to consolidate Zinc International under Hindustan Zinc. It will be a win-win transaction, unlocking significant value for both Vedanta Limited and Hindustan Zinc Limited shareholders," said Sunil Duggal, Chief Executive Officer, Vedanta. The company has announced another 941 MW RE power under group captive RE power development program. "I am also happy to share that Vedanta and Hindustan Zinc Limited Boards have taken a strategic initiative to consolidate Zinc International under Hindustan Zinc," the company said. The company's board has approved the sale of Vedanta Zinc International (VZI) business (Gamsberg, Black Mountain and Skorpion operations) to Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) for a cash consideration of $ 2,981 mn, including $562 mn as deferred consideration linked to certain milestones. "This is a win-win transaction and will unlock significant value for both Vedanta Limited and HZL shareholders. With combined R&R of 1,150 mn tonnes Ore and 60+ mn tons Metal, HZL will have potential to become the largest global Zinc player. Vedanta will continue to participate in this growth story through Hindustan Zinc," said Vedanta in its filing. The company's scrip ended 1.96 per cent down to 319.85 on BSE. Beyond treating eye complications and prevention blindness, the Vision First initiative helps identify potential eye problems in target communities before they deteriorate. analysis Togo had reason to celebrate in 2022 when it became the first country in the world to eliminate four neglected tropical diseases. The west African nation stamped out Guinea worm disease in 2011, lymphatic filariasis in 2017, sleeping sickness in 2020, and trachoma last year. These diseases are transmitted in various ways. Guinea worm disease, for instance, is water-borne while sleeping sickness is transmitted by the tsetse fly. They are just a few among a host of neglected tropical diseases, which mostly affect impoverished communities and that are exacerbated by instability, climate change, and poor living conditions. Every year, 1.7 billion people are affected by these diseases. They cause immense suffering, stigma, disability - and sometimes death. Togo achieved its milestone through a combination of measures. These included door-to-door mass drug administration, training of healthcare staff, sustained financing, and strong political support. Other African countries also made significant progress in tackling neglected tropical diseases in 2022. Benin, Rwanda and Uganda managed to eliminate sleeping sickness. Malawi eliminated trachoma and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) eliminated Guinea worm disease. On another continent, in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi applauded his country's success in eliminating smallpox, polio and Guinea worm disease, while expressing confidence it could "soon" eliminate another neglected tropical disease, visceral leishmaniasis. All of this means there's plenty of reason to celebrate. But the global health community cannot rest on its laurels. These diseases are still present in some areas. The insects that transmit many of these diseases don't respect borders - so no one is safe until everyone is. The COVID-19 pandemic gravely disrupted control programmes, delaying the achievement of elimination goals by years for some diseases. Some countries are also struggling to tackle neglected tropical diseases because of instability and conflicts that hinder control efforts, or because they have large remote regions that are difficult to reach. Adequate funding is needed to support drug distribution, training of healthcare staff, and raising awareness. Funding for research and development is crucial, too, so that the promising innovations emerging from African laboratories and clinical trial sites can reach doctors and patients. Improved treatments One of the challenges in tackling many neglected tropical diseases is the absence of adequate treatments. Existing medicines are often not effective enough or are difficult to administer, such as regular injections that require hospitalisation. Some treatments are very painful. Others are downright toxic. For some diseases, such as a fungal infection called mycetoma, which is endemic in Sudan, there are no effective treatments at all - amputation is often the only option. Because these diseases affect the poorest communities and there is little profit to be made from developing new drugs, they have been historically ignored by traditional pharmaceutical research. But the abundance of good news last year has given me hope. 2022 was an incredible year for visceral leishmaniasis, which is endemic in eastern Africa and is my field of expertise as a physician and specialist in infectious diseases and tropical medicine. Read more: Innovation -- and research -- are key to killing off neglected tropical diseases in Africa The disease is fatal if left untreated. It's the deadliest parasitic killer after malaria. Those infected with visceral leishmaniasis suffer from fever, weight loss and intense fatigue. Many are unable to work, which means a loss of income for their families. But in September 2022, a shorter, more effective new treatment was announced. Developed with several partners, including Medecins Sans Frontieres, this treatment partially removes the need for daily injections. In June, the World Health Organization also recommended an improved treatment specifically for people who are co-infected with HIV and visceral leishmaniasis. This gives hope for the thousands of patients - often young seasonal migrant workers - who respond poorly to standard treatment. Promising results for a new, one-dose drug for sleeping sickness were also announced last year following clinical studies conducted in the DRC and Guinea by Congolese and Guinean researchers. This new medicine would be a significant improvement over existing drugs and could open the door to sustainably eliminating the disease. This is a remarkable achievement. I still remember when the only drug available to my fellow doctors in the DRC was an arsenic derivative so toxic it killed 5% of their patients. Collaboration and partnerships However, research and development efforts alone are not enough. Collaboration and partnerships are key. These are not just buzzwords: past successes in tackling neglected tropical diseases have been rooted in close-knit partnerships between national health authorities, international donors, medical research institutes, universities and industry. The new treatments I mentioned above were all developed thanks to such coalitions. I am the director of the Eastern Africa office of a global non-profit medical research organisation called Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, which took an active role in all these research and development collaborations. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Africa Health 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. The good news is that new partnerships keep being formed. In 2022, we established LeishAccess, a regional collaboration in Eastern Africa working to promote access to visceral leishmaniasis treatments and remove the obstacles that still prevent half of patients from accessing the life-saving drugs they need. All these advances give me hope. These extraordinary efforts will eventually pay off. I am convinced that, in a not-so-distant future, people will stop dying from leishmaniasis, and will be safely cured thanks to simple oral drugs. Many gaps remain, with millions of people still suffering from diseases that could be cured. And neglected tropical diseases that are slowly disappearing can suddenly come back with a vengeance, fuelled by conflicts, economic crises, increased poverty, or climate change. But if sustained investment is coupled with African political leadership and scientific excellence, there's good reason to hope for the elimination of neglected tropical diseases on the continent. Monique Wasunna, Researcher, Kenya Medical Research Institute Mumbai: The 20,000 crore follow-on public offering (FPO) of Adani Enterprises Ltd got off to a weak start on Friday with a subscription of just 1%, as the fraud allegations made by Hindenburg Research buffeted Adani group stocks. The FPO received bids for only 470,000 shares against an offer size of 45.5 million shares, stock exchange data showed. To be sure, the first-day subscription figures are a poor indicator of the demand for a share sale, as these share sales typically draw the lions share of investor demand on the final day of the offering. The price range of the FPO, running through 27-31 January, has been fixed between 3,112 and 3,276. Retail investors have been offered an additional 64 discount per share. On Friday, Adani Enterprises shares plunged 18.5% to 2,762.15 on BSE, trading below the lower end of the FPO offer price. However, subscribers to the offer need to pay only 50% of the price now, with the remaining 50% to be paid at a later date to be decided by the company. According to stock exchange data, the institutional investor category of the share sale did not see any subscription on day one, while the portion reserved for retail investors and non-institutional/high net-worth individuals was subscribed 2% and 1%, respectively. A small portion of the share sale reserved for employees saw a 4% subscription. Ahead of the FPO opening for public subscription, the company raised 5,984.9 crore by allocating shares to anchor investors. The anchor investors, 33 in total, included foreign and domestic institutional investors such as Maybank Securities Pte Ltd, Life Insurance Corp. of India, SBI Employees Pension Fund, SBI Life Insurance Co., HDFC Life Insurance Co, Abu-Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund ADIA, Goldman Sachs Investment and Morgan Stanley Asia. It is still too early to say. It is becoming too hot for people to put in money, but the group still has a lot of influence with institutional investors to ensure sufficient demand for the offer to be successful," said a market expert, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, Adani group has denied several of the allegations made in the Hindenburg Research report released ahead of the opening of the FPO, according to a presentation made by the Adani group. The Adani group said 21 questions (related-party transactions and court cases) are nothing but Adani portfolios public disclosure from as far back as 2015. Hindenburg had sent the group 89 questions as part of its research into the group. Mint has seen a copy of the presentation. Hindenburg asked 89 questions in total...21 in total cannot be claimed to be a result of any investigation over a two-year period or any such assertion as they were disclosed in the following public documents all the way back from 2015," the presentation said. The presentation added that the accounting (or fraud-type assertions) investigation" was devoid of facts. Of Adani portfolios nine public listed entities, eight are audited by one of the Big 6," it said. On the issue of leverage, the group said 100 of its firms are rated by three global and seven domestic rating agencies, with this accounting for nearly 100% of its Ebitda. On revenue or balance sheet being artificially inflated, the group retorted that out of nine listed firms in Adani portfolio, six are subject to specific sector regulatory review for revenue, costs and capex. In addition to accounts, Sebi, BSE or NSE requirements, six of our listed entities are also obliged to provide regular filings for business regulators. In these cases, revenue claimed expenses and claimed capital expenses are independently reviewed by the regulators as part of the relevant legislation, e.g. Electricity Act," the presentation noted. Mumbai/New Delhi: Adani Group stocks fell 5-20% on Friday, wiping out 3.19 trillion in investor wealth after Hindenburg Research said it stood by its findings of alleged share price manipulation and accounting fraud by the conglomerate. The rout in Adani shares also impacted stocks of state-owned and private lenders with an exposure to the group, fuelling the fall in the benchmark indices, Nifty and Sensex, to three-month lows. The rout in Adani shares also impacted stocks of state-owned and private lenders with an exposure to the group, fuelling the fall in the benchmark indices, Nifty and Sensex, to three-month lows. Adani Enterprises, the flagship of the Adani Group, dismissed the report as unresearched" and maliciously mischievous," which seeks to undermine the goodwill and reputation of the Adani group and its leaders and sabotage the FPO (follow-on public offering) from Adani Enterprises," a day after its release on Thursday. However, six of the 10 Adani group stocks hit the lower circuits before recouping some losses on Friday, while four that dont have price bands Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Ambuja Cements and ACC fell between 12% and 18%. The rout in Adani stocks helped rival Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd, reclaim the title of the richest Indian he ceded to billionaire Gautam Adani last year. The fall in the Adani Group stocks saw investor wealth worth 3.19 trillion get wiped off and took the two-day loss since the Hindenburg Research report surfaced on Wednesday to 4.4 trillion. Adani Group stocks market value loss accounted for 47% of the overall 6.98 trillion loss of investor wealth on Friday. Adani Ports and Adani Enterprises, part of the Nifty, crashed by 15% and 18% each. Jittery investors also offloaded bank stocks such as State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and IndusInd Bank, which fell between 4% and 5%. The 18% fall in Adani Enterprises to 2,768.50 apiece took it below the lower band of the FPOs floor price of 3,112. The cascading effect on the bank stocks dragged down the benchmark indices. The Nifty plunged by 1.61% to 17,604.35, while the Sensex shed 1.45% to close at 59,330.90. The 12-constituent of Bank Nifty fell 3.13% to 4,0345.30. Investors nervousness was reflected in the fear gauge, India Vix, surging 18% to 17.32. The Adani Group released a presentation through its flagship Adani Enterprises to the stock exchanges after market closing on Friday, with its responses to Hindenburgs questions. It said that eight of the groups listed companies were audited by the Big 6, including Deloitte Haskins & Sells and EY. Earlier in the day, American billionaire and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman weighed in on the matter through a tweet wherein he described the Hindenburg report as highly credible and extremely well researched." Proxy advisory firm InGovern also weighed in on the issue stating, Hindenburg, as a short seller, should be considered as just another participant who has a motivated view to release a negative report with the aim to bring down the stock price." A Sebi official said that the regulator would wait for the clarification by the company to the exchanges before deciding the further course of action. The official declined to be identified. Corporate houses with heavy leverage or expensive valuations were hit the most during this selloff on Friday, said Nishit Master, portfolio manager, Axis Securities. Foreign portfolio investors (FIIs) cautious stance ahead of the Union Budget and US Federal Open Market Committee meetings also contributed to the collapse in the markets. FIIs sold shares worth a provisional 5,977.86 crore, while domestic institutional investors purchased 4,252.33 crore worth of stocks on Friday. FIIs have sold 13,206 crore worth of equity till 25 January. Amid the gloom, the one silver lining was India on Friday became the first country in the world to have a T+1 settlement cycle. The faster settlement cycle is expected to augur well for the Indian equity markets from a liquidity perspective, with settlements being made within 24 hours. The shift will boost operational efficiency as the rolling of funds and stocks will be faster, said Ajay Menon, managing director and CEO of broking and distribution at Motilal Oswal Financial Services. The same will help the investor in reducing the overall capital requirements with the margins getting released on T+1 day. Sellers will get funds in their bank accounts within 24 hours of the sale. ujjval.j@livemint.com Boeing expects to hire 10,000 workers in 2023 as it recovers from the pandemic and increases jetliner production, but will trim some support jobs, the U.S. planemaker said Friday. The Arlington, Virginia-based company boosted overall employment by about 14,000 workers in 2022 to 156,000 as of Dec. 31, up from about 142,000 in 2021. Boeing employs about 136,000 workers in the United States. Also Read: Air India inches closer to seal half of jumbo plane order Boeing acknowledged it will "lower staffing within some support functions" - a move meant to enable it to better align resources to support current products and technology development. It declined to comment on how many jobs it will cut in 2023. Most of the growth will occur in Boeing's business units, as well as engineering and manufacturing, to meet airlines' growing demand. Also Read: Boeing reports Q4 loss but reaffirms 2023 targets The company plans to increase deliveries of the 737 MAX from 374 aircraft in 2022 to between 400 to 450 planes this year, with deliveries of the 787 expected to hit between 70 and 80 aircraft. European rival Airbus said this week it plans to add 13,000 employees this year. About 7,000 of those jobs are set to be newly created positions, with about 9,000 of the new hires based in Europe. Also Read: Air Indias mega jet deal with Airbus, Boeing held up by engine-cost debate Boeing did not comment on how many net new jobs would created in the United States in 2023. The U.S. planemaker is nearing pre-pandemic workforce levels, which stood at 161,000 people at the end of 2019. During 2020, the workforce fell to about 141,000 employees after Boeing announced job reductions. "Hiring is not a constraint anymore," Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told analysts Wednesday. "People are able to hire the people they need. It's all about the training and ultimately getting them ready to do the sophisticated work that we demand." This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Indian civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation has imposed a penalty of 10 lakh rupees on Go FIRST for leaving behind 55 flyers in the passenger coach at Bengaluru airport on 9 January. The regulator had issued a show cause notice to accountable manager of the airline as to why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligations. The regulator observed from the reply of Go FIRST that there was no proper communication and coordination between terminal coordinator, commercial staff and crew regarding boarding of passengers in the aircraft. The airline also failed to ensure adequate arrangement for ground handling, preparation of load and trim sheet, flight dispatch and passenger or cargo handling, the regulator noted. The airline was at fault across multiple points and no one was cross-checking on how many passengers were supposed to be on that flight. Some people have been sacked by the airline with regard to the incident. Half of the seats in the plane were empty but still it did not strike the staff that something was amiss," a senior official said. The airline, however, has been quick in taking action post the incident in terms of offering free tickets to the affected passengers," the official added. After the incident, Go First, in a statement, had said that the error occurred due to an inadvertent oversight" and all staff responsible for the incident have been put off the roster till the inquiry is on. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to the passengers due to an inadvertent oversight in the reconciliation of flight G8 116, from Bengaluru to Delhi. Passengers were accommodated on alternate airlines to Delhi and onward to other destinations," Go First had said after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued a show-cause notice to the airline citing multiple mistakes". The airline also offered one free ticket to each affected passenger to avail in domestic routes, valid for the next one year. The tech giant, Google has announced 12,000 job cuts globally this month. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has sent an email regarding lay offs to its staff members. However, an employee has recently revealed that he discovered about his employment termination when he could not access his account anymore. A Google recruiter, taking to LinkedIn, stated that he was in the middle of a call with a potential candidate when the call was suddenly disconnected in between the conversation. Dan Lanigan Ryan, who worked as a recruiter at Google, shared how he was blocked out of the system in the middle of a call and fired from the company abruptly. Unfortunately, I was laid off from Google along with many thousands of others last Friday. Cut to 16 months later, I did not expect it to come to such an abrupt end, blocked out of the system in the middle of a call," Ryan's LinkedIn post read. He stated that he landed his dream job with a dream company about an year ago. Expressing his happiness after being selected at Google, Ryan said, I was walking the dog when my recruiter called to tell me I got the role and I nearly choked the poor pooch I was celebrating so much." Ryan further informed that his contract was just extended for another year and was moved to the Cloud Sales recruitment team. In addition, only a week ago there was talk of a pay rise, however, he have been caught off guard, the ex-Google recruiter added. I will be forever grateful for everything I learned and to all the fantastic people I had the pleasure of working with. I want to say thank you to my managers Emma Daly-Ronayne, Marie-Claire Kennedy and Joe Morgan and my buddies Yasmeen Hussain and Rocco Sek. Your continuous support was instrumental to my successes," Ryan expressed gratitude to his colleagues and seniors at the company. Soon after laying off 12,000 employees, Sundar Pichai took full responsibility for the decision and also he was deeply sorry" for the job cuts at Alphabet. He mentioned in the email that Google would support the impacted employees through 2022 bonuses, healthcare, job placement services, and immigration support. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday released the data of mobile subscribers gained by various telecom operators in November 2022. Cumulatively, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel obtained nearly 25 lakh subscribers during this period, while Vodafone Idea lost around 18.3 lakh customers, according to the data. India's largest telco Reliance Jio cemented its lead in the telecom market adding 14.26 lakh net subscribers in November, whereas Airtel added 10.56 lakh users. Jio's overall subscribers tally stood at 42.28 crore at the end of November 2022. As per TRAI data, Bharti Airtel's subscriber gains increased mobile user count of the Sunil Mittal-led company to 36.60 crore in last November, PTI reported. However, Vodafone Idea has lost 18.27 lakh subscribers during the same month in reference, tempering its subscriber base to 24.37 crore in November. The TRAI data also stated that the total broadband subscribers increased to 825.38 million at the end of November 2022 with a monthly growth rate of 0.47%. In total, top five service providers constituted over 98% market share at November end. The list included Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (430.18 million), Bharti Airtel (230.56 million), Vodafone Idea (123.48 million), and BSNL (25.85 million), amongst others, as per PTI reports. As on November 2022, the top five wired broadband service providers were Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (7.38 million), Bharti Airtel (5.56 million), BSNL (4.02 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (2.14 million) and Hathway Cable & Datacom (1.13 million). The top five wireless broadband service providers include Reliance Jio Infocom Ltd (422.81 million), Bharti Airtel (225 million), Vodafone Idea (123.47 million), BSNL (21.83 million), and Intech Online Pvt. Ltd. (0.23 million). Total wireless subscribers decreased to 1,143.04 million at the end of November 2022, from 1,143.63 million at the end of October 2022, sliding 0.05 per cent. "Monthly growth rates of urban and rural wireless subscription were 0.24 per cent and -0.39 per cent respectively," it said. (With PTI inputs) Joining the long list of Indian startups that have been trimming their headcount to cut costs, grocery-focussed social commerce startup Dealshare run by Merabo Labs Pvt. Ltd on Friday said it has laid off 100 employees, or around 6% of its 1,500-workforce, across several verticals as part of a corporate realignment process. As part of our business restructuring plan and to sustain growth, we have taken a difficult decision to reduce the size of the team by 100 employees which constitutes only 6% of the company. We have taken adequate measures to compensate the affected employees," a company statement said. Layoffs at the social commerce startup were undertaken across functions, the company said. The realignment plan comes amid challenging macroeconomic conditions, which, as per the firms founder and co-chief executive Sourjyendu Medda, are likely to continue in the near term. We have toned down the business plan a bit in terms of geographical expansion, and the newer spheres of the business that we were going to invest into," Medda said. The firm looks to pare down expenses from those parts of its operations which could lead to longer periods of cash infusion and investments, before becoming profitable." The firm aims to realign its operations, particularly in Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, which were among the recently launched geographies, as a measure to contain its costs. It currently operates in 150 cities. The firm will provide a notice period of about three months to the laid off employees, along with out-placement support. Medda said the company may offer and extension to the notice period to employees unable to secure a job offer at the end of the three-month period. At its peak during March-April 2022, the companys ARR (annual revenue run rate) stood at about $900 million, from which it has dropped by about one-thirds about to $600 million, after the company reduced its cash monthly burn by about two-thirds. Even as the chief executive remained confident on the firms revenue growth, which stood at about 1933 crore at the end of financial year (FY) 2022, the firm may not be able to break even by FY23 end, he said. Dealshare incurred a 67 crore loss at the end of FY22. With this, the firm joins the long list of startups laying off their employees amid a challenging macroeconomic environment. In 2022, over 19000 were laid off across Indian startups, while this year, over 2600 have already been sacked for a multitude of reasons including corporate restructuring, cost-cutting, or performance review. This week saw layoffs particularly in the healthcare sector. Among the latest was SirionLabs, which fired about its 130 staff to realign business operations, followed by Innovaccer, laying off around 245 employees citing a similar reason. InMobi also cut 70 jobs as part of its performance review. DealShare joined the coveted unicorn club early last year after raising almost $130 million as a part of its Series E funding round from Tiger Global Management, Alpha Wave Global and others. NEW DELHI : In a bid to provide relief to stuck solar power projects amid module shortage, Centre has allowed the extension of the timeline for completion of projects for which bids were finalized before the announcement of the basic customs duty on modules. In a letter to the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), NTPC and NHPC, seen by Mint, the ministry of new and renewable energy said that the projects for which bids were submitted before 9 March, 2021, may be given the time for completion of project up to March 2024. On 9 March, 2021, Centre announced that from 1 April, 2022 any import of solar PV modules would attract basic customs duty (BCD) of 40% and import of solar PV cells would attract BCD of 25%. It noted that there are several projects for which bids were finalized by government agencies before the announcement of the customs duty, which in normal circumstances would have been completed before the imposition of the duty but got delayed to Covid and resultant supply chain disruptions. While a decision on bids which were finalized before the announcement of customs duty is pending, in the meantime, the extended completion dates of many projects have expired. It has therefore been decided that solar PV/solar PV-wind hybrid projects, for which bids were finalized before 9 March, 2021, may be given time for completion of project up to March, 2024," said the letter dated 25 January. The move is expected to come as relief for projects which were delayed and stalled due to supply chain disruptions and lack of availability of solar modules. Arindam Ghosh, partner for power advisory at Nangia Andersen LLP said: It is a welcome move as it had implications on 15 GW of capacity bid prior to 9th March 2021. It is needed to address the supply chain disruption and as the domestic manufacturing has not picked up after covid period. The project execution would have been delayed further if the extension had been extended, hence transmission charges and bid bonds would need to be liquidated." However, the ambiguity regarding either providing change in law provisions or exempting these projects from BCD applicability remains and any additional costs incurred by developers will be borne by them directly," he said. Ghosh, further said that due to the extension of the applicability date, these projects will have to pay this additional custom duty if they fall under this period and the project cost will be increased. Recently, the ministry granted an extension of timeline until September 2024 for solar power projects under the second phase of the Central Public Sector Undertaking (CPSU) programme. The high duties were imposed in a bid to curb cheaper imports from China and boost domestic supplies. Government has also come up with production linked incentive scheme to encourage the domestic solar module industry. However, with the domestic industry yet to pick pace and the high import duty and the Approved List of Modules and Manufacturers (ALMM) have impacted the availability of modules in the country and affected ongoing projects. The solar power industry is already reeling from a sharp rise in module prices in the last two years. According to a report by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, module costs form 65% of the initial capital expenditure of a typical solar project, hinging project viability on their trajectory. Any increase in the cost of solar modules can significantly take up overall cost of the project. In an interview to Mint in September 2022, union minister for new and renewable energy RK Singh had said that the capacities impacted due to the high prices of modules and the pandemic then stood at 26 GW. Query sent to the ministry of new and renewable energy remained unanswered till press time. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rituraj Baruah Rituraj Baruah is a senior correspondent at Mint, reporting on housing, urban affairs, small businesses and energy. He has reported on diverse sectors over the last six years including, commodities and stocks market, insolvency and real estate. He has previous stints at Cogencis Information Services, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) and Inc42. Read more from this author New Delhi: Here are the top 10 stocks that could be in focus in Friday's trade: Adani Enterprises: The 20,000 crore follow-on public offer of the Adani group's flagship Adani Enterprises opens today and will close on 31 January. The price band has been set at 3,112-3,276 per share. On Wednesday, the company saw a clutch of foreign and domestic investors buy shares worth almost 6,000 crore as part of the anchor book allocation. Bajaj Finance: The non-banking finance company will report its fiscal third quarter results on Friday, with the market largely expecting the financier to report healthy profit led by improved net interest income. Net interest margin, however, may be subdued due to rising funding. Maruti Suzuki: Pending orders with India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki have jumped to around 4.05 lakh units this month on steady bookings. Newly introduced SUVs Jimny and Fronx also added to the numbers. The bookings for Jimny have crossed 11,000 units, while that of Fronx is around 4,000 units. Compared to January 2022, the inquiry is higher by 28% and bookings by 16% in the same month this year. Tata Motors: Surpassed Street expectations as the parent of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) swung to its first quarterly net profit in two years. The Mumbai-based automaker posted a consolidated net profit of 2,597.71 crore in the three months ended 31 December, compared with a loss of 1,516.14 crore a year earlier. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had estimated a 1,060 crore net profit for the quarter. Vedanta Ltd: Mining major Vedanta will announce its December quarter earnings on Friday. The Anil Agarwal-backed company will also declare a fourth interim dividend for FY23 for which it has already fixed the record date. Kotak Institutional Equities expects a 41% YoY and 11.5% QoQ drop in Vedanta's Ebitda due to weaker commodity prices across segments, lower benefit of hedges unlike the previous quarter, and weak demand. Vodafone Idea: The board of the debt-laden Vodafone Idea will meet on Tuesday to discuss a proposal to issue 1,600 crore debentures to mobile tower vendor ATC Telecom Infrastructure. Vodafone Idea and ATC had agreed to extend the last date to issue optionally convertible debentures till 28 February after the shareholder's approval to issue the debentures lapsed in December. DLF Ltd: The realty major reported a 45% growth in sales bookings to 6,599 crore during April-December on better demand and is on track to achieve its annual sales guidance of 8,000 crore. DLF, the country's largest realty firm in terms of market capitalisation, reported a 37% increase in its consolidated net profit at 519.21 crore for the quarter ended December. LTIMindtree: The IT services provider has partnered with Duck Creek Technologies, and Microsoft to build a cloud migration solution for insurers. The solution will enable insurers to migrate their on-premises core systems to the cloud in a quick and efficient manner. Dr Reddy's Laboratories: The pharma company reported a 77% year-on-year growth in consolidated profit at 1,247 crore for quarter ended December, driven by strong US business. Consolidated revenue from operations stood at 6,770 crore, up 27.3% on year. Ebitda surged 55% YoY to 1,966 crore with 5 percentage points expansion in margin at 29% for the quarter. NMDC: Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power, JSW Steel, Adani Group and Vedanta Group are likely to bid for the governments majority stake in NMDC Steel Ltd, a steel plant separated from Indias largest iron ore producer. The 20,000 crore plant, with a capacity to produce 3 million tonnes per annum, is likely to be commissioned by the end of March. The Thane District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum on Friday ordered a construction firm and its associate to pay 30,000 each to a group of 45 people. The forum directed the construction firm to do on failure to execute sale deeds against the purchase of flats in their scheme at Vasai in Maharashtra in 1986. The forum president V C Premchandani, and its member Poonam V Maharshi ordered Paranjape Construction Company and its partner Jayant Moreshwar Paranjape, to jointly make the payment within 30 days of the order. The order was was passed on January 13. The complaints were represented by Advocate Ashwini Sarjine. However, the opponents did not remain present for the hearing and the matter was decided ex-parte against them. In her submission, Advocate Sarjine told the Thane District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum that in 1986 the complainants had booked flats, of 410 sq ft, in the company's housing scheme at Vasai in Palghar district. They had paid 95,000 each as booking amount for the purchase of flats. She said that even as the complainants started living in the flats 26 years ago, the company has so far not executed the sale deed. Therefore, the complainants had issued a legal notice to the opponents for not executing the sale deed or alternatively refund the amount as per the market rate of the properties. But since the opponent did not comply with the notice, the present complaint has been filed. In its order, the forum pulled up the opponents, saying they indulged in "unfair trade practice", The opponents failed to appear for the proceedings and did not file their defence. Hence, the contentions made by the complainants against opponents are proved against them, it said. The forum asked the opponents to pay 30,000 to each complainant towards their litigation charges. They were also directed to execute the sale deed. document Kigali, Rwanda: Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today in Kigali at the conclusion of her visit to Rwanda: "I wish to thank H.E President Kagame, Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente, Minister of Finance and National Planning Uzziel Ndagijimana, Minister of Environment Jeanne d' Arc, and Governor John Rwangombwa for their warm welcome and gracious hospitality. I also very much appreciated the constructive discussions and the opportunity to engage with senior policymakers from the East African Community on how the IMF can be an even more effective partner to help Rwanda and the region emerge from multiple crises and build a more resilient, inclusive, and greener economy. My visit included invigorating exchanges with Rwandan youth, women, civil society and green entrepreneurs. "I came away impressed by the dynamism and creativity of Rwandan youth advocating for climate action and environmental conservation, and entrepreneurs using their ingenuity to bring climate-friendly solutions for a greener tomorrow. "I congratulated the authorities for being the first country in Africa to access the IMF Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) for $319 million , together with a new Policy Coordination Instrument . This is a testament of Rwanda's strong track record of policies and sustained implementation of reforms, including to address climate change. I also encouraged President Kagame and his team to continue advancing reforms under the two IMF programs. "I was glad to have the opportunity to exchange views with policymakers from the region on the multi-faceted challenges they face on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine, the cost-of-living crisis and climate change. We also discussed how the IMF could help them better address these challenges. The IMF has been there to support sub-Saharan Africa since the beginning of the pandemic with more than $50 billion provided to the region. We currently have 22 financing programs and two staff monitored programs, representing active engagement in more than half of the region. And we are ready to do more. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines International Organisations Rwanda Banking 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. "Considering Rwanda's place as a pacesetter on climate initiatives and the challenges the East Africa region faces with increasingly frequent and damaging droughts and flooding, I appreciated the opportunity to focus on the existential threat of climate change. I heard loud and clear their unequivocal call for stronger international cooperation and coordination to address this challenge. Climate change is a global emergency that transcends national borders. It is an issue that requires international cooperation and coordinated solutions, including to mobilize the needed financing. It is in this spirit of cooperation that the Fund has been stepping up financing through the RSF , a new facility to help vulnerable low- and middle-income countries address longer-term structural changes such as climate change and pandemic preparedness. We have also stepped-up capacity building to help countries identify and prioritize resources. Meanwhile, in close collaboration with multilateral development banks, international financial institutions, and the private sector, we are committed to explore options for scaling up private finance leveraging the RSF. We look forward to seeing Rwanda serve as a leading example of how long-term low-cost funding from the IMF can help sub-Saharan Africa mitigate the effects of climate change." As the Air India pee-gate case continues, a Delhi court has adjourned the bail plea of Shankar Mishra. The former Wells Fargo employee has been accused of urinating on a woman on board an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi last year. The court has listed the case for hearing on January 30. Additional Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla adjourned the matter on Friday, noting that the investigating officer was not present. Moreover, the complainant's counsel was not provided a copy of the bail plea. Senior lawyer Ramesh Gupta who is appearing for Shankar Mishra had objected to the adjournment, calling for interim bail to be granted. Delhi Police had registered an FIR against him on January 4 on a complaint given by the woman to Air India. The accused was arrested on January 6 and remains in judicial custody. Mishra's bail plea was recently dismissed by the Magistrate court. Also read: Air India fined 10 lakh for hiding another pee incident last month Earlier on January 11, the Magistrate Court had dismissed Mishra's bail plea, dubbing his alleged actions utterly "disgusting and repulsive". The alleged act in itself is sufficient to outrage the modesty of any woman. Egregious conduct of the accused has shocked the civic consciousness and needs to be deprecated," Metropolitan Magistrate Komal Garg had said at the time. Mishra has been accused of consuming alcohol on the flight and then urinating on his fellow passenger while drunk. The magistrate had noted that he did not deny the fact that he was intoxicated. Mishra's lawyer had previously argued that the purported victim had a problem with incontinence and had urinated on herself. The complainant woman's seat was blocked. It was not possible for him (Mishra) to go there," he asserted. The complainant had in turn issued a statement stating that the accused has adopted a campaign of spreading misinformation and falsities with the intent of further harassing the victim. (With inputs from agencies) In the wake of nearing state assembly elections, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Bhupesh Baghel, on Thursday, announced to give monthly allowance to unemployed youth from next financial year. The announcement was made by the CM while addressing the public on 74th Republic Day at the Lalbag Parade grounds in Jagdalpur. Also Read: Tata, JSPL, JSW, Adani, Vedanta may bid for NMDC Steels strategic disinvestment "Unemployed youth will be given an unemployment allowance every month from the next financial year (2023-24)," Baghel said without specifying the amount. Talk of unemployment allowance for youth in the state dates back to the 2018 State Assembly polls, when the Congress made it a key promise for the election. Emphasis of unemployment on its election manifesto helped the Congress in returning to power in Chhattisgarh after 15 years. Also Read: Congress screens controversial BBC documentary on PM Modi at Kerala's beach In addition to the unemployment allowance to youth, Bhupesh Baghel also announced the formulation of a rural industry policy in the state to boost the cottage industry-based rural economy. Along with this, he also made some other important announcement on the occasion. He also assured people that factories lying in the industrial areas will be exempted from property tax. He also announced housing assistance scheme for labourers, scheme for women entrepreneurs, etc. Aerocity in Raipur To provide an improved passenger facilities to the air travellers in the state, Chhattisgarh government will develop an aerocity near the Swami Vivekananda Airport in Raipur. Keeping in view space for the welfare of the daily workers, Bhupesh Baghel also said that the construction workers registered with the Chhattisgarh Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board for a period of three years will get a grant of 50,000 for building their houses. Also Read: Karnataka Polls: Ex-CM Siddaramiah eyes return of Cong; BJP begins preparations To satisfy the dominant tribal public of the state, CM announced to provide an annual aid of 10,000 to each gram panchayat to organise tribal festival in areas like Bastar and Surguja divisions and scheduled areas of the state from the next financial year, he said. Besides, Chhattisgarh State Innovation Commission will be constituted with an aim to promote innovation for the development of the state, he said. He also promised that his government will develop a river front along the Kharun river flowing on the outskirts of Raipur and sharing border with Durg district. (With inputs from PTI) Hindenburg Research on its website said that the company specialises in forensic financial research. It says it has 'experience in the investment management industry spans decades, with a historical focus on equity, credit, and derivatives analysis. "While we use fundamental analysis to aid our investment decision-making, we believe the most impactful research results from uncovering hard-to-find information from atypical sources," the company website says. Researchers from Hindenburg had pointed out the complicated maze of transactions undertaken by many of the listed Adani Group firms. Also Read: Hindenburg Research: All you need to know about US-based research team that shorted Adani Group stock Congress leader Jairam Ramesh while issuing a statement wrote, Jairam Ramesh, it wrote, Normally political party should not be reacting to a research report on an individual company or business group prepaid by a hedge funit. But the formic analys by Hindenburg Research of the Adani Group demands a response from the Congress party This because the Alan Group ordinary conglomerate it is closely identified with Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the time he was Chief Minister." Furthermore the high exposure of financial institutions such as the Life Insurance Company (of India (LIC) and the State Bank of India (SBI) to the Adan Croup has implications for financial stability and for the cures of Indians whose savings are stewarded by these pillars of the financial system. It is worth noting that earlier reports had described the Adani Group "deeply over leveraged". The allegations require serienes investigation by those who are responsible for the stability and security of the Indian financial system, vie, the Reserve Bank India (RB) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SBI)." It further wrote, The Hindenburg report alleges "bean stock manipulation" and "accounting fraud by the Adani Group via a vast labyrinth of offshore shell entities The evolution and modemisation of India's financial markets since the 1991 reforms has aimed to improve transparency and to level the playing field for domestic and foreign investors. It has specifically sought to increase the transparency of financial flows into the country-to prevent round-tripping and money-laundering by actors that could include criminals, emrists and hostile countries- and to reduce dependenor on offshore tax havern. For all its posturing about black money, has the Modi government chosen to turn a blind eye towards illicit activities by in favourite business group? Is there a quid pro quo? Will SEMI investigate these allegations to the fullest and not just in name?" "The allegations of financial malfeasance would be bad enough, but what is worse is that the Modi government may have exposed Indias financial system to systemic risks through the liberal investments in the Adani Group made by strategic state entities like LIC, SBI and other public sector banks." "The allegations require serious investigation by those who are responsible for the stability and security of the Indian financial system, viz. the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)," says the Congress. "These institutions have liberally financed the Adani Group even as their private sector counterparts have chosen to avoid investing because of concerns over corporate governance and indebtedness. As much as 8% of LICs equity assets under management, amounting to a gigantic sum of 74,000 crore, are in Adani companies and comprise its second-largest holding," Ramesh adds Adani Group termed a Hindenburg Research report on the group malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale" after the US short seller revealed it held short positions in the group and made wide-ranging accusations. Hindenburg has put out a damning report on the Adani group which has reacted predictably. Here is my statement on this serious matter that requires a thorough investigation in the public interest. pic.twitter.com/gfmgmKPx4e Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 27, 2023 However, Adani Group has termed the research report malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale" after the US short seller revealed it held short positions in the group and made wide-ranging accusations." We are shocked that Hindenburg Research has published a report on 24 January 2023 without making any attempt to contact us or verify the factual matrix. The report is a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations that have been tested and rejected by Indias highest courts," Adani Group CFO Jugeshinder Singh said in a statement on Wednesday. As per latest report, the Group is considering legal action against Hindenburg Research, whose report calling out the conglomerates debt position and governance issues led to shares of the groups companies losing 85,000 crore in value. The Congress party on Thursday organised the public screening of a controversial BBC Documentary in Kerala. The documentary, India: The Modi Question, has sparked uproar and the Central government has called it a "propaganda piece". Congress party organised the screening at a beach in Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram amid heavy police deployment. According to Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), general secretary GS Babu lot of people turned up to watch the BBC documentary. The party also screened the same documentary in Kozhikode on Wednesday. Kerala's ruling party Communist Party of India (Marxist) also screened the documentary in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised the screenings of the BBC documentary in various places in Kerala and said that Congress and CPI (M) together want to discredit the county and the Prime Minister". The central government has imposed a ban on the BBC documentary which is based on the 2002 riots in PM Modi's home state- Gujarat. The documentary highlights the sectarian violence in Gujarat when Modi was the chief minister of the state. The documentary pointed to the massive homicide of Muslims after a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was attacked and burnt by a Muslim mob. Human rights groups blamed Modi for doing little to stop the violence. However, India's Supreme Court dismissed all the allegations targeting the prime minister. In the documentary, former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has been featured. Straw said that the British government conducted an inquiry and concluded that the then administration of Modi when he was the CM of Gujarat, had created " a climate of impunity" for the rioters. The Centre has blocked the controversial documentary across all social media platforms. Any attempts to screen the film will be a violation of Intellectual Property Rights, the Ministry of External Affairs said this week. Meanwhile, Press freedom in India has declined in recent years. India fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in last years Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. The publication has accused PM Modis government of silencing criticism on social media, particularly on Twitter. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has imposed a fine of 10 lakh on Go First airline for the incident where 55 passengers were left behind in a coach at Bengaluru airport on January 9, according to the news agency PTI. The regulator had issued a show-cause notice to the airline following the incident. "Perusal of (the) reply of Go First reveals that there was improper communication, coordination between terminal coordinator, commercial staff and crew regarding (the) boarding of passengers in the aircraft. "The airline failed to ensure adequate arrangement for ground handling, preparation of load and trim sheet, flight dispatch and passenger/cargo handling," DGCA said in a statement. A Delhi-bound Go First plane had reportedly left behind 55 passengers at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on January 9 this year. (With PTI inputs) Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways will invite expressions of interest(EOI) bids for the development of a Mega International Container Transhipment Port (ICTP) at Galathea Bay of Great Nicobar Island in the Bay of Bengal. The Ministry in a release on Friday said that the project is expected to complete with an estimated investment of 41,000 crore (USD 5 billion) including both government and private sector participation. The EOI will be available for submission starting on Saturday, January 28th. The project is part of the government's Island Development programme and the Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island, which aims to bridge the gaps in infrastructure and improve economic opportunity for therapid increase in size for all types of vessels, from feeders to large inter-continental carriers. A statement by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways on the occasion read, The proposed facility is envisaged to be developed in four phases with the total estimated cost of ~INR 41,000 crore. Phase 1 proposed to be commissioned in the year 2028 with handling capacity of ~ 4 Million TEUs, increasing to 16 Million TEUs in the ultimate stage of development." The estimated cost for Phase 1 of the proposed transshipment port is around INR 18,000 crore which includes the construction of breakwaters, dredging, reclamation, berths, storage areas, building and utilities, procurement and installation of equipment and development of port colony with core infrastructure is going to be developed with the government support." the statement further read The development of the Galathea Bay Transhipment Port is expected to accrue significant benefits such as forex savings, foreign direct investment, increased economic activity at other Indian ports, enhanced logistics infrastructure and efficiencies, employment generation, and increased revenue share. As per the Ministry, Public Private Partnership (PPP) will be encouraged for the implementation of this project in Landlord mode and the PPP Concessionaire shall have the flexibility to develop storage area, container handling equipment, and other infrastructure based on their own market and business assessment subject to the Minimum Guaranteed Traffic. Ports, Shipping and Waterways Minister Sarbananda Sonowal while speaking about the initiative said, "This project will be a major landmark in developing India to become a self-assured and self-reliant Nation and will support the economic development of the country." India has issued a notification to Pakistan for modification of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, the PTI news agency said quoting government sources. India issued the notice after Islamabad's actions adversely impinged the provisions of the treaty. The objective of the notice for modification is to provide Pakistan with an opportunity to enter into intergovernmental negotiations within 90 days to rectify the material breach of the IWT. According to government sources, India has always been a responsible partner in implementing the IWT. However, Pakistan encroached on the provisions of the IWT and their implementation and forced India to issue an appropriate notice for the modification of the IWT. In 2015, Pakistan requested the appointment of a Neutral Expert to examine its technical objections to India's Kishenganga and Ratle Hydro Electric Projects (HEPs). But the next year, the country retracted this request and proposed that a Court of Arbitration adjudicate its objections. According to government sources, this action by Pakistan is a breach of the graded mechanism of dispute settlement envisaged by Article IX of IWT. India made a separate request for the matter to be referred to a Neutral Expert. The initiation of the two processes could create an untenable situation that could risk the treaty. In 2016, the World Bank acknowledged and took a decision to "pause" the initiation of two parallel processes. Pakistan refused to discuss the issue during the five meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission from 2017 to 2022. The World Bank at Pakistan's continued insistence initiated actions on both the Neutral Expert and Court of Arbitration processes. In October 2022, the World Bank made appointments in two separate processes requested by India and Pakistan in relation to the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric power plants. It appointed a chairman of the Court of Arbitration and a neutral expert "in line with its responsibilities" under the Indus Waters Treaty. World Bank said that the two countries disagree over whether the technical design features of the two hydroelectric plants contravene the Treaty. The global body added that Pakistan asked the World Bank to facilitate the establishment of a Court of Arbitration to consider its concerns about the designs of the two hydroelectric power projects. Whereas India and India asked for the appointment of a Neutral Expert to consider similar concerns over the two projects. Consequently, Michel Lino was appointed as the Neutral Expert and Sean Murphy was appointed as Chairman of the Court of Arbitration. South Africa said Thursday that it had reached a deal to transfer more than 100 cheetahs to India as part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the spotted cats in the south Asian country. The environment ministry said an initial batch of 12 cheetahs would be flown to India next month, after eight cheetahs arrived from Namibia last September. "The plan is to translocate a further 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years" to help establish a "viable and secure cheetah population," the ministry said in a statement. India was once home to the Asiatic cheetah but the animal was declared extinct there by 1952, primarily because of habitat loss and deaths at the hands of hunters seeking their distinctive spotted hides. Efforts to reintroduce the animals gathered pace in 2020 when India's Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be brought into the country at a "carefully chosen location" on an experimental basis. Negotiations for the deal with South Africa were long in the making, with the first cheetahs initially expected to be flown to India last August. They have been living in quarantine in the meantime. "The cheetahs in quarantine... are all still doing well," said Adrian Tordiffe, a veterinary wildlife specialist at the University of Pretoria who is involved in the project. Officials said the previous transfer from Namibia marked the first intercontinental relocation of cheetahs, the planet's fastest land animal. The Namibian specimens were released at Kuno National Park, a wildlife sanctuary 320 kilometres (200 miles) south of New Delhi, selected for its abundant prey and grasslands. This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. India's engineering goods exports to key markets, including the US, Europe, and China, registered a year-on-year decline in December amid a global demand slowdown, as per a statement by Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC). This assumes significance as the share of engineering exports in total merchandise exports from India is about 25%. Indias engineering goods exports to the US declined 7% in December, and shipments to China continued a downward trend. In the first nine months of FY23, engineering exports achieved 62.86% of the US$ 127 billion target set by the government for the entire fiscal," EEPC said. The value of shipments to the US, the top market for India's engineering goods, declined 7.3% to $1.58 billion in December 2022 as compared to $ 1.71 billion in December 2021, the council said. Engineering exports to China continued to slide and registered a 47% year-on-year decline to $ 233.2 million in December 2022 as compared to $ 440.7 million in the same month of the previous year. During the same period, engineering exports to the European Union (EU) fell 14.3% year-on-year to $ 1.54 billion. Despite an FTA with the UAE, shipments to the UAE dipped 18.9% in December 2022 to $ 456.3 million as against $ 562.9 million in December 2021. Overall, Indian engineering exports reached the $ 9 billion mark for the first time after July 2022. However, the growth remained negative. The pace of decline also accelerated to 11.89% year-on-year. An unfavorable base effect, i.e., a sudden rise in the shipment of engineering products from India in December 2021 made this decline look so high. Engineering exports in December 2022 were recorded at US$ 9.08 billion as against US$ 10.30 billion in December 2021. Cumulative engineering exports for April-December 2022-23 also conceded a 3.03 percent decline over the same period last fiscal as it dropped to US$ 79.83 billion from $82.32 billion in April-December 2021-22. As many as 23 out of 34 engineering panels witnessed positive year-on-year growth in exports during December 2022 vis-a-vis the same month last fiscal. Engineering products like iron and steel and non-ferrous metals like copper, aluminum, lead, and tin, and other products like machine tools, two-three wheelers, bicycle parts, auto tyres, and hand tools witnessed a decline in exports during December 2022 vis-a-vis December 2021. On a cumulative basis, 21 out of 34 engineering panels recorded positive growth during April-December 2022-23 over the same period last fiscal. The major decline was witnessed in the iron & steel segment, non-ferrous segment, two-three wheelers, bicycle parts, ships and boats, and project goods. The 15 percent export duty on steel continued to weigh on engineering exports. While exports of iron and steel declined by 53 percent in December 2022 year-on-year, the decline was around 43 percent on a cumulative basis. The recent withdrawal of the export duty on selected steel items is expected to restore the exports of Iron and Steel in the coming months," the council said in a statement. Excluding the export of iron and steel, engineering exports still recorded a 3.79% year-on-year decline in December 2022 but witnessed 7.8% growth on a cumulative basis during April-December 2022-23. Other factors impacting Indias engineering export growth include an economic slowdown in some of Indias top export destinations, including China and the EU. "Some of the recent reports suggest global trade would remain subdued in the first half of 2023. The S&P Global report has estimated that global trade may decline by 1.9 percent and 1.4 percent in the first and second quarters of 2023, respectively. However, the same report also indicates that global trade would recover in the later part of the year. Therefore, there is some positive news for India in the coming months," said EEPC India Chairman Arun Kumar Garodia added. "Till then there are certain factors about which India should be cautious the protective duty structure in EU, withdrawal of EU GSP and EUs Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism are expected to have some transformational impact on Indias presence in global supply chains," he added. As India is negotiating an FTA with the EU, EEPC has highlighted these issues to the government. As per the quick estimates of the Department of Commerce, Government of India, the share of engineering exports to total merchandise exports from India was 26.34 percent in December 2022 while for cumulative engineering exports during April-December 2022-23, the share was 23.98 percent. During the first nine months of fiscal 2022-23, engineering exports achieved 62.86% of the $ 127 billion target set by the government for the entire fiscal year. Classes at Jamia Millia Islamia were cancelled for January 27 on the request of faculty members and students". The administration stated in a memo that all university offices, including the departments, centres, and schools, will operate normally. While all classes in the university, including university schools, shall remain suspended, all offices of the university, including Departments, Centres and Schools, will function as usual, said the university memo. The memo came after the university had prevented certain students from hosting a screening of the BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi - "India: The Modi Question", according to Vice Chancellor Najma Akhtar. "Nothing happened inside our university, an attempt was made but it was completely foiled. Whatever happened, happened on the streets. It was a small incident blown out of proportion. Our precautionary measures were good," Akthar said. Also Read: Tension in Jamia campus over BBC documentary screening, 4 detained A demonstration against the imprisonment of four Students' Federation of India (SFI) activists took place on campus on January 24 just hours before the contentious BBC documentary was scheduled to be screened. Strict disciplinary action shall be taken against" anyone trying to organise the screening of the BBC documentary, the authorities earlier said in a statement. While there have been speculations about the relationship between the BBC documentary row and the suspension of classes, an official statement has claimed that there is no connection between the two. Also Read: 'Why give Brits the power...?' Shashi Tharoor responds to BBC documentary row It is to clarify that class suspension has nothing to do with yesterday's protest. The Vice Chancellor publically announced it today after the Republic Day function on the demand of teachers who were busy for the last three days organising Republic Day programmes in their respective Faculty/Departments/Centres," says the official statement. Earlier, the institution honoured Indias 74th Republic Day by having Akhtar hoist the flag on the front lawn of the Dr. M. A. Ansari Auditorium. In her speech, Akhtar went into detail about Jamia's most recent accomplishments, including its placement among the top three universities in the NIRF rankings, the A grade it received from NAAC, and the highest ranking for the university's exceptional performance in providing high-quality education, teaching, and research. (With agency inputs) ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sounak Mukhopadhyay Sounak Mukhopadhyay, who also goes by the name Sounak Mukherjee, has been producing digital news since 2012. He's worked for the International Business Times, The Inquisitr, and Moneycontrol in the past. He's also contributed to Free Press Journal and TheRichest with feature articles. He covers news for a wide range of subjects including business, finance, economy, politics and social media. Before working with digital news publications, he worked as a freelance content writer. Read more from this author Ilorin A non-governmental organisation based in Kwara State, Brain Builders Youth Development Initiative (BBYDI), has expressed concern about the increase in the number of out-of-school girl-child in the state, especially in the rural area of the state. The organisation, therefore, advised the government at all levels to embark on initiative or programmes that will encourage girl-child education, especially in the rural communities. It also called on parents to give equal opportunities to both the girl and boy children to learn-one child should not be placed above another. The Executive Director of the organisation, Miss Nurah Jimoh-Sanni, disclosed this in Ilorin yesterday at a news conference on the sideline of the launch of research document on 'Girl Child Education' in the state to mark the International Day of Education. She said: "There is the need to prioritise the girl-child education because she is a teacher of teachers, her education should not be sacrificed at the expense of the education of others by virtue of her being a girl. "Over the years, girl-child education has always taken the blow of deprivation despite incessant condemnation from different quarters. "If not as a result of poor family background, it is the cultural belief of the parent, or forced child-marriage among many other factors. "It is based on this that BBYDI embarked on this research-based project to specifically assess the issues hindering the increase in girl-child education in Kwara State by getting information directly from the girl-child, her parents, and teachers." Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines NGO Nigeria Children 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. According to her, "As an organisation, we have always engaged in advocacy towards expanding access to education in Nigeria, which is evident in different programmes we have held in the past, like the 'TeensSpeakOut', which is an annual event where we bring secondary school students together to contribute their ideas to national issues. "Last year, we launched a policy document on improving Nigeria's education system amid COVID-19 and the Global Action Week on Education (GAWE). "Earlier this month, we launched an issue brief and fact sheet on harnessing EdTech in Africa. "Thus, we became concerned about the number of out of school girl-child in Kwara State, especially in the rural area of the state. This informed our action to embark on this research in order to assist the government and necessary stakeholders with informed fact and approach on how to address this issue." The Executive Director, however, recommended among others that the government should embark on initiative or programmes that would encourage the girl-child education, especially in the rural communities, and should ensure that issues about girl-child in rural communities are duly addressed to foster trust and hope in the government by the girl-child. A major fire was broke out accidentally on the 22nd floor of R A Residency, residential building in Dadar, Central Mumbai on Thursday night. Till now, no casualty has been reported. The fire primarily broke out on the 22nd floor of the building at 8:00 pm, that later spread in other parts of it causing the eruption of fumes and clouds of smoke. Fire brigade reached immediately on the spot to control the fire. The fire was initially confined to an electric panel on the 22nd floor of the 42-storey building. Also Read: Mumbai sees no fresh COVID case, first time since pandemic began The fire emerged as a level-2(medium) category in the beginning, but it expanded and took the form of a major level fire (level 4) in hours, reported PTI citing an official. It is worth noting that the firefighting system of the building was not functioning, that led to the worsening of the situation. Moreover, there was no fire warning system in the building. To provide instant medical assistance to injured people, four ambulances were also present at the accident spot. Also Read: Mumbai woman drunk orders biryani worth 2,500 with a hilarious twist. Here's what happened A total of 16 fire engines, two fire tenders, a 90-metre high crane, and other equipment, were required to douse the fire by the fire brigade in the building. The fire operation was held under the supervision of the Chief Fire Officer of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), two Additional Chief Fire Officers and other senior officials. Four ambulances were also at the site, the official added. Notably, this is the second fire incident in the metro city on same day. A similar fire broke out in Andheri East, Mumbai on Thursday afternoon. A day ago, a fire was erupted on a 29-floor building in Mumbai on Wednesday. ( With agency inputs) On January 26, the Students Federation of India (SFI) organised a show of India: The Modi Question , a BBC documentary about the Gujarat riots 2002, while the RSS' student arm, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), screened The Kashmir Files . Both happened at the same time on the campus of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) in Hyderabad. An earlier screening of the BBC documentary on January 21 at the university campus was organised by the Fraternity Movement in UoH without prior notification or permission. This prompted the university administration to request a report on the incident so that appropriate action could be taken. The screening of the BBC documentary shows how Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, acted during the Gujarat riots in 2002. The Centre recently disabled access to the documentary on social media sites. Also Read: Jamia: Classes get suspended after students try to screen Modis BBC documentary At the screening hosted by SFI, more than 400 students showed up amid alleged attempts by the ABVP to incite trouble and the administration to interfere with the documentary's showing.SFI-HCU salutes the student community who have stood for freedom of expression and campus democracy," a social media post by SFI said. The Kashmir Files was screened on the university campus by the ABVP students as a response. The Bollywood film, written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir as a result of the community's members being repeatedly murdered by terrorists with support from Pakistan. Also Read: PM Modis BBC documentary: Former RAW chief calls it 'prejudiced The Dean of Students' Welfare advised the student clubs and appealed not to hold any film screenings in light of the law-and-order crisis, keeping calm on campus and impending end-of-semester exams beginning next week, according to a statement from UoH Registrar Devesh Nigam. But, the students made the decision to stick to their programme timetable. The ABVP staged a sit-in to demand information from the university administration on how the SFI was given permission to screen the BBC programme and declared they would not permit its showing. The university administration allegedly attempted to halt the showing of The Kashmir Files, they claimed. (With agency inputs) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold the yearly Pariksha Pe Charcha today i.e on 27 January. The event will begin at 11 am. A record 38 lakh students registered this year for participation in Pariksha Pe Charcha this year. According to Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the registrations are at least 15 lakh higher than last year. The registration process for participation in the annual event was open from November 25 to December 30. Earlier, Union Minister Jitendra Singh had said that Pariksha Pe Charcha is a movement driven by PM Modis vision to bring together students, parents, teachers and society on a single platform. To watch the PPC 2023 event live, social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc by the Education Ministry, PMO's office will broadcast it. Here's all you need to know: The sixth edition of the interaction is scheduled at Talkatora Indoor stadium in the national capital. Pariksha Pe Charcha is an annual event where Modi interacts with students appearing in the forthcoming board examinations. The prime minister also gives replies to students' queries related to exam stress and other issues. During the event the Prime Minister of India interacts with students, teachers and parents from across the country, and shares valuable tips on how to take board and entrance exams in a relaxed and stress free manner. As pointed in reports by Careers 360, the data provided by education ministry has shown a whopping 65.5 percent increase in central government's expenditure from 2019 to 2022 The first edition of the prime minister's interactive programme with school and college students was held at the stadium on February 16, 2018. (With inputs from agencies) The fourth season of HBO's satirical family drama 'Succession' will be released on 26 March. The Emmy Award-winning show will pick up where the third season finale left off in December 2021. Succession follows media baron Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his four children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Connor (Alan Ruck) as they battle to take control of the family's media conglomerate, Waystar Royco. In a press release, HBO released a logline for the new season that gave a glimpse into what fans can expect from the new season. The release stated, The sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard) moves ever closer. The prospect of this seismic sale provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys as they anticipate what their lives will look like once the deal is complete" A power struggle ensues as the family weighs up a future where their cultural and political weight is severely curtailed" It added The series boasts an all-star cast, with returning actors such as Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin and Alan Ruck. Additionally, the show will also welcome some new faces including Annabeth Gish, Adam Godley, Eili Harboe, and Johannes Haukur Johannesson. The show is executive produced by Armstrong, Adam McKay, Frank Rich, Kevin Messick, Jane Tranter, Mark Mylod, Tony Roche, Scott Ferguson, Jon Brown, Lucy Prebble, Will Tracy, and Will Ferrell. Armstrong also serves as the showrunner. HBO Max released the trailer for the show on its YouTube channel showcasing the latest twists and turns in the family rivalry. Fans would now eagerly be waiting for the show to premiere on March 26. All three seasons of the popular drama can be watched on Disney+ Hotstar. This is a chessboard, and every move is crucial. Season 4 of #Succession premieres March 26 on HBO Max. pic.twitter.com/gyXeMZ7alL HBO Max (@hbomax) January 26, 2023 Succession has won multiple awards since its debut in 2018. At the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, the show won awards for Best Television Series - Drama and Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama (Brian Cox). It recently won the award for Outstanding Drama Series at the 2022 Emmy Awards and was also the most nominated program at the Emmys with 25 nominations. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached properties worth 69.65 crore at various locations in Maharashtra and Karnataka under the anti-money laundering law in connection with a refund fraud allegedly perpetrated by an Income Tax department official, the federal agency said on Friday. Senior Tax assistant Tanaji Mandal Adhikari and others allegedly issued total TDS refunds of 263 crore from the IT department to personal bank accounts in an unauthorized manner, according to the news agency PTI. In Maharashtra, the ED has attached land at Khandala, Karjat, Lonavala, Mumbai, and Pune, while in Karnataka, Udupi flats at Panvel and three luxury cars -- BMW X7, Mercedes GLS400d and Audi Q7. These assets were held in the name of Bhushan Anant Patil, Rajesh Shetty, Sarika Shetty, Kriti Verma under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The federal agency, in an official statement, said that these 32 assets in total were acquired from the proceeds of crime by the accused in their names and in the names of other related persons. The assets are worth 69,65,99,720. According to the ED, Adhikari had access to RSA tokens and the log-in credentials of his supervisory authorities. "Adhikari allegedly orchestrated the fraud in connivance with others in fraudulently generating TDS refunds exceeding 263 crore and transferred it to various bank accounts, including the bank account of SB Enterprises (a proprietary concern of Bhushan Anant Patil)", the statement read. It added that a total of 12 fraudulent TDS refunds were generated by Adhikari between November 15, 2019 and November 4, 2020. The federal agency had conducted search operations and identified the entire sale proceeds amounting to 1.18 crore in her bank accounts and frozen, the statement added as quoted by PTI. The ED had earlier attached properties worth more than 96.25 crore in the case. With the fresh action, the total attachment in the case now stands at about 166 crore. (With PTI inputs) On January 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend a meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Central Election Committee (CEC) to finalise the tickets for the upcoming Tripura Assembly elections. On January 26, senior BJP figures including party president J P Nadda and Home Minister Amit Shah gathered in New Delhi to decide on the slate of candidates for the impending Tripura assembly elections. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, BJP's state incharge Mahesh Sharma and Rajya Sabha MP Biplab Deb also attended the meeting. The BJP's Tripura unit core group had a meeting earlier on January 26 at the home of Sambit Patra, the party's northeast incharge. In a meeting of its central election committee on January 27, the BJP is set to choose its candidates for the Tripura legislative elections. Also Read: Tripura Elections 2023: Security tightened in Agartala, poll announcement soon Elections for the 60-member Tripura assembly are scheduled for February 16. Nominations must be submitted by January 30. On March 2, the vote tally will be discussed. In Tripura, the BJP first took office as the state's head of state in 2018, ending the CPI(M)'s 20-year reign. Tripura's assembly elections are less than a month away, therefore the next moves of Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barmas TIPRA Motha, the state's newest political player, are being closely observed. Also Read: EC announces assembly election schedule for Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura Deb Barma has kept his cards close to his chest and insisted that he will only align with a party that will accept his demand for a separate state of Tipraland for indigenous groups in writing. This is despite the fact that he is being pursued by all the major players in the state, from the ruling BJP to the CPI(M)-Congress alliance. Deb Barma has been in talks with the Indigenous Peoples' Front of Tripura (IPFT), a major force in tribal politics in the state and an ally of the BJP, for the past several weeks. He has asked for the IPFT to combine with his party in order to ensure the "survival and existence of Tiprasa". The IPFT has chosen to back the royal scion in the upcoming elections, deeming the meetings "fruitful". (With agency inputs) A video has gone viral of Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai wherein the CM was seen taking away the mic from seer Eshwaranandapuri Swami during an event. As soon as the seer started criticisng Bengaluru's civic body on Thursday, the CM snatched the mic from him. CM said that he isn't the one who only gives assurances but has released funds to find a solution to these problems. #WATCH | Karnataka CM takes mic from seer Eshwaranandapuri Swami during an event to respond to his criticism on civic issues in Bengaluru, y'day CM said that he isn't one who only gives assurances but has released funds to find a solution to these problems pic.twitter.com/R3v3rAhfJz ANI (@ANI) January 27, 2023 Karnataka's BJP government and the Bengaluru Development authority, BBMP has been drawing a lot of flack over the growing civic issues in its capital which have led to several deaths in the past. On January 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the yearly "Pariksha Pe Charcha'' programme, meeting with parents, teachers, and kids. At 11:00 am, the programme got underway. At first, PM Modi tried to lighten the mood by speaking about the cold weather. As per the prime minister, this is probably the first time "Pariksha Pe Charcha'' has been held in such cold conditions as the programme is typically held in February, when it is warmer. He then said that "Pariksha Pe Charcha'' is a "Pariksha' (test) for him as well. #WATCH | PM Modi's interaction with students, teachers and parents during the 6th edition of 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' 2023 in Delhi pic.twitter.com/M9VMWuXS2C ANI (@ANI) January 27, 2023 If he ever had a chance, he would ask social scientists to analyse the messages he gets from students now, PM Modi said. Dreams change over generations at a micro-level, he added. "Pariksha Pe Charcha is among the most exciting programs, giving an opportunity to discuss ways to make exams stress-free and support our Exam Warriors. I look forward to the program on the 27th of this month and urge you all to take part in this unique interaction," PM Modi said in a tweet earlier. The sixth iteration of "Pariksha Pe Charcha" had a registration period that ran from November 25 to December 30. According to a Ministry of Education representative, enrollment in the programme has increased significantly from 2022 to this year. Also Read: Dehradun student recites poem on stress-free exams, gets praise from PM Modi Officials from the Ministry of Education further stated that parents, teachers, and students from the State Boards, CBSE, KVS, NVS, and other Boards enthusiastically participated. In comparison to PPC 2022, which had about 15.7 lakh participants, PPC 2023 has about 38.80 lakh (31.24 lakh students, 5.60 lakh teachers and 1.95 lakh parents) registered participants. "Students from over 150 countries, teachers from 51 countries, and parents from 50 countries have also registered for PPC-2023," an Education Ministry official told ANI. Also Read: Yoga: An idea of PM Modi that is now a global phenomenon About 2,050 contestants who were chosen through MyGov's creative writing contests will receive a certificate and an unique Pariksha Pe Charcha kit that includes the Prime Minister's Exam Warriors book in Hindi and English. NCERT may choose to include some of the participant questions in PPC-2023. "Pariksha Pe Charcha" aims to assist in stress management so that people can enjoy life as a "Utsav." The Ministry of Education's Department of School Education and Literacy has successfully run this event for the past five years. (With ANI inputs) Indian banks' exposure to the Adani Group is within manageable limits, said global brokerage Jefferies, as the group fend off an attack from well-known US short-seller Hindenburg Research said it held short positions in the Indian conglomerate, accusing it of improper use of offshore tax havens and flagging concerns about high debt that sent the Group stocks to crash for the second straight session. Following recent concerns, Adani Group has shared details of debit & leverage levels. Consolidated debt is at 1.6 tn (ex shareholder sub-debt) & Debt/Ebitda is down from 4.3x in FY16 to 3.2x in FY22. Acquisition of cement business may add c. 600 bn to debt, but also lift cashflow. Diversification of borrowing-mix, has cut share of Indian banks to 33% of debt & 0.5% of sector loans; rest with bonds/foreign banks. We watch for progress, but see low risks for banks," the note stated. According to the brokerage, the group's debt accounts for 0.5% of total loans across the Indian banking sector. For public sector banks (PSU), the debt is at 0.7% of total loans and for private banks, it is at 0.3%. "Adani group has a consolidated gross debt of 1.9 tn and net debt of 1.6 tn, which is spread across group companies. The top-3 companies by net debt levels are Adani Green Energy (AGEL), Adani Power (APL) and Adani Ports and SEZ (APSEZ) with 300-400 bn in net debt each. We understand with the acquisition of cement business of 600 bn (including preferential allotment of Rs200bn), but this company also generates reasonable cashflow. Over FY16-22, we estimate that net debt levels have risen from 0.7 tn to 1.6 tn reflecting capex in group companies," the note highlighted. Over the past 5-6 years, group has diversified its borrowing mix and reduced the share of Indian banks (PSU and private) in their borrowings from 86% in FY16 to 33% in FY22, Jefferies said. The share of bonds as well as foreign banks in total debt have risen to 37% and 18% now. Our recent conversation with industry participants also indicated that cash-flows and repayment timelines of debt have been conservatively planned. Hence, DSCR could be even better. While we watch for developments here, we don't see material risk arising to the Indian banking sector," it added. As the 2024 Lok Sabha elections approach, Narendra Modi has remained India's first choice for Prime Minister. According to the latest edition of India Today's Mood of the Nation poll, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is projected to win 284 seats if the elections were held today. Meanwhile the Congress is projected to win 191 seats. PM Modi remains India's favourite to hold the prime ministerial post with 52% of voters in support of his government. Other contenders emerging from the BJP include Home Minister Amit Shah (26%), Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (25%) and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari (16%). Around 14% said that Congress MP Rahul Gandhi could be the next Prime Minister. As the Wayanad MP wraps up the lengthy Bharat Jodo Yatra, 37% opined that the protest march had created buzz, but would not help to will elections. Around 29% appear to believe that it is a great exercise for mass connect, while 13 dubbed it a 'rebranding exercise for Rahul Gandhi'. While the C-voter list suggest that the Congress will continue its stint in the Opposition benches, Gandhi and fellow Congress leader Sachin Pilot have been termed the best leaders to revive the Congress. Gandhi appears to have taken a sharp lead in recent months and polled 26% of votes in his favour. According to the poll, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is the person best suited to lead the Opposition with 24% of votes. This is followed by West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee at 20% and Rahul Gandhi at 13%. Heading into its tenth year at the helm, the Modi government's performance has found favour with 67% of respondents. At an individual level, around 72% of the respondents said that they were satisfied with the PM's performance. The number has increased 11% since August last year. Correspondingly, there was also a significant dip in the percentage of people dissatisfied with the BJP-led administration. C-voter data indicated that many believe the NDA government's biggest achievements were its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic (20%), the revocation of Article 370 (14%) and the building of Ram Mandir (12%). Somewhat contradictorily, 8% of people also think than its handling of the pandemic was the NDA government's biggest failure. According to the survey, 25% believe its biggest failure to be 'price rise', while 17% focused on its 'failure to tackle unemployment'. The Mood of the Nation poll had 35,909 respondents covering all Lok Sabha segments in India. It also made use of over 1 lakh interviews from C-voter's regular tracker data. Nigeria will now enjoy duty-free trade on 99 per cent of goods exported to the United Kingdom, the deputy British High Commission in Lagos said yesterday. This development was necessitated by the UK Government launch of the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) in Nigeria. DCTS offers one of the most generous sets of trading preferences in the world and demonstrates the UK's commitment to building long term, mutually beneficial relationships with countries like Nigeria. The launch took place yesterday in Lagos, and the DCTS will come into force in the Spring of 2023, replacing the UK's Generalised Scheme of Preferences, the statement noted. "The DCTS benefits 65 countries, 37 of which are African, and will mean that Nigeria benefits from duty- free trade on over 9200 products. This is significantly more generous than both the EU's GSP scheme and the US' AGOA scheme and, based on current trade volumes, would mean that 99% of goods exports to the UK are duty free," the statement said. Speaking at the launch, UK deputy British High Commissioner in Lagos, Ben Llewellyn-Jones said:"Nigeria is one of the UK's most important partners in Africa and the UK Government is committed to working with Nigerian businesses and exporters to boost trade between our two great nations. The UK's Developing Countries Trading Scheme harnesses the power of trade to help Nigeria and other emerging economies grow and prosper. "One major benefit of this new UK trading scheme is that it abolishes tariffs on over 3000 everyday products that Nigeria currently exports including cocoa, cotton, plantain, flowers, fertilizers, tomatoes, frozen shrimps and sesame. The overarching aim of the new scheme is to grow free and fair trade with developing countries, boosting the economy and supporting jobs in those countries, as well as in ours." This work is part of a wider push by the UK to drive a free trade, pro-growth agenda across the globe, using trade to drive prosperity and help eradicate poverty. General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) Eastern Command RP Kalita on 27 February said that the situation in both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is stable now, however added iits unpredictable because of the boundary issue. As per details, the Eastern Command takes care of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim sectors. Addressing a press conference, GOC-in-C Eastern Command Kalita said, "There are different perceptions about LAC which leads to friction, however, the situation in both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is stable now but unpredictable because of the absence of delineation of borders." He further said that India is continuously monitoring the activities that take place across the border and we are prepared to beat any kind of emerging challenges. ALSO READ: IAF to carry out mega air exercise in NE region amid fresh tensions with China in Arunachal "Eastern Army is responsible for maintaining territorial integrity on eastern borders and the task has been executed by our units and formations with utmost professionalism and dedication. We are continuously evolving and aware of oncoming operational challenges," said GOC-in-C Eastern Command. Recently, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had told in parliament that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops tried to transgress the LAC in the Yangtse area of Tawang Sector in Arunachal Pradesh. He also added that PLA unilaterally change the status quo but they went back to their locations due to timely intervention of Indian military commanders. Talking about the increase of Chinese troops in India-China border areas, he said, "We have read that gradually there has been an increase in deployment of troops opposite our sectors along with infrastructure being carried out by People's Liberation Army (PLA) across the down borders." GOC-in-C Eastern Command said that it is difficult to quantify the number of Chinese troops deployed in these areas. "But we are continuously and closely monitoring the developments in these areas," he added. When asked about measures being taken to protect Siliguri Corridor, Kalita said, "Siliguri Corridor is geo-strategically extremely important to us. All our mechanisms are in place to ensure there are no disruptions in connectivity in the northeast." He further said that PLA started infrastructure development post-2017 Doklam issue within their own territory. "On our side, to mirror those activities, infrastructure development has been carried out to ensure better response from us in case we're required to do it," he added. asked how it feels when the man in uniform is questioned over the operation and political leaders ask for proof, he said, "This is the national issue as well as a political issue so I would not like to comment much but this much I can say those who raising question they should trust the Indian Army and their operations." The GOC Eastern Command said, "The year gone by witnessed profound changes in geopolitical dynamics in the form of security and economic fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war, the gradual shift of power centre to the Indo-Pacific region that saw sudden key developments in our neighbourhood." With ANI inputs. Unlike adults, children have largely avoided the deadly wrath of severe COVID-19 symptoms owing to the fact that they have a strong initial 'innate' immune reaction that quickly defeats the virus. However, at the same time, their immune system does not remember the virus and does not adapt to it and hence, the risk of reinfection is much higher as compared to adults, a new study has revealed. The study, led by scientists at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Australia, has been published in the journal Clinical Immunology. Tri Phan, Co-Lead of the Precision Immunology Program at Garvan, lead author of the study, said, "The price that children pay for being so good at getting rid of the virus in the first place is that they don't have the opportunity to develop 'adaptive' memory to protect them the second time they are exposed to the virus." Because children haven't been exposed to many viruses, their immune system is still 'naive'. And because they don't develop memory T cells, they are at risk of getting sick when they become reinfected." "With each new infectious episode as they get older, there is a risk of their T cells becoming 'exhausted' and ineffective, like the T cells in older people. This is why we think it's important to vaccinate children," said Phan. The scientists explained immune system has two modes. First, innate immune system that acts like a first line of defence, comprising physical barriers such as skin and mucosal surfaces that block viruses from entering. However, it does not distinguish between one type of virus or another. Then, the second line of defence comprises B and T cells of the adaptive immune system. These cells have specific receptors that can recognise and distinguish different parts of a virus and generate a rapid response to neutralise or limit it. Now, infants have a high proportion of naive T cells and as they move towards adulthood, they get exposed to to more viruses, the naive T cells are replaced by memory T cells that are locked in to making responses to viruses they have seen before. "Over time, as you get infections, your immune system becomes more 'educated', allowing you to make a faster immune response that's tightly matched to the viruses that have infected you before," said Philip Britton, Associate Professor and clinical lead in the study. "Children's immune systems move from relying mostly on the innate system, to needing the adaptive system as a backup as they grow older and are unable to clear viruses as rapidly," said Britton. The Biden Administration has called India an important partner of choice for the United States. This statement came ahead of the crucial visit of National Security Advisor Ajit Doval for talks with the top American leadership, including his counterpart Jake Sullivan. While talking to reporters on Thursday, State Departments Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said, India is an important partner of choice for the United States in a number of spaces, and that includes trade cooperation." He further added, It, of course, includes security cooperation. It also includes technological cooperation as well. I don't want to get too ahead of the process or get ahead of any specific meetings that might be coming down the pike." This (India-US ties) is, of course, of great importance to us," Patel said. Patel further added that US is closely monitoring the situation regarding the border clashes between India and China and it is glad that at least in December both India and China appeared to have disengaged. "We are closely monitoring the situation broadly regarding border clashes but we are glad to hear that at least in December both sides (India and China) appeared to have disengaged." Patel. Patel, while responding to the media query in the regular briefing stated that Washington is relieved that the situation on both sides is calm. Earlier, Indias Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, on Thursday during said that the United States has been an instrumental partner for India during its transformative journey. Sandhu who joined Indian American Congressmen Ro Khanna and Thanedar celebrated the Republic Day along with community members in and around the US capital. The global comprehensive strategic partnership, between India and the United States, has continued to intensify, covering almost all areas of human endeavour, driven by shared democratic values, convergence of interests, on a range of issues, and vibrant, people to people contacts," the Ambassador stated. Our two countries are benefiting from mutual exchanges, across domains including healthcare, clean energy, security, education, technology, translating the vision of PM Modi and President Biden, into action. Our engagements with partners in Quad, have expanded into infrastructure, supply chains, climate action, and space cooperation, to become a force for global good," Sandhu said. Prior to this, speaking on the controversial BBC documentary, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price had said I'm not familiar with the documentary you're referring to, however, I am very familiar with the shared values that enact the United States and India as two thriving and vibrant democracies." Price said that there are numerous elements that bolster the US' global strategic partnership with India which include political, economic and exceptionally deep people-to-people ties. (With inputs from agencies) At the request of authorities, the black box which was recovered from the Yeti Airlines 691 will be analysed by Singapore, news agency PTI has reported citing officials. Yeti Airlines plane crashed in Pokhara and killed all 72 people on board, including five Indians. It is considered as the countrys worst air crash in 30 years. The aircraft was en route from Nepals capital Kathmandu to Pokhara, the countrys second largest city, situated under the picturesque Annapurna mountain range. The Transport Ministrys (MOT) Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) will help retrieve and read the data from the planes flight recorders, said an MOT spokesperson in a statement on Thursday to PTI. The analysis will be carried out at TSIBs flight recorder readout facility, which was set up in 2007. Also Read: Why does Nepals aviation industry have safety issues? An expert explains All investigation-related information, including the progress of investigations and the findings, will be handled by the Nepalese investigation authority," The Straits Times reported, quoting the spokesperson. Flight recorders, or black boxes, capture information about a flight such as instrument warnings and audio recordings, and help in piecing together events leading up to an incident. The Nepali investigation team will on Friday leave for Singapore with the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, according to a Washington Post report. Also Read: Another earthquake strikes Nepal, fourth in 2 weeks time Examination of the black boxes is expected to take a week and will be free, The Kathmandu Post had said on Wednesday. Singapores examination of the boxes is under an MOT and Nepals Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation memorandum of understanding to cooperate on aircraft accident investigations signed in February 2020. The MOU covers the use of investigation facilities and equipment, including the flight recorder readout facility, training, and observer attachments," said the MOT spokesman. Nepal is situated between India and China and is home to eight of the worlds 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest or Sagarmatha. For flight operations, its an almost unrivalled, harsh environment with sudden weather changes that can make for hazardous conditions. The country has recorded at least 350 casualties associated with aeroplanes or helicopters since 2000, which has raised questions about the effectiveness of its aviation safety regulations. While Nepals aviation industry has made significant efforts to improve safety, unfortunately the safety record still doesnt match up with the requirements of other civil aviation authorities. In particular, the European Union banned all Nepali airlines from operating in the blocs airspace in 2013 after ICAO raised a red flag. That ban still hasnt been lifted, and Nepal remains on the EU Air Safety List. Despite the tragic casualty record, Nepal has stepped up its efforts to improve aviation safety. The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal has been focusing on improving safety in Nepali aviation such as building improvements at airports, upgrading safety equipment, and fostering a positive safety culture by encouraging hazard reporting. (With inputs from agencies) US President Joe Biden has nominated Indian-American astronaut Raja Chari for appointment to the rank of Air Force brigadier general, according to the US Defense Department. According to the department, the Senate, which approves all top civilian and military appointments, must ratify the nominee before it can become official. The statement from US Defense Department read, Air Force Col. Raja J Chari for appointment to the grade of brigadier general. Chari is currently serving as the Crew-3 commander and astronaut, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Johnson Space Center, Texas." In the past, Chari was one of the four astronauts aboard the SpaceX spacecraft that successfully docked with the orbiting lab in May of the previous year. The Crew Dragon and Crew-3 missions were both under Chari's command. From takeoff until landing, he was in charge of the entire operation. He also worked as a flight engineer on the space station during Expedition 66. Chari, who was chosen as a NASA astronaut candidate in 2017, completed his maiden space mission with this mission. NASA astronauts Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron along with European Space Agency's (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer completed NASA's the third long-duration commercial crew mission to the International Space Station and returned to Earth in a parachute-assisted splashdown into the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, US at 12:43 am EDT Although he was born in Milwaukee, he still considers Cedar Falls, Iowa, to be his hometown. He enters the expedition with a wealth of expertise as a test pilot and is a colonel in the US Air Force. Throughout his career, he has flown for more than 2,500 hours. He graduated with a bachelor's in Astronautical Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado and a master's in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He earned degrees from the US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as well as the US Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. (With inputs from ANI) The ChatGPT powered by reams of data from the internet has recently passed exams at a US law school after writing essays on topics ranging from constitutional law. Interestingly, the chatbot can do much more than clearing the exams for law. The chatbot runs using language completion models to perform tasks related to a certain generation of natural language or codes. The models which the chatbot uses can be used answering specific questions or prompts. This helps the custom AI to respond to questions such as what CRS is in the context of Canadian immigration. Here is a guide on how ChatGPT can be used in the context of finalising Canadian immigration: Information gathering and analysis A major job of the ChatGPT is to gather and filter data. For example, an international student can look to study any course in Canada and ask for its top programmes and colleges. Results can be checked after googling the accredited programs from Designated Learning Institutions (DLI) which take the international students. Interestingly, the AI chatbot can further offer more detailed search results and specific prompts. Learning and applying knowledge (Employment search) The ChatGPT is gaining a lot of popularity across the world to learn from information which a user feeds it and offer a custom tailor made solution to the prompts given. For example, it is a common practice to look upon the web for the relevant keywords in a job and write the same in a resume. ChatGPT can help here as well. In case you feed the job details to the AI chatbot, it can extract keywords immediately and streamline the process of applying for jobs. Moreover, the AI chatbot can even help to prepare for the job interviews by offering a plethora of relevant interview questions based on the job description. Feedback (Language testing) It is also crucial to learn a new language if applying for a job or degree in another country. Based on the data fed to the AI platform, the ChatGPT can offer specific feedback prompts. This works for learning a new language or translating. For example, a user can ask for help from ChatGPT in correcting their sentences or learning the grammar of various languages. The AI platform can provide good analysis of language learning and help those pursuing language test for immigration process. The Government of India first banned PUBG and then BGMI late, citing data privacy concerns. Now, it is good news for the Indian gaming community that a new alternative of these battle-royale games could arrive in the country. Recently, the trailer of the much awaited Indo-futuristic battle royale video game, Indus has been released. Indus is a battle-royale game similar to PUBG and Fortnite in features. Players arrive from an aeroplane to a Map where they have to fight with each other and finish till the end to become the winner of the game. As a Mythwalker, this is your first glimpse into the Indo-Futuristic battleground of Virlok along with Paragons - our version of character skins," says Indus game. As seen in the trailer, the battle-royale game will come with an array of consumables, weapons and gears that will help the players to win battles across different locations of the Virlok. According to the trailer of Indus, the game will feature characters Adam and Adya along with Sir-Taj and Big-Taj. The trailer begins with Indian classical music giving it a complete Indiansed touch with a lot of colourful graphics and futuristic elements related to India. The Pune based developer SuperGaming is responsible for the creating the game and released a series of takeovers in London which are similar to the ones displayed in New york last year on Independence day. Notably, the pre-registrations of the battle-royale game Indus are now live on Android and iPhone registrations will expectedly open soon. However, there is no detail on the launch of the game. Players enter as MythWalker and get hired by an intergalactic syndicate COVEN. They need to collect Cosmium, a natural-made mineral which can alter space and time. The trailer provides glimpses of the loot system, characters, gameplay and map. The Presidential candidate of African Democratic Congress (ADC) Dumebi Kachikwu has likened the rumbling of over 120 million Nigerians to an earthquake that will soon erupt. Speaking at a press conference, after he returned to work after almost two weeks of isolation due to an infection of the coronavirus, the presidential candidate said the over 120 million Nigerians who carry the burden of failed leadership are now rumbling. He said, "The over 120 million poor Nigerians who carry the burden of our failures are rumbling. When this rumbling will turn into an earthquake, no one knows. God help us all when the earthquake comes. "Eight years ago, there was palpable tension in our land as the fever of change gripped Nigerians, mostly our youths. Anything and anybody but President Jonathan they said. "The APC skilfully manipulated the minds and emotions of Nigerians and successfully delivered a so-called reformed dictator as President of Nigeria. Eight years later, we now know that when people say change, we should ask for change in what direction. Even children don't want to hear the word change. "We are in this mess because we don't question anything as a people. We are apathetic to politics and governance. We fail to see the connection between government, governance and our lives because for too long the Nigerian Government has merely existed in name to the Nigerian people. "I personally believe that President Buhari had some good intentions in mind when he ran for office but alas when his health failed, his government also failed. Today, the same APC that failed the Nigerian people monumentally with a sick president has presented another sick candidate to the Nigerian people. "There is nothing wrong with being old or sick as we will all get old someday. also all get sick at some point or the other. What I do have a problem with, is a candidate with significant cognitive disabilities embarrassing my nation and making a mockery of the entire political process. Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu has no business being in this race or continuing this race. He has said it is his turn and I agree: it is his turn to do the honourable thing and withdraw from this race. "I call on his family, his party, the APC and President Buhari to prevail on him to do the right thing. I also call on INEC to wake up from their slumber. We can't continue to be known as the nation that conducts sham elections. INEC can't continue to pretend not to see the voter inducement that takes place at rallies all over the country. What of the primaries? Has anyone been indicted, sanctioned or punished? Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. "There is too much at stake in this election for Nigeria and Nigerians. An INEC that wilfully disobeys court orders has already rigged the elections. Nigeria can't afford another heartbreak. "It is a tragedy that a month to the Presidential Elections, the myriad issues that plague our nation have not been debated by the Presidential Candidates. How do we fix our economy other than just saying from consumption to production? Produce what, where and when? We can't continue to deceive our youths and the generality of Nigerians with cliches and nice sounding phrases. How do we solve our energy crisis? Is it okay for Nigerians to perennially queue for fuel or live in darkness in the year 2023? What of unemployment, housing, infrastructural deficit, security and our nationhood? When do we discuss and debate these in detail so the Nigerian people know what is at stake in this election? Our nation is in serious trouble. Any presidential candidate who thinks he can preside over this nation without a clearly articulated plan on how to fix our problems from day one is living in Lalaland, " Kachikwu added. A NASA graphic shows the orbital path of asteroid 2023 BU in red as it makes a close approach of Earth. If you do not have a current print subscription to the Lodi News-Sentinel, but want to view unlimited articles for the month, please choose this option. The accused were, however, discharged of charges of criminal conspiracy. Huneza Khan | TwoCircles.net Support TwoCircles NEW DELHI A Delhi court has framed charges for various offences, including rioting, against two accused for an alleged attack at the Modern Public Senior Secondary School on Brijpuri main road, during the 2020 riots in northeast Delhi. The court was dealing with a case involving Shamim Ahmed, Mohd Kafil, and Faizan, accused of vandalism and arson on February 25, 2020. Faizan, who is the third accused, was declared a proclaimed offender as he is absconding. In its order, the court said their common objective was to cause damage to properties as the schools computer laboratory, library and several other goods were destroyed and the damages estimated up to Rs 1.25 crore as per the complaint. On the basis of the statements of the witnesses, the court observed that there was enough material to the charges for what the accused persons have done. However, the accused were discharged of charges of criminal conspiracy. Since the allegations of conspiracy are based on presumption, rather than any concrete evidence, I do not find it sufficient to presume that the accused persons acted out of pre-hatched conspiracy, the court said. (With IANS inputs) Huneza Khan is a journalist from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. She tweets @KhanHuneza Weapons recovered by AMISOM troops and Somali security forces in a search operation in Mogadishu in 2014. The latest report by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation on African governance rates the continent as less secure than it was a decade ago. Africa is considered more vulnerable to the effects of the war in Ukraine. DW digs deeper. "Africa's overall governance score has flatlined since 2019, and in 2021 much of Africa is less safe, secure and democratic than in 2012," according to the 2022 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG). The report ranks Mauritius first in the Overall Governance category, with its Indian Ocean neighbor, Seychelles, second. Tunisia, Cape Verde, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, Senegal and Morocco follow. Somalia, Eritrea and South Sudan are ranked last. Tanzania and Rwanda showed overall improvement over 2012-2022 while Burundi was "bouncing back," according to the IIAG. In the Human Development and Foundations for Economic Opportunity categories, progress is noted across Africa. However, IIAG research showed an "increasingly perilous security situation and widespread democratic backsliding" had undermined that progress. Over the period under review, there were global, non-African born challenges such as the pandemic and the climate crisis. "This is now exacerbated by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war , and its particularly harsh indirect impact on Africa," IIAG researchers wrote. Deterioration of security, rule of law "Unfortunately in the area of security [and the] rule of law, in the area of rights and participation [and ] inclusion -- all these have been deteriorating, and that really is a matter of concern," Mo Ibrahim said in launching the 2022 IIAG. Alex Vines, the director of the Africa Program at the London-based Chatham House think tank, told DW that the IIAG makes a valid point. "The deteriorating security situation in Africa suggests that the responses are not working. So the French have pulled out some of their forces from West Africa and African forces are struggling," Vines said. "What I don't necessarily agree with is that Wagner [Group] is being seen widely in the continent as a solution." Insurgencies, coups and kidnappings "The African stand by forces and intervention brigades have struggled with the current security challenges that the continent has faced," said Vines. Mali now receives support from Russia and France has agreed to pull its troops from Burkina Faso too. A southern African intervention force is deployed to counter an insurgency in northern Mozambique to counter an insurgency with the support of Rwanda. The insecurity in Nigeria is a pressing issue as voters prepare to elect a new president on February 25. "When you look at the issue of Boko Haram and the killings everywhere around the country, there is no safety," Joseph Blabo, a Lagos resident told DW. "As a Christian and a pastor, it gives a lot of concern to me to see that people come to church in fear." Jemima Gafar, a city trader, told DW that she agreed with the IIAG assessment: "We all know of the issues of kidnapping, the terrorism and banditry inside Nigeria." Women, she said, are particularly vulnerable and worried. Women empowered in 42 countries Mo Ibrahim said the findings, which show that 42 countries have for a decade showed consistent progress in empowering women, were "a bright spot" in the IIAG. DW asked women in Nigeria what they thought of the IIAG findings on gender equality. "Every day you see how women are being maltreated. You go to the hospital they say "men first." Event the church or the bank, they say men first," Gladys Akpan told DW. Joy Adesuwa meanwhile told DW she was glad to hear about the improvement. "But we still have a long way to go. More women need to be elected to political office and we have to see an end to cultural discrimination before we can say there is substantial improvement in gender issues." DW Johannesburg correspondent Thuso Khumalo asked citizens what they thought of the IIAG finding on women's empowerment. "South Africa has to be careful around issues of gender violence," Bongani Nyathi told him. The widening gap between the rich and the poor, issues of factionalism within the ruling party and corruption also need to be addressed to strengthen democracy, Nyathi added. Uganda can 'learn' from Tanzania The IIAG found a dramatic deterioration in overall governance in Uganda. Kenya showed just a slight decline. DW asked Perry Aritua, the executive director of the Uganda chapter of the Women's Democracy Network, about the trend. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has made some positive strides in fostering democracy, Aritua said. "She has ensured that opposition political parties are allowed to organize rallies and do the things that political parties in a multiparty democracy should do," the Kampala-based expert added. "I think Uganda can borrow a leaf so that we are able to harness the expertise, the experiences, the knowledge, the skills of Ugandans that occupy different positions of leadership in political parties, in civil society, in the media, and other spaces where citizens congregate to debate issues that are important for the peace, unity and development of Uganda," Aritua said. "You cannot have people who have the same ideas. We must be able to tolerate diversity. We must be able to bring on board those who disagree with us because they may have ideas that can be useful for the development of a country." Predictable and sustainable energy shortfall The IIAG shows that an estimated 600 million Africans have no access to a reliable source of energy. "The lack of predictable energy is a great impediment for Africa's development," Vines told DW. A diversified energy supply with renewable and sustainable energy would create economic opportunities. "Once you get energy - and renewable energy, moving away from generators and fossil fuel - you do see the opportunities for economic growth. So, I think that this is a very important consideration that has been raised by the Mo Ibrahim index," the Chatham House expert said. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Governance Africa 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. South Africa is in the grip of an unprecedented national energy crisis, with regular rolling power outages. Public anger is mounting. On January 22, its state-owned power utility Eskom announced that it would implement permanent load-shedding for the next two years. Days later, the lights went out during an energy crisis meeting convened by the ruling African National Congress party. Ghana's ranking is no surprise to citizens The IIAG ranked Ghana low in the Participation, Rights and Inclusion category. "The verdict on Ghana is not so surprising -- Ghanaians see this as a true verdict of the situation in the country," said DW's Isaac Kaledzi in Accra. Citizens have lost interest in a climate where they are not given the right to participate, speak out without being victimized, he said. Ghana recently secured an International Monetary Fund bailout. "The only thing that people are talking about is the hope that people in authority make sure to improve the situation. If these issues are addressed properly and people can hold their leaders accountable for the decisions they take, you would see people getting involved in the process. The IIAG marks a notable trend on government accountability and transparency. Countries with leaders who have been in power for more than 20 years scored the lowest in this regard. Sam Olukoya in Lagos and Alex Gitta in Kampala contributed to this article Edited by: Keith Walker An anti-vaccination protester who targeted a local politician in a series of obscure, abusive and anonymous texts will return before Longford District Court in May for sentencing. David Larkin (41) of 33 Ard Na Cassa Lawns, Longford harassed Ballinalee based Senator Micheal Carrigy by text message, voicemail and on social media platform Facebook. Mr Larkin pleaded guilty to harassing Senator Carrigy on dates between December 20, 2021 and February 14, 2022 contrary to Section 10 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act. Giving evidence to District Court Judge Bernadette Owens, prosecution witness Sergeant Paul Kearney took to the witness box outlining details of his investigation. Sgt Kearney said Senator Carrigy contacted the Garda about a text message he received on December 20, 2021 from a mobile phone number he did not know. The message was one of seven texts to the politician's phone. Sgt Kearney submitted a list of the text messages to the court. The obscure communications were read into the record. They included the brief texts: You are going to the train station, there will be no mercy, All you scumbag politicians will be going to the train station and Happy sh*t yourself day. More extended messages were: All you scumbag politicians scrambling for the door, now that Boris has shit himself and caved into the people before hes f**ked out of office and publicly hanged for his crimes. Thats what you have to look forward to bro. Youre going down just like the rest of the scum. Dont think youll escape Micheal, your time is soon up, enjoy it. Another the defendant sent said: We the people will bring you to justice. It's going to be slow and it's going to be brutal. Your children will be sterilised and there will be no legacy left from you. You're a f**king scumbag and you know it. Another sent during the pandemic said: The mothers, the fathers, they ain't gonna wait for no international court case. "They're just gonna ram your front door and tear all you politicians apart in your house. That's what you have to look forward to. Could be next week, could be next year but it's coming my friend and no amount of security will save ya then. Happy shit yourself Sunday. Details of a further five Facebook posts made via a falsely named profile were also submitted. The messages contained mentions of going to the train station bucko and another saying No mercy for you Micheal. Sgt Kearney said when Mr Larkin was interviewed under caution he made full admissions about posting the online messages and sending the voice and text messages. Solicitor Frank Gearty said his client accepted that his messages were extremely distasteful particularly what was perceived as threat's to Senator Carrigy's children. Mr Larkin has cooperated fully with Probation Services since the matter first came before the court and has not re-offended. Mr Gearty said the defendant has given a public apology to the injured party. He understands what he did was wrong, Mr Gearty said. The court was told the 42 year old single man lives at home with his mother. He is originally from Dublin, but now lives in Longford. Although he previously ran a food business it closed in 2019. Mr Gearty said: He was erroneously worried about the effect of the vaccine. It was his belief that it was dangerous. He knows he went way beyond the line. His actions were those of a 'keyboard type warrior'. He has moved on greatly from the dark days when he composed these messages. Judge Owens said: Mr Larkin is a lot calmer and more composed than when he came before the court on July 12. The judge asked the prosecution to canvas if Senator Carrigy would be amenable to restorative justice. This is to provide an opportunity for those harmed and those who take responsibility for the harm to communicate about and address their needs in the aftermath of a crime. Senator Carrigy said he did not wish to participate in restorative justice, but asked for the opportunity to address the court directly. Reading from his victim impact statement he said: I am very proud of where I come from and that my children will grow up in my home county but at the very least, they should be able to grow up safely without having to deal with threats to their lives. He said in late 2021 he and others noticed a number of comments on Facebook with a common theme referring to going to the train station: I felt that someone was watching my office as it is located beside the train station in town. In early 2022 I received a text informing me that no amount of security at my home would stop them from getting in. I contacted Granard Gardai to highlight my concerns and put them on the record, he told the court. Senator Carrigy continued: A line had been crossed as far as I was concerned. It was at this stage that I told my wife to make her aware of the messages. A number of weeks later I received a voice message on my phone threatening to sterilise my children which upset both of us greatly. I believed that all messages, text, and voicemail were the same person. I contacted Sgt Kearney who acted swiftly to obtain the information necessary to identify the person involved and subsequently arrest him. He spoke of the pressure it put on his family and questioned if he should continue in politics: We should not have the burden of having to worry about our children when they are in their own home, school or at other activities. I asked, "Is it my role and profile that is putting my family at risk?" Noting the Probation Report's assessment that Mr Larkin was a low risk of reoffending Judge Owens said she would give the defendant the opportunity to continue his engagement with the Probation Service. She remanded him on continuing bail to appear before Longford District court on May 9, 2023. Four Males arrested in Great Neck for Attempted Burglary Crime By Jacob Alvear Published: January 27 2023 Four Males have bee arrested in connection to burglaries that took place on Thursday, January 26, 2023. Four ales in connection to burglary The Major Case Bureau reports the arrests of four individuals for an Attempted Burglary that occurred on Thursday, January 26, 2023 at 5:33 pm in Great Neck. According to Burglary Pattern Team Detectives, four subjects while acting in concert responded to an Oxford Boulevard residence in a black Saturn with Virginia plates. The subjects attempted to enter the residence through a rear window but were unable to gain entry. The subjects attempted to flee the scene but were taken into police custody by members of the Burglary Pattern Team and Sixth Squad Detectives without further incident. Subsequent to the investigation it was determined that the defendants, Juan Carlos Galan-Gomez, 56 of Jackson Heights, Fredy Asdrual Saldana- Torres, 21, unknown address, Exquid Santiago Ortiz-Gonzales, 22, unknown address and Aaron Michel Vargas-Rivera, 19, of Flushing were also responsible for a Burglary that occurred in Roslyn Heights on Saturday, January 21, 2023. (Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday following a positive close on Wall Street on the back of better-than-expected GDP data. The FTSE 100 was called to open 13 points higher at 7,774. CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "Yesterday's Q4 GDP numbers showed the US economy expanded by 2.9%, while weekly jobless claims fell again to 186k from 192k the week before. "If there are any concerns that the US economy is on the brink of a recession it's certainly not being reflected in the economic data, which still looks solid, as we look towards next week's Federal Reserve rate meeting. "Today we get a look at the latest personal spending numbers for December, after seeing a sizeable slowdown in the November numbers to 0.1%, after a strong October showing of 0.9%." The US personal consumption expenditure data is due at 1330 GMT. In corporate news, convenience store retailer Bestway Group said it had purchased or agreed to buy a 3.45% stake in supermarket giant Sainsbury's but was not considering an offer for the chain. "Bestway Group intends to hold its shares in Sainsbury's for investment purposes and looks forward to supporting the executive management team. Bestway Group may look to make further market purchases of Sainsbury's shares from time to time, subject to availability and price," the company said. In response, Sainsbury's said it would "engage with Bestway Group in line with our normal interactions with shareholders". Elsewhere, insurer Direct Line announced that chief executive Penny James has agreed with the board to step down with immediate effect. Until a successor is identified, current chief commercial officer Jon Greenwood has been appointed acting CEO. Paragon Banking Group raised its guidance for net interest margins for the 2023 fiscal year, saying that it had begun "well" with loan book growth and net interest margins both running ahead of expectations. Nevertheless, its chief executive officer, Nigel Terrington, said that the economic backdrop remained "uncertain". In a trading update for the quarter ending on 31 December, the specialist finance provider reported that new lending jumped by 21.7% to 861.7m. Full-year guidance for new business flows, operating costs and RoTE were unchanged, and net interest margin growth guidance was increased by five basis points to 25bp. Carlos Garcia Roldan, known as Charly, is said to have been the leader of a property fraud that affected 235 people and which was worth some three million euros - the largest such fraud in Mallorca. The first complaint against him was lodged on March 8, 2018. He was summoned to appear before a court on April 9, but he had disappeared. He had gone to Colombia, where he was to change his appearance radically. The owner of a company in Mallorca called Lujocasa, he was arrested in Buga, Colombia on February 4, 2019 and subsequently extradited to Spain. Pending his trial and that of his alleged associates, he has been at liberty for some time, subject to conditions that he doesn't leave Mallorca and must report to the judicial authorities every fortnight. The Provincial Court in Palma has now given him permission to reside in Catalonia. The Prosecutor's Office didn't object to this but with similar conditions. The court heard that he has roots in Catalonia, and it was felt that the request was "proportionate". Abuja The Ohanaeze Youths Movement and the Ethnic Youth Leaders across Nigeria have cautioned the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, over his recent utterance about President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. The ruling party's presidential candidate had, during his campaign in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Wednesday, alleged that the Buhari administration was using the raging fuel scarcity and the recently-introduced naira notes and cash handling policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to blunt his chances at the ballot box next month. Reacting, the Ohanaeze Youth group, in a statement signed by its Secretary General, Nwada Amaka, said Tinubu should wait to be elected before declaring war on Buhari's economic and electoral reforms. The group frowned on the presidential candidate's "unguarded utterances and his entitlement mentality". It added that President Buhari had done enough to show him support this campaign season. Part of the statement read: "In the past few months, Buhari has indicated his intention to allow a level-playing field during the upcoming election. The president said he backed CBN's decision to redesign naira notes in order to restore control over the money supply. "However, it seems Tinubu appeared not only to distance himself from the good policies by CBN but to insinuate a conspiracy against him by President Muhammadu Buhari. "It is not surprising because Tinubu and his supporters have a niche for influencing elections with money through various means, including vote buying. He should wait to be elected before declaring war on Buhari's economic and electoral reforms." Similarly, the Ethnic Youth leaders have called on Tinubu to focus on his campaigns and "stop his unnecessary, unguarded utterance about the Buhari-led administration". The Ethnic Leaders, who stated this in a joint statement signed on their behalf by the Leader of the Arewa Youths, Mallam Kabiru Yusuf, warned Tinubu to stop undermining Buhari's economic and electoral reforms. The groups described Tinubu's statement as unfair, saying that Buhari is neither hoarding fuel nor the naira. The groups added that attacking the President who has shown him support since commencement of his campaign won't help Tinubu's determination to win, rather he's creating doubts in people's mind on if they should vote for him. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Business Governance 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. Their statement read in part, "The outburst accrued to the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is unfair to Buhari. "He's deliberately trying to undermine Buhari's economic and electoral reforms, in his desperate bid to win election. "Why is he acting like he's not getting enough support from President Muhammadu Buhari? In the past few months, Buhari has indicated his intention to allow a level-playing field during the upcoming election. "The President said he backed CBN's decision to redesign naira notes in order to restore control over the money supply. "This should be a welcomed development for any politician who means well for Nigerians, rather Tinubu has become frustrated by his inability to stop the cashless policy and currency redesign of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that will curb vote buying and enhance the credibility of next month's election." According to reports, Buckingham Palace has informed Prince Andrew, the disgraced younger brother of King Charles and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, that he can no longer remain there. According to The Sun, Charles's brother continued to live in the British Royal residence even though Andrew, 62, had his royal patronages and military affiliations removed from him in 2022 - the same year he avoided a civil trial with his sexual assault accuser, Virginia Giuffre, by settling out of court. According to reports, Prince Andrew adored having a room at Buckingham Palace, where he not only used when he was married to Sarah Ferguson, but also utilized it as a bachelor pad following their divorce where he used to have women coming over. The eviction occurs one year after Andrew was instructed to close his Buckingham office and just before the Palace is to undergo a $400 million, ten-year refurbishment project. The reason behind the Prince's eviction The eviction also occurs just after news broke that Virginia Giuffre, the woman who sued Prince Andrew after saying he had raped her three times, will write a new novel about her experiences. As the one-year gag order that was a condition of the settlement she negotiated with Prince Andrew in 2022 approached its expiration, Giuffre struck a deal "believed to be worth millions," according to the New York Post. Giuffre reportedly received $14 million from Andrew to settle the civil sex abuse case outside of court. Despite accepting the settlement, Andrew did not admit any wrongdoing and has continued to refute the allegations. Andrew, who was infamously pictured out and about with the pedophile in 2011 after Epstein's initial release from prison, has denied any knowledge of Epstein's wrongdoing. In his most recent memoir, "Spare," Prince Harry publicly criticized his uncle for having ties to Epstein. * Vow to invoke CBN Act to review deadline Members of the House of Representatives have threatened to invoke the relevant sections of the law to issue a warrant of arrest on the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, and the chief executive officers (CEOs) of other banks should they refuse to appear before its ad hoc committee on the withdrawal of old naira notes. The Speaker of the House, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, issued the threat at plenary after he was told by the chairman of the ad hoc committee, Hon. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, that Emefiele and bank CEOs did not attend the meeting scheduled for Wednesday owing to the late arrival of the invitation letter. At plenary Tuesday, the House set up an ad hoc committee to interface with CBN and bank CEOs on the January 31 deadline for the withdrawal of old naira notes. However, on the scheduled date, Ado-Doguwa told the members of the committee that a communication received from the CBN liaison officer stated that due to the late arrival of the letter, the bureaucracy could not work on it. At plenary Thursday, Gbajabiamila frowning on the development, said he was in possession of a letter from the CBN that Emefiele was on a trip with President Muhammadu Buhari to Dakar, Republic of Senegal and would not be available for the meeting. The Speaker insisted that the CBN must heed the call of the people and allow the old notes to remain in use alongside the new notes so as not to jeopardize the economy and impoverish Nigerians. Threatening that he will contact the Inspector General of Police to issue the arrest warrant, Gbajabiamila noted that the CBN Act mandates the bank to redeem the face value of the recalled currency upon demand, even after the expiration of the notice of recall. He vowed that notwithstanding the deadline imposed by CBN, the House will see to it that the provision of this law is honoured in full. The Speaker said: "The House of Representatives, in response to a motion on a matter of urgent public importance, invited CBN and managing directors of banks in Nigeria to appear before the House of Representatives. They were invited to give reasons for the ongoing failure to adequately disburse the redesigned naira notes before the expiration of the deadline of 31st January, 2023, when the old notes will cease to be legal tender. The House further constituted an ad hoc committee led by the Majority Leader, Rep. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, for this purpose. No official of the CBN appeared to respond to the summons by the House of Representatives. This is unacceptable. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Business 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. "The resolution of the House was predicated on information showing that the rollout of the redesigned naira notes has been an unmitigated failure. This failure has real and dire consequences on the ability of Nigerians to conduct business across the country. The refusal by the CBN to heed the invitation by the House of Representatives is evidence of a blatant disregard for the well-being of the Nigerian people who are their customers. It is also an insult to the authority and prerogatives of the people's parliament. "Therefore, I will, pursuant to the authority conferred by Section 89 (1)(d) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Order 19 (2)(1) of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives, not hesitate to issue a warrant to the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force to compel the attendance of the CBN or managing directors who fail, refuse or neglect to respond to the summons by the House of Representatives. "The House of Representatives recognizes the Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) authority to determine the country's legal tender and to recall currency with reasonable notice, subject to the approval of the President. The House is also aware that Section 20 (3) Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act mandates the CBN to redeem the face value of the recalled currency upon demand, even after the expiration of the notice of recall. Notwithstanding the deadline imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), this House will see to it that this provision of the law is honoured in full." The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that its presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu did not mention, blame or accuse President Muhammadu Buhari of the current challenges in the country. Tinubu had while speaking during the APC presidential campaign held at the MKO Abiola stadium, Kuto, Abeokuta, Ogun State said the lingering fuel crisis and naira redesign by the Central Bank of Nigeria were part of the plot to scuttle the poll and his envisaged victory. "They don't want this election to hold. They want to scuttle it. Will you allow them? They have started coming up with the issue of 'no fuel'. Don't worry, if there is no fuel, we will trek to cast the vote. If you like, increase the price of fuel, hide the fuel or change the ink on the naira notes, we will win the election... Let the price of fuel continue to increase, they are the ones that know where they are hoarding it. They are hoarding naira notes, they are hoarding fuel, we will vote and we will win. If you like, change the ink in the naira note, we will win the election, the opposition will be defeated," Tinubu had said. But the Director, Media and Publicity, APC PCC, Bayo Onanuga in a statement issued Thursday said Nigerians should no longer be in doubt about those working in cahoots with fifth columnists in the system to inflict avoidable pains on the hapless people for political end. He said no sooner than Tinubu empathised with the Nigerian people facing the dual crises of fuel and new Naira notes scarcity, than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Atiku camp issued a knee-jerk response, derailing from the issues, distorting Tinubu's statement and trying, in vain, to create a wedge between him and Buhari. The campaign noted that Tinubu was only calling the government's attention to the sabotage being carried out by some fifth Columnists in the system, possibly working in cahoots with the PDP. Onanuga stressed that when the guilty are afraid of being uncovered, they try to push back with red-herring He said: "For the records, Asiwaju Tinubu during APC campaign rally at Abeokuta on Wednesday, in his statement, did not mention, blame or accuse President Muhammadu Buhari for the current challenges in the country. "The CBN officials, including Governor Godwin Emefiele have said many times that new Naira notes have been supplied to the banks, yet our people complain that they have not been able to get the new notes. "In recent days, many ATMs are either not working or when working they are dispensing the old notes, just a few days to the January 31 deadline." Onanuga stressed that Tinubu was aware of the salutary efforts by Buhari to end the fuel queues, by chairing a 14-man panel, yet the queues and agony continue. He added that for a presidential candidate, who cares about the suffering of the people, he has a duty to warn the government that its efforts to make life better for Nigerians are being sabotaged on several fronts. According to him, Our presidential candidate only re-echoed what is well known and acknowledged, even by President Buhari himself at different fora: That there are Fifth Columnists in and outside of government who often throw spanners in the works against good intentions and programmes of the government. Onanuga said how does an advisory genuinely made by Tinubu to protect and create goodwill for the government of his party become an attack? Saying it could only be so in the jaundiced view of the PDP. He added: "It is in this light we found amusing the directionless Atiku Campaign's bagful of mischief in their hurriedly put together press statement meant to gain shameful mileage from the suffering of Nigerians. "PDP and Atiku should remember not to get high on their own smoke. No political blackmail and an attempt to create a conflict between Tinubu and his long-term ally, President Muhammadu Buhari can succeed. "We have bad news for Atiku and his handlers: their latest mischief is therefore doomed to fail. The Atiku rudderless campaign, always seeking cheap shots and easy ways has again woefully attempted to make a mountain out of a molehill from the comments made by Asiwaju Tinubu in Abeokuta." Onanuga stressed that as a patriotic and compassionate leader, Tinubu would not stomach seeing ordinary Nigerians being made to face excessive difficulties over mundane issues due to activities of petrol and currency hoarders. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. He said as a proud leader of the APC, Tinubu would not also look indifferent as his party the government get dirtied with black brush at a critical time like this, whether he is a candidate or not. Onanuga stressed: "Atiku camp's hasty move to mine political capital out of the clearly difficult situation betrays his campaign's possible connivance, due to its desperation "As Asiwaju said in Abeokuta, these orchestrated hardships will not stop his impending victory come 25 February. Nigerians shall surely vote for a party that is working to solve all the problems and mess created by the PDP for which their presidential candidate was an integral part in the, largely, 16 unproductive years they spent in government." Onanuga said Atiku and his team could continue their indulgence in fake news and twisted narratives, but they cannot change the minds of the majority of Nigerians who have long rejected the PDP and Atiku, after their 16 wasted years in power. John Abraham is well-known for his roles in iconic movies like Dhoom and Dostana. It is not surprising that he captivated the audience with his remarkable performances. Now, the actor is back with an action-packed high-voltage drama, Pathaan, starring alongside the one and only Shah Rukh Khan and Shantipriya of Bollywood, Deepika Padukone. But what has caught our attention is his gelled hairstyle which has garnered much likeness towards his rough and tough guy image. We did a rundown of Abrahams hairdo in his movies, and we are sure that these can be a part of your next hairstyling session: 1. Gelled Look in Pathaan ##JUMPLINK## Johns favourite hairstyling product is certainly a hair gel. Emanating baddie vibes, the actor has just nailed his look in Pathaan with gelled hair which he has pulled back to create an effect that shapes his visage, accentuating his jawline. We are certain that though familiar, this hairstyle is a safe spot if you arent much into experimenting. 2. Wavy Look in R.A.W. In a movie where the actor plays an undercover agent, the character certainly needs to take up different looks, and John Abraham aced this theory in Romeo Akbar Walter, aka RAW. Although the actor had three hairstyles, the one that stood out was the wavy hairdo, where the actor just slays in with the old-school waves that promise dripping innocence. 3. Spiky Look in Race 2 Who can forget the iconic Armaan Mallik from Race 2, who is so hungry for wealth that he doesnt even mind conspiring against his own brother? Well, all the way down to 2013, Johns other terrific performance that made us hate him but fall in love with his looks was in Race 2, where the actor opted for spikes with light stubble. The actor made a case for his fashion IQ with gelled styling and black goggles to exude an extravagant villain aura. 4. Side Parted Look in Satyamev Jayate 2 Satyamev Jayate 2 witnessed Johns good cop era with side-parted hair that is pretty familiar but is, in fact, the most favourite hairstyle among men. The actor amped up his acting game in the film by playing a triple role, and in all these roles, his hairstyles were just perfect to suit every character. With a well-groomed face, this look is just perfect for your office meetings or date nights. 5. Long Hair Look in Dhoom The iconic character of John that made our hearts skip a beat was Kabir. The actor flaunted his long hair that he left undone that touched his ears. In 2004, the style was popular among young people that could be achieved by applying gel to give a smooth finish. Mr Gbajabiamila said he is willing to trigger section 89(1)(d) of the 1999 constitution. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, says he will not hesitate to ask the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, to issue an arrest warrant on the Godwin Emefiele to compel the central bank chief to appear before the House. Mr Gbajabiamila stated this Thursday in reaction to the report presented by the Majority Leader, Alhassan Doguwa, who is the chairman of the ad hoc committee set up to interface with the Bankers Committee and the CBN. Mr Doguwa informed the House that the CBN and Mr Emefiele did not honour the invitation to appear before the committee on Wednesday. "The committee invited the CBN yesterday, and we decided to take the governor specifically yesterday, we invited the CBN governor yesterday, to come with the officials of the central bank. I want to say, with all sense of responsibility, that the committee was delayed by the absence - flagrant refusal of the CBN to make an appearance. "The governor was not there and no other person came in place of the CBN governor. My committee sat without them. We spoke with the liaison of the CBN and he said they got the letter late. As an institution, we gave them a benefit of the doubt. We gave them 1 p.m.," he said. In his response, Mr Gbajabiamila said he is willing to trigger section 89(1)(d) of the 1999 constitution, which gives the House the power to direct security agencies to order an arrest warrant against anyone. "Therefore, I will, pursuant to the authority conferred by Section 89 (1)(d) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Order 19 (2)(1) of the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives, not hesitate to issue a warrant to the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police Force to compel the attendance of the CBN or Managing Directors who fail, refuse or neglect to respond to the summons by the House of Representatives," he said. Background Last November, weeks after the apex bank announced its plan to redesign the three banknotes, President Muhammadu Buhari unveiled the redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 notes as the apex bank fixed the 31 January deadline for the validity of the old notes. But the circulation of the currency has been a challenge, as some commercial banks have complained of a shortage of the new notes. However, Mr Emefiele has accused the banks of hoarding the new notes but insisted on the deadline. On Tuesday, the House resolved to intervene by setting up an ad hoc committee to interface with the commercial banks and the CBN. The CBN did not appear before the Committee on Wednesday. Emefiele's deadline contravenes CBN Act--Gbajabiamila In his speech, Mr Gbajabiamila said the CBN Act allows acceptance of old notes even after a deadline. He quoted section 20 of the CBN Act, which gives the CBN the powers to create new notes and coins, but also provides a timeline for expiration of the old notes. "Notwithstanding Sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section, the Bank shall have power, if directed to do so by the President and after giving reasonable notice in that behalf, to call in any of its notes or coins on payment of the face value thereof and any note or coin with respect to which a notice has been given under this Sub-section, shall, on the expiration of the notice, cease to be legal tender, but, subject to section 22 of this Act, shall be redeemed by the Bank upon demand," section 20(3) reads. Interpreting the law, Mr Gbajabiamila said banks are mandated by the law to receive the old notes. "The House is also aware that Section 20 (3) Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act mandates the CBN to redeem the face value of the recalled currency upon demand, even after the expiration of the notice of recall. Notwithstanding the deadline imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), this House will see to it that this provision of the law is honoured in full. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. "Now let me explain that again: the CBN Act, under Section 20, allows the Central Bank to change the legal tender. It also says that after the expiration date, such naira notes changed will no longer be legal tender, but it also says that even five months, three months, or two months after, even in June, all the old notes presented to the bank shall be redeemed by the bank," he said. The speaker directed the committee to convene again, even if Mr Emefiele fails to show up. Mr Gbajabiamila further stated that the lower chamber will postpone its planned recess until the issue is resolved Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has vowed that he will return Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Benue to their ancestral homes once he is elected. Tinubu made this assurance while addressing thousands of supporters during the APC presidential rally at Aper Aku Stadium in Makurdi, Benue state capital. According to the former Lagos state governor, Nigerians have no business staying in IDP camps. He said, "Once you elect me I will close IDP camps and return those displaced to their various communities and bring hope to them. "Non-payment of salaries will be over. There will be stable electricity and improved quality of education in the country including loans for students," he said. Tinubu recalled his long-standing relationship with the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Special Duties, Senator George Akume, describing him as a trusted and very dependable politician. He questioned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar's source of wealth, saying it was not enough for him to say he was a Customs officer with a transport company. He also described the APC governorship flag bearer Rev Fr. Hycinth Alia as hope for Benue State and canvassed support for him. Akume, who is the leader of APC in the State, said, " I know Senator Bola Tinubu for many years. He supported the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Dr Iyorchia Ayu, a Christian who became Senate President and he has no place for religious fundamentalists." Akume, a former Governor, stated: "Just like the late Minority right leader J. S Tarka who established a relationship with the Kanuris from the north, Bola Tinubu is also firmly rooted with the Kanuris in the north. He said, "Tinubu is trained for Job, he won't experiment and has cordial relations with the north. So don't waste your PVC but vote wisely vote for Asiwaju. "Asiwaju and I were Governors and when I lost my mother, he was the only Governor who came with one of the largest delegations to condole me at my Tarka country home. Asiwaju and Shettima are great men with great ideals to change Nigeria for the better." Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus S.Aleinik meets the Ambassador of China On January 19, 2023 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Sergei Aleinik, met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China to the Republic of Belarus, Xie Xiaoyong. During the meeting, the parties discussed topical issues of Belarusian-Chinese cooperation. Particular attention was paid to the implementation of the agreements reached during the meeting of the heads of state of Belarus and China on September 15 in 2022 on the sidelines of the meeting of the Council of Heads of States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand. print version OSWIECIM, Poland Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and other mourners commemorated the 78th anniversary Friday of the Nazi German death camp's liberation, some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten. The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland, which was under the occupation of German forces during World War II and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. Today the site, with its barracks, barbed wire and ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the world's most recognized symbols of evil and a site of pilgrimage for millions. Jewish and Christian prayers for the dead were recited at the memorial site, which lies only 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating death and destruction a conflict on the minds of many this year. Standing here today at this place of remembrance, Birkenau, I follow with horror the news from the east that the Russian army, which liberated us here, is waging a war there in Ukraine. Why? Why?" lamented survivor Zdzisawa Wodarczyk during observances Friday. Piotr Cywinski, Auschwitz state museum director, compared Nazi crimes to those the Russians have committed in Ukrainian towns like Bucha and Mariupol. He said they were inspired by a similar sick megalomania" and that free people must not remain indifferent. Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators, Cywinski said. Remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances marking the 60th anniversary of the camps liberation in 2005. This year, no Russian official was invited due to the attack on Ukraine. Valentina Matvienko, speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament, deplored that as a cynical move. They refused to invite the liberators so that they could pay tribute to the memory of the victims, she said. Of course, this is very worrying. Rabbi Berl Lazar, one of Russias two chief rabbis, said not having any Russian invitees was a humiliation for sure, because we perfectly know and remember the role of the Red Army in the liberation of Auschwitz. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the event in a social media post, alluding to his own country's situation. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred, he said. "Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy. An Israeli teacher, Yossi Michal, paying tribute to the victims with a teachers union delegation, said it was important to remember the past, and while he said what is happening in Ukraine is terrible, he felt each case is unique and they shouldn't be compared. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the post-Word War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, called the Holocaust the abyss of humanity. An evil that touched also our country with the infamy of the racial laws of 1938. Bogdan Bartnikowski, a Pole who was 12 when he was transported to Auschwitz, said the first images he saw on television last February of refugees fleeing Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered traumatic memories. He was stunned seeing a little girl in a large crowd of refugees holding her mother with one hand and grasping a teddy bear in the other. It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll to her chest," Bartnikowski, now 91, said. Bartnikowski was among several survivors of Auschwitz who spoke about their experiences to journalists Thursday. Another, Stefania Wernik, who was born at Auschwitz in November 1944, less than three months before its liberation, spoke of Auschwitz being a hell on earth. She said when she was born she was so tiny that the Nazis tattooed her number 89136 on her thigh. She was washed in cold water, wrapped in rags and subjected to medical experiments. And yet her mother had abundant milk, and they both survived. After the war, her mother returned home and reunited with her husband, and the whole village came to look at us and said it's a miracle. She appealed for no more fascism, which brings death, genocide, crimes, slaughter and loss of human dignity. Among those who attended Friday's commemorations was Doug Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Emhoff, the first Jewish person to be married to one of the top two nationally elected U.S. officials, bowed his head at an execution wall at Auschwitz, where he left a wreath of flowers in the U.S. flag's colors and the words: From the people of the United States of America." The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the suffering of 6 million innocently murdered Jews remains unforgotten as does the suffering of the survivors. We recall our historic responsibility on Holocaust Memorial Day so that our Never Again endures in future, he wrote on Twitter. The German parliament was holding a memorial event focused this year on those who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people were incarcerated and killed by the Nazis a fate only publicly recognized decades after WWII. Elsewhere in the world on Friday events were planned to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005. In Britain, candles were lit to remember victims of genocide in homes and public buildings, including Buckingham Palace. ___ Frank Jordans in Berlin and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report. Fierce battles in eastern Ukraine have thrown a new spotlight on Russia's Wagner Group, a private military company led by a rogue millionaire with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Wagner has spearheaded the push to jump-start Russia's stalemated offensive in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province. The ferocious house-to house fighting has produced some of the bloodiest encounters since Russia sent troops into Ukraine, with Wagner personnel marching on the bodies of their own soldiers as Ukrainian authorities put it. The U.S. this week expanded sanctions against Wagner for its role in Ukraine and mercenary activities in Africa. Here is a look at the Wagner Group's history and its current role in the fighting. WHO OWNS THE WAGNER GROUP? Yevgeny Prigozhin, who received a 12-year prison term in 1981 on charges of robbery and assault, started a restaurant business in St. Petersburg following his release from prison. It was in this capacity that he got to know Putin, who served as the city's deputy mayor in the 1990s. Prigozhin, 61, used his ties with Putin to develop a catering business and won lucrative Russian government contracts that earned him the nickname of Putins chef. He later expanded to other businesses, including media outlets and an infamous troll factory that led to his indictment in the U.S. for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Prigozhin denied any link to the Wagner Group before he acknowledged owning the company in September. This month, he declared he also founded, led and financed it. WHERE HAS WAGNER WORKED? The Wagner Group was first spotted in action in eastern Ukraine soon after a separatist conflict erupted there in April 2014, weeks after Russia's annexation of Crimea. While backing the separatist insurgency in the Donbas, Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland, Russia denied sending its own weapons and troops there despite ample evidence to the contrary. Engaging private contractors in the fighting allowed Moscow to maintain a degree of deniability. Prigozhin's company was called Wagner after the nickname of its first commander, Dmitry Utkin, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Russian military's special forces. It soon established a reputation for its extreme brutality and ruthlessness. Along with Ukraine, Wagner personnel deployed to Syria, where Russia supported President Bashar Assad's government in the country's civil war. In Libya, they fought alongside forces of Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter. The group also has operated in the Central African Republic and Mali. Prigozhin has reportedly used Wagner's deployment to Syria and African countries to secure lucrative mining contracts. U.S. Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday that the company was using its access to gold and other resources in Africa to fund its operations in Ukraine. Some Russian media have alleged Wagner's involvement in the July 2018 killings of three Russian journalists, who were shot dead in the Central African Republic while investigating the groups activities there. The slayings remain unsolved. WHAT IS THE GROUP'S REPUTATION? Western countries and United Nations experts have accused Wagner Group mercenaries of committing numerous human rights abuses throughout Africa, including in the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali. In December 2021, the European Union accused the group of serious human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and killings," and of carrying out "destabilizing activities" in the Central African Republic, Libya, Syria and Ukraine. Some of the reported incidents stood out in their grisly brutality. A 2017 video posted online showed a group of armed people, reported to be Wagner contractors, torturing a Syrian man, beating him to death with a sledgehammer and cutting his head before mutilating and then burning his body. Russian authorities ignored requests by the media and rights activists to investigate the killing. In November 2022, another video surfaced online that showed a former Wagner contractor getting beaten to death with a sledgehammer after he allegedly fled to the Ukrainian side and was recaptured. Despite public outrage and a stream of demands for an investigation, the Kremlin turned a blind eye to it. WHAT IS WAGNER'S ROLE IN UKRAINE? The Wagner Group has taken an increasingly visible role in the war in Ukraine as regular Russian troops suffered heavy attrition and lost control over some previously captured territory in a series of humiliating setbacks. Prigozhin claimed full credit this month for capturing the Donetsk region salt-mining town of Soledar and accused the Russian Defense Ministry of trying to steal Wagner's glory. He said Wagner was spearheading the attack on the city of Bakhmut, a nearby Ukrainian stronghold that Russian forces have tried to win for months. Prigozhin has toured Russian prisons to recruit fighters, promising inmates pardons if they survived a half-year tour of front-line duty with Wagner. He recently posted a video in which he congratulates the first group of convicts that received official pardons and the right to leave the company. The U.S. estimates Wagner has lost about 50,000 personnel fighting in Ukraine, including 10,000 contractors and 40,000 of the convicts the company enlisted. The U.S. assesses that Wagner is spending about $100 million a month in the fight and has taken delivery of weapons from North Korea, including rockets and missiles. WHAT DO RUSSIA'S MILITARY BRASS THINK? Wagner's reach for North Korean weapons may reflect its long-running spat with the Russian military leadership, which dates back to the company's creation. A group of troops purported to be Wagner contractors on the front line in Ukraine recently recorded a video in which they showered the chief of the Russian militarys General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, with curses for an alleged failure to provide ammunition. Prigozhin himself castigated the top military brass in recent months, accusing top-ranking officers of incompetence. His remarks were unprecedented for Russia's tightly-controlled political system, in which only Putin could air such criticism. Earlier this month, Putin reaffirmed his trust in Gen. Gerasimov by putting him in direct charge of the Russian forces in Ukraine, a move that some observers also interpreted as an attempt to cut Prigozhin down to size. Prigozhin somewhat toned down his harangues against the military leadership after that, but remained defiant. He also has increasingly raised his public profile, issuing daily messaging app statements to boast about Wagner's purported victories and sardonically mock his enemies. Asked recently about a media comparison of him with Grigory Rasputin, a mystic who gained fatal influence over Russias last czar by claiming to have the power to cure his sons hemophilia, Prigozhin snapped: I dont stop blood, but I spill blood of the enemies of our Motherland. HAS WAGNER BEEN SUBJECTED TO WESTERN SANCTIONS? The U.S. slapped several waves of sanctions on Prigozhin and Wagner. The Treasury Department further ramped up sanctions against Wagner and affiliated companies and individuals on Thursday. The European Union also has sanctioned Prigozhin and in December 2021 imposed sanctions on several people associated with Wagner and three Russia-based energy companies linked to the group in Syria. Prigozhin mocked the Western sanctions. We have conducted an internal check to look into alleged crimes by Wagner but found no incriminating evidence, he said, commenting on the latest U.S. round. He challenged Wagner's accusers to send proof of wrondoing to his press service. In 2019, when Gen. Milley marched his boots on Sesame Street, it was in April, the Month of the Military Child. What Gen. Milley, Elmo and the rest of the world did not know at the time was that in less than a year, the world would change. The experts and researcher behind the family-friendly fun on Sesame Street realized that kids were particularly affected by some of the consequences of the virus: two years of online schooling, oscillating class schedules, a scary illness that may have hurt them or their family, frightening images flashing across TV screens of people in hospitals bedsand of course isolation from playmates, friends and family. And within that group, a distinct and important pocket of Americans exists: military families, who already face an ever-changing homelife with regular and often disruptive moves, deployments with time away from mom or dad, new schools, new friends. The effects of the pandemic compounded those stressors that exist in military family life, especially for kids. And the Muppets of Sesame Street - who have brought joy and hope and education to children for decades - are hereand looking to help. Main Topics Drew F. Lawrence interviews Rocio Galarza, Vice President of US Social Impact at Sesame Workshop about the muppets new resources to help military families through the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-host Rebecca Kheel and Navy reporter Konstantin Toropin peel back military stories that hit headlines in the last two weeks. Additional Resources Listen, rate, and subscribe! Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Transcript: SPEAKERS Muppets, NBC News Now, What Went Well, Keep It Simple, Elmo, Gen. Mark Milley, Drew Lawrence, Good Morning America, Rocio Galarza, CNN, Konstantin Toropin, Abby, Rebecca Kheel Elmo Elmo likes the word "resilient" Abby Yeah, me too. Gen. Mark Milley You like the word resilient? Both of you like the word resilient. Well, it's a great word. And it also means Elmo, that you're very, very brave. And Abby, that you're very, very strong. Drew Lawrence No , your ears do not deceive you. That was General Mark Milley, the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff talking to Elmo, the loveable red Muppet monster and his friend Abby Cadabby who have been on screen and on Sesame Street for years. You may be asking what could Gen. Milley now the nations top military officer and Elmo be talking about? Gen. Mark Milley ...of all our military kids because no matter how high the mountain, no matter how wide the river, all of our military kids are resilient enough to climb the mountain or cross the river...resilient. Muppets Thank you for being so resilient! Drew Lawrence Thats right, in 2019 when Gen. Milley marched his boots on Sesame Street, it was in April, the Month of the Military Child. But what General Milley, Elmo and the rest of the world did not know at the time, was that in less than a year, the world would change. And that resilience would be needed more than ever. NBC News Now ...Quarantine, state of emergency, shelter in place...the story of the Coronavirus changes by the hour... Good Morning America ...we're also tracking alarming numbers in the pandemic tonight the number of hospitalizations in this country now setting an all time record just CNN released review of the pandemics mental health toll on children and teenagers find school closures drove increased stress and increased anxiety, the researchers combed through 36 studies spanning 11 countries, finding... Drew Lawrence The COVID-19 pandemic altered so much about the world, with some of the effects still revealing themselves. But what the experts and researcher behind the family-friendly fun on Sesame Street realized was that kids were particularly affected by the consequences of the virus: two years of online schooling, oscillating class schedules, a scary illness that may have hurt them or their family, frightening images flashing across TV screens of people in hospitals bedsand of course isolation from playmates, friends and family. And within that group, a distinct and important pocket of Americans exists: military families, who already face an ever-changing homelife with regular and often disruptive moves deployments with time away from mom or dad, new schools, new friends. The effects of the pandemic compounded those stressors that exist in military family life, especially for kids. And the Muppets of Sesame Street - who have brought joy and hope and education to children for decades - are hareand looking to help. On Thursday, Sesame Street for Military Families announced new resources for kids, ones that are focused on wellness in the wake of the pandemic. Joining me to talk about those resources is Rocio Galarza, Vice President of US Social Impact at the Sesame Workshop. Take a listen. For Military.com, my name is Drew Lawrence it is January 27th and this is Fire Watch. Rocio Galarza Well, many of us knows no Sesame Workshop for our system history show. But many also know us. So because of our Sesame Street for military families information that we and website that we created for for a long time since 2006. And so we've been building this this set of resources really trying to tackle as families are going through difficult issues or, or new challenges in military life, we've tackled them with them, providing resources that could be helpful to talk about these issues with with young children. And now for this year. We are looking at more resources around self care and emotional well being overall for for military families. Drew Lawrence And broadly, not just for military families. But for families in general, the last few years were very difficult. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about what some families went through over the last three years and what your research had found? Rocio Galarza Well, there was a lot of disruption related to the pandemic in the last few years, there were challenges with children and for caregivers. If you think about the life of a very small child, of course, social interaction is one of those things that are most important in their learning. They're trying to understand the world around them and they learn from those interactions that they have with the adults in their lives with other children. And all of that was disrupted during the pandemic and of course there were a lot of stressors that impacted their lives, in their emotional well being, as you can imagine, not being able to connect into and to develop as they usually do. Also, there were stressors on the parents, there were a lot of changes that were happening, the parents needed to pivot again, again and again and again. And and it does trickle down to the entire family. Parents and caregivers are at the center, what happens to them and, and how they care for themselves does affect their children as well. So we are acknowledging that both the children need some support, some extra support, as we all do, but also that parents and caregivers should give themselves some time, and some some extra care as well, because of all these difficulties that they've just gone through. Drew Lawrence Can you tell me what Sesame Street for Military Families is and what this weeks big announcement entails? And I want to talk a little bit about military families, right, because outside of the pandemic, military families experience uncertainty in kind of the regular job requirements for parents and caregivers. And that uncertainty can lead to some distress for kids. Can you talk a little bit about what those stressors may be just for a baseline for military families? Rocio Galarza Well, throughout the years, we've of course seen that, that different stressors are become more important at different times. We started with a lot of deployments, the homecomings, continuing with a lot of relocations, and even small, what you would think are celebratory events like a birthday can become quite difficult if a parent is away. Now, what you will see is that the the demands of military life like relocations, like temporary duty assignments, deployments continue. But during the time of the pandemic, military families were helping us all of us with all of the issues that were happening also with the pandemic, so, and needing support and explaining to children about COVID. And explaining to children why some of these, you know, the, the temporary duty assignments were sometimes longer because of a break or some exposure. And so all of that adds up when it comes to military families. And even though we throughout the years, we say this again, and again, they're strong, they're resilient, we also have to acknowledge that even when you're strong and resilient, you sometimes need some more support. Drew Lawrence You have these two factors, right, the things that military families go through on regular basis, but also the compounding effects of the pandemic. Can you describe, you know, what's the the outcome of that? What does that look like for a military family to deal with those two factors simultaneously? Rocio Galarza Well, there's a lot of changes, there's a lot of explanation to young children of what's going on, and added stress in the family. How do we manage all of these different changes that are compounding? What's interesting about military families is that they're also very resourceful. So what you will see is the added stress and the impacts but also the finding of resources within the community to support one another. And, and that's what we see very much in when we do focus groups that are trying to connect with one another. And that's why the military families website is a resource, but also our Facebook page is a resource for them, because they are trying to find those connections and understanding that it is through that set of connections and being resourceful that they can get through some of these additional stressors. Drew Lawrence And I want to talk about some of those resources. Because, you know, Sesame Street in general has been a source of comfort in education and connection for families in general since the 80s. Right. But for military families recently with this announcement on Thursday, you have launched some new resources that kind of help with wellness for military families in the context of the pandemic. Can you explain a little bit what those resources are? Rocio Galarza This new content that was created with MSN web services, does tackle the idea of providing strategies around self care and celebrating everyday victories. And what does that mean? Because we know that we've heard self care many, many times...sometimes we're a little skeptical and how something very simple can help us throughout some of these stressors. So what we've done here is to model some of those simple strategies to give them a voice through our characters and to encourage both the kids but also the parents to look at what how do they incorporate these simple strategies in their everyday so that they can see how the trickle effects to this simple, simple one, one action that I can take with my family. Drew Lawrence And in one of these videos that you had produced is called Keep It Simple, and I really liked that because I think a lot of parents will look at that and relate to the situation right? Elmo is you know being kid. He's being loud. He's playing the drums and you have Elmo's mom who comes in and she's very busy. She's doing all these things. Keep It Simple ...I don't know Elmo. You know, it's time for me to start making dinner and I got I got garlic to peel and and tomatoes to slice and, and onions and peppers to chop. Mommy can play drums. Drums. Hmm. Well, that does sound like fun Drew Lawrence And the concept, at its face value as the video suggests is to keep it simple. And there's some flexibility that's built in there. Can you kind of talk about what that situation was and what Elmo's mom did to kind of keep it simple into into build some flexibility and predictability for Elmo. Rocio Galarza So what we saw during the pandemic is that because of all of these different things that parents were, were a new role that parents were taking with their children, they really wanted to, to support their children in so many different ways. But that, of course, brings about a lot of pressure to do everything, right all the time, or everything in a very particular way their routine needs to be followed, right. And so what Mae does here is to say, look, sometimes we need to give ourselves a break and change, change the routine, and find the simple ways of resolving dinner, in this particular case, right? Elmo wanted her to play. And she wanted to make dinner as their routine follow. So in this, in this case, she was like, You know what, I'm going to take a break myself, I'm going to play with you, I'm going to make it fun. But also, I'm going to then order a pizza because I cannot be both things or I cannot be cooking and playing with you at the same time. And I also need that break from the stressors of everything being in a specific way. Drew Lawrence And I also like how almost mom really didn't mince words at the end, right? She directly addressed military families, and how difficult it could actually be Keep It Simple When routines change, like they often do for military families like mine, doing things simpler can be a good way to take care of ourselves and our families. That way, we are always ready to rock. You ready Elmo?... Rocio Galarza Yes, you know, making that decision of having that flexibility in itself can be difficult just because we're going, we're always going. And because when we're in a moment of stress, being able to think differently is sometimes something that takes some effort. So it is the reality is that there is a little bit of inertia from us as adults into getting to, to think differently and to and to pivot. But also, that's why these these segments are so important, because if they remind us of 'Oh, that is an option, I can do this.' And maybe I cannot do this every obviously every day because there are routines that I want to keep. But why why not try it once a month, right and give myself a break, be able to play with with my children a little bit more, which in itself brings not only joy in the moment, but it is it is a way of connecting with your children that is so valuable for them. And for you as a caretaker. Drew Lawrence I also really enjoyed how these videos you know, they're made with our friends at Sesame Street. And they're they look at face value, like they're specifically for kids. But there's also so many helpful tips for for parents in this. And it was great to see Ricardo who identified himself as a veteran and also talked about mental health in prioritizing it. What Went Well Hello there. My name is Ricardo. I'm Rosita's dad and a proud military veteran. I'm honored to have served my country. Sometimes I have really hard days. And that's when I think about my Went Wells. Three simple things, no matter how large or how small that have gone well that day. Things like how the coffee was really good this morning. My therapy session and how it was challenging but in a good way and how I got things all set up for my family game night... Rocio Galarza Ricardo's and Rosita's family in general have a really interesting arch within our materials because they are caregiving family as a veteran family that does practice self care many times because mental health is front and center in their lives because of the invisible and visible injuries that Ricardo has. So, they are a great example not only for for those that are going to family caregiving experiences, but for all of us right if the if if a family that is going through so many different experiences can take time for self care, we all can, right? That is that is the message that Ricardo always kind of shows us with his with his modeling. And in this particular case, he is reflecting of what on what went well, because sometimes what Ricardo expresses in the video is that sometimes these can be very difficult. In and waking up in the morning, you don't you know, you, you just kind of don't want to, to wake up and get out of the room and do the things that you want to do. But there are things that can help us remember that even in the most difficult days, there are things that went well, little things that went well. And Ricardo does reflect on those three simple things for him in that day. And, again, it is a tip for parents, but it is something that can be practiced as a family...what went well. So how can families access these resources? Well, we have two ways of accessing them is through our sesamestreetincommunities.org or sesamestreetformilitaryfamilies.org websites. These websites are free, they're English and Spanish. So all of our Spanish speakers can see all of the videos in Spanish in all of the resources. In fact, they are 16 years worth of resources there that include parent articles, games, printable activities, videos, all of them with Sesame Street Muppets, sometimes with military families telling their own stories. So we encourage everyone to visit the website, we continue to add resources. And so it is a wide range of challenges, like we've talked about deployments, homecomings, all sorts of just military life, right moments of military life, as well as how do I establish a routine? How do I express myself? So it's also those those everyday moments that that we want to build within our military families that can make them strong and resilient. Drew Lawrence Rocio, there are a lot of kids who are struggling with long term effects of the virus, not only with just the disease itself, but many of the isolating factors that have come from it, what would Sesame Street overall tell those kids or the parents who are listening right now to do to help with those or to give them hope? Rocio Galarza Well, the stressors are real, right. And children do feel stress. And what it means for most children is that they they need some extra support from from their caregivers and from their parents to nurture those connections that they have. Having said that, even though we have to validate the fact that children do feel stress, what we're also seeing is that once you put children in setups in settings, where they can interact with one another, where they are these nurturing and comforting connections between them and adults in their lives, children do bounce back. And they continue to develop those those social skills. So the the important thing is that, yes, their stress is there. But the solution to it is actually something that we've known all along. And that is very much on our control in our hands, which is those nurturing connections for them to know that they have that caring adult with them. Let's talk more let's sit down and play more let's do like may did, and, and take a break so that we can make space for those moments that are the ones that are going to help children bounce back. Drew Lawrence And Rocio I'd be remiss if I didn't say that 24 years ago today, I met Elmo, he came to my birthday party. And I know he's not with us today, but I was wondering if you could just pass along the message that I remember that, I appreciate it. He made me feel better about having red hair when I was a little kid. Rocio Galarza Oh, I know Elmo will love to hear that. Drew Lawrence Okay, good. Rocio Galarza I know that he would. Drew Lawrence Rocio thank you so much for joining us on Fire Watch I sincerely appreciate it. Rocio Galarza Thank you so much for having us again and everyone please visit our website sesamestreetincommunities.org or sesamestreetformilitaryfamilies.org to find these free resources Drew Lawrence Stick around because up next is our reporter roundtable, with my co-host Rebecca Kheel and Navy reporter Konstantin Toropin to help us catch up on military stories over the last two weeks. Heads up to parents, if your little ones were listening to our Sesame friends, our roundtable contains some adult themes. Rebecca Kheel Hi everyone my name is Rebecca Kheel, co-host of Fire Watch and congressional reporter for Military.com. Welcome to our reporter roundtable. Heres what you may have missed since our last episode: In a Cold War sea search that would fit into the Hunt for Red October, the Coast Guard has been monitoring a Russian vessel off the coast of Hawaii that officials believe may be an intelligence gathering ship working for the Kremlin. The sighting, of course comes as tension between the West and Russia are at the highest since the Cold War as the country continues its war in Ukraine. A pair of shootings sent shockwaves throughout Fort Bragg, North Carolina last week, leaving one non-commissioned officer dead. The shootings are still being investigated, but they involved soldiers from the Armys Special Operations Command, a unit that has seen its fair share of tumult in the last few weeks as a separate investigation unfolds into an alleged drug trafficking ring within the services 3rd Special Forces Group. And the military is looking into whether a nuclear Missile base in Montana could be the source of blood cancer in nine military personnel that worked there decades ago. At least one of the former service members has died and officials called the diagnoses disproportionate and concerning. As always, joining me is my co-host Drew Lawrence. And with us today is our own Konstantin Toropin, who covers the Navy for Military.com. Welcome, thanks for being here. Konstantin Toropin Thanks, Rebecca. Thanks for having me. Drew Lawrence Yeah. Thank you, Rebecca. I appreciate it. And Konstantin again, thanks so much for being here. We want to talk to you about this story that you wrote about three active duty Marines who were arrested for their alleged involvement in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And the story that you had, it really blew up. But just briefly, can you tell us who these Marines are and what they allegedly did at the Capitol? Konstantin Toropin Yeah, absolutely Drew. So the three Marines come from across the country. One is stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, one stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and one is stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. And the three men according to court records, were alleged to have entered the Capitol during the riot on January 6. They walked around the building, they took pictures, they put a red MAGA hat onto a statue in the Capitol building. And eventually they left and investigators initially found a social media account for one of the three Marines and served a search warrant on August 2021. So using the posts that the one Marine made, as well as video from inside the Capitol, they eventually identified the three. Drew Lawrence You had done a really great job of pulling some really interesting information from what the prosecutors had entered into court records. One of the things that stuck out to me was some of the language that one of the Marines used. Micah Coomer, who allegedly said that "everything in this country is corrupt." "We honestly need a fresh start and waiting for the Boogaloo." When another person asked what the Boogaloo is, what that means, he said, Civil War Two. And this is kind of interesting, because it's language that we often see in generally anti government groups. But it's interesting here, because these are active duty Marines who are allegedly saying these things, right. Konstantin Toropin Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of gets at the heart of I think what makes the story interesting is you've got three men who are not previously serving, not having having served, not having since been discharged, and the law finally catches up to them. These all three of these men are on active duty. And, you know, as of as of last week, are still on active duty. And yeah, one of them, according to the court records, is discussing this civil war, which, for those sort of not read into the various extremist groups in America, you know, the Boogaloo boys, or the Boogaloo movement is this far right anti-government organization that is very in favor of using violence, and believes that there is a future race war, future civil war on the horizon, that they are getting ready for. So to find that rhetoric within court records coming from an active duty service member is obviously troubling. Rebecca Kheel And one of the things about this case that garnered a lot of public attention was the fact that all three of these Marines worked in intelligence. Does that matter at all? Does that make this case any more concerning than if any other three Marines had been arrested? Konstantin Toropin Yeah, Rebecca, I think that's a that's a fair point. There's definitely some cause for concern here because what you're talking about is three Marines that held jobs that at their minimum required them to exercise good judgment required. You know, discretion, sort of all of these things that we would expect from somebody working with, you know, signals intelligence, or supporting signals intelligence, one of the Marines was assigned to a marine Special Operations Unit that supports marine Special Operations Command. So definitely individuals that were given sort of greater national trust than an average service member. Drew Lawrence Now, that's a good point, Konstantin but I think it's also worth mentioning that, you know, intelligence, both in the military and in that community is kind of a broad term, right, but especially for the public. But it's worth mentioning, you know, these three Marines that it was they're not super secret agents are working for the CIA or anything like that, right? Konstantin Toropin Yeah, you're absolutely right Drew, the intelligence community, like many communities within the military, and for that matter, professionals within this country have rank and file members, as well as elite members. And neither the court records northern Marine Corps have offered much in the way of detail as to what these guys were doing or what their assignments were. Rebecca Kheel Now zooming out a bit, we've talked before on this podcast about the issue of extremism among veterans and service members, often in the context of January 6, and how you know, it is a minority of those populations. But that doesn't make the issue any less concerning. How would you say this case fits into that broader context? And do you think it's indicative at all of a larger issue? Konstantin Toropin Yeah, you're absolutely right, Rebecca. I mean, if we look at the, you know, the overall military population, and I think what representatives for these branches would point out is they would say, you know, what, we have hundreds of 1000s of service members, and almost all of them are not involved in any sort of extremism. So you've got these very visible, this very visible, tiny minority, that's simply being noticed. But that being said, these three men do fall into this trend of service members that espouse very extreme beliefs. You know, according to the court records. Prosecutors allege that one of these guys belong to a fairly violent movement that believes the second civil war is coming. We also have the fact that experts have repeatedly told us that military members within these organizations who join these organizations tend to have an outsized impact based on just the credibility that military service brings, as well as some of the just basic leadership skills that oftentimes folks possess coming out of the military. So while definitely a small population, it's something that is worth paying attention to. Rebecca Kheel Well, great conversation. Thank you both again for being here. And thanks to our listeners for tuning in. Be sure to tune in next time. Drew Lawrence Thank you so much for listening to this special episode of Fire Watch. Thank you to our friends over at Sesame Workshop for helping us explain the importance of these resources for military families. Thanks also to my co-host, Rebecca Kheel and Navy Reporter Konstantin Toropin. Credit to executive producers Zachary Fryer-Biggs and Amy Bushatz. If you liked this episode and want to let us know, give us a rating wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, thanks for listening. First lady Dr. Jill Biden will be in upstate New York on Monday to meet with military families at Fort Drum, a U.S. Army base near Watertown. Biden will be joined by Deputy Defense Secretary Dr. Kathleen Hicks at Fort Drum, home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division. According to the White House, the meeting will focus on boosting employment opportunities for military spouses. The visit is part of Biden's Joining Forces initiative, which supports military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors. Joining Forces has a few focus areas, such as employment and entrepreneurship, military child education and health and wellbeing. A survey of active-duty spouses conducted by the Department of Defense in 2019 found that the military spouse unemployment rate is 22%. There are many factors that contribute to the high rate, including frequent moves, differing state licensing requirements, child care and deployments. Through Joining Forces, Biden aims to partner with governments and the private sector to increase employment opportunities for military spouses. "We will work with employers to create more flexible, transferable and remote job opportunities for military spouses, as well as increasing resources for those interested in entrepreneurial endeavors," the initiative states on its website. "We will also ensure that military families are included in the administration's overall policies aimed at improving economic security for all families." Senior members of past administrations, including presidents, have visited Fort Drum. Former President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense policy bill, at the Army base in 2018. Former President Barack Obama was there in 2011 after announcing that thousands of troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan. The 10th Mountain Division was the most deployed unit to Afghanistan. The first lady's visit comes three months after her husband, President Joe Biden, was in upstate New York. He visited Onondaga Community College near Syracuse to celebrate memory chip maker Micron's decision to invest $100 billion to build a manufacturing facility in central New York. ___ (c)2023 The Citizen, Auburn, N.Y. Visit The Citizen, Auburn, N.Y. at www.auburnpub.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The House committee that oversees military issues will see 16 new faces this year, while the committee in charge of veterans oversight will have 13 new members. House Democrats on Friday announced their full slate of committee assignments, finalizing the chamber's committee rosters for the congressional session that started Jan. 3 after Republicans named their members earlier this month. On the House Armed Services Committee, 20 Republicans and 19 Democrats who served on the panel last year are returning this year. There will also be 11 new Republicans and five new Democrats. Read Next: 'A Total Shock': Parents Mourn Sudden Death of Their Air Force Academy Son The committee, which will be chaired by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., is tasked with writing the mammoth annual defense policy bill and will likely grapple this year with major issues facing the military such as recruitment struggles and support for the war in Ukraine. Republicans have also vowed to target "woke" military policies, a term they use for a wide range of policies they disagree with but that often relate to diversity efforts. The new Republicans include freshman Reps. Dale Strong of Alabama; Morgan Luttrell of Texas; Jen Kiggans of Virginia; Nick LaLota of New York; Mark Alford of Missouri; Cory Mills of Florida; Rick McCormick of Georgia; and Del. James Moylan of Guam. Also joining the panel are sophomore GOP Reps. Carlos Gimenez of Florida and Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brad Finstad of Minnesota, who joined Congress after a special election in August. Rogers also this week named his subcommittee chairs, including Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who has already launched a campaign for Senate for 2024, as chairman of the personnel subcommittee. "As chairman of this subcommittee, exposing and dismantling the Biden administration's woke agenda that is driving down military recruitment and retention will be my top priority," Banks said in a statement this week. "If we want to maintain the strongest military in the world, we must ensure our troops have the resources they need for success on the battlefield and supporting their families, not for fighting the Left's culture wars." Several Democrats who served on the panel last year either retired from Congress or lost reelection, including longtime champion of personnel issues Jackie Speier of California and conductor of rigorous Navy oversight Elaine Luria of Virginia. The military-heavy district that Luria represented will still have a voice on the committee with Kiggans, who defeated Luria. The new Democrats this year are all freshmen: Reps. Jeff Jackson and Don Davis of North Carolina, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Jill Tokuda of Hawaii. There are also still four vacant positions on the Democratic side based on the committee ratios agreed to by House leadership, meaning more members will likely be added later, particularly as the committee gets closer to considering the defense bill and Democrats will need all the support they can get on tight amendment votes. Eight of the new members from both parties are veterans: Luttrell, Kiggans, LaLota, Mills, McCormick, Jackson, Deluzio and Davis. Luttrell, Kiggans and Deluzio will also serve on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. The House Veterans Affairs Committee, which often sees high turnover as members jostle for more high-profile committee assignments, will have more new members than those returning. The committee will have eight new Republicans and five new Democrats, compared to six returning Republicans and six returning Democrats. The committee, which will be chaired by Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., has an array of pressing veterans issues on its plate, including oversight of the sweeping toxic exposure bill passed last year and of the Department of Veterans Affairs' troubled electronic medical records program. In addition to Luttrell and Kiggans, the new Republican members include freshman Reps. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin; Juan Ciscomani and Eli Crane of Arizona; and Keith Self of Texas. Sophomore GOP Rep. Scott Franklin of Florida and third-term Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina are also joining the panel. Van Orden, Crane, Self and Franklin are also veterans. "We have assembled a strong bench to hold the Biden administration accountable, oversee the implementation of the meaningful legislation that has been enacted over the past few Congresses, improve the transition process, increase healthcare access and more to ultimately deliver for veterans," Bost said in a statement this week about the Republican membership of the committee. On the Democratic side, the new members are all freshmen: Reps. Delia Ramirez and Nikki Budzinski of Illinois, Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, Greg Landsman of Ohio and Deluzio, who is the only new Democratic member who is a veteran. In the Senate, Democrats released their committee assignments earlier this week with no changes in membership for either the Senate Armed Services Committee or the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Senate Republicans are still working on their committee assignments, but are similarly not expected to shake up their Armed Services or Veterans Affairs slates. -- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel. Related: Meet the Mikes: The New Men in Charge of Military and Veterans Oversight in the House A team of investigators on Thursday convened the first in a week-long series of hearings about the fire that destroyed the Spirit of Norfolk last spring questioning some of the people directly involved with the ships inspection and technical repairs. The hearing, led by Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board officials, revealed new details about issues the ship had in the weeks before the fire, and efforts to address them. While the Spirit of Norfolk passed an inspection May 10 with no deficiencies of any kind noted, the ship lost propulsion due to a malfunction May 15, about three weeks prior to the fire. The vessel was issued a violation requiring it to resolve the problem prior to carrying passengers, according to Lt. Tom Whalen, one of the Coast Guard investigators who led much of the questioning Thursday. The issue was repaired and the ship was back to regular operations by May 18, when its port engine became inoperable. Technicians with Bay Diesel, the company headquartered in Chesapeake hired to conduct repairs, recommended the cylinders and pistons in the ships engine be replaced. Additionally, Bay Diesel mechanic Stephen Hanna inspected the ships turbochargers with Charlie Wyatt when they found one had a buildup of gunk, which made them worry the sealant was ready to give way. The other turbocharger, which is used to increase the engines efficiency, did not have the same issue but Hanna recommended both be replaced. Purchase orders show two turbochargers were ordered. Were just trying to be preventative here, Wyatt told investigators. The vessel had 108 passengers for a lunchtime cruise June 7 on the Elizabeth River when a fire started in engine room. Of those, 89 were children some were holding a party to celebrate the end of the school year. No one was injured, but the boat burned for nearly five days before the fire could be fully extinguished; it was deemed a total loss. No determination has been made about the cause of the fire, and its unclear when the findings will be finalized. Brian Vaughn with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will testify Tuesday about the ATFs forensic analysis into the fires cause and origin, according to a summary of witnesses testimony provided to The Virginian-Pilot. The investigation is being conducted to determine causing factors of the fire, examine the response, and identify any other information that can improve maritime safety. The questions posed Thursday by investigators explored the qualifications of those who conducted the inspection in May, the state of the engine room before the fire and the work technicians did on the ships turbocharger and why. Another area of concern highlighted Thursday was the state of the engine room the day before the fire. A picture taken June 6 shows a cardboard box tucked under the front end of one of the engines and other boxes in close proximity, which could create a fire hazard, according to Chris ONeal, a marine inspector training officer for the Coast Guard. ONeal and Lt. Cmdr. Kate Newkirk, who leads inspections for Sector Virginia, testified that this wouldve been noted as a deficiency in their inspection May 10, but neither saw boxes in the engine room that day. An animation showing the ships voyage describes events that immediately preceded the fire being noticed. A captain in training brought engine throttles to clutch with the intent of splitting the throttle controls and executing a 180 degree turn to head back to Waterside Marina, but when he began the maneuver, there was an alarm indicating the ship had lost connection to the port main engine. When the captain attempted to re-engage the port engine, he suspected the ship had also lost the starboard engine, according to the animation. The captain then told the crew to check the engine room before seeing smoke coming from the aft port engine room vent. The hearings are taking place in Virginia Beach City Council chambers and livestreamed at https://livestream.com/uscginvestigations/spiritofnorfolk. Testimony is scheduled to continue Friday and Saturday and into next week. Among those expected to testify over the next several days are Spirit of Norfolk staff and passengers, industry experts, marine mechanics, and leaders in the Coast Guard. 2023 The Virginian-Pilot. Visit pilotonline.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. President Muhammadu Buhari Thursday in Kastina State said he believed history will be kind to his administration, going by the situation inherited on security and economy, and the difference that has been made. President Buhari, who inspected and commissioned developmental projects in health, education, and road infrastructure, extoled the Governor, Rt. Hon. Aminu Bello Masari, for silently growing the State, with effective management of resources. "I have done my best, and I hope history will be kind to me," he reiterated at a lunch, after the commissioning of Kofar Kaura Underpass, Kofar Kwaya Underpass, Kofar Kaura Water Works, Katsina State Internal Revenue House, Muhammadu Buhari Meteorological Institute by the Ministry of Aviation, Darma Rice Mill in Batagarwa LGA and Katsina State General Hospital. The President, who is on a two-day official visit to the State, also inspected ongoing work on the first flyover in Katsina, which has reached 90 per cent completion in the Government Reserved Area (GRA). President Buhari said former Head of State, General Sani Abacha, had been criticized for his leadership style, while many ignored the contributions of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which he chaired under the former Head of State. The President noted that the PTF implemented many developmental projects, particularly in health, education and infrastructure, with some of the projects still evident in many parts of the country. President Buhari explained that the Kano-Katsina-Maradi (Niger Republic) rail line was designed to enhance neighbourliness and ease economic activity between Nigeria and Niger, and not only for cultural affiliation. "If you want to enjoy peace and harmony, you must be very friendly with your neighbour. That is why when I came into office, I started by visiting all our neighbours," he added. The President also said the Governor of Borno State, Prof. Babagana Umara Zulum, deserved commendation for the youthful energy, intellectual capacity and visionary leadership he deployed in improving the security situation in the North-East. President Buhari extoled Zulum for being daring by neglecting threats to his life, and visiting various parts of the state to encourage indigenes. "We were lucky to have a young, vibrant and intellectual governor like Prof. Zulum. He was all over the place, working. Who said Boko (Book) is Haram (forbidden)?," the President stated. He urged Nigerians to be more focused on getting education that equips them for a dynamic and digital world, instead of studying to get a job only. At the lunch, after the inspection and commissioning, the President appreciated the sacrifices and dedication of the state government in constructions, upgrading facilities and supply of medication and working tools. "Let me start by expressing my thanks to Allah (SWT) for granting us the privilege of life to be here today in Katsina to commission projects during my two-day official visit. "Governance or leadership as I have emphasised on many occasions, is an enormous responsibility embodying trust and requiring sacrifice so that the community of people that entrusted a leader with that burden can in both short and long terms, stand to benefit from the uprightness of the leadership. "In November, 2022, I received a letter from the Governor of Katsina State, inviting me to pay a State Visit to commission projects executed by his Administration. I was confident in giving my consent to the request. "Firstly, I noticed that the Governor's letter had already earmarked many projects that are beyond commissioning for a State Visit spanning only two days; and; "Secondly, I was impressed by the transparency implied by the manner that each of the projects was associated with its cost of execution," he said. President Buhari noted that he had already learnt about the Governor's numerous activities carried out in the state in the form of policies, programmes and projects. "I am under the impression that the Governor is using this occasion to announce his silent achievements, many of which were unknown till today. "Earlier today, it was my pleasure to commission Kofar Kaura Underpass, Kofar Kaura Water Works, Revenue House, Meteorological Institute and Darma Rice Mills as well as upgraded Katsina General Hospital. "I am happy with the infrastructural development efforts in Katsina State, particularly when one compares the recorded achievements with the position of the state as a rural state with a short history of a little over three decades of existence," he added. President Buhari said that it was an encouraging effort and indication of burning desire to transform society when a Government is judged to have invested resources and energy in infrastructural resuscitation, or provision. "Tomorrow, I look forward to commissioning the Dayi Dangulle Road, Musawa General Hospital, Sandamu-Baure-Babban Mutum Road, and Gurjiya-Karkarku Road. "Indeed, infrastructure is the substructure upon which societal growth and development are predicated. It is the realisation of this that the federal government makes infrastructural presence an irrevocable reality, thus enticing Foreign Investors and motivating the local elements," the President stated. President Buhari said he was pleased that Masari administration placed more emphasis on the educational sector. "While all the achievements recorded in Katsina State under the leadership of the Executive Governor are important, the education sector has really emboldened my belief that our society is in a stead to enjoy transformation in near future because when education permeates the life of members of society then the propensity to experience growth and development is very high. "As I listened to Governor Masari's address a few minutes ago, he upped the level of our confidence in the modest Federal Government projects and interventions in Katsina State," he said. He assured citizens that the government would continue working for the peace and harmony of the country. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. "I recognised the reality that the current state of insecurity in the country which does not spare Katsina State is a major drawback, which must be tackled to sustain the achievements recorded by both Federal and State governments. "It is in this vein that I am giving my unwavering commitment to tackle insecurity and restore normalcy in the country," he said. While thanking Governor Masari for the visionary leadership and commitment to improving livelihoods and infrastructure, the President said he would continue to support the government. "I congratulate the Katsina State Government for achieving these milestones and I wholeheartedly identify with the important strides Governor Masari has recorded," he noted. In his remark, the Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari, thanked the President for honouring the invitation to commission projects in the State. Masari noted that many hospitals had been renovated and upgraded, schools had been built and repositioned for quality education and roads had been constructed in various parts of the state. The Governor, who presented a full report on his achievements in office over seven years, noted that enrolment in schools moved from over one million to more than two million annually, following interventions by the state government. Masari appreciated the President for historic support to the states like the bailout, budget support and refunds which enabled many states to pay salaries and record some achievements at the downturn of the economy, with drop in price of crude oil. Black Sherif, is set to perform at the esteemed Wireless Concert in the UK. The three-day show, which happens at Finsbury Park, London, has plenty of global fellows up on the bill. The show starts on Friday, 7th July 2023 and ends on Sunday, 9th July 2023. The eagerly awaited show is supposed to be an interesting one, as the artiste setup includes plenty of globally perceived performers. The Ghanaian rapper/vocalist will perform alongside global artistes like 50 Cent, Lil Tjay and Popcaan at the three-day concert. Many Ghanaians communicated fervour when they saw Black Sherif was on the official rundown of artistes who were billed to perform at the show. Day 1 has stars like Metro Blasting, Ice Spice, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, TBA, Lancey Foux, Ken Carson, and Destroy Lonely. The second-day setup has any semblance of Travis Scott, Bryson Turner, JoeyBa$$ and Flo. The organizers of the show saved the best for the last, with Day 3's setup having Ghana's own, Black Sherif, 50 50, Lil Durk, Popcaan, Lil Tjay, Dexta Daps and Dreya Mac. This is another big win for the Ghana Music Industry, expecting an energetic performance from Blacko and wishing him the best in advance. Watch the video below: Djibouti, the tiny Horn of Africa nation with the highest prevalence of coronavirus cases on the continent, has delayed plans to begin lifting lockdown measures on Monday. The government, via the prime minister, has decided to extend lockdown by another week, through until 17 May, the foreign minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said in a Twitter post on Sunday. The pre-requisite conditions for lifting lockdown are not in place. In an earlier series of posts, the foreign minister announced lockdown would begin on Monday, largely for economic reasons. Acknowledging the "stakes are high" he insisted "people need to make a living and go to work." People in Djibouti had been looking forward to using public transport and going to places of worship once more, albeit following strict of measures of protection such as wearing masks and respecting physical distancing. Borders, however, were not set to open except for humanitarian personnel who will follow an agreed protocol of prevention to avoid reintroducing a new form of the virus," the foreign minister said. Youssouf had acknowledged that even with those measures in place, new epicentres of contamination could emerge in the capital city. He said a national taskforce would continue to follow the spread of the virus. Those fears now seem to have prompted the government to veer on the side of caution. Worst-affected country in East Africa relative to its population Djibouti is a tiny but strategically important country that hosts major US and French military bases. It has recorded 1,189 positive cases of Covid-19. While this is small on a global scale - more than four million people have tested positive worldwide - it is the highest in East Africa. Three people have died of Covid-19 in Djibouti. According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Djibouti has the highest number of cases in Africa relative to its population of around one million people, although its testing has also outpaced many of its neighbours. Strict lockdown On 7 March the capital Djibouti City, where 80 percent of the population live, was put into lockdown and its airport was closed. On 23 March, the government announced a lockdown would be nationwide. It closed borders and places of worship, banned public transport and allowed only workers in essential industries to go outdoors. The measures were not fully respected, however, and large crowds continued to gather in the capital city. President Ismail Omar Guelleh, in power since 1999, warned on 22 March of even tougher measures if the population did not respect confinement rules. The strict imposition of the lockdown has prompted criticism of Guelleh, who could run for the presidency again next year after term limits were abolished following a change to the constitution. A sensitive geographical location Djibouti's geographical situation, sandwiched between Ethiopia and Somalia, poses an added challenge. Ethiopia has direct flights from China where the virus is believed to have originated and Somalia has significant security issues and weak healthcare provision. The International Crisis Group recently warned of the social economic impact Covid-19 was having in Somalia due to its very fragile public health care system. It referred to a public health emergency in an electoral minefield in reference to legislative elections slated for November 2020. Opponents fear the government could exploit concerns over the virus to postpone elections. As at 9 May, there were 58,918 cases of coronavirus on the African continent and 2,172 people had died. South Africa and Chad have been the worst affected with 9,420 and 8,407 cases respectively, followed by Morocco, Algeria, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Guinea. Egypt unveiled Thursday a gold-laced mummy and four tombs, including of an ancient king's "secret keeper", discovered in the Saqqara necropolis south of Cairo. The vast burial site at the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is home to more than a dozen pyramids, animal graves and old Coptic Christian monasteries. Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former antiquities minister, announced the latest discovery, dating from the fifth and sixth dynasties -- around the 25th to the 22nd centuries BC -- to reporters at the dig site. The largest tomb, "decorated with scenes of daily life," belonged to a priest, inspector and supervisor of nobles named Khnumdjedef, said Hawass. It was found in the pyramid complex of Unas, the last king of the fifth dynasty, who reigned some 4,300 years ago. Another tomb belonged to Meri, who according to Hawass served as the pharaoh's appointed "secret keeper", a priestly title held by a senior palace official bestowing the power and authority to perform special religious rituals. One of the tombs in Saqqara included a collection of 'the largest statues' ever found in the area, a top official said. By Khaled DESOUKI (AFP) A third tomb belonged to a priest in pharaoh Pepi I's pyramid complex, and the fourth to a judge and writer named Fetek, Hawass added. Fetek's tomb included a collection of "the largest statues" ever found in the area, Mostafa Waziri, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters. Down a 15-metre shaft, the expedition also found a large limestone sarcophagus that had remained sealed "just as the ancient Egyptians left it 4,300 years ago", Hawass said. Inside was a mummy featuring "gold-leaf covering" that belonged to a man named Hekashepes, according to Hawass, who described it as one of the oldest and most complete non-royal mummies ever found in the country. Egypt has unveiled many major archaeological discoveries in recent years. Critics say the flurry of excavations has prioritised finds shown to grab media attention over hard academic research. Egypt has unveiled major discoveries in recent years, a key part of its attempts to revive the vital tourism industry. By Khaled DESOUKI (AFP) But the discoveries have been a key component of Egypt's attempts to revive its vital tourism industry after years of political unrest, as well as after the Covid pandemic. The government's plans -- the crowning jewel of which is the long-delayed inauguration of the Grand Egyptian Museum at the foot of the pyramids in Giza -- aim to draw in 30 million tourists a year by 2028, up from 13 million before the pandemic. The country of 104 million inhabitants is suffering from a severe economic crisis. According to official figures, Egypt's tourism industry accounts for 10 percent of GDP and some two million jobs. Nairobi Rwandan authorities must provide a credible account of the circumstances surrounding the death of journalist John Williams Ntwali, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. Police said that Ntwali was killed in the early morning of January 18 in Kigali, the capital, after a car hit a motorcycle taxi he was riding, according to news reports, which said that police arrested the driver of that car. Ntwali reported critically on governance and human rights issues in Rwanda on the YouTube-based outlet Pax TV-Ireme News, which he founded, and worked as an editor for the privately owned newspaper The Chronicles. He had repeatedly received threats over his work, according to news reports. After his death, Human Rights Watch quoted one of the journalist's friends saying Ntwali had survived "staged accidents" in Kigali. The BBC quoted an attendee of Ntwali's funeral saying that unidentified people had previously tried to hit a motorcycle the journalist was riding. "Given the frequent and grave threats that John Williams Ntwali faced for his journalism, Rwanda has a duty to provide a credible explanation for his death," said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal, in New York. "The current information available about his case leaves many questions unanswered. Authorities should also allow the involvement of U.N. and African Commission experts on extrajudicial killings in the investigation to bolster its credibility." A few days before his death, Ntwali aired a report on Pax TV-Ireme News, which has about 30,000 followers on YouTube, about the imprisonment of The Chronicles founder Christopher Kayumba, who is also a Rwandan politician. Ntwali also recently covered the plight of political prisoners in Rwanda, and allegations that detained YouTubers had faced torture behind bars. That Human Rights Watch report said that Ntwali had told the organization in June 2022 that members of Rwanda's intelligence agency ordered him to "change your tone" or else he would "see what happens." When asked for comment, Rwanda government spokesperson Yolande Makolo sent CPJ a link to a tweet saying that eight people had died in motorcycle taxi accidents in January, and that "groundless insinuations" did not help the case. The U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Voice of America quoted a local journalist saying that he was with Ntwali on the evening of January 17, and that Ntwali seemed cautious and was worried about being surveilled. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Media Legal Affairs Rwanda 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. In a separate interview with VOA, Ntwali's widow said she last saw him on the afternoon of January 17, and he texted her that evening saying he was on a motorcycle, but was unreachable after sending that message. When CPJ contacted the Rwandan National Police for comment via messaging app, a representative said police could not comment because the case had been referred to prosecutors. CPJ emailed the National Public Prosecution Authority for comment and sent queries via messaging app, but did not receive any replies. CPJ also emailed the Rwandan Ministry of Interior for comment but did not receive any reply. Authorities previously detained Ntwali for 10 days in 2007 over his coverage of events linked to Rwanda's 1994 genocide and held him again in 2016 on rape charges, which were later dropped and which the journalist said were retaliation for his investigative work. Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said Thursday that Khartoum and Addis Ababa are "aligned and in agreement" on a controversial Ethiopian dam on the Blue Nile which Egypt views as a threat. Burhan's remarks came during a meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who is on a one-day visit to Khartoum, his first since Burhan led a 2021 military coup. "Burhan emphasised... that Sudan and Ethiopia are aligned and in agreement on all issues regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)," according to a statement by the sovereign council, which he chairs. The dam has been the source of tensions between Ethiopia and downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, ever since work began in 2011. Multiple rounds of talks between the three governments have failed to produce an agreement over the filling and operation of the reservoir. Egypt is dependent on the Nile for irrigation and drinking water and the Blue Nile accounts for more than 80 percent of its flow. Sudan hopes the dam will regulate annual flooding and generate electricity, but has voiced fears that its own dams will be harmed without agreement on its operation. Addis Ababa sees the project as indispensible for its development and insists it will not affect Egypt's or Sudan's share of the Nile's water. Ethiopia's decision to start filling the dam's huge reservoir in 2020 without prior agreement with the downstream states drew condemnations from both Egypt and Sudan. So too did its decision to start power generation at the dam in February last year. Border and politics talks Thursday's talks also touched upon border issues between Sudan and Ethiopia, another source of tensions between the two countries in recent years. Al-Fashaqa, a fertile border region long cultivated by Ethiopian farmers but claimed by Sudan, has seen sporadic deadly clashes between the two sides in recent years. Burhan said "documents, technical mechanisms and dialogue are the main reference in the issue," the sovereign council said. Sudan's military ruler welcomed a November peace deal between Abiy's government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) that ended two years of conflict in which as many as 500,000 people were killed, according to US officials. The fighting drove tens of thousands of people to seek refuge in Sudan. During his visit, Abiy also met with representatives of Sudan's Forces for Freedom and Change, a civilian bloc which was ousted from power in Burhan's 2021 coup, the group said in a statement. Sudan has been roiled by political and economic turmoil since the coup, which upended a transition to civilian rule launched after the 2019 ouster of longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir. In December, Sudan's military leaders and political factions, most notably the FFC, signed a preliminary deal to restore the transition. On his Twitter account, Abiy said he was "pleased" to be in Sudan and expressed appreciation of Burhan's "warm welcome". "Ethiopia continues to stand in solidarity with Sudan in their current self-led political process," he said. He affirmed Ethiopia's "non-interventionist principle" and urged "home-grown solutions" in Sudan. Carrying photos of loved ones killed in the Boeing 737 MAX crashes, relatives of the victims on Thursday asked a federal judge to overhaul a US criminal settlement and impose tougher sanctions on the aviation giant. "Boeing is responsible, this is obvious," Catherine Berthet told the court. "Nobody was arrested or charged." Berthet's daughter, Camille, perished on the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines flight, which followed the October 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia. Together, the crashes claimed 346 lives and led to the global grounding of the MAX aircraft for more than a year and a half. Some relatives testified through tears during Thursday's three-hour hearing in Fort Worth, Texas, the latest twist in the battle over the Boeing enforcement that has pitted relatives of MAX victims against both Boeing and the Department of Justice. The families are challenging the DOJ's deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with Boeing, which required the aviation giant to pay $2.5 billion in fines and restitution in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution for charges it defrauded the government during the certification of the MAX. The DPA, announced in January 2021, appeared to close the door to criminal prosecution of Boeing and senior leadership. But relatives of the victims began challenging the DPA later in 2021, winning an order last week from US District Judge Reed O'Connor requiring Boeing appear Thursday at an arraignment in the criminal case. Thursday's hearing began as a formal arraignment at which Boeing attorneys entered a "not guilty" pleading to the DPA. After that, about a dozen relatives and their legal representatives addressed the court in an often emotional proceeding that included collages of the victims. Paul Njoroge, who lost multiple family members in a Boeing airplane crash, speaks to the press after Boeing was arraigned on federal crime charges at the US Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas. By Shelby Tauber (AFP) Their demands included that O'Connor appoint an independent monitor to oversee the DPA, while DOJ attorneys argued against amending the agreement. O'Connor requested additional information from the government. He said he would review the materials from the parties before making a decision. Victim's rights In unveiling the agreement in January 2021, the DOJ depicted the DPA as tough enforcement for Boeing's "fraudulent and deceptive" conduct towards Federal Aviation Administration regulators during the MAX certification when the company omitted key facts about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a flight handling system that badly malfunctioned in both crashes. The DPA absolved Boeing leadership, concluding Boeing's misconduct was neither "pervasive" nor "facilitated by senior management," according to the DPA. But the families have rejected the validity of the agreement, arguing in legal briefs that Boeing's immunization from prosecution should be stripped because the DOJ flouted the US Crime Victims' Rights Act, which required the government to confer with them prior to entering into the agreement. O'Connor, in an October 21 ruling, backed the families' argument about their status, ruling that they qualified as "crime victims" and concluding that Boeing's deceptions cost the relatives their loved ones. In a legal filing ahead of Thursday's hearing, attorneys for the families said DOJ and Boeing "have contrived through the covertly crafted DPA to essentially sweep away any real accountability." Boeing, which has fought efforts to change the DPA and resisted Thursday's arraignment, on Thursday reiterated its apology for the accidents and said the memory of the victims "drives us every day to uphold our responsibility to all who depend on the safety of our products," according to a Boeing statement. We are "committed to continuing to comply scrupulously with all of our obligations under the agreement we entered into with the Justice Department two years ago," Boeing said. Lawyers and representatives of Boeing walk away from the courthouse after Boeing was arraigned on federal crime charges in Fort Worth, Texas. By Shelby Tauber (AFP) But those words are not enough for Paul Njoroge, who lost his wife and three children on the same Ethiopian flight and flew to Texas from Canada to urge the court to cancel Boeing's "sweetheart deal." "We know that senior executives of Boeing committed a fraud," Njoroge told AFP outside the courthouse. "We want to see them in prison." While the families have scored notable wins, legal experts say courts typically show deference towards the DOJ on such agreements. Brandon Garrett, a professor at Duke University Law School, said courts should consider the public interest during reviews of DPAs, adding that US law "permits such review." But Garrett said courts have generally interpreted their role "very narrowly," while the DOJ has usually opposed such a review. "If this judge does reject the agreement, I could imagine the DOJ would appeal, citing their prosecutorial discretion to defer prosecution," Garrett said. The US space agency Nasa says we have nothing to worry about. The cosmic rock is nine metres wide and weighs as much as a shipping container and it's going to miss the southern tip of South America by at least 3,600 kilometres. This particular asteroid will pass so close to Earth that it will be inside the vast majority of manmade geostationary satellites as it sizzles through the upper atmosphere. It is unromantically named 2023 BU. The separation gap of just 3,600 kilometres is the closest approach ever recorded. That's less than the distance separating Dublin from Moscow, or the distance the Tesla electric car can travel on six full recharges. There is no risk that the asteroid will hit Earth, Nasa said in a statement. Even if it did, the statement worryingly continued, the asteroid measuring 3.5 by 8.5 metres would disintegrate in the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a harmless but spectaculare meteorite shower. The flying visitor was discovered last Saturday from an observatory in the Crimea by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who previously spotted an interstellar comet in 2019. Dozens of observations have since been carried out by observatories across the world. Nasa says there's nothing to worry about Nasa's Scout impact hazard assessment system quickly determined that the asteroid would miss Earth, the US space agency said. "Despite the very few observations, it was nonetheless possible to predict that the asteroid would make an extraordinarily close approach with Earth," said Nasa's Davide Farnocchia who helped develop Scout. "In fact, this is one of the closest approaches by a known near-Earth object ever recorded." The asteroid will come so close that its trajectory around the Sun will be significantly altered by the Earth's gravitational field. The asteroid has been taking 359 days to complete its orbit around the Sun; after this close call with Earth, it will now take 425 days, Nasa said. Mr Joseph Yamin, National Organiser of the NDC has said the decision to reshuffle the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority Caucus in Parliament was a collective decision by the NDCs Functional Executive Committee. Mr Yamin told the Ghana News Agency that the decision was well-thought through and the best way for us to go. He made the remarks when the leadership of the various political parties met the Ghana Peace Council in Accra on Thursday, January 26, 2023. The NDC on Tuesday, January 24, made some changes to its leadership in Parliament. Ranking Member of the Finance Committee and Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam Constituency in the Central Region, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson has replaced Tamale South MP, Haruna Iddrisu as the Minority Leader. Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, MP for Ellembelle has also replaced Ketu North MP, James Klutse Avedzi as the Deputy Minority Leader while Kwame Governs Agbodza takes over from Asawase MP, Muntaka Mubarak as the Minority Whip. The decision has since sparked outrage among some sections in the Party, with some NDC Members of Parliament declaring opposition to the move. Mr Yamin described the opposition to the Party's decision as normal. It was a decision taken by the Party, well thought through and so we all have to support the decision of the Party and embrace it, he said. This is a FEC decision and the FEC has that powerit was a collective decision. Mr Yamin rejected assertions that the move would destabilise the Party and affect its political fortunes in the Tamale South and Asewase constituencies. He said all those issues were taken into consideration when the decision was made and that the Party would emerge victorious in those constituencies. However, we are ready to engage on anything that is likely to affect the chances of the Party in 2024, Mr Yamin said. Meanwhile, Dr Ato Forson has urged unity among the rank file of the Minority Caucus in Parliament and the Party as a whole. I will appeal to the rank and file of our great NDC Party to keep calm. Members of Parliament are in good hands, we will work with them in due diligence, he said at a press conference in Accra on Thursday. GNA 26.01.2023 LISTEN Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia says Africa needs between US$130 and US$170 billion annually to bridge its infrastructure gap and generate sustainable growth at five per cent or more per annum. To achieve that objective, he called for public-private partnerships to deliver essential physical and soft infrastructure projects such as roads, rail and other digitisation platforms to speed up Africas development. Furthermore, there is a need for innovative policies to mobilise and allocate resources more effectively and for better coordination amongst all African stakeholders and international partners, he said. Vice President Bawumia gave the commendation on Thursday at the opening of the Business and Policy Leaders Dialogue of the Africa Prosperity Dialogue at Safari Valley Resort, Adukrom, Eastern Region on Thursday. The three-day programme was organised by the Government, through the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, Africa Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat, Africa Prosperity Network, and Economic Commission for Africa, to deliberate on ways to attract more Foreign Direct Investment into Africa and ensure economic transformation and job creation for the youth. It was on the theme: AfCFTA-From Ambition to Action: Delivering Prosperity through Continental Trade. In attendance were business leaders, heads of investment promotion agencies, academia and the diplomatic community as well as key stakeholders in Africa and international partners. Dr Bawumia, who was the Guest of Honour, said the time had come for Africa to present its own narrative. We cannot allow poverty and underdevelopment to be the destiny of Africa, a continent so blessed with every natural resource imaginable oil, gas, minerals, and sunshine, he said. We have approximately 65% of all available arable land to feed nine billion people globally by 2050 and we are home to the most youthful population in the world. Dr Bawumia said it was imperative to develop Africa into a manufacturing zone to facilitate trade of value-added products, adding: We have everything we need to transform Africa into a global powerhouse of the future. He was of the belief that with the collaborated strength of all 55 African states and 1.2 billion population, the majority of whom were young, and a GDP of US$ 2.5 trillion, Africa could make headway in attaining its development objectives. This makes Africa an attractive investment destination for doing business. With the right investment, we will be able to sustain economic growth and create the job opportunities that the continent desperately needs, the Vice President said. He observed that the creation of AfCFTA was a real game-changer and once fully realised, it would increase intra-African trade by some US$35 billion and reduce external import by US$10 billion annually. The AfCFTA has set the stage for Africa's industrialisation drive, but it would take concrete, strategic actions by governments and businesses on the continent, the right mix of policies, a greater sense of purpose for more robust intra-African trade to happen to support economic diversification and the much-needed industrialisation, Dr Bawumia said. To bring about the much-needed transformation, he proposed three broad areas that should be prioritised, including smart investments in critical infrastructure. As a continent, we need to produce and trade our way out of poverty and underdevelopment. While the last decades have seen some positive investments, there is the need for additional resources to finance the 'arteries for trade', which include physical infrastructure such as roads, rail, energy, and technologyto ensure the success of the AfCFTA. The second is to unleash the productive capacities across the continent and create platforms for knowledge brokerage and access to information on critical products and services. This would allow 445 million small businesses across the continent to plug into the value chains of these mega industries. The Vice President believed that Africa was at the cusp of realising the Africa we want and urged key stakeholders to consolidate the successes by deepening intra-African trade and investments to bring prosperity to the continent and its people. GNA 27.01.2023 LISTEN A renowned Ghanaian Naturopathic Professor, Raphael Nyarkotey Obu, a current bar student at the Gambia Law School, Banjul, has petitioned the Minister of Health, Dr. Ahmadou Lamin Samateh, to take action on Traditional Medicine legislation in the Gambia. The petition was cited by the Records Clerk, Lamin FM. The renowned Naturopathic Professor believes that there is a huge potential for natural medicine in the Gambia if legislation is Fas tracked. Also, he explains that legislation will go a long way to enhance standardization. He cited how countries such as India, China, Ghana, South Africa, and many others are benefiting from natural healthcare. Prof. Nyarkotey said natural healthcare tends to improve the economy with legislation. The Gambian Law School student, who has created a global niche for himself in the profession of Naturopathy and Holistic Healthcare, is engaging traditional healers in the Gambia, to see how to improve their services. He believes the Gambia could use the Ghanaian case of Traditional Medicine Act 575 as a road map. Prof. Raphael Nyarkotey Obu, who is also a well-known medical and science writer in Ghana has created a niche for himself in the Ghanaian and global medical and science writing space with his prolific articles on natural medicines. He has produced some blockbuster scientific articles on the Gambian natural remedies which have generated public interest in recent times. A copy of the petition sighted by the Voice highlights key strategic areas and called on the Minister to implement the World Health Organization (WHO) notice released mid-December titled, "Global strategies and plans of action that are scheduled to expire within one year: WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy: 2014 2023. As outlined in the WHO notice, there has been the steady and progressive implementation of the goals set out in the Traditional Medicine Strategy: 2014 2023 and a series of technical products have been developed by the WHO to support member states in their implementation of the Traditional Medicine strategies. Yet, key challenges such as research funding for Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM), a lack of mechanisms to regulate T&CM practices, practitioners, and products, a lack of expertise in T&CM, and a lack of policy guidance were identified by Member States. The letter further noted that the WHO statement outlines that the contribution of traditional and complementary medicine to primary health care, universal health coverage, and the Sustainable Development Goals continues to gain political recognition. As a Professor of Naturopathic Healthcare, and a researcher with interest in the legal aspect of Traditional and Complementary Medicines in the African sub-region, I aim to support the regulation of naturopathy and to assist you in any way that I can concerning the implementation of the WHO Traditional Medicine strategy. He provided some of his key achievements in the Naturopathic Healthcare space, he noted, I am a Ghanaian currently pursuing the Barrister at Law course at the Gambia Law School, Banjul, who has contributed immensely to the development, education, and standardization of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the Ghanaian Healthcare sector. The key to the achievement is setting up a University College to train Practitioners in Naturopathy and Holistic Medicine. Grandaunts of the college are eligible to sit for the Traditional Medicine Practice Council, Ministry of Health Professional Qualifying Examination. The College is also an educational member of the World Naturopathic Federation (WNF). "With the support of my team, we developed Ghanas first ever National Occupational Standard in Naturopathy and Holistic Medicine at the Higher National Diploma(HND) and Bachelors level under the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET). Prof. Nyarkotey believes that medicine is not a competition and there is a need for effective collaboration between mainstream, traditional and complementary healers in the healthcare sector. Prof. Nyarkotey Obu, is the President of Nyarkotey University College of Holistic Medicine & Technology, Ashaiman, Ghanas first Natural Medicine university college dedicated to the promotion and advocacy of natural remedies. With his presence in the Gambia, he has been working with the national Traditional Healers Association of The Gambia (TRAHASS) to improve Traditional Medicine apart from pursuing his legal education. He has won many awards in Ghana and on the international front such as the 40under40 Achievers Award in education(2019) and was inducted into the West African Nobles Forum as a young Noble at age 34. He was conferred Professorship at age 34 becoming one of the youngest Professors in Ghana in recent times. The first ever Girl's Model School to improve Girl-child Education in the Gomoa Central District of the Central Region has been commissioned at Gomoa Benso with a call on parents to take advantage of the facility. The 3-unit classroom block which is fully furnished with dual desks, office, store and staff common room will serve Gomoa Aboso, Benso, Ekroful and Akropong No 2. thus ABEA Girl's Model Junior High School. Recounting the history behind the school, the Gomoa Central District Chief Executive, Hon. Benjamin Kojo Otoo stated that the idea for the establishment of the Girl's Model School was initiated by the Member of Parliament for Gomoa Central, Hon. Naana Eyiah to encourage more girls attain a height in education. The DCE noted that the MP being a female thought it right to establish a school that would create more opportunities for girls to access formal education adding the Member of Parliament took inspiration from the fact that girls were performing better than boys in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). "Am happy that the vision of Hon. Naana Eyiah has become a reality. The school has been handed over to the Gomoa Central District Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES). "This school is going to offer effective teaching and learning to students. It has what it takes to make teaching and learning more lively and has been placed in a conducive environment. "It is our expectation that the ABEA Girl's Model Junior High School will produce high standard quality education to serve the purpose for which it was established," he stated. The Gomoa Central District Chief Executive commended Nananom in the aforementioned communities for their support towards the realization of the project which is the first of its kind in the Gomoa Central District. He pledged the support of the MP and the District Assembly to ensure improvement in the standard of education and to initiate more child-friendly programmes to attract girls to attend school. The Queen Mother of Gomoa Aboso, Nana Ayereba II on behalf of Nananom in the four communities thanked Hon. Naana Eyiah for her passion for Girl-child education by establishing the school in the vicinity. "This school has come as a relief to us as Nananom because teenage pregnancy in Gomoa Central District is an eyesore in spite of all efforts being made to stop early sex among our girls. "ABEA Girl's Model Junior High School is going to challenge every girl to soar higher in education and to improve individual skills and knowledge as well as to polish their God-given talents. "It has been my desire to see our girls especially in these four communities grow up financially so that they could use their knowledge and resources to support infrastructure development in ABEA," Nana Ayereba II stated. The Queen Mother lauded the Member of Parliament for being a real model for females in her constituency adding she was empowering women in their various fields of choice. Similarly, a 6-unit classroom block with office, store and staff common room and another 3-unit classroom block has been commissioned for Gomoa Ayensuadze Presbyterian Basic School and Gomoa Oguaakrom-Nyakuadze D/A Basic School respectively. The facilities were to ease congestion in the classrooms. The Gomoa Central District Director of the Ghana Education Service, Madam Theodora Abaloo who received the keys to the classroom blocks thanked Hon. Naana Eyiah and the DCE, Hon. Benjamin Kojo Otoo for creating conducive environment for effective teaching and learning in the District. She assured that proper culture of maintenance would be carried out on them. "It is worthy to note that we don't have a single school operating under trees as we usually say, there is no school under trees in the Gomoa Central District and the Directorate is proud of this enviable record in the Central Region," the District Director stressed. Among the DCE's entourage were the Presiding Member of Gomoa Central District Assembly, Hon. Kweku Nyarko Koomson, the Gomoa Central District Coordinating Director Alhaji Abdul Rahim Musa, Gomoa Central District Director of Community Development, Mr. Bashirudeen Wahab Aidoo, the Officer In -Charge of Special Education at the Ghana Education Service ( GES), Madam Mabel Tsigbey and the Chairman of Finance and Administration of the Gomoa Central District Assembly, Hon. Ernest Quarm. 27.01.2023 LISTEN Mr Maxwell Ziyerley Agbambilla, Parliamentary Candidate hopeful for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Zebilla Constituency says party delegates in the constituency should not be cajoled with money in making their voting decisions in the partys parliamentary primaries scheduled for May 13 , 2023. The legal practitioner made public his intention to contest the partys parliamentary primaries after the eight-time parliamentary candidate and current Member of Parliament Mr Cletus Avoka made known his decision not to contest the seat again. Speaking to the media at his residence in Zebilla, Lawyer Agbambilla says delegates of the party should choose a leader capable of uniting the party and leading them to victory in the upcoming general elections rather than voting based on a persons place of origin, age, financial status or who the persons father is. I want them [delegates] to consider that Zebilla needs a new begging, those of us who will be throwing ourselves at them are like seeds that need to be planted in the new season so I invite them to look at the seed that they think if its planted can grow up to be a tree that will bear fruits that they can eat from it and will have a shade that all of us can sit under it, with all humility I think that I am that seed. Secondly, I think that they [delegates] should be mindful of what the issues are and what they should consider in this election," he noted. Lawyer Agbambilla continues, "It is not about where you come from, it is not about who our fathers or mothers are, I see people who ask me if I am Agbambillas son, I say yes and they say my father was a great man, he did good things for us, of course, a good name is good but its not about my father because my father is not the one who is going to parliament to debate, research and put Zebilla on the map, its me so the consideration should be about me. Again its not about how much money you have in your pocket, we dont use money as the basis to represent the people because parliament is not a business centre you dont go to make money, you go to prone government policies in a manner that will benefit the people and for that, you need a brain, not a pocket. The Senior Associate at Adu-Kusi Law firm who is running his campaign on the mantra The New Beginning says his leadership as the parliamentary candidate will usher in a new beginning in the Zebilla Constituency where he will prioritise the educational needs of constituents and continue to build on the solid foundation laid by Mr Cletus Avoka in other sectors, including; agriculture, entrepreneurship, rural electrification and physical infrastructure. He eulogised the outgoing lawyer maker describing him as the most successful politician from the Kusaug area of the Upper East Region and called for a monumental gesture to be done in his honour. The Accra High Court trying Former NDC Chairman Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo and Anthony Kwaku Boahen over an alleged conspiracy to cause Har and assault on public officers, has asked the two to open their defence. Justice Samuel K.A.Asiedu, a Justice of the Supreme Court, with additional responsibility as a High Court Judge, in his ruling said there was evidence on record in respect of the charges. This was when the Defence counsels for the accused persons had filed their submission of no case to answer and prayed the Court to acquit and discharge their clients as prosecution had not proven the charges against them. The Prosecution called three witnesses to give evidence to prove the charges against the accused persons and then closed its case on November 24, 2022. Ofosu-Ampofo, the immediate past chairman and Boahen, a communicator of the National Democratic Congress, have denied the charges and are currently on bail. Additionally, Ofosu Ampofo, is facing an assault charge for allegedly inciting NDC communicators against public officers Chairpersons of the National Peace Council and Electoral Commission. They are on a GH 100,000.00 bail with a surety each. The prosecution had at an earlier sitting told the Court that the accused persons had been captured in an audio recording of the proceedings of a meeting on February 3, 2019, allegedly planning a road-map of criminal activities targeted at the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) and the Chairman of the National Peace Council, among others. The meeting followed January 31, 2019, Ayawaso West-Wuogon by-election, which turned violent following a clash between some National Security operatives and supporters of the National Democratic Congress suspected to be vigilantes. The audio recording was played on some radio stations and according to the prosecution, the Criminal Investigation Department of the Police Service, later intercepted the tape. The prosecution said Mr Boahen had confirmed being at the said meeting and confessed on a radio station that the information on the tape was true. GNA 27.01.2023 LISTEN The National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia is leading a delegation of the party to the United Kingdom on Thursday, January 27. The delegation is attending a lecture to be addressed by the Former President of the Republic of Ghana, H.E John Dramani Mahama. The event is scheduled to take place at the Chatham House later today, Friday, January 27. Other members of the delegation include the Director of International Affairs of the NDC, Comrade Alex Segbefia, Deputy National Women Organizer, Comrade Abigail Elorm Akwambea, and the Deputy Treasurer of the party, Comrade Vida Addae. The lecture, which will be under the theme: "Africa's strategic priorities and global role", will among other things discuss the prospects for economic recovery and growth on the African continent in light of recent debt crisis that has compelled African countries including Ghana to seek debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework. The Former President shall be sharing with his audience his ideas and insights on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa. He will also discuss priorities for regional integration and Africa's role and responsibilities in global economic governance. At the end of the lecture, the NDC delegation together with the Former President shall hold a meeting with the UK/Ireland Chapter of the party as part of the visit. Members of civil society organisations have questioned the very low rate of draft laws initiated by lawmakers - as representatives of the people - considering that most bills are coming from the executive. This situation, they suggested, might be leading to enacting laws that do not speak to citizens' needs or address their problems. Civil society organisations expressed their concern on Thursday, January 26, during a consultative meeting between the Chamber of Deputies and non-governmental organisations, universities and higher learning institutions. The session was meant to increase citizen participation in parliamentary activities. Eric Mahoro, Deputy Executive Director in charge of Partnership and coalition at Never Again Rwanda, said that the data they collected in line with following parliamentary work suggests that in the last 10 years, bills introduced by lawmakers were less than two per cent of the total laws that parliament passed. "Would you explain why that is the case?" he asked the Chamber of Deputies, indicating that the explanation could help in improving collaboration between Parliament and civil society and higher learning institutions. For example, in 2022, the most impactful bills including the draft law regulating the use of human organs, tissues and cells were from the executive. READ ALSO: Legislation: Five bills that got people talking in 2022 The Chamber of Deputies' leaders agreed that the bills that are initiated by legislators - also called private members' bills - are few. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Rwanda Governance 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. Donatille Mukabalisa, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, said that one of the causes for the dismal number of bills initiated by legislators "is lack of means," indicating that producing a bill is resource-demanding. "In countries which have adequate resources, an MP has their own office," she said, adding that each lawmaker also has five to 10 support staffers who help them in the legislation process including research and drafting bills. "But for us, an MP has no support staff," she said, indicating that even a standing parliamentary committee has two workers. However, the Speaker said that even in those countries with relatively enough resources, more bills come from the executive than from lawmakers. Elaborating on that, Mukabalisa said that it is because it is the government that prepares policies. "In the implementation of policies, there are draft laws that are provided for. Therefore, they (the executive) are the ones who often initiate bills in line with the execution of such policies approved by the Government," she said. She pointed out that the Parliament also carries out an oversight of the implementation of those policies, and to know whether a law is addressing the issues for which it was set to solve. The National Peace Council (NPC) says it is hopeful that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will return to the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC). The NDC has consistently been absent from meetings of IPAC due to what it describes as the hostile attitude of the Electoral Commission (EC). But the Chairperson of the Conflict Resolution Committee of the National Peace Council Joana Adzoa Opare says the council is continually engaging the party to return. The National Peace Council seeks to promote the collectiveness in addressing any unforeseen or foreseen challenges that will enable full participation of all political parties in the Inter Party Advisory Committee meetings, particularly for the NDC to work towards return to IPAC. And we all know how very important this is, the Chairperson of the Conflict Resolution Committee of the National Peace Council urged the NDC during a meeting with leaders of various political parties on January 26, 2023. Madam Joana assured that the National Peace Council will continue to create a platform of engagements between the various political parties towards sustainable peace in the country. It is the conviction that the National Peace Council will create a platform for fraternising continuous engagements and discuss objectively strategic means of strengthening relationships among the political parties towards sustainable peace of Ghana, Chairperson of the Conflict Resolution Committee of the National Peace Council said. By Citi Newsroom Former President, John Dramani Mahama is set to deliver a lecture today, Friday, January 27 in the United Kingdom. The event is taking place at the Chatham House and will be attended by a delegation of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by its national chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketia. The lecture according to a press release from the NDC signed by National Communications Officer Sammy Gyamfi will be under the theme: "Africa's strategic priorities and global role". Mahamas lecture will among other things discuss the prospects for economic recovery and growth on the African continent in light of recent debt crisis that has compelled African countries including Ghana to seek debt forgiveness under the G20 Common Framework. Former President Mahama is expected to share with his audience his ideas and insights on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa. He will also discuss priorities for regional integration and Africa's role and responsibilities in global economic governance. Other NDC members part of the delegation to the UK include the Director of International Affairs of the NDC, Comrade Alex Segbefia, Deputy National Women Organizer, Comrade Abigail Elorm Akwambea, and the Deputy Treasurer of the party, Comrade Vida Addae. The team together with the Former President shall hold a meeting with the UK/Ireland Chapter of the NDC as part of the visit. When Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr was elected mayor of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown in 2018, many saw the bright and brazen British-educated figure as a rising political star. Pitching environmental initiatives in the climate-vulnerable West African country, she appointed Africa's first Chief Heat Officer and vowed to tackle the city's trash mountain and build a cable car system to boost mobility. But as Aki-Sawyerr's first term draws to an end, much of her agenda has been thwarted by rows and legal battles. Her problems have showcased some of the political tensions in this youthful democracy, which emerged in 2002 from a decade-long civil war, and where elections are due in June. Aki-Sawyerr's critics say she has cut corners and wasted taxpayers' money pandering to the poor. She accuses the government of blocking her as a member of the opposition All People's Congress (APC) party. The current president is Julius Maada Bio, who narrowly won elections in 2018 as champion of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). "My biggest shock has been to see programmes, interventions, initiatives held back because of a perception that I am a political opponent as opposed to collaborator in development," Aki-Sawyerr, 55, told AFP from the newly-built skyscraper she works in -- a donation from the South Korean government. Criminal trial A dual British national who trained as a chartered accountant and cut her teeth in London's private sector, Aki-Sawyerr returned to Sierra Leone in 2014 to help fight Ebola -- work for which she was awarded the Order of the British Empire. She says she has no plans to leave Sierra Leone, although she has lived apart from her husband and now-adult children for eight years. As mayor, Aki-Sawyerr has secured large sums of external funding, including a $1 million Bloomberg Philanthropies Award. But domestically, she has raised hackles with her brisk style -- preferring her own, internationally-educated teams rather than veteran civil servants for major projects -- and plans to streamline outdated processes. People scavenge at a Freetown rubbish dump. By ISSOUF SANOGO (AFP/File) She has been audited, investigated for corruption and summoned to testify about her initiatives in parliament. She is also fighting charges of obstructing the police and disorderly behaviour over the arrest of one of her city councillors. He is accused of incitement over cost-of-living protests last August that spiralled into anti-government riots. It is common for Freetown mayors to go head-to-head with the central government. But the backlash Aki-Sawyerr has received for doing so seems unprecedented. "You need to know how to deliver, but you (also) have to play the politics," said activist Valnora Edwin. "Unfortunately she seems to be falling directly in their trap -- she might have a court matter until it's time to nominate candidates for elections, and then she will not be suitable (to run)." Reforms One of Aki-Sawyerr's key goals has been to overhaul the city's manual taxation system. "I kid you not, it was a book -- it was a ledger written in by hand," she said. Sierra Leone. By (AFP) With financial support from the UK government, the mayor had satellite images taken and measured rooftops and other metrics to build up a digital property tax database. She claims to have brought 70 percent more taxpayers into the system. She also raised rates on those already paying tax. But within days of its rollout, the programme was frozen by the national authorities for nearly a year, and compliance remains low. One resident who refuses to pay his property tax is lawyer Chukwuemeka Taylor. He says it is unfair to raise rates on existing taxpayers, while providing inadequate services. "I have to do the roads myself, I have to do the drains myself, and I'm paying property taxes?", he said, accusing her of milking the tax issue to appeal to poorer voters. 'She talks to you' The mayor does have sympathisers among lower-income residents. "She has a lot of challenges but she still is pushing," said Marie Bob-Kandeh, head of a market women's group. Last year, the mayor provided shades in markets to protect vendors from the hot sun. In the slums, she has worked with donors to construct public toilets and water taps. Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr was elected mayor of Freetown in on the promise of bold environmental and urban planning initiatives. By Saidu BAH (AFP) "She talks to you," said Nancy Sesay, a resident of Susan's Bay slum. "When there is a problem, she comes." Presidential, parliamentary and local elections are scheduled for June 24. Aki-Sawyerr says she intends to run again for mayor. But her party is expected to tap her as running mate for the presidency against Bio, who will bid for second term. Asked whether Sierra Leone is ready for a female vice president, Aki-Sawyerr said: "I think people respond to what they're presented with, and if they're presented with the right person, they respond to that." 27.01.2023 LISTEN The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) is cautioning individuals and various groups against the possession and use of military pattern clothing and equipment in public. In a statement, GAF said stringent measures have been put in place to deal appropriately with unauthorised persons who use its clothing to engage in nefarious activities. GAF assured that its personnel are putting in efforts to fish out persons who wear military pattern clothing to commit crimes. GAF wishes to assure the public that its personnel are putting in all efforts to fish out these alleged perpetrators who wear military pattern clothing and use military equipment to commit crimes and to deceive the unsuspecting public. According to GAF, selling, and wearing military uniforms as well as the use of military-grade equipment by unauthorised persons is prohibited under NLCD 177. GAF therefore requires the maximum cooperation of all Ghanaians as it puts in these stringent measures to curb the sale, wearing of military uniforms and use of military-grade equipment by unauthorised persons as it is prohibited under NLCD 177, GAF stated in the press release. GAF bemoaned the activities of these miscreants which derail its role in securing and restoring normalcy in the country. The statement said, These miscreants and imposters are derailing the immense role the Ghana Armed Forces is playing in order to secure the country, restore normalcy to some conflict-prone areas, and to deter crime in various parts of the country. GAF therefore requires the maximum cooperation of all Ghanaians as it puts in these stringent measures to curb the sale, wearing of military uniforms and use of military-grade equipment by unauthorised persons as it is prohibited under NLCD 177. Those who continue to violate this Decree and others who connive in this violation will be dealt with and made to face the full rigours of the law if found. Read full statement GAF EMBARKS ON STRINGENT MEASURES TO DEAL WITH UNAUTHORISED USE OF MILITARY UNIFORMS AND EQUIPMENT The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) wishes to serve notice that it has embarked on more stringent measures in accordance with the law and its rules of engagement, to 'appropriately' deal with the growing menace of individuals and various groups, using military pattern clothing, equipment and other accoutrement in the country. GAF is putting in these extra measures following disclosures and investigations which indicate that some miscreants have been deliberately acquiring these military pattern clothing and equipment including guns, for diabolical reasons thereby escalating tension in some communities and also placing the Ghana Armed Forces in disrepute. In a recent case in point, GAF arrested a man in Bawku engaged in the re-spraying of a vehicle in military pattern colours on Wednesday 21 December 2022. Also, reports indicate some persons dressed in military pattern and military colour shades of clothing, have been allegedly engaged in several criminal activities towards the end of last year and early this month. These incidents have led to unsubstantiated allegations and circulation of false information in the media that military personnel were rather responsible for these acts. GAF wishes to assure the public that its personnel are putting in all efforts to fish out these alleged perpetrators who wear military pattern clothing and use military equipment to commit crimes and to deceive the unsuspecting public. These miscreants and imposters are derailing the immense role the Ghana Armed Forces is playing in order to secure the country, restore normalcy to some conflict-prone areas, and to deter crime in various parts of the country. GAF therefore requires the maximum cooperation of all Ghanaians as it puts in these stringent measures to curb the sale, wearing of military uniforms and use of military-grade equipment by unauthorised persons as it is prohibited under NLCD 177. Those who continue to violate this Decree and others who connive in this violation will be dealt with and made to face the full rigours of the law if found. Finally, the Ghana Armed Forces wishes to assure the general public of its commitment to protecting the citizenry at all times. It is therefore soliciting the support of all to enforce these measures in the interest of the needed peace and security for Ghana's socio-economic development. SIGNED MA LARBI Naval Captain Director Public Relations citinewsroom The Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbe Afede XIV, has said government of Ghana should first look at cutting down its expenditure and plugging financial loopholes to save the country money before extending the burden of the current economic crisis onto individual bondholders through a haircut in the domestic debt exchange programme. Togbe Afede made the suggestion when the Individual Bondholders Forum paid a courtesy call on him on Thursday, 26 January 2023, to rally support against the governments inclusion of individual bondholders in the debt exchange programme. The Forum, led by Mr Senyo Hosi, has tabled some proposals before the government through which the country could save GHS83.5 billion. Togbe Afede believes the government must clean its house first before touching any individuals bond proceeds. What expenditures can we cut out? Maybe, new and not-very-essential capital projects. What can we suspend? Ongoing, maybe unnecessary capital projects, the traditional leader noted, as well as turning attention to the size of government, payments to individuals, ex gratia, all kinds of allowances, monies that we spend on travels, et cetera. There is so much room, I believe, for cutting expenditure, he stressed, adding: And that is where, I think, we should be looking at first of all. If one goes by the estimates that have been put out there with regard to how much the nation loses to corruption annually, it suggests that there is room for trimming down government expenditure, Togbe Afede stressed. Mr Hosi, during the call, told the chief: Togbe, the matter is an eye-red matter, and, for someone who has led the capital market and being one of the players who birthed the capital market besides your royal place as the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State you are a pioneer in this industry. I do not want to believe this is your voice and the destination you assured us when your voice was heard back then, Mr Hosi noted. So, we are here to petition your office, to petition you, as an individual, and the state of Asogli, not to sit by and watch the lives of 6.5 million people devastated and subjected to shackles of penury. So, our plea here is very simple: the steps being taken by the government are unsustainable and very unnecessary. The Forums proposed money-saving measures include enforcing property taxation and VAT invigilation, recovering funds lost to financial irregularities as identified by the Auditor-General, divesting loss-making, defunct and troubled 17 state-owned enterprises, privatising selected SOEs to Tier-2 pension funds to drive efficiency and productivity, and reviewing the Free SHS Programme to make it more efficient through effective targeting and allowing parents who can pay to do so among others. The measures proposed above, per the estimation of the IBF, yield net savings of GHS83.5bn, the IBF said in its report, adding: The above recommendations are competent enough to urgently address the fiscal challenges and enable us to reach the desired 55% debt-to-GDP target proposed to the IMF. Read the IBFs full report below: REPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA (GOG)-INDIVIDUAL BONDHOLDERS FORUM (IBF) TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON THE EXCLUSION OF INDIVIDUAL BONDHOLDERS FROM THE DOMESTIC DEBT EXCHANGE (DDE) PROGRAMME 25th January 2023 1.0 Introduction The Government initially exempted individuals when it launched the DDE programme on 5th December 2023. Subsequently, the government amended the original Invitation to Exchange to include individual bondholders (IBs) with a belief that the terms of the amended Invitation to Exchange improve the economic terms and offer individual investors the opportunity to participate in such enhanced terms. Although no restrictions are contemplated for the trading of the non-tendered eligible bonds (Old Bonds), the liquidity of Old Bonds after an exchange is usually much more limited than the liquidity of the new bonds. In addition, the market value of new bonds can potentially be higher than the value of the Old Bonds. The reason the government amended the Invitation to Exchange is to allow individual legal holders of record of Eligible Bonds to participate in the exchange. Following the amendment of the exchange to include individual bondholders in the perimeter of the DDE Programme, a petition demanding the exclusion of the individuals was issued on 13th January 2023 by the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF), a representative body for individual investors (collectively known as Individual Bondholders) in GoG notes and bonds, ESLA bonds, Daakye bonds, Ghana Eurobonds and Collective investment schemes with investments in all those securities. The government called for a meeting on 18th January 2023 to have a dialogue with the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) and to explore mutually beneficial options within the debt sustainability limit that will lead to the landing zone of present value (PV) of the debt-to-GDP ratio of 55% by 2028. During the meeting, a technical committee was constituted, comprising membership from GoG and IBF to work together to explore options for excluding the individual bondholders from the DDE Programme and its impact on the landing zone of 55%. The Committee, comprising two members, each, from the GoG team and the IBF team on the resolution of issues of individual bondholding in the DDE Programme. The GoG team was led by Mr. Samuel Arkhurst and the IBF team was led by Mr. Senyo Hosi. The members of the Committee are: No. Name Institution/Position Membership 1. Mr. Samuel Arkhurst, Director, TDMD, MoF, Leader of the GoG Team 2. Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, Director, ESRD, MoF Member 3. Mr. Senyo Hosi Convenor, IBF Leader of the IBF Team 4. Mr. David Tetteh, Convenor, IBF Member 5. Mr. Martin Kpebu (Esq.), Convenor, IBF IBF Member, In attendance 6. Dr. Adu Anane Antwi Convenor, PBF Observer The Committee is supported by a secretariat as follows: 1. Mr. Kwame Gyesaw, Unit Head MFPU, MoF 2. Ms. Elizabeth Owiredu, Unit Head DCM, MoF 3. Mr. Abdul-Fatawu Hakeem, SEO, MoF 2.0 Terms of Reference The IBF identified their coverage of investments to include individual holders of bonds as well as Individuals who have investments in Collective Investment Schemes (CIS). However, the pensioners distinguished individuals who are natural persons holding securities registered under the Central Securities Depository (CSD). The Committee agreed on the following as its Terms of Reference (TOR): i. Identification of key issues by individual bondholders and Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) in the DDE Programme. ii. Explore mutually beneficial options within the debt sustainability limit that will lead to the landing zone of 55% PV of debt-to-GDP by 2028, resulting from the exclusion of individual bondholders in the Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) Programme; and iii. Any other matter consequential to the DDE Programme. 3.0 Summary of Presentation on the DDE Programme The leader of the GoG team made a short presentation on the debt exchange programme summarised as follows: i. The total universe of domestic debt instruments covers, Treasury Bills (91-Day, 182-Day, and 364-Day), Treasury notes and bonds (2 to 20 years), ESLA, Daakye, Cocoa Bills, Non-Marketable securities, and the domestic US Dollar bond; ii. For purposes of the debt exchange programme, Treasury Bills are excluded whilst GoG notes and bonds, ESLA and Daakye are included; iii. The Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) using the IMF DSA Framework undertaken by MoF shows that Ghanas public debt is high and unsustainable. The analysis shows that the PV of the debt-to-GDP ratio is over 100% against a debt sustainability threshold of 55%. This means that to achieve debt sustainability, Ghana must implement policies and programmes to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio in present value terms by at least 45 percentage points (ppt) in the medium term. Debt service, comprising interest and amortisation payments (domestic and external) alone constituted a provisional 100% of total revenues in 2022; iv. It is a requirement that a country accessing an IMF (Fund) Programme should demonstrate that its debt is on a sustainable path before the country can secure a Programme from the Fund; v. Government is, therefore, addressing the debt sustainability issue through measures including fiscal adjustments, structural reforms, and debt operation all of which are in line with the IMF Programme being negotiated; vi. The debt operation entails both domestic and external debt; vii. The above measures put the debt-to-GDP ratio in PV terms at 55%; and viii. Excluding the pension funds from the DDE programme worsens the debt-to-GDP ratio by 1.8 ppt., thereby making the 55% threshold unattainable by 2028. 4.0 Summary of Presentation by Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) 4.1 The IBF Case a. The inclusion of individuals in the DDE will destroy household confidence in Ghanas financial system and securities market. It will shift savings and investments away from the official banking system. This is evident in Ghanas economic and social history. b. With households being the primary source of loanable funds in the Ghanaian economy, the occurrence of the above will deplete the stock of loanable funds, private and public sector access to credit, and stifle growth. The impact may be irreparable or may require a longer term to regenerate confidence. c. The fall in confidence will worsen our currency depreciation challenges, as more individuals rationally turn to foreign currencies as a mechanism to store the value of their wealth or savings. d. Following the banking crisis, most individual investors opted to invest in the lower-returning GoG securities for safety reasons and to provide security of returns required to meet pertinent needs such as medication, childrens education and the general welfare of their families. The social impact of the DDE programme as currently presented for individuals is the harshest on anyinvestor category and catastrophic to the livelihoods of about 1.3mn local individual investors and 6.5mn dependents. Unlike other investor categories likely to benefit from the Financial Stability Fund, Individual Bondholders have no support to fall back on. e. The value of IBs holdings which has been built over years is instantly wiped off by 77%-88% on acceptance of the DDE programme. This is untenable. f. The individual bondholding and holdings through collective investment schemes stand at about GHS15.5bn, representing about 11% of the eligible bonds and the capitalised interest. With the set target of 80% of eligible bonds, Individual Bondholders are not a critical success factor to the viability of the DDE programme as you envisage, yet the impact of their inclusion has incalculable consequences. g. The debt accrued was used for the purposes of the entire populace, it is, therefore, inequitable to single out bondholders only to suffer the cost of a benefit that other investors and citizens benefitted from. Why is there no equal intervention for individuals who opted to invest in real estate instead of financing the State? 4.2 The IBF Position The IBF identifies with the need to achieve debt sustainability but holds that the inclusion of individual bondholders and collective investment schemes will be economically counterproductive and socially catastrophic. The IBF, therefore, maintains that IBs be exempted from the DDE Programme. Debt sustainability should be attained through the following: i. Fiscal adjustments; ii. Revision of the DDE proposal to the structured groups such as the Banks and Insurance entities; iii. Grow GDP: Reduce the crowding-out effect of the governments excessive net domestic borrowing to pave access for real sector financing to spur growth; Revise GoGs posturing to investors to deepen investment in the extractive sectors (upstream and mining); and iv. A committed fight against corruption. 4.3 Fiscal Readjustments The IBF, consequently, recommends that Government reviews and makes the following specific adjustments to its revenue and expenditure to contain the current economic crisis: Fiscal Section Fiscal Readjustment Est. Revenue/Savings (GHS) Revenue: a. Enforce the filing of interest/coupon income on corporate instruments (ESLA, Daakye, Cocoa bills) as part of Personal Income Tax (PIT) and effect the 25% tax related to the income. Alternatively, revise the 1% withholding of the related securities to 20% and make it final and deductible at the source. This creates an additional revenue of circa GHS104 million for the current fiscal year. GHS104mn (Savings) b. Oil production has dropped from over 200kbpd to below 160kbpd yield revenue loss more than $300mn (GHS3.6bn) in 2022. The government should, as a matter of urgency, review the regulatory and fiscal environment to encourage existing producers to ramp up production and develop new fields. GHS3.6bn (Savings) c. Government should exercise its right under the Aker petroleum agreement (Deepwater Tano) to repossess the block or compel the immediate commencement of development by the contractor. This field has the potential of delivering up to 100kbpd yielding over GHS5.6bn per year to the government. GHS 5.6bn (Savings) d. Expedite reforms to enforce property taxes. With landed properties of circa 2,200,000 in Ghana (Ghana Population and Housing Census 2021), we anticipate that achieving an average annual rate of GHS1,000 per property at a collection efficiency of 50%, will yield the government over GHS1.1bn in revenue. GHS1.1bn (Savings) e. Rise above politics and fully enforce the VAT invigilation that saw the rise of VAT revenue by 1000% in some cases. This assumes a 15% over the 2023 estimated VAT collection of GHS23.7bn GHS3.5bn (Savings) f. Pursue the recovery of funds lost through financial irregularities of MDAs in the Auditor Generals Reports (2015-2022). Source: 2nd Fiscal Recklessness Index Report, 2020 (page 2). GHS13.9bn (Savings) g. Pursue the recovery of the over GHS5bn tax evasion in the petroleum downstream sector (2016-2021). Source: CBOD Petroleum Industry Report 2020/21. GHS5bn (Savings) h. Divest loss-making, defunct and troubled 17 State-own enterprises (as identified and announced by the Ministry for Public Enterprises). GHS1bn (Savings) i. Privatize selected SOEs to Tier-2 pension funds to drive efficiency and productivity. The government will realize funds from the divestiture with ownership still retained by the workers of Ghana. These SOEs may include the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Ghana RE. GHS20bn (Savings) j. Review and rationalize the budget of SOEs and increase capping of high revenue generating SOEs to shore up central government revenue and reduce waste in SOEs. GHS1bn (Savings) k. The BOST Margin should be converted into a levy and channelled into government revenue. BOST is a fully commercial entity and it is untenable to continue to tax the public to fund its activities while it charges commercial rates for its services. GHS300mn (Savings) l. Revise royalties for new and yet-to-renegotiate mining leases from the standard 5% to 15%. For example, the payback period for the new lithium mines is less than five months with an internal rate of return of 224% and yet government royalties is set at 10%. Not estimated Expenditure m. The budget provision for the energy sector shortfall of Ghs23bn should be revised downwards by GHS3bn through the reduction of transmission losses, technical losses, and administrative inefficiencies. Effectively implement the Energy Sector Recovery Programme (ESRP) recommendations. GHS3bn (Savings) n. Cap the subsidies on the premix petroleum at Ghs200mn thereby reducing the budget by GHS150mn. Owing to the wanton abuse of this subsidy, provide discount coupons to registered fisherfolks for the purchase of premix. GHS150mn (Savings) o. Maintain the 2022 capital expenditure level by reducing the nonABFA MDA and foreign finance Capex provisions by 50%. GHS10.7bn (Savings) p. Reduce transfers to statutory funds. Except for DACF, NHF and GETFund, the transfers to all other statutory funds should be reduced significantly from the 15% of tax revenues approved in the 2023 budget to 10%. Special focus may be placed on GNPC, Ghana EXIM Bank and MIIF. GHS7bn (Savings) q. Review and right-size MDAs and SOEs to maintain compensation expenses equivalent to 2022. This should include drastically reducing the number of MDAs, Ministers, and staff at the Office of Government Machinery (e.g. Presidential Staffers). GHS6.5bn (Savings) r. Review the Free SHS Programme to make it more efficient through effective targeting and allowing parents who can pay to do so. Beneficiaries should be students that patronize Senior High Schools in their communities whilst other students should pay for boarding. However, the government can pay for students who do not have Senior Secondary schools in their communities. GHS1bn (Savings) The measures proposed above, per the estimation of the IBF, yield net savings of GHS83.5bn. The IBF holds the position that the above recommendations are competent enough to urgently address the fiscal challenges and enable us to reach the desired 55% debt-to-GDP target proposed to the IMF. 4.4 Other Recommendations a. Lend the US$900mn Ghana Heritage Funds to the Bank of Ghana to shore up the reserves. b. Restructure the fiscal council to include a creditors committee made of reps from all investor classes in GoG local bonds and empower the council to be an enforcing and binding institution and not just an advisory body. This may be key to ensuring and sustaining the fiscal discipline required to realise our debt sustainability. 5.0 Observations The Government team whilst amenable to some of the proposals/recommendations from the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF), stressed the complexities with implementation given that some revenue/expenditure measures are of a medium-term nature and being considered by the government as part of its structural reform agenda and medium-term domestic revenue mobilisation strategy. However, any proposal that can be implemented immediately should be considered towards a speedy resolution of the current economic crisis. 6.0 Conclusion The Technical Committee emphasizes the need for continued engagements between the GoG and IBF on the debt exchange programme as well as the governments structural reforms to ensure macroeconomic stability and promote economic recovery and, on the feasibility of the proposed measures. Mr. Samuel Arkhurst Mr. Senyo Hosi Director, TDMD, MoF Convener, IBF Source: Classfmonline.com Retirees have been urged to take good care of themselves, exercise with caution, attend programmes selectively because not all invitations must be honoured, and ultimately ensure good health. You have successfully retired, it is a period to tell the whole world that you are resting, Mrs Mabel Judith Micah, the Effutu Municipal Director of Education, said. She was addressing a send-off ceremony organised by the Ghana Education Service (GES) Directorate for 16 teaching and non-teaching staff who retired in 2022 in the Municipality. Each of them received a citation, gifts and undisclosed amount of money, while those with exceptional performance were presented with additional awards. Mrs Micah wished them an enjoyable retirement as their service to Ghana made a big difference in the lives of the people. The teaching profession and its related work focused on making a difference in society and that was what the retirees did, impacting the lives of learners. Those small things work together to make a big difference in the lives of others, she said. Mrs Micah commended them for the hard work and professionalism and said the GES would forever remember their dedication and accomplishments. She expressed gratitude to all who supported the programme to make it memorable and prayed for God's blessings. Mr Godfred Agbakplor, the Effutu Zonal Chairman of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), in a solidarity massage, applauded the retirees for playing a pivotal role in education to improve the human resource base of the country. The role of the educational worker is so crucial and sensitive that Ghana must begin to take realistic and practical steps towards incentivising them to give their all just as other sectors are enjoying, he said. Data available point to the fact that when a worker enjoys good conditions of service, the worker retires with joy and that alone promotes longevity of life. We want our teachers to always retire well and live longer so that we can continue to tap from their rich knowledge and expertise. Neenyi Kobina Ebo Ghartey who chaired the event on behalf of Neenyi Ghartey VII, Paramount Chief of Effutu Traditional Area, commended the retirees from grooming Ghanas citizens and future leaders and asked for God's continued blessings in their future endeavours. Mr Peter Joojo Owusu Panford, on behalf of the retirees, expressed appreciation to the Directorate for the honour and appealed for such events to be organised annually. The Winneba Secondary School Choir and Don Bosco A JHS Choreography group entertained the gathering with songs and choreography displays. GNA When people think about artificial intelligence (AI), they may have visions of the future. But AI is already here. At its base, it is the recreation of aspects of human intelligence in computerised form. Like human intelligence, it has wide application. Voice-operated personal assistants like Siri , self-driving cars, and text and image generators all use AI. It also curates our social media feeds. It helps companies to detect fraud and hire employees . It's used to manage livestock , enhance crop yields and aid medical diagnoses . Alongside its growing power and its potential , AI raises moral and ethical questions . The technology has already been at the centre of multiple scandals : the infringement of laws and rights , as well as racial and gender discrimination. In short, it comes with a litany of ethical risks and dilemmas. But what exactly are these risks? And how do they differ among countries? To find out, I undertook a thematic review of literature from wealthier countries to identify six high-level, universal ethical risk themes. I then interviewed experts involved in or associated with the AI industry in South Africa and assessed how their perceptions of AI risk differed from or resonated with those themes. The findings reflect marked similarities in AI risks between the global north and South Africa as an example of a global south nation . But there were some important differences. These reflect South Africa's unequal society and the fact that it is on the periphery of AI development, utilisation and regulation. Other developing countries that share similar features a vast digital divide , high inequality and unemployment and low quality education likely have a similar risk profile to South Africa. Knowing what ethical risks may play out at a country level is important because it can help policymakers and organisations to adjust their risk management policies and practices accordingly. Universal themes The six universal ethical risk themes I drew from reviewing global north literature were: Accountability : It is unclear who is accountable for the outputs of AI models and systems. Bias : Shortcomings of algorithms, data or both entrench bias. Transparency : AI systems operate as a black box. Developers and end users have a limited ability to understand or verify the output. Autonomy : Humans lose the power to make their own decisions. Socio-economic risks : AI may result in job losses and worsen inequality. Maleficence: It could be used by criminals, terrorists and repressive state machinery. A lire aussi : In a world first, South Africa grants patent to an artificial intelligence system Then I interviewed 16 experts involved in or associated with South Africa's AI industry. They included academics, researchers, designers of AI-related products, and people who straddled the categories. For the most part, the six themes I'd already identified resonated with them. South African concerns But the participants also identified five ethical risks that reflected South Africa's country-level features. These were: Foreign data and models : Parachuting data and AI models in from elsewhere. Data limitations : Scarcity of data sets that represent, reflect local conditions. Exacerbating inequality : AI could deepen and entrench existing socio-economic inequalities. Uninformed stakeholders : Most of the public and policymakers have only a crude understanding of AI. Absence of policy and regulation: There are currently no specific legal requirements or overarching government positions on AI in South Africa. What it all means So, what do these findings tell us? Firstly, the universal risks are mostly technical. They are linked to the features of AI and have technical solutions. For instance, bias can be mitigated by more accurate models and comprehensive data sets. Most of the South African-specific risks are more socio-technical, manifesting the country's environment. An absence of policy and regulation, for example, is not an inherent feature of AI. It is a symptom of the country being on the periphery of technology development and related policy formulation. South African organisations and policymakers should therefore not just focus on technical solutions but also closely consider AI's socio-economic dimensions. Secondly, the low levels of awareness among the population suggest there is little pressure on South African organisations to demonstrate a commitment to ethical AI. In contrast, organisations in the global north have to show cognisance of AI ethics, because their stakeholders are more attuned to their rights vis-a-vis digital products and services. Finally, whereas the EU , UK and US have nascent rules and regulations around AI, South Africa has no regulation and limited laws relevant to AI. A lire aussi : Artificial intelligence carries a huge upside. But potential harms need to be managed The South African government has also failed to give much recognition to AI's broader impact and ethical implications. This differs even from other emerging markets such as Brazil, Egypt , India and Mauritius , which have national policies and strategies that encourage the responsible use of AI. Moving forward AI may, for now, seem far removed from South Africa's prevailing socio-economic challenges. But it will become pervasive in the coming years. South African organisations and policymakers should proactively govern AI ethics risks. This starts with acknowledging that AI presents threats that are distinct from those in the global north , and that need to be managed. Governing boards should add AI ethics to their agendas, and policymakers and members of governing boards should become educated on the technology. Additionally, AI ethics risks should be added to corporate and government risk management strategies similar to climate change , which received scant attention 15 or 20 years ago but now features prominently. Perhaps most importantly, the government should build on the recent launch of the Artificial Intelligence Institute of South Africa, and introduce a tailored national strategy and appropriate regulation to ensure the ethical use of AI. Emile Ormond ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possede pas de parts, ne recoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a declare aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche. By Emile Ormond, PhD candidate, University of South Africa The power crisis that has struck South Africa can leave citizens and businesses deprived of electricity for hours at a time -- but few victims are more vulnerable than undertakers. Mortuary directors are urging the bereaved to carry out fast-track funerals to avoid decay and ease pressure on morgue refrigerators. "The industry is seeing a large number of putrefied bodies," the South African Funeral Practitioners Association (SAFPA) declared bluntly this week. Burial within four days "is cost-effective and prevents families from seeing their departed ones in a poor state of decomposition," it said. That could require uncomfortable change in a country where most funerals take place one or two weeks after the death -- and mourners file past an open coffin, with the deceased on view, on the day of the funeral. Undertakers ease dependence on the state power monopoly Eskom by using diesel generators to keep their morgues cold. But they are being hit with soaring energy bills. "Smaller parlours are battling to make ends meet because now the majority of their funds are going towards dealing with" the outages, said Dududu Magano, spokesman for the National Funeral Directors' Association. Scheduled blackouts, known as load shedding, have burdened Africa's most industrialised economy for over a decade, as Eskom's creaking coal-fired plants struggle to meet demand. But the outages have reached new extremes over the past year, with power sometimes switched off up to four times a day, for periods of up to four and a half hours. Grace Matila, a Johannesburg undertaker of 10 years, blamed the outages for recently causing her refrigerator's compressor to fail. "The constant on-and-off caused it to stop working, but luckily I had a back-up compressor. Can you imagine what would have happened if I didn't?" she told AFP, saying she would have to pass on the higher electricity costs to clients. 'Ripple effect' Industry regulations require funeral parlours and mortuaries to have back-up generators, but not all comply. "Generators don't come cheap," said Mike Nqakula, who owns a funeral home in the small town of Uitenhage, around 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) south of Johannesburg, adding that many others in his town operate without them. "I know a guy whose parlour had to shut down because the municipality discovered a decomposed body," the 61-year-old told AFP. And undertakers' woes don't end with trying to preserve bodies. The blackouts are also hindering attempts to obtain the administrative documents needed to carry out burials or cremations, since Home Affairs Ministry offices go offline when the power is shut off, said Magano. The blackouts have caused a "ripple effect" across the sector, he added. Telephone calls are hit-or-miss when phone batteries are dead and cannot be charged, or network signals are weak because cellphone towers are down. As a result, people sometimes struggle to contact paramedics so that they can certify a person is dead, or to request body removal when a death occurs at home. At least five people have reportedly died after eating a meal of rice and beans, popularly known as waakye, they bought from a food joint at Oyibi Bush Canteen Junction in Accra, Daily Graphic reports. About 40 people were reportedly affected, out of which five, including a pregnant woman and a lotto vendor, died. The victims including the waakye seller, popularly known as Yellow Sisi, and some of her family members were rushed to the Valley View Hospital, Oyibi Hospital, Dodowa Hospital and other facilities when they complained of severe stomach-ache after they had eaten the food last week Friday. The Yellow Sisi Waakye joint is considered to be one of the popular food joints at Oyibi Bush Canteen. Food joint When the Daily Graphic team visited the area, it observed that the joint was quiet, and the kiosk locked. Some shops close to the food joint were also closed as it is believed that the shop owners who also patronised the food that day and suffered the side effects, were also said to be receiving treatment in the hospital. Confirmation When Daily Graphic followed up at the Valley View Hospital for confirmation, hospital officials did confirm the incident, indicating that a number of patients were rushed to the hospital in bad condition but as of today, all the patients have been discharged an official said. The Valley View Hospital Officials could not provide enough information as to the number of people who might have been affected but only indicated that the data from the hospital had been forwarded to the Kpone Katamanso District Hospital where further investigation was ongoing to ascertain the cause of the problem. Source: Daily Graphic Traders at the Nyankumasi Ahenkro Market in the Assin South District of the Central Region have lost their goods in a fire outbreak. Goods worth thousands of Ghana Cedis were destroyed when fire gutted the market. An eyewitness, the driver of a commercial vehicle, Patrick, narrating the incident to Class 91.3FMs Central Regional Correspondent Nana Tawiah said: Im a driver at this station, I was standing beside my car when I perceived the smoke. I actually thought it was one of our vehicles that had been gutted by fire. So I was looking around. Later when I looked around the market, I noticed smoke coming out from some three containers. I went behind and saw some boys who were lighting fire to the containers. So I screamed asking why they would try to set fire to someones container. When they attempted to leave the scene, I took pictures of them, in case they decide to run away, Ill still have their pictures to show. We called the Fire Service, who claimed their vehicle had broken down. So they didnt show up. According to the driver, though, efforts were made to douse the fire to salvage the wares of the traders, the fire spread to other shops. We attempted to douse the fire ourselves, by pouring sand, we tried our best to douse it but all the things in the containers were ruined in the fire. A driver at the station, Master Baah, appealed to government to provide the area with a fire station to respond to such situations. Were appealing to the Assin South authorities to provide us with a fire station. If we had a fire station they would have showed up to douse the fire. If were independent then Assin South should also have a fire station. Just look at how we called Abura-Dunkwa but they couldnt send firefighters, if we had ours, they would have responded and come to douse the fire to avoid further damage, Master Baah said. A female trader at the market, Akua Ewusi, however, blamed the problem on leadership. She bemoaned the inability of leaders in the Assin community for not working towards the development of the area. The leaders, are not helping the Assin community. If we had fire service in this area, this could have been stopped. The economy is hard, mothers are suffering to survive and take care of their children, now look at what has happened, people have lost their wares. The leaders are not helping us at all," Akua Ewusi said. Source: classfmonline.com Rwanda's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Vincent Biruta, on Thursday, January 26, said the Congolese government has ignored the agreement signed in Luanda, Angola, in November 2023. Biruta made the observation as he briefed lawmakers about Rwanda's relations with neighbouring countries. READ ALSO: Luanda summit calls for FDLR disarmament, M23 withdrawal "It is as if the Luanda communique is only about one thing, the M23 rebels. That's a problem," he said, noting that the Congolese government had not even started to implement part of what President Felix Tshisekedi committed to, including disarming the FDLR genocidal militia from Rwanda. READ ALSO: UN experts report says 'Congo collaborates with FDLR' The Luanda agreement called for the disarmament and repatriation of the genocidal militia, repatriation of Congolese refugees - over 75,000 of whom live in Rwandan camps - and a ceasefire between the Congolese army, FARDC, and M23 rebels, among others. Biruta said that only the M23 has started implementing the agreement. In December 2022, the rebels began withdrawing from their positions in Kibumba. In January 2023, they pulled out of Rumangabo military camp. "But there were other decisions made in Luanda as well, including about the FDLR [from Rwanda] that had to be disarmed and repatriated," Biruta said. "There is the issue of Congolese refugees, about 75,000 who are here in Rwanda, others are in Uganda and Kenya. Their problem was to be resolved and they would go back home. Today, when you hear what the Congolese government says, and the international community supports them, they say the agreement was not respected because the M23 did not withdraw as planned." Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Congo-Kinshasa Rwanda Angola 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. READ ALSO: DR Congo: Kenyatta 'deeply concerned' about worsening situation "They never say anything about the rest; the FDLR or other foreign armed groups, the refugee question, the political talks. Yet, all these are part of the communique. But with that communique, one thing that has started being implemented - not fully; it's only started - is the M23 withdrawal from some of its positions and they [vacated rebel positions] are now occupied by the East African Community regional force," Biruta said. READ ALSO: Congolese refugees petition embassies over DR Congo insecurity On the remaining issues of the other armed groups, including FDLR, the refugee question, he said, "there's not a single communique saying that there is a plan to go and visit the Congolese refugees who are in Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, organise a census, know who they are in the process of taking them back home," Biruta said. The Minister noted that there was no communication from the Congolese government, nothing from the UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, and "not even a communique about the FDLR disarmament." The Jubilee House and the Economic Management Team are not in favour of the inclusion of individual bondholders in the domestic debt exchange programme, the Vice President of IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, Mr Bright Simons, has claimed. According to him, even the Akufo-Addo Cabinet has broken ranks with Mr Ofori-Atta on the matter. How long can Finance Ministry hold out against sentiment in Ghana's Economic Management Team that individuals must be formally exempted from the debt exchange programme? Mr Simons asked in a tweet, adding: And, now, reports of Jubilee House also moving in that direction. Ministry insists 5% in 2023 is last offer. Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry is pretty isolated at Cabinet this afternoon. Will be interesting to see whether their nerves will hold as the rest of the government begins to buckle under pressure, he added. In the meantime, the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State, Togbe Afede XIV, has said the government of Ghana should first look at cutting down its expenditure and plugging financial loopholes to save the country money before extending the burden of the current economic crisis onto individual bondholders through a haircut in the domestic debt exchange programme. Togbe Afede made the suggestion when the Individual Bondholders Forum paid a courtesy call on him on Thursday, 26 January 2023, to rally support against the governments inclusion of individual bondholders in the debt exchange programme. The Forum, led by Mr Senyo Hosi, has tabled some proposals before the government through which the country could save GHS83.5 billion. Togbe Afede believes the government must clean its house first before touching any individuals bond proceeds. What expenditures can we cut out? Maybe, new and not-very-essential capital projects. What can we suspend? Ongoing, maybe unnecessary capital projects, the traditional leader noted, as well as turning attention to the size of government, payments to individuals, ex gratia, all kinds of allowances, monies that we spend on travels, et cetera. There is so much room, I believe, for cutting expenditure, he stressed, adding: And that is where, I think, we should be looking at first of all. If one goes by the estimates that have been put out there with regard to how much the nation loses to corruption annually, it suggests that there is room for trimming down government expenditure, Togbe Afede stressed. Mr Hosi, during the call, told the chief: Togbe, the matter is an eye-red matter, and, for someone who has led the capital market and being one of the players who birthed the capital market besides your royal place as the Agbogbomefia of the Asogli State you are a pioneer in this industry. I do not want to believe this is your voice and the destination you assured us when your voice was heard back then, Mr Hosi noted. So, we are here to petition your office, to petition you, as an individual, and the state of Asogli, not to sit by and watch the lives of 6.5 million people devastated and subjected to shackles of penury. So, our plea here is very simple: the steps being taken by the government are unsustainable and very unnecessary. The Forums proposed money-saving measures include enforcing property taxation and VAT invigilation, recovering funds lost to financial irregularities as identified by the Auditor-General, divesting loss-making, defunct and troubled 17 state-owned enterprises, privatising selected SOEs to Tier-2 pension funds to drive efficiency and productivity, and reviewing the Free SHS Programme to make it more efficient through effective targeting and allowing parents who can pay to do so among others. The measures proposed above, per the estimation of the IBF, yield net savings of GHS83.5bn, the IBF said in its report, adding: The above recommendations are competent enough to urgently address the fiscal challenges and enable us to reach the desired 55% debt-to-GDP target proposed to the IMF. Read the IBFs full report below: REPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GHANA (GOG)-INDIVIDUAL BONDHOLDERS FORUM (IBF) TECHNICAL COMMITTEE ON THE EXCLUSION OF INDIVIDUAL BONDHOLDERS FROM THE DOMESTIC DEBT EXCHANGE (DDE) PROGRAMME 25th January 2023 1.0 Introduction The Government initially exempted individuals when it launched the DDE programme on 5th December 2023. Subsequently, the government amended the original Invitation to Exchange to include individual bondholders (IBs) with a belief that the terms of the amended Invitation to Exchange improve the economic terms and offer individual investors the opportunity to participate in such enhanced terms. Although no restrictions are contemplated for the trading of the non-tendered eligible bonds (Old Bonds), the liquidity of Old Bonds after an exchange is usually much more limited than the liquidity of the new bonds. In addition, the market value of new bonds can potentially be higher than the value of the Old Bonds. The reason the government amended the Invitation to Exchange is to allow individual legal holders of record of Eligible Bonds to participate in the exchange. Following the amendment of the exchange to include individual bondholders in the perimeter of the DDE Programme, a petition demanding the exclusion of the individuals was issued on 13th January 2023 by the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF), a representative body for individual investors (collectively known as Individual Bondholders) in GoG notes and bonds, ESLA bonds, Daakye bonds, Ghana Eurobonds and Collective investment schemes with investments in all those securities. The government called for a meeting on 18th January 2023 to have a dialogue with the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) and to explore mutually beneficial options within the debt sustainability limit that will lead to the landing zone of present value (PV) of the debt-to-GDP ratio of 55% by 2028. During the meeting, a technical committee was constituted, comprising membership from GoG and IBF to work together to explore options for excluding the individual bondholders from the DDE Programme and its impact on the landing zone of 55%. The Committee, comprising two members, each, from the GoG team and the IBF team on the resolution of issues of individual bondholding in the DDE Programme. The GoG team was led by Mr. Samuel Arkhurst and the IBF team was led by Mr. Senyo Hosi. The members of the Committee are: No. Name Institution/Position Membership 1. Mr. Samuel Arkhurst, Director, TDMD, MoF, Leader of the GoG Team 2. Dr. Alhassan Iddrisu, Director, ESRD, MoF Member 3. Mr. Senyo Hosi Convenor, IBF Leader of the IBF Team 4. Mr. David Tetteh, Convenor, IBF Member 5. Mr. Martin Kpebu (Esq.), Convenor, IBF IBF Member, In attendance 6. Dr. Adu Anane Antwi Convenor, PBF Observer The Committee is supported by a secretariat as follows: 1. Mr. Kwame Gyesaw, Unit Head MFPU, MoF 2. Ms. Elizabeth Owiredu, Unit Head DCM, MoF 3. Mr. Abdul-Fatawu Hakeem, SEO, MoF 2.0 Terms of Reference The IBF identified their coverage of investments to include individual holders of bonds as well as Individuals who have investments in Collective Investment Schemes (CIS). However, the pensioners distinguished individuals who are natural persons holding securities registered under the Central Securities Depository (CSD). The Committee agreed on the following as its Terms of Reference (TOR): i. Identification of key issues by individual bondholders and Collective Investment Schemes (CIS) in the DDE Programme. ii. Explore mutually beneficial options within the debt sustainability limit that will lead to the landing zone of 55% PV of debt-to-GDP by 2028, resulting from the exclusion of individual bondholders in the Domestic Debt Exchange (DDE) Programme; and iii. Any other matter consequential to the DDE Programme. 3.0 Summary of Presentation on the DDE Programme The leader of the GoG team made a short presentation on the debt exchange programme summarised as follows: i. The total universe of domestic debt instruments covers, Treasury Bills (91-Day, 182-Day, and 364-Day), Treasury notes and bonds (2 to 20 years), ESLA, Daakye, Cocoa Bills, Non-Marketable securities, and the domestic US Dollar bond; ii. For purposes of the debt exchange programme, Treasury Bills are excluded whilst GoG notes and bonds, ESLA and Daakye are included; iii. The Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) using the IMF DSA Framework undertaken by MoF shows that Ghanas public debt is high and unsustainable. The analysis shows that the PV of the debt-to-GDP ratio is over 100% against a debt sustainability threshold of 55%. This means that to achieve debt sustainability, Ghana must implement policies and programmes to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio in present value terms by at least 45 percentage points (ppt) in the medium term. Debt service, comprising interest and amortisation payments (domestic and external) alone constituted a provisional 100% of total revenues in 2022; iv. It is a requirement that a country accessing an IMF (Fund) Programme should demonstrate that its debt is on a sustainable path before the country can secure a Programme from the Fund; v. Government is, therefore, addressing the debt sustainability issue through measures including fiscal adjustments, structural reforms, and debt operation all of which are in line with the IMF Programme being negotiated; vi. The debt operation entails both domestic and external debt; vii. The above measures put the debt-to-GDP ratio in PV terms at 55%; and viii. Excluding the pension funds from the DDE programme worsens the debt-to-GDP ratio by 1.8 ppt., thereby making the 55% threshold unattainable by 2028. 4.0 Summary of Presentation by Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF) 4.1 The IBF Case a. The inclusion of individuals in the DDE will destroy household confidence in Ghanas financial system and securities market. It will shift savings and investments away from the official banking system. This is evident in Ghanas economic and social history. b. With households being the primary source of loanable funds in the Ghanaian economy, the occurrence of the above will deplete the stock of loanable funds, private and public sector access to credit, and stifle growth. The impact may be irreparable or may require a longer term to regenerate confidence. c. The fall in confidence will worsen our currency depreciation challenges, as more individuals rationally turn to foreign currencies as a mechanism to store the value of their wealth or savings. d. Following the banking crisis, most individual investors opted to invest in the lower-returning GoG securities for safety reasons and to provide security of returns required to meet pertinent needs such as medication, childrens education and the general welfare of their families. The social impact of the DDE programme as currently presented for individuals is the harshest on anyinvestor category and catastrophic to the livelihoods of about 1.3mn local individual investors and 6.5mn dependents. Unlike other investor categories likely to benefit from the Financial Stability Fund, Individual Bondholders have no support to fall back on. e. The value of IBs holdings which has been built over years is instantly wiped off by 77%-88% on acceptance of the DDE programme. This is untenable. f. The individual bondholding and holdings through collective investment schemes stand at about GHS15.5bn, representing about 11% of the eligible bonds and the capitalised interest. With the set target of 80% of eligible bonds, Individual Bondholders are not a critical success factor to the viability of the DDE programme as you envisage, yet the impact of their inclusion has incalculable consequences. g. The debt accrued was used for the purposes of the entire populace, it is, therefore, inequitable to single out bondholders only to suffer the cost of a benefit that other investors and citizens benefitted from. Why is there no equal intervention for individuals who opted to invest in real estate instead of financing the State? 4.2 The IBF Position The IBF identifies with the need to achieve debt sustainability but holds that the inclusion of individual bondholders and collective investment schemes will be economically counterproductive and socially catastrophic. The IBF, therefore, maintains that IBs be exempted from the DDE Programme. Debt sustainability should be attained through the following: i. Fiscal adjustments; ii. Revision of the DDE proposal to the structured groups such as the Banks and Insurance entities; iii. Grow GDP: Reduce the crowding-out effect of the governments excessive net domestic borrowing to pave access for real sector financing to spur growth; Revise GoGs posturing to investors to deepen investment in the extractive sectors (upstream and mining); and iv. A committed fight against corruption. 4.3 Fiscal Readjustments The IBF, consequently, recommends that Government reviews and makes the following specific adjustments to its revenue and expenditure to contain the current economic crisis: Fiscal Section Fiscal Readjustment Est. Revenue/Savings (GHS) Revenue: a. Enforce the filing of interest/coupon income on corporate instruments (ESLA, Daakye, Cocoa bills) as part of Personal Income Tax (PIT) and effect the 25% tax related to the income. Alternatively, revise the 1% withholding of the related securities to 20% and make it final and deductible at the source. This creates an additional revenue of circa GHS104 million for the current fiscal year. GHS104mn (Savings) b. Oil production has dropped from over 200kbpd to below 160kbpd yield revenue loss more than $300mn (GHS3.6bn) in 2022. The government should, as a matter of urgency, review the regulatory and fiscal environment to encourage existing producers to ramp up production and develop new fields. GHS3.6bn (Savings) c. Government should exercise its right under the Aker petroleum agreement (Deepwater Tano) to repossess the block or compel the immediate commencement of development by the contractor. This field has the potential of delivering up to 100kbpd yielding over GHS5.6bn per year to the government. GHS 5.6bn (Savings) d. Expedite reforms to enforce property taxes. With landed properties of circa 2,200,000 in Ghana (Ghana Population and Housing Census 2021), we anticipate that achieving an average annual rate of GHS1,000 per property at a collection efficiency of 50%, will yield the government over GHS1.1bn in revenue. GHS1.1bn (Savings) e. Rise above politics and fully enforce the VAT invigilation that saw the rise of VAT revenue by 1000% in some cases. This assumes a 15% over the 2023 estimated VAT collection of GHS23.7bn GHS3.5bn (Savings) f. Pursue the recovery of funds lost through financial irregularities of MDAs in the Auditor Generals Reports (2015-2022). Source: 2nd Fiscal Recklessness Index Report, 2020 (page 2). GHS13.9bn (Savings) g. Pursue the recovery of the over GHS5bn tax evasion in the petroleum downstream sector (2016-2021). Source: CBOD Petroleum Industry Report 2020/21. GHS5bn (Savings) h. Divest loss-making, defunct and troubled 17 State-own enterprises (as identified and announced by the Ministry for Public Enterprises). GHS1bn (Savings) i. Privatize selected SOEs to Tier-2 pension funds to drive efficiency and productivity. The government will realize funds from the divestiture with ownership still retained by the workers of Ghana. These SOEs may include the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Ghana RE. GHS20bn (Savings) j. Review and rationalize the budget of SOEs and increase capping of high revenue generating SOEs to shore up central government revenue and reduce waste in SOEs. GHS1bn (Savings) k. The BOST Margin should be converted into a levy and channelled into government revenue. BOST is a fully commercial entity and it is untenable to continue to tax the public to fund its activities while it charges commercial rates for its services. GHS300mn (Savings) l. Revise royalties for new and yet-to-renegotiate mining leases from the standard 5% to 15%. For example, the payback period for the new lithium mines is less than five months with an internal rate of return of 224% and yet government royalties is set at 10%. Not estimated Expenditure m. The budget provision for the energy sector shortfall of Ghs23bn should be revised downwards by GHS3bn through the reduction of transmission losses, technical losses, and administrative inefficiencies. Effectively implement the Energy Sector Recovery Programme (ESRP) recommendations. GHS3bn (Savings) n. Cap the subsidies on the premix petroleum at Ghs200mn thereby reducing the budget by GHS150mn. Owing to the wanton abuse of this subsidy, provide discount coupons to registered fisherfolks for the purchase of premix. GHS150mn (Savings) o. Maintain the 2022 capital expenditure level by reducing the nonABFA MDA and foreign finance Capex provisions by 50%. GHS10.7bn (Savings) p. Reduce transfers to statutory funds. Except for DACF, NHF and GETFund, the transfers to all other statutory funds should be reduced significantly from the 15% of tax revenues approved in the 2023 budget to 10%. Special focus may be placed on GNPC, Ghana EXIM Bank and MIIF. GHS7bn (Savings) q. Review and right-size MDAs and SOEs to maintain compensation expenses equivalent to 2022. This should include drastically reducing the number of MDAs, Ministers, and staff at the Office of Government Machinery (e.g. Presidential Staffers). GHS6.5bn (Savings) r. Review the Free SHS Programme to make it more efficient through effective targeting and allowing parents who can pay to do so. Beneficiaries should be students that patronize Senior High Schools in their communities whilst other students should pay for boarding. However, the government can pay for students who do not have Senior Secondary schools in their communities. GHS1bn (Savings) The measures proposed above, per the estimation of the IBF, yield net savings of GHS83.5bn. The IBF holds the position that the above recommendations are competent enough to urgently address the fiscal challenges and enable us to reach the desired 55% debt-to-GDP target proposed to the IMF. 4.4 Other Recommendations a. Lend the US$900mn Ghana Heritage Funds to the Bank of Ghana to shore up the reserves. b. Restructure the fiscal council to include a creditors committee made of reps from all investor classes in GoG local bonds and empower the council to be an enforcing and binding institution and not just an advisory body. This may be key to ensuring and sustaining the fiscal discipline required to realise our debt sustainability. 5.0 Observations The Government team whilst amenable to some of the proposals/recommendations from the Individual Bondholders Forum (IBF), stressed the complexities with implementation given that some revenue/expenditure measures are of a medium-term nature and being considered by the government as part of its structural reform agenda and medium-term domestic revenue mobilisation strategy. However, any proposal that can be implemented immediately should be considered towards a speedy resolution of the current economic crisis. 6.0 Conclusion The Technical Committee emphasizes the need for continued engagements between the GoG and IBF on the debt exchange programme as well as the governments structural reforms to ensure macroeconomic stability and promote economic recovery and, on the feasibility of the proposed measures. Mr. Samuel Arkhurst Mr. Senyo Hosi Director, TDMD, MoF Convener, IBF Source: Classfmonline.com There was drama at the Tema District Court when two persons standing trial in connection with the murder of the Marketing and Public Relations Manager of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Josephine Asante were discharged by the court and were re-arrested and escorted to the Police headquarters. When the case was called on Monday, the Prosecution informed the Court that they were withdrawing the charges leveled against the accused persons based on advice from the Attorney General and Minister of Justice. According to prosecution, the Court should therefore, discharge the accused persons, namely Christian Agyei, 22, House boy and Amos Apraku, driver of the deceased who were facing committal proceedings. While the accused persons were leaving the court room, the Police on the other hand took positions at the court premises and escorted the accused persons into a waiting vehicle to the Police headquarters. They have been put in custody to assist with further investigations as a result of new development in the matter which has traveled over 3years. According to the facts of the case presented to the court by Inspector Beatrice Ayeh, the complainant in the case was Amos Apraku, an employee and driver of the deceased. She said the deceased was residing at block E of EMEF Estate on the Afienya road together with her husband, their 12-year son and the suspect. She said the deceased's husband travelled to the United Kingdom, leaving her with the suspect and son. According to the prosecution, on January 12, 2019, Mrs. Asante attended a get-together party organised by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority at the senior staff club house at Tema Community six. She said at about 11:30pm, the complainant drove her from the party grounds towards her house. However, the driver was said to have alighted at Michel Camp and handed over the keys of the Mercedes Benz salon car to Mrs. Asante to continue the journey from Michel Camp to her home at EMEFS Estates by herself. Prosecution indicated that the House boy met his madam upon reaching home and collected a polythene bag from her and returned to his room at the boys' quarters adding that, he could, however, not tell the time she arrived or whether another person was in her Mercedes Benz saloon car. The prosecution said the house boy informed investigators that at about 03:30am that Sunday that he and the deceased's son heard some unusual sound on the compound and therefore conducted a search but did not find anything. They therefore retired to bed. Prosecution stated, however, that the house boy claimed he saw a male figure wearing a black t-shirt and a jeans running through the living room and escaped through the main gate. Inspector Ayeh said at about 08:30am on Sunday, January 13, 2019, the suspect and the son tried opening Mrs Asante's door but found it locked and therefore called the driver. The driver, according to the police, found the keys to the house at the entrance of the gate when he went there upon receiving the call and used same to open the deceased's door and found her in a pool of blood lying supine. The prosecutor said investigators who were assigned to the case after the complaint was lodged, collected semen found in her, finger prints and other evidence at the scene. According to the facts the investigators spotted the house boy burying a polythene bag containing GH430 and the deceased's wristwatch behind his room and was therefore apprehended. ---DGN online The Executive Director of Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS) Nana Gyamfi Adwabour says CENDLOS is adopting Edtech innovations to create sustained transitional pathways in digitizing TVET and Complimentary Education Agency (CEA) learning content. This initiative firmly fits strategically in the bold agenda of the sector Minister Hon. Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum to transform education using robust and innovative Edtech solutions. The Executive Director in his remarks at a three-day workshop organized by CENDLOS in collaboration with the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL), Canada said the agency is adopting sustained Edtech innovations to digitize some TVET and Complimentary Education Agency learning content to host them on offline and online learning management systems. "it is expected that 50 percent of all activities in our everyday life will be done online by the end of this decade, whether formal or informal. "Therefore, this calls for the introduction of "Edtech solutions into these important areas of the educational sector", he remarked. The workshop organized in Aburi seeks to review and develop strategies for the expansion of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and Complimentary Education through digitization. Mr. Adwabour added that CENDLOS, an agency under the Ministry of Education in charge of implementing technological solutions across pre-tertiary educational institutions in Ghana, will focus on five key areas of engagement with GTVET and CEA. "The key areas are policy, infrastructure, practical content, capacity building, and assessment," he stated. The Director of CEA Mr. Francis Asumadu, applauded the initiative, adding that it will bring the needed equity and access to the non-formal educational sector. On his part, Mr. Okran a representative from Commission for Technical and Vocational Training (CTVET) embraced this initiative and said CTVET has always been ready for a such technological move to help transform the TVET sector. Mr Adwabour called on stakeholders in the virtual learning space to come on board to support CENDLOS in implementing its initiatives to aid technology-mediated learning in Ghana. About CENDLOS CENDLOS is leading the Open schooling and distance education agenda in Ghana. Innovations such as the Learning Passport(LP), iBox, icampus and have been introduced to facilitate virtual learning. The Learning Passport is an online and offline mobile modality learning platform designed for Basic School and Junior High School students to bridge the learning poverty gap in Ghana. The innovation is powered by Microsoft and supported by UNICEF, explicitly implemented by CENDLOS. The iBox is an offline learning platform designed for learners in underserved communities where access to the internet is a big challenge. The icampus on the other hand is the online version of the ibox that has been developed to ensure students continue to access educational materials away from school or on vacation using their index numbers and their unique password. It has close to one million three hundred students enrolled and over three hundred thousand active users utilizing the system which has duly contributed to the recent rise in the passing rates of our SHS students. These learning platforms allow learners to access educational materials without the internet. Educational materials can be accessed in the form of text, audio-visual and interactive questions. 27.01.2023 LISTEN The war in Ukraine raises again many different questions about war as another means to govern, the role of soldiers, and the aspect of killing people. Originally armies were mostly set up as professional forces to serve a leader and get paid for everything that comes with offensive and defensive wars. Crimes against War standards were not on the mind of anyone only victory or defeat matters to leaders, citizens, and Judges. In some cases, citizens especially those from poor backgrounds were forced into armies by hunger or the order of leaders (Kings and other lower Royals). They had to fight no matter what otherwise their own people would have taken their life to keep discipline in the army and goals working for Kings and Royals. When the world had witnessed the two World Wars of the last centuries things gradually began to change. Geneva Convention was agreed to form the rules of brutal conflicts such as wars. Any violation is punishable but member states are sovereign countries after all. Punishment only works morally with the hope atrocities might not happen ever again but not with punishment that will ultimately hurt leaders or nations except for prominent few cases in the Den Haag (Vladimir Putin will most likely be not facing Judges in Den Haag, so the former US Presidents). Many armies around the world have changed their narrative to call each male citizen by force to take up army training or serve in military forces with the normal exception of North Korea, Israel, and alike. Any citizen that is heading to a war of aggression is aware he is ordered to kill others who had done him personally no harm nor his family or nation but the war and killings are by orders of others having ambitious plans for their personal place in history from the comfort of their homes and state offices. In the past, much has been discussed and argued about the role and responsibilities of individual soldiers in a collective deadly fight against another nation, not in self-defense. Combat computer games with crisps and beer next to the computer or operating drones from inside warm military operation vehicles and behind tanks killing people kilometers far away is still very difficult compared to the man-to-man wars of ancient times, no more personal but a technicality while deadly or bloody for the victims. This situation and trend make it even more pressing for citizens to think about what they are doing in society and the individual responsibility they have when being at the front of war and killing other people's human life. To say they were forced to do it is no longer good enough as others bring up the wisdom and moral strength to defect and stay in a foreign country away from the killings of others. The Peace Movement of the 1980s drew a scenario that was seen by many as too romantic and unrealistic: Imagine there is war and no one attends. NATO countries have decided to invest more of their GDP into the armed forces. Like the NATO double treaty of the 1980s, this is yet another arms race through the massive oak tree backdoor but not the needed solution. As much as massive armies can stop potential aggressors from taking mankind to bloodshed and force leaders to sit around the negotiation table history has let us witness that only when the pain inflicted is felt personally do things have a chance to change. Responsibility for killing others as the aggressor in a war is first and foremost personal no matter the system and methods behind it. When mankind can teach this into the hearts and minds of all humans around planet Earth like Environment Activists do in their corner a realistic new scenario as envisioned by the Peace Movement of the 1980s will be a vital step ahead. French President Emmanuel Macron met Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Thursday to sign a set of strategic agreements intended to boost Baghdad's economic cooperation with Paris, notably in the energy and public transportation sectors. France and Iraq signed a treaty seeking to strengthen bilateral relations in the spheres of anti-corruption, security, renewable energy and culture, the Elysee Palace said in a statement issued on Friday. Macron and Shia al-Sudani "have reaffirmed their commitment to complete major infrastructures projects based on French know-how", the statement said On the question of energy transition, the two leaders are committed to the implementation of TotalEnergies's project based on solar energy and investments in gas. Earlier this week, it was revealed that that Qatar was in talks to acquire some of French oil major TotalEnergies' $27 billion cluster of energy projects in Iraq, as Baghdad hopes to stem efforts by western energy companies to exit the country. When TotalEnergies and Baghdad in 2021 signed an agreement to build four giant solar, gas, power and water projects in southern Iraq over 25 years, hopes for an exodus reversal were high. Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP have all sought to scale back their operations in Iraq in recent years. (with wires) More than one-third of the Amazon rainforest may have been degraded by human activity and drought, researchers say, as Brazilian President Lula da Silva urged his French counterpart to attend the upcoming summit of Amazon countries. Most research into the Amazon's ecosystem has focused on the impact of deforestation. However, a process known as "degradation" is further contributing to the Amazon's demise. A study published in the journal Science on Thursday found that 38 percent of what remains of the the world's largest rainforest has been degraded in some way by humans much more than previously known. Fire, timber extraction and edge effects degraded at least 5.5 percent (364,748 square kilometers) of the forest between 2001 and 2018. Once the effects of drought are factored in, the degraded area increases to 2.5 million square kms, or 38 percent of the remaining forests. "Extreme droughts have become increasingly frequent in the Amazon as land-use change and human-induced climate change progress, affecting tree mortality, fire incidence, and carbon emissions to the atmosphere," the researchers said. Since forest fires intensify during drought years, they warned of "much larger megafires" in the future. The researchers from Brazil's Universidade Estadual de Campinas and other institutions based their findings on satellite images and other data from 2001 to 2018. 'We fail to act at our peril' In a separate study on the human impacts on the Amazon, researchers from the University of Louisiana Lafayette and elsewhere called for action. "The Amazon is perched to transition rapidly from a largely natural to degraded and transformed landscape, under the combined pressures of regional deforestation and global climate change," they said. "The changes are happening much too rapidly for Amazonian species, peoples, and ecosystems to respond adaptively." They called for policies to prevent the worst outcomes to be enacted immediately. "To fail the Amazon is to fail the biosphere, and we fail to act at our peril," they said. Pledge to end deforestation Brazil's new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has pledged to end deforestation of the Amazon by 2030. In a phone call to Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, he talked about the importance of France attending a summit of the eight countries of the Amazon forest that Brazil plans to host in the next few months France is the only European country to share the biome, through its overseas territory of French Guiana. Macron has meanwhile asked Brazil to attend its own "One Forest Summit" that France and Gabon will host in early March, according to the Brazilian statement. Following their conversation, Macron said he had reaffirmed his determination to take action "for the climate, biodiversity, our forests and against hunger". The level of development of Ghana, almost 67 years after independence, suggests there is the need to develop policies (Big Ideas) that are capable of spurring growth and economic development. Economic development is not realised because of the failure of political leadership: development issues have been entrusted to politicians who poorly handle such issues. In that light, I suggest the following thematic areas as discussed: Develop a National Development Plan: Political parties have shown their inability to execute majority of their party manifesto items. Parties that win political power are only able to implement about fifty percent (50%) of their manifesto items or programs and policies at the end of the term (s) of their government: this target is even only achievable when the party in power performs exceptionally. Ghana needs to learn from this experience and develop a National Development Plan, which will serve as the composite development framework for all parties to derive their manifesto items from. The country needs to create a 40-year or 50-year development plan that serves as a document that propels the direction of development of the country revisiting the Development Plan created by the NDC government is not an entirely bad political or democratic endeavour. A Development Plan for the next four (4) decades or the next half century (50 years) is essential to direct the creation of development opportunities for the people of Ghana: such a plan should be able to create growth in infrastructure for all sectors, social amenities, jobs and welfare for the masses. It must also be capable of securing economic freedom and happiness for the people of Ghana With a properly-developed National Development Plan, the country can close the development gap in all sectors by assessing its needs in those sectors and estimating the time and resources including human capital needed to achieve such goals. The amount of kilometres of roads to be constructed in the country, for instance, can be estimated within the plan. Timelines can then be allotted for the completion of the kilometres of road in the country. This proposed strategy to complete the various kilometres of roads in Ghana can be replicated in other areas. The number of factories, hospitals, secondary schools, polyclinics, markets, universities and other facilities necessary for the development of the country in the next 40 years or 50 years can be planned ahead of time and implemented in a piecemeal manner. The development needs of the country must be programmed for the number of years considered appropriate for the attainment of such goals. Subsequently, all political parties must adopt ideas or policies from the plan as manifesto items. The use of a National Development Plan can help achieve the ideals of Article 35(7), that As far as practicable, a government shall continue and execute projects and programmes commenced by the previous Governments. Political parties must be compelled by law a new law can be enacted for such a purpose; to continue from their predecessors, without developing new policies and programs. The provision of development opportunities is not safe in the hands of politicians. Restructure the National Development Planning Commission: The Constitution of Ghana created a National Development Planning Commission: Article 86 (1) states there shall be a National Development Planning Commission. The Commission consists of (i) a Chairman who shall be appointed by the President in consultation with the Council of State; (ii) the Minister responsible for Finance and such other Ministers of State as the President may appoint; (iii) the Government Statistician; (iv) the Governor of the Bank of Ghana; (v) one representative from each region of Ghana appointed by the Regional Co-ordinating Council of the region; (vi) such other persons as may be appointed by the President having regard to their knowledge and experience of the relevant areas and roles pertaining to development, economic, social, environmental and spatial planning. The composition of the National Development Planning Commission is too political that technical expertise was, and still is not valued in the structure of its leadership. The functions of the National Development Planning Commission require the use of technocrats. It must also be an independent development planning agency. All the persons in its leadership roles are appointed by the President. There are no permanent persons with technical expertise to lead it. The National Development Planning Commission is weak in practice because, its advisories may not be adopted and used by the President: The President has a mandate to achieve in the form of a manifesto. Yet, the Commission is given the mandate to advise the President on development planning policy and strategy Article 87(1). The President of the republic will definitely be interested in achieving his manifesto items than implementing new policy ideas proposed by the Commission. The NDPC is required to; in Article 87 clause 2(b) make proposals for the development of multi-year rolling plans taking into consideration the resources potential and comparative advantage of the different districts of Ghana. The Commission has derelict on its function of developing workable and effective development-oriented short-term, medium-term or long-term plans for Ghana. It is convenient therefore to restructure the Commission and task it with major development planning decisions as well as resourcing it with persons with technical expertise in development and spatial planning A well-restructured National Development Planning Commission, devoid of polarization and all forms of political partisanship, can help curb the problem of abandoned projects. All political parties in Ghana must be compelled to continue the implementation of programs and projects commenced by their predecessors, which were picked from the National Development Plan Article 35(7). The phenomenon of abandoning projects creates waste in the use of scarce resources. But the NDPC is tasked to; in Article 87 clause 2(d) make proposals for ensuring the even development of the development of the districts of Ghana by the effective utilization of available resources. Currently, the function of monitoring, evaluation and coordinating development policies, programmes and projects (Article 87 clause 2(e)) is not attainable and realistic when political persons are permitted to lead such a key development agency. The current structure of the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana does not make it an independent agency to monitor, evaluate and coordinate state projects. If the Commission performs this function appropriately, there would have been synchronization in building infrastructural facilities for Ghana. Projects are abandoned because the NDPC does not have the power and the political will to advise the President to continue the programmes and projects of past governments the government in power forms the leadership of the agency through appointments. As such, the Commission will be closely connected to the government to work towards achieving its manifesto items than advising it (the government) to continue the implementation of projects and programmes of predecessors. Create oil-for-local Consumption Contracts: The gold-for-oil initiative can be imitated differently. The country can infuse clauses in its oil contracts to process part of its share of crude oil. This must be done only when the figures point to a net gain. That is, if there is a likelihood of a gain in processing crude oil locally than importing refined crude. The net gain is the difference between the gains of exporting crude oil to the international market and processing same quantity locally. This strategy demands reorganization the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to utilise its operative capacity. Oil-for-local consumption contracts, just like the gold-for-oil ingenuity, can save millions of dollars by processing crude oil locally. This model must be explored further to ascertain its efficacy. Cut the importation of rice by 30% or 50%: Ghana has the capacity to produce at least 30% of its rice imports per annum. It is therefore reasonable to plan the production of 30% of its rice imports in the short to medium-term, and 50% in the long-term. There is no enough preparedness to cut the importation of rice through the use of governments flagship programmes such as the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) and the One-District, One-Factory (1D1F). There is no evidence to support any suggestion of effectiveness of these programmes. The outcomes of the two programmes would have been visible in terms of outputs in the agricultural sector. The modernization of the agricultural sector through the use of the Planting for Food and Jobs strategy should be redirected at achieving food sustenance. One area that the programme can produce results is the rice sector. Reports from the sector indicate there is a huge niche to tap. There is the need for the State to design a feasible plan or approach, to cut its rice imports within a defined period. Introduce effective Public Expenditure Commitment Controls: Ghanas public finances are severely misused. Internal auditors have compromised the integrity of the system developed to check the wasteful use of public financial resources. Public expenditure commitment controls at the MDAs are not effective because there is opportunity for corruption to pass through every system at these agencies. The use of effective public expenditure commitment controls can reduce the inefficiency and wastage in the public sector. The use of an achievable National Development Plan, where political parties are compelled to develop their manifesto items from, and continue projects of their predecessors, will curtail the uneconomical use of resources through abandoned projects. A National Development Plan will equally spell out the development path of the country. The use of party manifestos to deliver development opportunities in Ghana has been unsuccessful, as the political parties have continuously shown their inability to achieve such targets which are recycled in future elections. BY Emmanuel Kwabena Wucharey Economics Tutor, Advocate and Religion Enthusiast. Former Ghana President, John Dramami Mahama has reiterated that President Akufo-Addo should be solely blamed for the economic crisis facing the country. According to the leading member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), he achieved economic stability as president before the New Patriotic Party (NPP) wrestled power from him in the 2016 general elections. Delivering a lecture in the United Kingdom on Friday, January 27, John Dramani Mahama stressed that unfortunately, President Akufo-Addo and his NPP government have collapsed everything. When President Akufo-Addo came we had achieved economic stability. All they needed was to continue from there but unfortunately, this is where they have led us to, John Dramani Mahama bemoaned during his address at the Chatham House, UK. In his lecture, the former President bemoaned how his government did not speak more about their achievement despite perfuming very well. He indicated that given another chance in the future, an NDC government will do more to let Ghanaians know about their success stories. We were not forceful in letting the people see what we had done, we assumed they would see. We did quite a lot. Maybe next time if we get the chance, our leaders should make it a point to let the people know what we have done, John Dramani Mahama shared. 27.01.2023 LISTEN Executive Director of the Atta Mills Institute, Koku Anyidoho, has said the recent change in leadership of the Minority caucus in Parliament, will bring about tribal, religious and ethnic divisions among the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC). According to the Atta Mills Institute Executive Director, changing the Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu and Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, who are both Muslims without replacing them with Muslims but rather non-Muslims, sends a certain signal to Muslims that the party does not want them. Speaking on CTVs Dwabre Mu, Friday, 27 January 2023, Mr Anyidoho indicated that the NDC party will now become a laughing stock for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP). He told co-host of the show, Hajia Bintu Saana that: We have two Muslims, Haruna and Muntaka, two practicing Muslims. NDC has been mocking NPP, all the time that they dont like Muslims. Now you remove the two Muslims, you didnt bring another Muslim to replace them. Today, NPP people are laughing at us because we who claimed to like Muslims, have today sacked them. Mr Anyidoho indicated that the change was not good for the NDC party, as Muslims would rather turn to support the New Patriotic Partys (NPP) Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who is also the Vice-President, due to the partys decision to remove the two leaders. So today, theyll go to the Mosque and pray to Allah that NDC doesnt like Muslims, so they resolve that from today, theyll rather go where they will be celebrated as Muslims and then theyll all go and support Bawumia. He added that: The ethnic and religious dimension has already begun. Go to Tamale South, go to Asawase, arent you hearing the things that were all hearing. So the ethnic dimension, the religious dimension the tribal dimension has already kicked in. Source: classfmonline.com Former Ghana President, John Dramani Mahama has admonished the entire citizenry not to be apolitical. According to him, it is important that every single Ghanaian show interest in how the country is governed for the benefit of everyone now and in the future. Everybody must be interested in how the nation is run, nobody should be apolitical, John Dramani Mahama admonished Ghanaians during a lecture at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom. He further bemoaned how the ruling government has collapsed the Ghanaian economy after he stabilised things during his time as president. When President Akufo-Addo came we had achieved economic stability. All they needed was to continue from there but unfortunately, this is where they have led us to, John Dramani Mahama lamented. The lecture was delivered on Friday, January 27, under the theme: "Africa's strategic priorities and global role". The lecture among other things saw the former President discussing the prospects for economic recovery and growth on the African continent in light of the recent debt crisis that has compelled African countries including Ghana to seek debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework. Ex-President Mahama at the lecture today shared with his audience his ideas and insights on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa. He also discussed priorities for regional integration and Africa's role and responsibilities in global economic governance. The BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modis alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots has kicked up a storm in India, with students at several prestigious universities across the country attempting to screen the contentious documentary that the government blocked from viewing. Sana Ejaz | TwoCircles.net Support TwoCircles NEW DELHI Delhi Police on Friday detained 24 students from the Delhi Universitys Arts Faculty for planning to screen a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modis alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, PTI reported. Around 4 pm, some 20 people came outside the Arts Faculty gate to screen the banned BBC documentary, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said. As it can cause disturbance of peace and tranquillity in the area, they were asked to disperse from there. When they did not, they were detained. Earlier on Friday, the police had banned large gatherings inside the campus after Delhi University Proctor Rajni Abbi said the administration would not allow the screening planned by some student bodies. Ahead of the planned screening, Section 144 was also imposed banning large gatherings at the Faculty of Arts (DU) on Friday, news agency ANI reported. Heavy police deployment was done inside Ambedkar University as well to stop the screening, PTI reported. The Students Federation of India unit of Ambedkar University alleged that the screening could not be held as the college administration disconnected the power supply. The students watched the documentary on their personal electronic devices. The first episode of the BBCs two-part documentary titled India: The Modi Question was released on January 17. It alleges that a team sent by the British government had found that Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat when the riots took place, was directly responsible for a climate of impunity that led to the violence against Muslims. The second part was released on Tuesday. While the documentary has not been made available in India, pirated links to the film have been shared widely on online platforms. On January 20, the government used emergency powers available under the Information Technology Rules, 2021, to issue directions to YouTube and Twitter to block clips of the documentary from being shared. The foreign ministry had described the documentary as a propaganda piece designed to push a particular discredited narrative. Screenings of the documentary were disrupted at Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia University earlier this week. On Wednesday, the Delhi Police detained at least 12 students ahead of a planned screening of the documentary. On Tuesday, JNU students alleged that they were attacked with stones after a power and internet outage at the campus prevented the screening. Students also alleged that the power was intentionally cut off by the university administration. The administration had blamed it on the electricity outage that had affected part of the campus. There was a major line fault. Even the faculty residences and other facilities are without light, JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi had said. Claims made by BBC documentary The controversial BBC documentary cites a hitherto unknown report prepared by an inquiry team sent by the British government to look into the 2002 Gujarat riots. The team had alleged that Modi had prevented the Gujarat Police from acting to stop violence targeted at Muslims, the BBC documentary claimed. A former British senior diplomat, one of the investigators sent by the United Kingdom government, had said in the documentary that the violence had been planned by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Sana Ejaz is an independent journalist from Bihar. She tweets @SanaEjaz Mr Aregbesola said the mass migration is having a huge impact on the functions of his ministry. Over 300 Nigerians have renounced their citizenship in the last 16 years, with over half of them renouncing last year, an official said Thursday. "Down to those Nigerians who renounce their citizenship, so far we have registered a total of 309," said Shuaib Belgore, the permanent secretary of the interior ministry. Mr Belgore, adressing journalists at the State House in Abuja, said that between 2006 and 2021, 150 Nigerians renounced their citizenship while 159 renounced in 2022 alone. He did not state the reasons why the Nigerians renounced their citizenship. However, there has been a mass migration of Nigerians in recent years, some of whom have sought to be citizens of other countries. While many countries including the US allow for dual citizenship, others like Austria do not, thus necessitating applicants to renounce the citizenship of their previous country. At the same briefing where Mr Belgore spoke, the interior minister, Rauf Aregbesola, also lamented the mass migration of Nigerians. He said Nigeria issued about 1.9 million passports (1,899,683) to citizens in 2022, the highest in seven years. He said the increase is as a result of the massive exodus of Nigerians out of the country in search of greener pastures. PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported the mass migration of Nigerians, mostly middle class, seeking greener pastures. The understaffed health sector is arguably the most hit with hundreds of doctors leaving annually for countries such as the UK, Canada and South Africa. Mr Aregbesola said the mass migration is having a huge impact on the functions of his ministry which issues passports through the immigration service. "It has a huge impact because there is a heavy demand on passport issuance. And if you look at the trend it is more in the South than in the North and we are responding to it," Mr Aregbesola said. Others seek to be Nigerians However, while scores of people are renouncing their Nigerian citizenship, many others seek to be citizens of the country. Mr Belgore said 286 people took up Nigerian citizenship in 2022, adding that the Advisory Committee on Nigerian citizenship will sit on 7 February to consider another 350 applications for naturalisation. Former president John Dramani Mahama has opened up on his governments failure to make Ghanaians really appreciate the socio-economic development he spearheaded during his time. He laments the inability of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to drum home the infrastructural projects, policies and programs that were intended to better the lives of the ordinary citizen a development he pinpoints as one of his major lessons ever learnt as President. Since I left office in 2016, I have been thinking through my head what could we have done better. On what mistakes we made that we could correct, several things come to my mind and one of the things was that we were not as forceful in letting the people see what we had done for them. We assumed that they will see it. We did quite a lot, John Mahama decried. The former President said this during a question and answer session after he delivered an address at Chatham House in London on Friday, January 27, on the theme Africa's Strategic Priorities and Global Role. John Mahama was asked what his biggest lesson is having served as the leader of Ghana from 2012-2016. He referred to the unprecedented projects that the party catalogued in the famous Green Book but quickly added that not properly clearing the doubt created in the minds of the populace and particularly the-then opposition, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is one that cost his government. During the elections, one of the most contentious things that came up was that with the help of my team, we compiled all our achievements into the Green book and published it, and you know what our opponents did? They said some of the things were photoshopped and do not exist. But now, I get people call me and say those things actually exist. So maybe next time when we get the chance, our leadership will work to let the people know what we have done for them, so they appreciate it better. The aspiring flagbearer of the NDC admitted that the lessons learnt thereof are guiding him in his future endeavours. I learn lifes lessons as they come. You learn those lessons in different areas in terms of human relations, environment and many others. So it will be very difficult to put my finger on a single thing as the most important lesson in my life. I guess that we keep learning in life and those experiences guide me for the future. citinewsroom Former president John Dramani Mahama has described as bizarre efforts by the Akufo-Addo government to take credit for Ghanas economic growth when its assumed power in 2017. Mr. Mahama said the New Patriotic Party has driven the country into an economic ditch and has been making attempts at claiming credit for the hard work of the National Democratic Congress in 2016 which led to the significant economic growth the country recorded in 2017. Speaking on the topic Africas Strategic Priorities and Global Role at Chatham House in London on January 27, former president Mahama said the records are clear to point to the work that his government did before leaving office in 2016. Answering a question from Tamale North MP, Alhassan Suhiyini on the evidence of the work the NDC party put in to record the 8% economic growth in 2017, Mr. Mahama said: When we were leaving office in 2016, all the multilateral agencies predicted Ghana was going to grow at 8% because of the work that we have done and in 2017, it grew at 8%. There was no way the current government could have influenced that growth in 2017. The indices show that when we left office, the debt to GDP was 56% Meanwhile, you inherited it in 2017 at 56% of debt to GDP so what other evidence do you need to attribute Ghanas fiscal and economic growth to the NDC? He also chastised the New Patriotic Partys government and condemned its domestic debt exchange programme which has got many investors and bondholders agitated. He said the NDC went through an IMF programme and didnt have to take Ghanaians through the current debacle. There is one significant fact that I kept saying that nobody pays attention to. Under an IMF programme, for the first time in history, we agreed with the IMF that we were going to do zero Central Bank financing so in the 2016 fiscal year, the government implemented its whole budget without taking a single Cedi from the Bank of Ghana. -citinewsroom Former President, John Dramani Mahama has hit out at government over what it says is the unwillingness to make sacrifices in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP). Delivering a lecture in the UK on Friday, January 27, the leading member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) accused the government of not being serious about making the same sacrifice it is asking individual bondholders to make. I know that negotiations are taking place with the bondholders on the external side but not the same treatment on the domestic side. That is not the government that is serious about making the same sacrifices it is asking the people to do. And that is our concern with this Debt Restructuring program, John Dramani Mahama said during his address at the Chatham House in the UK today. The former President in his lecture also bemoaned how the 2023 Budget of government is going to increase the countrys debt. According to him, at a time when Ghana is faced with an economic crisis, government shouldnt be increasing Ghanas debt. One would have thought that in this crisis youre not going to increase your debt in this budget by 82 billion over last year. 2023 Budget has seen governments expenditure increased by 82 billion over 2022, Mahama said during his lecture. The lecture among other things saw the former President discussing the prospects for economic recovery and growth on the African continent in light of the recent debt crisis that has compelled African countries including Ghana to seek debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework. Ex-President Mahama at the lecture today shared with his audience his ideas and insights on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa. He also discussed priorities for regional integration and Africa's role and responsibilities in global economic governance. The Ghana Police Service has announced that calm has been restored at Krofrom after the violent disturbance that occurred on Wednesday, January 25. In a press release today, the Police said Nana Osei Gyeabour has been arrested as a suspect for his involvement in the violence that led to the death of one person. The Police have restored calm and arrested suspect Nana Osei Gyeabour alias Point, for his alledged involvement in violent disturbances which resulted in the death of one person at Krofrom, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, part of the police press release said. Nana Osei Gyeabour in the company of some others attacked the deceased victim, Kwabena Azure, on January 25, and inflicted multiple machete wounds on him. The victim was pronounced dead shortly after he was rushed to the hospital Following the death of the victim, a group of people believed to be friends of the deceased besieged the scene at Krofrom where the deceased was attacked and set the place ablaze. The Ghana National Fire Service managed to put out the fire and the Police have since restored calm, law and order in the area. Meanwhile, the Police say investigations are ongoing and officers are on a manhunt to get the remaining suspects who are on the run arrested to face justice. Former President, John Dramani Mahama has lambasted President Akufo-Addos government over what he described as reckless borrowing. Delivering a lecture at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom on Friday, January 27, the leading member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) stressed that the reckless borrowing of the ruling government is what has brought Ghanas economy to its knees. According to him, if he was still President, he wouldnt have been reckless. He argues that even if he was going to borrow, he would do so prudently to ensure the countrys finances are managed very well. What we would have done differently. I would have not borrowed recklessly as they did. We would have borrowed prudently and we would have taken better management of our finances, John Dramani Mahama said. During his lecture, the former Ghana President admonished the government to do more consultations on the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme to ensure Ghanaians are not made to suffer more hardships. I do think that the debt restructuring there should be more dialogue. I noticed that the period has been extended. I think this is about the third time and one wonders if we would be able to meet that deadline by the end of January. And the point is the longer it delays the more the danger that we will not be able to go to the IMF board when it meets somewhere towards the spring. This thing must be speeded up and the only way it can be speeded up is when the Finance Minister climbs down his high horse and is prepared to sit with the bondholders and discuss it and reach a consensus, John Dramani Mahama shared. The lecture among other things saw the former President discussing the prospects for economic recovery and growth on the African continent in light of the recent debt crisis that has compelled African countries including Ghana to seek debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework. Ex-President Mahama at the lecture today shared with his audience his ideas and insights on the key economic and governance reforms required for economic stability and prosperity across Africa. He also discussed priorities for regional integration and Africa's role and responsibilities in global economic governance. The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has suspended the services of the Yellow Sisi Waakye joint at Oyibi which led to the death of one person and left over 40 hospitalised. According to the FDA, an environmental assessment of the food preparation site located at Malejor and the three vending sites at Bush Canteen, Prison Joint and Sharp Curve Joint revealed poor food handling practices could have resulted in the contamination of the food, leading to the foodborne disease outbreak. The FDA said in line with the Food Safety Emergency Response Plan, a joint investigation with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) commenced immediately after the incident came to their attention . Investigations revealed that a total of fifty-three (53) people experienced symptoms of the foodborne disease after consuming waakye or plain rice and tomato stew from a food vendor called Yellow Sisi located at Bush Canteen, a suburb of Oyibi. So far one (1) person has been reported dead, but the exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed. The victims including the waakye seller, popularly known as Yellow Sisi, and some of her family members were rushed to the Valley View Hospital, Oyibi Hospital, Dodowa Hospital and other facilities when they complained of severe stomach-ache after they had eaten the food last week Friday. The Yellow Sisi Waakye joint is considered to be one of the popular food joints at Oyibi Bush Canteen. Below is the full statement : FDA FDA CONDUCTS INVESTIGATIONS INTO FOOD-BORNE DISEASE OUTBREAK IN OYIBI, ACCRA The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) received notification through its Food Safety Alert System on Sunday, 22nd January 2023, on a suspected foodborne disease outbreak which was reported to have occurred at Oyibi, within the Adenta Municipality, in the Greater Accra Region. In line with the Food Safety Emergency Response Plan, a joint investigation with the Ghana Health Service (GHS) started immediately. Investigations revealed that a total of fifty-three (53) people experienced symptoms of foodborne disease after consuming waakye or plain rice and tomato stew from a food vendor called Yellow Sisi located at Bush Canteen, a suburb of Oyibi. So far one (1) person has been reported dead, but the exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed. Environmental assessment of the food preparation site located at Malejor and the three vending sites at Bush Canteen, Prison Joint and Sharp Curve Joint revealed poor food handling practices which could have resulted in the contamination of the food, leading to the foodborne disease outbreak. The FDA has suspended the operations of Yellow Sisi until measures have been put in place to ensure that their activities are brought into compliance to prevent future occurrences. The FDA launched its Street Food Vending Scheme in November 2021, in conjunction with the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. The Scheme, which was developed under the FAO Healthy Street Food Incentive Project, aims at issuing compliant vendors with a Street Food Vending Permit. Consumers must therefore insist on seeing these permits in their favourite eateries before patronizing their services. We strongly urge street food vendors to apply for the Permit. By Citi Newsroom Former President John Mahama has called for forensic audit of receipts and expenditure of the COVID-19 funds across Africa. He said that had become necessary following published audit report by the Auditor General of Ghana, which he said had exposed staggering instances of corruption running into billions of Ghana cedis. Mr Mahama said this when he delivered a lecture at Chatham House in the United Kingdom under the theme: Africa's strategic priorities and global role. The lecture among other things discussed the prospects for economic recovery and growth on the African continent in light of recent debt crisis that has compelled African countries, including Ghana to seek debt treatment under the G20 Common Framework. The government in 2020 during the height of COVID-19 pandemic was able to mobilise over GH21.8 billion to mitigate the impact of the pandemic from the World Bank, IMF, the European Union (EU), the African Development Bank (AfDB), Ghana's Contingency Fund, and from the sale of Bank of Ghana COVID-19 Bonds. The former President accused the government of jettisoning the financial and procurement laws by hiding under the emergency situation to refuse to use the GIFMIS system, which is the agreed budget and accounting digital platform to avoid thorough scrutiny. He said such financial malpractices discouraged delivery of grants and concessionary loans to Africa. I have indicated that we need a forensic audit into the receipts and expenditure of the COVID-19 funds in Ghana. The forensic audit may be extended to other countries in Africa to restore investor confidence as we build the Africa we want, he said. Mr Mahama said Africa needed to build stronger institutions to address institutional and political decay and in doing that, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Africa must be prioritised. On this note, let me commend many of the CSOs on our Continent that are holding governments accountable, he said. GNA In todays Money Morning, Bill Gates has stoked the nuclear debate in Australia once again. Our stubborn politics may hamstring any hope of innovation down under. More nuclear investment and innovation could help usher in an age of energy abundance, and the role Australia could play in helping this trend move along In case you missed it, Bill Gates is in town. The tech billionaire has spent the past few days in Australia, attending events and giving out speeches. In particular, Gates has been talking about the pandemic and the global response a topic that certainly gets divisive when you dig into the weeds of it. But thats not what I want to discuss today. The bigger story that Gates mentioned, in my view, is Australias position on nuclear power. Because as Gates himself told the Australian Financial Review: Australia should watch over the next 15 years and see what the progress is on nuclear fission and fusion its a lot simpler for Australia, instead of dealing with a political challenge, just to see if it does emerge, and in which case, if it is worth reconsidering. In other words, were too late to the nuclear party. A fact that Im sure many critics will be more than happy about. Its hard for people to look past the nuclear power disasters of the past. Events like Chernobyl and Fukushima are etched into our minds because of how climactic were told they are. No one wants to risk that in their own backyard. And yet, its a shame because I expect Australia will miss out on a huge energy market disruption because of it Nuclear renaissance I spent much of last year talking about the resurgence of nuclear across the world. Europe, in particular, has had to rely on their old nuclear plants to shore up their networks after blocking Russian oil and gas. This has led to some peculiar consequences, both positive and negative for nuclear proponents. But the most pressing matter has to be the fact that some of these reactors are running for far longer than intended: Already, many of the worlds facilities are scheduled to run far beyond whats considered the typical 40-year lifespan. Operators are pushing to keep some reactors running for as long as 80 years, By the end of the decade, two-thirds of the worlds currently operating nuclear reactors will be running on borrowed time, splitting uranium atoms longer than they were ever designed or licensed to This, of course, increases the risk of another complicationa fact that nuclear critics will no doubt be jumping on to push for the move away from nuclear power. It should be the complete opposite. If anything, these outdated plants prove that further investment is needed! As Bill Gates is alluding to, development and innovation in the nuclear energy space is pushing ahead in bold, new directions. Because of that, countries around the world are investing in their own nuclear future. Even in previously reticent nations, like in Germany where a phase out was underway, opinion has shifted. As one article on the matter suggests: Previously, the majority of the public was in favor of the nuclear phaseout in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster; now over 80% are in favor of extending the lifespan of Germanys existing nuclear reactors. Australias role My point is, a nuclear renaissance seems to be upon us. And while Australia seems destined to sit it out from a technological perspective, it could play a role in other ways Uranium, for example, is still a key ingredient in the nuclear mix. So, while we may not have our own nuclear plants, we certainly have plenty of uranium mines that could profit from this nuclear resurgence. Weve already seen some of this play out in stocks like Paladin Energy [ASX:PDN]. The $2.4 billion uranium miner has seen its share price soar since late 2020 when the first signs of a nuclear revival began. And if things continue, it could see its valuation climb even higher still. But uranium isnt the only commodity that could benefit from this nuclear boom Circling back to Bill Gatess comment, he singles out how nuclear fission and fusion are very different. In fact, fusion has the potential to provide the world with a nearly limitless and cheap form of power forever. The challenge is turning the theory into reality. However, in order to make fusion possible, certain minerals and elements may be necessary. Hydrogen, for example, more specifically its two isotopes deuterium and tritium, are the most popular fuels for current fusion experiments. On top of this, lithium also seems destined to be a key component in fusion power. And more recently, scientists have shown that tungsten could play an important role too. In other words, no matter where the technology leads, raw materials and fuel will be a key part of the mix. For Aussie investors looking to be a part of the nuclear renaissance, this may be your best bet to get involved. Because even if the politics has hamstrung our own nuclear industry, our metals and materials may still be the key to unlocking its global potential. Regards, Ryan Clarkson-Ledward, Editor, Money Morning U.S. forces practice convoy training with the Danab Brigade in Somalia, May 4, 2021. (photo by ) Pentagon officials say Bilal al-Sudani was killed in a special military operation and was a "key facilitator" for the "Islamic State" group's expansion. US special operations forces have killed a senior figure of the "Islamic State" (IS) group in remote northern Somalia, officials announced Thursday. Bilal al-Sudani, the regional leader of IS in Somalia, was a "key facilitator" for the group's global network, said US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. "This action leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure, and it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad," Austin said in a statement. What do we know about the operation? US President Joe Biden ordered the operation, which was carried out on Wednesday, Austin said. According to US officials, al-Sudani and 10 other IS fighters were killed in a gunfight after US forces descended on a mountainous cave complex to capture him. Austin said no civilians were injured or killed in the operation. A US official was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying one American involved in the raid was injured after he was bitten by a military dog. Who was Bilal al-Sudani? Media reports, citing US officials, said al-Sudani was involved in recruiting and training fighters for the al-Qaida-linked group al-Shabab before he joined IS. He reportedly coordinated funding for IS operations in Africa and the group's branch in Afghanistan, the Islamic-State Khorasan (IS-K). "Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of [IS] in Africa and for funding the group's operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan," Austin said. (AFP, Reuters) William Fassbender Will Fassbender, assistant professor in the Department of English in the College of Letters and Science, has won the Excellence in Online Teaching Award, which recognizes exemplary contributions to the practice of online instruction and the teaching profession. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the award comes with a $2,000 honorarium. Fassbender has taught several innovative online and hybrid courses and helped prepare a generation of future English teachers to use new modalities in their own teaching, according to a nomination letter by English professor Robert Bennett. The letter outlined how Fassbender models innovative practices for MSUs English education majors to use when they enter the classroom as teachers themselves, either online or in person. Fassbender taught a fully online course in which he helped students think outside of traditional technology by facilitating class discussions on Goodreads.com, a social media website. Students said it made the experience feel as real as possible for a virtual class. When teaching hybrid classes, Fassbender modeled flexibility by offering face-to-face and online options based on students comfort and concerns related to COVID. Most significantly, Fassbender taught a graduate course to English teachers across the country, tailoring his approach to their interests and introducing them to a wide range of instructional technologies. Dr. Fassbender is not only an excellent online teacher himself; he is also preparing an entire new generation of online teachers to excel as well," Bennett wrote. State-owned Malawi Schools of Government (MSG) -- formerly known as Malawi Institute of Management (MIM) -- has disclosed that it is battling to pay almost K1 billion debt in pension and pay-as-you-earn (Paye) arrears it accumulated over many years. Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday in Lilongwe, Chief Executive Officer, Jessie Kabwila said the institution managed to pay from the little they had but because of interests the amount kept on accumulating. "We approached government to assist in paying out the debt once and for all because this came when it was operating as MIM," she said. In an interview, Kabwila expressed gratitude that after presenting their case, the Parliamentary Committee has showed concern and would like to help to lobby for funding so that the institution continue operating under the laws of Malawi. PAC Member, Ned Poya said the establishment of MSG is a welcome development although there are huge issues to be attended to in order to move forward. "We would like to urge government to intervene so that they start MSG on a clean state without debts," he said, adding that this is a rebranding and should start a something new that has accumulated huge debts. He assured MSG that they will lobby for funds to government so that they pay the debts and be able to operate under a new brand. January 27, 2023 Ukraine - RAND Study Sees Risks In Prolonged War RAND Corp is a government and industry financed large research institute. Founded shortly after the end of the second world war it mostly works for the Pentagon by developing policies and strategies. In April 2019 RAND published a report about Extending Russia (pdf). bigger The report summary explained its purpose: As the 2018 National Defense Strategy recognized, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then analyzes potential policy options to exploit them ideologically, economically, geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain options). RAND developed policy options in those four fields. It then evaluated their benefit, cost and risks as well as their likelihood of success. Here is their summary table for economic measures: bigger The first three measures were implemented when the war in Ukraine was launched. The geopolitical measures included an option of providing lethal aid to Ukraine. This would create the risk that Russia would respond militarily and eventually take more of Ukraine than the two Donbas republics: Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden [for Russia], albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace. While they at times underestimate Russia's capabilities RAND people are not dumb. They knew of the likely outcome of a war. Other geopolitical measure RAND evaluated included more support for 'Syrian rebels', regime change per color revolution in Belarus, to exploit tensions in the southern Caucasus and to reduce Russian influence in Central Asia. RAND's summary for geopolitical measures: bigger The Trump and Biden administrations both implemented the measures that seemed to have high benefits as well as high risks. The use of ideological measures against Russia was seen as having rather low benefits. bigger There follow more options, mostly in military categories, that the RAND report developed and evaluated. They emphasize industry pork. The Trump administration took some of the measures RAND provided but seemed not too enthusiastic about them. Its regime change attempt in Belarus failed. The Biden administration changed tact. He endorsed Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the color revolution candidate that had failed the elections in Belarus. Biden also allowed for the delivery of more offensive weapons to Ukraine. The regime in Kiev was encouraged to retake the rebellions Donbas republics. The green light for that was given in early 2022 even as the White House knew that Russia would respond militarily. The consequences for Ukraine that RAND had predicted in 2019 ensued. The U.S. aim for the war is, as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in April 2022, to 'weaken Russia': A National Security Council spokesperson said that Austins comments were consistent with what the US goals have been for months namely, to make this invasion a strategic failure for Russia. We want Ukraine to win, the spokesperson added. One of our goals has been to limit Russias ability to do something like this again, as Secretary Austin said. Thats why we are arming the Ukrainians with weapons and equipment to defend themselves from Russian attacks, and its why we are using sanctions and export controls that are directly targeted at Russias defense industry to undercut Russias economic and military power to threaten and attack its neighbors. That, however, will take a very long time. Letting the conflict extend longer, concludes a newly released RAND report, is itself a danger. The U.S. must avoid a long war: The authors argue that, in addition to minimizing the risks of major escalation, U.S. interests would be best served by avoiding a protracted conflict. The costs and risks of a long war in Ukraine are significant and outweigh the possible benefits of such a trajectory for the United States. Although Washington cannot by itself determine the war's duration, it can take steps that make an eventual negotiated end to the conflict more likely. The study (pdf) argues that Ukraine's retaking of territory Russia controls should not be relevant for U.S. plans. It has little benefits but high costs. Prolonging the war, while having some benefits for the U.S., has even more risk and costs attached to it. bigger Especially important to RAND seems to be that the war in Ukraine diverts the U.S. from starting a war with China: Beyond the potential for Russian gains and the economic consequences for Ukraine, Europe, and the world, a long war would also have on sequences for U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. ability to focus on its other global priorities particularly, competition with China will remain constrained as long as the war is absorbing senior policymakers time and U.S. military resources. ... And although Russia will be more dependent on China regardless of when the war ends, Washington does have a long-term interest in ensuring that Moscow does not become completely subordinated to Beijing. A longer war that increases Russias dependence could provide China advantages in its competition with the United States. The U.S., says RAND, can take measures that make a quick end of the war possible. It can press Ukraine to start negotiations and to accept a bad outcome by threatening to stop financing the war. It can encourage Russia to enter into negotiations by offering substantial sanctions relief. The reports final policy advice concludes: A dramatic, overnight shift in U.S. policy is politically impossibleboth domestically and with alliesand would be unwise in any case. But developing these instruments now and socializing them with Ukraine and with U.S. allies might help catalyze the eventual start of a process that could bring this war to a negotiated end in a time frame that would serve U.S. interests. The alternative is a long war that poses major challenges for the United States, Ukraine, and the rest of the world. Start working on this now, says Rand. It is likely not by chance that the previous call for an immediate start of negotiations to end the war came from the U.S. Chief of Staff Mark Milley. That he did so publicly was a sign that he had lost the internal White House debate on that issue. He probably asked for the RAND study to bolster his argument. But the neocons, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, State Secretary Anthony Blinken and his deputy Victoria Nuland, who together wage their war against Russia, have Joe Biden's ears and can control the information he gets. Milley and other realist will have a difficult stand. Steady Russian progress in its campaign will be the best argument for them to win the internal war in Washington DC. Posted by b on January 27, 2023 at 16:57 UTC | Permalink Comments next page next page Kantar Insights Promotes in Singapore and Malaysia Kantar has promoted Jane Ng and Paromeeta (Paro) Mathur Banerjee to General Managers of its Insights division in Singapore and Malaysia, respectively. Ng joined the company twelve years ago, and most recently served as Head of Brand Guidance, CX and Analytics. Before this she worked for The Coca-Cola Company as Associate K&I Manager, having begun her career at Kantar Millward Brown. Banerjee was most recently Chief Client Officer at Kantar's Insights division in Malaysia, having earlier held senior roles at TNS and IMRB International, and set up her own user insights consultancy. Ng will now lead the team in Singapore, while Banerjee will lead the team in Malaysia. Commenting on the appointments, Katie McClintock, MD for Southeast Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, The Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam), said: 'Jane's and Paro's leadership and experience will be crucial in fulfilling the ambition that we have for Kantar in the region as we set ourselves up for growth. I am so pleased to add two outstanding leaders to the SEA team in a dynamic region with enormous potential'. Web site: www.kantar.com . President Museveni has set a new target to be attained by Uganda's economy in the coming few years. Speaking during the 37th liberation anniversary in Kakumiro district, the president said whereas the country has now attained the low middle income status, the target now is to aim higher. "Our economy has grown from a miserable $1.5 billion in 1986, to $48 billion by end of June 2023. We have already entered the middle income status they are talking about but you need three years consecutively to be recognized as a middle income country and in my view all these are low targets that Uganda will easily surpass," Museveni said. Official data indicates that Uganda's economy stands at about $45.7billion by the exchange rate method or $131billion by the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) system. The president said the country can easily surpass move from the current low middle income status if a few things are done right. "In my view, all those are low targets, which Uganda will easily surpass. Why? You remember my admonitions about losing value through the export of raw-materials. This low middle-income economy we are now talking about, is still, actually, mainly a raw materials producing economy, where for a kilogram of $5 coffee, we get $2 for bean coffee while the wiser foreigners who roast the coffee, grind it and pack it for sale in supermarkets, get 50 for the same kilogram." He said that with value addition to the country's produce, the economy can easily grow rapidly from a low income middle economy in which it is currently ranked to a better position. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Uganda Business Governance 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. "We are going to add value to more and more of our coffee and the other raw materials - cotton, maize, forest products, minerals, etc. This broad spectrum value addition movement will jumpstart our economy in a fairly short time to a- half-trillion economy ($ 500 billion)." " We now have the electricity and we are adding more, we have the varied and massive raw materials and, increasingly, we have the entrepreneurs - local and foreign and we have the African market that we have put in place with our Pan-Africanist Comrades." Wealth creation The president said there is need for Ugandans to emphasize development and wealth creation. He noted that social-economic transformation involves the whole society to move on two axes of money based wealth creation with proper calculation and mass-education "The NRM has, however, all this time, been telling you that you do not eat tarmac roads but you eat the food that you have either grown or bought. The same applies to clothing, housing, mode of locomotion, etc. The latter, are all part of wealth and the former are part of development. Therefore, for wealth, we are telling you that every adult must engage in wealth for money with proper calculation , either as an entrepreneur or as an employee in the four sectors." "You may have development, but if people are asleep, you can continue with the poverty. Why? It is because what eradicates poverty is wealth; development is a mere enabler of wealth creation." The Rutherford County School Board suspended a bus driver for one year on Thursday, Jan. 26 because of two verbal altercations with students on her bus earlier in the week, the second one prompting Murfreesboro Police officers to visit the scene.The board suspended Mykeya Brown for using profane and threatening language with students on bus route No. 163, a Riverdale [] Government is telling refugees whose countries have now attained peace to voluntarily return home. This comes as the government has failed to meet the deadline for relocation of the refugees back to Dzaleka camp in Dowa. Initially, November 30, 2022 was set as a deadline for relocation of refugees residing in the rural areas and February 1, 2023 for refugees residing in the urban areas. Minister of Homeland security Jean Sendeza in November last year gave the refugees until 30 November 2022 to relocate to the camp, saying failing to do so government would commence enforcement. But almost two months after the deadline, government is yet to complete the process of relocating the refugees in the rural areas. Principal Secretary for the ministry of Homeland Security Oliver Kumbambe is instead pleading with refugees whose countries have attained peace to return. According to Kumbambe, some refugees have already started returning to their countries. Simplex Chithyola, Chairperson of Parliament's Trade and Industry said the government has to consider the issue of space and other instruments governing the refugees. "The Dzaleka camp has capacity to accommodate 10,000 refugees but now the camp has over 56,000 refugees so the issue of space has to be looked into to avoid infringing their rights," said Chithyola. Over 8,000 refugees are residing outside refugee camp and there have been concerns by Small scale business operators that the refugees are engaging in businesses meant for locals. Officers who were terminated after their involvement in a traffic stop that ended with the death of Tyre Nichols, pose in a combination of undated photographs in Memphis, Tennessee. From left, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean. *Steps down passage of Buhari's ways and means request Members of the House of Representatives at plenary yesterday, passed through second reading a bill seeking to regulate international donor agencies' funding in order to promote transparency, curb money laundering and terrorism financing. The proposed legislation tilted, "Bill for an Act to Establish Donor Agencies Regulatory Commission; and for Related Matters (HB. 1568)," was sponsored by Hon. Unyime Idem. Leading the debate on its general principles, Idem while noting that donor agencies through their services play crucial role in ensuring that individuals and communities were well equipped to deal with structural changes in the nation's economy, providing support to vulnerable groups, said there had been substantiated allegations that the financial interventions were being used as a conduit for money laundering and terrorism financing. He said the phenomenon of lack of transparency and accountability of funds received by the donor agencies prompted the bill and the urgent need to provide a coordinated regulatory framework for tracking and regulating the activities of the NGOs and donor agencies while ensuring compliance with international best practices. The lawmaker said the Commission if created could influence partners involved in the adherence to standards and accountability mechanisms and develop effective bio-data systems of all the donor agencies and NGOs of related activities within the country and the affiliates across the globe for systematic identity of all the partners. Idem said, "The donor agencies have over the years increase its impact and functions creating a rising interest in the support of socio-economic development of developing countries leading to several donor-funded project interventions from advanced nations, international bodies, corporate organisations and individuals with means. "In year 2000, the trend witnessed a dramatic surge as international donors commenced rural development, social and community development, poverty alleviation programs, public health, agriculture, education, and infrastructural development to mention but a few and unimaginable over $26.94 billion (20 Trillion Naira) was officially recorded to have been received as development assistance funds from International Donors between 2015 and 2020. We all know that most of the funds do not pass-through official channels. "We have on record over 3500 donor agencies currently operating in the country and are playing significant role in directing development interventions in certain contexts and sectors, always based on critical knowledge of the territorial, political, and societal contexts in which they operate. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance Legal Affairs 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. "There have been substantiated allegation that these financial interventions are being used as a conduit for money laundering and terrorism financing. "This singular phenomenon of lack of transparency and accountability of funds received by the donor agencies prompt this Bill of urgent need to provide a coordinated regulatory framework for tracking and regulating the activities of the NGOs and donor agencies while ensuring compliance with international best practices." In their contributions, while Hon. Nkem Abonta was of the view that the bill was retrogressive and might scare away donors. But the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Idris Wase supported the bill's passage saying it would help put a stop to promotion of immorality in the country by some of the agencies, amongst other issues. The Bill was thereafter put to a voice vote by the Speaker, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila who presided over the session and it was passed. Abuja The federal government has described as deceitful, and a statement borne out of desperation for power, the remark by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, that his administration would resolve the problems facing the Ajaokuta Steel Company if elected into office. The Minister of Information and Culture,Alhaji Lai Mohammed, descended on the former Vice President yesterday, at the President Muhammadu Buhari's Administration's Scorecard Series in Abuja over the remarks he made about two weeks ago, during his campaign in Kogi State. The minister noted that Ajaokuta was concessioned to Global Steel Industry in 2004, by the regime of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, when Atiku who was the vice president was in charge of that administration's privatisation programme. He noted that concession that turned out to be a mess was terminated by another PDP administration. "Following the failed concession, the concessionaire, Global Steel Industry, took Nigeria to court, asking for $7 billion, and that case lingered for 12 years until the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari stepped in and the company finally settled for $496 million. "Out of the amount, we made a bulk payment of $250 million and agreed to pay the balance in five instalments. To date, we have paid a total of $446 million out of the $496 million. We will make the last payment of $50 million next month and Ajaokuta will revert fully to us, ending the shameful and failed concession by the Administration in which Alhaji Atiku Abubakar served as the vice president," Mohammed said. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. He said the federal government had been holding talks with investors willing to invest in Ajaokuta to ensure it comes on stream. He attributed the problems facing Ajaokuta to the poorly-thought-out and poorly-executed concession by the Obasanjo's government. "If the former vice president had any solution to the Ajaokuta challenge and he didn't execute it in 2004, why should Nigerians trust him to do so in 2023, almost 20 years later? "Apparently, the former vice president is not even aware of the current status of Ajaokuta, the settlement reached with the concessionaire and the payments made. Without this information, how does he want to revive the steel company?" Mohammed said, warning Nigerians to be, "wary of snake oil salesmen, who engage in deceit just to swindle them." "The solution to Ajaokuta does not lie in the hands of the same people who scuttled the development of the country's steel industry through a questionable concession. Nigerians beware! Don't allow yourselves to be conned twice," he added. What time is it on the Moon? Nature Decriminalize Moonshine! Reason Potemkin Village Heisenberg Report. On housing. Climate An EV in Every Driveway Is an Environmental Disaster New York Magazine #COVID19 Live blog: Tracking the meeting of the FDA advisory panel on Covid vaccines STAT Its just the flu propagates to the policy level: COVID is *not* equal to the flu yet. Most people arent Omicron boosted, most dont have Paxlovid access, and there isnt a mass-disability thing called Long Flu like #LongCovid debilitates & maims millions. Thats why the FDA shouldnt treat #COVID as just a flu. Cuz its not! https://t.co/jnDDgOgpLC Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) January 26, 2023 Drunks looking for their keys under the lamppost. And at the same FDA meeting: FDA VRBPAC Member Cody Meissner Says Asymptomatic Infections Are Now Desirable "Do we really want to stop asymptomatic infections? An asymptomatic infection is desirable because it will stimulate both cellular and humoral immunity. It will kind of act like it's own boost." pic.twitter.com/ATGNLDFhFd Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 27, 2023 Covid Vaccines Playing the Long Game (transcript) NEJM. Paul Offitt, FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee member: The goal is prevent serious illness. The goal is keep people out of the hospital. I dont see how you can reasonably try and prevent against mild disease for any length of time for a short-incubation-period disease knowing that neutralizing antibodies are not going to be long-lived. And I cant think of a strategy that would allow that to happen. So, mass infection without mitigation is the strategy going forward, and the only important metric is that hospitals not be overloaded. Good to have that clarified! * * * Extremely disconcerting: NIH didnt track U.S. funds going to Chinese virus research, watchdog finds Yahoo News and Federal watchdog finds problems with NIH oversight of grant funding bat virus research in China Science. Context: Regardless of the implications, EcoHealth Alliance, the link between NIH and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is, institutionally, an absolute cesspit, as Vanity Fair, of all people, shows vividly. The quintessential NGO. Virology under the Microscopea Call for Rational Discourse American Society for Microbiology * * * Fatal heart attacks have surged in Australia. Heres why The Age COVID-19 deaths in the US continue to be undercounted, research shows, despite claims of overcounts The Conversation * * * The next generation of evidence-based medicine Nature. The last sentence: Methodological advances and future AI-based analyses of all data will provide deep evidence to realize the goal of personalized medicine that is, to offer the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. On evidence-based medicine, see KLGs comprehensive post here. Figure 4, Evidence-based deep medicine iceberg: I think this diagram is fundamentally flawed, in that it posits a future where the visible part of the EBM iceberg is driven by human judgment, and the invisible part, below the water, is AI-based. In reality, everything important about both parts of the iceberg is driven by human judgment, with AI entirely dependent on humans for data sets, algorithms, training, and most importantly, judgments of truth value (which AI cannot do). The only real difference is that, embedded in code, paradigm shifts will be even harder than they already are in existing institutions. Imagine deep precision medicine programmed by droplet dogmatists! So here, AI functions rather like a fetish object; an idol supposedly of divine origins, but instead subject to the invisible ministrations of priests. Of course, priests are all in favor of this * * * FDA withdraws Covid antibody treatment Evusheld because its not effective against 93% of subvariants CNBC. Surely a mere fluke. By Lambert Strether of Corrente. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Will Durant (attributed to Aristotle) Policy on Covid in the West is being locked down around a few bullet points, as you can see from what was discussed at the recent meeting of the FDA Advisory Panel on Covid Vaccines, and what was not discussed (see additional material in todays links). These bullet points (here numbered for reference) form a program: (1) Mass infection without mitigation (2) Intramuscular injection of vaccines (3) Hospitalization and death as only metrics that matter And a corollary: (4) PMC who support this program are hegemonic, hence amplified; the exceptional others are at best ignored and at worst ostracized or attacked. (This applies to the media, academe, medical professionals, the political class, and agencies like CDC; NIH; HHS, etc.) The Ultimate Lockdown, we might call this program. (Or perhaps The Big Cheese Model, as opposed to the Swiss Cheese model.) This program is serves the interests of many powerful actors, all of whom make bank on mass infection. The Ultimate Lockdown is, of course, eugenic in character, and not merely stochastically. Continous mass infection by Covid is a recipe for falling life expectancy, already achieved in the United States, whether the cases are mild or not. As with deaths of despair, eugenics is what our rulers repeatedly do. It is what they are excellent at. The Ultimate Lockdown is therefore opposed implicitly, and sometimes even consciously by many scattered forces. The most important force should be not unscattered but ubiquitous: hundreds of millions of those who are conscious that their lives and the lives of their families, friends, and co-workers will most likely be sicker and shorter (albeit marked by rental extraction even more intense than todays). Perhaps that will happen. However, if you sort by the bullet points above, you will see other pockets of opposition, and those not without force. For example, people opposing the Ultimate Lockdown are: (1) Developing or supporting vaccines that do not require muscular injection; (2) Fighting (sorry; I dont mean fighting') on behalf of those suffering from Long Covid, or from the neurological or vascular damage that comes even from mild cases (in other words, for metrics other than death or hospitalization); (3) Pursuing mitigation strategies (for example, masks and Corsi Boxes); (4) Incorporating non-vax prophylaxis and treatments into their Covid prevention protocols, and sharing their protocols with others (as we shall see); (5) Overturning outdated paradigms of Covid transmission (where would we be without the efforts of those exceptional aerosol scientists? Still washing our hands behind Plexiglass barriers); (6) Amplifying the above five points and correcting or rebuking the hegemonic PMC. In this post, I will focus on (1) vaccines that do not require intramuscular injection (briefly), and then on (4) non-vax prophylaxis and treatments. By so doing, I will be (6) amplifying the good guys. But first, I will briefly review from the previous post, The Latest Anti-Covid Nasal Spray Vaccine Science, which was an assault on point (2) of the Ultimate Lockdown how Covid enters the body, because understanding this mechanism undergirds every other measure we could take (that is, (1) (5)). SARS-CoV-2s First Hours in the Body As my companion piece explains, SARS-CoV-2 enters the body through the nose, and initially multiplies there. During this period, SARS-CoV-2 is asymptomatic, but can still spread, as the infected individual breathes shared air in and out. (Asymptomatic spread is one characteristic that makes SARS-CoV-2 so hard to stop.) Later, SARS-CoV-2 infects other parts of the body, including the mouth (see below). Therefore, if we really want to stop SARS-CoV-2 remember, our current ruling elites are in favor of transmission we have to stop it in this early period, while it is still multiplying in the nose. It follows that any sterilizing vaccine the unfortunate term for a vaccine that prevents community transmission must activate mucosal immunity the nose has its own separate immune system (!) which intra-muscular injections do not do. It also follows that non-vax treatments, that also may kill SARS-CoV-2 in its initial phase, can be very, very useful. From The Mail in the UK: T-cells and B-cells in the mucosal layer can prompt a lightning-fast attack pretty much the instant the virus comes in, attacking it before it has a chance to infect cells, [Muhammad Munir, a professor in virology and viral zoonoses at Lancaster University] says. These nasal immune cells get to work in a couple of minutes whereas the immune cells made by intramuscular vaccines get to work six to eight hours after entry of the virus. This time difference, he says, is vital. If just one virus particle successfully sticks to one cell it takes over that cell and replicates to produce a million more viruses in an eight-hour cycle, says Professor Munir, who has been leading the research into Lancaster Universitys nasal vaccine. Thats why the nasal vaccine will have the advantage the immune cells it produces in the nasopharyngeal region can act immediately. Its a bit like having the police sitting and waiting for a crime to be committed. With the intramuscular vaccine approach, the police only come once the problem is there, and by that time damage could be done. I want to underline that non-vax nasal prophylactics leverage the time difference as well. If a nasal vaccine is the cops, perhaps non-vax nasal prophylactics are the neighborhood watch. Let me now quickly turn to Bharats just-introduced nasal vaccine, after which I will move on to prophylactics. Bharats Nasal Vaccine Hilda Bastian tracks nasal vaccines; her latest update was back in September, and presumably there will be an update coming soon. As she shows, nasal vaccines have already been introduced in Iran, Russia, and China. However, Bharats release is or should be really big news; its an enormous vaccine company that does a lot of contract work for other brands. From the Economic Times of India, Bharat Biotechs nasal Covid vaccine iNCOVACC launched: The shot will be on the Covid-19 list of vaccines and be accessible in private institutions. According to Bharat Biotech, the intranasal vaccine will cost Rs 325 per injection for government purchases and Rs 800 per shot for private immunisation facilities. A primary 2-dose regimen for people aged 18 and older in an emergency situation had previously been authorised under limited use. Phase III trials of the vaccine were conducted on 3,100 participants at 14 trial sites across India to evaluate immunogenicity and safety. Hyderabad-based companies also intend to export iNCOVACC overseas once it gets licensed. Bharat Biotech is currently in discussions with overseas potential partners, who have contacted the company about producing and distributing the intranasal vaccine internationally, according to corporate sources. The vaccine was partnered with Washington University in St. Louis, who created the recombinant adenoviral vectored construct and tested its efficacy in pre-clinical investigations. (Perhaps some kind reader familiar with Indian sources can supply a link to the 3,100 participant-study.) From the BBC: Dr Krishna Ella, chairman of Bharat Biotech, told ANI news agency that the vaccine was easy to deliver as it didnt need a syringe or needle, and that it produced a broader immune response as compared to injectable Covid vaccines. No cold chain. No medical personnel, trained in injection, needed. No hospital setting. Ideal for a country like India, and entirely opposed to The Ultimate Lockdown. (In theory at least. One sour note: The Indian government may not be procuring it; private hospitals may. Perhaps the views of Indias elites are much like our own?) We now turn to what every really wants to read about. Nasal Prophylactics This is not an exhaustive list. There are too many products! However, I hope users will share their own experiences in comments. Let me underline that prophylactic advocacy should be based firmly on a mechanism exactly in the way that we assess a room to see if the ventilation is in order. Thats why understanding SARS-CoV-2s first hours in the body is so important (ditto mucus transport). Modulo a miracle cure that really does cure, if one of these methods turns out to be unsupported by a mechanism, it does no good to cling to it as part of our protocol; we should either find the mechanism, or replace it with something that has a reason to work (if only to prevent others from imitating us). Let me also underline that we cant be waiting around for the RCTs (which are always in danger of being gamed by those who can fund them in any case). The Dont Believe the Hype blog writes of prophylaxis: Whilst I generally like to end blogs saying dont believe the hype, in this case it is unknown whether this is hype or not. As above, I dont feel there is much to lose ; it is at worst a harmless intervention, and at best something that could reduce COVID severity (and therefore, potentially COVID complications). Finally, let underline that I view all this as a form of citizen science. Hence, my concern for a mechanism. If something works for you personally, thats great, but its even better if we know why it works, so others have reason to adopt the protocol you have adopted. With that, Ill take a look at four products; then Ill look at a product ingredient (carrageenan), and a method (nasal irrigation). In no particular order: Vaill CoviTRAP. Sadly available (so far) only in Thailand (and Cambodia) though the Hong Kong-based Watsons pharmacy chain may end up carrying it CoviTRAP is a true morning after nasal spray. From a medRvix preprint, A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of a nasal spray solution containing broadly potent neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 variants in healthy volunteers: Successful COVID-19 prevention requires additional measures beyond vaccination, social distancing, and masking. A nasal spray solution containing human IgG1 antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (COVITRAP) was developed to strengthen other COVID-19 preventive arsenals. Collectively, COVITRAP can safely and effectively support mucosal immunity at thepoint of entry of the virus, making it an essential and complementary tool in our preexistingCOVID-19 prevention arsenals. Nevertheless, a large-scale efficacy trial measuring COVID-19incidence will be required to demonstrate the efficacy of COVID-19 prevention by COVITRAP. I like the non-vax use case: After possible exposure, a spritz of antibodies (clearly useful in a tourist-heavy economy like Thailands). Yes, a large-scale trial would be great, but personal risk assessment: the cost is low, the risk and low, and the benefits are huge. So I wish this product had a commercial rival in the West! Enovid Sanotize/Virx (two brands, same formulation). A Nitric Oxide technology, described in Clinical efficacy of nitric oxide nasal spray (NONS) for the treatment of mild COVID-19 infection: Treatment with NONS in this trial was found to be effective and safe in reducing the viral load in patients with mild, symptomatic COVID-19 infection. Accelerated SARS-CoV-2 clearance with NONS may reduce symptom duration, decrease infectivity period, reduce hospital admissions, and lower disease severity. Consequently, this study could be used as supporting evidence for emergency use of NONS for patients with mild COVID-19 infection. Same risk assessment as above. A travellers review: I wont pretend that its very pleasant using the product, as theres a slight stinging sensation when using as directed (slightly inhaling when spraying each nostril). The stinging is temporary, just for a few seconds. Our son doesnt like it, although he tolerates it. While it could be luck, weve remained negative for Covid while using the product, even while in Denmark, where we did have some meals indoors and were in relatively crowded areas such as Tivoli. No one in Denmark, apart from a few foreigners, was wearing face masks during our visit. We were especially focused on not becoming infected with Covid because our son had to test negative before attending a summer camp, which he did. We cant prove it, but we suspect our familys use of Enovid helped his odds. I use the product regularly, and pleasant is not the word. Not too bad though! Not even this may sting a little-level. Algovir. From Recommendation of the German Society of Hospital Hygiene (DGKH): Prevention of COVID-19 by virucidal gargling and virucidal nasal spray updated version April 2022: In the absence of a PVP-iodine based nasal spray, use a Carragelose-based nasal spray (e.g. Algovir cold spray) in the morning and evening; probably more effective is 0.23% PVP-iodine solution (self-production see above). (More on Carragelose below.) There is also the old standby, Betadine Povidone (iodine for throat, carrageenan for nose). See NC here and here. Now to the ingredient: Carrageenan. From Efficacy of a Nasal Spray Containing Iota-Carrageenan in the Postexposure Prophylaxis of COVID-19 in Hospital Personnel Dedicated to Patients Care with COVID-19 Disease: A total of 394 individuals were randomly assigned to receive I-C or placebo. Both treatment groups had similar baseline characteristics. The incidence of COVID-19 differs significantly between subjects receiving the nasal spray with I-C (2 of 196 [1.0%]) and those receiving placebo (10 of 198 [5.0%]). Relative risk reduction: 79.8% (95% CI 5.3 to 95.4; p=0.03). Absolute risk reduction: 4% (95% CI 0.6 to 7.4). In this pilot study a nasal spray with I-C showed significant efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in health care workers managing patients with COVID-19 disease. So check the label! Finally, nasal irrigation. From Rapid initiation of nasal saline irrigation to reduce severity in high-risk COVID+ outpatients: a randomized clinical trial compared to a national dataset observational arm. n=79: SARS-CoV-2 enters the nasopharynx to replicate; nasal irrigation soon after diagnosis could reduce viral load and inhibit furin cleavage necessary for cell entry, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality. A consecutive sample of 79 high-risk adults (mean age 64, BMI 30.3) were randomized toinitiate one of two nasal irrigation protocols within 24 hours of a positive COVID-19 test. Compared to aCDC COVID-19 National Dataset observational arm, 1.27% of participants initiating twice daily nasalirrigation were hospitalized or died, compared to 11%, a significant difference. And from Augusta University: Starting twice daily flushing of the mucus-lined nasal cavity with a mild saline solution soon after testing positive for COVID-19 can significantly reduce hospitalization and death, investigators report. They say the technique that can be used at home by mixing a half teaspoon each of salt and baking soda in a cup of boiled or distilled water then putting it into a sinus rinse bottle is a safe, effective and inexpensive way to reduce the risk of severe illness and death from coronavirus infection that could have a vital public health impact. What we say in the emergency room and surgery is the solution to pollution is dilution, says Dr. Amy Baxter, emergency medicine physician at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and corresponding author of the study in Ear, Nose & Throat Journal. By giving extra hydration to your sinuses, it makes them function better. If you have a contaminant, the more you flush it out, the better you are able to get rid of dirt, viruses and anything else, says Baxter. We found an 8.5-fold reduction in hospitalizations and no fatalities compared to our controls, says senior author Dr. Richard Schwartz, chair of the MCG Department of Emergency Medicine. Both of those are pretty significant endpoints. Mouthwashes Now lets turn to the next line of defense after the nose: The mouth. (Note that I dont know whether mouthwashes leverage the time difference between infection and viral shedding, the way nasal sprays and vaccines can. Still, it seems like a good idea to kill the virus where found.) From BDJ Team (the online adjunct to British Dental Journal), How a radiologist became an evangelist for dental hygienists: Dr Lloyd-Jones says: Its a simple concept in those with poor oral health the mouth is like an open wound. The absorption pathway for pathogens passing across damaged oral mucosa is the same as for the skin pathogens can pass into the blood but do not pass through the liver, as is the case for absorption via the gut. Oral pathogens have direct access to the systemic circulation, which explains why they end up all over the body and are directly implicated in the development of multiple important systemic diseases. He rang up two of his friends, one a dentist and the other an oral surgeon, asking whether damaged mucosa of the gums could be the anatomical pathway to the lungs via the blood. They both confirmed his ideas made sense, explaining that the gingival epithelium is easily breached by bacteria in plaque biofilm, so why not a virus? The missing link between the blood and the lungs, they agreed, could well be gum disease. Dr Lloyd-Jones set to work, developing a scientific hypothesis, first published on his own educational website in February 2021 (In my view, this is exactly how exceptional PMC should behave.) Here is a guide to mouth care from Lloyd-Jones hospital. And a preprint from medRxiv, Brief Report: The Virucidal Efficacy of Oral Rinse Components Against SARS-CoV-2 In Vitro: The ability of widely-available mouthwashes to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 in vitro was tested using aprotocol capable of detecting a 5-log10 reduction in infectivity, under conditions mimicking thenaso/oropharynx. During a 30 second exposure, two rinses containing cetylpyridinium chloride and a third with ethanol/ethyl lauroyl arginate eliminated live virus to EN14476 standards (>4-log10reduction), while others with ethanol/essential oils and povidone-iodine (PVP-I) eliminated virus by 2-3-log10. Chlorhexidine or ethanol alone had little or no ability to inactivate virus in this assay. Studiesare warranted to determine whether these formulations can inactivate virus in the human oropharynxin vivo, and whether this might impact transmission. So cetylpyridinium chloride and ethanol/ethyl lauroyl are the ingredients to look for on the label. Perhaps readers can suggest from brands? Conclusion I should have a peroration, but I feel like Ive said what Ive had to say. Lets all contest The Ultimate Lockdown, especially by, as citizen scientists, developing protocols and sharing them. We can save some lives! Let us become excellent by saving lives, repeatedly. The evolution of my position with the Post dates to 2000, when I began work with The City Paper. In 2008, SouthComm Inc. bought the Post and TCP, with the latter ceasing operations in 2013. In 2018, FW Publishing acquired the Post, for which I have served as managing editor since 2011. Follow William Williams Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today (Natural News) The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has stated in a report that more than $60 billion was lost to unemployment insurance fraud during the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. According to the government watchdogs report made public on Jan. 23, state workforce agencies proved $4.3 billion were fraudulently claimed. Moreover, at least $45 billion in transactions, while not confirmed, were flagged as potentially fraudulent. (Related: Government report reveals criminals stole BILLIONS from unemployment benefits during pandemic.) It also noted findings from the Department of Labor (DOL) stating that about $878 billion in total unemployment benefits were paid out from April 2020 through September 2022. Regular unemployment insurance comprised $209 billion of that total, while about $669 billion in payouts under various pandemic unemployment programs comprised the remaining amount. Unemployment benefits formally ended on Sept. 6, 2021. Since the figure is an estimate spread over the entire unemployment system, the GAO cautioned that the data should be interpreted with caution. The watchdog also questioned the DOLs efforts to fight benefits fraud. The DOL has taken steps to address such fraud, it pointed out. However, the department has yet to develop an antifraud strategy based on leading practices from GAOs Fraud Risk Framework as required by law. Without an antifraud strategy, DOL is not able to ensure that it is addressing the most significant fraud risks facing the unemployment insurance system. Also, it has not yet addressed the six October 2021 recommendations GAO made including to identify, assess the impact of, and prioritize [unemployment insurance] fraud risks. These are essential pieces to inform an overall anti-fraud strategy. Acting Assistant Labor Secretary Brent Parton responded by saying his department has the plan to ensure the integrity of the unemployment insurance program and is working to implement the GAOs recommendations. He objected to the reports instruction to complete those recommendations before it undertakes any new anti-fraud strategies. Instead of delaying antifraud efforts, the department is developing the UI fraud risk profile in tandem with ongoing anti-fraud efforts, Parton stated. House GOP to investigate unemployment benefits fraud According to the GAO, the actual amount involved in the COVID-19 unemployment benefits fraud may even be substantially higher. The House Oversight Committee chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-KY) wrote to the DOL and its inspector generals office about fraudulent jobless benefits claims. Aside from the federal agency, state labor departments in California, New York and Pennsylvania also received letters from Comer. According to the Republican congressman, the Biden administration has allowed fraud to run rampant in federal assistance programs and Democrats in Congress have conducted little oversight. He assured the public that this will change with the GOP controlling the House of Representatives. We owe it to Americans to identify how hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent under the guise of pandemic relief were lost to waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, he said. The GAOs report came a week before a scheduled hearing by the House GOP over the rampant waste of taxpayer dollars in COVID relief programs on Feb. 1. The Labor Department said it received Comers letter about unemployment benefits fraud and is now reviewing it. Watch Fox Business host and former National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow discuss the fraudulent spending of federal unemployment benefits. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: New report found that criminals spent Wuhan virus unemployment benefits on drugs and weapons. Initial unemployment claims remain high as recession fears affect labor market. US unemployment claims rise to highest level in eight months. Jobless claims surge to highest level in 6 months as employers cut jobs due to weakening economy. Government lost as much as $100 billion to stimulus money fraud during COVID-19 pandemic. Sources include: JustTheNews.com GAO.gov Reason.com StateScoop.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) White House Democrats have a history of fighting against terror victims suing Islamic terrorists. The Obama administration battled American terror victims suing the PLO. In 2015, after they won a $218 million judgement against the terror group, Blinken, then only a deputy secretary of state, intervened claiming that the lawsuit threatened several decades of US foreign policy. (Article by Daniel Greenfield republished from FrontPageMag.com) But now Biden is fighting 9/11 victims on behalf of the Taliban. At stake are billions being held by the Afghan central bank fund in the United States. A decade ago, 9/11 families sued the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Iran. The court found that the Islamic terrorists were responsible and a judgement of $6 billion was handed down. The verdict was described as symbolic at the time. CBS News commented that it would be near impossible to collect any damages, especially from the Taliban or al Qaeda. But that was before Biden turned over Afghanistan to the Taliban. Since Afghanistan has assets in this country, including $7 billion in bank funds, its now entirely possible to collect that money. Or it would be if the guy who let the Taliban take over wasnt also in the White House. Biden officially announced that he was splitting the $7 billion between the families of the victims and a trust fund to provide humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. But that was just another one of his many lies and double crosses involving Afghanistan. The $3.5 billion was placed in a separate trust that would be separate and distinct from the around $800 million the Biden administration has already spent on aid to Afghanistan. Officials admitted that the money could actually be used for matters other than humanitarian aid. The media headlined it as, Biden frees frozen Afghan billions for relief, 9/11 victims. But a Biden official admitted that it was done to stop 9/11 families from getting access to the money. Absent action by us, these funds were likely to be tied up in courts for years, while the action we have taken stands the best chance of more quickly freeing up a large portion for humanitarian support, the official argued. As a Lawfare blog post noted, the administrations plan would insulate nearly half of the Afghan assets at issue from these attachment efforts. What Biden actually did was take the money off the table for 9/11 victims. And it got worse. Secretary of State Blinken claimed that the administration will continue to support these victims and their families, recognizing the enduring pain they have suffered at the hands of terrorists, including those who operated from Afghanistan prior to the September 11 attacks. These victims and their families should have a full opportunity to set forth their arguments in court. Blinken, like his boss, lied. While the 9/11 families would have their claims heard in court, neither Biden nor Blinken mentioned that the administration would be advocating against them. On the same day as Bidens executive order reserving $3.5 billion for the terrorists, his Justice Department filed a statement of interest in court arguing that the judgement for the victims of terrorism was too large and that actually turning over the money to them would interfere with the Biden administrations foreign policy in Afghanistan. Now a magistrate judge has repeated back most of the DOJs arguments, ruling against the 9/11 families who were laying claim to the other half of the money. Judge Sarah Netburns arguments closely mirror the contradictory positions of Biden and the DOJ. And they reveal the underlying corruption behind the ambiguous status of Afghanistans central bank. Netburn, like the Biden administration, contends that the Afghanistan bank enjoys sovereign immunity because the country itself was not sanctioned as a terrorist state, only the Taliban were. And that the Taliban once again control Afghanistan is irrelevant, according to the judge, because Biden hasnt recognized the reality that this is actually the case. Banks dont enjoy sovereign immunity and neither do the Taliban. Netburn and Biden act as if there were some entity representing Afghanistan that is not the Taliban. That position might make sense if they were backing a resistance movement to the Taliban. But theyre not. Instead the Biden administration has maintained a deliberately ambiguous position for Afghanistans central bank as being both under and not under Taliban control. This is convenient because it allows the Biden administration to use the financial institution as a vehicle and to restrict its access at the same time. The banks leadership, a mixture of terrorists and wonks linked to the former government, maintains that same calculated ambiguity. The deputy governor of the bank is Noor Ahmad Agha, a Taliban leader listed as a specially designated global terrorist. Shah Mohammad Mehrabi, a member of the board of governors of the bank, lives near Washington D.C. and teaches at Montgomery College, has made his own media tour demanding that the United States release funds to the bank. Biden is unable to do that until he thoroughly defeats the 9/11 families in court. If Biden releases the money to the Afghanistan bank before that happens, the 9/11 families will be able to argue that the administration is contradicting its own position. Biden wants to reserve all $7 billion for the terrorists and so he has to hold off long enough to defeat the terror victims. The level of betrayal here is worse than even the Obama administration. The Biden administration claims that the money will be used for humanitarian aid and will not go to the terrorists. Thats another lie and its been disproved by its publicly stated policies. The Biden administration has issued global licenses authorizing financial transactions with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda allied Haqqani Network that include, in the Treasury Departments own words, delivery and provision of humanitarian aid or shipments, administrative issues, donor coordination meetings, sharing descriptions of projects, coordination with regard to travel, participation in technical working groups and sharing of office space. Not to mention the payments of taxes, fees, or import duties to, or the purchase or receipt of permits, licenses, or public utility services from, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network. While Biden and his corrupt cronies insist that they dont recognize the Taliban, thats purely a formality. Not only do they recognize the Taliban as the government, but theyve been extensively coordinating with the Islamic terrorists and helping to fund them. At the end of July, Bidens representative met with senior Taliban representatives to discuss ongoing efforts to enable the $3.5 billion in licensed Afghan central bank reserves to be used for the benefit of the Afghan people. Even while the Biden administration and its allies insist that the other $3.5 billion set aside to meet the claims of terror victims cant be released to them because that would implictly mean that the Taliban are being recognized as the government, Bidens diplomatic representatives can meet with them and conduct negotiations about giving them the other $3.5 billion. Releasing money to 9/11 terror victims would implictly recognize the Taliban, but engaging in sustained diplomatic negotiations with them as the governing authority somehow does not. The Taliban privately understand that Biden cant release the $3.5 billion to them until he beats the 9/11 families in court. And then theyll potentially get access to the whole $7 billion. This corrupt charade is being played out for the benefit of the equally complicit judiciary and media which is cheering the downfall of the 9/11 families and waiting for the cash to go to the Taliban. Reuters headlined its story, Afghans outraged as 9/11 families lay claim to frozen billions. Theres no real ambiguity as to which side Reuters, the media and Joe Biden are on. In October 2001, Biden proposed that, this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran, Hes managed to send much more money than that to the Islamic terror state since, but now hes preparing to send a $7 billion check to the Taliban. All he had to do to get that money was lie and cheat 9/11 families. Read more at: FrontPageMag.com (Natural News) President Joe Bidens lax immigration policy and espousal of open borders is bringing the city of Yuma in Arizona to the brink of collapse. Writing for the New American magazine, contributor David Kelly noted that the city of Yuma, which has a population of 100,000, sees thousands of illegal aliens crossing the nearby border every week. The U.S. Border Patrol for the sector has reportedly seen a 171 percent increase in illegal immigrants crossing the border between 2021 and 2022. Moreover, Yuma is on the No. 3 spot in illegal immigrant apprehensions, tailing the cities of El Paso and Del Rio in Texas. Jonathan Lines, Yuma County supervisor, told Fox News in an interview: Policies need to be changed when you see an unprecedented amount of people coming across the border that even supersedes what we saw under any of the other presidents for the past 30 years. [The illegals are] coming because they said that Biden told them to come, that we have an open border. Yuma farmer Hank Auza also expressed concerns about the illegal aliens possibly passing on foodborne pathogens on their crops. The seat of Arizonas Yuma County produces 93 percent of Americas leafy greens during the winter months, and the amount of illegal aliens entering could undermine food safety. Alex Muller, another Yuma farmer, shared Auzas sentiments. Our fields are monitored, audited and tested for different pathogens. You cant have people walking through the field, he emphasized. Worse, Auza mentioned that many Yuma residents cannot get into the citys only hospital. People have a hard time getting into the hospital because it has been so full of [illegal aliens], he recounted. The county supervisor ultimately warned that things will only get worse with Bidens policies, and called on the president to reassess his stance. (Related: Poll reveals majority of Arizonans want a BORDER WALL in the Grand Canyon State.) Lawmakers who visited Yuma only see sanitized version of border crisis Lines also exhorted officials of the Biden administration to visit Yuma in order to witness the specific challenges faced by the city. Ive invited them several times, and I would invite them again right now. Please come and see for yourself, he said. Members of Congress who recently visited Yuma did not see the truth about the border crisis, only the sanitized version of it. Earlier in January, a bipartisan delegation from Washington, D.C. led by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX) visited the city. But Lines lamented that the senators saw little to understand the full extent of Yumas problem with illegal aliens. After the visit, border crossings had dropped to almost nothing amid tighter activity on the Mexican side, the county supervisor said. [Meanwhile,] discarded shoes, medicine bottles and other evidence of illegal crossings had been removed from along the U.S. side. Everythings been 100 percent sanitized here as well, even more so than theyve ever done before. And were actually not even seeing people coming across the border right now. Lines also pointed out that unannounced delegations that visit Yuma, not the publicized ones such as that of Sinema and Cornyn, always see the real border challenge. Its a lie. Theyre misrepresenting whats actually happening at the border. Every single time theres a high-profile visit, this is par for the course so that people never get to see what it looks like. Kelly concluded his piece by arguing that time and time again Biden and his administration have no desire to secure the border. The border cities such as Yuma will have to continue to stand tall and do what they can to survive the border invasion, while Biden watches from afar willfully ignoring his sworn duty to protect our borders and sovereignty. Watch this Fox News report about Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls mulling an emergency declaration due to the surge of illegal aliens, which he later did. This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey plugs holes in border wall with shipping containers. Video shows camouflaged illegal aliens easily crossing southern border wall to enter US. State nullification: Arizona set to defy Biden regime amid ongoing invasion by illegal aliens. 4.9 Million illegal aliens blew past the US border in the 18 months since Biden was installed in office. Governors in Arizona, Texas bypass corrupt Biden regime and request law enforcement help from other states to combat illegal immigration, drug trafficking. Sources include: TheNewAmerican.com FoxNews.com DailyMail.co.uk Brighteon.com (Natural News) Californias authoritarian Democrats have ruined that state with their high taxes, overregulation, climate change lunacy, pro-crime policies, tolerance of homelessness, and refusal to learn from their mistakes. The result has been a massive flight out of the craziest, bluest state in the union to places where Republicans govern with sanity and compassion for working-class Americans. The flight has included many of Californias wealthier residents. But now, rather than change the way they govern to be more accommodating and appealing to residents so they will stay (and other Americans will consider moving in to the state), those same Democrats are planning to pass a measure that continues to punish even former residents with high taxes if it holds up in court. According to The Epoch Times: California Democrats are pushing for a new tax on the states wealthiest residents that includes the ability to tax them even after theyve left the state for places like Florida or Texasor even after they move out of the country. State Rep. Alex Lee introduced the Wealth Tax Act as Assembly Bill 259 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment 3 in the California State Legislature last week, and on Monday, held a press conference with his Democrat colleagues calling for wealth taxes to bring tax justice. As usual, Democrats use language describing just the opposite of what they are doing; there is no justice in taxing someone a) just because they are wealthier than others; and b) if they no longer live in the state. Billionaires arent paying what they owe while enjoying public investments to build their empires. My colleagues today and colleagues from 7 other states are introducing Wealth Taxes to bring tax justice#TaxTheRich pic.twitter.com/XXFOJx3D3Z Alex Lee ??? (@alex_lee) January 24, 2023 It should be noted that just a few years ago, California ran consecutive budget surpluses, but because Democrats confiscate wealth from those who have it and give it away to those who have no right to it, the state ran a massive budget deficit last year. According to The Epoch Times, the proposed measure includes a provision that will authorize California tax collectors to grab a portion of the worldwide net worth of former state residents who have either moved abroad or now live somewhere else as many have fled for red states that have far fewer regulations and a much lighter tax burden. Currently, Californias socialist Democrats have raised the states corporate tax rate to the highest in the country at 8.84 percent, and the state ranks 48th on the Tax Foundations Business Tax Climate while its 49th on the groups Individual Income Tax Rank. That has led to more moving trucks leaving California for places like Texas, Florida, and North and South Carolina than coming into the state for three years in a row, according to a recent study. And now that the tech sector is collapsing in Democrat Joe Bidens economy, California is liable to continue shedding residents. Californias proposed wealth tax would impose an annual worldwide net worth tax of 1.5 percent on net worth above $1 billion and 1 percent above $50 million, the outlet reported. Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, blasted the ignorant, socialist plan and described it as the wrong solution, both now and in the future while arguing it would encourage more wealthy residents to leave. A wealth tax will only further destabilize our budget system, and it will encourage even more high-wealth individuals to leave the state entirely, Lapsley said, pointing out that for the 2020 tax year, just 13,360 taxpayers paid more than one-quarter, or 25.8 percent, of all the personal income tax collected in the state of nearly 40 million. Further relying on this volatile and highly mobile tax base would only increase the boom-bust cycles that define our budget, he continued, adding that we strongly oppose the proposal. Democrats dont build, they destroy societies with confiscatory, authoritarian policies like this one. Sources include: TheEpochTimes.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The scientists responsible for setting the Doomsday Clock have warned that the world is now just 90 seconds to midnight the closest the planet has ever been to nuclear annihilation. The Doomsday Clock, handled by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit organization focused on global science and security issues, is a reflection of how close to total annihilation humanity is. It is adjusted every January, and the Science and Security Board just moved the clock 10 seconds forward to 90 seconds to midnight. This means that the Science and Security Board believes the threat of nuclear war and other global catastrophes has significantly risen this year. (Related: AI predicts nuclear Armageddon with attacks on London, Moscow and Washington, DC.) The Doomsday Clock is a symbol that represents how close the humanity is to destroying the world with dangerous technologies. Set every year by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it warns how many metaphorical minutes to midnight humanity has left. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists pointed specifically to the ongoing Russian special military operation in Ukraine for the move of the Doomsday Clock closer to total global annihilation. Back in January 2022, when the clock was at 100 seconds to midnight, the organization had warned of rising tensions in the region and said the outbreak of violence between Russia and Ukraine could push the world closer to an apocalypse. Finding a path to serious peace negotiations could go a long way toward reducing the risk of escalation, noted the scientists. In this time of unprecedented global danger, concerted action is required and every second counts. The organization also claimed humanity faced threats from other ongoing issues, such as disruptive technologies, biological threats and so-called climate change. Washington blamed for Doomsday Clock status due to central role in escalating conflict in Ukraine Central to the movement of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight is the United States role in making sure the conflict in Ukraine escalates and preventing any kind of peaceful resolution. If the U.S. really wants to avoid war with Russia, it must realize that, barring the use of nuclear weapons, Russia is not only determined to prevail, but it has the means to prevail, wrote Ray McGovern, a former Central Intelligence Agency Russia analyst. McGovern wrote a scathing criticism of President Joe Bidens administration for its hawkish policies against Russia, which, coupled with a refusal to open any kind of diplomatic channels, is what could lead to a nuclear apocalypse. What has gone on in Ukraine over the last nine years poses an existential threat to Russia. It will not tolerate an existential threat, he wrote. Biden and his sophomore advisers do not seem to get it, and that makes it exceptionally dangerous. For its part, the Kremlin reacted to the Doomsday Clocks movement by calling for a sober appraisal of the tensions between Russia and the West over the Ukraine situation. The situation as a whole is really alarming, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He added that there was no prospect of any kind of easing of hostility based on the policies pushed by the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This imposes on us a duty to be particularly careful, to be alert and to take appropriate measures. Proving the Kremlin correct, U.S. officials have openly stated that they are strongly considering sending M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and other policymakers have also openly called for driving Russia out of the disputed territories of Ukraine altogether, despite warnings that Russian President Vladimir Putin could end up using nuclear weapons if he thinks the continued existence of Russia is at risk. Learn more about the possibility of nuclear war at Nuclear.news. Watch this episode of the Health Ranger Report as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about the things most people dont know about surviving a nuclear war. This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Russian foreign minister Lavrov claims West has prevented Ukraine from taking part in peace talks, now almost in a real war with his country. ANALYST: USA / NATO deliberately provoking war escalation with Russia, and Putin may leap past a measured response and go right for the nukes. Sending modern tanks to Ukraine could trigger unimaginable escalation, German lawmaker warns. Putin now making preparations to finish Ukraine and take on NATO with massive military buildup that includes nuclear-capable hypersonic nuclear missiles. While Putin readies nuclear missiles, Germany has RUN OUT of munitions and can only fight a war for TWO days. Sources include: HeadlineUSA.com Independent.co.uk Reuters.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Startups in the field of bioengineering are attempting to get the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve trials involving transplanting animal organs into humans. One of the first-of-its-kind xenotransplants occurred in January 2022, when 57-year-old David Bennett, a man with late-stage heart failure from Maryland, received the heart of a pig. Bennett was too sick to be eligible for a traditional human transplant, which is why a biotech company, United Therapeutics, genetically engineered the heart of a pig to reduce the risk of immune rejection. This heart was then transplanted into him. The initial results of the operation were promising, but Bennett died within two months after the operation. His official cause of death is still being determined, with mainstream medical opinions claiming it is not due to organ rejection. United Therapeutics is undeterred by Bennetts death, and the company believes that formal trials of pig organs in living human subjects could begin as early as 2024. (Related: Japan to legalize organ transplant farms of animals to be raised and slaughtered for human transplant organs.) Scientists employed by biotech companies like United Therapeutics believe studying the creation of bioengineered replacement organs could be the key to easing the nations organ transplant shortage. Miromatrix, which is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is another company experimenting with turning pig organs into ones that resemble human organs. Miromatrix CEO Jeff Ross hopes the company can conduct a first-of-its-kind human testing of a bioengineered organ by the end of the year if the FDA agrees. If the FDA does sign off on this trial, the initial experiment will be conducted outside of the volunteer patients body. The first trial will test to see if a bioengineered pig liver could be used in people. To transform this pig liver, Miromatrix scientists create a kind of scaffold of a liver. To do this, the livers pig cells are dissolved and flushed out to turn the organ into a ghostly, semi-translucent scaffold with a rubbery texture. Once this stage is complete, this scaffold is then infused with human liver cells taken from donated organs unable to be transplanted. These living cells get absorbed into the nooks and crannies of the scaffold to restart its functions. We essentially regrow the organ, said Ross. Because we remove all the cells from that pig organ, our bodies wont see it as a pig organ anymore. Miromatrix CEO warns of xenotransplantations potential dangers More than 105,000 people are currently on waiting lists in the United States for organ transplants. Thousands of these people will die before they get their turn, and thousands more never even get put on the list, with their chances of recovery considered too much of a long shot to allow a resource as valuable as an organ to be put in their bodies. This is why scientists and physicians alike are looking at animals as another source of organs, and the FDA itself is strongly considering whether to allow more experiments with xenotransplantation using the gene-edited organs of pigs. The number of organs we have available are never going to be able to meet the demand, said Dr. Amit Tevar, a transplant surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. This is our frustration. With bioengineered organs, physicians wouldnt have to wait for people to sign up to donate their organs and then pass away. They wouldnt even have to breed special kinds of pigs. They would just have to acquire their leftover organs from slaughterhouses and then run them through lab procedures like the ones Miromatrix scientists are currently experimenting with. That is something that in the long term may very likely contribute to the development of organs we can use in humans, claimed Tevar. Despite this, even Ross of Miromatrix has cautioned people of the potential dangers. Stripping away the pig cells remove some of the risks of xenotransplantation, but the risk of complications, like lurking animal viruses or hyper-rejection, does not fall to zero percent. Furthermore, the process of getting human cells to take over bioengineered pig organs is complex. We cant take billions of cells and push them into the organs at once, said Ross. Learn more about other potentially dangerous medical experiments at DangerousMedicine.com. Watch this video from The Constitutional County discussing how hospitals all over America are killing transplant patients by forcing them to take experimental vaccines. This video is from the channel The Constitutional County on Brighteon.com. More related articles: MEDICAL SCIENCE WARNING: Lung transplant recipients develop respiratory distress and organ rejection after second dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Colorado woman previously denied transplant for being unvaccinated finally gets the medical care she needs. Animal organ HARVESTING farms coming soon? Researchers develop method to refurbish harvested animal organs for human transplant. Japanese ban on creating human organis in animals to be lifted; transplant farms to mass produce organs for disease-ridden humans? Aborted baby organs to be used to grow transplants for medical patients. Sources include: Brief.BismarckAnalysis.com Wired.com Fortune.com EuroNews.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) A trucking company based in Michigan auctioned off its equipment after 51 years of business operations. The assets of family-owned Art Mulder & Sons Trucking (AMST) were auctioned online on Jan. 24. Orbitbid, a subsidiary of Miedema Asset Management Group, handled the online action. Some of the assets from the Holland, Michigan-based trucker included 35 semi-trucks, 108 refrigerated trailers and 38 dry van trailers. First established in 1971 by Art Mulder, AMST gained a reputation as a refrigerated less-than-truckload carrier. However, it ceased operations in late November 2022 after more than five decades in the business. The Jan. 24 online auction served to offload the companys remaining assets. Arts descendants worked for AMST including his three sons Hanz, Peter and Phillip. Two of Arts grandsons also joined the company, with Chad Mulder serving as president and Greg Mulder serving as COO. Arts three sons also established Mulder Brothers Brokerage, which specializes in the LTL market for frozen and refrigerated food, in 2008. Mulder Fleet Services, which began as an in-house fleet repair shop for AMST 30 years ago, has been operating as its own entity since 2020. AMST also tied up with the Florida-based Mandich Group to open a $31 million, 147,000-square-foot cold storage facility in Holland, Michigan in March 2022. Greg divulged that the decision to close the company was not an easy one. But declining freight volume and plunging freight rates beginning in the late second quarter of 2022 until the third quarter of that year made the LTL trucker reevaluate its plans. (Related: Freight companies expect muted peak season due to waning retailer demand.) All of our manufacturing customers that were trying to ship stuff saw their costs going up. As they saw softening in the market, they were asking for price decreases in late Q2 and Q3, but our costs stayed the same or continue to rise, he told FreightWaves. It didnt leave us feeling very good about 2023. AMST not ruling out a comeback if things improve According to the Department of Transportations (DOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the company had 46 power units and 52 drivers in 2022. However, Greg remarked that AMST had since scaled down its fleet to around 20 trucks and drivers prior to its November 2022 closure. The AMST executive added that the companys customers have transitioned to its logistics division, working with partner carriers in the LTL industry to transport refrigerated goods to various distribution centers. He also mentioned that many of AMSTs remaining drivers were working for other carriers in the Great Lakes State within days of its layoffs in November. AMST was not the only trucking company that shuttered in November. In Iowa, refrigerated carrier Mid Continent Trucking (MCT) emailed drivers and employees that it would close down after 24 years. The trucking firm owned by Brian and Ted Wickersham blamed worsening economic conditions and tumbling freight rates as the reason for the closure in their Nov. 16 email. The company said all displaced employees who want to continue working have since found jobs in other firms. Paul Cromwell, MCTs safety and risk manager, told FreightWaves that he had been in contact with all drivers and had informed them of possible openings in other companies. Meanwhile, AMST plans to keep its DOT number. Greg said the company will remain dormant for now, but he did not rule out a comeback as an asset-based carrier if freight conditions improve. Our desire was always to keep a fleet. Its in our blood. Its what got us here, he said. After 50 years of hard work and three generations working in trucking, the last thing we wanted to do was close down. SupplyChainWarning.com has more stories about the trucking industry. Watch Stew Peters and Carlos Cortez eviscerate President Joe Bidens infrastructure bill detrimental to the trucking industry. This video is from the Signposts channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Used truck prices drop as trucking industry overcomes supply chain issues. Transportation SHOCKWAVES reverberate as consumer demand plummets amid unyielding INFLATION. 70,000 truck owner-operators in California may be forced to stop driving in one week due to new state law. Transportation DISASTER: CoreFund Capital closure leaves trucking companies unable to pay their drivers or buy fuel. Truckers transportation coalition warns of super supply chain crisis as Americas cities may collapse into war zones: food, fuel, medical supplies could all be disrupted. Sources include: FreightWaves.com 1 FreightWaves.com 2 Brighteon.com The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC),yesterday, said its candidate, Bola Tinubu, did not mention, blame or accuse President Muhammadu Buhari of being responsible for the current challenges in the country. But in a counter move, the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has alerted the Department of State Services (DSS) and other relevant authorities of plans by Tinubu to destabilise the country through a violent revolution and riots. Nevertheless, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, yesterday, reiterated the commitment of President Buhari, towards a credible, free, fair and widely acceptable general election. At the same time, the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has maintained that no registered voter without the Permanent Voter's Card (PVC) would be allowed to participate in the elections which is scheduled to commence February 25. Tinubu had while speaking at a presidential rally at the MKO Abiola stadium, Kuto, Abeokuta, Ogun State, said the lingering fuel crisis and naira redesign by the Central Bank of Nigeria were part of a plot to thwart his expected victory. "They don't want this election to hold. They want to scuttle it. Will you allow them? They have started coming up with the issue of 'no fuel'. Don't worry, if there is no fuel, we will trek to cast the vote. If you like, increase the price of fuel, hide the fuel or change the ink on the naira notes, we will win the election. Let the price of fuel continue to increase, they are the ones that know why they are hoarding it. "They are hoarding naira notes, they are hoarding fuel, we will vote and we will win. If you like, change the ink in the naira note, we will win the election, the opposition will be defeated," Tinubu had said. But the Director, Media and Publicity, APC PCC, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement, said Nigerians should no longer be in doubt about those working in cahoots with fifth columnists in the system to inflict avoidable pains on the hapless people for political end. He said no sooner had Tinubu empathised with the Nigerian people facing the dual crises of fuel and new Naira notes scarcity, than the PDP and the Atiku camp issued a knee-jerk response, derailing from the issues, distorting Tinubu's statement and trying, in vain, to create a wedge between him and Buhari. The campaign noted that Tinubu was only calling the government's attention to the sabotage being carried out by some fifth columnists in the system, possibly working in cahoots with the PDP, stressing that when the guilty were afraid of being uncovered, they tried to push back with red-herring "For the records, Asiwaju Tinubu during APC campaign rally at Abeokuta on Wednesday, in his statement, did not mention, blame or accuse President Muhammadu Buhari for the current challenges in the country. "The CBN officials, including Governor Godwin Emefiele have said many times that enough new Naira notes have been supplied to the banks, yet, our people complain that they have not been able to get the new notes. In recent days, many ATMs are either not working or when working they are dispensing the old notes, just a few days to the January 31 deadline." Onanuga stressed that Tinubu was aware of the salutary efforts by Buhari to end the fuel queues, by chairing a 14-man panel, yet the queues and agony continue. He added that for a presidential candidate, who cared about the suffering of the people, he had a duty to warn the government that its efforts to make life better for Nigerians were being sabotaged on several fronts. According to him, "Our presidential candidate only re-echoed what is well-known and acknowledged, even by President Buhari himself at different fora. That there are fifth columnists in and outside of government, who often throw spanners in the works against good intentions and programmes of the government." Atiku Tells DSS Tinubu Planning Revolution, Riots Atiku's Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, who alerted the DSS that Tinubu was planning revolution and riot, said Tinubu's outburst at the APC rally in Abeokuta, was a prelude to the violence he was planning. "Recall that Tinubu, while addressing a crowd at Abeokuta, almost declared himself as winner of an election that is 29 days away, using the same entitlement mentality that he used in blackmailing his party men into getting the ticket for the general election. "But we restate that, his rhetoric does not reflect someone, who will accept defeat in the event of his imminent electoral loss. He said in the Yoruba language, 'This is a revolution. This election is a revolution. They don't want us to have votes. They want to scatter it. Will you agree? No... I'm bringing a revolution.' "Tinubu is not too big and he has no immunity neither is he above the law of the land to be interrogated by the Department of State Services or by the Nigerian police. To avoid bloodshed in the coming election, the APC flag bearer's comments must not be waved aside. For clarity, in political science, a revolution is a 'forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favour of a new system.' "It is funny that Tinubu, who has been the national leader of his political party for over eight years, is now threatening a revolution against a government being run by his party, one month to an election in which he is participating in. Essentially, he is saying if he cannot have it, no one will. "Recall that earlier in June 2022, Tinubu boasted in the same Yoruba language and also in Abeokuta about how president Buhari cried on National Television following his electoral losses and how he (Tinubu) made him president. It is not a coincidence that barely seven months after, he returned to Abeokuta to accuse and denigrate President Muhammadu and the APC-led federal government of trying to frustrate him. "From information available to us, Tinubu has begun releasing money to some of his quack activists to stage protests in some strategic locations in the country especially, in Abuja in order to cause violence ahead of the polls which he will lose. "On the surface, the protests will be about the lingering petrol scarcity which he had refused to comment on before the election. Some demonstrations will also be held against the Central Bank of Nigeria in order to force the apex bank to extend the deadline for the currency swap. "While it is the inalienable right of Nigerians to protest, Tinubu's accusation that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was behind the petrol scarcity and the scarcity of the new naira note, a nonsensical claim given the fact that the PDP has not been in power for the last eight years. "As his former campaign director, Hajia Najaatu Mohammed, stated on Arise Television, Tinubu has no honour whatsoever. Money is his religion and his essence. He wants to buy the election with bullion vans just as he bought the Presidential ticket of his party last year but this will never happen." Relatedly, the Presidential Campaign Organisation of the PDP has also told Tinubu, to count it out of his self-inflicted woes with President Muhammadu Buhari resulting in his continued attack and pouring of vitriolic on the person of Mr President. One of the spokespersons of the Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organisation, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement, said it was strange that Tinubu wanted the world to believe that his caustic remarks against Buhari were intended for Atiku and the PDP, when neither Atiku nor PDP was involved in the monetary policies or the failure to arrest the horrifically unending fuel crisis. He noted that Tinubu also knew that Buhari approved the redesigning of the naira and that issues of distribution of the naira notes were vested in the APC-controlled federal government and not the PDP, even as he pointed out that it was clear that Tinubu's verbal assaults against Buhari was the "official position of his confused, disoriented and disorganised campaign organisation." Continuing, he said, "The Campaign says it is indeed pathetic that in less than 24 hours after Tinubu stood on the public stage at his Presidential Rally in Abeokuta, Ogun State, to accuse the Buhari administration of creating fuel scarcity and redesigning the naira to scuttle the 2023 election, he is turning around to blame the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for his woes. "It is important to remind Asiwaju Tinubu that in accusing the 'powers that be' of creating fuel scarcity and hoarding the naira to truncate the election, he knew that President Buhari is the Minister of Petroleum Resources and that all agencies of government in charge of prospecting and distribution of petroleum resources are under his (Buhari) office. "It is noteworthy that having come to the conclusion, by himself, that he does not enjoy the support of President Buhari, having realised that his campaign is now falling apart with its leaders leaving in droves given his manifest rejection by Nigerians, Asiwaju Tinubu now seeks to blackmail the President and incite his followers to violence, with the view of truncating the electoral process and blaming it on President Buhari." In another development, Atiku, at a rally in Ebonyi, has said he had been propagating the gospel of restructuring, because he believed in it and meant it, adding that, the the ruling APC abandoned restructuring because the party was deceitful. "We are convinced that this state is a PDP state. And as you know, I am committed to power devolution as well as resource control, restructuring and I know all the South-eastern states have been yearning for it. "I've been propagating for the restructuring of this country, because we want them to have more powers and more resources to deal with their own local affairs. The APC, they abandoned the issue of restructuring. They are a very deceitful party or alliance. We are committed to it and we mean it. So, give us the support we are going to deliver." "These people formed a party called APC, it is not a party, it is an alliance. The Alliance is collapsing and it has collapsed. You have no business voting for APC, anyway you have never voted for APC before," he said. While assuring the people that his administration would be for the youth and the women, he said, "I want to assure you that the next government of PDP is going to be a government for the youth and for the women, because you are in majority and we must recognise that and we must give you the opportunity so that you can also be able to lead us of this country." Director General of the campaign and the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, also said the crowd at the rally was a testament that the state remained a PDP state. On his part, the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, in a subtle attack on the APC, urged the people not to lose hope because of one bad administration. "Do not lose hope because of one bad administration. That party is not a party, that party is a coalition of small parties that got together and deceived Nigeria people. It will not happen again," he said. Malami Reiterates Buhari's Commitment to Credible Polls Malami, who reiterated the commitment of President Buhari, towards the conduct of a credible, free, fair and widely acceptable general election, spoke yesterday at a conference organised by the National Association of Judiciary Correspondents (NAJUC), Abuja chapter. Speaking on the theme, "2023 General Elections: Judiciary and Sustainability of Nigeria's Democracy", the AGF pointed out that the President's recent assent to the Electoral Act, 2022, which has been applauded by many patriotic citizens, pundits and international community alike is an attestation to the administration's determination to conduct a remarkable poll. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. Malami pointed out that the sustainability of Nigeria's democracy was not linear, stressing that citizens have vital roles to play in the democratic process and must shun all vices that were capable of undermining the progresses that have been recorded so far. "In particular, the media is paramount in voter education so that the Nigerian citizens are enlightened to resist the urge of selling their votes and not to allow themselves to be used to commit electoral offences or cause violence before, during and after elections," the AGF stated. At the same time, the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Justice Hussain Baba Yusuf, admitted that the Judiciary was under pressure due to unprecedented number of pre-election cases, which could d skyrocket after the election proper. Represented by Justice Olukayode Adeniyi, the CJ assured the people that justice would be done to all the cases without fear, favour or ill-will. INEC Maintains No PVC, No Voting Stand Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has insisted that no eligible voter in the country would be allowed to cast vote in the forthcoming general election without a Permanent Voter Card (PVC). Yakubu assured the people that the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) was highly secured, intact and could not be compromised or hacked into by overzealous persons. Speaking on the topic, "INEC and the Challenges of ICT- The Way Forward", Yakubu insisted that technology would be deployed to actualise a credible, fair and hitch-free general election. "As with every aspect of our national lives, adopting technologies into the electoral process is always met with challenges. One major challenge was the lack of a clear-cut legal framework supporting the deployment of technology by the commission especially, in the accreditation of voters and the voting process. "The deployment of the Smart Card Readers in 2015 and its use was faced with various challenges such as resistance to use in some isolated instances, snatching and destruction of devices, attempts to manipulate the use of the devices, and most prominently various judicial pronouncements on the legality of its use," Yakubu said. Represented by the Director ICT, Dr Lawrence Bayode, the INEC Chairman said, "Another very disturbing trend is the misinformation and disinformation on technological deployments by the commission on the social media space and some media houses picking up news bulletins from social media platforms to discuss on their morning shows and political programmes without reaching out to the Commission for its stance on such issues. One of such is the recent viral assumptions that PVC is not required to vote on Election day." Chairman of NAJUC, Kayode Lawal, appealed to politicians to play politics by the rules and in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022. (Natural News) Europe has not been this short on energy supplies for decades, but thanks to a series of self-inflicted, politically motivated decisions, the continent is now on the brink of total economic collapse for want of more energy. For years, European countries driven by insane left-wing climate change ideology have been steadily shuttering power generation centers run by fossil fuels and replacing them with far less efficient and wholly unreliable green energy alternatives. Wind and solar farms may assuage liberal consciences, but they do not produce enough power by themselves to replace coal- and natural gas-fired plants, to say nothing of zero-emission nuclear power plants. But its not that Europeans were using a lot fewer fossil fuels for energy. Instead, European countries were buying much of it from Russia, thinking that as long as they werent producing it and someone else was, then they could claim how they were taking care of the planet when, of course, it was all just a sick left-wing charade. After Russia invaded Ukraine and the United States demanded that its European allies impose energy sanctions on Russia, Vladimir Putin no longer supplied Europeans with the natural gas they need to heat their homes and power their economies. Mind you, Putin is still selling energy mostly to China and India so he hasnt been hurt too badly. Europe is a different story, however. And now, the continents ability to supply itself with enough fossil fuel energy to sustain itself is about to take another self-inflicted hit, as reported this week by OilPrice.com: The Dutch government plans to close the Groningen gas field this year despite Europes precarious supply position. Groningen is the largest gas field in Europe. The field is dangerous, a government official from the Hague told the Financial Times, and the government has no plans to boost production from it. Production from Groningen has been curtailed substantially, and there were plans in place to phase out production altogether because of increased seismic activity in the vicinity of the field even before the energy crisis began in 2021. As gas prices began to climb in the autumn of 2021 and then took off in the spring of 2022, some began speculating that the Netherlands could keep the field operating to contribute to filling the gap in gas supply left by Russian pipeline deliveries. We wont open up more because of the safety issues, Hans Vijbrief told the Financial Times. It is politically totally unviable. But apart from that, Im not going to do it because it means that you increase the chances of earthquakes, which I dont want to be responsible for. Its very, very simple: everybody who has some knowledge of earthquake danger tells me that its really very dangerous to keep on producing there. Im quite convinced its wise to close it down, Vijbrief added. Production from the Groningen site has been cut back significantly, and there were already plans in place to shut it down altogether due to seismic activity in the region of the field ahead of the energy crisis that worsened last year. As gas prices began to climb in the autumn of 2021 and then took off in the spring of 2022, some began speculating that the Netherlands could keep the field operating to contribute to filling the gap in gas supply left by Russian pipeline deliveries, OilPrice.com reported. Apparently, thats not going to happen. According to the FT, there have been around 100 quakes in the vicinity of the Groningen field since the 1980s, resulting in around 150,000 claims for property damage. So, rather than find a new field, the Dutch have decided just to shut down Groningen and, perhaps, keep their fingers crossed and hope for the best that someone will be able to step in and provide more politically viable energy. Sources include: OilPrice.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) One of the most outspoken proponents of vaccines is not okay with Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) booster shots, saying that they are ineffective at protecting against the latest disease variants. Paul Offit for Profit of the Vaccine Education Center and the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia wrote a perspective letter for the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) explaining why, from a scientific perspective, COVID boosters are a no-go. If you know Offits history, it might shock you that he is actually coming forward to go against one of them. This is the same guy who infamously stated that a newborn baby could take 10,000 vaccine injections at once and be just fine. There must really be something wrong with these boosters, in other words, for Offit to dare speak out against them. (Related: Offit has been speaking out against COVID boosters a lot lately.) On June 28, 2022, researchers from PfizerBioNTech and Moderna presented data on their bivalent vaccines to the FDAs Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (of which I am a member), Offit wrote. The results were underwhelming. Bivalent boosters resulted in levels of neutralizing antibodies against BA.1 that were only 1.5 to 1.75 times as high as those achieved with monovalent boosters. Previous experience with the companies vaccines suggested that this difference was unlikely to be clinically significant. Dont get boosted theres no point According to Offit, COVID variants and subvariants are mutating so rapidly that by the time a new booster shot comes out, it is already obsolete. When people take these outdated injections, they are not gaining any further protection. Evidence also suggests that each subsequent booster renders the immune system worse off than it was previously. They trigger production of the wrong antibodies, for one, and they also provoke the formation of vaccine-induced AIDS. Offit did not address any of this subject in his letter, but he did point out that the injections do not work as claimed. Regulators determined, based on available data, that there is no significant difference in neutralization of any SARS-CoV-2 variant between the boosted and the non-boosted, which means the shots are useless. Another study also found that ZBA.5 [neutralizing-antibody] titers were comparable following monovalent and bivalent mRNA boosters, meaning the boosted and the non-boosted have the same protection or non-protection, depending on how you look at it. The reason for this is more than likely immune imprinting, according to Offit, which simply means that the first injection series primed recipients immune systems to ward off the ancestral strain of COVID. They therefore probably responded to epitopes shared by BA.4 and BA.5 and the ancestral strain, rather than to new epitopes on BA.4 and BA.5, he explained. To be clear, Offit is still a proponent of vaccines, including the initial round of mRNA injections from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. He still claims these injections are helpful, even though evidence shows that people who take them are getting sick and dying suddenly. Offit has not become an anti-vaxxer, to put it another way. This is merely the first time we know of that he has spoken out against a vaccine injection, which speaks volumes about its uselessness. I believe we should stop trying to prevent all symptomatic infections in healthy, young people by boosting them with vaccines containing mRNA from strains that might disappear a few months later, is how he concludes his letter, still urging the public to get injected with the initial round which we would not advise based on everything that is currently known about these deadly shots. To learn more about the dangers and ineffectiveness of COVID injections, visit Vaccines.news. Sources for this article include: NEJM.org NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Secret reports from the Governments of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and most of Europe have raised alarm bells as they confirm that approximately 20 million deaths have been recorded resulting in 2 million excess deaths since Pfizer lied enabling the mass roll-out of the Covid-19 injections. (Article republished from Expose-News.com) Sadly, further reports quietly published by the UK Government also confirm that mortality rates are lowest among the unvaccinated in every single age group. This therefore strongly suggests that Pfizers lies have caused millions to die and the Covd-19 injections are by far the largest contributing factor to the millions of excess deaths seen across the Five Eyes and most of Europe. Official figures provided to EuroMOMO by the UK Government and 26 other Governments of counties across Europe reveal that most of the continent suffered 375,253 excess deaths in 2021 and 404,6000 excess deaths in 2022. This equates to 779,853 excess deaths over the two years. The figures do not include Ukraine so cannot be blamed on the ongoing war. Australia suffered 11,068 excess deaths in 2021 and then a shocking 22,730 excess deaths by week 38 of 2022. This is in stark contrast to 2020, when only 1,306 excess deaths were recorded at the height of the Covid pandemic and prior to the rollout of the Covid injections. This means Australia suffered a shocking 1,640% increase in excess deaths in just 39 weeks throughout 2022 compared to 53 weeks throughout 2020. New Zealand suffered 2,169 excess deaths in 2021 and then a shocking 5,286 excess deaths by week 49 of 2022. These are shocking figures for the small island with an estimated population of 5 million people. Especially when compared to 2020, when no excess deaths were suffered and 160 fewer deaths were actually recorded than expected at the height of the Covid pandemic and prior to the rollout of the Covid injections. This means New Zealand suffered a shocking 3,404% increase in excess deaths in 49 weeks throughout 2022 compared to 53 weeks throughout 2020. In Canada, the situation is similarly concerning. The country suffered 35,318 excess deaths in 2021 and then 25,333 excess deaths by week 34 of 2022. This compares to 31,042 excess deaths in 2020 by week 53. However, when looking at the figures up to week 34 in both 2020 and 2021, it becomes clear that 2022 has in fact been the worst year for excess deaths by far. By week 34 of 2020, Canada had recorded 17,888 excess deaths. By week 34 of 2021, Canada had recorded 18,498 excess deaths. But by week 34 of 2022, Canada had recorded 25,333 excess deaths, representing a 42% increase on the excess deaths recorded in 2020, prior to the roll-out of the Covid-19 injections. This dramatic increase in excess deaths raises serious questions about the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines and whether they may have been a contributing factor to the increase in excess deaths. The USA suffered 674,954 excess deaths in 2021, and then 434,520 excess deaths by week 49 of 2022. This equates to over 1.1 million excess deaths in nearly two years. The USA suffered a staggering 674,954 excess deaths in 2021, a year that saw the country coerced into coming forward to get injected multiple times throughout the mass roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccines. These numbers represent a significant increase in deaths compared to previous years, and have raised alarm bells among the public and healthcare professionals alike. The situation did not improve in 2022, with 434,520 excess deaths recorded by week 49, bringing the total number of excess deaths to over 1.1 million in nearly two years. This is a staggering number and has led to questions about the effectiveness of the vaccine and the governments response to the alleged pandemic. The official narrative put forth by governments and health organizations has been that deaths in 2020 increased due to the outbreak of the alleged Covid-19 pandemic, with the response to it adversely affecting millions of people worldwide. However, as the pandemic progressed and a vaccine was developed and distributed, the narrative shifted to focus on the safety and effectiveness of the Covid-19 injection as a means to curb the spread of the virus and reduce the number of deaths. This narrative was reinforced through various propaganda campaigns, public statements, and official statements, with the message that the vaccine was safe and effective and would be the key to ending the pandemic. However, the figures and official reports released by governments in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and most of Europe have shown that the opposite has happened, with millions of excess deaths being recorded since the mass roll-out of the Covid-19 injections. This has led to many questions about the safety of the vaccine, the facts of the official narrative, and the integrity of Governments and Public Health bodies around the world. The figures have been provided to both the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and EuroMOMO by each countrys Government organisations. The U.S. data has been provided by the Centers for Disease Control. The UK data has been provided by the Office for National Statistics. And Australias data has been provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. So these arent independent estimates. They are official Government-authorized figures. And they show that the Five Eyes countries and 26 other countries across Europe have suffered 1.99 million excess deaths since the Covid-19 injections were first granted emergency use authorisation. The official figures published by the UK Government certainly suggest that Covid-19 vaccines may have been the biggest contributing factor to the millions of excess deaths seen across the Five Eyes and most of Europe. Because the figures confirm mortality rates are lowest among the unvaccinated in every single age group. The figures can be found in a report titled Deaths by Vaccination Status, England, 1 January 2021 to 31 May 2022, and it can be accessed on the ONS site here, and downloaded here. Table 2 of the report contains the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status by age group for deaths per 100,000 person-years in England up to May 2022. Weve taken the figures provided by the ONS for January to May 2022 and produced the following charts which reveal the horrific consequences of the mass Covid-19 vaccination campaign. 18 to 39-year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 18 to 39-year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 In every single month since the beginning of 2022, partly vaccinated and double vaccinated 18-39-year-olds have been more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds. Triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds however have had a mortality rate that has worsened by the month following the mass Booster campaign that occurred in the UK in December 2021. In January, triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds were ever so slightly less likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 29.8 per 100,000 among the unvaccinated and 28.1 per 100,000 among the triple vaccinated. But this all changed from February onwards. In February, triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds were 27% more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 26.7 per 100k among the triple vaccinated and 21 per 100k among the unvaccinated. Things unfortunately got even worse for the triple vaccinated by May 2022 though. The data shows that triple vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds were 52% more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds in May, with a mortality rate of 21.4 per 100k among the triple vaccinated and 14.1 among the unvaccinated. The worst figures so far though are among the partly vaccinated, with May seeing partly vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds 202% more likely to die than unvaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds. 40 to 49-year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 40 to 49-year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 We see pretty much the same when it comes to 40 to 49-year-olds. In every single month since the beginning of 2022, partly vaccinated and double vaccinated 40 to 49-year-olds have been more likely to die than unvaccinated 40 to 49year-olds. The worst month for mortality rates among the partly and double vaccinated compared to the unvaccinated was February. This month saw partly vaccinated 40-49-year-olds 264% more likely to die than unvaccinated 40-49-year-olds. Whilst double vaccinated 40-49-year-olds were 61% more likely to die than unvaccinated 40-49-year-olds. By May 2022, five months after the mass Booster campaign, triple vaccinated 40-49-year-olds were 40% more likely to die than unvaccinated 40-49-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 81.8 per 100k among the triple vaccinated and a mortality rate of 58.4 among the unvaccinated. 50 to 59-year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 50 to 59-year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 Yet again we see exactly the same pattern among 50 to 59-year-olds as seen among 40-49-year-olds. In every single month since the beginning of 2022, partly vaccinated and double vaccinated 50 to 59-year-olds have been more likely to die than unvaccinated 50-59year-olds. May was the worst month for partly vaccinated 50 to 59-year-olds, as they were 170% more likely to die than unvaccinated 50 to 59-year-olds. Whereas January was the worst month for double vaccinated 50-59-year-olds, as they were 115% more likely to die than unvaccinated 50-59-year-olds. By May 2022, five months after the mass Booster campaign, triple vaccinated 50-59-year-olds were 17% more likely to die than unvaccinated 50-59-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 332 per 100k among the triple vaccinated and a mortality rate of 282.9 per 100k among the unvaccinated. Therefore, by May 2022, unvaccinated 50-59-year-olds were the least likely to die among all vaccination groups. 60 to 69-year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 60 to 69-year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 The 60 to 69-year-olds show exactly the same pattern as 18 to 39-year-olds. The double and partly vaccinated have been more likely to die than the unvaccinated since the turn of the year, and the triple vaccinated have been more likely to die than the unvaccinated since February. In January, partly vaccinated 60-69-year-olds were a shocking 256% more likely to die than unvaccinated 60-69-year-olds. Whilst in the same month, double vaccinated 60-69-year-olds were 223% more likely to die than unvaccinated 60-69-year-olds. By May, triple vaccinated 60-69-year-olds were a troubling 117% more likely to die than unvaccinated 60-69-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 1801.3 per 100k among the triple vaccinated and a mortality rate of just 831.1 among the unvaccinated. 70 to 79year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 70 to 79-year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 Things are slightly different for 70 to 70-year-olds because the data reveals the unvaccinated have been the least likely to die every month since the turn of the year. In January, the partly vaccinated were 198% more likely to die than the unvaccinated, whilst the double vaccinated were a shocking 267% more likely to die than the unvaccinated. The worst figures however come in May, which saw triple vaccinated 70-79-year-olds a disturbing 332% more likely to die than unvaccinated 70-79-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 9417.2 per 100k among the triple vaccinated and just 2181 per 100k among the unvaccinated. 80 to 89-year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 80 to 89-year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 Again we see the same pattern among 80-89-year-olds as seen among 70-79-year-olds, with the unvaccinated the least likely to die every month since the turn of the year. In April, double vaccinated 80-89-year-olds were 213% more likely to die than unvaccinated 80-89-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 7598.9 per 100k among the unvaccinated and a mortality rate of a troubling 23,781.8 per 100k among the double vaccinated. But in the same month, partly vaccinated 80-89-year-olds were a terrifying 672% more likely to die than unvaccinated 80-89-year-olds, with a shocking mortality rate of 58,668.9 per 100k among the partly vaccinated. By May 2022, triple vaccinated 80-89-year-olds were 142% more likely to die than unvaccinated 80-89-year-olds, with a mortality rate of 14,002.3 among the triple vaccinated and a mortality rate of 5,789.1 among the unvaccinated. 90 + year-olds The following chart shows the monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status among 90+ year-olds for Non-Covid-19 deaths in England between January and May 2022 Finally, we again see the same pattern among 90+ year-olds, with the unvaccinated the least likely to die every month since the turn of the year. In April, double vaccinated 90+ year-olds were 244% more likely to die than unvaccinated 90+ year-olds, with a mortality rate of 62,302.7 per 100k among the double vaccinated and a mortality rate of 18,090.6 among the unvaccinated. During the same month, however, partly vaccinated 90+ year-olds were a shocking 572% more likely to die than unvaccinated 90+ year-olds, with a mortality rate of 121,749.9 per 100k person-years among the partly vaccinated. By May 2022, triple vaccinated 90+ year-olds were 26% more likely to die than unvaccinated 90+ year-olds, with a mortality rate of 13,761.6 per 100k among the unvaccinated and a mortality rate of 17,272.2 per 100k among the triple vaccinated. Safe & Effective? The official reports and figures from the Governments of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and most of Europe have raised serious concerns about the safety of the Covid-19 injections. The data shows that since the mass roll-out of the vaccines, there have been nearly 2 million excess deaths recorded, with mortality rates being lowest among the unvaccinated in every single age group. This raises important questions about the potential link between the Covid-19 injections and the increase in excess deaths. The official narrative that the vaccines are safe and effective and would reduce the number of deaths is being called into question by the data. The staggering number of excess deaths in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and most of Europe is a cause for concern and demands a thorough investigation. It is crucial that an unbiased, transparent and independent investigation is conducted to determine the true cause of these excess deaths and ensure the safety of future vaccines. In conclusion, it is extremely likely that the Covid-19 injections are to blame for the huge increase in excess deaths across the world. The data is clear and the figures speak for themselves. The official narrative that the vaccines are safe and effective is being called into question, and many will now be questioning whether it may be an outright lie. Read more at: Expose-News.com (Natural News) The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has declared a regional emergency in eight states due to a shortage of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel caused by the combination of low production and high demand. The FMCSAs regional emergency declaration affects Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. The agency, a component of the Department of Transportation responsible for regulating the trucking industry, made the declaration in response to the closure of a refinery in Colorado and the exceptionally severe winter weather that is causing demand for fuel to surge. This seems almost engineered, commented political commentator Patrick Humphrey in a video posted on social media. How is this happening? How does this keep happening in the most prosperous and the most energy-producing country in the entire world? (Related: No trains, no planes, no automobiles and NO GAS Welcome to the DE-CIVILIZATION Democrat utopia.) On Dec. 24, the Suncor Refinery in Commerce City, Colorado, unexpectedly shut down due to extreme and record-setting weather, according to the companys press release. Suncor claimed the refinery isnt expected to resume full operations until late into the first quarter of 2023. This factor, combined with the shutdown occurring in the middle of winter, has made in difficult to obtain the necessary gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the affected states, according to the FMCSAs emergency order. This declaration addresses the emergency conditions creating a need for immediate transportation of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and provides necessary relief, reads the emergency declaration. Regional emergency declaration to provide aid to drivers and companies supporting relief efforts The FMCSAs emergency declaration temporarily lifts the maximum driving time of property-carrying vehicles as established by Part 395.3 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. This waiver of the regulation only affects drivers providing direct assistance to the FMCSAs emergency relief efforts, such as truckers hauling gasoline, diesel and jet fuel into the affected states According to the FMCSA, any driver or motor carrier who wants to aid emergency relief efforts must also abide by certain conditions. First and foremost is the motor carrier or drivers understanding that no other part of the Federal Motor Carrier Regulations are waived. Another condition is an understanding that direct assistance to emergency relief efforts does not include the transportation of fuel supplies or other products related to long-term rehabilitation of damaged physical infrastructure. Truckers that are carrying mixed loads that include the much-needed fuel supplies and commercial goods, or those providing services that are not in support of emergency relief efforts, are immediately no longer eligible for emergency benefits. Furthermore, once truckers are sent by motor carriers to another location to begin commercial operations, their participation in the Part 395.3 waiver is immediately terminated. Other conditions include: Motor carriers or drivers who are subject to out-of-service orders are not eligible for the benefits of the emergency declaration until the orders have been rescinded in writing by the issuing jurisdictions. Drivers that move from aiding emergency relief efforts to normal commercial operations are required to take a 10-hour break when the total time they engaged in emergency relief efforts, or in a combination of emergency relief and normal commercial operations, equals or exceeds 14 hours. The FMCSAs declaration remains in effect until the end of the emergency or until 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Feb. 15, 2023, whichever comes first. Learn more about the energy crisis in the United States and other parts of the world at NewEnergyReport.com. Watch this video of political commentator Patrick Humphrey discussing the FMCSAs regional emergency declaration. This video is from the Ezekiel34 channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: UPRISING: Protests surged in Western Europe in 2022 due to food and fuel crises, report finds. Solar and wind cant replace fossil fuel, points out economist Peter Hartley. Natural gas prices in Southern California SURGED 128% since December. Josh Sigurdson: Biden admins plan to phase out oil use is ABSOLUTE INSANITY. Feds prepare for energy and diesel shortages. Sources include: Brighteon.com LandLine.media FMCSA.DOT.gov Convenience.org (Natural News) Globalist mouthpiece The Atlantic lamented social media giant Twitter allowing users to openly discuss stories about people who died suddenly as a result of the experimental Covid-19 vaccines. (Article republished from Infowars.com) An Atlantic article Tuesday honed in on the popularity of the Died Suddenly documentary as well as the viral #DiedSuddenly hashtag as reasons why Twitter owner Elon Musk should police misinformation. What is most startling about the Died Suddenly documentary is not its argument, but the way that people are watching it. #DiedSuddenly is the first movie to premiere on Twitter since your friendly takeover, the official Died Suddenly account, @DiedSuddenly_, tweeted at Elon Musk. The account has a blue checkmark next to ita symbol that used to indicate some kind of trustworthiness but now indicates a willingness to pay a monthly fee. When @DiedSuddenly_ first uploaded the movie in full on Twitter, it was labeled as misleading, in accordance with the COVID-19-misinformation policies that were then in place on the site. But this label was soon removed, on November 23, the same day that Twitter stopped enforcing rules about COVID-19 misinformationincluding posts stating that the vaccines intentionally cause mass death. The Atlantic also worried about right-wing social media influencers who could amplify memes calling attention to the died suddenly trend. As a meme, died suddenly could last a long timepossibly indefinitely. People will always be dying suddenly, so it will always be possible to redeploy it and capture further attention. Whats more, there is a thriving alt-tech ecosystem that can circulate the meme; a whole cohort of right-wing, anti-vaccine influencers and celebrities who can amplify it; and, crucially, a basically unmoderated mainstream social-media platform that can put it in front of hundreds of millions of userssome of whom will make fun of it, but others of whom will start to see something unsettling and credible in its repetitions. The publication additionally complained the free speech promised by Musk on the platform should not extend to people discussing the vaccine as a possible catalyst for a spate in sudden, unexplained deaths. But died suddenly thrives on Twitter. Tweets referencing news stories about unexpected deaths can be flooded with replies trumpeting the conspiracy theory, which go unmoderated. Its a radical change from the earlier years of the pandemic, during which Twitter implemented new policies against health misinformation and updated them regularly, gradually finessing the wording and clarifying how the company assessed misleading information. These policies and the tactics used to enforce them tightened as the pandemic went on. According to a transparency report the company published in July 2022, Twitter suspended significantly more accounts and removed far more content during the vaccine rollout than during the earliest months of the pandemic, when various groups first expressed concern about dangerous misinformation spreading online. [] And Twitter is backsliding, led by a CEO who has delighted in sharing company documents with critics who held the old COVID-19 policies in disdain. In the Died Suddenly Facebook group I joined, commenters praised Musks version of the site. Sign up for Twitter, one wrote. Those questioning the vaccines used to be censored earlier by the old Twitter nazis, but now there is FREE SPEECH. If you want TRUE information get off Facebook and get on Twitter, another posted before the group was shut down. The Atlantics latest assault on free speech and the right of the people to freely discuss what they deem important illustrates how the left will simply continue to move the goalpost as they score wins in silencing their opposition. Read more at: Infowars.com (Natural News) A physician in the United Kingdoms National Health Service has revealed how many more children are self-harming and attempting suicide due to the stress of the fear propaganda peddled by the countrys government and mainstream media outlets in relation to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Dr. Dave Greenhorn, a consultant of the Bradford Royal Infirmary in West Yorkshire, England, noted that he and his colleagues have been seeing more children and teenagers being brought into the hospital for attempting suicide due to the stress of being terrified of family members catching COVID-19. (Related: The harrowing pictures drawn by children in lockdown: Drawings by youngsters aged from four to 14 reveal feelings of death, loss, loneliness, entrapment, reveals professor.) Reports of children and teenagers mental health deteriorating due to COVID-19 lockdowns and regulations have been confirmed by physicians since March 2021. At the time, Greenhorn noted that he and his colleagues saw children as young as eight being brought in for self-harming. Weve seen all sorts of tragic things that we havent seen before, said Greenhorn. He then went on to note that this was something extremely unusual, and prior to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions like lockdowns, child and teen suicide rates and suicide attempts were a lot lower. A year of lockdown is a massive amount of time when youre so young and you cant see your friends, and combine that with other things such as parents on furlough, working from home or losing their jobs, said Greenhorn. The children dont have the emotive language to discuss why they feel the way they do, they just know that they feel awful. Greenhorn further warned that many other children who have not reached out to mental health services are exhibiting less dramatic symptoms of psychological stress, including palpitations and headaches. More children in the UK need mental health services since start of lockdowns The British child protection charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), noted that the number of children 11 and under who are seeking counseling sessions for the deteriorating quality of their mental health rose by 16 percent since the first national COVID-19 lockdown was introduced in the United Kingdom. Ive found being inside for so long really difficult, said one 13-year-old girl who called the NSPCCs helpline counseling. I keep checking my phone and getting upset when nobody is talking to me. I cant cope with this virus, said another teenager who had been driven to tremendous anxiety due to fear propaganda over catching COVID-19. I havent got it, but Im terrified that my family is going to get it. I dont care about me, but I feel like I cant breathe when I think about my family getting it. It got to the point where I was having suicidal thoughts and it was really bad, said Gage Oxley, 16, who sought help through his general practitioner for mental health services. This is what your government, urged by their scientific advisors, did to the nations children with the help of the mainstream media by broadcasting 24/7 fear propaganda on every news channel, every radio station, every newspaper and in every advert break, wrote the Expose. Do you still think it was all worth it? Learn more about the different factors that affect mental health at Mental.news. Watch this clip from InfoWars as Alex Jones talks about how children are being dragged into the metaverse as a replacement for going outside during lockdowns. This video is from the InfoWars channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Education Department report shows school shutdowns caused HISTORIC learning losses for students nationwide. School pandemic shutdowns to blame for historic drop in mathematics and reading proficiency scores among American children. LOCKDOWN LUNACY: Social isolation harms brain health and increases dementia risk, warn researchers. CDC knows lockdowns harm the mental health of children but it supports them anyway. MENTAL TORTURE: Nearly half of high school students in America felt persistently sad or hopeless during COVID-19 pandemic. Sources include: Expose-News.com BBC.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) A computerized tomography (CT) scan of a 2,300-year-old mummy, dubbed the golden boy, revealed that he was wearing 49 amulets at the time of mummification. The CT scan was performed by a team from the Kasr Al Ainy Hospitals department of radiology and the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities (MEA) in the Egyptian capital Cairo. Following the scans, the researchers used 3D printing to make the amulets tangible. The biggest amulet found in the mummy was then interpreted into a printable format. Here, we show that this mummys body was extensively decorated with 49 amulets, beautifully stylized in a unique arrangement of three columns between the folds of the wrappings and inside the mummys body cavity, explained Cairo Universitys Sahar Saleem, who is involved in the endeavor. Of the 49 amulets discovered on the golden boy, 30 were either made entirely of gold or had golden parts. The 19 other amulets were either made of stone, fired clay or Egyptian faience a ceramic material made of silica and coated with a brightly colored varnish. The coffin of the golden boy was first discovered in 1916 at a necropolis in Nag el Hassaya, the cemetery of the Egyptian city of Edfu. He was laid in two coffins: an inner sarcophagus made of wood and an outer coffin that had Greek inscriptions. Golden boy had been stored away at the basement of the MEA prior to the CT scan and the 3D rendering of the amulets he had. He is believed to have come from a wealthy and powerful family based on the things he was buried with, including a lavish gilded mask. The golden boy lived during the Ptolemaic period between 330 and 30 B.C., and was around 15 years old at the time of death. While research has not determined the cause of death, there were no signs that it was unnatural. (Related: Archaeologists uncover a dark chapter in Ancient Egyptian history: 60 Mummies found with evidence of GRUESOME deaths.) Following the examination, golden boy was moved from the basement to the MEAs main exhibition hall for display. Researchers said the 2D and 3D images form the CT scan will be used in a short documentary movie that will play alongside the mummys display. Moreover, they added that the 3D printed models of the amulets will be shown to visitors, who will be allowed to see and touch them. Researchers explain the amulets found on golden boy Among the amulets found with golden boy include a golden heart scarab next to his thoracic cavity, a golden tongue in his mouth and a two-finger amulet next to his uncircumcised penis. The golden scarab was considered important in ancient Egypt, as the jackal-headed god of the underworld Anubis would weigh the dead persons heart against the feather of truth owned by the goddess Maat. The scarab was believed to silence the heart, making the person more likely to pass through the afterlife. It was also believed to act as a substitute for the heart if the organ went missing. The golden tongue was believed to have enabled the boy to speak in the afterlife. Meanwhile, the amulet beside his penis was said to protect the embalming incision. The boy wore an Isis knot, which was thought to invoke the power of the goddess Isis the deity in charge of fertility, motherhood, magic, death, healing and rebirth to protect the mummified body. He was also adorned in fern garlands and was fitted with sandals. Saleem said the sandals were probably meant to enable the boy to walk out of the coffin. According to the ancient Egyptians ritual Book of The Dead, the deceased had to wear white sandals to be pious and clean before reciting its verses, he explained. Follow Discoveries.news for more news about mummies. Watch this video about a 2,000-year-old mummy with a golden tongue discovered near the Tomb of Osiris This video is from the Kim Osbl Copenhagen Denmark channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Ancient secrets to fantastic hair: Scientists uncovered 3000 year old hair wax from the hair of Ancient Egyptian noblewomen. Recent study reveals ancient text found in 2012 is the oldest map of the underworld in existence. Unlocking the secrets of Ancient Egypt: Archaeologists uncover dozens of mummified animals in the Tomb of Tutu. Sources include: JPost.com CNET.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) Members of the globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) are pretending to be gods, according to best-selling author William Bill Federer. He sat down with theologian Dr. John Diamond on the Jan. 24 episode of the latters program America Unhinged on Brighteon.TV. Federer outlined how the elite members of the WEF which he called a group of self-declared gods in the 21st century decide on what they believe is best for humanity. The WEF recently concluded its annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland. The author said that similar to other great despots, the globalist WEF uses two methods to take power away from the people fear and free things. When people [feel] fear, they will trade their freedom for security, Federer explained, adding that free things make people dependent and urge them to want more. He compared this to a drug dealer taking over a neighborhood. The drug dealer can either use guns to make the residents submit or give away free drugs until the residents get hooked. According to Federer, this is how the Great Reset would take freedom away from people all around the planet. The globalists have already installed fear in the people using the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Now, they are pushing for digital tracking to determine the people who already took the experimental shots. One example of this is the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs.) Everybody will go to the government, and it would say We got digital currency called a CBDC. Well help everybody go to this digital currency to keep the economy going, and then well be able to track every purchase, Federer told Diamond. With CBDCs, the globalists will be able to make the money disappear any time they want; program the digital money so it can only be spent in some places; and put a time stamp on the money that will cause it to reset to zero if not spent by a certain deadline. This is the Great Reset. This is their plan on a global scale, Federer said. Socialism always tainted with personal interest Elsewhere in the show, Federer and Diamond talked about how socialism never benefits people equally despite its goal of equal benefit. Moreover, the concept is actually tainted with bureaucracy, In America, equality was equal treatment before the law. In France, it was everyone had an equal amount of stuff. If the fraternity, group, collective, mob, or social compact think you have too much stuff, they can use the collective power of the state, trample and crush your individual liberty for the sake of the left the many more than the few, Federer said. He pointed out that the claim of equal distribution isnt equal, as the person who was deprived will not be receiving any. Moreover, authorities will be tempted to allocate extra items to their family, friends and supporters and shave off some from those they do not favor. Federer concluded: Every attempt at everybody owning everything equally always ends up with a deep state bureaucracy of insider government. Elites will be passing out favors to their friends and their business and stock tips. They get all the inside deals and if you stand up against them, theyll use the power of the state to have an audit. It always turns into a dictatorship, he said. Visit GreatReset.news for more news about the globalist WEF. Watch the full Jan. 24 episode of America Unhinged with Dr. John Diamond and Bill Federer below. Catch new episodes of the program every weekday at 9-10 a.m, Saturday at 8-9 a.m. and Sunday at 9-10 p.m. on Brighteon.TV. More related stories: Klaus Schwab: God is dead and the WEF is acquiring divine powers. The WEFs stakeholder capitalism is just global fascism by another name. Dutch government conspiring with WEF to usher in Great Reset. Sources include: Brighteon.com HumanEvents.com Breitbart.com (Natural News) There can be no better example of just how corrupt the FBI has become and why its senior leadership must be fired and replaced with an entirely new crop of personnel. Charles McGonigal, 54, who was previously the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the New York Field office and worked on the fabricated investigation into collusion between then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and Russia, has himself been arrested for having ties to a Russian oligarch, as reported by the UKs Daily Mail. The report noted that McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in 2018, was busted on Saturday after he arrived at JFK International Airport in New York City following a trip to Sri Lanka. The outlet noted further: Law enforcement says he has links to metal mogul Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who was sanctioned by the US in 2018 and then charged with violating them last year. Deripaska was among two dozen Russian oligarchs and government officials blacklisted by Washington in 2018 in reaction to Russias alleged meddling in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump become president. Court interpreter Sergey Shestakov, 69, has also been charged in connection with the case and working with Deripaska. According to the report, McGonigal has been charged with violating U.S. sanctions by attempting to get Deripaska, whose net worth is estimated at around $1.7 billion, off the sanctions list in 2019. McGonigal now has the dubious honor of becoming the highest-ranking former FBI official who has ever been charged with a crime. Before he sold it in 2020, he was living in a swanky $730,000/month West Village apartment, so he clearly had some other means of making money other than his pension. Both McGonigal and Shestakov are accused of receiving payments through shell companies and forging signatures to keep it secret that Deripaska was paying them, the Daily Mail continues. The FBI is committed to the enforcement of economic sanctions designed to protect the United States and our allies, especially against hostile activities of a foreign government and its actors, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael Driscoll said in a statement. Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska perform global malign influence on behalf of the Kremlin and are associated with acts of bribery, extortion, and violence, he added. As alleged, Mr. McGonigal and Mr. Shestakov, both U.S. citizens, acted on behalf of Deripaska and fraudulently used a U.S. entity to obscure their activity in violation of U.S. sanctions. After sanctions are imposed, they must be enforced equally against all U.S. citizens in order to be successful. There are no exceptions for anyone, including a former FBI official like Mr. McGonigal, the statement continued. The Justice Department added in a statement: According to the nine-count indictment, unsealed today, from August 2017 and continuing through and beyond his retirement from the FBI in September 2018, McGonigal concealed from the FBI the nature of his relationship with a former foreign security officer and businessperson who had ongoing business interests in foreign countries and before foreign governments. Specifically, McGonigal requested and received at least $225,000 in cash from the individual and traveled abroad with the individual and met with foreign nationals. The individual later served as an FBI source in a criminal investigation involving foreign political lobbying over which McGonigal had official supervisory responsibility. McGonigal is accused of engaging in other conduct in his official capacity as an FBI Special Agent in Charge that he believed would benefit the businessperson financially. Trump was dogged by this phony baloney allegation that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin teamed up to beat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton before and throughout his presidency. Several subsequent investigations including by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Congress repeatedly found that the allegation was a manufactured lie. But of course, no one who weaponized the government to go after a political rival was ever really held accountable. Sources include: Justice.gov DailyMail.co.uk (Natural News) Germanys top diplomat admitted that her country is indeed at war with Russia during a Jan. 24 debate in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Ive said already in the last days yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine, said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks. But the most important part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe. Because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other. Incidentally, Baerbock declared last year that she would continue to support Ukraine even though German voters do not share her sentiments. If I (am) given the promise to Ukraine We stand with you, as long as you need us then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think, I want to deliver to the people of Ukraine, she said. Moscow was quick to notice Baerbocks remarks, with one official putting in her two cents. Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pointed out that the German ministers words only attest to earlier admissions by the West that it had been planning the conflict for years. If we add this to [former German Chancellor Angela] Merkels revelations that they were strengthening Ukraine and did not count on the Minsk agreements, then we are talking about a war against Russia that was planned in advance, Zakharova said. Dont say later that we didnt warn you. (Related: Germany is about to lose World War III.) The spokeswoman referenced comments Merkel made to German media in December of last year that the 2014 ceasefire brokered by Germany and France was actually a ploy to give Ukraine valuable time for a military buildup. Former French President Francois Hollande and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also attested to Merkels remarks. Olaf Scholz pressured to send tanks to Kyiv Baerbock is not the only politician in the Bundestag Germanys parliament pushing for a full-blown war with Russia. Incumbent German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appears to have followed in her footsteps. Scholz initially insisted that Germany ought to support Ukraine but avoid direct confrontation with Russia. However, German media reported that the Green Party which is in favor of directly supporting Kyiv strong-armed the chancellor into sending tanks. Scholz then backpedaled on his initial stance, agreeing to send 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks and promising more in the future. Moreover, the Green Party that Baerbock belongs to also pressured Christine Lambrecht of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) to step down as defense minister. Lambrecht, who was reluctant to send tanks to Ukraine, was replaced by her SPD party-mate Boris Pistorius. Compared to his predecessor, Pistorius was much more receptive to the Green Partys proposal. It is interesting to note that Scholz refused to stand his ground, even though he himself admitted that the German people are not in favor of sending tanks to Ukraine, per an English article by the online portal of the magazine Der Spiegel. Critics of Scholz accuse him of constantly drawing red lines that he eventually crosses anyway. Early in the war, he said Ukraine was to receive no weapons at all, then no heavy weapons and finally, no tanks. He then proceeded to break one taboo after the other, the article noted. Pistorius has stressed [that] the inventory of Leopard tanks his ministry is taking will be available. An audit [will also be done] to determine how many of the tanks are available, what condition they are in and when they could be deployed. The question is no longer whether the tanks will go to Kyiv, but rather when. Watch this G News report about Baerbock visiting Ukraine in May 2022 and promising German weapons to the country. This video is from the Chinese taking down EVIL CCP channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Russian foreign minister Lavrov claims West has prevented Ukraine from taking part in peace talks, now almost in a real war with his country. More German tanks, equipment deemed out of action: Is Berlins military even functional? Germany will support Ukraine no matter what my voters think, says foreign minister. NATO countries set to provide modern tanks to Ukraine as war with Russia grinds on. Germany halts purchases of Puma tanks following devastating breakdowns. Sources include: InformationLiberation.com RT.com Spiegel.de Brighteon.com Nasarawa State Government, Thursday confirmed the killing of forty herdsmen in Doma Local Government Area of the State following unidentified drone attack. Governor, Abdullahi Sule gave the figure while briefing Journalists shortly after a meeting with the National leadership of the Fulani socio-cultural group, Miyeti Allah Kautel Hore Association, security agencies and other critical stakeholders at the Government House Lafia. This is even as the governor was apparently disturbed by the rising tension in the communities effected which culminated into the call for meeting between the Miyeti Allah Kautel Hore Association and the security agencies to find a lasting solution to the disturbing crisis in the area. Governor Sule who also described the incident as unfortunate, announced that the meeting with the leadership of the cattle herders and the security agents was one of the measures to ensure that justice is done to achieve peace. He also announced that he is talking to high command of the Military authorities in Abuja for a meeting with the leadership of the Fulani socio-cultural group, Miyeti Allah in attendance to find a lasting peace on the incidence and to avoid future occurrences. According to governor Sule, "I have spoken to the governor of Benue State on the incidence who also regretted the unfortunate incidence and as part of efforts to achieve peace, he has agreed to free the remaining cattle, about two hundred and thirty, 230 herd without requiring payment as stipulated by the anti- grazing law enacted by the State". Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Legal Affairs 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. The governor Sule while dispelling rumour that the people were attacked by suspected gunmen, said the herders were killed by drone attack. Also speaking during the briefing, the National leader of the Miyeti Allah, Alhaji Bello Bedejo, commended the effort being made by Governor Sule to calm fray nerves and achieve peace. "We are happy with the measures put in place by the Governor especially his efforts in speaking with the Military High command and arrangements for a meeting to resolve the issue" The State Police Commissioner, Maiyaki Baba, said security has been beefed up in the area to curtail any possible reprisals on the communities and appeal to all those affected to remain calm, assuring that security forces are on top of the situation. The meeting had in attendance, Fulani leaders in the State including those from part of Benue bordering Nasarawa State where the incidence occurred. (Natural News) Is strict authoritarianism good for society? According to Heather Kaye of The New York Times, the answer is yes. Kaye wrote a piece for the Times celebrating the tactics used in communist China to create benefits for society such as kid-friendly internet. She also praised the totalitarian regime for perpetuating its own kind of freedom with mass surveillance of citizens. In Kayes view, children being co-parented by the government, which is what happens in communist China, is another really good thing for society. This was especially true during covid when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forced citizens to self-isolate and wear a mask. When Covid was raging across the world a couple of years ago, I came across a picture online of an American woman wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed, I refuse to co-parent with the government a response to perceived government overreach regarding school mask mandates, Kaye wrote in the piece. I laughed out loud: My own kids were, in a way, co-parented by the Chinese government. (Related: During covid, the Times called for the United Nations to take over America.) Why do wealthy left-wing Americans love communism so much? Kaye, it turns out, is an American parent in China her own words. Raising her children there sometimes felt as if [they] were on loan to us for evenings and weekends, to be delivered back to school each weekday. In other words, the CCP owns peoples children during the weekdays, during which it brainwashes them into communism. Then, when the day is over, the kids are returned back to their biological parents something Kaye apparently thinks is really awesome. The reason why Kaye and her family live in communist China is because of her work in the fashion industry, which brought her to Shanghai for 16 years. She described the communist Chinese way of life in her article with government co-parenting begins in the womb. Chinese citizens have faced limits on how many children they were allowed under birth control policies that have since been relaxed, Kaye wrote. People in China are still legally barred from determining the gender of their unborn babies unless medically necessary, because of a history of sex-selective abortions. As an American living in communist China, Kaye is exempt from these rules, which is likely part of the reason why her experience living there is more positive than that of the natives. One thing Kaye did have to accept, though, is that my growing belly had become community property, subject to unsolicited rubbing and sidewalk commentary (Its a boy. I can tell!), and that restaurants would refuse to serve me cold beverages. From the start, Kaye and her family had two choices: either send the kids to pricey international schools for rich Americans or send them to local schools, which are directly overseen by the government and its emphasis on Chinese culture and values. Having weighed the pros of the Chinese route (our girls would learn fluent Mandarin and, hopefully, a broadened worldview) and the cons (exposure to Communist Party propaganda and potential social isolation of being foreigners in a group of Chinese students), Kaye explained, We took the plunge and sent them to local communist schools. Constantly served up moral, history and culture lessons on pulling together for the sake of the Chinese nation, our girls came home discussing self-discipline, integrity and respect for elders, Kaye further celebrated in her article. Ironically, the tight control of the Communist Party surveillance state results in its own kind of freedom: With crime and personal safety concerns virtually eliminated, our daughters were riding the subway unsupervised in a city of around 26 million people from the age of 11. More stories like this one can be found at Communism.news. Sources for this article include: Breitbart.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) In a truly shocking revelation from Project Veritas, a Pfizer executive brags on camera about the companys directed evolution of COVID for profiting from vaccines. He says, COVID is going to be a cash cow for us and then brags about hiding this fact from the public while describing, selective structured mutations to make [COVID strains] more potent. The undercover bombshell video was revealed by Project Veritas and James OKeefe. The journalism organization which specializes in undercover videos of executives and media personalities admitting astonishing things on camera has also posted two videos containing interactions with Pfizer director Jordan Trishton Walker, whose self-proclaimed title is, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations mRNA Scientific Planner. We encourage all readers to support Project Veritas and its groundbreaking journalism efforts. We have re-posted the two Project Veritas videos on Brighteon.com in case they are removed from other platforms, since Pfizer exercises extraordinary levels of control and influence over not just media organizations but tech platforms as well. Just today, as Human Events is reporting, both the UK Daily Mail and MSN took down yesterdays articles describing the Project Veritas interaction with this Pfizer director. This indicates that even the UK Daily Mail can be threatened or pressured into removing important journalistic articles. See the first Project Veritas videos below, where Walker is seen bragging about Pfizers plans to mutate COVID and profit from the cash cow of COVID variants: Brighteon.com/0d4433f3-3d4c-495a-aaac-666d255d49fc And the second one here, showing this Pfizer director assaulting Project Veritas journalists and attempting to steal and destroy their equipment: Brighteon.com/2a10d20a-19e5-4386-ab86-714a9d4fc6e2 Pfizer director plays the race card and accuses journalists of being white people Some of the video captured by Project Veritas includes Pfizer director Walker going berserk, claiming to be under attack by white people, and then trying to destroy their iPad hardware, followed by shoving and a floor scramble that resembles a cage fight. In these video grabs, the Pfizer director is the man in the tan T-shirt and black pants: Blow-by-blow analysis of the Pfizer admissions, corporate kidnapping and violent attack on Project Veritas journalists In todays Situation Update podcast, I cover the Project Veritas encounter with this berserker Pfizer executive who makes astonishing on-camera admissions about what appears to be an illegal Pfizer gain-of-function program being engineered to generate future vaccine profits. Its fascinating how he claims Pfizer plans to mutate the virus then profit from the vaccines used to treat those very same mutations. In todays podcast, I call for the arrest and indictment of all Pfizer executives who have been part of this nefarious conspiracy to mislead the public and profit from mutating viruses to make them more potent. I also cover other breaking news topics: Project Veritas BOMBSHELL exposes Pfizer director as violent, immoral lunatic Pfizer director admits on camera to selective structured mutations to make viruses more potent Admits they dont tell the public the truth about their virus experiments and vaccine plans Why Pharma and Google employees are PURE EVIL and all going to hell Eggs are now $18 / dozen in Manhattan H1N1 avian flu is a bogus SCARE STORY to destroy the food supply Mexico bans geoengineering and efforts to pollute the skies for profit US govt. uses AI anti-terror system to target #vaccine skeptics Daughter of Chinese pharma tycoon arrested in Georgia terror sweep IBM just slashed 3,900 jobs as Big Tech layoffs accelerate Ants trained to smell CANCER in urine Is Damar Hamlin the new Tiffany Dover? Media cover-up explained Brighteon: Brighteon.com/16fb328e-5ee7-4eaf-af56-c068c54b43e4 Rumble: Rumble.com/v27dck6-situation-update-12723-pfizer-director-goes-berserk.html Bitchute: Bitchute.com/video/bB0DDECofUQ5/ Banned.Video: Banned.video/watch?id=63d413c1b8727720c8f2fc84 iTunes podcast: Healthrangerreport.com/situation-update-jan-27-2023-pfizer-director-goes-berserk-violently-assaults-project-veritas-journalists-in-nyc Discover more interviews and podcasts each day at: https://www.brighteon.com/channels/HRreport Follow me on: Brighteon.social: Brighteon.social/@HealthRanger (my breaking news gets posted here first) Telegram: t.me/RealHealthRanger Substack: HealthRanger.substack.com Banned.video: Banned.video/channel/mike-adams Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@healthranger Twitter: @MikeAdamsHR Gettr: GETTR.com/user/healthranger Parler: Parler.com/user/HealthRanger Rumble: Rumble.com/c/HealthRangerReport BitChute: Bitchute.com/channel/9EB8glubb0Ns/ Clouthub: app.clouthub.com/#/users/u/naturalnews/posts Join the free NaturalNews.com email newsletter to stay alerted about breaking news each day. Download my current audio books including Ghost World, Survival Nutrition, The Global Reset Survival Guide and The Contagious Mind at: https://Audiobooks.NaturalNews.com/ Download my new audio book, Resilient Prepping at ResilientPrepping.com it teaches you how to survive the total collapse of civilization and the loss of both the power grid and combustion engines. Jordon Trishton Walker, Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations mRNA Scientific Planner: One of the things were exploring is like, why dont we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If were gonna do that though, theres a risk of like, as you could imagine no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses. (Natural News) (Article by republished from ProjectVeritas.com) Walker: Dont tell anyone. Promise you wont tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them. Walker: You have to be very controlled to make sure that this virus [COVID] that you mutate doesnt create something that just goes everywhere. Which, I suspect, is the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest. It makes no sense that this virus popped out of nowhere. Its bullsh*t. Walker: From what Ive heard is they [Pfizer scientists] are optimizing it [COVID mutation process], but theyre going slow because everyone is very cautious obviously they dont want to accelerate it too much. I think they are also just trying to do it as an exploratory thing because you obviously dont want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations. [NEW YORK Jan. 25, 2023] Project Veritas released a new video today exposing a Pfizer executive, Jordon Trishton Walker, who claims that his company is exploring a way to mutate COVID via Directed Evolution to preempt the development of future vaccines. Walker says that Directed Evolution is different than Gain-of-Function, which is defined as a mutation that confers new or enhanced activity on a protein. In other words, it means that a virus such as COVID can become more potent depending on the mutation / scientific experiment performed on it. The Pfizer executive told a Veritas journalist about his companys plan for COVID vaccines, while acknowledging that people would not like this information if it went public. One of the things we [Pfizer] are exploring is like, why dont we just mutate it [COVID] ourselves so we could create preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If were gonna do that though, theres a risk of like, as you could imagine no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses, Walker said. From what Ive heard is they [Pfizer scientists] are optimizing it [COVID mutation process], but theyre going slow because everyone is very cautious obviously they dont want to accelerate it too much. I think they are also just trying to do it as an exploratory thing because you obviously dont want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations, he said. Dont tell anyone. Promise you wont tell anyone. The way it [the experiment] would work is that we put the virus in monkeys, and we successively cause them to keep infecting each other, and we collect serial samples from them. Walker drew parallels between this current Pfizer project and what may have happened at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. You have to be very controlled to make sure that this virus [COVID] that you mutate doesnt create something that just goes everywhere. Which, I suspect, is the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest. It makes no sense that this virus popped out of nowhere. Its bullsh*t, he said. Youre not supposed to do Gain-of-Function research with viruses. Regularly not. We can do these selected structure mutations to make them more potent. There is research ongoing about that. I dont know how that is going to work. There better not be any more outbreaks because Jesus Christ, he said. Walker also told the Veritas journalist that COVID has been instrumental for Pfizers recent business success: Walker:Part of what they [Pfizer scientists] want to do is, to some extent, to try to figure out, you know, how there are all these new strains and variants that just pop up. So, its like trying to catch them before they pop up and we can develop a vaccine prophylactically, like, for new variants. So, thats why they like, do it controlled in a lab, where they say this is a new epitope, and so if it comes out later on in the public, we already have a vaccine working. Veritas Journalist:Oh my God. Thats perfect. Isnt that the best business model though? Just control nature before nature even happens itself? Right? Walker:Yeah. If it works. Veritas Journalist:What do you mean if it works? Walker:Because some of the times there are mutations that pop up that we are not prepared for. Like with Delta and Omicron. And things like that. Who knows? Either way, its going to be a cash cow. COVID is going to be a cash cow for us for a while going forward. Like obviously. Veritas Journalist:Well, I think the whole research of the viruses and mutating it, like, would be the ultimate cash cow. Walker:Yeah, itd be perfect. Walker went on to explain how Big Pharma and government officials, such as at the Food & Drug Administration [FDA], have mutual interests, and how that is not in the best interest of the American people: Walker:[Big Pharma] is a revolving door for all government officials. Veritas Journalist:Wow. Walker:In any industry though. So, in the pharma industry, all the people who review our drugs eventually most of them will come work for pharma companies. And in the military, defense government officials eventually work for defense companies afterwards. Veritas Journalist:How do you feel about that revolving door? Walker:Its pretty good for the industry to be honest. Its bad for everybody else in America. Veritas Journalist:Why is it bad for everybody else? Walker:Because when the regulators reviewing our drugs know that once they stop regulating, they are going to work for the company, they are not going to be as hard towards the company thats going to give them a job. About Project Veritas James OKeefe established Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society and to engage in litigation to: protect, defend and expand human and civil rights secured by law, specifically First Amendment rights including promoting the free exchange of ideas in a digital world; combat and defeat censorship of any ideology; promote truthful reporting; and defend freedom of speech and association issues including the right to anonymity. OKeefe serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board so that he can continue to lead and teach his fellow journalists, as well as protect and nurture the Project Veritas culture. Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues raised through its investigations. Read more at: ProjectVeritas.com (Natural News) Dr. Robert Malone had the privilege of helping Project Veritas put together a new expose about Pfizers covid cash cow: its mRNA covid vaccine. An undercover Project Veritas reporter spoke with Jordon Trishton Walker, who is in charge of Pfizers research and development, strategic operations, and mRNA scientific planning division. What he revealed is nothing short of shocking. In essence, Pfizer is engaged in illegal gain-of-function research or some tweaked version of it called directed evolution that the company is using to develop an endless stream of new injections for all the latest variants and subvariants. Walker admitted on tape that Pfizer is working on intentionally mutating the disease so it evades all previous mRNA injections that way those who took the initial series and boosters will need to take even more of them in the coming months and years. The following video is the final product of Dr. Malone and Project Veritas latest work concerning Pfizers ongoing covid injection scam: (Related: A Pfizer employee also previously told Project Veritas that its covid injections contain aborted baby cells.) Is Pfizer creating and unleashing new covid strains so people keep taking its latest vaccines? In a nutshell, Walker confirmed what many have already long known about Pfizer: that the company only cares about money. Pfizer also has no ethics or morals, so it is willing to do whatever it takes to get that money including by committing crimes. Walker admitted, then tried to backtrack, that Pfizer is essentially performing gain-of-function research but with a twist on the covid virus. Its goal is to get ahead of the latest variants and subvariants by already having new injections ready before they appear. Much like how vaccine corporations try to predict what the next seasonal flu strain will be in advance, Pfizer has begun tampering with covid in an effort to see how it might mutate next in order to have new vaccines ready and waiting. Youre not supposed to do gain of function research with the viruses, Walker said. They recommend not. But you do things like selected directional mutations to try to see if you can make it more potent. In other words, Pfizer is manipulating covid in an attempt to make it stronger and more infectious and maybe even more deadly. Then the company plans to have the cure ready for people after the more potent strain has been released. Theyre still kind of conducting the experiments on it, but it seems like from what Ive heard theyre kind of optimizing it, Walker added about Pfizers work on mutating covid. But theyre going slow because everyones very cautious. They obviously dont want to accelerate too much. Walker then admitted to the reporter that this was Pfizers plan all along: to keep covid as a cash cow that continues to generate obscene profits for the company. And with the help of revolving door politics between government and industry, there should be no problems getting each new vaccine iteration approved and released at warp speed. The gentleman seems to have absolutely no moral compass at all about what hes doing. The hubris and arrogance and immaturity, Malone commented about Walkers admissions during the interview. If this is the quality of individuals within Pfizer that are making these huge decisions that risk global public health with such a casual disregard for the human toll, its profoundly corrupt in terms of would it be feasible for Pfizer to circumvent international or national law? I think that is undeniable. The latest news about Pfizer can be found at Evil.news. Sources for this article include: ProjectVeritas.com RWMaloneMD.substack.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Ohio attorney Tom Renz blasted Vice President Kamala Harris and her Democratic allies for having no respect for America during the Jan. 24 edition of his Brighteon.TV program Lawfare with Tom Renz. Renz cited Harris Jan. 22 speech during a pro-abortion rally in Tallahassee, Florida. While the former district attorney-turned-vice president quoted the Declaration of Independence, she omitted the part about right to life one of three inalienable rights guaranteed in the founding document alongside liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is what the Democrats do. They have no reverence or respect for our nation as it was founded, said Renz. These are people that hate the way it was founded. They view the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as just things that need to be removed from their constant quest for power. According to Renz, Harris was fully supportive of infanticide. The lawyer expressed belief that abortion is one of the most racist practices that has ever occurred in America. (Related: Kamala Harris hates the First Amendment and loves abortion.) He ultimately emphasized that officials of the federal government, including Harris herself, should demosntrate some semblance of respect for the founding documents, the Founding Fathers and the nation that gave them opportunities. Federal officials are not the only ones that should show this respect, but anyone working for the American government who has the role and honor to serve the people. Constitution, Declaration of Independence deserve utmost respect Renz said he views the founding documents and the Founding Fathers with a lot of reverence. The Founders, who believed in a Creator God, talked about certain inalienable rights He bestowed upon the people. Moreover, the Ohio lawyer believes both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are divinely inspired. Are they perfect? No, but they were so divinely inspired that they actually have built-in mechanisms for changing the amendment process. They were as good as any document that men ever produced, so I think these documents deserve some reverence. The Lawfare host also called on We The People, especially the patriots, to knock down the tyrants in their midst as their inalienable rights empower them to do so. He pointed out that every human on Earth has liberty wherever they are and no one can take that away from them. But the price for exercising liberty varies depending on where a person lives. He cited the example of China, where people can be jailed or get shot when they go out and exercise their right to free speech. The inalienable rights all come with a cost, which is lesser in a nation that has more freedom. We fought for it, we earned it, and hen most of us didnt have to pay much for it. So, we got lazy and allowed it to slip away, Renz concluded. Now, the cost of liberty in the U.S. is substantially higher and we have to fight to get the price back down. It should never have happened, but thats where it is. Watch the Jan. 24 episode of Lawfare with Tom Renz below. Lawfare with Tom Renz airs every Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.-12 p.m. and Saturday at 12:30-1 p.m. on Brighteon.TV. More related stories: The Sons of Liberty with Bradlee Dean: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are under attack in America BrighteonRADIO. The Resistance Chicks: Americas Founding Fathers were Christian nationalists Brighteon.TV. America Unhinged: Americans must use Constitution to keep government under control Brighteon.TV. Constitutional scholar David Jose: Americans have power over their government Brighteon.TV. Their endgame for the flag, the national anthem, the declaration of independence and the constitution. Sources include: Brighteon.com FoxNews.com (Natural News) Whatever Ukraine wants, Ukraine gets, apparently. After strongarming the West into handing over gobs of cash and now heavy battle tanks, the next demand from Volodymyr Zelenskys regime is F-16s and other fourth-generation fighter jets. According to Ukrainian defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov, Kiev is stepping up its demands to lobby for newer Western aircraft to replace its small, aging fleet of Soviet planes. The next big hurdle will now be the fighter jets, said defense ministry official Yuriy Sak. Every type of weapon we request, we needed yesterday. Ukraine is very impatient right now after Russia reportedly made fresh gains in both the eastern and southern portions of the country. Ukrainian forces have also completely withdrawn from Soledar. We will do everything possible to ensure Ukraine gets fourth-generation fighter jets as soon as possible. (Related: Only 30 percent, at most, of these weapons are actually making it into Ukraine check out the CBS documentary Arming Ukraine to learn more.) Western compliance with Zelenskys demands is taking us closer and closer towards World War III Ever since Zelensky made his first appearance before Congress Americas Congress, just to be clear his shopping list of war accoutrement demands has increased. On March 16 of last year, Zelensky demanded that United States lawmakers give him jets and anti-air defenses to help close the sky over Ukraine a request that at the time was unpopular among the American public because doing this would mean imposing a no fly zone, which would be a de facto act of war. Since that time, however, Zelensky got what he demanded, with The Hill reporting that: Western fighter jets and longer-range artillery units, which would allow Ukraine to strike Russian forces deeper in occupied territory, will likely be the next debate for NATO. The more the West complies with Ukraines demands, the greater the escalation between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and the West at large. We are moving increasingly closer towards World War III, and Congress is directly responsible for it by continuing to send cash and weapons to Ukraine. Some would argue that we are already in WWIII, but that the worst has just not yet come. One things for sure: things are deteriorating by the day and at some point, somethings got to give. Meanwhile, Ukraine is boasting publicly about how easy it is to get whatever it wants simply be demanding it of Western leaders. They didnt want to give us heavy artillery, then they did, Sak stated. They didnt want to give us HIMARS systems, then they did. They didnt want to give us tanks, now theyre giving us tanks. If we get them, the advantages on the battlefield will be just immense. Its not just F-16s: fourth generation aircraft, this is what we want. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get. The sheer arrogance and pride of the Ukrainian establishment is eye-opening and not just because what Sak is saying is true, which it is. Whats worse is the fact that Americans are just letting this all happen with their tax dollars as if its perfectly normal. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said this week that the U.S. military-industrial complex is in constant discussions with Ukraine about what will be handed over next. I cant blame the Ukrainians for wanting more and more systems, Kirby said. Its not the first time theyve talked about fighter jets, but I dont have any announcements to make on that front. This is basically how it went in Vietnam, too, wrote a commenter about the situation. More related news can be found at WWIII.news. Sources for this article include: ZeroHedge.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The biotechnology industry, which largely controls United States government policy, is livid with Mexico over the countrys plans to phase out all imports of genetically modified (GMO) corn. Since the U.S. is a GMO powerhouse, the move represents a serious threat to the profit streams of Big Biotech. Because of this, American authorities are expressing grave concerns about the direction Mexico is taking as it seeks to preserve clean, biotech-free food for its citizens. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is very anti-GMO, having announced in 2020 plans to completely phase out all imports of GMO corn and anything tainted with glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide by the year 2024. That date was recently extended to 2025. We made it clear today that if this issue is not resolved, we will consider all options, including taking formal steps to enforce our rights under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), threatened office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai in a statement to Mexico. Mexicos proposed approach, which is not grounded in science, still threatens to disrupt billions of dollars in bilateral agricultural trade, cause serious economic harm to U.S. farmers and Mexican livestock producers, and stifle important innovations needed to help producers respond to pressing climate and food security challenges. (Related: In 2013, Mexico banned all plantings of GMO corn throughout the country.) America is the world bully Americas goal seems to be to genetically engineer everything, while Mexico is working towards keeping a clean food supply the way nature intended. This disagreement between the two neighboring countries is causing U.S. interests to have a meltdown over the prospect of losing trade opportunities with Mexico. It turns out that most of the world wants nothing to do with Americas transgenic poison crops, which are tainted with chemical herbicides and pesticides, not to mention foreign genetics that render the product toxic for consumption. Obrador and other Mexican authorities seem to recognize this fact while American authorities continue to issue threats against Mexico that the country either comply or face the consequences of U.S. ire. Every year, some 17 million tons of mostly GMO yellow corn is sent from the U.S. to Mexico. The majority of that corn is fed to animals because Mexican standards do not allow transgenic corn to be fed to humans. For the time being, transgenic corn will continue to flow from the U.S. into Mexico to feed animals, but even that is scheduled to end by the year 2025. The U.S. is trying to stop this by forcing Mexico to abide by its standards instead. U.S. officials are making it crystal clear, according to Reuters, that Mexico will have to abide by the USMCA commitments it is bound by. This threat, said Tom Haag, president of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), is a significant development and good news for corn growers. The biotechnology industry group BIO also said that it appreciates U.S. efforts to bully Mexico into maintain[ing] a science-based risk regulatory system, to quoted Beth Ellikidis, vice president for agriculture and environment. There is a far more sinister plan here than most people realize, wrote a commenter at Natural News. The seeds they send these countries are designed not to re-germinate. One crop and ooops, hmm the corn wont grow again. This happened in India causing mass farmer suicides and starvation. The legislature should have never been signed to allow seed patents. I dont know what that drunk Bush and his cronies were thinking, this person added about how the Bush family dynasty helped pave the way for GMO crops in the U.S. You cant patent plants, why would they allow seed patents? The latest news about the fight against GMOs can be found at GMO.news. Sources for this article include: Reuters.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Russian officials now believe the West is pining for a full-scale war that could quickly go nuclear after the two wealthiest NATO countries approved the transfer of sophisticated main battle tanks to Ukraine, ostensibly so Kyiv can use them for a counter-offensive to push the Russian military out of the country. Specifically, the U.S. and German governments have agreed to supply Ukraine with dozens of M1 Abrams and Leopard II tanks, respectively, in a decision that Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking extremely personally. The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will send 31 of its premier battle tanks to Ukraine, following agreement with Germany for the delivery of scores of its Leopard 2 tanks from across Europe, the Washington Post reported this week. The decisions end months of debate among Western allies and pave the way for a major shift in the balance of power on the Ukrainian battlefield. President Biden said after morning calls with European leaders that the decisions belied Russian President Vladimir Putins belief that the West would eventually tire of its commitment to Ukraine and break up its coalition, the report continued, adding: For NATO, founded as a defensive alliance in the wake of World War II, the supply of battle tanks and hundreds of other armored vehicles also being transferred to Ukraine is a prelude to what is shaping up to be ground warfare of a scale not seen in Europe for more than seven decades. While the United States and its allies insist they have no desire to engage Russia directly, the decisions significantly up the ante of how far they are willing to go to help evict Putins forces. Remember when Donald Trump was president and the U.S. actually did not start any new wars or become engaged in any? We are fully, totally and completely united, President Joe Biden said in a brief address at the White House earlier this week following the disastrous decision. Todays announcement builds on the hard work and commitment of countries around the world. Thats what this is about helping Ukraine defend and protect Ukrainian land. That said, the M1s are not going to be transferred from existing U.S. military stockpiles; they are going to be placed on order and manufactured because existing Abrams tanks contain highly classified materials that make them highly survivable on the battlefield. That means Ukraine wont get our best tanks, and those will likely wind up like Russias tanks smoldering heaps of metal. Ditto for the Leopard IIs. Nevertheless, the Post noted that the objective in Europe is to quickly assemble two Leopard tank battalions equivalent to at least 70 tanks. As a first step, Germany will provide a company of 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks from its armys stocks, the government in Berlin said in a statement. Germanys Defense Ministry said it aims for the tanks to be on the battlefield by the end of March. That leaves a tight window for logistics and training expected to begin within days. Still, some U.S. military experts are enthused about the escalation. If true, this could be a true pivot point in the war, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Stavridis , a retired U.S. Navy admiral, posted on Twitter. Well done, Germany, and Danke Schoen.' If true, this could be a true pivot point in the war. Well done, Germany, and Danke Schoenhttps://t.co/i9V8ueQ18n Admiral James Stavridis, USN, Ret. (@stavridisj) January 24, 2023 A Leopard coalition with partners worked! Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted Wednesday as well. Leopards look good on Ukraine! The Post added: The U.S. plan calls for sending enough tanks for one Ukrainian battalion, 30, plus one for command and control, Kirby said. The administration also will send eight M88 armored recovery vehicles, designed to tow and repair tanks. World War III is just over the horizon. Its only a matter of time before China strikes Taiwan. Sources include: WashingtonPost.com NaturalNews.com The latest weather forecast said cold weather and frigid conditions would unleash in China, Japan and South Korea. The forecast said that countries in Eastern Asia would feel colder temperatures due to the blast of Siberia and arctic air. According to AccuWeather's latest forecast, the weather report said that freezing conditions and heavy snow are expected to unload. The weather forecast noted that colder weather would unfold in China, Korean Peninsula, Taiwan and Japan. The Japan Times explained that the freezing weather and heavy snow in Japan resulted in delayed flights, reaching about 100 flights this Tuesday. Meanwhile, AccuWeather noted that the weather conditions would become milder next week. The weather forecast noted the arctic burst recorded in northern China. Sea-effect snow is also forecast in Western Honshu and Western Hokkaido. The challenging weather conditions and cold-related health concerns would be problematic for many motorists. Did you know? According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the weather conditions in Japan would be different in the Sea of Japan and the Pacific sides. The report added that Eastern Japan is considered to have cold winters. Heavy snow unloads in the mountainous areas. Preparing for frigid conditions Staying safe during frigid conditions is essential. Cold-related health risks and road accidents are the most common in extreme temperatures. It would be difficult to cope and dangerous if you are not mindful. While people in South Korea and Japan are used to colder weather, the elderly would be the most vulnerable. Here are important reminders in extreme temperatures and cold weather events. Understand the weather conditions Temperatures can plummet, from a sudden rebound to a warm environment to colder weather. Weather forecasts issue cold weather alerts, which motorists and residents can anticipate. Knowing the current weather conditions would help homeowners prepare for extreme events. Stay warm during extreme cold events There are ways to stay warm during freezing conditions. You can turn on your heating system, especially at night when temperatures drop or become colder. Dress in layered clothes to stay warm. Cover your hands with gloves and your feet with boots. A hat covering your head would also be the best! Stay active at home if you can maintain blood flow and generate heat. Eat warm and nutritious food during extreme weather events. Go out when necessary As possible, family members should be at home during cold weather or limit outdoor activities when it is needed. Prolonged exposure to colder weather can lead to hypothermia and frostbite. Homeowners should monitor the body temperatures of people vulnerable to cold weather. According to the CDC advisory on hypothermia and frostbite, both are hazardous conditions. The report said that the common signs of hypothermia are confusion, numbness, exhaustion and slurred speech. Ready emergency kits Homeowners should ensure that they prepare ready emergency kits for extreme weather events. There is a high chance that travel would be difficult, especially at night. The emergency kit or bag should have warm blankets, bottled water, battery-powered radio, medicines, a first aid kit and non-perishable food supplies. Related Article: Winter Safety Tips: What to Do When Widespread Power Outage Occurs Due to Severe Weather Conditions For more similar stories, don't forget to follow Nature News. A goldline snakehead that eats frogs and breathes air has been discovered in a new part of Florida, raising concerns about the potential environmental impact the invasive species can do. Scientists from the University of Florida's Museum of Natural History accidently discovered the fish species in a freshwater pond in Manatee County, Florida. Goldline snakeheads are freshwater fish species that are native to Africa and Asia. The said report is the first time that a snakehead population was discovered to live in the Sunshine State; with another population in Broward County since 2000. Over the past decades, the invasive animals have travelled through waterways and spread to other areas like Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. Aggressive Frog-Eating Fish Wildlife experts consider goldline snakeheads to have the potential to destroy and threaten native ecosystems. A single snakehead can carry as many as 50,000 eggs, which means they have the tendency to reproduce in large number, Newsweek reported on Wednesday, January 25. The discovery was published in the journal Aquatic Invasions, wherein researchers confirmed the first time the fish has been spotted in the Gulf Coast region. Due to the far distance traveled by the local snakehead population from their native habitats, scientists believe human interference is likely involved, the study says. There is a theory that the invasive fish species arrived into America through "aquarium dumpings" and "fish market releases," according to Newsweek. Also Read: Fish Leather: Sustainable Leather Made from Invasive Species May Become the Next Big Thing Goldline Snakehead The goldline snakehead (Channa aurolineata) is a member of the snakehead family. It has an elongated, cylindrical anterior body, tapering posteriorly, and a flattened head. This fish species inhabits canals, lakes, pools, and swamps with little or no current at all. It is often found in beds of submerged aquatic vegetation, according to the Florida Museum. In the US, the status and distribution of the species is that they are considered living as non-indigenous fish in freshwater habitat, according to the museum. In addition, their distribution in Florida is at Peninsula drainages and river drainages in the Everglades. Invasive Fish Species Following the said discovery, officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) removed nearly 400 snakeheads from the pond to prevent them for causing more damage to the ecosystem, museum reported. Being non-native to Florida, the invasive goldline snakeheads are aggressive to other marine or terrestrial species they can eat. For instance, scientists back in 2020 observed the snakeheads emerging onto the riverbank where some green tree frogs live. The ferocious fish then struck the frogs and returned to the water with their prey, an example of how the fish can pose disturbance to the ecosystem, according to Newsweek. Robert Robins, manager of ichthyology collection at the Florida Museum and co-author of the study, said during a press release that any non-indigenous species that are reproducing has the potential to destroy the environment to which it was introduced. Most species never become invasive after introduction but some do become invasive, Robins adds. Related Article: Florida Angler Left Perplexed After Catching a Strange Tortilla Fish The Chairman, National Steering Committee of Joint Education Stakeholders Action Coalition (JESAC) Education and 2023 elections, Mr Ike Onyechere, has called on the presidential candidates to address the issues of safe schools in their various manifestos. Onyechere was speaking at the first JESAC Conference when highlighting the Report on Assessment of Education Agenda/Manifesto of Presidential Candidates in Abuja on Thursday. He said none of the presidential candidates had expressed any concern or proposed plans for the rescue of the Chibok, Dapchi and many other school girls in the captivity of terrorists. According to him, over 120 students of Chibok, Birni Yauri, Dapchi, Bethel, and so on are still being held captive by terrorists and kidnappers, some lasting for almost eight years now. "The most shocking thing about the 2023 election manifestos and campaigns is that none of the presidential candidates has proposed plans for the rescue of these students. "Beyond the issue of the kidnapped students still in captivity, none of the manifestos, specifically addressed the issue of safe schools or proffered any clear roadmap on how to make school environments safe and secure for teaching and learning. "They presented no plans to enforce the domestication and institutionalisation of safe school emergency preparedness and response systems. "The manifestos are silent on how to combat campus cultism that have turned tertiary institutions to virtual war zones and on how to stop its alarming spread to primary and secondary schools," he said. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Education 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. He said the proposals for funding education outlined in the manifestos lacked the expected creativity in terms of structure, institutionalisation, sustenance and the multidimensionality required to properly provide and equip educational institutions with infrastructure. He added that the committee was set up to mobilise education stakeholders to move away from being passive political observers to being proactive political playmakers and game changers. He, therefore, called on education stakeholders to leverage on their brain power, networks, organisational skills and population to bond, work and vote together to elect competent, visionary, ethics-friendly and educationally-friendly political leaders. He said that voting for leaders who would invest the courage, political will and resources needed to transform the education sector would be of advantage to the sector. Also, Dr Jacinta Ogboso, the Director of Examination, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), said that there was a need for political leaders to tackle the problems of quality in the educational sector. Ogboso said that once the issue of quality was addressed, other problems associated with the sector would be tackled. Environmentalists and local authorities are investigating the unsolved whale deaths on the US east coast. There have been 14 deaths reported as of December 2022. Some are attributing the fatalities to the construction of an offshore wind farm nearby. But according to officials, there is no proof that wind farms are to blame. 6 Years, 178 Whale Deaths They have been monitoring the "unusual mortality" of humpback whales on the eastern shores since 2016. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recorded 178 dead humpback whales from Florida to Maine over the previous six years. About half of the whales had necropsies done, and of those, 40% had been killed by human interaction, either by being caught in fishing gear or being hit by vessels. Additionally, dead sperm whales, which are listed as an endangered species, have been discovered along eastern coasts. On September 2022, The Boston Herald reported that whale rescuers were able to free a young humpback whale that had become seriously entangled in fishing equipment outside Boston Harbor. Although this particular whale was fortunate enough, it highlighted that fishing gear has been getting sea animals, big or small. Wind Farm? The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and NOAA officials held a press conference in response to the most recent death of a humpback whale, which washed up on the shores of Maryland on January 16. There were growing concerns that a nearby wind farm development was to blame. According to Benjamin Laws, the NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources deputy chief for permits and conservation, there is no proof that any of the machinery used to aid offshore wind development could cause a whale to perish. He said that there are no known links between whale strandings and offshore wind projects. Also Read: Endangered Sperm Whale Carcass with Large Gashes Found in Oregon Shores, Officials Say Starving Before Death Menhaden and Ships Federal officials and regional experts said that several factors could be causing a rise in whale beaching along the mid-Atlantic coast. They observed that the number of humpback whales has grown and that more of them are migrating into New York and New Jersey in pursuit of menhaden, a fish the whales eat. According to the New York Harbor Channel, forage fish like menhaden are crucial to the ocean food chain. Unfortunately, every larger fish and marine animal that lives in the sea south and east of New York Harbor, known as the New York Bight, depend on menhaden to survive. Menhaden swim in a region where a main freight shipping route into the ports of New York and New Jersey exists, which may increase their risk of being struck by a ship. Additionally, as whales follow their prey or migrate to waters with better conditions, climate change and warming oceans can affect their migration patterns, according to Lauren Gaches, NOAA Fisheries director of public affairs. Although there have been elevated levels of large whale strandings for several years, according to Sarah Wilkin, the coordinator of the NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources, they are still particularly worried about the increase over the past six weeks or so. According to officials, there are many regulations that federal law requires offshore wind energy vessels to follow in order to avoid whales as well as other marine mammals. One prerequisite is the presence of observers whose sole responsibility is to keep an eye out for marine mammals. Survey Work on the Ocean Floor The majority of the current survey work being done for the wind farm examines the ocean floor to determine whether it is suitable for installing cables and future wind turbines. According to Brian Hooker, BOEM's Office of Renewable Energy Programs head of a biology team, it is not known to cause serious harm to whales. The use of sonar equipment loud enough to kill whales and other marine life is prohibited, so laws also refuted the claim that it was harming animals. Sonar equipment is used by wind companies to map the ocean floor. A local campaign group called Clean Ocean Action has demanded an investigation into the unexpected whale deaths, BBC News reports. Related Article: Over 2 Feet Rolled Hard Plastic Found Inside Dead 16-Foot Killer Whale, Shark Bites Found All Over Beached Carcass in Brazil Global temperature has risen to over 1.5 degrees Celsius temporarily following the Tonga volcanic eruption last year. This is according to models from a new study that shows such eruption has increased the chance of Earth to further increase its ongoing planetary warming. In 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai submarine volcano in Tonga erupted on January 15, killing at least 6 people and injuring 19 others, as well as causing severe infrastructural damages in the Pacific Ocean island country. The Tonga volcano emitted ash plumes and rocks which prompted scientists to understand the historic blast. Tonga Eruption Over a year later, the Tonga eruption has continued to amaze not only volcanologists but other members of the scientific community. Previous reports said the eruption was so massive it caused seismic wave which travelled across the globe. This is in addition to the tsunami it caused following its eruption. Scientists have described a large "magma hammer" where they said to had slammed the underside of the Tonga volcano, the BBC reported. The assessment is based on seismic wave analysis which revealed four individual events that are actually molten rock beneath the underwater mountain. Also Read: Researchers Claim that the Tonga Eruption May Have Lasting Effect on Climate Change Global Temperature Rise The new study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change on January 12, where researchers suggest that the impact of the Tonga volcanic eruption will be strong enough to push the average global temperatures indefinitely above the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit, an ideal temperature targeted by the United Nations (UN)-led Paris Agreement back in 2015. A research team from the University of Oxford, in collaboration with a colleague at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, developed radiative transfer models. The tool aims to help measure global temperature changes in the coming years caused by the Tonga eruption in January 2022. By using the model, the team found that there is a warming effect of 0.12 Watts per square meter immediately after the volcanic blast. Afterward, the researchers used the data from the model as a basis to a standard climate model to make approximations about such temperature increase in the next 10 years following the eruption, as summarized by Phys.org. Warming Planet Prior to the Tonga volcano eruption, Earth has been experiencing significant rise in temperatures for over a century, especially during the onset of the Industrial Revolution between 1750 and 1840. The Industrial Age saw the transition from agricultural, handcraft into manufacturing, machine-driven processes. In recent years, scientists have warned the reality of climate change and global warming is causing this global temperature rise, often blamed on human activities such as the fossil fuel burning and greenhouse gas emission. While natural phenomenon like the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption contributed to atmospheric temperature, the current climate crises that is also responsible for causing global sea-level rise and melting glaciers is mainly perceived to be caused by anthropogenic or human factors. Related Article: Tonga Volcano's Eruption is so Loud Thundering Sound Waves Were Heard in Alaska When he left his pet next door, a former YouTuber who believed he had purchased a mini pig was accused of "irresponsible" animal rehoming. A recent video posted by The Gentle Barn is unlike the typical viral TikToks that feature a silly cooking trick or a big, fluffy dog cuddling with a tiny kitten. The Gentle Barn is a nonprofit animal sanctuary that has been rescuing animals since 1999. This week Pearl the pig was discovered abandoned in a field in California next to a dead pig. According to the TikTok caption, Pearl has undoubtedly experienced trauma that is beyond what the nonprofit can fathom, but she is now safe at the sanctuary. Logan Paul and His Mini Pig According to a statement obtained by Treehugger, Pearl was discovered with torn and tattered ears, horribly overgrown hooves, and a potentially fatal infection in her uterus. According to information provided to The Gentle Barn, it is thought that Pearl was originally bought from a breeder by an influencer, according to a caption from one of the nonprofit's social media posts about her rescue. People frequently purchase "mini pigs" or "teacup pigs" online in the hopes that they will remain small. Sadly, they are discarded when they inevitably become very large and develop numerous unanticipated needs. Because the internet is the internet, TikTok sleuths swiftly learned the "influencer" was Logan Paul, a former YouTuber who is now a professional wrestler. Paul purchased the pig after learning that she was a miniature pig, according to a tweet from February 2020. i bought pearl over a year ago. i was told she was a mini pig... shes not. pic.twitter.com/KU1DFAielk Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) February 26, 2020 Rehoming Pearl... Again and Again However, Paul rehomed Pearl to a nearby rancher when he decided to leave his Encino home during the pandemic and move to Puerto Rico, as he explained during a "TMZ Live" interview. Paul continued by saying that, unbeknownst to him, Pearl was given away once more when that rancher relocated to Nevada. Paul wrote to The Gentle Barn in response to the online backlash against him, thanking them and promising to give the sanctuary a gift in return. The spokesperson for the sanctuary has yet to confirm whether it has been received by any news organizations. The Gentle Barn claims that they were asked to accept Pearl into their forever home. She took some time to adjust, but now she gets to roam the barnyard with the other potbelly pigs. Also Read: Pig Livers Transformed to be Human-Like, Possible Solution for Organ Transplant Shortage Mini Pigs Online animal rights activists also chastised Paul for the initial careless rehoming of the animals. There isn't any such thing as a "mini pig," according to others. They are also known as "teacup pigs," a made-up breed that irresponsible breeders have popularized over the past ten years. Adult "mini pigs" have the potential to weigh up to 400 pounds, outgrowing the homes, expectations, as well as affections of their owners. The Gentle Barn stated that people must realize that "teacup" or "micro" pigs like Pearl don't actually exist. All pigs mature into large animals, so if you're considering adopting one, you should consider all of their requirements and create a plan of action for them as they expand. According to a statement from the nonprofit, The Gentle Barn is feeding her organic fruits, vegetables, and grains to get her back into shape, healthy, and full of energy, and is also giving her sound therapy. Now that Pearl has joined her new potbelly pig family, they enjoy daytime adventures and nighttime sleepovers together. Barry, another pig at the sanctuary, is her best friend; the two of them even cuddle, Treehugger reports. Related Article: 90 Animals Rescued in a Washington Home During Routine Wildlife Search, Other Animals Found Dead After some animals escaped, a Washington animal sanctuary was sued. As their options are limited by their budget, 80% of their exotic animals may have to be put to death. For 21 years, the wolves at Predators of the Heart have been free to roam the fenced grounds of the sanctuary near Anacortes. The sanctuary is home to more than 50 different species of animals, including 15 wolves, but its days may be numbered. Predators of The Heart's wolves and other exotic animals were saved from being confiscated by the government or abandoned by their owners. Ashley Carr, the owner of the animal sanctuary said that Since wildlife is worth the sacrifice, everything they do is for the benefit of the animals. People who enter the sanctuary can see their hearts, she continued. She added that the wolves are still wild animals even though they are tamed. Incident Leading to Lawsuit Three wolves broke free in October of last year, killing a neighbor's dog in the process. A few of the neighbors decided to sue Predators of The Heart to permanently close the organization down as a result. According to Carr, the sanctuary genuinely just wants to be a part of the neighborhood and to contribute rather than burden it. Predators of the Heart also provides a home to dozens of other exotic animals, such as alligators and sloths, in addition to wolves. The lawsuit is depleting the sanctuary's funds, and the situation doesn't seem promising. "Friendlier" but Costlier Location Carr claimed that it is extremely disheartening that they are so close to closing their doors. They would have had a few more months to get by if they hadn't had to pay hundreds of dollars per month in legal fees. Carr says she would be delighted to relocate the sanctuary to a more welcoming area, which Carr describes as "friendlier." The property she discovered in Island County costs $2 million, which she cannot currently afford. Ashley is currently confronted with some very challenging choices as both time and money are running out. Also Read: Endangered Ring-Tailed Lemur Rescued from Illinois Garage, Zoo Warns of Zoonotic Pathogens if Kept as Pet Opting for Euthanasia Carr stated that it is one thing to euthanize an animal due to a medical condition. It is another thing to put them down because locals don't want them. She sobbed as she stated that it isn't fair. Ashley claims she only has a few weeks to either find new homes for the animals or put them down because the lawsuit is taking so long and money is running out. She claimed that every day she struggles with this heartbreaking reality. Carr went on to say that they merely wanted to act in the animals' best interests. She continued by saying that while the sanctuary does not want to be a burden on people, they do not believe that animals should be put to death simply because people do not have all the information, King5 reports. Predators of the Heart According to its website, Predators of the Heart, a 10-acre wooded wildlife preserve, is home to wolves, cougars, reptiles, birds, and other exotic animals with a focus on conservation and education. It is situated next to the forest lands in a residential area of unincorporated Skagit County, according to Twin Timber Wolf Information Network. Predators of the Heart has been in operation for 21 years and is home to more than 50 different animal species, including 15 wolves. The sanctuary typically relies on revenue from public tours to fund operations but has been unable to do so for a year due to a permit issue with Skagit County, KGMI reports. Related Article: Florida Eager to House Manatees as New Rehab Nears Completion, First Feeding Trial Launched The Governor of Nasarawa State, Engr Abdullahi A. Sule has loss his son, Alhaji Hassan AA Sule at the early hours of Friday. Vanguard gathered that Hassan died after a brief illness.Meanwhile, condolences have started pouring in following the demise of the governor's son. In a condolence message signed by the Publisher of Eggonnews, Matthew Kuju and made available to Vanguard in Lafia at about 5.30 am, reads: "it is with pains in our hearts to learn of the passage of your dear son, Hassan. No doubt, it is very painful when a father has to bury a son, but only Allah can explain such happenings. "We pray May Allah raise him among the righteous and grant him aljannah Firdausi, and may Allah grant the family the fortitude to bear this painful demise. In a similar message, the Honourable member representing Lafia North Constituency at the Nasarawa State House of Assembly Hon. Barr. Muhammed Ibrahim Alkali said he received with great shock the passing of the Son of His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State Alh. Hassan Abdullahi Sule. In a Condolence message to the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State, His Excellency Engr. Abdullahi A. Sule, the Lawmaker described the death of the governor's Son as a colossal loss not only to Nasarawa State but the Nation at large. Hon. Alkali prayed God almighty to forgive the deceased all his short comings and grant him Aljanatul Firdaus as his final abode. "I share my deep condolences with His Excellency, Engr Abdullahi A. Sule, over the passing of his beloved son Alh. Hassan. I pray that Allah (SWT) grants him Aljanatul Firdaus and comfort his family" the statement,' added. Washington Senegal's former prime minister Aminata Toure says she will keep fighting against a possible third term for her former boss, President Macky Sall, who remains silent on his intentions regarding the 2024 presidential election. Toure was stripped of her seat in parliament this week -- a move she says is based solely on her decision to oppose to a potential candidacy by President Sall. "I believe President Macky Sall should not run for a third term. We both campaigned for the 2016 constitution which clearly says that no one can run for more than two consecutive terms," Toure told VOA French to Africa in an interview this week. The president's supporters say the 2016 constitution allows him to run again, while his critics say it does not. In removing Toure from parliament, Senegal's ruling coalition cited her decision to leave the party, under which she was elected. Toure told VOA that her former colleagues violated article 60 of the constitution by not notifying her in advance and not organizing a hearing. "I heard it from the radio," she said, calling the decision illegal. Toure has been highly critical of the ruling party since her bid to lead the parliament failed in September, and she has accused President Sall of failing to support her. Toure, who has announced her candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, says President Sall is attempting to keep his main opponents from running. Opposition member Ousmane Sonko, who also has announced his candidacy for the election, is facing rape charges, and a judge has ruled that he should stand trial. Sonko denied the accusations and told VOA French-to-Africa Monday that the charges are a political conspiracy aimed at keeping him from running. "Macky Sall must come to his senses," he told VOA. The president has not said publicly whether he will run again or not. His supporters say Sonko's legal troubles are a private matter and the government has nothing to do with it. Many political observers say a third run for President Sall could rock a country that has been considered a beacon of democracy and stability in a West African region plagued by coups and militant attacks. Addis Abeba Last week, while the Orthodox Christian believers celebrated Epiphany (Timket), one of their major holidays by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), His Holiness Abune Mathias I, Patriarch of EOTC, called on all mass to work hard to "heal broken hearts, solace the dismayed, enhance peace and fortify unity with true love, justice and equality in true repent". The Patriarch conveyed his message of peace to all Ethiopians both at home and abroad and pleaded with them to avoid conflict and sustain peace through "sincerity, reconciliation, brotherly love and complete obedience". Despite the presence of countless legally registered religions in Ethiopia, which are followed by nearly 98 percent of the total population of the country, conflict, displacement and disharmony have become synonymous with the country, raising the specter on whether religion has been playing its roles in resolving conflicts and building peace and solidarity in Ethiopia. On 21 January, religious leaders and scholars came together at the Sheraton Addis hotel in Addis Abeba to discuss the role of religion in peacemaking process in Ethiopia. The panel was organized by the Foundation of Christian Servanthood (FCS). Tarekegn Nega (PhD), one of the presenters, emphasized that peace and nation building without participation of religion is absurd and the role of religion to seek proper solution remains irreplaceable. Despite the availability of three different perspectives: peace only by religion, peace out of religion, and peace with religion, global experiences indicate that the third option, peace with religion, contributes the greatest role in building lasting peace, he noted. Yared Tilahan, a pastor, has also the same understanding that he argued peace and security are two separate issues. He said, "The government can enforce security but not peace as the former is external and legally handled while the latter is internal effective spiritually". "... religious leaders have become just "political instruments" and the scholars have become the "causes if not aggravators" of conflict in the country." Priest Tagaye Tadele, General Secretary of Inter-Religious Council Ethiopia, believes that Ethiopian religious leaders have done nothing that make them proud as their "preach to reinforce love, peace, respect, sympathy and unity among their followers bare no fruits". Participants of the panel argued that, "neither religious leaders nor scholars" have contributed for peace, nation and solidarity building in Ethiopia. According to Anteneh Worku, CEO of the Foundation of Christian Servanthood, religious leaders have become just "political instruments" and the scholars have become the "causes if not aggravators" of conflict in the country. Geleta Simeson (PhD), another presenter on his part emphasized, in a country where about 97.3% of the population is religious, conflict, hate and revenge have become incredibly the country's identification, which witnessed the "ineffectiveness of religious leaders" in handling their religion proactively. The major reason for sustained conflict in the country could be attributed to the failure of religious leaders to live for the "heavenly world rather preferred to live earthly life," he added. Hence, they have engaged in "competition for wealth, fulfilling their limitless needs and ignoring their promises to serve their followers". According to Abba Daniel Assefa (PhD), another speaker, religious fathers have almost ignored their spiritual responsibility and are "busy of accumulating wealth" in an unfair, twisted, mischievous ways" so that they failed to "earn respect" from their followers, "fall under suspicion" to each other within one religion and among religions. "As they have engaged in corruption, the religious leaders have become weak in their spiritual life, looked down and lost resection as well as acceptance," he added. Taye Dendea, state minister of ministry of peace, also shares the idea that, "religious values have already washed away at present and the impact of religious leaders upon their followers is not at its normal place". At the one-day panel discussion, it was underscored that the need for the irreplaceable roles of religious leaders in conflict resolution, peace, nation and solidarity building remains mandatory. In this regard, it is necessary first to recognize and accept the extent of the problem. "Let's face the reality," Geleta said, adding that conflict, the unavoidable incidence, in one or another way is related to religion that, "religious leaders must empower themselves in giving spiritual leadership, which the government organs cannot do". "As they have engaged in corruption, the religious leaders have become weak in their spiritual life, looked down and lost resection as well as acceptance"Abba Daniel Assefa (PhD) Geleta added that religious fathers are under suspicion, challenged by extremism, political imposition, hijacking and serving as instruments for government that is why they failed to "earn respect". While briefing the role of religious leaders in building "Social Solidarity", Abba Daniel remarked that standing by the victims, being voice for morally and psychologically dismayed, refuting bias in connection to religion or identity and above all working to ensure justice for the subjugated segment is what religious leaders should do. "Religious leaders are currently working to accumulate wealth, to meet their limitless needs, competing for power, satisfy their stinginess, fulfilling earthly life". Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Religion Ethiopia 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. According to Abba Daniel, the purpose of reconciliation is not something that religious fathers do when they want and leave when they do not, rather it should be a task they handle all the time. He added that, "both the mainstream and the social media have also been contributing in escalating conflicts instead of working for justice. In our country, the media has remained being "conflict aggravators, mouths of government authorities". Hence, we hope the media coupled with religious fathers and the government, can bring lasting peace and stability in the country, Yared said, adding that the suffering of the people due to conflicts was so drastic that religious leaders should come together and find lasting solution for it. The participants of the panel have also stressed that the irreplaceable roles of religion in building peace, nation and solidarity has already eroded away and that it needs a serious attention. The religious leaders finally vowed to work further to realize their irreplaceable roles and reinforce their efforts to resolve conflicts; thereby, contribute their shares in building peace, nation and solidarity in the country. AS Ethan Simmons is a reporter at The News-Gazette covering the University of Illinois. His email is esimmons@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@ethancsimmons). Download Now The News-Gazette mobile app brings you the latest local breaking news, updates, and more. Read the News-Gazette on your mobile device just as it appears in print. Addis Abeba In an emergency plenary session the Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Chuch (EOTC) held this afternoon, it has passed a decision to revoke the full authority given to three Archbishops who were involved in anointment of 26 Episcopate. The revocations of titles and authority by the Holy Synod also extends to the 25 Episcopate out of the 26 who were anointed by the three Archbishops. One of the 26, Father Tsega Zeab Adugna, has yesterday apologized to the Church and its community and voluntarily rescinded his Episcopate anointment, which was accepted by the Holy Synod. Today's decision by the Holy Synod followed events on Sunday Morning, when His Holiness Abune Sawiros (PhD), Archbishop of South West Shoa Diocese, together with Archbishop Eustathius and Archbishop Zena Markos, presided over the appointment of 26 bishops: 17 bishops for dioceses located in the Oromia region, and nine bishops for dioceses outside Oromia at a ceremony held in Haro Beale Wold Church. His Holiness Abune Mathias I, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church convened an emergency meeting on the same Sunday and called the appointment process "illegal" and an act done without the approval of the Holy Synod. "A great event that has targeted the church", the Patriarch said, adding that it has taken place unexpectedly, without the knowledge of the Synod, and without discussions. The Patriarch then summoned all members of the Holy Synod from around the world for an emergency plenary assembly, which took place today. Subsequently, the Holy Synod issued a statement revoking the authority given to the three Archbishops as of today; The Holy Synod also said that they will be called by their former secular names without a priesthood title, were condemned by the plenary assembly of the Holy Synod and will be separated from the activities of the church. The statement further said that the Archbishops were entrusted with the apostolic mission, but acted in a manner that violated the foundation of the faith, religious canons, and all administrative systems. It constituted an act of destroying the institution and its structure, the statement added. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Ethiopia Religion 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. However, the Holy Synod has said the doors of the Church's mercy will remain open for the three Archbishops in the event that they decided to repent and apologized. It is to be recalled that in presser issued after the appointment, His Holiness Abune Sawiros issued a lengthy explanation on the decision to appoint the 26 Bishops and said that it was made to resolve long lasting problems within the church for failing to serve believers in their native languages and detached of their culture, which resulted in loss of millions of believers over the past years particularly in Oromia and Southern region. The Archbishop accused the Holy Synod that is currently in office for comprising 85% of its members from only one group and for failing to reflect the Church's diversity. AS Papillomaviruses are non-enveloped, double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses with a circular genome. Infection with these viruses can lead to several clinical symptoms ranging from subclinical, cutaneous, and mucosal warts to cancerous lesions in vertebrate hosts. A new study published in the journal Biology Letters identifies two novel lineages of papillomaviruses by mining the genome data of Chinese and Malayan pangolins. Study: Discovery of novel papillomaviruses in the critically endangered Malayan and Chinese pangolins. Image Credit: 2630ben / Shutterstock.com What are pangolins? Pangolins are nocturnal, scaly, and insectivorous mammals that belong to the order Pholidota. The Phataginus and Smutsia genera are found in Africa, whereas the Manis genera are found in Asia. Four different species of pangolin reside in Asia, of which include the Philippine pangolin (Manis culionensis), Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata), Malayan pangolin (Manis javanica), and Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla). The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has designated the Philippine, Malayan, and Chinese pangolins as critically endangered species due to their population decline due to overexploitation and trafficking of their scales. Recently, pangolins have emerged as potential viral disease hosts after coronaviruses related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were reported in Malayan pangolins. In addition, pangolins have also been implicated as hosts for other ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses such as picornaviruses, pneumoviruses, reoviruses, flaviviruses, and canine distemper virus (Paramyxoviridae). The diversity of DNA viruses and their disease association in pangolins remains unclear. About the study The current study's researchers discovered an unidentified papillomavirus contig in pangolins and subsequently screened this sample using the tblastn algorithm. Annotation of the 7307-bp contig was done using the PuMA pipeline, which corresponded to a full papillomavirus genome that encoded E1, E2, E6, E7, L1, and L2 proteins, along with two spliced products. Thereafter, the short-read data of re-sequenced genomes of 22 Chinese pangolins and 72 Malayan pangolins were screened. First, the short-read sequences with more than 100 significant matches were downloaded, followed by their de novo assembly. Genomic sequences were sorted into forward, orphan, and reverse reads. Finally, annotation of the contigs of complete viral genomes was done using PuMA. Examining L1 gene contigs allowed for detecting an intact L1 open reading frame. Estimating the isoelectric point and molecular weight of predicted protein products was performed using ExPASy. Magic-BLAST was used to calculate the coverage of the assembled sequences. Bayesian phylogeny of the E1 and L1 proteins was performed to study the systematics of these viruses using papillomaviruses recognized by the ICTV and the Tupaia belangeri papillomavirus 1 (TbelPV1) and Tupaiabelangeri papillomavirus 2 (TbelPV2). Study findings Significant hits to papillomaviruses were identified in 11 out of 22 samples from Chinese pangolins and 36 out of 73 Malayan pangolin samples. All samples with known geographical provinces originated from the Yunnan province of China. Notably, one Chinese pangolin sample and ten Malayan pangolin samples had more than 100 significant hits. These samples were subsequently selected for genome assemblies, in which two new papillomavirus genomes were assembled, along with the reassembled genome for the reference contig. The complete L1 gene was assembled for three of these samples. Moreover, three different L1 gene contigs were assembled from a single Chinese pangolin. The assembled genome was between 7,253 and 7,437 base pairs (bp), with a guanine-cytosine (GC) content between 39.84%-40.09%. All three genomes contained E1, E2, E6, E7, L1, and L2 proteins, as well as two spliced products. Additionally, seven of the eight L1 sequences were categorized into a monophyletic group and grouped as the sister lineage to TbelPV1. The E1 clade was also placed as the sister of TbelPV1. Only one protein sequence from a Chinese pangolin belonged to different clades, including Dyodeltapapillomavirus, Alphapapillomavirus, and Omegapapillomavirus. Conclusions The current study identifies Southeast Asia pangolins as hosts of highly prevalent and diverse papillomaviruses. These findings highlight the importance of in silico mining of host sequencing data for screening novel viruses. Further studies are needed to better understand papillomaviruses' impact on pangolins and develop strategies for conserving these animals. California's decision last month to cancel the results of a long-planned bidding competition among commercial health plans in its Medicaid program has some industry insiders and consumer advocates wondering whether the state can stand up to insurers and force improvements in care for millions of low-income beneficiaries. In a backroom agreement announced in the final days of 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom's administration, facing lawsuits, granted concessions that allowed major insurers to claw back business they would have lost had health officials stuck with the state's initial contract awards for managed-care plans. Oakland-based Blue Shield of California and St. Louis-based Centene Corp. which owns Health Net, the largest commercial health plan in Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid were among those that had aggressively challenged the initial results. "They had this long process, and then they just sort of struck deals," said Maya Altman, who retired a year ago after nearly 17 years as CEO of the Health Plan of San Mateo, which did not participate in the bidding. "It's kind of weird. Not transparent very much behind closed doors." It was a remarkable change of course that came four months after the state had announced its initial contract awards. The Department of Health Care Services, which oversees Medi-Cal, had spent years preparing for the bidding competition and touted it as an important means of addressing substandard care. Eight commercial Medi-Cal plans, covering around 30% of the program's 13 million managed-care enrollees, were required to submit bids for contracts worth about $70 billion over five years. Noncommercial, locally governed Medi-Cal plans that cover the other 70% of managed-care enrollees did not have to submit bids, but they will be required to sign the same new contract as the commercial plans, scheduled to take effect next year. State officials said their new decision avoids uncertainty after the losing health plans Health Net, Blue Shield of California, Community Health Group, and Aetna threatened drawn-out legal action. It also dramatically reduces the number of Medi-Cal enrollees who will have to switch plans from an estimated 2.3 million to about 1.2 million. And state officials said it strengthens their ability to enhance Medi-Cal through the new contracts, which will contain requirements for higher-quality care, greater transparency, and more equitable access. Other states have faced legal disruption after they put their Medicaid contracts up for bid. In Louisiana, for example, Centene and Aetna in 2019 protested the results of a rebidding process, which led that state to nullify its awards and start over. The new results were announced nearly two years later, with Centene and Aetna among the winners. "When you create disputes, and lawsuits, they always put some uncertainty into things," Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, told KHN. "We feel that we ended up in a place where we achieved certainty. We have a set of [health] plans who are committed to this." Consumer advocates had worried that lingering uncertainty would hinder the rollout of a far-reaching nearly $12 billion, five-year Medi-Cal initiative to provide nonmedical social services that address socioeconomic factors such as homelessness and food insecurity, widely viewed as key health indicators. Still, the state's decision to throw out the bidding results has many patient advocates and some health plan executives questioning the value of future contract competitions and even whether health officials will effectively enforce the higher standards in the new contract. "It would be extremely disappointing if poor-performing plans were able to litigate their way into participating in Medi-Cal," said Abbi Coursolle, a senior attorney in the Los Angeles office of the National Health Law Program. Tony Cava, a spokesperson for the Department of Health Care Services, said the bids submitted were still "incredibly valuable," because they showed how the health plans intend to improve care. He said commitments made in the bids will be incorporated into the new contracts. Cava also said the department, which had not previously held a statewide bidding competition, now intends to hold one every five years. Patient advocates and industry insiders gave the state credit for fining health plans that fell short of quality and access standards in a report issued late last year. But they also noted that several of the health plans that will continue to operate in Medi-Cal including Molina Healthcare and Health Net were among the lowest performers. When the state announced its initial awards in August, Blue Shield was shut out, despite its large health care footprint statewide and its long-standing efforts to curry favor with the state's political class. The state also said initially that it would take Los Angeles County, a huge Medi-Cal contract, away from Health Net. Between 2018 and 2022, Blue Shield spent at least $31 million on lobbying, political donations, and other contributions, including $20 million to a state homelessness fund Newsom set up, according to a KHN analysis of filings with the secretary of state and the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Health Net parent Centene spent at least $5 million over that period, mostly on lobbying and political donations. Under the new arrangement, Blue Shield will keep its San Diego County Medi-Cal business after initially losing it in the contract competition, though it will not get a contract in any of the other 12 counties where it bid. Its roughly 129,000 San Diego enrollees will not have to switch plans, but over 100,000 other Medi-Cal members in San Diego will still have to switch, as Health Net and Aetna exit. In Los Angeles County, Health Net will retain its primary Medi-Cal contract, but will have to split its 1.1 million members 50-50 with Molina under a subcontract. Molina already subcontracts with Health Net in the county, but currently has only 80,000 enrollees under that arrangement. Some observers questioned how the split can be maintained. Cava said half of new Medi-Cal enrollees in L.A. County don't choose a plan and are assigned to one instead, according to the most recent data. These assignments will be used to help balance enrollment between Health Net and Molina, he said. The state and the five participating health plans issued an unusual joint statement, and the plans put a positive spin on it. Centene said the state's revised decision "is in the best interest of millions of members." A Blue Shield executive said it was "honored to continue serving Medi-Cal beneficiaries in San Diego County." In an investor call this month, Molina's CEO, Joseph Zubretsky, noted that his company's Medi-Cal membership will double with the new agreement, though it would have tripled under the state's initial decision. He summarized the situation for Molina as "taking three steps forward, taking one step back, and ending up being two steps ahead." Consumer advocates, patients, and medical professionals expressed relief that the new agreement allows Community Health Group, the largest Medi-Cal health plan in San Diego County, to keep operating there. Had the initial results held, it would have lost its contract, and its 335,000 members would have had to choose new plans. Christine Xayalinh, a member of Community Health Group in Escondido, said the plan afforded her treatment for Type 2 diabetes and referred her to University of California-San Diego for a successful gastric bypass. "I know some people do have concerns about their health insurance," Xayalinh, 29, said, "but for me, it's been a lifesaver." With the contract awards decided, the state's hope of improving Medi-Cal will hinge on its ability to enforce the new contracts. "The focus now needs to be on making sure that works," said Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. "This is a very vulnerable population of Californians who are not getting what they need." This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. Today, KHN has released details of 90 previously secret government audits that reveal millions of dollars in overpayments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors. The audits, which cover billings from 2011 through 2013, are the most recent financial reviews available, even though enrollment in the health plans has exploded over the past decade to over 30 million and is expected to grow further. KHN has published the audit spreadsheets as the industry girds for a final regulation that could order health plans to return hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars or more in overcharges to the Treasury Department payments dating back a decade or more. The decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is expected by Feb 1. KHN obtained the long-hidden audit summaries through a three-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against CMS, which was settled in late September. In November, KHN reported that the audits uncovered about $12 million in net overpayments for the care of 18,090 patients sampled. In all, 71 of the 90 audits uncovered net overpayments, which topped $1,000 per patient on average in 23 audits. CMS paid the remaining plans too little on average, anywhere from $8 to $773 per patient. The audit spreadsheets released today identify each health plan and summarize the findings. Medicare Advantage, a fast-growing alternative to original Medicare, is run primarily by major insurance companies. Contract numbers for the plans indicate where the insurers were based at the time. Since 2018, CMS officials have said they would recoup an estimated $650 million in overpayments from the 90 audits, but the final amount is far from certain. Spencer Perlman, an analyst with Veda Partners in Bethesda, Maryland, said he believes the data released by KHN indicates the government's clawbacks for potential overpayments could reach as high as $3 billion. "I don't see government forgoing those dollars," he said. For nearly two decades, Medicare has paid the health plans using a billing formula that pays higher monthly rates for sicker patients and less for the healthiest ones. Yet on the rare occasions that auditors examined medical files, they often could not confirm that patients had the listed diseases, or that the conditions were as serious as the health plans claimed. Since 2010, CMS has argued that overpayments found while sampling patient records at each health plan should be extrapolated across the membership, a practice commonly used in government audits. Doing so can multiply the overpayment demand from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of millions for a large health plan. But the industry has managed to fend off this regulation despite dozens of audits, investigations, and whistleblower lawsuits alleging widespread billing fraud and abuse in the program that costs taxpayers billions every year. CMS is expected to clarify what it will do with the upcoming regulation, both for collecting on past audits and those to come. CMS is currently conducting audits for 2014 and 2015. UnitedHealthcare and Humana, the two biggest Medicare Advantage insurers, accounted for 26 of the 90 contract audits over the three years. Humana, one of the largest Medicare Advantage sponsors, had overpayments exceeding the $1,000 average in 10 of 11 audits, according to the records. That could spell trouble for the Louisville, Kentucky-based insurer, which relies heavily on Medicare Advantage, according to Perlman. He said Humana's liability could exceed $900 million. Mark Taylor, Humana's director of corporate and financial communications, had no comment on the overpayment estimates. Commenting on the upcoming CMS rule, he said in an emailed statement: "Our primary focus will remain on our members and the potential impact any changes could have on their benefits. ... We hope CMS will join us in protecting the integrity of Medicare Advantage." Eight audits of UnitedHealthcare plans found overpayments, while seven others found the government had underpaid. In a conference call with reporters this week, Tim Noel, who leads UnitedHealthcare's Medicare team, said the company wants CMS to make changes in the regulation but remains "very comfortable" with what the 2011-13 audit results will show. "Like all government programs, taxpayers and beneficiaries need to know that the Medicare Advantage program is well managed," he said. He said the company supports annual auditing of Medicare Advantage plans. But Perlman said the sheer size of the program makes annual audits "completely impractical." These audits are "incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive" to conduct," he said. Mark Buck, a physician and pharmacist in Helena, Montana, said he's been seeing more patients turn to urgent care clinics when they run out of medication. Their doctors have retired, moved away, or left the field because they burned out during the covid-19 pandemic, leaving the patients with few options to renew their prescriptions, he said. "Access is where we're really hurting in this state," Buck said. Senate Bill 112, sponsored by Republican Sen. Tom McGillvray, would address that need by expanding the limited authority Montana already gives pharmacists to prescribe medications and devices. Supporters said the measure could help fill health care gaps in rural areas in particular, while opponents worried it would give pharmacists physician-like authority without the same education. Eleven states, including Montana, give pharmacists prescribing authority to some degree for medications such as birth control, naloxone, tobacco cessation products, preventive HIV drugs, and travel-related medications. The FDA has allowed pharmacists nationwide to prescribe the covid drug Paxlovid during the public health emergency. According to a 2021 report by George Mason University's Mercatus Center, there were about 228,000 primary care physicians nationwide in 2019 and more than 315,000 pharmacists in 2020. The report found that patients using Medicare visit a pharmacist twice as often as a primary care provider, and the difference is even larger in rural areas. Pharmacists, who often work in grocery stores, "are open longer hours than most doctors' offices, and no appointment is needed," the authors of the Mercatus Center study wrote. Under the bill, pharmacists could prescribe for patients who do not require a new diagnosis, for minor conditions, or in emergencies. They could not prescribe controlled substances. During a Jan. 18 committee hearing on the bill, supporters said pharmacists also would be able to provide strep and flu tests, along with diabetic supplies. Buck, the Helena doctor-pharmacist, said the bill wouldn't solve the provider shortage, but it would "put a thumb in the dike that's leaking." According to data from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, Montana had one primary care physician per 1,210 people in 2019. Some counties have no primary care providers, but they usually have a pharmacy, said Kendall Cotton, executive director of the Frontier Institute, a public policy think tank in Montana. For example, Powder River County has no physician, he said, but a grocery store in the county seat, Broadus, has a pharmacy. As a clinical pharmacist practitioner for 15 years, Travis Schule of Kalispell wouldn't be much affected by the passage of SB 112. In Montana, providers like him with additional education and training already have authority to prescribe under Montana's existing rules. But he sees the bill's potential to expand access to treatment in Montana. In some cases, people might have to drive three hours to see a physician, and SB 112 would allow a pharmacist to serve as a "first triage" before they travel that long distance, Schule said. "This bill is a patient-centric bill," Schule said. "It's not for pharmacists. It's for patients." SB 112 is modeled after a bill passed in Idaho. Tim Flynn, a pharmacist at an Albertsons grocery store in Meridian, Idaho, said the legislation lets patients be treated for minor conditions, such as urinary tract infections, when they can't schedule a doctor's appointment or get to an urgent care clinic. The Montana Medical Association and the Montana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics oppose SB 112. They say SB 112 would fragment care, risk patient safety, and substitute pharmacists for emergency care physicians. But Montana Medical Association CEO Jean Branscum said there was an opportunity to build on the Idaho model, by bringing pharmacists and physicians together while making sure patients get the same standard of care. "Lets come up with a model of care that will allow pharmacists to do more than they do now, be a part of that team, practice at the highest level, and also appreciate the value of the physicians as part of that team too," Branscum told lawmakers at the Jan. 18 hearing. Keely Larson is the KHN fellow for the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Newspaper Association, and Kaiser Health News. Larson is a graduate student in environmental and natural resources journalism at the University of Montana. The host-Julie Rovner Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KHN's weekly health policy news podcast, "What the Health?" A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book "Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z," now in its third edition. The abortion debate has changed dramatically in the seven months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its nationwide right to abortion. Nearly half the states have banned or restricted the procedure, even though the public, at the ballot box, continues to show support for abortion rights. In this special, two-part podcast, taped the week of the 50th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, an expert panel delves into the fight, the sometimes-unintended side effects, and what each side plans for 2023. This week's panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Sarah Varney of KHN. Panelists Alice Miranda Ollstein, Politico @AliceOllstein Sandhya Raman, CQ Roll Call @SandhyaWrites Sarah Varney, KHN @sarahvarney4 Among the takeaways from this week's episode: Exemptions to state abortion bans came into question shortly after the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe, with national debate surrounding the case of a 10-year-old in Ohio who was forced to travel out of state to have an abortion although, as a rape victim, she should have been able to obtain an abortion in her home state. The restrictions in many states have caused problems for women experiencing miscarriages, as medical providers fear repercussions of providing care whether affecting their medical licenses or malpractice insurance coverage, or even drawing criminal charges. So far, there have been no reports of doctors being charged. A Christian father in Texas won a lawsuit against the federal government that bars the state's Title X family-planning clinics from dispensing birth control to minors without parental consent. That change poses a particular problem for rural areas, where there may not be another place to obtain contraception, and other states could follow suit. The Title X program has long required clinics to serve minors without informing their parents. Top abortion opponents are leaning on misinformation to advance their causes, including to inaccurately claim that birth control is dangerous. Medication abortion is the next target for abortion opponents. In recent months, the FDA has substantially loosened restrictions on the "abortion pill," though only in the states where abortion remains available. Some opponents are getting creative by citing environmental laws to argue, without evidence, that the abortion pill could contaminate the water supply. Restrictions are also creating problems for the maternal care workforce, with implications possibly rippling for decades to come. Some of the states with the worst maternal health outcomes also have abortion bans, leading providers to rethink how, and where, they train and practice. Looking ahead, a tug of war is occurring on state and local levels among abortion opponents about what to do next. Some lawmakers who voted for state bans are expressing interest in at least a partial rollback, while other opponents are pushing back to demand no changes to the bans. With Congress divided, decisions about federal government spending could draw the most attention for those looking for national policy changes. And for extra credit, the panelists recommend their most memorable reproductive health stories from the last year: Julie Rovner: NPR's "Because of Texas' Abortion Law, Her Wanted Pregnancy Became a Medical Nightmare," by Carrie Feibel Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Times Magazine's "She Wasn't Ready for Children. A Judge Wouldn't Let Her Have an Abortion," by Lizzie Presser Sandhya Raman: ProPublica's "'We Need to Defend This Law': Inside an Anti-Abortion Meeting with Tennessee's GOP Lawmakers," by Kavitha Surana Sarah Varney: Science Friday's and KHN's "Why Contraceptive Failure Rates Matter in a Post-Roe America," by Sarah Varney Also mentioned in this week's podcast: People with poor literacy battle more mental health problems worldwide, according to new research from the University of East Anglia. A new study published today is the first to look at the global picture of literacy and mental health. Fourteen percent of the world's population still has little or no literacy - and the study finds that they are more likely to suffer mental health issues such as loneliness, depression, and anxiety. The team, from UEA's Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies (CPPT), say their findings disproportionately affect women, who account for two thirds of the world's illiterate. Despite rising literacy rates over the past 50 years, there are still an estimated 773 million adults globally who can't read or write. Literacy rates are lower in developing countries and those with a history of conflict, and women are disproportionately affected. We know that people with better literacy tend to have better social outcomes in terms of things like finding employment, being paid well, and being able to afford better food and housing. Not being able to read or write holds a person back throughout their life and they often become trapped in poverty or more likely to commit crime. We also know that lower literacy is related to poorer health, chronic diseases and shorter life expectancy. There has been some research examining the potential association between literacy and mental health but this is the first study looking at the issue on a global scale." Dr Bonnie Teague from UEA's Norwich Medical School The team reviewed data from 19 studies that measured both literacy and mental health. These studies took place across nine different countries (USA, China, Nepal, Thailand, Iran, India, Ghana, Pakistan, and Brazil) and involved almost two million participants. Dr Lucy Hunn completed this systematic review as part of her Doctorate in clinical psychology training at UEA. She said: "We used information relating to mental health and literacy to assess the global reported relationship between these two factors. "What we found is a significant association between literacy and mental health outcomes across multiple countries. "People with lower literacy had greater mental health difficulties such as anxiety and depression. "We can't say for sure that poor literacy causes poor mental health, but there is a strong association. "There may be multiple factors impacting on mental health which also impact literacy - such as poverty or living in an area with a history of conflict. However, what the data does show is that even in these places, you still see worse mental health for those without literacy skills. "This work highlights the importance of mental health services being aware of and supporting literacy," she added. Literacy and Mental Health Across the Globe: A Systematic Review is published in the journal Mental Health and Social Inclusion. A survey of over 2,000 British adults finds that trust in genetics is high and went up significantly during the pandemic. It also finds that there is a hunger for more coverage of genetics. The pandemic has gone hand-in-hand with a much-increased public profile of science genetics in particular. Be it the prominence of PCR testing or the development of vaccines, genetics has been in the spotlight in an unprecedented way. Given this, researchers from the Universities of Bath, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, and Aberdeen wanted to know what the public felt about genetics and whether this new exposure of the science had made a difference. The Genetics Society funded and commissioned a survey of over 2,000 randomly selected British adults through a public polling company Kantar Public. The researchers found that as a baseline most people were trusting of genetic technologies before the pandemic. Nearly half (45%) reported they trusted it to work for the societal good, 37% were neutral on this question, while 18% said they did not, and only very few (1-2%) were strongly distrusting. When asked if their trust in genetics had gone up through the pandemic, four times more people said their trust had increased than those who reported that it had gone down. Trust in science more generally had strongly gone up with a third of people saying it had increased. The results suggest that not only has trust in science gone up, but people want to hear more about it. Less than 10% thought that there was too much coverage of science in the media, while 44% reported that they want to hear more about it. Anne Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships and Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge University and President of the Genetics Society said: "These results really challenge us to double our efforts. We need to rise to the new opportunity and the challenge created by the outcomes of this survey". Co-lead Professor Laurence Hurst of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath said: "this is potentially important to know - scientists have a tendency to stick in their labs, but it looks like, for the most part, the public not only trust us but that this trust has gone up somewhat and many want to hear more from us about our work." Professor Jonathan Pettitt, co-lead from the University of Aberdeen said: "It is hard to see any upsides to the pandemic but perhaps this is one? We never knew that so many people wanted to hear more from scientists." We think we have established the limits of science communication. Despite all the talk of PCR over the last many months, we found that 30% hadn't heard the term or knew it was a tool for testing for the virus. It is hard to see how any science can have more exposure than PCR has had. We need to be realistic and understand that, no matter what, we will never reach everyone. For informing people about things like vaccines this is important to know." Co-lead Professor Alison Woollard, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford Dr Adam Rutherford from the UCL department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment said: "We often hear that trust in science is at a low point, but what we found is that most people do trust the science of genetics as the basis of how we address global issues such as pandemics. However, scientists should not be complacent: we also found that the exposure of genetics during the pandemic made those suspicious of science more distrusting, despite the evidence. In a world where these voices can easily be amplified, we must be vigilant that our processes, methodologies and results are clearly and transparently communicated." Dr Cristina Fonseca, project coordinator for the Genetics Society, said "having a representative random survey is really vital and allows us insight into the true diversity of opinions." Desai Sethi Urology Institute brings renowned thought leaders to Miami Beach. From urologic cancers to female urology to male infertility to kidney stones and sexual health, top urologists from throughout the nation shared their insights and practical tips at "Urology on the Beach," a conference hosted January 13-15 by the Desai Sethi Urology Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. More than 150 specialists and general urologists, fellows, and residents attended the institute's inaugural in-person conference at the Fontainebleau Hotel, learning from recognized leaders in a wide range of disciplines and enjoying the institute's hospitality. Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Miller School was a platinum sponsor, while Axonics, Inc., Boston Scientific, and Medtronic were gold sponsors and Focal One was a silver sponsor. Our conference brought together world-renowned thought leaders in all aspects of urology. With its intimate setting, the conference provided three days of opportunities for residents, fellows, and professionals to network and have one-on-one discussions with our distinguished speakers." Dipen J. Parekh, M.D., conference chair, founding director of the Desai Sethi Urology Institute and chair of urology at the Miller School In addition to faculty from Desai Sethi, conference presenters came from the Mayo Clinic, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, New York University, Duke University, Mount Sinai, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Vanderbilt University, University of Washington, and other academic medical centers. Presenters shared the latest knowledge on topics spanning urologic oncology in prostate, renal, upper tract, and bladder cancers from experts at Sylvester, part of UHealth, as well as benign disease processes including male and female reconstructive surgery and male infertility/andrology. Other sessions focused on health disparities and career development. "Urology on the Beach gave general urologists a chance to hear from top specialists about diagnosing, treating and managing patient conditions they see frequently," said conference course director Bruno Nahar, M.D., urologic oncologist at Sylvester and assistant professor of urology. "For instance, our institute takes a multidisciplinary approach for treating advanced prostate cancers, and there are many new strategies that offer hope to patients and families. For low-risk cancers, we try to avoid unnecessary biopsies or treatments using imaging and biomarkers." Female urology issues, such as pelvic floor disorders, were highlighted in another conference session. "We have a great team of women urologists who collaborate on research as well as delivering the highest level of clinical care," said conference course director Raveen Syan, M.D., assistant professor of clinical urology. "I think everyone who attended our conference came away with new knowledge." Kidney Cancer and Men's Health Urology on the Beach began Friday afternoon with a session on kidney cancer, as Miami urologist Vivek Venkatramani, M.D., moderated a panel discussion on challenging cases. Dr. Parekh then led a discussion on surgical innovation with semi-live surgeries. Ranjith Ramasamy, M.D., associate professor of urology and director, reproductive urology, led the second session on male infertility, andrology, and men's health. "The sexual health session focused on the latest advances in both male and female sexual dysfunction," he said. "Our speakers discussed current treatments to manage erectile dysfunction and infertility as well innovative future options." Urology specialist Libert Ramos, D.N.P., noted that advanced practice providers are an essential part of the men's health care team, fostering independence and supporting patient satisfaction and outcomes. Prostate and Testis Oncology In an interactive Saturday session, Dr. Nahar presented a healthy 53-year-old male's intermediate prostate cancer case and asked attendees whether focal therapy or surveillance was the best approach. After a discussion of further tests or imaging, the consensus was to encourage the patient to seek treatment. Associate Professor of Urology and member of Sylvester, Sanoj Punnen, M.D., noted that the institute's Miami Active Surveillance Protocol provides insights as to which patients are more likely to progress to advanced prostate cancer. Jim C. Hu, M.D., M.P.H., director of the LeFrak Center for Robotic Surgery and the Ronald P. Lynch Chair in Urologic Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, led a panel discussion on surgical innovations in prostate cancer. "Our goal is to cure cancer first, then maintain continence and potency," said Dr. Nahar, who discussed the "modified hood" surgical approach. Neeraj Agarwal, M.D., professor of medicine and a Presidential Endowed Chair of Cancer Research at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, provided an update on clinical trials for treating metastatic prostate cancer, and Joel Sheinfeld, M.D., testicular cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, gave an update on managing seminoma, a malignant germ cell tumor. Ian Thompson, M.D., a prostate cancer specialist in San Antonio, Texas, and member of the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors, gave a virtual presentation on "Three Studies that Changed My Practice." He cited research that shows earlier detection for metastatic disease and longer survival rates should be considered when reviewing treatment options. Health Disparities Despite advances in recent decades, Black men continue to have a higher incidence and mortality rate from prostate cancer than other races, and Hispanic men have higher rates of testicular cancer -; two of the health disparities outlined in a session led by Leslie Deane, M.D., M.S., chief of urology service, Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Yaw Nyame, M.D., assistant professor of urology at the University of Washington in Seattle, noted that "race" is a social economic and political construct, and health disparities are often due to an individual's living and environmental conditions. "We need to look at how we serve marginalized populations, including individuals with disabilities and mental health issues, as well as the LGBT community," he said. "A patient- and community-centered approach is the key to delivering equitable care." Ekene Ada Enemchukwu, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor at Stanford University, cited research conducted with Dr. Syan on disparities in care for Black women with urinary incontinence or pelvic floor disorders. "Patients with navigators through the health system were more likely to follow through with their care," she said. "Meanwhile, urologists should take the time to understand the barriers facing many minority patients and reach out to their primary care physicians to coordinate individual care." After speaking on "Disparities in Kidney Stone Care," Kymora Scotland, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of urology and director of endourology research at UCLA in Los Angeles, highlighted the need for greater diversity in the medical workforce. "We have to reach out to our communities and get children interested in medicine at a young age," she said. "That's the best long-term way to grow our pipeline of providers." Career Development Career development is in important topic for academic and clinical urologists, as well as trainees, according to Stacy Loeb, M.D., a prostate cancer specialist with New York University Langone Health. In her talk on "Marketing Yourself and the Role of Social Media," Dr. Loeb noted the importance of setting goals and taking control of one's professional narrative. "Many patients choose their provider based on a physician's digital presence," she said. "If you are recruiting participants for clinical studies, medical students or trainees, a strong social media platform is also very important." Later in the session, Dr. Parekh moderated a panel discussion on "The Path to Leadership in Medicine." Asked whether leaders are "born or made," the panelists agreed that the right skills can be learned, regardless of one's innate personality. "Seek out mentors, including those outside medicine, who can provide you with good feedback," said Dr. Parekh. "And remember that you can be a leader without a title." Female and Male Urology Katherine Amin, M.D., and Laura Martin, D.O., assistant professors of urology, took part in a panel discussion on "Updates in Management of Stress Urinary Incontinence." Victor Nitti, M.D., professor of urology at UCLA Health in Los Angeles, then gave a keynote talk on the "Case-Based Approach to Midurethral Sling Placement versus Urethral Bulking Agent. Miami urologist Hemendra Shah, M.D., and Robert Marcovich, M.D., associate professor of urology and resident program director at the institute, moderated a session on "Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia/Endo," including a panel discussion of minimally invasive surgical therapy in BPH. On Sunday morning, Chad Ritch, M.D., M.B.A., associate professor of urology and member of Sylvester, moderated a session on "Urology Oncology: Bladder and Upper Tract" that included a panel discussion on the management of upper tract urothelial carcinoma. Clinical instructor Archan Khandekar, M.D., and urologist Helen Hougen, M.D. led a tumor board multidisciplinary discussion of common genitourinary malignancies. In the final session, North Carolina urologist Aaron Lentz, M.D. gave a keynote talk on "Management of Male Incontinence," followed by a panel discussion of difficult scenarios. Reflecting on lasting impact of Urology on the Beach, Dr. Nahar said, "Our conference echoed the mission of the Desai Sethi Urology Institute to attract top talent, accelerate innovative approaches, and foster collaboration between specialties like basic and translational sciences, biomedical engineering, and technology." "If the former vice president had any solution to the Ajaokuta challenge, and he didn't execute it in 2004, why should Nigerians trust him to do so in 2023, almost 20 years later?" The federal government says the solution to problems facing Ajaokuta Steel Company (ASC) does not lie in the hands of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who supervised its questionable and failed concession. The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said this on Thursday in Abuja at the 19th edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) administration Scorecard Series (2015-2023)'. In an opening remark, the minister said it was deceitful and out of desperation for power for Atiku, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate to have promised to fix the company if voted into office. He said Atiku who made the promise about two weeks back during his campaign stop in Kogi State, was not sincere and Nigerians should not allow themselves "to be conned twice." "A little bit of background will show that the former vice president was deceiving Nigerians when he made that promise. Ajaokuta was concessioned to Global Steel Industry in 2004 by the administration of then President Olusegun Obasanjo. "Who was in charge of that administration's privatisation programme? Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. "That concession that turned out to be a mess was terminated by another PDP administration. "If the former vice president had any solution to the Ajaokuta challenge, and he didn't execute it in 2004, why should Nigerians trust him to do so in 2023, almost 20 years later?" Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Governance 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. Mr Mohammed said following the failed concession, the concessionaire, Global Steel Industry, took Nigeria to court, asking for seven billion dollars and the case lingered for 12 years. He said it was the administration of Mr Buhari that stepped in and the company finally settled for 496 million dollars. The minister said that out of the 496 million dollars, the country had made a bulk payment of 250 million dollars and agreed to pay the balance in five installments. "To date, we have paid a total of 446 million dollars out of the 496 million dollars. "We will make the last payment of 50 million dollars next month and Ajaokuta will revert fully to us - ending the shameful and failed concession by the administration in which Alhaji Atiku Abubakar served as the vice president," he said. According to Mr Mohammed, the government is already talking to investors who are ready to bring their money into Ajaokuta to make sure it works. He reiterated the assurance by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, that before the Buhari administration leaves office, Ajaokuta will be concessioned in equitable terms. NAN reports that after Mr Mohammed's opening remarks, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, presented the scorecard of his ministry. (NAN) The military troops also rescued 122 abducted persons in the two regions during the two weeks. Defence Headquarters says the military has in the last two weeks eliminated more than 84 terrorists and rescued 122 abducted victims in North-east and North-Western parts of Nigeria. The Director, Defence Media Operations, Musa Danmadami, a major general, made this known at a bi-weekly news briefing on ongoing military operations in the country, on Thursday in Abuja. In North-east zone, Mr Danmadami said the troops of Operation Hadin Kai neutralised a total of 42 Boko Haram and Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists and apprehended 14 during the period. He said that troops also rescued six abducted civilians while a total of 267 terrorists and families members, comprising 22 adult male, 128 adult females and 117 children surrendered to troops at different locations within the theatre. Mr Danmadami added that the troops had within the period, recovered 12 AK47 rifles, two locally fabricated guns, one FN rifle, one G3 rifle, three QJC gun, and two 60mm mortar bombs. According to him, troops also recovered 36 rounds of belted 7.62mm NATO, seven 60mm mortar chargers, four RPGs, seven bombs, one phantom MRAP, two PKGM. Other recovered items he said included one gun truck, 332 rounds of 12.7mm AP ammunition, 56 rounds of 7.62 rimmed ammunition and 21 rounds of 7.62mm special refilled ammunition. "19 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 34 rounds of 7.62mm special, 14 AK47 magazines, two vehicles, nine bicycles, four motorcycles, one mobile phone, N15,000 and other sundry items were also recovered . "All recovered items, apprehended criminals, rescued civilians were handed over to the appropriate authority for further action. "Captured terrorists and surrendered terrorists and members of their families are being profiled for further action," he said. Mr Danmadami further said that the air component of Operation Hadin Kai conducted series of air interdiction operation at terrorists hideouts, enclaves and camps in Dogon Chuku in the fringes of Northern Tumbums. He added that the air interdiction mission was also conducted at Arina Kasa in Southern Tumbums of the Lake Chad Basin, Chidike in Mandara Mountains and Gezuwa area, all in Borno. According to him, the battle damage assessment revealed that several terrorists were neutralised while their structures and logistics were destroyed in the air strikes. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Legal Affairs 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. In the North-west, Mr Danmadami said the troops of Operation Hadarin Daji neutralised 42 terrorists, apprehended four and rescued 26 abducted civilians in several land and air operations within the period. He said that troops also recovered 18 AK47 rifles, one sub-machine gun, 126 rounds of 7.62mm special, six magazines, 13 motorcycles, two boafeng radios, 10 mobiles, and two laptops. He added that the air component of Operation Hadarin Daji, on 15 January, conducted a well planned and coordinated air interdiction operation at identified terrorists hideouts at Rara Forest, Rabah Local Government Area of Sokoto State. According to him, feedback by troops revealed that 20 bandits were neutralised while 17 motorcycles and several boafeng radios were burnt in the air strike. In North-central, Mr Danmadami said the troops of Operation Safe Haven, Guards Brigades and Whirl Stroke with Civilians Joint Task Force, neutralised seven terrorists. He also said that the troops apprehended 19 terrorists and two gun runners as well as rescued 36 kidnapped victims in different operations. The defence spokesperson said that troops also recovered several calibre of arms and ammunition during the period. (NAN) TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) launched the 11th Constituent Judicial Session for Military Prosecution officers. Human Resources Chief of Staff Assistant Major General Shaikh Ali bin Rashid Al Khalifa was present. Shaikh Ali commended BDF Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa's care and directives to facilitate the appropriate resources for the participants. The course included practical and theoretical training in judicial police procedures and the work of the military prosecution. It also included lectures on international humanitarian law and human rights, as well as field visits to judicial and legal agencies in Bahrain. A documentary about BDF and the Military Judiciary and its specializations was screened on the occasion. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrain is all set to host the 146th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), which will have nearly 200 representatives from 178 parliaments around the globe, said Speaker Ahmed bin Salman Al Musallam. Al Musallam asserted that Bahrains hosting of the 146th IPU Assembly from March 11-15 is a global vote of confidence in the Kingdoms ability to organise mega-global conferences and events. The legislative branch has, in cooperation with the government, led by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, taken all necessary measures to host the largest global parliamentary gathering, he said. Speaker of the Council of Representatives, and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Parliamentary Delegation, Al Musallam, was chairing a meeting with diplomatic missions in the presence of Shura Council Chairman Ali bin Saleh Al Saleh. The meeting reviewed preparations to host the 146th Assembly by the national organising committee, chaired by the First Deputy Chairman of the Shura Council, Jamal Mohammed Fakhro. He expressed hope that the Assembly would unify the stances of world parliaments to promote global peace and security and spread the values of tolerance and coexistence. Shura Chairman expressed pride in the global trust in the Kingdoms ability and the pivotal role played by ambassadors of brotherly and friendly countries on the theme of the Assembly focusing on spreading coexistence and fraternity, as well as combating intolerance and hatred. While describing maintaining peace as core to the UN it's very reason for being - Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned the Security Council on Thursday that it was a mission now under grave threat. Peoples sense of safety and security is at a low in almost every country, with six in seven worldwide, plagued by feelings of insecurity, she stated. The world is facing the highest number of violent conflicts since the Second World War she said, with a quarter of humanity live in war zones triggering grave human suffering, exacerbating poverty, food insecurity, and denying millions access to education and healthcare. It is imposing severe constraints on peoples ability to fulfil their potential and contribute to society, said the deputy UN chief. Conflict and poverty are deeply intertwined UN deputy chief Obstacles abound Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict-affected countries were lagging on the UN development goals, with projections indicating that by 2030, more than 80 per cent of the worlds extreme poor would live in fragile and conflict-affected countries. In other words, conflict and poverty are deeply intertwined. The pandemic has only aggravated this dire situation, she pointed out. Meanwhile, the Ukraine war has not only devastated life for Ukrainians but also compounded food, energy, and a global financial crisis. As we approach the midway point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we see that our current progress is far off-track, she said. Since the start of the pandemic over 200 million more have fallen into poverty; an additional 820 million people are going hungry; the rights of women and girls are being further trampled on; the global financial system is failing developing countries; and economies are failing to serve their citizens. These challenges pose a threat to our peaceful coexistence, she flagged. Dangerous repercussions Lack of development drives grievances, corrodes institutions, and allows hostility to flourish, she continued. The triple planetary crisis of biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution does not merely threaten our environment. It also threatens to unleash destructive forces that drive wedges in our societies, erode social cohesion and ignite instability, explained Ms. Mohammed, urging the Council to push for more sustainable development in securing peace now, and in the future. Peace that lasts Peace must be built on a bedrock of inclusive, sustainable development. With prevention and peacebuilding at its core, she said that the New Agenda for Peace will provide a unique opportunity to articulate a shared vision for how Member States can come together to address these challenges. It will identify national prevention and peacebuilding priorities, and channel the international communitys support to nationally-owned violence reduction Noting that all Member States are exposed to risks, she said all governments must be prepared to take measures that address grievances and prevent violence. She underscored the importance of inclusion, particularly for the underrepresented, but also in the social, economic, and political life of every country, saying that it leads to public support, greater legitimacy and strengthened social resilience all risk factors that can lead to war. Human rights are pivotal in the New Agenda, said the deputy UN chief, adding that they are not only right but the wise thing to do. Exclusion of women and the young Meanwhile, women remain shut out of all levels of decision making and funding for their organizations declines as military spending grows. We need to halt the erosion of womens rights and ensure gender equality to build and sustain peace, she underscored. Turning to youth, Ms. Mohammed recalled their role in promoting peace, security and stability, and pushed for dedicated regional and national frameworks for youth engagement in peacebuilding. Moreover, she pressed the Council to host an annual debate on youth, peace and security, as a platform to engage with youth-led civil society and young peacebuilders. Peacebuilding architecture Highlighting the importance of the peacebuilding, the senior UN official urged the ambassadors to better leverage the Peacebuilding Commission by integrating prevention and peacebuilding lenses into its work. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Africa Conflict International Organisations 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. Noting that peacebuilding investments would advance sustainable peace globally, Ms. Mohammed lauded the 2022 General Assembly resolution on Financing for Peacebuilding, as being essential for constructing societal resilience. And in spotlighting assessed contributions for the Peacebuilding Fund, she reminded that it remains the UNs leading instrument to invest in peacebuilding and prevention. We cannot allow crises of which there are many to divert funding away from these core efforts, she concluded. Addressing multifaceted challenges In acknowledging growing obstacles to sustaining peace, Peacebuilding Commission Chair Muhammad Abdul Muhith said it was imperative for the ability of individuals, societies, and nations to be enhanced, to meet challenges specific to our times. He commended the UNs Our Common Agenda report as echoing the need to enhance support for national peacebuilding priorities and the importance of the full, equal and meaningful participation of women, and of the inclusion of youth in peacebuilding processes. Mr. Muhith reiterated the call for adequate, predictable and sustained financing for peacebuilding, going forward. Agencies | Jenin The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Israeli commandos killed nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, and wounded 12 others during clashes with gunmen yesterday in a flashpoint town in the occupied West Bank, witnesses and medics said. The Israeli military said it sent special forces into Jenin to detain members of the Islamic Jihad armed group suspected of having carried out and planning "multiple major attacks", shooting several of them after they opened fire. The death toll - the highest in Jenin in years - drew a warning from Islamic Jihad that its truce with Israel, called after a brief exchange of fire across the Gaza Strip border last year, could be in danger. There were no Israeli casualties. At least one Palestinian was detained during the raid, the military statement said. Jenin is an area of the northern West Bank where Israel has intensified raids over the past year after local men carried out street attacks in its cities. The Palestinian health ministry described the nine fatalities in Jenin as an elderly woman and eight men. There were no further details immediately available on their identities. According to the ministry, at least 29 Palestinians, including gunmen and civilians, have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since Jan. 1. Agencies | Paris The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com France will withdraw its troops from Burkina Faso in the next month after the military junta asked it to leave, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday, in a move that will further reduce its presence in a region facing a growing Islamist insurgency. Protests by opponents of the French military presence have surged in Burkina, partly linked to perceptions that France has not done enough to tackle the Islamist militancy that has spread in recent years from neighbouring Mali. France retains some 200-400 special forces in Burkina. It withdrew forces from Mali last year after the military junta there deployed Russian military contractors in the country. On Monday, Burkina said it had decided to end a military accord that allowed French troops to fight insurgents on its territory because the government wants the country to defend itself. In a statement sent to Reuters, the French ministry said it had received notice on Tuesday, Jan. 24 that a 2018 agreement on the status of French troops in the country had been terminated. "In accordance with the terms of the agreement, the denunciation takes effect one month after receipt of the written notification. We will comply with the terms of this agreement by complying with this request." Burkina's national television reported on Saturday that the government had suspended a 2018 military accord with Paris on Jan. 18, giving France one month to pull its troops out. The West African country is facing an Islamist insurgency by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, which have taken over large swathes of land and displaced millions of people in the wider Sahel region, just south of the Sahara. French defence and diplomatic sources said the special forces could be moved to Niger, where a large contingent of French and European forces are now based. Paris also has a large military presence in Chad. Agencies | Rome The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The Kingdom of Bahrain Declaration Europe has been inaugurated during a ceremony held in Rome, the Republic of Italy. The King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence unveiled the covenant in the presence of ambassadors, diplomats and officials, in addition to one hundred students enrolled in the King Hamad Chair for Interfaith Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence. Addressing the ceremony, Bahrains Ambassador to Italy Dr. Nasser Mohammed Al Balouchi said that the launch of the declaration in Europe from Italy, amid critical international circumstances, represents a defining moment for promoting all forms of peaceful coexistence, as stated in the document. The Italian Republic hosts the King Hamad Chair for Interfaith Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence, which was launched at Sapienza University in 2018. This chair, the first of its kind in the world, aims to enlighten young people from all over the world to confront terrorism, extremism and radicalism, and arm them with knowledge and inspire them to spread peaceful coexistence and love all over the world, said Dr. Al Baloudhi. "We are pleased that the Kingdom of Bahrain has chosen the Italian Republic to start launching the document of the Declaration of the Kingdom of Bahrain in Europe, said Andrea Ponzo, Special Envoy for Interreligious Dialogue at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Italy: This choice reflects the great role played by the Italian Republic within the framework of religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue. Preserving freedom of belief and interfaith dialogue are goals that support cohesive societies, he added. He stated that interfaith dialogue can enhance cooperation between the spectrum of society and protect against falling in the cauldron of extremism and racism, which negatively affect the freedom of belief and the guarantee of human rights. Betsy Mathieson, Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence, states that Bahrain's declaration has been praised by world leaders. His Holiness Pope Francis of the Vatican, praised the declaration, and quoted it during his historic visit to the Kingdom in November 2022, which reinforces the importance of the document as a global roadmap for peace and coexistence, he said. She noted that The Declaration represents the founding document for all the work of the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence. Since its establishment by Royal Decree, the centre has focused on educational programs for young people, she said. She expressed pride at working with such prestigious partners as La Sapienza University in Rome, the King Hamad Program (Faith in Leadership) in the UK, in partnership with the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, The UN Institute for Training and Research, the Office of the Special Envoy of the United States of America to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Brazilian Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights. Armin Lechet, founder and president of the Abrahamic Convention Institute in Berlin, said he was delighted to participate in the inauguration, noting that the openness of Bahrain and the consolidation of dialogue and peaceful coexistence have enhanced the sense of humanity in society. The declaration of the Kingdom of Bahrain has added a new concept within the framework of mutual respect and acceptance, he said. During the inauguration ceremony, 100 students affiliated with the King Hamad Chair for Freedom of Religion and Peaceful Coexistence were honored for their participation in the Ignorance is the Enemy of Peace Forum. Agencies | New Delhi The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Egypt and India announced on Thursday a "strategic partnership" to increase trade by billions of dollars and strengthen diplomatic ties, as President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi concluded a visit to New Delhi. Facing a worsening economic crisis, Egypt is scrambling to boost international trade and attract investors. India is already Egypt's seventh-largest trading partner, according to data from Cairo's central bank, with a joint statement issued Thursday touting "a record high of $7.26 billion" during the last fiscal year. Sisi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expect annual bilateral trade to rise "to $12 billion within the next five years", said the statement, capping the Egyptian president's three-day visit. Modi hosted Sisi on Thursday as "guest of honour" for a Republic Day ceremony, marking the anniversary of the adoption of India's post-independence constitution. The two leaders agreed to increase Indian investments in Egypt, which currently stand at "over $3.15 billion" according to their statement, including through a potential "dedicated land area for Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone". The statement also notes "strengthened bilateral cooperation" in agriculture, space research and tourism. The economic crisis in Egypt, triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, has sent the local currency plummeting. The war has also unsettled global investors who pulled billions out of the North African country. The Egyptian pound has lost half its value against the US dollar since March, following a devaluation demanded as part of a $3 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund. In a sign of closer diplomatic ties, Modi has also invited Sisi to participate in the G20 summit in India in September to represent "the interests and priorities of the global south", their statement said. The two leaders also called for "comprehensive reforms in the UN Security Council, including by expanding membership categories and strengthening representation for developing countries". A pharmaceutical advisory body for Japan's health ministry on Friday expressed no objection to the manufacturing and marketing of an abortion pill, bringing the medication a step closer to becoming the first of its kind to gain approval in the country. Abortions in early stages of pregnancies in Japan are currently limited to surgical procedures, and the oral pill, if approved, is seen as a new option that could lighten both physical and mental stress on women. The health ministry said it would gather public opinion and debate the matter further with its pharmaceutical subcommittee as the abortion pill had garnered "deep societal interest and necessitates careful discussion." ...continue reading , Jan 28 ( NHK ) - Japanese health authorities say they will start counting coronavirus infections using the same method they do for cases of seasonal influenza. About 5,000 medical institutions nationwide disclose their data on the flu once a week. An expert panel of the health ministry is set to convene next month to discuss implementing the same approach for the coronavirus. The panel will also discuss how to pick the institutions that will report the cases. Current measures stipulate that all cases of COVID-19 must be reported. Starting May 8, the government will reclassify COVID-19 as a disease on par with the flu. ...continue reading Cape Philharmonic turns down R3.2-million offered by Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra The new Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra has received R52-million in public funding but claims it does not need to make its finances public. Regional orchestras which previously each received R10-million from national government will now receive funding from the new orchestra. The Cape Philharmonic Orchestra has turned down the R3.2-million offered it by the Mzansi orchestra, citing concerns about governance and transparency. The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) has refused a R3.2-million grant from the new Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, citing concerns about transparency and governance. The national orchestra, launched in 2022, has so far received R52-million in government funding, taking over funding previously reserved for regional orchestras. Going forward it will receive an annual grant of about R20.5-million from the national Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (DSAC). DSAC and the Mzansi orchestra, a non-profit organisation, have so far declined requests by the CPO and Members of Parliament for a detailed breakdown of how the public funds are being spent. There are also unanswered questions about the process that was followed to establish the orchestra. The Mzansi orchestra was registered as a non-profit company in 2019 and launched in 2022. Its objectives include contributing to social cohesion, bringing orchestral music to more regions in the country, developing young musicians, and strengthening "cultural diplomacy". It has since performed several concerts, including a tour of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. It has also recruited fellows and cadets to receive training and financial support. According to the orchestra's draft annual report, which GroundUp has seen, R20-million has been allocated to fund 38 existing regional and local orchestras and music development programmes. Grants range between R100,000 and R3.2-million. Each of the country's three regional orchestras (Cape Philharmonic, KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic and the Johannesburg Philharmonic) have been allocated R3.2-million. Previously they were each receiving R10-million. While it appears that most of the beneficiaries have accepted the money, the CPO has refused the grant, claiming that the Mzansi orchestra is unsustainable and that the organisation is not adequately transparent about how it is spending public money. CPO chief executive officer Louis Heyneman says that they will only accept the funds if they are provided with a clear, sustainable business plan for the Mzansi orchestra, and if all records of expenditure are made public and transparent. The Mzansi orchestra's chief executive officer Bongani Tembe, who is also the CEO and artistic director of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic and the Johannesburg Philharmonic, told GroundUp that the national orchestra is a public-private partnership and not a government agency. Therefore, he claims, it is under no obligation to release its audited financial statements or business plan to the public, nor does it have to disclose the salaries of its executives. Tembe and DSAC insist that the national orchestra is well-governed, that it will achieve its objectives, and that checks and balances are in place to ensure accountability. R1-million for a feasibility study The concept of a national philharmonic orchestra was first introduced in a 2018 white paper from DSAC. DSAC spokesperson Masechaba Khumalo says regional orchestras should seek funding mainly from their local and provincial governments, while the new national orchestra will receive funding from the national government to "benefit the entire country other than the three main urban centres" and "grow the orchestral experience for the entire country". An initial meeting was held in February 2019 between Minister Nathi Mthethwa, DSAC officials, and representatives of the regional orchestras. Thereafter, a task team including representatives from regional orchestras was established and it was decided that a feasibility study would be conducted. R1-million was allocated for the feasibility study. This money was paid to the bank account of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic, of which Tembe is CEO, because the Mzansi orchestra had not yet been registered as a non-profit company. Tembe told GroundUp that the task team met at least three times but he does "not remember offhand exactly how many times it met". The R1-million feasibility study has not been shown to the relevant Portfolio Committee. Tembe insists the feasibility study was conducted. "This document belongs to DSAC and it is up to DSAC to decide whether to make it public or not, so this is not the responsibility of the national orchestra," he said. "The expenditure of this R1 million was audited and handed over to the National Arts Council and DSAC, who confirmed in the portfolio committee of 16 September 2022 that they were satisfied with proper expenditure and that the funds were spent according to the purpose it was intended for. In fact, there is almost R500,000 still unspent from this fund." In September 2019, the Mzansi orchestra was registered as a non-profit company. The non-profit company's board consists of Constitutional Court Justice Leona Theron, business executive Wendy Luhabe, and Professor Muxe Nkondo. Tembe, a Julliard graduate with more than two decades of experience in the orchestra sector, was appointed as the CEO. The CEO and board were appointed by the DSAC. What has Mzansi orchestra done with R52-million? In November 2021, a Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the Mzansi orchestra and the National Arts Council (NAC). According to this agreement, R54.6-million, minus R2.7-million reserved by the NAC for "administration", would be paid to the Mzansi orchestra in two tranches. The full R52-million has since been paid to the orchestra. When asked by GroundUp how the DSAC will ensure transparency and accountability, Khumalo said, "There are checks and balances entrenched in the agreement between DSAC and the NAC and in turn between the NAC and Mzansi Philharmonic, which ensure that money is spent appropriately." To date, no annual financial statements or any detailed budget breakdown have been made available to Parliament or the public. Asked by GroundUp whether he could share the financial statements and disclose his salary, Tembe said that the Mzansi orchestra is not a government agency but a section 30 non-profit company "exactly like all the other orchestras in the country", and it is under no obligation to make financial details public. "Mzansi Philharmonic will submit its AFS [Annual Financial Statements] to the NAC and DSAC by 31 March 2023. This audited report will entail financial matters. We are not in a position to send you unaudited figures, which may well change after the audit," Tembe told GroundUp. Tembe said engagements with the portfolio committee are led by DSAC. Meanwhile, parliamentary committee member from the Democratic Alliance, Tsepo Mhlongo, told GroundUp that he has submitted a petition to Parliament to scrutinise the expenditure by the orchestra. It is on the committee's agenda and will be discussed after the recess, he says. Mhlongo believes that the Mzansi orchestra should be accountable to the portfolio committee. Mhlongo and fellow DA MP Veronica van Dyk asked pointed questions during the 16 September committee meeting about the orchestra's expenses and the feasibility study, but most of their questions went unanswered. Tembe told the parliamentary committee in September that the orchestra has an annual budget of R30-million, made up of the annual R21-million grant it receives from the national government and revenue from box-office sales and "partners". The government grant had been building up since the white paper redirected the department's orchestral funding, reaching a total of R52-million before being released. The agreement between the Mzansi orchestra and the NAC allows for 25% of the government grant (R13-million to date) to be spent on operational costs, including administration, while the rest has to be spent on "the programs of the [non-profit organisation] as per the business plan." The business plan is not publicly available. We know from the orchestra's draft annual report for 2022/23 that R20-million has been allocated to fund regional and local orchestras as well as youth and music development programs. How much of this allocated funding has already been paid to the beneficiaries, we do not know. "Disbursing funds is a process, however, we will not be periodically updating the media on how much has been paid to date," Tembe told GroundUp. Normally when public funding is distributed by a government agency, such as the NAC, funding applications are advertised. But there was no public call for applications for the grant funding offered by the Mzansi orchestra and instead the beneficiaries were "recommended by the Artistic Planning Committee" and then approved by the board. The Artistic Planning Committee consists of established musicians Samson Diamond, Nina Schumann, and Karendra Devroop. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines South Africa Entertainment 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. GroundUp Is also aware of at least one organisation that received funding from the Mzansi orchestra in its bank account before a final Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the beneficiary and the national orchestra. Asked about this, Tembe said: "This process is being handled by two very experienced arts managers, and without proof and context, I would not assume that they are doing any thing irregular. All these figures will also be subjected to an audit, and we expect to have a clean audit." It is also not clear how much of the orchestra's budget is spent on its fellowship and cadetship programmes. According to the draft 2022/23 annual report, the orchestra enrolled three fellows, who are professional musicians receiving "financial and artistic support", and five cadets, who are music students receiving support to complete their education. The Mzansi orchestra's national tour, during which it performed Beethoven's 9th Symphony in three cities, was conducted by American conductor Marin Alsop and featured established musicians with successful international careers, such as Pieter Schoeman and Michelle Breedt. Tembe declined to disclose the fees paid to these musicians or the travel costs involved. Tembe also did not disclose fees paid to filmmaker Francois Verster, who documented the national tour, or "artist in residency" Duncan Stewart, who made sketches of rehearsals and performances on the tour. In addition to the national tour, the Mzansi orchestra collaborated with artist William Kentridge for a performance at Wits University in July and performed in Johannesburg with the Turquoise Harmony Institute in August. Members of the orchestra performed at the G20 Cultural Ministers Summit in Indonesia in September, and at the International Cultural Festival of the Symphonique Music in Algiers. The Mzansi orchestra is a "pick-up" orchestra, making use of ad-hoc musicians rather than full-time salaried employees. Tembe told GroundUp that he has expressed his willingness to the board of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra to resolve the issues. "Mzansi orchestra has a credible board, artistic planning committee and experienced management who have never been linked to any corruption or mismanagement. All have an outstanding track record. There are sufficient checks and balances in place," he said. Khartoum The Sudanese Teachers Committee, whose members have been participating in months of strike action, announced on Thursday that an agreement has been reached with the authorities in Khartoum. Most of their demands have been met, however, the main one concerning a rise in the minimum wage, will be dealt within due course. In a press statement, the committee said that in a meeting with representatives of the Sovereignty Council and the Finance Ministry on Wednesday, it was agreed to increase the proportion of government spending on education to 14.8 per cent of the 2023 budget, and to immediately implement Cabinet Resolutions 380 and 363. The authorities agreed to disburse a cash alternative and a three-month grant for teachers in all of Sudan, in addition to clothing allowance for teachers in Khartoum and Central Darfur. Fixed-value bonuses in the 2023 budget will be reviewed. A national conference on education will be held under the auspices of the Sovereignty Council, financed by the Ministry of Finance, and supervised by the Ministry of Education and the Sudanese Teachers Committee. The raise of the minimum wage was discussed as well. "The Ministry of Finance's response was that the minimum is a concern for all employees in Sudan. The ministry is working on plans to reform the salary structure." The statement called on all local strike committees to give their opinions on the agreement "in order to reach a decision regarding the current strike". The meeting was attended by the head of the Sudanese branch of the El Gadiriya Sufi sect, Sheikh El Riyeh Azrag Teiba, who, together with a number of politicians, met with the Teachers Committee in Khartoum on Sunday "with the aim of identifying problems with education and teachers' rights". In March last year, the Sudanese Teachers Committee announced a partial strike in all states of Sudan as the Finance Ministry did not meet their demand for a raise of the minimum wage and a reform of the salary structure, now divided over two lines, and a better work environment. They decided to intensify their protest actions, and laid down their tools again on various days in November and December. When talks with the Finance Minister "reached a dead end" in mid-December, the Teachers Committee called on all teachers to close the primary, middle, and secondary government schools in the country from January 8 until January 28. More than 16,000 government schools in Sudan are participating in the strike. TORONTO, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - The Tribunal issued an Order in the above named matter. A copy of the Order dated January 27, 2023 is available at capitalmarketstribunal.ca Registrar, Governance & Tribunal Secretariat Ontario Securities Commission SOURCE Ontario Securities Commission For further information: For Media Inquiries: [email protected]; For General Inquiries: 1-877-785-1555 (Toll Free), [email protected] MONTREAL, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW Telbec/ - Desjardins Group is being recognized as one of Canada's best employers, topping several major lists. Desjardins has been named one of Canada's Best Employers in the banking and financial services industry in 2023 by Forbes magazine. Mediacorp has also recognized Desjardins as one of Canada's top employers and one of Canada's top employers for young people. Desjardins is also ranked eighth on Glassdoor's Best Places to Work 2023 list. And Desjardins Group stands fourth in Forbes magazine's ranking of the World's Top Female-Friendly Companies and is the only Canadian company to be named to the top ranks. These numerous recognitions prove that Desjardins stands out as a top employer. North America's largest cooperative financial group is being recognized among leading players in Canada for its commitment to youth and gender parity and for its innovative programs, best practices and approach. "At Desjardins Group, we have made a strong commitment over the past few years to create a space for our employees so they can fully contribute and thrive within our organization," said Guy Cormier, President and CEO of Desjardins Group. "Giving our employees the tools they need to reach their full potential and offering an inclusive, caring and purposeful workplace is important to Desjardins and our success as a cooperative. We're very proud to receive these distinctions and they confirm that we are moving in the right direction for our employees." Receiving this acclaim is especially significant this year as businesses are facing a major labour shortage. Desjardins sets itself apart from other Canadian financial institutions by offering its more than 58,000 employees across Canada a competitive total compensation package, generous benefits and a respectful work environment. Career opportunities are endless, with hundreds of different types of jobs available in Canada in a wide range of fields, including finance, customer service, IT and communications. About Desjardins Group Desjardins Group is the largest cooperative financial group in North America and the fifth largest cooperative financial group in the world, with assets of $408 billion. It was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers in 2023 by Mediacorp. To meet the diverse needs of its members and clients, Desjardins offers a full range of products and services to individuals and businesses through its extensive distribution network, online platforms and subsidiaries across Canada. Ranked among the world's strongest banks according to The Banker magazine, Desjardins has one of the highest capital ratios and credit ratings in the industry. SOURCE Desjardins Group For further information: (media inquiries only): Veronique Breton, Public Relations, [email protected] Gatineau business receives $200,000 in financial assistance from CED. GATINEAU, QC, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW Telbec/ - Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) Supporting manufacturing businesses contributes to economic development in Quebec's regions. That is why Greg Fergus, Member of Parliament for HullAylmer and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the President of the Treasury Board, on behalf of the Honourable Pascale StOnge, Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for CED, today announced a repayable contribution of $200,000 to 94345477 Quebec inc. (a business connected to A La Derive Brasserie artisanale). This CED support will enable it to launch its beer production activities through the acquisition of production equipment, rolling stock, and an inventory. Created in 2018, A La Derive Brasserie artisanale is a craft microbrewery that makes some 30 beers in rented facilities. Its project involves launching its production activities by acquiring its own production material. It will purchase a brewing apparatus and fermentation tanksall connected to a control panelalong with a cold room and a forklift. By enhancing its production capacity, the microbrewery will be able to develop new markets outside the Outaouais region and sell its production in the Montreal region. In addition, this project will lead to the creation of ten jobs. The Government of Canada recognizes and supports businesses and organizations that are a source of pride in their communities. Quebec's economic recovery relies on organizations with strong roots in the regional economy. They are major contributors to growth, as well as key assets in rebuilding a stronger, more resilient, greener, and more just economy for all. Quotes "By investing in the expansion of A La Derive Brasserie artisanale, the Government of Canada is following through on its commitments and helping businesses grow, innovate, and export their products. By creating and maintaining quality jobs, they thereby ensure the Canadian economy can prosper." Greg Fergus, Member of Parliament for HullAylmer and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the President of the Treasury Board "A must in Gatineau, A La Derive Brasserie artisanale is contributing to the region's economic and cultural development. That is why our government is supporting this project, which will enable this Outaouais business to innovate and develop new markets. Congratulations to the entire team!" The Honourable Pascale StOnge, Member of Parliament for BromeMissisquoi, Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for CED "A La Derive Brasserie artisanale is truly grateful for CED's financial contribution. Thanks to this investment, we have been able to put a structural project into place for the Outaouais region that will make it possible to create several new jobs." Benoit Charron, President, A La Derive Brasserie artisanale Quick facts The funds have been granted under CED's Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program. This program targets entrepreneurs leveraging innovation to grow their businesses and enhance their competitiveness, as well as regional economic stakeholders helping to create an entrepreneurial environment conducive to innovation and growth for all, across all regions. In Quebec , SMEs account for 99.7% of the province's businesses and 50% of its GDP. , SMEs account for 99.7% of the province's businesses and 50% of its GDP. CED is a key federal partner in Quebec's regional economic development. With its 12 regional business offices, CED accompanies businesses, supporting organizations and all regions across Quebec into tomorrow's economy. Associated links Stay connected Follow CED on social media Consult CED's news SOURCE Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions For further information: Media Relations, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, [email protected]; Ariane Joazard-Belizaire, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Sport and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, [email protected] During her long life, Smith exemplified leadership as a Metis woman, community builder, homesteader, rancher and author. GATINEAU, QC, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW Telbec/ - National historic designations reflect the rich and varied heritage of our country and provide an opportunity for Canadians to learn more about our diverse history. Marie Rose (Delorme) Smith successfully ran her family's ranch in Southern Alberta at the turn of the 20th century and established a small cottage industry in a pioneer town, while still maintaining her Metis culture and skills by serving as a medicine woman and midwife. She also owned her own property at a time when few Euro-Canadian women, and even fewer Indigenous women, were able to do so. Today, the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, announced the designation of Marie Rose (Delorme) Smith as a person of national historic significance under Parks Canada's National Program of Historical Commemoration, on the recommendation of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. Born in 1861 in Saint Francois-Xavier (Red River), Marie Rose spent several years at the Grey Nuns boarding school in Saint Boniface, Manitoba, before rejoining her family in their yearly routine of leaving the Red River to cross the plains, hunting and trading with First Nation peoples. She was married to Charlie Smith in 1877 and, together, they built a house and barn on the Jughandle Ranch in Alberta where they raised 17 children. Following Charlie's death in 1914, Marie Rose established a boarding house in the town of Pincher Creek, took a second homestead, served as a midwife and medicine woman, and took the time to write her memoirs. As an author, she is a rare example of a Metis chronicler of the roles of Metis women during the fur trade, buffalo hunting, and homesteading periods, and of the cultural changes on the prairies. Her life spanned a full century 1861 to 1960. The Government of Canada, through the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, recognizes significant persons, places, and events that have shaped our country as one way of helping Canadians connect with their past. By sharing these stories with Canadians, we hope to foster understanding and reflection on the diverse histories, cultures, legacies, and realities of Canada's past and present. The commemoration process is largely driven by public nominations. To date, more than 2,200 designations have been made. To nominate a person, place or historic event in your community, please visit the Parks Canada website for more information: https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/culture/clmhc-hsmbc/ncp-pcn/application . Quotes "Marie Rose (Delorme) Smith exemplifies the strength and resilience of Metis women and the major contributions they have made, and continue to make, in all sectors of society. Stories like hers demonstrate the unique lives and experiences that make up history in Canada. By commemorating the national historic significance of individuals like Marie Rose, we help to share these stories with Canadians and hope to foster better understanding of Indigenous peoples' perspectives, cultures, and traditions." The Honourable Steven Guilbeault Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada "We are pleased to see Marie Rose (Delorme) Smith recognized as a person of national historic significance. Metis women and mothers were the backbones of our communities, and carried so much culture and knowledge for our communities. They are the unsung heroes and their stories need to be told." Wynter Ducharme Consultation Coordinator, Metis Nation of Alberta Region 3 Quick Facts Parks Canada is committed to working in partnership with Indigenous peoples to recognize, commemorate, and share Indigenous histories. Collaborating with numerous Indigenous groups across Canada , Parks Canada and Indigenous peoples are partners in conserving natural and cultural heritage and sharing the stories of these treasured places. is committed to working in partnership with Indigenous peoples to recognize, commemorate, and share Indigenous histories. Collaborating with numerous Indigenous groups across , Parks Canada and Indigenous peoples are partners in conserving natural and cultural heritage and sharing the stories of these treasured places. Created in 1919, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada advises the Minister of Environment and Climate Change regarding the national significance of persons, places, and events that have marked Canada's history. Together with Parks Canada, the Board ensures that subjects of national historic significance are recognized under Parks Canada's National Program of Historical Commemoration and these important stories are shared with Canadians. advises the Minister of Environment and Climate Change regarding the national significance of persons, places, and events that have marked history. Together with Parks Canada, the Board ensures that subjects of national historic significance are recognized under Parks Canada's National Program of Historical Commemoration and these important stories are shared with Canadians. Parks Canada is committed to working with Canadians in our efforts to tell broader, more inclusive stories in the places that it manages. In support of this goal, the Framework for History and Commemoration outlines a new, comprehensive, and engaging approach to sharing Canada's history through diverse perspectives, including shedding light on tragic and difficult periods of Canada's past. Related Document Related Links Parks Canada Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada Framework for History and Commemoration SOURCE Parks Canada For further information: Kaitlin Power, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 819-230-1557, [email protected]; Media RelationsParks Canada, 855-862-1812, [email protected] OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 26, 2023 /CNW/ - Islamophobia, discrimination, and hate, in any form, are unacceptable and have no place in this country. The Government of Canada stands with and supports Muslim communities across Canada and reaffirms its commitment to take action to denounce and tackle Islamophobia, hate-fuelled violence, and systemic discrimination whenever and wherever it occurs. The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced the appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada's first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia. Ms. Elghawaby is an award-winning journalist and human rights advocate. A founding board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network and past board member at the Silk Road Institute, she has had an extensive career supporting initiatives to counter hate and promote inclusion. She currently leads strategic communications and campaigns at the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and is a member of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group. As Canada's Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, Ms. Elghawaby will serve as a champion, advisor, expert, and representative to support and enhance the federal government's efforts in the fight against Islamophobia, systemic racism, racial discrimination, and religious intolerance. She will promote awareness of the diverse and intersectional identities of Muslims in Canada and provide advice to the government in the development of inclusive policies, legislative proposals, programs, and regulations that reflect their realities. In so doing, she will also help advance respect for equity, inclusion, and diversity and shine a light on the important contributions of Muslims to our country's national fabric. Islamophobia is a lived experience for Muslim communities across the country and requires ongoing action. The Government of Canada remains unwavering in its commitment to fight hatred, racism, and discrimination. Together, we can build a better future for everyone. Quotes "Diversity truly is one of Canada's greatest strengths, but for many Muslims, Islamophobia is all too familiar. We need to change that. No one in our country should experience hatred because of their faith. The appointment of Ms. Elghawaby as Canada's first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia is an important step in our fight against Islamophobia and hatred in all its forms. I look forward to working with her as we continue building a country where everyone feels safe and respected." The Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada "In Canada, diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a choice. Our government has listened to the lived experiences of Muslim communities from across the country and is taking action in the fight against Islamophobia. As Canada's first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, Amira Elghawaby will use her vast knowledge and experience as a human rights advocate to help guide and reinforce Canada's efforts in addressing anti-Muslim hatred, systemic racism, racial discrimination, and religious intolerance. This appointment is a significant step toward building a safer and more inclusive Canada for all." The Hon. Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Quick Facts As defined in Canada's Anti-Racism Strategy, Islamophobia includes racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear, or acts of hostility directed toward Muslims. Anti-Racism Strategy, Islamophobia includes racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear, or acts of hostility directed toward Muslims. In July 2021 , the Government of Canada hosted a virtual National Summit on Islamophobia, which helped identify ways for the government to better work with Muslim communities to implement anti-racism initiatives that specifically address Islamophobia and hate-fuelled violence. The appointment of a Special Representative was one of the recommendations put forward at the summit. , the Government of hosted a virtual National Summit on Islamophobia, which helped identify ways for the government to better work with Muslim communities to implement anti-racism initiatives that specifically address Islamophobia and hate-fuelled violence. The appointment of a Special Representative was one of the recommendations put forward at the summit. The application process for the new position of Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia was launched in June 2022 . Ms. Elghawaby was appointed following an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process conducted for this Governor in Council position. . Ms. Elghawaby was appointed following an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process conducted for this Governor in Council position. In 2021, January 29 was officially designated as the National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec City Mosque Attack and Action Against Islamophobia, a day to remember the victims of this tragedy, denounce Islamophobia and all other forms of racism, hate, and religious discrimination, and advance action to combat them. Biographical Note Associated Links This document is also available at https://pm.gc.ca SOURCE Prime Minister's Office For further information: PMO Media Relations: [email protected] OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - In the spirit of enduring partnership and commitment to advancing ties of friendship and addressing key global issues, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan met in Ottawa today. The two leaders held extensive talks on ways to advance bilateral cooperation and expressed their commitment to work together to further develop the Canada-Jordan bilateral trade and investment relationship. Canada has been an important trade and investment partner for Jordan since the implementation of the Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement, and today, Prime Minister Trudeau and King Abdullah II discussed opportunities to further enhance trade and investment between our two countries. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering international security and stability and to continuing to work together to overcome regional and global challenges and crises. His Majesty and the Prime Minister expressed deep concern about the deteriorating situation in the West Bank and Gaza. They stressed the importance of increasing efforts to achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive Middle East peace on the basis of the two-state solution. They emphasized the need to stop all unilateral and provocative measures that undermine the two-state solution, increase tension, and lead to violence. They also encouraged efforts to relaunch peace negotiations to achieve the two-state solution that will ensure an independent, viable, and sovereign Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security in accordance with international law, relevant United Nations resolutions, and agreed upon terms of reference. In that regard, the Prime Minister and His Majesty stressed the importance of preserving the historical status quo in Jerusalem and its holy sites. The Prime Minister reiterated Canada's support for the Hashemite Custodianship of the Holy Sites. King Abdullah II and Prime Minister Trudeau also stressed the importance of finding a political solution to the crisis in Syria in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. Prime Minister Trudeau expressed Canada's appreciation for Jordan's generosity in hosting Syrian refugees. He reaffirmed that Canada's engagement in the Middle East will continue to respond to the region's existing security and humanitarian challenges, including the Syrian refugee crisis and the economic crisis in Lebanon. The two leaders affirmed their support for Iraq and its stability. The Prime Minister and His Majesty also discussed the war in Ukraine and its implications for global security. His Majesty and the Prime Minister jointly called for an immediate end to the war and for respecting international law, the UN charter, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. The Prime Minister and His Majesty affirmed that Jordan and Canada will continue their bilateral cooperation, alongside other partners, to combat violent extremism and terrorism. Both countries will continue to participate in the Global Coalition Against Daesh to ensure its enduring defeat. The two countries will also continue cooperation through the Aqaba Process. King Abdullah II and Prime Minister Trudeau reiterated their shared commitment to building upon the bilateral relations between Jordan and Canada in various areas. Canada and Jordan signed a Sovereign Loan agreement valued at up to $120 million over 10 years. This loan will be funded through Global Affairs Canada's Sovereign Loans Program, an innovative finance tool that supports government-led development efforts in middle-income partner countries. His Majesty expressed gratitude for Canada's continued support for Jordan. The Prime Minister stressed the importance of Jordan's economic reforms and its modernization vision. He valued Jordan's role as a force for peace and stability in the region. This document is also available at https://pm.gc.ca SOURCE Prime Minister's Office For further information: PMO Media Relations: [email protected] Barely 28 days to the 2023 general elections, President Muhammadu Buhari has urged Nigerians to reject any politician who will drag the country back to the era of high corruption. Buhari said corruption is evil and should be rejected by all Nigerians ahead of the general elections. He spoke at a conference on Fighting Corruption in Nigeria organized by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC, in Abuja. Represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, the President said he would bequeath a legacy of zero-tolerance for corruption to Nigerians. In a matter of weeks, Nigerians will need to go to the polls again to elect their leaders in the general elections. I beseech Nigerians to reject politicians who would drag our country back to the dark ages in which corruption was made the order of the day, he said. Since his inception as president, Buhari has expressed his displeasure for corruption. On several occasions, the president vowed to tackle corruption in Nigeria. Despite his resolution, he has continued to be criticized over his inability to tackle corruption effectively. Nairobi Kenya The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) will meet with several stakeholders on Friday to formulate strategies to counter the rise of fraudsters posing as journalists. In a statement on Thursday, MCK CEO David Omwoyo said the forum will discuss increased cases of fraudsters who use fake credentials to extort and harass individuals. "It has come to our attention that there is an escalation of fraudsters masquerading as journalists and media practitioners who get access to events to extort and harass people," said Omwoyo. According to MCK, the gathering will provide a chance to discuss the issue of instances of con artists posing as journalists and also propose workable solutions and measures to enhance professionalism. "The council is committed to fostering a conducive working environment for journalists and media practitioners through improved standards and constantly engaging relevant stakeholders to address pertinent issues," he added. Omwoyo reaffirmed the council's commitment to preserving the reputation and legitimacy of the media, stating that they will make sure that only accredited journalists are permitted to work in the nation. MCK is an organization tasked with accreditation of journalists and promotion of press freedom. Ekiti State governor, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, has appealed to medical workers in the state, to accept governments offers to them and urging them not to disrupt the services they render to the people. The governor disclosed that government agreed to some of the terms they presented which would be communicated to them soon. Governor Oyebanji, made the remarks while giving an account of his stewardship in 100 days in office at the Obafemi Awolowo Civil and Convention Centre, in Ado-Ekiti yesterday. The 100 days milestone tagged, Keeping Ekiti Working Towards Shared Prosperity, was attended by traditional rulers, National Assembly members, different stakeholders, political associations, school children, workers, party faithful, government officials and the business community, among others. Governor Oyebanji said his government paid over N300 million for the 2023 WAEC examination fees for students and N600 million counterpart fund to SUBEB for local contractors to be paid in the state and have approved the recruitment of 1,000 teachers into the system. According to him, what government is doing is to make school very attractive for teachers and students and to stop capital flight in Ekiti State. Oyebanji told the crowd: Our manifesto is anchored on six pillars, which have been carefully designed to position Ekiti State for peace and prosperity despite the challenges of this season. Promising good welfare for the workers of the state, he said: I dont have any excuse for Ekiti people not to perform for this reason at 26, I was part of the people that fought for the creation of the state. I worked with two governors, Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Dr Kayode Fayemi, that is why, in terms of intense pressure, I am taking my time to see that we do the right thing for Ekiti people. On gratuity for retired workers, Oyebanji said it is my desire for them to collect their money when they are still alive, even as he recently approved the gratuity for some retired judges in the state. Oyebanji added: I will prioritise your welfare. We will do roads, lights, etc and those [things] that will support productivity and the economy of the state to develop. Governor Oyebanji promised to launch an innovation grant to reduce youth unemployment in the state, encourage more investors to Ekiti State, and build more markets for the people for market men and women to shun roadside trading in Ekiti, among others. The Osun governorship election tribunal appears to have taken a swipe at the dancing skills of Ademola Adeleke. Adeleke, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was declared the winner of the governorship poll held in July 2022. In August 2022, Gboyega Oyetola, former Osun governor, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) petitioned the tribunal to challenge the victory of Adeleke. Among several issues, Oyetola contended that there was overvoting in 749 polling units across 10 LGAs of the state. Delivering judgment on Friday, two out of the three-member panel of the tribunal held that the petitioner was able to prove that there was indeed over-voting in some of the polling units. Consequently, the majority judgment of the tribunal ordered INEC to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Adeleke and issue a fresh one to Oyetola as the duly-elected governor of Osun. For the sake of emphasis, the total lawful votes for each of the candidates after the said deduction of the invalid votes is 314,931 for the first petitioner, and 290,666 for the second respondent, Tetsea Kume, who read the majority decision, said. Consequently, the second respondent did not score a majority of lawful votes cast at the election. The declaration and return is hereby declared null and void. The second respondent cannot go lo lo lo lo and buga won as the duly elected governor of Osun state in the election conducted on the 16th day of July, 2022. See Kizz Daniel song, Buga. Rather, we hereby hold that the first petitioner scored a majority of lawful votes in the said election and is hereby returned as such. The first respondent is hereby directed to withdraw the certificate of return issued to the second respondent, and issue it to the first petitioner as the duly elected governor of Osun state. Meanwhile, the reference to go lo lo lo and buga won by the tribunal appears to be a reference to Adelekes dance to a song by Nigerian artiste, Kizz Daniel, in November 2022. While speaking at the government secretariat on his first day in office as governor, Adeleke had danced to the song while the crowd he was addressing cheered. Meanwhile, Adeleke has rejected the judgment, describing it as a miscarriage of justice. He also added that the judgment would be contested at the court of appeal. The Nigerian Army has refused to shed light on the recent airstrike in Nasarawa state. Over 37 persons were killed in an explosion which occurred in Doma LGA between Nasarawa and Benue states on Tuesday. PRNigeria reported on Wednesday that a state government official gave the military the wrong location for the airstrike, leading to the incident. Musa Danmadami, director of defence media operations, however, said on Thursday that the armys counter-insurgency operations are professionally conducted. Like I said earlier on, operations are being carried out across the length and breadth of this nation. It is not only in Nasarawa state, Niger state or Benue state that we are conducting operations, he said. So, we are not going to dwell more on these incidences or whatever is being reported by the press but what I can tell you like I have been telling you before, the armed forces of Nigeria, we are very professional about the way we are carrying out our counter-insurgency operations across the country. Our code of conduct is clear, our rules of engagement are clear and our targeting procedures are clear. Majority of our operations are intelligent driven and all these our code of conducts, targeting procedures and rules of engagement are in tandem with international best practices and I assure you we will continue to conduct our operations in line with these procedures, regardless of what people are saying. 60 TERRORISTS KILLED IN JANUARY Danmadami said troops of Operation Hadin Kai, during multiple operations across the north-east, killed over 60 terrorists and rescued 12 abductees in January 2023. He said 267 terrorists, including their family members, surrendered to the troops in the region. Notably, on 12 of January 2023 troops had a meeting engagement with Boko Haram/Islamic State of West Africa Province terrorists close to their locations in Kwatan Turare and Azir Bri villages in Kukawa and Damboa local government areas of Borno state. During the encounter, troops engaged the terrorists in a firefight and neutralized 5 terrorists while others fled with gunshot injuries, he said. Also, troops on 14th of January 2023 ambushed Boko Haram/Islamic State of West Africa Province terrorists close to Zanwa village in Gwoza local government area of Borno state. Following a firefight, troops neutralized 7 terrorists, while others fled. On the same date, troops ambushed Boko Haram/Islamic State of West Africa Province terrorists along Rd Banki Bula Yobe Darel Jamel in Bama LGA and made contact. Following a firefight, troops neutralized 3 terrorists and recovered, 2 AK 47 rifles, 15 rounds of 7.62 mm special refilled ammo and one camel bag among other sundry items. Equally, troops raided a Boko Haram/Islamic State of West Africa Province terrorists enclave in Bula Tamsu village ahead of Ngurusoye in Bama local government area and made contact with the terrorists. Troops engaged and neutralized 2 terrorists while 2 bicycles were recovered and 6 kidnapped civilians were rescued. Between 20 to 25 January 2023, troops conducted ambush operations to Loskori, Maina Hari villages in Mafa and Biu local government areas of Borno state. During the operation, troops neutralized 8 terrorists, apprehended 5 armed herders, 2 suspected vandals, 5 bandits and 4 terrorist logistics suppliers. Troops equally neutralised 42 terrorists, arrested 5 terrorists, 9 terrorist logistics suppliers, 2 suspected vandals, 5 bandits as well as 5 armed herders, he added. Troops also rescued 6 adopted civilians while a total of 267 terrorists and family members, comprising 22 adult males, 128 adult females and 117 children surrendered to troops at different locations of the north-east theatre of operation. He added that the air component of Operation Hadin Kai, during air operations across terrorists hideouts, also killed several insurgents around the Lake Chad Basin and some areas of Borno. Titilayo Enemah, sister of Bolanle Raheem, testified in the trial of Drambi Vandi on Thursday. Raheem, a female lawyer, was allegedly shot dead by Vandi, the suspended assistant superintendent of police (ASP), on December 25, 2022. Enemah appeared before Ibironke Harrison, the presiding judge of a Lagos high court, as the fourth witness in the murder trial. MY SISTER SAID THE BULLET ENTERED HER CHEST During her testimony, Enemah told the court that the defendant asked the car to stop and pointed the gun towards where her sister was seated. She said the deceased shouted her husbands name after the bullet hit her. I was looking at the police officer who said stop and I saw him(the defendant) pointing the gun. We had passed the other officer who initially asked us to stop, she said. I saw him carrying the gun, and immediately we heard a sound. I thought he used the gun to hit the side window. Immediately, my sister shouted and said, Gbenga, the bullet has entered my chest. She said it again. Her neck just dropped and she closed her eyes. I called her, Mummy Semilore. Immediately, I ran out of the vehicle to the police officer and said you just shot at my sister. This police officer pointed the gun at me, saying I will shoot you. He is the one who shot my sister and he still pointed the gun at me when I held him. Enemah said some boys around the area asked her to hold on to the police officer. After he threatened me, I was scared. Immediately, I saw two boys coming to the scene, she said. Ordinarily, that place is always busy but that day there were no boys around. I saw two boys. They said, hold him very well. That gave me the courage. Immediately, I dragged him and told him to sit near my sister in the front seat. He wanted to enter the patrol van, I dragged him and said you wont go because you just shot my sister. CROSS-EXAMINATION During cross-examination, Odutola Adetokunbo, counsel to the defendant, asked Enemah to confirm whether she wrote a statement at the police station on the day of the incident. They were asking me to tell them what happened but I did not write the statement with my hand, she responded. Do you sign the statement, the counsel asked. Yes, I signed it, she responded. Do you see any of the police officers pulling the trigger? the counsel asked. The only person I saw was him(the defendant). He was carrying a gun. The bullet came out from the gun and hit my sister, she said. Did you see the bullet? the counsel asked. He(the defendant) was the one holding the gun and facing her, she said. Did the defendant shoot that gun? the counsel queried. I know that he was the one holding the gun and facing us with that same gun. Definitely, he was the one that shot the gun. He was the one, she responded. Why did you find it difficult to put that in your statement? the counsel asked. I wasnt myself the day that incident happened, she said. Is it because you were not yourself that you couldnt notice who shot the gun? the counsel queried. At the police station, When the DPO asked him who shot, he could not say anything. My children told me that he said at the police station what have I done? she responded. All the witnesses that had appeared before did not say the defendant shot, the counsel retorted. I know what I saw that day. I couldnt have seen other police officers and I still went straight to drag him. He was the one who I saw and I grabbed him. After the cross-examination, the judge adjourned the case to February 1 and 2. Five local miners have been killed by bandits in Hayin Udawa community, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State The bandits stormed the mining site on Thursday afternoon where the victims were working. A source confirmed the incident to newsmen but could not give details of what happened. According to the source, Five of our local miners were killed on Wednesday while working in the bush. They were all from Udawa town. He added that others sustained gunshot injuries. He stated that where the attack took place was not far from where bandits ambushed the personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), killing seven, as well as six miners a few weeks ago. The State Police Command Public Relations Officer, DSP Mohammed Jalige could not respond to calls put to him. President Muhammadu Buhari has commended the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC for its Constituency and Executive Project Tracking initiative, CEPTi. According to a statement signed by the commissions spokesperson, Mrs Azuka Ogugua, the President, who was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr Boss Mustapha made the commendation in Abuja on Thursday during a high-level stakeholders conference. The conference themed, Fighting Corruption in Nigeria: The Past, the Present and the Future, was convened by the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC. Speaking during the event, President Buhari noted that constituency projects used to be conduit pipe for self-aggrandizement but with the intervention of ICPC, a lot is being done to ensure that both the government and constituents have value for money appropriated. Today, there is a rebirth of the National Assembly as the issue of budget padding has been addressed, resulting in the initiation and completion of constituency and Federal Government projects nationwide. I must commend the ICPC for tracking constituency projects because in the past, was a major conduit pipe, the Nigerian leader stated. The President also spoke on how his effort at checkmating corruption led to the recovery of huge resources, which were directed towards critical and physical infrastructure such as roads, rail lines, bridges, airports and seaports in order to boost the economy. He, therefore, tasked anti-corruption agencies to concentrate more on asset recovery in order to deny looters the proceeds of their crime. Making a presentation during the conference, the ICPC Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, who was represented by the Director of System Study and Review Department, SSRD, Mr Abbia Udofia, gave a summarized breakdown of the commissions success story under the current administration in line with its statutory mandate of enforcement, system study and review as well as education and public enlightenment. Speaking on the positives of the CEPTi, the chairman highlighted how the exercise had forced contractors who hitherto had abandoned projects or executed projects shoddily to mobilize back to sites to either complete such projects or ensure their excellent execution. The ICPC boss also spoke against the backdrop of constant abuse of personnel costs of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). He, therefore, pointed out that through its system study and review intervention, the commission retained huge sums of money running into billions of naira which would have been diverted. He further underscored how other initiatives such as Corruption Risk Assessment, National Ethics and Integrity Policy, National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector and the Public Service Integrity Awards among other interventions are yielding positive results in the fight against corruption. As the January 31 deadline to phase out old naira notes inches closer, the new banknotes shortage across the country takes its toll on Nigerians. The heat continues to mount as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila threatens to issue an arrest warrant on CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele over his refusal to honour the House Committees invitation. Commercial banks on Thursday were forced to shut down their ATMs over a shortage of the new banknotes in major cities, Warri, Lagos, Abuja, and Benin. Deposit Money Banks have been battling a shortage of old banknotes amid a directive by the CBN that lenders should load only their ATMs with the new notes. It was discovered that ATMs in the Central Business District, CBD, Kubwa, Gwarimpa, and Utako areas in Abuja were not dispensing cash. It is the same situation in Ogun, Lagos, Warri, Port-Harcourt, and Benin as Nigerians scramble with the pains of getting the new naira notes. Israel Kona, a resident of Lekki, said he could not get the new note when he visited the bank on Thursday. Most Banks ATMs have been shut down due to the high demand for cash, so I had to make an over-the-counter withdrawal to get cash, but it was the old naira notes, he said. Simon Oluwa, a trader in Warri, said he could not buy anything at the market on Udu road because he did not have the new notes. He also lamented that Point of Sale, POS, agents have suddenly stopped collecting the old currencies over the difficulty of getting the new naira notes. It is tiring, the situation Nigerians face daily; some businesses at Udu road have started rejecting the old notes, even POS operators, he said. Mr Olawale Ayodele, a resident of Ogun State, expressed frustration after he went to major ATMs in Ota but could not find cash. I went round Ota till yesterday night (Thursday) looking for cash at the ATMs around this area but could not get. Honestly, the stress is not worth it. I cannot withdraw my own money again? He lamented. Emeka Michael, a lawyer in Abuja, disclosed that ATMs he visited in CBD, Garki, are not dispensing cash. The situation is terrible, to say the least; I had to go several places within the CBD but could not see any ATM dispensing cash. Honestly, wahala plenty for this country, he said. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo says Nigeria keeps failing as a country because everyone is impatient with democracy. Obasanjo said the country is not making progress despite being ruled by leaders from various intellectual and professional fields. He said the leaders need to start making efforts to correct past errors rather than acting like Nigeria is a new country. Obasanjo spoke on Thursday while delivering a keynote address on Deepening democratic culture and institutions for sustainable development and security in Nigeria in Port Harcourt, Rivers capital. The former president said a nation that fails to engage in conversations, self-analysis, self-criticism, and regular reading and interaction cannot make meaningful and sustainable progress. It is probably best to state right from the beginning that no two democracies are exactly alike. Democratic practice and institutions are shaped by the specificity of history, socio-political struggles, culture, nature of production and exchange, orientation, social balances and the character of the government and ruling elites, he said. However, citizens that live in democracies share common perspectives, expectations and commitments to the basic tenets of democratic practice. And they may turn out to be beneficiaries or victims depending on the course of the process and practice of democracy. Therefore, in this our brief conversation today, my goal is to redirect our minds to where we missed the bus. If we are patient, humble, reflective, and willing, another bus is just around the corner: are we ready to be active passengers? Our democracy has gone through twists, dives and turns since political independence and we are all living witnesses to our achievements and failures. The best of our history has been the sustenance of democracy since the transfer of power to an elected government in 1999. There is reason to appreciate this part of our history because we have thus far kept the military out of the full and formal control and domination of political power. However, there may be reasons to doubt how much lessons the leaders and followers have drawn from our past and how far they are willing to go to deepen, widen and strengthen democracy and democratic practice. We fail to understand that democracy is not a one shot game. It is evolutionary and it takes time to ground the practice. It is not for quick change and indeed, if we play by the rules, we would all realise that regimes or governments can change but the tenets remain constant. WE MUST BUILD POSITIVE FOUNDATION COLLECTIVELY The former president said it is important for leaders to rebuild their commitment to democracy, adding that they can still adopt lessons from the few good democratic practices of past administrations. Our failure on several, if not all fronts, is because we are impatient with democracy and democratic practice. That impatience takes an element of greed, selfishness and lack of patriotism with it, he added. Yet, if you look at our pre-colonial history, you will find countless strong practices that were genuinely democratic including checks and balances to prevent dictatorship and bad governance in whatever form. When a new King/Queen is installed, he/she does not proceed to behave as if the community is new. He/she does not immediately proceed to build a new palace and destroy the legacies of the predecessor. Rather, the focus is to correct past errors, build on inherited legacies, cultivate support from all quarters, enhance inclusion and respect existing governance and leadership structures and institutions. LEADERS CAMPAIGN AS IF THEY PLAN TO REINVENT NIGERIA Obasanjo said in Nigeria, each new government behaves as if the country is a newly found, noting that during campaigns, some leaders sound as if they plan to reinvent Nigeria and create new Nigerians overnight. That is because they miss the aspect of democracy that emphasizes continuity, stability and predictability. One regime can lay the foundation but it requires many regimes to continue to build positively and constructively on the foundation. It is largely because we overlook and often disregard the basic principles of democracy, he said. Everyone in this room, whether we admit it or not, is an expert in Nigerian politics. We all have opinions and we have prescriptions for all the problems of Nigeria. Yet, the country is not making progress. Most of us are experts in what we know little or nothing about and ignoramus in what is our duty and responsibility. We have tried all sorts of regimes, ideologies, planning strategies and personalities in power: the so-called new breed did not show that they were different. Equally, states run by professors, retired military officers and other professionals including teachers did not experience visible and substantial improvements. True, there have been some outstanding leaders at various levels of power but no tree has ever made a forest; the good ones are few and far in between and did not form critical mass. If after six decades of political independence, our leaders are not showing clear capacities to provide a transformative leadership that unites Nigerians and contains ethnic, religious, regional and clannish, selfish, even class proclivities, then, there is a problem. In fact, it is possible to declare that the ways in which we have practised our democracy have deepened contradictions, negative coalitions, distrust, disloyalty and unpatriotic tendencies within and between communities and constituencies all over the country. Again, this means that there is a deep structural and philosophical problem that we must deal with. We have tended so far to pursue the symptoms of the contradiction rather than focus on the causes and the disease remains stubbornly endemic. Obasanjo added that unless Nigeria generates the courage and commitment to change course and do things better and differently, we may be heading for more trouble ahead. The house of representatives has asked the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NABTE), National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), and the ministry of education to direct all tertiary institutions to suspend academic activities ahead of the elections. The lower legislative chamber said this will enable students to travel to the areas where their polling units are situated. The green chamber also asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make special arrangements for students to collect their PVCs. The resolution was passed at the plenary session on Thursday following the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by Kabir Ibrahim, a lawmaker representing Zuru/Fakai/Danko-Wasagu/Sakaba federal constituency of Kebbi. Ibrahim said there are over 2.1 million students currently studying in universities, while over 2.4 million are students in polytechnics, monotechnics, and colleges of education. He said the academic calendars of various tertiary institutions are structured in a way that most students are disenfranchised as school calendars do not take into consideration the timelines and date for elections. This lack of flexibility makes it difficult for students to participate in the electoral process, he said. 3.8M NEW VOTERS ARE STUDENTS The lawmaker said going by INEC figures, 3.8 million of the newly registered voters are students, accounting for 40.8 percent of the total number of newly registered voters. These students who constitute 40.8 percent of the newly registered voters, have their polling units sited in states outside their campuses, thereby necessitating travelling outside their respective institutions to vote in the 2023 elections, he said. Tertiary institutions are not considering academic breaks for students during the general elections, despite knowing that most students registered outside their campuses during the continuous voter registration exercise, which took place during the prolonged Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), strike. INEC has devolved PVCs distributions at the registration areas and wards across the 774 local government offices throughout the federation. Distribution of PVCs at the wards has ended, and the exercise moved back to the local government/area council offices, thereby further limiting the chances of the students to collect their PVCs which is a precondition for voting at the polls. While the students are busy with academic activities, INEC is engaged in distributing PVCs at the wards across the 774 LGAs of the federation which deprives students of the opportunity to collect their PVCs. Tertiary institutions do not consider periods of elections in designing academic calendars, as most of them conduct semester examinations when the preparations for the general elections are almost completed or when the polls are going on, thereby disenfranchising the students from exercising their civic duties. The lawmaker said INEC has enormous statutory powers to make special arrangements for students to collect their PVCs to vote. He noted that the education regulatory authorities have the statutory powers to direct both the public and private tertiary institutions to suspend academic activities pending the conclusion of the general election. After a unanimous adoption of the motion, the house mandated committees on tertiary education and electoral matters to liaise with the agencies to facilitate the process and report back within one week. A former All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council Director for the Civil Society Organization, Najaatu Mohammed, has explained why she would not support Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, for the presidency. Najaatu made her reasons known on Thursday while fielding questions on Arise Televisions Morning Show programme. Recall that Najaatu resigned from her appointment with the APC and Tinubus campaign team a few days ago. However, Tinubus campaign council claimed she was sacked for being a mole in the campaign team. But while speaking further on her choice of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as her preferred candidate for the forthcoming presidential election, Najaatu said she is choosing between a devil and the deep blue sea between Tinubu and Atiku. She said, I am not doing Atiku today for anything. I gave my reasons, and my reasons I said, Peter Obi is a movement, I said that. And I also said this is the first time the Nigerian youths have a voice and are coming together to form some kind of movement; it is not even about Peter Obi. This movement will outlive Mr Peter Obi. What I said is that they have a structural problem. I will give you an example; Buhari, since 2003, was getting 15 million votes, but he could not be president. Why? Despite the cult followership the North gave to Buhari, why didnt he win? He did not win because he had structural problems and could not build bridges. It took the alliance, which he had rejected severally with the Southwest in particular, that he was able to become president; that is the only reason. And what I will also say is this, I have no luxury of time; there is no luxury of time, and that is why I said I am choosing between a devil and a deep blue sea. press release Five billion people globally remain unprotected from harmful trans fat, a new status report from WHO has found, increasing their risk of heart disease and death. Since WHO first called for the global elimination of industrially produced trans fat in 2018 - with an elimination target set for 2023 - population coverage of best-practice policies has increased almost six-fold. Forty-three countries have now implemented best-practice policies for tackling trans fat in food, with 2.8 billion people protected globally. Despite substantial progress, however, this still leaves 5 billion worldwide at risk from trans fat's devastating health impacts with the global goal for its total elimination in 2023 remaining unattainable at this time. Industrially produced trans fat (also called industrially produced trans-fatty acids) is commonly found in packaged foods, baked goods, cooking oils and spreads. Trans fat intake is responsible for up to 500 000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease each year around the world. "Trans fat has no known benefit, and huge health risks that incur huge costs for health systems," said WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "By contrast, eliminating trans fat is cost effective and has enormous benefits for health. Put simply, trans fat is a toxic chemical that kills, and should have no place in food. It's time to get rid of it once and for all." Currently, 9 of the 16 countries with the highest estimated proportion of coronary heart disease deaths caused by trans fat intake do not have a best-practice policy. They are Australia, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Ecuador, Egypt, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Nepal, Pakistan and Republic of Korea. Best-practices in trans fat elimination policies follow specific criteria established by WHO and limit industrially produced trans fat in all settings. There are two best-practice policy alternatives: 1) mandatory national limit of 2 grams of industrially produced trans fat per 100 grams of total fat in all foods; and 2) mandatory national ban on the production or use of partially hydrogenated oils (a major source of trans fat) as an ingredient in all foods. "Progress in eliminating trans fat is at risk of stalling, and trans fat continues to kill people," said Dr Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives. "Every government can stop these preventable deaths by passing a best-practice policy now. The days of trans fat killing people are numbered - but governments must act to end this preventable tragedy." While most trans fat elimination policies to date have been implemented in higher-income countries (largely in the Americas and in Europe), an increasing number of middle-income countries are implementing or adopting these policies, including Argentina, Bangladesh, India, Paraguay, Philippines and Ukraine. Best-practice policies are also being considered in Mexico, Nigeria and Sri Lanka in 2023. If passed, Nigeria would be the second and most populous country in Africa to put a best-practice trans fat elimination policy in place. No low-income countries have yet adopted a best-practice policy to eliminate trans fat. In 2023, WHO recommends that countries focus on these four areas: adopting best-practice policy, monitoring and surveillance, healthy oil replacements and advocacy. WHO guidance has been developed to help countries make rapid advances in these areas. WHO also encourages food manufacturers to eliminate industrially produced trans fat from their products, aligning to the commitment made by the International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA). Major suppliers of oils and fats are asked to remove industrially produced trans fat from the products sold to food manufacturers globally. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines International Organisations Africa Health 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. The report, called Countdown to 2023 WHO Report on global trans fat elimination 2022, is an annual status report published by WHO in collaboration with Resolve to Save Lives, to track progress towards the goal of trans fat elimination in 2023. For editors: The World Health Organization has partnered with Resolve to Save Lives, a not-for-profit organization, to support the development and implementation of the REPLACE action package. Launched in 2018, the WHO's REPLACE action package provides a strategic approach to eliminating industrially produced trans fat from national food supplies. Since 2017, Bloomberg Philanthropies has supported Resolve to Save Lives' global efforts to save lives from cardiovascular health disease. To find out more, visit: https://www.resolvetosavelives.org or Twitter @ResolveTSL The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will carry out mock accreditation of voters on February 4. The commission said the exercise will take place at 436 polling units across the country. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, spoke on Friday at a meeting with the resident electoral commissioners (RECs) at the INEC headquarters, Abuja. Yakubu said INEC is ready to conduct field tests with actual voters, having delivered and tested the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) machines. For this reason, and in readiness for nationwide deployment, the commission is conducting a mock accreditation of voters similar to what was done ahead of the recent Ekiti and Osun State governorship elections, he said. The mock accreditation will hold on Saturday 4th February 2023 in 436 polling units nationwide. Twelve polling units have been designated in each state of the federation and four in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the equality of the countrys 109 Senatorial Districts for the exercise. A comprehensive list of the polling units, including their names and PU Code numbers, as well as their distribution by state, senatorial district, local government and registration area (Ward) will be uploaded to the commissions website shortly. Yakubu, therefore, appealed to registered voters in the affected polling units to appear on the scheduled date with their PVCs for the mock exercise. Doing so will help to reassure the public of the robustness of our system and to strengthen our processes ahead of the general election, he said. Civil society organisations, the media and the general public are welcome to observe the process. At the end of the exercise, the 436 BVAS machines involved will be reconfigured before they are deployed for the general election. President Muhammadu Buhari says he hopes he will be remembered positively for his achievements while in office. He said this on Thursday in Katsina while inaugurating some projects of the state government, as well as the federal ministry of aviations meteorological institute. The president is on a two-day visit to the state. Projects inaugurated on Thursday included the Kofar Kaura underpass, Kofar Kwaya underpass, Kofar Kaura waterworks, Katsina state internal revenue house, Muhammadu Buhari Meteorological Institute, Darma rice mill and the upgraded Katsina State General Hospital. I have done my best, and I hope history will be kind to me, a statement by Femi Adesina, presidential spokesperson, quoted him as saying. Buhari also spoke on the need for ensuring good economic relations with neighbouring countries, adding that the Kano-Katsina-Maradi rail line was designed for that purpose. If you want to enjoy peace and harmony, you must be very friendly with your neighbour. That is why when I came into office, I started by visiting all our neighbours, he said. Speaking further at a lunch event, he commended the Katsina state government for its developmental efforts. Governance or leadership, as I have emphasised on many occasions, is an enormous responsibility embodying trust and requiring sacrifice so that the community of people that entrusted a leader with that burden can, in both short and long terms, stand to benefit from the uprightness of the leadership, he said. In November, 2022, I received a letter from the Governor of Katsina State, inviting me to pay a State Visit to commission projects executed by his administration. I was confident in giving my consent to the request. Firstly, I noticed that the Governors letter had already earmarked many projects that are beyond commissioning for a State Visit spanning only two days, and secondly, I was impressed by the transparency implied by the manner that each of the projects was associated with its cost of execution. I am under the impression that the Governor is using this occasion to announce his silent achievements, many of which were unknown till today. Earlier today, it was my pleasure to commission Kofar Kaura Underpass, Kofar Kaura Waterworks, Revenue House, Meteorological Institute, Darma Rice Mills, as well as upgraded Katsina General Hospital. I am happy with the infrastructural development efforts in Katsina State, particularly when one compares the recorded achievements with the position of the state as a rural state with a short history of a little over three decades of existence. Tomorrow, I look forward to commissioning the Dayi Dangulle Road, Musawa General Hospital, Sandamu-Baure-Babban Mutum Road, and Gurjiya-Karkarku Road. Indeed, infrastructure is the substructure upon which societal growth and development are predicated. It is the realisation of this that the federal government makes infrastructural presence an irrevocable reality, thus enticing foreign investors and motivating the local elements. While all the achievements recorded in Katsina State under the leadership of the Executive Governor are important, the education sector has really emboldened my belief that our society is in a stead to enjoy transformation in near future, because when education permeates the life of members of society then the propensity to experience growth and development is very high. Festus Keyamo, the spokesperson of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council, has asked a federal high court in Abuja to allow him to serve Atiku Abubakar court processes through substituted means. In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/84/2023, Keyamo is seeking to compel law enforcement agencies to prosecute Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Keyamo is praying the court for an order compelling the PDP candidate to submit himself to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and the Conduct of Conduct Bureau (CCB) for thorough investigation. Keyamos suit is premised on an audio recording released by Michael Achimugu, Abubakars former aide. In the audio, the former vice-president is alleged to have explained how shell organisations were set up to divert public funds. In an affidavit to support the application for substituted service, filed on Thursday, Seyi Bakare, a solicitor in the law firm of Festus Keyamo, said it would be difficult to serve court processes on Abubakar because his itinerary is difficult to predict. That the itinerary of the 1st defendant (Atiku) is unpredictable and it would be difficult to locate him for the purpose of personal service, the affidavit reads. That the plaintiff does not know the residential address of the 1st defendant. That it will be difficult to serve the 1st defendant the court processes personally as the 1st defendant has a retinue of security personnel and aides who make it difficult to access the 1st defendant. Consequently, Keyamo sought an order granting leave to the plaintiff/applicant to effect service of the originating summons and all subsequent processes in this suit on the 1st defendant by substituted means to wit: by serving same on any adult staff of the Atiku Abubakar campaign organisation located at Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent, Beside Access Bank, Wuse II, Abuja or by pasting same at a conspicuous part of the Atiku Abubakar campaign organisation office located at Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent, beside Access Bank, Wuse II, Abuja. Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has said that death toll from Wednesdays bomb blast in the State has risen from 27 to 40. The bomb explosion took place in Rukubi, a village on the border between Nasarawa and Benue States. Governor Sule, while briefing newsmen on Thursday, said, We now have approximately 40 people that were killed. He explained that the rumour earlier was that the airforce carried out the bombing, but stated that there was no airforce plane that flew above the area. The governor stated that rather, it was a drone that flew above the area and dropped the bomb. Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria has earlier alleged that the explosion was caused by a military jet. Lawal Dano of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, on Wednesday, alleged that it is only the military that has jets to carry out aerial strikes and called on the government for proper investigation of the incident. The Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, has lost his son, Hassan Sule. It was gathered that the governors son died in Lafia in the late hours of Thursday, January 26, 2023. The deceased who got married to his first wife, Hajiya Sule, in June last year was Governor Sules eldest son. Hassan aged 36. This is contained in a statement made available to newsmen in Lafia on Friday by the Governors Chief Press Secretary, Ibrahim Addra. The statement read, His Excellency, Abdullahi A. Sule, the Governor of Nasarawa State, on behalf of his family, announces the sudden demise of his son, Hassan Sule, whose sad event occurred on Thursday January 26, 2023. Hassan died at the age of 36. The late Hassan will be laid to rest in Gudi, Akwanga Local Government Area today, Friday at 10am. Meanwhile, the Executive Chairman of Akwanga Local Government Area, Safiyanu Andaha, has expressed deep shock on the passing of the governors son and commiserated with his family over Hassans demise. On behalf of my family, Akwanga LGA and the people of Mada land, I wish to extend our deepest condolences to Governor Abdullahi Sule, his family and the entire Gudi traditional council for this irreparable loss. Former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka has declared that Nigeria doesnt need a good man as President. The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, stalwart made the remark on Thursday at a virtual national dialogue. Chidokas good man assertion was in response to previous comments by a Labour Party, LP, chieftain Valentine Ozigbo. Ozigbo, Special Adviser to Obi on Technology and Strategic Alliances, described the LP presidential candidate as a humble man. When it comes to the personality of the candidates, we dont emphasize character. You need someone who is humble, who you can engage. You need somebody who is compassionate, who cares about his country, fellow human beings; someone who fears God, who has conscience. There are some people who want to be empire on their own. Even as they are today, you cannot even reach them how much more when they become President, the 2021 Anambra governorship candidate said. In his contribution, Chidoka highlighted PDPs achievements when it controlled the federal government between 1999 and 2007. The challenge is when you build institutions around an individual, you are bound to have problems. The lesson of our past history was that Obasanjo was a strong active leader, and afterwards we had YarAdua. YarAdua was a honest and quiet man, but under whom not much moved because every move was susceptible to conversation and long debate. He was a good man, the first man to declare his assets publicly and also made his vice to declare assets publicly. The first man to reform the electoral system, acknowledging that the election that brought him to power was not good. Chidoka however insists building institutions that will stop the business as usual syndrome is far more critical than a good man. The former Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Corps Marshal cited ex-German ruler Adolf Hitler as an example. One of the good men that ruled the world was Adolf Hitler, the politician said. When he was elected, the whole Germany said this is the man that we need to restore the German pride. We all know how it ended because the German people for the first time, instead of trusting in their institutions, trusted an individual. Chidoka, a former governorship candidate in Anambra, also mentioned the President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Despite the challenges of being charged to court for corruption, the people of Brazil re-elected him again because he gets things done. Getting things done is different from an Umaru YarAdua who was a good man, a very decent man, but could not get things done, he added. Lagos State Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat on Thursday declared Bola Tinubu as the best presidential candidate. Hamzat urged the youth not to vote with sentiment but consider performance and track records. He spoke during a courtesy visit of the president and executives of the Junior Chamber International (JCI). Hamzat advised youths to shun candidates who give bogus statistics and support the flagbearer committed to addressing Nigerias issues. Nigeria is not meant for the faint-hearted, the deputy governor stated. He charged the young Nigerians to troop out and vote during the forthcoming general elections. Hamzat said their demography make up to 60 percent of voters, which is huge and would influence the 2023 polls. The All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain added that the impact of the youths on the election is very important. Biodun Ajiboye, the assistant director of media and publicity of the APC presidential campaign, says the recent comments by Najatu Muhammad, a former chieftain of the party, on Bola Tinubu have no iota of fact. Speaking on Arise TV on Friday, Ajiboye challenged Muhammad to prove her claims. She does not know what she is talking about, he said. On Thursday, Muhammad, who recently resigned from the APC, said Tinubu is incapable of running the country. She added that the APC presidential candidate has an emperor mentality and only seeks to hold the knife that will cut the pie and gain material and psychological control of the people of the country. Reacting to the comments, Ajiboye dismissed Muhammad as a woman that is disappointed because her expectations are not met. He narrated that her expectation could not be met within APC because she failed to prove her mettle. This woman came around to flaunt her pedigree and blab about herself that she is the only one in the north. The north is synonymous with her. She made Buhari president and a lot of things. The best she could be given at the campaign council was assistant director and she went haywire to demand a more deserving role. She went as far as lobbying Tinubu in England to rewrite the position, Ajiboye said. She was eventually made a director. And three months down the line, she has not proven useful in whatever capacity they put her. About a month ago, she was running from pillar to pole seeking Tinubu but the argument had been for her to prove her mettle. But nothing was forthcoming. Suddenly, she says she resigns. This woman does not know what she is talking about. There is no iota of fact in what she said. I challenge her to prove her claims. This woman is disappointed because her expectations are not met, and her expectation could not have been beyond give me a lot of money to run around. The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has suspended the Abuja-Kaduna rail services after a train derailed on the corridor. A train said to be a few minutes from its destination in Abuja derailed on Friday afternoon. The incident was said to have occurred in the Kubwa area of the federal capital territory (FCT). The NRC said it suspended services on the route, due to unforeseen circumstances. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Abuja-Kaduna train services has been suspended, the corporation said in an update on its mobile application. The development comes a few days after the Warri-Itakpe train service derailed at kilometre 30 Ajaokuta-Itakpe section of the track. Meanwhile, the Abuja-Kaduna train service has been experiencing some difficulties in it operations recently. Three days ago, passengers experienced delays on the route, but the corporation blamed it on the poor quality of diesel it received. The delay was caused by the supply of diesel/AGO, which fell short of the specification required to operate our rolling stock, which was outrightly rejected after statutory laboratory test, NRC had said. Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of sabotaging petrol supply in the country to blackmail the federal government. According to a statement by the Tinubu campaign team, the presidential candidate spoke on Thursday at the APC rally in Makurdi, Benue state. Since February 2022, Nigeria has witnessed extended periods of petroleum product scarcity, especially petrol. The scarcity has sparked disputes and blame-shifting between regulatory bodies and oil marketers. Tinubu said while in power, the PDP administration gave petrol retail licenses to their supporters who are now hoarding the product to create long queues across the country and make Nigerians suffer. They met good oil prices for 16 good years, they didnt remember gas pipelines, they are what I called saboteurs yesterday. They gave PMS licenses to their supporters and sympathisers. They are the ones who started creating fake queues. PDP, enough is enough, he said. The presidential candidate said Atiku Abubakar, the standard bearer of the PDP, broke the civil service rule by doing transport business while he was in customs service. They asked him, you are so rich, where did you get your money from, and he said from doing transport business. He didnt know that was an offence. The only thing you are allowed to do as a civil servant is farming, he said. Speaking further, Tinubu assured the youths in Benue that his administration would ensure access to quality education and education loans. He added that salaries would not be owed and that the problem of IDPs in the state will be solved. I am proud of what we accomplished in Lagos. I am so proud of it, I do not run off to live elsewhere, he said. I live where my policies and programmes worked. Obi left Anambra because his policies and programmes failed. Just as we improved Lagos, we shall lead Nigeria to its greatest destiny. New Patriotic Party (NPP) delegates in the Akwatia constituency of the Eastern Region will be casting their votes to elect polling station executives today, barring any last minutes hindrance. The polls would be conducted in all the 113 polling stations in the constituency, which would be a prelude to the election of their various electoral area coordinators and constituency executives. Today's election came on the heels of a Koforidua High Court ruling that directed the party to hold fresh elections after some party sympathisers expressed displeasure about the manner in which the constituency elections were held last year. A statement issued by the regional leadership of the party and signed by Evans Osei Yeboah, Eastern Regional Communications Officer of the NPP stated. It said; "The elections of polling station executives is scheduled for Friday, January 27, 2023 in all the 113 polling stations in the Akwatia Constituency. It must be reiterated that the regional leadership is poised to ensure that fairness, transparency and equity are seen to manifest in every step of the process". The regional leadership said it has educated the various stakeholders about the pros and cons of the electoral process. "On Thursday and Friday January 19 and 20 respectively, impactful sensitisation exercise was carried out across the constituency to educate stakeholders about the pros and cons of the electoral process and proactively handle any issue of concern. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Ghana Governance 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. It's exciting to report that the exercise was very successful, achieving massive participation and cooperation from the rank and file of the party in the Akwatia Constituency," the statement noted. Nomination was opened for prospective aspirants interested to contest in the various positions on January 20, 2023. According to the statement, a total of 1,126 nomination forms were received, out of which 258 were women. "This presupposes that every position is being keenly contested by at least two patriots." "During vetting, it became apparent that 3 people who had filed to contest as youth organisers at different polling stations were not qualified on the premise that they are over 40 years old." It commended stakeholders and the entire Akwatia NPP members in the constituency for their cooperation and support. "It has been peaceful and exciting thus far and stakeholders are entreated to sustain their composure and respect for the rules of engagement as, in unison, the first part of the internal elections is brought to a successful end this Friday," the statement added. A state government official gave the Nigerian military the wrong location for an airstrike in Nasarawa, PRNigeria is reporting. On Tuesday, at least 27 people were confirmed dead following an airstrike that hit some herders waiting to transport their cattle from an area that connects Benue to Nasarawa. The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) had said the explosion happened after the herders went to get 1,250 of their cows impounded by the Benue livestock guards. This is the third time we have experienced such happenings. In the last two happenings, it was clear that the air force is being involved in strafing livestock between the border of Benue and Nasarawa states within the last one year, the association said. According to PRNigeria , a source said the airstrike was ordered following an intelligence report received by the military high command that insurgents moved into some communities around the boundary between Nasarawa and Benue states. A joint team involving the military and other security components was reportedly mobilised to take out the attackers. But a particular state government official was said to have given the team a wrong location, leading to the Nasarawa incident. The herders were killed while returning from Makurdi, the Benue state capital, where they went to retrieve over 1,000 cows seized by the Benue livestock guards, the source said. The source added that it was the domestic intelligence operatives in the state, who quickly alerted the military that the operation has taken place at the wrong location. (23/P007) TRENTON Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn M. LaTourette will join Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan at a White House Lead Action Summit today to announce New Jerseys participation in a federal program helping local governments identify and replace lead service lines that impact the safety of drinking water in homes and businesses across the country. The Lead Service Line Replacement Accelerator community initiative, made possible by dedicated funding provided through the landmark the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), is designed to help underserved communities address the complex problem of identifying and replacing lead-containing service lines. Lead service lines connect individual properties with water system service lines and were installed decades ago, making identification difficult and time-consuming. The initial New Jersey communities participating in the program are East Newark and Harrison. The DEP will be working to add more communities. Other states participating in the program are Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The Accelerator initiative will provide targeted technical assistance services to underserved communities to make progress on replacing lead pipes that pose risks to the health of children and families. Commissioner LaTourette will participate in a panel discussion during the summit to discuss New Jerseys strategies for reducing and eliminating lead threats in drinking water, particularly lead service lines. In partnership with the Biden-Harris Administration, New Jersey is accelerating its efforts to better protect every resident from the risk of lead exposure by helping communities to identify lead pipes and access funding for their replacement," Commissioner LaTourette said. Thanks to the historic amount of investment made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, New Jersey will be home to a Lead Service Line Replacement Accelerator program that will empower communities large and small with the knowledge and resources necessary to get the lead out of our water and away from our kids. The Murphy Administration is proud to lead this new effort alongside several of our sister states and the incredible people of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Office of Water. For livestreamed coverage of the Accelerator announcement and summit, visit www.whitehouse.gov/live/ The summit begins at noon. Inventorying efforts coordinated by the DEP indicate that there are more than 186,000 service lines in the state that contain lead, in addition to more than a million more that are made of unknown materials, many of which could contain lead. East Newark is pleased to be among the first communities in the nation to participate in this groundbreaking federal program, East Newark Mayor Dina M. Grilo said. The staff at the DEP have been extremely helpful in guiding us toward this milestone. Participation in this program is an important step in protecting the health of our families and children from the harmful effects of lead. On behalf of the Council of the Town of Harrison, we are very excited to be part of the launch of the U.S. EPAs LSLR Accelerator Pilot, Harrison Mayor James A. Fife said. The Town of Harrison and the DEP have worked cooperatively for many years regarding the Towns Waterfront Redevelopment Area, with great success. We are proud to be selected to host this important event and look forward to many more years of teamwork for the betterment of the residents of Harrison and the State of New Jersey. Through our experience in implementing statewide lead service line replacement requirements, we are aware of the challenges that communities face to make this goal of complete lead service line replacement a reality, said Patricia Gardner, DEPs Assistant Commissioner for Water Resources Management. We are excited for the opportunity to partner with EPA, to learn from our other state partners and to bring additional assistance to NJ communities to meet our common goals of addressing lead in drinking water, reducing the risk of lead exposure for generations to come. We are excited to partner with EPA as New Jersey continues to take the next big step in public health protection with the removal of all lead service lines in New Jersey, added Patricia Ingelido, DEPs Director of Water Supply & Geoscience. Department staff work each day to ensure that public health is protected by overseeing water systems' sampling and operations. Having this support from EPA will help water systems, especially in underserved communities in New Jersey, meet that goal of complete lead service line replacement, reducing the risk of lead exposure for generations to come. Lead exposure undermines public health and is a particularly acute issue in communities burdened by systemic inequities, said Deandrah Cameron, Policy Manager for New Jersey Future. New Jersey Future believes everyone deserves to live in a thriving community and healthy neighborhood. We promote policies for cost-effective, sustainable water systems in New Jersey, and support policies that ensure access to safe, clean drinking water through the replacement of lead service lines in the state. New Jersey Future applauds the leadership of the Biden Administration to elevate and prioritize lead service line replacement in overburdened communities. Federal funding, along with strong state and local partnerships bring us vital steps closer to a lead-free New Jersey. In recognition of the serious potential health impacts of lead, especially on children, Governor Murphy signed a law in July 2021 that requires drinking water systems to inventory service lines, notify residents of the potential presence of lead in their service lines, and plan for the replacement of all lead service lines within 10 years, an effort that is well underway in towns across New Jersey. For more information on this effort and steps to reduce the impacts of lead in the home, visit https://www.nj.gov/dep/lead/water.html Last February, less than three years after the start of its lead service line replacement program, Newark announced completion of the work. The project involved the removal and replacement of more than 23,000 lead service lines, all at no cost to residents. The city also installed a new corrosion control system to further reduce lead exposure from lead components that may still exist in residential plumbing. And in November, the DEP joined the Passaic Valley Water Commission to break ground on the replacement of 6,500 lead service lines in Paterson, Clifton, Passaic, Prospect Park, North Arlington and Lodi, a project that will be completed at no cost to residents. Lead in drinking water pipes and faucets threatens the health of American families and children across the country. An estimated 6 to 10 million lead service lines (LSLs) serve water to properties in communities across the U.S. The federal Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan, published in December 2021, outlines President Bidens vision for lead-free water systems by dedicating funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to advance replacement of lead service lines. The primary source of lead in drinking water, when present, is pipes. Lead can be harmful to human health even at low exposure levels and can accumulate in the body over time. In children, low levels of exposure have been linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and impaired formation and function of blood cells. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides $15 billion through EPAs Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) in the form of grants and loans to water systems for Lead Service Line Replacement (LSLR). Forty-nine percent of this funding must be provided to disadvantaged communities (as defined by the state) as grants or principal forgiveness loanswhich can provide a pathway for underserved communities that might not otherwise have access to funding for water infrastructure upgrades. Communities may have limited technical, operational, and financial resources for LSL identification and replacement. Barriers associated with LSLRunderstanding lead in drinking water, reluctance or legal constraints to working on private property, challenges accessing contractors to conduct service line identification and constructionslow down the process. Technical assistance (TA) helps communities address these barriers by providing the necessary tools for a successful LSLR program. The LSLR Accelerators initiative represents another step forward by the Biden-Harris administration to achieve 100 percent lead free water systems. In November 2021 President Biden signed the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which invested an unprecedented $50 billion in the nations water and wastewater infrastructure, including $15 billion dedicated to lead service line replacement and $11.7 billion of general Drinking Water SRF funding that can also be used for lead service line replacement. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is committed to using every tool available statutory authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act, technical assistance, funding for lead service line replacement, and moreto protect all Americans from lead in drinking water. Each of the four state LSLR Accelerator programs will work with multiple communities in their state to accelerate lead service line projects by supporting the development of: Community Engagement Plans that invite community input, provide educational resources, and meaningfully engage affected community members while identifying and replacing LSLs. that invite community input, provide educational resources, and meaningfully engage affected community members while identifying and replacing LSLs. LSL Inventories that are necessary to identify funding and public notification needs and meet requirements in the 2021 Lead and Copper Rule Revisions for a complete inventory by October 2024. that are necessary to identify funding and public notification needs and meet requirements in the 2021 Lead and Copper Rule Revisions for a complete inventory by October 2024. Lead Service Line Replacement Plans that provide communities with a roadmap for identification, prioritization, and replacement of all LSLs, including public and private portions. that provide communities with a roadmap for identification, prioritization, and replacement of all LSLs, including public and private portions. State Revolving Fund Applications that help communities receive DWSRF assistance for LSL replacement projects. Demonstrating the states commitment to addressing lead, the DEP has signed the White Houses Guiding Principles to Reduce Lead and Protect Families and Communities. These principles include: Prioritizing lead remediation efforts in overburdened and underserved communities Promoting the replacement of entire lead service lines, both the portion owned by the water system and the portion owned by the homeowner Exploring all available funding opportunities to ensure speedy replacement. Promoting health-based blood lead testing, including in high-risk areas such as schools and childcare facilities in areas with lead service lines Ensuring robust community engagement throughout the lead service line identification and replacement process For more information on the Lead Service Line Replacement Accelerators initiative and other EPA water technical assistance efforts for communities and water utilities, please visit https://www.epa.gov/water-infrastructure/water-technical-assistance ### 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. Watertown, NY (13601) Today Some clouds in the morning will give way to mainly sunny skies for the afternoon. High 77F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Clear skies with a few passing clouds. Low 52F. Winds light and variable. Koforidua The Maintenance and Road Area Managers from across the country have completed a five day training programme organised by the Ministry of Roads and Highways in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional capital. It was meant to upgrade their skills and knowledge in the field of road maintenance works, to make it more efficient in the discharge of their duties, as far as road maintenance works were concerned. The Acting Deputy Chief Executive of Maintenance at the Ministry of Roads and Highways, Mr Lawrence Lloyd Lankwei Lamptey, in an address revealed that 30 per cent of the country's roads were in good condition while 46 per cent rated as being in fair condition with 19 per cent classified as being in poor condition. He explained that, inadequate funding from the government has also led to a drastic reduction in road maintenance works across the country, adding that this was likely affected by the ministry from achieving its 2037 road covered plan. He said delays in the allocation of funds from the government have made maintenance work to reduce drastically across the country. The Eastern Regional Director of Roads and Highway Authority, Patrick Okoto, for his part, said though the department is faced with financial constraints, the Authority is supervising 68 development projects and entreated engineers in charge of the projects to adopt innovative ways to execute them. The Director of Road Maintenance at the Ghana Highway Authority, Mr Maama Sawyerr-Markwei, reiterated that the economy is in times of financial scarcity which according to him has made logistics limited in all the regions. This, he said, has also made it difficult for Road Contractors to be on site thereby impeding the progress of road construction across the country. During the five-day training, the road engineers were taken through the duties and responsibilities of supervising teams on projects in all regions, geometric designs and interpretation of critical designs, core specification, pavement designs and material selection. The potato circles have a fluffy texture and a filling of beef touched with paprika, garlic and sour cream, and when Steven Fenves was a boy, they were off-limits, reserved for the guests at his parents home. That was back in the former Yugoslavia, before World War II, before his family was swept into the maw of the Holocaust. Fenves, now 91, can taste them again, and others can share in his story and experience, and its message for the future, because of this Holocaust survivors collaboration with New Orleans chef Alon Shaya. The potato circles are part of a trove of recipes that Shaya has revived from a recipe book that Fenves mother kept and that made it through the war and back into the familys hands. It took relationships between New Orleans people and a chefs devotion to bring them back to life, and now they are part of a fundraising and advocacy program from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that is expanding across the country. A selection of these dishes were served last week in New Orleans at an event hosted by Cathy and Morris Bart, the local attorney, in their Uptown home. Staff from Shayas restaurant Saba filled the house with platters of food drawn from recipes that reflect the life of one Jewish family before the Holocaust and illustrate the long journey after it. I want these recipes to be alive, and thats what weve been doing, Shaya told the gathered guests. Lets do it as something people can experience and share the story. Saving an artifact Fenves built a distinguished career as a professor of engineering, helping develop a pioneering computer structural analysis tool for civil engineers. He now lives near Washington, D.C. But he was just a 13-year-old boy in 1944 when the Nazis took his family from their home, sending them to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. When Louisiana Republican Party chair Louis Gurvich published an embarrassingly asinine screed on Jan. 16 calling for party unity as he attacked several declared and potential GOP gubernatorial candidates, he left himself and the LAGOP hierarchy open for a well-deserved ass kicking. A number of Republican luminaries answered the bell, as did most of the states political columnists (this one included). Worse for the LAGOP, Gurvichs unforced error also handed the states foundering Democratic Party a rare opportunity to score some easy political points. Gurvich neednt worry, however. The Louisiana Democratic Party shares its national counterparts penchant for bungling slam-dunks. In fact, state Dem chair Katie Bernhardt upped Gurvichs ante on asininity and un-self-awareness by promptly appearing in a super PAC ad in which she confidently touts her own leadership qualities but stops short of saying shes running for governor. The 60-second ad, paid for by a PAC whose main contributor is local contractor A.P. Marullo, is every bit as insulting to potential Democratic candidates for governor as Gurvichs missive was to GOP hopefuls. It lacks political heft and depth, but thats not the worst of it. In the ad, actors portraying Louisiana voters offer hackneyed takes on politics It sucks and Its broken to which a smiling Bernhardt responds by presenting herself as someone who remembers a time when our future was brighter than our past. The ad goes on to intercut between the faux voters and the faux candidate. Bernhardt laments no longer having a Louisiana where the national nonsense didnt stand in the way of us coming together. To put it mildly, that claim strains credulity. Ive been covering Louisiana politics longer than the 36-year-old Bernhardt has been alive, and since the final years of the previous millennium (when she was 11 or 12 years old), Washington-style partisanship has increasingly defined our states politics. Bernhardt closes with her prescription for Louisianas travails: It starts with electing people with strong character and even stronger values and a little bit of fire power. At that point in the video, Bernhardt shoulders a shotgun and shatters a clay pigeon another over-used trope. The ad almost resembles an SNL parody. More concerning for Dems, the first vice chair of the state party resigned in protest, and some party leaders reportedly want Bernhard to step down. She might as well, because between her self-aggrandizement and her disparagement of Louisiana politics while we have a Democrat serving as governor Bernhardt failed to mention anywhere in the ad that shes a Dem. Thats a pretty glaring omission, and it couldnt have been accidental. If Bernhardt wont claim the mantle of her party as its chair in a statewide TV ad, how can she expect to be taken seriously as a candidate or as one preparing the way for a serious Democratic alternative to GOP frontrunner Jeff Landry? At a time when both political parties struggle to unite behind good candidates for governor, both are saddled with chairs who dont get it. A resident says several mortar shells rained down on the central town of Beledweyne, Hiran regional capital on Wednesday night. Speaking to Radio Shabelle on condition of anonymity, the villager added that they woke up to heavy bombardment last night in Hawa Tako area, where several civilians were reported to have been wounded. Al Shabaab fired the mortars from outside the city in a bid to send a message of its presence, said a security official. The city which lies 350Km North of Mogadishu has seen deadly car bomb attacks last year that killed civilians and regional officials. Al-Shabaab stepped up attacks in Somalia after losing grip on most strongholds in Galmudug and Hirshabelle states to SNA and allied local community fighters. The St. Tammany Parish courthouse in Covington. Judges with the 22nd Judicial District say that an increase in filing fees authorized by the state Legislature and St. Tammany Parish Council will help make up for a budget cut by the parish. An airstrike was reported in the Somalia's northeastern Puntland state targeting ISIS militants. An official in Bari region confirmed to Shabelle radio that the strike happened in Almiskad mountains, where An ISIS affiliate has a training and hideout camps. There was no immediate confirmation of the casualties as well as which country belongs to the warplanes. US military often carries out air raids in Somalia as part of Washington's counterterrorism operation. Puntland faces double threats from Al-Shabaab and ISIS which are stationed in Bari region's hills. US Africa command (Africom) trains Puntland special forces (PSF) that is fighting to contain the expansion of the militant groups in Bari. On Tuesday, US military conducted airstrike in the vicinity of Harerdhere, Galmudug state, killing two militants after partner forces DANAB came under attack from Al-Shabaab. A migrant waits on the Mexican side of the border after United States Customs and Border Protection officers detained a couple of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border on the beach, in Tijuana, Mexico, Jan. 26, 2022. A federal judge in Louisiana has on Wednesday, April, 27, 2022, ordered the Biden administration to stop phasing out a public health rule that allows the expulsion of migrants without an opportunity to seek asylum. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File) Reegie's bar, seen from the road, at 1176 Bob Pettit Blvd., Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Madison Brooks, a 19-year-old LSU sophomore, had been drinking at the bar before she was raped in the back of a car, before being dropped left in a neighborhood off Burbank Drive. She was fatally struck by a car on Burbank Drive about an hour later, around 2:50 a.m. on Jan. 15, authorities said. Deputies said Brooks had a blood-alcohol level of .319, nearly four times the legal limit to drive and enough to give someone alcohol poisoning and render them unconscious. press release Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, Since the beginning of December, the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 has been increasing. In total, in the past eight weeks, more than 170 thousand people have died of COVID-19. That's just reported deaths; the actual number of deaths is much higher. Almost exactly three years on from declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, our highest level of alert, this week the Emergency Committee on COVID-19 will meet to discuss whether the current situation still constitutes a global emergency. While I will not pre-empt the advice of the Emergency Committee, I remain very concerned by the situation in many countries and the rising number of deaths. While we are clearly in better shape than three years ago when this pandemic first hit, the global collective response is once again under strain. Too few people - especially older people and health workers - are adequately vaccinated. Too many people are behind on their boosters. For too many people, antivirals remain expensive and out of reach. And too many people don't receive the right care. Fragile health systems are struggling to cope with the burden of COVID-19, on top of caring for patients with other diseases including flu and RSV. Surveillance and genetic sequencing have declined dramatically, making it more difficult to track known variants and detect new ones. And there is a torrent of pseudo-science and misinformation circulating, which is undermining trust in safe and effective tools for COVID-19. My message is clear - do not underestimate this virus, it has and will continue to surprise us and it will continue to kill, unless we do more to get health tools to people that need them and to comprehensively tackle misinformation. === COVID-19 is not the only threat facing humanity. Since the turn of the year, I have spoken about the myriad threats that demand an unprecedented response, from cholera to conflict to the climate crisis. The number of people in need of humanitarian relief has increased by almost 25% compared with last year, to 339 million people. 80% of humanitarian needs globally are driven by conflict; And around half of preventable maternal and child deaths occur in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings. The world cannot look away and hope these crises resolve themselves. That's why we are calling on donors to support WHO's Health Emergency Appeal for two and a half billion US dollars. These funds will support WHO and its partners on the ground, helping the most vulnerable people in over 50 ongoing emergencies, including eleven grade 3 emergencies, which is our highest level. With funding and urgent action, we can save lives, support recovery efforts, prevent the spread of diseases within countries and across borders, and help give communities the opportunity to rebuild for the future. Without it, we will not reach all the people that need help the most. Like former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at the launch of the appeal; hope dies when drugs, vaccines and treatments are unavailable. But hope will come alive if we can fund the medicines, provide the doctors, equip the health workers and avoid preventable deaths and suffering. === Over the past four months, several countries have reported incidents of contaminated cough syrups for children. Last year, WHO raised the alarm by issuing medical alerts in October focused on the Gambia, in November about Indonesia, and earlier this month regarding Uzbekistan. The cases in these three countries are associated with more than 300 deaths, but we know that at least seven countries have been affected. Most of the deaths have been in children under the age of five. These contaminants are toxic chemicals used as industrial solvents and antifreeze agents that can be fatal even in small amounts, and should never be found in medicines. This week, WHO released an urgent call for countries, manufacturers and suppliers to do more to prevent, detect and respond quickly to contaminated medicines. Governments must increase surveillance so they can detect and remove from circulation any substandard medicines identified in the WHO medical alerts. They must also enforce legal measures to help stop the manufacture, distribution and use of substandard and falsified medicines. And manufacturers must purchase pharmaceutical grade ingredients from qualified suppliers and conduct comprehensive testing before using them; And suppliers must always check for signs of contaminated medicines and only distribute or sell medicines authorized by, and from sources approved by, competent authorities; All unnecessary deaths hurt but when children die that pain is magnified and demands a requisite response. === Yesterday, WHO published a major report on trans fat, showing that globally, 5 billion people remain unprotected from these toxic chemicals that are used in many foods, and increase the risk of heart disease and death. In 2018, WHO launched and our partners issued a global call to eliminate trans fat, which have zero known health benefits, but carry huge health risks. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines International Organisations Africa Health 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. At the time, only 550 million people were protected by policies prohibiting the use of industrially produced trans fat, mostly in high-income countries in Europe and the Americas. Today, 43 countries, accounting for one third of the world's population, have implemented such policies. Last year, India became the first lower-middle income country to adopt best-practice policy. Bangladesh, the Philippines and Ukraine have all passed policies that will come into force in the coming years, and Nigeria and Sri Lanka are expected to pass their policies soon. So there has been major progress, but there is still a lot more to do. I salute those countries and manufacturers that have already stepped up and call on all countries and all manufacturers to get rid of trans fat once and for all. Because food should be a source of health, not a cause of disease. === And I want to close by saying we deplore the abduction of WHO colleague, Dr Mahamadou Diawara, who was taken by unidentified assailants from his car on 23 January in the town of Menaka in northern Mali. We are working with local authorities to investigate the abduction and ensure our colleague's quick return to his family. Health workers should never be a target. Christian, back to you. A total of 221 new cases of leprosy were recorded across the country by end of September last year, of which seven, were children. According to the Ghana Health Service (GHS), in the last five years, the country has detected at least 200 new cases of leprosy annually, indicating an ongoing transmission of the causative agent of the disease among the population. "We get new cases, we treat and then the following year, we get new ones, we treat and the cycle continues which tells you that the bacteria is in circulation and everyone is at risk. As a Service, we are revising our strategy from not only treating cases but to detect them early and aggressively pursue their contacts to give them prophylaxis; a single-dose drug called rifampicin which has about 60 per cent effectiveness against leprosy, to break the chain of transmission," Programme Manager of the National Leprosy Control Programme, Dr Benedict Okoe Quao, disclosed in an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday ahead of World Leprosy Day (WLD). He said, all 16 regions of Ghana were endemic for leprosy although the Upper East and Upper West regions, recorded the highest number of cases each year. Dr Quao said, the long incubation period for leprosy; from two to 20 years, made it possible for one to have the infection and not know until lesions and patches begin developing on the skin. However, he said, once people reported immediately to the health facility any anomaly on the skin, early diagnosis could be made and one could be treated and cured of leprosy within six months or up to a year. "The disease starts on the skin; usually 99 per cent of cases. You will see light-coloured or red patch like a ring worm on the skin, if you have pale or reddish patches or anything lighter than the colour of your skin, itchiness of a lesion but you have no sensation in it, numbness of hand or feet, weakness of hands, eyelids and toes, swellings, a wound but you can't feel it, you could suspect leprosy." The Programme Manager noted that the clawed fingers or toes, deformity or disabilities often associated with persons diagnosed of leprosy occurs when the infection has reached an advanced stage. "When we are able to diagnose early, we can treat and no one will know you ever had leprosy and that is what we are pushing for so that, people don't end up with disability and not transmit the bacteria." "We are aiming that by the WHO 2030 target, we would have reduced child cases of leprosy by 90 per cent, reduce new cases by 70 per cent and have a 90 per cent reduction in people advancing to grade 2 disability by 2030," he added. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Ghana Health 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. While advising people to report immediately at the health facility any skin condition, Dr Quao entreated the public to desist from stigmatising and discriminating against persons diagnosed of leprosy. "Let's treat them with respect and dignity. Leprosy is not contagious, you don't get it from touch or sharing objects. It is mainly through coming into contact with droplets from someone who has leprosy but has not been treated, either through cough, sneeze, talking etc. People with deformities and the clawed fingers we point to as lepers are actually cured of the disease but the gentleman in suit sitting by you in the office, in the bus etc, who may have a patch under his shirt, coughing and singing loudly is where you can pick the infection from, you go into incubation and the disease manifests years later," he stated. The Programme Manager called for increased investment towards eliminating leprosy as a public health problem in Ghana adding that; "leprosy is treatable and curable." Observed every last Sunday in January to increase public awareness on leprosy and reduce its associated stigma, this year's WLD is on the theme; "Act Now, End Leprosy." Leprosy also known as "Hansen's Disease" is an infection caused by a bacteria called mycobacterium leprae mostly affecting the nerves, skin, eyes and lining of the nose. Asante Mampong All is set for the government to fix the damaged bridge linking the major Kumasi-Mampong-Ejura-Yeji trunk road, says the Roads and Highways Minister, Kwasi Amoako-Attah. The bridge, spanning across river Tatafro on the outskirt of Mampong, caved in about eight months ago causing inconveniences to pedestrians and vehicles. At the time of the construction of the bridge, the nature of the river was not as it is now. Drivers using the stretch now have to go through the Mampong Township causing heavy vehicular traffic. The Minister, in the company of a group of journalists and other technocrats visited the site to make assessment on Tuesday. As part of the visit, the Minister paid a courtesy call on the Paramount Chief of Mampong, Dasebre Osei Bonsu II, and assured him of government's readiness to fix the bridge to put smiles on the faces of drivers and pedestrians plying the stretch of the road. He also assured the Paramount Chief and his people of fixing other road networks in the area, especially the road leading to the dam. According to the Ashanti Regional Director of Highways, Frederick Adu-Agyei, all the drawings/designs and other materials such as the culverts were ready for the commencement of the fixing of the bridge. The Minister, prior to the visit, had inspected the first phase of a 30-kilometre road within the Kwabre East Municipality being undertaken by the Urban Roads Department. Nine kilometres of the road is being executed by KNAPO Construction Company. Mr Amoako-Attah was impressed about the progress work and urged contractors to be more focused to complete the work. According to the Urban Road Director, Francis Gambrah, the project is 35 per cent completed and assured the Minister of speedy work. A new Samsung Galaxy S23 price leak may bring some relief to those concerned about what price increases may be coming their way unless they are planning on buying one of the Galaxy S23 models in Turkey. Alleged Turkish prices for the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra are the equivalent to thousands of US dollars. 4 Reviews There have been plenty of Samsung Galaxy S23 price leaks, with the impression that there will be some price increases in most countries for the Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra in comparison to their predecessors. However, it looks like Samsung fans in Turkey better brace themselves, because a price leak provided by Roland Quandt (via a price comparison site that purportedly grabbed prices from the Samsung official store) has revealed that even the base Galaxy S23 models could cost a small fortune: Samsung Galaxy S23: 50,000 TL US$2,657/2,442/2,147 US$2,657/2,442/2,147 Samsung Galaxy S23+: 60,000 TL US$3,189/2,930/2,577 US$3,189/2,930/2,577 Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: 65,000 TL US$3,454/3,173/2,791 Theres no doubting that these are astonishing prices for the upcoming Galaxy S23 phones, especially in a country where the average salary is well under US$500 a month. Turkeys custom duty rate of 30% for imported goods from non-EU countries is certainly hefty, but it shouldnt lead to the above exorbitant amounts. However, it is worth pointing out that a brand-new iPhone 14 from the official Apple store in Turkey costs 32,999 TL, which is roughly US$1,754 or over double the price that shoppers in the US have to pay. It is important to remember that this Samsung Galaxy S23 price leak may not be accurate, but it is still likely that fans in Turkey will have to be prepared for the worst. Ironically, there will be a similar situation for Samsung supporters in other countries where the average monthly wage is much lower than those found in major markets such as North America and Europe. For instance, potential customers in Brazil, Argentina, and many other Latin American countries will no doubt have to face similarly sky-high Samsung Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra prices, just like they do with other much-desired consumer electronics, like the PlayStation 5. Buy a Samsung Galaxy A53 on Amazon A Treasure Trove for Rural and Commercial-Scale Solar Projects Publications From 8 Teams Capture Insights for Communities Seeking To Harness Resiliency and Economic Benefits of Solar Energy It takes grace and dexterity to manage the policy and technical challenges of adopting renewable energy while also addressing disaster preparednessbringing diverse stakeholders to the table at the same time. Eight teams in the second round of the Solar Energy Innovation Network (SEIN) tackled those challenges and more, providing a blueprint for other communities pursuing projects focused on solar-plus-storage, the resilience benefits of solar, and the value of solar in electric distribution systems. Teams From Across United States Publish Recommendations for New Ways of Adopting Solar SEIN connects teams of stakeholders that are pioneering new ideas with the resources they need to overcome barriers to solar adoption. Teams collaborated in two separate cohorts in this second round, collectively publishing 22 resources. Each cohort was formed around a theme: solar in commercial-scale settings or in rural communities. Teams collaborated across and within cohorts to develop their ideas in real-world contexts, yielding results that can unlock tomorrow's solar markets. The result is blueprints, analyses, tools, and tip sheets for others facing similar circumstances. These resources are freely available for download: Read below for specific examples. This recent set of publications wraps up the program's second round, which lasted 15 months. Throughout that time, teams received analytical support from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and facilitation support from Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), along with direct funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, to overcome barriers to adopting solar energy. During workshops, the teams worked closely to identify challenges, formulate and test potential solutions, and validate new models alongside technical advisors from NREL research staff. "NREL lent their expertise and their passion for innovation and energy equity to our diverse, multi-stakeholder team and helped us to envision technical approaches and a scope of impact that went well beyond our initial project brief," said SEIN participant and Groundswell CEO Michelle Moore. Severe Weather, Rural Energy Co-Ops, and Solar for Renters Pose Some of the Complexities Teams Addressed From the dense urban landscape of New York City to the intricate policy landscape of local electric co-ops, the teams in this round covered an eclectic variety of locations with a diverse set of challenges. In the commercial-scale solar cohort, for instance, the team led by Sustainable CUNY (City University of New York) explained in their project road map that "Urban areas like NYC, which have a large population of renters, are particularly well suited" for community solar projects that offer renewable energy on a subscription basis, but these "projects have stalled at the doorstep of many cities," in part because stakeholders lack economic data to support decisions. Through the Innovation Network, Sustainable CUNY partnered with key stakeholders, including the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), to analyze community solar and community solar-plus-storage options, developing tools and resources to provide landowners interested in community solar the support to move forward. The Clear Sky Tampa Bay team also addressed policy challenges in their Project and Toolkit Overview, with the added layer of severe weather: "Recent natural disasters ... have reinforced the need for reliable power to sustain essential services and critical facilities within communities," they wrote, but siting such facilities can be a tough hurdle. The team developed guidelines to help address such challenges in their Decision Support toolkit and within detailed county use cases (for example, Pinellas County and Hillsborough County, among others). Solar Energy Innovation Network teams representing rural energy co-ops evaluated potential solar-plus-storage solutions to address the unique challenges rural communities face when modernizing and decarbonizing their electric grid. Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL In the rural cohort, the Solar-Plus for Electric Cooperatives (SPECs) team (representing energy co-ops from Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and North Carolina) released an early-stage decision model to help co-ops evaluate potential solar-plus-storage projects. Their SPECs tool addresses the modernization and renewable energy development challenges of serving electricity needs across a mostly rural landscape, including most of the nation's persistently impoverished counties. Greater Equity: A Common Goal Among Other Community Benefits Teams aimed for greater equity and community input as central themes in these projects. For example, the team in Massachusetts sought planning and financing mechanisms to keep solar benefits within the small communities that typically host large solar arrays. Their step-by-step Community Planning for Solar Toolkit encourages any organization looking to adopt solar energy to identify a wide set of stakeholders, including private residents, so that the community solar plan truly addresses the needs of the community. Likewise, the Breaking Barriers project team worked with energy-overburdened neighborhoods surrounding West Atlanta's historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to address the community's critical needs in the face of grid failure. NREL provided a detailed energy analysis that was used to develop the team's decision-making process. Breaking Barriers shares that processincluding the college curriculum they developed and the materials they shared with the communitywithin their report. And in the rural communities cohort, the team led by the University of Minnesota with the East River Electric Power Cooperative examined organizational models to determine which would more equitably create benefits that are more aligned to a co-op's values. They developed an analytic model that traces the economic value flows of new solar PV projects across the tiers of a cooperative system. The equitable adoption of solar energy is so important that Round 3 of the Solar Energy Innovation Network, which kicked off more recently, puts the focus on underserved communities as the core challenge for both residential and commercial-scale settings. Energy Resilience and Disaster Preparedness Bring Additional Solar Value Teams addressed energy resilience and disaster preparedness as crucial characteristics of planning for solar in distributed energy systemsfindings that will benefit many other communities. The City of Reno team stated in their case study that "solar and storage can be a viable resilient infrastructure solution" and set out to "make the case for solar plus storage in emergency response and public safety to show how this technology can be cost-effective for local governments." Their project discusses the value of resilience and how that discussion evolved over their SEIN tenure and details their implementation process for adding energy resilience to the city's Public Safety Center through an innovative solar-plus-storage solution. The Breaking Barriers team, mentioned above, provided a wealth of information for those considering microgrid or resiliency hubs to mitigate the effects of grid outages. As they explained their report: "The hubs will help Atlanta HBCUs and the energy-burdened broader community be more resilient, in addition to informing new course curricula at Atlanta University Center campuses and inspiring similar efforts at other HBCUs and beyond." As a team leader for Breaking Barriers, Michelle Moore said that "Working with NREL's SEIN team was transformativenot only to the community resilience hub projects we're leading in Atlantabut to our resilience program overall." Also from the commercial-scale solar cohort, the Clear Sky Tampa Bay team, previously mentioned above, explained that their toolkit is a "multipurpose resource to support disaster preparedness, increase justification for solar-plus-storage implementation, and encourage the integration of solar and storage into capital improvements as a pre-disaster mitigation strategy." LBNL contributed to the Tampa Bay team's project by creating a point-by-point fact sheet for severe weather considerations when siting solar PV systems. The Clear Sky Tampa Bay team worked with the Solar Energy Innovation Network (SEIN) on siting for solar for severe weather conditions. Photo from the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council To support calculations for energy resilience, NREL also leveraged their free web tool, REopt Lite, which helps users make decisions to optimize energy systems; the tool quantifies the economic and resilience benefits of DERs (distributed energy resources) by comparing the number of hours the site could survive with different technology combinations. Learn more on the SEIN blog about the City of Reno and Tampa Bay teams' resilience efforts. Diverse Stakeholders Contribute to Solar Success When trying innovative ways to integrate solar into electric distribution systems, teams found the greatest success when they brought all the necessary stakeholders to the table. For example, the Sustainable CUNY team, with members from private and public sectors, made a point of including both landowners' risk management issues and subscribers' complications in their analysis of urban community solar systems. Having multi-stakeholder teams ensured that all the key stakeholders necessary for action were already involved, enabling teams to implement their solutions more efficiently. Another example of successful multi-stakeholder engagementamong many from this cohortcame from the team representing Rhode Island, who sought to increase access to solar energy in rural areas through improved permitting agreements that tackle capacity constraints posed by long feeder lines. Writing with NREL, the Rhode Island team reported on how they devised a solution that works for utilities and developers alike in situations where applications for solar developments would traditionally have been turned down because of hosting capacity concerns. Like many SEIN collaborations, their solution brought together policy and technical solutions to address complicated energy challenges. In their discussion of the policy landscape surrounding energy distribution co-ops, the SPECs team argued that when it comes to energy innovation on behalf of community co-ops, "a broader range of partners from within the co-op sector and beyond it must be accepted as part of the process" for such projects to thrive and gain community support, a stance reflected by the team itself. Indeed, teams had members from public utilities, nonprofits, professional organizations, government offices, universities and colleges, students and teachers, state governments, and energy co-ops. "What makes me excited are the next steps, the ripples after the project is done here," said Eric Lockhart, who runs the Solar Energy Innovation Network for NREL. "Teams are already moving forward to rapidly expand their impacts. These teams brought projects that they cared about. They accomplished a lot within SEIN, and now it's exciting to see their momentum moving these projects beyond SEIN, resulting in real change." To learn more about the teams, visit the Round 2 webpage or dig through the trove of publications available for download. Interested in replicating Round 2 topics? Check out the Assistance for Early Adopters webpage and sign up for the Solar Energy Innovation Network newsletter! The Minister for Roads and Highways, Mr Kwasi Amoako-Attah, has announced that the Kwabre East Roads would receive a major facelift before the end of the year. He announced this on Wednesday when he inspected some ongoing road projects at Kenyase in the Kwabre East Municipality. "Within a short time, you will see the level of road works going on here. Kwabre East means a lot to the government and we know the worth of the constituency," he highlighted. Mr Amoako-Attah commended residents of Kwabre East for their tolerance amidst the inconveniences caused by the road construction and reaffirmed the government's commitment to improving the road networks of the area. On his part, the Ashanti Regional Director of Urban Road, Mr Francis Gambra disclosed that the 9km Township Road Project in the Kwabre East Municipality, which include the 5km Kenyase road, the 2km Fawode road and the 2km Ntonso road, was progressing steadily. He added that works on the rehabilitation of 20km of selected collector roads are expected to begin by March 2023. "The project includes the 8km Bosore-Aboaso Road, the 12km Mamponteng-Wadie Adwumakase-Ahodwo and the Mamponteng Town Roads," he hinted. The Healthcare Foundation of LaPorte is hosting its first Nonprofit Excellence Symposium, "Leaders Learn." The symposium will be held at its conference and learning center at 140 E. Shore Parkway in LaPorte from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday. More than 40 leaders from LaPorte County nonprofits providing social services ranging from prenatal care to senior support will convene. They will seek to learn from each other, hear from experts, share best practices and grow as leaders at the symposium. The symposium's theme comes from a quote in Israelmore Ayivor's book "Leaders Ladder": Just as the bird needs wings to fly, a leader needs useful information to flow. Leaders learn. The symposium will have a bird motif throughout the day to reinforce the Healthcare Foundation of LaPorte's focus on capacity building. Psychotherapist and columnist Philip Chard will deliver the keynote address on emotional intelligence. Attendees will be able to attend information sessions on issues like cybersecurity, insurance for nonprofits, recruitment, retention, grant opportunities and available resources on Ten2030.org. The symposium also will feature networking, resource sharing, peer learning and discussion of hot topics for nonprofits. HFL's Nonprofit Excellence Symposium is an opportunity to support and strengthen nonprofit leaders doing tremendous work to support health and wellness in LaPorte County as well as bring them together for networking and resource sharing, said Maria Fruth, Healthcare Foundation of LaPorte president and CEO. The Healthcare Foundation of LaPorte was founded in 2017 with proceeds from the sale of the IU Health Hospital. It works to improve public health in LaPorte County, which it aims to make one of the healthiest in the state. It has invested $36 million in LaPorte County. For more information, visit hflaporte.org, call 219-326-2471 or email contact@hflaporte.org. Dr. Mike Mirochna was the first of many health care professionals to contact me after reading my recent column about John Pementel. Your article this morning was touching. But the grander theme is more about several other points, wrote Mirochna, a family medicine physician from Valparaiso. Pementel, 63, had surgery in October 2021 after being diagnosed with cancer of the sinus. He claims he didnt know the extent of his facial reconstruction surgery, including removal of his right eye, at an Indianapolis hospital. (Read my previous column at NWI.com.) Lack of patient advocacy can be costly at doctor visits, hospital surgeries John Pemental, 63, of Gary, shows a surgical scar on his neck from facial reconstruction surgery in October 2021 that resulted in the removal I did all the research on this type of cancer to prepare myself for the recovery, Pementel told me in his home in the Miller section of Gary. What he didnt fully prepare for was the extent of the surgeries and the emotional backlash during his recovery. I believe Mr. Pemental likely has no health care advocate, Mirochna told me. He probably had no one to help him take notes, answer questions about the extent of his cancer and the surgeries he would need to recover. Hes right. Pementel didnt mention to me anyone who accompanied him to his appointments and consultations before surgery. This is a critical mistake for too many patients facing serious illnesses or surgeries. I speak from experience. One of my family members was diagnosed with cancer in September. She has since been on a challenging journey through the health care industry. Lack of patient advocacy can be costly at doctor visits, hospital surgeries John Pemental, 63, of Gary, shows his face 15 months after reconstruction surgery in October 2021 that resulted in the removal of his right eye. From the first minute she entered a hospital for her initial tests and early diagnosis, I documented every interaction with every health care professional. Every nurse. Every doctor. Every exchange. I have more than 200 voice recordings. I worried that we would otherwise miss something critical. Possibly a complex medical term or a new prescription or a doctors brief instructions. Mr. Pementel probably needed more help understanding exactly what he had and what was going on, Mirochna said. He's right again. Pementel said he was under the impression that his scheduled surgery would be less invasive than it turned out to be. We will never know for sure exactly what he understood about the procedure. Or whether he realized the possibilities about his prognosis. Mr. Pementel had the correct surgery done to give him the best shot possible to beat this cancer, his surgeon told me. Lack of patient advocacy can be costly at doctor visits, hospital surgeries John Pemental, 63, of Gary, sorts through stacks of medical documents at home regarding multiple surgeries in October 2021 at an Indianapolis When I asked for more details, the hospital declined to share additional input, citing patient confidentiality. This response is the norm from hospitals regarding patients cases that dont positively reflect the hospital or staff. I can assure you, we did the right thing for him, the surgeon told me. Other medical professionals who contacted me sided with the surgeon, agreeing that Pementel likely knew the possible outcomes of his surgery. In the article, it says Mr. Pementel did research into his condition. If he did, he went in then well aware what this type of surgery can entail, a registered nurse wrote. I do not understand the point of the story, portraying that this man had his life ruined, instead of saved, by having surgery. Lack of patient advocacy can be costly at doctor visits, hospital surgeries John Pemental of Gary took photos of himself after multiple surgeries in October 2021 at an Indianapolis hospital. Mirochna echoed his peers: I bet that Mr. Pementel was told about all of the things that were going to happen. I have a hard time believing he wasn't told he would lose his eye because his tumor invaded the orbital cavity. Another aspect of the disconnect between Pementel and the hospital could be the distance from this region to Indianapolis. Many patients here are sent downstate rather than across the state line to Chicago facilities. When patients have Medicaid or health care plans from the exchange, they most likely are having to be referred to Indianapolis for care when they have major surgical issues like this, Mirochna said. This is a huge burden for the patients and for the physicians and staff. A partial solution to this problem would be Indiana negotiating with Illinois to allow coverage of patients in Northwest Indiana to be treated at Chicago hospitals. Obviously, we are closer to Chicago and in the same time zone. Lack of patient advocacy can be costly at doctor visits, hospital surgeries John Pemental, 63, of Gary, shows a photo of himself before his facial reconstruction surgery in October 2021 that resulted in the removal of My pediatric patients who have private insurance can go to Chicago for specialist care, but otherwise they have to go to IU Riley or St. Vincent," Mirochna said. Another reader pointed out the unfortunate truth about the importance for patients to have a second set of ears when discussing procedural matters. In other words, patients should always bring a friend, family member or advocate to their health care appointments. Often important details are lost in these discussions using terms patients find unfamiliar, the reader said. As my family can attest, its too easy to miss a key word or misconstrue complicated medical jargon during a hurried encounter with health care professionals. Ive had to replay audio recordings multiple times to simply listen for a single word or phrase. Several readers asked about the next installment of my ongoing series, From emergency room to operating room, chronicling my familys eye-opening journey through the health care industry. My family is now going through a very similar process with a recent cancer diagnosis, and your series has been of particular interest to me and one that I have shared with others dealing with the same situation, Pete V. wrote in an email. Did you ever finish the series? No, I did not. The fifth installment will run next week, thanks to all the recordings I've kept along the way. I strongly recommend doing something similar, even for less serious cases. Otherwise, it's impossible to conjure up conversations that took place months or years ago, as Pementel has painfully found out. MICHIGAN CITY The City Council unanimously opposes NIPSCOs proposed 16.5% increase in electric rates. The increase would include having ratepayers foot the bill for retiring the coal-fired Michigan City Generating Station. The electric rates of NIPSCO are already among the highest, council Vice President Don Przybylinski, D-at large, said, with residents already hard-pressed to pay their bills. Michigan City has a high poverty rate. Hes concerned that NiSource, NIPSCOs parent, might look to electric customers to support money-losing ventures. It is time that NIPSCO executives take pay cuts and reduce costs, Przybylinski said. His brother, Councilman Paul Przybylinski, D-2nd, said hes concerned about the effect on businesses as well as residents. NIPSCO is and has been a leading high-rate utility in the state of Indiana. If approved, the new rate would be phased in with the full impact in July 2024. To me, thats a big hike to us, Don Przybylinski said. The city budgeted for a 10% to 15% increase in utility costs this year, but that isnt just for electricity. Councilman Bryant Dabney, D-1st, urged ratepayers to reach out to the board of directors. Those are the people who make these financial decisions when it comes to these companies, he said. Don Przybylinski was at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissions field hearing Jan. 4 at Valparaiso High School. Thats why they have these field hearings, he said, so regulators will hear the publics views. The IURC is the board that makes the final decision on what people are saying. Thats why its so important to speak out, he said. Contacting individual directors on the board can be difficult. VALPARAISO Valparaiso High School will be honoring alumni military veterans with a tribute set to be unveiled in early May, the school district announced Wednesday. The "VHS Military Hall of Honor" will be around 40 feet long by 12 feet tall and feature each branch of the U.S. armed forces, along with the names and graduation year of students who served. The display will be visible from the upper and lower floors. The district is asking military graduates and family members to submit their information or the information of their loved one at valparaisohigh.valpo.k12.in.us (hover over Our School and click the Military Hall of Honor link) to be included on the display. "Valparaiso and our school community take great pride in honoring and celebrating the commitment and sacrifice of our military servicemen and -women," Superintendent Jim McCall said in the announcement. "This program and this display are to be a consistent reminder to students, staff and all those who visit Valparaiso High School. We want to honor our graduates and inspire our students." Throwback Thursday: A look back at Veterans Day ceremonies in the Region Veterans' service honored at Stoney Run memorial Veterans' service honored at Stoney Run memorial Veterans 'gave up something for their county' Veterans Day Patriotic tunes strike chord at vets memorial Veterans Day Lansing veterans Veterans Day Veterans Day Patriotic tunes strike chord at vets memorial Veterans Day Valparaiso Rotary Club Veteran's Day Program Middle school students honor local veterans Middle school students honor local veterans Middle school students honor local veterans Thomas Jeffereson Middle School students honor local veterans Veterans Day Veterans Day Veterans Day Veterans Day Veterans Day Valparaiso Veterans Day Ceremony Valparaiso Veterans Day Ceremony Veterans Day Veterans Day Valparaiso Veterans Day Ceremony Valparaiso Veterans Day Ceremony Valparaiso Veterans Day Ceremony Portage Veterans Day ceremony Portage Veterans Day ceremony Portage Veterans Day ceremony Portage Veterans Day ceremony Wild art from annual chili luncheon at American Legion Post 260 111414-nws-VUveterans 111414-nws-VUveterans 111414-nws-VUveterans 111414-nws-VUveterans Students and staff salute U.S. veterans Students show vets support Students show vets support Students show vets support Students show vets support Students show vets support Students show vets support Students show vets support Students show vets support Ross Boy Scouts Veterans Day RossVeterans Day children waving flags Iddings Elementary School makes Veterans Day a banner event Veterans Day celebration Iddings Elementary School makes Veterans Day a banner event Iddings Elementary School makes Veterans Day a banner event Veterans share stories at lunch in their honor Veterans share stories at lunch in their honor School hosts Veterans Day ceremony Veterans share stories at lunch in their honor Veterans Day Garcia Honoring veterans Honoring veterans Second-graders host special guests on Veterans Day Munster students learn the reason for Veterans Day Second-graders host special guests on Veterans Day Munster students learn the reason for Veterans Day Crown Point school welcomes veterans Friday Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Veterans honored during service at park Dogs offer vets 'buddy,' calming influence Dogs offer vets 'buddy,' calming influence Dogs offer vets 'buddy,' calming influence Dogs offer vets 'buddy,' calming influence Dogs offer vets 'buddy,' calming influence Dogs offer vets 'buddy,' calming influence Geisen hosts vets again Geisen hosts vets again Geisen hosts vets again Geisen hosts vets again Geisen hosts vets again Geisen hosts vets again Geisen hosts vets again Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Annual Veterans Day dinner in the Geisen Reception Centre Portage honors her veterans with annual service Portage honors her veterans with annual service Portage honors her veterans with annual service Portage honors her veterans with annual service Portage honors her veterans with annual service Hero's welcome Hero's welcome Griffith's Veterans Day service Griffith's Veterans Day service Griffith's Veterans Day service Griffith's Veterans Day service Griffith's Veterans Day service Hero's welcome Griffith's Veterans Day service Griffith's Veterans Day service Hero's welcome Hero's welcome 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet 111215-nws-chestvet Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Gallery: Griffith's Veterans Day service Student letters say thanks to veterans Luncheon honors veterans at senior living center Luncheon honors veterans at senior living center Luncheon honors veterans at senior living center Serve others, VU Veterans Day speaker says Serve others, VU Veterans Day speaker says Serve others, VU Veterans Day speaker says Serve others, VU Veterans Day speaker says Serve others, VU Veterans Day speaker says Illiana Christian High School honors veterans Illiana Christian High School honors veterans Pride on every face Montessori students honor, celebrate veterans Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Longfellow New Tech Elementary Veterans Day Event Veterans Day with the Scouts Veterans Day with the Scouts Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery: Veteran Appreciation Day Parade in Hammond Gallery Upon receiving the news that a suspect was in custody, Valparaiso Community Schools Superintendent Jim McCall said it was "exceedingly great news." "I just want to laud the support that the community agencies gave," McCall said at Thursdays Valparaiso School Board meeting, specifically identifying the Valparaiso Fire Department, Valparaiso Police Department and Porter County Sheriff's Office. "When these incidents occur, we take each one seriously we have to. We adhere to protocols and we communicate effectively. We never outpace the students in communication, but we strive to be timely and accurate with as much information as we can provide." McCall praised his staff for their response to each of the three incidents. "It's paramount we keep the students and staff safe and communicate effectively," he said. "It's never something that you want to do, but its something you prepare to do." Valparaiso police said the investigation is ongoing and further information will be released when available. Times reporters Lizzie Kaboski and William Skipworth contributed to this report. Frustrated with appliances that break down and repairmen who miss appointments or leave exorbitant bills, a growing number of consumers have begun making their own repairs in the last five years. Now appliance manufacturers are responding to the do-it-yourself movement, and they see it as a way to improve customer relations and make money at the same time. The General Electric Company and Whirlpool Corporation are making large-scale, well-organized efforts to develop the repair-it-yourself market. Both companies publish basic repair manuals and provide technical assistance to consumers over toll-free telephone lines. ''The idea has been so well received it is inevitable that other companies will copy it,'' said Martin Weinberger, vice president of Oxtoby-Smith Inc., a Manhattan market-research firm. Mr. Weinberger, who researched the concept for G.E., said he was astonished at how many people cared to wrestle with the wires and valves of their appliances. In a 1981 survey by Oxtoby-Smith, 38 percent of the respondents said they did their own repairs, and of these do-ityourselfers, 25 percent were women. ''Women are not ashamed that they do not know how to repair a dishwasher, and they are interested in learning,'' Mr. Weinberger said. ''But men feel they are supposed to know and are a little ashamed to admit they need help, so if they don't already do the repairs, they are less open to learning.'' AMSTERDAM On April 30, 1941, a Jewish man here in Amsterdam wrote a desperate letter to an American friend, pleading for help emigrating to the United States. U.S.A. is the only country we could go to, he wrote. It is for the sake of the children mainly. A volunteer found that plea for help in 2005 when she was sorting old World War II refugee files in New York City. It looked like countless other files, until she saw the childrens names. Oh my God, she said, this is the Anne Frank file. Along with the letter were many others by Otto Frank, frantically seeking help to flee Nazi persecution and obtain a visa to America, Britain or Cuba but getting nowhere because of global indifference to Jewish refugees. We all know that the Frank children were murdered by the Nazis, but what is less known is the way Annes fate was sealed by a callous fear of refugees, among the worlds most desperate people. There are manuscripts and other materials relating to his dozen books, including the best-selling 1977 novel True Confessions and Monster: Living off the Big Screen, his 1997 account of the couples eight years (and 27 drafts) of work on the movie Up Close and Personal. The archive also includes the extensive research for his journalistic projects, like letters he exchanged with the convicted killer of Brandon Teena, who Dunne wrote about in a 1997 New Yorker article that became the basis for the movie Boys Dont Cry. (Almost every letter from the killer, Golia said, mentions that he was reading a Didion book.) While there are no diaries, the collection includes Didions datebooks, which show detailed records of meetings, social engagements and research trips, as well as whole weeks where Didion (who wrote about her chronic migraines in her 1968 essay In Bed) put a diagonal slash through days at a time, adding a single word: headache. And those parties? She was both poetic and military in her approach to dinner party planning, Golia said. It was clearly an experience. Everything was curated. As for the cuisine, Golia said, the first thing I noticed was that she had a real commitment to Chantilly cream. The archive includes condolence letters Didion received after the deaths of Dunne, in 2003, and their daughter, Quintana Roo, two years later. And theres also the copy of The Year of Magical Thinking that she brought on book tour, with passages marked with Dunnes embossed notecards (and sometimes annotated, Golia said, with revisions for future editions). Kiely said the papers should be processed by early 2025, at which point the collection will be open without any restrictions to scholars, biographers, and (like virtually all of its holdings) anyone else with a library card. The library expects it to become one of its most heavily used collections. Im both looking forward to it, Kiely said, with a laugh, and slightly afraid. The state of the American wine industry is grim, according to a closely watched report that annually analyzes its trajectory. Winemakers and advertisers are missing out on younger consumers, the report says, by failing to produce wines that fit their budgets and neglecting to reach out to them with targeted marketing campaigns. The newest edition of State of the U.S. Wine Industry, which has made recommendations for more than 20 years, found that the only area of growth for American wine was among consumers over 60, said its author, Rob McMillan, executive vice president of Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, Calif., and a longtime analyst of the American wine industry. The biggest growth area, he said, was among 70- to 80-year-olds. As it has in recent years, the report urged the wine industry to do a better job of appealing to younger consumers, who have many more beverage options today than baby boomers did in their formative years. Among those are craft beers, small-production spirits and craft cocktails, hard seltzer and other new beverages, like hard kombucha and cannabis drinks. The problem, in Mr. McMillans view, is not so much wine itself but the marketing. He believes that the wine industry as a whole has to take steps to inspire curiosity and intrigue about wine, and to highlight aspects that he said would appeal to younger generations. The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has released the 2022 provisional results of both school and private candidates who sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). The Council said it would dispatch the results of school candidates to their respective schools through the Metropolitan/Municipal/District Directors of Education. It added that the results for private candidates can be assessed at the Council's website www.waecgh.org and school candidates who so desire, may also access their results online at the Council's website. According to WAEC, a total of 552,288 candidates made up of 276,999 males and 275,289 females entered for the school examination. "This includes 65 candidates with visual impairment, 427 with hearing impairment and 54 candidates with other test accommodation needs. Out of the total number of candidates who entered for the examination, 4,309 candidates were absent," it emphasized. The statement added that the private candidates recorded a total entry figure of 1,144 candidates, made up of 641 males and 503 females. Out of the number of candidates who entered for the examination, 84 candidates were absent. The Council said the 33 Meeting of the Final Awards and Examiners' Appointment Committee for the BECE 2022, which was convened on January 24, 2023, had approved the results after investigations were completed into incidences of misconduct discovered during the examinations. It added that the Council cancelled "the subject results of 416 school candidates and three private candidates for the offence of either bringing foreign materials into the examination hall or colluding with other candidates." It said Council also withheld the subject results of 38 school candidates pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of alleged examination malpractice; cancelled the entire results of 73 school candidates and two private candidates for bringing mobile phones into the examination hall and withheld the entire results of 11 school candidates pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of alleged examination malpractice. Meanwhile, the Council said, scripts of candidates from 40 schools in certain subjects are undergoing scrutiny and the withheld results of candidates may be cancelled or released based on the outcome of investigations. The Council advised stakeholders to be wary of fraudsters who promise to upgrade results for a fee, adding that WAEC results are secured and can be authenticated. Did I vote for Trump in 2016? You bet. Did I vote for him in 2020? You bet. Now, I dont know. I think weve got probably 10 candidates that can win. HANK MCCANN, a member of the Republican National Committee from Delaware, echoing many on the committee who have doubts about Donald J. Trumps ability to win in 2024. That doesnt explain why Alamo would run out of cars. Nothing was forcing the company to accept those additional reservations. Having cars due for maintenance also strikes me as an odd excuse, since it seems highly foreseeable. Mr. Wilmering did not specify how many cars were not returned or were in for repair, but it must have been a lot more than usual or it doesnt make sense for Alamo not to have cut off reservations as well. (Dec. 6 was the day of the Senate runoff election in Georgia, which both companies suggested may have contributed to the spike in demand.) Alamo would typically be able to source cars from other Enterprise brands with agencies at the airport, but we exhausted all possible options to provide vehicles to customers who needed them, Mr. Wilmering wrote. He said Alamo has no centralized system to alert customers if no cars are available, and that individual branches would be responsible for communicating with customers. This left me with two nagging questions: What can consumers do to ensure a car is waiting for them? And, if hotels and airlines require payment in advance (or at least a penalty for no-shows), why not car rental companies? Jonathan Weinberg, the founder and chief executive of AutoSlash, a car rental site that searches for the best deals, told me that the car rental agencies originally offered risk-free reservations as a consumer-friendly policy and now are reluctant to drop a perk consumers have come to expect. Certainly, its a failure on the rental car companies part to both predict and manage the inventory properly, he said. It becomes more challenging for them in times of high demand. The problem worsened, he said, coming out of the pandemic, as both fleets and maintenance staff had shrunk, but he said the problem is very rare, occurring in well under 1 percent of the rentals his company handles. To seek advice on how customers can be sure a car and preferably the one they reserved is there, I asked not only company representatives, but also called customer service lines to ask whoever answered. Advice was all over the place and frustratingly devoid of promises, leaving me with the sneaking suspicion that companies simply give cars away in the order people show up, no matter who they are or how or when they reserved. The best advice came from a customer service representative from Alamo, who recommended calling the branch directly as your travel date approaches. (Its easy to find the branch numbers by clicking on Locations on alamo.com.) They can let you know if there is an increase in demand for your dates that might mean its worth having a plan B, he said. Dick Harpootlian, the lead defense lawyer, got two deputies to admit that tire tracks at the scene had not been blocked off with tape and had then been driven over and stepped on, leaving it difficult to identify any other possible perpetrator. So, if somebody had come in and left, who committed the murders, whatever tire tracks that were left were obliterated by your men, is that right? Mr. Harpootlian asked Sgt. Daniel Greene, the first deputy who arrived at the scene. Its possible, Sergeant Greene responded. Another deputy acknowledged, in response to Mr. Harpootlians questioning, that he had walked near one victims body without covering his shoes. Later in the day, Capt. Jason Chapman of the Colleton County Sheriffs Office said in response to prosecutors questions that Mr. Murdaugh had not appeared to have any blood on him when they arrived, even though he had told a 911 dispatcher that he had checked both victims pulses. Both victims were bloody, the police witnesses testified, and Captain Chapman said that it would have been particularly difficult to check Paul Murdaughs pulse without coming into contact with his blood. Mr. Murdaughs lawyers have said that he returned from a brief visit with his mother that night to find his wife and son shot to death on the familys rural hunting estate. A Louisiana man who used the dating app Grindr to lure gay men in a scheme to kidnap and kill them was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison on Wednesday for kidnapping and trying to kill a man he found on the network in 2020, the Justice Department said. The attacker, Chance Seneca, 21, told the authorities that he considered the social media platform for L.G.B.T.Q. people a hunting ground and that he had used it to lure another man, Holden White, to his fathers isolated home in Lafayette, La., on June 20, 2020. The men also communicated on the messaging app Snapchat, court documents said. They had been in contact for weeks when Mr. Seneca, then 19, picked up Mr. White, who was 18, in his car and drove him back to the house, where he propositioned him, convincing him to put on handcuffs, according to the documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Once at the home, Mr. Seneca strangled, bludgeoned and stabbed Mr. White, before slitting his wrists, court records said. The attack left Mr. White in a coma that lasted several days and with lasting injuries. Four of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have contracted Covid, according to legal staff members, as the coronavirus continued to move through a maximum-security prison for former C.I.A. detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The prisoner accused of masterminding the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has not tested positive for the virus. But the other four defendants in the capital case have flulike symptoms and are in quarantine, the staff members said. Another detainee accused of being a terrorist leader, an Indonesian man known as Hambali, who lives on the same tier as Mr. Mohammed, tested positive on Wednesday, forcing the cancellation of meetings between prisoners and defense lawyers scheduled for the rest of the week. The outbreak apparently began in the adjacent Camp 6 prison, which holds 20 general population prisoners who have been approved for transfer with security assurances. WASHINGTON The National Archives has asked former presidents and vice presidents to check their personal files for classified or presidential records that might have been missed in previous searches, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The archives, which oversees materials covered by the Presidential Records Act and other federal laws, sent a letter to representatives on Thursday asking for any materials that were inadvertently retained. The request comes after documents with classified markings were found at former President Donald J. Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate, President Bidens Delaware home and his think tank in Washington, and former Vice President Mike Pences residence in Indiana. The responsibility to comply with federal records law does not diminish after the end of an administration, William J. Bosanko, the chief operating officer with the National Archives and Records Administration, wrote in the letter. Therefore, we request that you conduct an assessment of any materials to determine whether bodies of materials previously assumed to be personal in nature might inadvertently contain presidential or vice-presidential records, Mr. Bosanko said in his request, which covered both classified and unclassified materials. MEMPHIS Five Memphis police officers were charged on Thursday with second-degree murder for the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, after a traffic stop that escalated into what the authorities have described as a display of staggering brutality. The city has been bracing for more than a week for the release of video footage that officials say depicts in agonizing detail how a stop this month for suspicion of reckless driving ended with Mr. Nichols being hospitalized in critical condition on Jan. 7 and dying three days later. Civic leaders and others in Memphis have raised concerns about the reaction the footage could provoke among residents who are already anguished and outraged about Mr. Nicholss death. A grand jury returned indictments on Thursday against the five officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith with charges that include kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression, in addition to second-degree murder, prosecutors said. The officers, all of whom are Black, were fired last week. The actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols, and they are all responsible, Steven J. Mulroy, the district attorney for Memphis, told reporters on Thursday. Cities across the country were bracing for protests once video is released on Friday showing Memphis police officers fatally injuring Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop earlier this month. Five officers have been charged with murder in Mr. Nicholss death. Memphis officials stressed that the video is gruesome and distressing but said that they would release it for the sake of transparency. The district attorney, Steven Mulroy, said that the nearly hourlong string of footage, including video from police body cameras, would be released with limited redactions, adding, After everyone sees the video, I dont think theyll have any questions about those charges. Mayor Jim Strickland of Memphis said city officials had made sure Mr. Nicholss family could view the video privately before it was released to the public. He said the city expected to do so after 6 p.m. on Friday. Memphis civic leaders and Mr. Nicholss family have asked people to protest peacefully, and President Biden joined their call in a statement on Thursday afternoon. The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This weeks issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter with the Australia bureau. On Thursday Australias national holiday, known as Australia Day my local coffee shop in Melbourne was packed. But as they sipped coffees and chowed down on breakfast burritos, many of the mostly young, mostly white customers made their feelings about the day be known via their choice of clothing: the same red, black and yellow T-shirt, with the slogan Always Was, Always Will Be. The full phrase always was, always will be Aboriginal land is an iconic rallying call in Australias Indigenous land rights movement. It refers to how Aboriginal land was never ceded to colonizing European forces; how Indigenous Australians continue to face dispossession, structural inequality and marginalization; and how First Nations Australians retain a deep connection to the lands that were taken from them. The ideas that the slogan represents are especially pressing on Jan. 26. The date has been commemorated nationally as Australias national holiday since 1994 and marks the landing of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove in 1788, when around 1,400 people, half of them convicts, arrived from Britain. Those arrivals would begin a two-century process of the wholesale transformation of Australia, starting with the raising of a flag on land that the British described as Terra Nullius, or nobodys land. The United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, has designated the historic center of Odesa as a World Heritage Site and classified it as being in danger during a committee session in Paris on Wednesday, in a nod to the historic importance of a Black Sea port that Russia has battered with missiles as it tries to reconquer Ukraine. Frances foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, traveled to the city on Thursday in a show of support, but her plans were interrupted by the threat of a Russian missile strike. Thanks to a Russian missile, I experienced my first diplomatic bilateral meeting in a shelter, Ms. Colonna wrote on Twitter, sharing a photo with Ukraines minister of foreign affairs. President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the United Nations to designate Odesa as an endangered World Heritage Site in October, and the process was fast-tracked at the U.N. agency out of concern for the damage being done to the citys many cultural sites. Including the city on the UNESCO list is intended to put pressure on Russia to refrain from attacking Odesa and gives the city access to more financial and technical assistance. The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, yesterday declared that going forward, dollar charges on all domestic cards and online transactions would not be permitted. Emefiele said all transactions on existing local bank cards must, therefore, be routed through the Nigerian National Domestic Card scheme which he officially unveiled yesterday. Speaking at the virtual launch of the card scheme, the CBN governor pointed out that at a time when foreign exchange challenges had persisted globally, the central bank came up with the domestic card scheme to, "ensure that all card transactions, online transactions where you're using cards will now effective immediately, begin to go on the Nigerian National Domestic Card system." Emefiele, however, clarified that though there was nothing wrong with existing local bank cards, customers are at liberty to continue using them. He said, "But given that charges by foreign cards are in dollars, we will no longer pay dollars for charges on those cards." He said: "All domestic card transactions that are going to be conducted in Nigeria will have to be through the Nigerian domestic card. "We would only pay dollars for charges on transactions that are done with this domestic card or foreign cards outside Nigeria." He, however, clarified that the CBN's effort was not to prevent international service providers from continuing to provide services in Nigeria. He said, "Rather, it is aimed at providing more options for domestic consumers while also promoting the delivery of services in a more innovative, cost-effective, and competitive manner." Emefiele also disclosed that the CBN would collaborate with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), Nigerian banks, and other electronic payment operators to see, "how to segregate those transactions to ensure that we would only make charges or fees for international transactions that are conducted on these cards or the Visa or MasterCard as they are used today." The CBN governor insisted that while there was no preference for any particular domestic card, "we don't need to have our domestic cards but most importantly is that we do not have foreign exchange, and we would bar payment of charges for domestic transactions from the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market at some point in the very near future." He said given the limited usage of cards by Nigerians and in a bid to deepen penetration, the central bank actively promoted the national domestic card scheme which would be accessible to all Nigerians and also address local peculiarities. He said the scheme represented an important plug in the gap that has remained with the system since the cashless policy was introduced. Yet, the CBN governor said the unveiling signaled another major step in the country's drive toward achieving a thriving and competitive payments landscape in the country. Emefiele said the cashless policy has created value, engendered competition, and attracted investment into the Nigerian banking and payments ecosystem, adding that "We have witnessed the proliferation of products, channels, and participants with significantly increased foreign direct investments into the Nigerian payments space." He said the CBN had over time focused attention on the robust development of financial service touchpoints including the ATMs, POS terminals, and agent networks, explaining that the success of the Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility has led to growth in the number of agents to about 1.5 million across the federation with the capacity to accept card payments from Nigerians. Emefiele said while the penetration of card payments in Nigeria has grown tremendously over the years, many Nigerians are still excluded. He said that the challenges that have limited the inclusion of Nigerians included the high cost of card services as a result of foreign exchange requirements of international card schemes and the fact that existing card products do not address local peculiarities of the Nigerian market. According to him, the cashless policy which commenced in 2012, signposts the CBN's common drive to strengthen the national payment system and deepen the usage of electronic platforms in the country. He said in line with the National Payments System Strategy, the CBN had been deliberate in collaborating with relevant stakeholders to enhance the national payments infrastructure through initiatives such as the Bank Verification Number (BVN), Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), Shared Agent Network Facility (SANEF), Regulatory Sandbox, Open Banking, and the eNaira. Emefiele said, "It is important to note that the establishment of National Domestic Card Schemes is in line with global trends. Nigeria, by this initiative, will therefore be joining countries like China, Russia, Turkey, and India which have launched domestic card schemes and harnessed the transformative benefits for their respective payments and financial systems, particularly for the underbanked. "The CBN is committed to a robust, efficient, and safe national payments system and welcomes innovation from both domestic firms and foreign investors. The Nigerian market is vast, and the current participants have done so much in the last twelve years to transform the ecosystem." He said, "Yet there is much ground to be covered as millions of Nigerians are yet without payments cards to consummate transactions." "I am convinced that the National Domestic Card Scheme will make this a reality in the coming months. We can no longer neglect the vast majority of Nigerians whose daily payments needs are micropayments. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Nigeria Banking 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. "We need to capture them in national statistics to further understand their transaction dynamics and properly target interventions in that sector of the economy." The CBN governor said the card scheme presented opportunities for the economy to integrate the informal segment of the economy, reduce shadow banking, and bring more Nigerians into the formal financial services with attendant diversification of deposit portfolio which will further strengthen the stability of the banking industry. In her remarks, CBN Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability (FSS) Directorate, Mrs. Aishah Ahmad, said the innovation would revolutionise Africa's payment landscape. She said a major value proposition of the card scheme was the ability to lower operating costs and reduced charges, stressing "We're not in business to make a profit but rather to reduce costs. This is to deepen financial inclusion." According to her, the initiative would deepen financial payment, disclosing that it was the first central bank-led domestic card innovation in Africa. "It also gives us sovereignty of our data and presents a new vista for the card business," he added. KYIV, Ukraine Russia fired dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities on Thursday, piercing snow clouds and air defenses to kill at least 12 people across the country, in the Kremlins campaign to punish civilians while its army fights in Ukraines east. The wave of strikes came a day after Germany and the United States pledged to send dozens of battle tanks to Ukraine, a significant step up in Western military support. Ukraine managed to shoot down 47 of the 55 missiles, according to its Air Force command, including 20 in the area around the capital, Kyiv. But a variety of Russian strikes still killed 11 people across 11 regions, Ukraines State Emergency Service said. Another 11 people were wounded, and 35 buildings were damaged, it said. A 12th civilian was killed later in the day when a Russian rocket hit a village council building in Kochubeivka, a tiny community in the Kherson region, a military official said on Telegram. Jay Leno, the former Tonight Show host also known for his obsession with cars, had surgery on Tuesday to repair multiple broken bones after a motorcycle accident in early January, he said in an interview on Friday. He seemed to be back in good spirits: A 72-year-old man driving an 83-year-old motorcycle. What could go wrong? he quipped. In his latest accident, two months after he sustained burns while working on cars in his garage, Mr. Leno said he was test riding a 1940 Indian four-cylinder motorcycle with a sidecar on Jan. 17, when he noticed the smell of gas coming from the bike. He turned down a side street to check the motorcycle and was thrown off it after riding through a wire he could not see. The accident left him with a scar across his neck, two broken ribs, two broken kneecaps and a snapped collarbone that he had surgically repaired. When we started, there were no iPhones. There was no YouTube, there was no Uber, no Twitter, no Wi-Fi, no Netflix, no Google. We had Nokias and Ask Jeeves, and that was it. Weve been through two wars, a worldwide pandemic, four presidents, one insurrection, at least three different Kanyes. JIMMY KIMMEL You want to know how long our show has been around? We still have this is real a Blockbuster card. Thats how long. If you told me we were going to last longer than Blockbuster, I would have sooner believed I would be working at Blockbuster in 20 years. JIMMY KIMMEL Every day, it takes a lot of people to make something this dumb, and weve covered a lot of dumb stuff over the past 20 years, from Snooki to Honey Boo Boo. Ken Bone to Sarah Palin. Sanjaya. Clay Aiken. Chocolate Rain, double rainbow, Stormy Daniels, William Hung, the astronaut diaper lady. Kim Kardashians sex tape. Hulk Hogans sex tape. Pam and Tommys sex tape. The Octomom I think she made a sex tape. Nicki Minajs cousins friends balls. JIMMY KIMMEL I have been allowed to use this platform to speak out about issues that matter to me, like health care, sensible gun laws. Ive encouraged thousands of parents to eat their childrens Halloween candy. JIMMY KIMMEL Several top Ukrainian officials, including a deputy defense minister, were fired or forced to resign. The dismissals followed an investigative report that detailed how Ukraines military had paid inflated prices for food meant for its troops. The scandal broke as Ukraine was pleading with the West to send tanks. A presidential aide also resigned after drawing outrage for using an SUV that was donated for humanitarian work, and a deputy prosecutor general who caused a furor by taking a wartime vacation to Spain with his family was fired. The shake-up sends a very strong signal to others who would try to rip off this war effort and is important for the future of Ukraine, Victoria Nuland, the U.S. under secretary of state for political affairs, testified during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday. Ukraine has a history of corruption: It ranks 122 out of 180 countries on Transparency Internationals corruption index, making it the second-most corrupt country in Europe after Russia. With that in mind, the Biden administration has taken extra steps to ensure that safeguards are in place. The U.S. requires that Ukrainian officials log all military equipment they receive, track its progress to the front lines, and report ammunition expenditure and any damage or destruction of weapons. American personnel conduct inspections to track U.S. arms inside the country where security conditions allow. He added that next winter could be more challenging since the weather could be colder, Russian fuel exports would be further reduced by Western sanctions over the war, and Chinas economy would be recovering. The decline in Chinese consumption last year was relatively modest overall, but it was still important since China in recent years had been the worlds leading importer of oil and gas, and most energy experts said that should remain the case for at least a few years. Chinas oil demand for the year fell by 3 percent, or 390,000 barrels a day, the first decline since 1990, while total world demand increased by 2.2 million barrels a day, or roughly 2 percent, the energy agency said. The difference can be explained by much of the worlds recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic while the Chinese government kept many of its cities under lockdown. The energy agency forecast an overall increase of two million barrels a day in global oil demand this year, with China accounting for half of the increase. Chinas demand for natural gas declined by 0.7 percent in 2022, the first drop since 1982, the agency reported. Imports of liquefied natural gas fell by 21 percent, dropping China to second place among importers, behind Japan. The United States is a major exporter of gas to China, but over the past year it shifted much of its Asian business to Europe. For individuals suffering from a deadly disease, clinical trials for drugs offer lifesaving hope. But for all the rapid advances in science and medicine, some of the building blocks of clinical trials the back-end technology, data aggregation and patient recruitment havent changed much in decades. One start-up hopes to streamline the process. Paradigm, a company based in New York, is building technology that it says will make it easier for doctors, researchers and big pharmaceutical companies to carry out the often convoluted and messy work of clinical trials. Kent Thoelke, the chief executive of Paradigm, should know. Mr. Thoelke spent more than 25 years overseeing drug development and clinical trials at various health care companies and saw many of the inefficiencies firsthand. I had spent my entire career beating my head against the wall in a system that couldnt get out of its own way, he said. WASHINGTON The seven states that rely on water from the shrinking Colorado River are unlikely to agree to voluntarily make deep reductions in their water use, negotiators say, which would force the federal government to impose cuts for the first time in the water supply for 40 million Americans. The Interior Department had asked the states to voluntarily come up with a plan by Jan. 31 to collectively cut the amount of water they draw from the Colorado. The demand for those cuts, on a scale without parallel in American history, was prompted by precipitous declines in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which provide water and electricity for Arizona, Nevada and Southern California. Drought, climate change and population growth have caused water levels in the lakes to plummet. Think of the Colorado River Basin as a slow-motion disaster, said Kevin Moran, who directs state and federal water policy advocacy at the Environmental Defense Fund. Were really at a moment of reckoning. Negotiators say the odds of a voluntary agreement appear slim. It would be the second time in six months that the Colorado River states, which also include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, have missed a deadline for consensus on cuts sought by the Biden administration to avoid a catastrophic failure of the river system. I only intended to watch one of the snack-size shorts from the new season of Grandmas Project, a web series in which film directors document their grandmothers as they cook at home. But in a couple of hours, glued to my laptop, I wolfed down the entire archive. Made by mostly French directors, and featuring their immigrant grandmothers, the shorts had the same irresistible flavor as Martin Scorseses 1974 documentary Italianamerican. In its opening scenes, Catherine Scorsese, the directors mother, sits on a shiny, plastic-wrapped couch and considers the silliness of her sons film: What should I say? You want me to tell you how I make the sauce? I have watched it countless times, always noticing some new, magnificent idiosyncrasy in Ms. Scorseses tone, her gestures, her humor, the precise clutter of her countertops and shelves. I thought of her again when I watched the charming short by Zeynep Dilara. The Food and Drug Administration plans to revise a longstanding policy that excluded most gay and bisexual men from blood donation, instead adopting an approach that will screen donors depending on their recent sexual activity, agency officials said on Friday. The move follows years of criticism from L.G.B.T.Q. advocates, who have described the prohibition as unscientific and discriminatory. Federal officials have long justified the exclusion of gay and bisexual men as a way to keep H.I.V. out of the blood supply. A complete prohibition was put in place in the 1980s. In 2015, the agency allowed gay and bisexual men to donate if they had not had sexual contact with other men for the previous year. The period was reduced to three months after severe blood shortages during the Covid-19 pandemic. The F.D.A. said the new guidelines would be more inclusive and were based on a review of a recent study and data from other countries, including Britain and Canada, that took similar approaches. The new draft policy is also intended to shore up U.S. blood stores, which dipped at the outset of the pandemic and remain low. In a video call, Dambrine, who is now 15, explained that it had been a boyhood dream to act in a movie, and that he had gotten the impression that acting could be fun from watching the blooper reels from Avengers films. (He added that when he called his mother to tell her that a stranger had approached him about starring in a movie, she had responded: Get off the train! Get off the train!) His mother ultimately accompanied him throughout the shoot, which lasted two months, in Belgium and the Netherlands. Among other challenges, the film required Dambrine to act out several intensely emotional moments in long, silent close-up. After he nailed a scene, in the first take, in which his character has a breakdown in a doctors office, much of the crew began weeping, Dhont recalled. Dambrines mother, whose name is France, said Dhonts talent for working with young actors was partly a function of his youth. He is not that far from being a teen, she said, adding that Dhonts emphasis on fostering bonds between crew and cast members before shooting, and his openness to improvisation, allowed her son to feel comfortable so he could focus on the emotional elements of his performance. She also noted that Dhont and Dambrine shared the experience of having been raised by single mothers who had to figure out how to raise their kids. The director, she said, has a lot of empathy. Thupeyo Muleya A new clinic is set to open doors at the 60km peg along the Beitbridge-Bulawayo Road in the Mazunga area with construction workers now putting some final touches to the health institution. The clinic will service communities around resettlements areas in ward 14, Tshionzeni, Musane, Mapani, Mabidi, Masera, Zhovhe area as well as motorists using the Beitbridge-Bulawayo Road. Communities in the area, working with the local legislator, Cde Ruth Maboyi and the Beitbridge Rural District Council put together resources and converted a former farmhouse into a clinic. Project chairman, Mr Alfred Makhomo Moyo said the opening of the facility would ease the plight of sick people who had to walk up to 15km to get medical attention. The distance is almost twice the maximum distance recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for people to access health services. According to WHO standards, people should not walk for more than 8km to access primary healthcare facilities. "We noticed a gap in terms of public health service delivery in our area, which is predominantly a farming zone and we are located along the major highway," said Mr Moyo. "So we decided to pool resources and modify this former farmhouse into a clinic. We approached our council and businessmen around who made this dream possible. "This health facility is located at a central place in Ward 14 and we are looking forward to its opening." He said they had since received medical equipment from well-wishers for use upon the completion of the project. Mr Moyo said painting, modification of infrastructure and plumbing had been completed. At the moment, he said they were waiting for the Zimbabwe Electricity and Transmission Distribution Company (ZETDC) to connect the clinic to the main power supply line. "The local authority and the Ministry of Health and Child Care will soon be conducting their final inspections and we are looking at open for services in the next few days," he said. The medical facility has a maternity wing to accommodate more than 12 women at a time, a pharmacy, mothers' waiting shelter, environmental health section. Other sections include the general out patients' department, male and female wards and a standard emergency room among other facilities. A villager from Malala in Ward 6 Ms Remaketsi Mbedzi said the opening of Mazunga clinic would help address challenges some women in Beitbridge West were having in accessing primary health care facilities. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Zimbabwe Health 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. "This is a welcome development in our area and we are hoping that the new clinic will help ease the pressure at Mtetengwe Clinic which is serving the larger part of Ward 14 resettlement areas. At the same time, the burden on women in that area will be minimised especially those seeking neo and post-natal services," said Ms Mbedzi. Career Development worker, Mr Enock Kwinika said the new facility was very critical in servicing travellers who fell sick on their journeys between Beitbridge and Bulawayo or in times of road traffic accidents. He said currently, accident victims along the 200km road stretch between Gwanda and Beitbridge were travelling for longer distances to access emergency medical attention. Mr Kwinika said the clinic was strategically positioned to serve a larger number of villagers from the farming area and surrounding communal lands. Beitbridge West Legislator, Cde Ruth Maboyi who is also the Deputy Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Minister said she was working with villagers in most areas to construct more health facilities through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF). "We have a shortage of such facilities, but we are doing is to bring together community members and other development agencies to construct more facilities," she said. "At the moment, we are busy constructing Whunga clinic in Ward 1o, which is now at roof level. "Where we identify gaps and a construction site, villagers are contributing labour and sometimes material supported by other players including the local authorities to build the infrastructure." Hansen-Love came up with the idea for One Fine Morning several years ago after she, her daughter and her new partner stopped by Oles nursing home. It was an emotional visit, and Hansen-Love collected herself afterward by climbing the steps at Sacre-Coeur for a view of the city. This is really something only tourists do, she clarified, and added that they went just because the lookout was nearby. Once the trio reached the top, however, Hansen-Love was struck by the idea for a film that would distill her conflicting feelings. Two things were happening at the same time in my life, and they were very opposite. One was very painful, and one was certainly complicated but happy. And I made that observation: how much it helped that I was in love to overcome or to cope with the experience of seeing my father slowly dying. Hansen-Love recreates this visit with Ole and the subsequent ascent at Sacre-Coeur to a precise degree in One Fine Morning. She even shot the scene in the clinic where her father once resided. (Ole died early in the pandemic, soon after Hansen-Love wrote the screenplay.) She hoped the film would encapsulate the secret dialogue between tragedy and joy that crystallized for her that day. Life sometimes gives us reasons to despair, and on the other hand, it gives us reasons to hope, she said. Hansen-Love grew up in a small, ground-floor apartment in Paris near a Metro station. One of her clearest childhood memories is the sound of the train cars screeching away from the stop. During holiday seasons, her parents, who both taught philosophy, would shepherd her and her elder brother to her grandmothers remote house in the mountains, near the source of the Loire River. Reality, though, proves tricky, slippery terrain in the screen adaptation, which like several other female-driven festival titles this year (Eileen, Sometimes I Think About Dying) uses a womans fantasies to complicated, at times uneasy effect. In Roupenians original story, Margot goes out with Robert but also wonders whether he poses a threat. She sleeps with him; it gets (very) weird. Roupenian artfully, at times comically marshals Margots hesitation to create tension and suspense in a story that deals with power, sexual consent, gender norms, the limits of knowledge and that durable narrative theme: female paranoia. Directed by Susanna Fogel from a script by Michelle Ashford, Cat Person changes the original storys dynamic and blunts its subtleties by visually staging Margots hesitations. At one point, for instance, while she and Robert are in his car on their first date, he abruptly starts strangling Margot, only for the scene to cut back to them just awkwardly driving and talking. The filmmakers teasingly play with womens fears about men is it all in her head? and its not for nothing that one of the first sounds in Cat Person is of a woman screaming, which emanates from a cheesy old trailer playing at the movie theater where Margot works. Like many indies, Cat Person opens stronger than it closes, partly because it uses the spectacle of violence to tie up its loose, provocative ends. Thats also the case with the smoothly seductive Fair Play, yet another addition to #MeToo cinema. (Its been snapped up by Netflix.) Written and directed by Chloe Domont, this effective, slow-boiling drama centers on Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich), whose happiness is undone after she receives a promotion at the brokerage firm where they both work. She becomes his boss and soon they become each others adversaries, a breakdown in relations that reaches a punishing climax (for them and for us) with a succession of exceedingly brutal acts. The stakes are grimmer and considerably more persuasive in A Thousand and One, the poignant feature debut of A.V. Rockwell about a young ex-con trying to keep her tiny family together. Set in New York in the mid-1990s, this drama follows Inez (a terrific Teyana Taylor) from jail to Harlem as she struggles to find (and hold onto) an affordable apartment in a fast-changing neighborhood while landing a decent-paying job and rekindling an affair with an old boyfriend. With emotional delicacy and a lightly expressionistic visual style, Rockwell brings both Inez and New York to life, skillfully setting one womans hardscrabble personal story against a larger political backdrop. Rockwell is the real deal; keep an eye on her. That legacy is now under threat, after New York City voted in 2019 to ban the sale of foie gras, arguing that the way it is prepared, by force-feeding ducks to engorge their livers, amounts to torture and animal cruelty. The ban was expected to go into effect at the end of last year. It has instead set off a monthslong legal battle. Foie gras farmers, with state officials and France supporting them, have fought the ban, saying it could put them out of business. This has set off a back-and-forth with frustrated animal rights activists and New York City government leaders, including the current and previous mayors. Lab Animals: Standard ethical guidelines encourage minimizing the use of, and harm to, animals used in research. Some experts Standard ethical guidelines encourage minimizing the use of, and harm to, animals used in research. Some experts propose an additional courtesy : repayment. Alternatives to Animal Testing: Thanks in part to new laws and new technologies, momentum is building Thanks in part to new laws and new technologies, momentum is building for approaches to drug development that do not involve the use of lab animals. Volunteers Only: A farm sanctuary in New York is investigating the inner lives of cows, pigs and chickens, but only if the animals A farm sanctuary in New York is investigating the inner lives of cows, pigs and chickens, but only if the animals choose to participate in the studies A Case for Equal Rights: In her latest book, the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum argues for increased legal standing for animals. In her latest book, the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum argues for increased legal standing for animals. David Marchese asked her about it The two farms, Hudson Valley and La Belle, sued in May over the ban. In September, a New York State Supreme Court judge issued a preliminary injunction in the case. While it was pending, the New York State Department of Agriculture in December called the citys law unreasonably restrictive. Last week, the city filed a lawsuit against the Agriculture Department, saying that the agency had overreached and calling its judgment arbitrary and capricious. The city also argued that the farms produce products other than foie gras, and therefore would not suffer as great a financial loss as they claim. The city says its ban only targets the sale of foie gras in New York City the farms can technically sell it anywhere else. After the state responds in that case, the court will set a schedule that could include hearings of oral arguments. Earlier this month, after he declined to throw out the New York attorney generals fraud suit against Donald Trump calling the presidents petition frivolous and suggesting he would sanction his lawyers Justice Arthur F. Engoron delivered a quieter decision that reverberated more fractiously within Manhattans liberal ecosystem. The matter before the state supreme court justice involved the fate of an empty plot of land on Water Street that is technically within the perimeter of the South Street Seaport Historic District, with all the restrictions such a designation implies. Despite the omnipresent urgency of the citys housing crisis, the parcel, at 50,000 square feet, had remained a historically landmarked parking lot for decades. The vibe shift arrived in 2018 when a Texas real-estate firm, the Howard Hughes Corporation, bought the lot with the intention of constructing a 26-story apartment building that would include commercial space, anticipating the inevitable community backlash over scale. Although the project had the support of city officials, it would still need approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission. In a highly unusual realignment of traditional sympathies, the commission, hearing the case two years ago, did not side with the local opposition. Instead it signed off on a prospective building that would stand at 324 feet. The building at 250 Water Street would be much taller than anything else in the compact historic precinct, whose precise borders are meaningful to preservationists but not altogether obvious to the ordinary flaneur, who experiences the Seaport as a performatively consumerist extension of the financial district one where, as of last month, it became possible to immerse yourself in the world of the Golden Girls by way of a pop-up restaurant, The Golden Girls Kitchen. Walking around the neighborhood, you might find it hard to understand the objections to a venture that would be half the size of a beleaguered glass skyscraper meant for waterfront luxury condominiums the Seaport Residences partially up, right nearby on Maiden Lane but nevertheless outside the district. Similarly, the Water Street project would stand around 500 feet shorter than Frank Gehrys 8 Spruce Street two very visible blocks away, a building that introduces into the Lower Manhattan skyline the impression of a steel-gray towel in the process of getting wrung dry. [MUSIC PLAYING] ezra klein Im Ezra Klein. This is The Ezra Klein Show. Its part of the great narrative of American politics that Donald Trump took on China. He said China was raping us, they were cheating American businesses, are taking our jobs, screwing us over in deals. And one thing here, with Trump, he didnt just talk. He actually took action. He began a trade war. He blocked the Chinese company, Huawei. He moved towards forcing the sale of TikTok. And just fundamentally, he treated China as a threat, as a quasi enemy, not really as a partner. And then, in 2020, whatever he says, he lost. And Joe Biden, with his more measured rhetoric, and his continuity with the Obama team, he took the White House. But he didnt go back to the old consensus on China. He didnt roll back Donald Trumps policies. He went way further. Hes more measured in how he talks about China than Trump was. But the places where he isnt, theyre more consequential like in his repeated declarations about how far America will go in supporting Taiwan, declarations his own administration has repeatedly, now, walked back. And its not just Biden. Washington, as a whole, is increasingly hawkish on China. Bills like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, theyre often framed as opposition to China. If you want to get something done in Washington today that is bipartisan, you frame it as competition with China. Nancy Pelosi, she visited Taiwan, against the pleas of much of Washingtons foreign-policy community. Theres this dynamic, in Washington right now, where there is a lot of consensus around China, but always in the direction of getting more hawkish, more confrontational, with Beijing. And that is not in any way to say there arent real reasons for that, or that Beijing doesnt hold some responsibility for that. But it is a dynamic that needs to be named and looked at and thought about. Jessica Chen Weiss has been trying to do that. Shes a political scientist and a China scholar at Cornell University. From August 2021 to July 2022, she served as senior adviser in the Biden State Department. And she emerged from that experience really worried about what she calls, the China trap, this dynamic the U.S. and China are in that could become, maybe has become, a process of mutual escalation that is not going to be easy to break, and could make conflict a lot more likely than it needs to be. As always, my email, ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com. Jessica Chen Weiss, welcome to the show. jessica chen weiss Thanks so much. Its great to be here. ezra klein So I want to begin with a moment I found really remarkable. So back in May, Russias invasion of Ukraine is still fresh. Its in full swing. Putin is global enemy number one. And Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, gives this major speech at George Washington. And he says in it, quote, Even as President Putins war continues, we will remain focused on the most serious, long-term challenge to the international order. And thats posed by the Peoples Republic of China. You worked in Bidens State Department for a while on U.S.-China issues. When Blinken frames China as the central threat to the international order, even at a time when Russia is invading Ukraine, what does he mean? jessica chen weiss Wow, that takes me back because I was actually in the State Department when that speech came out. And you know what it basically means is that China is increasingly influential in the international system. And its run by a government that has very different values from ours. And it is unlike Russia, which it poses an acute military threat, its invaded its neighbor, China has, I think, in the eyes of the administration, a much longer game. It is interested in reshaping the rules, the norms, the principles of that order to better suit and provide space for Chinas authoritarian system in the international order, which has long-privileged democracies. ezra klein I think the cynical take that youll hear from critics inside America and outside is that we are not worried about the international order. We are worried about our own leadership or pre-eminence of it. What do you think were worried about? jessica chen weiss I have to say that those cynics are probably not far off the mark. I think that its not a pretty fact. And I wish it were otherwise. But if you fast-forward several months, to Jake Sullivans speech on the eve of the rollout of the U.S. semiconductor restrictions, he talked about maintaining not a relative, but an absolute lead over China, and as large as possible of a lead. And so I think that even though we dont talk about it a lot, ultimately, this is about American primacy or pre-eminence, where we got used to being the sole superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union, at the end of the Cold War. And I think that weve are still coming to grips with the fact that, even though I think we still remain head and shoulders above many others, increasingly, the world is becoming more and more populated by other major powers, with significant influence that they would like to throw around. And so when they talk about the rules-based international order, I think that it reflects the nostalgia for what was, and doesnt really reflect the fact that we have, I think, really done as much as China, to undermine it in recent years, particularly under the Trump administration, with the withdrawal from certain U.N. bodies, the Paris Agreement, et cetera. And so although this administration is back, and very much wants to be seen as a champion of the rules-based international order, as Secretary Blinken loves to call it, nonetheless, even in recent weeks, weve repudiated the ruling of the World Trade Organization against the Trump-era steel tariffs, and arent doing a whole lot although I think there is, I think, a desire to revitalize and modernize that international order. I think that the scale of the investment and really the political will to do so, I think has really foundered on the shoals of political partisanship at home, and the fact that we are no longer as committed to leading internationally as we once were. ezra klein I think its always hard to talk in terms of the rules-based order because, as youre gesturing towards, America often violates the rules of it. And so you can get really caught in charges of hypocrisy. But I think if you back out, what is being said here is that we are a liberal democracy. And you want the global superpower to be a liberal democracy. And China is an increasingly authoritarian and surveillance-oriented and worrying state. So to quote Secretary Blinken, he says, in that same speech, Under President Xi, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad. We see that in how Beijing has perfected mass surveillance within China and exported that technology to more than 80 countries, how its advancing unlawful Maritime claims in the South China Sea, undermining peace and security, freedom of navigation and commerce, how its circumventing or breaking trade rules, harming workers and companies, and so on. And the argument being made here is that China has become a kind of state, that it would be frightening to have them wielding too much power, that there has been a change. Its been a change in a marked period of time, particularly under Xi. And that is why America has had to move into a more competitive or confrontational or concerned posture. Do you buy that? jessica chen weiss Theres no question that China has become both of those things, more repressive at home and aggressive in the tactics that its using abroad. I think the question is, where is this leading? Where are the increasingly confrontational or competitive actions on both sides? This tit-for-tat spiral that were in, where is that headed? And in my view, its likely to lead to a growing risk of an avoidable crisis, likely over Taiwan. And its likely to put increasing strain, if not paralysis, in that international system, and on the various institutions that once worked to find common solutions or regulate disputes. And so increasingly, were seeing efforts to block and check counter Chinas initiatives, which theres a role for that. But the question is, are they in service of something that we want, that we want to create or we want to fashion? That ultimately acknowledges the reality that China is not really going anywhere. Its going to remain influential, to a greater or lesser degree. And so simply blocking Chinese influence cant really be the solution. It means that we have trouble prioritizing. It means that we are often overly reactive. And it means that we arent really driving toward a specific destination of a positive-sum inclusive vision of the future for ourselves at home, but also in the world. What do we want it to look like in three, five, or 10 years Im not sure we have yet figured out what that is. ezra klein I want to talk about some of those recent policies. But I want to work our way up to them. Tell me how you would characterize the orientation towards China over the past three presidents. What did Obama do differently than what was being done before him? What did, then, Trump do differently than Obama? And what has Biden, then, done differently than Trump? jessica chen weiss So Obama came into office, really, with the global financial crisis, roiling global markets and our own domestic economy. And it was at that time that we first, we looked to China a little bit, to help stabilize the international system, which it did. But it also, I think, on the Chinese side, also dislodged any notion that the United States was the teacher and China the student. And we saw, from 2008 into 2012, a Chinese Communist Party that was, even under Xi Jinpings predecessor, Hu Jintao, increasingly concerned and, frankly, more willing to crack down upon domestic dissent and expressions of sympathy or interest in liberal ideas that they saw as, really, imported from the outside. And so as, I think, the Obama administration registered Chinas growing what was then often termed assertiveness, oftentimes in reaction to something else that took place, whether it was an incident in the East China Sea with Japan, or in the South China Sea with the Philippines, China began acting more assertively, sending ships into disputed waters regularly. And then, toward the end of the Obama administration, doing this massive reclamation in the South China Sea, and setting up militarized outposts there. And so the Obama administration really moved, I think, more toward emphasizing deterrence, and in the so-called pivot or rebalance to Asia. But the Trump administration really took that to a whole other level. Trumps assessment of China was that it was out to rape the United States, and especially after the Covid pandemic broke out, really pointed the finger at China and began to accuse China of really seeking to undermine dominate the world and undermine democracy. And we saw, really, the escalation of a number of punitive actions that hadnt been taken before. First, there was the trade war, which, to some extent, settled out with a phase one trade deal, a negotiated arrangement. But that really then, collapsed, I think, under the pressure of the pandemic, and the increasing willingness of the Trump administration to allow more hawkish voices, particularly Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and others, to really go after the Chinese Communist Party with a variety of different punitive actions sanctions, bans. And from there, that was really, I would say, what the Biden administration inherited when it entered office. And I would say that many people expected the Biden administration to lift some of the more unreasonable or even irrational pieces of what the Trump administration had implemented in particular, these tariffs that were hurting many American businesses and consumers. But I think there was a combination of political concern that doing so would be seen as too soft on China. It would make it harder to get key nominees through Congress, would give Republicans an opening to attack the administration. And there was also, I would say, a fair amount of continuity in the underlying diagnosis, that China was now the greatest strategic challenge to the United States, and our policy needed to change to reflect that. And I think there was in, for example, in key senior officials, the belief that the policies of the past had failed. And this is in the words of Kurt Campbell, the era of engagement was over, and that we needed something different. And so there was, I think, a shared assessment that really meant that the Biden administration started out with a pretty tough set of policies that had been inherited from the Trump administration, and which ultimately, didnt really change to much extent. And then weve only seen, in months since, I think, the accumulation of additional efforts to do various things. I would say that there has been theyve been very careful to say that we are not in a Cold War, we do not seek a Cold War, we do not seek decoupling, but nonetheless are taking very systematic, tough actions, to try to protect many of the national security interests that were seen as key vulnerabilities. And so now, here we are today with, I would say, a growing interest in at least conducting normal, diplomatic engagements with China. But I think that fundamentally, the focus on competition, I think, remains predominant, although I think the administration has been clear that we would like to cooperate with China in areas is that are in our mutual interest, ranging from climate change to infectious disease to counternarcotics. But that cooperation, I think, in this approach, is something thats nice to have, but not necessarily a defining feature of the strategy, which really rests on these three pillars that Secretary Blinken laid out invest at home, align with our allies and partners, and then compete with China. And youll notice that cooperation isnt really prominent there. Its a second I would say almost a second-tier priority. ezra klein I think there was a view, when Biden came in I dont love the terms harder and softer but that he would be a break away from Trumps more punitive policies and rhetoric towards China, back towards something else more engagement, more cooperation focused. Id say that didnt happen. I think its quite fair to say, his policies took what Trump did and then built on them, quite dramatically. And rhetorically, hes not he doesnt say things like Chinas out to rape us, the way Donald Trump did. But in some ways, he and his administration, in part because, I think the view is you can actually listen to what theyre saying, they say things that are more profound within the context of the relationship. Hes made a number of comments that go far beyond what has been our more ambiguous statements on Taiwan. You have things like the Blinken speech. Its not gentle rhetoric, by any means. And it all comes down, I guess, to this word I hear from them all the time, when I ask them about it, which is competition. And I want to ask you about it because I think there can be two ways of understanding competition. One is that we want to make sure we can win a race. We think China has built up an amazing manufacturing capability, and we want to reinvest in domestic manufacturing. And then theres another thing that I think is hiding in that word sometimes, which is, its not winning the race; its making it so the other guy cant win the race. Its impeding or handicapping or sabotaging. And the semiconductor rules seem like a big break point here. Can you talk a bit about what those are, and what they implied and the way that our view of China, of what we should be doing towards China, changed? jessica chen weiss Thats a great question. And I would say, first of all, youre right that theres two ways to compete if youre running a race. You could run faster or you could slow your opponent down. And I think that the semiconductor restrictions, almost explicitly in how Jake Sullivan described it, reflected a shift in understanding of the administration, that it was no longer enough simply to run faster and stay a couple of generations ahead. We now needed to do everything we could to hold China back to a level that was to maximize our lead in doing so, and that over time, that wouldnt necessarily be adjusted as technology progressed but would be fixed in place. And so you might say, thats a bet about the nature of these foundational technologies and their military applications, which has a little bit of a futuristic, sci-fi bend. But people, I think, say that, well, these chips are being used in Chinas hypersonic missiles. And so its totally sensible that we should not be selling these chips to them. But there are different ways to not sell advanced chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China. One is to say, you cant sell to these entities which are known to be associated with the Peoples Liberation or the Chinese military. That was the older-style, the end-user based export control system. And this one, however, is much more sweeping. Firms need to apply for licenses to export either these advanced-node chips to China, or to export the equipment necessary to make them, and that its also extraterritorial. And this applies to firms anywhere in the world that use U.S. technology to do so. And so theres a unilateralism to these semiconductor restrictions, so far at least, that is a little bit at odds with the ostensible, multilateral emphasis of the Biden administration. I say so far, at least, because I think the administration is now very much engaged in the process of trying to get allies and partners on board, particularly Japan and the Netherlands, which are leaders in this area, to go along with, and adopt similar kinds of export controls. But until that happens, effectively, the United States is coercing others around the world to not sell this kind of technology to China. ezra klein I want to hold on this policy for a second because to zoom out, the reason this particular policy got a lot of attention, in my view, is that it was a little bit of a crossing of a bridge. And maybe Ill quote Clete Willems, who worked on international economic policy towards China under Trump, on this. He said to Politico, that the Biden administration views Chinese Indigenous innovation as a per se national security threat ... and that is a big leap from where weve ever been before. And you can take that too far. They dont view it that way on everything. But Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has said that they dont just see it this way on semiconductors. They see it this way on renewable-energy technology. They see it this way on biotechnology. And its true that all of these things have, or can have, either a national-security dimension chips go in a missile or they can become something where other countries have a dependency on Chinese production, and so China has coercive capabilities in the way that maybe Russia did with natural gas towards Europe. But were really, then, saying that very, very important technologies are just intrinsically national security threats. And we are I dont really know how to think about this. We are really just saying, we are going to try to slow Chinas technological advancement, as a country, because we think it is unsafe for us in the world if they pass us or match us in next-generation technological capabilities. And thats a really Im not saying that theres no rationale for it. Its just a very profound stance to take towards another country that you also are intertwined with and need to cooperate with and are not at war with. jessica chen weiss I think youve put your finger on it. It is a really big shift in the way that we have regarded and treated China. And even though you might say that there are, of course, some technologies that should not be sold or transferred to China, when you start talking about green technology and biotech, we then have to wonder, OK, if youre going to slow China down, how much are you also slowing ourselves down? And how much are you then making it harder for the world to solve the kinds of pressing challenges climate change, cancer that might be discovered in China? If they were discovered in China or made affordable in China, wouldnt that be a good thing for the world? And I would say that well have to see. But I think the signs are that this is how the Biden administration sees these technologies. And even though that doesnt extend to Chinas ability to produce teddy bears or underwear, thats still a lot of technologies that dont have clear military purposes. And so Im concerned. Im concerned about the direction of travel here. Even though, rhetorically, we reject decoupling, between the administrations statements about future technologies that could be ezra klein Could you say what decoupling is? jessica chen weiss Yeah, so decoupling is basically the idea that we wont trade with each other, that we will separate ourselves economically, financially. And I would say that most people regard and I think I would also say thats impossible. We are among each others largest trading partners. And so its right to say this is not decoupling. But it is certainly moving us in that direction. And theres a question, at what point does movement to disentangle and erect barriers between ourselves, to what extent does that have really negative repercussions for our ability to decarbonize, to solve many common challenges in health and other areas? ezra klein How does a policy like this look to China? What is it, both in terms of their direct response to the policy, and in terms of what they understand our view towards them and our relationship to them is? jessica chen weiss These export controls, I think, served as yet another data point for Chinese analysts to say, look, the United States is out to contain Chinas rise. And it will stop at very little to do so. I think that they got the message when the Trump administration used similar measures against Huawei. And it was then that they really started to stockpile and invest very heavily in making their firms effectively independent, not reliant so much on external inputs. But Huaweis still struggling. And so these export controls are hurting Chinese firms. But the question is, will they succeed? And the Chinese response has been, they wont that one of the unfortunate consequences of unilateral export controls of this nature is that they give firms around the world a huge incentive to de-Americanize their technologies so that they can continue to sell to Chinese firms. And so experts in this area one put the impact of these restrictions that maybe it would slow China down for a couple of years, but that they would nonetheless ultimately manage to surmount this through even greater domestic investments in R&D and in their own Indigenous innovation. And so I think another question with these export controls is, will they even be effective? So what benefit have we gotten, at what cost? [MUSIC PLAYING] ezra klein You wrote in a piece for Foreign Affairs that quote, Overreacting, by framing competition with China in civilizational or ideological terms, risks backfiring by turning China into what many in Washington fear it already is. And I was thinking about that because as Ive been doing more reporting around this question, and something Ill hear from administration officials, is, look, China gets up in the morning, and they want to become the worlds leading superpower. And they think we stand in their way. Im paraphrasing here. And then basically, the next sentence is something like, and we take them seriously on that. And we are completely determined to stand in their way. And theres this funny way in which, to the point of your quote, it certainly seems like we might be making the other sides fears about us truer than they would otherwise be, which then makes it more reasonable to act in these ways, which then makes the fears even truer. I just worry about I wonder about a cycle of turning ourselves into antagonists and how inevitable or necessary that really is. jessica chen weiss Thats exactly the dynamic that I see taking place. And I think some would say, well, of course. Theres nothing to do about that. They couldnt be persuaded otherwise. Thats their ambition. And I see it a little bit differently. And in fact, many in the U.S. intelligence community dont conclude that China is bent on global domination. So if you look at the 2022 threat assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it talks about Chinas desire to become the preeminent regional power and a major global power. Thats a, not the, major global power. And so I think that there is, unfortunately, kind of an artificial, I think, sense of certainty about Chinas ultimate ambitions, because if you believe they are fixed and unchanging, then theres no downside risk to just standing in their way because theyve already priced that in. But if you think, as I and many others do, that very little in Chinese politics is fixed in that system. It is one that has evolved. It has reinvented itself. It uses ideology and rhetoric, often very instrumentally. It embraced and co-opted capitalists, and then rewrote its ideology to gloss over the fact that it was doing so that theres a lot more domestic contestation, if you will, over what China wants. Theyre not sure, exactly, what kind of international order they want. Theyre not sure what costs theyre willing to pay in order to be a leader. There have been, I think, a lot of domestic concerns about Chinas overseas spending at a time when theres still intense poverty, rampant inequality, high levels of youth unemployment, for China to be spending that overseas and rather than on bettering the lives of Chinas own people. It means that theres these unresolved debates within China over what China wants. Now, certainly, the Chinese Communist Party wants security, and feels, I think, mortally threatened by the more intrusive, liberal the universalism of liberal values. And so they do want to reshape the international order to privilege the state over the political rights of individuals. But thats different from saying they need to or want to upend the international order, necessarily, replace the United States as the sole global superpower. ezra klein You were in the administration for a while on these issues. And I think its fair to say youre more on the dovish side of these questions. My instincts tend to put me there. But the people were talking about Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan and so on theyre not people who hate peace or are unaware of these dynamics in which more hostile policy towards China is going to make China more hostile towards us. And as China continues to rise in power, theres going to be more hostility between the two countries, and thats a dangerous thing. So they clearly believe this to be truly important. And youll hear them say things like, this is a defining decade. This is a decade in which the terms of our relationship and competition with each other will be profoundly set. So what is it that you would hear, inside or outside, as the counterargument to this? jessica chen weiss Their kind of argument would be that we tried. The Obama administration tried very hard to engage China, to bring it into the international system. And look what happened. They militarized the South China Sea. They stole our intellectual property. And really, theres no good-faith effort on their side. So even if we wanted to, theyre bent on taking advantage of the kind of privileges that have been afforded to them, and the access that they have had. And I would say that theres bad faith and a lot of mistrust, or I would say mutual suspicions, on both sides, and that even though that history cant be redone, nonetheless, the bet all along, I think, was that having China on the inside of these institutions was better than having China on the outside of them. And that even though China is no longer liberalizing, we still have to figure out how to live with one another. And so the alternative, which is to simply continue this tit-for-tat struggle with one another, is really leading in a direction that will ultimately be at enormous cost to not only our economic interests, but also our values, as we basically make common cause with whoever around the world that might stand with us against China. ezra klein What do we actually want? Because there is a realism here, in all these speeches. People understand, they say they know. China is powerful. It is large. It is becoming more so. And so theres no real world here, where China is not, as it already is to some degree, a central superpower. Its not 100 percent clear to me, then, what the stated endgame is. Do you feel like you have a better sense of that? jessica chen weiss Not only do I not have a better sense of it, but I think that theres real resistance to even defining it. Because history, of course, doesnt end. And its difficult to look five, 10 years down the pike, when I think many people are, today, motivated by the sense this urgent need to counter whatever it is that pops up on the radar, that China is doing here, there, or the other place. And so I think that its difficult. I think theres a recognition that unbounded competition, without guardrails, as the administration likes to put it, thats not a good place to be. So we have the rhetoric of, we need to manage this competition responsibly. But what does that mean and where is it going? I dont think that theres a clear vision, unfortunately. And its really not on one administration, I think, to put that forward. This has to be something that is more broadly bought into because given the nature of American politics, I think that theres an unfortunate tendency to not want to stick out ones neck when more measured, pragmatic policy is just going to invite an investigation, which we may well see, as the House stands up its its new select committee on China. ezra klein To draw out another political or geopolitical argument that I think has become influential, one thing youll hear is that there is an ineluctable tension between a world safe for liberal democracies and a world safe for authoritarian or autocratic regimes, and that theres no real plausible coexistence there because the two are just always in conflict. The very things that a liberal democracy is doing and supporting and pushing are a threat to the stability of autocratic regimes, the freedom of speech, the lack of domestic surveillance, political rights, political liberalization and vice versa. And so the reason we have such an interest, here, in Chinas rise, or in curbing it, is because we are trying to make the world safe for ourselves and for political systems like ours, and that if China becomes powerful enough, theyll use economic coercion, video surveillance and so on, not because, necessarily, theyre expansionistic, but because they are just trying to protect themselves from the threat of liberalism. How do you take that argument? jessica chen weiss So Im very much of the view that a world safe for democracy could also be a world safe for autocracy, so long as its one that reinforces the sovereignty norms at the heart of the U.N. Charter, which is noninterference in others affairs. Now, what does that mean in practice? I think it basically means that both the United States and China would have to curb some of the extraterritorial infringements that were seeing today, whether thats Chinese influence efforts abroad, and supporting candidates or intimidating dissent, or it might mean reining in the scope of American sanctions on Chinese Communist Party officials for things that they have done inside their borders, for example. I think that the question here is, will defining this competition as one between systems alleviate or make that competition more intense. And here, I think theres a concern that if China concludes that the United States is indeed unwilling to coexist with China, so long as it remains authoritarian, that it will only take more and more aggressive actions to delegitimize and potentially destabilize democracy. Now, Im not a Russia expert. But my understanding, from talking to colleagues who are, is that the Russian interference efforts were, at least in Moscow, conceived of as retaliation for U.S. efforts to support democracy in Russia and its near abroad. And so I worry that we are at the beginning stages of an escalating ideological competition, where the United States and China no longer remain chiefly interested in defending our respective systems but are, in fact, as the United States and Soviet Union were during the Cold War, engaged in going around the world, meddling in various places to put our thumb on the ledger in order to counter the perceived influence of our geopolitical rival. [MUSIC PLAYING] ezra klein One of the scenarios that emerges, when people are afraid of this, is Taiwan. And you hear, again, different incarnations of this scenario. One is that China gets stronger and decides its time to take Taiwan by force. Another is that China is getting weaker and worries that the window is closing to take Taiwan. But theres a real fear that what happened with Russia and Ukraine will happen with China and Taiwan. And Americas become more committed. And things Joe Biden says we say our policy hasnt changed, but hes been much more explicit about our intention to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion effort. How do you think about the flash point of Taiwan? jessica chen weiss So I would say that there are a lot of pressures on the status quo, which has really served all parties, Beijing, Taiwan and the United States, pretty well for decades. But it is under, I would say, unprecedented pressure. And the status quo, really, is that Taiwan is a self-governing democracy. But it doesnt enjoy formal, legal, international recognition. And one of the sources of pressure on this are, I think, to some extent, it is Chinas growing military capabilities, which make it a little bit less credible that the United States would be able to hold off China if it were to decide to invade. That said, it would still be extremely costly, very difficult, for the Chinese military to take the island easily, just given geography. Its a very tough target. And I would say that other changes, I think equally significant, are, first, Taiwans democratization and evolution, over generations, of a more independent, so-called naturally independent Taiwanese political identity that wants very little to do with mainland China. And the experience of watching the crackdown on Hong Kongs autonomy and democratic freedoms have really made the so-called one country, two systems model that China has offered, as the way that Taiwan would be governed after unification, really a nonstarter among the Taiwan public, as well as Taiwans political leaders. And so what we have now, I would say, is a very eroding status quo, which for the U.S. part, I think, has also become a little bit hard to explain, especially as the desire to stand up to China, I think, takes hold. And in particular, Taiwan is this theres a moral piece here that Taiwan is a vibrant democracy worth defending. But that ultimately has the effect of destabilizing this equilibrium that has held for so many years because part of what has made this work for so long was that leaders in Beijing could continue to tell themselves that there is a prospect for peaceful unification, and that the United States would not necessarily stand in the way of that. But increasingly, as you have the United States doing things with Taiwan that look like, to Beijing, a restoration of the defensive alliance, a formal relationship that the United States once had with Taiwan, before the switch in diplomatic recognition at the end of the 1970s, that secular improvement in U.S.-Taiwan relations looks, in Beijing, like a steady march toward Taiwans permanent separation or even, eventually, formal independence. And I would say that you have, even in the United States, former officials you have Secretary Mike Pompeo even calling for Taiwan to be recognized by the United States as an independent and sovereign country. And so politics here, I think the more public attention we have to this issue, its become increasingly difficult to pursue and uphold this very really ambiguous status for Taiwan that has maintained and been the secret to peace and stability for all these decades. ezra klein 10 or 15 years ago, it was very clear what we were doing and what we hoped would happen. So we were bringing China into the global economic and political system. And we were hoping they would liberalize, hoping that either the Chinese Communist Party would become some kind of more democratic institution, or other things would arise. But theres a view that if you get China richer and more integrated, that there would be an inevitable demand for an opening up. And so youd have a country more on the path to being some kind of more liberal, more democratic state. I think some of the turn, as weve discussed, is almost like a spurned-lover dynamic in Washington, which is not meant to dismiss it, but a real that proved truly wrong. If anything discredited neoliberalism and a whole era of policy making, it was that, and a feeling that maybe this was not good, frankly, for the American economy either, that we lost a lot of manufacturing towns and opened up space for populist authoritarians like Trump. And so in that space, theres not really a lot of vision right now of what we should want. If you were writing out that vision, what should it be? If you take Chinas form a little bit for granted, the Chinese Communist Party and so on, what is it that we should want and be striving for? jessica chen weiss So thats a great question. And I think that we have to start here, at home, with a more realistic assessment of what it is that we can do in the world, and who it is that we want to be at home, and what will enable us to be as competitive, if you will, going into the future, regardless of what shape that international order looks like. And so in particular here, I think that theres a lot of good words, something that for the free and open, secure and sustainable, inclusive. Right? There are all these words. Theyre great ones. But what does that mean in practice? Right now, I fear that the kinds of policies that we are adopting to ostensibly protect what we make and innovate here at home are actually smothering innovation and discouraging international investment and talent from coming and remaining here in the United States. A recent survey by the Asian American Scholar Forum found that 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists who are working in the United States, including naturalized citizens and permanent residents, are considering leaving the United States to work elsewhere, in maybe Europe or Canada, because of this combination of xenophobia, anti-Asian attacks, but also policy efforts to protect research security. And its not just Asian American scientists. Its also international scientists generally, who in a survey by American Physical Society, found similarly shockingly-high levels. 40 percent felt that the United States was no longer a welcoming environment for science and innovation. And so to me, we have to start with, who do we want to be at home. And then how can we be true to our principles? When we talk about freedom from coercion, how do we really, truly, work with our allies and partners, rather than twisting their arms, whether its on export controls or when we think about, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act and the buy American requirements. We are introducing these frictions that I think makes it difficult to lead inclusively with as broad a coalition as possible. I think we should also stop drawing artificial barriers between autocracies and democracies, recognizing that we, ourselves, are going through a moment here at home. Of course, the Biden administration acknowledges this. But nonetheless, by still describing it as that kind of a world, where you have one system pitted against another, you make it harder to work with countries of all stripes on common challenges, including improvements in domestic governance and responsibility. And so I think that what our vision ought to be is one where the United States still engages with the world, knowing that what happens overseas doesnt stay overseas, that we cant simply wall ourselves off, and that actually, being much more principled about how it is that we work with the world, that that has been the hallmark of American competitiveness, these principles, legal framework, a consistent framework, rather than a society where the taint of something Chinese is enough to decide that we want nothing to do with it. So with Virginia Governor Youngkin pulling out of consideration for the Ford battery plant because there was a Chinese investor involved, that kind of knee-jerk reactiveness, I think, is the antithesis of the forward-looking, really pragmatic, results-based policy making that Id like to see us able to recapture. And so on other issues, I think theres human rights, for example. I think thats an issue where we want to be leading. Its, of course, difficult to be leading when we have committed such atrocities ourselves. But nonetheless, I think that theres a way to do so, just recognizing that our ability to transform other societies and to nudge, by hook or by crook, other governments in this direction, is rather limited. And so we need to, I think, prioritize more how do we use our resources in a way to support, not only democracy here at home, but those who already committed to democracy abroad, without, at the same time, really feeding the insecurities of authoritarian governments elsewhere. Because as I think we discussed earlier, theres a concern that the more pressure we place on authoritarian governments elsewhere, the more they will, in turn, try to undermine our democratic freedoms. And thats the spiral that I think is most important that we arrest, alongside, of course, the potential conflict over Taiwan. ezra klein I think thats a good place to end. So as always, our final question, what are three books you would recommend to the audience? jessica chen weiss The first is a book by my colleague and co-author, Jeremy Wallace, about China. Its called Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts: Information, Ideology and Authoritarianism in China. And it really is about the sources of domestic contestation and evolution of what the Chinese Communist Party has been, how a revolutionary communist party came to embrace G.D.P. statistics as its measure of legitimacy, and how once those numbers didnt quite add up, how, under Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party has embraced a neo-political turn to legitimize their continued rule. The second book Id recommend is a work of fiction by Celeste Ng. Its called, Our Missing Hearts. And its really a cautionary tale about many of the, I think, unfortunately, real dynamics that were already seeing and a combination of concerns about the protection of American culture and traditions and what is being taught in schools, along with the dose of suspicion of anything of Asian or Chinese origin, and family-separation policies, which are unfortunately part of our history and our present. And so this is really a cautionary tale about what our society could become if we let this instinct to counter or protect ourselves against anything that might smack of having Chinese influence dialed up to 100, what that could do to us and our democracy. And finally, the last book Ill recommend is a book by my very good friend, Valarie Kaur, called See No Stranger. And if one of the challenges that we have here is overcoming the very deep divisions here in our society, to figure out what is that affirmative vision, that future that we want to create, her book, I think, provides a road map to looking beyond the many things that divide us, to thinking about what unites us, and taking in, always, at the forefront, our collective humanity, not just here at home, but what that could look like, and envisioning what could coexistence look like. [MUSIC PLAYING] ezra klein Jessica Chen Weiss, thank you very much. jessica chen weiss Thanks so much. Its been great to be here. ezra klein To the Editor: The Case for Going Gray and Staying Blue, by Bill McKibben and Akaya Windwood (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 23), is right on target in forecasting a trend among older voters toward more progressive politics and candidates. Certainly threats to Medicare and Social Security motivate this movement. I submit that there is an even greater force moving older voters to support progressive (that is, Democratic) candidates: grandchildren. As I consider current events and issues, uppermost in my mind is how my two grandchildren will be affected. I do not think I am unique in this perspective. The institutions of our democracy, equal justice, economic equity, climate change and protection of civil liberties are not just issues for the moment, but also determine the future of young people and the old people who care about them. Back in the days of the American Revolution, womens boycotts of British cloth in favor of homespun, and their defiant public spinning bees were at least as instrumental in the fight for independence as the spilling of all that tea. Molly Rinker, whose nickname was Old Mom, and who was one of the eras fabled spies, reportedly tucked bits of information about British troop movements into balls of yarn. Who would suspect an aging matron, placidly knitting socks at a scenic overlook, of tossing message-laced skeins to the patriots? Knittings benign reputation allowed her to subvert the very conventions she appeared to uphold. The French had their tricoteuses, which translates to women knitters (they have a word for that!), particularly those who, during the Reign of Terror, sat before the guillotines bearing grim witness to public executions. You may recall Madame Defarge from A Tale of Two Cities, whose stitches formed a Reapers roster of the condemned. Her real-life counterparts were equally complex, a mix of feminist hero and vengeful villain. Many (presumably savoring lironie) were said to knit liberty caps as the heads rolled: those red, conical hats with the point folded forward that represented freedom from tyranny. Marianne, a national symbol of France, is often depicted in a liberty cap. So, for reasons I cannot determine, is Papa Smurf. Sojourner Truth offered a different twist on yarn and femininity during the Civil War, posing for photographs with her knitting, a nod to her belief that education and industry were the key to her communitys advancement. Decades later, when troops in World War I were dying by the tens of thousands from an epidemic of trench foot, caused by persistently wet toes, it was knitters to the rescue. The best defense was to change your socks a lot but factories of the time couldnt handle the load, so home crafters produced them. Im not saying we won that war because of womens knitting, but Im not sure we wouldve won without it. Another activist first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, was rarely without her knitting and began the Knit for Defense campaign during World War II. Similarly to Old Mom Rinker, female spies of the time used knitting as cover, one even parachuting behind enemy lines, then using her needles to transport secret code. Todays public knitters and crocheters are arguably more radical, perhaps in part because making something with your own hands almost by definition pushes back against dehumanizing technology and consumer culture. Knitters have mobilized against nuclear proliferation and the decimation of coral reefs. They have made blankets to welcome refugees; crafted tiny sweaters to save oil spill-damaged penguins; knit temperature scarves whose rows and colors document climate change; stitched for racial justice; sent handmade uteri to Congress in support of abortion rights (an especially apt political statement, since knitting needles were notoriously used, to womens peril, in back-alley abortions). During the second Iraq war, a knitter in Denmark swathed a tank in a massive, homey knit blanket. The Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot famously masked their identities beneath brightly colored knit balaclavas while performing songs such as Putins Pissed Himself and Kill the Sexist. An expert panel on Friday endorsed a sweeping set of proposed changes to the federal governments program for regulating experiments that involve tinkering with risky viruses and other pathogens. The move sets the stage for a closely watched decision by the Biden administration about its approach to protecting against lab disasters that could kick off a pandemic. The experts unanimously approved draft recommendations that, among other things, ask health officials to extend their oversight to less dangerous pathogens, including ones similar to the coronavirus. They also recommended an end to exemptions for research related to vaccine development and surveillance of emerging viruses. We have a lot of oversight on paper, but not really a lot of oversight, said Dr. Kenneth Bernard, a retired rear admiral and a member of the expert panel, making the case for the proposed changes, which will still receive some slight modifications. The proposals have added to the momentum in Washington for tightening government oversight of studies of dangerous pathogens. Michael Owen Landsbergers sister told him that he probably shouldnt ask out Alyssa Rachel Petersel given the way they met on May 16, 2019. Mr. Landsberger, 37, was on a first date with a woman he met on Bumble. Ms. Petersel, 31, was the womans client. Toward the end of the event in Manhattan that Mr. Landsbergers date had invited him to a party put on by Start Small Think Big, a nonprofit group that helps small businesses grow the women crossed paths. For Mr. Landsberger, who was living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the moment was electric. I was pretty drawn to Alyssa, he said. I thought, Wait, how about I get to know this girl? Ms. Petersel is the founder and chief executive of MyWellbeing, a company formed in 2017 that matches people seeking mental health care with therapists. She had attended the Start Small Think Big party as a speaker hers was among the businesses that had been helped by the organization. Mr. Landsbergers date had helped start-ups, including Ms. Petersels company, with pro bono marketing consulting as a volunteer. [Click here to binge read this weeks featured couples.] Mr. Landsberger worked in marketing, too. He was the chief executive of Flimper, a social media marketing tool; he is now head of growth and innovation at Pumpkin, a pet insurance company. At the party, Ms. Petersel, who lived in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, asked him whether Flimper might benefit MyWellbeing. He left with her business card. In December 2020, Courtney Benee Archie left New Orleans to accept a contract nurse anesthetist position in Newport News, Va. At the time, she was a nurse anesthetist at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, La. Her work hours had been reduced and she needed a change of scenery. It was the first year of Covid, so there were few places to go out. In April 2021, Ms. Archie, 39, decided to sign up for Tinder which is where, three days in, she connected with Kermit Ashleigh Lewis, 40. It was a photo of Ms. Archie in hunting regalia that first caught his eye. I hunt too, and dont meet a lot of women who hunt, said Mr. Lewis, who goes by Ashleigh. She was glammed up in another picture, and I thought, How could she do both? Mr. Lewis, who grew up in Chesapeake, Va., and lived in Virginia Beach at the time, is a chief gunners mate with the U.S. Coast Guard, based in Portsmouth, Va. His first marriage ended in divorce. With less than six months to the harmonized elections scheduled before end of August 2023, Zimbabwe's policy environment remains very unpredictable, and reactionary as opposed to following long term economic targets. Over the past 4 years, the government has made very slow progress in improving the business environment due to bureaucracy and weak institutions that continue to frustrate domestic and foreign investment. The country ranks 140 out of 190 on the 2020 World Bank's Doing Business Report and 157 out of 175 on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. The Global Innovation Index ranks is also very low at 120 out of 131. Foreign investment into Zimbabwe is mainly directed towards the mining sector with Gold, Lithium, Diamond, Nickel and Platinum leading on targeted minerals. Private sector investment in infrastructure and manufacturing remains distressing while other key sectors such as agriculture, tourism, healthcare, financial services, and real estate receive significantly lower investment when compared to Zimbabwe's regional peers in Southern Africa. China remains the biggest investor in Zimbabwe while Russia, Iran and India are also important investors in the country. The European Union, United Kingdom and United States have shifted their investments to other markets in Southern Africa such as South Africa, Mozambique, Angola and Zambia. Minor Reforms, Slow Progress In the past 3 years, Zimbabwe has made progress on the amending the Indigenization and Empowerment regulations which used to restrict foreign ownership of local businesses to 49% and in the obtaining construction permits, bank loans and resolving insolvency. However, the waning investment figures point to pertinent policy blunders and investor concerns that have not been resolved in the past 3 years by the government. The worrying business climate does not unnerve foreign investors only, it also hinders investment by local businesses and re-investment of profits earned by multinational companies operating in the country. This means that investors are always making frantic efforts to move their dividends and capital out of Zimbabwe to other markets in the region such as South Africa or Zambia which fare better. Policy Consistency Zimbabwe's policy flip flows on foreign exchange controls, legal tender, mining laws (EPOs & licensing), land tenure (title deeds), energy regulation and grain marketing regulations have dented investor sentiment. In 2020 alone, the country promulgated over 600 Statutory Instruments (SIs) with most of these delegated statutes impacting business operations and rarely being ratified by the legislature. Currently, players in the market are sweating over SI 127 of 2021 which compels businesses to quote and sell products using a government pegged foreign currency exchange rate. These inconsistences add on to various other controls and overregulation in sectors such as railway transportation, telecommunications, media, and broadcasting where the government remains the shareholder, law maker, regulator, policy maker and consumer at the same time. To guarantee investment, Zimbabwe needs to adopt 10-20-year domestic policies that do not change with change of personnel in government. Investment and trade policies should align with other Southern African countries who compete for the same investment inflows and are endowed with similar natural resources. Dividends & Capital Repatriation Foreign investor interest on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) and local businesses has declined due to stringent foreign exchange controls especially restrictions on repatriating dividends and capital for foreign investors and lack of a competitive foreign exchange mechanism. The same applies to guaranteed exit when divesting from Zimbabwe. The country's foreign exchange regulations have been a pain to most investors who seek formal channels to repatriate dividends. In the end, potential investors hold onto their capital or invest elsewhere in the region where exchange rate losses are minimal and capital movement is not restricted. To improve the business climate and attract investment, the government needs to reform the current exchange controls and regulatory bottlenecks to ensure that investors use formal banking channels to repatriate their dividends and move capital out (subject to normal exchange control regulations and due diligence). Property rights & Rule of law For Zimbabwe to attract meaningful investment inflows, there has to be guarantees to property rights for any type of business or investor, and respect for rule of law. The unending cases of arbitrary acquisition of private land or farms and outright disregard of court orders by politically exposed persons (PEPs) scares away genuine investment. To this day, land is still being used as a political tool at the expense of agricultural production and not many investors have political influence to protect themselves from such land invasions or seizures. To guarantee agricultural productivity, food import substitution and food security, there has to be guarantees to land tenure especially for A1 and A2 farmers with a track record. The current situation means that land is a dead asset, while political consideration carriers the day over food security, import substitution and poverty alleviation. Private sector investment in Agriculture remains critically low New investments in key sectors such as Mining and Agriculture are politicized to levels where an ordinary investor would naturally adopt a wait and see attitude or take the investment elsewhere in Africa. It is imperative to point that money has the same rules and investors look at markets where they can be able to repatriate their capital without overregulation or consistent policy discord from the government. Punitive Tax Regime The current taxation regime in Zimbabwe is burdensome with many tax heads, levies, permits, licenses, and statutory fees seriously eroding competitiveness for formal economic players. Multi layered taxes on electronic transactions (IMTT), excise duty on petroleum products and mining royalties need to be aligned with regional peers to manage production costs. Recently IMTT tax was reduced to 2% on all foreign currency payments. However, the 2% still discourages foreign currency deposits. There is now an urgent need to simplify tax procedures for tax compliant businesses or investors and payment of tax returns to applicants without subjecting the taxpayer to multiple audits. Currently businesses evade taxes and do not file for tax returns as filing triggers an investigation into their wider business operations. Despite the interest from businesses to comply with ZIMRA regulations, there are unnecessary delays due to inefficiencies at ZIMRA that serve as costs of doing business. There is need for over 12 documents to import or exports commodities in Zimbabwe. Businesses struggle to get tax clearance certificates due to the slow process and some errors on the part of ZIMRA which takes so long to rectify. Bureaucracy The need for a one-stop shop is critical to the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) mandate. However, businesses still face delays due to different institutions located at different geographical locations requiring physical visits to issue permits. For example, to import and export agriculture products, several export permits are required which are not centralized. The country's foreign exchange regulations and inconsistent monetary policies have been a pain to most investors who sought formal channels to repatriate dividends or invest on the ZSE. In the end, potential investors hold onto their capital or invest elsewhere in the region while existing ones look for illegal or unofficial channels to repatriate their dividends. The government must craft 10 years (or even more) investment policies that do not change with change of personnel in government departments. These policies must align with other Southern African countries that compete for the same investment inflows and are endowed with similar natural resources. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Climate Zimbabwe 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. The unpredictability of the government's economic policies and the unstable political and economic climate in recent years has undermined foreign investment. The country has a very rich natural potential (second largest reserve of platinum and chrome; diamonds, coal, gold, platinum, copper, nickel, tin) and an adequate infrastructure (except for recurrent power cuts), which represent genuine assets to foreign investors. Finally, the government would also need to do away with its obsession for control through temporary legislation and allow free market policies to shape private sector investment in the economy. This will also help fight the cancer of corruption that has torn apart Zimbabwe's economic fabric. The declining investment figures point to fundamental investment constraints that require attention from the government to back up the millions invested in international re-engagement efforts by the country's foreign missions. Victor Bhoroma is an economic analyst. He holds an MBA from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ). Feedback: Email vbhoroma@gmail.com or Twitter @VictorBhoroma1. PARIS Going to a week of fashion shows can be like overdosing on any art form: going to art gallery after art gallery, Off Broadway play after Off Broadway play; reading thriller after thriller. A lot of what you ingest is derivative, some of it is staid, some just plain silly. But every once in awhile you experience something that, in its clarity and power, knocks you flat. Thats the high; the thing that keeps people coming back time and again. And on Wednesday, when Haider Ackermann unveiled his collection for Jean Paul Gaultier couture, it happened in Paris. Gaultier, as people may or may not remember, was the enfant terrible of fashion, the inventor of Madonnas cone bra and the popularizer of men in skirts, and he retired in 2020. Since then, his brand has handed its couture to a series of designers, each producing one collection. They have been a motley, counterintuitive crew: Chitose Abe of Sacai was the first, then Glenn Martens of Diesel and Y/Project, Olivier Rousteing of Balmain, and now Mr. Ackermann, the Colombian-born Antwerp-trained designer whose own brand was famous for the high romance and rigor of its tailoring, but which has been off the runway for while. Clients love to ask sex workers, Whats your real name? Its a power move. I know you contain multitudes is what they mean, and I have the right to see. They paid, after all. The clients who asked this question of me were usually the type who had tricked themselves into believing that we had a personal relationship a romantic one, or a sexual one they wouldnt have to pay for had we met under different circumstances. When clients pried, I liked turning the question back on them. John is my real name! he might say, laughing at the idea that he, unlike me, would have anything to hide. John is my real name too, I might say with a wink. For the better part of a decade, I was Mistress Natalie, a professional dominatrix. A teasing sense of humor was an asset on the job. Wilson Grad Conn wasnt going to let his dating inexperience become a liability when he started seeing Rachel Lyn Honig in the fall of 2019. Rookie mistakes, he knew, were unavoidable. But at 55, he felt he had the life skills to get himself up to speed quickly, and that he had met a woman who merited the effort. When I found Rachel, I knew she was right for me, he said. He hadnt been a believer in love at first sight, but he became one. Ms. Honig, 51, and Mr. Conn, now 58, were both living in Manhattan when they swiped right in April 2019. That they didnt meet until October owes itself to an outsize case of the jitters. Mr. Conn, who goes by Grad, had moved to the Upper West Side in 2018 from Seattle, where he had been Microsoft Americas chief marketing officer, in an effort to revive a faltering first marriage. That failed spectacularly, he said. His former wife returned to Seattle shortly after, leaving Mr. Conn, who had been married to her since 1987, untethered in an unfamiliar city. Anthropic, a San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up, is close to raising roughly $300 million in new funding, two people with knowledge of the situation said, in the latest sign of feverish excitement for a new class of A.I. start-ups. The deal could value Anthropic at roughly $5 billion, though the terms were still being worked out and the valuation could change, one of the people said. The start-up, which was founded in 2021, previously raised $704 million, valuing it at $4 billion, according to PitchBook, which tracks private investment data. Silicon Valley has been gripped by a frenzy over start-ups working on generative A.I., technologies that can generate text, images and other media in response to short prompts. This week, Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the San Francisco start-up that kicked off the furor in November with a chatbot, ChatGPT. ChatGPT has wowed more than a million people with its knack for answering questions in clear, concise prose. Even as funding for other start-ups has dried up, investors have chased deals in similar A.I. companies, signaling that the otherwise gloomy market for tech investing has at least one bright spot. A long-delayed Obie Awards ceremony next month will celebrate the resilience of New Yorks theater scene, even as it applauds plays and musicals staged beyond Broadway. The time-honored but freewheeling awards ceremony, created by the Village Voice in the 1950s and now run by the American Theater Wing, doles out prizes in ad hoc categories for work done Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway. This years ceremony will take place on Feb. 27, but many of the award recipients will be informed in advance, and their acceptance remarks will be recorded and posted to the Wings YouTube channel a few days before the ceremony, allowing the evening to focus on performances and partying rather than speeches. The Obies has always been such an important recognition to Off and Off Off Broadway, and that community was very, very hurt by the pandemic, said Heather A. Hitchens, the Wings president and chief executive. This years Obies will honor digital, audio and other virtual work, as well as productions staged in a more traditional fashion. Eligible shows must have opened between July 1, 2020, when theaters were still shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, and Aug. 31, 2022, by which time theaters were open and in-person performance was again the main form of theater-making. I am/An Amerikan, says Tim Finnegan, the Irish bartender-cum-storyteller in Ronan Noones The Smuggler: A Thriller in Verse. Worked hard to be/A citizan, he continues in a Dublin accent, the words purposely misspelled in the script. He cheekily punches the last syllables, emphasizing what the plays subtitle already warned us about: Were seeing a thriller in rhyme. This is the tone that this unkempt play, produced by the Irish Repertory Theater, strikes throughout: pat, masquerading as playful. Its 2023, in a bar in an affluent Massachusetts community. Tims serving up drinks while telling us his story. He needed money for his family: his ever-exasperated wife and their ill toddler. Desperate, Tim found an untapped market to exploit: the homes of undocumented immigrants, many of whom are involved with lucrative illegal enterprises like human smuggling. Defending himself with weak arguments about moral subjectivity and telling us hes just a good guy in tough circumstances, perhaps even a kind of Robin Hood, Tim says he robbed the immigrants for the down payment on a new home. Some other things happen: a car crash, a toppled tree, a beating, a murder, though many serve as diversions that needlessly overextend the storytelling. (A bonkers basement battle with a herculean rat, however, is the most suspenseful, and comical, portion of the play, in part because its so random.) For years, tourism across Francophone Africa appealed largely to French retirees who clung to lazy days at big resorts on azure coastlines. But Mr. Traores hotel, La Fourchette de Roze, opens at a time when a new audience of young Americans and other Westerners is being lured to the region by top-notch surf breaks and fashion festivals in Senegal and art shows in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and beyond. Mr. Traore, 31, who was born in Washington, D.C., and whose parents are Ivorian, spent part of his childhood in Ivory Coast. The country is bouncing back after the pandemic slowed tourism and from the taint of a deadly terrorist attack seven years ago. Tourists are again arriving in Grand-Bassam, drawn to its fishing culture, colonial architecture and laid-back beach vibe. It feels so incredibly natural to open my first establishment on this land where my ancestors settled and to be surrounded by so many resources, said Mr. Traore, who was on site this month to put the finishing touches on the Jan. 19 grand opening, including installing the first of what he expects to be a rotating exhibition of local artists. Mr. Traore is passionate about style, whether in the form of food, fashion or art. I first met him four years ago at a gallery opening for the artist Kehinde Wiley, who has started his own ventures in the region with an artist residency in Dakar, Senegals capital. On a recent drizzly day in Lower Manhattan, Mr. Traore spoke to me about his new project as he peered out over the East River from a perch at the elegant private club Casa Cipriani. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Your career has gotten a lot of traction in the United States, including your work at the Guggenheim and curating a menu for an event featuring the actress Lupita Nyongo . Why divert to an entirely different project so far away? For the past 10 years, my whole career has been so focused on working on my craft and building a name for myself in the States. I love my roots, and Ive always kept my eye on the Ivory Coast as a place I feel instinctively connected and indebted to. This is another step I felt was perfect as I continue to build myself into a household name. Going back to the Ivory Coast keeps me grounded and is a true connection to my roots. More than two dozen people have been charged in connection with a scheme in which fake nursing diplomas were sold to buyers who then used the credentials to obtain nursing licenses and jobs in health care settings across the country, federal prosecutors said. The scheme involved the sale of more than 7,600 fake diplomas issued by three South Florida nursing schools, which have since closed: Siena College and Sacred Heart International Institute, both in Broward County, and Palm Beach School of Nursing in Palm Beach County, prosecutors said. The 25 people charged this week include administrators of the Florida schools and administrators and affiliates of a series of nursing test prep academies in other states that recruited candidates to buy the fake diplomas, said Omar Perez Aybar, special agent in charge for the Miami region of the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services. Many of the people who paid for the fraudulent credentials already had experience working in health care for example, as certified nursing assistants and were hoping to qualify as registered nurses or licensed practical nurses without having to complete the required courses and clinical work, Mr. Perez Aybar said in an interview on Thursday. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia has issued an emergency order activating up to 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops to subdue riot and unlawful assembly that may break out over a public safety training facility dubbed Cop City by detractors that has been proposed in Atlanta. The governors move on Thursday follows more than a week of unrest in Atlanta over the officer-involved shooting death of Manuel Teran, 26, a demonstrator who had been living in the forested site of the planned training campus to protest police militarization and protect the trees. The authorities claim that Teran fired a gun at a state trooper during a clearing operation in the woods before being killed by the police. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said that no body camera footage of the encounter is available. Terans death brought an already tense feud between law enforcement and opponents of the project to a head, prompting vigils and marches in Atlanta and across the country. Thats ridiculous, Mr. Lamberth said. This issue has been talked about since Nashville first became a metro 50 years ago. He said reducing the councils size had been the topic of back-room legislative discussions for at least three years. Any definition of partisanship, of course, often reflects on which side of the aisle one sits. But urban-rural rivalries have a long history. A forthcoming study of the actions of six state legislatures from 1921 to 1961 by Professors Thad Kousser and Gerald Gamm of the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Rochester, respectively finds clear evidence that lawmakers deliberately underfunded the cities with more immigrant and nonwhite residents. State laws that override city ordinances and policies have mushroomed over the last decade, especially in states where Republicans controlled both the governors office and the Legislature, a study by political scientists at Baylor and Butler universities concluded in 2020. The dynamic can work the opposite way, too: In New Mexico, the Democrat-controlled State Legislature has drafted legislation to overturn local ordinances passed in conservative towns that restrict access to abortion clinics and abortion pills. The state attorney general on Monday sued New Mexico cities and counties to overturn the ordinances. The new laws often take aim at issues where the parties are on different sides: Missouris lawmakers, for example, barred St. Louis from banning plastic grocery bags and stopped Kansas City from raising the minimum wage. The 2020 study found that such laws were more common in states with a Republican government, a strong conservative bent and a higher share of Black residents. A hundred or even 50 years ago, Democrats in Atlanta may have wanted different things than the Democrats who were governing the state of Georgia, but they were in the same party, said Professor Kousser, who earlier had tracked the urban-rural divide. Now they both have different legislative interests and different political interests, too. CHINHOYI Municipality has resolved to buy a top-of-the-range vehicle for former housing and community services director, Timothy Maregere to avoid a messy legal battle over his terminal benefits. The ex-director took early retirement in 2020 to take up a top post in the Ministry of Local Government as provincial secretary, before his recent elevation to permanent secretary for Mashonaland Central Provincial Affairs and Devolution. Faced with the spectre of litigation by the now top bureaucrat, council capitulated to wise legal counsel and has begun processes to purchase a Land Cruiser ranging over US$75 000, which was part of Maregere's exit package. Chinhoyi Mayor, Garikai Dendera confirmed the tendering process for Maregere's off-roader had started. "Chinhoyi Municipality is owing Maregere his vehicle benefit and, therefore, we moved quickly to ensure he gets it to avoid being dragged to court," Dendera told NewZimbabwe.com. "The car was part of his conditions of service as stipulated in the contract with the local authority. This is mandatory that we avail the benefit lest we entangle ourselves with yet another lawsuit." Now infamous for perennially losing court fights, cash-strapped Chinhoyi Municipality is implementing the resolution ahead of head-hunting for a substantive housing director. Currently, town planner Hilda Kabangure is curiously acting housing and community services director. Last June, Chinhoyi councillors blocked plans to splurge over US$425 000 on sleek vehicles for its six heads of departments at a time it was battling cash-flow challenges. The vehicle tender was subsequently cancelled, with councillors arguing priority should be on efficient service delivery. Pointedly, the moratorium on acquiring cars for top bosses has put additional pressure on council, which is also grappling to work out an exit package for soon-to-be-retired chamber secretary, Abel Gotora, who has not been reporting for duty lately due to ill-health. Gotora, reportedly due for retirement the first quarter of 2023, is also expected to leave council with an expensive vehicle. The town clerk, chamber secretary, directors of finance, housing, health and engineer are entitled to personal issue vehicles, among other perks. With a sea of uniformed police officers looking on, a New Jersey man who pleaded guilty to shooting pepper spray into the face of Officer Brian D. Sicknick during the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol was sentenced on Friday to nearly seven years in prison. The 80-month sentence handed down against the man, Julian Khater, brought an end to one of the wrenching cases involving Officer Sicknick, who died one day after he was doused with pepper spray in the melee outside the Capitol. At the same hearing, George Tanios, a second man who was accused in the attack, was sentenced to time served, having already spent five months in jail as his case moved through the courts. In July, Mr. Tanios pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges after the government agreed to drop an assault count against him. While early reports suggested that Officer Sicknick died of his injuries, an autopsy later showed that he died of natural causes, after suffering multiple strokes that were not directly related to the violent pro-Trump riot. Still, prosecutors have noted in court filings that Washingtons medical examiner determined that Officer Sicknick had engaged with rioters on Jan. 6 and that all that transpired played a role in his condition. WASHINGTON Roy Blunt, a longtime member of the intelligence committees in the Senate and House before retiring this year, said he was always extremely careful and under close supervision when handling classified material. I even took off my Fitbit, said Mr. Blunt, a Missouri Republican, about the level of precautions he and fellow committee members took to protect the secrecy of the documents they usually only reviewed in a sensitive compartmented information facility (known as a SCIF) in the Capitol complex with no electronics allowed. Based on their own experiences, many lawmakers said they were astounded and dismayed by the discovery of caches of unsecured classified documents scattered at former President Donald J. Trumps Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida, stored in President Bidens garage in Delaware and held in former Vice President Mike Pences residence back home in Indiana. Given the tight controls placed on their handling of such items, they said they found it inconceivable that leaders of the executive branch could be so sloppy. As a result, lawmakers are already talking about new penalties for mishandling sensitive information. Atlanta, Chicago and New York remain in contention and have advanced toward the endgame of the process, hashing out potential nuts-and-bolts terms with the D.N.C., according to two people with direct knowledge of the bidding process. Of those three cities, Atlanta and Chicago have often been seen as leading contenders, but in many ways, the final decision will be a matter of Mr. Bidens preference. Atlanta is the only one of those cities to be located in a presidential battleground state. Houston, which also submitted a bid, is no longer being considered, a D.N.C. official confirmed. Mayor Sylvester Turner also said in an interview on Thursday that he had been informed that his city was out of the running. For the 2020 Democratic convention, the host city was announced in March 2019, and Democrats involved expect a similar spring time frame this year, but caution the process is unpredictable. Mr. Biden, 80, has said he intends to run again, but he has yet to officially announce a re-election campaign. If he is again his partys standard-bearer, the convention would be his first real one as a presidential nominee. The 2020 event was a nearly entirely virtual affair, after the coronavirus outbreak forced the cancellation of major in-person appearances in Milwaukee. Eyeing the next convention, boosters for various cities are building alliances with governors, senators, mayors and business leaders from their regions as they press their cases to Democratic officials and to the public. WASHINGTON The National Archives and Records Administration this week delivered a gentle request to representatives of former presidents and vice presidents: Could you please check again to see if you have any classified documents laying around? Asking nicely is about all they can do. Legal experts said that officials at the archives do not have any independent ability to enforce that request, or to require that the countrys former leaders conduct searches of the materials they still have in their possession. Enforcement of the laws governing presidential records and classified documents is up to the Justice Department, which has opened investigations into the actions of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, who have each discovered classified records at their homes. Officials at the department have not commented on whether they plan to open an investigation into former Vice President Mike Pence, who also has acknowledged having a handful of classified documents after he left office. DANA POINT, Calif. Members of the Republican National Committee re-elected Ronna McDaniel on Friday to a fourth two-year term at the helm of the party, despite an angry pressure campaign from conservative activists and spirited calls from inside the committee for a leadership change after three successive elections of defeats and disappointments. Ms. McDaniel, a Michigan G.O.P. insider chosen in 2017 by President Donald J. Trump to lead the party, beat back a fierce challenge by Harmeet Dhillon, a member from California who was backed by an eclectic coalition of both far-right conservatives and members opposed to Mr. Trumps third bid for the White House. Ms. McDaniel, 49, a granddaughter of a moderate Republican governor of Michigan, George Romney, and a niece of Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, promised to be the agent of change that Republican activists wanted and to keep the committee neutral in the coming presidential primary contest. Those pledges, and years cultivating connections with the committees 168 members, proved unbeatable as the party gears up for what could become a wide-open race for the 2024 Republican nomination. We need the continuity at this point in time, said Mike Kuckelman, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party. Theres really no one challenging her that offers anything that is materially different than what she will do as our leader. As satellite imagery revealed Russians building primary and secondary lines of defensive trenches along the front lines, American government analysts began the year forecasting a deadly stalemate as the likely outcome for 2023. Worried that a frozen conflict favors Russia, the United States and its allies began more earnest discussions in recent weeks about how to change the battlefield dynamics in Ukraines favor. We want to put them in the best possible position so that whether this war ends on the battlefield, whether it ends with the diplomacy or some combination, that they are sitting on a map that is far more advantageous for their long-term future and that Putin feels the strategic failure, Victoria Nuland, a senior State Department official, told the Senate on Thursday. Much of the first year of the conflict has involved Russia and Ukraine pounding each others positions with artillery, but there have been some tank operations. Ukraines biggest success, its counteroffensive outside Kharkiv, used tanks, but some of the most important weaponry were the quick-moving armored fighting vehicles. There, Ukraine also faced disorganized Russian forces. But in the next phase of the war, the Ukrainian military will target those dug-in trench lines of Russian units. Breaking through those lines is not just about driving a battalion of tanks over the trenches. It requires a coordinated attack with infantry troops marking targets, tanks firing at those positions and artillery guns providing cover and support. Such combined arms maneuvers are the backbone of U.S. military combat operations and the focus of the U.S. Armys most intense training. Though tanks have been the focus of attention, military analysts say a critical part of the recent donations by the West may be the 109 Bradley Fighting Vehicles the United States is sending and the large numbers of artillery guns that European allies will send. This equipment is likely to be combined with the German Leopards to help create new Ukrainian armored units. When the full package of Western equipment arrives, Kyiv could create as many as three additional brigades. WASHINGTON Since the start of the war in Ukraine, U.S. officials have watched with some anxiety as billions of American dollars flowed into the country, well aware of Kyivs history of political corruption and fearing that aid might be siphoned off for personal gain. The ouster of several top officials from Ukraines government this week following accusations of government corruption has renewed questions of how Ukrainian officials are tackling those concerns. Although U.S. and European officials say there is no evidence that aid to Ukraine was stolen, even the perception of fraud would threaten political support for continued wartime assistance and for the postwar reconstruction effort that Western officials envision. The allegations included reports that Ukraines military had agreed to pay inflated prices for food meant for its troops. A deputy prosecutor general was fired for reportedly borrowing an oligarchs Mercedes to drive to Spain for a vacation, and a presidential aide accused of commandeering a Chevrolet Tahoe donated to help with evacuations was forced out. Rather than betray alarm, however, U.S. officials insist the drama shows that President Volodymyr Zelensky is committed to fighting corruption. Some Memphis city council members who were not involved in deciding when to release the video said they supported the plan to wait until after schools and many businesses in the city had closed for the night. Friday at 6 p.m., very, very few people will be at work, said Frank Colvett Jr., a councilman from the citys east side. Everyone will have had plenty of time to get home from school, from their jobs, and just stay home. Another council member, Dr. Jeff Warren, said he thought waiting until Friday evening would allow time for people to digest the fact that arrests had been made and charges had been brought. Anticipating protests after the video is made public, local civic leaders, members of Mr. Nicholss family and President Biden have urged demonstrators to remain peaceful. Michael Lawlor, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, noted that the delayed release gave the Memphis and Shelby County authorities time to investigate and fire the five officers and to arrest and indict them before the public saw the video. Saunas, steam baths and sweat lodges are baked into cultural traditions for many people across the globe, from Native Americans to Koreans to Scandinavians. And saunas themselves come in different permutations for example, Finnish-style saunas are typically built from wood and known for their dry heat, while steam rooms fill with moist vapor, and more modern infrared saunas often use light panels to generate heat. As saunas become more trendy, companies often promote them with the promise of health benefits like detoxification, heart health and increased metabolism, along with claims that the heat can simulate a workout without the work. Posts from Bathhouses social media accounts suggest its saunas and steam rooms can release toxins, help you recover from a workout and improve circulation; the Red Rocks Spa in Colorado says that saunas can alleviate insomnia and improve mental health. There is some research that suggests a trip to the sauna may have some health benefits but you shouldnt believe every claim you hear, said Earric Lee, a researcher at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland who has studied their health effects. Its not like, Oh, instead of going for my 45-minute run, Im going to sit in the sauna for 45 minutes,' he said. Heat for the heart While several studies point to the potential benefits of saunas, some of the most prominent research focuses on data from men in Eastern Finland, as part of an ongoing study on risk factors for heart disease. Observational studies have found intriguing links between regular Finnish-style sauna bathing and lower risks of cardiovascular issues and inflammation, although the studies cannot definitively prove causation and focus on a specific slice of the population (middle-aged and older Finnish men). MEXICO CITY Alvaro Colom, who as president of Guatemala from 2008 to 2012 put the countrys forgotten Indigenous communities at the center of his government but faced fierce opposition from the elites, died on Monday at his home in Guatemala City. He was 71. His death was confirmed by his niece Alejandra Colom, who said he had been treated for esophageal cancer. Mr. Colom expanded access to education and health care in a country scarred by deep inequalities and decades of civil war. But his time in office was shadowed by a bizarre scandal in which he was accused of assassination and eventually exonerated by a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission. He also faced the growing reach of Mexican drug cartels, particularly the Zetas, that had allied with local criminal gangs to traffic cocaine. He supported a crusading attorney general who worked with the anti-corruption commission to arrest some of the countrys most violent criminals. From the 1930s onwards, education specialists were invited to review the education system and submit reports, with recommendations, on the state of education in The Gambia. Despite the problematic political policies of the colonial offices, some of these recommendations served to transform education. Following the education specialists' recommendations, a study was conducted which informed the policies that dictated the transformation and the improvement of the education system. Most of the recommendations would be reviewed to determine the financial, material, and human resource implications. Three reports proved to be most significant to the policy formulations and education transformation in The Gambia: the Jeffrey, the Baldwin, and the Sleight reports. They provided the basis for the transformation of the syllabus, the education system, and the expansion of schools, particularly in the provinces. The Ralph C. Allen Report - 1939 Published in 1939 by Ralph C. Allen, who served as the first Director of Education, this critical document was in two parts: the first elaborated on education in Bathurst (which was considered then as the Colony) and the second on the Protectorate. In the annexe of the report were several diagrams of the structure in the reorganization of the schools. The report, entitled Education in The Gambia - Present Organization and Possible Future Development, was quite comprehensive, and, for the first time, there was a critical analysis of the situation of education in The Gambia. The salient points Ralph made were the organization of the schools, the syllabus used and the relationship between the government and the missions. Along with the analysis, he made recommendations on several pertinent areas, particularly on grants, reorganization of the school system and on the curriculum. This 23-page document would lay the foundation stone of several education policies and reforms that changed education politics in The Gambia. Observations Allen noticed that the number of years spent in the elementary schools were long and inconsequential. The attendance was poor, and most parents could not pay the school fees. The school equipment and the textbooks left a lot to be desired, and no grant was available to help provide or upgrade the equipment or the necessary textbooks. At the time of the report, there were no official vocational schools. Allen found this indispensable because he believed that students who finished the early stage of secondary school could opt to do vocational training. The most important observation was the absence of all forms of post-secondary education except that of the teacher training school. In the Protectorate, only Armitage School existed as a government elementary school, and consequently, the demand surpassed the number of places it could accommodate. Most of the towns and villages' demands for schools were not met, and the few missionary schools in these towns and villages seemed not to 'be run along the right lines'. Recommendations Some of his most important recommendations were as follows: The number of years in elementary school should be shortened. A vocational training institution should be put in place to accommodate students from Standard IV. The vocational school should take the form of a higher secondary school where practical skills would be taught to pupils who had completed elementary Standard IV. Though Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic would form the basis of the program, other core subjects, such as Carpentry, Metalwork, Horticulture, Drawing and, for girls, Domestic Science, and Infant Welfare would be primary in the syllabus. The vocational school would complement the existing Technical Institute under the Wesleyan Methodist Mission. Offer scholarships to students to attend Fourah Bay, Yaba and Achimota colleges in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the Gold Coast (Ghana), respectively or go to the U.K. Improve the number of trained teachers to supply the expanding quantity of elementary schools. Organize a local book and stationery store. Help schools in the purchase of equipment. Increase accommodation and facilities for mixed farming at Armitage School. Establish one-teacher native authority schools Some of these recommendations would be studied seriously, but only a few would be implemented. The Jeffery Report - 1950 If there is any report that had been seriously considered during the colonial period, it was the Jeffery Report. Published in March 1950, it was produced following a survey conducted by Dr George Baker Jeffery to advise on establishing an examination council. Dr Jeffery (1891-1956) was a great mathematician-physicist in the early 20th century. He was Director of the University of London Institute of Education before his appointment to make a survey and recommend the establishment of a standard examination body. In October 1949, upon the invitation of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, Dr Jeffery came to the West African British Settlements to study their state of education and offer advice on the possible establishment of a West African Examinations Council (WAEC). Between December 1949 and March 1950, he conducted an extensive study on the four British colonies (the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia) and forwarded his recommendations to establish the West African Examination Council. Upon his arrival in Africa, he spent eight weeks conducting research and making consultations. His objective was to consult with African government civil servants, teachers and school principals, the media, and other sources to have a comprehensive opinion of the state of education. His findings and recommendations were then published in a report. Jeffery highlighted the importance of maintaining the quality of education above all else. He argued that the quality superseded the need to teach children only to be trained for a job. He believed that it was crucial for developing education in West Africa. The Baldwin Report - 1950 In the mid-20th century, a commission was headed by Thomas Hayward Baldwin, an education specialist, to make a report about education in The Gambia. On behalf of the commission, Baldwin presented a comprehensive report entitled Recommendations on the Aims, Scope, Content and Methods of Education in The Gambia in 1950. The 41-page document first made a report on the existing system to highlight the shortcomings and the weaknesses. A comprehensive list of main recommendations was enumerated for the colonial office at the end of the report. The main points of interest noted by Baldwin were the harmonious cohabitation of Christians and Muslims, the vain efforts of the missions in trying to convert a people entrenched in their belief of 'Mohammedanism', the poor content of the syllabus as well as the lack of learning materials, the poor number of teachers and the degrading school system in the Protectorate. Among the main recommendations made were: Skip the infant class in the elementary school system. Use the vernacular as a medium of instruction in the primary schools in the Protectorate. Appoint an officer to produce the vernacular material. Train a teacher at the School of Arabic Studies at Kano, Nigeria. Transform the Divisional Councils to Local Education Authorities. Visit the schools in the Protectorate biannually by an education officer. Investigate the language difficulties at the Bathurst Primary schools. Consult with other West African Education Departments on textbooks and the syllabus for primary schools. Award scholarships for the training of teachers for secondary schools. Offer Gambians the chance to do their Higher Teachers Certificate at Fourah Bay College. Expand the technical schools and introduce other subjects in the mechanical trade. Organize evening classes in Bathurst in Handicraft, Homecraft, and Literacy. The recommendations highlighted were few among many others made by the Baldwin Commission. However, an attached paper to the document considered most of the recommendations as too expensive to put into effect. The prevision for the essential elemental requirements amounted to 22,200.00 for Bathurst and 2,300.00 for the Protectorate. The expenses seemed exorbitant to the Colonial Office, and thus more than 70% of the proposals were never really put into policy or applied during the period concerned. The Gwilliam Report - 1957 Another significant report is the Gwilliam report of Freda H. Gwilliam[1], delivered as a speech in 1957 at the joint meeting of the Royal African Society and the Royal Empire Society on 5 December 1957. This report would recommend including women as part of the colonial officials responsible for education. Following such a recommendation, the first woman was appointed to supervise primary school education at the level of the Ministry of Education in The Gambia. The Sleight Report - 1965 UNESCO contracted Dr G. F. Sleight to conduct a survey in education in The Gambia to put forward recommendations to the UNESCO office. His 63-page survey was divided into nine more parts with an annexe. The nine parts dealt with main areas of interest such as primary and secondary education, vocational and tertiary education, girls' and adult education, employment opportunities, administration, and the financial implication of his recommendations. Each part was concluded with recommendations relating to the topic discussed. Compared to the reports that preceded it, what was new in the Sleight Report was the detailed and comprehensive statistics on the progress made in the previous years. Sleight was careful to express the realities on the ground, the strengths and the shortcomings of the education system established under the British model and the interpretations of the program, curriculum, and syllabus about the socio-cultural context of the learners. When the report was published, several changes were occurring in the political and education arena of The Gambia: The Colony and the Protectorate had been merged under one nation. Previously, all decisions - of whatever nature, were taken separately both for the Colony and the Protectorate, and even the education systems of the two were different. The education system had changed from standard to primary and secondary. This change, however, was gradual as the systems were not uniform for the Colony and the Protectorate. The West African Examination Council was inaugurated and oversaw the evaluation of learners in the four-member countries. School infrastructure developed rapidly as the need for student enrolment grew. Schools were identified in three forms: primary, post-primary (secondary technical school), secondary modern schools (junior secondary), and grammar schools (high schools). Sleight's observations resulted in radical recommendations that influenced several changes in the post-independent Gambia. Sleight observed that the syllabus was extremely poor or non-existent, a significant setback in education development. His first observation was the reactions from the parents, teachers, area councillors, and representative organizations to primary school education: The first consideration would appear to be a clear conception of the function of primary education. [... ] The primary school leaver is unfitted for employment, he has no skill which might ultimately lead to self-employment, as if he does not get into a secondary school, he becomes one of the dangerously "half-educated", frustrated and potentially a juvenile delinquent. (Sleight 1950) Sleight concluded that if primary school leavers were considered thus, then he believed that there was something wrong with the syllabus content. He argued that the school had failed if the pupils were left with no skills or aptitudes. Though such a conclusion could be considered radical, his argument was based on the premise that a pupil living in rural areas needed to learn skills related to the person's active life. He, therefore, felt that the school content should be related to the pupil's professional life. As for the secondary schools, he echoed some of the worries felt by the government concerning the number of places available to accommodate primary school leavers. He suggested an expansion of secondary schools in the rural areas, a double stream system in the existing schools, an improvement of teacher training, and a restructuring of the existing schools. The syllabus content was one of his primary concerns. He strongly suggested that the content be entirely reorganized, and he believed that a syllabus did not exist. The first observation was the use of the vernacular as a medium of instruction in schools, particularly in rural areas. This had been a subject of controversy. Sleight's impression was to use English as a medium of instruction, as the latter was the country's lingua franca. However, he recommended that the vernacular stay in the school, but as he was no local expert, he proposed that all decisions related to teaching and training of teachers in that subject be left for the local experts. As for the subjects to be revised and simplified, he suggested the following: Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Education Gambia 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. English Arithmetic Rural studies in Provinces; modified science and crafts in Bathurst. Social studies and other cultural subjects, Qur'anic studies, the vernacular, music. (Sleight 1950, 13) Teacher training, as well as library lending, were also strongly recommended by Sleight. The SHM Jones Report - 1970 Mr Jones published in 1970 a document under the Department of Education entitled Educational Policy, Legislation & Administration. This legal document served to outline the legal implications of government in the education sector and school development in The Gambia. Some of the areas discussed in the document were the aims and policy of the national education system and the structure of educational management. Jones discussed at length the policies, the responsibilities of the government, and how the community's role was defined. Also defined were the role of the private schools, institutions, and associations, as well as actors involved in education, issues of girls and women's education, disabled children, and teacher training. The definition of the national system was amplified as the stages of progress were identified as pre-primary, primary, secondary, vocational, and technical, teacher training and adult education. The document also outlined the legal texts passed during the previous periods that had general implications on the education system. The Principal Act, also called the Education Act, as amended by the Education Ordinance 1964. Under this act, education regulations and the school premises regulations were made. Other enactments were: The Gambia High School Act passed in 1958 The West African Examinations Council Act passed in 1953 Author Dr Cherno Omar Barry is the Vice Chancellor/President of the International Open University. He has served as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Defence and at the Office of the President in The Gambia. He holds a B.A. in English from the Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada, an M.A in Semiology, an MPhil and a PhD in Comparative literature from the University of Limoges, France. Cherno, an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature taught for eight years at the University of The Gambia before joining the National Commission for UNESCO. He later served for two years as Gambian representative to the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris, France, before he was appointed Permanent Secretary 1, Office of the President and then later re-designated as the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology. Cherno is an accomplished academic, literary critic, editor and researcher. [1] Freda H. Gwilliam was appointed Assistant Educational Adviser for the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Her mission was to conduct a study on girls' education in the British settlements. They marched through the streets of Perus capital, carrying signs that said Im not a terrorist and waved rainbow-colored flags associated with Indigenous communities in the Andes. Many chant murderer at the countrys leader and sing hymns about not being afraid anymore. On Thursday, more continued to arrive, with many vowing to stay for the long fight. In the past week, thousands of rural Peruvians have descended on Lima to join local protests calling on President Dina Boluarte to resign following the ouster in December of the countrys former leader after he tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree. The growing demonstrations in the capital follow seven weeks of protests around the country that show little sign of abating. Instead, Peru has found itself at an ugly impasse with the government doubling down on portraying demonstrators as pawns for drug-traffickers, illegal miners and terrorist groups who are trying to sow chaos, according to Ms. Boluarte. Day by day, the protests seem to grow more chaotic. The ongoing showdown has ratcheted up the polarization of the country, which has been convulsed by what is already its deadliest conflict this century. South Asia is having a chilly winter, too. Several Indian states experienced severe cold wave conditions in mid-January, the government said. And in Afghanistan, where temperatures in some areas came close to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit, the authorities say that at least 162 people have died from the cold since Jan. 10. Heres what we know about the science and human impacts of Asias cold snap. The rails of a roller coaster Scientists say that Asias extreme cold is largely the result of the so-called polar vortex, the same weather phenomenon that brought exceptionally cold weather to the United States last month. The term refers to an expanse of cold air that generally circles the Arctic but occasionally shifts south from the North Pole. The polar vortex is held in place by the Earths rotation and temperature differences between the Arctic and mid-latitudes called the polar jet stream. When the polar vortex becomes disrupted, the polar jet stream can become wavier, allowing for colder air to shift south and warmer air to shift north. This happens naturally, but scientists think that as the planet warms, shifts in the polar vortex are likely to become more frequent and pronounced. Scientists arent sure what role, if any, climate change plays in the process, or whether the number of extreme freezes will increase as warming continues. The Scottish actor Alan Cumming has returned an honor from Britains government and monarchy, he announced on Instagram on Friday, writing in a post that he did not want to be associated with the toxicity of empire. Mr. Cumming, the host of the American version of the reality competition show The Traitors, joins a tradition of people rejecting the Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or O.B.E., and similar honors, such as knighthoods or damehoods. The order is given to reward people for their achievements and contributions in a variety of fields. A committee of civil servants and people who do not work in the government recommends people for the honor. The committees recommendations are given to the prime minister, who then gives the list to the king, who awards the honors. Mr. Cumming was awarded his O.B.E. in 2009, and he wrote in an Instagram post marking his 58th birthday on Friday that he had recently returned the honor. He said that he was incredibly grateful to have received the honor because it recognized his gay rights activism in the United States, where he is a citizen, in addition to his work as an actor, which has included film, television and stage roles. PARIS As an exercise in style, the tweet from The Associated Press Stylebook appeared to strain taste and diplomacy: We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing the labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college educated. At least it looked offensive to the French, or perhaps rather to people of Frenchness, or people with Gallic inclinations, or people under the influence of French civilization. The French noted that they had been placed between the mentally ill and the disabled. Certainly, the French Embassy in the United States reacted with indignation on Thursday to the A.P. tweet. It published a spoof on Twitter suggesting that it had renamed itself the Embassy of Frenchness in the United States. We just wondered what the alternative to the French would be, said Pascal Confavreux, the embassy spokesman. I mean, really. Perhaps, as Ben Collins, an NBC journalist, suggested, people experiencing a croque-monsieur. For a generation, the high-speed Eurostar train under the English Channel has stood as a sleek, ingenious emblem of a new closeness between Britain and continental Europe. Now, it risks becoming a symbol of the friction caused by their Brexit breakup. Until two years ago, passengers could just show their passports for often quick checks, but since 2021, after Britain left the European Union, British travelers in both directions have been required to get their passports stamped. As long as the pandemic kept travel to a minimum, the added time hardly mattered, but as ridership surged in recent months, lines and waits grew longer. The Eurostar company has responded by capping the number of passengers it takes, leaving hundreds of seats unsold on some trains rather than run the risk that the passport bottleneck will delay them. On some trains that would normally carry up to 900 riders, the company is limiting capacity to about 600. The cap took effect months ago, but only drew widespread attention this week, when it was reported by several British news outlets. While the effects of Brexit on the British economy are still the object of studies and debates, some concrete consequences are becoming clear. For Brexit opponents, the Eurostar problem is one more piece of infuriating proof that Britain never should have left the European Union. Russia will switch four occupied areas of Ukraine to Moscows time zone, it said Friday, a shift that carries symbolic meaning far heavier than its practical effect as it highlights the Kremlins attempt to solidify control of the illegally annexed regions. Russias Ministry of Industry and Trade said in a statement that the four regions Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia would switch to Moscow time in the near future as part of a process of gradual synchronization of Russias legislature. The regions are one hour behind Moscow now. But Moscow has long had a particular focus on time zones, cherishing its own 11 divisions as a source of national pride. There is no rational justification for its having that many, experts say, and their multiplicity can lead to absurdities, particularly in its far east. When it is noon in Vladivostok, for example, it is 11 a.m. in Tokyo, even though it lies farther east. So it was perhaps predictable that the Kremlin would seek to manipulate time zones in Ukraine as part of its Russification campaigns over the course of the war. These have involved forcing teachers to use a Russian curriculum, replacing local officials with occupation appointees, substituting the Ukrainian currency with the ruble and issuing Russian passports. LONDON When Scotland united with England and the Scottish Parliament closed its doors in 1707, it did not reopen until almost three centuries later, after pressure for more Scottish autonomy resulted in a deal in 1998 to share power between London and Edinburgh. Twenty-five years on, that agreement, known as devolution, faces its stiffest challenge yet. Last week, for the first time, the British government overruled Scotlands Parliament, scuttling its plan to make it easier for Scots to change their gender. The decision not only threatens to become a full blown constitutional crisis over transgender rights. It also prompted angry claims by Scottish politicians that London was thwarting the will of their Parliament, potentially handing pro-independence forces a potent weapon to galvanize the movement. Scotlands first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party and a champion of independence, described Londons move as a full-frontal attack on our democratically elected Scottish Parliament and its ability to make its own decisions. And Stephen Flynn, leader of the Scottish National Partys lawmakers in the British Parliament, claimed it portends a slippery slope toward direct rule from London. An armed man stormed the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran on Friday, shooting dead the chief of security and wounding two guards, according to Iranian and Azerbaijani officials. While Iranian officials blamed the assault by the man, who was armed with an assault rifle, on personal motivations, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan called it a terrorist act and demanded a swift investigation. He identified the Azerbaijani man killed as First Lt. Orkhan Rivan. A suspect, who was not identified, was arrested by the Iranian police after the attack. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that Iran had failed to address threats against the embassy in the past and that it would evacuate its entire mission from Tehran. There have been attempts to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran before, the ministry said in a statement. Unfortunately, this latest bloody terrorist attack demonstrates the serious consequences of not showing proper sensitivity to our urgent appeals in this direction. Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was beaten by Memphis police officers for roughly three minutes on the evening of Jan. 7, after he was stopped for what the police initially said was reckless driving. The stop escalated into a violent confrontation that ended with Mr. Nichols hospitalized in critical condition. Three days later, he died. Five police officers, all of whom are also Black, have been fired and were charged on Jan. 26 with various felonies, including second-degree murder. A sixth officer was fired on Feb. 3 and another has been suspended. Also, two sheriffs deputies have been taken off duty, and three Fire Department employees have been fired. Two of the three Fire Department employees have also had licenses temporarily suspended by the Tennessee Emergency Medical Services Board. But in a letter to the City Council on Friday, the president of the union that represents the Fire Department said that the E.M.T.s who responded did not have sufficient information when they were dispatched. Mayor Jim Strickland of Memphis announced that the U.S. Department of Justice and the International Association of Chiefs of Police would conduct an independent external review of the Memphis Police Departments special units and use of force policies. The semi-automatic Cobray pistol recovered in the Monterey Park, Calif., shooting, was modified with what appears to be a homemade suppressor. The gun is a subcompact variation of a MAC-10 pistol. Gun recovered in Monterey Park shooting An annotated image of a semi-automatic Cobray pistol linked to a mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif. A close-up of a suppressor attached to the pistol shows wire and duct tape wrapped around it. The suppressor had many characteristics of a homemade device. An adapter attached to the pistols threaded barrel held the suppressor in place. Suppressor Upper receiver DETAIL BELOW Carrying strap The combined length of the pistol and the suppressor was over two feet. Experts believe the shooter may have wrapped tape around the suppressor to act as a heat shield so he could hold it while firing. Wire was used to secure the suppressor cover and to attach a carrying strap to the front and rear of the pistol. Suppressor Tape layers An adapter attached to the pistols threaded barrel held the suppressor in place. The suppressor had many characteristics of a homemade device. Suppressor Upper receiver DETAIL BELOW Carrying strap The combined length of the pistol and the suppressor was over two feet. Experts believe the shooter may have wrapped tape around the suppressor to act as a heat shield so he could hold it while firing. Wire was used to secure the suppressor cover and to attach a carrying strap to the front and rear of the pistol. Suppressor Tape layers The suppressor had many characteristics of a homemade device. An adapter attached to the pistols threaded barrel held the suppressor in place. Suppressor Upper receiver DETAIL BELOW Carrying strap The combined length of the pistol and the suppressor was over two feet. Experts believe the shooter may have wrapped tape around the suppressor to act as a heat shield so he could hold it while firing. Wire was used to secure the suppressor cover and to attach a carrying strap to the front and rear of the pistol. Suppressor Tape layers The suppressor had many characteristics of a homemade device. Suppressor Upper receiver DETAIL BELOW Carrying strap The combined length of the pistol and the suppressor was over two feet. Wire was used to secure the suppressor cover and to attach a carrying strap to the front and rear of the pistol. Suppressor Tape layers Experts believe the shooter may have wrapped tape around the suppressor to act as a heat shield so he could hold it while firing. Diagram by The New York Times; photo by Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department A suppressor, by design, muffles the sound of a gunshot by redirecting and slowing expelled gases from the barrel after the gun has fired. Plans exist online for how to make suppressors out of readily available parts like car oil filters. Scott Richardson, a licensed firearm dealer in Oregon who manufactures and repairs suppressors, said the suppressor attached to the gunmans pistol looked homemade. The original MAC-10 and Cobray suppressors looked nothing like that, he said. The Cobray model firearm was manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s. It has several features that make it an illegal assault weapon in California, including the combination of a threaded barrel and the ability to accept a detachable magazine. They are not very accurate, and a bit heavy, said Edward Gardner, the executive director of the Liberal Gun Club. A variation of a MAC-10 pistol Before the suppressor was added, the gunmans weapon was similar to the pistol shown here. An annotated photo of a pistol showing a threaded barrel for attaching accessories, and a large-capacity magazine. Upper receiver Lower receiver The Cobray M-11/9 has a threaded barrel for attaching accessories such as barrel extenders, suppressors and forward hand grips. Grip With the ability to hold 30 rounds or more, the pistols original large-capacity magazine extends well below the pistols grip. Upper receiver Lower receiver The Cobray M-11/9 has a threaded barrel for attaching accessories such as barrel extenders, suppressors and forward hand grips. Grip With the ability to hold 30 rounds or more, the pistols original large-capacity magazine extends well below the pistols grip. Upper receiver Lower receiver Grip The Cobray M-11/9 has a threaded barrel for attaching accessories such as barrel extenders, suppressors and forward hand grips. With the ability to hold 30 rounds or more, the pistols original large-capacity magazine extends well below the pistols grip. Diagram by The New York Times; photo via gunbroker.com Sheriff Robert Luna of Los Angeles County said that the gunman purchased the pistol in 1999 in Monterey Park but that the gun was not registered in the state of California. Investigators who searched the suspects home found hundreds of rounds of ammunition and items that suggested he was manufacturing homemade firearm suppressors, Mr. Luna said. Forty-two shell casings and a large-capacity magazine were recovered at the scene. Improbably, the homemade suppressor may have played a role in preventing further violence. After opening fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park on Saturday night, the gunman traveled to another dance studio in nearby Alhambra. There, Brandon Tsay, whose family operates the second ballroom, was able to wrestle the weapon away from the gunman. Surveillance footage of the encounter shows the gun in context, and how large the suppressor was compared with the body of the gun and the gunman. Images from surveillance footage show a struggle over a weapon. After weapon is wrestled from gunman Video footage, via Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio One aspect of using such a long suppressor is that it seems to me like the other guy was able to use the suppressor against the attacker, said Mr. Richardson, who reviewed the surveillance footage. More length equals more leverage when grabbing the gun. He is able to push the barrel up and away from himself. Law enforcement officials recovered two other firearms in connection with the attack, one rifle from the suspects residence and one pistol from his vehicle. Both were registered to the suspect. Police said the suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound using the pistol. Two photos show weapons that officials said were registered to the shooting suspect: a handgun atop cardboard and a rifle in a case. The semi-automatic Norinco pistol recovered from the suspects van. The Savage Arms .308 caliber bolt-action rifle recovered from the suspects residence. Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Mr. Luna said that the suspect had been arrested in 1990 for unlawful possession of a firearm, but it was unclear what weapons were involved in that case. As Sierra Leone joined other countries around the world to celebrate International Day of Education, the Vice President, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh has yesterday 25th January 2023 assured Sierra Leoneans that by the end of 2023, his government would have constructed over 1,000 additional classrooms across the country in order to boost the Free Quality Education Scheme. In an interview with Radio Democracy, Dr. Juldeh Jalloh stated that by throwing light on the achievements of government and plans for their subsequent programs in the educational sector. He went on to state that President Bio should be applauded and appreciated for his Free Quality Education Program. He added that government is paying school fees for over 2.7 million children across the country, and they have dedicated 22% of the country's GDP into education. The vice president emphasized that government is providing quality teaching and learning material and school buses. He went on to state that the number of school going children in this government outweighs that of the previous. "We all have to come together and contribute immensely to the growth of education." He appealed. In his own statement, the Minister of Basic and Senior Education, David Sengeh boasted that the advancement of education under this current government cannot be overlooked. He said since president Bio was elected in 2018, his main focus was on education and human capital development, adding that plenty development has taken place in the educational sector as a result of the support from teachers, as well as parents. He applauded the teachers as they are very much paramount to the advancement of education in the country. He ended on the note that in the next 10 years the salaries of teachers would be increased up to 45%. Danny Gonzalez, a 27-year-old Honduran man working in the United States, recently tried to fake his own death in an effort to stop his wife constantly asking him for more money. Gonzales told reporters that ever since they married, two years ago, his Honduran wife would call him every week to complain that he had only sent her so much money, and that he needs to send her this much more. At one point, it got too much to bear, so he came up with a desperate plan to make her stop. The man decided to trick his wife into thinking that he had died, and to that end, sent her some photos of himself lying on a bed with cotton balls in his nostrils and mouth and covered with a white sheet. A message accompanying the photos let the wife know that he had died of a combination of cancer and asthma Photo: Facebook What the Honduran man working in the US didnt count on was his wife taking the photos to a local television station in Honduras, which actually showed them on television. All his relatives soon heard about his death, but while some, including his mother were devastated, others took a closer look at the photos and realized that he seemed to be grinning in some of them, and that the white sheet covering his body was actually a pillow cover. As the photos went viral on social media and more people voiced their suspicion that Gonzales had faked his death, local media decided to investigate and it didnt take long for them to find out that the 27-year-old was actually alive and well. To his credit, he immediately admitted to staging his own death, but used his wife constant nagging as an excuse for it. Photo: Facebook My wife would call me every week just to ask to send more money. Every Saturday she would call me telling me I had sent her so much, and I needed to send her this much more, he told HCH. The rest of the week, not even a message. She would never send photos or ask me anything else. She kept asking me to send her mobile phones, but Id already sent six and she always rang me to tell me it had been stolen. Some social media users in Honduras found Danny Gonzalez excuse hilarious, and a few even appeared to understand his reasons, but for the most part, the reaction to his message was negative. Some of his own family members accused him of being an ungrateful son for putting his own parents through the pain of thinking he was dead, and other people said that he could have come up with a less traumatizing way to put a stop to his wifes financial demands. Photo: Facebook Interestingly, Gonzales used the same tactic as this Thai conman we reported about last month. Not only did he use the same type of photos, but he even used the same deadly combo asthma and cancer as the cause of his death. I cant help but think that Gonzales was inspired by that story. A Brazilian man sparked the outrage of his friends and family after he faked his death out of pure curiosity, to see who would attend his funeral. As an experienced ceremonialist, a sort of master of ceremonies for various kinds of events, 60-year-old Baltazar Lemos had conducted hundreds of funerals, some of which had been attended by as few as 2 people, others by as many as 500. Recently, he had been thinking about how many of his friends and family would come to pay their respects and bid him farewell when he died, and since he couldnt really know if he actually kicked the bucket, he decided to fake his death and see how many people showed up to his funeral Photo: The Good Funeral Guide/Unsplash On January 10, someone posted an ominous message on Baltazar Lemos social media, announcing that At the beginning of this sad afternoon, Baltazar Lemos left us. More information coming soon. A day before, a photo taken in front of the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo had been posted, implying that the ceremonialist had been admitted there, so everyone assumed the worst. Lemos family was stunned by the announcement, as no one even knew he had been in the hospital. One of his nephews rushed to the Albert Einstein hospital to ask about him, but the staff had no record of a Baltazar Lemos being admitted there in the past few days. As Baltazars online friends started sharing the tragic news of his passing, people started paying their respects in the comments and asking about the cause of death. No explanation was given, but instead, the time and place of the wake and funeral ceremony were posted on the ceremonialists Facebook account. On the 18th of January, friends and family of Baltazar Lemos gathered in a small chapel in his native city of Curitiba for what they expected to be a funeral. At one point, Baltazars voice started recounting his life, and some of those in attendance started crying thinking it was a recording of the deceased. Then the altar doors opened and he stepped out in front of everyone. As you can imagine, the best way to describe peoples reaction to seeing Baltazar is confusion. Some people started crying, and others were left with their mouths open, but as soon as he explained that he had faked his death to see who would attend his funeral, attendees started accusing him of cruelty. You got what you wanted Baltazar, to draw attention. In all the groups of event photographers, people are talking about your death. Everyone was mourning. What a ridiculous joke! I think you should take a picture with everyone who mourned your supposed death. I dont know you personally and I hope I dont ever meet you, one person commented online after learning the truth. Baltazar Lemos story spread like wildfire on social media, and soon news agencies were contacting him to learn more about his motivation. He explained that he never wanted to cause people grief, but that this was the only way to know who would mourn him after his inevitable passing. I had the idea five months ago. I wanted to make it look like I really died. People interpreted it in their own way. The truth is that I wanted to know who would come to my wake, Lemos said. I didnt tell anyone, because I hoped it would work out. I had no intention of hurting, offending, or causing any harm to anyone. I truly apologize to these people. The ceremonialists apologies mostly fell on deaf ears, especially after people learned that he has a wheelchair-bound mother in her eighties who could have had a heart attack at the news of his death. Thats not to mention the grief ao all his family, friends, and colleagues. Photo: Facebook Ive known him since 2001. I thought the story was horrible. I spent one day sad and the other very indignant. For me, he died on the 17th, when I found out everything. It was in very bad taste, an event planner that used to work with Baltazar Lemos said. A Colombian man had the misfortune of being thrown in jail three times in the last 13 years because he has the same name as a wanted drug cartel leader. 46-year-old Rene Martinez Gutierrez is a peaceful family man with no criminal record to his name. The problem is he shares the same name with a Peruvian drug dealer with several national and international arrest warrants, and for this reason he has been arrested three times in the last 13 years. The last time occurred earlier this month when the man returned to his native country of Colombia to see his sick father. He was arrested as soon as his plane touched ground in Bogota and he has been in jail ever since Photo: niu niu/Unsplash The first time Gutierrez ran into problems with the law because of his name was in 2010 when he went to the local police station in Bogota, Colombia to ask for his judicial record in order to open his own business. When checking his records, police found that Rene Martinez Gutierrez had an international arrest warrant issued by Peru, so he has wrongfully detained for eight days. Eventually, the Colombian man was released, but he couldnt just forget everything, so he went to the Peruvian Embassy, to the Supreme Court of Justice, to Interpol, but none of these entities had a real explanation for what had happened. They all claimed that his arrest had been due to an unfortunate name coincidence. Only a year after his first arrest, Rene Martinez Gutierrez was once again called to a Bogota police station as a witness, after his workplace was robbed. He was only supposed to give a statement about what had happened, but when police checked his name in the database, they once again mistook him for the wanted Peruvian drug lord. This time, he spent two months with seasoned criminals in Colombias infamous La Picota jail until Peruvian authorities finally confirmed that he was not the man they were looking for. After this incident, Gutierrez decided that the best way to avoid ending up in jail in the future was to emigrate to the United States, so he and his family moved there in 2012. His troubles with the law seemed to be behind him, but in early 2023, Rene learned that his elderly father wasnt feeling well at all, so he decided to fly home to see him, knowing full well the risk he was exposing himself to. Unfortunately, the 46-year-old mans worst fears materialized as soon as his plane landed in Bogota. Interpol agents boarded the plane right after it stopped on the airport runway, asked for his ID and after confirming his name, escorted him away. He was eventually transferred to the Los Martires police station where he has been held ever since. Sadly, Rene Martinez Gutierrezs father passed away while he was detained, so he never even got to say goodbye to him. Once again, he and his family are waiting for Peruvian authorities to formulate the extradition request and once again confirm that he is not the man they want. Its shocking that something like this can happen in real life, but Renes story is well documented, as he made national headlines in Colombia every time he was arrested. Pacific Surfliner Needs PR Engineer Mon., Apr. 10, 2023 The Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency wants a digital marketing firm to promote visibility and recover ridership that the Pacific Surfliner brand lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has budgeted $200K for the one-year effort. EIGHT year old Pearl Scally, from Daingean, recently had 12 inches of her hair chopped as part of 'Locks of Love for LauraLynn'. The hair will be donated to The Little Princess Trust and will be used to make a wig for a child recovering from cancer. Pearl to date has collected more than 1000 in sponsorship from family, friends and neighbours for LauraLynn Children's Hospice as part of her 'Locks of Love for LauraLynn'. The 'big chop' took place on Saturday last, January 21 in 'Studio S' hair salon in Daingean. Her proud parents, Mairead and Dev, and little brothers Bruce and Ruben joined Pearl for this momentous occasion. Pearl's mother Mairead said: "We are phenomenally proud of Pearl and what she has achieved. The positivity and generosity of everyone has been just amazing. Pearl is absolutely over the moon, and has learned so much about the joy of helping others and how she can be a conduit for kindness and generosity in other people. " Siobhan Carey from 'Studio S', Daingean, who undertook the big chop said "I'm delighted to be involved and to be able to offer up my time to help LauraLynn Children's Hospice". LauraLynn Irelands Childrens Hospice provides specialist palliative care for children with life-limiting conditions and supports for their families across Ireland. Donations can still be made to this very worthy cause on the following link: www.idonate.ie/pearlscally THE gravestone of the first fatality in the Civil War in Offaly has been restored following an appeal by a local historian. Last year Dr Philip McConway called on Ulster Bank to restore the headstone of its Tullamore branch manager, Thomas Mitchell who was killed by anti-Treaty IRA forces when he confronted them during an armed raid on the bank on Monday, July 3 1922. The gravestone has now been restored by Dublin based company, Pmac. Ulster Bank's parent company, the NatWest Group declined Dr McConway's suggestion for further conservation work on the inscription to enhance its legibility. The historian said the restoration work highlights the wider issue of unmarked graves of individuals killed in Offaly during the revolutionary period. Patrick Lynch, the National Army soldier mortally wounded at the Raheen ambush (January 1923), is buried in an unmarked grave in Croghan Hill Cemetery. Mitchell is fortunate to have a headstone, commented Dr McConway. On the day of Mitchell's death in 1922 an IRA unit drove up in a Crossley tender to the Ulster Bank in Tullamore. Mitchell, standing outside the counter, observed an estimated 15 Volunteers, wearing overcoats, enter. Dr McConway, in a feature article published in the Tribune last year, wrote: "He (Mitchell) walked to his office desk and grabbed a revolver from the drawer. He then confronted the IRA and pointed his revolver at them. Without hesitation Timothy Buckley (the IRA's unit's commander), armed with a rifle, shot Mitchell beneath the heart. Dr George A. Moorhead was summoned. Arriving swiftly, the doctor examined the unconscious Mitchell who died in two minutes. The bank janitor and other employees carried the corpse upstairs to rooms inhabited by Mitchell. The IRA then ordered the staff to put their "hands up" and removed them to the street. The vicinity of the bank was cordoned off by the IRA. Hundreds of people witnessed the raid from a distance. Fr Thomas O'Keefe remonstrated with the IRA who ignored him. Cleaning work on Mitchell's headstone revealed the name of the sculptor as Kennedy, whom Dr McConway believes was William Kennedy. Dr McConway's research has found that Kennedy was a stone and monumental sculptor who operated a thriving limestone quarry on the Arden road with up to 30 employees. The King's County Chronicle (19 July,1883) reported he was "one of the ablest practical stonecutters in Ireland." He sculpted the monument in Glasnevin Cemetery over the grave of the Under Secretary Thomas Henry Burke who was assassinated in the Phoenix Park in 1882. The same newspaper noted the monument "reflects the highest credit on Mr Kennedy and the King's County Chronicle", outlined Dr McConway. A native of Edenderry, Kennedy resided in Tullamore for over 30 years. Charismatic, efficient, sincere, an indefatigable and fervent patriot, he encouraged industrial development in the town. He was elected to Tullamore Urban Council. A member of the Gaelic League, he promoted the Irish language. He was secretary of the United Irish Leagues local branch and a member of Cumann na nGaedheal, a front organisation for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in Tullamore. He was the IRB leader, or centre, in the town and inducted Peadar Bracken into the secret society in 1904. Bracken subsequently fought in the 1916 Rising. Local IRB members Patrick Egan, the then centre, and Edward OBrennan, sub-centre, were involved in the fatal raid on the Ulster Bank in 1922. Of strong physique, Kennedy was also active in the GAA and was president of the local hurling club. He died from pneumonia in 1910, aged 64 years, and is buried in Durrow Cemetery. A NEW bioenergy training course for farmers has just started. It will be run as a collaboration between Gurteen College and the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA). The project is made possible by funding from the National Just Transition Fund for the wider Midlands region and Gurteen College and IrBEAs agreement to deliver it jointly. This is a pivotal time for farming and climate action, and we are delighted to partner with the Irish Bioenergy Association to bring in its bioenergy technical knowledge and market development expertise for the delivery of this course. It reflects our ongoing delivery of sustainability in farming programmes for our students, and it will play an important part in the Just Transition for the wider Midlands region, commented Gurteen College Principal, Mr Jon Parry. A collaborative learning approach is a key part of our ethos here at Gurteen, and in this case, collaborating with IrBEA means that we can broaden and deepen the level of knowledge and expertise that the Bioenergy Training Course can access and offer to our students, added Mr Parry. IrBEAs Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sean Finan commented that this course is an exciting opportunity for farmers interested in bioenergy, regardless of their previous level of knowledge or expertise in it: Sustainability, energy and new income opportunities are very much at the core of discussions both about farming generally and amongst farmers themselves. This new Bioenergy Training Course offers the whole spectrum of farmers an opportunity to learn more about sustainable bioenergy, and the different ways it can contribute to farming, the economy, and our communities and environment, stated Mr Finan. Mr Finan went on to say that: We are delighted to have arrived at this point where this exciting training opportunity for farmers is about to start, and look forward to delivering this collaboration with Gurteen College. We have been pleased to collaborate with Gurteen College on some other initiatives to date, and we look forward to the new Bioenergy Training Course being a great success. I want to thank Jon Parry, Gurteen Colleges Principal, its Course Co-ordinator, Niall Finnegan and our own Co-ordinator for this course, Padraic O hUiginn for his role in enabling it to get up and running. The course delivery will involve a mix of lectures, demonstrations and site visits. Topics covered will include: bioenergy, an overview; energy crops and solid biomass; gaseous bioenergy: biogas and biomethane; costs and budgeting; liquid biofuels, biochar, and bioenergys role in building sustainable biomass supply chains. There will also be a day tour as part of the course. Gurteen College has 75 years of experience of agricultural teaching and training. IrBEA represents the broad remit of bioenergy, across the island of Ireland, since 1999. The bioenergy training course will run for one day a week for six weeks, with the possibility of some additional modules emerging from the discussions and learnings on the course. A team from IrBEA and Gurteen College will jointly deliver the course. The course will be provided on a funded scholarship-type basis. On-site attendance and participation at Gurteen College is required, where meals will be provided. The course promises to provide an exciting combination of Gurteen Colleges farming and agricultural expertise and IrBEAs bioenergy expertise, including support to bioenergy enterprise and market development. For farmers, there will be a particular focus on knowledge transfer in relation to sustainable energy crop production and anaerobic digestion. We are looking forward to welcoming back some former students and meeting some new students, who have already committed to the Bioenergy Training Course. There has been a lot of interest in it. We have a very small number of places still available, so if you are genuinely interested, and can commit to attending for the full duration, please get in touch with us to book a place by telephoning (067) 21282 or by emailing with your name and phone number to info@gurteencollege.ie. Places will be filled on a first-come first-served basis, with a waiting list operating after that, said Mr Niall Finnegan, Bioenergy Training Course Co-ordinator at Gurteen College. This is an excellent opportunity for IrBEA to share knowledge and raise awareness amongst key stakeholders of the opportunities in bioenergy and also in the Midlands Bioenergy Development Project to help build up bioenergy supply chains, stated IrBEAs co-ordinator for the course, Mr Padraic O hUiginn. It will also be interesting to hear the insights and questions that the students themselves will bring to the Bioenergy Training Course, with the discussions within the modules being a key part of the courses learning approach, concluded Mr O hUiginn. The Bioenergy Training Course is facilitated through Gurteen Colleges lead role in the Producing and Promoting Green Energy project, and IrBEAs delivery of the Midlands Bioenergy Development Project, each funded by the National Just Transition Fund. COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership,(CoVDP) has handed over vehicles, motorbikes and computers worth of US$ 2.8M to support Sierra Leone Vaccination efforts. The additional support is aimed at enabling country further to scale up COVID-19 vaccination, as well as strengthen broader routine immunisation services across the country. According to a joint release statement from WHO, UNICEF and Gavi issued on 25th January,the support comes at a time when Sierra Leone and health partners were working to strengthen the health care delivery system and improve child health care services. The release disclosed that CoVDP is a joint venture of the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative (Gavi), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The items were officially handed over to Dr. Austin Demby, Minister of Health and Sanitation in Freetown and they included two pick up vehicles, 250 motorbikes, six computers and accessories and 300 tablets with power banks. In addition, 15 Peripheral Health Units (PHUs), and four District Vaccine Stores, will be connected to solar powered systems. These supplies according to WHO are part of the technical and operational support which the country is receiving to help scale up COVID-19 vaccination and strengthen routine immunisation services across Sierra Leone. "It is heart-warming to receive these items from the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership, (CoVDP). Since COVID-19 Vaccination is a vital lifesaving tool in the fight against COVID-19, this move is a step in the right direction. As Sierra Leone has achieved over 70% of fully vaccinated individuals for COVID-19 vaccination, this donation will boost the country's determination in making more gains in the integrated vaccination approach," said Dr. Austin Demby, Minister of Health and Sanitation. The release further highlighted that since March 2021, when Sierra Leone first introduced COVID-19 vaccination, the partners have helped ensure the delivery of up to 7,881,848 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the country through COVAX and other sources. Since the initial rollout, vaccination of eligible members of the population has significantly improved. This latest support from the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership will ensure that the country's COVID-19 vaccination programme continues this positive trajectory, continuing to reach high-risk population groups with boosters and remaining alert to the continued global threat of COVID-19 "Gavi is proud to work with our partners in continued support of Sierra Leone's COVID-19 vaccination rollout," said Dr Richard Mihigo, Director of COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery, Coordination and Integration at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. "These additional resources are vital investments that will further strengthening the health system as a whole, supporting integration of COVID-19 vaccines into routine immunisation programs, and ensuring more children are protected against various vaccine-preventable diseases." "In collaboration with the Government of Sierra Leone, we will intensify efforts on the deployment of vaccines, strengthening of the cold chain system, community sensitization and engagement for increased uptake of immunization services", said Dr Suleiman Braimoh, UNICEF Representative in Sierra Leone. He said the donation will help ensure that the COVID-19 vaccination is integrated into routine immunization services in 2023 and beyond to protect children from vaccine preventable illnesses such as polio and measles." "The protracted nature of the COVID-19 pandemic calls for continued collaboration and partnership to support the ongoing efforts and progress that Sierra Leone has made in the fight against the disease", says Dr Innocent Nuwagira, WHO Representative in Sierra Leone. WHO encourages everyone to remain vigilant, maintain the structures that were instituted to curb the pandemic, get more people vaccinated and continue to administer booster doses in accordance with national guidelines to safeguard the gains that we have collectively made. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Sierra Leone 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. In addition to the items donated today, another consignment including two vehicles, one refrigerated van and 150 solar refrigerators, is expected to arrive in Sierra Leone by March 2023 for handover to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is a public-private partnership that helps vaccinate half the world's children against some of the world's deadliest diseases. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has helped to immunise a whole generation - over 981 million children - and prevented more than 16.2 million future deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 lower-income countries. Gavi also plays a key role in improving global health security by supporting health systems as well as funding global stockpiles for Ebola, cholera, meningococcal and yellow fever vaccines. Does our new arrival deliver on the promise of Mustang-calibre electric propulsion? *Why were running it: *To see if.. Autocar 26 Jan 2023 Volodymyr Zelensky has asked for fighter jets to defend Ukraines skies, the chairman of the French defence committee said his country may heed the call. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), has ended a two-day Possibilities Forum at the Sierra Palm Resort, Lumley, Freetown. The forum took place on the 23rd and 24th January, respectively. In her overview on the significance of the forum, the Country Manager, UNOPS Sierra Leone, Sofia Goinhas stated that UNOPS possibilities program aims to enhance diversity of their supply base in order to ensure that the suppliers they work with share and reflect the values of the people and communities they serve. She explained that their mission at UNOPS is to help people build better lives and for countries to achieve peace and sustainable development. She underlined that UNOPS strives to ensure that people can live full lives supported by sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructure and by the efficient and transparent use of public resources in procurement and project management. She went on to state that they are keen to supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. "We respond to our partners 'needs and help increase the effectiveness of peace and security, humanitarian and development projects around the world," she said. She added that UNOPS provides infrastructure, procurement and project management services to help build the future. The Country Manager further stated that they provide practical solutions to assist their partners to save lives, protect people and their rights, and to build a better future. "At UNOPS, we believe in more transparent, sustainable, inclusive, gender responsive and resilient procurements models can strengthen supply chains, empower institutions and be a catalyst for realizing sustainable and inclusive development" she maintained. She ended on the note that UNOPS pioneered sustainable procurement in the UN system and added that it was part and parcel of their procurement principles and it is embedded in their DNA as an organization. Madam Goiunhas indicated that their expertise is widely recognized and that they have won a number of awards because of their sustainable procurement approach. Hellen Maina, the Sustainable Analyst Supplier, UNOPS, stated that procurement is said to be sustainable when it integrates requirements, specifications and criteria that are compatible and in favour of the protection of the environment, of social progress and in support of economic development, namely by seeking resource efficiency, improving the quality of products and services and ultimately optimizing costs. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Sierra Leone International Organisations 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. Maina further stated that UNOPS procures $ 1 billion worth of goods and services each year, adding that by including sustainability criteria in their tenders and ensuring that their decision have a lasting positive impact for the environment and the social and economic progress as well as support economic development. The Sustainable Procurement Senior Analyst, Eugene Arthur, threw light on the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs). He added that the SDGs were highlighted based on the challenges such as poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation as well as peace and justice. He maintained that the United Nations Supplier Code of Conduct is promulgated by the UN's Procurement Division and fully endorsed by UNOPS. He indicated that companies doing business with the United Nations are required to acknowledge the UN Supplier Code of Conduct when registering on the UN Global Marketplace (UNGM). He went ahead to highlight some of the key recommendations' to vendors, which among them is; become familiar with the SDGs and other sub-goals, analyzing their products, services, and their commitments as a company and pinpoint the SDGs to which they contribute to etc. The forum was climaxed by a plenary as well as questions and answers session. In attendance were; UN agencies representatives, a representative from World Bank, over 90 private sector businesses as well as newsmen. Swedish authorities had given approval for the protest to go ahead, infuriating Turkeys president who can stop Sweden and Finlands entry to the alliance. The chancellor will dismiss "gloom" about the prospects for the UK economy and say the government will bring about long-term prosperity in a plan "energised" by Brexit. President Biden has called for "peaceful" protests as five former officers face second-degree murder and other charges in the arrest and death of the 29-year-old Black motorist. As the city awaits video of the fatal encounter with Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, a law enforcement official described the footage as absolutely appalling. Jerusalem Post 29 Jan 2023 Police in Tehran said they had arrested a suspect but said the gunman appeared to have had a personal, not a political, motive. Friends and activists gathered at a skatepark in Memphis on Jan. 26 to honor Tyre Nichols after five former police officers were charged with his death. Speaking at the vigil, Nichols's mother RowVaughn Wells called for peaceful protests ahead of the release of surveillance and body-camera footage. Sky News 28 Jan 2023 Tyre Nichols was punched, kicked and tasered, beaten with a baton and had chemical spray used on him during a violent arrest by.. Poland will send 60 more tanks to Ukraine, on top of the 14 it has already pledged to the war effort, the Polish prime minister has said. India will receive 12 cheetahs from South Africa next month that will join eight others it received from Namibia in September as part of an ambitious plan to reintroduce the cats in the country after 70 years. Oneindia 25 Feb 2023 Upon the completion of 1 year since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the European Union adopted the tenth round of sanctions.. Members of Parliament on Tuesday ratified four bilateral agreements between the Republic of Sierra Leone, the State of Qatar and the Republic of The Gambia for the promotion of investment, trade, economic, commercial, air services and technical cooperation, among others. Whilst presenting the agreement to Members of Parliament, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mamadi Gobeh-Kamara, said the objective of the three agreements signed between Sierra Leone and Qatar was to broaden the bilateral relation between the two countries in the area of mutual benefits. She said the agreements will also explore opportunities of the country's economic growth by elevating the attribute of trade and investment, tourism, transport and other sectors. She noted that Qatar presented many opportunities to President Bio upon his visit in 2018 and among them were the agreements for major investment in various sectors. The deputy minister said the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments agreement was intended to create and maintain the most favourable conditions for investment, recognizing the need to promote and protect investments and after care of investment and foster economic prosperity for the people. She further stated that the air services agreement was expected to generate employment, boost the tourism industry and also create a platform for the transfer of extra knowledge in the aviation industry. She said Air Qatar is one of the largest and most advanced airlines in the aviation industry, therefore an agreement of that nature will create competition and foster international air links which will support revenue generation. As for the Gambia trade cooperation agreement, she said the two countries have sustained long bilateral support and that the joint cooperation agreement will support the two countries' development creations and promotes socio-economic growth, trade and investment. "It will reduce trade barriers; promote favourable conditions for development shipping with Banjul and Freetown, facilitate the movement of goods to stimulate economic growth," she concluded. Responding to the question as to what goods will be brought into the country from Banjul, she said after years of friendship with the Republic Gambia, they have noticed that Sierra Leone has not benefited a lot hence they were making ways to create more tangible protocols that will show forth the benefit they will bring into the country. Hon. Mark Mahmoud Kalokoh commended the effort made by the Foreign Ministry and stated that both countries will mutually benefit from each other after the ratification of the agreements. He said there were some grey areas that needed clarification and that the minister should tell the plenary which clause that shows wherein goods will be coming from the Gambia to Sierra Leone that will make the economy viable. He said there has been lot of evidence to show goods leaving the shores of Sierra Leone to Gambia many times. Hon. Kandeh Kolley Yumkella said the agreement between Sierra Leone and The Gambia was in place as it will help to explore the market in both neighbourhood, especially in the African continent. He said Sierra Leone being a small country stands to benefit a lot from the Qatar agreements through its friendship and added knowledge. He said for a long time now within the family of the United Nations, Qatar has been looking at the issue of food security and the possibility of investing in third world countries. He said the country can learn from Qatar sometimes for a better economic diplomacy and also gaining value from their new discovery of gas and natural resources after the ratification of the agreements. He said the more airlines in the country, the more short time revenue, but questioned why the country has one of the highest charges on air rates, shipping cost and others, than any other country. He said it is fundamentally wrong to form a policy that will give short term benefit with huge cost attached, rather they should be able to make policies that are longer with lesser cost on the citizens. He said import duties as well are high when goods are taken to The Gambia, Benin, Mali and Guinea by road, adding that trade within the sub-region should be looked into for the benefit of all. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Sierra Leone Governance Legal Affairs 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. Hon. Chernoh Bah said the aviation industry needed to put things in place and that when such provisions are ratified, there was need for the market to exist and not be compared to what the Turkish Airline is currently doing. He said most people are suffering in the hands of the Turkish Airline and that such issue need serious attention, adding that the problem they wanted to avoid during the previous government was to create easy access of people coming into the country as the access from Lungi to Freetown poses challenge. He said the challenge will continue to be, even with the rebranding that has just been done. "We are not against the rebranding; our problem was the accessibility coming to Freetown after a long flight. All of us are using the ferries and we know the challenges," he said. He said the $25 saga is still ongoing at the port, but urged that when Parliament makes laws to encourage tourism, other ministries have the right to play their own part as well. Russia has deliberately misinterpreted a remark by the German foreign minister for propaganda purposes, Berlin says. Annalena Baerbock seemed to suggest NATO was a party to the conflict in Ukraine, which the West denies. Herzog used the opportunity to draw NATO's attention to Israeli citizens that are being held captive by Hamas. Republican members of Congress from New York sent a letter to the White House to demand a halt to the relocation of illegal migrants from the border to New York state. Washington (AFP) Jan 26, 2023 President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered a two-year extension of a program allowing Hong Kong residents in the United States - many of whom fled repressive Chinese rule - to stay beyond the expiry of their visas. The extension, just days before the program was due to run out, was likely to add to tensions between Beijing and Washington, already high over Taiwan, trade disputes, and Chinese An Islamic extremist who killed eight people with a speeding truck in a 2017 rampage on a popular New York City bike path was convicted Thursday of 28 federal crimes and could face the death penalty. (Jan. 26) Atlanta, Chicago and New York are finalists, and local Democrats are eager to bend President Bidens ear to host what would be his formal nomination event. The president plan's for mass student loan forgiveness is still tied up in the courts. These are the states that have the most to gain. Memphis authorities say they're planning to release body camera footage depicting the 29-year-old's death sometime after 7 p.m. ET. Cities across the U.S. are bracing for protests. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Thursday a series of sanctions targeting individuals associated with Russias paramilitary Wagner Group, including its leader and associated front companies, for waging war in Ukraine, including battlefield activities and the targeting of civilians. In a statement, Blinken... The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran imposed fresh sanctions on dozens of European Union (EU) and British officials and entities for supporting terrorism. The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday released an updated list of sanctions against a number of EU and British individuals and entities. Those individuals and... First Oil company has been cornered by the High Court, to pay US$2,7 million owed to CMED Pvt Ltd after having dodged the obligation for a decade. The previous order was issued in January last year following a protracted legal battle which started in 2014. Court was told the US$2,7 million is compensation for 3 million liters of diesel which CMED paid for in 2013 but never received. Following a ruling by High Court judge, Justice Owen Tagu, First Oil approached the Supreme Court seeking to have the lower court's ruling nullified. As legal battle dragged on, CMED, having studied the appeal by First Oil, approached the High Court seeking leave to execute Justice Tagu's judgement. CMED then filed another High Court application complaining that First Oil's decision to appeal was aimed at buying more time and evade payment. Justice Siyabona Musithu upheld CMED's request. The judge also put a final nail on the matter ruling that the order directing First Oil to pay will remain binding even if the company tried to appeal his judgement because it was not disputed that the company had failed to fulfill its end of the deal. Musithu said his judgement shall not be suspended by noting of an appeal. He ruled, "The court determines that on the evidence available, it is CMED that stands to suffer irreparable harm if execution pending appeal is not granted. "The applicant parted with a huge amount of money, but received nothing in return. It is common cause that the applicant is in the business of procuring and dispensing fuel. "Because of the instability in the pricing of fuel globally, it is also common cause that the amount advanced to the respondent may never procure the same quantities of diesel as would have been procured when the parties signed the agreement. "At any rate, the applicant is not even going to be refunded the sum of US$2 700 000 in the same currency it was paid to the respondent. "On its part, the respondent has failed to justify its retention of the said amount in the absence of any claim against the applicant. The balance of convenience is clearly in favour of granting the relief sought herein. "Resultantly, it is ordered that the applicant be and is hereby granted leave to execute judgment No. HH 26/21 granted by this court under case HC 1897/16 on 13th January 2021. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines Debt Zimbabwe Company 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. "The applicant shall furnish security to the satisfaction of the Registrar. "In the event of an appeal being noted against this order, notwithstanding such noting of appeal, this order be and is hereby declared operative and in effect and shall not be suspended. Costs will be in the cause." The two entities have been at loggerheads since 2013 after First Oil failed to deliver 3 million liters of diesel to CMED. Court heard parties entered into a deal and money was paid before the deal was even signed. CMED paid a total of US$2,7million litres of diesel and in terms of the agreement,it was to pay a further US$720 000 direct to ZIMRA in lieu of duties and levies. However, CMED did not pay the sum of US$720 000 that would have been paid to ZIMRA in terms of duty and levies. First Oil then failed to deliver. The company still went on to challenge the lawsuit arguing that CMED did not pay US$720 000 as agreed. In addition First Oil argued the contract was not binding because money was paid before signatures. The United States military successfully killed an ISIS facilitator in Somalia during a couterterrorism mission that also resulted in the death of 10 other operatives. Last year was the deadliest on record for police killings in the United States. According to a Washington Post database, law enforcement officers shot and killed 1,096 people in 2022. And thats likely an understatement. According to Abdul Nasser Rad, a research director at Campaign Zero, the Post only... Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy. The UK government has refused to confirm that its flagship rail project HS2 (High Speed 2) will reach central London following reports. The Sun reported that because of rising construction #sun #commuters #manchester #birmingham #michaelgove #jeremyhunt #asiapacific #federalreserves #tokyo #bankofjapan Brandon Mitchell of Miramichi, N.B., has escaped death more than once trying to help Ukrainians on the front line of the Russian invasion. He talks to CBC News how he's survived and why he's working as a medic in a war he calls his own. Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president, is in Poland and Germany to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and address rising antisemitism around the world. Watch VideoGaza militants fired rockets and Israel carried out airstrikes early Friday as tensions soared following an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank that killed nine Palestinians, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman. It was the deadliest single raid in the territory in over two decades. The... This week the opposition forces in Georgia, in the form of political parties Droa, Agmanshenebeli Strategy and Girchi declared war against the current government. Leaders of these organizations announced the beginning of national-liberation movement aimed to overthrow the power by the hands of citizens.... Newsy 18 Mar 2023 ViewThe Memphis police supervisor on scene when Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by officers retired with his benefits the day.. Director of Content and Operations Spencer McKee is OutThere Colorado's Director of Content and Operations. In his spare time, Spencer loves to hike, rock climb, and trail run. He's on a mission to summit all 58 of Colorado's fourteeners and has already climbed more than half. New York, US (PANA) - While describing maintaining peace as core to the UN it's very reason for being Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed warned the Security Council on Thursday that it was a mission now under grave threat Photo: (Photo : Erich Schlegel /Getty Images) A Texas highway crash on Sunday evening left only one survivor. The deadly car crash occurred on Farm-to-Market Road 2722 in Comal County, Texas, just before 6:30 P.M. The collision involved a black 2005 Ford F-150 pickup truck and a black 2007 Chrysler Aspen SUV. While the pickup truck was moving in a southerly direction, the SUV was driving the other way. The crash killed all passengers except the 12-year-old girl in the black SUV, who showed signs of life when authorities arrived. The 12-year-old girl survives According to Fox News, the child was in a life-threatening condition when transferred to the University Hospital in San Antonio. However, the other family members inside the black Aspen SUV passed away. The SUV had six family members when they went on their journey. The driver was the father, Albertin Olvera Gonzalez, 39, and the passenger seat was occupied by the mother, Nancy Olvera Gonzalez, 44. Riding in the back were the four youngsters: two males, ages eight and 17, and two girls, ages six and 12. All three died, leaving the 12-year-old girl as the only survivor. The Texas police withheld the names of the victims. However, according to People, Hector Daniel Jaimes, 25, the only immediate family member of the 12-year-old girl who survived, said that Nancy was his mother and Albertin was his stepfather. Jaimes added his 12-year-old younger sister is currently hospitalized in a critical state and is still fighting for her life. Following this, he established a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe to assist him in paying for the burial of his family members and to assist his younger sister. In the GoFundMe, Jaimes stated that he is still trying to process the loss of most of his family members to the Texas highway crash. He noted that he is still determining what he is going to do. Jaimes thanked everyone for the outpouring of support. He mentioned the medical staff at the hospital taking care of his sister, friends, and coworkers. He stated that he is still trying to navigate and finalize the needs that need to be taken care of for their funeral services. Jaimes added that he needs all the help he can get. Read Also: Controversial Drug Asparaginase Given To Children With Leukemia in Brazil Cause More Pain and Death Texas Highway crash According to ABC News, the pickup truck had drifted into the oncoming traffic lane and hit the SUV. While the victims' identities were not made public by the Texas Department of Public Safety, Jaimes, in his Facebook post, named his deceased family members as his sister Zia Giulietta Perez Olvera, his brother Christian Eduardo Jaimes, and his brother Diego Fernando Perez. The driver and passenger of the 2005 Ford F-150 pickup truck were identified as Jose Andres Ramos Vazquez, 26, and Camilo Martinez Tovar. Both were from Canyon Lake. Related Article: Police Holds 64-Year-Old Man in Custody for Death of Mother, Daughter in 1994 Photo: (Photo : Getty Images/ MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP) Three-month-old conjoined twins sharing a liver were successfully separated in a historic surgery. Conjoined baby twins JamieLynn and AmieLynn Finley were separated Monday at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. It was reported to be an 11-hour surgery procedure performed by six surgeons and 25 medical professionals, according to MSN. The separation procedure was the first to be executed by the hospital. Hospital officials confirmed Thursday that JamieLynn and AmieLynn were "doing great" after the operation. Both were in recovery but are in good health, as assured by Cook Children's media relations specialist Kim Brown. Anatomy and growth support issues The twins were prematurely born at 34 weeks last October 3, 2022, and have stayed in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) since November. They were conjoined in their abdomen, from their breastbone to their belly button. As a result, they share internal organs, including their liver. The medical team has decided that it was the right time to do the separation procedure because their anatomy is making it dangerous for both of them, and it will not be able to support their growth, KETK reported. "While separate, their hearts are exceedingly close together and grow ever closer as the girls age. While the girls are thriving in the NICU, they are not growing at the same rate, partly because they share some blood supply," hospital officials explained before the operation. Dr. Ben Gbulie from Posh Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Mansfield, discussed the separation procedure with the family and suggested doing the surgery at Cook's Children. The hospital can provide them the opportunity for long-term follow-up wherein they can get the same quality care and is within their address. Read also: Youngest Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated By Swiss Doctors Hoping for normal, healthy lives in the future The medical director of pediatric surgery at Cook Children, Dr. Jose Iglesias, informed the public that the twins are "going to have a bit of a ramp up from the recovery" but reassures everyone that JamieLynn and AmieLynn are going to get better. Hospital officials said that their main concerns that need to be monitored for weeks while the twins are in recovery are the possible bleeding and infections due to the high-risk surgery and liver dissection. But apart from that, Dr. Iglesias expressed high hopes for their excellent recovery and being able to lead "very close to normal if not completely normal" healthy lives in the future. According to The Hill, the parents of the twins, James Finley and Amanda Arciniega, were immediately able to visit their daughters an hour after the procedure, and they were already in separate beds. They needed to divide their attention between the two for the first time, yet they could not ask for anything more. When asked if she had always wanted twins, Arciniega replied no. She further said that she never thought "in a million years" that she would have twins, much more, conjoined twins. Related Article: Formerly Conjoined Twins Enjoy Best Lives Normally 17 Years After Surgery Photo: (Photo : Pexel/Helena Lopes) In their newest bill, Republicans are banning students who identify themselves as animal species and not human from public schools. Six North Dakota Republican members presented a new bill Wednesday, sending a clear message that nonhuman-identified students are not allowed in the Roughrider State. "A board of a school district, a public or private school, or a teacher in a public or private school may not ... Adopt a policy establishing or providing a place, facility, school program, or accommodation that caters to a student's perception of being any animal species other than human," stated under the "emergency measure" of the two-page bill. Urban myth It can be recalled that before the November election last year, an urban myth spread among conservative Republicans that schools in the U.S. provide litter boxes to accommodate students who identify as cats. This remains a myth, as NBC News reported in October that this is untrue. Though this newly introduced bill does not mention litter boxes, it seems that it is connected with the urban myth, NBC News declared. State Rep. Lori VanWinkle, one of the bill's six sponsors, proclaimed that her state has students who identify as non-humans. These children, according to an email she wrote, claim to be animals such as dogs and cats. As of writing, the other five Republican sponsors - Rep. Lauren Boebert, Nebraska state Rep. Bruce Bostleman, Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, Sen. Ron Johnson, and Sen. J.D. Vance, have yet to respond to the request for comment. Read also: Michigan School Denies Putting Litter Boxes in Bathroom for Students Who Identify as Cats Anti-transgender bill It has been reported, however, that the bill's primary focus is to restrict public schools to accommodate transgender youths and include a section for "a different and theoretical" group of students. If it passes in the House of Representatives, it will ban accommodations for transgender students and will not allow teachers to use a student's preferred gender pronoun if it is inconsistent with the student's sex assigned at birth. Schools will be fined up to $500,000 in damages if they violate the policy. Thus, LGBTQ Nation stated that the Republicans have gone too far in crafting their "latest anti-trans bill." Further, they stated these Republican lawmakers and candidates utilized and repeated the urban myth rumor "in an attempt to stoke anti-trans sentiment." According to an NBC News analysis, there have been more than 140 bills introduced by state lawmakers across the country targeting the rights of LGBTQ and queer life. The majority of these bills are focused on young transgender people. North Dakota lawmakers, on the other hand, have just rejected on Friday another anti-trans bill that was supposed to impose a $1,500 fine each time individuals referred to themselves or others with pronouns that differ from what they have been assigned at birth. Related Article: North Carolina Judge Rules That Transgenders Are No Threat To Public Safety, Slams McCrory's Anti-LGBT Law Photo: (Photo : Jordan Vonderhaar /Getty Images) A six-year-old boy sustained injuries in the lower part of his body after his school bus driver ran him over. The incident happened in Minnesota, specifically at the 8700 block of Edinbrook Crossing in Brooklyn Park. Police officers in Brooklyn Park were informed of a hit-and-run accident that included a school bus. At first, the bus driver fled the scene of the accident. The law enforcement agents tracked down the bus. The 6-year-old boy is left with injuries According to the New York Post, the school bus had dropped off the boy, whose name is withheld, at 3 P.M., shortly before it ran him over. He was immediately brought to the nearest hospital, where his injuries were assessed as non-life-threatening. Upon investigation, police discovered that a bus company had left the kid in the parking lot. Inspector Elliot Faust said the school bus driver claimed he was unaware that he had run over the boy. The six-year-old boy is a student at Prodeo Academy, a public charter school in Columbia Heights. The school bus used by the school is operated by a third-party service provider that holds a contract with the school. In response to this accident, the school assured the students' parents that the bus driver was suspended and would no longer drive their specific route. Read Also: Military Implements New Parental Leave Policy, Giving 12 Weeks for Birth, Non-Birth Parents School bus driver under investigation According to KARE, Chancey Anderson and Rick Campion, the co-founders of Prodeo, issued a statement on Thursday in which they acknowledged that the disaster had a devastating impact on the community. The founders stated that two of their staff members were able to provide support to the child's family in the hospital the previous night, and they are maintaining communication with them. Prodeo chose not to release details on the boy's identity or his current medical condition to show respect for the victim and his family. They further stated that the institution's primary goal is ensuring that the children attending the school are safe. They anticipate that its business partners will similarly make safety their top concern. Since they learned about the tragedy, they launched a comprehensive inquiry into the safety procedures of the transportation providers with whom they have contracts. During their inquiry, they have also been in touch with law enforcement officials in the surrounding area. As per Tip411, the incident is being actively investigated by both the Brooklyn Park Police Department and the Minnesota State Patrol. They will keep in touch with one another regarding the development of the investigation as it proceeds. There is still evidence to be collected, including footage of the incident captured on camera. Related Article: Controversial Drug Asparaginase Given To Children With Leukemia in Brazil Cause More Pain and Death Photo: (Photo : J Pat Carter/ Getty Images) The missing 4-year-old girl from Oklahoma has now been found. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation found the remains of a child on January 17, and after the appropriate examinations, the remains were identified as those of Athena Brownfield. Police officers found the remains in rural Grady County. Athena Brownfield made headlines a few weeks ago as the missing 4-year-old girl from Oklahoma. However, as the investigation was ongoing, the young girl had been dead for some time. Remains of Athena Brownfield The skeletal remains were unmistakably determined to have belonged to the 4-year-old child by the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The bureau declined to speak more, invoking a gag order issued by the Caddo County District Court that forbids law enforcement authorities from publicly discussing the investigation. CNN reported that one of Athena's caregivers, Ivon Adams, is suspected of murdering the young child and burying her body close to the location of their previous home. According to the affidavit, Adams' wife, Alysia Adams, confessed to investigators in a January 12 interrogation that her husband beat Athena numerous times on Christmas night until she completely stopped moving. Ivon Adams reportedly moved Athena's body and buried her behind a fence near their former Rush Springs house. He allegedly informed his wife that he had thrown a huge broken branch over the scene. According to online court documents for Caddo County, Oklahoma, District Court, Ivon Adams is charged with first-degree murder and felony child neglect. Ivon Adams was not the only one arrested in this case; his wife, Aysia Adams, was also taken into custody. The couple is the caretaker of the Brownfield sisters. According to the charging documents, Alysia Adams now faces two counts of felony child neglect. During a hearing in court, Alyssa Adams' attorney presented the court with a not-guilty plea on her behalf. Read Also: Virginia Legislators Introduce Sage's Law to Prevent Misgendering as Child Abuse A missing 4-year-old girl in Oklahoma According to Today, Oklahoma law enforcement authorities have been alerted about a missing young child. When the officers responded to the scene, they realized the report was meant for two missing kids, the 5-year-old and the 4-year-old Brownfields. A postal worker reported seeing Athena's younger sister, who is five years old, playing by herself on January 10, which prompted authorities and volunteers to begin looking for Athena. The girl's elder sister was discovered roaming close to where the sisters lived in Cyril, a town located around 65 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. As per NBC News, since January 10, the authorities and several volunteers in the community have been looking for the missing 4-year-old girl. The State Bureau of Investigation has stated that Alysia Adams is linked to the two children and has been caring for the sisters for at least a year. The missing 4-year-old girl has also been identified as having limited verbal skills. The state presently has custody of Brownfield's younger sister, who is just five years old. According to an affidavit filed in her case, the biological mother of the children left the girls in the couple's care around two years ago. However, the couple did not take the kids to the doctor for checkups and did not enroll Athena's older sister in school. The investigators have spoken with the girls' biological parents and confirmed that they are helping with the inquiry. Related Article: Texas Highway Crash Kills Family, 12-Year-Old Survivor in Critical Condition This service applies to you if your subscription has not yet expired on our old site. You will have continued access until your subscription expires; then you will need to purchase an ongoing subscription through our new system. Please contact the Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions Dipping briefly back into Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980): In February 1849, when the Saints were still relatively new in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, President Brigham Young learned that some of them were going hungry while others seemed to be hoarding private supplies of grain. According to John D. Lee not yet the infamous John D. Lee of the massacre at Mountain Meadows Brighams reaction was verbally fierce: Pres. B. Young said that we are safe; still he said . . . he believed all the while that corn was not so scarce as many expected, . . . and if those that have do not sell to those that have not, we will just take it and distribute amoung the poor, and those that have and will not divide willingly may be thankful that their heads are not found wallowing in the snow. There is some of the meanest spirits here amoung the saints that ever graced this footstool. They are too mean to live amoung the gentiles. . . . Still . . . I will talk to the people in public. I know the strongest side are willing to do right. (146-147, citing A Mormon Chronicle: The Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848-1876, eds. Robert G. Cleland and Juanita Brooks, 2 vols. [San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1955], 1.7) Professor England expressly notes what he terms those picturesque threats about heads wallowing in the snow. But those words arent the whole story. Characteristically, England comments, President Young had vented his feelings in extreme terms in the council meeting but then spoke and acted moderately and every effectively with the body of Saints. (147) A similar incident had already occurred back on 6 January 1849, just a month before, when Brother Brigham had received a report that those that have fat cattle were grinding the faces of the poor by charging them extortionate prices. Some on the council proposed price controls, but Brigham said No. Instead, he proposed that members of the council organize prayer meetings and use their influence to reason with the people. And that is what he himself did. John D. Lee records, Pres. B.Y. addressed the Saints in Public. Spoke of their conditions and of the opression of the poor; said to those that [have] corn to spare, to let it go on reasonable terms; said to those that had to bye, not to be particuelar about what they had to pay, for it would be salvation to them but death to the seller that extortioned. (147) Commenting on the episode, Professor England writes that The speech was effective and greatly ameliorated the condition of the Poor. Lee reports that every man that could be touched was stirred by way of remembrance and began to let corn go, and he give a convincing example. That Sunday morning a William Matthews had charged him forty dollars for an ox, but then: The same day said Matthews went to meeting, heard what Pres. B. Young had to say about extortioners, came home the same evening and said to [me], kill the ox that I let you have and weigh it and pay me what he weighs. I likely asked you more than what he was worth, etc. Thus [Lee editorializes] the reader may see the effect of the preaching of the man of God. (147) Here are some indications of Brigham Youngs honest self-estimation, expressed in his own words: President Young knew well enough what his own chief fault was: in a speech in 1853 he told the Saint: Never, in the days of my life, have I hurt a man with the palm of my hand. I never have hurt a person any other way except with this unruly member, my tongue. (141) [It] is not the good, rel[i]gious, Sa[n]ctified feelings that I have that will present me or any other man blameless and acceptable before the Lord, but it is the good that we do to one another. . . . Esteem it a prevelege to help one another that you may have your reward. . . . I confess my own faults. I am subject to temptation and as liable to do wrong as any other man. . . . I know what is right all the time. I am never at a loss to know what is right, but sometimes I do not think or I am not guarded against the Temper. (144) On another theme: Brother Brigham was . . . perfectly clear about the relation of the Twelve to the Prophet: The Twelve may get a revelation in any part of the world concerning the building up of the Kingdom, as they have to establish it in all parts of the world . . . but not to lead the Church that belongs to the head of the Church. And again, late in that same year, 1843, on another occasion when Josephs absence seems to have left Brigham automatically in charge: I attended prayer-meeting in the Assembly Room. President Joseph Smith being absent, I presided and instructed the brethren upon the necessity of following our file leader, and our Savior, in all his laws and commandments, without asking any questions why they were so. (68-69) I close with four bone-chilling pieces from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial How Religion Poisons Everything File: US Coast-to-Coast Disaster Relief from the Church of Jesus Christ: Natural disaster victims in California, Alabama and Georgia receive food, supplies, service and comfort How quilts recovered from a flooded Kentucky home comforted a grieving family: Despite several people saying it was a lost cause, a Latter-day Saint couple and others did their best to preserve 16 vintage quilts salvaged from a waterlogged and muddy home for a family that lost its mother Church Partners with Women of Faith to Help Survivors of December 2022 Floods in Kinshasa And dont miss this striking 8.5-minute video: Christlike Service to Refugees The recent hikes in electricity and water tariffs could dampen hopes of business recovery and employment prospects, the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has warned. The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) last week announced an upward review of electricity and water tariffs for the first quarter of this year. The new tariffs which take effect February 1, 2023 will see monthly electricity and water bills go up 29.96 percent and 8.3 percent respectively across the board for all customers. With this, it means within a period of less than six months, electricity tariffs have shot up significantly on two occasions 26.6 percent in September 2022 and 29.9 percent for this quarter, totalling 56.5 percent; water has gone up 48 percent over the same period. The AGI has however described the level of increments as excessive. Businesses, it said, were hoping to see signs of recovery this year, having been under pressure from an unstable business environment coupled with so much uncertainty since last year; hence, the recent increase in utility tariffs could spell doom for recovery and employment prospects. The level of utility tariff increments for water and electricity as captured in the PURCs release are too high for industry to bear, particularly at this time, its Chief Executive Officer, Seth Twum-Akwaboah, said in a statement to the B&FT. While acknowledging that the review is in line with the quarterly automatic adjustment as required of the regulator, it said the timing and level of increments will throw cold water on businesses ability to recover from economic downturns of the last few years. We reckon that our utility companies need to recover cost to sustain their operations, but when end-user tariffs get to unbearable levels the effect could be dire for both industry and the utility companies, AGI said. It further bemoaned that elements of cross-subsidy, industry subsidizing tariffs for residential consumers are still embedded in the tariff structure, with the latest review failing to honour PURCs effort to correct this anomaly. We therefore urge the PURC to expedite action toward full reversal of the tariff structure in support of governments industrial transformation agenda, Mr. Twum-Akwaboah added. Apart from asking the PURC to address what it believes is a punitive tariff regime, AGI urged government to ensure efficient utility infrastructure and logistics management to save cost in these difficult times. We expect government to control macroeconomic instability a major trigger and driver for such sudden changes in tariffs-level and price hikes. Source: B&FT Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video It has become common these days to find interesting stories on social media where people share their frustrations about what they ordered online versus what they got. Although some of these stories are hilarious, they show how some online business people are riding on shoppers' ignorance to exploit them by presenting enticing images of products online yet selling inferior ones to customers because they know it may be challenging to track them down. In the past, companies did not prioritise transparency and honesty in business. Most organisations operated opaquely, and not even employees had first-hand information on all the companys operations. In todays market, however, companies must learn that honesty and transparency inspire trust, and as the level of trust increases, so does the likelihood of success. Businesses need to do more to gain and maintain customer trust through transparency and honesty in an age where customers have more options and understand customer rights and privileges with easy-to-access regulatory agencies and multiple social media platforms to express their dissatisfaction. A consulting firm, Label Insights survey, found that 94% of consumers prefer brands that practice transparency. Studies show that 52% of Millennials research background information about products before purchasing, and 42% expect to know what goes into products and how goods are made before they purchase them. The two fundamental elements of honesty and transparency have emerged as the benchmark for businesses in todays society, and companies are reaping remarkable benefits economically while at the same time building their reputation. Treating employees, partners and customers how the business owner would want to be treated aids in creating an environment of trust and support. Such become the building blocks of long successful relationships, a phenomenon no different in the direct selling business, which has penetrated the African market somewhat aided by the COVID-19 pandemic. What is Direct Selling? Direct selling is a method of marketing and retailing goods and services directly to consumers in their homes or any other location away from permanent retail premises. It is a sales channel companies use to promote their products away from a physical retail location, directly to the end consumer, primarily relying on word-of-mouth promotion of existing users. According to the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA) report[3], Africa in 2020 saw a 17.3% year-on-year increase in the number of individuals involved in direct selling with brands like QNET tapping into the trend by expanding its presence in the region. Why are Transparency and Honesty Important in the Direct Selling Business? The direct selling business relies heavily on salespeople getting in front of customers in non-traditional settings to sell products. When marketing products and services, every salesperson has no choice but to be honest, and truthful. If they deal honestly in business and consumer confidence is positive, customers will forge a long-lasting relationship with the brand. Dishonest business practices will only lead to a long brand reputation damage and a trust deficit. On the other hand, honest business practices in direct selling build foundations of trust with customers and every other individual and entity. By putting credible information in peoples hands, they can make more informed and, therefore, better decisions and choices. QNET, for instance, launched in Nigeria last year to give Nigerians access to high-quality products and offer a unique opportunity to earn additional income in an internationally tried-and-true business model. The company discloses essential business operations, goals, values, and information. Firms and individuals involved in direct selling must deal with customers with integrity by backing up their work and products to be everything they have been advertised because consumers expect this as a bare minimum. The value and importance of honesty and transparency in direct selling have apparent and subtle implications. Small and big direct-selling business owners should operate based on a commitment to provide valuable services or products. Failing to meet your corporate responsibilities establishes a climate of mistrust and potential illegality. From the foregoing, businesses have no choice but to remain transparent. Integrity in business enhances your reputation which can help attract and retain customers, boost employee loyalty and become a more attractive investment proposition. Business integrity is strongly correlated with financial performance, so organisations must espouse transparency and integrity to thrive in the increasingly competitive market. 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 Huawei Ghana has been adjudged one of Africas top employers alongside ten other country offices in Sub-Saharan Africa namely South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, Angola, Botswana, Mauritius, Uganda, Mozambique and Tanzania, at the 2023 Top Employer Awards. The company has seen its country office presence in the Top Employer Institute's Top Employer rankings grow from nine in 2022 to eleven this year, and has even been accredited as the Continental HQ Top Employer for 2022 in Sub-Saharan Africa. The increased representation in the prestigious annual rankings is a testament to the work Huawei has put into employee wellbeing across the region over the past 12 months. Being certified as a Top Employer showcases an organisations dedication to a better world of work and exhibits this through excellent HR policies and people practices. The Top Employers Institute programme certifies organizations based on the participation and results of their HR Best Practices Survey. This survey covers six HR domains consisting of 20 topics including people strategy, work environment, talent acquisition, learning, diversity, equity & inclusion, wellbeing and more. Commenting on the award, the Human Resource Director for Huawei Ghana, Mr. Chen Xuli said, We are honored to be recognized for our effort in creating exceptional employee experiences for our staff. The award is a recognition of Huawei Ghanas commitment to the development of its workforce and the provision of a comprehensive set of benefits and practices for its employees. At Huawei, we believe in creating an environment of professional growth, innovation and employee engagement and have consistently implemented a number of policies and practices to ensure that our employees have an optimal working experience which include career development opportunities and a safe and inclusive work environment. Through systematic training programs, our employees at different stages of their career, get to learn the skills they need, adapt to their new roles and quickly grow. Huawei will continue to strive to create an exceptional employee experience and provide its staff with the tools and resources necessary to excel in their roles. He added. Human Resource Director for Huawei Southern Africa Region, Mr. Yu Chen indicated that, Huawei is proud to have seen improvements in its rating for employee wellness, which is due to programmes designed to enhance the physical and mental health of employees. Under its Leadership Employability Advancement and Possibility (LEAP) program, Huawei, partnered top ICT industry players and successfully connected 200 fresh graduates to industry relevant jobs in 2022. The company has trained over 10,000 tertiary students in advance ICT certification courses under its ICT Academy initiative to equip them with the requisite digital skills and prepare them for the job market. Between 2021 and 2022, 70,000 young girls and female traders have been trained in Financial Technology (FinTech), Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, Privacy Protection, Data Storage & Transfer and Coding with them aim of leaving no one behind in the digital journey. Top Employers Institute CEO David Plink says, Exceptional times bring out the best in people and organisations. And we have witnessed this in our Top Employers Certification Programme this year: exceptional performance from the certified Top Employers 2023. These employers have always shown that they care for the development and well-being of their people. By doing so, they collectively enrich the world of work. We are proud to announce and celebrate this years group of leading people-oriented employers: the Top Employers 2023. 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 Local pig farmers are in danger of being pushed out of business as the country officially opens its borders to large quantities of imported pork and meat products from the United States of America. Per a market access report from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has sealed a deal with USDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) by which the two parties have agreed to allow the products into the Ghanaian market. The report, which is available to the B&FT, indicates that MoFA acknowledged receipt of the FSIS proposed certificate of export for pork and pork products, and confirmed its acceptance, adding: The Ghanaian market is now officially open to US exports of pork and pork products in addition to other meat products from the United States. The agreement was reached as a result of a request made by the USDAs FSIS on October 24, 2022 for Ghana to allow pork products to be imported into the country in huge quantities. The deal has however sparked concerns among stakeholders of possible dumping and the risk it poses to local meat production and the cedi. Livestock industry players are also worried over whether there are designated laboratories in place to check the wholesomeness of these impending imports. For instance, the Chamber of Agribusiness Ghana (CAG) has expressed worry over the deal, saying it does not augur well for local piggeries and the economy at large. As it stands, pig farmers are finding difficulties in sustaining the industry due to high feed and operational costs, and now an undue advantage is being offered to American producers who have subsidies from their country as well as cheap technology to produce more, lamented CAGs CEO, Anthony Selorm Morrison. According to the report, the Chief Veterinary Officer of the Veterinary Services Directorate of MoFA signed and responded to the request on January 12, 2023 that the country will not only accept pork products onto its market but also other meat products including beef, goat, lamb and poultry, among others. Pork products have become a major delicacy for many Ghanaians in recent years, with some piggeries in the country, according to CAG, exporting the commodity to the Chinese market the largest pork consuming nation in the world. CAG however disclosed that lack of data on the livestock industry, particularly pork production, has been a major problem in the country: Data would have informed government about the gains being made, and whether we need to import in large quantities or rely on government for funding in order to expand production. The Chamber also lamented the lack of consultation with stakeholders by government before entering into the pact. Pork import Ghanas imported pork and pork products market was valued at US$16million in 2021, according to the USDA. Total imports have increased progressively from 2017, hitting 15,000 metric tonnes in 2021 as the market is dominated by the EU, with the United States not being a significant player not even counted among the top-ten importers into the country. The USDA has however noted that opening the market to US pork and pork products is an opportunity that will be exploited by businesses from that country. About 70,000 metric tonnes of pork and pork products have been imported into the country in the last six years from 2017 to 2022 according to Trade Data Monitor LLC, with the top-ten countries being Belgium, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, Romania, Spain, Ukraine, the UK and France. Source: B&FT Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The chief executive of Toyota Motor Corp will step down as head of the company his grandfather founded, the Japanese automaker said on Thursday, handing over to the boss of its luxury car unit as it struggles to meet the shift to electric vehicles. Koji Sato, the automaker's 53-year-old chief branding officer, who is also president of Toyota's (7203.T) luxury brand Lexus, will take over as chief executive from April 1, the company said, as Akio Toyoda becomes chairman. The current chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada will drop his chairman title but remain on the board. The issue of who would take over from Toyoda, the 66-year-old grandson of the company's founder, had increasingly been a focus for investors. But the timing of the succession announcement was a surprise. Under Toyoda, the automaker has followed a go-slow approach to electric vehicles, arguing that the hybrid technology it pioneered with the Prius will remain important along with investments in hydrogen. That approach has prompted criticism from investors and activists who once widely praised its technology and environmental record. Toyoda said Sato's mission would be to transform Toyota into a "mobility company," without specifying what that strategy would entail. Sato said Toyoda had offered him the CEO job at the end of the year when both were in Thailand for an event to celebrate Toyota's 60th anniversary of operations there. "Can you be the CEO?" Sato said Toyoda asked him. "I didn't know how to respond," Sato said. "I thought it was a joke." The succession announcement was broadcast on a webcast through the automaker's Toyota Times channel in a way that looked more like a talk show with a host than a formal corporate announcement. Toyoda has pushed Toyota's in-house media channel after complaining that the automaker's message - including its strategy on hybrids - was not getting to the public. Koji Endo, a senior analyst at SBI Securities, said the announcement of the leadership change was a "huge surprise" and said Toyoda would likely remain deeply involved in operations from his position as chairman. "The next few years could be just a kind of apprenticeship for Sato as the next president," he said. During his more than a decade at the top, Toyoda presided over the carmaker during a period of intense change in the auto industry and rising uncertainty about how legacy automakers such as Toyota can fend off the challenge from newer - and often nimbler - challengers such as Tesla. Toyoda, speaking at a news conference, said his term at the helm of Toyota started in 2009 with "crisis after crisis" from the effects of a global recession, to Toyota's own recall and safety crisis to the disruption that followed the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan. At a shareholder meeting in June last year, Toyoda said he was "thinking about timing and the selection of a successor" when asked about succession planning. On Thursday, he said Sato was chosen because he "worked hard to learn Toyota's philosophy". "The CEO needs youth, energy, strength." Sato started his career at Toyota in 1992, before rising through the ranks to become chief engineer of Lexus International, a luxury auto brand of Toyota, in 2016, according to his profile on the Toyota website. He has held positions as the president of Lexus International and Gazoo Racing Company, Toyotas motorsport brand, since 2020. He also took on an executive role at Toyota and became its chief branding officer in January 2021. Toyoda described the hand-off as a "baton touch" in leadership, but the staged event highlighted his continued central role. He turned from time to time to offer instruction and reminders to Sato. One Toyota executive, who asked not to be identified, said the automaker was headed for a period of "cloistered rule," referring to the period in Japan's history when a retired emperor continued to call the shots. There was almost no specific discussion of Toyota's strategy and no discussion of financial targets for investors. Philip Craven, a Toyota director, said in a recorded video statement that the board had reviewed and approved the succession plan put forward by Toyoda and Uchiyamada. Source: Reuters 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 Nigerians have questioned why presidential candidate Bola Tinubu is making claims that powerful people are trying to sabotage his electoral chances. Nigerians go to the polls on 25 February, with Mr Tinubu standing as the presidential candidate for the governor APC party. Speaking to a crowd on the campaign trail in Ogun state on Wednesday, Mr Tinubu said that a fuel shortage in the country as well as moves by authorities to ban old naira notes as legal tender, in favour of newly designed notes, at the end of the month were covert attempts to stop him from becoming president. President Muhammadu Buhari says the introduction of new notes will help to tackle corruption, counterfeit money and the illicit hoarding of cash. Mr Tinubu then accused authorities of "hiding" the fuel and the naira notes, but said his supporters would still vote and so he would win. However, people are questioning what a change in the naira design has to do with Mr Tinubu winning the presidency. In previous Nigerian elections there have been cases of politicians paying people to vote for them. "This is quite major," broadcaster Ayo Mairo-Ese said on Arise News. "How does the redesigning of the naira or the unavailability of the naira affect his particular campaign, or the presidential election?" Ms Mairo-Ese asked. "We have 18 presidential hopefuls. Why is it only the APC presidential candidate that is worried about the redesigning of the naira and saying that it is an act to sabotage his campaign? That's a question that he must answer." Mr Tinubu has always denied allegations of corruption and vote-buying made against him and says those accusing him of wrongdoing are just jealous of his wealth and success. He has been a longstanding figure in Nigerian politics for decades and assisted in President Buhari winning office. 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 United States government has announced a visa ban on some unnamed Nigerians for undermining the democratic process in a recent Nigerian election. In a statement on Wednesday, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken described the action as a reflection of his governments commitment to supporting Nigerias aspiration to combat corruption and strengthen democracy and the rule of law. The senior US diplomat explained that the individuals affected will not be granted visas to enter the US, under a policy to restrict visas of those believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Nigeria. He also said that their family members may also be subject to these restrictions. Additional persons who undermine the democratic process in Nigeriaincluding in the lead-up to, during, and following Nigerias 2023 electionsmay be found ineligible for US visas under this policy, the statement said further. Mr Blinken, however, clarified that the visa ban was not targeted at the Nigerian people or the government. It comes barely two months after the political counsellor at the US embassy in Nigeria, Rolf Olson, made a similar statement. In the lead up to the Edo and Ondo governorship polls of 19 September and 10 October 2020, the US government had also announced visa restrictions on some individuals. The country is due to hold general elections on 25 February. 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 Minister of National Security, Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, on Thursday, delivered a special message from the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to Malis Interim President, Colonel Assimi Goita, in Bamako. Mr Kan-Dapaah led a delegation from Accra, which held extensive discussions behind closed doors with Col. Goita on security in West Africa and the Sahel. Speaking to the media after the meeting, Mr Kan-Dapaah said Ghana has had long historical and bilateral relations with Mali dating back to the early post-colonial years and was therefore interested in the welfare and progress of the Malian people. We did talk about how we can be of help to each other because a fire in your neighbours house has to be of concern to you, he said. Col. Goita, he said, extended warm greetings to President Akufo-Addo, adding that Ghana looked forward to further engagements with Mali. Members of the delegation included Maj. Gen Adu-Amanfoh, Ambassador Kwabena Osei-Danquah, Special Adviser to the Foreign Ministry, Mr Benedict Dere, Executive Secretary of the Accra Initiative, and Mr. Napoleon Abdulai, Ghanas Ambassador in Mali. 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 An old tweet of 30-year-old Botswana woman, Lesedi Molapisi, who is facing the death penalty for drug-trafficking in Bangladesh, has surfaced. In January 24, 2022, the Bangladeshi New Age reported that Molapisi was apprehended at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in Dhaka after disembarking from a Qatar Airways flight that had arrived via Doha from South Africa. After scanning her bag, Bangladeshi customs officials seized over 3kg of a heroin-like granular substance. She denied having any knowledge that the drugs were in her bags. In a tweet dated January 10, 2022, few days before her arrest, she had written; "Catch flights, not feelings." Read Full Story .... akahinews.org >>> : 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 Newly appointed Minority Leader, Dr Cassiel Ato Forson has suggested in a Facebook post that there are cracks within the minority caucus in parliament after a sudden reshuffle by his partys national executives. According to him he has had a conversation with the immediate past leader, Haruna Iddrisu to commend his sterling leadership over the years. I have held fruitful and positive conversations with my senior brother Hon. Haruna Iddrisu. I commend him for his admirable stewardship when he was granted the opportunity by our party's leadership, he said. Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, however, expressed his appreciation to the leadership of the NDC for appointing him to lead the minority caucus in parliament. The Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam MP said hes humbled by his elevation in the House. "I am honoured and humbled to have been chosen to lead our illustrious and gallant caucus in Parliament. I thank the leadership of our party who have placed their trust and confidence in me. I am also deeply grateful to colleagues, the rank and file of our party, and the Ghanaian people for their profound support and solidarity," he said in a Facebook post. He is very optimistic collectively the NDC will achieve with the support of all party members. I have no doubt that with your support we shall succeed, he pledged to serve with "unwavering dedication and high integrity." Source: King Edward Ambrose Washman Addo/peacefmonline.com/ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Governance Lecturer at the Central University, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah has expressed disgust over the findings by the Auditor-General disclosing that the Ministry of Health paid UNICEF/AVAT over 120 million dollars for Coronavirus vaccines but failed to receive all vaccines from the supplier. "The Ministry of Health on behalf of Government of Ghana paid an amount of US$120,192,379.80 to UNICEF/AVAT for the supply of vaccines. However, 5,109,600.00 doses of vaccines valued at US$38,322,000.00 were supplied to the National Cold Room leaving a difference of US$81,870,379.80 with UNICEF/AVAT," the report read. Addressing the issue during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" programme, Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah called for sanctions to be meted out to the person(s) who made this blunder. He noted that if it had been an ordinary Ghanaian who had stolen a phone or something less, he or she would have been given a harsh punishment or sentence but there are government officials and leaders in the country who have embezzled huge monies and are walking free. To him, in any serious country, the authorities who were in charge of the vaccines and allowed this to happen would have faced a disciplinary action but here is a case where no penal action has been taken against those in charge. "This is bad. I feel so ashamed that we still touch everything. And if we can touch this too, then where are we going, Ghana?" He advised the leaders to make the right decisions stressing "let us be proactive". Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghanaian Highlife star Bisa Kdei has revealed some twists and turns in his music career in the newly released "Next Chapter" video. The Highlife cronner, who recently released his highly anticipated "Original" album, has been trending on social media with his well-curated 14-track masterclass. The video for Bisa Kdei's album opener "Next Chapter" has been released, with some entrancing visuals shot by Director Abass. In the song produced by Apya, Bisa Kdei reveals how he was cheated during the 2016 edition of the VGMA, as he was confident of being crowned the ultimate Artiste of the Year. The highly synchronised video demonstrates the tolls and chills Bisa Kdei had to go through having lost his mother in 2015, with some netizens labelling him a funeral artiste. This, he said, did not deter him from continuing to produce hit singles and tour the world to showcase his talent. The "Original" album, which features the likes of Stonebwoy, Memphis Depay, Teni, Kidi, Sefa, and Camidoh has topped streaming charts and continues to make waves. The link to the newly released music video: 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 RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers, leaves at the conclusion of a candlelight vigil for Tyre, in Memphis, Tenn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. The family is calling for calm across the United States as the country braces for visceral video evidence of another young Black man dying at the hands of police. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Gerald Herbert Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti speaks in Ottawa, on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2022. The federal government is preparing to revive an independent commission that would offer advice to cabinet on reforming Canadian laws. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, deputy leader Jonathan Pedneault (centre) and David Coon, New Brunswick Green Party leader, attend a news conference in Fredericton, Friday, Jan.27, 2023. May says the party will thoroughly investigate and conduct a "root to branch review" of all of their data retention systems after member information was mistakenly posted online. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hina Alam Police cars surround a TTC streetcar on Spadina Ave., in Toronto on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 after a stabbing incident.Police are expected to increase their presence on city transit following an uptick in violence incidents at subway stations across the city. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey Ive only got one set of hands: Last remaining ER doctor in B.C. town wants to hire physician assistant out of his own pocket Sparksofts protest alleged that the agencys evaluation disparately treated the quotations of RELI and Sparksoft regarding the companies corporate experience and oral presentations and failed to follow the solicitations requirements in making the best value tradeoff determination. GAO agreed with Sparksofts arguments. The decision found that the agency had relied on unsupported assumptions to minimize the impact of RELIs lack of relevant corporate experience in the most important evaluation factor where Sparksofts quotation had the advantage. GAO also found the agency relied on unsupported assumptions to assign RELI a strength in the oral presentation, the second most important evaluation factor, where RELI had the advantage. Regardless of flaws in the technical evaluation, GAO found the award decision was flawed because the agency improperly diminished the importance of cooperate experience in the award decision. [T]he agencys award decision was unreasonable because it relied on the flawed evaluation of the proposal under the oral presentation and corporate experience factors, and because the agencys award decision was not consistent with the solicitations award criteria regarding corporate experience and relied on unsupported assumptions, GAO concluded. The Pillsbury protest team was led by Government Contracts & Disputes partner David Dixon and included associates Toghrul Shukurlu and Robert Starling, all in Northern Virginia. To learn more about the bid protest, click here. Orthodoxos "Cyprus Bear" Orthodoxou Wins the Merit Poker Western Series Main Event in His Native Country ($372,800) January 26, 2023 David Salituro The wild, wild west conjures images of cowboys and outlaws, and of legendary names like Billy the Kid and Butch Cassidy. Its an image that is kept alive through the magic of movies and storytelling, and no one told a better story today than Orthodoxos Orthodoxou. The Cyprus native captured the title in his home country, beating out a field of 757 players to win the Merit Poker Western Series $3,300 Main Event for $372,800. Orthodoxou began the day at the bottom of the leaderboard with 16 players remaining and ended it by hoisting the prestigious trophy to keep in his island home. 2023 Merit Poker Western Open Final Table Results Place Player Earnings 1 Orthodoxos Orthodoxou $372,800 2 Aleksandr Chernikov $274,500 3 Ernestas Degtiariovas $168,400 4 Ara Melkisetian $124,600 5 Eduard Barsegian $93,300 6 Justus Held $75,400 7 Serge Matta $62,400 8 Dominik Panka $49,600 9 Vladislav Doroshkov $37,300 Winner's Reaction This tournament is a very difficult tournament to win. Have many professionals. Poker has started to be changed. Some aggressive players. Some professional players. This tournament I dont believe any time in my life I would win, Orthodoxou said following his victory. I dont have any strategy. I play like I feel. Like I feel in my heart. I follow my heart. Never strategy Orthodoxou came into the tournament with just four recorded live cashes, including a 57th-place finish in the $2,200 Warm Up prior to the Main Event. Hes primarily a cash game player, estimating hes played around five or six live tournaments in his entire life. His prior tournament highlight, he explained, was winning an $11 online event nearly a decade ago. His approach at the tables can be summed up in one word: heart. I dont have any strategy. I play like I feel. Like I feel in my heart. I follow my heart. Never strategy, he said. I dont know how I make raises. I dont know how to make c-bets. Its not strategy. I play how I feel. In the cash games the same. If I believe you make a bluff, I call you. If I believe. What I feel is how I play. All in my heart." Final Table Action The final day of the Main Event began with 16 players vying for a spot at the final table and a chance at capturing the title. It seemed like a long road for Orthodoxou, who began with just 1,375,000, in last place on the leaderboard. But he doubled up right before the final table when his kings held up against Aleksandr Chernikovs top pair and flush draw. Orthodoxou began the final table in third chip position with 9,500,000, behind chip leader Eduard Barsegian and Chernikov. With stacks bunched up together, it took nearly two hours before the final table had its first elimination. Vladislav Doroshkov jammed with king-seven and Chernikov had him dominated with king-queen, flopping top pair and ending up with a flush to eliminate Doroshkov in ninth place in what was the young Russians first ever live event. Dominik Panka, the most accomplished pro at the final table, exited in eighth place after failing to win a race with ace-ten against Barsegians pocket eights. The final table then entered a sort of stalemate as seven-handed play lasted nearly two hours. Ara Melkisetian rivered two pair to crack Chernikovs aces and double up. A few hands later it was Orthodoxous turn to double when he was all in for his last 6,150,000 with ace-six and beat the king-queen of Barsegian. Serge Matta eventually moved all in for 4,000,000 with ace-queen, Chernikov called with ace-ten, and the chip leader hit the nut flush to eliminate Matta in seventh. Orthodoxou doubled up again when he moved all in with straight and flush draws against the top pair of Barsegian, completing the flush on the turn. Justus Held, the online grinder known as taxidriver, then three-bet shoved for 8,300,000 with ace-seven, Chernikov called with ace-jack, and Melkisetian folded two nines. Chernikovs jack-kicker played to bust Held in sixth while Melkisetian was left to rue the lost opportunity. Barsegian, who spent most of the early portion of the final table at the top of the leaderboard, was eliminated in fifth after losing a race with ace-queen to Ernestas Degtiariovas sevens. Melkisetian fell in fourth place after running ace-eight into Orthodoxous ace-king. Degtiariovas, the Lithuanian spin-n-go specialist also playing his first ever live tournament, then snap-called for his last 11,600,000 with top pair of aces against Chernikovs pair of queens and flush draw. Chernikov rivered a queen to make trips, busting Degtiariovas in third as he took a 46,000,000 to 29,700,000 lead into heads-up play. Orthodoxou doubled up when he flopped a set of fives against Chernikovs straight draw and finishing with a full house. He then made quads with pocket threes as he took the chip lead. Finally, on the first hand after blinds increased to 500,000-1,000,000, Chernikov moved all in for 22,500,000 with two queens and Orthodoxou called with ace-ten. Orthodoxou began celebrating as soon as an ace came in the window, and Cyprus Bear was the champion. Orthodoxou celebrated with his rail after his win, including fellow Cypriot Andreas Christoforou who gave him some tips before the tournament. His friends convinced him to play the Main Event after his deep run in the Warm Up. Then he got to celebrate a win on home soil with them. This is me. Cyprus Bear, an emotional Orthodoxou said. That concludes PokerNews coverage of the Merit Poker Western Series Main Event. Stay tuned for more updates from the High Roller event and tournaments around the world. Sharelines Check out the results from the Merit Western Poker Series Main Event After ten levels of play on Day 1 of Event 25: $50,000 8-Handed in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, it was Jonathan Jaffe who bagged the chip lead at the luxurious Baha Mar Resort in The Bahamas. The event saw six players join the field on Day 1 with two needing a second chance early on. Mikita Badziakouski and Seth Davies couldnt find luck but jumped back into the action to bag at the end of the night. Jaffe comes in with more than six million dollars in earnings and will look to add to that number with a title here. Jaffe finished second place in the 2018 PCA $25,000 High Roller for $569,760 but will have his hopes set on his first PCA trophy. Full Chip Counts after Day 1 Place Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Jonathan Jaffe United States 353,000 88 2 Daniel Dvoress Canada 317,000 79 3 Orpen Kisacikoglu Turkey 248,000 62 4 Seth Davies United States 167,000 42 5 Mikita Badziakouski Belarus 70,000 17 6 Stephen Chidwick United Kingdom 45,000 11 Day 1 Action After the delayed start to the event, there was no shortage of action. Jaffe and Orpen Kisacikoglu clashed early when Kisacikoglu turned a set of kings and won a sizable pot in the first level. Soon after Jaffe would bounce back when he turned the nut straight against the ace-queen of Badziakouski to send him to the rebuy window. A few hands later Kisacikoglu would find a full double up when he made a flush against the two pair of Davies to leave him on a short stack. Orpen Kisacikoglu Later in the evening Stephen Chidwick would find a premium with ace-king suited and get it all in against Jaffe who held pocket jacks. The board ran out with Jaffe making a boat to leave Chidwick short. He would manage to climb back a bit to finally bag for the night in hopes of better luck tomorrow. Play resumes at 2 p.m. ET on January 27th at Level 11, with blinds at 2,000-4,000 and a 4,000 chip big blind ante. The late registration and re-entry period remains open until the end of Level 12. As always, the PokerNews team will have all of the action covered as the field plays down to crowning the latest PCA champion. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) has announced the addition of Rep. Adam Schiff to the committee. Rep. Nadler said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA: I am very pleased that most of our outstanding members from last Congress are returning to the Judiciary Committee. Due to their hard work, Democrats passed 110 Judiciary Committee bills through the House and 53 of our bills were signed into law. Under Democratic leadership of the Committee, we enshrined marriage equality in federal law; we enacted the first significant gun safety legislation in a generation; we ensured that survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment are free to tell their stories and to seek justice in the federal courts; we reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act; we codified lynching as a crime in federal law; we addressed the spate of hate crimes against Asian Americans and others in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic; and we enacted measures to strengthen the antitrust system. Additionally, I am pleased to welcome Reps. Schiff and Ivey to the House Judiciary Committee. Each have a unique set of experiences and skills that will be major assets to the committee as we fight to protect the rights, freedoms and privacies of the American people. I look forward to working alongside this talented and dedicated group of members again this Congress. Subscribe To Our Newsletter: Rep. Schiff launched his 2024 US Senate campaign on Thursday for the expected to be open seat in California. Speaker Kevin McCarthy only has the ability to block Democratic choices for the House Intelligence Committee. McCarthy cant do anything about Schiff serving on the Judiciary Committee. It would take a majority vote of the full House to remove Democratic Reps. Schiff, Swalwell, and Omar from their committee assignments, and members of the Republican caucus have already said that they would vote no if such a resolution was brought to the floor. On January 25, Frances Foreign Ministry confirmed that French troops will be withdrawn from Burkina Faso at the request of the West African countrys junta-controlled government. France has maintained a 400-strong special forces presence in Burkina Faso under a 2018 defense accord to help battle Muslim extremists linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State. Relations between France and Burkina Faso formerly a French colony have been on the skids since September 2022, when Burkina Faso experienced its second coup that year (the first was the prior January). French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called Russias ambitions in Africa predatory, reportedly accused Russia of influencing Burkina Fasos decision to demand a French troop withdrawal. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied that claim. This is a question about the principles of foreign policy, he said. We do not interfere in the internal affairs [of other countries], while President Macron's statement clearly indicates that France regards such interference as possible and resorts to it. But while the exact nature of all Moscows actions in Africa remain murky, Russias interference in the internal affairs of other countries is well-documented. In December, Ghanas President Nana Akufo-Addo claimed Burkina Faso had cut a deal with the Russian private military company known as the Wagner Group. Akufo-Addo said Burkina Faso, in exchange for helping to combat jihadists, had ceded to Russian forces control of a mine that reportedly has gold reserves. Akufo-Addo said having the Wagner Group operating on our northern border is particularly distressing for us in Ghana. Neither the Wagner Group nor Burkina Faso authorities have confirmed a deal has been struck between the two sides. The Wagner Group has been accused in news reports of plundering gold and diamonds in Sudan, in part, to fund Russias war effort in Ukraine, in exchange for protecting Sudans unpopular military leader. Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin expressed support for both 2022 coups in Burkina Faso. In January 2022, Paul-Henri Damiba ousted Burkina Fasos democratically-elected president. Prigozhin hailed the coup as a new epoch of decolonization in a social media post. A day after that coup, Alexander Ivanov, the official representative of Russian military trainers in the Central African Republic (CAR), issued a statement offering training to Burkina Fasos newly installed junta. But after Damiba was ousted in September, observers noted he had not immediately pivoted from France to Russia, as expected. When military officers, including current military leader Ibrahim Traore, overthrew Damiba, civilians and soldiers took to the streets with Russian flags, particularly outside the French embassy. Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said of the September ouster: "Our people helped the new leader [of Burkina Faso]. Voice of Americas Henry Wilkins reported that Russian disinformation had played a part in the country's second coup in eight months. That includes Kremlin-linked accounts being used to animate the discourse across the region, The Washington Post reported. In one animated video posted to social media, Wagner Group mercenaries are showing fighting French forces in Burkino Faso and Mali. The French forces are depicted as snakes and zombies. The Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab revealed an uptick in pro-Russian messaging before both the January and September 2022 coups. The language used in those pro-Russian posts tracked with rhetoric employed by Lavrov and Prigozhin, stressing the anti-colonial nature of the shift away from France and toward Russia. With Traore taking the helm, the French exit, and Russian entrance, appear to be going forward. The recent coup could be a gateway to a more assertive Russian policy towards the Sahel, Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, told VOA in October. The Burkina Faso coup that we just witnessed could be the first example of Russia playing a part in instigating a coup rather than just capitalizing on pre-existing unrest," Ramani said. If so, it fits within a regional pattern. The announced French troop withdrawal from Burkina Faso comes just months after France pulled troops from neighboring Mali, where they were also conducting counter-insurgency actions. Malis government likewise turned to the Wagner Group (with the support of Russias armed forces) to help it battle jihadists. Reports have also surfaced that Moscow trained the military officers behind an August 2020 coup detat in Mali, prompting speculation the Kremlin may have played a role in that putsch. Wagner forces in Africa are being used to spread Russian influence and coup-proof regimes in exchange for financial and mineral concessions, concluded analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, D.C. As Polygraph.info previously reported, the introduction of Wagner Group forces has been accompanied by an uptick in alleged crimes against humanity. Elsewhere in the world, Russia occupies the territory of three neighbors Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Russia is waging war against Ukraine, and it previously invaded Georgia. In July, Lavrov explicitly stated that Russia would help Ukraine get rid of its government, against the will of the Ukrainian people. Russian military intelligence was linked to a recent letter bombing campaign in Spain and an alleged 2016 coup attempt in Montenegro. It has also carried out multiple assassinations on foreign soil, as part of what the watchdog group Freedom House called Russias transnational repression efforts. A U.S. intelligence review found Moscow has secretly funded individuals and officials in more than two dozen countries since 2014 to advance the Kremlins interests and influence election outcomes. There is also Russia's interference in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. elections. All of those actions constitute interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Aiken, SC (29801) Today Cloudy early with showers for the afternoon hours. High around 75F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight A few clouds from time to time. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 56F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. The power-broker organizers are aiming for the South Carolina gathering to become their own version of the famous Sun Valley media summit or the Davos World Economic Forum, according to a participant from last year's event. Read moreKiawah conference lures top leaders from the wide world of sports, other industries A Virginia-based real estate firm with less than a month's presence in the Charleston region has absorbed a Lowcountry home-selling business and its 50 agents at a time of slowing sales. Long & Foster Real Estate, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway affiliate HomeServices of America, now counts Southern Coast Real Estate as part of its 200-office East Coast holdings that stretch from the Carolinas to New Jersey. Southern Coast's two offices in Summerville and West Ashley will now operate under the Long & Foster brand. Terms were not disclosed. The company decided to expand to South Carolina at a time when the residential market is slowing after the rush to buy during the COVID-19 pandemic because the company said it "takes a long view" of the overall real estate industry. "When markets contract, for companies that are financially disciplined and well capitalized, its an opportunity to expand into marketplaces we believe in, like Charleston," spokeswoman Suzanne Pilcher said. She also noted that company president Larry Boomer Foster played football at the University of South Carolina many years ago, and hes always wanted to bring the brand to the Palmetto State. It should be noted that while home sales declined last year, they have returned to a pre-pandemic pace. Before the merger, Southern Coast was not too far removed from its new owner. It operated as an independent franchise of Berkshire Hathaway, said Cary Collins, who with more than 20 years of experience in the industry through Southern Coast will serve as branch manager for both offices. As main reasons for joining the larger firm, he cited Long & Foster's financial strength, its expansion into South Carolina and the desire of his mother, Linda Collins, to step back and serve as an agent. 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! Foster called the merger a good fit since the two agencies "share a culture of trust, family and excellence" with in-depth knowledge of the real estate market. "These similarities make this an ideal partnership for our combined teams to grow across the Lowcountry," he said. The two new Long & Foster offices specialize in residential home sales, luxury real estate, relocation, rentals and new construction throughout the region. Cary Collins now reports to Lonnie Plaster, who oversees all of South Carolina for Long & Foster and leads the group that provides marketing, operational and other support for the firm's more than 9,000 sales agents. Plaster, who has lived in the Charleston area for more than a decade and worked for the Virginia company's team in the Washington, D.C., area for much longer, said the technology, tools and resources offered by the combined firms will better serve clients. He also noted the company doesn't plan to confine its operations to the Lowcountry. "We are planning to expand throughout South Carolina, but right now we are focusing on the Charleston area," Plaster said. Long & Foster had previously been located at 201 Sigma Drive in the Nexton development in Berkeley County. Agents have now moved to the previous Southern Coast office on West Doty Avenue in Summerville, Collins said. The Nexton office is no longer in operation. Something curious came my way recently. It was a book event for the novel How to Sell a Haunted House, by Charleston native and acclaimed horror writer Grady Hendrix. But it was billed as a one-man show. I have lately been intrigued by the notion of live performances slipping into the literary lane, disrupting accepted book-circuit protocols. It happened at the 2022 Charleston Literary Festival, by way of a haunting performance of T.S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land by actor Edoardo Ballerini. Hendrixs haunting was of an altogether different bent when he appeared at The Riviera Theater on Jan. 20., the first in a new literary series there in conjunction with Buxton Books featuring New York Times bestselling authors. Hendrix made that list with his previous title, The Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires. Since his Riviera appearance, the newly released How to Sell a Haunted House has landed squarely in the No. 5 spot. But at the Riviera show, there was no thumbing through bound pages for choice paragraphs to spur sales. There was no Q&A about the creative process. The book and show are thematically linked, but Hendrixs approach at the event revealed little about his story of a youngish mother who finds herself back in Mount Pleasant after her parents death, contending with the sale of the familys Old Village home. Thats about as much plot on offer at the event, but haunted houses loom in each. And both page and stage reflect Hendrixs uncanny ability to dance between the light and the dark, and to apply impressive rigor throughout. For Hendrix, the devil is in all his details evocative, specific and, time and again, on-the-mark. Decked out in a presentation-perfect navy suit, the author took the podium armed with a drop-dead PowerPoint. With equal parts alacrity and conviviality, he meted out the shows conceit. Forget the tweedy author waxing word choice. Imagine instead a motivational speaker you might find at a time-share seminar. Rather than delve into plot twists, Hendrix instructed us on selling our own haunted house, offering an abundance of cleverly canned snake-oil sentiments. Spin-doctoring the presence of the unwelcome dead, he clocked through jargon-inflected tips as if he were super-charged on bad conference center coffee. As a former ad sales support staffer, I found this somewhat triggering. Countless hours of bearing witness to such silver bullet points riddled my inner fortitude, dangerously closing in on my very soul with the hopes of closing a deal. But Hendrix was having such an energized lark with his construct that it was impossible not to just sit back and have a laugh. The audience was certainly possessed to do as much, chuckling and clapping, and at times joining in as he powered through the premise that there were ways to factor in phantoms when moving property. Hendrix also served up a sizable chunk of history, illuminating how we have arrived at the contemporary ghost business, from Charlotte Riddles 1875 The Uninhabited House to Burnt Offerings to numerous ghost-hunting television shows. True, we could have perhaps done with a tad less on oddball menu selections in said spooky tomes, and would likely have lived a meaningful life without a comprehensive immersion in every sequel and brand extension of The Amityville Horror. But its a testament to Hendrixs cult following and disarming appeal that the audience gamely stayed with him as he expanded on such cheesy narratives, and left no gravestone unturned in those cash-cow franchises that simply refused to die. In the end, you came out of hells gate with a solid sense of how a horror novel hit No. 5 on the bestselling books list. And it was sporting of Hendrix to change lanes. I first came to know Hendrix in his youth, back in a smaller, far less real estate-addled Charleston when we were both in a Theater for Children production at what is now Queen Street Playhouse. He was Dopey to my Snow White, a role that clearly left an impression on the author, as his novel gives that very part to the character Mark. And while his one-man show focused mainly on moving a haunted house in todays scary real estate market, there was nothing moribund about the crowd gathered to get a glimpse of horrors it author. Afterward, a snaking line of devotees cradling recently purchased books patiently waited for his trademark personalization. All in all, an evening with Hendrix prompted by a new book release is many thingsinventive, informative, exhaustive and infectious in its genre rigor, its ready humor and its culminating heart. One thing it is not would be phoned in. For this author, such a deadly occurrence does not stand a ghost of a chance. COLUMBIA A former federal officer who was training to become a deputy in Lexington was arrested after on a felony DUI charge after a collision that critically wounded a 20-year-old man. At around 9 p.m. on Jan. 15, Robert Barth Garofalo, 43, who spent more than a decade with the Department of Homeland Security, drove off the road, then over-corrected and crossed the double yellow lines, colliding with an oncoming vehicle, according to the Columbia Police Department. Firefighters removed both of the drivers from the damaged vehicles and EMS transferred them to a local hospital. "The victim continues to receive medical treatment for a traumatic brain injury among significant wounds affecting his mobility and breathing," the Columbia Police Department said in a statement. Police did not provide an incident report when requested, which is a public record under state law. The collision was near the intersection of Broad River Road and Foxglove Lane in Columbia, less than two miles down the road from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. Garofalo was off duty. Lexington Sheriff Jay Koon fired Garofalo on Jan. 25. He was arrested and is being held at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia. There is a trust that comes with working in the law enforcement profession, Koon said. Garofalo broke that trust and we cannot tolerate that. Garofalo was referred to as a "probationary cadet" in statements from the Columbia Police Department and Lexington County Sheriff's Department. He was hired by the sheriff's department in November 2022. He was training to receive his Class 1 Law Enforcement certification and become a patrol deputy with sheriff's department. He had been training with the department for about three weeks on a probationary basis, and had not yet begun his certification process with the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, according to a spokesman for the sheriff's department. He was employed with the Department of Homeland Security for more than a decade, serving with the U.S. Border Patrol from 2009 to 2016, and then with Customs and Office of Field Operations until Jan. 2022. In 2017, he underwent Customs and Border Protection Officer basic training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. A letter of good standing, written by a Customs and Border Patrol official based in Miami and filed with South Carolina's criminal justice academy, said Garofalo did not face any disciplinary action or investigation. COLUMBIA The state Supreme Court won't rule on whether it's constitutional to execute inmates by firing squad or electrocution until a circuit judge determines if South Carolina's prison agency tried hard enough to secure drugs for lethal injection. The high court's unanimous ruling Jan. 26 sent the case back to Richland County Judge Jocelyn Newman, who last year ruled the execution methods are unconstitutionally cruel. She will evaluate the state Department of Correction's efforts to restock a cocktail of drugs that expired a decade ago. The agency's inability to replace them is what caused the Legislature two years ago to pass a law that reverted to electrocution as the default method and add the option of death by firing squad. The law keeps lethal injection as an option if the drugs become available again. "As we have testified, the department has worked dutifully to obtain lethal injection drugs for almost a decade," agency spokesman Chrysti Shain said in response to the decision. But whether the drugs could be acquired needs to be evaluated, the justices ruled, saying Newman erred in rejecting pretrial requests to do so from attorneys representing four condemned inmates. "On the current record, it is impossible to know exactly what steps the state has taken to procure the drugs for lethal injection and to evaluate the state's assessment that such drugs are not 'available' in South Carolina," Chief Justice Don Beatty wrote in the decision's only opinion. The decision gave Newman four months to report back her findings: 60 days to oversee the disclosure process, followed by 60 days to hold a hearing and issue an order. "Inmates' discovery requests regarding lethal injection are particularly relevant and reasonable in light of the fact that, for over 10 years, other states have continued to perform executions using lethal injection, rather than electrocution and the firing squad," Beatty wrote. "Inmates have argued in this case that the latter two methods are unnecessarily destructive to the body and constitute cruel, corporal and unusual punishment," he added. Newman had denied the discovery request due to a state law that keeps the execution team secret, saying some of the information could violate that prohibition. While that's a "legitimate concern," Beatty wrote, that potential "did not require the broad denial." The ruling comes a day after Gov. Henry McMaster again asked legislators to pass a so-called "shield law" that would expand the state's existing secrecy law to those making, compounding and/or selling the drugs used in the lethal cocktail. The assumption is that promising companies and pharmacists a buffer from public opposition to the death penalty, as 14 other states have done, will help the Department of Corrections buy the drugs. Last week, Republican senators advanced a bill providing the exemption from public review to the chamber's Judiciary Committee. "The companies which make the drugs will not sell them unless their identities are shielded by state law from anti-death penalty activists," McMaster said in his State of the State address Jan. 25 before a joint assembly of the Legislature. "We have no means to carry out a death sentence in South Carolina and the murderers know it," he said, noting the ongoing court challenge. "We now once again await a decision by our state Supreme Court," he told an audience that included the justices. "Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot keep waiting. We must give these grieving families and loved ones the justice and closure they are owed by law and tell the people of South Carolina that their government believes in the rule of law just like they do." There are 35 men on South Carolina's list of condemned inmates: 18 White and 17 Black. The last execution was in 2011 by lethal injection. WEST COLUMBIA West Columbia is working on plans to invest more than a third of its pandemic recovery funding in road improvements on Meeting Street, a project which the city had hoped would be funded by Lexington County's penny tax. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the one-cent sales tax proposal in November, so the city has turned to funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Meeting Street is also U.S. 1, and serves one of the main corridors connecting the heart of West Columbia to the Vista in Columbia, where it becomes Gervais Street. West Columbia's plan include cutting it down to two lanes from four, adding crosswalks and parking spots, and sprucing up the street's look with landscaping. The city hopes to turn the section of Meeting Street between 9th Street and State Street into a walkable retail district. "Really, what we're trying to do is help support the retail establishments along that corridor," said Tem Miles, mayor of West Columbia, a 17,000 person city just west of downtown Columbia. Last year, improvements to Meeting Street were high on Lexington County's project priority list as part of the proposed penny tax, a 1 percent bump in the countys sales tax which would have gone toward road repair and infrastructure improvement projects. Even though voters rejected the penny tax, West Columbia chose to continue on with the project, funding it instead with dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act, federal money that was approved in 2021 to help relieve state and local governments affected by the pandemic. Having been frugal with the funds so far, West Columbia Council voted last month to spend $3.5 million of its near $9 million in ARPA dollars on the Meeting Street project. Plans on the project, now with federal funding, are currently still in the works. The city's main priority is to make Meeting Street safer for pedestrians, and encourage people to walk between the breweries, restaurants and shops that are popping up in the area, city spokeswoman Anna Huffman said in a statement. "When that road was built, it was intended to handle like five or six times as much traffic as it currently gets," Miles said. "After the Jarvis Klapman Expressway was put in, it diverted most of the traffic that utilized that area for thru traffic purposes. (Meeting Street) is a lot more of a local road now, and this will help to repurpose that stretch to a retail corridor." In addition to slowing cars and adding crosswalks, the city plans on adding landscaped islands to make the street a pleasant place to walk around and shop, Huffman said. Once work begins, the project is expected to take about two years. West Columbia had a number of other projects that the city hoped would be funded by the County penny tax, all of which it plans to complete at some point. Next on the priority list is sewer and water line replacement and road resurfacing in the city's Mill Hill neighborhood, Miles said. This project will also be funded with ARPA money, he said. Click here for more news from Columbia, S.C. GREENVILLE Lockheed Martin's first F-16 produced in South Carolina took its first flight before being shipped to another country as part of a massive, ongoing contract with the U.S. government. Block 70/72 F-16 production in Greenville County is supported by a $62 billion contract awarded to the arms giant in 2020 to build the fighter jets for foreign-country buyers. To date, the Upstate facility is tasked with fulfilling 128 orders for six countries, including Slovakia and Taiwan. The first locally made jet to be delivered to Bahrain rolled off the production line in late 2022. Its inaugural flight came on Jan. 24. The fighter soared to the sky at 9:17 a.m., piloted by Dwayne Opella and Monessa Balzhise nicknamed Pro and Siren, respectively. During the 50-minute test flight, checks were conducted on the engine, flight control and fuel systems. Multiple other jets are in production, Lockheed Martin spokesperson Madison Callahan said. More orders are soon expected for the Upstate campus. Jordan and Bulgaria have signed additional "Letter of Offer and Acceptances," a type of government-to-government agreement for defense-related items, to be finalized through 2024. Bulgaria requested an additional eight jets in November on top of the eight previously committed, bringing its order total to 16. In June, Jordan became the sixth country to order the aircrafts, initially requesting eight. In January, the Middle Eastern country signed on for four more. Once both agreements are finalized, the orders will increase from 128 to 148 in all. "Our production rates are going to increase throughout this year with deliveries for F-16 Block 70 continuing into the mid-to-late 2020s," Callahan said. In October 2021, Lockheed announced it would add more than 300 jobs at its Greenville site by the end of last year to help with jet production. Callahan said the plant achieved its hiring goals. "We're going to continue to grow over the next few years and continue to hire," she said. KINGSTREE, S.C. Amanda Peterson and Quonasia Washington, Miss Williamsburg County 2023 and Miss Williamsburg County Teen 2023, will compete for the title of Miss South Carolina and Miss South Carolina Teen in June. Read moreMiss Williamsburg County and Miss Williamsburg County Teen to compete in state competition From nature paintings and watercolor creations to digital art and tie-dye fiber projects, the creative opportunities appear endless at the Blair Center for the Arts during the summer camp season. Read moreCamp Guide: Blair Center camps promote creativity Decision time is fast approaching for Charleston County and the fate of the Mark Clark Extension across Johns Island, as S.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Christy Hall just reminded County Council members. At issue is whether the county will agree to spend $75 million right away to keep the long-debated project on track now that Charleston County's share of the expected project cost has soared to $1.78 billion. "I am not counting votes yet," said Council Chairman Herb Sass, after a Jan. 26 council meeting. "I think I know where we are but I have my own questions." The project would extend Interstate 526 from its terminus at U.S. Highway 17 in West Ashley across Johns Island as a lower-speed parkway, continuing to James Island where it would connect to the end of the James Island Connector. That 8-mile stretch of road would create a new direct link from James Island to West Ashley, and more ways to get on and off Johns Island. Two new access roads bring the total project up to 9.5 miles of pavement, at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. In 2019 the state limited its contribution to the Mark Clark Extension project to $420 million and the county agreed to finance the rest. Long-story-short: Were at a point right now where we need the project sponsors to fund that next $150 million to keep the project moving," Hall told council members, referring to the county and the State Infrastructure Bank. "Every day this project gets delayed, it costs more money. Supporters say the proposed linking of Interstate 526 with the James Island Connector is necessary for traffic relief and hurricane evacuations, while opponents say it would provide little traffic relief at enormous cost, while accelerating the already-rapid development of Johns Island. What are we thinking?" said Councilman Henry Darby. "$293 million dollars a mile that doesnt make sense to me." At 9.5 miles for $2.2 billion, the project actually comes to $231.6 million per mile, but that's still an eye-popping price tag. It would be roughly four times the cost of deepening Charleston Harbor, or more than double the cost of the statewide income tax rebates South Carolina mailed out in December. The majority of council members have voiced support for the road project, but the county doesn't have $1.78 billion, and Hall said cost estimates "remain highly speculative figures." "They're going to be that way until we get much further along with development," she said. Unforeseen constructions problems with building two new bridges and a roadway, rising costs and expected lawsuits all muddy the financial outlook. If the county and the SIB split the $150 million cost of keeping the project moving, that would get the project "shovel-ready" for the first phase of construction, Hall said. But it's the county that would have to come up with a plan for funding most of the project. County Council members are coalescing around the idea of holding another half-cent sales tax referendum specifically to fund the Mark Clark Extension, as the state calls the project. "If we agree to spend the $75 million, you bet we're going to have a referendum," said Sass. "There's no other way to pay for it." Some worry the county could agree to spend $75 million now only to see a referendum fail in 2024. Hall said that if the county were to wait until all the funding is certain, the road project would be delayed by years. Previous sales tax referendums for road projects succeeded by promising road improvements all around the county, and by including money for mass transit and green space preservation. The most recent half-percent sales tax increase, following a 2016 referendum, was expected to raise $1.89 billion for 174 specified road projects in the county over 25 years. A referendum specifically for the Mark Clark Extension could be fraught, because voters who don't live on or near Johns Island would be asked to pay higher taxes for decades to fund that one road project. Hall said that if the County Council doesn't agree to spend the $75 million, the project will stall. She said DOT is already running out of things it can do with existing funding. Well almost certainly have to put it in neutral," she said. "And then well start sliding backwards." The county would also have to come up with a reasonable funding plan for the entire project. Hall said holding a sales tax referendum in 2024 would be considered one. Councilman Teddie Pryor held out hope that the federal government could deliver unexpected money for the project. "We have key players on both sides of the aisle in Washington," he said. County Council has made no decisions, but is scheduled to revisit the issue at a Finance Committee meeting that begins at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 31 at 4045 Bridge View Drive, North Charleston. On the afternoon of April 7, four teenagers and an adult were shot on an Isle of Palms beach crowded predominantly with high school students. Though its causes remain under investigation this week, it marked the 143rd mass shooting in the United States on the 96th day of the year, joining Na Read moreCommentary: IOP mass shooting highlights national public health crisis Eight major Republicans from Nikki Haley to Ron DeSantis are being asked to come to South Carolina in March so they can share their conservative vision for America on turf that will play a major role in the 2024 presidential nomination. A Jan. 27 media release from Palmetto Family Council that was issued on the eve of former President Donald Trump's first swing through the state names eight invited guests for the group's upcoming "Vision '24 National Conservative Forum" March 18 at the Charleston Area Convention Center in North Charleston. The Palmetto Family Council is a conservative Christian nonprofit based in Columbia that lobbies for what it considers to be "biblical values," such as heterosexual marriage and bans on abortion. The eight invited GOP leaders in alphabetical order are Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Florida's governor DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Haley, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Trump. While Trump is the only announced candidate in the Republican field, the other seven who have been asked to participate are frequently cited as potential White House hopefuls in their own right. Dave Wilson, president of the Palmetto Family Council, said these are conservatives South Carolina voters deserve to hear from as they consider who they want leading the party forward, not only for the upcoming presidential cycle but for decades to come. "These are folks who have said there needs to be a conservative voice on the national stage, but you can't get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue without coming through South Carolina," Wilson said with a knowing chuckle. The event's date has been on South Carolina political calendars for the last couple of months, but Friday's lists of potential guests shows how quickly the state could transform into a major political battleground. No date has been announced for South Carolina's first-in-the-South 2024 presidential primary but it is likely to be next February. Wilson said the tentative plan is for the event to last from the afternoon through the early evening, with 20-30 minute blocks reserved for attendees to hear directly from each of the Republican figures. "Conservative voters, especially in South Carolina, are taking this one-year job interview that is presidential politics very seriously," Wilson said. "Voters want to know who is going to be the best person to be able to move the conservative movement forward. Who is going to create the momentum to move us and invigorate the next generation of conservative leaders, like Ronald Reagan did back in the '80s?" Wilson said none of the group has so far confirmed but he stressed "the cattle call has gone out." He expects to get the first wave of confirmations sometime next week. Tickets for the event range from $49-$129, but the group is offering a $44 ticket price as part of an early bird special. Our award-winning reporters have spent more than a year digging into the Murdaugh saga to bring you the latest news and in-depth analysis as we cover this story of drugs, deceit and death in South Carolinas rural Lowcountry. But because this story involves so many people including the folks in Walterboro, whove ended up hosting the states so-called trial of the century were also covering whats going on outside the courthouse. And on January 23, a lot of what was going on was Southern cooking. Written by Kelly Jean Kelly. Hosted by Nathan Stevens. Produced by Eric Russell. Music by Lexin Music. Want more in-depth analysis of the Murdaugh saga? Subscribe to the Post and Courier's Murdaugh Newsletter. Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/3UDCuZT Understand Murdaugh is a podcast from The Post and Courier that dives into the intricacies of the Alex Murdaugh saga and the many related legal proceedings surrounding the disgraced former attorney. Any suggestions or thoughts? Contact us at murdaugh@postandcourier.com. Related reading: The March 11 governorship election in Kaduna State, north-west Nigeria, may be the keenest in recent times. Kaduna is among the 28 states where governorship elections will hold on that date. According to the figures INEC released recently, the state has about 4.3 million registered voters. The state is strategic because it is considered the political capital of the North. It was once the capital of Northern region, which has been split into 19 states. As a result, interest in its internal politics spread far beyond its boundaries. Since it was created in 1967, Kaduna has had 20 governors, nine of them democratically elected while the others were military officers. Katsina State was part of Kaduna State until 1987 when it was split by the military administration of President Ibrahim Babangida. Since 1999, Kaduna has been ruled by five elected governors. 1999 The 1999 election was straightforward. Nigeria had just returned to democracy after a long military rule. Many people were not interested in the emerging dispensation at the time and therefore paid little or no attention to the transition in the state. Ahmed Makarfi became the first governor of the state in the Fourth Republic with an overwhelming victory in the election. He was elected under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999 and re-elected in 2003. Remarkably, in 2003, his close political ally, Suleiman Hunkuyi, decamped to the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and contested against his former boss, but lost. 2007 In 2007, Namadi Sambo was elected as governor. He was the anointed candidate of the outgoing governor, Mr Makarfi. About three years into his tenure, Mr Sambo was appointed vice president following the demise, in May 2010, of President Umaru YarAdua and the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan, his deputy, as president. 2011 Mr Sambo was succeeded by his deputy, Patrick Yakowa, who went ahead to win the 2011 governorship election. Mr Yakowa, from Southern Kaduna, beat his closest opponent, Haruna Saeed of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), to retain the position. Mr Yakowa is the only Christian among the governors that have led the state since 1999. However, he died in a plane crash in December 2012 and Ramalan Yero, his deputy, was promoted to the topmost political position in the state. 2015 Mr Yero, also of the PDP as his predecessors, was defeated convincingly by Nasir El-Rufai in the 2015 governorship election. Mr Yero had spent a little over two years as governor at the time of his defeat. Mr El-Rufai was elected the governor under the All Progressive Party (APC). His administration came with changes and controversies. He is a man loved and hated by many in Kaduna State. His administration renewed and expanded the states Infrastructure and is considered one of the most successful governors in the states history in terms of infrastructure. But many, especially Christians in the state, see him as a divisive leader. 2019 The state was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines. Until the 2019 election, the state had an unwritten tradition that if the governor is a Muslim, the deputy would be a Christian and vice-versa. However, that year, Mr El-Rufai, a Muslim, broke that tradition when he picked a Muslim woman, Hadiza Balarabe, as his running mate and subsequently deputy governor. Between 2015 and 2019, Bala Bantex, a Christian, had served as his deputy. 2023 How the candidates stand The stage is now set for another election as Mr El-Rufai concludes his second term in office on 29 May. The 2023 governorship contest promises to be challenging and fierce. A total of 17 candidates have been cleared for the election with four of them considered major contenders. The top candidates are not leaving anything to chance in their quest to secure the support of the people of the state. READ ALSO: The APC has Uba Sani, a serving senator, as it candidate while Isah Ashiru is the flag bearer of the PDP. The other major contenders are Jonathan Asake of the Labour Party (LP) and Mr Hunkuyi of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP). Analysts and keen watchers of political development in Kaduna State, however, believe it will be a two-horse race between Messrs Sani and Ashiru. Uba Sani It is a widely-held view that Mr Sani will ride on the achievements of the incumbent, Mr El-Rufai, a fellow APC member, to power. However, it is not going to be an easy ride. He will have to battle with those aggrieved with the policies of the outgoing governor. Many people in Kaduna believe Mr El-Rufai was harsh in his transformation agenda in the state. Many people lost their means of livelihood due to demolition of houses and market remodelling in the state. Also, some are of the view that the governments development projects were not spread across the state as they are prominent in only three major cities, namely Kaduna, Zaria and Kafanchan. The local communities were neglected. That perhaps is the reason that at every campaign gathering, Mr Sani promises the people continuity with caution. What may, however, count for the Kaduna Central senator is his promise that he would reverse some of the controversial policies of the governor, if elected, such as the sack of some traditional rulers. Mr Sani is also said to have a big war chest for the electoral contest, all of which make him the candidate to beat on 11 March. Isah Ashiru Mr Ashiru is not new to the Kaduna gubernatorial contest. In 2019, as the candidate of the PDP, he lost to Mr El-Rufai. This time, he has vowed to crush Mr Sani, Mr El-Rufai s anointed candidate. Mr Ashiru seems to enjoy the support of most of the people who are angry with the APC government in the state. A grassroots politician since 1999, he understands the problems of the people, especially those living in villages and the hinterland. This, he believes, gives him the advantage. Mr Ashiru said he would review the policies of Mr El-Rufais government, keep those he considers good and throw away the others. Hunkuyi, Asake On their parts, Messrs Hunkuyi of the NNPP and Jonathan Asake of the LP are perceived by many as spoilers in the race. None of them has started serious campaigning beyond mounting posters and showing some presence in the social media. Their activities appear to be favourable to the PDP candidate. Although Mr Hunkuyi is a grassroots politician, he is not believed to have the needed finances to mount a serious challenge. Also, his party, NNPP, is relatively new and unpopular in the state. Mr Asake is quite popular in Southern Kaduna where he has been a community leader. However, people of the region often voted for the PDP and Mr Asakes popularity may not change that. Also, little is known about him in the more populous northern part of the state. What the people say Hassan Lawal, a political analyst and commentator in Kaduna, believes the election will be keenly contested because it will not be influenced by the incumbency factor. I believe what the people want is what will come to them in the forthcoming governorship election. You know it will be a new government and the advantage of incumbency is not there, so I think Kaduna people are determined, he told PREMIUM TIMES. Hawwa Magani, another resident, shares the view, saying the election is going to be a tough one, especially because both Mr El-Rufai and President Muhammadu Buhari are not on the ballot. This time around, we will have a fierce election. I say this because the incumbent governor is not going to be on the Ballot and even Buhari, he said. People are not so keen on the continuity slogan of the APC candidate. They want a change of party and style of governance. So it will be a big fight. Another resident, Umar Mamman, said Yes El-Rufai did well in the state. Some people feel he should have someone like Uba Sani to consolidate all the achievements. I wont say he will win, but he is more likely. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Muhammadu Buhari Friday in Daura returned all thanks to God for safety in lifes journey over many years, highlighting the years of battle during the Nigerian Civil War and some personal challenges as testimonies of divine protection and guidance. President Buhari, who visited the Emir of Daura, Faruk Umar Faruk, after commissioning of two roads, said the destiny of man, country and the world remains in the hands of God. The President concluded two-day commissioning of projects with the Musawa General Hospital, Government Day Secondary School, Musawa, Gora-Makauraci-Malamawa road, and Sandamu-Baure-Babban Mutum road, Gurjiya -Sandamu-Karkarku roads in Daura. This opportunity to serve the nation comes from God. All over the world, Nigeria is known for its diversity, with different religions and cultures. We are also known because we have a huge population of millions of people. For the President of Nigeria, at this time, to come from Daura is the grace and mercy of God, he said. President Buhari said that he secured his first job early after school to manage a co-operative in Daura, but had to escape and join the army when there was pressure that he should get married. I told Governor Aminu Bello Masari the story of how I left Daura to join the army. That was how God planned it. We make choices in life, but eventually destiny is before God. I was at the war front during the civil war, and saw how many died. Some fell right beside me. God kept me. Many bridges were blown just before we arrived at some places, and after we crossed. I arrived at some places to see bodies of my own colleagues that we were fighting together. I am alive today only by Gods grace, the President added. President Buhari noted that the Daura Emirate and community gained international recognition by divine purpose, not mans efforts. The President assured the Emirate that he would return and settle down in Daura, after handing over on May 29, 2023. The Emir has spoken extensively and I dont have much to add. I have three of my classmates that are here today in the Emirate Council. I also hear of how the Emir has been giving recognitions and titles to my staff and family members. I am grateful for all the support, he stated. The Emir of Daura noted that the survival of the President when his car was bombed in 2014 was a divine act, which happened shortly before he won elections in 2015. The visit of the President is historic. He was invited by the Governor to inspect and commission development projects. The Governor has performed exceedingly well, beyond the projects that had been spotlighted. Close to seven years, he has been working for the people and he has made a big impact. Governor Masari is not a thief. The governor has done his best with available resources. He has showcased his record of service by inviting the President to witness progress in the state. The President has seen a lot in two days, but he has not seen all. We know the good works of the governor and really commend him, Faruk said. The Emir thanked the President for Federal Government projects in the state, and extoled the governor for creating an enabling environment for many to thrive. As a state, Katsina benefitted a lot from your position, Mr President and the Daura community remains grateful for all. For a long time, we will be talking about the blessings of God in our domain, he added. Femi Adesina Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity) January 27, 2023 Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a post-conviction bail application filed by Peter Nwaoboshi, a Nigerian senator jailed for fraud. Mr Nwaoboshi, who was found guilty on a two-count charge of fraud and money laundering, has a pending appeal at the Supreme Court where he is seeking to upturn his conviction and sentence. On 1 July, 2022, Mr Nwaoboshi was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison by the Court of Appeal in Lagos. But the senator has deployed several tactics to evade serving his jail term, the Supreme Court said on Friday. Delivering its ruling on Mr Nwaoboshis post-conviction request, Emmanuel Agim, a member of the Supreme Courts panel of justices, said, He (Nwaoboshi) has remained at large, except for his occasional production of medical reports here and there. It is difficult to imagine where he is. While he remains at large, it is very difficult for this court to exercise any discretion in his favour. The justice noted that Mr Nwaoboshi being a fugitive cannot seek to benefit from the law. Mr Nwaoboshi represents Delta North Senatorial District in Delta State. He is a flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 25 February senatorial election. Agreeing with Mr Agim, a member of the Supreme Court panel that sat over the request, Tijjani Abubakar, said Mr Nwaoboshis behaviour was an assault on the rule of law. It is a very sad development in our democracy that a lawmaker has refused to respect the law of the land. This is a sad development. It is a slap on democracy, and a slap on the rule of law. Mr Abubakar warned that nobody is above the law. The government and the governed are subject to the rule of law. And, we must ensure that there is respect for the rule of law. Lawmakers must lead by example Commenting further, Mr Abubakar advised lawmakers to lead by example. They make the laws, they must respect the laws. And, if they do not respect the laws, it means that they have failed in discharging their mandate. The justice vowed that judges would continue to ensure that the rule of law prevails. My message is that nobody is above the law. The government and the governed are subject to the rule of law. The application is frivolous. It is vexatious. It is irritating, Mr Abubakar said before dismissing Mr Nwaoboshis request. Background The Court of Appeal in Lagos upon Mr Nwaoboshis conviction, ordered that his two companies, Golden Touch Construction Project Limited and Suiming Electrical Limited, be wound up in line with Section 22 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2021. But, Mr Nwaoboshi though his lawyer, Kanu Agabi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), approached the Supreme Court to set aside his conviction. Determined to extricate his client from jail, Mr Agabi, a former Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), begged the Supreme Court to speed up hearing in Mr Nwaoboshis appeal. He told the Supreme Court panel that was led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Olukayode Ariwoola, that Mr Nwaoboshi is seeking re-election in the 2023 general elections. The lawyer to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abba Mohammed, did not object to Mr Nwaoboshis application. Subsequently, Mr Ariwoola rescheduled the hearing of the appeal for 9 February, 2022 instead of the earlier date of 21 November, 2024. In 2021, this newspaper reported that Mr Nwaoboshi was accused by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) of using 11 companies as fronts to secure for himself a N3.6 billion contract in the commission. The contract was not executed and the money was not refunded. In 2018, Mr Nwaoboshi and his two companies were arraigned before the Federal High Court in Lagos over N322 million fraud and money laundering charges. The EFCC arraigned the three defendants for acquiring a property named Guinea House, Marine Road, in Apapa, Lagos, for N805 million. The agency said that N322 million of the money was part of the proceeds of fraud. The judge, Chukwujekwu Aneke, held that the EFCC could not prove the charges filed against Mr Nwaoboshi. However, the anti-graft agency appealed Mr Anekes ruling and was successful at the Court of Appeal, leading to Mr Nwaoboshis sentencing. The Federal High Court in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, similarly jailed the senator representing Akwa Ibom North East district, Albert Akpan, on corruption charges on 1 December 2022. He was accused of receiving bribes of 12 cars worth N254 million from an oil marketer, Olajide Omokore, during his tenure as commissioner for finance in Akwa Ibom State between 2010 and 2014. He served in the administration of Governor Godswill Akpabio. The convict, who is the Akwa Ibom State governorship candidate of his new party, the YPP, in the forthcoming March 2023 governorship election, was, however, lucky to obtain a post-conviction bail granted him by the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, late December 2022. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Edo State has recorded 10 new cases of Lassa fever, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 107. The Edo State Commissioner for Health, Obehi Akoria, who disclosed this to journalists in Benin City, said the state also confirmed three more deaths from the disease, raising the fatality figure to 13. She said the 107 confirmed cases were recorded in 11 local government areas of the state, reiterating the need for residents to comply with all guidelines against the spread of the disease so as to remain healthy and protected from Lassa fever. Ms Akoria noted that the state also has 40 persons who are currently on admission at the Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH), noting that the patients, including 26 adults and 14 children are receiving medical care and responding to treatment. According to the commissioner, We have confirmed ten more cases of Lassa fever in Edo with three new deaths, raising the number of confirmed cases in the state to 107 and fatalities to 13. With the steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the disease, there is a need for increased collaboration among all stakeholders to bolster the governments efforts at containing the disease. While the government is stepping up efforts to curb the spread of Lassa fever across all Edo communities, including improving sensitization campaigns, as well as surveillance and response activities, we urge everyone to be aware and take responsibility to work with the Ministry of Health and other partners, observe preventive measures and report early symptoms suspected to be malaria or any other illnesses that present like malaria. READ ALSO: Decrying the alarming rate of infections in various local government areas of the state, Ms Obehi noted that Etsako West, Esan West and Esan North East are the most affected LGAs with 40, 28, and 21 confirmed cases respectively. She added that the 13 deaths recorded in the state are spread among Etsako West (4); Esan NE (4); Esan West (2); Etsako East (2) and Oredo LGA (1). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the Nigeria Data Protection Bill for further ratification and endorsement by the National Assembly. This was disclosed in a statement issued by Nigeria Data Protection Bureaus Head, Legal, Enforcement & Regulations, Babatunde Bamigboye, on Wednesday in Abuja. By virtue of this historic approval, the Bill will now be transmitted to the National Assembly as an Executive Bill through the office of the Hon. Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, the statement said. President Muhammadu Buhari approved the establishment of the Nigeria Data Protection Bureau last February to ensure compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation. The approval of the bill was made following a request by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami. According to the statement, the Bureau was mandated to, inter alia, implement the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) and coordinate the passage of an enabling act for data protection. Core objectives The statement noted that the central objective of the bill is to safeguard the fundamental rights and freedoms and the interests of data subjects, as guaranteed under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It said some of the key provisions of the bill include the regulation and processing of personal data; promoting data processing practices that safeguard the security of personal data and privacy of data subjects; and ensuring that personal data is processed in a fair, lawful and accountable manner. Other core functions are protecting data subjects rights as well as providing means of recourse and remedies in the event of breaches; ensuring that data controllers and data processors fulfil their obligations to data subjects; establishing an impartial, independent and effective regulatory Commission to superintend over data protection and privacy issues and supervise data controllers and data processors; strengthening the legal foundations of the national digital economy to guarantee the participation of Nigeria in the regional and global economies through the beneficial trusted use of personal data. Commenting on the bill, NDPBs National Commissioner and CEO, Vincent Olatunji, urged all stakeholders to cooperate with the government in ensuring the sustainability of the abundant opportunities in Nigerias digital economy. With the full support demonstrated by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, a clear signal has been sent to the global data processing ecosystem that Nigeria is committed to safeguarding fundamental rights and freedoms of Nigerian citizens which may be impacted one way or the other by the activities of data controllers and data processors, he added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Tunji Abayomi, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), says Nigerians cannot afford to dwell on integrity in selecting a president because the challenges facing the country require a sinner to fix. Mr Abayomi, who is the Pro-Chancellor of Adekunle Ajasin University in Ondo State, said poverty is the main challenge facing the country, hence, citizens must consider who can create wealth and not embark on a search for a holy man. He said this during an interview on Sunrise Daily on Channels TV on Tuesday. According to him, Only sinful men would raise the society from sin because they understand the effect of the sin and the consequences, Mr Abayomi, a lawyer, said. Some of the presidential candidates in the race have been marred by allegations of corruption. The candidate of the ruling APC, Bola Tinubu, forfeited $460,000 to the United States government in a case linked to drug trafficking in 1992. On the other hand, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, is facing allegation of using Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) to siphon money while he was vice president from 1999 to 2007. PREMIUM TIMES also in an investigation revealed how Peter Obi of the Labour Party used shell companies in tax haven countries to conceal his wealth and failed to declare it to the Code of Conduct Bureau, an act that many believe to be against the 1999 constitution. READ ALSO: Mr Abayomi, a lawyer, said it will be almost impossible to get a holy man that can address the challenge of poverty facing the country. He posited that what Nigeria needs is a man with ancient wisdom, not necessarily a holy man. He said, We are not in heaven, let us also appreciate that. We are in the world, and it would be presumptuous because of the tendency of utopian aspiration, but at the end of it all it achieves very little if we study the history of uprisings in the world. But only sinful men will raise the society because the problems of the society are the sins and they understand the value of those sins and the effects. Only sinful men would raise society from sin because they understand the effect of sin and the consequences, the structure of sin, and how to manage them, if you are looking for holy men, you are not going to achieve a whole lot. Look at the history of the world, that is just the reality. Integrity issues matter. To a certain extent, the constitution talks about corruption and so on. Obviously, we will deal with that. To expect the personal holiness of candidates, a man that has gone through the structure of life in this nation a nation anywhere in the world for example, you find that politicians are sinners. For example, you cannot run for office without money. Money is the root of all evil (sic). Somebody said the absence of it is the foundation of all problems. In essence, there will be some sort of balance. There will be a sinner, not a murderer, he said. The ruling party rode to power on the strength of fighting corruption and changing the way things are. President Muhammadu Buhari was marketed to Nigerians as an anti-corruption retired army general. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Nigeria Customs Service Area 2 Command, Onne Seaport in Rivers State has generated a total sum of N242,090,629,309.29 in the 2022 fiscal year. The Comptroller, Auwal Muhammad, disclosed this on Thursday in Onne, during his official handing over to the newly deployed Comptroller, Baba Imam. Mr Muhammad said the figure represented an increase of 28.3 per cent. Highlighting some of the commands achievements, Mr Muhammad attributed his administrations success to the robust synergy among officers and relevant stakeholders in the command. According to him, the Nigerian Customs Service, Onne port is a revenue-generating command with statutory function covering vast anti-smuggling activities and also serving as an export point for goods. Comparatively, when I took over in September 2020, total revenue of N118 billion was generated by the command, and in 2021, an improved revenue to the tune of N188.6 billion representing more than N54 billion increase was generated by the command. This constant increase became possible following the introduction of improved revenue generation structures which has enabled the command to achieve as much as the total sum of N242,090,629,309.29 in 2022, he said. The Comptroller also attributed the successes so far recorded to aggressive operational activities where all cargoes are subject to 100 per cent examination except where interventions became necessary. Our ability to thoroughly examine containers has also helped us prevent the passage of contraband and unwholesome goods, as well as record high-profile seizures by the command. READ ALSO: The command recorded a total of 51 seizures with a duty paid value amounting to N1,764,303,008.9 in 2022, he added. Responding, the new Comptroller promised to leverage existing cooperation aimed at promoting the agencys mandate. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc has appointed a former chair of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Ifueko Omoigui Okauru, as chair of the companys board. The company also said Friday it approved key appointments in its board following the exit of two persons in its top hierarchy on account of retirement and resignation. In a note to the Nigerian Exchange, the consumer goods manufacturer disclosed that Gbenga Oyebode retired as the chair of its board and a non-executive director with effect from 25 January. Mr Oyebode currently chairs Okomu Oil and is an independent non-executive director at Nestle Nigeria. He has been replaced by Mrs Okauru, whose tenure took effect on 25 January, following approval of her appointment at a board meeting held after the companys annual general meeting (AGM) on the same date. Mrs Okauru is the first female chair of the company, having joined the board in April 2021 as an independent non-executive director. She trained as a chartered accountant and is a strategy and change management consultant with experience in both the private and public sectors. She headed strategy practice at Arthur Andersen and Co, where she spent more than ten years. She emerged as the first female Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the document said. She currently serves on the boards of MTN Nigeria Plc and Nigerian Breweries Plc. as non-executive Director and on the Boards of AfyaCare Ltd and ReStraL Ltd. as chair. Before her latest appointment, Mrs Okauru was the chairperson of the Audit and Risk Committee as well as the chair of the Statutory Audit Committee and member of the Governance and People Committee of PZ Cussons. She holds a Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, an MSc in Management Science from Imperial College London as well as a BSc in Accounting (First Class) from the University of Lagos. Mrs Okauru is a Fellow, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Fellow, Compliance Institute of Nigeria and Fellow, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. READ ALSO: The firm has also appointed Temitope Oluwatosin, the assistant company secretary, as interim company secretary with effect from 27 January. She is filling the role left by Jacqueline Ezeokwelume, who resigned on 26 January. Meanwhile, it was approved at the AGM a recommendation of a total dividend of N4 billion translating to N1.01 per share for the year ended 31 May 2022. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Niger in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has sensitised residents of Niger state to the need to deposit their old notes in the banks before the 31 January deadline. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports in Minna on Friday that the sensitisation was being carried out across the 25 local government areas of Niger. Yahaya Gbongbo, acting state director of the NOA, said that the sensitisation rally was to enlighten people to come to terms with government policy on the redesigned naira notes of N200, N500 and N1,000. This is to remind the people that those who still have the old currency should take it to the bank and those in villages who dont have account, we have what is called money swap arranged by CBN. The money swap agent will give them 10,000 of new notes and account will be opened for the person and the remaining balance will be deposited instantly for them. It is a move toward e-banking because a lot of money is in circulation. Government come up with this policy to withdraw fake currency in circulation and improve the countrys economy, he said. Mr Gbongbo added that the sensitisation was to let people know that the deadline is real and that they should not wait and relax till dying minutes before taking their money to the bank. Also, Ademola Mohammed, the branch controller of CBN in Niger, said that the apex bank was collaborating with NOA as the mouthpiece of the federal government to take messages of any policy of the government to the nooks and crannies of the country. I have gone to some banks and I have seen that their Automated Teller Machine (ATM) are dispensing new notes, he said. Mr Mohammed explained that one of the reasons for the redesigned new notes was to tackle fake naira notes in circulation. He said that the sensitisation was to let people know that Jan 31 is still the deadline for use of the old notes. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Defence Headquarters says the military has in the last two weeks eliminated more than 84 terrorists and rescued 122 abducted victims in North-east and North-Western parts of Nigeria. The Director, Defence Media Operations, Musa Danmadami, a major general, made this known at a bi-weekly news briefing on ongoing military operations in the country, on Thursday in Abuja. In North-east zone, Mr Danmadami said the troops of Operation Hadin Kai neutralised a total of 42 Boko Haram and Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists and apprehended 14 during the period. He said that troops also rescued six abducted civilians while a total of 267 terrorists and families members, comprising 22 adult male, 128 adult females and 117 children surrendered to troops at different locations within the theatre. Mr Danmadami added that the troops had within the period, recovered 12 AK47 rifles, two locally fabricated guns, one FN rifle, one G3 rifle, three QJC gun, and two 60mm mortar bombs. According to him, troops also recovered 36 rounds of belted 7.62mm NATO, seven 60mm mortar chargers, four RPGs, seven bombs, one phantom MRAP, two PKGM. Other recovered items he said included one gun truck, 332 rounds of 12.7mm AP ammunition, 56 rounds of 7.62 rimmed ammunition and 21 rounds of 7.62mm special refilled ammunition. 19 rounds of 7.62mm NATO, 34 rounds of 7.62mm special, 14 AK47 magazines, two vehicles, nine bicycles, four motorcycles, one mobile phone, N15,000 and other sundry items were also recovered . All recovered items, apprehended criminals, rescued civilians were handed over to the appropriate authority for further action. Captured terrorists and surrendered terrorists and members of their families are being profiled for further action, he said. Mr Danmadami further said that the air component of Operation Hadin Kai conducted series of air interdiction operation at terrorists hideouts, enclaves and camps in Dogon Chuku in the fringes of Northern Tumbums. He added that the air interdiction mission was also conducted at Arina Kasa in Southern Tumbums of the Lake Chad Basin, Chidike in Mandara Mountains and Gezuwa area, all in Borno. According to him, the battle damage assessment revealed that several terrorists were neutralised while their structures and logistics were destroyed in the air strikes. In the North-west, Mr Danmadami said the troops of Operation Hadarin Daji neutralised 42 terrorists, apprehended four and rescued 26 abducted civilians in several land and air operations within the period. He said that troops also recovered 18 AK47 rifles, one sub-machine gun, 126 rounds of 7.62mm special, six magazines, 13 motorcycles, two boafeng radios, 10 mobiles, and two laptops. He added that the air component of Operation Hadarin Daji, on 15 January, conducted a well planned and coordinated air interdiction operation at identified terrorists hideouts at Rara Forest, Rabah Local Government Area of Sokoto State. According to him, feedback by troops revealed that 20 bandits were neutralised while 17 motorcycles and several boafeng radios were burnt in the air strike. In North-central, Mr Danmadami said the troops of Operation Safe Haven, Guards Brigades and Whirl Stroke with Civilians Joint Task Force, neutralised seven terrorists. He also said that the troops apprehended 19 terrorists and two gun runners as well as rescued 36 kidnapped victims in different operations. The defence spokesperson said that troops also recovered several calibre of arms and ammunition during the period. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Security has been tightened in Osogbo as the Osun governorship election petition tribunal set the stage to deliver judgement on Friday. Our reporter who visited some areas in the state capital observed heavily armed security personnel moving around. Some of the areas visited were Okini, Agunbelewo, Oke-Fia, Technical Road, Capital, Asubiaro, Olaiya, Aregbe and Ogo-Oluwa. The security personnel were patrolling the areas with siren blaring vehicles. Aside from the police, other agencies involved were the State Security Service (SSS) and Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC). An armoured tank was positioned at the State High Court in Osogbo where the judgement will be delivered. The gate of the court was currently under siege as security personnel screened visitors, while ordering many party supporters to stay outside. Those allowed in moved into the courtroom on a long queue with given numbers. The panel will begin sitting at 9 a.m., according to a notice signed by the tribunal secretary. Police in the state on Thursday assured that security will be provided during and after judgement. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print In preparation for the coming general elections, Nigerias electoral commission, INEC, has scheduled a mock accreditation of voters for 4 February. This is to further test the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) ahead of deployment for the actual elections, said INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu. While the presidential and National Assembly elections hold on 25 February, the governorship and State Assembly elections will conducted on 11 March. Speaking to the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) on Friday, Mr Yakubu said the mock accreditation will be held at 436 polling units nationwide. He said doing so will help reassure the public of the robustness of the system and strengthen the processes ahead of the General Election. Twelve polling units have been designated in each State of the Federation and four in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the equality of the countrys 109 Senatorial Districts for the exercise, he said. Mr Yakubu also said the commission is encouraged with the rate of PVC Collection across the country. READ ALSO: He added that the meeting with the RECs will consider reports from other states and the commission will not hesitate to consider additional measures to ensure that all citizens have ample opportunity to collect their PVCs ahead of the General Election. He said: In Lagos State, which has the highest number of registered voters in the country, the Commission delivered 940,200 PVCs from the recent voter registration exercise (June 2021 to July 2022) for both new registrants and requests for transfer and replacement of cards. As of yesterday Thursday 26th January 2023, 839,720 PVCs have been collected representing 89.3% of the total figure. Preparations Meanwhile, the INEC Chairman said the movement of materials for the election to various locations nationwide is being concluded. While the accreditation of electoral observers and the media is also being concluded, he said the security agencies have reaffirmed their readiness for the election. Training of officials will commence shortly. Ongoing consultations with stakeholders will be intensified. Airlifting and delivery of sensitive materials to States of the federation has gone far, he said. Qosim Suleiman is a reporter at Premium Times in partnership with Report for the World, which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Hassan Sule, son of Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State dead. Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Ibrahim Addra, confirmed the incident to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Lafia, the state capital. Mr Addra said that the deceased died on Thursday night after he was discovered unconscious in front of his apartment and taken to the hospital where he was confirmed dead. According to the CPS, the remains of Hassan will later be taken to Gudi, Akwanga Local Government Area of the state for burial in accordance with Islamic rites. NAN reports that Hassan, who has a twin sister Hussaina , died at the age of 36. Mr Addra had earlier issued a statement announcing the death of the governors son. The statement reads, His Excellency, Abdullahi A. Sule, the Governor of Nasarawa State, on behalf of his family, announces the sudden demise of his son, Hassan Sule, whose sad event occurred on Thursday January 26, 2023. Hassan died at the age of 36. The late Hassan will be laid to rest in Gudi, Akwanga Local Government Area today, Friday at 10am. Nasarawa speaker mourns The Speaker of the Nasarawa House of Assembly, Ibrahim Abdullahi, has described the death of Hassan, as a shock, painful and colossal loss to the state. The speaker made this known in a statement he signed and made available to newsmen in Lafia on Friday. Mr Abdullahi described Hassan as a young promising, humble and cherished young man and prayed God to forgive his shortcomings, grant him paradise and comfort the family. READ ALSO: He condoled with the governor, his wife, Silifat Sule, the entire family and the state at large over the great loss. He noted that death awaits every mortal and would occur whenever God so desired. He urged Mr Sule, his family, friends and the entire people of Nasarawa to see Hassans demise as the will of God We should continue to pray for the repose of his soul. We woke up this morning with the sad and shocking news of our dear son, Hassan. What can we say, God Almighty is the sole giver and taker of life, this is one death too many at this time, it is very shocking, painful and colossal. May the Almighty Allah accept all his good deeds, forgive his shortcomings and grant him paradise as his final abode and comfort us all, the speaker added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed Agboola Ajayi, a former deputy governor of Ondo State, as the validly nominated senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Ondo South District. The apex court stated this while dismissing an appeal filed by the incumbent senator, Nicholas Tofowomo. In a unanimous judgement delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on the grounds that the case was statute-barred and that the cause of action had been overtaken by events. The Appeal Court had earlier validated the nomination of Mr Ajayi in concurrence with the judgement of the Federal High Court in Akure. The legal contest began after Mr Ajayi was declared as the winner of the primaries of the PDP in the district. In the keenly contested poll, Mr Tofowomo scored 74 votes while Mr Ajayi polled 78 votes. But in his petition, Mr Tofomowo said Mr Ajayi was ineligible to stand in the election due to issues with his academic qualifications. However, the Federal High Court did not consider the merit of the case because it agreed that it was filed outside the time allowed. The Court of Appeal also held that the case was statute-barred having been filed 23 days after the alleged occurrence of the act, and thus 13 or 10 days after the expiration of the constitutional allowance of 14 days. The Supreme Court on Friday sealed Mr Tofowomos fate by also dismissing his appeal with a fine of N500,000. READ ALSO: Mr Ajayi had rejoined the PDP after losing a governorship bid as the candidate of the Zenith Labour Party in the 2020 gubernatorial election in the state. He was the deputy governor in Governor Ritimi Akeredolus first term between 2016 and 2020 before defecting to the PDP and subsequently to the ZLP where he contested against his erstwhile principal in the 2020 governorship election but came a distant third. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked the senator representing Akwa Ibom North East district, Albert Akpan, over his defection, last year, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The court declared his seat vacant and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a bye-election to fill it within 14 days, counting from 20 January when the judgement was delivered. Although Mr Akpan was recently convicted and jailed for corruption, his sacking by the court has nothing to do with that. His sacking by the court is based on his defection from the PDP to the Young Progressives Party (YPP). The convict, who is on post-conviction bail, is the Akwa Ibom State governorship candidate of his new party, the YPP, in the forthcoming March 2023 governorship election. Delivering judgement in the political suit filed against him by the PDP, the judge, Fadima Aminu, ruled that he was not qualified to retain the seat after resigning from the party which sponsored his election to the Senate for a four-year tenure in 2019. The judge ordered Mr Akpan to stop parading himself as a senator and ordered him to pay N5 million in costs to PDP which sued him over his defection to the YPP. Ms Aminu said Mr Akpan, a two-term senator, failed in his obligation to prove that his defection from PDP was necessitated by serious rancour and steep differences in the ranks of the party. Without a justifiable reason, the judge said, the defection violated section 68(1)(g) of the Nigerian constitution and implied that he must vacate his seat. Therefore, this honourable court holds that the 1st defendant (Mr Akpan) who resigned from the plaintiff (PDP) but failed in his duty before this honourable court to prove the alleged serious rancour and steep differences in the ranks of the plaintiff (PDP) which made him to resign or defect to Young Progressives Party (YPP), the 1st defendant is in violation of section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution by refusing to vacate his seat as a senator in the senate won under the sponsorship of the plaintiff, the judge said. PREMIUM TIMES saw a certified true copy of the judgement on Friday. Defection and suit Mr Akpan defected from the PDP in July 2022 citing unresolved grievances from the partys governorship primary election in Akwa Ibom State. He announced the YPP as his new party in his letter notifying the Senate President of his defection from the PDP. He was among federal lawmakers who switched parties in the aftermath of last years primary elections across parties. Following the development, the PDP sued Mr Akpan on 28 July 2022, urging the court to declare his seat vacant by virtue of the provisions of sections 68(1), and 62(b) of the Nigerian constitution affirmed by a plethora of Supreme Court decisions. The party joined the Senate President and INEC as defendants. Parties arguments and judgement The PDP argued that there was no division in its fold to warrant Mr Akpans defection to another party. It presented in court among other exhibits, Mr Akpans letter of resignation from the party. The letter dated 15 July 2022 was sent to the chairman of the PDP in his Ibiono Ibom Eastern Ward I in Ibiono Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, Ariekamauwen Asuquo. PDP said Mr Akpan ought to have voluntarily relinquished his seat in the Senate after defecting to another party, but chose to continue to take benefit of his election into the Senate on its platform. But Mr Akpan argued that the PDP lacked the right to file the suit as it was not listed among the authorities with powers to enforce section 68(1) of the constitution to declare his seat vacant. He said by virtue of the provision of the constitution, only the President of the Senate, with regard to a senator, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, for a member of the lower house, could validly enforce the constitutional provision. But the judge held that the argument was misconceived, adding that there is nothing in the provision of section 68(2) of the constitution that expressly provides that it is only the persons stated in the referenced section that can give effect to the provision of section. The judge, who backed her reasoning with judicial precedents, also dismissed the arguments and claims put forward in the senators defence by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan. An affidavit deposed on behalf of Mr Lawan had said he had yet to receive formal communication from Mr Akpan about his defection. The claim is contradicted by the wide reportage given to the Senate Presidents reading of the senators defection letter on the floor of the Senate on 20 July 2022. Contradicting itself, the affidavit said Mr Lawan had read reports, which he believed to be true, about the divisions in the PDP in Akwa Ibom State. The judge held that the self-contradiction in the Senate Presidents affidavit had destroyed all the facts stated in it. Therefore, the statement of the 2nd defendant is self-contradictory as the 2nd defendant claims on one hand that there has been no formal communication to him of the defection of the 1st defendant from the plaintiff and yet, on the other hand, agrees that the 1st defendant notified him of his defection and resignation from the plaintiff and being also aware of the division and factionalisation of the plaintiff in Akwa Ibom State as the reason for the 1st defendants defection. This honourable court agrees with the submission of the learned counsel for the plaintiff that once an affidavit is self-contradictory, it needs not be challenged by the other party as whatever facts the affidavit intends to establish would have been destroyed by the contradiction, Ms Aminu ruled. The judge said Mr Akpans resignation letter dated 18 July 2022 which he also publicised via his Twitter handle with other information about his defection stands in the defence of the case of the plaintiff (PDP). The court, therefore, held that the PDP successfully proved its case on the preponderance of evidence Akpan appeals to Court of Appeal, PDP seeks enforcement of judgement Meanwhile, Mr Akpan has since appealed to the Court of Appeal in Abuja to avert the implementation of the judgement, with fresh elections to usher in a new set of senators a few weeks away. The judgement came about a month before the general election to fill all 109 seats in the Senate. The four-year tenure of the current senators elected in 2019 expires in early June, approximately four months away. But PDPs lawyers from the law firm of Tayo Oyetibo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, have written to the INEC chairman to immediately take steps to timeously comply with the courts order. A copy of the letter seen by PREMIUM TIMES and its authenticity confirmed to one of our reporters in a phone call to one of the signatories, Olaniran Obele, is dated 24 January and bears INECs acknowledgement stamp dated 25 January. Defiant defections The Supreme Court has ruled on different occasions that a division within the ranks of a political party must be so deep that the party can no longer function at the national level for it to be an acceptable excuse for the defection of a state or federal lawmaker. READ ALSO: But despite the judicial precedents, lawmakers still defect without justification. The presiding officers of the legislative houses empowered to declare the seats of such lawmakers are always lethargic to make such pronouncements, regardless of the party affiliations of the defectors. PDP took benefit of such defection when, in 2018, then Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and some other senators joined its fold upon their dumping the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Supreme Court, on Friday, dismissed Honeywell Flour Mills Limiteds appeal challenging the judgement of the Court of Appeal in a debt dispute with Ecobank Nigeria Limited. Honeywell and its sister firms, Anchorage Leisures Ltd and Siloam Global Ltd, have been locked in a N5.5 billion debt dispute with Ecobank. While Honeywell, Anchorage and Siloam claimed to have paid N3.5 billion as final payment for the debt, Ecobank insisted the firms were still indebted to it. The sensational legal battle has gone on for years with a fallout of the case also playing out in disciplinary hearings on the sideline. In January 2018, the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC), acting on a petition by Honeywell, withdrew the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) rank of Ecobanks lawyer, Kunle Ogunba. The lawyer only regained his rank after a review of his case by the committee nine months after. Honeywell, one of Nigerias largest manufacturers and marketers of wheat-based products, including flour, semolina, wheat meal, brown flour, pasta and noodles, had petitioned the LDPC, accusing Mr Ogunba of acts of misconduct. The company accused Mr Ogunba of instituting a multiplicity of suits before different judges of the Federal High Court on the same subject with the deliberate aim of abusing the process of court and derailing the course of justice. Acting on the petition, LPDC withdrew Mr Ogunbas SAN rank in January 2018, after finding it to be meritorious. Mr Ogunga, in reaction, wrote the LPDC in September 2018. On reviewing Mr Ogunbas case, the committee restored his SAN rank on 20 September 2018. Supreme Court decision Delivering its judgement on the substantive issues in the case on Friday, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court led by Tijjani Abubakar, said Honeywell, Anchorage, and Siloam were indebted to Ecobank. But the court held that the firms appeal succeeded in part, declaring that they were right to commence their suit at the Federal High Court in Lagos. In the lead judgement delivered by Emmanuel Agim, the Supreme Court also held that the Court of Appeal was wrong to have held that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to have heard Honeywells case. This appeal succeeds in part in respect of issues numbers one and two Accordingly, I hold that the appellants have the locus standi to sue and that the trial court has the jurisdiction to determine the suit, Mr Agim said. However, the Supreme Court affirmed the verdict of the Court of Appeal, which said Honeywell and its sister companies are still indebted to Ecobank. I affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal, setting aside the decision of the Federal High Court, granting the reliefs claimed for by the appellants (Honeywell). I hold that the appellants claim at the trial court fails and it is hereby dismissed. The appellants shall pay the cost of N1 million to the respondent (Ecobank), Mr Agim said. Background On 6 August 2015, Honeywell and its sister firms, Anchorage Leisures Ltd and Siloam Global Ltd, sued Ecobank before the Federal High Court in Lagos over repayments of a N5.5 billion debt. In the suit, the companies urged the Federal High Court in Lagos to declare that having paid the sum of N3.5 billion in cumulative settlement of their total outstanding indebtedness (of N5.5 billion) to Ecobank, they owned no further debt obligation to Ecobank arising from their banker-customer relationships. As a result, they also asked the court to hold that Ecobank was obligated to issue letters of discharge, release collaterals by which the prior indebtedness was secured. In addition, Honeywell and its sister companies begged the court to compel Ecobank to update their status on the Credit Risk Management System Portal of the Central Bank of Nigeria. But in its defence, Ecobank argued that an agreement was reached between it, Honeywell, Anchorage and Siloam on 22 July 2013, for a definite settlement of N3.5 billion to be paid in terms of N500 million immediately and the balance of N3 billion before the exit of the CBN examiners from Ecobanks offices. Ecobank had contended that the repayment agreement period was for six months as it rejected Honeywell and its sister companies request to pay the balance over a one-and-half-year period in three equal half-yearly instalments. The bank informed the court that the debt repayment agreement lapsed in August 2013. But in its judgement, the judge, Ayokunle Faji of the Federal High Court, upheld the arguments of the Honeywell Group and granted their prayers. Dissatisfied with the verdict, Ecobank in 2015, approached the Court of Appeal. In its decision, the appellate court overturned the judgement of the Federal High Court, setting the stage for the Supreme Courts appeal. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Fire engulfed a filling station in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on Friday. Enyo filling station, located in Zone 1, Wuse area of the Nigerian capital went up in flames at about 7:00 p.m. Nigerian time. Residents of the area said they first heard a loud explosion before seeing the fire burn. An eyewitness told PREMIUM TIMES that the fire started from a petrol tanker parked inside the fuel station. It started from the petrol tanker and spread to all the cars parked there, the witness said, refusing to disclose his name. The fire was still on at the time of this report. However, initially chased away by aggrieved residents for allegedly arriving late, firefighters are now battling to extinguish the fire. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious the Most Merciful All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all creation may He extol the Messenger in the highest company of Angels and send His peace and blessings upon him likewise upon his family, Companions, and true followers. Dear brothers and sisters! As you know, condemnations continued to pour in from across the Arab and Islamic worlds over the burning of a copy of the Quran, Islams noble book, by a Swedish-Danish right-wing extremist in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party, under the protection of police and with permission from the Sweden government, burnt a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm on Saturday. Saudi Arabia condemned the Swedish authorities for allowing the far-right politician to burn the Quran. In a statement, the Saudi Foreign Ministry affirmed that the kingdoms firm position calling for the importance of spreading the values of dialogue, tolerance and coexistence, and rejecting hatred and extremism. Also the Muslims Ummah worldwide condemned the deeply disrespectful act of burning the Quran. As has been reported, a far-right politician, Rasmus Paludan set fire to a copy of the Muslim noble book in front of Turkeys embassy in the Swedish capital. And he had been permitted by Swedish police to carry out the protest. We know, freedom of expression is a fundamental part of their democracy. But what is legal is not necessarily appropriate. Burning books that are noble to billions is a deeply disrespectful act, we were outraged by the act. The act of blasphemy against the noble book has hurt and tarnished religious tolerance, freedom of expression must be exercised in a responsible manner. Rasmus Paludan, who is a Swedish-Danish activist who has already been convicted for racist abuse, provoked rioting in Sweden last year when he went on a tour of the country and publicly burnt copies of the Quran. Respected servants of Allah! Know that, the Noble Quran is the eternal miracle of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) because all the miracles of the Prophets, may Allah exalt their mention, ended with their death, except our beloved Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) whose miracle is still preserved. This everlasting miracle is The Book of Allah and His Revealed Speech that: Falsehood cannot approach it from before it or from behind it. [Quran, 41:42] Allah The Almighty also Confirms this fact, when He Says: And if any one of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the Words of Allah. [Quran, 9:6] And: Those who remained behind will say when you set out toward the war booty to take it, Let us follow you. They wish to change the Words of Allah. [Quran, 48:15] Those two verses prove that the Quran is the Words and Speech of Allah The Almighty that He Has Revealed to His Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Jabir Ibn Abdullah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) used to invite people to Islam during the Hajj season and would say: Who are willing to give me asylum so that I can convey the Speech of my Lord, for the Quraish have prevented me from conveying the Speech of my Lord? [At-Tirmidhi and Ahmad] Hence, the Quran is the speech of Allah as unanimously agreed upon by all Muslims. This fact is supported by several logical and tangible evidences including the following: The polytheists (Mushriks) failed to produce a single verse, let alone a single surah (chapter), let alone a whole book like the Quran despite the fact that they were utterly determined and extremely motivated to oppose and falsify the call of the Prophet (Peace be upon him). Furthermore, we must remember that they were the masters of the Arabic language, in which the Quran was revealed. Certainly, this constitutes a definitive proof that the Quran is the speech of Allah the Lord of the worlds, not just that of humans. The Quran foretold many matters of the unseen and made several prophecies that were all fulfilled exactly as they were foretold. For example, the Persians defeated the Byzantines in one of their battles and the Quran recorded this defeat foretelling that the Byzantines would defeat the Persians within three to nine years and this is what actually happened. Allah the Exalted says: The Byzantines have been defeated in the nearest land. But they, after their defeat, will overcome, within three to nine years. [Quran, 30:2-4] The Quran includes many miraculous scientific facts that were only discovered 14 centuries later. For example, the Quran told us about a barrier separating the salty water from the fresh water not to mix with each other. Allah the Exalted says: He Released the two seas, meeting (side by side); Between them is a barrier (so) neither of them transgresses. [Quran, 55:19-20] After about 14 centuries, modern science confirmed this scientific fact. When one reads the Book of Allah, he goes into a state of peace and tranquility unlike the human speeches or writings. Allah the Exalted says: Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured. [Quran, 13:28] The Quran is also a cure and it expels the devils when it is recited. Allah The Almighty said: And We send down of the Quran that which is healing and mercy for the believers [Quran, 17:82] Of course, it is almost impossible to list all the evidences that prove that the Quran is the speech of Allah in this article. However, we will conclude with the words of Al-Walid Ibn Al-Mughirah, who was one of the senior leaders of the polytheists of Quraish, about the Quran. He said: What can I say? Whether it is about prose or poetry, or the poems of the Jinns, I possess greater knowledge than any other man. By Allah! The words spoken by this man cannot be compared with any of the others. By Allah, his words possess a charming sweetness and a particular beauty. The branches of his speech are laden with fruit while its roots are firmly entrenched in the soil from whence it proceeds. It is superior to all other discourses, and it is not possible for any other discourse to show it in poor light. For a surety it will conquer anything that comes under its own influence! [Al-Hakim and Al-Baihaqi] This is the Quran, the speech of Allah that has been challenging humankind and proving its inability to produce something to its effect as to its eloquence, wise judgments and authentic news. The challenge is still raised, and the inability of mankind to face that challenge remains. Thus, the Noble Quran will remain the everlasting Argument of Allah The Almighty against all opponents and disbelievers. Dear brothers and sisters! Maurice Bucaille was born to a French parent and, like his family, he grew up a Christian. After his secondary education, he joined Faculty of Medicine, France University. Later, he became the most renowned and cleverest surgeon ever in modern France, but a story from the Noble Quran happened to change his life completely. France is known for its unique interest in archeology and heritage. When French Socialist President Francois Mitterrand assumed power in 1981, France asked Egypt, late in the 80s, for the mummy of Egypts pharaoh so that it would conduct a string of monumental and processing experiments. Actually the body of Egypts most notorious tyrant was transferred to France, and, strangely, the French president and his minister,s as well as senior officials in the country lined up near the plane carrying the pharaohs body and bowed down to him as if he were still alive! After the ceremonies of the royal-like reception to Egypts pharaoh were over, the tyrants mummy was carried nearly in the same red carpet reception way he received. Then the mummy was transferred to a special wing at the French Monuments Centre, and renowned archeologists, surgeons and anatomists started to conduct a study on this mummy in an attempt to delve into its mysteries. The senior surgeon and the scientist in charge of the study on this mummy of the Pharaoh was Professor Maurice Bucaille. While the processors were busy carrying out restoration to the mummy, their head (Maurice Bucaille) was thinking otherwise. He was trying to discover how this Pharaoh died when, late at night, he concluded his final analyses. The remains of the salt stuck in his body was a shining evidence that he had drowned and that his body was retrieved from the sea swiftly after he drowned; it was also obvious that they rushed to mummify his body so that his body would remain intact!! But Maurice Bucaille puzzled over a question: How did this body to the exclusion of other mummified bodies of other ancient Egyptians remain that intact although it was recovered from the sea? Maurice was busy conducting a final report while thinking as to whether the pharaohs body was recovered from the sea and mummified immediately after he drowned. But one of his company whispered in his ear, saying: There is no need to rush about this issue, since the Muslims say that this Pharaoh did drown. At first, he vehemently rejected this and did not believe it, citing that such a discovery would be reached only through sophisticated, modern and accurate computers. Another one accompanying him surprised him more when he told him that the Muslims Quran in which they believe, narrates the story that says he drowned and that his body remained intact even after he drowned. He got more surprised and kept on asking: Where did the Muslims Quran quote these data from while the mummy was not discovered until 1898, i.e. about 200 years only, given that the Quran has been recited by Muslims for over 1400 years, and given also that until a few decades ago the entire mankind including Muslims did not know that the ancient Egyptians had mummified their pharaohs? Maurice Bucaille stayed up all this night gazing at Pharaohs body, thinking deeply of what his fellow researcher told him about the Muslims Quran explicitly establishing that this body was recovered after drowning, while the Christians Gospel (Matthew and Luca) narrated only the story of Pharaoh when he was chasing Prophet Musa (Peace be upon him) without mentioning the fate of his body at all. Is it believable that Muhammad (Peace be upon him) knew about this over 1,000 years ago while I have only just known it? he thought. Maurice spent a sleepless night, and asked for a version of the Torah. But it only furthered Bucailles astonishment; since even Torah did not narrate that the body was recovered and remained intact due to the processing and restoration, which it did undergo. France sent back the mummy to Egypt in a splendid glass coffin. But, since he knew about the story circulated by Muslims on the intactness of this body, he decided to pack his baggage and travel to Saudi Arabia where a worlds medical conference happened to be held with a galaxy of Muslim anatomists attending. There, he told them about his discovery, i.e. that Pharaohs body was kept intact, even after he drowned. One of the conferees opened the Noble Quran and read out the verse in which Allah Almighty said: So today We will (safely) deliver you with your body that you may be a sign to the ones succeeding you; and surely many among mankind are indeed heedless of Our signs. [Surah Yunus: 92] In his excitement, he stood before the attendants and loudly said: I have converted to Islam and believed in this Quran. Back to France, Maurice Bucaille spent 10 years conducting a study as to how far the recently scientific facts match that mentioned in the Noble Quran, trying to reassure himself that the Quran has never contradicted with any single scientific fact, so that he eventually came up with the conclusion that Allah Almighty said of the Quran: Untruth does not come up to it before (Literally: between its two hands) it nor from behind it; a successive sending down from (One) Ever-Wise, Ever-Praiseworthy. He came up with a earth shaking book on the Noble Quran which jolted the entire Western states, with the title of the book reading, The Bible, The Quran and Science, The Holy Scriptures Examined In The Light Of Modern Knowledge. The book sold out and even hundreds of thousands of it were translated from French to Arabic, English, Indonesian, Persian, Turkish and German, extending to include nearly all East and West bookstores; one has come to see it with any Egyptian, Moroccan or Gulf person in the US. In the preface of his book, Maurice Bucaille said: These scientific areas which Quran established to the exclusion of other Scriptures filled me with deep surprise early on, since it never struck my mind to see such a large amount of scientific issues in such a variable and accurate way that they are a mirror image of what has recently been discovered in a book which has existed for more than 13 centuries.!! The Bible, The Quran and Science, The Holy Scriptures Examined In The Light Of Modern Knowledge was such a marvelous piece of writing that, in the year 1988, the French Academy awarded him its prize in history. Respected brothers and sisters! The study confirms that the Noble Quran is the only book in the entire world transmitted to us as revealed since 14 centuries, contrary to other distorted books. We can say with entire certainty that the oldest book we have today with no change or modification is Quran, and there is no book in the world which versions are identical but Quran. He who studies and contemplates the Quran verses, notices that it is a divine book. Each verse witnesses that it is from Allah the Almighty. Here are some examples: 1. The most beautiful names witness the truth of Quran: Allah the Almighty is the Strong one, the Exalted in Might, the most Merciful, the Supreme and Irresistible, the one that forgives again and again, the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Exalted in Might To prove that this Book is from Allah, it must tell us about these characters. The name of Allah is repeated 2699 times, this word is the most repeated in the Quran!! Look to this divine text: He is Allah, (other than Whom) there is no god except He. He is The King, The Superb Holy, The Peace, (i.e., The Giver of Peace) The Supreme Believer, (i.e., The Giver of Belief) The Supremely Hegemonic, The Ever-Mighty, The Superb Potentate, The Supremely Proud. (i.e., The Justly Proud) All Extolment be to Allah above whatever they associate (with Him). [Surah Al-Hashr :23] Can people say something so? 2. Logically speaking, to accept any book as revealed from Allah, it must be coherent itself, not contradictory. Quran has this character, we find no contradiction, yet if we ask about it we find one answer not several as in the other books that are distorted. 3. The divine book must be totally correct in terms of scientific facts. Quran has this character that we cant find in other books. The scientific proof is all theses writings confirming that the Books of other religions are in contradiction with the new science, full of legends. Whereas, the Quran is full of scientific facts that conform to new science and this is a proof on Quran truth. 4. The Quran story witness the truth of Quran: if we consider the Quran stories, we find that this Book is from Allah and not from a man narrating his suffering, pains and problems as in other distorted books! For example, in Prophet Musas (Moses) story, Allah the Almighty speaks to His Prophet after that the magicians threw, they bewitched the eyes of the people: We said (to Musa), Do not fear (anything); surely you (yourself) are the most exalted. [Surah Ta-Ha: 68] Look to the word We said, such a style is not to be found in any other book. Quran is full of such word which proves that it is the word of Allah and not of a man narrating a story as he sees and lives! 5. A divine book must clearly and simply answer all questions. Quran does so, were never confused with it, as it explains everything, it gives us details about everything whether its about past, present or future. When all the books fail giving information about death moment, Quran precisely describes it. Lets consider this situation of any unfair: And if you could see, as the unjust (people) are in the perplexities of death and the Angels are stretching out their hands. Get yourselves out! Today you are recompensed with the torment of degradation for what you were saying against Allah other than the truth, and you used to wax proud against His signs. [Surah Al-Anam :93] Please, in which book can we find such accurate description of death moment?! 6. No book in all the world can convince its followers that it is from Allah except Quran! If we ask followers of any religion if theyre convinced that their book is from Allah, we will find that most of them are not, especially researchers among them. For instance, the researcher Ehrman confirms it in his book, and thousands other researchers believe that the Bible is a human book. Whereas if we ask any Muslim in the world, he will surly say that he believes that Quran is Allahs Book, and that each word in it is from Allah. This is the case with more than thousand million Muslims except some that are accustomed to imitate the west in everything. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all creation; may Allah extol the mention of our noble Prophet Muhammad in the highest company of Angels, bless him and give him peace and securityand his family, his Companions and all those who follow him correctly and sincerely until the establishment of the Hour. Murtadha Muhammad Gusau is the Chief Imam of Nagazi-Uvete Jumuah and the late Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Okenes Mosques, Okene, Kogi State, Nigeria. He can be reached via: gusauimam@gmail.com or +2348038289761. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos Free Zone (LFZ)-the first private free trade zone in Nigeria, Dinesh Rathi, has declared that the newly commissioned Lekki Deep Sea Port will boost Nigerias economy by increasing the volume of trade and attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI) to Nigeria, through the Zone. Rathi said this while delivering his goodwill message at the official commissioning of Lekki Deep Sea Port by the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, held at the port site on Monday, January 23, 2023. In his speech, he disclosed that with the integration of the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the Lagos Free Zone is the most ideal investment destination, given the quality of infrastructure available within the Zone. He noted that the Port would give unparalleled competitive advantages to investors at LFZ in terms of ease of doing business and trade efficiency. Rathi congratulated the project shareholders, partners, and contractors for their concerted effort in actualizing the project. Heexpressed confidence that the combination of the Port and the Lagos Free Zone would play a major role in boosting Nigerias GDP and creating employment opportunities for the people. The commissioning of the Lekki Deep Sea Port today by President Muhammadu Buhari marks a significant milestone for the government and the people of the great country Nigeria as this project will greatly impact economic growth and development. Lekki Port and LFZ will evolve together by creating an ecosystem that is the first of its kind in Nigeria. We express our sincere appreciation to the Federal Government, Lagos State Government, and all the relevant government agencies/parastatals, especially our regulator- Nigerian Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) for their support throughout this entire journey, he said. About Lagos Free Zone Promoted by Singapore-based Tolaram, Lagos Free Zone (LFZ) is Nigerias first private free trade zone. Centrally located in Lagos State, the commercial centre of West Africas largest economy, LFZ covers an area of 850 hectares. READ ALSO: It is fully equipped with world-class infrastructure and a single clearance window for increased operational efficiency. Lagos Free Zone is the only free zone in Nigeria integrated with the Lekki deep sea port, allowing access to regional and international markets. With a focus on the ease of doing business, Lagos Free Zone is at the forefront of serving your business in Nigeria. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Dear Partners in Nigeria Greetings and happy New Year! We write to inform you we will be closing our Nigeria office at the end of January 2023 as part of our transition into Open Society-Africa. As you may already be aware, in January 2022, the Africa Regional Office (AfRO) and the African foundationsOpen Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA), Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA), Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA)moved into a unified Africa strategy and structure under Open Society-Africa. This move aimed to consolidate resources and deepen our continental engagement for greater impact, guided by our four strategic prioritiesParticipation and Expression; Accountability and Justice; Opportunity and Equity; and Security and Rights. These priorities are augmented by two cross-cutting approachesWomens Rights, and Policy and Engagement. Moving forward, we are closing several sub-offices (including the sub-office in Abuja) and will coordinate our continental work through our offices in Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Dakar as well as our African Union (AU) Liaison Office in Addis Ababa. For two decades, we have had productive partnerships in Nigeria through OSIWA. We are committed to deepening these partnerships under Open Society-Africa. We assure you that the closure of our Abuja office does not mean we are ceasing work in Nigeria. We are in fact scaling up support to Nigeria as a priority country under Open Society-Africas new strategy. To ensure we remain responsive, we want to ensure that your questions and requests are now channelled through the appropriate Directors, Division Directors, and Managers. Please find all relevant contact details below: Hawa Ba, Division Director, Participation and Expression: aba@osiwa.org Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei, Division Director, Justice and Accountability: akyei@osiwa.org Titus Gwemende, Division Director, Opportunity and Equity: titus.gwemende@opensocietyfoundations.org Tem Fuh Mbuh, Manager, Security and Rights: tmbuh@osiwa.org Sarah Mukasa, Division Director, Womens Rights: smukasa@osiea.org George Kegoro, Director, Policy and Engagement: gkegoro@osiea.org Should you have any questions regarding ongoing grants or the transition into Open Society-Africa, please get in touch with Tem Fuh Mbuh, Manager, Security and Rights, who has also been overseeing our work in Nigeria: tmbuh@osiwa.org. We thank you for our two decades of partnership advancing open society values in Nigeria. We look forward to deepening this partnership. We also take this opportunity to wish you a great year ahead. Sincerely, Muthoni Wanyeki, Executive Director, Open SocietyAfrica. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has restated his commitment to devolution of power and restructuring of the Nigerian federation if elected. Mr Atiku, a former vice president of Nigeria, made the promise on Thursday in Abakaliki during a rally in Ebonyi State. He specifically said if elected, his administration would devolve more power to states as well as restructuring the country to meet the agitation for true federalism. He said the people of the South-east region had been clamouring for restructuring to enable them to have more powers to deal with their local affairs. He assured the people that restructuring would be a major policy of his administration if he wins the forthcoming election. Mr Atiku said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had failed in its promise to restructure the country and urged voters in the state to reject the party in the February presidential and National Assembly elections. The former vice president, who was received by a large crowd at the Pa Oruta Ngele Township Stadium in Abakaliki, thanked the people for their support for the PDP since its formation in 1999. READ ALSO: He said: We mean what we say and if you give us the support, we will deliver. Mr Atiku promised to empower women and youths to take over power from old politicians, saying that youths and women would be major drivers in his administration. Earlier, the National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorcha Ayu said the party was on a rescue mission and urged the people of the state to vote massively for PDP in the forthcoming elections. He said an Atiku government would work towards the total restoration of peace and security in the South-east and urged the region not to rest in their support for the party. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State; Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, who is the vice presidential candidate of the PDP, were present at the rally. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has reversed the results of the 16 July 2022 governorship election and declared Gboyega Oyetola as the winner of the election. The tribunal, on Friday in Osogbo, annulled the result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which gave victory in the election to Mr Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The tribunal directed INEC to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Mr Adeleke and his deputy, Kola Adewusi, both of whom had been sworn in. The panel led by Justice Terste Kume directed that the certificate of return should instead be issued to Mr Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Mr Kume held that the governorship election was not held in compliance with Nigerias Electoral Act. The tribunal held that the governorship election was characterised by over-voting. It said after deducting the excessive votes, the figure Mr Adeleke polled came down to 290,666: lower than the 314,921 polled by Mr Oyetola. The tribunal, thus, ordered that Mr Oyetola should be returned as governor of Osun State. Mr Adeleke had been declared the winner with a total of 403,371 votes. He won in 17 of the 30 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state. Mr Oyetola of the APC won in the remaining 13 LGAs with 375,027 votes Fifteen candidates contested for the governorship election but it was keenly contested between Mr Adeleke and Mr Oyetola. In his petition, Mr Oyetola, the immediate past governor of the state, claimed that the election was characterised by over-voting in 749 polling units. He also argued that Mr Adeleke forged the academic credentials he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to contest for the election. Mr Adeleke has said he will appeal the ruling of the tribunal. He will therefore remain in office pending the final determination of the matter by the superior courts. Background The tribunal commenced sitting in August 2022, a few weeks after the governorship election. Mr Oyetola and the APC are petitioners in the case with Lateef Fagbemi and Akin Olujimi as their lead counsel. INEC is the first defendant, Mr Adeleke the second defendant and PDP the third defendant. Paul Ananaba is the counsel to INEC, Alex Iziyon is the counsel to PDP and Onyechi Ikpeazu is the counsel to Mr Adeleke. All the counsel are senior advocates. Minority judgement The second member of the tribunal, Justice P. A Ogbuli, in a minority judgement, disagreed with the position of the tribunal. Mr Ogbuli held that the petitioners failed to prove that there were over-votings in the governorship election. He held that the petitioners witnesses who testified before the panel did not convince him that there was over-voting. Mr Ogbuli said the petitioners ought to have brought the total registered voters to court to claim that over-votings truly occurred. He, therefore, dismissed the petitioners case against Mr Adeleke, PDP and INEC. But the third member of the panel said she agreed with the judgement of the majority. Adeleke heads to appeal Mr Adelekes counsel, Nathaniel Oke, disclosed that his clients will challenge the judgement at the appellate court. Mr Oke expressed dissatisfaction with the majoritys judgment. The judgement has been delivered, nullifying the election that had been conducted on 16 July 2022. The reality on the ground is that we are dissatisfied and the necessary legal basis for the purpose of challenging that judgement we will embark upon it, he said. The minority judgement may not necessarily be the judgement of the court but we are in total agreement with the position the minority judgment has delivered. But you will recall that it is only two people that delivered judgment in respect of this matter. The counsel to INEC, Paul Ananaba, also expressed dissatisfaction with the majority judgement. Mr Ananaba who urged residents of the state to be calm also hinted that the electoral commission will challenge the judgement at the appeal court. One of the judges of the tribunal, the chairman, delivers what appears to me the majority judgement. Second member of the panel delivered a dissenting judgment. The third member thanked everybody but did not read any judgement. These are issues that we will have to look into and get back to the commission and take appropriate decision. But anybody who listen to the judgement will see the industry and the position of the law on BVAS which is the primary. And that is the minority position that BVAS is the primary source of what transpired on the day of the election. As stated by the minority judgement, it is the correct position of the law as far as we are concerned, he said. The people of Osun should be calm, there are constitutional provisions on what should be done. I believe that the court of appeal has a duty. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Plug and Play has accepted Cereverse to speed up Cereverse's global expansion plans in Sustainability-focused Web 3.0 and Metaverse Arena Ta' Xbiex, MALTA, Jan. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cereverse , a metaverse and web3 ecosystem startup company, joined Plug and Play Malta's Batch 1 program that will help expand Cereverse's growth plans. Cereverse is a metaverse and web3 ecosystem addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through its own tokenomics, metaverse , NFTs, Marketplace and DAO. Created under the umbrella of Cerebrum Technologies Group, Cereverse is focused on sustainability and digital productivity. Cereverse Cereverse offers its users a full-fledged metaverse and web3 ecosystem, bridging the physical and digital worlds through immersive experiences. It is aimed that all interactions and experiences in the digital environment of Cereverse will contribute to making the world a more sustainable place. In addition to socializing and having fun, it is aimed at helping users create sustainable habits while participating in training or performing digital productions and fulfilling tasks in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Cerebrum Tech is an AI, metaverse, AR/VR focused technology company that addresses sustainability, efficiency, and wide-spread public accessibility to technology. "Within this broad mission, Cereverse bridges the real and virtual worlds while at the same time fulfilling tasks in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our participation in this program will enhance Cereverse's presence globally,'' stated Mr. Erdem Erkul, PhD, the Founder and Chairman of the Parent Company Cerebrum Technologies. "We are very proud to be accepted to the most prestigious global innovation platform, Plug and Play. Plug and Play brings together investors, business partners, and the most promising startups from all over the world. The fact that we, as Cereverse, are included in this ecosystem shows the value Plug and Play places on innovative sectors and their companies with great potential," stated Mustafa Furkan Ors, the CEO of Cereverse. About Cereverse: Established in 2022, Cereverse is the ultimate metaverse ecosystem where your efforts, interactions and experiences in the digital world enable our lovely planet Earth to become a more livable and sustainable place. Cereverse aims to preserve a positive link between technology and environment by taking advantage of technology such as Blockchain, Web 3.0, Metaverse, NFTs and DAOs. For more information, visit https://cereverse.io/ About Plug and Play: Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, they are present in 50+ locations across five continents. They offer corporate innovation programs and they help corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. They also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where they have invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit https://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/ Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1988308/Cereverse.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1988306/Cereverse_logo.jpg SOURCE Cereverse PASAY CITY, Philippines, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SM is heading into 2023 with optimism, pushing forward with expansion and growth to reach more communities. "We are investing in the future growth of the Philippines as it continues to present tremendous potential," SM Investments Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Frederic C. DyBuncio said SM Investments President and CEO, Mr. Frederic DyBuncio SM City Tuguegarao SM has been increasing its focus in provincial areas where local economies are growing faster. Over 80 percent of SM's new retail stores are in provincial areas where a good chunk of growing overseas remittances flow into. SM Retail, the retail arm of SM Investments, currently operates over 3,300 department stores, groceries and specialty retail stores. Also gearing up to focus on further expanding into the provinces, particularly to cover most of Northern Luzon, Visayas and the progressive cities in Mindanao is SM Prime Holdings Inc., the property development arm of SM Investments. In 2022, SM Prime opened four malls--SM City Roxas, its first mall in Capiz Province; SM City Tanza in the historic province of Cavite; SM City Sorsogon in the Bicol peninsula as the gateway of Luzon to the Visayas and Mindanao regions; and most recently, SM City Tuguegarao in Cagayan Province, its 82nd mall in the Philippines. To date, SM Prime has 58 malls in the provincial areas and 24 malls in Metro Manila. "Our businesses are still operating in many highly underpenetrated sectors and we intend to serve Philippine communities in more regions nationwide," Mr. DyBuncio said. With the improvement in employment, SM Development Corporation, SM Prime's residential arm is also poised to grow and expand in the provinces which is also seen to help narrow the housing gap. The Philippines also has a young population that is offering more growth opportunities as they enter and invest in real estate. As of 2022, SMDC has 18 residential developments in key provincial cities. In 2022 alone, SMDC launched Vail Residences in Cagayan de Oro, Now Residences in Pampanga, and Zeal Residences in General Trias, Cavite, integrated into SM Prime's malls and transport terminals for the convenience of communities. "The potential of the Philippines remains enormous with a young, energetic, service-oriented and still growing population. SM remains optimistic on Philippine growth driven by this market," Mr. DyBuncio said. SM also continues to invest in the tourism potential of the Philippines through its hotels and conventions business. SM Hotels and Convention Centers Corporation operates nine world-class properties situated in key cities nationwide, namely Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay City, Pico de Loro Beach and Country Club and Pico Sands Hotel in Batangas, Radisson Blu Hotel in Cebu, Conrad Manila in Pasay City, and Park Inn by Park Inn by Radisson hotels in North Edsa, Clark, Davao, Iloilo and, Bacolod. SMX Convention Center, the conventions business of SM Hotels recently launched its convention center in Clark, Pampanga, strategically located beside Park Inn by Radisson Clark across SM City Clark and near Clark International Airport. This facility strives to contribute to making Northern Luzon one of the premiere destinations for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions or MICE in the country, further boosting tourism prospects in the provinces. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990970/FCD_cropped.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990913/SMTU_1.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1880730/Logo.jpg SOURCE SM Investments Corporation ABU DHABI, UAE, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sungrow, the global leading inverter and energy storage system solution supplier, signed a strategic distribution agreement for PV inverter solutions with the reputed Al-Babtain Leblanc, further facilitating Saudi Vision 2030 ambitions to accelerate the energy transition and achieve sustainability goals, proven their level of commitment with the region. Sungrow Signs Distribution Agreement in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with Al-Babtain LeBlanc The distribution agreement plays a vital role in positioning Al-Babtain LeBlanc as the "partner of choice" for the KSA market as a new distributor in the country for residential, commercial, and industrial solar energy products. In line with its vision to develop a sustainable environment for a greener tomorrow, Al-Babtain LeBlanc, through innovative, energy-efficient, eco-friendly, and reliable quality serves to the best their valued customers in KSA. Together with Sungrow, Al-Babtain LeBlanc will meet a wide range of distributed applications with a comprehensive product portfolio covering commercial and industrial, residential, and hybrid market needs. Commenting on the agreement, Mr. Saleh Al Bedaiwi, General Manager at Al-Babtain LeBlanc said, "Sungrow has profound and sustained research and high level of localization on the distributed market in the Middle East. The signing of the strategic distribution agreement with Sungrow will further deepen our cooperation relationship, it is hoped that we can cooperatively expand the distribution PV market of KSA and accelerate the local energy transition." Mr. Alvin Shi, Managing Director of Sungrow MENA, said, "We appreciate Al-Babtain LeBlanc's support and trust. Sungrow always attaches great importance to the development of clean energy in MENA region, KSA takes prominent part. And we have been deeply cultivating in KSA market with advanced products, attentive service and professional local team. Together with Al-Babtain LeBlanc, we are looking forward to jointly shaping a greener KSA in the near future." About Sungrow Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. ("Sungrow") is the world's most bankable inverter brand with over 269GW installed worldwide as of June 2022. Founded in 1997 by Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial & industrial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions, NEV driving solutions, EV charging station solutions and renewable hydrogen production systems. With a strong 25-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow products power over 150 countries worldwide. Learn more about Sungrow by visiting www.sungrowpower.com. About Al-Babtain LeBlanc For the past 30 years, Al-Babtain LeBlanc has provided highly developed communication infrastructure systems across the MENA region. Today, the company has the scale and agility to offer our clients a total solution across the sectors of communication, infrastructure, renewable energy, security, mobility, power, building, sports, marine, and more with a well-earned reputation in the industry. Al-Babtain LeBlanc included the solar solutions to its portfolio as an expansion strategy in line with Saudi Arabia's vision 2030 for renewable energy and sustainability. Our trusted reputation revolves around industry knowledge, experience and state of the art facilities that yield top-notch quality for our clients. Learn more about Al-Babtain LeBlanc by visiting www.abltel.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990919/Sungrow_Signs_Distribution_Agreement_in_the_Kingdom_of_Saudi_Arabia_with_Al_Babtain_LeBlanc.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1344575/Logo.jpg SOURCE Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd Awarded Top Employer certification in 25 countries and recognised as a Global Top Employer in 2023 NEW DELHI, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CHEP, a global leader in supply chain solutions, has been certified as a Top Employer in India for 2023 by Top Employers Institute , a global certifier recognising excellence in employee conditions. This year, CHEP, as part of the Brambles Group, was among only 15 organisations to receive the Global Top Employer certification, which is awarded to companies demonstrating outstanding HR policies and practices worldwide. Human Resources Vice President for CHEP Asia Pacific, India, Middle East, Trkiye and Africa, Victoria Pickles, says, "We are immensely proud to have achieved global recognition for the first time from Top Employer. We create a working environment that supports our employees and rewards excellence, honesty, mutual respect, and fairness. We thank all our employees for their significant efforts and engagement in building CHEP into the organisation it is today. It is through the collective efforts of our teams working every day towards creating the best possible employee experience for our people that has made this possible. The certification recognises the ongoing efforts we are applying to building a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace that offers employees a purposeful and fulfilling experience. Our people first policies are creating an environment where innovation, diversity and growth are encouraged and we are proud to be on this journey together." Megeshni Archary, Vice President for CHEP India, Middle East and North Africa recognises that its people are its most valuable asset. "At CHEP, we have achieved high employee engagement by aligning our organisation's purpose with those of our people. We understand that employee engagement is key to delivering effectively for our customers and all our stakeholders," says Mrs. Archary. "With our sustainable share-and-reuse business model, our development initiatives, and our diversity-and-inclusion programmes, we believe we are building a company that our employees are proud to be part of. We continuously strive to be the best company to work for across all our offices around the world." The Top Employers Institute programme certifies organisations based on the participation and results of their HR Best Practices Survey. This survey covers six HR domains consisting of 20 topics including People Strategy, Work Environment, Talent Acquisition, Learning, Diversity & Inclusion, Wellbeing and more. In 2022, CHEP achieved 33% of women in management roles globally and reached 40% female representation on its Board. Following an increased focus employee health, safety and wellbeing, the company recorded an 18% improvement in its Brambles Injury Frequency Rate (BIFR) performance, reflecting the targeted efforts to reach Zero Harm across global operations with the rollout of its Safety-First roadmap. Top Employers Institute CEO, David Plink, said, "Exceptional times bring out the best in people and organisations. And we have witnessed this in our Top Employers Certification Programme this year: an exceptional performance from the certified Top Employers 2023. Amongst this community of outstanding organisations, CHEP has proven its commitment to employees on a global scale. This consistency in people practices across the globe characterises an exclusive group of companies that have achieved a global certification through the Top Employers Programme. We are proud to announce and celebrate these companies and their achievement in 2023." Globally, CHEP has been recognised as a Top Employer in 25 countries including Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Thailand, Zimbabwe, United Kingdom and United States, while also earning the regional Top Employer seal in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and Latin America. About CHEP CHEP helps move more goods to more people, in more places than any other organisation on earth. Its pallets, crates and containers form the invisible backbone of the global supply chain and the world's biggest brands trust CHEP to help them transport their goods more efficiently, sustainably and safely. As pioneers of the sharing economy, CHEP created one of the world's most sustainable logistics businesses through the share and reuse of its platforms under a model known as 'pooling'. CHEP primarily serves the fast-moving consumer goods (e.g., dry food, grocery, and health and personal care), fresh produce, beverage, retail and general manufacturing industries. CHEP employs approximately 11,500 people and believes in the power of collective intelligence through diversity, inclusion and teamwork. CHEP owns approximately 345 million pallets, crates and containers through a network of more than 750 service centres, supporting more than 500,000 customer touch-points for global brands such as Procter & Gamble, Sysco and Nestle. CHEP is part of the Brambles Group and operates in approximately 60 countries with its largest operations in North America and Western Europe. For more information on CHEP, visit www.chep.com For information on the Brambles Group, visit www.brambles.com About Top Employers Institute Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognising excellence in People Practices. We help accelerate these practices to enrich the world of work. Through the Top Employers Institute Certification Programme, participating companies can be validated, certified, and recognised as an employer of choice. Established over 30 years ago, Top Employers Institute has certified 2 052 organisations in 121 countries/regions. These certified Top Employers positively impact the lives of over 9.5 million employees globally. Top Employers Institute. For a better world of work. Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1733409/CHEP_Logo.jpg SOURCE CHEP - A Brambles Company UK start-up partners with Meta to make VR learning accessible to 106 higher education institutions across the globe LONDON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bodyswaps , together with Meta Immersive Learning , has announced the final list of higher and further education institutions to participate in their Immersive Learning Pilot Programme. 106 colleges and universities across the globe will receive access to virtual reality hardware and software with a 3-month unlimited access to the full Bodyswaps soft skills learning library. Meta will support with hardware donations of Meta Quest 2 VR headsets. See the full list of successful applicants. 106 successful grantees announced for the Bodyswaps and Meta Immersive Soft Skills Grant (PRNewsfoto/Bodyswaps) Full list of higher education institutions taking part in the Bodyswaps and Meta Immersive Soft Skills Grant (PRNewsfoto/Bodyswaps) The programme aims to allow wider access to immersive learning technologies in education and supports students with gaining the necessary soft skills needed to compete and stand out in a global job market. A variety of courses will be available to the grantees, including modules on diversity and inclusion, public speaking and employability training, to empower their students with soft skill development that might have been hindered as a result of the pandemic. The grant will double up as a research project led by Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, leveraging data collected from students and staff, to demonstrate the potential impact of metaverse technologies in education. In a statement by CEO and Co-founder of Bodyswaps, Christophe Mallet, he added: "Immersive technologies represent an immense opportunity to improve education for traditionally underserved populations. This grant, the largest of its kind ever, will demonstrate the impact VR learning can have at scale and show the way for a more human-centric and equalitarian future for education." Meta's Immersive Learning Initiative Through Meta Immersive Learning , Meta is investing $150M to help develop the next generation of metaverse creators, fund high quality immersive experiences that can transform the way we learn, and increase access to learning through technology. "We are excited to see more education institutions embrace the potential of immersive technologies. Bodyswaps are providing transformative opportunities for educators and learners alike, and we're thrilled to continue supporting them." said Leticia Jauregui, Global Head of Meta Immersive Learning. Meta is proud to work with global partners to increase access to learning in immersive technologies. Making VR Learning Experiences more accessible Together Bodyswaps and Meta Immersive learning are demonstrating the possibilities for learning in the metaverse to institutions that may not have had access without the grant. Bodyswaps is an award-winning VR learning platform that brings realistic simulations and AI-enabled feedback to soft skills training. Users can practice their soft skills without real-world self-consciousness while building the communication, teamwork and leadership skills needed to succeed in a global job market. For more information, visit www.bodyswaps.co or follow us: Linkedin ( Bodyswaps ) and Twitter ( Bodyswaps_VR ). Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990760/Bodyswaps.jpg Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990761/Bodyswaps_2.jpg SOURCE Bodyswaps "Your vote matters to set a new direction" says working mom contending to represent the Edgewater, Andersonville and Uptown communities on the Chicago City Council CHICAGO, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Roxanne Volkmann, aldermanic candidate for Chicago's 48th Ward, which includes Edgewater, Andersonville and Uptown, is encouraging ward residents and every Chicagoan to vote in the "pivotal" 2023 Chicago municipal election. She invites all to consider Early Voting to ensure they participate. Roxanne Volkmann, aldermanic candidate for Chicago's 48th Ward. "The City of Chicago is at a crossroads and this election is pivotal to setting a new direction. Voter turnout was very low in the last municipal election. My campaign is working to increase participation so every voice and group is heard and represented. I invite all Chicagoans to participate in Early Voting, which begins today, five weeks ahead of Election Day," said Volkmann, a working mom with extensive government experience who would be the first Filipina on the Chicago City Council. Early voting for the February 28, 2023, Chicago municipal election begins today at two vote centers in downtown Chicago the Loop Voter Supersite (191 N. Clark) and the Chicago Board of Elections offices (69 W. Washington, 6th Floor). Secured Drop Boxes for completed Vote-by-Mail ballots are also now open and available at these two locations. Early voting expands to all of Chicago's 50 wards on Monday, February 13, 2023, and will continue through Election Day on Tuesday, February 28, 2023. Volkmann, a longtime Edgewater resident, is a government expert on housing, urban development, labor, and fair wages, and is contending for the 48th Ward aldermanic seat vacated by Ald. Harry Osterman. She is making her first run for public office, prompted by her love for the community and deep concerns over crime in Chicago. Her son was robbed at gunpoint last summer. Roxanne is prioritizing public safety and affordability on cost of living in the City along with plans to revitalize the 48th Ward community and business districts devastated by empty storefronts. She is also vowing to fight for more leadership opportunities and fair pay for women. For more on Roxanne's plans, visit her campaign website: Roxannefor48.com. "I am grateful to our election workers. They are the engine of our democracy. Any voter interested in serving as an Election Judge can apply with the Board of Elections," said Volkmann. About Roxanne Roxanne Volkmann, candidate for Chicago's 48th Ward alderperson, is a working mom and a longtime Edgewater resident who has built a distinguished career as a federal government expert on housing, urban development, labor, and fair wages. She has effectively served in government to prevent wage theft and recover restitution for workers. Roxanne would bring expertise in identifying government funding and resources. Early in her career, she led constituent services as a U.S Senate senior staffer. In that role, she talked to constituents every day, listened to their needs, and managed a team of caseworkers that helped constituents address civil rights violations, gain access to housing, and secure hard-earned social security payments. Roxanne is prioritizing public safety, affordability and community revitalization in her campaign and is vowing to bring "working mom sensibility" to City budget management. For more on Roxanne and her campaign, visit Roxannefor48.com. SOURCE Roxanne for 48 DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Advanced Wound Care Market by Product (Dressings (Foam, Hydrocolloid, Film, Alginate), NPWT, Debridement Devices, Grafts, Matrices, Topical Agents), Wound Type (Surgical, Traumatic, Ulcers, Burns), End User (Hospital, Homecare) - Global Forecast to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The advanced wound care market is valued at an estimated USD 11.3 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach USD 17.7 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 9.4% during the forecast period. The rising prevalence of diseases and ailments that impair the ability to heal wounds as well as rising spending on chronic wounds are some of the factors driving market expansion. On the other side, the usage of advanced wound care products and devices are quite expensive and also carry a number of hazards, which act as the main obstacles to the growth of this market. The grafts & matrices segment accounted for the highest growth rate in the advanced wound care market, by product, during the forecast period The advanced wound care market is segmented into dressings, devices & accessories, grafts & matrices, and topical agents based on product. In 2021, grafts & matrices segment accounted for the highest growth rate in the advanced wound care market. The rising geriatric population, increased demand, and rising prevalence of target illness such as leg ulcers are all factors influencing the growth of this market segment. Surgical & traumatic wounds segment accounted for the highest CAGR Based on wound type, the advanced wound care market is segmented into surgical & traumatic wounds, diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, venous leg ulcers, and burns & other wounds. In 2021, the surgical & traumatic wounds segment accounted for the highest growth rate. Factors contributing to the growth of this market segment is due to rise in chronic diseases and the amount of surgical operations being performed. Asia Pacific: The fastest-growing region advanced wound care market The global advanced wound care market is segmented into North America, Europe, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. The Asia Pacific region is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The market is expected to grow as a result of factors like the rising demand for precise technologies, growing incidences of diabetes, increasing healthcare spending, the expansion of private hospitals in rural areas in various APAC countries, increasing medical tourism for treatments, and the existence of high-growth markets are expected to boost the market growth. The low labor costs and the hospitable regulatory climate in this region are also anticipated to fuel market growth. Market Dynamics Drivers Growing Prevalence of Diseases & Conditions Affecting Wound Healing Capabilities Growing Geriatric Population Increasing Prevalence of Diabetes High Incidence of Obesity Increasing Number of Surgical Procedures Increasing Number of Traumatic Wounds Increasing Spending on Chronic Wounds Increasing Incidence of Burn Injuries Technological Advancements Restraints High Cost of Advanced Wound Care Products Risks Associated with Use of Advanced Wound Care Products Opportunities Growth Potential of Emerging Economies Trends Acquisitions by Leading Companies Focus on Expanding Capabilities of Current Technologies and Launching Novel Products Smart Advanced Wound Care Crab Shell Bandages Color Changing Dressings Integration of Nanotechnology in Advanced Wound Care Products Novel Wound Assessment/Measurement Devices Key Topics Covered: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 5 Market Overview 6 Market, by Product 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Dressings 6.3 Devices & Accessories 6.5 Topical Agents 7 Advanced Wound Care Market, by Wound Type 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Surgical & Traumatic Wounds 7.3 Diabetic Foot Ulcers 7.4 Pressure Ulcers 7.5 Venous Leg Ulcers 7.6 Burns & Other Wounds 8 Market, by End-User 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Hospitals, Ascs, and Wound Care Centers 8.3 Home Care Settings 8.4 Other End-Users 9 Market, by Region 10 Competitive Landscape 11 Company Profiles 12 Appendix Companies Mentioned 3M Company (US) Company (US) Advancis Medical (UK) B. Braun SE ( Germany ) ( ) Bioventus LLC (US) Cardinal Health Inc. (US) Carilex Medical ( Germany ) ) Coloplast A/S ( Denmark ) ) ConvaTec Inc. (UK) DeRoyal Industries, Inc. (US) DermaRite Industries, LLC (US) HAROMED B.V. ( Belgium ). ). Hollister Incorporated (US) Integra LifeSciences (US) Kerecis ( Iceland ) ) Lohmann & Rauscher GMBH & CO. KG ( Germany ) ) MIMEDX GROUP, INC.(US) Medline Industries, LP (US) Mil Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. ( India ) ) Molnlycke Health Care AB ( Sweden ) ) Organogenesis Holdings Inc. (US) PAUL HARTMANN AG ( Germany ) ( ) Pensar Medical, LLC (US) Shield Line (US) Smith & Nephew (UK) Winner Medical Co., Ltd. ( China ) ) Wuhan VSD Medical Science & Technology Co., Ltd. ( China ) ) ZENIMEDICAL (US) Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. (US) For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/8to43p-wound?w=5 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. 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 LONG BEACH, Calif., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ayal Willner, MD, is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Top Pinnacle Provider in the medical field and his contributions at Southern California Ear Nose and Throat (SCENT). Ayal Willner Dr. Ayal Willner began his college education at Cornell University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. He received his medical degree and completed an Otolaryngology residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He had additional training at a Pediatric Otolaryngology Fellowship at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital. He is board-certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery and has been in the medical profession for over 30 years. Dr. Willner is a Pediatric Otolaryngologist specialist with a private practice called Southern California Ear Nose and Throat (SCENT). He has been serving the Long Beach community for more than 25 years. Dr. Willner worked as an Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology and Pediatrics at George Washington University prior to opening SCENT. Dr. Willner treats children and adults, addressing a wide range of issues and performing complex ear, sinus, and skull surgeries. He and his highly trained staff perform balloon sinuplasty, sleep apnea treatment, tonsillectomy, thyroid cancer surgery, vertigo treatment, and hearing loss treatment. According to the doctor, SCENT has five California locations: Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Torrance, Newport Beach, and Huntington Beach. Dr. Willner is affiliated with Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, Miller's Children's Hospital, Reagan Street Surgery Center, Los Alamitos Medical Center, and Fountain Valley Regional Hospital. Dr. Willner is a distinguished Fellow of the American College of Surgeons; a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics; a member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery; American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology; Society of Ear Nose and Throat Advances in Children; and Orange County Head and Neck Society. The doctor speaks English and Hebrew. In his spare time, Dr. Willner is a participating surgeon and board member of Mending Kids, which organizes free healthcare for disadvantaged kids across the globe. He has served for at least 14 mission trips to Tanzania and Guatemala. Dr. Willner is also involved in global ENT and Interventional Cardiology symposiums. Dr. Willner has been recognized as a Top Doctor since 2014 by Castle Connolly. He would like to thank his colleagues and entire staff for their professional support. For more information, visit www.socalearnosethroat.com and www.mendingkids.org. Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected] SOURCE Continental Who's Who DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Bathtub 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 bathtub market. The global bathtub market is expected to grow from $8.04 billion in 2021 to $8.28 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.9%. The bathtub market is expected to grow to $9.29 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 2.9%. 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 bathtub market are Jacuzzi, Jaguar, Kohler Co., RAK Ceramics P.J.S.C., Roca, Villeroy & Boch, Orans, Colston, Johnson, American Bath Group, Eczacibasi Group, MUNK, Arrow, Appollo, Duravit, Kaldewei and TOTO Ltd. The bathtub market consists of sales of bathtubs by entities (organizations, sole traders, and partnerships) that refers to a large vessel for holding water in which a person may bathe. A bathtub is generally placed in the restroom as stage alone institution or in confluence with a shower. Utmost ultramodern bathtubs are made of fiberglass or Acrylic, but some may be available in ceramic or over steel or cast iron and sometimes a leakproof wood. Ultramodern bathtubs may have waste water out points and include a tap on top. Generally, many bathtubs are in recent gular shape but with the arrival of acrylic thermoformed cataracts, further shapes are getting available. The main types of bathtubs are acrylic, cast iron, and fiberglass. Acrylic tubs are comprised of vacuum-formed acrylic sheets that are typically bonded with fiberglass for further strength. Because the material is naturally soft and elastic, it's ideal for a wide range of tub shapes and sizes. Bathtubs are of various shapes such as rectangular, square, oval that is installed free standing, alcove, drop-in in a residential or commercial building. North America was the largest region in the bathtub market in 2021. Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region in the forecast period. The regions covered in the bathtub market report are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, and Africa. The bathtub market research report is one of a series of new reports that provides bathtub market statistics, including bathtub industry global market size, regional shares, competitors with a bathtub market share, detailed bathtub market segments, market trends and opportunities, and any further data you may need to thrive in the bathtub industry. This bathtub market research report delivers a complete perspective of everything you need, with an in-depth analysis of the current and future scenario of the industry. The expansion of the hospitality industry is driving the growth of the bathtub market. Many hotels and resorts have bathtubs installed in their guest rooms to provide a luxurious and comforting experience to travelers. According to IBEF, an Indian Government export promotion agency, in 2020, In India, the tourism industry employed 39 million people, accounting for 8.0 % of the country's overall workforce. It is estimated to employ almost 53 million people by 2029. Moreover, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, a forum for the travel and tourism industry, India placed 10th out of 185 nations in terms of overall contribution to GDP from travel and tourism in 2019. In 2019, travel and tourism contributed 6.8% of the entire economy's GDP or Rs. 13,68,100 crore (US$ 194.30 billion). Such a rise in the travel industry is expanding the hospitality industry driving the growth of the market. Technological advancement is a key trend gaining popularity in the bathtub market. Major companies operating in the bathtub market are focused on bringing advancements in technologies to offer an enhanced product to its customer. For instance, in January 2022, Kohler launched the PerfectFill technology bathtub. The bathtub has voice command technology that uses Alexa to fill and remove water into and from the bathtub. PerfectFill is made up of a drain kit and a digital valve that work together to bring the bath to the temperature and depth that is chosen. In October 2020, Centerbridge Partners, L.P a leading global financial investment firm headquartered in New York, USA has acquired American Bath Group LLC through its affiliates Lone Star Funds for an undisclosed amount. As a result of this acquisition, Centerbridge Partners can strengthen its portfolio of a business and can also expand its overall company growth, and strengthen its operations. American Bath Group LLC is a leading global manufacturer of restroom fittings like bathtubs, showers, and many more headquartered in Tennessee USA. The countries covered in the bathtub market report are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA. Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary 2. Bathtub Market Characteristics 3. Bathtub Market Trends And Strategies 4. Impact Of COVID-19 On Bathtub 5. Bathtub Market Size And Growth 5.1. Global Bathtub Historic Market, 2016-2021, $ Billion 5.1.1. Drivers Of The Market 5.1.2. Restraints On The Market 5.2. Global Bathtub Forecast Market, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion 5.2.1. Drivers Of The Market 5.2.2. Restraints On the Market 6. Bathtub Market Segmentation 6.1. Global Bathtub Market, Segmentation By Type, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Acrylic Cast Iron Fiberglass 6.2. Global Bathtub Market, Segmentation By Shapes, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Rectangular Square Oval 6.3. Global Bathtub Market, Segmentation By Installation, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Free Standing Alcove Drop In 6.4. Global Bathtub Market, Segmentation By Application, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Residential Commercial 7. Bathtub Market Regional And Country Analysis 7.1. Global Bathtub Market, Split By Region, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion 7.2. Global Bathtub 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/d7wmg9-global?w=5 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 Improved data transparency across payments in banks, financial services, and other business sectors drives the growth of the global bitcoin mining hardware market PORTLAND, Ore. , Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Bitcoin Mining Hardware Market by Type (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, Field Programmable Gate Array, Graphics Process Unit, Central Processing Unit), by Security (Two-Factor Authentication, Biometric Security, NFC Connectivity, Others), by Application (Enterprise, Personal): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031" According to the report, the global bitcoin mining hardware industry generated $528.9 million in 2021, and is estimated to reach $1.7 billion by 2031, witnessing a CAGR of 12.6% from 2022 to 2031. The report offers a detailed analysis of the changing market trends, top segments, key investment pockets, value chains, regional landscapes, and competitive scenarios. Download Free Sample Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/47831 Drivers, Restraints, and Opportunities- Improved data transparency across payments in banks, financial services, and other business sectors drives the growth of the global bitcoin mining hardware market. On the other hand, lack of awareness about bitcoin mining among emerging economies impedes the growth to some extent. However, government bodies in the developing countries offer an array of opportunities for bitcoin mining hardware, which has been highly beneficial for the industry. Covid-19 scenario- Surge in need to share financial details with consumers during the outbreak of the pandemic gave way to significant rise in the adoption of bitcoins by several financial institutions across the world, which in turn impacted the global bitcoin mining hardware market positively. mining hardware market positively. This drift has continued to persist post-pandemic as well. The application-specific integrated circuit segment to maintain its dominance during the forecast period- On the basis of type, the application-specific integrated circuit segment held the major share in 2021, generating around half of the global bitcoin mining hardware market revenue, and is expected to rule the roost by 2031. The same segment would also cite the fastest CAGR of 14.8% throughout the forecast period. This is due to the fact that an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is a kind of consolidated circuit that is exclusively built for a specific application or purpose. The two-factor authentication segment held the major share in 2021- On the basis of security, the two-factor authentication segment accounted for around half of the global bitcoin mining hardware market revenue in 2021, and is expected to retain its dominance by 2031. This is owing to the fact that with 2FA enabled on bitcoin, users will have to provide a 2FA code while performing certain actions on the app. The NFC connectivity segment, however, would showcase the fastest CAGR of 17.0% during the forecast period. This is because this technology is used across the banking sector for seamless communication between devices. The personal segment to rule the roost- On the basis of application, the personal segment contributed to the highest revenue in 2021, holding nearly three-fourths of the global bitcoin mining hardware market share. Increasing awareness regarding bitcoin and mining among individuals fuels the segment's growth. On the other hand, the enterprise segment would display the fastest CAGR of 15.4% from 2022 to 2031, due to rise in demand for immersive technology across the world. Interested to Procure the Data? Inquire Here (Get Full in PDF 324 Pages) @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/47831 Asia-Pacific garnered the highest share in 2021- On the basis of region, Asia-Pacific garnered the major highest share in 2021, holding more than one-third of the global bitcoin mining hardware market revenue. This is because this region has a large number of bitcoin miners, which is mainly due to China being one of the largest economies in terms of mining bitcoins. North America, simultaneously, would cite the fastest CAGR of 15.5% during the forecast period. Surge in demand for bitcoins in the commercial sector across North America is one of the leading factors fueling the market growth. Also, several government initiatives to legally adopt cryptocurrency systems in Canada and the United States have supplemented the growth. Enquire for Customization with Detailed Analysis of COVID-19 Impact in Report @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/47831?reqfor=covid Leading Market Players- Bitcoin Merch Merch BetterHash CoinDesk Compass Mining, Inc. BITMAIN Technologies Holding Company Zipmex StormGain BIOSTAR Group CoinWarz The report analyzes these key players in the global bitcoin mining hardware market. These players have adopted various strategies such as expansion, new product launches, partnerships, and others to increase their market penetration and strengthen their position in the industry. The report is helpful in determining the business performance, operating segments, developments, and product portfolios of every market player. Key benefits for stakeholders This report provides a quantitative analysis of the market segments, current trends, estimations, and dynamics of the bitcoin mining hardware market forecast from 2022 to 2031 to identify the prevailing bitcoin mining hardware market opportunity. mining hardware market forecast from 2022 to 2031 to identify the prevailing mining hardware market opportunity. The market research is offered along with information related to key drivers, restraints, and opportunities. Porter's five forces analysis highlights the potency of buyers and suppliers to enable stakeholders make profit-oriented business decisions and strengthen their supplier-buyer network. In-depth analysis of the bitcoin mining hardware market outlook assists to determine the prevailing market opportunities. mining hardware market outlook assists to determine the prevailing market opportunities. Major countries in each region are mapped according to their revenue contribution to the global market. Market player positioning facilitates benchmarking and provides a clear understanding of the present position of the market players. The report includes the analysis of the regional as well as global bitcoin mining hardware market trends, key players, market segments, application areas, and market growth strategies. Bitcoin Mining Hardware Market Report Highlights Aspects Details Type Application-Specific Integrated Circuit Field Programmable Gate Array Graphics Process Unit Central Processing Unit Security Two-Factor Authentication Biometric Security NFC Connectivity Others Application Enterprise Personal By Region North America (U.S., Canada ) (U.S., ) Europe (UK, Germany , France , Italy , Spain , Rest of Europe ) (UK, , , , , Rest of ) Asia-Pacific ( China , Japan , India , Australia , South Korea , Rest of Asia-Pacific ) ( , , , , , Rest of ) LAMEA ( Latin America , Middle East , Africa ) Key Market Players: BetterHash, Bitcoin Merch, BITMAIN Technologies Holding Company, CoinDesk, Compass Mining, Inc., niceHash, Zipmex, CoinWarz, StormGain, BIOSTAR Group Buy This Research Report at Discounted Price @ https://bit.ly/3XWM8rE Trending Reports in BFSI Industry (Book Now with 10% Discount + COVID-19 Scenario): Bitcoin Payments Market by Keys (Private Keys, Public Keys), by Component (Hardware, Software, Services), by Application (E-commerce, Retail, Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031 Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet Market by Hardware Component (ASIC, GPU, FPGA, Others), by Security Method (Pin, Two-factor Authentication, Biometric Security, Others), by Type (USB Connectivity Type, Bluetooth Connectivity Type, NFC Connectivity, Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031 Cryptocurrency Market By Offering (Hardware [ASIC, GPU, FPGA, and Others] and Software), Process (Mining and Transaction), Type (Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], Tether [USDT], Binance Coin [BNB], Cardano [ADA], Ripple [XRP], and Others), and End User (Trading, Retail & E-commerce, Banking, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2030 Cryptocurrency Mining Hardware Market by Type (Central Processing Unit, Graphics Processing Unit, Field Programmable Gate Array, and Application-Specific Integrated Circuit), Application (Enterprise and Personal), and Coin (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2018-2025 Cryptocurrency ATMs Market By Type (One Way and Two Way), ATM Hardware (Display, ATM Printer, QR Scanner, and Others), Type of Coin (Bitcoin, Dog Coin, Litecoin, Z-Cash, Dash, Monexo, and Ethereum), and Enterprise Size (Large Enterprise and Small & Medium Enterprises): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2030 About Us: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact Us: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 [email protected] Web: www.alliedmarketresearch.com Allied Market Research Blog: https://blog.alliedmarketresearch.com Follow Us on | Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube | Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Allied Market Research Joining other crypto ATM industry executives, Paul Bialobrzewski, CFO, and William Suriano, General Counsel, will speak about their experience at Bitcoin of America and how the company has positioned itself as a leader in the Bitcoin ATM field. CHICAGO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On February 7th, ATM and cryptocurrency professionals will gather in New Orleans for the ATM Industry Association's annual conference. At this conference, industry leaders are coming together on a panel to discuss cash management and liquidity, how to effectively scale a cryptocurrency ATM business, and what it takes to succeed in this field. Bitcoin of America Executives to Speak on ATMIA 2023 Panel Tweet this Paul Bialobrzewski, Bitcoin of America's Chief Financial Officer, and William Suriano, General Counsel and Manager, will be sitting on this panel and sharing their experience as a part of one of the fastest-growing and most successful digital currency exchange companies. This panel, Crypto 202- Building a Successful ATM Business, will be an important learning opportunity for those ready to join the innovative and promising direction the ATM industry is headed. Bialobrzewski recognizes the significance of joining this panel, citing that "this is the industry tipping its hat to Bitcoin of America." It's no surprise that two of Bitcoin of America's executives have been invited to join this panel, as the company is an industry leader known for its best-in-class practices and for leading the movement toward integrating cryptocurrency and ATMs. With over 2500 BTMs across the country, Bitcoin of America has continually proven itself to be a company worth watching. Not only is the company known for its dedication to advancement and accessibility, but it's also committed to providing education and providing the best rate on the market. SOURCE Bitcoin of America National Federation of the Blind Seeks to Advance Legislative Priorities WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Next week, hundreds of blind Americans will converge on the nation's capital to meet with their representatives in Congress to tell their stories and emphasize the need for legislators to advance key priorities that will help the blind. The annual event organized by the National Federation of the Blind, known as its Washington Seminar, will officially begin with a kick-off meeting on Monday, January 30 at 5 p.m. Eastern time. Throughout the rest of the week, blind Americans using white canes or guide dogs will be seen throughout the Capitol complex. As part of our key priorities, we support the following legislative initiatives: Medical Device Nonvisual Accessibility Act Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act Blind Americans Return to Work Act "Blindness is not the characteristic that defines us or our future; it need not prevent us from living the lives we want," said Mark Riccobono, President of the National Federation of the Blind. "But we need the help of policymakers to remove systemic discrimination and artificial barriers like inaccessible websites and software applications, disincentives to work built into Social Security disability benefits, and the inaccessible design of medical devices. That is why we march on the Capitol each year to tell our stories to the people who have been elected to represent us." You can follow the Washington Seminar experience with #NFBinDC. Members of the press interested in interviewing President Riccobono at a media availability from 4-5 p.m. on January 31 should RSVP to [email protected]. About the National Federation of the Blind The National Federation of the Blind (NFB), headquartered in Baltimore, defends the rights of blind people of all ages and provides information and support to families with blind children, older Americans who are losing vision, and more. Founded in 1940, the NFB is the transformative membership and advocacy organization of blind Americans with affiliates, chapters, and divisions in the fifty states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico. We believe in the hopes and dreams of blind people and work together to transform them into reality. Learn more about our many programs and initiatives at nfb.org. CONTACT: Chris Danielsen Director of Public Relations National Federation of the Blind (410) 659-9314, extension 2330 (410) 262-1281 (Cell) [email protected] SOURCE National Federation of the Blind TORONTO and LONDON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Blu Ivy Group, a global leader of Employer Brand Strategy and Creative, has been named the winner of the RAD Award for Best Employer Brand Events and Experiential. The award recognizes the most innovative of employer brand experiential and event solutions globally. The RAD Awards are widely considered to be the Oscars of the recruitment advertising industry. The RADS celebrate the best of global recruitment marketing solutions produced by ad agencies in partnership with their clients. "What enabled Blu Ivy Group stand out in the category was our opportunity to design an employer brand campaign aligned to what differentiates our brilliant client Ripple, as an employer of choice. The work included an immersive evening experience, cryptography gamification, art installations, PR campaigns and campus recruitment events. Each aspect of the employer brand campaign was designed with a deep understanding of crypto and software engineer talent and paid particular attention to what excites and motivates this talent segment in the world of work. "said Stacy Parker, Co-Founder of Blu Ivy Group. "We appreciate being able to share this award with our teams and our phenomenal client Ripple for enabling bold thinking, and to the artists who helped to bring this work to life. We dedicate ourselves to finding the big ideas at the core of an employer brand, and designing activations that are immersive, newsworthy, and generate lasting feelings of optimism." said Stacy Parker, Co-Founder of Blu Ivy Group. About Blu Ivy Group Blu Ivy Group is a global leader in employer branding, workplace culture and recruitment marketing. We help organizations across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors build extraordinary employee experiences, magnetic employer brands and high-performance brands. From C-Suite to Employer Brand and Talent Acquisition leadership, we partner with our clients to transform their organizations and design the most compelling workplaces of the future. For more information, please visit www.bluivygroup.com and follow Blu Ivy Group on LinkedIn inquiries, please contact [email protected]. SOURCE Blu Ivy Group Light, Airy & Buttery-Soft, the Perfect Travel Sweats DENVER, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Canvelle, a direct-to-consumer travel bag brand, announced today that it is expanding its product line to include travel sweats. A collection of sweatshirts, joggers, hoodies and shorts designed specifically for travel. Visit Canvelle.com to view the collection of sweats. Canvelle Travel Sweats Light, Airy & Butter-Soft "Our passion is to help our customers travel better, and that's why we set out to design the perfect travel sweats: Buttery-soft bamboo fabric Light & airy for every destination Flattering fits to dress up or wind-down And of course, available in our signature Canvelle colors so you can coordinate your travel ensemble," said Rachel Kistner, founder and designer. In 2013, Rachel set out to design better travel bags by using performance fabrics. She built a manufacturing team in Denver, and the outcome is an entirely new kind of travel bag, one that's machine washable. Now Canvelle is applying that same passion for innovative travel products to travel wear. The collection of travel sweats is available for women in 4 styles and 3 colors with sizes from XS-XXL. About Canvelle Canvelle is a direct-to-consumer travel brand specializing in machine washable travel bags and luxe travel sweats. Canvelle is based in Denver, with a sewing facility where the bags are manufactured. View the collection of bags and sweats at Canvelle.com. Media Contact Mary Gonzalez 856-485-9682 [email protected] SOURCE Canvelle Capriotti's Fans Can Get their Hands on Award-Winning Sandwiches in Charlotte. CHARLOTTE, N.C., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Capriotti's Sandwich Shop, known for its award-winning, hand-crafted cheese steaks, turkey subs and more, will debut in Charlotte at 2040 Freeman Park Dr. on January 28. Capriotti's brings the Charlotte community its 47-year tradition of slow-roasting whole, all-natural turkeys in-house and hand-pulling them every morning along with other favorites all made with fresh ingredients. Capriotti's is known for its wide array of sandwiches including The Bobbie, made with fresh oven-roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and mayo, the Capastrami, made with hot pastrami, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing and homemade coleslaw and the cheesesteak is made with premium steak, chicken or Impossible plant-based meat and melted cheese plus hot or sweet peppers. The restaurant also serves three sandwiches made from American Wagyu that include the American Wagyu Slaw Be Jo, American Wagyu Cheese Steak and American Wagyu Roast Beef. The Charlotte Capriotti's will offer a convenient order-ahead option, in addition to third-party delivery services. The new shop will bring 30 new jobs to the Charlotte community. David Froman was a frequent Capriotti's diner when he would visit his family in Las Vegas before his move to Charlotte where there were no Capriotti's locations. That led him to call his friend, Todd Guear, and the duo decided to invest and they opened their first location in Fort Mill, S.C. Now, Froman and Guear are ready to open their second location and first in the Charlotte community. The store will be run by Guear's childhood friend and local resident Jon Tavernier who will serve as the area manager. As the trio prepares for their Charlotte store, they have plans to bring more locations throughout the city in the coming future. "We are excited to bring a fun and inviting restaurant to Charlotte where friends and families can come together to enjoy a meal," said Froman. "There is a true difference in the homemade, premium products that Capriotti's offers its guests." Charlotte Capriotti's fans can download the CAPAddicts Rewards app on iOS and Android to earn and redeem rewards and score free food. The Charlotte Capriotti's will offer a convenient order-ahead option, online ordering, and third-party delivery services. Capriotti's in Charlotte offers catering for any event, from corporate events to birthday parties, with items such as party trays with cold subs, box lunches, or a hot homemade meatball bar. Capriotti's is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Sunday. For additional information, visit www.capriottis.com or call the location at 704-714-1247. About Capriotti's Sandwich Shop Founded in 1976, Capriotti's Sandwich Shop is an award-winning national franchised restaurant chain that remains true to its 47-year tradition of slow-roasting whole, all-natural turkeys in-house every day. Capriotti's fresh ingredients, homemade subs, and unique menu items have won numerous accolades including being named one of the "10 Great Places for a Surprising Sandwich" by USA Today and many "Best of" awards across the country. Capriotti's cold, grilled and vegetarian subs, cheese steaks, and salads are available at more than 170 locations across the U.S. Capriotti's signature sub, The Bobbie, was voted "The Greatest Sandwich in America" by thousands of readers across the country and reported by AOL.com. Capriotti's fans can also download the CAPAddicts Rewards app for iOS and Android, where they can earn and redeem rewards. For more information, visit capriottis.com. Like Capriotti's on Facebook, follow on Twitter or Instagram. Media Contact: Seth Goodman, Fishman PR | [email protected] | 847-945-1300 SOURCE Capriotti's Sandwich Shop NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors ("Committee"), the fiduciary for all survivors of child sexual abuse ("Survivors") in the Chapter 11 case of The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre ("DRC"), took the extraordinary step to file its own plan of reorganization for the DRC after more than two years of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, its parishes, and affiliates failing to make a reasonable offer to sexual abuse victims. The Committee's plan requires the DRC to contribute cash and assets to compensate over 600 survivors of child sexual abuse. The Committee's plan offers opportunity for settlements with the DRC's parishes and affiliates, several of which received alleged fraudulent transfers in cash and property worth hundreds of millions of dollars and many of which are individually liable for claims of Survivors for 100s of millions of dollars. The plan also offers opportunity for settlements with several of the DRC's general liability carriers in amounts that are the subject of confidential mediation. The Committee's plan is based on the Committee's extensive discovery of the DRC's assets and transfers designed to hide the Diocese's assets from survivors. The Committee will seek court approval of a disclosure statement so Survivors then can vote on the Committee's reorganization plan. "The Committee filed its own plan because the Diocese of Rockville Centre continues to refuse to respond to a Committee settlement offer that was made more than two months ago. The Diocese forced the Committee's hand when the Diocese abdicated its responsibility as a party to Court-ordered mediation and as a fiduciary to all creditors," said Richard Tollner, Chair of the Committee. "Tragically, some survivors who started with us have passed away but their stories and their courage have reinforced the Committee's dedication to achieve a fair and reasonable settlement that includes protections for today's children." In response to the Committee plan, the DRC filed its own plan without the support of the Committee. The DRC plan has a minimal financial contribution of $11.1 million from the parishes and affiliates (totaling more than 300 different entities) who receive a complete release of liability for 600 abuse sexual abuse claims and largely relies on the assignment of potential insurance policy recoveries that the carriers who sold the policies are actively disputing in four separate lawsuits. The DRC's plan is "business as usual" regarding child protection measures although some of the over six hundred abuse claims arose after the so-called reforms proposed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The DRC also has started a process of objecting to Survivors' claims. This strategy is rarely employed in Catholic Church bankruptcies. Typically, claims disputes are handled by a procedure in a consensual plan that saves everyone substantial legal fees and costs and minimizes the possibility of re-traumatizing sexual abuse survivors. However, the DRC is taking a scorched earth approach with the Survivors sexually abused as children. The DRC is continuing its decades-long pattern of employing "aggressive legal strategies . . . to defeat and discourage lawsuits even though Diocesan officials kn[o]w they were meritorious," as observed by the Suffolk County Grand Jury in 2003. "The Diocese has adopted a litigation path that ultimately will fail and will have wasted millions of dollars. The Committee always has stood for fair compensation and transparency. The DRC has fought the Committee at almost every turn. The members of the Committee have devoted hundreds of hours over more than two years to getting the right result for all Survivors. This case poses the unique challenge that the DRC refuses to negotiate with the Committee and is attempting to bully Survivors into submission," said James Stang of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, bankruptcy counsel to the Committee. SOURCE Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones Stamford is Curaleaf's first dispensary in Connecticut to serve adult-use consumers NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf" or the "Company"), a leading international provider of consumer cannabis products, today announced that it has been approved by the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection to commence adult-use sales at its Stamford, Connecticut location, beginning Saturday, January 28 at 10:00 a.m. Curaleaf Stamford, located at 814 East Main St, is the Company's first dispensary in the state to open its doors to adult-use customers. Curaleaf currently serves medical patients at three other dispensaries across the state located in Hartford, Milford and Groton. The company anticipates welcoming adult-use customers at additional locations in the near future, pending regulatory approvals. To celebrate the start of adult-use sales on January 28th, Curaleaf Stamford invites patients and customers for festivities throughout the day which will include vendor-sponsored giveaways, product discounts, music, and complimentary food and drinks. The dispensary's wide array of cannabis goods includes Curaleaf whole flower, pre-rolls, edibles, topicals, tinctures, Select Elite vapes, and Curaleaf's breakthrough vape hardware, Cliq by Select. "Curaleaf is proud to be a part of Connecticut's rapidly expanding adult-use market," said Matt Darin, CEO of Curaleaf. "As we welcome new adult-use customers, I want to assure our medical patients that they will continue to be prioritized and receive the high quality of care they are accustomed to." At Curaleaf Stamford, existing medical patients will have priority access into the dispensary through a separate entrance, experience quicker check-ins with a dedicated staff, and will have a separate line for check-out. In addition, medical patients will continue to have access to Curaleaf's Compassionate Care Plan, outstanding pharmacy team and patient consult rooms. For more information on Curaleaf's locations, patient resources and products in Connecticut, please visit https://ct.curaleaf.com/. About Curaleaf Holdings Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf") is a leading international provider of consumer products in cannabis with a mission to improve lives by providing clarity around cannabis and confidence around consumption. As a high-growth cannabis company known for quality, expertise and reliability, the Company and its brands, including Curaleaf, Select, and Grassroots provide industry-leading service, product selection and accessibility across the medical and adult-use markets. In the United States, Curaleaf currently operates in 19 states with 147 dispensaries, and employs nearly 5,500 team members. Curaleaf International is the largest vertically integrated cannabis company in Europe with a unique supply and distribution network throughout the European market, bringing together pioneering science and research with cutting-edge cultivation, extraction and production. Curaleaf is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol CURA and trades on the OTCQX market under the symbol CURLF. For more information, please visit https://ir.curaleaf.com. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This media advisory contains forwardlooking statements and forwardlooking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forwardlooking statements or information. Generally, forward-looking statements and information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or, "proposed", "is expected", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. More particularly and without limitation, this news release contains forwardlooking statements and information concerning the commencement of adult-use sales at Curaleaf Stamford. Such forward-looking statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the company with respect to the matter described in this new release. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which are based on current expectations as of the date of this release and subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors and Uncertainties" in the Company's latest annual information form filed March 9, 2022, which is available under the Company's SEDAR profile at http://www.sedar.com, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as to the date of this press release and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on the forward looking statements contained in this press release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release. INVESTOR CONTACT Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. Camilo Lyon, Chief Investment Officer [email protected] MEDIA CONTACT Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. Tracy Brady, SVP Corporate Communications [email protected] SOURCE Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. The college's School of Engineering, Math & Computer Science is KEEN's newest partner ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Elizabethtown College recently became the newest member to join the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), a national partnership of engineering programs focused on developing and promoting innovation in engineering education for the good of society. KEEN is a selective network of approximately 50 partner institutions across the United States with a shared vision of equipping engineering students with not only technical skills but also an "entrepreneurial mindset." Elizabethtown joins Pennsylvania colleges including Bucknell, Lehigh, Villanova, and Drexel Universities in the network. "Elizabethtown College's School of Engineering, Math & Computer Science empowers its students to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset as they envision their goals," Elizabethtown College Dean of Engineering, Math & Computer Science Sara Atwood said. "Becoming a KEEN partner provides our exceptional faculty with additional resources to enhance our students' knowledge and foster innovation and creativity that resonates with our mission of Educate for Service, Engineer for Society." KEEN's mission aims to graduate engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset so they can create personal, economic, and societal value through a lifetime of meaningful work. "We are excited that Elizabethtown is now part of KEEN and look forward to their contributions to and future impact on the Network," KEEN Digital Media Director Michael Johnson said. "This partnership brings us closer to realizing our mission and is a tremendous opportunity to connect entrepreneurially minded approaches to the existing holistic education that Etown engineers receive." Each KEEN Partner institution is committed to reaching all of their undergraduate engineering students with an entrepreneurial mindset. Faculty and staff within KEEN contribute to and influence the Engineering Unleashed Community, an online platform of the KEEN network, and the broader engineering education ecosystem, reflecting the belief that networks scale impact. Learn more about Elizabethtown College's School of Engineering, Math & Computer Science at etown.edu. About KEEN KEEN is the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network, a program of The Kern Family Foundation, based in Wisconsin. The Foundation provided early support for Network activities, the development of the Engineering Unleashed platform and many professional development and networking events to advance entrepreneurial engineering. About Elizabethtown College Elizabethtown College, located in southcentral Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than 50 health, science, engineering, political science business, communications, fine art and music, humanities, and education degrees. Discover more: etown.edu. Contact: Keri Straub Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications Elizabethtown College (717) 725-6907 [email protected] SOURCE Elizabethtown College DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "ESG Trends in Pharmaceutical Industry" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The report will provide an outline of the global pharmaceutical industry and an ESG overview of the pharmaceutical industry. Qualitative insights on ESG trends and their impact on pharmaceutical manufacturers are provided, along with a detailed analysis of the pharmaceutical industry supply chain with regard to ESG. The report explains the primary drivers, challenges and trends influencing ESG implementation in the pharmaceutical industry. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) pillars describe the standards and policies that when combined demonstrate an organization's commitment to functioning sustainably. ESG reporting enables organizations to understand and convey the risks and opportunities associated with their business activities. Businesses may use ESG reporting to create objectives and KPIs, evaluate performance and manage change to make their processes more sustainable and in accordance with the values of their stakeholders. Through sustainability reporting, organizations may understand and share the possibilities and dangers connected with their corporate operations. ESG performance is typically evaluated using numerical values to assess levels of maturity in terms of environmental impacts, compliance with safety and health requirements, professional behavior as it relates to bribery and corruption, business ethics and policies on critical issues (e.g., modern slavery, human trafficking). Report Includes A brief general outlook of the ESG trends in pharmaceutical industry Detailed information about ESG-related developments in the pharmaceutical industry and analyses of factors affecting ESG applications Discussion of current trends and issues in the pharmaceutical industry, with emphasis on major challenges and opportunities Analysis of the whole supply chain of the pharmaceutical industry and its association with ESG Information on major causes, and impact of pharmaceutical pollution and a detailed case study related to pharmaceutical pollution Reasons for Doing This Study: This paper is intended to assist pharmaceutical industry decision makers by giving background information to be considered during ESG implementation. Determining the most suitable ESG analysis and investment becomes increasingly vital given the global pharmaceutical market's dynamism and the ever-changing regulatory framework requirements for pharmaceutical goods. This research investigates the ESG framework for pharmaceutical businesses to assist corporations and shareholders in prioritizing strategic moves. The availability of favorable government legislation in many locations, as well as rising environmental consciousness, are factors driving new market prospects. This research examines these changes and their implications for the pharmaceutical industry's future. The study focuses on the evolving trends, market restraints, drivers and opportunities that are expected to boost ESG investment in the pharmaceutical industry. Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 What is Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Compliance? 1.2 Study Goals and Objectives 1.3 Reasons for Doing this Study 1.4 Scope of Report 1.5 Intended Audience 1.6 Information Sources 1.7 Analyst's Credentials 1.8 Custom Research 1.9 Related Research Reports Chapter 2 Overview of the Pharmaceutical Industry 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Pharmaceutical Industry Supply Chain 2.2.1 Manufacturing 2.2.2 Distribution 2.2.3 Providers 2.2.4 Customers and Patients 2.3 ESG Deterrents in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Chapter 3 Environmental Impact of the Pharmaceutical Industry 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Major Causes of Pharmaceutical Pollution 3.2.1 Drug Use, Ingestion and Disposal 3.2.2 Healthcare Institutions 3.2.3 Drug Manufacturers 3.2.4 Agriculture and Argo-Products 3.2.5 Local Pharmaceutical Use and Disposal in Humans 3.3 Impact of Pharmaceutical Pollution 3.3.1 Effects on Aquatic Life and Fish 3.3.2 Disrupting Normal Sewerage Process Operations 3.3.3 Drinking Water Impact 3.3.4 Long-Lasting Effects on the Environment 3.3.5 Antibiotic Resistance 3.3.6 Impact on Wildlife 3.4 Growing Focus on Scope 3 Emissions 3.4.1 Case Study on Pharmaceutical Pollution Chapter 4 ESG in the Pharmaceutical Industry 4.1 Introduction to ESG 4.2 Increasing Adoption of ESG Across Various Industries 4.3 ESG Proposition in Five Critical Ways 4.4 ESG Performance in the Pharmaceutical Industry 4.5 Surge in Investment in ESG in the Pharmaceutical Industry 4.6 ESG Investments by Key Players 4.7 Companies Incorporating ESG into Their Value Chains 4.7.1 Biogen 4.7.2 Collaboration Between Novartis and Gsk in Africa 4.7.3 Amgen 4.7.4 Enabler Chapter 5 Market Dynamics 5.1 Macroeconomic Trends in the Market for ESG in the Pharmaceutical Industry 5.1.1 Climate Change 5.1.2 Medication Access in Underdeveloped Nations 5.1.3 Drug Pricing and Gouging 5.2 ESG-Related Drivers of the Pharmaceutical Industry 5.3 ESG-Related Challenges for Pharmaceutical Industry 5.4 ESG-Related Opportunities in the Pharmaceutical Industry Chapter 6 Appendix: Acronyms For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/sl623q-trends-in?w=5 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. 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 WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Family Research Council, along with a coalition of thirteen other pro-life organizations, sent a letter addressed to the leadership of Walmart Inc. calling on them not to seek certification to dispense chemical abortion drugs, as well as a letter to the leadership of Rite Aid Corporation calling on them to stop acting as de-facto abortion centers by seeking certification to dispense abortion inducing drugs. In particular, the letter to Walmart acknowledges that, at this time, the company has not formally sought FDA certification to dispense chemical abortion drugs and urges them to formally decline dispensing the abortion pill regimen: "We are grateful that Walmart Inc. has not declared that it will seek a certification that would essentially make the corporation an abortion facility--forcing every employee and customer to wrestle with its radical association with the abortion industry. We urge you to hold fast to this position." Mary Szoch, Family Research Council's Director of the Center for Human Dignity, released the following statement: "We are grateful that, so far, Walmart Inc. has not followed the path of CVS and Walgreens in becoming, in effect, an abortion facility. As long as Walmart pharmacies remain pharmacies--not abortion drug dispensers--Americans will know that there is a place where they can have their prescriptions filled without unwillingly subsidizing abortion. "In addition, we are saddened and disappointed to learn that Rite Aid will be seeking a certification to transform the company into an abortion facility. From this point forward, no one can have their prescription filled at a Rite Aid, CVS, or Walgreens without contributing to the death of innocent, unborn children. "Chemical abortion drugs are extremely dangerous--they take the life of an unborn child, and they can put the life of that child's mother in jeopardy. Pharmacies across the country should recognize that distributing these drugs is antithetical to their mission of providing medications that allow life to flourish," Szoch concluded. Earlier this month, Family Research Council, along with the same thirteen other pro-life organizations, also sent letters addressed to the leadership of CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance pharmacy chains asking them to stop dispensing the chemical abortion drug regimen. FRC Action, FRC's legislative affiliate, also gathered 53,016 signatures from constituents calling on the Walgreens and CVS to stop selling chemical abortion drugs in their pharmacies, to keep their pharmacy businesses, a pharmacy business - not an abortion business. Read the full Rite Aid Corporation letter. Read the full Walmart, Inc. letter. SOURCE Family Research Council Fannie Mae's Multifamily Financing Provided Continued Support for Affordable Housing and Other Market Segments WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Fannie Mae (OTCQB: FNMA) provided more than $69 billion in debt financing to support the multifamily market in 2022. Through our Delegated Underwriting and Servicing (DUS) platform, along with our Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) equity, we delivered on our mission to provide access to affordable housing throughout the country. "This year marks our 35th anniversary of DUS, a platform that relies on shared risk and strong lender partnerships to serve the needs of the rental housing market," said Michele Evans, Executive Vice President and Head of Multifamily, Fannie Mae. "Our DUS program is well positioned to support the secondary market and play a key role as a stable source of liquidity. We look forward to working with our DUS lenders in the coming year to continue to serve the market and address its most pressing challenges." Fannie Mae's presence in the market and the success of its partnerships were exhibited across multiple sectors in 2022. Notably, Multifamily Affordable Housing volumes totaled $10.3 billion in 2022, up nearly 7 percent from $9.6 billion in 2021, while Structured Transactions and Student Housing increased from $5.7 billion to $10.3 billion (82.6 percent) and $0.9 billion to $1.2 billion (26 percent), respectively. Additionally, Seniors Housing volumes totaled $1 billion last year, up more than 26 percent from $0.8 billion in 2021. Our LIHTC investments provided a reliable source of capital and served as a stabilizing influence on affordable housing. Fannie Mae was able to commit all of its $1.7 billion cap for calendar years 2021 and 2022 and these investments create or preserve more than 35,000 affordable units. In the past five years since we re-entered the market, we have provided over $3 billion in equity investments in properties throughout the country, including underserved markets, populations with unmet needs, such as Native American and farmworker communities, supportive housing development, and disaster-impacted areas. "We want to thank our DUS lenders for their partnership and helping us support the multifamily market," said Rob Levin, Senior Vice President and Multifamily Chief Customer Officer, Fannie Mae. "Together with our lenders, we were active across all market segments while building a balanced portfolio." The following top 10 DUS Lenders produced the highest business volumes in 2022. Also listed below are the Top 5 Lender rankings for highest volumes in 2022 for Structured Transactions, Multifamily Affordable Housing, Green Financing, Small Loans, Manufactured Housing Communities, Student Housing, and Seniors Housing. Top 10 Producers in 2022 Volume ($Billion) 1. Walker & Dunlop, LLC $11.4 2. Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, LLC $6.8 3. CBRE Multifamily Capital, Inc. $6.2 4. Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital $4.7 5. Newmark $4.6 6. Greystone Servicing Company LLC $4.4 7. JLL Real Estate Capital, LLC $4.2 8. KeyBank National Association $3.6 9. Capital One, National Association $3.3 10. Arbor Commercial Funding I, LLC $3.1 Top 5 DUS Producers for Structured Transactions in 2022 Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital CBRE Multifamily Capital, Inc. Newmark Walker & Dunlop, LLC KeyBank National Association Top 5 DUS Producers for Multifamily Affordable Housing in 20221 Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital CBRE Multifamily Capital, Inc. Walker & Dunlop, LLC Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, LLC Capital One, National Association Top 5 DUS Producers for Green Financing in 20222 Walker & Dunlop, LLC Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, LLC Greystone Servicing Company LLC CBRE Multifamily Capital, Inc. KeyBank National Association Top 5 DUS Producers for Small Loans in 20223 Greystone Servicing Company LLC Arbor Commercial Funding I, LLC Walker & Dunlop, LLC Berkadia Commercial Mortgage, LLC Lument Top 5 DUS Producers for Manufactured Housing Communities in 2022 Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital, LLC Walker & Dunlop, LLC Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital KeyBank National Association Grandbridge Real Estate Capital, LLC Top 5 DUS Producers for Student Housing in 2022 KeyBank National Association Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital Walker & Dunlop, LLC Capital One, National Association CBRE Multifamily Capital, Inc. Top 5 DUS Producers for Seniors Housing in 2022 Greystone Servicing Company LLC PNC Real Estate Bellwether Enterprise Real Estate Capital, LLC Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital M&T Realty Capital Corporation Listed below are 2022 production highlights for individual business categories, which are included in the total multifamily production number. Structured Transactions $10.3 billion , an increase of nearly 83 percent from $5.7 billion in 2021 , an increase of nearly 83 percent from in 2021 Multifamily Affordable Housing 1 $10.3 billion , an increase of nearly 7 percent from $9.6 billion in 2021 , an increase of nearly 7 percent from in 2021 Green Financing 2 $9.1 billion Small Loans 3 $3.4 billion Manufactured Housing Communities $2.7 billion Student Housing $1.2 billion , an increase of 26 percent from $0.9 billion in 2021 , an increase of 26 percent from in 2021 Seniors Housing $1 billion , an increase of more than 26 percent from $0.8 billion in 2021 1 Multifamily Affordable Housing Loans are defined as financing for rent-restricted properties and properties receiving other federal and state subsidies. Affordable housing acquisitions also include 20% at 80% AMI, Special Public Purpose Multifamily Affordable Housing (SPP MAH), and Sponsor-Initiated Affordability Multifamily Affordable Housing (SIA MAH). 2 Green Loans are defined as loans for properties with Green Building Certifications or loans that are projected to achieve specified reductions in the property's energy usage and water usage that sum to at least 30 percent, of which a minimum of 15 percent must be projected energy savings. 3 Small Loans are defined as loans of $6 million or less nationwide and loans for properties with 5 or more units nationwide. ** Due to rounding, amounts reported may not add up to overall totals. About Fannie Mae Fannie Mae advances equitable and sustainable access to homeownership and quality, affordable rental housing for millions of people across America. We enable the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and drive responsible innovation to make homebuying and renting easier, fairer, and more accessible. To learn more, visit: fanniemae.com | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Blog Fannie Mae Newsroom https://www.fanniemae.com/news Photo of Fannie Mae https://www.fanniemae.com/resources/img/about-fm/fm-building.tif Fannie Mae Resource Center 1-800-2FANNIE (800-232-6643) SOURCE Fannie Mae BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Ecopetrol S.A. (BVC: ECOPETROL; NYSE: EC, the "Company" or "Ecopetrol") informs that Felipe Bayon Pardo will lead the Company as CEO until March 31, 2023. The Board of Directors recognized Felipe Bayon Pardo's achievements during his leadership as CEO of Ecopetrol since September 2017. Under his tenure, the Company achieved excellent operating and financial results that brought significant benefits in terms of energy security and contributed to reducing social gaps in the country, always having as a guiding principle the people's lives. The Board highlighted his leadership in turning Ecopetrol into a benchmark-setting diversified energy group in Latin America, committed to energy transition and with a robust 2040 long-term strategy 'Energy that Transforms' that responds to the current challenges in environmental, social, and governance matters to enable the Company to continue the path of sustainable and profitable growth. Under Felipe Bayon, the Ecopetrol Group also became a pioneer in the region by setting the ambitious goal of reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, as well as designing and implementing its strategic plan for the development of low-emission hydrogen. He also led a profound technological transformation to have more agile and streamlined processes in the Company and was a strong advocate of diversity and inclusion programs. He also led Ecopetrol's acquisition of 51.4% of ISA's shares, one of the most relevant transactions in the western hemisphere in 2021, which acquisition has already rendered visible results for the Ecopetrol Group in decarbonization and electrification. During his presidency, important offshore gas discoveries were made, such as Gorgon-2 and Uchuva-1, which ratified the existence of a gas province in the Caribbean Sea, which will be fundamental to preserving Colombia's energy security in the future, and the completion of the capacity expansion of the Cartagena Refinery, to meet the growing demand for refined products. He also led a comprehensive program to raise the quality of the Company's fuel products to meet international standards. Felipe was key in leading the Company through highly complex international challenges over the last years, such as the oil price crisis that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic, while adhering to the highest industry safety standards, and meeting the country's fuel demand. Ecopetrol expresses its gratitude to Felipe Bayon for his leadership and achievements and wishes him success in his new professional endeavors. The selection process and appointment of Ecopetrol's new CEO by the Board of Directors will be based on a rigorous selection process, in accordance with the Company's Succession Policy for the President. Ecopetrol is the largest company in Colombia and one of the main integrated energy companies in the American continent, with more than 18,000 employees. In Colombia, it is responsible for more than 60% of the hydrocarbon production of most transportation, logistics, and hydrocarbon refining systems, and it holds leading positions in the petrochemicals and gas distribution segments. With the acquisition of 51.4% of ISA's shares, the Company participates in energy transmission, the management of real-time systems (XM), and the Barranquilla - Cartagena coastal highway concession. At the international level, Ecopetrol has a stake in strategic basins in the American continent, with Drilling and Exploration operations in the United States (Permian basin and the Gulf of Mexico), Brazil, and Mexico, and, through ISA and its subsidiaries, Ecopetrol holds leading positions in the power transmission business in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, road concessions in Chile, and the telecommunications sector. This press release contains business prospect statements, operating and financial result estimates, and statements related to Ecopetrol's growth prospects. These are all projections and, as such, they are based solely on the expectations of the managers regarding the future of the Company and their continued access to capital to finance the Company's business plan. The realization of said estimates in the future depends on the behavior of market conditions, regulations, competition, and the performance of the Colombian economy and the industry, among other factors, and are consequently subject to change without prior notice. This release contains statements that may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All forward-looking statements, whether made in this release or in future filings or press releases, or orally, address matters that involve risks and uncertainties, including in respect of the Company's prospects for growth and its ongoing access to capital to fund the Company's business plan, among others. Consequently, changes in the following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements: market prices of oil & gas, our exploration, and production activities, market conditions, applicable regulations, the exchange rate, the Company's competitiveness and the performance of Colombia's economy and industry, to mention a few. We do not intend and do not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. For more information, please contact: Head of Capital Markets (a) Maria Catalina Escobar Hoyos Email: [email protected] Head of Corporate Communications (a) Juan Guillermo Londono Correo electronico: [email protected] SOURCE Ecopetrol S.A. The news follows fuseproject's acquisition of Mindshaker, a Lisbon-based digital design agency SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- fuseproject , the industry-leading multidisciplinary design studio founded in 1999 by award-winning innovator, Yves Behar, today announced the launch of a new division, fusedigital , a digital-first service offering which will build top-of-class products and experiences. The initiative was made possible by the strategic acquisition of Mindshaker, a Lisbon-based digital agency, a move that will bolster fuseproject's ability to implement digital experiences, innovations and design through close collaboration on the delivery of UI, UX and front-end development. Importantly, the acquisition now also provides fuseproject with an expanded international footprint in Europe. fusedigital offers end-to-end digital solutions like experience strategy, UX/UI design, development, testing and more. Tweet this We create the firsts of tomorrow. Headquartered in the Lisbon area a city pushing the boundaries of modern, innovative thinking whilst remaining steeped in classical European culture the launch of the digital practice marks a significant international expansion for fuseproject, reinforcing the brand's global outlook for its international roster of clients, including Samsung, L'Oreal and Herman Miller, amongst a portfolio of industry-advancing startup clients. "It is fuseproject's unique ability to anticipate and strategically respond to cultural changes that has enabled us to become the industry-leading, boundary-pushing studio we are today," said Yves Behar, Founder and Creative CEO of fuseproject. "Over the years, I've had the pleasure of experiencing firsthand the creative spirit pulsing through Lisbon and adjacent Caparica. It is this open-minded spirit which precludes innovative ideas and inspired me to select Portugal as the first city outside the United States to officially open a fuseproject-brand office." Having met with many digital design firms throughout Portugal and Spain in their search, fuseproject's leadership team decided Mindshaker, a full-service digital agency, was the perfect fit to support fuseproject's current phase of its worldwide expansion. Originally founded in 2007 by leading digital design and technology experts, Joao Paulo Almeida and Luis Correia, Mindshaker's technological experience, its ties to the growing European-based community of designers and its commitment to mission-driven values made it a draw. Thomas Moeller, Director of Experience Design for fuseproject's fusedigital division added, "Having helped lead fuseproject's evolution of offerings from pure industrial design to now include digital over the last five years of working with Yves and the team, it is an honor to see our digital offering fully realized and to spearhead the amplification of fuseproject's design-forward approach worldwide." fuseproject's fusedigital division strengthens and diversifies the existing fuseproject service offerings, allowing the studio to oversee projects from creative, strategy and design right through to development and programming. The expansion will build on fuseproject's existing work for clients across key verticals including health, mobility, financial services and sustainability. The launch of fuseproject's fusedigital division will now allow the company to augment its existing UX/UI capabilities with engineering, AI development, machine learning technology and more to deliver a full spectrum of digital-first services and, through that, evolve the founding vision of the business that design has the power to invent new categories and to change people's lives for the better. Thanks to this expansion, fuseproject - which will remain a singular business with the integrated addition of fusedigital into the company's P&L - will grow from 45 employees to 60, expanding the talent base currently in San Francisco and London to Portugal and beyond. For more information, please contact: CAMRON [email protected] +44 (0) 20 7420 1700 About fuseproject & fusedigital fuseproject was founded in 1999 by Swiss designer, entrepreneur and educator, Yves Behar. The multidisciplinary design studio collaborates with partners globally to deliver category-changing products and experiences in technology, robotics, furniture and consumer goods. fuseproject's unparalleled design offerings extend beyond physical delivery to include design strategy, graphics and branding, product naming, UI/UX and experiential built spaces. In 2021, fuseproject joined Plus Company , an entrepreneurial network of forward-thinking creative agencies, each bringing its own expertise and empowered by the collective capabilities of the network. In 2023, fuseproject announced the launch of a new digital-first innovation and experiences design division, fusedigital, which works in close partnership with fuseproject's brand, strategy and product divisions. Notable collaborations with renowned partners include Herman Miller, Movado, Samsung, Puma, Issey Miyake, Prada, SodaStream, Nivea, The Ocean Cleanup and Fabien Cousteau's Proteus Ocean Group (POG). Visit fuseproject online at www.fuseproject.com . To learn more about fuseproject's new digital + innovation division, fusedigital, go to www.fuseprojectdigital.com . SOURCE fuseproject SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Glaucoma Research Foundation (GRF) will host the 12th Annual Glaucoma 360 New Horizons Forum on February 3rd at San Francisco's iconic Westin St. Francis Hotel. Attracting nearly 400 participants annually, this unique gathering unites leaders in the field of glaucoma for a full day of informative presentations, inspiring discussions, and vital networking opportunities. Clinicians, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, venture capital financiers, FDA representatives, key opinion leaders, glaucoma patients all meet, learn, share ideas, and collaborate at the only event of its kind, aimed at speeding the development of new therapies and diagnostics for glaucoma patients. Glaucoma visionary Malik Kahook, MD, Chief of the Sue Anschutz-Rogers Eye Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, will deliver the Forum's keynote lecture: "Sustained Drug Delivery for Glaucoma: From Promise to Reality." In addition to Dr. Kahook, more than 50 speakers have been invited from companies and institutions across the US and around the world. "We will once again feature early-stage companies and their new technologies and approaches to glaucoma care. The amount of innovation that is flourishing in the glaucoma space right now is phenomenal," said Adrienne Graves, PhD, GRF board member and event co-founder. "As a result, there are more therapeutic options than ever before to help patients. Glaucoma 360 is an important catalyst to bring all the important elements together that can advance a promising idea into clinical use." Andrew Iwach, MD, GRF board chair and co-founder of Glaucoma 360, believes New Horizons offers rewards for clinicians and others who visit San Francisco for in-person, immersive networking. "One of the most important things we can do for our patients is stay up to date on new and upcoming solutions," he says. "At Glaucoma 360, you can do that and help usher in the next generation of care." Glaucoma 360 is planned for February 2 to 4 starting with the Annual Gala to benefit GRF's research and patient education programs and honor leaders in glaucoma research. Glaucoma 360 concludes with two continuing medical education symposia for ophthalmologists and optometrists. At the Glaucoma Symposium CME on February 4, the Shaffer-Hetherington-Hoskins Keynote Lecture will be presented by Mildred M.G. Oliver, MD, Senior Associate Dean at the University of Ponce, St. Louis, and will highlight the need for improved health equity in glaucoma. SOURCE Glaucoma Research Foundation DUBLIN, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Beauty Fridge Market Size, Share & Industry Trends Analysis Report By Distribution Channel (Offline and Online), By Capacity (Up to 4 Litres, 4 Litres to 7 Litres, 7 Litres to 10 Litres and More than 10 Litres), By Regional Outlook and Forecast, 2022 - 2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Global Beauty Fridge Market size is expected to reach $213.9 Million by 2028, rising at a market growth of 8.7% CAGR during the forecast period. Market Growth Factors Increasing trend of cold or cryotherapy-based products Through numerous research and studies, it has been found that the application of cold products is exceptionally beneficial for the skin. The cold temperature of things applied to the skin, like ice or chilled toners or balm, is highly efficient in combating puffiness, open pores, and spots. This has given rise to the trend of cryotherapy-based cremes and DIY ice rollers. In addition, the current hectic lifestyles and consumption of alcohol and junk foods have raised strong support for good skincare, and the advantages of cold product applications have garnered this support as well. Therefore, the known benefits of using beauty and cosmetic products kept in a fridge are boosting the growth of the beauty fridge market in the coming years. Rising number of products with active/organic/herbal ingredients With the rising trend of beauty and skincare, consumers have started demanding products that help in giving benefits to the skin without needing to spend a lot. As a result, a plethora of products is now available in the marketplaces with active ingredients or herbal or organic components. In addition, skin product manufacturers are incorporating temperature-sensitive ingredients like vitamin C, retinol, hyaluronic acids, etc., which are required to be kept at low temperatures. Therefore, both the availability of such products and beauty fridges significantly contributes to the demand for them, especially among working individuals, thereby expanding the development of the market. Capacity Outlook Based on capacity, the beauty fridge market is categorized into up to 4 liters, 4 liters to 7 liters, 7 liters to 10 liters, and more than 10 liters. The 4 liters to 7 liters segment procured a considerable growth rate in the beauty fridge market in 2021. People who either use a lot of products or decide the usage of products based on skin condition on that particular day prefer to keep all their products in the beauty fridge. The preferable size to hold a bigger volume of products is 4 to 7 liters. Beauty influencers and salons may use beauty fridges of this size and hence drive the growth of the segment. Distribution Channel Outlook On the basis of distribution channel, the beauty fridge market is divided into online and offline. The rising preference of most people to shop offline is the main factor influencing the expansion of the segment. People prefer to shop in stores as they like to see and touch and interact with the product before purchasing. Most people also choose to buy products directly from stores rather than waiting for them to be delivered after ordering. Additionally, buying products offline provides clarity about the dimensions and weight of the product as well. Regional Outlook Based on region, the beauty fridge market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and LAMEA. The Europe segment procured a substantial revenue share in the beauty fridge market in 2021. The rising market presence and adoption by customers of these products in some of the developed nations of the region are driving the expansion of the segment. Many international and regional market participants are launching beauty fridges in this region. Their efforts are successful as in nations with citizens having high disposable incomes the demand for beauty products is continuously increasing. The market research report covers the analysis of key stake holders of the market. Key companies profiled in the report include Finishing Touch Flawless (Church & Dwight Co., Inc.), The Beauty Fridge (Quick Beauty Pty. Ltd), Cooluli, Teami LLC, COOSEON, FaceTory, Inc., Hck Refrigeration Tech. Co., Ltd., and Chefman. Scope of the Study By Distribution Channel Offline Online By Capacity Up to 4 Litres 4 Litres to 7 Litres 7 Litres to 10 Litres More than 10 Litres By Geography North America US Canada Mexico Rest of North America Europe Germany UK France Russia Spain Italy Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India South Korea Singapore Malaysia Rest of Asia Pacific LAMEA Brazil Argentina UAE Saudi Arabia South Africa Nigeria Rest of LAMEA Key Market Players List of Companies Profiled in the Report: Finishing Touch Flawless (Church & Dwight Co., Inc.) The Beauty Fridge (Quick Beauty Pty. Ltd) Cooluli Teami LLC COOSEON FaceTory, Inc. Hck Refrigeration Tech. Co., Ltd Chefman Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1. Market Scope & Methodology Chapter 2. Market Overview Chapter 3. Global Beauty Fridge Market by Distribution Channel Chapter 4. Global Beauty Fridge Market by Capacity Chapter 5. Global Beauty Fridge Market by Region Chapter 6. Company Profiles For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/jmb9g6-beauty?w=5 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. 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 DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Radioactive Waste Management: Global Markets" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The radioactive waste management technologies and service global market study has been undertaken with a global perspective in terms of technologies and their applications. Market projections have been conducted for four regional segments. The report provides business planers, investors and managers with an improved understanding of the trends and impact of treatment technologies in radioactive waste management and also presents how the markets will be affected by new technology opportunities as well social and economic factors. A variety of nuclear activities have been carried out in the last 60 years. Military applications were the most common initially, followed by more peaceful uses such as nuclear energy production, nuclear materials for diagnosis and disease treatment, radioactive materials in industry, and research. Regardless of the activity, nuclear activities generate radioactive waste. The accumulations of radioactive materials and the wastes generated can be considered a burden for human society, both at present and in the future, since they require continuing monitoring, control and treatment. Knowing the amounts and types of such radioactive waste inventories can help in the assessment of the relative burdens. Radioactive waste management involves two fundamental approaches: the radioactive materials can be either released or discharged to the environment, or they must be confined and isolated from the biosphere until the noxious radionuclides have decayed to innocuous concentrations. Releases of radioactivity to the environment generally occur as liquid or gaseous discharges (effluents) from nuclear facilities. The amount of radioactivity that can be released is based on allowable exposures to population groups and is controlled by national regulations and guidelines, usually based on recommendations of the International Committee on Radiation Protection. There are very few instances where radioactive effluents from nuclear facilities can be released without some form of control or treatment to remove excessive radioactivity. Most of the radioactive wastes arising from the operation of nuclear fuel cycle facilities require processing to concentrate the radioactive elements into a smaller volume that can be more conveniently handled, thereby permitting the release or disposal of the bulk of the processed material. Based on technology, the market for radioactive waste management market is segmented into transportation and disposal services, physical treatment, containment and storage, chemical treatment, decontamination and decommissioning, thermal destruction, stabilization and encapsulation, size reduction, and remediation technologies. Chemical treatment, decontamination and decommissioning, thermal destruction, and stabilization and encapsulation technologies accounted for the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh-largest shares, respectively, of the radioactive waste market based on the advantages of well-established technologies used and energy conservation they can offer. The report also features a separate section highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the radioactive waste management market at the global level. The section covers the pandemic's disruption on nuclear power plants and surveys the strategic investments taken by governments to boost the growth of the market globally. A separate section on the Russia-Ukraine war is also included. This section provides a detailed analysis of the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the radioactive waste management market. The market size and estimations are provided in terms of value ($ millions), with 2021 serving as the base year and market forecasts given for the period 2022 to 2027. Regional-level market sizes, with respect to the technology segment, are provided for all four regions. In addition, regional data on radioactive waste production is also provided with projections through 2027. The impact of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war have been factored into the estimates of market size. Report Includes 91 data tables and 37 additional tables A comprehensive overview and up-to-date analysis of the global markets for radioactive waste management technologies and services Discussion of the industry growth driving factors and restraints that will shape the market for radioactive waste management as the basis for projecting demand in the next few years (2022-2027) Estimation of the actual market size and revenue forecast for the global radioactive waste management market in USD million values, and their corresponding market share analysis by type of technology and region Highlights of the impact of COVID-19 and Russia - Ukraine war on the market for radioactive waste management at the global level - war on the market for radioactive waste management at the global level Technology assessment of the key drivers, restraints and opportunities that will shape the market for radioactive waste management production and technologies over the forecast period Review of the quantities of hazardous waste produced per regional segment, type and source, as well as current and potential technologies for radioactive waste management Analysis of market and economic opportunities for current industry participants and new entrants A relevant patent analysis with data corresponding to number of U.S. patents related to radioactive waste management technologies Updated information on recent industry acquisitions, partnerships, agreements, collaborations, and other strategic alliances in the global radioactive waste management market Descriptive company profiles of the leading global market players, including Veolia EDF Perma-Fix Environmental Services Jacobs Solutions Inc US Ecology Inc Studsvik AB Key Topics Covered: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Summary and Highlights Chapter 3 Market Overview 3.1 Overview of Radioactive Waste 3.1.1 Radioactive Waste Definition 3.1.2 U.S. Atomic Energy Act 3.1.3 Managing Issues With Radioactive Waste 3.1.4 Risk Assessment on Radioactive Waste 3.2 Funding Waste Management 3.3 Regulatory Framework on Radioactive Waste 3.3.1 International Atomic Energy Agency 3.3.2 Other International Regulatory Frameworks 3.3.3 U.S. Nuclear Waste Policy Act 3.4 Types of Radioactive Waste 3.4.1 High Activity Level Radioactive Waste 3.4.2 Transuranic Waste 3.4.3 Low and Intermediate Activity Level Radioactive Waste 3.4.4 Uranium Mills Radioactive Waste 3.4.5 Mixed Radioactive Waste 3.4.6 Radioactive Waste Disposal 3.5 Radioactive Waste Management: Collection, Treatment and Disposal Technologies 3.5.1 Physical Treatment Technologies 3.5.2 Chemical Treatment Technologies 3.5.3 Thermal Treatment Technologies 3.5.4 Containment and Storage Treatment Technologies 3.5.5 Size Reduction Treatment Technologies 3.5.6 Remediation Technologies 3.5.7 Stabilization/Encapsulation Technologies 3.5.8 Decommissioning Technologies 3.6 Risks Associated With Radioactive Waste 3.6.1 Radiation Risk 3.6.2 Continued Radionuclide Emissions from Decommissioned Reactors 3.6.3 Radiation Risks from Operation Chapter 4 Impact of Covid-19 and Russia-Ukraine War on the Market 4.1 Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic 4.2 Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War Chapter 5 Types of Radioactive Waste Production by Region 5.1 Overview 5.2 Types of Waste Production by Region Chapter 6 Market for Radioactive Waste Management Technologies 6.1 Overview 6.2 Global Market Analysis of Radioactive Waste Treatment Technologies 6.2.1 Transportation and Disposal Treatment Technologies 6.2.2 Physical Treatment Technologies 6.2.3 Containment and Storage Treatment Technologies 6.2.4 Chemical Treatment Technologies 6.2.5 Decontamination and Decommissioning Treatment Technologies 6.2.6 Thermal Destruction Treatment Technologies 6.2.7 Stabilization and Encapsulation Treatment Technologies 6.2.8 Size Reduction Treatment Technologies 6.2.9 Remediation Technologies Chapter 7 Regional Markets for Radioactive Waste Management Technologies 7.1 Overview Chapter 8 State-Of-The-Art Technologies for Radioactive Waste Management 8.1 Overview 8.2 Cold Crucible Vitrification 8.2.1 Brief Description of the Technology 8.2.2 Benefits of the Technology 8.2.3 Limitations or Inhibitors of the Technology 8.2.4 Type of Radioactive Waste 8.3 High Temperature Incineration 8.3.1 Brief Description of Technology 8.3.2 Benefits of the Technology 8.3.3 Limitations or Inhibitors of the Technology 8.3.4 Types of Radioactive Waste 8.4 Molten Metal Technology 8.4.1 Brief Description of Technology 8.4.2 Benefits of the Technology 8.4.3 Limitations or Inhibitors of the Technology 8.4.4 Radioactive Waste Type Applications 8.5 Plasma Arc Melting Technology 8.5.1 Brief Description of Technology 8.5.2 Limitations or Inhibitors of the Technology 8.5.3 Radioactive Waste Type Applications Chapter 9 Patent Analysis 9.1 Overview 9.2 Recent Patents on Radioactive Waste Management Chapter 10 Competitive Landscape 10.1 Global Competitive Landscape 10.2 Major Market Developments Chapter 11 Company Profiles Adco Services Inc. Bechtel Corp. Cabrera Services Inc. Clean Harbors Inc. Edf Holtec International Jacobs Solutions Inc. Perma-Fix Environmental Services Inc. Studsvik Ab Tradebe Us Ecology Inc. (A Subsidiary of Republic Services) Veolia For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9h1fde-waste?w=5 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. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg Media contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, continues to investigate potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) resulting from allegations that Goldman Sachs may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public. SO WHAT: If you purchased Goldman Sachs securities you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. The Rosen Law Firm is preparing a class action seeking recovery of investor losses. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the prospective class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=11359 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email [email protected] or [email protected] for information on the class action. WHAT IS THIS ABOUT: On January 20, 2023, during trading hours, The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "U.S. Fed probes Goldman Sachs consumer business." The article stated that "The U.S. Federal Reserve is probing whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc's consumer business had appropriate safeguards in place as the bank ramped up lending." Further, the article stated that "The central bank is concerned the Wall Street giant did not have proper monitoring and control systems inside Marcus, its consumer unit, as it grew larger." The article added that "The probe, which grew out of a standard Fed review of the business in 2021 and intensified into an investigation last year, is also examining instances of customer harm and whether they were properly resolved." On this news, Goldman Sachs's price fell $8.91, or 2.54%, to close at $341.84 on January 20, 2023. 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 litigate securities class actions. 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 firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. 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 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.rosenlegal.com SOURCE Rosen Law Firm, P.A. DALLAS, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Highland Income Fund (NYSE: HFRO) ("HFRO" or the "Fund") today announced changes to the Fund's portfolio management team, effective January 30, 2023. Scott Johnson has been named as a portfolio manager of the Fund. Mr. Johnson will oversee the Fund's investment activities alongside current portfolio manager James Dondero. Joseph Sowin will no longer serve as portfolio manager. The Fund will continue to be managed pursuant to the investment objective and strategies as described in the Fund's Prospectus without change. Mr. Johnson is managing director and portfolio manager at NexPoint. He has over 25 years of investment management experience with extensive experience in private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and long/short hedge funds. Mr. Johnson received a B.B.A. in Finance with honors from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business School. About the Highland Income Fund The Highland Income Fund (NYSE: HFRO) is a closed-end fund managed by NexPoint Asset Management, L.P. For more information visit nexpointassetmgmt.com/income-fund/. About NexPoint Asset Management, L.P. NexPoint Asset Management, L.P. is an SEC-registered investment adviser. It is the adviser to a suite of registered funds, including open-end mutual funds, closed-end funds, and an exchange-traded fund. For more information visit nexpointassetmgmt.com. Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Highland Income Fund carefully before investing. This and other information can be found in the Fund's prospectus, which may be obtained by calling 1-800-357-9167 or visiting nexpointassetmgmt.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before you invest. CONTACTS Investor Relations Kristen Thomas [email protected] Media Relations Prosek Partners for NexPoint [email protected] SOURCE Highland Income Fund Skanska's Year-end report 2022 will be released on Friday, February 3 at 07:30 am CET STOCKHOLM, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The report will be presented by Anders Danielsson, Skanska's President and CEO, and Magnus Persson, CFO, at a press - and telephone conference at 10:00 am CET at Skanska's head office at Warfvinges vag 25 in Stockholm. The press conference will also be webcasted live at www.skanska.com/investors, where it also will be posted shortly afterwards. To participate in the telephone conference, with the possibility to ask questions, please dial +46 (0)8 5051 0031; +44 (0) 207 107 06 13, or +1 (1) 631 570 56 13. After the conference, there will be possibilities for individual meetings with Anders Danielsson and Magnus Persson. To apply for a meeting please contact [email protected] no later than February 1. Welcome, Antonia Junelind, SVP, Investor Relations Karolina Cederhage, SVP, Communications For further information please contact: Antonia Junelind, Senior Vice President Investor Relations, Skanska AB, tel +46 (0)10 448 62 61 Karolina Cederhage, Senior Vice President Communications, Skanska AB, tel +46 (0)10 448 08 80 Matti Kataja, Acting head of Media Relations and Public Affairs, Skanska AB, tel +46 (0)10 449 67 98 Direct line for media, tel +46 (0)10 448 88 99 This and previous releases can also be found at www.skanska.com. The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/95/3704403/1808442.pdf Invitation Skanska Q4 2022 SOURCE Skanska To create a great candidate experience, IT must work with HR to improve the talent attraction and selection process. TORONTO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - In the present labor market, recruitment is one of the top challenges organizations are facing. With candidate expectations going beyond traditional considerations like compensation, organizations need to change their recruitment strategy to attract top talent. To improve talent attraction, selection, and the overall applicant experience, IT must work with HR by becoming involved at crucial stages. To assist organizations in their efforts to encourage and support IT departments' participation in the recruitment process, global IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group has released its timely, research-backed blueprint Improve Your IT Recruitment Process. Info-Techs step-by-step guide to help IT and HR build a great candidate experience, from the firms Improve Your IT Recruitment Process blueprint. (CNW Group/Info-Tech Research Group) According to Info-Tech's research, 37% of IT departments are outsourcing roles to fill internal skill shortages. Although social media is an exceptional platform for talent recruitment, its proliferation and use by most organizations have made it overcrowded. As a result, organizations are directly competing for talent with industry competitors. Info-Tech advises that organizations must focus on key programs and tactics to improve the effectiveness of their approach to sourcing talent. The firm's blueprint indicates that the way an organization is positioned impacts who is likely to apply to posted job opportunities. Therefore, creating an intentional employee value proposition (EVP) is vital to showcase an organization's unique benefits and opportunities. A purposeful EVP allows organizations to attract a wider pool of candidates and can lead to many internal and external benefits, as well. In addition to a clear EVP, creating engaging job ads to attract talent is crucial in the recruitment process. With most candidates using mobile platforms for the job hunt, ads must be clear, concise, and easily viewed on a mobile device. Job postings need to paint an accurate picture of key aspects of the role while avoiding the granular details, as this may overwhelm applicants. Offering employee referral programs, in which employees get some form of reward if their referral candidate is hired, is another effective tactic to hire talent. However, it is important to keep in mind that referrals can hinder diversity because employees tend to recommend people like themselves. Info-Tech's latest blueprint outlines how IT leaders can work alongside HR to build an effective and efficient IT recruitment process and a great candidate experience: Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and Employer Brand Define and communicate the unique benefits of working for the organization to potential candidates through a strong employer brand. Job Postings and a Strong Sourcing Program Use best practices to create attractive job postings to attract the right candidates and build a strong sourcing program. Effective Interviewing Create a high-quality interview process to improve candidate interview, assessment, and offer processes. Onboarding New Hires for Success Drive employee engagement and retention with a robust program that acclimates, guides, and develops new hires. To meet growing candidate expectations, Info-Tech recommends that organizations change how they source talent. While the focus on the candidate experience is important throughout the talent acquisition process, social media, technology, and candidate values have made it a critical component of sourcing. To learn more, download Info-Tech's Improve Your IT Recruitment Process blueprint. For more about Info-Tech Research Group and to download the latest research, visit infotech.com and connect via LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. About Info-Tech Research Group Info-Tech Research Group is one of the world's leading information technology research and advisory firms, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals. The company produces unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. For 25 years, Info-Tech has partnered closely with IT teams to provide them with everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations. Media professionals can register for unrestricted access to research across IT, HR, and software and over 200 IT and Industry analysts through the ITRG Media Insiders Program. To gain access, contact [email protected]. SOURCE Info-Tech Research Group JACKSON, Miss., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Office of Postsecondary Education at the United States Department of Education recently awarded the Jackson State University Student Success unit more than $9 million in grants for six new programs and one continuing program to serve low-income first-generation middle school, high school and college students. The programs align with the university's strategic plan to increase the number of students completing secondary, postsecondary and post-baccalaureate degrees. The Office of Postsecondary Education at the United States Department of Education recently awarded the Jackson State University Student Success unit more than $9 million in grants for six new programs and one continuing program to serve low-income first-generation middle school, high school and college students. "Jackson State University is honored to receive this support from the U.S. Department of Education which will help us to execute our mission of serving students who are destined to be the first in their families to graduate from college," said President Thomas K. Hudson, J.D. "I'd like to thank Academic Affairs, the Title III office, and Dr. Mitchell Shears for the focused effort to enhance our grant submissions to reach this milestone accomplishment." Since 2019, Associate Vice President and Executive Director of Title III Mitchell M. Shears, Ed.D., has worked to elevate JSU's TRIO programs. To increase the number of grants awarded, over the past three grant cycles JSU Student Success has moved from receiving one award in 2017 to 11 awards. The work is personal and endearing for Shears, a TRIO alum and the 2022 Mississippi Association of Educational Opportunity Program Personnel TRIO Achiever. "This past year, we were thrilled to learn that six new programs were being funded. To receive over $9 Million in one grant cycle is astronomical for an institution who does not currently have those programs," said Shears. "This is significant because institutions who are submitting a continuation proposal receive priority experience points, known as extra points, which allows them to have an advantage in the competition. However, we were successful to receive, in many cases, perfect scores on our winning grant proposals." In 2022, the following grants were awarded: Student Support Services Teacher Prep ($1,309,440) provides personal, career and academic services to teacher education majors at JSU. provides personal, career and academic services to teacher education majors at JSU. Talent Search North ($1,386,875) provides academic, career and financial counseling to 500 students enrolled in the North Jackson middle and high schools in the Jackson Public School District. The target schools are Chastain, Kirksey, and Powell Middle Schools and Callaway and Murrah High Schools in the Jackson Public School District. provides academic, career and financial counseling to 500 students enrolled in the North Jackson middle and high schools in the Jackson Public School District. The target schools are Chastain, Kirksey, and Powell Middle Schools and in the Jackson Public School District. Tiger Achievers Upward Bound ($1,437,685) provides fundamental support and opportunities for 60 participants to succeed in their precollege performance and in their higher education pursuits. The program will target high students enrolled at Humphreys County High School and Yazoo City High School in the Mississippi Achievement School District. provides fundamental support and opportunities for 60 participants to succeed in their precollege performance and in their higher education pursuits. The program will target high students enrolled at Humphreys County High School and Yazoo City High School in the Mississippi Achievement School District. Tiger Navigators Upward Bound ($1,437,685) provides fundamental support and opportunities for 60 participants to succeed in their precollege performance and in their higher education pursuits. The program will target high students enrolled at Callaway High School and Murrah High School in the Jackson Public School District. provides fundamental support and opportunities for 60 participants to succeed in their precollege performance and in their higher education pursuits. The program will target high students enrolled at Callaway High School and in the Jackson Public School District. Tiger Survivors Upward Bound ($1,437,685) provides fundamental support and opportunities for 60 participants to succeed in their precollege performance and in their higher education pursuits. The program will target high students enrolled at Forest Hill and Wingfield High Schools in the Jackson Public School District. provides fundamental support and opportunities for 60 participants to succeed in their precollege performance and in their higher education pursuits. The program will target high students enrolled at Forest Hill and in the Jackson Public School District. Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Scholars Community College Program ($1,309,440) provides research and scholarly engagement programming to community college students enrolled at Coahoma , Copiah - Lincoln , Hinds , Holmes , and Mississippi Delta as they complete their associate's and bachelor's degrees. The program encourages participants to enroll in graduate programs and then track their progress through the successful completion of advanced degrees. provides research and scholarly engagement programming to community college students enrolled at , - , , , and Mississippi Delta as they complete their associate's and bachelor's degrees. The program encourages participants to enroll in graduate programs and then track their progress through the successful completion of advanced degrees. Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Scholars Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) Program ($1,309,440) provides research and scholarly engagement programming to college students enrolled at Alcorn, Mississippi Valley, JSU, Rust and Tougaloo as they complete their associate's and bachelor's degrees. The program encourages participants to enroll in graduate programs and then track their progress through the successful completion of advanced degrees. "The return of TRIO positions Jackson State to elevate our commitment to higher education of all students and motivate our students to earn doctoral degrees," said Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Alisa L. Mosley, Ph.D. "Our science and engineering dean, Dr. Walters, our Associate Provost Brandi Newkirk-Turner, and I are all McNair Scholars. We know the impact of these innovative programs. I am appreciative of all efforts to expand access to higher education." In 2020, JSU was awarded two TRIO Student Support Services Programs ($2,618,880). One program serves 140 participants enrolled in various academic majors and one program serves 120 participants in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. The Student Support Services program offers opportunities for academic development, assists students with basic college requirements, and motivates students toward the successful completion of their postsecondary education. In 2021, funds were received to administer two programs. The Talent Search South ($1,386,875) program serves 500 students enrolled in the South Jackson middle and high schools in the Jackson Public School District. The program provides academic, career, and financial counseling to participants and encourages them to graduate from high school and continue on to and complete their postsecondary education. The target schools are Cardoza, Powell and Peoples Middle Schools and Forest Hill and Wingfield High Schools. The Educational Opportunity Center ($1,160,100) program serves 850 eligible participants, primarily adults and high school students, in Copiah, Hinds, Holmes, Scott, Simpson, Warren and Yazoo Counties, provides counseling and information on college admissions to qualified adults who want to enter or continue a program of postsecondary education. SOURCE Jackson State University JG Wentworth acquires a Silicon Valley Fintech digital consumer lending platform and appoints new Chief Technology Officer CHESTERBROOK, Pa., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Industry leading consumer financial services company JG Wentworth announced today that after its recent acquisition Stilt Inc., it is appointing Stilt co-founder and ex-CTO Priyank Singh as Chief Technology Officer of The JG Wentworth Company, effective December 1st, 2022. In his role Singh will be responsible for leading technology and product development for the JGW Digital Lending initiative. He will lead strategy, drive vision, and help build technology platform advancements for the company. This will be part of JG Wentworth's foray into personal finance and loans, announced after its recent acquisition of Stilt Inc's digital lending platform and team. Later this year the company plans to introduce personal loans for consumers with less-than-perfect credit to complement its debt resolution operations. To that effect, the company is hiring people across the country who want to join the team in its mission to help consumers in need. Singh comes to JG Wentworth after serving as co-founder and CTO at Stilt Inc., a San Francisco-based fintech and personal loan lender. Singh founded the company in 2015 with his co-founder Rohit Mittal. Under his leadership Stilt built a powerful digital lending platform, and mobile apps that allowed it to scale to millions of consumers. Before the acquisition of the company, Singh also oversaw the development of Onbo by Stilt, a new Application Programming Interface that allowed a plug and play approach to launching a digital lending platform as part of Stilt's B2B offering. JG Wentworth acquires a Silicon Valley Fintech digital consumer lending platform, appoints new Chief Technology Officer Tweet this Singh joins JG Wentworth with 10+ years of experience in Machine Learning and Computer Science, and prior to Stilt was an early member of the Bing Search Team at Microsoft, and A9, the Machine Learning division at Amazon. He also worked on the One Laptop Per Child project and built their Wi-Fi mesh protocols while working full-time at Marvell Semiconductor. He holds a Bachelor of Technology form Jaypee Institute of Information Technology in India and a Master of Science from Columbia University in the City of New York. "I am excited about the possibilities Priyank will unlock for us as CTO. With him as a partner JG Wentworth will step into its next evolution in the digital space and offer a suite of unique offerings that will be in line with the company's mission to help American consumers in need." said Gaurav Marballi, Chief Analytics and Digital Officer at JG Wentworth. "With him and the new product and engineering team, JG Wentworth will provide a great digital experience which will benefit customers of our existing products as well as our upcoming lending products." he noted. About JG Wentworth JG Wentworth is a consumer financial services company that focuses on helping everyday Americans achieve their financial goals. Its services include structured settlement payment purchasing, annuity payment purchasing, lottery and casino payment purchasing, and debt resolution services. Most recently, the company launched its consumer lending arm, with a focus on debt consolidation. JG Wentworth was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. Follow JG Wentworth on social media to stay updated on the latest news from the company: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. About Stilt Inc. Stilt is a leading mission-driven company building technology to democratize access to transparent credit products for the millions who are currently shut out by the financial system, such as immigrants, international students, DACA and visa holders. Stilt also provides businesses with the infrastructure to offer credit products to their customers in as little as two weeks, without requiring a bank sponsor. Founded by immigrants on visas, Stilt has lent to people from more than 150 countries around the world SOURCE The JG Wentworth Company BROOKLYN, N.Y., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Junior R. King, DPM, is being recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Distinguished Healthcare Provider for his contributions to the medical field. Dr. King graduated with a medical degree from the Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine, a podiatric medical school associated with Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He completed his residency at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. Dr. King has practiced medicine for 14 years and has been in private practice for the past two years. He is board certified in Podiatric Medicine by the American Board of Podiatric Medicine and is licensed to provide online and in-person care to patients in New York. He serves patients in his private practice location at 596 Pennsylvania Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11207. According to Dr. King, he grew up in the Caribbean Islands and saw a need for healthcare for minorities and underserved communities. He noticed a much higher likelihood for minorities to have amputations, and he wanted to help reduce those statistics. He is now working toward making his practice multi-disciplinary so that patients can get all of their healthcare needs met at one location. Dr. King has volunteered his medical services in other countries needing medical help for many years. The COVID-19 pandemic put a temporary pause on his international volunteer work, but he hopes that he will be able to continue those efforts soon. Dr. King enjoys traveling in his spare time and recently returned from a trip to Europe. Contact: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected] SOURCE Continental Who's Who DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "5G NR Benchmark Study Vol 25: DISH Vegas 5G Open RAN Network" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The publisher just completed its 25th 5G NR benchmark study. For this endeavor they collaborated with Accuver Americas, Rohde & Schwarz, and Spirent Communications to conduct an independent benchmark study of the DISH Wireless 5G Open RAN network in Las Vegas, Nevada. Highlights of the Report include the following: Acknowledgements The publisher conducted this study in collaboration with Accuver Americas (XCAL-M and XCAP), Rohde & Schwarz (TSME6 scanner) and Spirent Communications (Umetrix Voice and Umetrix Data). SRG is responsible for the data collection and all analysis and commentary provided in this report. Publisher Methodology Testing took place over a two-day period in late May. The publisher leveraged up to two Motorola Edge+ smartphones on the DISH network and up to two Galaxy S20 smartphones on the T-Mobile network (primarily n71 for comparison purposes). The publisher tested full buffer downlink/uplink/simultaneous transfers with HTTP and UDP while stationary and mobile. The publisher also tested voice services, specifically VoNR on DISH and VoLTE on T-Mobile. The publisher also did latency/jitter stress tests using a low bit rate UDP data transfer to the Umetrix Data server, Degree of Difficulty Prior to sharing a summary of the results, the publisher noted the high degree of difficulty - entirely new network, 5G SA with carrier aggregation, VoNR, and the use of AWS. However, consumers don't know/don't care about the network architecture. They only want to have a good and consistent user experience. Consistently Inconsistent End user data speeds could be well within expectations, excluding HTTP uplink which meaningfully lagged expectations. However, the seemingly on-again/off-again use of carrier aggregation was problematic, as was RF coverage, which is mentioned in the next bullet. Voice services (VoNR) could deliver very high voice quality with MOS well above 4.0, only to be followed by very poor voice quality, to the point of being unintelligible (below 2.0 or no MOS score achieved). RF Coverage was Suboptimal We documented a significant difference in Band n71 coverage (RSRP) and quality (SINR) between the DISH and T-Mobile networks, and largely due to a significant difference in the number of unique cells (PCI counts). More often than not, a drive test resulted in the phone on the DISH network reverting to the AT&T network. Opportunities Abound DISH needs to improve and optimize network coverage, AWS may need to focus on reducing the very long latency tail and VoNR consistency, and the Open RAN vendors should continue working on improving VoNR and scheduling efficiency. The 5G clock is ticking. Key Topics Covered: 1.0 Executive Summary 2.0 Key Observations 3.0 RF Related Performance Results and Analysis 3.1 Stationary Test with Different Protocols 3.2 Uplink HTTP Drive Test - One Phone 3.3 Uplink HTTP Drive Test - Two Phones 3.4 Downlink HTTP Drive Test 3.5 Downlink and Uplink Latency Drive Test 3.6 RF Conditions 4.0 VoNR and VoLTE Results and Analysis 4.1 Stationary Testing with Background Dat 4.2 Drive Test #1 4.3 Drive Test #2 4.4 Drive Test #3 4.5 Call Setup Times 5.0 Test Methodology 6.0 Final Thoughts For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/nb49or-nr-benchmark?w=5 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. 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 LatinFinance has announced the winners of its 2022 Deals of the Year Awards. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- LatinFinance's Deals of the Year Awards are the landmark recognition of stand-out transactions and institutions in the capital markets of Latin America and the Caribbean. This year's awards are based upon published results during the eligibility period of October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2022. The winners were determined by LatinFinance's editorial staff based on an exhaustive selection process. The full list of winners can be found in a special Deals of the Year supplement to LatinFinance magazine published next week. Winners were recognized at LatinFinance's Capital Markets Dinner on January 26, 2022, in New York City. Winning deals and institutions Sovereign Issuer of the Year: Republic of Chile Corporate Issuer of the Year: America Movil Sustainable Borrower of the Year: Cemex Sovereign Bond of the Year: UMS $5.8bn Bond + Exchange Quasi-Sovereign Bond of the Year: CFE Inaugural $1.75bn Sustainable Bond Corporate High-Grade Bond of the Year: America Movil's Sitios $1bn "Travel" Bond Corporate High-Yield Bond of the Year: Braskem Idesa $1.2bn Sustainability-Linked Bond Subnational Deal of the Year: EdoMex $145m ESG Bond Sovereign Liability Management of the Year: Dominican Republic $3.56bn Dual-Tranche Offering Quasi-Sovereign Liability Management of the Year: Pemex $1bn Exchange & Tender Offer Corporate Liability Management of the Year: Vale $1.3bn Liability Management IPO of the Year: Nubank $2.6bn IPO Equity Follow-On of the Year: Eletrobras $6.89bn Equity Follow-On Offering Private Equity Deal of the Year: Stonepeak's Acquisition of Lumen's Latin American Operations Sovereign ESG Deal of the Year: Republic of Chile Inaugural $2.2bn Sustainability-Linked Bond Corporate ESG Deal of the Year: CBC The Central America Bottling Corporation $1.1bn SLB and Exchange Cross Border M&A Deal of the Year: Cencosud's Fresh Market Holdings Acquisition Domestic M&A Deal of the Year: Hapvida GNDI Merger Syndicated Loan of the Year: Cemex $3bn Sustainability-Linked Loan Financing Innovation of the Year: Rumichaca Pasto $906 million 4G Toll Road Financing Sovereign Restructuring of the Year: Belize Blue Bonds For Ocean Conservation Corporate Restructuring of the Year: Avianca $1.1bn Restructuring FI Deal of the Year: BCI Chile $500m Issuance Sovereign Local Currency Deal of the Year: UMS Inaugural $1bn Local Sustainable Bond Corporate Local Currency Deal of the Year: Equatorial Energia Renewables Acquisition Financing Structured Financing of the Year: $3bn Financing for Pemex refinery upgrades Law Firm of the Year - Latin America: Cleary Gottlieb Sustainable Finance Law Firm of the Year: Shearman & Sterling Law Firm of the Year Mexico: Ritch Mueller Law Firm of the Year Brazil: Mattos Filho Law Firm of the Year Andes: Milbank Bond House of the Year: J.P. Morgan M&A House of the Year: Bank of America Equity House of the Year: Morgan Stanley Loan House of the Year: J.P. Morgan Investment Bank of the Year Latin America: Bank of America Upcoming award nominations Sign up to be notified when LatinFinance's 2023 awards nominations open at www.latinfinance.com/awardalerts . For more information about the selection process, visit www.latinfinance.com/dealsoftheyear . About LatinFinance LatinFinance is the leading global platform providing intelligence on the financial markets and economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. Drawing on more than 30 years of editorial excellence, its English-language publications deliver high-value information to an international readership of companies, governments, financiers and investors, while its events convene those communities for high-level networking forums focused on the dynamics of those markets, by geography and sector. Media contact: [email protected] SOURCE LatinFinance STOCKHOLM, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Loomis AB has signed an agreement for a syndicated, revolving credit facility of EUR 150 million. The facility has a tenor of three years with two extension options of one year each. The facility replaces an existing revolving credit facility originally maturing in January 2024. The facility can be used for financing of working capital, investments, and other general corporate purposes. The lead arrangers are Bank of America, Danske Bank, NatWest, Nordea Bank and Societe Generale. This press release is also available on the company's website, www.loomis.com January 27, 2023 CONTACT: Kristian Ackeby Chief Financial Officer Mobile: +46 70 569 69 98 Email: [email protected] Jenny Bostrom Head of Investor Relations Mobile: +46 79 006 45 92 Email: [email protected] The following files are available for download: https://mb.cision.com/Main/51/3704593/1810219.pdf Loomis signs a three-year credit facility of EUR 150 million SOURCE Loomis AB The increase in the impact of western culture, rapid urbanization, changes in consumers' perception toward the consumption of alcohol-based food products, and change in consumer preferences in the developing regions drive the global Manuka Honey market growth. PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Manuka Honey Market by Type (UMF 5+, UMF 10+, UMF 15+, UMF 20+), by Nature (Organic/Natural, Conventional), by Application (Food and beverages, Cosmetic and personal care, Nutraceutical, Pharmaceutical, Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031". According to the report, the global Manuka Honey industry size was valued at $455.4 million in 2021, and is projected to reach $776.4 million by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 5.5% from 2022 to 2031. Download Free Sample Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/5519 Prime determinants of growth The increase in the impact of western culture, rapid urbanization, changes in consumers' perception toward the consumption of alcohol-based food products, and change in consumer preferences in the developing regions drive the global Manuka Honey market growth. However, the rise in innovations in the ice cream industry and the availability of close substitutes restrict market growth. Moreover, the increase in the millennial population present new opportunities for market growth in the coming years. Covid-19 Scenario The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic had a positive impact on the global Manuka Honey market, owing to increasing consumer awareness regarding the health benefits of consuming manuka, honey. market, owing to increasing consumer awareness regarding the health benefits of consuming manuka, honey. Manuka honey can help relieve coughs and colds and provide relief to the bronchial tubes, which can help relieve the symptoms of covid, which allowed the market to grow during the pandemic. The UMF 5+ segment will maintain its lead throughout the forecast period. UMF 5+ had the largest manuka honey market share by type, accounting for more than 35% of the market in 2021, with a CAGR of 5.9%. Furthermore, it is one of the most popular types of manuka honey on the market and is used daily worldwide. It has numerous benefits, including increased natural immunity, allowing you to stay protected every day, and improved healing properties. According to one study, consuming manuka honey regularly may help alleviate irritable bowel syndrome symptoms (IBS). Furthermore, IBS and ulcerative colitis patients may benefit from this honey because it boosts antioxidant levels and reduces inflammation (a type of IBD or irritable bowel disease). The conventional segment will maintain its lead throughout the forecast period. By definition, the conventional segment generates the most revenue, accounting for more than 80% of the market in 2021, while the organic manuka honey segment is expected to grow at the fastest rate, with a CAGR of 6.0%. Traditional manuka honey has several advantages, including protein supplies from traditional farming that provide farmers with comfort and convenience. Because of conventional cultivation, it is inexpensive and widely available. This segment is expected to continue to dominate in the coming years. The food and beverage segment will maintain its lead during the forecast period. Food and beverages held the largest share by application in 2021, accounting for more than 35% of the market, and are expected to have the largest market share in 2031. This segment is also expected to grow the fastest during the forecast period, at a CAGR of 6.1%. Manuka honey is one of the most popular types of honey on the market due to its solid, silky texture and rich, caramel-like flavor. Furthermore, because manuka honey is very sweet and has a flavor similar to bittersweet caramel, it is commonly used in food and beverage products. For Purchase Enquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/5519 Europe to remain the market leader in 2031 By region, Europe has the largest share in 2021 and is expected to reach $296.6 million by 2031 at a CAGR of 5.2%, while Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.1%. The dominance of the European region indicates a growing acceptance and preference for healthy products. Businesses are experimenting with new ways to promote their products and the health benefits of manuka honey. Furthermore, the growing urban population and rising disposable income and living standards are expected to contribute to overall growth during the forecast period for the manuka honey market. Leading Market Players: - Manukora Limited Comvita Limited Arataki Honey Ltd Egmont Honey Manuka Pharm Manuka Doctor Airbone Honey Ltd. Wedderspoon Organic Steens Honey Happy Valley Honey WildCape Manuka Honey Midlands Apiaries Ltd New Zealand Honey Co Three Peaks Manuka Honey Manuka Lab The report analyzes these key players of the global ascorbic acid market. These players have adopted various strategies such as expansion, new product launches, partnerships, and others to increase their market penetration and strengthen their position in the industry. The report is helpful in determining the business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and developments by every market player. Want to Access the Statistical Data and Graphs, Key Players' Strategies: https://bit.ly/406hga8 Trending Reports in Food and Beverages Industry Wheat Fiber Market Expected to Reach $1,632.6 million by 2030 Vitamin E Market Expected to Reach $3,728.2 Million by 2028 Parmesan Cheese Market Expected to Reach $23 billion by 2031 Rice Starch Market Expected to Reach $932 million by 2031 About Us Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of " Market Research Reports " and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 [email protected] Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/reports-store/food-and-beverages Follow Us on Blog: https://www.dailyreportsworld.com/ Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/636519/Allied_Market_Research_Logo.jpg SOURCE Allied Market Research Located in Albrook, the 331-room hotel invites guests to immerse themselves in and explore Panama's attractions PANAMA CITY, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Marriott Hotels, the flagship brand of 30 extraordinary Marriott Bonvoy hotel brands, announced the opening of Marriott Panama Hotel, with a strategic location connecting the city to the road to the Panama Canal, and views toward the mountains. The property features several food and beverage outlets and an outdoor pool, as well as spacious meeting areas including its convention center and direct access to Albrook Mall. This hotel will be an ideal destination for global travelers who appreciate the balance of business and leisure travel, while learning about and experiencing the attractions of Panama City. "We are thrilled to bring back the Marriott Hotels experience to Panama City, with a strategic location and ample convention spaces. With the recovery of the travel industry and the return of in-person events, we are ready to host memorable meetings, conventions, and events, in the lives of our guests and transcendental for the business sector," said Glenn Simon, General Manager of the hotel. Symbolizing the continuous evolution of Marriott Hotels, guests are drawn to contemporary and comfortable spaces, inviting them to relax from the moment they arrive, starting with the Greatroom Lobby the hotel's elegant center that allows guests to combine work with pleasure. The hotel features 331 spacious guest rooms with amenities such as technology-enabled work surfaces, open closets, relaxing bathrooms, and LED televisions. In addition, through the first long-standing partnership between Marriott Hotels and TED, guests will have access to specially curated TED content to enjoy during their stay. Marriott Panama Hotel has two restaurants offering a variety of local and international dishes, as well as a coffee shop and 24-hour Room Service. The restaurant, bar, pool area, and lobby were renovated, including the addition of an M Club. The M Club a flagship brand at Marriott hotels worldwide is an exclusive spot to rest, recharge and refocus, every day at any time. A range of complimentary food and beverage options are offered throughout the day including hot breakfast, evening drinks and snacks, and premium beverages. Additional amenities include a state-of-the-art fitness center, self-service laundry, outdoor pool, and special lodging for four-legged guests. Designed to foster collaboration, the hotel's Next Gen Meeting Spaces can be adjusted to a variety of group formats and sizes. With 5,002 square meters in 21 meeting rooms, including a 1,700-square-meter convention center that can hold up to 1,600 people, 2 grand ballrooms, and 6 meeting rooms with natural daylight, the hotel is the perfect destination for business or social gatherings. The hotel is connected to Albrook Mall, the largest shopping mall in Central America, and close to must-see local attractions such as the Miraflores Visitors Center of the Panama Canal, Cerro Ancon, the Amador Causeway, and Casco Antiguo, and just minutes from the Marcos A. Gelabert International Airport. The Marriott Panama Hotel will participate in Marriott Bonvoy Marriott International's award-winning travel program allowing members to earn and redeem points for their stay at the new hotel, and other hotels and resorts in the extraordinary portfolio of Marriott Bonvoy brands. With the Marriott Bonvoy app, members enjoy a level of personalization and a touch-free experience that allows them to travel with peace of mind. For reservations and more information, please visit www.marriotthotels.com. About Marriott Hotels With over 600 hotels and resorts in more than 65 countries and territories around the world, Marriott Hotels continues to elevate the art of hospitality - putting people first is the brand's living legacy ensuring guests always feel deeply taken care of during their stay. Marriott Hotels raises the bar by consistently delivering friendly service, in modern and comfortable spaces, and providing experiences that go beyond the daily quotidian. As the needs and expectations of the world's travelers change, so does Marriott Hotels, with its avant-garde spirit including the Greatroom lobby and M Club that elevate style and design. To learn more, visit www.MarriottHotels.com. Stay connected to Marriott Hotels on Facebook, @marriott on Twitter and @marriotthotels on Instagram. Marriott Hotels is proud to participate in Marriott Bonvoy, the global travel program from Marriott International. The program offers members an extraordinary portfolio of global brands, exclusive experiences on Marriott Bonvoy Moments, and unparalleled benefits including free nights and Elite status recognition. To enroll for free or for more information about the program, visit marriottbonvoy.com. About Marriott Bonvoy Marriott Bonvoy's extraordinary portfolio offers renowned hospitality in the most memorable destinations in the world, with 30 brands that are tailored to every type of journey. Members can earn points for stays at hotels and resorts, including all-inclusive resorts and premium home rentals, and through everyday purchases with co-branded credit cards. Members can redeem their points for experiences including future stays, Marriott Bonvoy Moments, or through partners for luxurious products from Marriott Bonvoy Boutiques. To enroll for free or for more information about Marriott Bonvoy, visit marriottbonvoy.com. Press Contact Zasha Perez Gallardo Public Relations, Central and South America [email protected] SOURCE Marriott International in the Caribbean and Latin America Physicians Blame Bureaucratic Demands and Long Hours; Covid-19 Not a Primary Factor NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite greater awareness of the harmful effects of physician burnout and depression, a new report from Medscape shows that both continue to worsen and have increased substantially in the past five years. Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2023: "I Cry and No One Cares" showed that rates of burnout increased to 53% this past year, from 47% in 2021, and jumped 26% since 2018. More than one in five physicians reported experiencing depression, a slight year over year increase but up considerably since 2018 (23% versus 15%). Of the physicians reporting depression, 67% said they had colloquial depression (feeling down, blue, sad) while 24% reported clinical depression, i.e. severe, lasting some time, and not caused by a normal grief event. In this report, burnout was defined as long-term, unresolved, job-related stress leading to exhaustion, cynicism, detachment from job responsibilities, and lacking a sense of personal accomplishment. More than 9,100 U.S. physicians across 29 specialties responded to the survey, conducted between June and October 2022. Click here for full report: https://www.medscape.com/2023-lifestyle-burnout Emergency physicians hit hardest As in 2021, physicians in emergency medicine reported the highest rates of burnout (65%), followed by internists (60%) and pediatricians (59%), which was largely unchanged from the previous year. However, these percentages show a marked contrast from 2018, when only 45% of emergency medicine physicians reported burnout. As in previous years, female physicians were far more likely to report burnout than male physicians (63% versus 46%). Nearly 80% of physicians described their level of burnout as moderate to severe, and the majority (65%) said it has harmed their relationships. Of those physicians reporting depression, 64% said job burnout was the primary reason for it. While most physicians cope in healthy ways, i.e. exercise, talking with family and friends, one in five turn to alcohol and binge eating, and 40% prefer to spend time alone. Too much bureaucracy remains primary reason As in previous years, most physicians (61%) cited the volume of bureaucratic demands as the chief reason for burnout. More than one third (38%) pointed to a lack of respect from coworkers, followed closely by too many hours at work. Only 8% of doctors said the stress of treating Covid-19 patients was the primary cause of their burnout, although more than one third said the pandemic significantly affected their work-life happiness. About one in three physicians said their personalities, i.e. perfectionism, envisioning worst-case scenarios, being overly empathetic, also contributed to burnout. Unions, increased compensation, and fewer hours would help Increased compensation and a more manageable work schedule were cited most often by physicians (45% and 44%, respectively), as solutions to alleviate burnout, and about one in three said more support staff, more respect from supervisors and colleagues, and lighter patient loads would make a difference. Additionally, half of all respondents said a physicians' union would help. "Burnout and depression were an issue before the pandemic and continue to have a negative impact on physician well-being; this year's Medscape report shows that the problem is only getting worse," said Leslie Kane, M.A., Senior Director, Medscape Business of Medicine. "Physicians are looking for substantive change in their working environments, including fewer hours or increased compensation. "Medical institutions need to go beyond awareness to address the root causes of burnout and introduce solutions that will substantially reduce this long-standing, troubling trend." Medscape Survey Methods The 2023 Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report was completed by 9,175 U.S. physicians representing more than 29 specialty areas. Respondents were invited to respond to the online survey. The margin of error for the survey was +/- 1.02% at a 95% confidence level. About Medscape Medscape is the leading source of clinical news, health information, and point-of-care tools for health care professionals. Medscape offers specialists, primary care physicians, and other health professionals the most robust and integrated medical information and educational tools. SOURCE Medscape NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- MonitorEDU, a professional remote proctoring and examination services company, announces the launch of remote proctoring services specifically designed to work within the government cloud structure. The company's services allow government agencies to securely administer exams and assessments remotely while maintaining compliance with strict security and data privacy regulations. For the last several years, MonitorEDU has trained its workforce to proctor exams on any platform. The flexibility of its workforce allows it to proctor exams on existing government-hosted platforms which allows the company to adhere to FedRAMP, an authorization process that allows the software to run alongside government systems in accordance with mandated privacy regulations. Don Kassner, president of MonitorEDU explained, "Since the beginning, MonitorEDU was formed to be a professional proctoring company. Our internal hiring and training processes enable our team to proctor on any platform. Additionally, since most of our team is located in the United States, we can easily adhere to federal, state, and local laws that require that proctors are U.S. based." Kassner continued, "Our team now works across the spectrum of government structure in the U.S. and we now serve clients at federal agencies along with state and local departments that need our specific expertise and willingness to adhere to their privacy requirements." The company is excited to offer this solution to government agencies in 2023 that are looking to adapt to the new remote work reality while ensuring the security and integrity of their exams and assessments. About MonitorEDU. MonitorEDU Inc was founded in 2018 by the "Godfathers of remote proctoring", Don Kassner and Patrick Ochoa. The company focuses on the administration of remote proctoring. In addition, the company can manage item banks, publish remote exams, and deliver FedRAMP-compliant high-stakes remote and oral examinations through its partnerships with Assessment Systems ( assess.com ) and Paradigm Testing ( paradigmtesting.com ) , as well as provide comprehensive services around test development, test security, and psychometrics. For more information on the company's remote proctoring and exam services, please visit Monitoredu.com Media Contact: James Lower [email protected] SOURCE MonitorEDU THIS CLASSIC 1984 PERFORMANCE FROM POUGHKEEPSIE, NEW YORK IS AVAILABLE ON DOUBLE VINYL, CD & DIGITAL LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 7, rock icons KISS will release the next installment of their Off The Soundboard official live bootleg series with KISS Off The Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, New York, 1984. Recorded live at the Mid-Hudson Arena on November 28th, 1984, during the Animalize World Tour, this is the fifth in a series of live releases by the band and will be available to stream and download, with a 2-LP standard black vinyl set, CD, and a limited edition 2-LP set pressed on 180g custard yellow vinyl which are available to pre-order now exclusively through the Official KISS online store, HERE. On April 7, rock icons KISS will release the next installment of their Off The Soundboard official live bootleg series with KISS Off The Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, New York, 1984. Recorded live at the Mid-Hudson Arena on November 28th, 1984, during the Animalize World Tour, this is the fifth in a series of live releases by the band and will be available to stream and download, with a 2-LP standard black vinyl set, CD, and a limited edition 2-LP set pressed on 180g custard yellow vinyl. The multi-platinum band's fifth authorized Soundboard live release comes from the November 28th, 1984 Animalize Tour show at the Mid-Hudson Arena in Poughkeepsie, NY, featuring the only known soundboard recording with guitarist Mark St. John. While the tracks "Young And Wasted" and "Rock And Roll All Nite" from this historic show are incomplete due to a tape change and tape space these recordings were originally for archival use this live recording is of historical importance due to St. John's appearance. Off The Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, New York finds the legendary band in the midst of the U.S. leg of their successful Animalize World Tour with the short-lived lineup of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Carr, and guitarist Mark St. John. The career-spanning 18-song set includes current-era KISS tracks such as "Creatures Of The Night," "I Love It Loud," "Lick It Up," and 1984's "Heaven's On Fire," which hit No. 49 U.S. Billboard chart. Poughkeepsie, New York also features perennial KISS anthems "Detroit Rock City," "Love Gun," and "Rock And Roll All Nite" from their classic back catalog. KISS are globally recognized as one of the greatest live bands of all time and are the creators of what is universally considered the best live album ever, 1975's gold-certified and No. 9 Billboard charting Alive!. The KISS Off The Soundboard series continues their storied legacy of groundbreaking live albums with a document of the spectacular, larger-than-life extravaganza that is a KISS concert. Known for their trademark performances, KISS has proven for decades why they are hands down the most iconic live show in rock n roll. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. Peerless as a live act, the band's illustrious legacy has been marked by record breaking global tours during a remarkable 50-year career. KISS Off The Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, NY CD Detroit Rock City Cold Gin Creatures Of The Night Fits Like A Glove Heaven's On Fire Guitar Solo Under the Gun War Machine Drum Solo Young and Wasted (Incomplete) Bass Solo I Love It Loud I Still Love You Love Gun Black Diamond Oh! Susanna Lick It Up Rock And Roll All Niter (Incomplete) 2LP Side One Detroit Rock City Cold Gin Creatures Of The Night Fits Like A Glove Side Two Heaven's On Fire Guitar Solo Under The Gun War Machine Drum Solo Side Three Young and Wasted (Incomplete) Bass Solo I Love It Loud I Still Love You Love Gun Side Four Black Diamond Oh! Susanna Lick It Up Rock and Roll All Nite (Incomplete) KISS Online Facebook / Instagram / YouTube Twitter SOURCE Universal Music Enterprises WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA's James Webb Space Telescope team has been selected to receive the 2023 John L. "Jack" Swigert, Jr., Award for Space Exploration , a top award from the Space Foundation. This annual award honors a space agency, company, or consortium of organizations in the realm of space exploration and discovery. "The James Webb Space Telescope team represents the best of our humanity and an enduring pursuit to better understand the cosmos. Every new image is a new discovery," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "Webb is the culmination of decades of persistence and once-unthinkable human ingenuity made possible by international partnerships. Together, we are unfolding the universe and inspiring the world." The award will be presented at the Space Foundation's yearly opening ceremony of the Space Symposium in Colorado on April 17. "Within its first year of operations, the work and revelations by the James Webb Space Telescope team has opened an entirely new chapter of knowledge and inspiration that will forever change our lives and history," said Space Foundation CEO Tom Zelibor. "This is an unparalleled achievement and is transforming astronomy and space science while delivering new inspiration and imagination to every generation and corner of our planet. The partnerships and collaborations between nations, researchers, industry members, and more have also highlighted the incredible things we can do together as we promote knowledge." Webb, the world's premier space science telescope, launched Dec. 25, 2021. In 2022, the Webb team successfully completed an intricate series of deployments to unfold the observatory into its final configuration in space. They then precisely aligned its mirrors to within nanometers, set up and tested its powerful instruments, and officially began Webb's mission to explore the infrared universe. With its optics performing nearly twice as well as the mission required, Webb is discovering some of the earliest galaxies ever observed, peering through dusty clouds to see stars forming , and delivering a more detailed view of the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system than ever before. Webb has also captured new views of planets within our solar system, including the clearest look at Neptune's rings in decades. The Swigert award, which pays tribute to NASA astronaut Jack Swigert for his legacy of space exploration, will recognize the contributions of the team members who designed, developed, and now operate the Webb mission. "Our vast and dedicated team on the James Webb Space Telescope mission is already bringing us closer and closer to seeing the earliest, most distant galaxies that shine in our universe," said Sandra Connelly, acting associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. "Webb is an international collaboration involving a group of thousands of diverse people that has launched NASA into a new era of world-class science and is revolutionizing our view of the cosmos." Recent winners of the John L. "Jack" Swigert, Jr. Award include NASA and the University of Arizona OSIRIS-REx team, the teams behind the NASA JPL Mars Ingenuity Helicopter and InSight-Mars Cube One, NASA Dawn, and Cassini. Webb, an international mission led by NASA with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), is the world's premier space science observatory. Its design pushed the boundaries of space telescope capabilities to solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. NASA Headquarters in Washington oversees the Webb mission. NASA Goddard manages Webb for the agency and oversees work on the mission performed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners, including Ball Aerospace. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centers contributed to the project, including the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, and others. Recently, the Webb mission's accomplishments also have been recognized by organizations including the National Space Club and Foundation , National Air and Space Museum , Aviation Week , Bloomberg Businessweek , Popular Science , and TIME . For more information about the Webb mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/webb SOURCE NASA BBE Certification and Scorecard to be Piloted in Historic Black Towns, and Cities with Black Mayors, Then on National Scale, to Address the Fact That: Less than 1% of nation's 3.2 million Black -owned businesses are certified as minority-owned The vast wealth gap between Black and White communities not changed since 1968 More than 1,100 pledges totaling $200 Billion to Black equity in 2020 are mostly unfulfilled ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Alliance for Black Business (NABB), co-founded by the National Business League (NBL) and National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC), in partnership with the World Conference of Mayors (WCM) and the Historic Black Towns and Settlements Alliance (HBTSA) today announced the nation's first-ever Black Business Enterprise (BBE) certification and scorecard program at the WCM Black Business Breakfast and Press Conference presented by Comerica Bank. The landmark BBE certification and scorecard program, designed and trademarked by the NBL, will certify businesses that are at least 51% Black-owned to be eligible for mainstream public, private, and philanthropic contracting and procurement opportunities. 59 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, less than 1% of the nation's 3.2 million Black-owned businesses are certified. Tweet this The BBE certification was created to address the fact that today, 59 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, less than 1% of the nation's 3.2 million Black-Owned Businesses are certified as U.S. Minority Businesses according to a 2021 report published by the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). Of 3.2 million Black-owned companies, only 5,881 Black businesses have an MBE certification. Uncertified minority-owned companies are ineligible for U.S. government procurement equity programs, freezing them out of more than $100 billion in minority-designated U.S. government contracts according to data released by the White House. Also, less than 1% of Black-Owned Businesses are certified with any federal, public, private or minority certification programs in the U.S., since the 1968 expansion of the Civil Rights Act. The BBE certification is accompanied by the BBE scorecard, a groundbreaking digital accountability tool that will help organizations measure, publish, and improve participation and spend ratios with Black business, led by national Black business organizations. The scorecard will hold all sectors and industries accountable, including the 1,100 private U.S. corporations that pledged an estimated total of $200 billion to Black equity efforts after George Floyd's murder in 2020, with those promises still mostly unfulfilled, according to a 2020 McKinsey & Company report. "The BBE certification and scorecard are designed to offer Black-led solutions after decades of economic equity programs have failed Black people," said Dr. Ken L. Harris, president, and CEO of the NBL and co-founder of the NABB. "The Black community can no longer depend on non-Black-led certification programs and non-Black-led business organizations that, in large part, have failed to produce the results necessary to change the economic conditions of Black people in America," he said. "Booker T. Washington had it right at the turn of the 20th century. It is time for the Black community to take ownership of their economic destiny, we are looking for ROI, a return on inclusion." Although the U.S. Civil Rights Act was a response to Black civil unrest, data shows that Black people have not economically benefited from these initiatives as much as other disadvantaged groups. Federal Reserve Data shows the wealth gap between Black and White communities has not materially changed since the years immediately following the U.S. Civil War and is unchanged since 1968 with the expansion of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In 2021, White Americans had seven times the wealth of Black Americans, the widest wealth gap of any other minority group in the U.S., according to the Economic Policy Institute. The BBE certification will address the barriers to certification unique to the Black business community and engage Black-owned businesses through established Black commerce channels, which broader diversity and minority certifications have failed to do. "The illusion of inclusion is no longer an acceptable business model. Today, we unveil a powerful tool to clear the smoke and mirrors from minority business data and keep score on our own Black economic progress," said Charles H. DeBow, III, president and CEO of the NBCC and Co-Founder of NABB. "NABB will be the organization of the future that delivers measurable results to the Black community, while mitigating the dilution of diversity and benign neglect approach to addressing Black economic inequity. Living the Black experience, we are the only ones who can define what equal market access and accountability look like for us, by us." The NABB will introduce the pilot BBE certification and scorecard program to several historically Black municipalities, including Grambling, Louisiana; Mound Bayou, Mississippi; Eatonville, Florida; Hobson City, Alabama; and Tuskegee, Alabama, and other cities with Black mayors, before launching the initiative on a national scale. "The BBE certification and scorecard are perfect examples of Black self-determinationit's a powerful thing to measure and validate your own progress, said Johnny Ford, President and founder of the WCM and the HBTSA and the first Black mayor of Tuskegee, Alabama." About the National Alliance for Black Business (NABB) Founded Sep. 27, 2022, the NABB represents a historic partnership between the National Business League (NBL), the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) and Black-led national organizations dedicated to the economic empowerment of Black businesses, communities, and people. Visit www.nationalallianceforblackbusiness.com About the National Business League (NBL) The NBL is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independent commerce organization, founded by Dr. Booker T. Washington on August 23, 1900, in Boston. It is the nation's first and oldest trade association for Black business in the country, created 12 years before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Visit www.nationalbusinessleague.org About the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) The NBCC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of African American communities. Founded by Harry Alford and Kay DeBow Alford on May 23, 1993, in Washington, D.C., the NBCC is the largest federation of Black chambers in the world and is dedicated to economically empowering and sustaining African American communities through entrepreneurship and capitalistic activity within the U.S. Visit www.nationalblackcc.org About The World Conference of Mayors, Inc. (WCM) The WCM was founded and organized in April 1984 by the Honorable Johnny Ford of Tuskegee, Alabama. WCM is a nonprofit, worldwide conference of mayors, former mayors and other elected and appointed local public officials in the U.S. and abroad. Visit www.worldconferenceofmayors.org About the Historic Black towns and Settlements Alliance (HBTSA) The HBTSA represents historic places settled by people of African descent in the early establishment of the U.S. More than 1,200 Black settlements, enclaves and towns were established between the late 18th and early 20th centuries in a display of black self-government and independent enterprise that caused backlash from the U.S. government. Visit https://hbtsa.org/ Media Contact: June Ings, [email protected], (313) 600-3344 (Local) Media Contact: Minehaha Forman, [email protected], (510) 220-0759 (National) When/Where: Jan. 27, 2023, at 8 a.m. EDT; DoubleTree Hilton Hotel, Orlando, Fla. SOURCE The National Business League BETHESDA, Md., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- Christopher McBain, Ph.D., has been appointed scientific director and director of the Division of Intramural Research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. McBain has been acting scientific director of the NICHD Division of Intramural Research since June 2021. In that capacity, he directed and managed the activities and operations of the division, overseeing a budget of $200 million and more than 1,000 staff members who carry out its basic and clinical research mission. He established a new position within the division, associate scientific director for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility to oversee hiring practices and determine the most effective strategies to reach a broad spectrum of candidates. "Dr. McBain is an internationally renowned research scientist and an accomplished leader," said Diana W. Bianchi, M.D., NICHD Director. "He has contributed to our understanding of synaptic transmission, developed and led highly competitive and innovative programs, fostered numerous interdisciplinary collaborations, trained several scientists, and implemented novel scientific infrastructure." Dr. McBain earned a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and master's and doctoral degrees from Wolfson College at Cambridge University in England. He joined NICHD in 1993 as an investigator in the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology, conducting electrophysiological analysis of excitability and synaptic circuitry. He was appointed chief of the newly established Laboratory of Cellular and Synaptic Neurobiology in 2001 and then chief of the Program in Developmental Neurobiology in 2007. Dr. McBain's efforts will play a major role in planning research to meet a key objective of the NICHD Strategic plan: to better understand the early neurodevelopmental trajectories associated with health and disease. He plays a significant role in the local neuroscience community, performing reviewing duties for many granting agencies in the United States and abroad. He is also a frequent reviewer and has served as an editor for major neuroscience journals. About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD): NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov. SOURCE Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; National Institutes of Health (NIH) The North America orthopedic implants market is expected to grow by 2025 due to the increasing geriatric population in the region. The metallic biomaterials sub-segment is expected to be the most profitable. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Research Dive has added a new report to its offering titled, "North America Orthopedic Implants Market by Product Type (Reconstructive Joint Replacements, Spinal Implants, Dental Implants, Trauma, Orthobiologics, and Others), Biomaterial (Metallic, Ceramic, Polymeric, and Others), and Type (Knee, Hip, Wrist & Shoulder, Dental, Spine, Ankle, and Others): North America Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20182025". As per the report, the North America orthopedic implants market is predicted to grow at a noteworthy CAGR of 3.9% in the 2018-2025 timeframe, thereby gathering $30,646 million by 2025. Request an Exclusive PDF Sample of North America Orthopedic Implants Market Dynamics of the Market Drivers: The steadily rising geriatric population across the region is expected to be the primary growth driver of the North America orthopedic implants market in the forecast period. Along with this, the shift from conventional surgical procedures to the use of modern fixation and prosthetic devices is predicted to help this market grow in the forecast period. Opportunities: Increasing research and development in the field of orthopedic implants is anticipated to offer huge growth opportunities to the market in the forecast period. Moreover, increase in the elderly population in the North America region is anticipated to push the growth rate of the market even higher. Restraints: High costs of medical procedures involved with orthopedic implantations, however, might restrict the growth of the North America orthopedic implants market. Segments of the Market: The report has fragmented the North America orthopedic implants market into different segments based on product type, biomaterial, and country. By product type, the reconstructive joint replacements sub-segment is predicted to be the most dominant sub-segment in the North America region. The increase in the prevalence of osteoporosis & osteoarthritis along with innovations in joint replacement therapies are expected to be the two main factors behind the growth of this sub-segment in the forecast period. region. The increase in the prevalence of osteoporosis & osteoarthritis along with innovations in joint replacement therapies are expected to be the two main factors behind the growth of this sub-segment in the forecast period. By biomaterial, the metallic biomaterials sub-segment of the North America orthopedic implants market is expected to be the most dominant during the forecast period. The wide usage of metallic biomaterials to manufacture various orthopedic implants such as screws, plates, vertebral compression fracture (VCF) devices, etc. is expected to be the important factor behind the growth of this sub-segment. orthopedic implants market is expected to be the most dominant during the forecast period. The wide usage of metallic biomaterials to manufacture various orthopedic implants such as screws, plates, vertebral compression fracture (VCF) devices, etc. is expected to be the important factor behind the growth of this sub-segment. By country, the North America orthopedic implants market is studied across U.S., Canada , and Mexico . Speak with an Analyst or Schedule a call to get more Industry Insights on the North America Orthopedic Implants Market Significant Market Players The significant market players in the North America orthopedic implants market are Johnson & Johnson (DePuy Synthes) Smith and Nephew Plc. Arthrex Inc. Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc. Wright Medical Group N.V. DJO Finance LLC Stryker Corporation CONMED Corporation Globus Medical Inc. Medtronic Plc These key market players are developing different business strategies like product development, merger and acquisitions, collaborations and partnerships to gain a commanding position in the market. For instance, in May 2021, Shalby, an Indian hospital chain, announced that it was acquiring certain assets of Consensus Orthopedics, a leading orthopedic implants manufacturer in Sacramento, California. This acquisition will help Shalby to enter in the North America orthopedic implants industry and consolidate its position in the market in the coming period. Granular Research on Specific Regions or Segments of North America Orthopedic Implants Market & Avail 10%OFF The Research Dive report also summarizes many crucial aspects of the North America orthopedic implants market including SWOT analysis, latest strategic developments, financial performance of the key players, and product portfolio. More about North America Orthopedic Implants Market: Some Trending Reports: About Research Dive Research Dive is a market research firm based in Pune, India. Maintaining the integrity and authenticity of the services, the firm provides the services that are solely based on its exclusive data model, compelled by the 360-degree research methodology, which guarantees comprehensive and accurate analysis. With an unprecedented access to several paid data resources, team of expert researchers, and strict work ethic, the firm offers insights that are extremely precise and reliable. Scrutinizing relevant news releases, government publications, decades of trade data, and technical & white papers, Research dive deliver the required services to its clients well within the required timeframe. Its expertise is focused on examining niche markets, targeting its major driving factors, and spotting threatening hindrances. Complementarily, it also has a seamless collaboration with the major industry aficionado that further offers its research an edge. Contact: Mr. Abhishek Paliwal Research Dive 30 Wall St. 8th Floor, New York NY 10005 (P) +91-(788)-802-9103 (India) +1-(917)-444-1262 (US) Toll Free: 1-888-961-4454 E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://www.researchdive.com Blog: https://www.researchdive.com/blog/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/research-dive/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ResearchDive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Research-Dive-1385542314927521 Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/997523/Research_Dive_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research Dive CHICAGO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The global Optical Waveguide Market size is estimated to be USD 6.6 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 9.5 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 7.3% according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. The growth of this market is driven by factors such as surging demand for high bandwidth, growing deployment of 5G telecommunication networks, and rising number of data centers worldwide. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=149647175 Browse in-depth TOC on "Optical Waveguide Market" 181 Tables 78 Figures 285 Pages Planar waveguide segment is expected to grow at the high CAGR from 2023 to 2028. Planar waveguide segment is expected to grow at high rates over the forecast period. The planar waveguide comes with a planar geometry that guides photons only in one direction. These waveguides are fabricated in thin transparent film, providing a slab waveguide structure. The planar waveguide substrates are embedded with cladding material on both sides, which increases its refractive index and further helps achieve high-speed data transfer. The planar waveguide structure is highly suitable for data-intensive solutions such as optical transceivers, lasers, and chip-to-chip optical interconnects. The rise in demand for compact and energy-efficient optical transceivers across data centers & high-performance computing (HPC) is expected to create growth opportunities for the planar waveguide segment. The semiconductor segment in optical waveguide market is expected to be the fastest growing material segment during the forecast period. The semiconductor segment is projected to be the fastest growing material segment during the forecast period. Semiconductor-based optical waveguides are easy to fabricate and offer excellent design flexibility. Optical waveguides manufactured using semiconductors feature high light transfer efficiency, low signal loss, no electromagnetic emissions or noises, and a lower bit error rate in signal transmission. These features are suitable for reliable modern communication involving high-speed mixed signals. Semiconductor-based optical waveguides are used to manufacture electrically active devices such as photonic integrated circuits (PIC). Photonic integrated circuits (PIC) exhibit lower transmission loss, wider bandwidth, and smaller time delay than electronic integrated circuits. Adoption of photonic integrated circuits in major applications such as data center transceivers, 5G transceivers, LiDAR solutions for autonomous driving, and sensing for aerospace and aeronautics are further driving the demand for semiconductor-based optical waveguide solutions in the market over the forecast period. Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=149647175 Data center & high-performance computing (HPC) segment of the optical waveguide market to record highest CAGR from 2023 to 2028. The data center & high-performance computing (HPC) segment is expected to account for the highest CAGR of the optical waveguide market from 2023 to 2028. The segment's growth can be attributed to the proliferation of colocation data centers across the globe. According to Data Center Map, as of January 2023, there were approximately 4,969 colocation data center facilities across 130 countries worldwide. Optical waveguide solutions such as optical transceivers, connectors, fiber optics, and active optical cables offer high-speed data transfer, quality, and performance advantages in data center networks. It helps in the transmission of data over longer distances; also provides immunity to electromagnetic interference, which helps in accurate data transmission between two points. These benefits drive the optical waveguide market over the forecast timeline. Asia Pacific will hold the largest share in the optical waveguide market during the forecast period. Asia Pacific will hold the largest optical waveguide market share from 2023 to 2028. The presence of several photonics start-up players in the region is supporting the optical waveguide market growth. Asia Pacific houses several photonic start-ups, such as Shanghai Baiantek Sensing Technology, OmniSensing Photonics Technology, TuringQ, Everbright Photonics, Zhejiang Light Technology, Xizhi Technology, and Xinyun Optoelectronics Technology. These players are consistently engaged in scaling the development and production of photonics solutions in the market. Adding to this, establishing new photonic manufacturing facilities in the region will foster market growth. For instance, in December 2022, Suzhou Everbright Photonics announced investing USD 143 million to build a facility for the research, development, and production of compound semiconductors in Suzhou, China. The new facility will produce compound chips, such as Gallium Arsenide (GaAs), Gallium Nitride (GaN), and Indium Phosphide (InP). Such manufacturing expansion facilities will amplify the market growth over the forecast timeframe. Key players in the optical waveguide market include Corning Incorporated (US), Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. (Japan), Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC) (China), Fujikura Ltd. (Japan), Prysmian Group (Italy), Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (Japan), Coherent Corp. (US), CommScope (US), Sterlite Technologies Limited (India), and DigiLens Inc. (US). Apart from these, Mitsubishi Chemical Group Corporation (Japan), Asahi Kasei Corporation (Japan), Birla Cable Ltd. (India), Optical Cable Corporation (US), Belden Inc. (US), HFCL Limited (India), Covesion (UK), LS Cable & System Ltd. (South Korea), Holographix (US), HC Photonics Corp. (Taiwan), and Teem Photonics (France) are among a few emerging companies in the optical waveguide market. Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=149647175 Browse Adjacent Market: Semiconductor and Electronics Market Research Reports &Consulting Related Reports: Fiber Optics Market by Fiber Type (Glass, Plastic), Cable Type (Single-mode, Multi-mode), Deployment (Underground, Underwater, Aerial), Application, and Region (North America, Europe, APAC, Rest of the World) - Global Forecast to 2027 Fiber Optic Components Market by Component (Transceivers, AOCs, Cables, Amplifiers, Splitters, Connectors, Circulators), Data Rate, Application (Communications, Distributed Sensing, Lighting) and Region (2022-2027) About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. We have the widest lens on emerging technologies, making us proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients. The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion of new revenue streams that are substituting existing revenue streams in this decade alone. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines - TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing. Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we work with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies - helping them stay relevant in a disruptive ecosystem. Our insights and strategies are molded by our industry experts, cutting-edge AI-powered Market Intelligence Cloud, and years of research. 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Contact: Mr. Aashish Mehra MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/optical-waveguide-market.asp Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/optical-waveguide.asp Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/660509/MarketsandMarkets_Logo.jpg SOURCE MarketsandMarkets 250 Children in Paterson Come Together to Perform and Celebrate the Paterson Music Project PATERSON, N.J., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In the first All-City Festival since 2007, the Paterson Music Project (PMP) is excited to collaborate with Paterson Public Schools to co-host over 250 students from 28 Paterson schools on Saturday, January 28 at John F. Kennedy High School, 61-127 Preakness Ave, Paterson. Thirty teaching artists and teachers from PMP and the Paterson Public Schools will instruct students in large ensemble rehearsals, sectionals, and collective composition. A free concert open to the public at 4:00 p.m. will feature all participating students performing in choir, band and orchestra, ending with a combined performance of the student-generated collective composition. This event is supported by PNC Bank. Paterson All-City Festival Co-hosted by Paterson Music Project The Paterson All-City Festival is especially meaningful as it marks the tenth anniversary of music-making at the Paterson Music Project. In 2013, PMP started at the Community Charter School of Paterson with 32 second graders and 3 teaching artists. This season, PMP began the school year with 500 students from over 20 different schools in Paterson and over 30 teaching artists. In the past decade, PMP has expanded from one site to three sites: the Community Charter School of Paterson, John P Holland Charter School, and Paterson Public School 16. It has also grown from a string ensemble to include band instruments, percussion, choir, and guitar. Students have successfully auditioned for and participated in national and international festivals, played under the baton of LA Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the YOLA National Festival in Los Angeles, and joined students and teaching artists from several international programs in Lisbon, Portugal. As PMP continues its 10th season, we look forward to celebrating the wonderful accomplishments of current students while continuing to build a rich and diverse community of young musicians through the joy of ensemble playing. For all PMP anniversary events, visit WhartonArts.org. This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com. SOURCE Wharton Arts Intake of new applications will be temporarily paused to prioritize the processing of current applications HARRISBURG, Pa., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning on Feb. 6, 2023, day-to-day operations of Pennsylvania's Homeowner Assistance Fund (PAHAF) will transition from a current third-party vendor to the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. This pandemic-relief fund provides financial assistance to qualified homeowners for mortgage and housing-related expenses to address delinquency and avoid default, foreclosure or displacement from their homes. The decision by PHFA to fully administer the program will better leverage the agency's deep knowledge of Pennsylvania's housing market and its broad network of mortgage lenders, community partners, and housing counseling agencies on behalf of eligible applicants. For more than 50 years, PHFA has been dedicated to providing Pennsylvanians with the capital they need for decent, safe and affordable housing. As part of the transition, PHFA is announcing it will pause the PAHAF program for new applicants effective Feb. 1, 2023. This is to allow adequate time for the transition, to process current applications as a priority, and to determine the remaining funds available prior to reopening the program. Applications completed and submitted before Feb. 1, 2023, will be processed during the program pause. New applications from homeowners in danger of losing their homes during the pause period will be prioritized and processed by housing counseling agency partners on a case-by-case basis. PAHAF anticipates reopening the program for new applications once current applications have been addressed and remaining funds have been assessed. As the program enters its second year, the PHFA Executive Committee made the decision to move the full execution and management of the program from the current third-party vendor to the PHFA in-house team. As part of the transition, the third-party vendor will be responsible for fully completing applications that have been partially disbursed but are pending additional payments by March 31, 2023. This will allow for a clean transition between systems for audit and control purposes. All other applications will be processed by PHFA. PHFA has updated its software system and bolstered its call center operations in order to meet the operational needs of the PAHAF program. Current applications will continue to be processed without the need to start a new application, and documentation will automatically and securely transfer to the new system. Applicants will be sent information about how to register with the new system and access the status of their application. PHFA is utilizing approximately 30 staff members for the PAHAF program and will monitor the agency's application processing in order to adjust staffing levels accordingly. PHFA is in the process of proactively communicating with a wide range of stakeholders, most importantly program applicants and partners, in order to smooth the transition. Pennsylvania was awarded $350 million for the administration of the program and the disbursement of funds as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, enacted to prevent mortgage delinquencies and defaults, foreclosures, loss of utilities or home energy services, and displacement of homeowners experiencing financial hardship as a result of the pandemic. Since the program began, $89.6 million has been disbursed to Pennsylvania homeowners. As a mission-driven agency, PHFA remains deeply committed to serving its constituents and providing aid to Pennsylvania homeowners. About PHFA The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency works to provide affordable homeownership and rental housing options for older adults, low- and moderate-income families, and people with special housing needs. Through its carefully managed mortgage programs and investments in multifamily housing developments, PHFA also promotes economic development across the state. Since its creation by the legislature in 1972, it has generated more than $16.9 billion of funding for more than 191,870 single-family home mortgage loans, helped fund the construction of 141,492 rental units, distributed approximately $239 million to support local housing initiatives, and saved the homes of more than 50,660 families from foreclosure. PHFA programs and operations are funded primarily by the sale of securities and from fees paid by program users, not by public tax dollars. The agency is governed by a 14-member board. Media contact: Scott Elliott 717-649-6522 (cell) [email protected] SOURCE Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency ALLENTOWN, Pa., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) announced today that the company's 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareowners will be held virtually. The Annual Meeting will convene live via the internet on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, at 9 a.m. Eastern time. Shareowners of record as of Feb. 28, 2023, are eligible to vote and participate in the Annual Meeting. Instructions on how to join the meeting will be included in proxy materials that will be mailed to shareowners. PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a leading U.S. energy company focused on providing electricity and natural gas safely, reliably and affordably to 3.5 million customers in the U.S. PPL's high-performing, award-winning utilities are addressing energy challenges head-on by building smarter, more resilient and more dynamic power grids and advancing sustainable energy solutions. For more information, visit www.pplweb.com. Note to Editors: Visit our media website at www.pplnewsroom.com for additional news about PPL Corporation. Contacts: For news media: Ryan Hill, 610-774-4033 For financial analysts: Andy Ludwig, 610-774-3389 SOURCE PPL Corporation DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Procurement Analytics 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 procurement analytics market. The global procurement analytics market is expected to grow from $3.41 billion in 2021 to $4.07 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.40%. The procurement analytics market is expected to grow to $8.36 billion in 2026 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.71%. 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 procurement analytics market are SAP, Oracle, Coupa Software, Genpact, Rosslyn Data Technologies, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft Corp, BirchStreet Systems LLC, Sievo, Corcentric, Zycus, Amazon Web Services, Inc, and JAGGAER LLC. The procurement analytics market consists of the sales of procurement analytics solutions and services by entities (organizations, partnerships, and sole proprietors) that refers to software, which automates spend analysis and purchase analysis and operates completely organizations' expenditure through an insightful dashboard. These procurement analytics solutions collect data from various sources such as ERPs, process raw data into use-case taxonomies, and display in visualization dashboards. The main components of procurement analytics are solutions and services. The procurement analytics solutions refer to procurement analytics software and tools that operate on on-premise or cloud platforms. The key applications of procurement analytics include supply chain analytics, risk analytics, spend analytics, demand forecasting, contract management, vendor management, and category management. They are used by end-use industries ranging from retail and e-commerce, manufacturing, government and defense, healthcare and life sciences, telecom and IT, energy and utilities, banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI), others. North America was the largest region in the procurement analytics market in 2021 and is also expected to be the fastest-growing region in the forecast period. The regions covered in the procurement analytics market report are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East and Africa. Growth in e-commerce and the organized retail industry is expected to propel the growth of the procurement analytics market. E-commerce refers to a medium used by customers and vendors to buy or sell goods and services from the Internet from websites, applications and others through computers, tablets, smartphones, and other smart devices. Procurement analytics is widely used by e-commerce giants and organized retail stores, as it offers data-driven analysis of customer behaviours and spending analysis. For instance, in Dec 2021, according to the Indian brand equity foundation, e-commerce turnover in India reached $50 billion in 2020 and evolved as the eighth-largest market for e-commerce across the globe, and it is predicted to reach $350 billion by 2030. Thus, an increase in usage of e-commerce and the organized retail industry is expected to boost demand for procurement analytics during the forecast period. Technological advancements such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing are gaining popularity in the procurement analytics market. Major companies operating in the procurement analytics sector are focused on developing and implementing new technological solutions such as AI to expand their product portfolio and strengthen their position in the market. For instance, in April 2020, Digitate, a software venture of Tata Consulting Services, launched ignio Cognitive Procurement, to assist enterprises in making data-driven decisions making. This product utilizes AI/ML to increase the speed and accuracy of the process and assist enterprises in understanding procurement behaviour, monitoring transactions, and others. In February 2020, McKinsey & Company, a USA-based management consulting company acquired Orpheus GmbH for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition by McKinsey & Company is focused on expanding its product offering related to digital process solutions, and expanding its business presence across the globe. Orpheus GmbH, is a Germany-based company involved offering to spend analytics solutions. The countries covered in the procurement analytics market report are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA. Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary 2. Procurement Analytics Market Characteristics 3. Procurement Analytics Market Trends And Strategies 4. Impact Of COVID-19 On Procurement Analytics 5. Procurement Analytics Market Size And Growth 5.1. Global Procurement Analytics Historic Market, 2016-2021, $ Billion 5.1.1. Drivers Of The Market 5.1.2. Restraints On The Market 5.2. Global Procurement Analytics Forecast Market, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion 5.2.1. Drivers Of The Market 5.2.2. Restraints On the Market 6. Procurement Analytics Market Segmentation 6.1. Global Procurement Analytics Market, Segmentation By Component, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Solutions Services 6.2. Global Procurement Analytics Market, Segmentation By Deployment Mode, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Cloud On-Premises 6.3. Global Procurement Analytics Market, Segmentation By End User, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Retail and E-commerce Manufacturing Government and Defense Healthcare and Life Sciences Telecom and IT Energy and Utilities Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance Others 6.4. Global Procurement Analytics Market, Segmentation By Application, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Supply Chain Analytics Risk Analytics Spend Analytics Demand Forecasting Contract Management Vendor Management Category Management 7. Procurement Analytics Market Regional And Country Analysis 7.1. Global Procurement Analytics Market, Split By Region, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion 7.2. Global Procurement Analytics 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/kmg4mr 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 GIBRALTAR, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Trading Giant Crypto Shark has posted a record year of trade despite a slowdown in the third quarter, thanks to handsome growth worldwide. The Gibraltar-based group saw its revenue surge by 18 per cent to $131million last year, with around three-quarters of takings deriving from it's unregulated markets, which now include UK. Business-to-consumer trade provided the bulk of that expansion as revenues from crypto trading jumped by 24 per cent. Stiff trading restrictions on trading outlets in 2020 and the early part of 2021 in response to the coronavirus pandemic meant traders and hodlers went online, and therefore heavily benefiting from the highest crypto prices ever, this also helping companies like Crypto Shark as a consequence. Chief executive P. Roby said: 'I am pleased to report another year of record revenues alongside these important strategic milestones, delivering double-digit revenue growth despite a very tough comparative period. 'This performance reflects the continued success of our data-driven investments and execution against our product-leadership focus that delivers ongoing improvements in the usability, quality and safety of our crypto trading products.' Future Plans The firm said they would help it diversify its sources of revenue, boost its presence across numerous countries and enable it to take advantage of the thriving crypto trading industry. The biggest surprise about Crypto Shark is the fact that even though they are based in Gibraltar & United Kingdom, their big profits don't come from there but mostly from offshore countries that have little or no trading regulations which means they don't have to pay as much tax as they do in the United Kingdom. They are meticulous where they offer their services, and it is a strategic play overall as they can earn as much profit without needing to pay the high tax attached to their profit. SOURCE Crypto Shark RIVERSIDE, Calif., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Martindale-Hubbell recognizes attorney Douglas Borthwick as AV rated, the highest possible attorney peer review rating in both legal ability and ethical standards. Attorney Douglas Borthwick has further achieved a "SUPERB" Rating from Avvo, the highest evaluation given by the nationally acclaimed attorney rating agency. Photo Award Douglas Borthwick has earned the trust and respect of his clients and colleagues for his integrity, preparation, determination, and attention to detail. Douglas Borthwick's experience includes, but is not exclusive of, the following areas: personal injury law, family law, criminal law, and general civil litigation practice. Mr. Borthwick's profile was featured in the California Business Journal: https://calbizjournal.com/attorney-douglas-borthwick/ Website : www.borthwicklawyer.com Phone : 714-654-6742 "Life is the most precious thing we have and it's probably the thing most people take for granted. We're busy. We don't even take time to consciously think of our lives because we are too busy living them. Appreciate your life. We all only get one. Invest in what makes you happy. There is so much to be thankful for. We all have rotten things happen to us and we all have unfortunate things. But there is good in everything that happens if you look for it. Give thanks every day. Live consciously with awareness and gratitude, appreciate the moments as they occur before they forever pass so quickly."- Attorney Douglas Borthwick, Esq. "You just never know what someone is dealing with behind closed doors. No matter happy someone looks, how loud their laugh is, how big their smile is, there still can be a level of hurt that is indescribable. So be kind. Even when others are not, chose to be kind." Attorney Douglas Borthwick, Esq. Media Contact: John Walter 714-564-9401 [email protected] SOURCE Douglas Borthwick MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Global talent solutions and business consulting firm Robert Half has promoted Alexandra Von Tiergarten and Tony Uyehara to district president. They will oversee various operations for Robert Half's professional talent solutions in California and the Southwestern United States. Von Tiergarten joined Robert Half in 2003 and has since held several leadership roles, most recently serving as senior regional vice president for professional talent solutions in Los Angeles. During her tenure, she has received multiple awards for outstanding achievement and leadership. As district president, Von Tiergarten will lead Robert Half's finance and accounting, healthcare, administrative, and contract and consulting practice groups, matching specialized talent with companies throughout the greater Los Angeles area. In his nearly 20 years at Robert Half, Uyehara has also held several leadership positions and received multiple awards for outstanding achievement and leadership. In his new role, he will lead operations for Robert Half's management resources practice group providing senior and management-level finance, accounting and business systems professionals on a project and interim basis in Northern and Southern California, Arizona and Utah. About Robert Half Robert Half (NYSE: RHI) is the world's first and largest specialized talent solutions and business consulting firm that connects people with meaningful work and provides companies with the talent and subject matter expertise they need to confidently compete and grow. Visit roberthalf.com and download the company's award-winning mobile app. SOURCE Robert Half LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Scali Rasmussen announced today that Shareholder Jeffrey Erdman and Principal Jasmin Bhandari have been recognized as minority leaders of influence in a special issue by the Los Angeles Business Journal. According to the publisher, the feature profiles "those standout minority attorneys considered to be particularly impactful on the legal scene while serving as trusted advisors." "I couldn't think of anyone more deserving of this recognition," says Founder and Managing Shareholder Christian Scali. "It's an honor to have Jasmin and Jeffrey represent us alongside so many highly regarded attorneys. It truly speaks to their commitment to their clients." Jeffrey Erdman is a senior litigator and trial attorney with more than 25 years of litigation experience practicing in both the state and federal courts of California. The feature highlights his "extensive courtroom and trial experience, both as plaintiff's counsel and as defense counsel, and successfully argued cases before the California Court of Appeal." Erdman's litigation experience spans many areas of business, including the insurance, manufacturing and service industries, as well as all variety of real estate disputes. He also has experience in the hospitality industry having worked with Westin Hotels and Resorts for more than ten years prior to attending law school. Jasmin Bhandari maintains a regulatory and litigation practice primarily focused on labor and employment law. She provides advice and counsel to clients on compliance with state and federal employment laws, including termination and onboarding issues. She also represents businesses in a broad range of disputes, including discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, wage and hour, and trade secret matters. Her experience further includes "defending companies in wage and hour class actions against meal and rest break, overtime, and timely payment of wage claims, including extensive experience with PAGA cases in both litigation and arbitration," states the publication. Bhandari has obtained a dismissal of class claims in arbitration, drafted briefs for cases at the California Court of Appeal and successfully brought a motion to dismiss the appeal. The publication mentions that Bhandari also has "significant experience drafting and revising handbooks, pay plans, break and leave policies, employee surveys and confidentiality agreements." About Scali Rasmussen Named one of the "Most Admired Law Firms" in 2021 by the Los Angeles Business Journal, Scali Rasmussen, PC serves businesses across California as trusted legal advisors. Our standard-setting, legal solutions for the automotive industry and dealer franchise relationship prevent issues from becoming hurdles. With a niche practice advising Italian enterprises entering U.S. markets, the firm provides in-depth counsel on business litigation, cybersecurity, trade secret misappropriation, COVID-19 compliance, and corporate shareholder and partnership disputes. SOURCE Scali Rasmussen Three families to win back-to-school shopping funds at the free community event MORGANTOWN, W.Va., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With the state's first charter schools opening their doors, a new scholarship program underway, and innovative options like learning pods and microschools opening new education avenues, it's been a year of firsts for West Virginia education. Families are invited to discover and celebrate the state's expanding education options at a K-12 school fair on Saturday, Jan. 28. The fair, which takes place 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place, will give parents the opportunity to meet with dozens of education providers, including charter schools, private schools, homeschool groups, microschool opportunities, and dyslexia services providers. By participating in a scavenger hunt at the fair, families will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a back-to-school shopping scholarship. While parents gather information, children can enjoy face painting, balloon art, a photobooth station, and free snacks. Student performances, from music to dance, will spread school spirit and shine a light on the talents of West Virginia youth throughout the event. The fair will also reveal the winners of Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy's annual West Virginia School Choice Awards. An educator of the year, student voice for choice (in elementary, middle, and high school age categories), and educational freedom advocate of the year will be awarded trophies and Amazon gift cards. The school fair is planned to coincide with the celebration of National School Choice Week 2023, which will feature tens of thousands of school choice celebrations across all 50 states. In West Virginia, other notable events include a school fair for Southern West Virginia and a parents and a family fun day at the Canaan Valley Ski Resort. "As a student, the one thing I craved the most was community, and I would have loved to attend a school fair to learn about options available to me," said Andrew Bambrick, education outreach coordinator for the Cardinal Institute, "The West Virginia School Choice Fair in Morgantown is a chance for families to come and interact with education entrepreneurs, schools, and other organizations that are here to support students in their learning. Please come on out for fun, fellowship, and a celebration of education in the Mountain State." The fair is being hosted and organized by the Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy, a nonprofit dedicated to researching, developing, and communicating effective public policies for West Virginia. West Virginia Families United for Education, a non-profit dedicated to providing education, guidance, and advocacy to families navigating K-12 ed, is partnering with the Cardinal Institute as this year's sponsor. The Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place is located at 2 Waterfront Place. 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 home schooling. 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. SOURCE National School Choice Week "As a Virginia-based brand and longtime supporter of the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech athletic departments, we're excited to be sponsoring the Commonwealth Clash for another year and collaborating with both schools on community outreach events," said Jonathan Toms, senior community development manager for Smithfield Foods. "We want to thank the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank and Feeding Southwest Virginia for their tireless commitment to lighten the burden of food insecurity for many families. We look forward to providing relief to our home state for many years to come." Representatives from Smithfield presented the donations during events that took place this week at each respective food bank. Speakers discussed the importance of donations for Virginia communities, which provide valuable center-of-the-plate protein to residents while helping the food banks maintain their current high volume of food distribution. During the events, Smithfield brought its Bacon Bus to provide meals for food bank staff and volunteers to further thank those making an impact locally. The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank serves almost 110,000 people monthly throughout its 25-county and eight-city region. Protein is one of the most requested food items. "With the high demand for food assistance in our area, we're thankful for this additional support from Smithfield," said Michael McKee, CEO for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. "Receiving these protein donations will help us alleviate hunger and provide hope for families across Central and Western Virginia." In counties such as Buchanan, Lee and Dickenson, the food insecurity rate is over 19 percent. Feeding Southwest Virginia's donated food supply is down 16% from a year ago, and the organization is purchasing more truckloads of food, which can cost upwards of 40,000 dollars, to meet the needs of the community. Many neighbors in Southwest Virginia are forced to make the impossible choice between food, rent, utilities, medicine and many more expenses. "We want to thank Smithfield for the generous donation they've provided for us today," said Pamela Irvine, president and CEO for Feeding Southwest Virginia. "With the crucial shift in the economy and supply chain, we're grateful to be given this opportunity so we can continue to serve this essential protein to our neighbors in need." These two significant donations are part of Smithfield Foods' Helping Hungry Homes initiative, the company's coast-to-coast effort to help families and individuals become more food secure. Since 2008, the company has donated hundreds of millions of protein servings to food banks, community outreach programs and disaster-relief efforts in all 50 states. To learn more, visit https://sustainability.smithfieldfoods.com/helping-communities. About Smithfield Smithfield isn't only a leading provider of high-quality pork products. We're a leading provider of the most important part of any meal: premium, high-quality meat. And we take our meat duties seriously. After all, the rest of the meal is just a side dish. Smithfield products were first introduced in 1936 in Smithfield, Virginia, by people who lived for the love of meat. Today, the Smithfield brand stands for craftsmanship, authenticity, and pure passion as we continue to give meat-lovers across the country the deliciousness they crave: our classic bacon, slow-smoked holiday hams, hand-trimmed ribs, marinated fresh pork, smoked meats, and even more meaty magic. All Smithfield products not only meet our customers' high flavor standards but also meet the highest quality and safety standards in the industry. All while being produced right here in the USA. To learn more about the Smithfield portfolio of products, please visit www.Smithfield.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Smithfield is a brand of Smithfield Foods, Inc. About Smithfield Foods, Inc. Headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia, since 1936, Smithfield Foods, Inc. is an American food company with agricultural roots and a global reach. With more than 60,000 jobs globally, we are dedicated to producing "Good food. Responsibly." and serve as one of the world's leading vertically integrated protein companies. We have pioneered sustainability standards for more than two decades, including our industry-leading commitments to become carbon negative in our U.S. company-owned operations and reduce GHG emissions 30% across our entire U.S. value chain by 2030. We believe in the power of protein to end food insecurity and have donated hundreds of millions of food servings to our communities. Smithfield boasts a portfolio of high-quality iconic brands, such as Smithfield, Eckrich and Nathan's Famous, among many others. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com, and connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. About Blue Ridge Area Food Bank Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Verona, Virginia, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is the largest organization alleviating hunger in western and central Virginia. The Food Bank serves an average of 109,500 people per month across 25 counties and eight cities through distribution centers in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Winchester, and Verona. We're serving record numbers of Virginians during a prolonged pandemic and its associated economic impacts through our network of more than 400 community partners, which includes food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, schools, libraries, health care clinics, community centers, and more. We pledge to continue innovating and adapting to secure, store, and distribute more food to more individuals, families, children, and seniors experiencing hunger. The Food Bank is a member of Feeding America, a national food bank association that supports 200 food banks across the United States providing 6.6 billion meals to tens of millions of people through 60,000 partner pantries. For more information, visit www.brafb.org. About Feeding Southwest Virginia Feeding Southwest Virginia is a member of Feeding America. For the last four decades, the Food Bank's ultimate mission has been to: nourish neighbors, engage community partners, and develop solutions to address food insecurity. The primary function of the Food Bank is to secure and distribute large quantities of food for our neighbors. Approximately $30 million worth of food and grocery-related products are channeled annually through more than 370 food pantries and meal programs in our 26-county, 9-city region. Visit www.feedingswva.org for more information or like us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. SOURCE Smithfield Foods, Inc. DUBLIN, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Space Propulsion Market" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global space propulsion market size is expected to reach USD 22,536.23 million by 2030, according to a new study. The report gives a detailed insight into current market dynamics and provides analysis on future market growth. The wide variety of usage of satellites and spacecraft include satellite-based communication for military and commercial application, in-flight internet services, satellite imaging technology, satellite-based critical data acquisition, and exploration of space. When land-based communication is unavailable during emergencies and natural catastrophes, satellite communications technology is frequently utilized. Emergency communication services can be provided in disaster zones using mobile satellite equipment. Due to the commercialization of the worldwide space industry and the entry of new market participants, the 21st century has transformed the market dynamics of the global space industry and the growth of the global market. For instance, Accion System will launch 2 TILE 2 space propulsion systems. It will fly on an Astro Digital micro-satellite, on June 2021 SpaceX, a rideshare flight. Tenzing, a ride-sharing satellite owned by Astro Digital, is home to numerous payloads. In the future, communication satellites will have more capabilities such as large aperture to handle more bandwidth and more power. Their life span would increase to 20-30 years. Other technical innovations and low-cost reused launch vehicles will drive market growth. Electrical propulsion is a next-generation propulsion system and in that ion, propulsion has increased the market of the space industry. The development of electrical propulsion has increased the number of space launches and the idea of space tourism has come into the limelight by major market players. For instance, IHI Aerospace announced in Aug. 2022, that OHB Sweden will receive 1N thrusters from them. The commercial satellite will be able to navigate because of the thrusters. Market Dynamics Drivers and Opportunities Increasing Demand for LEO-Based Services Technological Advancement in Space Propulsion Restraints and Challenges Concerns Over Space Debris Space Propulsion Market Report Highlights Non- Chemical propulsion type leads the market share during the forecast period with significant CAGR because of the low cost and increased safety of the aircraft. Thrusters accounted for the highest revenue share accounting for their application in maneuvering and orbit control of satellites. The high space budget, the large number of commercial space organizations and market participants in North America , and the sizeable space industry are all credited with the expansion. , and the sizeable space industry are all credited with the expansion. The global market players include Accion Systems, Aerojet Rocketdyne, IHI Corporation, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman. The publisher has segmented the space propulsion market report based on type, system, platform, end-use, and region: Space Propulsion, Type Outlook (Revenue - USD Million, 2018 - 2030) Chemical Propulsion Non-Chemical Space Propulsion, System Outlook (Revenue - USD Million, 2018 - 2030) Thrusters Propellant Feed System Rocket Motors Nozzles Propulsion Thermal Control Power processing units Space Propulsion, Platform Outlook (Revenue - USD Million, 2018 - 2030) Satellites Capsules or Cargo Interplanetary Spacecraft and Probes Rovers and Spacecraft Lander Launch Vehicles Space Propulsion, End-Use Outlook (Revenue - USD Million, 2018 - 2030) Commercial Satellites Operators and Owners Space Launch Service Provider Government of Defense Departments of Defense National Space Agencies Others Space Propulsion, Regional Outlook (Revenue - USD Million, 2018 - 2030) North America U.S Canada Europe Germany UK France Italy Spain Russia Netherlands Asia Pacific China India Japan South Korea Indonesia Malaysia Latin America Argentina Brazil Mexico Middle East & Africa & UAE Saudi Arabia Israel South Africa Key Topics Covered: 1. Introduction 2. Executive Summary 3. Research Methodology 4. Global Space Propulsion Market Insights 5. Global Space Propulsion Market, by System 6. Global Space Propulsion Market, by Platform 7. Global Space Propulsion Market, by Type 8. Global Space Propulsion Market, by End-Use 9. Global Space Propulsion Market, by Geography 10. Competitive Landscape 11. Company Profiles Companies Mentioned Accion Systems Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings IHI Corporation Blue Origin Northrop Grumman Corporation Space Exploration Technologies Safran Airbus Se Thales Alenia Space . For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/du8uat-propulsion?w=5 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. 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- Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/539438/Research_and_Markets_Logo.jpg SOURCE Research and Markets DUBUQUE, Iowa, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing a tradition of charitable giving that spans more than seven decades, the Spahn & Rose Charitable Foundation donated $175,000 to 72 organizations in communities Spahn & Rose during 2022. Representatives from charities that received Spahn & Rose Foundation donations and Spahn & Rose staff gathered for Community Day on December 22 to celebrate the good work of those organizations. Continuing a tradition of charitable giving that spans more than seven decades, the Spahn & Rose Charitable Foundation donated $175,000 to 72 organizations in communities Spahn & Rose during 2022. Representatives from charities that received Foundation donations and Spahn & Rose staff gathered for Community Day on December 22 to celebrate the good work of those organizations. During the event, these representatives shared how their organizations are making a difference in their communities and were presented with ceremonial big checks signifying the Foundation's donations. During the past 10 years, the Spahn & Rose Charitable Foundation has donated more than $1.3 million to local charities in communities that Spahn & Rose serves. "As part of our company's Core Values, we promise to give our time, talent, energy and resources to our communities," says Dave Davis, CEO of Spahn & Rose. "We are a proud member of the communities we serve and believe in giving back through donations and volunteer work." The charities receiving Foundation donations serve wide, diverse community needs. Here's how five recipients of Spahn & Rose Charitable Foundation donations made a difference in 2022: The Des Moines-based Iowa College Foundation offers students in Iowa the opportunity for an affordable, high-quality education by securing financial resources for its member private colleges and universities. The United Way of Walworth County, Wisconsin, serves Walworth County, the home of Spahn & Rose's Dunn Lumber location in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and provides financial assistance to more than 45 agencies, including the 211 emergency-resource helpline in addition to food pantries and shelters. Crescent Community HealthSpahn & Rose Fitness Center is a Dubuque, Iowabased nonprofit that provides access to medical care, wellness services and dental care. Focusing on primary care, Crescent Community Health provides services to those of any age, with or without insurance. Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a nonprofit that started in Idaho has since expanded across the country. It coordinates volunteers to build, assemble and deliver top-notch bunk beds to children and families in need. Leader Valley Foundation, a business-education partnership that helps students in Iowa's Cedar Valley develop leadership skills, provides resources for 6,554 students and 842 educators. Within 17 schools in Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Waverly, Leader Valley has implemented "Leader in Me," a talent-development initiative that enables students to build the skills necessary for personal and professional success. About Spahn & Rose Lumber Co. Spahn & Rose Lumber Co., which has been serving the professional contractor since it opened in 1904, is a leading lumber and building-materials distributor in the Midwest. Spahn & Rose currently operates 24 locations throughout Iowa, Illinois, Georgia and Wisconsin. In 2022, LBM Journal named Spahn & Rose its Dealer of the Year. Spahn & Rose provides high-quality building materialswindows, doors, cabinets, drywall, roofing, decking, lumber and moreenabling builders, contractors and homeowners to buy easier and build better. Press Contact Jacque Arensdorf Director of Marketing 563.582.3606 x308 [email protected] SOURCE Spahn & Rose Springer Realty Group introduces its new mortgage relationship with Foxtrot Mortgage, adding a new passive revenue stream for agents EXTON, Pa., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Springer Realty Group (SRG) has successfully partnered with Foxtrot Mortgage and launched an additional passive revenue stream opportunity for its growing number of real estate agents. The addition of Foxtrot Mortgage represents a 4th revenue stream available to their growing number of over 250 agents. The brokerage already offers agents the opportunity to keep 100% of their commissions, participate in their recruiting "Ambassador Program", as well as qualify for ownership in their title company, Golden Abstract. Chris Fox of Foxtrot Mortgage "I've known Chris Fox for over 15 years and believe our new relationship with Foxtrot Mortgage delivers three points of added value to our brokerage," says Dave Springer, Owner & Broker of Springer Realty Group. "First and foremost, we believe Chris and his company will deliver superior products and service to our agents and their clients. Secondly, our company's mission has always aimed to help agents keep more of their hard-earned money. Utilizing this relationship to help create another meaningful passive income stream was paramount to this decision. Lastly, the additional revenue this relationship should generate will help deliver the meaningful operating income needed to maintain our low-cost model where agents can keep 100% of their commissions at the closing table." Springer Realty Group has been in business for nearly 14 years, and they have experienced very strong growth. With hundreds of agents located in PA, NJ, DE, and MD, Springer Realty Group provides agents with the freedom and flexibility to run their businesses alongside a streamlined model that allows their agents to keep 100% of their commissions and opportunities to participate in additional, passive income streams. "I am very excited to work with Dave Springer and the entire Springer Realty Group organization," says Foxtrot Mortgage Partner, Chris Fox. "Since we built our mortgage company in 2018, it's been our goal to partner with outstanding real estate firms aligned with the same goals of providing top-level service and products for their clients. We are thrilled that our first brokerage relationship is with Springer Realty Group." Springer continued, "We want to continue to share our full-service brokerage with other real estate agents and believe our new relationship with Foxtrot Mortgage adds significant value to the REALTOR community." About Springer Realty Group : Springer Realty Group is a locally owned, independent brokerage that was founded in 2009. They have significantly grown in transactions and sales volume. More than just keeping 100% of their commissions, they provide their agents with opportunities to participate in multiple passive income streams. Licensed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, Springer Realty Group runs a full-service, yet nimble and streamlined operation leveraging the most advanced technology and marketing methods to maintain a competitive edge within the marketplace. To learn more about Springer Realty Group, go to https://www.springerrealtygroup.com/ Contact: Dave Springer Springer Realty Group 740 Springdale Dr., Suite 100 Exton, Pa 19341 Mobile: 610-202-2859 Office: 484-498-4000 [email protected] SOURCE Springer Realty Group Urges Senate Action, Quick Passage to Provide Immediate Help to Thousands WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Susan G. Komen, the world's leading breast cancer organization, applauds House lawmakers for their leadership on bipartisan legislation that would make financial benefits and health insurance immediately available to people living with metastatic breast cancer. In the 117th Congress, this bill was supported by more than 50 percent of members of the House of Representatives. The Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act (H.R.549) waives a five-month waiting period for Social Security Disability Insurance and a subsequent 24-month waiting period for Medicare benefits. People diagnosed with MBC, on average, don't live long enough to receive both benefits, yet most face thousands of dollars in medical expenses every month without the means to pay their bills. U.S. House legislation would make federal help immediately available to people living with terminal breast cancer. Tweet this "Many living with metastatic breast cancer do not have the luxury of waiting for the health care services and financial support they need. Those receiving this devastating diagnosis face enough challenges without the added burden of long and arduous waiting periods, which create barriers to the care patients so desperately need, and need now," said Molly Guthrie, Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at Susan G. Komen. An estimated 168,000 Americans live with MBC, breast cancer that has spread beyond the breast to other parts of the body often the brain, bones, lungs and liver. Treatments exist for MBC but there is no cure for it. The average life expectancy is three years after diagnosis and MBC is responsible for the majority of the breast cancer deaths each year. "In New York, over 16,800 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and about 2,500 women die from the disease annually. Long Island has among the highest occurrences of breast cancer in the country. These numbers and the real people they represent make this issue deeply personal for me and for my constituents. Roughly 90 percent of breast cancer deaths are a result of metastatic disease and the life expectancy of an individual with metastatic breast cancer is anywhere between 4 and 36 months. Given this timeframe, it is outrageous to double the suffering of those living with this horrible disease by making them wait to gain access to health benefits that they are immediately eligible for. This bill waives these onerous waiting periods, relieving the potential financial burden on those with the disease, and allowing them to focus on fighting the cancer," said Rep. Andrew R. Garbarino (R-NY-02), bill sponsor. Added Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL-14), original co-sponsor of the bill, "The statistics are startling. In 2022, it is estimated that 43,780 people died from breast cancer in the United States - 90 percent as a result of metastatic breast cancer (MBC). To save lives and improve breast cancer outcomes, we must invest in treatments and cures and increase access to affordable, quality care for individuals with MBC. Immediately connecting recently-diagnosed individuals with access to treatment can improve outcomes, and our bipartisan bill would eliminate barriers and reduce current health disparities in care. People diagnosed with MBC should not have to worry about long waiting periods for eligibility to care and I look forward to working with my colleague, Rep. Andrew Garbarino, to deliver financial security and critical care to families." Passage of the MBC Access to Care Act is a top legislative priority for Susan G. Komen this year. "Komen applauds Reps. Garbarino and Castor for their leadership in reintroducing the Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act on behalf of those living with MBC," Guthrie added. "We look forward to building off of previous support for this legislation and passing the bill as soon as possible to provide much-needed help to those who are living with the disease now and will be diagnosed in the future." About Susan G. Komen Susan G. Komen is the world's leading nonprofit breast cancer organization, working to save lives and end breast cancer forever. Komen has an unmatched, comprehensive 360-degree approach to fighting this disease across all fronts and supporting millions of people in the U.S. and in countries worldwide. We advocate for patients, drive research breakthroughs, improve access to high-quality care, offer direct patient support and empower people with trustworthy information. Founded by Nancy G. Brinker, who promised her sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would end the disease that claimed Suzy's life, Komen remains committed to supporting those affected by breast cancer today, while tirelessly searching for tomorrow's cures. Visit komen.org or call 1-877 GO KOMEN. Connect with us on social at www.komen.org/contact-us/follow-us/. Name: Amanda DeBard Susan G. Komen (972) 701-2131 [email protected] SOURCE Susan G. Komen for the Cure ROCKVILLE CENTRE, N.Y., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Diocese of Rockville Centre (www.drvc.org) filed its Plan and Disclosure Statement today, offering a substantial proposal for settling with survivors. The Diocese believes the Plan is the best means to efficiently and effectively pave the way for compensating survivors and emerging from bankruptcy. To demonstrate its commitment to move forward, the Diocese has proposed a plan that it hopes provides a framework for a timely resolution of this bankruptcy case for survivors, the Diocese, and its parishes. The Diocese, which has continued to work towards a global settlement, believes that the extensive and needlessly expensive litigation path chosen by the Unsecured Creditors Committee's proposed plan would only continue to financially erode assets of the Diocese, parishes and other co-insureds that would otherwise be used to fund the settlement. Under the Diocese's Plan the estimated total contribution from the Diocese, Parishes, its Co-Insured Parties, and other ministry members has a value between $185 million and $200 million. These figures do not include the value of the Diocese's substantial rights against third-party insurance companies, which are also being contributed under the Plan. The Diocese continues to press for these rights in settlement negotiations for the benefit of survivors. The settlement contributions in the Diocese's Plan compare quite favorably to recoveries under other Diocesan bankruptcy plans. By way of comparison, the average aggregate non-insurance contribution for Dioceses that have confirmed chapter 11 plans is approximately $21.4 million. When non-insurance settlement contributions are coupled with the insurance rights contribution, the Diocese's Plan brings both the aggregate and per-claim recovery well in excess of any other Diocesan chapter 11 plan in history. The Diocese believes that survivors deserve and expect a settlement now and hopes that all parties can work together to complete this equitable and unprecedented settlement offer. "The alternative litigation path advocated by the Committee will take years, and wastefully drain resources that would otherwise be directed toward compensating survivors," said Sean P. Dolan, Director of Communications, Diocese of Rockville Centre. "The litigation path also jeopardizes the common good of Long Island, particularly for those families that depend on the Diocese to deliver compassionate health care, housing, education, food security, substance abuse, mental health and grief counseling, immigration services, religious and spiritual care." SOURCE Diocese of Rockville Centre SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Reference is made to the offer to purchase for cash the outstanding notes of the Dominican Republic's (the " Republic ") 8.900% Bonds due 2023 (the " Offer "), set forth in the offer document dated January 24, 2023 (the " Offer Document "). The Republic hereby announces that the Purchase Price and Accrued Interest of the Existing Bonds will be converted into U.S. dollars at an exchange rate equal to the weighted average of the buy and sell foreign exchange rates for transactions completed on the Dominican business day immediately prior to the Expiration Time by commercial banks and financial institutions in the Dominican Republic, as calculated and published by the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (Banco Central de la Republica Dominicana), available at the Central Bank's website at https://cdn.bancentral.gov.do/documents/estadisticas/mercado-cambiario/documents/TASA_DOLAR_REFERENCIA_MC.xlsx?v=1674595023895 (the " Applicable Exchange Rate "). For the avoidance of doubt, the Central Bank's website to be used in the calculation of the Applicable Exchange Rate shall be the one indicated here and not the website indicated in the Offer Document. No other terms of the Offer have changed. The Offer is currently scheduled to expire at 8:00 a.m. (New York City time) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 (the " Expiration Time ") unless extended or earlier terminated by the Republic in its sole discretion. Existing Bonds may be validly withdrawn at any time at or prior to the Expiration Time. The settlement of validly tendered and accepted Existing Bonds is expected to occur on Friday, February 3, 2023, or as soon as practicable thereafter, subject to change without notice. The Offer Document may be downloaded from website of Global Bondholder Services Corporation (the " Tender and Information Agent ") at https://www.gbsc-usa.com/dominican/ or obtained from the Tender and Information Agent or from any of the Dealer Managers at the contact information below. Questions regarding the Offer may be directed to the Dealer Managers at the below contact information. The Dealer Managers for the Offer are: Citigroup Global Markets Inc. 388 Greenwich Street, 4th Floor Trading New York, New York 10013 United States of America Attn: Liability Management Group Collect: +1 (212) 723-6106 Toll-Free: +1 (800) 558-3745 Email: [email protected] J.P. Morgan Securities LLC 383 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10179 United States of America Attn: Latin America Debt Capital Markets Collect: +1 (212) 834-7279 Toll-Free: +1 (866) 846-2874 The Tender and Information Agent for the Offer is: Global Bondholder Services Corporation 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America Attn: Corporate Actions Banks and Brokers call: +1 (212) 430-3774 Toll free +1 (855) 654-2014 Email: [email protected] Offer Website: https://www.gbsc-usa.com/dominican/ By facsimile: (For Eligible Institutions only): +1 (212) 430-3775/3779 Confirmation: +1 (212) 430-3774 By Mail: By Overnight Courier: By Hand: 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America Important Notice This announcement is for informational purposes only. It is not complete and may not contain all the information that you should consider before tendering Existing Bonds. You should read the entire Offer Document. This announcement is not an offer to purchase for cash or a solicitation of invitations for offers to purchase for cash any Existing Bonds. The distribution of materials relating to the Offer and the transactions contemplated thereby may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. The Offer is being made only by the Offer Document and in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. The Offer is void in all jurisdictions where it is prohibited. If materials relating to the Offer come into your possession, you are required to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. Each person accepting the Offer shall be deemed to have represented, warranted and agreed (in respect of itself and any person for whom it is acting) that it is not a person to whom it is unlawful to make the Offer pursuant to the Offer Document, it has not distributed or forwarded the Offer Document or any other documents or materials relating to the Offer to any such person, and that it has complied with all laws and regulations applicable to it for purposes of participating in the Offer. Neither the Republic nor the Dealer Managers accepts any responsibility for any violation by any person of the restrictions applicable in any jurisdiction. The materials relating to the Offer, including this announcement, do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. This announcement and the Offer Document do not constitute an offer to buy or a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities in any jurisdiction to any person to whom it is unlawful to make such offer or solicitation in such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction in which the Offer is required to be made by a licensed broker or dealer and in which any Dealer Manager or any of its affiliates is so licensed, it shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Managers or such affiliates on behalf of the Republic. SOURCE The Dominican Republic A roundup of the week's most newsworthy financial industry press releases from PR Newswire, including a new tool from Zillow and OneUnited's new surcharge free ATM network. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists covering the finance industry stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a roundup of stories from the week that shouldn't be missed. The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download. PR Newswire Weekly Finance Press Release Roundup, Jan. 23-27, 2023. Photo provided by Zillow. https://prn.to/3XPiIvt Read more of the latest finance-related releases from PR Newswire and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @PRNfinance on Twitter. Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists. Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers and freelancers have access to the following free features: Customization: Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Subject Matter Experts: Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Related Resources: Read and subscribe to our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, for media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more. About PR Newswire and PR Newswire for Journalists For more than 65 years, PR Newswire has been the industry leader with the largest, most comprehensive distribution network of print, radio, magazine, television stations, financial portals and trade publications. PR Newswire has an unparalleled global reach of more than 200,000 publications and 10,000 websites and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. PR Newswire for Journalists (PRNJ) is an exclusive community that includes over 20,000 journalists, bloggers and influencers who are logging into their PRNJ accounts specifically looking for story ideas. PR Newswire thoroughly researches and vets this community to verify their identity as a member of the press, blogger or influencer. PRNJ users cover more than 200 beats and verticals. For questions, contact the team at [email protected]. SOURCE PR Newswire A roundup of the week's most newsworthy health industry press releases from PR Newswire, including Kroger's new clinical trial site network and a new wellbeing center for children. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists covering the healthcare industry stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a roundup of stories from the week that shouldn't be missed. The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download. PR Newswire Weekly Healthcare Press Release Roundup, Jan. 23-27, 2023. Photo provided by Xylyx Bio, Inc. https://prn.to/3H2XsvC Read more of the latest health-related releases from PR Newswire and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @PRNhealth on Twitter. Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists. Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers and freelancers have access to the following free features: Customization: Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Subject Matter Experts: Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Related Resources: Read and subscribe to our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, for media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more. About PR Newswire and PR Newswire for Journalists For more than 65 years, PR Newswire has been the industry leader with the largest, most comprehensive distribution network of print, radio, magazine, television stations, financial portals and trade publications. PR Newswire has an unparalleled global reach of more than 200,000 publications and 10,000 websites and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. PR Newswire for Journalists (PRNJ) is an exclusive community that includes over 20,000 journalists, bloggers and influencers who are logging into their PRNJ accounts specifically looking for story ideas. PR Newswire thoroughly researches and vets this community to verify their identity as a member of the press, blogger or influencer. PRNJ users cover more than 200 beats and verticals. For questions, contact the team at [email protected]. SOURCE PR Newswire ATLANTA, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Risk management specialist, Turnkey Consulting , has appointed Brian MacFarland to head up its North American operations as it increases its investment in the territory. Global executive MacFarland, who has more than 15 years' leadership experience, takes on the newly created role of managing director North America, designed to enable Turnkey to realize its growth ambitions in this market. MacFarland joins Turnkey from HR technology company, ADP. As vice president of implementation his achievements included scaling delivery teams to support an almost threefold growth in sales over four years to $95M, driving significant improvement in customer experience, and steering teams through disruptive global issues including the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to almost nine years with the company, he spent 13 years at HR/payroll consultancy NorthgateArinso (now Alight Solutions). He has also collaborated with Turnkey on several client projects throughout his career. Turnkey has operated in North America for 10 years, working with key partners. Its strategic objective is to grow both organically and through integrating additional players into its global structure. MacFarland will drive key partner relationships as well as expand the North American team to support the company's growth. Richard Hunt, CEO and founder of Turnkey Consulting, says: "Expanding our presence in North America is a key business objective over the next few years, but it's dependent on the right person heading up our operations. Brian combines the empathetic leadership and natural business development skills that we believe are vital for this role. He is well known by our management team someone who will extend the Turnkey ethos via strong relationships with existing and new partners, and hire and develop new team members to support this." MacFarland says: "Joining Turnkey, a company that is clearly passionate about helping enterprises manage risk in today's highly charged business environment, is an exciting move for me. It has a hugely skillful team with which to facilitate that, and one that is committed to working together to enable the organization to achieve its growth goals. This is a great opportunity to join an already successful entity to reinforce and build up its brand in a new market." About Turnkey Consulting Turnkey Consulting 's mission is to make the world a safer place to do business. A specialist risk and security company, it combines business consulting with technical implementation to supply information security solutions that support systems running complex ERP and business critical solutions. Turnkey focuses on delivering specialized services around risk, security and identity management, working with service providers, audit partners and clients directly to provide the security controls and solutions that safeguard and complement the implementation of enterprise systems. Clients include some of the world's largest blue-chip companies alongside systems integrators and several government agencies. The company was established in 2004 and has offices in the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Malaysia, Singapore and the US. Follow Turnkey Consulting on LinkedIn and Twitter Media contact Kate Alexander - [email protected] SOURCE Turnkey Consulting Uber partners with It's On Us and the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administration (IACLEA) to share rideshare safety tips as students return to campus. SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As students return to college campuses after winter break, Uber (NYSE:UBER) is doubling down on its commitment to raising awareness of rideshare safety. Uber has partnered with It's On Us and IACLEA to develop rideshare safety tips which are shared in-app with riders picked up or dropped off at more than 2,000 US college campuses. College campuses across the US will also receive posters featuring important safety tips, including reminding riders to 'Check Your Ride' before getting into the vehicle. We always encourage riders to verify the license plate, car make and model, and driver's photo and name before getting into the car. If students are ordering a trip for someone else, please pass along vehicle and driver information so those riders can verify they are getting into the right vehicle. Uber has partnered with It's On Us and IACLEA to develop rideshare safety tips which are shared in-app with riders Tweet this Uber also has a number of other safety features built directly into the app, such as: Verify Your Ride: This feature gives you a unique 4-digit PIN to verbally provide to the driver before the trip can start, helping ensure you are getting into the right car. You can opt-in to Verify Your Ride by going into your settings within the app and turning on Verify Your Ride. Choose to use it for every trip or just at night. This feature gives you a unique 4-digit PIN to verbally provide to the driver before the trip can start, helping ensure you are getting into the right car. You can opt-in to Verify Your Ride by going into your settings within the app and turning on Verify Your Ride. Choose to use it for every trip or just at night. Share My Trip: Once a trip starts, tap Share My Trip in the app to share your driver's name, photo, license plate, and location with a friend or family member so they can follow the trip in real time. They will receive a text or push notification that tracks your trip and estimated time of arrival. Once a trip starts, tap Share My Trip in the app to share your driver's name, photo, license plate, and location with a friend or family member so they can follow the trip in real time. They will receive a text or push notification that tracks your trip and estimated time of arrival. Emergency Button: If there is ever an emergency, 911 is just a few taps away. Simply tap on the safety toolkit and select 911 assistance. The app displays your live location and trip details, so you can share them with the emergency dispatcher. And in a growing number of US cities, this information is automatically provided to the authorities. If there is ever an emergency, 911 is just a few taps away. Simply tap on the safety toolkit and select 911 assistance. The app displays your live location and trip details, so you can share them with the emergency dispatcher. And in a growing number of US cities, this information is automatically provided to the authorities. "Live Help" from an ADT Safety Agent: For those situations that don't rise to the level of needing police, fire, or medical attention, students can request a call or text from an ADT safety agent who can stay in contact with them during the duration of the trip. They will be able to call 911 if necessary. Starting today I t's On Us , a leading nonprofit in college campus sexual assault prevention, will help distribute vouchers for a discounted Uber ride when students at select colleges read our safety material. Colleges included in this initiative are the University of California at San Diego; New Mexico State University; University of Portland; St. Edward's University; Lake Forest College; University of Rhode Island; Kutztown University; Boston University; Clemson University; and Florida Institute of Technology. We want to remind students to stick together, check in with friends and loved ones before they go out, stay vigilant at night, trust their gut if something seems out of the ordinary and call 911 in an emergency. CONTACT: Navideh Forghani, [email protected] SOURCE Uber WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors will meet Feb. 9, 2023, in open session at Postal Service headquarters, 475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW, Washington, DC. The public is welcome to observe the meeting beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET in the Benjamin Franklin Room on the 11th floor. The Board is expected to discuss the following items: Remarks of the Chairman of the Board of Governors Remarks of the Postmaster General and CEO Approval of the Minutes Committee Reports Quarterly Financial Report Quarterly Service Performance Report Approval of Tentative Agenda for May 9 Meeting A public comment period will begin immediately following the adjournment of the open session on Feb. 9. During the public comment period, which shall not exceed 45 minutes, members of the public may comment on any item or subject listed on the agenda for the open session above. Registration for participation in the public comment period is required. Additionally, the public will be given the option to join the public comment session and participate via teleconference. Should you wish to participate via teleconference, you will be required to give your first and last name, a valid email address to send an invite and a phone number to reach you should a technical issue arise. Speakers may register online at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BOG-02-09-2023. No more than three minutes shall be allotted to each speaker. The time allotted to each speaker will be determined after registration closes. Registration for the public comment period, either in person or via teleconference, will end on Feb. 7 at noon ET. Participation in the public comment period is governed by 39 C.F.R. 232.1(n). Open session meetings of the Board of Governors are available on live audio webcasts at https://about.usps.com/who/leadership/board-governors/#sessions. Three hours after the conclusion of the open session meeting, a recorded audio file will be available for listening. In compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the audio webcast will be open-captioned. Please Note: The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to nearly 165 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America's most valued and trusted brands. The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. For USPS media resources, including broadcast quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube Channel and like us on Facebook. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com. Contact: Dave Partenheimer 202-268-2599 [email protected] usps.com/news SOURCE U.S. Postal Service HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With a strong commitment to high product quality, consumer safety, and sustainable development, Vinamilk proudly announces that two of its products, Vinamilk Green Farm and Vinamilk 100% Organic, have been certified by Clean Label Project (CLP) - the first milk products in the world to receive this certification. Vinamilk Green Farm and Vinamilk Organic have been awarded the prestigious Clean Label Project (CLP) certification from the U.S. Consumers' demand for green and clean fresh milk products is strongly increasing With a mission to bring transparency to products and packaging labelling, the Clean Label Project (CLP) is a US-based non-profit organization conducting tests and evaluation of products with a series of strict criteria on residues of heavy metals, microplastics, as well as other harmful chemicals in products, which can affect consumers' health. "To attain the CLP certification, Vinamilk Green Farm and 100% Organic Fresh Milk products had to undergo a rigorous process of screening and testing to ensure compliance with strict criteria for antibiotic residues, unwanted plastic compounds, heavy metals, and pesticide residues. This certification demonstrates our commitment to product quality and transparency," expressed Mr. Nguyen Quoc Khanh, Executive Director of Vinamilk's R&D. Recently, driven by game-changing technological innovations, increasing consumer food safety and healthy lifestyle awareness, and continuously rising living standards, demand for organic dairy products has been on the rise. The global market value for organic dairy products is forecasted to reach nearly US$54 billion by 2030, posing a robust CAGR of more than 10% over the study period. Vinamilk has made significant investments in all aspects of its value chain. It maintains a system of modern farms meeting international standards such as Global G.A.P. and Organic Europe, raising the bar of high-quality raw materials as well as building firm foundations for Vinamilk's innovative and safe product development. The company has also accelerated its adoption of renewable energies, turning by-products into resources to lower its environmental footprint. "Following a strict process of testing and evaluation, the Clean Label Project was pleased to present the certification to brands whose products retain the purity of ingredients and utilize transparent labels. We greatly appreciate the efforts of businesses like Vinamilk in always pushing the boundaries for product superiority and satisfying consumers' need for high-quality products," commented Jackie Bowen, Executive Director of Clean Label Project. Vinamilk aims to further strengthen its international expansion and enhance its leading position as a responsible, sustainable, and premium dairy brand. About Vinamilk Headquartered in Vietnam, Vietnam Dairy Products JSC (Vinamilk) is the leading national dairy company specializing in dairy products and juices for the domestic market and exports to over 57 countries. It is the 36th largest dairy company in the world in terms of revenue, with a brand value in the Top 10 most valuable global brands. Vinamilk currently manages 14 domestic farms, one overseas farm, and 17 modern factories, all meeting international standards. Learn more at www.vinamilk.com.vn. Learn more about Vinamilk's Certifications & Awards at www.cleanlabelproject.org/vinamilk. About Clean Label Project Founded in the US, the Clean Label Project is a non-profit organization serving the mission to bring honesty and transparency to the labelling of food and consumer products. It administers rigorous tests and assessments with higher required standards by the US to award brands whose products focus on purity and label transparency. It motivates businesses and brands to commit to sustainability and excellence. Find more information at www.CleanLabelProject.org. SOURCE Vinamilk Pope Supports Continued Efforts Against Leprosy, Reflects on Tragedy of War TOKYO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa had an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican on January 26, 2023, during which he requested the Pope's support in eliminating leprosy and the prejudice and discrimination associated with the disease. In response, the Pope expressed his gratitude for the work of the Goodwill Ambassador, who also serves as Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, and said it was necessary to continue activities against leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, encouraged by the fact it is curable. His Holiness Pope Francis and Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination(Photo by Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images) Earlier in the week, Sasakawa attended a two-day international symposium on Hansen's disease titled "Leave No One Behind." It was the second symposium on Hansen's disease to be held at the Vatican since 2016 and was co-hosted by French Raoul Follereau Fondation, Italian Association Amici di Raoul Follereau and Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen's Disease) Initiative, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Pope Francis sent a message to participants on the opening day, thanking them for their commitment and saying, "We must not ignore this disease, which unfortunately still afflicts many people, especially in the most disadvantaged social contexts." He added that the upcoming 70th World Leprosy Day, celebrated on Jan. 29, was "a fitting occasion to try to renew our commitment to building an inclusive society, that leaves no-one at the margins." During the private audience, Pope Francis, who visited the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 2019, produced a photograph taken after the atomic bombing of the city in August 1945. It shows a young boy waiting in line at a crematorium, carrying his dead sibling on his back. "War is a tragedy," Pope Francis said. "War must never happen again." At the end of their meeting, the Goodwill Ambassador asked the Pope to pose for a photograph next to a banner reading "Don't Forget Hansen's Disease", a campaign that Sasakawa initiated in 2021 to ensure that leprosy is not overlooked even amid the coronavirus pandemic. "This one photograph will help persons affected by leprosy all over the world," he told the Pope. Speaking afterward, Sasakawa commented: "It is clear how much warmth and love Pope Francis has for the oppressed. He has given me great strength and filled me with courage in my work against leprosy and the stigma and discrimination it causes." The photo that Pope Francis showed the Goodwill Ambassador: In the run-up to New Year 2018, the Pope had cards of the photo printed, instructing that "The fruit of war" be written on the back above his signature, together with details of the image, including the description: "The young boy's sadness is expressed only in his gesture of biting his lips which are oozing blood." The photo was taken by U.S. Marine photographer Joe O'Donnell in Nagasaki in 1945. About Leprosy Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is an infectious disease that mainly affects the skin and peripheral nerves. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted case-finding activities, over 200,000 new cases were being reported annually. Leprosy is curable with multidrug therapy, but left untreated can result in permanent disability. An estimated 3 to 4 million people are thought to be living with some form of disability as a result of leprosy. Many myths and misunderstandings surround the disease. In various parts of the world, patients, those who have been treated and cured, and even their family members continue to be stigmatized. The discrimination they face limits their opportunities for education, employment and full participation in society. About Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen's Disease) Initiative The Initiative (https://sasakawaleprosyinitiative.org/) is a strategic alliance between WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa (https://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en/who/message/profile), The Nippon Foundation (https://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/en) and Sasakawa Health Foundation (https://www.shf.or.jp/en) for achieving a world without leprosy and problems related to the disease. Since 1975, The Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation have supported the national leprosy programs of endemic countries through the WHO, with support totaling some US$200 million to date. In cooperation with the Japanese government and other partners, the foundations have played an important role in advocating with the United Nations, helping to secure a 2010 UN General Assembly resolution on elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members and the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on leprosy by the UN Human Rights Council in 2017. SOURCE Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen's Disease) Initiative SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Yonsei University(President Seoung Hwan Suh) is hosting its 5th Global Engagement & Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development (GEEF2023) with the theme of "Turning Point: From Crisis to Opportunity" from Thursday, February 2nd to Friday, February 3rd. GEEF 2023 Poster This year's forum will gather distinguished guests from around the world, including Ban Ki-moon, the 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations; Heinz Fischer, Former President of the Republic of Austria; Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the UN; Graca Machel, Deputy Chair of The Elders & Former First Lady of South Africa; Ivan Duque Marquez, Former President of the Republic of Colombia; Park Jin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea; Kyung-wha Kang, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea; Hyung Suk Kim, Emeritus Professor of Yonsei University; Premalal Jayasekara, State Minister of the Ministry of Ports Shipping and Aviation of Sri Lanka; Rick MAHE, Minister of Health of Vanuatu; and Dr. Mohd Hamdi Abd Shukor, Vice Chancellor of the University of Malaya. Marking its 5th year, the Global Engagement & Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development strives to create a common understanding of impending issues confronted by the international community and search for resolutions by sharing knowledge and expertise across diverse sectors. In GEEF 2023, keynote speeches are to be delivered by Graca Machel, Deputy Chair of The Elders, and Ivan Duque Marquez, former president of the Republic of Colombia. More than 20 sessions are also prepared to bring about vibrant discussions on possible resolutions for sustainability in diverse topics including 'Digital Health,' 'Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases,' 'Smart Cities,' 'Future of Higher Education,' 'Climate Crisis,' 'Social Innovation,' and 'Outlook on Decarbonization.' Additionally, unconventional sessions such as the Special Session on Poet Yoon Dong-Ju, Yonsei Young Star Session, and Special Talks with Artists will promote and enhance the forum's diversity and inclusion. President Seoung Hwan Suh remarked, "This year marks the midpoint of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015~2030), a timely period to objectively evaluate our progress and advance toward a better goal. This forum will be a turning point to overcome unprecedented global crises and initiate international cooperation." Chairman Ban Ki-moon expressed, "The Global Engagement and Empowerment Forum on Sustainable Development (GEEF) has earned worldwide acclaim through its success over the past years. I sincerely invite each individual to take part in the path toward our sustainable future as global citizens." Anyone who wishes to participate may register online through the GEEF official website (https://www.geef-sd.org) by February 1st, as well as on-venue at Yonsei University Centennial Hall. This event is co-hosted by the Institute for Global Engagement & Empowerment at Yonsei University, the Ban Ki-Moon Foundation For A Better Future, the Ban Ki-Moon Centre for Global Citizens(Austria), and sponsored by Fleishman Hillard, Botanic Sens, Yonsei University School of Business, KOPRI, the Korea Maritime Institute, 119REO, and Re:harvest. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990978/GEEF2023_poster_final.jpg SOURCE Institute for Global Engagement Empowerment (IGEE) New York, Jan 27 : Indian American Harmeet Dhillon, who is mounting an insurgent campaign against the party's leadership, is picking up support in her bid to head the party at a pivotal moment when former President Donald Trump's future hangs in the balance. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is emerging as a potential challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed support for Dhillon on Thursday calling for a change in the leadership of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Chandigarh-born Dhillon, who proudly broadcasts her Punjab roots with the Twitter handle "@pnjaban" is running against the current chair Ronna McDaniel in the organisational elections to be held on Friday. Chair since 2017, McDaniel has faced criticism for the party's string of failures - the loss of the House of Representatives in 2018 and the Senate and the presidency in 2020, and poor performance in 2022's mid-term elections. "I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC, I like what Harmeet Dhillon said about getting the RNC out of DC," DeSantis said in an interview with the founder of the conservative Turning Point USA group who is also backing her. Dhillon's platform for the leadership includes decentralising the party organisation by setting up more regional centres away from Washington, DC, to build the party's grassroots and reduce the influence of lobbyists and self-serving politicians. "RNC needs to be setting the vision and the leadership for the party. Not Congress. Not beholden politicians," she said. She also wants to better use technology for campaigns. Dhillon has picked up support from two state committees, Nevada and Washington, the heads of the party in four states, Arizona, Texas, Massachusetts and Wyoming, and from several high-profile party donors, as well as media figures influential within the party. Alabama state Republican committee passed a vote of no confidence in McDaniel's leadership. According to Dhillon's website 29 of the 168-member RNC have openly endorsed her. Although she had been close to Trump and served as one of his lawyers during the last election and the House probe into the January 2020 riots, her performance in the party election against the establishment would also test Trump's clout as he prepares to run for the party's nomination next year. DeSantis's endorsement has contributed to making the chair's election a sort of referendum on Trump. McDaniel has closely aligned herself with Trump, while Dhillon has not openly gone against him during the campaign, while repudiating Trump's continued claim that he was the rightful winner in 2020. Harmeet Kaur Dhillon, who immigrated to the US as a child, drew national attention when she said a Sikh prayer at the opening of a session of the Republican National Convention in 2016 - the first time a non-Abrahamic religion figured in a national party convention. Her Sikh religion has come up in the campaign for the chair with accusations that there has been a whispering campaign about her faith. An RNC member, Solomon Yue, went public about a video of her convention prayer being circulated to make her religion an issue. Several Republicans joined in condemning it. Dhillon tweeted, "No amount of threats to me or my team, or bigoted attacks on my faith traceable directly to associates of the chair, will deter me from advancing positive change at the RNC." McDaniel denounced the attacks on Dhillon because of her faith, pointing out that she herself belongs to the minority Mormon religion, which is often attacked. She is the granddaughter of a former Michigan governor and niece of Mitt Romney, who was the unsuccessful Republican Party candidate for President in 2012. Dhillon, whose law practice takes on discrimination cases, mainly of conservatives, has been associated with the American Civil Liberties Union, which is reviled by many Republicans and gives some of them pause. (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis) Ankara, Jan 27 : It is "meaningless" to hold a trilateral meeting with Sweden and Finland to discuss their NATO accession process after recent protests in Stockholm, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said. "In this environment, a trilateral meeting is meaningless. It has been postponed because the current environment will overshadow this," Cavusoglu explained at a joint press conference with visiting Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported. "Sweden has to decide. Does it want to join NATO or not? One of the aims of these incidents is to prevent Sweden from joining NATO," the Turkish minister said, referring to recent protests in the Nordic country, which involves burning of Quran and demonstrations by the supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) outlawed by TArkiye. He warned the incident was a "racist attack that has nothing to do with freedom of thought". Turkey has postponed a trilateral meeting with Sweden and Finland on their NATO bids slated for February following the burning of a copy of the Quran in Stockholm. Sweden and Finland submitted their formal requests to join NATO in May 2022, which were initially objected by TArkiye, a NATO member, citing their support for anti-Turkish Kurdish organisations and political dissidents. A month later, Turkey, Sweden and Finland reached a memorandum of understanding (MoU) ahead of the NATO summit held in Madrid. Under the MoU, Ankara agreed to lift its veto on the NATO bids by Finland and Sweden, which in return pledged to support TArkiye's fight against terrorism and address its "pending deportation or extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously and thoroughly." The Turkish parliament has not ratified the Nordic countries' NATO bids so far, citing that they have yet to meet Turkey's requests. Ramallah, Jan 27 : The Palestinian Authority has announced the end of security coordination with Israel in response to the killing of nine Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin. "In the light of the repeated aggression against our people and the undermining of signed agreements, we consider that security coordination with the Israeli occupation government no longer exists as of now," spokesman of the Palestinian presidency Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a press statement on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier in the day, Israeli soldiers killed at least nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, and injured 20 others, four of whom are in critical condition, in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Washington, Jan 27 : Five police officers in the US city of Memphis have been charged with second-degree murder after an African-American man died on January 10 of unspecified injuries just three days after he was stopped by police for reckless driving. Addressing reporters on Thursday, Cerelyn Davis, the first black woman to serve as the city's police chief, said the five were fired last week after an investigation found them to be "directly responsible for the physical abuse" of the 29-year-old victim Tyre Nichols, reports the BBC. The officers -- Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith -- who are all black, also face charges of aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. They are all currently in custody. Authorities have planned to release the footage on Friday of the arrest that took place on January 7. In an appeal, Davis has urged people to remain calm once the clip is made public. "This is not just a professional failing," she said of the accused officers' alleged conduct. "This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual." President Joe Biden has also called for "peaceful protest" once the video clip is released. The Nichols family and their legal team privately reviewed the video footage, following which lawyer Antonio Romanucci said the victim was "beaten like a human pinata". "It was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes," the BBC quoted the lawyer as saying On Wednesday, the family's lawyers said a post-mortem examination indicated that Tyre Nichols had been severely beaten. Tyre Nichols was stopped by police on his way home after taking photos of a sunset at a local park, an attorney for the family said. The lawyer said after reviewing the footage that it shows Nichols being pepper-sprayed, tasered, restrained and kicked. Reverend Al Sharpton, a US civil rights leader, told the BBC the crime was particularly painful because of the race of the officers. "We fought to put blacks on the police force. For them to act in such a brutal way is more egregious than I can tell you. I do not believe these five black police officers would have done this had he been a young white man," he said. Meanwhile, the FBI and the Department of Justice have opened a civil rights investigation into the case. Lucknow, Jan 27 : A 20-year-old son of a local journalist in Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh district was bludgeoned to death with an iron rod by unidentified men, police said. Vishal Pandey is the son of journalist Umesh Pandey who works with a Hindi newspaper. The victim, a resident of Ror village, was allegedly hit by a car and then beaten to death with an iron rod under "suspicious circumstances" in Atarsui Badli ka Purwa village, about 50 km from the district headquarters. Police suspect an old animosity between the accused and the victim's father as the motive behind the gruesome murder. A senior police official said that the victim's family filed a complaint and a case has been registered against seven people, including the former village head, Rang Bahadur. He said that Superintendent of Police Satpal Antil has suspended the station in-charge, Avan Dixit for laxity in duty. The victim's body has been sent for post-mortem and further investigation is going on, he added. Singapore, Jan 27 : Two Indian-origin former employees of a food distribution firm in Singapore have been fined S$24,000 each for accepting bribes totalling around $$6,800 from a director of a company that offered manpower contracting services. Maheswaran M Ratinasavapathy, 27, and Renitha Muraleedharan, 31, who used to work for Sonnamera, pleaded guilty to three graft charges on Thursday, The Straits Times reported. The prosecution told the court that Maheswaran, a warehouse supervisor, got money from Hema Suthan Nair Achuthannayar in exchange for recommending the latter's firm, Inspiro, to Sonnamera for provision of manpower services. Out of the S$6,800 received, Maheswaran gave his then colleague Renitha, an account executive, a commission of S$3,400. Hema, who left for Malaysia in March 2020, is still at large, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jane Lim told the court. Maheswaran met Hema in June 2019, and "shared his plan with Renitha to recommend Hema's company to supply manpower to Sonnamera in July 2019", the court was informed. Renitha, who was told that she would be given commission, did not raise any objections, the prosecutor told the court. They were then fined S$24,000 each. Maheswaran, who has repaid S$2,600 to Sonnamera, was also ordered to pay a penalty of S$829, The Straits Times reported. Renitha, who has not repaid the firm, must pay a penalty of S$3,379, the court ordered. New York, Jan 27 : US President Joe Biden has nominated Indian-American astronaut Raja Chari on the moon mission team for promotion to an Air Force brigadier general, according to the Defence Department. The nomination announced on Thursday will have to be confirmed by the Senate which approves all senior civilian and military appointments. The US Air Force uses the same ranks as the Army, which considers brigadiers to be one-star generals. Chari is a member of the Artemis team of astronauts preparing for the US mission of returning to the moon. In 2021, he commanded a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) crew to the International Space Station where he served for 177 days and conducted a spacewalk. Before joining NASA, Chari was an Air Force test pilot with a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in aeronautics and astronautics. (Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis) San Francisco, Jan 27 : Google is reportedly rolling out a new feature which will allow car dealerships to add their vehicle inventory directly to search listings via Google My Business in the US. Although the feature is still in beta, it appears to be available to "any" US-based vehicle dealer, including those that sell motorcycles, recreational vehicles (RVs) or anything else with a vehicle identification number (VIN), reports 9To5Google. Moreover, this feature will allow customers to browse a dealer's inventory without leaving Google Search. Dealership listings will showcase the vehicles that are available, including used cars, along with details about their prices, features, mileage and more. These listings also include links to the dealer's website for more details. With this feature more widely available to dealers, customers in the US are more likely to see the new "Cars for Sale" pages in their searches on Google, the report said. Last month, it was reported that the tech giant had redesigned the Knowledge Panel to get a large desktop grip as it will make it "easier to explore a topic by highlighting the most relevant and useful information" when searching. Knowledge Panels are information boxes that appear on Google when users search for entities (people, places, organisations, things) that are in the Knowledge Graph. Fatehpur : , Jan 27 (IANS) Another case in the mass conversion of 90 Hindus in Hariharganj ECI Church of Fatehpur district has been registered, after investigations revealed that the funding was being done from Naini Agriculture SHUATS (Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology And Sciences). A police case been registered against 47 named and 20 unknown persons. This is the fourth case of conversion in the ECI Church. Satyapal, a resident of Tarapur Aswar of Malwan police station area, had lodged an FIR last April against the Evangelical Church of India (ECI) year for mass conversion. He said that he met Lily C, an ANM posted at Bhitaura PHC living in Mission Hospital and he was converted along with 90 Hindus in the church. After the 40-day process, a bath was taken in the pool of SHUATS. Satyapal got the surname Samson. The strings of conversion are linked to Naini Agriculture SHUATS. Circle Officer, City, Veer Singh said that a case has been registered against 47 named and 20 unknown under sections of forgery, conversion, cheating. Satyapal said that his original Aadhaar card was deposited in the church. After this, a forged Aadhaar card was given to him with Samson added to his name. The police have now sought a search warrant in the court to raid University SHUATS located in Prayagraj Naini. Documents related to conversion and funding will be examined and the police have gathered the details of bank accounts from several banks. Washington, Jan 27 : A US military operation in Somalia has killed a number of Islamic State (IS) members, including a key leader of the terror group, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced. "On January 25, on orders from the President, the US military conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia that resulted in the death of a number of IS members, including Bilal-al-Sudani, an IS leader in Somalia and a key facilitator for IS's global network," Austin was quoted as saying in a statement on Thursday. "Al-Sudani was responsible for fostering the growing presence of IS in Africa and for funding the group's operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan. "No civilians were harmed as a result of this operation. We are grateful to our extraordinary service members as well as our intelligence community and other inter-agency partners for their support to this successful counterterrorism operation," the Defense Secretary added. No US troops or civilians were killed in the operation, he said. Wednesday's operation comes after US forces killed two top IS leaders in an airstrike in Syria late last year, CNN reported. Al-Sudani was sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2012 for helping foreign fighters travel to a training camp of the al-Shabaab terror group and facilitating financing. San Francisco, Jan 27 : Tech giant Microsoft has announced that it has partnered with global solar leader Qcells to curb carbon emissions and power the clean energy economy. The "strategic alliance" aims to enable a strong supply chain for new renewable electricity capacity projected to require at least 2.5 gigawatts of solar panels and related services, which is equivalent to powering over 400,000 homes, Microsoft said in a blogpost on Wednesday. Qcells, owned by Hanwha Solutions headquartered in Seoul, will work with the tech giant to create solar projects and will also provide panels and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services to selected solar projects Microsoft has contracted for through power purchase agreements (PPAs). "Building a resilient solar energy supply chain is essential to advancing a global green energy economy. Microsoft's partnership with Qcells will help make this vision a reality by bringing innovation and investment to rural Georgia," said Brad Smith, vice chair and president, Microsoft. The tech giant has committed to purchasing renewable energy to achieve 100 per cent coverage of electricity consumption with renewable energy by 2025. To bring more renewable energy to the grid, Microsoft is supporting Qcells' solar products, including those produced domestically. "We're striving to build and deliver turnkey clean energy solutions, including those made in America, and this partnership with Microsoft will help accomplish this vision," said Justin Lee, CEO, Qcells. "Similarly, Qcells is proud to play a role with Microsoft to bring more renewable energy online in the years to come. This first step is only the beginning of a great partnership that not only supports our two companies but helps deliver a clean energy future for customers and communities," Lee added. Qcells is the only company in the U.S. with a full solar supply chain and a one-stop shop for clean energy solutions. "The new collaboration is rooted in the two companies' collective commitments to diversify the global energy supply chain, proactively lead the development of more reliable energy supply chains in the U.S. and abroad, and reduce carbon emissions," Microsoft said. Hyderabad, Jan 27 : Veteran actress Jamuna passed away here on Friday after a brief illness. She was 86. She breathed her last at her residence, family sources said. Jamuna, who acted in about 200 movies in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi, is survived by a son and a daughter. She was born at Hampi in Karnataka on August 30, 1936, but her parents Nippani Srinivasa Rao and Kowsalya Devi moved to Andhra Pradesh. She received her primary education at Duggirala in Guntur district and was a stage artist in her school days. Jamuna, whose real name was Jana Bai, made her acting debut at the age of 16 with Puttillu (1953) directed by Garikapari Rajarao. It was L. V. Prasad's Missamma (1955) which gave her recognition. She had played a supporting character in the film with the lead roles played by N. T. Rama Rao, Savitri and Akkineni Nageswara Rao. In a career spanning four decades, she portrayed a variety of roles and acted with these legendary actors of her time other top actors of her times. Jamuna also acted in 11 Hindi films. She won FilmFare award for best supporting actress for Milan (1967) starring Sunil Dutt and Nutan. It was a remake of Telugu movie Mooga Manasulu (1964) which featured Jamuna along with Nageswara Rao and Savitri. Impressed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, she joined the Congress party in 1980 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rajahmundry in 1989, but quit politics after the defeat in 1991. She later joined BJP and campaigned for the party in late 1990s. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Fintech platform BharatPe suffered huge losses to the tune of Rs 5,610.7 crore in the financial year 2021-22, due to a one-time non-cash expense related to change in fair value of compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS). In FY21, the company had posted a net loss of Rs 1,619.2 crore. Apart from the CCPS cost, the company's adjusted loss grew 2.2 times to Rs 828.2 crore in FY22, from Rs 227.3 crore in the earlier fiscal year, according to its financial statement with the Registrar of Company (RoC). Earlier this month, the company had clarified that the CCPS-related item is a "one-off and shall not be there from next year as we have now reclassified the compulsorily convertible preference shares from liability to equity". Meanwhile, its revenue from operations went up 3.8 times to Rs 456.8 crore from Rs 119 crore in FY21, owing to a surge in payments volumes on loan disbursals. Earlier this week, the IPO-bound fintech platform announced three key appointments, along with hiring Ambuj Bhalla as its Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), as it fights a legal battle with former Co-founder Ashneer Grover in the Delhi High Court. Founded in 2018, BharatPe is currently serving 1 crore merchants across more than 400 cities. The company is a leader in UPI offline transactions, processing over 18 crore UPI transactions per month (with an annualized transaction processed value of over $24 billion in payments). The company has facilitated the disbursement of loans close to Rs 8,500 crore to over 450,000 merchants. Stockholm, Jan 27 : "The migratory situation in the European Union (EU) is strained", the member states' Justice and Home Affairs Ministers agreed at their Council meeting here. "There is an urgent need to strengthen the external borders, increase returns, and prevent irregular migration," they said, according to a statement issued by the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU. "Difficulties in returning third country nationals who are not entitled to stay in the EU is a major challenge for many member states," Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying. "Current return rates are not acceptable, and negatively affect the reception capacity, as well as the legitimacy of (the EU states') national asylum and migration systems," it added. The Ministers agreed on the need for more effective cooperation with countries of origin, and for comprehensive migration partnerships and effective readmission agreements with third countries to prevent irregular migration and improve returns. They agreed that the EU should use both positive incentives and restrictive measures and that all relevant policy areas, such as visa policy, development cooperation, trade and diplomatic relations, must be used. The EU member states also support the introduction of restrictive visa measures in relation to third countries that do not cooperate on returns, the statement said. The two-day informal meeting, which also addressed the fight against organised crime in the digital age, ends on Friday. Since the height of the migration crisis in 2015, the EU has implemented measures to control external borders and migration flows better. As a result, irregular arrivals to the EU have been reduced by more than 90 per cent. The EU and its member states are intensifying efforts to establish an effective, humanitarian and safe European migration policy. Khartoum, Jan 27 : Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed to settle their border disputes as well as the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) through joint mechanisms and direct dialogue. Chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed made the remarks during a meeting at the Republican Palace in Khartoum on Thursday, Xinhua news agency quoted an official statement as saying. Al-Burhan stressed the need to enhance cooperation between Sudan and Ethiopia on bilateral, regional and international issues, the statement said. Ahmed, for his part, said that "the GERD will not cause any harm to Sudan, but will rather benefit it in the field of electricity." Regarding the border issue, Ahmed said that it is an old issue and called on the parties to return to the documents to resolve it. "Ethiopia continues to stand in solidarity with Sudan in their current self-led political process," he added. The Ethiopian Prime Minister arrived in Khartoum on Thursday morning on an official visit to Sudan. In addition to their disputes over the Fashaga border area, Sudan and Ethiopia have technical and legal issues relating to the GERD. Kolkata, Jan 27 : A controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi was screened peacefully within the premises of the prestigious Jadavpur University (JU) in Kolkata without any resistance either from the state administration or from any group opposing the content of the film. The screening of "India: The Modi Question" on Thursday evening was organised by the Students' Federation of India (SFI), the students' wing of the CPI(M). Over 200 students of the university were in attendance, according to Suvankar Majumdar, a member of the JU's zonal committee of SFI. "The screening was conducted peacefully without any resistance or disturbance," he added. On Friday, the SFI will screening the documentary within the campus of the Presidency University (PU). The screening will take place at the badminton court within the PU campus at 4 p.m., SFI's Kolkata district president Debanjan Dey told IANS. "A formal email informing the PU authorities of the roposed event has already been sent," he added. On Tuesday night, high drama prevailed at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in New Delhi, with student members alleging that they were attacked with stones while watching the controversial documentary. There was similar tension over the two separate initiatives by Congress and CPI(M)'s youth wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) for screening the documentary in Thiruvananthapuram. There were reports of clashes there as well. The Central government had earlier termed the BBC documentary as propaganda against the Prime Minister and the country. Bengaluru, Jan 27 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah will visit poll-bound Karnataka on Saturday during which he is expected to inaugurate and participate in various programmes in Dharwad and Belagavi cities. Shah will be landing in Hubballi city on Friday evening on one-day visit. Besides attending a mega road show, the BJP leader will also address a massive public rally in Belagavi. With his visit, the party's Karnataka unit is likely to get a boost within the region, considered as a bastion of BJP. Party sources confirmed that Amit Shah is holding a series of meetings to further strengthen the party in north Karnataka region. Apart from inaugurating the indoor stadium of BVB Engineering college of Karnataka Lingayat Society (KLE), he will also take part in Amrit Mahotsav organised on the occasion of completion of 75 years of KLE. Later, the minister will lay the foundation stone for the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Dharwad. He will take part in 'Vijaya Sankalp Yatra' in Kundagol and offer worship in the 300-year-old ancient Shambhuling temple there. He will pay a visit to Basavanna Mutt later. The party has organised a mega road show for one-and-a-half a kilometer and will distribute handbills of the party to a few houses. Minister Shah will address a massive public rally in M.K. Hubballi of Kittur assembly constituency and delivered a speech. The HM will interact with senior members of Sangh Parivar and hold three meetings with party leaders to strategise for the party in the region. As per party insiders, the agitation by the Panchamasali Lingayat sub sect has created challenges for the party and is likely to damage the Lingayat vote bank, which is supporting BJP in the region. New Delhi, Jan 27 : AI tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science, according to Springer Nature, the world's largest academic publisher, which has laid down ground rules for its use, saying software like ChatGPT can't be credited as an author in papers published in its journals. First, no large language models (LLMs) tool will be accepted as a credited author on a research paper. "That is because any attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, and AI tools cannot take such responsibility," said Nature in an article. Second, researchers using LLM tools or AI chatbots should document the use in the methods or acknowledgements sections. "If a paper does not include these sections, the introduction or another appropriate section can be used to document the use of the LLM," said the publisher. The AI chatbot ChatGPT has brought the capabilities of such tools, known as LLMs, to a mass audience. ChatGPT can write presentable student essays, summarize research papers, answer questions well enough to pass medical exams and generate helpful computer code. It has produced research abstracts good enough that scientists found it hard to spot that a computer had written them. "Worryingly for society, it could also make spam, ransomware and other malicious outputs easier to produce. Although OpenAI has tried to put guard rails on what the chatbot will do, users are already finding ways around them," said the report. That is why Nature is setting out these principles. "Ultimately, research must have transparency in methods, and integrity and truth from authors. This is, after all, the foundation that science relies on to advance," the report mentioned. Kolkata, Jan 27 : Trinamool Congress leadership has decided to extend full support, including legal assistance, to its national spokesman and right to information (RTI) activist Saket Gokhale who had been recently arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case. Party sources said that two reputed criminal lawyers Majeed Memon and Satya Mohanty had been given the task to help Gokhale in his legal battle in the matter. Memon, a former MP from Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), joined Trinamool Congress in December last year. Senior Trinamool Congress legislator Tapas Roy alleged that Gokhale's arrest is yet another example of how the Union government is "misusing" Central agencies against the opposition political forces in the country. "The central agencies are being misused in such a manner everywhere in the country that the Trinamool Congress has faced the maximum wrath," Roy said. The state government has already filed a complaint with the Delhi Police alleging that a team of Gujarat Police accompanied by members of Delhi Police destroyed CCTV footage at Banga Bhawan in the national capital while arresting Gokhale from there on December 29. Meanwhile, the ED has already informed a special court at Ahmedabad that Gokhale used a substantial portion of the money of around Rs 1 crore he collected through crowd-funding for repaying his credit card bills, wining and dining. The ED has informed that although Gokhale collected money though crowd-funding for the purpose of RTI- related social work, in reality, he had spent just Rs 4,000 for the purpose. New Delhi, 27 January : The Delhi Police's Crime Branch has arrested a Nigerian national for supplying drugs in the national capital and seized 1.01 kg of heroin worth crores in the international market from his possession. The accused has been identified as 51-year-old Pascal Ezeigbo alias Prince, a resident Nigeria's Imo state. According to Ravindra Singh Yadav, the Special Commissioner of Police (crime), specific inputs were received that some foreigners were involved in supplying narcotics in the garb of other business. "Further information revealed that Pascal would come to Khera Park near Uttam Nagar to supply drugs following which a trap was laid and he was apprehended," the top officer said. Yadav added that he was carrying a polythene bag and on testing, the material was found to be heroin. On interrogation, it was revealed that Pascal came to India on a three-month visa in 2009 and after its expiry, he continued to stay here illegally. Mumbai, Jan 27 : Actress Kangana Ranaut has said that she wants to rename Shah Rukh Khan's latest release 'Pathaan' to 'Indian Pathaan' as Indian muslims are patriotic and different from Afghan Pathans. Kangana took to her Twitter handle @KanganaTeam and wrote: "All those who are claiming Pathan is triumph of love over hate, I agree but whose love over whose hate? Let's be precise, whose is buying tickets and making it a success? Yes it is India's love and inclusiveness where eighty per cent Hindus lives and yet a film called Pathan." She added: "Which shows our enemy nation Pakistan and ISIS in good light is running successfully, it is this spirit of India beyond hate and judgements that makes it Mahana it is the love of India that has triumphed hate and petty politics of enemies. Lekin all those who are having high hopes please note." The actress went further: "'Pathan' sirf ek film ho sakti hai a goonjega toh yahan sirf Jai Shri Ram..I do believe Indian Muslims are patriotic and very different from Afghan Pathans a the crux is India will never be Afghanistan, we all know what is happening in Afghanistan, it's beyond hell there, so apt name for the movie Pathan according to its storyline is the Indian Pathan." 'Pathaan' presents the story of an Indian spy who can get into any system or circle given his stealth and chameleon abilities to merge with the world that he resides in. The film is the first of SRK's three films after a hiatus of over four years for the actor. Madrid, Jan 27 : The mandatory use of facemasks in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic on public transport in Spain will end on February 8, Minister for Health Carolina Darias said. However, facemasks will remain obligatory in hospitals, health centres and pharmacies, Xinhua news agency quoted the Minister as saying. "We have a very stable situation from an epidemiological point of view," Darias told the media. It is the latest move towards a return to normal life in Spain after the pandemic. The obligatory use of facemasks in most indoor settings ended on April 20, 2022. According to data published by the Spanish Health Ministry on January 20, the 14-day index of Covid-19 cases in over 60s in Spain is 97.60 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, continuing the trend of a gradual reduction in infection rates. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, Spain has registered a total of 13,722,677 Covid-19 cases and 118,183 deaths. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Think Change Forum (TCF), an independent think tank dedicated to generating new ideas and finding solutions for navigating the post-pandemic world, on Friday urged the government to take up a campaign against smuggling and highlight it on the world stage so that it receives adequate international recognition and action. To make it an important part of the global narrative, different wings of the government - the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs should work in tandem, with Ministry of Finance as the nodal agency. In this regard, the forum has made representations to the Ministry of External Affairs and the Finance Minister. The Illicit Trade Group, an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Groningen, Netherlands defines smuggling as a form of illicit trade that displaces licit goods through counterfeiting (illegally produced goods) and contrabands (smuggled legitimate goods produced and bought in a low tax country and sold without paying taxes in another country with high taxes and regulation on the particular product). Smuggling has helped developed economies as their legally produced goods enter developing countries as contraband. As per WHO (World Health Organization), every year, governments lose $40.5 billion in revenue from the illicit trade of tobacco products. This trade is more prominent in Low and Middle-Income countries than in High-Income countries. Eliminating illicit trade would gain governments at least $31.3 billion every year, and from 2030 onwards more than 164,000 premature deaths every year would be avoided, the vast majority in these in Middle-and Low-Income countries. According to Ranganath Tannir, Secretary General, Think Change Forum, "It is a curious case where we have international days dedicated to most big and small issues, but there is no International Anti-Smuggling Day so far. This is because smuggling is a bigger challenge for the developing countries rather than the developed ones. Global brand owners', majority of whom originate from the developed world, are more concerned about counterfeiting than smuggling. This is because smuggling leads to a loss of revenue for the consuming country and an increase of sales for global brand owners, with goods becoming cheaper into the hands of the consumer. India should therefore take a lead in building international consensus around the issue of smuggling." "Earlier this month, our Honourable Prime Minister speaking at the 17th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention in Indore said that India's voice is being heard on the global stage and people look up to India with hope and curiosity. Highlighting smuggling on the global stage is an opportunity for India to further consolidate its position as a world leader, become the voice of developing countries and protect its economy at the same time," he added. TCF has suggested a roadmap for the government to take up the issue of smuggling on the world stage. The Ministry of External Affairs should take the lead in the next UN General Assembly (UNGA) session to put smuggling on the agenda. It is the right time to start working as the General Assembly's regular session begins each year in September and goes onto December and if need be resumes in January. The preliminary list of items to be included in the provisional agenda of the General Assembly is issued early in the year, usually in February so the Ministry has to start work immediately. India should be able to forge together the interests of similar developing countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and the Phillipines which are facing the impact of smuggling. Apart from the UN, India can also highlight smuggling in other global platforms like the upcoming G20 under the presidency of India. The Forum has also urged the Indian Government to propose an International Anti-Smuggling day to the UNGA and garner the support of other nations so that the General Assembly can adopt a resolution to establish the day. This will become a rallying point to create more global awareness and action on the issue of smuggling. While some estimates on the magnitude of smuggling are available but due to its secretive nature and lack of verifiable data, the Ministry of Finance needs to take the lead and collate the data on the depth of the issue and reveal the actual impact smuggling is having on the Indian economy. This should also include downstream economic impact on allied industries as well. This data should be released every year as part of The Economic Survey, as a pre-budget ritual. The survey should also provide information on the magnitude of smuggling through verified facts and figures and provide the actual impact that it is having on the economy in terms of metrics such as tax loss, job loss, impact on health, rise in crime, among others. This would guide the Finance Ministry's priorities and actions for the upcoming financial year to mitigate the impacts of smuggling. TCF recommends that the Corporate Affairs Ministry should hold brand owners responsible if their genuine products are found to enter India illegally. Replicating the idea of the polluter pays principle, the corporate affairs ministry needs to penalise such brand owners. It is a global practice where many famous international brands establish meager legal operations in developing countries like India with the sole objective of publicising the brand for creating demand while the products are sold through international traders and distributors instead of direct imports by the subsidiary. A list of goods or products with disproportionately high consumption in the local market as compared to legal imports should be published regularly along with the names of brands. A FICCI CASCADE (Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeit Activities Destroying the Economy) report has done so for five categories of goods and estimated the illicit market in India to be an astounding Rs 2.60 lakh crores as of 2019-20. According to this, the estimated tax loss to the government is a staggering Rs 58,521 crore. This list of five needs to be expanded and authorities should be on the lookout for both counterfeit and contraband smuggled goods. New Delhi, Jan 27 : A Delhi court on Friday allowed Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez, who is one of the accused in the Rs 200 crore money extortion case involving conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar, to fly to Dubai. Fernandez had filed an application on Wednesday to travel from January 27 to 30 ahead of the Pepsico India Conference. The Patiala House Courts took note of Fernandez's submission that she is under a contractual obligation with the company and if she is not able to make it, she could be sued. She will be performing at the event on January 29 with other stars. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had however, opposed it and said the actress did not put any contractual obligation on record before. Additional Sessions Judge of the Patiala House Courts, Shailendra Malik on Friday granted relief saying that she has professional commitments and personal liberty can't be curtailed. On Monday, he had granted the actress a one-day exemption from personal appearance. The Judge was supposed to hear the arguments on framing charges in the matter but adjourned the hearing for February 15. Fernandez, even in December last year, had moved a plea seeking to travel abroad to visit her ill mother in Bahrain. But, she withdrew it as the court wasn't willing to allow her to travel abroad. In the case, Chandrashekhar is accused of extorting money from politicians, celebrities and businessmen, and allegedly duped pharma company Ranbaxy's former owner Shivinder Mohan Singh's wife Aditi Singh of Rs 200 crore. He had allegedly sent super expensive gifts to Jacqueline, while he also booked a chartered flight for her from Mumbai to Chennai during his bail period. Moreover, according to the ED, it is suspected that he had sent huge chunks of money extorted from Aditi Singh to the actor. Ahmedabad, Jan 27 : As many as seven people were killed in four different road accidents in a span of 12 hours in Gujarat. A hit and run case was reported in Ahmedabad city police Thursday night, in which an unidentified vehicle hit a motorcycle rider on Thakkarbapa nagar bridge. Deepu Katheria died on the spot. City police has registered a case of negligence driving against the unidentified vehicle, said police sources. In another incident, the same night, a car with Jamnagar registration rammed into a truck from the back side in Rajkot Jamnagar highway, in which three people, including a child, were killed. Dhrol Police Station officer said the deceased are identified as Muktaben Girdharbhai, Nayanbhai Devrajbhai and a child. According to police, early this morning, two people were killed in a hit and run case on Ahmedabad Mehsana highway. The fourth accident was reported from Banaskantha district's Tharad taluka in which a motorcycle rider was hit by an unidentified vehicle killing him instantly. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine on February 3 a plea by Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Mayoral candidate Shelly Oberoi seeking an order for holding the election in a time-bound manner. Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justice Dipankar Datta. The top court agreed to hear the case on February 3. The AAP accused the BJP of running away from holding the election for the post of mayor. It has been alleged that the L-G appointed presiding officer adjourned the House indefinitely in view of a "ruckus" by some councillors. The AAP won 134 of the 250 wards in the MCD polls held last December. The BJP managed to win 104 wards. In its plea, the AAP has demanded time-bound urgent mayoral elections and has also sought the prohibition on voting by aldermen as per law. "People of Delhi gave majority to the AAP in the MCD but BJP is not allowing us to form a government in the MCD. AAP has moved the Supreme Court through its Leader of the House and Mayor candidate (Oberoi). We have placed two major demands in the Supreme Court, the first is to elect the Mayor in a time-bound manner and form the government in the MCD. Second, as aldermen do not have the right to vote under Article 243R of the Constitution and Section 3 of the DMC Act, they should be prohibited from casting votes," party leader Saurabh Bhardwaj had said. The Mayoral election was first scheduled for January 6, but the House was adjourned following a scuffle between the councillors of the BJP and the AAP. Then a session was convened on January 24 to elect the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and members of the Standing Committee. However, after all the 250 newly-elected MCD councillors and 10 nominated members (aldermen) took their oath, the House was again adjourned until the next date after a ruckus created by the councillors of AAP and BJP. On the other hand, BJP state working president Virendra Sachdeva alleged that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP have been misleading the public and that they have no faith in the Constitution. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has accused the BBC of being a "toolkit which is spreading lies and propaganda" amongst the Indians by its recently released controversial documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In an article and cover story which will appear in the upcoming issue of the RSS' Panchjanya magazine, it accused the BBC of repeating an attempt to impose lies and propaganda after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Significantly, BBC has been caught up in controversies for making the documentary which has been rejected by the Ministry of External Affairs, for "allegedly being a symbol of colonial mindset, propaganda piece, prejudiced and lack of objectivity", the RSS said. Despite the ban, the documentary has been screened in a number of universities. On Tuesday night, high drama prevailed at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in New Delhi, with student members alleging that they were attacked with stones while watching the controversial documentary titled, 'India: The Modi Question'. There was similar tension over the two separate initiatives by Congress and CPI(M)'s youth wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) for screening the documentary in Thiruvananthapuram. Meanwhile, screening of the film took place in Kolkata's Jadavpur University on Thursday evening and on Friday, it will be shown at the Presidency University. Also on Thursday, rival groups in the University of Hyderabad screened the documentary as well as the movie 'The Kashmir Files'. Meanwhile, the Central government has condemned the BBC documentary series describing it as propaganda to push a discredited narrative. Hyderabad, Jan 27 : Former Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, chief ministers of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and leaders of various political parties in both the Telugu states on Friday expressed grief over the death of veteran actor and former MP Jamuna. Venkaiah Naidu said he was shocked to know about the passing away of Jamuna. "Known as Satyabhama of the silver screen, the roles she played were symbols of self-confidence and women empowerment. My condolences to her family and fans, praying for her soul to rest in peace," tweeted Naidu. Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao condoled the demise of Jamuna. He described her death as a great loss to the film industry. In his condolence message, he recalled that as a first generation actor featuring in hundreds of films, Jamuna became the favourite star of Telugus. The chief minister said Jamuna won the hearts of the audience with her acting skills not just in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films but also in Hindu movies. Rao noted Jamuna's services were not just confined to art as she served the people as a Member of Parliament. He conveyed his condolences to the family members of Jamuna. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed grief over the demise of Jamuna, the film star of yesteryears and former MP. Jamuna's death brings an end to the golden era artists of Telugu cinema, the chief minister said and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved family members. Union Minister for Culture and Tourism G. Kishan Reddy also condoled the death of Jamuna. He said by playing diverse roles in South Indian films and also Hindi movies, she had carved a niche for herself. The Minister recalled that by playing mythological roles and especially the role of 'Satyabhama' she had endeared herself to the audience. Telangana Film Development Corporation Managing Director Arvind Kumar also expressed grief over the death of Jamuna. He noted that with her acting in 150 Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Hindi films, she had had a special place in the hearts of the audience. Telangana BJP President Bandi Sanjay Kumar, TDP's Andhra Pradesh unit President K. Atchan Naidu and others also condoled the death of Jamuna. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The BJP's Central Election Committee (CEC) is scheduled to meet here on Friday and finalise its candidates for Tripura State Assembly polls. Chaired by party's national president J.P. Nadda, the meeting at the BJP headquarters will finalise the list in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As per party sources, a detailed discussion on each candidate would take place during the said core group meeting and a short list of candidates prepared to discuss in the CEC meeting. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, senior leader Jishu, State president Rajiv Bhattacharjee, Election In charge Mahesh Sharma, BJP north east convenor Sambit Patra, former chief minister and Rajya Sabha MP Biplab Deb, and Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik are expected to attend both -- the core group as well as the CEC meeting. Apart from Nadda, PM Modi and the General Secretary organisation, the CEC meeting will be attended by Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Sarbananda Sonowal, Bhupendra Yadav, B. S. Yediyurappa, Vanathi Srinivasan, Satyanarayan Jatiya and others. Members, including the members of the Parliamentary Board, will also be there in attendance. Baghdad, Jan 27 : An Iraqi court has sentenced 14 terrorists to death over the mass killings of about 1,700 soldiers when the Islamic State (IS) had seized Tikrit, the capital of Salahudin province, in 2014. "The Central Criminal Court issued a verdict to execute the 14 terrorist criminals after establishing that they were involved in the Speicher massacre," the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council said in a statement. In June 2014, armed Sunni terrorists, spearheaded by IS group, launched a surprise offensive on Iraqi security forces and captured a large part of the country's northern and western territories after government troops abandoned their posts and military equipment. Reports said that some 1,700 soldiers who walked out of an air base, known as Camp Speicher north of Tikrit, were abducted and killed by the IS. The terror group later posted videos and photos showing its militants loading dozens of soldiers onto trucks, forcing them to lie face down and opening fire on them. Some were shown being dragged to the edge of the Tigris River and thrown into the water after being shot in the heads. Dehradun, Jan 27 : To deal with tigers, elephants and leopards, Dr Aditi Sharma, senior veterinarian and wildlife health specialist at the Rajaji Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand, had to first traverse the "unforgiving world of men". "The operation was to catch a leopard that was hiding in the lower storey of a two-floor cowshed in Tehri Garhwal's Narendra Nagar town. It was a dilapidated house. We were trying to target the leopard from the upper storey through a small window. No matter what, I had to get the beast sedated in order to rescue him safely. It took us several hours. But finally, we had him." Dr Aditi Sharma has numerous interesting tales to recount of her encounters with the tigers, leopards and elephants. Some are terrifying and some are moving - tranquilising a man-eater leopard in the middle of the night, keeping vigil from a dais on a tree in a dense forest or tending to an elephant injured in a train accident. She further describes what happened after the Narendra Nagar operation. "The women standing there hugged me as soon as I emerged out of the house after pacifying the leopard. They were crying. The leopard had been squatting in the cowshed for over 24 hours and the entire neighbourhood was terrorised. The way they embraced me and expressed their emotions, I felt that I had done something really big." Bravery comes with rigorous training The ride to recognition, however, was not easy. She had to overcome many hurdles before even being allowed in the vicinity of the wild animals. Her teachers could not even picture the girls pursuing the veterinary course being able to face these dangerous animals. They would advise the girls to build a career in the teaching, laboratory or research aspects of the course. But Dr Sharma, with her grit and courage, proved her teachers wrong by confronting and taming the dreaded animals. After her degree in 2001 and a Masters in Veterinary Surgery in 2004 from the Pant Nagar College of Veterinary Sciences, Dr Sharma began her career in 2005 by joining the Uttarakhand Animal Husbandry Department as a Veterinary Officer; ten years later, she moved to the Uttarakhand Forest Department as a Senior Veterinary Officer. The nerve and the skill to tackle ferocious animals had to be acquired slowly, through sustained rigorous training. In 2014, she enrolled in Wildlife Health Management training from the Wildlife Institute of India and three years after that, she went to Malilangwe Wildlife Estate in Zimbabwe to be trained in the Chemical and Physical Restraint of African Wildlife. She then pursued an advanced degree from the University of Pretoria in South Africa. In 2019, she travelled to the National Elephant Institute of Thailand to learn about the health, reproduction and parturition of the tuskers. She also learnt all about the management, rescue and rehabilitation of tigers from the National Tiger Conservation Authority. Despite her exhaustive training, Dr Sharma continued to endure misgivings about her potential. As the first woman wildlife medical officer in the Uttarakhand Forest Department, this has been her constant experience. "Even after my appointment in the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, the authorities were hesitant about entrusting me with crucial tasks. Once, an elephant was badly injured in a train collision. I was trained to deal with it but the reluctant forest department officials initially wanted to call a senior officer instead. Finally, I insisted that I treat the elephant because I was confident of my abilities." Dr Sharma's male colleagues were in a quandary. Eventually the woman veterinarian made them realise that it was unexceptional for her to discharge her duties. Gradually, she gained their confidence. In 2014, when the incidents of human-wildlife conflict increased in the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, with a sudden spike in the attacks by leopards and bears, Dr Aditi played a significant role in identifying and capturing the animals. A windfall of awards Former Chief Conservator of Forests in the Uttarakhand government, Jai Raj told 101Reporters, "Across the country, there are only a few women handling wildlife health management. And Dr Aditi is one of those who doesn't shy away from formidable challenges like restraining a wild elephant or confining a leopard. She has been awarded for her endeavours by the forest departments across the country. She has a specialisation in elephants." Her male colleagues may have taken time in realising her capability, but her family has always stood behind her. Speaking to 101Reporters, her husband and Assistant Professor at Doon Medical College Dr Sudhir Chand Sharma affirmed, "She believes in getting work done, even if she is required to stay in the forests for a long time. That too in the dense forests with no cellular network that I can't enter even in the daytime. But Aditi isn't afraid of anything." Her daughter might be fearless but Pushplata Sharma still gets nervous whenever Dr Sharma has to venture into the forest, "I get anxious about her safety, but she has proved there is indeed nothing that girls cannot do." The brave wildlife health specialist is now inspiring others to step into the forest. Dr Sharma's junior in the college and a doctor posted at the veterinary hospital in Tehri's Kirti Nagar, Preeti Pandey said, "Following her, we also want to work with wildlife. Aditi is doing an outstanding job not only among women but the male veterinarians also." The brave wildlife health specialist is now inspiring others to step into the forest. Dr Sharma's junior in the college and a doctor posted at the veterinary hospital in Tehri's Kirti Nagar, Preeti Pandey said, "Following her, we also want to work with wildlife. Aditi is doing an outstanding job not only among women but the male veterinarians also." For her next project, Dr Aditi Sharma is researching zoonotic diseases with the HNB Doon Medical University. Her paper, titled 'Assessment of Infectious Zoonotic Diseases, the One Health Approach' strives to identify wildlife diseases that could precipitate a Corona-like epidemic. Dr Sharma revealed, "Nowadays, nearly 60 per cent of infections turning into epidemics originate from animals and 75 per cent of those stem from wildlife." (This piece was originally published by Rukhmabai Initiatives, an endeavour by 101Reporters, to make Indian STEM more inclusive) New Delhi, Jan 27 : CMS IT Services announced on Friday it has appointed Sanjeev Singh as Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. Singh joins Bengaluru-based CMS IT Services from Wipro where he was Chief Operations Officer and a member of Wipro Executive Board. Before joining Wipro, he was the CEO at Aegis Ltd for its India and Sri Lanka businesses. "He has an exceptional leadership track record, strong exposure to Indian and global markets, deep strategic expertise, and proven track record of driving transformation and turning around underperforming businesses," said Mathew Cyriac, Chairman of the Board. Currently, CMS IT Services has over 6,500 employees and serves more than 300 leading enterprises across key industries, with infrastructure spread across the country. "I'm honoured to be invited to lead CMS IT Services, an extraordinary company with deep technology heritage built on strong foundation of values," said Singh. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Delhi High Court on Friday confined Unnao rape convict and expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar's bail release to the marriage ceremony dates of his daughter. The interim bail term of Sengar which was granted to him from January 27 to February 10 has been split into two intervals. The court has directed for interim bail from January 27 to 30, post which, he will surrender to police and again be released from February 6 to 9. He will again surrender to police on February 10. Sengar was handed over life imprisonment in the case. Today's decision came after the victim on Wednesday moved the High Court against its order granting Sengar interim bail mentioning that she has been receiving information that he is going to harm her and her family during his release period. Senior Advocate N. Hariharan appearing for Sengar said the juges had granted him bail on certain conditions. He added that Sengar, after release, has to report to the Lucknow SI and submit the pin of the mobile number so that he can be tracked wherever he goes. Representing the victim, advocate Mehmood Pracha said that Sengar can stay in custody parole, insted of releasing him on interim bail. "My submission remains that this is absolute discretion, the question remains whether it should be in his favour or victim's family," Pracha argued. "Threat perception has been taken into consideration," Sengar's counsel told the court. Pracha contended that even though the victim's family has security, threats are there. He said that other lawyers, who are related to the case have filed pleas in the Supreme Court stating the threat perception. Pracha said: "If he has sought bail for his daughter's wedding then he should be allowed bail for only the days when the functions are there. Why so many days?" The court noted that there may be some threat perception to the victim's family. The court noted that there are two main functions-January 30 (Tilak ceremony) and February 8 (Wedding)-at Gorakhpur and at Lucknow, respectively and there is gap between the two functions. The victims' application that she had moved on Wednesday read: "The apprehension of the Applicant as regards her safety, and that of her family, has increased, especially in consideration of the fact that the Appellant, upon being released on bail, is permitted to use his mobile phone, and he is likely to conspire with and influence his known persons in the administration in order to harass the present Applicant, and to create security risks." A division bench of Justices Mukta Gupta and Anoop Kumar Mendiratta had issued notice on the victim's application and sought the response of the CBI. A week back, the survivor had opposed the court's decision of granting interim bail to Sengar via a video and written statement. She had expressed her apprehensions to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, claiming that her and her family members' lives are in threat. In her letter shared on social media, she had also claimed that her uncle could not get an interim bail for her sister's marriage due to a conspiracy hatched by Sengar's family members. On January 15, the court had granted bail to Sengar in the rape case and four days later he was granted bail in victim's father's custodial death case. The bench had asked Sengar to report to the concerned Station House Officer on a daily basis during his bail period from January 27 to February 10 and furnish two sureties of Rs 1 lakh each. In the rape matter, moreover, Justice Mukta Gupta had raised a concern saying that wedding ceremonies of Sengar's daughters have been scheduled for so many days and everything can be completed in a few days. In response, the counsel representing Sengar had submitted that he is the father and the ceremony dates are given by the priest. Advocates for Sengar, had informed the court that as he is the only male member in the family, he has to make all the wedding arrangements, which are going to be held in Gorakhpur and Lucknow. Meanwhile, the counsel representing the CBI had said that a status report has been filed by the agency and it was found that two halls have been booked for the wedding rituals. The High Court, on December 22, 2022, had issued notice and directed the CBI to verify the facts of Sengar's bail plea and place a status report on record. Justices Gupta and Poonam A. Bamba had directed the CBI. Sengar's plea against the trial court's order in the rape case is pending in the high court with him having sought reliefs like quashing of the trial court's December 16, 2019 judgment, which convicted him, and the December 20, 2019 order sentencing him to imprisonment till the rest of his life. The trial court had convicted Sengar under various provisions of the IPC and also imposed a fine of Rs 25 lakh on him. The trial started on August 5, 2019, after the Supreme Court on August 1 directed to transfer all five cases related to the matter from Unnao to Delhi. The top court had directed to hold trial on a daily basis and complete it within 45 days. Amaravati, Jan 27 : Tollywood actor Nandamuri Taraka Ratna fainted during padyatra of TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh in Kuppam in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. Taraka Ratna was taken to hospital and his condition is stated to be stable. The incident occurred when there was a stampede like situation outside a mosque visited by Lokesh soon after launching his 4,000 km-long padyatra. A large number of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) workers surge forward after Lokesh came out of the place of worship. In the melee, the actor fell down and fainted. Local TDP leaders rushed him to a private hospital in Kuppam. Taraka Ratna's uncle and popular actor N. Balakrishna called on him at the hospital. The young actor was later shifted to a hospital in Bangalore. Taraka Ratna is the grandson of TDP founder, legendary actor and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao. He is the cousin of Junior NTR, Kalyan Ram and Lokesh. Taraka Ratna, who made his film debut in 2002 and has acted in about a dozen movies and web series, is reportedly keen to contest next year's Assembly elections. Melbourne, Jan 27 : Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece will play for his first Grand Slam title and the No. 1 ATP Ranking after he booked his place in the Australian Open final with a gritty win against Karen Khachanov here on Friday. In a 7-6(2), 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-3 semifinal victory, the Greek dominated with his all-action game, keeping his opponent under constant pressure in the three-hour, 21-minute match. The third seed Greek awaits nine-time champion Novak Djokovic or unseeded American Tommy Paul in Sunday's title match. If he faces the Serbian across the net, the pair will contest a straight shootout for World No. 1 in a rematch of the 2021 Roland Garros final, won by Djokovic in five sets. "These are the moments I've been working hard for. To be able to play finals like this, but finals that have bigger meaning than just a final," Tsitsipas said in his on-court interview. "It's a Grand Slam final, I'm fighting for the No. 1 spot. It's a childhood dream to be capturing the No. 1 spot one day. I'm close. I'm happy that this opportunity comes here in Australia and not somewhere else because this is a place of significance." What looked on course to be his fifth straight-sets win of the fortnight was complicated by a late Khachanov surge. The first-time Melbourne semifinalist denied Tsitsipas' attempt to serve out the match at 5-4 in the third set, and in the tie-break he saved two match points with fearless forehand winners, sparking a run of four points to steal the set. But as he did after failing to serve out the opening set, the Greek responded, seeing home a 3-0 lead in the final set to advance. Tsitsipas overcame adversity in the first set, in which he twice led by a break only for Khachanov to immediately level on both occasions. Despite being called for multiple time violations and a foot fault as the set built toward a tie-break, Tsitsipas regrouped and was the steadier player at the crucial moments, taking control of the match with a one-sided finish to the set. Late in set two, Tsitsipas used the point of the match to bring up 15/40 in the ninth game, retrieving three consecutive Khachanov overheads before claiming a 22-ball rally with a forehand winner. He went on to seal the break and serve out the set to love. Tsitsipas did his damage early in set three, breaking in its third game, but he could not extend his lead despite forcing a deuce in his next two return games. That came back to haunt him as Khachanov extended the match, but the Greek made no mistake in the fourth set, clinching victory on his fourth match point. The third seed faced just one break point in the final three sets -- the crucial moment when Khachanov broke from 30/15 as Tsitsipas tightened in his effort to serve out the match. Khachanov was bidding to reach his first Grand Slam final in what was his 24th Grand Slam appearance. The 26-year-old reached the semifinals at consecutive majors after advancing to that stage of the Slam for the first time at the 2022 US Open. Kolkata, Jan 27 : West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose on Friday faced the wrath of BJP for participating in "Hate Khori", a ritual to mark the beginning of learning, where he took his first lesson in Bangla in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Launching a scathing attack on the governor, BJP's national vice-president and Lok Sabha MP Dilip Ghosh said that it does not suit the chair of the governor to get involved in such a drama. "I agree that everyone should attempt to learn new languages. But the governor should not have got involved in a drama. At the same time, the 'Hate Khori' programme is for children who take the first lesson of learning. But the governor is already a highly educated person. I think that he is being guided by someone," Ghosh said. On Thursday, despite being invited, the leader of the opposition in West Bengal Assembly, Subendu Adhikari, did not attend the event with Mamata Banerjee as the chief guest. He said that the "Hate Khori" programme was "cunningly orchestrated" by the state government and the Chief Minister to camouflage the scams in the education sector for which several officials of the education department, including the former Education Minister, are behind the bars. Reacting to Ghosh's comments, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Dr Santanu Sen said the recent coordination between the governor and the state government has become an eyesore for the BJP leaders. "BJP leaders in the state were comfortable with governors like Jagdeep Dhankhar who acted on their behest. The Governor House-state government coordination had been the tradition of the entire country. The present governor is exactly following that tradition which has irked the BJP leaders," he said. Hyderabad, Jan 27 : Yesteryear's screen heroine and pan-India actress Jamuna's death on Friday morning has evoked a flood of condolence messages from Tollywood, cutting across political camps. In her heyday, Jamuna, who passed away aged 86, had starred alongside NTR, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Jaggayya, Krishna, Sobhan Babu and Krishnam Raju. And in her later years, she had worked in movies with the younger generation of Telugu stars. Taking to Twitter, Balakrishna and NTR Jr, the late NTR's son and grandson, respectively, condoled Jamuna's passing. "As a bubbly mischievous girl, fiery sister-in-law, homemaker and above all. as the on-screen Satyabhama of Telugu people, Jamuna garu is unforgettable. My homage to the departed soul," Balakrishna tweeted. His nephew and 'RRR' star NTR Jr tweeted: "For almost 30 years she reigned over the silver screen. Prayers for her soul." Actor Chiranjeevi stated: "Although her mother tongue was Kannada, she conquered the hearts of Telugu audiences with her performances in several Telugu hit movies." His brother, Tollywood star and Jana Sena Party founder Pawan Kalyan, also took to social media to express his condolences. "Senior actress and former Lok Sabha member Jamuna's death is sad," he noted. "She has left an indelible impression as Satyabhama in the mythological movies. My condolences to her family." Another Tollywood star, Mahesh Babu, said: "Saddened to hear about the demise of Jamuna garu . Will fondly remember her for her immense contribution to the industry." Jamuna's death comes after that of several Tollywood actors of the yesteryear, including Krishna, Krishnam Raju and Kaikala Satyanarayana over the past several months. Jamuna is survived by her son, Vamsee Juluri, professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco, and daughter, the artist Sravanthi Juluri. Agartala, Jan 27 : In a major boost to ruling BJP ahead of February 16 Tripura Assembly polls, CPI(M) MLA Moboshar Ali, senior Congress leader Billal Mia and few other leaders are likely to join the saffron party in Delhi, party sources said here on Friday. Ali was elected to the Tripura Assembly from Kailasahar constituency in northern Tripura in 2018, while Mia won the Boxanagar seat in western Tripura twice in 1988 and 1998. Both are also senior minority leaders of their respective parties. The party is in talks with a few other CPI(M)and Congress leaders to join the party, a BJP leader said. "BJP would likely nominate both Ali and Mia to contest in the forthcoming Assembly polls," he told IANS on condition of anonymity. CPI(M)-led five party Left Front announced their 47 candidates on Wednesday leaving 13 seats to their new ally Congress and dropping 8 sitting MLAs including Ali. The Kailasahar assembly constituency, from where Ali was elected in 2018 Assembly polls, was allotted to Congress. Former four-time Chief Minister and CPI-M's Politburo member Manik Sarkar, party stalwart and former minister Badal Chowdhury, three more former ministers - Tapan Chakraborty, Sahid Chowdhury, Banulal Saha - were also dropped on health grounds. Congress leaders are visibly unhappy over the meagre allotment of seats to them. Visibly unhappy Congress leader and the party's lone MLA Sudip Roy Barman said that they had first demanded 27 seats and then 23 seats from the Left parties."They (Left parties) have taken the decision as per their whims and wishes, we would go as per the whims and wishes of the people," Roy Barman told IANS. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Congress on Friday demanded discussion in the Parliament during budget session on losing 26 patrolling points at the LAC in Ladakh, and alleged that after 17 rounds of talks, the restoration of status quo was not done. Citing three-day Annual DGP-IGP's Conference in which a detailed Security Research Paper was submitted for discussion, the Congress alleged that it revealed shocking facts about the rank apathy by Modi Govt to China's illegal occupation of India's territory in the region. Addressing a press conference, Media Chairman of the party Pawan Khera said, "India lost access to 26 out of 65 Patrolling Points (PP), which was not the case before May 2020, and the subsequent Galwan clash where 20 bravehearts sacrificed their lives. He stated as per the paper "Presently, there are 65 PPs starting from Karakoram pass to Chumur which are to be patrolled regularly by the ISFs (Indian Security Forces). Out of 65 PPs, our presence has been lost in 26 PPs (i.e. PP no. 5-17, 24-32, 37, 51,52,62) due to restrictive or no patrolling by the ISFs (Indian Security Forces). Later on, China forces us to accept the fact that, as, such areas have not seen the presence of ISFs or civilians since long, the Chinese were present in these areas. This leads to a shift in the border under control of ISFs towards Indian side and a buffer zone is created in all such pockets which ultimately leads to loss of control over these areas by India. This tactic of PLA to grab land inch-by-inch is known as Salami Slicing." He said PLA has taken advantage of the buffer areas in this de-escalation talks by placing their best cameras on the highest peaks and is monitoring the movements of Indian forces. This peculiar situation can be seen at Black top, Helmet top mountains in Chushul, at Demchok, at Kakjung, at Gogra Hills in Hot Springs and at Depsang Plains near Chip Chip river. Khera said as per the paper "Till September 2021, senior officers of district administration and security forces would easily patrol till Karakoram Pass (35 km from Daulat Beg Oldie) in the DBO sector, however, restrictions in the form of check posts were placed by the Indian Army since December 2021 at DBO itself to stop any such movement towards Karakoram Pass as PLA had installed cameras and they would immediately raise objections on the movement from Indian side if not informed beforehand by." The unfenced borders have been serving as pastures for the nomadic community of Changthang region (Rebos) and given the scarcity of the rich pastures, they would traditionally venture into the areas close to the PPs. He alleged that the paper said: "Since 2014, enhanced restrictions on the grazing movement and areas have been imposed on the Rebos by ISFs and this has caused some resentment against them. The soldiers are especially deployed in disguise to stop the movement of Rebos to the higher reaches that could be objected by the PLA and similarly the development works in the border villages like Demchok, Koyul which are under direct electronic surveillance of the PLA suffer, as they raise objections promptly." Baghdad, Jan 27 : The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani's visit to France was aimed at enhancing the bilateral partnership, securing French support for Iraq's reconstruction and restoring non-stop flights between the two countries. "The visit comes in the context of strengthening partnership, enhancing cooperation in the field of combating terrorism," and seeking to attract greater participation of French enterprises in the reconstruction of Iraq, Xinhua news agency quoted Ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf as saying. Iraq also attempts to restore the direct flight between Baghdad and Paris and to have the ban on the country's airlines lifted, he added. Leading a high-level government delegation, the Prime Minister left on Thursday for Paris on an official visit, according to his office. Upon his arrival in Paris, he met French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace. In a tweet on Saturday, the Prime Minister said: "A short while ago, (my) friend Macron and I signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which lays down a roadmap for expanding the horizons of cooperation between our two countries, in various fields. "We will continue to work with friends for serious partnerships that guarantee Iraq achieving economic reform and sustainable development, as we drew and planned in the government program." The past years have witnessed deepened relations between Iraq and France. French President Emmanuel Macron visited Iraq in 2020 and 2021, while France's TotalEnergies signed a deal with the Iraqi government in 2021, agreeing to invest in oil, gas and renewables projects in southern Iraq for 25 years. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Supreme Court on Friday orally observed that lawyers should not be involved in a family outburst, while hearing an application in connection with remarks made by the former IPL chairman Lalit Modi against former Attorney General for India Mukul Rohatgi. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted before a bench comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and M. M. Sundresh that there was an undertaking that there will be no social media comments. Citing a social media post by Modi against Rohatgi, Sibal said, "We have the URLs... it is being breached". Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing Lalit Modi, said he will show that the undertaking has not been breached. The bench orally observed that it is nothing but the outburst of a family member and lawyers should not be involved in it. It further added, "Parties are mature enough to understand....remove all this". Salve informed the court that Modi's remarks against Rohatgi were taken down. The bench said it is not passing any order in this matter and asked Salve to use his good offices to sort it out. Salve said it was an angry outburst and now Lalit Modi's son is leading the meditation. The bench noted, "whenever you start to fight like this in the public, it is always detrimental to both parties in any litigation. It only leads to retaliation in a similar manner". The bench further added the legal battle is entirely separate, "but do not involve the lawyers...". After hearing arguments, the top court declined to pass any order on the remarks made by Lalit Modi against Rohatgi on social media, and listed the Modi family dispute for hearing in July. On January 19, the apex court agreed to examine a plea alleging former IPL chairman Lalit Modi made some "scurrilous" remarks in a social media post against former Attorney General and senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud saying that Modi has made scurrilous allegations against Rohatgi. Sibal said in this matter, there is a family dispute, the Modi family dispute and there was an undertaking given before the court that no statements will be made on social media but scurrilous statements have been made against my colleague. "This cannot be allowed, it is a violation of the court's order...", said Sibal. The top court had then asked Sibal to give the paper book. "We will keep the IA (interim application) on board before an appropriate bench next Friday," said the bench. In August last year, the apex court had appointed former top court judge Justice R.V. Raveendran as a mediator to settle the family property dispute involving the former IPL head and his mother Bina Modi, wife of late industrialist K K Modi. Rohatgi is one of the lawyers representing Bina Modi in the dispute. In an Instagram post, Modi had made some comments against Rohatgi. However, later in another post he reportedly apologised to the senior advocate. On January 13, speaking to IANS on Modi's Instagram post, Rohatgi said, "It is rubbish" and he does not want to comment on it. Lalit Modi had moved the apex court challenging the Delhi High Court judgment that the anti-arbitration injunction lawsuit filed by Bina Modi against her son is maintainable. San Francisco, Jan 27 : The Material You redesign of the Google app is now rolling out on Android, which was earlier in the testing phase. According to 9to5Google, the Google app now has a more Material You-aligned bottom bar with pill-shaped indicators, which is more in line with the new Search filters carousel design. This is the short version, as opposed to the standard tall variant found in nearly every other first-party app, though Gmail employs something even more streamlined. The Google app for Android is the latest to get a modern account switcher, following Messages and the web. When users tap their profile avatar in the Google app, a switcher that uses Material You with Dynamic Colour will appear, according to the report. Moreover, on longer lists that incorporate settings, the theming provides a good visual separation. The account switcher is located in the inner container, followed by Search history, Delete last 15 minutes, Results about you, and Reminders. Outside, a Google logo appears at the top, followed by Your data in Search, Settings, and Help & feedback, the report mentioned. Finally, the Google app Settings have been completely redesigned with an AMOLED black background in a dark theme. New Delhi, Jan 27 : India on Friday issued a notice to Pakistan, blaming it of "intransigence" on the implementation of the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), according to reports. Reports quoting sources said that the "notice of modification" was sent to Islamabad on January 25. India and Pakistan had signed the IWT in September 1960 after nine-year-long negotiations. The World Bank was a signatory of the pact. The IWT envisages a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two countries regarding the use of waters of a number of rivers. The reports quoted sources as saying that India has always been a steadfast supporter and a responsible partner in implementing the IWT in letter and spirit. Pakistan's actions however have adversely impinged on the provisions of IWT and their implementation and forced India to issue an appropriate notice for modification of the pact, reports quoting sources said. In 2015, Pakistan had called for appointment of a neutral expert to its technical objections to Kishenganga and Ratle Hydro Electric Projects in India. In 2016 however, it retracted the request and sought a court of arbitration to adjudicate its objections. This unilateral action by Pakistan was in contravention of the graded mechanism of dispute settlement envisaged by Article IX of the IWT, reports quoting sources said. Consequently India made a separate request for the matter to be referred to a neutral expert. The initiation of two simultaneous processes on the same questions and the potential of their inconsistent or contradictory outcomes creates an unprecedented and legally untenable situation, which risks endangering the IWT itself, reports quoting sources said. "The World Bank acknowledged this itself in 2016, and took a decision to 'pause' the initiation of two parallel processes and request India and Pakistan to seek an amicable way out," the sources were quoted as per reports. Islamabad, Jan 27 : The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said its foreign exchange reserves had decreased by $923 million last week. During the week ending on January 20, the total foreign exchange reserves of the Pakistani central bank fell to around $3.67 billion, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday night. The decrease was "due to external debt repayments", Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying. Net foreign reserves held by commercial banks came at $5.77 billion, it said. Total liquid foreign reserves held by the South Asian country stood at about $9.45 billion, according to the SBP. Jaipur, Jan 27 : Preparations are in full swing to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is visiting Malaseri Dungri in Bhilwara district to participate in the 1111th birth anniversary celebrations of Lord Devnarayan on Saturday, BJP National General Secretary and state in-charge Arun Singh said. He stated, "The religious visit of the Prime Minister on the 1111th programme of Lord Devnarayan will be grand, divine and historic. For this, welcome gates are being made in every village, where drums will be played to welcome him. People from all societies will come here to listen to Prime Minister Modi and worship Lord Devnarayan." State Organization General Secretary, Chandrashekhar said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is coming to Malaseri Dungri for the first time. In this historic programme, common people, enlightened people, every society, class and caste will participate. Modi in the Air Force special plane will come from Delhi to Dabok Airport and then will reach Malaseri Dungri of Bhilwara's Asind area by helicopter. From the helipad, he will reach the venue at Malaseri Dungri by road to attend the 1111th birth anniversary celebrations of Lord Devnarayan on Saturday. In the afternoon, the Prime Minister will come back to Dabok Airport by helicopter. After this, he will leave for Delhi by a special Air Force aircraft. SPG, IB and other security agencies have reached Udaipur airport for security check. More than 500 jawans of SPG, IB and CISF will be deployed for Modi's security. To deal with medical emergency, a team of RNT Medical College's cardiologist, medicine specialist, anesthesiologist and other specialist doctors will be stationed at May Life Support Ambulance Airport. At the same time, security agencies have already put in place tight security arrangements at the airport in association with CISF. CISF has started intensive checking of baggage of passengers arriving at the airport. During the tour in Bhilwara district on Saturday, the Prime Miniter will visit Lord Devnarayan temple and address the Dharma Sabha on the occasion. He will also worship in the temple of Lord Devnarayan, the deity of Gurjars. A large number of people are likely to come from Mewar, Hadauti and Ajmer to Dhundhar and Braj-Dang. Tremendous enthusiasm is being seen in the Gujjar community regarding the arrival of Prime Minister Modi. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Left-wing students of the Ambedkar University here staged a protest on Friday after electricity was snapped in the institute's premises following an announcement to screen the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Despite the university administration cutting the power supply, students still managed to watch the documentary titled, 'India: The Modi Question', on their laptops. In the wake of the protest, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) has reached the university. Additional details are awaited. Friday's protest comes two days after the Delhi Police on Wednesday detained 13 students of Jamia Millia Islamia after the announcement of the screening of the documentary in the Mass Communication Department of the university. According to Esha Pandey, Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast), the screening was organised by a group of students despite no permission from the varsity administration. The same day, Delhi Police had received cross complaints from both Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNSU) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) a day after high drama prevailed on the campus, with JNSU members alleging that they were attacked with stones while watching the documentary. Gaza, Jan 27 : Israeli fighter jets on Friday carried out a series of airstrikes on facilities belonging to militant groups in the Gaza Strip in response to rockets fired from the coastal enclave, witnesses said. Israeli army drones and fighter jets were heard buzzing in the air, and several explosions were heard in central Gaza Strip, the witnesses told Xinhua news agency. They added that more than 14 missiles were fired at a military post that belonged to Gaza militant groups. Palestinian medical sources said that no injuries were reported during the strikes that mainly targeted posts and facilities that belong to the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The airstrikes were in response to the firing of two rockets at southern Israel, said a spokesman from the Jewish state's army. No group has claimed responsibility for firing the rockets, which was a response to the killing of nine Palestinians during an Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp, deemed to be the most deadly in nearly two decades. During the Israeli airstrikes on Friday, militants in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave also fired at least five rockets at southern Israeli communities close to the borders with the Gaza Strip and anti-craft missiles were fired at Israeli fighter jets by Hamas militants, sources close to Hamas security told Xinhua. Media outlets in Gaza quoted an Egyptian source as saying that Egyptian intelligence is in intensive contact with the Palestinian factions to prevent an escalation in Gaza. More than 170 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in 2022, and at least 29 have been killed in January this year, according to figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry. According to the UN, 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2006. The tensions have been further aggravated since Israel's most right-wing government, headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took office last month. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a plea by the Andhra Pradesh government against a high court order, which held that the state had no authority under law to appoint an executive officer to the Ahobilam Mutt temple in Kurnool district. A bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul told the counsel, representing the Andhra Pradesh government, to let the religious people handle this matter. The bench, also comprising Justice A.S. Oka asked why is the state government stepping into this matter, and added: "Let the temple people deal with it... Why should religious places not be left to religious people?" The top court said that Andhra Pradesh has no jurisdiction or entitlement under law to appoint an executive officer of the 'Sri Ahobila Mutt Parampara Aadheena Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Devasthanam' (the Ahobilam Mutt temple). It told the state government lawyer: "In every case under Article 136, we need not try to settle the law. Sorry." After hearing the arguments, the top court declined to entertain the state government and others' appeal against the high court order. A petition before the high court contended that the Ahobilam temple has been under the control of Sri Ahobilam Mutt, which is based in Tamil Nadu, since time immemorial. The high court had said appointing an executive officer for the temple, which is a part of the mutt, violated Article 26(d) of the Constitution as it affects the right of administration of Jeeyars'/Mathadipathis. The Andhra Pradesh government and others had challenged the high court order passed in October last year. It made it clear that the temple is an integral part of the Ahobilam Mutt and the contention raised by the state government that the temple and Mutt were distinct entities cannot be entertained. The high court further added that said the temple is an integral and inseparable part of the Ahobilam mutt, which was established as a part of the propagation of Hindu religion and for rendering spiritual service for propagating Sri Vaishnavism. Bengaluru, Jan 27 : The first priority must be given to provide the basic infrastructure to the children, said Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. Speaking after opening the Science Fair-2023 here on Friday, he said "the government spends crores of rupees on the residential educational institutions." "Money is spent on building, compound walls and other things. As told in the State cabinet and functions, special attention must be given on providing basic facilities to kids," he said. "First you make the changes to be done and then focus on other things". Bommai said, "despite spending Rs 30 crore on each school, the facilities that should have been made to the children are not happening. This is the gift of the previous governments due to the contract system. When Govind Karjol was the Social Welfare Minister, special fund was given towards providing desk, sleeping place and books, and lot of things have improved in the last three years." "Happy to note that the Residential Schools Association organised the Science Fair. The purpose of starting the residential schools is to provide higher education, quality education to SC/ST and Backward Classes children," he said. "Over 1,000 schools are participating in this science fair. Upon the evaluation of these schools, it was found that the students of these schools have improved a lot and scored more marks than others in the competitive exams," Bommai added. "They have come out of inferiority complex and gained self-confidence. These institutions need to be strengthened further, and the children must be given quality education for them to develop their personality. The government is formulating special programs in this regard," he said. Stressing the need to start the competitive exams in schools, Bommai said equality has been ensured among the kids. "The shortfalls in schools must be addressed and all steps to prepare the children to face the competitive exams should be taken." "The students have come here by scoring good marks and they must go back from here with over 90 per cent marks. Minister Kota Srinivasa Pujari has done good works and teaching karate to three lakh girl students is a big achievement. The minister has taken steps to remove untouchability in the society," he said. Canberra, Jan 27 : Peak consumer protection body, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on Friday that it has started identifying misleading testimonials and endorsements by social media influencers after receiving more than 150 tip-offs. Following a request from the ACCC last week seeking community feedback, the watchdog said hat they will look at more than 100 mentioned influencers who were reported to hide their affiliation with the product or company they are promoting, reports Xinhua news agency. Most of those involved were in the beauty, lifestyle, parenting, and fashion categories, where influencer marketing is prevalent. The ACCC said the sweep will be run over the following weeks. A range of social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Facebook, and livestreaming service, Twitch, will be reviewed, as well as the role of other parties such as advertisers, marketers and brands in facilitating misconduct. "The number of tip-offs reflects the community concern about the ever-increasing number of manipulative marketing techniques on social media, designed to exploit or pressure consumers into purchasing goods or services," ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said. "The ACCC will not hesitate to take action where we see consumers are at risk of being misled or deceived by a testimonial, and there is potential for significant harm. This action may include following up misconduct with compliance, education and potential enforcement activities as appropriate." The watchdog noted that although many consumers are aware that influencers receive a financial benefit for promoting products and services, they remain concerned that influencers, advertisers and brands try to hide this fact from consumers, which prevents them from making informed choices. This can particularly apply to micro-influencers with smaller followings, as they can build and maintain a more seemingly authentic relationship with followers to add legitimacy to hidden advertising posts. "With more Australians choosing to shop online, consumers often rely on reviews and testimonials when making purchases," Cass-Gottlieb said. "It is important social media influencers are clear if there are any commercial motivations behind their posts," she added. "This includes those posts that are incentivized and presented as impartial but are not." Mumbai, Jan 27 : Barely five days after the Shiv Sena (UBT)'s alliance with Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA), an apparent war of words has suddenly erupted between two new allies, here on Friday. Sena (UBT) MP and Chief Spokesperson Sanjay Raut has advised VBA President Prakash Ambedkar to "watch his words" while talking about the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) supremo Sharad Pawar. He was referring to Dr. Ambedkar's remark that "Pawar is still with the BJP". Soon after the VBA-Sena (UBT) partnership was announced on January 23, Ambedkar made the said remark sparking a fresh political row. Responding sharply, Raut declared that "we do not agree with Dr. Ambedkar's statement on Sharad Pawar at all". "The Congress and NCP are the allies of the Sena (UBT) in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Opposition coalition. We would request Dr. Ambedkar to be careful what he speaks about Sharad Pawar henceforth," said Raut. He said that all must work together in the MVA by keeping past differences at bay and forge a strong united front to tackle the political challenges ahead. Undeterred by Raut's snub, Dr. Ambedkar retorted by saying dismissively he would have obliged "if the same advice had come from Sena (UBT) President and ex-chief minister Uddhav Thackeray". The VBA chief reiterated that in politics "no parties are enemies of each other", but made it clear that his party would not tie-up again with the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), its former partner for a few years. Dr. Ambedkar also said that if the BJP discards its 'Manusmriti' there would be discussions with them since stopping dictatorship and saving democracy is the need of the hour for which all like-minded parties should come together. On January 23, the 97th birth anniversary of the late Balasaheb Thackeray, the Sena (UBT)-VBA formally announced their much-anticipated 'Shiv Shakti-Bhim Shakti' political alliance for the upcoming civic polls. However, both the MVA constituents Congress and NCP had cautiously "welcomed" the new partnership, though they reportedly harbour reservations on its efficacy. The ruling BJP leaders like state President Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Union MSME Minister Narayan Rane had scoffed at the development, and predicted that the alliance would collapse soon. Kochi, Jan 27 : A bench of Justice Shaji P. Chaly of the Kerala High Court on Friday directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to decide within a month a transgender student's application for name and gender change in his certificates of 10th and 12th standards. Justice Chaly further directed that in case any clarification or further documents are required from the petitioner, CBSE should request it within two weeks. "Having heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Standing Counsel for CBSE, this matter is disposed of directing the CBSE, Regional Office, Thiruvananthapuram to finalise the application submitted by the petitioner within one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment. I also make it clear that if any clarification is required from the petitioner, sufficient requests shall be made by CBSE from today. I direct the registry to mask the name of the petitioner in all further proceedings," the court ordered. The Court was considering a petition moved by a transgender person seeking directions to the CBSE to change his name, gender, and photograph in his CBSE certificates of 10 and 12th standards. The petitioner was born a female at birth but had recently changed his sex and name. The petitioner, a young undergraduate degree holder, submitted that he is looking forward to pursue his post graduate degree. He further submitted that in order to get admission to the PG course, he has to change his 10th and 12th certificates under CBSE to conform to his recently chosen name and affix a new photograph. The petitioner contended that under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, 2020, once a person changes gender, the change has to be reflected in all government documents. He submitted that he had approached CBSE to alter his documents, but CBSE told him that his birth certificate must be changed first to amend his school certificates. However, even when the birth certificate was amended, CBSE didn't change the details in his 10th and 12th standard certificates, the petitioner said. Bhopal, Jan 27 : In a shocking incident, a former BJP councilor in Madhya Pradesh Sanjeev Mishra and his wife and their two sons were found dead in an alleged case of mass suicide. The incident took place on Thursday in Vidisha, around 60 km away from state capital Bhopal, police said. The victims were identified as Sanjeev Mishra, 45, his wife Neelam (42), their sons Anmol (13) and Sarthak (7). Mishra was associated with the BJP and he was a former municipal councilor, who was running a restaurant called Janata Bhojanalaya in Vidisha. Before the incident came to light, Mishra had posted a cryptic message on Facebook, in which he said: "May God spare even the enemy's children from this disease. I am not able to save the children, I do not want to live anymore." Police said that after seeing his post, some of his friends went to the family's home and upon ringing the door bell, there was no response from inside. The police were immediately called to the spot. Vidisha ASP Sameer Yadav said on Friday that all four were found unconscious when the police broke open the door. They were immediately taken to a nearby hospital. "While Anmol and Sarthak were declared dead on arrival, Mishra and his wife passed away during treatment late on Thursday night. They had all consumed pesticide," the ASP added. Yadav further said the police were investigating the matter. Preliminary investigation however revealed that it was a suicide case. "According to Mishra's social post, both his children were suffering from an incurable genetic disorder Muscular Dystrophy. A case has been registered in the matter, and further investigation was underway," the ASP said while briefing the press on Friday. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday wrote to Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Prof Yogesh Singh seeking absorption of ad-hoc and guest teachers. In a letter to VC Singh, Sisodia said, "The ongoing interviews for Assistant Professors in different colleges of the University of Delhi have been catastrophic as the displacements of around seventy per cent ad-hoc and temporary teachers have been reported. These teachers have been contributing to the corporate life of the colleges and the loss of experienced teachers will adversely affect the teaching and learning in the colleges". The Dy CM further said, "We believe that adhoc teachers should be absorbed in permanent recruitment. Many of these teachers have been teaching in Delhi University colleges for decades. They understand the challenges of an institution like Delhi University, of how to deal with students coming from different parts of the country, with diverse linguistic backgrounds and academic experiences". Sisodia said that the experience of teaching in a classroom cannot be replaced. Therefore, it is important to continue these teachers in Delhi University. In 28 Delhi Govt Colleges, where Delhi Government nominees are in the Governing Body (GB), we are responsible for the adhoc and temporary teachers working therein, he said in the letter. "Ordinance XVIII-4(a) provides for the appointments of teaching staff to be done by the Governing Body. In our 28 colleges, we want to go ahead with the absorption of the ad-hoc and temporary teachers. The Temp Ord XIII A (1977-78) shall be revived to implement the absorption of the adhoc and temporary teachers by the GBs of these colleges. Recently Punjab Government has done the absorption of such teachers and employees", reads the letter. "Hence, we request you to facilitate the absorption of ad-hoc and temporary teachers in these colleges in which our GBs shall extend their cooperation for this," said Sisodia. Sydney, Jan 27 : Two teenagers and an adult have been charged with the fatal stabbing of a man in Australia's state of New South Wales (NSW) more than a year ago. In a statement, NSW Police noted that emergency services were called to Nowra, a city located in the state's South Coast region, on January 4, 2022 following reports that a man suffering a stab wound had been found unconscious, reports Xinhua news agency. Though police officers attended and commenced CPR, the 51-year-old victim died at the hospital a short time later. After year-long extensive investigations, the police on Tuesday arrested two teenage boys, both aged 17. Both teenagers were charged with murder, aggravated robbery with wounding/grievous bodily harm, attempt robbery in company, aggravated enter dwelling with intent knowing people there, and drive conveyance taken without consent of owner. A 22-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday after detectives executed a search warrant at a home in Warilla. All three people were refused bail to appear at local courts. Kuppam : , Jan 27 (IANS) Telugu Desam Party (TDP) general secretary Nara Lokesh on Friday embarked on a 4,000 km-long state-wide padyatra, which is expected to gear up the opposition party for next year's Assembly elections. The young leader began the foot march from Kuppam constituency represented by party president and his father N. Chandrababu Naidu, to a massive public response and amid enthusiasm by party cadres. Thousands of TDP workers and supporters joined Lokesh in the padyatra titled 'Yuva Galam' (youth's voice). The walkathon will cover 120 Assembly constituencies over the next 400 days across the state. Lokesh launched the padyatra at 11.03 a.m. after special pooja Varadaraja Swamy temple. He also visited Mecca Masjid at Lakshmipuram and later Hebrass House of Worship Church at Bapunagar where he offered prayers and took the blessings of the community elders. Lokesh's father-in-law, popular actor and TDP MLA N. Balakrishna and cousin actor Nandamuri Taraka Ratna also participated in the pooja. Later, when the padyatra reached a mosque, Taraka Ratna fell down and fainted due to a stampede-like situation. The actor was shifted to a private hospital. Balakrishna also rushed to the hospital. The president of the state unit of the TDP, Atchen Naidu, party politburo members, and thousands of party cadres walked along Lokesh. The main opposition party said that the sole aim of the padyatra is to end the "atrocious" rule of Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. It is confident that the march will create a history in the state. The party functionaries showered flowers on Lokesh wishing him all the best in his endeavour. Women activists offered 'aartis' to give a grand welcome to the party general secretary, and the locals of Kuppam raised slogans like 'Chandranna Bidda (Son of Mr Chandrababu Naidu) zindabad'. The TDP leader will address a public meeting later in the day. Police have made elaborate security arrangements for the walkathon. Chittoor district police has granted conditional permission for the march. The TDP said that the conditions imposed for Lokesh's padyatra reflect Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government's sense of insecurity. The TDP leaders alleged that the government is trying to create hurdles for the padyatra. San Francisco, Jan 27 : Tech giant Google will reportedly release a Pro version of its upcoming Pixel Tablet, which will feature a Tensor G2 chip. According to leaker Kuba Wojciechowski, the tech giant initially started working on a tablet using the original Tensor chip but this project was then allegedly cancelled as the company began working on a tablet that used Tensor G2 instead, reports Android Authority. The first device is expected to be the Pixel Tablet and the second device is likely to be the one coming to market this year, which might be the Pro model. The leaker also mentioned that the only difference between the two devices is likely to be the chip powering them. Last month, Wojciechowski discovered a device called "TangorPro" in the Google Camera Go application's code. As "Tangor" is believed to be the codename for the Pixel Tablet, "TangorPro" strongly indicated a Pro variant of the Pixel Tablet. Meanwhile, the upcoming Pixel Tablet and its charging speaker dock have been leaked on Facebook Marketplace, a destination on Facebook where people can buy and sell items. Srinagar, Jan 27 : Senior Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused J&K administration of a 'big security lapse' at the Banihal tunnel. Addressing a press conference in Khanabal area of Anantnag district, Rahul said that when the Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed Banihal tunnel, there was not a single police man to manage or control the huge crowd that had come to receive him. He said that his security guards advised him not to go ahead asserting that he cannot go against the advice of his security guards. He said that he was hopeful that security arrangements would be elaborate for his future programmes those includes the culmination of the Yatra at Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) office in Srinagar where he is scheduled to hoist the National flag on January 30 and address a public rally. Senior Congress leader, Jairam Ramesh told the media that Rahul was supposed to walk 16 kms today, but he could walk only 4 kms due to breach of security. He said that administration must ensure proper security for the Yatra in the days ahead, especially when it reaches Srinagar. He alleged that due to the wrong policies of BJP and RSS, India as a nation is falling apart and the Yatra is an effort to bring people together. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Several party leaders including Delhi BJP team visited the schools of their respective working areas and joined the Pariksha Pe Charcha programme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the students. During one of the programmes organised at Rohini's Mount Abu School, Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Working President of Delhi BJP Virendra Sachdeva, MP Hansraj Hans, Delhi BJP Spokesperson Shubhendu Shekhar Awasthi, along with Principal Jyoti Arora, Managing Director of the school Bharat Arora participated. Interacting with the students in the programme, Union Minister Jitendra Singh told them that the thoughts given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be put to use at the time of examination. Along with this, he also advised the parents and teachers that everyone should understand the thinking of the students and their goals. Virendra Sachdeva extended good wishes to all the students for the upcoming exams. He said, "Students work extra hard at the time of exams, but there is no need to limit this hard work only to exams, but we should be aware of time management in every situation of our life." New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Centre on Friday informed the Delhi High Court that Angad Singh, a US-based journalist with Vice News, has been blacklisted despite being an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holder. On December 7, 2022, a bench of Justice Prathiba M. Singh had directed the Central government to file a response in a suit filed by Singh against his deportation from Delhi to New York in August last year. He has also challenged the refusal to grant him a Special Permit. Appearing for the Centre, advocate Anurag Ahluwalia told the court that as Singh has violated Section 11A of the Foreigners Order, 1948, which prohibits a foreigner from producing any picture, film or documentary without permission in writing from the Centre, he is a blacklisted subject. He had allegedly depicted India in a negative manner in the "India Burning" documentary. Singh has covered important issues in his documentaries, including the Shaheen Bagh protests, the farmers' protests and the Covid-19 pandemic in India, among others. Ahluwalia submitted that Singh was entering India on his journalist visa for a personal visit but he wasn't issued a visa for that. The FRRO, in an affidavit, told the court that Singh was blacklisted at the instance of the Consulate General of India in New York. On January 7, Ahluwalia had said that the affidavit will explain why the petitioner was denied entry into the country. Advocate Swathi Sukumar, representing Singh before the court said that Singh's OCI card is still valid and has not yet been cancelled. To this, Ahluwalia sought time to obtain instructions and file a response on whether any show cause notice or proceedings were started against Singh for the cancellation of his OCI card. The court then granted two weeks' time to Ahluwalia to file the affidavit. In his plea, Singh has mentioned that his fundamental right under the Citizenship Act, 1955, is being violated by not letting him into India. He has also asked the court to restrain the government from violating his rights. Earlier, Singh's counsel had sought a declaration that his deportation from the government was illegal and disclosure of all the materials and data available with the government related to him. His mother, through a Facebook post, had claimed that he had come to India to meet his family in Punjab and it was because of his journalism that he was deported. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Delhi Police have apprehended a 17-year-old college student for allegedly stalking and harassing a minor girl on Instagram and forcing her to share private pictures, an official said here on Friday. The accused is presently pursuing graduation from School of open learning. Threatening to circulate her nude pictures which he had accessed online, the accused demanded more such pictures and sought sexual favours. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (north) Sagar Singh Kalsi, the girl's father lodged a complaint regarding the crime through Cyber Portal at Cyber North police station. He alleged that his 14 year-old-daughter shared her personal pictures and videos with someone through Instagram chats and apprehended that video might be circulated. "However, the victim's father was reluctant to initiate legal action. The girl disclosed that she had shared her private pictures and video with a friend on Instagram and now he has been pressuring her to indulge into inappropriate chats and send more such pictures," said the DCP. During the investigation, police collected details of the Instagram profile, including IP addresses and mobile number used in the registration of the alleged profile. "The details of these IP addresses were further obtained from concerned mobile operators, from where, the mobile number and IMEI number used in the offence were found and the identity of the alleged person was ascertained," said the DCP. "A question was also raised after the pictures used by the alleged Instagram user were of a boy around the age of 17 to 20 years, whereas the user of the alleged SIM card was around the age of 50 years," said the official. However, police reached the address on which the SIM card was registered only to find that no such person ever stayed at the mentioned address. "A team was assigned to verify the actual address of the alleged Instagram user with the SIM card dealer while the second team on the case was rushed to the live location of the alleged person, obtained on the basis of the call details record of his mobile number and started the search for him," said the DCP. "Finally, 3-4 hours of foot-work and inquiry with the grocery store owners and local vendors bore fruit, when the picture used by the alleged Instagram user was identified by a local boy, who claimed to know this person and further led the team to his present house address," said the DCP. The boy, who was using the SIM card on his father's name was not available at home, however, his father was directed by police to produce him before police, who ensured the same. "His father produced him and he was then apprehended in the case, " said the DCP. "He told police that he came in possession of some private pictures of a girl and started following her on Instagram. He kept her private pictures saved in his mobile phone and used to stalk her online all the time. After befriending her, he started asking for her nude photos, but when the girl did not agree to his demands, he further told her that he has her private pictures already," said the official. He even showed those pictures to the victim girl and demanded for cheap talks and more private pictures. "On inspection of his mobile phone recovered from him, it has been found that he was harassing many other young girls using the same tactics. The accused had forced his parents to buy him an I-phone to impress these girls," said the official. Mumbai, Jan 27 : Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiqui has slammed 'Mission Majnu' starring Sidharth Malhotra for 'misrepresentation' of Pakistanis in the movie, which he tagged as 'distasteful' and 'factually incorrect' and slammed it for 'poor story, poorer execution, poorest research'. Adnan shared his two cents on the matter on his Instagram. The actor, who has worked in the Hindi film 'Mom' starring late actress Sridevi, wrote: "How much misrepresentation is too much misrepresentation? Bollywood has the answer. I mean come on, yaar with all the money you have, hire some good researchers to do homework on us. Or allow me to help." He shared Pakistanis "don't wear skull caps, surma and tawiz", which Sidharth was seen donning to play his character Tariq in the film directed by Shantanu Bagchi. Siddiqui wrote: "Make sure to take notes - no, we don't wear skull caps, surma, tawiz; no, we don't ask janab about their mijaz; no, we don't go around throwing adaab." He added: "There's so much in #MissionMajnu that's distasteful & factually incorrect. The hero's saviour complex would've accentuated more if the villain was shown at par. A weak antagonist embellishes even weaker protagonist." He said "Poor story, poorer execution, poorest research. Next time, come and visit us. We are good hosts. Will show you how we look like, dress up and live." The film, which released on Netflix, follows Amandeep Singh IPS, a RAW field operative who heads to Pakistan on an undercover mission to investigate about Pakistan's involvement in creating nuclear weapons. New Delhi, Jan 27 : After Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra has to stop and the leaders had to travel in a bullet proof car due to the alleged security lapse by Jammu and Kashmir, the Congress has scaled up the attack on the Union Territory government. Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma, "Concerned about the serious security lapse in #BharatJodoYatra of @RahulGandhi in Kashmir. It is the duty of the security agencies & J&K administration to provide foolproof security to Rahul Gandhi, other leaders and the Yatra. Accountability has to be fixed for the breach." Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused J&K administration of a 'big security lapse' at the Banihal tunnel. Addressing a press conference in Khanabal area of Anantnag district, Rahul said that when the Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed Banihal tunnel, there was not a single police man to manage or control the huge crowd that had come to receive him. He said that his security guards advised him not to go ahead asserting that he cannot go against the advice of his security guards. He said that he was hopeful that security arrangements would be elaborate for his future programmes those includes the culmination of the Yatra at Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) office in Srinagar where he is scheduled to hoist the National flag on January 30 and address a public rally. Kolkata, Jan 27 : The countdown for a fresh agitation in the hills of Darjeeling in north West Bengal has begun with Bimal Gurung taking the first step, by withdrawing his Gorkha Janmukti Morcha as a party to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) pact. On January 24, he informed that he will shortly write to the authorities concerned informing about his decision to withdraw from the GTA pact. On Friday, Gurung informed the media persons that he has already sent letters to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the Union Home Secretary and the West Bengal Home Secretary conveying his decision on this count. "In the communique, I have also demanded scrapping of the GTA, the pact for which was signed on July 18, 2011 with the Union government, the state government, and the GJM as the three signatories," Gurung said. Although the pact was signed in July 2011, the GTA was formed in 2012. However, the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) chief and the GTA chief executive, Anit Thapa claimed that Gurung's step will not have an impact on the existing structure of the GTA. "Nowhere in the pact has it been mentioned that just because the GJM was one of the three signatories in the past, the GTA will cease to exist after GJM withdraws from that. The existence of the GTA will not depend on the whims of the GJM," Thapa said. Meanwhile, a fresh political equation in the hills have evolved as the GJM, Hamro Party's Ajay Edwards and estranged Trinamool Congress leader Binoy Tamang came closer to each other and started the process of beginning fresh agitations over the separate Gorkhaland state. On Thursday, Trinamool hill district Vice President Pradeep Pradhan extended support towards GJM's demand for separate Gorkhaland state. The new alliance has already said that the blueprints of the fresh agitation will be announced on February 5. Reacting to the development, senior Trinamool leader and mayor of Siliguri Municipal Corporation in Darjeeling, Gautam Deb said that this is yet another step to destabilise the peace in the hills and stall the development works undertaken there by the state government. BJP legislator from Siliguri, Shankar Ghosh said that this is an extremely sensitive issue and any step on this count should be taken keeping in mind the sentiments of the people of the hills. Baghdad, Jan 27 : Iraq and France have inked a strategic partnership agreement to enhance bilateral cooperation in various areas including energy and security, according to Iraqi officials. The agreement was signed during Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' al-Sudani's one-day visit to Paris, after he met with French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and talked with President Emmanuel Macron, al-Sudani's media office tweeted, Xinhua News Agency reported. During talks with Macron, the two leaders discussed bilateral ties, regional and international issues of common concern, and joint cooperation in vital sectors, said the media office's press release. The agreement covers cooperation in such areas as combating terrorism and extremism, cultural exchange, crisis management, combating economic and organised crime, protecting the environment and promoting human rights, which, al-Sudani tweeted on Thursday, "lays down a road map for expanding our two countries' cooperation in various fields." The past years have witnessed deepened bilateral exchanges. Macron has visited Iraq twice, one in 2020 and another in 2021. France-headquartered oil producer TotalEnergies signed a deal with the Iraqi government in 2021, agreeing to invest in oil, gas and renewables projects in southern Iraq over 25 years. New Delhi, Jan 27 : India is slowly emerging as an economic and military power whose ascension affects everyone, Geopolitical Futures said in a report. It has one of the fastest-growing major economies -- certainly among comparably developed and similarly sized economies. It must now be included with nations that influence the global system, the report said. India's national strategy is to balance between greater powers, particularly Russia and the US, a practice that will inevitably create tensions inside a country that is famously variegated. India will, therefore, grow in fits and starts as it manages its relationships with historical adversaries and skews ties with traditional allies, the report said. New Delhi will, for example, enhance economic and industrial cooperation with Russia to balance against China. There have always been questions as to when India would emerge as a great power. Next year seems the moment, the report said. The central issue this year will be the ongoing spasm of economic dysfunction, due in equal parts to the war in Ukraine, post-pandemic recovery efforts, and the more banal aspects of ordinary business cycles. These problems are compounded by the dramatic economic crisis in China, its effects inevitably transmitting throughout the world by virtue of China's economic weight, the report said. Trans-national, multifaceted economic crises like these take years to resolve, and in their resolution, they will generate political consequences within countries and between them. This phenomenon will intensify in 2023. And though the war in Ukraine is agonizing to observe, it is not the most important issue we face this year. That honour belongs to China, the report said. Canberra, Jan 27 : Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has described opponents of the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament as radicals. Albanese on Friday said the plan for recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution has wide-reaching mainstream support, Xinhua News Agency reported. A referendum will be held in 2023 on whether to enshrine the voice in the Australian constitution. If successful, the new body would advise the parliament on issues relating to Indigenous Australians. However, some community leaders have called for Australians to vote against the proposal and for the government to instead prioritise a treaty with Indigenous peoples. Responding to the opposition, Albanese said his government would continue to consult with the public before holding the referendum. "Across the country, every state premier, every chief minister, is supporting yes at this referendum because this is about progress going forward. It is about reconciliation," he told reporters. "I'm not surprised that some radicals are opposed to it. Because this is a mainstream proposition. This is a modest and gracious request for reconciliation by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people." According to polling conducted by the Referendum Working Group, 80 per cent of Indigenous Australians support the proposal. In order to be successful, a referendum must achieve a simple majority of voters nationally as well as a majority in at least four of the six states. With the referendum set for the second half of the year, Albanese said there was time for Australians to become informed before voting. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Delhi police has detained 24 students and imposed section 144 prohibiting gatherings outside the Faculty of Arts at Delhi University after scores of students gathered there to watch the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Deputy Commissioner of Police (north), Sagar Singh Kalsi, said that at around 4 p.m. on Friday, some 20 persons came to the Arts Faculty gate to screen the banned BBC documentary. "As it can cause disturbance of peace and tranquility in the area, they were asked to disperse from there. When they did not, they were peacefully detained. A total of 24 persons were detained. The situation is normal at present," said the DCP. The call was given by the NSUI-KSU for the screening of the BBC documentary. Students said that the documentary was to be screened at Gate No. 4 of the Arts Department at 4 and 5 p.m. Delhi University authorities said that they have not given permission for the screening. Some students however watched the documentary on their laptops and mobiles. "No mass screening or public screening will be allowed on the campus. However, if the students want to watch it on their phones, that's their discretion," said varsity sources. The police have been deployed in large numbers at the Arts Faculty after Proctor Rajni Abbi wrote to the police on the matter, and asked them to take action. Earlier, some Left-wing students of Ambedkar University here staged a protest on Friday afternoon after electricity supply to the institute was snapped following an announcement to screen the documentary. Despite the power supply being cut, students still managed to watch the documentary titled, 'India: The Modi Question', on their laptops. Friday's protest came two days after the Delhi Police on Wednesday detained 13 students of Jamia Millia Islamia after the announcement to screen the documentary in the Mass Communication Department of the university. According to Esha Pandey, Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast), the screening was organised by a group of students despite no permission from the varsity administration. The same day, the Delhi police had received cross complaints from both the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) a day after high drama prevailed on the campus, with JNUSU members alleging that they were pelted with stones while watching the documentary. The classes at Jamia were also suspended on Friday. Seoul, Jan 27 : South Korea will push to "normalise" inter-Korean relations this year by seeking to make both "direct and indirect" contact with North Korea, including supporting civilian exchanges, Seoul's unification ministry said Friday. In its report to President Yoon Suk Yeol on major tasks for 2023, the ministry handling inter-Korean affairs laid out seven key policy objectives focused on improving frosty ties with the North and laying the groundwork for reunification, Yonhap News Agency reported. While the South will sternly counter North Korea's provocations through cooperation based on the strong Seoul-Washington alliance, the government will also make efforts to restart inter-Korean dialogue this year. The government plans to "seek direct and indirect contact with North Korea through civic groups and international organisations in a bid to open up chances to improve strained inter-Korean ties," the ministry said. If inter-Korean dialogues restart, the ministry plans to put its priority on addressing issues stemming from the Koreas' division, such as families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War and South Koreans detained in the North. Inter-Korean relations remain frayed as the North has spurned Seoul's offer for dialogue and instead focused on advancing missile and nuclear programmes. Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said his ministry is not considering making a new offer of talks to Pyongyang, although it remains willing to resume dialogue at any time. "It is important for North Korea to come back to dialogue with sincerity," he said at a press briefing following the report to the president. The ministry also said it plans to draw up a new mid-and long-term blueprint on inter-Korean unification, tentatively named the "New Future Initiative on Unification." The vision is aimed at paving the groundwork for a peaceful unification based on freedom and the democratic value espoused by the Yoon administration. The government aims to announce the new vision within this year after fleshing it out based on opinions from experts and the general public. In regard to North Korea's human rights issues, the ministry said it plans to carry out the work of an envisioned foundation on the North's rights situations until it sets sail. The creation of the North Korean Human Rights Foundation has been delayed for years, as the main opposition party, which holds a majority of seats at the National Assembly, has not recommended its share of five candidates for a 12-member board committee. The ministry will also make public its annual report on the North's human rights records for the first time in March. The report will be issued in both Korean and English-language versions. On the issue of opening the door to North Korean broadcasts and media outlets, the government is considering allowing people to read the Rodong Sinmun, the North's main newspaper, at designated facilities. Online access to the paper will not be allowed. The ministry earlier said it will push forthe lifting of a ban on public access to North Korean broadcasts, media and publications in an effort to restore "national homogeneity" between the Koreas. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine a plea seeking direction to Centre to take steps to create an appropriate system, which empower citizens to petition the Parliament and seek the initiation of a debate, discussion, and deliberation on the issues and concerns highlighted by citizens in their petitions. A bench of Justices K.M. Joseph and B.V. Nagarathna expressed its reservations in connection with the prayers raised in the plea. It said if allowed, it could impede the functioning of the Parliament, and pointed out that India has a huge population, as compared to other countries which have such systems. "You want it to be declared as part of Article 19(1). It will completely clog the working of Parliament," the bench told advocate Rohan J. Alva, representing petitioner Karan Garg. Alva, assisted by advocate Aby P. Varghese, argued that the petition raises substantial questions of constitutional law and there is an engaged electorate, which is attentive to issues but there is no avenue to engage with the lawmakers after they have been elected. Counsel urged the top court to issue notice in the matter. As the bench asked how is the writ petition maintainable against the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, counsel argued that the system is there in the UK's House of Commons "and we are based on the Westminster model", while adding that these practices are in vogue abroad. After hearing arguments, the top court asked counsel to serve the petition to the Central government's standing counsel, saying: "Let us see what they have to say". It scheduled the matter for further hearing in February. It, however, did not issue notice on the plea. The petitioner has made three respondents in the petition: Union of India through its Secretary, the Lok Sabha through its Secretary General, and the Rajya Sabha through its Secretary General. The plea sought a declaration that citizens have a fundamental right to directly petition the Parliament and invite discussion on important issues of public interest. The plea, filed through advocate Joby P. Varghese, said: "The present writ petition prays that it is imperative for the respondents to take substantive steps in order to ensure that citizens can have their voices heard in Parliament without facing undue barriers and difficulties. To that end, the present writ petition presents a detailed and nuanced framework under which citizens can prepare petitions, seek popular support for it and if a citizen petition crosses a prescribed threshold, then the citizen petition has to mandatorily be taken up for discussion and debate in Parliament". The plea argued that after the people cast their votes and elect their representatives to Parliament as well as to the state legislatures, there is no scope for any further participation. "There is the complete absence of any formal mechanism by which citizens can engage with the law-makers and take steps in order to ensure that issues which are important are debated in Parliament," it added. Seoul, Jan 27 : Two Chinese fighter jets flew through the overlapping parts of the air defence identification zones of South Korea and China earlier this week, prompting the military here to put its warplanes on standby, officials here said on Friday. Their flight on Thursday came just before the Pentagon announced Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Seoul for talks with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup, next week in what could be an occasion to highlight their commitment to cementing the bilateral alliance, Yonhap News Agency reported. The Chinese fighters entered the Korea Air Defense Identification Zone (KADIZ) at 10.30 a.m. and 11.10 a.m., respectively, from an area southwest of Ieo Islet, a submerged rock south of the southern island of Jeju, and exited it at around noon, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). One of the fighters reentered the KADIZ at 3 p.m. and left it about 30 minutes later. Both jets did not violate the South's air space, according to the JCS. When the two approached the KADIZ, the South Korean Air Force was ready to scramble F-15K combat aircraft and others in a tactical step against a potential accidental situation. The air defence zone is not territorial airspace but is delineated to call on foreign planes to identify themselves so as to prevent accidental clashes. Amritsar: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal visits Mohalla Clinic after the inauguration, in Amritsar on Friday, Jan 27, 2023. (Photo:Pawan Sharma/IANS) Image Source: IANS News Amritsar: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal addressing during an event to inaugurate 500 Mohalla Clinics across Punjab, in Amritsar on Friday, Jan 27, 2023. (Photo:Pawan Sharma/IANS) Image Source: IANS News Amritsar: Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal visits Mohalla Clinic after the inauguration, in Amritsar on Friday, Jan 27, 2023. (Photo:Pawan Sharma/IANS) Image Source: IANS News Amritsar: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann during an event to inaugurate 500 Mohalla Clinics across Punjab, in Amritsar on Friday, Jan 27, 2023. (Photo:Pawan Sharma/IANS) Image Source: IANS News Amritsar, Jan 27 : Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday said the government is making concerted efforts for carving out a healthy Punjab by ensuring comprehensive development in every sector. Addressing the gathering after dedicating 500th Aam Aadmi Clinic at a function here, the Chief Minister, accompanied by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, said the government has already set the wheels in motion for this noble cause. He said the massive work is being done in field of health, education and employment sector which will bear fruits soon. Mann said in order to provide quality and timely health services to the people, 100 Aam Aadmi clinics were already dedicated to the people on 73rd Independence Day (August 15, 2022). The Chief Minister said these clinics are offering 41 health packages with nearly 100 clinical tests free of cost. Till now 10.26 lakh people had got free treatment from these Aam Aadmi clinics operational since month of August. Likewise, Mann said 1.24 lakh patients have undergone free clinical tests in these clinics. The Chief Minister said these clinics are acting as a cornerstone in the revamp of the healthcare system in Punjab. He said it is a matter of great pride and satisfaction that the government of India has also lauded this path-breaking initiative of the government to deliver health services to people. Mann said now with the opening of more than 400 Aam Aadmi Clinics, Punjab will script a new success story in the healthcare sector by functioning of 500 such clinics. The Chief Minister said this revolutionary initiative will rejuvenate the healthcare system in the state. He said setting up of these clinics is a humble effort by the government to transform Punjab into a healthy and disease-free state by imparting quality health services. Welcoming Arvind Kejriwal on the sacred land, the Chief Minister said taking inspiration from his visionary leadership and guidance, Punjab had taken this citizen-centric decision. He said the Delhi government had pioneered this pro-people initiative, which had immensely benefitted the people in the national capital. Mann said other states are now replicating this model to bring much needed reforms in education and health sectors. The Chief Minister said the online data of every patient visiting these clinics will be maintained. This will help data compilation for formulation of strategy to combat deadly diseases. In his address, Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal lauded Mann for taking historic pro-people initiatives for progress of the state and prosperity of its people. He said people of Punjab had created a history by giving a whopping mandate to the party. All big leaders of the traditional parties were routed out during these elections and fresh faces have got chance to serve the people. Kejriwal said in mere 10 months of assuming charge of office, the Mann government has taken revolutionary steps for welfare of people and transformation of state. He said today 500 Aam Aadmi clinics have operationalised in the state whereas Delhi, which gave this model to the country, took a long time to achieve this target. Kejriwal said due to efforts of the Chief Minister, Punjab is today second most peaceful state in the country. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Buddhist spiritual leader and active environmentalist -- the Gyalwang Drukpa -- has made his first visit outside of India after four years. At an invitation, he has shortlisted Vietnam, his 15th visit, as a first country to visit, his office said on Friday. In a message, the Gyalwang Drukpa wrote: "Yes, this is my first official trip out of the country after four years of retreat. "I'm quite proud of myself to be able to come back to Vietnam as the first country to visit after four years of retreat! Invitations keep on coming from many places, but I've chosen Vietnam as a first country to visit. "I guess it's due to our unconditional relationship. Thousands of people came into the airport last night (Thursday) and welcomed with love and affection, which made me very encouraged to live in this world and give support to them whenever they need, although I have declared myself a retired man since six years ago." His Holiness, who heads the 17th century Hemis monastery in Leh, said: "There is a special feeling I've gotten from their gestures and their unconditional love and devotion. They devote themselves no matter if I'm there in front of them or not, and they will continuously be devoting themselves to supporting spirituality and practice completely, all the way through their difficult and pleasant times. "As you all know, that this trip is the 15th visit, they have not declined in devotion or love at all. They were requesting 20 days of visit this time, but I have requested them to make it shorter to 13 days due to some of my personal matters back at home. They have shown emotional disappointment for doing so, especially devotees from Ho Chi Minh City and other cities in south Vietnam. "I have promised them that I will come and pay a visit to the southern part of Vietnam soon, in the near future. As I said before, I consider myself a retired man, and I have my own choice of which country I will choose to go and which country I will choose not to go," said the maroon-robed monk who is now recognised as a prominent voice for modern issues facing the Himalayas. "Yet, Karma is a very strong phenomena that we cannot have any definite control on. Wherever the Karmic wind blows, we all have to go to that direction! In a way, it is very unfortunate. In another way, it gives us lots of interesting expectations and expirations, and life becomes very interesting and exciting as well. I would, therefore, say, let's wait and see." The Gyalwang Drukpa is the current spiritual head of the 1,000-year-old Drukpa Order based in the Himalayas. He also founded the Druk Amitabha Mountain nunnery in Kathmandu, a unique instance of gender reversal: the nuns run the administration. New York, Jan 27 : Investigations are on to explore whether a Tesla car crash earlier this month, involving an Indian-American and his family, occurred due to mechanical issues in the car, the San Mateo County district attorney said. Police had initially arrested Dharmesh A Patel on suspicion of attempted murder and child abuse for allegedly intentionally driving the sedan, with his wife and two children inside, off a 250-foot California cliff. San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said they are also investigating whether the crash could have been caused due to an issue with the car, the Los Angeles Times reported. "Did the brakes fail? Were the brakes working? Were there any other mechanical malfunctions that would have led to him (Patel) not being able to stop the vehicle? "We're having the car looked at from top to bottom," Wagstaffe told The Times, adding that prosecutors are still in the early stages of the investigation. The crash occurred on January 2 when Patel was driving the car on State Route 1 with his wife and two children, when it went over the cliff at Devil's Slide, south of the Tom Lantos Tunnels, and landed near the water's edge. It flipped and landed on its wheels, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) had said. "Based on the evidence collected, investigators developed probable cause to believe this incident was an intentional act," the CHP had said in a statement. Patel has since been transferred to San Mateo Medical Center, Wagstaffe told The Times. He is a radiologist at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Pasadena and according to his neighbours, Patel is a "great guy". Agartala, Jan 27 : With the BJP-led Central government rejecting its separate "Greater Tipraland" state demand, the influential Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) announced to contest the February 16 Tripura Assembly elections alone, leading to a new political dimension ahead of the polls. While all the parties in Tripura - the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress, and the Trinamool Congress -- had been trying to forge alliance with the TIPRA to get majority of the 20 vital tribal reserved seats, the latter held several meetings with BJP's junior ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) for a seat-sharing deal. The TIPRA, since 2021, has been demanding elevation of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) as a separate state for the tribals. All major parties, however, are opposing the demand. At the instance of the state and Central BJP leaders, the Union Home Ministry had called the TIPRA leaders to Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the demand and Union Home Minister Amit Shah was to meet the tribal leaders led by TIPRA chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barman. However, these did not bear fruit. "Union Home Minister Amit Shah rejected the demand for Greater Tipraland. The Home Ministry officials handed over a four-page draft of promises aiming to develop the tribal areas and socio-economic development of the tribals. We did not accept the MHA proposals mentioned in the draft promises," a TIPRA leader said. After returning to Agartala from Delhi, Deb Barman told the media that his party would field candidates in 40 to 45 seats out of the total of 60 seats of Tripura assembly. "We have repeatedly said that until we don't get written assurance from the government of India on the constitutional solution to our demand, we will not go in for any alliance, leave alone seat-sharing. Please don't jump the gun and relax - we know how to negotiate for our people to the maximum," Deb Barman said. Posting video messages in various social media accounts, he also tweeted: "No alliance - my heart does not agree and so I have made my decision that I cannot accept New Delhi's offer ! Jitega toh jitega harega toh harega but one last fight to karke rahega ! I can't betray our cause and our people !" Another TIPRA leader earlier said that they are unhappy with the way the Home Ministry has treated their leaders in Delhi. The MHA proposals contain more of the promises typically made during peace talks with militant groups, he said. The IPFT, since 2009, has been demanding to make the areas under TTAADC a full-fledged state while the TIPRA, since 2021, has been demanding elevation of the TTAADC areas by granting 'Greater Tipraland State' under Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Delhi police has apprehended a 14-year-old boy for snatching a groom's 'money garland' decorated with Rs 500 denomination notes totalling Rs 1,64,500 in Mayapuri area of West Delhi, an official said on Friday. The incident occurred on Wednesday. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), Ghanshyam Bansal on Wednesday said that a complaint was received in Mayapuri police station that a boy had snatched the money garland when the groom was about to sit on the horse. "A case under relevant sections of the IPC was registered and during investigation, CCTV footage of nearby areas was analysed. Through technical and manual surveillance, the juvenile was traced and apprehended from his locality," said the DCP. He confessed to the crime, following which the police recovered 79 notes of Rs 500 denomination out of the 329 notes from his house. Further investigation is underway. Nanded : , Jan 27 (IANS) In a suspected case of "honour killing", a 23-year-old medical student in Maharashtra's Nanded was allegedly killed by her kin for having a love affair, her body burnt, and buried in an onion field, police said on Friday. The incident happened on January 22 but came to light only on Thursday after her anxious friends and classmates informed the local police that Shubhangi Jogdand, a BHMS student, was "missing" for several days. The woman lived with her family in Limbegaon village, around one hour's drive from the pilgrim centre of Nanded, famed for its Hazur Sahib Gurudwara. According to Nanded police, after the preliminary investigations based on her friends' tip-off, the incident was thoroughly confirmed and her father, brother and three other relatives have been arrested. The probe revealed that she was in love with a boy, reportedly a distant relation, but her family objected as they had already fixed her marriage with another man from the village. When the man's family learnt of her affair, they called off the alliance, enraging the Jogdande family. Unable to bear the social ridicule they faced, Shubhangi's father, brother, an uncle and cousins abducted her and took her to a farm on Sunday night. There they allegedly strangled her to death, burnt her body and disposed off some of the remains in a nearby drain and the rest they ploughed in an onion field. Shockingly, the village, with a population of around 2,000, had no inkling of the ghastly developments in their neighbourhood until Shuhangi's concerned college friends stepped into the picture. One of the friends informed the Limbegaon police of their missing classmate (Shubhangi) and the local Police Patil who rushed to the Jogdande home and verified the matter. "We have arrested five family members. They have been booked for murder, criminal conspiracy and other relevant provisions of the laws," an official of Nanded police told the media. Maharashtra Legislative Council Deputy Chairperson Dr Neelam Gorhe of Shiv Sena-UBT, Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule and other women politicians have condemned the incident. "Such a heinous crime is against humanity. I strongly condemn it," said Dr. Gorhe. "This is shocking in the land of Rajmata Jijabai, Savitribai Phule, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar," said Sule. Kathmandu, Jan 27 : Nepal's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Rabi Lamichhane, accused of holding dual Nepali and American citizenship, on Friday lost the citizenship battle, as the Supreme Court annulled his status as a lawmaker. A constitutional bench, headed by Acting Chief Justice Hari Krishna Karki and comprising Justices Bishowambhar Prasad Shrestha, Ishwar Khatiwada, Ananda Mohan Bhattarai, and Anil Sinha, held that the citizenship certificate he produced to contest the parliamentary election was invalid. Lamichhane, a former media person, entered politics last June by forming a new party, Rastriya Swatantra Party, which won 14 seats in the recent elections. On December 14, advocates Yubaraj Poudel and Rabiraj Basaula filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court arguing that Lamichhane cannot become a member of parliament because he doesn't have Nepali citizenship. The petitioners demanded that Lamichhane should be removed from the post of party chief, contending that only Nepali citizens have a constitutional right to vote in the elections, become candidates, and set up political parties in the country. The petitioners had contended that Lamichhane's positions as a member of the lower house and party President were illegal. The writ petitioners had also demanded that the Supreme Court issue an interim order to stop Lamichhane from working as a lawmaker until the final court verdict. During an initial hearing on the case on January 6, the apex court had refused to issue an interim order, opting to decide the issue through a final verdict. Section 10 of the Citizenship Act says any Nepali citizen who voluntarily acquires the citizenship of any foreign country will automatically lose the Nepali citizenship. Lamichhane, a media person by profession, returned to Nepal a few months after becoming an American citizen and started working here. After four years, a complaint was lodged in the Press Council of Nepal saying that he was working in Nepal without a work permit. A foreign national needs a permit to work in Nepal. Only after the criticism did Lamichhane, in May 2018, abandon the American citizenship and its proof was presented to the Department of Immigration. He, however, never applied to reclaim his citizenship. Lamichhane's lawyers had argued that as he never renounced Nepali citizenship, his citizenship from 1994 got automatically revived the day he surrendered American citizenship. The Citizenship Act, however, doesn't say so. Section 11 says if any citizen of Nepal, who has acquired foreign citizenship, returns to reside in Nepal and submits a notification to the designated authority the evidence of renunciation of foreign citizenship, his/her Nepali citizenship shall be provided again once he/she submits the evidence of renunciation. An application needs to be submitted to the respective office to reclaim the Nepali citizenship as per the Act and its regulation. Clause 11 of the regulations of the Act says the person who has renounced the foreign citizenship should apply to the Ministry of Home Affairs or the District Administration Office concerned. The authority concerned, after studying the application, would issue the citizenship of Nepal containing the same details mentioned in the previous document. The copy of the citizenship Lamichhane had produced to file the nomination was issued in 1994. Bengaluru, Jan 27 : The BJP party high command has issued strict gag orders to rein in the disgruntled legislators from giving damaging statements, which can tarnish the image of the party in Karnataka. Vijayapur MLA, Basanagoud Patil Yatnal's statements against Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and former CM, BJP Central Parliamentary Board member B.S. Yediyurappa not only embarrassed the party but also sparked speculations. He also targeted Minister for Large Industries Murugesh Nirani by using an inappropriate word, which triggered a bitter war of words between the two. Minister Nirani stated that if he does not mind his language, his tongue will be cut. Similarly, many seniors voiced their concern over High Command's decision not to expand the cabinet. Former ministers and senior leaders Ramesh Jarkiholi and K.S. Eshwarappa made a demand that since they got clean chit in allegations against them, they should be included in the cabinet. BJP MLC A.H. Vishwanath had launched a direct attack on the saffron party by stating that BJP offered him money to quit JD(S). He also attacked senior politician, BJP MP Srinivas Prasad who called him a nomad. He also attacked BJP on its stand over boycotting Muslim traders. The party was worried about the series of damaging statements. Chief Minister Bommai, after being attacked by own MLA Yatnal, maintained that action will be initiated. But, no action was initiated. The development raised suspicion that one of the camps within the BJP is supporting Yatnal. However, as the assembly elections are fast approaching, as per the sources the high command taking no chances has issued a stern warning to all legislators not to issue any statements which will damage the image of the party and create confusion in public. Yatnal had stated that he will not indulge in issuing statements against Yediyurappa and he will stop at this stage. As per the sources, the party seniors have issued diktat on all legislators not to issue any damaging statements or give reactions on issues of leadership. The party, which stated that it will go to assembly polls under the leadership of Bommai is now maintaining that the party would seek votes in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The opposition parties have taken potshots at the BJP over the stand and stated that there is no CM face in the saffron party in Karnataka. Agartala, Jan 27 : In a development that could provide a major boost to the ruling BJP in Tripura ahead of the February 16 Assembly polls, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MLA Moboshar Ali, senior Congress leader Billal Mia and some other leaders are likely to join the saffron party, party sources said here on Friday. Ali was elected to the Tripura Assembly from Kailasahar constituency in northern Tripura in 2018, while Mia won the Boxanagar seat in western Tripura twice, in 1988 and 1998. Both Ali and Mia are senior leaders of their respective parties. "The party is in talks with a few other CPI-M and Congress leaders to join the party," a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said. "The BJP is likely to nominate both Ali and Mia to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls," he told IANS on the condition of anonymity. When contacted, Congress leader Mia, also a former minister, told IANS: "At this moment, I am not joining any other party. As I am in politics, leaders of any party can talk to me about their offers." About the queries about which leaders and parties talked with him, Mia said: "No comments at the moment." The CPI-M-led five Left parties announced their 47 candidates on Wednesday, leaving 13 seats to their new ally Congress while dropping 8 sitting MLAs including Ali. The Kailasahar assembly constituency, from where Ali was elected in the 2018 Assembly polls, was allotted to Congress. Former four-time Chief Minister and CPI-M's Politburo member Manik Sarkar, party stalwart and former minister Badal Chowdhury, three more former ministers -- Tapan Chakraborty, Sahid Chowdhury, Bhanulal Saha -- were also dropped on health grounds. Congress leaders are visibly upset over the meagre allotment of seats to them. Sounding disappointed, Congress leader and the party's lone MLA, Sudip Roy Barman, said that they had first demanded 27 seats, and then 23 seats from the Left parties. "They (Left parties) have taken the decision as per their whims and fancies, we would go as per the wishes of the people," Roy Barman told IANS. Jaipur, Jan 27 : As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Rajasthan in Malaseri Dungri on Saturday, speculations are rife that he may announce the formation of Devnarayan corridor on line of Mahakal and Kashi corridors which will help him get the Gujjar votes in the forthcoming Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. While political sources confirmed that there are fair chances that the PM might announce the Devnarayan corridor, they also said that the temple here is the biggest centre of faith of Gujjars and hence will help to garner votes from around 9 states across the country. Modi will reach here on January 28 on the occasion of the 1111th birth anniversary of Lord Devnarayan. The PM will visit and worship in the temple of Lord Devnarayan. A large number of people are likely to come from Mewar, Hadauti and Ajmer to Dhundhar and Braj-Dang. Tremendous enthusiasm is being seen in the Gujjar community regarding the arrival of Prime Minister Modi. In present times, the Gujjar community is quite annoyed with the Congress as Sachin Pilot has not been made the Chief Minister despite the tall promises made to them about the same. Hence, there is resentment among the Gujjar community and now with the Preme Minister's visit to the place, the BJP is going to get the benefit, said political sources. In 2018, many veteran Gujjar leaders faced defeat as the community voted for the Congress hoping that Pilot coming from their community will be made the chief minister. So now, the Prime Minister's visit will target this community which is presently aggrieved with Congress, confirmed the political veterans. Gujjar vote-bank politics influences around 40 assembly and 12 Lok Sabha seats. In fact, the victory or defeat of the candidate is decided by the Gujjar votes here, they added. Sources said that the research team of the Central Government reached Bhilwara and it has started its research work in Asind. Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal has asked the research team to know about the life and stories of Lord Devnarayan in Asind and to find more on its literature and lectures, they added. However, the BJP is clearly denying the political motive. Leader of Opposition in Rajasthan and senior leader of BJP, Gulabchand Kataria said that 36 communities believe in Lord Devnarayan. He is the adorable God of Gujjars, so the Gujjar community will come in large numbers in the PM's public meeting. He further said that it should not be linked to just one caste. Kataria said that the birthplace of Lord Devnarayan is the centre of faith for everyone and Prime Minister Modi is coming on his birth anniversary, so it is natural that lakhs of people will definitely come to listen to the PM. BJP State President, Satish Poonia said that this programme is being organised by the Ministry of Culture. Lord Devnarayan is worshiped by all of us. For the first time the Prime Minister of the country is coming to his birthplace, so there will be more enthusiasm among the people of this region. Lakhimpur Kheri : , Jan 27 (IANS) Ashish Mishra, son of Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni and an accused in the Tikunia murder case, was released from jail on Friday evening after the Supreme Court granted him an interim bail of eight weeks. Mishra was taken out of the jail from the rear gate to avoid the media which had gathered at the main gate and taken to his residence. Family members refused to disclose where he would relocate to after one week as per Supreme Court directives. The Supreme Court has directed Mishra to leave Uttar Pradesh within one week after his release from jail. "Petitioner to give his passport to the trial court, and will not enter the state of Uttar Pradesh, apart from his appearance for trial proceedings," the court had ordered. The court also said that the petitioner has to mark his attendance at the police station of jurisdiction where he relocates to. The court also warned Mishra and his family members against influencing witnesses, violation of which would lead to the cancellation of his bail. "If it is found that Mishra is trying to delay the trial, it will be a valid ground to cancel his bail," the court said in its order. The case will now be taken up on March 14 again for further directions on the matter. Lakhimpur Kheri : , Jan 27 (IANS) Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son, Ashish Mishra, an accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, has been released from jail on Friday evening. His release comes after the Supreme Court granted him an interim bail of eight weeks. Ashish Mishra was taken out of the jail from the rear gate to avoid the media which had gathered at the jail. He was taken to his residence. Family members refused to disclose where Ashish would relocate to after one week as per Supreme Court directives. In its verdict, the Supreme Court had directed Mishra to leave Uttar Pradesh within one week after his release from jail. "Petitioner to give his passport to the trial court, and will not enter the state of Uttar Pradesh, apart from his appearance for trial proceedings," the court had ordered. The court also said that the petitioner has to mark his attendance at the police station of jurisdiction where he relocates to. The court also warned Mishra and his family members against influencing witnesses, violation of which would lead to the cancellation of his bail. "If it is found that Mishra is trying to delay the trial, it will be a valid ground to cancel his bail," the court said in its order. The case will now be taken up on March 14 again for further directions in the matter. On October 3, 2021, eight people were killed in Lakhimpur Kheri district's Tikunia where violence had erupted when farmers were protesting against the then UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's visit to the area. According to the UP Police FIR, four farmers were mowed down by an SUV in which Ashish was seated. Following the incident, the driver of the SUV and two BJP workers were allegedly lynched by angry farmers. A journalist also died in the violence. Ahmedabad, Jan 27 : There will be cloudy weather and some parts of north and central Gujarat will receive unseasonal rains in the next 24 to 48 hours, the Meteorology Department's forecast said on Friday. Ahmedabad met centre in charge Dr. Manoma Mohanty told media that there will be little relief from the cold wave in some parts of the state, but the western region and Kutch are still likely to remain in its grip. She said Ahmedabad had recorded a minimum of 13 degrees Celsius and Gandhinagar 12 degrees, and in next 24 hours, the minimum temperature in these cities are likely to be 16 and 17 degrees Celsius, respectively. Forecasting cloudy weather, Mohanty said due to dry air moisture confluence, it creates a possibility of unseasonal rains in districts like Patan, Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Aravalli, Dahod, Kheda, and Ahmedabad. Due to the cold wave, a farmer died last night in Tintoi village of Aravalli district, while he was irrigating his farm. Modasa Taluka Police Station Officer told IANS that Lavji Patel died at his farm and police have registered it as an accidental death and are investigating. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government to set up 'One-Stop Centres' for women and children in every district in compliance with a Supreme Court decision of 2018. The court's direction came while a division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad was hearing a plea against media houses for revealing the victim's identity and accused persons' name in a rape case of Hyderabad. The court directed the Delhi government to act under the relevant section(s) of the Indian Penal Code and lay down the criteria as directed by the Supreme Court for identifying social welfare institutions or organisations, to whom the next-of-kin to give the authorisation for declaration of the name. The court referred to the Supreme Court judgement in Nipun Saxena vs Union of India passed on December 11, 2018. The bench also noted that the Delhi government has not followed the Supreme Court order to date, wherein the court had requested the state governments and Union Territories to set up at least one one-stop centre in every district within one year of the judgment. The top court had ruled that the centres should employ well-trained staff, have sufficient medical facilities with counsellors and psychiatrists available on call and video conferencing facility for recording statements of the victims and courtrooms for the trial of such cases in an attempt to make such centres a central police station where all women-and children-related crimes are registered. The bench said: "The state governments are already in contempt in not adhering to the time limit fixed by the Supreme Court in setting up such centres within one year from the date of the judgment passed on December 11, 2018." The high court also said that it does not find it appropriate to initiate proceedings against media houses and reported individuals or to direct investigating authorities to take cognisance of the offence. "With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of, along with pending applications, if any," the court said. Patna, Jan 27 : JD-U Parliamentary Board President Upendra Kushwaha on Friday termed Nitish Kumar a liar and claimed that he only had requested him to join the JD-U in 2021. "After the JD-U obtained 43 seats in Bihar Assembly election 2020, Nitish Kumar called me in 2021 and invited me to join the party. Now, he is saying that I was joining and leaving. The allegation levelled against me is absolutely incorrect and I can swear on my son. Can he do the same. "Nitish Ji has one son and so do I. Let him swear on his son and say how many times he had called me. Now, you are asking to meet me. Whenever I put my point, you have asked me whether I would join the BJP. If I am saying anything wrong, set the date and time. We will go there and take the oath on our respective sons," Kushwaha said. Stressing he wanted to put his perspective in the public domain, he demanded the call details of 2021 be seen. "The calls came from the CM's residence 1 Anne Marg and not from my bungalow. It would clarify who is lying. Nitish Kumar is alleging that I am joining and leaving the party whenever I wish too. It is absolutely incorrect. I had merged my party RLSP in the JD-U following a request from Nitish Kumar. After that call, two senior ministers were assigned to talk to me following the call from Nitish Kumar," he said. "On October 31, 2009, I was in another party and Nitish Kumar was the Chief Minister. When we met on that day to celebrate the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, he requested me from the dais and asked me to join the JD-U," he added. Kushwaha said that when he was admitted to AIIMS Delhi, Nitish Kumar gave a statement in the media, saying that I should meet him to address my grievances. "I am saying that he is not available to meet me. I have demanded the party's Executive Committee meeting where I could put my point but the national President of the party ignored it. The RJD leaders are claiming that a deal had happened during the formation of the Mahagathbandhan government, I was demanding that the deal be revealed," he said. "At present, there is no leader in the party who could struggle and make it strong," he claimed. Nitish Kumar had on Wednesday said that Kushwaha should leave the JD-U as soon as possible, and no one would stop him. Bengaluru, Jan 27 : The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has submitted a complaint to the State Election Commission of Karnataka, seeking "severe punishment" against political parties that are enticing voters with incentives such as cookers, sarees, bangles, and silver Ganesha idols. "It is challenging to identify when and where corrupt politicians distribute items such as cookers and sarees to voters," AAP's Karnataka unit working president Mohan Dasari said while addressing the media on Friday. "Our honest volunteers were able to investigate and uncover such instances. Despite the difficulties, we were able to convince voters to return the items and bring them to light. It's concerning that politicians are giving away items like silver Ganesha idols, leading to questions about the fairness of the election. The Election Commission needs to take immediate action against these practices," he added. "The BJP, Congress, and the JD-S are undermining the principles of democracy by offering gifts to voters," Dasari said. Stating that voters should make their decisions based on the background, ideology, accomplishments, and promises of politicians, not by the gifts they receive, the AAP leader said: "These politicians are using the tax money of the public, which they have looted during their tenure, to bribe voters. The public should not be swayed by such tactics and instead vote for honesty and integrity." "Politicians are taking advantage of the fact that the model code of conduct is only enforced once the election process begins. They are offering bribes even before the code of conduct is in place. "To ensure a fair election, the Election Commission should take action to stop these bribes before the model code of conduct comes into effect. There should be an investigation to reveal the source of the funds used to make these lavish offers," he added. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Union minister Mahendra Nath Pandey said on Wednesday that while a narrative has been set by some people that only they were the mainstays of our freedom struggle, the government's endeavour has been to highlight the other unsung heroes who brought glory to the nation. In this context, Pandey, the Minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, praised the efforts of news agency IANS in evoking the feeling of nationalism, by highlighting forgotten incidents of India's freedom struggle. While addressing a select audience during the official screening of 'The Last Push', a documentary presented by IANS on Indian Navy's mutiny of 1946 which has been directed by Sujay, Pandey said if the feeling of nationalism is not awakened among the citizens of a country, that nation cannot progress. The documentary is co-presented by the global fabless semiconductor company, Mediatek, and the award-winning PR and digital agency, Kaizzen Communications. "This effort by IANS and its Editor in Chief Sandeep Bamzai is a significant step towards achieving that objective," Pandey said. He added that earlier, not much attention was paid to the contributions of several forgotten heroes of India's glorious past. Referring to Ahom general Lachit Barphukan's victory against the Mughal army, the minister said that "today people know about his contributions because our endeavour is to highlight the contributions of such forgotten heroes of India". "Some people say that only they have contributed towards India's freedom. However, our point of view is that there have been others too who fought for the country," Pandey said. Informing that he too has been a student of film journalism, the minister praised the title of the documentary, saying that in any struggle, the last push is most significant. The Naval mutiny too was an important step towards shaking the British empire's rule in India, he said. The 30-minute documentary is based on the book titled '1946: Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, Last War of Independence' written by Pramod Kapoor. Kapoor was also present during the screening of the documentary. Earlier, speaking on the occasion, Sandeep Bamzai said that the documentary is an effort by IANS under the Freedom of India series to highlight all incidents and rebellions which occurred before Independence. Patna, Jan 27 : Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday declined to respond specifically to allegations levelled by party leader Upendra Kushwaha, who claimed that he was invited to join the JD-U by him only. Nitish Kumar, who was furious over Upendra Kushwaha for the last one week, took a more controlled approach on Friday, saying that he does not want to comment on him. "The questions about him come from the media. I was avoiding him. If he had any problem, he would have talked within the party," he said. "He was trying to join the JD-U 7 to 8 months before the merger in 2021. He had talked to me and then I allowed him to join the party. He was doing well within the party. Suddenly, he started talking about lots of things. If he has anything in mind, he should have to talk within the party and not go for the press conference and tweet," Nitish Kumar said. Asked about Kushwaha's claim that the first call was made from the CM's residence in 2021 and he requesting Kushwaha to join the party in 2009, Nitish Kumar declined to answer, saying he was the one who sent Kushwaha to the Rajya Sabha, and then, the state Legislative Council, and he became an MP once from another party. Nitish Kumar also refused to take Kushwaha's challenge to swear on his son's head, saying that these things have no meaning. "People of old generation would tell you what works we have done in the past were," he said. "Upendra Kushwaha has no value in the JD-U, we obtained only 43 seats in 2020 Assembly election and I am in immense pain over it. Everyone knows who cheated us. We had transferred our votes to the BJP and they did not do the same. Kushwaha is saying that the party is weakening. I am doing Samadhan Yatra in Bihar and getting a huge response," he said. Srinagar: Students of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) hold the 100 meters long National Flag during a procession to mark the 74th Republic Day at Lal Chowk in Srinagar on Thursday, Jan 26, 2023. (Photo: Nisar Malik /IANS) Image Source: IANS News Srinagar: BJP leaders and workers holding national flags during the 74th Republic Day function at Lal Chowk, in Srinagar on Thursday, Jan 26, 2023. (Photo: Nisar Malik /IANS) Image Source: IANS News Srinagar, Jan 27 : No shutdown, no threats, no intimidation and huge participation of people marked the Republic Day celebrations in Jammu and Kashmir. Leaders like former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, who had claimed that no one would be left in Kashmir to hold the Tricolour, have been made to eat a humble pie. The Centre's August 5, 2019, decision to scrap Article 370, a temporary provision in the Constitution, has proven to be a game changer. It has allowed the people of Jammu and Kashmir to board the bandwagon of peace, prosperity and development. They have hoisted tricolour in every nook and corner of Jammu and Kashmir during the past three years. They have proven the politicians, who used to claim that Kashmir would fall in Pakistan's lap, wrong. Pakistan-sponsored separatists and the terrorists, who used to enforce a shutdown on the occasions like Republic Day and Independence Day, have been shown their right place as the government has acted tough against them and results have been encouraging. Youth are utilising their energies in a positive way and stone pelting incidents have become a history. Separatists have closed their 'Azadi' shops due to investigating agencies choking their illegal funding channels, while security forces have succeeded in pushing terrorists to the brink. Overwhelming participation of people in the Har-Ghar-Tiranaga campaign last year and Republic Day celebrations is a clear message to Pakistan, their agents and politicians that Kashmir has changed and has changed for the good. Mehbooba remembers shutdown era A common man doesn't want the era of shutdowns and stone-pelting to return. People of Kashmir have rejected the idea of separatism and are least interested in the idea of Azadi propagated by the stooges of the neighbouring country. A common man is happy that he isn't being compelled to give up his daily chores and follow the diktats of the extremists, who danced to the tunes of their masters sitting across the Line of Control. On the Republic Day eve, Mehbooba Mufti reminded the people of Kashmir that they used to observe shutdown on January 26, till 2019. She alleged that shopkeepers were being ordered by the government to keep their shops open or face consequences. "One of many abnormal and coercive steps to project normalcy," she tweeted. No one paid any heed towards her tweet. People joined the Republic Day celebrations in all Kashmir districts and carried on with their daily chores without any interference. It seems that a few politicians in J&K are missing hartal (shutdown) politics. They want that pre-2019 era to return so that they can once again call the shots and enjoy the privileges which they used to when gun-toting Pakistan sponsored terrorists and separatists used to take entire Kashmir as hostage. J&K tableau on Kartavya Path Tableau of J&K on Kartavya Path in Delhi on the occasion of 74th Republic Day was based on the theme of "Naya Jammu and Kashmir". It showcased the pilgrim and recreational tourism potential of the Union Territory. For the first time in the history since 1947, J&K has received 1.62 crore tourists boosting the economy of the Himalayan region. The tableau drove home a point that J&K is not the same. The efforts put in by the government to end the terrorism and hegemony of a few selected people during the past three years, have yielded positive results. After 2019, a common man in Jammu and Kashmir became a priority and the ones who used to believe that they are above the law have been held accountable. The helmsmen have tried their best to address inequality among the Jammu and Kashmir people and bring everyone on equal footing. Nationalists at forefront For 30 years, the nationalist people in Jammu and Kashmir were not allowed to express their feelings as the handful of separatists had forced them into submission. Pakistan stooges had built a fake narrative that J&K is not an integral part of India and it's an issue. The nationalist voices were silenced through intimidation and the ones who used to talk about peace were labeled as traitors. The revocation of J&K's so-called special status cleared all the confusions once for all and encouraged the people of Kashmir to call spade a spade. In "Naya J&K" nationalist people are at forefront and they are being heard. During the past three years a common man in Jammu and Kashmir has proven beyond doubt that more than 90 per cent people in Jammu and Kashmir were never interested in the "Azadi" narrative, nor did they support the violence but the fear of guns kept them silent. The steps taken by the government to empower a common denizen of Jammu and Kashmir have brought people closer to the system. The Union Territory has witnessed unprecedented development. The government has reached out to the doorsteps of the common masses and has proven by its actions that people matter and they are the fountainhead of power. As on date, local recruitment in terror outfits has gone down to zero and the foreign terrorists are not finding any local support. More than 40 foreign terrorists were killed in 2022 and the number of active terrorists has declined. Pak can't hoodwink people anymore Jammu and Kashmir people turning their backs towards the terrorists have left the terror bosses sitting across the LoC exasperated. Last week an audio clip of a Pakistani man showering choicest of abuses on Kashmiris, including men and women, went viral on the internet. The purported telephonic conversation between a Kashmiri man and Pakistani took an ugly turn when the man from Jammu and Kashmir believed to be in the Middle East questioned the Pakistani man. The Pakistani man got annoyed and could be heard telling the other party that "Kashmiri people are only worth abuses both for the men and their women". "You people (Kashmiris) are selfish, thankless and no less than thugs," the Pakistani man is heard saying in the clip. People in Pakistan have realised that they can no longer hoodwink the Jammu and Kashmir people in the name of 'Azadi'. They are giving vent to their outrage by abusing the people of Himalayan region. Terrorists turning guns towards civilians shows that Pakistan is unhappy with the Jammu and Kashmir people and wants to teach them a lesson. The separatists, who acted as advocates of Pakistan in Kashmir for the past three decades, have lost their addresses, and the terrorism is on its last legs. Pakistan has lost the proxy war and the people of J&K have won. They are no more interested in what Mehbooba Mufti and her ilk says. They want to live a peaceful and prosperous life and don't want 'hartal' (shutdown) politics to return. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Delhi Police has unearthed an international gang of cyber crooks based in China, and Dubai, and a mastermind in Georgia, who have defrauded 11,000 people on the pretext of providing online work from home jobs in Amazon, an official said on Friday. The gang duped people of crores of rupees on the pretext of providing online jobs. Police have so far arrested three people in separate raids conducted at Delhi, Gurugram and Fatehabad (Haryana) in this connection. The accused have been identified as Satish Yadav, 36, Abhishek Garg, 40, and Sandeep Mahla. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Outer North, Devesh Kumar Mahla, said the investigation done so far indicated that Chinese cyber criminals have developed a module to cheat people looking for online work from home jobs or part time jobs as Chinese loan fraud are now declining due to action by agencies and awareness among people. "A complaint was received by Delhi Police in which a woman stated that she was cheated of Rs 1.18 lakh by some unknown scammers in the garb of providing online part-time jobs in Amazon. In the complaint, the woman stated that it is a well drafted big scam being run by some unknown criminals posing as Amazon company. After ascertaining the facts, the police registered a case of cheating," he said. During investigation it was revealed that the telegram ID used by the scammers was being operated from Beijing, and the WhatsApp number used to defraud the victim by convincing her to invest into a fake Amazon site was also found being operated from outside India. The police then wrote an email to the NPCI and Kotak Mahindra bank seeking beneficiary details of the suspected transactions and it was revealed that a shell firm account had been used to accumulate money from victims. "During the examination of details received from the bank, it was found that a total of Rs 5.17 crore was credited in a single day. In further money trail, it was revealed that the whole amount was siphoned further through 7 different firms. That siphoning of money has been done to foreign accounts through crypto currency," the DCP said. The official said the technical investigation finally led them to Satish Yadav, who disclosed the name of another accused Garg. The third accused Mahla was arrested after his account was found involved in siphoning the money through RazorPay to a fraudster sitting abroad. The DCP said that fake websites are created in such a way that they appear like genuine Amazon websites and one can get deceived easily. Websites are generally developed from China. As per police, promotions are being done on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube with posts of handsome earnings to lure aspirants/job seekers and they get millions of paid likes and ratings and reviews through digital marketing so that victims fell prey to this fraud. Artificial intelligence is also used to pop them up before people on their screen finding online job or work from home. The scammers reach victims through WhatsApp automatically or in some cases, victims approach themselves. Victims are convinced with fake screenshots of WhatsApp chat with employees earning good money and well-crafted creative chats. To keep victims in darkness, the cyber-criminals have developed a "fool-proof" procedure like genuine companies use to run their organisation, eg providing a tutor to teach them how to work for which Rs 200 is charged. Any aspirant will pay such a petty amount to get a job with ease, police said. Victims are asked to create a work ID on the website. Wallets are designed like Amazon where users can see various options like balance, tasks, order, withdrawal, selling/flagging products, they said. Then users are assigned with the task of selling or purchasing products for the company. Users get carried away when they see that products have been sold out and money reflects as balance in their wallet but in actual, they are tricked by the criminals who have complete control over the website, and they can make any modifications in users accounts, police warned, adding that these websites are operated from China. Patna, Jan 27 : A 14-year-old girl was gang raped by 3 persons in Bihar's Buxar district, an official said on Friday. The incident occurred on Republic Day on Thursday when the girl was on the way to school for the celebration. She was kidnapped by three people and taken to an isolated place, where she was sexually assaulted and then, abandoned. The victim later reached her home and narrated her ordeal before the parents. Accordingly, an FIR was registered in the women police station. "We have immediately registered the FIR against three persons and conducted the medical examination of the victim which confirms rape. We have raided the place of the accused and nabbed them. The incident appeared in a village that comes under Sirkaul police station," Superintendent of Police, Buxar, Manish Kumar said. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Tibeto-Burman communities were pre-historic Himalayan settlers, and their East Asian ancestry can be traced back to Neolithic immigration, mostly from Tibet around 8 KYA (Kilo Years Ago), says a genetic study of the population. The study, which reconstructs the maternal origins of prehistoric Himalayan populations, helps explain the genetic drift, endogamy, admixture, isolation, and natural selection that have contributed to genetic diversity among Nepalese population and sheds light on migration events that have brought most of the East Eurasian ancestry to the present-day Nepalese population. According to the Ministry of Science of Technology, it is widely-accepted that modern humans originated in Africa around 200000 years ago (KYA) and migrated out of Africa between 60 and 70 KYA. Several populations arose in this process, each with its own evolutionary history. Genetic drift, endogamy, admixture, isolation, and natural selection are a few evolutionary processes that have contributed to genetic diversity among human populations worldwide, including susceptibility and resistance to genetic diseases, infectious diseases, therapeutic response to drugs, and other conditions. Understanding these phenomena is highly relevant in a country like Nepal, which has one of the world's richest ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and social diversity and harbors several anthropologically well-deined populations. It harbours populations that are phenotypically similar to East Asians (Mongolians/ Tibetans/ Chinese/ southeast Asians); some are similar to South Asians, and some are similar to West Eurasians. Serving as a bridge between the Western and Eastern Himalaya, Nepal offers a unique ground to understand South and East Asian Genetic ancestry. To understand the genetic diversity and Nepal's people and its ancient history, scientists from Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, conducted a maternal mitochondrial DNA study of several Nepalese populations. The scientists found that except for high altitude Sherpa population of Nepal, most of the Tibeto-Burman speaking communities of Nepal harbor significant genetic contributions from Tibet, Myanmar, and South Asia, showed shared ancestry with the populations from southeast Tibet, Northeast India, North India (Uttarakhand), Myanmar, and Thailand, said the Ministry. New Delhi, Jan 27 : Two Delhi Traffic Police personnel in Delhi's Dwarka area were injured after they were allegedly hit on early Friday by a car whose driver was under influence of liquor six times higher than the permissible limit, an official said. The accused has been identified as Santosh, 31, a resident of JJ colony, Sector-1, Dwarka. Head Constable Vikas is under treatment in hospital with a head injury while Head Constable Surat has been discharged after treatment for minor abrasions. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police, Dwarka, M. Harsha Vardhan, at around 2.15 p.m., a car being driven by a person under the influence of alcohol hit two traffic police persons. "The incident happened in Sector-1 area of Dwarka and immediately after the incident near Sector-1 red light, police personnel of Dwarka district chased the car and nabbed the driver in the jurisdiction of Dabri police station," he said. Santosh was sent for medical examination and his blood alcohol content was found to be six times the permissible limit, said the official. A case under section 186, 353 and 307 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered at Dwarka South police station and the accused has been detained. Police said that it appears that the accused tried to avoid challan by traffic personnel which led to this incident. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) to produce a roadmap for implementing its scheme to place Para-Legal Volunteers (PLVs) in 50 police stations to aid people in instances involving missing children and crimes against children and how the Supreme Court's directions will be taken forward in the matter. A division bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup Jairam Bhambhani was hearing a criminal reference to streamline the functioning of the juvenile justice delivery system under the Juvenile Justice Act and the Rules framed therein. In September of last year, the Supreme Court had also issued an order directing all State Legal Services Authorities and Legal Services Authorities of Union Territories to develop schemes as soon as possible for the appointment of PLVs in police stations to work on cases. It had directed the circulation of the DSLSA's scheme to be used by the states and UTs as a model for framing the schemes. Appearing for the AAP government, advocate Nandita Rao submitted that they are looking after it actively and that they will file a reply before the next date of hearing. The court listed the matter for the next hearing on January 31. "What more is required is to implement the scheme in letter and spirit. Come up with a roadmap," Justice Mridul told DSLSA Special Secretary Sushant Chngotra. The court said that it is within the mandate of the Juvenile Justice Act and has to be done on a war footing. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is hosting the third INTERPOL Young Global Police Leaders Programme (YGPLP), in which 59 delegates from 44 countries are taking part to create a strong police intelligence network worldwide. The programme will conclude on February 2. While addressing the participants virtually on Friday, INTERPOL Secretary General Jurgen Stock said that Delhi is home to one of the most successful INTERPOL General Assemblies. He also complimented the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for hosting the event. Recalling the words of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he addressed the INTERPOL General Assembly last year saying "crime somewhere is crime everywhere", Stock said, "The main theme before us is maintaining trust in the criminal investigation process in a digitised world." Stock underlined that this brings together two inescapable realities of our times, first, the ongoing challenges - and opportunities - arising in the criminal landscape that come from the emergence of artificial intelligence, big data, and augmented reality - including through disruptions like the Metaverse. Second, the ongoing globalisation of criminal activity and the fundamental necessity for a collaborative approach to effectively combat it. He said the use of new technology was always treated with more skepticism when deployed by governments, rather than by the private sector. "Think of drug use, property theft, forced labour, sitting behind many crimes that appear domestic are regional and global networks that exploit borders to engage in borderless criminal activity. Interpol is a platform to integrate global criminal intelligence into local policing. We are here to build bridges across police forces, founded on a common mission to foster global collaboration, which will span distance, and time," he said. Stock concluded by quoting Modi: "When the forces of good cooperate, the forces of bad cannot operate." CBI Director Subodh Kumar Jaiswal said that overall, this programme will give an overview of the scale and scope of policing system in India and the various innovations and best practices being adopted and help in capacity building of the future police leadership. "Continuing with the theme of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' (the world is one family), the Young Global Police Leaders Programme provides an inspirational platform for not only young police officers from across the world, but also for the youth in general. The rich professional capabilities, innovations and best practices developed by police in India can be a template for other countries to emulate. This initiative also seeks to contribute towards international capacity building in the policing domain, in line with the spirit of 'Vishvaguru Bharat'," Jaiswal said.. INTERPOL Young Global Police Leaders Programme (YGPLP) is a flagship INTERPOL event for promising young police officers. The event brings together young police leaders (below 37 years of age) holding vital assignments in their respective countries and help them develop an international perspective and understanding. It seeks to empower the next generation of international police leaders through mentoring by experienced officers. New Delhi, Jan 27 : In two separate operations the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have arrested four persons, including a woman, and rescued 157 protected animals and reptiles from their possession. The DRI launched 'Operation Kalki' under which the arrests and recovery were made. In the first operation, three persons, including a woman, who were allegedly trying to smuggle protected animals, were held by the DRI from Kempegowda International Airport, official said on Friday. The accused arrived at the airport on January 22 from Bangkok. "During the examination of their checked-in baggage, non-indigenous 18 animals (four primates and 14 reptiles) were recovered with the assistance of Karnataka Forest Department officials," DRI said. The import of wild animals as defined in the Wildlife (Protection) Act is prohibited and those species which are listed in CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) are subject to the provisions of CITES. The animals attempted to be so smuggled by the said passengers were seized under the provisions of the Customs Act. In the second operation the DRI with the assistance of Forest Department officials recovered 139 animals belonging to 48 different species, including 34 CITES listed species from a farmhouse in Bengaluru. "Evidences of financial transactions to source non-indigenous wildlife through the route of smuggling, buy -- sell transaction on the WhatsApp and other social media platforms have been unearthed by our team," said the official. The official added that the recovered animals, including extremely rare and threatened ones like the Yellow and Green Anaconda, Yellow headed Amazon Parrot, Nile Monitor, Red foot tortoise, Iguanas, Ball Pythons, Alligator Gar, Yaki Monkey, Veiled Chameleon, Racoon Dog, White headed piones were handed over to Bannerghatta Biological Park. Four persons involved in the smuggling into India have also been placed under arrest so far. Hyderabad, Jan 27 : Former chief minister of Odisha, Giridhar Gamang, who quit the Bharat Janata Party (BJP) two days ago, joined the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) here on Friday. Gamang, a nine-term Lok Sabha MP, along with several other leaders from Odisha joined the party in the presence of BRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. Speaking on the occasion, Rao stated that BRS is floated with a determination to change India's future and the thought and ideology of the country. He welcomed Giridhar Gamang, his wife and former MP Hema Gamang, son Shishir Gamang and other leaders into the BRS fold. KCR, as Rao is popularly known, said that joining Giridhar Gamang and supporters gives a great strength to the BRS. The leaders who joined BRS include Odisha BJP State Yuva Morcha General Secretary Sneranjan Das, Koraput Parliamentary Constituency Youth Congress President and AICC Member, Rabindra Mohapatra, Phalguni Sabar, P. Gopal Rao, Mallya Ranjan Swain, convenor of Navnirman Kishan Sangthan Akshay Kumar, Mayur Bhanj ex-MP Ramchandra Hansada, Dhenkanal ex-MLA Nabin Nanda, six other former MLAs and leaders of various parties and organisations. The BRS chief said that Akshay Kumar is a great person and is following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi. Many people who took up movements for farmers are joining BRS on Friday, he said. KCR reiterated that if people elect the BRS to rule the country, 24-hour quality electricity will be supplied to the entire country in two years. "We will give free electricity to agriculture and implement Kisan Bandhu for farmers in the country and Dalit Bandhu for 20 lakh Dalit families every year," he said. He said that clean drinking water will be provided all over the country as being done in Telangana land while 83 crore acres of cultivable land in the country will be provided for irrigation facilities at the earliest. The BRS leader remarked that parties are winning elections, leaders are winning but people are the losers after every election. "India's politics is about to undergo drastic changes. People should win elections, not parties or leaders. Then only, democracy can flourish in the country," he said. KCR stated that, aiming for power, political conspirators are raising many slogans and making tall promises. "In the name of caste and religion, political parties are creating discord between people. People are being divided. Parties should come out with the aim of public service and national development. The parties that have won the election should work in that direction. But what is happening today," he asked. He claimed that Mahanadi in Odisha has more water availability than the state needs. "We are using only 25-30 per cent. Rest of the water flows into the sea. Brahmani and Vaitarani rivers also flow along with Mahanadi. But there is no water to drink. Where is all this water going? Why is this water not coming into our houses as drinking water through drains?" New Delhi, Jan 27 : The three-day US-Africa Summit was convened in Washington during December 13-15, 2022, with delegates from 49 African countries out of a total of 54 participating along with representatives from civil society and the private sector, young leaders and African diaspora in the US participated invarious events during the period. The summit was aimed at strengthened ties with African partners through dialogue and collaboration including economic engagement, promoting democracy and protecting human rights, mitigating the impact of Covid-19 and future pandemics, promoting food security and strengthening regional and global health, responding to the climate crisis and advancing peace and security. The interest of the African countries in attending the summit was to find ways and means for post-Covid-19 economic recovery and address food and energy security being aggravated by the Russia-Ukraine war. This summit seen from a diplomatic perspective was an effort of the US to reframe its relationship with Africa in view of its rising stakes vis-a-vis increasing footprints of rival powers in the continent, particularly China and Russia. The first day of the summit featured sessions on topics ranging from trade and investment; to health and climate change; to peace, security, and governance; to space cooperation. The second day focussed on increasing two-way trade and investment at the US-Africa Business Forum. CEOs and private sector leadership from 300 American and African companies participated in the forum. The third and final day had a session titled "partnering on agenda 2063", the African Union's strategic vision for the continent, followed by discussion on food security and food system resilience. It is with regard to this long-term agenda that African countries go to big powers for funding and technological support. China, in particular, has taken asymmetric advantages from the African countries as a major fund provider. Although volume of new Chinese loans to African government's has dropped from a peak of $28.4 billion in 2016 to $1.9 billion in 2020 due to pandemic, many analysts point out that the Chinese loans have created financial instability due mainly to unsustainable debts. US sees this with concern. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned African leaders at the summit that the rising influence of China and Russia posed a risk of "destabilising" the continent. President Joe Biden tried to use personal diplomacy to win back US influence in the continent. The US considered conveying the summit after a gap of eight years. During these eight years, other global powers including the EU, China, Japan, Turkey, India and the UAE have become Africa's development partners. But the other development partners, especially, India and the EU are not seen with suspicion, contrary to Chinese image of as an exploiter of the continent's resources without ensuring commensurate gains for them. The new partnerships of the African countries have reduced its dependence on Western aid. The diversification of African countries development partnership, nevertheless, has alarmed the Western powers as it might dilute their standing in the continent geo-politically. Austin told a panel with several presidents at the start of the three-day summit that US rivals had a different approach. "The combination of those activities by those two countries (China & Russia), I think that bears watching. And certainly, I think their influence can be destabilising." Austin said China was raising its footprint in Africa "on a daily basis" through its growing economic influence. "The troubling piece there is they're not always transparent in terms of what they're doing and that creates problems that will be eventually destabilising if they're not already," he said. Realising that Trump years saw a decline in the US engagement with the African continent, the US is making efforts to enhance its engagement. The Biden administration had released the new "US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa", which emphasised the growth potential of the region, diversity in the eco-systems and their power as a group in UN voting, making them crucial in shaping the world's future. In the Africa Business Forum on the second day of the summit, President Biden said: "When Africa succeeds, the United States succeeds. Quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well." The agenda is to win back influence in Africa in the fluid geo-political order, and specially when China is increasing its footprints to exploit the natural resources of the continent without compensating them adequately by development of infrastructure and making them more vulnerable. China is also developing its military infrastructure in the continent. The US agenda is to win back influence in Africa amid a fluid geopolitical order. The Biden administration has stressed working with the African Union, both on the security and diplomatic fronts. The US support for the African Union to gain a formal berth in the Group of 20 club of major economies, months after he threw support behind a permanent African seat on the UN Security Council are steps in that direction. African Union chief Moussa Faki Mahamat hailed the US support but warned that there was still far more focus on fighting extremists in the Middle East. "This double standard has had disastrous consequences for Africa and for peace and democracy in the world." Meanwhile, Biden's administration plans to unveil $55 billion for Africa over three years. In one of the first announcements, the White House said the US would invest $4 billion by 2025 fiscal year to train African health workers, a rising priority for Washington since the Covid-19 pandemic. The US engagement in Africa may raise greater hope as it appears more constructive than that of China. Mumbai, Jan 27 : With Indian equity markets roiled by a research report emerging from the US, everyone is curious as to what short selling actually means? A 32,000-word report by American short-seller Hindenburg Research has left a Rs 4 lakh crore gash on the portfolios of bulge bracket Adani bulls which have been enjoying the gravity defying valuations since the Adani Wilmar public issue more or less a year ago. Every word shaving off Rs 12.5 crore from the valuation. So, what is short selling? Simply put, someone takes position by selling stock or other securities or commodities which one does not own at the time, in the hope of buying at a lower price before the delivery time. Investopedia describes it in the following manner - selling is an investment or trading strategy that speculates on the decline in a share or other security's price. It is an advanced strategy that should only be undertaken by experienced traders and investors. Traders may use short selling as speculation and investors or portfolio managers may use it as a hedge against the downside risk of a long position in the same security or a related one. Speculation carries the possibility of substantial risk and is an advanced trading method. Hedging is a more common transaction involving placing an offsetting position to reduce risk exposure. In short selling, a position is opened by borrowing shares of a stock or other assets that the investor believes will decrease in value. The investor then sells these borrowed shares to buyers willing to pay the market price. Before the borrowed shares must be returned, the trader is betting that the price will continue to decline and they can purchase the shares at a lower cost. The risk of loss on a short sale is theoretically unlimited since the price of any asset can climb to infinity. Taking a contrarian position, top of the line broking and research firm CLSA said it doesn't see a major downside risk to Indian banks from Adani group's debt, in which the overall exposure for domestic public and private sector lenders remains well within the mangeable limits with adequate ring fencing. InGovern Research Services issued a note on Friday - On Short Selling and Shareholder Activism - providing a perspective on the whole issue: Hindenburg, as a short seller, should be considered as just another market participant which has a motivated view to release a negative report with aim to bring down the stock price. 1. Short selling is not new in Indian markets. 2. Short selling is a market mechanism and NOT wrong. 3. Short selling is healthy for Indian capital markets. 4. Short selling is a view on a stock price, it may NOT work. 5. Shareholder activism should be welcomed in Indian markets. 6. Indian companies should learn to take such reports in their stride. 7. There is a need for more investor activism in India. 8. As Indian market matures, it should get used to these kinds of activist investors taking interest in domestic companies. 9. However, short selling is not shareholder activism. 10. Short sellers are opportunist and very short-term focused. Such activism could be disruptive for management and companies. 11. Short sellers are not held in high regard in global capital markets and even in the US, many short sellers, including Hindenburg, are under investigation by the SEC and DoJ, as the short sellers are thought to achieve their objectives at all costs and detrimental to the interests of other investors. 12. Positive shareholder activism, like ValueAct Capital does, is when investors engage positively with the management and work towards bringing about change. On Data in Hindenburg Report There are no new facts in the Hindenburg report, and, at best, it is a compilation of all past allegations levelled against the Adani group. 1. Hindenburg has 3 types of data: a) Easily verifiable data on Marcap, P/E multiples, debt, shareholding patterns etc. available to all investors. b) Data points that cannot be easily verified: Mauritius entities, etc. c) Aspersions based on past (some over 20+ years), some of which were fully disclosed as part of various offering documents by the Adani group. 2. Some of the allegations in the Hindenburg report have been the subject of regulatory scrutiny in the past. 3. There are no specific complaints made to SEBI for investigation by Hindenburg. SEBI, the Indian securities market regulator, or the MCA, largely acts on specific complaints of fraud or market manipulation. Timing of Release of Hindenburg Report The strategically-timed release of the Hindenburg report on the eve of the follow-on public offering (FPO) by Adani Enterprises Ltd seems to indicate that there was some objective to scare investors. 1. However, the Hindenburg report itself may not impact the FPO share sale. 2. The anchor book has already been oversubscribed on January 25, 2023, given that the objective of many of the long-term investors would be to hold the stock for many years. On Valuations and Leverage Though the Hindenburg report talks of high valuations and over leverage by the Adani group, the nature of the industries in which Adani group companies operate and data on debt holding in Adani group companies indicate otherwise. 1. Valuations is in the eyes of those who have a position and are willing to bet on it. 2. These days, there are many new-age companies with no revenue model and with no earnings. Adani stocks may appear to be inexpensive. New Delhi, Jan 27 : The Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra was halted on Friday, shortly after it entered the Kashmir Valley due to 'security breach', the party said. "This morning, a huge crowd had gathered. But unfortunately, the police arrangement completely collapsed. Cops who had to hold the crowd were nowhere to be seen. So my security people were very much concerned with me continuing. So I had to cancel my walk, while other people continued," party MP Rahul Gandhi, who is leading the Yatra, said at a press briefing. Reacting to Congress' claimes, the BJP slammed the grand old party and said that all it wants is to grab the headlines with its Bharat Jodo Yatra. Addressing a press conference here, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia said, "Rahul Gandhi has developed a habit of levelling unrestrained allegations. The claims he has made against the Jammu and Kashmir Police and security agencies are all baseless. This just shows that cheap and petty politics is being played out." Bhatia added, "With such statements being made by Rahul Gandhi and the Congress, it becomes clear that the Yatra is being carried out only to remain in the headlines. There was no lapse in the security arrangements, and the same has been underlined by the Kashmir Police. Rahul Gandhi has to give answer to one question - why did the organisers not inform the police that a large number of people would be joining the Yatra from Banihal?" "We know that he has Z+ category cover. Under this, there are several rules, including informing the security agencies about the crowd expected. This is carelessness on the part of the Congress leader. Around 1,500 personnel of the CAPF and the police who were deployed were adhering to the rules," said Bhatia. The BJP leader continued: "Rahul Gandhi was not following his responsibilities in this regard. You can't halt the Yatra after 1 km without informing the security agencies. He is trying to break the morale of the security personnel, which is unfortunate." Meanwhile, commenting on the claims made by Rahul Gandhi, the Kashmir Police said: "There was no security lapse at all. We will provide foolproof security." Shillong, Jan 27 : BJP's national Vice President M Chuba Ao on Friday did not rule out the option of forging an alliance with the National People's Party (NPP) in Meghalaya after the February 27 Assembly polls. The relationship between the BJP and the NPP, which leads the Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) coalition government, soured due to various reasons specially since the BJP's state Vice President Bernard N. Marak was arrested on July 25 last year for allegedly running a 'brothel'. Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma is the National President of the NPP, the only national party from the northeastern region. The BJP with two MLAs (including a minister) is the partner of the MDA government. Ao, who is BJP in-charge for Meghalaya, said that everything is possible in politics and there is no permanent narrative in politics. "After elections everything is forgotten.Let the poll outcome appear then we would decide the best formula to rule the state," the BJP leader from Nagaland said. The BJP and the NPP already announced that they would fight against each other in the February 27 elections. The NPP already announced their candidates and the BJP would declare their nominees soon. BJP's Meghalaya state President Ernest Mawrie said that the party would field about 10 women candidates. "In 2018 Assembly polls our party had projected to win in 25 seats. This time we expected to win 35 seats and would be able to lead the government," he told the media. Asked about the possible alliance with any party after the elections, the BJP leader said: "Wait till the election result comes out ... we are always keen to ally with the like-minded parties who are keen to follow BJP's ideology and agenda of corruption-free government." He said that many central leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi would campaign for BJP in Meghalaya from the second week of February. Others include Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani and Nitin Gadkari, and Chief Ministers of other BJP-ruled states. New Delhi/Agartala, Jan 28 : In a development that could provide a major boost to the ruling BJP in Tripura ahead of the February 16 Assembly polls, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MLA Moboshar Ali and Trinamool Congress leader Subal Bhowmik on Friday joined the saffron party in the national capital. Ali and Bhowmik joined the BJP at the party headquarters in Delhi in presence of Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha, state party president Rajib Bhattacharjee, and the party's spokesperson and northeastern states' in-charge Sambit Patra. BJP sources also said that senior Congress leader Billal Mia and some other leaders are also likely to join the saffron party. Mia, however, denied the possibility of joining the BJP. Ali was elected to the Tripura Assembly from Kailasahar constituency in northern Tripura in 2018, while Mia won the Boxanagar seat in western Tripura twice, in 1988 and 1998. Both Ali and Mia are senior leaders of their respective parties. The Trinamool Congress removed Subal Bhowmik from the post of Tripura unit state president on August 24 last year, but he was in the party. Bhowmik, a former Congress MLA, joined the Trinamool Congress in July 2021. He had jumped ship from the BJP to the Congress in 2019. "The party is in talks with a few other CPI-M and Congress leaders to join the party," a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said. "The BJP is likely to nominate both Ali and Mia to contest the forthcoming Assembly polls," he told IANS on the condition of anonymity. When contacted, Congress leader Mia, also a former minister, told IANS: "At this moment, I am not joining any other party. As I am in politics, leaders of any party can talk to me about their offers." About the queries about which leaders and parties talked with him, Mia said: "No comments at the moment." The CPI-M-led five Left parties announced their 47 candidates on Wednesday, leaving 13 seats to their new ally Congress while dropping 8 sitting MLAs including Ali. The Kailasahar assembly constituency, from where Ali was elected in the 2018 Assembly polls, was allotted to Congress. Former four-time Chief Minister and CPI-M's Politburo member Manik Sarkar, party stalwart and former minister Badal Chowdhury, three more former ministers -- Tapan Chakraborty, Sahid Chowdhury, Bhanulal Saha -- were also dropped on health grounds. Congress leaders are visibly upset over the meagre allotment of seats to them. Sounding disappointed, Congress leader and the party's lone MLA, Sudip Roy Barman, said that they had first demanded 27 seats, and then 23 seats from the Left parties. "They (Left parties) have taken the decision as per their whims and fancies, we would go as per the wishes of the people," Roy Barman told IANS. Jakarta, Jan 28 : Indonesia has set to focus on developing and promoting tourism villages this year, as such an alternative tourism has been proven to be able to survive during a pandemic, the country's Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno said. A tourism village is usually described as a village designated to welcome tourists, offering experiences that combine nature, authentic cultures and local life, Xinhua news agency reported. Uno on Friday added that in the last two years, even during the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of foreign tourists who visited tourism villages across Indonesia increased around 30 to 50 per cent, particularly the villages in Central Java and West Java provinces, while other tourism destinations experienced downturns. He said tourism villages had become "pandemic winners" because they mostly offered open nature spaces and not many people flocked to one area, and there were only a small group of villagers who lived there. "Therefore, we want to make the tourism villages become our flagship programme to boost our tourism sectors. We believe they can significantly drive our post-pandemic economic recovery," Uno added in a written statement. He said that the tourism villages were small and simple destinations, but they could carry huge impact to Indonesia's tourism sector and support the local enterprises. Tehran, Jan 28 : The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned an armed attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran, in which one person was killed and two others injured. The Ministry's spokesman Nasser Kanaani expressed "deep" sympathy to the assassinated embassy member's family as well as the Azerbaijani government, according to a statement published on the Ministry's website. He added the assailant has been arrested by police and security forces and is being interrogated, Xinhua news agency reported. Kanaani gave the assurance that at the order of the Iranian political and security authorities, the attack is under investigation with high priority and sensitivity. Mohammad Shahriari, the caretaker Chairman of Tehran Province's criminal court, said initial investigations showed that personal issues have been behind the attack, the official news agency IRNA reported. Shahriari said the attacker claimed that his wife went to the embassy in April 2022 and had never returned home, and the assailant had gone to the embassy on numerous occasions looking for his wife but had never received any response. Shahriari added the attacker said he had believed that his wife was in the embassy, but did not want to meet him. On Friday morning, the assailant went to the embassy with a Kalashnikov rifle and started shooting, killing one employee and injuring two others, according to Tehran police Chief Hossein Rahimi. The assailant had entered the embassy with his two young children, he added. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry identified the victim as a guard, who had served as the head of security at the embassy, saying the Friday attack also wounded two people. Ankara, Jan 28 : Turkey condemned the burning of the Quran by a far-right politician near a mosque in Denmark on Friday. "We condemn in the strongest terms that the hate crime committed in Sweden against our holy book Quran is allowed to be committed again in Copenhagen, Denmark today," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The fact that this despicable act, which was carried out in Denmark after Sweden and the Netherlands, was not prevented despite all our warnings, is worrying as it reveals the dangerous dimensions of religious intolerance and hatred in Europe by abusing the so-called freedom environment," the statement added. Rasmus Paludan, leader of the Danish far-right political party Hard Line, burned the Quran in front of a mosque in Copenhagen on Friday, Xinhua news agency reported. Paludan earlier burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm last Saturday which caused Turkey to postpone a trilateral mechanism meeting with Sweden and Finland on their NATO bid. The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday summoned Danish Ambassador to Ankara Danny Annan ahead of the demonstration and asked for the reversal of the permission given to Rasmus Paludan. The protest involving the Quran is the third of its kind recently. Ankara summoned the Dutch envoy in Ankara on Tuesday to convey its protest after Edwin Wagensveld, leader of a far-right group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, tore out pages from a Quran in the Netherlands. Addis Ababa, Jan 28 : The Ethiopian government has disclosed that preparations have been finalised to resume public land transport services into the country's conflict-affected northernmost Tigray region. The Ethiopian Ministry of Transport and Logistics on Friday said instructions have been sent to public transport associations to start land transport from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to the Tigray region, state-affiliated Fanta Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) reported. According to the Ministry of Transport and Logistics, the service will start as soon as the national ministerial committee, headed by the country's Minister of Peace, approves it, Xinhua news agency reported. It said the service will be started in areas, including the regional capital Mekele, Axum and Shire, among others. In late December, Ethiopian Airlines resumed its flights to Mekele, the rebel-held capital of the country's Tigray region. The resumption of flights is said to enable families to reunite, facilitate the restoration of commercial activities, stimulate tourist flow and bring many more opportunities which will serve society. The resumption of basic services, which also includes telecom and banking, came after a permanent cessation of hostilities agreement signed on November 2 between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which now controls the northernmost region. The deal also includes restoring law and order, restoring services, and unhindered access to humanitarian supplies. Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation, has seen a devastating conflict between government-allied troops and forces loyal to the TPLF for the past two years, which left thousands dead and millions more in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Tehran, Jan 28 : The Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has condemned the deadly armed attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran, saying the two countries should not let their ties be affected by the incident. In a phone call with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, Amir-Abdollahian on Friday also proposed close cooperation between the two countries' security bodies to investigate the attack that killed an embassy employee and injured two others. For his part, Bayramov welcomed the Iranian Foreign Minister's proposal for a joint investigation into the incident, Xinhua news agency reported. In a Twitter post on Friday, Mohammad Jamshidi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's deputy chief of staff for political affairs, said Raisi had ordered a comprehensive investigation into the armed attack. On Friday morning, an assailant went to Azerbaijan's embassy with a Kalashnikov rifle and started shooting, killing one employee and injuring two others, said Tehran police Chief Hossein Rahimi. The assailant entered the embassy with his two young children, he added. Mohammad Shahriari, the caretaker chairman of Tehran Province's criminal court, said initial investigation showed personal issues were behind the attack, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported. According to Shahriari, the attacker claimed that his wife went to the embassy in April 2022 and had never returned home, and the assailant had gone to the embassy on numerous occasions looking for his wife but never received any response. The attacker said he believed that his wife was in the embassy but did not want to meet him, Shahriari added. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry identified the victim as a guard, who had served as the head of security at the embassy. Moscow, Jan 28 : The Latvian ambassador to Russia, Maris Riekstins, should leave Russia within two weeks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Latvian Charge d'Affaires Dace Rutka was summoned to the Ministry in protest over Latvia's decision to lower the level of Russian-Latvian diplomatic relations, the Ministry said in a statement on Friday. Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said on Monday his country recalled its ambassador from Russia and downgraded diplomatic relations with Russia to the level of charge d'affaires as of February 24. Rinkevics said the decision was made in a show of solidarity with its neighbour Estonia, Xinhua news agency reported. The Russian Foreign Ministry called Latvia's justification of its decision completely unacceptable. It said that the only way the Baltic states had shown solidarity was through their "total Russophobia" and their efforts to promote hostility against Russia. Latest updates on Russia-Ukraine War After joining North American Insurance Services (NAIS) in 2021, Weissert quickly ascended to a leadership role. Her promotion to Director of Marketing celebrates her contributions which have propelled the company forward and strengthened the company branding. Michelle has brought unique energy to our marketing department through her hard work and leadership. From her direction, our marketing capabilities have grown and the quality of our brand has become unparalleled in the insurance industry, says Andy Dastur, CLU, CFP, President of NAIS. Michelle Weissert received a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Mass Media from Bellevue University. Prior to earning her degree, she gained interest in social media and marketing as a freelance content creator. I love how social media allows us to connect with other people that we otherwise would have never met, says Weissert. Developing relationships with our agent community has been the best part of my job at NAIS. I look forward to contributing to the growth of the business and will continue striving to be a positive influence within the company. Michelle has been a great addition to our leadership team and her future is even brighter, says Dastur. About NAIS: North American Insurance Services (NAIS) is considered one of the premier marketing organizations in the country. It's been a national leader in the insurance market since 2006 and offers Health Insurance agents a one-source solution for carrier contracts and service with its unique distribution model including Sales Vice Presidents, Sales Leaders, Advisors, Brokers and other agency partners. North American Life Plans, LLC, North American Health Plans, and NA Advisors are subsidiaries of North American Insurance Services Holding Corporation and are headquartered in Frisco, TX. We are optimistic about growth at the airport in 2023, as travel demand remains high and airlines continue to recover following the pandemic. Seasonal routes serve a critical role in connecting our community to top destinations during periods of highest demand. Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT) announces the return of two seasonal routes for 2023. Beginning February 17, 2023, passengers will be able to fly nonstop on Allegiant Airlines from Grand Junction Regional Airport to Mesa, AZ (AZA). This is a popular flight for Mesa County travelers, providing a low-cost option for traveling to and from the Phoenix/Mesa area. On June 1, 2023, Allegiant will resume nonstop service from Grand Junction Regional Airport (GJT) to Los Angeles, CA (LAX), offering an easy, affordable flight to the West Coast playground. Both routes are scheduled to be flown twice weekly. Western Slope travelers who wish to take advantage of these nonstop flights for travel this spring and summer should book early, as both routes are very popular. We are excited to welcome back these seasonal routes, stated Angela Padalecki, Executive Director of the Grand Junction Regional Airport. We are optimistic about growth at the airport in 2023, as travel demand remains high and airlines continue to recover following the pandemic. Seasonal routes serve a critical role in connecting our community to top destinations during periods of highest demand. Currently, travelers can book travel from Grand Junction Regional Airport to six nonstop destinations: Denver (DEN), Dallas (DFW), Phoenix (PHX), Las Vegas (LAS), Mesa (AZA), and Los Angeles (LAX), plus hundreds of other destinations with just one connection. Learn more about available flights at: https://FlyGJT.com. HydroSide Systems is surging ahead and growing their business with their recent implementation of the cost-effective web-based business suite; Cetec ERP. With Cetec ERP, HydroSide was able to achieve a total web-based solution for inventory control, traceability, and quality management. Established in 2017, HydroSide Systems is a family owned Idaho-based company that provides precision agricultural technology to improve the lives of farmers everywhere. Their award-winning and patented irrigation systems are meant to simplify wheel lines and automate hose reels so farmers crops get the right water at the right time. As a new startup, HydroSide was mostly using spreadsheets and Quickbooks before they quickly realized they needed an ERP to track and manage their documentation and purchasing. Though HydroSide looked at various ERP systems to implement, they ultimately chose Cetec ERP for its cloud-based capability and overall consistency. Tracking, purchasing, and documentation was all made infinitely easier with Cetec ERPs straightforward processes. When comparing Cetec to other ERP choices, HydroSide liked that employees at Cetec ERP were reachable, personable and customer-service driven. HydroSide Supply Chain Manager Bryan Butcher says that he appreciates the documents section in Cetec ERP, as it is a vast improvement over other ERPs hes worked with in the past. My favorite thing about the Cetec ERP system is the documents section. That was one of the biggest drags of my last company working with their system. With Cetec its very easy to keep track of things. The work order will literally have everything on it. Everythings linked, every parts linked, all the material for certifications can all be linked. Its just so much easier with all the documents being linked compared to my last job. Its just fantastic. Working in person with Cetec ERPs COO Taylor Wagen, Butcher says that implementing Cetec was quite easy and intuitive. After learning the system, any time that Butcher couldnt figure something out, he took advantage of Cetecs numerous how-to videos and reference material online and reached out on Cetec customer support forums if he was having issues understanding how to better improve a process. Now Butcher himself conducts training classes for HydroSide employees on how to use Cetec ERP; demonstrating how to do work orders, manufacturing, clocking in and out, etc. Butcher says hes slowly introducing more and more of the Cetec features so that everyone in the company has a better understanding of everything the system can do and jobs it can handle. I believe that the time we invest into Cetec pays off. Especially when it helps improve the accuracy around the shop for a lot of our data. Especially purchasing and logistical data. I think its worth the investment. Its been amazing.-Bryan Butcher, Supply Chain Manager at HydroSide Systems AvevoRx brings the knowledge and infrastructure to provide services and programs typically expected of much bigger pharmacies while leveraging our adaptability and commitment to delivering an extraordinarily customized, personal patient experience. AvevoRx, a national, independent provider of specialty infusion pharmacy services, has announced it will provide Alpha-1 proteinase inhibitor drugs to patients with Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency as part of a nationwide clinical offering. This marks AvevoRxs official entry into the Alpha-1 market, which is limited to a very small panel of specialized, home infusion pharmacy providers. Alpha-1 is the latest specialized infusion therapy offered by AvevoRx, whose primary specialties include immune globulin (IG) and monoclonal antibody treatments and acute infusion therapies such as IV antibiotics and total parenteral nutrition. We are delighted to join the Alpha1 community, said Ric Logsdon, AvevoRx program manager for Alpha-1. The companys unique and robust management experience over 150 years combined in Alpha-1 - positions us well to compete for the privilege of caring for this patient community. We have an amazingly strong bench of Alpha-1 experience at every level of the organization, including pharmacy, nursing, customer service, consumer advocacy, billing, and finance, commented Justin Dent, PharmD and AvevoRxs national director of pharmacy operations. AvevoRx brings the knowledge and infrastructure to provide services and programs typically expected of much bigger pharmacies while leveraging our adaptability and commitment to delivering an extraordinarily customized, personal patient experience. This class of drugs is intravenous biologicals derived from human plasma called Alpha-1 proteinase inhibitors. Each is used to treat a rare form of congenital emphysema, often caused by a patients Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. The drugs are administered intravenously as often as every week, typically in the patients home or AvevoRxs ambulatory infusion suites. Of the four drugs in this class currently approved for use in the U.S., AvevoRx will be dispensing and administering three of them. Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency is a genetic disorder that could cause lung and liver disease in affected patients. The age at which the first signs and symptoms of the deficiency appear often varies, though resulting lung disease frequently develops between ages 25 and 50. Those affected often develop emphysema, a lung disease caused by damage to the air sacs in the lungs (alveoli). Roughly 10 percent of infants with an Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency will develop liver disease resulting in yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice); Approximately 15 percent of adults with the deficiency will develop liver damage (cirrhosis) due to the formation of scar tissue in the liver. Testing for Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency is encouraged for those at high risk of inheriting this disorder, according to the Alpha-1 Foundation. Testing is available through a physician or can be conducted anonymously (Alpha-1 Foundation, 2022). For more information, visit http://www.alpha1.org. About AvevoRx AvevoRx is a bespoke, independent provider of specialty infusion pharmacy services. The company focuses on the highest-quality, personalized care customized to patients facing various complex, chronic disorders. Treatments are made available via specialized pharmacy locations, field nurses, and additional support staff throughout the United States. AvevoRx also provides acute infusion therapies for patients with short-term therapeutic needs on a regional basis. Privately held, the company was founded in 2021 by a small group of industry veterans with a combined experience of more than 130 years. AvevoRx is headquartered in North Carolina. To learn more, visit http://www.AvevoRx.com or follow us on Instagram or LinkedIn. Amplify Surgical, Inc., a medical device company focused on innovative minimally-invasive surgery for the lumbar spine, will be holding its 2nd Annual Endoscopic Spine Symposium with Cadaver Workshop featuring dualPortal Endoscopic and dualX Systems, in Los Angeles, California on March 4th, 2023. Amplify Surgical is partnering with expert surgeons from the United States and South Korea to demonstrate one of the latest advancements in minimally-invasive spine surgery: the dualPortal approach, a novel, two-portal endoscopic technique. Surgeons are given two options to attend the symposium: either in-person or virtually. The event will be held at the Surgical Science Laboratory, Center for Health Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in partnership with the UCLA Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The agenda will include both a didactic portion, focused on dualPortal endoscopic spine surgery, including lumbar fusion, as well as a hands-on lab portion for all attendees. There will be presentations and interactive sessions covering clinical outcomes of dualPortal and dualX. In the lab, faculty will showcase the power and versatility of the dualPortal endoscopic approach with dualX TLIF (dualLIF). As their 2nd Annual Symposium, this event marks a major milestone not only with Amplify Surgical, but also in minimally-invasive spine and endoscopic spine surgery alike, with expected attendance from surgeons all over the world. For registration information, please visit amplifysurgical.com/symposiumregistration. The dualPortal technique is a novel two-portal endoscopic approach to the spine that allows surgeons to easily learn and perform a wider array of lumbar spine procedures than the conventional one-portal technique. It also provides flexibility to perform endoscopic lumbar fusions with conventional expandable cages or dualX. The dualX technology is comprised of a family of titanium expandable interbody devices designed to expand in both width and height, implanted in lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF), posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) and transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) spinal procedures. The dualX portfolio contains varying footprints, heights, and degrees of lordosis with post-expansion bone grafting to provide an optimal anatomical fit for a clinically successful fusion environment. To learn more about Amplify Surgicals 2nd Annual Endoscopic Spine Symposium, dualPortal and dualX solutions, please visit our website at amplifysurgical.com/symposiumregistration or call us at 765-AMPLIFY (267-5439). About Amplify Surgical, Inc.: Amplify Surgical is a privately held spinal device company located in Irvine, CA. The Company focuses on developing and commercializing innovative and minimally-invasive technologies for spine surgery. Amplify Surgical is a portfolio company of IntuitiveX, a life science innovation incubator. Beast & Buckle co-founder Clark in the Blue Gingham No Pull harness Beast & Buckle, a four-year-old company that makes premium dog harnesses and accessories, made giving back a core part of its brand from the very start. The company makes regular donations of harnesses and leashes to rescues, with the retail value of the gear donations recently surpassing $100,000. Rescues and animal shelters across the United States continue to be inundated with dogs in need of loving homes and, in many cases, serious medical care, but one company is doing its part to make sure these life-saving rescues have the resources they need to support their dogs. South Carolina-based Beast & Buckle, a four-year-old company that makes premium dog harnesses and accessories, made giving back a core part of its brand from the very start. The company makes regular donations of harnesses and leashes to rescues, with the retail value of the gear donations recently surpassing $100,000. Every business focuses on important numbers, but, for us, the charitable impact stats are what matter most, said co-founder Stewart Anderson. Im extremely grateful to everyone in our community of customers and dog lovers that has supported us these last four years and helped us reach this milestone. Im so proud of the impact weve had on our rescue partners, and each and every Beast & Buckle customer is a part of that. In addition to donating harnesses and other needed products, Beast & Buckle also donates 5% of each sale on its website to rescues and other organizations that help animals. Many of the rescue organizations the company supports focus on French bulldogs, a breed that is very popular but also expensive for rescues to take in and care for due to their susceptibility to serious medical conditions. One such organization is Short Noses and Friends United (SNAFU) Rescue, a group focused on helping dogs in the midwest find loving homes. All you need is love, a dog and Beast & Buckle. The ongoing kindness, compassion and generosity for the rescue community is exceptional, said Angela ODaniel, a member of SNAFUs board. We are blessed to partner with a philanthropic company that donates items to ensure not only our rescue dogs but dogs all across the country are hugged by something new for their new leash on life! Anderson says that the companys next priority is reaching the $200,000 milestone as quickly as possible. As long as there are dogs in need of adoption and rescues in need of resources, were going to keep donating as many of our harnesses and leashes as possible. It took four years to reach this milestone, and we want to get to $200,000 in less than two. About Beast & Buckle Beast & Buckle is a veteran-owned brand that produces harnesses, leashes and other accessories for dogs that excel in both form and function. With multiple harness types and adorable designs available, Beast & Buckle has something for every dog who loves fun! Mike Raths joins Janitza LP as CEO "We're in an unbelievably strong industry with high-quality products and talented people. We're really in a position for growth." - Mike Raths, CEO, Janitza LP Janitza LP, a provider of electrical power quality devices and software, announced today that Mike Raths has been named as Chief Executive Officer. Raths is a proven team leader, with a 25-year career that began in the US Marine Corps and spans 15 years in the private sector. Raths' experience includes over a decade of sales leadership focused on the mission-critical Data Center, Telecommunications, and Construction Services markets. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated his deep commitment to exceeding revenue expectations while developing high-performing teams. Raths has extensive experience in the electrical product solutions space. "I'm here to build and execute a strategy that helps our customers, adds value for our clients, and to be the champion supporter of this team," Raths said. "We're in an unbelievably strong industry with high-quality products and talented people. We're really in a position for growth." Prior to joining Janitza, Raths built and managed the sales team at Atkore and its Construction and Prefab services division. He has also held leadership roles with Power Distribution, Inc. and Corning Incorporated. Additionally, Raths is a retired Officer in the US Marine Corps. While serving in the military, he was an aviator and completed three overseas deployments. Raths received a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona and an MBA from the University of California, Irvine. About Janitza LP Janitza LP is the North American arm of Janitza electronics GmbH, a leading German manufacturer of electrical power monitoring hardware and software. Janitza solutions enable customers to evaluate the quality of power in their facility and take action to reduce their energy costs, improve uptime, and decrease their carbon footprint. Janitza LP was established in 2018 and recently opened its US headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia. The Utah Office of Tourism is celebrating the 11 Utah establishments and chefs recognized as semifinalists for the 2023 James Beard Awards. The James Beard Foundation, a nonprofit organization that celebrates and supports Americas food culture and is one of the preeminent advocates for high standards in dining, announced the semifinalists for its annual restaurant and chef awards. The full list of semifinalist restaurants and chefs can be found here. Theres a culinary movement happening here in Utah, said Vicki Varela, managing director of the Utah Office of Tourism. We are thrilled to see these talented Utah restaurants and bars recognized for their creativity and their commitment to outstanding food and drink. Here are the Utah restaurants and chefs recognized by the James Beard Foundation as semifinalists across 23 categories: Outstanding Restaurant: Hells Backbone Grill & Farm (Boulder, UT) Outstanding Bakery: Normal Ice Cream (Salt Lake City, UT) Outstanding Hospitality: Manolis (Salt Lake City, UT) Outstanding Bar: Post Office Place (Salt Lake City, UT) Best Chef, Mountain Region: Paul Chamberlain and Logen Crew, SLC Eatery (Salt Lake City, UT) Best Chef, Mountain Region: Andrew Fuller, Oquirrh (Salt Lake City, UT) Best Chef, Mountain Region: Briar Handly, Handle (Park City, UT) Best Chef, Mountain Region: Young-Ho Kang and Peter Kim, The Angry Korean (South Jordan, UT) Best Chef, Mountain Region: Ali Sabbah, Mazza (Salt Lake City, UT) The winners of the highly-celebrated awards will be honored at a ceremony at the Lyric Opera of Chicago on Monday, June 5. For more dining inspiration, go to VisitUtah.com. ### About the Utah Office of Tourism: The Utah Office of Tourism's (UOT) mission is to elevate life in Utah through responsible tourism stewardship. We do this through marketing, stewardship, and development. Marketing: UOT curates messaging that inspires visitation, supports local businesses, and builds the Utah economy. Stewardship: UOT manages visitation statewide and supports the responsible discovery of Utah. Development: UOT partners with local communities to enhance and develop their visitor economies to benefit residents and visitors. Learn more at visitutah.com and travel.utah.gov. Cleadership: Cultural Leadership: a powerful tool for readers in leadership positions to incorporate culture-based practices into their workplace to improve employee productivity and satisfaction. Cleadership: Cultural Leadership is the creation of published author Dr. Victoria J. Cox, a leadership consultant and organization HR leader with over fifteen years of experience who holds a doctoral of management degree in organizational leadership. Are you a leader looking for ways to enhance the culture at your workplace through your leadership style? Culture and leadership equate to cleadership, writes Dr. Cox. This book teaches the importance of using critical thinking skills to implement cleadership in your organization. Cleadership is used to create positive cultural-based leadership using best practices to enhance your workplace culture. The cleadership best practices assist leaders in developing leadership styles that promote a culture of workplace civility; increased employee support; valued employees; succession planning strategies to retain knowledge; mentoring strategies; and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices that are a part of daily life and normal business practices. Learning to enhance your workplace culture will lead to higher retention rates and satisfied employees and customers. This book assists with developing a culture in the workplace by valuing inclusivity; identifying and halting microaggressive behavior; and finding ways to value similarities, differences, and uniqueness to robustize organizational leadership practices. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Dr. Victoria J. Coxs new book provides the necessary blueprints for readers in all levels of leadership to improve their skills and discover ways to improve morale and comradery between employees. By implementing Dr. Coxs advice, readers will discover just how quickly these best practices can help turn any workplace around through stopping issues between employees and encouraging a supportive work environment to benefit employees and customers alike. Consumers can purchase Cleadership: Cultural Leadership at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Cleadership: Cultural Leadership, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. L.D. Rybar, a loving wife and mother of three who enjoys volunteering at a childrens hospital, where she helps out on a neonatal care floor, has completed her new book Good Breeding: a captivating story of a chief security guard who hides a personal secret from her emperor, and often thinks of leaving him behind to protect him as well as herself. Cam Leedon lost his best friend seven years ago, and now he is a young emperor trying to run the Imperial Empire, writes Rybar. His palace security chief, Lieutenant Summers will protect him from all dangers for it is Regulation number 1, but she has a terrible attitude and an agenda of her own. She will do whatever she can to protect him, but she also has her ward in mind. She wishes to leave the palace assignment and emperor as soon as she can. Lieutenant Summers has her troop, Summers Seven, who will assist her wherever she decides to go. Will Emperor Leedon and Lieutenant Summers overcome their adversaries and live to speak about it? Published by Page Publishing, L.D. Rybars gripping tale will take readers on an unforgettable journey, as Emperor Leedon and Lieutenant Summers learn to tear down their walls and communicate, all while dangerous enemies threaten their empire. Expertly paced and full of suspense, Rybars character-driven story is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats, desperate for more right up until the satisfying conclusion. Readers who wish to experience this enthralling work can purchase Good Breeding at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Walt Smith, who graduated with a BA from the University of Alabama, a JD degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law, and most recently, the USC Linguistics Program, has completed his new book Proximity to History: The Walter Douglas Smith Story: a profound account of the life of the authors father, and his incredible sacrifices he gave to serve his country, students, and his family. Growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, only wearing shoes during the school year, Doug Smith was a child of the Depression, who joined the US Navy during the World War II, writes Smith. Though he had never before seen an ocean, he became the skipper of a patrol torpedo (PT 138) boat in the South Pacific. Seeking and sinking enemy cargo ships and severing Japanese supply lines, Ensign Smith had a front-row seat to the first use of kamikaze aircraft and the last clash of battleships in history. Twice held back in elementary school, he worked in punishing Ohio steel mills for college tuition. Ultimately earning his doctorate in psychology from the University of Michigan, he went on to teach at two universities and to become the founding president of Francis Marion University. Doug Smith personified the best qualities of his generation, personal responsibility, faithful commitment, a strong work ethic and prudent saving. The story of Walter Douglas Smith is the intersection of a colorful life journey and the history he passed through from 1918 to 2018. Published by Page Publishing, Walt Smiths stirring tale was written as a way to honor the authors father, and his legacy of service to his community and family, as well as his country. A poignant and deeply personal tribute, Smith takes readers on an inspiring journey to discover the incredible man his father was, and his drive to always do right by and help the people around him, no matter who they were. Readers who wish to experience this heartfelt work can purchase Proximity to History: The Walter Douglas Smith Story at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708. About Page Publishing: Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com. Crews dig in a Toledo, OH neighborhood to remove and replace lead service lines. This partnership is a crucial step in combating lead exposure in our country, multiplying our combined efforts to exponentially reduce the number of days families live with the risk. At the White House today, water analytics leader BlueConduit unites over 100 organizations for a summit to expedite the removal of lead in drinking water across the United States. The event officially launches the Biden-Harris Get the Lead Out Partnership. The inaugural partnership: Includes the federal government, states, tribes, local communities, water utilities, labor unions, and private companies. Plans to replace 100% of the nations lead service lines in 10 years. Will meet several times each year to identify new opportunities and measures to take. BlueConduits mission focuses on using data science and innovation to enable and empower communities to get the lead out, efficiently and equitably, said Eric Schwartz, co-founder of BlueConduit. This partnership is a crucial step in combating lead exposure in our country, multiplying our combined efforts to exponentially reduce the number of days families live with the risk. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency released its Lead and Copper Rule Revision, which requires all U.S. water systems to develop lead service line inventories by October 2024. The EPA included BlueConduits work and predictive modeling in its Service Line Inventory Guidance. The water analytics company originated the approach of using machine learning to predict the location of lead pipes and is working with cities to help meet their inventory deadline. Its estimated there are 6 to 12 million lead pipes carrying water to millions of people, but finding exactly where the lead pipes are has been a massive challenge. It can take cities years to find and replace them, costing tens of millions of dollars, said Schwartz, who also serves as a professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. BlueConduit began lead pipe predictions in 2016 in Flint, Michigan. Using publicly available data, its software has supported over 100 communities in the United States and Canada to reduce the number of days residents live with the risk of lead exposure. By April 2023, BlueConduits nationwide lead location predictions will be available on an interactive map, allowing the public to find out the status of their water systems. About BlueConduit BlueConduit, the pioneer in using data science to find lead pipes, has applied machine learning models across over 100 communities and water systems in 15 states. Their predictions have enabled utilities to locate lead in greater than 80% of attempted replacements, accelerating the removal of lead and lowering the cost per successful replacement. Access to the BlueConduit platform is supported for disadvantaged communities in part through grants from Google.org and The Rockefeller Foundation. Learn more at BlueConduit.com. Participants of the Brain Power Wellness retreat in Nicaragua. As Brain Power Wellness reviews the passing of another successful year, the holistic wellness organization highlights how it ended 2022 by hosting a staff retreat in Nicaragua. This retreat was a positive milestone for Brain Power Wellness as it was the companys first time leading a staff retreat with an international group of corporate managers. Brain Power Wellness leader Rebecca Wheaton has been connected with Nicaragua since she was thirteen years of age. Since her training to become a leader, Wheaton has taught professionally and voluntarily to local schools and non-profit organizations in Managua. Her relationship with Nicaragua has opened the doors for Brain Power Wellness to further look into avenues to bring the tools and wisdom Brain Power Wellness shares with schools a step further to the corporate world. The wellness company has continued conversations with Grupo Invercasas CO-CEO, Raul Amador, on this specific immersion goal. INVERCASA, otherwise known as Grupo Invercasa, is authorized by the Superintendency of Banks and the Nicaraguan Stock Exchange as a Stock Exchange. With a team of highly qualified professionals ready for action, INVERCASA strives to offer clients personalized financial advice and trust and complete discretion for security purposes. Twenty of INVERCASAs general managers gathered in Nicaragua this past December 19th to participate in a Brain Power Wellness retreat for staff, guided by Brain Power Wellness leader Wheaton and her colleague Elizabeth Chavez. As BPW staff, we were graced with lively participation and positive engagement with this group of financial professionals. Despite having no prior knowledge of what to expect, the group took a deep dive into their own health and well-being and naturally made the important connection about how their inner work contributes to their stamina, focus, and joy in both their professional and personal life. It was a great joy to work with them, said Wheaton. During the retreat, staff members of Grupo Invercasa engaged in various activities that fueled understanding around self-care, team-building, the importance of family, and developing professional and personal goals. All activities were in sync with the three Brain Power Wellness steps that structured the retreat: Step #1: Connect with Self, Step #2: Professional Team Connection, and Step #3: Family Connection. To kick off the start of the retreat, INVERCASA team members shared their personal and professional goals. Brain Power Wellness leaders then introduced self-care techniques, showing how to use breathing, stretching, holding postures, and dancing to open up physical blockages and become aware of where the body is holding tension. Diverse team games followed, along with a discussion about parenting tips, and the retreat ended with practicing a variety of Brain Breaks. Brain Power Wellness experienced such tremendous success with the retreat, along with overwhelmingly positive feedback, that the wellness organization plans to return to Nicaragua in the soon future to pursue more chances to continue to connect meaningfully with corporate staff. About Brain Power Wellness Brain Power Wellness is a school-based wellness company that supports healthier school environments. Transforming partner schools through self-development, mindfulness, community building, retreats, SEL, holistic wellness, and brain training, Brain Power Wellness helps teachers, students, parents, and administrators. Since 2007, it has impacted more than 25,000 teachers and half a million students in 500 schools worldwide. Possum Walk: a heartwarming story of hope, community, and life in rural America. Possum Walk is the creation of published author Jeannie Edwards, a dedicated wife, mother, and grandmother who resides in Iowa. Edwards shares, The era was loosely called the dirty thirties because there was a national depression. Blanche is a young lady with a two-year teaching certificate. She is ready for her first job and prepared to teach at the elementary grade level. However, she discovers a tight job market and takes temporary employment until an unexpected teaching opportunity is presented. Though it isnt what she anticipated or hoped for, she gratefully accepts, never doubting that as a teacher she has much to teach the children. In the days ahead, she becomes aware that her perceptions of what she would give the children were not entirely realistic, for the children of Possum Walk School had much to teach their teacher. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Jeannie Edwardss new book brings new life to a bygone age of rural schools that served communities in need for generations. Edwards shares a charming narrative that is certain to entertain as it transports readers into the heart of a closeknit community. Consumers can purchase Possum Walk at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about Possum Walk, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. A Little Pain Never Hurt Nobody: An MDs Unorthodox Life in the Colorado Rockies: an engaging and compelling narrative of running a medical clinic with few resources and limited experience. A Little Pain Never Hurt Nobody: An MDs Unorthodox Life in the Colorado Rockies is the creation of published author John Peters M.D., a medical professional for over sixty years who spent his life as a humanitarian and has trained military corpsmen across the globe. Peters M.D. writes, Six months before, Id been on my way to work as a physician for an oil company in Saudi Arabia. Id said goodbye to my parents in LA and started driving to New York City, my jump-off point for Saudi Arabia. On a whim, I decided to take a little side trip to visit an old medical school friend of mine in Telluride, Colorado, a mining town of four hundred people at that time. It took me all of two days to fall in love with that forgotten corner of the world. Fourteen-thousand-foot mountain peaks; lush green valleys; streams filled with rainbow trout; hills teeming with elk, deer, and bear; real cowboys and Indians; ghost towns to explore the Wild West was still wild on the western slope of Colorado in those days. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, John Peters M.D.s new book shares the personal account of a young doctor who faces insurmountable situations and uses the knowledge and items at hand to save lives. While making house calls at remote ranches and landing a plane on makeshift runways, patients become family and a personal fear becomes public honor. Consumers can purchase A Little Pain Never Hurt Nobody: An MDs Unorthodox Life in the Colorado Rockies at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about A Little Pain Never Hurt Nobody: An MDs Unorthodox Life in the Colorado Rockies, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. Orbee integrates local market insights and predictive modeling capabilities from Anderson Economic Group We need new ways to model proprietary dealership data. This offering will identify the best next action to engage customers considering a vehicle purchase or servicing, stated Atul Patel, Co-Founder & CEO of Orbee. Orbee, a leading provider of customer experience middleware for dealerships, announces integration with decision modeling from research firm Anderson Economic Group (AEG). Through this new relationship, the firms will give dealerships and other automotive organizations clearer insight, helping them to determine which strategies will produce the strongest consumer response. Complementing Orbees already robust dealership offerings, this enhanced solution offers advanced statistics and probability. AEG has long been preeminent in providing dealers with consulting advice and expert testimony, said Peter Fong, chief commercial officer at Orbee and former executive at Ford and Chrysler. Theyve worked with hundreds of dealerships representing every major brand. Orbee helps dealerships to aggregate and connect their first-party data, and to implement omnichannel marketing campaigns. We need new ways to model proprietary dealership data. This offering will identify the best next action to engage customers considering a vehicle purchase or servicing, stated Atul Patel, co-founder & CEO of Orbee. The integration of Orbee and AEG systems will support auto dealers in making informed decisions regarding business operations that include inventory, marketing, used car stock, service operations, capital expenditures, and relocation options. Im pleased to be at NADA in Dallas to announce that Rapid Recursive technology will be offered to auto dealers through the Orbee platform, said Patrick L. Anderson, principal & CEO of Anderson Economic Group. This next-gen decision modeling is critical for dealers adapting to a fast-shifting auto market. Orbee and AEG will attend the NADA Show in Dallas, Texas from January 26-29, 2023. Stop by the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and visit Orbee booth #3025 in Hall C to learn how Orbee and AEG can level up your business strategies. About Orbee, Inc. Orbee provides digital marketing analytics, data, and automation solutions to the automotive industry. Franchise and independent dealers and large dealership groups utilize the Orbees platform to measure marketing investments with campaign analytics, understand shopper behaviors with its customer journeys, manage and control their first and third-party data with tag management, reach buyers everywhere with omnichannel marketing, leverage 1:1 engagement with personalized messaging, comply with safeguard data laws with regulatory compliance and enable their tech teams with powerful APIs and SDKs. The company partners with dealer-centric media agencies, service providers, and OEM programs to expand the reach of its powerful technologies. To learn more about Orbees powerful marketing technology, please visit orbee.com and follow Orbee on LinkedIn. Connect with Orbee in person by visiting us at upcoming events. About Anderson Economic Group LLC Anderson Economic Group is one of the most recognized boutique consulting companies in the automotive industry. AEGs experience extends over two and a half decades, with clients that have included OEMs, tier I and II suppliers, national and state trade associations, automobile dealers, and dealership groups. AEG clients rely upon the firms local market intelligence, state-of-the-art geographic information systems technology, and astute industry knowledge. AEG assists automotive clients with location decisions, performance improvement, valuation, and expert testimony. The company is also a cofounder of Supported Intelligence LLC, which holds patents on the Rapid Recursive technology delivering next-generation customer analytics. To learn more about AEG, please visit AndersonEconomicGroup.com. For regularly updated national market intelligence, see https://www.AndersonEconomicGroup.com/auto-dashboard/. Growing ICON National and our legacy to truly iconic levels of brand recognition has been a labor of love, one project at a time. Over the years, the ICON National team has earned a reputation for going above and beyond simply renovating occupied affordable housing communities. MFRG-ICON Construction, a leader in construction solutions for the occupied renovation of affordable multifamily and senior housing communities, announced today the rebranding of the company to ICON National. The name change represents a consolidation of ownership within ICON National along with strategic geographic expansion. ICON National has been a leader in the affordable housing renovation space since its inception in 2017 when it was created by Multifamily Renovation Group, Inc. and ICON Commercial Contractors, Inc. as MFRG-ICON Construction. The company has completed renovation work on thousands of affordable multifamily and senior housing units across the United States. Growing ICON National and our legacy to truly iconic levels of brand recognition has been a labor of love, one project at a time. Over the years, the ICON National team has earned a reputation for going above and beyond simply renovating occupied affordable housing communities. Were proud to be recognized as an innovator and expert, and for our generous community-minded programs and philanthropic giving, said Justin Krueger, CEO/President of ICON National. ICON National renovates affordable multifamily and senior housing communities. The positive transformation of homes is most rewarding, along with the wave of good that ripples through the lives of residents, communities, and beyond, said Krueger. We look forward to continuing to help change the lives of those we serve in communities across the country. About ICON National With significant specialized experience and a strong reputation in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit industry since 2017, ICON National has drawn the blueprint for success through its work ethic, knowledge, quality, and financial strength. As a skilled and experienced General Contracting firm, its team has completed more than 7,500 affordable multifamily and senior housing units. This equates to over $500 million in construction, while positively impacting the lives of more than 20,000 families and seniors. On top of delivering a quality product, ICON National strives to provide a strong company culture for their team members, as well as impactful social initiatives. This empowers ICON Nationals employees to give back to the communities that the company serves. ICON National has been recognized as a Best Place to Work by Inc. Magazine and a Top Company to Work for by The Arizona Republic. ICON National has offices in Scottsdale, AZ and Nashville, TN and is comprised of more than 100 team members, all with diversified construction backgrounds prepared to handle any type of affordable multifamily and senior housing project. ICON National effectively collaborates with architects, engineers, owners, consultants, and trades throughout the affordable multifamily and senior housing ecosystem. For more information about ICON National, please visit http://www.iconnational.com. The Movie Chair: an inventive adventure of a special chair. The Movie Chair is the creation of published author Shari Borkin, who has been a registered art therapist for over twenty-five years. In her career, she used her training to focus her work on students with disabilities. Borkin worked with children in specialty schools, taught an adaptive art class ranging from ages eighteen to eighty in Redding, California, and has also worked in the California prison system in mental health. She now teaches art in private practice. Borkin shares, The Movie Chair is the story of a caring little chair in a historic movie theater who is particularly fond of the weekends when children come to the theater. This delightful chair takes great pleasure in hiding coins in her cushions so that the children can buy candy, poking rude adults with her springs, and being involved in many other weekend calamities. When all seems well, adversity strikes when the historic movie theater is remodeled, and the chair finds herself learning a new lesson on a different adventure than she ever expected. But things have a way of working themselves out by having faith. I know that The Movie Chair will reach children and touch many hearts. Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Shari Borkins new book has been completed in honor of Sharis late mother, Dr. Jacqueline Joy Borkin, DC. Crafting both the engaging narrative as well as the striking imagery, Borkin shares in hopes of reaching upcoming generations and providing content that will spark the imagination. Borkin states, it would be great if future generations spend less time on cell phones, video games and the internet, to find and activate their creative souls, initially bringing traditional family values back into our society. Consumers can purchase The Movie Chair at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble. For additional information or inquiries about The Movie Chair, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919. transcosmos With the aim of utilizing the metaverse as a communication channel, transcosmos has launched two demonstration tests: to build a virtual contact center for businesses that offer diverse working arrangements, and to realize and spread a virtual communication service. transcosmos inc. hereby announces that the company has signed an advisory contract with Kenshiro Michishita, a lawyer and representative of SAKURA Law Office. In these early days of the metaverse, laws and regulations that govern the metaverse are still limited. To avoid any potential legal risks in its initiatives toward creating new ways of communication powered by the metaverse, transcosmos will reinforce its service delivery framework to ensure that businesses can operate on the metaverse safely and securely. 1. Purpose of the advisory contract Metaverse is still in its primary development stage, and therefore, most of the legal issues remain unclear. Discussions from a legal perspective on real-world regulatory frameworks including rules and regulations that apply to the metaverse are essential as events and transactions on the metaverse are interconnected with the real world. Given the current situation, transcosmos, in partnership with the lawyer Kenshiro Michishita, will strengthen the service delivery framework for offering new ways of communication using the metaverse to ensure that clients can operate their businesses safely and securely in the virtual world. Kenshiro Michishita is an advisory member of the Public-Private Cooperation Council for Addressing New Legal Issues Concerning Contents In the Metaverse a body formed by the Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, the Cabinet Office to discuss rules and regulations concerning the metaverse and to address associated legal issues. He is also an advisory board member of the Virtual City Consortium, and participated in developing the Virtual City Guidelines (Metaverse Guidelines), which stipulates cautions and items to consider in developing and managing the metaverse/city-linked metaverse. 2. transcosmos initiatives on the metaverse With the aim of utilizing the metaverse as a communication channel, transcosmos has launched two demonstration tests. One is to build a virtual contact center for businesses that offer diverse working arrangements to help them communicate with their remote employees on the metaverse. The other is to realize and spread a virtual communication service that assists communication between businesses and their customers. 3. Kenshiro Michishita profile Kenshiro Michishita is a lawyer and representative of the SAKURA Law Office, and a member of the DAI-ICHI TOKYO BAR ASSOCIATION. As an advisory board member of the Virtual City Consortium, he took part in developing the Virtual City Guidelines (Metaverse Guidelines). Kenshiro also serves as an advisor of the Metaverse Japan. Appointed to the advisory board of the Public-Private Cooperation Council for Addressing New Legal Issues Concerning Contents In the Metaverse a body formed by the Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, the Cabinet Office, he participates in developing rules and regulations governing the metaverse. Before establishing SAKURA Law Office, he was with the international law firm, Nishimura & Asahi. Kenshiro specializes in comprehensive corporate law including the Companies Act and Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, and he deals with a broad range of legal matters such as M&A in both Japan and overseas, corporate litigation, crisis management, corporate governance, and matters related to shareholders meetings. In addition, he is one of the leading Japanese lawyers who serves as an advisor in the emerging legal fields including the metaverse, NFT, Web3, and DAO. Kenshiro Michishita is featured in multiple media, and gives numerous lectures every year, actively playing in a diverse range of fields. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Hitotsubashi University, and Keio University Law School. Comment by Kenshiro Michishita, lawyer and representative of SAKURA Law Office As metaverse businesses continue to draw attention across the globe, developing laws and regulations governing transactions on a virtual space, the metaverse, remains a challenge. I recognize that serious discussions about the laws and rules started to take place at last against this backdrop. I myself was engaged in developing the Virtual City Guidelines, and have been serving as an advisory board member of the Public-Private Cooperation Council for Addressing New Legal Issues Concerning Contents In the Metaverse a body formed by the Secretariat of Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters, the Cabinet Office. Leveraging such experience, I will provide specific legal advice for transcosmos, carefully considering its business needs, while organizing and discussing metaverse-related legal issues from diverse perspectives. Related news https://www.transcosmos-cotra.jp/ (no translation available) https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/company/news/220901_0001.html https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/company/news/220901_0002.html transcosmos is a trademark or registered trademark of transcosmos inc. in Japan and other countries. Other company names and product or service names used here are trademarks or registered trademarks of respective companies. About transcosmos inc. transcosmos launched its operations in 1966. Since then, we have combined superior "people" with up-to-date "technology" to enhance the competitive strength of our clients by providing them with superior and valuable services. transcosmos currently offers services that support clients' business processes focusing on both sales expansion and cost optimization through our 172 bases across 28 countries/regions with a focus on Asia, while continuously pursuing Operational Excellence. Furthermore, following the expansion of e-commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive One-Stop Global E-Commerce Services to deliver our clients' excellent products and services to consumers in 46 countries/regions around the globe. transcosmos aims to be the "Global Digital Transformation Partner" of our clients, supporting the clients' transformation by leveraging digital technology, responding to the ever-changing business environment. Visit us here https://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp/english/ PTI Fact Check: Tweet calling Global Warming a hoax is misleading; Selected years data shared to highlight global cooling trend falsely New Delhi, Jan 27 (Abhinav Gupta / Pratyush Ranjan PTI Fact Check): A Twitter user cited data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and claimed the Earth has been cooling, not warming, over the years, allegedly proving that global warming from carbon emissions was a hoax. The PTI Fact Check Desk found in its investigation that a selected part of the NOAA graphics on land and ocean temperatures over the years was taken out of context to highlight the global cooling trend falsely. The NOAA and two environmental science experts, whom the Desk reached out to for comment, vehemently refuted the claim made in the post on Twitter. Claim The Desk received on its Fact Check WhatsApp number +91-8130503759 a tweet by a verified handle showing an NOAA graph displaying land and ocean temperatures over the last eight years, from 2015 to 2022. Based on the graph, the post claimed that Earths temperature reduced, not increased, at a rate of 0.11 degree Celsius per decade. The tweet, posted on Jan 13 this year, further said that the topic of global warming due to CO2 emissions was a hoax. NOAA makes it official. Last eight years... global cooling... at a rate of 0.11C/decade.... despite 450+ billion tons of emissions worth 14% of total manmade CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 warming is a hoax, read the tweet, which garnered over 13 million views, 18,000 likes, and 8,500 retweets. the tweet and its archive post, and below is the screenshot of the same: Here are the links toand its, and below is the screenshot of the same: Investigation The Desk started the investigation with a Google Reverse Image search on the graph. A separate search on the results combined with the keywords global cooling, NOAA led us to the official website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Desk found a graph that displayed temperature trends over ears from 1880 to 2022, which showed a consistent rise in global average temperatures. NOAA webpage, and below is the screenshot of the graph: Here is the link to the, and below is the screenshot of the graph: On carefully studying the graph and then zooming in on the period displayed on the chart shared in the tweet, the Desk found that the Twitter user had used the same data but only for a selected period and presented it out of context. Below is a screenshot of the data on the NOAA graph for the period 2015-2022. The graph on land and ocean temperatures suggests that Earths average temperature had risen consistently since 1976, except in 1984 when it reduced by 0.08 degree Celsius. There have been several instances when the Earths average temperature witnessed a dip. However, the last 38 years (from 1985 to 2023) have seen temperatures rising. The Desk then closely monitored NOAAs Climate at a Glance time series tool and found that it allows users to generate global temperature charts based on parameters like date and location. For instance, the user who claimed on Twitter selected a time frame of January 2015 to January 2022, which showed a cooling trend of 0.09 degree Celsius per decade; however, if we choose the period between January 2010 and January 2016, the tool shows warming trend of nearly 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade. Below is a screenshot of the same: report by NOAA contradicted the claim made by the Twitter user. The report, published on Jan 13, 2022, stated, 2021 ranked sixth on the list of warmest years on record, dating back to 1880. Anothercontradicted the claim made by the Twitter user. The report, published on Jan 13, 2022, stated, 2021 ranked sixth on the list of warmest years on record, dating back to 1880. Earths average land and ocean surface temperature in 2021 was 1.51 degrees F (0.84 of a degree C) above the 20th-century average. It also marked the 45th consecutive year (since 1977) with global temperatures rising above the 20th-century average. The years 2013-2021 all rank among the ten-warmest years on record, the report added. The Desk then went through a report by the United Nations, which explained its Climate Action goal as part of its Sustainable Development Goals. It stated that the global temperature has already risen 1.1 degree Celsius above the pre-industrial level. The global temperature has risen 1.1C above the pre-industrial level, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. The impacts of climate change also include flooding and drought, displacing millions of people, sinking them into poverty and hunger, denying them access to basic services, such as health and education, expanding inequalities, stifling economic growth, and even causing conflict. By 2030, an estimated 700 million people will be at risk of displacement by drought alone, the report stated. UN report, and below is a screenshot of the same: Here is a link to the, and below is a screenshot of the same: In December last year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that he would convene a Climate Ambition Summit next September and called on every leader to step up from governments, business, cities, and regions, civil society and finance. NASA also confirmed the global warming trend over decades, which has continued steadily. Here is a screenshot of the key takeaway of the report: also confirmed the global warming trend over decades, which has continued steadily. Here is a screenshot of the key takeaway of the report: The report also presented a graph showing the land-ocean temperature index, clearly indicating a continuous rise in the average global temperatures. Below is a screenshot of the graph: Subsequently, the Desk concluded that the Twitter user cherry-picked the NOAA data for a short time and presented it out of context to claim that the Earth was witnessing global cooling. NOAA refutes global cooling claim The Desk contacted NOAA by e-mail for its comment on the claims veracity. In its response, the organisations climate scientist Ahira Sanchez-Lugo said: Although the climate is changing to a warmer climate, it is also subject to natural variabilities such as El Ninos (hot temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean) and La Ninas (unusually cool temperatures across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean). El Ninos and La Ninas not only affect global weather patterns, but they can also affect global temperatures. During El Ninos, global temperatures tend to be warmer than in years when ENSO neutral or La Ninas were present. In contrast, global temperatures are slightly cooler (but above average) during La Ninas. 2016 started with a strong El Nino, which helped boost global temperatures to record highs. And since then, we have had Rs 3 La Ninas, which help slightly cool global temperatures. The selected timeframe from 2016-2022 can create the appearance of a cooling trend, Ahira added. Similarly, if you select 2012-2016, you get a warming trend of 0.97 deg C per decade! This is why we use timescales of at least ten years when computing trends, the NOAA scientist concluded. Below are the graphical representations shared by the NOAA scientist. The first shows El Ninos and La Ninas which occurred between Jan 1950 and Jul 2022. The second and third show a steady rise in the global temperature over the years. What do experts have to say? The Desk also reached out to two experts to understand the phenomenon and whether the selective data in the claim suggested an overall global cooling trend. Dr. Aniket Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, Dyal Singh College, University of Delhi, told PTI that the user who made a claim cherry-picked the 2016-2022 data to make his point, which was not the case otherwise. When we talk about climate change, we talk about long-term data, i.e., at least 30 years. Due to global warming, we are seeing erratic changes in temperature in various parts of the world. So, some years are sweltering, and some years are less hot, added Kumar. This gentleman (The Twitter user) has taken selective data from 2015-16 till 2022, claiming cooling is happening. Now 2015 -16 were known to be sweltering years, so compared to that particular year, other years were not that hot, so the graph showing us the cooling in the decade, he said. On the users claim that global warming due to CO2 emissions was a hoax, Kumar said: Global warming is real, and it is true we are going to see a more erratic pattern in average temperature in coming years. The graph below shows the land-ocean temperature trend over the period 1990-2022 that witnessed a rise of 0.31 degree Celsius per decade: The Desk also contacted Dr. Rajeev Singh, an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Jamia Millia Islamia University in Delhi, for his comment. Dr. Singh echoed similar sentiments on the claim made by the Twitter user in his post. I could not relate to this 8-year temperature data as there is no evidence of decreasing CO2 emission in these years. Also, there have been reports of increasing CO2 emissions, heat, and temperature in recent years. So, saying that CO2 warming is a hoax is not relevant. The tweet graph shows a single parameter without much details and correlation, Dr. Singh told PTI. Claim Earths temperature reduced, not increased, at a rate of 0.11 degree Celsius per decade during 2016 and 2022, and the discussion of global warming due to CO2 emissions was a hoax. Fact NOAAs Climate at a Glance data was cherry-picked for a short period and taken out of context to make a false claim. The complete graph for 1880 to 2022 showed a warming trend and a rise of 0.84 degrees Celsius above the 20th-century average. Conclusion A Twitter user cited NOAAs climate change data to claim that the Earths temperature reduced, not increased and that the global warming due to CO2 emissions was a hoax. The Desk found in its investigation that the data was cherry-picked from the actual graph on land-ocean temperatures trend for 142 years and presented out of context to make the false claim. The NOAA itself and two experts refuted the claim made by the Twitter user. You can contact PTI Fact Check on WhatsApp Number +91-8130503759 and share any claim or social media post you think is essential to fact-check and want us to verify. Beginning the next chapter in its expanding business, Page Street Publishing is launching an imprint this springPage Street YAdedicated to the companys growing teen readership. Under this brand, the company expects to double the number of annual releases by 2024, with 24 new titles slated. The Salem, Mass.-based publisher of picture books and nonfiction titles cited strong 2022 sales in the YA sector, particularly with its horror and LGBTQ titles. As sales and awareness of Page Streets YA list increases, it feels like the right moment to set these books apart from our adult nonfiction and kids picture book list with a YA-specific imprint, publisher William Kiester said in a statement. Since Page Streets 2018 entrance into the YA space with two titles, the publisher now produces 12 new releases each year, distributed by Macmillan. Last fall, the company saw its first indie bestseller with The Gathering Dark: An Anthology of Folk Horror, edited by Tori Bovalino, which remained on the bestseller list for four weeks. Other notable selections include Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibanez, a 2020 William C. Morris Award finalist; Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar; and The Bone Charmer and The Splendor by Breeana Shields, both of which earned the Whitney Award for YA Fantasy. In addition, Page Streets YA titles have received statewide recognition, including the Texas TAYSHAs, Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers, and Maine Student Book Award. This spring, Page Street YA will broaden its portfolio with the Puerto Rico-set portal fantasy The Last Sunrise in Eterna by Amparo Ortiz (Mar.) and The Alchemy of Moonlight, a gothic-inspired gay werewolf fantasy by David Ferraro (May). In October, the company will publish Katya de Becerras When Ghosts Call Us Home, a contemporary horror novel. We are so excited to publish even more YA books in 2024, senior editor Lauren Knowles said in a statement. We have an incredible list coming upincluding sapphic romance, heartfelt contemporary, edge-of-your-seat horror, and cozy fantasyand we will continue to highlight diverse stories so that all teens can see themselves reflected in our list. In a conversation with PW, Knowles said, We know how deeply important books are, how meaningful they can be, and we want to make books that readers will love for years to come. Kiester added, The new imprint and expansion of the list underscores the hunger in the market for characters who are LGBTG+, BIPOC, or from other under-represented communities, portrayed in stories of equally diverse settings with page-turning plotlines across a gamut of genres. Page Street YA takes a modern look at YA, flying the flag of a new generation of readers, and we hope it is now even easier for readers to find a story that speaks to them. Its the dawning of a new day for the author known for a beloved bedtime storyand a new tomorrow for the two winners of an award in her honor. The Childrens Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education has announced the two books that are the first recipients of the Margaret Wise Brown Board Book Award for excellence in literature for young children. Give Me a Snickle! by Alisha Sevigny (Orca) won in the 018 months range, and Me and the Family Tree by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin (Sourcebooks), won in the 1836 months category. The 2023 award, named for the Goodnight Moon author and former Bank Street student, acknowledges outstanding board books published (or picture books adapted to board books) in 2021 or 2022 for age 03. Hands-on Selection Process Both winning titles were chosen from among hundreds of board books evaluated by the Childrens Book Committee. A select group of jurors (comprised of Perri Klass, national medical director, Reach Out and Read; Leonard S. Marcus, childrens literature historian, author, and critic; Mark Nagasawa, director, Straus Center for Young Children & Families, Bank Street College of Education; Takiema Bunche-Smith, senior advisor, Center on Culture, Race & Equity, Bank Street College of Education; Ofelia Garcia Otheguy, professor emerita, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; and Rachel Payne, coordinator, Early Childhood Services, Brooklyn Public Library) then reviewed 17 titles that met criteria set by the Center for Childrens Literature and recommended by the committee. In addition, teachers and children in the Bank Street Family Center read copies of the nominated books and provided feedback to the judges. To honor both award recipients, the committee will host a virtual event on March 9, featuring a keynote by Klass entitled Board Books in the Pediatric Exam Room: Something to Chew On and a panel discussion on the makings of best board books. Registration for the event will begin February 10. The Childrens Book Committee has put tremendous effort into the identification of top-quality board booksan area of literature for children that is often overlooked by reviewersthese past two years, said Cynthia Weill, director of the Bank Street Center for Childrens Literature. We believe that engagement with high-quality board books and literature for babies and toddlers is important for numerous reasons, including for providing stimulation in support of brain development, enhancing visual and memorization skills, imparting an understanding of how the world works, and bonding infants and adults. They are a cornerstone for developing early literacy skills. The committee will host a virtual event on KidLit TV on March 9. In addition to the Margaret Wise Brown award, the committee presented its first Best Board Books of the Year list for 2023, with plans to publish the list annually. Ahead of the first in-person LibLearnX meeting (which opens today in New Orleans), good news for the American Library Association this week, which announced a "transformational" $5.515 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation "to help ALA advance its mission of enhancing the profession of librarianship and ensuring access to information for all." ALA officials said the grant is the foundation's most significant investment in ALA ever. At a time when libraries and librarians are facing immense pressure and scrutiny, it is affirming and deeply meaningful to have the support of community champions like the Mellon Foundation, who understand our plight and are willing to invest in our mission, said ALA President Lessa Pelayo-Lozada, in a statement. This transformational gift will enable ALA to expand its existing programs and establish new initiatives to better serve librarians and communities across the nation. ALA officials said the funds will support several programs and initiatives including "advocacy for intellectual freedom and countering censorship and book bans, scholarships and career development support for Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) librarians, scaling adult and digital literacy instruction, the continuation of COVID-19 relief funding, organizational capacity building in libraries, and more." Gary Price at LJ's InfoDocket reports that the Library Freedom Project, an organization of library workers committed to digital privacy rights, has also received a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to "advance critical privacy and democracy" training. At a time when libraries are facing hyper-partisan attacks on our foundational values, librarians need to be able to connect and strategize with fellow workers in a supportive environment. We couldnt be more excited to create these spaces, said Library Freedom Project director Alison Macrina. In Florida, independent journalist Judd Legum at Popular Information wrote about educators in Florida who are now grappling with the fallout of new "parental rights" legislation. "Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom librariesand any other 'unvetted' booksinaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution," Legum writes. "In response to the policy, some teachers packed up their classroom libraries. Others covered up the books students are no longer allowed to read with construction paper." The news comes after new "training" for librarians was approved by the Florida Department of Education late last week. Under the state's new laws, school librarians and teachers face potential felony charges for making "inappropriate" books available to students. Legum's report was picked up by news organizations across the nation, and his Twitter thread on the report has racked up more than 10 million views as of this writing. But even when books are finally released to potential readers under a 'ban first, ask questions later' system, the message is sent: Books are presumed inherently dangerous. Instead of being glad that a child is reading a book, the system treats every child with a book as suspicious. At Salon, Senior Writer Amanda Marcotte (citing Legum's reporting) has a strong take on what's happening in Florida (and elsewhere). "The language of 'vetting' and whatnot is put in place by DeSantis and his allies to create...a misleading debate about the nature of censorship," Marcotte writes. "Book ban supporters can claim they're not banning books because, in theory, books can be 'vetted' and restored to the shelves. Of course, this is how all book bans throughout time have worked. They rarely, if ever, cover all the books all the time. But even when books are finally released to potential readers under a 'ban first, ask questions later' system, the message is sent: Books are presumed inherently dangerous. Instead of being glad that a child is reading a book, the system treats every child with a book as suspicious. Policies like this have a ripple effect, recasting reading not as a social good but a threat to be strictly regulated." Over at Book Riot, Kelly Jensen leads off her weekly roundup of the week's censorship news with an open letter to Stephen King, explaining why a recent tweet from the mega-bestselling author (ostensibly in defense of the freedom to read) actually did more harm than good. In one Texas school district, books no longer have to be read to be banned. According to a report in the Dallas Morning News school board trustees in McKinney ISD unanimously voted to change its book policy. "Instead of evaluators needing to read an entire book, they may now read only passages under question," the report notes. Another story this week, this one from the Washington Post, about the the chilling effect book bans and new "parental rights" laws are having on new book purchases. "Conversations with 37 school librarians across 21 states suggest they are facing heightened scrutiny and a thicket of red tape where before they had wide latitude to choose the books they thought would best supplement the curriculum and stimulate students literary appetites," the report notes. In the piece, Steve Potash, CEO of OverDrive, the largest distributor of digital books to schools and libraries, suggests that the bans have cost "millions of dollars" in sales in 2022. Its troubling," Potash told the Post. "Its impacted not only our business, but the authors and the readers and the students. Meanwhile, OverDrive this week reported that public libraries recently surpassed one billion digital lends via OverDrive's Libby app. "The one billionth checkout in Libby occurred on January 21 through a member public library of the Arkansas Digital Library Consortium. The title, An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, a murder mystery released in 2018, reinforces the growing reality that readers of all ages use their local library to enjoy digital books of all genres, in addition to the most popular and trending new releases." In Horry County, South Carolina, ABC15 reports that "librarians, educators, and Horry County parents" are pushing back against a list of 77 books that right wing group Moms for Liberty is demanding be removed from library shelves. "If you remove a book like All Boys Aren't Blue, you are telling students in our schools in the LGBTQ community that they are somehow inappropriate," said one retired teacher at a board meeting. The National Coalition Against Censorship has released a new resource offering "practical advice for authors" whose books are being challenged and banned in schools and libraries. "Because book challenges can happen anytime and seemingly for any reason, NCACs Arts & Culture Advocacy Program (ACAP) solicited advice from authors whose books have been attacked, including Jonathan Evison (Lawn Boy), Frederick Joseph (The Black Friend), Jo Knowles (Pearl), Susan Kuklin (Beyond Magenta), Meg Medina (Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass), and Leslea Newman (Heather Has Two Mommies)." From EveryLibrary, a post about a massive "Read-In" at the Utah State Capitol this week in support of the freedom to read. "The event was organized by Let Utah Read, a new coalition of pro-library, pro first amendment groups including EveryLibrary, PEN America Utah Chapter, Utah Library Association, and the ACLU of Utah, and was managed through EveryLibrary's new Fight for the First platform." The Guardian has a short piece on unsheltered library patrons. At LitHub, novelist Kathryn Ma has a sweet remembrance of her librarian mother. And finally this week, two more states have introduced new library e-book bills. On January 20, Massachusetts introduced its new library e-book bill, which is significantly different than the Maryland law struck down by a federal court last year. The Massachusetts bill offers a more pronounced consumer protection focus: it does not require publishers to offer licenses, but regulates what restrictions those licenses may contain. In addition, Virginia lawmakers introduced a similar library e-book bill in the Virginia Senate. Following Rhode Island, that makes three new bills in the opening weeks of 2023. The Week in Libraries is a weekly opinion and news column. News, tips, submissions, questions or comments are welcome, and can be submitted via email. The analysis noted that Google experienced the largest growth in 2022 and 2021 and the trend is expected to continue in 2023. But it adds that the market will not those ready to take the fight to the IT giant, in particular Roku which has yet to consolidate its position in the smart TV-only market outside North America.Dataxis noted that that the long-awaited expansion in Europe finally became a reality end of 2021 with the launch of Roku-powered TCL TV sets in the UK. Germany has recently followed through licensing agreements with Metz Blue and TCL. The analyst said Roku seems willing to take the next step further in the TV OS market through announcing it would launch its own Roku-built Smart TVs this year. That said, Dataxis expects this launch will be limited to the North American market in the short term in a similar way to Amazon a year ago.Another anticipated key entrant will likely be Xperi subsidiary TiVo which is set to license its OS to third-party TV makers like Vestel, Telefunken or JVC, and has reached an agreement to integrate its software into Amlogic chipsets. Both deals are designed to release TV sets in several European countries.Vidaa also increased its market share in 2022, with a strong presence in the top 5 European markets, and a fast growth in Eastern Europe. Dataxis added that in 2023 the Hisense subsidiary could do the exact opposite of the likes of Roku, Amazon or Comcast by looking at conquering the US market after establishing its position in other regions of the world.2023 will also witness the launch of Comcast-built Sky Glass TVs in Germany, after the UK and Italy over the last months, said Dataxis senior analyst Guillaume Perrin commenting on the survey. While the top three are well established, challengers are lining up at the European Smart TVs markets open door. February 12, 2023 - Everything that is on the ballot for the rerun of elections in Berlin Fr 27.01.23 | 10:42 Uhr | Von Agnes Sundermeyer and Ute Schuhmacher Bild: dpa/Christoph Soeder For the first time in its history, the City of Berlin must rerun an entire election. The process in 2021 experienced too many errors. Here are the key facts on state and local elections on February 12, 2023 at a glance. By Agnes Sundermeyer and Ute Schuhmacher This text is also available in Arabic, German, Polish and Turkish. Usually, Berlin votes for state and local-level representatives every five years. The election on September 26, 2021, however, fell victim to so many errors that the city has been forced to rerun the elections for members of its State Parliament (the Abgeordnetenhaus, or AGH) and twelve Local Councils (the Bezirksverordnetenversammlungen, or BVV) in their entirety. That was the decision passed down by the Berlin State Constitutional Court in November. New elections must be held in Berlin within 90 days of this decision, according to the regulations of the citys constitution. The Chief Election Officer for the City of Berlin declared February 12, 2023 as the date for the rerun. dpa/Hauke-Christian Dittrich Bundestagsbeschluss - Bundestagswahl in Berlin wird teilweise wiederholt Die Pannenserie bei der Bundestagswahl 2021 in Berlin bleibt nicht ohne Konsequenzen, die Wahl wird teilweise wiederholt. Der entsprechende Beschluss des Bundestags ist moglicherweise aber noch nicht das letzte Wort. The elections held to appoint members of Germanys national parliament, the Bundestag, which were originally also held on September 26, 2021, will also be rerun, albeit not in full. The Bundestag itself is responsible for making decisions concerning errors in national-level elections, not the Berlin State Constitutional Court. That body also resolved in November that the election would have to be rerun, in light of the multitude of voting issues observed in 431 of Berlins roughly 2,300 electoral districts. However, the Bundestags decision can and indeed now has been appealed before Germanys Federal Constitutional Court. The process of setting a date for that rerun has therefore been put on hold until the Constitutional Court passes down its decision. Either way it will not be happening on February 12, 2023 as the court will need some time to consider the matter and rerunning national parliamentary elections in Berlin requires preparation. Another curiosity surrounding these reruns is that the only result from September 26, 2021 that does not need to be rerun in Berlin, despite the myriad issues seen elsewhere, is the Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co referendum, for the simple reason that nobody voted against. Consequently, the referendum passed. Lets take a closer look at the process step by step: WHO CAN VOTE? All Germans, i.e. persons with German citizenship, who have reached 18 years of age on polling day are eligible to vote in elections to the State Parliament (the Abgeordnetenhaus). Voters are also required to have resided in Berlin for at least three consecutive months and cannot have been excluded from voting. Persons who are excluded from voting include those who are subject to a court order that denies them the right to vote. Germans living overseas can still participate in the elections provided they have their residence in Berlin. German citizens can also vote in Local Council (BVV) elections, as can citizens of other Member States of the European Union (EU). However, the latter must have a place of residence in Berlin. The minimum voting age for BVV elections is 16 years old. WHEN WILL POLLING TAKE PLACE AND WHAT WILL THE PROCESS LOOK LIKE? Polling stations will be open on Sunday, February 12 between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm. After that, the polling stations will begin the count which is open the public, so anyone who wants to can come along and watch it happen. Persons who are unable to vote in person can vote by mail in the six weeks leading up to the elections. You need a ballot paper to do this. Mail-in ballot papers can only be applied for in writing, and not by phone. Officials began mailing out information on mail-in voting on Monday, January 2. On the back of the mailout, which every eligible voter will receive by mail, there is a form to fill in and return, either by regular mail or email. Alternatively, voters can scan the QR code on their letter to automatically register all their personal details as indicated on the letter. Additionally, the ballot papers for all three votes must be placed in the same envelope, as otherwise there is no guarantee of secrecy and the vote is void. Persons wishing to cast their vote earlier can also vote directly at their local mail-in polling station [berlin.de/wahlen], starting Monday, January 2. These polling stations are generally open on weekdays between 8:00 am and 3:00 pm. All you need to cast your vote is a form of ID. dpa/Wolfgang Kumm 1 min Datenanalyse - Wie sich das Wahlverhalten in Berlin seit 1990 verandert hat Am 12. Februar wird das Abgeordnetenhauswahl noch einmal gewahlt - zum neunten Mal seit der Wiedervereinigung. Wahrend das Wahlverhalten im Westen vergleichsweise konstant bleibt, geht es im Zentrum und Osten seitdem wechselhaft zu. Von G. Gringmuth-Dallmer und C. Reinhardt WHO AND WHAT ARE WE VOTING FOR? 1. Elections to the Berlin State Parliament (Abgeordnetenhaus) The Abgeordnetenhaus is the State Parliament in Berlin. It passes laws, and forms and oversees the government. Citizens can vote for parties as well as for individual candidates who they want to enter this parliament. Consequently, eligible voters cast two votes: one for a party at a state level (or Land in German), and one for a direct candidate who is running in their electoral district. A party requires five percent of votes cast to be admitted into the State Parliament. The number of representatives who actually sit in the Berlin State Parliament following each election is not the same in every legislative period. There are 130 seats available in the State Parliament. Representatives receive a proportion of those seats depending on what percentage their party receives in the election. However, in addition to the second vote, in which voters choose a party, there is also the first vote, in which voters can select candidates directly. There exist so-called overhang seats for candidates who win this first vote but are low down or do not appear at all on their partys ticket. This means that it is possible for a party to gain significantly more seats in the State Parliament than they are initially due based on their share of votes cast. However, in order to maintain a balance of power between the parties throughout the entire plenary session, other parties are then also awarded additional seats, known as leveling seats, the reason being that the current State Parliament is made up of 147 representatives. So far, then, this election to the State Parliament looks just like any other. But because this election is a rerun of the 2021 elections, there is one major difference, namely that the legislative period (which began after the 2021 elections) is still running. It is not due to end until 2026, unless early elections are called before then. dpa/Christophe Gateau Landes- und Bezirkslisten - Diese 33 Parteien treten bei der Wiederholungswahl in Berlin an Wenn die Abgeordnetenhauswahl am 12. Februar wiederholt wird, stellen sich neben den allseits bekannten Parteien auch viele kleine Gruppierungen erneut zur Wahl. Insgesamt 33 Parteien stehen auf dem Zweitstimmzettel. Hier finden Sie die Steckbriefe. Von Sabine Muller 2. Elections to Local Councils (Bezirksverordnetenversammlungen) The Local Councils (Bezirksverordnetenversammlungen, or BVV) are municipal parliaments that govern the various districts (Bezirke) of Berlin, comparable to town councils (Stadtrat) and municipal councils (Gemeindevertretung) in other states in Germany. Berlin is made up of twelve districts: Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Lichtenberg, Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Mitte, Neukolln, Pankow, Reinickendorf, Spandau, Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Tempelhof-Schoneberg and Treptow-Kopenick. However, these Local Councils are not a parliament in the true sense of the word. Unlike the State Parliament, they have only limited rights. For example, they are not permitted to pass any new laws. Local Councils pass decisions on institutions or areas which are the sole responsibility of the district. This includes green areas, school buildings and youth centers in the area, as well as so-called folk high schools (Volkshochschulen) and libraries. Youth welfare and public order offices also fall under their remit. There is one Local Council for each of Berlins twelve districts. They are normally elected every five years, with voting held on the same day as for the State Parliament. In Local Council elections, candidates are not elected directly. Instead, voters cast their vote for a party or coalition that is standing in their district. A party requires three percent of votes cast to be admitted to the Local Council. The Local Council is then formed from fractions according to their share of votes. Each Local Council comprises no more than 55 councilors. There may be fewer councilors than this: If a party wins more seats than they have candidates on their ticket, the corresponding seats are left empty. dpa/Bildagentur-online/Joko Juristisches Gutachten - Alle Gremien im Abgeordnetenhaus mussen zweites Mal gewahlt werden Die Wiederholungswahl bedeutet juristisches Neuland fur Berlin. Das bestatigt ein Gutachten des Wissenschaftlichen Dienstes im Abgeordnetenhaus. Darin auern sich die Gutachter dazu, was etwa mit Ausschussen und Gesetzesvorhaben passieren soll. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. By subscribing to rdrnews.com you agree to recurring payments and your credit card will be billed at the subscription intervals selected, cancel anytime. In February, the Athens Area Humane Society will unveil their very first canine agility course, the Betty White Memorial Bark Park. The name is in honor of Americas golden girl and dog-lover, Betty White. On Jan. 17, the AAHS held a Betty White Day. The free event featured sponsored adoptions for all adult pets, along with highlights from Whites lifelong love of animals and support of animal rights groups. Brattleboro, VT (05301) Today Intervals of clouds and sunshine. Near record high temperatures. High 86F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Partly to mostly cloudy. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. To the editor: If the "do gooders" somehow succeed in getting this short sighted proposal passed, let's consider the effects it may have on a Photographer / Multimedia Editor Has been working as a photojournalist since 2007, before moving into newspapers, he worked with an NGO called Project HOPE. He then went to work for the Press and Sun-Bulletin in New York, and then in New England working for the Brattleboro Reformer. The campaign comes as U.S. allows Hong Kong residents to remain in America longer A family emigrating to Scotland waves goodbye to friends before their departure at Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong. Hong Kong officials have begun traveling the region in a bid to attract fresh talent, particularly younger people, to settle in the city as a crackdown on dissent continues to drive middle-class families to flee the former British colony. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun made a trip to Singapore and the Philippines earlier this month to peddle the "advantages" offered by Hong Kong's proximity to mainland China and its growing integration with other cities in the Pearl River Delta under the "Greater Bay Area" plan. Chief Executive John Lee announced a slew of measures last October including a scheme aimed at enticing graduates from the world's top 100 universities, including two in Singapore, to come and work in the city. The moves come amid an exodus of middle-class families, who vote with their feet, with families citing the curbs on freedom of speech and growing political interference in schools as driving factors in their decision to leave. A middle-class professional who gave only the surname Wong said he will be emigrating with his family to the United Kingdom next week, giving up a highly paid job with career prospects to escape the long arm of Beijing. The unpredictability of life under Communist Party rule was a key deciding factor. "Here in China and Hong Kong we went from total lockdowns to totally ignoring this virus in the space of a week, saying it's just like a cold, but it's actually the same virus," Wong said. "It's clear that policy-making is totally irrational." But Wong said he didn't decide to leave due to the government's COVID-19 policy. "What matters more ... are political considerations, [concerns about] whether there is any guarantee of a good life here in the long run," he said. "That's what made me determined to leave." U.S. Extension The moves also come as the United States on Thursday extended by two years a rule that has allowed Hong Kong residents already in the United States to remain instead of being deported back to the Chinese territory. The Deferred Enforced Departure exemptions for Hong Kong residents were introduced in August 2021 and were set to expire on Feb. 5, according to a memorandum from the White House, which said the decision was in line with our democratic values. Offering safe haven for Hong Kong residents who have been deprived of their guaranteed freedoms in Hong Kong furthers United States interests in the region, it said. The United States will continue to stand firm in our support of the people in Hong Kong. China began cracking down on Hong Kongs sovereignty in the wake of the 2019-2020 protests against a proposed extradition law that would have allowed Beijing to arrest dissidents in the self-governing territory and move them to the mainlands judicial system. Population decline Net departures of permanent residents totaled 113,000 for the whole of 2022, while the city's population fell by 1.2 percent in the 12 months to August 2021, prompting calls from media backed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party for the government to act to stem the brain drain. Police officers in protective gear stand guard at a locked down area in Hong Kong, Jan. 22, 2022. One Hongkonger calls the COVID-19 policy making totally irrational." Credit: Associated Press A woman who gave only the surname Auyeung said she is planning to leave with her family this year, because "Hong Kong is no longer free under the national security law." She said she and her husband are now both censoring themselves in the workplace to avoid overstepping invisible "red lines." The repercussions of coercive policy-making are already being felt at their child's kindergarten. "The kindergarten teacher called me and said our kid couldn't attend full time any more because they didn't get two shots of [China's homegrown COVID-19 vaccine]," Auyeung said. "I am absolutely disgusted that the government is using children's access to schooling to drive up the vaccination rate." "We both work, and there is no childcare at home if the kid is home for half the day," she said. "I want to get out of here fast." Sociologist Chung Kim-wah said those who can afford to leave are generally doing so. "There used to always be a difference between Hong Kong and mainland China, and we used to believe that Hong Kong's way of life would be respected ... but this government will only act on China's say-so," Chung said. "They have just imported China's way of doing things wholesale, giving families who previously had little incentive to leave plenty of reason to reconsider," he said. Civil servants, doctors leaving Many of those who are leaving actually work for the government, either as civil servants, or as healthcare professionals and educators. The city's civil service currently numbers just over 170,000, 17,000 short of its full complement, with more than 9,000 vacancies for senior civil servants currently open. Doctors and nurses wait to receive China's Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 at a community vaccination center in Hong Kong, Feb. 23, 2021. Staff turnover rates in government hospitals are just over 8% for doctors and nearly 11% for nurses by October 2022, according to the Hospital Authority. Credit: Pool via Reuters Former civil servant-turned-YouTuber Woo Wong-jan once held a senior scientific post at the Hong Kong Observatory, which tracks the territory's weather. While not a highly political area of work, Woo said civil servants in all departments are being forced to take pledges of loyalty to Beijing, as well as accept curbs on public speech under the national security law. "The requirement for civil servants to take an oath derives from the national security law, which also restricts their freedom of speech," he said. "I used to work at the Observatory, and I wasn't involved in politics, but some things would have been unavoidable for me as a civil servant, including being educated about the national security law and doing certain things I wouldn't necessarily be willing to do," Woo said. "I could see that Hong Kong would change a lot in the next few years, and I asked myself whether I would want to live somewhere like that?" he said. "I didn't, so I decided to resign." Public documents have revealed that more than 10,000 of Woo's colleagues left the civil service between 2021 and 2022, some 4,000 of them due to resignation rather than retirement or being fired. Medical professionals are another group that is voting with their feet, with staff turnover rates in government hospitals at just over 8% for doctors and nearly 11% for nurses by October 2022, according to the Hospital Authority. A former public hospital doctor who gave only the surname Cheung said she is unsure whether government schemes to replace Hong Kong's lost middle-classes -- which included allowing mainland-China trained healthcare professionals to practice in Hong Kong -- will be effective. "Can the fresh talent recruited by the government replace what has been lost?" Cheung said. "China's medical system, knowledge and skills are not the same as Hong Kong's." "Medical treatment isn't just about handing out medicine or performing surgery, but involves connections between people, technology, management styles as well as degree of adherence to morality and values," she said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster. The two major chipmaking countries are considering a deal with the U.S. to limit tech exports to China. Employees work on the final assembly of ASML Holdings semiconductor lithography tool used in the production of computer chips, in Veldhoven, Netherlands, April 4, 2019. Officials from Japan and the Netherlands, two of the worlds biggest microchip exporters, are in Washington for talks on a trilateral deal to limit sales of key technology to China, a top official said Friday. The meeting comes amid a report from Bloomberg that a deal was nearing completion. Cooperation from the two countries which together with the United States produce the bulk of the worlds high-end chipmaking fabrication technology is being sought by the Biden administration to give teeth to its unilateral export bans. U.S. officials have expressed confidence the two countries would eventually come on board with export controls, which if implemented would effectively end Beijings ability to produce the most cutting-edge chips needed for military and artificial-intelligence purposes. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed in a press briefing on Friday that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was hosting officials from both countries for talks in Washington, but said he could not confirm that a binding agreement was near. Officials from the Netherlands and from Japan are here in D.C. for a couple of days worth of discussions being led by the national security adviser, Kirby said. They are talking about a range of issues that are important to all three of us, and certainly the safety and security of emerging technologies is going to be on that agenda. I certainly would leave it to the Japanese and to the Dutch to decide for themselves how they want to characterize these discussions, he added. We're grateful that they were able to come to D.C. The U.S. export ban is considered by many experts to be toothless without Dutch and Japanese help, with American industry leaders saying Chinese firms could simply switch to buying from producers in either, undercutting the policy while harming American firms. Beijing, meanwhile, has slammed the Biden administrations broader efforts to decouple its chipmaking industry from Chinas, which includes subsidies to reshore chipmaking in the United States, calling it protectionist and part of a Cold War mentality. But U.S. officials say controlling access to high-end chipmaking technology is a national security priority, and note lower-end chips used in consumer products and computers are not impacted. Edited by Malcolm Foster. Locals say soldiers tortured the ethnic Chin all night and dumped the bodies. Junta troops have beaten two men and a teenage boy to death after arresting them at a checkpoint in Myanmars northern Sagaing region, according to locals citing sources close to the military. They identified the victims as 14-year-old Ngan Min Haung, 20-year-old Shwe Min Tan and 25-year-old La Min Tan, all ethnic Chin from two villages in Tamu township. They were arrested on Monday evening at a military checkpoint as they headed to Tamu town. The three were on two motorcycles. They were stopped at Kun Taung checkpoint and arrested for no reason, said a local who didnt want to be identified for safety reasons. The bodies were dumped after being heavily tortured. I heard they died on January 24, but when family members went to claim the bodies the soldiers lied, saying they hadnt been arrested. But there are witnesses who saw troops arrest them at the checkpoint. They were beaten until Tuesday morning, according to sources close to the checkpoint who spoke with locals. They said they could hear the men screaming and saw the dead bodies lined up on Tuesday afternoon. RFA was unable to contact the dead mens families to confirm the information and calls to Sagaing regions junta spokesman, Aye Hlaing, went unanswered. Kun Taung checkpoint is 13 kilometers (8 miles) from Tamu town. It is staffed by troops from Infantry Battalion 266, based in Chin state, to the west of Sagaing region. Locals said the troops have been strictly checking the flow of goods and people to Tamu city in recent months as fighting with ethnic armies and Peoples Defense Forces intensifies in the region. Nearly 3,000 civilians and pro-democracy campaigners have been killed by Myanmars military since it overthrew the countrys democratically elected National Unity Government two years ago, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. Storage tanks for contaminated water at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture are pictured on Jan. 20, 2023. Officials from Pacific island nations will meet Japans prime minister in March in an effort to halt the planned release of water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, a regional leader said. Plans to dispose of Fukushima water over four decades are a source of tension between Japan and Pacific island nations and a possible complication for the efforts of the United States and its allies to show a renewed commitment to the Pacific region as Chinas influence grows. The planned discharges are a very serious issue that our leaders have accepted must be stopped at all costs, Henry Puna, secretary-general of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum, said Thursday at a press conference in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara. The Japanese governments timetable for disposal of Fukushima water indicates that releases could begin as soon as April this year part of an effort to decommission the stricken power station over several decades. Water contaminated by the nuclear reactors damaged in a 2011 tsunami is stored in dozens of large tanks at the coastal Fukushima plant. Japans method involves putting the contaminated water through a purification process known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which it says will reduce all radioactive elements except tritium to below regulatory levels. The treated water would then be diluted by more than 100 times to reduce the level of tritium radioactive hydrogen used to create glow-in-the-dark lighting and signs. Japanese authorities and the Fukushima plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, have said radiation released into the ocean would be a minute fraction of naturally occurring radiation in the environment. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency which describes itself as promoting safe use of nuclear energy, has said the Fukushima process is technically feasible and in line with international practice. Pacific island leaders are unconvinced the discharges will be safe and some scientists have called for the Fukushima plant to continue storing treated water on site rather than releasing it. Japan has said storage space is running out as an Olympic swimming pools worth of radioactive water is generated about every two weeks from water used to cool reactor fuel debris and groundwater contamination. Data doubts Five scientists working with the Pacific Islands Forum last week criticized the quality of data they had received from Tokyo Electric on the treated water in the tanks and expressed doubts about how well the purification process works. Over more than four years, only a quarter of tanks had been tested for radiation, and testing rarely covered more than nine types of radiation out of 64 types that should be tested for, said the five scientists, who include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions senior scientist Ken Buesseler. The accident is not over; this is not normal operations for a reactor. Therefore, extraordinary efforts should be made to prove operations are safe and will not cause harm to the environment, the scientists presentation said. The Pacific Islands Forum has described the scientists as independent nuclear experts. The forums secretariat didnt respond to a question about whether the scientists are compensated for their work with the forum. Nigel Marks, a materials scientist at Australias Curtin University and former nuclear reactor engineer, who is not advising the forum, said he is sympathetic to concerns that Tokyo Electrics data could be more complete. But at the same time some recognition for Japans unique situation must be acknowledged, he said. The authorities have done their very best that technology allows. Eventually they reach a point where there is too much water to store. Puna said the Pacific islands delegation would meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida around March 7. They want a delay in water releases, at the very least, while more research is carried out, he said. There are serious gaps in the scientific evidence on the safety or otherwise of the proposed release, Puna said. I am pleased that the Japanese prime minister has finally agreed to meet with a high level delegation from our region. Decades of Fukushima water discharges, Puna said, could damage our livelihoods, our fisheries livelihoods, our livelihood as people who are dependent very much and connected to the ocean in our culture and identity. A mushroom cloud rises during the Operation Crossroads nuclear weapons test on Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands in 1946. Credit: Reuters/U.S. Library of Congress/Handout via Reuters Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at Australias Lowy Institute, said its hard to imagine a more alarming proposition for Pacific island nations given the toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing and waste dumping in the Pacific. The timing, amidst regional geopolitical competition that has traditional powers falling over themselves to demonstrate whos a better partner to the Pacific, could scarcely be worse, Sora said. The United States, United Kingdom and France carried out more than 300 nuclear detonations in the Pacific from 1946 to 1966, according to the International Disarmament Institute at Pace University in New York, which exposed thousands of military personnel and civilians to radiation and made some atolls uninhabitable. Decades of hard-won regional goodwill towards Japanese Pacific engagement are at risk with this single policy initiative, Sora said. Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it welcomes Japans commitment to a thorough scientific assessment to ensure there are no adverse environmental and health effects. Australia is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum. A State Department spokesperson said the United States welcomes Japans continued openness as it prepares to disperse the treated water in a manner that appears to be in line with internationally accepted nuclear safety standards. Japans embassy in Suva, Fiji didnt respond to a request for comment. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service. Authorities in Xinjiang have given a 20-year jail sentence to a Uyghur woman who at one time staunchly supported Chinas anti-extremism campaign targeting the mostly Muslim ethnic group in the restive northwestern region, while two of her sons were each jailed for 17 years, local security officials said. Hurshide Kerim was a member of the Communist Partys "propaganda vanguard," a group of Uyghurs who traveled around Xinjiang and publicly denounced religious extremism under Chinas nearly 10-year-old strike hard campaign aimed at what Beijing deems to be terrorism and extremism in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Authorities accused her of being a two-faced Uyghura derogatory term for local people who work for the government but also observe elements of Uyghur or Muslim cultureafter police found an illegal book in her home in Ghulja county, known as Yining in Chinese, the sources said. Kerims case illustrates how some Uyghurs were amenable to serve as propaganda tools for Chinese authorities in exchange for higher salaries, free travel, and promotions by denouncing the traditional practices and beliefs of their ancient Turkic culture. But like ordinary Uyghurs, they were not immune from arrest or detention if authorities discovered that they had willingly or unwillingly committed infractions. They also face the scorn of ordinary Uyghurs for serving a Chinese government that multiple Western countries and human rights groups accuse of committing genocide or crimes against humanity for their treatment of the Turkic minorities of Xinjiang. Kerim, who has six children and more than 10 grandchildren, was 55 years old when she was arrested in 2017 and is serving her sentence in Baykol Women's Prison in Ghulja, said a security official in Qarayaghach town, where the woman resides. When Chinese authorities began the strike hard campaign in Xinjiang in 2014, they imposed severe penalties on Uyghurs, arrested them arbitrarily, and began a propaganda campaign against the groups ethnic customs and religious faith under the guise of promoting modernity. As part of the campaign, authorities confiscated and burned a vast number of religious and cultural books. Authorities target sons Authorities also charged Kerims two sons, Merdan and Mewlan for violating Chinas planned birth policy in the past under which ethnic minorities were allowed to have up to three children, though some Uyghurs had larger families. But in 2017, the Chinese government began enforcing family planning policies in Xinjiang as a population-control measure. Kerim, a villager from Qarayaghach town, from which several Uyghur propagandists were hired, was taken away when authorities began mass arbitrary arrests and detentions began in Xinjiang in 2017, town security officials said. Local police also arrested those she previously criticized. The woman was active in propaganda work in the neighborhood, said one security official who worked with her, but who declined to be identified so he could speak freely. She was [part of the] propaganda vanguard that gave speeches against extremism during meetings, he told RFA. The police arrested her after suddenly searching her house, because they found an illegal book. The security official said he had no further information on Kerim and did not know what type of book police found in her home, whether it belonged to her, or if she had confiscated it while working. An employee at the local judicial department confirmed that authorities sentenced Kerim to 20 years in jail, but also did not know the title of the confiscated book or its contents. Hurshide was a good and well-dressed lady, a Communist Party member, and worked 30 years for the government, she told RFA. The government sentenced her to prison for her mistake. Kerim has three daughters and three sons, two of whom were sent for political re-education and later sentenced to 17 years in prison, she said. Other collaborators arrested Uyghur vanguard propagandists in other parts of Xinjiang also have suffered the same fate as Kerim, with demotions and punishments. Patigul Dawut, who enjoyed a degree of fame for a while when she worked as a member of the propaganda vanguard in Korla, the second-largest city in Xinjiang and known as Kuerle in Chinese, was arrested in autumn 2017. Authorities took her in for allowing others to preach religion because workers were said to have delivered Islamic sermons at her carpet factory, her husband told RFA at the time. Dawut was ordered to serve six months in a local detention center, despite suffering from a number of health complications, said her spouse, Naman Bawdun, a Uyghur former head and Communist Party secretary of a village in Korla. Bawudun, whom authorities had recognized as a vanguard of ethnic unity was arrested with Dawut, while their daughter, a police officer, was fired from her job. Other Uyghurs who previously worked for Chinese authorities also have come under attack in recent years. Nur Bekri, the highest-ranking ethnic Uyghur in the Chinese government, who served as the head of Chinas National Energy Administration and vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, was arrested on corruption charges in 2018. He was highly unpopular among Uyghurs because he supported Chinas repression of Muslim extremists and advocated Chinese-language education for Uyghur students. Kadir Memet, former deputy chief of the Urumqi police department, was detained by authorities for unknown reasons in 2019. The highest-ranking Uyghur police officer in the regional capital was reviled for ruthlessly implementing Beijings repressive policies against members of his ethnic community, sources told RFA at that time. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Paul Eckert. U.S. authorities have arrested a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman in connection with the investigation into the leaking of top-secret defense and intelligence documents that have been circulated online, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on April 13. Garland identified the guardsman as Jack Teixeira, who will be charged with the unauthorized removal of classified national defense information in one of the biggest U.S. security breaches in years. Heavily armed federal agents arrived at Teixeira's home in the U.S. state of Massachusetts during the afternoon of April 13 and took the man -- wearing a T-shirt and shorts -- into custody without incident," Garland said. The identification of a 21-year-old Guardsman with a relatively low rank has quickly raised questions about how he could have had access to such highly classified documents. The U.S. Air Force National Guard, without confirming his identity, said, We are aware of the investigation into the alleged role a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman may have played in the recent leak of highly classified documents. U.S. President Joe Biden sought to allay concerns about the leak of the classified documents, which supposedly reveal details about the military capabilities of some U.S. allies and adversaries. The Department of Justice opened a formal criminal probe into the matter after it was referred to the case by the Pentagon, which continues to assess the damage done by the release. The Washington Post reported on April 12 that the person who allegedly posted the documents on a small chat group on the Discord social media platform was a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked at a military base. The daily based its reporting on interviews with two unnamed members of the group. The documents were posted months ago without attracting attention until The New York Times reported on them. Theres a full-blown investigation going on, as you know, with the intelligence community and the Justice Department, Biden told journalists in Dublin on April 13 before the arrest was announced. And theyre getting close. Biden, who is in the middle of a four-day visit to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, said that he was not concerned about the leak because there is nothing contemporaneous that Im aware of. The White House said earlier in the day that Biden did not discuss the matter with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when the two met in Northern Ireland earlier this week. The number of documents leaked, some of which were reportedly marked top secret, is not clear. They purportedly include sensitive disclosures about Ukraine, South Korea, Israel, and others. The Biden administration fears the leak could cause lasting damage to U.S. relations with key allies and strategic partners. The Discord group allegedly included people from Russia and Ukraine, The Washington Post reported, and was focused on a mutual love of guns, military gear and God. The social media platform itself is popular with players of online games. The man who posted the documents, who went by the online handle OG, allegedly told group members he sometimes worked in a secure facility at the base that prohibited cell phones and other electronic devices. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Ukrainian television on April 12 that the risk of leaks is very minimal because only a very narrow circle of people is aware of Ukrainian military planning. With reporting by AP, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, a new RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here. I'm Abubakar Siddique, a senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead. The Key Issue Large parts of Afghanistan have been plunged into darkness in recent weeks after neighboring Uzbekistan halted electricity exports to the country. The power cuts have hit industries hard and delivered another blow to the country's free-falling economy. In the capital, Kabul, residents said they receive only one hour of electricity every two days. "Even one hour of electricity helped warm our home," Karima Rahimyar, a teacher in Kabul, told Radio Azadi. She said most Afghans do not have the money to buy coal or wood for heating. The crippling power outages have coincided with a severe cold snap that has led to the deaths of at least 160 people and the hospitalization of hundreds of others, including children. Why It's Important: The power cuts have exposed the Taliban-led government's mismanagement of the vital energy sector and highlighted Afghanistan's chronic dependence on electricity imports. Landlocked Afghanistan imports more than 70 percent of the electricity it needs from Uzbekistan and neighboring Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. But the supply of surplus hydroelectric power from these countries is unreliable. Rising domestic demand and falling production force them to cut the electricity supply to Afghanistan during winters. The power cuts across Afghanistan began on January 16, when Tashkent halted supplies to Kabul. It went ahead with this despite the Taliban's claims it had reached a new electricity-supply deal with Uzbekistan. Tashkents decision to cut exports came amid soaring domestic electricity demand amid a cold snap in Central Asia earlier this month. One expert tracking the issue said that even with financial penalties for noncompliance, Afghanistan's electricity suppliers would likely "not choose to cut off its own citizens" from power in order to meet its commitments to Kabul. The Taliban appears to be paying for its past crimes. The militant group attacked vital infrastructure during its nearly 20-year insurgency and prevented the completion of ambitious power generation projects. What's Next: In a positive sign, Uzbekistan resumed electricity exports to Afghanistan on January 25. This week, Turkmenistan also renewed an annual electricity supply agreement with the Taliban. But the Taliban's unrecognized and internationally isolated government is unlikely to remedy Afghanistan's chronic energy crisis. It is doubtful the Taliban can attract donor funding and the technical support needed to complete existing hydroelectric projects or build new ones that could substantially boost domestic electricity production. The Week's Best Stories Dozens of ethnic Kyrgyz families have sold their homes and livestock in Afghanistan's remote Wakhan Corridor and are seeking help from Kyrgyzstan to repatriate them to their ancestral homeland. The Kyrgyz government has said it is committed to repatriating the ethnic Kyrgyz, but there are many hurdles to facilitate their return. In video statements sent to RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, ethnic Kyrgyz families said they are staying in rented homes near the Tajik border as they wait for Bishkek to help them relocate to Kyrgyzstan. For years the Taliban promised a more moderate and inclusive government once foreign forces left Afghanistan. But the rule of the hard-line Islamist group's supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has been defined by extremist policies that have alienated Afghans and isolated the Taliban's unrecognized government internationally. Michael Semple, a former EU and UN adviser to Afghanistan, told RFE/RL that resistance to Akhundzada's uncompromising approach could unleash another destructive civil war or even spill over Afghanistan's borders. What To Keep An Eye On In recent weeks, several international NGOs have resumed some of their lifesaving aid operations in Afghanistan. The move came after the Taliban allowed women working for local and foreign NGOs to restart work, although only in the health-care sector. These aid agencies returned as senior United Nations officials continued to lobby the Taliban to rescind its ban on Afghan women working for NGOs. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said she pushed "pretty hard" on women's issues during a visit last week to Afghanistan and sometimes "the reaction wasn't pleasant." UN officials hope more humanitarian sectors, including emergency food distribution and education, will be reopened for female workers. Why It's Important: As Afghanistan grapples with one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, the resumption of some humanitarian aid operations is a positive sign. But the Taliban's reluctance to allow many female Afghan aid workers to resume work severely impedes the humanitarian aid community's ability to provide lifesaving support to Afghans. The UN estimates that nearly two-thirds, or 28 million Afghans, out of an estimated population of 40 million need humanitarian aid. Among them, more than 6 million are on the brink of starvation. That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. Until next time, Abubakar Siddique If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday. Russian forces have pressed on with a multipronged offensive in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as Kyiv's Western allies continue to display a united front in their support. Ukraine's military said on January 27 that heavy shelling was seen in Ukraine's north, northeast, and east amid expectations that Russia is gearing up for a renewed offensive sometime in the coming months. In the face of those expectations, Ukraine's Western allies continue to pledge military equipment and aid to shore up Kyiv's defenses as the first anniversary of the conflict, launched by Russia on February 24 last year, approaches. U.S. national security spokesman John Kirby said Washington anticipates an "intense period of fighting" in the coming months," adding that there was "no sign" of the war stopping. The European Union on January 27 extended its economic sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine for another six months, as EU justice ministers vowed to seek swift accountability for the "horrific" crimes in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said his country was earmarking another 90 million euros ($100 million) in military support to Ukraine, its largest aid package to Ukraine to date. "Ukraine must be able to defend itself against brutal Russian aggression," he wrote on Twitter. Ukrainian troops repelled attacks in 11 locations in the two eastern regions over the past 24 hours, a day after Moscow unleashed another wave of missile strikes across Ukraine, killing at least 11 people and damaging energy infrastructure despite Kyiv's air defense destroying most of the incoming projectiles. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensives, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. "The defense forces over the past day repelled the invaders' attacks in Ploshanka, Nevske, and Chervonpopyivka in Luhansk, and Verkhnyokamyanske, Paraskoviyivka, Bakhmut, Klishchiyivka, Vodyane, Nevelske, Maryinka, and Vuhledar in Donetsk," Ukraine's General Staff said in its daily report, which Oleh Synehubov, governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv, said that "fierce fighting" continued along the front lines in the area. "Our defenders are firmly holding their positions and inflicting losses to the enemy," he said. RFE/RL could not independently verify the reports. Poland announced on January 27 that it will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine to strengthen its defenses. It comes on top of media reports that NATO members will donate around 100 German-manufactured Leopard 2 tanks. Separately, the United States and Britian have promised to contribute 31 M1 Abrams and 14 Challenger 2 respectively, bringing the total tank donations this month to about 200. Ukraine said it needs 300 tanks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiyin his nightly video address on January 26 thanked "everyone in the world who is truly fighting against terror together with us" and reemphasized the need for "speeding up" the delivery of heavy tanks to his country. The United States said it could take "many months" before the Abrams can be delivered to Ukraine, while the Leopards could take a few months as well, due to the need for training and logistics build-out, experts said. The 60 tanks promised by Poland could be deployed sooner. They include 30 PT-91, a modernized version of the Soviet-era T-72, which is the main tank used by Ukraine and thus requires little training or additional logistics support Canada was the latest country to declare its intention to give Ukraine tanks. Ottawa will send four Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, the Canadian defense minister said, after Germany this week allowed other countries to reexport the German-built tank. Poland, the Netherlands, and Spain previously announced their readiness to transfer some of the Leopard 2 tanks in their stocks to Ukraine, something they can only do with manufacturer Germany's express permission. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that they need 300 tanks as they seek to drive Russian forces from their territory. Ukraine lost more than half of its 850 tanks during the 11-month, according to Oryx, a website that uses open-source tools to count destroyed equipment. However, Ukraine will need weeks to months to train on those new weapon systems and build out supply chains to service them. As the PT-91s are similar to the T-72, they could be quickly deployed with little additional training. NATO's Eastern European members have sent hundreds of modernized T-72 tanks and tank parts to Ukraine since February, with Poland having sent about 250 tanks, according to Morawiecki. According to two diplomatic sources quoted by Reuters, France and Italy are close to finalizing the technical details to supply an SAMP/T air-defense system to Ukraine. Zelenskiy said that "there are already 12 countries in our tank coalition" to provide advanced Western battle tanks to help Ukraine's defense against Russia's 11-month Russian invasion. Zelenskiy was also pressing for the Western supply of long-range missiles and aircraft to Ukraine. Morawiecki was quoted by dpa as telling a French broadcaster on January 26 that his country would be willing to send fighter jets to Ukraine if Warsaw's NATO allies decided on such a move. Those weapons would help Ukraine counter Russian missile attacks that have knocked out much of Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the past several months. The United States, Germany, and the Netherlands earlier promised a total of four Patriot air-defense systems. Kirby said there were no plans at the moment for the United States to send aircraft to Ukraine. In addition to offering military and financial aid to Ukraine, the West continues to seek reparations and justice for Russia's unprovoked invasion. EU justice ministers gathered in Stockholm on January 27 said the 27-member bloc wants swift accountability for Russia's "horrific" crimes in Ukraine, even as they differed over the methods about how to bring prosecutions, seek evidence or fund war damage repairs. The same day, the Council of the European Union extended sanctions targeting specific sectors of Russia's economy by six months, until July 31. "They currently consist of a broad spectrum of sectoral measures, including restrictions on trade, finance, technology and dual-use goods, industry, transport and luxury goods," the statement said. Sanctions also include a ban on the import or transfer of seaborne crude oil and certain oil products from Russia to the EU, as well as the de-SWIFTing of several Russian banks. The suspension of the broadcasting activities and licenses of several Kremlin-backed disinformation outlets is also part of the restrictive measures. The Kremlin has reacted with fury to the latest gesture of Western solidarity with Ukraine, saying it saw the promised delivery of advanced tanks as evidence of escalating "direct involvement" of the United States and NATO in Russia's war of aggression, something both deny. With reporting by Reuters, dpa and CTV PRISTINA -- Prime Minister Albin Kurti has remained defiant over a Western proposal for improving relations with Serbia even as he says it could cost Kosovo critical support. In an interview with RFE/RL on January 27 in Pristina, Kurti again rejected a request to create an association of Kosovo municipalities with an ethnic Serbian majority, a step the West says is necessary to resolve tensions between the two Balkan neighbors. Kurti said the association should not be based on ethnicity. Kosovo and Serbia agreed in 2013 to the creation of an Association of Serbian Municipalities when they signed the Western-backed Brussels Agreement. However, Pristina has failed to implement it. Gabriel Escobar, the U.S. special envoy for the Western Balkans, told RFE/RL last month during a visit to region that the creation of the association was a priority for the United States, the biggest backer of Kosovo. Escobars visit came amid protests by ethnic Serbs in Kosovo that have accerbated already tense relations between the two countries. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following a bloody war in the 1990s. While most European countries and the United States have recognized Kosovo as an independent state, Serbia has refused to do so, preventing both from potentially joining the bloc. The United States and the European Union have been trying to reconcile the two countries, opening the door to joining Western organizations. The EU last summer submitted its plan for normalizing relations to Pristina and Belgrade. According to a copy of the document seen by RFE/RL, the proposal calls for equal rights for Kosovo and Serbia, respect for territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, recognition of state symbols, and a special arrangement for the Serbian community in Kosovo. It does not, however, mention mutual recognition. The creation of the association is not part of the EU plan. In his interview with RFE/RL, Kurti said that the plan "does not contain everything Kosovo would want." "It is not even called a final deal and I believe that it rightly isn't [called so] because discussions are needed. It is a common platform for discussions. It is not a final version of the 'take it or leave it kind,'" he said. Kurti said that the West had alluded to downgrading its support for Kosovo if it does not back the plan and the association proposal. Kosovo is dependent on Western financial and technical aid. However, he said he was not concerned about a weakening of Western support. "We are very constructive on top of being very determined and creative," Kurti said. Dialogue between Kosovo's and Serbia's leaders has intensified in the months since the EU submitted its plan. Last week in Pristina, Kurti met with several Western emissaries led by Miroslav Lajcak, the EU special representative for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. Lajcak said his group expected a "better understanding" from Kurti on the opportunities the proposal offers. Separately, the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo will host a meeting expected to take place on January 31 to discuss the association proposal. During the interview, Kurti said that he had not received an invitation to the meeting but added that he is interested in continuing talks in hope of reaching tangible results by March of this year. A tennis complex built in just six months in Bosnia-Herzegovina for a tournament organized by the family of world No. 1 Novak Djokovic officially opened on April 12. The facility, burdened by irregularities during construction and criminal charges over the bidding process, opened in Banja Luka just ahead of the scheduled start on April 16 of the Srpska Open, which is expected to draw several top players from the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tour, including top-seeded Djokovic. Hundreds of people attended the opening ceremony, including members of the Djokovic family, Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, and Banja Luka Mayor Drasko Stanivukovic. The government of Republika Srpska, one of Bosnias two entities, and Banja Luka, it administrative center, invested about 30 million Bosnian marks ($16 million) in the construction of the tennis complex, which has both outdoor and indoor clay courts, each with seating for several hundred people. Transparency International in Bosnia in February filed a complaint against Banja Luka and the Republika Srpska government because money for the construction of the court was allocated to the Tennis Association in the form of a grant. The complaint said the maneuver got around the legal procedure for seeking bids for construction projects. Questions also were raised about the permit for the project. Construction began in November, but a permit was not issued until January and covered only preparatory work. The tennis complex received a valid building permit only a few days ago. Authorities two weeks ago conducted searches in the Banja Luka City Hall, based on charges of abuse of official position against Stanivukovic and Prime Minister Radovan Viskovic. The two were reported on February 9 by a member of the Republika Srpska National Assembly, Nebojsa Vukanovic, who has accused them of misusing budget funds for the construction of the tennis complex. The Prosecutor-General's Office did not respond to RFE/RLs request for information about the search, including whether a case had been opened. Stanivukovic told RFE/RL in February that he assessed the construction of the tennis complex court to be in the national interest. "You have to be brave to do things that are on the edge of legal norms but still in accordance with them and morally correct," he said. Djordje Djokovic, brother of the tennis star and one of the principal organizers of the Srpska Open -- previously known as the Serbian Open -- visited the complex while it was under construction on several occasions but never commented on the criminal accusations or the lack of a building permit for construction. "As far as we are concerned, we are the organizers of the tennis tournament. We do not deal with building permits or politics," he said at a press conference on March 7. He founded the company Legacy International, a branch of his Belgrade-based company with the same name, in Banja Luka at the beginning of November. The tournament is usually held in Belgrade but has been moved to Banja Luka for 2023 while the existing grounds in the Serbian capital are renovated. The tournament, which is scheduled to run from April 16-23, is part of the ATP 250 series. Aside from Djokovic, other current and former ATP top 10 players registered are Andrei Rublev, Stanislas Wawrinka, and Gael Monfils. With reporting by Milorad Milojevic I'm Steve Gutterman, the editor of RFE/RL's Russia/Ukraine/Belarus Desk. Welcome to The Week In Russia, in which I dissect the key developments in Russian politics and society over the previous week and look at what's ahead. To receive The Week In Russia newsletter in your inbox, click here. Amid relentless attacks on Ukraine, which received pledges of U.S. and German battle tanks, the Russian state ramped up its campaign against civil society at home yet again, with a court ordering the closure of a revered rights group and authorities tightening the vise on the Sakharov Center, a vital Moscow institution dedicated to promoting historical truth, basic freedoms, and civil society. Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward. 'To Destroy With Such Ease' Russia's war on Ukraine tends to grab the headlines and dominate the discourse about those two countries on a daily basis, which is perfectly natural. There are major developments every day: fierce fighting on the front lines, deadly Russian bombardments of cities far from the front lines, and intricate debates about support for Kyiv further west, in Europe and North America. But this flood of information, much of it blood-curdling, frequently drowns out big developments inside both countries, even if they stem directly or indirectly from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Case in point: In Russia, there was a key court decision that in peaceful times would have attracted much more attention. But with Russia launching new attacks following a strike on an apartment building that killed at least 46 people in the city of Dnipro earlier this month, and the spotlight on pledges to send German and U.S. tanks to Ukraine, the ruling was just part of a doomy drumbeat in the background of a war whose end is not in sight but whose outcome is crucial to the future of the world. Satisfying a motion from the Justice Ministry, the Moscow City Court ordered the closure of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG), Russia's oldest human rights organization and one of its most respected. The January 25 ruling was just one of many blows -- albeit a big one -- in the Kremlin's implacable effort to dismantle civil society, a campaign that began long before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February but has intensified ever since. "You are committing a great sin," MHG co-chair Valery Borshchyov told the court. While the ruling was in no way unexpected, Borshchyov suggested it still came as a shock -- like many things said and done by the representatives of the state both inside and outside Russia these days. "The ease with which you are deciding our fate amazes me," the veteran human rights activist said. "How is it possible to destroy, with such ease, what was built over decades?" The MHG was established in the 1970s by prominent Soviet dissidents including Yury Orlov, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, Andrei Amalrik, Natan Sharansky, and Yelena Bonner in the Moscow apartment of legendary rights defender and physicist Andrei Sakharov. Alekseyeva led the group from 1996 until her death, at the age of 91, in 2019. President Vladimir Putin visited Alekseyeva at her Moscow apartment on her 90th birthday, in 2017, and expressed his "gratitude" to her and the MHG for their "significant contribution to the strengthening of democratic institutions and civil society" in Russia. Also since 1996, a two-story building near that apartment in east-central Moscow has housed the Sakharov Center, a museum and cultural institution dedicated to furthering his heritage, preserving the memory of Soviet totalitarianism and the fight for freedom, and fostering human rights and civil society in Russia. 'Foreign Agents' And 'Undesirables' The Sakharov Center has been a focal point for rights defenders. In 2015, thousands of mourners streamed there to pay their last respects to slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, whose body lay in an open casket, and made a solemn procession to the cemetery for his burial. Similar ceremonies have also been held there for other rights activists and Kremlin critics, such as Sergei Kovalyov and Valeria Novodvorskaya, and prominent foreign figures including Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik have spoken at the center. The Russian government branded the Sakharov Center a "foreign agent" in 2014, using what was then a new tool to hamstring civil society and suppress dissent. This week, the center said that the Moscow authorities, under a new incarnation of the foreign agent legislation, are ejecting the organization by ending its leases on the main building and Sakharov's former apartment, which houses his archives, as well as another property. In a statement on January 26, the Sakharov Center said the move "once again proves that the goal of state policy is the destruction of independent organizations that defend public interests." The center said it had received a letter about the evictions on January 24, a day after the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office labeled the U.S.-based Andrei Sakharov Foundation (ASF) an "undesirable organization" in Russia, employing another legal instrument Putin's government has used against civil society groups. The government swung the same cudgel this week at Meduza, a Latvian-based news outlet that publishes in Russian and English and focuses on Russia and other former Soviet republics. The "undesirable" label came two years after Meduza was listed as a foreign agent. The designation is part of "the full-scale war against media freedom that Putin has conducted since the very beginning of his presidency," Meduza co-founder and Executive Director Galina Timchenko told Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. "We will continue to work as we have worked," she said. 'Myths Based On Fear' The ASF said it saw no reason for "this sudden antagonistic action" and added: "We will, of course, continue our peaceful work." To some visitors who have gone there to listen to lectures or see exhibits on issues such as the killings of millions of civilians during the Stalin era, the Sakharov Center has seemed like an exotic island -- a place where damning information about the past and present is on clear display as the state steps up efforts to hide the truth and distort history. The organization sharply criticized Putin's government for the large-scale invasion of Ukraine not long after it began last February, saying it was causing "death, destruction, and untold suffering in a neighboring country" and pointed to "the moral bankruptcy of our society." It lambasted the Kremlin again in the new statement. "Uncontrolled power that corrupts society with myths based on fear, hatred, and a false sense of superiority, power that manipulates real and imaginary national traumas, cynically exploiting even the most exalted feelings of the people, inevitably follows the path of repression, lawlessness, destruction, and bloodshed," it said. "Sakharov warned about this, and we are seeing it with our own eyes today." That's it from me this week. If you want to know more, catch up on my podcast The Week Ahead In Russia, out every Monday, here on our site or wherever you get your podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts). Yours, Steve Gutterman RFE/RL intern Ella Jaffe contributed to this report. Written By Managing Editor she/her | Bridget is the Messengers managing editor. She oversees the newsroom and covers the Maple Run and Franklin West school districts, the communities of St. Albans and Fairfax and pays attention to recreation, food and the arts. She's also an avid cyclist and skier. | Vista native Cipriano Vargas, a trustee of the Vista Unified School District, at his alma mater, Vista High School. The schools sports mascot is the panther. As the youngest and one of the newest Vista school trustees, Cipriano Vargas is a leader in the districts efforts to modernize education, and also a watchdog for its most vulnerable students. Were going ahead with personalized learning, but we need to make sure we do it right, keeping in mind the needs of our (English as a second language) and special education students, so they dont get left behind, he said. It wasnt long ago that Vargas, one of nine children in a migrant worker family, was learning English in Vista schools himself. The first-generation college student who became the first student from Cal State San Marcos to be named a trustee to the state university systems board in 2012. Last fall, Vargas came full circle to become an elected official in the school district he attended as a boy. Advertisement I want to make systemic change here and help our community here, because this is where I grew up, he said. Although Vargas is new to the position, Interim Superintendent Matt Doyle said he adapted quickly to the role. Our theme this year as a school district is students at the center, Doyle said. I believe Cipriano is a really good example, having been a student in Vista Unified his whole school career starting in kindergarten, and through graduation. Vargas, 25, was born in Vista, the fourth of nine children. His father worked in the strawberry fields in Fallbrook, and the family moved frequently within the community renting small apartments or staying with friends, he said. Starting in elementary school, Vargas participated in Migrant Education, a federally funded program that provides support services to students whose parents labor in agriculture. Through the program he received school supplies, went on field trips and had home visits with instructors who helped him and his siblings bolster their academic skills. They visited a pumpkin patch one year and went on a camping trip rites of passage for many kids, but novel experiences for Vargas, whose parents were struggling to make ends meet. Over time, through after-school services, thats where I saw Cipriano become aware of his skills, said Dolores Valdes Benson, a program specialist in the Migrant Education Program. That is where he became aware that he had a story to tell, a message to convey. Despite his humble disposition he speaks with confidence and with passion. Most important, Vargas said, was a migrant education conference at Cal State San Marcos, which opened the door to higher education. For the very first time, I said to myself, I want to come here, he said. Sure enough, four years later, I started as a freshman. The journey was marked with obstacles, though, and there were times when he thought of turning back. Vargas grew up in a Spanish-speaking family, and took English as a Second Language classes until his freshman year at Vista High School, when he transitioned to mainstream classes. Although he was then proficient in English, Vargas said he lacked confidence in his speaking skills and shied away from speaking in public. Being an English learner had an impact, he said. I would get nervous, start to stutter, lose my train of thought. I would avoid having to present if I could. Looking back, thats part of the process of being an English learner. By his junior year, he adjusted to high school and joined Future Farmers of America. Through the campus organization, he raised goats and pigs for livestock competitions, developed his public speaking skills and came out of his shell. True to his plan, he enrolled at Cal State San Marcos after graduation. As soon as he started, though, he had doubts. He hadnt learned to budget money or manage his time. During his first semester he squeezed in a full academic schedule with a 30-hour-a-week job, with unsuccessful results. His grades plunged and he landed on academic probation. Its times like that when you question yourself, he said. Do I belong here? Then Vargas encountered the College Assistance Migrant Program, (CAMP) which provides academic support to U.S. citizens or legal residents who are children of migrant farm workers. It offered a lifeline to the overwhelmed freshman. He was like a sponge, he wanted to know everything what resources are out there, what can I use? said CAMP director Minerva Gonzalez. And he worked diligently to make sure he remained on this campus, to make sure that he graduated. Vargas volunteered to speak to other migrant students and families, and in 2011 he traveled to Washington D.C. to speak to congressional offices about the program, said Patricia Wilcox, a coordinator with Migrant Education. He not only explained the program, but also defended it to staff members who were skeptical of its value. It made him stronger, and realize I need to represent my community and not just tell my story, Wilcox said. Meanwhile Vargas pursued a degree in sociology and womens studies, worked as a peer mentor for CAMP, and became vice president for Associated Students Inc. and campus president for MEChA, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown named Vargas as one of two student trustees who serve two-year terms on Board of Trustees for the California State University system, making him the first CSUSM student to hold that position. That role was a crash course in topics such as budget, tuition, enrollment, campus facilities and graduation rates. I was getting information right and left, learning data, learning numbers, Vargas said. He held that position until his graduation in 2014, and then joined Teach for America. He taught for three years in a dual-language kindergarten class in San Antonio, Texas. When the chance arose to run for office in the Vista school district, he returned home to win a place on the board last November. His priorities include helping at-risk students and introducing bilingual education in early grades. Vargas approaches his role with the same solid study habits and love of learning that he employed as a student, said Carol Weise Herrera, vice president of the board. Hes very inquisitive, she said. He doesnt make rapid decisions about things. He thinks them through, and makes sure that what he does doesnt just influence one set of students, but all students. Thats what I like about him hes there for all kids. Vista is in the midst of a transition to a system of personalized learning, in which students chart the course of their education, using digital tools and resources. Vista High School Vargas alma mater will transform to a personalized learning academy this fall, thanks to a $10 million innovation grant from XQ: The Super School Project. For Vargas, that makes his role even more rewarding. There were things happening here that make me wish I was still a student here, and that brings me excitement, he said. deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan The Yanomami tribe in Brazil is dying, and the crisis has sparked outrage. Yanomami Tribe Crisis in Brazil Around 30,000 Yanomami people live in Brazil's largest indigenous territory. The area is around the size of Portugal, stretching across Roraima and Amazonas states in the northwest corner of Brazil's Amazon. Some of them live in southern Venezuela. The Yanomami tribe feeds themselves by hunting, fishing and growing crops. They move from one area to another, allowing the soil to regenerate. According to the environmental news outlet Sumauma, there is a 29% increase in death among children under 5 years old compared to the previous years. The Yanomami kids are also malnourished. According to the reports, six out of 10 children under 5 are malnourished. In 2022, six children less than a year old died from causes that could have been preventable if they had access to health services or medicine, Mongabay reported. The outlet noted that the actual figures might be much higher than reported. Fiona Watson, director of research and advocacy at Survival International, an NGO that champions Indigenous rights, told Mongabay that deaths and cases are underreported. She added that the deaths related to malaria and malnutrition are much higher. ALSO READ: Awa the World's 'Most Endangered Tribe' in Brazil Is Under Threat Due to Deforestation What are the Causes of the Yanomami Crisis? According to Phys.org, there were two causes - disease and mining. Eight of 10 kids aged 5 or under had chronic malnutrition, based on a study in two Yanomami regions by UNICEF and the Brazilian state health research institute Fiocruz. There were also 44 069 cases of malaria in two years, suggesting that the entire population was infected, with some being contaminated more than once. According to the Health Ministry data obtained by Sumauma, at least 570 Yanomami children died from untreated diseases during Bolsonaro's term from 2019 to 2022. Mining is another factor that affected the Yanomami people. There were reports that the miners took control of health facilities and airstrips in Yanomami territory for their use. According to Junior Hekurari Yanomami, president of the Yanomami local health council, in a tweet last March, miners destroyed their rivers, forest and children. He said their air was no longer pure, their game was disappearing, and they were crying out for clean water. He added that their tribe wanted to live in peace, and they wanted their territory back. Brazil's President Called Yanomami Crisis a Genocide Brazil's new president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was upset about the ordeal affecting the Yanomami tribe. He called the crisis a genocide and promised to address the problem with long-term actions. In a tweet, Lula said the issue affecting the Yanomami people is more than a humanitarian crisis. He said what he observed in Roraima, one of the 26 states of Brazil's north region, was a genocide. The politician said a task force of Brasilia and Boa Vista experts is already working together on an action plan to prevent more deaths within the Yanomami Indigenous Territory. He assured the people that "There will be no more genocides." Mais que uma crise humanitaria, o que vi em Roraima foi um genocidio. Um crime premeditado contra os Yanomami, cometido por um governo insensivel ao sofrimento do povo brasileiro. : @ricardostuckert pic.twitter.com/Hv5vrYw477 Lula (@LulaOficial) January 22, 2023 RELATED ARTICLE: Scientists Identified Common Traits Among Plants, Birds, and Mammals That Are at the Brink of Extinction Check out more news and information on Endangered Species in Science Times. Some shark species are under threat of extinction, and they are protected. However, one study surprisingly revealed that some are being served in fish and chip shops across Australia. Threatened Shark Met Sold in Fish And Chip Shops in Australia Researchers from the University of Adelaide analyzed DNA samples from the meat served at 100 fish and chips shops across the country. They discovered that 23% of the samples contained meat from shark species listed as threatened by The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. The shark species under threat include the mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) and the smooth hammerhead shark (Sphyrna zygaena). Ashleigh Sharrad, the study's lead author and a research assistant in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide, told Live Science that they were aware that seafood fraud is widespread, and she personally wonders what sharks they are consuming. Sharrad admitted they were surprised that people in Australia were consuming iconic shark species without their knowledge, including the endangered hammerhead shark. She acknowledged that they knew endangered shark species are globally served to consumers. Of the samples they analyzed, only 27% contained meat deemed legal for Australian fisheries to label as a flake by the Australian Fish Names Standard, a resource that provides information on the more than 5,000 fish species inhabiting Australian waters. According to Red Fish Grill, the term "flake" refers to an Australian fish name that only applies to two species of gummy shark (one from Australia and one from New Zealand). But in real life, the word is commonly used to refer to any shark meat, including meats from sharks under threat. Meanwhile, the study also discovered that only one in 10 retailers could correctly identify the type of fish they sold. On the other hand, 20% of the filets were mislabeled, and the rest had ambiguous labels. The study will be published in June 2023 issue of the journal Food Control. ALSO READ: Shark From Chicago Gives Birth Asexually and Without Intercourse Potential Health Issues When Eating Shark Meat According to Sharrad, shark meat can contain high levels of mercury and other toxins. She added that larger species and those higher up on the food chain had accumulated metals and other toxins. Mercury is dangerous for pregnant women because the developing fetal brain is extremely sensitive to it and can cause long-term issues with cognitive development, Sharksider added. Aside from mercury, shark meat could contain arsenic and lead. Some studies have found shark meats with toxic levels for human consumption; that's why there are terms like "flake." However, according to Sharrad, this does not inform consumers whether they are eating species potentially harmful to their health. Also, consuming sharks destroy the environment. Every year about 100 million sharks are killed by the fishing industry. They eat mid-level predators that eat herbaceous fish that eat algae. Without them, mid-level predator fish will thrive, and algae will grow freely. RELATED ARTICLE: Ghost, Horn Shark With Stripes, and Spiny Fins Adds to the List of Newly Discovered Shark Species [LOOK] Check out more news and information on Sharks in Science Times. Afghanistan: Closed Consultations This afternoon (27 January), Council members will convene for closed consultations on Afghanistan. The meeting was requested by France, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to discuss Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammeds recent visit to Afghanistan. Mohammed is expected to brief. UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous and Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific Mohamed Khaled Khiari were also part of the UN delegation led by Mohammed. The visit was part of a broader series of consultations between the delegation and the Islamic world regarding the situation in Afghanistan, which began in the second week of January. Prior to arriving in Afghanistan, the delegation met with high-level officials from several Islamic countries, such as Indonesia and Turkiye, as well as a number of member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), including Saudi Arabia. Meetings were also held with the leadership of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) the Islamic Development Bank, groups of Afghan women living in Ankara and Islamabad, and Doha-based ambassadors and special envoys to Afghanistan. The visit came weeks after the Taliban issued separate decrees directing non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working in Afghanistan to suspend all female employees and banning female students from attending university. The decreeswhich have been met with widespread criticism from UN officials, member states, and civil societyare the latest in a series of measures implemented by the Taliban that impose increasingly severe restrictions on the rights of women and girls. On 13 January, Council members held a private meeting, followed by closed consultations, to discuss these developments, at the request of Japan and the UAE. (For more information, see our 12 January Whats in Blue story.) The delegation led by Mohammed arrived in Afghanistan on 16 January. Over the next four days they travelled to Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat, where they met with Taliban officialsincluding members of the Talibans cabinethumanitarian workers, representatives of civil society, and Afghan women, among others. According to a 20 January UN press release, the delegation conveyed their alarm over the decree banning women from working for NGOs and highlighted the need for a realistic political pathway and the importance of women and girls rights to education, work, and public life in Afghanistan. During the visit, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reportedly told Al Jazeera on 18 January that only the Muslim world can convince the Taliban to change and said that Mohammed had visited a number of Islamic countries with the objective of mobilising support in the Islamic world to make clear to the Taliban that they need to reverse the present trend on women. A week earlier, on 11 January, the OIC issued a communique which expressed disappointment regarding the Talibans decisions concerning female education and female NGO employees. Among other matters, the OIC urged the Taliban to allow women and girls to exercise their rights and contribute to the social and economic development of the Afghan society in accordance with the rights and responsibilities as guaranteed to them by Islam and international human rights law. This afternoons consultations will provide an opportunity for Council members to receive an update from Mohammed regarding her visit to Afghanistan. Council members are particularly interested in hearing her analysis of the Talibans response to the messages conveyed by the delegation, the steps being taken by the UN to respond to the Talibans policies that violate the rights of women and girls, and the overall atmosphere on the ground. In a 25 January press conference, Mohammed told reporters that in her exchanges with Taliban officials, they had repeatedly pushed for international recognition and argued that the measures they have introduced regarding women and girls are intended to ensure their safety and prevent them from being exposed to western values. Mohammed also said that she had discussed humanitarian aid with the Taliban and referred to rumours that the Taliban may introduce an additional edict banning women from working for international organisations and diplomatic missions. She further described the UNs efforts to persuade the Taliban to introduce exemptions to the decrees that restrict the rights of women and girls. Mohammed may elaborate on these points during her briefing this afternoon. It appears that Council members will use the information provided by Mohammed to determine the Councils next steps on the file. During the Councils 13 January meeting on Afghanistan, the US reportedly proposed a resolution calling on the Taliban to reverse its bans preventing women from working for NGOs and attending universities and high schools. While this proposal received support from some Council members, it was opposed by others, some of whom apparently argued that the Council should wait to learn more about the delegations visit to Afghanistan and the Talibans response to the messages it had delivered before deciding how to proceed. It seems that as an interim measure, Council members agreed to send a letter to the Secretary-General outlining their concerns and requesting that those concerns be communicated to the Taliban. The contents of this letter were apparently agreed on 17 January and conveyed to the Taliban by the UN at a later date. Council members may choose to pursue the resolution proposed by the US after considering the findings from Mohammeds briefing. At the time of writing, a draft text has not been circulated. It appears that press elements regarding the 13 January meeting could not be agreed due to differences regarding the possible resolution. The US apparently suggested including a reference to the resolution in the draft elements, however this proposal seems to have been opposed by other Council members. Members were unable to resolve these differences, leading Japan and the UAE to withdraw the draft elements. Exemptions to the Talibans decree banning women from working for NGOs might be discussed during the consultations this afternoon. During a visit to Afghanistan earlier this week, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths reportedly pushed for the Taliban to introduce exemptions that allow female NGO workers to continue providing aid in the country. Speaking to Reuters on 25 January, Griffiths said that he had told the Taliban: if you cant help us rescind the ban, give us the exemptions to allow women to operate. In a briefing delivered during a 26 January meeting of the Informal Expert Group (IEG) on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) on Afghanistan, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan Markus Potzel apparently told Council members that the Taliban is considering introducing such exemptions. Council members are likely to be interested in learning more about the exemptions during this afternoons consultations. Council members may also discuss the upcoming renewal of the mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which expires on 17 March. It appears that UNAMAs mandate was discussed during the 26 January meeting of the IEG on WPS. Many Council members apparently expressed their support for UNAMAs current mandate, while Potzel referred to the importance of maintaining the aspects of the mandate relating to human rights and the rights of women and girls. Some members may convey similar messages this afternoon. It appears that the UK is currently working on a draft General Assembly resolution concerning the situation in Afghanistan. The last General Assembly resolution on Afghanistan, which was adopted on 10 November 2022, expressed deep concern about human rights abuses in Afghanistan and called on the Taliban to reverse its policies that restrict the human rights of women and girls, among other matters. Mali: Briefing and Consultations Tomorrow (27 January), the Security Council will hold a briefing, followed by closed consultations, on Mali. Special Representative and head of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) El-Ghassim Wane and a civil society representative are expected to brief. Wane will present the Secretary-Generals quarterly report on Mali, dated 6 January, and the UN internal review of MINUSMA submitted to the Council on 16 January. The quarterly report depicts the continued volatile security situation and the increasing operational constraints and challenges that MINUSMA has faced over the past year. In November 2022, further troop and police contributing countries (Cote dIvoire, Germany, and the UK), announced the end of their participation in MINUSMA because of tensions with Malis transitional authorities and Malis decision to partner with Russian private security company the Wagner Group. Restrictions on MINUSMA air and ground movements by the authorities have significantly affected the missions ability to maintain situational awareness and to fulfil its mandate. Fighting between Al-Qaida and Islamic State-affiliated groups in the Menaka and Gao regions in Malis northeast since March 2022 has displaced tens of thousands of people and has further stretched MINUSMAs ability to protect civilians. Though terrorist groups remain responsible for the majority of documented violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, Malian forces and foreign personnel have also continued to commit violations in their counter-terrorism operations in the countrys centre, according to the report. It was in a similar context that the Security Council endorsed the Secretary-Generals proposal to conduct an internal review of MINUSMA, and requested that it include options on the future configuration, force levels, and ceiling of uniformed personnel, when it renewed MINUSMAs mandate through resolution 2640 on 29 June 2022. Wane is likely to comment on the reviews findings. These echo the Secretary-Generals quarterly report with regard to the impact of still missing critical capacities required under the missions 2020 Force Adaptation Plan, the announced troop withdrawals over the past year (which represent 17 per cent of MINUSMAs current force strength), and host country restrictions. The review adds that since the Councils decision in 2019 to expand MINUSMAs mandate to support the stabilisation of central Mali without increasing its resources, the mission has been stretched beyond capacity. The withdrawal of French and other European counter-terrorism forces during the past year has further exacerbated the challenges for MINUSMA. According to the review, the situation has left MINUSMA unable to meet the expectations of Malians and subjected it to increasing criticism by the authorities and population. The review presents three sets of options for the reconfiguration of the mission, which Wane may mention during the briefing. One option is to increase MINUSMAs uniformed personnel, which are currently set at 13,289 military personnel and 1,920 police. In this regard, the report presents two different scenariosa more ambitious augmentation of the force ceiling by 3,680 personnel that would include new specialised capacities, and another, more modest, expansion by 2,000 uniformed personnel. These proposed increases may be adjusted based on the findings of a UN military and police capability study being conducted in the first quarter of this year. A second option proposes consolidating the missions presence to optimise the use of its resources in more effectively implementing MINSUMAs strategic priorities. In one scenario, the mission would close or hand over to Malian forces some smaller camps in locations without significant protection of civilians concerns and increase MINUSMAs presence in Menaka and Ansongo, Gao region. The mission would still maintain its strategic priority of supporting the implementation of the 2015 Peace and Reconciliation Agreement that aims to address the drivers of the conflict in Malis north, as well as continuing its support to the government in stabilising central Mali and protecting civilians in the centre. A second proposal would reconfigure the mission to focus primarily on its support to the peace agreements implementation by concentrating its forces in northern Mali, while significantly reducing MINSUMAs uniformed and civilian personnel in the centre. According to the review, these options all require key conditions for the mission to operate, including MINUSMAs freedom of movement and its ability to implement its entire mandate, including its human rights provisions. If these conditions are not met, the review suggests, as a third option, withdrawing uniformed personnel and converting MINUSMA into a special political mission based in Bamako. The special political mission would continue providing support to: political dialogue and reconciliation processes; capacity building and good governance; human rights monitoring, promotion and protection; and encouragement for the re-establishment of state authority. The review notes that this option would likely result in a serious deterioration in the security situation in Mali. It seems that Council members consider the internal review as a good basis to begin their discussion on the upcoming mandate renewal of MINUSMA in June. Some members may stress the importance of MINUSMAs presence in Mali and the need to strengthen the mission to better deliver on its mandate. Members could acknowledge the UNs efforts in preparing the review, including the extensive consultations with Malis authorities, whose expectations for MINUSMA are set out in the report and an attached five-page annex. These include that MINUSMA conduct joint planning with Malis armed forces, help to stabilise areas freed from extremist groups, and provide additional logistical support to defence forces, such as rations, fuel, and the construction and rehabilitation of military infrastructure. During the session, Council members are likely to urge the authorities to cooperate with MINUSMA, including in its human rights monitoring. Members could reiterate calls that Mali cease its restrictions on MINUSMA. Among the restrictions confirmed in the Secretary-Generals quarterly report were 237 MINUSMA flight requests since 4 October 2022 that had either been denied or had received no response from authorities. Most of these (219) applied to unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft, which affected the safety of MINUSMA convoys. An agreement on 15 November 2022 regarding flight request procedures that went into effect on 11 December has apparently improved the situation, according to the report, though flights are still being restricted in the areas of counter-terrorism operations. Wane is also likely to report tomorrow on political developments. The Secretary-Generals report describes last months decision of the signatory movements to the 2015 peace agreement to suspend their participation in the accords implementation as a cause for serious concern. The decision followed a controversy over the level of the Malian governments participation in the meetings of the Agreement Monitoring Committee, and criticism by one signatory movement, the Coordination of Azawad Movements, that the government and international community lacked commitment to the peace process. Members could welcome the diplomatic efforts that led to the release earlier this month of the 46 Ivorian soldiers that Mali arrested in July 2022 on charges of engaging in mercenary activities. According to Cote dIvoire, the soldiers had deployed to Mali as support personnel to MINUSMA. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had been pressing for their release. Some members may further welcome progress in carrying forward Malis political transition since the agreement in July 2022 between the authorities and ECOWAS to restore an elected government by 29 March 2024. The Middle East, including the Palestinian Question: Closed Consultations This afternoon (27 January), following the closed consultations on Afghanistan, Security Council members will convene for closed consultations on The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. China, France, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) requested the meeting to discuss the recent developments in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland is the expected briefer. This will be the third time this month that Council members will have met on The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. On 5 January, Council members held an open briefing requested by China, France, Malta, and the UAE following the 3 January visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount site by Israeli National Security Minister and leader of the far-right Otzmah Yehudit party Itamar Ben-Gvir. On 18 January, the Security Council held its regular quarterly open debate on The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question. (For background, see our 4 January and 17 January Whats In Blue stories.) Today, Council members are likely to seek an update from Wennesland on the 26 January Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid in the Jenin refugee camp and subsequent developments. Nine Palestinians were killed during the raid, in what several media outlets, including the BBC, have identified as the most deadly Israeli raid into [the] Jenin refugee camp in nearly two decades. The IDF described the raid as a counterterrorism operation to apprehend an Islamic Jihad terror squad involved in planning and carrying out multiple major terrorist attacks against Israelis. Media reports citing the Palestinian Health Ministry identified two of the Palestinians killed, including a 61-year-old woman, as civilian victims, while seven of the dead were claimed by Palestinian armed groups. At least 20 Palestinians were wounded, some of whom are reported to be in critical condition. Extensive damage to buildings and vehicles was also reported. In response to the raid, and citing the repeated aggression against [its] people and the undermining of signed agreements, including [regarding] security, the Palestinian Authority announced that it is suspending security coordination with Israel. In a 26 January letter to the Security Council, the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, Riyad Mansour, referred to the raid as a large-scale military invasion of the Jenin refugee camp and said that medical care to Palestinians wounded during the incident was repeatedly obstructed and delayed by the IOF [Israeli occupying forces], including shooting at ambulances and medical personnel. Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kailah accused the IDF of firing gas bombs towards the paediatric ward of Jenin Government Hospital. In separate tweets on 26 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) expressed solidarity with the health workers in Jenin and called for the protection of heath care and unhindered access to essential health services. Later the same day, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that a Palestinian had died of his injuries after being shot by Israeli security forces during clashes at a protest against the Jenin raid in the West Bank town of Al-Ram. According to several media sources, including the Associated Press and Palestinian news agency WAFA, 30 Palestinians have been killed in 2023 thus far. After the raid, Wennesland issued a statement stressing the importance of reducing tensions and preventing further loss of life. He urged Israeli and Palestinian authorities to restore calm, de-escalate tensions and avoid further conflict, a message that he may again underscore at todays consultations. In a 27 January statement, three special rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council called on the international community not to tolerate what appears to reflect Israels deliberate policy and practice of using lethal force without regard for limits set by international law. Today, members are likely to express concern at the increasingly violent situation in the West Bank and the risk of further escalation. At the 18 January open debate on The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, Wennesland said that [s]ecurity forces must exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life. Switzerland said that it expected all parties to take the necessary measures to protect civilians and non-combatants and called for investigating allegations of the disproportionate use of force by the Israeli security forces. The UK said that Israel must exercise maximum restraint in the use of live fire when protecting its legitimate security interests and China stressed that it stands against the excessive use of force by security forces. At todays meeting, these and other members may reiterate similar messages. Members may also emphasise the importance of protecting civilians and adhering to international humanitarian law. Members are likely to seek information about efforts underway by the UN and other actors to de-escalate tensions, including with the objective of avoiding an escalation in Gaza. According to media reports, following the raid in Jenin, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesperson said that it was impossible to let what happened in Jenin this morning pass quietly, adding that Israel bears full responsibility for all the developments and escalation. A Hamas official also reportedly said that the response of the resistance forces will not be late in coming. Several rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel late on 26 January and early today (27 January). In response, the IDF carried out airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza, including what it described as an underground rockets manufacturing site. No casualties were reported following these incidents. According to a report by Al Jazeera, a situation of cautious calm had returned to Gaza by this morning. A Council product is not expected in connection with todays meeting. Council members are likely to continue to follow closely the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. From 29 to 31 January, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to Egypt, Israel, and the West Bank. According to a statement by US Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price, Blinken will stress to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders the urgent need for the parties to take steps to deescalate tensions. He will also discuss the importance of upholding the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount site in Jerusalem, in words and in actions. How does investing in people, prioritizing education translate into the Francophone context in Canada and how can we support teachers to rise to the challenge of ensuring inclusive, equitable education and lifelong opportunities for French-language communities? We sat down with Gino LeBlanc, Director of the SFU Office of Francophone and Francophile Affairs to explore these themes on the occasion of the International Day of Education. Q: The theme of this years International Day of Education is invest in people, prioritize education. What does it mean in the context of French-language education? A: For Francophones in Canada, education has been that leverage that has helped them protect and promote their identity, and, historically, has contributed to their social-economic mobility. Without education, there would be far fewer French speakers today. Investing in people, prioritising education means investing in their identity, and language is a key element of this. Q: What is your vision of inclusive, equitable Francophone education that creates lifelong opportunities for all? A: Ours is a fairly young system, in B.C., [for example], French-language education governed by the Francophone community has been recognized since the mid- 1990s. Equity is keeping the language alive, keeping it vibrant, so you can pass it on to your children. In this sense, early childhood education is just as important as the school years [and beyond]. Our vision is for a true lifelong education continuum for Francophone communities. Q: What do you see as the current challenges? A: I think there are three main challenges. First, we are a province with high immigration and a very diverse French-speaking population, and so the fabric of the Francophone community is changing and mirroring this diversity. So we have to ask ourselves: do our schools reflect this diversity? The second challenge is the scarcity of pedagogical tools, methodologies and training adapted for B.C. Because the French educational community here is so much smaller, there are fewer available resources adapted to our reality. And the third challenge relates to what the 2020 Supreme Court of Canada judged as non-equivalent infrastructure for French schools. Learning and teaching needs to happen within adequate schools, classrooms and student support, offering the same opportunities as those for the majority. Q: How has the Faculty of Education helped meet these evolving needs? A: We have become a key partner in helping create a strong continuum of French education in British Columbia, bringing together Francophone educators and strengthening communities of practice. A lot of work at the Faculty is focussed on ways to better reflect the current diversity of the Francophone community and its changing needs. We have literally brought our facultys classroom to the Francophone community by delivering a community module of our PDP program. Moreover, our Faculty members conduct important research on plurilingualism in the classroom and the need to include Indigenous perspectives in French-language schools. Q: What do you see as the role of OFFA in supporting Francophone education? A: Our key mandate is to coordinate and support French courses, French programs and French-language students at SFU. We help students increase the value-add of their language by creating opportunities that allow them to reflect on their identity and language skills and by offering them on-campus and off-campus exposure to French language and culture. Mobile marketing is also extremely cost-effective. There are a variety of options to choose from for any budget and the impact it can have when compared to the cost is significant. In a common comparison, social media ads are much cheaper than purchasing ad space for radio or television. Customers can also be reached in real-time with mobile marketing no matter where they are. Radio or television marketing only works when a customer is in front of the television or has the radio on. Unlike traditional marketing efforts, mobile marketing takes advantage of the fact that many users of mobile devices carry them around wherever they go. As a result, location-based services can collect customer data and then offer coupons, deals, or promotions based on their proximity to a store or a place frequently visited by the consumer. These marketing campaigns can be more targeted and specific to the individual user, and should, therefore, be more effective for the company doing the marketing. One example may be a marketing campaign that sends food-related coupons to a customer any time they come within half a mile of a specific supermarket. Mobile marketing may include promotions sent through SMS text messaging, MMS multimedia messaging, through downloaded apps using push notifications, through in-app or in-game marketing, through mobile websites, or by using a mobile device to scan QR codes. Proximity systems and location-based services can alert users based on geographic location or proximity to a service provider. Advantages of Mobile Marketing Mobile marketing is an indispensable tool for companies large and small as mobile devices have become ubiquitous. The key players in the space are the brands (and companies that they represent through advertising), and service providers that enable mobile advertising. Mobile advertising targets audiences not so much by demographics but by behaviors (though demography plays a part, such as the fact that iPad users tend to be older and wealthier). Mobile marketing is any advertising activity that promotes products and services via mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones. It makes use of features of modern mobile technology, including location services, to tailor marketing campaigns based on an individual's location. Mobile marketing is a way in which technology can be used to create personalized promotion of goods or services to a user who is constantly connected to a network. Digital marketing is a term to describe marketing strategy that involves reaching customers through digital channels such as websites, social media, search engine advertising and email. Mobile marketing is a component of digital marketing that targets customers who access information through mobile devices. Mobile marketing, although technically a part of digital marketing, has quickly risen to become the largest component and is frequently given its own team who work separately from others in the marketing department. Overview Of Mobile Marketing Into Digital Marketing Digital marketing technically encompasses everything that involves sending marketing messages and launching campaigns through websites, social media, email, WiFi analytics or any other digital means. It also encompasses marketing tailored to different devices, including laptops, tablets and mobiles. Digital marketing has many components. They include strategies, tools and tactics such as: Pay per click advertising. Placing advertisements on search engine results that include keywords related to what the business offers. Search engine optimization. Using content and coding on a webpage to help a site rank higher on search engine results. Content. Creation and publishing of content that provides useful information to people searching for specific keywords. Website. Using words, images and designs to create attractive websites that also have success converting website traffic into paying customers. Social media. Popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram provide marketers a chance to interact with large numbers of potential customers, having conversations on issues that involve their products and services. Email. Although one of the oldest digital marketing methods, email remains highly effective at reaching potential customers or keeping current customers loyal to your brand. Data analytics. Data is the tool behind all these strategies, as digital marketers use information found through data analysis to guide more targeted, successful marketing campaigns. Steps Fo Success Mobile marketing takes many of the above approaches, but tailors them specifically to those who use their mobile devices to conduct searches, visit social media platforms and check out websites. This is becoming increasingly important as more consumers transition into using mobile devices to find and purchase products and services. One key step when it comes to both digital and mobile marketing for many businesses is to hire consultants who are digital marketing professionals and can help both develop and execute marketing strategy. Some of those strategies include: Making websites mobile-friendly (Google ranks such sites higher in search engine results) Emphasize email, as 65% of all emails are first opened on mobile devices, according to Marketo SMS and MMS text marketing, sending messages directly to a persons mobile device Developing mobile apps for your business Thats just a taste of the digital and mobile marketing techniques companies can use to reach a wider customer base. In the new age of marketing, both are necessary to keep pace with the competition. Asia is emerging as one of the worlds great beneficiaries of this period of significant global expansion of the Internet. Comprising roughly half of global population and GDP, the continent is now home to over half of Internet users, while its 5% economic growth forecast in 2023 makes it the fastest-growing region in the world. Although Asias internet penetration rate of 67.4% falls marginally below the global average of 71%, this rate has remarkably more than doubled since 2011, with the hotbed of Southeast Asia driving a large part of this expansion in Internet access. Southeast Asia boasts a thriving digital ecosystem on a sharp upward trajectory, composed of 460 million internet users - 100 million of which have connected to the Internet in just the past three years due to theimpact of COVID-19 - and a rapidly developing digital economy that is expected to nearly double by 2025 to an impressive $330 billion, fueled by six of the regions digital heavy hitters, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippinesand Vietnam. Whats more, the region is the second fastest-growing globally in terms of Internet users, creating significant opportunities for transformative socioeconomic development. Unsung foundation of Internet expansion While the wide expansion of digital infrastructure occurring in Asia, such as new subsea broadband cables and data centres, is undoubtedly playing a crucial role in its digital transformation, the Internet Governance ecosystems contribution has gone largely overlooked. APNIC, the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for the 56 economies in Asia and Oceania, has been at the core of this governance effort since the Internets early days in the 1990s.Like the worlds other four RIRs, APNIC allocates and registers IP addresses, without which connecting to the Internet and accessing online content would be impossible. In keeping with the original Internet governance models, APNIC has provided this vital service to Internet Service Provider (ISP) clients in its designated Asia-Pacific territory, enabling these so-called resource members to provide Internet connection services to companies and households. Founded in Tokyo, APNIC later migrated to its current home in Brisbane, Australia at the end of last century, from where it oversaw a transformative period for the Internet, during which global users soared from 400 million in 2000 to 2 billion by 2010and the Internet increasingly became a crucial part of everyday life. This expansion, and consequent depletion of finite IPv4 addresses, made APNICs role in ensuring a fair and equitable distribution of IP resources on the continent increasingly important. Democratic deficit controversy brewing While it has made significant contributions to the development of Asias digital ecosystem, controversy has emergedin January within APNICs resource member communityover the organisations governance structure and ownership. Considering that RIRs were initially founded on a bottom-up, community-driven model to ensure that the Internet would remain an open and inclusive space whose development would be guided by users interests, recent revelations have raised several important questions. An APNIC community member recentlypointed out publicly available company information in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) database that shows APNIC legally APNIC Pty Ltd to be a private company with a sole share owned by APNIC Director General and Secretary, Paul Wilson, who has held these positions since 1998, leading to concerns that APNICs structure was not nearly as democratic as previously believed. Jeremy Harrison, APNICs senior legal counsel, has responded to the concerns, confirming that APNIC in fact has that corporate structure, but explaining that the public-facing, member-led organisation known as APNIC is legally a Special Committee of the Board of APNIC Pty Ltd, which elects the Executive Council that in turn exercises directorial and decision-making powers, with the sole-share APNIC Pty Ltd acting as a holding company of sorts. Moreover, Harrison claims that this one share is held on trust for the Executive Council of APNIC, with the Executive Council choosing who holds the share as trustee.In his written explanation, Harrison further posits that the Executive Council is the beneficial owner of the sole APNIC share, while Director General Paul Wilson, as trustee, is simply the legal holder, who cannot do anything with the share without the approval of the Executive Council. A community member subsequentlyquestioned this claim, citing lack of public evidence of Paul Wilsons role as trustee, as well as the apparent lack of an adequate system of checks and balances between the Director General role and the Executive Council. While not illegal, this corporate structure would appear to conflict with APNICs public image as an open, membership-based organisation, and the traditional bottom-up, multistakeholder model of Internet Governance. Concretely, this concentration of powerseemingly creates a unstable democratic deficit within APNICs governance, considering the potential risk that Wilson, as Director General, Secretary and sole shareholder, could override the will of an Executive Council without clear authority to act as balancing power representing the democratic will of the resource member community. Importance of bottom-up internet governance The bottom-up, multistakeholder Internet governance model that certain APNIC members believe is at risk has long been considered the foundation for an open, democratic and inclusive expansion of the Internet. Fundamentally, this model empowers those at the core of digital ecosystems, including the smallest ISPs, to influence Internet policymaking and contribute to collective action, as opposed to a top-down model in which a governmental, or intergovernmental body, sets regulations that smaller organisations abide by without input. This model will be key in the coming years, considering that APNICs territory still has a long way to go in its digital transformation. Despite its impressive Internet penetration, nearly 40% of Southeast Asias population does not get online once per month. Moreover, the region faces a considerable digital divide between more and less developed economies, which have access rates of roughly 75% and 60%, respectively, that will need to be tackled to ensure the socioeconomic benefits of digitalization are enjoyed inclusively and sustainably. According to a Bloomberg study, historical data shows that the stock market decreased by approximately 1% on average in the month prior to the budget. But why, in general, does the budget matter so much to investors? Why does the market change as the budget deadline approaches? Let's break down the responses to these queries into the following three main motives for investors' interest in the budget: Indirect and direct tax rates There are two types of taxes the government from which earns its revenue, direct tax and indirect tax. Both of them may affect your investment decisions in different ways. If an individual gets the tax benefit of investing in equity-linked schemes, you might be ready to take more risk than before when tax deduction is available. Similarly, in the case of indirect as well, it may affect your decision to invest in a particular industry. For example, suppose the budget increases the GST on raw materials required in the construction of real estate like cement. In that case, the real estate companys profit margin will decline and investment in the same will become slightly unattractive. You might not choose real estate to invest in due to fear of low returns. It is the main reason why the stock market falls before a month of the budget. Everyone wants to be available for the money to invest in the sectors with maximum tax benefits. Industry-related laws On the basis of laws only, industries are operating smoothly. When any rule changes, there might be two scenarios, favourable and unfavourable to the industry. When the government in its budget introduces a regulation in favor of a particular industry, investors trust the same industry more and start investing more. For example, there is various documentation required for incorporating a company to start their operations, due to which businesses show less interest in the sector which might be harmful to the economy. The government may announce fewer regulatory measures to promote capital expenditure in the same industry. The greatest example of the same is introducing FDI from automatic routes in a few of the industries in India, like ports and shipping, railways infrastructure, and renewable energy. Government support via subsidies and grants Sometimes, the government looks forward to supporting some industries in the country to promote and protect their interests. Such support may be in the form of tax assistance, like tax incentives given in SEZ (special economic zones), in the form of regulatory assistance as per discussed above, or maybe in terms of financial assistance as well. In the budget, the government may announce some schemes to give interest-free or low-interest loans to support a particular sector in the economy. The stock price of the companies belonging to the same sector will increase because of an increase in demand after the budget. The most recent example is PLI schemes. The various sectors like pharma, electronics, food processing, and white goods industries performed really well. Allied sectors like transportation performed well too. This is why investors wait for the budget, and exit from the market where there is an expectation of no actions or negative actions on the part of the government. The stock market and industries' performance go hand in hand, also they get affected by macro and microeconomic aspects. You need to keep your eye on the governments actions to analyse its effect to make the best out of your investment. Indias market regulator has increased scrutiny of deals by the Adani Group over the past year and will study a report issued by short-seller Hindenburg Research to add to its own ongoing preliminary investigation into the groups foreign portfolio investors, as per two sources aware of the matter. On Wednesday, the U.S. short-seller said it held short positions in the Indian conglomerate, accusing it of improper use of offshore tax havens and flagging concerns about high debt, leading to a massive sell-off of India-listed shares of the conglomerate's firms. SEBI has been increasingly examining all the transactions that Adani Group has been undertaking in the listed space," said the first of the two sources, who declined to be identified as the matter is confidential. SEBI has been increasingly asking for disclosures that it ordinarily does not. Adani earlier this week dismissed the Hindenburg report as baseless and said it is considering whether to take legal action against the New York-based firm. SEBI spokespersons did not provide any immediate comments saying they do not discuss company specific matters and ongoing probes. In the case of Adani Groups acquisition of Switzerland-based Holcim Ltd's stake in India's Ambuja Cements Ltd and ACC Ltd, the regulator examined the offshore special purpose vehicle (SPV) used for the transaction, the first source said. The use of this SPV was disclosed by the group as part of the acquisition announcement in May 2022. The regulator had found as many as 17 foreign offshore entities involved in the funding of the transaction. The regulator had sought clarity from the group on these entities when the group approached it for regulatory clearance last year. These responses are under regulatory examination, sources said. Hindenburg's report on the Adani group comes amidst a $2.45 billion secondary share sale by the group's flagship company Adani Enterprises. On Friday, shares of Adani Enterprises fell below the price at which shares are being offered as part of the issue. In July, the regulator had initiated a probe of little-known offshore funds based out of Mauritius which had large holdings in Adani's Group's listed firms, which potentially raised concerns about stock price manipulation. At the time, the regulator's investigation hit a wall because of lack of information from jurisdictions where these funds were domiciled. Some issues raised in the Hindenburg report point to concerns same to what the regulator had regarding movement of funds between parties related to the Adani Group through offshore funds back into local firms, sources said. Thank you for visiting the Daily Journal. Please purchase an Enhanced Subscription to continue reading. To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account. We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription. A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much! Its extremely significant. Its as big as NBN, or its as big as mobile number portability, its a huge undertaking, and it needs to be planned, he says. Unfortunately, the flipside of when you introduce something like that is it takes time, and it takes time for organisations to make use of it, it takes times for consumers to even become aware of it, and theyre not aware of it. Mathew Tyrrell, APAC commercial director at fintech Codat, says he believes the launch of open banking landed with a whimper rather than a bang. He worries last years cyberattacks on Optus and Medibank will further slow the uptake of open banking. In light of the recent Optus and Medibank breaches, data security is now front of mind for all Australians, making them more cautious than ever about who they share their data with, he says. Unfortunately, this reluctance now threatens to slow the benefits we can unlock as a nation with open banking. Why has open banking been so slow to get off the ground? Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones firmly backs the consumer data right system and the governments move to expand the regime into other sectors, including energy. But he agrees customer take-up has been slow. I think the idea of extending it beyond the banking sector into other areas of the economy is absolutely the right policy direction as well, but I think the take-up and provision of new products and services has been very slow, Jones says in an interview. Jones says reasons for the slow progress include labour shortages in the tech sector and the fact the rollout occurred during the hectic period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fintechs, meanwhile, point to complex regulation and differences in how Australia has rolled out the regime, compared to the UK. The CEO of the Australian arm of UK fintech Revolut, Matt Baxby, says open banking can ultimately give consumers a more seamless experience, including the ability to see all their accounts in one place, and to apply for loans more easily. Were very positive on the opportunity that open banking presents, he says. Were about finding ways to put customers in charge of their money, and a lot of the benefits that weve seen in our UK experience will eventually find their way into the Australian market. However, Baxby says the key difference between Australia and the UKs open banking is something called payment initiation. Essentially, UK customers can allow a third party to not only receive data, but also take action on their behalf, such as opening or closing an account. Experts say this has meant the UKs regime has more use cases for customers, and its therefore driven more switching. I think thats probably been one of the key drivers for why adoption in Australias maybe been a little bit slower than what weve seen in the UK, Baxby says. The government is looking to address this: Jones says it introduced legislation late last year to allow for action initiation. Thats a game changer, Jones says. Its one thing to be able to say to your bank: I want you to provide my customer data to this bank that Im switching to. Its another thing to be able to say to a service provider: I want you to pay all of these bills, across all of these different banks that I have, on these conditions and these dates. Or: I want you to continually monitor my electricity service provision and I want you to get the best deals in the market on a quartley or a six-monthly basis and switch my accounts accordingly. When such products are actually launched will depend on the industry, but Jones says fintechs tell him they are enthusiastic. Fintechs share Jones optimism that the consumer data right could still drive major changes, but they say its likely to be a slow journey. Digital mortgages - facilitated by open banking - are a case in point. While some believe digital home loans could be a major disruptive force, initially they will only be available to simpler loans, and will probably grab a small share of the overall market. Chief executive of CBAs digital mortgage unit Unloan, Daniel Oertli, says the bank hopes to roll out open-banking supported applications in early 2023. You do your application, theres about 30 seconds of processing time and then theres a decision. Either it will be an instantly approved decision, or we refer it to a team member. Oertli says for simple application, the process doesnt require paper. Borrowers who are self-employed or who have investment income may still require manual assessments. Will it encourage switching? Oertli thinks so. One of the main reasons customers dont switch, despite having access to a better offer, is not wanting to go through the process, he says. Damir Cuca, chief executive of Basiq, is also optimistic about the long-term potential of open banking, arguing Australia has made remarkable progress in the field. What we need to acknowledge is that its a very ambitious and new infrastructure that were laying out within the Australian economy, Cuca says. Thrassis believes that eventually, open banking will lead to more switching by customers, and that changing mortgages could ultimately become more like changing mobile phone providers. However, it will take time. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size How many billionaires does it take to change a light bulb? None. Billionaires dont change light bulbs, or so the joke goes. But they can invest billions to reshape the energy market, as Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, Australias second and third-richest businessmen, are doing. Forrest and Cannon-Brookes have each been on their own crusade to address climate change by forcing Australia, and the world, towards a faster adoption of green energy, away from fossil fuels. The two multi-billionaires even co-invested in a solar energy company Sun Cable, a $35 billion moon-shot project that wanted to supply electricity from the Northern Territory to Singapore via the worlds longest subsea high-voltage cable, which would have run through an archipelago known for its volcanic activity. Since Sun Cables collapse earlier this month, Forrest and Cannon-Brookes, once kindred spirits in their push to elevate climate change to a national preoccupation, have been at loggerheads. They are each vying to buy Sun Cable out of voluntary administration and the battle is theatrical. Each side has leaked against the other, passions are high, massive egos are at stake, and big chequebooks are at the ready. As the private companies of Forrest and Cannon-Brookes duke it out the question is: why arent either of the billionaires using the project to solve the big energy problem in Australia? Sun Cables proposed Australia-Asia PowerLink project. Sun Cable was focused on exporting power to Singapore - a tiny city-state with one-fifth of Australias population - and not Australias east coast, where in the medium-term there will be a shortfall in electricity supply to meet demand, thanks to the accelerated closure of coal-fired power stations. Last year, Cannon-Brookes investment company Grok Ventures and Canadas Brookfield Asset Management launched a failed takeover bid for the countrys largest electricity generator, AGL, with Cannon-Brookes publicly pushing for the early closure of the groups coal-fired power stations to curb Australias carbon emissions. AGL, which is the nations biggest polluter and accounts for about 8 per cent of Australias total carbon emissions, owns the coal-fired power stations, Bayswater in NSWs Hunter Valley and Loy Yang in Victorias Latrobe Valley. Advertisement After the failed bid, Grok used its 11 per cent stake instead to lobby against a dramatic restructuring of the company that would have split the business into two companies, coal power-focused Accel Energy, and retailer AGL Australia. Grok also nominated four directors to be appointed to the board, who were ultimately supported by the majority of AGL shareholders. New AGL CEO Damien Nicks pledged last week to map out firm plans to underpin the companys accelerated closure of its coal-fired power plants and investment in renewables. While coal-fired power closures across the nation will help cut greenhouse gases, and support the federal governments 2030 target of reducing emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels - there remains substantial risk. Shutting coal-fired generators too soon, without enough reliable power to support wind and solar energy - and sufficient battery storage - could result in a messy energy transition, threatening power supply and prices. For now, coal remains the dominant fuel source providing electricity to Australias national energy market. In figures released this past week, the Australias Energy Market Operator showed that coal still accounted for just over half of the fuel that fed into the national energy market in the final quarter of 2022. In Australia, there are a lot of proposed renewable energy projects, which may or may not go ahead. And even if they do, experts argue its still not enough to replace the electricity generated by coal-fired power stations, most of which are slated for closure by 2036. As a co-investor in Sun Cable, Cannon-Brookes Grok could have the solution to the problem of delivering more renewables into the Australian market. But instead he remains a believer in the vision that the project, of which he was chair, should export energy to Singapore. Grok has argued there is already enough renewable capacity being developed to meet demand to service customers in Australia. Sun Cable, a project deemed investment ready by Infrastructure Australia, wanted to supply 15 per cent of Singapores electricity from a 12000-hectare solar farm with a capacity of as much as 20 gigawatts located 5000 kilometres away, near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Some of the electricity generated from that farm would have also been supplied to Darwin. Advertisement A Grok spokesperson said the project was about maximising outcomes for the Northern Territory, the Australian economy, shareholders and global emission reduction efforts. The Singapore project was the reason the founders started the company, and the reason investors invested in the company, in the first place. Grok and every other investor, with the exception of Squadron, is firmly of the view that the Australia-Asia PowerLink, the cable to Singapore, is the project to back - it continues to hit important milestones and remains on-track to deliver affordable clean energy to Singapore. This lighthouse project will likely deliver significant outcomes for the company, attract further investor capital and create a new industry in Australia. Currently, most of Singapores power is provided by gas, and for that reason, its per capita carbon emissions are high - almost as high as countries with significantly bigger populations such as Malaysia and Japan. For this reason, its understandable why it would be an attractive target market for renewables. But five years after it was founded, Sun Cable still hadnt secured contracts with Singaporean customers. Rather the company, after much rhetoric and optimism, had letters of intent. The project wasnt due to begin construction until 2024. Grok Ventures, says that as of October last year, Sun Cable had received letters of intent from potential Singaporean customers wanting to take 2.5 gigawatts of power versus a planned supply of 1.75 gigawatts. Last year, Singapore began importing up to 100 megawatts of hydropower from Laos using existing infrastructure via Thailand and Malaysia. Advertisement Forrests Squadron Energy has argued that the Singapore venture is not commercially viable. It would prefer the project focused domestically, with a potential cable link to Darwin from the solar farm, with the energy maybe used to power a possible green hydrogen project that most likely would be for export. However, an idea mooted by some in the energy industry is the possibility of running a cable, also known as an interconnector, from Sun Cables planned Northern Territory solar farm - the worlds largest solar farm and battery storage facility - to Queensland, where there is existing infrastructure that could feed into the national energy market. It would be significantly less complex and cheaper than original $35 billion spend to reach Singapore. Forrest has a number of investments in central Queensland through Squadron Energy and also Forrest Future Industries. At Gladstone, FFI is developing a green energy manufacturing centre to build an electrolyser facility, which is needed to produce green hydrogen. Fortescue says the plant will make its first electrolyser this year, despite the withdrawal of its joint venture partner Plug Power from the project. Electrolysers from that facility are intended to be used in FFIs planned green hydrogen facility at Gibson Island, near Brisbane. Meanwhile, Squadron Energy is developing the $3 billion Clarke Creek wind, solar and battery project in central Queensland. Pierluigi Mancarella, professor of electrical power systems at Melbourne Universitys Energy Institute, says running a cable from the Northern Territory to Queensland is viable. Once we have a very large-scale production of solar energy backed up by batteries, could we use it locally, with interconnectors to the east coast? That is definitely possible. Still, other experts such as Georgios Konstantinou, a senior lecturer in energy systems at UNSW, say there are already an enormous number of proposed renewable projects, particularly in Queensland and NSW, which are closer to existing transmission systems. For this reason, it would be commercially questionable to run a cable from the Northern Territory to Queensland. Advertisement Over the past few years, Nathan Anderson has made a name with analysis that sends stocks sinking. Now the activist short seller behind Hindenburg Research is going after his biggest game yet what Hindenburg is calling, with characteristic chutzpah, The Largest Con in Corporate History. His target: Indian industrialist Gautam Adani, a figure even richer than Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, with a net worth of $US113.4 billion ($160 billion), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Nathan Andersons research firm is five years old an employs 10 people but has claimed some high-profile scalps. But none as big as Adani. Hindenburg on Tuesday levelled a series of extraordinary allegations about the sprawling Adani Group conglomerate the result, it said, of a two-year investigation into what its characterising as a brazen scheme of stock manipulation and accounting fraud dating back decades. Andrew Forrests Fortescue Metals Group shipped a record amount of iron ore in the December quarter as it enters a year when it plans to make its green energy dreams a reality by pressing go on five green energy projects, with just one in Australia. Forrest, the miners executive chairman, said while many companies wanted to stick to their knitting while the world responded to climate change Fortescue would just get on and do it. Andrew Forrest said Fortescue will save $1 billion a year when its Pilbara mines switch to renewable energy. Credit: World Economic Forum However, Fortescues plan to manufacture electrolysers, devices that extract hydrogen from water, in Gladstone appeared to suffer a setback on Thursday when its technology partner US-based Plug Power announced it could do better investing elsewhere. With the $117 million factory under construction, Fortescue will now switch to technology it is developing itself. The devastating floods in NSW and fires in Victoria last year, together with the summer heat across the rest of the country proved to mall landlords that their properties need to be climate-proof and act as hubs for the community when disasters hit. Region, formerly SCA Property, says malls need to support their customers in times of need. The ASX-listed landlord was spun out of Woolworths a decade ago and has rebranded as Region to reflect its regional presence. It has a market value of $3.17 billion and owns and manages 104 convenience-based shopping centres valued at $4.46 billion. It is in the ASX100 and has delivered over 234 per cent in total unitholder returns compared to the ASX200 A-REIT index return of 116 per cent from June 2012 to June 2022. Investor appetite for neighbourhood malls has surged. Credit: Region chief executive Anthony Mellowes said the company has a strong track record of continually investing in its centres to ensure it evolves in ways that best address the needs and wants of its retail partners and the local communities it serves. Only the lucky, or well informed, few manage to get out at the top. One such was Elon Musks former business partner, Peter Thiel, whose venture capital fund sold out just before the crash last year at a reported profit of 1.8 billion ($3.2 billion) even as he was still preaching the merits of crypto and ridiculously proclaiming the end of the fiat money regime. Thiels Palantir Technologies is meanwhile bidding for a 480 million NHS data contract - nothing to do with crypto, of course, but theres another sheep there for the fleecing, it might be thought. In any case, there is a marked reluctance among Western governments and regulators to see crypto as just a sophisticated scam, and like China, ban it entirely. The collapse of Sam Bankman-Frieds crypto exchange FTX Credit: Bloomberg Thats what central banks should be doing, but they hesitate. Instead, they remain faintly in awe, preferring to see the wild west of crypto as a systemically irrelevant distraction rather than the parasitic thievery it really is. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak still hopes to make Britain a digital currency superpower, and has ordered the Bank of England to respond accordingly. Is this entirely wise? Others are apparently chasing hard. Such luminaries of the global financial landscape as El Salvador and the Central African Republic have even adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. Snooze and you lose. Crypto is admittedly a little bit different from tulips and other basically imaginary assets that have tended to fire past manias. Instead, it poses as an alternative to fiat currencies - and a more trustworthy one at that - as theoretically, the amount of coin in issue is in most cases strictly finite and, therefore, cannot be devalued. There is a marked reluctance among Western governments and regulators to see crypto as just a sophisticated scam, and like China, ban it entirely. Nothing wrong with private currencies as such, but unfortunately, crypto is not what it pretends to be, and never will be; there is no other asset class I can think of which is quite as volatile as Bitcoin, prone as it often is to movements of as much as 10 per cent in a single day. This in turn renders it virtually worthless as a means of payment. The emergence of so-called stablecoins such as Tether - crypto which is supposedly backed by fiat currency reserves - has so far failed to close the credibility gap. In most cases, reserve backing is, shall we say, somewhat untransparent, and almost certainly wouldnt cover withdrawals if everyone decided to cash in at the same time. Given all this, why is crypto all of a sudden making a comeback? It may or may not surprise you to learn this, but far from being the jail keepers, central banks are in fact the unwitting midwives of the whole crypto phenomenon. It probably wouldnt exist at all as anything other than a curiosity were it not for the disaster of the financial crisis, which undermined trust in ordinary money and created fertile ground for the cryptonites to spin their survivalist nonsense. You would have thought, after the failures in oversight that prompted the banking crisis, that central banks and consumer protection agencies would be somewhat wary of these new forms of financial innovation, but instead, they stood aside and allowed them to flourish, even as they came down hard on the traditional banking sector. While prudential regulators were busy fighting the last war, crypto blossomed, unbound by the sort of protections and oversight afforded to much of the rest of the financial sector. From the word go, it was an accident waiting to happen. Yet Bitcoin, Ether and the rest could not have succeeded without another crucial ingredient - central bank money printing. JPMorgan chairman Jamie Dimon is a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies. Credit: Bloomberg Crypto is just one of the most visible of the asset price bubbles that years of quantitative easing helped to feed. It is no coincidence that Bitcoin fever is always at its most manic when the central bank printing press is at its most active. As soon as the QE life support is turned off, as happened last year, the price collapses. However, now that the monetary tightening seems to be drawing to a close, the price has started to revive anew. As a general rule of thumb, governments should never ban something unless it is manifestly doing active economic and social harm. We allow gambling, despite its morally and socially questionable attributes, so why not Bitcoin? Loading Some of the technologies associated with crypto - encryption, tokenisation, smart algorithmic contracts and so on - could moreover be of much wider benefit in finance. The UK Governments current plan is to regulate crypto in a manner that makes it both politically acceptable and renders the City a globally trustworthy centre for trading the stuff. But whats the point? I wonder whether crypto can survive at all in a highly regulated environment. Why go to the bother of attempting to regulate the crypto carpetbaggers when it would be very much easier simply to outlaw them and leave their destructive behaviours for others to manage? Telegraph, London Public support for the Voice had slipped from 53 per cent three months ago to 47 now. And Duttons demands for detail appeared to be vindicated; only 13 per cent of respondents said that they were confident they understood the proposal. All this is pretty handy work for a politician with a net performance rating of minus 17, versus Albaneses plus 35. And for a politician whose party is in an existential crisis after it lost its traditional heartland bastions at the May election, including the seat of the partys founder, Robert Menzies. Duttons not the only doubter, but his words have the greatest reach. His junior coalition partner, the Nationals, decided formally to oppose the Voice in November. The hardcore No campaigners in the Nationals Jacinta Price, Barnaby Joyce, Matt Canavan and Keith Pitt - are working daily to build resistance to the Voice. Joyce explains how his constituents see the Voice by saying he was in a cattle truck with a bloke who spontaneously raised the matter and asked Joyce what the Voice was about. It would give capacity for Aboriginal people to have more involvement in making laws, answered the former Nationals leader. Well, do I get it? No, answered Joyce. The man wanted to know whether Joyce supported the idea and seemed satisfied when the answer was no. Loading This anecdote, told to me by Joyce, actually reveals how he wants voters to see the Voice, rather than the way they necessarily see it. His explanation to the man is slippery in two ways. First, involvement in making laws makes it sounds like Aboriginal people would have an extra bite at the lawmaking cherry, maybe grabbing the drafting pen from the elected members. In fact, the draft wording of the constitutional amendment to create a Voice says only that it it may make representations to Parliament and to the government. So the Voice would be advisory only. Parliament would remain sovereign. No pen-grabbing allowed. Second, the draft says that the Voice may make representations on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. Not on anything else. Nonetheless, this is a useful pointer. The committed No campaigners are not waiting to shape opinion. And recall that it was the Nationals, and Barnaby Joyce in particular, who led the Liberals to rupture Australias bipartisan consensus on climate change in 2009. Where Joyce led, Tony Abbott followed. This was when an admiring Abbott described Joyce as the best retail politician in Australia. A divisive decade followed, but it was a division that helped put the Coalition in power. And helped keep them there. Are we about to see something similar now? Barnaby Joyce thinks the Voice is going down. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen The Voice is going to go down, and its going to be one of the most divisive things to happen in Australia for a long time, says Joyce. But not because of the people who put it down but because of the people who put it up. Is this where its heading? Are the Nationals and the committed No campaigners ultimately going to sway Dutton to oppose the Voice? If so, history tells us what happens next. Only eight referendums have succeeded out of 44 attempts since Federation in 1901. No referendum has succeeded when the main political parties are split over it. Before joining the fashionable rush to declare an emergency, consider four points. First, the strongest piece of evidence that the Voice could be in trouble, this weeks Resolve poll, is actually inconclusive. Loading While the Yes vote fell, the No vote didnt rise. Instead, the support that apparently was lost from the Yes column went into the undecided column. And when the poll respondents were pressed to give a straight Yes or No without the option of saying they were undecided in other words, as they would in an actual referendum 60 per cent chose Yes. This was down by 4 percentage points over three months but still a firm majority. The pollster, Resolve director Jim Reed, puts it in perspective: The Yes vote still holds a lead nationwide and in every state, so it meets the double majority test, as the constitution demands, but this downward trajectory makes a result later this year less clear now. The comments we collected in this latest poll suggest that the recent drop is about voters feeling they dont have enough information to make what they regard as an important decision. Okay, so the country is broadly well-disposed to the idea. People want more information. The good news for Voice supporters is that more information is on the way. Among other things, there will be a parliamentary inquiry into the proposed referendum, and there will be parliamentary debate to follow. This will unfold over some months. Second, before panicking over the slowness of the pace, recall that Albanese faced exactly this same pressure during the term of the Morrison government. As Opposition Leader, he faced intense pressure for years. To produce more policy, to throw more punches. Albanese held to his plan. And, of course, was vindicated. Loading Its the normal course of events in any campaign that the broad aim comes first, with the detail supplied later. Whether its a promise of lower taxes or a Voice. And Noel Pearson, despite his worries, says that whether the detail campaign is translating into what Dutton wants is what Textor and the campaign people say isnt happening. Pearson is giving us a glimpse behind the scenes here. Mark Textor, the most effective Liberal pollster and strategist for a generation, is advising the Yes campaign. If hes not panicking, why should anyone else? But what happens when voters eventually get more information about the Voice? This is the third point. One of the pro-Voice bodies conducted focus groups in Cairns. After being asked their initial views on the Voice, the voters were given the wording of the draft constitutional amendment that Albanese has proposed. When they saw it, they literally said, is that it? recounted one of the researchers. They saw the Voice as a reasonable and modest reform. Finally, Dutton faces a momentous decision on the Voice. Its not as simple as seeking to wreck it. If the Liberals want to recover any of the heartland they lost to the teals last year, they will not do it by opposing the Voice. The teal seats are economically conservative but socially progressive. They are solidly pro-Voice. Dutton knows that his party is on its way to becoming a populist right-wing rump. His task is to arrest this and make it electable. And even if Dutton decides to oppose the Voice, historys precedents might not hold. The last referendum was held in 1999. Before the proliferation of the smartphone. The big parties were the dominant communication sources last century, but campaign communications are radically different today. Some of the shrewdest political strategists contend that the Coalition could oppose the Voice yet find that the referendum is carried regardless. So, does Dutton need the Voice to succeed more than the Voice needs Dutton? Authors, illustrators, and editors will be compensated for e-book and audiobook library borrowings for the first time, in a move by the federal government to bring lenders rights into the 21st century. A $12.9 million expansion of the annual lending rights scheme over four years will be announced at Mondays launch of the Albanese governments national cultural policy. ASAs Sophie Cunningham. Credit: Supplied Introduced by the Whitlam government and expanded under the Howard government to include educational institutions, the current lending schemes pay writers for books held in public libraries, effectively compensating them for books that would otherwise have been sold. The move, set to take effect from July, comes after Macquarie Universitys National Survey of Australian Book Authors found the average income for authors to be $18,200, falling well below the poverty line. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Jessica Watson is expert at brushing off any kind of gushing in her direction. Tell her its incredible she sailed around the world at 16 and she deflects. But anyone can, she says.Its just a matter of having that right team, that right preparation. Everyone goes, I couldnt do that, but actually, its, What are the things that I would need to be in place to make it possible? The thing is, its hard not to gush after seeing True Spirit, the biopic that follows her unassisted, solo 2009-2010 circumnavigation. Thats 210 days alone at sea and I cant stress this enough as a 16-year-old. Its not just me thats gushing, though. Teagan Croft, who plays Watson in True Spirit, has some questions. So do members of the group who are on the True Spirit PR circuit who gather around Watson after our interview on the rooftop of Sydneys Old Clare Hotel and pepper her lightly with more questions. Jessica Watson coming through Sydney Heads about to cross the finish line after circumnavigation of the world in 2010. Credit:Dallas Kilponen Its not that Watson shies away from her mammoth achievements she was named Young Australian of the Year in 2011, received an Order of Australia in 2012 and last year was inducted into the Sailing Australia Hall of Fame but shes spent the past 13 years answering questions about it. Im so grateful for the things that enabled that, and the fun I had along the way but I really want something separate and not just be that 16-year-old forever, she says. And that is still maddening [that people still think that way] and this is going to constantly bring people back to that again. Advertisement So its amazing and its exciting, but its so important for me to have a career and a life. Im a very, very different person now than I was at the time and people tend to forget that, I think. OK then, well, I might as well get three nosy parker questions out of the way first: Did she get sick of any food on the trip? Not really but, I did have very weird food habits. There was one week where all I felt like eating was tinned corn and chocolate. And no one stopped me. Did she really use a fork as a hairbrush? No, that bit was invented for the movie but Jesse Martin, who inspired Watson with his 1999 solo trip around the world, did use a fork. I had a hairbrush, she confirms. True Spirit. Teagan Croft as Jessica Watson in True Spirit. Did she celebrate her birthday on the boat (that ones from my six-year-old)? No, she turned 17 three days after she returned home. Now more of those questions are going to come again, as True Spirit gets a worldwide Netflix release and people are reminded in jaw-dropping detail (the waves!) of the scale of what Watson achieved. Advertisement The film is based on the 2010 book Watson wrote about the nearly 23,000-nautical-mile journey, called the Mount Everest of sailing, and it covers the early backlash against her plans (child welfare groups wanted her stopped), her dyslexia, the collision with a bulk carrier during a test run, as well as the joys and mental toll of the trip and the close relationship she has with her family. Its heartwarming, in the best kind of way, not too cheesy as these types of biopics can be, and a great reminder of the worldwide interest and impact there was in her journey. Croft underwent stunt training to replicate being thrown around the boat during rough seas in True Spirit. I cried at the end and I dont even like the ocean so it must have been hard for Watson, who now works as a management consultant at Deloitte in Melbourne, the first time she saw it. It was super emotional, she says. And that was without finished music or CGI ... even then, it was really, really powerful for me. Croft, who is sitting next to Watson, jumps in: We were all crying, she says. Its an emotionally charged film. Watson: She re-created this chronically embarrassing crying scene that happened in real life. They re-created it right down to the scarf. Advertisement Croft: That must be a bit weird to see the scarf that you had on while crying and seeing someone else have it on and crying? Watson: They should have asked me because Ive got the real thing somewhere its damp and frayed and mouldy. Watson, now 29, and Croft, 18, have great rapport and bounce off each other as they discuss the very meta situation they find themselves in they are both Jessica Watson. Croft and Watson in Sydney. Credit:Brook Mitchell Its one of the weirdest dynamics in the world, agrees Croft, who also stars in the HBO Max DC superheroes series Titans. Watson, meanwhile, was confronted with seeing Croft with her hair when she visited the Gold Coast set. I keep getting this nostalgia for the thing that I didnt do, says Croft, laughing. Like, I watch the boat and I go, Oh, me and my boat. But its not me and its not my boat. And its so clear that its not me, or my boat, when Jess is sitting next to me in the theatre. Advertisement It was Crofts connection with the boat, Ellas Pink Lady (the real vessel is at the Queensland Maritime Museum, a replica was built for the film) that Watson really appreciated, as Croft understood that Ellas Pink Lady wasnt just a boat, but a home. Pink is a character, says Croft. In sailing culture, they do personify their boats and I think when youre a solo sailor in particular, you do develop a real connection, like a personal friendship, with the boat and you hear sailors call the boat she. But the most important thing about Pink is that she was the one who fought through it. When the boats getting battered, theres only so much you, as a sailor, can do. And what the film really tries to show is how it was for Pink, shes the one that really did it. Watson: I think I had someone once try to say that to me, almost like an insult, You know, it was the boat that got you there, and I was like, Yes, yes it was! Cliff Curtis as Ben Bryant and Croft as Jessica Watson in True Spirit. Bryant was Watsons fictional mentor in the film. True Spirit is directed by Sarah Spillane, who also wrote the script while isolated in a shack in the US, so she could better understand the loneliness Watson must have felt on her journey. She texted Watson throughout the writing, usually about technical sailing points, and while the film does fictionalise some parts of the story Watsons mentor in the film Ben (played by a terrific Cliff Curtis) is an amalgam of several people Watson is pleased with the result. Some of those lines in the movie about being vulnerable but being strong really resonate so much for me now, says Watson. Thats something thats really, really important to me currently. I didnt expect that level [of emotion] in the movie. Advertisement Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Blue Wiggle Anthony Field didnt know what Triple Js Hottest 100 was until a year or so before he won it. During COVID, [my daughter Lucia] was in the pool, having her own pool party, listening to the top 100. And I thought What is this thing!, he says, as Lucia now aged 18 watches on, sitting alongside her father, visibly embarrassed. But then, out of the blue, we were being invited to do Like A Version, which led to us winning. It was quite surreal. Loading A world away from previous winners like Billie Eilish, Ocean Alley, Kendrick Lamar and Flume, the iconic Australian childrens group won the 2022 countdown for its widely celebrated interpretation of Tame Impalas Elephant. It was the first time a cover had won the national youth broadcasters annual music poll and The Wiggles were certainly the first winning act to feature a middle-aged man playing bass in an elephant costume. Ive never worked so hard on a song, Field says. We practised six hours a day. Advertisement But that was only the start of what turned out to be an incredibly surreal year for the group. In 2022, The Wiggles went on to cover songs by The Chats, Fatboy Slim, The White Stripes, AC/DC and Lime Cordiale; and local artists including Spacey Jane, DZ Deathrays and Luca Brasi covered their songs right back. The ambitious double album that resulted from these collaborations, ReWiggled, gave the group, which has performed in various incarnations since 1991, its first #1 ARIA album. The OG Wiggles Field, Greg Page, Murray Cook and Jeff Fatt also embarked on a national adults-only reunion tour, performing their most iconic tracks for sold-out crowds of drunk millennials and older Gen Z. In April, they were publicly chased by US rapper Lil Nas X who said he was trying to get them to co-headline his tour. And in June, The Kid Laroi delivered. This next guest is the fing Wiggles! the 19-year-old Grammy Award-nominee screamed, before encouraging the crowd at his Melbourne show to mosh to Fruit Salad. Advertisement The Kid Laroi asked us to support him because he grew up with us, Field says, smiling. We get a lot of feedback like that from younger artists. A lot of people say to Murray, youre the first guitarist I ever heard! Its incredible. Theres this photo The Kid Laroi showed me of him at 11 years old where Im doing the Wiggle fingers, and hes doing rude fingers. We had a good laugh. Anthony Field from The Wiggles and a young The Kid Laroi. Credit:Pinterest All of this has been particular exciting for Lucia Field, who officially joined the group as a second Blue Wiggle this year. Nostalgia is a very big thing with my generation I mean, with all generations, but I think especially now because of social media, she says. Having young Australian acts collaborating with such an iconic Australian group Its not something that people would ever put together, but it works so well. I feel like I freak out more than [my dad] does because he has no idea who these people are, she says, laughing. Advertisement Lucia and Anthony Field, the Blue Wiggles, in the Big Red Car. Im 60 years old; Im really out of the loop, Anthony admits. But he has discovered a lot of new music along the way too. I met Genesis... [Lucia lets her dad know the Canberra rappers surname is Owusu, but he maintains I just know him as Genesis] and then I saw him perform at Falls, and now Im a big fan. I would never have known him unless we were doing this stuff! Importantly, The Wiggles were also playing at Falls Festival a throwback set that our reviewer noted sent the crowd ballistic. It was just joyful, Anthony says. It was thousands of people doing Rock-A-Bye Your Bear, and the next act on was Amyl and the Sniffers! Wiggles fans at day one of the Falls Festival at Sidney Myer Music Bowl. Credit:Joe Armao These OG shows which also include the current, younger Wiggles as backup dancers have been a bit of a culture shift, he says. Advertisement I didnt even know what a shoey was! Anthony says, recalling a punter trying to get him to scull a drink from his shoe in Darwin. They brought up vodka for Dorothy [the Dinosaur] instead of roses! We dont get out of character though, he adds. I think if we did go out of character, people would feel let down. We are the same as always except now weve got grey hair and expanding waistlines. Our tour was sponsored by a company that puts out defibrillators so... that says something about how old we are! Anthony Field Wiggles Credit:Joe Amaro Anthony, who still performs in the current Wiggles lineup, is hopeful these OG shows for older audiences can keep running hed especially love to go to America but hes not making any promises. Gregs got his own life. And Murrays got another band. And Jeff Jeff fishes a lot. Its also a question of our health as we get older. You know, three of the four guys have had heart surgery. The tour was kind of a celebration that Greg was better [after his heart attack in January 2020]. Hes been doing so much work getting AED defibrillators everywhere. The tour was sponsored by a company that puts out defibrillators so... that says something about how old we are! Advertisement Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Geoff Shaw cracked his first especially for this interview a statement of sorts from an Aboriginal man born by the dry Todd River who rose to command men. In the jungles of Vietnam, down the deep gullies and on napalm-fried ridges, he lost three comrades barely an arms length away. He has his medals, including an Order of Australia, and his demons. No one could say he hadnt earned it, this small emblem of freedom fizzing half-full on his outside table like a trophy. Geoff Shaw with his wife Eileen Hoosan at their home in the Mount Nancy town camp. Credit:Kate Geraghty Until recently, it had been illegal for Shaw to drink a beer at his Alice Springs home since 2007, when the Howard government rolled troops and bureaucrats into the Northern Territory in response to the Little Children are Sacred report, which documented cases of Aboriginal child abuse and neglect. Along with remote communities, Alice Springs 18 town camps small collections of ramshackle homes with histories of dysfunction and pride fell under the purview of restrictive laws applied like a blanket across majority-Aboriginal country, regardless of circumstance or record. Ive had a number of visits from my soldier mates and their wives, theyd travel from around Australia to come here, Shaw says from the porch of his Mount Nancy camp home on the north side of town. Advertisement I said, Hey, they got legislation here, youd be charged with bringing a six-pack and supplying me with beer. Most of the time Id meet with them in town to reminisce. They were pissed off. They said, Christ, you were our commander. It was embarrassing for me. I was in charge of them. One time, Shaw says he called police to report domestic violence in the nearby riverbed. He had just started on a six-pack, smuggled into Mount Nancy from family or friends. When the police arrived, he says they tipped out his open can and took the rest. They said, you can f--- off back to the RSL and similar words. There were men and women still fighting and they were more worried about my six-pack. The Emergency Response, as it was officially called, became known as the Intervention - a saving grace or damaging violation, depending on who youre speaking to. The restrictions continued in the form of the Gillard-era Stronger Futures laws, until they lapsed without replacement in July last year. Now, the only booze rule Shaw had to follow was from Eileen, his wife of 42 years: No beer inside. But the freedoms in Alice Springs come with a cost. Grog flowing into town camps has been blamed for soaring crime, up between 40 and 60 per cent in categories such as break-ins, domestic violence and assaults. Advertisement It was pretty bad three years ago, but now its just crazy, says service station worker Frank Brook, a lifelong Alice local. The last year its been increasing, just the volume of it. On Sunday night, he says, young people emptied the fire extinguishers and ripped a fuel pump from the bowser. The week before, the towns Woolworths was forced to shut down after a 13-year-old boy came in wielding a machete. Another local tells this masthead he witnessed three assaults on Aboriginal women during a 20-minute bike ride by the Todd River. A group of people of mixed ages in the central business area of Alice Springs. Credit:Kate Geraghty At night, Aboriginal children relieving boredom, escaping home life or peer pressure fan through the streets of boarded-up windows and razor wire fences in their hundreds, most of them friendly: young people doing what young people do. Some just want Wi-Fi. Another cohort, often coaxed by disillusioned and unemployed young men, according to locals, is determined to cause chaos. Mayor Matt Paterson this month pleaded for the Commonwealth to help. The confluence of raging debates about the date of Australia Day and the impending referendum for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament once again injected Alice Springs, an iconic desert town long saddled with the complex manifestations of inequality, into the national conversation. Advertisement This is my third visit to the Northern Territory as prime minister. I intended to come to Alice Springs in December, but COVID got in the way. The first words from Anthony Albanese at his Alice Springs press conference on Tuesday, surrounded by a retinue of overheated federal and Territory Labor politicians, may offer insight into the pressures felt within his office to show his face. This crisis, he seemed to want people to know, was not his I dont hold a hose moment. Here he was in the Territory, again, and would have been sooner. The trip was brief, only an afternoon, but released a valve on the persistent calls from the opposition which, when it held government, did little in response to a less-publicised letter from Paterson in January last year titled An urgent plea from a town at crisis point. The meetings with Territory Labor ministers and town leaders this week, said to be respectful despite differences of opinion in the room, produced stopgap responses. There would be no reimposition of the alcohol bans, as called for by the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, but a snap review, a smattering of money and new booze restrictions. Bottle shop trading hours were to be reduced and customers limited to one transaction a day. Most significantly, no takeaway alcohol could be sold on Mondays and Tuesdays, a return to the Thirsty Thursdays policy (the day welfare payments usually arrived) deployed with mixed results in Tennant Creek for more than a decade to 2006. Advertisement The changes would apply to everyone in Alice Springs, in keeping with Chief Minister Natasha Fyles position of removing race-based alcohol policies. She has proposed a vote run by the NT Electoral Commission asking each town camp adult if their community should once again be dry. But this was no lasting solution to entrenched, multi-generational issues, according to Scott McConnell, a white man with deep connections through the desert, and who advocates for creating remote jobs and lifting appalling school attendance. He was also a Territory Labor politician, until he quit the party in 2019 over frustrations about the governments remote policies. Of course ministers have to go and go to these meetings and present these things, he says. But what are we doing on the ground? People are getting pushed to the margins, and we know what happens when people get pushed to the margins. You cant have large towns that have effective unemployment rates of north of 90 per cent. Its just not tenable. We must work on the participatory economy. Advertisement Yet this is the fire that the opposition leader - and the culture warriors who are urging him to obstruct the Voice - are playing with. Dividing the country to achieve a short-term political goal on the referendum kills the opportunity contained in the Uluru Statement from the Heart for all Australians to walk, and work, together. To understand both the risk and the opportunity of the referendum, consider the three essential elements of our national story, and the people who are represented by each. Imagine our 26 million people embodied in a family tree with First Australian roots, an Old Australian trunk and New Australian branches. Old Australians are non-Indigenous people who have been here for at least three generations, with parents and grandparents who were also born here. New Australians were born overseas or have at least one migrant parent. At the 2021 census, the New Australian branches covered almost 51 per cent of the population, comprising the 29 per cent born overseas and the 22 per cent who had one migrant parent. The Old Australian trunk contained 45 per cent of the population, while First Australians were almost 4 per cent of the total. Ive rounded these numbers for the sake of simplicity. They are based on exclusive data I developed in collaboration with the Australian Bureau of Statistics last year. They translate today to 13.2 million New Australians, 11.8 million Old Australians and almost one million First Australians. What should give Dutton and his team pause is how quickly the family tree has changed its shape and will continue to evolve in favour of New Australia. The branches grew five times faster than the trunk between the 2011 and 2021 census 31 per cent for New Australia compared to just 6 per cent for Old Australia. This reflects the double edge of demography for the latter. As developed nations like ours rely on migration for the majority of our population growth, we also rely on migrants for the majority of our net natural increase (births minus deaths). Old Australia had almost 600,000 children in net terms between 2011 and 2021, where a country of birth was stated. New Australia had almost double that number 1.15 million. For a glimpse into the future, consider what has been happening to the trunk of Sydneys family tree. The Old Australian population fell in absolute terms for the first time as the departures to other parts of Australia exceeded net natural increase. The figure itself was tiny less than 1 per cent over that 10-year period. But it underlines the delicate balancing act of identity in 21st-century Australia. This is why we need to include Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders in each and every conversation about who we want to be: we need strong roots to support a family tree with a shrinking trunk. First Australians happen to be the fastest growing part of our family tree; their population increased by 48 per cent between 2011 and 2021. What purpose will it serve to deny them their aspiration to be heard and be treated equally? Referendums are, by design, harder to pass than elections are to win. They require a majority of the national vote and a majority of states. The family trees of the states are evenly divided, reflecting the concentration of the migrant waves in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Loading Old Australia retains a majority in Duttons home state of Queensland (53 per cent), as well as Tasmania (65 per cent) and South Australia (52 per cent). The New Australian majorities are 53 per cent in NSW; 55 per cent in Victoria; and 59 per cent in Western Australia. Dutton may see an opportunity in these numbers to obstruct by narrowcasting to those states that feel most alienated by the rise of New Australia. But this is precisely why Old Australia needs the Voice to succeed. A No vote would fracture our family tree at the expense of both the roots and the trunk. The cultural weight of the New Australian majority will grow regardless. The language for a new binding national story that includes everyone without recrimination or condescension can only flow from a successful Yes campaign. The Voice serves as both a vehicle for reconciliation between First Australia and Old Australia, and a bridge between Old Australia and New Australia. George Megalogenis is an author, political commentator and regular columnist. The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here. More from our top columnists The Voice is not about the detail: Australians are not voting blind in the Voice referendum. They will be voting on the basic principle giving Indigenous Australians a collective Voice to seek to influence and inform the parliament and government by making representations to them - Anne Twomey Brady lived first in Darlinghurst, to be within easy commuting distance to work, and then Burwood, when he moved in with his Chinese-Australian partner. In a very Sydney meet-cute, they met in line for ice cream at Messina in Surry Hills. They are not married, but he is delighted to have the freedom to choose. We are dining at Grana, an Italian restaurant at Circular Quay recommended by my colleague, Herald food writer Callan Boys. The waiter seats us at the tall table in the window and explains that the dishes are designed for sharing. She also informs us that the restaurant buys its grain directly from a farm and then mills it on site for all the house-made breads and pastas. Provenance has been a major foodie trend for a while now, but this is the first time Ive encountered it for grains. For Brady, Sydney means seafood and Im only too happy to oblige. He chooses the fusilli with king prawn, pistachio pesto, and cavolo nero. With sweet prawns and nutty pesto and pasta, its quite moreish. I suggest the blue-eye fillet, explaining when asked that blue-eye is an Australian cod. It comes fringed with white balsamic cream and hazelnut salmoriglio (a lemony dressing) like a Christmas wreath, and tastes divine. Our vegetable dish is actually the heartiest and most calorific thing we order eggplant cotoletta (Italys answer to schnitzel), which comes with chickpeas, parmesan and cashew cream. The Grana dishes, clockwise from left: The fillet of blue eye; fusilli with pistachio pesto and prawns; eggplant cotoletta. Credit: Brook Mitchell Brady skips the alcohol and I follow his lead. Instead, we both order house-made sodas of wattleseed and ginger, which are tangy and tasty. (These are later removed from the bill as an apology after the waiter forgets to bring our coffees.) The desserts look great but by the end of the meal we are both, as Brady puts it, full as a goog. (Its a Gaelic word for the sound a chicken makes and a baby name for eggs. My grandmother used to say the same thing.) Brady tells me that conversation specifically one where his friends disagree with one another but debate the topic respectfully is one of his favourite pastimes. Im not surprised because the conversation flows freely, even when passing through controversial and personal territory. His face frequently lights up, crinkling when he smiles, and he talks not just with his hands but also his eyebrows. Tiernan Brady, engrossed in conversation over lunch at Grana. Credit: Brook Mitchell Sitting opposite me, Brady is wearing a plain white shirt with a rainbow pin designed by a Singaporean LGBTQI+ activist, and his blond hair and light stubble blends in with the Sydney sandstone. But the look grows less understated below the belt when he stands, I clock checked trousers and bright blue Doc Martens. Brady lives in London now and was in Sydney to meet team members for his job as global director of inclusion for law firm Clifford Chance. The timing coincided with the five-year anniversary of the Yes vote in the postal survey that is often called a referendum or plebiscite but wasnt, and he was delighted to catch up with his old campaign crew. Now Australia is gearing up for another national vote, this time a bona fide referendum, to create a constitutionally enshrined First Nations Voice to parliament. Brady shares advice that he says applies to any social change campaign anywhere in the world. The tone that you set is the tone that you have to live with afterwards, Brady says. A political campaign requires a winner and loser. Someone has to lose for someone to be in government, and social change campaigns should never allow themselves to think like that. There is no other side; there is just one society where youre having a conversation and trying to persuade people. Todays opponent can be tomorrows advocate, if youre smart and respectful in how you engage. With the referendum expected to be held this year, possibly as early as August, Brady says theres not a minute to lose in building coalitions and capacity and hitting the road, and that a campaign is won or lost in the two years before the vote, not the final six weeks. He says campaigns are expensive and you need to give it your all: Theres no point finding that you saved money the day after you lost. When asked about opposition to the Voice from people who dont believe it goes far enough in giving real power to Indigenous people, Brady is careful not to speak specifically on Indigenous affairs. But he says the broader lesson from marriage equality is that sometimes social change is iterative many LGBTQ activists opposed Ireland passing civil unions before same-sex marriage, but he believes it was necessary to take legal recognition off the table, so the argument was just about terminology. Brady grew up in Bundoran. His father was a solicitor and his mother was a teacher and a Catholic choir mistress and later, one of his best campaigners for marriage equality. He knew he was gay, but it was a theoretical rather than a practical condition because homosexuality was illegal and nobody was out. Loading He turns to another television reference, this time Little Britain, to explain the town was full of gay people who each felt like they were the only gay in the village. When he ran for the local council in 1999, his opponents went door-knocking to quietly spread the word that he was gay. He won anyway, and became mayor. Brady says he was shaped by the fact that Bundoran was a conflict zone where people were murdered just for being who they are and simultaneously a tourist town where youre hardwired to welcome difference because your economy depends on strangers coming to visit. The bill at Grana. The lesson he takes from this is that listening to why someone disagrees with you is the only way that good social change happens. Its so easy for us to just take a belligerent polarising side in debates today but if we chose to do that back at home, wed still be killing each other, Brady says. It might be good for [building] Twitter followers, but its really bad for society. Another formative experience was spending 10 months in hospital for cancer just as he finished university in Dublin in 1995. He had no idea he was seriously ill and went to the doctor because he had bleeding gums. When the tests revealed an acute form of leukaemia, he was just 24 and the doctors said he was about five days away from slipping into a coma and dying. Loading Brady says he has not thought about this for a long time, but it made him much more aware that today matters. Watching the healthcare system run, and his friends and family rally around, he also saw the best in humanity. He saw this again during the pandemic, as people took care of one another and created a vaccine and distributed it to the world in a timeline everyone thought impossible. People are awesome I learnt that when I was sick, Brady says. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Rising above 11 hectares of gritty train tracks on the western side of Manhattan, the gleaming Hudson Yards development is unmissable, spiking the skyline with its clump of high-rise office and apartment towers. Derided by some for its scale, glitz, and the way it turns its back on nearby streets, the success of the controversial project has been mixed. Generally considered more successful are the homes, shops, offices and public spaces spreading around Kings Cross station in north London, and above the Tolbiac metro stop in Paris 13th arrondissement, because of the way the developments stitch into their respective cities. Depending on whom you ask, the NSW governments $11 billion plan to redevelop 24 hectares around Central Station could go either way. The Vessel - a structure of climbable interlocking staircases is the centre point of the Hudson Yards redevelopment in New York. Credit:AP The government touts the ambitious proposal as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revive the southern end of the citys core, and to remedy one of its biggest urban design failures: the largely uncrossable expanse of rail lines that cut a swathe through Redfern, Surry Hills, Chippendale and Eveleigh. Architect and former City of Sydney councillor Philip Thalis says if the rail corridor isnt opened up and utilised at Central, it is destined to remain a dead zone. This development is strategically even more important than Barangaroo because its not just [about the station] itself, it will affect every area around it. Advertisement If the government pulls off its plan, it will build about 15 buildings up to 34 storeys, public plazas and a pedestrian avenue on a platform above the working rail tracks of Australias largest and busiest train station over the next two decades. Most agree the transport hub is ideally located for more intensive development, and that building on a huge platform above the rail lines is complex, yet achievable. But a flurry of mixed submissions to the rezoning proposal for the project points to less consensus on the shape and form of urban development that is needed to put the city back together successfully and to justify the expense and disruption of building the platform in the first place. The state government is proposing to construct a giant deck over the regional and intercity rail lines which terminate at Central. Credit:NSW government Despite the projects inherent challenges, Infrastructure, Cities and Active Transport Minister Rob Stokes says its clear the area needs rethink. Theres never been an urban renewal project that hasnt divided opinion. While the proposal will be refined in response to feedback, ultimately we need a bold vision to transform the Central precinct worthy of Australias only global city. Stokes says the government envisages a world-class 24-hour precinct close to the CBD and transport links with parks, public spaces, and hundreds of homes including affordable, build-to-rent apartments or student housing. Under the proposal, a giant deck will be built over the regional and intercity rail lines which terminate at Central, allowing for the construction of more than a dozen buildings between four and 34 storeys. A pedestrian avenue up to 24 metres wide will separate the buildings, which will be constructed near Atlassians future headquarters and two other high-rise developments. Three pedestrian bridges will be built over the stations suburban rail lines, aimed at improving east-west links from Surry Hills to Haymarket and Chippendale. About six hectares will be public domain, including two civic spaces known as Central Square and Central Green. Advertisement The new concourse of Londons Kings Cross railway station added soaring space and light to the busy hub. Credit:iStock Stokes admits that constructing the deck over the rail lines poses a huge engineering challenge. He also warns the window of opportunity to do so will close within the next decade because the rail traffic will soon be too busy. He says it is critical the proposed decks foundations are in place before 2030, when an expected increase in train services will make it almost impossible to build the structure without causing significant shutdowns. Architect Troy Uleman, a director of architectural firm John McAslan + Partners, said the proposal was incredibly complex particularly given the need to keep the station working during construction. Loading Uleman, who worked on Central Stations Sydney Metro extension, agrees building the deck to support high-rise towers over working rail lines presents a significant engineering hurdle, though not an insurmountable one. It comes down to a cost analysis and I think thats where much of the criticism lies [with] what you have to put on top of that deck in order to make building the deck feasible. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore supports more development above and around the train station, which forms part of the state governments much-vaunted Tech Central employment and innovation corridor. Advertisement If the government gets it right, this precinct will become one of Sydneys strongest drawcards for attracting talent, investment, start-ups, scale-ups and global companies looking for an international office location, Moore says. It will be the heart of Australias knowledge economy of the future. Moore and her council, however, are among those who have criticised the governments rezoning proposal, warning it repeats the obvious mistakes of Barangaroo south without the drawcard of a foreshore promenade. The proposed streets and connections are too narrow, steep and indirect. Too many towers, too close together will result in streets and open spaces that have poor sunlight and poor wind conditions, Moore said. The proposal needs to better integrate with the surrounding city to be a part of the city, and not apart from the city, and provide more direct access for pedestrians and cyclists. The National Trust has expressed concern the development would compromise the stations heritage values, arguing the terminal building and its fabled clock tower would be obscured and dwarfed by skyscrapers. Advertisement Thalis was similarly scathing, arguing the confused and disorienting layout of the proposal would form a cluster bomb of towers, rather than prioritising open and connected streets, defined parks, and public spaces. Loading The street alignments are the result of market advice on tower footprints, and you dont make the city like that, he said. You need a street plan that makes every possible connection, from every direction. That connectivity has to drive the scheme, and this doesnt do it. Thalis said the Central precinct could draw on similar rail yard redevelopments in London, Paris and the United States, but should also exceed them. New York Citys Hudson Yards is a dismal failure, whereas Park Avenue over Grand Central Stations lines is a brilliant example. As is the Tolbiac [station] extension in Paris, Grant Park on the Chicago waterfront, and Londons Kings Cross. Thalis praised the transformation of 27 hectares of former rail yards at Kings Cross station due to its balance of generous public spaces, shops, offices and homes including a large proportion of affordable and student housing. He said the mid-rise development at Tolbiac station was also a good example of a successful mixed use precinct. Theyre both integrated with the city, which is where the Central plan completely fails, Thalis said. Advertisement A privately rented garage where the two-day search for a Gold Coast mother ended in tragedy is being scoured for evidence into her suspected homicide. The body of 61-year-old Wendy Sleeman was discovered in a blue Honda jazz stored at a unit complex in Brisbanes inner north on Thursday. Her son, Slade Murdok, is in custody charged with a string of domestic violence-related offences, including kidnapping, assault, stalking and attempted arson. The 30-year-old was on bail for unrelated offences when arrested and charged over his mothers disappearance, a court was told on Thursday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had little alternative but to engage head-on with the Opposition Leaders mischievous campaign this week around an upsurge of crime in Alice Springs. Once there, the appropriate response for the PM was to heed the raft of local voices and immediately reinstall restrictions on the sale and availability of alcohol, which naturally he did. What the prime minister and his delegation also heard from people on the ground was that not only were the problems afflicting Alice Springs not entirely new, but they were symptomatic of more complex, systemic issues issues such as overcrowded housing; dire unemployment and education outlooks; and widespread general social disenfranchisement. The PM was also provided with a fortuitous opportunity to spin his governments failure to entirely scrap the compulsory basics card program as pledged before the May federal election as well-considered. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Got it Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size A postcard from Down Under is likely to include a picturesque photo of Bondi Beach or the blinding white sands of the Whitsundays. But things are a little different in 2023, and theres a new patch of sand that Australias beach ambassador (yes, its a thing) has given the title of the countrys best beach. Conservationist and advocate for the protection of coastlines Brad Farmer has awarded Stokes Bay on Kangaroo Island the top spot, the first time a South Australian beach has ever won the award. Loading And, if youre thinking your eastern suburbs beaches were the best, try again because the harbourside beach at Balmoral on the lower north shore is the only Sydney listing, scraping in at number 10. If you look at it [Balmoral] visually, theres a promenade of Moreton Bay figs, some cool rock bridges, the largest, safest shark enclosure in Sydney Harbour, and, because its right near the Heads, you get a good quality of water, Farmer said. An arsonist who set ablaze a suburban Melbourne factory might have lit himself on fire during the targeted attack. Three males went to the e-commerce centre at Meriton Place at Clayton South in a blue Volkswagon Golf about 10pm on January 26, police said. Two of the group smashed through the front door of the Future Fulfilment warehouse and spread accelerant inside while a third offender spread the fuel outside and lit the blaze. Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Lewis said on Friday one of the trio may have injured himself during the attack. We were seeking the truth, Detective Brett Florence told Melbourne Magistrates Court. Hill and Clay set off for a camping trip at Wonnangatta Valley on March 19, 2020, stopping in the tiny township of Licola on the way. Hill had rekindled a childhood romance with Clay but was keeping the relationship a secret to spare his family, including his wife of 51 years, distress. Hill knew the remote Wonnangatta region well. In his days as a logging contractor he had helped cut the perilous Zeka Spur Track into the remote Alpine region. Clay, a mother of three, was leading a seemingly selfless life, supporting charities and being involved in the Country Womens Association, including a stint as a president. Once Hill collected Clay from her home, the pair set off to camp alongside the Wonnangatta River, and both told family and friends they were either camping alone or with others. The vast Wonnangatta Valley, where Russell Hill and Carol Clay went camping. Credit: Sarah Abo After arriving at the valley, so remote that mobile phone service is scarce, Hill made a radio call to a friend. It was the evening of March 20, 2020 and the last time the pair would be heard of alive. Seven days later, another camper stumbled across the pairs burnt-out campsite and took a photo before contacting police. Hill and Clays families, increasingly concerned they had failed to return home, both made missing persons reports. On March 28, 2020 police arrived in the area and found Hills locked Toyota ute and soon issued the first public appeal for information. Two campers, aged in their 70s, were suspected missing in rough terrain. Days flew by and there was no sign of the missing pair. Senior detectives continued appeals for information, including releasing fresh photographs of Hill and Clay and statements from their worried families, who labelled the disappearances extremely out of character. Russell is our brother, husband, dad and pa and Carol has been a friend of the family for a long time, the statement read. It is devastating for our family that we dont know what has happened to them. But in the background, a better picture of what may have unfolded was beginning to take shape. The investigation into the disappearance Russell Hill and Carol Clay focused on a four-wheel drive. Credit: The Age Phone tower records revealed to police that Hills mobile had pinged in an area near Mount Hotham on March 21, 2020. Traffic cameras in the nearby area were also active at the same time, giving police footage of 12 vehicles travelling nearby during a possible time of interest. Police began systematically eliminating each vehicle. By June 3, 2020 they were left with just one a dark-coloured Nissan Patrol towing a trailer. No other vehicle travelled through the camera during that time frame, Florence said in his statement to the court. Remnants of the campsite a year on. Credit: Jason South They were all excluded. Four months after Hill and Clays disappearances, it was clear to everyone the operation was no longer a rescue mission and instead a search for human remains. Police told the public they believed foul play was involved and revealed Hills drone was missing. By that stage rumours were swirling around the possibility a mysterious local nicknamed Button Man might have been involved in Hill and Clays disappearance. Detective Leading Senior Constable Daniel Passingham (left) and Detective Sergeant Brett Florence, from the missing persons sqaud, outside Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday. Credit: Wayne Taylor The campfire tale went that the mystery loner was responsible for spooky encounters with campers in the past and there was a string of people who had vanished in the High Country. The story persisted almost until the moment of Lynns arrest, but in reality police hadnt taken long to put a line through the myth. They had unmasked Button Man a bushman known for carving buttons out of deer antlers as a 74-year-old former Reservoir man and cleared him of any involvement by the end of April 2020. Victoria was by then in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns were intensifying, with much of the High Country closed to the public and in the grip of winter. As the trail appeared to run cold and the couples names dropped from news headlines, police were circling. Detectives visited Lynns home for the first time in July 2020, noting his 1997 Nissan Patrol four-wheel drive appeared to have allegedly recently been painted beige. By December 2020, Lynn was officially the one primary suspect. The police work allowed covert listening devices to be installed in the pilots home and car. They were now listening to his every conversation. A number of public appeals for information then continued to filter through the press in the early parts of 2021. Information reports were continually coming through to Crime Stoppers which nominated various persons throughout that time frame as well, Florence said. In October 2021 more than 18 months after Hill and Clay vanished their families made an emotional public appeal for help on the television news. Weeks later police let the public in on one of their key lines of inquiry. That a dark-coloured Nissan four-wheel drive had been in the area at the time and there was a working theory that Hill and Clay may have had a confrontational interaction with someone. All the while officers continued monitoring their covert listening devices, often hearing Lynn talking to himself during long drives in his car. Police release an image of the vehicle of interest in November 2021. On November 22, 2021, the public heard of a major breakthrough in the case. Specialist police had descended on the remote Arbuckle Junction via helicopter to take Lynn into custody. This week we learned the timing of the arrest was unplanned; two detectives overhead Lynn muttering to himself that created concern he might have been about to take his own life. He appeared to be crying and started talking in the past tense, Florence wrote. [This] seemed to indicate a propensity for self-harm. An unplanned resolution strategy was formulated. Greg Lynn and the four-wheel drive seized by police. The arrest sparked a search of Lynns home and the Jetstars company offices. Much of what occurred in the interview room with Lynn remains suppressed by the court. But on November 25, 2021, the airline pilot was charged with two counts of murder. A small capsule filled with a radioactive substance has been lost in transit from Newman to Perth, prompting a public health warning by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and a warning from the states top doctor that exposure to it may cause radiation illness. DFES put out an alert on Friday afternoon advising the small silver capsule, which is about 6 millimetres in diameter and 8 millimetres tall and contains Caesium-137, may be lodged in the tyres of anyone who travelled on the Great Northern Highway between Newman and Perth since January 10. The capsule was transported from Rio Tintos Gudai-Darri mine site north of Newman inside a piece of mining equipment, but DFES believe vibrations on the 1400-kilometre journey to Perth loosened a bolt and caused the capsule to fall out. Anyone who gets close to the capsule may be exposed to about the same amount of radiation as 10 x-rays at a time. DFES has urged anyone who spots the capsule to stay at least five metres away from it. Federal support is mounting for Northern Territory Chief Ministers bid for a ballot on alcohol restrictions as the Albanese government considers a proposal to hand Indigenous people control over services such as education, policing and health in central Australian communities. Prominent Central Australian GP John Boffa said children as young as 12 should be allowed to vote on possible bans after Natasha Fyles outlined her preference for changing the territorys alcohol policies according to a town-by-town poll, following the stop-gap alcohol restrictions introduced in Alice Springs this week. Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour say she is open to town camps being balloted over alcohol restrictions. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour said she was open to discussions with the Northern Territory government about its plans for a vote. It has got to be a really well-executed ballot so that people feel safe, but also so that its an accurate representation of residents living in town camps, said Scrymgour, who has been vocal on returning alcohol restrictions to communities. As those on the ground point out, the Alice Springs crisis goes way beyond alcohol issues, and is endemic. The evidence indicates it is also beyond the capacity of the NT government to cope with it. The challenges in Alice Springs shot to national prominence just as the debate about the Voice referendum became more difficult for Albanese. Polling indicates people havent got their heads around whats being asked (indeed, they are unlikely to engage until much closer to the vote). Critics are attacking from the right and the left, including Indigenous Greens senator Lidia Thorpe. A range of factors will influence those who are uncertain: the force of the arguments put forth by the government and other advocates; where the Liberals land on the Voice; fearmongering from no campaigners. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his spokesman for Indigenous Australians, Julian Leeser, this week again insisted Albanese must put out more detail. Leeser said people he expected to support the referendum were cautious. Theyre saying to me things like, Look I want to vote yes, but Im just not sure I can because no one can explain to me how this will work. Albanese hoped keeping the emphasis on the principles of the Voice pointing out the detail was for parliament would maximise the referendums chances. But many voters who are uncertain wont be satisfied without a more precise model. Referring people to the extensive Indigenous Voice report for these details doesnt wash, especially as the government hasnt said precisely which parts of that report it accepts. The public needs the Voices skeleton which may amount just to the government gathering and clarifying whats out there and putting it into a succinct, clear presentation that also covers off on contentious matters. Detail doesnt have to mean endless fine print. Loading If the government does this, the onus will be on Dutton. It will test whether his questioning is genuine and reasonable, or as First Nations leader Noel Pearson fears he is just playing a spoiling game laying the ground for declaring the Liberals will oppose the Voice at the referendum, as the Nationals have already declared they will do. The issue is complicated for Dutton, whose party will never be united on this. He will be open to damaging criticism if the quest for detail is confirmed as spurious. Albanese, pushing for bipartisanship, is going out of his way to get Dutton on board, or to wedge him, depending how you see it. This week, he invited Dutton to attend a meeting of the referendum working group, which is advising the government, so he can glean more information. Dutton has accepted. Liberal nay saying would play badly in teal seats, at least some of which Dutton needs to win back to secure government. If the referendum went down, Dutton would be loaded with a large share of blame. Pearson, an Indigenous figure much praised by Liberal leaders at various times, wrote this week: By playing a spoiling game, the federal opposition will be responsible for destroying the three-decade quest for reconciliation. There has been speculation the Liberals might not take a formal position; this would be expedient for Dutton but a failure of leadership. Views among Indigenous people are not unanimous. Why would we expect them to be? As the referendum debate intensifies, the stakes rise. Pearson says, I cannot see how reconciliation will be a viable concept in Australia if the referendum fails. The fallout from a loss would be huge. On the flip side, the proponents of the Voice are wrong to raise unrealistic expectations for the body, even if their motives are understandable. If it comes into being, the Voice will be symbolically important. If it works effectively, it will institutionalise a compelling and authoritative source of first-hand advice. Loading But it wont have all the answers, for obvious reasons. Views among Indigenous people are not unanimous. Why would we expect them to be? They are not even unanimous about the Voice. Those serving on the Voice would argue among themselves, as do members of any other democratic, representative body. More fundamentally, the complex issues bedevilling Aboriginal affairs are wicked problems, too often intractable even when governments seek and listen to Indigenous advice. Those who over-hype what the Voice could do are paving the way for later disillusionment about the body and its role. It is important to be realistic. The Indian government has expressed alarm at a spate of graffiti attacks on Hindu temples that has shaken worshippers in Melbourne and inflamed tensions within Australias large and growing Indian diaspora. The defacing of three Hindu temples within the past fortnight comes amid an intensifying campaign among local secessionists for a break-away state for Sikhs in India. Arjun Saka, a resident monk at the ISKCON Hare Krishna Temple in Albert Park, described the graffiti as hate speech and religious vilification. Credit: Paul Jeffers Pro-secession campaigners expect thousands of people to participate in a non-binding independence vote in Federation Square on Sunday, the latest chapter in a global push to create an independent Sikh state known as Khalistan. The ISKCON Hare Krishna Temple in Albert Park, which serves as the hub for Melbournes Bhakti Yoga Movement, was defaced with anti-Hindu slogans earlier this week. The Liberal candidate vying to replace senior minister Rob Stokes in Pittwater at the state election has defended voting against a gambling harm minimisation policy as a councillor, insisting he supported pokies reform and the push for cashless gaming. Rory Amon was one of six Northern Beaches councillors in 2018 to vote against the plan to reduce poker machine harm across the area, where punters lost $48 million on pokies in the final six months of that year. Councillor Rory Amon, who is running as the Liberal candidate to replace outgoing Cities Minister Rob Stokes. Credit: Sam Mooy The policy sought to encourage venues to restrict cash-outs at ATMs, slow and reduce playing time and extend self-exclusion laws to family members or another third party. Council received 191 submissions about the plan; 131 in support and 60 against. It followed the death of Gary Van Duinen, who took his own life after an overnight binge on poker machines at venues including the Dee Why RSL. A billionaires bid to redevelop and partially demolish an historic Docklands goods shed has been rejected by Heritage Victoria. The No.2 Goods Shed was built in 1889 and is listed in the Victorian Heritage Register as the largest and most architecturally elaborate 19th century railway goods building in the state. Charles Sowerwine, chair of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, outside the No.2 Goods Shed. Credit: Jason South The brick shed was originally 385 metres long, but part of the building was demolished in the early 2000s for Collins Street to be extended. Developer Walker Corporation lodged an application in April last year to build two towers on top of the goods shed, preserving part of the building inside the glass. London: Actor Alan Cumming, a star of James Bond and X-Men films, has returned the OBE he received as part of the Queens birthday honours list, saying his eyes had been opened over the toxicity of the British Empire. Cumming, who turned 58 on Friday, said he had felt incredibly grateful to be appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for his contribution to the arts and in campaigning for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community, particularly in the United States. Actor Alan Cumming has handed back his Order of the British Empire. The Scottish-born actors four-decade movie, TV and theatre career has included starring roles in Annie, X-Men 2, GoldenEye, the Spy Kids franchise and The Good Wife. He has lived in New York since 2000, where he is currently hosting the US version of The Traitors, and said his feelings towards the award had changed. Cumming said the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September made him reflect on the honour he had received and the institution that bestowed it upon him. Paris/Kyiv: France could agree to Volodymyr Zelenskys demands for fighter jets to defend Ukraines skies, according to the MP who chairs the countrys defence and armed forces committee, Thomas Gassilloud. His comments come as the UK confirmed that British tanks would arrive in Ukraine in time for an expected Russian northern spring offensive, joining German-made Leopards being sent to Kyiv within weeks. Everyone should feel very proud of the leadership role that we have played; one of the early nations to provide tanks to Ukraine, said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. One of the next steps up in Western military aid would be planes. A French-made Mirage fighter jet takes off from an airbase near Pingtung in Southern Taiwan during a drill last year. Credit: Taiwan MD/AP Gassilloud said Paris had conditions for such supply but did not rule out France sending planes to Kyiv in another stepping up of Western support for Ukraine. The Hague: The global chemical weapons watchdog has announced its investigators found reasonable grounds to believe Syrias air force dropped two cylinders containing chlorine gas on the city of Douma in April 2018, killing 43 people. A report by a team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), released on Friday (Netherland time), offered the latest confirmation that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons during his countrys grinding civil war. Damaged buildings in the town of Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, in April 2018. Credit: AP The use of chemical weapons in Douma and anywhere is unacceptable and a breach of international law, OPCW Director-General Fernando Arias said. Syrian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings. Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 under pressure from the international community after being blamed for another deadly chemical weapon attack, but does not recognise the investigation teams authority and has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. Residents of Auckland are bracing for more storms this weekend, after an unprecedented storm on Friday night killed at least three people, caused widespread floods, shut airports and also forced organisers to cancel a concert by Elton John. One man was found dead in a flooded culvert, another in a car park, New Zealand media outlet Stuff reported. Another person died after a landslide hit a house in Remuera, an inner suburb of Auckland. A search was under way on Saturday for another man believed swept away, police said. Scenes at Auckland Airport on Friday. Credit: Sarah Crouch/via Stuff A state of emergency remained in place in the city of about1.6 million people on New Zealands North Island as the rains eased on Saturday after causing flooding in the north, north-west and west. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown made the state of emergency declaration on Friday due to the extent of the damage, displacement and disruption caused by the weather and the need for response agencies to draw on more powers. PHILIPSBURG:--- The General Audit Chamber presented its audit report entitled Compliance Audit: 2021 Financial Statements St. Maarten to Parliament. By law, the Audit Chamber examines whether the government acted in a legally consistent and effective way when spending St. Maarten's public funds. The annually recurring audit forms the basis for Parliament to provide its opinion on the financial management of Government. We believe that the 2021 Financial Statements do not provide a true and fair representation of the government's income and expenses nor its financial position as of December 31, 2021. The Audit Chamber identified irregularities and deficiencies in the 2021 Financial Statements. For example, there are expenses without a corresponding budget, and revenue was either unrealized or under budget. According to the Audit Chamber, the planned implementation of the Country packages should lead to overall improved financial management and quality of the financial statements. Sound financial management produces, among other things, more efficient use of tax money. The report is published in both English and Dutch and is available on the website of the General Audit Chamber (www.arsxm.org). SXM Financial Statements 2021 PHILIPSBURG:--- In celebration of International Customs Day, the World Customs Organization has dedicated 2023 to Nurturing the Next Generation: promoting a culture of knowledge-sharing and professional pride in Customs. Every year on January 26th, International Customs day celebrates the important role of Customs officials and agencies in maintaining the flow of goods across the worlds borders. The Sint Maarten Customs department also observes this years International Customs day, as we reflect on the critical role of the Customs department for the country Sint Maarten. The general objective of the Customs department is to control the flow of goods along the borders of Sint Maarten. Some conditions to fulfill the objective are; Good cooperative relations and support, both internally and externally, acting in a customer-conscious manner, looking at the interests of the customer/partner with an open mind, consistency, equal treatment, integrity, an efficient organization with honest and skilled employees, modern equipment, advanced automation, and technology to deliver quality. Cooperation between all parties especially those in the Justice chain involved in cross-border activities remains essential. It is the key to further development and the engine which drives the Justice chain. We must stand together as we nurture the next generation. By developing consultation, promoting information exchange, and cooperation we also consider the interests of our partners while executing our duties. It is imperative that Customs officers are well-trained and nurtured. To achieve this the Customs department has the full support of the Honorable Minister of Justice Ms. Anna E. Richardson. In addition, there are strategic partnerships that we benefit from among others, the partnership with Customs Netherlands. Training, twinning, workshops, knowledge transfer, information sharing, and visiting Customs Netherlands operations in the Netherlands, are all intended to nurture the next generation of Customs officers. The goal is to have increased productivity, with the understanding that setting clear goals and monitoring progress increase our output. The Customs department strives to strengthen employee engagement with the understanding that employees who know their goals and why these goals are important will have a stronger connection to their work. From 2018 onward Customs implemented a risk-based approach when controlling the flow of goods at the borders. This is based on the concept of less is more. This approach enabled the department to become more efficient and therefore much more effective. The year 2022 marked the most successful year the department has had since its inception in 1996 as it relates to the interception of illegal trade at our border. Integrity is an important value for Customs officers as we are held to high standards. We act with honor and integrity regardless of whether our actions take place in view of the public or not. As acting Head of Customs, I would like to take this International Customs Day to thank the dedicated brave men and women of this organization, the Customs officers, who show their commitment and dedication day in and day out, to serve and protect the people and visitors of Sint Maarten alike. Despite the challenges that we encounter, you always find a way to get it done and done well. Having you on the team makes a huge difference. Congratulations on your day. I wish you the very best in all that you do to serve and protect your country. Happy Customs Day! Acting Head of Customs Sint Maarten, Franklin S. Bernadina SIMPSON BAY:--- Did you know 1 dog pair can breed and result in 67,000 dogs over the course of 7 years? In order to lessen the starvation, suffering, and misery of stray animals, 4 Leaf Rover, a non-profit group based in the USA and focused on providing free medical care for stray dogs and cats in the Caribbean, will be conducting a free spay and neuter campaign from March 27 to March 31 with the goal in mind to spay and neuter 300 dogs and cats for free. A temporary pop-up clinic located adjacent to St. Maarten Veterinary Clinic in Cay Hill will be constructed for this mission which has been led by Dr. Edward Lee, an American physician who attended AUC medical school from 1999-2001 and a homeowner of French St. Martin. The four local veterinarians on the Dutch side Dr. Virginie de Ceuster of Animal Care Center, Dr. Glen Romney of Animal Hospital of St. Maarten, Dr. Garry Swanston of St. Maarten Veterinary Clinic, and Dr. Ruth Wright of The Island Vet, will be providing local support and equipment for this mission. In addition, several St. Maarten-based animal welfare activists and organizations such as Animal Welfare Foundation, Animal Defenders, and SXM PAWS along with local businesses such as AUC School of Medicine, Belair Beach Hotel (by offering free lodging for all 11 volunteers of 4 Leaf Rover) Domino's Pizza St. Maarten and St. Maarten Yacht Club Bar & Restaurant (which will offer free daily breakfast for the volunteers) will be also assisting in this mission. Volunteers will be finding, collecting, and bringing stray dogs and cats located on both the Dutch and French sides for spay and neuter surgeries. Free rewards will be offered to owners who bring their pets in for spay/neuter surgery such as free collars, leashes, shampoos, and pizza. Hundreds of dogs and cats ended up homeless after Hurricane Irma swept through the island back in 2017. During the COVID pandemic, many pets were dumped by owners who could no longer afford to feed them. When dogs and cats are allowed to roam, the exponential rate of breeding of dogs and cats inevitably results in misery and starvation as well the lack of acute medical care for the animals. Animals that are not spayed and neutered are less likely to get into fights, become infected with contagious diseases, and roam while dangerously unattended and some get hit by vehicles. Moreover, sterilization also helps prevent deadly forms of cancer and diseases of the reproductive system. Spayed cats are less likely to get infected with the Feline leukemia virus (FeLV) which can cause cancer. In addition, Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumour, a deadly and painful disease, can be prevented in sterilized dogs. In order to book spay and neuter surgeries for adopted pets, owners will need to send an email to Macy at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Owners will be asked to drop off their pets at either 630am or 1200pm for morning or afternoon surgery times. To learn more about this free spay-neuter campaign, please go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/557454553065944/ PHILIPSBURG:--- Great Bay: We who live in todays world must acknowledge the evils of slavery in the clearest possible terms, and condemn it as a crime against humanity, as a criminal system which caused untold numbers of people untold suffering. The suffering that continues in the lives of people today. And we in the Netherlands must confront our part in that history. These words are a part of a powerful speech delivered on December 19th, 2022 by Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the National Archives in The Hague. Ruttes speech created an explosion of varying emotions, discussion, discontent, celebration, and speculation throughout the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the world when he apologized for the past actions of the Dutch State to enslaved people in the past and everywhere in the world, who suffered as a consequence of [slavery], as well as to their daughters and sons, and to all their descendants, up to the present day, as stated on the government.nl website. The ensuing discussion surrounding Prime Minister Ruttes speech and the controversy it has created underscores the importance of enlightening and educating people of all races and cultures as to the immense repercussions that slavery has had especially on people of African descent. In light of this, the counseling degree course being offered by Grace Hill Bible University, St. Martin Campus explores counseling from an African-Indigenous Perspective so that aspiring and current counselors or individuals who desire to expand their knowledge and understanding may have a greater level of appreciation of the damaging ripple effects of slavery and colonialism on people of African descent and how we can reconstruct or re-member the African Diaspora through our rich human capital and other natural resources. This course, taught by Dr. N. Erna Mae Francis Cotton visionary of Victorious Living and the counseling program developer at the GHBU St. Maarten Campus, is designed to help enrollees understand what it means to counsel from an African Indigenous Perspective; gain greater insight and appreciation for what it means to be of African heritage and to understand the impact of slavery on the psyche of Africans in the Diaspora. The course, which is delivered virtually, starts on February 6th and runs until June 5th, 2023. It is available to local, regional and international registrants due to its live digital delivery. The registration deadline is February 4th. For more information, contact Dr. N. Erna Mae Francis Cotton at 1-721-524-8731 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Willemstad:--- The Kingdom Council of Ministers and the Council of Ministers of the Netherlands as regards the Caribbean Netherlands, have appointed drs. Lidewijde Ongering as the new chair of the three Boards of financial supervision as of February 1st, 2023. Herewith she succeeds prof. dr. Raymond Gradus, who was chair of the Boards as of July 1st, 2017. On Friday, January 27th, 2023, Lidewijde Ongering was appointed as the new chair of the three Boards of financial supervision as of February 1st, 2023. She has a long track record at a large number of The Hague departments, including those of the Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations, Infrastructure and Water Management, and Economic Affairs and Climate. In the latter two departments, she held the position of Secretary-General. During her career at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, she held the position of Director of Financial-Economic Affairs. Lidewijde Ongering: I look forward to taking up the challenges - many of which are very recognizable to me - from a joint perspective. The Cft supervises the budgets. After a number of financially difficult years, the focus is now on recovery and achieving financially responsible and sustainable economic growth. In my new role as chair of the Cft, I will also approach this very seriously. She succeeds Raymond Gradus, who has been chair of the Cft Curacao and Sint Maarten, the Board of financial supervision Aruba and the Cft Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba for more than five and a half years. He looks back on an intensive and fruitful period of cooperation with the countries and the public entities, which faced several major challenges, such as hurricanes Irma and Maria and the Covid-19 pandemic. Raymond Gradus has bundled his reflections in a book, which will be presented to the Vice-President of the Council of State, Mr. Thom de Graaf, on January 31st. Tarachi Gold announces sale of Magistral Project Tarachi Gold Corp. (CSE: TRG) (OTCQB: TRGGF) (Frankfurt: 4RZ) (aTarachia or the aCompanya https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/tarachi-gold-corp/ ) is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding letter agreement (the aLetter Agreementa) with CompaAia Minera de Atocha S.A. de C.V. (aAtochaa), a private Mexican mining company with producing mines in the states of Durango and Zacatecas, for the sale of the Companya?s Magistral Project in Durango, Mexico (the aMagistral Projecta). The Company will also be cancelling its private placement, previously announced on December 14, 2022. Upon closing the transaction proposed in the Letter Agreement (the aTransactiona), Tarachi will transfer 100% ownership of its TGMEX Silver S.A. de C.V. (aTGMEXa), which owns all of the Companya?s assets related to the Magistral Project, to Atocha. In exchange, Atocha will make cash payments of approximately US$5,700,000 (approx. C$7.6 million). aThis transaction represents an opportunity for Tarachi to convert our interest in the Magistral Project to hard dollars at a strong valuation,a commented Cameron Tymstra, Tarachi President and CEO. aIt has been a challenging year for the junior gold sector and difficult to raise money through traditional means for project development, particularly for assets with shorter mine lives such as the Magistral Project. We are excited to be moving forward following the close of the Transaction with a strong cash position which will provide us with the flexibility to pursue other gold assets in North America with superior value-creation potential.a Terms of the Letter Agreement As consideration for the transfer of TGMEX, at closing of the Transaction, Atocha will make a cash payment to Tarachi in the amount of US$4,050,000 (the aInitial Paymenta). The following additional cash payments (collectively the aAdditional Paymentsa) will also be made to Tarachi: US$500,000 when 50% of the tailings located on the Magistral Project (the aMagistral Tailingsa) have been mined, sold and/or processed or after the first complete calendar year of operation at the Magistral Project, which ever occurs first; US$500,000 when 100% of the Magistral Tailings have been mined, sold and/or processed or after the second complete calendar year of operation at the Magistral Project, which ever occurs first; and the amount of value added tax (aIVAa) currently owing to TGMEX as that tax benefit is realized by Atocha during operations and product sales from the Magistral Project or other Atocha-controlled assets if Atocha merges TGMEX with Atocha or another entity they control, estimated to total approximately US$650,000. Tarachi anticipates the IVA tax benefit will be realized by Atocha and paid to Tarachi within the first year of commercial operations at the Magistral Project. Atocha has agreed to advance to Tarachi the amount of US$1,000,000, which will be held in escrow and act as a deposit against the Initial Payment. A Atocha has further agreed that, prior to any sale, transfer or other disposition of its full interest in TGMEX or the Magistral Project prior to the aggregate amount of the Additional Payments reaching US$1,650,000, it will pay Tarachi an amount equal to US$1,650,000 less the cumulative Additional Payments already paid to Tarachi. Tarachi will seek to settle all outstanding obligations owing to Manto Resources S.A. de C.V. (aMantoa) in relation the Companya?s original acquisition of the Magistral Project from Manto in 2021 (see press release dated February 8, 2021). In exchange for the elimination of Mantoa?s 15% net profit interest royalty on the Magistral Tailings, US$2,000,000 in production bonus payments and any other obligations owed to Manto or rights for Manto to participate in the Magistral Project, Tarachi will pay to Manto 15% of all payments received from Atocha in the Transaction as those payments are received. The payments Tarachi expects to receive from the Transaction, net of payments made to Manto, total US$4,845,000 (approx. C$6.5 million). Tarachi and Atocha expect to sign a definitive agreement (the aDefinitive Agreementa) within 60 days. During this period Atocha will also conclude its due diligence. Completion of the Transaction will be subject to, among other things, the signing of the Definitive Agreement and extension of existing tailings leasing agreements. The Parties expect to close the Transaction within 30 days of the signing of the Definitive Agreement. Upon Closing, TGMEX will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atocha. About Tarachi Gold Tarachi Gold is a Canadian-listed junior gold exploration company focused on exploring and developing projects in Mexico. Tarachi acquired the Magistral Mill and tailings project in Durango, Mexico in 2021. Magistral includes a 1,000 tpd mill and access to a tailings deposit with Measured and Indicated resources of 1.26 million tonnes at a grade of 1.93g/t Au (December 2021 PEA, NI 43-101 compliant). The Company is also exploring on their highly prospective mineral concessions in the Sierra Madre gold belt of Sonora, Mexico in close proximity to Alamos Golda?s Mulatos mine and Agnico Eaglea?s La India mine. Qualified Person Lorne Warner, P.Geo, VP Exploration and Director of the Company is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical disclosure in this news release. SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS This news release includes certain aForward?Looking Statementsa within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and aforward?looking informationa under applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words aanticipatea, awilla, abelievea, aestimatea, aexpecta, ahopea, atargeta, aplana, aforecasta, amaya, awoulda, acoulda, aschedulea, apotentiala and similar words or expressions, identify forward?looking statements or information. These forward?looking statements or information relate to, among other things: entering into of the Definitive Agreement; completion of the Transaction; receipt of the Additional Payments; settling obligations owed to Manto; and the exploration and development of mining assets. Forward?looking statements and forward?looking information relating to any future mineral production, liquidity, timing of completion of reports and studies, enhanced value and capital markets profile of Tarachi, future growth potential for Tarachi and its business, and future exploration plans are based on managementa?s reasonable assumptions, estimates, expectations, analyses and opinions, which are based on managementa?s experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, and other factors that management believes are relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the price of silver, gold and other metals; no escalation in the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; costs of exploration and development; the estimated costs of development of exploration projects; Tarachia?s ability to operate in a safe and effective manner and its ability to obtain financing on reasonable terms. These statements reflect Tarachia?s respective current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of other assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward?looking statements or forward-looking information and Tarachi has made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: the Company\-s dependence on one mineral project; precious metals price volatility; risks associated with the conduct of the Company\-s mining activities in Mexico; regulatory, consent or permitting delays; risks relating to reliance on the Company\-s management team and outside contractors; risks regarding mineral resources and reserves; the Company\-s inability to obtain insurance to cover all risks, on a commercially reasonable basis or at all; currency fluctuations; risks regarding the failure to generate sufficient cash flow from operations; risks relating to project financing and equity issuances; risks and unknowns inherent in all mining projects, including the inaccuracy of reserves and resources, metallurgical recoveries and capital and operating costs of such projects; contests over title to properties, particularly title to undeveloped properties; laws and regulations governing the environment, health and safety; the ability of the communities in which the Company operates to manage and cope with the implications of COVID-19; the economic and financial implications of COVID-19 to the Company; operating or technical difficulties in connection with mining or development activities; employee relations, labour unrest or unavailability; the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine; the Company\-s interactions with surrounding communities and artisanal miners; the Company\-s ability to successfully integrate acquired assets; the speculative nature of exploration and development, including the risks of diminishing quantities or grades of reserves; stock market volatility; conflicts of interest among certain directors and officers; lack of liquidity for shareholders of the Company; litigation risk; and the factors identified under the caption aRisk Factorsa in Tarachi\-s management discussion and analysis and other public disclosure documents. Readers are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward?looking statements or forward-looking information. Although Tarachi has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. Tarachi does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward?looking statements or forward-looking information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements or information, other than as required by applicable law. Drilling Confirms Southern Extension of Taronga Tin Mineralisation First Tin Plc ( https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/first-tin-ltd ), a tin development company with advanced, low capex projects in Germany and Australia, is pleased to report that drilling has proven an 350m extension to the southwest of the current resource area (athe SW extensiona) at the Taronga tin project in Australia. The project is managed by First Tina?s 100% owned subsidiary, Taronga Mines Pty Ltd (aTMPLa). Four lines of reverse circulation (RC) drilling have been completed at approximately 100m spacing, as shown on Figure 1.A In addition, 8 diamond drillholes and an additional RC hole have been completed as twins of the drilling, previously undertaken by Newmont (Figure 1). Results have been returned for all of the SW extension drillholes with the following intercepts (Table 1): Results of the twin drilling are still being collated and will be reported when complete. The results have so far not identified any significant divergence to the historical Newmont data. Based on the above results, and a review of the previous Newmont drilling data, a revised interpretation of the mineralisation has been made that suggests the SW extension is a continuation of the Payback Extended zone of mineralisation (Figure 2). Based on this new interpretation, the Company will now embark on an increased drilling programme of approximately 5,500m RC drilling designed to enable conversion of the SW extension into indicated resource status. This drill programme is also designed to fill in the gaps in the current drilling between the previously interpreted North Zone and South Zone (Newmont Interpretation) and to improve drill density in several areas where it is likely that Inferred resources could be converted to indicated status within the current resource area.A This programme is shown in Figure 3, along with the previous Newmont pit designs and is due to commence in February 2023. First Tin CEO Thomas Buenger commented, aIt is very pleasing that these drilling results have provenA the existence of significant tin mineralisation, confirming our interpretation that the Taronga tin deposit remains open to the SW. aIn addition, our geologistsa? revised interpretation of all the historical data suggests excellent potential to prove that the two mineralised areas, identified as the North and South Zones by Newmont in the early 1980s, are in fact continuous.A A A aThe opportunity to create additional value at Taronga remains very strong indeed. We believe that the mineralisation in the NE is also open and we plan to test several areas which are within the confines of the pits proposed by Newmont with shallow RC drilling. A Given the positive nature of these drill results, we plan to fast-track this drilling in order to establish the extent of mineralisation within the immediate Taronga project area. We expect that this will only add a short period of time to the feasibility study schedule and should lead to enhanced economics. The feasibility study remains on track to be completed by the end of 2023.aA aWith a range of workstreams ongoing and planned at Taronga, we have kicked off the year with a significant array of activity, and are excited to update shareholders in due course.a Enquiries: First Tin Via SEC Newgate belowThomas Buenger Chief Executive Officer A Arlington Group Asset Management Limited (Financial Advisor and Joint Broker) Simon Catt 020 7389 5016 WH Ireland Limited (Joint Broker) Harry Ansell 020 7220 1670 SEC Newgate (Financial Communications) Elisabeth Cowell / Axaule Shukanayeva /Molly Gretton 07900 248 213 Notes to Editors First Tin is an ethical, reliable, and sustainable tin production company led by a team of renowned tin specialists. The Company is focused on becoming a tin supplier in conflict-free, low political risk jurisdictions through the rapid development of high value, low capex tin assets in Germany and Australia. Tin is a critical metal, vital in any plan to decarbonise and electrify the world, yet Europe has very little supply. Rising demand, together with shortages, is expected to lead tin to experience sustained deficit markets for the foreseeable future. Its assets have been de-risked significantly, with extensive work undertaken to date. First Tin\-s goal is to use best-in-class environmental standards to bring two tin mines into production in three years, providing provenance of supply to support the current global clean energy and technological revolutions. IsoEnergy Appoints Darryl Clark as Vice President, Exploration IsoEnergy Ltd. (aIsoEnergya) (TSXV: ISO; OTCQX: ISENF https://www.commodity-tv.com/ondemand/companies/profil/isoenergy-ltd/ ) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Darryl Clark to the position of Vice President, Exploration, effective March 1, 2023. Tim Gabruch, Chief Executive Officer commented: aOn behalf of the Board and the entire team at IsoEnergy, I am very pleased to welcome Darryl as Vice President, Exploration. IsoEnergy is at an exciting stage in its growth and development and Darryla?s vast experience in uranium exploration, and leading operating projects, will be of great benefit to IsoEnergy as it continues to advance its 100% owned high-grade Hurricane deposit while also undertaking exciting exploration programs on its portfolio of high-quality projects.a Darryl Clark Darryl Clark has decades of global exploration and operating experience in the mining industry. Most recently, he served as General Manager of Suncor Energya?s Fort Hills JV. Through his career, Dr. Clark has held a wide range of executive roles across a number of metal and mineral sectors, with both junior and major mining companies. His experience consists of periods working in uranium, coal, copper, gold and oil sands.A Dr. Clarka?s uranium experience includes executive roles at Cameco between 2012 and 2018, including Vice President, Exploration, and President of Cameco Kazakhstan, overseeing Camecoa?s Inkai JV in the country. Dr. Clark holds a PhD in Economic Geology from the University of Tasmania. About IsoEnergy IsoEnergy is a well-funded uranium exploration and development company with a portfolio of prospective projects in the infrastructure-rich eastern Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2018, the Company discovered the high-grade Hurricane Deposit on its 100% owned Larocque East property in the Eastern Athabasca Basin. The Hurricane Deposit has Indicated Mineral Resources of 48.61 Million lb U3O8 based on 63,800 tonnes grading 34.5% U3O8 and Inferred Mineral Resources of 2.66 Million lb U3O8 based on 54,300 tonnes grading 2.2% U3O8 (July 8, 2022). The Hurricane Deposit is 100% owned by IsoEnergy and is unencumbered from any royalties. IsoEnergy is led by a Board and Management team with a track record of success in uranium exploration, development, and operations. The Company was founded and is supported by the team at its major shareholder, NexGen Energy Ltd. A Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities referenced herein have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the aU.S. Securities Acta), and such securities may not be offered or sold within the United States absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements thereunder. Forward-Looking Information The information contained herein contains aforward-looking statementsa within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and aforward-looking informationa within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. aForward-looking informationa includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including, without limitation, planned exploration activities. Generally, but not always, forward-looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as aplansa, aexpectsa, ais expecteda, abudgeta, ascheduleda, aestimatesa, aforecastsa, aintendsa, aanticipatesa, or abelievesa or the negative connotation thereof or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results amaya, acoulda, awoulda, amighta or awill be takena, aoccura or abe achieveda or the negative connotation thereof. Such forward-looking information and statements are based on numerous assumptions, including among others, that the results of planned exploration activities are as anticipated, the price of uranium, the anticipated cost of planned exploration activities, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms, that third party contractors, equipment and supplies and governmental and other approvals required to conduct the Companya?s planned exploration activities will be available on reasonable terms and in a timely manner. Although the assumptions made by the Company in providing forward-looking information or making forward-looking statements are considered reasonable by management at the time, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking information and statements also involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual events or results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future events or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information or statements, including, among others: negative operating cash flow and dependence on third party financing, uncertainty of additional financing, no known mineral reserves or resources, the limited operating history of the Company, the influence of a large shareholder,A alternative sources of energy and uranium prices, aboriginal title and consultation issues, reliance on key management and other personnel, actual results of exploration activities being different than anticipated, changes in exploration programs based upon results, availability of third party contractors, availability of equipment and supplies, failure of equipment to operate as anticipated; accidents, effects of weather and other natural phenomena and other risks associated with the mineral exploration industry, environmental risks, changes in laws and regulations, community relations and delays in obtaining governmental or other approvals. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information or implied by forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information.A The Company undertakes no obligation to update or reissue forward-looking information as a result of new information or events except as required by applicable securities laws. Five hydrographic basins and the rivers of southeastern Dobrogea are subject to a Code Yellow flood warning, valid until Saturday midnight, informs the National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management (INHGA). According to hydrologists, between January 27, 10:00 a.m. and January 28, 12:00 a.m., taking into account the current hydrometeorological situation and the weather forecast for the next 48 hours, as a result of the prognoses, the spread and loss of water from the snow layer, important leaks can occur on the slopes, torrents and streams, rapid floods, increases in flows and levels, with possible exceeding of the Attention Ratings, on the rivers in the hydrographic basins: Vedea - tributaries related to the downstream sector S.H. Valeni (counties: Olt, Arges and Teleorman), Arges - tributaries related to the downstream sector S.H. Malu Spart - upstream S.H. Budesti (counties: Arges, Dambovita, Teleorman, Giurgiu, Ilfov and Calarasi), Prahova - tributaries related to the downstream sector S.H. Prahova (counties: Prahova and Ialomita), Calmatui (counties: Buzau and Braila), Buzau - tributaries related to the downstream sector S.H. Magura - upstream S.H. Banita (counties: Prahova and Buzau) and rivers from Dobrogea (counties: Tulcea and Constanta). The warning was sent to the Ministry of the Environment, Waters and Forests, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations, the Romanian Waters National Administration, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, mass media, S.C. Hidroelectrica S.A. and the Arges-Vedea, Buzau-Ialomita and Dobrogea-Litoral Water Basin Administrations.AGERPRES The Minister of Culture, Lucian Romascanu, on Friday said, in Braila, after visiting the city's ruins, that the project to transform them into a museum "has all the data" to obtain financing for the design work through the Historical Monuments Stamp Duty (TMI) within the National Heritage Institute. "I went, I saw those famous caves where the powder stores of the Turks were. It's a place that could turn into an absolutely wonderful museum. I promised the mayor that we have, that we will have funding through the National Heritage Institute, Historical Monuments Stamp Duty (TMI), for design, and I believe that this project has all the data to win such funding and we will follow the development of the project together. (...) We support you, this is a city that gives a lot in terms of Romanian culture, puts a lot on the map," said the Minister of Culture. Romascanu pointed out that the caves, an important part of Braila's history, must be highlighted, and the space is generous for a historical gallery where elements specific to the era can be exhibited. At the same time, the Minister of Culture mentioned that the access to the caves is made through a private property that the municipality intends to buy. "It is a private property there (...) I spoke with the mayor, he intends to buy that land that has access to the caves, it is natural, it is an important part of Braila's history, three hundred years under Turkish domination, we must show that. And there is a very large gallery too, high, about 50-70 metres long, which could be a fantastical historical gallery. With proper air conditioning, you can exhibit, show to those who are interested in that era, it's really a generous space for something like that," added Lucian Romascanu. The mayor of Braila, Marian Dragomir, showed that the local administration has initiated the steps to exercise the right of preemption to buy the caves and at the same time for inclusion in the heritage, modernization and opening to the public. At the same time, MEP Mihai Tudose pointed out that the project for the caves must be an adjustable one, depending on the results of the discoveries in the field, the value of the project being difficult to measure at this point. *** Braila still preserves today the traces of the largest defensive system ever built along the Danube. The caves were built by the Turks who ruled Braila for almost three hundred years and were used as underground passages, hidden from the eyes of the world, for transporting weapons, wealth and food directly to the Danube. The legends of the place say that the Turks could cross the caves on horseback, so spacious were these galleries, the route starting from the last fortification, respectively from the Citadel - the northern area of the Gradina Mare, to the last defensive wall towards today's Cuza Boulevard, where they found the nine bastions, the positions of the guns of the Braila Garrison. The caves had two main roles: one of product storage and the other of a strategic-military nature, ensuring communication between the former Citadel, located in the area of Gradina Mare - Panait Istrati Boulevard - Al.I.Cuza Boulevard - the Danube esplanade and the outer fortifications of the fortress. After 1829, the galleries mostly collapsed, but many of them survived because they were lined with brick. The documents from that time to be found at the Braila Museum show that only a few segments of what were the military fortresses of Braila before 1828 are still preserved. In 1955, following a study carried out by the Institute of Geology of the Academy, after many residents of Braila complained that their houses were falling, it was decided that Braila's ditches should be plugged. During the mentioned period, only a part of these catacombs was covered, because today there are many houses downtown Braila that have a basement or connections with the old network built by the Turks. AGERPRES The industrial activity of the city of Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine was strongly affected after the outbreak of the war, the head of the Kryvyi Rih State Military District Administration, Evhen Sitnichenko, told AGERPRES on Thursday. According to him, iron ore mining and processing plants in Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) had to suspend their activity due to the blockade of ports and the energy crisis. "A heavy blow for us was the closing of the ports. We are an area from which iron ore is extracted and we export it. When the ports were closed, we no longer had the possibility to export and from that moment the companies felt discomfort and strong financial pressure. After the storage capacities reached their maximum, some companies suspended their activity. Later, the president [Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ed.n.] did everything possible to have the ports opened and this problem started to be resolved. River ports were also opened, railways increased their transport capacity. Later, the Russians began to bomb the energy infrastructure, and these combined are the largest energy consumers. Again, they stopped working. Some plants are presently waiting, /.../ carrying out current maintenance activities, without extracting minerals," revealed Sitnichenko. Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is the second largest city in Ukraine, with an area of 430 square kilometers, and the seventh most populous, with over 640,000 inhabitants. From North to South it measures 66 kilometers. It is located near the regions under the control of the Russian army. On January 27, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu said that the commitment to the ongoing fight against negative discrimination and intolerance is renewed every day. "Today, as we mark the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp, we remember and honour the millions of victims of the Holocaust. I would like to express my deepest sympathy to all those who suffered as a result of the Holocaust, as well as my admiration for all those who fought and continue to fight for the triumph of reason and tolerance over prejudice. On this day, as every day, we commemorate the Holocaust and renew our commitment to the ongoing fight against negative discrimination and intolerance," Predoiu is quoted as saying in a Justice Ministry press release. He reiterated his message to European rabbis in the presence of the chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania that "memory is insufficient" and that action must be taken to ensure that this will not happen again, and to implement solutions to condemn negative discrimination and abolish all forms of violence against the Jewish community and other vulnerable groups. Moreover, in the current international context marked by a worrying growth in extremism, intolerance and radicalisation, the Justice Ministry is paying attention to hate speech and hate crimes and, more broadly, the fight against racism and anti-Semitism, added Predoiu. He said that as early as 2020 he requested the Supreme Council of Magistrates and the Attorney General to review the provisions of Article 369 of the Criminal Code (incitement to hatred) and other crimes which fall under Ordinance 31/2002, to be taken into account when drawing up the annual continuing professional training plans for the magistrates. The ministry also participated in the development of the National Strategy for the Prevention and Combat of Anti-Semitism (2021). Predoiu added that the ministry initiated steps to organise a hate crime training programme for Romanian magistrates jointly with German partners. "The collaboration was carried out through the German Foundation for International Co-operation (IRZ) with support from the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection. So far, applied discussions have taken place between the beneficiary institutions in Romania (the attorney general and the National Institute of the Magistrates, facilitated by the Justice Ministry for the presentation of the training needs at the level of the judiciary." Predoiu added that the Justice Ministry has "actively" supported international co-operation regarding Holocaust education, research and remembrance, with Romania being one of the first eight countries to sign the Vienna Declaration on enhancing cooperation in fighting Anti-Semitism and encouraging reporting of antisemitic incidents as part of a European conference on anti-Semitism. "We actually supported, at all JHA meetings, the European initiatives initiated to combat anti-Semitism and hate speech. We consider that this way we truly honour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust and reward the survivors," says Predoiu. AGERPRES The Chairman of the Management Board of KazMunayGas (KMG), Magzum Myrzagaliyev, has paid on Friday an official visit to the Petromidia refinery and the site of the cogeneration plant located near the production unit in Navodari, the most important development project currently carried out by KMG International, through the Kazakh Romanian Energy Investment Fund (FIEKR), Rompetrol informs in a press release. "The success of the projects carried out within the KMG group of companies is based on the involvement of our passionate people, senior specialists in the energy field, mentors for the young generations, who devoted their entire professional lives to build and develop this strategic field. I am proud to meet the Romanian team and to learn about their constant efforts to improve KMG's local assets, but also to strengthen Rompetrol position as a stable and responsible energy leader in the region. Through the construction of the cogeneration plant, synergy comes first whereas the refinery will directly benefit from the plant's energy production. Thus, Rompetrol, the largest asset of KMG, outside of Kazakhstan, will take a new step in its development, will streamline its processes and costs, and, just as importantly, have a decreasing impact on environmental factors," said Magzum Myrzagaliyev. The plant, which will be operated by Rompetrol Energy (a member company of the KMG International Group), will generate approximately 80 MWh of electricity - of which approximately 60-70 MWh will cover the entire electricity needs of the Petromidia platform and technological steam up to 180 tons/hour. "At the same time, with the input of the SGT-750 turbines, which arrived in Romania at the end of 2022, the energy production activity will record significant decreases in the generation of carbon dioxide emissions. Overall estimated reductions amount close to 290kt CO2 for electricity production and a saving of energy resources of approximately 1.2 MWh," the release reads. The official delegation also included Bulat Zakirov (Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of KMG), Vassily Lavrenov (Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of KMG) and Ilias Kuldzhanov (CEO KMG International). The KMG delegation completed a full tour of Petromidia with two major stops at the most important points - the refinery Command and Control Centre and the units build through the largest investment program in the history of the refinery. In the Command and Control Centre, the refinery specialists showed the KMG delegation how the production flow is monitored, using tools and applications such as Advanced Process Control, a complex software for predictive control of facilities and operational flows. The last point on the agenda was the presentation of units built and modernized as part of the 380 million dollars investment and upgrade package, thus allowing refinery's capacity to increase from 3.8 million tons/year to more than 5 million tons/year. This process led the transition to Euro5 fuel production, ahead of the deadlines imposed by the European Union. The Rompetrol Rafinare SA most significant shareholders are KMG International (54.63% - directly and indirectly) and the Romanian State, throguh the Energy Ministry (44.7%). AGERPRES Brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate are accused by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) prosecutors of having recruited two women from the US and the UK, under the pretext of matrimony, brought them back to Romania, where they forced them to produce pornographic content that was posted on an online platform in order to be broadcast for a fee. Details about the manner in which the Tate brothers managed to bring women from abroad to Romania can be found in the reasoning behind the decision of a judge with the Bucharest Court, which ordered the extension of the remand custody of the two brothers and their second accomplice, a former police officer and Andrew Tate's girlfriend. The Tate brothers, who have British citizenship, and their two accomplices are accused of establishing an organized crime group, in view of recruiting, accommodating and exploiting by forcing several women, in order to create materials with pornographic content, intended to be broadcast for a fee. In the Court's document, the judge shows the manner in which a women from the UK was recruited and brought to Romania, as well as a women from the US. In terms of evidence, the prosecutors submitted to the court the statements of the victims, psychological expertises and the minutes reproducing the conversations carried out through internet apps. On the other hand, the court admits that the prosecutors "did not fully clarify the factual situation" in this case, but "there are solid indications" regarding the commission of crimes of obvious gravity by the defendants. Then, the magistrate lists the reasons why he ordered the extension of the arrest warrants for the Tate brothers. "The judge of rights and freedoms takes into account the manner in which the defendants operated, which involves the recruitment of people by misleading, creating the illusion of feelings of affection and stable relationships for the victims, sheltering them in the house where the other girls were and their exploitation by determining them to create photo and video content, under the supervision and control of the defendants (...), in order to post the materials on the platforms (...), with the aim of obtaining material gains that would maintain the defendants' high standard of living. The judge takes into account the particular dangerousness of the defendants, their ability to identify segments of victims with increased vulnerability, in search of better life opportunities, and then consider that the culprits are victims who want to get rich, not the traffickers who obtain huge profits from the exploitation of their material vulnerability. (...) The judge takes into account the defendants' ability and effort to exercise permanent psychological control over the victims, including by resorting to constant acts of violence," the magistrate explains. The judge believes that Tate brothers' release "would induce disturbances of public discipline, of the observance toward the law, stimulating the collective fear that justice is not effective against dangerous acts - thus, generating a feeling of insecurity in society and therefore a state of danger for public order." AGERPRES We must fight for a better world, against anti-Semitism, against hatred of any kind against anyone, minority or religion, we can do it, you can do it, and your children and grandchildren, declared 87-year-old Gideon Lev, a survivor of the Terezin ghetto, on the occasion of a conference organized by the European Jewish Association (EJA), in Prague and Terezin, before the commemoration, on Friday, of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the president of the EJA, declared, during a meeting with journalists, that "every place has a different message", and "the main message of Terezin for us is 'fake news', the fact that the Nazis tried to claim that they treated the Jews in a very good way". This fake news helped them to be praised by many people, instead of being attacked and arrested and Terezin released. Since today we are faced with a lot of 'fake news', which is one of the things that allows anti-Semites to incite, it is important for us to address this in particular, added Menachem Margolin. The director of the British organization Labour Against Anti-Semitism, Alex Hearn, spoke at the EJA conference about how fake news about Jews represents a pattern as old as anti-Semitism itself. Hearn pointed out that anti-Semitism goes beyond political lines and is used by people to gain power or feel powerful. He also spoke about contemporary anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and the role of social media in their dissemination. There are so many things that the Jews are accused of, including the fact that they do not play a role in this horrible war between Russia and Ukraine, said Menachem Margolin. Truth is no longer based on scientific facts, but on viral news and social media. Things happen faster. We have to fight against fake news that pops up quickly on our phones. Macron himself has been presented as a puppet of the Jews because he is a former banker and he has money. Fake news uses the same stereotypes against Jews, again and again. We have to fight against all fake news. If we don't fight it, it spreads, and it spreads very quickly, said French parliamentarian Prisca Thevenot, spokeswoman for the Renaissance party of President Emmanuel Macron. We have to understand that social media works extremely fast. It is not enough to make laws to keep up with the technological challenges, we have to be quick to ban hate speech on social media, said the Austrian parliamentarian David Stogmuller. As far as he is concerned, the Portuguese parliamentarian Alexandre Poco emphasized the importance of education in combating anti-Semitism. Although our problems may not be as great as those of other countries, we must continue to invest in education. A proactive attitude continues to be necessary. We have strong ties with Jewish communities. We continue to promote Jewish life, even though we are a Catholic country, he said during the conference. If we allow the enemies of democracy to shout, then we risk the end of democracy. The anti-Semites must be made to feel that they have no chance and that they will be made to pay the consequences, warned Sigmount Konigsberg, commissioner for anti-Semitism for the Jewish community in Berlin. For his part, Joel Mergui, the president of the Paris Consistory, which has led "the largest Jewish community in Europe for 20 years", said that he decided to encourage the members of this community to continue living on the Old Continent as long as they had decision-makers with them in the fight against anti-Semitism and radical Islam. From your words and actions we will have the certainty that we have a future in Europe, he conveyed to the officials present at the conference. Coming from Israel especially for the events of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Czech Republic, Gideon Lev is, at almost 88 years old, not only a page of living history, but also a very lucid mind. The man, born in 1935, in Karlovy Vary, told the participants in English, German and Czech about the events he experienced when he was still a child, many of which left an indelible impression on him. When the Nazis occupied the Czech Republic, it was the end for the Jews in the country. The Jews couldn't stay out at night, they couldn't have radios, and pretty soon they were all moved to Terezin, which was called a 'relocation camp'. But it was far from that. They put us in crowded barracks, there was no space, the children and women could only see their fathers and husbands from the window, walking in silence, Gideon Lev said. "Arbeit macht frei" is one of the most cynical Nazi atrocities. In reality, you are free when you are dead, he pointed out, referring to the words in large letters placed at the entrance to Nazi concentration camps. "Vernichtung durch Arbeit": destruction through work, that's what the Nazis wanted, he added. We must fight for a better world, against anti-Semitism, against hatred of any kind against anyone, minority or religion, we can do it, you can do it, and your children and grandchildren. And that's what we must do, pleaded the survivor of the Terezin ghetto. Although he is 87 years old and seems far from the age when someone would start a career as an influencer on Tik Tok, Gideon Lev has, for a year, had an account on this very popular network especially among young people, fueled with the help of a Hollywood content creator, Julie Gray. Two years ago, she wrote a book called "The True Adventures of Gideon Lev", then thought of making him a Tik Tok account to promote sales. The effect was far beyond expectations. We now have 414,000 followers, of which 62% are under the age of 34 and 67% are women. In the last 60 days, we have 2 million views, 80,000 comments, 200,000 likes and 4,000 reshares. These are really big numbers. He has an impact on the largest social network in the world. (...) In my experience, young people want to learn about the Holocaust. Fighting anti-Semitism on social media is a huge opportunity. But we have to organize, we need better digital security, centralized shared resources. And we need to make better content, said Julie Gray. Emma Gunsberger, head of the Czech Union of Jewish Students, claims that there are currently over 4,000 Jews in the Czech Republic. The problem is that the associations are mainly in the big cities and the Jewish heritage in the smaller towns in the country is largely lost. In every small village you can find an old Jewish cemetery, a synagogue, but the community no longer lives there. If there is someone with Jewish ancestry there, they are usually completely detached from their Jewish identity. So Jewish life is mainly in the big cities and mainly here in Prague, she told AGERPRES. However, where there are Jewish communities, the number of members is increasing. The community is growing in Prague because we have Jewish schools, where Jewish children can go and do secular studies like in any normal school, but also Jewish and Hebrew studies. Through these schools we bring back Jewish customs and rituals in Jewish families, she explained. Emma admits that in the Czech Republic anti-Semitism still exists, but usually "it's just verbal abuse, it's not violent". There is anti-Semitism, but it's mainly from uneducated people who don't know who Jews are and have never met one. It's very different from the rest of Europe, she said. It is very easy to put other things on the agenda of those who make decisions. We have to make sure that the problem of anti-Semitism will not be left aside because of other political issues, said Rabbi Menachem Margolin. At the same time, he pleaded, more must be done so that countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania, which had large Jewish communities, have a Jewish life. Representatives of National Power Grid Company Transelectrica and Republic of Moldova officials discussed on January 26 in Bucharest the expansion of Romania's electricity and gas market operator OPCOM to the Moldovan electricity market, Transelectrica informs. The official delegation from the Republic of Moldova, headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spinu visited the energy company to discuss strengthening energy cooperation. "The timeliness of OPCOM, a subsidiary of Transelectrica SA, expanding to the Moldovan electricity market was discussed, and the next steps were agreed for OPCOM to become the electricity market operator in the Republic of Moldova. Attending the talks were Chairman of Transelectrica's Board of Directors Gabriel Andronache, Board member Bogdan Toncescu, and OPCOM CEO Victor Ionescu. The visit at Transelectrica's premises follows the discussions hosted on Wednesday, January 25, by the Energy Ministry regarding the development of energy cooperation between Romania and the Republic of Moldova through concrete projects," the company release reads. Transelectrica CEO Gabriel Andronache participated in the meeting at the Energy Ministry dedicated to energy interconnection projects, highlighting the main bilateral priorities in terms of electricity transmission. The topics discussed included solutions to speed up the project of the 400 kV overhead power line interconnecting Suceava (RO) and Balti (MD), as well as solutions for developing a new interconnection through a 400 kV line, which will be included in an update to the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Romania and the Government of the Republic of Moldova on the interconnection of the national energy systems (gas and electricity). Also, the sides looked at the progress towards the integration of Moldova's national power grid operator Moldelectrica with the European Network of Transmission System Operators ENTSO-E, with Transelectrica reaffirming its support for the project by providing the Moldovan TSO with the necessary expertise to fulfill the compliance steps. AGERPRES WEDNESDAY PUBLISHING This online Score event is designed to simplify the options available to authors and cover the pros and cons of each. 11:30 a.m.. 12:30 p.m. TRANSIT Citizens for Modern Transit host virtual Talking Transit event to provide updates on the various transit projects underway in 2023. 8:30 a.m. 9:30 a.m. THURSDAY NETWORKING Venture Cafe hosts Serendipitous Collisions, a networking event with activities to help meet and engage with other attendees. 4 p.m. 7 p.m.; Venture Cafe, 4240 Duncan Avenue, #200, St. Louis FRIDAY MARKETING This online workshop will cover the basics of building your brand. Noon 1 p.m. SOCIAL MEDIA An online happy hour for the small to medium business person looking to learn the best steps for creating a dynamic brand on social pages. 6 p.m. 7 p.m. Going home can mean different things to different family members even a mother and child. In a new picture book, "This Is Not My Home," a girl protests loudly and often when her mother tells her they are moving from the United States to Taiwan to care for the girl's aging grandmother. The girl, Lily, prefers the land, the school, the friends she knows in the States. Immigration isn't a one-way street. Nor is an ancestral land always a paradise of adoring relatives, delicious food and intriguing culture. "These are not my fireflies," Lily plaintively wails as she squats over an in-ground toilet in front of roach-like onlookers. Amid the rise in publishing of Asian American stories, "This Is Not My Home" stands out for at least a couple of reasons: Two young college students at Washington University wrote and illustrated it, selling it to a major publisher while they were still cramming for tests. And the book flips the typical immigration story while appealing to any ethnicity. "At the core it is a reverse immigration story," says co-author Vivienne Chang. The protagonist is going back "home" and doesn't like it one bit. "It's an experience we don't think about often," she says. "What would it be like if we had to now adapt to a new culture and community?" Plus, "it doesn't matter where you emigrate from," she says. "You can emigrate from Taiwan. You can emigrate from, like, France, it is still an immigration story." Chang's parents moved to the U.S. from Taiwan in the mid-1990s for their master's education. Reared near San Francisco, Chang, an economics and finance major, wanted to live someplace "totally different" for her own college years. Thus, Washington University in St. Louis. Not only did it have a respected business school, but it was practically the only school she visited that didn't give her food poisoning. Her co-author and illustrator, Eugenia Yoh, grew up in Los Angeles' Orange County. Like Chang, she's Taiwanese American. They met in part at a Chinese yo-yo club (it's like juggling, Chang says). Because they were among the worst in the club, it gave them a chance to bond. Yoh, who graduated last year with a degree in communication design, has already gotten a job as a designer with Chronicle Books. Yoh and Chang's idea for the picture book was informed by friends who had moved back to Taiwan and told them they did not like it. "It was just kind of baffling," Chang says. "How can you not love the land of great food and people and culture?" Both women have visited relatives there frequently. "Every time we go it's like, we're having so much fun," Yoh says. "It was interesting to see that someone moving there permanently must have had such a different experience. That was kind of the discrepancy in our head." Chang confesses to looking at the country through "rose-colored glasses." She says, "My Taiwanese American identity is really close to my heart" and considers her parents' native land a nostalgic part of her childhood. But with the picture book, they purposely included more than glittery tourist sites. "Taiwan is really lovely in many ways," Yoh says. But any citizen is also familiar with cockroaches and squat toilets, so those things made it into the book. The speed at which the students wrote and published their book was the stuff of authors' dreams. Chang and Yoh said they wrote it in just about a month, October 2020. Chang made a spreadsheet of possible agents and the kinds of books they were interested in. Another Asian American author looked at their manuscript and agreed they should pitch it to her own agent. By January, the students had a two-book contract with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Chang and Yoh were in their sophomore and junior years, respectively. They had also submitted the story to a Polish contest for beginning storytellers. After they sold the book, an email in Polish (and translated through Google) congratulated them for being runners-up in a contest with more than a 1,000 entries. They were shocked, but the new authors realized that "This Is Not My Home" could resonate with diverse cultures. Yoh says she hadn't read that many titles with Asian American protagonists while she was growing up. She remembers picture books and middle school readers by Grace Lin, such was "Dumpling Days" and "The Year of the Dog." "I remember connecting with a lot of the main characters so much with the way one ate Pocky or the way she referenced her whole family going back to Taiwan for a little bit. I felt like I was really heard and this person knows what she's talking about." Now there are more creators who are Asian American, and Chang believes their audience is growing, but she also emphasizes the universality of the new picture book. Despite Lily's protestations about her new country's school, food and language, after a few months, she finds one thing that helps her adjust: a new friend. "I think there are these universal messages," Chang says. "There's a lot of other people who can be involved in your story as well." Eugenia Yoh and Vivienne Chang When 10:30 a.m. Feb. 3 Where Central Library, 1301 Olive Street How much Free More info slpl.org When 6 p.m. Feb. 7 Where Subterranean Books, 6271 Delmar Boulevard How much Free More info 314-862-6100 The Host Julie Rovner KHN Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KHNs weekly health policy news podcast, What the Health? A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z, now in its third edition. The abortion debate has changed dramatically in the seven months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its nationwide right to abortion. Nearly half the states have banned or restricted the procedure, even though the public, at the ballot box, continues to show support for abortion rights. In this special, two-part podcast, taped the week of the 50th anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade, an expert panel delves into the fight, the sometimes-unintended side effects, and what each side plans for 2023. This weeks panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Sarah Varney of KHN. Panelists Alice Miranda Ollstein Politico Sandhya Raman CQ Roll Call Sarah Varney KHN Among the takeaways from this weeks episode: Exemptions to state abortion bans came into question shortly after the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe, with national debate surrounding the case of a 10-year-old in Ohio who was forced to travel out of state to have an abortion although, as a rape victim, she should have been able to obtain an abortion in her home state. The restrictions in many states have caused problems for women experiencing miscarriages, as medical providers fear repercussions of providing care whether affecting their medical licenses or malpractice insurance coverage, or even drawing criminal charges. So far, there have been no reports of doctors being charged. A Christian father in Texas won a lawsuit against the federal government that bars the states Title X family-planning clinics from dispensing birth control to minors without parental consent. That change poses a particular problem for rural areas, where there may not be another place to obtain contraception, and other states could follow suit. The Title X program has long required clinics to serve minors without informing their parents. Top abortion opponents are leaning on misinformation to advance their causes, including to inaccurately claim that birth control is dangerous. Medication abortion is the next target for abortion opponents. In recent months, the FDA has substantially loosened restrictions on the abortion pill, though only in the states where abortion remains available. Some opponents are getting creative by citing environmental laws to argue, without evidence, that the abortion pill could contaminate the water supply. Restrictions are also creating problems for the maternal care workforce, with implications possibly rippling for decades to come. Some of the states with the worst maternal health outcomes also have abortion bans, leading providers to rethink how, and where, they train and practice. Looking ahead, a tug of war is occurring on state and local levels among abortion opponents about what to do next. Some lawmakers who voted for state bans are expressing interest in at least a partial rollback, while other opponents are pushing back to demand no changes to the bans. With Congress divided, decisions about federal government spending could draw the most attention for those looking for national policy changes. And for extra credit, the panelists recommend their most memorable reproductive health stories from the last year: Julie Rovner: NPRs Because of Texas Abortion Law, Her Wanted Pregnancy Became a Medical Nightmare, by Carrie Feibel Alice Miranda Ollstein: The New York Times Magazines She Wasnt Ready for Children. A Judge Wouldnt Let Her Have an Abortion, by Lizzie Presser Sarah Varney: Science Fridays and KHNs Why Contraceptive Failure Rates Matter in a Post-Roe America, by Sarah Varney Also mentioned in this weeks podcast: Credits Francis Ying Audio Producer Emmarie Huetteman Editor To hear all our podcasts, click here. And subscribe to KHNs What the Health? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details). A tasty snack, creative drink or memorable experience might come from an unexpected place like the back of a grocery store or in a converted church. We explored a dozen hidden hangouts in the St. Louis area unusual places where people gather for food, drinks or fun. Some of these locations are not truly unknown especially ones that have been around for decades. Some have followers who revel in the "if you know, you know" vibe of the space. But we uncovered lesser-known details even about the more familiar places. They might not be glamorous or conventional, but these spots are sure to start a conversation. Tucked in a grocery store Mideast Market 14375 Manchester Road, Manchester Past the aisles stocked with varieties of imported teas, lentils and street-food-style snacks hangs a large yellow sign, Cafe. The counter service cafe offers freshly made Pakistani and Middle Eastern food, including self-service trays of samosas and chicken patties. This grocery store specializing in South Asian items opened in 1999 and moved to its larger location in June 2021. The owner, Rashed Kazmi, expanded the cafe, where the most popular items are chicken biryani, samosas, gyros, goat haleem and tacos. It sells more than 600 samosas a day, he said. In fact, the cafe generates three times the revenue compared to the rest of the store. Pan-Asia Supermarket 14246 Manchester Road, Manchester Within this sprawling Asian market, there are a few specialty shops along the sides of the store, including a place for skin-care products and a takeaway for ready-cooked Asian meals. One of the newer offerings is Bubblecup Tea Zone, which opened in May 2021. Brandon Shih, manager of the tea shop, says that a number of shoppers stop by to pick up drinks, in addition to the groups of teenagers who come in for boba tea. The most popular item is the taro milk tea. Some customers who discover the tea spot using Google will drive around the parking lot looking for it not realizing its actually inside the supermarket, he said. El Morelia Supermercado 12005 St. Charles Rock Road, Bridgeton This expansive Mexican-South American grocery carries an array of items to prepare authentic Latin American dishes, along with its own bakery and meat department. The biggest draw on the weekends, however, is the pop-up taco stand in the front of the store. Freshly grilled and roasted meat, including pork, carne asada beef and chicken, is folded into warm corn tortillas. There are folding tables in front with condiments. Tacos are served 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Rebuilt on a historic street Mocktails on Main 335 North Main Street, St. Charles Dry January was meant to be the blockbuster month for this sober bar and lounge in St. Charles. But a fire caused by a product malfunction on New Year's Eve set back those plans. Elizabeth Lockwood had taken ownership of the bar in September and was in the process of changing its decor before the fire damage shut the place down. The building has to be brought up to code, and she hopes to reopen by the end of next month. She is also working with other merchants on Main Street to do some pop-up events. The lounge will be rebranded as Mocktails on Main and will continue to host special events. A bar without alcohol might sound foreign to some, but Lockwood says she wants it to feel like anywhere else people go to socialize and have fun. In addition to fancy mocktails, she plans to outfit the kitchen to offer late-night food. The bar had sponsored a faux beer pong league with Lindenwood and other colleges and wants to create more partnerships. The business has a personal element for her family. Lockwood's husband is five years in sobriety. It is the only completely sober bar in the state. Theres a market for it, she said. Stashed in a mall Aaha! Chesterfield Mall Roopa Unnikrishnan wanted to bring South Indian and Kerala-inspired Indian food to the St. Louis area. She and her husband, Gopal, had no prior experience running a restaurant when they began looking for a place. They were walking around the empty food court at Chesterfield Mall when they realized many of the abandoned spots had fully equipped kitchens. They reached out to the mall management, chose one of the many open spots and signed a lease through the end of this year. They began catering traditional items like banana fritters, egg puffs and deep fried lentil and masala patties. No other restaurant in St. Louis is serving this stuff, Gopal said. Their customers have grown through word of mouth and social media, and by the pickleball players who use the courts in the mall. They will stop by for chai and snacks after their matches. The counter-service restaurant has added a few tables where customers can sit to eat, creating a tiny space of activity in a vast, mostly empty food court. The restaurant is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 am to 8 pm. It plans on adding breakfast service on the weekend soon, Gopal said. Burrowed under a monument Arch Cafe 11 North Fourth Street Visitors wanting to experience the renovated St. Louis landmark and its museum have a place to grab a quick meal. The Arch Cafe at the base of the Gateway Arch can seat 28 people in the cafe and an additional 96 in the common area. It offers much of the standard family-friendly tourist attraction fare, including burgers, chicken tenders and sandwiches, along with a few local specialties, toasted ravioli and pork ribs. In the winter months, when the crowds are smaller and there are fewer food options nearby, the cafe can be a godsend for parents with young children and large groups. The cafes parent company, Evelyn Hill Inc., also operates the concessions at the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Fort McHenry National Monument. Repurposed in a church Crave Coffeehouse 3500 Caroline Street During the weekdays this coffeehouse is filled with students and visitors from nearby St. Louis University, but on the weekends it takes on a different life, serving as a place of worship for a Christian congregation that lacks a full-time, permanent building. Given that the coffeehouse is a repurposed church, the worshippers feel right at home. The stained glass and altar give the space a religious vibe. It is open for business 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and then 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Then, the church volunteers and staff move the tables to the back, set up rows of chairs as makeshift pews and arrange its sound system to prepare for their worship services. Served with a purpose St. Raymond's Maronite Cathedral 931 Lebanon Drive The Wednesday Luncheon at this Maronite Catholic cathedral has served Lebanese and Middle Eastern meals to the public for decades. Denise Seifert, a volunteer kitchen manager and third generation volunteer for the lunch program, says it closed the program during the pandemic lockdown and reopened for curbside service for months before slowly reopening. It has fully reopened, and the hall is starting to fill up with diners again, she said. Nearly all their menu items are back with the exception of the stuffed squash. One silver lining from the pandemic disruption is that it launched online ordering, where customers can place individual and bulk orders for carryout. By the grace of God, another younger generation that understands that technology set it up, Seifer said. St. John's Episcopal Church 3664 Arsenal Street For more than 14 years, church volunteers offer a free meal every Saturday from 4 to 5:30 p.m. to anyone who comes by. Phyllis Jacobson, PeaceMeal Communication Coordinator, said 10 churches take turns supplying and preparing the food and volunteering to serve it. During the height of the pandemic, they switched to carry-out bags for the food. Now, the parish hall is open for those who want to eat inside, she said. The volunteers prepare a main dish, like chicken teriyaki, shepherd's pie or lasagna, and include a fruit and dessert. The volunteers typically serve between 55 to 60 meals, she said. They have some regulars who stop by each week, and newcomers are always welcome. We dont ask any questions, she said. Spotted on campus Whispers Cafe Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive The coffee shop inside Olin Library on Washington Universitys campus serves Kaldis coffee and Firepot teas, but otherwise, it is a lot like any cafe on any college campus crammed with students. But unlike other campus hangouts, this one comes with a side of American history. The real gem is a rare historical document on display a few steps away. The library houses a permanent exhibition with a rare broadside copy of the Declaration of Independence printed by Solomon Southwick in Newport, Rhode Island, and dated July 12, 1776. Only seven copies of the Southwick broadside exist. This copy was printed before the official handwritten copy (on display in the National Archives) was signed. It is also the first copy of any of the Declarations to have a signature. Visitors can walk through and see the fragile document preserved in a temperature- and light-controlled chamber. Discovered in a library Discovery Zones, St. Louis County Library Florissant Valley: 195 North New Florissant Road, Florissant; Daniel Boone, 300 Clarkson Road, Ellisville; Meramec Valley 1501 San Simeon Way, Fenton Libraries in the city and county all have spaces that can be reserved for meetings and host regular gatherings in their communities. Three St. Louis County Library locations also house Discovery Zones, which feature activities like giant Lite Brites, pneumatic tube walls, oversized play houses, and other interactive activities for families with young children. These spaces are strategically located away from quiet reading areas and the main part of the library. The DZ's at Florissant and Daniel Boone are on the lower levels of the library and at Meramec Valley, there is a door that can be closed to help contain the noise. Educated with a latte Shameless Grounds 1901 Withnell Avenue The only sex-positive coffee shop in the state is housed on a beautiful corner in the historic Benton Park neighborhood. It has been in this location for a decade. The shop is lined with shelves of at least 2,000 books all of which cover topics related to human sexuality. Theres a small sculpture series of female anatomy on top of one shelf and a phallic painting on an adjacent wall. Barbie- and Ken-size dolls are displayed in various bondage scenes atop the shelves. Other than the decor, the coffee shop is fairly typical. Co-owner Andy Mueller said it hosts a weekly game night in the evenings, along with other special events. Patrons must be 18 or older to enter the shop or accompanied by a parent. The website markets itself to those whose love life falls outside the box. But its also a place for those with more vanilla lifestyles who may be curious, want to learn and to hang out with like-minded individuals. On Jan. 27, 1977, a St. Louis judge issued an order closing the Stardust Club, 309 DaBaliviere Ave. The closing was not contested by owner Al Charles or his wife, Aimee, who under the name Evelyn West performed as a stripper known for her $50,000 "treasure chest." When a police officer climbed through a rear bedroom window of a cream-colored duplex at 708 Columbus Parkway on Nov. 14, 2004, he found the body of a St. Louis legend. Amy Charles had not been seen for several days. Friends from Tampa, Fla. -- those who had known her in her heyday -- had called and e-mailed repeatedly but got no response. They called the police, who found the door locked and no one to answer the knock. As it turned out, Charles had died in her sleep. Nearby were medications for thyroid and heart problems. Officer William Comeford filed his report -- death apparently from natural causes -- and returned to business as usual. He ignored the clues that this 83-year-old woman once had been famous. They could be found in the stacks of provocative photographs all about her quarters; three bedrooms stacked with boxes that made it impossible to walk through the rooms. Some contained the outfits she donned backstage and then discarded onstage to the cheers of hundreds each night. Amy Charles was known in St. Louis as Evelyn "$50,000 treasure chest" West. Her chief claim to fame: her 39 1/2-inch bust that Lloyds of London insured for the $50K. She performed twice nightly in a striptease act at the Stardust Club on the old DeBaliviere Strip, just north of Forest Park and its Jefferson Memorial. In St. Louis in the '50s and '60s, her name was as familiar to male adolescents and young adults as that of Stan Musial, though, of course, the two inspired different forms of adulation. Evelyn West performed before as many as 1,500 customers a week at the Stardust, earning 90 cents for each patron. She enjoyed a national reputation, appearing in clubs from Los Angeles to Miami Beach and in 50-cent magazines with names like Blush, Wolf Bait and Fever for Men. She starred in a movie, "A Night at the Follies," and you could find her posing on a deck of playing cards and in color photos suitable for a barracks or a frat house wall. She may be best remembered for the ads that appeared in this newspaper and the old Globe-Democrat, touting her treasures and their ties to that very dignified London insurance agency. And yet, Evelyn West's death went unnoticed for months. She had no next of kin to make her funeral arrangements or to call the newspapers. Her body was cremated, and the disposition of her remains is still a bit of a mystery. Evelyn West was born Amy May Coomer in Adair, Ky., and grew up on a farm in Petersburg, Ill., (population 2,400) just northwest of Springfield, Ill. When it comes to performers like West, it can be difficult to separate truth from legend. One story has it that her husband and promoter, Al Charles, discovered her in a farm field in Petersburg, immediately appreciated her potential and put her on the circuit. Another story has it that the two met much later in the San Francisco Bay area when West was already in the business. Raymond Montgomery, a longtime Petersburg resident and contemporary of West's -- they both went to the one-room Brush School -- recalled that she lived with her family for a time in a three-room house and that "she had a sad life as a child." He remembers Amy's mom taking a stick and "switching her all the way" from school to her house. No one was particularly surprised to learn that Amy got into the profession. Petersburg was home to circuses and people who worked in the carnival business. Soon enough she was performing in a sideshow at the Illinois State Fair. Her career was first recognized in newspaper clippings in the 1940s when she performed in Calumet City, south of Chicago. That was back when it was a mob-controlled striptease town with steamy B-girl joints up and down the main street. In many respects, West was a kind of crossover artist. Burlesque, in the words of Francine du Plessix Gray writing in The New Yorker, was a "venerable American genre." It included music, dance and comedy, with the stripping just one aspect. Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, Lenny Bruce and Rodney Dangerfield all honed their acts in burlesque theaters. West embraced the comedic aspects, too. But at some point, burlesque as art form began to veer off into what many consider pornography and an increasing focus on the female anatomy, lust and prostitution. Over the years, West would get in and out of trouble with the law. But it was her bust that drew the most attention and became a part of her legacy. In fact, she went to the Menard County Circuit Court in Petersburg in 1953 to have her name changed to Evelyn "$50,000 Treasure Chest" West. "Evelyn is the girl generally credited with making burlesque bust-conscious," wrote Lou Felice, a writer for Sir!, a men's magazine from the 1950s. "Before she entered the strip picture, burlesque movements emphasized a sexy walk with the bumps and grinds. Relatively little importance had been attached to an eye-stopping bosom." As West's fame increased, she began to market her wares. "The Post Office Department banned her pin-up pictures from the mails," Felice wrote. "Postal examiners ruled that 22 of her photos, which were advertised for sale at one dollar, had a 'lewd' aspect. They also charged that other pictures of Miss West were being offered at rates that went up as the exposure increased. This is probably the first time a dancer has been accused of performing a striptease by mail." West starred in a "A Night at the Follies," an hour-long black-and-white movie, apparently filmed shortly after the end of World War II, although the video box says 1956. Coming out in a skimpy dress and a fur, she opened by saying: "I know you're looking at my shoes." By the 1950s, West had married Al Charles, the club promoter, and the two found their way to St. Louis and the Stardust Club on the old DeBaliviere Strip. The DeBaliviere area had as many as five strip clubs -- including the Stardust, Tic-Toc and Little Las Vegas -- the Apollo Theater, bookie and gambling joints, and a famous old Garavelli's restaurant. They are all gone now. The old strip district is now a strip mall. Police raids and arrests were frequent occurrences on the strip, and West was occasionally taken to the pokey. Her longtime bondsman, Bob Block, said they never put her in a holdover. "We went to a judge and got the bond. I got her out six or eight times," said Block. Even given the numerous police raids, former Deputy Police Chief James Hackett, a St. Louis police legend, admired West's moxie and her moves. He once called her "the Babe Ruth of stripteasing." The Stardust Club thrived in the '60s, when hundreds of young men flocked to see West and a bevy of other dancers entertain in pasties and g-strings. Rodney Dangerfield performed there once. Briefly. Pete Johnstone, then a drummer at the Stardust and now a jeweler in Crestwood, remembers it this way: "Al Charles was operating the green spotlight, and Dangerfield said, 'The green spotlight makes me look dead.' And Charles said, 'Why don't you take your junk and get out of here?'" The Stardust remained open until 1977, but business had fallen off well before then. West and Charles left St. Louis in 1977, with the headline reading: "Stardust's End Brings Strip Down To Nothing." The club had been declared a "bawdy house," and St. Louis Circuit Judge Gary M. Gaertner ordered it padlocked. Charles later admitted that the club was used for prostitution. (An ironic footnote: The judge acted on a complaint filed by Circuit Attorney George Peach. In April 1992, after 16 years as a vigorous opponent of prostitution and pornography, Peach was arrested at a hotel near Lambert Field after offering a woman he thought was a prostitute $150 for sex. She was a St. Louis County decoy detective.) West and Charles moved to Florida, and West gradually retired from the stage. After Charles died at age 95 in 2001, acquaintances said, West led a rather reclusive life. But she kept in touch with old friends in the burlesque business through e-mail. Among them was Eugene Hanlon of Tampa, whose wife was a stripper named "Candy Baby" Caramelo. It was he who called the Hollywood police when he hadn't heard from West for several days. "The last time I talked to her on the phone, she said, 'I'm pooped,' and that was the last I heard from her," said Hanlon. A Vietnam War veteran, named Terry Klasek had caught West's act many times in his youth and established a brief online relationship with West the months before her death. The two exchanged memories. Klasek sent her some brassieres (size 42D); she sent back pictures and warm thoughts. West wanted to know what had become of the DeBaliviere Strip. She said she still kept up with the Cardinals and told Klasek, "You are tops on my list!" Now Klasek has only his pictures and his memories. "I learned that all fame is fleeting as I mourn my friend," Klasek wrote in an e-mail to STLtoday after West's death. "The end of an era for sure." Or as her Florida landlady, Muriel Kirschner, said: "I have to tell you, she was a beautiful woman. The strip-geezers were right -- she was quite an attraction." ST. LOUIS Jurors on Thursday convicted a man in a fatal shooting outside a downtown St. Louis nightclub. Leron Harris, 28, was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Mark Schlemmer, 38, of Collinsville, who was leaving a Halloween party around 2:15 a.m. Nov. 1, 2019 when he was shot and killed. It was the second time Harris faced trial in the case because a jury could not reach a decision following a trial last year. Police said Schlemmer was shot as customers were leaving Europe, a club that was roughly a block off Washington Avenue on North 15th Street, when shots rang out. Friends and loved ones told the Post-Dispatch following his death that Schlemmer was survived by two daughters and that he was "full of life." A friend said Schlemmer was not the intended target of the shooting. As part of his conviction, Harris will automatically receive a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. CLAYTON A St. Louis County man convicted of nine counts of rape involving eight teen girls was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences on Thursday after victims testified about the years of pain he caused. One mother who took the stand said her daughter was 13 when Dominic Yocco contacted the girl through the social media app Snapchat, picked her up from a St. Charles County home and raped her. The girl, who once dreamed of getting on the Disney Channel and American Idol, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She died by suicide before the case went to trial, so her accusations were not part of Yoccos conviction. She was a little girl who had not even had her first kiss, the mother said on the stand. It broke my heart. I couldnt fix it for her. I couldnt protect her. St. Louis County Judge Ellen Ribaudo sentenced Yocco to 16 life sentences with eligibility for parole in 83 years. Yocco was convicted by a jury in September of nine counts of rape, six counts of sodomy and one count of attempted sodomy. He was acquitted on two counts of statutory sodomy. He was eligible for a life sentence because jurors deemed him a predatory sexual offender. I have panic attacks that last hours, one of Yoccos victims testified at sentencing Thursday. She later added: I will never forget how disgusting of a person Dominic is. Testimony at trial showed Yocco, 23, contacted the girls using social media, then plied them with alcohol and drugs before forcing himself onto them despite their refusals or while they were blacked out. In most of the encounters, prosecutors said, Yocco sexually assaulted the girls at his grandmothers home in the 1600 block of Celerity Drive north of Florissant, where he also lived. Yocco was 17 and 18 at the time, between 2016 and 2018. The girls were 16 and younger. Yocco gave a lengthy statement on his behalf Thursday, placing blame on the media, prosecutors, investigators and the victims, while denying the crimes, claiming the encounters were fabricated or consensual. He emphasized his own young age at the time of the crimes and quoted Bible verses about false accusations. I pray (God) will forgive you all for your wicked ways, Yocco told the courtroom where several victims and their families sat. He later said: I do not regret anything in life. ... I have learned a lot from what Ive been through. Yocco ended his statement with a social media plug: Hashtag Free Dom, he said. Yoccos mother, grandmother and aunt also spoke on his behalf, arguing to the judge Yocco has a heart of gold. In her time as a Texas school librarian, Carolyn Foote watched the image of her profession veer from shrinking violets behind spectacles cataloging titles to pedophiles and groomers out to pollute the minds of the nations youth. Librarians came from a climate of being so appreciated to hearing this message that were reviled, said Foote, co-founder of Freadom Fighters, an advocacy group for librarians that has nearly 15,000 Twitter followers. It was an astonishing turn of events. A lot of librarians are asking themselves whether they want to remain in the profession, she added. At least five people I know have retired early. Once a comforting presence at story circle and book fairs, librarians have been condemned, bullied and drawn into battles over censorship as school and library boards face intensifying pressure from conservatives seeking to ban books exploring racial and LGBTQ themes. Those voices have grown stronger in red states since the pandemic, when parental groups opposed to mask mandates expanded their sights and became more involved in how and what their children were taught. Recent polls suggest most Americans are not in favor of banning books. But concentrated pressure by politically connected parental groups, said Peter Bromberg, a board member at EveryLibrary, a nonprofit library advisory group, has librarians facing a great deal of stress. There are signs on peoples lawns calling librarians pedophiles. They face pressure from principals and administrators over book displays, and neighbors talk about them being an arm of Satan. Some librarians are fighting back; others have lost or left their jobs. The culture wars over books come at a time when about 27% of public libraries have reduced staff because of budget cuts and other reasons, according to a 2021 national survey. Lessa Kananiopua Pelayo-Lozado, president of the American Library Assn., said librarians problems are compounded by attacks that are part of an effort seeking to abolish diverse ideas and erode this country of freedom of expression. I see it as the dismantling of education. _____ A number of school board meetings in recent years have become explosive and emblematic of the countrys political animosities. Parents yell, boo, shake fists and hold up sexually graphic images in dramas that play out on social media. Similar scenes have erupted at public libraries, including at the Patmos Library in western Michigan, where at least two librarians have quit amid pressure and harassment from residents demanding the removal of LGBTQ books and young adult graphic novels. At the librarys December board meeting, librarian Jean Reicher denounced critics a week after the building closed early over fears for the staffs safety. She said that signs around town labeled her a pedophile and that shed received abusive phone calls and had cameras pointed at her. Her emotional retort came a month after a campaign led by conservatives succeeded in defunding the library, forcing it to rely on donations. We have been threatened. We have been cursed, said Reicher. How dare you people. You dont know me. You dont know anything about me. You have said Ive sexualized your children. Im grooming your children. She raised her hands. Her anger welled. I have six grandkids out there, she said, ticking off the offenses aimed at her. I moved to this town 2 years ago, and I regret it every day for the last year. This has been horrible, she continued. I wasnt raised this way. I believe in God. Im a Catholic. Im a Christian. Im everything you are. School and library boards are encountering demands from conservative lawmakers and parental groups, such as Moms for Liberty and Mama Bears Rising, and in a few instances the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys, to scour libraries of what they consider upsetting pornographic and LGBTQ depictions. Many conservatives criticize schools as overrun with progressive ideas that are confusing children about race and gender. By exposing our children to adult concepts such as gender identity we are asking them to carry a load that is much too heavy for them, Kit Hart, a Moms for Liberty member, said in a video posted last year from a school board meeting in Carroll County, Md. A 10-year-old should not be reduced to his sexuality. A video posted on the Moms for Liberty website shows another one of its members outlining her concerns at a public meeting in Mecklenburg, N.C.: Parents beware of terms like social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion. Those inherently good things are being used to disguise a biased political agenda, she said. Our schools are becoming indoctrination camps and a breeding ground for hatred and division. Florida and other states have placed tougher restrictions on books that schools can stock. A Missouri law passed last year makes it a crime for a school to provide sexually explicit material to a student. After a discrimination complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Education Departments Office for Civil Rights is investigating a Texas school district after a superintendent directed librarians to remove LGBTQ-related books. We have been thrown to the forefront of the cultural wars whether we want to be there or not, said Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian in Livingston Parish, La., who last year broke out in hives and fell into depression after she was threatened for speaking against censorship. Its not fun to be vilified in your small town or the country at large. Its all related to their using political fear and outrage. And theyre using children to do it. Jones was skewered by conservative activists, including Citizens for a New Louisiana, after she warned at a library meeting that hate and fear disguised as moral outrage have no place in Livingston Parish. A picture of her appeared online with a red circle around her head resembling a target and she was called a pig and a supporter of teaching anal sex to 11-year-olds. Someone suggested she should be slapped. Martha Hickson, a high school librarian in Annandale, N.J., endured similar stress and said she lost 12 pounds in one week after she was accused by a parent at a school board meeting of being a groomer by providing graphic novels and memoirs, such as Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, that could influence children toward heinous acts. What really stung was that my name was used in that context, said Hickson, 63, who in 2020 received the American Assn. of School Librarians Intellectual Freedom Award. It was devastating. I broke down and I couldnt stop crying. She couldnt catch her breath, she said, and couldnt speak in full sentences. I cracked two teeth from grinding and was fitted with a night guard. I go to the pool now and swim three times a week. It washes the stress away. Jessica Brassington, head of the Texas-based Mama Bears Rising, which advocates for increased parental oversight in education, said her intent is not to rebuke librarians or teachers but to get stricter state guidelines on selecting school books in what she sees as a broader war against her Christian faith. We want to protect our children. Weve seen the dark side of what can happen beyond the book. Suicide. Alienation, said Brassington, whose organization has pressed for the removal of books in school districts and warned against children being indoctrinated by an evil sexual agenda. We want to know what books are available to our children. ... The parents are being bypassed. _____ Calls to ban certain books in schools have arisen for generations among liberal and conservative parents, educators and activist groups. Classics such as Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings have been pulled from reading lists. Books deemed to be obscene such as The Catcher in the Rye and Tropic of Cancer were censored for decades. In the 1980s, well-funded and organized groups like the Christian right Moral Majority condemned books on secular humanism. Those battles echo today and have accelerated as religious conservatives and right-leaning politicians, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have backed bills to limit school instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. Of the 1,648 titles banned in schools across the country in the 2021-22 school year, according to a PEN America study, 41% had prominent LGBTQ characters or explicitly explored LGBTQ themes. Its hard to compare this to anything other than the Red Scare in the 1950s, said Foote, a retired high school librarian of 29 years who was named a Champion of Change by President Obama. Theres nothing else remotely close to this. Librarians are being pushed out of the process of selecting books, said Tasslyn Magnusson, a Wisconsin writer and teacher who has compiled a national database of books being challenged in school districts. Were cutting kids off from all the things they need to function in a diverse society. Theyre trying to [keep] kids from learning about the world. How will kids grow into good Americans and global citizens? I just read somewhere James Baldwin got banned. School librarians have long been accustomed to hearing from angry parents. Some parents request that their child not be allowed to check out certain books. Demands to remove a book from circulation traditionally go through a committee review process. But librarians have complained recently that thorough reviews are sometimes skipped or influenced by pressure from parental groups. That pressure in some districts is likely to make for less diverse reading lists as librarians choose not to select certain books. If librarians are being threatened with lawsuits and fines, said Pelayo-Lozado, whose association is holding a nationwide conference this weekend that will address book banning, it can lead to self-censoring. Hicksons school district in New Jersey faced criticism in 2021 when a group of parents wanted Gender Queer, Lawn Boy and other books removed from the library. A complaint was filed against Hickson with police, but the country prosecutor did not pursue charges. At later school board meetings, a contingent of parents, students and residents urged the board not to purge those titles. A district committee reviewed the books and last year decided to keep them on the shelves. But I was still tarred and feathered, said Hickson. Amid pressure from her union and support in the community, the school board said accusations of malicious motives against Hickson were unfounded. I look at these kids and my heart breaks, she said. These groups wanting to ban books have a whole political machinery around them and are using books as proxies to attack people in society. Kids have to deal with bullying, slurs and shoving. Jones in Louisiana said school libraries are often refuges for students to explore what they may be experiencing along racial and LGBTQ themes. A lot of parents supported me but they were scared to speak out because of harassment, said Jones, president of the Louisiana Assn. of School Librarians. Some students question their identity and they come to me and ask about LGBTQ books. But the parents want to keep it quiet so the child is not harassed. This whole thing has turned my life upside down. Jones is on medical leave until next semester. A defamation suit she filed against two men, including one belonging to the conservative group Citizens for a New Louisiana, was dismissed. She said she will appeal. Last month, state Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry, who is running for governor, announced a tip line for people to protect children and report library books that contain extremely graphic sexual content. Theyre using librarians again for their politics, said Jones, who is writing a book about her ordeal and forming a citizens alliance against censorship in the states 64 parishes. JEFFERSON CITY Missouri has effectively legally orphanized around 1,500 children, according to the director of the states child welfare agency. Those children have had their legal ties to their biological parents severed by a court, in whats called termination of parental rights but the social services agency had no adoptive parents ready to take their place. They wait, in foster care, to be adopted or age out of the system. If you know anybody who wants to adopt a child, an older child whos got that situation, let us know, because those kids need to be moved on, Darrell Missey, director of Childrens Division, told lawmakers Tuesday at a House budget subcommittee hearing for the Department of Social Services. Those orphanized children, in limbo, are part of the broader issue Missey laid out for lawmakers: Too many kids enter foster care, and once entangled in the system, they linger. There are more than 13,300 kids in foster care in Missouri which includes placement settings such as temporary care with relatives, traditional foster families with strangers and group residential homes. Only around 45% of foster children returned home safely to their parents within 12 months in 2021, the most recently available data far below the federal benchmark of 75%. The state removes children at a rate nearly twice the national average, even when accounting for poverty, according to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. The reason, Missey said, is twofold: At the front-end, Missouri does too little to prevent kids from entering foster care in the first place, he said, and at the back-end, there are too few resources to move foster kids to stable, permanent homes. Often, when kids come into care, Missey said, its a result of poverty, mental illness and addiction. If you put services on the front end to prevent those things from getting to a place where a child had to be removed, thats a much better expenditure of money, he said, adding that each child in foster care costs the state around $25,000 per year. It more than pays for itself over time, Missey said, of prevention efforts. Social services leadership pitched lawmakers on a new philosophy to rebuild and reform Childrens Division, as part of the overall agencys budget proposal for next year, which features funding 100 new Childrens Division staff as phase one. State Rep. Sarah Unsicker, D-Shrewsbury, who sits on the committee that heard the social services budget, said in an interview with The Independent the preventive services outlined in the budget are definitely a step forward, but I think a lot more needs to be done. In the hearing, she pointed to the limited funding for a crisis program, which is designed to provide temporary child care relief for parents facing crisis, to avoid their children being taken into foster care. DSS leadership said the issue is that the providers for that program are limited, so they didnt request a funding increase. (Missey is) asking for what he is hoping he can get right now, Unsicker said in an interview. Unsicker also pointed to a need to bolster Missouris social safety net more broadly. Because poverty is often conflated with child neglect, ensuring adequate housing assistance is available, for instance, could prevent children from being taken out of their homes for their poor living conditions, Unsicker said although that wouldnt be in DSSs direct purview. Missey said he hopes this is the beginning of a shift in the departments priorities for years to come. Ive had people already ask me, Do they think this is enough? Missey said, And as Ive explained to people, this is just the first step. He added, I think its going to lead to great practice once we can get there. Phase one One challenge of having so many kids in state care is that it requires a lot of staff to manage them, which Missouris Childrens Division does not have, causing unmanageable caseloads, low morale, and high turnover rates and vacancies. As just phase one of the plan to reform the department, Missey said, the department hopes to hire 100 more staff, using part of the $22 million Gov. Mike Parson recommended be allocated to the division in his budget proposal for Childrens Division Reconstruction and Reform. Missey said that phase is completely dependent on the Legislature enacting the governors recommendation to increase state workers pay across-the-board by 8.7%, so they can fill those positions and retain existing staff. The starting salary for an entry-level Childrens Division worker now, with a cost-of-living boost from the governor last year, plus a 10% boost Childrens Division allocated to caseworkers from their vacancy-related savings, is $39,390.96. With the 8.7% raises, Missey said, Missouri will approach the average salaries of the surrounding states child welfare workers but not meet it. Approaching it is far better than we are now, which is nowhere near it. Missey said the real number of new employees they need is much higher: They have around 1,800 workers in the agency but by some estimates need closer to 3,400, primarily to handle the large foster care caseload. To be on par with neighboring Arkansas, Missey said, they would need 1,000 more workers than they currently have. Im not asking for 1,000 people, Missey said. Missey said for the additional 100 staff, the general idea would be to use them in one of two ways: to increase efficiencies for everybody with regard to the work they do now meaning to lower existing caseloads and the other is to further the work we do toward prevention, he added. The new workers would be utilized in a way designed to bring the number of kids in care down, Missey said, although he also said the department is still working to piece that together and not count our chickens before theyve hatched. The state has shrunk most of its prevention-oriented workforce, called Family Centered Service workers. Those staff are called in when the state has concerns that dont rise to the level of removing the child but most have been moved away from that work, to cover child abuse and neglect investigations and foster care case management because of staffing issues, Missey said at the hearing. The number of open Family Centered Service cases has dropped over the past five years, according to DSSs annual reports. Longer-term, reducing the number of kids in care could allow more staff to be moved to prevention work, Missey said. Parson cut 96 jobs from Childrens Division in 2020, citing COVID-related declining revenue, though they were mostly supervisors and mid-level management rather than frontline workers. The same month, former director Jennifer Tidball turned down a Senate committees offer to help staff more positions. During the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday, Chairman Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, noted that the governor is asking for 100 new employees in the Childrens Division even though the division turned down 50 that year. What has changed from when we tried to add 50 positions and were told they were not needed? Hough asked. Budget Director Dan Haug answered: We have new leadership over there that has taken a fresh look at it. Robert Knodell took over as acting Department of Social Services director in October 2021. Soon after, Missey stepped down as a circuit judge in Jefferson County to become head of Childrens Division. Missey said eventually, he may try to target the new prevention-oriented staff to the geographic areas with the highest rates of foster children in care. Should we target those people there and do it all at once? If we did it all at once, this would be much bigger, Missey said, adding that if the legislators decide Childrens Division needs more workers faster, we would take them. With the governors recommendations, Knodell said, he believes that will make our child service worker salaries more competitive. But ultimately the solution to our problem is really more prevention, Knodell later continued, and fewer children having to come into care. Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, has disagreed with Misseys emphasis on hiring more workers, arguing instead that the best preventive services would include providing emergency help directly to families. By email, Wexler said he believes Misseys new plans continue to be misguided. All those new hires will only wind up widening the net of needless intervention into families, Wexler said, and youll get the same lousy system only bigger. Instead of spending money to hire 100 more people, Wexler said the funds should be directed into emergency concrete help for families: Child care aid, rent subsidies, one-time emergency cash. And those funds, he argued, should be administered by community-based, community-run organizations. That would significantly reduce cases in which poverty is confused with neglect, Wexler said. Instead of increasing the supply of caseworkers, reduce the demand for caseworkers by directly helping families. Return on investmentThe budget would provide a slight boost to existing contracted preventative services, through a rate increase for third party providers but Missey indicated more significant prevention efforts would come down the line, once the bare minimum workforce needs were met and more Childrens Division staff could be shifted to prevention work. The governor recommended rate increases of 13% for contracted providers, DSS officials explained, which would include a handful of contractors who provide preventative services now. Childrens treatment services includes contractors who provide mental health assessments, parent aide and education services, and the home-based crisis intervention program to keep families together, called intensive in-home services. Intensive in-home services, which consists of weekslong intensive support for qualifying families when a child is at immediate risk of being removed, often including help connecting the family with community resources, generally has fewer openings than demand and served around 1,500 families in 2021. In 2021, the latest state data, 19 children were not accepted to intensive in-home services due to a lack of openings and were then placed in state custody. Chief Financial Officer of DSS Patrick Luebbering said the childrens treatment services providers have not received a rate increase since 2007 and many of the services are prevention this is where we want to put more bang for the buck, to keep kids out of care. With the governors proposed rate increase, the budgeted amount for childrens treatment services would increase from $22.9 million to $25.5 million, though the budget did not break down the spending for intensive in-home services specifically. Another preventative program, called crisis care, is composed of short term emergency placement so that, Missey said, where the parents cant take care of the child, that child doesnt necessarily have to come into foster care. Unsicker questioned whether the roughly $2 million allocated to crisis care in the budget is sufficient. Youre putting so much emphasis on prevention, and putting more money into prevention, Unsicker said at this weeks budget hearing, and Im just looking at this and its $2 million, which is not a whole lot in the scope of our budget. Missey said that its also a question of whether current providers are available to use that money, and said they should have conversations with places like the crisis nursery center in St. Louis to ask whether they can expand. Luebbering added that the crisis services are limited and specific services and they havent been fully expended them the last few years, and that if we were thinking we were needing more money here, we probably wouldve requested. Were trying to look at what other prevention type services out there that we need to build up, Luebbering said, through Family First. The Family First Prevention Services Act, enacted by Congress in 2018, set out to provide federal funds focused on prevention resources, and to reduce the use of congregate homes for foster youth, also called residential treatment facilities. The state has been appropriated the same roughly $10 million to spend to develop new programs for Family First every year since fiscal year 2020. They have, as of last fiscal year, spent just under $300,000 of that now $10.8 million. Missey and Luebbering said they hope to spend more this year. Rep. Deb Lavender, D-Kirkwood, who is on the subcommittee that heard this budget this week, said at the hearing she agreed with the shift toward prevention. Lavender questioned whether the money the state pays for foster care could be better spent given to the family itself, to avoid neglect claims rooted in poverty. So you take my kid, you put him in foster care, you pay the foster parents money. What if I needed that and if I had that money, then my kid would no longer be neglected and you would have never taken them? Lavender asked. Missey said its a question he often had when he served as a judge. The definition of neglect is so broad you could drive a truck through it, Missey said. And so its philosophically exactly the right question to ask, particularly as we move forward to shift the nature of this. In an interview, Lavender said the 13% increase for contractors plus 100 new workers is a good place to start, and that she was encouraged by the direction of the department under Director Missey, and understood the department may not be able to use a massive increase in preventative funding abruptly, without this transition. Rep. Michael ODonnell, R-Oakville, said at the hearing that he appreciated the discussion of return on investment, meaning what the state spends on foster care now versus what it could spend investing in prevention. I love the fact that you guys actually have a vision that says were going to reduce the number of kids in foster care, ODonnell said. Its going to have a fiscal impact on the entire state budget. Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and Twitter. {p style=text-align: left;} JEFFERSON CITY Cities across Missouri would be barred from prohibiting pet stores in response to a national crackdown on puppy mills, under legislation introduced in the Missouri Senate. Sen. Justin Brown, R-Rolla, filed a proposal earlier this week that would prevent local officials from adopting or enforcing a regulation that prohibits the operation of a state-licensed pet shop. It comes as six states and hundreds of cities and counties have enacted ordinances that have forced pet stores to collaborate with rescue organizations to sell or show adoptable cats and dogs, rather than purchase puppies raised by breeders. Those bans could have significant repercussions on Missouri dog breeders. In a study released last year, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found that 43% of the puppies shipped to New York pet stores arrive from Missouri, which is home to hundreds of commercial dog breeders, the largest number of any state in the U.S. In 2018, the Missouri Department of Agriculture said there were 893 licensed breeders in the state, up from about 785 in 2015. But cities and states have been banning the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in retail pet stores amid concerns that pet stores are stocked with animals bred and possibly abused in puppy mills. Under a New York law approved in December, retail stores that previously sold pets can still operate and sell pet supplies and other accessories. They also can charge shelters and rescue groups rent to use their space for adoptions. Store owners face a $1,000 fine for violating the new rules. California was the first state to implement a ban in 2019. Washington, Maine, Maryland and Illinois also have prohibitions in place. Brown did not respond to a request for comment, but his legislation mirrors a proposal introduced in Indiana this year with the backing of Petland, a national pet store brand that maintains it does not purchase animals from mass-breeding facilities. On Jan. 9, just days after the Missouri Legislature began its annual spring session, Petland hired the powerful lobbying firm of Gamble & Schlemeier to represent them in the Capitol. Elizabeth Kunzelman, vice president of government affairs for Petland, told the Post-Dispatch that pet stores should have the freedom to keep their businesses. Animal rights activists continue to push retail pet store bans as the only answer to puppy mills. These are people who operate in the shadows to dodge animal welfare standards. But states like California and Illinois have found banning pet stores doesnt actually stop puppy mills, it fuels them, Kunzelman said. Thats because store bans eliminate the most transparent source of pets: a community store accountable to consumer protections, health codes, and elite standards in breeding. Our franchise owners are small businesses who bring pets and people together, abide by all animal health care codes, and put much care into their customers and employees. They should have the freedom to keep their business, she added. Cody Atkinson, the Missouri chapter director of the Humane Society of the United States said the bill is a bad solution to a nonexistent problem in the state of Missouri. No city in our state has attempted to regulate pet stores beyond state statute and this bill would handcuff local governments ability to respond at the community level to concerns of our citizens, Atkinson said. We do not believe an out-of-state business with direct ties to puppy mills for the past several decades should be dictating what we can and cant do in the Show-Me State. The legislation is Senate Bill 530. Mom and Dad know best? Amid a new spate of car thefts, carjackings and gunplay involving teens in St. Louis, court authorities made the bizarre decision to release three teens to the custody of their parents after the teens opened fire on police and other teens outside The City Foundry last weekend. It sure seems like the kids deserved the heavy dose of tough love that at least a few nights in juvenile detention would offer. Releasing them to their parents sends exactly the opposite message: feel free to offend again, the immediate consequences will be minimal. Besides, these were teenagers with serious firearms. One, age 15, had a Glock 29, illegally modified to be fully automatic. The other, age 16, had a stolen Glock 19. Its fairly clear from the circumstances that the parents in this case were not doing what parents are supposed to be doing: Looking after their kids and ensuring they were staying out of trouble. So authorities thinking was: Of course! Lets hand the kids back over to the very people who were doing a lousy job in the first place of monitoring their offspring. Its perhaps only because of the clear-headed thinking of the officers involved that the kids were apprehended without incident when circumstances could have ended very tragically for the teen gunmen. A spokesman for St. Louis Circuit Courts said the release was the result of improper processing procedures between the arresting officer and intake authorities. A new problem for Rep. Pinocchio Rep. George Santos is the gift that keeps on giving to editorial writers. The latest issue surrounding the New York Republican and serial fabulist is whether he improperly used the electronic signature of an accountant that, he said, was his campaign treasurer. The accountant says hes not. When Santos campaign filed amendments to its documentation with the Federal Election Commission last week, it notified the agency that the campaign has a new treasurer: Thomas Datwyler, a well-known accountant who has served several congressional campaigns but not this one. On Monday, we informed the Santos campaign that Mr. Datwyler would not be serving as treasurer, Datwylers attorney told ABC News. It appears that theres been a disconnect between that conversation and the filings today, which we did not authorize. Oops. Oddly enough, the filings that Datwyler says he didnt authorize, which list him in a campaign-treasurer job that he says he never accepted, also contain his electronic signature on the documents. Double oops. As a campaign expert told the news network: Its completely illegal to sign somebody elses name on a federal filing without their consent. Sneering at a martyr Like a lot of big-name politicians, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has published a book in advance of an expected presidential run. Unlike most, Pompeo appears to shrug off the murder of a journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was strangled and dismembered by a Saudi government that Pompeo coddled while in office. He didnt deserve to die, but we need to be clear about who he was and too many in the media were not, Pompeo wrote, according to NBC News, which obtained a copy in advance of last weeks release of the book, titled Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. The network said the book mocks the medias treatment of Khashoggi as too sympathetic. He scoffs at what he says is the image of the slain writer as a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward who was martyred for bravely criticizing the Saudi royal family through his opinion articles in the Washington Post. In fact, thats an unintentionally accurate account of what happened. If Pompeo runs for president, maybe he should include sneering at murdered journalists on his platform. Creepy crawly cancer detectors Ants arent just for ruining picnics anymore. Now scientists are training them to detect cancer. Ants communicate with each other using chemical signals that they can detect with their antennae the equivalent of how mammals noses can detect scents. But ants are extraordinarily good at it, to the point that they can recognize the scent of cancer in cells. As reported in The Washington Post, researchers in Europe grafted pieces of a human breast-cancer tumor onto mice, then used the lure of sugar to train ants to recognize which mice had the cancer. The ants were then placed in proximity to tubes of the mices urine, and they congregated near the cancer-affected urine more than the healthy sample. Researchers stressed that if and when the day comes that ants actually are routinely used to detect cancer, they will do it using methods like urine samples, and wont have to actually crawl on patients. Which is good, because some squeamish people out there might decide theyd rather take their chances with cancer. Release them for releasing the Kraken The city of Beirut is still reeling from the effects of a massive explosion in 2020 resulting from the improper and potentially illegal storage of highly volatile ammonium nitrate stored at the city port. More than 200 people were killed and 6,000 injured in the explosion. Lebanese demanded justice and accountability for the authorities responsible. On Wednesday, Lebanons top prosecutor ordered all suspects detained in the investigation to be released. And he filed charges against the judge leading the investigation. Its difficult to tell whether the prosecutor was intervening on behalf of the corrupt officials responsible for the blast or was trying to root out corruption in the investigation. As Missouri's governor ponders options after exiting office in 2024, may we suggest opening the Mike Parson School of Advanced Leadership Avoidance? There, he could teach politicians the art of providing circuitous, evasive non-answers to straightforward questions on important issues like how to prevent deranged people from carrying out mass shootings. Parson demonstrated his leadership-avoidance expertise in an interview this week with St. Louis Public Radio. Reporter Sarah Kellogg asked him about funding for school safety an issue particularly on the minds of St. Louisans following the Oct. 24 mass shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, where a teacher and student were killed. Parson wants the Legislature to approve $50 million in grants for schools statewide to beef-up security. "It's about keeping kids safe, keeping teachers safe, keeping administration safe," he explained. Missourians from all political perspectives would have a hard time arguing with that. "And how do we do that?" Parson added without answering his own question. "And what did we learn from St. Louis that we can do better, the way things occur when a tragedy does happen? I think you always, and this the law enforcement in me [as a former sheriff], when a tragic event happens, you should always go back and reevaluate everything that occurred, why it occurred. Is there something you can do that's better? And I think it's an unfortunate tragedy, but we need to learn from that." Kellogg reminded Parson that the mother of the 19-year-old gunman in the Oct. 24 shooting had called police, begging them to take his gun away because he was mentally unstable. Police said Missouri law didn't allow them to do that. So how about passing a red-flag law that would enable police to halt a mass shooting before it starts? Parson immediately dodged and deflected. "People would argue, you could've did this differently or you could've did that different. If the security guards had been armed, would it have made a difference that day?" Then he tried a different tack, emphasizing government helplessness: "People with mental health issues, deranged people, you know, you just don't have control over them." He shrugged off red-flag laws as "more of a political statement. And that's what drives everybody apart, when you start going down those roads. But I think when you start tagging things with those political hot-button issues, you automatically are in the wrong direction. You're going to be divisive just like the Second Amendment, what do you aim to gain out of it?" Then he brought it back to the original theme: "And for me, it's always about how do you really make things better?" Identify what went wrong. But don't deprive murderous deranged people of their Second Amendment rights. Brought to you by the Mike Parson School of Advanced Leadership Avoidance. EQS-News: Epigenomics AG / Key word(s): Personnel Epigenomics AG: Resignation of Supervisory Board Chairman Heino von Prondzynski 27.01.2023 / 18:08 CET/CEST The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Epigenomics AG: Resignation of Supervisory Board Chairman Heino von Prondzynski Berlin (Germany), January 27, 2023 -The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Epigenomics AG (Frankfurt Prime Standard: ECX, OTCQX: EPGNY; the "Company"), Heino von Prondzynski, today informed the Boards that he will resign from his mandate effective March 31, 2023, for health reasons and will leave the Supervisory Board at that time. Greg Hamilton, CEO of Epigenomics AG, thanked Heino von Prondzynski on behalf of the entire Executive Board: "We deeply regret his departure as he is a proven expert and business leader in the field of molecular diagnostics. We would like to thank Heino von Prondzynski for his commitment, leadership and guidance to the Company and its employees. We wish him all the best health. Mr. von Prondzynski was a member of the Supervisory Board from May 2007 to March 2010, and has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Epigenomics AG since May 2012. Prior to that, he had an international career, among others as CEO of the Roche Diagnostics Division at F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Basel, Switzerland, and member of the corporate executive committee of Roche. The Supervisory Board will appoint a successor from among its members at short notice. About Epigenomics Epigenomics AG is a molecular diagnostics company focused on blood testing for the early detection of cancer. Based on its proprietary biomarker technology for the detection of methylated DNA, Epigenomics develops and markets blood tests for various cancer indications with high unmet medical need. Epigenomics' lead product is the blood test Epi proColon for the early detection of colorectal cancer. Epi proColon is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is marketed in the United States and Europe as well as other selected countries. HCCBloodTest, a blood test for the detection of liver cancer, have received the CE Mark for marketing in Europe. For further information please visit www.epigenomics.com. Contact: Company Epigenomics AG, Geneststrasse 5, 10829 Berlin Tel +49 (0) 30 24345 0, Fax +49 (0) 30 24345 555, Email: contact@epigenomics.com Investor Relations IR.on AG, Frederic Hilke, Tel +49 221 9140 970, Email: ir@epigenomics.com Note on forward-looking statements This publication expressly or implicitly contains forward-looking statements concerning Epigenomics AG and its business. These statements involve certain known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause Epigenomics AG's actual results, financial condition and performance to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Epigenomics makes this announcement as of the date of this release and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information or future events or otherwise. Turkish UAV manufacturer successfully flight tested its new Kizilelma jet-propelled UAV in December 2022. This flight test came almost a year earlier than its scheduled 2023 first flight. Production of the new jet UAV is now planned to begin in 2024, and it will operate from the new LHD TCG-Anadolu. This ship has a flight deck large enough for Kizilelma to take off from and land on because of its ski-jump design. Kizilelma can carry 1.5 tons of weapons and travel at speeds of up to 800 kilometers an hour at altitudes of about 12,500 meters (40,000 feet) for up to five hours. The UAV has an AESA radar enabling it to use air-to-air missiles and GPS guided bombs. A satellite link is used to remotely control Kizilelma. The new Anadolu is an LHD (Landing Helicopter Deck) amphibious ship that has a well deck in the rear of the ship for its 27 AAVs and six amphibious landing craft load troops and equipment and exit for shore. There is an 1,880 square meter vehicle deck behind the well deck that holds the 27 AAVs (amphibious assault vehicles) and other vehicles. There is also a 1,400 square meter reinforced vehicle deck for tanks and armored vehicles or loaded AAVs. Anadolu can carry up to 800 troops if used for amphibious operations or even more civilians if used to assist in a natural disaster. Otherwise Anadolu just has the ship crew of 250 plus up to 200 aircraft crew and maintainers. Turkey originally planned to operate F-35B fighters from the Anadolu but did not get any because they also bought the Russian S400 air defense system which was against NATO policy, especially when involving the F-35 and its many technical secrets. To replace the F-35Bs Turkey developed the Kizilelma TB3 UAV, a version of their current TB2 UAV (Bayraktar) with folding wings and a new jet engine that makes possible short take-offs and landings. The Kizilelma was designed to land and take off from the LHD and has folding wings so more can be stored below in the hangar deck, which is expanded by taking over space normally used by the amphibious craft and vehicles. The LHD can carry up to 50 Kizilelmas because of their folding wings. The Anadolu is a 27,000 ton LHD with a top speed of 39 kilometers an hour. Max range is 9,000 kilometers at cruising speed of 30 kilometers an hour. Armament consists of three close-in weapons systems to deal with anti-ship missiles and five remotely controlled autocannon. Anadolu and Kizilelma are the latest examples of Turkeys decades-long program to become a major arms developer, manufacturer and exporter. Most of the new weapons dont get export orders but are used by the Turkish military, and often the Foreign Ministry as well. President Erdogan claimed that a 2022 Turkish ballistic missile test scared Greece and that was intentional. Erdogan once again accused Greece of militarily reinforcing its islands in the Aegean Sea. The test Erdogan referred to was the October test launch of a Tayfun short-range ballistic missile. The missile has an estimated range of 600 kilometers and was launched from a mobile launcher located on a military base in northern Turkey, east of Trabzon. The missile flew west, and struck the sea near the Black Sea port of Sinop (near Istanbul). Turkey said the impact point was 561 kilometers from the launcher. The missile is another example of Turkeys ability to produce sophisticated modern weapons. These new weapons have not made the Turkish military more powerful, at least not as much as expected. President Erdogan is responsible for this problem. For example, he declared an attempted military coup in 2015 justified a purge of the military and civil service. Anyone with questionable loyalty to Erdogan and his Islamic government was dismissed. The purge was so extensive that the military and many government operations became less effective and more corrupt. The corruption was tolerated when it resulted in major financial benefits for major Erdogan supporters and members of Erdogans extended family. One of the most blatant and costliest examples of this corruption was the military being forced to buy the locally developed and manufactured Altay tank. Turkish manufacturer BMC began this effort in 2008 and it was initially a struggle because the proposed Altay tank was more expensive and less capable than the American M1 and German Leopard that Turkey had access to. Major customers for the M1 are allowed to assemble it locally. Egypt does this and Poland, the latest customer for M1s, is doing the same. Turkey could have saved a lot of time and money by assembling M1s locally and using what was learned from that to develop a Turkish tank that was cheaper and more capable than the Altay. But local assembly operations provide less immediate and far fewer opportunities for corruption, especially for Erdogans political party and close associates. The Altay project did that because a distant relative of Erdogan was a major investor in BMC and benefited from any government business BMC received. Turkish journalists were discouraged from covering this but well-informed foreign journalists were not. Meanwhile, BMC had to shop around for counties able to supply them with key Altay components that most Western nations refused to supply because of Turkish and Turkish-hired mercenary battlefield abuses of Arabs in Syria and Libya, and of Kurds everywhere. In 2021 BMC was able to obtain needed Altay components from two South Korean firms who agreed to build engine and transmission systems for Altay. The Turks are still looking for someone to supply composite armor equal to the French design. If not, they can use less capable designs that are adequate. Turkey already paid South Korea nearly half a billion dollars for use of South Korean tank tech developed for South Korea K1 and K2 tanks. Both of these were based on the U.S. M1 and some licensed U.S. tech was used, but the South Koreans gradually developed their own engines and other components. These are free to export. Turkey has been a major customer for licensed South Korean military tech. All of this greatly increased the Altay budget, providing ample opportunities to reward pro-Erdogan politicians and Erdogan himself. This scandal is one reason why Erdogan is losing so much voter support in Turkey. This threatens Erdogan and his party. Erdogan is very worried about the corruption accusations and Turkeys shaky economy. National elections are scheduled for June 2023. He is seeking reelection and insists this will be his last term as president. Israel can help the Turkish economy and sees maintaining close ties with Greece and Turkey as an asset and opportunity to reduce the tensions between these two NATO members. If Erdogan is out of office, government spending policies will change and that is not good news for Altay. In the south (Gaza) Israel retaliated against Islamic Jihad and Hamas for rockets fired at southern Israel. Iron Dome intercepted the rockets headed for populated areas. The Israeli airstrikes destroyed Islamic Jihad and Hamas rocket manufacturing and storage facilities. This was the first rocket attack from Gaza this year and violated the ceasefire in which Hamas agreed to prevent such attacks. The United States, Egypt and Qatar tried to discourage Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad from firing rockets. Hamas did cooperate but would not crack down on Islamic Jihad to stop them from launching rockets. Hamas fears triggering a civil war in Gaza if they try to control Islamic Jihad. External Threats Israel now has Arab allies against Iran. A growing number of Moslem states are establishing diplomatic and trade relations with Israel. After more than a century of increasing anti-Semitism, most of Israels Arab neighbors realized that Israel would be a valuable economic, diplomatic and military ally against common enemies like Shia Iran and Islamic terrorism in general. Israel is also the only nation in the region with nukes and reliable ballistic missiles, which are also used to put Israeli spy satellites into orbit. It is also the worst of times because Iran has personnel operating on Israeli borders and an increasingly effective Cyber War effort against Israel. And there is growing dissatisfaction in the West and the Middle East with Palestinian leadership failures and rampant corruption. Palestinians are convinced that Israel has no right to exist and only pretend to negotiate a peace deal because that is useful for obtaining foreign aid. Arabs in general are now telling the Palestinians to take whatever peace deal they can because cash and other aid from Arab nations will continue to disappear unless the Palestinians solve their own problems with corruption and fixation on destroying Israel. Many Palestinians are willing to change but their corrupt leaders are not and use their war on Israel as an excuse to violently suppress any Palestinian opposition to the current suicidal policy. Iran remains obsessed with destroying Israel and no one else in the region agrees with them on that goal. Irans presence in Syria is the current threat, so Israeli efforts to make a peace deal with the Syrian Assad government depend on convincing the Assads that with Israeli help they can survive declaring their independence from Iranian domination. Israel has long recognized this opportunity and in mid-2022 sent Basher Assad an ultimatum that, if he did not cease cooperating with the Iranians (especially the movement and storage of Iranian missiles to Syria), Israeli airstrikes would go after Assad and family members by bombing the many luxury residences (palaces'') used by the Syrian family in and around Damascus. The Assads had earlier denied this degree of cooperation but this time Israel pointed out it was sharing intel with Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies and that means it is a lot more difficult for Assad to get away with lying to the Israelis. Arab nations and Israel were trying to get the Assads to switch sides and the Assads made a decision to stick with Iran without telling the wealthy Gulf Arab states he was hoping would invest in rebuilding the Syrian economy once the war was finally over. The Israelis did not follow through on their threat and it was believed that the Iranian threat to kill Assad and his family was a more compelling offer. While Israel and its Gulf Arab allies can agree on supporting the Assads, the United States cannot and continues to oppose any peace deal with the Assads. Israel and the Arabs can afford to quietly ignore the Americans on this. The current American government has managed to damage relations with Arab oil states and that is unlikely to change until the 2024 American presidential elections put a new government in charge. In early 2023 it is unclear what the real situation is between the Assads and their other real or potential allies and not-unfriendly neighbors, as in Russia, Turkey, the Arabs states and Israel. Iran is on good terms with Russia and Turkey but not the Arab states, Israel or Western nations in general. Iran is weakened by four months of internal protests and growing economic sanctions. Most Iranians want to end the war with Israel. The Iranian religious dictatorship has an irrational hatred for Israel, the United States and many of its Arab neighbors. The Iranian government is justifiably paranoid about what Israel may be up to when it comes to resolving this deadlock. The Israelis do not release any information about their operations against Iran and there have been some spectacular ones in the last few years. There is growing popular support for Israel inside Iran and that has made it easier for Israel to recruit Iranians to assist them for operations inside Iran. Few would mourn the sudden demise of the Iranian religious dictatorship but that would be difficult to carry out because of the homicidal fanaticism regularly demonstrated by the religious government and their IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) enforcers. Meanwhile Israel treats Iran as a major threat, especially because of the Iranian presence in Syria. Israel has been at war with Iran in Syria for nearly a decade, during which Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes and a few commando operations against Iranian operations in Syria. This cost Iran a lot of lives and money, and is one of the things restive Iranians want to halt by pulling Iranian forces out of Syria and Lebanon. But first the Iranians have to shut down the Iranian religious dictatorship, which, as expected, resists efforts to shut down operations in Syria. Iran controls irregular forces in Syria along with the more organized Hezbollah in Lebanon and the inept Hamas in Gaza. Iran also has ballistic missiles that can reach Israel and continued efforts to get guided rockets and short-range ballistic missiles into Syria and Lebanon. Hundreds of Israeli air strikes have prevented the guided weapons build up and formidable BMD (ballistic missiles defense) systems neutralize the use of missiles launched from Iran. So far the defenses have worked. While Iran is the greatest threat to Israel, the main threat to peace in the Middle East is an increasingly aggressive Turkey. Currently Turkey is trying to restore its good relations with Israel. For over a decade the Erdogan government in Turkey demonized Israel in order to gain support from Arab neighbors. That did not work and Turkey had to use force and coercion to subdue and exploit Arab neighbors. Reviving good relations with Israel is now a major goal. One reason for this is the fact that many Turks wanted to keep good relations with Israel and now a lot more agree with that. The Islamic party in Turkey and its leader (Erdogan) are in danger of being voted out of office and every vote counts, especially those of pro-Israel Turks. Inside Israel there is a growing possibility of political collapse and chaos within the Palestinian territories (West Bank and Gaza). Palestinian officials running both of these areas have run out of ideas and support from their constituents. If such a collapse does occur, Israel will be expected to go in and sort it out. That will be a difficult and thankless task that no one else wants to deal with. January 26, 2023: In the West Bank an Israeli raid to arrest some Islamic Jihad members planning attacks on Israelis resulted in none Palestinians killed, including three Islamic Jihad members. A fourth was arrested. The other six dead were Palestinian civilians hit by gunfire, most of it from the Islamic Jihad men who were firing wildly with automatic weapons at several Israeli soldiers. The Israeli fire was more accurate and aimed at the four Islamic Jihad men and their hideout. About twenty civilians were wounded. Palestinians blame Israel for defending itself and trying to stop groups like Islamic Jihad from attacking Israeli civilians and security personnel. Palestinians feel no sense of responsibility for instigating all this violence and many other Moslem countries go along with this. January 24, 2023: In the north (the Lebanon border) Israeli engineers have, since 2014 built a fortified and electronically monitored border zone along the entire 140-kilometer Lebanese border. In 2020 Israel began installing more seismic sensors as part of a tunnel construction detection system that has already proved its worth on the Gaza border and a few times on the Lebanon border. The new sensor network is being expanded to more of the Lebanese border. In 2018 Israel found and destroyed five Hezbollah tunnels and began work to discourage and reduce, but not stop, Hezbollah tunneling efforts. Compared to Hamas in Gaza, Iran backed Hezbollah had a lot more cash and other resources for tunnel building and experimented with new techniques. Israel assumes that one or more of these tunnels may remain undetected and operational for a while under construction before they are detected. Unlike the Hamas tunnels in Gaza the situation is quite different in the north. For one thing there are 10,000 UN peacekeepers on the Lebanon border as part of the peace deal that ended the 2006 war with Hezbollah. The UN force is supposed to detect and prevent (or at least report) cross border violations of the peace deal. Israel is not blaming the UN force for failing to notice anything about the tunnels but the Israelis expected the UN to pay closer attention to the military buildup Iran is organizing in Lebanon for the express purpose of attacking Israel. Hezbollah is banned from having any forces near the border and responded by building twenty 18 meter (59 feet) high observation towers. Israel did not object because they want Hezbollah to get a good look at the Israeli fortified and heavily patrolled border zone. This border control system has prevented Hezbollah, or smugglers, from getting across. Hezbollah could always monitor the construction of the border zone with quad-copers or larger Iranian UAVs. Trying to send some of these UAVs across the border demonstrated that the Israeli air defenses are also formidable along the border. January 18, 2023: The United States and Israel confirmed that 300,000 rounds of 155mm munitions had been quietly shipped to Ukraine. Those shells are part of a munitions reserve the Americans maintain in Israel for the use of American or Israeli forces in an emergency. This reserve is owned and controlled by the United States and to be used when Israel asks for help and the Americans agree to supply it. The United States has similar pre-positioned stockpiles in South Korea, Kuwait and Europe. Sending the contents of this stockpile to Ukraine is not unexpected and the stockpile will be replaced over time. January 17, 2023: Palestinian attacks on Israeli security forces and civilians have, so far this year, left about 40 Palestinians dead. The Palestinian media is controlled by Fatah, which rules the West Bank and encourages this violence against Israelis. While Israel has made itself a very hostile arena for Islamic terrorists. Palestinian terrorists are another matter. The problem is that while some Palestinians want to negotiate a two-state deal with Israel, the radical factions want to destroy Israel, to the exclusion of any other relationship. Dealing with the radical factions is a problem in most Moslem majority states and has been for over a thousand years. Add to that their high and chronic levels of corruption and you have an extremely difficult situation for Israel. The major obstacle to any peace deal was Palestinians insisting on Israel recognizing "right of return without discrimination." That means that the Palestinians who fled the newly formed Israel in the late 1940s, and their millions of descendants, can return to Israel and get all their abandoned property back. Israel would also have to pay compensation. While most of those original refugees are now dead, many Palestinians would not return, but enough could do so and change the demographic composition of Israel, turning it into a country with an Arab majority. This, for both the Palestinians and Israel, is the equivalent of destroying Israel." Palestinian governments in the West Bank (Fatah) and Gaza (the more radical Hamas) refuse to consider compromise on the Arab Return issue and now demand that the only solution is to kill or expel all Jews from Israel so that Arab refugees can return. The neighbors (Arab and Turkish) dont want a radical Palestinian government taking over Israel by force and have become increasingly open about opposing the Palestinian radicals. This helps but doesnt solve the problem. These policies are being rejected by a growing number of Palestinians who note that Fatah and Hamas corruption and mismanagement are a major factor in creating poverty and anger among Palestinians. Its obvious that Palestinians living inside Israel have a higher standard of living and less exposure to violence. Hamas runs Gaza like a religious dictatorship and that has led to armed resistance by Gaza Palestinians against Hamas misrule. January 15, 2023: In the West bank, three Palestinian terrorists were killed by Israeli security forces during two incidents. January 14, 2023: Israeli media found out about a recent secret visit to Israel by an unnamed senior Iranian religious leader who opposes the current religious dictatorship in Iran. The visiting cleric held meetings with senior Israeli officials, including the prime minister. The cleric then returned to Iran with assurances that Israel, including Israeli media, would keep his identity secret. January 9, 2023: Israel has asked the United States for 25 of the new F-15EX fighter-bombers. These cost about $88 million each and the manufacturer is seeking export sales. The 1980s era F-15E fighter-bomber is still in service and demonstrates how well an updated F-15E design can work. Production of the F-15E is scheduled to end by 2023 and the EX keeps F-15 production going as a more advanced F-15E. This willingness to produce the EX should not be a surprise as there have been signs for a long time that an updated F-15 would be useful. As of 2008 the air force planned to operate its 36-ton U.S. F-15E for at least another ten years, and probably longer. In service for twenty years now, the F-15E can carry up to 11 tons of bombs and missiles, along with a targeting pod and an internal 20mm cannon. It's an all-weather aircraft that can fly one-way up to 3,900 kilometers. It uses in-flight refueling to hit targets anywhere on the planet. Smart bombs made the F-15E particularly efficient. The back seater handles the electronics and bombing, and the F-15E remains a potent air-superiority fighter, making it an exceptional combat aircraft. This success prompted Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Singapore and Qatar to buy it, paying about $100 million per aircraft. In the U.S. Air Force, the F-15E is one of the most popular aircraft for combat pilots to fly, even more so than the new F-22. The F-15EX is cheaper to operate, carries more bombs and can also carry the new hypersonic missile, which is too heavy for any other fighter and was designed to be launched from heavy bombers. Israel has similar large air-to-ground missiles and the F-15EX provides more capabilities to use them. January 6, 2023: Israel introduced another upgrade for its Spyder (Surface-to-air PYthon and DERby) mobile air defense system that enables the Darby LR missile to intercept ballistic missiles. Spyder entered service in 2005. Spyder was initially available as a truck mounted version where one or more trucks carried a launcher (with four missiles) and another truck carried the radar and fire control system. In 2016 the Israeli manufacturer of Spyder revealed an even more mobile version that uses tracked vehicles instead of wheeled ones. Each tracked vehicle carries four missiles plus the radar and fire control system. January 5, 2023: In Egypt a conference between the two rival Libyan governments ended in an agreement to resolve differences over elections and hold those elections as soon as possible. The Tripoli faction was represented by the chairman of the High Council of State while the Tobruk faction sent the speaker of their parliament. This conference did not come up with a timeline, only that both sides would work out problems delaying national elections. Thats what everyone has been working on for over a year. The obstacle is the Turkish occupation force, which insists that its treaty with the Tripoli government over offshore water rights. Turkey needs Libya to affirm those righting so Turley has a claim on offshore petroleum and natural gas. Not what Libya produces, but potential underwater deposits in waters between Libya and Turkey. The Tripoli (GNU) government illegally signed an agreement with Turkey in order to get Turkish intervention. There is no united government of Libya so the GNU could not pledge Libya to support the Turkish claims. Greece and the UN as well as most NATO nations oppose Turkey on this issue. Turkey will protect its offshore exploration and extraction operations with its navy and air force. Turkey believes Greece wont be able to get other NATO members to assist in blocking Turkish oil and natural gas operations in the disputed waters. Both Turkey and Greece are NATO members but the NATO agreement doesnt cover a situation like this and the Turks are taking advantage of that. The UN believes this deadlock will lead to partition, with Libya becoming two nations. Each will have some of the oil but most will belong to the Tripoli faction. January 1, 2023: In southern Syria (Damascus), an Israeli airstrike shut down the main international airport while also killing two Syrian soldiers and wounding another two. The runways were damaged by anti-runway bombs that create deep craters in the cement runway that must be able to handle the weight of landing aircraft. Despite persistent Israeli airstrikes, Iran continues to fly in missiles and other weapons for use against Israel. Iran is unable to deliver oil to Syria anymore and that has caused major economic problems. December 25, 2022: Despite the war in Ukraine, thousands of Russians want to vacation in Egyptian tourist resorts that cater to Russian visitors. The sanctions imposed on Russia now include bans on providing Russian commercial shipping or passenger aircraft with insurance for movement outside Russia. The airlines needed this insurance to operate outside Russia and this became a problem when Jordan announced it would not allow transports without insurance from using their air space. The only alternative was flying through Syria but the Russian government banned that as too dangerous. Egypt will allow the Russian flights, content with assurances that the Russian government will provide insurance for flights that reach Egyptian air space. Egypt needs the tourist income and many Russians are willing to pay for a temporary respite from the wartime atmosphere back home. December 22, 2022: In Africa, Zambias Anti-Corruption Commission accused four former defense officials of participating in a corruption scandal that involved Israeli defense firm Elbit. The deal revolved around a $574 million procurement contract that included the purchase of a Gulfstream G650 Presidential Jet. Elbit supplied an anti-missile defense system. The plane cost $195 million with accessories, but investigators called the figure exorbitant. The complaint alleged the anti-missile system was overpriced by $45 million. December 19, 2022: In southern Syria (Damascus) an Israeli airstrike on Iranian storage facilities outside the airport killed two Hezbollah gunmen guarding the site. Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia militia organized in the 1980s by Iran and supported by Iran ever since. December 30, 2022: In Egypt (100 kilometers east of Cairo), two ISIL gunmen on motorcycles attacked a police roadblock, killing two policemen while return fire killed one of the ISIL gunmen. This was the first ISIL attack in Egypt outside Sinai. Attacks continue across the Suez Canal in Sinai, where cooperation with Israel keeps ISIL on the defensive. Another factor is the 2018 Egyptian offensive against ISIL in Sinai. This operation began in early 2018 and continues to the present. So far this effort has killed some 400 Islamic terrorists and arrested over a thousand suspects. More than a thousand roadside bombs, landmines and other explosives were disabled or destroyed before they could be used (to kill, on average, more civilians than anyone else). Hundreds of ISIL motorbikes and other vehicles have been seized along with hundreds of rifles and machine-guns and large quantities of ammo and other military equipment. At least once a month the military releases a summary of recent operations and the list always contains many hideouts and much equipment (and weapons) seized as well as many (often fifty or more) mines and roadside bombs disabled. These operations are also doing a lot of damage to Sinai based smuggling operations. The government is telling the smugglers (usually Bedouins) that if they want to avoid these counter-terrorism raids, dont work with the Islamic terrorists, especially ISIL. That has had some impact although by now most of the Sinai tribes have turned against ISIL, which is still the primary Islamic terror group operating in Sinai. That is largely because Egypt has greatly reduced access between Gaza and Egypt. Gaza is still a sanctuary for several Islamic terror groups but because of another Hamas military campaign against Israel Gaza is difficult to get in or out of. That leaves a much-diminished ISIL as the major terrorist threat in Sinai. ISIL can still attract some recruits and other support but, as happened in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere ISIL made too many enemies and is declining. ISIL has tried moving to other parts of Egypt but has not found any part of the country as hospitable as Sinai. TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / January 27, 2023 / CO2 GRO Inc. ("GROW"or the "Company") (TSXV:GROW), (OTCQB: BLONF), (Frankfurt:4021) announces that the Board of Directors has approved the grant ("Grant") of 4,125,000 Restricted Share Units ("RSU"s) to members of its board of directors, employees and consultants of the Company. The RSUs vest upon the completion of various time and performance criteria. Upon vesting, the common shares issuable (the "Shares") will be issued by the Company within sixty days and require the payment of $0.11 each by the recipient. The RSUs were granted in accordance with the Company's 2022 Equity Incentive Plan (the "Plan"). The Shares will be subject to a four-month-plus-one-day hold period. As of the date hereof and including the Grant, a total of 10,436,606 common shares of the Company are reserved for issuance under the Plan with 3,421,064 optionsremaining for issuance and 5,607,669 RSUs remaining for issuance, thereunder. About CO2 GRO Inc. CO2 GRO Inc. is a People,Planet, and Prosperity-focused precision ag-tech, clean-tech company. We are on a mission to transform 700 billion sq. ft. of protected fruit & vegetable growth facilities so they can increase yield by up to 30% and feed half a billion more people around the world. Our proprietary technology mists an aqueous CO2 solution directly onto plants in protected growth facilities. This enriches crops with CO2, suppresses the growth of micro-pathogens, and increases high-yield, high-quality varieties of produce. Because our CO2 Delivery Solutions" technology replaces atmospheric gassing, growers can lower their CO2 gas consumption by over 90%, reduce their ecological footprint, and lower production costs. We support the protected food crop community in all seven continents and also work with floriculturists and growers of medicinal & non-food varieties of plants. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains statements which constitute "forwardlooking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements regarding the plans, intentions, beliefs and current expectations of the Company with respect to future business activities. Forward looking information is often identified by the words "may," "would," "could," "should," "will," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect" or similar expressions and include information regarding: statements regarding the future direction of the Company; the ability of the Company to successfully achieve its business and financial objectives; plans for expansion and the ability of the Company to obtain, develop and foster its business relationships; and expectations for other economic, business, and/or competitive factors. Investors are cautioned that forward looking information is not based on historical facts but instead reflect the Company's management's expectations, estimates or projections concerning the business of the Company's future results or events based on the opinions, assumptions and estimates that management considered reasonable at the date the statements are made. Such assumptions include but are not limited to: general business and economic conditions; the Company's ability to successfully execute its plans and intentions; the availability of financing on reasonable terms; the Company's ability to attract and retain skilled staff; market competition; the products and technology offered by the Company's competitors; and that good relationships with business partners will be maintained. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forwardlooking information are reasonable, such information involves risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such information, as unknown or unpredictable factors could have material adverse effects on future results, performance or achievements. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forwardlooking information are the following: changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets; in particular, in the ability of the Company to raise debt and equity capital in the amounts and at the costs that it expects; adverse changes in applicable laws or adverse changes in the application or enforcement of current laws; the biotechnology industry and the greenhouse growers market are highly competitive, and technical advances in the industry will impact the success of the Company, and other risks described in the Company's filings that are available at www.sedar.com. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forwardlooking information prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be others that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update this forwardlooking information except as otherwise required by applicable law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For more information, please visit www.co2gro.ca or contact: Soumik Roy 416.475.3806 [email protected] SOURCE: CO2 Gro Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) announced Friday that the company has named three new board directors, including the chief of hedge fund ValueAct Capital, amid pressure from activist investors for better cost control and a management shakeup. The software company appointed chief executive of hedge fund ValueAct Capital Mason Morfit, Mastercard finance chief Sachin Mehra and former chief executive of Carnival Corp Arnold Donald to its board. In addition, Sanford Robertson and Alan Hassenfeld have notified the Company that they do not intend to stand for re-election at Salesforces 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Were excited to welcome Arnold, Sachin and Mason to the Salesforce Board, said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. As highly respected business leaders, they each bring valuable experience to further enhance and balance the diverse skills on the Board and advance our value creation initiatives. We look forward to benefiting from their expertise and insights as Salesforce continues to drive durable top- and bottom-line growth and build on our position as the worlds #1 CRM. The addition of these three new independent directors to our Board demonstrates Salesforces commitment to ongoing refreshment in action, said Robin Washington, Lead Independent Director of the Board. Arnolds proven cross-industry leadership experience, Sachins expansive financial, technology and operational expertise and Masons investor perspective and record of helping public companies build sustainable, long-term value will further strengthen our Boards depth of expertise and diversity of thought. Ensuring we have the right Board in place to guide the Companys strategy and oversee its ambitious goals continues to be a top priority. Over the past year, we have benefited from the valuable input of our investors and look forward to continuing that dialogue as we drive value for Salesforce shareholders. According to sources familiar with the matter, there are at least four activist investors at Salesforce including Elliott, Starboard Value, Jeff Ubben's Inclusive Capital and ValueAct, the firm Ubben founded, and which is now run by Mason Morfit. On Thursday, Reuters reported that that, multimillion-dollar investor, Elliott Management Corp plans to nominate several director candidates. Shares of CRM are up 0.14% in early trading on Friday. By Michael Elkins | [email protected] Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the global leader in CRM, today announced, as part of its ongoing board refreshment process, the following appointments to the Companys Board of Directors, effective March 1, 2023: Arnold Donald, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Carnival Corporation & plc; Sachin Mehra, Chief Financial Officer of Mastercard; and Mason Morfit, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of ValueAct Capital In addition, Sanford Robertson and Alan Hassenfeld have notified the Company that they do not intend to stand for re-election at Salesforces 2023 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Were excited to welcome Arnold, Sachin and Mason to the Salesforce Board, said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. As highly respected business leaders, they each bring valuable experience to further enhance and balance the diverse skills on the Board and advance our value creation initiatives. We look forward to benefiting from their expertise and insights as Salesforce continues to drive durable top- and bottom-line growth and build on our position as the worlds #1 CRM. The addition of these three new independent directors to our Board demonstrates Salesforces commitment to ongoing refreshment in action, said Robin Washington, Lead Independent Director of the Board. Arnolds proven cross-industry leadership experience, Sachins expansive financial, technology and operational expertise and Masons investor perspective and record of helping public companies build sustainable, long-term value will further strengthen our Boards depth of expertise and diversity of thought. Ensuring we have the right Board in place to guide the Companys strategy and oversee its ambitious goals continues to be a top priority. Over the past year, we have benefited from the valuable input of our investors and look forward to continuing that dialogue as we drive value for Salesforce shareholders. Arnold Donald said: Salesforce is an industry innovator, disruptor and leader. I believe the Company is uniquely positioned to help its customers around the world succeed in their digital transformations and is on a clear path to deliver increased value for shareholders. Im eager to bring my experience across industries leading operating and business transformations and I look forward to partnering with the Board to oversee and advance the important efforts underway. Sachin Mehra said: With a strong foundation in place and a powerful platform, Salesforce has many compelling opportunities to accelerate profitable growth. Salesforce shares my commitment to technology-focused and customer-centric innovation, and I look forward to helping the Company continue advancing its strategic vision. The Salesforce Board is world-class, and Im honored to become a member of the Board. Mason Morfit said: Salesforce has always stood out to us for its technical and business model innovations, its values and its culture. Salesforce is one of the most important software companies in the world, driving digital transformations across the global economy. We have enjoyed working with Marc and the team and look forward to helping them deliver profitable growth and shareholder returns. Benioff concluded, On behalf of Robin, myself, and the entire Board, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Sandy and Alan for their incredibly valuable service as directors. They have been instrumental in building Salesforce from a small cloud-based software company into a ~$150 billion global leader in CRM. Their insights have helped us navigate through countless pivotal moments, including launching our IPO and overseeing the Companys growth to industry leadership in more than a dozen product categories. Their mark will forever be ingrained into the bedrock of Salesforce. About Arnold Donald Arnold W. Donald is a recognized leader who brings extensive experience in strategic planning, operations and distribution at large, global businesses to the Salesforce Board, along with corporate governance and risk management experience. Mr. Donald has had a distinguished business career spanning nearly four decades, and he has held senior leadership positions across several industries. Mr. Donald most recently served as President and CEO of Carnival Corporation & plc from 2013 to 2022, leading the worlds largest cruise company before transitioning to the role of Vice-Chair of the Carnival Corporation & plc Board of Directors through November 2022. As CEO, he oversaw the successful return of Carnivals fleet into service following the COVID-19 pandemic and led the company to record results pre-pandemic, including achieving the companys highest profits in its history. He also helped reshape the companys fleet profile with more efficient and environmentally advanced ships. Mr. Donald was appointed CEO after serving on the Carnival Corporation Board since 2001 and the Carnival plc Board since 2003. Earlier in his career, he served in a variety of senior leadership positions in several industries, including CEO positions at The Executive Leadership Council, The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, and global manufacturer Merisant Company, as well as more than 23 years in several senior leadership positions at Monsanto, culminating in his position as Senior Vice-President and President of its Nutrition and Consumer sector. Mr. Donald is Chair of the World Travel and Tourism Council, and has extensive public company director experience, including currently serving on the board of the Bank of America Corporation. He has previously served on the boards of Crown Holdings, Inc., Laclede Group (now Spire Global, Inc.), Oil-Dri Corporation of America, ScottsMiracle-Gro Company, Russell Corp, LLC, Belden Inc., and Strategic Distribution, Inc., among others. Mr. Donald earned a B.A. in economics from Carleton College, a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. About Sachin Mehra Sachin Mehra is a prominent business executive who has risen through the ranks and held several leadership roles, including more than 12 years at Mastercard. He brings deep technology, financial and operational expertise at a large customer-centric public company to the Salesforce Board, along with global career experience in locations such as New York, Belgium, Singapore and China. Mr. Mehra currently serves as the Chief Financial Officer of Mastercard, a position he has held since April 2019. In his role and as part of the Companys management committee, Mr. Mehra is responsible for corporate controller, tax, internal audit, investor relations, strategy, mergers and acquisitions, financial planning and analysis, treasury, risk management, global supply chain, business unit finance and regional finance activities. Prior to his tenure at Mastercard, Mr. Mehra spent three years at Hess Corporation where he left as Vice President and Treasurer. Before that, he was General Director, New York Treasurers Office at General Motors. Mr. Mehra earned a B.Com from the University of Mumbai, and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business. About Mason Morfit Mason Morfit is a Partner, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of ValueAct Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm with more than $12 billion in assets under management. Mr. Morfit has experience serving on boards since 2005, and is a former director of Microsoft Corporation, Advanced Medical Optics, Inc., C.R. Bard, Inc., Immucor, Inc., MSD Performance, Inc., Solexa, Inc. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International. Before joining ValueAct Capital in January 2001, Mr. Morfit worked in equity research for Credit Suisse First Boston where he focused on the managed care industry. He has also lectured on issues of corporate governance and executive compensation at Stanford Law Schools Directors College, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Morfit is a member of the Advisory Council for Princeton Universitys Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and serves on the Board of Directors of the Tipping Point Community. Mr. Morfit earned a B.A. in Political Economy from Princeton University. A logo of Salesforce is seen at its exhibition space, at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France June 16, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier By Svea Herbst-Bayliss (Reuters) - Salesforce Inc on Friday named three new board directors, including the chief of hedge fund ValueAct Capital, amid pressure from activist investors for better cost control and a management shakeup at the cloud-based software firm. The company appointed the chief executive of hedge fund ValueAct Capital, Mason Morfit, Mastercard finance chief Sachin Mehra and former chief executive of Carnival Corp Arnold Donald to its board. The men will join on March 1 when two directors, who have each served two decades, will be leaving. The moves have been long-planned as lead independent director Robin Washington has been steering the process to focus more on operational skills since last summer, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. However, the appointments also come as the company has been facing pressure publicly and privately from four prominent activist investment firms. Elliott Management, the biggest among them, is set to launch a board challenge next month. Elliott, which invests over $55 billion, has been engaging with Salesforce for roughly a week and is currently interviewing candidates that it plans to nominate as directors, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. Additionally Starboard Value, run by Jeffrey Smith, Inclusive Capital, run by Jeffrey Ubben, and ValueAct, which was founded by Ubben, have owned shares in Salesforce for months and have held talks with the company, sources said. Starboard has pushed for considerable cost cuts while other investors have criticized recent acquisitions and pay at the company. Many activist investors push target companies to add a shareholder to the board to represent investors' views. By picking ValueAct's Morfit, Salesforce likely made a calculated bet that the San Francisco-based investment firm, which has a reputation for working collaboratively behind the scenes, might be more agreeable on the board than other activists, bankers and lawyers said. Morfit has served as a director at Microsoft and Valeant Pharmaceuticals. ValueAct has deep experience in aiding software companies with transformations, having served on the board of Microsoft and Adobe, which have ballooned in size since ValueAct's involvement. At the same time Elliott has also made significant investments in technology companies and has won board seats at companies including Pinterest, Twitter and eBay. Elliott's decision to wage a proxy contest signals a quick shift from when the firm reached out to Salesforce. Jesse Cohn, managing partner at Elliott, said on Sunday that he was looking forward to working "constructively" with the company and that he has "developed a deep respect for Marc Benioff," Salesforce's co-founder and co-chief executive. Salesforce's stock price, which has climbed up 22.5% this year, rose modestly at the start of trading on Friday. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to cut 10% of its jobs and close some offices after rapid pandemic hiring left it with a bloated workforce. Salesforce directors Sanford Robertson and Alan Hassenfeld, board members since 2003, will not stand for re-election, the company said. (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York and Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Arun Koyyur and Sharon Singleton) OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating (FSR) of A+ (Superior) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Ratings (Long-Term ICRs) of aa (Superior) of Factory Mutual Insurance Company (Johnston, RI) and its subsidiaries, which are collectively referred to as FM Global Group (FM Global). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is stable. (See below for a detailed listing of the companies.) The ratings reflect FM Globals balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as strongest, as well as its strong operating performance, favorable business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management (ERM). FM Global maintains the strongest level of risk-adjusted capitalization, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). The groups balance sheet has proven long-term resilience against natural catastrophe losses, such as those experienced in 2017 and 2018. Augmenting sizable retentions for its highly protected risk book, substantial excess of loss reinsurance capacity plays an integral role in its ability to preserve and grow capital. Management has a history of protecting the balance sheet by prudently reserving losses in a timely fashion. Ultimate losses routinely result in better outcomes than modeled losses and managements prudent and conservative initial reserve estimates, especially in catastrophe scenarios. Superior knowledge of its risks and expedient settlement of claims enables the group to move on fairly quickly after significant events. The group has reported underwriting profits in the three most recent years and through the first nine months of 2022, after two consecutive years of underwriting losses in 2017 and 2018 from significant catastrophe activity. FM Global has garnered strong investment gains from its sizeable investment portfolio, which includes a large allocation to equities, further enhancing bottom-line results and driving solid surplus growth. That said, recent investment market volatility in 2022 resulted in a significantly negative change in unrealized gains and losses. Its strong liquidity position mitigates these likely temporary losses. With FM Globals rebound in profitability and corresponding surplus growth, policyholder credits were approved to be paid in 2022 as a distribution of excess capital to its policyholders after being curtailed in the three prior years. FM Global has a unique market position, with considerable exposure to policyholders that have highly recognizable corporate brands, which can introduce headline or reputational risk for large exposure events, as has been seen amid ongoing COVID-19-related business interruption claim filings. To date, several claims in multiple jurisdictions have been dismissed or, at best, continued, bearing out the companys risk management expertise in underwriting its risks and well containing its true exposures within its risk tolerance. The stable outlooks reflect AM Bests expectation that FM Globals risk-adjusted capitalization and operating performance will continue to exhibit generally excellent trends. AM Best expects that FM Global managements ERM practices will continue to drive commensurately strong returns in its niche business model. The groups high-risk tolerance periodically results in volatile underwriting performance from catastrophe events that management has successfully navigated over the organizations long history. Negative rating action could occur if operating performance deteriorates materially relative to its strong assessment. Negative rating action also could occur if risk-adjusted capitalization is materially weakened by deteriorating non-catastrophe underwriting trends or following a prolonged equity market downturn. The FSR of A+ (Superior) and the Long-Term ICRs of aa (Superior) have been affirmed with stable outlooks for Factory Mutual Insurance Company and its following subsidiaries: Appalachian Insurance Company Affiliated FM Insurance Company FM Insurance Company Limited FM Insurance Europe S.A. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Bests Credit Ratings, Bests Performance Assessments, Bests Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Bests Ratings & Assessments. AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright 2023 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005412/en/ Connor Brach, FRM Senior Financial Analyst +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5573 [email protected] Christopher Sharkey Manager, Public Relations +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159 [email protected] Daniel Teclaw Director +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5394 [email protected] Al Slavin Senior Public Relations Specialist +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5098 [email protected] Source: AM Best AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of a- (Excellent) of Sveriges Angfartygs Assurans Forening (The Swedish Club) (TSC or the Club) (Sweden). The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) is negative. These ratings reflect TSCs balance sheet strength, which AM Best assesses as very strong, as well as its adequate operating performance, neutral business profile and appropriate enterprise risk management. The negative outlooks reflect pressure on TSCs balance sheet strength assessment, as challenging conditions in marine insurance and financial markets have translated into significant losses in 2021 and 2022, leading to a deterioration in the Clubs free reserves and risk-adjusted capitalisation. AM Best expects the Clubs free reserves to begin recovering in 2023, driven by an expected improvement in operating performance; this will be supported by the Clubs announcement that it will apply a 10% general increase on protection and indemnity (P&I) rates for the 2023/24 policy year. However, a negative rating action could occur if risk-adjusted capitalisation fails to improve during 2023. TSCs balance sheet strength is underpinned by risk-adjusted capitalisation at the strongest level at year-end 2021, as measured by Bests Capital Adequacy Ratio (BCAR). Free reserves dropped in 2021 and are expected to have decreased further in 2022 (year-end 2022 audited financial statements not yet available). As a result, AM Best expects TSCs BCAR assessment to decrease to the very strong or strong level by year-end 2022. The Clubs BCAR scores are expected to improve in 2023, standing at least at the very strong level. TSC maintains a good liquidity profile, with liquid assets representing 142% of net technical provisions at year-end 2021. Historical operating performance has been moderately volatile, with earnings varying from a profit after tax of USD 18.5 million (2019) to a loss after tax of USD 35.5 million (2021) over the 2017-2021 period. In 2021, the Club reported a technical loss of USD 44 million, translating into a combined ratio of 129% (2020: 123%). The deterioration was driven by further losses reported on the P&I line of business, while the performance of its hull and machinery line of business remained at a reasonable level. For 2022, AM Best expects TSC to report a significant improvement in its technical result, driven by better P&I performance. However, TSC is expected to report an overall loss for 2022, as a result of market value reductions in its fixed income and equity investment portfolios. TSC maintains a well-diversified portfolio within the marine insurance market, offering hull and machinery, and P&I types of cover, and benefits from membership in the International Group of P&I Clubs. TSCs gross written premium increased by 12% in 2021 and AM Best expects further premium growth to be reported for 2022 and 2023, as a result of the Clubs general rate increases for its P&I members. This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on AM Bests website. For all rating information relating to the release and pertinent disclosures, including details of the office responsible for issuing each of the individual ratings referenced in this release, please see AM Bests Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Guide to Bests Credit Ratings. For information on the proper use of Bests Credit Ratings, Bests Performance Assessments, Bests Preliminary Credit Assessments and AM Best press releases, please view Guide to Proper Use of Bests Ratings & Assessments. AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specialising in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in over 100 countries with regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City. For more information, visit www.ambest.com. Copyright 2023 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005274/en/ Jose Berenguer Senior Financial analyst +31 20 308 54 29 [email protected] Christopher Sharkey Manager, Public Relations +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159 [email protected] Dr. Mathilde Jakobsen Director, Analytics +31 20 308 5427 [email protected] Al Slavin Senior Public Relations Specialist +1 908 439 2200, ext. 5098 [email protected] Source: AM Best CHMP recommendation based on positive results from the Phase 3 POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials and an additional two years of data from the POETYK PSO long-term extension trial Sotyktu has demonstrated superior efficacy over twice-daily Otezla (apremilast) and placebo in improving skin clearance and symptoms If approved, Sotyktu would be the first oral, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor in the European Union for the treatment of any disease PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency has recommended the approval of Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Sotyktu, an oral medication taken once-daily, is a first-in-class, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in adults who are candidates for systemic therapy. The CHMP recommendation will now be reviewed by the European Commission, which has the authority to approve medicines for the European Union (EU). Patients living with moderate-to-severe psoriasis still experience debilitating symptoms and many remain untreated, undertreated or dissatisfied with current options, with a significant need for more effective and well-tolerated oral therapies, said Samit Hirawat, MD, chief medical officer, Bristol Myers Squibb. Todays positive CHMP opinion is an important advancement for patients in the EU to address the unmet needs they face, and were proud to be one step closer to bringing this first-in-class medicine with demonstrated durable efficacy to patients in need. We look forward to potentially seeing Sotyktu become the oral standard of care. The CHMP adopted this positive opinion based on results from the pivotal Phase 3 POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials, which evaluated once-daily Sotyktu in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis versus placebo and twice-daily Otezla (apremilast), as well as an additional two years of data from the POETYK PSO long-term extension trial. Sotyktu demonstrated significant and clinically meaningful improvements in skin clearance, symptom burden and quality of life measures compared to placebo and Otezla. Sotyktu was well-tolerated with a low rate of discontinuation due to adverse events. The most common adverse reactions (1% of patients on Sotyktu) included upper respiratory infections, herpes simplex infections, oral ulcers, folliculitis and acneiform rash. The results of the Phase 3 POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Sotyktu for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy in September 2022, and Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare approved Sotyktu for the treatment of adults with plaque psoriasis, generalized pustular psoriasis, and erythrodermic psoriasis who have had an inadequate response to conventional therapies in September 2022. In addition to the European Medicines Agency, Sotyktu is also under regulatory review by other health authorities around the world for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Bristol Myers Squibb thanks the patients and investigators involved in the POETYK PSO clinical trial program. About the POETYK PSO Clinical Trial Program PrOgram to Evaluate the efficacy and safety of Sotyktu (deucravacitinib), a selective TYK2 inhibitor (POETYK) PSO-1 (NCT03624127) and POETYK PSO-2 (NCT03611751) were global Phase 3 studies designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Sotyktu compared to placebo and Otezla (apremilast) in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Both POETYK PSO-1, which enrolled 666 patients, and POETYK PSO-2, which enrolled 1,020 patients, were multi-center, randomized, double-blind trials that evaluated Sotyktu (6 mg once daily) compared to placebo and Otezla (30 mg twice daily). POETYK PSO-2 included a randomized withdrawal and retreatment period after Week 24. The co-primary endpoints of both POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 were the percentage of patients who achieved Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) 75 response and those who achieved static Physician's Global Assessment (sPGA) score of 0 or 1 (clear/almost clear) at Week 16 versus placebo. Key secondary endpoints of the trials included the percentage of patients who achieved PASI 75 and sPGA 0/1 compared to Otezla at Week 16 and other measures evaluating Sotyktu versus placebo and Otezla. Following the 52-week POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials, patients could enroll in the ongoing POETYK PSO long-term extension (LTE) trial (NCT04036435) and receive open-label Sotyktu 6 mg once-daily. 1,221 patients enrolled in the LTE trial and received at least one dose of Sotyktu. Efficacy was analyzed utilizing treatment failure rules (TFR) method of imputation, along with sensitivity analyses using modified non-responder imputation and as-observed analysis, which have been used in similar analyses with other agents. In addition to POETYK PSO-1, POETYK PSO-2 and POETYK PSO-LTE, Bristol Myers Squibb has evaluated Sotyktu in two other Phase 3 studies in psoriasis: POETYK PSO-3 (NCT04167462) and POETYK PSO-4 (NCT03924427). About Psoriasis Psoriasis is a widely prevalent, chronic, systemic immune-mediated disease that substantially impairs patients physical health, quality of life and work productivity. Psoriasis is a serious global problem, with at least 100 million people worldwide impacted by some form of the disease, including around 14 million people in Europe and approximately 7.5 million people in the United States. Nearly one-quarter of people with psoriasis have cases that are considered moderate-to-severe. Up to 90 percent of patients with psoriasis have psoriasis vulgaris, or plaque psoriasis, which is characterized by distinct round or oval plaques typically covered by silvery-white scales. Despite the availability of effective systemic therapy, many patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis remain undertreated or even untreated and are dissatisfied with current treatments. People with psoriasis report an impact on their emotional well-being, straining both personal and professional relationships and causing a reduced quality of life. Psoriasis is associated with multiple comorbidities that may impact patients well-being, including psoriatic arthritis, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and depression. About Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) is an oral, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor with a unique mechanism of action, representing a new class of small molecules. It is the first selective TYK2 inhibitor in clinical studies across multiple immune-mediated diseases. Bristol Myers Squibb scientists designed Sotyktu to selectively target TYK2, thereby inhibiting signaling of interleukin (IL)-23, IL-12 and Type 1 interferons (IFN), key cytokines involved in the pathogenesis of multiple immune-mediated diseases. Sotyktu achieves a high degree of selectivity by binding to the regulatory domain of TYK2, resulting in allosteric inhibition of TYK2 and its downstream functions. Sotyktu selectively inhibits TYK2 at physiologically relevant concentrations. At therapeutic doses, Sotyktu does not inhibit JAK1, JAK2 or JAK3. Bristol Myers Squibb: Pioneering Paths Forward in Immunology to Transform Patients Lives Bristol Myers Squibb is inspired by a single vision transforming patients lives through science. For people living with immune-mediated diseases, the debilitating reality of enduring chronic symptoms and disease progression can take a toll on their physical, emotional and social well-being, making simple tasks and daily life a challenge. Driven by our deep understanding of the immune system that spans over 20 years of experience, and our passion to help patients, the company continues to pursue pathbreaking science with the goal of delivering meaningful solutions that address unmet needs in rheumatology, gastroenterology, dermatology and neurology. We follow the science, aiming to tailor therapies to individual needs, improve outcomes and expand treatment options by working to identify mechanisms with the potential to achieve long-term remission and perhaps even cures in the future. By building partnerships with researchers, patients and caregivers to deliver innovative treatments, Bristol Myers Squibb strives to elevate patient care to new standards and deliver what matters most the promise of living a better life. SOTYKTU U.S. INDICATION SOTYKTU (deucravacitinib) is indicated for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in adults who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. Limitations of Use: SOTYKTU is not recommended for use in combination with other potent immunosuppressants. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION CONTRAINDICATIONS SOTYKTU is contraindicated in patients with a history of hypersensitivity reaction to deucravacitinib or to any of the excipients in SOTYKTU. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Hypersensitivity: Hypersensitivity reactions such as angioedema have been reported. If a clinically significant hypersensitivity reaction occurs, institute appropriate therapy and discontinue SOTYKTU. Infections: SOTYKTU may increase the risk of infections. Serious infections have been reported in patients with psoriasis who received SOTYKTU. The most common serious infections reported with SOTYKTU included pneumonia and COVID-19. Avoid use of SOTYKTU in patients with an active or serious infection. Consider the risks and benefits of treatment prior to initiating SOTYKTU in patients: with chronic or recurrent infection who have been exposed to tuberculosis with a history of a serious or an opportunistic infection with underlying conditions that may predispose them to infection. Closely monitor patients for the development of signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment. A patient who develops a new infection during treatment should undergo prompt and complete diagnostic testing, have appropriate antimicrobial therapy initiated and be closely monitored. Interrupt SOTYKTU if a patient develops a serious infection. Do not resume SOTYKTU until the infection resolves or is adequately treated. Viral Reactivation Herpes virus reactivation (e.g., herpes zoster, herpes simplex) was reported in clinical trials with SOTYKTU. Through Week 16, herpes simplex infections were reported in 17 patients (6.8 per 100 patient-years) treated with SOTYKTU, and 1 patient (0.8 per 100 patient-years) treated with placebo. Multidermatomal herpes zoster was reported in an immunocompetent patient. During PSO-1, PSO-2, and the open-label extension trial, the majority of patients who reported events of herpes zoster while receiving SOTYKTU were under 50 years of age. The impact of SOTYKTU on chronic viral hepatitis reactivation is unknown. Consider viral hepatitis screening and monitoring for reactivation in accordance with clinical guidelines before starting and during therapy with SOTYKTU. If signs of reactivation occur, consult a hepatitis specialist. SOTYKTU is not recommended for use in patients with active hepatitis B or hepatitis C. Tuberculosis (TB): In clinical trials, of 4 patients with latent TB who were treated with SOTYKTU and received appropriate TB prophylaxis, no patients developed active TB (during the mean follow-up of 34 weeks). One patient, who did not have latent TB, developed active TB after receiving 54 weeks of SOTYKTU. Evaluate patients for latent and active TB infection prior to initiating treatment with SOTYKTU. Do not administer SOTYKTU to patients with active TB. Initiate treatment of latent TB prior to administering SOTYKTU. Consider anti-TB therapy prior to initiation of SOTYKTU in patients with a past history of latent or active TB in whom an adequate course of treatment cannot be confirmed. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of active TB during treatment. Malignancy including Lymphomas: Malignancies, including lymphomas, were observed in clinical trials with SOTYKTU. Consider the benefits and risks for the individual patient prior to initiating or continuing therapy with SOTYKTU, particularly in patients with a known malignancy (other than a successfully treated non-melanoma skin cancer) and patients who develop a malignancy when on treatment with SOTYKTU. Rhabdomyolysis and Elevated CPK: Treatment with SOTYKTU was associated with an increased incidence of asymptomatic creatine phosphokinase (CPK) elevation and rhabdomyolysis compared to placebo. Discontinue SOTYKTU if markedly elevated CPK levels occur or myopathy is diagnosed or suspected. Instruct patients to promptly report unexplained muscle pain, tenderness or weakness, particularly if accompanied by malaise or fever. Laboratory Abnormalities: Treatment with SOTYKTU was associated with increases in triglyceride levels. Periodically evaluate serum triglycerides according to clinical guidelines during treatment. SOTYKTU treatment was associated with an increase in the incidence of liver enzyme elevation compared to placebo. Evaluate liver enzymes at baseline and thereafter in patients with known or suspected liver disease according to routine management. If treatment-related increases in liver enzymes occur and drug-induced liver injury is suspected, interrupt SOTYKTU until a diagnosis of liver injury is excluded. Immunizations: Prior to initiating therapy with SOTYKTU, consider completion of all age-appropriate immunizations according to current immunization guidelines including prophylactic herpes zoster vaccination. Avoid use of live vaccines in patients treated with SOTYKTU. The response to live or non-live vaccines has not been evaluated. Potential Risks Related to JAK Inhibition: It is not known whether tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibition may be associated with the observed or potential adverse reactions of Janus Kinase (JAK) inhibition. In a large, randomized, postmarketing safety trial of a JAK inhibitor in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), patients 50 years of age and older with at least one cardiovascular risk factor, higher rates of all-cause mortality, including sudden cardiovascular death, major adverse cardiovascular events, overall thrombosis, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and malignancies (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) were observed in patients treated with the JAK inhibitor compared to those treated with TNF blockers. SOTYKTU is not approved for use in RA. ADVERSE REACTIONS Most common adverse reactions (1% of patients on SOTYKTU and more frequently than with placebo) include upper respiratory infections, blood creatine phosphokinase increased, herpes simplex, mouth ulcers, folliculitis and acne. SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Pregnancy: Available data from case reports on SOTYKTU use during pregnancy are insufficient to evaluate a drug-associated risk of major birth defects, miscarriage, or adverse maternal or fetal outcomes. Report pregnancies to the Bristol-Myers Squibb Companys Adverse Event reporting line at 1-800-721-5072. Lactation: There are no data on the presence of SOTYKTU in human milk, the effects on the breastfed infant, or the effects on milk production. SOTYKTU is present in rat milk. When a drug is present in animal milk, it is likely that the drug will be present in human milk. The developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding should be considered along with the mothers clinical need for SOTYKTU and any potential adverse effects on the breastfed infant from SOTYKTU or from the underlying maternal condition. Hepatic Impairment: SOTYKTU is not recommended for use in patients with severe hepatic impairment. SOTYKTU is available in 6 mg tablets. Please see U.S. Full Prescribing Information, including Medication Guide, for SOTYKTU. About Bristol Myers Squibb Bristol Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information about Bristol Myers Squibb, visit us at BMS.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Otezla (apremilast) is a registered trademark of Amgen Inc. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding, among other things, the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. All statements that are not statements of historical facts are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and projections about our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives and involve inherent risks, assumptions and uncertainties, including internal or external factors that could delay, divert or change any of them in the next several years, that are difficult to predict, may be beyond our control and could cause our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the statements. These risks, assumptions, uncertainties and other factors include, among others, that the CHMP opinion is not binding on the European Commission, that SotyktuTM (deucravacitinib) may not receive regulatory approval for the indication described in this release in the currently anticipated timeline or at all, that any marketing approvals, if granted, may have significant limitations on their use, and, if approved, whether such product candidate for the indication described in this release will be commercially successful. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many risks and uncertainties that affect Bristol Myers Squibbs business and market, particularly those identified in the cautionary statement and risk factors discussion in Bristol Myers Squibbs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as updated by our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made only as of the date of this document and except as otherwise required by applicable law, Bristol Myers Squibb undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise. corporatefinancial-news View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005858/en/ Bristol Myers Squibb Media Inquiries: [email protected] Investors: [email protected] Source: Bristol Myers Squibb Approval by the European Commission would expand the indications of Reblozyl for treatment of anemia in adults with beta thalassemia in Europe In the pivotal BEYOND study, Reblozyl significantly increased hemoglobin levels, which were sustained over longer time compared to placebo PRINCETON N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) today announced the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency has recommended approval of Reblozyl (luspatercept) as a treatment for adult patients with anemia associated with nontransfusion-dependent (NTD) beta thalassemia. The recommendation will now be reviewed by the European Commission (EC), which has the authority to approve medicines for use in the European Union (EU). Upon approval, this would represent the third authorized indication for Reblozyl in the EU. The CHMP adopted a positive opinion based on results from the pivotal Phase 2 BEYOND study, evaluating the efficacy and safety of Reblozyl versus placebo in 145 adults with NTD beta thalassemia. Patients were eligible to receive best supportive care, including red blood cell transfusions, iron-chelating agents, use of antibiotic, antiviral, and antifungal therapy, and/or nutritional support, as needed. Reblozyl is an erythroid maturation agent approved in the EU, the United States, China and Canada to address anemia-associated, transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia and transfusion-dependent lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes, representing an important class of therapy for eligible patients. Beta thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that puts patients at significant risk for long-term clinical complications that can impair their quality of life, regardless of whether they require regular blood transfusions, said Noah Berkowitz, M.D., Ph.D., senior vice president, Hematology Development, Bristol Myers Squibb. Results from the BEYOND study showed Reblozyl improved anemia associated with non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia by sustaining hemoglobin increases in 77% of patients regardless of their baseline hemoglobin status. The potential approval of Reblozyl for patients with non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia represents an important development in the EU where several countries present with a high prevalence and where more people are impacted by the disease. The EC is expected to deliver its final decision within 67 days of receipt of the CHMP opinion. The decision will be applicable to all EU member states, Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.* Reblozyl is being developed and commercialized through a global collaboration with Merck following Mercks acquisition of Acceleron Pharma, Inc. in November 2021. *Centralized Marketing Authorization does not include approval in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). About BEYOND BEYOND (NCT03342404) is a Phase 2, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter study to determine the efficacy and safety of luspatercept (ACE-536) versus placebo in adults with non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia. The study is divided into the Screening Period, Double-blind Treatment Period (DBTP), Open-label Phase (OLP), and Post-Treatment Follow-up Period (PTFP) and randomized 145 subjects at a 2:1 ratio of Reblozyl versus placebo. All patients were eligible to receive best supportive care, which included red blood cell transfusions; iron-chelating agents; use of antibiotic, antiviral, and antifungal therapy; and/or nutritional support, as needed. The primary endpoint of the study is the proportion of subjects who have an increase from baseline 1.0 g/dL in mean of hemoglobin values over a continuous 12-week interval from Week 13 to Week 24 of treatment in the absence of transfusions. Key secondary endpoints include mean change in non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia-patient reported outcome (NTDT-PRO) Tiredness and Weakness (TW) domain score and baseline hemoglobin (Hb). Results demonstrated 74 of 96 (77.1%) patients in the Reblozyl treatment arm achieved the studys primary endpoint, 1.0 g/dL mean Hb increase from baseline, versus 0 of 49 (0%) patients in the placebo arm (P In a key secondary endpoint of the study, 47 of 96 patients (49.0%) treated with Reblozyl achieved mean Hb increase of 1.5 g/dL compared to baseline from Week 37-48 in the absence of transfusions versus 0 patients (0%) in the placebo arm. In the Reblozyl arm, 89.6% of patients remained transfusion free at weeks 1-24 versus 67.3% of patients in the placebo arm. Improvements in patient reported quality of life outcomes (tiredness and weakness) were also observed to correlate with Hb increases. Serious adverse reactions occurred in 11.5% of patients (n=11) who received Reblozyl and in 25% of patients (n=24) who received placebo. The most common adverse reactions occurring in 10% of patients treated with Reblozyl were bone pain (36%), headache (30%), arthralgia (29%), back pain (28%), prehypertension (23%), hypertension (20%), cough (18%), diarrhea (17%), influenza-like illness (17%), asthenia (13%), influenza (13%), insomnia (11%) and nausea (10%). About Beta Thalassemia Beta thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder caused by a genetic defect in hemoglobin. It is one of the most common autosomal recessive disorders, and the total annual incidence of symptomatic individuals is estimated at 1 in 100,000 people globally.1,2 The disease is associated with ineffective erythropoiesis, which results in the production of fewer and less healthy red blood cells, often leading to severe anemiaa condition that can be debilitating and can lead to other complications for patientsas well as other serious health issues such as iron overload.3 Treatment options for anemia associated with beta thalassemia are limited, consisting mainly of frequent red blood cell transfusions and iron chelation therapy, and have the potential to contribute to iron overload, which can cause serious complications such as organ damage.1 Non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia is a term used to describe patients who do not require lifelong regular transfusions for survival, though they may experience a range of significant clinical complications and require intermittent or more frequent transfusions for defined periods of time.4 About Reblozyl Reblozyl, a first-in-class therapeutic option, promotes late-stage red blood cell maturation in animal models.1 Reblozyl is being developed and commercialized through a global collaboration with Merck following Mercks acquisition of Acceleron Pharma, Inc. in November 2021. Reblozyl is currently approved in the U.S. for the treatment of: anemia in adult patients with beta thalassemia who require regular red blood cell transfusions, and anemia failing an erythropoiesis stimulating agent and requiring 2 or more red blood cell units over 8 weeks in adult patients with very low- to intermediate-risk myelodysplastic syndrome with ring sideroblasts (MDS-RS) or with myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasm with ring sideroblasts and thrombocytosis (MDS/MPN-RS-T). Reblozyl is not indicated for use as a substitute for red blood cell transfusions in patients who require immediate correction of anemia. Important Safety Information WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Thrombosis/Thromboembolism In adult patients with beta thalassemia, thromboembolic events (TEE) were reported in 8/223 (3.6%) REBLOZYL-treated patients. TEEs included deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolus, portal vein thrombosis, and ischemic stroke. Patients with known risk factors for thromboembolism (splenectomy or concomitant use of hormone replacement therapy) may be at further increased risk of thromboembolic conditions. Consider thromboprophylaxis in patients at increased risk of TEE. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of thromboembolic events and institute treatment promptly. Hypertension Hypertension was reported in 10.7% (61/571) of REBLOZYL-treated patients. Across clinical studies, the incidence of Grade 3 to 4 hypertension ranged from 1.8% to 8.6%. In patients with beta thalassemia with normal baseline blood pressure, 13 (6.2%) patients developed systolic blood pressure (SBP) 130 mm Hg and 33 (16.6%) patients developed diastolic blood pressure (DBP) 80 mm Hg. In adult patients with MDS with normal baseline blood pressure, 26 (29.9%) patients developed SBP 130 mm Hg and 23 (16.4%) patients developed DBP 80 mm Hg. Monitor blood pressure prior to each administration. Manage new or exacerbations of preexisting hypertension using anti-hypertensive agents. Extramedullary Hematopoietic Masses In adult patients with transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia, EMH masses were observed in 3.2% of REBLOZYL-treated patients, with spinal cord compression symptoms due to EMH masses occurring in 1.9% of patients (BELIEVE and REBLOZYL long-term follow-up study). In a study of adult patients with non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia, a higher incidence of EMH masses was observed in 6.3% of REBLOZYL-treated patients vs. 2% of placebo-treated patients in the double- blind phase of the study, with spinal cord compression due to EMH masses occurring in 1 patient with a prior history of EMH. REBLOZYL is not indicated for use in patients with non-transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia. Possible risk factors for the development of EMH masses in patients with beta thalassemia include history of EMH masses, splenectomy, splenomegaly, hepatomegaly, or low baseline hemoglobin ( Embryo-Fetal Toxicity REBLOZYL may cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman. REBLOZYL caused increased post-implantation loss, decreased litter size, and an increased incidence of skeletal variations in pregnant rat and rabbit studies. Advise pregnant women of the potential risk to a fetus. Advise females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during treatment and for at least 3 months after the final dose. ADVERSE REACTIONS Beta Thalassemia Serious adverse reactions occurred in 3.6% of patients on REBLOZYL. Serious adverse reactions occurring in 1% of patients included cerebrovascular accident and deep vein thrombosis. A fatal adverse reaction occurred in 1 patient treated with REBLOZYL who died due to an unconfirmed case of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Most common adverse reactions (at least 10% for REBLOZYL and 1% more than placebo) were headache (26% vs 24%), bone pain (20% vs 8%), arthralgia (19% vs 12%), fatigue (14% vs 13%), cough (14% vs 11%), abdominal pain (14% vs 12%), diarrhea (12% vs 10%) and dizziness (11% vs 5%). Myelodysplastic Syndromes Grade >3 (2%) adverse reactions included fatigue, hypertension, syncope and musculoskeletal pain. A fatal adverse reaction occurred in 5 (2.1%) patients. The most common (10%) adverse reactions included fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, hypersensitivity reactions, hypertension, headache, upper respiratory tract infection, bronchitis, and urinary tract infection. LACTATION It is not known whether REBLOZYL is excreted into human milk or absorbed systemically after ingestion by a nursing infant. REBLOZYL was detected in milk of lactating rats. When a drug is present in animal milk, it is likely that the drug will be present in human milk. Because many drugs are excreted in human milk, and because of the unknown effects of REBLOZYL in infants, a decision should be made whether to discontinue nursing or to discontinue treatment. Because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in the breastfed child, breastfeeding is not recommended during treatment and for 3 months after the last dose. Please see full Prescribing Information and Summary of Product Characteristics for REBLOZYL. Bristol Myers Squibb: Creating a Better Future for People with Cancer Bristol Myers Squibb is inspired by a single vision transforming peoples lives through science. The goal of the companys cancer research is to deliver medicines that offer each patient a better, healthier life and to make cure a possibility. Building on a legacy across a broad range of cancers that have changed survival expectations for many, Bristol Myers Squibb researchers are exploring new frontiers in personalized medicine, and through innovative digital platforms, are turning data into insights that sharpen their focus. Deep scientific expertise, cutting-edge capabilities and discovery platforms enable the company to look at cancer from every angle. Cancer can have a relentless grasp on many parts of a patients life, and Bristol Myers Squibb is committed to taking actions to address all aspects of care, from diagnosis to survivorship. Because as a leader in cancer care, Bristol Myers Squibb is working to empower all people with cancer to have a better future. About Bristol Myers Squibb Bristol Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information about Bristol Myers Squibb, visit us at BMS.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding, among other things, the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. All statements that are not statements of historical facts are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based current expectations and projections about our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives and involve inherent risks, assumptions and uncertainties, including internal or external factors that could delay, divert or change any of them in the next several years, that are difficult to predict, may be beyond our control and could cause our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the statements. These risks, assumptions, uncertainties and other factors include, among others, that the CHMP opinion is not binding on the EC, that Reblozyl (luspatercept) may not receive regulatory approval for the additional indication described in this release in the currently anticipated timeline or at all, that any marketing approvals, if granted, may have significant limitations on their use, and, if approved, whether such product candidate for such additional indication described in this release will be commercially successful. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many risks and uncertainties that affect Bristol Myers Squibbs business and market, particularly those identified in the cautionary statement and risk factors discussion in Bristol Myers Squibbs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as updated by our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made only as of the date of this document and except as otherwise required by applicable law, Bristol Myers Squibb undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise. corporatefinancial-news References: Galanello R, Origa R. Beta thalassemia. Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases. 2010;5(11). Available at: https://ojrd.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1750-1172-5-11. Accessed February 2022. Iolascon, A., et al. (2019, June). EHA research roadmap on hemoglobinopathies and thalassemia: Hemasphere. https://journals.lww.com/hemasphere/fulltext/2019/06000/eha_research_roadmap_on_hemoglobinopathies_and.4.aspx#:~:text=The%20annual%20incidence%20of%20symptomatic,1%20in%2010%2C000%20in%20Europe.&text=Migrations%20from%20endemic%20areas%20to,thalassemia%20in%20large%20urban%20centers. Accessed November 2022. Rivella, S. (2013). Ineffective erythropoiesis and thalassemias. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703923/pdf/nihms-490109.pdf. Accessed February 2022. Musallam, K. M., Rivella, S., Vichinsky, E., & Rachmilewitz, E. A. (2013). Non-transfusion-dependent thalassemias. Haematologica, 98(6), 833844. https://doi.org/10.3324/haematol.2012.066845. Accessed February 2022. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005825/en/ BMS Contacts: Media Inquiries: [email protected] Investors: [email protected] Source: Bristol Myers Squibb Leading Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) technology company unveils insights from 1,850 auto dealership lead response trends DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- DAS Technology, the leading customer data and experience platform company, unveiled its comprehensive Customer Experience (CX) Automotive Mystery Shop Study at the opening educational sessions at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) annual conference in Dallas, Texas. The study was conducted in Q3-Q4 of 2022 and includes results from over 1,850 unique inquiries in partnership with dealers representing all brands across the United States. These dealers were not already clients of DAS Technology lead response solutions. It identified four top trends and areas for improvement relating to how consumers and auto dealers interact throughout the vehicle shopping, purchase, and ownership journey. Top 4 Takeaways: Dealers are too reliant on generic autoresponders, and most ignore specific questions from consumers. Online reviews with dealer responses will boost sales and service, but dealers have fallen off in this area. Consumers want video, which dramatically boosts engagement, yet only some dealers are using it effectively. Google is the #1 trusted car shopping source, but dealers arent taking full advantage of all capabilities. DAS Technologys second Mystery Shop Study is one of the largest and most timely in our industry, said Jason Barrie, COO of Digital Air Strike. The study outlines consumer and dealer challenges throughout the vehicle lifecycle, provides statistics on how dealers respond to consumer inquiries online and imparts the tech solutions to solve those issues. Responding to leads fast with relevant customer information, using reviews to drive service and sales, creating engaging custom videos for customers, and taking advantage of Google are ways dealers can get a competitive edge as the inventory increases and consumer buying slows. DAS Technology has patented solutions that have proven to assist in nurturing consumers and ensuring the best consumer experience. According to the study, 62% of dealer responses to consumer inquiries were autoresponders with no specific vehicle information or pricing. More specifically, 45% of VDP responses didnt include any information about the vehicle. The lack of detail allows dealers to improve the car shopping experience and closing rates for inbound inquiries. In addition, as it relates to service and sales, the study identified specific areas of improvement related to how dealers can leverage customer testimonials to engage with consumers more effectively. The analysis identified that fewer than 1% of dealers included customer testimonials in responses, and 46% didnt respond to Facebook comments. According to Digital Air Strikes 9th Annual Automotive Customer Experience Trends Study released in 2022, 93% of vehicle buyers said online reviews helped their dealership selection process. There is a tremendous opportunity to leverage reviews and testimonials to support ongoing consumer communications. DAS Technology provides powerful technology solutions that help our dealership engage and respond to consumers faster than we could without their help, which is a big competitive advantage in todays market, said Kevin Cravo, sales director of Royal Automotive Group in Arizona. DAS understands what it takes to deliver a top-notch vehicle shopping, buying, and ownership communication experience. Their technology is always evolving, and it easily integrates with our other solutions to deliver consistent and relevant messaging that gives consumers the information they want at the right time. Learn more about the DAS Technology full suite of solutions and pick up a copy of the Mystery Shop Study at NADA Booth #4059. Dealers and DAS Technology Partners can pick up party passes to the annual DAS Client Appreciation Party on Jan. 28, featuring performances with Nelly and The Sugarhill Gang. Space is limited. RSVP at digitalairstrike.com/nada2023. Download DAS Technology's Mystery Shop Study at digitalairstrike.com/mystery-shop. About DAS Technology DAS Technology is the largest automotive Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP), enabling over 7,800 businesses and OEMs to increase consumer response and lead conversions by leveraging patented AI-powered digital technology generating measurable ROI. A pioneer in digital response, social media marketing technology, and online reputation management solutions, DAS Technology deploys omnichannel messaging, mobile apps, software, and consumer engagement technology to monitor, respond, improve, and convert more consumers into customers for businesses in the United States, Canada, and 32 additional countries. The DAS Technology family includes Digital Air Strike, AUTOVATE, BestRide.com, and LotVantage. More information is available at www.digitalairstrike.com and www.facebook.com/digitalairstrike. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005335/en/ Hayley Ringle (480) 421-5959 [email protected] Source: DAS Technology Acquisition Continues Dealer Groups Growth Efforts and Expands EV Offerings SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Del Grande Dealer Group (DGDG), Northern Californias largest family-owned automotive group, continues to expand its footprint in Northern California with the acquisition of Audi Modesto. This acquisition adds a stellar premier brand with industry-leading design and innovation, which includes Audis all-electric e-tron vehicles, expanding DGDGs EV offerings for guests throughout Northern California. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005278/en/ Del Grande Dealer Group's newly acquired Audi Modesto, located at 4151 McHenry Avenue, Modesto, CA. (Photo: Business Wire) The newly acquired Audi Modesto is located at 4151 McHenry Avenue, Modesto, CA 95356. The state-of-the-art 23,404-square-foot facility sits on an 11-acre site, on the main thoroughfare of the city of Modesto. DGDG purchased Audi Modesto from the Findlay Automotive Group, a family-owned dealership group that shares similar values to DGDG including dedication to employees, maintaining a strong team culture, and providing a world-class experience for guests. Adding Modesto Audi as our first Audi store at DGDG not only adds another premium brand to our group but also fits perfectly into our continued growth strategy in Northern California, said DGDG Principal Shaun Del Grande. This new dealership complements our existing portfolio and helps expand the DGDG footprint. DGDG will bring its Silicon Valley savvy to Audi Modesto, said DGDG CEO Jeremy Beaver. Our new dealership will offer DGDGs world-class modern automotive retail experience, technology-rich digital retailing processes, Sell to DGDG technology, data analytics, and more. Additionally, this will also provide more opportunities for our team members to grow in their careers. We are thrilled to welcome Audi Modesto to the DGDG family. Adding top-tier brand Audi allows DGDG to provide guests with a significant assortment of brands to consider and further drives the auto group as an industry leader. Del Grande Dealer Group currently owns and operates 17 dealerships across 19 brands throughout Northern California. About Del Grande Dealer Group The Del Grande Dealer Group (DGDG) is Northern Californias largest family-owned automotive group. The dealer group comprises 17 brands and 19 dealerships in Northern California, including: Audi Modesto, Salinas Honda, Capitol Buick GMC, Capitol Chevrolet, Capitol Ford, Capitol Hyundai, Capitol Kia, Capitol Mazda, Capitol Subaru, Capitol Volkswagen, Concord Mazda, Fremont Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, Fremont Hyundai, Genesis of Stevens Creek, Salinas Honda, Stevens Creek Hyundai, Stevens Creek Mazda, Team Cadillac, Team Chevrolet, and Team Mazda. DGDG.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005278/en/ DeeDee Taft Spin Communications [email protected] 415.515.1229 Source: Del Grande Dealer Group ANCHORAGE, Alaska--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At the Board of Directors Meeting held January 26, 2023, First National Bank Alaska (OTCQX: FBAK) declared a cash dividend of $3.20 per share, payable on March 15, 2023, to shareholders of record as of March 1, 2023. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126006033/en/ Cheri Gillian Secretary to the Board of Directors 907-777-3409 www.FNBAlaska.com Source: First National Bank Alaska Capital will expand scale-up of green steel production at the companys pilot plant and support construction of first commercial plant in Brazil for high-value metals production BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Boston Metal, a company developing technology to fully decarbonize steel production, today announced the $120 million first close of Series C fundraising led by multinational steel company, ArcelorMittal S.A. (NYSE: MT). Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund and SiteGround Capital also joined as new investors in this round, alongside current investors. ArcelorMittals lead investment was made through its XCarb Innovation Fund. Commenting, Aditya Mittal, CEO, ArcelorMittal, said, In Boston Metal, we are investing in a team that has made impressive progress over a relatively short period of time, developing a technology that has exciting potential to revolutionize steelmaking. In our extensive discussions with them, we have been impressed by the passion and vision they have to contribute to the decarbonization of steelmaking. They are an exciting and welcome addition to the XCarb Innovation Funds portfolio. Boston Metals patented Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE) process is being commercialized to produce both green steel and high-value metals, such as tin and niobium. The Series C funds will expand the production of green steel at the companys pilot facility outside Boston and will support the site selection and preliminary design of its first green steel plant. The new resources will also support the construction and commissioning of a manufacturing facility for high-value metals at the companys Brazilian subsidiary, Boston Metal do Brasil. Microsofts Climate Innovation Fund was created to accelerate technology development and deployment in areas that will have the most meaningful impact on climate. The technology Boston Metal is developing has the potential to deliver affordable green steel at scale, helping to drive cross-industry decarbonization, which is increasingly critical for companies with carbon reduction targets, such as Microsoft, said Brandon Middaugh, director, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund. With the closing, Irina Gorbounova of ArcelorMittal and Rick Cutright of current investor OGCI Climate Investments joined the companys board of directors. Boston Metal has built an incredible team that has been making significant progress advancing its disruptive technology since we first invested in its Series A, said Rick Cutright, Technology Director at OGCI Climate Investments. Were very excited to continue that investment and be part of this next important phase of the companys growth as it builds capacity that will revolutionize the steel industry and support a net zero economy. Steel is one of the most important materials for our society with almost 2 billion tons produced each year, but the industry relies on a carbon intensive manufacturing process that contributes almost 10 percent of global carbon emissions. Major steel consumers in the automotive, construction, and technology sectors are demanding net zero steel solutions, and the steel industry has committed to reaching net zero by 2050. Boston Metal is commercializing a zero emissions technology intended to reach the billion-ton scale at the competitive production costs required to revolutionize the steel industry. The companys MOE platform uses renewable electricity to convert all iron ore grades into steel through an energy efficient, one-step process. The MOE technology does not release carbon dioxide or other harmful byproducts, and theres no need for process water, hazardous chemicals, or precious-metal catalysts. Our technology is designed to decarbonize steel production at scale. We believe we have the experienced team, strong financial backing, and the innovative technology required to disrupt the industry. ArcelorMittal's support further reinforces our capacity to lead the green steel revolution, said Tadeu Carneiro, chairman and CEO, Boston Metal. Complementary to the companys work in steel, Boston Metal do Brasil is focused on using MOE to advance the efficiency, sustainability, and profitability of metals production. MOE selectively extracts valuable metals from complex, low-concentration materials that are currently considered waste. This enables miners to reduce the financial and environmental liabilities of slag by leveraging this natural by-product of metal production to create new revenue streams. First earnings from Boston Metal do Brasil are anticipated in 2023. About Boston Metal Boston Metal is a global metals technology solutions company that is commercializing Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MOE), a patented tonnage metals production platform powered by electricity. MOE is expected to provide the metals industry with a more efficient, lower cost, and greener solution for the production of steel and other metals from a wide variety of feedstocks and iron ore grades. Backed by leading investors and led by a world class team of scientists and metals industry veterans, Boston Metals technology is designed for a direct, scalable approach to decarbonize steel production. The company is headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts with a wholly owned subsidiary in Brazil. To learn more about Boston Metal, visit www.bostonmetal.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126006000/en/ Media Annika Harper Antenna Group for Boston Metal [email protected] Source: Boston Metal LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Harris Williams, a global investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services, announces it advised Prima Solutions on its sale to Total Specific Solutions (TSS), a subsidiary of Topicus.com (TSXV:TOI; Topicus) and part of Constellation Software Inc. (TSX:CSU; Constellation). Prima Solutions is a leading European insurtech company that helps insurance professionals transform existing legacy systems and streamline core business processes, thereby speeding up their digital transformation. The transaction was led by Julien Oussadon and Luke Clifford of the Harris Williams Technology Group. Prima Solutions leadership position in France, blue-chip customer base, strong recurring revenue growth and cloud-based solutions were key to attracting interest from a variety of strategic partners. Were excited to see Prima Solutions growth continue into the next phase as part of TSS, said Julien Oussadon, a managing director at Harris Williams. Hugues Delannoy, founder and president of Prima Solutions, added, Harris Williams provided exceptional advice and support at every stage of the transaction and has been pivotal to its success. I am very excited for the future of Prima Solutions as we partner with TSS and continue our mission to digitally transform the French insurance industry. Prima Solutions designs software for insurance professionals, covering all business processes in the non-life, health, protection and mortgage insurance verticals. The group serves more than 50 customers and works with a global network of partners. It helps insurance companies go digital and manage their operations more efficiently through a highly configurable, modular, and cloud-based software suite. TSS is the leading provider of IT business solutions and consists of independent business units that deliver products and services to their specific vertical market segments. This market expertise is based on decades of experience. TSS is part of Constellation, a public company listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange. Topicus is a leading pan-European provider of vertical market software and vertical market platforms to clients in public and private sector markets. Operating and investing in countries and markets across Europe with long-term growth potential, Topicus acquires, builds, and manages leading software companies providing specialized, mission-critical, and high-impact software solutions that address the particular needs of customers. Constellation's common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "CSU." Constellation acquires, manages and builds vertical market software businesses. Harris Williams is a global investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services. Clients worldwide rely on us to help unlock value in their business and turn ambitious goals into reality. We approach every engagement with boundless collaboration, pooling expertise and relationships across industries and geographies to uncover the unique story of each company. Technology is ubiquitous in todays global economy, with most sectors and industries rapidly adopting software and data solutions as companies seek to increase competitiveness and enhance productivity. Led by seasoned and passionate professionals with strong vertical and horizontal experience, the Harris Williams Technology Group partners with both growth capital and private equity investors as well as company leaders around the globe. Our clients rely on us to navigate the ever-evolving technology M&A landscape and help them turn ambitious goals into reality. Our Technology Group has deep expertise across application and vertical software as well as technology and data services. Harris Williams LLC is a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Harris Williams & Co. Ltd is a private limited company incorporated under English law with its registered office at 8th Floor, 20 Farringdon Street, London EC4A 4AB, UK, registered with the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales (registration number 07078852). Harris Williams & Co. Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Harris Williams & Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH is registered in the commercial register of the local court of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, under HRB 107540. The registered address is Bockenheimer Landstrasse 33-35, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany (email address: [email protected]). Geschaftsfuhrer/Directors: Jeffery H. Perkins, Paul Poggi. (VAT No. DE321666994). Harris Williams is a trade name under which Harris Williams LLC, Harris Williams & Co. Ltd and Harris Williams & Co. Corporate Finance Advisors GmbH conduct business. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005292/en/ For media inquiries, please contact Julia Moore at [email protected] Source: Harris Williams Coalition of organizations kickstart project alongside new Mayor IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Following Mayor Rex Richardsons call in his recent State of the City address for 100 new diverse startups to be brought to the City of Long Beach, a local coalition representing the public, private, and nonprofit sectors announced their answer to his directive through the signing of an agreement that signals the start of their efforts. Leaders from local organizations Sunstone Management, Sunstone Community Fund, the Long Beach Accelerator, the Long Beach Economic Partnership, City of Long Beach Economic Development, CSULB Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Imprint Venture Labs signed their agreement to form the Launch Beach 100 Startups Campaign on January 23 with the mayor on hand. Attracting new and diverse businesses that will push the boundaries on innovation while boosting our local economy is a focal point of my administration's Grow Long Beach Initiative and our Opportunity Beach Agenda," said Mayor Richardson. "I applaud the Long Beach Coalition for believing in and supporting our mission to unleash the potential of the city's emerging industries and provide good-paying jobs of the future for our residents." The 100 Startups Campaign is a crucial mission for the City of Long Beach, and one that Sunstone Management and the Sunstone Community Fund is truly honored to be a part of, said John Keisler, CEO & Managing Partner of Sunstone Management. Mayor Richardson understands the importance of a thriving startup ecosystem, and we and our partners look forward to driving towards our goal over the next five years. Keisler also served as a member of Mayor Richardsons transition team. Sunstone Management and its associated donor-advised fund, the Sunstone Community Fund, are participating in the 100 Startups Campaign. Sunstone Management will be responsible for development, registration, and management of the Long Beach Venture Fund. The anticipated $25 million fund will be open to accredited venture capital investors and will be invested over time into 100 early-stage technology startups who meet the requirements. In addition, Sunstone Management will provide financial, administrative, and compliance services to support Coalition activities, consistent with regulatory requirements. The non-profit Sunstone Community Fund will be responsible for securing grant funding to support non-profit Coalition partners to assist with the implementation of the campaign. To date, Sunstone Management has committed to securing $100,000 per year, or $500,000 total, in charitable grants to the Coalition partners over the 5-year period. This includes grant funding already committed by the Sunstone Community Fund, as well as matching funds to be identified by the City of Long Beach and other non-governmental partners. About Sunstone Management Sunstone Management is a diversified private capital sponsor firm located in Southern California that invests in diverse early-stage technology entrepreneurs who seek to build great companies. We believe in the aspirational power of the American economy to attract and inspire investors and entrepreneurs from throughout the world. We deliver new and exciting opportunities for economic growth through the creation of innovative public-private partnerships, and our unique experience across government, education, and private sectors. Identified by Financial Times as one of Americas Fastest Growing Companies. LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Crunchbase | Pitchbook About Sunstone Community Fund The Sunstone Community Fund is a Donor Advised Fund managed by the National Philanthropic Trust. It is an important component of Sunstone Managements vision to advance public-benefit programs that support the development of inclusive and vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems. The SCF supports a network of universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies that develop and implement university-based entrepreneurship programs, early-stage tech accelerators, and advance local economic development through inclusive entrepreneurship and innovation. Website | LinkedIn View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005265/en/ Erin McGarvey [email protected], 203-770-1013 Source: Sunstone Management Not for Distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for Dissemination in the United States of America. TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Picton Mahoney Asset Management (Picton Mahoney) was recognized with three awards at the annual FundGrade A+ Awards across multiple categories. The FundGrade A+ Awards are given annually to investment funds and their managers who have shown consistent, outstanding, risk-adjusted performance through the year. The fact that three of our funds have been singled out for outstanding performance in a year characterized by major market headwinds demonstrates the value of alternative investment strategies, said David Picton, President and CEO at Picton Mahoney. Weve been championing alternative strategies for almost 20 years and we know how challenging it is for advisors to help their clients navigate through market volatility, so were pleased to see that alternative strategies like market neutral and multi-asset investments are gaining greater recognition. Fund Name Award/CIFSC Category Number of Funds in the Category FundGrade Award Calculation Start Date FundGrade Award Calculation End Date Picton Mahoney Fortified Market Neutral Alternative Fund Alternative Market Neutral 10 2019-01-31 2022-12-31 Picton Mahoney Fortified Equity Fund Global Equity 1146 2016-01-31 2022-12-31 Picton Mahoney Fortified Multi-Asset Fund Tactical Balanced 174 2016-01-31 2022-12-31 Performance as of December 31, 2022 Fund Name 1 Year 3 Year 5 Year Since Inception Inception Date Picton Mahoney Fortified Market Neutral Alternative Fund (F Class) 5.64% 9.41% - 7.97% September 27, 2018 Picton Mahoney Fortified Equity Fund (F Class) -10.39% 8.31% 7.42% 7.19% October 29, 2015 Picton Mahoney Fortified Multi-Asset Fund (F Class) -7.67% 5.52% 5.14% 6.24% October 29, 2015 To learn more about Picton Mahoney Fortified Funds, visit www.pictonmahoney.com. About Fundata Canada Inc. Fundata Canada Inc. has been providing data aggregation and dissemination services to the Canadian media and financial marketplace since 1987. Fundata is a major provider in the distribution of fund and stock information in Canada. About FundGrade FundGrade A+ is used with permission from Fundata Canada Inc., all rights reserved. The annual FundGrade A+ Awards are presented by Fundata Canada Inc. to recognize the best of the best among Canadian investment funds. The FundGrade A+ calculation is supplemental to the monthly FundGrade ratings and is calculated at the end of each calendar year. The FundGrade rating system evaluates funds based on their risk-adjusted performance, measured by Sharpe Ratio, Sortino Ratio, and Information Ratio. The score for each ratio is calculated individually, covering all time periods from 2 to 10 years. The scores are then weighted equally in calculating a monthly FundGrade. The top 10% of funds earn an A Grade; the next 20% of funds earn a B Grade; the next 40% of funds earn a C Grade; the next 20% of funds receive a D Grade; and the lowest 10% of funds receive an E Grade. To be eligible, a fund must have received a FundGrade rating every month in the previous year. The FundGrade A+ uses a GPA-style calculation, where each monthly FundGrade from A to E receives a score from 4 to 0, respectively. A funds average score for the year determines its GPA. Any fund with a GPA of 3.5 or greater is awarded a FundGrade A+ Award. For more information, see www.FundGradeAwards.com. Although Fundata makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data contained herein, the accuracy is not guaranteed by Fundata. About Picton Mahoney Picton Mahoney Asset Management specializes in differentiated investment solutions and rules-based volatility management. Picton Mahoney helps its clients fortify their portfolios based on experience honed over the years through different market cycles and investing environments. Founded in 2004 and 100% employee owned, Picton Mahoney is a portfolio management boutique entrusted with about CAD $9 billion (as at December 31, 2022) in assets under management. Pioneers of Authentic Hedge investment principles and practices in Canada, the firm offers a full suite of investment solutions, including mutual and alternative funds, to institutional and retail investors across the country. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees, performance fees and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated. Alternative funds can only be purchased through an IIROC-registered dealer and are available only in those jurisdictions where they may be lawfully offered for sale. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005746/en/ For further information: Phil Clark, Head of Marketing, Picton Mahoney Asset Management Tel: (416) 955-4462 Email: [email protected] Website: www.pictonmahoney.com Source: Picton Mahoney Asset Management PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Regulatory News: In accordance with Article 5 of EU Regulation n 596/2014 (Market Abuse Regulation), detailed information is available on the website of Tikehau Capital (Paris: TKO): https://www.tikehaucapital.com/fr/shareholders/regulatory-information Disclosure of Shares Repurchases From 20 January 2023 to 26 January 2023 Name of the issuer Issuer Identity Code (LEI) Trading Day ISIN Aggregated volume per day (number of shares) Weighted average price per day Market (MIC Code) TIKEHAU CAPITAL 969500BY8TEU16U3SJ94 20/01/2023 FR0013230612 2,000 25.7120 XPAR TIKEHAU CAPITAL 969500BY8TEU16U3SJ94 23/01/2023 FR0013230612 3,259 25.9720 XPAR TIKEHAU CAPITAL 969500BY8TEU16U3SJ94 23/01/2023 FR0013230612 1,094 25.9523 CEUX TIKEHAU CAPITAL 969500BY8TEU16U3SJ94 23/01/2023 FR0013230612 127 25.9575 TQEX TOTAL 6,480 25.8881 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005361/en/ Tikehau Capital Source: Tikehau Capital - Contributing to DX efforts by advancing Uzbekistan's information and telecommunications infrastructure - TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Toyota Tsusho Corporation ("Toyota Tsusho"), Internet Initiative Japan Inc. ("IIJ"), NEC Corporation ("NEC"), and NTT Communications Corporation ("NTT Com") announced today the conclusion of a contract with Uzbektelecom, a state-owned telecommunications operator in Uzbekistan, for a telecommunications infrastructure development project ("the Project") to provide data center and telecommunications infrastructure for an advanced data communication system ("the System"). Installation of the System is scheduled to begin in 2023 and the sequential launch of operations is expected to significantly improve the communications environment of Uzbekistan. 1. Background In response to the rapidly growing data communication demand driven by the digitalization of various industries, Uzbekistan is expanding its telecommunications infrastructure aimed at issues such as improving communications quality and closing the digital divide between urban and rural areas. In accordance with this background, the government of Uzbekistan has made the decision to accelerate digital transformation (DX) and introduce the latest information technologies for its digitalization strategy, Digital Uzbekistan 2030. 2. Overview For the Project, launched under Digital Uzbekistan 2030, the four companies will provide telecommunications equipment and services required for Uzbektelecoms data centers in three major cities (Tashkent, Bukhara, and Kokand), expansion of the telecommunications transport and data networks, as well as the international data communication network. This is expected to significantly increase the speed, capacity, and quality of the telecommunications infrastructure and to contribute to propelling DX in Uzbekistan, thereby facilitating the country's transition to a digital economy in the future. The Project is funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), and the MUFG Bank, Ltd. 3. Outlook Through the Project, the four companies will contribute to the realization of a more convenient and comfortable society, as well as the sustainable development of industries in Uzbekistan and other countries in Central Asia. [Roles of Participating Companies] Toyota Tsusho As the prime contractor for the Project, Toyota Tsusho will serve as the overall coordinator and ensure the smooth progress of the Project. IIJ In the data storage and data processing center (data center) construction projects, IIJ will contribute to the development of sustainable digital infrastructure in Uzbekistan by providing its energy efficient, high-quality, and highly efficient containerized IT modules co-IZmo/I, building the cloud platform, and providing training for Uzbektelecom's data center operational staff. NEC In the Uzbektelecom telecommunications transport network and data network expansion project, NEC will contribute to the operation of the national telecommunications infrastructure by providing optical wavelength multiplexing communications equipment and training for Uzbektelecom's operational staff, leveraging its many years of experience in supporting Uzbekistan's telecommunications infrastructure. NTT Com In the international data communication network expansion project, NTT Com will contribute to the realization of DX in Uzbekistan through the expansion of the country's international data communication network by providing equipment for the large-scale communication network and education for Uzbektelecom's operational staff. [Overview of Toyota Tsusho] Company name Toyota Tsusho Corporation Location Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture Established July 1, 1948 Capital 64.936 billion yen Representative President & CEO Ichiro Kashitani Business description Domestic and international trade of goods, export and import of goods, construction undertaking, insurance agents, among others Website https://www.toyota-tsusho.com/english/ [Overview of IIJ] Company name Internet Initiative Japan Inc. Location Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Established December 3, 1992 Capital 23.023 billion yen Representative President, co-CEO, and COO Eijiro Katsu Business description Provision of Internet connectivity and WAN service, network-related services, network systems construction, operation and maintenance, development and sales of telecommunication equipment Website https://www.iij.ad.jp/en/ [Overview of NEC] Company name NEC Corporation Location Minato-ku, Tokyo Established July 17, 1899 Capital 427.8 billion yen Representative President and CEO (Representative Director) Takayuki Morita Business description Provision of ICT solutions in the areas of public solutions business, public infrastructure business, enterprise business, network services business, and global business Website https://www.nec.com/ [Overview of NTT Com] Company name NTT Communications Corporation Location Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo Established 1999 Capital 230.9 billion yen Representative President & CEO (Representative Member of the Board of the Company) Toru Maruoka Business description Long-distance telecommunications in Japan, international telecommunications, solutions business, ICT services and solutions, and related businesses Website https://www.ntt.com/en/index.html View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230126005488/en/ [For Press Inquiries Regarding This Release] Toyota Tsusho Corporation Corporate Communications Department Tokyo Corporate Communications Group Tel: +81-3-4306-8200 Internet Initiative Japan Inc. Corporate Communications Department Tel: +81-3-5205-6310 E-mail: [email protected] NEC Corporation Corporate Communications Department Tel: +81-3-3798-6511 E-mail: [email protected] NTT Communications Corporation Public Relations Office, Corporate Strategy Planning Department Tel: +81-3-6700-4010 [For Customer Inquiries Regarding This Release] NEC Corporation Service Provider Solutions Division E-mail: [email protected] Source: NTT Communications Corporation ROCHESTER, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- UBS Wealth Management USA announced today that The Schoff Group, an advisor team in the firms Rochester, NY office, has been named to the Forbes Best-In-State Wealth Management Teams list for 2023. With over 100 years of collective experience, The Schoff Group provides comprehensive wealth management advice to individuals and their families as well as equity compensation services to corporations, their key employees and executives. This recognition is a testament not only to their talent but also to their ability to collaborate and problem-solve, always putting clients first and empowering them to pursue what matters most to them, said Ben Tarantino, Managing Director, New York State Market Director at UBS Wealth Management USA. The Schoff Group represents what UBS is all about: one fully integrated team that embraces the resources of the firm for the benefit of the client. Founded with a focus on individual wealth management and corporate stock plans, The Schoff Group has grown into a multi-generational team of 13 professionals. Most recently, the team has expanded to include institutional investment consulting by partnering with a multi-employer pension plan specialist. The Schoff Group focuses on creating a fulfilling, holistic experience for their clients through personalized relationships, wealth management education and tailored strategies that can help them maximize the potential long-term value of their stock plan benefits. Founder, Managing Director, and Financial Advisor William Schoff credits the teams relationship-centric approach for their success, saying Im so proud that our team can provide the range of solutions for clients with the highest levels of integrity. It is unique to have a full-service boutique team right here Rochester, comparable to teams in major cities like New York and Chicago, but we all choose to live, work, and contribute to the local community. The Forbes/SHOOK Best-In-State Wealth Management Teams list features 2,800 teams with cumulative assets of roughly $4 trillion. The ranking, developed by SHOOK Research, is based on an algorithm of quantitative and qualitative criteria, including telephone, virtual and in-person interviews. For the full list and further information visit: https://www.forbes.com/lists/wealth-management-teams-best-in-state/ Notes to Editors About UBS UBS convenes the global ecosystem for investing, where people and ideas are connected and opportunities brought to life, and provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as to private clients in Switzerland. UBS offers investment solutions, products and impactful thought leadership, is the leading global wealth manager, provides large-scale and diversified asset management, focused investment banking capabilities, and personal and corporate banking services in Switzerland. The firm focuses on businesses that have a strong competitive position in their target markets, are capital efficient and have an attractive long-term structural growth or profitability outlook. UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in more than 50 regions and locations, with about 30% of its employees working in the Americas, 29% in Switzerland, 20% in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 21% in Asia Pacific. UBS Group AG employs more than 72,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). UBS 2023. All rights reserved. The key symbol and UBS are among the registered and unregistered trademarks of UBS. Neither UBS Financial Services Inc. or its employees pay a fee in exchange for these ratings. Past performance is not an indication of future results. For press use only. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005423/en/ Media Contact: Christina Aquilina [email protected] https://www.ubs.com Source: UBS The partnership will yield a three-year effort to help families and children better control asthma, address mental health needs and increase vaccinations in the Twin Cities. MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The United Health Foundation, the philanthropic foundation of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), and Childrens Minnesota today announced a three-year, $3 million grant partnership to address pediatric disparities related to asthma, vaccinations and mental health for underserved children and families in the Twin Cities. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005083/en/ The partnership will support Childrens Minnesota, a nonprofit and the largest pediatric provider in the state. The initiative will provide culturally responsive health interventions with existing community partners, as well as local public school districts. The programming will be developed with Childrens Minnesotas Collective for Community Health, which is focused on improving community health and advancing health equity through collaboration between The Kid ExpertsTM from Childrens Minnesota and community partners. The announcement was made today at Phyllis Wheatley Community Center in Minneapolis. Together with Childrens Minnesota and other community partners, the United Health Foundation is committed to reducing health disparities, increasing access to care and improving outcomes for underserved children and their families, said Victor Fields, chief executive officer, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Minnesota. We are honored to partner with Childrens Minnesota to address the essential health care needs of families in our communities. Since 2018, Childrens Minnesota has been tracking health equity metrics in a unique pediatric health equity dashboard to identify and respond to disparities in processes and patient outcomes. Data from the dashboard show that Black children who live in underserved neighborhoods in the Twin Cities experience significant health disparities and are less likely to achieve well-controlled asthma and complete routine childhood vaccines, and have significantly lower rates of adolescent mental health screenings. We are grateful for the United Health Foundations investment and partnership in our commitment as the kid experts to address the health disparities impacting thousands of kids and families in our community, said Jennifer Soderholm, senior vice president, chief development officer and president of the Childrens Minnesota Foundation. Partnerships like this one are critical to our efforts to improve access to vital health care services and champion the needs of all children and families. UnitedHealth Group, the United Health Foundation and their employees have together given $50 million in support of the Twin Cities community since 2020. About Childrens Minnesota Childrens Minnesota is one of the largest pediatric health systems in the United States and the only health system in Minnesota to provide care exclusively to children, from before birth through young adulthood. An independent and not-for-profit system since 1924, Childrens Minnesota is one system serving kids throughout the Upper Midwest at two free-standing hospitals, nine primary care clinics, multiple specialty clinics and seven rehabilitation sites. As The Kids ExpertsTM in our region, Childrens Minnesota is regularly ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a top childrens hospital. About the United Health Foundation Through collaboration with community partners, grants and outreach efforts, the United Health Foundation works to improve the health system, build a diverse and dynamic health workforce and enhance the well-being of local communities. The United Health Foundation was established by UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) in 1999 as a not-for-profit, private foundation dedicated to improving health and health care. To date, the United Health Foundation has committed more than $700 million to programs and communities around the world. To learn more, visit www.UnitedHealthFoundation.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005083/en/ Media Contacts: Caroline Landree UnitedHealth Group 651-308-2481 [email protected] Nick Peterson Childrens Minnesota 920-246-0206 [email protected] Source: United Health Foundation ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- WestRock Company (NYSE: WRK) today reported that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.275 per share on its common stock. The quarterly dividend of $0.275 per share will be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 10, 2023, and will be paid on February 22, 2023. About WestRock WestRock (NYSE: WRK) partners with our customers to provide sustainable paper and packaging solutions that help them win in the marketplace. WestRocks team members support customers around the world from locations spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Learn more at www.westrock.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005303/en/ Investors: Robert Quartaro, 470-328-6979 Senior Vice President, Investor Relations [email protected] Media: Robby Johnson, 470-328-6397 Senior Manager, Corporate Communications [email protected] Source: WestRock Company By embedding Workato, WoodWing reduces time to market of new product integrations by 50% MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Workato, the leading enterprise automation platform, announced today that WoodWing, a software company focusing on content orchestration, is embedding Workato to enable WoodWings platform to integrate with other third-party apps requested by customers. Instead of doubling down and building integrations to the third-party apps, WoodWing chose Workatos embedded integration/automation platform as a service (iPaaS) for its faster time to market, intuitive user experience, and ability to generate high ROI. Before WoodWing decided to embed Workatos iPaaS platform into its existing product, it was clear the company needed to provide customers with integrations beyond the ones it built in-house. The companys main priority was to find a quick and efficient solution that could help integrate WoodWing products with the rest of its customers' tech stack to increase its revenue and improve customer retention. If WoodWing stuck to the status quo and built out integrations leveraging internal resources, it would have taken the team at least three years to build all the required third-party app connectors and hire an entirely new engineering team dedicated to developing these connectors. When our team set out to find the best embedded iPaaS solution for our product integrations, we knew we couldnt compromise on an intuitive user experience or enterprise-grade security. We also knew we couldnt spend three years hiring a team of engineers and building all the connectors that our customers were looking for. When we discovered Workatos low-code, no-code platform, we knew this would be a valuable partnership from the start, said Jeffery Gap, Product Manager at Woodwing. From decreasing the amount of time it takes to build connectors for our customers by 50% to launching new customers to market, Workato is helping our company and customers continually adapt to the fast-changing environment. Workato allowed us to invest in our core products and focus on what matters most making it faster and easier to create exceptional content at scale. After embedding Workato, Woodwing can meet its customers' needs in a shorter amount of time while also utilizing the flexibility and capability of Workato working within its environment. WoodWings professional services team has reduced the amount of time it takes to build integrations for its customers by over 50%, allowing them to focus on business-critical tasks. From pre-sales to partner management, WoodWing has implemented Workatos tools across multiple teams and plans to expand to its international teams. For more than 20 years, WoodWing has been an innovative and trusted partner to the worlds biggest publishing brands. The company aims to liberate organizations from their content and information inefficiencies by aligning their people, processes, and technology - to achieve optimal workflows, automation, access, and control. The biggest value WoodWing has seen Workato bring to its customers is automating the photo tagging process using AI. Photographers upload thousands of images at once to the Woodwing platform. Workato automates this process end-to-end by adding captions and tags to these photos by integrating with AI tools and then uploading them securely and reliably to WoodWings digital asset management platform. We are excited to be a part of WoodWings digital transformation journey and help them achieve content creation at scale by enabling them to address their customer integration and automation needs faster than ever before, said Kristen Ditsch, Head of Product Marketing, Embedded Platform at Workato. With Workatos embedded platform, they are now able to readily access over 1000 third-party app connectors, address their customer's integration needs in days, and do it cost-effectively without having to build an engineering team. To learn more about Workato and the future of enterprise automation, visit www.workato.com. About WoodWing WoodWing empowers ambitious organizations to unlock their potential and reclaim control of their publishing, information, and content management processes. Through our intuitive software solutions, it is our mission to liberate organizations from their content and information inefficiencies. Sustained global growth sees WoodWing employing 200+ staff worldwide, with headquarters in the Netherlands, offices in the US and Malaysia, commercial staff in LATAM, and a partner network that extends worldwide. WoodWing Software is a private limited company (BV) and is backed by Main Capital. About Workato The leader in enterprise automation, Workato helps organizations work faster and smarter without compromising security and governance. Built for Business and IT users, Workato is trusted by over 17,000 of the world's top brands, including Broadcom, Intuit, and Box. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., Workato is backed by Altimeter Capital, Battery Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Tiger Global, and Redpoint Ventures. For more information, visit workato.com or connect with us on social media: View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005422/en/ Joseph Hollister Communications Manager [email protected] Source: Workato FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of Boeing 777X airplanes parked at King County International Airport-Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S, June 1, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson By Valerie Insinna and David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing expects to hire 10,000 workers in 2023 as it recovers from the pandemic and increases jetliner production, but will trim some support jobs, the U.S. planemaker said Friday. The Arlington, Virginia-based company boosted overall employment by about 14,000 workers in 2022 to 156,000 as of Dec. 31, up from about 142,000 in 2021. Boeing employs about 136,000 workers in the United States. Boeing acknowledged it will "lower staffing within some support functions" - a move meant to enable it to better align resources to support current products and technology development. It declined to comment on how many jobs it will cut in 2023. Most of the growth will occur in Boeing's business units, as well as engineering and manufacturing, to meet airlines' growing demand. The company plans to increase deliveries of the 737 MAX from 374 aircraft in 2022 to between 400 to 450 planes this year, with deliveries of the 787 expected to hit between 70 and 80 aircraft. European rival Airbus said this week it plans to add 13,000 employees this year. About 7,000 of those jobs are set to be newly created positions, with about 9,000 of the new hires based in Europe. Boeing did not comment on how many net new jobs would created in the United States in 2023. The U.S. planemaker is nearing pre-pandemic workforce levels, which stood at 161,000 people at the end of 2019. During 2020, the workforce fell to about 141,000 employees after Boeing announced job reductions. "Hiring is not a constraint anymore," Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told analysts Wednesday. "People are able to hire the people they need. It's all about the training and ultimately getting them ready to do the sophisticated work that we demand." (Reporting by Valerie Insinna and David Shepardson; Editing by Jan Harvey) Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency has recommended the approval of Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Sotyktu, an oral medication taken once-daily, is a first-in-class, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in adults who are candidates for systemic therapy. The CHMP recommendation will now be reviewed by the European Commission, which has the authority to approve medicines for the European Union (EU). Patients living with moderate-to-severe psoriasis still experience debilitating symptoms and many remain untreated, undertreated or dissatisfied with current options, with a significant need for more effective and well-tolerated oral therapies, said Samit Hirawat, MD, chief medical officer, Bristol Myers Squibb. Todays positive CHMP opinion is an important advancement for patients in the EU to address the unmet needs they face, and were proud to be one step closer to bringing this first-in-class medicine with demonstrated durable efficacy to patients in need. We look forward to potentially seeing Sotyktu become the oral standard of care. The CHMP adopted this positive opinion based on results from the pivotal Phase 3 POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials, which evaluated once-daily Sotyktu in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis versus placebo and twice-daily Otezla (apremilast), as well as an additional two years of data from the POETYK PSO long-term extension trial. Sotyktu demonstrated significant and clinically meaningful improvements in skin clearance, symptom burden and quality of life measures compared to placebo and Otezla. Sotyktu was well-tolerated with a low rate of discontinuation due to adverse events. The most common adverse reactions (1% of patients on Sotyktu) included upper respiratory infections, herpes simplex infections, oral ulcers, folliculitis and acneiform rash. The results of the Phase 3 POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Sotyktu for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy in September 2022, and Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare approved Sotyktu for the treatment of adults with plaque psoriasis, generalized pustular psoriasis, and erythrodermic psoriasis who have had an inadequate response to conventional therapies in September 2022. In addition to the European Medicines Agency, Sotyktu is also under regulatory review by other health authorities around the world for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Bristol Myers Squibb thanks the patients and investigators involved in the POETYK PSO clinical trial program. About the POETYK PSO Clinical Trial Program PrOgram to Evaluate the efficacy and safety of Sotyktu (deucravacitinib), a selective TYK2 inhibitor (POETYK) PSO-1 (NCT03624127) and POETYK PSO-2 (NCT03611751) were global Phase 3 studies designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Sotyktu compared to placebo and Otezla (apremilast) in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Both POETYK PSO-1, which enrolled 666 patients, and POETYK PSO-2, which enrolled 1,020 patients, were multi-center, randomized, double-blind trials that evaluated Sotyktu (6 mg once daily) compared to placebo and Otezla (30 mg twice daily). POETYK PSO-2 included a randomized withdrawal and retreatment period after Week 24. The co-primary endpoints of both POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 were the percentage of patients who achieved Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) 75 response and those who achieved static Physician's Global Assessment (sPGA) score of 0 or 1 (clear/almost clear) at Week 16 versus placebo. Key secondary endpoints of the trials included the percentage of patients who achieved PASI 75 and sPGA 0/1 compared to Otezla at Week 16 and other measures evaluating Sotyktu versus placebo and Otezla. Following the 52-week POETYK PSO-1 and POETYK PSO-2 trials, patients could enroll in the ongoing POETYK PSO long-term extension (LTE) trial (NCT04036435) and receive open-label Sotyktu 6 mg once-daily. 1,221 patients enrolled in the LTE trial and received at least one dose of Sotyktu. Efficacy was analyzed utilizing treatment failure rules (TFR) method of imputation, along with sensitivity analyses using modified non-responder imputation and as-observed analysis, which have been used in similar analyses with other agents. In addition to POETYK PSO-1, POETYK PSO-2 and POETYK PSO-LTE, Bristol Myers Squibb has evaluated Sotyktu in two other Phase 3 studies in psoriasis: POETYK PSO-3 (NCT04167462) and POETYK PSO-4 (NCT03924427). About Psoriasis Psoriasis is a widely prevalent, chronic, systemic immune-mediated disease that substantially impairs patients physical health, quality of life and work productivity. Psoriasis is a serious global problem, with at least 100 million people worldwide impacted by some form of the disease, including around 14 million people in Europe and approximately 7.5 million people in the United States. Nearly one-quarter of people with psoriasis have cases that are considered moderate-to-severe. Up to 90 percent of patients with psoriasis have psoriasis vulgaris, or plaque psoriasis, which is characterized by distinct round or oval plaques typically covered by silvery-white scales. Despite the availability of effective systemic therapy, many patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis remain undertreated or even untreated and are dissatisfied with current treatments. People with psoriasis report an impact on their emotional well-being, straining both personal and professional relationships and causing a reduced quality of life. Psoriasis is associated with multiple comorbidities that may impact patients well-being, including psoriatic arthritis, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, obesity, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease and depression. About Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) Sotyktu (deucravacitinib) is an oral, selective, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitor with a unique mechanism of action, representing a new class of small molecules. It is the first selective TYK2 inhibitor in clinical studies across multiple immune-mediated diseases. Bristol Myers Squibb scientists designed Sotyktu to selectively target TYK2, thereby inhibiting signaling of interleukin (IL)-23, IL-12 and Type 1 interferons (IFN), key cytokines involved in the pathogenesis of multiple immune-mediated diseases. Sotyktu achieves a high degree of selectivity by binding to the regulatory domain of TYK2, resulting in allosteric inhibition of TYK2 and its downstream functions. Sotyktu selectively inhibits TYK2 at physiologically relevant concentrations. At therapeutic doses, Sotyktu does not inhibit JAK1, JAK2 or JAK3. Bristol Myers Squibb: Pioneering Paths Forward in Immunology to Transform Patients Lives Bristol Myers Squibb is inspired by a single vision transforming patients lives through science. For people living with immune-mediated diseases, the debilitating reality of enduring chronic symptoms and disease progression can take a toll on their physical, emotional and social well-being, making simple tasks and daily life a challenge. Driven by our deep understanding of the immune system that spans over 20 years of experience, and our passion to help patients, the company continues to pursue pathbreaking science with the goal of delivering meaningful solutions that address unmet needs in rheumatology, gastroenterology, dermatology and neurology. We follow the science, aiming to tailor therapies to individual needs, improve outcomes and expand treatment options by working to identify mechanisms with the potential to achieve long-term remission and perhaps even cures in the future. By building partnerships with researchers, patients and caregivers to deliver innovative treatments, Bristol Myers Squibb strives to elevate patient care to new standards and deliver what matters most the promise of living a better life. SOTYKTU U.S. INDICATION SOTYKTU (deucravacitinib) is indicated for the treatment of moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in adults who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. Limitations of Use: SOTYKTU is not recommended for use in combination with other potent immunosuppressants. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION CONTRAINDICATIONS SOTYKTU is contraindicated in patients with a history of hypersensitivity reaction to deucravacitinib or to any of the excipients in SOTYKTU. WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS Hypersensitivity: Hypersensitivity reactions such as angioedema have been reported. If a clinically significant hypersensitivity reaction occurs, institute appropriate therapy and discontinue SOTYKTU. Infections: SOTYKTU may increase the risk of infections. Serious infections have been reported in patients with psoriasis who received SOTYKTU. The most common serious infections reported with SOTYKTU included pneumonia and COVID-19. Avoid use of SOTYKTU in patients with an active or serious infection. Consider the risks and benefits of treatment prior to initiating SOTYKTU in patients: with chronic or recurrent infection who have been exposed to tuberculosis with a history of a serious or an opportunistic infection with underlying conditions that may predispose them to infection. Closely monitor patients for the development of signs and symptoms of infection during and after treatment. A patient who develops a new infection during treatment should undergo prompt and complete diagnostic testing, have appropriate antimicrobial therapy initiated and be closely monitored. Interrupt SOTYKTU if a patient develops a serious infection. Do not resume SOTYKTU until the infection resolves or is adequately treated. Viral Reactivation Herpes virus reactivation (e.g., herpes zoster, herpes simplex) was reported in clinical trials with SOTYKTU. Through Week 16, herpes simplex infections were reported in 17 patients (6.8 per 100 patient-years) treated with SOTYKTU, and 1 patient (0.8 per 100 patient-years) treated with placebo. Multidermatomal herpes zoster was reported in an immunocompetent patient. During PSO-1, PSO-2, and the open-label extension trial, the majority of patients who reported events of herpes zoster while receiving SOTYKTU were under 50 years of age. The impact of SOTYKTU on chronic viral hepatitis reactivation is unknown. Consider viral hepatitis screening and monitoring for reactivation in accordance with clinical guidelines before starting and during therapy with SOTYKTU. If signs of reactivation occur, consult a hepatitis specialist. SOTYKTU is not recommended for use in patients with active hepatitis B or hepatitis C. Tuberculosis (TB): In clinical trials, of 4 patients with latent TB who were treated with SOTYKTU and received appropriate TB prophylaxis, no patients developed active TB (during the mean follow-up of 34 weeks). One patient, who did not have latent TB, developed active TB after receiving 54 weeks of SOTYKTU. Evaluate patients for latent and active TB infection prior to initiating treatment with SOTYKTU. Do not administer SOTYKTU to patients with active TB. Initiate treatment of latent TB prior to administering SOTYKTU. Consider anti-TB therapy prior to initiation of SOTYKTU in patients with a past history of latent or active TB in whom an adequate course of treatment cannot be confirmed. Monitor patients for signs and symptoms of active TB during treatment. Malignancy including Lymphomas: Malignancies, including lymphomas, were observed in clinical trials with SOTYKTU. Consider the benefits and risks for the individual patient prior to initiating or continuing therapy with SOTYKTU, particularly in patients with a known malignancy (other than a successfully treated non-melanoma skin cancer) and patients who develop a malignancy when on treatment with SOTYKTU. Rhabdomyolysis and Elevated CPK: Treatment with SOTYKTU was associated with an increased incidence of asymptomatic creatine phosphokinase (CPK) elevation and rhabdomyolysis compared to placebo. Discontinue SOTYKTU if markedly elevated CPK levels occur or myopathy is diagnosed or suspected. Instruct patients to promptly report unexplained muscle pain, tenderness or weakness, particularly if accompanied by malaise or fever. Laboratory Abnormalities: Treatment with SOTYKTU was associated with increases in triglyceride levels. Periodically evaluate serum triglycerides according to clinical guidelines during treatment. SOTYKTU treatment was associated with an increase in the incidence of liver enzyme elevation compared to placebo. Evaluate liver enzymes at baseline and thereafter in patients with known or suspected liver disease according to routine management. If treatment-related increases in liver enzymes occur and drug-induced liver injury is suspected, interrupt SOTYKTU until a diagnosis of liver injury is excluded. Immunizations: Prior to initiating therapy with SOTYKTU, consider completion of all age-appropriate immunizations according to current immunization guidelines including prophylactic herpes zoster vaccination. Avoid use of live vaccines in patients treated with SOTYKTU. The response to live or non-live vaccines has not been evaluated. Potential Risks Related to JAK Inhibition: It is not known whether tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibition may be associated with the observed or potential adverse reactions of Janus Kinase (JAK) inhibition. In a large, randomized, postmarketing safety trial of a JAK inhibitor in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), patients 50 years of age and older with at least one cardiovascular risk factor, higher rates of all-cause mortality, including sudden cardiovascular death, major adverse cardiovascular events, overall thrombosis, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, and malignancies (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) were observed in patients treated with the JAK inhibitor compared to those treated with TNF blockers. SOTYKTU is not approved for use in RA. ADVERSE REACTIONS Most common adverse reactions (1% of patients on SOTYKTU and more frequently than with placebo) include upper respiratory infections, blood creatine phosphokinase increased, herpes simplex, mouth ulcers, folliculitis and acne. SPECIFIC POPULATIONS Pregnancy: Available data from case reports on SOTYKTU use during pregnancy are insufficient to evaluate a drug-associated risk of major birth defects, miscarriage, or adverse maternal or fetal outcomes. Report pregnancies to the Bristol-Myers Squibb Companys Adverse Event reporting line at 1-800-721-5072. Lactation: There are no data on the presence of SOTYKTU in human milk, the effects on the breastfed infant, or the effects on milk production. SOTYKTU is present in rat milk. When a drug is present in animal milk, it is likely that the drug will be present in human milk. The developmental and health benefits of breastfeeding should be considered along with the mothers clinical need for SOTYKTU and any potential adverse effects on the breastfed infant from SOTYKTU or from the underlying maternal condition. Hepatic Impairment: SOTYKTU is not recommended for use in patients with severe hepatic impairment. SOTYKTU is available in 6 mg tablets. Please see U.S. Full Prescribing Information, including Medication Guide, for SOTYKTU. About Bristol Myers Squibb Bristol Myers Squibb is a global biopharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. For more information about Bristol Myers Squibb, visit us at BMS.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Otezla (apremilast) is a registered trademark of Amgen Inc. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding, among other things, the research, development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. All statements that are not statements of historical facts are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and projections about our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives and involve inherent risks, assumptions and uncertainties, including internal or external factors that could delay, divert or change any of them in the next several years, that are difficult to predict, may be beyond our control and could cause our future financial results, goals, plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the statements. These risks, assumptions, uncertainties and other factors include, among others, that the CHMP opinion is not binding on the European Commission, that SotyktuTM (deucravacitinib) may not receive regulatory approval for the indication described in this release in the currently anticipated timeline or at all, that any marketing approvals, if granted, may have significant limitations on their use, and, if approved, whether such product candidate for the indication described in this release will be commercially successful. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements in this press release should be evaluated together with the many risks and uncertainties that affect Bristol Myers Squibbs business and market, particularly those identified in the cautionary statement and risk factors discussion in Bristol Myers Squibbs Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as updated by our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this document are made only as of the date of this document and except as otherwise required by applicable law, Bristol Myers Squibb undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise. corporatefinancial-news View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230125005858/en/ Bristol Myers Squibb Media Inquiries: [email protected] Investors: [email protected] Source: Bristol Myers Squibb By Hannah Lang (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Reserve on Friday rejected crypto-focused Custodia Bank's application to become a member of the Federal Reserve System, saying the bank's proposed business model and focus on digital assets presented significant safety and soundness risks. Custodia, which is based in Wyoming and is chartered through the state as a special purpose depository institution, lacked a sufficient risk management framework to address the heightened risks associated with crypto, the Fed said, including crypto's potential use in money laundering and terrorist financing activities. Custodia Bank Chief Executive Caitlin Long said in a statement that the bank was "surprised and disappointed" by the Fed's decision. Custodia actively sought federal regulation, going above and beyond all requirements that apply to traditional banks," she said. Separately, Custodia has sued the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, arguing that it has unfairly delayed a decision on Custodia' application for a highly coveted master account, which gives companies access to Fed payment services. The Fed also issued a policy statement in conjunction with the denial of Custodia Bank's application, clarifying that banks supervised by the U.S. central bank with or without deposit insurance are subject to the same limitations on activities, including those related to cryptocurrency. "Todays action would not prohibit a state member bank, or prospective applicant, from providing safekeeping services, in a custodial capacity, for crypto-assets if conducted in a safe and sound manner and in compliance with consumer, anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing laws," the Fed said in a news release. (Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis) FILE PHOTO - A Lucid Air electric vehicle is displayed at a shopping mall in Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S., September 27, 2021. REUTERS/Hyunjoo Jin (Reuters) -Lucid Group's shares surged 43% on Friday, paring gains after doubling on market speculation that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) wanted to buy out the electric vehicle maker. The speculation originated from an "uncooked" alert attributed to deals website Betaville, using its term for market gossip. Lucid was the sixth-most traded stock on U.S. exchanges and third top mover on the Nasdaq mid-afternoon. The PIF, the sovereign wealth fund that owns more than 65% of Newark, California-based Lucid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lucid declined to comment. In 2018, PIF was interested in taking Tesla private, but the deal did not materialize. Tesla chief Elon Musk is under trial for allegedly misleading investors with his tweet "funding secured" for taking the company private. Lucid has been struggling to deliver its sleek Air luxury EVs after delivering 4,369 vehicles last year. With Tesla's price cuts, money-losing U.S. startups like Rivian Automotive Inc and Lucid will find it difficult to grab share in an industry competing for shrinking consumer wallets. Lucid's short interest as a percentage of its total float is around 37% versus only 3.5% for Tesla. Still, in dollar amounts, Lucid's short interest totals $1.6 billion, versus $15.01 billion of Musk's car maker. Short sellers dealt a mark-to-market loss of $685 million with Lucid's shares spike on Friday, analytics firm S3 Partners added. Losses, however, only materialize if short sellers close out their positions. "With Lucid short sellers' mark-to-market losses climbing, we should expect short covering to begin in earnest after today's short-side blood bath," said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of S3, adding it has become a popular trading position. One long-short fund manager who had no previous exposure to Lucid said it decided to short it as this person believes the spike was solely based on rumors. (Reporting by Carolina Mandl, in New York, Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Hyun Joo Jin; Editing by Maju Samuel and Josie Kao) FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The advisory firm Perella Weinberg Partners has placed a London-based employee who is under investigation as part of an insider trading probe in Germany on leave, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday. German authorities on Thursday said they were investigating five suspects, including one who was in custody, for allegedly profiting to the tune of millions of euros on upcoming M&A transactions between 2017 and 2021. Perella said in a statement: "The firm is assisting in an investigation by German law enforcement authorities. The firm is not the subject of the investigation, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the firm." The two people spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. One of them said that British police had searched Perella's London office this week. London's Metropolitan Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Frankfurt's prosecutors declined to comment. The prosecutors and Germany's financial regulator BaFin on Thursday said they had been conducting their investigation since November 2021 before carrying out multiple searches this week and last in Germany, Britain and Austria. They are now evaluating evidence that was seized. Authorities described profits from the alleged trades as a two-digit million euro figure. The transactions involved German companies and all of the suspects are German nationals. Manager Magazin first reported news on the Perella employee, while Bloomberg first reported the search in London. (Reporting by Tom Sims, Marta Orosz and Emma-Victoria Farr, and Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro; Editing by Miranda Murray, Kirsten Donovan, and Hans Seidenstuecker) Vancouver, BC, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: ABN) (OTCQB: ABNAF) (Frankfurt: E2L2) (Aben or the Company) announces that the Board of Directors have approved a consolidation of the Companys common shares on the basis of one (1) post-consolidated share for every ten (10) pre-consolidated shares (the Consolidation). Currently, the Company has 136,697,345 common shares issued and outstanding. Following the Consolidation, the Company will have approximately 13,669,734 common shares issued and outstanding. No fractional shares will be issued but will instead be rounded as provided for in section 83(1) of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia). In conjunction with the Consolidation, the Company will be changing its name to Aben Minerals Ltd.. The Company also intends to change its trading symbol on the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSXV). The Company will issue a further news release announcing the effective date in which the Company will commence trading under the new name, symbol and CUSIP number. The Consolidation, name and symbol change remain subject to the approval of the TSXV. About Aben Resources: Aben Resources is a diversified Canadian gold and graphite exploration company with exploration projects in British Columbia, Ontario, and the Yukon Territory. For further information on Aben Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: ABN), visit our Companys website at www.abenresources.com. ABEN RESOURCES LTD. Jim Pettit______________________JAMES G. PETTITPresident & CEO For further information contact:Aben Resources Ltd.Riley Trimble, Corporate CommunicationsTelephone: 604-416-2978Toll Free: 800-567-8181Facsimile: 604-687-3119Email: [email protected]sources.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This release includes certain statements that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that management of the Company expects, are forward-looking statements. Although management believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, include market prices, exploration and development successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Please see the public filings of the Company at www.sedar.com for further information. Source: Aben Resources Ltd San Antonio, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Endeavors, a San Antonio-based national nonprofit, is excited to welcome seasoned communications professional Kimberly Harle Solis into the position of Chief Communications Officer. In this role, Harle Solis will advance Endeavors mission by overseeing all aspects of the companys communications, marketing, and philanthropic efforts. With over 20 years of professional experience, Harle Solis is a veteran in the communications and marketing space, bringing expertise in public relations, brand amplification, corporate communications, and legislative consulting. Her previous roles have included leadership positions at NASA, HEB, and Whataburger. I am thrilled to welcome Kimberly to the Endeavors senior leadership team, said Jon Allman, Endeavors CEO. She has an impressive background in communications and marketing with a diverse skill set earned by working for a consulting firm and several high-growth companies with strong brands. This experience makes her a unique fit to help lead Endeavors communications strategy. Harle Solis received her BS in Advertising and a BA in History from the University of Texas at Austin. Her extensive community service leadership history includes roles at the San Antonio Greater Chamber, KLRN, Children's Hospital of SA, United Way of Bexar County, Haven for Hope, Children's Bereavement Center, Paloma Place, Girls Inc, San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, Northside ISD and SAISD Foundation. Harle Solis recently commented about joining Endeavors, This company has a long history of providing for people in need. Its a purpose-led and values-driven organization, and Im grateful to have the opportunity to not only contribute to its mission of making life better for those in need but to join such a compassionate and talented team. About Endeavors Endeavors is a longstanding national nonprofit that provides an array of programs and services in support of children, families, Veterans and those struggling with mental illness, disabilities, disasters, or emergencies. Endeavors has served vulnerable people in need since 1969 through personalized services. For more information, please visit endeavors.org. Attachment Felicia Nino Endeavors [email protected] Source: Endeavors Toronto, Canada, Jan. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (TSXV: GMN) GobiMin Inc. (GobiMin or the Company) today announces that it has mailed to registered shareholders of the Company (the Shareholders) notice of, and materials for, a special meeting to be held at Suite 2700, 1000 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Friday, February 24, 2023 at 9:30 a.m. (Eastern time) (the Meeting). The Company has also filed a copy of the meeting materials on SEDAR, which can be found under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com. The purpose of the Meeting is to consider a going private transaction (the Going Private Transaction) by way of a 30,000,000-to-1 share consolidation and purchase for cancellation of fractional post-consolidation common shares (the Consolidation) pursuant to the terms and conditions of an agreement (the Agreement) dated December 9, 2022 between the Company and Belmont Holdings Group Limited (Belmont), as previously announced by the Company in a news release dated December 9, 2022. The Company has mailed to Shareholders a notice of the Meeting, a form of proxy and a management information circular of the Company for the Meeting (the Circular) containing important information relating to the Going Private Transaction. At the Meeting, Shareholders entitled to vote at the Meeting will be asked to consider, and if thought advisable, approve a special resolution authorizing the Consolidation (the Consolidation Resolution) which if passed, would result in GobiMin being taken private. In order for the Going Private Transaction to be effective, the Consolidation Resolution must be approved by: (a) not less than two-thirds of votes cast by Shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting, and (b) a majority of the votes cast by minority Shareholders (which excludes Belmont, Mr. Felipe Tan and Ms. Joyce Ko) present in person or represented by proxy at the Meeting. Subject to approval of the Consolidation Resolution, GobiMin will consolidate its issued share capital on the basis of one post-consolidation share for every 30,000,000 pre-consolidation shares. Following the completion of the share consolidation, Shareholders holding fractional shares that in aggregate are less than one whole post-consolidation share will be entitled to receive a cash payment of CAN$1.84, less any amount in respect of taxes required by law to be deducted or withheld, for each pre-consolidation share. The Canadian tax implications of the Consolidation for fractional shareholders are summarized in the Circular. Based on the current shareholder list, it is expected that Belmont will be the sole remaining Shareholder after the Consolidation. Belmont currently owns 30,927,500 common shares of the Company representing approximately 63.03% of the outstanding common shares. Mr. Felipe Tan directly owns 100% of Belmont. Mr. Felipe Tan also directly owns 3,761,500 common shares of the Company representing approximately 7.67% of the outstanding common shares. As of the record date for the Meeting of January 9, 2023, GobiMin has 49,064,982 common shares outstanding, of which 14,375,982 common shares representing approximately 29.30% of GobiMins outstanding common shares are not owned directly, or indirectly through Belmont, by Mr. Felipe Tan. A Special Committee composed of independent directors of the Company was constituted to review and negotiate the terms and conditions of the Going Private Transaction and made recommendations to the Board based, in part, upon a valuation and a fairness opinion (the Valuation and Fairness Opinion) prepared by Evans & Evans, Inc., the financial advisor to the Special Committee, who was of the opinion that, as at December 9, 2022, the terms of the Going Private Transaction are not fair, from a financial point of view, to the minority shareholders. However, based primarily on a number of qualitative factors, the Special Committee recommended to the Board that the Going Private Transaction be placed before the shareholders to allow shareholders to determine whether or not to accept the Going Private Transaction, but because the price in the Going Private Transaction is below the valuation range as set out in the Valuation and Fairness Opinion, the Board has not made any recommendation for or against approving the Consolidation to effect the Going Private Transaction. Some of the material qualitative factors that were considered are as follows: The consideration per pre-consolidation share of CAN$1.84 that fractional shareholders will be entitled to receive pursuant to the Going Private Transaction (before the deduction of any applicable withholding taxes) represents a premium of approximately 124% to the last trading price of CAN$0.82 of the common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange (the TSXV) on December 8, 2022 (the day before the announcement of the Going Private Transaction); The Going Private Transaction provides minority shareholders with a meaningful liquidity event at a significant premium to trading prices of the common shares prior to the announcement of the Going Private Transaction; All of the consideration to be received by minority shareholders is cash, resulting in immediate certainty of value not impacted by market fluctuations; The ability of GobiMin to deliver comparable value to Shareholders through the ongoing development of GobiMins business would be subject to risks; Belmont has stated that it has no intention to dispose of their interests in GobiMin to any third party, or consider or support any alternative transaction to the Going Private Transaction; therefore, the ability of the Shareholders to realize value from their common shares from some other liquidity event would be limited or non-existent; and The procedural protections in favour of the minority shareholders include, among others, a right of dissent as provided for in section 190 of the Canada Business Corporations Act (the CBCA). A copy of the Valuation and Fairness Opinion is attached as a schedule to the Circular. Shareholders are urged to read the Circular carefully and in its entirety. If Shareholders are in doubt as to how to deal with the matters described in the materials, Shareholders should consult their respective professional advisors. If the Consolidation Resolution is passed by the requisite shareholders approvals, it is expected that the Going Private Transaction will be completed in by mid-March 2023 and the de-listing from the TSXV to be expected shortly afterwards. The Company also intends to apply to the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities to cease to be a reporting issuer in each province in which it is currently a reporting issuer after the completion of the Going Private Transaction. The Company has included in its mailing to Shareholders a letter of transmittal that provides information concerning the procedure Shareholders must follow in order to receive their cash entitlement (less any amount in respect of taxes required by law to be deducted or withheld) if the Going Private Transaction is completed. Shareholders with addresses in China (including Hong Kong) will need to return their respective letter of transmittal to the Company, and Shareholders with addresses outside of China will need to return their letter of transmittal to Computershare Investor Services Inc., who is acting as depositary agent. For the Going Private Transaction, registered shareholders are entitled to a right of dissent as provided for in section 190 of the CBCA and further details of the rights of dissent is set out in the Circular. The Company cautions Shareholders and others considering trading in the shares of the Company that the completion of the Going Private Transaction remains subject to a number of conditions including, but not limited to, receipt of all regulatory and shareholder approvals. The completion of the Going Private Transaction is subject to the satisfaction of certain other closing conditions customary in a transaction of this nature. About the Company GobiMin, the shares of which are traded under the symbol GMN, is an investment issuer under the rules of the TSV. It is principally engaged in the investment in properties, equity, debt or other securities as well as direct ownership stakes in various projects. For further information, please contact:Joyce Ko, Chief Financial OfficerTel: (852) 3586-6540Email: [email protected] Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking information. Such statements are based on the current expectations of management of GobiMin. You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, future circumstances or events to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Forward looking information includes without limitation, statements regarding the completion of the going private transaction. The forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions, which could change materially in the future, including the assumption that the Company is able to effect the privatization using the proposed method, the Company is able to obtain the necessary regulatory and shareholder approvals, the parties are able to satisfy or waive, if waiver is possible, the conditions to completing the transaction, the de-listing of the Companys shares from the TSXV, and the Company ceasing to be a reporting issuer. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company with respect to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the risk that the necessary regulatory and shareholder approvals are not obtained, the conditions to completing the transaction may not be met, or the transaction may be terminated or renegotiated on different terms. When relying on the Companys forward-looking statements and information to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. The Company has assumed a certain progression, which may not be realized. It has also assumed that the material factors referred to above will not cause such forward-looking statements and information to differ materially from actual results or events. However, the list of these factors is not exhaustive and is subject to change and there can be no assurance that such assumptions will reflect the actual outcome of such items or factors. THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS NEWS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE COMPANY AS OF THE DATE OF THIS NEWS RELEASE AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AFTER SUCH DATE. READERS SHOULD NOT PLACE UNDUE IMPORTANCE ON FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY UPON THIS INFORMATION AS OF ANY OTHER DATE. WHILE THE COMPANY MAY ELECT TO, IT DOES NOT UNDERTAKE TO UPDATE THIS INFORMATION AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME EXCEPT AS REQUIRED IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE SECURITIES LEGISLATION. 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 receive GobiMin news releases by email, send a message to [email protected] and specify GobiMin news releases on the subject line. To unsubscribe GobiMin news releases, please send a message to [email protected]. Source: GobiMin Inc. Not for dissemination in the United States of America. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premier Diversified Holdings Inc. ("Premier" or the "Company") (TSXV: PDH) announces that it has entered into certain loan agreements, as set out below. Loan Agreements with MPIC Fund I Premier entered into a loan agreement (Loan Agreement) dated November 8, 2022 with MPIC Fund I, LP ("MPIC") for a secured loan in the principal amount of up to USD$130,000 (the "Loan"). The Loan matures on November 8, 2023 and bears interest at a rate of 6% per annum. Premier entered into a loan agreement (2023 Loan Agreement) dated January 9, 2023 with MPIC for a secured loan in the principal amount of up to USD$120,000 (the "2023 Loan"). The 2023 Loan matures on January 9, 2024 and bears interest at a rate of 6% per annum. Both the Loan and the 2023 Loan (together, the MPIC Loans) are secured with all of the present and after-acquired property of the Company and rank equally in priority with each other and with all of the loans previously made to the Company by MPIC. The MPIC Loans will be used for working capital (including for Premiers partially owned subsidiaries, Purposely Platform Inc. and MyCare MedTech Inc.) and may be used to acquire an additional interest in MyCare MedTech Inc. (MyCare), a telehealth company. The Company is not issuing any securities, or paying any bonus, commission or finder's fees on the MPIC Loans. The MPIC Loans are both repayable at any time without penalty. Purposely Platform Inc. and MyCare are generating revenue, and the Company expects to receive re-payment of funds from such entities, allowing it to partially repay some of the funds owed to MPIC. The MPIC Loans are subject to review and acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange. Amended Loan Agreements with MPIC Fund I, LP Premier previously entered into a certain loan agreement dated November 20, 2020, as amended November 20, 2021, for a loan from MPIC. The parties agreed to extend the maturity date of the loan from November 22, 2022 to November 22, 2023. The date of the second amending agreement is November 8, 2022. Premier previously entered into a certain loan agreement dated December 21, 2020, as amended December 21, 2021, for a loan from MPIC. The parties agreed to extend the maturity date of the loan from December 21, 2022 to December 21, 2023. The date of the second amending agreement is December 21, 2022. Premier previously entered into a certain loan agreement dated January 11, 2021, as amended January 11, 2022, for a loan from MPIC. The parties agreed to extend the maturity date of the loan from January 11, 2023 to January 11, 2024. The date of the second amending agreement is January 11, 2023. Related party transaction disclosure As MPIC is a control person of Premier, the MPIC Loans and each of the amended loan agreements described above each constitute "related party transactions" within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). These agreements have been determined to be exempt from the requirements to obtain a formal valuation or minority shareholder approval based on sections 5.5(b) and 5.7(1)(f) of MI 61-101. Premier does not have securities listed or quoted on any of the specified markets listed in section 5.5(b) of MI 61-101. Premier is relying on the exemption from minority shareholder approval in 5.7(1)(f) of MI 61-101 as the loans were obtained by Premier from MPIC on reasonable commercial terms that are not less advantageous to Premier than if the loans had been obtained from a person dealing at arms length with Premier. Further, the loans are not convertible, directly or indirectly, into equity or voting securities of Premier or a subsidiary entity of the issuer, or otherwise participating in nature, or repayable as to principal or interest, directly or indirectly, in equity or voting securities of Premier or a subsidiary entity of the issuer. Amended Loan Agreement with MyCare MedTech Inc. Premier previously entered into a certain secured loan agreement with MyCare dated September 28, 2021, for a loan from Premier to MyCare, as amended July 11, 2022. Pursuant to a second amending agreement dated October 1, 2022, the parties agreed to increase the principal amount of the loan to $640,000 from $400,000. Related Party Transaction disclosure Premier is a control person of MyCare, and the amendments to the MyCare Loans constitute "related party transactions" within the meaning of MI 61-101. These amendments have been determined to be exempt from the requirements to obtain a formal valuation or minority shareholder approval on the basis of being a "downstream" transaction. About Premier Diversified Holdings Inc. Premier Diversified Holdings Inc. participates in diversified industries through its acquisitions of securities and/or assets of public and private entities which it believes have potential for significant returns. It may act as a holding company (either directly or through a subsidiary) and may participate in management of subsidiary entities to varying degrees. On behalf of the Board of Directors "Sanjeev Parsad" Sanjeev ParsadPresident, CEO and Director Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdictions in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. Any offering made will be pursuant to available prospectus exemptions and restricted to persons to whom the securities may be sold in accordance with the laws of such jurisdictions, and by persons permitted to sell the securities in accordance with the laws of such jurisdictions. Further information regarding the Company can be found on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Not for dissemination in the United States of America. Legal Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements: This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements are indicated expectations or intentions. Forward-looking statements in this news release include those regarding loan terms including regarding maturity date(s), that PDH will repay the loan from MPIC as disclosed in the news release, and that the net proceeds of the Loan will be used as stated in this news release. Factors that could cause actual results to be materially different include but are not limited to the following: that any revenue which PDH makes indirectly via its operating subsidiaries will be insufficient to repay the loans to MPIC, that its operating subsidiaries, including MyCare, will not generate revenue, or will retain or redirect such revenue, that the terms and conditions of the various loans may be amended, that the management or board of PDH may use its revenue or other the funds for other purposes, that the capital raised will be insufficient capital to accomplish our intentions and capital alone may not be sufficient for us to grow our business, that the issuer's financial position will not improve, will stay the same or will decline further, that the timing of receipt of anticipated revenues or returns may be delayed, that its ongoing expenses including general and administrative expenses will increase, and that complications or unforeseen obstacles from COVID-19 or other factors may negatively impact Premier. Investors are cautioned against placing undue reliance on forward-looking statements. It is not our policy to update forward looking statements. For further information, contact: Sanjeev Parsad, President and CEO Phone: (604) 678.9115 Fax: (604) 678.9279 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.pdh-inc.com Source: Premier Diversified Holdings Inc. SACRAMENTO, Calif., Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Steve Fleming, president and chief executive officer of River City Bank (the Bank), announced that the Bank's board of directors has approved a 6 percent increase to the quarterly cash dividend from $0.33 per common share to $0.35 per common share. This increase was made in connection with the Bank's recently reported net income of $11.5 million and $47.8 million, or $7.72 and $32.22 diluted earnings per share, for the quarter and year ending Dec. 31, 2022, respectively. These dividends will be made to shareholders of record as of Feb. 7, 2023, and payable on Feb. 21, 2023. ABOUT RIVER CITY BANK: Named one of Sacramento Business Journal's "50 Fastest Growing Companies" for each of the past six years, River City Bank is the Sacramento region's premier business bank with assets of over $4.0 billion. River City Bank offers a comprehensive suite of banking services, including loans, deposits and cash management tools to the business, consumer and commercial real estate sectors. With tailored, executive-level service and a long-term investment grade credit rating from Standard & Poor's, River City Bank redefines the banking experience and every touch point that surrounds it. River City Bank is the largest, independent, locally-owned and managed bank in the Sacramento region with offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and a presence in Southern California. For additional information, please visit www.rivercitybank.com or call (916) 567-2600. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender. Contact Information: Amber Holwell VP - Director of Marketing [email protected] 916-567-2600 This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Source: River City Bank Every country in the world signed the Paris agreement at COP 21 in 2015, 50+ countries have committed to Net-Zero by 2050 GeoSolar helps ease energy transition with the SmartGreen(TM) whole-home renewable energy system GeoSolars SmartGreen(TM) system offers a total-home makeover, including geothermal-powered heat pump, solar panels, upgrades to insulation, windows, lighting systems Every country in the world signed the Paris agreement at COP 21 in 2015 with the shared aim of limiting global temperature increases as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius (https://ibn.fm/iDbjH). Since then, over 50 countries have committed to adopting a net-zero emissions goal by 2050 including the United States (https://ibn.fm/kqTZ5). GeoSolar Technologies (GST), a Colorado-based climate technology company, helps ease the transition with the SmartGreen(TM) Home system for newly built and existing residences and commercial buildings. Individual states throughout the US are also taking measures to promote renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. GeoSolars home state of Colorado is among those taking bold steps to achieve Net-Zero through a proposed bill that uses 2005 benchmark levels to set greenhouse gas reduction goals of Read More>> NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to GeoSolar Technologies are available in the companys newsroom at https://ibn.fm/GST About Green Energy Stocks Green Energy Stocks (GES) is a specialized communications platform with a focus on companies working to shape the future of the green economy. The company provides (1) access to a network of wire services via InvestorWire to reach all target markets, industries and demographics in the most effective manner possible, (2) article and editorial syndication to 5,000+ news outlets (3), enhanced press release services to ensure maximum impact, (4) social media distribution via the InvestorBrandNetwork (IBN) to millions of social media followers, and (5) a full array of corporate communications solutions. As a multifaceted organization with an extensive team of contributing journalists and writers, GES is uniquely positioned to best serve private and public companies that desire to reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public. By cutting through the overload of information in todays market, GES brings its clients unparalleled visibility, recognition and brand awareness. GES is where news, content and information converge. To receive SMS text alerts from Green Energy Stocks, text Green to 844-397-5787 (U.S. Mobile Phones Only) For more information, please visit https://www.GreenNRGStocks.com Please see full terms of use and disclaimers on the Green Energy Stocks website applicable to all content provided by GES, wherever published or re-published: https://www.GreenNRGStocks.com/Disclaimer Green Energy Stocks Los Angeles, CA www.GreenNRGStocks.com 415.949.5050 Office [email protected] Green Energy Stocks is part of the InvestorBrandNetwork. Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - CARLYLE COMMODITIES CORP. (CSE: CCC) (FSE: BJ4) (OTC Pink: DLRYF) ("Carlyle" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Andrew Brown as its new Corporate Secretary. Mr. Brown joins the Company from Ardent Corporate Services Inc., a full-service corporate secretarial firm that provides corporate secretarial and corporate governance services for public and private companies including go-public transactions, private placements, SEDI, SEDAR, and regulatory reporting. Mr. Brown has over 13 years of experience working in the public markets and has served as Corporate Secretary for multiple publicly traded companies on the TSX Venture Exchange and the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE"). Furthermore, Carlyle would like to announce the resignation of its current Corporate Secretary, Damien Good. The Company thanks Ms. Good for her many efforts and support and wishes her all the best in her future endeavours. Issuance of Stock Options The Company has approved the issuance of 150,000 stock options (each, an "Option") to consultants of the Company for the purchase of up to 150,000 common shares (each, a "Share") in the capital of the Company pursuant to the Company's Stock Option Plan. Each Option vested immediately and is exercisable for a period of five (5) years at an exercise price of $0.325 per Share. Carlyle Engages Investor Relations Digital Marketing Agency The Company is also pleased to announce that it has retained Omni8 Media Communications Inc. ("Omni8") to provide certain investor relations services to the Company and develop its international market awareness. The term of the Agreement (as defined below) is for a four (4) month period (the "Term") and terminates May 27, 2023. Pursuant to the terms of the independent consultant agreement (the "Agreement"), Carlyle has agreed to pay Omni8 an aggregate of $60,000, to be paid as follows: $15,000 in cash and $15,000 payable in Shares upon entry into of the Agreement by Omni8, and $10,000 payable in Shares for each of the final three months of the Term which will commence following the completion of the second month of the Term. All Shares issuable under the Agreement will be issued at a price per Share equal to the lowest permitted price by the CSE, subject to applicable securities laws and the policies of the CSE. Omni8 is a content focused digital marketing agency that strives to think outside the box. Omni8 are experts in branding, messaging, digital marketing, and content creation. Omni8's founders have spent over 16 years working in the Canadian capital markets and possess the ability to combine the art of public company communications with the science of digital marketing. Omni8's principals have worked with dozens of companies in varied industries in investor relations, corporate communications, public relations, corporate and business development, and M&A. The services will include helping Carlyle develop a corporate marketing strategy and provide marketing and public relations advisory services, help coordinate marketing, news flow and events, making introductions to Omni8's network of media contacts, internet and social media marketers and other such providers, as well as to assist with various other public relations efforts. The services provided will be facilitated by way of digital venues such as programmatic digital marketing, social media marketing on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, select television broadcasts and radio advertising, email marketing, influencer outreach and placement of related marketing content on public websites such as financialgambits.com and others to be determined. Omni8's contact information is as follows: 200-1281 W Georgia St, Vancouver, BC V6E 3J7, Canada, attention: Ryan Johnson, phone: 604.726.4498, and email: [email protected]. Mr. Johnson will be responsible for the facilitation of the services noted above. About Carlyle Carlyle is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition, exploration, and development of mineral resource properties. Carlyle owns 100% of the Newton Gold Project in the Clinton Mining Division of BC. And is listed on the CSE under the symbol "CCC". ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF CARLYLE COMMODITIES CORP. "Morgan Good" Morgan Good Chief Executive Officer For more information regarding this news release, please contact: Morgan Good, CEO and Director T: 604-715-4751 E: [email protected] W: www.carlylecommodities.com The Canadian Securities Exchange (operated by CNSX Markets Inc.) has neither approved nor disapproved of the contents of this press release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152798 Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Dinamic IP Holdings Inc. (the "Company") is pleased to announce that the Company, 1389495 B.C. Ltd., ("Subco") and Atelier Meats Corp. ("Atelier") have completed their previously announced amalgamation (the "Amalgamation") forming 1395992 B.C. Ltd. which is the amalgamated entity of the Company and Subco ("Amalco"). The Amalgamation was completed and made effective on January 13, 2023 after receiving the requisite approvals including those of the shareholders of the Company at the annual general and special meeting of shareholders held on January 5, 2023 (the "Meeting"). The Meeting was held, in part, to deliver the requisite financial statements, together with the auditors report of the Company, fix and appoint the directors of the Company, appoint the Company's auditors and approve the Amalgamation, all as more particularly set in the Company's management information circular (the "Circular") that was mailed to shareholders as of the record date of December 15, 2022. Copies of the Circular for the Meeting were filed on the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. At the Meeting, all resolutions were passed by the shareholders of the Company with the requisite approvals. A total of 16,557,094 common shares were voted at the Meeting either in person or by proxy, representing approximately 24.89% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Company. The Amalgamation was structured as a three-cornered amalgamation under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) ("BCBCA"), pursuant to which Subco, a wholly owned subsidiary of Atelier was incorporated solely for the purposes of the Amalgamation, amalgamated with the Company and continued as Amalco, a corporation existing under the BCBCA, with the result being that Amalco is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atelier. As part of the Amalgamation, each holder of common shares in the Company received one (1) common share in the capital of Atelier for each 33.26 shares of the Company they currently held. New share certificates of Atelier have been issued to the shareholders of the Company and can be obtained by contacting the Company. No further action is required by shareholders of the Company to receive their shares of Atelier. The Company has begun the process to make an application to the British Columbia Securities Commission, as principal regulator, under National Policy 11-206 - Process for Cease to be a Reporting Issuer Applications to cease to be a reporting issuer in its reporting jurisdictions ("Order Sought"). If the Order Sought is granted, the Company will cease to be a reporting issuer in its reporting jurisdictions. Pursuant to the Amalgamation, a Notice Of Change In Corporate Structure pursuant to Section 4.9 of National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations has also been filed on SEDAR. Additional information relating to the Company and other public filings, is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. For Further Information Contact Dinamic IP Holdings Inc. Jonathan Gilbert Chief Executive Officer and Director Email: [email protected] Atelier Meats Corp. Leighton Bocking Chief Executive Officer and Director Email: [email protected] Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains statements that constitute "forward-looking statements." Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company actual results, performance or achievements, or developments to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such 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. Forward-looking statements in this document include, among others, statements relating to expectations regarding the Amalgamation, the business plans of Atelier and other statements that are not historical facts. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, among others: following completion of the Business Combination, Atelier may require additional financing from time to time in order to continue its operations which may not be available when needed or on acceptable terms and conditions; the new laws and regulations could adversely affect Atelier's business and results of operations; the markets have experienced volatility that often has been unrelated to the performance of companies and these fluctuations may adversely affect the price of securities, regardless of the company's operating performance; limited business history of the parties; disruptions or changes in the specified markets or the economy generally; unanticipated costs and expenses; general market and industry conditions; and the impact of COVID-19. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. 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. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the Circular, to be prepared in connection with the Amalgamation, any information released or received with respect to the Amalgamation may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. United States Disclaimer 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 Company's securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES NO RECOGNIZED SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE, WHICH HAS BEEN PREPARED BY MANAGEMENT OF THE COMPANY. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152734 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 27, 2023) - Universal PropTech Inc. (TSXV: UPI) ("UPI" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the results of matters voted on at its Special Meeting of Shareholders held earlier today. Details of the matters put forth are set out in the notice of meeting and management information circular dated December 19, 2022. Both the Transaction Resolution and the NEX Resolution, as more fully described in the Information Circular, were passed at the Meeting. About Universal PropTech Inc. Universal PropTech Inc. (TSXV: UPI) (OTCQB: UPIPF) (FSE: 8LH) is a leading building innovation company, selecting, integrating, deploying, and maintaining PropTech in healthy buildings. As trusted advisors, we provide holistic evidence-driven solutions and services for building developers, owners, and operators in Canada. UPI operates through its wholly owned subsidiary, VCI Controls Inc. ("VCI"), a leading supplier and integrator of PropTech healthy building solutions and services. VCI is an industry leader in the acquisition and deployment of intelligent building technology, including the integration of all building systems utilizing the latest in communications technologies and standards. VCI's business focuses on digital controls and mechanical services, performance monitoring, and energy efficiency solutions. With headquarters in Toronto, Universal PropTech Inc. has offices across Canada including, Halifax, Montreal, and Ottawa. For more information, visit www.universalproptech.com. Contact Information Universal PropTech Inc. Chris Hazelton President and Chief Executive Officer [email protected] (647) 300-2957 Forward-Looking Statements Certain information provided in this press release constitutes forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information typically contains statements with words such as "anticipate", "believe", "forecast", expect", "plan", "intend", "estimate", "propose", "project", or similar words suggesting future outcomes. The Company cautions readers and prospective investors in the Company's securities not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information as, by its nature, it is based on current expectations regarding future events that involve a number of assumptions, inherent risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company. The forward-looking information included herein is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking information included herein is made as of the date hereof and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange ("Exchange"), nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/152719 FILE PHOTO: TikTok app logo is seen in this illustration taken, August 22, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans to hold a vote next month on a bill aimed at blocking the use of China's popular social media app TikTok in the United States, the committee confirmed on Friday. The measure, planned by the panel's chair Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican, would aim to give the White House the legal tools to ban TikTok over U.S. national security concerns. "The concern is that this app gives the Chinese government a back door into our phones," McCaul told Bloomberg News, which reported the vote timing earlier. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to block new users from downloading TikTok and ban other transactions that would have effectively blocked the app's use in the United States, but lost a series of court battles over the measure. The Biden administration in June 2021 formally abandoned that effort. Then in December, Republican Senator Marco Rubio unveiled bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok, which would also block all transactions from any social media company in or under the influence of China and Russia. But a ban of the short video app, which is owned by ByteDance and is popular among teens, would face significant hurdles in Congress to pass, and would need 60 votes in the Senate. For three years, TikTok - which has more than 100 million U.S. users - has been seeking to assure Washington that the personal data of U.S. citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China's Communist Party or anyone else under Beijing's influence. TikTok said Friday "calls for total bans of TikTok take a piecemeal approach to national security and a piecemeal approach to broad industry issues like data security, privacy, and online harms." The U.S. government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a powerful national security body, in 2020 ordered ByteDance to divest TikTok because of fears that U.S. user data could be passed on to China's government. CFIUS and TikTok have been in talks since 2021, aiming to reach a national security agreement to protect the data of U.S. TikTok users. TikTok said it had a "comprehensive package of measures with layers of government and independent oversight to ensure that there are no backdoors into TikTok that could be used to manipulate the platform" and invested roughly $1.5 billion to date on those efforts. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the bill on Friday. "It's under review by (CFIUS) so I am just not going to get into details on that," Jean-Pierre said. Last month, Biden signed legislation that included a ban on federal employees using or downloading TikTok on government-owned devices. More than 25 U.S. states have also banned the use of TikTok on state-owned devices. (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien) Paid press release content from The Financial Capital. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation. Workers' compensation insurance prices and quotes for restaurants are instantly available online at Enforce Coverage Group of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey. They also offer free consulting for restaurant owners including business liability, auto and truck. Enforce Coverage Group is proud to announce that they are providing workers compensation insurance instant online quotes and pricing for restaurant owners in the tri-state area. The premiere agency handles workers compensation and other business insurance lines for restaurants, nightclubs, delis, bars, and pizzerias. Visit here for more information https://www.enforcecoveragegroup.com/click-your-industry-for-access-to-immediate-rates/restaurants/ Workers compensation is a vital safety net for restaurant owners. Restaurant patrons and workers face the risk of physical injury while on the job daily, from lifting heavy objects to slipping. Enforce Coverage Groups packages protect restaurant owners from financial losses due to employee or patrons injuries. The goal is to ensure the restaurant is properly covered in the case of a workplace accident. Without worker's compensation, restaurant owners will be held liable for medical bills and lost wages of injured employees. New York State law requires that all food businesses with employees purchase and maintain workers compensation. This mandatory coverage pays wages for workers who have gotten injured while on the job and takes care of their medical bills. Enforce Coverage Group specializes in providing workers' compensation for New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut-based food businesses. Enforce Coverage Groups team of expert insurance professionals offer reliable coverage and oversee every single detail, completely customizing and designing workers comp programs that meet all requirements and save money. Patrick Ryder, one of the two managing partners of Enforce Coverage Group, has discussed workers comp for restaurants adding, "We understand that restaurant owners have a lot of responsibilities and costs to manage. That's why Enforce Coverage Group offers a comprehensive workers comp package that can help them protect their business and employees. We want to make sure that restaurant owners have the peace of mind that comes from knowing their business and employees are protected. For an instant workers compensation insurance quote by Enforce Coverage Group, visit https://www.wh-app.io/enforcecoveragegroup/ About Us: Enforce Coverage Group is an independent insurance brokerage located in the heart of New York City. They specialize in NY workers compensation insurance, commercial property and casualty, automobile, professional liability, life and health plans. Contact Info: Name: Patrick Ryder Email: Send Email Organization: Enforce Coverage Group, LLC Address: 1 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY 10119 Phone: (212) 947-4298 Website: https://www.enforcecoveragegroup.com/ Release ID: 89089107 If you detect any issues, problems, or errors in this press release content, kindly contact [email protected] to notify us. We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 8 hours. Paid press release content from The Financial Capital. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation. SentBe, Korea's leading fintech company, has announced the official launch of its international money transfer service in the U.S. SentBe, Korea's leading fintech company, today announced the official launch of its international money transfer service in the U.S., a significant move in the company's global expansion. Customers, including migrant workers in the U.S., can now send U.S. dollars to more than 50 countries with greater ease and at a lower rate than existing remittance options. U.S. customers, including migrant workers, Korean residents, and international students, can transfer money to over 50 countries at a fee that is 90% lower than those offered by traditional methods SentBe to provide a higher level of global money transfer services in the U.S. market based on the company's success in the Asia market Established in 2015, SentBe specializes in foreign exchange services, and its personal remittance service of the same name SentBe was launched in 2016. With its customer-centric approach to cross-border remittance services, SentBe was able to quickly grow its presence in Southeast Asia. In 2020, SentBe became the first Korean fintech company to launch personal remittance app services in Indonesia and Singapore, further consolidating its position as one of the leading remittance service providers in APAC. Now with SentBe's service available in the U.S., customers in the region can remit money to 50 countries including China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Canada, the U.K., France, and Korea. "SentBe has been widely used by migrant workers across Asia, and the success in the region is based on our emphasis on removing cross-border barriers and bringing convenience to customers," said SentBe CEO, Alex Seong-Ouk Choi. "We are bringing the same experience to the U.S., one of the largest financial markets in the world, and we will continue to expand our services to other markets including Canada, Australia, and countries in Europe." To launch U.S. market services, SentBe formed a task force and has laid the foundation for international money transfer business by collaborating with certification agencies, government ministries, traditional financial institutions, and fintech partners in the U.S. In addition, the company conducted a thorough technical verification process to create a smooth remittance experience for users in the US. SentBe is a company that operates its own business impact team. The company is deeply committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by aligning its business tactics to these goals to solve financial problems that alienate migrant workers and businesses by 2030. Contact Info: Name: SentBe Email: Send Email Organization: SentBe Website: https://www.sentbe.com/ Release ID: 89089114 If you detect any issues, problems, or errors in this press release content, kindly contact [email protected] to notify us. We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 8 hours. Paid press release content from The Financial Capital. The StreetInsider.com news staff was not involved in its creation. Servcorp offers the worlds finest workplace solutions for remote businesses worldwide. The entrepreneurial company, started by Mr. Alf Moufarrige, is now celebrating 45 years of service with increased investment in the United States. Servcorp is proud to announce its 45th year as the original pioneer of virtual office solutions. Servcorp was founded by Mr. Alf Mouffarige in 1978. He wanted to create fully-operational office spaces that companies could use as needed with significantly reduced overhead costs. These offices would include dedicated receptionists and secretaries as well as meeting and working spaces. The entrepreneurial spirit and passion of Alf Moufarrige has spearheaded Servcorp into offering serviced offices, virtual offices, coworking, and IT solutions in over 150 locations across 41 cities and 20 countries. Visit here for more information https://www.servcorp.com/en/about-us/ Today, Servcorp offers rentable office spaces and an exclusive networking site for remote businesses. Servcorps locations are situated in the most prestigious office buildings around the world, with increasing interest in the United States. Premium coworking spaces and meeting rooms are available in the most sought-after US locations. Imagine working inside the iconic One World Trade Center or right next to the White House at their Washington DC location at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue. These locations, concierge services and several excellent amenities are available to Servcorp members. Colleen Susini, Senior Vice President and Head of USA Operations, described this anniversary as, "Servcorp revolutionized the way businesses and entrepreneurs access flexible office space solutions. Our team is immensely proud to be the pioneer of virtual office spaces. We want every business to grow and develop right along with us, and we are there to support our Servcorp members every step of the way. In its 45 years of service, Servcorp allows businesses to interact with one another from anywhere in the world. Servcorp Home is unique to the industry member service with access to over 50,000 businesses. Should Servcorps members ever take the chance to meet clients or host in-person meetings, they have access to all of the 150 Servcorp locations across the globe. Servcorp guarantees that each office will provide superior, identical service and facilities and will continue to do so in this next chapter. For more information about Servcorps serviced offices, please see https://www.servcorp.com/en/office-spaces/ About Us: Servcorp is the global leader in premium workplace solutions, providing serviced offices, virtual offices, meeting rooms, and business support services to businesses of all sizes. With over 150 locations in 41 cities worldwide, Servcorp offers a global footprint for companies looking to set up or expand their operations. Whether a company needs a full-service office with professional staff and equipment or a meeting room for an hour, Servcorp has a solution to meet all business needs. Its highly-related customer success experts are available 24/7 to help clients get the most out of their workspace. Contact Info: Name: Colleen Susini Email: Send Email Organization: Servcorp Address: 285 Fulton St. Suite 8500,85th Floor, New York, NY 10006 Phone: 212-220-8500 Website: https://www.servcorp.com/en/ Video URL: https://youtu.be/qQTFzzld3so Release ID: 89089092 If you detect any issues, problems, or errors in this press release content, kindly contact [email protected] to notify us. We will respond and rectify the situation in the next 8 hours. #Minsa | La ministra de Salud, Rosa Gutierrez, participa en el encuentro intergubernamental "Salud, compromiso de todos". Alli, las autoridades regionales y del Ejecutivo establecen las acciones necesarias para cumplir con los lineamientos del sector para el 2023. pic.twitter.com/SK83BeKtzp Residents of Chicago and suburban Cook County can dial 2-1-1 or visit 211MetroChicago.org to connect with assistance CHICAGO, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- 211 Metro Chicagoa free resource connecting individuals in need of assistance with essential health and social services supportis now available via phone, text, web chat and database search 24/7 for all Cook County residents. 211 Metro Chicago, a 24/7 helpline for health and social services, is now available for all Cook County residents. When residents need support, too often, they either don't know where to turn or face hurdles in navigating the complex web of resources available in Cook County. 211 Metro Chicago eliminates this barrier by connecting individuals with local Resource Navigators who assess their needs and connect them to non-emergency providers for support. Local Resource Navigators are trained staff who are available 24/7 to connect Cook County residents with assistance. "We have seen great success with 211 lines across North America, which have connected millions of people in need to local organizations that can help," said United Way of Metro Chicago President & CEO Sean Garrett. "With Chicago and Cook County now part of the 211 network, all Cook County residents are just one text, chat or phone call away from an expansive database of incredible social services. We are thrilled to be a part of bringing this critical connection to the greater metro Chicago area." Similar helplines available across Illinois have fielded more than 98,000 requests for services since their inception. 211 can help residents connect with a variety of resources such as food, housing, utility payment assistance and other free-to-low-cost health and social services. "For too long the burden of navigating the ecosystem of service providers has been placed on our residents," said Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot. "In partnership with Cook County and United Way of Metro Chicago, I am thrilled to announce 211 which will serve as a one-stop resource to meet residents where they are and ensure they are connected to the essential health and social services they need." 211 does not replace vital helplines like 911, which individuals should continue to call for emergencies. Requests for City infrastructure services and other non-emergency safety-related requests should go to 311, or the city or village office if 311 is not available in your community. Individuals experiencing a crisis related to mental health or emotional well-being should call 988 for immediate phone support. "With 211 we are providing to our Cook County region a free and truly critical service that's long overdue for our residents," said Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. "Cook County will now be connected to non-emergency providers for support services, and I am proud our partnership with United Way and the City of Chicago is helping bring this necessary resource to life." 211 Metro Chicago is operated by United Way of Metro Chicago and launched with support from the City of Chicago, Cook County, philanthropic partners and the 211 Metro Chicago Advisory Committee composed of business, civic, charitable and social service organizations. United Way of Metro Chicago mobilizes private, philanthropic and public sector support to help individuals meet their basic needs and works to support equitable transformation in neighborhoods across the Chicago region. The 211 Metro Chicago Advisory Committee member organizations have worked in partnership since 2021 to ensure 211 Metro Chicago effectively meets the needs of all Cook County residents: ATT Austin Coming Together Bright Star Community Outreach Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago Chicago Community Trust Chicago Department of Family & Support Services Chicago Department of Public Health Chicago Urban League City of Chicago, Office of the Mayor Cook County, Office of Economic Development Enlace Chicago Friend Health Greater Chicago Food Depository Heartland Alliance NAMI Peoples Gas Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation United Way of Metro Chicago 211 Metro Chicago has also partnered with Unite Us, a software company enabling cross-sector collaboration, to create a robust resource database of health and social services across Cook County. Through this partnership and the existing relationships Unite Us has with local organizations, 211 Metro Chicago has a solid foundation of health and social service resources to which local Resource Navigators can connect residents in need of support. Dial 2-1-1 to speak with a local Resource Navigator on the phone. To connect with 211 Metro Chicago via text message, text your zip code to 898211. Visit 211MetroChicago.org to connect with resources via web chat and web search. Live Resource Navigators are available via phone, text and web chat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Contact: Emily MacMillan[email protected](312) 755-3547 View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/211-social-service-connector-now-available-for-metro-chicago-301732352.html SOURCE United Way of Metropolitan Chicago PLANO, Texas, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Aragio Solutions today announced a new partnership with IFS in their IP Alliance Program. The collaboration with IFS enables designers to access high-quality IPs, supporting their design needs and project schedule, while optimizing for performance, power, and area (PPA). "Aragio's 19 years of foundry services experience, now along with the IFS advanced technologies is of significant benefit to both parties," says Glen Haas, Chief Technologist at Aragio Solutions. "Strong partnerships such as this have proven to be significant not only to the two parties, but to all clients being served by the providers of these advanced technologies." "Expanding Aragio's engagement with IFS will have significant benefits for both partners," says Levon Barseghyan, Design Manager at Aragio Solutions. "Bringing the ESD and LU design expertise to new technology nodes is mandatory and requires a close working relationship between all parties involved." The benefits of this new partnership extend to Aragio's existing support of "fabless" clients around the world, seeking foundry services support. It provides clients with high-quality, robust ESD and LU solutions at each technology process node. These existing relationships will strengthen the benefits of our partnership to the "fabless" clients. "We welcome Aragio to IFS Accelerator IP Alliance and are excited to further cement our collaborations towards supporting IFS customers," said Suk Lee, VP of Design Ecosystem Development at IFS. "Our IP alliance ensures that IFS customers have wide access to industry-leading high-quality IPs, supporting their design needs and project schedule, with optimized performance, power, and area on IFS nodes. Aragio offerings will enable our customers to enjoy a proven selection of ESD and Latch-Up solutions". About Aragio Solutions: Aragio Solutions is an industry-leading full-service provider of semiconductor design IP supporting multiple foundries worldwide. Aragio specializes in robust ESD and LU design solutions for I/O system interface cells used for package interconnect used in all market segments. To see Aragio's IP offerings, go to aragio.com View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aragio-solutions-to-join-intel-foundry-services-ifs-accelerator-ip-alliance-301731770.html SOURCE Aragio Solutions JACKSON, Miss., Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE: EGP) (the "Company", "EastGroup") announced today the income tax treatment of its 2022 distributions as described below. Shareholders are encouraged to consult with their personal tax advisors as to their specific tax treatment of EastGroup distributions. Common Stock:Ticker Symbol EGP, CUSIP #277 276 101 RecordDates PaymentDates TotalDistributionsPer Share (1) OrdinaryDividends Capital Gain Distributions Unrecaptured Sec. 1250 Gain (2) NondividendDistributions (3) Section 199A Dividends (4) 12/31/21 01/15/22 $0.09171 $0.09171 $0.00000 $0.00000 $0.00000 $0.09171 03/31/22 04/14/22 1.10000 1.10000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 1.10000 06/30/22 07/15/22 1.10000 1.10000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 1.10000 09/30/22 10/14/22 1.25000 1.25000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 1.25000 12/30/22 01/13/23 0.99575 0.99575 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.99575 TOTALS $4.53746 $4.53746 $0.00000 $0.00000 $0.00000 $4.53746 Form 1099-DIV box 1a 2a 2b 3 5 (1) Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, Section 857(b)(9), cash distributions made on January 13, 2023 with a record date of December 30, 2022 are treated as received by shareholders on December 31, 2022 to the extent of 2022 undistributed earnings and profits. (2) Unrecaptured Sec. 1250 Gain (box 2b) is a subset of, and is included in, the Capital Gain Distributions amount reported in box 2a of Form 1099-DIV. (3) Return of Capital (4) Represents qualified REIT dividends that may be eligible for the 20% qualified business income deduction under Section 199A of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, that is available for non-corporate taxpayers and is included in "Ordinary Dividends." The Company did not incur any foreign taxes in 2022. Of the total distributions during 2022, none are considered qualifying dividends for purposes of the federal 15% income tax rate. EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE: EGP), a member of the S&P Mid-Cap 400 and Russell 1000 Indexes, is a self-administered equity real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and operation of industrial properties in major Sunbelt markets throughout the United States with an emphasis in the states of Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and North Carolina. The Company's goal is to maximize shareholder value by being a leading provider in its markets of functional, flexible and quality business distribution space for location sensitive customers (primarily in the 20,000 to 100,000 square foot range). The Company's strategy for growth is based on ownership of premier distribution facilities generally clustered near major transportation features in supply-constrained submarkets. EastGroup's portfolio, including development projects and value-add acquisitions in lease-up and under construction, currently includes approximately 56 million square feet. EastGroup Properties, Inc. press releases are available at www.eastgroup.net. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eastgroup-properties-announces-the-income-tax-treatment-of-its-2022-distributions-301732100.html SOURCE EastGroup Properties DELAWARE, Ohio, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Greif, Inc. (NYSE: GEF, GEF.B), a global leader in industrial packaging products and services, announced today it will report the company's 2023 first quarter financial results after the market closes on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. A conference call will be held on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 8:30 a.m. ET to discuss the quarter results. Greif will provide conference call slides in combination with its first quarter earnings press release on March 1, 2023. The call on March 2, 2023 will include management's live remarks and a question and answer session. Participants may access the call using the following online registration link: https://register.vevent.com/register/BIc53b9201ca324e28ad2e22c45b0142bc. Registrants will receive a confirmation containing dial in details and a unique conference call code for entry. Phone lines will open at 8:00 a.m. ET on March 2, 2023. A digital replay of the conference call will be available two hours following the call on the company's web site at http://investor.greif.com. Webcast DetailsTitle: Greif, Inc. Q1 2023 Earnings Conference CallURL: https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/dkqzexjg About Greif, Inc. Greif is a global leader in industrial packaging products and services and is pursuing its vision: to be the best performing customer service company in the world. The Company produces steel, plastic and fiber drums, intermediate bulk containers, reconditioned containers, containerboard, uncoated recycled paperboard, coated recycled paperboard, tubes and cores and a diverse mix of specialty products. The Company also manufactures packaging accessories and provides filling, packaging, and other services for a wide range of industries. In addition, Greif manages timber properties in the southeastern United States. The Company is strategically positioned in over 35 countries to serve global as well as regional customers. Additional information is on the Company's website at www.greif.com. Contact: Matt Leahy740-549-6158[email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/greif-inc-announces-2023-first-quarter-earnings-release-and-conference-call-dates-301732681.html SOURCE Greif, Inc. The top five reasons to book a Cruisetour to the Yukon and Alaska include history, scenery, nature and exclusive experiences SEATTLE, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- For more than 75 years, Holland America Line has been exploring Alaska, making it the pioneer cruise line in the region. For travelers who want to venture farther and take in the all-encompassing exploration of the north, Holland America Line's Cruisetours combine an Alaska cruise with an inland journey to Denali and the Yukon. To make an Alaska adventure even more enticing, Holland America Line is including Cruisetours in its current "Time of Your Life" wave offer. "Yukon is a must-visit destination, especially with the 'Time of Your Life' wave booking offers" With the promotion, guests who book select summer 2023 Cruisetours receive a free stateroom upgrade, fare discounts, free fares for kids and reduced deposits -- plus tours, beverages, specialty dining and Wi-Fi with the "Have It All" premium package. As a bonus for a limited time, guests also receive up to $300 per stateroom onboard credit, depending on the length of the Cruisetour. The offer runs through Feb. 28, 2023. "Holland America Line's Yukon Cruisetours are exclusive to our brand, and the experiences we offer go back to a by-gone era, immersing our guests in a culture that is a deep part of North American history," said Beth Bodensteiner, chief commercial officer for Holland America Line. "The breathtaking scenery of the Yukon perfectly complements the beauty of Alaska and Denali, not to mention the abundance of wildlife waiting to be photographed. Yukon is a must-visit destination, especially with the 'Time of Your Life' wave booking offers." Holland America Line is the only cruise line that extends the Alaska Cruisetours up to the unspoiled reaches of Canada's Yukon Territory. In 2023, 16 different Cruisetour options ranging from nine to 18 days will be offered on four ships, with six of those options including the Yukon. In addition to incredible scenery and an abundance of wildlife, the Yukon has a rich history that comes to life as only Holland America Line can showcase. Holland America Line's top five reason to put the Yukon on your 2023 travel list: Relive the Klondike Gold Rush Every Yukon and Denali Cruisetour features up to two nights in Yukon's Dawson City, affording guests more time to relive Gold Rush history. Guests can visit an operating placer gold mine located in the historic gold fields of the famous Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Learn how placer mining is done, how to stake a claim and about selling the gold the miners discover, all while comparing the historical methods to the modern technologies. There even is an opportunity for gold panning in the creek. Breathtaking ScenerySome of the most amazing landscapes that the Yukon has to offer can be enjoyed on a scenic view along the Dempster Highway en route to Tombstone Territorial Park. The lucky ones will see wildlife while taking in the beautiful flora and fauna of the region. At Tombstone Territorial Park, hit the trails for a guided hike along the North Klondike River or a more challenging hike up the Goldensides Trail to a fantastic lookout point. Caribou, Wolves and Bears, Oh My!Part of the allure of an Alaska cruise is the diversity of wildlife. From orcas and humpbacks to otters and eagles, the opportunities to see amazing animals extends up into the Yukon. Lucky guests will see Arctic fox, Dall sheep, wolves, caribou, grizzlies, moose and more throughout their time in Canada. Glide Along the Yukon RiverIn Dawson City, a tour on the classic Klondike Spirit paddlewheeler takes guests on a nostalgic journey along the Yukon River past stunning tall pines, historic towns and wildlife. Learn about the Yukon First Nation based in Dawson City, the village of Moosehide, the history of the gold rush, the paddlewheel graveyard and the story of Dawson City. Klondike Spirit is included in some Cruisetours and can be added for a fee on others. Walk in the Footsteps of Jack London and Robert ServiceMuch like Anne of Green Gables is to Prince Edward Island, so are famed authors Jack London and Robert Service to the Klondike. In Dawson City, fans of London can visit the Jack London Museum and see a replica of where he lived while calling the Klondike home in 1897. This replica is built from half of the logs from London's original cabin, which was located on the North Fork of Henderson Creek; the other half resides in London's hometown of Oakland, California. The "White Fang" author lived in the area and spent time as a Yukon gold seeker.Likewise, visitors in town can tour the Robert Service cabin, where the Engli-born Canadian poet and author lived and penned best-selling "The Trail of '98." Service worked as a banker in Whitehorse and later in Dawson City before he resigned in 1909 to focus exclusively on his writing craft that had blossomed with poems and tales of the gold rush after he was first transferred by his bank to Whitehorse in 1904. BONUS: A Journey Host Guides the WayEvery Yukon and Denali Cruisetour includes the services of a professional Journey Host, who makes time on land easy, convenient and insightful. Along the way, the Cruisetour Host provides expert narration of the sights and views, as well as travel coordination for the hotel, air, land and sea transportation. Sail the Splendors of AlaskaAll Alaska itineraries highlight the best of the Great Land aboard perfectly sized ships designed for immersive travel. From April through September 2023, guests can cruise aboard six ships to the pristine waters of Alaska. Explore Glacier Bay and the captivating towns of the Inside Passage and beyond. Itineraries are seven or 14 days and sail roundtrip from Seattle, Washington; roundtrip from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; or between Vancouver and Whittier, Alaska. "Yukon & Denali Cruisetours" includes either a three- or four-day Inside Passage cruise on Koningsdam or Volendam, or a seven-day Glacier Discovery cruise on Nieuw Amsterdam or Noordam; a two- or three-night stay at Denali National Park; and a journey into the Yukon. Holland America Line also offers Cruisetour options that just include Denali National Park. Voted Number-One Cruise Line in AlaskaNo other cruise line has explored Alaska longer than Holland America Line, and throughout the years the brand has collected awards and accolades from the world's most discerning travelers and cruise experts for Alaska cruising. Holland America Line was named the top pick for Alaska in the Porthole Cruise Magazine Editor-in-Chief Awards, AFAR Travelers' Choice Awards, Cruise Critic Cruisers' Choice Destination Awards and TravelAge West Wave Awards Editor's Pick. Alaska Up Close Immerses Guests in the Local Culture With Holland America Line's "Alaska Up Close" program, guests on Alaska cruises are deeply immersed in the local culture with authentic onboard programming, cruise activities and award-winning shore excursions. The exclusive experiences are delivered through experts leading workshops and lectures, EXC Talks exploring the stories of real Alaskans, tours highlighting the best of each destination, and Port to Table cooking demonstrations and fine dining events showcasing the culinary traditions of the region. For more information about Holland America Line, consult a travel advisor, call 1-877-SAIL HAL (877-724-5425) or visit hollandamerica.com. Find Holland America Line on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the Holland America Blog. You can also access all social media outlets via the home page at hollandamerica.com. About Holland America LineHolland America Line, part of Carnival Corporation and plc (NYSE/LSE:CCL and NYSE: CUK), has been exploring the world for 150 years with expertly crafted itineraries, extraordinary service and genuine connections to each destination. Offering an ideal mid-sized ship experience, its fleet visits nearly 400 ports in 114 countries around the world and has shared the thrill of Alaska for 75 years longer than any other cruise line. Holland America Line's 11 vessels feature a diverse range of enriching activities and amenities focused on destination immersion and personalized travel. The best live music at sea fills each evening at Music Walk, and dining venues feature exclusive selections from a Culinary Council of world-famous chefs. CONTACT: Bill Zucker, Erik Elvejord PHONE: 800-637-5029, 206-626-9890 EMAIL: [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/holland-america-lines-2023-alaska-cruisetours-included-in-wave-offer-for-free-upgrades-kids-cruise-free-discounts-and-more-301732657.html SOURCE Holland America Line LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Musick, Peeler & Garrett LLP announced today that Partners Kristine Kwong and Gabriel Duarte have been recognized as minority leaders of influence in a special issue by the Los Angeles Business Journal. According to the publisher, the feature profiles "those standout minority attorneys considered to be particularly impactful on the legal scene while serving as trusted advisors in Southern California." "It's an honor to have Kristine and Gabriel represent our firm among such highly regarded professionals," says Managing Partner R. Joseph De Briyn. "This recognition speaks to their work ethic and commitment to our clients." Kristine Kwong is a partner in the firm's Los Angeles office where she advises and counsels clients on a wide range of employment and business operational issues. Mentioned in the feature, she "represents public and private sector entities in retail, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, hospitality, real estate, and charitable and tax-exempt organizations, including religious entities, federally qualified health centers, educational institutions from K-12 districts, colleges to charter schools, and public sector agencies, municipalities, commissions, and special districts in both litigation and transactional matters." "When advising high net worth individuals and families on the planning and administration of multimillion-dollar trusts and estates, Gabriel Duarte provides strategic counsel to preserve clients' legacies and honor their wishes on transferring wealth to the next generation," says the feature. "Appreciated as a clear communicator who easily connects across multiple generations, Gabriel is particularly effective with the administration of sophisticated trusts, including those involving family offices and those invested heavily in real estate." Founded in 1954, MusickPeeler has offices in five major commercial centers across California with over 100 attorneys practicing in 16 disciplines. For more information, visit MusickPeeler.com. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/musick-peelers-kristine-kwong-and-gabriel-duarte-named-minority-leaders-of-influence-301732129.html SOURCE MusickPeeler DURHAM, N.C., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Elevated levels of oxidative stress during pregnancy might be linked to a higher risk of preterm birth, according to a new study funded by the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Program at the National Institutes of Health. Oxidative stress, a process that can trigger cell damage, may contribute to poor prenatal health outcomes. "Previous research on this topic has involved fairly small, primarily White populations, which is not reflective of diversity in the U.S.," said Stephanie Eick, PhD, MPH, an ECHO Program investigator at Emory University's School of Public Health. This study examined data from 1,916 racially, ethnically, and demographically diverse pregnant people from four ECHO cohorts across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Researchers used urine samples collected during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy to measure oxidative stress biomarkers and evaluate any links between those biomarkers and preterm birth. The researchers found a strong association between higher levels of oxidative stress biomarkers and preterm birth, particularly for participants who experienced sudden, unexpected preterm birth or preterm birth that occurred prior to 34 weeks. Further research is needed to understand the chemical mechanisms behind this association and identify the risk factors that contribute to high oxidative stress during pregnancy. Dr. Eick and Rachel Morello-Frosch, PhD, MPH an ECHO Program investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, led this collaborative research published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Eick, S. et al. A pooled analysis of four birth cohorts examining urinary oxidative stress biomarkers and preterm birth. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. DOI:10.1016/j.ajog.2022.11.1282. About ECHO: ECHO is a nationwide research program supported by the NIH. Launched in 2016, ECHO aims to enhance the health of children for generations to come. ECHO investigators study the effects of a broad range of early environmental influences on child health and development. For more information, visit echochildren.org. About the NIH: NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information, visit www.nih.gov. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nih-program-study-suggests-pregnant-people-with-higher-levels-of-oxidative-stress-may-be-more-likely-to-deliver-preterm-babies-301732480.html SOURCE NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program The company launches its website with key pipeline information Regel adds industry leader Andrew Schiermeier, Ph.D to its Board of Directors Regel announces its Scientific Advisory Board chaired by Regel Co-Founder Orrin Devinsky, M.D. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and BERKELEY, Calif., Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Regel Therapeutics, a next generation gene therapy company utilizing proprietary technology to develop clinical products modulating gene expression, is pleased to announce the launch of its website, the addition of Andrew Schiermeier, Ph.D to its Board of Directors and the establishment of its Scientific Advisory Board. Regel Therapeutics details its proprietary T3 platform and development pipeline, expands its BoD and announces its SAB. Since its formation in 2020, Regel has made significant progress towards its mission of developing safe and effective therapies for the debilitating health issues caused by improper gene expression. Leveraging its proprietary T3 platform (Targeted Therapeutic Technology) and with its operational footprint firmly established in both Cambridge, MA and Berkeley, CA, Regel is developing a robust pipeline of clinical products across six indications. These include three CNS targets and three muscle gene targets, the latter of which are being developed in collaboration with a strategic industry partner. Details regarding the targeted indications and development pipeline can be found on the company's website (www.regeltherapeutics.com/pipeline). "I have been fortunate to have been involved as a founder, early investor and active board member of several transformative life sciences companies over the past several years including Cougar Biotechnology and Kite Pharma. Each of these companies started with unique and robust enabling technologies. But what made those enterprises profoundly successful was the relentless determination of our employees to make a material difference in people's lives. As we strive to mature our pipeline and grow, that stands as our beacon at Regel as well." says Regel President and CEO Steve Ruchefsky. Regel is also building out its Board of Directors. Recently, Andrew Schiermeier, former COO of Intellia and current CEO of Avencell Therapeutics joined the Regel Board. Ruchefsky adds, "I have known Andrew for almost two decades. His understanding of science and technology, business instincts and leadership are all equally strong making him somewhat of an outlier in the life sciences. I look forward to tapping into Andrew's knowledge and experience to assist in developing Regel's strategic initiatives and execution". "Regel is approaching gene therapy by means of some very differentiated and unique technologies. The pre-clinical data that they have already generated is quite impressive and promising for areas of genetic disease that have remained very challenging to date. I am excited to do whatever I can to assist the company in moving its multi-product platform forward into the clinical setting and to patients," says Scheiermeier. Lastly, Regel is proud to announce its Scientific Advisory Board, which is chaired by Regel co-Founder Orrin Devinsky, M.D. Dr. Devinsky is a renowned epilepsy neurologist who directs the NYU Epilepsy Center and has published more than 500 peer reviewed articles and written or edited more than 20 books on neurological, psychiatric, neurosurgical, cognitive, and basic science topics. Other members include: Wendy Chung, MD, Ph.D a clinical and molecular geneticist and the Kennedy Family Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine and Director of Clinical Genetics at Columbia University; Nadav Ahituv, Ph.D (Regel co-Founder) a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences and the interim director of the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco; Gord Fishell, Ph.D (Regel co-Founder) a Professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute who pioneered the discovery of the neurodevelopmental of interneurons; and Kevin Bender, Ph.D an Associate Professor at UCSF in the Department of Neurology whose work includes groundbreaking discoveries in SCN2A. About Regel Therapeutics. Derived from breakthrough technologies developed by co-founders Jordane Dimidschstein Ph.D and Navneet Matharu Ph.D at the Broad Institute and UCSF, respectively, Regel's T3 platform combines a deactivated Cas system, which precisely targets the epigenome without editing or damaging the DNA, and proprietary regulatory elements restricting the intervention exclusively to specific cell types. This approach allows for efficient and permanent restoration of normal gene expression exclusively to the cells affected by the disease. By providing three layers of specificity of intervention, this technology bears the promise of significantly increasing the efficiency while reducing potential off-target or side effects. Regel's approach is supported by years of discovery and innovation and is now poised to become the first-in-class therapeutic intervention to transform the lives of patients suffering from severe and life-threatening genetic diseases. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/regel-therapeutics-details-its-proprietary-t3-platform-and-development-pipeline-on-its-newly-launched-website-expands-its-board-of-directors-and-announces-its-scientific-advisory-board-301732110.html SOURCE Regel Therapeutics Inc. LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- National probate inheritance dispute law firm RMO LLP announced today that attorney Roshanne Katouzian has been recognized as a minority leader of influence in a special feature by the Los Angeles Business Journal. According to the publisher, the feature profiles "those standout minority attorneys considered to be particularly impactful on the legal scene while serving as trusted advisors." "It's an honor to have Roshanne represent our firm among so many highly-esteemed professionals," says Founding Partner Scott Rahn. "It speaks volumes to her commitment to our clients." Roshanne Katouzian is an attorney in the Los Angeles office of RMO LLP. "Katouzian focuses her practice on two areas of litigation: (1) representing beneficiaries, professional and corporate fiduciaries (administrators, executors, trustees, conservators, and guardians) in contested trust, estate and probate litigation; and (2) representing businesses, business owners, directors, executives, members, officers, partners and shareholders in business litigation and commercial disputes, and in internal and external investigations," states the feature. The profile highlights Katouzian's recent successes including her work "successfully pursuing litigation in connection with a temporary conservatee's request for an elder abuse restraining order against a perpetrator who had financially and physically abused the conservatee." The conservatee's petition was granted after a two-day trial. Katouzian also recently suspended a co-trustee who had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars of trust funds for personal use, followed by a summary judgment ruling against the co-trustee. Katouzian has been named a Super Lawyers' Rising Star every year since 2020. She earned her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. from The George Washington University Law School. RMO LLP provides personal and efficient inheritance dispute services to individual and institutional clients. The firm's attorneys focus on probate litigation involving contested trust, estate, probate, and conservatorship matters. RMO has offices serving clients with probate disputes throughout California, Florida, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. For more information, please visit https://rmolawyers.com/ View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rmo-llp-attorney-roshanne-katouzian-named-leader-of-influence-301732682.html SOURCE RMO LLP Fresh Up Your Life! top quality European fruit and veg, the EU-funded CSO project presents a new digital campaign format: a series of videos recently posted to social media going behind the scenes of the companies driving the project, where they talk about their passion for produce. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The new "Fresh Up Your Life! top quality European fruit and veg" digital campaign has been online for a few weeks, a European Union and CSO Italy-funded project where growers talk about their passion for their produce. Another of "Fresh Up Your Life's" communication and promotional activities, which will continue to spread the culture, supporting European fruit and veg to consumers and businesses in the USA (and the United Arab Emirates) until 2025, highlighting their quality, flavor, safety and healthiness, values that are guaranteed by strict production specifications. The following Italian companies are also participating in the project: Apofruit Italia, Cico-Mazzoni, Conserve Italia, Lagnasco Group, Oranfrizer, Origine, Unacoa. Sixty seconds on social media channels focusing on the project's partner companies, their products and the territory of production. The videos are genuine cinematic portraits that genuinely and authentically express the passion behind the quality of Italian fruit and vegetable productions in the company's own words. As a result of this artistic and, at the same time, human character, the campaign has been entitled "Deliciously Human." These companies and the people who work there are representing Italy and have made this goal a daily commitment, accompanying us on this journey. In these two videos focusing on oranges, we land in Sicily, on the slopes of Mount Etna, where Oranfrizer grow their red oranges: a dream-like landscape between the brightness of the orchards and the dark shades of the volcano, which gives the juices an indistinguishable taste, with a deep flavor. Italy has always played a fundamental role in the orange production, favored by its mild climate, landscape and the characteristics of the land, often very suited for cultivation due to the proximity of the sea. And Sicily is the home of the red orange, a fruit eaten throughout the whole winter with twice the vitamin content of normal oranges. Red citrus fruits are among the most sought after and the tastiest. Ensuring that flavor is not compromised during the production process is a crucial task. A job that Quality Supervisor Francesco carries out with pride to protect and preserve the indistinguishable flavor of Sicily: as he tells us, he never adds anything to red orange juice. No water, no sugar, no artificial coloring or any other additives. Over time, the company has refined its knowledge and focus on the standardization of the organoleptic properties of the fruit. This control starts the raw materials, as it is essential that all juice contains the best properties: the sweet and sour taste, a good amount of vitamin C and anthocyanins, natural coloring with antioxidant properties, which determine the red color of the juice. Every day, Oranfrizer Red Oranges are "exploring" the world, spreading their delicious flavor, sharing a culture handed down from generation to generation. Each new market reached is a proud memory for Export Sales Manager Sara who, at Oranfrizer, found the opportunity to combine her love for her country and its traditional produce with her passion for travel and discovering new horizons. The "Deliciously Human" campaign expresses the passion for fruit and vegetable production because, in this way, it can be seen, appreciated and enjoyed in every corner of the world. Deliciously Human: Francesco Galvano (Oranfrizer) - YouTube Deliciously Human: Sara Grasso (Oranfrizer) - YouTube View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/spread-the-culture-of-european-fruit-and-vegetables-a-digital-campaign-for-the-orange-fruit-and-orange-juice-by-those-who-produce-and-export-them-around-the-world-301729064.html SOURCE CSO Italy Presidenta @DinaErcilia, junto a ministro @JChavezCresta, titular de Trabajo y @EsSaludPeru, supervisa traslado de tres toneladas de medicina y oxigeno a Apurimac, que seran enviados en avion de la @fapperu para pacientes afectados por bloqueo de carreteras.#NuestraMisionElPeru???? pic.twitter.com/jjmjKToz5o SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Reference is made to the offer to purchase for cash the outstanding notes of the Dominican Republic's (the "Republic") 8.900% Bonds due 2023 (the "Offer"), set forth in the offer document dated January 24, 2023 (the "Offer Document"). The Republic hereby announces that the Purchase Price and Accrued Interest of the Existing Bonds will be converted into U.S. dollars at an exchange rate equal to the weighted average of the buy and sell foreign exchange rates for transactions completed on the Dominican business day immediately prior to the Expiration Time by commercial banks and financial institutions in the Dominican Republic, as calculated and published by the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic (Banco Central de la Republica Dominicana), available at the Central Bank's website at https://cdn.bancentral.gov.do/documents/estadisticas/mercado-cambiario/documents/TASA_DOLAR_REFERENCIA_MC.xlsx?v=1674595023895 (the "Applicable Exchange Rate"). For the avoidance of doubt, the Central Bank's website to be used in the calculation of the Applicable Exchange Rate shall be the one indicated here and not the website indicated in the Offer Document. No other terms of the Offer have changed. The Offer is currently scheduled to expire at 8:00 a.m. (New York City time) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 (the "Expiration Time") unless extended or earlier terminated by the Republic in its sole discretion. Existing Bonds may be validly withdrawn at any time at or prior to the Expiration Time. The settlement of validly tendered and accepted Existing Bonds is expected to occur on Friday, February 3, 2023, or as soon as practicable thereafter, subject to change without notice. The Offer Document may be downloaded from website of Global Bondholder Services Corporation (the "Tender and Information Agent") at https://www.gbsc-usa.com/dominican/ or obtained from the Tender and Information Agent or from any of the Dealer Managers at the contact information below. Questions regarding the Offer may be directed to the Dealer Managers at the below contact information. The Dealer Managers for the Offer are: Citigroup Global Markets Inc. 388 Greenwich Street, 4th Floor Trading New York, New York 10013 United States of America Attn: Liability Management Group Collect: +1 (212) 723-6106 Toll-Free: +1 (800) 558-3745 Email: [email protected] J.P. Morgan Securities LLC383 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10179United States of AmericaAttn: Latin America Debt Capital Markets Collect: +1 (212) 834-7279Toll-Free: +1 (866) 846-2874 The Tender and Information Agent for the Offer is: Global Bondholder Services Corporation 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America Attn: Corporate Actions Banks and Brokers call: +1 (212) 430-3774 Toll free +1 (855) 654-2014 Email: [email protected] Offer Website: https://www.gbsc-usa.com/dominican/ By facsimile: (For Eligible Institutions only): +1 (212) 430-3775/3779 Confirmation: +1 (212) 430-3774 By Mail: By Overnight Courier: By Hand: 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America 65 Broadway Suite 404 New York, New York 10006 United States of America Important Notice This announcement is for informational purposes only. It is not complete and may not contain all the information that you should consider before tendering Existing Bonds. You should read the entire Offer Document. This announcement is not an offer to purchase for cash or a solicitation of invitations for offers to purchase for cash any Existing Bonds. The distribution of materials relating to the Offer and the transactions contemplated thereby may be restricted by law in certain jurisdictions. The Offer is being made only by the Offer Document and in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so. The Offer is void in all jurisdictions where it is prohibited. If materials relating to the Offer come into your possession, you are required to inform yourself of and to observe all of these restrictions. Each person accepting the Offer shall be deemed to have represented, warranted and agreed (in respect of itself and any person for whom it is acting) that it is not a person to whom it is unlawful to make the Offer pursuant to the Offer Document, it has not distributed or forwarded the Offer Document or any other documents or materials relating to the Offer to any such person, and that it has complied with all laws and regulations applicable to it for purposes of participating in the Offer. Neither the Republic nor the Dealer Managers accepts any responsibility for any violation by any person of the restrictions applicable in any jurisdiction. The materials relating to the Offer, including this announcement, do not constitute, and may not be used in connection with, an offer or solicitation in any place where offers or solicitations are not permitted by law. This announcement and the Offer Document do not constitute an offer to buy or a solicitation of an offer to sell any securities in any jurisdiction to any person to whom it is unlawful to make such offer or solicitation in such jurisdiction. In any jurisdiction in which the Offer is required to be made by a licensed broker or dealer and in which any Dealer Manager or any of its affiliates is so licensed, it shall be deemed to be made by the Dealer Managers or such affiliates on behalf of the Republic. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-dominican-republic-announces-updated-website-link-for-the-calculation-of-the-applicable-exchange-rate-in-its-offer-to-purchase-existing-bonds-301732107.html SOURCE The Dominican Republic FILE PHOTO: Brazil's Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilha talks during his inauguration ceremony at the Itamaraty Palace in Brasilia September 28, 2009. REUTERS/Roberto Jayme BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's government will try to reach a deal "as soon as possible" on compensation for the 2015 burst of a tailings dam owned by Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP (NYSE: BHP), Institutional Relations Minister Alexandre Padilha said on Friday. In a news conference in Brasilia, Padilha said the matter had been discussed at a meeting with state governors earlier in the day. The dam collapse in the southeastern city of Mariana killed 19 people and severely polluted the Rio Doce river, compromising the waterway all the way to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. Padilha said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief of staff would set up a meeting with the governments of Minas Gerais, where Mariana is located, and Espirito Santo, where the Doce river also flows, for further discussions. The states are seeking compensation for the damage done by the disaster. "We will try and reach this compensation agreement as soon as possible in light of the environmental crime that was committed in Mariana," Padilha said. "We want to speed up the final negotiations for this deal." In late 2021, a study done by a company contracted by prosecutors showed the "socio-environmental" damage caused by the dam rupture was between 37.6 billion reais ($7.35 billion) and 60.6 billion reais ($11.85 billion). ($1 = 5.1126 reais) (Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu; Editing by Isabel Woodford and Paul Simao) FILE PHOTO: Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser testifies before a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing on "Annual Oversight of the Nation's Largest Banks", on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 22, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein By Kylie Madry and Isabel Woodford MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Citigroup (NYSE: C) Chief Executive Jane Fraser is planning to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a government spokesperson told Reuters on Friday, amid the bank's attempt to finalize the sale of its local unit. Fraser will be in Mexico in the "first week of February" during a planned visit with her leadership team, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. A spokesperson for Lopez Obrador, Jesus Ramirez, said he did not have further details on the meeting, and said it was subject to final confirmation. Citi declined to comment. The planned meeting comes as Citi aims to sell its Mexican unit, Banamex, as part of the company's planned withdrawal of its retail services in the country after 20 years, first announced last January. Two bidders, which sources told Reuters were Mexican conglomerate Grupo Mexico and Banca Mifel, are vying for Citi's local unit, Lopez Obrador said in December. In an earnings call earlier this month, Fraser said she was bullish about institutional interest in Mexico. "As you can imagine, in today's environment, Mexico is key for many of our corporate clients around the world for their supply chains. And we play a very important role there," she said. Regarding the planned sale of Citi's retail unit, Fraser said she was "extremely pleased" with the progress being made, and reiterated that the company was still pursuing the "dual tracks" of an initial public offering if no sale was agreed upon. Citi executives previously circled January 2023 as the proposed date for finalizing the deal. Fraser has moved to simplify the Wall Street giant, announcing plans to shrink Citi's overseas footprint and exit non-core consumer markets, including Bahrain, China and India over the past 12 months. (Reporting by Kylie Madry and Isabel Woodford; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer, Cassandra Garrison and Leslie Adler) (Tribune News Service) First lady Dr. Jill Biden will be in upstate New York on Monday to meet with military families at Fort Drum, a U.S. Army base near Watertown. Biden will be joined by Deputy Defense Secretary Dr. Kathleen Hicks at Fort Drum, home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division. According to the White House, the meeting will focus on boosting employment opportunities for military spouses. The visit is part of Biden's Joining Forces initiative, which supports military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors. Joining Forces has a few focus areas, such as employment and entrepreneurship, military child education and health and wellbeing. A survey of active-duty spouses conducted by the Department of Defense in 2019 found that the military spouse unemployment rate is 22%. There are many factors that contribute to the high rate, including frequent moves, differing state licensing requirements, child care and deployments. Through Joining Forces, Biden aims to partner with governments and the private sector to increase employment opportunities for military spouses. "We will work with employers to create more flexible, transferable and remote job opportunities for military spouses, as well as increasing resources for those interested in entrepreneurial endeavors," the initiative states on its website. "We will also ensure that military families are included in the administration's overall policies aimed at improving economic security for all families." Senior members of past administrations, including presidents, have visited Fort Drum. Former President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense policy bill, at the Army base in 2018. Former President Barack Obama was there in 2011 after announcing that thousands of troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan. The 10th Mountain Division was the most deployed unit to Afghanistan. The first lady's visit comes three months after her husband, President Joe Biden, was in upstate New York. He visited Onondaga Community College near Syracuse to celebrate memory chip maker Micron's decision to invest $100 billion to build a manufacturing facility in central New York. robert.harding@lee.net (c)2023 The Citizen, Auburn, N.Y. Visit at www.auburnpub.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This story has been corrected The Navy is facing a groundswell in its ranks and in court from people who believe that the service needs to take a razor to its 38-year-old beard ban. Isnt it about time? one retired sailor asked during an open question forum Jan. 19 with the Navys top enlisted leader on the social media platform Reddit. In response to that and related comments, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea said beards are not a hill I want to die on. And a recent court decision asserted that three Sikh Marine Corps recruits likely would win their case challenging requirements that they cut their hair and shave their beards. They had sued on grounds that the grooming rules violate their religious freedom rights. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously ruled in December that the Corps hadnt proved that allowing the recruits to keep their beards and turbans would threaten cohesion and uniformity, The Washington Post reported Dec. 23. The decision cleared the way for an injunction allowing the men to attend boot camp without shaving their beards or cutting their hair while their lawsuit continues. Instituted in 1985, the Navys ban marked a major reversal, given that for much of the services history, sailors were allowed to wear beards. Adm. James Watkins, the chief of naval operations at the time, explained his decision requiring sailors to shave by saying he had determined that few service members had beards, making those who do appear extremely un-uniform, according to an Associated Press report published shortly after the prohibition took effect. Watkins added that beards could pose a safety hazard in such contingencies as oxygen mask wear. Mustaches were not covered by the ban, the AP noted. The service does regulate their size and length, though. At the time, the Navy and Coast Guard appeared to be the only services to allow beards. The Coast Guard followed suit, banning them in June 1986, according to the services historical website. The Coast Guard, Army and Air Force allow beards in limited circumstances, including on religious and medical grounds. The Navys reasoning falls in line with its cultural twitch on grooming and uniforms, said James Holmes, who chairs the maritime strategy program at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. While the Navy seems to be somewhat obsessive in its near-constant modification of service uniforms, its deeply conservative about grooming standards, Holmes said. Grooming policies seem circular, said Holmes, who was a midshipman at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee when the ban on beards was enacted. Its as if the service is saying the policy shall remain in place because its been in place for pushing 40 years, he added. That focus comes even as the service has made limited exceptions, such as medical waivers, to allow beards and come more in line with the times on other grooming standards, such as those addressing hairstyles and tattoos. For example, it now allows ponytails and braids for women. Both had been forbidden on many of the same grounds cited for the prohibition on beards. In addition, sailors who have a painful skin condition exacerbated by shaving are exempted from the ban. Sailors who dont want to shave are increasingly questioning why the Navy is sticking to its 1985 policy. Some studies, and in one case a sailor on Instagram, have shown that stubble or very short beards dont necessarily interfere with a proper seal for a breathing mask. But other reports contend that a beard of almost any length can pose a serious risk to service members if they need a mask to aid breathing or protect against a chemical attack, said Lt. Cmdr. Steven Wills, a research scientist at the Arlington, Va.-based think tank CNA. That reason, along with the challenge of policing beard length among other tasks facing commanding officers, justifies the ban, he said. If one sailor fails to keep their beard trimmed, has to put on a gas mask or respirator in an emergency and later dies, the amount of anger directed against Navy leadership will be immense, Wills said. He added that the policy could be relaxed for shore-based sailors, but such a loophole would create a lack of uniformity across the service. In his Reddit response, Honea said that results of a Navy and Marine Corps study of the effect of beards on gas mask function will be released this year. That study, which was commissioned partly because of a lawsuit, shows how seriously leaders are considering the issue, he said. While it remains to be determined whether the beard ban will be ended or modified, the service may not have a choice when it comes to religious freedom. Court cases challenging the Navys and Marine Corps beard ban on religious grounds appear to be gaining traction. Besides the Sikh recruits complaint against the Marines, four sailors are suing the Navy over its refusal to grant a religious accommodation for their beards. The legal challenges force the Navy and the Marine Corps to confront their own rationale, said Diana Thomson, a senior attorney at the Washington-based nonprofit Becket Law, which represents the parties in both cases. I am hoping this will be a strong message both to the Marines and to the Navy that they can accommodate religious beards and turbans moving forward and we wont need to be in court for another decade trying to figure this out, she said. From seeking thrills to exploring new cultures, there are endless good grounds for travel. Yet another good reason to hop a plane or train and travel afar is to immerse oneself in days and nights of nonstop music. And for just about every genre out there, theres a festival, showcasing not only top artists but up-and-coming talents and acts that have that certain knack for moving whatever audience they happen to play for. As attending such a multi-day music festival requires not just entry tickets but transportation and a place to stay, advance planning of the logistics is never a bad idea. Here are just a handful of events to inspire travel all for the love of music in 2023. Reggae The resort town of Benicassim, just north of Valencia on Spains Costa Azahar, offers just the sort of beachy vibe required by a reggae fest. The Rototom Sunsplash festival debuted in Italy in 1994 but relocated to Spain in 2010. Plenty of space for camping out is one of the major draws to this festival which typically attracts more than 200,000 visitors per edition. A host of daytime activities, from dance lessons to workshops, as well as serious debate over the global challenges we face collectively, ensure the festival is attractive to a wide audience. Headline artists for 2023 have yet to be announced. The festival takes place Aug. 16-22. Tickets for all days were going for 150 euros at the time of this writing, plus an additional 50 euros for a camping pass. Concertgoers ages 12 and under, as well as those over the age of 65, enter for free. Online: rototomsunsplash.com Alternatives: Germanys biggest reggae festival, Summerjam, takes place by a lake on the outskirts of Cologne June 30-July 2; the Overjam Festival in Tomlin, Slovenia unfolds Aug. 16-20. Blues Each year in August, the small town of Notodden in southern Norways Telemark region transforms itself into a mecca for blues fans from around the world. Churches, restaurants and public spaces turn into venues for concerts, workshops and band camps, and blues cruises are offered on the nearby Heddalsvannet Lake. Each years lineup of the Notodden Blues Festival features some big names; in 2023, headliners announced thus far include Beth Hart and Vanessa Collier. The festival unfolds on Aug. 4-7. Festival passes cost 2350 Norwegian Kroner, about $238. Online: bluesfest.no Alternatives: The Sierre Blues Festival in Sierre, Switzerland will take place June 15-17; the Puistoblues Festival in Jarvenpaa, Finland is scheduled for June 29-July 3. Jazz Since 1967, many of the worlds most renowned musicians have been coming to the shores of Lake Geneva to play at one of the most respected and famous of all events of its kind, the Montreux Jazz Festival. Each year, some 250,000 spectators come to enjoy the up-close-and-personal feel of the performances along with superb acoustics. While jazz, soul and blues lie at the roots of this event, other styles are warmly welcomed, and many performances are given by artists presently dominating the airwaves. In addition to the ticketed concerts, attendees can enjoy around 250 workshops, talks, jam sessions, pool parties, all-night electro events and other activities completely free of charge. Over 50 bars and snack stand ensure no one goes hungry. Although camping is not allowed on the festival grounds, several nearby campgrounds cater to concert-goers. The line-up for the festivals 57th edition, which runs June 30-July 15, will be announced in early spring. Online: montreuxjazzfestival.com Alternatives: The North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands takes place July 7-9. Jazzopen in Stuttgart, Germany, which takes place July 13-23, will include Beth Hart, Simply Red, Deep Purple, Snarky Puppy, Grace Jones, Joss Stone and others in its lineup. World, Folk and Roots The Rudolstadt Festival, Germanys largest festival for world, folk and roots music, distinguishes itself by the astonishing variety of its programming. For four days, 150 bands and solo artists delight with some 300 performances that might include anything from Turkish techno-trance to Inuit vocals. More than 20 stages sprawl across this small city on the banks of the Saale River in Thuringia. Buskers are also welcome to perform. Each year the festival showcases the music and dance style of one particular country; in 2023, Cuba basks in the spotlight. Other elements of the event include the presentation of music awards, dance workshops, an instrument makers center, exhibitions and a two-day childrens festival. The main festival takes place July 6-9; tickets go on sale Feb. 1 and will cost 120 euros, tickets with camping included start at 150 euros. Online: rudolstadt-festival.de Alternatives: The STIMMEN Festival, which takes takes place in Lorrach, Germany, July 15-16, features Simply Red and Zucchero in its lineup. The Sziget Festival, which takes place in Budapest, Hungary, from Aug. 10-15, is considered a European variation of Burning Man. Celtic The seaport town of Lorient, in the region of Brittany in northwest France, is home to the Festival Interceltique de Lorient. The festival, first held in 1971, nowadays attracts some 700,000 people over its 10-day run. Many of the attendees themselves hail from the Celtic nations including Brittany, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, Galicia, Asturias and elsewhere, who come to take in not only the sounds but also time-honored cultural traditions. The festival takes place at venues spread throughout the town. Annual highlights include a traditional Breton seafood supper, the Grand Parade of Celtic Nations and the National Bagadou Championship finals. Nuits Magiques are nighttime displays of pipe bands, dancers, choirs and fireworks. A Celtic village offers food, literature, clothing and handicrafts. The festival runs Aug. 4-13 in 2023. Online: festival-interceltique.bzh Alternatives: The Ortigueira International Celtic World Festival in Ortigueira, Spain, runs July 10-17 and is a free festival; Triskell International Festival of Celtic Music and Culture in Trieste, Italy, takes place July 22-31. While South Korea has so much delicious food to offer, from banchan to bingsu, sometimes you just want a good old-fashioned cheeseburger and fries. When I found myself in the mood, Rockys Burger on Shopping-ro, in the Sinjang-dong section of Pyeongtaek, was exactly what I was looking for. Theres no way you can miss this diner with its enormous, blinking Rockys Burgers sign. Once inside, I felt like Id stepped onto the set of Grease. Everything from the red-and-white patent leather seats to the jukebox to the old Coca-Cola ads were so authentic. The only piece of modern technology was a touchscreen ordering system for the menu that switches from Korean to English. The menu has a range of food options, from a bacon cheeseburger and tater tots to Philly cheese steaks and chili cheese fries, not to mention six flavors of milkshakes. I ordered the classic burger with fries and a cola. It cost less than 15,000 won (about $12.15). All the food was reasonably priced; the most expensive item was about 12,000 won. My drink arrived first, in a frosty classic Coca-Cola glass, followed shortly by the rest of my meal. The fries were perfectly seasoned, and the burger tasted exactly as you would imagine in a diner like this. The buns were light but not squishy; the lettuce and onions were crisp, and the patty itself was hot and fresh off the grill. All of that combined was delicious. To top it off, the staff was very friendly and attentive. If you find yourself in the area hanging out with friends, doing some shopping or if you just want a little slice of home, stop by Rockys Burger. Rockys Burger Location: 8 Shopping-ro, Sinjang-dong, Pyeongtaek, South Korea Directions: From the Osan Air Base main gate, cross Shopping-ro and proceed about 60 feet; the restaurant is on your right. Hours: Open 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Sunday; takeout and delivery available Prices: Burgers and sandwiches start at approximately $7.50. Dress: Casual Information: 31-667-4502 Five animal and plant species native solely to a Navy-owned island off Southern California are no longer facing extinction after four decades of conservation efforts, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday. The San Clemente Island Bell's sparrow, or Sage sparrow, flew off the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services list of threatened species after landing there on Aug. 11, 1977, according to a DOD press release. It joins four San Clemente-native plants the Island bush-mallow, paintbrush, Island lotus and Island larkspur that had been on the services endangered list since 1977. About 65 nautical miles west of San Diego, San Clemente Island is home to the Navy SEALs and the services only ship-to-shore live-fire range. Before the island was transferred to the service in 1938, intensive grazing by non-native herbivores largely stripped it of its habitat, causing declines in numerous native plants and animals, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service report to Regulations.gov. The Navy has placed a priority on removing all non-native herbivores from the island, allowing the habitat to recover, according to the DOD release. The San Clemente sparrow and plants were removed from the lists this month after scientific and commercial information indicated that their statuses have improved and threats have been eliminated or reduced to the point that they no longer meet the definitions of threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement posted to Regulations.gov. "The recoveries we celebrate today in this unique place demonstrate what is possible when partners work together under the Endangered Species Act," the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Martha Williams, said in the DOD statement. "Across the nation, the Service and partners have ensured hundreds of species are stable or improving. We are grateful for the Navy's leadership and long-term commitment to recovery efforts that have enabled us to bring these species back from the brink of extinction." Karnig Ohannessian, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for environment and mission readiness, called the recoveries a milestone that should be celebrated. The Navy remains committed to our conservation efforts on San Clemente Island, and to be good stewards of the natural resources we manage as part of our national security mission," he said. This story has been corrected The real estate company that manages thousands of homes for the U.S. Army on Oahu is set to expand a pilot program that will reduce demand and dependence on the islands electrical grid. Lendlease Communities, which operates almost 8,000 homes on Oahu under a partnership between the Army and Island Palm Communities, has spent the past eight months analyzing a group of six homes clustered to share battery-stored solar power. Early last year, the company installed roof-top solar panels and storage batteries on six adjacent homes in the Aliamanu Military Reservation on the outskirts of Honolulu, Matt Lynn, senior vice president of energy and utilities for Lendlease, said in a phone interview Wednesday. The homes remain connected to the grid. I think what makes this project unique is that the homes are connected in clusters so they can share energy between the homes wherever it's needed most, he said. This is a pretty unique structure that really allows the systems to be sized very efficiently and all the power generated essentially is used within the cluster of homes. A typical single home with solar and storage normally uses little electricity during the middle of the day, resulting in a filled battery and nowhere for further solar power to be stored, Lynn said. So, it just has to go back to the grid or get wasted with this system, he said. Because of the clustering, were able to actually use every bit of energy that the solar is generating and deliver it to where its needed most within the cluster. A state ideal for solar Island Palm Communities manages homes on Schofield Barracks, Wheeler Army Air Field, Fort Shafter, Tripler Army Medical Center, Helemano Military Reservation and Red Hill, but Aliamanu offered the best environment to pilot the cluster concept, Lynn said. They are in an area where the solar resource is really good, he said, comparing it to the generally cloudier conditions found about 15 miles to the northwest at Schofield. Homes at Aliamanu are also nicely clustered and configured for such a pilot, Lynn said. Hawaii is an ideal location for both testing and implementing innovations in solar power because of its reliable sunshine and consistently high costs for electricity. The state is working toward transitioning its energy generation to 100% renewable sources by 2045. The motivation for the switch is strong, in that Hawaiis electricity prices are roughly three times the U.S. national average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In September, Hawaiian Electric Co., which supplies most of the states power, ended the use of its last coal-fired power plant and forecasted an average increase of 7% for individual electric bills. The Army has been contending with an aged electrical grid at Schofield and Wheeler, which has resulted in routine unscheduled outages in recent years. Scaling up Reducing dependence on the electrical grid by hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Lendlease homes on Oahu will contribute to stabilizing the system, Lynn said. The Aliamanu cluster has been operational since May. So we've been studying it for almost eight months, and we now feel like we're ready to scale this up, he said. We are looking to, in the very near future, scale this up to a significant number of homes. Hundreds and ultimately thousands of homes would have this over time. Thats not going to happen overnight. It takes, a while to get the systems, get them installed, but we would move as quickly as we can to get this deployed across a significant number of our homes in Hawaii. Residents of Island Palm Communities will benefit indirectly from widespread solar clustering because they are not billed for electricity. In 2019, the Army suspended an energy conservation program for these homes in which residents were billed for above-average consumption and given rebates for below-average use. But Lynn argues that the project offers tremendous benefits. Were providing backup power to our residents so if there's a power outage, they essentially are not impacted by that, he said. These systems can help to stabilize the electrical grid on the island by lowering demand on the grid to help avoid power outages in the future. For Lendlease it equates to paying less per kilowatt-hour. These systems provide the power to us much more cost effectively, Lynn said. But I want to make clear that that's not money that goes into our pocket. That's money that gets reinvested back into the project to do upgrades to continue to improve the quality of life of our military families. Last Thursday, Prime Minister Alberto Otarola traveled to Puerto Maldonado (Madre de Dios region) where he brought food and other medical supplies. The shipment of supplies, such as food and medicines, to various areas of the country has been a constant activity on the part of this administration , given road blockades that prevent the arrival and departure of basic goods. Agenda de la presidenta de la republica, @DinaErcilia Boluarte. pic.twitter.com/hSKNLcHzJL CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea The top army generals from the United States and South Korea pledged on Thursday to strengthen their military alliance and deepen their collaboration in technological ventures. The U.S. Armys chief of staff, Gen. James McConville, and his South Korean counterpart, Gen. Park Jeong-hwan, met in Washington, D.C., to sign a Korea-U.S. Strategic Vision Statement that broadly reinforced their global comprehensive strategic alliance, according to a Friday report from National Defense Daily, the South Korean militarys news agency. McConville likened the pledge to a new starting point for the two armies and said he looked forward to increasing joint projects in the future, according to the report. Parks meeting with McConville was part of a roughly weeklong trip to the United States to meet with Army leaders. On Tuesday, he visited Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, where he met with U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. Park said he wanted to draw a blue print for the South Korean militarys space assets based on its experience working with the command, according to an Army news release Tuesday. In a rapidly changing environment, such as the development of advanced science and technology, the reduction of troops, and the implementation of combat through minimal sacrifice, our armys power and innovation in troop structure are required to effectively respond to new areas, such as threats from North Korea, space and cyber, he said, according to the release. The meetings come less than a week before U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is scheduled to visit South Korea, where he will highlight our commitment to the region, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters during a Thursday news briefing. Seoul and Washington have recently conducted several large-scale military drills, including Novembers Vigilant Storm aerial exercise that included about 240 aircraft from both countries. The joint exercises were conducted as North Korea fired roughly 75 missiles in 36 separate days of testing last year, a record. The communist regime last fired a short-range ballistic missile on Jan. 1 and is believed by U.S. and South Korean military officials to have prepared to conduct a nuclear test. WESTERN UKRAINE Finally, it was his turn in a long line of men in matching navy uniforms. Pavlo Klimash recited a phone number to the security guard and then stated his name, preceded by "prisoner of war." "I'm calling my mother," he said. No one answered. He tried again, but still no one picked up. Fifteen-minute phone calls home are only possible once or twice a month. Klimash would have to wait at least two more weeks before trying again. The Washington Post recently visited a detention center where Ukraine is holding prisoners of war. Prisoners interviewed some from Russia and some from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, which have been run by Russian proxies since 2014 were asked by journalists for their consent. Security guards stood nearby, but did not intervene. Prisoners who are being charged by Ukraine for committing war crimes were not allowed to be interviewed. Officials at the detention center asked journalists not to reveal the precise location of the prison nor how many prisoners are being held there because it could jeopardize future exchanges. Eleven months into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prisoner-of-war exchanges have become a rare intersection of mutual interest for the two countries and typically occur multiple times per month. The prisoners at this camp in western Ukraine walked without handcuffs around their wrists, instead linking their hands behind their backs and keeping their heads down. Only the guards posted outside were armed. The staff inside the center said it's a revolving door: new prisoners arrive every week just as others leave to be exchanged. Once home, they could be sent back to the front. "I don't want to fight, but if they tell me to again, then so be it," said Oleg Asedulin, a 45-year-old mortar man. "We were sent to war to fight for ourselves, and it is not clear against whom or for whom." Asedulin has been at this detention center for four months and was working in the kitchen the day Post journalists visited. Lunch was soup, meat and potatoes and a pink cabbage salad. The prisoners sat at tables covered in a tablecloth with sunflowers printed on it. It lasted 15 minutes before they all stood together and said in unison, "Thank you for lunch." There's a fixed daily schedule that includes three meals and household chores and activities, including needlework and creating paper bags designed with the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on them. A razor-wired fence wraps around the outside walls. There is 24-hour video surveillance. Men sleep in twin-size bunks lined up in two rows about 20 beds to a large room. Some prisoners arrive here with injuries, including lost limbs, and are treated in an infirmary. Igor Buzunov, 45, was captured by Ukrainian forces in September after he hurt his left arm in a mine explosion. He kept it tucked under his jacket. In central Russia, he worked as a locksmith and at construction sites for 15 years before signing a military contract. He said he was motivated by what he heard on Russia state television that Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhansk were being oppressed by authorities in Kyiv. "But when I got to Ukraine and spoke to locals here, I was convinced of something else," Buzunov said. "Let Ukraine itself resolve its conflicts on its own regarding Donetsk and Luhansk, regarding land and territory." In one room, prisoners watched a television showing a Ukrainian news channel with reports of Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilian casualties. Around the facility are boards displaying Ukrainian symbols the flag, the coat of arms and maps that include Crimea as part of Ukraine, though Russia invaded and illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. On one of the outside walls, staff hung portraits of Ukrainian rulers dating back to the 16th century a way to impress upon the prisoners here the antiquity of Ukrainian statehood. Outside of the prison, a 30-year-old woman, Oksana, walked by the central gate with her dog and two children. Does she know who is inside? "Of course," she said. "This is our exchange fund. The main thing is that ours will come home." JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank Several vans, including a milk delivery truck, rolled into the center of the Jenin refugee camp around 7 a.m. Thursday. Israeli forces burst out, rushing through the narrow, trash-strewn alleys. They lobbed an explosive toward a house, calling for the Palestinian militants inside to surrender, but the young men spilled into the streets and began firing back. Magda Obad went to have a look from her upstairs window. She was shot in the heart and the neck, said her daughter, Kifaya Omar Obad, who held her 61-year-old mother as she died. "I'm sure her killing was intentional," Kifaya said. "She was not armed." Since a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks last spring, the Israeli military has been conducting near-daily raids across the West Bank, mostly carried out in the middle of the night to arrest militants it says were involved in, or planning, violence inside Israel. But on Thursday, at least nine people were killed and 19 wounded in an hours-long gun battle inside the Jenin refugee camp, which has become a center of armed Palestinian resistance. Security experts now fear a return to the brutal, guerrilla warfare that claimed thousands of lives in the region two decades ago. "The nature of the incursion is something we have not seen," said Jiries Khader, the director of the nursing department at Jenin's central hospital. He said the fatalities included a man whose head was run over by an Israeli military vehicle, two people burned alive in the initial explosion, and several others who were shot directly in the thigh, chest or head areas that are prone to massive amounts of bleeding, and which, he said, carry an unmistakable message: "We're here to kill." The Israeli military banned Palestinian ambulances and cars from entering the camp for more than three hours, according to Khader and other hospital staff, forcing residents to carry the injured to the hospital on their backs. As the gunfight raged, Khader recounted, Israeli forces threw tear gas grenades into the courtyard and smoke began to enter the pediatric ward and the emergency room. Hospital staff scrambled to transport children to higher floors, he said. Ahmad Abu Mualem, 21, said he was walking to work when he saw 50 Israeli military jeeps at the entrance to the Jenin camp. He was shot in the rectum and passed out, regaining consciousness in the hospital bed of the intensive care unit, where he was writhing in pain. Thursday's raid was the deadliest in the West Bank in two decades, according to Palestinian officials, and came on the heels of the deadliest year for Palestinians here since the United Nations began keeping systematic records in 2005. Israeli authorities said the operation in Jenin targeted a "terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization" that was "heavily involved in executing and planning multiple major terror attacks, including shooting attacks on IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians." Israel's military says three "terrorists" and three "armed suspects" were killed. It has acknowledged three more Palestinian deaths and said claims of additional casualties are being "looked into." Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila told The Washington Post that the scene on Thursday was reminiscent of the brutal Israeli incursions during the second intifada, which was also marked by a wave of Palestinian bombings across Israel. "This level of aggression and the very high quantity of equipment used to kill Palestinians has not happened since 2002," al-Kaila said after visiting wounded residents at the hospital. The incident comes ahead of a visit next week by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has already expressed concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government could further escalate the conflict and risk another confrontation with Hamas, the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip. Islamic Jihad in Gaza took responsibility for firing at least five rockets into Israel early Friday morning, which prompted Israeli airstrikes on Hamas rocket manufacturing sites, according to the Israeli military. There were no reports of casualties on either side. "The young men are ready in the camp for any kind of incursion, and we will not surrender," said Beha Abu AlHeja, a member of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin, who took part in the firefight with the Israeli army. "Every time that someone is gunned down, family members, even if they are not connected to the resistance, will join," he added. "If we lose one, we get 10 afterward." Since last spring, Jenin has emerged as a hub of militant activity, as it was 20 years ago during the last Palestinian uprising. Thousands of young men in the impoverished refugee camp are disqualified from obtaining Israeli work permits and, having lost faith in the Palestinian Authority and its aging leader, Mahmoud Abbas, have joined loosely organized militant networks. "Our guns are open and our struggle continues," said a statement from the Jenin Battalion, one of the recently formed gangs that operates out of the camp. The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, announced Thursday that it would cut security ties with Israel "in light of the repeated aggression against our people." It is not clear how the halt would affect operations, but Israeli security experts warn that without security support, which includes intelligence gathering, the steady string of Palestinian stabbings and shootings in recent months could intensify. Barbara Leaf, U.S. assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, said that civilian casualties in Jenin were "quite regrettable" but that suspending security cooperation was not "the right step," noting "the potential for things to worsen in security terms, in terms of protests or any other kind of kinetic action." The Palestinian government is planning to appeal to the U.N. Security Council and other international bodies over the ongoing Israeli incursions, according to al-Kaila, the health minister. But after losing her mother, Kifaya Omar Obad has no interest in diplomacy. "God willing," she said, "all of Jenin will become a graveyard for the Jews." WASHINGTON New Abrams tanks will be purchased by the U.S. to supply to Ukraine because the Defense Department doesnt have any spares, delaying the shipment as Ukrainian forces prepare for an expected Russian offensive, a Pentagon spokeswoman said Thursday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended to President Joe Biden to obtain the tanks through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative a funding program that procures military equipment from industry rather than from existing Defense Department stocks, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said. We just dont have these tanks available in excess in our U.S. stocks, she told reporters at the Pentagon. Singh also said Ukraine will get 31 modified M1A2s Abrams, which is the newest and most sophisticated version of the tank that first entered service in the early 1990s. The M1A2 has advanced equipment such as an independent thermal sight and can fire at two different targets virtually at the same time without having to lock on to them sequentially. It also has an automatic firefighting system in the crew compartment and can actively deflect computerized inbound missiles. The U.S. version of the M1A2 also has armor and munitions made with depleted uranium, an extremely dense metal. However, Singh declined to provide any details about the tanks that the Ukrainians will receive. Federal policy forbids the U.S. from sending classified armor packages to other countries, according to several news reports. Pentagon officials have said it will be several months before Ukraine receives the American battle tanks. Some experts have speculated Ukraine might not see them until late 2023 or early 2024. You have to remember these tanks are going to require training, maintenance, sustainment thats going to take a very long time, Singh said. Singh also pushed back Thursday against criticisms that Pentagon officials reversed their review about sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine. Last week, defense officials said the tank might not work for Ukraine due to complex maintenance requirements and because they run on jet fuel and often need spare parts in the field. When the announcement to send the tanks came Wednesday, officials said equipment and weapons needs for Ukraine are always changing as the war against Russia evolves. [Our] position when it came to the Abrams has not changed, she said. It is going to be a challenge to sustain and maintain these tanks. That said, following the [Ukrainian] contact group meeting [in Germany last week] Secretary [Austin] came away from those conversations feeling that we needed to provide a long-term commitment to Ukraine. That is why he recommended to the president that we provide the Abrams. The Defense Department has not announced where Ukrainian troops will be trained on the tanks, but officials have said it will occur somewhere outside Ukraine. A group of Ukrainians are now at Fort Sill, Okla., learning how to operate the Patriot missile defense system. We just dont have a timeline, Singh said. We are trying to get the training set up but where thats going to be and when, I just dont have that. Ukraine also will receive other battle tanks in the coming weeks that are expected to help them fend off invading Russian forces. This includes Challenger tanks from Great Britain, and Germany announced Wednesday that it will send a number of its Leopard 2 tanks. Last week, news reports said German officials didnt want to commit the Leopard 2 to Ukraine until the United States agreed to send Abrams tanks. The Pentagon has said there was no link between the decision to send the Abrams and Germanys decision to send the Leopards. The night of Jan. 6, 2021, Brian D. Sicknick texted his brother exhausted but in good spirits after an hours-long battle defending the U.S. Capitol: "I smell like BO, weed, OC spray and CS gas." A day later, Kenneth Sicknick learned from another text message that his youngest brother, a Capitol Police officer, had died at age 42. On Friday, a man who attacked Brian Sicknick with chemical spray at the Capitol was sentenced to 80 months nearly seven years behind bars. Julian Khater, 32, pleaded guilty in March to assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon. "There are officers who lost their lives, there's officers who committed suicide after this, there's officers who can't go back to work," Judge Thomas F. Hogan said. "Your actions are inexcusable." Before the sentence, Kenneth Sicknick told the court that Khater at release "will still be free and still be younger than Brian was when he died." D.C.'s chief medical examiner previously ruled that Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters, and that "all that transpired on that day played a role in his condition." George Tanios, who was with Khater that day and admitted buying and handing chemical spray to Khater, is also being sentenced Friday. Neither Khater nor Tanios, 41, was charged in Sicknick's death. Sandra Garza, Sicknick's girlfriend, has filed a civil suit alleging Trump, Khater and Tanios bear responsibility. Scores of Capitol Police officers attended the hearing Friday, filling the courtroom where Khater and Tanios were sentenced. Garza came with the Virginia state trooper who escorted her from the hospital where her partner for the past 11 years died. She and Sicknick's two brothers and mother broke open in court the pain and anger they feel over his death blaming Khater and other rioters, in addition to then-President Donald Trump. "How does it feel to be headed to jail for a baldfaced lie?" Gladys Sicknick asked the two defendants. She wore a shirt that had belonged to her son, describing him as "a good boy who grew up to be a good man," killed by "lawlessness, misplaced loyalty to a deranged autocratic ideal and hate." A clinical social worker, Garza said she initially had "some empathy" for two men "brainwashed by our former president." But she said their lack of apparent remorse "shows a callousness and maliciousness that disgusts me." In court, Khater said what happened on Jan. 6 was "extremely unfortunate" and that the officers and their families didn't deserve it. "I wish I could take it all back," he said. But as Hogan told him, the "self-centered" pronouncement "did not include any apology to the officers who you sprayed." While Sicknick's loved ones marked the 751 days since Jan. 6, Khater began his statement by counting the 684 "agonizing" days he has spent in jail. Khater said he was advised not apologize directly due to the pending civil suit. The family said that they can never know all the details of Sicknick's death, because it is too painful to delve into what happened that day and they don't want to force other police officers to relive the experience. "The United States Capitol Police are so busy taking care of my family, I wonder who is taking care of them," Kenneth Sicknick said. Hogan said that if not for the coroner's report, Khater might be facing a murder charge. "I am concerned about what you did do regardless of whether you're responsible directly for the death of Officer Sicknick," he said. He also said he would have imposed more time if Khater had not spent a year at the D.C. jail, which Hogan called a disgrace. Hogan also imposed a $10,000 fine. The average sentence for those convicted of assaulting law enforcement officers is more than 48 months, in line with the nationwide average for that offense in recent years, according to a Washington Post database and data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The longest Jan. 6 sentence issued so far has been 10 years to retired New York Police Department officer Thomas Webster, who swung a flagpole at police before tackling one officer and pulling his gas mask off his face. Khater's defense attorneys, in court filings, also blamed Trump. "A climate of mass hysteria, fueled by the dissemination of misinformation about the 2020 election, originating at the highest level, gave rise to a visceral powder keg waiting to be ignited," Khater's attorneys Joseph Tacopina and Chad Seigel wrote. They asked for a sentence of time served. Tacopina represented Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancee, in front of the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. Guilfoyle, a Trump fundraiser, spoke at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the attack, saying that "patriots will not let them steal this election." Tacopina is also representing Trump in a dispute over a book written by a former prosecutor in New York. Siegel said in court that while Khater was remorseful, the spray's impact was "temporary" and he was "not directly or indirectly" responsible for Sicknick's death. Prosecutor Gilead Light countered in court that the attack was "cowardly and premeditated," targeted at officers who lacked protective gear and contributed to the collapse of the police line on the Lower West Terrace that allowed rioters to climb closer to the building's doors. "He didn't get his way," Light said, so "he chose violence." Prosecutors said Khater was "directly responsible" for injuring three police officers: Caroline Edwards; an unnamed D.C. police officer; and Sicknick. He is accused of spraying Sicknick directly in the face, according to court documents, which caused the officer to retreat to an empty terrace of the Capitol and pour water on his eyes. Edwards was near Sicknick on the West Terrace when he was sprayed in the face by Khater, she said; she saw him turn "ghostly pale" and knew he needed help. But before she could go to his aid, she was sprayed by Khater herself. She was half-awake in recovery from a traumatic brain injury when she learned he had died; she hoped it was a nightmare. What followed was "months of survivor's guilt and asking God why it wasn't me," Edwards said. Appearing in her uniform, she told the court, "I felt like the worst kind of officer. Someone who didn't help their friend, someone who couldn't help their friend." The red scabs over her eyes from the chemical burns lasted over a month, "mocking" her inability to save him. "That day, these choices, those moments will affect all of us for the rest of our lives," Edwards said. "Brian gave some of the very last breaths that he had to defending the Capitol, our symbol of democracy. He shouldn't have had to, but he did." The Washington Post's Emily Davies and Tom Jackman contributed to this report. ??|El Ministerio Publico abrio 11 investigaciones fiscales, entre diciembre de 2022 y enero de 2023, para determinar a los responsables de las muertes de ciudadanos ocurridas durante las movilizaciones sociales que se desarrollan en el pais. ??https://t.co/kIGdXhPBXc pic.twitter.com/UcgMjSqzgz (Tribune News Service) Connecticut companies in 2021 received $11.1 billion in defense prime contracts meaning contracts valued at $7.5 million or more and "the future is extremely bright for Connecticut's submarine industrial base," according to the recently released annual report from the Connecticut Office of Military Affairs, for fiscal year 2022. The 2022 report from the Submarine Base Industrial Council states that Connecticut has 352 first-tier submarine industrial base suppliers, who received $1.2 billion in purchase orders for specialized components in 2022, up from $1.1 billion in 2021 and $864.2 million in 2020. Connecticut ranked sixth last year in supplier sub-contract amounts. Connecticut ranked eighth in contracts for defense spending in fiscal year 2021 down from sixth the previous year, because New York and Massachusetts ranked higher due to large Department of Defense contracts for COVID-19 vaccines and treatment. The state ranked fourth for defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product, at 6.2%, compared to a nationwide average of 2.3%. Since OMA was established in 2007, annual defense contacts in the state have generally been in the $6 billion to $14 billion range, but there have been spikes in some years: $27.1 billion in 2014, $23 billion in 2016, and $37.1 billion in 2019, when the Navy awarded Electric Boat a $22.2 billion contract to build nine Virginia-class submarines. The report stressed that while this "can give the impression of economic instability in the Connecticut defense industrial base," this is not the case because actual amounts paid to contractors "are spread out over many years." OMA Executive Director Bob Ross said it was a challenge for him to make sure people didn't interpret the $37.1 billion year as a new normal, but said it provided contractors certainty over the next decade, so they can start doing advanced procurement and get suppliers lined up. He said while all these contracts are great news for Connecticut, a big focal point for him in 2023 will be attracting the necessary workforce. When it comes to suppliers, Ross said while it's very expensive and difficult for companies to become subcontractors, it's worth it in the long run because "there's going to be decades of opportunity" at EB, Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney. Ross said he's not seeing more businesses pivot to become suppliers, but he's also not aware of any trouble these three contractors are having attracting suppliers. The report noted that Connecticut "did very well" in defense authorization and appropriations bills last fiscal year, including a historic $12.5 billion in the National Defense Authorization Act for submarine construction, repair, and research and development. The NDAA also included $4.23 billion for two Virginia-class submarines, with Electric Boat as the prime contractor; $3 billion for Columbia-class submarines; $8.7 billion for 85 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, with East Hartford's Pratt & Whitney as the sole manufacturer; and $1.5 billion for 11 CH-53K King Stallion helicopters, built by Stratford-based Sikorsky. The omnibus appropriations bill also included $50 million for Coast Guard Museum construction. The Coast Guard held a ceremonial keel-laying ceremony on Aug. 19, 2022, to mark the start of construction, and bulkhead and fill work began a few weeks later. Naval Submarine Base The missions of OMA include coordinating efforts to prevent the closure or downsizing of the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, advocating for Connecticut's defense industry as a significant part of the state economy, and enhancing the quality of life of military families. DOD twice targeted the sub base for closure in the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, in 1993 and 2005. The OMA annual report states that subject matter experts believe DOD will eventually request another BRAC round but it may look very different, and that the sub base is "in a much better position to withstand another round of BRAC." "Previous rounds focused on cost savings and strategic basing," the report states. "Future rounds will likely add new criteria, including the quality of host community public schools, state-level efforts to address military spouse unemployment and licensure reciprocity, and relocations required due to climate change and sea level rise." The report cited the "remarkable transformation" the sub base is undergoing as old infrastructure is replaced. Also in 2021, United Service Organizations opened a new USO Center at the Naval Submarine Base. Looking ahead, a new floating pier at the Submarine Force Museum is expected to be operational for the 2023 season of the Thames River Heritage Park water taxi. e.moser@theday.com (c)2023 The Day (New London, Conn.) Visit at www.theday.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The metal microbot, made out of liquid metal microparticles that can be steered and reshaped by external magnetic fields, has been widely compared to the character T-1000 in "The Terminator" movie franchise, a cyborg assassin played by Robert Patrick that could morph his way around solid objects before embarking on a murderous rampage. But, in contrast with the film, the inventors of this robot believe their discovery can be used for good particularly in clinical and mechanical settings by reaching hard-to-reach spaces. The robot was presented as part of a study into the metal microparticles, known as a type of magnetoactive phase transitional matter, that can morph shape, move quickly, be controlled easily and carry many times its own body weight. The scientists behind the study, who published their findings Wednesday in the journal Matter, created the robot using a composite of metals with a low melting point. "This material can achieve Terminator-2 like performance, including fast movement and heavy load bearing when it is in its solid state, and shape changing in its liquid state," Chengfeng Pan, an engineer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who co-authored the study, told The Washington Post, when asked about his discovery and the comparisons being made to the Terminator movies. "Potentially, this material system can be used for applications in flexible electronics, health care, and robotics." By blasting the robot with magnetic fields at alternating currents, scientists increased its temperature to 95 Fahrenheit and caused it to morph from a solid into a liquid state in 1 minute 20 seconds. Once transformed into liquid metal, the figurine could be steered through the narrow gaps of its locked cage by more magnets demonstrating its morphability. It is the first time a material capable of both shifting shape and carrying heavy loads has been identified for use in microbots, according to scientists at the Chinese, Hong Kong and American universities who worked on the study solving a riddle that has confounded miniature robot makers who previously struggled to achieve both morphability and strength in their designs. In its liquid form, the robot could be made to elongate, divide, and merge. In solid form, it was steered at speeds exceeding 3 mph and carried heavy objects up to 30 times its own weight. The combination means a robot made from the material could be deployed to fix electronics in difficult to reach places, for example working as a makeshift screw or for electronic soldering in tight spots. In another experiment, researchers demonstrated how the robot could be deployed inside a model human stomach to remove an unwanted foreign object. Scientists steered the solid-form robot, measuring less than 0.4 inch in width, through the fake organ until it had located the foreign object. It was then melted by remotely controlled magnetic fields, stretched in its new liquid metal state around the object and once securely hugging it cooled back into a solid, allowing it to tow the foreign object out of the chamber. The shape-shifting material is the latest in a string of developments across the burgeoning field of miniature robotics as scientists race to identify potential medical and mechanical applications for tiny robots in everyday life. Recent microrobotic innovations include robots small enough to potentially crawl through human arteries, intelligent enough to be taught to swim, and others capable of flying through the air powered by tiny onboard power supplies. "We're still early in the exploration of what kind of materials can do this," Brad Nelson, a professor of Robotics at ETH Zurich who was not part of the study, told The Washington Post. One of the most interesting areas of research in microrobotics right now is in clinical applications particularly the delivery of drugs to the brain or for treating blood clots, he adds. While the metal microbot unveiled on Wednesday is instructive, its use of neodymium iron boron toxic to humans means it would only be clinically safe for use inside humans if it were completely removed from the body afterward, Nelson says. "The folks that are really looking at clinical applications of these devices, we want to look at materials that can degrade in the body, remain in the body, without causing harm to the patient," Nelson said. For Pan, the comparisons between his creation and the Terminator's T-1000 character are understandable but limited in how far they can be taken. "Our robot still needs an external heater for melting and external magnetic field for controlling the movement and shape changing," he said. "Terminator is fully autonomous." Nelson also argues that the risk of inadvertently creating a real-life cyborg assassin is not something to worry about. "I don't see any possibility of injecting something into somebody, and then the microbots swim into their brain and take over their thoughts, or something crazy like that. "The technology isn't there, and I don't see it going there," Nelson says adding that were the technology to be tested in clinical settings there would be safeguards in place to protect against such risks. The Washington Post's Naomi Schanen contributed to this report. In particular they will be watching the courts assessment of state witness, former Sinn Fein councillor Jonathan Dowdall, who testified against Mr Hutch before Christmas. The DPP is contemplating bringing charges against a number of other people suspected to have been involved in the Regency Hotel attack. However, the State prosecutor is unlikely to make any further moves until the Special Criminal delivers its verdict in the prosecution of Gerry The Monk Hutch and two other men in April. The non-jury court yesterday adjourned on the 52nd day of the trial, after hearing closing speeches from defence counsel representing Mr Hutchs co-accused Jason Bonney (52) and Paul Murphy (61). The three judges will deliver their verdicts in just over 12 weeks time on April 17, which is five days after Mr Hutchs 60th birthday. He denies a charge of murdering drug dealer David Byrne when a five-man hit team, three of whom were dressed as gardai and armed with AK-47s, attacked a weigh-in at the hotel on February 5, 2016. Mr Bonney and Mr Murphy have pleaded not guilty to participating or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing getaway vehicles for the killer gang. The verdicts will be anxiously awaited by investigating gardai and the DPP, before decisions are made on whether to proceed with charges against other individuals suspected of being involved in the attack. In particular they will be watching the courts assessment of state witness, former Sinn Fein councillor Jonathan Dowdall, who testified against Mr Hutch before Christmas. Security sources revealed that the verdict will be closely scrutinised, especially with regard to Dowdalls credibility. A decision will then be made if he is to testify in future trials of alleged gang members. Ms Justice Tara Burns said yesterday it had been a long and difficult trial before remanding Mr Hutch in custody and his two co-accused on continuing bail. Earlier, barristers for co-defendants, Mr Bonney and Mr Murphy, gave their closing speeches. A BMW X5 SUV linked to Mr Bonney and Mr Murphys Toyota Avensis taxi are both alleged to have been part of a convoy that parked up at GAA grounds near the Regency Hotel before the attack and transported the assassination team away afterwards. The Regency Hotel where David Byrne was shot dead in February 2016. Photo: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie The prosecution alleges Mr Murphys Toyota Avensis taxi and Mr Bonneys BMWX5 were first seen at Buckingham Village in the north inner city, which the prosecution says became operative for the attack that morning. In his closing speech on behalf of Mr Bonney, John Fitzgerald SC said the prosecutions case against his client was a thin and alarmingly light one with a number of holes. He said the use of the SUV was more complicated than the prosecution stated and it was not owned by him but registered to his father William Bonneys dormant company. In garda interview, Mr Bonney had identified himself as having been at the SUV at his home in Portmarnock and accepted that on the day he was driving between there and his other house at Newbrook Avenue, Donaghmede, which he was renovating. It was the defence case that he did not drive south of Newbrook Avenue, after which his father was driving. The court heard when gardai interviewed Mr Bonney, he did not tell them his father William was driving the SUV on the day. Mr Fitzgerald said it was a reasonable inference that the reason for this was he wanted to protect his father. Mr Bonney had been given a garda information notice about a threat on his life at the time. He told gardai he would tell the truth up to the point that it puts my life or my familys lives in danger. There was an enormous climate of fear surrounding the entire case, Mr Fitzgerald said. He had every reason not to point the finger at his father. There had been no obligation on Mr Bonney to either speak to the gardai or provide alibi witnesses, Mr Fitzgerald said. His account to gardai as it related to Mr Bonney himself had stood the test of time, Mr Fitzgerald said. There are ample grounds on which the court can consider that the State has not discharged its weighty responsibility in this case, Mr Fitzgerald said. Bernard Condon SC, for Mr Murphy said the prosecution in closing had made broad brush assertions but these were not evidence, and when a forensic analysis of the case was looked at, the assertions waft away. It was a case of circumstantial evidence, he said and the links were not proved. The prosecution was offering guilt by association or guilt by suspicion as being enough, he said. Prosecutor Fiona Murphy SC had said Buckingham Village was the centre of everything in the case but Mr Condon said this was based on an invitation to make inferences rather than detail. Mr Condon said he did not accept that the car seen on CCTV at a number of locations in north Dublin on the day of the murder was Mr Murphys taxi and said identifying features suggested by the prosecution were not unique. He did not accept that Mr Murphys taxi was seen following a BMW at the Beachcomber pub, or that it was Mr Bonneys BMW. He absolutely rejected a prosecution claim that the two cars were seen travelling cheek by jowl. There was no evidence any silver Avensis taxi parked up at Donnycarney Church, he said. In the footage where the six attackers allegedly ran down a lane to the waiting cars, there is no vehicle consistent with Mr Murphys car. That is a huge gap in the evidence, Mr Condon said. The blanks cannot be filled by supposition. The blanks cannot be filled by suspicion. The CCTV evidence did not come up to the standard necessary and was of poor quality, he said. Mr Condon also argued that there was no specific evidence that Mr Murphy assisted the Hutch Criminal Organisation, as required by the charge against him. The court had only heard he had contact with Eddie and Patsy Hutch, with no evidence they were members of the organised crime gang. The proper verdict in Paul Murphys case is not guilty and that is what I ask the court to do, Mr Condon concluded. Peter Monks (32), of Brega Hamlet, Hamlet Lane, Balbriggan, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm A Dublin man has been sentenced to eight months in prison for assaulting his then-partner after a night out with colleagues. Peter Monks (32), of Brega Hamlet, Hamlet Lane, Balbriggan, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to his then partner at their home in Balbriggan on November 30, 2019. He has 20 previous convictions. Passing sentence today, Judge Martin Nolan said the facts in this case were that Monks assaulted his then partner in a serious way, which caused her serious stress. Judge Nolan said he had been asked by counsel not to imprison him. Judge Nolan said he deserved a prison sentence and sentenced him to two years in prison but suspended the final sixteen months. Garda Eoin OReilly told the court that Monks arrived home intoxicated at approximately 5am after a night out with colleagues. When his partner opened the door to him, Monks attacked her by punching, kicking, biting her and pulling a clump of her hair out. Gda OReilly said the woman ran to a neighbour's house, where she waited for several hours. When she returned to the house, Monks was sleeping but woke and threw a shoe towards her but missed. The court heard that the woman later made a complaint to gardai stating that she had been assaulted the previous day. Gardai could see bruises on the woman and took a statement. The woman left but returned to the garda station later, saying the accused was at her address and she didnt want him there. Gardai went to the house in Balbriggan and arrested Monks and brought him to the garda station for interview. During the interview, Monks said he was out the night before and had a lot to drink. He said he went home sometime after 2am and his partner let him into the house. He said he couldnt remember anything else but woke up in his childs bed, and his partner was not there. When Monks was shown pictures of the injuries sustained by his then partner, he said: No way it was me. Gda ONeill agreed with Marc Thompson BL, defending, that Monks has been in regular contact with his ex-partner since the assault and spoke with her on the phone one day ago. Mr Thompson said time in custody had been a wake-up call for his client as he was sleeping in a cell with four others and on a mattress on the floor. Counsel said the injured party had made a full recovery and that she had been in an on-and-off relationship with his client since the incident. He asked the court to take into account the mental health issues of his client and the contents of a letter written by Monks sister, which outlined his suicide attempt as well as his guilty plea. A mother of one punched a garda in the stomach while she was being arrested, a court heard. Georgina Murphy (31) was very sorry for her behaviour and had repeatedly apologised to gardai for it, her solicitor said. Judge Dermot Dempsey sentenced Murphy to three months in prison. The defendant, with an address at Sherlock Park in Skerries, Co Dublin admitted wilful obstruction of a garda at Millers Lane in Skerries on October 16 last year. Garda Jack Bennett told Swords District Court that gardai were called to the scene at around 9pm following reports of a domestic incident. Gda Bennett said that while Murphy was being arrested she struck him with a closed fist into the stomach. She was highly intoxicated at the time, he said. The court heard Murphy had a previous conviction for assault. Defence solicitor Paul Molloy said Murphy, a mother of one, lived in Skerries with her mother and brother, and this incident arose out of a disagreement with her brother. Mr Molloy said the defendant had too much to drink and could not really remember what had happened. She accepted the gardas evidence and was very contrite, realising her behaviour was out of order, he said. Mr Molloy said Murphy, who was unemployed and on social welfare, had not been drinking since and asked the judge to be as lenient as possible. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisis upcoming visit to Armenia is a historic event, it will mark the first time when an Egyptian President is visiting Armenia since Armenia regained independence, expert on Arab studies Araks Pashayan told ARMENPRESS. This opportunity must be used to intensify relations with Egypt, Pashayan said. Overall, we need to strengthen partnership in areas where we have common interests. I can say that Armenia is a part of the Greater Middle Eastern region. We have centuries-old historical-cultural contacts with Egypt. The Armenian element has been present in Egypt in various periods of time, among the military-political elite, in commerce and artisanal areas and other sectors, the Arabist said, emphasizing that the Egyptian society knows Armenians very well but Armenia to a lesser extent. She said that the Egyptian Presidents visit will be a very good occasion to outline the directions of bilateral interest and possibilities for utilizing the existing big potential. According to Pashayan, Armenia has the opportunity to develop the "military-technical sector" with Egypt. Certainly, the experts of this sector must define the agenda and priorities, but in any case, I think that this is one of the most important sectors. Consistent work must be done, Egypt is one of the exclusive Arab countries with whom Armenia doesnt have any political issue, there are no obstacles for developing bilateral relations. And we have all opportunities for increasing bilateral partnership in a number of areas to a higher level, Pashayan said. Boosting economic relations is also highly important, the expert added. Activeness is already seen in tourism, and regular direct flights are available. Egypt is one of the most popular tourism destinations for Armenians, and Armenia can also be attractive for Egyptians. Egypt can be a natural ally for Armenia. We have many untapped opportunities. Today, Armenia has the need to increase the number of its friendly countries, although our friendship with Egypt comes from the depth of centuries. In any case, we must be consistent. Generally, the Middle East must be viewed as a foreign policy priority of Armenia, Araks Pashayan said. Pashayan underscored that Azerbaijan is carrying out massive work against Armenias interests and agenda. In this context Pashayan attached importance to Armenia enhancing cooperation with countries of the Middle East. The expert on Arab studies highlighted the presence and work of the Armenian community of Egypt. She underscored that the Egyptian government has a very caring attitude towards the Armenian community. Armenia is interested in the welfare of the Armenian community in Egypt, which is the bridge in the Armenia-Egypt relations. Interview by Anna Gziryan Cameraman Hayk Barseghyan Gardai have appealed for witnesses to contact them. A man was rushed to hospital this afternoon after an apparent stabbing incident in Dublin city centre. A section of Marlborough Street was cordoned off shortly after 1pm, as gardai launched an investigation into the incident. It has now been confirmed that an assault took place and a man, aged in his late 20s, was seriously injured. Shortly before 1pm today, Thursday, 26 January 2023, Gardai and Emergency Services attended at Marlborough Street, Dublin 1, following reports of an assault, a garda spokesperson said. A man in his late 20s was treated at the scene for apparent stab wounds and removed by ambulance to the Mater Hospital. His condition is understood to be stable. Gardai have confirmed that an examination of the scene has been carried out and local enquires are ongoing. No arrests have been made at this time. Gardai are appealing for witnesses to come forward and for those with camera footage from the area at the time to make it available to them. Anyone with information is asked to contact Store Street Garda Station 01 666 8000 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111. Violent thug has breakdown after mums death. One of Irelands most dangerous inmates is now the subject of barrier handling at all times when he leaves his cell after suffering a breakdown following the death of his mother before Christmas. Stephen Egan who beat fellow inmate Gary Douch to death in the basement of Mountjoy Prison in 2007 spent the Christmas period in a padded cell on A-wing in Portlaoise Prison after becoming extremely volatile following the death of his mum on December 14. One of the States most troubled inmates, a source said Egan repeatedly covered himself with his own excrement and repeatedly threatened staff when they attempted to help him. The source said Egan was removed from the padded cell earlier this week but now requires barrier handling due to the danger he poses to staff. Barrier handling involves an inmate being escorted by officers clad in full riot gear at all times when outside his cell. Egan had made threats against loads of staff, the source said. Staff in A Block are overwhelmed and fear for their safety daily. The feeling is that he does not belong in a prison at all. He should be moved to the Central Mental Hospital there is a ward there for prisoners in the new facility in Portrane but officers have been told they dont have the staff to man it. Prison officers are being left to deal with him when its plain to be seen that unless he gets the help he needs hes going to seriously hurt either a staff member or another inmate. Stephen Egan is currently serving a life sentence for the manslaughter of Gary Douch in 2006. Douch was killed on July 31 that year when he was brutally assaulted by Egan in a cell at Mountjoy, in front of five other inmates. At Egans trial, John Aylmer, counsel for the defence, said his client admitted beating Mr Douche to death that morning in Cell 2, B Base. But he said his client had a mental illness, which diminished his responsibility. In April 2009, Egan was convicted of manslaughter, due to diminished responsibility. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment. A commission of inquiry later concluded that Douchs death could have been avoided, but acknowledged that it would be unfair to regard the tragedy as being caused by one person or service. The commission found that Douchs death was due to an avoidable systems failure, compounded by the non-compliance with or disregard for some of the prison rules, orders and policies. This was found to be the norm rather than the exception. It said the authorities at Mountjoy and Cloverhill jails at the time must bear considerable responsibility for what had tragically taken place as their systems had failed to identify and appropriately manage Egans risk to others. The report outlined how Douch (21) had been sharing a cell on July 31, 2006 but asked to be moved to a protection wing because he feared he was going to be attacked. He was transferred to a basement cell, sharing it with Egan and five others. His unconscious body was found by prison officers the following morning. Justice Minister of the day Alan Shatter issued an apology to the dead mans family on behalf of the State and the Irish Prison Service. It is the second similar tragedy in days following the death of a toddler in Co Wicklow A postmortem will take place on the child's remains at Cork University Hospital Locals in Skibbereen in Co Cork have vowed to offer every support available to the family of a two year old boy who died after a tragic choking incident. In Cork on Wednesday, a young boy choked to death on a piece of fruit, believed to be a grape, at his family home. It has been described as a devastating tragedy. It was the second similar tragedy in a matter of days after a child aged about two years old, became ill after complications when eating food in a creche in Co Wicklow. In the Cork incident, the young boy who was aged between two and three was in the kitchen of his home in Skibbereen when he got into difficulty after swallowing the fruit. The alarm was raised and emergency services rushed to the scene. Gardai arrived shortly after 9pm and paramedics performed CPR on the young boy. Despite the frantic efforts of the emergency services to save him, the little boy died at the scene. In a statement, gardai said they were treating the death as a tragic accident and that foul play was not suspected. The coroner (for west Cork) has been notified and a post-mortem will be held at Cork University Hospital, gardai said. Gardai are currently treating the death as a tragic accident and foul play is not suspected. Owing to the tragic nature of the incident, no further information is available. Independent Councillor Karen Coakley, who is a former Mayor of Skibbereen, said that there was a sense of "numbness" locally following the tragedy. "I heard it yesterday morning and nobody seemed to know who it was. Sometimes when you don't know who it is is it is almost as if it hasn't happened. "Where it happened is near where I am living. Supposedly the family moved to town over the last couple of months. It is almost sadder because if they just moved to town they don't really have a network of support just yet or family support. Supporting them is all you can do. People are just so numb because it is such a cute age when a child is between two and three. It is just so tragic. A simple, simple little accident. It is just heartbreaking." Cllr Coakley says the community plans to do everything in its power to assist the bereaved family. "You don't have to be a parent to feel this. It is just heartbreaking. It is just so traumatic. We will do whatever we can." Meanwhile, this is the second tragedy involving a child in the town over the last year. In January of last year a toddler died after was struck by a car in the driveway of a house in the Tralispean area of the West Cork town. The 18 month old boy was taken from the scene by ambulance to CUH where he was pronounced dead. In the Co Wicklow tragedy, it is understood that complications developed after the child ate some food at a creche. An ambulance was called and the child was taken to Crumlin childrens hospital in Dublin, but was later pronounced dead. No foul play or negligence is suspected. The childs family are described as being extremely devastated about the tragedy. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire An elderly woman has died following fire at a chalet bungalow in Co Fermanagh. The pensioner, who was in her 70s, was pronounced dead at the scene of the blaze in the Killynure Crescent area of Enniskillen on Thursday evening. An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the fire. PSNI Detective Inspector Winters said: At approximately 5.55pm police were notified of a fire in the property and attended along with colleagues from other emergency services. Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) extinguished the fire but, sadly, a woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Our investigation is now underway to determine the cause of the fire. Anyone with information is asked to call 101, and quote reference number 1665 of 26/01/23. NIFRS area commander David Nichol has offered condolences to the dead womans family. The thoughts and sympathies of Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service are with the loved ones of a woman who has sadly died following a house fire in Enniskillen yesterday evening, he said. On Thursday 26 January at 5.53pm, firefighters were called to reports of a fire in a chalet bungalow in Killynure Crescent, Enniskillen. Four fire appliances attended the incident, two from Enniskillen, one from Irvinestown and one from Lisnaskea. "Firefighters extinguished the fire but tragically a woman died at the scene. Firefighters left the scene at 9.54pm and the cause is currently under investigation. Last week, after denying for three years he had tortured and killed Nadia, her stepfather Abdul Wahab (34) finally admitted his guilt. Little Nadia Kalinowska who was subjected to endless torture in her short life The heartbroken grandmother of a little girl killed by her stepfather has spoken of her regret over the childs brutal murder. Five-year-old Nadia Zofia Kalinowska was pronounced dead at Belfasts Royal Victoria Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast on December 15, 2019. Last week, after denying for three years he had tortured and killed Nadia, her stepfather Abdul Wahab (34) finally admitted his guilt. The Pakistani national admitted carrying out a series of assaults against Nadia on dates between July 1 and December 14, 2019, before eventually killing her. Nadias mother Aleksandra Wahab (28), who is originally from Poland, pleaded guilty to an alternative charge to murder namely causing or allowing the death of her daughter. She also admitted a charge of causing or allowing a child to suffer serious physical harm the day before Nadias death, and of allowing Nadia to suffer during a period between July 1 and December 14, 2019. The couple were arrested and charged with murdering Nadia following her death in the family home at Fernagh Drive in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim. They were also charged with a litany of other offences which they initially denied. Now, having finally owned up to the horrific crimes, Abdul Wahab has been given a sentence of life imprisonment. He will be told on March 9 how many years he will serve in prison before he can be considered for release. Nadias mother will also be sentenced on the same date. In January 2020, Abdul and Aleksandra Wahab were released from custody to attend a funeral service for Nadia. After the service, Nadias remains were taken to Poland for burial. The repatriation and burial arrangements were organised by Nadias maternal grandmother, Alfreda Wrzesinska, with the support of the Polish Consulate in Northern Ireland. On January 30, 2020, Mrs Wrzesinska launched an appeal on a Polish fundraising website, asking people to help bring her granddaughter home. In the appeal, Nadias grandmother spoke about the pain caused by her death. Tributes left to little Nadia A translation of the message reads: Nadia was only five years old when she left us and after her only emptiness and regret remained in our hearts... regret why it happened... an innocent child left. Nadia Kalinowska lived with her mother, younger brother and stepfather in Northern Ireland for over three years. On December 15, 2019, she died in unexplained circumstances at her home to this day, we all hold on to the hope that it was an unfortunate accident... unfortunately, Nadias parents remain in custody in Ireland until the accident is clarified, currently there is a trial and they have been serious charges against them. I am the girls grandmother, I live in Poland and currently I am her closest family member, I would like her to rest among her relatives. In her appeal, Mrs Wrzesinska said she believed it would take around 10 days to transport Nadias remains to Poland. The amount I am trying to collect thanks to people of goodwill is a huge sum for me, because in addition to the transport of the corpse and the funeral, it will be necessary to collect Nadias organs at a later time, which were collected and retained for the purposes of the ongoing investigation and trial after its completion, they will be released and will be able to join and rest in Nadias grave. Unfortunately, this is a huge cost for me. I am not a wealthy person, I work and so far I have spent all the money I have saved on traveling to my grandchildren. Once a year I went to visit them, spend time with the children, buy small gifts these moments will never come back. I count on people of good will with open hearts. I hope that thanks to you Nadia will overcome the last road... the way home. Almost 800 people donated to the appeal which raised the equivalent of around 7,000. Nadia is believed to have been buried in her grandmothers home town of Gorzow. Tomasz Orczyk, Vice-Consul at the Polish Consulate in Northern Ireland, confirmed they had assisted Nadias family. The death of Nadia, an innocent and wonderful girl, has been an immense shock and tragedy to the entire Polish community in Northern Ireland, said Mr Orczyk. Tributes were also paid to Nadia by her school. Our school community is still in shock at this terrible tragedy, said a spokesperson for St Jamess Primary School. We have lost Nadia who was a much-loved pupil. Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted at this time. Shocking details about how Nadia was treated in a place where she should have felt safe emerged during previous court hearings. As well as suffering a skull fracture and lacerated liver which caused her death, the little girl had also sustained fractures and re-fractures to her ribs, a fractured collarbone, a fractured pelvis and an injury to her bowel. Also present at Nadias time of death were 70 surface injuries including bruising and abrasions. Her mother and stepfather told police her injuries were sustained when she fell down the stairs in their home. In June 2018, a health visitor referred Nadia for treatment to black and decaying teeth. However, 10 months later the referral ended when Nadia failed to attend appointments. A court was also told police investigating the circumstances surrounding her death found no toys, dolls or teddy bears at the family home. A pink bicycle was located at the property, although investigations revealed it was a present from a family member in Poland rather than Nadias parents. School records revealed a 64 per cent attendance rate for Nadia, who was a primary one pupil at St Jamess Primary School in Newtownabbey, in the months prior to her death. It also emerged at a previous court hearing that Aleksandra Wahab had converted to Islam from Catholicism after meeting her husband. At the time of Nadias death, her mother had another child, a young boy, and also gave birth to another child while in custody. Both children were taken into care. Joe Clarke, whos now terminally ill, says all they want to hear is sorry. An apology is everything, he says. The Hooded Men fear the government will wait for them to die rather than apologise, says survivor Joe Clarke. But he hopes a new documentary about their torture at the hands of the Army and RUC Special Branch will prompt a rethink of their treatment. The 14 men were used as guinea pigs for torture methods known as the five techniques in 1971 during internment, when they were among nearly 2,000 people held without trial. The men were hooded, forced to stand in stress positions, beaten, deprived of food and water, and deprived of sleep. Joe was just 19 when he was hooded and pushed out of a helicopter at the start of a week of torture at the hands of Special Branch and the Army. The impact of the mens mistreatment stretched far beyond Northern Ireland when US President George Bush used a European court ruling that their treatment didnt amount to torture to open the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons following 9/11. In December 2021 the Supreme Court ruled their treatment was torture, but the finding has been ignored by the government. Joe, whos now terminally ill, says all they want to hear is sorry. An apology is everything, he says. We want them to admit that what was done to us was torture and its absolutely been proven it was torture so why have they not come back to us with some sort of answer to the courts finding. Its looking very like they are waiting for us to die off. Joe, a father of five, says it took years for him to talk about his treatment. He was a mechanic living in Beechmount when he was lifted by the Army on August 9, 1971. Among those held with him on Special Branch intelligence that they were involved in the IRA were an 87-year-old man and a blind man. The intelligence from Special Branch wasnt very good. They were trying to bring people in for internment who were dead, says Joe. Within days he was in Ballykelly military base in rooms prepared for torture. Government documents showed the decision had been approved at ministerial level and the Chief Constable had travelled to Downing Street to get an assurance from then Prime Minister Ted Heath that none of his officers would be prosecuted. Joe Clarke aged 19 We were hooded and taken by helicopter. The soldier said to me, youve seen the photos of the Vietnamese getting thrown out of helicopters, and pushed me out. I didnt know we were only a few feet off the ground. They made me stand against the wall and as soon as you moved your hands, they started beating you. If you moved your feet, they kicked you. They admitted to me I spent 43 and a half hours like that. If you collapsed, youd wake up in an interrogation room with this white light in your face with two Branch men questioning you and two guards behind you, or in an empty room handcuffed to a radiator. If you wanted to go to the toilet you went in your boiler suit. The men were subjected to white noise in an area referred to as the music room and given minimum food and water. I think I got water three or four times, says Joe. I was only 19 and I was very fit, but I lost 16lbs in that week. The 70-year-old believes the five techniques would have become standard interrogation procedure but one of the men smuggled a letter from the Crumlin Road hospital wing which made its way to Cardinal Conway who spoke to Ted Heath, and the torture was stopped. After seven days in Ballykelly he was taken to Crumlin Road and spent most of the next four years as an internee. The Hooded Men, Joe Clarke, Walk On Air Films BBC/ Walk On Air Films Joe, who won more than 10 million on the lottery in 2013, says when he left prison there was no help to come to terms with his experience and for years he suffered nightmares. Of the 14 men who were tortured none was ever charged or convicted of any offence relating to their internment. They were awarded compensation of 12,500 in 1974. He says hes not surprised that Army and government figures who take part in the documentary still believe their violent interrogation was justified, including General Sir Mike Jackson. But Joe admits he was surprised to hear former head of Special Branch Raymond White saying hed have no objection to an apology. The former policeman tells the programme: Nobody is saying everything we did in the past was correct and above board. If mistakes were made or people were wrongly treated, I have no problem with saying an apology for what happened is right and proper. - The Hooded Men is on BBC iPlayer The officers, who are all black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Kenyana Dixon tearfully addresses a crowd gathered during a rally for her brother Tyre Nichols at the National Civil Rights Museum (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian/AP) Mark Weber Five fired Memphis police officers were charged on Thursday with murder and other crimes over the death of a black driver three days after a traffic stop (Memphis Police Department/AP) Uncredited Five fired Memphis police officers have been charged with murder and other crimes over the death of a black driver three days after a traffic stop. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the death of Tyre Nichols, they are all responsible. The officers, who are all black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Video of the January 7 traffic stop will be released to the public sometime on Friday evening, Mr Mulroy said. The victims family and their lawyers said the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles driver Rodney King. His family urged supporters to protest peacefully. Kenyana Dixon tearfully addresses a crowd gathered during a rally for her brother Tyre Nichols at the National Civil Rights Museum (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian/AP) Mark Weber Mr Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, told The Associated Press by phone that he and his wife, RowVaughn Wells, who is Mr Nichols mother, discussed the second-degree murder charges and are fine with it. They had sought first-degree murder charges. Theres other charges, so Im all right with that, he said. Asked about the kidnapping charges, the district attorney said: If it was a legal detention to begin with, it certainly became illegal at a certain point and was an unlawful detention. David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said he saw the video and found it absolutely appalling. Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing. This was wrong. This was criminal, Mr Rausch said during the news conference. Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr, Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody. Mr Martins lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mr Mills lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. Lawyers for Mr Smith, Mr Bean and Mr Haley could not be reached. No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die, Mr Massey said. Both lawyers said they had not seen the video. We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is, Mr Ballin said. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Later on Thursday, Mr Nichols mother and stepfather were joined by several dozen supporters on a cold night for a candlelight vigil and prayer service at a Memphis skate park. Mr Nichols, who had a four-year-old son, was an avid skateboarder. His mother thanked those who attended, then added that her family is grief stricken. She warned supporters of the horrific nature of the video set to be released on Friday, but she pleaded with supporters to protest in peace. I dont want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because thats not what my son stood for, she said. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. You can get your point across but we dont need to tear up our cities, people, because we do have to live in them. The lawyers for Mr Nichols family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, issued a statement saying that Mr Nichols lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop. At the White House, President Joe Biden said the Nichols family and the city of Memphis deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation. Public trust is the foundation of public safety, and there are still too many places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken, Mr Biden said in a statement. The Memphis police chief has called the officers actions that night heinous, reckless and inhumane. This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual, Memphis Police Director Cerelyn CJ Davis said in a video statement released late on Wednesday on social media. Ms Davis said the five officers found to be directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr Nichols, were fired last week, but other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. It is hard, but I'm a survivor." Katie Price (44) has vowed off marriage following her split from fiance Carl Woods (34), saying she has been betrayed in every way. The former glamour model and mum-of-five shared an on-and-off relationship with the former Love Islander, though has now claimed she is done with marriage. Have you always liked me or not? she asked host Nigel Farage during an interview on GB News. Don't worry, you're not going to be my next husband - I'm done with that. Or are you married? I don't know." The pro-Brexit politician quipped: "We'll talk about it afterwards." She added: "Trust and loyalty for me. I've just been betrayed in every way. "But I'm still looking for friendship and stuff and love. I'm never giving up. It is hard, but I'm a survivor." Woods accused the Only Fans star of cheating on him in November, telling the embarrassing story to followers on Instagram. "So, there's no easy way for me to say this and to be honest with you, it's quite embarrassing, he said. "But me and Kate, are not together anymore. I found out yesterday that Katie cheated on me. Carl Woods delivered the news to followers via a video on Instagram. "She's admitted that she cheated on me. She slept with somebody else. Hours before Carl took to his social media, the police were reportedly called to their home following a row. The Sun said that Katie feared for the safety of her and her children, according to a source though no arrests were made. Katie and Carl got engaged last April and have been open about their attempts to have a baby together, though rumours of a rocky relationship have long followed the couple. In a recent explosive interview, Katie said her seven year relationship with Kieran Hayler was rife with infidelity. "I did self-medicate when I was with Kieran. He cheated on me seven times that I could prove, she told The Times. Her drinking and drug-taking was spurred on by the cheating, she said alongside kidnap threats. Kierans representatives slammed Katie for the allegations, telling the Irish Mirror that he did not accept the claims that men were the downfall in her life. "You dont have to be a genius to work out that men are the downfall in my life. A million per cent, she told The Times. "All my dramas, my bankruptcy everything is men. Always men. That is it. "When you see exes gloat around, knowing youve paid for stuff, thats the worst torment for me. 'My triggers, when Ive gone downhill, are men. Her ex-husbands representatives told the Irish Mirror: While Mr Hayler openly admitted the break down of their marriage and his subsequent affairs, he does not accept the further claims made by Miss Price. "Five years on this is old news, a true shame Miss Price with all her therapy still feels the need to exorcise untruths 'that all her exes, all men are to blame for her downfall' the one common denominator here being Miss Price." Today Show host sent out 1,000 messages during Covid lockdown Telly favourite Daithi O Se spent almost five days recording nearly 1,000 shout-outs to lonely fans during the height of lockdown. And the big-hearted presenter admits he could have made around 50,000 if like other celebrities he charged for such messages, with many stars using professional websites to make from 50 a pop upwards. Daithi is urging us to get ourselves checked Andres Poveda But the Kerryman says he went out of his way purely out of the goodness of his heart and laughingly points out his mother Kathleen would have been down on him like a tonne of bricks if he had done otherwise. Daithi (46) came up with the idea during the May bank holiday in 2020, just several weeks after Ireland went into its first major lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. I think we were in a news break or something. I recorded a piece and I said look, if youve anybody cocooning or anybody at home that youd like me to say hello to, no pressure at all, if you dont want it no hassle, let me know and I will do it, he recalls. I got over 940 requests. I started [recording messages] on Thursday evening when I got home. I did all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, bank holiday Monday, and I think I did the last one or two on the Tuesday morning. I was just trying to put out these positive vibes because these are people whod watch our show every day as well. These are people who couldnt leave their home, they were cocooning. These are the people who are most vulnerable in society, these were people who were just unsure of whats happening after living all their lives being able to walk around places like Kerry, Cork, Dublin, Belfast, everywhere. So I just wanted to send out some positive vibes, didnt want anything back from them. Daithi says the reaction he got made it all worthwhile. If you saw the emails I got back; you are after lighting up someones afternoon, that was just fantastic, he smiles. I was told I could make a lot of money out of those things and I said, listen lads youre missing the point here. Like Jesus Christ almighty, my mother would be ashamed of me if she thought I was charging 50 to put a smile on someones face. Other people might do it differently, its their business, Ive no problem at all with that. Thats just not for me, I was happy to do those messages and to send positivity out into the world. Daithi, who is married to former Rose of Tralee contestant Rita Talty and lives with his family in Co Galway, is promoting Benecol anti-cholesterol drinks, and is encouraging people to get their health checked. His own father Maidhc died at the age of 71 from a heart attack in 2013 and Daithi says its important people get regular medical checks. I went for my own [body] NCT done every year, get all the plugs done and I know people always say men are bad for getting checks, but I think that is changing as well, he says. The Bay of Plenty Education Trust is on the lookout for people with initiatives that advances education within the coastal Bay of Plenty. The Trust is expanding the way in which it helps young people and is calling for applications for its supplementary grants. Already known primarily for its annual education scholarships, leadership programme and community trade training schemes, the Trust has introduced supplementary grants that are benefitting an increasing range of projects. All are focused on supporting the regions youth. The Trust issued close to $30,000 in supplementary grants last year. Just over half of that was awarded to the Graeme Dingle Foundation to assist two Year 10 students in their endeavours to complete their Project K programmes. The remainder was allocated to supporting three young people on the Youth Encounter Programme. BOP Education Trust Chairperson Nick Earl says the Trust introduced the supplementary grants in 2021, with the first recipient being ICONZ an organisation focused on building resilience, self-worth and self-belief in young people, as well as a better attitude toward school, life, learning and school attendance. Nick says the Trust is always open to considering other agencies and organisations to support, whether by way of sponsorship or in partnership with other parties. Its area of support covers the coastal Bay of Plenty stretching from Katikati down to Opotiki. Nick says the supplementary grants are in addition to the Trusts annual committed funding of approximately $150,000. While the Trusts scholarships benefit those heading off to begin tertiary education, and the Leaders programme is for those with leadership potential, the Trust recognises that not all students have the ability or desire to excel in such ways. Some need a different sort of helping hand, for example a way to broaden their opportunities and horizons. The Graeme Dingle Foundation, for example, helps empower students to overcome lifes obstacles. The Young Encounter Programme aims to give young people a sense of belonging that empowers them to live life to the fullest and to focus forward with hope in their future, he says. Charlotte Brown of the Graeme Dingle Foundation says her organisation is incredibly grateful for the support which enables two Te Puke students to participate in the foundations Project K programme. Project K will arm these students with a belief in their own ability to set and achieve goals and help them find purpose and direction and ultimately transform their lives. We look forward to sharing and celebrating the positive changes that come about as a direct result of this funding, Charlotte says. Supplementary grant applicants will be notified of the Trusts final decision on, or before, June 1. The number of recipients to receive the BOP Education Trust Scholarship over the years now stands at 345, equating to $1,835,750 in gifted money. Hundreds of students have completed the leadership programme. Applications can be submitted to the Trust between February 1 and March 31 by email to tom@inghammora.co.nz. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. One of the survivors of the January 19 military barracks fire hospitalized in intensive care has been moved to the hospital ward, the healthcare ministry said. One of the three injured servicemen hospitalized at the National Burn Center remains under intensive care. He is in a stable but serious condition. The other two servicemen are in moderate condition. Calling all superheroes in the community. Its time to dust off your masks and capes for the Waipuna Hospice challenge to honour, remember, and celebrate the heroes in our lives both past and present. By signing up for the Waipuna Hospice Superhero Challenge, you will be a hero yourself, as you help raise critical funds to care for people in our community facing a life-limiting illness and support for their families. In our lives, each of us has someone who holds a special place in our hearts and is looked to as a hero, says a Waipuna Hospice spokesperson. The Waipuna Hospice Superhero Challenge encourages people to embrace their Superhero by celebrating and acknowledging the heroes in their lives, and walking, running, gyming, or even hopping, in celebration and remembrance of them. The challenge is in your hands. This years Superhero Challenge allows you to choose between different time targets. Our challenge is split into three key areas - Community, Inpatient-Unit and Family Support. Each area plays an extremely important role at providing our community with specialist medical care for patients living with a life-limiting illness, and support services for them and their families. With spot prizes up for grabs and a chance to dress up and exercise, this is a fun event for families, friends, colleagues and gym buddies! Whats more, locals are raising funds for a good cause. Heroes have until March 25 to finish their challenge, where they can then come together and celebrate in an optional fun walk at Coronation Park, Mount Maunganui. In an eventful day, therell be music, magical energy and spot prizes! Put on your capes and come join the fun in Bay of Plentys annual event, all in the name of charity. The Waipuna Hospice Superhero Walk started in 2019 and crowds had a blast dressing up and joining fellow superheroes for a walk around Mount Manganui. With 2020s walk cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions, Waipuna Hospice is gearing up to make 2023 the biggest and best one yet. Register for the Waipuna Hospice Superhero Challenge and have a blast while you raise critically needed funds to help the terminally ill in your community. Register before 12th February for free! Following this, the signup fee is $10 for an individual (over 18 years), which includes a free ticket to the fun walk/run. Children (under 18yrs) can attend for FREE with a paying individual (18 years or over). A family fun event for all ages. Share your fundraising page with your friends and family, and encourage your peers to support your cause! There will be prizes for the most funds raised, plus spot prizes on the day! Be the superhero our community needs and register now at https://2023-superhero-challenge.raisely.com/ or email events@waipunahospice.org.nz or call (07) 552 4380 ext. 211 for more information. Creating a framework for increasing B2G data sharing in the Data Act The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise welcomes the Swedish Presidencys work in the Council and the corresponding work in the European Parliament in the proposed Data Act to find appropriate wording, clarifications and necessary amendments. Indeed, the Confederation acknowledges the objective of the Data Act, but questions whether a number of the policy instruments proposed within the Act are likely to achieve its intended objective. The following will focus on chapter V, which requires data holders - where there is an exceptional need - to make data available to public sector bodies. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. Ameriabank has been the absolute leader on the mortgage market for five years in a row. In 2022, the banks mortgage portfolio grew by AMD 45 bln or 32%,totaling AMD 186 bln. Ameriabanks market share is reaching 22 % as of 31.12.2022. In 2022, 1,635 brand-new apartments were purchased from the primary market via Ameriabank. It is noteworthy that about 30% of mortgage loans were approved and issued online via Estate.ameriabank.am platform. We are happy to state that over the past year one family a day bought an apartment through our platform. This inspires us greatly to develop the platform, to create new possibilities and, of course, to improve the quality of life, Gevorg Manukyan, Head of Mortgage and Auto Lending Direction at Ameriabank, commented. On the whole, over 5,200 pre-qualification applications were received via the platform in 2022 In 2022,Ameriabankwas named the Best Bank in Armenia by the leading international magazines - Global Finance, Euromoney and The Banker. On this occasion, the Bank runs the Triple Best Campaign under the slogan The Best Opportunity Is Created by People. The Campaign is dedicated to all people who have stood behind the Banks achievements during the recent years, from clients and partners to employees of the bank. One of the videos made within the scope of the campaign tells about the shortest online way of buying an apartment - Estate.ameriabank.am platform. Earlier, videos about Ameriabanks CSR initiatives and Online/Mobile Banking Serviceswere published within the scope of the Triple Best Campaign. Ameriabank CJSC Ameriabank is a leading financial and technological institution and a major contributor to the Armenian economy, with assets exceeding AMD 1 trillion. Ameriabank provides an innovative and digital platform, i.e. an ecosystem combining both financial and non-financial services at one place. The ecosystem platform offers convenience and enables to receive quick financing in all major areas, powering the whole customer journey from account opening to getting a card and applying for credit in the online environment of the Ameria ecosystem. Ameriabank has adopted a customer-focused approach and is committed to doing business responsibly to ensure service quality and modern banking experience in an evolving and secure digital environment. The Bank is supervised by the Central Bank of Armenia. The Taos News delivered to your Taos County address every week for a full year! We offer our lowest mail rates to zip codes in the county. Click Here to See if you Qualify. Plan includes unlimited website access and e-edition print replica online. Your auto pay plan will be conveniently renewed at the end of the subscription period. You may cancel at anytime. YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS. The Russian Ministry of Defense, the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, in cooperation with the Russian Foreign Ministry, are maintaining permanent contact with all stakeholder parties and active efforts for resolving the situation in Lachin corridor continue, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing. Unlike the majority of foreign players, who are limited to statements and calls to de-escalation, the Russian side is searching for real solutions on the ground and is providing humanitarian aid. Thus, we call for a complete unblocking of the Lachin corridor in accordance with the 9 November 2020 statement of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we call on Baku and Yerevan to demonstrate political will for swift resolution of existing disputes, Zakharova said. DrZhivago BHPian Join Date: Nov 2022 Location: Trivandrum Posts: 71 Thanked: 96 Times Re: Sole Jeep workshop in my city shut down | How to maintain my Compass now? Quote: vattyboy Originally Posted by 1. Now I am thinking of doing an oil change at a nearby fng of 0w20 which is recommended by Jeep but of another brand. But I will not be able to source or change the oil filter because of no ASS. 1. Is it ok to change the oil without an oil filter? I think it will be best to change the oil for now in my case ( Something is better than nothing). 2. I will change the oil now and I will skip changing it when I will take it for service. That time I will change the pending oil filter. Is this good? 3. Coolant level is at a minimum. Please explain to me the process for topping it up. And which coolant should I buy? Mods please attach my post with the appropriate thread . Thanks in Advance. Hi bhpians, I need your valuable suggestions.1. Now I am thinking of doing an oil change at a nearby fng of 0w20 which is recommended by Jeep but of another brand.But I will not be able to source or change the oil filter because of no ASS.1. Is it ok to change the oil without an oil filter? I think it will be best to change the oil for now in my case ( Something is better than nothing).2. I will change the oil now and I will skip changing it when I will take it for service. That time I will change the pending oil filter. Is this good?3. Coolant level is at a minimum. Please explain to me the process for topping it up. And which coolant should I buy?Mods please attach my post with the appropriate threadThanks in Advance. 2) Is the Minimum level when cold? Is it below minimum? Whats the level when Hot right after you stop? Also what colour is the Coolant? You can source some coolant from the jeep service and they might help you out by couriering you a bottle if you ask. The thing to note is if the coolant is a concentrate which should be mixed with water in a particular ratio or if its directly to be added. There are a few kinds of coolants out there and you should never mix type under any circumstance. You need to talk with the service center. If you have your previous service advisors number call him up and request, he will help I am sure, just ask nicely. God Speed 1) Every oil change needs a filter change too, and thats something you should always remember. There is another option. You can run another 2000 kilometers without changing your oil provided your last oil change was done properly and you keep checking your oil quality every morning before starting up the car. Now the issue with Diesels these days is that the oil is always black right from the first drive after you put in new oil so color wont help you understand oil quality, but viscosity might. Its tough still. Best is to get your friends to ship parts from where available and do a proper oil change and filter change etc from a good local garage.2) Is the Minimum level when cold? Is it below minimum? Whats the level when Hot right after you stop? Also what colour is the Coolant? You can source some coolant from the jeep service and they might help you out by couriering you a bottle if you ask. The thing to note is if the coolant is a concentrate which should be mixed with water in a particular ratio or if its directly to be added. There are a few kinds of coolants out there and you should never mix type under any circumstance. You need to talk with the service center. If you have your previous service advisors number call him up and request, he will help I am sure, just ask nicely. God Speed Omkar BHPian Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: Mumbai Posts: 851 Thanked: 14,017 Times Pics : Porsche Festival of Dreams | Mumbai | January 26, 2023 The event saw Porsche display its range of cars and also the India premiere of the 718 GT4 RS: Thats Manolito Vujicic, Brand Director of Porsche India showcasing the 718 GT4 RS for the first time in India: The GT4 RS is the new flagship model of the 718 family. It outperformed the 718 Cayman GT4 by more than 23 seconds at the Nurburgring Nordschleife: The Cayman GT4 RS is powered by a mid-mounted 4.0-liter, 6-cylinder engine that produces 493 BHP and 450 Nm. The engine is mated to a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which enables the car to sprint from 0-100 km/h in 3.4 seconds. The GT4 RS can reach a top speed of 315 km/h: The bonnet is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP): A closer look at the Porsche badge on the bonnet: The 20-inch forged aluminium wheels and you also have the option of forged magnesium wheels with the Weissach package that are almost 10 kg lighter: Carbon-weave finish on the mirror trims: The GT4 RS gets a fixed rear wing with swan-neck attachment and aluminium wing supports. The GT4 RS generates approximately 25 % more downforce than the GT4: A look at the engine and the titanium roll cage: The dashboard is finished in Race-Tex material (Alcantara-like): You get full bucket seats made of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) with a carbon-weave finish and a six-point racing harness for the driver's side: Car dynamics-related functions on the center console: Fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell: Optional Weissach package badge on the dashboard: On display were a couple of customer cars: Heres a 911 GT3 with Martini Racing livery: The 911 GT2 RS set a lap time of 6 mins 47.3 seconds around the Nurburgring Nordschleife: A look at the fixed rear wing: Some more 911s: The Carrera S Cabriolet looking sweet in red: Porsche turned 75 years old this year and to celebrate this anniversary, Porsche India organized the Festival of Dreams event at the JIO World Convention Centre in Mumbai. The event is open to the public today from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM and you can get your free ticket by registering on Porsche's website The event saw Porsche display its range of cars and also the India premiere of the 718 GT4 RS:Thats Manolito Vujicic, Brand Director of Porsche India showcasing the 718 GT4 RS for the first time in India:The GT4 RS is the new flagship model of the 718 family. It outperformed the 718 Cayman GT4 by more than 23 seconds at the Nurburgring Nordschleife:The Cayman GT4 RS is powered by a mid-mounted 4.0-liter, 6-cylinder engine that produces 493 BHP and 450 Nm. The engine is mated to a 7-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, which enables the car to sprint from 0-100 km/h in 3.4 seconds. The GT4 RS can reach a top speed of 315 km/h:The bonnet is made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP):A closer look at the Porsche badge on the bonnet:The 20-inch forged aluminium wheels and you also have the option of forged magnesium wheels with the Weissach package that are almost 10 kg lighter:Carbon-weave finish on the mirror trims:The GT4 RS gets a fixed rear wing with swan-neck attachment and aluminium wing supports. The GT4 RS generates approximately 25 % more downforce than the GT4:A look at the engine and the titanium roll cage:The dashboard is finished in Race-Tex material (Alcantara-like):You get full bucket seats made of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) with a carbon-weave finish and a six-point racing harness for the driver's side:Car dynamics-related functions on the center console:Fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell:Optional Weissach package badge on the dashboard:On display were a couple of customer cars:Heres a 911 GT3 with Martini Racing livery:The 911 GT2 RS set a lap time of 6 mins 47.3 seconds around the Nurburgring Nordschleife:A look at the fixed rear wing:Some more 911s:The Carrera S Cabriolet looking sweet in red: Last edited by Omkar : 26th January 2023 at 00:34 . TechSpot is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust What just happened? Samsung has unveiled the next product in its expanding Odyssey Neo range, one that straddles the line between monitor and smart TV. The 43-inch Odyssey Neo G7 (G70NC) offers a 4K resolution, 144Hz refresh rate and is the company's first flat Mini-LED model. Surprisingly, the Odyssey Neo G7 wasn't one of the monitors that Samsung unveiled at CES earlier this year; the company showed off several displays at the show, including a 57-inch "8K" Mini-LED model and a 49-inch OLED. Samsung says the new monitor is its first flat Quantum Mini-LED model. According to the company, the technology enables ultra-fine and precise control of the densely packed LED, resulting in richer blacks, more expansive color expression and more detail, even in shadowy gaming environments. Samsung also uses a matte finish on the panel to minimize light reflections during gameplay. In addition to the 3840 x 2160 resolution and 144Hz refresh rate, the Odyssey Neo G7 boasts a 1ms MPRT, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro support, two USB 3.0 ports, and dual 20-watt speakers. Samsung says the panel has a typical brightness of 400 nits and VESA HDR 600 certification. Port-wise, the monitor features two HDMI 2.1 inputs, which should make it an ideal option for connecting a PS5/XBSX, and DisplayPort 1.4. The 43-inch size of the Odyssey Neo G7 means Samsung is pushing its uses beyond a straight-up PC/console monitor. Thanks to a combination of Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 5, and an Ethernet port, it can be used to stream content from services such as Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube via the Samsung Smart Hub. Users can also enjoy game streaming without requiring a PC, thanks to the Samsung Gaming Hub, which offers the likes of GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming---just connect a controller wirelessly or through one of the USB ports. The Odyssey Neo G7 is set to launch in North America during the current quarter. No word yet on the price, but don't be surprised if this one is around the $1,500 mark. Hopefully, its performance will match the curved Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 32", which we named one of the best gaming monitors you can buy. At the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Cypriot delegate Constantinos Efstathiou assessed the closing of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijan and the creation of a humanitarian crisis for the people of Artsakh a genocidal act, calling for an immediate end to the blockade of the corridor. January 27, 2023, 09:45 Creation of humanitarian crisis by Azerbaijan for Artsakhs people is a genocidal act. Representative of Cyprus STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 27, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: I n his speech at the PACE, the representative of Cyprus spoke about the serious humanitarian crisis caused by the blocking of the Lachin Corridor. "Access and supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh must be unconditionally restored, and Azerbaijan must respect the tripartite agreement and guarantee the safety of people and the transportation of goods through the Lachin Corridor. The blockade has left thousands of people, including children, unable to return to their homes. This alarming situation threatens the fragile peace process and may lead to the resumption of violence," he said. The representative of Cyprus noted that this will have a disastrous effect not only on Armenians and Azerbaijanis, but also on the South Caucasus region. "As a member of the Council of Europe, we call on the authorities of Azerbaijan to open the Lachin Corridor, to refrain from tension-causing actions," he said. He emphasized that starving people, leaving them without electricity and medicine is a genocidal act. One of the elements of genocide is the creation of harsh living conditions aimed at the physical annihilation of a group of people. "It is a crucial moment of genocide, let's not sacrifice people due to political conditions or national interests. Every person in this world deserves to live in dignity and with full respect for their rights. The message should be clear: stop the blockade of Lachin Corridor," the Cypriot delegate concluded. TechSpot is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust What just happened? In what could be described as beautifully ironic, a notorious ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gang has been brought down after the FBI infiltrated its systems, disrupted operations, and seized its sites. Or, as the Deputy US Attorney General put it, they "hacked the hackers." Speaking at a news conference, US Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced that the government secretly infiltrated the Hive ransomware gang's networks in July 2022 before launching a six-month monitoring operation. During this infiltration, the government was able to steal more than 300 decryption keys from Hive and distribute them to victims who were under attack, preventing around $130 million in ransom payments, including $5 million from a Texas school district. The feds also distributed over 1,000 additional decryption keys to previous Hive victims. The FBI used its access to Hive's infrastructure to warn targets about impending attacks, giving them time to bolster their systems and prepare. Hive's Tor payment and data leak sites were also seized. As per Bleeping Computer, the FBI gained access to two dedicated servers and one virtual private server at a hosting provider in California that were leased using email addresses belonging to Hive members. In a coordinated move, Dutch police also gained access to two dedicated backup servers hosted in the Netherlands. Law enforcement confirmed that these servers acted as the main data leak site, negotiation site, and web panels for Hive and its affiliates. As per the affidavit: "In addition to decryption keys, when the FBI examined the database found on Target Server 2, the FBI found records of Hive communications, malware file hash values, information on Hive's 250 affiliates, and victim information consistent with the information it had previously obtained through the decryption key operation." An FBI message (above) on the seized Hive Tor website notes that many countries were involved in the co-ordinated takedown, including Germany, Canada, France, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. "Using lawful means, we hacked the hackers," Monaco told reporters. "We turned the tables on Hive." Hive, which launched in June 2021, targeted more than 1,500 victims in 80 different countries throughout its existence. As with other RaaS organizations, it rented out the malware to other criminals for a cut of the ransom. The gang had collected more than $100 million in ransomware payments, and while no arrests have been announced, a department official suggested that would soon change. Unlike other ransomware operators, Hive never stated any intent to avoid targeting hospitals or emergency services. Masthead credit: Sebastiaan Stam WTF?! Russia appears to be following in China's footsteps by tightening its control over the video games industry. The country wants to protect its youth from the "negative influence" of games, and hopes to create a banned list of popular titles that use "hidden inserts" to "affect the conscious and subconscious mind." Russian publication Kommersant (via PCGamer) reports that the Russian government has instructed the Prosecutor General's Office and its ministries to introduce restrictions on video games within the country. A commission under the council of legislators made the strange claims of unnamed popular titles influencing the conscious and subconscious minds of players. They also contain "malicious and prohibited content," apparently. The commission wants to create a list of approved and banned games, as well as a catalog of approved online titles that will work like Russia's RuStore, a Google Play/App Store alternative. It also suggests that any titles set for release in the county be checked by the Competence Centre for Import Substitution in the ICT Sphere (TsKIKT) for objectionable content. Another suggestion is for all PCs sold in the Russian Federation to come pre-installed with parental control software. These "hidden inserts" could refer to many things. Were it somewhere other than Russia, one would automatically imagine it's the practice of subtly (or unsubtly) convincing players to spend money on microtransactions like loot boxes. That could be the case here, but it might also be perceived pro-Western themes in games. There are concerns over what impact such rules would have on a video game industry already struggling in the sanction-hit country. Alexander Malakhov, director of the Center for Digital Development at the Center for Strategic Research, also noted that as there are no Russian patriotic products available yet, which would definitely limit the number of approved games. Even if these measures are introduced, Russian gamers will likely find ways around them using the likes of torrents and VPNs. Valve, for example, stopped users living in Russia from buying games via Steam last year, but that hasn't prevented people in the country from bypassing the restrictions. TechSpot is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust In context: The results of successful international cooperation between law enforcement agencies fighting cybercrime became known for the second time this week. While not as big a case as the Hive ransomware bust, the arrest of a hacker selling the personal data of millions provides another example of how fragile digital privacy is. It also shows the cost of human error from those who house our personal information. On Wednesday, Austrian police announced the arrest of a hacker in the Netherlands for selling the personal information of almost everyone living in Austria. The investigation involved collaboration between authorities in multiple countries over two years. The unnamed 25-year-old Dutch suspect allegedly listed a dataset for sale online containing the names, addresses, genders, and dates of birth of nine million Austrians - virtually the country's entire population. Reuters notes that police arrested the man in November but held off announcing it pending an ongoing international investigation that started with a data breach in 2020. The hacker didn't acquire the data using malware. Austrian newspaper Die Presse writes that he merely seized upon a mistake someone made during a routine IT operation. When the Gebuhren Info Service (GIS), which handles Austrian broadcasting fees, hired a Vienna subcontractor to restructure its data in 2020, one of the company's employees accidentally used the service's real information during a test. The GIS reported the data theft in May 2020. The hacker may have accessed it using a search engine, although it was not Google. As a result, the personal data of millions of Australian citizens was left publicly accessible online for about a week. When someone named "DataBox" on Raidforum.com offered to sell registry information on millions of Austrians in New Zealand, NZ authorities bought it for a four-figure sum to confirm that it came from the GIS breach. The data's composition style matched GIS record-keeping. Police identified the suspect after securing a server in Germany from which they allegedly downloaded the GIS's data. The New Zealand bitcoin transaction also pointed authorities to the hacker, who the police suspected of cybercrimes. When Dutch police arrested the suspect in Amsterdam, they found 130,000 data banks containing personal information on people in Thailand, China, the Netherlands, Columbia, and the UK, including medical records. TechSpot is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust Through the looking glass: Sometimes unfortunate or sometimes deadly incidents involving self-driving cars happen. However, recent occurrences with autonomous vehicles in San Francisco have been downright bizarre. Not only does the software controlling the cars struggle to negotiate the real world, but companies and authorities are still learning about how humans behave around self-driving vehicles. Recent formal complaints to California regulators reveal strange incidents that have occurred since fully-autonomous taxis started operating in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The cases mainly involve robotaxis disrupting first responders or otherwise wasting their time. Wired notes that one letter sent to the California Public Utilities Commission claims that sleeping passengers have resulted in unnecessary 911 calls. GM-owned Cruise operates self-driving taxis in San Franciso, featuring two-way communication between passengers and company staff. On three occasions, passengers decided to nap during their trip, and Cruise staff called 911 when they became unresponsive. San Francisco authorities described the events as a waste of first responders' time, requesting that the state of California slow down its adoption of driverless vehicles on public roads. It appears that robotaxi passengers are starting to behave similarly to how they would on buses, trains, or airplanes, using trips as an opportunity to get some sleep. Other complaints cite incidents where autonomous taxis impeded firefighters. Soon after California let Cruise operate robotaxis in San Francisco last June, one ran over a fire hose during an active firefighting operation. Last week, firefighters had to spend over two minutes stopping an approaching robotaxi from running over their hose. The letter claims they eventually had to shatter its front window to force it to halt, but Cruise says it had already stopped the car by then. These cases seem like an escalation from the incident last July where a test group of Cruise robotaxis stopped in the middle of the road for an unknown reason, obstructing traffic. Human engineers had to remove the vehicles after they ceased all functioning. That incident is one of almost 100 that San Francisco agencies said occurred between May and the end of 2022 in which Cruise vehicles held up traffic by stopping at inopportune places and times. The occurrences disrupted public transportation and caused other human drivers to respond with sudden, potentially dangerous maneuvers. San Francisco and Los Angeles transportation authorities are worried that self-driving technology isn't ready for their cities and are requesting more data from companies like Cruise before they expand their operations. Cruise states that it has to withhold some information for consumer privacy and to protect trade secrets. The company also points out that none of the noted incidents have resulted in serious injuries or fatalities. The officials' letters aren't uniformly negative, however. They admit that driverless vehicles could increase opportunities for people who can't drive, including the disabled. The first Samsung Galaxy S23 pre-order deal is already available. (Photo : Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images) A man rides an escalator next to a booth of Galaxy mobile phones by Samsung, a main sponsor of the International Olympic Committee, at the Main Press Centre of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing on January 28, 2022. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) However, this discount is only offered to one market as of press time. The confirmed pre-order deal is a big one since the gadget maker allows consumers to purchase variants with larger storage for the price of smaller storage models. If you are interested in taking advantage of this sales offer, here's what you need to know. Samsung Galaxy S23 Pre-Order Deal Now Available According to Phone Arena's latest report, the first Galaxy S23 pre-order deal allows consumers to purchase the S23 Ultra 512 GB for the price of the S23 Ultra 256 GB variant. (Photo : Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) DJ Koh, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics, presents the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 smartphone during a launch event at Barclays Center on August 7, 2019 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. Samsung announced the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10 Plus smartphones. Also Read: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra's Qualcomm Adreno 740 Beats Apple A16 Bionic GPU: Superior SoC Performance? This sales strategy was already used by Samsung in its other Android smartphones to encourage consumers to ignore entry-level models. The latest one for the S23 series was first spotted by Roland Quandt, a retail intelligence expert. "Straight from Samsung UK Business official site: #GalaxyS23 #Preorder #Discounts #StorageUpgrade #SamsungUnpacked," he said via his official Twitter announcement post. Galaxy S23 Pre-Order Deal's Other Details Based on the screenshot provided by Quandt, there's a chance that the pre-order deal could last until Mar. 28. But, if you want to ensure that you will get this discount, the best thing you can do is stick to the Feb. 16 end date. As of writing, the tech giant manufacturer hasn't confirmed the official prices for its S23 series. Although this is the case, many rumors already provided possible costs; Samsung Galaxy S23 256 GB (around $1,050), Galaxy S23 Plus 512 GB (around $1,300), and Galaxy S23 Ultra 512 GB (around $1,580). This means that you can save around $300 if you will pre-order the 512 GB variants before or on Feb. 16. If you want to learn more details about the latest Samsung Galaxy S23 pre-order discount, you can click this link. Aside from the new S23 Galaxy smartphones, other Android handsets also experienced price drops. Recently, the OnePlus 10 Pro's price decreased by $200 on Amazon. We also reported that the Google Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro had price discounts during the recent Black Friday sales event. For more news updates about smartphone discounts and other gadget deals, keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: Samsung Galaxy S23 EU Price Leak Hints More Expensive Pricing 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Google Chrome for Android's Incognito mode finally started rolling out its fingerprint unlock feature, allowing users to lock their private tabs away from prying eyes. It is not an entirely new feature. Google has been working on it for Android users since last year. On the other hand, Apple iPhone users have had this option since 2021. (Photo : Leon Neal/Getty Images) In this photo illustration, A thumbprint is displayed on a mobile phone while the Google logo is displayed on a computer monitor on August 09, 2017 in London, England. Founded in 1995 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google now makes hundreds of products used by billions of people across the globe, from YouTube and Android to Smartbox and Google Search. And this time, in time for Data Privacy Day or Data Protection Day, the renowned tech giant announced that the fingerprint lock feature is now rolling out to Android users. Google Chrome for Android's Incognito Tab Adds Fingerprint Unlock The Android app of Google Chrome is adding a new feature that lets users lock their Incognito sessions with a fingerprint, as per a report by 9to5 Google. It should help keep your private browsing tabs inaccessible to other people. The fingerprint lock feature, once enabled, essentially requires users to scan their biometrics before they can access private tabs. So if you want to seriously hide your private browsing sessions, this new feature might help. 9to5 Google notes in its story that the Google Chrome app for iOS gained this security feature for Incognito sessions in early 2021. Meanwhile, the tech behemoth reportedly started working on bringing to Android devices since last year. And now, Google confirmed that it has begun rolling out the fingerprint lock feature to Incognito mode on Chrome for Android. Read Also: Google Meet Updates: Share Files, and Links Easily With the Latest Changes from Google How to Enable Fingerprint Lock in Chrome's Incognito Mode XDA Developers reports that the fingerprint lock for Incognito mode is available on the "Settings" menu of Chrome. From there, users would have to head straight to the "Privacy and Security" section. Then, toggle on the new "Lock Incognito Tabs When You Close Chrome" option. (Photo : Nathana Reboucas on Unsplash) It is worth noting that the new privacy option has yet to roll out to all Chrome users for Android. And as such, some users might not see it just yet beneath the setting of the web browser. If you are one of those folks, here's how you can activate the new feature. Open the Chrome app on Android and paste this URL "chrome://flags/#incognito-reauthentication-for-android" to the address bar. Once that is out of the way, you may now follow the steps above. Once the fingerprint lock is already enabled, Google Chrome users on Android could start protecting their private browsing sessions with their biometrics. Related Article: Google Chrome New Security Option: Block HTTP Downloads, HTTPS to Become the New Default? 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A new feature is coming to Google Search, and it is something that will help those planning to buy a car in the United States at an easier time to know if their preferred dealership still has ample stock. The new feature from the internet company will soon display information regarding the availability of a certain brand or model from the nearest dealership available. The latest Search feature is reportedly still in beta testing mode, but it already brings a promising feature for all users who are wanting to learn more about their next purchase. Google Search: Dealership Inventories Now in Beta (Photo : Solen Feyissa from Unsplash) SearchLab reported that Google upgraded its search quietly with the new spotting of a beta feature available on its service. It allows customers and interested buyers in searching for dealerships, but instead of showing only its location, contact, and other basic information, Google now displays inventories of the vehicles. Dealers may set up their information and inventories over at Google Business Profile, and here, all the needed information may be displayed on the Search engine. Apart from the inventories, the feature also displays the car's price, photos, and additional information, and brings a used car list for people to checkout. Read Also: Google Plans to End Email Filter Bypass Pilot Program for Political Campaign Emails Google: Search for Your Next Car Soon According to Search Engine Land, this new feature would be under the local business profile and is limited to the United States region only. Soon, this feature would arrive with the full public version where users may look for their preferred vehicle, as well as dealerships who offer it, both used and unused, and a somewhat listing for its other information. Google and its Search Engine Google's Search capabilities are its bread and butter, and the company first started with this during its early days, also its longest-living technology available. Although being an old service, it does not get left in the dust, as the company has been updating the feature, with modern features like buying a train ticket directly from the search engine. The company's Search feature also got an addition to expanding its reach and capabilities with the addition of last year's Google Lens to the feature. Instead of typing entire words or phrases, and having a hard time doing so, users may take a picture of it instead and type other commands like "How To" or "Tutorial" to add to their search needs. Despite Google's Search is one of its initial services, the company did not stop developing it, and still is the center of its operations. Now, a new feature is arriving soon, and it will help look for your preferred car or dealerships that have enough stocks for what you are searching for, including other information and details about it. Related Article: Top Google Search Features 2023: Advanced Mathetical Calculations and Other Less-Known Features 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. New York City's largest fossil fuel plant will now be replaced with offshore wind power, as reported by Electrek. (Photo : Nathan Stirk/Getty Images) LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 07: Wind turbines generate electricity at Burno Bank Off Shore Wind Farm on December 07, 2022 in Liverpool, England. UK Prime minister Rishi Sunak has reversed his position on new onshore wind farms as the government said it will consult on proposals to allow further developments. The Ravenswood Generating Station, which powers 20 percent of the city is a 2,480-megawatt power plant in Long Island City, Queens just across Roosevelt Island. Rise Light and Power is set to submit a proposal to the New York State Energy research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) in response to the state's offshore wind solicitation. Also Read: Japan's First Commercial Offshore Wind Farm is Now Live, To Power Around 150,000 Homes How It Works The site, which sits on 27-acre of land will be converted into a clean energy hub to power one-with of New York City with offshore wind power. Ravenswood offshore wind project will reuse existing physical and electrical infrastructure, which will save money for New York ratepayers. There will be an HVDC conductor cable that will be brought onshore at the existing power plant site, which will interconnect via underground HVAC cables to the NYISO bulk electric system at existing substations adjacent to the site. The site will also turn into an offshore wind operations and maintenance hub that will support the transition of the existing fossil fuel plant workforce and drive economic investment into underserved community. The project will produce training programs and job opportunities for the transition and up skill of current Local 1-2 UWUA union workers. The project would speed up the state's climate goals. With the repowering of the Ravenswood Generation Station, it can serve as a model for the US as the state takes steps to eliminate their dependency on fossil fuels. By eliminating fossil fuels, this will improve air quality in Western Queens. It can be recalled that in late 2022, Rise submitted an Article VII application with the request the New York State Public Service Commission approve a sub-marine electric system, the Queensboro Renewable Express, to provide offshore wind energy over transmission in New York State to Ravenswood. This project, paired with the ownership stake in an offshore wind project will build on that application by extending into Federal waters and connecting one Queensboro Renewable Express 1,310 MW circuits to an offshore wind farm. As a result, this will retire one of the plant's fossil fuel generators that reigned in the 1960s. The retirement will also add to the 500 MW of speakers at Ravenswood that is already in the process of retirement. The proposal is getting a lot or praises from leading community, environmental justice, labor, business, and institutions across the city and state. According to Nydia Velasquez, a US Congresswoman, "America's first renewable repowering of a fossil-fuel burning plant can happen right here in Long Island City, Queens, home to the city's largest power generating facility. This project would greatly advance our state's climate goals and be a win for environmental justice communities living nearby. Related Article: US Plans to Build Offshore Wind Farm to Bolster Renewable Energy Use 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Using information from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, scientists have identified the first gamma-ray eclipses from a "spider" binary star system. A pulsar, or the superdense, rapidly revolving remnants of a star that erupted in a supernova, is present in each of these spider systems. Seven spiders that experience these eclipses, which happen when the low-mass companion star crosses in front of the pulsar from Earth's perspective, were discovered by an international team of researchers who combed through more than ten years of Fermi observations. (Photo : NASA/Sonoma State University, Aurore Simonnet) Spider Systems Spider systems occur when one star in a pair evolves faster than its partner. The more massive star's supernova leaves a pulsar behind and this remnant generates several light beams, including gamma rays. A spider pulsar begins by siphoning a stream of gas from its companion. The feeding ends as the system develops and the pulsar speeds up, producing radiation and particle outflows that superheat and destroy the companion's facing side, according to NASA. Scientists categorize spider systems into two groups, each named for a species of spider whose females occasionally consume their smaller partners. Companions of black widows have a mass less than 5% that of the Sun. Larger companions are found in redback systems, ranging in mass from 10% to 50% of the Sun. NASA explains that scientists can estimate the masses of spider systems by studying their orbital motions. The speed of the companion can be determined by visible light studies, whereas the pulsar's speed can be determined by radio measurements. Visible light is typically used to estimate the tilt's angle, although NASA notes that this method has certain limitations. The superheated side of the companion's orbit changes our view of it, causing a tilt-dependent variation in visible light. As astronomers continue to learn more about the phenomenon of superheating, differing pulsar masses have occasionally been predicted by models with various heating regimes. Gamma rays, on the other hand, are only produced by the pulsar and have such high energy that, unless the companion blocks them, they move in a straight line untouched by debris. Read Also: Bear on Mars? NASA Captures a Beast-Like Face on the Red Planet Gamma Rays in Spider Systems NASA adds that gamma rays disappearing from a spider system's data set indicate that the companion has overtaken the pulsar. They then can determine the system's tilt toward the Earth's line of sight as well as the speeds of the stars and the mass of the pulsar. After examining the Fermi data, scientists discovered 15 missing gamma-ray photons. The gamma-ray pulses from these objects are timed with such precision that the team was able to identify the system was eclipsing from the 15 photons missing for a decade. The pair is 84 degrees inclined, and the pulsar's mass is only 1.8 times as much as the Sun, according to their calculations. "There's a quest to find massive pulsars, and these spider systems are thought to be one of the best ways to find them," Matthew Kerr, co-author of the study, said in a statement. Related Article: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Detects the Deepest, Coldest Ices Ever Measured in a Molecular Cloud 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Renaissance Fusion, a startup company based in Grenoble, has been working on nuclear fusion for the past years, and recently they were able to raise $16.4 million in funding that will allow them to reach their goals soon, as reported by TechCrunch. (Photo : JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)) Intern engineer Smeet Patel assembles fusion reactor core components at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science & Fusion Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 25, 2023. - The lab is working with partners to build a new fusion reactor testing core. The Stellarator Reactor The nuclear fusion experiment that Renaissance Fusion is creating is different compared to the ones that are based on tokamaks. They are aware that it's going to be a challenging road ahead, but they plan to be able to ship a small nuclear fusion reactor with a GW capacity in the 2030s. The plan is that the company would sell their reactors to plant constructors and operators instead of operating power plants directly. Renaissance Fusion takes pride in using unique technology by simplifying the process by drawing tracks on a cylinder rather than designing three-dimension coils to generate a magnetic field. After the calculation based on the magnetic field, the team will be able to determine the shape of the coils needed. The cylinder will rotate around an axis while a device moves left and right to engrave tracks with a laser on the cylinder's surface. The cylinder blocks will then be combined together to form a reactor. Through this modularity, it will help with shipment and logistics. On the other hand, the neutrons produced by the nuclear reaction inside the cylinder will use liquid Lithium to produce thick walls that will separate plasma from the outside world. The liquid metal will also be used to extract heat from stellarator, which will create steam and be used to propel turbines. As a result, this will generate electricity. This makes the company the only commercial fusion where liquid lithium faces plasma. Currently, they are creating liquid Lithium-based walls a centimeter thick. This will require many iterations before it can be used in nuclear fusion. The company estimates that this would require a thickness of 30 to 40 centimeters. Also Read: Fusion Reactors, Seen As 'Holy Grail' Of Energy Search, Are Economically Viable, Study Says Commercial Applications In addition this, the company is already thinking about commercial applications that may be released even before 2030. For one, they believe that their coil patterning technology may be used for MRI and energy storage. And with the new funding, it can increase the size of their team by the end of 2023. Still, it's still early days for the company and there are still a lot of progress that has yet to be seen in the coming years. Nuclear Technologies in the Future The events that have impacted the energy sector have shown the many benefits of nuclear technology. One of the nuclear technologies that are making big waves is the small modular reactor (SMR). An SMR can deliver energy transition in a cost-effective way and more reliably. Related Article: Scientists Use World's Largest Laser to Generate a Breakthrough Fusion Reaction 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An armed attack at the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran left one person dead, local media reported. January 27, 2023, 11:10 Embassy of Azerbaijan in Iran attacked, one dead STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 27, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: The Embassy of Azerbaijan in the Iranian capital came under armed attack in the morning of January 27. The head of security at the embassy Orkhan Askerov was killed while engaging the gunman, according to the report. Another person is wounded. The attacker is arrested and Iranian law enforcement agencies launched an investigation. The motive of the attack wasnt immediately clear. FTX's creditors' list has been filed to the court after an order from Delaware district Judge John Dorsey who asked to take it out of sealing, and onto the public. However, the controversy now is the many names and entities under this list, and frankly, there are significant lapses from its list, especially as it also has different meal orders and hotel bills included. The creditors and investors are the ones who FTX needs to pay soon, and it all adds up to billions of dollars from the company, which may be a significant sum for them. FTX's Creditor List: Who Are Included? (Photo : Leon Neal/Getty Images) FTX's Creditor List was already filed in court, and it mentioned many names in the list that mentioned different celebrities and personalities, as well as renowned companies who were once affiliated with the crypto exchange. One of the most famous names here on the list is Tom Brady and his former wife Giselle Bundchen, and according to Gizmodo, the latter was listed under Gisele Bundchen Charitable Giving. It also included the German car company, Mercedes-Benz, was also included in the list and can be seen on it in multiple entries. It is known that FTX once sponsored its F1 team, but already pulled out from its deal and removed its logo. Many entities were included in the list including Netflix, The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and different individuals from Apple's IT department. Read Also: FTX Founders, SBF, Gary Wang's $455 Million Robinhood Stocks Taken by Feds from UK Company FTX's Creditor List is Confusing According to the reports upon skimming the list, the documents filed to the court were confusing, especially as they included personal or team orders via DoorDash and UberEats listed from different locations. Moreover, it also included ludicrous payments on luxury hotels all over the world, as well as private chefs, apartments, and more. A former FTX employee also affirmed that the company has a knack for the pleasures in life for its staff. FTX Bankruptcy One of the most controversial issues in the cryptocurrency industry last year was the imploding of FTX, under Sam Bankman-Fried, who also resigned as its CEO after breaking the news to the world. The company went bankrupt and all of its money was lost along the process, and all points out to its executives during these times. Throughout the course of the trial and arresting the former CEO, Bankman-Fried plead not guilty to the crimes pressed against him, despite his associates already admitting to their mistakes. In the coming months, more information is to be released to the court, and it could decide whether SBF was telling the truth or lying to the public about the company's money. All of this stems from the FTX bankruptcy issue, where its executives were speculated and allegedly stealing money from the company, also transferring them to other accounts. The creditors' list is a massive addition to the lawsuit, as it could explain more about the company's loans or investors, as well as the people or entities they still owe. Related Article: Federal Prosecutors Seize Nearly $700 Million FTX Assets Connected to Sam Bankman-Fried 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An undersea volcano in the South Pacific erupted in 2015, creating the island of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai, which would only exist for seven years. But a research team seized the opportunity to study the earliest microbial settlers of the newly formed landmass. The researchers were surprised to find a special microbial community that metabolizes sulfur and atmospheric gases, much like the creatures found in deep sea vents or hot springs. Island-Producing Volcanic Eruption As per a press release by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, these types of volcanic eruptions rarely produce islands. Hence, they were given the rare opportunity to study them closely. "Studying the microbes that first colonize islands provides a glimpse into the earliest stage of ecosystem development - before even plants and animals arrive," Noah Fierer, co-author of the study, said in a statement. A team of researchers on the ground obtained soil samples from the island. The team was then able to take DNA samples and sequence them. Seven years after it first erupted, the volcano blasted once more on January 15, 2022, destroying the whole landmass in the biggest volcanic explosion of the 21st century. The eruption entirely upended the team's monitoring operations on the island as well. However, the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai's (HTHH) unpredictable character also underscores why the team discovered such a distinctive collection of microbes on the island. Read also: Highest Volcanic Plume Recorded by Satellites; Here's What Oxford University Scientists Reveal Unusual Bacteria The characteristics of volcanic eruptions, such as the abundance of sulfur and hydrogen sulfide gas, may have contributed to the discovery of these unusual bacteria, according to Nick Dragone, lead author of the study. The study presents evidence of an unanticipated colony of microorganisms living on the island that metabolize sulfur and air gases, akin to creatures that live in hot springs or deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Plants quickly populated the island after its emergence, most likely due to seeds in bird droppings, but the researchers concentrated their data collection efforts on bare surfaces. All of the samples they collected from the volcano's cone contained bacteria and archaea, but those microbes were substantially different and less diverse than those collected from neighboring vegetated areas. Members of the Kingdom of Tonga's administration collaborated closely with the researchers to gather samples from a region often off-limits to visitors from other countries. The Sea Education Association and NASA worked together for years to coordinate the requirement that a Tongan observer approves and monitors any sample collection within the Kingdom. The findings of the study were published in mBio. Related Article: Ecuador's Tungurahua Called The 'Throat of Fire' May Remain Stable Despite 'Potential Collapse' 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TikTok has been facing a growing US mistrust of its Chinese ownership for the past few years now, but this time it is stepping up its efforts to survive in the country amid measures to ban the app, according to a report by CNBC. Senior executives from the platform have been convincing lawmakers, academics, and others about a $1.5 billion initiative they call Project Texas, explaining how TikTok can allay the worries of those who view it as a security threat against the US. This information was provided by people who claimed that they received briefings on this project. TikTok Briefing Two people on the security site Lawfare published a summary of the project on Thursday, who claimed that they had a firsthand account of the TikTok briefing last week. A lot of the political discussion surrounding TikTok has been merely based on conjecture, according to Matt Perault, one of the blog post's co-authors and the director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina. He said the briefing was a chance to listen to what the social media platform has to offer. Perault told CNBC that TikTok had provided funds to his institute, but he declined to comment on the validity of the company's guarantees. He claimed that he viewed his participation in the briefing as an opportunity to learn information he could share with the public. Since President Donald Trump's unsuccessful attempt to outlaw the app in 2020 and subsequent legal defeat, TikTok has continued to face threats to its survivability in the US. Read also: US House of Representatives Bans TikTok on Official Government Devices, Following State Governments' Move US Mistrust on TikTok Several governors have restricted TikTok on government devices, including those at public colleges. Last month, Congress voted to forbid the use of TikTok on federal government property, and last week, Sen. Josh Hawley reintroduced the idea of a complete nationwide ban. The Biden administration also passed a regulation at the end of December 2022 that barred TikTok from being used on government devices. Several educational institutions have recently limited access to TikTok on campus using laptops, mobile devices, and Wi-Fi. The restrictions have been justified by governors citing cybersecurity issues and worries about Chinese spying. The House and Senate simultaneously presented a resolution to abolish TikTok on a federal level on Dec. 13. Additionally, laws prohibiting the platform on computers owned by the government have been proposed in California, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont. Related Article: Employees from TikTok Owner ByteDance Gained Access to User Data of Journalists - Internal Report Says 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Google has announced updates to several of its offerings, including Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels, and Google Flights, to comply with consumer protection laws in the European Union, The Verge reports. The changes are being made because European authorities are putting pressure on the tech giant to comply with EU geo-blocking rules fully. The goal is to give consumers more precise information and transparency when shopping online. Important Changes One of the most significant alterations that Google will make to its services will be establishing a clear distinction between the services that Google gives itself and the instances in which it acts as an intermediary for other businesses. These changes will be especially noticeable on Google Flights and Google Hotels, where users can easily identify when reference prices are used for discounts advertised on the platform. This will make this feature particularly notable. In addition, Google has agreed to follow the same transparency commitments as other hotel accommodations platforms like Booking.com and Expedia by clearly stating that Google Hotels does not independently verify its reviews. Consumers will be able to make better-informed decisions about their travel plans, which will ensure that they get the best deals available. "EU consumers are entitled to clear, complete information so that they can make informed choices. The commitments made by Google are a step forward in this direction," Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders said in a statement. In addition to these adjustments, Google will also begin providing customers with more transparent information regarding the costs of delivery, their right to withdraw from the transaction, and the availability of repair or replacement options wherever they are available. Read Also: Google Chrome for Android's Incognito Mode Adds Fingerprint Unlock: Here's How to Enable When consumers make purchases through Google's platforms, this will help them understand their rights and responsibilities and ensure that they are fully aware of any additional costs or obligations associated with their purchases. Read more about the official EU press release here. Improving App Accessibility Google is also taking measures to improve app accessibility across the EU, allowing customers to use payment methods from any country within the EU. No matter where they are located, consumers will find it much simpler and more convenient to shop for apps and other digital content, thanks to this change, contributing to increased competition and innovation in the digital market. Another significant improvement that Google plans to introduce is the restriction of its right to independently change prices or cancel orders made through the Google Store. This will help ensure that customers are not exploited by unanticipated changes to their orders or prices, and it will also give customers more control over their shopping experiences. In addition, Google will remove illegal content by communicating directly with European consumer protection authorities to do so via a dedicated email address. This will result in improved online safety for consumers located in the EU. Stay posted here at Tech Times. Related Article: Google Search Your Next Preferred Car to Know of its Inventory from Dealerships Feature Coming 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram could soon find themselves in a California court facing a complaint that they are responsible for causing mental health damage to their users. The case involves a consolidation of lawsuits from various districts. The plaintiff's attorneys are planning to submit this in February. If it is passed in court, it will significantly test a new legal theory, according to a report by Politico. Social Media Algorithms If the complainants succeed, it will have a massive effect on how social media algorithms must be created and governed, as well as how the next generation of users should interact with these platforms. The plaintiffs allege that social media platforms were aware that their algorithms had promoted harmful content to users who have eating disorders, depression, anxiety, and other illnesses. They argue that the companies had a responsibility to inform the users about the risks of these sensitive posts. They claim records published in 2021 by Frances Haugen, a former product manager for Facebook, as proof that her former employer was aware that Instagram users were experiencing negative health impacts. However, Politico explains that proving that an algorithm caused harm may be challenging, especially under the traditional product liability jurisprudence. Read also: Mark Zuckerberg Testifies FTC Antitrust Trial, Defends Acquisition for VR Fitness App Maker 'Within Unlimited' Product Liability Laws There is also an ongoing legal discussion about whether social media algorithms must be regarded as a product due to the fact that product liability laws only cover the faults found in tangible objects such as a bed, a car, and other products. Although the firm hasn't responded to the lawsuit's allegations, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stated that he is open to further regulation from Congress. The social media company has also introduced extra tools to assist users in curating their feeds. Social media networks could be subject to product liability law if the legal team is successful in persuading the court that Facebook and Instagram have caused damages to their users. This result would set a standard for how social media is maintained moving forward. This is not the first time that Meta has faced allegations that its algorithms were suggesting harmful content to its users. In June 2022, the company received eight complaints from several courthouses in the US claiming that frequent exposure to its app has resulted in attempted or actual suicides, insomnia, eating disorders, and other illnesses. Bloomberg reports that the lawsuits also include allegations of defective design, negligence, fraud, and other issues. They were lodged in federal courts in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, and Delaware. Related Article: Facebook Special Program for VIP Users Criticized by Meta's Oversight Board Regarding Offensive Content Retention 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. StarStream, a urine diagnostic patient monitoring platform developed by Starling Medical, is about to be released. Unlike conventional collecting containers or dipsticks, StarStream directly analyzes the urine sample. TechCrunch cites Starling's co-founder and CEO Alex Arevalos claiming that the worldwide urinalysis market is untapped. He said this market is expected to be worth $4.9 billion by 2026, so there is plenty of potential for a young company like Starling. The Houston-based startup plans to expand into tapping dozens of additional health disorders that may be detected by urine testing, including preeclampsia in pregnant women. This is apparently an effort to reduce hospitalizations caused by these illnesses. Tech Development With the collaboration between urologists and insurance companies, patients may acquire StarStream. This reusable gadget can be installed on their toilet and linked to digital health analysis driven by artificial intelligence (AI). The Starling app links patients with their doctors if any health issues are found after they use the toilet. No need to use containers or dipsticks. StarStream is Starling's second product in connection to the urinalysis field. CEO Arevalos, Hannah McKenney, and Drew Hendricks began developing a catheter device that would enable patients with neurological bladder dysfunction to urinate with the push of a button in January 2020. The catheter would monitor the patient's bladder for pee to identify urinary tract infections, which may lead to hospitalization and sepsis. The device uses AI and spectroscopic sensors. They got the idea to place the sensors in the toilet and combine them with an easy-to-use at-home gadget that doctors and patients have been asking for. Arevalos said this would allow them to deal with a bigger market, including individuals with diabetes and preeclampsia renal disease, who account for nearly a third of all US patients. Arevalos called StarStream "the world's first FDA-registered service." See Also: Medicine Shopping Data May Help Detect Ovarian Cancer Sooner Expanding the Venture The firm has been working on the technology for the last year. It has already conducted a clinical trial in conjunction with Stanford University to verify its prediction models. Moreover, a $3.4 million initial investment round headed by Rebel Fund has successfully concluded. The funds will be used to hire engineers, develop the gadget and its accompanying software, and equip hospitals with nurses and other support workers. Nurses process reimbursement claims for remote patient monitoring by reviewing urine results. Ten people are presently working for the firm. StarStream's device and monitoring service will be implemented with Starling's first business client, a Texas private clinic with 200,000 urological patients. After getting the first client up and going, he plans to recruit physician groups around Texas, claiming there is a potential to grow Starling into a unicorn without leaving the state. See Also: This New AI Tool Could Accelerate the Development of Gene-Editing on a Large-Scale 2023 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Azerbaijan is implementing a special criminal policy aimed at depatriating of the Armenians living in Artsakh and destroying them, Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan wrote on Twitter. January 27, 2023, 12:41 Azerbaijan is implementing a special criminal policy. Ombudsman STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 27, ARTSAKHPRESS: ''The situation requires a clear response. Intl community has a responsibility to protect. Human rights are no longer the matter of the states decision,'' he wrote. Petro's changes to the pension system will allow the State to deliver a monthly bonus of about US$110 to almost three million older adults who require a pension. On Thursday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he will shortly send to Congress a set of reforms to the pension, health and labor systems. "The reforms will once again guarantee the rights of Colombian men and women," he said, recalling that the Constitution establishes guarantees related to access to pensions, health, work, and public services. Previously, Petro announced that he would eliminate the intermediation of Health Provider Companies (EPS). This possibility, however, unleashed fierce opposition from political sectors linked to private companies. His policy goal is to migrate towards a preventive health system which "avoids the disease as far as possible", incorporates doctors to care for people who live in remote places, and care for poor farmers. In the on-going peace process in #Colombia, Norway commends the government and the guerilla ELN on carrying out an important extraordinary meeting in Caracas. The parties agreed on vital topics, including ceasefire, to be discussed during the up-coming negotiations in Mexico pic.twitter.com/dsQy8mVHNO Norway MFA (@NorwayMFA) January 21, 2023 "This preventive health model exists in most of the world. From Costa Rica to Europe, it exist where people did not believe the story that health is a business," Petro said, showing himself in favor of greater public intervention in the provision of services to citizens. The Colombian president also mentioned that the pension reform seeks to ensure that an important part of the contributions be saved in a public fund, since the current system "is a business in which what a citizen saves for years is not enough to have a pension." The changes to the pension system will also allow the State to deliver a monthly bonus of about US$110 to almost three million older adults who require a pension. Finally, Petro seeks that Colombians can have labor stability and dignity. His reform will also guarantee rights related to social benefits, vacations, and decent working hours. INTERVIEW - Four years ago, on April 15, 2019, the spire of the famous cathedral collapsed under the onslaught of flames. Since then, the renovation of Notre-Dame has been underway, and in 2023, a team of researchers present on the site was able to find and date iron staples, which make it possible to consolidate the stone structure of the building. The opportunity to return to the history of the reconstruction of Notre-Dame, with Mathieu Lours, architectural historian and specialist in religious buildings, guest of Virginie Girod in Au Coeur de l'Histoire. The construction of Notre Dame began in 1160 and was almost completed nearly a century later. In the nineteenth century, when the architect Viollet-le-Duc discovered Notre-Dame, the building was in very poor condition. He then decided to renovate it and add the famous spire of Notre-Dame. For Mathieu Lours, despite the age of this monument, "Notre-Dame remains one of the least well-known cathedrals. They hadn't been put in there since 1864 for structural restorations. Beyond belief, beyond the imaginary, beyond our relationship to history, every man sees in Our Lady a cathedral of the imagination." "Au Cur de l'Histoire" is a Europe 1 Studio production. Ruben Vardanyan, State Minister of the Republic of Artsakh, Head of the Operational Headquarters, visited the Haterk, Drmbon, Vank communities of the Martakert region, had working meetings with the heads of the communities and the population of the mentioned and adjacent villages, the press service of Artsakh Government informed. January 27, 2023, 13:09 The confidence that together we can achieve a lot is getting stronger. Ruben Vardanyan had meetings in Martakert communities STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 27, ARTSAKHPRESS: Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Suren Galstyan, head of the "Democratic Party of Artsakh" faction of the National Assembly David Melkumyan, head of the administration of Martakert region Arsen Avanesyan, member of the operational staff, the representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Karen Avetisyan accompanied the State Minister. The State Minister noted that the purpose of the visit to the regions and direct contacts with the population is to inform them about the situation, the work being carried out by the Operational Headquarters to overcome it, as well as the steps aimed at lifting the blockade and the reactions of the international community. He emphasized regular direct contacts with the population, noting that other members of the Operational Headquarters also have such meetings to listen to the residents' problems and their reactions to the works done. Speaking about the crisis created by the Azerbaijani blockade, the State Minister noted that despite the huge negative impact and difficulties, the crisis also forces us to learn lessons, to think not only about providing the vital needs of the population today, but also about creating opportunities for the future by building a more efficient system. In this new situation, priorities are revised. a number of sectors, such as, for example, agriculture and increasing the effectiveness of programs implemented in this sector, become one of the key directions. Residents asked many questions, mainly related to the events around Artsakh, as well as preparations for spring planting, development of greenhouse farms. The Russian Ministry of Defense, the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, in cooperation with the Russian Foreign Ministry, are maintaining permanent contact with all stakeholder parties and active efforts for resolving the situation in Lachin corridor continue, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing. January 27, 2023, 16:33 Russia calls for complete unblocking of Lachin corridor STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 27, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: Unlike the majority of foreign players, who are limited to statements and calls to de-escalation, the Russian side is searching for real solutions on the ground and is providing humanitarian aid. Thus, we call for a complete unblocking of the Lachin corridor in accordance with the 9 November 2020 statement of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we call on Baku and Yerevan to demonstrate political will for swift resolution of existing disputes, Zakharova said. NEW YORK When the war on marijuana came sweeping through his New York City housing project decades ago, Roland Conner found himself going in and out of jail. Its a time he'd rather not talk about. Now, at age 50, he has opened the state's first legal cannabis dispensary to be run by someone previously punished under New York's old, prohibitionist drug laws. The shop in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, called Smacked," opened to the public Tuesday with the state's support. It is New York's second legal place to buy recreational marijuana, but the first to benefit from a program that set aside dispensary licenses for people with pot-related criminal convictions. Conner is also receiving support from a $200 million public-private fund to aid social equity applicants for the state's tightly controlled supply of dispensary licenses. The money is intended to help redress the ravages of the war on drugs, especially in communities of color. When people come together passionately to fix something, they can actually make things happen. And Im a living example of that now, said Conner as he prepared for the store's opening. New York legalized the recreational use of marijuana in March 2021 but the state-sanctioned marketplace for the drug has had a slow roll-out. The first 36 licenses were awarded in November. State officials have reserved 150 dispensary licenses in the initial wave of applicants for people with past convictions for marijuana offenses. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, hopes Conners venture will serve as a model for other would-be entrepreneurs. This dispensary is the latest example of our efforts to build the most equitable and inclusive cannabis industry in the nation, Hochul said in a statement last week. As we continue to work toward righting wrongs of the past, I look forward to new dispensaries owned by those most impacted by the over policing of cannabis prohibition opening soon. Like many others, Conner was locked up for relatively minor offenses in his youth. A conviction in 1991 sent him away for months. Talking about it now, he said, only brings back trauma. For the past 15 years, he has operated a property management business and he is currently managing a transitional housing facility in the Bronx. That's given him the business experience required to qualify for a dispensary license. Smacked is opening as a pop-up dispensary while work is being completed at the storefront. His wife, Patricia, and his son, Darius, will be operating the store with him. They will have to compete with the scores of illicit dispensaries in New York that have long been in operation. When he opened his store, Conner was mindful that another unlicensed shop would soon be opening nearby. Conner recalls his younger days, when marijuana was part of daily life. He grew up in the projects, in a poverty-stricken area of New York called the Far Rockaways, where some young men whiled away time getting high. Cannabis businesses open in Auburn, Union Springs amid legal uncertainty Two cannabis businesses have opened in Cayuga County in recent weeks: a self-described consulting and marketing firm in the city of Auburn, an We were basically poor. Like any other New York City housing project, it was just riddled with poverty and drugs, he said. We went hungry a lot, but my mother did her best to make sure that we were always fed. Police patrolled the projects constantly, he recalled. Sometimes they would come up and down the block and we would see them come in or they would just come out of nowhere, he said. Theyll just come out of nowhere and search us. And if they found some type of drugs on you, they would just lock you up. Back in 1991, thats when I started getting locked up for cannabis and just getting sucked into the streets at that point. It was so long ago, he said. Years later, when his son began selling marijuana to help support his family, Conner grew alarmed. When I saw my son going down this path, he said, I didnt want him to start going down that particular road and jam himself up. With the state opening up a legal marketplace, Conner and his family decided to take a chance and apply for a dispensary license. I had to step back and just listen to my dad and figure out a way, said his son, Darius. He said theres a legal way to go about doing what Im doing now, Darius Conner said. At the end of the day, I really want to go into the right way of doing it. Officials said Conner received support from the Bronx Cannabis Hub, which was founded by the Bronx Defenders and the Bronx Community Foundation to support individuals applying for the first round of licenses. Federal data shows similar percentages of white and Black people use marijuana, but the arrest rate for Black people is much higher, according to reports by the American Civil Liberties Union and others. When people are in poverty, they do certain things that they wouldnt normally do, Conner said. And so if you dont speak to poverty and you only speak to harsh law enforcement without speaking to the reason why people do the things that they do its problematic. AUBURN A Cortland man will be serving time in prison following a series of crimes that included thefts of snowmobiles, trailers and guns. Tyler W. Hulslander, 27, with a previous address of 15 Brown Ave., was in front of Cayuga County Court Judge Thomas Leone for sentencing Thursday. He had been facing charges of first-degree burglary, second-degree burglary, third-degree criminal possession of stolen property, fourth-degree grand larceny, petit larceny and two counts of third-degree grand larceny before reaching a plea deal with prosecutors last fall. Cayuga County Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher Valdina said in court that Hulslander embarked on a "crime spree" in the county from late 2021 to early 2022, when he was found in a stolen pickup truck on Jan. 14. John Price, Hulslander's attorney, noted that his client's pre-sentence investigation report shows he had accepted responsibility for his actions. When Leone asked Hulslander if there was anything he wanted to say, the defendant said he had pleaded guilty, admitted responsibility "and I just want to get this part of my life over and done with." As part of a previous agreement when Hulslander pleaded guilty in October, he was sentenced to six years in state prison and three years of post-release supervision for the second-degree burglary count. For two counts of third-degree grand larceny, he was sentenced to two to six years in state prison and was also sentenced to two to six years in prison on the third-degree criminal possession of stolen property charge. For the fourth-degree grand larceny charge, Hulslander was sentenced to 1 and 1/3 to 4 years in state prison. All of those sentences are running concurrently. The first-degree grand larceny and petit larceny counts were satisfied as a result of his plea. He will also need to pay $2,050 in restitution. Huslsander was arrested in January 2022 when New York State Police checked a trespassing complaint reported in the town of Genoa. He was discovered in a pickup truck that had been reported stolen in Syracuse. The truck had guns and drugs inside and a stolen ATV in the back, police said at the time. He was later tied to a burglary and theft at a hunting lodge, plus the theft of two trailers and a total of seven snowmobiles from multiple areas, including the town of Venice, authorities have said. Valdina said in court Thursday that all of the snowmobiles and both trailers have since been recovered. Cayuga County crime spree expected to land Cortland man in state prison A man is facing six years in prison after being convicted of multiple theft-related crimes. Also in court: An Auburn man was sentenced to county jail time and probation on a charge involving the sexual performance of a child. Cody M. Elmer, 23, was also before Leone in court Thursday, on a charge of promoting a sexual performance by a child. He was sentenced to six months of incarceration in the Cayuga County Jail followed by 10 years of probation. Erica T. Paoff, 25, with a most recent address of 8 Washington St., Auburn, was sentenced to five years of felony probation and ordered to participate in the drug court program for a third-degree burglary charge. Kyle Session, 36, was in front of Leone on charges of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and two counts of third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance. Session was sentenced to five years in state prison and three years of post-release supervision for one of the third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance charges. Kavita C. Singletary, 40, Rochester, was before Leone on charges of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and two counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance. As a part of a previous agreement, the weapon charge was reduced to second-degree attempted criminal possession of a weapon. Singletary was sentenced to five years of shock probation with the first six months in the county jail for both the attempted weapon possession count and one of the third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance charges, with both sentences running concurrently. The other criminal possession of a controlled substance charge was satisfied as a result of her plea. Damien M. Wrana, 21, with a previous address of 127 Owasco St., Auburn, was also sentenced Thursday. Leone ordered five years of shock probation, with the first six months at the county jail. Wrana already served six months in jail and was released in December. A new study shows devices used for drying nail polish at salons and at home could cause DNA damage, a possible precursor to cancer, but Australian experts say more needs to be known about the cumulative effects of using the machines. The American study revealed moderate damage to human and mouse cells after long sessions of UV light from a nail lamp. Australias radiation safety regulator said the devices posed a low risk if only used for a short time. However, it conceded the effects of long-term, repeated exposure were unknown. To be honest, the results are not surprising, said Professor Richard Scolyer, co-medical director of Australias Melanoma Institute. We know these devices emit UVA. And UVA can cause DNA damage. We just dont know how it translates to humans. Were talking here about cases of crucial public interest brought by the regulators of banks, companies and super funds, among other things. Where once these documents were freely available, now we must apply for them. Well only receive them at the judges discretion after the parties some of them very well-funded have had a chance to object, delay and obfuscate. Then, when a case finally reaches the courtroom, the media are too often confronted with suppression orders, which are issued at a rate of several a day in the Victorian courts. The worst breakdown of relations between the media and the courts that I can remember was over this issue. Between 2019 and 2021, dozens of journalists in Victoria were prosecuted for breaching a suppression order in the George Pell sexual abuse case. I was one of them. When Pell was found guilty in the County Court of sexually abusing two choirboys, not a word of it could be reported initially because Justice Peter Kidd, the courts chief judge, had suppressed the entire proceeding. Legal academic Jeremy Gans has written that in big trials, such as Pells, the general public wants to know every detail of the evidence and events, and these occasions provoke wider and very important discussions about how well the courts do their jobs. High-profile cases put the justice system itself on trial, and rightly so, he wrote. The suppression order meant we never got that broader discussion in the Pell case. The reason for it was that there was to be a subsequent trial of Pell on unrelated charges. Australian media couldnt publish details of this crucial matter because 12 potential future jurors might see it. Loading But when the guilty verdict was handed down, that silence was quickly breached. Not by the Australian media, but on the internet. Several international outlets published the key detail: Pell, the Vaticans number three man, was guilty. Less than 24 hours later, the words George Pell were the number one searched term on Twitter in Australia with 13,300 tweets. George Pell has been convicted, wrote one tweeter. Australian media are under suppression orders so you have to Google international sites. I am not media, said another one, so I will sing it from the top of my lungs. I cannot find a single MSM [mainstream media] article about it, said a fourth: Why is this significant news ... being concealed? On Reddit, Google search, Facebook, the subject of Pells guilt was red hot and the conspiracy theories were growing. We felt I felt The Age needed to address this torrent of speculation. So, guided by legal advice from two separate lawyers, we produced a carefully cryptic story saying, a very high-profile figure had been convicted of an unnamed charge and we couldnt say more because of a suppression order. Other media did a similar thing in their different ways. The judge was furious. The media, he said, seemed to believe its OK to print everything and anything apart from the name. A number of very important people in the media are facing, if found guilty, the prospect of imprisonment and indeed substantial imprisonment, he said. Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd told the judge the maximum penalty for these breaches was about five years [imprisonment] adding that he should leave the matter with her. The jailing of journalists for doing their jobs is no small matter anywhere in the world. But in Victoria, the prosecutions followed by the dozen. Something like 100 threatening letters were sent out. Meanwhile, shortly after Pells guilty finding, the DPP dropped the second trial for lack of evidence. Pell appealed the first conviction to the Court of Appeal and lost, and then to the High Court where, in April 2020 he was acquitted of all charges and soon left the country. Still our contempt case dragged on. When it was finally heard against 15 journalists and organisations, it did not go well for us. Sniffing the wind, the companies pleaded guilty to protect the individual journalists. Fourteen months after Pells High Court acquittal, The Age was convicted and fined $450,000, among a total $1.1 million in fines for the media more broadly, plus the prosecutions costs. There is a pattern here: courts restricting the release of all information just in case a media organisation might do something wrong; courts suppressing entire cases (or in the Witness J matter in the ACT Supreme Court, hearing it entirely behind closed doors); courts restricting information about upcoming civil cases lest it cause some unspecified damage to parties involved. There is a strong principle in the legal system of open justice. But these, I think, are signs that some courts and judges have lost trust in the media and the public, and perhaps in the openness principle entirely. The real danger is that it hits outlets like us hardest. You can suppress The Age, sue us and prosecute us for contempt, but not one of the people who sent the 13,300 tweets about George Pell was prosecuted. Nor was any international outlet for breaching the suppression order none of which had professional reporters in the court throughout the case, understanding its nuances, as we did. All this might be an attempt to keep control in a chaotic environment, but in my view its precisely because of the easy availability of misinformation that the media needs better access to good information, so we can get the truth out there. There are positives here. The move by some judges and courts to livestream their judgments is brilliant, as is the timely provision of transcripts to reporters during trials. The president stressed the iron-clad U.S. commitment to Israels security, the White House said of the call. Israeli police said the shootings occurred in Neve Yaakov, a settlement with a large ultra-Orthodox population, and that the gunman fled in a car. Police said they chased after him and after an exchange of fire, killed him. Palestinians celebrate after a shooting attack near a synagogue in Jerusalem, in Gaza City on Friday night. Credit: AP Police identified the attacker as a 21-year-old east Jerusalem resident who apparently acted alone. Jerusalem police chief Doron Turjeman Turjeman promised an aggressive and significant effort to track down anyone who helped him. Police also released a photo of the pistol it said was used by the attacker. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant huddled with Israels military chief and other top security officials and instructed them to assist police and strengthen defences near Jerusalem and for Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israels defence establishment will operate decisively and forcefully against terror and will reach anyone involved in the attack, Gallant said. Israels MADA rescue service said that those killed included five men and two women, among them several who were 60 or older. Jerusalems Hadassah Hospital said a 15-year-old boy was recovering from surgery. The attack was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to the Foreign Ministry. Given the location and timing, it threatened to trigger a tough response from Israel. The attack was halted when the gunman was shot by police. Credit: AP Overnight on Thursday, Gaza militants fired several rockets into southern Israel, with all of them either intercepted or landing in open areas. Israel responded with airstrikes on targets in Gaza. No casualties were reported, and calm had appeared to be taking hold before Friday nights shooting. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. In Gaza, Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the ruling Hamas militant group, said the attack was a revenge and natural response to the deadly military raid on Thursday. At several locations across the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians gathered in spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate the Jerusalem attack, with some coming out of dessert shops with large trays of sweets to distribute. In downtown Gaza City, celebratory gunfire could be heard, as cars honked and calls of God is great! wafted from mosque loudspeakers. In various West Bank towns, Palestinians launched fireworks. Angry Palestinians marched on Friday as they buried the last of those killed a day earlier. Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day. That suddenly dissolved with the east Jerusalem shooting, described as horrific and heartbreaking by Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and former prime minister. Neve Yaakov is a religious Jewish settlement that Israel considers to be a neighbourhood of its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as a capital of their future state. Blinkens trip will probably now focus heavily on lowering tensions. He is likely to discuss the underlying causes of the conflict, the agenda of Israels new far-right government and the Palestinian Authoritys decision to halt security coordination with Israel in response to the Jenin raid. The Biden administration has been deeply engaged with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, underscoring the urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival forces in 2007. Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks. Loading Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group BTselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press. First lady Dr. Jill Biden will be in upstate New York on Monday to meet with military families at Fort Drum, a U.S. Army base near Watertown. Biden will be joined by Deputy Defense Secretary Dr. Kathleen Hicks at Fort Drum, home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division. According to the White House, the meeting will focus on boosting employment opportunities for military spouses. The visit is part of Biden's Joining Forces initiative, which supports military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors. Joining Forces has a few focus areas, such as employment and entrepreneurship, military child education and health and wellbeing. A survey of active-duty spouses conducted by the Department of Defense in 2019 found that the military spouse unemployment rate is 22%. There are many factors that contribute to the high rate, including frequent moves, differing state licensing requirements, child care and deployments. Through Joining Forces, Biden aims to partner with governments and the private sector to increase employment opportunities for military spouses. "We will work with employers to create more flexible, transferable and remote job opportunities for military spouses, as well as increasing resources for those interested in entrepreneurial endeavors," the initiative states on its website. "We will also ensure that military families are included in the administration's overall policies aimed at improving economic security for all families." Senior members of past administrations, including presidents, have visited Fort Drum. Former President Donald Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense policy bill, at the Army base in 2018. Former President Barack Obama was there in 2011 after announcing that thousands of troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan. The 10th Mountain Division was the most deployed unit to Afghanistan. The first lady's visit comes three months after her husband, President Joe Biden, was in upstate New York. He visited Onondaga Community College near Syracuse to celebrate memory chip maker Micron's decision to invest $100 billion to build a manufacturing facility in central New York. Rob McClure and Lena Hall star in Howard Ashman and Alan Menkens Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Michael Mayer, at the Westside Theatre. ( Emilio Madrid) I have always had an affinity for Little Shop of Horrors. Maybe its Alan Menken and Howard Ashmans score. Maybe its because my birthday is on the 21st day of September. Whatever the reason, Ive never attended as many productions of Little Shop as I did in the last year and a half: During that time, I went to five performances in four cities: Beverley, Massachusetts; New York City; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Paris, France. Each was charming in its own way, and each was very different. Little Shop was the first musical I saw in New York after theaters had begun to reopen in 2021. I saw it on my birthday, and I cried watching Jeremy Jordan as Seymour and Tammy Blanchard as Audrey. I thought this production of Little Shop was close to perfect, and I figured it would be the last one I would attend for a while. Then in 2022, I attended another production of Little Shop again on my birthday this time at Beverlys North Shore Music Theatre, which has a circular rather than a proscenium stage. The show lost some of its magic in the round, because its not as easy to hide all the behind-the-scenes business needed to execute the puppetry. Audrey II was also cast with a female voice, which for me changed the relationship between Seymour and the plant and ultimately proved more of a distraction. To its credit, this production cast Ed Romanoff as Mushnick; he may be the best Mushnick I have ever seen. Shortly after seeing Little Shop at North Shore Music Theatre, I was in New York with a free night so I revisited the off-Broadway production, which was then starring Lena Hall and Rob McClure. I only have one word for this production: perfection. The company understood the nuances of telling this story and balanced the comedy and reality of the show in a brilliant way. TheaterManias chief critic, Zachary Stewart, said it best in his review, which you can read here. Later while in Florida, I went to see a former student of mine as Audrey at the Slow Burn Theatre company in Fort Lauderdale. This production presented a classic staging with some unevenness in the cast and an out-of-sync Audrey II: Think the yes-no scene in Singin in the Rain. A scene from La Petite Boutique des Horreurs in Paris at the Opera Comique. (image provided by the production) I finished 2022 with a French production, La Petite Boutique des Horreurs in Paris at the Opera Comique. This truly original production approached the show as an opera and had an orchestra of 19. It was the largest Little Shop orchestra Ive seen, and the lush orchestrations were what you would expect from one of Europes top-rated opera houses. Audrey Vougs scenery was as far from the classic skid row as one can get, with inspiration taken from 1960s gas stations and diners accented by neon. The look was completed by Vanessa Sanninos mod-inspired costumes, with Audrey in pink rather than black with leopard print. Overall the show lost its punch in the translation, but it was interesting to see something so American though new eyes. So what is it that makes Little Shop of Horrors so universally loved and produced? Is it the book and score? Is it the Faustian tale re-told with B-horror tropes? Is it the universal love story of the underdog getting the girl? I think its the magic combination of all of the above as well as the fact that you constantly can find something new along with the familiar on the shows trip down to Skid Row. A dessert shop and an auto detailing business were granted variances by the City of Auburn Zoning Board of Appeals on Monday. The shop, Fruitys Treats, seeks to open in the former office of Ted Leader Real Estate at 92 Owasco St. The auto detailing business seeks to open at 56-58 Clark St., which is owned by Michael Morgan. Both businesses were denied permits by code enforcement because they were prohibited uses under the properties' zoning, which is Residential-1 at 92 Owasco St. and Residential-2 at 56-58 Clark St. Fruitys Treats will be operated by Zekiya Moody, who approached Linda and Theodore Leader about opening the dessert business at 92 Owasco St., Linda Leader told the board. The Leaders, both real estate brokers, had used a space there as their office until the COVID-19 pandemic. The space has sat empty ever since, as the real estate business has mostly stayed remote, Leader explained. "Nobody wants to come in and sit anymore at a conference table," she said. "Most clients, they want you to send them the contracts." The property has a one-bedroom apartment that the Leaders rent to their daughter, but even with that rental income, maintaining the empty office space is costing the Leaders $3,170.87 a year, according to a financial hardship document they filed with the board. The space being empty also makes the property harder to sell and more vulnerable to vandalism, the Leaders said. On the other hand, that area of Owasco Street has ample food businesses, such as Seafood Express and Giuseppe's Pizzeria. So another one not being allowed to open "doesn't make sense," Linda Leader said. The board's chair, Edward Darrow, agreed with her before putting the variance up to a vote. The variance was approved unanimously, and received no public comments. "To me that whole street is peppered with retail," Darrow said. "Personally, I miss the corner stores I grew up with. I don't think it's a bad location for what the prospective tenant's looking to do." The board was similarly receptive to Morgan, who was represented on the 56-58 Clark St. variance application by attorney Sam Giacona. Morgan purchased the property in October and intends to continue using it as an auto detailing business. It has been an auto business for at least 50 years, he noted in his application, previously a gas station and dealership. Morgan plans "minor cosmetic improvements to the premises benefiting the surrounding neighborhood and improving the general view of travelers on Arterial West." Giacona said that without the variance, Morgan would experience financial hardship in the form of a loss of about $3,700 a year. The board approved the variance unanimously. No public comments on the application were recorded. "I feel the unique character of the building in that neighborhood is not going to come of harm, so therefore aye," Darrow said. In other news An application to build additional storage units at a new Auburn facility was once again tabled at Monday's meeting. Developer True Storage has applied for a variance to build four units with 84 lockers in front of a new location of self-storage brand CubeSmart at 325-327 Genesee St., a former P&C grocery store. The application was tabled until the board's Feb. 27 meeting because attorney Joseph Camardo, representing True Storage, didn't provide financial hardship information in advance of Monday's meeting. The board first heard Camardo present the application in October. The application was tabled in the following months because of the lack of the full board to review it at those meetings. Camardo also told the board he would return in February with more statements from neighbors in support of the variance. "This has been publicized five times so far and nobody's come up and objected to anything," he told the board, "but I'll be happy to go back and get some more letters." ALBANY A federal appellate court ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit filed by the Seneca Nation of Indians against New York State may proceed, dismissing a motion filed by the state seeking to throw out the case. The lawsuit concerns the tribes longstanding claims that a 1954 land deal permitting the Thruway to cut through part of its Cattaraugus Reservation was illegal. New York State has sought to have the case dismissed on a series of legal grounds, including that the 11th Amendment of the U.S Constitution bars a state from being sued in federal court unless the state consents. But the defendants in this case are individual state government officials, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James and state Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Dominguez. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found on Thursday that the Seneca Nation can sue individual state officers in their official capacities as long as certain conditions are met, including that the lawsuit claims an ongoing violation of federal law. Judge denies New York's bid to dismiss Seneca Nation's Thruway lawsuit At issue is a 1954 land easement deal allowing 2.7 miles of the state Thruway to be built on nearly 300 acres on the Seneca Nations Cattaraugus reservation. While New York State contested those conditions had been met, the appellate court found the Seneca lawsuit does claim that the Thruway poses an ongoing harm by inhibiting the nations free use and enjoyment of its protected land. After fighting New Yorks overreaching actions for decades, on the Thruway and other issues, this is an important victory, Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong Sr. said "Our arguments on behalf of our people deserve to be heard in court. The Thruway is a 300-acre scar on our Cattaraugus Territory that New York State inflicted on our people without proper authorization from the Department of Interior or in compliance with the promises made to us by treaty. We intend to make sure that state officials finally comply with federal law for this invasion of our land. The 1954 land easement deal between the state and tribe allowed 2.7 miles of the Thruway to be built on nearly 300 acres on the Seneca Nations Cattaraugus reservation. The tribe received $75,500 for the land deal, which included displacement of some Senecas from their homes. Tribal leaders for years have said the state pressured Senecas to take the 1954 deal. Moreover, the Seneca Nations chief legal argument is that the deal was invalid from the start because the state never obtained necessary federal approval. The Senecas brought the current case in 2018. They want the Thruway Authority to seek a valid easement deal or to compensate the tribe going forward for motorists who drive on the highways segment that runs through reservation land. They also want the state to stop collecting tolls at Irving on Seneca land. State to Senecas: We're ready to fix the Thruway State officials say theyre ready to repair the bumpy, 3-mile stretch of the Thruway that runs through the Seneca Nations Cattaraugus Territory just as soon as the tribe gives the Thruway Authority permission. In a letter Sunday to the Seneca leadership, Thruway Authority Executive Director Matthew J. Driscoll said the state is eager to complete this project and In 2020, U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo first gave the green light for the legal dispute to continue on to the merits of the case. The decision by Vilardo overturned a report and recommendation made in 2018 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott that supported the states move to dismiss the case. After Vilardos ruling, New York State then filed the motion to dismiss in federal appellate court that was ruled on Thursday. The Wyoming Department of Education, along with Governor Mark Gordon and the Wyoming Military Department, awarded Wyomings first two Purple Star Schools - Freedom Elementary School and McCormick Junior High School - today at a ceremony at the Wyoming State Capitol. I am excited to help launch the Purple Star Schools Program in support of military-connected students as they transition into their new homes and schools here in Wyoming, said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder. Schools like Freedom Elementary and McCormick Junior High prioritize making these students feel instantly welcome and give them valuable support in acclimating into Wyoming. The Wyoming Purple Star School Program - in partnership with the Governor's Challenge - recognizes the efforts of Wyoming K-12 schools that are committed and supportive of military students and families - known as military-connected - as they transition to their new homes and schools. The program was designed to help with the challenges of high mobility by setting standards of commitment for the school's award of the military-friendly Purple Star designation. All Wyoming public and private schools are eligible to apply for the Purple Star School Award. This program is essential to helping service members and their families navigate the added challenges they are often presented with, said Maj. Gen. Greg Porter, Adjutant General, Wyoming National Guard. Despite those challenges, military children are some of the most resilient people I have ever met. We will only see positive things from the schools dedication to providing a seamless transition and welcoming atmosphere for military students under this program. Both Freedom Elementary and McCormick Junior High Schools have a continuous focus that welcomes new sons and daughters of military parents. School staff are notified to prepare for and welcome new students. At Freedom, arriving students are provided an elementary Student-to-Student representative-led school tour and a welcome packet containing relevant information. New students meet with the school counselor to share previous locations, hobbies, and challenges they have faced during school in the past. At McCormick, new military-connected students are met by members of the current student body, given an informative flier (about the school, city, etc.), shown around the building, and invited to sit with their peers at lunch. Both schools' staff continue to ensure that the student is transitioning well. Freedom Elementary is honored to receive the distinguished Purple Star award. We have the distinct opportunity to serve students and families at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, said Freedom Elementary Principal Chad Delbridge Freedom Elementary staff are committed and honored to support and respond to the educational and personal challenges that military children and their families face during their transition to a new school and community. Freedom Elementary and McCormick Junior High Schools also support departing students. Fellow students and staff sign names and write positive messages around the borders of a Wyoming map, which is framed and presented to the student to remember the experience at Freedom Elementary, and McCormick students are presented with an autograph book prior to leaving to say goodbye to friends and classmates. Being a Purple Star school was a goal for me because so many of our students at McCormick are military-connected children, said McCormick Principal Tina Troudt. Their needs, whether it be starting our school mid-year, leaving our school mid-year, or having a deployed parent, are unique and deserve unique support. We are proud of our military-connected students and want them to know we support them and the goals they have for their future. With more than 1.1 million military-connected students attending schools, issues of school transition are a high priority for families. The most current data indicates that Wyoming has 2,140 military-connected students in our schools. The frequent relocations required of military personnel mean that, on average, military-connected children move six to nine times between kindergarten and high school graduation. As they transition between schools, these students must adapt to varying cultures, school populations, curricula, standards, course offerings, schedules, and graduation requirements. As a result, military-connected students often face unique academic and social-emotional challenges. The mission deployment of a parent or parents can also contribute to impactful stress on a student. Additional information about the Wyoming Purple Star Program and how schools can become Purple Star Schools can be found here. By the end of Dec. 2022, NIO's cumulative deliveries amounted to 289,556 units, 122,486 vehicles (+34% YoY) of which were delivered last year. NIO scored a highest-ever monthly delivery volume in Dec. 2022, which soared 50.8% over a year earlier. The company made significant headways in roll-out of new models, expansion of EV charging & battery swap networks and sales & service channels, as well as overseas business deployment last year. Gasgoo hereby made the retrospective report about NIO's 2022 stories. NIO, Zhejiang Commercial Group to co-build battery swap stations for expressway rest stops NIO on Jan. 7 entered into a strategic cooperation agreement with Zhejiang Commercial Group Co.,Ltd., a Zhejiang-based state-run company providing trade circulation service, to jointly build battery swap facilities. Under the agreement, both parties plan to build battery swap stations at 15 pairs of expressway service plazas in Zhejiang province by the end of June 2022. NIO teams up with steel producer Baosteel for supply chain, low-carbon tech NIO and the state-owned steel producer Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (called Baosteel for short) struck a deal on Jan. 10 to carry out strategic cooperation in a range of areas, such as the ecosystem of supply chain, and the applications of green low-carbon and EVI (Early Vendor Involvement) technologies, according to a post on Baosteel's WeChat account. The cooperation will involve such products as non-oriented silicon steel, cold-rolled automotive steel sheet, aluminum material, as well as rods and tubes. NIO pushes NIO OS Aspen 3.1.0 with English user interface On Jan. 15, NIO shipped the NIO OS Aspen 3.1.0 to users in China with the English-version user interface newly added to attract more expatriates in the country. According to NIO, the existing 3.0.5 version and above can be upgraded to the newest 3.1.0 through OTA. NIO launches 800th battery swap station via cooperation with IKEA NIO announced via its WeChat account its 800th battery swap station was launched on Jan. 21 at IKEA Hangzhou store. NIO builds insurance brokerage subsidiary In Jan., NIO set up a subsidiary working on insurance brokerage business , a move in response to Chinas launch of NEV (new energy vehicle)-dedicated commercial insurance. According to the corporate data platform Tianyancha, the new company, dubbed NIO Insurance Brokerage Co.,Ltd., was incorporated on Jan. 19, 2022 in Hefei, where NIO China is headquartered. Involving a registered capital of 50 million yuan ($7.9 million), the newborn firm is wholly held by NIO Holding Limited, the legal entity of NIO China. NIO, Aluminum Corporation of China to team up on automotive aluminum R&D, supply NIO and state-owned aluminum producer Aluminum Corporation of China (CHINALCO) signed an agreement on March 3 to form a strategic partnership, according to a post on CHINALCO's WeChat account. Under the agreement, both parties will carry out in-depth cooperation on the R&D, supply, and procurement of new materials and auto parts including automobile-used aluminum and copper, the digitalization of supply chain, and the carbon footprint verification (CFV). First mass-produced NIO ET7s roll off production line The first mass-produced NIO ET7s came off the production line on March 24, according to a post on NIO's WeChat account. The scale delivery of the ET7 would start on March 28. Given the pandemic factor, consumers in different regions will not receive the cars at the same moment. NIO said its staff members would stay in touch with customers to update them the final delivery time. NIO kicks off delivery of ET7 On March 28, NIO officially started the delivery of the ET7 all-electric flagship sedan, its four production model, according to the startup's press release. In early March, NIO kicked off the test drive of ET7 nationwide. Users who test drove ET7 have spoken highly about the product. The test-drive-to-order conversion rate exceeded our expectations, giving us great confidence in the competitiveness of NT2.0, William Bin Li, Chairman and CEO of NIO, said last week at the latest quarterly earnings call. NIO lifts shareholding in joint venture with JAC Group In mid-March, NIO increased its stake in Jianglai Advanced Manufacturing Technology (Anhui) Co., Ltd. (Jianglai), the joint venture it builds with Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Co., Ltd. (JAC Group), a year after Jianglai was established. According to the corporate database Qichacha, Jianglai is currently 50/50 held by NIO and JAC Group after the latter transferred the 1% stake in the joint venture to the former. NIO announces plan to raise vehicle prices NIO would increase prices of some vehicle models on May 10 due to the continuous hike in raw materials prices globally, the EV startup announced on Apr. 10 via the NIO App. The move came only 16 days after the company said it had no such plans. According to NIO's adjustment scheme, the entire lineups of the ES8, the ES6, and the EC6 would record a price increase of 10,000 yuan. Meanwhile, the starting prices of the ET7 and the ET5 still remain unchanged. WWF joins NIO's Clean Park initiative as co-initiator On April 22, the 53rd Earth Day, NIO formed a strategic partnership with WWF (World Wildlife Fund), who will serve as one of the initiators of NIO's Clean Parks ecosystem co-construction initiative, the startup announced via its WeChat account. Under the cooperation, NIO and WWF will make joint efforts to promote the building of a clean and low-carbon energy self-circulation system for the protected areas in China and even the whole world, and boost the sustainable development of the global ecosystem. NIO ET5's first TT prototypes roll off production line On April 29, NIO saw the first tooling trial (TT) builds of the NIO ET5, its fifth production model, roll off the production line, according to NIO's press release. The ET5 was formally launched in December 2021 at the NIO Day 2021 with its presale starting at the same time. NIO signs agreement to manufacture new sub-brand models at NeoPark NIO had signed a cooperation agreement with local authority of Hefei Economic & Technological Development Zone for building the second-phase complete vehicle manufacturing base at NeoPark and the supporting core auto parts projects, the information office of Hefei municipal government said on May 10 via its twitter-like Weibo account. Per the agreement, the smart electric vehicle (EVs) models under NIO's all-new mid-/high-end sub-brand would be introduced into the new manufacturing facility, which was expected for production in 2024. The whole project is planned to take up 1,860 mu (1.24 million square meters). NIO to adopt Baidu's DuerOS for onboard intelligent speech assistant advancement Baidu's intelligent speech arm, Xiaodu Technology, struck a deal with NIO in May to optimize NIO vehicles' onboard human-machine interactive experience. Building on Xiaodu's DuerOS technologies, the two companies would create an integrated onboard AI assistant connecting drivers, cars, and the internet that satisfy users' needs. NIO hits delivery milestone of 200,000 vehicles On May 15, NIO held a ceremony in Chongqing city to celebrate the achievement of 200,000 complete vehicles in cumulative deliveries, according to the startup's press release. It took the startup fewer than 4 four years to accomplish the target. The milestone came after 20 days after NIO saw its 200,000th vehicle roll off the assembly line. NIO goes public on Singapore Exchange on May 20 On May 20, 2022, NIO successfully listed its Class A ordinary shares on the Main Board of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited (SGX-ST) under the stock code "NIO". With an estimated market capitalisation of S$38.586 billion, NIO is the first auto company listed on three Exchanges, which are in New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore respectively. NIO to be included in Hang Seng TECH Index as constituent stock NIO Inc. announced on May 23 that it would be included in the Hang Seng TECH Index as a constituent stock, effective June 13, 2022. The Hang Seng Family of Indexes is widely regarded as the most important gauge of the Hong Kong stock market. The Hang Seng TECH Index represents the 30 largest technology companies listed in Hong Kong that have high business exposure to technology themes and pass the index's screening criteria. NIO launches charging/discharging 'all-in-one' machine NIO announced on Jun. 6 it had launched a portable machine that integrates both charging and discharging functions. The charging/discharging "all-in-one" machine is able to meet the needs of multiple scenarios. It would be officially available for rent at the end of July in 2022. NIO inks agreement to help build EV auto parts industrial park in Lu'an city On June 10, NIO signed a framework agreement with the municipal government of Lu'an, a prefecture-level city in western Anhui province, to jointly build an industrial park of supporting auto parts used for intelligent electric vehicles, according to a post on local government's official WeChat account. Located in Lu'an Economic Development Zone, the new facility is positioned as a high-end aluminum die-casting low-carbon and circular industrial park. Driven by China's carbon emission peak and neutrality targets, both parties are committed to building it into a national-level demonstration industrial park for pilot circular economy projects. NIO launches ES7 all-electric SUV On Jun. 15, NIO officially launched its all-new production model, the ES7, which was scheduled for delivery from August 28, 2022. The ES7 is the first SUV model to ride on NIO's second-generation technology platform, NT2.0. Sitting between the ES6 and the ES8, the all-new model is positioned as a mid-to-large five-seater all-electric SUV. NIO completes building of expressway battery swapping network On Jun. 22, NIO announced it has completed the building of its battery swapping network for expressways with a total of 205 battery swapping stations so far deployed to cover over 20,000-km expressways. NIO announces completion of 10 million battery swaps NIO provided its 10 millionth battery swap on July 4, 2022, the EV startup announced via its WeChat account. According to data released by NIO, it took the automaker 29 months to complete its first 1 million battery swaps, and only 1 month to climb from the 9 to the 10 millionths. NIO sets up software subsidiary in Shanghai In Jul. 2022, NIO founded a software subsidiary in Shanghai. According to the corporate information provider Tianyancha, the newborn company, named NIO Software Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., was incorporated on July 27 in Minhang district, Shanghai city. With a registered capital of 50 million yuan, the subsidiary has a line of businesses including software development, information system integration service, AI application software development, etc. Its legal representative is Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO. NIO, UNDP join hands to develop Clean Parks platform On August 15, NIO inked an agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to introduce the latter as a new co-builder of its Clean Parks ecosystem co-construction initiative. Under the agreement, NIO would provide its intelligent electric vehicles, construct clean energy infrastructures, and build a clean low-carbon energy self-circulation system for the protected areas cooperating with the UNDP. NIO, Hisense to cooperate on several NEV-related businesses NIO and the multinational appliance and electronics manufacturer Hisense Group entered into a framework agreement on Sept. 13 to conduct all-round strategic cooperation in several fields related to the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry, according to a press release from Hisense. The NEV-related fields in which both parties would team up on include automotive air conditioning system, vehicle thermal management system, intelligent transportation system, C-V2X, as well as new types of display and multimedia technologies and products. NIO's first Germany-based battery swap station comes online NIO announced on Sept. 29 via its twitter-like Weibo account the launch of its first Germany-based battery swap station, marking part of preparations to bring its vehicles into this country. Located at Zusmarshausen, the new battery swap station will work on the busy A8 motorway between Munich and Stuttgart. It is one of results from the cooperation between NIO and Sortimo, one of biggest European charging industrial park operators, capable of conducting 312 battery swaps per day. NIO starts offering services in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden NIO hosted NIO Berlin 2022, a launch event in Europe under the theme "A New Horizon", on October 7, 2022 (Germany Time), announcing it will build a comprehensive operation system in four European countries, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. The startup said it would kick off reservations of its three newest modelsthe ET7, the EL7, and the ET5to consumers in the aforesaid four countries through a flexible subscription model. Subscription users would become members of NIO's user community. ZF Group, NIO form strategic cooperation on steer-by-wire product ZF Group inked an agreement with NIO on Oct. 11 to carry out strategic cooperation in the development of steer-by-wire (SBW) products and other fields, the global auto supplier announced via its WeChat account. Under the agreement, the two companies would establish an instant information sharing mechanism to step up communication and conduct regular technical exchanges, in a bid to jointly hammer out industry-leading processes and quality standards. NIO inks agreement for launch of international business headquarters On Oct. 25, NIO signed an agreement to launch its international business headquarters in Jiangqiao town, Jiading district, Shanghai city, according to a post on an official WeChat account of Jiading district government. The new headquarters covers an area of around 98.8 mu (65,870 square meters) with a floor area ratio of 2.7. The area available for construction covers about 178,000 square meters. NIO, hotel firm Huazhu Group team up on charging, battery swap facility deployment NIO and Huazhu Group Limited, a China-based hotel group, inked an agreement on Oct. 25 to carry out in-depth strategic cooperation on the deployment of electric vehicle charging and battery swapping facilities, according to a post on NIO's WeChat account. NIO said in a press release that the collaboration between the two parties will contribute to the development of the NEV industry and the achievement of the carbon peak and neutrality targets. They will jointly explore new low-carbon transportation approaches and further facilitate power replenishment for EV users. NIO steps up strategic cooperation with ceramic ball bearing supplier SKF NIO and Swedish ceramic ball bearing provider SKF recently signed an agreement to cement their strategic cooperation, according to a press released SKF released on Oct. 27. Under the agreement, SKF would act as a preferred supplier of ceramic ball bearings to NIO and provide its extensive technical expertise to support NIO's product development and global business expansion. NIO launches first Sweden-based battery swap station NIO saw its first Sweden-based battery swapping station come online on Nov. 17 in Varberg, a city in Halland on Sweden's west coast. The significant battery swapping station of NIO is located by the busy E6 motorway between Goteborg and Malmo, not only offering battery swap services to urban residents, but also allowing users going to and fro between the two cities enjoy the fast power replenishment experience. NIO starts operating first battery swap stations co-built with CNOOC NIO announced via its WeChat account the first battery swapping stations co-developed with China National Offshore Oil Corporation ("CNOOC") officially started operation on Nov. 22 at the latter's service plaza on the G94 Pearl River Delta Ring Expressway. As the largest offshore oil and gas producer in China, CNOOC has become an international energy company with five main businesses segments, namely, oil & gas exploration and development, engineering and technical services, refining and marketing, natural gas and power generation, and financial services. NIO, Tencent team up on smart mobility businesses Tencent signed an agreement with NIO on Nov. 28 to carry out strategic cooperation on intelligent driving map, autonomous driving cloud, digital ecosystem community, and other areas related to smart mobility, according to a post on Tencent's WeChat account. In the future, both parties will co-work on the R&D of intelligent driving technology and the innovation in users' experience. NIO offers electric vehicles to Giant Panda National Park NIO on Dec. 7 announced its cooperation with China's Giant Panda National Park, marking the second cooperative project under the strategic partnership NIO forged with WWF (World Wildlife Fund) for its "Clean Parks" ecosystem co-construction initiative. NIO said it has offered its smart electric vehicles to the Giant Panda National Parks Sichuan province administration and deployed charging facilities correspondingly. NIO hits production milestone of 300,000 mass-produced vehicles NIO announced via its WeChat account its 300,000th mass-produced vehicle rolled off the production line on Dec. 12, only seven months after the birth of the 200,000th one. NIO said the milestone was achieved amid the rapid development of China's premium smart electric vehicle industry. For the first eleven months of 2022, NIO accounted for over 70% of China's total sales of high-end all-electric vehicles whose purchase price is above 400,000 yuan per car. NIO launches first Germany-based NIO House NIO's first Germany-based NIO House opened for business on Dec. 16 in the countrys capital, Berlin, according to a post on NIO's WeChat account. It is the second user center NIO launched in Europe. The new NIO House is located on Kurfurstendamm, one of the most famous avenues in Berlin, and is near to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, one of the renowned landmarks of the city. The three- storey building not only serves as a showroom for new cars, but also offers local users a space to have yoga classes and appreciate artworks. NIO launches NIO EC7, all-new ES8 at NIO Day 2022 At the NIO Day 2022 held on Dec. 24 in Hefei city, capital of Chinas Anhui province, NIO attracted attention of multiple viewers by unveiling two new flagship models, namely, the EC7 coupe-like SUV and the all-new ES8, both of which ride on NIOs second-generation technology platform, the NT2.0. Positioned as a full-sized coupe SUV, the NIO EC7 measures 4,968mm long, 1,974mm wide, and 1,714mm tall, with a wheelbase that spans 2,960mm. Coming with 8 body color solutions, it is scheduled for delivery in May next year. Batavia, NY (14020) Today Sunny along with a few clouds. High 81F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Mainly cloudy. Low around 55F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. In the recently ended 2022, Chinese automobile group, Chery Holding, laid out several ambitious development trails as part of the efforts to land a stronger foothold in the new era of the automotive industry. Photo credit: Chery Holding Attributable to a slew of new vehicle models hitting the market during the past year, Chery Holding saw its annual sales volume and revenue both reach records high. Besides, the auto group initiated its Yaoguang 2025 technological development strategy as well. Under the guidelines of the strategy, Chery Holding plans to invest more than 100 billion yuan in R&D while synchronously deploying six R&D centers in Wuhu, Shanghai, North America, South America, Europe, and Central Asia. Lets review the performance of Chery Holding during the year of 2022. Chery Holding sees 2022 annual sales, revenue hit new high Chery Holding announced on January 6 its sales volume came in at 105,483 vehicles in Dec. 2022, which resulted in an annual sales volume of 1,232,727 vehicles (+28.2% YoY). In the past year, the automaker's remarkable performance brought the company over 200 billion yuan in annual revenue, which is the highest-ever number in Chery's 25 years of development. NavInfo-backed AutoChips to build auto chip lab with Chery Auto NavInfo-backed automotive chip supplier AutoChips has reached cooperation with Chery Auto to jointly build a lab for automotive chips, NavInfo announced on December 30. In a bid to accelerate the R&D progress of auto-grade processors, AutoChips and Chery Auto will use the joint lab as the stepping stone to carry out cooperation in such fields as automotive chip technology, products, market development, and industrial ecosystem integration. Cherys EXEED Yaoguang SUV makes global debut Chery Holdings EXEED brand officially launched its first strategic model in accordance to the automakers 2.0 development approach, namely, the EXEED Yaoguang, on December 27. The significant model is the first production model manufactured at EXEEDs Qingdao super intelligent factory, and is also the first vehicle model that rides on Cherys M3X Mars Architecture 2.0. Along with the debut, blind order of the Yaoguang kicked off at the same time, with a preorder price range of 170,000 yuan-220,000 yuan. CATL, Chery Holding begin all-around strategic cooperation CATL and Chery Holding Group signed a framework agreement on Dec. 14 to carry out all-around strategic cooperation on such fields as products, business affairs, marketing promotion, and business information resources, according to a post on CATL's WeChat account. Under the agreement, the two companies will continue the collaboration on passenger vehicle battery supply and relevant technologies. In addition, the duo will jointly explore areas like public transportation, battery swapping, and the integration of batteries, electric motors and electric control units in such domains as bus, logistics vehicle, heavy-duty truck, and electric ship. Chery Holding inaugurates super factory in Qingdao On November 18, Chery Holding celebrated the inauguration of its super factory located in Jimo District, Qingdao, Shandong Province, and witnessed the factorys first complete vehicle roll off line. The factory is also the first one that has been completed and achieved mass production among all Chery Holdings planned super factory projects in China. Chery Auto eyes foray into UK market in 2026 Chinas major automaker Chery Auto intends to foray into the British market in 2026 with several plug-in hybrid and battery-electric models, said Charlie Zhang Shengshan, executive vice president of Chery International. The vice president said that before the companys entry to the UK market, Chery Auto will firstly establish its presence in other countries in Europe, as well as make its reentrance to the Australian market. Chery Holding launches Yaoguang 2025 strategy Chery Holding showcased its GENE electric concept car and its new technological development strategy, Yaoguang 2025, at the Yaoguang 2025 Chery Technology Day on September 16. On the automakers 25th anniversary, Chery Holding introduced and put in motion its innovative technology development strategy, which consists of four core targeted fields. Chery Holding to build auto part industrial base in Wuhu, Anhui Province On August 22nd, Chery Holdings subsidiary, Wuhu Chery Technology Co., Ltd. (Chery Technology), inked a cooperation agreement to build a joint venture for automotive intelligent electronics in Wuhu, Anhui Province. Per the agreement, Chery Technology and Anhui Shengna Technology will set up a joint venture with an initial investment of 1 billion yuan in constructing an intelligent electronics industrial base in Wanzhi District, Wuhu. The facility is expected to start production by the end of June 2023. Chery OMODA 5 hits market, priced at RMB92,900-RMB126,900 On July 12th, Chery Holding officially put the OMODA 5, the automakers first global-oriented model, onto the market. The OMODA 5 comes with seven trim levels with a price range of RMB92,900-RMB126,900. With the younger generation as targeted clientele, the automaker presented OMODA 5 buyers with lifelong free maintenance service. Chery Holding, Anhui Province launch automotive industrial research institute On February 26th, Chery Holding and the provincial government of Anhui Province officially inaugurated their joint Anhui research institute of new energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles. The research institute is of great importance to Chery Holdings intelligent and electric transportation, with a series of designated labs setting the foundation for Cherys own Nokia Bell Laboratory. Great Wall Motor ("GWM") sold 1,067,523 vehicles in 2022, marking the seventh year in a row to record an annual sales volume exceeding 1 million units. In overseas markets, the company sold 173,180 vehicles through 2022, indicating a 21.28% year-on-year jump. Gasgoo made this report to take you back to the significant moments of Great Wall Motor in 2022. Third-generation Haval H6; photo credit: Haval Great Wall Motor issues price rise on WEY-branded vehicles On April 12th, Great Wall Motor announced that its WEY brand would see a price increase on its coffee lineup by 5,000 yuan-12,000 yuan depending on trims. As same as its previous price increases, Great Wall Motor explained that the adjustments this time are also results of the price hike in raw materials, chips, and core component parts. The price increment would come to effect on April 15th, leaving a three-day grace period for potential consumers. Great Wall Motor's 300,000th POER pickup rolls off assembly line On May 8, Great Wall Motor saw the 300,000th vehicle of the POER series roll off the production line, making POER the first premium pickup marque in China to hit such production milestone. Meanwhile, the trailer version was put onto the market for both POER Commercials and Individuals with a price 2,000 yuan dearer than the all-wheel-drive AT version. Great Wall Motor to launch smart active suspension project in China's Wuxi Great Wall Motor had signed an agreement for an intelligent core parts project, which will involve a total investment of 3.1 billion yuan, the Baoding-based automaker announced on May 10 via its WeChat account. Under the project, facilities that integrate functions of R&D and manufacturing of intelligent active suspension system would be built under the operation of Exquisite Automotive Systems Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of GWM. Great Wall Motor pauses new orders of ORA Black Cat, White Cat for higher-end models On May 11th, in a response to investors, China's major automaker Great Wall Motor disclosed its decision to withhold new orders of the Black Cat and the White Cat models under the ORA brand. The automaker further illustrated that on one hand, the company currently has oozing backlog orders on hand due to the industry-wide crimped raw material supply. At the same time, Great Wall Motor is gathering its resources to promote new and more premium ORA models in regards of market debut and mass production. Great Wall Motor's TANK 300 debarks in Saudi Arabia Great Wall Motor's signature TANK brand had officially debarked overseas with the TANK 300 hitting the market in Saudi Arabia on July 3rd. The Chinese automaker held a grand event at the KAFD in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, celebrating the launch of the TANK 300 while showcasing the TANK 500. Great Wall Motor said that the group's overseas sales volume had reached the one-million-unit milestone. GWM's ORA Ballet Cat starts at 193,000 yuan The ORA Ballet Cat, a new small-sized BEV model under Great Wall Motor's ORA brand, formally hit the market on July 12. Coming with four trim levels, the new model is priced at 193,000 yuan to 223,000 yuan after subsidies. The retro-inspired Ballet Cat features horseshoe-like headlights and chrome-plated front bumper. Great Wall Motor's general manager resigns General manager of Great Wall Motor, Wang Fengying, resigned from her current position due to work adjustments, and her position would be filled by Mu Feng, another executive of the company. According to Great Wall Motor's announcement issued on July 24, its board of directors had received a written resignation report from Wang Fengying, and approved the notion of appointing Mu Feng as her successor. After the adjustments, Wang Fengying would continue to work in the strategic management of the company. Great Wall Motor enters Hong Kong, Macau via cooperation with Inchcape Group On Aug. 2, Great Wall Motor inked a proxy authorization agreement with car dealership Inchcape Group to explore the new energy vehicle market of Hong Kong and Macau. New energy vehicles have great potential in the Hong Kong and Macau markets. Great Wall Motor planned to break into the markets with its new energy vehicle brand ORA's right rudder vehicle models. Great Wall Motor teams up with Emil Frey to distribute cars in Europe In early Aug., Great Wall Motor signed an agreement with Emil Frey, a European car dealer, to distribute ORA and WEY-branded vehicles in Europe. According to GWM's press release, both parties would co-work on marketing business for the first two models to enter the German market, the WEY Coffee 01 plug-in hybrid SUV and the ORA Good Cat all-electric car. Great Wall Holdings to build semiconductor manufacturing base in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province On Aug. 16th, Great Wall Holdings inked a contract to build the headquarters and a perovskite base for UtmoLight, the automakers spin-off company, as well as a manufacturing base for HYCET Technology's 3rd-generation semiconductors in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. The automaker signed an agreement with local authorities of Wuxi's Xishan Economic & Technological Development Zone to pour 3 billion yuan in the UtmoLight project. The new headquarters and perovskite innovation industrial base would take up 156 mu of land (Chinese acres), housing the world's first GW-grade perovskite photovoltaic module and BIPV production line. The production line of perovskite quantum dot would feature a production capacity of 100 tonnes per year. The automaker expected to see an annual production value of 2.5 billion yuan after the base become up and running. Great Wall Motor's Haval brand to fully halt oil-fueled vehicle sales by 2030 Haval, an SUV-dedicated brand of Great Wall Motor, would ban the sales of oil-fueled vehicles by 2030, GWM said on August 22 at the new energy strategy launch conference held for the Haval brand. At the same time, Li Xiaorui, general manager of Haval brand, revealed that new energy vehicles would account for 80% of the brand's overall auto sales by 2025. Great Wall Holdings, Delong Group, Liben Energy inks agreement to build hydrogen ecosystem On Sept. 13, Great Wall Holdings Group Limited, Shanghai Delong Steel Group (Delong Group), and Tianjin Liben Energy Technology Co., Ltd. ("Liben" is Chinese Pinyin) signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly build a global-leading hydrogen industrial ecosystem, according to a post on WeChat account of Great Wall Motor. Under the agreement, the three parties would conduct all-round strategic cooperation in such fields as hydrogen equipment, hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, production and transportation of gaseous and liquid hydrogen, hydrogen-refueling station construction, zero-carbon logistics, photovoltaic power generation, and carbon trade. Great Wall Motor inks memo for KD assembly in Kazakhstan Great Wall Motor had inked a KD assembly (knocked-down) cooperation intention memorandum with the company's partner in Kazakhstan, Astana Motors, the automaker announced on Sept. 22 via its WeChat account, marking a milestone in the Chinese automaker's deployment in the local market. The memorandum laid a solid foundation for a deeper cooperation between the two sides is also another important breakthrough for Great Wall Motor to steadily advance its globalization strategy. Through KD assembly, Great Wall Motor would further enhance its competitiveness in the Kazakhstani market. It would also bring affordable cars to local consumers and stimulate the potential of the local auto market. Great Wall Motor's Haval puts first NEV model onto market On Sept. 28, Haval, an SUV-dedicated brand of Great Wall Motor, put the third-generation Haval H6 DHT-PHEV onto the market as its first new energy vehicle model. Coming with three trim levels, the new PHEV model features a post-subsidy price range of 159,800 yuan to 173,800 yuan. Great Wall Motor puts HAVAL H6 PHEV onto Thai market Great Wall Motor saw its HAVAL H6 PHEV officially go on sale in Thailand on October 7, according to the automakers announcement. The model hit the Chinese market on September 28, with Thailand being its first overseas stop. According to Great Wall Motor, the H6 PHEV would be delivered to local Thai customers from mid-November. Great Wall Motor to set up new semiconductor company Great Wall Motor announced on October 22 its plan to incorporate a semiconductor joint venture which would involve a registered capital of 50 million yuan. To be named Xindong Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd., the company would have three listed shareholders, namely Great Wall Motor, Wei Jianjun (chairman of Great Wall Motor), and Wensheng Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary directly held by Wei Jianjun), which would subscribe for 10 million yuan, 5 million yuan, and 35 million yuan of the registered capital, respectively. Great Wall Motor announces foray into Philippine market On October 26, Great Wall Motor reached a partnership with major Philippine auto dealership, Luxuriant Automotive Group Inc., to promote its vehicles in the Philippine market. The partnership specifies that building on the traits of the local auto market, the two companies will jointly explore innovative distribution channels and the service models depending on Philippine users demands. With users in mind, the duo would introduce Great Wall Motors cutting-edge technologies, products, and ideas to the local market, bringing automotive products and services with higher quality to promote the Philippine auto industry transformation and upgrading. Great Wall Motor partners with China Mobile for automotive informatization advancement Great Wall Motor on October 26 inked a strategic cooperation agreement with telecom service provider, China Mobile, for informatization advancement in the automotive fields. According to the agreement, the two parties would conduct in-depth cooperation in intelligent connectivity, high-precision positioning, C-V2X, big data, onboard content, and other intelligent connected vehicle aspects. The duo aimed to actively promote the innovative pilot application of 5G-enabled factories, broaden cooperation in the field of enterprise informatization, speed up the application of integrated mobility services, and explore cooperation in the field of capital. Great Wall Motor's TANK 300 to hit Iraqi market soon Great Wall Motor showcased its TANK 300 signature off-roader at the 46th Baghdad International Fair in Iraq which was held in early November. The debut of the TANK 300 signified the TANK brand's foray into the Iraqi market, as the model will hit the local market in the near future. Aside from the TANK 300, Great Wall Motor also put on display several models under the HAVAL, TANK, and GWM Pickup brands. Great Wall Motor launches NEV-dedicated brand 'GWM' in Brazil Great Wall Motor held a ceremony in Brazil on Nov. 23 local time to launch the brand "GWM" in this country, indicating a milestone in the company's global promotion of its new energy vehicles. Positioned as a burgeoning "clean and intelligent" automobile brand, GWM in Brazil was expected to reshape the relation between human and vehicles, and offer futuristic technologies to local consumers through innovations in both products and marketing models. The brand tagline "Hello Tomorrow" conveys the brand philosophy of bringing future experience to consumers. GWM's Haval H6 HEV hits market in Pakistan Great Wall Motor's Haval H6 HEV has already gone on sale in the Pakistani market, the Chinese biggest SUV manufacturer said on Nov. 23 via its WeChat account. The launch of the Haval H6 HEV, which is the first HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) model assembled locally in Pakistan, marks an important milestone in GWM's deployment in the Pakistani new energy vehicle (NEV) market and a significant step towards the company's implementation of its global strategy. Great Wall Motor revamps brand architecture by merging ORA & Shalong, WEY & TANK Great Wall Motor revamped its auto brand architecture as a means to better serve the market, according to information obtained by Gasgoo on December 8. The adjustments involved a deep integration of Great Wall Motor's brands, reinforcing the companys competitiveness in the electric and premium market segments. 14.9 Billion of UK Spending on Unused COVID-19 Supplies Written Off in 2 Years NHS workers in PPE take a patient with an unknown condition from an ambulance at St Thomas' Hospital in London on April 10, 2020. (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images) The UK government has written off 14.9 billion ($18.5 billion) of spending on COVID-19 medical supplies which remain unused, Britains public spending watchdog has revealed. In its report into the accounts of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), published on Jan. 26, the National Audit Office (NAO) said that the UK governments losses on personal protection equipment (PPE) and other items procured during the COVID-19 pandemic were higher than previously announced. According to the report, the DHSC estimates that in 20212022, there was a 6 billion reduction in the value of items procured in response to the pandemic. According to the NAO, the DHSC said the financial reduction in pandemic-procured goods included a 2.5 billion write-down on items originally costing 11.2 billion. The department had already purchased the goodsincluding PPE, lateral flow, and PCR testing kits, along with COVID-19 vaccines and medicinesbut no longer expects to use them, or the market price is now lower than that paid. A further 3.5 billion was a write-down on PPE, vaccines, and medication which the DHSC has committed to purchase, but no longer expects to use. Taken together with the 8.9 billion written-down in its 202021 accounts, over the last two financial years, DHSC has now reported 14.9 billion of write-down costs related to PPE and other items, the NAO said. The DHSC estimates that ongoing storage and disposal costs for its excess and unusable PPE will be 319 million. At the end of March 2022, the estimated monthly spending on storing PPE was 24 million. Staggering Losses The main opposition Labour Party has attempted to put the blame partly on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, pointing out that he was chancellor of the Exchequer while the expenditure on medical garments, face coverings, and other items took place. Wes Streeting, Labours shadow health secretary, said it was staggering that 14.9 billion had been wasted. The Conservatives can never again claim to be the careful stewards of the public finances, he said. While Rishi Sunak had control of the purse strings, a staggering 15 billion of public money was wasted on useless PPEenough to fund the police force for an entire year. Instead, that money is now literally going up in smoke. Taxpayers will rightly judge the carelessness with which the Conservatives treat their money to be an absolute scandal. But the government said it is misleading to say that 14.9 billon of taxpayers money has been wasted. A government spokeswoman said: In the face of an unprecedented pandemic, we had to compete in an overheated global market to procure items to protect the public, frontline health and care workers, and our NHS (National Health Service). Buying vital COVID vaccines and medicines also helped save countless lives and keep NHS and care staff safe. Our approach meant that we were the first country in the world to deploy an approved COVID vaccine, with 144 million doses administered, and we have delivered over 25 billion items of PPE to the front line. Significant Shortcomings The NAO also found significant shortcomings in financial control and governance at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). As a result, officials said comptroller and auditor general Gareth Davies was unable to provide an audit opinion on the bodys accounts for the financial year, instead issuing what is known as a disclaimer of opinion. The UKHSA, a government agency set up to replace Public Health England (PHE) in 2021, was responsible for testing the population and tracing potential variants of concern during the pandemic. Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee in the House of Commons, said: It is astonishing and unacceptable that the UK Health Security Agencyan agency within DHSC that absorbed the work of Test and Tracecould not provide the National Audit Office with enough information to carry out its 202122 audit. Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent, including on Test and Trace. The NAO said critical elements of internal control were not in place during UKHSAs first six months, with the lack of formal governance arrangements exposing it to a high level of risk. Davies, head of the NAO, said: Even taking into account the challenging context, it is unacceptable that UKHSA has not been able to produce auditable accounts and provide the transparency and assurance that Parliament needs. When setting up new bodies, it is essential that basic governance arrangements are put in place. DHSC and UKHSA must work with HM Treasury to get on track to produce auditable accounts. UKHSA chief executive Dame Jenny Harries said they accepted the NAOs findings and were treating them very seriously. The UKHSA was created in unprecedented circumstances and tackling COVID-19 was our first priority, she said. We have already made good progress and are now substantially different in terms of stability, governance, and financial controls. We will be working closely with DHSC to ensure our future accounts are more robust. PA Media contributed to this report. 25 States Sue Biden Admin Over Rule Allowing 401(k) Managers to Put Savings Into ESG Funds The United States Flag and Texas State Flag are displayed at Murchison Rogers Park in El Paso, Texas, on June 24, 2021. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images) A coalition of 25 states is suing the Biden administration over a Department of Labor (DOL) rule that affects millions of retirement accounts, the attorneys general of multiple states involved in the lawsuit announced on Wednesday. The new rule set to take effect on Jan. 30 allows 401(k) managers to invest clients money in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) funds, a move that 25 states argue violates the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). According to the lawsuit, the rule puts at risk the retirement savings accounts of 152 million workers, or two-thirds of the U.S. population, totaling $12 trillion in assets, in the name of promoting the Biden administrations climate agenda. It does this, the states argue, by making changes to the rule that authorizes fund managers (fiduciaries) to consider and promote nonpecuniary benefits (benefits not related to money or financial gain) when making investment decisions. Contrary to Congresss clear intent, these changes make it easier for fiduciaries to act with mixed motives. They also make it harder for beneficiaries to police such conduct, the lawsuit states (pdf). The 25 states argue in the lawsuit that the Supreme Court concluded that ERISA requires fund managers to put the financial benefits of investments first and not any nonpecuniary benefits. The lawsuit also contends that the high court directly tied the term benefits to income and doesnt cover nonpecuniary benefits. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG). (Deemerwha studio/Shutterstock) ESG Investment Strategies Impose a Leftist Social and Economic Agenda Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said ESG investment strategies are not designed to maximize financial returns for clients. Rather, they have been concocted entirely to impose a leftist social and economic agenda that cannot otherwise be implemented through the ballot box, he said in a statement on Wednesday. ESG funds generally invest in companies that oppose fossil fuels, support unionization, and stress gender and racial diversity over merit, even if it results in a lower return for the client. ERISA is in place to safeguard American workers retirement savings and ensure that fund managers make investments with the highest potential return for their clients. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita speaks in Schererville, Ind., on Nov. 8, 2022. (Darron Cummings/AP Photo) Rokita has been a vocal critic of ESG investing and has taken several actions to combat it, including issuing an official advisory opinion clarifying that Indiana and its investment managers must prioritize the financial interests of state employees and retirees, refraining from using investment strategies guided or influenced by ESG considerations. The Indiana attorney general said hes also investigating three of the largest investment managers, saying that woke big businesses are collaborating with their leftist allies to subvert the will of the people. Thats contrary to the letter and spirit of the law, he said. The 25 states participating in the lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. States Argue the Rule Harms The states argue that the new rule will lead to a decrease in specific tax revenue from retirement distributions, thereby causing a loss of tax revenue for the states. Further, the states claim the rule will harm the economic well-being of their residents and will result in reduced investment in the fossil fuel industry, which will decrease revenue, employment, and overall economic activity because several of the states, such as Louisiana, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming, have significant oil and gas deposits. Some impacts from reduced investment in the fossil fuel industry will be difficult or impossible to reverse, such that the harm is irreparable, the lawsuit states. Even if those impacts could be reduced to monetary harm, damages resulting from the 2022 Rule are presumably not recoverable as a result of the federal governments sovereign immunity, such that those damages would be an irreparable harm. Flared natural gas is burned off at Apache Corporations operations at the Deadwood natural gas plant in the Permian Basin, Garden City, Texas on Feb. 5, 2015. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the new rule an affront to every American concerned about their retirement account. The fact that the Biden Administration is now opting to risk the financial security of working-class Americans to advance a woke political agenda is insulting and illegal, he said in a statement on Wednesday. For generations, federal law has required that fiduciaries place their clients financial interests at the forefront, and I intend to fight the Biden Administration in court to ensure that they cannot put hard-working Americans retirement savings at risk. Rule Change President Joe Biden issued executive orders in January and May 2021 directing government agencies to review regulations put in place by the Trump administration, including those on ESG investments. The DOL began reviewing the 2020 regulations on ESG investments in March 2021 and announced it would not enforce them during the review. The DOL proposed a new rule change in October 2021, which the lawsuit argues is different from the 2020 regulation in several ways. The new rule eliminates the objective pecuniary/nonpecuniary standard in the 2020 rule and instead formally incorporates subjective ESG concepts into the ERISA regulations, according to the lawsuit. In addition, the new rule doesnt provide any definition or advice on what constitutes an ESG factor. The new rule also undermines a fund managers prudence obligations, the lawsuit claims. Instead of focusing on an investments risk and return, a fund manager could consider the economic effects of climate change and other ESG factors in their analysis of the particular investment or investment course of action. Citing the preamble to the new rule, the lawsuit states that the new rule tells fund managers to consider multiple factors when analyzing the risk and return of investments, such as the potential risks and opportunities related to climate change, the makeup of a companys leadership, and the companys efforts toward diversity and inclusion within their workforce. The Epoch Times contacted the DOL for comment. 8 Confirmed Dead in Ship Sinking Off Japan and South Korea A South Korea coast guard vessel conducts a search operation in waters between South Korea and Japan on Jan. 25, 2023. (The Korea Coast Guard via AP) BEIJINGA Chinese official said Thursday that eight people have died in the sinking of a cargo ship in waters between Japan and South Korea. Lyu Guijun, the consul general in the western Japanese city of Fukuoka, told state broadcaster CGTN that six of the eight victims were Chinese. There were 22 crew members14 from China and eight from Burma (also known as Myanmar)on the 6,551-ton Jin Tian. It sank early Wednesday about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Nagasaki, Japan. A rescue boat in waters between South Korea and Japan on Jan. 25, 2023. (The 7th Regional Japan Coast Guard Headquarters via AP) Five of the crew have been rescued, including four Chinese, Lyu said. Another eight or nine remain missing, according to varying reports. Maritime transport websites said the vessel left Malaysias Port Klang on Dec. 3 and was headed for South Koreas Incheon port. The Hong Kong-registered ship was carrying lumber. A Proposal to Resolve the Health-Care Deadlock in Canada Commentary The provinces say they need more federal money for health. The federal government says it wants to be assured of improved outcomes first. In my view, adding money, even with various provinces and metrics, is not going to be sufficient. We will still have huge problems with inadequate staff, waiting lists, procedures that are simply not offered, lack of innovation, and other problems. The system cannot be fixed within the rigidities imposed by federal policy that does not allow the provinces enough room to provide the best mix of public and private payment. Almost all other developed countries allow for a reasonable mix. We in Canada have to find our own hybrid. Otherwise, we will continue the paradox: Compared to many other countries, on a per capita basis we pay more and get less. Let me propose a way forward for Canada. The idea is to seek an approach that can be widely agreed upon from people with different political views, beliefs, and practical experiences. It would invite decision-making based on evidence, not ideology. First, the Canada Health Act must permit more room for experimentation and innovation by provincial governments. Federalism is a fundamental value of Canada. Provinces have primary authority over health-care delivery. In different provinces, new ideas can be formulated and tested. They may involve some options where patients pay themselves, directly or through private insurance. We can see what works and what does not. The federal medicare legislation was inspired by the introduction of public insurance in Saskatchewan. Second, the flexibility permitted by Health Canada could be guided by the mutual reinforcement principle. More private-pay options will be permitted to the extent that a provincial government has reasonably determined that it will not harm the quality, timeliness, and accessibility of the publicly insured system. The standard is a private-pay option can be permitted or facilitated by a provincial government if it does not damage, and preferably promotes, the publicly insured system. So, the current publicly insured system remains the starting point. The aim is to make it as good as it can be in terms of accessibility, quality, timeliness, efficiency, and outcomes, given all the other constraints on public spending. But the provinces would be permitted to explore whether some private-pay options would in fact (not merely under ideological presumptions) improve the publicly insured system. For example, in some circumstances, it might make sense to permit a physician to practice in both the mainstream (that is, publicly funded) and also in their own private-pay clinic. If the two roles are properly coordinated, the physician might end up doing more procedures overall and reduce the demand on the mainstream system. The private-pay clinic might be a space where, in response to provider creativity and patient preference, innovation takes place that will eventually be incorporated into the mainstream system. Some freedom to practice outside of the mainstream system might encourage the physician to remain in Canada or attract other physicians to locate here. Patients who might otherwise seek care outside of the country might instead keep their practices here, and the taxes from their private practice could help support the mainstream system. You can propose other scenarios in which the private-pay option damages the mainstream system. For example, in some circumstances, it could result in fewer overall procedures being done in the mainstream system. In other scenarios, you might show that the existence of the private-pay option is substantially reducing voter or government enthusiasm for maintaining and improving the mainstream system. The key point is that increased freedom and flexibility for provincial regulators, for providers, and especially for patients would not be ruled out or ruled in by a reformed federal policy. Instead, there would be a standard: Does an innovation help in some ways and either improve, or at least not hurt, the mainstream system? There would be requirements for applying that standard. Particular innovations would be introduced and monitored on a transparent and evidence-based method, not on the basis of rigid ideology. An analogy is relevant. It is widely accepted that economic development and environmental improvement can reinforce each other. There is no guarantee, however, that this is always the case. Instead, provinces and the federal government both do environmental assessments. Evidence is reviewed to ensure that a particular development is not in fact likely to harm the environment. A more flexible federal framework couldat least initiallyinclude additional safeguards. Private-pay options might initially be limited to certain kinds of procedures or operations such as diagnostics, hip-replacements, and other such elective surgeries. It is not an exaggeration to say that the rigidity of the current system is having a significant effect on some citizens quality of life and in some cases, even life itself. We can now proceed in a way that is evidence-based and reconciles different value systems. The current stifling of debate and policy innovation is causing deadly consequences for Canadians. We can do much, much better for everyone in need. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Top book recommendations to be prepared for any emergency I once read a true story of a crew of rescuers searching for a lost hiker. After hours of searching, they finally found the mans body, leaning against a tree, surrounded by the contents of his well-equipped backpack. He had everything he needed to survive, yet must have lacked the skills to use them for his survival. Likewise, your home library may be filled with survival manuals of all kinds, but which of those will be most user-friendly and practical should you ever need that knowledge in a crisis? Browse through Amazon, and youll find thousands of books on every survival and prepping topic known. I know because I have that type of library! Over the years, though, only a dozen or so books stand out as worthy of reading and containing reliable knowledge anyone can use. So along with my nonfiction recommendations, Ive also included three additional books that demonstrate through historic examples how important it is to have the skills, supplies, and knowledge to survive in extreme situations. Top Survival Books Homesteading has become a trendy buzzword across the internet, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic as more and more people moved away from urban centers and toward more self-reliant lifestyles. This attractively designed book contains simple instructions, illustrations, tips, and charts to make it easier to find ways to create your own small homestead to grow food, raise small livestock, and tackle numerous projects, including homemade cider and pickling. Storing food for emergencies goes hand in hand with learning how to preserve food for long-term storage. Canning has become increasingly popular again over the past decade, and in this handy guide, Diane Devereaux, known as The Canning Diva, teaches the basics of both water bath and pressure canning along with some of her signature canning recipes. Food storage involves far more than canned food and beans. In this book, Paskett takes a deep dive into the science and art of creating a food storage system for your family that will remain nutritious and flavorful for decades. Theres no need to plan on bland meals of rice and beans with her instructions for family-pleasing meals that are food-storage friendly. Included are practical tips for keeping all that food organized, which is no easy matter! One way to create self-reliance in your life is to learn about herbal medicine for everyday ailments. In this book, Sam Coffman has compiled an in-depth guide that combines his knowledge and training as a Special Forces medic with decades of working with herbs as medicine. This book features dozens of charts and illustrations that take the mystery out of herbalism. Learn which herbal remedies to use for various ailments and injuries in this easy-to-use reference book. A medical emergency can happen anywhere and often doesmiles from a hospital or doctor. This nearly 700-page manual is written and illustrated for the person without a medical background who wants to be ready in case a loved one needs help. Learn what supplies youll need and how to use them, along with dozens of medical scenarios, from respiratory issues to dental emergencies, treating burns and minor wounds, and much more. Authored by yours truly, this family survival manual was written by a mom, specifically for moms. Its a comprehensive survival guide that provides instructions for managing such mundane things as dirty laundry during a power outage and keeping the kids occupied and calm during a traffic jam. In addition, learn how to put together a survival pantry of family-favorite meals, maintain situational awareness and security at home and when out and about, how to purify water, and where and how to pinch pennies to extend the family budget. As founder of the OffGrid Survival website, Robert Richardson has written the common mans guide to recognizing, preparing for, and surviving many of the dangers that confront us today. One of the most helpful features of this practical manual is its focus on individual situational awareness, which, on its own, can make the difference between life and death. In addition, learn about natural disaster survival and similar emergencies, how to prepare for job loss, economic threats, and how to prep on a budget. Historic Survivors In A Fortunate Life, Australian author A.B. Facey tells the story of his difficult upbringing in the outback of Australia, marked by poverty, physical suffering, and separation from family. At just 8 years old, Facey had to get a job to support himself and provide income for his family. The young boy encounters a range of employers, some kind and some cruel. In addition to his struggles as a child and then as a young man, Facey also experienced the horrors of war, serving in the trenches during the battle of Gallipoli and losing his son, Barney, in World War II. This autobiography is told in such a matter-of-fact way, without bitterness or complaining, that its heartwarming, inspiring, and hard to put down. Most people know of Theodore Roosevelt as Americas 26th president, but few know about his exploits as an adventurer and explorer. In this book by Candice Millard, the reader follows Roosevelts footsteps as he recovers from losing the presidential election of 1912 and then decides to tackle an even bigger challenge. The River of Doubt, now known as the Rio Roosevelt, was uncharted, flowing through the deepest parts of the Amazon. The Roosevelt expedition was the first time non-Amazonian natives had traversed the river, and the odds were high against their safe return. Almost immediately, the team runs into unimaginable difficulties, including a 900-mile trek to get to the river itself, a quartermaster who unwisely packs such luxury foods as wine and olive oil, starvation, disease, and the loss of numerous expedition members. Roosevelt himself nearly dies when an injury became infected. The authors meticulous research and details provide a richly illustrative background to the adventure itself. The Great American Dust Bowl is overshadowed in most peoples memory by the Great Depression. Yet in terms of human misery, the Dust Bowl region compounded unimaginable hardship alongside devastating financial losses. Due to drought and poor farming practices, from 1931 to 1939, massive dust storms, at times reaching more than a mile into the sky, were a daily occurrence. These storms could last for hours, and in some cases, dust was carried from this region and found as far away as New York City and Washington, D.C. Egan puts a human face on this environmental devastation by including the true stories of people who lived and endured through it, along with enough background information to help us understand the political and economic policies that exacerbated this disaster. Its a fascinating and sometimes disturbing read, reminding us of the incredible hardships our grandparents and great-grandparents endured. A State Election With National Political Implications The Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison houses both chambers of the Wisconsin State Legislature, which convenes its 2023 session Jan. 4 along with Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. (Carol M. Highsmith via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain) A Wisconsin statewide election campaignwith the primary set for Feb. 21 and the general election vote for Apr. 4is attracting the keen interest of political operatives from across the country and bringing in piles of cash to support the candidates. In this battleground state, there is much at stake in the outcome to fill an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with the next court expected to hear cases on the highly contentious and emotional issue of abortion and also on legislative redistricting, voting law, and public employee collective bargaining and pension reform. Decisions that the court hands down may influence voter interest in and turnout for the 2024 presidential election. Republican Party of Wisconsin Chairman Brian Schimming, who worked in the administrations of Wisconsin GOP governors Tommy Thompson, Scott McCallum, and Scott Walker, and served as chief of staff to Wisconsin Assembly Speaker David Prosser, knows Wisconsin politics. Ive been involved in government and politics in Madison and at the Capitol since the 1980s, and this election is one of the most consequential ever in Wisconsin, said Schimming in a conversation with The Epoch Times. There are several cases of major consequence that could come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in which it may take jurisdiction of original action and settle law for Wisconsin. Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, speaking to media outlet Urban Milwaukee about the money being spent in the election, said, The previous record for a judicial race in the nation was $15 million. This is likely to cost much more, tens of millions of dollars. If any election certifies the accuracy of legendary U.S. House Speaker Tip ONeills famous adage, All politics is local, this is it. A Slim Conservative Majority Over the past 10 years, conservatives have held a 43 majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court (SCOWIS). The race is to fill a seat that has opened with the decision of Justice Patience Roggensack, a reliable conservative vote, not to seek reelection. Roggensack is finishing up her second consecutive 10-year term. Over the past two years, almost always voting in unison have been Roggensack and fellow conservative justices Chief Justice Annette Ziegler and Justice Rebecca Bradley. Justice Brian Hagedorn leans right but sometimes votes with the courts three liberals: Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Justice Rebecca Dallet, and Justice Jill Karofsky. 4 Candidates Running Four candidates are vying for the SCOWIS seattwo conservatives and two liberals. Candidates for the court do not run aligned with a political party, even as their political leaning and ideology are well known. The top two vote-getters in the primary move on to the general election. Therefore, in theory, the fate of the next Wisconsin Supreme Court may be decided in the primary. Conservative candidates are Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow and former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, who served on the court from 2016 through 2020. Liberals running for the seat are Judge Everett Mitchell, who presides over a branch of the Juvenile Division of Dane County Circuit Court, and Judge Janet Protasiewicz of the Wisconsin Family Court. A Lot on the Line Central to this Badger State election being so highly consequential is the gridlock between its executive and legislative branches. Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, jousts with the states legislature, which Republicans solidly control, with the GOP holding 67 percent of seats in the Senate and 64 percent of seats in the Assembly. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, speaks on Labor Day at Henry Maier Festival Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., September 5, 2022. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters) Republicans presently hold a two-thirds majority, a supermajority, in the Senate and are in a position to gain a supermajority in the Assembly. If the GOP achieved a supermajority in the Assembly, it would hold the power to override the governors veto and introduce and pass almost any bill it wants. As well, of urgent concern for the Democrats, with Wisconsin so close to a GOP veto-proof majority, is that Republicans already control most of the nations state houses. Democrats allege that the grip the GOP holds on the legislature, in a solidly purple state where voters ranks are fairly evenly split in Democratic and Republican party affiliation, is owed to extreme partisan gerrymandering that the GOP-controlled legislature was able to put through. The next court will almost certainly hear a challenge to the states near-total ban on abortion, passed in 1849, and which went back into effect with the Supreme Courts striking down Roe v. Wade; a revisiting of Act 10, the 2011 law stewarded by Gov. Walker that limited the ability of public employees to collectively bargain and required them to pay more into their pensions and healthcare plans. As well, with Democrats not inclined to abandon their charge that the GOP engaged in an overly partisan drawing of the legislative map, the chances are high that the court will hear a redistricting case. Wounds are still raw from the 2020 contest of wills in which Gov. Evers vetoed the legislatures redistricting map and then used an executive order to create his own commission, which drew a map that went under review at the SCOWIS and was then forwarded to the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS said it would not hear the case, and sent it back to the Wisconsin court. With the redistricting map matter again before it, SCOWIS ruled that the state would follow the legislatures map for state Senate and Assembly elections, and follow the map that the governors commission created for congressional races. Candidate Backgrounds On her campaign website, Judge Dorow states, First and foremost, I am a judicial conservative who will not legislate from the bench and that she was elected multiple terms to the Waukesha Supreme Court by constituents who depend on me and look to me to uphold constitutional enforcement of laws. She graduated from Marquette University and Regent College of Law. Justice Kelly is described, in a campaign statement, as a judicial constitutionalist. He was appointed in 2016 to the Wisconsin Supreme Court by then-Gov. Walker. He lost the seat in 2020 to Jill Karofsky. Kelly has experience as a litigator, a law clerk, and a special prosecutor. He earned a bachelors degree from Carroll College (now Carroll University), and his law degree from Regent University School of Law. Judge Mitchell graduated from Morehouse College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. He serves as Senior Pastor at Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Madison and as an adjunct professor at Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where he teaches Race, Racism, and the Law and Foundational Principles of the Juvenile Justice System.. Judge Protasiewicz is way out in front in fundraising. Indeed, she made a $700,000 media buy. A focus of the advertising is the judge declaring her support for pro-abortion policy. Protasiewicz, who served as an assistant district attorney for more than 25 years, holds a bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a law degree from Marquette University. After graduating from Marquette University, she worked as an adjunct law professor at the school. ACLU Backs Trumps Reinstatement on Facebook: This Is the Right Call The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) defended Metas decision to allow former President Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram, saying that it is appropriate for the public to have wider access to messaging from one of the most popular political candidates in the country. This is the right call. Like it or not, President Trump is one of the countrys leading political figures and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech, wrote the ACLU, a group that has increasingly shifted leftward in recent years, on Twitter in response to a New York Times article about Trumps reinstatement. Jameel Jaffer, the head of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and a former American Civil Liberties Union official, also defended the move. Previously, Jaffer said he supported social media platforms ban on Trumps accounts. This is the right callnot because the former president has any right to be on the platform but because the public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office, he said in a statement Wednesday. Its better if the major social media platforms err on the side of leaving speech up, even if the speech is offensive or false, so that it can be addressed by other users and other institutions. And the ACLUs executive director, Anthony Romero, said the Mark Zuckerberg-operated Meta was making a good call by having Trump return. Indeed, some of Trumps most offensive social media posts ended up being critical evidence in lawsuits filed against him and his administration. And we should knowwe filed over 400 legal actions against him. While the government cannot force platforms to carry certain speech, that doesnt mean the largest platforms should engage in political censorship, Romero said in a statement to news outlets this week. The biggest social media companies are central actors when it comes to our collective ability to speakand hear the speech of othersonline. They should err on the side of allowing a wide range of political speech, even when it offends, he added. Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Free Press, and other groups also expressed concern Wednesday over Facebooks ability to prevent any future attacks on the democratic process, with Trump still repeating his false claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. On Wednesday, a Meta official, Nick Clegg, wrote that Trumps accounts on the two social media platforms will be reinstated. With the move, it allows the former president and 2024 presidential candidate to fundraise on both Facebook and Instagram, where he had tens of millions of followers. Like any other Facebook or Instagram user, Mr. Trump is subject to our Community Standards. In light of his violations, he now also faces heightened penalties for repeat offensespenalties which will apply to other public figures whose accounts are reinstated from suspensions related to civil unrest under our updated protocol, Clegg said. But if Trump posts so-called violating content, it will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation, Clegg added. Trump Responds Trump has not publicly indicated whether he plans to use either Facebook or Instagram. If he does, its not clear in what capacity. For months now, Trump has favored his own platform, Truth Social, and has claimed his engagement and reach are superior to when he was using Twitter. In previous interviews, the former president has signaled that he wont return to Twitter in favor of Truth Social. Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a panel talk at the 2020 Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 15, 2020. (Johannes Simon/Getty Images) In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, after Metas announcement, Trump wrote that Meta has lost billions of dollars in recent years due to what he described as a questionable business decisions to deplatform his accounts in early 2021. Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution! Trump wrote in response to Metas announcement. THANK YOU TO TRUTH SOCIAL FOR DOING SUCH AN INCREDIBLE JOB. YOUR GROWTH IS OUTSTANDING, AND FUTURE UNLIMITED!!! Trump was reinstated on Twitter by new owner Elon Musk last year. The former commander-in-chief, however, hasnt used the account and its not clear when he will. Days after the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other platforms moved in concert to suspend Trumps accounts. Reuters contributed to this report. Chinas electric vehicle startup, Leapmotor, sailed through a celebratory year in 2022. The startup filed and was approved for a public listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Photo credit: Leapmotor In a bid to reach a higher-end of market segment, Leapmotor, whose mainstay vehicle model was the T03 mini EV (targeting the below-100,000-yuan market), put a premium electric sedan, the C01 (targeting the 200,000-300,000 yuan market), on the market. Moreover, the EV startup introduced its latest CTC (cell-to-chassis) technology, which was firstly deployed onto the C01 sedan. Additionally, the Chinese auto startup disembarked in Israel as a demonstration of the companys global ambition. Here is a list of Leapmotors top events occurred during 2022. Leapmotor C11's range-extended version to be delivered from Q1 2023 Chinas new energy vehicle startup Leapmotor announced on December 20 that the range-extended version of the C11 will be delivered in the first quarter of 2023. Currently, Leapmotor C11 only has an all-electric version on the market. The mid-sized pure-electric SUV features a maximum battery capacity of 90kWh, allowing an NEDC range of up to 600km. The full-electric C11 is priced at 179,800 yuan to 229,800 yuan. Leapmotor celebrates opening of first three overseas stores in Israel Chinas new energy vehicle startup Leapmotor celebrated the grand opening of its first overseas stores in Israel, marking another step forward of the startups global deployment. To be specific, Leapmotor set up two city showrooms and one shopping mall store in Israel. The first store is located in Tel Aviv, the country's second largest city. The store offers a wide range of display models with rich stock vehicles, which can meet consumers' demands for same-day orders and instant pickup. Leapmotors Q3 revenue soars 398.5% YoY with gross margin improving The HK-listed Chinese new energy vehicle startup, Leapmotor, saw its revenue in the third quarter of 2022 leap roughly 400% year over year, according to the company's financial report on November 14. In the Jul.-Sept. period, Leapmotor brought in a quarterly revenue of 4.29 billion yuan, representing a 398.5% soar year on year, and a 38.8% jump over the previous quarter. In the period, the company's gross margin reached negative 8.9%, which continued to improve, compared to the gross margin of negative 44.5% in Q3 2021, and negative 25.6% in Q2 2022. Faurecia, Leapmotor ally on automotive seating supply chain Faurecia, a company of the world's leading automotive technology group FORVIA, on Sept. 30 inked a strategic cooperation agreement with Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) startup Leapmotor to jointly deploy a sustainable and high-quality automobile seating supply chain. As one of main NEV startups in China, Leapmotor has grasped the in-house design, R&D, and manufacturing capabilities for the core systems and electronic components to intelligent electric vehicles. The NEV maker has already delivered such models as the S01, the T03, the C11, and the C01. On Sept. 29, shares of Leapmotor started trade on Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Leapmotor C01 hits market, starting at 193,800 yuan Chinas electric vehicle startup Leapmotor officially put its latest flagship model, the C01, onto the market on September 28. Coming with five trim levels, which are differentiated only by battery size and electric motor count, the C01 lineup features a post-subsidy price range of 193,800-286,800 yuan. https://autonews.gasgoo.com/china_news/70021411.html Leapmotor's stock to start trading on Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Sept. 29 Chinas electric vehicle startup Leapmotor will be officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 29, with an initial offering price of HK$48 per share. According to the announcement, Leapmotor is offering around 131 million shares globally via the IPO. Net proceeds from the offering are estimated to be approximately HK$6.057 billion, after deducting the expenses of underwriting commissions, fees, and other estimated expenses paid and payable by Leapmotor and assuming that the overallotment is not exercised. Leapmotor sees 100,000th vehicle roll off line On June 28th, Leapmotor saw its 100,000th vehicle roll off the production line, making it the fifth new energy vehicle startup in China to achieve the milestone after NIO, XPeng, Li Auto, and HOZON Auto. As a new comer in the auto industry, Leapmotors first mass production vehicle, the S01, rolled off the production line on June 28th 2019. Exactly three years from the day, its 100,000th vehicles, a C11 performance, came off the production line. Leapmotor said that it only took the company half a year to produce the second 50,000 vehicles. China's EV startup Leapmotor launches CTC technology Chinese EV startup Leapmotor held an online ceremony today to launch the CTC (cell-to-chassis) technology, and said the first mass-produced model to use the technology, the Leapmotor C01, will soon become available for presale. The CTC is the startup's proprietary technology to install the battery module directly on the steel base plate and embed into the vehicle chassis. Using this technology, a battery pack is typically designed, manufactured, and assembled as an independent component in an EV. To be more specific, the battery cells are laid out on a high-strength frame and sealed as modules, and each module will be eventually embedded into a battery pack. Leapmotor files for IPO in Hong Kong Stock Exchange On March 17th, Chinas EV startup, Leapmotor, filed for an IPO in Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), marking the fourth mainland EV maker to start share trading in HKEX. According to the IPO document, Leapmotor plans to use the raised funds on the R&D of intelligent electric vehicles, improving its production capability, and enhancing its brand awareness. Alabama Legislators Propose Bill to Ban the Teaching of Divisive Concepts The Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on May 15, 2019. (Julie Bennett/Getty Images) Alabama legislators have prefiled a bill that would ban the teaching of subjects considered to be divisive in public schools. House Bill 7 (pdf) would prohibit public entities such as state agencies, local boards of education, and public institutions of higher education from promoting or endorsing, or requiring affirmation of, certain divisive concepts relating to race, sex or religion. The bill would prohibit certain public entities from conditioning enrollment or attendance in certain classes or trainings on the basis of race or color, the bills text reads. This bill would also authorize certain public entities to discipline or terminate employees or contractors who violate this act. Defining Divisive Concepts The text of the bill defines divisive concepts in a broad range from gender, race, and religion. This includes any concept that promotes: A particular race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin being inherently superior or inferior to another. That any individual should be discriminated against or mistreated based on their race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. That the moral character of a person is determined by their race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. That by virtue of a persons race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, the person is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive whether consciously or subconsciously. That any of the aforementioned groups are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same group. That fault or blame should be placed upon a person based on the aforementioned attributes. That any individual should be asked to accept, acknowledge, affirm, or assent to a sense of guilt, complicity, or need to apologize solely on the basis of the aforementioned attributes. Any violation in the act could legally lead to the employee or contractor being disciplined or terminated. Application in Education Local boards of education or public colleges and universities may not direct a student, employee, or contractor adhere to any divisive concept, require them to attend or participate in trainings that promote the divisive concepts, share their personal point of views on the concepts, participate in lobbying for legislation at any government level, or penalize anyone on the basis of their refusal to support or adhere to the divisive concepts. Additionally, enrollment may not be conditioned on race or color, and the education authorities are not allowed to authorize, expend or apply for or accept funding that promotes the concepts. Employees, contractors, and educational authorities are not prohibited from responding to questions raised during conversation or work that pertain to divisive concepts, teaching the concepts in an objective manner and without endorsement. It also would not prohibit required collection or reporting of demographic information by public institutions of higher education or prohibit the teaching of topics in a historically accurate context. Further, the act notes it would not prevent a state agency from promoting diversity or inclusion if the efforts are consistent with the requirements of the act. Opponents of critical race theory protest outside of the Loudoun County School Board headquarters in Ashburn, Va., on June 22, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) It would also not be construed to inhibit or violate First Amendment rights or undermine the duty of education entities to protect academic freedom, intellectual diversity, and free expression. A bill proposed in the Alabama House last year was filed with similar language and replaced earlier bills that related specifically to critical race theory. The Epoch Times has contacted the bills sponsor, state Rep. Ed Oliver, for comment. Arizona Supreme Court Responds to Kari Lakes Second Election Petition The Arizona Supreme Court struck down gubernatorial candidate Kari Lakes second request to take up her election appeal that is currently being heard by a state Appeals Court as Lake said Wednesday that she believes her case will be eventually heard by the Supreme Court. In an order issued on Wednesday (pdf), the states high court wrote that as indicated by the Court of Appeals order setting an accelerated briefing schedule, the Court has no reason to doubt that the Court of Appeals appreciates Petitioners (Lakes) desire for an expedited resolution. The Supreme Court then wrote that it will again deny the petition for transfer without prejudice to seeking expedited review of an adverse decision after the Court of Appeals has had an adequate opportunity to consider the pleadings, conference the matter, and prepare a well-considered decision. In her latest petition to the Arizona Supreme Court, Lake, a Republican, wrote that in vacating the January 24 oral argument date on which this Court relied in part to deny Lakes prior petition to transfer, however, the Court of Appeals opened the door to months of potential delay. The court responded to that argument by saying the Court of Appeals entered an order on Jan. 9 and set up an expedited briefing schedule regarding her case with the next conference starting Feb. 1. Earlier reports indicated that the appeals court initially wanted to start in March. A former broadcast journalist endorsed by former President Donald Trump, Lake filed a lawsuit in December against former Secretary of State and now-Gov. Katie Hobbs and several Maricopa County officials, asking the courts to either re-do the election in Maricopa or declare her the winner. Before she was sworn in earlier this month, Hobbs had defeated Lake by 17,000 votes. During a two-day trial last month, Maricopa Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed Lakes case and claimed she did not present enough evidence to make her case. That prompted Lake to petition both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Every single witness before the Court disclaimed any personal knowledge of such misconduct, Thompson ruled last month. The Court cannot accept speculation or conjecture in place of clear and convincing evidence. Bill Gates, Chairman of the Maricopa Board of Supervisors, speaks at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix, Ariz., on Nov. 8, 2022. (John Moore/Getty Images) Lakes attorneys argue there were widespread issues in Maricopa County on Election Day on Nov. 8, including dozens of tabulators not being able to read ballots. That assertion was confirmed by Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates and county Recorder Bill Gates, although the county later said that no voters were disenfranchised. In an interview with Jovan Pulitzer, Lake said she believes the Supreme Court will eventually hear her case. She argued there is precedent to throw out the election results in Maricopa or to re-do the election in the county, which includes the city of Phoenix. [It] could be a remedy to give us a new trial. I would be happy with that. I want people to know what happened and were going to move it all the way to the Supreme Court. Its going there anyways, wed love to see it just go there rather than have to go to the appellate court. Whatever happens, either side will move it up to the Supreme Court, she said in the interview on Wednesday. Hobbs Tries to Dismiss Last week, Hobbs requested that Lakes lawsuit be thrown out, asserting that her GOP opponent failed to prove that voters were disenfranchised during the midterm contest. Despite seven witnesses, hundreds of declarants, and thousands of pages of exhibits, Lake failed to demonstrate any violations of Arizona law and offered no evidence that absent alleged violations the outcome of the election would have been different, a filing from Hobbs reads. Lakes arguments to the contrary depend on unsupported and untenable legal standards that would require elections to be thrown out upon mere speculation of election misconduct and conjecture regarding its supposed result, it said. But Arizona law requires much more to disenfranchise millions of Arizonans. Days later, on Monday, Lakes legal team suggested that more evidence is on the way. They signaled that the evidence could sway the courts in their favor but didnt provide any details. Yesterday [Hobbs] filed to get our lawsuit thrown out, the Kari Lake War Room Twitter account wrote. Today, records revealed nearly a quarter of a million ballots were rejected on Election Day in Maricopa County in a race that came down to just [17,000] votes. Shes illegitimate [and] she knows it. More evidence to come. AUKUS Plan a Huge Moment in Australias Defence History: Minister Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Richard Marles, during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra, Nov. 29, 2022. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas) Australias Defence Minister Richard Marles has said that the AUKUS deal will be one of the nations most significant national security decisions in decades as the federal government is set to unveil its nuclear submarine plan in March. Marles has also assured Australians that the nation will not be left with a capability gap as the ageing Collins-class submarine fleet nears retirement, reported The Age. We know, this is a very significant procurement, Marles said in reference to Australias plan to acquire U.S. nuclear-powered submarines as a stopgap that is predicted to cost at least $100 billion (US$71.2 billion). Its a very big step the country is taking. We get a huge capability which is transformative in terms of our strategic posture, in terms of being able to be taken seriously. Additionally, Marles is expected to receive recommendations from the nuclear-powered submarine task force and the final version of the governments Strategic Review of Australias defence forces in the first week of February. I think this is a huge moment in Australian defence history, Marles said. What I can say is that the body of work for both exercises is on track and, therefore, near completion. A nuclear propulsion Ohio class submarine, the USS Florida, sails on Jan. 22, 2003, off the coast of the Bahamas. Australia, as part of the AUKUS deal, will get the tech for nuclear-powered subs. (David Nagle/U.S. Navy/Getty Images) Marles added that he had a weight of responsibility to ensure that the decisions on Australias national security, such as AUKUS, would be correct given the enormous costs involved as well as the failure of previous plans to update Australias current submarine fleet. [T]he decisions were taking will have a very big impact on the nature of the country for a long time to come, Marles said, reported The Age. I feel really confident that well be able to make decisions in a way which is in the best interest of the country. Final Submarine Model Marles said that the final submarine model would involve significant input from both the UK and the U.S., adding that AUKUS was a genuine three-country collaboration. Thats whats now going to happen in terms of technology, which was always at the heart of this, but also on the industrial side, reported The Age. While Marles has not specified what proportion of the submarines would be built in Australiaafter the acquisition of the U.S. submarines is used as a stopgap to replace the current Collins-class fleethe said that the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Adelaide would be a significant stakeholder. We must develop an industrial capability in Australia. Thats the only way this can work, and thats what will be expected of us by both the UK and the U.S., he said. The bottom line here is that making a nuclear-powered submarine is a huge thing to do. Theres no global showroom with these things on offer. Theres no stockpile of them. Additionally, Marles will provide the governments cost estimate of the submarine program and outline how Australia will comply with its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. In an op-ed, Foreign Minister Penny Wong argued that Australias plan to acquire nuclear submarines does not risk its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. That assertion misses a crucial fact: the submarines we propose to acquire are nuclear-powered, not nuclear-armed, she opined, adding that Australias proposed nuclear-powered submarines will not carry nuclear weapons. Other countries in the Indo-Pacific have been operating nuclear-powered submarines for decadesthis is not a new capability in the region, she wrote. L-R) Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrive for a joint news conference after the 32nd annual Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations at the U.S. State Department Dec. 6, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) All three AUKUS partners have pledged to uphold our legal obligations. And we understand that acquiring this critical capability comes with a responsibility to strengthen even further the non-proliferation regime. In both our endeavours, to enhance Australias defence capability and to support practical action on non-proliferation and disarmament, we seek the same goala peaceful, stable and prosperous region. Chinese state-run media Global Times has previously criticised the AUKUS deal saying that the pact is used as a tool to stir trouble and create suspicion about the Chinese regimes intentions. However, there have been growing concerns over Beijings encroachment in the Indo-Pacific in recent years. Former U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, who served as secretary of the U.S. Navy during the Trump administration, said in November 2022 that the U.S. Navy should provide more help to defend Australias waters until it acquires its own nuclear submarines in response to the rising threat from Beijing. Headed to France Both Marles and Wong will fly to France next week for a 2+2 meeting in an effort to repair a diplomatic rift after the previous Morrison government sensationally ditched a multibillion-dollar order for French submarines. As part of the arrangement, Australia will pay France-based Naval Group $555 million euros (AU $848 million). The move had triggered an unprecedented diplomatic rift with Frances recall of its ambassadors from Canberra and Washington. In November 2022, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was no rift between the two countries after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G20 in Bali. However, days later, Macron said AUKUS risked a nuclear confrontation with Beijing. Azerbaijan Strongly Protests to Iran After Fatal Embassy Shooting A general view outside the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan after an attack on it, in Tehran, Iran, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) BAKUA gunman shot dead a security guard and wounded two other people at Azerbaijans embassy in Iran on Friday, in an attack Baku branded an act of terrorism that it said was the result of Tehran failing to heed its calls for improved security. Police in Tehran said they had arrested a suspect and Iranian authorities condemned the incident, but played down talk of any political motive for the attack. The incident comes amid increased tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran after Baku appointed its first ever ambassador to Israel this month. The attacker broke through the guard post, killing the head of security with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, Azerbaijans foreign ministry said. Video posted on social media appeared to show a gunman run past a guard post and force his way into the embassy building, firing through a door. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, quoted on a government site, said that based on evidence and initial observations the gunmans motive was completely personal. Necessary security measures have been taken to continue normal activities at the embassy and diplomats of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran, he said. However, the Azeri foreign ministry said it planned shortly to evacuate its embassy staff from Tehran. It also summoned the Iranian ambassador in Baku to express its anger and demand justice. In a strongly worded statement, the ministry said an anti-Azerbaijani campaign in Iran had contributed to the attack, without elaborating, and accused Tehran of long ignoring its appeals to bolster security at the embassy. Unfortunately, the latest bloody terrorist act demonstrates the serious consequences of the failure to give the necessary attention to our constant appeals in this regard, it said. In a separate statement on Twitter, Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev demanded swift punishment for those involved in the act of terrorism. The superintendent of criminal affairs in Tehran, Judge Mohammad Shahriari, quoted the assailant as saying his wife went to the Azerbaijan embassy and had never returned home, according to Irans Tasnim news agency. When the assailant contacted the embassy he never got an answer and believed his wife was still inside. Irans police chief said on television that the mans wife was from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim former Soviet republic which borders Iran, has friendly ties with the United States and Israel and has had difficult diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan appointed its first ever ambassador to Israel this month. Israel has had an embassy in Baku since the early 1990s and has been a significant military backer of Azerbaijan in recent years. It has also provided diplomatic support for Baku in its standoff with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Irans Revolutionary Guards carried out major military drills along the countrys borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan amid fears of renewed fighting between the two South Caucasus states last year. Biden Announces 20-Year Ban on Mining in Minnesota, Undermining Nations Mineral Security Artisanal miners carry sacks of ore at the Shabara artisanal mine near Kolwezi, Congo, on Oct. 12, 2022. (Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty Images) The Biden administration has announced that it will impose a 20-year mining moratorium on thousands of acres of land in Minnesota by citing the need to protect the natural environment, potentially dealing a blow to Twin Metals, a major mining firm with interests in the region. The move has attracted criticism from mining associations and lawmakers who insist that mining is necessary for the countrys mineral security. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland signed Public Land Order 7917, which withdraws roughly 225,504 acres of land in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota from mineral leasing, according to a Jan. 26th press release from the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI). The action will protect the Rainy River watershed, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, from potential adverse impacts of mineral or geothermal exploration and development, it stated. Protecting a place like Boundary Waters is key to supporting the health of the watershed and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local recreation economy, said Secretary Haaland, according to the release. With an eye toward protecting this special place for future generations, I have made this decision using the best-available science and extensive public input, she said. The decision could harm the interests of Minnesota-based Twin Metals, which seeks to build an underground mine in Ely, a city close to the wilderness area. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), who represents the region where a proposed copper-nickel mine from Minnesota-based Twin Metals mining company was to be set up, called the Biden administrations decision as an attack on our way of life. Blocking Domestic Mineral Mining Development Stauber pointed out that the Biden administration is funding mining projects in Chinese-owned mines in Congo where over 40,000 children work as slaves in forced labor and no environmental protections are observed. America needs to develop our vast mineral wealth, right here at home, with high-wage, union-protected jobs instead of continuing to send American taxpayer dollars to countries like the Congo that use child slave labor, he said in a statement. The only winner here is China, as Joe Biden continues to hand our foreign adversaries every advantage possible. In a statement on Jan. 26, Rich Nolan, chief executive of the National Mining Association (NMA), criticized the Biden administrations move, calling it nonsensical when considering that the United States is looking to be a leader in manufacturing, innovation, and climate. According to Nolan, the U.S. government has imposed the mining moratorium on thousands of acres in Minnesota at a time when the demand for minerals like nickel, cobalt, and copper are skyrocketing because of their widespread application in solar and wind infrastructure as well as electric vehicles. These lands could provide U.S. manufacturers with plentiful sources of these minerals. By closing off more American land, the administration is blocking out high-paying domestic jobs. The country is also losing out on mining operations that would have been done under strict environmental, safety, and labor regulations, Nolan pointed out. A Blow for Twin Metals and US Self-Sufficiency The Biden announcement comes after it canceled two federal mining leases owned by Twin Metals last year. The leases were located inside the Superior National Forest situated outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The company had filed lawsuits against the administration over the lease cancellations. Twin Metals is deeply disappointed and stunned about the 20-year mining moratorium, the company said in a statement on Jan. 26. This region sits on top of one of the worlds largest deposits of critical minerals that are vital in meeting our nations goals to transition to a clean energy future, to create American jobs, to strengthen our national security and to bolster domestic supply chains, it said. Twin Metals is a subsidiary of Chile-based Antofagasta. If the companys proposed underground mine were to be fully built, it would become a major source of nickel and copper for the United States. The Duluth Complex has one of the largest undeveloped copper-nickel deposits in the world, with at least 200 years of resource potential, claims Twin Metals. At present, America only has one nickel mine, which is scheduled to shut down by 2025. Biden Chief of Staff Steps Down, COVID Response Leader to Take Over Role White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain testifies before the Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery Subcommittee hearing on "Community Perspectives on Coronavirus Preparedness and Response" on Capitol Hill in Washington, on March 10, 2020. (Nicholas KammI/AFP via Getty Images) White House chief of staff Ron Klain will step down from his role next week and be replaced by Jeff Zients, a former Obama administration official who spearheaded Bidens coronavirus response team. Klain announced the decision in a letter of resignation on Jan. 27. President Joe Biden confirmed the news in a statement. Klain told White House officials that he will depart after Bidens State of the Union address on Feb. 7. The 61-year-old Indianapolis native became the White House chief of staff in January 2021. He served in that role for Al Gore and Biden when they were vice presidents. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks about the U.S. economy at Steamfitters Local 602 in Springfield, Va., on Jan. 26, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) Ive known Ron Klain since he was a third-year law student. He came to work for me on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I knew the moment he started that he was a once-in-a-generation talent with a fierce and brilliant intellect. Just as important, he has a really big heart, Biden wrote in a statement. During the last 36 years, Ron and I have been through some real battles together. And when youre in the trenches with somebody for as long as I have been with Ron, you really get to know the person. You see what theyre made of, Biden added. Biden continued his praise of Klain, saying that he knows how government works, how politics works, how Congress and the White House works. He assembled the most diverse and the most talented White House team in history and leaned on them to solve impossible challenges. The White House will host an official transition event to thank Klain and welcome Zients, Biden said. Challenging Time Klain is leaving at a challenging time for Biden, who is under investigation by a special counsel for his handling of classified documents after his tenure as vice president. Also, he and some members of his family are facing scrutiny from the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. Klains decision was reportedly made before Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned a special counsel to investigate Biden about the classified materials found at Bidens private office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington and his residence in Wilmington, Delaware. During the 2000 presidential elections Florida vote recount, Klain helped guide Gores legal team. He also directed the Ebola crisis response when Obama was president. In his resignation letter, Klain highlighted what Biden has done in his first two years as president. White House chief of staff Ronald Klain in Washington on June 30, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) The halfway point of your first termwith two successful years behind us, and key decisions on the next two years aheadis the right time for this team to have fresh leadership, he added. I have served longer than eight of the last nine Chiefs of Staff, and have given this job my all; now it is time for someone else to take it on. In the face of major challenges at home and abroad, your record has been indisputably historic. You passed the most significant economic recovery legislation since FDR; managed the largest land war in Europe since the Truman era; enacted the most sweeping infrastructure law since Eisenhower; named more judges in your first year than any president since JFK; passed the second-largest health care bill since LBJ; signed the most significant gun safety bill since Clinton; and enacted the largest climate change law in history, Klain added. You did it all in the middle of the worst public health crisis since the Wilson era, with the smallest legislative majority of any newly elected Democratic president in a century. Klain also reminisced about becoming a Biden staff member three decades ago when Biden was a Delaware senator. For me, it has been quite a journey. Thirty-six years ago, on the day I returned from my honeymoon, I joined your Senate staff. Leaving and returning to your staff several times since, my work for you has defined my life, both personally and professionally, Klain wrote. Jeff Zients, the White Houses COVID-19 response czar, speaks during a press briefing at the White House, in Washington, on April 13, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) In good times, you were the first to call when each of my children was born and decades later, the first to congratulate me when they got engaged, Klain continued. In bad times, you were the first to console me when my father passed away years ago, and over the past two months, you have supported me in spending time away from the White House with my ailing mother. If you choose to run in 2024, I look forward to doing whatever I can to help your campaign, as I did for your 1988, 2008, and 2020 campaigns, Klain added. I will always be a Biden supporter and advocate in whatever I do next. Bidens statement also confirmed the hiring of Zients to replace Klain. Zients served as an adviser to Bidens 2020 presidential campaign, ran his transition team, oversaw the Biden administrations coronavirus response, and led the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Smart, Steady Leadership A former acting director and deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Zients was director of the National Economic Council under the Obama administration and also chaired Obamas Management Advisory Board. When I was Vice President, I first got to know him at the beginning of the Obama-Biden Administration, working closely on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act implementation as Jeff was a leader at the Office of Management and Budget, Biden said about Zients. He was later handed the daunting and complicated task of fixing healthcare.gov, which he did successfully, helping get millions of Americans quality, affordable health insurance. Biden also noted that Zients shares my focus on strengthening our economy to work for everyone. When I ran for office, I promised to make government work for the American people. Thats what Jeff does, Biden said. A big task ahead is now implementing the laws weve gotten passed efficiently and fairly. Im confident that Jeff will continue Rons example of smart, steady leadership, as we continue to work hard every day for the people we were sent here to serve, Biden added. Negative For Biden Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that he spoke with Zients in a phone conversation and that they agreed to have the same close relationship with the White House Chief of Staff that I had with Ron. Hes organized, focused, and deliberate, exactly the right person to lead the Biden administration and ensure the American people see and feel the benefits of these new laws, Schumer said in a statement. Some lawmakers, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), believe that Klains departure is a negative for Biden. I actually think the Deep State has figured out that Joe Biden isnt going to win the 2024 election against any Republican thats nominated, Gaetz said. I think hes a professional operator and is getting out of the White House as they send somebody else in to tidy up the Biden presidency and put a bow on it and get ready for their next generation of leadership, Gaetz said about Klain. So you know, I dont particularly like when the Deep State chooses who gets to be the leader of our country. Boeing Pleads Not Guilty in Case Over Deadly Max Crashes Paul Njoroge (R) points to photos of his wife and three children that were killed in the 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max aircraft after a federal court hearing in Fort Worth, Texas, on Jan. 26, 2023. (LM Otero/AP Photo) FORT WORTH, TexasBoeing pleaded not guilty Thursday to a charge that it misled regulators who approved its 737 Max, the plane that was involved in two crashes that killed 346 people. Family members of passengers who died gave emotional testimony, calling for criminal prosecution of top Boeing officials. The families are trying to convince a federal judge to throw out a settlement that the company reached with the federal government to avoid prosecution. U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor took the plea from Boeing, which was represented by its chief safety officer and a bevy of lawyers, and ordered the company not to break any laws for the next year. The judge delayed ruling on a request by the families to appoint a special monitor to examine safety issues at the aerospace giant. Boeing and the Justice Department opposed the request. Investigations into the 2018 and 2019 crashes pointed to a flight-control system that Boeing added to the Max without telling pilots or airlines. Boeing downplayed the significance of the system, then didnt overhaul it until after the second crash. The Justice Department investigated Boeing and settled the case in January 2021. After secret negotiations, the government agreed not to prosecute Boeing on a charge of defrauding the United States by deceiving regulators who approved the plane. In exchange, the company paid $2.5 billiona $243.6 million fine, a $500 million fund for victim compensation, and nearly $1.8 billion to airlines whose Max jets were grounded. The families are still stunned. We want to see real justice, and that has to be prosecutions for manslaughter, said Naoise Connolly Ryan, whose husband, Mick, was killed in the second crash. Naheed Noormohamed, who lost his father, Ameen, on the same flight, said the Justice Department had failed the families by not considering their pain. This is not just a failure of justice, its a failure of humanity, he testified. Im the only voice left in my family, said Paul Njoroge, a Kenyan-born Canadian whose wife, three small children and mother-in-law all died in the second crash. Some relatives showed pictures of their loved ones to the Boeing team. They described empty spaces at special family events, and of the grief of going to Ethiopia to collect remains. Many of them fought back tears as they addressed the judge. The fate of the settlement could rest with Judge OConnor. He carved a path for the families to challenge the settlement by ruling last October that the Justice Department had violated federal law by not consulting with crime victims before what amounted to a plea deal. Separately, the families have asked OConnor to throw out part of the settlement that gave Boeing immunity from prosecution. That would give families more leverage to lobby the Justice Department to reverse its earlier decision and prosecute the company. The judge has not ruled on the immunity question. Before Thursdays hearing, the families asked the judge to impose three conditions on Boeing, much as he might on any criminal defendant during an arraignment. Onethe break-no-laws directive, a standard orderwas granted. However, Boeing and the Justice Department joined ranks to oppose the other two proposals: the special monitor, and the appointment of three passenger advocates who would make a public report about the company. Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, said the extra oversight was needed because families dont trust the Justice Department. Lawyers for Boeing, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, and the government countered that such steps were unnecessary because the company has been following terms of the settlement, called a deferred prosecution agreement, for two years. Mark Filip, a lawyer for Boeing, said the governments supervision of the agreement is robust and working. Another Boeing attorney, Benjamin Hatch, said representatives from the company and the Justice Department meet at least monthly: Its very real oversight. Boeing has faced civil lawsuits, congressional investigations and massive damage to its business since the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Before each crash, an automated flight-control system called MCAS pushed the nose down based on faulty readings from a single sensor. Boeing blamed two former test pilots for misleading Federal Aviation Administration officials about the system. One of the test pilots is the only person prosecuted in connection with the Max. A jury in OConnors courtroom found him not guilty last year. Relatives of the passengers called him a scapegoat; that flaws on the Max were caused by top executives led by then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg instilling a culture of putting profit before safety. By David Koenig Boeing Pleads Not Guilty to Fraud Charge After 2 Deadly 737 MAX Crashes A Boeing 737 MAX jet prepares to land at Boeing Field following a test flight in Seattle on Sept. 30, 2020. (Elaine Thompson/AP Photo) U.S.-based aircraft maker Boeing pleaded not guilty in court on Jan. 26 to a fraud conspiracy felony charge after it was accused of deceiving regulators about flight control systems on its 737 MAX aircraft, which was involved in two crashes. U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor took the plea from Boeing, which was represented by its chief safety officer and a string of lawyers, during the three-hour hearing in Fort Worth, Texas. Family members of those who died in the crashes read emotional testimony as they called for top Boeing officials to face criminal charges and rejected a 2021 Department of Justice agreement to resolve the investigations into the crashes. OConnor ordered the company not to break any laws for the next year. The aerospace giant has been accused by prosecutors of concealing information about flight control systems, specifically the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), that caused the plane crashes in 2018 and 2019. MCAS provides consistent airplane handling characteristics in a very specific set of unusual flight conditions, such as when the pilot is flying the plane manually, when the planes nose approaches a higher-than-usual angle, or when the planes wing flaps are up, according to Boeing. The Federal Aviation Administrations Aircraft Evaluation Group (FAA AEG) began reviewing and evaluating MCAS after a Boeing 737 MAX operated by Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed in 2018, killing all 189 people on board. Relatives of passengers of a crashed Lion Air jet check personal belongings retrieved from the waters where the airplane is believed to have crashed, at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Oct. 31, 2018. (Tatan Syuflana/AP) Victims Families Call for Justice That evaluation found that MCAS was operating on the flight in the moments before it crashed, and the FAA AEG subsequently found that important information about the augmentation system had been withheld from federal safety regulators. A second 737 MAX aircraft, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, crashed in 2019 shortly after takeoff, killing all 157 people onboard. MCAS was also operating on that plane in the moments before the crash, according to the FAA. All 737 MAX airplanes were grounded in the United States shortly after and Boeing eventually overhauled the system. However, the company avoided a trial over the crashes following secret negotiations with the DOJ which allowed it to avoid being charged with defrauding the United States by deceiving regulators who approved the plane. Instead, it agreed in 2021 to pay $2.5 billion, made up of a $243.6 million fine, a $500 million fund for victim compensation, and nearly $1.8 billion to airlines whose MAX jets were grounded. Boeing placed most of the blame for the incidents on Mark Forkner, who previously served as chief technical pilot for Boeing. Forkner was indicted for fraud for deceiving and withholding critical information from the FAA AEG in October 2021 but was acquitted at a trial last year. However, relatives of those who died in the crashes have asked that settlement to be thrown out, stating that they were not informed about the secret negotiations. OConnor last week ordered Boeing to be arraigned after he ruled that those who died in the two crashes are legally considered crime victims. The DOJ has defended its settlement with Boeing, insisting it was appropriate while opposing reopening the agreement, as has Boeing. But family members during Thursdays hearing spoke of their loss while calling for justice. We want to see real justice, and that has to be prosecutions for manslaughter, said Naoise Connolly Ryan, whose husband, Mick, was killed in the second crash. Wreckage is piled at the crash scene of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, on March 11, 2019. (Mulugeta Ayene/AP Photo) Boeing Issues Statement, Says Its Made Broad Changes Naheed Noormohamed, who lost his father, Ameen, on the same flight, said the DOJ had failed the families by not considering their pain. This is not just a failure of justice, its a failure of humanity, he testified. OConnor subsequently told Boeing that it must not commit any new crimes for the next year, but stopped short of ruling on other conditions that families of the victims had sought, including a request to appoint a special independent monitor to oversee Boeings compliance and examine safety issues at the company. He also did not rule on their request that Boeing publicly discloses as much information as possible relating to its corporate compliance efforts that were adopted in 2021. The judge also did not make a ruling on another request from the families of the victims regarding the 2021 DOJ deal. Families had asked that OConnor throw out part of that deal that granted Boeing immunity from prosecution, which could possibly allow the DOJ to reverse the deal and prosecute the company. In a statement, the plane maker said it has made broad and deep changes across our company, and made changes to the design of the 737 MAX to ensure that accidents like these never happen again. We also are committed to continuing to comply scrupulously with all of our obligations under the agreement we entered into with the Justice Department two years ago, the company said. The Epoch Times has contacted Boeing for comment. Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report. California to Release More Water to Communities in Wake of Storms Irrigation water runs along a dried-up ditch between rice farms in Richvale, Calif., on May 1, 2014. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo) The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced Jan. 26 it expects to deliver 30 percent of requested water to its public water agencies in 20231.27 million acre-feetup from the initial 5 percent announced in December. This comes after weeks of heavy rainstorms and public outcry demanding the state release more water from its reservoirs. During the storms, California Gov. Gavin Newsom faced criticism from bipartisan legislators and California residents over trillions of gallons of rainwater that flowed out to the ocean instead of being stored in reservoirs after three years of extreme drought. In a statement Thursday, Newsom called the increase in expected water deliveries good news for communities and farms in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California. Well keep pushing to modernize our water infrastructure to take advantage of these winter storms and prepare communities for the climate-driven extremes of wet and dry ahead, he said. The State Water Projects two largest reservoirsOroville and San Luishave gained a combined 1.62 million acre-feet of water in storageenough water to supply approximately 5.6 million households for a year, according to the DWR. Three weeks of heavy precipitation in January from nine atmospheric rivers have helped to fill reservoirs and dramatically increase the Sierra Nevada snowpack, according to DWR Director Karla Nemeth. We are about 218 percent of average snowpack, she said at a press conference Thursday. She said the department will rely on aerial observation flights and new technology to accurately measure the amount of water expected to come from snow in the mountains. While the weather forecast is still trending wet, Nemeth warned about drier times to come. I think as we can all attest here in California, things have turned dry again, and we want to be cautious as we continue to move through what is traditionally our wet season in Californiathe remaining winter months and spring months, she said. In response to questions from the media about why only 30 percent of the requested water allocations are being met, Nemeth urged caution, pointing to Newsoms appeal to Californians to conserve water. The governor has called for 15 percent voluntary conservation but had directed the local water districts to adopt their mandatory restrictions as was fitting to their own local water supply circumstances. So that will stay in place until we get a better picture of whether or not this year turns out to be a very wet year or simply an average year, she said. Californias COVID-19 Gag Law Is First Effort to Suppress Doctors: Lawyer 'If they get away with this, it's not going to be the last time they do this' Californias controversial COVID-19 misinformation law, which bars doctors from providing misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19, is an unprecedented effort by those in power to block doctors from sharing their views on COVID-19 topics, including on vaccines, with their patients, an attorney says. And lawmakers had pivoted the initial bill from its true, intended purpose to be able to pass it. Thats according to Rick Jaffe, an attorney who represents a lawsuit challenging the measure, AB 2098 (pdf), also referred to colloquially as the states COVID-19 misinformation law, which became effective on Jan. 1 but has since been put on hold. A judge granted a preliminary injunction (pdf) late Wednesday, temporarily blocking the law from being enforced pending further litigation in two lawsuits. Jaffe is involved in one of the casesHoang v. Bonta. The other case is Hoeg v. Newsom. Both had argued, in part, that AB 2098 is unconstitutional under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. This is the first effort to suppress health care practitioners from telling patients what the doctors think, Jaffe said of the COVID-19 misinformation law in a recent interview with EpochTVs Crossroads program. If they get away with this, its not going to be the last time they do this Thats what were battling against, he added, noting that such impunity could result in similar speech-suppression efforts for the next pandemic. From Jan. 1 until the latest injunction, AB 2098 meant that doctors were able to be sanctioned for speaking out against the mainstream COVID media, Jaffe said. He celebrated the latest ruling late Wednesday in a blog post. We won! he wrote. [Senior Judge William B. Shubb] granted our motion for a preliminary injunction stopping the Attorney General and the [California] medical boards from enforcing its Covid Misinformation bill, he said. Today was a very, very good day for physicians free speech and health freedom. But tomorrow, we start working on the next battle. No rest for the committed, he said of the ongoing lawsuit. The legislation, as signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 30, 2022, stipulates that the Medical Board of California and the Osteopathic Medical Board of California can discipline doctors who provide misinformation or disinformation related to COVID-19. It defines misinformation as false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care, and disinformation as misinformation that the licensee deliberately disseminated with malicious intent or an intent to mislead. But the broad definition of what constitutes misinformation has been put under scrutiny. In the hearing on Jan. 24, Shubb called the laws definition of misinformation nonsense, and said the overall law lacked clarity, reported KUSI. Lawmakers Pivoted Legislation to Pass it The original purpose of AB 2098, first proposed in February 2022, was to penalize California doctors who were questioning the COVID-19 vaccines, or promoting the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in the media and social media, or any other comments not in line with the consensus. This was what Jaffe and attorneys for Childrens Health Defense (CHD) said in the motion (pdf) that sought the now-granted preliminary injunction. And then what happened is, it became very clear very quickly to the legislature is that you cant stop doctors from speaking out in public, Jaffe said. Theres no serious person who knows the Constitution is going to say that a medical board can sanction a physician for expressing his views in public. In other words, thats an automatic violation of the First Amendment. In order to save the bill, its authors agreed to gut the bill and abandon the bills basic purpose, the motion stated. The lawmakers tried to limit the legislations scope to only information provided for the purposes of treatment or advice between a doctor and a patient, in the hopes that that would basically avoid the obvious constitutional problem, Jaffe told Crossroads. Notably, when lawmakers passed the measure in September 2022, its text only targets doctors speech in their non-public interactions with their patients when discussing topics directly related to COVID-19 treatment. It was really the public problem they were trying to address, but they had to give that up, Jaffe said. The way the law reads now is, its completely ineffective to do what the law was supposed to do, which was to stop these doctors from drowning out the public health authorities. The judge, in ruling to temporarily halt the bill, had extensively cited an expert declaration (pdf) submitted by Dr. Sanjay Verma, which had demonstrated that there is no scientific consensus in Covid-19, Jaffe said on his blog. Shubb, in this ruling (pdf), noted that COVID-19 is a disease that scientists have only been studying for a few years, and about which scientific conclusions have been hotly contested, adding, COVID-19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus. The state medical board actually dont even need the law, and if they wanted to, without AB 2098, they could still try to sanction doctors both for their public and private speech, Jaffe told Crossroads. But they figured, well, lets make it clear that we can do it. Thats their position, he said in commenting on why the legislation may have been proposed in the first place. FS1s Emmanuel Acho has been no stranger to heated public arguments in recent years. He found himself in the midst of another one on Friday following an appearance on the Ringers Higher Learning podcast last week. Acho appeared on the January 20 episode of the program, which is hosted by Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay, the latter of which worked with Acho at ESPN and had advocated for him to be a host of The Bachelor, which she had been a contestant on. The Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man host ended up having a very uncomfortable conversation with Lathan and Lindsay, specifically over the state of race in America and the way that Acho discussed issues on his own program, focusing his efforts on white audiences over Black ones. Acho defended his style by saying that he had specific insight into conversations around race because of his background. When white people say, Well, racism doesnt exist, I know why they say that, said Acho on the show. Because Ive been in them rooms when theyre saying that, Acho said in the clip. When I kick it with black people and theyre like, All white people are racist, I know why youre saying that. All the while, I have the privilege and luxury of not having generational trauma [of slavery in America], because my parents were born in Nigeria. So my method is removing some of the sting, because I dont have that sting, and trying to deliver it in a manner that people can receive it. Lathan said that offended him and offered a response. Let me tell you why what you just said offends me, said Lathan. Youre saying that you didnt have generational trauma, and you didnt mean it this way, but you saying [that] in some way meaning that your delivery method to white people is going to be either more effective or more sanitized is, to me, dangerous, and let me tell you why. Everybody that you just named, and what youre talking about, does what they do in different ways. I dont think that any of the things that they do are necessarily harmful, but what I could say, is a black man, a prominent one, acting as an emotional butler for white people, and serving them the most milquetoast, un-spicy, unseasoned brand of racial discourse and accountability possible, could definitely be harmful. Like, were fighting for our lives, and to me, having a conversation like that, at that particular time, its not that its a different method. Everybody has a different method. Its that its the wrong method. The two continued to spar for the rest of Achos appearance and it seemed that both sides were pretty dug in on their thoughts. The conversation continued on social media into the following week, with Twitter user MindThePit saying on Thursday Emmanuels approach was to suggest hes better equipped than African Americans to speak because he doesnt have generational trauma as a Nigerian. Nigerias history with slavery began in the 15th century and it was colonised by the Britishers in 1884. Make it make sense. That caught the attention of Acho, who responded to that tweet, putting the onus on Lathan for how the conversation played out. I made no such suggestion, that was the reach the host of the show made and led the listener to (at the 39:45 mark), said Acho. I stated my lineage to allow understanding for my predisposition to be *less* hostile. It was giving the listener insight as to why. Not implying Im better. I made no such suggestion, that was the reach the host of the show made and led the listener to (at the 39:45 mark). I stated my lineage to allow understanding for my predisposition to be *less* hostile. It was giving the listener insight as to why. Not implying Im better. Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) January 26, 2023 That led to Lathan responding and quote-tweeting a response that included footage from the podcast and asking for further clarification. [Emmanuel Acho] Im not sure what you intended to convey by stating your Nigerian background frees you of generational trauma and takes the sting out of your convos with white people. But it feels like [you] purposefully othered yourself from the descendants of slaves. Why? .@EmmanuelAcho Im not sure what you intended to convey by stating your Nigerian background frees you of generational trauma and takes the sting out of your convos with white people. But it feels like your purposefully othered yourself from the descendants of slaves. Why? https://t.co/5jPKwXITDs pic.twitter.com/TGfulKtFUx Van Lathan Jr (@VanLathan) January 26, 2023 Acho then responded by accusing Lathan and the show of a public setup and that he felt misled by the topics that would be discussed. He also shared a screenshot purportedly of the email he received before he appeared. Van, the entire conversation was a public setup, said Acho. Your producers lured me into committing by misleading me about the topics of conversation. You manipulated my relationship w/ Rachel in order to publicly air your grievances as opposed to preparing me for a productive dialogue. Van, the entire conversation was a public set up. Your producers lured me into committing by misleading me about the topics of conversation. You manipulated my relationship w/ Rachel in order to publicly air your grievances as opposed to preparing me for a productive dialogue. pic.twitter.com/8S6cHHr8hj Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) January 26, 2023 Lathan didnt have much sympathy for Acho, saying that he should have been prepared to discuss and defend his opinions regardless of what he was expecting. I dont give a fuck about any of that, said Lathan. Sincerely. If ur not prepared to discuss things youve said publicly then you shouldnt do interviews. I havent posted any clips until now, and thats BECAUSE youre Rachels friend. You said I reached, I posted proof I didnt. I dont give a fuck about any of that. Sincerely. If ur not prepared to discuss things youve said publicly then you shouldnt do interviews. I havent posted any clips until now, and thats BECAUSE youre Rachels friend. You said I reached, I posted proof I didnt. https://t.co/34oyiFHzDi Van Lathan Jr (@VanLathan) January 27, 2023 Acho then pushed back on Lathans anger and how that was doing more harm than good in conversations such as these. Van, your anger caused you to suck up all the oxygen disabling your brilliant cohost & my friend from contributing. Your anger caused what couldve been a fruitful conversation to be wasted. Your anger is doing more harm than good, be well my friend. You have my # if needed pic.twitter.com/8WzUaqwFd9 Emmanuel Acho (@EmmanuelAcho) January 27, 2023 And Lathan confirmed that he was indeed angry with the state of things and that his anger was justified. Emmanuel. I am angry, said Lathan. I am angry that the police continue to kill. Im angry that wealth is hoarded, Im also angry that suit-wearing charlatans like yourself have found a way to make millions off the back of other peoples trauma. Ill stop being angry when u stop being weak. Emmanuel. I am angry. I am angry that the police continue to kill. Im angry that wealth is hoarded, Im also angry that suit wearing charlatans like yourself have found a way to make millions off the back of other peoples trauma. Ill stop being angry when u stop being weak https://t.co/gY2tFiiuul Van Lathan Jr (@VanLathan) January 27, 2023 It appears that the war of words ends there, at least for now. But if the ongoing Twitter conversations around the episode are any indication, theres more discussion and reactions to be had. [Higher Learning, Van Lathan, Emmanuel Acho] Canadians Victimized for More Than $530 Million in Fraud Schemes Last Year In 2022, 90,137 incidents of fraud were reported, with 56,352 Canadian victims and a total loss of $530 million, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC). Each year, CAFC documents new frauds, trying to stay ahead of scammers who keep coming up with more innovative ways to victimize Canadians for their money. This month, for example, a First Nations woman in Ontario said that she replied on social media to a Facebook video with celebrity renovation contractor Mike Holmes, asking for help to restore her 100-year-old farmhouse. She received a reply from someone claiming to be with HGTV, a TV network with home renovation shows, who asked for an application form, personal information, and a deposit for the repairs for participation in the show. As the woman was using a loan from the Six Nations Housing department for her renovation budget, the scam became obvious quickly when officials tried to speak with the supposed HGTV contractor as part of the loan process. Service scams, such as this one, cost Canadians nearly $20.6 million last year, with 6,255 reports of fraud of this nature and 4,536 victims, according to statistics provided to The Epoch Times by CAFC spokesperson Jeff Horncastle. Not all scams are reported. The CAFC suggests that less than 5 percent of Canadian fraud and scam victims report the crime. The scams are always evolving with new versions of how they are carried out. Investment Fraud Investment fraud, from the cases reported, resulted in the highest dollar value loss for Canadians, at $308.6 million in 2022. Various versions of investment fraud exist, but most attempts are coordinated and use stock market scams, pump and dump schemes (where promoters pump up a stock, boost demand, and then dump the stock for a fast profit), and cryptocurrency scams. On Jan. 10, the British Columbia Securities Commission warned the public that scammers were posing as staff of the Canadian Securities Administrator, contacting investors and requesting money or payments related to fictitious enforcement actions or investigations. Statistics from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, with top 10 frauds of 2022 based on both dollar loss and the number of reports. (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) Extortion, Sextortion Extortion was the second-highest reported scam in 2022, victimizing more than 2,323 Canadians for more than $19 million. On Jan. 15, in the most recent version of an extortion fraud, Ontario police warned that a scammer had targeted an individual with graphic text messages of dead bodies and body parts, threatening that if payment was not sent, the victim or family members would be harmed. Sextortion scams also prompted a warning in 2022. According to the CAFC, Scammers create fake profiles on social media and pornographic and dating websites. They use the profiles to lure individuals into a relationship, and coerce them into performing sexual activities on camera. The scammer records it, then threatens to share it with other people unless they get paid, or get more similar explicit video footage. Scammers also pretend to be an employee from the Canada Revenue Agency, pretending Canadians have a compromised SIN number, owe back taxes, have an unpaid balance, or are being investigated. The fraudster then demands money. Real estate title fraud is a new scam affecting Canadians. Scammers pose as homeowners, sell someones house, and vanish. (Andy Dean Photography/Shutterstock) Real Estate Fraud This month, multiple stories have emerged of real estate title fraud, where scammers gain access to a home and its land title record, list it for sale with a real estate agent, sell it, and vanish with the proceeds of the sale. In dozens of cases now under investigation, thieves have impersonated legitimate property owners by using fake identification. According to investigators, con artists pose as homeowners, usually with homes that have low or no mortgages. The scammers obtain fake identification and pretend to be the homeowners to list the property and sell it. Some scams are so elaborate that actors are hired and paid to pretend to be the real homeowners. Romance Last year, more than 1,415 lonely Canadians were victimized by romance fraud for a total of over $59 million. According to CAFC, scammers use advanced methods to appear legitimate and trick people into trusting them. These scammers commonly start an online, virtual relationship with someone using a fake profile, and then ask for money for travel or a medical emergency. In some cases, the fraudster asks to send money to an individual, sometimes for money laundering, or convinces the victim to take part in a business venture or investment opportunity. The top scams based on a number of reports in 2022 were phishing, extortion, and personal information. With the personal info scam, fraudsters pretend to be from a utility company, bank, or government agency and want victims to verify and provide personal information. The 2022 list of top ten scams included everything from service and investment schemes, to impersonating a bank investigator and counterfeit merchandise. On Oct. 18, 2022, the CAFC issued a new warning of scammers pretending to be CAFC employees, calling to cancel a transaction or transfer the call to a bank. Individuals who receive such a call should always hang up and call back using an official number, suggests the CAFC. In the merchandise scam, counterfeiters use websites that imitate legitimate manufacturers and sell inferior products, represented as brand name items, at large discounts. Counterfeit jackets, according to CAFC, have been found to contain bacteria, fungus, and mildew. Other Scams Service scams, according to a CAFC warning on Jan. 19, have a new variation. Fraudsters have been sending fake invoices to Canadians, saying their subscription for antivirus software, tech, or internet support has been renewed. Canadians are instructed to call to cancel service or resolve the issue, and the scammers then ask for remote access to the victims computer or device to try and steal personal or financial information. Job scams were also in the top 10. Some of the more unusual frauds included convincing Canadians to wrap their vehicle with a company logo to earn $300 to $500 a week. Payment ends up being a counterfeit check. Once the victim deposits the check, they are told to withdraw or send some of the funds to pay a graphics company or other fees. Also with job scams, con artists pretend to be hiring a caregiver, mystery shopper, data entry clerk, or administrative assistant. All the scams involve sending the victim a counterfeit check and tricking them into cashing it and returning some of the money to the scammer. According to the CAFC, scammers in 2022 also posed as employers hiring a financial agent or client manager. Scammers hired individuals as a payment processor, required to receive money from company clients. The resultant e-transfers or wire transfers are then sent through Bitcoin to the company. Ultimately, the scam turns the victim into a money mule that could be arrested for money laundering, warns the CAFC. As of Oct. 31, 2022, the CAFC website, which keeps a record of reported scams and frauds, indicated it had helped Canadians recover $2.4 million in funds lost from fraud. Canadians are warned to protect themselves from scams and fraud by protecting their personal information, researching and verifying that an organization or individual is legitimate, and exercising caution when asked to pay upfront for a fee or purchase. Canadians are advised to protect explicit and personal images and personal computers, and carefully guard online accounts and passwords. More tips are available on the CAFC website. The Biden administration says its new border measures are proving effectivebut a large number of Democrats on Capitol Hill are dissatisfied, accusing President Joe Biden of reviving Trump-era policies. The Biden administration has been using Americas strategic reserves to try to lower gas prices for Americans. Now the House has taken up a bill that would prohibit it. Biden is giving his first major economic speech of the year. What does he say as Republicans decry excessive government spending? The Senate race in California is heating up, and another high-profile candidate throwing his hat in the ring. The Biden administration is pushing for more protections for renters, but landlords throughout the country say not so fast. Congresswoman Lisa McClain joins us to discuss a new law in Iowa on school choice. The state just made a major move in terms of its public education system. Chicago Crime Rises 61 Percent in 2023, Violent Offenses Spike While Governor Insists Crime Coming Down Aggravated battery, robbery, theft, and criminal sexual assault have gone up in the city Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker gives a COVID-19 update in the Blue Room at the Thompson Center in Chicago, on Feb. 9, 2022. (Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP) The crime rate in Chicago has spiked by 61 percent in the first three weeks of 2023, with almost all crime segments registering an increase, with data coming at a time when the states governor insists that crime in the city is decreasing. In the first 22 days of this year, the Chicago Police Department received 4,844 complaints related to crime, up 61 percent compared to the 3,013 complaints received in 2022, reveals data (pdf) from the department. This is also 97 percent higher than from the same period in 2021 and 81 percent higher than in 2020. The biggest increase in crime in the past year was in motor vehicle theft, which rose by 165 percent year to date until Jan. 22, 2023, when compared to the year-ago period. Aggravated battery jumped 31 percent, robbery 26 percent, theft, 24 percent, criminal sexual assault 12 percent, and burglary 11 percent. Murder fell by 9 percent, while shooting incidents declined 1 percent. The data come as Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker has been trying to paint a positive picture of Chicagos crime incidents. Crime is coming down gradually in the city and across the state. Its going to take a little while. These things dont come down immediately. But its getting better, he said in an interview with CNBC this month. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently attracted criticism after a mayoral debate on Jan. 9 during which she suggested that street vendors not use money, if at all possible, using other forms of transactions to take care of themselves so as to ensure that their money is safe. To combat crime in Chicago, Mayor @LoriLightfoot says not use money, if at all possible, (use) other forms of transactions to carry Whats next? Laws demanding cash control? conservative talk radio host Larry Elder said in a tweet on Jan. 23. Businesses and Citizens Looking to Exit City The high crime rate in Chicago is affecting businesses operating in the city, with some of them choosing to leave. In October 2022, Tyson Foods, for example, announced plans to relocate staffers from the Chicago area and South Dakota to Arkansas. In May, Boeing had announced plans to shift its headquarters out of Chicago. In a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago in September, McDonalds CEO Chris Kempczinski revealed that he has received multiple offers from governors and mayors from other states who want him to shift the companys headquarters from Chicago. While it may wound our civic pride to hear it, there is a general sense out there that our city is in crisis, Kempczinski said. We have violent crime thats happening in our restaurants Were seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. Were having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants. A survey published this month by nonprofit AARP found that 88 percent of Chicago voters over 50 years of age have considered leaving the city in the past year. They wanted to move to a community with a lower crime rate. Among respondents, 89 percent said that a candidates position on violence and crime is very important when it comes to deciding the next mayor. Cashless Bail One of the main reasons contributing to ongoing crime is a lax approach to enforcing the law while approving measures that cut down severity of punishments related to lawlessness. A controversial law, the SAFE-T Act, was set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, in Illinois. But on Dec. 31, the state supreme court placed on hold a portion of the bill that would have eliminated cash bail for certain crimes. Last month, a Kankakee County judge had ruled that cashless bail violated Illinois constitution and couldnt be applied in counties where lawsuits have been filed to block it. Republican leaders had earlier raised alarm bells about the SAFE-T act, warning that it would result in a rapid rise in crime in Illinois, including Chicago. The city frequently registers over 700 homicides annually. State Senator John Curran, a Republican, pointed out that SAFE-Ts cashless bail raises the risk of releasing dangerous criminals back into the streets. Multiple law enforcement officials had also warned about the cashless bail provision. According to real estate platform Property Club, Chicago is ranked number six on the list of most dangerous cities in the United States. China Uses International Ports to Spread Military Influence, Gather intelligence: Experts China's research and survey vessel, the Yuan Wang 5, arrives at Hambantota port, Sri Lanka, on Aug. 16, 2022. (Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP via Getty Images) Communist China is using overseas ports to spread its military influence and, potentially, to covertly collect intelligence on the United States and its allies, according to experts. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, is leveraging dual-use facilities throughout the world to serve both commercial and military needs, according to Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The most significant observations of this existing dual-use capability emerge from the network of nearly 100 ocean ports owned and/or operated by PRC firms in foreign jurisdictions, Kardon said, using an acronym for the official name of communist China: the Peoples Republic of China. [Chinese] warships have now called at over one-third of these facilities, utilizing Chinas trade-centric infrastructure network with growing scope and intensity to fulfill an increasingly global mission-set. Kardons comments were delivered as part of a statement (pdf) to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), which held a hearing on the issue of Chinese military diplomacy on Jan. 26. He warned that the CCPs global port network, which includes some of the largest shipping terminals in the world, could be used to covertly collect intelligence on U.S. and allied forces, as well as civilian ships. The Chinese port network also offers a ready platform for intelligence-collection, Kardon said. In the normal course of business at a port terminal, port operators will collect and process huge volumes of proprietary information about vessels and their various fuel and supply requirements, routes and destinations, cargos, personnel, and other salient details. These data are potentially valuable for military intelligence purposes, especially given the relative ease with which the same observations may be taken of military vessels calling in commercial ports. It is normal practice for navies to make such ports of call when out of their territorial waters, Kardon said, but the CCPs naval fleets were unique in that they did so by using an extensive network of Chinese-owned and operated facilities instead of relying on foreign ports. Chinese Navy ship Type 054A frigate 548 Yiyang moors at the port of Havana, Cuba, on Nov. 10, 2015. (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images) Kardon noted that the CCPs control of overseas ports also gave the regime the capacity to effectively control international trade, and that the regime could choose to deny the use of its facilities to negatively impact adversaries or competitors. He also said that the regime was pursuing multiple avenues of maritime power projection and would continue to augment its control of commercial ports by constructing new military bases worldwide. Military utilization of PRC-operated foreign infrastructure is also set to proceed with greater intensity over time as key projects and security relationships mature, Kardon said. We should expect efforts to establish formal military bases overseas to continueand likely succeed in some cases. CCP Seeks Influence and Power Through Global Military Presence The ability of the CCP to shape the international security environment and interfere in U.S. security interests is reaching a new peak, according to Phillip Saunders, director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University, who also provided testimony (pdf) to the USCC. Indeed, the CCPs military wing, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), now has a global presence that commands influence wherever the regimes eyes wander. The regime has committed itself to using the PLA to secure diplomatic and political victories, Saunders said, and now controls more than 130 military officers worldwide. Chinese military writings describe military diplomacy as a component of Chinas broader diplomatic efforts and stress that military diplomacy must always take the overall diplomatic goals of the country as its goal and always grasp the right direction, Saunders said. Kristen Gunness, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, said (pdf) that the CCP is using the PLA to shape the international order in an effort to counter anti-communist narratives, gain political advantage, and degrade the United States ability to coordinate and build partnerships. That trend, she said, will only accelerate as the regime finds more partners willing to grant it land for its overseas military facilities. Expanded PLA engagements and presence overseas creates more opportunities for intelligence collection, particularly in areas where PLA and U.S. forces operate in proximity or where Chinese forces can observe U.S., partner, and ally activities, Gunness said. Military diplomacy will also undergird Chinas efforts to establish more overseas bases, which could then provide a platform for extended PLA operational reach in South Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Middle East, for example, depending on where China chooses to establish additional bases and what capabilities the host country agrees to house on its soil. Cold Wave Sweeps Across China Amid Lunar New Year, Results in Record-Breaking Low Temps Northernmost city of Mohe saw a historic extreme of -53C People visit the Forbidden City during a late spring snowfall in Beijing, China on March 18, 2022. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) A cold wave has swept across China amid the Lunar New Year, with the northernmost city of Mohe in Heilongjiang Province reaching a historic extreme of -53C (-63.4F) on Jan. 22. At 7:00 a.m. on the first day of the Lunar New Year, -53C was measured at the Jintao Meteorological Station in Amur Town, Mohe City, Heilongjiang Province, breaking a historical extreme of -52.3C in the city recorded in 1969. This is also the lowest recorded temperature in Chinese history since China has kept meteorological records. According to monitoring data from the Meteorological Observatory in the Greater Khingan Mountains, the lowest temperature in Mohe City has been below -50C for three consecutive days prior to the record-breaking temperature. Affected by the low temperature, ice fog also appeared in urban areas of Mohe, with locals referring to it as white smoke, which significantly reduces visibility in the city. Double Warning in Beijing, Blue Alert for Shanghai At about 4:00 p.m. on Jan. 22, Beijing issued a double warning for low temperatures and strong winds. Gusts in most areas of Beijing were said to reach magnitude 6 or 7 from Jan. 23 to 24 and magnitude 8 for mountainous regions. Minimum temperatures in most parts of Beijing dropped below -10C from the night of Jan. 22 to Jan. 25. The low temperatures are expected to continue through the rest of January. The Shanghai Central Meteorological Observatory also issued a cold wave blue alert on Jan. 23. China has a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe weather, followed by orange, yellow and blue. Affected by the strong cold wave from the north, Shanghais minimum temperature in the urban area dropped by 8 to 10 degrees Celsius within the 48 hours following Jan. 23 while dropping 10 to 13 degrees Celsius in the suburbs. On Jan. 25, the lowest temperature in the urban area dropped to -4C, while the suburbs were -8C to -5C. Lowest Temperature in Hebei Province The Hebei Provincial Meteorological Observatory also issued a cold wave blue alert on Jan. 22. From Jan. 23 to the morning of Jan. 24, the minimum temperature in all parts of the province saw a significant drop. Temperatures in Baoding city, Langfang city, and the northern part of the province plunged by 9 to 11 degrees Celsius, while other areas dropped between 7 to 14 degrees Celsius. On the morning of Jan. 24, the lowest temperature in northern parts of Zhangjiakou city and Chengde city reached -34C to -26C, Shijiazhuang city, Cangzhou city, and areas to the south reached -16C to -12C, and other regions reached -25C to -17C. Guangdong Cold Wave Alerts As the cold snap entered Guangdong on the early morning of Jan. 23, the lowest temperature in Qingyuan in northern Guangdong dropped to 8.4C at 10:00 a.m. that same day, which was 5C lower than the same period on Jan. 22. Some 60 cities and counties in Guangdong issued cold wave alerts. Additionally, in the same period, the city of Shenzhen experienced magnitude 8 gusts along the coast and in the highlands on top of the cold wave. On Jan. 24, the minimum temperature in northern Guangdong cities and counties reached between 4C-7C, while the mountainous areas dropped below -1C and other areas 7C to 14C. On Jan. 25, the lowest temperature in northern Guangdong was -1C to 3C, while the mountainous areas reached -1C to -4C. The remaining areas to the south were between 4C to 12C. Biggest Temperature Drops in East According to China Weather Network, the countrys eastern region has the largest drop in temperature due to the eastward path of the cold wave. In Wencheng county, Zhejiang Province, the highest temperature on Jan. 23 was 19.3C, and it dropped to 4C on Jan. 24, plunging more than 15 degreesC. Among the provincial capital cities, Hefei, Hangzhou, and Fuzhou saw their highest temperature drop by around 10C. Meanwhile, the lowest temperature in Nanjing on the morning of Jan. 25 was -7C. The China Central Meteorological Observatory has continued to issue blue cold wave alerts. Meanwhile, parts of western Gansu, western Inner Mongolia, northern Qinghai, Ningxia, and other places have experienced windblown sand or dust. Colorado Appeals Court Rules Against Baker in Case Over Gender-Transition Cake Baker Jack Phillips decorates a cake in his Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., on Sep. 21, 2017. (Rick Wilking/Reuters) A baker in Colorado who won a U.S. Supreme Court case over religious freedom violated a state anti-discrimination law when he refused to make a cake celebrating a gender transition, the states Court of Appeals ruled on Jan. 26. Lawyers for the baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop, have already announced they plan to appeal against the ruling. Phillips gained notoriety when the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in 2018 after he declined to create a custom cake to celebrate the union of a same-sex couple. Phillips said he didnt want to make the cake because doing so would violate his beliefs as a Christian. The high court found 72 that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission infringed on his First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion by ruling against him. Targeting Bakers The left has been targeting bakers for years for political purposes, asking Christian confectioners who are opposed to same-sex marriage to bake wedding cakes for gay marriage celebrations, knowing that theyll be met with resistance. When the bakers refuse to make the cakes, the activists sue under anti-discrimination laws, hoping to secure favorable legal precedents. But in the case at hand, attorney Autumn Scardina, who was born male but now identifies as female, asked Phillips to make a custom cake celebrating his transition to female from male. Phillips refused. Phillips has strong religious beliefs that it is not possible for a person to be transgender. He and his wife do not believe that a person can transition from the gender assigned at birth. As a result, Mr. Phillips believes Ms. Scardina is a male and will not acknowledge her transgender status or that she is a female, according to the June 2021 ruling by a state district court in Denver. Disappointment at Decision That court found that Phillips violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act by refusing to serve Scardina because of his transgender status and that the law itself didnt violate Phillipss rights. In its new ruling, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the Denver courts decision, finding that it gave all parties the benefit of its careful attention to the evidence and arguments they presented, and rendered a thorough order that dispassionately explained the reasons for its rulings. The legal proceedings were not marked by any hostility toward Masterpiece or Phillips, or by a desire to punish or target them based on their religious views. Jake Warner, senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing Phillips, expressed disappointment at the appellate courts decision. Free speech is for everyone. No one should be forced to express a message that violates their core beliefs, Warner said in a statement. This Cruelty Must Stop Over a decade ago, Colorado officials began targeting Jack, misusing state law to force him to say things he does not believe. Then, an activist attorney continued that crusade, he said, in an apparent reference to Scardina. This cruelty must stop. One need not agree with Jacks views to agree that all Americans should be free to say what they believe, even if the government disagrees with those beliefs, Warner said. The same state law being used to punish Jack is also at issue now at the U.S. Supreme Court in 303 Creative v. Elenis, he said. On Dec. 5, 2022, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the 303 Creative case, which involves a Christian website designer who argues that Colorados law requiring her to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings infringes on her constitutional rights. ADF is representing the designer. The high court is expected to rule on that case by June. Scardinas attorneys at Fennemore Law and King Greisen didnt respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment. A dog that got itself stuck in a tree in Idaho, after chasing a squirrel, gave fire crews and police a giggle when they came to his rescue. Well, definitely not a cat in a tree, Caldwell Fire Department posted on Facebook on Jan. 12 after fire crews and police attended the site of a stuck pup named Izzy, a pit bull/husky mix. After much coaxing, the canine was brought safely to the ground. Perhaps he will not be so persistent, next time, in chasing squirrels. Izzy stuck in a tree. (Courtesy of Christina Danner) Photos of the unusual incident show the dog perched high up in the branches of a large tree, looking down, having failed to catch his target. After being lowered to the ground by Animal Control Officer Megan Townsend, he was treated to a bowl of kibble. This lady is the one who actually teetered to the top, Izzys grateful owner, Christina Danner, told The Epoch Times. (Courtesy of Caldwell Fire Department) (Courtesy of Caldwell Fire Department) The fire departments post went viral and netizens were amused by Izzys lofty adventure. Well I did know some dogs like to climb, but that dog was way out on a limb, one person commented on Facebook. He doesnt give up easy. Now he just needs to learn how to climb down. The squirrels better move to another area, wrote another. While a third person quipped, To catch the squirrel, one must become the squirrel. (Courtesy of Caldwell Fire Department) Despite Izzys climbing prowess, Danner wrote in the comments section that he was the runt of his litter, adding, He did not learn his lesson. Hes been whining all morning trying to get out and get that squirrel! In a photo from Jan. 13 shared with The Epoch Times, persistent Izzy sits in another, smaller tree with his beady eyes on three squirrels. Luckily, he didnt need rescuing this time. Izzy chasing three squirrels on Jan. 13. (Courtesy of Christina Danner) Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter DeSantis Faces Heated Backlash Over Rejection of AP African American Studies 'If its not taught then someone needs to be held accountable," Florida lawmaker says. In the aftermath of rejecting a proposed pilot program of African American Studies, Floridas governor and Department of Education are facing heated backlash from members of the black community. On Jan. 25, advocates of the proposed Advanced Placement Program (AP) African American Studiesrejected by the Florida Department of Education (DOE) because it violates Florida lawsgathered inside the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee. There were chants and prayers, and some stood with pre-printed signs saying, Stop the Black Attack and Black history is American History. They accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of trying to undermine the rights of Floridas students and parents. The Backlash Florida Capitol Building in Tallahassee. (Patricia Tolson/The Epoch Times) Among the supporters of the African American Studies course at the Florida State Capitol building were members of the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Hillsborough County accused DeSantis of undermining the rights of parents and students to make their own decisions. Black history is American history, he asserted, and the truth is the truth. State Sen. Geraldine Thompson (D-Orange County) said, Its time out for hypocrisy! We are told by Ron DeSantis that this time of history has no educational value, Thompson said, insisting that if its not taught then someone needs to be held accountable. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump was also there. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks at a news conference with the family of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tenn., on Jan. 23, 2023. (Gerald Herbert/AP Photo) Crumpwho came to prominence for representing the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arberywarned of legal action on the behalf of three black Florida students, also in attendance, if the course is not implemented. Were here to give notice to Governor DeSantis that if he does not negotiate with the College Board to allow AP African American studies to be taught in the classrooms across the state of Florida, that these three young people will be the lead plaintiffs in a historic lawsuit, he said. The AP African American History Course As previously reported by The Epoch Times, the Florida DOE formally rejected the proposal to include the AP African American History course in the curriculum of any public high school on Jan. 12, because its content conflicted with the states guidelines. Please allow this letter to serve as confirmation that the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) does not approve the inclusion of the Advanced Placement (AP) African American Studies course in the Florida Course Code Directory and Instructional Personnel Assignments (adopted in State Board of Education Rule 6A-l.09441, Florida Administrative Code), reads the single-page Jan. 12 letter (pdf) addressed to the College Board Florida Partnership Senior Director from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr., which was obtained by The Epoch Times. As presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value, Diaz said further in his letter, adding that should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically-accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion. While not widely available, the original syllabus for AP African American Studies, Course Framework and Exam Overview (pdf) was obtained by The Epoch Times. In describing the course, the College Board says the pilot program is an interdisciplinary course that examines the diversity of African American experiences through direct encounters with authentic and varied sources, and the course focuses on four thematic units that move across the instructional year chronologically, providing students opportunities to examine key topics that extend from the medieval kingdoms of West Africa to the ongoing challenges and achievements of the contemporary moment. Under AP Course Development, it says Individual teachers are responsible for designing their own curriculum for AP courses and selecting appropriate college-level readings, assignments, and resources. This publication presents the content and skills that are the focus of the corresponding college course and that appear on the AP Exam. American History vs Woke Indoctrination On Jan. 20, Florida Department of Education (DOE) Commissioner Manny Diaz, Jr. posted a list of concerns the DOE found within the course: Topic 4.15 Intersectionality and Activism a foundation of critical race theory (banned by Florida by law), which ranks people based on their wealth, gender, and sexual orientation. Topic 4.19 Black Queer Studies Included reading is Roderick Ferguson who encourages the development of practices related to race, class, gender, and sexuality. Topic 4.29 Movements for Black Lives Matter BLM advocates the elimination of prisons and jails and pushes the idea that there is a war on Black trans, queer, gender non-conforming, and intersex people. Topic 4.16 Black Feminist Literary Thought Included reading is Bell Hooks, who advocates intersectionality and states I began to use the phrase in my work white supremacist capitalist patriarchy because I wanted to have some language that would actually remind us continually of the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality. Topic 4.30 The Reparations Movement All points and resources advocate for reparations. There is no critical perspective or balancing opinion in this lesson. Topic 4.31 Black Study and Black Struggle in the 21st Century Included reading is Robin Kelly, who advocates that activism rather than the university system is the catalyst for social transformation. Despite the lies from the Biden White House, Florida rejected an AP course filled with Critical Race Theory and other obvious violations of Florida law, Diaz said in his post. We proudly require the teaching of African American history. We do not accept woke indoctrination masquerading as education. Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. provides comments during the January 18, 2023 meeting of the Florida Board of Education. (Screenshot/The Florida Channel) Florida Statute 1003.42 requires a number of topics to be part of the curriculum in middle schools and for high school graduation. Among them, the history and content of the Declaration of Independence, Flag education, United States history, the history of the Holocaust, and the history of African Americans, including the history of African peoples before the political conflicts that led to the development of slavery, the passage to America, the enslavement experience, abolition, and the contributions of African Americans to society. However, the Florida DOE clarifies, classroom instruction and curriculum may not be used to indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view inconsistent with the principles enumerated in subsection (3) or the state academic standards. As weve said all along, if College Board decides to revise its course to comply with Florida law, we will come back to the table, Diaz said on Twitter on Jan. 20. These are your concerns, Rep. Anna Eskamani said on Jan. 21 with an added LOL!? Like its a bad thing for students who CHOOSE to take this class learn about black history and black struggle and get college credit for it too?? Tbh you should take this class. Maybe if you did you would realize how absurd this graphic is, Eskamani added. The Negotiations Despite allegations by Crump that DeSantis is unwilling to negotiate with the College Board, a Jan. 24 media advisory obtained by The Epoch Times revealed that the College Board already has plans to release the official framework for the AP African American Studies course on Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month. The framework, under development since March 2022, replaces the preliminary pilot course framework under discussion to date, the advisory said, adding that before a new AP course is made broadly available, it is piloted in a small number of high schools to gather feedback from high schools and colleges. The official course framework incorporates this feedback and defines what students will encounter on the AP Exam for college credit and placement. It was a message favorably received by Diaz. We are glad the College Board has recognized that the originally submitted course curriculum is problematic, and we are encouraged to see the College Board express a willingness to amend, Diaz said in response to the Boards concession. AP courses are standardized nationwide, and as a result of Floridas strong stance against identity politics and indoctrination, students across the country will consequentially have access to an historically accurate, unbiased course. As Governor DeSantis said, African American History is American History, and we will not allow any organization to use an academic course as a gateway for indoctrination and a political agenda, Diaz concluded. We look forward to reviewing the College Boards changes and expect the removal of content on Critical Race Theory, Black Queer Studies, Intersectionality, and other topics that violate our laws. The Epoch Times reached out to Diaz, Crump, Thompson, Driskell, Eskamani, and the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. DeSantis Seeking Tougher Penalties for Making Fentanyl and Sex Crimes Against Children Narcotic detectives seized about 12,000 suspected fentanyl pills, packaged in bags of candy, at Los Angeles International Airport in California on Oct. 19, 2022. (Courtesy of Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced proposed legislation on Jan. 26 for a battery of law-and-order initiatives. Speaking at a press conference in Miami, the Republican governor told reporters he seeks crackdowns on fentanyl manufacturing and sex offenses against children. He also hopes to make it easier to get a death sentence in a capital case and wants uniform bail standards across the state. The proposal, which would have to be passed by Florida lawmakers, targets fentanyl made to look like candy. It would make it a first-degree felony to possess, sell, or manufacture the drug in that form, and would specify a mandatory life sentence and a $1 million fine if the trafficking targets children. On a campaign stop in rural North Florida, five days before his successful reelection on Nov. 8, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) scorns left-wing ideology, saying Florida is where woke goes to die. (Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times) If approved by the Florida Legislature, the measures also would toughen bail laws, limiting who can be released prior to a first appearance before a judge. That would ensure judges are the ultimate decision-makers and would require a detention hearing before trials for serious crimes, he said. The legislation also would require convicted child rapists to serve life in prison and would explore options for enforcing the death penalty against them. DeSantis noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck this down in the past. But the current Supreme Court justices might not be inclined to do that, he said. Saying No to No-Cash Bail The legislation DeSantis wants lawmakers to pursue would petition the Florida Supreme Court to establish a uniform bail schedule for the state. He called attention to the no-cash bail trends of some states, such as New York, which have seen crime surge, as some suspects are arrested, released almost immediately, then commit new offenses. DeSantis cited the case of a woman in another state who was charged four times in seven days. After the first three arrests, she was immediately released. Rikers Island jail complex in the East River of New York on Jan.13, 2022. (Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images) The legislation would toughen penalties for sex crimes by broadening the list of crimes ineligible for gain timetime off prison sentences for good behavior. The expanded list would include convictions for attempts at sexual misconduct, such as sexual battery. And DeSantis, a former federal prosecutor, is calling for the state to change capital trial procedures so that juries dont have to vote unanimously to recommend the death sentence. He cited the trial of the school shooter in Parkland, Florida, who killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. Convicted killer Nikolas Cruz got life in prison in July 2022. Relatives of the victims decried the sentence as a miscarriage of justice. He addressed the issue on Jan. 23 at the Florida Sheriffs Association Winter Conference in St. Johns County. Nikolas Cruz sits during the penalty phase of his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on July 18, 2022. (Carline Jean/AFP via Getty Images) Some of the proposals fly in the face of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, such as one striking down the death penalty for child rape, DeSantis acknowledged. But the current makeup of the Supreme Court, considered more conservative now, might not be inclined to enforce those rulings, he said. So there was a Supreme Court case that was done within the last 10, 15 years, [and voted] five to four, DeSantis said. And they said the Constitution does not allow capital punishment for anything short of a homicide. And the problem with that is, you know, you have some of these sex predators that will abuse very, very young children, [and] do it habitually. Im just thinking to myself, youre ruining those kids lives, he said. And sometimes these are, like, 6, 7, 8-year-old kids. These People Dont Care And so we believe that that precedent was wrong, DeSantis, the father of three young children went on. We do not believe the Supreme Court, in its current iteration, would uphold it. And so we are going to be exploring ways to facilitate some capital trials if you have the worst of the worst. These people dont care. They are unrepentant. They dont care about these children. They will do whatever they can to satiate themselves at the expense of very, very vulnerable people. The measures proposed in the legislation would add to anti-crime initiatives already taken, which has brought the state crime rate to a 50-year low, DeSantis said. And he contrasted Florida with other states and cities that, he said, endanger their citizens by making it easier to put criminals back on the street. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis waves as he arrives with his wife, Casey, and their children Mason (L), Madison (R), and Mamie, during his inauguration ceremony outside the Old Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., on Jan. 3, 2023. (Lynne Sladky/AP) I think what we found out across the country is: Dont take safe communities for granted. New York went through all this in the 70s and 80s. It was a disaster. They brought in [Mayor Rudy] Giuliani and then they had a real change in approach, he said. And it was really, really good policing. It was very difficult work, but it made a huge, huge difference. They dealt with small offenses because they knew if you allow that to happen, it builds to bigger offenses. And they ended up creating one of the safest big cities anywhere in the world. And that was for a number of years. But, he added, theyve basically turned their back on these policies, and they have a persistent crime problem, such that people are even being driven away from living there. DeSantis Weighs in on RNC Chair Race: I Think We Need a Change Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 19, 2022. (Wade Vandervort/AFP via Getty Images) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Jan. 26 weighed in on the contentious race for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee (RNC), calling for change atop the ranks and praising Harmeet Dhillon. In an interview with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, the Republican governor said that the three election cycles did not go the way Republicans had hoped. Weve had three substandard election cycles in a row: 18, 20, and 22, DeSantis said. And I would say of all three of those, 22 was probably the worst. Given the political environment of a very unpopular president in Biden, huge majorities of the people think the country is going in the wrong directionthat is an environment thats tailor-made to make big gains in the House and the Senate and in state houses all across the country, and yet that didnt happen. I think we need a change, he added. I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC. Dhillon has mounted a challenge against incumbent chair Ronna McDaniel. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is also in the race, though many consider his bid a longshot. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C. he said. Why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America? Its more Democrat than San Francisco is! Adding that he felt the party needed fresh thinking to bolster its support among grassroots Republicans, the governor said: I think its going to be very difficult to energize people to want to give money, to want to volunteer their time with the RNC if they dont see a change in direction. Chair of the Republican National Committee Ronna McDaniel addressing the Republican National Convention at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, on Aug. 24, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) McDaniel DeSantis comments come just one day before committee members are scheduled to hold a secret ballot vote in Dana Point, California, to decide who will lead the RNC going forward. In November, McDaniel circulated a letter of support signed by 101 of 168 RNC voting members. To win the race, McDaniel would need 85 votesa simple majority. Members of the 168 rallied around the chairwoman because of her unprecedented investments in the grassroots, election integrity, and minority communities, and for taking on Big Tech and the biased Commission on Presidential Debates, Emma Vaughn, a spokesperson for McDaniel, told news outlets, adding that the chairwomans support has only grown since her announcement. However, as calls for change have grown louder in the wake of the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans in Alabama have declared that they have no confidence in McDaniels leadership. The Alabama Republican Party leadership is committed to representing our grassroots members, and defending the core conservative values that the people of Alabama stand for, leaders of the Alabama GOP noted in a Jan. 9 statement (pdf). Holding that the RNC needs fresh, new leadership who can inspire and lead grassroots Republicans to victory, the Alabama Republicans urged all other RNC members to support new leadership in the upcoming election. Likewise, in Texas, GOP leaders passed a resolution in December declaring that the Republican Party of Texas has no confidence in the leadership of Chairman McDaniel and believes she must be replaced as RNC Chair. Despite these public statements of opposition, McDaniel has remained confident that she will win a fourth term, telling Semafor recently that she believed she had well enough support to win. Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on July 19, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Challengers Dhillon, who was a legal advisor to former President Donald Trumps 2020 campaign, entered the RNC chairmanship race in December with a promise of change. I am going to run for RNC chair, Dhillon said at the time. And the reason is that, to play off of a famous catchphrase, Republicans are tired of losing, and I think that we really need to radically reshape our leadership in order to win. And we cant keep running elections like we did in the 90s and the 2000s. According to Dhillons website, the California attorney has been endorsed by 29 committee members and state chairs, as well as several elected officials and dozens of conservative public figures. Lindell, like Dhillon, has been vocal in his criticism of the way McDaniel has steered the Republican Party, holding that the recent losses were due to her leadership. She has failed for so many years that I now call her Ronna McFail, the entrepreneur told The Epoch Times in December. Ronna, the past three elections, you get an F, an F, an F. You should have resigned already. And Lindell, according to Business Insider, believes he will be that someone, as he reportedly told the outlet earlier this month that he had locked in enough votes to secure a victory. I have plenty of states now. I believe [McDaniels] well under 85with my math, Id say somewhere around 70 to 75, he said, acknowledging that the remaining votes may be split between him and Dhillon. On Monday, Sharon Beahm saw an impassioned post on a neighborhood social media app that would change the course of her week. A neighbor in Railroad Springs had taken photos of several large-breed dogs chained to doghouses on their owners property. In the photos, the animals are standing in the deep snow that had started falling during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Beahm, a Flagstaff resident since 2018 and dog owner, was concerned about the well-being of the animals and decided to take action. She called the person who made the post, Patricia Hoskison, and drove by the property to see the dogs living situation firsthand. It seemed very pressing and urgent. We had such a terrible snowstorm, Beahm said. I couldnt believe that dogs were living with those kinds of circumstances. Beahm would later learn that calls made by her and other residents who had seen the social media post or driven by the dogs had been received by Coconino County Animal Management. Animal management is a division of Coconino County Health and Human Services. It is staffed with animal welfare officers who are experts in determining an animals level of safety based on their conditions, and are both legally and practically qualified to seize animals that are expected of being abused or mistreated by their owners. The county had not only checked in on the animals that were at the center of community concern, they had determined those animals were being appropriately taken care of, according to Eve Wolters, the deputy director of Coconino County Health and Human Services. In this case, weve been working with the animal owner for a long time over the course of a year and at this point, there are no concerns, Wolters said. The dogs in question have access to food, water and shelter, and according to Wolters, theyre outdoor working dogs. I know its really hard for folks who are used to having animals indoors, Wolters said. Their pets sleep at the foot of their bed. They cuddle with them on their couch. Animals where their environment is an outdoor environment and thats where theyre most comfortable, thats where theyve always been thats OK. They are OK. We dont have an ordinance in effect that requires people to bring their animals indoors. There are a lot of reasons why we dont. Wolters added: We are a large, rural community. We have different types of animals in our community and uses for animals in our community. To have an ordinance that required that all animals be brought indoors in snowy weather or colder weather would eliminate a lot of animals having homes. Your rancher that has working dogs, they might shelter up in the barn at night. Those kinds of dogs arent necessarily welcome in the house. Working dogs often have a purpose. Theyre very clear about their purpose. Theyre acclimated to whatever that purpose is. It may not be appropriate for them to be inside. So, there are lots of different reasons for having animals and pets and there are different scenarios which to the general public might not be comfortable or familiar but it doesnt mean that its wrong. She emphasized that not animals or situations are equal. The dogs age, size, experience and breed are taken into account by animal management staff when evaluating their tolerance to the elements. Its very difficult for someone on the outside looking in to determine that animals history and what theyre used to. For some animals, it can be stress-inducing if they are forced to be inside. They have a fat layer, they have a really heavy coat and it becomes a stressful environment. So there are lots of large-breed dogs and others that are acclimated to a cold environment and being outside might be what is most comfortable to them, Wolters said. Veterinarians agree that some animals are adapted and well-equipped to handle colder climates. Dogs that arent necessarily huskies or similar snow breeds can adapt to and enjoy being outside, explained Dr. Amanda Amstutz, a veterinarian at Canyon Pet Hospital. It takes time, but many larger dogs will enjoy lying in the snow and being outside in colder temperatures, Amstutz said. That isnt to say that all animals are equipped to be outside. Older animals arent going to be as resilient to colder temperatures; the same thing goes for neonates, puppies, kittens and baby horses, said Dr. Linnea Warlick, a veterinarian at Aspen Veterinary Clinic. You want to be able to know your pets and be able to meet their needs, said Liz Olson, the executive director of High Country Humane. A short-haired, medium-sized sized dog outside in the winter is thinking really differently about the snow than a large-breed working dog that grew up outside. The important thing is to know your animal and do your best to care for them. High Country Humane (HCH) is the animal shelter contracted with the city and county to take in stray animals, or pets that were removed from their owners due to mistreatment. Olson said the wonderful thing about Flagstaff is that those kinds of pet seizures are few and far between. We are a very fortunate community. We do not have a lot of animal issues related to neglect or cruelty. We see a few cases a year, but not like other communities as big as we are. People are good here. They take good care of their pets, Olson said. She also explained that High Country and other animal welfare community partners including Coconino Humane Society and county animal management have put a lot of effort into educating the public. Olson said it takes everyone participating and caring for animals to keep the number of cruelty and neglect cases low. Supporting owners She also encourages people who are concerned about animals they see in the community to reach out to the proper authorities. As a shelter, HCH can offer support to pet owners. They can provide food to people who are struggling financially, or consultations for animal owners who arent sure if they should surrender their pets. However, HCH has no authority to intervene in cases of neglect. It can only receive animals that have been seized by county animal welfare officers or Flagstaff police officers and police aides. Coconino Humane Association is an independent animal shelter in Flagstaff, so it does not take stray or impounded animals from the city or county. Rather, it shelters animals that are surrendered at its shelter or dropped off by community members who bring in stray or unwanted pets. Within the city limits, residents with animal welfare concerns can contact the Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) through its nonemergency line. At the moment, FPD does not have a designated animal control officer (ACO), but sworn officers on their regular beats and police aides are trained and able to follow up on welfare calls. FPD spokesperson Jerry Rintala said a dedicated ACO has been hired but they havent yet completed all of their training. In unincorporated areas and county islands, County Animal Management handles welfare and barking dog calls. Were always happy to go out and have a look at those situations and get back to the person who put in the call to let them know our findings, Wolters said, adding that oftentimes County Animal Management will work with dog, cat and horse owners to educate them on an animals needs. Animals needs can and do shift in the wintertime. They need access to food, water and shelter, but colder temperatures might mean that feeding looks different, water might need to be broken to ensure it isnt iced over, and shelters need to be heated or insulated properly, according to animal care experts. Energy requirements go up in cold weather, especially if your animal is spending time outside. You might need to up their food intake to make sure theyre getting enough calories, Warlick said. Warlick said she treats more horses for colic in the winter because of dehydration. Dehydration for animals with outdoor water sources can be a concern overall. Making sure water is safe to drink and not solid or iced over is important. Warlick also recommends horse feed be supplemented with mash grain, mixed with water to help keep the horses properly hydrated. Shelter can be critically important for all animals. Animals should always have the option of a heated and protected area that is out of the wind, rain, snow, etc. An animal that is adapted to colder temperatures will be hardier than one that is not, Amstutz said. Heated dog houses can be great options, but so can doghouses, barns and shelters filled with straw. Straw, unlike blankets or fabric bedding, wicks moisture. On the other hand, blankets can get wet and freeze, or simply stay cold and damp. Olson said there is a lot of research that shows straw can keep shelters very warm, and its often used as a bedding option for feral cat communities. When the weather outside is frightful Knowing when to bring an animal inside is also important. As a pet owner or an animal owner, you know your animal best. If your dog or cats are in this category and are not used to the weather conditions that are present, consider bringing them inside. If you have an indoor/outdoor cat and the temperatures are dipping to the freezing level, probably make sure that kitty gets to come inside at night, because theyre not used to overnighting in those temperatures, Wolters said. Frostbite is rare in northern Arizona. Veterinarians who spoke to the Daily Sun said they see very rare cases on ears and paws, but Flagstaff doesnt often see the kind of sub-zero temperatures that cause those kinds of injuries. They do see snow-related injuries, however. We tend to see more lacerations and soft tissue injuries, Amstutz said. Dogs running and playing in the snow are at risk for paw and lower limb lacerations from ice or anything hidden under the snow. Its also easy to pull a muscle when you are leaping through snowdrifts! Amstutz also said shes seen dogs that dive face-first in the snow and have trouble with eye irritation and even corneal ulceration. She recommends doggles for pups that play with their faces in the snow. Booties can also be great for protecting the paws of dogs that spend a lot of time working or playing in the snow if they can be trained to tolerate them, Warlick said. She said she sees paw injuries from exposure to salt and chemicals put down to melt ice. Other agents that are used for de-icing or winterizing vehicles should also be kept away from animals. Make sure that they dont have access to things that could hurt them, particularly things that might smell good, like antifreeze that will have pretty immediate negative health implications for an animal, Wolters said. On the topic of engines, Warlick said its common for cats to fall asleep under the hoods of cars and trucks in attempts to escape the cold. Checking your engine before starting your vehicle, Warlick said, could save a kittys life. If you are concerned about the welfare of an animal in the city limits, you can reach out to the FPD through its nonemergency line at 928-774-1414. Concerns in the county or unincorporated areas can be reported to animal welfare on its website or over the phone at 928-774-4523. For resources on rehoming pets or for assistance with food/shelter for animals, contact High Country Humane or Coconino Humane Association. EU Ministers Seek Trump-Style Border Walls Amid Spike in Illegal Border Crossings A police car patrols alongside a steel wall at Evros river, near the village of Poros, at the Greek-Turkish border, Greece on May 21, 2021. (Giannis Papanikos/AP Photo) Some members of the European Union are calling for the body to support renewed construction of border barriers as Europe has seen a rise in illegal border crossings in recent months. On Jan. 21, 26 European Union members and envoys for Switzerland and the United Kingdom visited Greece, where Greek Citizens Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos showed them a still expanding border wall and called for EU support in growing and maintaining that border security measure. The task [of protecting the border] needs the support of European public opinion, the European Union itself and its constituent members individually, Theodorikakos said. It is our steadfast position that member states of first reception cannot be [the migrants] only European destinations. There must be solidarity among member-states and a fair sharing of duties close coordination is a must, he added. Greece currently has 17 miles of barriers along its border, and Theodorikakos recently announced plans to add about 87 more miles of barriers in 2023. On Jan. 7, Theodorikakos said construction is already moving forward on the first new sections of wall construction, which will cover nearly 22 miles. Greeces border wall consists of rows of 16-foot vertical steel beams, topped with an anti-grip metal scaling barrier and razor wire. Former President Donald Trump pursued a similar wall design during his presidency, which used 18- to 30-foot steel beams topped with a metal plate. Illegal Crossings at 6-Year High Much of the illegal immigrant traffic into EU countries comes through Turkey. Greeces northeast border and fellow EU member Bulgarias southern border connect with Turkey. Much of the illegal crossing attempts have come over the Evros River, which forms a natural barrier between Greece and Turkey. Theodorikakos said Greek authorities prevented 256,000 migrant crossings and arrested 1,300 traffickers in 2022. The EUs premiere border security agency, Frontex, recently shared preliminary data indicating 330,000 irregular border crossings were detected along the EUs external border in 2022. This is the highest number since 2016 and an increase of 64 percent from the previous year, Frontex said. As the 28 envoys visited Greece on Saturday, Theodorikakos emphasized that Greeces border is also the EUs external border. Cypriot ambassador Kyriakos Kenevezos shared Greeces concerns about border security and spoke of the need for understanding from countries that dont have external EU borders during the recent visit to Greece. Although the UK is no longer part of the EU, ambassador Matthew Lodge also signaled UK cooperation on new border security efforts. Our priority is to protect the human life and dignity endangered by the criminal trafficking networks even though we are no longer an EU member, we are closely cooperating, Lodge said. Dutch Secretary for Justice and Security Eric van der Burg has indicated he would be open to EU financing for more border barriers, Reuters reported. Theodorikakos said Frontex will send about 400 more border guards to Greece to assist an existing border security force of about 1,800 members in the country. Other Walls While Greece is expanding its border walls and bolstering its border guard forces to deal with an influx of illegal crossings, Poland is pursuing new border barriers for another reason: the ongoing war in Ukraine. Poland borders Ukraine and the Russian-allied state Belarus. In November, Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said illegal immigration from Belarus is motivated by political considerations and aimed at destabilizing the regions situation. Poland is pursuing both physical barriers as well as electronic barriers comprised of motion sensors, daytime, infrared, and thermal imaging cameras to detect border crossing attempts. Returning Migrants In addition to rising illegal border crossings, the EU is reportedly seeing high numbers of migrant arrivals with few returning to their countries of origin. We have a huge increase of irregular arrivals of migrants, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said in Thursday talks with the EUs 27 migration ministers, Reuters reported. We have a very low return rate and I can see we can make significant progress here. The EU is struggling with about 20 countries that dont cooperate in taking back their nationals who EU members determine have no right to stay in Europe. Only about one-fifth of people from those countries are successfully sent back. Opposition to New Restrictions While support is growing for expanding border barriers and returning migrants, some activists say the security measures would violate the rights of refugees and those seeking asylum from their native countries. It appears evident that EU Member States continue making access to international protection as difficult as possible by putting up new fences (such as at the borders with Belarus), or by using technology to detect and stop crossings instead of providing assistance (such as at Greeces external borders), the Danish Refugee Council, a refugee activism organization, said in a report on Thursday. The Associated Press contributed to this article. From NTD News Family Expecting Body of Orange County Attorney Who Died in Mexico SANTA ANA, Calif.The family of an Orange County deputy public defender who died in Mexico while celebrating his first wedding anniversary was expecting to receive the body Jan. 26 so further forensic examination can be done to confirm a cause of death. Officials in Mexico have indicated that 33-year-old Elliot Blair died from a fall at the hotel where he was staying with his wife, but his family suspects he was a victim of a violent crime. Were hopeful to get the body back today, said attorney Case Barnett, who is representing Blairs family. Elliot Blair. (Courtesy of GoFundMe) The body was being delivered from a funeral home in Tijuana to one in Westminster, Barnett said. The body has been embalmed, which will make it difficult to do toxicological tests to confirm or deny the reports of alcohol in his system, Barnett said. Blairs family is adamant that he was not drunk. People who saw him dont think he was drunk, Barnett said. I originally thought there was no possibility to do toxicological tests when a body is embalmed, Barnett said. But an expert called us and said we might be able to get toxicology from the eyeballs. A private investigator has collected a great deal of information and the family hopes to be able to have a full accounting by next week, Barnett said. The family doubts the reports of a fatal fall as he was on the third floor of the hotel. The first floor is underground so it is more like two stories or a 25-foot fall, Barnett said. On Jan. 17, another attorney who represented the family, David Scarsone, issued a statement saying the family suspected Blair was the victim of a brutal crime and not an accident. The family of Elliot Blair is absolutely reeling from the tragic death of this amazing young man who was in Rosarito Beach celebrating his first wedding anniversary, according to the statement from Scarsone. The family wholeheartedly believes based on their initial investigation that Elliot was the victim of a brutal crime. The family had delayed making a statement as it was hopeful of promised information by the Mexican authorities. However, it appears that information isnt going to be directly disseminated to the family. Blair died early Jan. 14. He had been with the Public Defenders Office since 2017. The family said they have not gotten any word directly from Rosarito Beach police, the local prosecutors office or any other Mexican officials, according to Scarsone. The family has only been in touch with a liaison to the local coroners office, he said. About 2 p.m. Jan. 16 the liaison indicated that the cause of death was severe head trauma and that the case had been forwarded to the district attorneys office to conduct a possible homicide investigation, Scarsone said. The family told the liaison they intended to conduct an independent investigation, which would include a private investigation firm and a forensic pathologist, Scarsone said. Hours later the family said it saw a news article quoting Mexican officials saying the death appeared to be owed to an unfortunate accident, according to Scarsone. The attorney said Blairs wife, Kim, has been told multiple versions of what happened to Elliot. Scarsone said the couple had stayed at Las Rocas Resort and Spa multiple times over the past five years and that Blair was a fluent Spanish speaker. The two had stayed in the same room multiple times before so Blair was very familiar with the layout of the resort, Scarsone said. The incident did not occur off their rooms private balcony, nor any balcony, for that matter, Scarsone said. The incident occurred in an open-air walkway located outside the front door of their room at Los Rocas Resort and Spa. The public defender was found in his underwear, his sleeping T-shirt, and socks, Scarsone said. The authorities and a representative of a local funeral home had suggested cremating the body, Scarsone said. The family, however, wanted to be able to conduct its own autopsy of the body. Elliot was a brilliant attorney with a bright future, Scarsone said in the statement. Elliots smile was radiant and warmed the hearts of every person he came in contact with. Elliot had an innate ability to connect with people from all walks of life. Elliot was a loving husband, son, and brother. Elliots tragic, untimely, and suspicious death has left his family and community with a huge hole in their hearts that will never be repaired. FBI Director Calls for Conscious Handling of Classified Documents: Rules Are There for a Reason FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday lamented about the recent span of discoveries of classified documents at current and former leaders homes and offices, saying that those who have access to classified material need to be conscious about the rules surrounding it. During a Justice Department press conference announcing a major crackdown of a cyber-criminal gang, Wray was asked if he was concerned that the U.S. government system for accounting for classified information in the executive branch may be broken. Obviously, I cant comment on any specific investigation, but we have had, for quite a number of years, any number of mishandling investigations, Wray replied. That is, unfortunately, a regular part of our counterintelligence divisionsour counterintelligence programs work. People need to be conscious of the rules regarding classified information and appropriate handling of it, he added. Those rules are there for a reason. The press conference comes after lawyers for former Vice President Mike Pence reported that they had found a small number of classified documents at his Indiana home. They said Pence himself elected to do the search after learning of the classified documents that had been discovered at President Joe Bidens Delaware residence. As early as November 2022, Bidens lawyers found classified documents were discovered at the presidents former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington. In December, additional documents were found at his Delaware home. Neither discovery was made public until Jan. 9, when the media broke the story, and the White House confirmed it. Prior to that, the FBI raided former President Donald Trumps resort in Palm Beach, Florida, seizing boxes of classified materials that had been stored there since the end of his first term. Special Counsels Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel to investigate Trump and Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate Biden. No special counsel so far has been appointed in the case of Pence. At another point of Thursdays press conference, a reporter asked Garland if there is any plan to coordinate the work of the two special counsels in a way that would allow them to release their findings at the same time so the public could have a somewhat apple-to-apple comparison between Trump and Biden. Garland vaguely responded to that question. I dont want to talk about particulars of investigationsparticularly not a special counsel investigation, he told the reporter. Ill say, as a general matter, the people we choose for special counsel are experienced prosecutors with experience in the Justice Department. They know how the Justice Department works, they know what the Justice Departments practices are, and Im fully confident that they will resolve these matters one way or the other in the highest traditions of the department. FDA Advisers Back COVID-19 Vaccine Pivot in Move Toward Annual Shot A view of the Food and Drug Administration's White Oak campus in Silver Spring, Md., on Dec. 17, 2020. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images) Experts who advise the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on immunizations were supportive on Jan. 26 of a planned pivot on COVID-19 vaccines. Members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted to recommend the FDA stop using the original vaccines, which only target the obsolete Wuhan strain, in favor of new bivalent shots that are currently only used as boosters. Advisers also informally supported lowering the number of doses recommended for the American population, particularly in people who have recovered from COVID-19 or received at least a primary series before. The vote and advice came during a meeting attended by top officials with the FDA and researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose vaccine recommendations are closely followed by doctors and state officials across the nation. Federal officials want to simplify the current regimen, which has seen some Americans receive as many as seven shots since the vaccines were first made available in late 2020. Theyre floating pivoting to the influenza vaccine model, with updates for new strains occurring annually. Were now in a reasonable place to reflect on development of the COVID-19 vaccines to date, to see if we can simplify the approach to vaccination in order to facilitate the process of optimally vaccinating and protecting the entire population moving forward, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told the panel as the meeting started. Members unanimously voted later to back the proposal to replace the Wuhan-based vaccines with newer bivalents. Dr. David Kim, one of the panel members, said he was totally convinced that the bivalents were as effective as the original vaccines and thought moving to an all-bivalent program would help boost lagging vaccination rates. Its clear that we should not continue the path we have taken thus far, he said. Enthusiasm for the COVID-19 vaccines has waned in recent months alongside effectiveness, a sharp contrast to the early days of the mass vaccination campaign. Just 40 percent of the elderlythe group most targetedhave received one of the new bivalent boosters. That percentage drops to just 11 percent of adults 24 to 49 and no higher than 7 percent of any pediatric age group. The boosters target the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron variant in addition to Wuhan and were authorized in the fall of 2022 without any clinical data. A nurse administers the Pfizer booster shot at a COVID vaccination and testing site in a file photo. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images) The first data from trials the vaccine makers are running was presented Thursday. Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax said their new boosters elevated the levels of neutralizing antibodies, believed to help protect against COVID-19, but none presented efficacy data for the new shots currently used in the United States. Modernas efficacy estimates were for a BA.1/Wuhan bivalent that has never been administered in the country. The booster was estimated to increase protection by just 10 percent against infection. Real-world data from the United States and elsewhere indicates the bivalents, like the old vaccines, perform poorly against infection. They seem to protect against severe illness at a solid level, at least for some period of time after vaccination. Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles, a CDC researcher, presented data to the panel from a network of hospitals that estimated protection against hospitalization from two or more doses of the original vaccine was just 25 percent but that the shielding increased to 72 percent with a bivalent booster, though the timeframe was just seven or more days after a bivalent shot. Panel members were largely united in believing that people who have not received a vaccine should get one, regardless of age or a lack of underlying health conditions. They barely discussed myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation thats caused by the vaccines, even after an FDA official said the safety signal for myocarditis was met after vaccination with a new Pfizer booster among adults aged 18 to 35. Advisers said one of their biggest concerns was getting more children vaccinated. Anything we can do from a simplification perspective, from an optimization of those doses in the future, Dr. Amanda Cohn, a CDC official who sits on the committee, said, referring to the low coverage in children under 5. Were just going to have more kids aging into this age group and needing to be vaccinated. We really just have to focus on getting those kids vaccinated. The advisers were later asked to provide input on a proposal to change the current immunization schedule from one with many shotsthree or more for virtually all Americansto one with just two sectionstwo doses for certain people, such as some young children, and one dose for all other individuals. The latter group would include people who have post-infection immunity, or natural immunitythe first time that U.S. officials have formally proposed counting the protection as an alternative to some vaccine doses. Dr. Melinda Wharton, a CDC official, said that moving forward with the proposal would be a reset for our vaccine recommendations and mean that for many people, regardless of what they got before, a single dose does make sense. Simpler is better, said Dr. Mark Sawyer, another panel member. Others advocated for more data from clinical trials and elsewhere. The trial data needs to be much more robust than weve seen in the past, Dr. Archana Chatterjee said. With COVID-19 now in an endemic phase, she added, its time to look at science much more closely than we were able in the early days of the pandemic. The meeting happened after the United Kingdom announced it was ending booster availability for most healthy people under 50. Some other countries have already scaled back their vaccination campaigns amid waning protection and a growing awareness of confirmed and potential side effects. FDA Quietly Changes End Date for Study of Heart Inflammation After Pfizer COVID Vaccination The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in White Oak, Md., on July 20, 2020. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has changed the end date for a key study on post-vaccination heart inflammation without notifying the public. Pfizer was supposed to complete a study on the occurrence of subclinical myocarditis, or heart inflammation, after receipt of its COVID-19 vaccine. The completion date was listed by the FDA in 2021 as June 20, 2022. Pfizer was also supposed to submit the results of the study to the FDA by the end of 2022 as part of a list of requirements the FDA imposed as a condition of approving Pfizers jab. But after the deadline passed, the FDA quietly changed the date. Under a list of postmarketing requirements for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the FDA now says the same study has an original projected completion date of June 30, 2023. The current status of the study is listed as pending. The FDA and Pfizer did not respond to requests for comment. Jessica Adams, a former regulatory review officer at the FDA, said the wording amounts to misinformation. By definition, original dates cant change, she wrote on Twitter, tagging the agency. Please correct this misinformation.' Dr. Vinay Prasad, who has increasingly criticized the FDA over its decisions during the pandemic, said the new timeline is so slow it will be entirely moot. Another FDA failure, he said on Twitter. Study The study is one of nine Pfizer was to complete to examine post-vaccination adverse events. The study is designed to prospectively assess the incidence of subclinical myocarditis after receipt of a third dose, or a booster, in people aged 16 to 30. Pfizer submitted a timetable to the FDA stating the company would submit a final protocol by Nov. 30, 2021, and complete the study by June 30, 2022, according to the FDAs approval letter for the companys vaccine. The final report was due to the FDA by the end of 2022. The study was one of several examining myocarditis and pericarditis, a related condition. Both are caused by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, according to U.S. officials and other experts. Some of the vaccine-caused myocarditis cases have led to death. FDA officials expressed concern about the post-vaccination heart inflammation when considering whether to approve Pfizers vaccine. Signal for Myocarditis After New Booster The bivalent Pfizer vaccine triggered a safety signal for adults aged 18 to 35, Richard Forshee, an FDA official, told the agencys vaccine advisory committee on Jan. 26. Regulators cleared that bivalent and one from Moderna in the fall of 2022 despite there being no clinical data for either shot. The adverse event happened at a concerning rate after a Pfizer bivalent in recent months, according to analyses of data from the FDAs Biologics Effectiveness and Safety initiative, which pulls from systems such as one managed by CVS Health. The only signal we have detected so far is for myocarditis/pericarditis following the Pfizer bivalent vaccine among adults 18 to 35 years old, Forshee told the panel. Safety signals indicate a vaccine may cause events but dont establish causality. But officials have stressed that the bivalents are similar to the original vaccines in defending the authorization without clinical data, and have acknowledged a causal link between the original messenger RNA vaccines and the heart inflammation. Most of the meeting presentations that went over adverse events focused on ischemic stroke, which triggered the threshold for a safety signal following Pfizers bivalent booster in the elderly and following receipt the original Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in all adults. Officials said that the stroke has happened in many people who received a flu vaccine on the same day as a COVID-19 vaccine. Theyre studying whether theres a connection, though they noted there was no signal for the stroke after a flu shot alone. Dr. Nicola Klein, a Kaiser Permanente researcher who helps the CDC monitor vaccine safety, said that the signal for stroke wasnt as strong as that for myocarditis. This is a cluster but it doesnt stand out as extremely striking, unlike some other signals which we have seen, Klein said. For example, myocarditis, its an extremely strong signal that you can see without doing statistics. Panel Notified of CDC Analyses During the public comment portion of the meeting, any panel members watching were notified that the CDCs analyses of reports to a different surveillance system concluded hundreds of adverse events met the safety signal threshold, including approximately 500 with a signal larger than that for myocarditis. The CDC also detected more than a dozen stroke signals. The analyses were obtained by The Epoch Times through the Freedom of Information Act and made public earlier in January. Nicole G., a member of the public who presented the data, said that the committee members should demand to know why U.S. officials hid these safety signals. The results were not discussed during the meeting outside of the public portion. The CDC has pointed to studies showing it investigated a small portion of the signals, but has not responded when asked why it said the signals were expected. Before the vaccines were rolled out, CDC officials said that approximately 90 percent of signals turn out, after assessment, not to be a true signal. Federal Appeal Filed in Case of Health Care Workers Fired Over Vaccine Mandate Nursing student Brittany Woolery with her husband and their three kids. Woolery cannot complete nursing school because she was denied a religious exemption from a COVID shot mandate. (Courtesy of Brittany Woolery) The State of Maine is accused of having its cake and eating it too in a federal appeal filed in Boston last month that could have national implications for health care workers fired after being denied religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccine mandates. The appeal, filed on Jan. 24, is founded on the argument that federal and constitutional law trump state law and policies. It currently sits with the 1st Circuit of Appeals. It is also born out of a state where the former state CDC director, Nirav Shah, was just catapulted to second-in-command of the national CDC, serving as its deputy director. Shah, who pushed for the elimination of religious exemptions in Maine, was named to the national post on Jan. 12, just a day after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services extended COVID-19s status as a public health emergency. One or the Other The bottom line issue in the newly filed appeal is Maines granting of medical exemption requests while denying religious ones. Religious exemptions were banned by Maine Gov. Janet Mills, the primary defendant in the appeal, despite a longstanding provision under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination of any kind against religious beliefs. While Title VII does not guarantee approval of a religious exemption, it mandates a process for it, argues Liberty Counsel, which filed the Maine appeal. Defendants cannot have their cake and eat it, toorelying on the vaccine mandate to say it would be an undue hardship to violate state law while at the same time espousing that the vaccine mandate does not prohibit employers from providing an accommodation under Title VII, said Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver. It must be one or the other but cannot be both. Staver said the Maine court, in siding with the Mills administration, essentially permitted a heads I win, tails you lose proposition. The appeal comes months after Maine U.S. District Court Judge Jon Levy dismissed a complaint, on Aug. 18, 2022, filed by seven health care workers. The workers, mostly hospital nurses, lost their bid to be exempt from the COVID-19 jab for religious beliefs and thus their jobs. Freeing Health Care Workers Mills also threatened to revoke the licenses of all health care employers who fail to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for all their employees, a threat similar to one by President Joe Biden to withhold federal Medicaid and Medicare dollars from hospitals not mandating the shot. In safeguarding the policies, Levy ruled that it would be an undue hardship for hospitals and other health facilities to grant the religious exemptions under Millss directives. Liberty Counsel argues that Levys ruling is invalid because it undermines the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which requires that the Constitution and federal laws take priority over any conflicting rules of state law. The prevailing argument could widen an already promising legal course that would finally free health care workers from a jab-or-job ultimatum, an issue that so far the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to take up. In July, Liberty Counsel won a historic class action settlement with NorthShore University Health System for denying employees religious exemptions from the COVID-19 jab. The Chicago-based hospital giant will end up paying more than $10 million to 500 health care workers in the settlement. Earlier this month, the tides turned in New York when a state Supreme Court judge ruled that Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Health (NYSDH) overstepped their authority by requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for health care workers. The mandate is beyond the scope of respondents authority and is therefore null, void, and of no effect, Judge Gerard Neri wrote in his Jan. 13 decision in a lawsuit filed by a group of health care workers who have joined under the name Medical Professionals for Informed Consent. Other Pending Lawsuits There are pending lawsuits in other states as well, including many in Florida, which unlike Maine and New York, has passed laws outlawing jab-or-job ultimatums. Last month, in a story The Epoch Times covered on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and its effects on the already critical nursing shortage in the United States, Brittany Woolerey, a Keiser University nursing student, described how she wasnt able to complete her degree because she was denied a religious exemption from the health care facilities where she was due to do her clinical examsthe final step to becoming a registered nurse. There are also new lawsuits in Maine filed recently by Health Choice Maine on behalf of EMTs who can still drive an ambulance but have to stay at least six feet away from patients if they are not inoculated against COVID-19another Mills-born directive. In a story by The Epoch Times, one unvaccinated EMT recounted a call when he drove an ambulance to a scene with multiple injuries and was forced to stand around while patients needed care. Hospitals and state governments, however, are not throwing in the towel. In a statement reported by Beckers Hospital Review, the NYSDH said it disagreed with the state Supreme Courts decision and would be exploring all options. Maines largest hospitals, most of which are named in the federal appeal as defendants, have also stood firmly by Millss COVID-19 policies. In several exhibits submitted in the Maine appeal, one of the hospitals, MaineGeneral, repeatedly told health care workerswhen refusing to consider their religious exemptionsthat only medical ones would be considered under the Governors mandate. Gaetz Introduces Resolution to Deny Schiff Access to Classified Information Rep.-elect Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) delivers remarks in the House Chamber during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday calling for an investigation into Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and proposed he be denied access to classified information. The resolution (pdf), titled Preventing Extreme Negligence with Classified Information Licenses Resolution, or PENCIL Resolution, is an updated version of a similar resolution Gaetz introduced in 2019. It calls for Schiff to be denied access to classified information and investigated by the House Ethics Committee. It also calls for his comments on the discredited allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign in 2016 to be struck from the official record. Congressman Adam Schiff led the effort for years to weaponize lies from the Clinton campaign and a corrupt Department of Justice to smear President [Donald] Trump while destroying any trust the country had left in Americas intelligence agencies, Gaetz said in a statement. Speaker McCarthy kept his promise to remove Rep. Schiff from the Intelligence Committee, and with the PENCIL Resolution, we will express the sense of Congress that he should be barred from accessing any classified information at all, he continued. He can no longer be trusted by his colleagues in Congress or the American people. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy officially rejected Schiff for a seat on the House Intelligence Committee on Jan. 24, having argued that Schiff lied to the American public. The day before McCarthy denied Schiff a seat, Charles McGonigal, a former FBI agent who played a role in investigating Trumps 2016 campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos over the collusion allegations, was himself arrested for alleged ties to a Russian oligarch. The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Jan. 23 that McGonigal had been charged with violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act by laundering money on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian billionaire. Gaetz argued that McGonigals arrest proved that the very people investigating President Trump for Russian collusion were themselves taking orders from Russian oligarchs. U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) listens during the third hearing by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington on June 16, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) PENCIL Resolution Schiff served on the Intelligence Committee since January 2015, first as the ranking minority member when Republicans were last in the majority, then as chairman from January 2019 to Jan. 3, 2023, when Democrats were in the majority. The Democrat was one of eight members, referred to by Gaetz as the Gang of Eight, who had access to critical and sensitive intelligence information that other members of Congress and the American people did not have clearance to access. Gaetzs resolution states that during his tenure, Schiff made false claims about collusion between Trump and Russia during the 2016 election, despite the principal conclusions of the Mueller Report determining that there was no criminal collusion. In December 2017, Schiff said during an interview with CNN: The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help, and the president made full use of that help. The resolution additionally notes that Schiff incorrectly claimed there was clear evidence on the issue of collusion. Further, the resolution states that Schiff has been untrustworthy by advancing lies about Trump and that Schiff has attempted to cover his abuse of discretion with legislation. In November 2020, Schiffs office demanded Twitter remove any and all content by alleged harassers and spreaders of so-called misinformation about the committees staff. This included removing content created by State Department staffers that challenged the Russia collusion narrative. His office also called for the suspension of many accounts. Ultimately, the resolution states that Schiff can no longer be trusted by his colleagues in Congress or the American people. The Epoch Times contacted Schiffs office for comment. Georgia Governor Declares State of Emergency Over Atlanta Protests, Mobilizes 1,000 National Guard Troops A law enforcement vehicle is seen lit on fire during demonstrations related to the death of Manuel Teran who was killed during a police raid inside Weelaunee People's Park, the planned site of a controversial "Cop City" project, in Atlanta, Georgia, on Jan. 21, 2023. (Cheney Orr/Reuters) Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency on Jan. 26, allowing up to 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops to be bought in to help deal with violent protests that have broken out in recent weeks, with further demonstrations anticipated over the weekend. The declaration is effective immediately and will expire on Feb. 9, unless extended by the governor. Specifically, the state of emergency is being activated owing to unlawful assemblage, violence, overt threats of violence, disruption of the peace and tranquility of this state, and danger existing to persons and property, according to the declaration, under which all resources of the state of Georgia will be made available to assist in the ongoing response to the state of emergency. Kemp, a Republican, declared the emergency following a weekend of protests in downtown Atlanta that quickly turned violent. Masked rioters lit fireworks in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation, shattering large glass windows and vandalizing walls with anti-police graffiti. At least three businesses were damaged when bricks and rocks were thrown at properties, according to local reports. In some instances, protesters used hammers to smash windows. A number of police vehicles were also attacked during the protests and at least one was set on fire, according to the reports. Broken windows at a Wells Fargo branch are seen following a violent protest, in Atlanta, on Jan. 21, 2023. (Alex Slitz/AP Photo) Protests Turn Violent Masked activists threw rocks, launched fireworks, and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation office building, Kemps declaration read. Georgians respect peaceful protests, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property. Six people were subsequently arrested following the weekend demonstrations and given multiple charges, including domestic terrorism. At a press conference on Jan. 21, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens told reporters that some of the individuals had explosives on them. The protests in Atlanta came in response to the death of Manuel Teran, 26, who was killed on Jan. 18 as authorities attempted to clear a group of demonstrators from an area that is set to be the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Activists have been protesting at the site for months and have dubbed it Cop City. Teran was reportedly helping to lead the protests when he allegedly shot and wounded a Georgia state trooper and was killed when police returned fire, according to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. Officers gave verbal commands to the man who did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper. Other law enforcement officers returned fire, hitting the man. Law enforcement evacuated the Trooper to a safe area. The man died on scene, the statement reads. However, friends of Teran claim that they were peacefully protesting in the area. This combo of images provided by the Memphis Police Department shows (top LR) officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, (bottom LR) Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith. (Memphis Police Department via AP) Police Charged in Murder of Tyre Nichols Kemps emergency declaration comes as more protests are widely expected this weekend after the five police officers accused of killing a black man during a traffic stop on Jan. 10 were charged with second-degree murder. Memphis Police Department officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr., and Justin Smith, who are all black and who have since been fired, were accused of beating 29-year-old Tyre Nichols to death during a Jan. 7 traffic stop. Nichols died of his injuries three days later. On Thursday, the Shelby County district attorney announced he would release footage of the arrest on Friday after 7 p.m. ET. A lawyer for Nicholss family, Antonio Romanucci, described the footage as an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes, adding, he was a human pinata for those police officers. Atlanta Police released a statement to multiple media outlets on Thursday afternoon stating that they are closely monitoring the events in Memphis and are prepared to support peaceful protests in our city. We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols, the statement continued. Police officers are expected to conduct themselves in a compassionate, competent, and constitutional manner and these officers failed Tyre, their communities, and their profession. We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful. After 20 years of drug addiction, jail time, health scares, losing custody of their children, and hitting rock bottom, a married couple who met as teens embraced a brand-new challenge together: recovery. Over three years later, theyve reclaimed their lives, reconnected with their faith, and reunified their family. Today, Sonya and Steven Johnson, both 37, live in Sarasota, Florida, with their two sons: Nicholas, 14, and Aiden, 12, both attending a military academy. Steven is a fourth-generation plumber and Sonya works for the nonprofit National Alliance of Mental Illnesss Parents for Parents program, helping parents navigate custody rights and do whats best for their kids. However, for two decades the couple were too consumed by addiction to look far outside themselves and help others. Talking to The Epoch Times, Sonya said that God is a true miracle worker. Im so grateful for the opportunity to do it, Sonya said. I get to help parents to get their kids back. Its yet another miracle. Because I couldnt even be around my own kids, much less help somebody else who needs to get their kids back. I remember thinking to myself, how could I ever meet my maker one day, Im a failure. Im a horrible person [but] God rescued me from the darkness that I was living in. Sonya and Steven with their sons. (Courtesy of Sonya Johnson) The couple during their struggle with addiction. (Courtesy of Sonya Johnson) A Double Life When they were 16, Steven moved from Augusta, Georgia with his mother to Sonyas hometown of Sarasota, where they met. His girlfriend was my friend, Sonya said. She and I were moving in together and we wanted to bring our boyfriends at the last minute. So literally, the day that I met my husband, we moved into our first apartment together. We moved in as friends, and we were friends for six years before we ever got together. Sonya describes their first apartment with its abundance of drink and drugs as party central we thought we were having fun and thats what was normal for teenagers to do, she said. Little did we know, we were both becoming addicts. In 2005, Sonya and Steven both had painful breakups and started a romantic relationship. They decided to run away to Georgia, where their addictions took hold. Briefly, Sonya clung to the dream of marriage and babies as a way to escape the lifestyle. I was going to live happily ever after, she said. Within about two years of us being there, I got pregnant. We had our first child in 2008. In 2009 we got married, and in 2010 we had our second-born son. Sonya stayed sober long enough to give birth to two healthy boys. So did Steven, who worked hard to provide for the family while Sonya became a stay-at-home mom. But Sonya hadnt addressed the childhood trauma to which she attributes her addiction. In 2012, she returned to Florida to visit with her family and realized she was homesick. She convinced Steven to move back to Florida, where familiar habits resurfaced. I ran into my old drug of choice. For me, it was off to the races, said Sonya, who was at the time working at an overnight job. I was living a double life. I was sneaking around, doing drugs on the way to work more drugs on the way home, then I would take the kids to school, make dinner, take care of the family, clean the house. Needless to say, it didnt last for very long. My husband caught me using more than once. He eventually caved and started using with me. A Downward Spiral Back in the throes of addiction, Sonya and Steven would take anything, from cocaine to crack, methamphetamine, and heroin, eventually using intravenously. In 2013, a neighbor caught Sonya using drugs while her kids were at school and called the Department of Children and Families (DCF). When a DCF representative came to Sonyas door, Sonya confessed to her drug use and was offered a compromise: if she could pass a drug test in 45 days, they would close her case. Sonya passed the test but she didnt stop using. Five days after her DCF case was closed, Sonya got into a drunken fight, her case was reopened, and she was issued with a compliance program. It was the beginning of a downward spiral that began with losing her kids and ended at rock bottom. Sonya said: I wasnt able to comply with the substance abuse classes my husband was also using with me, we were both falsifying the drug tests. About six months in, in 2014, I decided that the best thing would be to send the kids to live with my mom because I didnt want them to go into foster care that is where they stayed until 2020. Numbed by the drugs and in denial, neither Sonya nor Steven could break their habit. But in 2016, Steven had a health scare that shook his wife to the core. Steven was admitted to the hospital with endocarditis and a staph infection in his blood that had reached his heart, lungs, and kidneys. He was placed on kidney dialysis and IV antibiotics for his heart, with chest tubes placed on either side of his lungs to drain fluid. Sonya was not allowed to visit Steven in the hospital ward because she was still in active addiction. Steven in the hospital. (Courtesy of Sonya Johnson) I was covered in track marks. I probably looked horrible, probably hadnt showered in a week I can understand now why they didnt want me to go there, she said. I just remember crying and begging God to save my husband, because we really thought that he was going to die. The doctors didnt really treat him like a human because he was an addict. I think they just see so much of that stuff that they just are very dismissive. It was a really hard time, Sonya said, adding that Steven didnt qualify for a heart valve replacement because he hadnt been sober long enough. By 2017, his condition had improved but he was given just five years to live because of all the damage the drugs had done to his body. He was later diagnosed with chronic heart failure. I was Running From God Steven never stopped doing drugs and was arrested. He took this thing they call Comprehensive Treatment Court down here in Sarasota, said Sonya. Basically it meant he could stay out of jail as long as he didnt use. But he wasnt able to stop. Steven would do the drugs when he was out of jail and then would be arrested again and eventually taken to rehab. And then he would get out of rehab again, and the cycle would continue. He was trapped in this vicious pattern for the next 18 months. During this time, Sonya and Steven were barely together, and she was buried by guilt and self-hatred for losing her kids and then her husband. Id gotten to this point in my life where I felt, how am I ever going to face God one day? Everything that Hes ever given me, I have completely failed it. I failed at being a mom, I failed at being a wife, I failed at being a daughter, and I failed at being a woman, Sonya said. When I look back on that, that was the enemy oppressing me and making me feel like I was worthless and irredeemable. But I was redeemable. On Sonyas birthday in 2018, she was arrested and charged with four felonies and a misdemeanor. She lost custody of her kids after using meth on probation and spiraled lower than ever before. Enraged at the time, she now looks back with gratitude. My life was unmanageable and I couldnt stop using, even though I wanted to, she said. I was just in a really bad way, all this shame and guilt and condemnation. I felt like I was a horrible person and that I didnt deserve my kids, that they would be better off without me. I was just running from myself, I was running from God. July 1, 2019, was the date of Sonyas final arrest and the first day of her sobriety. Facing up to 20 years in prison, Sonya accepted a plea bargain of just 20 and a half months. She had no contact with her kids, her mother would not accept her calls, and she had no access to drugs to numb the pain. For the first time, she could not run. She recalled: I was just so broken, bankrupt, and spiritually defeated. I call that my gift of desperation the desperation that I had in that jail cell, it turned into the willingness that I have today. Stable and Strong Sonya had one place left to turn: the jails recovery pod, a faith-based meeting spot for healing and self-reflection. It was there that Sonya rediscovered hope. In court, Sonya prayed a prayer of surrender, recalling: The lady in the [recovery pod] meeting the day before was in the courtroom. She got me accepted into treatment overnight. Instead of going to prison that day, I got graced an opportunity to go to treatment. During Sonyas rehabilitation at a Salvation Army treatment center, Steven, also in recovery, showed up for visits with Sonyas mom and their sons and had a heartfelt message: he wanted to be a family again. I wanted that more than anything in the world but we knew that if we were going to do that, we had to work on ourselves first, Sonya said. Thats really where our journey to sobriety began. I went to a halfway house because thats what they suggested I do when I got out of treatment. My husband also went to a halfway house. We literally started from scratch. Fighting against the odds, we just tried to overcome our situation so that we could become stable and strong enough to bring our kids home. Slowly but surely, they got jobs. Sonya showed up for every probation and DCF appointment and attended parenting classes and visitations with her sons. She and Steven saved up enough money to move into an apartment together on Valentines Day, 2020. Two months later, their family was reunified. Gods Perfect Timing Once back home, the couple knew they seriously needed to rebuild their relationship with their children. We had to prove our trust to them again. We just had to prove that we were trustable, she said. They didnt know if they wanted to give us another chance in the beginning. But today, things have gotten so much better. Im so proud of my boys. Today, three years and seven months sober, Sonya marvels that her husbands clean date is just six weeks after hers. Its Gods perfect timing, to bring my family back together, she said. Sonya claims faith has always played a major role in her life. She used to sing Dusty Springfields Son of a Preacher Man to Steven before they married, since his mother is a pastor, and his love for God is what helped cement her love for him. Sober and stronger than ever after 14 years of marriage, Sonya and Steven have learned to lean on one another in a healthy way and communicate with love and respect. In April, they bought their first home. They go to church, they still attend recovery meetings, and they spend time together as a family. Steven is thriving and has defied his five-year prognosis. Hes gonna live as long as God says hes gonna live, because my God is a miracle worker, Sonya said. Now when I look back those prayers not only saved his life, but they saved my life too. Sonya and Steven now share their incredible journey on social media. Sonya discovered the online recovery community by accident but her first video upload, a Q&A about life as a recovering addict, went viral. It just blew up, so I decided to keep going, she said. When I was in my addiction, I would sit and scroll on my phone for hours and hours and hours. Now, somebody who might be in their addiction, or a family member or somebody whos new in recovery, might be scrolling on their phone in their moment of darkness. Youre not hopeless. You are worthy of recovery, and you might just be the one thats going to help thousands of others turn their life around. God has a plan for your life All you have to do is to surrender to God, and He will show you the way. Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter Government Will Seek to Delay MAID Expansion as Quickly as Possible in New Session, Says Justice Minister Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada David Lametti appears as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa, on Nov. 23, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press) The federal government will introduce legislation aimed at delaying the eligibility expansion for medical assistance in dying (MAID) as quickly as possible, says Justice Minister David Lametti. Canadas laws dictating who can access MAID are currently set to expand on March 17 to include individuals whose only medical conditions are mental illnesses. However, the Liberal government said in December that it would seek to delay the planned expansion due to concerns that proper safeguards were not yet in place that would prepare the health care system to handle it. Lametti and Mental Health Minister Carolyn Bennett, who announced the governments plan to delay the expansion on Dec. 15, did not previously give a timeline for when they would amend the related legislation. Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Jan. 26, Lametti did not give any exact dates, but said it would be a top priority for the government heading into Parliament reconvening on Jan. 26. Well try to get the extension done as quickly as we possibly can and discussions are ongoing, Lametti said. Reporters asked Lametti how long the government intends to delay MAIDs eligibility expansion, but he said he wont negotiate in public. The minister also commented on current federal MAID laws, which allow access for patients who have a serious physical illness, are in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed, and are experiencing unbearable suffering. Lametti said the governments current safeguards surrounding MAID are strong and meant to be applied. Those safeguards are meant to be rigorously applied in order to allow people to control their lives and minimize the degree of suffering that they go through. MAID Regime Lametti said that the vast majority of MAID cases involve individuals who are terminally ill, but he acknowledged there have been a number of cases reported in recent months where the regime has been abused. Where there are reports of abuse, those are obviously a cause for concern, he said, adding that medical boards and sometimes police and prosecutors should examine them. There is a possibility that criminal charges could be laid where those safeguards are not properly applied, he said. A parliamentary committee heard last year of at least eight veterans who were offered unsolicited assisted suicide by a worker at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), according to Conservative MP Blake Richards. The VAC worker allegedly responsible for the unsolicited MAID offers was let go by the department in December. The federal governments December announcement saying it plans to delay expanding MAID eligibility came less than two weeks after the Canadian Association of Chairs of Psychiatry released a statement petitioning Ottawa to do just that. Further time is required to increase awareness of this change and establish guidelines and standards to which clinicians, patients and the public can turn to for more education and information, wrote the association, which represents the leading psychiatrists at Canadas 17 medical schools, on Dec. 1. The Canadian Press contributed to this report. Grand Jury Gets Case of July 4 Shooting Suspects Father Robert E. Crimo Jr., father of Robert Crimo III, waits for court to begin before Judge George D. Strickland at the Lake County, Ill., Courthouse in Waukegan, Ill., on Jan. 26, 2023. (Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo) CHICAGOIllinois prosecutors told a judge Thursday that they are presenting evidence to a grand jury for a possible indictment against the father of the man charged with fatally shooting seven people at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago. Robert Crimo Jr., 58, was arrested in December on seven felony counts of reckless conduct. He is accused of helping his son obtain a gun license years before the 2022 Highland Park shooting, even though the then-19-year-old had reportedly threatened violence. One count of reckless conduct carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. Prosecutors told Judge George Strickland at a brief hearing Thursday in a Lake County court in Waukegan, north of Highland Park, that they were presenting evidence to the grand jury and expected a decision by mid-February. The next court date is Feb. 16. Robert E. Crimo Jr. listens during an appearance before Judge George D. Strickland at the Lake County, Ill., Courthouse in Waukegan, Ill., on Jan. 26, 2023. (Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo) Crimo, a longtime resident and well-known figure in Highland Park, was released after his arrest last month on a $50,000 bond. Lake County States Attorney Eric Rinehart has said the accusations against the father are based on his sponsorship of his sons application for a gun license in December 2019. Authorities say Robert Crimo III attempted suicide by machete in April 2019 and in September 2019 was accused by a family member of making threats to kill everyone. Authorities say Illinois State Police reviewed the sons gun license application and found no reason to deny it because he had no arrests, no criminal record, no serious mental health problems, no orders of protection, and no other behavior that would disqualify him. George M. Gomez, the fathers Chicago-area attorney, has called the charges against his client baseless and unprecedented. Legal experts have said its rare for an accused shooters parent or guardian to be chargedin part because its difficult to prove such charges. A grand jury indicted Crimos son, Robert Crimo III in July on 21 first-degree murder counts, 48 counts of attempted murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery, representing the seven people killed and dozens wounded in the attack at the holiday parade in Highland Park. Robert Crimo III poses for a mugshot in Waukegan, Ill., in an undated image. (Lake County Sheriffs Office via Getty Images) By Michael Tarm Gun Rights in the Crosshairs as Gov. Whitmer Pushes Red Flag Laws in Michigan Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer outlined her three-pronged approach to gun reform in what was her fifth State of the State address on Wednesday, saying The time for only thoughts and prayers are over. Addressing the full Legislature in the House chamber, Whitmer called for enacting universal background checks, safe gun storage laws, and extreme risk protection orders, better known as red flag laws, so we can keep guns out of the hands of those who might represent a danger to themselves or others. Whitmer touted her recent initiative, Operation Safe Neighborhoods, which she said has taken hundreds of illegal firearms off the street before they could be used in the commission of a crime. But we must do more so the world that our kids inherit is not more violent than the one we inhabit now, she explained. She went on to highlight the impetus for the gun reforms she proposedthe Nov. 2021 school shooting at Oxford High School in southeastern Michigan, which claimed the lives of four students and injured seven, and the multiple instances of gun violence across the country that has happened since. In the Oxford High School shootings aftermath, Republican lawmakers blocked all proposed gun reform-related legislation, including one to require safe gun storage, the Detroit Free Press reported. Despite pleas from Oxford families, these issues never even got a hearing in the last legislature, Whitmer said. People embrace as they visit a makeshift memorial outside of Oxford High School,, in Oxford, Mich., on Dec. 1, 2021. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Since Democrats have taken control of both the states house and senate this month, a first since 1983, according to the Detroit Free Press, Whitmer now has a historic opportunity to take advantage of the monumental power shift in Lansing and accomplish her policy goals around gun reform. Though the Democrats enjoy only a very slim margin of two seats in both legislative bodies, Whitmer said that she hopes to work across the aisle to build bipartisan support. This year, lets work together to stop the violence and save lives, she urged the lawmakers in the audience. Giffords Law Center, a gun reform advocacy organization led by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, recently gave Michigan a C+ scorecard grade for its current gun reform efforts, saying that the state has made moderate strides in recent years to improve gun safety, but it can do much more to save lives and prevent shootings. In 2020, Giffords found Michigan ranked 24th in the highest-gun death rate in the United States. Opposition Response Michigan Senate Republican leader Aric Nesbitt didnt comment on Whitmers gun reform proposals during his GOP response to the State of the State address. Other Republican lawmakers expressed a wait-and-see approach. Michigan state Rep. Kathy Schmaltz told woodtv.com, Id have to look at all the proposals because I dont want to comment when I havent read everything. And state Sen. Mark Huizenga said, I think we have to wait and see what it looks like. We dont actually know. However, both lawmakers expressed their strong defense of Second Amendment rights. I am a proponent everybody should have the right to protect themselves and own a gun, Schmaltz told the outlet. We cant lose that. State Rep. Bryan Posthumus said that peoples rights to both protect themselves and hunt are fundamental. Theres no faster way to stop a bad guy with a gun than a good guy with a gun, he said. Brenden Boudrea, executive director of gun rights advocacy group Great Lakes Gun Rights, expressed strong opposition to Whitmers proposed reforms in a press release, calling them a recipe for disaster. He said red flag laws take away due process protections, and safe gun storage laws reduce access to firearms in an emergency, only hurting law-abiding gun owners. Whitmers use of the bully pulpit to call for dismantling the rights of law-abiding gun owners is just business as usual for this administration, he said. An NRA sticker is on display as people gather for the 12th annual Second Amendment March sponsored by Michigan Open Carry, Inc and Second Amendment March outside of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on Sept. 23, 2021. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images) Bay City gun shop owner Glenn Duncan said he agreed with Whitmers proposed policy of safe gun storage, telling the local ABC affiliate ABC 12, I am for that 100 %. If you are buying guns, you need to protect your guns from everybody. But he was less supportive of the red flag laws, fearing that they could be easily abused. People that are anti-gun, they are going to get us, by using red flag laws, say that I am a criminal and I shouldnt have guns and I said something wrong, he said. Red Flag Laws Explained According to Giffords, extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), also called red flag laws, provide a proactive way to prevent gun tragedies, such as mass shootings, suicide, and deadly domestic violence situations, before they occur. Such laws vary from state to state, but typically they empower families, certain key community members (such as teachers and school administrators), and law enforcement to petition a court directly to temporarily restrict access to firearms if someone demonstrates clear warning signs of violence or presents a significant risk to themselves or others. According to Pew Charitable Trusts, 19 states and the District of Columbia have adopted red flag laws since 1990, some with bipartisan support. Fourteen of those came soon after the deadly 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that sparked a cry for gun reform across the country. Depending on the state, ERPOs can last anywhere from six months to two years. Dr. April Zeoli, associate professor at the University of Michigan, who runs the largest study of red flag laws, told Western Michigans Fox affiliate Fox 17 that her findings indicate that red flag laws seem to be an effective measure. She found that in her analysis, which examined 6,700 red flag cases across six states, 10 percent were in response to a mass shooting threat. Admitting that more research is needed because ERPOs are relatively new, Zeoli noted that they appear to be beneficial in situations involving suicide and domestic violence. However, an Associate Press (AP) analysis found less encouraging resultsred flag laws are rarely used in the states that have enacted them. Since 2020, under red flag laws, only 15,049 instances of removing weapons occurred. This amounts to fewer than 10 in 100,000 adults. Experts consider the number a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of firearms that are in circulation and countless potential warning signs law enforcement officers encounter from gun owners every day, AP reported. Its too small to make a ripple, Duke University sociologist Jeffery Swanson, who studies red flag surrender orders nationwide, said. Its as if the law doesnt exist. Smith and Wesson handguns are displayed during the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, on May 5, 2018. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Secure Gun Storage Laws According to gun reform advocacy group Everytown Research and Policy, 23 states have adopted some sort of secure storage law for guns. The laws vary from state to state, but their purpose is to prevent children and adults, who are legally prohibited from possessing a firearm, from getting their hands on a gun kept at home. The group claims that households that lock firearms and ammunition have seen 85 percent fewer unintentional injuries. Those who dont are significantly more likely to have their guns stolen, with approximately 380,000 disappearing from individual gun owners homes each year through theft. And Giffords reports that between 70 and 90 percent of guns used in suicides, unintentional shootings, and school shootings committed by shooters under 18 years of age, were taken from their own homes or those of friends and relatives. From NTD News A global analysis found that around 90 percent of long-COVID cases occur in individuals who were not hospitalized for COVID-19. In a commentary published in January 2023, the authors of the study concluded that this would suggest that most people with long COVID experienced a mild infection. The data come from a global study that analyzed 54 studies and two medical databases across 10 countries. The authors defined long COVID as the persistence of fatigue, cognitive, or respiratory symptoms for over three months post-COVID. They found that 89.7 percent (130 million) of the recorded long-COVID cases occurred in people who were not hospitalized for COVID-19. In reviewing the study, it appears that because mild cases make up the majority of long-COVID cases, having mild COVID might be what puts people at risk of long COVID. However, the reports corresponding author, Dr. Theo Vos from the University of Washington, who holds a doctorate in epidemiology and health economics, expressed in an email to The Epoch Times that the more likely explanation is that since most people experience mild symptoms with COVID-19, then if some of these patients were to become long-haulers, they would easily make up the majority of overall long-COVID cases. Previous studies that tracked the severity of COVID-19 symptoms also supported this reasoning. A study in February 2020 that tracked infections in China showed that asymptomatic and mild disease exceeded 80 percent of all COVID-19 cases. The sheer [greater] number of non-hospitalized infections means that the vast majority of long-COVID cases arise in people with milder acute infection, Vos wrote in the email. Predicting the Development of Long COVID The global study, like much previous research, supports the hypothesis that a severe case of COVID-19 would increase the risk of developing long COVID. Based on the data analyzed, the authors estimated that a greater proportion of patients who needed critical care or hospitalization for COVID-19 developed long-COVID symptoms than non-hospitalized patients. However, since most people do not develop severe symptoms during a COVID-19 infection, this may be why physicians do not see clear patterns in the patients who progress to long COVID. Further, the severity of the initial COVID-19 infection may not predict the severity of long COVID. The chief of critical care and COVID-19 at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas, Dr. Joseph Varon told The Epoch Times that he has seen long-COVID patients with varying severities of the initial COVID-19 infection. One of his patients developed very dire symptoms of long COVID after experiencing a mild case of COVID-19. Thats the primary concern that I have, because a lot of people think that you [need to] have severe disease to have a more [severe case of] long COVID, Varon said. Though many studies have suggested that people with underlying health conditions, such as diabetes and obesity, are more at risk for long COVID, doctors have seen a mixed bag of patients reporting severe symptoms. Critical care pulmonary specialist Dr. Pierre Kory said on EpochTVs Frontline Health that he is actually seeing many patients who are young, healthy, and were professional or aiming to become professional athletes, now being severely debilitated by long COVID. Studies have suggested that exercises may worsen or accelerate the progression to long COVID. A survey of over 477 long-COVID patients in the UK found that around 75 percent reported worsened symptoms after exercise. Kory said that there are different types of long-COVID patients. The first type comprises those who directly progress from acute to long COVID. These people never experience a period of recovery before relapsing into long COVID, and they make up a small minority of long-COVID patients. Most long-COVID patients experience a brief period of recovery for a few weeks or a few months before progressing to long COVID. To prevent long COVID, doctors like Kory and Varon recommend early treatment drugs to inhibit the virus from replicating and causing further damage and symptoms. Kory and Varon are part of a group of critical care experts within the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance. They have developed their own early treatment protocols to help people recover from COVID-19 infection. Varon said that most of the long-COVID patients in his clinic did not get adequate treatment at the time of infection, observing that when he gave ivermectin, as per his protocol to patients, very few would later progress to long COVID. Worldwide, disability and death due to Parkinsons disease are increasing faster than for any other neurological disorder, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). However, Parkinsons could be treated with an inexpensive over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine if a new phase 3 trial is successful. Current Treatment Limited to 2 Drugs Parkinsons disease is a degenerative neurological disorder with four primary symptoms: Tremor Muscle stiffness Slowness of movement Impaired balance and coordination Parkinsons disease happens more often in men over the age of 50 with certain hereditary factors. There is still no treatment or medication known to prevent Parkinsons disease, Dr. Jonathan J. Rasouli, director of complex and adult spinal deformity surgery for the department of Neurological Surgery at Staten Island University Hospital, part of Northwell Health in New York, told The Epoch Times. Its thought that Parkinsons disease develops due to the breakdown or death of nerve cells in a part of the brain that controls movement, called the substantia nigra. These cells produce an essential neurotransmitter called dopamine and stop when impaired or destroyed. The disease might also involve damage to nerve endings that produce another neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Treatment options for the disease are limited to a combination of two drugs: carbidopa and levodopa. Treatment is expensive and not easily accessed in many parts of the world. Most medications on the market basically act like dopamine and improve the main symptoms of Parkinsons disease, explained Rasouli. However, these medications have a bunch of side effects, which can be very unpleasant. There are also surgical options. The gold standard surgical option is deep brain stimulation surgery, where a neurosurgeon places special electrodes in the brain. Although these treatment options help reduce side effects, they do not stop progression of the disease, said Rasouli. Therefore, we have been increasingly looking for treatment options that can stop or even reverse the symptoms of Parkinsons disease. Ambroxol Shows Promise in Phase 2 Trial Research published in 2009 looked at the cough medicine ambroxol to treat another neurological condition called Gaucher disease, which leaves people deficient in an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase (GCase). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration still hasnt approved ambroxol for prescription or OTC use in the United States, since it was associated with 10 infant deaths in Arizona over 10 years ago. The findings indicated that ambroxol significantly increased levels of GCase in patients living with Gaucher disease. This caught the attention of Parkinsons disease researchers. Reduced levels of GCase have been associated with Parkinsons disease, as up to 12 percent of people with the condition are born with a gene mutation linked to low levels of this crucial enzyme. Many patients without this mutation also show unusually low levels of GCase. GCase is used by the brain to clear toxic proteins, like alpha-synuclein, which is a biomarker for Parkinsons disease. If ambroxol increases GCase activity, could it treat Parkinsons? A phase 2 human trial found ambroxol was safe at doses high enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and increase GCase levels by about 35 percent. Research published in 2020 showed the drug also lowered levels of alpha-synuclein in Parkinsons patients and potentially improved motor symptoms. Rasouli finds the ambroxol study interesting. The study demonstrated that ambroxol, a cough medicine that can potentially activate enzymes that protect against Parkinsons disease, was able to get from our stomachs to our brain safely and without major side effects, he said. This is what we call a proof of concept trial. They are now starting to do larger clinical studies this year to see if ambroxol actually works to stop Parkinsons disease, he continued. The phase 3 trial begins this year in the UK. The trial will be conducted in partnership with UK charity Cure Parkinsons, the Van Andel Institute, a Michigan-based research facility, and the John Black Charitable Foundation. Researchers will recruit 330 Parkinsons disease patients and follow them at 10 to 12 locations in the UK. They will accept Parkinsons patients who have mutations in the GBA-1 gene, the most frequent genetic risk factor for the disease, and patients without this risk factor. Each participant will be given either ambroxol or a placebo for the trial period. This will be the first time a drug specifically applied to a genetic cause of Parkinsons disease has reached this level of trial, lead researcher of the trial, Professor Anthony Schapira at the University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology, said in a statement. Ways to Relieve Parkinsons Symptoms at Home A 2012 study looked at different types of exercise to find that the ancient Chinese art of tai chi produced a measurable improvement in balance and stability in those with moderate Parkinsons disease. Research suggests that massage can help relieve the muscle stiffness and rigidity often found in Parkinsons. The findings indicated that massage therapy treatment has a positive effect on reducing resting and postural tremor in a single patient with long-standing Parkinsons. While massage was effective in temporarily reducing muscle rigidity during treatment, it didnt offer a lasting effect. However, massage does help reduce stress, promote relaxation, and enable you to identify tension in your body, and find ways to minimize or reduce it. Tension can make symptoms worse so its important to keep it under control. A systematic review of studies found that acupuncture for the treatment of Parkinsons disease may be clinically effective and safe. Acupuncture may contribute to recovery from functional impairments following brain damage by encouraging neural stem cell proliferation, which is active at the initial stage of injury, the review authors wrote. Theres good evidence that taking certain vitamins might reduce the risk of Parkinsons disease. According to the study authors, one theory about the cause of Parkinsons is brain cell damage from a chemical reaction called oxidation. Because vitamins C and E and carotenoids prevent damage from oxidation, they might reduce the risk of developing [Parkinsons disease], researchers concluded. Long COVID, or post-COVID conditions, are evolving terms, and as time passes, were learning more about the aftereffects of COVID-19 infection. One of the most common symptoms that have been observed is chest pain, which affects up to 22 percent of patients two months after acute infection. Its very common with patients that experienced significant cough during their COVID infection, but can also be a sign of something more troubling, Dr. Thomas Gut, medical director of the Post-COVID Recovery Center at Staten Island University Hospital, part of Northwell Health in New York, told The Epoch Times. While this can be frightening for COVID survivors, it doesnt always mean youre experiencing a life-threatening condition. Post-COVID Chest Pain Cause 1: Heart Disease and Blood Clotting COVID has been associated with heart disease and also abnormal blood clots, observed Gut. These can cause chest pain. A large study found COVID-19 was linked to a severely increased risk of blood clot-related issues immediately after diagnosis compared to people never infected. This includes heart attack and stroke. Researchers also found that this risk remained higher for up to 49 weeks, although dropped sharply by the second week. The study shows that if someone had COVID-19, then they should be talking with their physicians about managing their cardiovascular risk, which is likely to be increased for some level of time, study senior author Jonathan Sterne, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at Englands University of Bristol, said in a statement. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that COVID-19 survivors have twice the risk of developing pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs) or respiratory conditions. Chest pain after COVID-19 could also be related to pericarditis (inflammation of the lining of the heart), and coronary artery disease (low blood flow to the heart), according to Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, division chief of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology at UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann. Pericarditis is often mild and goes away on its own. However, if not treated, some cases can become chronic and seriously affect your heart. While it can take weeks or months to recover, full recovery is most likely with rest and ongoing care, which can also reduce the risk of getting it again. Post-COVID Chest Pain Cause 2: Inflammation of the Lung COVID-19 can cause lung complications such as pneumonia and, in the most severe cases, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Newer coronavirus variants might also cause airway disease, like bronchitis, potentially severe enough for hospitalization. These conditions can create inflammation in the chest severe enough to cause pain. In those with COVID pneumonia, the chest pain can come from direct inflammation of the lung lining, called the pleura, said Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, a board-certified internist and nationally known expert in the fields of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, sleep, and pain. [The pain will] tend to get worse with deep breaths. This kind of chest pain can resolve with time (months) and anti-inflammatory treatments such as highly absorbable forms of curcumin or ibuprofen, he added. It Can Be Benign Muscle Pain, One Way to Check But the chest pain usually will be benign, said Teitelbaum. Those younger than the typical age for increased heart attack risk can look for specific signs that the pain isnt life-threatening. For people under 50 years of age, where the pain: is worse upon taking a deep breath, changing position or pushing over the area; does not trigger sweats or left arm pain; isnt worse with exertion; isnt associated with coughing up blood or yellow mucus; and doesnt go away with an antacid, its most often just going to be benign muscle pain in your chest-wall area, said Teitelbaum. If chest pain goes away with an antacid, especially if the pain is worse while lying down or with burping, its most often going to be indigestion and acid reflux. Do not use PPI acid blockers, as these are toxic and can worsen COVID in general, Teitelbaum advised. Instead, use famotidine, which helps the body heal from COVID by improving immunity, or [use] chewable antacids. There is a simple way to check whether its just pain in your chest muscles. Push over the area of pain with your fingertips using about five pounds of pressure, which is enough to make your fingernail bed turn white. If you can reproduce the pain by pressing over a bony area, like the ribs, Teitelbaum said, it is most likely a benign muscle pain. The rib cage is like a suit of armor around our internal organs, and pushing on the outside will not make the heart or lung underneath it hurt. But after having chest pain post-COVID, the first thing you should do is see your doctor immediately to make sure its not anything dangerous. With chest pain, better safe than sorry, Teitelbaum said. Essentially, your doctor is ruling out that you are having an acute heart attack, angina, or serious lung issue. Heart attacks can kill if treatment is delayed. As long as a doctor has determined your symptoms are not worrisome, then just using a heating pad and topical comfrey or other creams like Icy Hot (topical aspirin and menthol) can be helpful, advised Teitelbaum. Irvine Wont Investigate Attempted Bribery of Councilors by Consultant Melahat Rafiei The Irvine City Council Jan. 24 failed to pass a motion to launch an independent investigation after political consultant Melahat Rafiei recently admitted engaging in a bribery scheme in the city in 2018. In an FBI corruption probe, Rafiei, 45, also agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of attempted wire fraud against a cannabis dispensary seeking her services, according to the Department of Justice. She founded Progressive Solutions Consulting, a Long Beach-based consulting firm where she worked with cannabis industry clients and local politicians. In her plea deal, the former executive director of the Democratic Party of Orange County admitted that between April and June 2018, she agreed to give at least $225,000 in bribes to two Irvine city councilorsin exchange for introducing and passing a city ordinance allowing her clients to open a retail store in the city. But the council would have needed a majority of three members to vote for the item to pass. During the council meeting on Tuesday, newly elected Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder called for an independent investigation into Rafieis dealings with the council in 2018 and was supported by Vice Mayor Tammy Kim. Its just not just for people to be able to buy our votes, Treseder said during the meeting. Its impossible for us to govern fairly if our votes are up for the highest bidder. But her colleague Councilman Larry Agran said such would not be good for the city. He was supported by Mayor Farrah Khan and Councilman Mike Carroll. Mayor of Irvine Farrah Khan leads an Irvine City Council meeting at Irvine City Hall on Oct. 26, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Agran said he is sickened by public corruption, adding that it is not necessary to launch another investigation in addition to the FBIs, which will likely keep probing into the matter. Once the FBI has discover[ed] there was criminality, they wont quit, he said, adding that it is the councils responsibility to cooperate fully with federal prosecutors. Additionally, Agran said a city-led investigation would be costly and become a subject of ridicule for the city. Khan and Kim, who both said Rafiei was a consultant for their campaigns, denied connection with the guilty plea. Former Councilwoman Melissa Fox, an attorney, came forward Wednesday in a statement reported by multiple media outlets saying she met with Rafiei and her client who owned a cannabis business in Irvine in 2018. Fox said weeks prior to that meeting, and independent of it, Rafiei asked her to perform legal work for her consulting firm. Fox said she quoted her an hourly fee, but was not hired. She also said that quote was provided to the FBI as indicia of an intended bribe to get me to introduce a cannabis ordinance in Irvine. I was shocked and very angry that she had used this proposed agreement for my legal services to involve me in any corrupt or illegal activity, she said. The Irvine Civic Center in Irvine, Calif., on Jan. 12, 2021. 9John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Rafieis lawyer, Alaleh Kamran, said in response to multiple media outlets, To the extent that Ms. Fox is stating any facts that are within her personal knowledge I would defer to her. Former Councilwoman Christina Shea and Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner, who were both on the council in 2018, told The Epoch Times they have never been approached by Rafiei for a bribe. It is disappointing that [Rafiei] thought she might be able to bribe some of my colleagues and some of the folks in Anaheim apparently, Wagner said. The other former councilors, Jeff Lalloway and Lynn Schott, could not be reached for comment. The federal investigation and Rafieis ongoing involvement in it were made public in May 2022. Affidavits described the FBI probe into local pay-to-play schemes in Anaheim involving the citys sale of Angel Stadium and revealed Rafieis arrest in 2019 on suspicion of bribing public officials. Rafiei said she was a cooperating witness in the investigation, according to media reports. A few days later, she resigned from her elected roles with the Democratic Party of California and as state representative to the Democratic National Committee. She is expected to make her initial appearance in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana on Feb. 6. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Is It Time to Cancel Pope Francis? Pope Francis attends a Mass for the feast of the Epiphany at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Vatican, on Jan. 6, 2023. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) Commentary The deaths of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cardinal George Pell, within 11 days of each other, have focused attention on Pope Francis legacy. Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope to stem the flow of the faithful away from the Church, particularly in South America, clean up Church finances, and sexual abuse scandals. However, on these counts and so many others, Francis papacy has been a litany of failures. These have been laid bare in the Demos document (Greek for people)a statement attributed to Pell on the state of the Church that is being passed around by cardinals. In it, Francis papacy has been described as catastrophic. In South America, the Protestant expansion grows ever larger. However, Pope Francis has never been back to his native Argentina. Why? La Nacion, Argentinas biggest daily newspaper, reported in 2019 that then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio had been active in protecting convicted paedophile priests or promoting those who have covered up clergy abuse in the past. These include Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who in 2017 was appointed Assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic despite seven priestsincluding three of Zanchettas vicar generalsformally accusing him of financial mismanagement, authoritarianism, and sexual misconduct. Last year, Zanchetta was found guilty of sexually abusing two seminarians. In terms of the Vaticans global influence, this had become negligible, the Demos document noted. In this picture taken on Sept. 11, 2020, Cardinal Joseph Zen, former bishop of Hong Kong, prays in the chapel at his residence in Hong Kong. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images) There had been grave failures to support human rights in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Hong Kong, mainland China, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Under the secret Vatican-China pact, there had been no public support for the loyal Catholics in China who have been intermittently persecuted for their loyalty to the Papacy for more than 70 years. When the former Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, flew to Rome to discuss the issue with the Vatican, Pope Francis refused to meet with him. He has declined to meet the Dalai Lama or speak out against the persecution of the Uyghurs. As far as financial matters are concerned, the Demos statement noted that the Churchs financial situation was grave. After a decade of deficits of about 20 million Euros (US$22 million) a year before COVID, they had reached 30 to 25 million Euros a year. The Vatican is facing an 800 million Euro pension fund deficit in 2030. As Prefect for the Economy in Rome, Pell was obstructed in his efforts to clean up the Churchs finances by Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the deputy to Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin (who oversaw the aforementioned Vatican agreement with Beijing). Becciu is now the subject of the trial of the century involving cases of alleged financial wrongdoing in the Vatican. Seeped in Neo-Marxism Cardinal Pells scathing Spectator article, published a day after his passing, spoke of the toxic nightmare of the upcoming October Synod on Synodality. In the Synod documents, couched in neo-Marxist jargon and hostile to the apostolic tradition, there is no mention of the Churchs fundamental mission: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. (St Matthew 28: 19-20). Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with Cardinal George Pell during the Final Mass at Southern Cross Precinct during World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, on July 20, 2008. (World Youth Day via Getty Images) Pell, in his Campion College lecture last August, said it was largely irrelevant to the preaching of the gospel and the threat of decline, being more concerned with the redistribution of power. The Synod doubles down on the failed experiment of aggiornamento (updating) that has taken place in the Church since the late 1960s, which has led to dwindling congregations, except in parishes and orders that are faithful to tradition, doctrine, and the Churchs magisterium. However, these areas of the Church have been under constant attack by Pope Francis, especially with regard to the crackdown on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. Rather than being a source of disunity within the Church, its wider celebration allowed those who find in the traditional liturgy a sense of the sacred that is often not present in the tacky vernacular liturgies on offer in most parishes, to not become separated from the Church. Cardinal Pell regarded it as a fair go for those faithful. Read More Why the Pope Is Wrong About Latin Mass Restrictions The next pope must understand that the secret of Christian and Catholic vitality comes from fidelity to the teachings of Christ It does not come from adapting to the world or from money, Demos stated. Jesus told disciples at the Last Supper (St John 15: 18-20): If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before you. It is because you do not belong to the world, because I have singled you out from the midst of the world, that the world hates you. While Papa Bergoglio has time to inform nuns that they should fight against sexism in the Church, as he did in a Twitter post, he is voiceless about the persecution of millions of believers, active in his alienation of traditional Catholics, and seemingly feckless in facing the scourge of sexual abuse by clergy. Has the time come to cancel Pope Francis? Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Jay Leno Breaks Multiple Bones in Accident Months After Recovering From Burn Injuries Jay Leno attends "May Contain Nuts! A Night Of Comedy" Benefiting WeSPARK Cancer Support Center at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles on Oct. 25, 2022. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) Comedian Jay Leno revealed in an interview on Thursday that he sustained multiple broken bones in a motorcycle accident that happened earlier this month. The 72-year-old former host of The Tonight Show told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he got knocked off [his] motorcycle on Jan. 17 and suffered a broken collarbone, two broken ribs, and two cracked kneecaps. Leno provided specifics on the accident while responding to a reporter from the Nevada newspaper, who asked the TV personality how he was doing in his recovery from burn injuries he sustained when a vintage car he was working on burst into flames in November 2022. Its so funny you should say that, Leno said, referring to his recovery from the Nov. 12, 2022, accident when he burned his face, chest, and hands during a fire at his home garage. Just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle. So Ive got a broken collarbone. Ive got two broken ribs. Ive got two cracked kneecaps, he said, noting that he was doing OK and will be working this weekend. Leno, a known car aficionado who also hosts his own series called Jay Lenos Garage, explained that he noticed the smell of leaking gas while test-riding a 1940 Indian motorcycle, so he decided to pull over at a parking lot to check it out. So, I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it, Leno told the paper. So, you know, I didnt see it until it was too late. It just clothesline me and, boom, knocked me off the bike. The bike kept going, and you know how that works out, he said. Leno is one of Americas best-known television hosts, attracting millions of fans after hosting The Tonight Show for 17 years. He said that he decided to keep the latest accident quiet until now due to the media coverage of the accident just months earlier. U.S. comedian Jay Leno poses in front of a 1979 Ford F-150 pickup, in the style of one owned by Walmart founder Sam Walton during the 27th annual Woodward Dream Cruise, in Royal Oak, Mich., on Aug. 20, 2022. (Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images) The Jan. 17 accident happened about two months after Leno was released from a burn center in Los Angeles after sustaining injuries categorized by a medical official as second-degree burns. Some of the facial wounds are a little bit deeper and a little more concerning because theyre showing signs of progressing to third-degree, as can happen with burns, Peter H. Grossman, medical director of the center at West Hills Hospital, said at the time. The November accident happened at the Burbank garage where Leno stores his famed collection of rare and exotic cars and other vehicles. From NTD News Judge Blocks Sale of Trigger Kits The Justice Department Argues Are Machine Gun Parts On Thursday, a federal judge issued a restraining order, preventing two firearms parts companies from selling trigger kits that the U.S. Department of Justice claims turn semi-automatic rifles into fully automatic-firing machine guns. Judge Nina Morrison, of New Yorks federal Eastern District Court, granted a temporary restraining order preventing Rare Breed Triggers, LLC and Rare Breed Firearms, LLC from selling firearm trigger kits known as forced reset triggers (FRTs). Morrison granted the restraining order after the Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit last week, arguing that the trigger kits allow users to fire in excess of 700 rounds of ammunition per minute, effectively making semi-automatic firearms into machine guns. U.S. law defines a machine gun as any weapon that shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a letter in March 2022, stating some forced reset triggers could be classified as machine guns as they allow the weapons to fire multiple bullets while holding the trigger. ATFs examination found that some FRT devices allow a firearm to automatically expel more than one shot with a single, continuous pull of the trigger, the ATF letter reads. For this reason, ATF has concluded that FRTs that function in this way are a combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun, and hence, ATF has classified these devices as a machinegun as defined by the [National Firearms Act] and [Gun Control Act]. The DOJ lawsuit specifically argues that a forced reset trigger design known as the FRT-15, and a virtual copy of the design known as the wide-open trigger or WOT, are after-market parts that users can swap into rifles like the AR-15 design, that allow their users to fire multiple rounds of ammunition with a single function of the trigger. The DOJ lawsuit argues that Rare Breed Triggers and Rare Breed Firearms have continued to sell their FRTs, despite the ATF warning them that their trigger kits are considered machine gun parts, in violation of U.S. laws. Current U.S. gun laws, prohibit machine gun sales to the general public and require machine gun owners to register their weapons and pay a tax stamp for the weapons. The DOJ alleges the defendants sold thousands of FRTs to the general public. In her decision to grant the temporary restraining order, Morrison wrote that there is probable cause to believe the defendant companies and their owners have impeded ATF investigations and FRT seizures, sold illegal machine guns, and committed wire and mail fraud. Machine Guns Arent Defined By How Fast They Fire, Manufacturers Say Rare Breed Triggers has argued that the forced-reset trigger does not actually allow users to fire multiple rounds of ammunition with a single function of the trigger. The company has said a typical trigger on a semi-automatic firearm will fire a single time as the user pulls the trigger from the unfired to fired position and they cant fire again until they release that trigger and allows it to mechanically reset to the unfired position. The company has argued that FRTs are designed to automatically reset the trigger from the fired to unfired position, but the user still has to pull the trigger each time it is reset in order to fire again. The company has argued that the forced resetting of the trigger essentially simplifies a users actions, eliminating the need to release the trigger to allow it to reset before it can be fired again. A light trigger-pull weight and a forced resetting of the trigger can allow a user to manipulate the trigger rapidly, though the FRT manufacturers argue the user is still only firing once for each pull of the trigger. A machinegun is not defined under federal law by how fast it can firebut rather by the method in which it can fire fast, Rare Breed Triggers argued in their own lawsuit (pdf) in a Florida federal court in August 2021, challenging the ATFs authority to classify their trigger kits as machine gun parts. Rare Breed Triggers was originally organized in Florida and now operates in South Dakota. Rare Breed Firearms was incorporated in Texas. Attorneys for Rare Breed Triggers and Rare Breed Firearms have not yet appeared before in New York court to begin arguing their case. Morrison, a Biden appointee, wrote that there could be irreparable harm and the defendants violations will continue unless she imposed the restraining order barring sales of the trigger kits. ATF Seeking to Seize Trigger Kits In their March 2022 letter, the ATF called on owners of FRT trigger kits to contact the ATF and give up their trigger kits. Notwithstanding the ATF efforts, there are tens of thousands of FRT-15s and WOTs in the public domain, presenting a continuing threat to public safety, the Justice Department wrote in their complaint. The restraining order against Rare Breed Triggers and Rare Breed Firearms requires that they preserve all documents related to the manufacture, possession, receipt, transfer, customer base, and/or historical or current sale of the FRT-15s, Wide Open Triggers, forced reset triggers, and/or machinegun conversion devices. NTD News reached out to Rare Breed Firearms for comment, but did not receive a response by press time. From NTD News Australias Snowy Mountians Feral Horse Population Explodes A member of of a small herd of Brumbies in the Long Plains area of the Kosciuszko National Park, Australia on Aug. 24, 2020. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images) The number of feral brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park has exploded from about 14,380 to an estimated 18,814 in the past two years, according to a new survey. It comes despite the governments commitment to reduce the horse population to 3000 by 30 June 2027 using a range of control measures implemented by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). An NPWS representative attributed the latest increase in horse numbers to two good seasons following years of bushfires and drought, which they said impacted the previous 2020 survey. The survey also recorded a significant increase in the deer population in Kosciuszko National Park, despite NPWS removing more than 6800 deer from 2020 to 2022. The Invasive Species Council raised concerns feral horse populations were growing despite action by the NPWS, which removed 859 horses in the 10 months following the formal adoption of the Wild Horse Management Plan in November 2021. More horses were removed from the park in 2022 than at any time in the past 20 years, according to an NPWS representative who declined to clarify what proportion were culled and how many were removed through other control methods such as rehoming. Invasive Species Council advocacy manager Jack Gough said the rise in numbers was a red flag and showed current controls were inadequate. Our sensitive alpine regions have not evolved to cope with thousands of heavy, hard-hoofed feral horses damaging streams and wetlands and degrading vegetation, he said. NSW Minister for Environment James Griffin said the government was delivering wild horse control in line with the requirements of the plan. A Brumby and an Eastern Grey Kangaroo are seen in the Yarrangobilly area of the Kosciuszko National Park on August 24, 2020 in Kosciuszko National Park, Australia. (Brook Mitchell/Getty Images) Greens MP Sue Higginson said the NSW Liberal party was being held captive by the Nationals opposition to brumby culls. She called for even greater reduction targets. The government has ignored the science and played politics with this national treasure, Higginson said. Even the governments target of 3000 by 2027 is too many when we are talking about a national park. The Australian Brumby Alliance launched proceedings against Parks Victoria in the Supreme Court in September, claiming the shooting of wild horses breached the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Mr Gough said culling conducted by highly trained professionals using protocols reviewed by the RSPCA was the only viable way to reduce feral horse numbers. While we understand that, after years of inaction, initial control efforts would be slow to ramp up and appreciate that there was a small increase in the rate of removal in the second half of 2022, the rate is nowhere near what is needed to start to reduce numbers and protect this unique landscape, he said. The future of unique wildlife such as the corroboree frog and sensitive alpine wildflowers and the headwaters of the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers are at stake if horse numbers are not brought down rapidly. Lack of In-Person Medical Screenings for Pilots a Concern, Says Advocacy Group A pilot takes the elevator at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Dec. 14, 2020.(The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette) The federal government has no intention of bringing back regular in-person medical exams for commercial pilots, a move decried by an air safety advocacy group. Its long past time to return to full, annual in-person medicals, says pilot Greg Hill from the organization Free to Fly. Currently Transport Canada requires a pilot holding a medical certificate to undergo, in normal circumstances, an in-person examination for renewal only if his previous two appointments were completed remotely. This means a commercial pilot could be three years without being examined directly by a physician. Commercial pilots under 40 years old need a medical exam every year, whereas those over 40 are required to undergo an exam every six months. In response to the pandemic, Transport Canada created an exemption for pilots to be medically screened via telemedicine. The order creating the exemption states that this was done after having taken into account that this exemption is in the public interest and is not likely to adversely affect aviation safety or security. The need for physical distancing due to COVID-19 is stated as the reason behind the exemption, to reduce the unnecessary exposure of healthy medical certificate holders to potentially hazardous healthcare settings. Hill says this doesnt make sense as most restrictions have been lifted and people are now going about their normal lives. Canadians across the country can, as they should, go to crowded concerts, restaurants, and travel across the nation with two to three hundred other people unmasked in packed airplanes. We welcome this change, he says. So why can a Canadian airline pilot not see his doctor one on one in a pristine office? Transport Canada told The Epoch Times theres currently no plans to lift the pandemic-era exemption, which was set to expire in early March. Transport Canada intends to continue the use of telemedicine on an extended trial basis while it determines how telemedicine may be integrated as a permanent feature in the Aviation Medical Certification Program, says department spokesman Hicham Ayoun. He says this was endorsed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), but the aviation body was using the pandemic as a rationale. The Epoch Times contacted the ICAO for comment but did not receive a response prior to publication. Ayoun said the exemption initiative has been safe and successful and well-received by the aviation community, notably by pilots working in remote locations. The Epoch Times reached out to Air Canada and WestJet but didnt immediately hear back. In all circumstances, Transport Canada will bring that same rigour and vigilance to the medical certificate application review process without compromising safety, says Ayoun. Concerns South of the Border A loosening of a screening standard for pilots in the United States has also raised concerns lately. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) altered the electrocardiogram (EKG) test limit for pilots in late 2022. The test measures the time required for an electrical impulse to travel from one part of the heart to another. Called the PR interval, it is an indicator of heart health, and a slower speed could be indicative of heart tissue damage. The new standard is now 50 percent longer than the previous limit. The FAAs decision to lower the EKG standards is the latest assault on aviation safety from an organization that has pledged to put aviation safety ahead of all else, Stephen Carbone, a former FAA safety inspector, previously told The Epoch Times in a Jan. 22 email. Carbone has issues with the change in standards and the safety of the COVID-19 injections. The FAA told The Epoch Times that its decision to change the EKG standard was based on data and science and that there is no evidence of aircraft accidents or incapacitations caused by pilots suffering medical complications associated with COVID-19 vaccines. Hill says hes spent many hours on the phone with pilots suffering from different levels of vaccine injuries from all different airlines, but none are willing to come forward fearing repercussions. On the FAA decision, Hill said he was less familiar with that environment but that the loosening of any safety standard should raise concerns. As an airline pilot back flying, Im more concerned domestically where Transport Canada is still content to forego their own standards for annual EKGs and annual in person medicals. Transport Canada did not reply to a question about its medical standards for pilots regarding EKG testing. We also need to create a permissive environment for Canadian flight crews to address some of their post-vaccination concerns with things like D-dimer and troponin tests, or better yet, cardio MRIs. Were seeing elevated instances of post-vaccination cardiovascular issues and that is no different in aviation, says Hill. He says his assessment of seeing an increase in cases of post-vaccination cardiovascular issues among pilots is based on his personal knowledge of cases in pilots he has spoken to. He says since they fear going public, there is no official data available. The Epoch Times asked the Air Line Pilots Association and the Air Canada Pilots Association if they share Hills observation, but didnt hear back. The Epoch Times is not aware of any published data or studies showing increased cardiovascular issues in the aviation sector post-vaccination. The tests suggested could help detect issues such as heart inflammation (myocarditis/pericarditis), which Canadian health authorities say can in rare circumstances be caused by COVID-19 vaccination. The condition can be fatal. Free to Fly sent letters last summer to Transport Minister Omar Alghabra asking for data on COVID-19 vaccination injuries in pilots. Alghabras reply in August did not address the specific questions from Free to Fly but said the COVID-19 injections are safe and effective. Transport Canada does not restrict or limit aviators from taking vaccines that have been approved by Health Canada, Alghabra wrote. Janice Hisle contributed to this report. Editors Note: This article was updated to add more context about a comment by Greg Hill on cardiovascular issues. A woman who survived the late-term abortion that killed her twin is sharing the story of how she forgave her birth mother. Led by faith, she wants others to know that there are options besides abortion and that no woman has to walk her path alone. Claire Culwell, 34, is a national speaker and author of the memoir, Survivor. Originally from Austin, Texas, where she was adopted by ministry workers Warren and Barbara Culwell, 69 and 64, she now lives in Lindale, Texas, with her husband, David, and their children. I was born ten weeks prematurely weighing 3 pounds 2 ounces (approx. 1.41 kg), Claire told The Epoch Times. I was raised by a wonderful Christian couple they adopted both my sister, Rachel, and me from different birth mothers. They raised us in a loving, forgiving home where they lived out their faith and poured encouragement into our lives daily. Claire Culwell (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) Your Life is a Miracle After Claires birth, she was in the hospital for two months before she was released to her parents. Claire was born with dislocated hips and club feet that were corrected using hip harnesses, foot casts, and body casts in her first two years of life. She was a patient at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas until the age of 18. Baby Claire with her adoptive dad, Warren Culwell. (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) Claire and her sister always knew they were adopted, and Rachels adoption was open. After Rachel connected with her birth mother in 2008, Claire saw the strength of their connection and the gravity of Rachels mothers sacrifice. She decided to search for her own birth mother with the help of her adoption agency, Deaconess Adoption and Pregnancy Services in Oklahoma City. Debbie Campbell, who worked in reunion services, happened to also be my birth mothers caseworker 20 years before we began the search, Claire said. She was able to find her online through MySpace, and my birth mother, Tonya, agreed to meet me. I was thrilled! Tonya Glasby, 48, from Yale, Oklahoma, met Claire along with her parents and sister in Dallas in March 2009. I couldnt believe how much we looked alike and acted alike, and I knew that I adored her, Claire said. I couldnt wait to be able to connect with her more, one-on-one, and be able to really thank her for my life, so we set a second meeting up in Oklahoma in May 2009. I brought a gift with me and a card that said, Thank you for choosing life for me. I was excited to give it to her. Claire and her birth mother on the day they met in March 2009 (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) However, upon receiving the card, Tonya broke down and Claire didnt know why. [She] kept apologizing, saying, Im so sorry, I didnt choose life for you, your life is a miracle,' Claire said. None of it made sense. I was so confused. What did she mean, she didnt choose life for me? Painful Regrets Through her tears, Tonya shared her story. She told Claire that she had fallen pregnant with her at the age of 13, and her mother made a choice for her to get an abortion. At 20 weeks, Tonya had a D&E dismemberment abortion. However, doctors didnt realize that Tonya was pregnant with twins, so only one baby was terminated during the procedure and thus Claire survived. A few weeks later a second abortion attempt was made in Kansas. However, this time Tonya was turned away because her amniotic fluid was leaking. She was then taken to Deaconess in Oklahoma City where she stayed until she gave birth to Claire in March 1988. Claires adoptive parents brought her home from the hospital in May 1988. (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) Claire said: [Tonya] remembers being alone, unheard, and scared. No one spoke to her or asked her what they could do to support her during her abortion, or during her delivery. Her mother made the choice for her to place me for adoption, and afterward, she had to go home and pretend like none of it ever happened. She cried because these decisions are her deepest and most painful regrets. Watching her birth mother relive her pain, a shocked Claire tried to process the news that she was an abortion survivor and a twin-less twin. But at that moment, she found it easy to forgive Tonya. [S]he was a victim in this situation too, she said. It was also easy to forgive because of how I was raised on forgiveness and faith. I knew this wasnt an accident, because the faith I was raised on meant God always had a plan, and his plan was good. Claire with her adoptive mom at the promotion for her book, Survivor (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) The Domino Effect Claires faith gives her the conviction to believe that God is using her experience for good. Today, she shares her story and advocates for the rights of unborn babies nationwide. She said: I believe women have the right to do what they want with their own bodies, but I believe that the babys body is not her body. The babys body is a separate human being inside of her body, with a separate set of DNA. Since she herself is a mother now, Claire is able to see the domino effect of abortion. Claire with her birth mother and adoptive mother in Colorado in June 2021. (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) If I hadnt survived my birth mothers abortion, my biological daughter wouldnt exist, and none of my children would have a mother, she said. When we talk about abortion, we should look at the big picture and notice the generational impact that abortion has. Claire feels blessed to have lived to tell her tale and shares her story with anyone who will listen. My faith is the biggest part of what has helped me through the past decade of knowing the truth about my survival story, Claire said. Claire, her husband David, and their children in June 2022 at the beach in North Carolina (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) She is also committed to helping ensure no woman feels alone, as her birth mother once did. There is a bounty of resources and support out there, she insists. Claire speaking at a pro-life rally in January 2020 (Courtesy of Claire Culwell) No one has to walk alone, and women are all strong and capable of motherhood with the resources and support that is available to them, said Claire, who thinks about her lost twin often. I realized a few years ago that every time I look in the mirror, I am looking at my twin. That made it real for me, she told The Epoch Times. I will never fully understand what I am missing, but I will continue to speak in my twins honor. Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter Long Lines at In-N-Outs New Spot in Huntington Beach A new In-N-Out restaurant opens in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Jan. 26, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) Burger fans lined up Jan. 26 at the grand opening of the second In-N-Out restaurant in Californias Surf City. Theres no such thing as too many In-N-Outs. The lines are always insane, Huntington Beach resident and University of CaliforniaIrvine student Allison Hyunh told The Epoch Times while waiting to order at the newly opened burger hub. The popular chains new location at 7902 Edinger Avenue is just over two miles from the other on Beach Boulevard. The new place features all of In-N-Outs traditional fare including fresh beef patties and hand-diced fries. In addition to one drive-thru lane, its indoor seating can accommodate 54 people, with 30 more seats outdoors. Customers line up at a new In-N-Out restaurant in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Jan. 26, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) A staple among Southern California residents and visitors, the Irvine-based chains recent expansion into other states has made headlines. Food lovers waited in line for 14 hours for a taste when its first Colorado location opened in 2020, Insider reported. In-N-Out currently has locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and Colorado. According to recent media reports, company president and CEO Lynsi Snyder also announced plans to expand to Nashville, Tennessee, by 2026. Man Arrested in LA Hit-and-Run Deaths of 2 Brothers LOS ANGELESThe hit-and-run motorist who allegedly was involved in a crash in South Los Angeles that left two brothers dead and their mother and sister injured was in custody Jan. 26, police said. The crash occurred at about 8 a.m. on Jan. 9 at Main Street and 111th Place, according to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Taylor Lee Harris, 31, was arrested on Jan. 20 near Palm Springs and was booked on suspicion of murder, authorities said at a news conference on Thursday morning at the LAPDs South Traffic Division. He was being held on $4 million bail, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department reported. Im happy that the guy is caught, Deborah Amaya, the mother of the fatally injured boys, said at the news conference. Is he ever going to bring my children back? No. But, it makes me happy knowing that hes not going to be able to do this no more to the next family or drive recklessly. Earlier, police had released a statement describing what happened. The investigation revealed that a silver four-door sedan was traveling southbound on Main Street at a high rate of speed when it collided into the victims vehicle, according to the police departments statement. The collision caused the victims vehicle to travel off the curb and collide with a parked vehicle, police said. The victim vehicle was occupied by a 35-year-old mother with her three children: an 18-month-old boy, a 13-year-old boy, and a 16-year-old girl. Christopher Amaya-Pineda, 13, and Damian Amaya-Pineda, 18 months, were fatally injured, police said. Their mother, who was driving, and their teenage sister were hospitalized. They took like half of my life away, man, Amaya told KCAL9 following the crash. That guy that did this took half of my life away. A mother should never bury her children, she said. it hurts me so bad that I didnt just lose just one. I lost two of my sons. According to police, Amaya was driving her two sons and daughter to their grandmothers house when she was hit by a speeding Mercedes-Benz that went through a red light. After the crash, the hit-and-run motorist got out of the vehicle and ran off, police said. Anyone with any information on the case was urged to call the South Traffic Division at 323-421-2500. Tipsters may also call 877-LAPD-247 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS. Man Found Asleep in Stolen Vehicle at the San Diego Police Department SAN DIEGOA man was arrested Jan. 26 after officers found him asleep in an allegedly stolen vehicle parked in the San Diego Police Departments Traffic Division lot. Just after 3 a.m., an officer noticed an unusual vehicle with a man asleep inside of it in the Traffic Divisions parking lot on Aero Drive and Serra Mesa. Officers checked the vehicles license plate and determined the car was stolen, according to the police department. Law enforcement searched the car and found drugs along with drug paraphernalia, according to authorities. The unidentified man was arrested a short time later, police reported. Michael Zwaagstra: School Boards That Tout Inclusion Must Practise What They Preach Commentary If there was a prize for the most dysfunctional school board in the country, the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) would be a serious contender. Not content with the chaos and divisiveness that took place last year, WRDSB trustees appear determined to double down on their toxic approach. On Jan. 16, a concerned parent appeared as a delegate at a WRDSB board meeting. During his presentation, David Todor expressed opposition to the boards focus on gender and sexuality and raised concerns about surveys that his 7-year-old and 9-year-old girls were asked to fill out. He also read out loud from a book with sexually explicit language that he claimed was accessible to his daughters at school. Whether or not one agrees with what Todor said or with how he said it, there is no question that as a parent in the region, he had every right to be heard. Considering how the WRDSB had previously silenced one of its own teachers for raising similar concerns, the fact that Todor was allowed to finish his presentation at all was a step in the right direction. Immediately after Todors presentation, trustees passed a motion asking that his concerns be forwarded to staff so they could follow up with him directly. Most people watching that board meeting would likely have assumed that Todor would soon receive a personal phone call or letter from a staff member who would then address his concerns. Sadly, that didnt happen. Instead, the WRDSB released a lengthy open letter in which it attacked Todor for what he said during his presentation. While Todor wasnt directly named in the letter, it was obviously about him. Among other things, the letter denounced parents who used inflammatory language and misinformation and stated that questions about school library books are often veiled attempts to target 2SLGBTQIA+ families. If the letter was supposed to resolve the issue, all it did was raise the temperature. Trustees Cindy Watson, Mike Ramsay, and Bill Cody were so upset with the letter that they issued a statement of their own denouncing the way in which parents had been demonized for raising legitimate concerns about WRDSB schools. Unsurprisingly, board chair Joanne Weston then defended the letter and claimed that it cleared up a lot of misconceptions. Of course, the key problem with the letter is that it was a textbook example of gaslighting. The letter made it sound like there was something wrong with any parent who asked questions about the books in school libraries or who didnt want their young children answering highly personal questions about gender and sexual orientation. This is the perfect way of making parents feel unwelcome in their own community. Its interesting how quickly some trustees seem to abandon their support for diversity when exposed to viewpoints that they find offensive. Whether trustees like it or not, there are still tens of millions of people in North America who hold traditional views about gender and sexuality. This isnt going to change anytime soon. If parents with traditional views feel disrespected in their neighbourhood schools, they will soon start looking for other educational options. Making parents feel unwelcome is one of the fastest ways to undermine support for the public education system. The WRDSB prides itself on being a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students. However, inclusion is about more than celebrating different races, genders, and sexual orientations. True inclusion recognizes that children come from families who hold vastly different religious beliefs and ensures that they are all treated with respect. The last thing students need is to be told their parents religious beliefs and values are wrong. And yet, this is the message that gets sent home loud and clear when school boards turn a parents presentation into an opportunity to issue an open letter denouncing that parent for raising those concerns at all. WRDSBs letter might temporarily succeed in silencing some parents, but it will certainly not build trust between parents and the school board. We must never forget that schools were never meant to take the place of parents. Regardless of how trustees feel about what parents have to say, gaslighting them is never a good idea. It really shouldnt be that hard to treat parents with respect. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. The defensive fortifications of medieval times have surely inspired floorplans for the perfect castle in the minds of many a young nerdreplete with battlements, parapets, turrets, arrow slits, a keep, and of course murder holes. As with all technologies though, including castle fortifications, they tend to go obsolete with new developments. With the advent of black powder in early modern Europe, from as early as the 15th century, the medieval fortress became outmoded as cannons rolled onto the scene. The stone walls of medieval castles shattered upon impact from cannon fire. Their high walls and square construction, when hit perpendicularly, made them extremely fallible targets. Thus, a new advancement in defensive warfare was born, namely: the bastion fortress, also called the star fortress. Bourtange Fortress in the Netherlands near the German border. (saleksv/Shutterstock) It basically all began in Italy with the defense of Pisa in 1500. Assailed by the Florentine and French armies, the Pisans realized that by backing their curtain wall with an earthen rampart, the impact from cannon fire was mitigated and absorbed. Then in 1509, at the siege of Padua, monk engineer Fra Giocondo had the citys medieval outer wall cut down and a wide ditch dug with projections extending into it housing gun ports. These could then strafe attacking parties with direct and devastating flanking fire. The besiegers were repelled and bloodied, and they eventually retreated. Such applications led to the advent of a new type of fortressone that was lower and larger than previous constructions, covering more ground. The Italian engineers who developed it were sought out from across Europe during the 1530s and 1540s, hence it also garnered the name trace italienne, or Italian outline in French. The star fortress was born and continued in its development for three centuries, eventually being taken to its logical extreme in the late 17th century by military architects under Louis the XIV. Exemplifying this architecture, Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, was erected in 1798 which famously inspired Star Spangled Banner, Americas national anthem, penned by Francis Scott Key following the War of 1812. Plan of Palmanova, Italy, exemplifying the star fortress architecture of the late Renaissance. (Public Domain) The town of Palmanova, now a UNESCO world heritage site, in northern Italy. (xbrchx/Shutterstock) Like the turrets and murder holes of the medieval castle, a whole new set of implementations and strategies evolved in the star fortress. The tall, square, stone curtain wall, once easily shattered by cannon, was replaced by brick and earthor simply earth alonewhich could absorb the impact of such ordinances. The wall had a lower profile now to present less of a target, and the ditch was correspondingly dug lower to stop an enemy from scaling the stouter wall. The ditch was also widened so that infantry troops were more exposed to defensive attacks from above. Additionally, an earthen slope called a glacis descending outward from the outside of the ditch mitigated point-blank artillery fire directed inward. The lower the glacis angle of elevation, the greater its stopping power was. Illustration of the several component parts of a star fort. (This image was cropped and has been color corrected Francis Lima/CC BY-SA 3.0) Illustration of a glacis. (Public Domain) Naturally, the most remarkable features of the star fortress are its pointsits long, diamond-shaped bastions situated at various intervals surrounding its inner structure. These form large, angular surfaces presenting fewer perpendicular targets for an enemy. A cannonball was more likely to glance off them or be absorbed, whereas perpendicular medieval curtain walls were highly susceptible to direct attacks. These pointed bastions also made the best possible use of positioning to flank enemies trying to storm the outer wall, which was highly vulnerable for attacking cannons should they occupy the glacis. They also eliminated dead zones, areas where attackers were relatively concealed from fire due to the defenses geometry. For example, defenders in older castles could not fire around curved towers, so these were extended to form points, thus eliminating all cover for invading troops. Town plan of Neuf Brisach, built on the Rhine by order of Louis XIV. (Public Domain) Indentations called enfilades at the base of each point on the star would allow defensive cannons a clear line of fire down the edge toward neighboring points. Troops who made their way into the ditch attempting to breach the outer wall found themselves in kill zones (much like in medieval times) where attackers were left without cover, often exposed to fire on multiple fronts. Evolving into more sophisticated configurations, the star fortress was taken to its pinnacle: bastions were extended further and formed into even more complex hornworks, crownworks, or even separate fortresses entirely detached from the central structure. An illustration of hornworks. (Public Domain) An illustration of crownworks. (Public Domain) Bastion forts made use of intricate shapes with interlocking fields of fire to ultimately resolve many of the deficiencies of the medieval fortress in a new age of warfare. Yet, as new technologies emerged on the scene with the advent of high explosives and mortars, star fortresses, too, fell into obsolescence. As plunging fire and high-explosive rounds appeared, they became increasingly irrelevant and were replaced by simpler but stouter polygonal bases. Many were eventually turned into tourist attractions and museums, such as Fort Wood in Upper New York Bay which became the foundation of the Statue of Liberty on Liberty IslandTheres still a ton to love about these places! Indeed, warfare itself evolved to become more mobile and less dependent on static defenses and fortifications. Just as tube televisions, VHS video cassette tapes, and medieval castles saw their usefulness slip away, the still-impressive star fortress also outlived its heyday. Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland. (Public Domain) The structure of Fort Wood on Liberty Island in New York City now serves as the foundation of the Statue of Liberty. (T photography/Shutterstock) Conde de Lippe Fort in the Portuguese municipality of Elvas. (BearFotos/Shutterstock) Fort Bourtange in the Netherlands. (saleksv/Shutterstock) Fort Cittadella of Alessandria on the winding river Tanaro in Piedmont, Italy. (maloff/Shutterstock) Kronborg castle near Copenhagen, seen from above. (Steffan H/Shutterstock) The fortified town of Rocroi in northern France, dating from the 16th century. (Terence Stubbs/Shutterstock) Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida. (Wangkun Jia/Shutterstock) The Citadel of Jaca, Spain. (BearFotos/Shutterstock) Plan of fortress Coevorden in the Netherlands. (1647) (Public Domain) A plan of Nove Zamky in Slovakia, built in 1663. (Public Domain) Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter Most Former Presidents, Vice Presidents Say They Turned Over Classified Documents Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an event held by the Obama Foundation at the Javits Center in New York City on Nov. 17, 2022. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Most living former presidents and vice presidents are asserting they turned over all materials with classified markings when they left office but wont say if they will conduct fresh searches after documents with such markings were found at the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and former Vice President Mike Pence. All of former President Barack Obamas classified records were handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration upon leaving office and the Archives still maintains control of those records, an official with Obamas office told The Epoch Times via email. Representatives for former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and the late George H.W. Bush, as well as former Vice Presidents Dan Quayle and Al Gore, told CNN that all the classified records from their administrations were also turned over when they left office. A spokesperson for former Vice President Dick Cheney told the Associated Press that he didnt take classified materials with him when he left office and that none have been found since. Former President Jimmy Bush, who signed the Presidential Records Act, did not respond to a request for comment. FBI agents executed a search warrant on Trumps home in Palm Beach, Florida in 2022 and discovered about 100 documents with classification markings. Trump has said he declassified the materials before he left office. Lawyers for Biden in November 2022 found materials with the markings at an office the president used before announcing his 2020 run, the White House revealed this month. More documents with classification markings were later located at Bidens home in Wilmington, Delaware. Pence ordered a review of his records following those discoveries and the review uncovered materials with classification markings, according to letters obtained by The Epoch Times this week. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asked on Jan. 24 whether the White House thinks former high officeholders should go back and review their homes to see if they have any documents with classification markings, said thats not something I can comment [on] from here. She was speaking during a briefing in Washington. Jean-Pierre also declined to say whether Biden has talked with Obama since some of the documents found at Bidens home date back to the Obama-Biden administration. The Archives, which referred Trump to the Department of Justice, leading to the FBI raid, has not appeared to take a similar stance on Biden or Pence as of yet. The Archives sent letters to representatives of all former vice presidents and presidents who served during or after the Reagan administration to ask for reviews to see if there were any records subject to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), whether classified or unclassified, news outlets reported. The Archives did not dispute sending the letters in an email to The Epoch Times but declined to provide them or otherwise comment. The PRA established public ownership of all presidential records and required that such records be transferred to the archives as soon as a president leaves office. Carter isnt governed by the act because it took effect after he left office. Clinton held audio tapes of conversations with an author in his home, according to a federal lawsuit, but the Archives determined the records didnt fall under the act and rejected a bid from the nonprofit Judicial Watch to obtain the materials. That determination was upheld by a federal judge in 2012. Murders in America up 34 Percent From Pre-Pandemic Levels, North Carolina City Tops Chart Police tape is seen near the scene of a shooting in a file photo. (Sarah Blake Morgan/AP Photo) Murders across the United States have surged since 2019, while robberies and motor vehicle thefts soared last year, a new study of crime trends published on Jan. 26 by the Council on Criminal Justice shows. The Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ), a nonpartisan organization, examined monthly crime rates for ten violent, property, and drug offenses in 35 U.S. cities in 2022. It found that the number of murders in 2022 was 4 percent lower compared to a year earlier, with a decrease of 242 incidents across the 27 American cities that publically report monthly homicide data. However, the murder rate was still 34 percent higher than it was in 2019, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the study notes that the total number of homicides was about half as high as it was during the historical peaks nationwide, which occurred in 1980 and 1991. Of the 27 cities providing monthly reports on homicides, 14 saw a drop or no change in homicides last year, according to the study. Richmond, Virginia, saw homicide rates plummet 40 percent while Memphis, Tennessee, saw homicide rates decline by 18 percent, and Denver, Colorado saw those rates drop by 15 percent. New York, which is currently dealing with an influx of illegal aliens, saw just a 12 percent decline in the citywide homicide rate. New York Police Department officers investigate what is being treated as a triple homicide on Staten Island, N.Y., on June 22, 2019. (Irene Spezzamonte/Staten Island Advance via AP) North Carolina City Sees Larget Homicide Increase Other cities fared worse, with Raleigh, North Carolina, topping the homicide rate across all cities with an increase of 48 percent, followed closely by Lincoln, Nebraska, with a 38 percent rise. Chandler, Arizona, came in at third with a 29 percent increase in homicides, followed by Seattle, Washington, with 14 percent, according to the study. A handful of cities, including St. Louis, Missouri, and Houston, Texas, saw no change in homicide rates in 2022. The CCJ noted that not all cities reported monthly data for each crime, and offense classifications varied somewhat across the cities. Each of the cities also has varying population levels, such as New York, which has 8.4 million residents, and Richmond, Virginia, which has just 227,000 residents. The 35 cities featured in the study were chosen because their police departments provided incident-level data in near real-time on their online portals. Elsewhere, the study found that robberies increased nationwide across the major 35 cities by 5.5 percentalthough that is still 4 percent lower than in 2019 while nonresidential burglaries rose by 11 percent. Americans Less Likely to Report Crimes Larcenies rose nationwide across the cities by 8 percent, and motor vehicle thefts shot up by 21 percent from 2021 to 2022 after declining for three decades. They were up by 59 percent last year compared to 2019, according to the study. Meanwhile, aggravated assaults, gun assaults, and domestic violence declined in 2022, although those figures may not provide an accurate picture of the nationwide outlook, given that they are based on data from just 11 cities. Dr. Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of the CCJ study, told CBS News that the drop in homicides last year may have something to do with a lack of trust in law enforcement after widespread protests in the summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Many of those protests called for the police to be defunded. Rosenfeld said that Americans were less likely to cooperate with the police when they are trying to investigate serious crimes, less likely to report crimes to the police, and more likely to take matters into their own hands. The report also noted that a reopening of cities following the COVID-19 pandemic may have prompted increased crime rates. A separate study titled A global analysis of the impact of COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions on crime, published in Nature in 2021 analyzed crime rates across incidents including assault, theft, burglary, robbery, vehicle theft, and homicide. Demonstrators jump on a secret service police car outside the White House in Washington, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, on May 30, 2020. (Jose Luis Magana/AFP via Getty Images) Downward Crime Trend May Continue This Year The rates were collected from 27 cities across 23 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. That study found that stay-at-home restrictions implemented during the pandemic were associated with declines in all types of crime, with the exception of homicide, which declined just 14 percent. Study authors noted that the smaller decrease in homicide cases may be due to a number of factors, including the behaviors of criminal groups. First, in many societies, a substantial proportion of homicides are committed in domestic contexts and are hence not affected by the reduction in the density of daily encounters in cities, they noted. Second, a varying proportion of homicide is associated with organized crime, conflicts between gangs, or conflicts related to drug trafficking. The behavior of these groups may be less elastic to changes in the daily routines of those not involved in organized crime. Thus, while there was a decline in all types of crimes, with the exception of homicides, those declines may not be indicative of any meaningful decreases in various crimes, given that individuals were largely confined to their homes. Rosenfeld told CBS News that the modest overall decline in violent crimes, aside from robbery, last year could suggest further declines in 2023. Barring another controversial incident akin to George Floydpolice use force that goes viral and spurs unrestand barring a huge uptick in COVID that brings back lockdowns, I would expect these trends to continue downward relatively modestly. Thats my best guess about 2023. But its a guess, Rosenfeld said. My First Anti-Lockdown Article From 2020 Commentary These days, many people are justifying the egregious government response to the virus based on the claim of ignorance. We just didnt know and could not know, they say. Its preposterous. It was obvious from early on, to anyone who cared to look, that COVID was a textbook respiratory virus and that lockdowns would change nothing long-term about its trajectory. We all knew from all history that muscling people, closing schools and business, and introducing travel restrictions and quarantines would impose major damage on society, markets, and public health. There really is no excuse. Below I reprint my own warning from Jan. 27, 2020. Yes, I would change some of it now but not much. This was published nearly two months before the lockdowns hit the United States. I wish now that I had explained in this short space the role of acquired immunities, the need for medical doctors to focus on therapeutics, and the essential requirement for society to continue to function as normally as possible in the midst of a pandemic. Weve all learned over these three years. The lesson Ive taken away is that the quarantine power is far more dangerous than even I imagined. Ive also been late to observe the astonishing power of Big Pharma to manipulate policy for its own ends. When I wrote the following, I did not even imagine that there would come a time in the near future when this industry would claim that we could vaccinate our way out of this pandemic. It was too absurd a scenario back then even to contemplate. And of course I never imagined that the lockdowns would last two years and more in many places. Sheer madness. I further wish I had offered a small tutorial in the dynamics of infectious disease: the built-in trade off between severity and prevalence subject to latency. Understanding that would have illustrated how it is possible to stop Ebola but not highly transmissible Coronaviruses. That said, when I first published this article Jan. 27, 2020, people wondered why I was even bothering to opine on the issue. Its just another virus, people were saying at the time; we have laws and liberties, and this is not China. It would eventually become seasonal like any virus, people told me, and I agreed. My concern was that the virus would be deployed as an excuse to control the population. * * * In the spring of 2014, when awareness of Ebola was just beginning to dawn, a case of infection appeared in the town of Harbel, Liberia. The biggest employer in the area is Firestone. The company immediately set up a quarantine area of its hospital for the infected woman, who soon died. They distributed hazmat suits to workers. They researched everything they could, built a treatment center, and set up a comprehensive response. Transmission stopped. Even now, the only cases seen in this area come from outside the community. National Public Radio reported on the case and concluded: So even as the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded rages all around them, Firestone appears to have blocked the virus from spreading inside its territory . A key reason for Firestones success is the close monitoring of people who have potentially been exposed to the virus and the moving of anyone who has had contact with an Ebola patient into voluntary quarantine. By most accounts, this Ebola outbreak remains out of control, with health care workers across West Africa struggling to contain it. Another triumph of the market and human volition! Still, somehow, the lesson here has not penetrated. As with every crisis in the history of the modern world, Ebola fears gave rise to debates over government power, just as the Coronavirus has today. China has kicked into gear the largest quarantine in modern history. As George E. Wantz, distinguished professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, has written: To combat the contagion, the Chinese government has taken the extraordinary step of quarantining the city of Wuhan, as well as neighboring districts and cities. The borders are sealed, and all transportation out is blocked. Officials closed the public transportation systems. Friday morning, more than 35 million people woke up facing aggressive curtailments of their freedom. Is all this necessary? Wantz looks at the numbers: Its possible that this coronavirus may not be highly contagious, and it may not be all that deadly. We also do not know yet how many people have mild coronavirus infections but have not come to medical attention, especially because the illness begins with mild to moderate respiratory tract symptoms, similar to those of the common cold, including coughing, fever, sniffles and congestion. Based on data from other coronaviruses, experts believe the incubation period for this new coronavirus is about five days (the range runs from two to 14 days), but we do not yet know how efficiently this coronavirus spreads from infected person to healthy person. And because antibodies for coronavirus do not tend to remain in the body all that long, it is possible for someone to contract a cold with coronavirus and then, four months later, catch the virus again. The case fatality rate, a very important statistic in epidemiology, is calculated by dividing the number of known deaths by the number of known cases. At present, the virus appears to have a fatality rate of about 3%, which mirrors that of the influenza pandemic of 1918. But what if there are 100,000 Chinese citizens in Wuhan with mild infections that we do not know about? That would lower the case fatality rate to a mere 0.02%, which comes closer to seasonal flu death rates. If thats the case, a major disruption like the Chinese quarantine would seem foolish and cost a fortune in terms of public health efforts, interrupted commerce, public dissonance, trust, good will and panic. In sum, this virus might be as serious as any seasonal flu or it might be much worse. There are still too many unknowns. Still, when people are afraid, they have this irrational penchant for reaching out to government to save them. Never mind that the power might be abused or might not even be a necessary, much less suitable, power. Government is magic: if something is big, important, or crucial, people long for government to do it. Do we need a Coronavirus Czar, operating under the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Adviser? These are the same people who spy on your email, record your phone calls, watch your online habits, run the TSA security theater, and so on. What does any of this have to do with health? No one can doubt that the Coronavirus will be used, just like every real crisis before it, as a means of amping up government power. The thinking goes like this. The virus is terrifying. We cant just allow people to wander around with the disease and infect others. We could all die under those conditions. So we need government to discern who has the disease, force these people against their will to stay away from others, and even put together a plan for how to deal with mass outbreak, even if that involves creating camps of sick people and keeping them all there by force. The U.S. government already has an extensive plan for dealing with communicable diseases, and these plans involve forcible quarantines. You can read all about it at the website for the Centers for Disease Control. Regulations prescribed under this section may provide for the apprehension and examination of any individual reasonably believed to be infected with a communicable disease in a qualifying stage and (A) to be moving or about to move from a State to another State; or (B) to be a probable source of infection to individuals who, while infected with such disease in a qualifying stage, will be moving from a State to another State. Such regulations may provide that if upon examination any such individual is found to be infected, he may be detained for such time and in such manner as may be reasonably necessary. These regulations are enforced, but you might be surprised at the light penalties: Any person who violates any regulation prescribed under sections 264 to 266 of this title, or any provision of section 269 of this title or any regulation prescribed thereunder, or who enters or departs from the limits of any quarantine station, ground, or anchorage in disregard of quarantine rules and regulations or without permission of the quarantine officer in charge, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both. So, if you are willing to risk coughing up $1K or going to the pokey for a year, you can pretty much walk around infected with anything, and infect anyone else? If thats your goal, its not likely that such penalties are going to deter you. I cant imagine that anyone thinks: I would like to infect lots of people with my deadly disease but Im rethinking it because I just cant afford the $1,000 fine. In the meantime, the U.S. government already has the power to create sick camps, kidnap and intern people upon suspicion that they are diseased, and keep people in camps for an undetermined amount of time. The Surgeon General shall control, direct, and manage all United States quarantine stations, grounds, and anchorages, designate their boundaries, and designate the quarantine officers to be in charge thereof. With the approval of the President he shall from time to time select suitable sites for and establish such additional stations, grounds, and anchorages in the States and possessions of the United States as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction of communicable diseases into the States and possessions of the United States. Anyone concerned about human freedom should be uncomfortable with this policy, especially given the hysteria that surrounds the issue of communicable diseases. Rules dont guarantee results, and government has no solid reason to be careful about who gets put into the camps and why. It is easy to imagine a scenario in which such powers end up exposing undiseased people rather than protecting people from the disease. Its true that quarantine powers have been around since the ancient world and have been invoked through U.S. history from colonial times to the present. They are hardly questioned. I was once in a debate over the role of government and my opponent relied heavily on this power as proof that we need some governmentbecause society is just too stupid to figure out how to deal with such a deadly problem. On the other hand, abuse of such powers is even more frequent. The problem is the low threshold concerning risk. Once government has the power, it can use it any way it wants. In World War I, prostitutes were routinely arrested and quarantined in the name of preventing the spread of diseases. In the 1892 typhus outbreak, it became common to arrest and quarantine any immigrant from Russia, Italy, or Ireland even without any evidence of disease. In 1900, the San Francisco Board of Health quarantined 25,000 Chinese residents and gave them a dangerous injection to prevent the spread of bubonic plague (it turned out later to have been entirely pointless). We know about the Japanese internment, which ended up promoting disease. In more recent times, fears of AIDS have led to calls for arresting Mexican immigrants to prevent the spread of disease. And its not just about disease. The quarantine power has been used by despotic governments all over the world to round up political enemies under the thinnest excuse. Fear of disease is as good an excuse as any. For a complete list of concentration and internment camps, see this Wikipedia entry. Is it really true that government needs quarantine power? Lets think rationally and normally about this. Imagine that you are feeling not so great. You go to the hospital and it is discovered that you have a deadly communicable disease. Are you going anywhere? No. Its preposterous. These days, you cant even go to the office with a cough without eliciting the disdain from your fellow employees. I let out a slight cough the other day in a security line and found myself with a five-foot gap between myself and the people in front of and behind me! Once a deadly disease is discovered, no one has any reason to have the attitude that one should just let it go, embrace death, and take others with you. It only takes a moment of reflection to realize this. You want to be where you can get well or at least minimize pain. If that means staying in isolation, so it is. Even if you dont like this idea, others will make sure that you do understand. Lets say you just cant stand it. You leap from the window and run. Truly, the whole of the social order would be organized against you, even in the absence of the use of coercion. You would stand no chance of getting so much as a place to sleep or a bite to eat from anyone, anywhere. And, in the real world, such a person is likely to be shot on sight. Government power is not necessary. It is not likely to be effective, either. And when it is not effective, the tendency is to overreact in the opposite direction, clamping down and abusing, exactly as weve seen with the war on terror and Chinas response to this virus, which might be as serious as seasonal flu outbreaks. Still, people assume that government is doing its job, government fails, and then government gets more power and does awful things with it. Its the same story again and again. Remember that it is not government that discovers the disease, treats the disease, keeps diseased patients from wandering around, or otherwise compels sick people to decline to escape their sick beds. Institutions do this, institutions that are part of the social order and not exogenous to it. Individuals dont like to get others sick. People dont like to get sick. Given this, we have a mechanism that actually works. Society has an ability and power of its own to bring about quarantine-like results without introducing the risk that the States quarantine power will be used and abused for political purposes. From the Brownstone Institute Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. New Gun Regulation Handicaps the Disabled Commentary The Biden administrations newly released regulations regarding pistol-stabilizing braces will instantly turn tens of thousands of law-abiding Americans into felons and create a national rifle registry. But the Biden administration and the media exaggerate the costs and ignore the benefits these braces produce. Few seem to realize that stabilizing braces for pistols were originally designed to allow wounded and disabled veterans who may have lost the use of part of their hand to hold handguns. They are essentially a strap attached to the gun. Disabled individuals are often viewed as easy targets by criminals, and stabilizers make it easier to defend themselves. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) originally approved pistol braces during the Obama administration. There are plenty of statements from disabled veterans, such as Rick Cicero, who lost his right arm in an explosion in Afghanistan and can still use a gun today because of the pistol-stabilizing brace. But outside of a brief mention in a Fox News story, news articles on the new regulations never mention that these braces help the disabled and make it possible for them to defend themselves. Obama was hardly a friend of gun ownership, but now the Biden administration has changed the Obama administrations decision. The ATF now concludes that any foreign-made pistols with stabilizing braces violate the law and are retroactively considered rifles and violate the size requirement for rifles. As such, registration or removal of the brace wont bring it into compliance. The ATF leaves only two options: the destruction of the guns or their surrender to ATF. This includes imported pistols that never had a brace added to them. Putting aside that the ATF isnt Congress and cant make up new laws to redefine what a rifle is, their logic is baffling. Take two otherwise identical guns, one with a pistol brace and one that never had a pistol brace: Even if the pistol brace is removed from the gun to which it was attached, it is still banned. Meanwhile, the gun that never had the brace attached could have one added, just as easily as the gun that previously had the pistol brace could have it reattachedbut only the gun that once had a pistol brace attached to it is banned. Of course, how the ATF is supposed to know whether you used to have the pistol brace attached to the gun is a mystery. Nor is it obvious why functionally identical foreign-made pistols should be treated differently than domestically manufactured ones. All this started after President Biden cited a crime in 2021 in Coloradowhere a shooter used a pistol stabilizing brace when attacking shoppers in a grocery storeto justify calling for classifying such brace-affixed pistols as machine guns. Ahmed Al Alwi murdered 10 people at close range in a Boulder, Colorado grocery store. A previous shooting in 2019 by Connor Betts, in Dayton, Ohio, also involved a pistol brace. These are the only two cases of their kind and, more importantly, neither of them had any difficulty holding their guns and all their shots were fired at a short distance. There is no evidence that the brace made any difference in their ability to carry out the attacks. And there has been no surge in crime by the disabled or others using these braces. These new regulations arent surprising after Steven Dettelbach, a controversial gun control advocate, was confirmed as director of the ATF. He was narrowly confirmed only with the unanimous support of all voting Democrats, including the support of Democrats who claim to support the Second Amendment, such as Montanas Jon Tester and West Virginias Joe Manchin. With no evidence that these two attacks were any more lethal with stabilizing bracesand with no attempt to make that casegun control advocates havent seriously tried to justify the new regulation. The cost will be to the disabled Americans who will now have a harder time being able to defend themselves and their families. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. No More Expensing Home Internet Bills to Taxpayers, Tory and Liberal MPs Told The federal Liberal government is joining the Opposition Conservatives in no longer allowing its members of Parliament to expense taxpayers for home internet services. And government House leader Mark Hollands office said Thursday he will propose that the practice be ended for MPs of all parties, after Conservatives signalled their intention to do the same. A breakdown of recent expenses shows 31 Tory MPs have charged taxpayers for home internet services for either themselves or staff, according to an analysis by The Canadian Press. The information was first reported by the National Post. The MPs include former interim party leader Candice Bergen and fellow Manitoba MP James Bezan, along with Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner and British Columbia representative Mark Strahl. Across the aisle, 27 Liberal MPs expensed home internet costs for either their homes or those of their employees, including Justice Minister David Lametti and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly. As for the Bloc Quebecois and NDP, the parties saw 11 and four of their MPs claiming such costs, respectively. A spokeswoman for the House of Commons said the practice is allowed under existing rules for members of Parliament, who can expense the fees through their office budgets. As was the case for many Canadians, the COVID-19 pandemic forced MPs and their employees to work from home. But their offices have now been back open for months, and no health restrictions currently require them to work out of a home office. No rules have been broken, but the Opposition whips office told MPs that a new policy has been set for caucus, according to a recent email obtained by The Canadian Press. The email said it has been decided that no caucus member or employee can expense home internet costs, following a discussion with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. The message said if the party expects Canadians to see Conservatives as responsible financial stewards, we must lead by example. It adds that the party plans to propose that the current House of Commons policy end for MPs of all stripes. With Canadians continuing to face a cost-of-living crisis, spurred in part by irresponsible government spending, we do not expect that taxpayers should be left paying the bill for the home internet of members of Parliament, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, the Opposition whip, said in a statement Thursday. While these expenses were allowed under the standing policy of the House of Commons, Conservatives will cease any expensing of home internet charges going forward. By Thursday afternoon, Liberal MPs had also been informed that the rules were also changing for them. The chief government whip has told Liberal MPs today that going forward, they should not bill for their own home internet expenses and for their staff, Alex Maheux, a spokesperson for Holland, said in a statement. The statement from Maheux added that at the next meeting of the Board of Internal Economy, which is the committee that sets rules for MPs, Holland would be proposing a change to end the practice for good. Our government has and continues to support Canadians as they face the economic and heath challenges that have confronted this country, the statement said. That is why, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we brought forward measures to allow Canadians to claim tax deductions for expenses related to working at home, such as the cost of the internet. Novak Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas Advance to Australian Open Final In this composite image a comparison has been made between Novak Djokovic (L) and Stefanos Tsitsipas. They will meet in the Australian Open Mens Final on Jan. 29, 2023 at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. (L) Novak Djokovic of Serbia plays a forehand in the Semifinal singles match against Tommy Paul of the United States during day 12 of the 2023 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on Jan. 27, 2023 in Melbourne, Australia. (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images) (R)Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece plays a backhand in the Semifinal singles match against Karen Khachanov during day 12 of the 2023 Australian Open at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Darrian Traynor/Getty Images) Stefanos Tsitsipas is off to his second major final after defeating Karen Khachanov 76 (2), 64, 67 (6), 63 in the semifinals of the Australian Open on Friday in Melbourne, Australia. Tsitsipas, a 24-year-old from Greece who is the tournaments third seed, collides with Novak Djokovic in the mens singles final on Sunday. Djokovic, 35, is one win shy of his 10th Australian title and 22nd Grand Slam crown. Despite 24 unforced errors, the fourth-seeded Serbian ended American Tommy Pauls stay in Australia with a 75, 61, 62 victory in the semifinals. Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Tommy Paul of the United States embrace at the net in the Semifinal singles match against during day 12 of the 2023 Australian Open at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, on January 27, 2023. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) The winner of the final will be ranked No. 1 in mens singles. I like that number, Tsitsipas said. These are the moments that Ive been working hard for. Djokovic owns a 102 career record against Tsitsipas and appears to be far past the left hamstring strain that bothered him in the first two rounds. He has a 27-match winning streak in the Australian Open. A 22nd Slam title would equal Rafael Nadals record. Winning Grand Slams and being the No. 1 in the world is probably the two biggest peaks that you can climb, Djokovic said. Paul was ranked 35th but had never been past the fourth round in Melbourne. Khachanov, a 26-year-old Russian who was seeded 18th, matched his best major result by getting to the semifinals. He also reached that stage at the U.S. Open last year. Tsitsipas and Khachanov each lost serve twice in the opening set, which Tsitsipas won after taking five consecutive points in the tiebreaker. The second set featured just one break, with Tsitsipas converting to go up 54 before holding serve in the next game. An early break for 21 put Tsitsipas up in the third set, but Khachanov broke back when Tsitsipas was serving for the match at 54. Tsitsipas then had two match points in the tiebreaker before Khachanov won four points in a row to extend the match. Tsitsipas quickly recovered to win the first three games of the fourth set and cruise to victory from there. Before Friday, the only player to push Tsitsipas beyond three sets in the tournament was 15th-seeded Jannik Sinner. The Italian lost a five-setter in the fourth round. NYC Bike Path Killer Convicted, Could Face the Death Penalty NEW YORKAn Islamic extremist who killed eight people with a speeding truck in a 2017 rampage on a popular New York City bike path was convicted Thursday of federal crimes and could face the death penalty. Sayfullo Saipov bowed his head as he heard the verdict in a Manhattan courtroom just a few blocks from where the attack ended. Prosecutors said the Halloween rampage was inspired by his reverence for the Islamic State militant group. The dozen jurors deliberated for about seven hours over two days before convicting Saipov, 34, of 28 counts of crimes that include murder in aid of racketeering and supporting a foreign terrorist organization. Jurors will return to court no earlier than Feb. 6 to hear more evidence to help them decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison. Sayfullo Saipov (L) listens to the verdict in his trial in federal court in New York on Jan. 26, 2023. (Elizabeth Williams/AP Photo) A death sentence for Saipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, would be an extreme rarity in New York. The state no longer has capital punishment and the last state execution was in 1963. A federal jury in New York has not rendered a death sentence that withstood legal appeals in decades, with the last execution in 1954. Even before the trial, there was no doubt Saipov was a killer. His lawyers conceded to the jury that he rented a pickup truck near his New Jersey home, steered it onto the path along the Hudson River and mowed down bicyclists for blocks before crashing into a school bus near the World Trade Center. He emerged from his truck with pellet and paintball guns in his hands before he was shot by a police officer who thought they were real firearms. The vehicle attack killed a woman visiting from Belgium with her family, five friends from Argentina, and two Americans. It left others with permanent injuries, including a woman who lost her legs. His actions were senseless, horrific, and theres no justification for them, defense attorney David Patton told the jury during the trial. The defense asked jurors to acquit Saipov of racketeering charges, saying he intended to die a martyr and was not conspiring with the ISIS terrorist group, despite voluminous amounts of propaganda from the group found on his electronic devices and at his home. Saipov did not testify at his trial. He sat quietly each day, unlike at a 2019 pretrial hearing where he insisted on questioning the judge about why he should be judged for eight deaths when thousands and thousands of Muslims are dying all over the world. Saipov moved legally to the United States from Uzbekistan in 2010 and lived in Ohio and Florida before joining his family in Paterson, New Jersey. Prosecutors said Saipov attacked civilians to impress the ISIS terrorist group so he could become a member and appeared pleased with his work, smiling when he spoke to an FBI agent afterward. Among those testifying were several family members from Belgium who were injured in the attack. Aristide Melissas, a father, said he had challenged family members to race their bikes to the World Trade Center, with the loser paying for ice cream. When he was struck by Saipovs truck, his skull was fractured. He underwent brain surgery. His wife, Marion Van Reeth, spoke of waking up in a hospital to learn her legs had been amputated. Until Saipovs trial, President Joe Bidens Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, had not launched any new attempt to obtain the death penalty in a federal case. But Garland has allowed U.S. prosecutors to continue advocating for capital punishment in cases inherited from previous administrations. It has been a decade since a jury in New York last considered the death penalty. Federal juries in Brooklyn twice gave a death sentence to a man who murdered two New York police detectives, once in 2007 and again in 2013, but both sentences were tossed out on appeal. A judge ultimately ruled the killer was intellectually disabled. Ontario Government Workers Enjoy Nearly 11 Percent Higher Wages Than Private Sector Counterparts: Study Employees in the Ontario government are enjoying a wage premium and receiving more generous benefits over their private sector counterparts, a new study by think tank the Fraser Institute says. Published on Jan. 24, the study finds that the wages of government workers in Ontario are 34.4 percent higher, on average, than wages in the private sector in 2021, based on aggregated data obtained from Statistics Canadas monthly Labour Force Survey from January to December of 2021. After adjusting for differences such as age, gender, education, type of work, industry, and occupation, workers in Ontarios government sector are still paid 10.9 percent higher wages. When unionization is taken into account, the wage premium declines to 8.8 percent. At a time when governments are facing serious fiscal pressures, bringing government sector compensation in line with the private sector would help reduce costs without necessarily affecting services, said study co-author Ben Eisen, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a news release the same day. Non-Wage Benefits Wage isnt the only indicator that public sector staff in Ontario are earning more, the authors wrote, for non-wage benefits based on available data suggest that the government sector also enjoys an advantage over the private sector. The study noted that 83.9 percent of government employees in Ontario are covered by a registered pension plan, compared to 25.1 percent of private sector workers in the province. This gap between the two sectors is also evident when we consider the second dimension, the type of pension plan in each sector, the authors said. In 2021, of the workers in Ontario who were covered by a pension plan, 94.5 percent of those in the public sector enjoyed a defined benefit pension while this was the case for only 36.9 percent of those in the private sector. A defined pension plan is one that guarantees employees a set income when they retirea contrast to a defined contribution plan, in which the benefits are based on contributions from the employee and employer. Government workers in Ontario also tend to retire earlier, the study noted. Comparing the average retirement age from 2017 to 2021 using Statistics Canadas data, the authors found that the provinces public-sector staff retire 2.5 years earlier than their private-sector peers. Lost Work Time Moreover, full-time employees in the Ontario government were absent from their jobs for personal reasons five days more per yearwith the public sector averaging 14 days compared to the private sector at 8.8 days. Job security shows a similar trend with workers in the provinces public sector experiencing four times less job loss (1.3 percent) than those in the private sector (5.5 percent) in 2021. Its important that all levels of government in Canadamunicipal, provincial and federalcontinuously review expenditures with an eye to producing better value-for-money to taxpayers, Eisen said. Closing the compensation gap in Ontario between the government and private sectors would reduce costs and can help ensure the long-term sustainability of government finances. Since July 2020, thousands of Cubans have been protesting against their regime, demanding change, freedom, and an end to communism in their country. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat is a spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Directorate, who has spent decades raising awareness about the brutal reality of living under the Cuban regime after he fled the communist island as a child. When you look at the collapse of infrastructure that collapsed the economy, theyre killing that nation-state. Theyre killing the Cuban nation, said Gutierrez-Boronat. His recent book CUBA: The Doctrine of The Lie exposes propaganda about Cuba and dispels common myths and misconceptions. The regime is the platform for the expansion of Communist tyranny throughout Latin Americain Venezuela, in Nicaragua, in Bolivia, and now perhaps also in Chile and Colombia, he says. Its very convenient to many powers that be Russia, China, and others here in the United Statesthat the regime maintains the illusion of having been successful. Gutierrez-Boronat has been involved in peaceful protests against Cuba throughout the world, many of which were hijacked by violent, pro-Cuban mobs. In Panama, we were attacked by Cuban embassy thugs together with local pawns of the regime. And several of us were badly hurt. I had two ribs broken. My knee was torn. I needed reconstruction surgery on my knee, said Gutierrez-Boronat. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jan Jekielek: Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat: Thank you, likewise. Mr. Jekielek: So, tell me about whats happening in Cuba right now. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: The big news in Cuba is that there is a sustained citizen uprising against the tyrannical regime, the totalitarian regime which Cuba is suffering from. Since July 11th, 2021, thousands of Cubans have gone out to publicly protest against the regime, especially young artists, women, youth, all demanding change, and demanding the end of communism. Theyre fighting for their life and theyre fighting for their freedom. And its there, the videos are there, the political prisoners are there. Hundreds of people have been arrested and imprisoned. Cuba has 122 women who are political prisoners. Its the country in the world with the greatest number of political prisoners per capita, and theres a deep desire to change the regime. Mr. Jekielek: Why so many women? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: You can look at Cuban birth rates after communism took over, when you look at the level of exodus, over 200,000 Cubans have arrived in the U.S. since January of 2022. When you look at the collapse of infrastructure, at that collapse of the economy, theyre killing that nation state and theyre killing the Cuban nation. Women perceive this in a very intuitive and profound way. They know that their children, their families, and their communities are being wiped out. Theyve taken the lead in trying to save the country by organizing communities for civic resistance against the regime. Mr. Jekielek: You dont seem to hear a lot about this these days. There were these large protests over a year ago now. That did get some general coverage, but a lot of people today could be forgiven for not realizing that theres even anything going on. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Theres been large protests taking place even after last year against the regime. This summer was full of protests throughout Cuba. But there seems to be a literal blackout on whats going on in Cuba with the citizen defiance of the regime. Mr. Jekielek: Any thoughts on why that is? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: One of the main reasons is that Cuba is iconic to the Left. Cuba is supposed to be the model of the successful socialist revolution, and its not that at all. Its a highly-repressive regime that has downgraded the lives of Cubans, that has destroyed living standards in that country, and that has created a crisis for the Cuban population. But that regime has a very good propaganda machine in its favor, and its not just entirely Cuban, its also international. And the regime is the platform for the expansion of communist tyranny throughout Latin Americain Venezuela, in Nicaragua, in Bolivia, and now perhaps also in Chile and Colombia. This regime is essential for the spread of these ideas and of the creation of totalitarian advocates throughout the hemisphere. Its very convenient for the many powers that be, Russia, China, and others here in the United States, that that regime maintains the illusion of having been successful. Mr. Jekielek: Lets go back into history here. Youre the author of a wonderful book that Ive been reading about Cuba. What was it like before the Revolution? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: I can say this, in 1898, when the Cuban Spanish American War ended, Cuba was devastated. Cuba had been a very profitable colony for Spain because of sugar production and tobacco production. The wars of independence resulted in 200,000 Cubans dying and the countrys economic infrastructure being destroyed. The Cuban independence leadership, which took over Cuba in 1902 after an American occupation, a very good occupation which did a lot of good for the country, faced a country that was still in a dire state. Between 1902 and 1922, the Cuban economy boomed. Cuban living standards experienced a spike in improvement, in growth, in literacy rates, hygiene, education, they all increased dramatically. Because to a great degree, Cubans put their best effort into rebuilding their country in freedom. There were political crises, there were conflicts between political parties, but the economy of the country and the social growth remained very steady and very even. It was done within a model of trying to build a rule of law within respect for individual freedom, respect for religious spirituality and all its expressions, so Cuba grew very swiftly. What occurred was that there was an institutional and political crisis in the late 1950s with a military government taking over that led to an insurrection. Then, Castro and his acolytes took control of the country with great support from American liberals in every way you can imagine. The myth began to be constructed that this country had risen from a medieval state to great progress through socialism and communism, which is completely the opposite of what really happened. What happened was that a country that was flourishing and was about to take off in the development stage collapsed under a communist regime. Mr. Jekielek: An excellent book that I read last year was called The Gray Lady Winked by Ashley Rindsberg. One of the things he talks about is how a New York Times journalist, whose name escapes my mind right now, essentially made Fidel Castro into a hero. The guy was so pro-Castro and so pro-communism that eventually he was fired. It was even too much for the New York Times. But apparently, on his first visit to America, Fidel spent a lot of time at the New York Times, and apparently thanked them for their support. I dont even know what to make of that. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Herbert Matthews was essential in building the Castro myth. He went up into the mountains, the Sierra Maestra, when Castro barely had 20 people following him, and built that into he already had an army of hundreds, for the consumption of the U.S. public. Herbert Matthews was very important. That tour of the U.S. that you mentioned in 1959 by Castro, a public relations firm in the U.S. set that up. Who paid for that firm? Who paid for that tour of the U.S. by Castro, which presented him as a democratic reformist who was anti-communist and pro-America? All that was false. They were already building a communist state in Cuba. Its very obvious, the steps that were taken, and what they did with that trip to the U.S. The work of Herbert Matthews was to somehow deflect attention from what they were really doing inside Cuba. The Left needed a successful socialist revolution that didnt have any of the stains of the bad reputation that Stalinism had already gained in the world. Remember, by 1959, Khrushchev had revealed the crimes of Stalin at the Congress of the Communist Party. The invasion of Hungary in 1956 had taken place, along with the crushing of the East German worker strikes, all of that was in the air. People saw how repressive communism was. Then along comes this revolution in a tropical country with some charismatic leaders promising utopia and heaven for Cubans. They began to build that up from the very onset. Castro was surrounded by international advisors to help design that totalitarian state. Its very clear in Che Guevaras writings, the purpose was to create a platform through which to create a socialist revolution in the U.S. and in Latin America, through a combination of planning and preparation by the Cuban Communist Party and the U.S. Communist Party and other Left wing forces. An opportunity emerged, and Cuba became a force for socialism in Latin America. Thats why to this day there is still an attempt to protect that regime from any bad publicity it generates itself. Marcuse clearly states in his essay on liberation that the Cuban Revolution was essential for socialism in the U.S. When you see the role of that regime since it took power, it has been a place to train U.S. Left-wing activists, to indoctrinate, to create underground cells and espionage networks in the U.S. Throughout the region it facilitates any kind of activity aimed at opposing Americas plans and subverting democracies throughout the region, not dictatorships, but democracies. From the very onset the Castro regime wanted to take over Venezuela, to the point that they even sent armed invasions throughout the 1960s. The same thing was repeated in key countries which they thought were essential to creating the united socialist republics of Latin America, and of course, to also cause social tension, class struggle and radical transformation of the United States. That has always been the plan. Its always been part of what the regime, and they dont hide it that much, of what the regime states it wants to pursue. What got me started on my book was I found a long dialogue between Che Guevara and Left-wing journalists that took place in New York City in 1964 at the Cuban Mission. It was extremely revealing as to what Guevara was seeking, and also what these so-called journalists were seeking. Mr. Jekielek: What was revealed? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: It revealed to me the madness of Che Guevara, a man bent on his own vision of what the revolution should be and how to bring about socialist transformation, and also recognizing the great disasters they were causing. But at the same time, these journalists who are all born in the U.S. and citizens of a free republic, are urging him on. Theyre creating the myth and putting that into Guevaras mindset as they interview him. Its obvious theyre using Guevara to push the idea of a socialist revolution, and Guevara thinks hes using them to consolidate that regime. To me, it was fascinating the relationship between so-called progress, the woke ideology, and hard-line, radical, dangerous people like Ernesto Guevara. Mr. Jekielek: I really want to explore that more. But before we do that, given everything youve just said, what do you make of the fact that its very common to see kids running around in Che Guevara T-shirts? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Ive been a teacher for a long time. Ive taught at the university level and high school for 25 years. I think that 90 per cent of kids wearing Che Guevara shirts have no idea what theyre wearing, because they dont know what Cuba was. Its very sad, and its very frustrating. My country has gone through concentration camps where people were interned simply for their faith or their lifestyle, throughout the 60s and 70s. Castro did acts of repudiation against people for wanting to leave the country, with massacres one after another against people trying to escape from that hellhole, a police state that was created with thousands of people incarcerated for their beliefs. What Cuba has gone through is a tragedy. Its a collapse of a culture and civilization, an induced collapse with no other comparison in Latin American history. And yet, its ignored, and its brushed away on purpose. Mr. Jekielek: As youre describing this, I cant help but think of Venezuela. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Venezuela is part of that same blueprint. One of the most advanced and consolidated democracies in Latin America was finally subverted through electoral means by a radical, Left-wing, totalitarian movement, aided and abetted and instructed from Cuba to destroy Venezuela as a democracy. We have seven million Venezuelan refugees leaving a country that was prosperous, that was helping democracy in the region, and is now a basket case. That is part of what these people are pursuing. Now, we have to be very careful about whats going on in Chile, and whats going on in Colombia. These revolutions dont happen in poor countries, they happen in prosperous countries. They happen in countries that have a possibility of leadership, and thats what attracts this totalitarian virus. And Cuba was certainly there in the 1950s. Mr. Jekielek: I want to learn more about you. You are so passionate about Cuba, and freedom in Cuba, and freedom in general. Where do you come from? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: My family has been in Cuba for many, many generations. Part of my bloodline was already there before the Spanish got there. My family comes from eastern Cuba, from a province that is very important in Cuban history. Im part of that extended and unified family that was full of tradition and good values and principles. The other part of my family is from the other part of the island, from the Western part, and they were also very loving people. I grew up within that extended unified family, and I saw how communism had torn my family apart, and how it had separated them. There were beloved family members we never saw again, because you could not return to Cuba once you left. My parents were professional and successful. They initially saw the revolution as a way to improve Cuba, but they quickly saw that a communist police state was being set up, and they decided they didnt want me to grow up as a slave. They wanted me to grow up as a free man. That makes me very emotional when I think about that. They and my grandparents made some very hard decisions. My grandparents made the decision not to see me again when they said, No, take him out of here, have him grow up free. So, I know what freedom means. Freedom is not a theory, freedom is a reality. Its a way of life. Its a mystery thats revealed to the human condition as it ascends spiritually, so it cannot be discarded. Although Im very proud to be American and I deeply love the U.S., and Ive grown up in a country of possibilities, part of my soul is Cuban, deeply Cuban. I cannot let go of that while the Cuban people are still enduring what theyre enduring. Its a regime that is willing to destroy the Cuban nation and destroy the Cuban people in order to preserve a platform for the expansion of an evil ideology, which has caused so much harm across the world. Mr. Jekielek: How old were you when they sent you to the U.S.? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: I left my parents when I was five years old, and I got to the US when I was seven. We had to go from one country to another until finally making it to the U.S. And then, I was raised mostly in Miami. My degrees are in journalism and political science. I have a PhD in philosophy and international relations. Ive pursued activism for a free Cuba since I was very young, in my teenage years. My calling was there from the beginning, a spiritual calling to serve the Cuban nation as best as I could. I had a great childhood. But I grew more and more aware and I saw what my family had gone through, the pain they had endured, and the family members who had been executed by this regime. We have one cousin who was 21 years old, and he was executed. He was tried and executed within 24 hours. I have another beloved cousin who spent 18 years in prison for his opposition to the regime as part of the Catholic Labor Youth. I can give you more and more examples. I have a great-uncle, who when he arrived at the farm he had built up and he had turned into a successful enterprise, it had been confiscated by the communists. He had a heart attack and collapsed right there and died. I began to see these stories and I began to read Cuban history and see what had occurred, and what had happened. There was an intentional decision by Fidel Castro and his followers to destroy Cuban tradition, to destroy Cuban culture and civilization and build something new, build a horrible thing, a police state. And more than a police state, they kept on saying they want to destroy the Cuban individual. Guevara said, The Cuban individual, as he has existed up till now will cease to exist. Were going to turn this into a collectivist culture, a culture of the masses where theres no individuality. Theyve done everything possible to do that, and its just grotesque whats occurred. Mr. Jekielek: Initially, at least, it seems like in these revolutions they always say, The dictatorship part is just temporary. We use that to foster change. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Its a big lie. Thats another lie. An authoritarian regime is deeply different from a totalitarian. In an authoritarian regime, a branch of government takes over the functions of government for a limited period of time. Of course, theres repression. Im not justifying it, its wrong. But generally, authoritarian regimes dont meddle with society, and society keeps on functioning. A totalitarian regime is something very different. Thats where a leader or family takes over a party, the party controls the government, controls the military, and they seek to destroy society and any free agency within society. They seek to absorb society. And theyre willing to do whatever it takes; murder, slaughter, massacres, and incarceration on a mass scale in order to destroy the free will society and create a lobotomized population that does whatever the state wants. Its metaphysicalits an attempt to destroy free will within individuals. Ive seen nothing more diabolical than that. Mr. Jekielek: Thats very interesting. The population is somehow involved in the actions of the repressed, and history almost supports it. And theres a decided effort to create or foster that portion of the population by the system to help perpetuate it. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Once the masses emerge as a political unit, then the individual is in grave danger. By mid-1959, in the last free surveys that were carried out by the remaining independent press in Cuba, just a few months after Castro taking power, already a good portion of the Cuban people, up to 40 per cent, were saying, Hey, when are the elections going to happen? Castro had promised elections in 18 months, and that never occurred. But at the same time, by mid-1959, Castro was saying, We will always be the majority. What he meant by that was that they knew there were scientific ways, there was a method to create a permanent mob of people who would do whatever the regime wanted, who would surrender their moral decision-making to the state, and were willing to do whatever was required of them, because they liked the comfort of totalitarianism. Freedom is very difficult. Liberty demands a great deal of decision-making, responsibility, and being aware of consequences. It means taking hold of your life and ascending spiritually. Its very, very difficult to live in freedom, and totalitarianism promises a release from all that. You dont have to think anymore, Fidel Castro will do all the thinking for you. This was something you could read in the Cuban press starting in the early 60s, Fidel will think for us. No, that went against everything Cubans had ever fought for, the ability to decide on your own, like Jose Marti, our great national philosopher and hero. Everything he did was about, Cubans must decide on their own. Theres a moral structure to the universe, and if you join that moral structure to your free will, then you will be free, with a type of freedom which is unmatched in any material terms. Thats the promise of the Cuban nation. This guy went against all that. Fidel Castro and Guevara wanted to destroy that, but they ran into something they didnt expectan unrelenting resistance from Cubans, 63 years of resistance. We havent given up because this is transcendent. Mr. Jekielek: Its astounding for me to hear that in the propaganda press in Cuba that they were saying, Fidel will think for us. I got shivers as you said this because another characteristic of these communist or neo-Marxist ideologies is theyre very out in the open about what their intentions are in a lot of ways. But some of us dont want to look at that. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Exactly. Exactly. Mr. Jekielek: What do you think? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: No, its there. Once you really read what they were saying, they were clearly saying what they wanted to say. People perhaps want to listen to something else or they want to construe the words in a different fashion, but totalitarians say what theyre going to say, because its a huge enterprise theyre carrying out and they need to give clear instructions to their followers. Theres something totalitarianism offers, which a lot of people deeply enjoy. I wont say a lot of people, but some people. It takes away all control you have over your own life, but it gives you incredible power over the life of your neighbor. You cant rule your own life. Youve lost free will within your society, but you can destroy somebody elses life or you can improve somebody elses life. That ability to lord over somebody else or to have power over somebody else, for some people is a great substitute for freedom. That can be reinforced through diverse psychological means through mass media. Castro used television, which Cuba had a lot of. Cuba was one of the countries in Latin America that had the greatest access to TV in the late 50s, and he used television very ably. Once you used mass media, there was no private education, and all education was controlled by the regime. Once you control everything being printed, once you control leaving and entering the country, then people become enclosed within a very, very narrow tunnel where very little information gets in. And unless you have very strong convictions and youre very firm in your beliefs and your faith and you understand history, you can get trapped in that mindset. Many have broken with it. There is a way of breaking through it, but its not difficult. Its a limiting of the spiritual ascension of you as an individual and of your society. Mr. Jekielek: Everything were discussing here is of profound significance, not just for Cubans, but for Americans, and for any society which is struggling to some extent with these questions of what does it mean to remain a free society or even what does freedom mean? There is a weird freedom to being able to influence someone elses life so profoundly. And of course, we know exactly what were talking about. You can cancel someone by saying the right word in these societies. This is the term we use here, and its in many cases a softer version, but the principle seems to be the same. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: If you wrote an article against the regime, at the bottom they would put in a few lines saying that the author was a kind of revolutionary, and the workers who printed this newspaper did not share his views. It began like that. Castro would use the podium to morally assassinate anybody who stood in his way; the initial president, then the prime minister, or anyone who dared to oppose him. He would use the podium and the mass. Theres a group of people who are being churned into a mass formation based on everything the communists and the Nazis knew about that, about how to turn a society into a mass formation. He was using that to destroy any individual who could stand in his way, and to morally assassinate them. When I see that and I see cancel culture, its the same script. Its the same philosophy, and the same method underlying both. Mr. Jekielek: You mentioned that these protests are continuing. Were sitting here in Miami and theres a huge Cuban contingent, all these people that have come over from Cuba and their descendants. I think you organized a 30,000-strong car rally. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Yes. Mr. Jekielek: Its amazing. There is this moral support from a portion of the population here. But at the same time, I didnt fully realize until were sitting here that these significant protests are still happening. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Yes, the protests continue. These regimes are imperfect, and initially they seek to destroy an economy to control the people. In the case of Cuba, they had to control and destroy Cuban agriculture in order to control food supply. Its always about food. Totalitarian regimes are very big on food and agriculture. They need to control food to control cities, and they need to control cities to control the middle class, because the middle class can oppose them successfully. It can happen. But once they unleash these forces of destruction, they lose control. Totalitarians are not perfect, theyre not gods. They are human beings with diabolical ambitions, but also limited in their understanding of things. So, they unleash these terrible forces which they never can control. Part of that is the collapse of the Cuban economy, and they cant fix it. In order to fix it, they would have to allow the freedoms they suppress. So, the fact is, this regime is collapsing economically. The economy will not flourish, because individual initiative is completely restrained. The little experiments theyre doing with individual initiative are very conditioned and very regulated, so they wont prosper. They are facing deep-seated problems in Cuban agriculture, which turn Cuba from a country that fed itself to a country that depends on U.S. food imports. 85 per cent of Cuban seed comes from the U.S. That fact is rarely known. If it werent for the U.S., there would be starvation and famine in Cuba because the regime cannot feed its own people. Thats the number one failure of any regime. So, Cubans are rebelling against all this because they know that its not U.S. economic sanctions against a dictatorship which prevent food from the Cuban countryside to be available in markets where Cubans can freely purchase. They know about all the wrong decisions this regime has made economically and how they havent benefited the Cuban population. They see that the country has 12, 13, 14-hour blackouts, and yet, the hotels for foreigners, the five-star hotels that the generals profit from are illuminated, plus have air conditioning, and people there have all the amenities they need. Cubans see all this. No one can fool them about their own reality. And this is what drives the insurgency forward. The regime still has a strong security apparatus that can prevent the emergence of a unified national movement, but they cant destroy the movement as it is now; organic, based in neighborhoods and towns, and flourishing. In the past few months, weve seen very moving videos and photographs of families collaborating to set up barricades so that police cant enter neighborhoods, as part of the protests. That was unheard of in Cuba five years ago or three years ago. Its a new phase of resistance by the Cuban people. Mr. Jekielek: There are well-meaning Americans who wish the Cuban people all the best and hope they have freedom. Theyre very wary of Americans or America or the government getting involved in foreign expeditions, so to speak, and they have some good reason to be wary. How do you square all this? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: The Cuban experience between 1902 and 1959 is an example of successful American nation-building. First of all, U.S. intervention helped to end a genocide of the Cuban people, 200,000 Cubans died in that process. The U.S. built infrastructure in Cuba with roads and sanitary systems, over 1,000. I think 2,000 Cuban teachers were brought to the U.S. for training in order to serve Cuban public schools. The Cuban public schools were very successful in raising literacy rates. The U.S. terms of commerce for Cuba were generally very positive. Cuba before 1959 always had a balanced budget, and it always had a positive trade balance with the U.S. In other words, Cuba exported more to the U.S. than it imported from the U.S. All that was successful. The failures in emerging policy came from support for the Castro movement, which was there. There was covert support for Castro, U.S. diplomats have recognized this. And then, there were a series of mistakes that were carried out in the beginning about not realizing what the movement was, and what Castro was trying to do. There was the betrayal of the liberation force that landed at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, which was horrible for Cuban history. I can keep on listing several mistakes. With regards to Cuba, the U.S. mistake has been to not act decisively, to not take a position and address the problem. Instead, it has a zig-zagging policy that leads nowhere. Theres something called the Cuban Liberty Act, which in writing is very good. Its a comprehensive plan to help Cubans achieve their own democracy without U.S. intervention. But that has never been fully applied, and it should be. The sanctions on the regime are necessary, and they should continue. But it should be part of a comprehensive effort, especially in light of what this regime has done throughout the hemisphere, and what it has done in Latin America. A big mistake we made is that in 1991, 92, the powers that be proclaimed that the Cold War was over. No, the Cold War wasnt over. Soviet communism had fallen, but you still had a communist totalitarian state in China. You still had it in Cuba, and you had a different kind of totalitarian state in Iran, and one in North Korea. Theyre still there and theyve continued to grow. Whats happened is that weve erased from the academic memory what totalitarianism is and how it functions. It can adapt, it can mutate. Lenin himself experimented with capitalism, as he set up the communist system. The Chinese Communist Party has experimented with capitalism, but that doesnt change the essence of the system, which is to control the human soul. Mr. Jekielek: To control the human soul. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Yes. Mr. Jekielek: Ive said those words myself, actually. Youve been actively involved in numerous protests, both in the U.S. and outside. A very prominent example of a protest was in the UK in Birmingham in front of the Chinese embassy, where people came out of the Chinese embassy and attacked protestors with seemingly not too many repercussions. This actually reminded me of something that happened to you. Maybe you can tell me about that. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Weve had numerous incidents around the world where activities we were carrying out to denounce the situation in Cuba and advocate for freedom in Cuba were the subject of violent attacks directly by the Castro regime personnel, agents of that regime, ideological agents, or even paid agents. In Panama, we were attacked by Cuban embassy thugs together with local pawns of the regime and several of us were badly hurt. I had two ribs broken, my knee was torn, and I needed reconstruction surgery on my knee. A few weeks ago in Mexico City, we were attacked in front of the Cuban embassy by club-wielding thugs, paid and sponsored by that regime. And again, some of the Mexicans who were demonstrating and myself were hit by these individuals, and some members of our team were also attacked. Weve had many instances in Peru. We were also attacked at an event we were holding at a hotel. A mob of communists came in and attacked us. One guy was going to hit me in the head with an iron bar, but thanks to a Mexican friend who intervened, I was not hurt. That would have deeply injured me if I had been hit in the head with that kind of weapon. So, weve had many instances. In Bolivia, we also had another attack at a university where we were going to have an event. Throughout the world, we have felt the persecution by this regime. Theyre more careful in the U.S., but outside they do it constantly. This is a dangerous regime. Ive had death threats from Castros spokesman here in Miami because of my activities, repeated death threats, which the police to this day are still investigating and following up on. The regime has constantly attacked us. Theyve labeled me as a terrorist. In my lifetime, have I ever carried out a terrorist attack? But this regime which came to power, by putting bombs in movie theaters and parks and intimidating the Cuban population, which is all part of their method, this terrorist regime labels us as terrorists. Were advocates of freedom, and were advocates of democratic transformation. We are not the violent people. The violent people are the ones in power in Cuba. Mr. Jekielek: There is this term which is popular called projection. There seems to be a lot of projection, which is a favorite hard-Left tactic. What are you doing in all these countries, protesting in front of the Cuban embassies? Tell me about that. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Because theres so little press coverage of what happens in Cuba, we have to break that blockade. Thats the real blockade, the blockade on information on what happens inside Cuba. Going on these missions, participating in international conferences, organizing protests, meeting with political leaders, and meeting with labor leaders and student leaders is how we get the word out. And it has been successful. A network of solidarity for a free Cuba has emerged over the past few years, and we greatly contributed to that. Were not exclusively responsible, others have also worked on this , but weve contributed to that. And theres a network of people now around the world who care about what really happens to Cuban people and support that movement inside Cuba. But its a very dangerous regime, its a deadly regime. It has a pattern, a method of massacres and assassinations. Four American citizens were massacred in 1996 over international airspace by this regime. Among them, very close friends of mine, in an unarmed aircraft that was shot down. Theyve carried out massacres of entire families trying to leave Cuba, the most recent a month ago in western Cuba. They ran over a refugee boat, seven people died, including a two-year-old girl. Theyve done this over and over again repeatedly. To me, its a tragedy that Canada and the European Union finance this regime. To me, its a tragedy that the European Union, which is slapping sanctions on Russia, is aiding and abetting Russias number one ally in the Western hemisphere and in the international community. Its morally incoherent, and its possible because of the lie about Cuba, the doctrine of the lie, and not enough people in the responsible Left have broken with this lie. There are some in the extreme Right who also sympathize with that kind of regime. Until we get a consensus that there needs to be change in Cuba and for this awful regime to end, the Cuban people will have to continue with their fight alone. Mr. Jekielek: Youre saying that a lot of these people in these communities, some of them are actually acting as actual agents or they were paid agents of the regime. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Certainly in the U.S. Mr. Jekielek: How did you-figure this out? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Because we are the object of their surveillance and their intelligence work in the U.S. Ive been warned repeatedly by U.S. intelligence services that Im a target. In the trial against the Cuban espionage network called the WASP Network, which functioned in the U.S. until the late 90s, early 2000s, there was a list of people they were following, and my name was on that list. In their attacks against me, theyve revealed personal information. How did they know these things about me? All that is designed to intimidate me. Theyre not going to intimidate me. I have fear, but my love for Cuba and my love for freedom is greater than my fear. Besides, what the people are going through inside Cuba is much greater and much worse than anything I can face. The regime uses its control on the Cuban population to try and expand its intelligence outside of Cuba. It has never managed to control the exiled community as Ive heard China has managed to do with its many exiled communities. Thats something Ive heard. They never managed to establish that control because of the unity of the community against the regime. But they keep on trying and they have an ample network of informants and of pawns that they use for violence. For example, in Mexico. In Mexico, they bus people in from another city to attack us in front of the Cuban missing embassy. They themselves admitted that. Who paid for those buses? Who paid for their lunch? Who paid for their breakfast, their dinner, and that day-long trip in Mexico? Where did all those Cuban flags and the bamboo staffs for their flags come from? Anyone who knows about martial arts will tell you theres a reason for using bamboo, its to hit somebody. Bamboo doesnt break easily, and it hurts a lot when they hit you with it. Everything was very well organized. And besides that, there was a Cuban in the back who was guiding them, who was telling them what to do. I faced this over and over again, in Honduras. We went to Honduras to the OES conference, and they brought a mob of 300 Sandinistas with their red and black handkerchiefs. They surrounded the hotel where we were at, asking for our execution. I clearly saw a guy in the back of the park in front of the hotel standing by a tree, and he was the Cuban guiding the whole thing. I went down and I confronted them and they surrounded me and I faced them with what they were doing. Again and again, we face this kind of international repressive machine. They dont have money for food for the people of Cuba, but they do have money to finance this kind of repression internationally. Theyve done much worse, they have killed people outside Cuba. They have gravely injured people outside Cuba, their opponents. Theyve carried out these massacres in international airspace. Theyve done a lot worse than just simply attack us. Theyve murdered leaders of the movement. Oswaldo Paya was a Catholic engineer, a man who mobilized 35,000 Cubans for a pro-freedom plebiscite was murdered. He and Harold Cepero, a young Catholic leader, were murdered in a mysterious car crash in eastern Cuba, and everything indicates it was one of their operations. Laura Pollan, the founder of the Ladies in White, women who to this day march for the release of political prisoners in Cuba, died of a mysterious illness that just wiped her out within days. I can go on and on with all these leaders whove been murdered by the regime. They have a pattern of executions, and they have a pattern of massacres. Where did the Havana Syndrome start? Where did the directed energy attacks against U.S. and Canadian diplomats start? They started in Cuba. And that happened, Im sure. Ive written a paper on it. Theres a direct connection, a close symbiosis, and a close alliance between the Russian and the Castro regime intelligence services and this attack on American and Canadian diplomats. But over and over again, all this gets brushed off to the side. I went to school here, and I have four college degrees. I spent my life arguing with professors that were presenting incomplete information on Cuba. Sometimes they themselves were uninformed, other times they were ideological, they wanted to say it no matter what. But Ive faced this throughout academia, how there is this desire to protect that regime from its own worst crimes, and not to have people know what theyve done. Mr. Jekielek: The common thread for every communist regime is that it always has its apologists, and theyre very fervent in many cases. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: The apologists are part of the system, theyre not accidental. Something weve told pro-democracy leaders over and over again, the regime in Cuba is not a temporary adversary, its an existential enemy of democracy. Part of the totalitarian virus is its manifestation within the free world. Without the fifth columnists, totalitarian regimes could not succeed. Look at the case of China with Harry Dexter White. What role did he play in subverting the ability of the national forces to finally defeat the communist guerrillas? He played a great role. And how many more are like him? In Cuba, we have the same case. Theres a lady in prison who is the person in charge of Cuba intelligence for the Defense Intelligence Agency. She was working for the Cuban regime as a spy for the Castro regime, Ana Belen Montes. There have been many more arrests of people within the U.S. government that were working for the Castro regime. Were facing a bankrupt, collapsing communist regime that has a top-level intelligence force. Mr. Jekielek: In Cuba, there is the Ministry of the Interior, which is sort of analogous to the Ministry of State Security in China, ultimately responsible for the repression and control of the people. I understand that actually the Chinese have been training the Cubans, so tell me a bit about this. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Yes, the story has been broken. Theres photos and theres graphic evidence of instructors from something called the Peoples Armed Police, which were apparently the leading force in crushing the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, who have trained specialized forces of the Castro regime to repress the Cuban people. Im talking about the so-called Black Berets, the Maroon Berets, which are units which have put down protests and uprisings in different parts of Cuba. Theyre being trained by the Chinese. Mr. Jekielek: Cuba has a seemingly very successful tourism industry. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Its a tourism industry controlled by a few corrupt generals, by the military, which finances mostly the repressive military sector. Cuba is an attractive nation, the Cuban people have a way of life, have a joy about living that nothing can crush. Cuba is a very culturally-powerful nation. Look at the amount of music weve given in the world, as well as art and literature. Now, most of those tourists dont see Cuba. They see very well-defined tourist areas where they remain, which is particularly the case with Canadians. They go in massive numbers to Cuba and they dont leave their tourist enclaves. Youre not seeing how Cubans live or what theyre doing. But the money from this, the money from this tourism industry funds repression. Theres a direct connection between one and the other. Until the pandemic, it had a successful tourist industry, and it also had it before Castro. But its important to know that theres a moral cost to engaging in this kind of tourism. Youre going to feed a dictatorship, and youre going to feed a machine that crushes and imprisons children. There are minors in Cuba in prison for protesting, and also women. It is a regime which persecutes religion openly. It just got included in the list of countries where religious freedom is not respected by the U.S. State Department. When you go there and you take your money, youre financing the worst, a beast that will devour you. Mr. Jekielek: And theres no way to go and not finance the regime? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Its difficult right now. I would recommend that you dont stay at a tourist hotel. Try and stay in somebodys private home, a private house that is available. The regime supervises it and controls it, but its a little different from what a hotel constitutes. And try to speak directly with the Cuban people, and theyll tell you whats going on. Theyll tell you what they are suffering. Mr. Jekielek: You were mentioning there are a few generals who benefit from this industry and run it. Theres been some sort of purge of generals in the last year, hasnt there? What is that all about? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Something very strange has happened in a regime as tightly closed and as militaristic as this one. Since July 11th, 2021, weve had 26 Cuban generals, many of them in key positions, who have mysteriously died. The regime often blames COVID. But this regime has been very bloody in its internal purges. It has been totally intolerant and destructive of anybody within their own ranks who tries to protest or disagrees with a decision. The deaths of so many generals in so little time indicates to me that some kind of purge has taken place, and that there are real deep divisions within the regime. Mr. Jekielek: You mentioned that Canadians go to Cuba en masse, I think thats correct. I certainly know many people that have, and hence my question about tourism. But what is this Canadian-Cuban connection? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Theres an article we published in the Toronto Star, which is that the Canadians care for Cuba in a careless way. They care for Cuba in a superficial waythe beaches, the music, the culture. But do they really care about what Cubans are undergoing, about the kind of repression theyre suffering from? It indicates to me that the level of Canadian economic investment in Cuba, both in tourism and in the mining sector and other areas, is completely negligent of what this regime represents for most Cubans, and the kind of repression most Cubans suffer. I wish Canada would reflect on this and come to a moral reckoning about what its policies have caused the Cuban people. Mr. Jekielek: Is this the success of the propaganda initiative saying this is a great place? One of the things you often hear is the medical system in Cuba is fantastic, right? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Cuba has a long tradition of very good medicine. In 1955, Cuba had more neurosurgeons than the United Kingdom. Theres a long tradition there, from the colony, of good doctors and good medicine. You have to understand that the good medicine a foreigner can find when they go to Cuba isnt available to most Cubans. Cuban doctors are good, theyre dedicated, theyre committed. They dont have the tools with which to attend their patients. And the embargo doesnt cover medicine. The fact that the Cubans lack basic medicines and they have to ask their family members in Miami to send them or buy them medicine or food is the result of the failed policies of the communist system. Mr. Jekielek: Do you have a sense of what portion of the population is freedom seeking, and what portion of the population is indifferent, and then, what portion of the population is captured in this mass formation? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Thats a very interesting question. The few independent surveys which have been carried out indicates a great majority of Cubans want change. Id say no less than 80 per cent of Cubans want change. I would say theres 10 per cent of apathy, people who dont want to get involved, and 10 per cent hardcore mass-formation communist cadres. Recently, when the regime carried out the so-called municipal elections, because theres only one candidate with one political party, the regime admitted that 41 per cent of those who can vote, didnt vote, they didnt participate. If the regime recognizes 41 per cent, the number is far higher. It could be 61, 71 per cent. This shows you the level of discontent and also the level of people who are leaving the country. They dont want to be there. Now, of those 80 per cent, many still have fear, but a substantial portion of that 80 per cent has been breaking with that fear. Thats why I think that change is coming. Mr. Jekielek: What is it that you hope Americans can know and do, or the American policy establishment should think and do? Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Theres a blueprint for change in the Cuban Liberty Act, and far more importantly than the Cuban Liberty Act, theres a blueprint for change in the soul of the Cubans. Cubans are a freedom-loving people, wherever Cubans have found freedom, they have prospered around the world. The only place Cubans arent prospering is in Cuba because of communism. The problem will only get worse. Procrastinating about the problem of communism in Cuba will only increase the problem. And were seeing it now with all its effects. So, a proactive policy that takes as a platform the Cuban Liberty Act and the need to empower Cubans to conquer their freedom and to limit the ability to repress for that regime, I think that is paramount. Mr. Jekielek: What do you say to folks that will say, Look, Americas engaged in all these places? Theres all this support for Ukraine, theres pretty serious activities across the Pacific, theres the increasing China threat. And so, this would be yet another place for America to overextend itself and maybe cause more harm than good. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: There are deep cultural issues in countries that the U.S. can fix, and that they can begin to address. Were a force for good in the world because the values upon which we were founded are solid values. They are solid representations of the reality of the human soul. America has also had a great deal of success in helping to foster democratic cultures. Certainly in Japan, in Taiwan, in Germany, the Baltics, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, youve had the emergence of democratic societies that take responsibility for their actions and grow both spiritually and materially. Cuba could be one of those successes, because certainly the history of Cuba and the nature of the Cuban people are conducive to freedom. Its taken a great deal of energy to repress that freedom, to repress the Cuban people, and that regime has had international support from the get-go. Its been an international creation from the beginning, the repressing of Cubans. If that were to change, if Cubans could take control of their own destiny, then they could build a very successful democracy. I have faith in the Cuban people. Mr. Jekielek: Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Mr. Gutierrez-Boronat: Its been an honor to be here. Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. Im your host, Jan Jekielek. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity. Subscribe to the American Thought Leaders newsletter so you never miss an episode. * Click the Save button below the video to access it later on My List. Follow EpochTV on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpochTVus Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/EpochTV Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@EpochTV Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/epochtv Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpochTVus Gab: https://gab.com/EpochTV Telegram: https://t.me/EpochTV Over 15,000 Americans Left Hong Kong in Past 2 Years: US Consul General Gregory May, the U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong and Macau, told an online seminar on Jan. 25 that more than 15,000 Americans have left Hong Kong in the past two years. He believes that Beijings actions in Hong Kong will force more elites to flee, damaging Hong Kongs status as a business hub. On Jan. 25, The American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) held an online seminar titled Assessing Hong Kongs Future as a Global Business Hub to explore the impact of Beijings implementation of the National Security Law and its tightening control over Hong Kong. May, who took office in Sep. 2022, said about 15,000 Americans left Hong Kong for various reasons in the past two years, which is equivalent to 20 percent of the American community in Hong Kong in 2019. He said the governments anti-pandemic measures have hit Hong Kong hard in the past few years. Although such measures have been relaxed recently, they may already have induced an irreversible impact. May is also concerned about the impact of Hong Kongs rule of law on its status as an international business hub. He said, the re-interpretation of the National Security Law by the National Peoples Congress Standing Committee last month could further undermine the Hong Kong independence of Judiciary System by expanding the Hong Kong executive branch authority to make decisions affecting cases without judicial oversight. (International) Companies should be aware that the risks faced in mainland China are now increasingly present here in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong National Security Law and the actions taken by Beijing and Hong Kong authorities may negatively impact company staff, finances, legal compliance reputation, and operations, adding, Some international companies have relocated, while others are shifting key staff and operations elsewhere (out of Hong Kong). Our view continues to be that Beijings actions could further force many of the citys best and brightest (people) to flee. We are continuing to see the exodus of people from Hong Kong. And Hong Kongs position as a free global financial center will suffer as a result of this outflow. Said May. He said there are more than 1,300 American companies in Hong Kong, tens of billions of American investments, and about 70,000 Americans still live in Hong Kong. Therefore, the situation in Hong Kong is closely linked to the interests of the United States. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has always been playing an important role in Hong Kong. In this respect, it is obliged to speak out for Hong Kong issues whenever needed and is never an attempt to interfere. May also mentioned they will launch more student exchange programs, allowing mutual studies and/or visits between Hong Kong and American students in each others place. But he expressed concerns about academic freedom in Hong Kong, such as the introduction of education in patriotism in schools by the authorities, the dismissal of scholars, and the suppression of student unions. Hanscom Smith, The former U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong and Macau, also spoke at the seminar and said the United States needs to continue to work very closely with allies and partners to highlight Hong Kongs status. Hong Kong is not simply another Chinese city, it is part of China, but its status is different, the baseline for the policy (of the United States) has always been supporting Hong Kongs autonomy and supporting Hong Kongs special status and supporting Hong Kongers themselves. Pilots Need More Cardiac Tests, Aviation Advocates Say, Citing Concerns Over COVID-19 Shots Dana Holladay (L) and his wife, Meredith, of Holladay Aviation, fly their plane in Jacksonville, Florida, in August 2019. (Meredith Holladay) Pilot safety and risk-management are always top-of-mind for Meredith Holladay, the owner of a small flight school. But the possible side effects of the COVID-19 shots present a new, difficult-to-gauge risk for people in aviation, she said. Its been a known issue, Holladay told The Epoch Times. But what do you do about it? Holladay and other aviation advocates say that pilots need to be better informed about vaccine-related risks; about tests that can detect hidden problems, and about treatments that can help them continue to fly safely. Thats why Holladay Aviation and US Freedom Flyers (USFF), an aviation-rights group, offered a free seminar and cardiac-testing event earlier this montha movement they hope will spread across the aviation world. More than 100 aviation professionals came to Jacksonville, Florida, for the Jan. 9 safety seminar, believed to be the first of its kind, according to Josh Yoder, president of USFF. Among the 25 attendees who agreed to be tested, 16 showed markers for myocarditis and heart muscle inflammation, Yoder told The Epoch Times. He believes that most of the tested people were pilots because the event was tailored to the aviation community. The tests were done anonymously; no proof of identity or aviation license was required. Thats because the goal wasnt to do a study, Yoder said, the goal was to help people find out whether they might have hidden problems and guide them to get help. A Classic Standoff While the Jacksonville events findings involved a small population, its still disturbing to see myocarditis detected in 64 percent of those tested, said Yoder. To him, its another signal that many pilots, flight attendants, and other people may be suffering from undetected cardiac issues, even with no symptoms. In 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged reports of a rise in myocarditis following COVID-19 injections, especially among younger males. In a statement updated on Jan. 23, the CDC called the shots safe and effective, and declared that serious side effects are rare. Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently extended a study of possible vaccine-related heart inflammation. However, long before the pandemic, studies implicated myocarditis in sudden cardiac death of young adults at rates of 8.6 percent to 12 percent, according to a 2006 article in the medical journal, Circulation. Yoder and others believe that myocarditis and other health problems could be linked to the COVID-19 shots, even though the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared them safe for pilots. The FAA set a 48-hour no-fly period for pilots who received the injections; The Epoch Times Freedom of Information Act request, seeking justification for that rule, has been pending since September. A nurse prepares a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Coventry, England, on April 22, 2022. (Jacob King WPA Pool/Getty Images) The Epoch Times is also trying to discover why the FAA recently changed an acceptable heart test standard for pilots. Some people suspect the change was made in response to pilots heart test readings changing, possibly because of vaccine side effects. So far, the FAA has given only a general response to questions about its reasons for the change. On Jan. 17, the FAA said in an email: The FAAs Federal Air Surgeon determined that pilots and air traffic controllers can safely receive the Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or Novavax vaccine. When making changes to medical requirements and guidance, the FAA follows standard processes based on data and science. Yoder says that all actors in the pilot-vaccine situation are locked in a classic Mexican standoff; everyone stands to lose. Thats what makes this so difficult to address, he said. Based on the Jacksonville events findings and personal contacts with hundreds of pilots, Yoder said pilot health cries out for more attention from all angles. Everybody has a liability here, he said. The FAA has liability for even allowing these vaccines for pilots. The airlines have liability for mandating it. The unions have liability for not protecting us from the companies and the government. And the pilots have liability for taking it. Yoders group is pushing for the FAA to provide amnesty for vaccinated pilots, covering their wages while health problems force them to go on disability. Further, in a letter dated Dec. 15, 2021, a team of experts, assembled by Yoders group, called upon the FAA to require additional cardiac screenings for vaccinated pilots. More than a year later, Yoder said the agency had taken no such action and had not replied. The Epoch Times has also sought a response from the FAA. Pilots Command Airplane, Own Health Pilots knowjust from common sensethat they should disqualify themselves from flying if they arent feeling well. Also, federal regulations hold every pilot responsible for becoming familiar with all available information concerning that flight. That includes any health issues that the pilot might have. Yoder said that pilots are painfully aware that any health issue can temporarily or permanently disqualify them from their livelihood. But he said pilots need to find out what is going on with their health, regardless of vaccine status. At the Jacksonville event, one pilot in his 20s took a heart test showing he had the marker for severe myocarditis, Yoder said. That pilot was not vaccinatedand had very recently passed an FAA-required medical exam. A Boeing 737 MAX airplane takes off on a test flight from Boeing Field in Seattle on June 29, 2020. (Karen Ducey/Reuters) Pilots are obligated to disclose any health issues to the FAA. Even though pilots might be fearful of undergoing the tests, its important to learn where they stand so that they can receive proper treatment, Yoder said. Failure to find out could mean a pilot loses his or her life or causes a tragedy for others, he said. There are protocols; this isnt a death sentence, Yoder said. This doesnt mean that you lose your flight medical (authorization). This means that you now understand you have an issue, and you can treat it. The Mayo Clinic says that early detection of myocarditis is crucial in preventing long-term heart damage. Depending on the severity of the condition, treatments range from prescription drugs to surgeries. In addition to relying on traditional medical treatments, some pilots have seen benefits from nutrition-based supplements, such as Cardio Miracle, to counteract inflammation, Yoder said. Representatives of that company spoke at the pilot event. Their product is based on a 1998 Nobel Prize-winning discovery, with benefits documented by scientific studies, its website says. No Backup for Small Aircraft Holladay notes that large commercial passenger airliners fly with two pilots while smaller general aviation aircraft typically have a single pilot in controlwith no backup. More than half of the nations pilots fall into the general aviation category. Since January 2020, Holladay Aviation has provided 20,000 hours of flight and ground instruction without incident, and never used masks or required vaccinations, Holladay said. Most of the schools flight instructors and students caught the COVID-19 virus and all recovered at home and returned to flying, Holladay told seminar attendees. As of Jan. 17, the FAA stated that it had no evidence of aircraft accidents or incapacitations caused by pilots suffering medical complications associated with COVID-19 vaccines. But Holladay sees signs that the pandemic and the COVID shots have increased the potential for such an incident. Even one crash could put a small flight school like hers out of business, Holladay said. Emerging data points to a significant risk to health from these injections, and that can cause sudden incapacitation without warning to otherwise healthy people, she said. Yet, Holladay says, many pilots are unaware of the ways in which vaccine side effects could suddenly impair their ability to command a safe flight. Experts spoke at length on this topic at Holladays safety seminar. To help educate pilots, Holladay recently added a section to her website warning of COVID-19 mRNA injection dangers. That webpage includes links to a two-part video of the seminar, plus many other sources of information. Reports of Pilots Blacking Out However, Holladay points out that accounts of pilots suffering scary side effects are discussed in aviation circles. Such reports also have been registered with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). While cautioning that VAERS data is unverified and that anyone can make a report, Holladay quoted VAERS reports from vaccinated pilots. Some wrote that they blacked out, and had vision problems, dizziness, and irregular heartbeats. Holladay believes there is enough evidence to conclude that COVID vaccine effects pose an aviation safety hazard. This is something that we ought to spend a little more time paying attention to and see if we can figure out a solution, she said. Many of Holladays clients have applauded the flight schools efforts to encourage pilots to take better control of their health and educate themselves about the dangerous short- and long-term side effects of these mRNA injections, she said. Several students said they had no idea they were at risk, Holladay said. Now they are planning to undergo testing offered by HeartCARE Corp., the same company that conducted tests on pilots at Holladays seminar. Effective Jan. 22, Holladay began requiring that screening for all students and airplane renters who have received at least one COVID-19 shot and wish to act as pilot in command. A receipt for the test is required, but the test result can remain confidential. It is our hope that this effort will encourage all pilots to get tested, find out where they stand, and get help if necessary, Holladays website says. A prospective client, who recently retired from her flight attendant job at a major airline, told Holladay she shares concerns about the vaccines side effects. The flight attendant told Holladay that one of her co-workers was forced to go on long-term disability because of neurological problems that arose after a COVID-19 injection. Holladay said that flight attendant was very receptive to our new policy, requiring vaccinated fliers to get heart function tests. I think a lot of people are starting to wake up, and wake up fast, she said. Free Tests Were The Right Thing Eule Glenn, CEO of HeartCARE Corp., says he started his company to avert the heart-disease losses that he and so many other Americans have suffered. Heart problems afflicted several of his relatives and killed his grandfather. Eule Glenn, CEO of HeartCARE Corp., Chattanooga, Tenn., in a photo provided in January 2023. (Eule Glenn) Before we ever heard of COVID, COVID vaccinations or anything like that, heart disease was of pandemic proportions, Glenn said in an interview with The Epoch Times. It remains the No. 1 killer of Americans, he said, so weve had a problem on our hands for a long time. When organizers of the Jacksonville pilot event asked Glenn to bring the multifunction cardiogram, he originally intended to demonstrate the equipment and to charge a fee for any tests that pilots wanted to have done. After hearing presentations about the issues pilots are facing, Glenn decided to offer the tests for free. It was the right thing to do, he said. Glenn didnt want the cost to prevent anyone from taking the test. He typically charges around $500. Some of the tested pilots made donations to help cover travel expenses for the company, which is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Why Pilots Are Angry At the seminar, Glenn said he was shocked to learn that pilots face even stricter medical standards than he imagined. For example, pilots are forbidden from flying after taking popular, seemingly innocuous over-the-counter medicines such as Zyrtec allergy pills or Alka-Seltzer Plus cold medicine. There are so many safety measures enacted to say, Look, if this goes in your body, you dont fly the plane, Glenn said. In that context, its easy to see why pilots seemed angered over being given an ultimatum: take the COVID vaccines or be fired, Glenn said. But the vaccine debate is irrelevant to the cardiac testing, he said. This is an objective test. It doesnt care how you got what you got; it just reports it. His company uses a device that functions like a smarter version of the electrocardiogram (EKG). Manufactured by Premier Heart in New York, the multifunction cardiogram was federally approved in 1995. Glenn calls it the first non-invasive, highly accurate tool for the early detection of cardiovascular disease. Typically, the test takes less than 10 minutes. The patient lies down. Then a technician clamps sensors to the patients ankles and wrists, and attaches a sticky sensor above the heart with five wires leading from it. The multifunction cardiogram helps detect heart issues. (HeartCARE Corp.) The machine records five 82-second EKG readings, then sends that data to Premier Heart along an encrypted internet connection. There, a diagnostic system compares the patients readings to an extensive database of other readings. The result provides a set of diagnoses and conditions, with 90 percent accuracy, Glenn said. The report gives a treating physician guidelines for additional evaluation and treatment, HeartCAREs website says. Although Glenn is not a medical doctor, his company employs medical professionals. By consulting with them and reading literature from the American Heart Association, Glenn learned that, about half the time, the first symptom (of heart trouble) is a heart attack itself. About one-third of those first-time heart attacks are fatal, he said, adding, That is a very difficult way for you and your family to learn you have cardiovascular disease. Politicalizing Intel Is Destroying US Politics and Helping Chinese and Russian Agendas: Ex-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Amb. Pete Hoekstra when he was the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands while attending a Memorial Day ceremony at the Margraten American Cemetery, in Margraten, the Netherlands, on May 24, 2020. (Patrick van Katwijk/ANP/ AFP) The American intelligence community is getting increasingly politicalized and this is destroying the nation while helping the anti-American agendas of Russia and communist China, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman and former ambassador to the Netherlands, Amb. Pete Hoekstra said in an interview on Jan. 23 on China in Focus, a show on NTD TV, Epoch Times sister media. When you start politicizing intelligence, its decay, and its destroying America, is destroying our political process. Its not coming from the Russians. Its not coming from the Chinese. Or maybe it is coming from the Russians, the Chinese, but its also coming from within the United States, said Hoekstra. The former diplomat referred to the recent Twitter files and said that the heads of various intelligence agencies like the Office of Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI were meeting Twitter executives regularly to decide what would be real information and what would be dis-informationthis, according to Hoekstra, was never the work of the intelligence agencies. That was never the responsibility of the intelligence community. There was always a wall between the intelligence community and domestic businesses, domestic policy and those types of things. But then you start going back and you say, Okay, now whos actually telling Twitter what might be okay? said Hoekstra. In an op-ed published by Gatestone Institute on Jan. 15, Hoekstra alleged that deceit and corruption have seeped into the leadership of the U.S. Intelligence community. He pointed at reports about the FBI withholding pertinent information from Americans for the past months, until after last years Nov. 8 federal election. The combination of a politically weaponized Intelligence Community, operating hand-in-hand with organizations that are main gateways for information to millions of Americans, is a serious threat to American democracy and the integrity of our elections, wrote the former diplomat. He said in his op-ed that its important to investigate how the U.S. intelligence community has come to this point to determine speech in America. He demanded a significant investigation by an outside, non-government group to understand how this censorship of free speech and election manipulation happened in the country. Clearly the government has been influencing what we get to see and hear. It needs to stopnowbefore our democracy is destroyed, he wrote. Serving Adversaries Causes Hoekstra told China-in-Focus host Tiffany Meier that this situation has sown seeds of doubt about the credibility of various American established departments. This in turn helps the anti-American agendas of China and Russia. It casts doubt! Can we really trust the FBI? Can we trust the Department of Homeland Security? Can we trust our own intelligence community? So you know, it actually divides Americans, it casts doubt about some of our premier institutions. And that then creates the opportunity for China and Russia, he said. Such situations are used by powers like the Chinese Communist Party that is already known globally for waging unrestricted warfare against the United States and its allies. The only way to defend American interests in todays situation is to call for transparency, according to Hoekstra. We need a transparent society, we need to let bad ideas come out into the public. So we can shoot them down and dispel them. But we dont need government doing that. So one is total transparency, more transparency, and openness, he said. The second is to keep our government institutions out of those kinds of activities where they are censoring data, and deciding what the American people can and cannot see. In his op-ed, Hoekstra pointed at this months revelations about the Penn Biden Centre think tank at the University of Pennsylvania receiving donations worth $54.6 million from anonymous members of the Chinese Communist Party. Influencing Political Debates Hoekstra said that its very frightening to see how the U.S. intelligence community and the bureaucrats have played a role in influencing public opinion by colluding with platforms like Twitter. He termed their intentions to set the tenor of the American political discourse to determine the outcome of the U.S. elections as frightening and as a decay of our republic, our democracy from within. Theyre setting the framework, you can talk about this, you can talk about the Russian hoax with Donald Trump, you can do that for 2, 3, 4 years. But you cant talk about Hunter Bidens laptop. So theyre creating the parameters by which we will have political debate and how our citizens will go out and determine who they will vote for, he said, adding that the bottom line is no one is being charged. The former diplomat said that the American people should seek answers from their elected representatives and hold them accountable. They should also, according to him, not rely on one source of information but go to multiple sources to get information on various critical issues. Where is the outrage from the American people that in many cases, they were lied to? They were censored and censored by the government. In some cases for more than two years. Its one of the things that really astounds me that the outrage is not there, said Hoekstra. Popular Radio Journalists Brutal Murder Sparks Outcry in Cameroon Gruesome killing raises questions on security and press freedom in the central African state. A condolence book was opened for the late Martinez Zogo at the headquarters of the Amplitude FM radio station where he was station manager. (Courtesy of Nalova Akua) I wont let you be You just have to kill me were Martinez Zogos last words on the airwaves of the privately-owned Amplitude FM radio station in Cameroons capital of Yaounde on Jan. 17, 2023. In the satirical Embouteillages (Gridlock) daily slot that he was anchoring that fateful day, Zogo denounced an embezzlement case allegedly involving a Cameroonian media/business tycoon and his allegedly shady deals with the countrys powerbrokers. The next day, Zogo was nowhere to be found. His naked and decomposing body was found about 12 miles from Yaounde five days later. His right leg was broken, his fingers severed, among other degrading injuries, according to autopsy results sent to The Epoch Times by his family. The autopsy also suggested a club was most likely used to inflict the worst abuse ever on the 51-year-old father of five. This is a grave blow to democracy and press freedom, said Sadibou Marong, director of Reporters Without Borderss sub-Saharan Africa bureau in a Jan. 23 press statement. First he was brutally abducted and then his lifeless body was found with the marks of torture. Everything indicates that he was deliberately killed. This murder of a journalistwho was just doing his jobmust not go unpunished, he wrote. In 2020, Zogo served a two-month pre-trial detention in Yaounde relating to a criminal defamation case. Another popular Cameroonian TV host, Samuel Wazizi was arrested and detained in August 2019 for criticising the governments handling of a separatist revolt in the countrys English-speaking north-west and south-west regions. He was later confirmed dead, but his family is yet to see his corpse. A controversial terrorism law and a military tribunal were used in 2014 to keep a Radio France Internationale correspondent, Ahmed Abba in prison for two-and-a-half years. In 2021, journalists Paul Chouta and Emmanuel Mbombog Mbog Matip were finally freed after being held on defamation charges for 24 months and 16 months respectively. Cameroon is the second-worst jailer of reporters in sub-Saharan Africa and fifth on the continent with at least six journalists behind bars as at Dec. 1, 2021, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Hostile Country For Journalists Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also claims Cameroon is one of Africas most dangerous countries for journalists, who operate in a hostile and precarious environment. Cameroonian journalists are constantly exposed to the threat of a verbal or physical attack, an arrest, a gag suit, and even murder, says RSF. A day after Zogos body was found, many journalists in Cameroon thronged the headquarters of his former Amplitude FM radio station to pay their last respects. A replay of the late radio hosts past satirical slots amid a hymn of mourning noisily animated the atmospherewhile his large photo and some lit candles beckoned visitors to the studios. A day at the radio station without Martinez is a day full of sadness, Charlie Aime Tchouenou, editor-in-chief of Amplitude FM radio station, said of his colleague. Tchouenou explained the Embouteillages slot that Zogo anchored was noted for its satirical tone and was one of the must-listened to in taxis, markets, and offices. He had a special touch that he gave to the slot. When he was on air, he had no censorship of what he had to say, he told The Epoch Times. He had no script in front of him. Yet, he was capable of sustaining the audience for as long as the programme would last (9:30 a.m. to 12:30pm). And during this period, all he spoke out were facts. He denounced societal ills. The listenership of Amplitude FM increased thanks to him and his slot. Zogos death sparked anger in Cameroon and beyond. Cameroons minister of communication and government spokesperson, Rene Emmanuel Sadi described the journalists assassination as heinous, unspeakable, and unacceptable crime, which cannot be justified under any circumstances. Sadi promised that investigations have been launched to find and bring [the perpetrators] to book. Barbaric and Chilling Taking the cue, Cameroon Human Rights Commission said the act was barbaric and retrograde which only goes to undermine the fundamental right to life, the right to physical and moral integrity, as well as freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and freedom of expressionall of which it said are protected by the Preamble to the Cameroon Constitution and by African and international human rights instruments duly ratified by Cameroon. South Africas radical and militant economic emancipation movement, Economic Freedom Fighters, said in a tweet that Zogos death was chilling and that his critical voice echoed through the corridors of power in government offices in Cameroons political capital, Yaounde. The Cameroon Journalists Trade Union called on media workers in the country to wear black on Jan. 25, as a sign of mourning for their slain colleague. This day, we are raising our voices that we are in dangerthat the media is in danger, said Jude Viban, president of the Cameroon Association of English-speaking Journalists. What has happened to Martinez Zogo can also befall any of us, he told The Epoch Times. Viban lamented that justice for Zogo may be unlikely. There is every reason to be pessimistic, he said. We will not let the government rest until evidence is uncovered. The Cameroonian people need to see that justice is being done. Knew Life Was in Danger If anything, Zogo knew so well that his life was in danger, yet, his quest to speak truth to power seemed to have clouded his judgment. Martinez used to tell us that he will die for his people and now it has come to pass. I always told him to stop it but he wont listen, revealed Zogos elder sister Moungou Crespence to The Epoch Times. She says the vacuum created by Zogos passing is big and that this will never be filled. I knew Martinez was going to bury me as his elder sister, but today, I am the one to bury him. All we want now is for the government to hand over Martinezs corpse to us so he can be given a befitting burial. His killers best know why they did what they did. We leave everything to God, the 56-year-old mother of four said. As a close collaborator of Zogo, Tchouenou confessed he started reading the writing on the wall when their maestroas he was affectionately calledbegan living a very discreet life which baffled him. You would hardly see him mingle with anyone. He was always alone, he told The Epoch Times. Immediately he would finish his slot, he will leave the station almost immediately. He never confided in anybody. Though his colleagues, we never knew where he lived. He always loved to have scoops which he never would share with us. You wouldnt see him eat openly. If he sees you eating, thats when he may join you to have a bite. But if you voluntarily offered him food, he would decline it. Neither will you see him drinking in a bar. You wont see him board a taxi with other passengers. He always preferred hiring one for himself, or using his personal car. He was always extremely cautious, recounted Tchouenou. In Constant Fear With Zogos death, the question on many lips now is who is next? A few days before he was killed a list of at least a dozen Cameroonian investigative journalists and whistleblowers allegedly earmarked for execution for being critical of the government (including Zogos) circulated on social media platforms. We didnt see Martinez Zogos death coming, but we knew he, just like us, were being targeted since we started investigating into the massive embezzlement scandal that has come to be known simply as line 94-65-57, revealed Paul Chouta, Cameroonian investigative journalist and whistleblower who was among those blacklisted. Chouta narrowly escaped being kidnapped in 2018, but was eventually abducted in March 2022. I know [Zogos] death is linked to his work and I dare say his killers are the same people who once ambushed me, he told The Epoch Times. Just like him, I was undressed and severely tortured. I was even made to eat dust. All because of a post I had made. Chouta admitted he now lives in constant fear yet lacks the means to ensure his security. Journalists in Cameroon are not safe. Imagine Martinez Zogo was arrested near a gendarmerie post and he cried out for help but no one came for his rescue, he lamented. I have started noticing strange and suspicious individuals around my residence. Nothing has ever been done to ensure our security. I am dumbstricken. Prime Minister Lays out Plans for Medicare Overhaul A doctor speaks with a patient during triage at the St George Hospital in Sydney, Australia, on May 15, 2020. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images) Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has put health care reform at the top of his agenda with a planned overhaul of the Medicare system and improvements to primary care. A meeting of the National Cabinet will meet next week to discuss ways to ease pressure on Medicare, particularly by increasing the number of general practitioners. Less than 14 percent of medical graduates were choosing careers in the sector, down from about half of the university leavers. Albanese joined Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff on Friday to announce an Australia-first program aiming to make it easier for the states health service to recruit and train GPs. The program will allow GP registrars, including rural trainees, the option to be employed by the Tasmanian Health Service and do their final placements in practices across the state rather than having to change employers and miss out on entitlements. This would allow people to have a single employer and is expected to attract more medical graduates into the primary health sector. The prime minister wants similar programs to be rolled out across Australia. The reason why primary health care and GPs are so important is its more than just a transaction; its a relationship for life, Mr Albanese said. Its a relationship, which is about making sure health issues are diagnosed early, that intervention happens as soon as possible (and) if that happens, it will cost less because we will have less people who have acute health issues. Health Minister Mark Butler said there was no higher priority for the government than strengthening the Medicare system. Young medical graduates thinking about their career choices want to know that the federal government and their local state government sees value in general practice, sees value in primary care, he said. Thats our commitment to make sure that we bring primary care general practice to its rightful place because it is the backbone of our healthcare system. Republicans Introduce Bill to Strip China of Permanent Trade Status Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) departs from the Senate Chambers during a series of votes in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Oct. 6, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) A group of Republican lawmakers is introducing legislation that would strip communist China of its special permanent trade status with the United States. The China Trade Relations Act was introduced on Jan. 27 by GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Ted Budd (N.C.), and J.D. Vance (Ohio). The legislation would end Chinas permanent status as a most favored nation (MFN). Instead, China would be required to seek presidential approval on an annual basis in order to maintain its MFN status. For twenty years, Communist China has held permanent most-favored-nation status, which has supercharged the loss of American manufacturing jobs, Cotton said in a prepared statement. China never deserved this privilege in the first place, and China certainly does not deserve it today. Its time to protect American jobs and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for their forced labor camps and egregious human rights violations. Bill to Punish CCP for Human Rights Abuses MFN status, also known as normal trade relations (NTR), confers select nations with free trade benefits and acknowledges that the recipient nation will receive all the same trade benefits as any other nation with the designation. Chinas communist regime has maintained MFN status since 1980, though there have been numerous efforts over the decades to revoke it, particularly after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The regimes MFN/NTR status was made permanent by the Clinton administration in 2000. Vance said that the designation had allowed Chinas communist regime to effectively gut the American job market and that undoing such status is necessary to resurrect U.S. manufacturing efforts. In the state of Ohio, we have lost over 130,000 jobs since Congress made the catastrophic mistake of granting China special trade privileges two decades ago, Vance said. I have seen the devastating effects of this job loss firsthand, and I know its past time we did something to reverse that trend. This legislation is a strong step toward defending American jobs and revitalizing our domestic manufacturing capacity. Alternatively, Sens. Scott and Budd argued that it was improper for the United States to allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain permanent MFN status due to its continued efforts to undermine U.S. national security and its record of human rights violations in Xinjiang, which the United States has recognized as a genocide. The Chinese Communist Party is not Americas friend, and it is not a force for good in the world, Budd said. From human rights abuses to the theft of U.S. jobs and intellectual property, the CCP must be held accountable. One of the most effective ways to push back on the CCP is to enact Senator Cottons bill to end Chinas Permanent Normal Trade Relations status. The China Trade Relations Act, in addition to requiring annual presidential approval for MFN status, would also expand the list of human rights violations that could result in the termination of such status. Among the violations that could see Chinas MFN status revoked are the regimes use of slave labor, concentration camps, forced sterilization, forced organ harvesting, transnational repression schemes, and economic espionage against the United States. The CCP cares about one thing: undermining America, Scott said. There is no reason why the United States should be helping a communist governments trade operation through preferential treatment and most-favored-nation status. That is absolutely absurd when they are working against us. It is time to put American interests first, not the CCP, and reverse this antiquated law. Rise in Young Children Poisoned by Cannabis Is Troubling: Virginia Poison Center Chief The actual numbers are likely higher than official records, poison center director says Edible marijuana samples are set aside for evaluation at Cannalysis, a cannabis testing laboratory, in Santa Ana, Calif., on Aug. 22, 2018. (Chris Carlson/The Canadian Press via AP) Virginia has seen a significant rise in unintentional THC poisoning of young children, which is congruent with the American Academy of Pediatrics recent national findings. The Virginia Poison Center at Virginia Commonwealth University reported that the number of children poisoned by foods containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), known as edibles, went from three calls in 2018 to 88 calls in 2022. S. Rutherfoord Ruddy Rose, director of the Virginia Poison Center, called the trend troubling and said the numbers could actually be higher because only a portion of families call poison control centers or opt for medical care due to fear of legal consequences. If a child gets into one of these, they can wait it out. The child might have symptoms or might not but, you know, sometimes theyre embarrassed to call, Rose told The Epoch Times, referring to the parents. They dont want to get in trouble. Even for those parents who call the poison center, they may not be forthright about the child having ingested cannabis or hemp edibles. Were sort of at the mercy of what the caller 1) tells us or 2) knows, said Rose, because in some cases the ingredients are not labeled accurately. People have tested these products in labs and found out that sometimes the ingredients are different than what the package says, Rose said. The American Academy of Pediatrics published a report on Jan. 3 analyzing nationwide poison data and found that the number of edible cannabis toxicity cases in children under age 6 went from 207 cases in 2017 to 3,054 cases in 2021, which the study authors link to changing laws that have made these products more accessible. There has been a consistent increase in pediatric edible cannabis exposures over the past 5 years, with the potential for significant toxicity, the study concluded. According to the report, 70 percent of cases followed to a known outcome were reported to have central nervous system depression, and 22.7 percent of patients were admitted to the hospital. Shelly Clary, an education specialist at the Virginia Poison Center, told The Epoch Times that young people of all agesnot just small childrenare being poisoned by these THC products. A chart from the Virginia Poison Center showing all-age exposure to THC toxicity. (Courtesy of Shelly Clary) Attractive to Young Children Children under 6 years old are most adversely affected by THC edibles, Rose said. Children are attracted to these things. Theyre not in child-resistant packaging, and children are getting fairly high doses for their body weight compared to what adults would get, he said. And so these things are just increased dramatically since theyve become available, and calls to poison centers reflect whats being used. In a 2022 statement, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said THC-edibles in the form of popular foods are readily available and that their deceiving appearance and packaging can confuse young children who come across them and have led to an increase in accidental consumption, putting their health at risk. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (C) announces investigations on Thomas Jefferson High Schools delay in informing students of national recognitions and the schools admission policies in Alexandria, Va., on Jan. 4, 2023. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times) High Dose Because the intoxicating THC edibles look like their favorite treats, children often end up eating a high dose, Rose said. These children are getting high doses, relative high doses, of cannabis-type products, and theyre disproportionately requiring evaluation at hospitals, compared to all exposures in the same age group, he said. The Virginia Poison Center also found that most young children who end up in the hospital for observation have signs of central nervous system depression, which can include being extra sleepy or agitated, low or high blood pressure, dilated pupils, loss of gross motor ability, slurred speech, tremors, and in severe cases there may be seizures, convulsions, and possible death. Sometimes the dose can overwhelm the childs system and it can really affect the cardiovascular system such that it can cause a death, said Rose. In November 2022, a 4-year-old boy from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, died from allegedly consuming a large number of hemp gummies that contained delta-8 THC. Delta-8 products are being more heavily targeted by policymakers since the Spotsylvania County child died and a group of Fairfax County middle school students had an adverse physical reaction to a similar type of edible. Counterfeit versions of popular snack food brands laced with THC are shown. (Courtesy of North Carolina Secretary of States Office) State Legislation In 2022, Virginias General Assembly enacted a temporary fix for the problem of copycat packing of THC products through a provision in the state budget. The governor was able to include these THC-related amendments, which were passed in March and took effect July 1. At that time the Virginia Hemp Coalition said the legislation would affect which products would be legal to sell, particularly those that contain delta-8. This bill has a great impact on the hemp industry in Virginia. It basically would probably shut down about 80 percent of it, Jason Amatucci, the groups president, told WTKR, a CBS affiliate. We actually think delta-8 and intoxicating cannabinoids should be regulated, he said. Were saying dont affect the good products. We have a bunch of non-intoxicating products that are made from hemp. The 2022 provision included banning candy-lookalike THC products from being manufactured and sold, as well as banning counterfeit packaging that could be confused with popular food brands. It also set additional requirements for child-proof packaging, product testing, and labeling. However, the 2022 measure did not address all of the loopholes that allow these products to still end up in the hands of young people. Agencies Crack Down In the summer of 2022, Youngkin created a hemp task force, which recommended in a report that the states various agencies coordinate to regulate and remove intoxicating cannabis-derived products from unregulated channels. The hemp task force found that while there were many areas that could not be agreed upon, the panel was united on the idea that copycat candy products should be banned and that stiff criminal penalties should exist for anyone manufacturing, selling or distributing those products. However, hemp business owners who submitted comments to the task force said the language in any new law needs to be nuanced not to penalize hemp businesses. The recently enacted regulations relating to delta-8 as well as the [Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services] decision to terminate delta-8 sales of edibles in Virginia on July 1 were neither consistent nor sensible, Ryan Suit, a hemp processor from Virginia Beach, Virginia, told the hemp task force. It is my understanding that delta-8 edibles are still legal for consumers to enjoy by purchasing them online and having them delivered through the mail. Moreover, the sale of cartridges for delta-8 vaping is somehow still allowed in Virginia. Mike Wallace, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, told The Epoch Times that since 2022, the agency has been taking actions to remove potentially harmful hemp products from the market, particularly those appealing to young children. Miyares has also been investigating and enforcing the new provisions of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act (VCPA), Victoria LaCivita, spokesperson for the attorney generals office, told The Epoch Times. The Attorney General has investigated and notified numerous businesses throughout the Commonwealth for violations of the VCPA and secured compliance with it, LaCivita said. Our enforcement efforts continue and are ongoing. We encourage the public to report any suspected violation of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act to the OAG by filing a complaint with the Consumer Protection Section. Counterfeit versions of popular candy and snack food brands laced with THC are shown. (Courtesy of North Carolina Secretary of States Office) More Laws to Come When asked if he would support creating a commercial sales market for cannabis, Youngkin said his focus is on hemp products that are disguised as common candies and foods. Right now, were very focused on making sure that the enforcement and consumer protection laws are straightened out with regards to hemp and delta-8. And were seeing products on shelves that are being mislabeled and were seeing products that are targeted towards children. Thats the bill Im most focused on, Youngkin told reporters in January. Youngkins 2024 proposed budget amendments include $2.2 million dollars for the registration and inspection of hemp facilities, pursuant to legislation being considered in the 2023 session. Miyares said he wants to see more legal tools made available to hold the companies accountable that make these counterfeit food products. Virginia lawmakers have a variety of bills awaiting consideration that would regulate THC products. Republican state Sen. Emmett Hanger is sponsoring a Youngkin-backed hemp regulation bill, SB 903. Republican House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore filed another hemp regulation bill, HB 2294, that would broaden the states definition of marijuana to include all products that contain a form of THC. Republican Del. John McGuires HB 1922 takes an even tougher stance on delta-8 by banning the sale of delta-8 products altogether. The Attorney General is dedicated to combatting the rise of accidental THC poisonings in children and is hopeful the General Assembly will craft legislation to address this, LaCivita said. Scandal? What Scandal? Commentary In our relativistic age in which everyone has his or her own truth and none is to be preferred over another so long as the individual feels good about it, why should anything be considered scandalous? If truth is subjective rather than objective, who is to say what is right and what is wrong? And if one does make such a claim, is that not an affirmation that a standard exists by which truth and falsehood, scandalous and honorable behavior can be measured? The White House is caught in an ethical bind. On the one hand they claim classified documents found when an FBI warrant was executed at Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort are scandalous, while simultaneously claiming that classified documents found at President Bidens home and at in an old office suite are not a big deal because Biden instructed his lawyers to go get them and inform the National Archives. This is akin to admitting to doing something wrong before you have been discovered. If it is wrong in one instance to keep classified documents after leaving office, then why is it also not wrong in the other instance? Quoting a source, CBS News has reported: Representatives for Mr. Biden signed a form outlining the parameters of the search, including which areas in the presidents home could be swept for papers. A Justice Department attorney was present at the residence Friday. So the one being investigated gets to tell authorities which places can be searched and which are off limits? Cmon, man, as the president likes to say. That will come as a surprise to people who have been awakened by SWAT teams before dawn and treated like criminals while every room in their house is searched. And Im not just talking about Roger Stone. Too much of this is occurring among far lesser known Americans. The CBS report continued: Justice Department officials are also considering the possibility of conducting other consensual searches at locations linked to Mr. Biden, said the source familiar with the investigation. Keep in mind the documents were found last November but only this month was the discovery made public. Im sure the delay had nothing to do with the November election, right? Appearing on Sunday talk shows, two Senate Democrats were critical of the president. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the president should be embarrassed by the situation. He added that Biden had ceded the moral high ground on an issue that Democrats have been using against former President Trump. Durbin went on to say such discoveries diminishes the stature of any person in possession of it because its not supposed to happen the elected official bears ultimate responsibility. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Biden should have a lot of regrets. You just might as well say, Listen, its irresponsible. Sounding like the Frank Sinatra song My Way, the president has said he has no regrets, about the documents, apparently not even too few to mention. Could this document scandal be the excuse some Democrats are quietly looking and hoping for to persuade Biden not to run for re-election and nominate a younger and more vibrant candidate? Now we learn a dozen classified documents have been found at former Vice President Mike Pences home. Pences lawyer immediately alerted the National Archives, who in turn informed the Justice Department. FBI agents have since retrieved the documents. The top secret documents Trump walked out of the White House with could also be a legal problem for him depending on what the special prosecutor and Attorney General Merrick Garland decide to do. Their problem is that if they move ahead with legal proceedings for one (Trump) they would be hard-pressed to credibly explain to a cynical public why the other (Biden) should get a legal free pass. In another America where laws were once supposed to be equally enforced (the exception being the rule) and truth was not personal, this would likely not have been a problem. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Senior Pfizer Employee Says Company Exploring Mutating COVID-19 to Preemptively Develop New Vaccines A senior employee at Pfizer said in a conversation captured by the nonprofit journalism group Project Veritas that the pharmaceutical company is looking into mutating COVID-19 in order to facilitate the development of new vaccines. One of the things were exploring is like, why dont we just mutate it ourselves so we could createpreemptively develop new vaccines, right? Dr. Jordon Walker, a director of research and development at Pfizer, told an undercover reporter for Project Veritas. If were going to do that though, theres a risk of like, as you could imagineno one wants to be having a pharma company mutating [expletive] viruses, Walker added. Video footage of the comments was released on Jan. 25. Walker claimed that scientists at Pfizer were optimizing a process to mutate COVID-19 but were going slow because everyone is very cautious. Obviously they dont want to accelerate it too much. I think they are also just trying to do it as an exploratory thing because you obviously dont want to advertise that you are figuring out future mutations, Walker said. You have to be very controlled to make sure that this virus that you mutate doesnt create something that just goes everywhere. Which, I suspect, is the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest, he also said, adding that COVID-19 is going to be a cash cow for us for a while going forward. Walker appeared to be speaking at a restaurant, unaware that he was being recorded. An online professional profile for Walker describes him as director of worldwide R&D strategic operations and mRNA scientific planning at Pfizer. Cached versions in search engines of his Linkedin profile list the same title. His actual Linkedin page was removed. Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine is built on messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology. The profile included a Pfizer email address for Walker, a cell phone number, and a phone number to Pfizers headquarters. An email to the address was not returned, but did not bounce back. A receptionist at the headquarters, who was asked for Walker on Thursday, acknowledged that he was listed as an employee but said that his company profile did not list any contact information. On Friday, a different person said there was no listing for a Jordon Walker. According to internal documents obtained by Project Veritas, Walker reports to Shuang Wu, who reports to Mikael Dolsten. Pfizers chief scientific officer, Dolsten reports to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. Walkers profile said he has a medical degree and the state of New York has a Jordon Walker listed as having a physician license in the state. Walker was confronted in a New York City establishment by Project Veritas head James OKeefe with footage of him talking about the COVID-19 mutation exploration. Walker confirmed that the video was authentic but said he was not telling the truth. I was trying to impress a person on a date by lying. Im not even a scientist by background. You know I came from a consulting firm that does business, Walker told OKeefe. Why are you doing this to someone whos just working at a company thats trying to literally help the public? he said later. Walker called the police but officers declined to arrest any Project Veritas employees. One officer said he would have arrested Walker for assault if OKeefe had not left before the officers arrived. After the publication of the first video, social media and other profiles for Walker and Wu were taken offline. Pfizers media office did not respond to requests for comment. Pfizer responded to the remarks in a press release on Friday night, 48 hours after the footage was first released. In this image from video, Pfizer director Jordon Walker speaks about mutating COVID-19. (Courtesy of Project Veritas) Senators Respond Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) shared the footage of Walker talking about mutating COVID-19. Its time for Congress to thoroughly investigate vaccine manufacturers and the entire COVID vaccine approval process, he said in a statement. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter to Bourla, saying he was aware of troubling reports of Pfizer intending to mutate COVID-19. As has been proven time and time again, attempts to mutate a virus, particularly one as potent as COVID, are dangerous. If the claims detailed in the video are true, Pfizer has put its desire for profit over the concern of national and global health and must hold itself accountable, Rubio wrote. He asked Bourla to answer a series of questions, including whether Pfizer is currently, or is planning to, mutate the virus and, if the mutation is planned or happening, whether any federal officials are aware of the efforts or plans. As a leader in global public health and development of the COVID vaccine, with American taxpayer dollars, it is critical that Pfizer is accountable for their actions and be transparent with the public on the substance and intent of their research, Rubio said. Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, director of the Bioethics and American Democracy Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that what Walker was describing fits the definition of gain of function, or making a virus more transmissible and/or virulent. Pfizer was potentially creating a super virus, Kheriaty said on a Twitter Space. Whether that was their intention or not, doesnt really matter. The fact that they were doing it, and the fact that that dangerous virus wouldnt exist in the world without the experiments that they were engaged in, I think thats the decisive point. Manny Romero and Olga Montoya enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center Opera House, on Jan. 26, 2023. (Weiyong Zhu/The Epoch Times) WASHINGTON, D.C.Manny Romero and Olga Montoya originally had plans to see a tenor perform, and when the show canceled they looked to see what other performing arts events they could attend insteadonly to realize that they had the perfect opportunity to see Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Kennedy Center Opera House. We were waiting for this show for a long timeyears. Years, Im telling you. I dont know how many years, but for years we were waiting for this moment, said Mr. Romero, a business owner, after seeing the performance on Jan. 26. Ms. Montoya, a realtor, said, When we saw the show, I said, oh my God, this is the show I have been waiting for. Throughout the performance, Ms. Montoyas reaction was amazing, amazing. That was an amazing show. New York-based Shen Yun is the worlds top classical Chinese dance company and takes as its mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. Ms. Montoya said that what made it more amazing was when she learned that Shen Yun could not be seen in Chinawhich is currently ruled by a communist regime that has tried for 70 years to destroy traditional culture. Mr. Romero and Ms. Montoya explained that Shen Yun uses dance to tell various stories, showcasing Chinas history, as well as touching on the present day. We get every story, Mr. Romero said. Every story is different. The China they saw on stage was a spiritual one and one that rang true for the pair. Im a very spiritual person, and I think China is one of the most spiritual cultures in the world. Manny Romero Im a very spiritual person, and I think China is one of the most spiritual cultures in the world, Mr. Romero said. In Shen Yuns stories, divine beings appeared, including the Creator. China, once known as the Land of the Divine, has an origin story of the Creator coming down with heavenly beings to begin 5,000 years of divinely inspired civilization. Another story references the Creators return to the human world. Mr. Romero and Ms. Montoya expressed that they were deeply touched by these scenes, which brought them joy and hope. I feel thats the truth, Mr. Romero said. I like that you get that in most of the stories that we saw tonight. Its the same as coming from the Creator. Reporting by Weiyong Zhu. The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006. Something About Phoenix Always Puts Me Right Back in Kandahar Commentary I worked in Phoenix last week, away from my home, like Ive been doing off and on for years. My day job involves some stress, but not life-and-death stress like we had in the military. But I always dread driving around Phoenix because it makes me feel like Im back in Afghanistan. The rest of Arizona and other big cities are usually no problem. Although there was one time on a four-lane through Denver when a big bag of toys fell from a truck, was smashed by the car behind it, and blew up in a giant harmless kaleidoscoping cascade of colors. I had to pull off the next exit and take a moment. Something about Phoenix always puts me right back in Kandahar. It might be the heat, the big bare rock mountains around town, the traffic, or the sorta familiar, sorta foreign feel of working out-of-town, I have no idea. Im too embarrassed to say how long its been since I was medevaced out of Afghanistanso long that even my first Phoenix trip experience 11 years ago surprised me. But every trip since has been similar. My blood pressure spikes. I have to concentrate to make a point not to scan every car, rock, shoulder trash, overpass, ditch, driver, taking all of it in through rapid-eye-movement-while-awake that those of us whove driven in combat zones know. Then, after arriving, it takes time, sometimes hours, to come down off being so spun up. It isnt crippling but certainly does not help accomplish my white-collar workday nor avoid the hotel bar at night. I sometimes compensate by renting sporty cars. Its always fun to drive something youd never buy. Sometimes I get an Uber and try to immerse myself in my phone rather than the urban desert scenery. But none of it is a silver bullet that keeps my adrenal glands and blood pressure anywhere close to their usual settings. That is until yesterday when I scheduled an early morning Uber ride to the airport. Frances, a kind little old lady, picked me up for our 40-minute trip just as the sun was just peeking over the horizon. We chatted through our masks about all manner of subjects from traffic, work, family, COVID, you name it. About halfway there, I admired the sunrise now cresting into the Superstition Mountains and it hit meI was relaxed and calm. Regular breathing, calm heart rate, no compulsive visual scanning, no rubbing my fingers and thumbs so hard they squeak. I was as calm as if driving a country backroad without any breathing techniques or mental gymnastic coping routines. And this, my friends, was a first for me. Maybe it was the several-month lull since my last trip there. Maybe I was really tired. Maybe Im getting old. Maybe it was because Frances had the same name as a family loved one who recently passed. Or maybe some of that feeling between my own ears is finally just going away. Im glad I was sitting in the back because I squeaked out a tear and wore a moronic grin the rest of the way to the airport. I wanted to hug her when we got there but figured a big tip and 5-star rating would have to do. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) gets a lot of press in clinical psychology. It seems to mean something different to every practitioner. I think there might just be room in all the CBT definitions for my laymans take: Put yourself in a chronic triggering situation but then share pleasant stories from home with a kindly old grandma-type. I wont know until my next trip, but Im declaring a milestone. Driving while amped might strike me again in Phoenix, but I doubt it. I write this to give a little hope to other vets that some of our quirks may not be permanent. Even after many years, when you least expect it, it can get better. But you still wont catch me driving anywhere near my own downtown during spring cleanup with all its curbside trash piles. Baby steps. by an anonymous combat veteran This article first appeared in The Havok Journal. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. South Korea Extends Entry Restrictions on Chinese Visitors Health workers guide travelers arriving from China in front of a COVID-19 testing center at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul on Jan. 3, 2023. (Jung Yeon-je/AFP via Getty Images) South Korea says its extending its entry curbs on visitors from China, including its short-term visa restriction, through February amid fears that COVID-19 infections in the mainland may surge following the Lunar New Year celebration. The visa restrictions on short-term Chinese travelers were initially imposed for the month of January, but the South Korean government has decided to push back the date to the end of February. Health officials made the decision during a COVID-19 response meeting on Jan. 27, citing concerns about a virus resurgence in South Korea if restrictions on Chinese visitors were lifted, given the mass gatherings that occur during the Lunar New Year holiday in China. South Korea will also extend its requirement for Chinese travelers to provide a negative PCR test result before departure and after arrival through the end of February. However, the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare stated that it would consider easing its entry restrictions earlier if the outbreak situation in China improves, The Associated Press reported. About 10 percent of the 6,900 short-term visitors from China who arrived in South Korea between Jan. 2 and Jan. 26 tested positive for the virus, South Koreas Disease Control and Prevention Agency noted. A woman and children wearing face masks walk by masked travelers waiting at a departure hall to catch their trains at the West Railway Station in Beijing on Jan. 15, 2023. (Andy Wong/AP Photo) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is expected to retaliate against the move, having previously banned the issuance of short-term visas to South Korean and Japanese nationals after the two countries imposed COVID-related entry restrictions on Chinese travelers. Australia, Canada, Cyprus, France, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Qatar, Spain, the UK, and the United States are all implementing testing requirements on travelers from China, and the EU has sought to coordinate a response to the issue. CCP leadership has threatened countermeasures against all nations that move to implement the same type of restrictions on its travelers that it requires of theirs. It remains unclear whether the regime will expand its visa suspensions to other nations that have imposed stricter virus testing on passengers from China. Explosive Outbreak China has seen a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country. Most of the population has been infected, according to officials and studies, and crematoriums and hospitals have been overwhelmed. But the regimes continuing coverup of the death toll makes it difficult to ascertain the true scale of the outbreak. Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of Chinas Center for Disease Control and Prevention, stated on Jan. 21 that 80 percent of the population had been infected in the latest outbreak. His comment aligns with statements made by other Chinese officials in recent weeks and a study showing that 900 million Chinese had been infected. People wait for medical attention at a fever clinic area in Tongren Hospital in the Changning district in Shanghai on Dec. 23, 2022. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images) Other countries were concerned about the CCPs lack of transparency in sharing its COVID-19 data. Last month, Chinas National Health Commission (NHC) stopped publishing COVID-19 infections and fatalities every day. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a department directly under the NHC, publishes relevant outbreak information for reference and research. China had only acknowledged 11 COVID deaths since Dec. 7, when the regime abruptly reversed course and loosened its strict zero-COVID policy. Health officials explained that they only counted individuals dying from respiratory failure caused by COVID-19, excluding deaths from other diseases and conditions even if the deceased had tested positive for the virus. I believe the definition [of COVID death] in China is quite narrow, Mike Ryan, emergencies director at the World Health Organization, said at a Dec. 21, 2022, briefing. Such criteria will very much underestimate the true death toll associated with COVID. Airfinity, a British-based health analytics firm, estimated that as many as 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID-19. Cumulative deaths in China since Dec. 1, 2022, have likely reached 100,000, with infections totaling 18.6 million, researchers said on Dec. 29. Dorothy Li, Andrew Thornebrooke, Reuters, and the Associated Press contributed to this report. Special Parking Restrictions Enforced and Increased Police Presence in Downtown Ottawa on Anniversary of Freedom Convoy Crowds of protesters demonstrate against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions during the Freedom Convoy protest in downtown Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times) The City of Ottawa has begun enforcing special parking restrictions in its downtown core in anticipation of the one-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy this weekend. A news release issued by the city on Jan. 26 said the restrictions will be in effect between Jan. 27-29. Residents and visitors are advised to follow posted signage and to park their vehicles accordingly, it said. The release said the city and the Ottawa Police Services (OPS) were working together to ensure City by-laws regarding parking, noise, litter and fireworks, are respected during the anticipated events. Additional by-law officers will be deployed to ensure parking regulations are followed. All vehicles found violating these regulations will be ticketed and towed, it added. The city also said tickets will be issued to any person or group in violation of other bylaws, including unnecessary noise, installation of structures on city property, public urination and defecation, open-air fires, littering, lighting and discharging fireworks. There will be no traffic closures though the OPS may impose temporary closures to manage large volume of traffic if necessary. Drivers should anticipate delays in the downtown core, the release said. The Freedom Convoy began arriving in Ottawa last Jan. 28 and 29 to stage a protest against federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates for truckers travelling between Canada and the United States. It turned into a much larger movement after many Canadians from across the country began joining in or voicing their support for ending the various COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. Streets of downtown Ottawa were filled with rigs, trucks, live music, and bouncy castles at the time until the police escalated their operation on Feb. 18, 2022four days after the federal government evoked the Emergencies Act to quash the protest and grant banks the power to freeze the accounts of convoy organizers and supporters without a court order. Convoy organizers had said they wanted to have a dialogue with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but were not given an audience during their time in Ottawa. Will Be Ready OPS Chief Eric Stubbs said earlier this week that the city will increase the police presence downtown this weekend. He added that the city has resources, tow trucks, and staffing plans in place, if a protest is to take place. Our goal is not to have a vehicle-based protest, and if someone attempts a vehicle-based protest then we will take action to dismantle it fairly quickly, Stubbs commented ahead of a Jan. 23 meeting of the Ottawa Police Services Board. He said police will be ready and that the ultimate goal of all this planning and preparing is to ensure that what happened last year doesnt happen this year. Trudeau had depicted the truckers protest as illegal and dangerous. Occupying streets, harassing people, breaking the lawthis is not a peaceful protest, the prime minister said on Feb. 14. No Violence Took Place A security report on the same day by the Government Operations Centre, an internal department of Public Safety Canada, characterized the Freedom Convoy protest as small, peaceful, and having little impact on federal operations. No concerns at this time, said an assessment by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service included in the report. Other daily updates on the convoy protest at the time include confirming: no major incidents (Jan. 29), no violence took place (Feb. 1), disruption to government activities is so far minor (Feb. 6), there are minimal people on Parliament Hill (Feb. 10) and situation remains stable and planning is ongoing (Feb. 11). Testifying on Oct. 20, 2022 at the public inquiry into the Liberal governments use of the Emergencies Act, Craig Abrams, superintendent of operations for the east region of the Ontario Provincial Police, said the arrival of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa was very smooth. Overall, we had no assaults, we had no criminality, and werent aware of any charges being laid, he said, adding the convoy didnt damage any highways. They said what they would do. They kept to one lane. They entered the city of Ottawa in an orderly fashion. An Ottawa municipal committee has voted on Jan. 27 to have Wellington Street, which is in front of Parliament Hill, reopen no earlier than March 1. Marnie Cathcart and The Canadian Press contributed to this report. States Raising Taxes on the Rich Should Expect a Line at the Exit The word "taxes" is seen engraved at the headquarters of the IRS in Washington on May 10, 2021. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) Commentary Its an old aphorism that if you tax something, you get less of it. Seven states are at risk of finding out exactly how that truism applies to wealth tax legislation introduced in each of them should their proposed taxes become law. On Jan. 19, seven statesCalifornia, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Washingtonrolled out various forms of wealth taxes and other taxes on high-income earners. These proposals include taxes on wealth, mark-to-market treatment of unrealized capital gains, surtaxes on income for high earners, corporate tax increases, and digital taxes. Similar proposals have floundered at the federal level for good reason, but theyre even more ill-advised at the state level. Its no coincidence that each of the seven states, save one (Washington), proposing this progressive tax wishlist lost taxpayers, on net, to domestic migration as of the latest IRS data release. In total, these seven states lost a net of more than 300,000 households and $46.6 billion in adjusted gross income to other states. In other words, wealthier taxpayers in these states have already begun to recognize that their representatives view them only as cash cows to be squeezed for all theyre worth and are fleeing to greener pastures. While loading up taxes on wealth, investment, and entrepreneurship is foolish at the federal level for policy reasons, at the state level its ill-advised for all those reasons, as well as the fact that overtaxed residents can simply up and leave. States responding to this trend with yet more taxes are only proving their taxpayers fears true. Relying more and more on a small tax base of wealthy individuals eyeing their upcoming move to Florida or Texas isnt a recipe for fiscal success at the state level. But as this latest round of tax hike proposals shows, high-tax states are likely only to double down. For some time, states have been ramping up efforts to tax nonresidents as a way to get around persistent trends of outward tax migration. The most egregious example of this came, unsurprisingly, from California. A couple years ago, some legislators proposed a wealth tax that would also include an exit tax, applying the wealth tax to residents for 10 years after they leave the state and set up residency elsewhere. Fortunately, this almost certainly unconstitutional tax never became law, but it represented an initial effort to tangle up fleeing taxpayers in an inescapable tax web. Other efforts are far less heavy-handed, and, therefore, are far more dangerous. Five states, including two of the above seven, enforce a so-called convenience of the employer rule. These rules require taxpayers who switch from commuting into the state to working from home in another state to continue paying income taxes to the state they used to commute into so long as they could have continued commutingeven if they never set foot in that state. Other examples include digital advertising taxes, such as that which was briefly enforced in Maryland. Marylands tax applied to digital advertisers based on worldwide income, not Maryland-based income, with the clear intention of grasping at large, out-of-state advertisers income. Marylands tax was slapped down by the courts at the end of last year. States are also increasingly trying to enforce tax burdens on remote sellers with no physical presence in a state. This includes enforcing sales tax collection obligations on out-of-state businesses, as well as a nascent effort to apply the same logic to corporate income taxes on out-of-state sellers, despite federal law that seemingly bars states from doing so. These issues may often appear to be purely esoteric, jurisdictional disputes, but at their core, they represent the response effort by states seeing their tax bases flee to other states to force taxpayers into their jurisdiction. The goal is to limit taxpayer agency in something thats fundamental to the American federalist systemthe ability to choose which state to live in and be taxed by. Should high-tax states succeed in their efforts to spread the reach of their tax jurisdictions, they may be able to bypass the revenue consequences of ever-increasing tax obligations. Should that happen, the proposals in these seven states are just a taste of what taxpayers can expect. From RealClearWire Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Update: 27-01-2023 | 17:09:00 The governments of Malaysia and Indonesia will hold a meeting to discuss issues related to crude palm oil (CPO) benchmark price, according to Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister and Plantation and Commodities Minister Fadillah Yusof. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister and Plantation and Commodities Minister Fadillah Yusof (Photo: https://www.theedgemarkets.com/) Talking to local media on January 26, Fadillah said the matter needs to be discussed jointly as Indonesias plans will affect the entire oil palm industry chain, not just Malaysia, but also globally. It is necessary to have a discussion between the two sides before any decision on price setting is taken for the benefit of the plantation sector in both nations, he stressed. Fadillah revealed that the meeting to resolve this matter beneficially for all parties had been proposed to take place in the second week of February. Previously, Indonesian Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan said his country plans to establish its CPO benchmark price before June, and will no longer have to depend on Malaysia. Indonesia is the world's largest palm oil producer with an output of nearly 50 million tonnes of CPO per year. It is followed by Malaysia with an annual output of about 20 million tonnes./. VNA Texas Democrats Decry GOP Bill to Ban Chinese Citizens From Buying Property in the State Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, along with more than a dozen fellow Democratic lawmakers, has decried state legislation proposed by a GOP lawmaker that would ban the sale of land to Chinese citizens, governments, and other entities. I am here in defense of the American dream, Wu told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday at the Texas Capitol. This is what we are all here to protect. The China-born Houston Democrat held a photo of the Houston home where he grew up, adding that he would not be here if SB 147 were law. His family immigrated to the United States in the 1980s. Just as I have told my own community, the Asian community, we need to be supportive of other groups because one day they will come for you, Wu said. And here we are. Democrat state Rep. Salman Bhojani, who immigrated to the United States from Pakistan when he was 19, called the legislation troubling. What starts in Texas changes the world, he said. Where our legislature goes, the entire country follows, which is why this legislation is so troubling. Wu held a similar press conference on Monday in Houston, drawing about 100 Chinese protestors to the steps of City Hall, the Houston Chronicle reported. SB 147 = ASIAN HATE, read one of the signs carried by an attendee. Say No to Discriminations, another sign read. About SB 147 In November, Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst pre-filed SB 147, which would ban citizens, governments, and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia from buying real property in the state of Texas. The growing ownership of Texas land by some foreign entities is highly disturbing and raised red flags for many Texans, Kolkhorst said in a press release in December. Republican Gov. Gregg Abbott signaled his support for the legislation if it passes. A bill is filed in Texas legislature to ban citizens, governments & entities of China, Iran, North Korea & Russia from purchasing land in Texas, Abbott wrote on Twitter. I will sign it. This follows a law I signed banning those countries from threatening our infrastructure. During a separate press conference on Wednesday, Abbott reiterated that the bill is written to protect Texas from hostile governments. And we have a goal here, and thats to prevent countries that are hostile to the interest of the United States from being able to buy up our farmland or other land thats so important to us, Abbott said, adding that SB 147 would not impact those who are citizens or intend to be citizens of the United States. Currently, the bill does not include such language. Building on Previous Legislation Kolkhorsts bill mirrors and builds on SB 2116, known as the Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act, which the Republican governor signed into law during the 87th Legislative session in 2021. The law prohibits Texas businesses and government officials from making infrastructure deals with China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The 2021 legislation, which passed unanimously, was filed in response to the purchase of roughly 140,000 acres near Laughlin Air Force base in Del Rio by Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin. The Xinjang-based real estate tycoon spent an estimated $110 million to build a wind farm in Val Verde County, near the Texas-Mexico border. The law took effect immediately after it was signed on June 18, 2021. Wu voted in favor of SB 2116. Beijing has developed a close strategic alignment with Moscow in the past few decades, the strengthening ties driven by a shared antipathy to the United States and its allies, who see this as a multifaceted threat with military, economic, technological, and ideological dimensions. The Jamestown Foundation hosts a webinar at 11:00 a.m. ET on Jan. 27, during which several leading experts examine the current state of the China-Russia partnership and consider the outlook for the relationship in 2023 and beyond. The Epoch Times will livestream the event. Ms. Ryuke Makoto, a pianist, music therapist, and internet celebrity, attends Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Shinjuku Bunka Center in Tokyo, Japan, on Jan. 25, 2023. (Annie Gong/The Epoch Times) TOKYO, JapanA Japanese IT company president enjoyed Shen Yun Performing Arts, which he felt was amazing, majestic, and somehow familiar. When the curtain first opened, I was shocked. The performance is incredibly amazing, said Mr. Anbo Mituru, the president of an IT company in Tokyo, after attending Shen Yun at the Shinjuku Bunka Center in Tokyo on Jan. 25. [The dancers] skills are superb. They jumped, spun, and flipped in those extraordinary ways. The dances are beyond my expectations, he said. The dancers capabilities of controlling their bodies are very advanced. They always kept on smiling when dancing, which is fantastic. Mr. Anbo said Shen Yuns backdrop cooperates with the dance in a very clever way, and broke the limit of the space. Its really awesome! The timing was controlled very well. The dancers jumped backward, and the backdrop showed the figures exactly at the moment they should come, he said. Its amazing. New York-based Shen Yun is the worlds top classical Chinese dance company, and has a mission to show the beauty and goodness of China before communism. For 5,000 years Chinas civilization was built on values and virtues from the spiritual teachings of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Each Shen Yun performance consists of nearly 20 vignettes, presented through highly-expressive art forms such as classical Chinese dance, original orchestral music performed live, soloists who sing in the bel canto tradition, animated digital backdrops, and more. The baritones song is very meaningful and inspiring. He sang that we human beings came to the earth from heaven. I felt the writer of the lyrics must be a divine being, he said. Mr. Anbo felt that some of the stories that Shen Yun presented felt very familiar, like he had experienced it before. He appreciated Shen Yuns effort to revive traditional Chinese culture, because he believes traditional culture is the foundation of a nation, and has the power to unify people. Mr. Anbo Mituru, an IT company president, attends Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Shinjuku Bunka Center in Tokyo, Japan, on Jan. 25, 2023. (Lu Yong/The Epoch Times) Shen Yun Is Impeccably Perfect Ms. Tsugawa Emiko is the chairman of a social welfare association. She felt blessed and lucky that she could attend Shen Yun, and said she admired Shen Yun artists. The dancers movements are exquisite, which are really wonderful. The costumes are gorgeous and breathtaking. The colors are saturated and impressively beautiful. The music, oh, is pleasant to my ears, she said. Amazing! The show is impeccably perfect. The name Shen Yun translates as the beauty of divine beings dancing. Ms. Ryuke Makoto is a pianist, music therapist, and influencer. She said she felt Shen Yun was very different anything else she had attended. I attend different shows frequently. When the curtain (of Shen Yun) first opened, I immediately felt the field of Shen Yun is very different, which is very powerful and majestic, she said. Its very touching. It brought me the knowledge of traditional culture, which is magnificent. As an artist, Ms. Ryuke said she understood the values that Shen Yun delivered, which touched her heart. To understand the traditional culture better, she bought a copy of Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Dafa, a spiritual meditation discipline that revolves around the three core principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Highest-Class This performance represents the highest standard of any performance in the world, said Mr. Fukue Toshimasa, an executive of a welfare company, after attending Shen Yun in Tokyo on Jan. 25. He then said the dances are highest-class. The performance is absolutely perfect. The dancers synchronized accurately. Even they jumped to the same high, he said. The fantastic cooperation between the dance and music, and the stunning interaction between the stage and the backdrop its really spectacular! Mr. Yoshioka Teruhiro, a department manager of an IT company, said all Shen Yun dancers were full of energy. They presented very rich expressions, and performed the roles very appropriately, he said. I believe they dance using their hearts. Then we audiences can feel what they are thinking and what they feel. Mr. Yoshioka said he felt the hard training that all artists had gone through, and was very touched by the excellence of the performance. This is not only a respectable art, this is also a fabulous show in which each artist presented perfectly what he or she should do, he said. Reporting by Epoch Times Staff in Tokyo, Japan. The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006. The Indictment of Charles McGonigal Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence for the FBIs New York office, leaves Manhattan Federal Court in New York on Jan. 23, 2023. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Commentary One evening in May 2017, Charles Charlie McGonigal was about to take the stage to give a talk to the Foreign Policy Association when he learned that less than four months into his presidency, Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey. At the time, McGonigal was one of the most senior officials in the FBIspecial agent in charge [SAC] of the bureaus prestigious counterintelligence division in New York City. He let the audience know how much he would miss his boss: Director Comey was probably one of the most loved leaders that weve had in a number of years commanding a leadership role in the FBI, McGonigal told the crowd. I think many of us who were nominated for leadership positions by him will forever hold him in esteem as we progress through our FBI careers. According to an indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the next significant step in McGonigals own FBI career was agreeing to work secretly for the powerful Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. In the stylized jargon of the Department of Justice indictments, complete with its idiosyncratic capitalization, the indictment states flatly how McGonigal was recruited by a former Soviet diplomat, Sergey Shestakov: In or about 2018, while McGONIGAL was still serving as SAC, SHESTAKOV introduced McGONIGAL via email to an employee and agent of Deripaska (Agent-1). Prosecutors maintain that McGonigal collected $225,000 from a sometime employee of a foreign intelligence service while serving as special agent in charge of FBI counterintelligence efforts in the New York Office. McGonigal retired from the FBI later that year, in September 2018. It has widely been noted this week that McGonigal was a key player in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation that targeted Trump and his advisers. But what about after he left the FBI? It turns out that McGonigal would still have a visible role in intelligence and threat assessment, often at conferences he participated in or organized, even while working for the Russians. After he left the FBI in 2018, the indictment alleges, McGonigal and his Russian comrade continued efforts on behalf of Oleg Deripaska. In 2021, it states, McGonigal and Shestakov conspired to provide services to Deripaska, in violation of U.S. sanctions imposed on Deripaska in 2018. McGonigal also took a job as a senior vice president of Global Security and Life Safety at the U.S. division of Brookfield, an international real estate company. In that capacity he co-chaired a Homeland Security Task Force assembled to meet the threat of election-related security issues. At a remote task force meeting in October 2020, there were presentations by Michael Burgwald, assistant section chief of the FBIs Domestic Terrorism Operations Section, Counterterrorism Division, and Branden Fuller, unit chief of the Strategic Engagement Unit in the bureaus Counterterrorism Division. At that conference, McGonigal boasted about his connections with U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Our well-established industry relationship with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners and homeland security officials facilitates a robust information-sharing exchange that benefits both the commercial facilities sector and government officials, he said. We rely on timely updates from them and they look to us for insight on threats to commercial real estate. At the same time, McGonigal was one of the intelligence community specialists issuing warnings about voting security and possible election violence. In October of 2020 McGonigal participated in an Atlantic Council online seminar on the threat posed by Russias domestic intelligence service, entitled How did Russias security services capture the Kremlin? McGonigal stated that what had happened in Russia would be akin to having in the United states the FBI as a rogue element operating at the behest of the highest bidder, engaged in criminal activities. It is an analogy that now seems to cut too close to the bone. Consider the description of McGonigals actions presented by prosecutors: McGonigal and Shestakov agreed to and did investigate a rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska. As part of their negotiations with Deripaskas agent, McGonigal, Shestakov, and the agent attempted to conceal Deripaskas involvement by, among other means, not directly naming Deripaska in electronic communications, using shell companies as counterparties in the contract that outlined the services to be performed, using a forged signature on that contract, and using the same shell companies to send and receive payment from Deripaska. If the charges against McGonigal prove true, his corruption of the FBI continued long after he left the bureau. The indictment of a top FBI Russia hand for working hand-in-glove with the very Russians he was supposed to be monitoring may be the most shocking of the many astonishing embarrassments to befall the FBI since it put presidential candidateand then presidentDonald Trump in its crosshairs. So far, the FBI has exhibited little sense of shame over its many missteps and sketchy actions characterizing its Trump-Russia investigation. Disgraced former FBI agent Andrew McCabe was discussing government ethics on CNN this very week. Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and Trump had committed serious violations of pretty clear rules with their handling of presidential papers, McCabe told Anderson Cooper. No mention was made of McCabes own firing for lying to an Inspector General investigating the politicization of Crossfire Hurricane, a probe led by McCabe. Meanwhile, former FBI lawyer James Baker is back in the news. Another high-ranking official in the middle of the bureaus investigations of Trump, Baker left the FBI under a cloud after being investigated for leaking material to the press. Baker was never charged with wrongdoing, but he was recently fired by Elon Musk when it turned out that while employed at Twitter, he helped lead the social platforms censoring efforts. Then theres the curious case of Kevin Clinesmith, the FBI lawyer who undermined the credibility of the nations highly sensitive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courtthose were the words of the federal judge who accepted his guilty plea. In his zeal to get Trump, Clinesmith misrepresented facts to a FISA court to the point of doctoring emails so he could obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Although prosecutors recommended a seven-month prison stint, Clinesmith was sentenced to community service, and later reinstated to the D.C. bar. Jim Comey, the official all these men reported to, told Trump before his own firing, I dont do sneaky things, I dont leak, I dont do weasel moves. At the time, it was learned later, Comey was leaking secret FBI memos about Trump to a friend in hopes of placing stories in the New York Times that would generate the appointment of a special prosecutor. The indictment of Charles McGonigal, if proven, deals with behavior that goes far beyond such weasel moves. Its more than just a run-of-the-mill felony, too. Its the exact behavior the FBI hierarchy twisted itself into knots trying to pin on Donald Trump: collusion with Russia. Actions that the special prosecutor whom Comey helped create, by the way, did not find. From RealClearWire Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. The Real Differences Between the Biden and Trump Document Troves Secret Service personnel park vehicles in the driveway leading to President Joe Biden's house after classified documents were found there by Biden's lawyers, in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 15, 2023. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Commentary Former President Donald Trump, for now, certainly seems to have had more documents labeled classified at Mar-a-Lago in Florida than did President Joe Biden at his various homes in Delaware. Yet otherwise, the comparisons between the two cases, contrary to popular punditry, hardly favor Biden. First, a stranger would face a far greater challenge entering a post-presidential Mar-a-Lago than a pre-presidential Biden home, office, or garageor who knows where? Secret service agents and private security were stationed at Mar-a-Lago. Prior to the 2020 presidential election, they werent at citizen Bidens various troves for most of 2017 to 2020, much less prior to 2009. Second, we seem to forget that for much of the developing controversy, Bidens own team was investigating Biden. On the other hand, the Biden administrations Justice Department and the FBI werent just investigating Trump as an outside party but as a former presidentand possible 2024 presidential candidate and opponent of Biden himself. Remember, the narrative of the first Democratic impeachment of Trump was the allegation that Trump had used his powers of the presidency to investigate Biden and his family, a likely 2020 challenger to Trumps reelection bid. Third, no one in a position of government authority had passed judgment on Bidens alleged security violations. That wasnt the case of the still alleged violations of Trump. Biden, as president, had weighed in during his own Justice Departments ongoing investigations of Trump. Indeed, he proclaimed the former president to be guilty: How could anyone be that irresponsible? In contrast, he also dismissed the ongoing investigation of himself with There is no there, there. Fourth, Trump is certainly right that as president he had a far more substantial claim of declassification rights than did Biden, who took the papers out either as a senator or vice president. Fifth, the FBI wasnt merely asymmetrical in melodramatically raiding the Trump home while allowing Biden lawyers to inspect various Biden stashes. The FBI also leaked the purported contents of the subjects of the Trump classified documents (falsely spreading the lie of nuclear codes and nuclear secrets) in a way it hasnt with the Biden cache. The FBI went so far as to scatter the documents on the floor for a fake news photo-op as if the papers were so messily arrayed when they arrived. So far, the FBI has come lightly and belatedly to the Biden case without the SWAT team get-up and only under pressure from the public and the Republican opposition. Six, Biden didnt self-report. Bidens team didnt call the relevant government authorities the minute they discovered the classified documents in Bidens office and home and garage. In truth, Biden, or someone close to Biden, certainly knew that he or someone close to him had illegally removed classified documents when he left the vice presidency in 2017or years earlier as a senator. For at least the past six yearsat leastBiden has felt no compunction to confess to authorities that he illegally was in possession of classified documents. Indeed, the only reason the current troves are coming to light was apparent White House paranoia that the media, the Biden Justice Department, and the special counsel were so fixated on the Trump documents that they likely feared someone might raise the logical question of whether a hypocritical Biden himself might be guilty of exactly the crime for which they were pursuing Trump. Worse, Biden and his staff knew classified documents were in his possession before the midterms but deliberately suppressed that information until after the elections were over. Seventh, Trumps documents were stored only at one placeMar-a-Lagoand only for about 19 months. Bidens were stashed at various locations for nearly seven years or perhaps more than a decade. There were far more opportunities of time and space for those without security clearances to have access to the Biden documents than to the Trump files. Eighth, the press has exhaustively speculated, usually wrongly, about how the documents reached Mar-a-Lago and what they contained. In contrast, no one knows or even asks why Biden took classified documents, what they concerned, or who if any in his family circle had access to them. Ninth, Trumps documents didnt expose other liabilities of the constantly investigated Trump. The Biden files so far have directed attention to the mysterious tens of millions of dollars in communist Chinese money that poured into Bidens think tank at the University of Pennsylvania, the proximity of members of the quid pro quo Biden consortium to these classified papers, and the files relevance, if any, to the Biden familys overseas businesses. Did Hunter Biden ever consult or view classified documents while living in a home with them? Will there be fingerprint or DNA tests on the documents? If Hunter consulted any of these classified documents, then the Biden presidency is finished. Tenth, Trump possessed contested documents as a private citizen. Bidens files under contention involve the current behavior of the president of the United States. Biden ran for office, was elected, and serves as president with the full knowledge that during all this time he unlawfully possessed classified documents. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. 3 Dead, 1 Missing as Torrential Rains, Flash Floods Hit Auckland Emergency workers and a man wade through flood waters in Auckland, New Zealand, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Hayden Woodward/New Zealand Herald via AP) WELLINGTON, New ZealandAuthorities said Saturday that three people had died and at least one was missing after record levels of rainfall pounded New Zealands largest city, causing widespread disruption. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins flew to Auckland on a military plane after a state of emergency was declared in the region. Our priority is to ensure that Aucklanders are safe, that theyre housed and that they have access to the essential services that they need, Hipkins said. He said the city was in for a big cleanup and that people should remain indoors if possible. He said a break in the weather could prove temporary, with more heavy rain forecast. This is an unprecedented event in recent memory, Hipkins said. A flooded street after Elton Johns concert was canceled due to bad weather in Auckland, New Zealand, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Duane Moyle/via Reuters) Friday was the wettest day ever recorded in Auckland, according to weather agencies, as the amount of rain that would typically fall over the entire summer hit in a single day. On Friday evening, more than 15 centimeters (6 inches) of rain fell in just three hours in some places. The rain closed highways and poured into homes. Hundreds of people were stranded at Auckland Airport overnight after the airport stopped all flights and parts of the terminal were flooded. Police said they found one mans body in a flooded culvert and another in a flooded carpark. They said fire and emergency crews found a third body after a landslide brought down a house in the suburb of Remuera. One person remained missing after being swept away by floodwaters, police said. Hipkins said power had been restored to most places, although about 3,500 homes remained without electricity. Video posted online showed chest-deep water in some places. Lawmaker Ricardo Menendez posted a video of water surging into houses. Weve just had to evacuate our home as the water was already rising rapidly and coming in aggressively, he tweeted. Fire and Emergency New Zealand said crews had responded to more than 700 incidents across the region and staff had taken more than 2,000 emergency calls. We had every available career and volunteer crew on the road responding to the most serious events, said district manager Brad Mosby. Mosby said crews had rescued 126 people who were trapped in houses or cars, or who had been involved in vehicle crashes. Air New Zealand said it resumed domestic flights in and out of Auckland on Saturday afternoon, but wasnt yet sure when international flights would resume. The flooding has had a huge impact our Auckland operations, said David Morgan, the airlines chief operational integrity and safety officer. Were working on getting customers to their final destinations and getting our crew and aircraft back in the right place. It might take a few days to get everything back on track. In a series of updates on Twitter, Auckland Airport said people were able to leave the airport early Saturday for their homes or accommodation after hundreds spent the night in the terminal. Its been a long and challenging night at Auckland Airport, we thank everyone for ongoing patience, the airport wrote. Unfortunately, due to earlier flooding in the baggage hall, we are currently unable to return checked luggage to you, the airport wrote. Your airline will make arrangements for its return at a later time. People walk on a flooded street after Elton Johns concert was canceled due to bad weather in Auckland, New Zealand, on Jan. 27, 2023. (Duane Moyle/via Reuters) Elton John Concert Canceled The storm also caused an Elton John concert to be canceled just before it was due to start Friday night. A second concert by John that was planned at the stadium on Saturday night was also canceled. About 40,000 people were expected to attend each concert at Mt Smart Stadium. Thousands were already at the venue Friday night when organizers decided to cancel not long before John was due to take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Many concertgoers who had braved the conditions were frustrated the decision hadnt been made hours earlier. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown defended criticism that his office did not communicate the seriousness of the situation well and held off on declaring an emergency until about 9:30 p.m. Friday. He said the timing of the emergency declaration was guided by experts. We will review everything that took place, Brown said. Weve got to make sure we had the coordination, and the consultation with the public, correct. By Nick Perry Trump Responds to Ronna McDaniels RNC Chair Reelection Then-President Donald Trump speaks after his introduction by RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel at a fundraising breakfast in a restaurant in New York, New York on Dec. 2, 2017. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images) Former President Trump congratulated Ronna McDaniel for winning another term as chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) on Friday. Trump has not publicly endorsed any candidate ahead of the vote, as some Republicans have said that McDaniel should be ousted following a poorer-than-anticipated midterm election for the GOP. Congratulations to Ronna McDaniel on her big WIN as RNC CHAIR. Now we have to STOP THE DEMOCRATS FROM CHEATING IN ELECTIONS! Trump wrote on Truth Social after voting results showed McDaniel won. Previously, Trump said that he liked both candidates, Harmeet Dhillon and McDaniel. I think theyre both good. I like them both, Trump told Breitbart last month. Its like when I asked Queen Elizabeth when we were together: Which president did you like the best? he continued. She said: I liked them all. In that interview, Trump noted that Dhillon has represented him in court cases. Harmeet is a lawyer for me, you know, he said. Harmeet is my lawyer. Fridays vote represented the most significant challenge to McDaniel, a member of the Romney political family and a niece of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah.) McDaniel had faced two challengers: attorney Harmeet Dhillon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. McDaniel received 111 votes, Dhillon received 51 votes, and Lindell got four. The work to make Joe Biden a one-term president is already underway: it is time for our party to unite and re-dedicate ourselves to electing Republicans up and down the ballot, McDaniel said after her reelection. I look forward to working alongside conservative leaders, including Harmeet and Mike, from across our party to deliver on our promises to the American people. A handful of prominent conservatives had backed Dhillon. Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA, had publicly urged RNC members to oppose McDaniels vid. Speaking to Politico on Friday, Kirk called her victory a direct insult to the grassroots people that they send 10 emails a day to, begging for money. I think the RNC is going to have a lot of trouble raising small-dollar donations, a lot of trouble rebuilding trust. Going into 2024, he added, the apparatus that should be a machine and clicking on all cylinders and firing on all cylinders is going to be in a trust deficit. McDaniels victory suggests that a majority of the members of the RNC have contempt for the people that put them there, Kirk told Fox News on Friday. I cannot in good faith tell our audience to keep giving money to the RNC. In fact I tell them not to. Attorney Harmeet Dhillon, former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, speaks at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 19, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) DeSantis Support Dhillon, notably, drew support from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a possible 2024 candidate, earlier this week. I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC, DeSantis told Kirk in a Thursday interview. I like what Harmeet Dhillon has said about getting the RNC out of D.C. Why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America? Its more Democrat than San Francisco is, he said. DeSantis cited what he described as poor GOP performances during the past three elections. Weve had three substandard election cycles in a row: 18, 20 and 22. And I would say of all three of those, 22 was probably the worst. Given the political environment of a very unpopular president in Biden, huge majorities of the people think the country is going in the wrong directionthat is an environment thats tailor-made to make big gains in the House and the Senate and in state houses all across the country. And yet that didnt happen, DeSantis said. Dhillons and Lindells Responses After her loss Friday, Dhillon issued a statement saying the GOP will be better for the tough conversations that were desperately needed about how to reform the RNC to win elections and earn the trust of our voters, activists, and donors. After a hard-fought effort, we unfortunately came up short, Dhillon, a California-based attorney, added in her statement. However, the RNC will be better for the tough conversations that were desperately needed about how to reform the RNC to win elections and earn the trust of our voters, activists, and donors. Dhillon said she would work with grassroots organizers and the RNC as the 2024 election approaches. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, here speaking Nov. 15 at former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) It is critical for our chances in 2024 that those who supported my campaign rally around our party and its candidates so we can win elections and deliver badly-needed results, she added. As for Lindell, the MyPillow founder conceded that he lost the RNC election. Yes, he told a Semafor reporter when asked about whether he lost fairly. There were no machines. Tyson Heir and CFO Settles Trespassing, Intoxication Charges Tyson Foods Chief Financial Officer John R. Tysona great-grandson of the companys founderhas settled public intoxication and criminal trespassing charges filed against him after he broke into a strangers home and fell asleep on her bed. Tyson pleaded guilty to both misdemeanors in a district court in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Tuesday, according to the Fayetteville city prosecutors office. He also agreed to pay $300 in fines and $140 in court fees. According to an incident report provided by the Fayetteville, Arkansas, police department, officers received a call on Nov. 7 from a woman who had returned home to find a man she didnt know sleeping in her bed. When officers arrived, they tried to wake Tyson but said his movements were sluggish and uncoordinated and there was an odor of intoxicants on his breath and body. His clothes were found on the floor. A few days later, Tyson sent a companywide email apologizing for the incident, saying he was embarrassed and was getting counseling for alcohol abuse. In early December, Tyson Foods board said a committee of directors had reviewed the incident and taken unspecified actions. The board supports Mr. Tyson and has continued confidence in his ability to lead Tyson Foods as CFO, the board said in a statement. But some investors have questioned a September leadership shake-up that elevated the 32-year-old John R. Tyson to chief financial officer. He is the son of Tyson Foods Chairman John H. Tyson and is a former investment banker who joined Tyson Foods in 2019. Look, those of us who have followed Tyson for a long time are used to the company putting people into the CFO role who have 20-plus years of experience in the finance track, said Robert Moskow, an equity analyst with Credit Suisse, during a November conference call with investors. Tyson President and CEO Donnie King defended John R. Tyson during the call, saying he has had escalating levels of responsibility since joining the company. Dont forget about the fact that hes been involved in this business essentially his whole life, King added. By Dee-Ann Durbin UK Neurologist Says Nitrous Oxide Abuse Getting Worse and Calls for Outright Ban Muslim charities warning youths about 'laughing gas' One of Britains leading neurologists has urged the government to make nitrous oxidesometimes known as laughing gasa banned substance, but has warned of the danger of criminalising teenagers. In 2021 the Home Office asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to consider whether to make possession of nitrous oxide a crime, but they are still awaiting a recommendation. Dr. David Nicholl, the clinical lead for neurology at Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust, told The Epoch Times: I dont know what theyre waiting for. This problem is getting worse. He said: Nitrous oxide has been around since the 19th century and 1015 years ago the main people abusing it were doctors and dentists. But something has changed since the pandemic. The volume has changed. Nitrous oxide is a gas that is often sold in small silver canisters, which are then squirted into balloons and then inhaled. Nicholl said: It gives a feeling of light-headedness, theres a loss of inhibition, and there can be giggling associated with it. But the effect wears off quite quickly, so they have to balloon again. He also said he understood nitrous oxide was popular with Muslim youths because it gave an effect similar to alcohol, but was not specifically forbidden by their religion. Some Muslim Youths Are Attracted to It Some Muslim youths are attracted to it because its not alcohol and there is no smell. I am meeting with a mosque to explain the issue to them and I know there is some really good work being done by Muslim charities, Nicholl said. Last month the charity Dawat-e-Islami held two events in the West Midlands to warn about nitrous oxide. Dr. David Nicholl speaking at an event related to the DNA testing of plastinated tissue, at Sandwell General Hospital, England, on Aug. 21, 2018. (Simon Gross/The Epoch Times) But he said the term laughing gas trivialised the danger, and he said: There is no such thing as a safe dose. It is not meant for human consumption. Nicholl explained the medical risk: It can lead to hypoxia. We have seen people die as a result. Another patient went blind. More commonly patients present with neuropathya tingling in the arms or legsor even difficulty walking. He said it also creates a deficiency of vitamin B12, which can affect the spinal cord. On Wednesday the Communities Secretary Michael Gove made a speech in which he promised the government would tackle public drug-taking, including the use of nitrous oxide. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also highlighted the issue in a speech earlier this month, when he criticised anti-social behaviour and nitrous oxide canisters in childrens playgrounds. According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 36 deaths in Great Britain associated with nitrous oxide between 2001 and 2016. But Nicholl said the number of young people using it has risen massively since the pandemic and he said he was now treating several patients a week. Focus on the Illegal Suppliers He said: Its a real challenge, and its encouraging that the government is taking an interest in this but we need to focus on the illegal suppliers, rather than the users. We dont want to send teenagers to prison for two years for possessing nitrous oxide. Nicholl, who has posted a video on TikTok to warn of the dangers, said nitrous oxide was being sold under the counter at a number of shops in the West Midlands. Since 2016 it has been illegal, under the Psychoactive Substances Act, to knowingly or recklessly supply nitrous oxide for inhalation and there is a maximum sentence of seven years in jail. But it is currently not a crime to possess the gas, which is used in both medicine and catering. Nicholl said he was not aware of anybody having been prosecuted under the 2016 legislation. When mixed with oxygen, as Entonox, it is used as a mild anaesthetic for women in labour, and it is also needed to produce whipped cream in restaurant kitchens and canteens. A Home Office spokesman said: Anti-social behaviour causes misery in communities and we are determined to crack down on this scourge to protect our streets. Nitrous oxide is one of the most commonly-used drugs among 16- to 24-year-olds in England and can have damaging side-effects. He said: We have been clear we want to see common-sense policing to keep our communities safe. That is why we are actively considering a ban on the sale and use of this harmful drug and will ask the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to hasten their delivery of the report we commissioned, which we will carefully consider in reaching any decision. PA Media contributed to this report. UK Police Should Finish Manchester Chinese Consulate Assault Investigation: Simon Cheng Simon Cheng in an interview during the "Resist the CCP Day" in London, on Oct. 1, 2021. (Jenna/The Epoch Times) UK police should finish their investigation into the beating of a Hong Kong protester by Chinese diplomats last year, pro-democracy activist Simon Cheng said. Speaking to NTDs Lee Hall on the British Thought Leaders programme, Cheng said it would otherwise send wrong signals to the British society, that Chinese diplomats are above the law. On Oct. 16, 2022, a peaceful protest staged by Hong Kong activists outside the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester briefly descended into a scuffle after then-Consul General Zheng Xiyuan and a group of masked men emerged from the consulate to snatch a banner that depicted a caricature of Chinese leader Xi Jinping as an emperor wearing no clothes. Bob Chan, a protester who was holding the banner at the time, sustained minor injuries after he was dragged onto the consulate grounds and beaten by consulate staff. Hongkongers holding a rally outside the Chinese Consulate in Manchester, UK, were dragged into the consulate and beaten by the staff, on Oct. 16, 2022. (Screenshot via Hong Kong Indigenous Defense Force) Footage circulated online appeared to show a consulate worker being kicked by protesters, but no other injuries were reported to the Greater Manchester Police (GMP). However, Beijing recalled six diplomats, including Zheng, after the British Foreign Office requested the Chinese embassy to waive their diplomatic immunity and let GMP officers interview them. Cheng, a former employee of the British Consulate in Hong Kong, said its unacceptable that diplomats from an autocratic and seemingly powerful country can break the law with impunity. While the people involved have diplomatic immunity now, if UK police continue with the investigation with video evidence available, there may be a chance to extradite them if they travel outside of China as private citizens in the future, Cheng said, adding that it would at least give them some inconvenience for the rest of their lives. In an email to The Epoch Times, GMP confirmed the investigation is still ongoing but didnt provide further comment. Cheng said the Manchester incident is a golden example of the length the Chinese Community Party (CCP) would go to. Having attended in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, been detained and beaten in mainland China, and helped many Hong Kong dissidents, Cheng said it was even beyond our imagination that Zheng, the top diplomat in Manchester would need not to go through the party to do dirty works and get personally involved in beating protesters on British soil without any legal consequence. In an interview with Sky News three days after the incident, Zheng admitted to pulling Chans hair, saying it was his duty to do so because the protester had insulted his country and his leader. Thats language of totalitarianism, Cheng said. CCP Intimidation In August 2019, Cheng was detained for 15 days during a business trip in mainland China. He later said he had been forced to confess that he had betrayed the motherland and solicited prostitution. He also spoke of being beaten by Chinese security personnel and interrogated about his role in the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and whether the British government was involved. After he was released, Cheng first went to Taiwan, and soon left for London after he felt he was being followed. But fear and intimidation still loom large. Shortly after he spoke to The Epoch Times and a number of media outlets in London, Zheng sensed from a phone call with his mother that his family members had been threatened, prompting him to publicly cut ties with them. In 2021, messages were posted in a Chinese social media group offering 10,000 in exchange for Chengs address or the address of Nathan Law, a former Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker in exile in the UK. And they were not the only targets. In the same Wechat group, there were messages asking members to invite friends who can fight and advising members to target key people in Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. In June 2020, Finn Lau, another prominent Hong Kong activist in the UK, was severely injured after three people attacked him near his London hometwo months after he was told there was a bounty on his life. Cheng told NTD that he still has the sense of being followed and that he could be physically attacked some day by [a] Chinese communist agent, just a matter of time. Some of it may be paranoia, he said, adding, even paranoid is legitimate. It is really at a very short moment when you decide to speak out the truth, and that is a life-changing event and is a lifelong journey, he said, adding, I need to learn how to coexist with this risk. Hongkongers in Britain After Beijing imposed the national security law on Hong Kong, effectively ending the rule of law in the former British colony and tearing down the one country, two systems framework, the UK launched a special visa programme for British National (Overseas) in Hong Kong to relocate to Britain. Cheng founded the charity Hongkongers in Britain, which helps new arrivals settle down in their new home by organising events on jobs, accommodation, and recreational activities. Apart from assisting Hongkongers with their everyday life, Cheng said his organisation is also helping to focus the pro-democracy voice. The national security law targets anyone anywhere, including foreign nationals. In March 2022, Benedict Rogers, co-founder of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, and an Epoch Times contributor, received a letter from the Hong Kong Police and National Security Bureau, threatening him with a fine of $13,000 and up to life imprisonment unless he shut down the website of Hong Kong Watch, a human rights group he co-founded. The picture shows Benedict Rogers, CEO of Hong Kong Watch, and Matthew Leung, a former reporter for Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao at a press conference held by Hong Kong Watch in the UK. (Hong Kong Watch Facebook Page) Because of the far-reaching national security law, many Hongkongers in the UK still dont dare to protest or be critical of the CCP, Cheng said. So if we fear mentally, the national security law already in here. Cheng said while there are other Chinese diaspora groups in Britain that can help new arrivals, those with the CCPs United Front Work Department looming at the back would pretend [to be] your friends while trying to dissolve or dilute any kind of the anti-CCP sentiments or power. Thats where his charity comes in. With many pro-democracy activists being jailed in Hong Kong, we have a sense of duty to talk more about our real story of Hong Kong, he said, adding that its been very, very effective to engage with the community and politicians. He also said the Hong Kong community in Britain is a reminder of what the communist regime can do to free societies. We try to expose the influence activities, underground activities, infiltration in here, he said. Weve witnessed how gradually, bit by bit, that the society, layer by layer, could be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and that first-hand experience is quite valuable to the UK society. Asked about Hong Kongs future, Cheng said he is optimistic because life comes in a circle. If youre going downward enough, and youre going upward. So I am optimistic. I believe in the rest of my life, I still have my chance to [go] back to my hometown without fear, he said, adding that his optimism comes from the spirit Hongkongers exhibited. Every time when the Hong Kong people if they decide to go on the street for protests we didnt think too much about calculating the benefits or pros and cons. At the very moment that time is only about your courage and only about your sense of consciousness. The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, said that both clubs receive significant amounts of money from the government and it's no wonder they're both fighting for the playoffs. Vucic asserted that Crvena Zvezda are paying their taxes. Vucic said the Serbian national team is the strongest in Europe despite recent struggles. Credit: AP - Scanpix For the first time in years, the two biggest Serbian clubs - Crvena Zvezda Meridianbet Belgrade and Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade - are fighting in the EuroLeague at the same time. Both clubs have made some notable signings both before and during the season with Partizan bringing in established names during the offseason while Crvena Zvezda penned a deal with Facundo Campazzo in the middle of the year. The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, made a guest appearance on Happy TV where he gave his quick thoughts about the eternal rivals and their participation in the top European competition. "We have put ourselves in a situation where we allocate so much money for the basketball clubs Crvena Zvezda and Partizan that maybe [only] three or four basketball clubs in Europe have such [an amount of] money from the state, no wonder they are fighting for the Final Eight," the leader said. Amidst the player registration ban that the EuroLeague imposed on Crvena Zvezda and that prohibits Campazzo to play in the tournament at least until March, Vucic asserted that the club from Mali Kalemegdan is doing its duties to the government, "It is a huge amount of money from the state," he said about both club's budgets. "I just want to tell people that a strong state can finance it, and Zvezda is very fair in terms of paying taxes." With 10 wins and 9 losses, Crvena Zvezda share the eighth spot in the EuroLeague standings with Anadolu Efes Istanbul and Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv. Partizan have achieved 9 wins in their EuroLeague campaign and sit in 11th place together with Valencia Basket. Later on in the interview, Vucic proclaimed that the Serbian national team is the strongest in Europe despite recent performances in the top tournaments. "We were not lucky at the EuroBasket but I hope we will be lucky at the World Cup and the Olympic Games as well as at the next EuroBasket because I think we have the strongest team by far. When there's Nikola Jokic and then there's [Bogdan] Bogdanovic, with the current [Filip] Petrusev... With all the NBA players, it's a national team that few can compete with in Europe." Ukraine Says Fighting Fierce After Tank Pledges, Seeks More Arms A local resident carry home staff from a house of his neighbour damaged by a Russian military strike in the town of Hlevakha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 26, 2023. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) KYIVUkraine on Friday battled Russian troops trying to pierce its lines in the east and northeast before Kyiv takes delivery of tanks from its Western allies, saying the fighting showed it needed more weapons to repel the Russians. Kyiv said fierce battles were underway, a day after at least 11 people were killed in missile and drone strikes which were widely seen in Ukraine as a response to the promises by important allies to send tanks. After weeks of wrangling, Germany and the United States this week said they would send Ukraine dozens of modern tanks to help push back Russian forces, opening the way for others to follow suit. Poland gave Ukraine a further boost on Friday by promising an additional 60 tanks on top of 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it had already pledged. Both sides in the war are widely expected to launch spring offensives though Washington has advised Ukraine against doing so until the latest weapons are in place and training has been provideda process expected to take several months. Russia said the United States was pumping weapons into Ukraine, which Moscow says does Washingtons bidding, and chided President Joe Biden, saying he held the key to ending the conflict but had not used it. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked allies for their support but renewed calls for tougher sanctions on Moscow and more weapons in the twelfth month of the war. Hours after he spoke, Ukrainian officials reported fierce battles in the northeast and east of the country, scene of some of the heaviest combat since Russias invasion on Feb. 24 last year. Fierce fighting continues along the front lines, said Oleh Synehubov, governor of the northeastern region of Kharkiv, claiming that Ukrainian forces were holding out. Power Shortages Millions of Ukrainians faced electricity shortages after Thursdays missile and drone strikes. Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of targeting civilian infrastructure, a charge that Moscow denies. Russia said the strikes focused on facilities that operate Ukraines defense industrial complex and transport system, and limited Ukraines ability to repair military hardware and transport arms provided by its allies. The goals of the massive attack have been reached. All the assigned targets have been neutralised, it said. Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports. Front lines have been largely frozen for two months, with Russia trying to gain ground in the east after occupying swathes of territory there and protect a corridor of land it has seized in southern Ukraine. Local resident Halyna, 67 y.o., looks out from a kitchen of her house damaged by a Russian military strike in the town of Hlevakha, outside Kyiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 26, 2023. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) Oleskandr Musiyenko, head of the Military and Strategic Research Centre of Ukraine, said Russia was sending in more reinforcements, mainly conscripts, to block Ukrainian advances. Japan tightened sanctions on Friday, expanding an export ban list and freezing assets of Russian officials and entities. But Ukraines hopes that the European Union will impose sanctions affecting nuclear energy were dealt a blow by Hungary, which said that it would veto such moves. Hungary has a Russian-built nuclear plant which it plans to expand. Russia tightened its own moves against Western entities, with communications regulator Roskomnadzor saying it had blocked the websites of the CIA and FBI, accusing the two U.S. government agencies of spreading false information. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Eritrea on the last stop of a tour of Africa that was intended to shore up support and began in South Africa, which plans joint military drills with Russia and China. Ending her own tour of African nations, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she had discussed economic sanctions on Russian during every stop and hoped an agreement could be reached soon on the next cap on the price of Russian oil. Under Mounting Pressure in Donetsk, Kyiv Hails Western Tank Pledges Ukrainian servicemen are seen near the frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near Soledar in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Jan. 23, 2023. (Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters) As Kyiv celebrates pledges by its Western allies to provide it with tanks, Ukrainian forces are facing a fresh Russian push in the Donetsk region, this time in the town of Vuhledar (Ugledar in Russian). Fierce battles are raging on the outskirts of Vuhledar, Yan Gagin, an adviser to the head of the Moscow-backed Donetsk Peoples Republic, said on Jan. 27. Vuhledar is located roughly 30 miles southwest of Donetsk city, capital of the region of the same name. In televised comments cited by Russias TASS news agency, Gagin claimed Russian forces had gained a foothold in eastern and southeastern parts of the town. A tank fires a round, amid Russias attack on Ukraine, in Soledar, Donetsk region, Ukraine, in this screen grab released on Jan. 8, 2023. (State Border Guard Service Of Ukraine/via Reuters) The Epoch Times was unable to verify the assertion. But on Jan. 25, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar conceded that Ukrainian forces were under increasing pressure in both Vuhledar and the nearby town of Bakhmut. In and around both towns, she said, the intensity of the fighting is increasing. Russian sources say the capture of Vuhledar would cut Kyivs supply lines to the nearby town of Maryinka, from which Ukrainian forces frequently shell Russian-held Donetsk city. Last September, Moscow incorporated Donetskand three other regions of Ukraineinto the Russian Federation. Kyiv and its allies reject the move, which they view as an illegal land grab by Russia. Encouragedand heavily armedby its powerful Western backers, Kyiv has vowed to continue fighting until all lost territories are recovered. Kyiv Concedes Loss of Soledar The latest push on Vuhledar follows a string of recent Russian successes elsewhere in the Donetsk region. In mid-January, the Kremlin announced that its forces had decisively captured the town of Soledar, known for its expansive salt mines. Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials finally admitted that Soledar was in Russian hands. To preserve the lives of service personnel, the [Ukrainian] Defense Forces withdrew from Soledar, Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told state media on Jan. 25. The fall of Soledar has allowed Russian forces to partially encircle the strategic town of Bakhmut, which sits roughly 5 miles to the southwest. A vital Ukrainian transit hub, Bakhmut (Artyomovsk in Russian) has remained the scene of fierce fighting for the past several months. A man walks in front of a destroyed school in the city of Bakhmut, in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, on May 28, 2022, on the 94th day of Russias invasion of Ukraine. (Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images) According to military experts, the loss of Bakhmut would disrupt Kyivs supply lines and pave the way for a further Russian advance on key Ukrainian positions to the north and northwest. Russian forces now claim they control all but one major artery leading into Bakhmut. Officials in Kyiv say the claims are exaggerated. The Wagner Group, a paramilitary organization directed by the Kremlin, has played a central role in Russias recent gains in Donetsk. On Jan. 26, the United States formally designated the Wagner Group a transnational criminal organization and froze all its stateside assets. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, said Washington had provided no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing by the group. As a rule, such statements from Washington are unfounded, Peskov told reporters on Jan. 27. Nothing has been presented to the public. One day earlier, Victoria Nuland, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Wagner Group engaged in illegal activities in several African states. Russia Launches Fresh Wave of Strikes On Jan. 26, Russian forces carried out a fresh wave of missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, which, according to Kyiv, killed a dozen people and left several buildings in ruins. Since October, Russian forces have carried out frequent attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities, causing blackouts and energy disruptions. Kyiv says the strikes target civilians and should be viewed as war crimes. Moscow says it uses high-precision weapons to avoid killing civilians and that the strikes serve a purely military purpose. The latest wave came a day after the White House announced plans to provide the Ukrainian military with 31 M1 Abrams tanks, despite reported misgivings by the Pentagon. The move coincided with a similar pledge by Germany, following weeks of diplomatic wrangling, to supply Ukraine with 14 advanced Leopard 2 tanks. The first British Challenger 2 main battle tanks roll off of their transport ship after arriving from Germany at Camp Commando, Kuwait, on Feb. 2003. (WO2 Giles Penfound/MOD/Getty Images) Berlin also gave a green light for third countries to re-export their own German-made Leopards, which are widely used by NATO-aligned armies. Other countries now willing to send tanks to Ukraine include France, Poland, Norway, and Slovakia. As of Jan. 27, Kyivs Western allies had collectively pledged roughly 150 tanks, according to a tally by Reuters. The UK started the trend in mid-January when it promised to give the Ukrainian military 14 Challenger 2 battle tanks and other offensive equipment. Alex Chalk, UK minister of state for defense procurement, has said he hopes to see the British-made Challengers delivered to Ukraine by the end of March. If the pledge is fulfilled, it would be the first delivery of Western-made tanks to Ukraine since Moscow invaded the country 11 months ago. After Tanks, Kyiv Eyes Warplanes U.S. President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has said the promised tanks pose no offensive threat to Russia and are merely intended to help Ukrainian forces improve their ability to maneuver. The Kremlin, however, takes a different view, describing the move as a further sign of the Wests direct involvement in the conflict. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who will seek another four-year term in 2024, also chimed in on the issue. First come the tanks, then come the nukes, Trump warned in a Jan. 26 post on his Truth Social media platform. He added: Get this crazy war ended, now. So easy to do! Commenting on Trumps assertions, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said on Jan. 27: One can agree with this remark because tensions are really escalating. Meanwhile, no sooner had Washington and Berlin promised tanks than officials in Kyiv began calling for Western-made fighter aircraft. The next big hurdle now will be [obtaining] fighter jets, Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, said on Jan. 25. Its not just F-16s, he said. Fourth-generation aircraftthats what we want. Reuters contributed to this report. US Reliance on China for 90 Percent of Its Medicine Could Prove Disastrous: Sebastian Gorka U.S. President Joe Biden (L) meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping (R) on the sidelines of the G20 leaders' summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14, 2022. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) The United States hasnt managed its military resources well, Sebastian Gorka said in an interview that aired on NTDs Newsmakers on Jan. 25. But a more significant concern is the U.S. reliance on China for 90 percent of its medicine. There are far broader issues than how many bullets and bombs America has, Gorka said. Think of this: More than 90 percent of the medicines we have here in America, like antibiotics, we buy from China. If China decided that it wants to take Taiwan, it wants to get military aggressive in the Pacific region, and as a price of that, they say, Oh, and by the way, were not going to sell you the medicines that youve been buying from us for the last 30 years, then not only will we not be able to fight a multi-front war against the potential aggressor, but we probably wont have enough drugs and medicines to provide for our own citizens. Sebastian Gorka of the Salem Radio Network speaks at the Talk Media Forum on U.S.China Relations at the National Press Club in Washington on Dec. 10, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Gorka, a former strategist for President Donald Trump, is a counterterrorism expert and served in the British Army reserve in a military intelligence unit. He has a doctorate in political science and was a fellow at Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government. Gorka said that President Joe Bidens decision to send M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine was a stupid move but that being in bed with communist China was even more problematic. Geopolitical Stupidity According to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), if a major regional conflictsuch as between China and Taiwanoccurred, the United States would run out of some munitions in less than one week. The U.S. use of munitions would likely exceed the current stockpiles of the U.S. Department of Defense. According to the results of a series of CSIS war games, the United States would likely run out of some munitionssuch as long-range, precision-guided munitionsin less than one week in a Taiwan Strait conflict, the report stated. The war in Ukraine has also exposed serious deficiencies in the U.S. defense industrial base and serves as a stark reminder that a protracted conflict is likely to be an industrial war that requires a defense industry able to manufacture enough munitions, weapons systems, and materiel to replace depleted stockpiles. Gorka, in part, agreed with the CSIS report and said that Biden sending M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine is a perfect example of the Biden administration having no idea what its doing when it comes to geopolitics and national security. The M1 Abrams tank is not something Ukrainians have ever used. They havent been trained on. They dont have the ammunition for it, Gorka said. Since the beginning of the war, Ive been very clear. This is the Ukrainian nations war to fight. Soldiers from 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Biaj, Iraq with their M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank in January 2005. Photo by Staff Sgt Aaron Allmon. (Public Domain) We can assist them, but we have to assist them in ways that make sense. Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. It knows how to use Soviet-era equipment, whether its the AK-47 or the T-series of tanks, or the BTL-series of armored personnel carriers or RPGs. Why would they need M1 Abrams tanks they have no experience with? Provide them with stuff they can use, and they know how to use, not pallets of cash and not American equipment. Gorka said that supplying M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and the Biden administration leaving billions of dollars worth of equipment in Afghanistan are examples of the United States not managing its resources well. If you look at whats happened with the amount of equipment$83 billion worth of equipment that was left on the territory of Afghanistan when Biden surrendered and left that nation precipitously last Septemberalso, [there] hasnt been a lot of thinking being done in terms of what were supplying to Russia, Ukraine, and how rapidly were supplying it, Gorka said. Those types of decisions, and lack of geopolitical savvy, have left the United States in a position where it couldnt effectively fight a multi-front war, according to Gorka. Bigger Picture Issue Still, the broader issue for the United States being unprepared is its reliance on China and its lack of domestic manufacturing. We have been in bed with communist China for far, far too long. And this is a nation with labor camps. With the Laogai system. This is a hardcore communist regime. Why we are doing business with China, as the son of somebody who escaped a communist prison, I dont understand, Gorka said. Bottles of antibiotics line a shelf at a Publix supermarket pharmacy in Miami on Aug. 7, 2007. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Laogai is short for Laodonggaizao and means reform through labor. According to the Laogai Research Foundation, Laogai was legally established in 1954. At the time, its main purpose was to handle the waves of political prisoners in China. Within a Laogai prison are several Reform through labor detachments. The forced-labor camps were designed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to abusively brainwash prisoners into unconditionally accepting the Partys ideology and rule, the foundation states. The CCP replaced the term Laogai with prison in 1994. Despite the name change, the system remains essentially unchanged. US Extends Deportation Protection Program For Hongkongers Seeking Refuge U.S. President Joe Biden announced on Jan. 26, the extension and expansion of the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Hong Kong residents. Hong Kong residents will not be forced to leave the country in January, and they must be in the United States on or before the date of the announcement (Jan. 26). The extended period is longer than the 18 months previously requested by all parties. In the memorandum signed by Biden, it was mentioned that the United States supports the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Hong Kong residents and criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for continuing to erode these rights and freedoms. The memorandum recalls that in June 2020, the CCP unilaterally imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong, undermining the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration. It also accused the CCP of continuing to upend Hong Kongs autonomy and undermining its remaining democratic processes and institutions, restricting academic freedom, and suppressing press freedom. Since the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law, at least 150 politicians, social activists, and demonstrators who oppose the government have been detained on charges related to the National Security Law, including secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces. More than 1,200 political prisoners are being held in jail, and more than 10,000 people have been arrested in connection with protests against the government. Biden pointed out that the United States is committed to following a foreign policy that combines its democratic values with foreign policy goals. The core is to defend democracy and promote human rights around the world. He reiterated that providing a safe haven for Hong Kong residents who are deprived of freedom and protection in Hong Kong can promote the interests of the United States in the region. And they will continue to stand firm in our support of the people in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Democratic Committee (HKDC), an American group of Hong Kong people, expressed its gratitude over the decision, describing that thousands of people have benefited from DED in the past 18 months, and have been able to live, study, work, and continue to fight for Hong Kong. We are all relieved to know that the most basic security is guaranteed for the next 24 months, the committee added. In a report last November by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, citing data as estimates from the Department of Homeland Security, there were 3,860 Hong Kong residents eligible for DED in March 2021. DED Implemented in 2021 The original memorandum signed on Aug. 5, 2021, allowed Hong Kong people who were in the U.S. at the time to extend their stay for another 18 months until Feb. 5, 2023. Under the said arrangement, Hong Kong residents who entered the United States before Aug. 5, 2021, can apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) to work legally in the United States. At the time, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said that Bidens actions showed his strong support for Hong Kong people as the CCP continued to suppress Hong Kong, and reflected that the U.S. will never stay aloof while the CCP continues to undermine its commitment to Hong Kong and the international community. Before the expiry of the DED, 47 Hong Kong peoples organizations in the U.S. co-signed a petition in December 2022, urging Biden to extend and expand the DED. At that time, the group sent a letter requesting that the United States extend the DED for another 18 months and expand the scope to include Hong Kong residents who entered the country after Aug. 5, 2021. It also asked the U.S. authorities to consider upgrading the protection of Hong Kong people to a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or Priority 2 Refugee status. The HKDC stated on its Facebook account a few days ago that two Democratic senators and one congressman wrote to Biden last week requesting the extension of the DED for at least another 18 months. Apart from accusing the Hong Kong government of eroding the human rights of Hong Kong citizens protected under international law, the three U.S. legislators also believe that the authoritys act against human rights and political persecution will continue into the indefinite future. Gregory W. Meeks, a senior member of the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, stated on Jan. 13, describing the DED is just a temporary solution. The U.S. government must take further vital and solid actions to ensure that Hong Kongs democracy advocates, human rights activists, journalists, and dissidents are given longer-term support and guarantee. He plans to reintroduce the Hong Kong Freedom and Choice Act in Congress to provide Temporary Protected Status and fast-track refugee pathways for eligible Hong Kong residents. US Senators Call for Trade Crackdown on Canada Over Dairy Quotas, Digital Policies Dairy cows are seen at a farm, Aug. 31, 2018 in Sainte-Marie-Madelaine, Que. (The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz) A pair of senior U.S. senators is urging the Biden administration to get tough with Canada for flouting obligations to its North American trade partners. Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sen. Mike Crapo lay out their concerns in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. The letter says American dairy producers still arent getting the access to the Canadian market theyre entitled to under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It also describes Canadas planned digital services tax as discriminatory and raises similar concerns about new legislation to regulate online streaming and news. All three, the senators say, would give preferential treatment to Canadian content and deny U.S. tech companies fair access to the market north of the border. The letter comes after meetings this week in San Diego between U.S., Canadian and Mexican trade emissaries, as well as the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City earlier this month. The USMCA, referred to in Canada as CUSMA, has been at the centre of a number of bilateral and trilateral disputes since it went into effect in the summer of 2020. Three years later, it is disappointing that Canada and Mexico have failed to come into full compliance with the agreement and, in some cases, have flouted their obligations, the senators write. USTR must take decisive action to ensure full compliance with the agreement and with dispute settlement panel findings. It is critical to ensure that every chapter of USMCA is fully and timely enforced. Canada and Mexico have their own issues with how the U.S. is interpreting the deal, which was signed in 2018 after protracted trilateral efforts to replace NAFTA. As the Mexico City summit wrapped up, a dispute panel ruled against the U.S. over how it interprets the rules that determine the origin of core automotive components. It remains unclear whether the U.S. plans to comply with that decision. US to Sign Defence Agreement With Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, James Marape (C), arrives at the house of Governor-General Bob Dadae in Port Moresby on May 30, 2019. (GORETHY KENNETH/AFP/Getty Images) The United States and Papua New Guinea (PNG) are set to negotiate a defence cooperation agreement just after the southern Pacific nation agreed to a broad-reaching security agreement with neighbouring Australia. PNG will send a delegation to Honolulu in February for high-level discussions, but the agreement is expected to be completed by the middle of the year. PNGs Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko, in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, said that the agreement would provide a framework for future joint programs and increase engagement between the two countries. They will also help with Americas investment into capacity building of the PNG defence force, in training, infrastructure, and other items that have to do with defence, he said. Basically, everything is there; the most important thing is the legal clearancemaking sure our sovereignty is protected and making sure we get things right from the beginning and not halfway through. The minister also noted there was no plan to have U.S. warships stationed in PNG, explaining the deal was more focused on training. But its a big one that will ensure we have the cooperation agreement that will have both defence forces working together now and in the future for the security of the Pacific region and the region that we live in, he said. Papua New Guineas Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko (L) speaking at a joint press conference with Australias Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Port Moresby, Australia, on Aug. 29, 2022. (Andrew Kutan/AFP via Getty Images) Renewal of US-Pacific Engagement Vital The renewal of defence cooperation comes after former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence announced the U.S. would partner with PNG and Australia on their joint initiative at Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island in 2018. However, a lacklustre initial response compounded by the pandemic meant that U.S-PNG relations weakened. But the Biden Administrations new pacific engagement strategic framework is regarded as a vital renewal of the ties by PNG. The Pacific Partnership Strategy (pdf) is designed to help to increase engagement and prosperity in the region, as well as undergirding national security interests, the White House said in a statement. The United States is a Pacific nation, with its homeland including the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and Hawaii, the document states. U.S. prosperity and security depend on the Pacific region remaining free and open. The strategy notes the increasing activity of the Chinese regime in the region. Pressure and economic coercion by the Peoples Republic of China, risks undermining the peace, prosperity, and security of the region, and by extension, of the United States, it states. C. Steven McGann, the former U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, and the Kingdom of Tonga and Tuvalu, in a paper for the United States Institute of Peace in 2022, called the new defence initiatives promising. The United States has the capability to rapidly adjust its diplomatic outreach to incorporate creative and dynamic public-private partnerships, he said. A rethinking of security cooperation and development assistance to PNG is critical to regional success. The nongovernmental and private sectors knowledge, experience, and resources must be brought to bear as the United States searches for a framework to strengthen regional stability and undergird U.S. leadership in the Pacific. Regional Battle For Influence The news of the agreement comes after China announced a security pact with the Solomon Islands. According to pages of a leaked draft of the pact, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)with the consent of the Solomon Islandswill have the right to dispatch police, troops, weapons, and even naval ships to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in the Solomon Islands. If implemented to its full extent, the framework agreement will allow China to extend its reach beyond the South China Sea and into the South Pacific region, potentially severing shipping lanes and air links connecting the United States with allies Australia and New Zealand. The Solomon Islands occupies a strategic position in the Pacific and is less than 1,200 miles from Australia. James Fannell, a former director of intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, has previously told The Epoch Times that the China-Solomon Islands Agreement would give a foothold to the Chinese regime in the Pacific. It puts a foothold for the first time that the Peoples Republic of China will now have the ability to fully operate military vessels and warships from inside the South China Sea, Fannell recently told Epoch TVs China Insider program, referring to the official name of the regime. Both China and the Solomon Islands have denied that the Solomon Islands government would permit Beijing to station its military forces there as a result of the pact. But, in Fanells view, the deal would allow the Chinese military to make stop-offs in the Solomons if needed to refuel and refit, which he described as the beginnings of a kind of a base. Given the Islands strategic location in the South Pacific, any Chinese presence on the Solomons would also benefit Beijing in a Taiwan invasion scenario by impeding the ability of the United States and allies to respond in the region, Fannell said. The Chinese regime views the autonomously governed Taiwan as part of its territory, to be taken by force if necessary. If China was able to establish a string of bases as an iron bar going across the South Pacific, it essentially would break off Australia, New Zealand, from America, it would break off Australia, from Japan, he said. In such a scenario, the regime would eventually be able to break up the United States network of partners in the Indo-Pacific, namely Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and expand its own influence there, according to Fannell. Victims of Chinese COVID Vaccine Injuries Demand Fair Investigation, Compensation A medical staff member prepares a dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine in Shenyang, in China's northeastern Liaoning Province, on Aug. 1, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images) A group of rights defenders representing victims of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines protested in Beijing last month to appeal for fair medical investigation and adequate compensation. The rights group went to the top health agency, the National Health Commission, on Dec. 1, 2022, bringing a list of 1,290 individuals who were allegedly diagnosed with leukemia after getting a COVID vaccine. More people joined them on Dec. 2, filing their complaints with the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the top disciplinary body. Obtaining medical compensation is difficult in China as there is a lack of independent medical investigations, which are usually done by experts chosen by the Chinese regime. We have sacrificed our lifelong health and even our lives after being forced to be vaccinated against COVID-19. However, we have not been given the dignity and justice we deserve, reads an open letter posted on Chinese social media. It was allegedly written by families of vaccine victims and edited by Tan Hua, a Shanghai resident who claims that she had an adverse reaction from a rabies vaccine. In 2014, Tan developed epilepsy, a chronic neurological condition characterized by recurrent seizures, after receiving a rabies vaccine manufactured by a Chinese company. Tan told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times that she is still struggling to get compensation from the rabies vaccine manufacturer. She said that the hardship is both physical and financial, on top of the unfair treatment of the communist regime. I have encountered problems in seeking proper diagnosis and fair compensation. My mother, Hua Xiuzhen, was sentenced to imprisonment for defending my rights, and she has been deprived of her retirement pension and other welfare, she said. Our lives have been extremely difficult, and it is even more difficult to see a doctor. We have been under strict surveillance all these years. Tans mother, Hua Xiuzhen, wrote on her Twitter account: For the past nine years, we have been defending our rights. I was imprisoned, and I have been living under control and surveillance for half of the nine years. Nine of the petitioners have been under criminal detention by Chinese police. Chen Lei, the father of a 10-year-old girl who reportedly died from COVID vaccination, drives a van with a sign that reads: Forced administered COVID jabs. Got acute leukemia. Unfair. Chen is among those petitioners detained in Beijing. He was controlled and monitored by local police in his hometown in Chinas central Henan Province for some time after he was sent back. (Courtesy of Chen Lei) The Epoch Times couldnt verify the open letters authenticity. Appeals of COVID Vaccine Victims The petitioners criticized their local governments for forcing or coercing them to take COVID vaccines. If unvaccinated [with COVID vaccines], we are not allowed to go to school, go to work, or even go to the supermarkets, reads the open letter. They claimed they were healthy people and that some had pre-vaccination health reports proving their good health status before the COVID vaccination. They demanded a one-time total compensation for various economic losses from medical treatment and financial support to cover their medical and daily living expenses. The government shall pay for damages caused by mandatory vaccines, and the manufacturers [of the relevant vaccines] shall pay for damages caused by voluntary vaccines, the letter reads. Aside from the COVID vaccine, mandatory vaccines also include the Hepatitis B vaccine, BCG vaccine, live attenuated polio vaccine, and DPT vaccine, etc. Voluntary vaccines refer to those that citizens receive at their own expense, such as chickenpox and influenza vaccines. For death cases after the inoculation, the petitioners can ask the local governments to pay compensation in accordance with the provisions of Chinas compensation law: a one-time payment of death compensation and funeral expenses, and additional living expenses to be paid to the incapacitated family members who were supported by the deceased. Calling for Fair, Independent Medical Assessment On top of these financial appeals, the protesters most urgent need is to have an independent medical investigation of the adverse reactions caused by the vaccines, but the process is controlled by the Chinese regime, claimed the petitioners. The disease control centers, medical associations, and medical experts chosen by these governmental institutions make assessments in accordance with government decisionsand they are the judge, jury, and executioner. They claim that the post-vaccination adverse reactions are just coincidental so as to avoid their responsibility, reads the open letter. Families of the alleged victims of COVID vaccination said that they had sent cases of adverse reactions for medical assessment in different provinces or regions, from which they received different, even contradictory, results from experts. They questioned the independence of medical professionals in their letter: When the other party [the Chinese regime] has grasped all medical resources and the right of explanation, which isnt put under any supervision mechanism, can we commoners get any fair and justified result? Head of the Expert Group on COVID Response at Chinas National Health Commission, Liang Wannian, center, answers a question as he sits with colleagues Feng Zijian, right, and Tong Yigan, second left, at a press conference addressing the World Health Organization (WHO) report on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, at the National Health Committee in Beijing, on March 31, 2021. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Chinas top health watchdog has set up rules and stipulations on choosing medical experts for medical assessments of post-vaccination side effects. Experts who violate work disciplines and are not in line with other stipulations set out by provincial-level government health departments and medical products administrations are to be removed from the experts team, according to the Vaccination Abnormal Reaction Assessment Methods set out by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2016. Top Chinese Medical Expert Claims Side Effects Are Inevitable Wang Fusheng, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Peoples Liberation Army General Hospital and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at a press conference on July 23, 2022, that COVID vaccines will not cause leukemia and diabetes. He said the claims that counter those of the regime are irresponsible and erroneous remarks on the internet. Wang claimed that domestically made vaccines are safe. According to Wang, 90 percent to 100 percent of children (ages 3 to 12) and teenagers (ages 12 to 17) have been inoculated since 2021. The temporal coincidence of mass vaccinations with the natural occurrence of certain serious diseases is an inevitable phenomenon, he said at the press conference. Numerous Cases of Post-vaccination Side Effects Reported The number of patients who have reportedly developed leukemia or diabetes is just the tip of the iceberg due to the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) strict censorship of information. Hundreds of Chinese netizens who belong to a social media group claimed that they or a family member suffered from leukemia that developed after taking Chinese-made vaccines. Another WeChat group reportedly had about 600 members who claimed their children were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes after getting Chinese COVID vaccines. Qian Dalong, a victim of adverse reactions from COVID vaccination, holds a protest placard that says, Cerebral infarction after CoronaVac, in Beijing on Dec. 28 (Qian Dalong/The Epoch Times) Chen Yilin, a 10-year-old girl from Chinas central Henan Province, died of leukemia on Oct. 23, 2022, and she was blind and deaf from the disease before she died, according to her father. Wang Jun (pseudonym), a Panjin city resident in Liaoning Province, told The Epoch Times on May 31, 2022, that his wife was diagnosed with acute leukemia after receiving two Sinovac vaccinations. Qian Dalong, a Beijing resident, was diagnosed with cerebral infarction (stroke) after receiving a third dose of the Sinovac vaccine on Oct. 28, 2021. The Chinese CDC-approved experts called the adverse reactions a coincidental link between vaccination and the symptoms. The aforementioned Tan Hua expressed her sympathy for the victims of COVID vaccines on Chinese social media and blasted the CCP for ignoring the livelihood of the Chinese populace. If chickens in the farm get sick, they are likely thrown away. What about people? Li Xi contributed to this report. Virginia AG Says Former Parole Board Chair Violated Law in Release of Violent Offenders Adrianne Bennett chaired the board from January 2017 to April 2020 Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (C) announces investigations on Thomas Jefferson High School's delay in informing students of national recognitions and the school's admission policies in Alexandria, Va., on Jan. 4, 2023. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times) According to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, the former chair of the Virginia Parole Board, Adrianne Bennett, broke numerous laws and policies when she released over 100 violent criminals in 2020 and is only avoiding criminal charges herself because the one-year statute of limitations has expired. If there were no statute of limitations, Chair Bennett could be charged criminally for falsifying official records and violating court orders, Miyares said in a news conference Wednesday. Miyares published a 69-page report on the Virginia Parole Board detailing considerable violations of Parole Board policies and state law under Bennetts leadership in March and April 2020 (pdf). Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order in January 2022 authorizing the office of the attorney general (OAG) to conduct the investigation into the parole board under former Gov. Ralph Northams administration. The OAG report found that during those two months, Bennett authorized the release of 134 prisoners, nearly all of whom had committed violent crimes. Only four of the prisoners released were incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Every Virginian was put at risk because many of those who were paroled were at a high risk of reoffending, Miyares said. The Attorney Generals investigation revealed a staggering amount of wrongdoing from the Parole Board and Chairwoman Bennett, Youngkin said in a statement posted to Twitter on Wednesday. The clear violations led to attacks on victims, the release of 130 violent criminals and the undermining of trust in our judicial system. Bennett is now serving as a juvenile court judge in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Her attorney, Diane Toscano, criticized the OAG for singling out her client. The Office of Attorney General has cherry-picked a time period for scrutiny which happens to have taken place during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, Toscano said in a statement to WDBJ. In all cases of parole, Judge Bennett was but one vote of the board. This report grossly targeted her. However, the OAG report contends that the prisoner releases during that time period had nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic. These offenders were not released due to COVID-19 and the Parole Board was not given authority to release offenders due to the pandemic. Instead, they were released due to the traceable actions of one person: then Parole Board Chair Adrianne Bennett, the OAG said. Miyares said the parole board failed to contact the victims and their families and that by law, victims should have been allowed to speak at the prisoners parole hearings. Additionally, the OAG found that the board violated Virginia law 66 times in the spring of 2020 by failing to notify local prosecutors of inmates releases. The report also found that near the end of her tenure with the parole board, Bennett unilaterally released 137 parolees from supervision, most of whom had committed capital or first-degree murder. She also falsified three parole discharge records for three first-degree murderers in violation of state law, the OAG said. The Virginia Parole Board controversy started in 2020 when several victims, their families, and their attorneys began to criticize the parole boards decisions and the lack of proper notification before going ahead with the releases. Weaponization of Government Panel Will Investigate Signature Abuse of Our Time, Say GOP Members Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) nominates House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker of the House of the 118th Congress during a speech in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 3, 2023 in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Operating with a broad mandate, Republican members of the new Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government told The Epoch Times that they will investigate any area where the federal government has abused its power and violated the rights of citizens. The GOP members of the subcommittee, which is under the House Judiciary Committee, are Reps. Darrell Issa (Calif.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Chris Stewart (Utah), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), Mike Johnson (La.), Chip Roy (Texas), Kelly Armstrong (N.D.), Greg Steube (Fla.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Kat Cammack (Fla.), and Harriet Hageman (Wyo.). The select subcommittee will be chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Since its establishment, some Democrats have criticized the panel, calling it a Republican ploy to shield allies from ongoing criminal investigations, such as the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and those into former President Donald Trump. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) derided the panel on the House floor late Jan. 10, calling it nothing more than a deranged ploy by the MAGA extremists who have hijacked the party and want to use taxpayer money to push their far-right conspiracy nonsense. Subcommittee members dismissed these allegations, contending that the panel is focused on government and law enforcement overreach, which one congressman described as the signature abuse of power of our time, in much the same way Watergate defined another era. Targets Ive heard them call us the MAGA committee, a tin foil hat committee, etc. etc. Im disheartened by that, Rep. Thomas Massie told The Epoch Times. In the 10 years that Ive been here Ive been able to find Democrat co-sponsors to rein in the spying state and I hope that the Democrats will place some of their members on the subcommittee who are genuine and have been genuine in the past like Zoe Lofgren [D-Calif.] and Ro Khanna [D-Calif.] who co-sponsored legislation that weve offered together to make sure that the government isnt spying on Americans without a warrant, added Massie. For now, the subcommittee will specifically look at abuses by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI, the legality of vaccine mandates, disinformation about conservative-sponsored election security laws, and censorship by big tech firms under government pressure, according to subcommittee members. The new panel will examine how these abuses happened, how to correct them, and how to make sure the abuses wont happen again, subcommittee member Rep. Mike Johnson told The Epoch Times. Since the beginning of the Biden administration, some federal agencies designed to serve and keep Americans safe have instead been turned against them, he said. This fact is beyond dispute. The Biden administration has used counterterrorism resources against the parents of school children, raided the homes of political opponents, targeted conservative states over their election integrity laws, inflated domestic extremism statistics, and instituted illegal vaccine mandates, just to name a handful of examples, he added. Russia Collusion Hoax For Rep. Chris Stewart, who also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, his priority is to investigate the now-debunked allegations that the Trump campaign cooperated with Russia in election interference during the 2016 campaign. My priorities are really a continuation of the work that weve been doing through the Intelligence Committee that highlights and recognizes and roots out the corruption that weve seen from leadership in some of our most key agencies that just hasnt been exposed or held accountable, like it should have been, Stewart told The Epoch Times. Stewart, who was a test pilot in the Air Force before being elected to Congress, said he remembers going down to the FBI, being locked in a small room, and reading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance application (FISA) that the FBI gave to the FISA courts to justify the Russia investigation and thinking, Holy cow! These guys are lying to us. And I remember getting reports from the CIA, about Russian interference in the 2016 elections and knowing that the CIA had released a report that was not honest, he added. Broad Charter The members emphasized that the subcommittee isnt just relegated to investigating specific abuses, like the Russian collusion hoax or specific agencies. We have a very broad charter. Were not limited to [investigating the] DOJ and FBI, said Massie. But before the investigations really get pointed in one direction or another, the subcommittee needs to do some preliminary work on what area claims the most priority. I think theres a period of time for plowing up the ground and sowing some seeds and then well need to focus on the most egregious and most credible concerns that we find, said the representative from Kentucky. Thats one of the reasons this is a select committee and that the Intel Committee has agreed to share jurisdiction if we have to go into secret or top-secret areas, he added. Massie contended that criticism that the panels power to investigate ongoing criminal investigations would undermine DOJ and FBI probes on foot was not warranted. Its oftentimes a flare that the executive branch tries to send out to keep us from pursuing legitimate investigations, said Massie. The fact that the DOJ and FBI try to use that as an excuse to not submit to the oversight of the branch that created them is just unbelievable, he added. Steward agreed, arguing that for a long time, the FBI leadership has avoided taking responsibility for the politicization of the agency. He emphasized that the typical FBI line agents, who do the normal, daily job of investigating crimes in the country do a great job. Those who are responsible [for the abuses] are those people on the seventh floor [of the FBI], said Stewart, adding that the same held true for the DOJ and CIA. The problem is that people like that were given power and then they surrounded themselves with people who felt the same way ideologically as they did, he added. Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong Rep. Darrell Issa said that the panels investigation also represents Congress core constitutional responsibility to not only highlight abuses by the federal government, but ensure that the abuses never happen again. We know that something has gone terribly wrong in Washingtons conception of governmental power, public accountability, and the American peoples right to have a voice that is both strong and free, Issa said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times. The weaponization of the federal government against the American people is the signature abuse of power of our time, and I see no way Congress can look away and not seek due accountability, he added. Massie said that in order for the DOJ and FBI to reclaim some credibility with the American people, its time for the agencies to stop being political and cooperate with congressional investigators. They do have to come clean before they can start that process of reestablishing credibility, he said. The FBI declined to specifically comment in response to the lawmakers allegations, but a spokesperson said the agencys work was apolitical. The FBI has testified to Congress and responded to letters from legislators on numerous occasions to provide an accurate accounting of how we do our work. The FBI is dedicated to protecting the American people from terrorism, violent crime, cyber threats and other dangers, an FBI spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. Put quite simply: we follow the facts without regard for politics. While outside opinions and criticism often come with the job, we will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead, do things by the book, and speak through our work, the spokesperson added. The DOJ and CIA did not return requests for comment by press time. This article was updated to include a statement from the FBI. College graduates hope that a new student loan repayment plan recently proposed by President Joe Biden will be passed. The plan, proposed on Jan. 10, 2023, will bring considerable relief for many graduates by reducing their payments and possibly offering some form of debt forgiveness after so many years of payments. The new proposal was created by the Department of Education and is an overhaul of another existing proposalthe Revised Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan, or REPAYE. The original plan was created in 2016. Currently, four other similar proposals have already been made. The Reason Behind the New Repayment Plan The Department of Education claims it is the most affordable income-driven repayment (IDR) plan that has ever been made available to student loan borrowers. One reason for the changes, the department says, is that even before the pandemic, more than one million borrowers a year were defaulting on their education loans, which left many owing more than their initial loan because of accumulated interest. Many Payments to Be Reduced to Halfor Less The feature of the new proposed plan that graduates will enjoy is that it willif passedcut their payments in half. Right now, they are paying 10 percent of their discretionary income. The new plan only requires student loan payments of 5 percent per month. New payments are also going to be determined by income levels. Borrowers at the lowest income levels will see the biggest cutup to 83 percent less. Those at much higher income levels can expect no more than a 5 percent reduction. Post college graduates will likely have their payments remain at 10 percent. The average minority graduate, whether Hispanic, black, American Indian, or Alaska Native, will have their federal student loan payments reduced by half. If their income is in the range of the bottom 30 percent, they also will see payments drop about 83 percent. The New Benefit for Families with Student Loan Payments Under the present repayment rates, single borrowers that make more than $20,400 would have to make payments. A factsheet from the Department of Education says that for single borrowers, their protected income is about equal to someone working full-time making $15 an hour. A family of four would have to make payments if they made more than $41,600. The department site also says that individuals that make less than $30,600, or if a family of four makes less than $62,400, they will not be required to make any payments. Graduates with less than $12,000 in student debt would have their debt erased after 10 years of payments. The new plan means that the average borrowers payments will be reduced to about 40 percent. This figure is compared to what other IDR plans are offering. The new plan will replace some of the existing plans sometime in the future. How Payment Amounts Are Decided When you are going to repay your federal student loans nowbefore the new plan takes effectthe Department of Education uses your current household income, then subtracts 150 percent of the poverty level. The new plan reduces your payment by subtracting 225 percent of the poverty level. Under the new guidelines, four-year public university graduates can expect to save about $2,000 per year compared to the existing REPAYE plan. Estimates are that about 85 percent of borrowers for community colleges will be free after 10 years of repayments. Colleges to Be Evaluated for Quality In the past few years, many career colleges have become known for providing less than quality training. To combat this problem, the Department of Education will publish a list of these colleges. The creation of the list will come from public feedback and evaluation. Once the list is released, schools on it will need to submit plans on improving their programs and value before being removed. Financial aid for those schools identified as having less than quality education will have their federal financial aid cut off. The Education Department is currently working on a proposal to this effect. Students seeking training from these schools will be warned about the status of the school when they apply. The Accumulation of Interest The Department of Education estimates that up to 70 percent of those under some of the current plans have had their balances grow. Many have made all the required payments, but still see their balances grow. It happens because their payment size is less than the accrued interest. The new rules will prevent this, even for those not required to make payments. The new plan will make payments go toward paying interest first. Parent PLUS Plans At present, there are no plans to allow parents with Parent PLUS loans to enroll in the program. UpNorthNewsWI reports that Persis Yu, the deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, likes the proposal, but has asked President Biden to include parents with Parent PLUS loans to be included in the new program. The Education Departments new student loan repayment plan is open for comments from the public. There is a time limit of 30 days to make comments on the Regulations website. All comments need to be submitted by Feb. 10, 2023. After evaluating them and making final decisions about the new rules, the Department of Education will release the final version later this year. CNBC says that after the new plan is finalized and then made available, applications from graduates with federal student loans are welcome to apply. It will take some time for lenders to prepare, but those interested in getting the new plan can apply at StudentAid. The Epoch Times Copyright 2022 The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. The other day a friend of mine let me know that he had a wonderful business meeting with his prospective British customer. "Wonderful how?" I was curious. At lightning speed he cited the Briton's "encouraging" remarks which were remarkably discouraging if truth be told. Of course, I told him the truth. He is a good-sized adult. (B=Briton T=Truth A=American) 1. B: With the greatest respect... T: You are a dummy. A: He is listening to me. 2. B: That is a very valorous move. T: You are insane. A: He thinks I have the guts. 3. B: Oh, by the way... T: It is very important for me to... A: It is not very important for him to... 4. B: Very interesting. T: That is clearly nonsense. A: He is impressed. 5. B: You must come for dinner. T: It isn't an invitation. I'm just being polite. A: I'll get an invitation soon. If an American could get a Briton so wrong, it's little wonder why China and Britain went to war with each other in 1839, when so much had been lost in translation. Author: Ren Qiulan Young Boy Critical After Lightning Strike A primary school-aged boy is fighting for his life after being hit by lightning at a beach near Wollongong on Australia Day. The nine-year-old boy was hit by the bolt while in the surf at Warilla Beach at Barrack Point, Surf Life Saving NSW said. Very visibly, he had the burns from the lightning strike, chief executive Steve Pearce told ABC News. The lifeguards were on the beach, they were able to go to his assistance straight away and started performing life-saving CPR until the paramedics and the doctors could arrive. The boy went into cardiac arrest after being hit and suffered burns to his chest. Surf lifesavers patrolling nearby started CPR on the nine-year-old with the help of a doctor who was on the beach with her family. Ambulance crews and police responded soon after and paramedics took over resuscitation efforts. A helicopter was dispatched from Albion Park with a doctor and intensive care paramedic who helped stabilise the boy. They re-established his heartbeat and breathing before transferring him by road to Westmead Childrens Hospital, where he remained in a critical but stable condition on Friday afternoon. This is quite a rare but very serious incident with the child going into cardiac arrest following the lightning strike, NSW Ambulance Inspector Terry Morrow said. The actions of those lifesavers played a crucial role in the boys resuscitation. While this is a rare and unfortunate incident, it is a reminder that when there are electrical storms in the area, you should avoid being in bodies of water and that indoors is the safest place to be. Merwyn Nunes pioneered the introduction of certificates to people who managed to reach the top of the Mount Kilimanjaro THE GOAN NETWORK | LONDON A noted Goan safari businessman in Tanzania who pioneered the introduction of certificates to people who managed to reach the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, in the late 1960s, passed away in Dar es Salaam on January 17. Merwyn Austin Nunes, who ran his successful tour company Wildersun Safaris in Arusha, was widely acclaimed for his services in the tourism industry for five decades. A Mass was celebrated on January 21 at the Holy Spirit Church in Ngarenaro, Arusha, followed by the last respects. In accordance with his wishes, the body was laid to rest at the Mwanakwerekwe Cemetery in Zanzibar after a Funeral Service at St Joseph's Cathedral Zanzibar. He is survived by his wife Pervin and children Jervin/Alain Randria, Ervin/Lillian Nunes and four grandchildren, Brian, Caitlin, Keith and Jason. Mervyn Lobo described the late Merwyn Nunes as a person who was always dependable when anyone faced a problem. In his tribute, Lobo said the late Merwyn Nunes was by far, the most enjoyable person I liked talking to as I knew the conversation would be funny and intelligent. That combination is very difficult to find today. I last talked to him for the D.I. (Dar es Salaam Institute, formerly known as Goan Institute) centennial celebrations and he was at his prime, cracking jokes that all long-time Tanzanian residents would really appreciate. All Arusha residents knew that Merwyn Nunes was always dependable when anyone faced a problem. I have heard of how he helped people from the 1970s onwards, Lobo added. WILDERSUN SAFARIS Merwyn and his wife Pervin had set up Wildersun Safaris in 1980 and their business has been highly respected in the Tanzania tourism industry. Merwyn had trained in Israel and Germany and worked for the Ministry of Tourism in Tanzania for 12 years. He was the founder chairman of the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators (TATO), while Pervin spent 12 years in the Airline sector before diverting her talents to Wildersun Safaris. Following their retirement from company operations, Merwyn and Pervin would take part in Trade shows and attend seminars. Wildersun Safaris is now being run by their son, Ervin Nunes and his wife, Lillian. MAN BEHIND CERTIFICATES According to Tanzanias leading daily English tabloid The Citizen, Merwyn Nunes was the person who introduced certificates to people who endured the mountain trek to reach the glacier-covered, Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point on the 5,895-metre high Roof of Africa in the late 1960s when he was working in Moshi for the Natural Resources and Tourism ministry. It was I who in 1968 came up with the idea of issuing certificates to the mountain climbers when I was stationed at Moshi. By then, I was working with the ministry and seconded to the (now defunct) Tanzania National Tourist Board (TNTB), Nunes was quoted in an article in The Citizen in 2017. The article stated that Nunes, while in his 20s, was dispatched to Moshi from the ministry headquarters in Dar es Salaam to oversee major tourism projects in the area, including mountain climbing on Kilimanjaro. Nunes told The Citizen that he had pressed for the introduction of the certificates as awards for those who conquered Mt Kilimanjaro instead of the flowers from the mountain creepers which were presented to the successful climbers before 1968. According to Nunes, Until then, those who made it to the summit of the mountain had a reed made of the creepers coiled around their heads while those who reached the Gilmans point were garlanded with the flowers around their necks. (Gilmans Point is one of the three official summit points on Mount Kilimanjaro at 18,885 feet). But the flowers were getting scarce and scarcer in the forest. Those picking them have to go deeper into the dense ravines. Because of depleting flowers, I came up with the idea of certificates (to the successful conquerors) instead of the reeds. I was conscious of the environment of the mountain, Nunes had told The Citizen. A Beatrice woman was given a prison sentence this week following a pursuit through Beatrice past year. Payton Bishop, 26, appeared in Gage County District Court Thursday where she was sentenced to 8-12 years prison for attempted possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, a class 2A felony. The charge was reduced to an attempted offense as part of a plea agreement. Eight additional charges, including possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited person, possession of a controlled substance, three counts of carrying a concealed weapon, willful reckless driving and driving under suspension, were previously dismissed. As part of the agreement, prosecutors and defense attorneys jointly recommended a sentence of 6-8 years, which District Court Judge Rick Schreiner declined to follow. You drove down Market Street at a rate of speed estimated to be over 100 mph, with children playing in yards and somebody riding a bicycle, Schreiner said. You had no regard for anyone or anything but yourself. When you got to where you were going you got out of your vehicle and tried to evade law enforcement by getting into a residence before they caught up with you. You have run amok in this county since you were old enough to know better. Defense attorney Lee Timan also asked that any sentence be served concurrent to a prison term Bishop is currently serving with around 18 months remaining, though Schreiner ordered the sentences to be served consecutive. On June 25, 2022, a Beatrice police officer observed Bishop exit the Git N Split in Beatrice and drive a black Honda with a male passenger inside. Arrest documents state the officer knew Bishop had a suspended license, and turned around to conduct a traffic stop. The car accelerated away from the officer, who suspected the car was traveling to a residence in the 1500 block of Market Street, and saw Bishop walking inside the residence. She was placed under arrest at that time for driving under suspension and willful reckless driving. Police inventoried the vehicle prior to having it towed and inside a purse was a baggie with a white crystal substance that field tested positive for methamphetamine. On the floor in the back of the vehicle was a black drawstring bag that contained two guns. One of the guns was loaded with an extended magazine. Inside the bag was a prescription bottle with Bishops name on it, and a set of brass knuckles with spikes on the ends were also located. The weapons were completely concealed, and arrest documents noted Bishop and the male passenger were both convicted felons prohibited from possessing dangerous weapons. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry has urged the Federal Government to ensure consistency in policymaking in order to protect private sector investments. The chamber made the call in a statement titled LCCI statement on Lagos project commissioning by President Muhammadu Buhari, which was signed by its Director-General, Chinyere Almona. It said the commissioning of the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Lagos Rice Mill at Imota, the 18.75km Eleko-Epe rigid pavement six-lane expressway, the first phase of the Blue Light Rail from Mile 2 to Marina, and the John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History was a significant factor in driving development in the State. The statement partly read, LCCI encourages other state governments to provide the needed infrastructure to spur economic activities and growth in their States. According to the statement, with infrastructure remaining a critical driver of growth and development, the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Nigerias largest seaport with a draught of 16.5m, would support trade and commerce in Nigeria and the entire West African region. The 32-metric tonnes per hour Lagos Rice Mill at Imota-Ikorodu was also launched to produce rice for Lagos residents and possibly for export. The intent to ease transportation in Lagos led to the conceptualisation and eventual launch of the Lagos Blue Line Rail project. Noting that the Blue Rail Line project would fulfil the request for a multi-modal transport system in Lagos to ease the traffic jams experienced by Lagos residents, the LCCI further noted that to maximise the benefits of these infrastructures and facilities, there must be a connecting rail network that supports the movement of goods and persons to fully facilitate trade and commerce within the State and across the West African borders. With this connection, Eko Rice can easily move into the West African market to explore the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). With access to the African market, farmers in Lagos are encouraged to commit more investments into rice production, create more jobs, and provide more rice to beat the rising price of the product, it further stated. We urge finance development institutions to support rice farmers in Lagos to scale up their production capacity to meet local demand, the statement added. Aba Power Limited, Nigerias newest power distribution firm, has advised consumers in nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State which it supplies electricity to watch out for a syndicate of criminals demanding payment for not only power supplies but also prepaid meters, so that they will not fall prey to the criminals. The warning is contained in a statement this morning signed by the Aba Power Limited managing director, Patrick Umeh, who notes that the criminals are trying to cash in on the enthusiasm of Abia people to acquire both single-phase and three-phase meters to commit fraud against unsuspecting electricity consumers. Displaying copies of fraudulent demand notices, Umeh, a former commissioner with the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in charge of markets, rates and competition, explains that the notices are surprisingly not in the name of Aba Power Limited but in the name of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company(EEDC). The nine LGAs serviced by Aba Power were part of the territory covered by the EEDC until February 2022 when Aba Power acquired the ring-fenced area, however, the billing for power supplies remained in the EEDC name until six months later. To make the illegal demand notices and advisories on prepaid meter payment look genuine, said Umeh, who was also an executive with the Los Angeles Water and Power Corporation in California, the criminals ask customers to pay exactly the same amounts charged by Aba Power for our services and products. In a fake advisory to a customer at130 St Michael Road in Aba, the Abia State commercial nerve-centre, she is requested to pay N63,061.27 for a single-phase meter into the account of Advanced Energy Management Solutions with any bank whereas Aba Power is working with Holley Metering Ltd, as approved by NERC, for prepaid meter installation in the nine LGAs. She is also given a false Remitta payment reference number of 110768132753 . The fraudsters, in a further move to make the transaction look authentic, provide telephone numbers through which they can be reached, namely, 084700100 , 08150825365 and 08150825365. A single-phase meter costs N63,061.32 while a three-phase meter costs N117,910.69. The payments can be made in full or in installments for up to three months. Mr Jude Efidi, a sales manager at Aba Power, explains that the meter asset belongs to Aba Power, hence the payments made by customers for meters under MAP Scheme will be refunded to them in 36 months through energy credit. This is a far-reaching measure to ameliorate the burden of acquiring prepaid meters in these difficult times, and Aba Power is working hand in hand with NERC for the speedy implementation ion of this national programme", he states. Our chairman, Professor Bart Nnaji, a former Minister of Power and one of the worlds best-known academic engineers, has directed Aba Power to become the first electricity distribution firm in Nigeria to provide all its customers with prepaid meters, despite the fact that Aba Power is less than a year old . Umeh describes as regrettable a situation where NERC and Aba Power led by Professor Nnaji are working frantically to make things better for Abia people, some criminals are employing various tricks to defraud them of their hard-earned resources. He advises customers to pay only into the designated account with Access Bank. Customers who need more information, he says, can walk into any of our offices and seek advice from various service teams. Kathu Mayor sacked over illegal water probe PHUKET: Chai-anan Suthikul has been removed from office as Mayor of Kathu by order of the Phuket Governor following an investigation into allowing a private operator to pump water from a lagoon at the Tin Mine Museum in Kathu. corruptioncrime By The Phuket News Friday 27 January 2023, 10:00AM Kathu Municipality still has Chai-anan Suthikul featured on its home page as the Mayor Of Kathu. Image: Screenshot The news, originally reported by a local news media outlet, was shared by the Phuket Info Center yesterday (Jan 26). The Phuket Info Center, originally launched as an official COVID-19 information service, is operated under the Phuket branch of the Ministry of Interior, namely under the Phuket Governors Office. However, Kathu Municipality and the Phuket Provincial Office have both yet to make any announcements confirming the news. According to the report shared by the Phuket Info Center, Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew confirmed the order to remove Mr Chai-anan from office at a Governor Meets Media event at Phuket Provincial Hall late yesterday afternoon. Governor Narong explained that Mr Chai-anan had acted unlawfully in allowing a private operator to pump water from the lagoon at the Tin Mine Museum without first obtaining permission from the Royal Forest Department, said the report. The Phuket office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC Phuket) had forwarded a complaint to the Governors Office about the offence. In response, Governor Narong assigned Tanida Silpa, Director of the Legal, Regulation and Complaint Group at the Phuket Provincial Office of the Department of Local Administration to investigate. His actions were based on Ms Tanidas findings, said the report. There is no need to set up a new committee to investigate. The Governor of Phuket has issued a letter to withdraw Mr Chai-anan from the post of Mayor of Kathu city to take effect on January 20, 2023, with the Deputy Mayor of Kathu now as the acting mayor and the [Kathu Municipality] management team have stopped performing duties since receiving the said order, the report noted. Mr Chai-anan has the right to appeal the order with the Administrative Court within 90 days from the date of receiving the order, the report said. Governor Narong has also issued a written notice to the Phuket branch of the Election Commission (PEC) to organise an election to be held to elect a new Mayor of Kathu within 60 days from the date of the removal order, the report concluded. Man City and Arsenal take league rivalry into FA Cup FOOTBALL: Manchester City and Arsenal take a break from an intense Premier League title race this weekend - only to face each other in a heavyweight FA Cup clash at the Etihad. FootballFA-Cup By AFP Friday 27 January 2023, 02:41PM Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta (left) is going head to head with Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola in the FA Cup. Photo: AFP Holders Liverpool will look to avenge their chastening recent defeat at Brighton, while Harry Kane could become Tottenhams all-time top scorer. Unexpectedly trailing in Arsenals wake in the Premier League, Manchester City have the chance to slow the leaders momentum in their first meeting this season. City are five points behind Arsenal, who have a game in hand, but the champions still have to play the Gunners twice in the league, making their FA Cup showdown a tantalising appetiser ahead of the main course. Arsenal are riding high after victories over Tottenham and Manchester United in the league, while City stayed in touch after responding to a blast from Pep Guardiola by beating Tottenham and Wolves. At half-time the other day, Pep told us what he wanted, what he wasnt happy with. As players we were not at our best and we had to correct that, City defender John Stones said of his sides fightback from two goals down to defeat Tottenham 4-2. It would be a major statement of intent from Arsenal if they are able to put Guardiola in another grumpy mood with a victory at the Etihad Stadium. Fatigued Liverpool on revenge mission Jurgen Klopp said he couldnt remember a worse game than Liverpools woeful 3-0 defeat at Brighton, a performance so wretched that Jordan Henderson labelled it a really low point in an already traumatic season for the Reds. It is safe to say Liverpools trip to the Amex Stadium on Jan 14 left some painful scars on Klopp and company. But the FA Cup offers them an unexpected chance to erase those bitter memories and get their campaign back on track. Liverpool return to Brighton languishing ninth in the Premier League, 10 points adrift of the top four. It is a remarkable fall from grace after they came within a whisker of winning an unprecedented quadruple last season. Admitting Liverpool are still mentally fatigued from their bid for sporting immortality, Spain midfielder Thiago Alcantara said: It is not just about physical stuff, it is something psychological because we were so close to winning everything and we just touched it but sadly it went away. Kane eyes Spurs record Harry Kane would love the chance to become Tottenhams record goalscorer at Preston tomorrow. Kane drew level with Jimmy Greaves on 266 Spurs goals when he netted with a superb strike in the teams Premier League win at Fulham on Monday. Greaves tally had stood untouched since 1970, but the England captain is now on the verge of sole possession of the record. With fifth-placed Tottenham in the midst of a fight to climb back into the Premier Leagues top four, Antonio Conte could rest his stars against second-tier Preston. But, mindful of Tottenhams surprise defeat at Middlesbrough in the FA Cup fifth round last season, Kane is keen to play. The FA Cup is important for us. It was disappointing to lose to Middlesbrough. We will see what the manager says but I will be ready, said Kane, who is still looking to win the first major trophy of his career. Fixtures (all Phuket times) Saturday Manchester City v Arsenal (3am) Accrington v Leeds (7:30pm) Walsall v Leicester (7:30pm) Blackburn v Birmingham (3pm) Bristol City v West Brom (3pm) Fulham v Sunderland (3pm) Ipswich v Burnley (3pm) Luton v Grimsby (3pm) Sheffield Wednesday v Fleetwood (3pm) Southampton v Blackpool (3pm) Sunday Preston v Tottenham (1am) Manchester United v Reading (3am) Brighton v Liverpool (8:30pm) Stoke v Stevenage (9pm) Wrexham v Sheffield United (11:30pm) Tuesday Derby v West Ham (2:45am) An Omaha man will spend more than 10 years in federal prison for his role in a series of bank robberies that netted nearly $1 million. Kevin Brown, 34, was sentenced Tuesday to a total of 161 months on robbery and weapons charges, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Nebraska. Brown was previously convicted for one of the robberies that was part of the scheme, the release said. He received credit for the 33 months he previously served, so he will now serve 128 months. Brown and his co-defendant, Charles Ware, were part of a conspiracy to rob federally insured banks across Nebraska, the release said. Brown was responsible for 10 armed bank robberies, according to the release. In total, the scheme robbed banks of over $959,000 between June 2015 and June 2018. Brown and Ware used an old man mask that would give them the appearance of being an elderly man when first entering the banks, the release said. After the masked robber would enter the bank, the other man would rush in and take control of the employees. The men would then jump the teller counter and access the bank vaults, the release said, and they usually used stolen vehicles to flee the scene. Ware was sentenced on Dec. 15 to 170 months in federal prison, according to the release. The case was investigated by the FBI, the Omaha Police Department and the Lincoln Police Department. Restitution for the bank victims will be determined at a future hearing, the release said. In Their Opinion: This, sadly, is who we are Holy Rosary Healthcare, part of Intermountain Health, is building a state-of-the-art, comprehensive cancer center serving Eastern Montana. The 12,000 square-foot center will provide radiation, medical and surgical oncology services to address the needs of cancer patients. The project will eliminate distance and access barriers to care for the people living in the region. Construction of the project will begin this spring and the $17 million project is expected to be completed in late 2024. Currently, patients needing radiation oncology treatment may have to travel long distances to receive that care, potentially impacting their treatment plan and outcomes. This will be the only comprehensive cancer center within a 125-mile radius. The new cancer center in Miles City will create equitable cancer care for the region, said Karen Costello, president of Holy Rosary Healthcare. The project will bring high-quality radiation oncology care to Holy Rosarys existing cancer center, which currently offers medical and surgical oncology care, along with survivorship programming and other health and wellness services. This new center will provide an environment that not only has the most advanced technology, but it will be easily accessible for patients and family. The new center will be built on the existing Holy Rosary campus in Miles City, connected to the hospital and all its services. The project will include adding the regions only permanent medical linear accelerator, which delivers radiation treatments quickly and accurately. Bringing this cancer care closer to home for our communities in Eastern Montana means so much to our patients, added Patrick Cobb, MD, medical director of SCL Health Cancer Centers of Montana, part of Intermountain Health. They will now be able to receive these lifesaving treatments without having to travel long distances, allowing them to recover and heal with family and friends nearby. Research has shown that providing care close to home in rural communities may improve survivorship rates. The new cancer center will be funded through capital investments by Holy Rosary and Intermountain Health, and grant and philanthropic support. Community members interested in supporting the project can contact the Holy Rosary Healthcare Foundation online or at 406-233-4043. SEAN BERGEL, Wheeler, Baseball, Junior; Bergel struck out eight and allowed only five hits as Wheeler defeated Griswold in its season opener. Bergel walked just one batter and allowed two earned runs. CAMI BROWN, Stonington, Softball, Junior; Brown finished 11 for 16 in four games for the Bears. Brown doubled four times, tripled twice and drove in nine runs. CASEY MACERA, Westerly, Girls Lacrosse, Freshman, Macera scored five goals in a Division III win against Rocky Hill. Westerly ended a 15-game losing streak with the victory. ADAM CARPENTER, Chariho, Baseball, Sophomore; Carpenter pitched a two-hitter in his varsity debut as the Chargers beat East Providence. Carpenter carried a no-hitter into the sixth. He struck out 10 and did not walk a batter. Vote View Results YWN regrets to inform you of the tragic Petira of Dr. Howard Saul ZL, a well-known Doctor from Cherry Hill, NJ. He was 61. As YWN reported earlier, a search was being conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard for Dr. Saul, who went missing on Thursday night while diving near Hollywood Beach. Hatzalah of South Florida was assisting local authorities with the search. Sadly, the Niftar was recovered on Friday afternoon. Chesed Shel Emes of Florida is on the scene working to ensure proper Kavod Hames. Dr. Saul was a Board Certified in Gynecologic Oncology. He treated women with gynecologic cancer in South Jersey for many years and has been involved in many pioneering cancer treatment studies. Around a year ago, Dr Saul retired and moved to Florida. Additional information will be published shortly. Boruch Dayan HaEmmes ORIGINAL STORY BELOW: A search is underway off the Miami Coast for a Frum man from Cherry Hill, NJ, who went missing while diving. The U.S. Coast Guard says they are looking for Dr. Howard Saul, 61-years-old, last seen wearing a black wetsuit with a white paddleboard. They are searching via choppers and boats. He was diving in the area in the vicinity of Hollywood Beach. Hatzalah of South Florida is on the scene assisting local and federal emergency personnel. Sources tell YWN that Dr. Saul is Board Certified in Gynecologic Oncology. He has been treating women with gynecologic cancer in South Jersey for around 20 years and has been involved in many pioneering cancer treatment studies. Anyone with more information Please call the Coast Guard at 305-535-4472. Please say Tehillim for Chaim Meyer ben Devorah. (YWN World Headquarters NYC) The FBI and international partners have at least temporarily dismantled the network of a prolific ransomware gang they infiltrated last year, saving victims including hospitals and school districts a potential $130 million in ransom payments, Attorney General Merrick Garland and other U.S. officials announced Thursday. Simply put, using lawful means we hacked the hackers, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference. Officials said the targeted syndicate, known as Hive, operates one of the worlds top five ransomware networks and has heavily targeted hospitals and other health care providers. The FBI quietly gained access to its control panel in July and was able to obtain software keys to decrypt the network of some 1,300 victims globally, said FBI Director Christopher Wray. Officials credited German police and other international partners. It was not immediately clear how the takedown will affect Hives long-term operations, however. Officials did not announce any arrests but said they were building a map of Hives administrators, who manage the software, and affiliates, who infect targets and negotiate with victims, to pursue prosecutions. I think anyone involved with Hive should be concerned because this investigation is ongoing, Wray said. On Wednesday night, FBI agents seized computer infrastructure in Los Angeles that was used to support the network. Two Hive dark web sites were seized: one used for leaking data of non-paying victims, the other for negotiating extortion payments. Cybercrime is a constantly evolving threat, but as I have said before, the Justice Department will spare no resource to bring to justice anyone anywhere that targets the United States with a ransomware attack, Wray said. Garland said that thanks to the infiltration, led by the FBIs Tampa office, agents were able in one instance to disrupt a Hive attack against a Texas school district, stopping it from making a $5 million payment. The operation is a big win for the Justice Department. The ransomware scourge is the worlds biggest cybercrime headache with everything from Britains postal service and Irelands national health service to Costa Ricas government crippled by Russian-speaking syndicates that enjoy Kremlin protection. The criminals lock up, or encrypt, victims computer networks, steal sensitive data and demand large sums. As an example of Hives threat, Garland said it had prevented a hospital in the Midwest in 2021 from accepting new patients at the height of the COVID-19 epidemic. The online takedown notice, alternating in English and Russian, mentions Europol and German federal and state police as partners in the effort. In a statement, Europol said companies in more than 80 countries, including oil multinationals, have been compromised by Hive. It said Europol assisted with cryptocurrency, malware and other analysis, and that law enforcement agencies from 13 countries were involved in the effort. A U.S. government advisory last year said Hive ransomware actors victimized over 1,300 companies worldwide from June 2021 through November 2022, receiving approximately $100 million in ransom payments. It said criminals using Hive ransomware targeted a wide range of businesses and critical infrastructure, including government, manufacturing and especially health care and public health facilities. Even though the FBI offered decryption keys to some 1,300 victims around the world, Wray said only about 20% of them reported potential issues to law enforcement. Here, fortunately, we were still able to identify and help many victims who didnt report. But that is not always the case, Wray said. When victims report attacks to us, we can help them and others, too. John Hultquist, the head of threat intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, said the Hive disruption wont cause a major drop in overall ransomware activity but is nonetheless a blow to a dangerous group. Unfortunately, the criminal marketplace at the heart of the ransomware problem ensures a Hive competitor will be standing by to offer a similar service in their absence, but they may think twice before allowing their ransomware to be used to target hospitals, Hultquist said. But Brett Callow, an analyst with the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, said the operation is apt to lessen ransomware crooks confidence in what has been a very high reward-low risk business. The information collected may point to affiliates, launderers and others involved in the ransomware supply chain, Callow said. And analyst Allan Liska of the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future said the operation shows law enforcements multi-pronged strategy of arrests, sanctions, seizures and more is working to slow down ransomware attacks. He predicted it would lead to indictments, if not actual arrests, in the next few months. The ransomware threat captured the attention of the highest levels of the Biden administration two years ago after a series of high-profile attacks that threatened critical infrastructure and global industry. In May 2021, for instance, hackers targeted the nations largest fuel pipeline, causing the operators to briefly shut it down and make a multimillion-dollar ransom payment that the U.S. government largely recovered. Federal officials have used a variety of tools to try to combat the problem, but conventional law enforcement measures such as arrests and prosecutions have done little to frustrate the criminals. The FBI has obtained access to decryption keys before. It did so in the case of a major 2021 ransomware attack on Kaseya, a company whose software runs hundreds of websites. It took some heat, however, for waiting several weeks to help victims unlock afflicted networks. (AP) The decision by Facebooks parent company to soon reinstate Donald Trumps account comes at a critical moment for the former president as he tries to build campaign momentum for a return to the White House. Reclaiming his social media megaphone could open an important new stream of revenue for the 2024 contests only declared candidate, whose campaign has faced criticism for its lackluster launch. Trump is considering a return to Twitter, as well, rejoining both of the social media giants that he used to great effect to widely and personally connect with his supporters in previous campaigning. He was banned from posting on both Facebook and Twitter, along with other social media sites, for his role in inciting violence in the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, In considering a return to the platforms that shunned him, Trump is essentially recognizing that the social media company he launched last year, Truth Social, pales in comparison to the reach of the highest profile platforms. He currently has 4.84 million followers on Truth Social, dramatically fewer than the 87.7 million who follow his account on Twitter, the 34 million who follow him on Facebook and the 23.4 million who follow him on Metas Instagram. Trumps Twitter account was unlocked in November, shortly after Elon Musk purchased the company, but Trump has refrained from using it, insisting that he is happier on Truth. But while Twitter was long Trumps instrument for shouting his opinions and received far more attention for his new campaign, Facebook is ultimately about money. The 2016 campaign of the business executive and reality TV star was a trailblazer when it came to harnessing the power of Facebooks digital advertising tools. And his 2016 and 2020 campaigns spent millions on ads that were key to his small-dollar fundraising efforts. The decision on Wednesday by Meta, Facebooks parent company, to reinstate him, is likely to be a similar boon to his current campaigns efforts to raise millions, as well as to collect emails and identify voters. I think first and foremost this is about fundraising for Trump, said Katie Harbath, a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center who served as Facebooks former public policy director. He wants to continue to have access to get emails and addresses for fundraising, which is something the platform was always really important to the campaign for. During his suspension from Facebook, Trumps political operation continued to fundraise on the site but couldnt run ads directly from him or in his voice appeals that Harbath said are much more powerful. Personal appeals are always the best, she said. And folks havent seen that in their feeds in a long time. The reinstatement comes at an opportune time for Trump, who has struggled in the opening months of his 2024 White House campaign to reclaim the energy of his previous two bids. Hes planning his first official campaign event Saturday, with plans to visit two early-voting states, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But even as Trump and his team mull how best to harness the social media brands that helped power his initial rise, there could be significant hurdles. The former president created Truth Social, a Twitter lookalike, after he was suspended from Twitter and Facebook. He usually posts on his social media site multiple times a day, sharing thoughts, insults and campaign videos and reposting messages from his supporters, just as he had on Twitter. As part of his deal with Digital World Acquisition Corp. to take Truth Social public, Trump agreed so he wouldnt compete against his own company that it would be the first channel for any and all social media communications and posts coming from his personal profile, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last May. That includes an exclusivity clause in which the former president was generally obligated to make any social media post on TruthSocial and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours for a period of 18 months, beginning Dec. 22, 2021. It adds, however, that, Trump may make a post from a personal account related to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts on any social media site at any time. Some Trump allies believe that that line gives him license to post political messages anytime hed like, though he continues to abstain. Former Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, CEO of the Trump Media & Technology Group, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the SEC filing makes Trumps obligations clear, but he declined to elaborate. Neither Digital World nor its CEO Patrick Orlando responded to requests for comment. I think this is less of a legal question than an ego question, said Harbath, who expects Trump to begin advertising on Facebook before he resumes messaging. The man likes to put on a show. Questions also remain about whether Digital World will get approval from federal stock market regulators to join with Truth Social and go public. Without the merger, Truth Social and its biggest owner, Trump, wont get shares in the combined company potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Since rumors began spreading of Trump possibly posting again on rival social media platforms, stock in Digital World has plunged. The potential Truth Social partner is down 30% since Twitter reinstated Trumps personal account last year even as the broader comparative market has barely moved. Trump has so far insisted he is sticking with Truth, saying he prefers the engagement on the site, where fringe content dominates. But Trump in recent weeks has been talking about returning to Twitter, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations. That has included discussing possible first tweets that would generate maximum impact, NBC News first reported. A Trump campaign spokesperson declined to discuss Trumps social media plans including his plans for a possible return. But as Meta mulled its decision, Trumps campaign lobbied for his reinstatement. In a letter this month, lawyer Scott Gast pressed the company to allow Trumps return, arguing that continuing the ban would basically constitute, in the words of Mr. Clegg, a deliberate effort by a private company to silence Mr. Trumps political voice. Thats Nick Clegg, Metas vice president of global affairs. Moreover, every day that President Trumps political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process, wrote lawyer Gast. Trump also faces potential limitations on the content he can share on the platform. In a post announcing Metas decision, Clegg wrote that the public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying the good, the bad and the ugly so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box. At the same time, however, he said the company would be putting new guardrails in place and that Trump would face additional suspensions should he post further violating content. And if Trump or anyone else posts material that doesnt violate Facebooks rules but is otherwise harmful such as content that tries to delegitimizes an upcoming election or is related to the QAnon conspiracy theory Clegg said Meta will act to limit that materials reach. It could also temporarily restrict Trumps access to its advertising tools. (AP) From Washington to Berlin to Kyiv, a Western decision to send battle tanks to Ukraine was hailed enthusiastically. Moscow first shrugged it off and later launched a new barrage of attacks. The Kremlin has previously warned that such tank deliveries would be a dangerous escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, and it has strongly denounced the watershed move by Germany and the United States to send the heavy weaponry to its foe. But it insists the new armor wont stop Russia from achieving its goals in Ukraine. The potential it gives to the Ukrainian armed forces is clearly exaggerated, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Those tanks will burn just like any others. Moscow played down the move right after the announcement in an apparent attempt to save face as the West raised the stakes in Ukraine. Some Russian experts also emphasized that the supply of the deadly armor will be relatively limited and could take months to reach the front. On Thursday, Russia launched a new wave of missiles and self-exploding drones across Ukraine the latest in a series of strikes, many of which have targeted power plants and other key infrastructure. Russian military bloggers and commentators say that such attacks involve meticulous preparation so the latest barrage was likely planned in advance and was not necessarily linked to the tank announcement. Yohann Michel, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, observed that while Western arms supplies irk Russia, it can do nothing to stop them. Its a problem that they cant necessarily address, he said, noting that earlier decisions by the U.S. and its allies to supply air-defense weapons to Ukraine could have been even more worrying for Moscow. President Vladimir Putin, his diplomats and military leaders have repeatedly warned the West that supplying long-range weapons capable of striking deep inside Russia would mark a red line and trigger a massive retaliation. While other weapons like tanks and certain air defense systems have drawn warnings from Russian officials, the wording has been deliberately vague, perhaps to allow the Kremlin to avoid getting cornered by making specific threats. Poland, the Czech Republic and other NATO countries have already provided Ukraine with hundreds of smaller Soviet-made tanks from the Cold War era when they were part of the Soviet bloc. Ukrainian armed forces, who have used similar aging weaponry, needed no extra training to use them. They played an important role on the battlefield, helping Ukraine reclaim broad swaths of territory in 11 months of fighting. As Ukraines armored units suffered attrition and stockpiles of the old T-72 tanks ran dry in the arsenals of its allies in Central and Eastern Europe, Kyiv has increasingly pushed for delivery of German-made Leopard 2 and U.S. M1 Abrams tanks. After weeks of hesitation, Germany said Wednesday it will provide Ukraine with 14 Leopard 2 tanks and allow other allies willing to follow suit to deliver 88 Leopards to form two tank battalions. The U.S. announced it will send 31 M1 Abrams tanks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his officials, who long have said the country needs hundreds of tanks to counter a foe with a far superior number as well as other weapons, greeted the Western decision as a major breakthrough, voicing hope that more supplies would follow. The deliveries of Leopard 2 will take our ground forces to a qualitatively new level, Ukrainian military expert Oleh Zhdanov told The Associated Press. Even though Leopard 2s are heavier than Soviet-designed tanks, they have a strong edge in firepower and survivability. One Leopard 2 could be equivalent to three or five Russian tanks, Zhdanov said. But he noted that the promised number of Western tanks represents only the minimum that Ukraine needs to repel a likely offensive by Moscow, adding that Russia has thousands of armored vehicles. Kyiv is preparing for a defensive operation, and its outcome will determine the future course of the conflict, Zhdanov said. Russian military analysts were more skeptical about the Western tanks, arguing that while Abrams proved clearly superior to older models of Soviet-built tanks during the war in Iraq, newer Russian models are more closely matched. They also charged that Leopard 2 tanks used by the Turkish army against the Kurds in Syria proved vulnerable to Soviet-era anti-tank weapons. Some Russian online media quickly posted diagrams of the vulnerable points of the Leopard 2. Hit Leopard as your grandfather hit Tiger and Panther! one headline said, referring to Nazi tanks in World War II. Andrei Kartapolov, a retired general who heads the defense affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, argued that both Leopard 2 and Abrams are inferior to Russias T-90, a modified version of the T-72. The latest Russian tank, the T-14 Armata, has been manufactured only in small numbers and so far hasnt been used in the war. The British Ministry of Defense said in its latest intelligence update that Russia has worked to prepare a small batch of T-14s for deployment in Ukraine, but said it had engine and other problems. Russian observers, meanwhile, noted it could take a significant time for the Western tanks to reach Ukraine, adding that training Ukrainians to use them and properly maintain them would add to the challenge. It likely means that the Ukrainian military will probably receive a few small batches of tanks that could be incompatible with each other, Moscow-based defense analyst Ilya Kramnik said in a commentary. Zhdanov, the Ukrainian military analyst, argued that by agreeing to provide Ukraine with tanks, the West crossed an important psychological barrier and could eventually follow up by supplying even more deadly weapons. Handing over Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine marks a major change in the policy of Western allies, who stopped fearing escalation and are now ready to challenge Russia in the war of resources, he said. The West is forced to more widely open the doors to its military arsenals to Ukraine. Speaking in a video address late Wednesday, Zelenskyy hailed the creation of what he called a tank coalition and said Ukraine now will seek more artillery and push for unlocking supplies of long-range missiles and, ultimately, warplanes. Ukrainian officials long have expressed hope for getting U.S. F-16 fighter jets and long-range rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, to hit targets far behind the front lines. Such desires drew ominous remarks from Russian diplomat Konstantin Gavrilov, similar to the kind voiced earlier by Putin and others. If Washington and NATO give Kyiv weapons to strike peaceful cities deep inside Russia and try to seize the territories that constitutionally belong to Russia, it will force Moscow to take harsh retaliatory action, Gavrilov told a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Dont tell us then that we havent warned you. (AP) Russian forces fired another rash of missiles and self-exploding drones in nearly a dozen provinces of Ukraine early Thursday, causing the first attack-related death of the year in Kyiv and killing at least 11 people in all, according to Ukrainian authorities. The attacks adhered to Russias recent pattern of striking power plants and other critical infrastructure about every two weeks. However, the latest onslaught came after Germany and the United States upped the ante in Russias 11-month war by promising Wednesday to send high-tech battle tanks to Ukraine and green-lighting other allies to do the same. The spokesperson for Ukraines State Emergency Service, Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, said that in addition to the dead the casualties included at least 11 people who were wounded . Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed during the attacks, the citys first such death since New Years Eve. Two others were injured, he said. The head of the Kyiv city administration, Serhii Popko, said Ukrainian air defenses shot down 15 cruise missiles heading to the area. The regional prosecutors office in Ukraines Zaporizhzhia province said three people were killed and seven injured in a strike on an energy facility. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander of Ukraines armed forces, said Thursdays volley involved a total of 55 missiles, of which 47 were intercepted. Self-exploding drones swept in overnight before the missile strikes. As air raid sirens echoed across the country, civilians, some tugging pet dogs on leashes, poured into subway stations, underground parking lots and basements to seek shelter. It was the first such barrage of Russian firepower across the country since Jan. 14. Russia has carried out massive strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities since early October, part of a strategy to try to hamper Ukrainian forces and to keep civilians in the cold and dark this winter before what many experts predict could be a springtime offensive as more conscripts reach the battlefields. Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko acknowledged that some sites were hit, resulting in emergency power outages. In Kyivs southern Holosiivsky district, Arkadii Kuritsyn, 53, said he heard a loud explosion that blew out windows of several trucks parked next to his scrap metal business and snapped several trees in a nearby wooded area in half. But the strikes did not reach what appeared to be the intended target: a nearby district power plant. The industrial area has witnessed several missile attacks already, due to its proximity to the power station, said Andrii Tarasenko, 36, who works in a factory nearby. I am not surprised it was targeted again, he said. Weve gotten used to it. In Hlevakha, an urban area about 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) southwest of the capital, a barrage of missiles followed a drone attack that damaged the two-story home of Halyna Panasian. The damage included a deep crater in the courtyard, a large hole in the roof and pieces of debris scattered about the house. I was in my bedroom when the house was hit. I had to crawl out through the destroyed walls, Panasian, 59, said of the blast at about 2 a.m. Such grief: What can I say? How can I have a happy life now? I cant. Im so sad. My life is broken. The attacks came a day after Germany said it would supply 14 high-tech Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine and authorize other European countries to send up to 88 more. The U.S. said it planned to ship 31 Abrams M1 tanks to Ukrainian forces. Along with Germany and the U.S., Britain, Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden are among the nations that have sent or announced plans to supply hundreds of tanks and heavy armored vehicles to fortify Ukraine as it enters a new phase of the war and tries to break through entrenched Russian lines. Gian Gentile, a U.S. Army veteran and senior historian with the Rand think tank, said the M1 Abrams and the Leopards would give Ukraine a mechanized armored punching force. The British government said Thursday it would start training Ukrainian troops next week on how to use and fix Challenger 2 tanks. The U.K. is giving 14 of the tanks to Ukraines forces, and Defense Minister Alex Chalk said they should arrive in Ukraine by the end of March. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Ukrainian crews will start their training in Germany in coming days on German-made Marders, which are infantry fighting vehicles, while training on the heavier Leopard 2 tanks would start a little later. In any case, the aim with the Leopards is to have the first company in Ukraine by the end of March, beginning of April, he added. I cant say the precise day. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declined to speculate on the timing of the tanks arrival but told Britains Sky News the allies are extremely focused on the importance of speed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the move to provide Ukraine with modern tanks reflected the Wests growing involvement in the conflict. Both European capitals and Washington keep saying that the delivery of various kinds of weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine, absolutely does not mean the involvement of these countries or the alliance in the hostilities ongoing in Ukraine, Peskov told reporters. We categorically disagree with that. Moscow views everything that has been done by the alliance and the capitals I have mentioned as direct involvement in the conflict, he added. We can see it growing. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who happened to be in Ukraines Black Sea port city of Odesa on Thursday, in part to meet with Ukraines foreign minister. told Frances LCI television that Thursdays attacks went beyond retaliation. What we saw this morning that is, new strikes on civilian installations that is not making war. It is making war crimes. (AP) The U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday it is investigating whether Southwest Airlines deceived customers by knowingly scheduling more flights in late December than it realistically could handle. The department said that scheduling too many flights would be considered an unfair and deceptive practice under federal law. DOT is in the initial phase of a rigorous and comprehensive investigation into Southwest Airlines holiday debacle that stranded millions, the department said in a statement. The Transportation Department added that it will hold Southwest accountable if the airline fails to follow federal rules about refunds and reimbursing customers for expenses when flights are canceled. The agency said it will leverage the full extent of its investigative and enforcement power to protect consumers. Southwest said its holiday schedule was thoughtfully designed with a solid plan to operate it, and with ample staffing. Our systems and processes became stressed while working to recover from multiple days of flight cancellations across 50 airports in the wake of an unprecedented storm, Southwest said in a statement. The airline pledged to cooperate with any government inquiries and is focused on learning from this event and reducing the risk of a repeat. Southwest canceled about 16,700 flights over the last 10 days of December. The meltdown began with a winter storm, but Southwest continued to struggle long after most other airlines had recovered, in part because its crew-scheduling system became overloaded. Union officials said they had warned the airline for years about the system, especially after similar but less severe flight disruptions in October 2021. Dallas-based Southwest eventually resorting to cutting its schedule by about two-thirds to reset crews and planes, which it did successfully. The airline hired consulting firm Oliver Wyman to study what went wrong. CEO Robert Jordan has said the company might speed up spending on some technology upgrades as a result of the crisis, but that he wants to complete the review first. Southwest said this month that the cancellations will cost it up to $825 million in lost revenue and higher expenses including premium pay for employees and reimbursing customers for hotels and alternate flights. As a result, the company is expected to post a fourth-quarter loss when it reports results on Thursday. The airline is also dealing with damage to its reputation for customer service. Analysts believe some customers may avoid Southwest for a short time, although airlines have usually bounced back quickly from other service failures. The chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has promised to hold hearings on disruptions like the one at Southwest. (AP) About 18 months after her assault and kidnapping on the South Side, a Billings woman faced the last of her attackers to be sentenced in court. The survivor told Cleone Bluesky Shawl, sentenced Thursday to 55 years in prison, that she fought for her life on July 17, 2021. And she won. You did not break me, she said. You just proved how strong I am. A Yellowstone County Sheriff's deputy responded to a report of a robbery following the July 2021 attack, according to court documents. He met with the survivor, who said she was driving away from a friends home in the South Side when four strangers approached her car. Three of them were teenage boys, and one was a 33-year-old woman later identified as Shawl, a mother of nine children. Testimony in court from the survivor and the four people later charged showed conflicting accounts of what led to the violence. Eventually, however, the survivor was forced into the back seat of her car. The teenage boys strangled, beat and tried to rape her, according to court documents. Shawl, now at the wheel of the car, drove south to Blue Creek Road. While trapped in the back seat, the survivor said in court that Shawl threatened to sell her and kill her. The car's engine overheated and died in a rural residential area. I am lucky to be alive, and I believe the only reason I am is for my car breaking down that night, the survivor said Thursday. Shawl and the three boys ran from the car and separated, leaving the survivor without her phone, smartwatch, wallet or her shoes. Officers with the Billings Police Department arrested the three teens the same morning of the attack and carjacking after a resident along Blue Creek Road reported three stolen bicycles. One of the teens was carrying a backpack belonging to the survivor, court documents said. Another resident in the neighborhood where the car was found told police he found a woman matching Shawls description hiding in his camper trailer that morning. She asked for a ride to Pryor, which he agreed to. While driving on Blue Creek Road, documents said, she changed her mind and asked to be taken back to Billings. He dropped her off at a South Side trailer park. BPD investigators recovered a latent hand print on the stolen car later identified as belonging to Shawl. The survivor was given a photo line-up and recognized Shawl as the woman who attacked her, according to court documents. Shawl entered Yellowstone County Detention Facility on Aug. 22 and has since remained in custody. The three boys, whose ages ranged from 14 to 15, were charged and sentenced in Youth Court. By September, all three had admitted to their role in the attack and were committed to the Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility. Shawl, who maintained her innocence in the assault and carjacking through her sentencing Thursday, went to trial in late October. On Nov. 3, a Yellowstone County jury convicted her of kidnapping by accountability, robbery, aggravated assault by accountability and assault with a weapon by accountability. While Shawl did not strike or strangle the survivor, Deputy Yellowstone County Attorney Hallie Bishop said, she was the conductor in the orchestra of violence. She encouraged the teenage boys to attack a woman, Bishop said, assuring them that they were going to the reservation. You deserve the maximum punishment, the survivor said Thursday, because I deal with every painful memory every single day. Yellowstone County District Judge Rod Souza considered Shawls limited felony history in determining his sentence. Prior to July 17, 2021, the mother had previously been sentenced for theft in Big Horn County. There was still no question, he said, that Shawl had severely damaged another human being. This [case] represents the most extreme form of stranger violence, Souza said, which in the criminal justice system is exceedingly rare. I believe its been undisputed that neither you nor the boys had any idea who (the survivor) was before that night. Souza sentenced Shawl to 50 years in prison for her role in the beating, robbing and kidnapping. Shawl also received an additional five years in the Montana Department of Corrections after pleading guilty to three separate drug and theft charges. Per state law, Shawl will be eligible for parole after serving a quarter of her sentence. Last week, a Yellowstone County jury convicted a Billings man of multiple counts of rape, attempted rape and kidnapping. Donald Edward Foster, 48, held his mother and a teenager against their will at a home in the Heights. He surrendered to police after a standoff that lasted several hours, and assaulted the teen during that time. The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved a resolution Wednesday expressing solidarity with people in Iran who have been risking imprisonment and even death to protest against the countrys theocracy. The 420-1 vote marked the latest round of international condemnation against Irans government, which has engaged in a brutal crackdown of its citizenry since the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was the lone no vote. It is vital that we in the U.S. House of Representatives, a body that is among the greatest symbols of freedom and democracy around the world, stand with one voice to affirm our support for the brave Iranian people, Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., said during floor debate Wednesday. The resolution was first introduced in the last Congress by several Republican and Democratic lawmakers and was revived earlier this month reflecting a rare point of consensus for an increasingly divided Congress. Its passage came days after the U.S., Europe and the United Kingdom imposed a series of fresh sanctions on dozens of Iranian officials and organizations, including the countrys special military and police forces, for their violent clampdown. Activists say at least 16 people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests. Death sentences in Iran are typically carried out by hanging. At least 517 protesters have been killed and over 19,200 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained. The protests began in mid-September when 22-year-old Amini died after being arrested by Irans morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republics strict dress code. Women have been at the vanguard of the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, in defiance of the government. The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to Irans theocracy since the 1979 revolution and the reaction from the government has been severe. Security forces have used live ammunition, birdshot, tear gas, and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups. We want the Iranian people to know that we see you. We know the risk youre taking and the danger that you face, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., ranking chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on the House floor. Stay strong. He added, Stay strong as freedom will always win over tyranny. (AP) By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5tjt.com Recently, a somewhat bizarre incident occurred where a completely innocent young avraich in a shul that was hosting a Bris had apparently asked a child to walk with him and to hold onto his hand in order to avoid violating the Gemorah in Horios (13b). There the Gemorah states that walking between two women is kasheh llimud. Unfortunately, it caused enormous difficulty for the young man involved. There were a number of parties that issued warnings to the Jewish community, in an attempt to ensure the safety of others. Boruch Hashem, however, it was a misunderstanding. It was unfortunate that the Avreich had to undergo such difficulties. He is known as a yirei shomayim and a medakdek bmitzvos. What follows is an analysis of the underlying halachic issues involved and the various solutions to the situation. THE MAHARSHA IDENTIFIES TWO UNDERLYING ISSUES There is a Maharsha that asks an interesting question as to why the Gemorah here in Horios did not provide a solution, in the same manner that a similar Gemorah in Psachim 111a provides. There the Gemorah tells us that Rav Pappa said: He should begin reciting a pasuk that starts with the word Kel and conclude with a pasuk that ends with the word Kel. (BaMidbar 23:2223). Alternatively, he should open with a pasuk that begins with the word lo no, and should conclude with the same pasuk that ends with lo (BaMidbar 23:19). The Maharsha explains that the Gemorah in Psachim deals only with the issue of a danger. The Gemorah in Horios deals with the difficulty that it causes to ones studies and the solution, according to the Maharsha would be ineffective. We will see, however, that not everyone agrees with this Maharsha. SHULCHAN ARUCH DOES NOT CITE THE HALACHA This halacha is cited by the Eliyahu Rabba OC 63:10 and also by the GraZ, yet the halacha is not cited in the Shulchan Aruch itself. Nonetheless, Rav Yoseph Chaim Sonnenfeld ztl rules (Salmas Chaim #864) that it is still a halacha that must be observed. He further writes that whomsoever does not pay attention to this halacha is termed an avaryan a sinner. It seems that he is referring to the Shulchan Aruch (CM 427:10) halacha of avoiding dangers wherein Rav Karo employs this term. The Siach Yitzchok on Psachim 111a explains that Rav Sonnenfeld would often walk in the streets of Yerushalayim holding his hat so that he would not be in violation of this halacha. WORKAROUNDS There are, however, at least seven workarounds. Most Poskim hold that if one carries or holds onto something as an interpolation between himself and one of the two women, it is permitted to walk through. Thus holding onto ones wallet in his hand or a cell phone would allow it. This is the most common workaround and is cited in the Taamei HaMinhagim p. 488. Rav Nissim Karelitz ztl in his Chut Sheini (EH SIman 21), however, disagrees with this view. Rav Kareilitz does write that it is not a problem if the distance between the two women is more than 4 amos (which according to Rav Moshe Feinstein ztl is 7 ft and 1 inch, while according to Rav Chaim Naeh it is 6 feet). This is also the view of the Ben Ish Chaim (year number 2 Parshas Pinchas #17). Rav Simcha Zissel Ziv of Kelm ztl is quoted in the Lev Eliyahu (Bereishis p. 26) as holding that it applies only to married women and not besulos. Rav Yoseph Chaim Sonnenfeld ztl in his Salmas Chaim (Vol. IV #20) and the Maharsham (Vol. IV #148) both write that the solution discussed in Psachim 111a is effective in regard to difficulty for one learning as well. There is thus a debate between the Maharsha and these two authorities on this topic. Rav Binyomin Zilber ztl in his Bais Boruch (Vol. I p. 402) writes that the prohibition is only when they are standing still and not while they are walking. The author of the Vayashev Moshe (Vol. I #73), writes that it is only a problem if the two women have some connection between them such as if they are in conversation with each other. Other Poskim, however, do not agree with this assessment., although Rabbi Aryeh Zev Ginsburg in his Divrei Chachomim [the author does not recall the location] writes that Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky ztl made this distinction too. Rav Nissim Karelitz ztl (Chut Sheini EH Siman 21 p.70) writes that there is no problem when the two women are walking in opposite directions. Rav Chaim Kanievsky ztl, however, is cited as holding the opposite view in Gam Ani Odecha (Vol. II #24). NON-WORKAROUNDS It would seem that holding onto ones clothing and or onto ones own payos would not be effective because these would be batel to the person himself [not an interpolation but rather would be considered part of him]. This is the view of most Poskim. However, Rav Chaim Kanievsky ztl was asked (Gam Ani Odekha p. 6) whether a man should ask a woman to move in order that he not violate this halacha and Rav Chaim ztl responded that it is preferable to hold onto ones payos. NOT TO DO STRANGE THINGS Notwithstanding all of this, there is a pasuk in Mishlei (4:24) that states, Take crooked speech away from yourself, and put devious lips far away from you. The Gemorah and Poskim cite this pasuk many times as a warning not to do things that are perceived as strange by other people [See Yevamos 24b]. There is no question that in todays environment, a person must be very careful in this regard, especially when his or her actions can be perceived as a chillul Hashem. OUR OBLIGATION For our part in this unfortunate situation, we should remember to always be dan lekaf zchus we should judge people positively and not at all assume chas vshalom that the young mans motivations were questionable. At the same time, we should be vigilant against Stranger Danger and also against non-stranger danger. In a recent conversation with Moreinu HaRav Shlomo Miller shlita, Rav Miller asked me to be mefarsem in his name that whenever any young woman is touched by a man, regardless of who he may be they should be taught to say, Please do not put your hands on me in a loud voice and leave the room immediately. Rav Miller advised that this should be taught in our Bais Yaakovs throughout. The author can be reached at [email protected] When U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss decided to deliver a speech on a bill that would create a U.S.-Israel artificial intelligence center, he opted to let the AI do the talking. The brief two-paragragh speech read by the Massachusetts Democrat on the floor of the U.S. House on Wednesday was generated by the online AI chatbot ChatGPT. His staff said they believe its the first time an AI-written speech was read in Congress. Auchincloss said he prompted the system in part to write 100 words to deliver on the floor of the House of Representatives about the legislation. Auchincloss said he had to refine the prompt several times to produce the text he ultimately read. "We must collaborate with international partners like the Israeli government to ensure that the United States maintains a leadership role in AI research and development." Rep. Auchincloss delivers a speech on the House floor Wednesday using the AI tool, ChatGPT. pic.twitter.com/Vt6gOjOIoa The Hill (@thehill) January 26, 2023 The bill, which Auchincloss is refiling, would establish a joint U.S.-Israel AI Center in the United States to serve as a hub for AI research and development in the public, private and education sectors. Auchincloss said part of the decision to read a ChatGPT-generated text was to help spur debate on AI and the challenges and opportunities created by it. He said he doesnt want to see a repeat of the advent of social media, which started small and ballooned faster than Congress could react. Im the youngest parent in the Democratic caucus, AI is going to be part of my life and it could be a general purpose technology for my children, said Auchincloss, 34. The release of ChatGPT and other AI programs available on the internet is already posing a challenge for teachers who must now grapple with the possibility of students handing in AI-generated essays. Researchers also worry AI chatbots could help turbocharge efforts to spread misinformation and propaganda. OpenAI, the nonprofit that created ChatGPT, has acknowledged on its website that ChatGPT can occasionally produce incorrect answers and that its responses will sometimes be misleading as a result of how it learns. It recommends users check whether responses are accurate or not, The text generated from Auchinclosss prompt includes sentences like: We must collaborate with international partners like the Israeli government to ensure that the United States maintains a leadership role in AI research and development and responsibly explores the many possibilities evolving technologies provide. There were probably about a dozen of my colleagues on the floor. I bet none of them knew it was written by a computer, he said. Lawmakers and others shouldnt be reflexively hostile to the new technology, but also shouldnt wait too long before drafting policies or new laws to help regulate it, Auchincloss said. In particular, he argued that the country needs a public counterweight to the big tech firms that would help guarantee that smaller developers and universities have access to the same cloud computing, cutting edge algorithms and raw data as larger companies. (AP) On the outskirts of this southern Lebanese village, workers in a pickup truck parked at a nature reserve named after a fallen fighter of the Hezbollah terror group. They took two large eucalyptus tree seedlings out of the truck and planted them. The men are from Green Without Borders, a non-governmental organization that says it aims to protect Lebanons green areas and plant trees. But Israel, the United States and some in Lebanon accuse the NGO of being an arm of Hezbollah to hide its military activities. They say the organization has been setting up outposts for the terror group along the border with Israel. Last month, residents in the southern Christian village of Rmaych near the border said they encountered armed men at an outpost of the organization that was blocking them from farmlands. Green Without Borders denies any link to Hezbollah, which also says it is not connected to the environmental group. We are not an arm for anyone, the head of Green Without Borders, Zouher Nahli, told The Associated Press. We as an environmental association work for all the people and we are not politicized. He spoke at the Bassam Tabaja Nature Reserve, named for a Hezbollah fighter killed in Syria in 2014, where the NGO has planted hundreds of trees. He said the organizations funding comes from the ministries of environment and agriculture as well as from wealthy Lebanese who care about the environment and municipalities, mainly in the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. He said he is an Agriculture Ministry employee. In a November report, UNIFIL said shipping containers and prefabricated buildings, some of them with visible Green Without Borders markings, had been set up at 16 sites along the border. In several instances, UNIFIL patrols were prevented from nearing the locations, it said. The Israeli military says Green Without Borders outposts on the border are used by Hezbollah to gather intelligence information. At a Security Council meeting in September, the U.S. deputy U.N. ambassador, Richard Mills, said the proliferation of the groups outposts along the border obstructs UNIFIL access and is heightening tensions in the area, further demonstrating that this so-called environmental group is acting on Hezbollahs behalf. At the meeting, the council unanimously approved a resolution strongly condemning harassment, intimidation, attacks and restrictions on UNIFIL. Last month, an Irish U.N. peacekeeper was killed and several others were wounded when attackers opened fire on a UNIFIL convoy in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah denied any connection to the attack. Residents of the Christian village Rmaych have complained for years about a position set up by Green Without Borders on farmland belonging to village families in a nearby valley. They say the organization did not plant any trees there and actually chopped down trees and cut a 1.5-kilometer (1-mile) dirt road on their land. It is a cover for Hezbollah to have positions. We have no problems with Hezbollah, but it should be outside our lands, said Bassam al-Haj, a Rmaych schoolteacher. In December, al-Haj and other residents went to the outpost and confronted the men there. Al-Haj said some of the men at the site were masked and armed, and that the outpost included several rooms, a tent and a fence that blocked off village farmland. The residents and the men argued, he said. One resident who was videoing the encounter was told by one of the men, We will crush you if you dont delete the photos that you took, al-Haj said. Days after the confrontation, a Hezbollah official and members of the organization visited the village and met residents at the mayors office, said Father Najib al-Ameel, a priest from Rmaych who attended the talks. The mayor and residents asked that the post be removed, he said. Al-Ameel said he told the Hezbollah official, We will not accept anyone but the Lebanese army to protect us. A few days later, Green Without Borders removed the post and now residents can freely access their land, he said. (AP) A Swedish-Egyptian author requested approval from the police to set fire to a Sefer Torah in a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, Kan News reported on Thursday. The authors request was in response to the burning of the Quran by a far-right activist outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm over the weekend in protest of Turkeys opposition to Swedens bid to join NATO. The Israeli embassy in Stockholm made extensive efforts to prevent the incident and on Thursday afternoon, the author withdrew his request, according to a report by The Jewish Press. Initially, the ministry was told that the act of protest will be approved due to considerations of free speech. The individual who was organizing the demonstration withdrew his permit application from the police, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Havat told JewishPress.com. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Embassy in Sweden acted immediately and decisively to prevent the shocking and humiliating event from taking place, the ministry said in a statement. The actions included, among other things, contacting the top of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Stockholm Police, as well as the Swedish Embassy in Israel, and activating Jewish and other organizations. As a result of our actions, the event at this stage is frozen. Earlier on Thursday, Israels ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan said in response to the report: This is outrageous. Theres a difference between freedom of speech and an ugly act. In places where they burned Sifrei Torah, they also burned people. I call on the Swedish government to intervene to prevent this outrageous incident. Ill be contacting the Swedish embassy in the UN about the matter. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) The Palestinian Authority announced on Thursday that it is halting security coordination with Israel in the wake of Israels counterterrorism operation in Jenin on Thursday morning, during which nine Palestinians, mostly armed terrorists, were killed. The decision was announced by Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the Palestinian minister of information, following an emergency meeting of senior PA officials. According to Abu Rudeineh, the decision was made in light of the repeated aggression against our people, and the undermining of signed agreements a reference to commitments from the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. He added that the PA plans to file complaints with the U.N. Security Council, International Criminal Court, and other international bodies. Israeli senior security officials said they havent received any official notice from the PA about changes in security coordination. Following the PAs announcement, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf spoke to the press, saying: We dont think this is the right step to take at this moment. Far from stepping back on security coordination, we believe its quite important that the parties retain, and if anything, deepen security coordination. Leaf said that she was briefed by Israel that the operation was necessary due to the ticking time bomb of a terrorist threat, and that she and her staff spent hours on the phone with Israeli and Palestinian officials in efforts to de-escalate the situation. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) Five fired Memphis police officers were charged Thursday with second-degree murder and other crimes in the arrest and death of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop. Shelby County Sheriffs Office online records show that Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith, who are all Black, were in custody. All five are charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Court records dont list attorneys for Smith, Bean or Haley. Martins lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mills lawyer, Blake Ballin, said they planned to discuss the charges at a news conference later Thursday. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, told The Associated Press by phone that he and his wife RowVaughn Wells, who is Nichols mother, discussed the second-degree murder charges and are fine with it. They had pushed for first-degree murder charges. Theres other charges, so Im all right with that, he said. He said he was ecstatic that authorities have moved quickly in the case. The familys attorneys, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, issued a statement praising the charges. The news today from Memphis officials that these five officers are being held criminally accountable for their deadly and brutal actions gives us hope as we continue to push for justice for Tyre, they wrote. This young man lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who founded and runs the National Action Network and will deliver the eulogy at Nichols funeral service next week, called the charges a necessary step in delivering justice for Nichols. There is no point to putting a body camera on a cop if you arent going to hold them accountable when the footage shows them relentlessly beating a man to death, Sharpton said. Firings are not enough. Indictments and arrests are not convictions. As weve done in the pastwe will stand by this family until justice is done. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he would provide an update on the states investigation Thursday afternoon. Nichols family and their attorneys have seen police video of the arrest, but the video hasnt been released to the public, though authorities said theyd release it this week or next. The Memphis police chief has called the actions of five officers involved in the violent arrest of Nichols heinous, reckless and inhumane and urged residents of the predominantly Black city to protest peacefully when video is released. This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual, Memphis Police Director Cerelyn CJ Davis said in a video statement released late Wednesday on social media. Davis said the five officers found to be directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. Nichols, were fired last week, but other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. In addition, she said a complete and independent review will be conducted of the departments specialized units, without providing further details. As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police departments full and complete cooperation to determine what contributed to Nichols Jan. 10 death. Mulroy told The Associated Press on Tuesday that local and state investigators want to complete as many interviews as possible before releasing the video. The timetable has rankled some activists who expected the video to be released after Nichols family and the familys lawyers viewed it Monday. Crump said the video showed showed Nichols a 29-year-old FedEx worker and father was shocked, pepper-sprayed and restrained when he was pulled over for a traffic stop near his home. He was returning home from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset. The legal team said officers beat Nichols for three minutes in a savage encounter reminiscent of the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Relatives have accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure. Authorities have only said Nichols experienced a medical emergency. When video of the arrest is publicly released, Davis said she expects the community to react. I expect our citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to protest, to demand actions and results, but we need to ensure our community is safe in this process, she said. None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens. Davis said the fired officers actions arent a reflection of the good work that many Memphis police officers do every day and she pledged to take action to make improvements at the agency. It is my intent, as a proactive measure, to ensure that a complete and independent review is conducted on all of the Memphis Police Departments specialized units and the commitment of my executive leadership to ensure that policies and procedures are adhered to in our daily encounters with the citizens we are sworn to serve, she said. One of the officers, Haley, was accused previously of using excessive force. He was named as a defendant in a 2016 federal civil rights lawsuit while employed by the Shelby County Division of Corrections. The complaint, Cordarlrius Sledge stated that he was in inmate in 2015 when Haley and another corrections officer accused him of flushing contraband. The two officers hit me in the face with punches, according to the complaint. A third officer then slammed his head to the ground, Sledge said. He lost consciousness, waking up in the facilitys medical center, according to the complaint. The claims were ultimately dismissed after a judge ruled that Sledge had failed to file a grievance against the officers within 30 days of the incident. Two fire department workers were also removed from duty over the Nichols arrest. (AP) U.S. special operations forces have killed a senior Islamic State group official and 10 other terrorist operatives in remote northern Somalia, the Biden administration announced Thursday. The operation carried out on Wednesday targeted Bilal al-Sudani, a key financial facilitator for the global terrorist organization, in a mountainous cave complex. This action leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure, and it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement. President Joe Biden was briefed last week about the proposed mission, which came together after months of planning. He gave final approval to carry out the operation this week following the recommendation of Austin and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, according to two senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters on the operation on the condition of anonymity. Al-Sudani, who has been on the radar for U.S. intelligence officials for years, played a key role in helping to fund IS operations in Africa as well as the ISIS-K terrorist branch operating in Afghanistan, Austin said. The U.S. Treasury Department alleged last year that al-Sudani had worked closely with another IS operative, Abdella Hussein Abadigga, who had recruited young men in South Africa and sent them to a weapons training camp. Abadigga, who controlled two mosques in South Africa, used his position to extort money from members of the mosques. Al-Sudani considered Abadigga a trusted supporter who could help the IS supporters in South Africa become better organized and recruit new members, according to Treasury.. Al-Sudani had originally been designated the Treasury Department in 2012 for his role with al-Shabab, another terrorist organization operating in Somalia. He helped foreign fighters travel to an al-Shabab training camp and facilitated financing for violent extremists in Somalia, according to a senior administration official. No civilians were injured or killed in the operation, Pentagon officials said. One American involved in the operation was bitten by a military dog, but was not seriously injured, according to an administration official. U.S. officials provided scant details about how the operation was carried out or the circumstances surrounding al-Sudanis killing. One official said that U.S. forces had intended to capture al-Sudani but that did not prove to be feasible as the operation was carried out. The operation comes days after Africa Command said it had conducted a collective self-defense strike northeast of Mogadishu, the capital, near Galcad. In that incident, Somalia National Army forces were engaged in heavy fighting following an extended and intense attack by more than 100 al-Shabab fighters. The U.S. estimated approximately 30 al-Shabab fighters were killed in that operation. The offensive by Somalian forces against al-Shabab has been described as the most significant in more than a decade. Al-Shabab holds a much larger footprint in Somalia than does IS. (AP) Conservative attorney John Eastman, a lead architect of some of former President Donald Trumps efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election, was slapped Thursday with a series of disciplinary charges in California that could lead to his disbarment. The State Bar of Californias chief trial counsel, George Cardona, said in a statement that the 11 charges stem from allegations that Eastman assisted Trump with a strategy not supported by facts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election by obstructing the count of electoral votes of certain states. The office intends to seek Eastmans disbarment. Eastman, the former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, was one of Trumps lawyers during the election. He wrote a memo that argued former Vice President Mike Pence could keep Trump in power by overturning the results of the election during a joint session of Congress convened to count electoral votes. Critics have likened that to instructions for staging a coup. The State Bar said Eastman faces charges that he violated the business and professions code by making false and misleading statements that constitute acts of moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption. Eastman disputes every aspect of the charges filed by the State Bar, which are based on his role as counsel to the former president after the election, his attorney, Randall A. Miller, said in a statement. The State Bars action is part of a nationwide effort to use the bar discipline process to penalize attorneys who opposed the current administration in the last presidential election. Americans of both political parties should be troubled by this politicization of our nations state bars, Millers statement said. In advising Trump, Eastmans assessments were the product of comprehensive research of the law and historical records including the 12th Amendment and Electoral Count Act supported by reasonable interpretation of legal and historical precedent, scholarly analysis, and legislative history, Miller added. He was a lawyer, not Rasputin, Miller said. The bar disclosed in March that it was investigating Eastman for possible ethics violations. As the State Bars chief trial counsel, Cardona investigates and prosecutes attorney disciplinary matters before the State Bar Court, which can recommend attorneys be either suspended or, in some cases, lose their licenses to practice law. The California Supreme Court ultimately decides what to do. Eastman has been a member of the California Bar since 1997, according to its website. He was a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute. He ran for California attorney general in 2010, finishing second in the Republican primary. Eastman retired as dean of the Chapman University law school last year after more than 160 faculty members signed a letter calling for the university to take action against him. In his statement, Cardona said the charges allege that Eastman violated this duty in furtherance of an attempt to usurp the will of the American people and overturn election results for the highest office in the land an egregious and unprecedented attack on our democracy. (AP) Residents of Israels south experienced a sleepless night as sirens blared in response to seven rockets launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip by terror groups taking revenge for Israels counterterrorism operation in Jenin on Thursday morning. Four of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome and three fell into open areas or exploded in the air. In response to the rockets, the IDF attacked Hamas terror infrastructure sites in the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip suffered a severe blow tonight from IDF fire in a series of attacks. I instructed the security establishment to prepare for action with a range of offensive measures at quality targets in case it is necessary to continue to act until peace is restored to the citizens of Israel. (YWN Israel Desk Jerusalem) The downtown Billings Burger King has closed. A sign on the door says it will be closed for Easter but exterior signs have been removed and th The Biden administration on Thursday expanded U.S. sanctions against Russias Wagner Group and related companies and individuals for their role in the war in Ukraine and mercenary activities, including human rights abuses, in Africa. The Treasury and State departments announced the moves in coordinated statements that target dozens of Wagner Group affiliates, including some in the Central African Republic and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the president of Russias Kalashnikov Concern, the original manufacturer of the AK-47 assault rifle. The sanctions also hit the Chinese company Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co. LTD, also known as Spacety China, which has supplied Wagner Group affiliates with satellite imagery of Ukraine that support Wagners military operations there. A Luxembourg-based subsidiary of Spacety China was also targeted. The announcements re-designate the Wagner Group, a private Russian military group owned by a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, as a significant transnational criminal organization. The firm had already been identified as such but the re-designations expand the sanctions. The sanctions freeze any assets those identified may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from conducting business with them by adding a number of affiliates to American blacklists. As sanctions and export controls on Russia from our international coalition continue to bite, the Kremlin is desperately searching for arms and support including through the brutal Wagner Group to continue its unjust war against Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. Todays expanded sanctions on Wagner, as well as new sanctions on their associates and other companies enabling the Russian military complex, will further impede Putins ability to arm and equip his war machine, she said. A total of eight people, 16 companies and four specific aircraft were sanctioned by Treasury. In addition, the State Department imposed separate but related sanctions on five companies and one person linked to the Wagner Group and 23 others for being part of Russias military-industrial complex. The State Department also placed 531 members of the Russian military on a travel blacklist for actions that threaten or violate the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. This action supports our goal to degrade Moscows capacity to wage war against Ukraine, to promote accountability for those responsible for Russias war of aggression and associated abuses, and to place further pressure on Russias defense sector, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. (AP) Electric rates are increasing for Montana Dakota Utility customers under a plan approved by Montana utility regulators this week. On average, MDU residential customers will pay an additional $2.33 a month, an interim increase intended to hold MDU over as the Montana Public Service Commission weighs a larger, more permanent increase in rates. The interim rate increase is 2.6%. MDU has roughly 26,000 metered customers in Montana, who combined will pay MDU an additional $1.7 million annually. The larger increase sought is $10.5 million. The vote to increase rates wasnt unanimous on the all-Republican commission. Randy Pinocci and Tony ODonnell are commissioners with Eastern Montana constituents in MDU territory. Both voted against the bill. Pinocci specifically expressed his lingering disappointment over MDUs decision to close the Lewis and Clark Generating Station, a small coal-fired power plant near Sidney, which was shuttered in March 2021. We were told that if we close the Sidney coal plant, rates would come down, Pinocci said before the vote. There was testimony that the Sidney coal plant was expensive. It was a higher rate than energy that could be bought on MISO. MISO is the acronym for Midcontinent Independent System Operator, an organization that manages generation and transmission from multiple sources spread across 15 states and Canadian province of Manitoba. MDU is a MISO member. The power it purchases from MISO had for some time been more economical for customers than what it generated at Lewis and Clark. MDU in its application to increase rates says it has saved customers $1.93 million in fuel and purchased power costs by closing Lewis and Clark, along with two coal-fired generators at Heskett Power plant near Mandan, North Dakota. The long-term savings are expected to be $20 million. However, the utility still has to decrease the debts associated with the retired power plants over the next 10 years, at a pace of about $2 million a year. The retired coal burners were built in the 1950s. The utility points to the cost of a new gas-fired power at Hesket, plus increased operations and maintenance costs combined with property taxes as drivers of its rate increase. ODonnell questioned the amount of the interim rate increase, saying he needed more information and calling the vote premature. I have several questions about the amount of this particular rate increases requested, even in the interim basis, recognizing that it is refundable with interest should the commission approve a smaller amount than this, as a permanent rate increase, ODonnell said. Interim rate increases serve as a hold while regulators determine the value of a permanent rate increase. It is not uncommon for the interim rate increase to wind up being lower than the permanent amount later determined, in which case the difference is credited back to customers with interest. However that credit might come more than a year after consumers started paying the interim rate. Commissioner Jennifer Fielder, of Trout Creek, said the interim rate increase proposed by MDU was substantially lower than the permanent rate sought and she would support it. Where the interim rate increased average residential bills $27.96 annually, the permanent increase sought would raise annual rates by $204 or 19%. MDU asserts that over time its rate of return has declined to about 5.5%, which is down from the 7.5% requested by the utility in its last electric rate case, which was filed in 2018. Commissioners Anne Bukacek, of Kalispell and James Brown, of Helena, joined Fielder in approving the increase. The danger of Russian air attacks remained high on Friday, Ukraines military said, a day after Russian missiles and drones killed at least 11 people in what appeared to be a response to promises by Western allies to supply Ukraine with tanks. Russian forces trained tank, mortar and artillery fire on more than 60 towns and villages on Thursday in an arc of territory extending from Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north through Kharkiv region in the northeast and in the focal points of Russian attempts to advance in Donetsk region in the east Bakhmut and Avdiivka. Ukraines army command said its forces had repelled Russian attacks in various places over the previous 24 hours and struck command and control points, a troop concentration, two artillery concentration areas and an ammunition depot. Reuters could not verify battlefield reports. On Thursday, air raid alarms sounded across Ukraine as Russia launched air strikes after Germany and the United States said they would send Ukraine dozens of modern tanks. More tanks will come from Canada, Poland, Britain, Finland and Norway while several more allies including France, Spain and the Netherlands were considering sending tanks too. Ukraines military said it shot down 47 of 59 Russian missiles on Thursday. Russia also launched 37 air strikes, 17 of them using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones. All drones were downed, the military said. Eleven people were killed and 11 wounded in the drone and missile strikes, which spanned 11 regions and also damaged 35 buildings, a State Emergency Service spokesperson said. Not a single room is left intact, everything got hit, said Halyna Panosyan, 67, surveying twisted sheets of corrugated metal, crumpled masonry and a big missile crater outside her ruined house in Hlevakha near Kyiv. There was an extremely loud strike that made me jump up. I was in the bedroom I was saved by the fact that the bedroom is to the other side of the house. Japan on Friday tightened sanctions against Russia in response to its latest wave of missile attacks in Ukraine. ENERGY TARGETED Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who visited Ukraine last week, said IAEA monitors reported powerful explosions near Ukraines Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station and renewed calls for a security zone around the plant. But Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, the company operating Russias nuclear plants, said the comments were unfounded and called it a provocation. Russia has in the past reacted to Ukrainian successes with massed air strikes that left millions without light, heat or water. On Thursday, it appeared to follow that pattern. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Russias attacks targeted energy plants. Repair teams are working in those sites, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an evening video address on Thursday. The Kremlin said it saw the promised delivery of Western tanks as evidence of growing direct involvement of the United States and Europe in the 11-month-old war, something both deny. Western allies have committed about 150 tanks while Ukraine has said it needs hundreds to break Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the south and east. Both Moscow and Kyiv, which have relied on Soviet-era T-72 tanks, are expected to mount new ground offensives in the spring. After being promised modern tanks, Ukraine is now seeking Western fourth-generation fighter jets such as the U.S. F-16, an adviser to Ukraines defence minister said. In Odesa, the Black Sea port designated a World Heritage in Danger site on Wednesday by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Russian missiles damaged energy facilities, authorities said, just as French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was arriving. What we saw today, new strikes on civilian Ukrainian infrastructure is not waging war, its waging war crimes, she said. The United States on Thursday formally designated Russian private military company the Wagner Group a transnational criminal organization, freezing its U.S. assets for helping Russias military in Ukraine. Since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, Russia has shifted the focus of its rhetoric from denazifying and demilitarising its neighbour to confronting what is says is an aggressive and expansionist U.S.-led NATO alliance. Russias invasion has killed thousands of civilians, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble. Oleskandr Musiyenko, head of the Military and Strategic Research Centre of Ukraine, said Russia was sending in more reinforcements to block Ukrainian advances. They are mostly sending infantry and artillery forces into battle, made up mainly of conscripts. But they do not have the level of artillery and tank support they had on Feb. 24, Musiyenko said in an interview with Ukrainian television. They have fewer resources. They are relying on the numerical superiority of their troops. SOURCE: REUTERS Irish teacher Enoch Burke has returned to a Co Westmeath school for the fourth day in a row this week, despite a court order banning him from attending. Although the High Court has said Mr Burke is to be fined 700 euro for each day he attends Wilsons Hospital School unless he purges his contempt, on Friday he was seen standing with his arms folded outside the school building. The evangelical Christian was suspended from work on full pay last year pending the outcome of a disciplinary process, after a number of incidents stemming from a row over transgender pronouns. Mr Burke voiced on several occasions his opposition to a request from the secondary schools principal to address a transgender child by their name and refer to them by the pronoun they. Subsequent events led to his suspension from his job. He was then jailed in September after failing to observe a court injunction banning him from attending the school while he was suspended from work, and was released in the days before Christmas. He has asserted that accepting transgender ideologies goes against his religious beliefs, and is contending that the fines imposed by the High Court this week will make him a pauper for holding those views. The High Court is to review the value of the fines on Friday, February 10. Mr Burke has also questioned the disciplinary process held last week that resulted in his dismissal, calling it totally shambolic. Despite being informed of his dismissal, Mr Burkes father has been dropping him off at the school and picking him up in the afternoon, while staff at the school have been seen refusing him entry to the building. On Tuesday, Mr Burke attended the school before being arrested by Gardai, who drove him away to a local Garda station. After he was released, he was seen returning to the schools grounds before leaving in the afternoon. He told reporters that he had been wrongfully arrested for trespass. On Wednesday, Mr Burke was seen standing in the rain on school grounds and writing in a notebook intermittently while outside the building. January 27, 2023 The Time is Right for Collaborative Investments in the Vietnamese Economy Vietnam may be poised to become a surprising tech startup powerhouse, says venture capitalist and SaaS startup specialist Chris Shihadeh. Vietnam is primed for success because of five cultural characteristics far from universal across Asia. Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs are enthusiastic capitalists Even though the government of Vietnam is officially Communist, a Pew Poll found that 95 percent of respondents favored capitalism as a way of organizing their economy. No other country in the poll supported capitalism exceeding 90 percent (the US support rate was 70 percent). And even though Vietnam has a history of war with the United States, the same poll found that 89 percent of Vietnamese working in the professions had a favorable impression of the United States. Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs know how to deal with adversity Whether it's due to history, necessity, or pride, many Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs have learned to embrace volatility. They are far less subject to the fear of failure that pervades business investors in other East Asian countries. Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs tend to create a suite of products that complement each other. They distribute risk across multiple products while harvesting synergies in reputation management. Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs are academically prepared Despite low GDP, Vietnamese students score near the top of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams, especially in math. Vietnamese students are supported by their families in acquiring the skills that will help them get good jobs in the future. And as LG, Microsoft (News - Alert), and Samsung have been scaling up their presence in the country, more and more young Vietnamese people are attaining English-language proficiency, Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs recognize exploitable market niches Chris Shihadeh notes that 40 percent of Vietnamese are under 25. They are well-informed about the latest technical innovations on the market and are using them to serve the local market. Fresh Deli, for instance, gives stay-at-home moms an opportunity to increase their income by selling hot lunches online. Maker Hanoi markets robotics kits to supplement STEM education for elementary schools. Vietnam's tech industry promotes an informal culture In Vietnamese, there are different pronouns for addressing an older person, a younger person, or a person of the same age. Around the office at Vietnamese tech firms, workers of all ages dispense with formalities to promote clear, warm, supportive communicationin contrast to the norms of communication in tech firms in Europe and the United States. Polished PowerPoint decks are less common than informal meetings with unscheduled networking opportunities. For all of the plusses of Vietnamese entrepreneurial culture, there are still challenges to doing business in Vietnam. The rule of law is tenuous. Tech entrepreneurs pursue multiple ideas even before marketing is in place. Tech companies whose business model is based on the sale of data have difficulty finding local customers because trust takes time to establish. Despite these real challenges, Christ Shihadeh believes the time has come to stop thinking of Vietnam as just a destination for charitable activity and an untapped source of tech talent. Cultivating long-term commitments will create fertile ground for long-term success. [January 27, 2023] Trailblazer and apparel brand founder Joanna Griffiths of Knix named Canada's EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 The program recognizes 10 national winners for their unbounded innovation, growth and prosperity TORONTO, Jan. 27, 2023 /CNW/ - Joanna Griffiths, founder and CEO of Knix a Toronto-based intimate apparel company best known for their human-centric design and cutting-edge technology is Canada's EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022. Selected by an independent panel of judges and announced last night, Griffiths is this year's national program winner for her commitment to leading with purpose, working towards greater sustainability and transforming the consumer landscape. "In a niche industry where innovative technology doesn't typically come top of mind, Griffiths has successfully created a mission-driven brand that champions product innovation and sustainability, all while celebrating body positivity and prioritizing comfort," says Paula Smith , EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Canada Program Director. "As a market disruptor and successful entrepreneur, she is paving the way for the next generation of human-centric brands by shining a light on the real day-to-day challenges faced by their customer base and responding with ground-breaking products." Knix is connecting with real and diverse people and pushing boundaries in the market through inspiring campaigns featuring matters like fertility and the postpartum experience. By driving conversations around typically stigmatized topics, the brand is successfully creating much-needed awareness and acceptance, while promoting a community-first approach to business. Knix's success recently led the company to expand into new categories with leakproof products that span underwear, swim, lounge, activewear and more. "We're so grateful at Knix to EY for this incredible honour and to Canada for not only embracing the idea of leak-proof underwear, but to welcome a brand that looked different. We could never have done it without them and our community," shares Griffiths. "We're a company that focuses on impact and one that celebrates people for who they truly were. In a world that profits from society's self-doubt, I believe that the most aspirational thing is to love yourself exactly as you are." At the virtual award ceremony hosted by Canadian journalist Amanda Lang last night, Griffiths shared the virtual spotlight with nine other entrepreneurs from across Canada who were recognized as EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2022 National Award Winners for their unstoppable achievements that demonstrate strong leadership, bold innovation and creative industry solutions. Up next, Griffiths will represent Canada on the global stage to compete against 60 other country winners for the title of EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year this summer in Monaco. The EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women North America Class of 2022 and the EY Entrepreneurs Access Network Class of 2022 were also recognized, including nine Canadian entrepreneurs in the latter. The EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women program identifies high-potential women entrepreneurs in Canada and the US and provides them with the network access, advisors and resources needed to help scale their companies and help them achieve their full potential as market-leading innovators. The EY Entrepreneurs Access Network aims to support marginalized communities such as Black, Latino and Indigenous entrepreneurs through seven tried-and-tested drivers of growth: people, technology, operations, customer, finance, transactions and risk. Both these programs coupled with EY Entrepreneur Of The Year are part of the firm's 28-year-long commitment to supporting entrepreneurship for all in Canada at every stage of the growth journey. EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women North America Class of 2022. EY Entrepreneurs Access Network Class of 2022. Scott Allen AllRock Consulting Ltd. Ralph Francois Reelcruit Patrick Hunter Patrick Hunter Art & Design Cheryl Kerr Medex Health Services Inc Jennifer Menard-Shand Staff Shop Inc. Kishawna Peck Toronto Womxn in Data Science Jean-Manasse Theagene 360Medlink Inc. Nathanael Williams Legacy Holding Group Fund. About EY Entrepreneur Of The Year EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the world's most prestigious business awards program for unstoppable entrepreneurs. These visionary leaders deliver innovation, growth and prosperity that transform our world. The program engages entrepreneurs with insights and experiences that foster growth. It connects them with their peers to strengthen entrepreneurship around the world. EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the first and only truly global awards program of its kind. It celebrates entrepreneurs through regional and national awards programs in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries. Winners go on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year title. Ey.com/eoy The 2022 independent?national judging panel for Canada included: Geoff Chutter, President and CEO, WhiteWater West Industries; Wes Hall, Executive Chairman and Founder, Kingsdale Advisors, The BlackNorth Initiative; Germain Lamonde, Founder and Executive Chairman, EXFO Inc.; Kim Mason, Senior VP and Head of Private Banking, RBC Wealth Management; Linda McCurdy, President and CEO, K-Bro Linen Systems Inc.; Kristi Miller, Managing Partner, Krystal Growth Partners; and Joseph Randell, President and CEO, Chorus Aviation Inc. This year's program national sponsors are?Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange. About EY EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets. Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate. Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today. EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy. EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit? ey.com .?Follow us on Twitter? @EYCanada . This news release has been issued by Ernst & Young LLP. SOURCE EY (Ernst & Young) A Veterans Affairs investigation following the shutdown of a VA care center in Miles City found a long history of patient mistreatment and allegations of abuse by staff. Last April, the Montana VAs Community Living Center (CLC) was ordered closed following an inspection by Veterans Affairs. It reopened to patients in September. The shutdown came after three previous inspections of CLC in 2018 and 2020, had also discovered substantial "allegations of mistreatment, according to a report released Thursday by the VA Office of Inspector General. The 47-page OIG report uses the term "mistreatment" at least 97 times. The latest incident involved an elderly veteran who was originally admitted in late 2021 for treatment of COVID pneumonia. The patient was treated at a Montana VA facility for more than a month before being transferred to CLC for nine days. Eighteen days after discharge from CLC, he was admitted to the intensive care unit of a community hospital where a CT scan of his chest revealed a mass in his lung that appeared to be stage-four metastatic cancer. Nine days later, the patient died, the VA report said. The VA said identifying the patients lung mass sooner may not have changed the outcome, but the lack of care coordination did not afford the patient, or the patients family, the opportunity to determine the most appropriate care plan. In Dec. 2021, Montana VA identified concerns about the patients safety. The VA pursued multiple processes to include inspections, investigations, and inquiries to fully evaluate the Miles City center. While no criminal violations were discovered, immediate mitigation strategies were put into place. The staff involved no longer work for the Montana VA. With the April closure, the VA worked with the veterans living at the center and their families to relocate them to other care homes. Those facilities included local nursing homes or other federally-managed homes like the care center at the VA Hospital at Fort Harrison near Helena. The OIG report substantiated that the latest patient was mistreated and made seven recommendations to resolve the issue and prevent further incidents. Inspectors determined that the problems forcing the April closure was not the first time that there were alleged issues of patient abuse at the Miles City center. In 2018, an investigation found substantiated allegations of mistreatment of a patient by CLC nursing staff, the report stated. In August of 2020 two CLC staff were witnessed exhibiting behaviors consistent with patient abuse and neglect. In November of the same year, an investigation found a CLC nurse involved in serious offenses of patient mistreatment, according to the latest report. The safety and well-being of our veterans is our highest priority, said Montana Veterans Affairs Executive Director Dr. Judy Hayman. Every veteran who walks through our doors deserves world-class care, and no patient should ever be mistreated. This type of failure is unacceptable, and we have taken steps to help ensure that never happens again. While the patient who eventually died of cancer was being treated for COVID pneumonia at CLC, he was forced by staff to participate in physical therapy against his will. According to the VA handbook, patients have the right to accept of refuse any medical treatment or procedure. Forcing the patient to comply caused serious injuries, the report states. VA police documented bruises to the patients arms and skin tears. The skin tears required first aid treatment. The nursing managers at CLC and a physician who witnessed or were made aware of the abuse did not make a report or discuss the incidents with facility leaders as required, the VA found. The failure by staff to report the incidents and document the mistreatment delayed investigation and intervention and placed patients at additional risk, the report stated. Montana VA serves over 47,000 enrolled Veterans across Montana, an area roughly 147,000 square miles in size. Veterans are cared for by a staff of 1,400 at 18 sites across the state. One third of Montana VA employees are veterans. Veterans can connect to their VA health care records, information, and message their VA care teams 24 hours a day through the MyHealtheVet patient portal (https://www.myhealth.va.gov/mhv-portalweb/how-to-use-mhv). Montana VA information, updates, and events are available on the Montana VA website (https://www.va.gov/montana-health-care) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/VAMontana). [January 26, 2023] Scenera AI Topology Manager (SATM) Orchestrates Commodity AI Across Edge-to-Cloud Platforms and Enables Dynamic Processing Across Multi-Layered Platforms PALO ALTO, Calif. and WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a growing commodity across all industries and the biggest challenge is managing its deployment and operation. Leading technology company in protecting human safety, security, and privacy while optimizing AIoT operations, Scenera, launched its AI Topology Manager (SATM), a system designed to orchestrate AI across an entire deployment network, and today announces its partnership with Blume, a Business Development as-a-Service (BDaaS) provider for emerging technology companies, to drive commercial adoption of Scenera's SATM among commercial real estate and smart building industries. The commercial real estate industry's digital transformation promises advances in building security, employee well-being and safety, space efficiency and making progress in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) across all its operations. The challenge many building owners and managers are faced with is a myriad of point solutions that are costly, overly complex and inefficient, as new infrastructure is often implemented with with no attention to the existing data sources. "Real estate owners and occupiers today are interested in leveraging occupancy data to drive savings and ensure safe and productive workplaces. Existing infrastructure is the easiest and more cost-effective method of obtaining this data" said Brian Vaughn, Senior Director of Digital Advisory at Cushman & Wakefield. U.S.-based nationwide solutions integrator specializing in consulting, design, delivery and support of enterprise technology systems that solve real world problems, Wachter, had similar sentiments. "It is important to rely on software partners that can deliver actionable business intelligence at scale and solutions like Scenera allow Wachter to deliver the outcomes our customers need to stay competitive and advance their missions while remaining simple to install and configure ultimaely reducing training costs and increasing customer value," said Matthew Tyler, Vice President of Strategic Innovation at Wachter. Scenera has built a standard data platform for existing IP cameras and IoT devices, which centralizes and optimizes data management and analysis, ultimately offering multiple use cases that deliver value to the building owner, facility manager and occupant. As a solution, existing IoT infrastructure is integrated into an intuitive, user-friendly platform and used to identify security threats, safety hazards, occupancy patterns and more. Scenera has launched its commercial service globally with customers in KoreaLGE group via S&I Corp.and Welsoc in Japan, serving Japanese local government facilities. "Scenera provides a simple, easy-to-use, platform that addresses key challenges faced by today's real estate and facilities executives," said Andy Boliek, Founder & CEO of Blume. "We are seeing significant early market traction due to strong product market fit." Scenera is now deployed globally and has forged deep partnerships with leading system integrators and its strategic partnership with Blume will accelerate both its direct and channel Go-To-Market (GTM) efforts with a focus on North American markets. "We are thrilled to be collaborating with Blume, who offers broad and insightful relationships within the PropTech industry." said David Lee, Co-Founder & CEO of Scenera. "Together, we're offering the Scenera AI Topology Management (SATM) service to our customers' existing smart building solutions, optimizing how best AI and cloud computing can be best orchestrated." To read more about the recent project Scenera completed with S&I Corporation for Microsoft, please click here: https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/1561311262359584179-s-i-corporation-professional-services-en-japan About Scenera Scenera is forging a new standard data platform for the AIoT industry by combining an open and flexible architecture with an intelligent platform. The result is an efficient way to manage and analyze the data generated by connected devices. The visionary founders see the paradigm shift from simple streaming data to rich scene information that enables new and powerful analytical capabilities. Standard compliant devices generate abundant scene-based information for surveillance and monitoring applications for business and consumer users. Scenera's goal is to align key industry players with the same vision to create an interoperable ecosystem that will bring a new generation of the smart edge devices. For more information, please visit www.scenera.net. About Blume Blume provides Business Development as-a-Service (BDaaS) to established companies and emerging startups. With deep experience in PropTech, FinTech and HealthTech ecosystems, Blume offers a cost-competitive solution for companies looking to build and execute an effective GTM strategy. Media Contact Lydia You Scenera, Inc. [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/scenera-ai-topology-manager-satm-orchestrates-commodity-ai-across-edge-to-cloud-platforms-and-enables-dynamic-processing-across-multi-layered-platforms-301731656.html SOURCE Scenera [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 26, 2023] Convergence Collaborative on Digital Discourse for a Thriving Democracy and Resilient Communities Challenges Diverse Leaders to Tackle their Political, Ideological, and Sectoral Divides Discovery Report Highlights Tensions Between Participants Working to Stem Digital Disinformation and Those Seeking to Prevent "Cancelling" Online Voices WASHINGTON, Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Convergence Center for Policy Resolution (Convergence), the leader in building collaborations across political, ideological, sectoral, and cultural divides to solve intractable issues, today released the Discovery Report for its newest project, the Convergence Collaborative on Digital Discourse for a Thriving Democracy and Resilient Communities . The report lays out the primary conflicting perspectives around the causes and potential solutions to the insidious online trends that are driving increasingly toxic levels of divisiveness, partisanship, hate, and unreliable information. In today's digital culture, most Americans get information from online sources. However, about 71% of Americans say the internet does more to divide us than bring us together, and 72% believe that disinformation is a threat to democracy. Further, institutional and social trust has sunk to a historic low; no institution is perceived as honest by more than 25% of Americans, and less than 40% of Americans feel most people can be trusted. "This challenge has languished too long as a result of competing perspectives and interests not coming together," said David Eisner, CEO of Convergence. "We can't let our digital ecosystem, which holds the potential to increase understanding and strengthen relationships across divides, to instead fatally exacerbate the damage caused by small numbers of 'conflict entrepreneurs' who seek to divide, demonize, and build political and cultural wedges for their own purposes." As a neutral convenor, Convergence directs an inclusive process, informed by social science and more than a decade of practice, to drive solutions for intractable issues. Based on the Discovery Report analysis, Convergence Collaboratives engage groups of leaders and experts first to find common ground and build trust, and then to develop actionable, consensus solutions, and move forward in unlikely alliances to achieve constructive change on intractable issues. The Discovery Report on Digital Discourse builds on more than six months of engagement with differing experts and leaders, and synthesizes a literature review, an analysis of more than 580 enacted and proposed legislative solutions, outputs from three expert workshops, and more than 200 stakeholder interviews, among others. The report documents a particularly challenging conflict between leaders who most fear the harms associated with online "mis- and dis-information" and others who see greater danger in giving people or groups the power to diminish free speech by removing voices and perspectives from digital discourse. Other conflicts addressed stem from differing perspectives about the level of accountability digital platform companies should assume for user content on their sites and for their distribution algorithms. Monika Glowacki, Director of the Convergence Collaborative, said, "Our participants represent some of the most diverse perspectives to come together to mitigate the harms of digital media while also reimagining how technology can better serve our society and wellbeing. We hold high hopes that this Collaborative will help our stakeholders build trust and construct actionable consensus solutions that can both address the issues and generate widespread support among and across diverse policymakers, technology leaders, local communities, and everyday citizens." Convergence gratefully acknowledges support for this project from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes informed and engaged communities and believes that providing people with information is essential so that they and their communities can make the best choices. This work was also made possible through the support of New Pluralists , a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and a collaborative of diverse funders and field leaders (practitioners, storytellers, researchers, and innovators) working together to catalyze a culture of pluralism, belonging and respect in America. As an extension of the Collaborative, Convergence will host a virtual event, as part of its "Convergence Live: Debate Without Hate" series, on Digital Information and Toxic Polarization on Friday, January 27, 2023, at 12:00 pm ET. Hosted by Convergence President and CEO David Eisner, this lively event will feature a discussion with notable experts Ari Cohn , Tech Freedom, and Heidi Legg , Harvard University IQSS, about misinformation and conflict online. Convergence Live is a series of far-ranging discussions with leaders in their fields about finding lasting solutions to problems in American public life with civility and humanity. Additional information about this free event and a link to register can be found here . About Convergence Center for Policy Resolution Convergence is the leading organization bridging divides to solve critical issues through collaborative problem-solving across ideological, political, and cultural lines. For more than a decade, Convergence has brought together leaders, doers, and expertsmany who never thought they could talk to one anotherto build trusting relationships, identify breakthrough solutions, and form unlikely alliances for constructive change on seemingly intractable issues. Our process is improving the lives of Americans and strengthening democracy for a more resilient and cooperative future. To learn more, visit convergencepolicy.org . About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation We are social investors who support democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy, and in the success of American cities and towns where the Knight brothers once had newspapers. Learn more at kf.org and follow @knightfdn on social media. About the New Pluralists Collaborative A sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, New Pluralists is a collaborative of diverse funders and field leaders (practitioners, storytellers, researchers, and innovators) working together to catalyze a culture of pluralism, belonging and respect in America. CONTACT: Jane DelGiorno [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/convergence-collaborative-on-digital-discourse-for-a-thriving-democracy-and-resilient-communities-challenges-diverse-leaders-to-tackle-their-political-ideological-and-sectoral-divides-301732066.html SOURCE Convergence Center for Policy Resolution [January 26, 2023] The NEW Shop ropes in Rajkummar Rao as brand ambassador: unveils expansion plans for 10000+ convenience stores by 2030 NEW DELHI, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The NEW Shop , India's largest convenience retail company has appointed Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao as the brand ambassador. In a series of campaigns to expand its footprints across the country, the actor will be featured in a variety of digital and print platforms such as social media, OTT, OOH, and IVR messaging to connect with prospective consumers through physical The New Shop stores and in-app services. Within two years of its inception, The NEW Shop has expanded to over 100 stores with 70+ franchised stores in the last 18 months, while surpassing the ARR mark of INR 100 crores in the past year. Navigating the unexplored convenience retail sector in India, the company's omnichannel presence and hyperlocal services offer a "next-gen everyday shopping" experience to a wide variety of demographic. With its plans to expand and open new stores in the near future, the company wants to go beyond conventional strategies of consumer engagement through collaboration with Rajkummar Rao. Sharing her excitement on the recent development, Aastha Almast , Co-Founder and Head of Business, at The NEW Shop, said, "We are proud to have come a long way since our inception. We are growing rapidly across India through franchise partnerships, but we intend to create 10,000 successful independent stores by 2030. We have so far seen a phenomenal response to our franchise model; thus we want to spread the word even more about this idea. We believe that now is the right time to bring on board a brand ambassador and strengthen our brand-building initiatives." While carving a niche as an actor in Bollywood can be quite daunting, Rajkummar Rao has proven to the world over time and time again that talent is not only a product of merit but a combination of perseverance and diligence. What sets him apart is the unconventionality with which he has navigated through the industry by setting his own rules and striking a chord with the audience. His risks have been nothing less than entrepreneurial, which resonates with the company's organic growth and breaking systemic barriers by providing round-the-clock quality services to consumers. In continuation on the same, Aastha further added, "It is quite admirable how Rajkummar Rao has overcome all obstacles to become a renowned Bollywood star. Despite coming from a humble background, he has made his mark through honesty, hard work, dedication, and persistent efforts. And for this reason, audiences connect with him immensely. We are honored to be associated with a celebrity that personifies the entrepreneurial spirit of taking risks and overcoming obstacles with courage and determination. Due to his business savvy and hard-working demeanor, he is the ideal brand ambassador for our brand and franchise partners. We thank Rajkummar Rao for believing in us and being a part of our growth journey." India is the third-largest consumer market in the world with its largest ever adlescent and youth population. A uniform, state-of-the-art convenience retail service that is available everywhere in the country at reasonable prices and catering to millions of Indian customers with regard to time and location is an exciting space for creating business opportunities. The franchise model aims to offer around 70 million traditional shopkeepers, aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses to enable them to build a successful business in convenience retail driven by technology and consumer needs. Expressing his happiness, Rajkummar Rao said, "I am thrilled to be partnering with The NEW Shop, a youthful and energetic brand exhibiting rapid growth. I identify with the co-founders' determination to create a brand, ensuring its sustainability, and profitability; and I believe this comes from their prior entrepreneurial experiences. By encouraging our nation's workforce to become future entrepreneurs, the brand is on a mission to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Simultaneously, it strives to provide consumers with standardized round-the-clock convenience in the truest sense and makes consistent progress toward reaching the zenith. I am excited to be a part of the brand's journey and look forward to contributing to its success in all ways possible." The NEW Shop offers a wide range of quick-consumption goods, including groceries, OTC, FMCG, and fresh food and beverages. It also offers add-on services such as printing, ATMs, courier, EV charging stations, freshly prepared food, etc. With its aim to provide services in busy transit hubs, office buildings, schools, and densely populated neighborhoods; the company serves clients across all touchpoints, including physical retail, e-commerce (via its website and app), as well as through marketplaces like Zomato, Swiggy, and Dunzo, owing to its tech-enabled hybrid omnichannel strategy. Customers can use the app to order delivery to their doorstep, visit the nearest store, or even opt for in-store pickup. With a new feather added to the hat, the company's focus in 2023 is to establish a strong pan-India presence and grow 10x capturing more territorial presence in 20+ cities. About The New Shop The New Shop is India's largest omnichannel convenience retail platform with instant hyperlocal deliveries solving for quick, standardized, and 24x7 access in India. It offers franchise-as-a-service to upgrade 70 million aspiring entrepreneurs, traditional shopkeepers and small businesses (eg, local sweetshops, QSRs, dhabas, milk shops, printers and photocopiers, grocery shops, and courier shops) to help them build a successful retail business in convenience retail fueled by the modern consumer's need. The New Shop provides location selection, Information Technology, and marketing services, licensing and compliance, brand partnerships, training, financing, branding, and omnichannel support to all its franchise partners. The company sets up stores in high-density neighborhoods, mass transit hubs, and educational institutions that offer and deliver fresh food cafe services, supermarket, and grocery services, stationery, over-the-counter medicines, neighborhood services like printing, ATM, courier, and other necessities all under one roof. The New Shop is the brainchild of Aastha Almast (Co-founder and Head of Business), Charak Almast (Co-founder and Head of Operations), and Mani Dev Gyawali (Co-founder and Head of Technology). All the stores have a sleek and contemporary design and are equipped with state-of-the-art technology that makes shopping a seamless and enjoyable, convenient experience. So far, The New Shop has 100+ operating outlets in India, spreading across 10 metro and tier 2 & 3 cities such as Delhi & NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Meerut, Rohtak, and Agra. Find The New Shop on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenewshopofficial Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thenewshopofficial Linkedin: https://in.linkedin.com/company/thenewshopofficial Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_new_shop For media enquiries contact: Bhuvana K +91-9869788246 [email protected] Dolly Prajesh +91-8130887592 [email protected] Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbAi6M_B1YQ Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1990707/The_New_Shop.jpg View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/the-new-shop-ropes-in-rajkummar-rao-as-brand-ambassador-unveils-expansion-plans-for-10000-convenience-stores-by-2030-301731839.html [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] $3.62 Billion Worldwide Local Anesthesia Drugs Industry to 2027 - Featuring Pacira Biosciences, Pfizer, Pierrel and Septodont Among Others - ResearchAndMarkets.com The "Local Anesthesia Drugs Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2022-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The global local anesthesia drugs market size reached US$ 2.77 Billion in 2021. Looking forward, the publisher expects the market to reach US$ 3.62 Billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 4.56% during 2021-2027. Companies Mentioned Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Limited B. Braun Melsungen AG Baxter International Inc. Endo International plc Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA Hikma Pharmaceuticals plc Pacira Biosciences Inc. Pfizer Inc. Pierrel S.p.A. Septodont. Keeping in mind the uncertainties of COVID-19, we are continuously tracking and evaluating the direct as well as the indirect influence of the pandemic. These insights are included in the report as a major market contributor. Local anesthesia drugs are chemical compounds producing anesthesia by inhibiting the excitation of nerve endings or blocking conduction in peripheral nerves. They are generally available as topical creams or administered via injections or sprays during minor surgeries, biopsies, dental care, labor and delivery, and obstetrical procedures. They help treat painful conditions, such as mouth ulcers and sore throat, and relieve itching caused by cuts, minor burns, sunburns, scratches, insect bites, and poison ivy. They also assist in rapid and effective pain relief during gastritis, esophagitis, hiatus hernia, and heartburn of peptic ulcer. The rising prevalence of cardiovascular, respiratory, and other chronic diseases that need several procedures, such as cochlear implantation, laparscopic colectomy, laparoscopic hysterectomy, secondary hip replacement, and knee replacement, represents one of the key factors bolstering the market growth. Furthermore, the growing geriatric population undergoing surgical interventions that require post-operative pain relief is catalyzing the demand for local anesthesia drugs across the globe. Moreover, the increasing number of dental surgeries, in confluence with the introduction of novel and effective medicines like articaine, levobupivacaine and ropivacaine, is propelling the market growth. Apart from this, due to the increasing consciousness about physical appearance among individuals, there is a rise in the demand for minimally invasive (MI) cosmetic surgical procedures, such as botulinum toxin and facial filler injections, which is contributing to the market growth. In addition to this, expanding medical tourism activities, along with developments in the healthcare infrastructure, are creating a positive market outlook. Besides this, technological advancements, including computer-based local anesthetic delivery and vibrotactile devices, are anticipated to provide a positive thrust to the market. Key Market Segmentation: The publisher provides an analysis of the key trends in each sub-segment of the global local anesthesia drugs market, along with forecasts at the global, regional and country level from 2022-2027. Our report has categorized the market based on drug type, mode of administration and distribution channel. Breakup by Drug Type: Lidocaine Bupivacaine Benzocaine Ropivacaine Prilocaine Chloroprocaine Others Breakup by Mode of Administration: Injectables Surface Anesthetic Breakup by Distribution Channel: Hospital Pharmacy Pharmacy Stores Others Breakup by Region: North America United States Canada Asia-Pacific China Japan India South Korea Australia Indonesia Others Europe Germany France United Kingdom Italy Spain Russia Others Latin America Brazil Mexico Others Middle East and Africa Key Questions Answered in This Report: How has the global local anesthesia drugs market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years? What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global local anesthesia drugs market? What are the key regional markets? What is the breakup of the market based on the drug type? What is the breakup of the market based on the mode of administration? What is the breakup of the market based on the distribution channel? What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry? What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry? What is the structure of the global local anesthesia drugs market and who are the key players? What is the degree of competition in the industry? For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/7ahirl-anesthesia?w=4 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005185/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] Permira to Acquire Acuity Knowledge Partners From Equistone Acuity Knowledge Partners ("Acuity"), a leading provider of high-value research, analytics and business intelligence to the financial services sector, today announces that funds advised by Permira, the global private equity firm, have acquired a majority stake in the business from Equistone Partners Europe ("Equistone"), one of Europe's leading mid-market private equity investors. Equistone will reinvest in Acuity as a minority shareholder. Acuity's management team also remains significantly invested in and committed to the business. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Acuity Knowledge Partners serves a global client base of over 500 financial services firms, including banks, asset managers, advisory firms, private equity houses and consultants. Its diverse team of analysts, industry experts, developers and data scientists work as an extension of clients' teams and, combined with its proprietary technology solutions, allow clients to transform their practices and processes, increase revenues and maximise operational efficiency. Headquartered in London, Acuity operates globally, including in the UK, USA, India, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica, China and Dubai, UAE. Acuity has recorded strong organic growth since it was established as an independent business in 2019 through a management buyout from Moody's Corporation supported by Equistone. Last year the business completed the acquisition of Cians Analytics, a provider of research and analytical support for financial institutions, expanding its client base and service offering. Under the Permira funds' ownership, and with Equistone's continued support, Acuity will invest further in its teams, services and technology, positioning the business to best support its clients worldwide. Robert King, CEO of Acuity Knowledge Partners, said: "Despite the current challenges for the financial services sector, we have experienced continued growth and a strong demand for our solutions and services. Supported by Permira and Equistone, who both have significant experience of investing in and growing first-class businesses in our sector, we are now driving numerous strategies for developing our offerings. Among other things, we want to deepen our relationships with our valued clients and forge new partnerships across our growing global client base. Given the significant demand within the financial services sector for value-added research and analytics, and the need for operational efficiency, with Permira's deep experience in tech-enabled services and its global network, I am confident the business will continue to flourish." Daniel Tan, Head of Asia, and Chris Pell, Principal at Permira, commented: "Rob and his team have done a phenomenal job building Acuity to what it is today. The Company stands out because of its domain expertise, scale, long track record serving blue-chip financial institutions and innovative technology solutions. In the context of rising cost pressures facing the financial services industry, the value proposition of Acuity's tech-enabled, global delivery specialists is extremely clear. We see great potential for Acuity to further extend its ladership in existing segments as well as branch into new adjacencies and geographies - growth areas we are very experienced in facilitating via our deep sector knowledge, across both services and technology, and global network." Tim Swales, Partner, and Richard Briault, Investment Director at Equistone, commented: "Acuity has performed exceptionally well in its three years of operating as an independent business, growing both its client base and its team of industry specialists substantially. This is testament to the high-quality customer experience and extensive service offering it provides to financial institutions, at a time when structural and technological changes within the industry are fuelling demand for greater and more efficient research and analysis. We are looking forward to continuing our partnership with Rob and his team in this next phase of Acuity's growth journey." The deal, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2023. Equistone was advised on the transaction by Rothschild & Co and DC Advisory, and Latham & Watkins acted as legal counsel. Robert W. Baird Limited served as financial advisers to Permira, and Clifford Chance is acting as legal counsel. Management was advised by Travers Smith and Jamieson. Notes to editors: About Acuity Knowledge Partners Acuity Knowledge Partners is a leading research, analytics, and business intelligence consultant to the financial services sector. The company's network of analysts and industry experts, combined with advanced data and technology, supports over 500 financial institutions and consulting companies worldwide to operate more efficiently, and unlock their human capital, driving revenues higher and transforming operations. It specialises in investment banking, investment research, private equity & consulting and commercial lending. Acuity is headquartered in London and operates from nine locations worldwide. In 2019, the company was established as a separate business from Moody's Corporation through its acquisition from Equistone Partners. www.acuitykp.com About Permira Permira is a global investment firm that backs successful businesses with growth ambitions. Founded in 1985, the firm advises funds with total assets under management of 75bn+ and makes long-term majority and minority investments across two core asset classes, private equity and credit. The Permira private equity funds have made approximately 300 private equity investments in four key sectors: Technology, Consumer, Healthcare and Services. Permira is one of the world's most active investors in the Services sector, having deployed over $11.5 billion to partner with more than 40 companies globally. Current and previous investments from the Permira funds in the sector include: AlterDomus, Axiom, Cielo, Clearwater Analytics, DiversiTech, Engel & Volkers, Evelyn Partners, Kroll, Motus, Relativity, Reorg and Tricor. Permira employs over 450 people in 15 offices across Europe, the United States and Asia. In October 2022, Permira announced the appointment of Siddharth Narayan as Head of India. For more information, visit www.permira.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter. About Equistone Partners Europe Equistone is an independent investment firm wholly owned and managed by its executives. The company is one of Europe's leading investors in mid-market buyouts with a strong, consistent track record spanning over 40 years, with more than 400 transactions completed in this period. Equistone has a strong focus on change of ownership deals and aims to invest between 25m and 200m+ of equity in various businesses. The company has a team of over 40 investment professionals operating across France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, investing as a strategic partner alongside management teams. Equistone is currently investing its sixth buyout fund, which held a final closing at its 2.8bn hard cap in March 2018, and has recently launched the Equistone Reinvestment Fund, with a mandate to make minority re-investments alongside new sponsors following a portfolio company exit from one of its main buyout funds. Equistone is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Further information can be found at www.equistonepe.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005109/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] This Week in Energy News: 11 Stories You Need to See A roundup of the week's most newsworthy energy industry press releases from PR Newswire, including updates in nuclear energy, green hydrogen projects, and more. NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists covering the energy and natural resources industry stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a roundup of stories from the week that shouldn't be missed. The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download. Read more of the latest energy-related releases from PR Newswire and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @PRNenergy on Twitter. Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists. Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers and freelancers have access to the following free features: Customization: Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Create a customized newsfeed that will deliver relevant news right to your inbox. Customize the newsfeed by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include with your next story. Subject Matter Experts: Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Access ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in your articles. Related Resources: Read and subscribe to our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, for media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more. About PR Newswire and PR Newswire for Journalists For more than 65 years, PR Newswire has been the industry leader with the largest, most comprehensive distribution network of print, radio, magazine, television stations, financial portals and trade publications. PR Newswire has an unparalleled global reach of more than 200,000 publications and 10,000 websites and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. PR Newswire for Journalists (PRNJ) is an exclusive community that includes over 20,000 journalists, bloggers and influencers who are logging into their PRNJ accounts specifically looking for story ideas. PR Newswire thoroughly researches and vets this community to verify their identity as a member of the press, blogger or influencer. PRNJ users cover more than 200 beats and verticals. For questions, contact the team at [email protected]. View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/this-week-in-energy-news-11-stories-you-need-to-see-301731897.html SOURCE PR Newswire [January 27, 2023] Kfir Granit Joins ScoutCam as Senior General Counsel, Contracts and Sales Mr. Granit will head ScoutCams legal and contractual functions, take a leading role in contract negotiations, and provide support to sales and marketing pipelines Omer, Israel, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ScoutCam (OTCQB: SCTC), a leading provider of Predictive Maintenance (PdM) and Condition Based Monitoring (CBM) solutions, today announced the appointment of Kfir Granit as senior general counsel, contracts and sales. In this role, Mr. Granit will head ScoutCams legal and contractual functions, facilitate partnerships, take a leading role in contract negotiations, identify risks in various business opportunities and mitigate them and provide consistent support to the sales and marketing pipelines. ScoutCams advanced product portfolio includes video sensor-based solutions for critical systems in the aviation, transportation, energy and healthcare industries. Mr. Granit joins ScoutCam from Plarium Global Ltd., where he facilitated partnerships in the online gaming industry. Before that Mr. Granit served for more than 12 years as a senior legal counsel at Elbit Systems Ltd., where his track record included negotiating contracts to achieve high dollar growth in the aerospace division, identifying and mitigating risks in various business opportunities and supporting sales and marketing pipelines, including a major role in billion-dollar Public Private Partnership / Private Finance Initiative projects. "I am excited to join ScoutCam and become part of its inspiring culture of innovation, learning and mission to become a leading provider of video analytics based predictive maintenance solutions for the aerospace and critical systems markets," said Mr. Granit. "ScoutCam is a global leader in advanced prediction solutions, and I am honored to partner with the talented members of the management team to help expand the Company's mission and clear vision." Yehu Ofer, ScoutCam's CEO, said: "We are excited to have Mr. Granit join ScoutCam. He brings extensive experience in both public and private sectors in a variety of complex industries. His profound expertise and solid leadership will help guide ScoutCam as we drive toward our ambition to become the global leader in Predictive Maintenance and Condition Based Monitoring solutions technology." About ScoutCam ScoutCam is pioneering the Predictive Maintenance (PdM) and Cndition Based Monitoring (CBM) markets with its visualization and AI platform. Providing video sensor-based solutions for critical systems in the aviation, transportation, and energy industries, ScoutCam leverages proven visual technologies and products from the medical industry. ScoutCams unique video-based sensors, embedded software, and AI algorithms are being deployed in hard-to-reach locations and harsh environments across a variety of PdM and CBM use cases. ScoutCams platform allows maintenance and operations teams visibility into areas which are inaccessible under normal operation, or where the operating ambience is not suitable for continuous real-time monitoring. Forward-Looking Statements Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 relating to future events or our future performance. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, expectations about the appointment of Kfir Granit as senior general counsel. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as may, should, expects, plans, anticipates, believes, estimates, predicts, potential or continue or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Those statements are based on information we have when those statements are made or our managements current expectation and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Factors that may affect our results, performance, circumstances or achievements include, but are not limited to the following: (i) market acceptance of our existing and new products, including those that utilize our micro ScoutCam technology or offer Predictive Maintenance and Condition Based Monitoring applications, (ii) lengthy product delays in key markets, (iii) an inability to secure regulatory approvals for the sale of our products, (iv) intense competition in the medical device and related industries from much larger, multinational companies, (v) product liability claims, product malfunctions and the functionality of ScoutCams solutions under all environmental conditions, (vi) our limited manufacturing capabilities and reliance on third-parties for assistance, (vii) an inability to establish sales, marketing and distribution capabilities to commercialize our products, (viii) an inability to attract and retain qualified personnel, (ix) our efforts obtain and maintain intellectual property protection covering our products, which may not be successful, (x) our reliance on single suppliers for certain product components, including for miniature video sensors which are suitable for our Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor technology products, (xi) the fact that we will need to raise additional capital to meet our business requirements in the future and that such capital raising may be costly, dilutive or difficult to obtain, (xii) the impact of pandemics, such as COVID-19 (coronavirus) and (xiv) the fact that we conduct business in multiple foreign jurisdictions, exposing us to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, logistical, global supply chain and communications challenges, burdens and costs of compliance with foreign laws and political and economic instability in each jurisdiction. These and other important factors discussed in ScoutCams Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 30, 2022 and our other reports filed with the SEC could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, ScoutCam undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information. Company Contact: Tanya Yosef, CFO [email protected] Tel: +972 (73) 370 469 Investor Relations Contact: Miri Segal MS-IR LLC [email protected] Tel: +1-917-607-8654 [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] Renesas Receives "AA" MSCI ESG Rating for the First Time Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723), a premier supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced that the company received a "AA" ESG rating for the first time from Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) (Note). AA is the second highest rating given by MSCI ESG Research, a global provider of in-depth research, ratings and analysis of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) related business practices. MSCI ESG Research assesses and rates global public and a few private companies on a scale of AAA (leader) to CCC (laggard), according to exposure to industry-specific ESG risks and the ability to manage those risks relative to peers. Since the official launch of Sustainability Promotion Office in 2020, Renesas has made significant progress on the MSCI ESG Rating with its score improving from B (2020) to BBB (2021) to AA (2022). "Achieving these results in three consecutive years is a testament of our global commitment to a responsible and proactive ESG practice. We are honored to have received such a positive evaluation from MSCI this year, and will continue to strive for excellence in all areas of our operations by implementing best practices," said Fujiko Yamaguchi, Vice President, Sustainability Promotion Office and Investor Relations. The MSCI ESG Ratings are also used in the construction of the MSCI ESG Indexes, produced by MSCI, Inc. Renesas has been selected as a constituent of the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index in 2021, which is adopted by the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the largest pension fund in Japan. Please click here to learn more about Renesas' sustainability initiatives. (Note) MSCI Inc. is an American financal services provider based in New York, U.S. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and provides a variety of tools and services to support institutional investors around the world, including large public pension funds, asset management companies, stock index calculation, etc. Visit here for more details of MSCI Inc. About Renesas Electronics Corporation Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) empowers a safer, smarter and more sustainable future where technology helps make our lives easier. A leading global provider of microcontrollers, Renesas combines our expertise in embedded processing, analog, power and connectivity to deliver complete semiconductor solutions. These Winning Combinations accelerate time to market for automotive, industrial, infrastructure and IoT applications, enabling billions of connected, intelligent devices that enhance the way people work and live. Learn more at renesas.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005099/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Armanino Announces Record New Partner Class for 2023 Armanino LLP, one of the 20 largest accounting and business consulting firms in the U.S., today announced it welcomed 26 new partners in its 2023 class. The largest new partner class in firm history includes leaders who provide tax, consulting, trust and business management services. Fully half of the new class are women, with many completing the firm's Executive Access Program, which pairs high-potential female managers with firm executives to provide them the opportunity to build relationships with key leaders and help drive career advancement. "Our new partners have diverse career backgrounds and experiences that make Armanino greater and better prepared to empower our clients with the best and most innovative solutions that help them achieve their goals," said Matt Armanino, CEO and managing partner of Armanino LLP. "We are proud of what they've already accomplished here at the firm and look forward to the possibilities they can bring to life with their talent and leadership." Armanino is committed to cultivating the next generation of its leaders through a wide range of programs and initiatives that address unique needs at various employee levels. Staff learn how to advance their careers and set up a plan for growth, and leaders learn how to support their teams while incorporating the firm's strategy into what they do. Programs include the Pathway to Partner Program, Accelerated Path to Manager initiative, Industry Edge Certification Program and access to Becker and LinkedIn Learning. The firm's numerous internal initiatives such the Staff Advisory Board, Management Advisory Board, The Bridge (Armanino's women's initiative) and IDEAL (Inclusion of Diverse Employees and Leaders) Team also foster personal development and leadership skills and help employees build relationships with colleagues and leaders across the firm. Armanino's 2022 New Partner Class Ryan Barragar, Tax, Irvine Jillian Bergman, Audit, Austin Summer Breen, Audit, Dallas Mike Butler, Consulting, Bellevue, Washington Shandy Dunn, Consulting, San Ramon Kyle Elam, Consulting, Dallas David Fromowitz, Business Management, New York Grant Goerzen, Audit, Denver Kevin Guy, Risk Assurance Advisory, Dallas Stephanie Hardt, Audit, St. Louis Allison Jasper, Tax, St. Louis Amy Julian, Consulting, St. Louis Roberto Marin, Tax, San Ramon Ian Martini, Audit, Irvine Megan McDonald, Tax, St. Louis Patrick McGuire, Tax, St. Louis Kristina Meyer, Tax, Los Angeles Jason Morris, Tax, Los Angeles Shannon Oswald, Consulting, El Segundo Parnia Pandkhou, Consulting, Los Angeles Gail Peisach, Business Management, Dallas Todd Reich, Tax, St. Louis Eugene Sung, Tax, San Ramon Brandee Tilman, Tax, Los Angeles Joanne Yeung, Tax, Philadelphia Chad Zoretic, Consulting, Dallas About Armanino LLP Armanino LLP (www.armanino.com) is one of the 20 largest independent accounting and business consulting firms in the nation. A certified B Corporation, Armanino provides an integrated set of audit, tax, business management, consulting and technology solutions to companies in the U.S. and globally. The firm helps clients adapt and change in every stage of business, from startup through rapid growth to the sale of a company. Armanino emphasizes smart technology, leading a cloud revolution of financial, operational, sales and compliance tools that are transforming the way companies do business. Armanino is an independent member firm of Moore North America Inc. (MNA), which is itself a regional member of Moore Global Network Limited (MGNL), one of the world's major accounting and consulting membership organizations. All the firms associated with MNA and MGNL are independent entities, owned and managed in each location. Their membership in, or association with, MNA or MGNL should not be construed as constituting or implying any partnership between them. In addition to its core consulting and accounting practices, Armanino operates its division, AMF Media Group (www.amfmediagroup.com), a media and communications services agency. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005059/en/ [January 27, 2023] Texas Leadership Public Schools Integrates PowerSchool Unified Operations eFinancePlus to Optimize Finance and Human Resources Operations PowerSchool (NYSE: PWSC) today announced Texas Leadership Public Schools (TLPS) has added PowerSchool Unified Operations eFinancePlus to simplify its K-12 finance and human resources functions. Paired with TLPS' use of Unified Operations PowerSchool Student Information System (SIS), PowerSchool SIS PowerPack, and PowerSchool Unified Operations Enrollment, eFinancePlus will provide the charter school network with an integrated finance and HR interface to manage K-12 administrative responsibilities once fully implemented. "Whether it's been helping us reduce time spent on administrative tasks, facilitating student enrollment, or improving parent-teacher communication, PowerSchool has been a major help to our staff," said Joel Smith, District Technology Director, Texas Leadership Public Schools. "Beyond the products themselves, PowerSchool's implementation team has been a great support system for our district. Each person we've had the pleasure to work with has been professional, knowledgeable, and helpful, and is another reason why I'm proud to call PowerSchool our education technology provider." TLPS said the PowerSchool SIS, SIS PowerPack, and Enrollment solutions' interoperability with one another was the largest benefit to their school system. Specifically, PowerSchool SIS has helped improve parent-student-teacher communications, staff collaboration, and reporting efforts. Similarly, SIS PowerPack and its digital document delivery and digital signature capabilities have helped TLPS manage distribution and signature collection for student report cards and parent-teacher communications. Through PowerSchool Enrollment, TLPS has also modernized its enrollment process to now provide families the ability to manage student enrollment from anywhere - including mobile devices. Once eFinancePlus is fully integrated, TLPS will have comprehensive K-12 finance and HR capabilities generating more insightful analytics to inform data-driven financial and administrative decisions. Specifically, eFinancePlus will soon enable the school network to more effectively manage budgets, process complex payments, and facilitate HR decisions through a single, unified interface. Texas Leadership Public Schools (TLPS) is a network of free public charter schools located in San Angelo, Abilene, Midland, Arlington, and Cedar Hill. Founded in 2009, TLPS now serves over 3,500 K-12 students across five campuses. For more information about eFinancePlus, visit https://www.powerschool.com/operations/payroll-finance-systems/efinanceplus/. About PowerSchool PowerSchool (NYSE: PWSC) is the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America. Its mission is to power the education ecosystem with unified technology that helps educators and students realize their full potential, in their way. PowerSchool connects students, teachers, administrators, and parents, with the shared goal of improving student outcomes. From the office to the classroom to the home, it helps schools and districts efficiently manage state reporting and related compliance, special education, finance, human resources, talent, registration, attendance, funding, learning, instruction, grading, assessments and analytics in one unified platform. PowerSchool supports over 45 million students globally and more than 15,000 customers, including more than 90 of the top 100 districts by student enrollment in the United States, and sells solutions in more than 90 countries. Visit www.powerschool.com to learn more. PowerSchool. PowerSchool and other PowerSchool marks are trademarks of PowerSchool Holdings, Inc. or its subsidiaries. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. PWSC-C View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230124005838/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The Governors Housing Task Force was charged with an enormous job: identify solutions to build more homes and ease Montanas housing crisis. Every Montanan deserves affordable, attainable housing. Legislation that considers the task forces report can help us get there. But if we want new housing to be safe, healthy and durable, we must also ask how can we build new housing today that is ready for the floods, wildfires and heat waves of tomorrow? When a disaster destroys homes, the costs to a community can be staggering as were seeing following last springs Yellowstone floods. Lost lives, shattered livelihoods and newly homeless families seeking shelter can push local services to their limit. Lost housing stock pushes rents up and affordability declines. The most vulnerable among us the young, the old and people with medical conditions or disabilities often face the gravest consequences. Oregon, Colorado and California are already seeing climate risks compound their housing crisis in rural and urban areas. If we don't start building homes that can survive wildfires, floods and extreme temperatures, we're only exacerbating our current housing crunch. These types of disasters are becoming more common and destructive in Montana and will eat into our housing supply and options for homebuyers. Insurance companies are already seeing some Montana communities as too risky, raising rates, or refusing coverage altogether. Without insurance, mortgages would be unfunded, leaving only wealthy cash buyers for homes. In other states, insurance crises are worsening the housing affordability crises, and bailouts are costing taxpayers billions. With rising wildfire and flood risks, Montana is on a similar path if we dont act soon. Fortunately, several cost-effective solutions can make homes safer from disasters. They should be integrated into legislation and other policy that comes out of the housing task forces recommendations. First, the state should help guide where new housing should (and shouldn't) be developed. New housing should be encouraged in areas with the lowest risks of floods and wildfire. In many cases the tools to guide effective zoning, subdivision and development standards are readily available. The state has recently updated wildfire risk maps for all of Montana. And in the case of flooding, a coordinated effort can easily ensure that communities have access to modern risk maps with the latest climate data. Second, the state should help guide how new housing is constructed to ensure homes are built to resist disasters. Model building codes and standards can be adopted to ensure new construction is flood- and wildfire-resistant. For example, in areas with wildfire risk which is nearly all of Montana new homes should be built with ignition-resistant siding and roofing and with mesh attic vents to keep out embers. Studies and post-fire analyses have found that homes have a greater chance of surviving a wildfire when built to such standards. In areas with increasing flood risk homes can be elevated and constructed with flood-resistant materials. Simple steps like water alarms and sewage water backstops can help reduce damage when a flood occurs. Finally, the state should encourage hardening existing homes against disaster. Hundreds of thousands of Montanans are already living in areas of risk. A state retrofit fund could help offset costs with grants, low-interest loans or tax breaks to help strengthen our states resilience. An upfront investment in retrofitting homes would go a long way in reducing the response and recovery costs paid by Montanas taxpayers. It may seem like these strategies could add to construction costs and make housing less affordable, but the opposite is true: These building strategies dont necessarily cost more, the materials are readily available and they often have cost-saving benefits like energy efficiency. A Headwaters Economics study found that wildfire-resistant construction costs are similar to those of traditional construction in Montana. Thoughtful home building practices can help protect Montana families and communities threatened by natural disasters. They will also protect Montanas valuable housing stock and affordability. Montanans deserve and should expect nothing less than safe, healthy, durable housing. The time to get ahead of this challenge is now. [January 27, 2023] Private Wealth Advisors Jeffrey Klinger and Bradley Quan join UBS in San Francisco UBS Private Wealth Management today announced that The Klinger Quan Group, led by Private Wealth Advisors Jeffrey Klinger and Bradley Quan, has joined the firm in San Francisco, CA. Jeffrey and Bradley focus on providing bespoke wealth management solutions and advice for ultra-high net worth individuals, families and executives. "We are very excited to welcome Jeffrey, Bradley and their entire team to UBS," said Todd Locicero, San Francisco Market Executive at UBS Private Wealth Management. "Their industry experience, expertise and dedication to clients make them a great addition to our firm, and we look forward to helping them continue to grow their business and serve clients in this key market." "We believe we have the strongest platform for Private Wealth Advisors in the industry," added John Mathews, Divisional Director and Head of UBS Private Wealth Management. "With our comprehensive suite of capabilities to support ultra-high net worth individuals, advisors like Jeffrey and Bradley are exceptionally well-positioned to deliver the highest level of personalized service and advice to their clients." Jeffrey Klinger is a founder of the Klinger Quan Group within UBS Private Wealth Management. Jeffrey works with ultra-high-net-worth families, corporate executives, and entrepreneurs, providing comprehensive advice on their financial lives. He employs a goals-based approach that centers on the unique needs and priorities of each client. Jeffrey joins UBS from Merrill Private Wealth Management where he worked as a Managing Director and Private Wealth Advisor since 2013. Prior to that, he spent five years as a Director of the Prvate Bank at Credit Suisse. Previously, Jeffrey served as a Vice President at Lehman Brothers within the Private Wealth Management division. He began his financial services career in 1997 at Burnham Securities in New York, where he was an investment banker. Jeffrey earned his Bachelor's degree in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the University of Arizona. Bradley Quan is a founder of the Klinger Quan Group within UBS Private Wealth Management. Bradley focuses on providing clients with customized advice and guidance on wealth management, tax-efficient investment management strategies, trust and estate planning services, and retirement strategies. He has particular knowledge in developing long-term frameworks designed to help preserve capital and generate cash-flow, while mitigating risk. Prior to joining UBS, Bradley was a Senior Vice President at Merrill Private Wealth Management since 2013. Prior to that, he was a Relationship Manager in Private Wealth Management at Credit Suisse, where he spent more than five years. Bradley began his career in 2003 as a Business Analyst for Lehman Brothers. He is a graduate of San Francisco State University, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in Corporate Finance. Notes to Editors About UBS UBS convenes the global ecosystem for investing, where people and ideas are connected and opportunities brought to life, and provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as to private clients in Switzerland. UBS offers investment solutions, products and impactful thought leadership, is the leading global wealth manager, provides large-scale and diversified asset management, focused investment banking capabilities, and personal and corporate banking services in Switzerland. The firm focuses on businesses that have a strong competitive position in their target markets, are capital efficient and have an attractive long-term structural growth or profitability outlook. UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in more than 50 regions and locations, with about 30% of its employees working in the Americas, 29% in Switzerland, 20% in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 21% in Asia Pacific. UBS Group AG employs more than 72,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). https://www.ubs.com UBS 2023. All rights reserved. The key symbol and UBS are among the registered and unregistered trademarks of UBS. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005307/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] Force Marketing Launches Audience IQ Customer Data Platform That Helps Auto Dealers Improve Customer Lifetime Value Metrics Force Marketing, an innovative marketing technology company whose family of brands provides the most complete and comprehensive suite of lifecycle marketing solutions in the automotive industry, is launching Audience IQ at NADA Show 2023, a key auto industry trade show going on now in Dallas Texas. Audience IQ is a full-scale customer data platform (CDP) to help auto dealer groups improve their customers' experience and increase marketing effectiveness and advertising return on investment. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005296/en/ "We created Audience IQ with the automotive consumer in mind," said John Fitzpatrick, president and CEO of Force Marketing. "Over the past seven years, we have invested $14 million to develop and perfect this robust platform that gives auto dealerships a full understanding of customers and their needs, enabling them to provide the best experience for customers and drive sales and service revenue. Our greater vision is to help improve Customer Lifetime Value in automotive, transforming the brand-to-consumer experience with improved communications." The Audience IQ platform collects, cleans, manages and analyzes first party customer data to provide a comprehensive view of auto customers' preferences, behaviors and interactions with a dealership. Dealers can segment customers and send them relevant, personalized communications and offers, building stronger customer relationships and driving loyalty and repeat business. "Audience IQ allows us to track consumer engagements in real-time across personalized direct markting campaigns, digital advertising channels, social media, CTV and streaming audio platforms," said Jason Moore, General Manager, Kia Atlanta South. "It also increases the consumer buying propensity score prior to them converting into a lead for our dealership personnel to meet the customer exactly where they are in their journey. It's a win for our dealership and our customers!" The platform tracks all marketing KPIs, lead conversions and in-store visits and provides full end-to-end attribution for every dollar investment a client makes in their marketing mix. This allows the Force Marketing team to review performance and make optimization decisions quickly for dealerships to further maximize both sales and service return on ad spend (ROAS). "Audience IQ delivers for our dealers by allowing one complete view of the customer from sales to service!" said Jessica Rapp, director of client success of Force Marketing. "We're able to help our dealer partners drive quick, clear decisions using this intuitive platform together. Having one, trusted system to work within alongside our clients is a game changer in our industry. AiQ makes the relationship we have with our clients aligned and efficient. And there is comfort knowing all our work is done in a private, safe, secure and compliant environment." The many Audience IQ benefits designed into its infrastructure include: Real time data vulnerability scanning and testing Frequent data penetration testing on all systems Multi factor Authentication on all systems and points of data access All third-party vendors are vetted for the same compliance levels Enterprise level phishing and spam protection Frequent user training on documented and tested policies To learn more about Audience IQ, visit Force Marketing's booth #1311 at the NADA Show 2023 in Dallas, Texas through Jan. 29 or visit www.ForceMKTG.com. About Force Marketing Founded in 2006, Force Holdings, LLC is a leading marketing technology provider to the automotive industry whose family of brands includes: Force Marketing, WeDrive Automotive, Helix Technologies and Gulf States Marketing aka GSM (acquired in Jan. 2021 from The Friedkin Group). Audience IQ is a customer data platform designed specifically for the automotive industry. Within AiQ are four core products: DRIVE (CTV dynamic video technology and the AWA 2020 Innovation of the Year Winner), RECAPTURE (connecting lost shoppers back to the brands), ATOM (fixed ops retention and reactivation solution) and Equity+ (equity data mining solution). Headquartered in Atlanta with over 100 team members strategically positioned all over the U.S., the Force family of brands focuses on partnering and fostering relationships with dealers and OEMs nationwide to maximize ROAS, speed to market and improved lifetime customer value metrics. More information about Force Marketing's comprehensive suite of tech-enabled products and proprietary Audience IQ Customer Data Platform can be found at www.ForceMKTG.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005296/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] Pine Creek Care Center Responds to Verdict in Rios Suit; Defends Care Provided Last week a jury in Sacramento Superior Court issued a verdict in the case of Rios v. Pine Creek Care Center. The jurors were split on the verdict, with the outcome coming down to one or two of the 12 jurors on the panel. Pine Creek is a skilled nursing facility that employs nurses and therapists who provide compassionate, quality nursing care to elderly and infirm adults in the Sacramento area. The jury returned a verdict totaling more than $30 million against the defendants, which included Pine Creek and its affiliate Plum Healthcare. The plaintiffs claimed the staff at Pine Creek failed to prevent pressure sores on his heels during his brief stay in 2017, before returning home to convalesce after hip surgery. Pine Creek's attorneys presented strong medical evidence that disputed the plaintiff's claims, arguing there was no skin breakdown observed by nursing staff or Mr. Rios' treating physician during his stay. In fact, Mr. Rios was walking and moving around far better upon discharge than when he was admitted. The limitations put on the defendants' ability to fully defend themselves, coupled with the court granting the plaintiffs' request to instruct the jury that the defendants engaged in a plan to maximize profits at the expense of patient care, which is both false and grossly prejudicial, are denials of the defendant's rights to due process and a fair trial that will be addressed on appal. As evidenced by testimony presented at trial, 87-year-old Mr. Rios was at Pine Creek for 14 days, he both arrived at Pine Creek with redness on his heels went home from Pine Creek with redness on its heels and left Pine Creek with a considerably better ability to walk than when he arrived from the hospital following hip surgery. The defendants strongly believe that his care at Pine Creek was reasonable, appropriate, and consistent with the doctor's orders. Pine Creek is one of the premier skilled nursing facilities in the Sacramento area. At the time of Mr. Rios's stay Pine Creek was a CMS 5-Star facility overall, and it continues to be highly rated. The defendants were not allowed to present that information. Pine Creek complied with state minimum staffing requirements, and Mr. Rios in fact progressed considerably in his post-surgery healing process while he was at Pine Creek, as evidenced by a significant increase in his ability to walk during his time at the facility. This is all consistent with Pine Creek's continuing focus on providing high-quality care to its residents, and that focus is reflected in its CMS ratings and reputation in the community. Plum Healthcare supported its affiliated facilities in their efforts to care for their residents. It's also very difficult to understand how the jury arrived at punitive damages in this case, much less the grossly exaggerated amount they awarded. Pine Creek has been under new ownership since 2021 when Providence Group acquired the operations of Plum Healthcare, which makes the punitive damages awarded all the more incomprehensible since those being "punished" by the award had nothing to do with Pine Creek or Mr. Rios at the time of his 2017 stay. Furthermore, Plum Healthcare's prior private equity shareholder was voluntarily dismissed from the case by the plaintiffs in 2021 and is not subject to the verdict, thus rebutting the public statements made by the plaintiff's attorney that the case "sends a message" to private equity. Skilled nursing facilities and their dedicated staff members work very hard to care for their residents with love and respect. Verdicts like this undermine the very system that the state has set up to care for elderly and infirm Californians. The case remains in active litigation with post-trial motions, and a planned appeal. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005338/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] JD Martin Names Jeff Anderson EVP of Industrial Sales Promotion deepens firm's existing leadership pipeline HOUSTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Greg Baker, CEO/President, of JD Martin is pleased to announce Jeff Anderson has been promoted to Executive Vice President of Industrial Sales, effective immediately. Anderson's promotion deepens firm's existing leadership pipeline A seasoned electrical industry veteran, Anderson leads the firm's Demand Creation team which focuses on strategic business initiatives in support of the firm's Industrial customers. "Jeff's remarkable dedication, along with his outstanding contributions, have been instrumental to help grow our business in the markets we serve," said Greg Baker. "His extensive bacground in the electrical industry delivers tremendous value and support to our customers and industry partners." "I'm honored to have the opportunity to continue to build and lead the high performing team that delivers technical solutions to solve our customers' challenges," says Jeff Anderson. "I look forward to further expanding our OEM and Industrial capabilities as we continue to execute on our growth strategies. We remain focused and committed to maintaining our strong market position and alignment with our Channel Partners in the in the Industrial and OEM markets." Anderson added, "It's exciting to continue contributing to the growth and success of the company." Prior to joining JD Martin in 2013, Anderson's professional experience includes previous roles at ABB, Siemens, Rockwell Automation and General Dynamics. Anderson earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University. ABOUT JD MARTIN: JD Martin Company is an electrical manufacturers' representative agency that sells and markets premier lines of electrical products to OEM and MRO contractors, and end-user markets through wholesale distribution. For more than 68 years, we have supported industries such as oil & gas, mining, steel, waste water treatment, wind power generation and commercial construction. We offer impactful solutions and sell electrical products, through qualified electrical distributor channels, in over 16 states in territories that include Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, The Carolinas, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. To learn more about JD Martin click here . Contact: Greg Baker CEO/President [email protected] View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jd-martin-names-jeff-anderson-evp-of-industrial-sales-301732663.html SOURCE JD Martin Co. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] Kettering College Selects YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to Serve Students Pursuing Health Science Education Dayton, Ohio-based Kettering College has selected the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform to provide lecture capture and media management solutions campuswide. The institution is a faith-based healthcare college that provides focused medical degrees through accelerated programs. Institutional leaders were seeking a media solution that allowed faculty to easily record and host lectures for instruction, as well as to embed videos and media into their Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) courses, add interactivity and captioning, and to provide easy access to students. In addition to its ease of use and video features, the Platform provides cloud-based, scalable storage, adaptive streaming, device compatibility, and more. Kettering College officials selected YuJa after a trial in which they got to experience the platform and support firsthand. "Out of the ox, YuJa provides everything an institution needs to create engaging content that is accessible to all students in an easy-to-use, comprehensive platform," said Nathan Arora, Chief Business Officer at YuJa, Inc. "We're excited for admins, instructors and students to try out the robust and innovative features within the Video Platform." ABOUT KETTERING COLLEGE. Located on a suburban campus near Dayton, Ohio, Kettering College offers certificate programs, two-year associate of science degrees, bachelor degrees, a Master's Degree in Physician Assistant Studies, and an Occupational Therapy Doctorate. Its main campus is shared by Kettering College, and the Charles F. Kettering Memorial Hospital. In 2015, Kettering College expanded to include a second facility in Greene County for the Occupational Therapy Doctoral program. ABOUT YUJA, INC. YuJa is a leader in ed-tech solutions. Our platforms provide organizations of all sizes with the tools to educate, engage, inspire and collaborate. We serve learning enterprises within all sectors, including higher-ed, K-12, government, healthcare, non-profit and corporate. We have legal headquarters in Delaware with primary U.S. offices in Silicon Valley, California, and Canadian offices in Toronto. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005424/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [January 27, 2023] American Water's Unmanned Aerial System Program Enters into Partnership with The New Jersey Innovation Institute American Water (NYSE: AWK), the largest publicly traded U.S. water and wastewater utility company, announced today its Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Program has entered into an agreement with The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) corporation, to perform research under a NJIT Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Part 91 Certificate of Authorization (COA). The COA enables research activities to take place both beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and up to an altitude of 1,500 feet above ground level. "American Water is proud to partner with NJII/NJIT, enabling us to jointly perform unmanned aerial systems and payload research flying up to three miles from a UAS pilot at an altitude of 1,500 feet to capture wide area mapping at high resolutions," said Christopher Kahn, Director of UAS, American Water. "This significant research will enhance monitoring of source water and potential environmental threats to our critical infrastructure water supply." Additionally, American Water's long-range mapping and inspection airframe, the Censys Technologies Sentaero, provides the ability to safely inspect facilities from miles away through high-resolution cameras, while staying in the air for over an hour. "American Waters partnerships with NJII/NJIT & Censys Technologies is important for advancing the integration of UAS into the national airspace because it is an example of enterprise operation standardization across multiple applications," said Trevor Perrott, CEO & Co-Founder, Censys Technologies. "Through American Water's leadership, our country is another step closer to making safe BVLOS drone missions commonplace. The exciting part is the story doesn't end here." American Water is also working closely with several government agencies and partner organizations to enable BVLOS UAS mission during temporary flight restrictions, which are commonly in place after natural disasters. This press release is an update to an announcement previously distributed by American Water on January 24, 2023. About American Water With a history dating back to 1886, American Water (NYSE: AWK) is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 6,400 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and regulated-like drinking water and wastewater services to more than 14 million people in 24 states. American Water provides safe, clean, affordable and reliable water services to our customers to help keep their lives flowing. For more information, visit amwater.com and diversityataw.com. Follow American Water on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. About NJII / NJIT The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an NJIT corporation, was founded in 2014 and helps turn ideas into workable solutions across four divisions: healthcare, entrepreneurship, defense and homeland security, and professional and corporate education. NJII combines the vast resources of NJIT, strong and far-reaching industry and government relationships, and proven methods for building industry centric ecosystems to help drive innovation and deliver solutions that make a direct impact on the economy and the health and welfare of its participants. One of the nation's leading public polytechnic universities, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) prepares students to be leaders in the technology-dependent economy of the 21st century. About Censys Technologies Censys Technologies Corporation builds remote sensing hardware and software solutions for UAS service providers, enterprise organizations and government entities. This includes the Sentaero family of products - which is the UAV performance and value leader in the fields of agriculture, infrastructure monitoring, disaster relief and public safety. Created by three Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University alumni in 2017, Censys Technologies' priorities are centered on understanding customer needs and delivering technology and products that will perform and grow their business - bringing intelligence to business from beyond the horizon. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005428/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The so-called "Citizens Association" gathering assembled in Kansas City last night doesn't have much in common with a legendary and iconic group that worked to battle local government corruption. The new 2.0 version doesn't have any elected officers, there are no neighborhood representatives, there aren't any board members listed and the new group hasn't filed any significant campaign disclosures as of yet . . . Check the MEC files (MECID: C000833) . . . The legacy listing updated a "limited" filing in 2023 that wasn't associated with any of the organizers of the new Citizens Association presented to the public last night. For those who don't know . . . The REAL Citizens Association was one of the most influential political groups in Kansas City history with a reputation for battling Pedergast-Era graft. The real group dates its origin to 1934 wherein middle-class neighborhood leaders risked their lives to confront rampant organized crime which had corrupted the highest levels of government up-to-and-including the locally controlled police department. Meanwhile, back in la-la land we give credit where it's due . . . The fun time and cheap talk did inspire Congressman Cleaver to make a 20 minute Zoom call to give all of his old friends a shout out . . . Former Mayor Sly even broke out one of his old bow ties to wear with fancy red sneakers. Still . . . The main takeaway . . . THE NEW CITIZENS ASSOCIATION IS A FAKE REBRANDING EFFORT RUN BY DEVELOPERS AND DOESN'T AT ALL REPRESENT THE LEGACY OF ONE OF KANSAS CITY'S GREATEST NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS!!! It's a cynical marketing ploy for a low turnout election and the lowly, local reporters didn't even catch on to the scam. Probably because it doesn't REALLY matter if only 5% of all registered voters are going to show up to the April primary anyhoo. I guess people can call themselves whatever they'd like . . . There's a gas station bbq place that named themselves after this blog. We only regret that a few of Kansas City's top elected officials think so little of local voters that they would try and run this scam along with an upcoming string of rigged forums without any semblance of a real organization so that they can INVARIABLY offer some rigged ballot that doesn't have any community support. Prove us wrong . . . SHOW TKC THE ELECTED OFFICERS OF THE NEW KANSAS CITY CITIZENS ASSOCIATION!!! That might take a while because, unlike the REAL group, the new guys don't have any current membership. Again . . . Maybe we're just being picky and spoiling everyone's fun. Here's the MSM write-up that didn't think it was worth covering anything remotely resembling an accurate history of this group's namesake . . . Several city leaders were in attendance to hear the mayors advice including Kay Barnes former intern, now current Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas. Despite its challenges, these mayors believe Kansas City is in a better place than when they took office. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . This report is interesting given that AG KOBACH GETS REAL about the function of government for a moment and, by doing so, even progressive political opponents are forced to realize what's at stake when we consider how leaders shape the future. Check-it . . . The bill in question, Senate Bill 100, would prohibit any non-U.S. citizen from buying Kansas real estate in certain areas. The bill would also give the attorney general authority to investigate real estate transactions believed to involve foreign agents. Exemptions to the bill would include property located in Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee or Wyandotte counties, along with property acquired before July 1, 2023. (Kansas AG) Kris Kobach said these counties were excluded from the legislation because the concern was about foreign interference with agriculture, not urban businesses. Its chiefly Chinese interests that are purchasing large amounts of agricultural land, in an evident effort to gain control of greater and greater share of our food supply, Kobach said. And the reason is ostensibly to serve Chinese national interests and ensure that China has access to the produce from these lands, not the interest of Kansas. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . . Right now there are more than a few crime reporting news links that deserve attention as the public confronts increased politicking and activism amid steadily rising violence . . . Also we share a glimpse of police action and community outreach updates . . . Check TKC news gathering . . . Police release video, photo of Kia dragged for several miles underneath tractor-trailer on I-435 KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Police in Leawood released video clips Thursday showing several moments from an incident Wednesday when a Kia passenger car was dragged for miles underneath a semi. The video, captured on KC Scout cameras, first shows the semi dragging the car near where the incident started at Interstate 435 and Roe Boulevard. Kansas City drug-trafficking conspiracy now includes 27 defendants A total of 27 people have been indicted as part of a drug-trafficking conspiracy in the Kansas City metro area. Anthony D. Harris, 40, and Latrell O. Dean, 19, both of Grandview, Mo., and Seville S. Gardner, 37, were the three latest defendants charged in a 112-count indictment unsealed on Jan. KCK police investigating after woman found dead in vehicle near 61st, Haskell KANSAS CITY, Kan. - The Kansas City, Kansas Police Department is investigating a homicide Thursday after a woman was found dead inside a vehicle. Police responded to a medical call just before 2 p.m. near N. 61st Street and Haskell Avenue, just north of Parallel Parkway. The FBI continues to seek leads in an armed 2019 bank robbery near Parkville The FBI is again circulating photos of two suspects involve in the violent takeover of a bank in Kansas City's Northland. Federal agents said two masked men walked into the Equity Bank at 6200 N.W. 63rd Terrace at 10:56 a.m. on Feb. Grain Valley couple's murder, dismemberment trial delayed again GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. - The trial for a Jackson County man and woman charged with murdering a woman and burying her body has been delayed for a third time. At a pre-trial hearing Thursday, Michael Hendricks and Maggie Ybarra's jury trial was rescheduled for May 15. Missouri man pleads guilty for role in $437,000 Covid-19 fraud scheme A central Missouri man has pleaded guilty in a $437,000 Covid-19 fraud scheme. Lamar K. Johnson, 41, admitted Thursday that he played a role in a plan to use the identities of deceased individuals to file hundreds of false stimulus claims under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Kansas City police called to Plaza Academy prior to shooting KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Police responded to a private high school about an hour before someone shot and injured an employee outside of the building, according to police. Kansas City police responded to Plaza Academy at 11:15 a.m. Tuesday because of some type of disturbance. 3 teens accused of vandalizing Blue Valley High School press box with antisemitic, racist slurs KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Three teens are accused of spray painting racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages on the press box at Blue Valley High School. The teens were each charged in Johnson County with one count of burglary to a building, a level 7 non-person felony and criminal damage to a property, a level 9 non-person felony. Johnson County co-responders log record-year of interventions PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. - More people are connecting with mental health professionals in Johnson County than ever before, specifically through the co-responder program. The Johnson County Mental Health Center worked with local sheriff's offices and police departments to place mental health professionals within their organizations. Police identify 2 people killed in Thursday morning US 69 Highway crash in Overland Park OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (KCTV) - Two people died after a car flipped several times during rush hour Thursday morning near U.S. 69 Highway and 103rd Street. Around 7:45 a.m., 911 dispatchers received calls from concerned drivers in the area who reported seeing two people who had been ejected from a vehicle. 'It will never be okay': Kansas City mother shares grief over daughter killed in October Three months after her daughter was killed, a Kansas City, Missouri, mother is still waiting for justice. Just this week, KCPD and KC Mother's in Charge called for an end to violent crime, after the second-deadliest year on record. Aisha Johnson says her kids used to tease her for taking so many photos and videos of them. Clay County commission boosts starting salaries for the Clay County Sheriff's Office New employees of the Clay County, Mo., Sheriff's Office will see a significant boost to their starting salaries. The Clay County Commission approved its budget on Wednesday. Included in the budget was an increase for new employees in the sheriff's department. The starting salary for a new deputy is now $50,000, a 21.7 percent increase. New Deputy Chief Began Family Tradition Of KCPD Service "Deputy Chief Steve Young is an exceptional police officer who helped lead our department and our city through challenging times, always with concern about making us a safer city and standing up for our rank-and-file officers. I am confident that Deputy Chief Young's experience will be an invaluable asset to Chief Graves, KCPD, and the community as a whole," said Mayor Quinton Lucas. Developing . . . Andrew Palamarchuk is a reporter with Metroland Media Toronto and toronto.com. He has been covering the crime beat since 2002 and has a passion for giving a voice to those affected by tragedy and looking at societal issues that may have contributed to it. Most people just want to feel wanted. For Travis High, a friendly phone call with a relocation help desk representative was enough for him to drop everything and drive from Washington state to start a new life in North Dakota. North Dakota was the first one to reach out and say, Hey, we want you here, so I just started driving, High said of his relocation this past July. High, now a technician at ProIT in Minot, was the first of nine people or families to emerge through the pipeline of the states Find the Good Life campaign since the program relaunched with state funding in mid-2022. Gov. Doug Burgum proposed $25 million to further build out the program in the coming two years as one way to address the states workforce shortage. Job Service North Dakota estimates 40,000 openings in the state with at least 4,300 of those being unfilled health care positions. Legislators determining final biennium budgets in the coming months, however, will be the deciding factor for whether marketing North Dakotas intangibles is the answer or if other policies need backing to lure workers and out-compete neighboring states. It will likely take a mix of marketing and deep policy changes to really attract workers and families. Affordable, accessible child care and housing, better worker protections, higher salaries, and truly family friendly policies are needed to tip the scales in the states favor when workers weigh their options, some say. I think the good life needs to be more than just a slogan, it needs to be an investment in working people. They are the driving force of our economy, and we really need to see this legislature focus on polices that will ensure all North Dakotans have a good life, said Amy Jacobson, executive director of the progressive communications organization Prairie Action ND. With record low unemployment nationwide and a work-from-anywhere war being waged between companies competing for talent, finding what makes North Dakota stand out is key going forward. Find the Good Life 2.0 The Find the Good Life campaign began in 2013 as a partnership between the North Dakota Economic Development Foundation and businesses to market the state through videos, a website and advertising at job fairs. Private funds to develop the campaign have amounted to just over $995,000 while a state matching fund provided over $369,000 for the initial branding and material costs when it began, according to the North Dakota Department of Commerce. Last year the department made $438,000 of existing funds available to relaunch the program and used another $410,000 for a two-year contract to hire RoleCall. The contractor has staffers based across the country to handle relocation help desk questions, provide training and track the metrics for the program. The relaunch in June also established a series of community champions in cities and towns across the state to connect with potential newcomers, provide the lowdown on their locales, and steer them toward job openings. What is different about the new, enhanced version is we are trying to connect people with communities where there would be a long-term commitment, said Sara Otte Coleman, Department of Commerce tourism and marketing director. While only nine people or families have made the move to North Dakota since the relaunch in June, both Coleman and Katie Ralston Howe, the departments workforce development director, said that they were happy with the numbers so far. The first obstacle was starting and growing that pipeline, they said. The success of it is going to be in numbers, Coleman said. There are currently around 1,000 potential new North Dakotans in the pipeline, with 300 of those actively circulating resumes to businesses across the state, they said. We made a decision that no matter what we do, we have to be able to track it, we have to be able to communicate the success in order to show the impact of this initiative and the investment were making in it, Howe said. If the full $25 million is made available, around half would go toward marketing and the rest to more active talent attraction programs, Howe said. This could include bringing serious candidates to North Dakota for curated visits or providing matching grants to help companies partially cover sign-on bonuses, retention bonuses, moving fees and short-term rental costs, Howe said. Getting people to the state for an initial visit, either through tourism or a curated visit, is important, Coleman said. Of those in the pipeline, 75% have never been to North Dakota. Were trying to get them to visit first because then we know the likelihood of a move is much higher, Coleman said. Landis Larson, North Dakotas AFL-CIO president, is critical of a state-funded program that subsidizes businesses' hiring practices. I dont understand why the state of North Dakota, or the taxpayers of North Dakota, are paying to help businesses fill their jobs, Larson said. Its a hard pill for me to swallow. Theyre basically recruiting for employers. More support needed Larson argues that to truly attract and retain workers, the state should beef up its workers compensation system, raise the minimum wage to levels comparable to neighboring states, provide paid family leave, subsidize school meals, and push businesses to be more competitive with pay and benefits. North Dakota, for better or worse, is also saddled with the image of being a deeply conservative state. Further restricting access to abortion and sending signals that it is not a friendly place for LGBTQ people limits its ability to attract a diverse workforce and pushes some people out, Jacobson said. Workers leaving the state, particularly younger people and new graduates, is a concern. Cody Schuler, advocacy manager with the American Civil Liberties Union North Dakota, said ensuring peoples rights in the state could go a long way toward halting that. Efforts to attract people to North Dakota are good, but then our state must live up to what is advertised, Schuler said. Ensuring that transgender and pregnant citizens can access vital health care means that not only will people find North Dakota a place they want to live, but will also work to prevent outmigration. 'Dangerous levels': Major warning and recall on certain stoves sold in Canada after dozens of carbon monoxide incidents reported, including some leading to medical attention We chose the orange bra. Bright. Hopeful. Impossible to wear under a white shirt, but Meghan and I were women uninterested in practicality. As Indian Country braces for a potentially seismic court decision, Native American lawmakers and tribal advocates in North Dakota are hoping to cement decades-old federal adoption rules in state law. Rep. Jayme Davis, D-Rolette, is sponsoring House Bill 1536, which would weld the crux of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act onto North Dakotas books. Davis, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, told the House Human Services Committee on Monday that the bipartisan proposal would help ensure Native American children grow up with strong family and cultural ties intact. An extensive congressional investigation in the 1970s found that social services agencies and courts had removed roughly a third of Native American children from their homes and placed them in non-Native American homes and institutions. In decades prior, the federal government required many Native American children to attend boarding schools designed to strip students of their culture, language and kinship ties. The investigations findings prompted Congress to pass the ICWA in 1978. The landmark legislation set a higher bar for removing Native American children from their home communities by giving preference for foster care and adoption to extended family and other tribal members. The law remains in effect nationally, but the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last year in a case that could threaten the ICWAs future. The state of Texas and several non-Native adoptive parents allege in a lawsuit against Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland that the ICWA constitutes race-based discrimination. Attorneys for the federal government maintained that the law protects the interests of Native American children and tribal communities. Attorneys representing a coalition of tribes referred to the ICWA as one of the most important pieces of federal Indian legislation ever enacted and asked the court to leave the law alone. The high court is expected to release a ruling in the case this year. Davis said the potential reversal of the ICWA at the federal level adds urgency to her mission to pass a similar state law in North Dakota. The Democratic legislator said all five tribes that share geography with North Dakota were consulted during the drafting of House Bill 1536. Alysia LaCounte, a lawyer for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, said its possible a state law giving priority for adoption of Native American kids to extended family members and tribal entities could remain in effect even if the Supreme Court tosses part or all of the ICWA. The state already maintains a government-to-government relationship with tribes in the form of gaming compacts, and a state law mirroring the ICWA could exist in a similar legal sphere, she said. Sharnell Seaboy, an enrolled citizen of the Spirit Lake Tribe, told the committee that social workers approached her in September about caring for the newborn son of a relative. The Mandan resident credited the ICWA with allowing her to become the boys foster parent. She is now hoping to adopt the 4-month-old child. Because of ICWA, being placed in a Native family and our cultural identity I feel like its really helping my baby to grow and to flourish, Seaboy said. Hes connected to his culture, to his family, to his bloodline. Scott Davis, who formerly served as North Dakotas director of Indian Affairs, said passing House Bill 1536 would counteract federal overreach and strengthen bonds between the state and tribal governments. He added that the ICWA is very, very important to my people, to my relatives, to our court systems, to our sovereignty. Representatives of the Department of Health and Human Services, the state Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribes ICWA office testified in favor of the bill. Several proponents of the legislation offered fairly minor technical amendments. No one testified against the bill Monday. Committee Chairman Robin Weisz, R-Hurdsfield, said his panel likely wont vote on the bill before next week. North Dakota has among the least restrictive gun laws in the country, but some conservative lawmakers believe the state Legislature should lift nearly all limits on where weapons can be carried. The Legislature approved a bill in 2017 to allow most law-abiding adult residents to carry a concealed gun in public without a permit. However, the law includes exceptions -- schools, colleges, bars, places of worship and publicly owned buildings -- where gun possession is still largely prohibited. Proponents of eliminating those exceptions say more firearms would make students and employees safer while allowing people to protect themselves. Education administrators and police officers worry that allowing nearly any adult to carry hidden weapons into schools and public buildings would increase the risk of gun-related violence. The House Energy and Natural Resources Committee held hearings Thursday on nine gun-related bills, including five that would expand the right to carry a concealed firearm. House Bill 1483 would permit the possession of guns in public buildings, other than schools, federal facilities and courthouses. The legislation sponsored by Rep. Ben Koppelman, R-West Fargo, also would repeal a prohibition on carrying guns in bars. House Bill 1404 would effectively authorize the concealed carry of guns on public university and college campuses. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Matt Heilman, R-Bismarck. House Bill 1194 would allow honorably discharged military veterans to carry hidden guns in schools, churches and public buildings. The proposal is sponsored by Rep. Bill Tveit, R-Hazen. House Bill 1341, brought by Koppelman, would permit concealed carry at the state Capitol. House Bill 1339, sponsored by Koppelman, would allow residents of other states to carry a concealed gun without a permit in North Dakota. House Bill 1401, backed by Heilman, would bar local governments from adopting red flag laws that restrict gun access for people who police deem a threat to themselves or others. Koppelman told the committee he believes federal courts have expanded and will continue to widen legal parameters for where guns can be carried. He said his bills preempt judicial action and support the U.S. Constitutions Second Amendment. Heilman, a 21-year-old student on hiatus from Bismarck State College, said allowing college students to carry guns on campus would provide a measure of self-protection, particularly for women. Tveit argued his proposal would protect against mass shootings by allowing well-trained members of the public to react in threatening situations. Lobbyists for the gun industry, including the National Rifle Associations Brian Gosch, expressed support for the bills. Police from multiple agencies across the state testified against the proposals. Beulah Police Chief Frank Senn said allowing potentially drunk bar patrons to carry guns in drinking establishments is a recipe for disaster. He added that his small department doesnt have the resources to respond to more gun-related calls or to place extra security at public meetings. North Dakota Highway Patrol Captain Luke Hendrickson said the likelihood of a violent incident occurring at the state Capitol would be heightened if guns were allowed in the building. Lobbyists, administrators and student representatives for K-12 schools and public universities widely denounced the bills as dangerous. Christopher Scott, the president of the North Dakota Student Association, said House Bill 1404 represented an egregious attack on campus safety. The Minot State University student said having more guns on campus would increase the risk of suicide at a time when mental health among students is deteriorating. Michael Heilman, the director of North Dakota Small Organized Schools, said the state already has an armed first responder program for K-12 schools and House Bill 1194 would only create headaches. The committee did not take action on any of the bills Thursday. Former Police Commissioner Gary Griffith tells Tv6 News that the businessman who was killed during a car-jacking on Wednesday was among many who had received provisional approvals for a Firearm User's Licence but after 18 months had not received a permit to carry a licensed firearm. This, as the National Security Minister told the Express newspaper that the new Police Commissioner informed him that, a "robust and thorough assessment" of FUL applications was necessary. It is highly unlikely that Russia has actually achieved any substantive advances near the Zaporizhzhia regions Orikhiv and the Donetsk regions Vuhledar. The relevant statement was made by the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom on Twitter, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. Over the last six days, Russian online commentators have claimed Russian forces have made significant advances, breaking through Ukrainian defences in two areas: near the Zaporizhzhia regions Orikhiv and 100 kilometers to the east, near the Donetsk regions Vuhledar. According to the UK intelligence, Russian units have probably conducted local, probing attacks near Orikhiv and Vuhledar, but it is highly unlikely that Russia has actually achieved any substantive advances. There is a realistic possibility that Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation in an effort to imply that the Russian operation is sustaining momentum, the report states. A reminder that , according to the UK intelligence, Russia has likely completed training of the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division (GMRD) in Belarus, which had been carrying out training since autumn 2022. The majority of the 2nd GMRD has now transferred back to Russia, before almost certainly being recommitted to operations in Ukraine. mk Family members of the so-called 2nd army corps, those mobilized from the temporarily occupied areas of Luhansk region, are being transported to the Russian Federation. Thats according to the Center of National Resistance, Ukrinform reports. "Families of the so-called 2nd Army Corps of the LPR are being deported to Russia. They are promised benefits and offered accommodation in remote areas of the Russian Federation. In addition, the children of those soldiers receive the right to free education at Russian universities. This, according to the occupiers plan, should motivate the residents of Luhansk region to join the ranks of the enemy army," the statement reads. It is noted that in the future these families are supposed to assimilate, and in the meantime, the Russian Federation is resettling own citizens to Luhansk region. Therefore, such migration flows also aim to change the demographic composition of the region. As reported, as of November, 11,461 children are reported as deported from Ukraine. On January 27, the Government of Belgium decided to allocate the largest package of military aid to Ukraine amounting to EUR 92 million. This was reported by HLN, according to Ukrinform. "In general, our country has already provided (Ukraine ed.) with EUR 146 million worth of military aid. Today, the Council of Ministers decided to send Ukraine a new package of military aid worth EUR 92 million," said Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. According to the Minister of Defense, Ludivine Dedonder, it is about air defense missiles, anti-tank missiles, machine guns, grenades, ammunition, trucks, and armored SUVs. Read also: Rheinmetall ready to provide Ukraine with shells for Leopard tanks She added that part of the equipment will be taken from the warehouses of Begliums Ministry of Defense, while part will be purchased from private companies. Belgium is also giving Ukraine EUR 69 million in humanitarian aid. In addition, De Croo noted that Russian assets worth EUR 58 billion had already been frozen in Belgium. As reported by Ukrinform, Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder visited Ukrainian defenders undergoing treatment at the Queen Astrid Military Hospital in Brussels. Photo: WikiCommons Confused date, falsified losses, and false assessment of Ukrainian special forces raid Russian Telegram channels began to spread their own version of the developments during the operation carried out by the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine in Nova Kakhovka. According to the version of Russian propagandists, on the night of January 24-25, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine conducted an "unsuccessful raid" in the rear of Russian troops in Nova Kakhovka and "used Belarusian mercenaries in the group of fire cover of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." In addition, the "Belarusian Volunteer Corps" [part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine] allegedly suffered "critical, irreversible personnel losses", three of its fighters are considered missing and this is connected with desertion, and Rodion "Gena" Batulin, the commander of the "Terror" battalion [part of the Belarusian Volunteer Corps], is seriously wounded. This version is fake. First, the propagandists confused even the date of the operation. As it is known from the official Facebook page of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the raid took place on the night of January 23-24, not January 24-25. It is also clear from the post that the Directorates special unit did complete the task with the support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Russians suffered considerable losses. In addition, the Directorate provided a photo showing the result of the raid. Second, the Belarusian Volunteer Corps representatives also called the version of Russian propagandists complete nonsense. "There are losses, but not as significant as the Russian ones. As for the missing persons and desertion cases, its nonsense. "Gena" was wounded, his condition is stable," the Corps told Ukrinform. It is also worth emphasizing that representatives of the Belarusian Volunteer Corps are not mercenaries, as the Russian Federation claims. They are combatants because they are part of the armed forces of a warring country. In addition, the participation of mercenaries in military operations is prohibited in Ukraine. In particular, according to Paragraph 4 of Article 447 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, the participation of a mercenary in an armed conflict, military or violent actions is punishable by five to ten years in prison. It is not the first time that the Russians spread disinformation about volunteer formations subordinate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In November, they ramped up a fake that 5,000 Polish "mercenaries" were allegedly stationed in Zaporizhzhia region alone, but this was also refuted. Dmytro Badrak In the nearest future, Russia may launch a wide information and psychological special operation intended to discredit the representatives of Ukraines military and political leadership. The relevant statement was made by the Main Intelligence Directorate at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. In particular, according to the data from the Ukrainian intelligence, the discredit campaign may target Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Serhii Shaptala, Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak, Acting Head of the National Police of Ukraine Ivan Vyhovskyi, and others. Among other things, the discredit campaign may include an information attack with fake news stories in the Ukrainian and foreign media. The purpose of the information and psychological special operation is to sow uncertainty about the defense capabilities of our state among Ukrainian citizens and international partners. According to the Russian security services, this should cause political instability within the country and reduce trust in Ukraine on the part of the international anti-Putin coalition, the Main Intelligence Directorate noted. A reminder that Russia is continuously conducting an information and psychological campaign against Ukraine, involving very powerful and expensive forces. mk Supermajority-wielding North Dakota Republican lawmakers in the Legislature have again filed a flurry of election-related bills, including ones to ban certain voting methods and mandate post-election audits. The bills continue a nationwide trend that pervaded the 2021 Legislature, which handled more than 40 election-related bills in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and former President Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud. Secretary of State Michael Howe's office is monitoring more than 30 such bills, several of which had hearings Thursday. North Dakota's top election official, who is a former lawmaker, said his ultimate goal in following the bills is, "Do they make it easier to vote and harder to cheat?" -- a mantra from his 2022 campaign. The Republican secretary and county election officials say North Dakota's election processes are secure. They cite State Auditor Josh Gallion's findings last fall from a state election system review, which concluded, "It is exceptionally unlikely that the results of an election in North Dakota would be fraudulently influenced." McKenzie County Auditor/Treasurer Erica Johnsrud, North Dakota County Auditors Association Executive Director Donnell Preskey and Burleigh County Election Manager Erika White testified in several hearings on election bills Thursday at the Capitol, including ones to restrict vote centers and the use of pollbooks, which are records of voters of a precinct. "As a priority of ours, we want to make sure our elections are as secure as possible, but we also want to make it convenient for the voters to cast their ballots," Johnsrud said during a break in a meeting of the House Political Subdivisions Committee. "We want high voter turnout, high voter confidence in the security of our elections, and that's what we're trying to preserve, is that everything is secure and that the legislation that's being proposed enhances that, instead of (doing) the opposite," she said. Bills they support are ones adding penalties for people who interfere with elections, and ones clearing up election laws, such as a set-aside ballot process for voters to prove their U.S. citizenship. Preskey said voters "should have great confidence in our election process and system that's in place." In 2021, she and county auditors demonstrated election equipment for lawmakers, with plans for demonstrations again soon. "It's important for these committees who sit in and hear all these bills and hear from some people that might have other views that they can understand the process and the system and the checks and balances that are in place," Preskey said. Howe said he'd like to do more educational outreach about the state's election system, such as redoing the secretary's website, publishing "walk-through videos" and Q&As, and increasing the frequency of county-level election training. North Dakota has new county auditors across the state, Howe added. Several bills would restrict voting by mail, a popular method in North Dakota. More than 70,000 North Dakota voters cast ballots by mail in the November 2022 election, or nearly 30% of all ballots cast. Sen. Jeff Magrum, R-Hazelton, has brought Senate Bill 2308, which he said "is to get rid of the mail-in ballot." He cited a lengthy period to vote as creating problems and expensive campaigns for candidates, and ballots passing through "so many hands" creating "room for mischief." Absentee ballots and early in-person voting would still be available but within a shortened time frame, he said. Thirty-seven counties offer voting by mail-in ballot, which differs only slightly from absentee voting. Magrum said the 2020 election "created a lot of doubt among the people," including ones so shaken they have told him they won't vote anymore. He has filed several election-related bills, with the ultimate goal "to try to bring up these questions ... and try to create confidence in the system." Johnsrud said voters like the mail method, which enables them to research and consider measures and candidates while voting from home, and avoid busy polling locations and long drives to the polls in rural areas. Howe supports voting by mail, citing the rural state's sometimes inclement weather on election days and the many voters who have become accustomed to the method. Sen. Kristin Roers, R-Fargo, chairs the Senate State and Local Government Committee, which heard Magrum's mail ballot bill Thursday. She attributes the trend of election bills to "still a lot of questions in people's minds (that) there's not a lot of transparency. "What happens during an election is not something that you see the full process from beginning to end, so it's easy to doubt what you can't see, and so I think that there are people who want to make sure that we can be as transparent as we can be," Roers said. Her committee is hearing bills on everything from voting processes to campaign contributions and disclosures. The House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee on Friday hears a handful of similar bills, too. Chair Austen Schauer, R-West Fargo, said, "It all comes down to integrity and honesty, and we've demonstrated that we've done that." He cites retired Secretary of State Al Jaeger's "dedicated" approach to the office over 30 years. Schauer also points out the clear pattern in election results in deeply conservative North Dakota: Republican supermajorities in the Legislature. "My question is, why are we complaining? We're doing pretty darn well," he quipped. The U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Russian private military company Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization entailing the imposition of additional sanctions. Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating the Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization, reads the press release of the U.S. Department of State. As noted, the Wagner Groups pattern of serious criminal behavior includes violent harassment of journalists, aid workers, and members of minority groups and harassment, obstruction, and intimidation of UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR), as well as rape and killings in Mali. Concurrently, OFAC is designating Wagner pursuant to E.O. 13667 for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, the targeting of women, children, or any civilians through the commission of acts of violence, or abduction, forced displacement, or attacks on schools, hospitals, religious sites, or locations where civilians are seeking refuge, or through conduct that would constitute a serious abuse or violation of human rights or a violation of international humanitarian law in relation to CAR. As reported, on Thursday the U.S. government announced new sanctions against Russia, in particular against the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin due to their involvement in waging a brutal war in Ukraine, as well as destabilization and criminal activities in the countries of the African continent. ol France supports the ten-step Peace Formula proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky and will base its diplomatic initiatives on it. "At the G20 summit, President Zelensky presented his ten-point Peace Formula. France provides all kinds of support to this Ukrainian initiative. President Macron confirmed this in a recent conversation [January 24] with President Zelensky. It is on the basis of this formula and this plan that we will develop our diplomatic initiatives, in particular on the eve of the sad anniversary of the beginning of the war," Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France Catherine Colonna said at a joint press conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba in Odesa, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. The minister said that during the negotiations with the Ukrainian colleague, it was discussed how to fight against Russian narratives that "turn everything upside down, abdicate responsibility, and manipulate others." "But the facts are the facts: there is an aggressor and there is a victim of aggression in this war. Russia willfully decided to launch aggression against its neighbor an independent free country. This war has been going on for a year, in which no rules are followed, including the laws of war, and we know absolutely clearly who is responsible for it," Colonna stressed. The top diplomat noted that France will continue to support Ukraine in all areas humanitarian, security, economic, diplomatic, and political and will do it "faster and more" until Ukraine restores its territorial integrity and sovereignty. Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs of France Catherine Colonna is on a visit to Odesa on Thursday, January 26. ol Russian President Putin, like the dictators of the past, denies the existence of sovereign nations and sees Ukraine and Belarus as parts of imperial Russia. Kremlins bid to deny Ukraines existence as a state, seize its territory by force, and subjugate its people to the Kremlins imperial rule is a threat to every single one of us, and not only to those who are Russias neighbors, U.S. Permanent Representative to OSCE Michael Carpenter said at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reported. According to him, Russia is trying to wipe out the sovereignty of an entire, independent nation. Carpenter also noted that Russias leadership has been rather transparent as to their views and aims for Ukraine. President Putin wrote: modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia. How many dictators in centuries past have denied the existence of sovereign nations in order to incorporate them into their empires? Well, this is exactly what Russia is trying to do with Ukraine today. And although we do not speak about it as often here, that is exactly what it is trying to do with independent Belarus as well. President Putin has made clear he views both nations as mere regions that belong to Russia, the U.S. Ambassador said. He pointed out that Russias leadership has openly and repeatedly professed the belief that Ukrainian and Belarusian identity do not exist outside of Russian culture. In his propagandistic article published last year, president Putin simply denied that these nations have separate histories, cultures, languages, and identities that are not Russian. As noted, understanding Putins language and view of Ukraine and its people is essential to understanding the brutal conduct of Russias forces in Ukraine. This thinking empowers the Kremlin to dismiss the significance of the thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including children that have been killed by Russias forces since its full-scale invasion 11 months ago. It is this thinking that empowers Moscow to attempt to justify its deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. And this thinking leads Russias forces to act in the barbaric ways we have witnessed in Ukraine, with over 60,000 reports of war crimes, the U.S. diplomat stressed. He said that the United States flatly rejects Russias efforts to dismiss and repress Ukraines distinct culture, history, and statehood. Ukraine is a sovereign, independent nation and we are committed to ensuring it remains so. We also strongly support the sovereignty and independence of Belarus, which has a proud history and its own rich culture as well, Carpenter said. ol As part of the regular dialogue, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak had a meeting with the ambassadors of the G7 countries and the Head of the Delegation of the European Union. Yermak congratulated the representative of Japan on the beginning of Tokyo's G7 Presidency and expressed hope for continued active cooperation with the G7 countries, the press service of the Presidents Office informs. As noted, the Head of the President's Office briefed the interlocutors on the situation on the frontline and expressed gratitude to the G7 states for the historic decisions approved the day before to provide Ukraine with much-needed heavy armored vehicles. In the context of the approaching anniversary of the beginning of Russia's full-scale aggression against our country, the meeting participants coordinated joint actions of the G7 countries and Ukraine for the near future. In particular, according to the Head of the President's Office, a special session of the UN General Assembly may be held by that date to consider a resolution in support of the Peace Formula proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky during his speech at the recent G19 Summit in Indonesia. "It is important for this document to be adopted by the maximum possible number of votes. Therefore, Ukraine counts on the support of the G7 countries in its adoption and assistance in mobilizing support from other countries," Yermak emphasized. The parties also discussed preparations for the G7Ukraine summit. In addition, the interlocutors paid attention to analyzing the effectiveness of compliance with the sanctions imposed on the aggressor state and agreeing on further joint actions in this area. The meeting participants discussed possible new formats for informing the international community, including ambassadors and representatives of partner countries, about the latest developments of the Yermak-McFaul expert group on sanctions against Russia. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Ukraine Kuninori Matsuda thanked Andriy Yermak for informing about the security situation in Ukraine and the developments in strengthening the sanctions pressure. He assured that the G7 countries would continue to support Ukraine on its path to victory. As reported, in November 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a peace formula and outlined 10 mandatory conditions for ending the war in Ukraine. In particular, he mentioned radiation, nuclear, food, and energy security, release of all prisoners and deportees, implementation of the UN Charter and restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the world order, withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities, restoration of justice, fight against ecocide, prevention of escalation, consolidation of the end of the war. Photo credit: Presidents Office ol Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin has stated that corruption crimes during the war can be equated to looting. Kostin made a corresponding statement during a meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General Robert Storch, U.S. Department of State Inspector General Diana Shaw, and USAID Inspector General Nicole Angarella, the Prosecutor General's Office informs. Apart from the issue of restoring justice and holding to account for international crimes committed during the war in Ukraine, the meeting participants also discussed the fight against corruption. "We are happy to welcome delegations of international partners to Ukraine because our work is transparent, we are open to advice and successful experience that will increase efficiency. I believe that with joint efforts we will be able to ensure the restoration of justice as this is one of the key demands of the Ukrainian people," said the Prosecutor General. He also emphasized that war is not an excuse to slow down efforts to fight corruption at all levels. "Corruption crimes during the war can be equated to looting. Therefore, the fight against corruption and prevention of such crimes is a priority in the work of prosecutors and all law enforcement agencies," Kostin said. According to him, the prosecutor's offices are already actively fighting corruption. Over the past five months, the corruption crimes of five prosecutors were exposed. Photo: Prosecutor General's Office ol Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak had a telephone call with Director General for Economics, Science and Technology at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of the United Kingdom Kumar Iyer, stressing the need to increase sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation, especially Russian propagandists and military personnel who participated in the war and their family members. The Head of the President's Office said that one of the important areas today is the imposition of restrictive measures on Russian propagandists and well-known public figures who justify the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine and at the same time have assets and real estate in Western countries, organize various events in these countries and participate in them. Visa restrictions are also needed for Russian military personnel who participated in the war against Ukraine and their family members, the Presidents Office informs. Yermak said that Russia's war against Ukraine does not stop, heavy fighting continues in the east of Ukraine, and yesterday our country suffered another missile attack launched by the aggressor, therefore it is necessary to increase pressure on the Russian Federation, in particular sanctions. The Head of the President's Office thanked the UK for being one of the leaders in the issue of sanctions. He briefed Iyer on the initiative to hold a sanctions summit in Ukraine soon with the participation of representatives of partner countries to analyze what has already been done and discuss the next steps. According to him, the Yermak-McFaul International Working Group continues to work on recommendations for new sanctions against Russia. Iyer said that the United Kingdom is committed to actively working to find ways to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of the sanctions policy against the Russian Federation, and expressed readiness to consider all relevant proposals. ol facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter Published January 27, 2023 CAPTION:Members of the Hoover family pose with a rendering of the plaque that will be installed in Hemphill Hall to commemorate the naming of The William D. Hoover School of Accounting, Financial, and Information Services. Paul Ware/ULM Photo Services MONROE, LA The University of Louisiana Monroe held a ceremony on January 24, 2023 to unveil installations that will commemorate the William D. Hoover School of Accounting, Financial, and Information Services. The school is housed in the College of Business and Social Sciences, located in Hemphill Hall. Members of the Hoover family were on hand to honor the legacy of Mr. Hoover and the contributions he made to ULM and the local business community. The Hoover School signage includes prominent lettering applied to the exterior of Hemphill Hall, a banner hanging in the lobby of the building, and a plaque at the entrance of the Hoover Schools offices. The text of the plaque reads: William D. Bill Hoover (1935-2018; BBA 1960) was a beloved family patriarch, Air Force veteran, avid sportsman, and fierce friend. He was a successful businessman and CPA, and he was proud to be a college graduate of The University of Louisiana Monroe. Bill believed a college education was invaluable. His generous financial contributions to ULM have afforded many young people with the opportunity to obtain their college degrees, and to enjoy the successes in life that a ULM degree can provide. William D. Hoover, or Bill to friends and family, earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1960 from ULM, which was then named Northeast Louisiana State College. Prior to receiving his degree, Mr. Hoover served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He and his wife Lois raised three children: Garry, Terri, and Gayle. Hoover was a CPA in Northeast Louisiana, but also used his knowledge to guide his investments in several start-up businesses in the area. He was instrumental in starting Long Distance Savers with Nolan, Montgomery, and Chellette and worked with Clarke Williams at the beginning of CenturyTel, now known as Lumen. According to a biography provided by the Hoover family, Mr. Hoover believed a college education would enable you to build your dreams. Mr. Hoover instilled to his children and grandchildren that not graduating from college was not an option. His financial help not only secured the ability for future generations to attend college, but he also supported extended family and friends to aid their pursuit of a college degree. More photos from the event can be found at photos.ulm.edu/p731044332. High Commissioner Filippo Grandi (centre), alongside representatives of local authorities, lays flowers at a residential building that was destroyed during a missile strike on 14 January 2023, in Dnipro city, Ukraine UNHCR/Colin Delfosse KYIV - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, today concluded a six-day visit to war-torn Ukraine, his third visit since the Russian invasion, with a call for donors to stay the course and support the people who are suffering acutely. He travelled through the south and east of the country, seeing the destruction and devastation, meeting seven heads of Oblast administrations, several mayors and many war-affected civilians in Odesa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Kyiv. He was also received by President Zelenskyy, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. I was appalled by the level of destruction I saw as a result of Russian missiles and shelling, Grandi said at the end of his visit. Civilian infrastructure like power plants, water systems, kindergartens and apartment buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Civilians, including children and the elderly, have been killed or fled their homes, having their entire lives uprooted by these senseless attacks. Thanks to its network of Ukrainian partners especially local NGOs and community-based organizations and under the leadership and guidance of the Ukrainian government, UNHCR has substantially scaled up its response in the country since February last year, as part of the inter-agency response under the UN Humanitarian Coordinator. The response includes expanding operations further east and south to hard-to-reach and newly-accessible areas, delivering cash and in-kind assistance to war-affected civilians, giving emergency shelter repair kits to those with damaged homes, carrying out housing repairs, and providing legal support and psychological counselling for those suffering the trauma of war. More than 4.3 million Ukrainians have been supported by UNHCR through these and other services and assistance since the start of the invasion. UNHCR has also contributed to the Governments network of Invincibility Points public shelters equipped with generators, heaters and Wi-Fi so people can ward off the worst of winters freezing temperatures, charge their batteries and have light and connectivity to work and study. Grandi also witnessed Ukrainian officials and citizens repairing and rebuilding damaged infrastructure. While buildings have been destroyed, the spirit of the Ukrainian people is unbroken, he added. Im so inspired by their strength and resilience. Its up to all of us the international community to support them as they embark on recovery. I call on States, international financial institutions and others to contribute to this task and quickly. To facilitate coordination, the Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, with UNHCR, launched Ukraine is Home a digital platform to match supply and demand for assistance with housing repairs and reconstruction. It aims at providing a transparent and efficient system for humanitarian, recovery, development, private sector and other partners to pool funds and material support to help people, including refugees and internally displaced people, repair their damaged houses so they can return home. While all this is necessary, Grandi also warned that the humanitarian needs remain acute, especially in the frontline regions of the country. Humanitarian funding must therefore be sustained and expanded. This is key for stabilizing populations and enabling war-affected people to contribute to the recovery of their country and economy. Noting that the UN appeals for both inside Ukraine and Ukrainian refugee response will be launched in Geneva on 15 February. Grandi added, Donors governments, business, and private individuals have been incredibly generous over the past year. This must be sustained if we are to provide people with the support they urgently need today and for the coming year. I hope all our donors will continue to enable the response to these humanitarian needs. Grandi also confirmed that UNHCR has agreed to cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other partners in building the capacity of the Ukrainian consular infrastructure, to better protect and assist Ukrainians abroad, including those planning to return home. UNHCR also discussed with the authorities the situation of unaccompanied and separated Ukrainian children in the Russian Federation. Grandi said that UNHCR, with other international partners, will seek further access to them and advocate for solutions in their best interest, notably family reunification. He also reiterated that, in a situation of conflict, giving nationality and opening avenues for formal adoption of children violates international norms and practices. B-ROLL: https://media.unhcr.org/Share/r65t4kr640tu03e75f6n66k5fmq65t30 For more information on this topic, please contact: North Dakota lawmakers are weighing what to do about the state's pension plan for public employees, which faces a nearly $2 billion shortfall from full funding. Several bills seek to make the fund solvent but diverge on whether to preserve the defined-benefit public pension plan or transition to a defined-contribution plan -- a 401(k)-style plan -- for future employees. The union that represents state employees wants to stick with the pension plan. The pension plan as of last year had more than 53,000 members, including more than 23,000 current employees and nearly 14,000 retirees and beneficiaries. Key players say the pension plan's sustainability is most important. "I believe we need to step up, make the difficult decisions, not kick the can down the road, because we wouldn't be doing our responsibility to the (public) employees and the taxpayers of the state of North Dakota," said House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, who has shepherded two bills on the issue from the Legislature's interim Retirement Committee, one of which the governor supports. Looming over the Legislature is the fund's $1.9 billion unfunded liability. "It's a major issue, and it is a test of this legislative session," said House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Austen Schauer, R-West Fargo. "It's a significant test. This problem needs to be dealt with, and if this Legislature doesn't deal with it, it's shirking its responsibilities." Transition The Retirement Committee bills seek to make the pension plan solvent and transition the plan to a 401(k)-style plan for new hires. The two bills differ only in their effective dates. House Bill 1040 is the one poised to advance, effective in 2025, while its sister, 1039, likely won't go forward. House Bill 1040 essentially proposes a 20-year plan, updated every two years, for calculations of components to make the pension plan solvent, including a one-time infusion of money. Lefor said future public employees, who are mainly people 35 and younger, are a key focus. "The workforce has changed. How they're working has changed, and the simple fact of the matter is, if they're under 30 years of age (the state government is) not keeping them," he said. "We have to look at different components of why they're leaving: compensation, professional development, benefits, health care, vacation and, of course, retirement." He said the goal is to ensure every pension retiree "gets every dollar that they're been promised until the last retiree gets their last check, and I am firm on that." Meanwhile, younger people "want portability" in their retirement plans, a 401(k) they can control and take from job to job, said Lefor, citing data from the Retirement Committee. The state already has a defined-contribution plan, but from 2013-17 less than 3% of new employees opted for it, according to state Public Employee Retirement System Executive Director Scott Miller. Solvency When the defined-benefit plan will run out of money depends on a number of factors, including how many retirees are being paid, how long they live, and what future salaries are, according to Lefor. In 2000, the plan was 114% funded; now it's about 65%, according to Lefor, who calls that drop "unsustainable." The state for years hasn't put in money to address the unfunded liability, he said. That's "flat-out debt," according to Schauer, whose committee is handling Lefor's bills. "Let's say you're married, and you drive up the credit card debt, or your wife does, and you're maxing out. What do you do? You've got to make a change," Schauer said. His panel gave a "do not pass" recommendation to 1039, and amended a proposed, one-time infusion in 1040 to $240 million from a state fund derived from oil taxes. That bill now goes to the Legislature's Employee Benefits Committee. Another bill, House Bill 1379 by Lefor, and 1040 seek $70 million deposits every two years from earnings of the state's oil tax savings into the pension fund to help make it solvent, beginning in 2025. Gov. Doug Burgum supports 1040, according to spokesman Mike Nowatzki. Such a proposal "would give prospective team members greater flexibility in how their retirement contributions are invested while maintaining and protecting the pension benefits for existing team members. If we dont get on the off-ramp from defined benefits now, this will cost North Dakota taxpayers billions more down the road," Burgum told the Legislature last month. 'Competitive benefit' The Senate State and Local Government Committee on Friday heard Senate Bill 2239, brought by Sen. Sean Cleary, R-Bismarck, which seeks to preserve the defined-benefit plan. His bill also aims to make the plan solvent with a $250 million infusion from the general fund in the 2023-25 biennium and contributions from the state over the next three decades. Cleary said his goal is to ensure "a competitive state benefit for state employees, that we're preserving the promise we made to current state employees and retirees, and do that in a way that's responsible with taxpayer dollars." He said Lefor and other lawmakers "are all trying to do this the right way to make sure that it's a responsible bill to taxpayers and we're providing a competitive benefit. There is a disagreement on how we get there, I think." His bill also allows employees to enroll in the state's defined-contribution plan "if they decide that that's what's best for their retirement goals." 'Fairness issue' Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, this week presented House Bill 1486, which he said mirrors 1040 but requires local governments to help cover the shortfall. About 60% of employees participating in the plan are employees of local governments, being cities, counties and school districts. "It's my belief that those political subdivisions should be paying their fair share of the unfunded liability," Kasper said. About one-third of local governments are in the state's defined-benefit plan, he said. "Why should we subsidize one-third of the political subdivisions' retirements plans, and the other two-thirds have to take care of their own? I think it's a fairness issue," he said. Local governments could pay for their obligation out of their own revenues such as property taxes, federal funds, various fees and reserves, according to Kasper. Cost concerns North Dakota United, which represents more than 11,000 public employees and schoolteachers, supports keeping the defined-benefit retirement plan and ensuring it's fully funded. The Legislature since 2011 "has failed to act on this issue," and "now here they are with a plan to get rid of (the pension plan) altogether," North Dakota United President Nick Archuleta said. Lefor's bill is "an incredible outlay of money," $5.5 billion over 20 years, according to Archuleta. Lefor disputes that figure. The plan is "a very important tool" for recruiting public employees, who generally earn less than their private-sector counterparts, Archuleta said. He sees the issue coming down to "an ideological bent among some lawmakers that don't believe that public employees should have a defined-benefit plan because pension plans in the private sector have mostly gone away, so they don't think public employees should have that either." He cites a state human resources survey among state workers that found 42% of respondents "strongly agree" that they prefer a defined-benefit plan over a defined-contribution plan; 3% said they "strongly agree" with the opposite scenario. Miller, the retirement system leader, said, "People who come to work for the state or a political subdivision are interested in stability, and a defined-benefit plan provides that." A bill introduced in the legislature by Rep. Claire Cory of Grand Forks would pave the way to diverting money away from public schools and give it to a variety of nonpublic education institutions through a voucher system. Under the voucher system, the state would give public money to individuals who wanted to send their kids to private institutions. If public education in North Dakota was adequately funded, the suggestion wouldnt be so alarming. But local education is not adequately funded so diverting limited available funds would deprive local school districts of critical funds. Surely, sponsors of vouchers must have criticisms of our locally-administered school system run by community citizens. Is there something in the curriculum that is being taught incorrectly? Are schools staffed by teachers who are pushing their own agendas? Is there not enough security to keep children safe? Do we want to keep our children away from the riff-raff public schools must accept? The vouchers create a constitutional problem because they will be used to subsidize religious education and violate the separation of church and state emblazoned in our culture by the Founding Fathers James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Through political compromises, states have ignored underfunding of public education and have a lower commitment to the principle of separation of church and state. At present, states have created 39 private choice programs, 15 voucher programs and 18 scholarships tax credit plans. Unless the defenders of public education are vigilant especially during legislative sessions more and more public money will finance private ideologies. It is known that there are difficult issues being processed in schools. There are political objections to teaching the critical race theory (CRT) because it convicts us for our 400-year oppression of African Americans. Ive just finished a careful review of the 400 years of slavery and we have oppressed African Americans so persistently that it has become ingrained in our institutions. Outlawing the teaching of CRT is bigotry. Accepting LGBTQs as persons has been stressful for those who feel that the sexual orientation of others is their business. But that being a religious issue, it is the business of only the person and his/her God. Evolution continues to be a controversial issue that disturbs Christians because it leaves God outside of the creation process. A legitimate concern that requires a compelling argument by parents against the theory. Besides, science can only discover what God has done so Christians need not worry. If our policy-making system was operating anywhere near normal, the proposal could be discussed rationally and constructively. Unfortunately, education is now caught up in the polarization that is dividing the country. The division is a breakaway minority that has staked out an ideology that is beyond that of the regular conservatism. Many of them are involved directly or indirectly with Christian Nationalism, an ideology that proposes to rewrite American history to justify a radical departure from traditional democratic norms. Various spokespersons for the Christian right have been battering public schools for decades, hoping to erode public confidence and create an environment that will be receptive to privatization of the school system. Textbook and curriculum resources are big in the publishing business with right-wing ideologues designing material that reinforce unfounded biases. Private schools are teaching this material. As early as 1979, Jerry Falwell said that he hoped he would see the day public schools would be taken over by churches with Christians running them. In this free country, parents have the right to compartmentalize the minds of their children as they choose. However, public funds should not be used to finance private education that may not be in the common good. A cruel wind blowing from Bismarck. Our current Governor Burgum is pushing to end the ban on corporate farming in the state. Anyone who has taken a beginning economics class knows that corporations are responsible first and foremost to their shareholders, ergo the bottom line. Corporations buy their inputs where they can the cheapest, putting local suppliers out of business. They will take the land away from resident producers and those producers will have to work for them. Independent producers will be handcuffed to being price takers. Corporate entities will require them to buy specific inputs if they want to sell their livestock/crops to the corporations. When a corporation buys land, it artificially inflates the price taking the opportunity for buying land away from a local generational farmer. Allowing corporate farms will begin the death knell for small towns. The Class B camaraderie will be a thing of the past. Generational farms will disappear within a generation. When you arent tied to the land you are not invested in taking care of it for future generations. Land is the future of food security. Many smaller producers ensure food security when weather or disease affects plants or animals. Corporations will take all they want out of the land and then sell it either at a profit or a loss. Both are beneficial to their bottom line. We have visited with friends like us involved in the ag industry in other western states that wish they had the ban on corporate farming like we do. They bemoan what happened to price out small producers in their states. They say hold onto our ban with fierce determination. Our state has billions and we can afford to build the type of ag businesses Governor Burgum touts as needing outsider dollars for. Travis and Karen Anderson, Warwick January 27 2023 A bid to transform a disused council depot at Maxwell Park in Pollokshields has been given the go-ahead by planning officers. O'DonnellBrown Architects propose to build a 165 sq/m community pavilion on the site, restoring the park to its original Victorian entrance arrangement in the process. Commissioned by Friends of Maxwell Park and the Pollokshields and Burgh Hall Trust the plans call for the creation of a meeting hall, bookable rooms, offices and a cafe/events space arranged around a secluded courtyard. Clad in black stained timber and a black slate roof the pavilion is situated on the southeast corner of the park, adjacent to Pollokshields Burgh Hall. ODonnellBrown director Sam Brown commented: As members of the local community, this project holds an extra level of significance for us as a practice. We hope the building and allotments will provide a valuable focal point for the local park, a place for people to gather, a place to meet. A start on-site is expected to be made early in 2024. January 27 2023 Contentious plans to demolish four multi-storey tower blocks on Glasgow's Wyndford estate have received the backing of architect and RIAS fellow Dr Richard Atkins. The former chair of the Scottish Ecological Design Association has broken ranks with colleagues opposed to a tear down to argue that there is 'little or no basis' to arguments that the blocks should be retained on energy efficiency or carbon emissions grounds - as the blocks in question hold 'no embodied emissions value'. Explaining his stance in a detailed emissions report Atkins dismisses claims that a full demolition and rebuild would result in 10,000 tonnes of embodied carbon emissions, arguing that new homes will carry emit 48% less CO2 than retrofitted. Instead, Atkins estimates that each new home would be responsible for just 12 tonnes of embodied carbon emissions, not the 74 tonnes claimed by opponents. Other mitigating factors also favour new builds with 3,000 tonnes of timber expected to store 1,530 tonnes of carbon and Atkins points out that all concrete would be reused as aggregate. Atkins commented: There is no evidence to support claims the four blocks should be retained and retrofitted based solely on CO2(e) emissions or energy efficiency. The volume of materials needed for the new structures, when multiplied by the Inventory of Carbon & Energy values, supports replacement." Atkins also argues that the existing accommodation cannot current spatial and accessibility standards, nor be retrofitted to comply with net zero direct emissions heating standards. (@FahadShabbir) Federal Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Prof. Ahsan Iqbal on Friday said that export-led growth is the cure for our economic woes for boosting the country's economic growth ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2023 ) :Federal Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Prof. Ahsan Iqbal on Friday said that export-led growth is the cure for our economic woes for boosting the country's economic growth. The Ministry for Planning Development and Special Initiatives will recommend to Prime Minister, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif thatan export emergency should be declaredto take the country out of economic quagmire; said the Minister for planning, while meeting the top Pakistani exporters, said a press release issued here. The meeting was attended by the Exporters Representatives from Steel, Pharmaceutical and Textile sectors, who also apprised the minister about the problems faced by them in the course of doing business and exporting indigenous products abroad. The Minister while assuring them about the full-fledged support of the Government remarked that we will provide all-out support to the Industrial sector for resolving their issues. He also asserted that the business community should present to the Government of any red-tapism or any other bottlenecks in the way of undertaking any venture, "we will cut Red Tape", said the Minister. He added that the incumbent Government is pursuing a business-friendly policy and promoting a conducive environment for entrepreneurs. The Minister said that in the past, we learnt to consume instead of earning. He also said that the survival of the country depends on the premise that whether we can enhance our exports from $32 billion to $100 billion in the shortest possible time. The Government stands with the Industrial sector to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and to push Exports. The Minister offered the platform of the Ministry of Planning and Development to the private sector for assisting in the resolution of their problems. The Minister lamented thatCPEC provided us a golden opportunity to turn-around the economy of Pakistan but the opportunity was squandered dueto the bad economic policies of the previous regime. However, we are committed to revivingthe CPEC Project. He added that China imports $2250 Billion worth of goodsout of whichPakistan hasa meager share of $ 3 billion, which is dismal. The Minister laid emphasis to target the Chinese market and increase market share in the US and European markets so that a progressive export-led economy can be realized adding that the Government will support the industrial sector to meet the challenges of global competitiveness.The Minister said that vision 2010 and Vision 2025 envisioned revamping the Economic structure and bringing prosperity and development in Pakistan but unfortunately Political instabilityderailed the journey of progress. Turkey hopes to start operating the gas hub project proposed Russia within a year, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said on Friday ANKARA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Turkey hopes to start operating the gas hub project proposed Russia within a year, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said on Friday. "There is no gas trading center in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The countries of the region with which we maintain contacts also support this gas center project. I hope we will be able to start the gas center operations within one year," Turkish newspaper Star quoted Donmez as saying. In October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan instructed their governments to map the possibility of creating a gas hub in Turkey where traffic could be diverted from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines. According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, the idea is not only to create a trading platform in Turkey, but also to develop infrastructure and increase the volume of supplies to Europe. He said other countries can also join in as suppliers, including Algeria, Qatar and Azerbaijan. GABORONE, Jan. 27 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2023 ) :The 17th Chinese medical team will arrive in Botswana in two months, an official said Thursday. The 40-member Chinese medical team will work in Botswana for two years, Tshepo Machacha, deputy permanent secretary of Botswana's Ministry of Health said at an orientation workshop of 60 Cuban medical specialists in Francistown, Botswana's second-largest city. For more than three decades, China and Cuba have played a pivotal role in ensuring that Botswana has a sufficient number of health workers in its facilities, Machacha said. Health care has long been a top priority in China-Botswana cooperation, and the Chinese government not only sends medical teams, but also donates clinical equipment and offers training opportunities to local health professionals. Johannesburg, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2023 ) :The power crisis that has struck South Africa can leave citizens and businesses deprived of electricity for hours at a time -- but few victims are more vulnerable than undertakers. Mortuary directors are urging the bereaved to carry out fast-track funerals to avoid decay and ease pressure on morgue refrigerators. "The industry is seeing a large number of putrefied bodies," the South African Funeral Practitioners Association (SAFPA) declared bluntly this week. Burial within four days "is cost-effective and prevents families from seeing their departed ones in a poor state of decomposition," it said. That could require uncomfortable change in a country where most funerals take place one or two weeks after the death -- and mourners file past an open coffin, with the deceased on view, on the day of the funeral. Undertakers ease dependence on the state power monopoly Eskom by using diesel generators to keep their morgues cold. But they are being hit with soaring energy bills. "Smaller parlours are battling to make ends meet because now the majority of their funds are going towards dealing with" the outages, said Dududu Magano, spokesman for the National Funeral Directors' Association. Scheduled blackouts, known as load shedding, have burdened Africa's most industrialised economy for over a decade, as Eskom's creaking coal-fired plants struggle to meet demand. But the outages have reached new extremes over the past year, with power sometimes switched off up to four times a day, for periods of up to four and a half hours. Grace Matila, a Johannesburg undertaker of 10 years, blamed the outages for recently causing her refrigerator's compressor to fail. "The constant on-and-off caused it to stop working, but luckily I had a back-up compressor. Can you imagine what would have happened if I didn't?" she told AFP, saying she would have to pass on the higher electricity costs to clients. Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2023 ) :The discovery of classified documents at the homes of Donald Trump, Joe Biden and Mike Pence has rekindled a debate about an old habit of the US government -- slapping millions of documents every year with labels of "secret," "top secret" and other confidential designations. Nuclear secrets, Names of spies, diplomatic cables: governments everywhere carefully protect information that could compromise security, names of agents or relations with other nations. But in the United States, the machinery of secrecy works overtime. Every year, some 50 million decisions are made on whether to mark government documents as "confidential," "secret" or "top secret," according to several experts. However, "an awful lot of classified documents are not that sensitive," Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer currently at the Brookings Institution think tank, told AFP. "To classify military plans for Ukraine is legitimate," Riedel added. But "it's much more questionable (to classify) for a State Department cable reporting the secretary of state's arrival in Israel on Monday" when the news has already been reported by the media. In 2016, a congressional report lamented that "50 to 90 percent of classified material is not properly labeled." When old documents are declassified, they can bring amusement, such as when the CIA lifted the secrecy on nearly century-old documents in 2011 that explained how to create invisible ink. Riedel blames "bureaucratic inertia" for the tendency to overclassify: "It's the safe thing to do bureaucratically. If somebody asks why information got into the public domain, you can say it was 'leaked.'" A "confidential" stamp limits the number of people allowed to view records and the secure conditions -- sometimes free of all electronics -- under which they are given access. Storage rules for classified material are strict, and violators can be prosecuted. When former president Trump left Washington, he took with him entire boxes of records, including highly classified documents, which led to a search of his Florida home last summer. Recently, a handful of classified documents were also found in the homes of Trump's former vice president Pence, and also of President Biden, dating to the time when he was vice president under Barack Obama. "Some might conclude that the procedures in place for handling classified information are too lax. But that's not the case," according to Elizabeth Goitein, a national security expert at the Brennan Center for Justice. "The protections for classified information are rigorous and extensive," Goitein wrote in The Nation magazine. "The culprit lies elsewhere, in the original sin that underlies almost all the dysfunctions of the classification system: overclassification." The problem has long been identified and debated. Then-Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted in 1971 that "when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion." On several occasions, presidents or legislators have attempted to address this. "The (Bill) Clinton administration actually did make some real progress on this. They did have a big review and ended up reclassifying a lot of things, but I think that whatever progress was made in the 1990s was reversed and more by (the terrorist attacks of) September 11," said Ben Wizner, director of a speech and privacy project of the American Civil Liberties Union. He believes that authorities have classified documents in batches, among other things, to "hide evidence of torturing prisoners" in Iraq or Afghanistan, or "to declare the CIA's drone program clandestine." Beyond the transparency issues, he said too much classification undermines the efficiency of the administration: "You shrink the number of people whom you can consult about very important things."In addition, the system "gives the government much too much discretion to decide whether and when to enforce those laws," Wizner said. While some whistleblowers have received serious jail time, "it's extremely unlikely that presidents Trump or Biden... will ever face any criminal sanction," he added. Korean Ambassador to Pakistan Suh Sangpyo on Friday called on Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Javed Abbasi and discussed matters related to bilateral interests ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jan, 2023 ) :Korean Ambassador to Pakistan Suh Sangpyo on Friday called on Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Javed Abbasi and discussed matters related to bilateral interests. While welcoming the envoy, the minister expressed his gratitude for the assistance provided by Korea during the recent devastating flood in Pakistan Javed Murtaza Abbasi stressed the need for technology transfer in Pakistan as there was immense potential in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) which needed expansion and increased investment. This sector, he said, had an important role in improving the national economy and its full potential should be exploited for the development of the country. The minister said the ports of Karachi and Gwadar were available to provide better access to Korea to the markets of Central Asia. He praised the quality of Korean products, especially solar panels, and emphasized promoting the existing cooperation in the energy sector. The two sides also discussed ongoing projects of Korean companies in Pakistan and agreed on their further expansion. During the meeting, they underlined the need for further promoting the cooperation and ties between the two countries at the parliamentary and government level. The chief executive officer of Star Hydro, a company constructing a dam, was also present in the meeting The minister assured that the difficulties being faced in the opening of LCs (Letters of Credit) would be resolved soon. Javed Murtaza Abbasi also highlighted the country's potential in the tourism sector and stressed its development. (@Abdulla99267510) Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that they will be soon out of the difficulties and the multilateral and bilateral institutions will start working with Pakistan. ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News-Jan 27th, 2023) Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that his government would sign agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the ninth review of the Extended Fund Facility this month. The Prime Minister said that he was hopeful that they would strike an agreement with the IMF this month. He said they would be soon out of the difficulties and multilateral and bilateral institutions would work with Pakistan. PM Shehbaz expressed these words while addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Green Line Express Train Service at the Margalla Train Station. The PM said that the government developed a list of items that needed to be imported based on their necessity amid the dire situation of the foreign exchange reserves. Shehbaz Sharif stated that the list consisted of the food and medical items. For how long, Pakistan will rely on others to run its matters, asked the PM, pointing out that this journey was quite difficult but not impossible. He, however, said that they wouldl have to work day and night to come out of this crisis. Talking about Green Line Express Train Service, the premier said that the foundation laying ceremony of the project was held during his brother Nawaz Sharifs tenure but like other projects, "it also failed to take place". He stated that Khawaja Saad Rafique worked hard to improve railways. "You can Look at the state of railways now after Saad Rafique, said Shehbaz, adding Pakistan Railways like many others was struggling before Khawaja Saad. ML-1, he was of the view, was not subject to "unnecessary accusations pointing out that unnecessary corruption claims were made against Chinese companies and ties with Beijing were targetted. Why would Arizona's Republicans, of all people, want to dead-letter the state's open government act, making it legal for them to destroy all their letters, emails, texts and other communications after 90 days? "I think it is petty, vindictive and contrary to the plain interests of transparency and government accountability in Arizona," said David Bodney, a lawyer who has represented the Arizona Republic in open-records litigation over the 2020 election review. Ordinarily, Arizona officialsmust retain most public records indefinitely and release them when someone asks for them. Seizing on a recent state Supreme Court ruling, the lawmakers on Tuesday and Wednesday adopted rules that set limited standards for when they must make documents public. Capitol Media Services first reported the rule changes. Last month, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled it had no power to enforce the state's open-meetings law Why would GOP voters want this? Because they don't want democracy in the first place. They want it all torn down an replaced with an autocracy they presume will represent their factional interests. EU interior ministers reached "consensus" Thursday to warn outside countries refusing to take back irregular migrants they risked tighter visa restrictions to Europe, Sweden's migration minister said Stockholm, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jan, 2023 ) :EU interior ministers reached "consensus" Thursday to warn outside countries refusing to take back irregular migrants they risked tighter visa restrictions to Europe, Sweden's migration minister said. The ministers agreed that the tool, in place since 2020, "should be fully used" to boost the number of migrants whose asylum applications failed to return to their home countries, the minister, Maria Malmer Stenegard, told a news conference. Sweden chaired the Stockholm meeting in its current role holding the EU presidency. "Should intensified political and diplomatic efforts not produce the desired results, member states call on the (European) Commission to come back to the (European) Council with proposals on visa restrictions," Malmer Stenegard said. EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson stressed that many European Union countries were under "huge pressure", receiving nearly one million asylum applications last year. The problem of capacity was aggravated by the fact that the EU was also hosting nearly four million Ukrainian refugees who had fled Russia's war in their country, she said. Johansson said it was "really important" to increase the number of returns of irregular migrants of nationalities less likely to succeed with asylum applications, citing "Moroccans, Egyptians, Tunisians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Turks. Cubans, Indians". Under international law, each asylum case needs to be weighed individually. But evidence of persecution was more likely to be provided by those fleeing wars, as in Syria, or repressive governments, as in Afghanistan and Iran. European Commission statistics show a low rate of effective returns. In 2021, out of 340,500 orders for migrants to be returned to their countries of origin, only 21 percent were carried out. The EU funds various reintegration programmes in countries that readmit their citizens who have been denied asylum in Europe. These are separate from deportations or forced returns based on a court or administrative order, which are often carried out under escort and typically do not include in-country assistance. Sweden -- whose government relies on a far-right party, the Sweden Democrats, to stay in power -- wants EU countries to leverage visas, foreign policy and development aid to press outside countries on the returns issue. So far, the EU has applied the visa-restriction tool against only one country: Gambia, for whose citizens getting a Schengen visa is more difficult and costly. The commission in 2021 proposed the mechanism be extended to Bangladesh and Iraq, but that has not happened. Johansson said after a November visit to Bangladesh that the threat of the visa sanction has prompted Dhaka to become more "politically open" to accepting irregular migrants back from Europe. Germany however has reservations about that approach. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said going into the Stockholm meeting that accords signed, especially with countries in north Africa, "on one hand allowed legal paths (for migration), and on the other, effective returns". - Austria backs fence - The overall tone on migration has hardened in Europe since 2015-2016, when it took in over a million asylum-seekers, most of them Syrians fleeing the war in their country. The bloc in 2016 struck a deal with Turkey to prevent much of the onward passage of irregular migrants into Europe. Austria is backing the construction of a fence along the border of EU member Bulgaria with Turkey to further reduce the flow of asylum-seekers. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said on Monday, during a visit to that border region, that the fence would cost around two billion Euros and he called on the European Commission to fund it. The commission has been reluctant to do that, emphasising instead the role of Frontex, the bloc's border patrol agency, that EU member states can call on. Johansson objected to the fence proposal on financial grounds. She said there was "sometimes a wet dream that you can get money from the commission for everything," but complained that the European Council representing member states had cut her department's budget for the 2021-2027 cycle. Johansson said it was the member states who were "best-positioned" to protect the EU's external borders, adding that whatever they did had to be "aligned with the EU acquis (bloc's laws) and the fundamental rights and so on". MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) The European Union has proposed to impose new sanctions on Belarus that would target the country's energy sector and impose restrictions on key technologies, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing EU's documents. According to the report, the new sanctions package against Belarus would align with restrictive measures that had already been imposed on Russia. The proposed measures include export bans on dual-use goods and technologies for the country's military, sanctions on oil, coal, steel, and gold, restrictions on the trade of luxury goods, investments, and certain services, and measures against Belarus' aviation and energy sectors. Exemptions would be made for medicines, agricultural and food products. According to the report, the new package must be backed by all member states of the EU to be approved. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declared a two-week state of emergency amid riots in the city of Atlanta, with the possibility of mobilizing up to 1,000 National Guard troops. On January 21, protests in downtown Atlanta, triggered by the death of an environmental activist who was shot and killed by the Georgia State Patrol, became violent, with protesters throwing rocks, launching fireworks and burning a police car in front of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. "That because of unlawful assemblage, violence, overt threats of violence, disruption of the peace and tranquility of this state and danger existing to persons and property, a State of Emergency is declared in the State of Georgia," the governor's executive order, released Thursday, read. The state of emergency is in effect until February 10, with the possibility of extension. According to the order, up to 1,000 Georgia national guard troops will be deployed to ensure the safety of citizens. On January 18, a 26-year-old protester named Manuel Esteban Paez Teran was shot dead by the Georgia State Patrol after authorities said he shot and wounded a police officer during a planned multi-agency operation to remove protesters from the area in front of the training center, who had been there for months. At least 46 people have been killed in mine and ammunition explosions in Azerbaijan since the signing of a trilateral declaration of a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020, Azerbaijani Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev said Friday BAKU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) At least 46 people have been killed in mine and ammunition explosions in Azerbaijan since the signing of a trilateral declaration of a ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020, Azerbaijani Prosecutor General Kamran Aliyev said Friday. "Since the trilateral statement signed by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia dated November 10, 2020, so far 46 people have died as a result of mine and munition explosions. As a result of mine and ammunition explosions, 233 people received injuries of varying severity," Aliyev said at a large board meeting on the work carried out by the prosecutor's office in 2022. In October, Baku said that 266 Azerbaijani citizens have been affected by mines, of whom 45 had been killed since November 2020 at that point. In late November, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry accused Yerevan of using the Lachin corridor, the only road that links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh enclave but runs through the Azerbaijani territory, for illegal military activities, including the transportation of mines. The ministry said it found 350 anti-personnel mines in Nagorno-Karabakh produced in Armenia in 2021, already after the signing of the trilateral ceasefire statement. The Armenian Foreign Ministry rejected Baku's accusations that mines were transported through the Lachin corridor, noting that the country mines only within its territory and only in self-defense. The long-standing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh flared up in September 2020, marking the worst escalation since the 1990s. Hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered trilateral declaration of ceasefire signed in November 2020. The two former Soviet countries agreed to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the conflict-torn region as they started negotiating the border delimitation. Clashes resumed on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border outside of Nagorno-Karabakh on September 13. Azerbaijan said it launched an offensive responding to an Armenian "provocation." Armenia said Azerbaijani forces shelled Armenian civilian towns with no military infrastructure. Both sides reported losses among their military. The parties agreed to a ceasefire the next day but continued to accuse each other of violations. Moscow understands that new US Ambassador Lynne Tracy now has little freedom of maneuver, but hopes she will take into account the mistakes made by one of her predecessors, Michael McFaul, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Moscow understands that new US Ambassador Lynne Tracy now has little freedom of maneuver, but hopes she will take into account the mistakes made by one of her predecessors, Michael McFaul, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday. Given anti-Russia sentiments in the US political elite, Moscow understands that the new ambassador "has practically no freedom of maneuver," Zakharova said at a briefing. "We hope that the current ambassador will take into account the mistakes of one of his predecessors ... McFaul ... Interference in our internal affairs under the guise of working with civil society instantly turned this character into a pariah. I would not advise the new ambassador to follow this erroneous path," the diplomat added. Moscow does not recommend the new US ambassador to interfere in Russia's affairs, Zakharova said. Moscow does not rule out the visit of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi to Russia in the near future to discuss the parameters of further cooperation, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Moscow does not rule out the visit of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi to Russia in the near future to discuss the parameters of further cooperation, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday. "We maintain an important dialogue for both sides with IAEA Director General Mr. Grossi in all areas of the agency's activities. Including on the issues of the operation of the NPP, as well as the creation of a safety zone of this plant. Contacts with him are regularly carried out through the permanent mission of Russia to international organizations in Vienna. And, of course, we do not rule out the possibility of the IAEA delegation headed by Mr. Grossi coming to Russia in the near future to discuss the parameters of our further cooperation," Zakharova told a briefing. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Police officers, protesting in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, have attacked the city's airport and besieged Prime Minister Ariel Henry, the Radio Tele Metronome broadcaster reported on Thursday. According to the report, police hold Henry responsible for the deaths of six officers in an armed attack by gangs on police headquarters in the city of Liancourt on Wednesday. On Thursday, barricades of burning tires were erected all over Port-au-Prince. Protesters headed to the capital's airport, where the head of government arrived after the summit in Argentina. The prime minister was reportedly forced to leave the airport through the back door to escape protesters and is now taking refugee in one of the airport's terminals under military guard. In Port-au-Prince, police officers without uniforms broke into the prime minister's office, fired shots in the air, and smashed the windshields of several cars near the government building. Haiti is experiencing a long-term socio-political crisis, which worsened after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021. The country's already understaffed law enforcement agencies have struggled to keep crime at bay as gangs continue to gain in strength. Over the past year, the inaction of the authorities has reportedly led to an unprecedented increase in the influence of armed gangs that engage in extortion and kidnapping for ransom. Rosatom is interested in the implementation of wind energy projects in Nicaragua, a preliminary analysis of the market has already been carried out, Rosatom Latin America President Ivan Dybov said in an interview with Sputnik. BUENOS AIRES/MONTEVIDEO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Rosatom is interested in the implementation of wind energy projects in Nicaragua, a preliminary analysis of the market has already been carried out, Rosatom Latin America President Ivan Dybov said in an interview with Sputnik. "Rosatom works not only in nuclear energy, but also in the field of traditional and alternative energy. For example, the state corporation builds and operates wind farms in Russia, and we are implementing plans to enter the international market," Dybov said. The company conducted a preliminary analysis of the Nicaraguan market in terms of the applied business model, taking into account prices for electricity produced by hydroelectric power plants and wind farms, he said. "According to the results of the study, we can say that this is a fairly attractive market, and we look forward to the development of this area of cooperation," he said. Dybov also recalled that in 2022, at the Atomexpo forum, Rosatom had signed a roadmap with Nicaragua, which included the most promising projects in the field of the use of nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes, primarily agriculture, medicine and science. (@FahadShabbir) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th January, 2023) Russian cosmonauts could return from the International Space Station (ISS) back to Earth on US Crew Dragon spaceship, if it is necessary, Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, NASA's International Space Station (ISS) Program Manager Joel Montalbano held a a press conference about the SpaceX Crew-6 mission to the ISS. "According to him (Montalbano), if necessary, in addition to (NASA astronaut) Francisco Rubio, it will be possible to accommodate Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin in Crew Dragon," Roscosmos said on Telegram. On December 14, a leak from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft's cooling system occurred due to damage to the outer skin of the ship's instrument and assembly compartment. The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft will be sent to the ISS uncrewed on February 20 and is expected to dock with the station on February 22. The Soyuz MS-22 will return to Earth without a crew. Earlier in the month, Roscosmos said that the seats of all three Soyuz MS-22 crew members, Rubio, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, will be transferred to the Soyuz MS-23 in February to bring them back to Earth. Rubio's seat will be temporarily located in the Crew Dragon spacecraft in case of an emergency on the ISS. (@ChaudhryMAli88) MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova said on Friday that she has discussed with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, the exchange of wounded via teleconferencing. "Another meeting with Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets was held. This time with the participation of Turkish Chief Ombudsman Seref Malkoc... Continuing to move in this direction, we agreed to assist in the exchange of lists of seriously wounded persons to be repatriated, to assist the competent authorities in the return of citizens subject to deportation," Moskalkova said on Telegram. She added that interactions with the Ukrainian counterpart have already made it possible to resolve a number of issues related to family reunification, the search for missing persons on each side, assistance with a prisoner exchange, and the mutual return home of detained civilians. "Undoubtedly, the Russian Defense Ministry and our special services are of key importance in resolving these complex issues. At the same time, as practice shows, the role of the ombudsmen increases in such situations. We try to do everything possible to help people in difficult life situations," Moskalkova said. David Miscavige, head honcho at the Church of Scientology, is nowhere to be found, according to TMZ. The publication reports that lawyers have been searching for Miscavige for months. From Jezebel: Could it be to discuss the lawsuit against the church by three women who've accused Danny Masterson of rape, and say the "Church" stalked and harassed them after they went public with their claims against the actor, who's a high-ranking member? Nope! Perhaps the allegations that he unalived his wife, Shellya woman who hasn't been seen in public since 2007are worth new discussion? No; the attorneys want to serve Miscavige with papers for a child sex trafficking suit. According to TMZ, Miscavige has evaded process servers not one, not two, but 27 times (!) at Scientology headquarters in both Los Angeles and Clearwater, Florida, over the course of four months. The three plaintiffs are Gawain Baxter, Laura Baxter, and Valeska Paris, former members of Scientology's Sea Org, whom claim they were forced into the institution as children and worked for nominal pay ("round-the-clock labor" allegedly garnered just $50 a week for Gawain, $25 for Laura) well into adulthood. Switzerland respects human rights and currently has no legal grounds for transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, Swiss Secretary of State Livia Leu said on Friday GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) Switzerland respects human rights and currently has no legal grounds for transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, Swiss Secretary of State Livia Leu said on Friday. "Switzerland respects human rights, and the right to property is one of them. At the moment, we have no legal grounds for transferring frozen Russian assets in the country to Ukraine," Leu told a briefing. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) New US Ambassador Lynne Tracy will visit the Russian Foreign Ministry next week to meet with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov and present copies of credentials, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday. Earlier in the day, US Embassy in Moscow told RIA Novosti that new US Ambassador Lynne Tracy will hold a meeting at the Russian Foreign Ministry next week in the period from Monday to Thursday. "The ministry will host the US ambassador who has arrived in Russia. Supervising Deputy Minister Sergey Ryabkov will be present at the meeting... During the meeting, Ms. Tracy will present copies of credentials, after which she will be able to begin her duties as the US ambassador to Russia," Zakharova told a briefing. The United States, which pumps Ukraine with weapons, provokes the escalation of the conflict; North Korea will always be on the side of the people and the army of Russia, which protects the "dignity and honor" of the state, its sovereignty and security, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who is the deputy head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, said as quoted by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) SEOUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) The United States, which pumps Ukraine with weapons, provokes the escalation of the conflict; North Korea will always be on the side of the people and the army of Russia, which protects the "dignity and honor" of the state, its sovereignty and security, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who is the deputy head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, said as quoted by the Korean Central news Agency (KCNA). "The United States, by pumping Ukraine with a large number of weapons, is 'distinguished' in stimulating the continuation of unstable global events, and recently made its anti-Russian position even clearer by officially announcing the supply of its main tanks (to Ukraine)," Kim Yo Jong said, noting that the United States is waging a "proxy war aimed at destroying the Russian Federation" in order to achieve hegemony. She noted that it is the United States that is the "main culprit" of the situation, posing a threat to Russia's strategic security, and that "without the United States, the world will be brighter, safer and more peaceful." "We are deeply concerned about the behavior of the United States, leading to an escalation of the war with the supply of military equipment to Ukraine for ground attack, and we strongly condemn this," Kim Yo Jong said. "We will always be in the same trench with the army and people of Russia, which stood up to fight to protect the dignity and honor of the state, sovereignty and security country." (@ChaudhryMAli88) The United States urges Turkey to continue working with Sweden and Finland to resolve differences with respect to their accession to NATO, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) The United States urges Turkey to continue working with Sweden and Finland to resolve differences with respect to their accession to NATO, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday. "We urge Turkey to continue to work with both Sweden and Finland to work through these concerns so that we can get to accession into NATO as soon as possible," Kirby said during a press briefing. Sweden-Turkey relations deteriorated after the leader of the Danish far-right party Stram Kurs, Rasmus Paludan, burnt a Quran outside of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on Saturday with the permission of the Swedish authorities. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said afterward that Sweden should not count on Ankara's support for the application to join NATO. On Tuesday, trilateral talks on NATO membership between Turkey, Sweden and Finland were postponed at Ankara's request. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th January, 2023) The Emergency Committee for COVID-19 of the World Health Organization (WHO) will hold a meeting on Friday to discuss whether the COVID-19 pandemic still constitutes a global emergency. The meeting will be convened by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus under the International Health Regulations. Based on the results of the meeting, the committee will advise Ghebreyesus as to whether the COVID-19 pandemic should be still considered a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It will also issue temporary recommendations to WHO and its member states. After receiving state approval this month to proceed with a condo offering, Ciminelli Real Estate Corp. has begun marketing for sale the 87 apartments at its Bethune Lofts project on Main Street, in one of the biggest condo conversion projects in the city. The Buffalo-based developer will convert the renovated former Buffalo Meter Co. Building into privately owned apartments, capitalizing on growing interest not only in living in the city particularly along the Metro Rail line but also in direct ownership. Ciminelli plans to turn Bethune Lofts into condos Ciminelli Real Estate Corp., the Buffalo-based developer that renovated the former Buffalo Meter Co. building into 87 apartments a decade ago, has filed paperwork with the State Attorney Generals office to convert the rental units at 2917 Main St. into condominiums. Condos have not typically been a major part of the Buffalo residential market, but that's been changing with the success of prior efforts such as Jake Schneider's Historic Warehouse Lofts at 210 Ellicott St., which Schneider first converted seven years ago, before adding six more units in 2021. Additionally, developer Paul Kolkmeyer's Priam Enterprises also plans to convert the apartments at The Glenny on Main Street, and, later, those at the Marin next door. "We think the market is right. We think the timing is right," Ciminelli CEO Paul Ciminelli said. "Mortgage rates are higher now, but we are still pretty bullish about the opportunity." Ciminelli began the long regulatory process in 2020, before formally applying to the state Attorney General's office in February 2022. The units are now being offered through 716 Realty Group, at prices ranging from the middle $100,000s and up to the high $300,000s. Twelve units are available, including a two-bedroom model unit on the ground floor. The Bethune Lofts have history, location and amenities Buffalos fabulous architectural history includes Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first woman to have worked as a professional architect in the U.S. The Bethune Lofts, located on Main Street in Buffalo, were named for her by Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation, which developed the former Buffalo Meter Company into a six-story loft building that has 87 apartments. The building was designed No one is being evicted, so the building at 2917 Main will exist as a hybrid for some time, with both for-sale and for-rent units, as Ciminelli honors existing leases and waits for potential buyers to come forward with offers including current tenants, who get first dibs for 90 days starting this month. The process is expected to take 18 months to two years, Ciminelli said. Under the offering plan approved by the state, the process can't formally begin until at least 13 apartments have buyers. But that's not expected to be a problem, said Gregory Straus, broker-owner of 716 Realty, which is handling the marketing and sales for Ciminelli. There's already a dozen tenants interested in buying their units, and another nine apartments are vacant. Meanwhile, he noted, 31 condos are available for sale across the city, but only nine are priced under $400,000. And none of them are in the popular North Buffalo area around Main Street and Hertel Avenue, he added. "Many of these units' price points will make purchasing a possibility for many that previously chose a luxury apartment over a single or multi-family home, which is more common in the area," Straus said. Special financing is available through Northwest Savings Bank and Bank on Buffalo. Second Louise Bethune-designed building targeted for redevelopment Another historic building designed by Americas first registered female architect Louise Bethune is now being targeted for redevelopment, although its a lot smaller than the previous one in Buffalo. Bernice Radle, owner of Buffalove Development, is planning a historic rehabilitation of 588 Niagara St., a three-story red brick building at the corner of Jersey Street. Radle bought Bethune Lofts is located near Hertel Avenue and within a block from a Metro Rail train station. It has 37 one-bedroom and 50 two-bedroom apartments. The four-story building was completed in 1917 for Buffalo Meter, which was one of the nations best-known makers of water meters during the first half of the 20th century. Buffalo Meter moved out by 1970, and the building was purchased by University at Buffalo in May 1971. It housed the art and architecture departments, and part of the Division of Continuing Education, and was renamed after Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first professional female architect. UB vacated the building by 1994, and it was auctioned off by the state in July 2005. Ciminelli bought it in 2010, and launched its redevelopment. It has also been listed on both the state and national Registers of Historic Places. Air raid sirens wailed across Ukraine early Thursday as Russia attacked with scores of missiles and drones. The attacks came hours after the U.S. and Germany pledged to send advanced battle tanks to halt the Russian invasion. By Stefan Bos People, some carrying babies, rushed into a Kyiv subway, or Metro station, as they settled in to wait when this massive round of Russian attacks was over. Russia fired dozens of missiles and drones toward the capital and across Ukraine. But not all hit their intended targets. Ukrainian troops shouted joyfully as a Ukrainian soldier shot down a Russian drone flying over his trench, footage showed. Authorities claimed dozens more drones and missiles were shot down. Western nations promise further military aid The latest Russian attacks came just hours after several Western nations committed to sending advanced battle tanks to help Ukraine push back the Russian military from its territory. U.S. President Joe Biden was the latest Western leader to decide to send tanks after initial reluctance within his administration. The United States has worked in lockstep with our Allies and partners around the world to make sure the Ukrainian people are in the strongest possible position to defend their nation, their families, and against the brutal, the truly brutal aggression of Russia. We havent seen the likes of this in a long time, President Biden noted. And today today, Im announcing that the United States will be sending 31 Abram tanks to Ukraine, the equivalent of one Ukrainian battalion, he announced. The Abrams tanks are the most capable tanks in the world. Theyre also extremely complex to operate and maintain, so were also giving Ukraine the parts and equipment necessary to effectively sustain these tanks on the battlefield. And well begin to train the Ukrainian troops on these issues of sustainment, logistics, and maintenance as soon as possible, Biden stressed. Germany delivers tanks Earlier German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed his country would supply more than 100 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine by allowing other countries to send theirs too. Germany itself will send 14 pieces of the German-made Leopard 2 tanks. But with the green light from Germany, countries such as Poland and the Netherlands also want to deliver these tanks to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deliveries are crucial to win the war. I am very happy. I would like to say thank you to Germany, to Britain, to the United States that they made this decision, he added. However, Zelensky cautioned: Overall, I am very thankful to the world for their support of Ukraine. But frankly speaking, the number of tanks and the delivery time to Ukraine is critical. Russia warns of escalation Russia has warned Kyiv and the West that the tank deliveries would be a dangerous escalation of the armed conflict in Ukraine. And a Kremlin spokesperson said, Those tanks will burn just like any others. As attacks intensified Thursday, news emerged that a German citizen was detained at Germanys Munich airport on suspicion of treason for allegedly spying for Russia. The prosecutor generals office said Thursday that Arthur E. was detained Sunday while arriving in Germany from the United States. He is reportedly an associate of a German foreign intelligence service employee who was detained in December for allegedly spying for Moscow as Europes worst armed conflict in some 80 years continues. Apples Factories in Vietnam: Where They Are and Why In the past year a number of key announcements have confirmed Apple is well and truly diversifying out of China. Apple suppliers of a range of products now have factories in Vietnam. Heres who they are, where they have decided to set up their operations, and why. Apple is reportedly planning to produce MacBooks in Vietnam from this year adding to a long line of products that are now being made in the Southeast Asian electronics manufacturing powerhouse. Taiwans Foxconn, for example, a key Apple supplier, is set to establish a factory in Vietnam to the tune of US$270 million this year, according to Nikkei Asia. BOE Technology Group, is also set to follow suit, with Reuters reporting the Chinese display maker, which not only supplies Apple but Samsung too, is planning a US$400 million investment. Foxconn and BOE, however, are just two companies in a growing line of Apple suppliers moving their operations south of the border. Apple suppliers and manufacturers in Vietnam According to Apples supplier list for 2022, there are currently 26 suppliers with 28 factories in Vietnam servicing the tech giants electronics manufacturing needs. These factories are spread around 15 provinces with the majority located in the north. Apple manufacturing plants in Vietnam by province and region Province Region Supplier Bac Giang North Hon Hai Precision Industry Company Limited (Foxconn) Bac Giang North Lens Technology Company Limited Bac Giang North Lingyi iTech (Guangdong) Company Bac Giang North Luxshare Precision Industry Company Limited Bac Ninh North Biel Crystal Manufactory Limited Bac Ninh North GoerTek Incorporated Bac Ninh North MYS Group Company Limited Bac Ninh North Nissha Company Limited Bac Ninh North Samsung Electronics Company Limited Bac Ninh North Shanghai Industrial Holdings Limited Bac Ninh North Shenzhen YUTO Packaging Technology Company Limited Binh Duong South Sharp Corporation Da Nang Central Murata Manufacturing Company Limited China mainland Dong Nai South Yageo Corporation Ha Nam North Seoul Semiconductor Company Limited Hai Duong North Nanofilm Technologies International Private Limited Hai Duong North R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company Hai Phong North Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Incorporated Hai Phong North LG Display Company Limited Hai Phong North LG Innotek Company Limited Ha noi North Sumitomo Electric Industries Limited Ho Chi Minh City South Intel Corporation Hung Yen North NOK Corporation Nghe An Central Luxshare Precision Industry Company Limited Phu Tho North INB Electronics Limited Tien Giang South Murata Manufacturing Company Limited China mainland Vinh Phuc North Compal Electronics Incorporated Vinh Phuc North Young Poong Corporation Source: Apple Supplier List 2022 Why does Apple make products in Vietnam? For electronics manufacturers like Apple, Vietnam is a very attractive alternative to China. Vietnams north in particular offers a number of advantages that few other locations can match. Most predominantly this is its proximity to China and the ability for manufacturers to integrate the region into existing supply chains. There are, however, several other key benefits to electronics manufacturing in Vietnams north. These include transport infrastructure and the availability of low-cost, high-skilled labor. Infrastructure in northern Vietnam Hai Phong, for example, has the largest deep-sea port in Northern Vietnam. The provincial government is also planning to expand the port to accommodate vessels of 100,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT). See also: Vietnams Hai Phong: An Industrial Gateway and Port City Hai Phongs port is also linked to the surrounding provinces by both road and rail. This has allowed for other parts of northern Vietnam to also develop strong manufacturing bases with industrial parks spread out across the north of the country. For Apple, this has materialized in three key manufacturing hubs in: Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, and Hai Phong. This is also leading to a snowball effect whereby greater investment in the manufacturing sector is leading to greater investment in surrounding infrastructure facilitating smoother and easier transportation of goods. See also: Bac Giang: An Emerging Investment Destination Vietnam Briefing News Labor in northern Vietnam Vietnam also has an abundance of low-cost, yet relatively high-skilled labor. Northern Vietnam, in particular, has been an electronics manufacturing hub for years and this has allowed for workers to flourish in terms of skill development. Hanoi, Vietnams capital, is also located in the north and is Vietnams second biggest population center. With the full gamut of amenities of any metropolis in the world, workers can have a high quality of life within its borders while also commuting to factories beyond the cities bordersmany companies bus their staff into and out of the city. See also: Salary and Wages in Vietnam Vietnams role in Apples diversification strategy Apple has for some time now been in the process of diversifying its supply chain. Though China-plus-one is often touted as the new paradigm, in reality, what is more likely is a China-plus-many strategy. India, for example, is shaping up as a key competitor to Vietnam for FDI. Vietnam, however, as a manufacturing location, with its vast coastline, proximity to China and to the United States, and its youthful, low-cost workforce has distinct advantages that its competitors do not. In this light, as part of Apples diversification strategy, Vietnam is set to become Apples largest final assembler. As a result, Vietnam, and northern Vietnam in particular, should see a much more experienced, higher-skilled workforce develop which will benefit the manufacturing sector more broadly, including new entrants into the market. That said, choosing the right location can be difficult and understanding what each location offers may be key to a manufacturers success. For location selection support contact the business intelligence unit at Dezan Shira and Associates. TRANSCRIPT: The Inside Story: Flashpoint Ukraine Episode 76 January 26, 2023 Show Open: Unidentified Narrator: Ukraine pleads for more on-the-ground help. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Hundreds of thank yous are not hundreds of tanks. Unidentified Narrator: How soon will German, British and American tanks roll into Ukraine? From the frontlines to the capital Now, The Inside Story --- Flashpoint: Ukraine. The Inside Story: ELIZABETH LEE, VOA Correspondent: Hi, Im Elizabeth Lee, VOA Correspondent, here in our newsroom. While thanking allies for supplying his country with billions of dollars in weapons to defend Russias attacks for the past 11 months, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, I can thank you hundreds of times but hundreds of thank you are not hundreds of tanks. Supplying Ukraine with tanks --- specifically, German-made Leopard-2 tanks --- is creating some tension among the allies. Polands prime minister says he is asking Germany for permission to send some of its Leopard-2's to Ukraine --- while trying to get other countries with those tanks to band together and send them to Ukraine whether Germany agrees or not. Well go deeper with two reports --- first from our European Correspondent Henry Ridgwell in London. HENRY RIDGWELL, Reporting for VOA: Germany decided this week to send fourteen of its powerful Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and allow allies to send theirs, too. Berlin said the tanks should be delivered by the end of March. The West is now racing to get the equipment in place. Boris Pistorius, German Defense Minister: If you look at ammunition, there is also the issue of quantity. As announced yesterday, I will also hold initial talks with the arms industry on this issue. HENRY RIDGWELL: Poland, Spain, Norway and Finland have all said they are willing to send Leopard tanks. Germany said Wednesday two battalions will be given to Ukraine around 80 vehicles. In addition, Ukraine will receive fourteen British Challenger 2 tanks and thirty-one American Abrams. Ukrainian troops will require several weeks of training on the different equipment. John Lough, Chatham House Russia Expert: The Ukrainians have proved to be remarkably capable of absorbing Western military assistance. But it does take time. And time is not on their side, given that spring is round the corner, and theres an expectation that Russia is going to mount some form of major offensive. HENRY RIDGWELL: NATO described the decision to send tanks as a "pivotal" moment. Angela Stent, Georgetown University Russia Expert: What Vladimir Putin is hoping for, and has been for the past few months, is that this kind of threat of intimidation and then weariness in the Europeans particularly for the impact that sanctions is having on their own economies that all those things will cause the transatlantic unity on this to break. But so far, it hasn't. We've seen the opposite. HENRY RIDGWELL: Kyiv says it needs three hundred tanks and Western fighter jets to defeat the Russian invasion. Could that be the next barrier for the West to overcome? Ed Arnold, Royal United Services Institute: It'd be another escalatory measure. But I think at the moment, what they want to do see how Ukraine get on with the tanks and then assess from there. HENRY RIDGWELL: The West is now heavily invested in the Ukraine war. Its flagship battle tanks crewed by Ukrainians will soon go head-to-head with Russian armor on the steppes of Europe. John Lough, Chatham House Russia Expert: This could go on for a very long time. The Russians recognize this, and we can tell from Putin's messaging to Russian society, he is preparing the country for a long war. The question I think, however, on the Western side, is whether Western governments are prepared to do the same thing with their own societies. HENRY RIDGWELL: Western weapons could help Ukraine expel Russian forces. But the war wont be over anytime soon and the resolve of governments and the public will be tested. Henry Ridgwell, for VOA News, London. CINDY SAINE, VOAs Senior Diplomatic Correspondent: President Joe Biden entered the Roosevelt Room at the White House Wednesday, confirming media reports of new military assistance to Ukraine. President Joe Biden: Today, I'm announcing that the United States will be sending 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, the equivalent of one Ukrainian battalion. Secretary Austin has recommended this step because it will enhance Ukraine's capacity to defend his territory and achieve strategic objectives. CINDY SAINE: Bidens remarks came just hours after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stood in front of parliament to announce Berlin will provide 14 Leopard 2 tanks and open a path for other European countries to send tanks from their own stocks to Ukraine, with the aim of assembling two tank battalions with Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine within the next several months. Scholzs announcement had been long awaited by Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states and others. The German leader said Berlin supports Ukraine but made clear he does not want to provoke Russia. Olaf Scholz, German Chancellor: We must always make it very clear that we are doing what is necessary and what is possible to support Ukraine, but that at the same time we are preventing the war from escalating into a war between Russia and NATO, and we will always continue to observe this principle. CINDY SAINE: Biden thanked Scholz, saying Germany has stepped up for Ukraine. The U.S. leader also noted the purpose of the tanks is to help Ukraine defend its own land. President Joe Biden: There is no offensive threat to Russia. If Russian troops returned to Russia they will be there, where they belong. This war would be over today. That's what we all want, an end to this war in just and lasting terms. CINDY SAINE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had long been pleading for heavy tanks, saying it is not about five, 10 or 15, but that Kyiv needs between 250 and 350 tanks. Military experts say the total number allied countries have promised so far is about 90. CINDY SAINE: In Moscow, Russias Foreign Ministry has called any such decision dangerous and warned it will escalate the conflict. Cindy Saine, VOA News. STEVE REDISCH, VOA News: Powered by a 15-hundred horsepower engine, Americas Abrams M1 tank is widely considered the worlds most technologically sophisticated tank. A crew of four operates the M1. It is equipped with a 120-millimeter smooth bore cannon, used to destroy enemy tanks and other heavily armored vehicles. The Abrams also has three machine guns a heavy one to take out lightly armored vehicles and a pair of lighter ones that are considered anti-personnel weapons. It can move at a top speed of around 65 kilometers per hour, with a maximum road range of about 425 kilometers. The Abrams M1 turbine engine runs best on jet fuel, which adds to the expense and logistics to operate it. Germanys Leopard 2 uses the more available diesel fuel to power its 15-hundred horsepower turbo-charged engine. The Leopard 2 has many of the Abrams M1 features, such as the 120-millimeter smooth bore cannon and a pair of light machine guns. The German and U.S. tanks are designed to better protect its four-person crew than the Soviet-made tanks that both Ukraine and Russia are currently using. Gian Gentile, Former U.S. Army Tank Commander: So, the M1A1 tanks, along with the Leopard 2s, the crew is much safer because the ammunition for those two types of tanks are outside of where the crew is sitting in the turret. And so, if a If a M-1 tank or a Leopard 2 tank is hit and everything is right in the turret, the rounds go up and out. Whereas on a T-72 tank, the rounds are inside the turret with the crew, and they're much more prone to be set off and cause catastrophic damage to the tank crew and the tank itself. STEVE REDISCH, VOA News: With a crew of four, the Leopard 2 has a similar maximum speed as the Abrams, but its range is about 340 kilometers. Availability is the Leopards biggest asset. More than 2,000 are spread through multiple European countries. Britain's Challenger 2 has a 120-millimeter rifle gun as its main weapon, along with a couple of light machine guns, like the other tanks. And its ammunition is also stored outside of the crew compartment. Its diesel fueled engine is smaller --- 12-hundred horsepower. And the Challenger 2 does not move as fast as the others. But its maximum driving range of more than 500 kilometers is significantly better than either the U.S. or German-made tanks. Steve Redisch, VOA News. ELIZABETH LEE: Ukraine wants the tanks to try to push out Russian forces that are occupying parts of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. The city of Bakhmut is the focal point now in the Donbass region. VOAs Heather Murdock is in the field for us there. HEATHER MURDOCK, VOA Correspondent: Today we are reporting from Bakhmut in Ukraine, a city that has been bombed and under fire for months. The sound of shelling in this city is nonstop, and locals say they expect only five to 10 minutes of quiet a day. The war has gotten worse recently as Russian forces draw closer. Most people have left the area, but about 10% of the population remains in the city. A few run this outdoor market, moved from its original location after a bombing. Others stay indoors and underground as much as possible. Families come to this shelter for a little bit of food and safety. They also come simply to talk to people, saying life under fire is lonely. Volunteers say almost all of the food and water is carried in by aid workers. Electricity, heat, and cooking gas are also scarce or not available. Lyudmyla Malynovska, Bakhmut Resident: There's nowhere to go, so we stay here. You can still come here and talk to people. It's scary to go outside. No one walks on the street because of the bombings. HEATHER MURDOCK: Some residents who remain in other cities and towns in Donbas try to keep their homes intact, despite the frequent bombings, in hopes that the people will return when the violence subsides. In Chasiv Yar, about 10 kilometers from the frontlines, residents say only a year ago, their town was alive with natural beauty and industry. Alexander Pavlovitch, Chasiv Yar Resident: It was a cluster bomb that fell here, and the shock wave went over there and smashed [that building]. Then the debris fell on the house. You see, the whole wall is covered in holes from shrapnel. HEATHER MURDOCK: The markets in Chasiv Yar are mostly closed now. Sellers who remain in town say the constant shelling makes it too dangerous to work outside. Others say remaining in town and staying open for business is an act of patriotism. Serhi Zamulenko, Chasiv Yar Resident: I am a patriot of Ukraine. Ukraine is my homeland. It is my land, for me. This war only made me stronger in my resolve. And Russia is a terrorist country. HEATHER MURDOCK: Some of his neighbors disapprove of his loyalties, says Zamulenko, in a region with familial and cultural ties to both Russia and Ukraine. The Donbas region has essentially been at war since 2014, long before the full-scale Russian invasion began almost a year ago. But the current level of violence is unprecedented, and widespread across the country. The United Nations says more than 7,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine in the past 11 months. People we have spoken here to today say they have learned mostly to live without enough water, without enough heat, without enough electricity or internet, or sometimes even enough food, but they are exhausted, and they want this battle to end. Reporting from Bakhmut in Ukraine, Heather Murdock, VOA News. ELIZABETH LEE: Human rights advocates have been sounding alarms about the Russian private military company Wagner Group using convicts as soldiers in Ukraine. Amid reports the U.S. will sanction Wagner, the White House confirms extraordinarily high casualties among the some 40,000 convicts fighting for Wagner in Donbas. VOAs New York Bureau Chief Igor Tsikhanenka expains. IGOR TSIKHANENKA, VOA New York Bureau: As Russia has struggled to hold territory in Ukraine, the White House says the Kremlin is increasingly relying on the Wagner group to recruit thousands of prisoners for the wars frontlines. John Kirby, US National Security Council Spokesperson: The casualty rates for the convicts are extraordinarily high. As a matter of fact, what we think is that 90% of their casualties are convicts. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: Moscow disputes foreign tallies of war dead, but its clear Russias convicts are dying at high rates. Ukrainian officials estimate that some 77% of the 38-thousand Russian prisoners brought to fight in Ukraine have been killed, wounded or captured or have gone missing. John Kirby, US National Security Council Spokesperson: They are just throwing them into this meat-grinder. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: Russia dismisses most outside assessments of its war performance, insisting its troops are consolidating their gains. But experts say it is becoming difficult for the Kremlin to cover up the grim fate of convicts under Wagner commanders. Yuri Butusov, Ukrainian Journalist: They are calling these prisoners refillers. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: Yuri Butusov, a Ukrainian war correspondent, told VOA that in just the battle for the town of Soledar last month, Russians were losing several hundred soldiers a day. Almost all of them were convicts. Yuri Butusov, Ukrainian Journalist: In order to attack the Ukrainian firing points, the enemy is using penal battalions. It's not a new invention. In Soviet times, Stalin also had them. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: Those World War Two battalions consisted of Soviet Gulag prisoners and were tasked with the most difficult assignments like breaking through intense fire without any heavy equipment support. Butusov says in some cases, Russias ill-equipped prisoners are used for similar missions, such as drawing Ukrainian artillery fire. Yuri Butusov, Ukrainian Journalist: When they are fired upon, the Russian commanders detect the artillery positions of the enemy. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: Olga Romanova, executive director of the civil rights group Russia Behind Bars, told VOA that prisoners who agree to sign 6-months contracts with Wagner are paid about $3,000 a month. But its not the money that motivates them. Olga Romanova, Russian Prisoners' Rights Activist: Their main motive is, of course, to become free. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: So far, out of tens of thousands of prisoners recruited by Evgeny Prigozhin, Wagners leader and confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, only 106 were freed and allowed to go home, Romanova says. Olga Romanova, Russian Prisoners' Rights Activist: By the end of last year, the desire to go serve in Wagner diminished significantly among convicts first of all, because of extrajudicial executions, unfulfilled promises and, of course, high, very high casualties. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: All of that, however, is unlikely to disrupt the Kremlins plans to use prisoners in its geopolitical objectives, Romanova says. Olga Romanova, Russian Prisoners' Rights Activist: Prigozhin will squeeze out 20 to 30 thousand people more out of jails, and then the authorities will start formal mobilization. IGOR TSIKHANENKA: In November, Putin signed into law a bill allowing mobilization of individuals with outstanding or unexpunged convictions, creating an even greater pool of potential war recruits. Igor Tsikhanenka, VOA News HEATHER MURDOCK, VOA Correspondent: Ukrainians were used to 24-hour-a-day-seven-day-a-week uninterrupted electricity. It wasnt until Russia began bombing their power plants that the countrys new normal began. Even in the capital, Kyiv, there are daily power outages. Sometimes its on a schedule, and sometimes, when there is an attack, the lights just go out. This tent is a power center, with access to lights and Internet, manned by emergency service workers. Locals come here to work, and grow small businesses, despite the chaos. Nazer Senychak, IT worker: There were a few times when we heard very loud explosions here during the massive rocket attacks in October, the 10th if Im not mistaken. But in general, it feels okay. HEATHER MURDOCK: Russian attacks on Ukraines infrastructure began in October, with massive strikes across the country, killing civilians and knocking out power structures. Since then, the devastation has continued. On Saturday, a strike hit a residential building in the central city of Dnipro, killing more than 40 people. At the Kyiv power center, locals say the daily grind of surviving the war is exhausting. Victoria Kozlova, Kyiv Resident: I only hear the explosions. I don't see it. I hear the explosions. The water is gone, and the electricity is gone. HEATHER MURDOCK: Kozlova says she is trying to rebuild her advertising business, which fell flat in the first months of the war as she fled west, further away from the danger. Now, she is back home in Kyiv, trudging up 12 flights of stairs to her apartment when the power is out. And as night falls in the capital, some entire neighborhoods are in the dark, but residents say life goes on as normally as possible, with or without the light. Heather Murdock, VOA News, Kyiv. ELIZABETH LEE: Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have crippled the nations power grid. About 40-percent of the grid has been damaged leaving millions of people without a reliable source of electricity in the middle of winter. While the US and other allies have rushed generators and other aid to Ukraine, an idea for another source of power is being floated. From Istanbul, our Dorian Jones explains how a Turkish shipping company can help. DORIAN JONES, Reporting for VOA: Russia's latest attack on Ukrainian civilians not only targeted their homes. The streets of Ukraine are constantly plunged into darkness as Russian forces relentlessly hit Ukraine's electricity infrastructure. Petro Burkovskiy, Democratic Initiatives Foundation: What they are seeing is that they are doing this in order to kill as many Ukrainians as possible, but in a kind of indirect way, by creating the unbearable conditions for life without electricity, heating and water. DORIAN JONES: But the Turkey-based company Karpowerships says it can help alleviate Ukraine's energy crisis. Its power ships operate worldwide, including in hotspots like Beirut, and can supply millions of homes with electricity. Zeynep Harezi Yilmaz, Karpowership: We have been in contact with Ukrenergo (Ukraine National Power Company) since August last year and with the Odessa governorate as well. We could potentially place 300-megawatt ships. So, totaling 300 megawatts in various ports in Odesa, and a 100 megawatt could power the Odesa port and its related facilities. The others could power the related residential areas around Odessa. DORIAN JONES: Protecting the power ships remains a significant obstacle, says Karpower. Ankara has maintained good relations with Moscow, but it is unclear whether the goodwill extends to the protection of the ships. Karpowership says that with some of its ships already close by, they could be supplying Ukraine with electricity within thirty days. Dorian Jones, for VOA News, Istanbul. ELIZABETH LEE: The effect of Russias invasion of Ukraine is creating unprecedented challenges at the borders for some EU nations. With millions of Ukrainians fleeing for safety, along with asylum seekers searching for a new home, Europes migrant crisis is now at a tipping point. From London, Henry Ridgwell explains. HENRY RIDGWELL, Reporting for VOA: 330-thousand so-called irregular crossings were detected on the European Unions external frontiers in 2022 a steep rise of 64 percent from the previous year, according to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. That figure doesnt include millions of Ukrainian refugees. Syrians, Afghans and Tunisians together accounted for almost half of the irregular migrant crossings. There were high numbers of migrants from Egypt, Bangladesh and Nigeria as well. Martin Hofmann, International Centre for Migration Policy Development: The security situation and the economic situation in most of those countries and regions has worsened even more during last year. HENRY RIDGWELL: The Western Balkan route and the Central Mediterranean route to Italy accounted for most of the irregular arrivals. Italys government passed a raft of asylum legislation this month, which charities like Doctors Without Borders say make it harder to rescue migrants at sea and bring them ashore. Greece is also cracking down on migrant rescue organizations. Political attitudes have hardened with the war in Ukraine, says analyst Camino Mortera-Martinez. Camino Mortera-Martinez, Centre for European Reform: The common discourse at the moment here in Europe goes something like, OK, we are dealing with a massive refugee crisis from our neighborhood. Why should we shoulder all the conflicts from other parts of the world? HENRY RIDGWELL: Thirteen million Ukrainian refugees entered the European Union since the start of Russias invasion. Some ten million crossings were also registered from Europe back into Ukraine. Martin Hofmann, International Centre for Migration Policy Development: We see that attacks on the civilian infrastructure are part of the war strategy of Russia, and so far, they have not resulted in increased outflows. There is the remarkable resilience of the Ukrainian society and the economy. But there are, of course, potential tipping points where the situation becomes unbearable for larger populations, and then we might see an increase. HENRY RIDGWELL: A special summit aimed at agreeing on a common EU policy on migration is due to be held next month. Observers say long-standing divisions between member states mean a breakthrough is unlikely. Henry Ridgwell, for VOA News, London. ELIZABETH LEE: Thats all for now. Stay up to date with all the news at VOANews.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at VOA News. Follow me on Twitter at E Lee-TV One Catch up on past episodes at our free streaming service, VOA Plus. For all of those behind the scenes who brought you todays show, Im Elizabeth Lee. See you next week for The Inside Story. #### Asian Americans in California, already on edge over a wave of hate crimes against their communities, are taking small comfort from the fact that the suspected perpetrators of the past week's two mass shootings were Asian Americans themselves. "Simply because this person happens to be Asian American from Monterey Park, doesn't mean he wasn't also targeting community members," said community advocate Manjusha Kulkarni in reference to the man accused of fatally gunning down 11 people at a dance hall on Saturday night. "He knew that there was a large Lunar New Year celebration, and he came armed," continued Kulkarni, executive director of the Los Angeles-based AAPI Equity Alliance, in an interview with VOA. Monterey Park Councilman Henry Lo agreed that his community will take time to get over the shock of that mass killing and another two days later near San Francisco. "We will need everyone's support as we begin the long road to recovery from this awful trauma," he told VOA's Mandarin Service. The first shooting happened at a dance hall in Monterey Park, a largely Asian American suburb east of Los Angeles. All 11 victims were Asian Americans. The suspect shot and killed himself. The second shooting was hundreds of miles north in Half Moon Bay, an idyllic small coastal town with nurseries and restaurants. Seven people, five Chinese citizens and two Latinos, were killed at two Northern California mushroom farms. Police have identified the suspect as a worker at one of the nurseries. The two tragic events took place during the Lunar New Year season, which is normally a time of rebirth, says state assemblyman Phil Ting, whose district includes part of San Francisco. It's a time "looking towards prosperity and good fortune," he said. "To have these incidents that are impacting Asian American farmworkers here and then 11 Asian Americans down in Los Angeles is really just the worst kind of news we can ever have." About one in six Californians are of Asian descent. In recent years, many of them feel like they're under threat, said California Governor Gavin Newsom at a recent press conference in Half Moon Bay. "I'm also mindful that we saw hate crimes go up 177% against Asians last year," he said. "We have to do more." The most recent shootings are different from the anti-Asian crimes committed by non-Asians. The two suspects in the mass shootings are themselves Asian Americans. While the suspects' motives are still under investigation, some believe mental health could be a factor. Asian American advocates highlight the fact that life in the U.S. for an immigrant can be challenging. "The social and linguistic isolation they may have, the lack of mental health and community support that they need," said Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. "The easy availability of assault weapons. These trends demonstrate that Asian Americans face a lot of issues as minorities." James Zarsadiaz, an associate professor of history at University of San Francisco, grew up in eastern Los Angeles county. Filipino and Chinese, Zarsadiaz says he wants to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. "It's hard to really feel fully present and enjoy the festivity when you know that tragedy has hurt and has impacted the community," he said. "And even though it's one place, it does impact pretty much all of Asia America because, again, these are very familiar and intimate spaces and during a very personal and family-oriented time." Organizers of the San Francisco Lunar New Year parade, scheduled for February 4, said this week they would meet with city leaders and police to implement additional safety measures. The parade attracts thousands of spectators. Calla Yu with the Mandarin Service contributed to this story. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse. Ukraine is urging Australia to increase its military aid ahead of a visit to Europe next week by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles. Australia, the largest non-NATO contributor to Ukraines war effort, has supplied missiles and Bushmaster armored personnel carriers. They have a special V-shaped floor designed to spread the impact of an explosion more effectively than a conventional flat floor. A group of up to 70 Australian defense force personnel has also been stationed in Britain to help train Ukrainian troops. Analysts say the commitment of Germany and the United States to deliver tanks to Ukraine puts pressure on Australia to increase its military assistance to Kyiv. Vasyl Myroshnychenko, Ukraine's ambassador to Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday he hopes Canberra will boost military assistance to his country. Australia can choose to send more Bushmasters, he said. What is important is that Australia continues supporting Ukraine. We are extremely thankful for what Australia has done so far, especially the last package, which was announced in October, where another 30 Bushmasters were allocated. The troops, which are now in Britain, will be training Ukrainian soldiers. We are thankful for that. it is really a big help. The United States is by far the biggest provider of weapons and equipment to Ukraine, followed by Britain, Poland, Germany and Canada. Australia also has sweeping sanctions on Russia -- the most severe ever imposed on a foreign government. Since the war began almost a year ago, Australia has granted visas to almost 9,000 Ukrainian refugees. Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has said Canberra condemns Russia's unilateral, illegal and immoral aggression against the people of Ukraine, adding that the invasion is a gross violation of international law. Wong and Marles head to France next week to try to repair a diplomatic rift caused by Canberras abrupt cancelation in 2021 of a lucrative submarine contract with Paris in favor of a new alliance -- the AUKUS pact -- with the United States and Britain. They will also travel to Britain for ministerial talks. U.S. President Joe Biden called for calm Thursday, a day before the police department of Memphis, Tennessee, was scheduled to release the bodycam footage of a brutal beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old African American motorist, by five police officers. Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable, Biden said in a statement. Tyres death is a painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all, he said. Memphis and other U.S. cities are reported to be preparing for possible protests. Nichols died three days after his encounter with the officers earlier this month. The officers, all of them Black, have been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. All of the officers have been fired. While each of the five individuals played a different role in the incident in question, the actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols. And they are all responsible, David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations told a news conference Thursday. Rausch, who has seen the video, said he found the officers' behavior absolutely appalling. The police officers say they stopped Nichols for reckless driving. Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. MEDINA Workers at Baxter International's plant make pumps that deliver life-sustaining treatment to patients. "These pumps serve a critical need for someone who is in a hospital setting that requires very specific control of drugs, antibiotics, nutrition that can't fend for themselves in many cases," said Kevin Foley, the Medina plant manager. Those pumps were critical in the health care response to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Ventilators were a pressing need for hospitalized patients, but so were Baxters' pumps. "A typical person would generally have two pumps on them after surgery or something like that," Foley said. "Covid patients in ICUs were having five to six. It just exploded." Baxter makes tens of thousands of the pumps each year at the Orleans County site. The company has also some research and development operations there. While demand for the pumps has held strong, the company faced issues with obtaining enough microchips to keep production flowing. Sen. Charles Schumer and Baxter's chairman, president and CEO, Jose Almeida, drew attention to the matter during a visit over the summer. Schumer said he recently received assurance from Baxter's chip supplier, Texas Instruments, that any issues with chip shortages and bottlenecks had been resolved. Almeida said the continued push had proven a success. Hospitals need our infusion pump technology to care for patients in New York and across the country a need that is even more critical now given the rising flu, RSV and Covid-19 cases," he said. Almeida over the summer praised the workers for the commitment they had demonstrated during the pandemic, putting in long hours under trying circumstances. "We're very proud of what we were able to do and respond and do all that work," Foley said. "That's why some of these things with the chip are so critical, because these are still critical needs." Aside from the chips, Baxter strives to acquire many other pump components from suppliers in New York State. "We've tried to make this that whole strategy of, make it where you buy it from and sell it where you make it," Foley said. Baxter a Fortune 500 company based in Chicago in 2012 completed its acquisition of Sigma International in Medina. The company is a prominent employer in Orleans County, with about 270 workers. Sigma had bought a former Fisher-Price factory for its operations in the 1990s. Foley said Baxter's employees take pride in knowing the impact their work makes in health care. "Our mission has always been to save and sustain lives," he said. "We take that personally." The Biden administration on Thursday granted a two-year stay of deportation for Hong Kongers in the U.S. who left amid what the administration calls a significant erosion of human rights and fundamental freedoms as Beijing tightens its control over the special administrative region. The United States is committed to a foreign policy that unites our democratic values with our foreign policy goals, which is centered on the defense of democracy and the promotion of human rights around the world, read the memorandum signed by President Joe Biden. Offering safe haven for Hong Kong residents who have been deprived of their guaranteed freedoms in Hong Kong furthers United States interests in the region. The United States will continue to stand firm in our support of the people in Hong Kong. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated that more than 3,800 people were eligible for the program when it was introduced in mid-2021. The original order was set to expire in February. Human Rights Watch says the National Security Law imposed on Hong Kong in mid-2020 has had devastating consequences for human rights. The White House noted in its Thursday memorandum that over 10,000 people have been arrested on other charges related to anti-government protests, and the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council says there are at least 1,300 political prisoners currently in Hong Kong. 'Another cycle' Anna Kwok, HKDCs executive director, welcomed the extension and the broadening of the program to include newer arrivals. But, she said, for many in the program, another cycle begins afresh. The two-year lifeline is essential, but it remains true that we can only plan our lives so far ahead at once," she said. "Without longer-term solutions that offer humanitarian pathways, a U.S.-based movement for the cause of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong against Beijings transnational repression isnt sustainable. In addition, Kwok told VOA, the group hopes Secretary of State Antony Blinken will raise the issue of political prisoners when he travels next month to China. Secretary Blinken should not shy away from taking a consistent stance for the Biden administration, she said. Given the [more than] 1,300 American companies in Hong Kong, an independent judiciary system is a rightful demand from the U.S. to an 'international financial center. Human rights campaigners also welcomed the news, and echoed the concerns about the short timeline. Maya Wang, acting China director for Human Rights Watch, told VOA, The extension is a welcome relief, but they shouldnt have to endure this roller coaster of an extension every two years, which leaves them with uncertainty, their lives in limbo. Human Rights Watch has called on the Biden administration to respect the right to seek asylum for all people and families, and create a new and orderly process for responding to migrants various rights-based rationales for seeking to enter the country, Wang said. That includes people seeking asylum from persecution, adapting to the effects of climate change, returning to places in the U.S. where noncitizens may have resided for many years, or reuniting with family members. Chinese authorities strongly reject Washingtons contention that the former British colony, which saw unprecedented pro-democracy protests in 2019, is backsliding. Britain returned the 1,000-square-kilometer area, which includes two large islands and a peninsula, to China in 1997. In the 25 years since Hong Kongs return to the motherland, the Chinese Central Government has stayed committed to fully, accurately and resolutely implementing the policies of one country, two systems and Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong with a high degree of autonomy, and strongly protected lawful rights and freedoms enjoyed by Hong Kong residents, read a statement issued Thursday by the Commissioners Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong. It has been globally recognized that the practice of 'one country, two systems' in Hong Kong is a great success," the office said. "At present, Hong Kong is in a new period moving from chaos to stability and prosperity. The extension now lasts through January 2025. Journalist associations in Indonesia are demanding greater efforts to protect media from attacks after a bombing outside the home of an investigative reporter. Victor Mambor, the editor of the Papua news outlet Jubi, was at home watching television around 6 a.m. local time Monday when he heard a motorbike stop outside his home in Jayapura City. Shortly after he heard the motorbike drive off, there was an explosion, he told VOA. At first, Mambor said, he stayed indoors but he could hear a crowd starting to gather. I finally came out and smelled a strong odor of sulfur and heavy smoke. I noticed this was not from a firecracker but from something that was intentional, the journalist said. The explosion went off only a few meters from his house. Mambor said he found remnants of explosives, including burned plastic, stove wicks and asbestos fibers. Security footage from cameras the journalist has installed at his house showed the motorbike stopping outside the home, according to local media associations. Local police are investigating the incident. But in the wake of the attack, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) called on Indonesias Press Council to form an anti-violence task force to investigate incidents that target journalists. The Press Council, an independent body whose members are appointed by the government, is mandated to protect media from interference, to oversee ethics and to resolve complaints about coverage. "We hope the Press Council can form a task force against journalist violence related to this case, because this is on a scale that is life-threatening enough," said Sasmito Madrim, chair of the AJI. Madrim told VOA he thought the task force should focus on attacks directed at Mambor. The Press Council needs to be on the field to gather information and coordinate with authorities in Papua, including at the national level, said Madrim. This has to be the starting point so that cases of violence against journalists in Papua can be taken to court. Threats, then car damage In April 2021, assailants vandalized Mambors car, smashing the windscreen and spraying it with orange paint. In the lead-up to that case, the journalist said he had received threats. He has also been doxed and harassed online over his news coverage for Jubi. But this time, the journalist said, I received no threats before the bombing. Mambor is an award-winning journalist known for his coverage of human rights violations in Papua and West Papua, including the 2022 trial of military members accused of killing and mutilating citizens; the killings of civilians by a rebel group in Gunung Bintang; and an incident in 2014 where security forces opened fire on protesters in Panai. Since becoming a journalist in 1996, he has contributed to several foreign and local media groups and is a founder of the media outlet Jubi. Ahmad Fathanah Haris of Indonesias Legal Aid Center for the Press said that police should work quickly to catch the perpetrators and determine if the attack was related to Mambors work. Whether or not this is related to his journalistic work, they must apprehend who did this. We will know then whether his work is the motive behind this or not, because a bomb terror is like a criminal act, he said. If someone has a complaint about reporting, they can go to the Press Council, said Fathanah Haris. He warned that if the attack on Mambor went unresolved, it could result in something similar happening again. The AJI criticized the response by police, saying they had failed to act when the association reported two previous incidents related to the journalist. A lack of accountability is damaging to Papuas media freedom record, Madrim said. "This will further exacerbate the climate for press freedom in Papua, if these cases are increasingly ignored by the police," he said. Indonesia in 2022 fell three places on the Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. It currently ranks 117th out of 180 countries, where 1st shows the best environment for media. Journalists investigating corruption or environmental issues related to large private interests are at risk of violence and intimidation, the media watchdog said. This story originated in VOAs Indonesian Service. Cameroon journalists are calling for an investigation and say their profession is in danger after a popular radio host investigating government corruption was found dead. On his radio program two weeks ago, Cameroonian journalist Martinez Zogo said he had information that people involved in corruption wanted him dead. Then, on January 17, Zogo, the director of the urban radio station Amplitude FM, was abducted, prompting fears for his safety. On Sunday, Zogos body was found. Government spokesperson Rene Emmanuel Sadi said that it showed signs of torture and that the killing was barbaric, unacceptable and despicable. Zogo was known in the capital, Yaounde, for his high-profile program, Traffic Jam, which broadcast in English. Friends, colleagues and fans created a shrine in his honor outside his workplace. "There is a feeling of shame. Why in Cameroon? Haman Mana of the Federation of Press Editors of Cameroon said in French. We are confused, but I would like us all to keep our sanity because those who did it are simply not human. Samuel Bondjock of the National Union of Journalists of Cameroon said his organization will always denounce this crime and its infringement on press freedom. Journalists operating in Cameroon said Zogo's killing is part of an effort by the authoritarian government of President Paul Biya to intimidate the press corps. "Through the barbarity of the assassination of Martinez Zogo, Naja TV General Manager Jean-Bruno Tagne said in French, it is a message of fear that they want to instigate among journalists and in the circles of all those who have decided not to remain silent in the face of the crime that we observe in this country. Government spokesman Sadi said the investigation into the killing was ongoing, and he promised the killers would be brought to justice. While Cameroon has a thriving media market, the group Reporters Without Borders says it is a hostile and precarious environment for journalists. With threatening phone calls, burned minibuses and at least three drivers shot to death, street gangs more closely associated with Central America are imposing their brand of terror-based extortion on public transportation drivers in southern Mexico. Organized crime groups including the rival Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs have long maintained a presence along the border between Mexico and Guatemala, but Mexican authorities say their numbers have increased over the past year as El Salvador cracks down on gang members and their criminal enterprises. Drivers of the passenger vans and taxis people depend on for transportation in largely rural Chiapas say they live in fear for their livelihood, or their lives. They have raised the alarm, holding temporary work stoppages to get authorities' attention. The owner of one transport company in Tapachula has started moving with bodyguards. Some admit to paying the extortion, having seen what happens to those who didn't. "If we don't do anything we're going to be a little (El) Salvador," said a leader of drivers in the town of Huixtla, where a driver was shot by two men on a motorcycle last February. The man requested anonymity, fearing gang reprisals. Drivers in Huixtla showed The Associated Press vouchers dating back a year, documenting the payments. Generally, it starts with someone climbing aboard the bus and handing a phone to the driver, sometimes while pointing a gun at the driver's head. The drivers are told to give the phone to the owner of the bus, van or taxi, establishing a direct line of communication. Then the threats begin. Callers show the owners that they know who they are, where they live, their routines and their livelihoods, according to recordings reviewed by the AP. Speaking with distinctive Central American accents, Salvadoran slang and vulgarity, they ask for $50 initially and then $50 per month for each van or taxi, said a representative of drivers in Tapachula, who also requested anonymity out of fear. The latest attack came Monday, when an unidentified man fired into the local bus terminal in Cacahoatan. No one was injured, but bullets struck a parked van and led drivers to suspend service. The shooter fled with another man on a motorcycle. Earlier this month, a van was set on fire in the same municipality. Local authorities formed an anti-gang task force and posted police at transport hubs, and last month Mexico's military deployed an additional 350 soldiers to communities along the Guatemalan border. "The intent is to support the civilian population to decrease the homicides tied to organized crime and the level of violence that has been on the rise in recent days," said Angel Banda Lozoya, commander of the local army regiment. But the drivers remain exposed as they make frequent stops on long rural routes, and military might can't easily quash a threat that arrives unseen, through menacing calls and messages. Jose Mateo Martinez, Chiapas state prosecutor for migrant affairs, says El Salvador's crackdown on organized crime is behind the increase in criminal activity in Mexico. "People are coming to hide from that, but there are also gang leaders who come to create a criminal group here," he said. In March 2022, El Salvador suspended some constitutional rights in reaction to an explosion of violence. The state of exception has continued since then, despite wide criticism by human rights organizations, with more than 60,000 people arrested on suspicion of gang ties. Enforcement has been less forceful among El Salvador's neighbors: From 2018 through November 2022, Mexico arrested and deported 97 Salvadorans allegedly tied to gangs, mostly in the last two years, according to the Chiapas state prosecutor's office. Neighboring Guatemala deported 90 alleged Salvadoran gang members last year, National Civilian Police spokesman Edwin Monroy said. The gangs are transnational by nature, with tens of thousands of members in the United States as well as Central America and Mexico. El Salvador's dominant street gangs formed in Los Angeles among communities of immigrants who had fled armed conflicts in the 1980s. Eventually deported, they found fertile ground for more violence, committing crimes in one country and then hiding out in another, blending in with the daily flow of migrants across borders. These gangs have long operated along Mexico's borders, sometimes providing street muscle for Mexico's powerful drug cartels or running their own criminal enterprises, profiting from the illicit traffic of drugs, guns and migrants. And some Mexican cartels extort businesses in other parts of the country. But another Tapachula transportation leader, who requested anonymity because he feared reprisals insisted that these extortionists are Central American gangsters, not Mexican cartel members. Extorting local transportation has been a key line of their revenue in El Salvador. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said in August that extortion of that sector had fallen dramatically. His transportation minister estimated bus companies had stopped paying some $50 million to gangs. Other authorities have announced some successes: In August, Mexican police took down a gang cell that sold drugs and robbed clients at a bar in Tapachula. One of the five people captured had a pending arrest order from El Salvador and was deported. In November, Mexican authorities arrested and deported to El Salvador a purported leader of the Barrio 18 gang, suspected in the killings of six people in San Salvador in 2020. Authorities in El Salvador said he had fled to Mexico with his family and other gang members to avoid capture under El Salvador's special emergency powers. And on Jan. 3, Guatemala captured and deported a Salvadoran gang member who had multiple arrest warrants on charges ranging from aggravated murder to terrorism. But people who depend on transit in southern Mexico remain dissatisfied. There's a police vehicle parked daily at the local station in Tapachula where vans arrive and depart constantly, but their drivers remain exposed. Two of the killings happened northwest of Tapachula near the Pacific coast. In September, a man got out of a van driving the route between Tonala and Arriaga and shot the female driver. In late October, a driver was shot in Mapastepec by two men on a motorcycle, not far from the local terminal. More than 300 Muslim clerics meeting in Somalia's capital this week have declared their support for the government's war against the Islamist militant group al-Shabab. The clerics issued their declaration following a four-day conference of Muslim scholars that ended Thursday with the formation of a Supreme Council. It was the first time in years that Somali clerics from all sects of Islam came together to denounce terrorism. Even the conservative Wahhabi sect, which has been accused of sympathizing with al-Shabab, participated. The coming together of Somali clerics from different ideological persuasions is one of the Somali governments most ambitious attempts to pull religious leaders into the war against terrorism. The meeting is part of the governments triple offensive against al-Shabab, which includes military and financial operations in addition to countering extremist propaganda. When Prime Minister Hamza Barre closed the conference, he said it will be instrumental in winning the war against al-Shabab and other extremist elements. He said it is the first time he has seen different sects of clerics sitting together and issuing a statement together. He said they are fighting an enemy, whom the clerics have called Khawarij, and he is happy they have joined the fight. Sheikh Aweys Abdi, who participated in the conference, called for an uprising against al-Shabab. "Those they kill and target with explosions and term as infidels are all Muslims. Therefore, they should be fought," he said. "Any soldier who kills al-Shabab or is being killed by the Shabab is a martyr." Attacking al-Shabab The Somali government has been waging a military campaign against al-Shabab since July last year. In central regions, government forces working with clan militia have captured a series of towns and villages and say they have killed more than 2,000 al-Shabab fighters. Analysts say enlisting religious leaders is another crucial step in attacking al-Shabab from several fronts. Abdiaziz Issack, a security analyst with a cultural and research organization known as the Hamad Bin Khalifa Civilization Center in Denmark, said the government is right to bring clerics into the campaign. "Religious leaders, just like clan elders in Somalia, are very influential," he said. "Al-Shabab relies on twisting Islamic teachings to drive their ideology, so the clerics can effectively counter that narrative by drawing the line between truth and falsehood." Issack said that, though al-Shabab spreads its ideology in mosques and affiliated media, the government might be able to counter those narratives, given the number of clerics on its side. Waging ideological warfare "Al-Shabab has its team of clerics, too, but they are few, and if all pro-government clerics join forces, they can easily counter them," said Issack. "The government will need to increase funding to the religious affairs ministry and screen the imams to ensure al-Shabab does not infiltrate mosques." According to Ahmed Abdihadi Abdullahi, the founder of Somali Civic House, a governance think tank in Mogadishu, the conference of clerics and declaration against al-Shabab is a major step in challenging the groups use of religion to advance its terrorist agenda. "For the clerics to come together and make clear that al-Shabab's ideology is not based on Islam is a good move and could contribute a lot to the ideological warfare against the group," said Abdullahi. Abdullahi said the open defiance by the religious leaders is a strong statement considering the targeted assassinations of pro-government clerics by al-Shabab. "Al-Shabab previously killed many clerics, and that those clerics who attended the conference came despite that risk," he said "The government and its forces are not now capable of guaranteeing security for these clerics, but for now, the assassinations by the group have gradually decreased." The Somali government hopes that by enlisting the support of religious leaders, it can make gains in its ongoing war against al-Shabab, which has been fighting the government since its emergence in 2007. Last year, Prime Minister Barre picked former al-Shabab number two Mukhtar Robow as religious affairs minister, as part of attempts to deflate al-Shabab ideology. As the government campaign enters its eighth month in February, the Somali government is preparing to open new battle fronts in southern parts of the country. The European Unions top general said Friday that Russia is taking the war in Ukraine into a different stage, launching indiscriminate attacks against civilians and cities, as a reaction to recent decisions by NATO allies to send advanced armaments to Ukraine in support of its war effort. Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo, European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino, told reporters Russia is no longer focused on military targets but is making indiscriminate attacks on cities and people. I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia started moving the war into a different stage, he said. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has moved from a concept of [a] special [military] operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West, Sannino noted. The comments came as Germany and the United States announced this week they will send advanced battle tanks to Ukraine, hoping to match the fire power Russia has on the ground. Seemingly in response, Ukraine authorities report Russia launched new missile attacks on several Ukraine locations, killing 11 people Thursday and 10 more on Friday, wounding dozens of others. The EU general said the new supplies from the West are not an escalation, but rather an effort to give Ukraine a chance to defend itself. He said the developments have forced Putin to change his initial narrative, in which he described the invasion as a special operation to free Ukraine from a Nazi regime. Now we are speaking about a war with NATO and the West. Different story, Sannino said. In his daily address to the nation Thursday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed gratitude for the growing number of countries pledging advanced weaponry, including tanks, while at the same time pressing the need to hasten delivery of the promised weapons systems. Zelenskyy said the only way to stop this Russian aggression is with adequate weapons. He emphasized, The terrorist state will not understand anything else. The Ukrainian president also credited western supplies for added protection from the latest attacks. Today, thanks to the air defense systems provided to Ukraine and the professionalism of our warriors, we managed to shoot down most of the Russian missiles and Shaheds, Zelenskyy said in his address. Unfortunately, it is difficult to provide 100% protection with air defense alone. Especially when terrorists use ballistic missiles, he added. In a post to his Telegram social media account, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, Moscow's forces continued to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure in the depth of winter, an effort to demoralize Ukrainians. The main goal is energy facilities, providing Ukrainians with light and heat." Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person was killed in the Ukrainian capital and two more were wounded when a missile hit a building. The state prosecutor general's office said three people were killed in a Russian strike on infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia, where Europe's biggest nuclear plant is located, and there were reports of strikes in the Vinnytsia region in western Ukraine and outside Odesa. Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Germany and its European allies plan to send around 80 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine in the coming weeks, according to Berlin, which announced the change of policy this week following intense pressure from Kyiv and its Western partners. The Leopard 2 is considered one of the world's most powerful tanks and well-suited to the Ukraine conflict. Britain and the United States are also sending dozens of their main battle tanks. The decision marks a significant step up in Western weapons supplies to Ukraine and is being seen by NATO as a pivotal moment in the war one that also draws Western nations deeper into the conflict. March delivery Germany not only plans to send 14 tanks but has also permitted allies to send their German-made Leopard tanks. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the tanks should be delivered by the end of March. "My primary task now is to enter into talks with the defense industry with the aim of significantly speeding up procurement times," Pistorius said Thursday during a visit to an army training camp. "If you look at ammunition, there is also the issue of quantity. I will also hold initial talks with the arms industry on this issue, probably as early as next week," he added. Poland, Spain, Norway and Finland have all said they were willing to send Leopard 2 tanks. Canada announced Thursday it would send four of the tanks to Kyiv. Germany said Wednesday the total should amount to two battalions, or around 80 vehicles. Time and strategy In addition, Ukraine will receive 14 British Challenger 2 tanks in the coming weeks and 31 U.S. Abrams tanks from the United States later in the year. Ukrainian troops will require several weeks of training on the different equipment, said John Lough, an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at the London-based policy institute Chatham House. "The Ukrainians have proved to be, I think, remarkably capable of absorbing Western military assistance. But it does take time, and time is not on their side, given that spring is round the corner and there's an expectation that Russia is going to mount some form of major offensive," Lough told VOA. Ukraine will have to decide how to integrate the tanks into its armed forces. "The tanks will make a real difference," said Ed Arnold, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, a defense and security think tank in the U.K. "Ukraine will still need to decide, actually, how they use these tanks. Do they put them straight into the fight as soon as they're available? Or do they integrate them into larger formations, train and rehearse those larger formations, and spend a bit more time integrating them into the way that they fight to then potentially use in the summer?" Arnold told the Reuters news agency. 'Pivotal' moment in the war NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg described the decision to send tanks as a "pivotal moment." "We must provide heavier and more advanced systems to Ukraine, and we must do it faster," Stoltenberg said Tuesday. Angela Stent, a Russia expert at Georgetown University in Washington, said the delivery of Western main battle tanks to Ukraine is further evidence of Russian President Vladimir Putin's miscalculation. "What Vladimir Putin is hoping for and has been for the past few months is that this kind of threat of intimidation and then weariness in the Europeans particularly for the impact that sanctions is having on their own economies that all those things will cause the transatlantic unity on this to break. But so far, it hasn't. We've seen the opposite," Stent told Reuters. Kyiv says it needs 300 tanks far more than it is likely to receive in the coming months. Ukraine also says it needs Western fighter jets such as the American F-16 to defeat the Russian invasion. Could that be the next barrier for the West to overcome? "As air forces in Europe and the U.S. modernize, they have older equipment that they potentially could give to Ukraine. It would be another escalatory measure. But I think at the moment what they want to do is see how Ukraine gets on with the tanks and then assess from there," Arnold said. Western involvement The West is now heavily invested in the Ukraine war. Its flagship battle tanks, crewed by Ukrainians, will soon go head-to-head with Russian armor on the steppes of Europe. John Lough of Chatham House said the West must be clear about the implications. "Sending this level of equipment in these quantities means that NATO countries are, I think, effectively entering the war," Lough said. "Of course, indirectly, but they are, because they are becoming the critical sole source of supply to the Ukrainian armed forces. "This could go on for a very long time," Lough continued. "The Russians recognize this, and we can tell from Putin's messaging to Russian society that he is preparing the country for a long war. The question, I think, however, on the Western side is whether Western governments are prepared to do the same thing with their own societies." Former U.S. President Donald Trump will be allowed to use Facebook and Instagram again soon. Meta, the platforms' parent company, said Wednesday that it would lift bans imposed two years ago after Trump used both services to publish false claims about the 2020 election and to help rally the crowd that assaulted the U.S Capitol on January 6, 2021. The company said that its decision to ban Trump was made out of concern that he represented a "serious risk to public safety." However, Meta said, it has since concluded that that risk "has sufficiently receded" to allow his return, and that his accounts would be restored "in the coming weeks." Because of Trump's prominent role in U.S. politics, it is important that the public hears what he has to say, Meta said. But because of his history with both services, his conduct on the platforms will be monitored. "In light of his violations, he now also faces heightened penalties for repeat offenses penalties which will apply to other public figures whose accounts are reinstated from suspensions related to civil unrest under our updated protocol," Meta said in a statement. "In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation." Trump reacts Having been banned from almost all major social media platforms until recently, Trump has been posting his statements on Truth Social, a platform that he helped found and his company owns. In response to Meta's announcement, Trump posted on Truth Social, using his usual idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization. "FACEBOOK, which has lost Billions of Dollars in value since 'deplatforming' your favorite President, me, has just announced that they are reinstating my account," he wrote. "Such a thing should never again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving of retribution! THANK YOU TO TRUTH SOCIAL FOR DOING SUCH AN INCREDIBLE JOB. YOUR GROWTH IS OUTSTANDING, AND FUTURE UNLIMITED!!!" Trump has approximately 34 million followers on Facebook and more than 23 million followers on Instagram. Controversial decision "Like it or not, President Trump is one of the country's leading political figures and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech," Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. "The biggest social media companies are central actors when it comes to our collective ability to speak and hear the speech of others online," Romero said. "They should err on the side of allowing a wide range of political speech, even when it offends." The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that combats hate speech and other forms of extremism, took a different view. Its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement that "former President Trump should not be given a platform to amplify his hateful and violent rhetoric on mainstream social media." "During his presidency Trump used social media platforms such as Facebook to spread hate and incite violence," Greenblatt continued. "There is no reason to believe the former president will behave differently now that the platform has reversed his ban. This isn't a matter of free speech; there are ample services that Trump can use to spread his message. This is a business decision to platform bigotry and divisiveness to drive clicks and engagement, plain and simple." Broad reassessment Meta's reinstatement of Trump comes amid a broad reassessment of how social media should be moderated in the U.S. and worldwide. In October, billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter and restored access to many previously banned accounts, including Trump's. The former president, who has nearly 88 million followers on the platform, has not used it. Experts said that the new ways major social media companies are handling controversial speech are part of a larger debate about how society should organize itself in an age of extreme interconnectedness. "We're now debating how we regulate the public square in the 21st century," said Gene Policinski, senior fellow for the First Amendment at the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan educational foundation. "These are places where we now gather to talk about public issues." "We're now at this inflection point where clearly social media has gone from a toy to a tool, to a ubiquitous need," Policinski told VOA. "When it becomes that essential to the way our society functions, there may be an argument to offer some sort of safety net for the kinds of speech that people might find repugnant, but which does not pose an imminent threat of violence or some other criminal conduct." Court case pending Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law has been interpreted as absolving social media companies from legal responsibility for third-party content published on their platforms while allowing them to bar content largely at will. In the U.S., many conservatives believe that when the major social media firms do exercise the right to bar content, they do so in a way that disadvantages the political right. They would like the Supreme Court to curtail companies' ability to stifle some speech. Many on the left, by contrast, would like to see social media firms shoulder more legal responsibility for the material they host, claiming that abusive, hateful content frequently remains on the platforms even after it has been identified as such. International concern The debate extends beyond U.S. politics. Earlier this month, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement attributed to dozens of international human rights experts. The statement, aimed at the leaders of the major social media platforms, urged them "to center human rights, racial justice, accountability, transparency, corporate social responsibility and ethics in their business model" and reminded them that "corporate accountability for racial justice and human rights is a core social responsibility." Rocky road As social media platforms reassess policies, some bumps in the road seem inevitable. To date, not all of the reinstatements have gone well. For example, Twitter restored the account of well-known Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes on Tuesday. Fuentes was recently in the news for accompanying Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, to a dinner with Trump at the former president's Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. Once his account was restored, Fuentes immediately began posting material that referred to antisemitic comments made by Ye. Then, in a livestreamed Twitter Spaces event, he made other antisemitic comments. Fuentes' account was suspended again, less than 24 hours after its reinstatement. A Finnish court on Friday said two journalists at Finland's largest daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat were found guilty of revealing classified defense intelligence, in a rare criminal trial restricting press freedom in the Nordic country. Helsinki district court said it had sentenced Tuomo Pietilainen, the lead writer of a 2017 report entitled "Finland's most secret place," to pay a fine, while his colleague Laura Halminen was sentenced but left without a punishment because of her minor role in the reporting. Finland has for years been among the top countries in a global press freedom ranking published by Reporters Without Borders, but last year slipped to fifth place of 180 countries, partly due to the court case. "If a court in Finland, a country ranked on the top of the World Press Freedom Index [], prosecutes journalists for reporting on national security issues, what message is this for the countries ranked lower in the Index?" Reporters Without Borders asked in a statement, calling it "a dangerous precedent." The 2017 investigative report by Helsingin Sanomat revealed 10-year-old data on the rough location and tasks of an intelligence unit of the defense forces at a time when parliament was debating whether to expand its powers to monitor private data in digital networks. "several types of information regarding military intelligence were made public, which had been regulated to be kept secret for the sake of Finland's external security," the court said in a release. The court maintained that the revealed details had no connection to the legislation debated by the parliament and that the article did not reveal any problems or malpractices that could have justified its publication. Helsingin Sanomat Editor-in-Chief Antero Mukka said the newspaper was disappointed by the verdict. "Despite the moderate punishments, the damage to freedom of speech has already been carried out," he said in a statement. The court acquitted an editor who it said did not participate in the revelations. The journalists all denied any wrongdoing and have the possibility to appeal the verdict. Prosecutors had sought suspended prison sentences of at least 18 months for the trio. Helsingin Sanomat is published by Sanoma Media Finland, part of the Sanoma Group. The UNHCR accuses Russia of abducting children. The latest on tanks and a look at Russian media control and the newest epicenter of fighting in the Donbas region. Plus, after other Western countries have given tanks, Australia is feeling the pressure. State Sen. Sean Ryan and Assemblyman Jon Rivera on Friday denounced tax breaks recently awarded to a pair of restaurants in Niagara Falls, calling on the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency to reverse course. The Democratic state Legislators also urged passage of legislation to close what they called a loophole in state law that allows retail projects to benefit from incentives meant to bolster tourism and distressed areas. The lawmakers said in a statement they want to rein in IDAs that exercise broad discretion to waive taxes for businesses that don't need it, which results in "wasteful subsidies for projects that do not provide adequate benefits to the region." Sign up for the Buffalo Next free newsletter The News' Buffalo Next team covers the changing Buffalo Niagara economy. Get the news in your inbox 5 days a week. They honed in on $172,000 in tax breaks that the NCIDA approved this month or is poised to approve next month for planned projects to open the region's first A&W restaurant and Niagara County's first Moe's Southwest Grill, both on Rainbow Boulevard. "We all know what these IDA exemptions are supposed to be used for, but in this case NCIDA is seeking an end-around," Ryan said. "They're seeking ways to give away public money." The lawmakers criticized the NCIDA for approving nearly $30,000 in tax breaks for Moe's and giving preliminary clearance for $143,000 in exemptions for A&W, which they said exploited loose definitions in state law to subsidize fast-food restaurants. "We need to stop IDAs from granting subsidies for projects that wont benefit anyone except the developers and the IDAs themselves," Ryan said. "This is an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars and the Niagara County IDA should scrap this plan immediately." Restaurants are generally barred from receiving IDA tax breaks, as are most retail projects, because they typically serve local consumers and do little to bring in new spending from outside the region. The incentives also impact the competitive landscape, harming other businesses that don't get the same benefits, the legislators said. "Were putting existing business at a deep disadvantage," Rivera said. "There are restaurants within probably walking distance of that location that have been trying to grow and expand and find success. Theyre owned by local people, people who have called Niagara Falls home for all their lives." NCIDA officials rejected the criticism. "This is an outrageous characterization of New York State law by two lawmakers who should know better," said NCIDA Executive Director Susan Langdon. "The fact is, our tourism organization, Destination Niagara, our local elected leaders representing the City of Niagara Falls, and the Cataract Grant Fund Committee, comprised of the State Legislators and the Mayor of Niagara Falls, all support this project." IDAs try to encourage economic development by granting exemptions on sales, mortgage recording and property taxes to businesses typically manufacturers or office-related projects that invested in their operations and created jobs. Proponents say the tax breaks are needed to counter the high-tax structure and other burdens in New York that can act as a barrier to business growth, and they also balance the incentives offered by other states. But critics like Ryan say they are just an example of corporate welfare giveaways to businesses that don't need them. And they say the incentives don't necessarily pay off in job creation, while taking away tax revenues from towns and school districts. The senator noted that the state's only data regarding job creation and economic benefits comes from the IDAs themselves, often without any outside evidence to justify it. More recently, attention has focused on alleged IDA abuses, especially around support for retail, restaurant and housing projects. "If were looking to bring in jobs, bring in a better future for our region, its not going to be by luring chain restaurants with low-wage jobs to distressed neighborhoods," Rivera said. In 2013, the state banned subsidies for retail projects such as restaurants but made exceptions for "tourism destination projects" or those located in "highly distressed areas." Market-rate apartments are also excluded, but there are also exceptions for adaptive reuse of older buildings that are vacant or underused, as well as to encourage senior housing. The ban we enacted in 2013 had exceptions which were only intended to support projects that would provide high-paying jobs to help improve economically distressed areas," Ryan said. "Subsidizing fast-food restaurants is not a viable economic development strategy. But the language defining those exceptions is often vague and open to interpretation, Ryan and Rivera complained. "Granting tax abatements to fast-food operations is not what any policymaker imagined when they allowed for a tourism exception," Ryan said. "We are trying to create an economy that creates family-sustaining jobs. The retail economy doesnt do that." The NCIDA said the projects by Muhammad Shoaib and his wife, Hina Qureshi, in Niagara Falls especially the A&W restaurant will be tourist draws, and noted that downtown Niagara Falls is financially distressed. "The alleged loophole is actually a section of law that specifically allows retail projects in areas that are distressed and/or tourism areas," NCIDA's Langdon said. "The exceptions that allow the NCIDA to assist with these projects are stated within the statute. NCIDA is following the statute. Niagara Falls is exactly the type of location that Legislators had in mind when they adopted this law." Yet Ryan noted, together they create just 20 full-time jobs, and Shoaib admitted he would proceed regardless of whether he received tax breaks. "You have a business owner saying I dont even need this money," Ryan said. "It just makes it more egregious." Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip on Friday in response to rocket fire by militants in the Palestinian territory. The exchange comes amid increasing tensions following a deadly raid by Israeli forces on the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military said it had carried out at least two rounds of strikes targeting Islamic Jihad militants who had allegedly shot several Israelis. There were no reports of injuries on either side. Israel says most of the Gaza rockets were intercepted by the Israeli defense system. Fridays crossfire follows an Israeli raid on a refugee camp Thursday in Jenin that killed nine people, one of the bloodiest days in the West Bank in years. So far, there have been no claims of responsibility for the rocket fire from Gaza, but both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have vowed to respond to Thursdays Israeli raid in the West Bank. Some information in this report was provided by Reuters and Agence France-Presse. For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine. The latest developments in Russias war on Ukraine. All times EST. 10:08 p.m.: Foreign investors from countries Russia considers unfriendly are successfully offloading billions of rubles worth of local debt holdings, selling the government's OFZ treasury bonds at a steep discount, two financial market sources told Reuters on Friday. Moscow imposed restrictions on foreigners' holdings in response to sweeping Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine, leaving many non-resident investors unable to sell or receive interest payments on certain assets. As restrictions have gradually eased, offloading OFZ debt has become possible, but market players are being forced to sell far below the market price, the sources said. The sources said non-residents have reduced their investments in OFZs by 250 billion rubles ($3.61 billion) since the beginning of this year. 8:47 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday invited the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, to visit the front-line city of Bakhmut. Zelenskyy extended the invitation after the committee said a "pathway" should be explored for Russians to take part in the 2024 Paris Games. "I am inviting Mr. Bach to Bakhmut so that he can see for himself that neutrality does not exist," Zelenskyy said. "It is obvious that any neutral banner of Russian athletes is stained with blood." Zelenskyy said "it is impossible not to be disappointed" by the stance of the Olympics chief. But the IOC has said "no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport." 8 p.m.: Ukrainian troops were locked in a "fierce" confrontation with Russian fighters Friday for control of the town of Vugledar southwest of Donetsk as the two sides battle along the southern front, Agence France-Presse reported. Both sides claimed success in the small administrative center of apartment towers surround by flat fields, a short distance from the strategic prize of the village of Pavlivka. Moscow's push for Vugledar is part of its effort to seize control of the entire Donetsk region, which it has already declared a part of Russia. The town also lies along a southern front that some think could be the focus of a possible Ukraine offensive seeking to cut through Russian-occupied territory to the Azov Sea. Russian attacks in the Vugledar area could be "part of a series of spoiling attacks aimed at constraining possible future Ukrainian counteroffensive operations," said the US-based Institute for the Study of War. 7:22 p.m.: European Union ambassadors on Friday discussed extending sanctions to Russian ally Belarus to crack down on the circumvention of sanctions on Russia by companies routing banned products through its neighbor. EU diplomats told Reuters the discussions were intended to align sanctions on Belarus closer to those on Russia. Among the proposals are restrictions on imports from Belarus of oil, coal and gold as well as exports of certain machinery and technology that could be used by the military, officials said. An EU official said discussions among EU countries would continue, with an agreement likely next week. The official said the bloc was trying to strike a balance, making clear Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko's support for Moscow was unacceptable while trying not inflict too much hardship on the civilian population. 6:37 p.m.: A 74-year-old Spanish man arrested over a spate of letter bombs sent to institutions including the prime minister's office and the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid in late 2022 was trying to pressure Spain to drop its support for Ukraine, an investigating magistrate said on Friday, according to Reuters. Pompeyo Gonzalez Pascual is under formal investigation over two possible aggravated terrorism charges and four terrorism charges, the magistrate said during his first court hearing, according to the court documents released on Friday. He was ordered to be detained pending any formal charges and further hearings. The suspect used Russian messaging apps such as VK and the Swiss end-to-end encrypted email service Protonmail, which could indicate a risk of him fleeing to Russia, the magistrate added. His online history included Russian state media RT and Sputnik as well as Spanish-language websites about weapons and chemistry. Still, the evidence suggests Gonzalez acted alone, the judge wrote. 5:50 p.m.: Ukraine said on Friday it would take its pilots about half a year to train for combat in Western fighter jets such as U.S. F-16s, as Kyiv steps up its campaign to secure fourth-generation warplanes in the wake of Russia's invasion last February, Reuters reported. Ukraine got a huge boost this week when Germany and the United States announced plans to provide heavy tanks to Kyiv, which is now hoping the West will also provide long-range missiles and fighter jets. Western military support has been vital for Kyiv and has rapidly evolved. Before the invasion, even the idea of supplying lethal aid to Ukraine was highly controversial, but Western supplies have since shattered taboo after taboo. Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat said F-16s may be the best option for a multi-role fighter to replace the country's current fleet of warplanes, which are older than modern Ukraine itself. He said Kyiv was using four types of Soviet-era planes. 5 p.m.: North Korea condemned on Friday the decision by the United States to supply Ukraine with advanced battle tanks to help fight off Russias invasion, saying Washington is escalating a sinister proxy war aimed at destroying Moscow, The Associated Press reported. The comments by the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un underscored the countrys deepening alignment with Russia over the war in Ukraine as it confronts the United States and its Asian allies over its own growing nuclear weapons and missiles program. North Korea has blamed the United States for the crisis in Ukraine, insisting that the Wests hegemonic policy forced Russia to take military action to protect its security interests. It has also used the distraction created by the war to accelerate its own weapons development, test-firing more than 70 missiles in 2022 alone, including potentially nuclear-capable weapons believed able to target South Korea and the U.S. mainland. The United States has accused North Korea of sending large supplies of artillery shells and other ammunition to Russia to support its offensive in Ukraine, although the North has repeatedly denied the claim. 4:05 p.m.: Ukrainian combat medic Oksana Lebedenko lost contact with her 11-year-old daughter Yeva after Russian forces occupied her hometown of Vovchansk in Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Lebedenko later discovered that her pro-Russian brother had taken her daughter to Russia without permission. After nearly a year apart, volunteers helped reunite the mother and daughter in Kyiv in December. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has this report. 3:17 p.m.: Ukraine's ruling party has kicked out a lawmaker from its parliamentary faction after reports he had traveled to Thailand during Ukraine's grinding war with Russia sparked a public outcry, Reuters reported. Party spokesperson Yulia Paliychuk said on Friday that Mykola Tyshchenko was expelled from Servant of the People's voting bloc after an announcement appeared briefly on the website of the Ukrainian embassy in Thailand saying Tyshchenko would meet members of the Ukrainian diaspora at a hotel there. Tyshchenko said on Facebook he had been on a business trip in Asia with approval of party leaders, "acting exclusively in the interests of Ukraine." Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said he had approved no such trip. 2:30 p.m.: Ukraine said on Friday it was setting up drone assault companies within its armed forces that will be equipped with Starlink satellite communications, as it presses ahead with an idea to build up an "army of drones," Reuters reported. Commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi signed off on the creation of the units in a project that will involve several ministries and agencies, the General Staff said. "The most professional servicemen" have already been chosen to lead the companies, each of which will receive drones and ammunition, Starlink terminals and other equipment, it said on Facebook. "We are doing everything to provide soldiers with modern technologies," it said. Starlink is a satellite internet system operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX company, and widely used both by civilians and the military in Ukraine. Ukraine's defense minister told Reuters last month that he regarded drones as the future of modern warfare. 2:10 p.m.: 2:00 p.m.: The director of the Auschwitz Memorial on Friday compared the deaths of people in Ukraine to the suffering in World War Two during commemorations marking the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp by Soviet troops, Reuters reported. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial preserves the Auschwitz death camp set up on Polish soil by Nazi Germany during World War Two. More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, perished in gas chambers at the camp or from starvation, cold and disease. "Similar sick megalomania, similar lust for power, and similar-sounding myths about uniqueness, greatness, primacy ... only written in Russian. Innocent people are dying en masse in Europe, again," Piotr Cywinski said in an address to an audience including Holocaust survivors. "Wola district in Warsaw, Zamojszczyzna, Oradour and Lidice today are called Bucha, Irpin, Hostomel, Mariupol and Donetsk," he added, referring to places where mass killings took place in World War Two and sites where Ukraine and its allies accuse Russian forces of committing atrocities. 1:50 p.m.: 1:30 p.m.: The World Health Organization has made a significant update to its list of medicines that should be stockpiled for radiological and nuclear emergencies, according to a press statement released Friday. Along with the updated list, the organization has also provided policy advice for the appropriate management of these stockpiles. The stockpiles include medicines that can prevent or reduce exposure to radiation, as well as treatments for injuries that may occur as a result of exposure, the statement said. Dr. Maria Neira, WHO Acting Assistant Director-General a.i, Healthier Populations Division, emphasized the importance of being prepared for radiation emergencies. "In radiation emergencies, people may be exposed to radiation at doses ranging from negligible to life-threatening," Neira stated. "Governments need to make treatments available for those in need fast. It is essential that governments are prepared to protect the health of populations and respond immediately to emergencies. This includes having ready supplies of lifesaving medicines that will reduce risks and treat injuries from radiation," she said. The WHO statement was released one day after Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed concern over the safety of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Experts currently stationed at the facility have reported powerful explosions occurring outside the plant. This activity suggests that there are military operations taking place in close proximity to the site. The plant is located on the frontlines of the ongoing conflict in the country. 1:20 p.m.: The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday he hoped South Africa would use its good relations with Russia to convince it to end the conflict in Ukraine, Reuters reported. Speaking alongside South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor in the capital Pretoria, Borrell said the EU was not asking South Africa to choose sides but rather just asking countries across the world to stand with the United Nations Charter. "This is not only a European war. It's happening on European soil but affects the whole world," he said. Pandor said the solutions for the current problems lie in multilateralism and that everyone must seek to find a common ground. "It's not just South Africa and other African countries that must play a role at seeking peace. It's all of us that must be seeking to arrive at a negotiated outcome to address the concerns of all the parties involved," she said. 1:10 p.m.: 12:50 p.m.: The U.S. envoy to the OSCE warned at a meeting of the organization's Permanent Council that Russia is trying "to wipe out the sovereignty of an entire, independent nation" in Ukraine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Friday. Ambassador Michael Carpenter added that Russia was also seeking to do much the same thing with neighboring Belarus, following a historical pattern of denying the existence of sovereign nations and trying to "incorporate them into their empires." He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had "made clear" that he thinks both those nations "belong" to Russia. "The United States flatly rejects Russia's efforts to dismiss and repress Ukraines distinct culture, history, and statehood," Carpenter said. "We also strongly support the sovereignty and independence of Belarus, which has a proud history and its own rich culture as well." 12:35 p.m.: 12:20 p.m: Russia's communications regulator Roskomnadzor said on Friday it had blocked the websites of the CIA and FBI, accusing the two U.S. government agencies of spreading false information, the TASS news agency reported. "Roskomnadzor has restricted access to a number of resources belonging to state structures of hostile countries for disseminating material aimed at destabilizing the social and political situation in Russia," Roskomnadzor said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies. TASS quoted Roskomnadzor as saying that the two American websites had published inaccurate material and information that had discredited the Russian armed forces. There was no immediate comment from Washington or from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Russia has made it a criminal offense to discredit its armed forces, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail, while knowingly distributing "false information" about the military carries a maximum sentence of 15 years. 12:05 a.m.: 11:50 a.m.: Poland will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine on top of the 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged, the Polish prime minister said in an interview with Canadian television on Thursday. Warsaw, which has positioned itself as one of Kyiv's staunchest allies, had pressed hard for Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and to allow other countries to do so as well, a demand which Berlin agreed to on Wednesday. "Poland sent 250 tanks as the first country half a year ago or even more than that," Mateusz Morawiecki told CTV News. In April last year, two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Poland said it had sent tanks to held Kyiv fend off the assault. "Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession." 11:30 a.m.: The children still in Ukraine are being forced to deal with the trauma of war. To help them process their emotions, Ukrainian psychologists are using a method called toy therapy. VOAs Anna Kosstutschenko reports. 11:10 a.m.: Russian forces pressed on with a multipronged offensive in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, Ukraine's military said Friday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy voiced his gratitude for the growing number of countries that have pledged advanced tanks to Kyiv while urging them to accelerate the delivery of the offensive assault vehicles. Ukrainian troops repelled attacks in 11 locations in the two eastern regions over the past 24 hours, a day after Moscow unleashed another wave of missile strikes across Ukraine, killing at least 11 people and damaging energy infrastructure despite Kyiv's air defense destroying most of the incoming projectiles. "The Defense Forces over the past day repelled the invaders' attacks in Ploshanka, Nevske, and Chervonpopyivka in Luhansk, and Verkhnyokamyanske, Paraskoviyivka, Bakhmut, Klishchiyivka, Vodyane, Nevelske, Maryinka, and Vuhledar in Donetsk," the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said in its daily report, which RFE/RL could not independently verify. 11:00 a.m.: 10:45 a.m.: Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and other mourners commemorated the 78th anniversary Friday of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp, some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten. The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland, which was under the occupation of German forces during World War II and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. Today the site, with its barracks and barbed wire and the ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the worlds most recognized symbols of evil and a site of pilgrimage for millions from around the world. Yet it lies only 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating unthinkable death and destruction a conflict on the minds of many this year. 10:30 a.m.: 10:15 a.m.: Hungary will join the Czech Republic and Poland in patrolling Slovakia's skies after it grounded its Soviet-made MiG-29s from service last year, Reuters reported, quoting Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad. Slovakia has relied on its neighbors for airspace protection since last September while it waits for new, U.S.-made F-16 fighters due in 2024. "We confirmed the interest of the Hungarian side, and Slovakia's gratitude, that it will join in protecting Slovakia's airspace," Nad said in a news conference with his Hungarian counterpart Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky, shown on his Facebook page. Slovakia grounded the ageing MiGs as it embarked on a modernization program. It has considered sending them to Ukraine as it battles Russia's invasion but has not made a decision. 10:00 a.m.: 9:50 a.m.: European Union ambassadors on Friday are set to discuss extending sanctions to Russian ally Belarus to crack down on the circumvention of sanctions on Russia by companies routing banned products through its neighbor. EU diplomats told Reuters that the latest discussions were intended to ensure sanctions on Belarus are aligned with those on Russia. Areas they are likely to look at are restrictions on imports from Belarus of oil, coal and gold as well as exports to Belarus of certain machinery and technology that could be used by the military, the diplomats said. The EU has placed a broad range of sanctions on Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and prevented imports of a range of products including sea-borne oil, coal, steel, gold, wood and plastics. 9:35 a.m.: 9:20 a.m.: The foreign ministers of France and the Netherlands paid an official visit on Friday to a military base in Romania where both nations station troops as a part of a NATO battlegroup that was bolstered in the wake of Russias invasion of neighboring Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. Catherine Colonna of France and Wopke Hoekstra of the Netherlands visited the military base in Cincu, central Romania, along with their Romanian counterpart, Bogdan Aurescu. Hoekstra told troops from the multinational battlegroup stationed there that they demonstrate precisely what our alliance stands for, and said they play a key role in keeping this continent and our territory safe. Russia is waging war in a way we havent seen in decades, and therefore we cannot let our guard down we need to step up our efforts, Hoekstra said, adding: There is only one way forward: Ukraine must win this war, for its own sake but also for ours. In response to Russias invasion of Ukraine last February, NATO bolstered its presence on Europes eastern flank, including by sending additional multinational battlegroups to alliance members Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia. Earlier this week, around 600 French soldiers held a combat exercise in the eastern Romanian town of Smardan to test the 30-nation military alliances readiness on its eastern flank. The drill involved some 200 military vehicles, including four French Leclerc battle tanks that practiced firing live ammunition. 9:05 a.m.: 8:55 a.m.: Russia has twisted comments by Germany's foreign minister about the war in Ukraine for propaganda purposes, a German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday, stressing Berlin's position that NATO must not become party to the conflict, Reuters reported. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock riled Moscow with comments at an event in Strasbourg on Tuesday, when, speaking in English, she said that "we are fighting a war against Russia, and not against each other". She spoke the day before the German government announced it was arming Ukraine with advanced Leopard tanks, putting aside earlier reservations about whether such a move could prompt Moscow to escalate the war. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, in a post on her Telegram messaging channel cited by state TASS news agency on Wednesday, seized on Baerbock's comments as evidence the West was waging a "premeditated war against Russia". While Baerbock has often sounded more hawkish than other members of the German cabinet about supporting Ukraine, Berlin has repeatedly stressed that it wants to avoid the NATO alliance becoming a party to the conflict. This concern was part of the reason for Germany's delay in agreeing to send the Leopard tanks to Ukraine. 8:40 a.m.: 8:25 a.m.: The European Union wants swift accountability for "horrific" crimes in Ukraine, EU justice ministers said on Friday, even as they differed over the methods in a debate about how to bring prosecutions, seek evidence or fund war damage repairs, Reuters reported. The bloc's 27 justice ministers met in Stockholm ahead of the Feb. 24 anniversary of Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine - a former Soviet republic and Moscow satellite that has sought to join the EU and the NATO Western alliance in recent years. "There absolutely will have to be accountability for horrific international crimes and the brutality of what we're seeing in Ukraine... the clear and apparent war crimes," said Ireland's Simon Harris. The ministers discussed collecting evidence as well as setting up a new international tribunal to prosecute Moscow's aggression. "Nobody doing this kind of war crimes shall go free. It's very, very important that we will find a way to hold responsible people accountable," said Gunnar Strommer, justice minister of Sweden."The question is, how can we deal with this in a practical and efficient way." 8:10 a.m.: The U.N. Childrens Fund UNICEF reports on a Ukrainian couple from war-torn Mariupol who run a foster home and are raising 10 children. 7:50 a.m.: Russia is violating the "fundamental principles of child protection" in wartime by giving Ukrainian children Russian passports and putting them up for adoption, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) chief told Reuters in an interview. Speaking at the UNHCR offices in Kyiv following a six-day tour of the country, Filippo Grandi said Ukraine's president had asked his agency to "do more" to help children from occupied regions to whom this was happening. "Giving them (Russian) nationality or having them adopted goes against the fundamental principles of child protection in situations of war," Grandi said. "This is something that is happening in Russia and must not happen," he added. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking after his meeting with Grandi on Wednesday, called for mechanisms to be set up to "defend and return" children and adults deported to Russia, as well as to punish those responsible. 7:35 a.m.: An official with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told CNN that it is a struggle to provide humanitarian aid to people in war-affected Ukraine, and that the agency coordinates with both sides in the conflict to make sure that they can guaranteesafety when we do the movements to these areas that are very close to the frontline. 7:20 a.m. Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed concern over the safety of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in a statement released late Thursday. According to experts from the IAEA currently stationed at the facility, powerful explosions have been occurring outside the plant, indicating military activities in the vicinity of the site. The plant is located on the frontline of the ongoing conflict in the country. The IAEA nuclear safety and security team at the ZNPP have been reporting such events to headquarters in Vienna on an almost daily basis in recent days and weeks, according to the statement. While some of the blasts are taking place some distance away from the facility, others are happening much closer to Europe's largest nuclear power plant. This week, strong detonations were heard, causing office windows at the plant to vibrate, it said. Grossi has emphasized the vital importance of implementing a Nuclear Safety and Security Protection Zone around the site as soon as possible. Such a zone would help shield the ZNPP by making sure it is not targeted and also not used for attacks from the site, he said. He urged the international community to take action to protect the safety of the plant and its surrounding area. 7:05 a.m.: 6:45 a.m.: Ukraine is urging Australia to increase its military aid ahead of a visit to Europe next week by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles, VOAs Phil Mercer reported. Australia, the largest non-NATO contributor to Ukraines war effort, has supplied missiles and Bushmaster armored personnel carriers. They have a special V-shaped floor designed to spread the impact of an explosion more effectively than a conventional flat floor. A group of up to 70 Australian defense force personnel has also been stationed in Britain to help train Ukrainian troops. Analysts say the commitment of Germany and the United States to deliver tanks to Ukraine puts pressure on Australia to increase its military assistance to Kyiv. 6:30 a.m.: Japan tightened sanctions against Russia on Friday following its latest wave of missile attacks in Ukraine, adding goods to an export ban list and freezing the assets of Russian officials and entities, Reuters reported. The decision comes after Russia launched missile attacks in Ukraine killing at least 11 people on Thursday following a pledge by Germany and the United States to supply tanks that could help Ukraine counter any new Russian offensive. "In light of the situation surrounding Ukraine and to contribute to international efforts to secure peace, Japan will implement export bans in line with other major nations," the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry said in a release. Among the new sanctions, Japan will prohibit shipments of items to 49 organizations in Russia from Feb. 3 that could be used to enhance its military capability. 6:15 a.m.: 6:00 a.m.: A senior EU official said Friday that Russia has taken its war against Ukraine to a different stage by making indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets, while criticizing Moscow for triggering recent moves by Germany and the United States to send advanced tanks to Ukraine, The Associated Press reported. Stefano Sannino, Secretary General of the European Unions European External Action Service, defended German and U.S. provisions of the military equipment to Ukraine, and criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for waging a war on NATO and the West. Sannino, speaking at a news conference in Tokyo as part of an Asia-Pacific tour, said Putin had moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West. He said German and U.S. tank provisions are meant to help Ukrainians defend themselves in the war, rather than making them attackers. I think that this latest development in terms of armed supply is just an evolution of the situation and of the way Russia started moving the war into a different stage, Sannino said. He added that Russia is making indiscriminate attacks on civilians and cities and no longer military targets. The EU is not moving the war into a different stage but is just giving the possibility of saving lives and allowing the Ukrainians to defend (themselves) from these barbaric attacks, Sannino said. 5:50 a.m.: With the U.S. now joining Germany and Britain in promising to send battle tanks to Ukraine, what are the capabilities and differences among the three types of tanks that will join the fight? VOAs Steve Redisch takes their measure. 5:38 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in its latest Ukraine assessment that Russian forces continued ground attacks around Bakhmut, on the western outskirts of Donetsk City, and in the Vuhledar area. Ukrainian officials, the assessment said, reported that Russian forces in Zaporizhia Oblast are not conducting offensive operations at the size or scale necessary for a full-scale offensive. 4:25 a.m.: Uzbekistan will import natural gas from Russia for the first time ever as the Central Asian country faces an energy crisis, authorities said Thursday, according to Agence France-Presse. Despite being home to a wealth of natural resources, including gas, Uzbekistan has faced energy shortages amid historically cold temperatures. Like its neighbors Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan suffers frequent power and heating cuts because of aging infrastructure. An energy ministry spokesman told AFP the gas deliveries, via an agreement with Russian energy giant Gazprom, will begin on March 1. 3:11 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said that Russia has probably launched attacks near Orikiv and Vuhledar. It notes that although Russian online commentators claim advances in several areas, there's a "realistic possibility" that these gains are not true and are instead the result of Russian sources spreading misinformation. 1:10 a.m.: Russia's finance ministry Thursday proposed scrapping liquidity restrictions for spending on "anti-crisis" investments from its National Wealth Fund, citing the need to support key sectors amid challenging geopolitical conditions, Reuters reported. Russia's fiscally conservative authorities have tended to be cautious in their use of NWF funds. Thursday's move suggests they want to be more creative in the way they maintain Russia's economic health, as Moscow ramps up spending on what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine. The ministry also said it would seek to reduce the threshold at which investments in other financial assets from the rainy-day fund can be made to 7% of gross domestic product from 10% currently, according to draft proposals. The ministry proposed that the total volume of such investments not exceed 4.25 trillion rubles ($61.24 billion). 12:02 a.m.: Ukrainian government officials who shirk their duties during wartime will be quickly removed, a top aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday, Reuters reported. More than a dozen officials have been removed this week following a series of scandals and graft allegations. Political analysts said Zelenskyy needs to show Western partners and war-weary Ukrainians that he is serious about punishing misrule. "Everyone should understand their level of responsibility to the country and nation during the war. Whoever forgets about it receives a quick reaction," said Andriy Yermak, head of Zelenskiy's office. "This will happen to everyone who allows themselves to forget (their duties), regardless of names and offices," Yermak wrote on Twitter. Among the most high-profile cases was that of a deputy defense minister who resigned following a report, which he denied, that his ministry paid inflated prices to feed troops. A presidential adviser who had been called out by local media for driving flashy cars also quit, as did a senior prosecutor who Ukrainian media reported had gone on holiday to Marbella in Spain, flouting martial law. Some information in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Hundreds of Nigerian refugees who fled Boko Haram terrorism to northern Cameroon started returning home this week, with about 2,000 expected to leave by Monday. This is the first large repatriation of Nigerian refugees from Cameroon in two years, but 76,000 refugees are still reluctant to return to Nigeria Cameroons Territorial Administration Ministry says convoys of Nigerian refugees, most of them women and children, left Minawao camp this week to to Banki, in Nigerias Borno state. Scores of the children were born in the camp - their parents having fled Nigeria after Boko Haram militants began fighting for an extremist Islamist state in 2009. Forty-seven-year old father of three Cassian Tamfo says his family fled in 2015 when Boko Haram attacked his village of Ngauro and forced all the men to join the group or be killed. Speaking to local media in Cameroon, including Douala-based Canal 2, he says it is now time to return home. "We have spent more than eight years in Cameroon. We are going back to our country because our country has peace." Tamfo is one of about 2,000 Nigerian refugees expected to return to their home country by Monday. Lawan Abba Wakilbe is a special adviser to the governor of Nigerias Borno state. He visited northern Cameroon this week to supervise their voluntary return. Wakilbe says Boko Haram has ceased large-scale attacks in Borno state, where the terrorist group was formed. Speaking via a messaging application from Maroua, capital of Cameroon's Far North region, he thanked Cameroon for hosting the refugees. "Not only have they [Nigerian refugees] received good treatment for almost 10 years in Cameroon, the repatriation process, the kind of compassion is quite commendable," said Wakilbe. "Not only that, the gifts, quite a lot of gifts, enough for an average person to start up a new life. These people fled from persecution of Boko Haram insurgents, so for them to return home, it means things have improved." Wakilbe says Nigerias military will ensure the safety of returning refugees and authorities will help them reintegrate. This is the largest group of Nigeran refugees to leave Cameroon since 2021, when 5,000 went home after an agreement between the two countries and the United Nations refugee agency. Cameroon is hosting 109,000 Nigerian refugees, 74,000 in Minawao camp and 35,000 living with host communities. Authorities say most of the refugees are scared to return and start new lives after having lost everything, including their homes, in the conflict. Some have started businesses in Cameroon. Governor of Cameroon's Far North region Midjiyawa Bakari spoke to VOA via a messaging application. He says since the tripartite agreement, the government of Cameroon has been teaching the refugees to live and work for the development of their communities when they return to Nigeria. Also, says Bakari, to denounce all terrorists who may want to turn them against the Nigerian military. He says the government of Cameroon is happy that all the Nigerians who are returning are in good health. The U.N. says that since 2009, the Boko Haram insurgency has killed about 36,000 Nigerians and indirectly killed 314,000. The conflict has internally displaced more 3 million and forced hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wraps up a 10-day visit to Africa on Saturday that included stops in Senegal, Zambia and South Africa, where she met Friday with philanthropists on climate change. Throughout her trip, Yellen sought to underscore the importance of the growing and youthful continent, saying "the United States' strategy toward Africa is centered around a simple recognition: that Africa will shape the future of the global economy." The administration of President Joe Biden has emphasized its commitment to the region, rolling out a new policy for sub-Saharan Africa in August and hosting the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December. Analysts say the reengagement comes after Africa received limited attention from former president Donald Trump's administration, and as leading trade partner China continues to dominate the region economically, while Russia is working to strengthen military and diplomatic ties. Yellen arrived shortly after a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to South Africa, which has taken an officially neutral stance on the war in Ukraine and is planning to host controversial joint naval drills with Russia and China off the coast of the city of Durban next month. Bob Wekesa, head of the African Center for the Study of the United States in Johannesburg, said the timing of the visits shows both Russia and the U.S. are trying to woo Africa. "Is it a coincidence that both Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and U.S. Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen have done their Africa trip early in the year, coinciding, in fact almost meeting together?" Wekesa said. "In my view it's not a coincidence in itself because there's a very big geopolitical battle that has just intensified over the couple of months since first Russia's invasion of Ukraine." Brooks Spector, associate editor at South African newspaper the Daily Maverick and a retired American diplomat, echoed that assessment. "The competition now, on the African continent between Russia and the United States and China and the United States has become much more visible and in many ways much more significant than it was a decade or so ago," Spector said. "With Russia of course, the challenge is geopolitical and security, whereas with China the challenge is largely economic and trade-oriented." Yellen has used her trip to criticize both Beijing and Moscow. Her remarks in Zambia about China being a "barrier" to the heavily indebted nation's debt restructuring drew ire from Beijing. She has also blamed "Russia's brutal war" for raising energy prices and causing food insecurity in Africa. The U.S. is South Africa's third-largest trading partner. Yellen has announced a new joint task force aimed at preventing wildlife trafficking, pledged to increase trade and investment, and praised the country for aiming to tackle its current power crisis and reliance on coal through a "just energy transition" partnership with the U.S. But so far on her South Africa visit, Yellen who had a closed-door meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa has refrained publicly from talking about the upcoming naval exercises or Pretoria's stance on Ukraine. Spector said the topics not usually ground covered by a treasury secretary would likely have come up "regardless of the brief." "When Secretary Yellen arrived, she had an entire basket of issues to be tackled, a whole range of things, some of which transcended the more normal topics that a treasury secretary might have wanted to talk about, including, not surprisingly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine." When South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana met with Yellen on Thursday, he noted her visit was a "momentous occasion" because no U.S. treasury secretary had visited in eight years. Asked whether the minister's remarks could be seen as a criticism of the U.S. for ignoring Africa, David Feldmann, the mission spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, told VOA, "We refer you to the South African finance minister for any interpretation of what he said." The South African treasury did not reply to a request for comment. To underscore the importance of the continent, it's expected that both U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden will visit this year. Nigeria's electoral commission says will hold elections in February despite threats to its facilities and staff. Since Nigeria's last elections in 2019, the commission has recorded more than 50 attacks on its facilities. Observers say such violence could hinder voting if it happens in the run-up to the polls. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja, Nigeria. Panic spread though Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, on Thursday as dozens of angry police took to the streets to protest the killing of their fellow officers by armed gangs. Protesters, dressed in black T-shirts with the word "Police" written in white, attacked Prime Minister Ariel Henry's residence earlier in the day, but it was unclear how much damage was done inside the gates. VOA Creole's reporter at the residence heard multiple gunshots but could not determine whether anyone had been wounded or killed. Demonstrators later headed to the international airport, where Henry was arriving from a trip to Argentina to attend a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. At the Toussaint Louverture International Airport, burning tires blocked the entrance. Inside, Henry had deplaned and was in the diplomatic lounge, preparing to deliver a speech, when the police protesters stormed the room. The prime minister's security detail took him to safety, VOAs reporter said. Henry returned to his Port-au-Prince residence Thursday evening. VOA Creole called the prime ministers residence, but no one answered. A police spokesman declined to comment. Police protesters also burned tires at the gate of the National Police Central Command office and flew the Haitian flag at half-staff in honor of their fallen comrades. Last week, the Vitel'Homme gang killed four police officers Petionville. On Wednesday, the Savien gang killed another seven police officers in the town of Liancourt. As the events unfolded Thursday afternoon, a uniformed policeman who did not want to be identified told VOA that reforms were needed in the leadership of the police force. "We sympathize with the protesters as well as the families of the fallen officers," he said as he patrolled the Carrefour neighborhood of the capital. "We are upset because many police officials are linked to gangs, so they stand by and don't say anything. Very often, the police officials don't take responsibility, and we think that needs to change." The Thursday protest was the culmination of years of frustration, another officer, who also declined to give his name, told VOA. "That's why we're asking for all policemen who are currently providing security for Prime Minister Ariel Henry to come join us in the streets," he said. "We must resolve this security issue once and for all." The protesting police want more support and equipment to counter Haitis gangs. Former Haitian Senator Moise Jean Charles, who spoke to VOA Creole by phone from Cap-Haitien in the north of the country, blamed Henry for what happened Thursday. "PM Ariel Henry is playing with fire. Today is the result of the incompetence of the government," he said. Ambassador Helen Meagher La Lime, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Haiti, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that there was an urgent need for a rapid intervention force in Haiti to help the national police counter gang violence. She said that without it, the national police would be incapable of stopping gang violence. No country has expressed a willingness to lead such a force. New sanctions U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood said Tuesday that the U.S. was working on a new series of sanctions targeting Haitians linked to gang violence. "The United States is identifying additional targets involved in the unrest in Haiti to nominate at the United Nations," Wood said. China's ambassador to the U.N., Zhang Jun, called on member states to fully apply the Haitian sanctions to discourage the gangs from escalating the violence. Russia's Deputy Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky called on the Security Council sanctions committee to intensify its work to find the true financial backers of the gangs as well as those trafficking arms to Haiti. Valerio Saint-Louis of VOAs Creole Service contributed to this report from New York. The stepfather of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old man beaten to death following a traffic stop earlier this month, called for peace Friday, ahead of the release later in the day of the police bodycam and surveillance video of the violence. Memphis and other U.S. cities reportedly were preparing for possible protests following the release of video. Memphis police said Nichols, an African American, was stopped for alleged reckless driving on January 7. He was assaulted after the stop, and he died from his injuries three days later. Five Memphis police officers, all of them African American, were charged Thursday with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression in the incident. All the officers have been fired. During a news conference Friday at a Memphis church, Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, said the family was very satisfied with the legal process so far, and he urged people, if they needed to protest, to do so peacefully. We want peace. We do not want any type of uproar. We do not want any type of disturbance. We want peaceful protest, he said. The family is very satisfied with the process, with the police chief, with the D.A. [district attorney]. Also speaking at the news conference, lawyers for the family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, applauded the district attorney for the swiftness with which the charges were brought against the officers. Romanucci said the officers were members of a SCORPION unit an acronym for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. He said such units are known as suppression units and contended they act with impunity and are more likely to use force than other members of a police force. He called on the Memphis police department to disband the unit immediately. The call for peace by Nichols stepfather came after President Joe Biden issued a similar call Thursday. In a statement, the president said, Outrage is understandable, but violence is never acceptable. Tyres death is a painful reminder that we must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment, and dignity for all, Biden said. Federal law enforcement officials said they were prepared for any unrest. Speaking at a news conference Friday in Washington, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau had alerted all of its field offices around the country to work with state and local law enforcement in the event of something getting out of hand. Wray said he had seen the video of Tyres beating and was appalled by its content. "I'm struggling to find a stronger word, but Id just say I was appalled, Wray noted. But Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland joined calls by other officials to keep any protests against police peaceful. "I do want to say, and I want to repeat what the family has said, that expressions of concern when people see this video, we urge that they be peaceful and nonviolent, Garland said at the press conference. Thats what the family has urged, and that of course is what the Justice Department urges as well. The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the case. VOAs Masood Farivar contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. South Korean concerns about the U.S. nuclear umbrella are expected to be a major focus of U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austins upcoming trip to Seoul. Austin, who arrives in the South Korean capital on Monday, is expected to meet President Yoon Suk Yeol, according to South Korean media. Earlier this month, Yoon made headlines when he said South Korea could demand the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, or even develop its own nuclear arms, if its security situation with North Korea worsens. Yoon later walked back those comments. However, the situation underscores growing South Korean worries over North Koreas quickly expanding nuclear arsenal, as well as questions about the long-term defense commitment of its ally, the United States. Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told a briefing Thursday that Austin's trip will highlight our commitment to the region, saying the U.S. commitment to South Korea remains rock solid. Austins visit will be closely watched to see whether he addresses Yoons comments about nuclear weapons. He might make some rhetorical gesture indicating gently in public, and certainly much more strongly behind the scenes, that it would be undesirable for South Korea to have its own nuclear deterrent, said Mason Richey, an associate professor at South Korea's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. But I think he would do so in a way that would not be intended to publicly irritate South Korea or to call into question South Koreas sovereignty or autonomy, Richey said. Instead, Austin may highlight U.S.-South Korean efforts to expand defense cooperation, he added. In recent months, Washington and Seoul have increased joint military drills and agreed to the more frequent deployment of U.S. strategic assets, such as nuclear-capable bombers and aircraft carriers, to the region around the Korean Peninsula. But Yoon, a conservative who embraces a more aggressive approach to North Korea, thinks more should be done to keep up with North Korean nuclear advancements. As a presidential candidate, he briefly embraced the possibility of the United States returning tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. The United States removed its nuclear weapons from South Korea in the early 1990s. Instead, South Korea is protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, under which Washington vows to use all its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend its ally. Yoon last month suggested such ideas are outdated and that South Korea needs a bigger role in its own defense. As an alternative, Yoon said he envisioned new levels of nuclear cooperation that would have the same effect as nuclear sharing. North Korea advancements South Koreas concerns are driven in large part by North Koreas rapid expansion of its nuclear weapons program. In 2022, North Korea launched more than 90 missiles, including short-range weapons designed to evade South Koreas missile defense systems and long-range weapons that could hit the U.S. mainland. In a year-end speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to exponentially increase production of nuclear warheads and to develop yet another new intercontinental ballistic missile. U.S. and South Korean officials have also warned for months that North Korea has finished preparations for another nuclear test. The developments have rattled many in Seoul, who fear the United States may not come to the defense of South Korea if North Korea has the ability to destroy U.S. cities. Possible steps A growing number of Washington-based analysts agree that the United States should shore up its defense commitment to South Korea. In a report last week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the allies should consider tabletop planning exercises for the possible redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to South Korea." While the CSIS report said the United States should not under current circumstances deploy tactical nuclear weapons, it suggested other steps, including the creation of a framework for joint nuclear planning, similar to a U.S. arrangement with NATO. The report mentioned the possibility of "the continuous presence in the region of either U.S. submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles or strategic bombers. It also said South Korea could acquire dual-capable aircraft, which can conduct nuclear or conventional missions. It is not clear whether U.S. and South Korean officials are discussing any of those proposals. But Sydney Seiler, the national intelligence officer for North Korea at the U.S. National Intelligence Council, on Thursday praised the CSIS report as excellent, saying it laid out a very persuasive case on how to maintain deterrence in this environment. It was compelling, Seiler said during an online forum hosted by CSIS. And we go back to [the fact that] deterrence has worked for seven decades, he said. Why would deterrence not work going forward? Officials in Nigeria say the death toll from an attack on animal herders has risen to 40. The strike took place Wednesday in Rukubi, a village on the border between Nigeria's Nassarawa and Benue states, a region known for ethnic and religious conflict. Nassarawa state governor Abdullahi Sule has refuted claims that a military jet bombed pastoralists and said Thursday it was an unidentified drone operated from an unknown location that exploded. He said he has deployed security operatives to the area to prevent tensions or reprisals. "I've been on it all night trying to resolve the matter with chief of defense staff, Miyetti Allah, and all the security agencies including our commissioner of police to ensure that we continue to douse the tension that may generate as a result of this," Sule said. Pastoralists were returning from nearby Benue state with hundreds of cattle they had bailed out from officials enforcing an anti-open grazing law when the bomb exploded among them. Sule said 40 people were killed and many others were injured. Many herds were also affected. A Nigerian Air Force spokesperson did not take calls from VOA for comment. However, Nassarawa state police spokesman Nansel Ramham told VOA by phone that authorities are investigating. Farmers and herders in central Nigeria have been clashing over grazing land for decades. Benue and Nassarawa are the most affected. An umbrella group for cattle breeders in Nigeria, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, condemned the attack Thursday and asked authorities to capture the perpetrators. Abuja-based Beacon Security analyst Kabiru Adamu said the attacks could be the result of wrong profiling. "Nobody as at date, not the military, not the state governor, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, has been able to clarify what type of incendiary attack it was. The media has created this monster called Fulani herdsmen. It's been highlighted by the media to the extend that stigmatization and profiling has occurred," Adamu said. But the Nigerian military has in the past recorded accidental airstrikes on civilians while battling Islamist militants and armed gangs in the northern region. In January 2017, more than 100 people were killed when a military jet hit a camp housing people displaced by jihadist violence in the town of Rann, in northeast Borno state. The military blamed the attack on a lack of appropriate markings of the area. Last year, an arms trade between the United States and the Nigerian government was stalled due to concerns about extrajudicial killings. Adamu said authorities should be more proactive. "By now I expect that the National Assembly would have set up a committee to look at this latest incident in Doma, identify what went wrong and introduce measures to prevent a reoccurrence," Adamu said. "It could have been mistaken identity or poor intelligence that may have suggested the movement was by bandits." Security is a significant challenge and a major issue as Nigeria prepares for presidential and parliamentary polls next month. Somalias government welcomed the death of Bilal al-Sudani, the Islamic State group leader killed by U.S. special operations forces in a remote part of northern Somalia on Wednesday night. Its a very positive and welcoming, Hussein Sheikh Ali, national security adviser for Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, told VOA Somali on Thursday. Ali, who is in Washington, told VOA that Islamic State is not the major threat to Somalia, as is al-Shabab, but its leader, al-Sudani, was a dangerous terrorist who posed a potential threat to Somalia and East Africa. The U.S. operation targeted al-Sudani, an important Islamic State financial facilitator, and took place in the Cal Miskaad mountains, in a remote cave complex in the Bari region of Somalias Puntland state. The U.S. government said 10 other terrorist operatives were also killed in the operation. No civilians were injured or killed in the operation, Pentagon officials said. U.S. officials said the U.S. forces had intended to capture al-Sudani and other associates, but that attempt failed. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement, "This action leaves the United States and its partners safer and more secure, and it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad." Somalias national security adviser said the U.S. operation was important and shows the United States was not only targeting al-Shabab, but also Islamic State militants in Somalia. The message is, that the leaders of all terror groups in Somalia are not safe, and there is no safe haven for them in the entire Somalia Peninsula, Ali said. Al-Sudani has been on the radar for U.S. intelligence officials for years. Austin said al-Sudani played a key role in helping to fund IS operations in Africa as well as the ISIS-K affiliate operating in Afghanistan. The U.S. Treasury Department had originally designated al-Sudani in 2012, for his role with al-Shabab group in Somalia. Security experts believe the death of the IS leader in Somalia is a major setback to IS and other terrorist groups operating in Somalia who are facing an extensive offensive by Somalian forces. Ali said there is solid collaboration between Somalia and the U.S. in countering al-Shabab. The U.S. military support to Somalia is very helpful and its best, he said. We have launched an offensive, and we have been very successful in the last six months, during which we liberated dozens of towns and villages from al-Shabab, Ali said. I am here in Washington, D.C., to meet senior leadership, and its been a quite successful so far Ali added. VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin and VOA's Harun Maruf Contributed to this story. Dr. Brian H. Williams was on duty at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas the night of July 7, 2016, when dozens gathered in the city to protest the recent deaths of two Black men shot by police in other American cities. The peaceful demonstration ended in tragedy, when 14 officers and two others were struck by gunfire from a sniper with a semi-automatic rifle. Williams, the lone Black surgeon on the Parkland Memorial trauma team, was among those who worked to save the officers. Five died, including three at Parkland Memorial. Williams broke the news to their shattered loved ones. The doctor so private he didnt have social media accounts wanted to take a pass on a related press conference four days later. His wife insisted otherwise. She said, The country needs to see there was a Black surgeon there that night trying to save those white officers. Just show up and sit there, Williams recalled this week during an interview with The Buffalo News. That was the plan, until someone asked him to say a few words. I understand the anger and the frustration and distrust of law enforcement, but they are not the problem, he said in impromptu remarks. The problem is the lack of open discussions about the impact of race relations in this country This killing, it has to stop. Black men dying and being forgotten. People retaliating against the people that are sworn to defend us. We have to come together and end all this. Williams has since tried to do his part. He visits Buffalo next week on the latest leg of a mission to provide insights and find solutions to structural racism, gun violence and health care inequality. He will speak Thursday as part of a program at the University at Buffalo medical school in a region grappling with all three as its citizens continue to mourn the deaths of 10 Black people and wounding of three others May 14 in a racially motivated shooting. There was a confluence of the violence, racism and historical policies to segregate this community that came together for this shooting, Williams said. I was asked to come speak about my experience, particularly about what health care providers can do. Williams, an Air Force Academy graduate, was an aeronautical engineer with six years in the military before he chose to become a doctor at age 28. He graduated from the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa, then completed a general surgery residency at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where he met his wife, Kathianne Sellers Williams. The couple, who have a 12-year-old daughter, moved to Dallas in 2010, after Williams finished fellowships in trauma surgery and surgical critical care at Emory University in Atlanta. A year after the shooting, he left Parkland Memorial and spent two years focused on health disparities in Dallas. He also led an overhaul of the citys Citizens Police Review Board. He left Texas in 2019 to become professor of trauma and acute care surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine and work in a Level 1 trauma hospital with four fellow Black trauma surgeons. Williams went on sabbatical 14 months ago to take a health policy fellowship with U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the last Congressional session, as they led efforts to pass the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. The act, passed in the weeks following the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, extended background checks for gun purchasers under 21, made it harder for those who are violent and in mental health crisis to buy and have a gun, and boosted funding for crisis intervention programs. Williams will publish his first book, The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence and How we Heal, in September. We are talking about some very heavy topics, but one of the big messages is that this is about hope and healing, he told The News Tuesday. Like other Black men, Williams knows what its like to have others spew racial epithets his way. Hes been asked to park cars outside of restaurants and been mistaken for a janitor at hospitals. He was once stopped by police outside his Dallas apartment responding to a call about a suspicious Black male. He understands the rage that can build over time through such encounters. It can consume us, he said. If we understand where it's coming from, we can use it in the service of humanity. Below are excerpts from the interview, edited for length and clarity. Q: Why come to Buffalo? A: I remember when the Tops shooting happened and the details came out. The mass shooting part obviously jumped out, but knowing there was this extremist element set it up to another level of concern. There are things that I talk about in the book, such as redlining and food deserts, that relate to that community, a racially segregated community that only had one grocery store. Were in a time where health care providers recognize their role to be socially conscious and active beyond just the hospital, as far as healing communities, so when I was asked to come, I said of course. Q: What do you expect during the program? A: A robust discussion about a wide range of topics. I will focus on what we can do to contribute to Buffalo's healing. It's not just the shooting. You had a blizzard and many of the people who died were Black. Some of the same issues that impact gun violence impact people who cant weather a major storm like that. This goes back to redlining and segregation and lack of services. I'm hoping that people who attend will learn something that they didn't know before, but also be inspired to go out and do something. Q: How can you be prepared for what you dealt with July 7, 2016? A: You prepare for the worst, but you hope you never have to go through it. On that night, we did but there was a lot going on during that summer. We had the presidential election with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump but also in the days preceding the mass shooting, we had the death the day before of Philando Castile in Minnesota and the day before that, Alton Sterling in Louisiana. So on July 7, there were protests scheduled across the country. The protest in Dallas was peaceful until the shooting occurred. It fundamentally changed who I was, who I am, and how I viewed my role as a doctor, but also as a citizen, how I contribute to society. I think about those officers and their families every day. Q: How have you tried to make sense of this long term? What steps have you taken not only professionally, but personally? A: For the longest time in my career, I kept those two parts siloed. Ive come to realize that I can contribute the most by integrating them. I am a Black male doctor in a profession where there are very few Black male doctors. I am a trauma surgeon dealing with gun violence that disproportionately impacts young Black men in the urban areas where I work. Seeing people like me dying all the time, talking to their families which reminds me of my family it was not healthy for me to try to separate my personal life from my professional life. The mass shooting in Buffalo was more than a crime. It was another volley in a public health crisis We have a crisis in racism, a crisis in gun violence, but also a crisis in the lack of services, including a lack of access to mental health care, said Dr. Joseph Sellers, who grew up in Buffalo and is president of the Medical Society of the State of New York. Prior to the mass shooting, I was a media-avoidant person. I'm here to be a doctor, not to be a spokesperson for all Black people. When they asked me to be at a press conference, I initially declined. This was the most traumatic event in my professional career. I had taken a media blackout. I didn't watch the TV news. I was oblivious to what was happening in the days after. I was still dealing with aftershocks and I didn't want to be in front of the cameras talking about this. When I told my wife, there were words like, "This is about something bigger than you. If you don't talk, you sit there so people can see that there was a Black doctor in charge that night trying to save these police officers." When I was asked to speak, I just started talking from my heart. And when I was done, I sat back and I thought to myself, "Well Brian, you're about to get fired." Q: Why? I'm talking about racism, police use of lethal force, gun violence. Those are three very volatile topics by themselves, right? And I'm talking about them days after this mass tragedy, where the city was still reeling. Then it went viral on all the social media platforms. From that point, there was this inflection. My life of comfortable anonymity disappeared overnight. Q: What was the reaction from others, including your colleagues and bosses? A: Overwhelming support. I received hundreds of letters and emails and gifts from strangers. There was some negative commentary, some vitriol in some of the comments and letters, but I think this goes to the difficulty in talking about racism and gun violence. We have to continue to step towards that discomfort if we're going to make some sort of progress. Q: Why did you decide to write the book? A: I wanted to be part of the solution to end gun violence, to end racial disparities in health care, and to talk about how racism is foundational in pretty much every institution we have in America. By addressing it honestly, understanding our history so we can recognize what's happening in our present, we prepare for the future. It's about how we heal as individuals, how we heal as communities, or how we heal as a nation. I mean, think about this, the last 48 hours, weve had another five or six mass shootings. The nation is traumatized. How do we heal going forward? It seems as if it's an insurmountable mountain to climb, but it is not impossible, and we owe it to the next generation, our children and grandchildren, to do what we can to leave them a world that is safe for them. Q: What would you say to folks in Buffalo who have seen racism firsthand in the region over the decades? A: First, I will tell Buffalo you're not alone. This process is, unfortunately, slow. We are working to reverse the end result of hundreds of years of policies and social norms that have led us to where we are now. That is why it is important for us to understand our history, so we can make better sense of what is happening now. And with that knowledge, we can prepare for a better future. Q: Do you believe at this stage that pretty much everyone you've talked to about these issues, especially when it comes to race, has accepted that there is a real problem in America? A: Absolutely not. I know from what I see day to day with my patients, that it is still a tremendous issue that we need to address. The fact that people think that it doesn't exist means that we have to continue to do the work to educate, convince, collaborate and move forward. You cannot just dismiss these differing opinions. We have to continue to do the work to bring people into the fold. Q: What do you see as some short-term solutions, and among the heavier lifts that you're going to need? A: We need to have some face-to-face conversations about what has happened, what is happening and where we want to go. Organization is a start. Then we have to have the spirit of collaboration, that we are working together toward solutions, that everyone is bringing their experience and expertise and their feelings to the table, working towards a common good. I saw this as a fellow when I was working in Congress. My experience as a staffer is there's a lot more bipartisanship happening than you would think by watching the cable news. We just got together to work on this bill or this issue and hashed it out and moved on, so collaboration is possible from even the most extremely divergent opinions. Q: What would change look like? A: Think about what you can do every day to make some small difference in what's happening around you. Is it calling out one of your friends who makes a racist comment? Is it starting a nonprofit or donating to a nonprofit? Maybe you want to influence policymakers, so you organize and impress upon them to pass laws and policies that are seen through the lens of anti-racism. There are many ways each of us can get involved individually, collaborating with a large group, and pressing upon the policymakers that make the big decisions. A public conversation The University at Buffalo Department of Surgery established a Beyond the Knife endowed lectureship following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 to engage the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in the difficult conversations surrounding racism and health care in the U.S. Dr. Brian H. Williams, a trauma surgeon who worked treated police officers during a July 2016 mass shooting in Dallas, will speak next week as part of its third annual program. Members of the public are encouraged to attend or watch online. I feel strongly that the community be invited into the UB medical school, said Dr. Steven J. Schwaitzberg, chair of the Department of Surgery. These are critical topics, and everyone should feel welcome to come and participate. When: 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday. Where: M&T Lecture Hall at the Jacobs School, 955 Main St. The program: Starts with a panel focused on the issue of gun violence. Panelists include LaTryse Anderson, outreach supervisor for Buffalo SNUG (Should Never Use Guns); attorney John V. Elmore; Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein, a clinical professor of pediatrics at the Jacobs School; Sherry Sherrill, project facilitator of We are Women Warriors; Chris St. Vil, assistant professor in the UB School of Social Work; and Henry-Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning in the School of Architecture and Planning, and director of the UB Center for Urban Studies. Rod Watson, urban affairs editor and columnist with The Buffalo News, will moderate. Williams will talk at 6:15 p.m.; a chance to order his book, The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence and How We Heal, follows at 7. Cost: Free. Registration is recommended. Visit bit.ly/3XHkmQn. Organizers stress this is an in-person event but for those who cannot attend can watch online at buffalo.zoom.us/j/92399829510. Ukraine's plea for more tanks is being answered by the U.S., Germany, and Britain. How that impacts the balance of power on the battlefield and seeking solutions to power up Ukraine's electric grid on The Inside Story-Flashpoint: Ukraine. Three members of an Eastern European criminal gang with ties to the Iranian government have been indicted in a plot to kill Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American human rights activist and VOA Persian TV host, the Justice Department announced Friday. Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev are in custody and face charges of murder for hire and money laundering, Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference. Prosecutors say the men are members of a gang, called Thieves-in-Law, that engages in killings, kidnappings, assaults and extortions in the United States and other countries. Amirov, the alleged ringleader of the assassination plot, is a citizen of Azerbaijan and Russia who lived in Iran until his recent arrest outside the United States. He arrived in New York on Thursday and was expected to be arraigned on Friday. Mehdiyev, the alleged hired hitman, is also a citizen of Azerbaijan and a resident of Yonkers, New York. He was arrested last July near Alinejads residence and charged with a gun offense. Hell be arraigned next Tuesday. Omarov, a citizen of Georgia who lived in Slovenia and the Czech Republic, allegedly coordinated between the two others. He was detained in the Czech Republic on January 4, and U.S. officials said they would seek his extradition. Accusation against Iran All three are named in a criminal indictment that was unsealed on Friday. Although the document does not say whether Iranian officials orchestrated the plot, U.S. law enforcement officials accused Tehran of direct involvement. In the United States of America, our system of laws protects our citizens in the peaceful exercise of their constitutional and civil rights, Garland said. The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to undermine those protections and the rule of law upon which our democracy is based. Alinejad, an outspoken critic of the Iranian government, hosts a current affairs TV show out of New York for VOAs Persian language service. Reacting to the developments, she said in a Twitter video that she had no plans to stop what she is doing and called on U.S. authorities to pay more attention to the situation facing people in Iran. Im not scared for my life, she said. I knew that killing, assassinating, hanging, torturing, raping is in the DNA of the Islamic Republic. Thats why I came to the United States of America, to practice my right, my freedom of expression to be voice to the brave people of Iran who say no to the Islamic Republic. Alinejad has long been a target of the Iranian government, and officials said this was the second time in two years that U.S. law enforcement had thwarted a plot against her. In 2021, federal prosecutors charged an Iranian intelligence officer and three Iranian intelligence assets with plotting to abduct Alinejad for rendition to Iran and likely execution. But the charges against the four men, who remain at large, apparently did not dissuade Iran from attempting to target Alinejad again, prosecutors said. Targeting information shared About one year later, in July 2022, the Thieves-in-Law gang was tasked by other individuals in Iran to undertake the killing of Alinejad, according to the indictment. The indictment details how Amirov, while living in Iran, received targeting information about Alinejad and shared it with Omarov, who in turn directed Mehdiyev to carry out the hit. Amirov and Omarov arranged for the payment of $30,000 in cash to Mehdiyev to buy an AK-47-style assault rifle with a defaced serial number. At the senior gangsters urging, Mehdiyev then allegedly began conducting surveillance of Alinejad and her residence in Brooklyn, taking photographs and videos and spending no less than eight days trying to lure her outside her house, according to the indictment. The plot fell through when Mehdiyev was stopped for a traffic violation not far from Alinejads residence last July. Inside his car, police found the assault rifle, two magazines and about 66 rounds of ammunition. He was arrested and charged with a federal firearms offense. Police didnt know this, but at the time of his arrest, Mehdiyev was preparing imminently to execute the attack on the victim, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said the failed murder-for-hire plot was part of a broader campaign of transnational repression by the Iranian government against dissidents living abroad. The conduct charged in todays case shows just how far Iranian actors are willing to go to silence critics of the Iranian regime, even attempting an assassination right here in the United States, FBI Director Christopher Wray said. Turkey summoned the Danish ambassador and accused Denmark of endorsing a "hate crime" after an anti-Islam activist on Friday burned two copies of Islam's holy book, the Quran, in a solitary protest in Copenhagen. Rasmus Paludan, a far-right activist who holds both Danish and Swedish citizenship, had already infuriated Turkey by staging a Quran-burning protest in Sweden on January 21. On Friday, he replicated the stunt in front of a mosque, as well as the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen, and vowed to continue every Friday until Sweden is admitted into NATO. Sweden and neighboring Finland are seeking to join the military alliance amid the war in Ukraine, in a historic departure from their nonaligned policies. But their accession requires approval from all NATO members, and Turkey has indicated it will block Sweden's bid in part because of Paludan's initial stunt. Even before that, Ankara was pressing the two countries to crack down on Kurdish militants and other groups it considers terrorists. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency said the Danish ambassador was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry where Turkish officials "strongly condemned the permission given for this provocative act, which clearly constitutes a hate crime." The ambassador was told that "Denmark's attitude is unacceptable" and that Turkey expected that the permission be revoked, according to Anadolu. Turkey's Foreign Ministry later issued a statement calling Paludan an "Islam-hating charlatan" and deploring the fact that he was allowed to stage the demonstration. "Showing tolerance toward such heinous acts that offend the sensitivities of millions of people living in Europe threatens the practice of peaceful coexistence and provokes racist, xenophobic and anti-Muslim attacks," the ministry said. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Danish media that the incident would not change Denmark's "good relationship" with Turkey, adding that Copenhagen intended to talk to Ankara about Denmark's laws upholding freedoms. "Our task now is to talk to Turkey about how the conditions are in Denmark with our open democracy, and that there is a difference between Denmark as a country and our people as such and then about individual people who have strongly divergent views," Lokke Rasmussen said. After Paludan's action in Sweden last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Stockholm not to expect support for its NATO bid. Turkey also indefinitely postponed a key meeting in Brussels that would have discussed Sweden's and Finland's membership. A lawyer, Paludan established far-right parties in both Sweden and Denmark that have failed to win any seats in national, regional or municipal elections. In last year's parliamentary election in Sweden, his party received just 156 votes nationwide. On Friday, protests were held in several predominantly Muslim countries to denounce Paludan's protest in Sweden and a similar incident in the Netherlands. Ugandan journalist Solomon Serwanjja has seen first-hand how investigative reporting can bring change. His coverage of shady foreign adoptions led to legal reform. Now, as executive director of the African Institute for Investigative Journalism, he is using his 14-plus years of experience to train the next generation of reporters. "I started as a young reporter, just passion driving me," Serwanjja told VOA. "Done some amazing stories, some of which have put me in trouble, but with those, there have come several celebrations and awards." Journalists in Uganda face a multitude of challenges. Alongside attacks or kidnappings, reporters must navigate restrictive laws and risk arrest or threats if they look too closely at powerful figures, media watchdogs say. But, said Serwanjja, "Investigative journalism has the power to transform lives; just one single story can really change and turn things around." "We've seen how so many investigative stories led to the resignation of people in places of power," he said. "We've seen the corrupt arrested because of investigative journalism." Still, the space for media to do that work is shrinking. Uganda has a relatively liberal media market that, according to Raymond Mujuni, has seen "tremendous growth" in the past 15 to 20 years. But the deputy director for the African Institute for Investigative Journalism and head of current affairs at the Nation Media Group, told VOA, "The environment in which this journalism is practiced has increasingly been reducing, as has all the other civic spaces in Uganda." Mujuni said that while tremendous progress has been secured for free expression and respect for media, "you find tons of journalists who have been arrested just for doing their job." "Security services have often interfered with how journalists do their work; you find media owners closely linked to the government who are uncomfortable with the nature of journalism and prefer censorship," he said. "So it's a crisis of contradictions we have a liberal legal space to practice this journalism. But the current environment restricts our journalists." Legal reform For Serwanjja, the high point of his career was his work exposing an illegal adoption racket in Uganda for NTV Uganda in 2013, titled "Taken and never returned." "Lawyers in town were going down to the villages and taking pictures of young girls and boys and trying to convince their parents that they're going to get them sponsors," Serwanjja said. In reality, they were "advertising them for adoption and legal guardianship." Serwanjja focused on the case of a boy whose identity was changed after being adopted. The child's parents wanted their son back but were told he "now belongs to a different family," Serwanjja said. After the story broadcast, a parliamentarian amended the Children's Act to address a gray area of legal guardianship being exploited to take children. Serwanjja appeared before various teams and committees to share his findings. "It's now difficult for anyone to come into the country and adopt children," he said. "Doing such a story led to an amendment of the children's activities and protecting children and local people, vulnerable people, back in the villages. "If you ask me about the epitome of my career in journalism, I think that that story was powerful," he said. The difference that investigative reporting can make is what led to the founding of the African Institute for Investigative Journalism. Too many stories are missed because of a lack of funding, Serwanjja said. Investigative reporting is expensive. "It takes time. It takes resources." But the institute offers small grants to journalists and gives them the tools and mentoring needed to sharpen their skills. So far, the center has issued more than 40 journalism grants. The idea, he said, is "so [others] can grow and be able to do some of these stories on their own." One of those to benefit is Gloria Atuhairwe, a journalism student at Victoria University Kampala. Atuhairwe was a 2022 fellow for climate change and environmental crime at the African Institute for Investigative Journalism. "Attending this training helped me to associate with people, journalists who have been practicing for a long time, and since I am a young journalist, it was such a great opportunity," she told VOA. During the fellowship, Atuhairwe looked into water pollution in a village near Lake Victoria and learned new skills. "Sharing experiences with these people who have been able to publish investigative stories the knowledge they have, the skills they use, and how to carry out these stories helped me," Atuhairwe said, adding that she is "learning from the best." "I've been able to see stories that investigative journalists have done and how these stories they have carried out have had a significant impact on their countries or communities," Atuhairwe added. The institute relies on support from Europe and the Americas the U.S. Agency for Global Media and VOA are both partners but, said Serwanjja, "Africans need to appreciate the power and the role of investigative journalism so that they can be able to find it. We are talking about philanthropists in Africa. We are talking about foundations in Africa. That would be more sustainable." Serwanjja advocates for more investigative journalism but acknowledges that it "is not for the faint-hearted." "Sometimes, the people you [investigate] try to hunt [you] down," he said. "We've seen so many investigative journalists killed and arrested and imprisoned in the line of duty." Serwanjja has been detained and abducted previously. But, he said, "Somehow, the truth has helped me be free." Atuhairwe also acknowledges the risk, especially for female journalists. But, she said, "Investigative journalism is critical because I believe it's good journalism." Through it, she said, "You are finding solutions to these problems that the public is facing. Telling these stories helps hold people accountable." Serwanjja shares that sentiment, telling VOA, "Investigative journalism comes with its challenges and opportunities, as well as its risks." This story originated in VOA's English to Africa Service. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Greenfield says greater efforts are needed in Mozambique to push back insurgents who are spreading south from the northern province of Cabo Delgado. Greenfield was in Mozambique on Friday as she makes a three-nation tour of Africa. Addressing a media briefing at the end of her two-day visit, Greenfield said the United States is willing to work with Mozambique in the United Nations Security Council. Early this month, Mozambique took its one-year non-permanent seat on the Security Council. It came at a time when the armed insurgency in Cabo Delgado province, in the north of the country, remains the main security challenge, with some attacks claimed by the extremist group Islamic State. We have to redouble our efforts to push back on terrorist actions, she said. The activities are terrorizing ordinary citizens such as the citizens of Cabo Delgado, and we are working closely with the government to address those issues. Greenfield, who began her African tour in Ghana on Wednesday, travels on to Kenya from Mozambique. The insurgent group in Mozambique calls itself Ansar Al Sunna, or Followers of Tradition, but is known throughout Mozambique as al-Shabab. It has no known connection to the group of the same name in Somalia. It has been occupying several districts in the Cabo Delgado province since 2017. To date, almost 5,000 people have been killed in the attacks and almost 1 million people displaced, according to humanitarian organizations. With the U.S. now joining Germany and Britain in promising to send battle tanks to Ukraine, what are the capabilities and differences among the three types of tanks that will join the fight? VOAs Steve Redisch takes their measure. The Biden administration moved Thursday to protect northeastern Minnesota's pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from future mining, dealing a potentially fatal blow to a copper-nickel project. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland signed an order closing more than 900 square kilometers of the Superior National Forest in the Rainy River Watershed around the town of Ely, to mineral and geothermal leasing for 20 years, the longest period the department can sequester the land without congressional approval. The order is "subject to existing valid rights," but the Biden administration contends that Twin Metals Minnesota lost its rights last year, when the department rescinded a Trump administration decision to reinstate federal mineral rights leases that were critical to the project. Twin Metals, which is owned by the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, filed suit in August to try to reclaim those rights, and reaffirmed Tuesday that it's not giving up despite its latest setback. "Protecting a place like Boundary Waters is key to supporting the health of the watershed and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local recreation economy," Haaland said in a statement. "With an eye toward protecting this special place for future generations, I have made this decision using the best available science and extensive public input." Project's critics praise decision Critics of the project hailed the decision as a massive victory and called for permanent protection for the wilderness. But supporters of Twin Metals said the order runs counter to the administration's stated goal of increasing domestic supplies of metals critical to the clean energy economy. The proposed underground mine would be built southeast of Ely, near Birch Lake, which flows into the Boundary Waters. The project has been battered by shifting political winds. The Obama administration, in its final weeks, chose not to renew the two leases, which had dated back more than 50 years. The Trump administration reversed that decision and reinstated the leases. But the Biden administration canceled the leases last January after the U.S. Forest Service in October 2021 relaunched the review and public engagement process for the 20-year mining moratorium. While the Biden administration last year committed itself to expanding domestic sources of critical minerals and metals needed for electric vehicles and renewable energy, it made clear Thursday that it considers Boundary Waters to be a unique area worthy of special protections. A day ago, the administration said it would reinstate restrictions on roadbuilding and logging in the country's largest national forest, the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. 'An attack on our way of life' Twin Metals said it was "deeply disappointed and stunned" over the moratorium. "This region sits on top of one of the world's largest deposits of critical minerals that are vital in meeting our nation's goals to transition to a clean energy future, to create American jobs, to strengthen our national security and to bolster domestic supply chains," the company said in a statement. "We believe our project plays a critical role in addressing all of these priorities, and we remain committed to enforcing Twin Metals' rights." Twin Metals says it can mine safely without generating acid mine drainage that the Biden administration and environmentalists say makes the $1.7 billion project an unacceptable risk to the wilderness. And it says the mine would create more than 750 high-wage mining jobs plus 1,500 spinoff jobs in the region. Republican U.S. Representative Pete Stauber, who represents northeastern Minnesota, condemned the decision as "an attack on our way of life" that will benefit only foreign suppliers such as China that have fewer labor and environmental protections. "America needs to develop our vast mineral wealth, right here at home, with high-wage, union protected jobs," he said in a statement. Democratic U.S. Representative Betty McCollum, who represents the St. Paul area, applauded the order, yet warned in a statement that a future administration could reverse the decision. The order does not affect two other proposed copper-nickel projects in northeastern Minnesota the PolyMet mine near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes and the Talon Metals mine near Tamarack which lie in different watersheds. A gunman killed at least seven people and wounded 10 others at a synagogue on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Friday in an attack that heightened fears of a spiral in violence, a day after the deadliest Israeli raid in the West Bank in years. Police said the gunman arrived about 8.15 p.m. and opened fire, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police. TV footage showed several victims lying in the road outside the synagogue being tended to by emergency workers. The attack, which police described as a "terrorist incident," underlined fears of an escalation in violence after months of clashes in the West Bank culminating in a raid on Thursday that killed at least nine Palestinians. There was no initial claim of responsibility for the synagogue attack, which took place as worshippers attended Sabbath services on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, but a spokesman for the Islamist movement Hamas said the incidents were connected. "This operation is a response to the crime conducted by the occupation in Jenin and a natural response to the occupation criminal actions," Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said. The smaller militant group Islamic Jihad also praised the attack without claiming responsibility. Israeli media said the gunman was a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem but there was no official confirmation. Israel's foreign office said seven people had been killed but the ambulance service put the number of dead at five. In Gaza, news of the attack brought spontaneous rallies to the streets accompanied by an outbreak of celebratory gunfire. Friday's shooting came days before a planned visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel and the West Bank. The State Department issued a statement condemning the attack and said there were no changes to Blinken's travel plans. Earlier on Friday, Israeli jets struck Gaza in retaliation for rocket attacks that set off alarms in Israeli communities near the border with the blockaded southern coastal strip that is controlled by Hamas. In August, Israeli jets bombed targets in Gaza associated with the group during a weekend confrontation that saw hundreds of Islamic Jihad rockets launched against Israel, most of which were intercepted by air defense systems. 'Deeply concerned' The months of violence in the West Bank, which surged after a spate of lethal attacks in Israel last year, have drawn fears the already unpredictable conflict may spiral out of control, triggering a broader confrontation between Palestinians and Israel. The latest season of violence began under the previous coalition government and has continued following the election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new right-wing administration, which includes ultranationalist parties that want to expand settlements in the West Bank. Following Thursday's raid, the Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing powers in the West Bank, said it was suspending a security cooperation arrangement with Israel. In Jenin refugee camp, a densely packed mass of buildings and alleyways that has been a center of militant activity and the target of repeated Israeli raids, residents said Thursday's operation had penetrated unusually deeply into the camp. A two-story building at the center of the fighting was heavily damaged, and nearby houses were tainted black from smoke. In another area around the camp's community center, cars had been crushed by Israeli bulldozers used in the operation. The U.S. State Department issued a statement Thursday saying it was deeply concerned about the violence in the West Bank and urged both sides to de-escalate the conflict. The United Nations, Egypt and Qatar also have urged calm, Palestinian officials said. Palestinian officials said CIA Director William Burns, who was visiting Israel and the West Bank on a trip arranged before the latest violence, would meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday. No comment was immediately available from U.S. officials in Jerusalem. Netanyahu, who returned to power this year at the head of one of the most right-wing governments in Israel's history, said Israel was not looking to escalate the situation, although he ordered security forces to be on alert. The Roman-Catholic-run Dominican Convent in Harare has expelled eight pupils, who allegedly used drugs during a school trip to Nyanga a few weeks ago. In a letter to parents, headmistress Sister Kudzai Mutsure said, I write on a sad note to notify you that the 8 girls we had put on suspension pending investigations on an incident that took place at the 2023 U6 (Upper Sixth) leadership camp which was held in Nyanga from the 12th to the 15th of January, have been excluded from the school with immediate effect The disciplinary committee exercised all principles of procedural fairness and found the girls guilty of violating the school drug policy. My heart aches for these girls and their parents but my duty of care is to ensure that the school environment is, as far as is practicable, safe and free from all risks. I have a responsibility to the whole school community and possessing, using or supplying a restricted substance including vaping is not acceptable. In the letter, Sister Mutsure did not specify the types of drugs the girls were using during the school trip. She said, Investigations are still ongoing and we will not hesitate to weed out any more culprits to sanitise the school space. I pray that the girls will receive the rehabilitation they need and that all parents take an active role, in partnership with the school, to modify the inappropriate behaviour of their children. I believe that school officials efforts to protect students from the dangers of substance abuse are sometimes hampered by parents and community members in denial about the pervasiveness of the problem and the potential for any child to succumb to the lures of drugs. Sister Mutsure also said, I appeal to parents to be more vigilant and active by refining their parenting skills and being aware of their childrens activities as our investigations show that the pervasive behaviour started at home. Education officials were unreachable for comment Thursday evening as they were not responding to calls on their mobile phones. Some teenagers in Zimbabwe are using drugs such as marijuana and crystal meth. Others have turned to vaping. Police, Entumbane residents and other stakeholders in Zimbabwes second largest city, Bulawayo, recently conducted a peaceful march in the suburb following reports that some youth were buying drugs from locals. Twenty-five members of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), who were arrested two weeks ago for holding a so-called illegal meeting in Harares Budiriro suburb, have been granted bail. In a tweet, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said, CCC supporters arrested in Budiriro on Jan 14 for gathering with the intention to cause violence have been granted bail. They were represented by Adv Wilbert Mandinde, Isheanesu Chirisa of the @ZimHRNGOForum working with Chris Mhike, instructed by Forum. They Forum team was supported by Kudzai Kadzere of the @ZLHRLawyers and Tamutswa Muzana. The activists were ordered to pay ZWL$30,000 each, report at a police station every Friday and not to interfere with witnesses. Meanwhile, in a tweet, the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights says Advocate Kudzai Kadzere, who allegedly fractured his arm when police beat him up in Budiriro where he was representing the CCC activists, has been asked to appear in court to face charges of resisting arrest and related issues. In a shocking & surprise turn of events, human rights lawyer @adv_kadzere who is a victim of police brutality, has now been turned into a perpetrator of violence as he has been charged with assaulting & or resisting a police officer. Kadzere, has been summoned to appear at Mbare Magistrates Court on Monday 30 January to answer to charges of assaulting or resisting a peace officer, criminal nuisance & escaping from lawful custody. VOA Correspondent Frank Chikowore contributed to this article More details to follow An Amherst teenager was arrested Thursday on murder and weapon charges involving the fatal shooting of Jaylan McWilson, 24, on Saturday in the 1100 block of South Avenue, according to the Niagara Falls Police Department. Police said the suspect, Dennis D. Parson, 19, was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Taskforce in Amherst following an investigation by Niagara Falls police and the U.S. Marshals Service, with assistance from the Amherst Police Department. The shooting occurred outside of McWilson's residence, police said. A Niagara Falls man was sentenced Thursday before State Supreme Court Justice Justice M. William Boller to 20 years in prison followed by 20 years of post-release supervision for raping three women in separate attacks in Buffalo, according to the Erie County District Attorney's Office. Prosecutors said Daquawn D. Mike, 23, was not known to any of the three victims, so the crimes are believed to have been random attacks, according to the DA's Office. In all three cases, the victims reported the crime to police and underwent a rape kit test at Erie County Medical Center, prosecutors said. In the first attack that occurred on Feb. 6, 2017, the female victim was walking in the area of Scajaquada Street and Kilhoffer Street in Buffalo's Genesee Moselle neighborhood when Mike forcibly raped her at gunpoint, then stole her cell phone, a pack of cigarettes and about $12. The second attack occurred at about 7:15 p.m. Feb. 21, 2017. The female victim in that case was approached by Mike on Curtiss Street near Broadway in Buffalo's Broadway Fillmore neighborhood and dragged to the side of a nearby garage where Mike forcibly raped her at knifepoint. The third victim was walking on Wick Street in Buffalo's Genesee Moselle neighborhood at about 4:30 a.m. July 3, 2017, when Mike approached her and lured her to a nearby area alongside train tracks. While pointing a gun to the victim's head, Mike forcibly raped her and stole her cell phone. Mike was indicted on the three rape cases while awaiting prosecution on an illegal gun possession charge. On Jan. 29, 2021, Mike was sitting in the front passenger seat of a vehicle when it was pulled over by Cheektowaga police officers on William Street near Charles Street after the driver had failed to signal during a lane change. During a search of the vehicle, officers found a loaded, illegal handgun under the front passenger seat. Prosecutors submitted the illegal weapon to the Erie Crime Analysis Center for forensic testing, and it was linked to Mike through DNA analysis. Mike pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree rape on Oct. 18, 2022. He also pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in the gun case. In addition to the 20-year sentence on the rapes, Mike was sentenced to seven years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision in the gun case, which will be served concurrent to his sentence on the rape cases. Buffalo homicide detectives took a special interest in a young reporter for the Catholic Diocese newspaper after his boss was murdered. A day after Monsignor Francis J. OConnors body was found floating in Scajaquada Creek on March 13, 1966, detectives interviewed Robert Armbruster. He told them he was physically attracted to the priest, but had fantasized about taking an ax to his head, according to 56-year-old police reports obtained by The Buffalo News. He admits that he has had homosexual inclinations toward the monsignor and has had occasions when he pictured himself hitting the monsignor over the head with an ax, stated a March 14, 1966, police report, which has never been publicly revealed until now. No charges were ever filed against Armbruster or anyone else in the homicide of O'Connor, who was editor of the diocese's newspaper, The Magnificat. But he and several others emerged as suspects. Until now, that has remained a secret hidden by time and what some familiar with the case believe was a cover-up. A Freedom of Information request filed by The Buffalo News with Buffalo Police recently flung open the case files buried in a secure warehouse, revealing all kinds of details, including the names of suspects. But questions still remain chiefly, who murdered the monsignor? Was it Armbruster, an uneasy, 24-year-old New Jersey native, whom OConnor had hired a year earlier and took under his wing, going so far as to secure him a room at an Eggertsville boarding house? Armbruster, according to homicide files, considered OConnor as not only his editor at the weekly diocesan newspaper, but as a father figure and friend. They went out to dinner, sometimes worked or socialized at OConnors home office and living quarters in a Buffalo convent, and, in one case, spent a night with other priests and acquaintances at a cabin in Java. Armbrusters statements to police and statements from others also revealed conflicting stories of when he first found out about OConnors death. He told detectives he initially learned of it on the 6 oclock television news, about five hours after the monsignors body was found in the creek, according to a police report. But the pastor of a Catholic parish in Arcade told police Armbruster had unexpectedly stopped by his rectory at about 4:45 p.m. on March 13. During the visit, Rev. James N. Connelly Jr. said he received a phone call from a fellow priest informing him of the monsignors death. When the call ended, Connelly said he told Armbruster the monsignor was dead. Connelly vividly recalled the young mans reaction. Bob went to pieces, shaking and wringing his hands and pacing back and forth, he said, Now at a time like this, at this happening, you regret any differences that may have taken place, Connelly told detectives, adding that he was unsuccessful in trying to calm Armbruster. Another statement given by a man who also lived at the boarding house said he was present when Armbruster received a phone call, apparently from a priest, informing him OConnor was dead. The call concluded with Armbruster saying, Thank you, father, for telling me. After the call ended, Armbruster asked [the boarder] if he knew that OConnor was dead. [The boarder] says Armbruster appears shocked, the report stated. It is impossible now to explain these contradictions. Armbruster died several years ago. But police records leave no doubt he was a suspect. On March 17, 1966, Chief of Detectives Ralph Degenhart sent a letter asking the New York State Police to search its files for a mug shot, record, prints and/or any pertinent information on Robert Armbruster, DOB 10/17/1941. That and queries to other law enforcement agencies came up empty, according to a review of the OConnor homicide files. The FBI, in fact, determined Armbruster's fingerprints did not match prints taken from O'Connor's car. The scrutiny, however, rattled Armbruster. To his relatives and a fellow reporter at the Catholic newspaper, he made it clear he was unhappy detectives were targeting him. Armbruster fled Buffalo within a matter of days after the murder. *** Coming Saturday: Detectives chased tips around the clock after murder Catch up on the series: Who killed the monsignor? Exploring the murder of Monsignor Francis J. O'Connor, its investigation and its legacy How we reported this series Watchdog reporter Lou Michel filed a Freedom of Information Law request in January 2022 for Buffalo Police records on the unsolved 1966 murder of Buffalo Diocese Monsignor Francis J. OConnor. He and reporter Dan Herbeck were given access to the Police Departments box of approximately 100 reports on the case. In addition, they interviewed more than 120 people, including retired police officers who worked on the case, people who talked with the Buffalo Police homicide chief who oversaw the investigation, and relatives and acquaintances of OConnor and of three diocese employees who were once suspects. Ponte Vecchio bridge dates to 1345. An American tourist was fined 500 for driving onto Florence's Ponte Vecchio bridge on Thursday, according to Italian news reports. The man, 34, was stopped by traffic police as he drove his rented Fiat Panda onto the landmark bridge which dates to 1345. The tourist, from California, told police he was looking for a parking space, reports Florence-based newspaper La Nazione. Florence recently announced a 2 million restoration project for Ponte Vecchio which was the only bridge in the city spared from destruction in world war two. Three years ago a 21-year-old US tourist was fined 160 after being caught writing his name on the bridge. Italy's last remaining survivors of the Holocaust, several of whom are well-known figures. There are believed to be about 10 Holocaust survivors still alive in Italy, according to the Union of Italian Jewish Communities and the writer and historian Marcello Pezzetti. There are also several Italian survivors residing outside of Italy, while others are not originally Italian but are long-term residents of Italy. Here are the survivors still living that we know about. Sami Modiano, 92. Born in 1930 on the island of Rhodes, when it was under Italian occupation, Modiano was deported with his father Jacob and his sister Lucia to Auschwitz in 1944. He was the only one of his family to survive. Modiano returned to Auschwitz for the first time in 2005 and since then has dedicated himself to educating others, including school children, with his testimony. In 2013 he published his memoir, Per questo ho vissuto, in which he describes the horrors of Auschwitz. On his 90th birthday he was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the highest honour for an Italian citizen. Edith Bruck, 91. Born into a poor Jewish family in rural Hungary in 1931, Bruck was deported aged 12 to Auschwitz and then to other extermination camps: Dachau, Christianstadt, Bergen Belsen. In 1945 she was freed by the Allies along with one sister and one brother. Her parents and another brother did not survive the concentration camps. Bruck is a writer and director who has spent most of her life in Italy. In 2021 Pope Francis paid a visit to Bruck at her home in Rome. Liliana Segre, 92. Segre was deported to Auschwitz with her father when she was 13. When they arrived in the concentration camp the young Liliana was separated from her beloved father who she never saw again. He was murdered by the Nazis on 27 April 1944. After decades of silence, Segre began to speak publicly of her horrific experience, particularly to young students. Segre was made a senator for life in 2018, an honour in tribute to her years of speaking about the horrors of the Holocaust. Sisters Tatiana and Andra Bucci, 85 and 83 respectively. The sisters from Fiume were deported aged 6 and 4 to Auschwitz where they were mistaken for twins and subjected to inhumane medical experiments at the hands of Dr Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death. In 2004 the sisters began speaking to schools about the horrors they endured, and in 2019 they published the book Noi, bambine ad Auschwitz. Arianna Szorenyi, 89. Szorenyi was deported aged 11 to Auschwitz and then to Bergen Belsen from the Risiera di San Sabba. In 2014 she published a Holocaust diary titled Una bambina ad Auschwitz. Goti Bauer, 98. Born Agata Herskovitz in Czechoslovakia, she was detained in Fossoli before being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. A prolific public speaker about the Holocaust to students in Milan where she lives today. Diamantina Vivante, 95. Vivante was deported aged 16 from Trieste to Ravensbruck. Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Nigerians are gearing up to choose a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, whose eight years in power have been blighted by economic decay, soaring unemployment, heightened insecurity and an exodus of the educated elite. The Feb. 25 vote in Africas most populous nation pits long-familiar politicians in their 70s against a challenger from a fringe opposition party who held a hefty lead in early polls. The election has sparked unprecedented interest among young Nigerians tired of being ruled by an old guard of leaders whove done little to improve their living standards or chances of getting a job. About 40% of the 93.5 million registered voters are younger than 35. In the US, that figure is about 25%. 1. Why is this election so important? While Nigerias fortunes have slipped in recent years, it is still Africas biggest economy and oil producer, and a major regional power broker. Its population of over 200 million is set to more than double by 2050, which would make it the worlds third-most populous nation. Previous presidential elections held in Nigeria since it returned to democracy in 1999 have been dominated by candidates from the ruling All Progressive Congress and the rival Peoples Democratic Party. But the shift in voting demographics is shaking up the status quo, with Peter Obi, an ex-governor of Anambra state and candidate of the Labour Party, galvanizing support among youth. Advertisement 2. What are the key campaign issues? The economy and insecurity. By every economic metric, Nigerians are worse off than they were when Buhari took power in 2015. About 90 million live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank, among the highest number in the world. Most members of the potential workforce are under-employed or jobless. A lack of economic opportunities has stoked criminality, including a thriving kidnapping-for-ransom industry. The country also continues to battle a jihadist insurgency in the northeast that has claimed thousands of lives, and a secessionist movement in the southeast. Besides addressing those challenges, the winner will have to bring runaway state debt under control and decide whether to scrap popular gasoline subsidies. 3. Who are the leading candidates? Advertisement There are 18 contenders, but only three stand a realistic chance of winning: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 70, the ex-governor of Lagos state, who is running on the ruling party ticket; PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar, 76, a wealthy businessman who served as vice president in the early 2000s and has made five previous unsuccessful runs at the presidency; and Obi, 61, a former banking executive. A September 2022 poll commissioned by Bloomberg News showed Obi with backing from almost three quarters of the 3,973 respondents; he has also held commanding leads in three other polls. Tinubu and Abubakar, who polled 16% and 9% respectively in the Bloomberg poll, have long been trailed by allegations of corruption, which they deny. The Pandora Papers linked Obi to businesses that were registered in off-shore tax havens. He denies having failed to disclose that information as required when he became governor of Anambra, or violating any other laws. 4. What are they promising? The three main candidates have made very similar campaign pledges that center around ramping up economic growth, creating jobs and tackling insecurity. To help achieve those goals, they intend to boost oil production, which has hit historic lows in recent months, and increase funding for the police and military. Theyve all also promised to remove fuel subsidies that cost the cash-strapped government billions of dollars a year a move the Buhari administration has long resisted despite entreaties from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Obi has said he intends extending the repayment of the nations loans. Nigerias total debt stock has almost quadrupled under Buharis rule, reaching about 44 trillion naira ($95 billion) as of the end of 2022, and the government spend 80 cents out of every dollar it collects on servicing it. Advertisement 5. What are Obis electoral weaknesses? His power base is concentrated in Nigerias predominantly Christian south, and there are doubts over his ability to muster support in the largely Muslim north, home to the majority of voters. His Labour Party, which currently has a single seat in the Senate, doesnt have the national profile and organizational capacity of its larger rivals, which will hurt his chances. He may also lack the financial muscle needed to secure victory, given that most previous Nigerian elections have seen contenders dispense vast sums of cash to voters and officials to shore up their campaigns. The use of new voter authentication technology should make the upcoming vote more transparent and harder to manipulate than previous contests. 6. Why is the oil-fired economy struggling? Advertisement Nigeria derives limited benefit from the current high international crude prices because it has no refining capacity and has to import costly fuel from abroad. Oil production has also been falling since 2020, reaching its lowest levels in decades last year, a slump the government attributes to the theft of as much as a fifth of output from pipelines that crisscross the oil-rich Niger Delta. With limited capacity to raise additional revenue, Nigeria has emulated several other African countries in borrowing to the hilt to offset the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and to shore up the economy, placing further strain on its already stretched finances. 7. How will this election work? To win the presidency in the initial round of voting, a candidate must secure a majority of the ballots nationally and more than 25% in at least 24 of the 36 states and the federal capital territory. If no one meets those benchmarks, a run-off between the candidate who get the most votes and the one with the widest spread of support across the states must be held within three weeks. Winning that contest requires a simple majority. Advertisement 8. What are investors hoping for? All three leading presidential candidates have signaled that they will adopt a much more business-friendly approach than Buhari, and the winner will be expected to do more to lure investment, cut red tape and improve the patchy power supply and decrepit transport links. The new administration will also face pressure to ward off a potential debt crisis, usher in a more orthodox monetary policy and unify the countrys multiple exchange rates. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share When the Adani Group mobilized to defend itself against accusations leveled by US-based short sellers Hindenburg Research that it had engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades, the choice of decor was more persuasive than the denial. Chief Financial Officer Jugeshinder Singh stood in front of a giant Indian flag that made him look more like a government official than an embattled company executive. The message was clear: If you (a foreign entity, in the companys words) come after Adani, youre coming after India. Unfortunately, thats not entirely untrue. The Adani Group with investments in ports, roads, rail, airports, and power is now a crucial vehicle for Indias economic ambitions under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Adani and Modi are close, and have been for two decades. But talk of cronyism misses the point. If Adani didnt exist, the Indian government would have had to invent him: The development model we have now chosen requires risk-taking national champions such as the Adani Group. What else did you expect? After all, like so many others, India has turned away from traditional market-supporting structural reform in favor of old-fashioned industrial policy. Advertisement Much of what Hindenburg put in its report doesnt count as news for Indian investors. They have known for years that Adani Enterprises Ltd., the fulcrum of the Adani empire, is loaded down with debt, and that the ultimate source of its funding is remarkably opaque. Adani stock is generally thinly traded; few here will be willing to believe that Adani companies set out to defraud retail investors, even if both public sector banks and state-owned insurers have bet heavily on them. No, Indians real fear is something else that Gautam Adani and his companies simply cannot do what they say they will. Can they build the roads they have promised, improve the ports they have been given, maintain the airports they won in a bid? Until now, nobody else has been able to do so. Adanis companies have not just been entrusted with a wide swathe of Indias infrastructure. They have become the governments first choice as partners in multiple sectors that framers of our industrial policy have decided are priorities for Indias growth. Advertisement Does the government want Indian companies to set up factories that make solar panels? Adani will oblige. Has the prime minister set a stiff renewable energy target? Adani will sign up to meet it. Are we worried we arent self-reliant in weaponry? Adani will undertake to create an indigenous defense ecosystem under Make in India. Are policy makers worried about the semiconductor supply chain? Gautam Adani will promise a value chain that is fully indigenous and aligned with the geopolitical needs of our nation. Our worry is not where the Adani Group is picking up the capital in service of these ambitions. India is not necessarily short of capital to achieve some of these ends. It is, however, certainly short of implementation capacity. This is what Adanis companies has promised to supply. The public sector is too inefficient to build what India needs; the rest of the private sector is too concerned about political risk. The public sector is not going to turn competent any point soon. Meanwhile, the sort of regulatory, legal and administrative reforms that would reduce political risk are off the table. So, who but Adani will build what the worlds most populous country needs? Advertisement Nobody else in Modis India has this specific mixture of confidence in government support, ability to navigate byzantine regulations, and willingness to risk enormous sums of money. Some worry that Adani is too big to fail. He isnt. But he may be too unique to fail. Wherever the money may have come from public sector banks, pension funds, faceless pools of offshore capital what matters for Indias growth is how productively it is spent. Effective oligarchs might be dangerous for a country and, if theyre corrupt, even more so just ask Russia. Inept oligarchs are calamitous. If Adanis companies can deliver a fraction of what he has pledged, then perhaps, in time, they might even grow into the valuations they have already achieved on paper. If they fail, then a lot more goes down than his investors; Adani will take down Indias industrial policy with him. Their big bet on him will then rebound on Indias banks, on Indias politicians, and on Indias citizens. Advertisement More From Bloomberg Opinion: What the Adani Short Seller Can Learn From Elliott: Shuli Ren Adani Saga Puts Investor Trust in India in Doubt: Andy Mukherjee US-India Relations Arent Like a Bollywood Movie: Bobby Ghosh This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Mihir Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, he is author of Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud from New York-based investor Hindenburg Research against Adani Group are piling pressure on the Indian conglomerate and its 60-year-old founder. Gautam Adani became Asias richest man last year and was second only to Elon Musk in the world at one point. Unlike Musk, Adani is relatively unknown outside his home country. Heres some background. 1. Who is Gautam Adani? Whats his net worth? Adani was born to a small textile merchant family in 1962 in the western industrial state of Gujarat. He dropped out of university and began his career sorting diamonds for a firm in the financial hub of Mumbai. He later imported materials used in manufactured goods and by the mid-1990s was managing the Mundra Port, which he now owns. While his net worth took a beating in the days after Hindenburgs report emerged, he was still comfortably in the top 10 in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of late January. Advertisement 2. How does Adani make money? Adani Group today comprises half a dozen major companies with interests ranging from energy to transportation and infrastructure development. Its Indias largest port operator and manages some of the countrys biggest airports. Adani Enterprises, the groups listed trading house, reported $9.3 billion in sales in the year through March 31, 2022. 3. What are Adanis companies? Adani Green Energy Ltd. (Renewable power generation) Adani Enterprises Ltd. - (Coal mining and trading) Adani Transmission Ltd. (Power transmission) Adani Total Gas Ltd. (Gas distribution) Adani Power Ltd. (Coal-fired power generation) The Adani Group also runs a real estate business, a shadow banking firm named Adani Capital and an edible oil and food business via a venture with Singapore-based Wilmar International Ltd. Advertisement 4. What are Adanis political connections? The tycoon is seen as closer to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who also hails from Gujarat state, than any other Indian billionaire. Adanis corporate strategy has run in parallel with Modis efforts to develop Indias $3.2 trillion economy. When Modi promised to bring reliable electricity to more Indians, Adani doubled down on coal-fired power production. The alignment extends to foreign affairs. In 2021, Adani began construction of a major port facility in Sri Lanka. Officials from both countries said the plan was encouraged by the Modi government, which wants to curb Chinese influence in the island nation. Whether building expressways or upgrading data centers, Adani can be counted on to provide money, infrastructure, or expertise, whatever the policy priority. 5. Why did shares in Adani Group companies fall? Advertisement They quickly lost roughly $50 billion in market value after Hindenburg Research, founded by short-seller Nathan Anderson, issued a 100-page report on Jan. 24 containing wide-ranging allegations of stock manipulation and accounting fraud that it said dated back decades. The Adani Group dismissed the report as maliciously mischievous and said its exploring legal action. 6. What is Hindenburg Research? Andersons firm technically a research and trading outfit, not a hedge fund with outside investors is less than five years old and wagers its own money in the markets. Even in Manhattans financial circles, Anderson is hardly a big name. The closely held firm specializes in forensic financial research, according to its website. It first attracted Wall Streets attention in 2020 for raising serious questions about electric-vehicle makers Nikola Corp. and Lordstown Motors Corp. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article McKinley High School senior class president Patrick Braddell does not think the public portrayal of his high school as teeming with violence is fair or accurate. After Principal Moustafa Khalil was involuntarily transferred Jan. 18 to a kindergarten through eighth grade school to according to the district "best align" with the administrator's skills, teachers and students argued that the school's climate improved under Khalil's leadership and that he should remain at the helm. Braddell acknowledged the school's high number of suspensions, but explained why that metric could be misleading. "Fights went down," Braddell said in an interview last week. "People were trying to get to class (Khalil) did more hall sweeps than any other principal. Although suspensions went up, all the other problems went down." Braddell said a small group of students is responsible for the bulk of the fighting and resulting suspensions at McKinley roughly 5%, he estimated. Multiple McKinley teachers and a fellow senior interviewed agreed with his assessment. They also agreed that Khalil, nicknamed "Moose," had a reputation for closely monitoring activity in the hallways to stamp out fighting before it could begin. In early October, after a 16-year-old student was arrested following a large fight outside McKinley, Khalil acted quickly, adding new rules for student use of NFTA bus passes and staggering dismissal times. McKinley has struggled in several areas this year, including long-term suspensions and overall attendance, according to the school's online dashboard. The high school has the district's third-worst rate of short-term suspensions (five days or fewer) at 18.09%, and the second-highest rate of long-term suspensions (six days or more) at 7.4%. Sixty percent of McKinley's students are labeled chronically absent, which means they have missed 20% or more of school. That's the third-worst attendance rate in the district, not including alternative schools. The class president and three classmates approached Buffalo Schools Superintendent Tonja M. Williams after her meeting with several of the school's teachers on Jan. 20 to inquire why Khalil was transferred, Braddell said. Williams told them it was district policy to not comment on personnel matters, Braddell said Saturday. "Nobody seems to be telling us why," he said. "We want answers, but we're not getting the answers." Teacher rep says fights at McKinley show unrest after principal transferred A day after news came out that the principal of McKinley High School had been transferred, videos of students fighting inside the school were shared with Buffalo media from an unidentified email account. The district would not say whether discipline, violence or poor attendance factored into the decision to move Khalil to Pfc. William J. Grabiarz School of Excellence. "Moose came in when no one else wanted to come in," Braddell said. "That was one of our only few good things that came in it was Moose. And now we're getting rid of it. They barely gave him a chance." Terence Jenkins, McKinley's new principal effective Jan. 30, would be the fourth principal Braddell has had while at McKinley. The class president said he is less concerned about restoring Khalil as he is about McKinley's future. "Will Mr. Jenkins help the school out?" he asked. "That's to be determined." Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has had a better few months than just about anybody in Republican politics, and Donald Trump the worst. Trump is hoping to reverse his fortunes and revive his moribund presidential campaign with a big event in South Carolina this weekend. A short video message his campaign released a few days ago was a positive sign and one that should make DeSantis wary. Trumps typical mode of public discourse is propounding conspiracy theories and complaints about his election loss to President Joe Biden. But in his new message, he looks straight to camera and declares, Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security. This message is notionally aimed at the new Republican House majority, which is spoiling for a fight over government spending and threatening a debt default as a means of gaining leverage over Biden and the Democrats. Some Republicans see it as the key to forcing cuts in Medicare and Social Security. Its obviously a leverage point, Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, who runs the conservative Republican Study Committees Budget and Spending Task Force, told Bloomberg News. Cutting these popular programs or saving them, as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy prefers to put it is a longstanding conservative goal. Advertisement But its never been Trumps goal. In fact, he has been remarkably consistent and outspoken over the years in his attacks on Republican efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare. Back in the spring of 2016, shortly after hed sewed up the Republican nomination, Trump told me how hed recently dressed down then-Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan over Ryans eagerness to cut entitlement spending: I said Theres no way a Republican is going to beat a Democrat when the Republican is saying Were going to cut your Social Security and the Democrat is saying Were going to keep it and give you more. Its doubtful Trump was concerned about gloomy deficit projections or future solvency. He just knew a bad deal when he saw one. A lot of Republican primary voters did, too. Although Trumps subsequent presidency makes this a bit hard to recall, at the time he was viewed as the least conservative Republican nominee in decades. He favored lots of infrastructure spending, claimed to be stronger than Hillary Clinton in supporting LGBT rights, and he made a big deal about protecting Social Security and Medicare (something that should have obvious appeal when your partys voters are elderly and dependent on it). Trumps position set him apart from the other 16 Republican presidential candidates, who generally shared Ryans belief, prevalent among House Republicans, that cutting Social Security and Medicare was a fiscal imperative. Thats where DeSantis comes in. As I recently argued, hes emerged as a top Republican presidential hopeful because he has a flair for inciting the kind of cultural grievances woke capitalism, mask mandates, gender identity, and so on that inflame Republican passions. Polls show him to be Trumps chief rival for the 2024 nomination. But DeSantis was also one of the founding members of the House Freedom Caucus, which drove the effort to cut entitlements when he was in Congress. DeSantis voted repeatedly in 2013, 2014, and 2015 for budgets that slashed spending on Social Security and Medicare, raised the retirement age to 70 and then indexed it to life expectancy. Advertisement Thats something DeSantis doesnt talk about anymore, perhaps because in 2016 Trump showed just how costly doing so can be for Republicans with designs on the White House. And not just the White House: Republican strategists went into a panic when Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters stood up at a primary event and said he was ready to cut the knot and privatize Social Security. This was so unpopular that within weeks Masters was vowing I will never, ever support cutting Social Security. He lost soundly. Trump may be diminished, but he knows how to orchestrate media attention. Hes frustrated by DeSantiss post-midterm halo and by DeSantiss ingratitude for the endorsement Trump gave him in 2018 that vaulted him to the Florida governorship. Changing the focus on DeSantis to the subjects the Florida governor doesnt want to talk about is a way to take him down a peg. If youre Trump, you want to drag the race to where DeSantis is uncomfortable, says a Republican campaign strategist aligned with Trump. Thats Social Security and Medicare cuts, thats trade, and thats DeSantiss unwillingness to attack Mitch McConnell. Trump has begun to do this already. Advertisement When a candidate has an obvious vulnerability, political strategists often say that the attack ad writes itself. In this case, it doesnt have to somebody already made it: The somebody was Florida agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam, who was DeSantiss main competitor for the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary. The ad starred Trump boasting about how hed protect entitlement programs and featured a bunch of worried old folks fretting that DeSantis was going to yank away the Medicare and Social Security benefits theyd already earned. Of course, DeSantis survived Putnams attacks and went on to win the primary and the governorship. But this time is different. Trump wont be in his corner. Instead, hell be across the ring, squaring off. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Five Things to Watch for in the Debt-Ceiling Talks: Julianna Goldman Advertisement Democrats in Array? Its Hard to Deny: Francis Wilkinson The Republican Civil War? Its On: Jonathan Bernstein Want more Bloomberg Opinion? Subscribe to our daily newsletter. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Joshua Green is a National Correspondent at Bloomberg Businessweek and the author of Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share After weeks of diplomatic hand-wringing, the US and Germany have decided to send battle tanks to Ukraine, a critical step toward helping the country take back territory seized by Russian forces during last years invasion. While President Joe Biden and Europes leaders deserve credit for maintaining solidarity with Ukraine, they should remain mindful of the risks of deeper Western involvement in the war. Under the arrangement announced Wednesday, the US will send Ukraine 31 M1 Abrams tanks, at a cost of $400 million. Meanwhile, Germany will supply 14 Leopard 2 tanks from its stockpile and will allow other allies, including Poland, Spain and Finland, to ship their own German-made Leopards to the front lines. In all, the package approved by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz aims to deliver more than 100 tanks to Ukraines forces, along with ammunition, training and maintenance support. Most immediately, the initiative will help resolve tensions between Berlin and other NATO members, which had pushed Scholz to move faster to approve the delivery of heavy tanks. The Germans said they would send the Leopards only if the US provided its own tanks. The Pentagon rejected such linkage, maintaining that the 70-ton Abrams tanks are more difficult to operate, maintain and transport than the Leopards, which are already in plentiful supply in Europe. While the reluctance of US defense officials to placate Germanys position was understandable, Biden was right to overrule them and avoid a more damaging rift within the alliance, which would only hurt Ukraines cause and serve Russian President Vladimir Putins interests. Advertisement The delivery of heavy armor to Ukraine comes at a pivotal time. After suffering heavy losses last fall, Russia has made modest gains in the south and east. Intelligence officials think that Putin is planning a spring offensive, waged by a reconstituted force of recent conscripts, former prisoners and private mercenaries. With Ukraines casualties mounting and its supplies of weapons and munitions running low, the influx of powerful Western tanks will be essential to holding ground and defending against the expected onslaught. To take back its lost territory, Ukraine may require even more armor and sophisticated weaponry including not just additional tanks but combat jets and long-range missiles that could strike Russian supply lines, bases and command posts. Before moving forward with any such assistance, however, NATO should insist on firmer assurances that Ukraine will avoid attacks inside Russia itself, which would risk potential retaliation against the West. The Biden administration should work with Congress to monitor the flow of military and economic assistance to Ukraine, limit waste and corruption, and prevent weapons from falling into the wrong hands. It should also reinvigorate efforts to engage with Russian officials to limit the risks of escalation and lay the foundation for negotiations to end the war. For the moment, peace remains a distant prospect. The months ahead will be long and bloody. Supplying Western battle tanks at least gives Ukraine a fighting chance. The Editors are members of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share Russia has been pounding Ukraines civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones, leaving large swaths of the population without power as winter temperatures dropped. Now the US has decided to supply Ukraine with one of its signature forms of air defense, a Patriot missile system. The missiles are unlikely to end the attacks, but both Ukraine and Russia made clear they viewed the decision as important as a symbol of Western engagement in the conflict, at the least. 1. What is the Patriot missile system? Along with missiles, a Patriot battery includes radars and control stations to identify, track and target enemy weapons, missile launchers and support vehicles. Lockheed Martin Corp. manufactures the missiles, while Raytheon Technologies Corp. makes the radar and ground-control elements of the system. The name Patriot is an acronym for Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target. Advertisement 2. Whats its history? Planning for what would become the Patriot system began in the early 1960s. Since its initial fielding in the 1980s, the Patriot system has undergone significant upgrades, from more precise radars to more lethal missiles. The system was deployed to Europe and used in the 1990-91 Gulf War in Iraq. Globally, Patriot systems have intercepted more than 150 ballistic missiles in combat since January 2015, according to Raytheon. In addition to the US, 16 countries have purchased or deployed the Patriot, which is used in the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations air defenses. The US Army has 15 Patriot battalions, some of which were deployed to Europe in the wake of Russias invasion of Ukraine. 3. What is the US giving Ukraine? The US is planning to transfer a single Patriot battery. A new battery costs an estimated $1 billion; used systems such as the one expected to be transferred to Ukraine could be valued at significantly less. Advertisement 4. How much will this help? Thats not clear. A single battery would provide protection in its vicinity, such as the capital Kyiv, but fall well short of protecting all of Ukraine. Ukraine has been pushing the international community to bolster its air defenses and to provide more potent offensive weapons such as the Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, which has the range to hit targets inside Russia. The US has rebuffed the ATACMS request, with officials saying theyre not enabling or encouraging Ukraine to strike targets in Russia. A limited supply of Patriot equipment would present Ukraine with tough choices in prioritizing which areas to protect. But given the reputation of Patriot missiles as best in class, some argue that the transfer of even one Patriot battery could have a symbolic effect. 5. What is Russia saying? Advertisement Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the planned transfer of Patriots constitutes an escalation and would essentially make the US a party to the war. She repeated Moscows claim that Western weapons supplied to Ukraine are legitimate targets for the Russian armed forces and that they will be either destroyed or seized. President Vladimir Putin expressed confidence that Russian troops will destroy the Patriot battery. 6. Will Ukraine be ready to use it? The Defense Department is expected to conduct training for Ukrainian forces outside the country in anticipation of delivery of the systems, according to persons with knowledge of the plans. According to the US Army, roughly 90 soldiers are assigned to each Patriot battery. Training on various elements of the Patriot system can take several months, though experts indicate that the timeline could be compressed for experienced Ukrainian air defenders, who are familiar with non-US systems. Advertisement An overview of the Patriot system by the Missile Defense Project. An analysis by Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of the impact of the Patriot shipment on the war. The US Army Weapons Systems Handbook has a section on the Patriot on page 310. A PBS-Frontline documentary on the history of the Patriot missile system, dating back to the Gulf War. The US Army provides a timeline of the early phases of Patriot development and deployment, from 1964 through 1995. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Comment on this story Comment Gift Article Share How much tax do the rich pay? More than you think. The share of income tax paid by the top 10%, 5% and 1% of the working population have all gone up in the last 10 years (under a conservative government constantly being accused of letting the rich off scot free). In 2010 they paid 54.9%, 44.8%% and 26.5%%, respectively. Now they pay 62.3%%, 50.3% and 28.3%. This isnt because they are earning a larger share of income overall (income inequality in the UK has not been rising). They arent. As independent economist Julian Jessop points out, the percentage shares of total income for each percentile group have not really changed over the last decade. The top 1% made 13.9% of income in 2010. Last year it was 13.1%. The top 5% were on 26.4%. Now it is 26%. This is not about an income grab by the rich. It is about them paying a higher percentage of their total income in tax. You might think that is totally fine. They have the money: those with broad shoulders and so on. But it is worth remembering that almost everyone is driven to some extent by financial incentives. Ask too much in absolute or relative times and you might end up with less. Some examples. First, the UKs non-doms or residents with non-domiciled status, which exempted them from the full force of the countrys taxation. A few weeks ago The Times ran a story headlined The super rich fall out of love with Britain. It noted that 1,400 high net worth people left the UK in 2022. Brexit was partly blamed for the exodus. But look at the numbers carefully and you will see that it is much more likely to have been about money in the immediate than some vague idea that Brexit might be a long-term financial issue. Advertisement In 2015, then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced that permanent non dom status was to be abolished. Those who wanted to avoid paying full taxes needed to be gone by 2017, he said. So they went. Why pay UK taxes when you can pay almost no tax in Portugal? The exodus started in 2015 and really got going as the deadline approached in late 2016. If you wonder how much it takes for even those who are not super rich to start packing their bags, take a look at a report from the Tax Foundation in Washington DC. Their study of US population data, tax returns and activity of moving companies show a very clear trend: taxpayers move from high-tax states to low-tax states, that is ones with either zero income taxes or relative low ones. Think the likes of Florida, Texas and Arizona. The first two have no state income tax and the latter is going flat. Between July 2021 and July 2022 Illinois, Louisiana and New York, all high-tax states, lost nearly 1% of their populations. Florida, Texas and Nevada all saw gains of over 1% (nearly 2% for Florida). The Tax Foundation says there is no real doubt that people left high-tax, high-cost states for lower-tax lower cost alternatives. There are all sorts of other examples available though none as well proven as the cases of the non doms and the US inter-state migration patterns. Look up work in Copenhagen, live in Malmo online, or perhaps think about why very rich Norwegians are decamping to Switzerland and youll get the picture. Advertisement The UK as a whole should worry about alienating taxpayers the recent exodus of UK trained doctors is something of a warning. This group is moving only partly for money they are mainly escaping the hell of working in the NHS but they are a reminder of how footloose the young and well educated can be. Perhaps, the person who should be looking at all this most closely is Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland (where I live). In April Scottish taxpayers will see the top rate of income tax move from 46% to 47% (49% once you take the UKs secondary income tax, known as National Insurance into account); the next highest rate will grow from 41% to 42% (44%). The equivalent numbers in the rest of the UK are 40% and 45%. This doesnt sound like much. But people appear to be prepared to move states for similar amounts: In the top third of states for population growth in the US, the average combined top marginal income tax rate is about 4%; in the bottom third, it is about 6.6%. Yes, people will move for a difference of a couple of percentage points. Why? Because it adds up. Consider a professional on 100,000 ($125,000) a year. In Scotland their annual income tax bill will be 35,432. In the rest of the UK it would be 33,405. Thats a difference of 2,030, or 6%, a year. Invest that 2,030 every year for 20 years with an assumed return of 5% and youve got 75,000. Advertisement High earners can mostly do numbers. They may even have noticed that there are categories that have to pay even higher levies: 13.4% of the population pays around 60% of the income tax total. The so-called additional tax rate payers alone all 30,000 of them, or 0.6% of Scotlands population cover nearly 17%. They are always being told they must pay their fair share. If 0.6% paying 17% isnt a fair share, what exactly is? And who wants to stick around to find out? So here is a new idea for Sturgeon. Why not be less like Louisiana and more like Florida? Instead of pushing taxpayers away, offer them a reason to stay and to come in the first place. Go a good few percentage points lower than the rest of the top end of the UK. Then sit back and watch the high earners flood in. Get it right and Sturgeons legacy might even be that she managed to fill some of the 937 empty NHS consultant positions in Scotland. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Advertisement Gold Is Getting Its Glitter Back: Merryn Somerset Webb Scotland Loses One Fight, Picks Another: Therese Raphael Are You Rich Yet? Thats a Ridiculous Question.: Allison Schrager This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Merryn Somerset Webb is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion covering personal finance and investment. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek and a contributing editor at the Financial Times. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion 2023 Bloomberg L.P. GiftOutline Gift Article Former Zero Unit members struck terror in the Taliban while fighting in Afghanistan. Now many struggle as U.S. refugees whose immigration status is in limbo. Airport and transit officials recounted harrowing stories of rescuing stranded passengers and motorists in snowbanks, but union officials who attended a post-blizzard review meeting Thursday say the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority response could have vastly improved through better communication with its rank and file workers. Jeffrey Richardson, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1342 in Buffalo, attended a more than one-hour presentation to NFTA commissioners in which airport managers recounted feeding and housing 144 passengers during last month's Christmas weekend blizzard. Transit Authority Police, meanwhile, noted officers rescued motorists stranded in airport tunnels, while feeding and keeping warm more than two dozen bus riders and passersby sheltered in the downtown bus terminal for several days. Other officials outlined the efforts of heavy equipment operators cutting paths for people caught in the blizzard to access airport shelters, or to trudge through snow to open warm subway stations in the city. Airport set to reopen after 'worst ever' snowstorm "You can't understand what it was like unless you were here," Airfield Superintendent Joe Guarino said. "I hope I never see anything like this again in my lifetime." "If not for the front loaders and emergency vehicles, we might not have saved anyone out there," Director of Public Transit James Morrell said about the rescue efforts. "Metro is important to this community. Metro is critical to this community." But Local 1342 leaders recounted horror stories of their own. The union, which officials say recently finds itself at low ebb with NFTA management, said the presentation not only ignored efforts of its members during the emergency, it skipped over a host of problems revolving around lack of communication. "There were some feel good stories. We're happy about everything they did," Richardson said. "But on the Metro side, there was very little communication. Our members didn't know what was going on." Firefighters in crash rig bring stranded motorists to safety, welcome them to 'Hotel Buffalo Airport' After the final trip to the firehouse at about 8 a.m., the crash truck got stuck meeting the same fate as two-thirds of Erie County emergency vehicles that embarked overnight Friday. Richardson and Financial Secretary Ron Giza told reporters after the meeting that Metro Bus and Rail workers found insufficient plans in place for the blizzard that paralyzed the area and claimed 46 lives in Erie County. They said management called in employees to work, even though it was not dispatching buses into the blizzard. The usual website devoted to personnel was suspended, they added, while confusion reigned over who was supposed to work and where. Richardson complained workers were put in "harm's way" on Dec. 26 as they became stranded en route to their jobs while service was not offered. "People couldn't even get off their streets. They couldn't make it to work," he said, adding the union has filed a grievance over various issues of workers not getting paid during the emergency. "You got one guy coming from Grand Island trying to get to work because they forced him into work and getting stuck on the bridge," he said. "They said, 'The bus service is not working, but get in here anyway.' That's a major problem." Richardson also said those who made it to work became stranded for long periods in bus and rail terminals without food or with old food. NFTA spokeswoman Helen Tederous dismissed several claims listed by union officials and insisted the authority performed admirably under the most difficult circumstances. "I don't know how much better we could have done," she said. "I'm not saying it was perfect, because it was a challenging blizzard, but we made sound and life-saving decisions." Tederous said the authority's early and publicized move to suspend service before the blizzard hit saved commuters from getting stranded on buses and trains. Closing Buffalo Niagara International Airport and suspending Metro Bus and Rail ranked as extremely rare decisions, she said, because of the sheer magnitude of dependence on both services. "I will never dismiss concerns, and we might use this as a way of perhaps reaching better communication," she added. "But we are very proud of the work we did and how we were able to recover." Being bundled into a minivan in Cairns and instructed by the driver to not tell anyone my movements feels more like a hostage situation than a luxury experience. I try memorising the route. A left turn, then a roundabout followed by cane fields, more cane fields, or is that the same cane field? Discretion is required because the hinterland destination is home to essential perfume ingredients rivalling the roses in the south of France for value. Roses are rare in the Queensland tropics but agarwood, which can cost more than $100,000 for a kilogram, smells much sweeter to grower Tim Coakley, executive chairman of Wescorp. Wescorp farmers Tim and Fleur Coakley with Agarwood, a prized perfume ingredient grown in Queensland. Credit: Luminosity Most Australians dont understand how valuable this is, but occasionally, we see people slowly driving past, Coakley says, surrounded by rows of agarwood-producing Aquilaria trees arranged as neatly as the boxed citrus trees in the Orangery at Versailles. We have cameras set up in the trees. If you go to Asia they have seven-foot walls and people wandering around with guns. Agarwood, extracted from Aquilaria trees, has provided the resin commonly known as oud to growers in Asia for centuries. Its smoke and leather notes were used in religious ceremonies before attracting the attention of perfumers such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Tom Ford and boutique Australian brand Goldfield & Banks. Booking a holiday is difficult enough without worrying whether the Airbnb is actually living up to the standard you expect. Kerri Sackville and Jenna Price reveal why people are heading back to hotels instead. The fall of the Airbnb: Why were going back to staying at hotels. Credit: iStock Early in 2022 I booked a stay in Northern NSW for January 2023. I did my due diligence. I spent hours online, reading reviews and comparing prices and features. I decided on a two-bedroom managed property with an onsite pool. Terrific reviews and a surprisingly reasonable rate. There was no Wi-Fi included, but I was used to compromising. You never get everything you want. Ive stayed in a beautiful Airbnb that was absolutely ideal but for the fact that there was no door on the (pristine) toilet. Ive stayed in a huge Airbnb with not one but two bidets, but almost no power points, and light switches in bizarrely inconvenient positions. And Ive stayed at a terrific resort in which room cleaning was not included in the price, and I had to beg for clean towels after the fourth night. So Wi-Fi wasnt an issue. I booked the property and forgot about it till about a week before we were due to leave. A lot can change in a year. When I returned to the website to check if the property had a microwave, I noticed a negative review. Hopefully, just an anomaly, I thought, and did a deep dive. It was not an anomaly. In the past few months, reviews of the property had tanked. And the issues cited were not minor. They were serious, youd-be-better-off-staying-at-home problems. A room riddled with mould. A cracked shower. Filthy linen. Dust everywhere. And the most horrifying of all - a broken toilet that slid across the floor. The lack of Wi-Fi barely rated a mention. ALBANY A federal appellate court ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit filed by the Seneca Nation of Indians against New York State may proceed, dismissing a motion filed by the state seeking to throw out the case. The lawsuit concerns the tribes longstanding claims that a 1954 land deal permitting the Thruway to cut through part of its Cattaraugus Reservation was illegal. Judge denies New York's bid to dismiss Seneca Nation's Thruway lawsuit At issue is a 1954 land easement deal allowing 2.7 miles of the state Thruway to be built on nearly 300 acres on the Seneca Nations Cattaraugus reservation. New York State has sought to have the case dismissed on a series of legal grounds, including that the 11th Amendment of the U.S Constitution bars a state from being sued in federal court unless the state consents. But the defendants in this case are individual state government officials, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Attorney General Letitia James and state Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Dominguez. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found on Thursday that the Seneca Nation can sue individual state officers in their official capacities as long as certain conditions are met, including that the lawsuit claims an ongoing violation of federal law. While New York State contested those conditions had been met, the appellate court found the Seneca lawsuit does claim that the Thruway poses an ongoing harm by inhibiting the nations free use and enjoyment of its protected land. Seneca Nation, Thruway Authority reach agreement on road repairs The Thruway Authority submitted a plan recently, and a final agreement was reached After fighting New Yorks overreaching actions for decades, on the Thruway and other issues, this is an important victory, Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong Sr. said "Our arguments on behalf of our people deserve to be heard in court. The Thruway is a 300-acre scar on our Cattaraugus Territory that New York State inflicted on our people without proper authorization from the Department of Interior or in compliance with the promises made to us by treaty. We intend to make sure that state officials finally comply with federal law for this invasion of our land. The 1954 land easement deal between the state and tribe allowed 2.7 miles of the Thruway to be built on nearly 300 acres on the Seneca Nations Cattaraugus reservation. State to Senecas: We're ready to fix the Thruway State officials say theyre ready to repair the bumpy, 3-mile stretch of the Thruway that runs through the Seneca Nations Cattaraugus Territory just as soon as the tribe gives the Thruway Authority permission. In a letter Sunday to the Seneca leadership, Thruway Authority Executive Director Matthew J. Driscoll said the state is eager to complete this project and The tribe received $75,500 for the land deal, which included displacement of some Senecas from their homes. Tribal leaders for years have said the state pressured Senecas to take the 1954 deal. Moreover, the Seneca Nations chief legal argument is that the deal was invalid from the start because the state never obtained necessary federal approval. The Senecas brought the current case in 2018. They want the Thruway Authority to seek a valid easement deal or to compensate the tribe going forward for motorists who drive on the highways segment that runs through reservation land. They also want the state to stop collecting tolls at Irving on Seneca land. In 2020, U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo first gave the green light for the legal dispute to continue on to the merits of the case. The decision by Vilardo overturned a report and recommendation made in 2018 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Hugh B. Scott that supported the states move to dismiss the case. After Vilardos ruling, New York State then filed the motion to dismiss in federal appellate court that was ruled on Thursday. Suspected suicides have risen by 8 per cent in early data from NSW and Victoria last year, in what mental health experts have described as evidence of Australians distress following years of successive crises: fires, the pandemic and soaring inflation brought on by global unrest. Fury directed towards Health Minister Mark Butler over his decision to halve the number of annual Medicare-funded psychologist appointments from 20 to 10 has cooled since December, but the mental health sector is now seeking proof of his dedication to reform ahead of a roundtable the government has convened for Monday. Real-time suspected suicide data, which is reported by the Coroners Court of Victoria and NSW Health, confirmed numbers were rising in both states last year after remaining relatively steady throughout the pandemic. There is no consultation without trust, and we want to be able to consult in a meaningful way when changes to the tax system are in prospect, he said on Wednesday. And so this is a shocking breach of trust, an appalling breach of trust and as a government that wants to be consultative where we can, this puts that sort of consultation at risk. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has criticised PwC over a tax leak. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen Is Chalmers confident this was a one-off? He did not sound confident at all when asked this question on Wednesday. He said the government was being diligent in making sure it was not happening elsewhere and would not happen again. So we know the government is angry. We dont know what it will do about it. It is easy to dismiss this as a minor breach. Collins was one of a group of private sector tax experts called in by Treasury at regular points to seek guidance on potential tax rules for multinational companies in what is known as base erosion and profit shifting that is, recording revenue in low-tax places like Luxembourg to avoid tax in places like Australia. It is impossible to quantify the damage to actual tax revenue. Yet the stakes are huge and arcane information can have immense value. Australia has been trying to crack down on base erosion and profit shifting, or BEPS, for at least a decade. Digital giants have recorded sales from Australia in places like Ireland and the Netherlands using what is known as the double Irish Dutch sandwich and mining giants have posted sales of Australia ore in Singapore. PwC CEO Tom Seymour says he is deeply disappointed over the scandal. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer The OECD estimates that BEPS costs anywhere from $140 billion to $340 billion a year in foregone tax revenue worldwide. It thinks the net revenue loss ranges from 4 to 10 per cent of corporate income tax revenue. Applied to Australian company tax receipts, that would be worth anywhere from $5 billion to $13 billion this financial year. This is a simplistic calculation, and probably far too simplistic for professional tax experts. But can the government trust those experts? Collins did not appear to be alone at PwC in using the information from Treasury, although the onus was on him because he had signed confidentiality agreements in December 2013, April 2016 and February 2018. The investigators checked emails within the firm to discover that others knew about the leaked information. Internal communications within PwC indicated an awareness among the internal PwC recipients, including PwC taxation partners, that the confidential knowledge gained from the consultations with Treasury would be leveraged to market PwC to a new client base, the tax board said. The AFP and Attorney-Generals department spent more than $600,000 on a High Court case against journalist Annika Smethurst. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen So the firm gained business, or at least tried to. The board said PwC had a potential market advantage in using the confidential information to advance the position of its existing taxation clients as well as marketing its services to attract new clients. PwC Australia chief executive Tom Seymour says the firm is deeply disappointed that it failed its standards. He says it has strengthened its approach to avoid conflict risks by setting up a confidentiality agreements register with a single contact point for all Treasury and similar consultations. This is all very cosy. The professionals in the public and private spheres have come to a settlement about how to improve the Chinese walls. But it is less than four years since the Australian Federal Police raided the ABC and searched the home of Annika Smethurst, now the state political editor of The Age, over leaks about the war in Afghanistan and the Department of Home Affairs. Some leaks seem to alarm officials more than others. Consulting firms are making big money in Canberra with a business model that relies on access to valuable policy information and the claim that they can deliver sound advice. The top five firms Accenture, KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and EY gained contracts worth $2 billion last financial year, according to an analysis by Ron Mizen at The Australian Financial Review. Loading That consulting work is often about implementing government policy and is separate from the Treasury consultations involving specialists like Collins on draft law. But the common theme is the governments increasing reliance on outside experts to do its job. So the lesson from the PwC affair should ripple through the public service. Libby Mettam has publicly confirmed her plans to challenge David Honey for the Leadership of the Western Australian Liberal Party, but has vowed not to address the matter until a special party-room meeting on Tuesday. In a statement released on Saturday, Mettam confirmed she had written to Honey to inform him of her intention to contest the leadership. But she made it clear she would not engage in any further commentary until after the matter had been resolved out of respect for David and her colleagues. Libby Mettam could challenge David Honeys Liberal party leadership within days. Credit: Richard Wainwright/AAP It comes just hours after WAtoday revealed the leadership challenge was afoot, with the letter emailed to members of the Liberal parliamentary team late yesterday. West Bank: Israeli commandos have killed seven gunmen and two civilians in a raid on a flashpoint town in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said, stirring fear of further flare-ups after the largest single death toll in years of fighting. On Thursday (West Bank time), the Palestinian Authority said it was ending its security coordination with Israel, which is widely credited with helping to keep order in the West Bank and preventing attacks against Israel. It has frozen the cooperation numerous times in a sign of protest. Palestinians clash with Israeli forces following an army raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday. Credit: AP Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was not looking to escalate the situation, though he ordered security forces to prepare for all scenarios in the various sectors. UN and Arab mediators spoke with Israel and Palestinian factions to try to keep the clash in Jenin, among areas of the West Bank that have seen intensified Israeli operations, from sparking a broader confrontation. Washington: US health officials would like to get the frequency of COVID-19 shots down to just one a year, and on Thursday they began discussing how to do that. The message has come through loud and clear that Americans have already had enough of frequent COVID shots. Food and Drug Administration advisers are meeting to discuss issues such as which strains of coronavirus would be in an annual vaccine, and how they would be chosen. A syringe is prepared with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic in Chester, Pennsylvania. Credit: AP Documents released earlier this week compared the America agencys desired approach to the annual flu immunisation effort. As it stands now, anyone getting a COVID shot for the first time receives a vaccine designed in 2020, when the virus looked a lot different than it does today. The new strategy would require health officials to meet each year to review which strains of the virus should be included in the shots, just as they do with flu, for use each September ahead of the northern winter. I dont think that we can chase after every new variant that comes along because the virus is changing so much, said committee member Stanley Perlman, professor of immunology at the University of Iowa who sits on the FDA panel. It makes it harder to convince people because if someone doesnt want to get a shot every four months, the response might be Well, Im not going to get a shot at all. ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) The Biden administration moved Thursday to protect northeastern Minnesota's pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from future mining, dealing a potentially fatal blow to a copper-nickel project. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland signed an order closing over 350 square miles (900 square kilometers) of the Superior National Forest, in the Rainy River Watershed around the town of Ely, to mineral and geothermal leasing for 20 years, the longest period the department can sequester the land without congressional approval. The order is subject to existing valid rights, but the Biden administration contends that Twin Metals Minnesota lost its rights last year, when the department rescinded a Trump administration decision to reinstate federal mineral rights leases that were critical to the project. Twin Metals, which is owned by the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, filed suit in August to try to reclaim those rights. Protecting a place like Boundary Waters is key to supporting the health of the watershed and its surrounding wildlife, upholding our Tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, and boosting the local recreation economy, Haaland said in a statement. "With an eye toward protecting this special place for future generations, I have made this decision using the best available science and extensive public input. The proposed underground mine would be built southeast of Ely, near Birch Lake, which flows into the Boundary Waters. The project has been battered by shifting political winds. The Obama administration, in its final weeks, chose not to renew the two leases, which had dated back more than 50 years. The Trump administration reversed that decision and reinstated the leases. But the Biden administration canceled the leases last January after the U.S. Forest Service in October 2021 relaunched the review and public engagement process for the 20-year mining moratorium. While the Biden administration last year committed itself to expanding domestic sources of critical minerals and metals for the clean energy economy, it made clear Thursday that it considers Boundary Waters to be a unique area worthy of special protections. Twin Metals did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The company and its supporters say the project is critical for securing domestic sources of copper, nickel and other minerals needed for wind and solar power and electric vehicles. And they say the mine would create more than 750 high-wage mining jobs plus 1,500 spinoff jobs in the region. Twin Metals says it can mine safely without generating acid mine drainage that the Biden administration and environmentalists say makes the $1.7 billion project an unacceptable risk to the wilderness. Twin Metals says its design would limit the exposure of the sulfide-bearing ore to the effects of air and water. The 1,700 square mile (4,400 square kilometer) Boundary Waters Canoe Area is the most-visited federally designated wilderness area in the U.S. It draws more than 150,000 visitors from around the world who paddle its more than 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) of canoe routes and over 1,100 lakes. According to the Interior Department, it contributes over $17 million annually to the outdoor recreation and tourism economy in northeastern Minnesota. Three Ojibwe tribes exercise treaty rights in the area covered by the moratorium. I applaud Secretary Haalands decision to protect the long-term health of the Rainy River watershed, including the irreplaceable Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who oversees the Forest Service, said in the administration's statement. This landscape is an international resource renowned for its multitude of recreational opportunities and provides millions of visitors with unparalleled wilderness experiences. The order does not affect two other proposed copper-nickel projects in northeastern Minnesota the PolyMet mine near Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes and the Talon Metals mine near Tamarack which lie in different watersheds. On 26 January, the Secretariat of the World Customs Organization (WCO) celebrated the International Customs Day at its Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The celebration was supported by Belgium Customs. This year also marks the celebration of the Organizations 70th anniversary, commemorating the inaugural session of the Customs Co-operation Council (CCC) which took place on 26 January 1953. On this occasion, as it is customary, the Secretary General of the WCO, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, shared on the WCO Website a message to announce and elaborate on the theme of the year 2023 Nurturing the Next Generation: Promoting a Culture of Knowledge-sharing and Professional Pride in Customs. The theme will guide the Customs family and its partners throughout the year to place human capital, and especially the new generation, at the heart of the transformation of Customs - an approach the WCO has been advocating for several years. Earlier in the day, the Secretary General took part in the celebrations organized by Belgium Customs, which saw the participation of Mr. Hans DHondt, President of the Belgian Federal Finance Public Service (SPF Finances), Mr. Vincent Van Peteghem, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Mr. Gerassimos Thomas, Director-General of DG TAXUD, and Mr. Kristian Vanderwaeren, General Administrator of Belgian Customs and Excise. During this event Belgian Customs Officers as well as Customs Attaches were rewarded for their achievements during the past year. A parade followed from the Brussels Grand Place to the iconic Manneken-Pis statue which was dressed for the occasion in a Customs uniform. The Secretary General then addressed the personnel of the Secretariat and Customs attaches at its Headquarters, in the presence of several guests including Ambassadors based in Belgium. Dr. Mikuriya explained the relevance of Customs in todays international trade landscape and the importance for Customs to establish ways to transfer knowledge to the new generation of Customs officers. He went on to say that this approach must be rooted in the administrations culture. It requires not only dynamic inter-generational relationships, but also an outward-looking attitude, characterized by exchanges with the actors engaged in the movement of goods and passengers, as well as with service providers and with academia. He also thanked Belgium Customs for its participation in this celebration. The Belgium General Administrator of Customs and Excise, Mr. Kristian Vanderwaeren, thanked the WCO Secretariat for the opportunity to participate in the event and highlighted the importance of this years theme of knowledge-sharing with the young generation to ensure Customs relevance in a rapidly changing international trade landscape. A recent News article about Republican assignments to House panels should offer some welcome news to Western New Yorkers who reasonably expect their elected representatives to serve their interests. That is the way it should be. Politics is an inevitable factor, but voters should expect that their representatives aim higher than chronic governmental dysfunction. Nicholas A. Langworthy, a Republican who represents suburban and rural Erie County as well as the Southern Tier, will sit on the House Rules Committee which sets the terms of debate for bills about to be presented for votes. He will also sit on the Oversight and Agricultural committees. Rep. Claudia Tenney, a Canandaigua Republican who represents parts of Niagara and Orleans counties along with all of Genesee and Wyoming counties, was recently named to the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Brian Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat, is a longtime member of that key committee, which also oversees Social Security and trades. The assignments for Langworthy and Tenney should translate into more effective representation for their constituents and the region. Still, Republican politics continues to orbit the whims and deficiencies of former President Donald Trump and both these members have been eager acolytes. As members of the House majority, their responsibilities are greater than that. Langworthy said he was honored to be chosen by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to serve on the crucial and prestigious House Rules Committee, an assignment that he said will help advance the Republican agenda. Langworthy wanted but did not receive a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee that oversees the energy sector, telecommunications and consumer protection. McCarthy chose not to seat first-term lawmakers on that panel. The Oversight Committee focuses on the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of the federal government and its agencies. Unchecked power, Langworthy said, whether it be from inside the government or out has to come to an end, starting with the work of this committee. Im excited to get started. Its an essential component of democratic government, but one that can easily be abused especially in a time of national division. Voters should hope Langworthys approach will be balanced and thoughtful. Tenney, another Trump-endorsed representative, served in Congress during Trumps first two years in office. Still, her appointment to the House Ways and Means Committee should be encouraging, as it represents a return to two members she and Higgins from the western part of the state. She has sought a seat on the panel since 2018 and, as she said, those communities consist of small business owners, entrepreneurs and, notably, agriculture. Yet, its impossible to disregard Tenneys continuing and unquestioning fealty to the former president. While she praises him for tax cuts, energy independence and veterans services normal conservative priorities she also venerates his America First agenda that devalued our essential role in the world and ignored the administrations historic record of corruption. Langworthy and Tenney have an opportunity to make a difference. Their committee assignments can help serve the needs of the country and their districts without climbing down the rabbit hole of division and conspiracy. We hope thats what theyll do. Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing. While reading the want ads, I was struck by the qualifications needed for jobs. Many mandated degrees or experience in a related field in order to apply, while other ads offered the requisite training needed to do so. However, when it comes to the most important genre of all, running for office, there is virtually no barrier to entry. Your knowledge, or lack of knowledge of the Constitution or public administration is not as important as your ability to fund raise. Today Mostly sunny and continued unseasonably warm; some high clouds increase during the day. Tonight Increasing clouds. There might be a stray shower closer to sunrise. Tomorrow Mainly cloudy and cooler with some showers likely mainly during the afternoon, but not a washout. There might be a rumble or two of thunder too. Recharge Resources Ltd. Vancouver, BC, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Recharge Resources Ltd. (Recharge) (RR: CSE) (RECHF: OTC) (SL50: Frankfurt) announced that Paradigm drillers arrived on site today for the Companys fully-funded winter drill program at Recharges 100% owned Brussels Creek Gold-Copper-Palladium Project in Kamloops, BC, Canada. Paradigm Drilling delivered the skid mount, Boyles 25 model drill rig to the staging area near the Brussels Creek Property with drilling about to commence to complete 900 meters of NQ size core drilling in 3 holes. Of these 900 meters, hole collar angles will be between -50 and -90 degrees, and borehole depths will not exceed 350 meters. The aim of the 900-meter NQ drill program is to test the potential for copper-gold mineralization similar to that present at the adjacent New Afton Mine owned by New Gold Inc. NGD.V ($1.11 billion market capitalization). The New Afton Mine occupies the site of the historic Afton Open Pit Mine, which operated from 1977 to 1997. The present mine and concentrator facility commenced production in July 2012. The mine is a block caving operation. In 2021, the mine produced 52,542 oz Au and 61,700,000 lbs Cu. The Company is currently awaiting weather conditions to improve for access purposes in order to commence drilling. CEO, David Greenway, summarized, "While data compilation is underway at Georgia Lake Lithium and the Company awaits additional data from Pocitos 1, we are pushing forward on all fronts with drills now on site at the Brussels Creek Copper-Palladium-Gold Project. We thank Mr. Shearer and all those involved in the consultation and drill planning process. Recharge is committed to sustainable exploration and mining practices. This is a pivotal time for the Brussels Creek Project in BC, and we look forward to the upcoming drill program. Story continues Brussels Creek Project The BC property is an early-stage exploration property, located approximately 24 kilometres west of Kamloops, and is immediately adjacent to New Gold's New Afton Mine. The property has 17 claims (66 cells) covering 1,350.43 hectares. The geological setting of the property is very similar to New Afton, a silica-saturated copper-gold alkalic porphyry-style deposit, as well as the Highland Valley, Mount Polly, Kemess and Galore Creek deposits. Recent field observations noted the presence of a substantial mineralized quartz-feldspar porphyry body intruding the overlying Nicola group volcanics. Historic sampling and mapping on the property, in 1983 and 1984, located a broad anomalous zone (200 metres by 400 metres) with gold values up to 3.5 grams per tonne. Grab samples taken from the property in 2019 include values of 10.1 g/t Au (with 0.7 g/t palladium) and 11.5 g/t Au. Brussels Creek Web Page: https://recharge-resources.com/projects/brussels-creek/ Recharges management cautions that past results or discoveries on properties in proximity to Recharge may not necessarily be indicative of the presence of mineralization on the company's properties. Qualified Person Johan T Shearer, P. Geo., Consulting Geologist, is the qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 responsible for the technical content of this release, and consents to its release. Market ing A greement Further, the Company has engaged TD Media LLC dba Life Water Media LLC, of Houston, Texas ("TD Media"). The services to be provided by TD Media include digital media, marketing strategies, advertising, and awareness campaigns. The engagement of TD Media will extend for a period of six months, commencing on January 23, 2023, for a fee of US$350,000. Neither TD Media nor any of its principals currently own any interest, directly or indirectly, in the Company. About Recharge Resources Recharge Resources is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on exploring and developing the production of high-value battery metals to create green, renewable energy to meet the demands of the advancing electric vehicle and fuel cell vehicle market. All stakeholders are encouraged to follow the company on its social media profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. On Behalf of the Board of Directors, David Greenway David Greenway, CEO. For further information, please contact: Recharge Resources Ltd. Joel Warawa Phone: 778-588-5473 E-Mail: info@recharge-resources.com Website: recharge-resources.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which reflect the expectations of management regarding Recharges intention to continue to identify potential transactions and make certain corporate changes and applications. Forward looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in the statements. No assurance can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will occur or, if they do occur, what benefits Recharge will obtain from them. These forward-looking statements reflect managements current views and are based on certain expectations, estimates and assumptions which may prove to be incorrect. A number of risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including Recharges results of exploration or review of properties that Recharge does acquire. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release and Recharge assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results differed from those projected in the forward-looking statements, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. READING, Pa. Reading Mayor Eddie Moran delivered his fourth State of the City address on Thursday, acknowledging much progress in the city over the last year. One of the most notable accomplishments, he said, was the city finally exiting Act 47, a state program for financially troubled cities that guided Reading for more than a decade. "We achieved this by working through three multi-year financial recovery plans and implementing them through the efforts of our dedicated employees, the city residents, property owners, employees and city council," Moran told an audience inside Reading Area Community College's Miller Center for the Arts. Moran said with an increase in capital improvement funds and the American Rescue Plan funds, the city was able to make substantial improvements to parks and other critical infrastructure. "We are getting ready to break ground on nine additional projects... including the Reading skate park, Sixth and Amity playground, Third and Spruce, and Center Avenue," Moran said during his address, which was streamed live on WFMZ.com. Moran said the city will use some of the money to replace broken equipment and to put in an all-abilities playground. The city will also use funds to make several buildings compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and make needed repairs. The city is working with many partners to improve the quality of life for residents and address the ongoing issue of youth violence. 40:19 WATCH: Reading mayor's 2023 State of the City address Reading Mayor Eddie Moran delivered his annual State of the City address to a live audience at Reading Area Community College's Miller Center "The complicity of this issue means we also need to rally behind agencies that address root causes, such as homelessness and addiction as well as those agencies that provide basic necessities such as food, medical care and counseling on trauma, life skills and job training," Moran said. The mayor said in order for the city to keep moving forward, everyone needs to work together. "Together," he said, "we are building a better Reading." Moran began his remarks with a moment of silence in memory of five city leaders, past and present, who died in the past year, the most recent being former city council President Paul Hoh and Frank Denbowski, the mayor's former chief of staff. Both men died earlier this month. The city also bid a final farewell in 2022 to city council President Jeff Waltman and former mayors Paul Angstadt and Joe Eppihimer, all of whom died in June. https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/berks/reading-mayor-touts-2022-achievements-lays-out-2023-goals/article_9041ff58-9db7-11ed-b015-bf2a9f331e70.html STORY: "We will continue working with friends for serious partnerships that allow Iraq to make economic reform and sustainable development," wrote the Prime Minister who took office in October after more than a year of political paralysis in Iraq. The French presidency said the set of strategic agreements were meant to meant to boost Baghdad's economic co-operation with Paris, especially in the energy and public transportation sectors. When and where? OK, theatre fans. It's time to start getting excited because the 23rd Annual WhatsOnStage Awards are almost upon us. The concert ceremony is scheduled to take place on Sunday, 12 February at 7pm. It will be returning to the Prince of Wales Theatre in the heart of London's West End (and usually home to The Book of Mormon). How can I follow on the day? As per usual, there will be a number of ways to follow the awards on the big night... You can snap up the last remaining tickets for the event itself here and actually be in the room where it happens watching with your own eyeballs as the lucky winners are crowned and the extra-special performances take place. [UPDATE: The 23rd Annual WhatsOnStage Awards ceremony is now officially sold out] West End favourites Mazz Murray (Mamma Mia!) and Oscar Conlon-Murray (Mother Goose) are set to host an exclusive Facebook Live pre-show from the red carpet at the Prince of Wales Theatre starting at 6:30pm and ending at 7pm, chatting to all the immaculately dressed nominees and VIP guests. As in previous years, we're going to be live tweeting the event as it happens, with running commentary also embedded on the site. This will be the perfect place to instantly find out who's taking home the top prizes. Follow @WhatsOnStage for all the live updates and don't forget to use the hashtag #WOSAwards to join in with the conversation and to see some fun glimpses behind-the-scenes. Our Instagram feed will be filled to the brim with boomerangs, videos, photos and much more. Follow our Instagram story on the day and check out all our posts using the #WOSAwards hashtag for glitz and glamour. Who's hosting the awards? Courtney Bowman, Laurie Kynaston and Billy Luke Nevers Left: Danny Kaan We have three fresh, stagey faces to host the concert ceremony this year and one of them is a nominee herself. Enter: Courtney Bowman (Legally Blonde), Laurie Kynaston (Spring Awakening) and Billy Luke Nevers (& Juliet). You can find out what Bowman and Kynaston had to say about serving as Emcees for the highlight of our theatrical calendar in the video below. Who's performing at the concert? We'll have a talented bunch of performers on hand at the Prince of Wales Theatre to represent many of the shows nominated in the categories of Best New Musical and Best Musical Revival. Expect performances from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, Curve's Billy Elliot, The Great British Bake Off Musical, My Fair Lady and Bonnie and Clyde, alongside a special original opening number, penned by Alex Parker and Katie Lam and choreographed by Six's Carrie-Ann Ingrouille. And if that wasn't enough, there will also be some top secret exclusives and "first listens"! Who's nominated this year? Oklahoma!, My Neighbour Totoro and Spring Awakening topped the total number of nominations Marc Brenner, RSC (photographer Manuel Harlan) and Marc Brenner The nominees were revealed in a stream from @sohoplace (the West End's newest venue) by As You Like It co-stars Leah Harvey and Alfred Enoch. The RSC's production of My Neighbour Totoro leads the pack with a total of nine nominations, closely followed by Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! at the Young Vic with eight nods - the most for any musical. This year we also introduced gender-neutral performance categories, so you'll see the likes of David Tennant (Good), Jonathan Bailey (Cock) and Rafe Spall (To Kill a Mockingbird) up against Carrie Hope Fletcher (The Caucasian Chalk Circle), Mei Mac (My Neighbour Totoro) and Jodie Comer (Prima Facie) for Best Performer in a Play, as well as host Courtney Bowman (Legally Blonde), Katie Brayben (Tammy Faye), Divina De Campo (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Charlie Stemp (Crazy for You) and co-stars Jordan Luke Gage and Frances Mayli McCann (Bonnie & Clyde) all going head-to-head in the Best Performer in a Musical category. We've also introduced two brand-new categories this year: Best Professional Debut Performance and Best Concert Event. And we've welcomed back an old favourite with Best Takeover Performance. Read the full list of nominees here. How should I prepare? Follow us on all our social channels! Put on your Sunday clothes (as Dolly Levi would say)! Whether you are with us in person or following online, prepare for a night of fanfare, frolics and fun with a wealth of surprises and special performances, as well as winners voted for by yourselves, our loyal WhatsOnStage readers. If you're at home, make sure you're logged in from 6:30pm on Facebook to catch all the action from the red carpet. And if you have a ticket, we'll see you there on the big night! A new app is dismantling the idea that using your phone at the theatre is to be frowned upon it can actually help massively with accessibility. GalaPro available on both iOS and Android already has widespread useage on Broadway, but has now made its way to the UK. The app was demoed with a production of School of Rock back in 2019, with it now being rolled out to LW Theatre's Adelphi Theatre currently home to Back to the Future the Musical. From right now, audiences can watch the show while watching the captions or listening to audio description on their devices. We tried it out earlier today and the results were impressive users input unique show codes in order to access the captions and AD material, which they can then start at the same time as the performance. The app functions in Airplane mode to avoid disruption, while displaying red or grey font on a black background to avoid bright lights. The Adelphi has said they have additional devices for those without. GalaPro was acquired last year by Broadway's Shubert Organisation, one of the biggest venue operators in New York. It is being used for Hamilton, & Juliet, Wicked, Six and more on the Great White Way. The use of tech to help accessibility has become more and more significant in recent years. Caption lenses have been utilised at London venues like the National, allowing audience members to watch the show while the words appear on the glasses they're wearing. The app is not expected to disrupt the existing schedule of captioned, relaxed and audio-described performances already scheduled by the likes of Back to the Future. If Alan Ayckbourn, that wry chronicler of peculiarly British social awkwardness and middle-class anxiety, were to collaborate with the high priest of camp comedy Jonathan Harvey, and got script consultation from Angels In America's Tony Kushner at his most magic realist, the result would probably be something like this. As playwriting debuts go, Zak Zarafshan's The Boys are Kissing certainly doesn't lack ambition. In Lisa Spirling's joyfully flamboyant production, it tackles nature versus nurture, latent homophobia, the presence of LGBTQ+ information within the education system, the power struggles in apparently happy relationships and divine intervention when it all gets a bit much. This is put over with heart, hope, many genuine belly laughs and a gallery of appealing characters that don't always behave as one might expect, but seldom strain credulity. Zarafshan opens with a butt-clenchingly awkward (and consequently hilarious) meeting between two married couples, one straight and one lesbian, whose nine-year-old sons have been caught kissing. The contrast between the laid-back reaction of the lesbian pair ("they kissed, they didn't hijack a plane") with that of the straight couple, so desperate to appear right on' and accepting but revealing tiny glimpses of prejudice with every borderline crass utterance, is beautifully managed. This is thrown into sharp relief by the arrival of a pair of all-seeing, commentating cherubs, members of "the ancient celestial order of queer guardians", who look as though they've just wandered in from a heavy night in Heaven (the London gay club, that is). Shane Convery, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Annie Lennox in her heyday, and a winningly louche Kishore Walker are great value as this fierce, funny duo who periodically drop into the earthbound action to wreak havoc or hold a mirror up to the flailing, flawed mortals. If it's all a bit fanciful and daft, Convery and Walker make it work by sheer force of personality and some killer comic timing. Shane Convery and Kishore Walker Danny Kaan Amy McAllister is quite brilliant as a gossipy young mum so bent out of shape by trying to be seen to be doing the right thing that she ends up getting almost everything wrong while Philip Coreia invests her bewildered husband with a touching sensitivity amongst all the bluster. Eleanor Wyld is utterly lovely as the endlessly kind, reasonable and patient homemaker who finds herself pushed to the absolute limit. As her hard-nosed and heavily pregnant lawyer wife, Seyan Sarvan has the least well-developed role but still finds some light and shade. There are moments, particularly in the second act when the parents get to face their grown-up offspring and are forced to reflect on the long-term effect their early choices may have had, where the characters start to sound more like mouthpieces for a selection of opposing views rather than fully realised people. However, the vitality of this cast and staging ensures that it remains pretty engaging even as it verges on the didactic. Ultimately, it's hard not to love a play where a character achieves unexpected spiritual enlightenment when naughty cherubs hijack her yoga session with some personalised, potty-mouthed affirmations and a quick blast of Britney, or where a pair of gyrating, truncheon-swinging Village People-style cops burst through the walls of the set to settle a rancorous dispute. What's particularly wonderful is that, for all the outrageous campery and breaking of the fourth wall, the human dilemmas at the play's heart never feel shortchanged. If structurally the piece is a little messy, Zarafshan's unfettered imagination and zestful gift for comic dialogue rooted in truth, are surely something to celebrate. It's thought-provoking and eventually rather touching, but most of all, it's great fun. I enjoyed it very much. Jacques Merrell-Odom said he was trying to do the right thing when he turned his childhood friend into the police for the murder of Lebanon nurse Caitlyn Kaufman. What would you want someone else to do if that was me? asked his mom, herself a former nurse. Merrell-Odom testified Thursday in the trial of Devaunte Hill, 23, and James Cowan, 30, who are both charged with first degree murder of Kaufman on Interstate-440 in December 2020. Cowan was the driver, and Hill fired the gun in what is described as a road rage incident. Merrell-Odom showed up at Ascension St. Thomas West on Dec. 10, 2020, a week after Kaufmans death, and asked to speak with her mother. He had already tried to reach her through Facebook Messenger. Merrell-Odom ended up speaking with police for several hours. He told them his friend Hill had committed the shooting and that he could get the gun. Hill and Merrell-Odom had known each other since they were early teens. What Merrell-Odom didnt tell detectives was the gun was, in fact, in his own car. When Merrell-Odom got access to WiFi at police headquarters, he messaged Hill over Instagram to get him to confirm that Merrell-Odom was not involved with the shooting. After three hours of talking with the police, he told them he had the gun in his car. The Sunday after the shooting, Hill had traded guns with Merrell-Odom, saying he needed to get rid of the gun. Merrell-Odoms gun was found under Hills mattress when Hill was arrested a few days later. Later that Sunday night, Hill told Merrell-Odom privately and in a group that he had committed the shooting, Merrell-Odom said. Merrell-Odom did collect the reward money. However, hes been in jail since March 2021 on unrelated charges. In fact, hes been in a restricted housing unit for his own safety. Assistant Deputy Public Defender Georgia Sims tried to emphasize to the jury that Merrell-Odom may not be the most reliable narrator. He has changed parts of his story and left out the not insignificant detail of having the gun in his car. In a preliminary hearing the month after the shooting, Merrell-Odom testified that he had not heard Cowan say anything about the shooting. The two did not know each other well. However, Thursday, Merrell-Odom testified that Cowan said, She shouldnt have cut us off. Merrell-Odom said his memory was clearer now, since he had been sober for two years. He was high during his conversations with Hill, he said. He has also had a chance to review his police interview. Other witnesses Thursday dealt with the investigation into Kaufmans death, including a firearms expert who said casings found on I-440 matched the murder weapon. Dr. Erin Carney with the medical examiners office testified about Kaufmans gunshot wound. It entered through her left arm and passed through her left lung, her heart, her right lung and a rib before ending up in her right arm. Over two liters of blood filled Kaufmans chest, she said. It was not a survivable injury. The state plans to wrap up its proof Friday and may get to closing arguments, depending on how long the defenses proof lasts. The jury was told to prepare to come in Saturday. INDIA-ECONOMY Chairperson of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, Gautam Adani, speaks at the World Congress of Accountants in Mumbai on Nov. 19, 2022. Credit - Indranil MukherjeeAFP via Getty Images Billionaire Gautam Adani has slipped from being the worlds third richest man to the fourth, after an activist investment firm released a report Tuesday accusing his company, Adani Group, of brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud worth $218 billion, wiping $5.51 billion from his personal net worth by Thursday. Hindenburg Research, which in the past has shortedor bet againstcompanies like electric truck maker Nikola Corp and Twitter, said it holds short positions in Adani companies through U.S.-traded bonds and non-Indian-traded derivative instruments. Tuesdays report sent shares tied to seven of the Adani Groups listed companies falling by more than 5% on Wednesday, taking a $10.8 billion hit, and forcing the company to issue a strong denial of its contents. Below, what to know about Adani and the corporate corruption allegations. Read More: How a Historic March Could Revive Indias Opposition Movement Who is Gautam Adani? Gautam Adani is a self-made billionaire, and Indias richest man, with a net worth of roughly $118 billion as of April 2022. Much of this wealth was accumulated during the past three years through his company Adani Group, as the share prices of his key listed companies climbed, pushing the billionaires rank to the third-richest man in the world, behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The industrialist began as a commodity trader in the 1980s before he founded his company Adani Group in 1988, eventually expanding it into a private infrastructure empire that operates ports, airports, and coal mines across India and the world. The group also has multiple subsidiaries through its data and cable centers and the manufacturing of defense goods. It plans to expand further through a $70 billion investment in green energy businesses in the coming year. Story continues The companys success has often been linked to lucrative government concessions, thanks to Adanis close ties with Indias ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In the past, Adani has been a vocal supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modis vision for a self-reliant India. What do Hindenburgs findings reveal? Among other allegations, the report says that Adani Group engaged in stock price manipulation and accounting fraud over the course of decades, and found evidence that the groups key listed companies fell in value by 85% despite sky-high valuations. It also said that substantial debt puts the group on precarious financial footing. The report names several family memberslike Gautam Adanis brothers, Rajesh and Vinod Adani, as well as associates of the Adani Groupfor their involvement in major bribery and tax evasion cases. Members of the Adani family have been the subjects of past corruption investigations carried out by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Directorate of Review Intelligence. The Hindenburg report also claims that Adani family members allegedly cooperated in the creation of offshore shell entities worth $4.5 billion through forged documents, primarily in tax-haven jurisdictions like Mauritius, the UAE, and the Caribbean islands. Hindenburg said that SEBI was still investigating a case in Mauritius in September 2022, but that no action has been taken against the group so far. Hindenburg said the reports findings were based on interviews with dozens of individuals, including former senior executives at Adani Group, thousands of documents, and due diligence site visits in almost half a dozen countries. Read More: Indias Richest Man is Buying a Major TV Channel. Its a Blow to Independent Media in the Country. How has the Adani Group responded to the allegations? Adani Groups chief financial officer Jugeshinder Singh said in an official statement Wednesday that the company was shocked by the report, calling it a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless, and discredited allegations. Adani Group did not address specific allegations in its official statement but said it has always been in compliance with the law. The conglomerate also said that the timing of the report suggested malicious intent to undermine the Adani Groups reputation with the principal objective of damaging the upcoming follow-on Public Offering from Adani Enterprises, referring to the groups plans for increasing the amount of freely traded shares. On Thursday, Adani Group said in a new statement that it is considering legal action against Hindenburg. We are evaluating the relevant provisions under US and Indian laws for remedial and punitive action against Hindenburg Research, said Adani Group Legal Head Jatin Jalundhwala. He added that the report created volatility in Indian stock markets that was of great concern and has led to unwanted anguish for Indian citizens. The report was published days before bidding for a $2.5 billion stock sale for Adanis secondary shares begins Friday, which will include anchor investors like the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Morgan Stanley. Finishing high school means all final exams are completed, the last strolls down the hallways are done, and the next chapter of life is about to begin. But for one Hope Lutheran High School senior, it also means continuing the nonacademic journey of working through mental health solutions. Brianna Mullen was nominated for Above & Beyond by Hope Lutheran staff for what shes overcome and the positive changed theyve seen in her life. Mullen has struggled with depression, anxiety and self-harm for the last five years, she said. The lowest point was her sophomore year of high school. I was really anxious having a hard time getting homework done, constantly relapsing with self-harm, and I was hardly able to get myself to school because of how depressed I was, said Mullen. I felt really lonely during that time, like nobody was truly understanding how broken I felt inside. Rock bottom is really where I was at. She found help around her, though, she said from her parents, her teacher Mrs. Littlefield and especially her cat, Bruno. We werent planning to get a cat. But my mom just brought him home and he took over my life really. He made me feel like I had a sense of purpose, of taking care of him and cuddling with him. He just made me feel so much better, said Mullen. And Mrs. Littlefield always helped me. She was there for me to talk to. If I needed to just rant, I could go to her office. Or if I needed someone to call, I could call her anytime. She just made me feel comfortable enough to actually open up to her. Mullen also found help from a quote she heard out of the blue on social media one day. A thief wouldnt break into a house they know had nothing valuable inside. The devil is the same, he wouldnt be attacking you so hard if he knew you had nothing valuable inside you. I dont know why it stuck with me so much. It just randomly showed up on one of my social media sites. I think about it all the time, with all my struggles, said Mullen. Now its just knowing that Ive gone through that point in my life. I feel like I know its not going to last forever. Now, Mullen notices when other people are going through similar struggles and she checks in with them about how they are doing. Other students here also struggle with mental health issues as well. I do my best to make sure those students dont feel as alone as I did. I will make sure to go out of my way to talk to them and keep up with them, said Mullen. It looks like me going by their locker, talking to them and asking them how they are just letting them know Im here. What started as a suggestion to watch the show Criminal Minds soon took off into research and learning more about criminal investigations, which has now become Mullens career goal. Someone told me about Criminal Minds one time and I thought it was the dumbest thing ever until I finally watched one episode. And I was like, Wow, this is the coolest thing. Then it kind of spiraled from there. I looked more into it and then I saw a lot of the episodes were based on true cases. I looked into those cases and got interested in investigating, said Mullen. I plan on going to a tech school to get my basics done. After that, I plan on going to a school that specializes in homicide investigations. Mullen said she will probably attend Minnesota State College Southeast. Although I still struggle with these things, Im in a way better place mentally than I was two years ago, said Mullen. The Winona Community Foundation has announced the addition of four new board members to its board of directors: Rebecca Franzen, Cindy Telstad, Jacob Woodworth and Dave Jensen. They will join current board members Kathy Peterson, Corey Hancock, Amanda Hedlund, Aaron Young, Ann Gibson, Andrew Guzzo, Angela Lallemont, Kevin OReilly, Jolene Vaselaar, Jackie Czaplewski and Maurella Cunningham. Rebecca Franzen has resided in the Winona community since 2016. She is currently employed as the director of human resources for Behrens Manufacturing. Rebecca oversees the strategic HR vision for Behrens, which includes recruiting, retention, employee relations, benefits administration, compensation and company culture. Rebecca has a diverse backing in HR through work in manufacturing, retail and local government. Cindy Telstad is a Winona native who recently retired from Streater & Murphy, P.A., where she practiced law (primarily real estate, estate planning and business law) for 35 years. Cindy has been active in the community and in her profession. She currently serves on the boards of the Minnesota Beethoven Festival and Minnesota Masterpiece Hall. Her past service includes Winona Day Care Center, MN State College SE Technical Foundation, Winona County Historical Society, Winona Family YMCA, Womens Resource Center (now Advocacy Center), Preservation Alliance of Minnesota and Minnesota Marine Art Museum. Jacob Woodworth grew up in Winona and has a deep appreciation and love of the city and the surrounding area. After high school, he attended college in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he spent as much time as possible in the mountains. Jacob worked as the property manager at Camp Olson YMCA in Longville, Minnesota, alongside Nora. They moved back to the Winona area in the fall of 2017. Jacob worked briefly for WKM properties, a company started by his father, Pete Woodworth. Although he is no longer formally in an official capacity with WKM in 2021, he maintains a strong connection with them and Camp Olson splitting time between both organizations and personal projects. Dave Jensen is the owner of Farmers Insurance Dave Jensen Agencies for more than 10 years. He has offices in Winona and Albert Lea. He is active in the community including a recent tenure as chair of the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce board of directors and as a chamber ambassador. He enjoys helping and volunteering for the community and has done so for many years in many different capacities. As new members are welcomed, the foundation also says good-bye to six-year members Jerry Papenfuss and Denise McDowell, as well three-year member Genelle Groh Beck. The Foundation expresses gratitude for their service to the Foundation and to the community as a whole. The following members have been elected to serve as officers for 2023: Kathy Peterson, chair; Corey Hancock, vice-chair; Ann Gibson, secretary; Aaron Young, treasurer; and Amanda Hedlund, past-chair. Learn more about the Winona Community Foundation at www.winonacf.org. IN PHOTOS & VIDEOS: 2 riverboats dock at Winona Wednesday Welcoming the American Symphony Ribbon cutting for the American Symphony American Countess American Symphony American Symphony American Countess American Symphony American Countess Two riverboats Ribbon cutting JUNEAU A 38-year-old Horicon man made his initial appearance in court earlier this week on charges of a felony count of resisting arrest. A Dodge County Sheriffs Deputy had attempted to take the man in custody while he was at the Drunken Duck in Rubicon on Saturday. Robert Coffey Jr. also is charged with three felony counts of bail jumping and a misdemeanor count of resisting or obstructing an officer. He could face up to three years in prison and three years of extended supervision if convicted of just the felony count of resisting arrest. Coffey appeared before Dodge County Circuit Court Commissioner Steven Seim. Seim placed Coffey on a $500 cash bond with conditions that he maintain absolute sobriety and not enter any establishment whose primary business activity is the sale or distribution of alcoholic beverages. According to the criminal complaint: Dodge County Sheriffs deputies entered the Drunken Duck on Saturday attempting to locate Coffey. Originally they had thought it was to issue a warrant for his arrest, but later learned that he was on bond for an open felony case and had a condition that he maintain absolute sobriety. After making contact with Coffey, the deputies noticed that Coffey appeared to be intoxicated. Coffey originally gave the officers a different name and then ran out the door of the bar, not stopping when ordered to do so. The deputy followed Coffey on foot and was able to quickly catch up with him. Coffey did attempt to fight while being taken into custody and a shock gun was used to get control of Coffey during the scuffle. Coffey faces charges related to possession of drugs in Washington County, where he has a hearing scheduled on Feb. 15. A preliminary hearing in Dodge County is scheduled on March 2. Portage officials have a plan for hiring a new city administrator after a discussion about salary, expectations about the job and how the candidate interacts with the community. The Portage Common Council entered an agreement with Public Administration Associates LLC (PPA) to help in the search for a new city administrator and city clerk. Clerk Marie Moe and Administrator Shawn Murphy are planning to retire in March. Chris Swartz is a partner at PAA with prior experience in local government. He made a presentation to the council on Thursday night to explain the process of filling these positions. The conversation included a schedule of how PPA will find candidates and what the council is looking for in a new clerk and administrator. What will this persons role be in the job and the community? Swartz asked. Murphy has been city administrator in Portage since 2013. In that time he manages daily operations and other city governments long-term plans. Murphy told the Daily Register he planned to retire in early March in order to give the new administrator time to learn the position before the capital projects start in early summer. The council discussed the proper salary for the new administrator and Swartz suggested a fair salary range would be between $120,000-$140,000. Mayor Mitch Craig asked alderpersons at the meeting if they were comfortable with that salary range. Alderpersons Chris Crawley and Susan Bauer Frye both said it was too high. I dont think people in my district would like it being this high, Bauer Frye said. She did not give any alternative salary or any other insight for what the salary range should be.Swartz countered that this salary is competitive in the area for similar jobs. Crawley said he didnt like the salary range that high. But if thats what it takes to get a quality candidate Ill agree, Crawley said. Swartz took a survey of the council and other city staff on what they are looking for in a city administrator. This included government experience in budget development, human resources and capital plan improvements. The council also discussed the timeline for when PPA expects a candidate to be offered the job. The schedule includes posting the position on professional job sites and introducing potential candidates to the community. Swartz said candidates could also be taken out for a tour of the town. Its really about selling the community to the candidate as much as it is having the candidate selling to you, Swartz said. The council also discussed whether or not the new city administrator should live in the city. City Attorney Jesse Spankowski said it cannot be part of the contract that the new employee live in the city; however, candidates could be offered incentives for living in the city. Craig agreed it would be best if the new administrator lived within city limits. If we are paying them all this money, they should be spending their money here, Craig said. Swartz did not go into as much detail when explaining the city clerk position but did say it would be similar to the city administrator job. Moes and Murphys resignation letters stated their last day would be March 6. PPAs current plan would to have the new city administrator begin around May 15. A woman was trapped in her own vehicle and begged to be let out after it was allegedly taken by a man and driven erratically from a Dekorra truck stop. Instead, the driver continued driving while telling the woman her family was dead and that he had stolen the car to save her and himself. Kyle M. Wagner, 51, Tonawanda, New York, has been charged with operating a motor vehicle without the owners consent, false imprisonment, attempt to flee or elude an officer and possession of methamphetamine. Wagner could face a maximum of three years in prison and three years of extended supervision if found guilty on each count of operating without the owners consent and false imprisonment. A search warrant was executed on Wagners vehicle that was still at the Dekorra truck stop when the victims car was initially taken. The inventory from the warrant includes a small plastic bag with 0.6 grams of methamphetamine, liquid methamphetamine in a syringe and a pen shell with suspected methamphetamine residue. Wagner was in court on Jan. 20 for his initial appearance in front of Judge Troy Cross. Cross set Wagners cash bond at $40,000 with standard felony conditions and no contact with the victims. According to the criminal complaint filed on Jan. 20 in Columbia County: A sheriffs sergeant received a report from dispatch of a suspicious gray Volkswagen on Jan. 14 around 3:25 a.m. The man driving the vehicle was allegedly not letting the woman in the backseat exit the vehicle. Another victim is identified in the complaint as the husband who was talking with authorities, saying the Volkswagen was stolen with his wife in the backseat. The Columbia County Sheriffs Office, Wisconsin State Patrol and Lodi Police Department worked together to find the vehicle. Around 4:00 a.m. a sheriffs deputy located the vehicle on State Highway 188 near the intersection of County Highway J. The deputy turned on the emergency lights and siren, but Wagner did not slow down. Wagner allegedly drove through a stop sign at State Highway 188 and Gastrow Road travelling at around 90 mph. The deputy reported the vehicle traveling at high rates of speed, crossing the center line of the road, taking sharp corners and putting oncoming traffic at risk. A Lodi police officer put spike strips at the intersection of State Highway 60 and McCully Road. The Volkswagen drove over the spikes and continued into the city of Lodi. The complaint alleges that the vehicle had lost its tires but Wagner kept driving. Wagner allegedly drove into a concrete barrier and went off the road. He got back on State Highway 113 traveling northbound in the southbound lanes. A state trooper performed a pit maneuver that caused the Volkswagen to crash into a guardrail and come to a stop. The victim inside the vehicle was reported safe as Wagner was removed and taken into custody. Officers spoke with Wagner, who said he didnt remember everything from the incident, but did recall driving someone elses car. Wagner told another officer that he had used fentanyl earlier that day and methamphetamine about 10 hours before being arrested. The victim reported she woke up in the backseat of the vehicle while Wagner was driving very fast. The victim told authorities Wagner seemed scared when driving and that he kept saying things like I am saving you and they want to kill you. The victim also said she asked Wagner to stop the vehicle to let her out. Throughout the chase he said he could not stop the car. At one point Wagner allegedly told the victim members of her family were dead. Wagner, according to the victim, seemed to be attempting to drive the vehicle into a bridge or into water. Online records show Wagner remains in custody and is due back in Columbia County Court on Feb. 20 for a pre-trial conference. GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair GALLERY: Thursday at the Columbia County Fair A Columbia County Judge has issued an arrest warrant for a man charged with sexual assault of a 15-year-old, according to court documents. Brady W. Fisher, 21, Baraboo, has been charged with a single count of sexual assault of a child under the age of 16 in Columbia County stemming from an incident last summer. If convicted, Fisher faces a maximum of 25 years in prison followed by up to 10 years of extended supervision. He could also be fined up to $100,000 if convicted. The statewide arrest warrant was signed by Judge Todd Hepler on Thursday. According to the criminal complaint filed on Jan. 24 in Columbia County: A Wisconsin Dells police officer spoke with a 15-year-old victim on July 4, 2022 about an incident in the city earlier that day. The officer reported the victim was at a house in the Wisconsin Dells in the early hours of July 4th between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. The victim was there with some friends who were swimming in a house pool. At one point the victim went inside the house and Fisher followed her. The complaint alleges Fisher asked to make out with the victim and the victim said no. The victim said they did not want to make out because Fisher is five years older than the victim. Fisher allegedly grabbed the victims hand and moved it to his genitals. He allegedly started kissing the victim and penetrated them with his fingers. The victim reported that Fisher asked to have sex with them but the victim said no. Later on the victim went back inside the house to change clothes and Fisher followed into the house again. He allegedly grabbed the victims buttocks and began kissing the victim, who was pushing him away and telling him to stop. Fisher then allegedly forced the victim to have sex with him. A number of items were sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory including the victims DNA, Fishers DNA and the pair of shorts the victim was wearing. A confidential report of laboratory findings was received by the Columbia County Sheriffs Office that said it was likely Fishers DNA profile was present in the victims shorts. Oct. 8, 1970Jan. 25, 2023 FOND DU LACDebra M. Debi Vande Zande of Fond du Lac, WI, went home to be in her loving Saviors arms on January 25, 2023. She fought a great fight against liver cancer. Debi was a wife, mother, nana, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend to so many. Debis world revolved around God and her family. Her faith never wavered; She wore it loud and proud. Debi was the first-born child to Dale and Dorothy Pierce on October 8, 1970. She was the oldest of eight siblings. Debi was born to be a mother, which was evident in her nurturing ways as the big sister to her siblings. Debi then married the love of her life, Rob Vande Zande, Sr. on September 20, 1997, who truly made her feel whole, and brought her destiny to be a mom to life. She was blessed with the opportunity to be a mother to Robs sons: Rob, Jr., and Ryan; she chose to love them unconditionally every single day as if they were her own. Debis life became truly complete with the birth of their son Austin, on March 14, 1997. Debi was the glue of her family, bringing people together, helping to support where and when needed if anything in the family arose. Debi treated all her friends as if they were family. Debi was the rock and was resilient enough to weather any storm, standing with her face to the wind and rain waiting for its force to pass while shielding those she loved from the elements. Debi was gracefully stubborn, a protector, your loudest cheerleader, and Debi was the first to step to the line of defense when her loved ones needed her most. All of these will always be. She is boundless and eternal. Her love was a force to be reckoned with and will live on within our worlds, from one of us to the next, forever. Our family, whether by blood or bond alone, is our constant reminder that we always have a home. Things Debi loved to do were work on silk flower arrangements, help with wedding planning, and any special event she could get her hands on. She loved to do crafts and go to bingo with her mom. Debi is survived by her husband of 25 years, Rob, Sr.; her two sons: Ryan (James) of Vancouver WA, and Austin (Cheyanne) of Fond du Lac; a daughter-in-law, Sarah (Anthony) of Oshkosh; and grandmother to four amazing grandchildren: Ava, Evelynn, Maverick and Gordon; her parents, Dale and Dorothy Pierce of Fond du Lac; her seven siblings: Dennis, Donna (Lawrence), Denise Neesy, Danny (Andrea), Donald, David (Tonya), and Dale Dunn, all of Fond du Lac; Robs parents, Bob and Sue; as well as Robs brothers and sisters; and many nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Debi was preceded in death by her son, Rob, Jr.; and her grandparents. Visitation will be held from 4:00 PM-7:00 PM, Sunday, January 29, 2023, at Uecker-Witt Funeral Home. The funeral service will be held Monday, January 30, 2023, at 11:00 AM, at Grace Christian Church, 1596 4th Street in Fond du Lac with visitation beginning at 10:00 AM and continuing until the time of the service. Burial in Ledgeview Memorial Park Cemetery will follow. The family is requesting that those in attendance wear an item in the color of green which represents liver cancer awareness and/or pink, which was Debis favorite color. A special thank you to the nursing staff at St. Agnes Hospital, 4th floor for the care and compassion that they showed. To SSM Health at Home Hospice Hope for helping bring Debi home in her final days. A GoFundMe page has been established to help defray medical expenses: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-vandezandes-with-medical-bills/donate. As Debi said, I am a winner either way; either I beat cancer and stay with my family here or I go to Heaven and be with my Lord. She now has the largest gold medal walking on the streets of Heaven with her Savior. Services are in the care of Uecker-Witt Funeral Home, 524 North Park Avenue, Fond du Lac, WI, 54935. Additional information and guestbook can be found at ueckerwitt.com. Twenty-one people were taken to hospitals after about 85 vehicles were involved in a pile-up near Beloit that closed Interstate 39/90 for hours on Friday, authorities reported. The Banshees Of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever The Banshees Of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever The world of cinema has changed so much in the past few years for obvious reasons that its often the case that by the time the Oscars roll around, a lot of the nominated films are already available to stream. With the Academy Awards on the horizon, this years nominees have now been announced, and if you didnt catch the likes of Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Banshees Of Inisherin or Elvis in cinemas, youre in luck. Although some of the years top nominees, including Avatar: The Way Of Water, Living and The Whale, are still exclusive to cinemas, others are now available to watch at home. Heres where you can watch this years nominated films... Everything Everywhere All At Once (11 nominations) Whats it about? Where do you even start? Michelle Yeoh takes the lead as Evelyn, a laundromat owner fed up of her humdrum life, who ends up on the most epic of quests when she stumbles into the multiverse. Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actress (Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actress (Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis), Best Supporting Actor (Ke Huy Quan), Best Director (The Daniels), Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing Where to watch: Amazon Prime The Banshees Of Inisherin (Nine nominations) Whats it about? A man on a tiny island off the coast of Ireland is left devastated when his best pal announces out of the blue he no longer wants to be friends at which point his life slowly begins to unravel. Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Farrell), Best Supporting Actress (Kerry Condon), Best Supporting Actor (Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan), Best Director (Martin McDonagh), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score Where to watch: Disney+ All Quiet On The Western Front (Nine nominations) Whats it about? Based on Erich Maria Remarques novel, the anti-war epic takes place at the end of World War I, and centres around a 17-year-old German soldiers experiences. Story continues Nominated for:Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best International Picture, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup And Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects Where to watch: Netflix Elvis (Eight nominations) Whats it about? Directed by Baz Lurrhmann of Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet fame, the film serves as a lavish and colourful retelling of Elvis Presleys life story, with Austin Butler in the lead role. Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actor (Austin Butler), Best Sound, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup And Hairstyling, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing Where to watch: Now Top Gun: Maverick (Six nominations) Whats it about? Picking up over 30 years after the events of the first Top Gun film, Tom Cruise returns as Maverick, who has to face up to his past when he is training up a new gang of Top Gun graduates including the son of his late friend. Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Song, Best Sound, Best Film Editing and Best Visual Effects. Where to watch: Paramount Plus Tar (Six nominations) Whats it about? Conductor extraordinaire Lydia Tars life slowly begins to unravel after allegations about her come to light. Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Actress (Cate Blanchett), Best Director (Todd Field), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing Where to watch: Available if you pay on services like YouTube, Google Play and Amazon Prime. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Five nominations) Whats it about? Wakanda is dealing with the fall-out of King TChallas death, and most face a string of bold new challenges and threats from the outside world. Nominated for: Best Supporting Actress (Angela Bassett), Best Original Song, Best Makeup And Hairstyling, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects Where to watch: Disney+ Triangle Of Sadness (Three nominations) Whats it about? A black comedy satirising the wealthy elite on board a luxury cruise, who find the power hierarchy is turned completely on its head after an unexpected disaster. Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director (Ruben Ostlund), Best Original Screenplay Where to watch: Available if you pay on services like YouTube, Curzon and Google Play The Whale (Three nominations) Whats it about? A reclusive English teacher struggles to mend his broken relationship with his daughter before the end of his life. Nominated for: Best Actor (Brendan Fraser), Best Supporting Actress (Hong Chau), Best Makeup And Hairstyling Where to watch: Available if you pay on services like YouTube, Google Play and Amazon Prime. The Batman (Three nominations) Whats it about? The first chapter in a new story for Batman, the Dark Knight is called on when the Mayor of Gotham is murdered and comes face to face with a curious new villain, The Riddler. Nominated for: Best Sound, Best Makeup And Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects Where to watch: Now Aftersun Whats it about? A young single dad attempts to give his daughter the best holiday he can at a Turkish resort in the mid-1990s. Nominated for: Best Actor (Paul Mescal) Where to watch: Mubi Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (One nomination) Whats it about? This sequel to Knives Out sees Daniel Craig returning as Benoit Blanc who is tasked with solving a whole new mystery, in a whole new location, with a whole new cast of weird and wonderful characters to grapple with along the way. Nominated for: Best Adapted Screenplay Where to watch: Netflix Blonde (One nomination) Whats it about? A fictional reimagining of Marilyn Monroes life story, the film was met with widespread controversy due to its divisive themes and graphic content. Nominated for: Best Actress (Ana De Armas) Where to watch: Netflix Turning Red (One nomination) Whats it about? Teenager Mei has the same problems as any other 13 year old gripes with her parents, turmoil over a crush and the fact she keeps turning into an enormous red panda every time she gets emotional. Nominated for: Best Animated Feature Where to watch: Disney+ Guillermo Del Toros Pinocchio (One nomination) Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Whats it about? A stop-motion retelling of the classic story of Pinocchio, as put through Oscar winner Guillermo Del Toros very specific lens. Nominated for: Best Animated Feature Where to watch: Netflix To Leslie (One nomination) To Leslie To Leslie Whats it about? A single mum descends into alcoholism after her lottery winnings dry up. The film has become particularly notable after it landed Andrea Riseborough an Oscar nomination despite no initial buzz until a week prior to the voting deadline. Nominated for: Best Actress (Andrea Riseborough) Where to watch:Available if you pay on services like YouTube, Google Play and Amazon Prime. READ MORE: Popova Liliya Anatolyvna, an 82-year-old ophthalmologist from Kazakhstan, is chief foreign expert at Daqing Ophthalmology Hospital, in Daqing, in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. During the past 24 years, while working at the hospital, Popova, who has a benevolent heart and exquisite medical skills, has relieved more than 200,000 patients of pain and darkness by restoring their sight. Popova has been dedicated to clinical and scientific research in ophthalmology for more than 50 years. After she retired from the ophthalmology department of Alma-Ata Central Hospital, in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, Popova was invited by Yu Yaoguang, founder of Daqing Ophthalmology Hospital, in 1998 to provide medical guidance at the then-newly established hospital. "I had heard much about China from my grandmother, so I was interested in and curious about China. I wanted to know what China was like, I wanted to see the Chinese people and bring my medical skills to them. So, I accepted the invitation." Popova recalls. Celebrating Spring Festival She says she was also impressed by Yu, who explained the hospital's vision and future goals to her at that time. "Yu told me the hospital mainly focused on serving ordinary people and solving their eye problems. In fact, that was also my original aspiration for becoming an ophthalmologist," she recalls. Thus, she became the first foreign expert at the hospital, as well as the first in Daqing since China's reform and opening-up. She brought advanced technology to China, and she unreservedly passed on her medical skills to young Chinese doctors. Under her guidance, the young doctors have gained a greater understanding of the theoretical knowledge of ophthalmology, and they have constantly improved their clinical-practice skills. "A doctor should not only have rich knowledge and experience, but also understand the pain of the patients. Only those who are willing to help and save their patients can be regarded as good doctors," she often tells her colleagues. Popova Liliya Anatolyvna talks with young doctors at Daqing Ophthalmology Hospital. Popova is not only an outstanding doctor, but also a knowledgeable scholar. She has written five books, and she has had more than 30 influential papers published in renowned ophthalmology journals. In addition to treating patients at the hospital, Popova has participated in free clinic activities, organized by the hospital, and provided free medical services to numerous patients who live in the rural areas of Daqing, and in other cities in Heilongjiang Province. As the hospital has developed, it has provided public information about eye health in villages, communities, factories, public institutions and kindergartens. "It's a meaningful thing, especially for those disadvantaged families. After being diagnosed with ophthalmological diseases, they can get discounts and even free treatments at our hospital, which may help them reduce their family's burden," Popova says. Popova enjoys a good reputation among her patients and their families for her kindness, dedication and excellent medical skills, and she has forged deep friendships with countless patients. "When you help someone, that person's smile is the biggest appreciation, reward and recognition for you," Popova often says. Popova Liliya Anatolyvna received permanent resident status in China in 2016. Chu Fengqin, in her 70s, and who suffers from glaucoma, is one of Popova's patients. Chu's daughter and son-in-law were both very busy with their work; but one day, her daughter asked for leave from work, to accompany Chu to the hospital. When Popova learned about her condition, she decided to visit Chu at her home for the follow-up checks and treatments. In the following two months, Popova visited Chu once a week, to check her eyes. Chu was deeply touched. She often invites Popova to her home to spend holidays together, and they have become like sisters. Once, during a medical consultation in a village in Daqing's Datong District, Popova met a teacher, Wu Ping, who had a serious eye disease. Wu was nearly blind in her left eye, due to cataracts and a pupil defect, but she was worried about the cost of the required operation. Popova invited Wu to the hospital, and she performed the operation on Wu's left eye. Popova paid for the surgery. Wu's vision was largely restored. In a message of gratitude to Popova, Wu wrote, "It is you who has brought me the light and helped me back to the classroom again. Thank you sincerely." Popova Liliya Anatolyvna checks a farmer's eyes. While providing free medical services in the countryside over the decades, Popova has witnessed great changes in China's rural areas. "In the past, we usually treated the patients in shabby village clinics, or in rooms provided by villagers. Now, the village clinics and hospitals have been constructed, as well as those in urban areas, and they are providing us with quite a comfortable working environment. And the villagers' living standards have also been greatly improved," Popova says. Popova, commonly referred to as "Bethune in Daqing," in 2005 was awarded the Friendship Award, the highest honor granted by the Chinese Government to foreign experts, for her unremitting efforts and remarkable contributions to the development of ophthalmology in China. In 2008, Popova was awarded the title of Daqing Honorary Citizen. Popova was invited to attend both the ceremonies to celebrate the 60th and the 70th anniversaries of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC), held at Tian'anmen Square, in Beijing, in 2009 and 2019. Popova Liliya Anatolyvna attended the ceremony to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 2019. On August 16, 2019, Popova attended the founding ceremony of the Belt and Road Ophthalmology Alliance, and she was named honorary director of the alliance's committee by the International Exchange and Cooperation Center of the National Health Commission of the PRC. Daqing Ophthalmology Hospital has reached cooperation agreements with several medical organizations in Russia. "I am happy to see our hospital has continued to introduce both talented ophthalmologists and advanced ophthalmological equipment. Many young doctors at our hospital have received opportunities to learn from and exchange ideas and skills with others at hospitals in countries along the Belt and Road." Popova says. "That will help improve the surgical techniques of our doctors and the management level of our hospital. I believe our hospital will develop faster, and it will better serve our patients," Popova adds. Yu Yaoguang (first from left), head of Daqing Ophthalmology Hospital, presented special contribution awards to Popova Liliya Anatolyvna (third from right) and four foreign experts at the ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the hospital on August 23, 2019. Popova received permanent resident status in China in 2016, and she was awarded the title of the Most Beautiful Striver in Daqing in 2019. Popova, who has lived in China for 24 years, considers China to be her second homeland. Despite her age, she says she has never considered the notion of retirement. "I know that I am gradually getting older, but I still intend to work as long as I can see, my heart still beats, and I still have my patients' trust," she says. Photos Supplied by Yuan Haoyan (Women of China English Monthly December 2022 issue) People visit an exhibition during the 14th China-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Summit in southwest China's Chongqing on Nov. 16, 2021. [Xinhua/Tang Yi] MEXICO CITY, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) For decades, Argentines have dreamt of having a hydroelectric power plant on the Santa Cruz River, one of the last large free-flowing rivers in the region of Patagonia encompassing the southern end of South America, so that they could be less dependent on energy imports. But the plan to build one was on ice at one point because of the engineering challenges of adverse weather conditions like freezing temperatures and perennial gusts, as well as environmental impacts given the river's proximity to an iconic glacier. Now, thanks to Argentina's determination and Chinese expertise, Argentines are about to witness their dream coming true. Chinese engineers and technicians with CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd., together with their Argentine colleagues, inspect a train in Llavallol, some 33 km south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 16, 2020. [Photo by Martin Zabala/Xinhua] Breeze of the Belt and Road On the first day of the Year of the Rabbit, when most of the Chinese people across the world were still enjoying their Spring Festival vacation, Chinese engineer Xiong Yongfeng went to work on the construction site of the Nestor Kirchner-Jorge Cepernic Hydroelectric Power Plant on Santa Cruz. Upon arrival, Xiong took out some construction blueprints, and started a heated discussion with Argentine engineers on site. Surrounding him and his Argentine colleagues were running machines and moving construction vehicles. Xiong was one of the 50 Chinese staff remaining on duty during the festival break. Together with Argentine staff, they ensured that the construction is progressing smoothly, so that ordinary Argentines could be a step closer to their "energy dream." Besides increasing energy sufficiency in Argentina, the project has improved the living conditions of many, generating jobs and building roads for the local communities. Braving numerous challenges, Chinese and Argentine engineers have also guaranteed the environmental sustainability of the project, as the plant has been designed with fish passes and ecological bottom wells. Argentina is not the only Latin American country working with China on infrastructure construction under the framework of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The reconstruction of the Eloy Alfaro International Airport in the Ecuadorian city of Manta, which was hit hard by a powerful earthquake in 2016, has enhanced the country's trade, tourism and business ties with the rest of the world; a UHV power transmission lane stretching from north to south in Brazil, a country abundant in energy but limited by unequal distribution, has brought benefits to 22 million Brazilians, or 10 percent of the country's population. Eduardo Regalado, a researcher at the International Policy Research Center of Cuba, said the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has given a strong boost to the development of relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries. China has played a key role in promoting infrastructure construction in Latin America, while economic and social development in the region has injected new impetus into China-LAC relations, Regalado said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a video address delivered at the seventh Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held Tuesday in Buenos Aires, more and more countries in the region have engaged in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with China, supported and participated in the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, and are working with China in building a China-LAC community with a shared future. Bilateral Trade in Bloom Dalian Port in northeast China has opened a direct shipping route to import cherries from Chile. Earlier in the month, the ship GSL Tinos, loaded with 616 twenty-foot equivalent units of Chilean cherries, docked at the container terminal in Dalian after a 22-day trip. Of the total, 592 TEUs of cherries would be delivered directly to the wholesale markets in China. The others would be transferred to the Republic of Korea via Dalian Port. A worker weighs nectarines in a factory of Agricola Garces in Mostazal, Chile, on Jan. 19, 2018.[Xinhua/Xu Rui] Chilean cherries are increasingly favored by Chinese consumers, and the market demand continues to rise. "China has become our main market and strategic partner," said Victor Maroto, a representative of Chilean shippers. In addition to Chilean cherries, blueberries from Peru and beef from Uruguay are also among the best-selling products in China, especially during the Spring Festival. In Guangzhou in southern China, Ecuadorian roses and Colombian hydrangeas have become good choices for local people to decorate their houses. During the fifth China International Import Expo held in November 2022 in Shanghai, Latin American companies showcased such quality products as Argentine wine and Colombian chocolate, hoping to take a bigger share in the Chinese market. Meanwhile, Latin American countries have become important markets for Chinese companies. In Ecuador, Chinese vehicles lead the automobile market as consumers are increasingly drawn to their design, sticker price and innovative features. Automobiles, vans, SUVs and trucks of more than 40 Chinese brands are estimated to be sold in Ecuador. Even during the pandemic, bilateral trade has showed strong vitality. Data from China's General Administration of Customs showed that in 2022, the total trade value between China and Latin America and the Caribbean exceeded 450 billion U.S. dollars for the second consecutive year. The Angel of Independence monument is lit up in red to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Mexico in Mexico City, capital of Mexico, Feb. 14, 2022. [Xinhua/Xin Yuewei] Together Toward a Better Future In Mexico, the "home of corn," China's technical cooperation with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is making steady progress. Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT, said the collaboration with China can be regarded as one of the mutually beneficial examples of working together to safeguard the world's food security. "CIMMYT and China together can be partners," said Govaerts. "CIMMYT can work with China for new wheat varieties that can fight climate change, for new maize varieties that can sustain new diseases." China and Latin America have set a good example of South-South cooperation, and they are expected to carry out more exchanges and cooperation through such multilateral platforms as the China-CELAC Forum in the future, so as to jointly benefit the world, Argentine sociologist Marcelo Rodriguez said. In Tuesday's video address, Xi said: "We highly value our relations with CELAC, and take CELAC as our key partner in enhancing solidarity among developing countries and furthering South-South cooperation. That is why China has been working with LAC countries to steadily strengthen the China-CELAC Forum and take the China-LAC relationship into a new era characterized by equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and benefits for the people." In fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine cooperation between China and multiple Latin American countries has helped protect people's lives and health. China-LAC cooperation in science and technology innovation has also yielded fruitful results, including China-Brazil Earth resources satellite cooperation and an astronomy research center jointly launched by China and Chile. As Xi said in the video address, China is ready to join forces with LAC countries to promote world peace and development, build a community with a shared future for mankind, and open up an even brighter future for the world. (Source: Xinhua) ( ) Jamaicas Andrae Popcaan Sutherland made his breakthrough with a bit of cultural cross-pollination. Back in 2010, he shared the single Clarks with the more established dancehall musician Vybz Cartel, a lively song of praise for Britains perennial high street shoe store. Everybody haffi ask weh mi get mi Clarks/Di leather hard, di suede soft/Toothbrush get out di dust fast, they sang, neglecting to add that the back to school range is an ideal blend of hard-wearing and affordable. Today hes a huge star in his own country, where he runs his own festival, Unruly, in his home parish of St Thomas and carries the flame for the energetic dancehall sound, but also acts as a bridge to all manner of other musical styles. Hes been on UK rap tracks with Giggs and Kano, made dramatic electronic pop with Gorillaz, soul with Jorja Smith, dance music with Jamie xx and melodic afrobeats with the Nigerian superstar Burna Boy. Most profitably, he keeps getting together with the Canadian giant Drake, whos long been a hoover for international sounds and has found that his meandering singing is a sweet counterpoint to Popcaans layered Auto-Tuned voice. Drake signed him to his OVO Sound record label, took him on a European tour and sings with him again on this fourth album on We Caa Done. Popcaans urgent vocals scrape appealingly against Drakes more relaxed tones while warm piano chords and cut-up female voices provide the melody. Hes more old fashioned on another Burna Boy duet, with a sprightly saxophone sample keeping the mood upbeat. Popcaans voice is lighter and less gruff that many of his dancehall peers, and hes happy to embrace his cornier side, especially on Next to Me, a highly tuneful love song that finds him duetting with his rumoured girlfriend, Miss World 2019 Toni-Ann Singh, and suggesting: We could go anywhere/Anywhere you choose/Take you on a cruise/Girl you are so beautiful. Skeleton Cartier is equally sunny and hummable, and its not until over halfway through a long collection that he attempts something a bit tougher. Set It is minimal and pacey, dominated by rugged stabs of electronic bass. Generally it all flows along almost too smoothly, touching on his upbringing on St Thomas Native and praising God on the slower title track. There arent enough songs that leap out to grab an even bigger crossover audience, but hell definitely be able to afford as many new pairs of shoes as he needs. (OVO Sound) Five former Memphis police officers indicted on charges of murder and kidnapping in Tyre Nichols' death Articles Sorry, there are no recent results for popular articles. Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@captimes.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. Editor's note: With the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce Agribusiness Committee's Rural Recognition Banquet honorees being announced this week, The Columbus Telegram will be profiling each of the award winners. This is the first in the series. When Crystal Klug went off to college, she thought she would leave the farm life for good, moving to the big city at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Unbeknownst to her, she said, the experience would bring her back in a meaningful way. In her first couple of years at college, Klug met some girls who had never been on or experienced a farm. Wanting to share some of her experiences with them, Klug was eager to talk about some of their ideas and even misconceptions about farms. Being in the agricultural communication program, it seemed like a good fit. They talked about those round things on the side of the road and they thought they were for bumpers. Id come to find out they were talking about hay bales, Klug said. Those experiences, as it turns out, would lead to Klug being named Outstanding Woman in Agriculture by the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce's Agribusiness Committee. She and the other parties chosen will be honored at the 54th Annual Rural Recognition Banquet at 6 p.m. on March 21 at the American Legion, 2263 23rd St. A lot of the people who have been honored with this are people I look up to so being one of those people is really quite humbling. Its very nice, it was unexpected, you just do what you can do, you dont do it for recognition, Klug said. From the grow crop and cow calf farm she grew up on in Axtell, Nebraska, Klug has come quite a way, but has never forgotten her roots. When she realized in college how many people simply don't understand how farming works, a spark ignited that led Klug to work with CommonGround, one of her favorite activities since she joined in 2016. "We're a volunteer organization of women talking to moms about where food comes from. I just came back from a convention in Savannah, Georgia, we learned about Gen Z and what they're like, more about that generation so we can more effectively communicate with our consumers," Klug said. Pillen Family Farms Marketing Director Kurtis Harms came to know Klugs true passion for agriculture and for educating others about it in college, where they were enrolled in the same program and even in broadcasting together. That passion to teach people about agriculture, he said, has not gone anywhere, just gotten more efficient. I remember she was just so irritated listening to consumers complaints or worries about eating beef and she was so passionate about correcting the misinformation, Harms said. Klug, Harms said, has grown into the organization a lot and found a way to use her experience in farming to communicate and educate better than when she started. She gets so defensive in wanting to correct consumer concerns and I think working in production agriculture has helped her to become a better advocate because she is really able to provide solid examples, solid recommendations or guidance to consumers that have questions and concerns," Harms said. Klug attributed her success with CommonGround to her personal experience with farms, growing up on and now living and working on one, as well as her training in communication. Over the years, shes learned how to better relate to the people she meets. What I really appreciate about it, sometimes we get so defensive and the training I received makes me take a step back and really listen to what concerns are, and especially with moms, theres always something I can relate to, I can relate to anybody, Klug said. Harms said that with how he's seen her approach to CommonGround and her knowledge of the industry develop over the years, he suspects she'll do even more in the future. Klug said the type of relationships she's learned to develop are vital not only for those she educates but for farmers as well. None of us are that much different and once we establish trust with consumers, we can start educating and telling our story but until we reach that level of trust, it doesnt matter what you say or what science says, theyre not going to listen unless you establish that," Klug said. In addition to her administrative work on the farm, Klug also works at Samson, LLC, which does process verification. Klug said that while her work and especially her husband Beau's work are difficult and his comes with many long days, they love it. "I know it is so much work, there are a lot of highs and a lot of lows but I can't imagine my kids growing up in anything else and I cant imagine any other professions for us," Klug said. The Klugs are also heavily involved with the Platte County Fair and 4-H. Both have been 4-H leaders since before they had children. With the fair, Klug said the Saturday activities for 2022, such as kids' day and the celebrity swine showmanship contest are some of her more proud achievements at the fair. She got involved for the same reason she gets involved in anything, she said. I grew up that if youre going to complain, you better have a solution and be willing to roll up your sleeves and do something about it, Klug said. "I've also learned sometimes you've got to zip your mouth and not complain so you dont feel obligated to take on anything else." A week ago, a Greek court dropped charges against 24 immigrant rescue volunteers including 27-year-old Syrian swimmer Sara Mardini. It is a devastating climbdown for Greek authorities, confirming that the charges against her and her colleagues were baseless and outrageous. Sara Mardini in a talk show hosted by Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Berlin, on 18 February, 2019. [Photo by Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung / CC BY-ND 3.0 In August 2018, Greeces petty bourgeois pseudo-left Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) government arrested Mardini and another aid worker, Sean Binder. Syriza ruled Greece in a coalition with the far-right Independent Greeks (Anel). While overseeing draconian EU-led austerity, Syriza set up EU-backed concentration camps to house refugees fleeing NATO wars in the Middle East and Africa in horrific conditions. Mardini and other aid workers were charged for helping refugees and migrants, fleeing war-torn areas in the Middle East and Africa, at risk of drowning at sea. They were accused of people smuggling, fraud, membership of a criminal organization and money laundering, facing up to 20 years in prison, for working for the search and rescue NGO, known as ERCI (Emergency Response Centre International), on the island of Lesbos. After their arrest, Mardini and Binder spent more than 100 days in prison before being released on bail, facing up to eight years in prison if found guilty. According to Human Rights Watch, other aid workers include Nassos Karakitsos, a trained rescuer, and Panos Moraitis, the founder of the search-and-rescue group, who were also held in prolonged pretrial detention in 2018, forcing the group to cease its operations. There is currently no search-and-rescue organization active on Lesbos. Sara and her Olympian younger sister Yusra have become internationally famous after they risked their lives in 2015 to save 18 fellow refugees as they crossed the Aegean from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos. When the boats engine failed, leaving the craft drifting and taking on water, Sara and Yusra swam the boat to safety. After a 25-day march to Germany on foot and by train and bus, Sara and Yusra were granted asylum there. A year later, Sara returned to Greece and joined ERCI as a volunteer to help refugees. Her story was told in a highly popular 2022 Netflix movie, The Swimmers, that recounts the last ten years of Sarah and her sister Yusra, leaving their parents and younger sister in Syria to seek refuge in Germany, during the US-NATO led war in Syria in 2015. They both swam for the Syrian national team before fleeing home. In Germany, Yusra resumed swimming training until qualifying for the 2016 Rio Olympics, then five years later for the Tokyo Olympics as part of the refugee Olympic team. The Syriza government brought charges against rescue volunteers based on a Greek police report containing blatant factual errors. The police provided no evidence to back up such charges. In 2018, Mardinis lawyer, Harris Petsikos, told the WSWS that Mardini has denied all the charges. These very serious accusations are in no way substantiated by the evidence in the police file. The accused are totally innocent. Police cannot prove anything concrete, but it will take time for the courts to hear our arguments. He added, My clients and the other defendants are accused of having committed crimes in Greece on specific dates when they were not even in Greece. We provided specific evidence from Germany and England, showing that on those dates, they were in Germany or England. Petsikos noted, These accusations are almost incredible. They had radios to speak to each other, and on this public radio frequency, they could also hear what the police were saying. Now they are accused of hearing police radio transmissions that are supposedly state secrets. But this is obviously not the case. By bringing charges against Mardini and her colleagues, the petty bourgeois reactionaries in Syriza were carrying out the bidding of the entire European Union (EU). As it waged war in Libya, Syria and across Africa and the Middle East, it sought to block tens of millions of people forced to flee their homes from coming to Europe. Trampling on refugees fundamental right to asylum, it built a vast network of detention camps in Europe and the Mediterranean in which refugees are imprisoned in horrific condition. This criminal policy goes hand in hand with legitimizing extreme-right politics, sweeping austerity against the working class and remilitarization with massive spending for police-state measures. The trial against Sara and other rescue volunteers was set to begin on January 10, 2023. Human rights organizations condemned the trial. They and the defendants pointed out that the trumped-up charges effectively amounted to an attempt to criminalize anyone working to help refugees and immigrants. If I can be criminalized for mostly doing little more than handing out bottles of water and smiles, then so can anyone. This trial is not about me and Sara, or even the 22 other defendants. This trial is about the Greek authorities trying to crush compassion and prevent people from seeking safety. But I trust that justice will prevail, and we will be able to get on with our lives, said Sean Binder. This case is really an indictment of the Greek authorities, who are going after people for saving lives the authorities didnt want them to save, said Bill Van Esveld, associate childrens rights director at Human Rights Watch. Meanwhile the Greek government continues to restrict humanitarian rescue while also illegally pushing back refugees and migrants, forcing them into the deadly situations that humanitarians tried to alleviate. When the trial began, Amnesty International renewed its calls to the Greek authorities to drop all charges against them. Nils Muiznieks, Director of Amnesty Internationals European Regional Office, said: Sarah and Sean did what any of us should do if we were in their position. Helping people at risk of drowning in one of the deadliest sea routes in Europe and assisting them on the shoreline is not a crime. This trial reveals how the Greek authorities will go to extreme lengths to deter humanitarian assistance and discourage migrants and refugees from seeking safety on the countrys shores, something which we see in a number of European countries. It is farcical that this trial is even taking place. All charges against the rescuers must be dropped without delay. The collapse of the Greek regimes trumped-up charges against Mardini underscore, above all, that EUs entire Fortress Europe policy targeting refugees is utterly reactionary and steeped in the criminality of European states and governments. The defense of migrant rights requires the international mobilization of the European working class in a struggle against imperialist war, the EU and the EUs vast police-state apparatus. Another right-wing provocation was held Tuesday afternoon at Harvard University directed against anthropology professor John Comaroff. This is the latest episode in a #MeToo-style witch-hunt that has been going on now for two-and-a-half years. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing on Comaroffs part. This has not stopped a layer of middle class hysterics on the campus, spearheaded by the leadership of Harvard Graduate Students Union (HGSU)-United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 5118. The Harvard Crimson, which has also been at the center of the smear campaign, headlined its Wednesday article, More than 100 Students Walk Out of Embattled Harvard Professor Comaroffs First Class of Semester. The walkout was of the entirely stage-managed variety. The protesters had taken seats in the classroom in order to get up and leave. John Comaroff (johncomaroff.com) The three Crimson staff writers could not contain their pleasure at the chance for another attack on the distinguished scholar. Describing the scene in the classroom, they write, As Comaroff began to speak, students rose from their seats and filed out of the classroom, chanting, Justice for survivors, and No more Comaroff, no more complicity. They add, As the walkout begin, Comaroff broke into a smile and nodded at the protesters. They refer to one student telling Comaroff to Smile in hell, asshole. According to the Crimson the protest was organized by members of Our Harvard Can Do Better and the HGSU-UAW Feminist Working Group and was attended by students associated with Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard and the Student Labor Action Movement. In an obvious conflict of interest, the Crimson article quotes one of the papers own editorial editors, Tenzin R. Gund-Morrow, 26, saying he hopes a new administration will bring changes to Harvards policies regarding allegations of harassment and misconduct by faculty. Im just hoping that with any change in the administration, there will be some shift in the policy, Gund-Morrow said. But obviously, as the organizers said, that is sadly a low chance. The Crimson makes no mention of the fact that Comaroff has never been found guilty of sexual contact or abuse of any kind. Nonetheless, the various liars continue to spread their lies. A press release issued by Our Harvard Can Do Better, one of the organizers of the protests, read: Harvard professor John Comaroff, whom the university found guilty of violating sexual harassment policies in 2022, attempted to return to the classroom Tuesday. As the World Socialist Web Site pointed out in September 2022 responding to a Crimson editorial: For the record, the case against Comaroff is without substance. He is not guilty of serial [sexual] assault, nor has he ever been accused of it. Comaroffs vindictive accuser, Lilia Kilburn, was properly warned by Comaroff about the dangers of traveling with her gay partner to parts of Africa where homosexuals faced persecution. In his capacity as a faculty adviser, Comaroff was making Kilburn aware of the possible consequences of her actions, not only for herself, but for others. Illegitimately, in an effort to save face and appease the identity politics zealots, Harvard punished Comaroff for his entirely appropriate warning to Kilburn. This was his supposed violation of the sexual harassment policies. The universitys unprincipled action, implemented by new university President Claudine Gay, then dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, opened the door to the present witch-hunt. It also facilitated the launching of a lawsuit against Harvard by Kilburn and two other graduate students, alleging that the university had failed to defend them against sexual harassment. As far as Kilburns other allegations against Comaroff are concerned, the WSWS continued in September 2022, As there is absolutely no verifiable evidence to support her claim, the circumstances strongly indicate that Kilburn, for reasons best known to herself, concocted a story about two or three unwanted kisses, a claim that even Harvards investigators, predisposed to believe accusers, felt obliged to dismiss. The claim that the widely renowned anthropologist represents a danger to Harvard students, we have pointed out, defies all reason. Comaroff is not only an accomplished academic, he is a socially conscious individual with a lengthy record of struggle against colonialism and oppression. Wednesdays Crimson comments that Our Harvard Can Do Betteran organization focused on combating campus rape culturedescribed Comaroffs continued presence at the University as shameful and called for his resignation in a statement endorsing the walkout. The newspaper quotes organizer Rebecca S. Araten as saying, This man is not safe to interact with undergraduate students. It is likely that many of the students involved in the protest and probably the organizers themselves have never familiarized themselves with the facts of the case and have never read Harvards systematic rebuttal of the graduate students lawsuit. A campaign page has been set up to solicit emails from students claiming John Comaroff is a known sexual abuser. He is a danger to the Harvard community. His employment sends a message to the Harvard community, and the entire world, that sexual abuse, and misogyny are acceptable. To prioritize the safety of Harvard students and dismantle a culture that accepts sexual abuse, and misogyny, Harvard students demand John Comaroff is fired, and asserting again that he is a danger to students. This is not only a pack of despicable lies, it is a fantasy. The campaign has a goal of 2,500 with 239 supporters as of January 26. That even 239 students would swallow the lies of the right-wing alliance of #MeToo witch-hunters, the UAW Local 5118 leadership and unscrupulous journalists is troubling. But with Harvards student body numbering some 23,000, the supporters of the witch-hunt are clearly in a minority. As noted, an especially rotten role has been played in the ongoing witch-hunt by HGSU-UAW Local 5118. While leaving the official organizing of Tuesdays provocation to their Feminist Working Group, Local 5118 enthusiastically endorsed the protest on Twitter. Harvard Grad Students Union-UAW Local 5118 tweet HGSU-UAW has been instrumental in the cowardly attack on Comaroff. It was the UAW local that filed a grievance last August claiming that by allowing Comaroff to teach in the fall semester, Harvard was breaching its contractual agreement to maintain a safe and healthy work and educational Environment. This grievance also falsely claimed that Comaroff had a well-documented history of harassing women and queer students. UAW Local 5118 is run by petty bourgeois careerists who have no genuine association with the struggles of the working class. The union leadership, in fact, includes two of Comaroffs accusers. Former HGSU President Brandon Mancilla was recently elected director of UAW Region 9a. Mancilla was instrumental in pushing through a four-year contract with Harvard in November 2021 which imposed an effective pay cut of 1.2 percent on Harvard grad students. Mancilla will now be in a position to play the same role in relation to all Region 9a UAW members. There are no doubt numerous self-serving interests motivating the various individuals and pseudo-left groups in this attack. For UAW Local 5118 the campaign against Comaroff also serves as a diversion from more pressing issues. On January 24, Bloomberg Law ran an article headlined College, University Strike Wave Continues Its Swell Into 2023. The article notes: The ongoing labor strife on college campuses is part of a broader trend of increased strike action across the US economy. Professors, graduate teaching and research assistants, and other academic workers went on strike 15 times in 2022, the piece continued, headlined by the University of California system strike that lasted nearly six weeks and involved 48,000 graduate student workers. The year saw the most strikes by academic workers in higher education in at least 20 years. In all of these struggles, unions such as the UAW stand on the side of the administrations and the political establishment, not the workers. The HGSU-UAWs disdain for truth and contempt for the democratic rights of professor Comaroff should be a warning as to the role they will play in future struggles of grad students. Students and faculty cannot allow this filthy campaign to continue. The silence by many at Harvard who know that Comaroff is being persecuted has to end. There must be a fight to expose the lies and mobilize support behind Comaroff. Britains new anti-strike laws are expected to be on the statute books by the summer. They are some of the most draconian in the world. The next vote on the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill takes place on January 30, before it proceeds to the House of Lords. The Bill will allow the government to impose Minimum Service Levels (MSLs) on six sectors of the workforce, public and private, covering key industries. The first to be brought under the legislation are the ambulance, fire/rescue and rail services. The legislation will then be imposed on the health and education services, border security and nuclear decommissioning. Striking ambulance service workers in Sheffield, January 23, 2023 [Photo: WSWS] This would mean a significant proportion of workers (around 20 percent) across vital sections of the economy would have to keep working during industrial action. The law is aimed at preventing millions of workers from taking effective strike action. It will cover all the countries of the United Kingdom except Northern Ireland. The legislation will initially cover over 130,000 workers. But it will then be vastly extended to cover well over 5 million workers. These are the 2.5 million employees in the education sector and around 2.5 million in health, and 650,000 plus workers in transport, including 310,000 in sectors linked to the mass transit of passengers. The 2016 Trade Union Act was the first UK legislation to define these sectors as important public services, adding rescue to fire services and expanded the definition of education services to include education of those aged under 17. It imposed ballot thresholds for strikes and more onerous ones for those in key industries. The Act 2016 introduced a new minimum turnout threshold, requiring a ballot turnout of at least 50 percent of those eligible to vote in order for the industrial action to proceed. An additional threshold was imposed for important public services where at least 40 percent of those eligible to vote were required to vote yes to strike action. At the time, the Labour Party only quibbled over wording, tabling a defeated amendment calling for the 40 percent ballot turnout threshold to apply only to those who work in essential services as defined by the International Labor Organisation, that states the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Under the new legislation, a set percentage of services determined by the government must be allowed to function during strikes. Workers would be named and instructed to work by companies, effectively conscripted, even after having voted to strike in a legal ballot. Currently only police officers, members of the armed forces and some prison officers are prohibited from striking. Failure by workers and trade unions to comply with the laws will have drastic implications. If unions do not take reasonable steps to ensure workers comply with work notices . they can be sued for damages by employerswith the cap for these costs increased last year, taking them up to 1 million. The Bill ends unfair dismissal protections enshrined in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which the House of Commons library notes, gives protection to employees against dismissal because of taking part in industrial action, by making any such dismissal automatically unfair, providing the industrial action they take part in is protected (meaning the union has complied with all legal requirements). An amendment in the new bill would remove this protection from any employee who takes part in a strike contrary to a valid work notice from an employer that has identified and requested that employee to work. The new law not only allows a worker defying an instruction to work to be fired. It allows the mass firing of all workers involved in strike action if a union is deemed not to have taken reasonable steps to ensure the specified workers comply with work notices. The House of Commons briefing explains, As acts to induce workers to take part in strikes would no longer be protected against tort action under section 219 if the union fails to take reasonable steps under new section 234E(b), any workers taking part in such strikes would lose their protection from dismissal under section 238A, even if they personally complied with the work notices. Striking teachers at Knightswood school, Glasgow, January 2023 [Photo: WSWS] Bringing millions of workers under the legislation is central to the governments plans to clamp down on the strike wave now involving millions of workers in education and the National Health Service. On January 30, a ballot for industrial action by more than 33,000 members of the Fire Brigades Union will close, with a vote to strike expected. The government has ensured minimum service regulations can be used against any strike taking place from the day after the legislation is enacted, even if the relevant strike ballot took place before the Bill was passed. The Labour Party pledged to vote against the Act, knowing that its passage is a formality given the Tories substantial parliamentary majority. However, its main reason for opposing the Bill is because it is happy with the existing raft of anti-strike legislation passed by Margaret Thatcher, which the 1997-2010 Blair-Brown government maintained in its entirety despite Labours enormous majority. More fundamentally, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer argues that the trade unions must be relied on to repress strikes by building a corporatist arrangement in which the union bureaucracy works closely together with big business and the government. Opposing the bill, Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed that a major problem with the legislation is that, in France and Spain, where such laws are in force, they lose vastly more strike days than Britain. Has the transport minister taken any time at all to speak to their governments or trade unions to learn any real lessons from them? The trade unions have declared they will take only legal action in opposition to the Bill, with neither the Trades Union Congress (TUC) nor any of its 48 affiliated unions organising industrial action to fight it. TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak pledged the trade unions compliance with its provisions once passed, while waiting on a future Labour government to repeal it. Trades Union Congress leader designate Paul Nowak speaking at the CWU rally [Photo: WSWS] The unions are appealing not only to Labour MPs to oppose the Bill, but to Tory MPs as well, from the very ruling party pushing it through. In seeking to legitimise its plans, the government argued, Even the International Labour Organizationthe guardian of workers rights around the world to which the TUC itself subscribessays that minimum service levels are a proportionate way of balancing the right to strike with the need to protect the wider public. Many restrictions on strikes, including minimum services requirements, are indeed authorised by the ILOtestament to the rotten character of the trade union bureaucracy the world over and the way it disarms workers in the face of a brutal class war offensive being waged by the ruling class internationally. In a perspective article last December, the World Socialist Web Site warned of the implications of the Bill then being drafted by the government, and its stated intention to use the armed forces to against the growing strike movement. We noted, Minimum services legislation is already widely used across Europe and has spearheaded a turn to direct state repression to enforce brutal austerity ever since the 2008 global financial meltdown. The House of Commons briefing gives numerous examples of how such authoritarian measures are relied on by the ruling elite and complied with by the union bureaucracy. It notes that in Spain, On 23 September 2010, for the first time a collective agreement was concluded between the [Socialist Party] Government and the two main trade unions to organise minimum service provision during general strike action that was due to take place six days later. The agreement mainly covered the transport sector, as negotiations in all other sectors had failed. Whatever lie Starmer, Rayner and company tell now, the likelihood is that a Labour government would discover the merits of maintaining MSLs once in office, just as its Blairite predecessors kept the last round of Tory anti-strike laws in place. The Australian school system reopens in 2023 in conditions of enormous crisis. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated long-standing problems within the schoolsthere is chronic underfunding, staffing shortages, an unprecedented divide between affluent and working class schools, and teachers and school staff are enduring crushing workloads while having their real wages eroded by escalating costs of living. This situation has not emerged by accidentit has been engineered by successive Labor and Liberal governments at the state and federal levels, in collaboration with the Australian Education Union. The time has come for teachers and school workers to take a stand! Striking NSW teachers marching towards parliament on June 30, 2022 [Photo: WSWS] The Committee for Public Education calls for the development of a unified counter-offensive, aimed at securing decent pay and conditions for all educators, and a fully funded and freely accessible public education system that provides the highest quality schooling for all children and young people, regardless of their familys wealth. The past twelve months have been a nightmare for countless teachers and school workers. 2022 began with the forced reopening of the schools amid a record surge of COVID-19 infections. This measure was a critical component of the Australian ruling elites embrace of a let it ripstrategy, abandoning all public health measures that had previously contained the spread of the virus. The approach was driven by concern to protect corporate profitsthen Prime Minister Scott Morrison openly acknowledged that schools had to be kept open in order for workers to return to their workplaces and for shops to be open. This deadly policy was implemented by the alliance of Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews with his far-right New South Wales counterpart Dominic Perrottet and then Prime Minister Scott Morrison. It has been continued by the Albanese Labor government. Since its election in May 2022 more people have died of COVID than in the two-and-a-half years prior. COVID surged through the schools last year, belying numerous lies from government officials that schools were not vectors of transmission and that children did not spread the virus. While proper statistics do not appear to have been kept, or if they have they are being suppressed, it appears that only a small minority of school workers avoided contracting COVID last year. Many teachers and education support staff contracted the virus numerous times. How many school workers were killed last year from intra-school transmission? How many now have Long COVID? That the answers to these basic questions are unknown reflects the political establishments indifference to the consequences of mass infection. The end of zero COVID in China has triggered new mass infections, further raising the danger of new, vaccine-resistant variants of the virus. Nevertheless, in 2023, the pandemic has been falsely declared as over by state government authorities. One especially malicious implication of this is that immune-compromised educators are not permitted to work from home and teach remotelyleaving them with the dilemma of whether to return to the classroom and risk dangerous infection or to quit the profession. The pandemic has only exacerbated the school staffing crisis. Before COVID-19 there were significant staffing pressures, due to teachers quitting the profession because of untenable conditions in the schools. This includes enormous unpaid overtime expectations, excessive administrative responsibilities including imposing regressive standardised tests, and inadequate support for dealing with students with additional needs and challenging behaviours. An Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership survey last year found that full-time teachers typically worked 55 hours a week, on average 45 percent more hours than they are paid for. A large proportion of graduate teachers quit within their first few years, while an extraordinary 50 percent of all student teachers quit their courses before graduating. The school year commences with thousands of unfilled positions across the country. Previous government forecasts anticipated a shortage of more than 4,000 teachers across Australia by 2025. However, the situation is already worse than that. In New South Wales, latest available figures show 3,300 vacant positions, and in Victoria, there are 1,100 teaching positions still vacant for 2023. This is triggering additional classroom overcrowding, cuts to curriculum programs, teachers being asked to fill roles outside their area of expertise, and further workload pressures. The teacher unions are directly responsible for the situation. Last year in multiple states including Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, new enterprise agreements were imposed that delivered real wage cuts and maintained terrible workplace conditions, including effective unpaid overtime requirements. To take one example, in Victoria, the Australian Education Union last July rammed through an agreement with the state Labor government that involved a nominal wage rise of less than 2 percent a year for the next 4 years, no substantive measures reducing workloads, and new unfunded time in lieu provisions that have triggered the cancellation of camps and other extra-curricular activities in numerous schools. Nearly 40 percent of Victorian school staff voted no to the deal, defying union misinformation and censorship. Similarly significant opposition was registered in other states to union-government agreements. Anger and oppositional sentiment must be organised in 2023! The Committee for Public Education urges educators to form rank-and-file committees in your schools. These would unite school staffteachers and education support staff, union members and non-members alikewith supportive parents and students, providing a democratic forum to exchange information and discuss what needs to be done. Within each school, a rank-and-file committee would strive to return decision-making power to educators, including on how and what they teach, countering moves to silence teachers while principals and Department of Education officials exert unchecked authority. A wide network of rank-and-file committees, led by trusted staff members in each school, can collectively discuss the way forward and develop the necessary industrial and political struggle. This would involve a concerted turn out to other sections of the working class confronting similar problems, in the first instance fellow public sector workers such as nurses and hospital workers. Such a campaign can only be developed independently of the Australian Education Union (AEU) apparatus. The bureaucracy comprises a distinct and privileged social layersenior officials incomes places them in the top 1 percent of income earners. Federal AEU president Correna Haythorpe received $268,000 in salary and benefits in 2021; state officials do similarly well, with the Victorian secretary and president each receiving more than $248,000 in salary and benefits in the same year. These privileges ultimately derive from the bureaucracys collaboration with state and federal governments. The union apparatus imposes sell-out agreements on teachers and school workers, and works to sabotage any resistance to the undermining of the public education system. As a consequence, Australia now has one of the most unequal school systems in the world. After decades of Labor and Liberal governments funnelling billions of dollars into the private system, a record 46 percent of secondary students now attend private schools. Elite schools are among those enjoying lavish public subsidies. These have gone towards state-of-the-art facilities and resources for drama and the arts, music, sport, computing technologiesexclusively available to the children of the wealthy, those able to afford annual tuition fees approaching $50,000. Meanwhile numerous public schools in working class communities are literally falling apart. Basic infrastructure needs are left unaddressed. Overcrowding is seeing dozens of portable classrooms installed in what ought to be playground space. Curriculum options are being cut to the bone due to underfunding and staffing shortages. There are some highly regarded, mostly inner-city, public schools in the countrys major citiesbut these academically selective schools serve to cream off many of the most academically capable young people, leaving other public schools with disproportionate numbers of children with additional academic, social, and behavioural needs. The Committee for Public Education (CFPE) urges all teachers and school workers to take up a fight for the principle that public education at every level ought to be freely provided, fully funded, and delivered to every child in a similar manner to that currently provided for the narrow layer attending elite schools. This strugglewaged in tandem with that for decent wages and conditions for every educatorwould receive enormous support within the working class. Securing the social right of every person to be able to access a public education system worthy of the name requires a political struggle against the Labor and Liberal state and federal governments. This includes the federal Labor government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which is entrenching its predecessors reactionary policies while preparing additional ones of its own. In the guise of addressing the staffing crisis, the government is moving to undermine the teaching profession by downgrading required qualifications and narrowing the curriculum. The struggle for high-quality public education, as well as healthcare and other fundamental social rights, inevitably raises broader political issues. While governments claim there is no money for these essential services, hundreds of billions are being expended on the military, in preparation for wars that threaten a nuclear catastrophe. In the first three weeks of the year alone, the federal Labor government spent over $4 billion on advanced weapons systems. The CFPE calls for the widest discussion among educators on the necessity for a socialist program, which would involve the establishment of a workers government, and the implementation of policies based on social need, not private profit, including free, high-quality education for all, from kindergarten to the tertiary level. The CFPE, initiated by members and supporters of the Socialist Equality Party, has a principled record of fighting for the interests of teachers, school staff, and the working class as a whole. We have collaborated with educator rank-and-file committees internationally, developed through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. We pledge every assistance to educators seeking to establish and build rank-and-file committees in your school. Contact the CFPE today! Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/commforpubliceducation https://www.facebook.com/groups/opposeaeusellout Twitter: @CFPE_Australia On Wednesday morning, a fire that spread vertically through an apartment building in Chicagos South Side neighborhood of Kenwood killed one resident and injured nine others, including a firefighter. The fire started at approximately 10 a.m. on the 15th floor of the Harper Square Cooperative residential building at 4850 Lake Park Avenue and shot up vertically through nine floors, reaching the 24th floor. City officials claimed that windy conditions helped the fire to spread upward quickly in the high-rise that was constructed in 1970. The exact cause of the fire remains unknown at this time. Flames leap skyward out of the Harper Square cooperative residential building in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2023. [AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast] According to CBS Chicago, over 300 firefighters and emergency responders from the Chicago Fire Department worked to extinguish the blaze until 12:30 p.m., and continued to monitor the area afterward. Chicago Fire Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt pointed to the difficulty posed to firefighters because the fire did not go horizontally. The exhausting conditions were further exacerbated by the loss of elevator functionality, presumably caused by the blaze, so that firefighters had to carry more than 85 pieces of equipment up 15 flights of stairs. Many of the residents were told to stay in the building as the fire was being extinguished, due to the nature of its spread and the assumption that the high rise buildings are generally designed to keep those inside safe, according to Deputy Fire Commissioner Marc Ferman, with fire-rated doors and enclosed hallways and stairwells. It is unclear if or how any part of the buildings construction was conducive to the vertical and rapid spread of Wednesday mornings blaze. As of Wednesday afternoon, all injured victims who were transported to nearby hospitals were reported to be in stable condition. None of the victims names, including that of the deceased woman, have been released as of this writing. The resident who died was a retired teacher whose apartment is thought to have been where the fire immediately originated. Jauntanne Mayes, a woman who was close to the retired teacher and helped to care for her, told the press, I knew that she could not get down the stairs by herself, and unfortunately they wouldnt let me up to go and check on her when she arrived at the building. Nobody had been able to reach her, and then I was just informed that she was a person who passed away. She said that the woman who died was just a really sweet, sweet person, really generous, she will be missed by a lot of people. In addition to those injured and killed in the fire, 47 residents have been displaced and the Red Cross is currently assisting them. WGN9 News Chicago reported that residents who witnessed the fire spread through the building said, the whole day has been traumatic and scary. Harper Square Cooperative is home to many senior citizen residents who have lived in the building for many years. Residents were concerned that the building managements attitude was callous and neglectful of the many seniors who lived in the building. They said that building management sent emails to all residents a half hour after the fire started, alerting them to stay inside their apartments as the fire spread. It is unclear what the city of Chicago and the Democratic Party, which has a political monopoly in the city, will do to help residents find new housing in a city where the cost of living has been rising for years. Social services have been gutted to entice corporations with subsidies and tax breaks in recent decades by Democratic mayors and city councils, such as those run by Richard Daley, Rahm Emanuel and incumbent Lori Lightfoot. Kenwood is a predominantly working-class neighborhood on the citys south side, close to Lake Michigan. Sixty-six percent of residents are African-American. Median income per household in the neighborhood is $52,336, according to 2016-2020 American Community Survey five-year estimates; this is significantly lower than the median income for the city of Chicago ($62,097) but twice as high as the impoverished Washington Park neighborhood nearby ($23,351). Fire damage across multiple floors at the Harper Square Cooperative building in Chicago, Illinois on January 26, 2023. [Photo: WSWS] However, when compared to some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city such as Lincoln Park (median income $117, 048) and West Town ($112,555), a picture of a city that is deeply divided along class lines, in a country and world where social chasms are continuously widening, is revealed. These deep divides are fueling real estate speculation in the city that is pushing working class and poor residents to their financial limits. Price fluctuations in the housing market during the pandemic added more fuel to the frenzy. In the Kenwood neighborhood, New York investment group Raskin Risers sold six apartment buildings for a total of $26.3 million to Atlas Asset Management in December 2022, according to Crains Chicago Business. The buildings were sold at a 40 percent increase in value, as Raskin Risers bought the portfolio of buildings for a total of $18 million during the pandemic, financed mainly with low-income housing tax credits. Atlas President David Pezzola told Crains that the policy that limits rents in the buildings will expire over the next few years, pushing out low-income residents and making room for the corporation to extract greater profits from rising rental costs. Although the cause of the fire is still under official investigation, there are countless examples of neglect in the maintenance and construction of buildings from the west side of Chicago to Miami, Florida to the UK that cause fires and disasters for the working class and senior residents that reside in them. In all cases, the disasters were largely preventable, and the neglect and poor construction were carried out to benefit profit-driven business owners and corporations. The recent tragedy in Kenwood taken into context with similar occurrences worldwide underscores the underlying issue behind disasters like these is not primarily one caused by racism, as promoted ad nauseum by the Democratic Party, but by class interests. In contrast to the divestment of funding for basic living standards of the working class and senior citizens in the city, the multi-million dollar Obama Presidential Center is under construction less than five miles from Harper Square Cooperative. The Center is being funded by a $400 million investment from the Obama Foundation, announced in April 2021 ostensibly to strengthen economic opportunities for South and West Side residents. In reality, low-wage and dangerous construction work is being carried out by working class residents from Chicagos deindustrializing neighborhoods and the Center is part of an effort to attract corporate plundering and real estate speculation to take advantage of the lower housing prices and low cost of labor in the nearby working class neighborhoods of South Shore and Woodlawn. The very processes that neglect older buildings where lower-income and senior residents reside, in favor of corporate profits, are overseen and encouraged by Democratic Party officials in Chicago. Democratic 4th Ward Alderman and mayoral candidate Sophia King appeared at the scene for the obligatory press coverage and crocodile tears, to cover up once again the criminal processes aided and abetted by the party to which she belongs. Fire alarms and smoke detectors in the Harper Square building were reported to have batteries in them, according to the Fire Commissioner, but it is unclear if all were working properly. Residents told the Chicago Sun-Times that in some cases they were awakened by loud alarms and others reported they only heard them faintly and had to knock on their neighbors doors to alert them that a fire was spreading. Some residents reported to the Chicago Sun-Times that they felt that the emergency response from the city was timely, but others disagreed. Resident Stephanie Lassiter told the newspaper, No one knocked on the doors, no one said anything, no one knew I texted my daughter who also lives in the building and said, I think theres a fire in the building and she said she didnt think so. Building management was cited by the city in its last inspection on December 1, 2022 for failing to provide an annual fire alarm test for the building, according to records. This failure to provide basic safety standards to residents potentially contributed to unnecessary loss of life, health and housing. In a January 18 press release, the US Department of Labor announced it was levying a derisory $60,269 fine against the mega-corporation Amazon following safety inspections of three Amazon warehouses last year in New Windsor, New York; Waukegan, Illinois; and Deltona, Florida. General scenes at the Amazon Fulfillment center in Robbinsville Township, N.J., Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) In their press release, the DOL said Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) inspectors found that workers laboring at Amazon warehouses were at a high risk for lower back injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders related to the high frequency with which workers are required to lift packages and other items. As part of their investigation, OSHA reviewed on-site injury logs and discovered that Amazon warehouse workers experienced high rates of musculoskeletal disorders. In their report, OSHA said these serious violations of the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act were likely to cause serious physical harm to employees, in that employees were required to perform tasks resulting in stressors that had caused, were causing, or were likely to cause musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Because of the heavy weight of the items; awkward postures, such as twisting, bending and long reaches while lifting; and long hours required to complete assigned tasks, the DOL found that Amazon workers were at a higher risk for severe injuries, such as strains, sprains and carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as lower back injuries. Each of these inspections found work processes that were designed for speed but not safety, and they resulted in serious worker injuries, said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Doug Parker in a statement. For subjecting thousands of workers across the United States to serious physical harm and life-long medical ailments, OSHA proposed three separate $15,625 fines, totaling $46,875. OSHA investigators also discovered that material at the Amazon warehouse in Florida was not stacked in a safe manner to prevent sliding and collapse, unnecessarily exposing workers to struck-by hazards. The government proposed another $13,394 penalty for this violation, bringing the grand total to just over $60,000. The infinitesimal fines proposed by the government agency will do nothing to deter Amazon from continuing its abusive practices which have maimed and injured thousands of workers for years, while making Amazon shareholders extremely wealthy. For Amazon, the latest fine is just the cost of doing business. Reflecting the value that Amazon and the US government place on workers safety and health, the proposed fine is less than a fraction of a hundred-thousandth of Amazons current $1 trillion market capitalization (the current stock price multiplied by the number of shares). The proposed fine represents roughly 0.01 percent of the value of Jeff Bezos new $500 million superyacht. The announcement of the fine comes the same month as UNI Global Union, a global union federation, released its second annual report on Amazons abusive surveillance and monitoring regime, titled, Life in the Amazon Panopticon: An international survey of Amazon Workers. In 2022, UNI Global Union, in conjunction with Jarrow Insights, surveyed 2,000 Amazon workers from eight different countries: United States, United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Spain and Australia. Their survey found that the hellish and unsafe conditions detailed in the DOLs latest meager fine of Amazon is not relegated to a few warehouses in the United States, but standard operating procedure across Amazon warehouses, delivery networks and even at office buildings, around the world. The results showed that a majority of workers surveyed expressed their belief that Amazons monitoring of their work performance is excessive and opaque, that its expectations are unrealistic, and that striving to meet these unrealistic expectations has negative effects on their physical health and, even more acutely, their mental health. In March 2021, Amazon confirmed that it was requiring delivery workers to install company spyware in their smartphones called Mentor, which tracks their location both on and, in some reported cases, off the job. This was followed by another announcement that Amazon would be installing camera systems from a company called Netradyne in drivers vehicles, which record 100 percent of the time. While management claimed these systems are to improve driver safety, worker interviews and the survey results demonstrate that they are in place to pressure workers to perform at the highest possible speeds. Similar surveillance and tracking systems, already in place inside Amazon warehouses, require workers to perform tasks, perfectly, repeatedly, in as little as every six to nine seconds. Corporations like Amazon utilize advanced technology and spyware not to ensure the safety of workers, but to discourage socializing and chill free speech among co-workersespecially in opposition to unsafe working conditions and poor wages. The survey found that 51.7 percent of Amazon workers agreed or strongly agreed that Amazons constant monitoring of work performance negatively impacted their physical health. Even more, 57.3 percent said it negatively affected mental health. In the United Kingdom, where Amazon workers struck earlier this week for higher wages and better working conditions, one worker told the WSWS that workers have been treated like battery chickens. In the survey, workers described the various tools/programs Amazon managers use to track their every movement from physical devices like hand scanners, badges, in-vehicle cameras and GPS devices, to software, which workers are forced to use like the aforementioned Mentor and Chime. Being overworked and underpaid trying to reach nearly impossible goals and metrics is degrading. We have to be perfect to keep our job, one US delivery driver reported. They demand more production every day, and they decrease the number of employees, a Spanish warehouse worker said, while a US warehouse worker said they felt rushed to make my rate and half-way through the work week Im exhausted. Its outrageous that you can work at a ridiculous pace trying to keep up with Amazons demands, only for your manager to come after your shift and point out that you accidentally scanned 2 packages out of the 2,000 you handled into the wrong bag (which the system rejected anyway), reported a German warehouse worker. Over half the workers surveyed (54.2 percent) said Amazons productivity targets were either difficult or very difficult to achieve, compared to only 17.9 percent who said they were either easy or very easy to meet. One US tech worker said since he started working at Amazon, I now have consistent migraines. Exposing as a lie Amazons claims that the constant monitoring of workers is not for safety, but as a tool of management to speed up workers, a US delivery driver reported he got an infraction because I was having an asthma attack on the highway and needed to reach into my bag to grab my inhaler. It logged it as distracted driving. A UK warehouse worker explained they were harassed for not reaching my targets, after returning to work following two surgeries on their wrists. Now Im off work again as my carpal tunnel returned and extended to nerve entrapment in elbow. In addition to physical strain, workers in the survey reported immense psychological stress not only from laboring at Amazon under the dystopian surveillance regime, but also because of the fear of unemployment due to being unable to constantly meet higher rate and quotas. Over half of workers surveyed said working at Amazon had a negative impact on their mental health, including over 66 percent of Amazon workers surveyed from Poland. Workers described the dehumanization they feel working at the multinational corporation. A Polish warehouse worker said, The system cant treat people like this we work with robots, but we arent robots ourselves. The Amazon regime is Relentless on humans, they take us for animals, testified a French delivery driver. The atmosphere cultivated at Amazon is not a mistake. In a 1998 shareholder letter cited in the report, former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wrote, I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake up every morning terrified. An Amazon delivery driver from northern Illinois interviewed by the WSWS detailed his normal working day and the extreme pressures, thanks to the terror regime of Bezos and shareholders, Amazon delivery drivers are subjected to. Im an Amazon step-van driver in northern Illinois. I deliver between 300 and 400 packages a day with 170 to 210 stops. According to my DSP [Delivery Service Partner], Im one of their best. I work very hard to get done early and as a result, I only work about 32 hours a week on average but am still paid for 40. Sounds like a sweet deal. But this job eats people up. My ankles and knees and back can only do this for so long. Every day Im afraid my foot will catch the step when Im jumping in and out of the truck and Ill eat dirt and break something. And if you want to finish early, you have to take that risk almost 200 times a day. When I was rescuing one of my coworkers (another top driver), he was behind by 50 stops because he had to deliver to a bunch of office buildings that were closed for a holiday. Amazon forces you to try each of these deliveries twice. Dispatch asked me to take 15 stops off him. When he heard I was only taking 15, he broke down. He yelled, Im not a fing robot, as he punched the door of his van in frustration. I took 40 stops to help him out. My boss chewed me out for it at the end of the day, even though we both finished on time. The worker said that while, Amazon and my DSP love to hold me up as an example, Im always one fall away from being worthless to my bosses. Pointing towards the objective necessity of uniting Amazon workers across jobs and national boundaries to implement safe working conditions, the Illinois delivery driver said, If drivers want any chance at better working conditions, we cant do it divided by the arbitrary legal lines of the DSP system. Drivers and warehouse workers have a shared interest in safer working conditions, more time off, and having more control over their working conditions. The International Amazon Workers Voice is assisting workers in building a network of rank-and-file committees in the warehouses and terminals to establish lines of communication between workers at different work locations and organize collective resistance against the sacrifice of workers lives and limbs for corporate profit. These committees assert workers control over pick rates and delivery rates, and organize strike action against any threats to the health and safety of workers. As the Illinois driver concluded, A rank-and-file committee of drivers and warehouse workers can stand up to Amazon and the DSP bosses. Five former officers of the Memphis Police Department were charged on Thursday with second-degree murder for the brutal beating on January 7 and death three days later of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old black man. Steven Mulroy, district attorney of Shelby County, Tennessee, said that a grand jury had returned indictments against the five men, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean. The five ex-cops were arrested and booked into the Shelby County jail on Thursday. However, two of the cops, Mills and Smith, posted a $250,000 bond and were released late in the evening. This combo of booking images provided by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office shows, from top row from left, Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, bottom row from left, Desmond Mills, Jr. and Justin Smith. [AP Photo/Shelby County Sheriff's Office via AP] The former officers, who were fired on January 20 by the police department, were charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assaultacting in concert, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of official misconduct and one count of official oppression. The indictments and arrest of the five former policemen, all of whom are black, were announced by Mulroy at a press conference on Thursday afternoon. Mulroy said, While each of the five individuals played a different role in the incident in question, the actions of all of them resulted in the death of Tyre Nichols, and they are all responsible. Mulroy also said two emergency medical technicians with the Memphis Fire Department had been relieved of their duties pending an investigation. Media reports on Thursday said that other officers were also under investigation for their role in the savage beating of Nichols, which was captured on police bodycam video. Tyre Nichols in the hospital after his arrest. [Photo: Family of Tyre Nichols] Indicating the level of state and federal concern about the social and political fallout from the police murder of Nichols, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Director David Rausch also spoke at the press conference. Rausch feigned outrage, saying he was absolutely appalled and sickened by what I saw on the video. The TBI director claimed that the agency was pursuing truth and justice, adding that this should not have happened. US Attorney Kevin Ritz announced a federal civil rights investigation into the death of Nichols, and President Biden issued a pro forma statement saying, [W]e must do more to ensure that our criminal justice system lives up to the promise of fair and impartial justice, equal treatment and dignity for all. The district attorney reported that the bodycam video of the beating will be released to the public on Friday after 6:00 p.m. (Central Standard Time). The family of Nichols watched the video on Monday and confirmed that the young man was pepper sprayed, shocked with a stun gun and restrained with handcuffs while the officers brutalized him. The beating took place less than 100 yards from his mothers residence. Tyre Nichols had worked the second shift at a FedEx facility in Memphis for nine months before his death. Family members said Tyre would return to his mothers house every evening around 7:00 p.m. for his lunch break. The young man had a four-year-old son. He was a photography enthusiast and skateboarder, a passion he had maintained since he was six years old. His mother, RowVaughn Wells, said that her son had her name tattooed on his arm. That made me proud, she said. Most kids dont put their moms name. My son was a beautiful soul. According to the familys lawyers, Nichols told the officers during the January 7 beating that he just wanted to go home. In what is believed to be his final words, he called out for his mother. Nichols died on January 10 from bleeding caused by blunt force trauma after being pulled over for an alleged reckless driving violation in the Hickory Hill neighborhood of Memphis. Authorities say that after an initial altercation, the young man fled on foot and was subsequently caught, taken into custody and, in the words of family attorney Antonio Romanucci, beaten like a human pinata by the policemen. Romanucci also said on Monday, after watching the video, He was defenseless the entire time. ... It was an unadulterated, unabashed, non-stop beating of this young boy for three minutes. The family had called for charges of first-degree murder to be brought against all five cops. However, Romanucci, speaking to CNN Thursday evening, noted that second-degree murder charges, and especially kidnapping charges, against police officers were highly unusual. Romanucci also told CNN that police units, such as the one to which the five former officers belonged, frequently use bogus assertions of traffic violations to pull over, beat and arrest people. The five indicted individuals were members of the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace In Our Neighborhoods (SCORPION) unit of the Memphis Police Department. The unit was created with great fanfare in October 2021 under the departments Organized Crime Unit. The SCORPION unit is made up of four teams of 10 officers each and tasked with crime suppression. The unit was praised by Memphis Mayor James Strickland as an example of the citys successful anti-crime strategy, which includes gun violence intervention that frequently begins with a traffic stop and escalates into a serious confrontation, ending in the arrest of people for drug and gun possession. Retired Memphis police officer Mark LeSure told NBC News that former colleagues still at the department had told him the SCORPION unit was known for having a zero tolerance policy, meaning the officers do what they can to arrest people. WREG News 3, the Memphis affiliate of CBS, interviewed Cornell McKinney, who said he had been pulled out of his car at a gas station and had a gun pointed at his head by the same group of officers who killed Nichols. McKinney reported that the SCORPION unit pulled up behind him in an unmarked vehicle. Memphis community organizer Keedran Franklin told NBC News that SCORPION was like other specialized police units that stoke fear in the community. The way they move in unmarked cars, looking like regular guys, bumping to rap music, they got on hoodies, theyre really looking the part, like theyre a part of the community, but theyre police, Franklin said. He added that only after the officers got out of their cars would people see SCORPION on the backs of their vests. Theyre their own internal little gang, Franklin said. When they turn them loose on the streets, how does that affect ordinary citizens? In advance of the release of the police video Friday evening, Memphis city authorities, as well as other government institutions across the US, were preparing for an eruption of protest and outrage over another brutal police killing. As was the case with the protest movement that emerged after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, the anger against police violence is part of growing opposition among youth and workers to attacks on jobs, living standards and working conditions, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and war, alongside ever greater social inequality. This week in Platte County District Court, a man facing a murder charge in Columbus has been found competent to stand trial. Just over one year ago, Michael J. Keener, now 29, was arrested on Jan. 16, 2022, in relation to the death of a 77-year-old Columbus man. At that time, according to a Columbus Police Department press release, officers had made contact with Keener, who had fallen in the 1300 block of Eighth Street, when he reportedly told them that he had killed somebody at another location. Keener, the press release stated, took officers to that location, the 200 block of 16th Avenue, where officers found the deceased individual. In February 2022, Keeners public defender filed a motion for a competency exam. A month later, a board-certified forensic psychiatrist found Keener to not have the capacity to stand trial at that time but there was a chance he could in the future. At a Jan. 25, 2023, hearing, the court found Keener will stand trial based on a determination from Dr. Mindy S. Abel of the Lincoln Regional Center that he is legally competent to do so. Court documents state that Keener and the Platte County Detention Facility are to follow the medication regimen prescribed by the Lincoln Regional Center, and that the jail will notify the court if Keener refuses to adhere to the medication regimen and/or if theres a change detected in his behavior or mental condition. Keeners charges include murder in the first degree, a class 1A felony; use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, a class 2 felony; and possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited person, a class 3 felony. Keeners next court date is at 10 a.m. on March 17 in district court. In back-to-back meetings of the NGR and CoASS, members gave the formal green light to the appointments following the consultation process led by the Chair of the General Council, Ambassador Didier Chambovey of Switzerland, to fill two posts that had been vacant over the past few months. Ambassador Gunnarsson takes over from Ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia, who during his three years as NGR Chair played a key role in leading negotiations to a successful outcome at MC12 with the adoption of the new WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies. Speaking to members, the new NGR Chair noted there is much work to be done in the short time before the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) that will take place in Abu Dhabi in late February 2024. He said he is looking forward to working both on implementing the agreement we concluded last June and also getting underway in the second wave of negotiations. I think we all understand the importance of meaningful disciplines for the sake of our oceans, and for the livelihood of those who depend upon it, he added. WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stressed that without an NGR Chair work had come to a standstill in a crucially important work stream, on fisheries subsidies, namely the second wave of negotiations. We now have a date and a venue for MC13 which makes the appointment of a new chair all the more pressing. Work has to resume immediately to advance a particularly important area, with the aim of making recommendations that can be finalized at MC13, she said. DG Okonjo-Iweala also noted the importance of resuming agriculture talks as expeditiously as possible since this critically important issue has been stalled without a Chair since last summer. Ambassador Acarsoy takes over the helm of WTO farm trade talks from Ambassador Gloria Abraham Peralta of Costa Rica who in her two years as CoASS Chair contributed to the food security outcome reached at MC12, including a declaration on the emergency response to food insecurity and a decision to support World Food Programme food purchases. He will also chair the CoASS Subcommittee on Cotton. In his first statement as new Chair, Ambassador Acarsoy underlined the tough work ahead members are facing, especially in the current international context. MC13 is just a year from now and we are today at a crucial crossroad. Let us be clear, we were not able to deliver in the agricultural negotiations in the previous two Ministerial Conferences and reaching a successful outcome at MC13 is therefore more critical than ever. We have no time to waste, and we must immediately engage with the right approach in order to overcome entrenched differences that have stymied progress so far, he added. It takes approximately two hours and 35 minutes to drive from Carlisle to the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Charles Washington, who is a member of the fire police at Carlisle Fire & Rescue Services, knows because he makes the trip every week to visit his 6-year-old daughter, Harmonee. After being diagnosed with a rhinovirus infection, which typically serves as the cause of a common cold according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, at the end of November, doctors discovered Harmonee had an enlarged heart with blood clots. Now she stays at the hospital on a ventricular assist device machine to help pump blood throughout her body while she awaits a transplant. In the meantime, the Carlisle American Legion Post 101 is stepping in to help. The Carlisle American Legion Riders Chapter 101 heard about Harmonee through a member who serves alongside Washington. One of our members is part of the Carlisle fire police and she had brought it to my attention that his daughters awaiting a heart transplant, and then we just kind of brainstormed and came up to do a fundraiser, Riders Director Robin Weaver said. On Saturday, the Legion at 142 N. Hanover St. in Carlisle will open its doors at 5 p.m. for Hope for Harmonee. The fundraiser will include a fill the wheelbarrow where participants can make monetary donations to assist the Washington family with medical bills and other expenses. A DJ and door prize raffles will also be featured. Weaver said that when the Riders heard about the situation they had no doubt that theyd do something to help. Thats what we do at the Legion, Legion Commander Doug Weaver said. You know, everybody thinks the Legion is a bar and its for old veterans to go in there and talk about war stories, but we do stuff for the community. Weaver said that while the event doesnt have a set fundraising goal, donations from other legions and organizations already total about $4,000. To Washington, the effort makes a difference. It lets us know that were not alone in this fight, he said. There are people out here that really care now. Its like when you think you have no support, you really do. Sirens for Service: Hear what Midstate fire, police and ems workers have to say about their jobs Sirens for Service features Charlie Alleman with Friendship Hose Company Sirens for Service features Kevin Winter with the Silver Spring Township Police Department Sirens for Service features Trent Wenger with Friendship Hose Company Sirens for Service features Katherine "Kitty" Strait with Cumberland Goodwill EMS Sirens for Service features Theo Arndt with Friendship Hose Sirens for Service features EMT Ansley McFarling with Cumberland Goodwill EMS Sirens for Service features Andrew Mellott with Friendship Hose Company Sirens for Service features David Schoonover with Penn Township Volunteer Fire Company Interior Firefighter Adam Lepley, Carlisle Fire & Rescue Services. Sirens for Service features Wes Gingrich with Penn Township Volunteer Fire Company JoEllen Wiser discuses her role with Friendship Hose Company in Newville Lt. Sean Ryan discusses his role with Carlisle Fire and Rescue Services Sirens for Service features Jamie DiMartile with the Carlisle Police Department Watch Now: Sirens for Service features Olie Mick with Penn Township Volunteer Fire Company Watch Now: Sirens for Service features Joseph Todaro with the Carlisle Police Department Watch Now: Sirens for Service features Interior Firefighter Billy Sellers with Carlisle Fire & Rescue Services. Watch Now: Sirens for Service features Jeremy Fox with Cumberland Goodwill EMS It was late and rainy Wednesday evening and Laurie Baltaeff was on a mission. The Community CARES program assistant drove all over portions of Cumberland County with Simone McRae, the organizations outreach coordinator, riding shotgun in the vehicle. Both women joined approximately 30 to 35 volunteers and staff members from local organizations to conduct the countys annual Point in Time Homeless Census. The nationwide count is a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and takes place every January. Participants canvas areas of the county and conduct conversational and observational surveys to gain a snapshot of homeless people that night. Spearheaded in Cumberland County by Connect to Home and the Cumberland County Housing & Redevelopment Authorities, volunteers were split into groups and given lists of places in different areas that homeless people have been known to park or camp. While the effort sought to include every municipality and township in the county, the search targeted more populated places like the West Shore, Carlisle, Mechanicsburg, Camp Hill, Newville and Shippensburg, said Connect to Home Regional manager and count coordinator Chris Kapp, who works for the Cumberland County Housing and Redevelopment Authorities. Search lists were developed through data from Connect to Homes Coordinated Entry System of Eastern Pennsylvania, she said. [It] is essentially a database of folks experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness, Kapp said. ... Its useful in getting ready for the Point in Time Count because it helps us to understand where people are, and it helps us to find them more easily, and its so important that we find as many people as we can, because that is how the [U.S.] Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates funding. Baltaeff spent the evening hopping in and out of her car at parking lots and businesses across certain parts of the county in search of homeless people while McRae noted each detail. Due to the vulnerability the homeless face, Kapp spoke about what searchers look for and where they search in generic terms. Were looking for evidence that people are experiencing homelessness, she said. This could be anything from tents in the woods, people sleeping on benches, people being in their cars, etc. Kapp said people willing to participate in the survey answered questions mostly centered around demographic information to determine what the countys homeless population looks like or if there are any targeted groups of people, such as veterans, youths or families. We also ask safety planning questions, such as, Are you fleeing domestic violence? so that we can get folks hooked up with services if they desire them, she said. We can actually start the process right then. For people who did not wish to take part in the survey, volunteers filled out an observational survey of what they could see. Searchers met for an informational meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday night at Carlisles Professional & Employment Empowerment Center and went out in two shifts with the first, which included the majority of participants, working until 11 p.m. and the second, consisting of six people, working from midnight until 2 a.m. Thursday. These were the only groups that searched in Cumberland County. Kapp said both shifts covered the same areas and allowed later searchers to follow up with observations made by volunteers from the first shift, or check in with people who may have been sleeping or not present earlier. They will deliberately move from one area to another, she said of the homeless. So lets say for example, they might be parked at 8:30 p.m. ... on the [Carlisle] Pike, and then the second shift might find the same household at the Walmart in Carlisle because if they are thinking that moving around is going to keep them more protected, theyre going to do that. Volunteers took detailed descriptions of their observations, allowing for enough data to determine if the same household or person would be counted twice. Kapp said the data and descriptions are reviewed to prevent that. She estimated that the final numbers from Wednesdays count will be released around April or May. Last years count totaled 110 unsheltered and 121 sheltered homeless people in the county, Kapp said. She expects this years data to be similar. Homelessness in this area has skyrocketed since the pandemic, she said. We have seen a tidal wave of first-time homelessness in this county. Kapp attributed that to higher rents and stagnated wages, with no decline in the number of the homeless since the onset of COVID-19. As staff members of Community CARES, which offers housing resources in Cumberland County, Baltaeff and McRae had similar observations. Both said the organization has seen people who were located during the count later seek out resources from Community CARES. I remember a specific instance where it was a lady who had been living in her vehicle behind a specific business, McRae said. ... she took our business card and what happened was, she lost the vehicle. She kept the business card and then she eventually reached out to us and we took her in shelter and she eventually came to us and stayed with us, and she eventually got housed. I mean, it was a process, but because of that PIT Count we were able to make that first-step connection. Its stories like that that McRae said keep her volunteering to participate in the census, something shes been doing for the past five years. For Baltaeff, who joined the count for the second time this year, its a way to make a difference in the community. [People] see somebody panhandling and it (homelessness) is on their mind for a split second, she said. Once they drive past they dont think about it anymore, so [the count] does definitely increase the awareness. Kapp described the Homeless Census as one of many ways to determine the face of homelessness in Cumberland County. It only measures one night out of 365 so it is not the most ... accurate or effective way, but it is the way that we are required to do things, she said. Housing and Urband Developments definition of homelessness is incredibly narrow, Kapp said, adding that it excludes families doubling up with one another and people staying in motels unless the cost to do so is covered by a charity. A lot of folks have called the Point in Time Count tunnel vision because of the very narrow scope, she said. Well, we might have to stay in the tunnel but you know what, were going to light it up. Were going to light up the tunnel tonight so that we can find as many people as we can, because were not just looking for statistics for funding and for numbers, we are looking to make sure the people who have no voice, the people who are marginalized in our society more than anybody else, the people who are more invisible than anybody else, that their humanity counts for at least one night. Photos: Cumberland County Point in Time Homeless Census I Saw It Out My Window. Whether its from a car, home, boat, RV, plane, train, submarine or another place, young artists are encouraged to share their artistic view through the window of their choice in the 2023 ART Blooms Banner Contest, the local contest for burgeoning artists that puts their creations on banners throughout their towns. Students are encouraged to enter their creative and colorful artwork in the 9th annual contest. The deadline to enter the light pole banner contest is Friday, Feb. 3. Winners will be announced in March. This years event has spread throughout the region to students hometowns and is made possible by the generous sponsorship of First State Community Bank, Ozarks Federal Savings and Loan, and Unico Bank with the coordination of the contest by Mineral Area Council on the Arts (MACOA). Tiffany Gallaher, executive director of MACOA, said, I am so excited to continue to grow this wonderful event. There is so much creativity and imagination in the students in our community. She said the contest now includes a total of 10 participating towns. The ART Blooms contest is open to local K-12 students in public, private and homeschools in the Parkland. Students submit an original drawing, painting or illustration depicting this years theme, I Saw It Out My Window, on the official entry form. Forms and official rules may also be obtained at the Farmington Public Library or MineralAreaArts.org. Students may submit multiple entries, but only one entry per person will be eligible to win. Entries will be judged by a committee, including representatives of MACOA, host towns, sponsors and local artists. Artwork submitted by homeschools and private schools will be represented in the town nearest their location. More than 300 banners will be on display in 2023 throughout these areas: Arcadia Valley, Bismarck, Bonne Terre, Caledonia, Desloge, Farmington, Frankclay, Fredericktown, Park Hills and Potosi. We hope you travel to each location to view all of the wonderful banners with artwork by our own local K-12 students from March to October, said Gallaher. Students artwork should not be folded when submitted or mailed. Artwork may be submitted in person at the Farmington Public Library at 101 North A Street or at Mineral Area Colleges Fine Arts Building, Room #FA134, or in MACs mailroom in mailbox #8. Entries may also be mailed flat in a protective envelope to Mineral Area Council on the Arts, PO Box 1000, Park Hills, MO 63601. For more information, visit MineralAreaArts.org contact Gallaher at 573-518-2125 or email tgallaher@MiineralArea.edu. Two area men face felony charges this week after allegedly forcing their way into a Madison County home Saturday armed with handguns and wearing ski masks. Police say one of the men fired a shot at the residence as they left. The two were later apprehended in St. Francois County. Nathaniel Edward Benson, 20, of Doe Run, and Johnny Edward Jackson Jr., 18, of Farmington, have each been charged in Madison County with first-degree burglary, second-degree assault, armed criminal action, and unlawful use of a weapon. Jackson is also charged with attempted escape from confinement and third-degree assault after an alleged physical altercation with police at the Madison County Jail. According to a probable cause statement from the Madison County Sheriff's Office, just after 7 p.m. on Saturday, a deputy was dispatched to a Madison County residence for a report of an altercation involving a firearm that had just been reported. The deputy was informed that two subjects with guns had allegedly entered a home and later fired a shot into the front door of the house before leaving the area. The deputy arrived and spoke with the homeowner, who said both men were tall, slender and wearing ski masks as they knocked on her front door. The woman said she opened the door, and both men pushed her out of the way and entered the home without her permission, according to the report. She reported one was brandishing what appeared to be a silver, semi-automatic pistol, and the other had what looked like a revolver. Per the report, the woman told police a family member in the home came out of his bedroom into the living room area, and both intruders began yelling at him about owing some money. She reportedly recalled the masked men pointing their guns at her and her relative, yelling, "I'll shoot." The woman said her family member was able to push the subjects outside and close the interior door. At about that time, the report alleges, a single gunshot was fired into the window portion of the door. The woman said the door glass shattered and hit her relative in the head, knocking him to the ground and causing some lacerations to the top of his head. The deputy reported noticing the window to the front door was shattered from what appeared to be a small caliber gunshot. He said there was also a fragment from the bullet that was lying on the ground by the door, which was collected as evidence. A .9mm shell casing was reportedly found in the corner of the porch area near where the gun was allegedly fired, which was also secured as evidence. The deputy talked to the injured man about what happened. The man reportedly said he owed some people money for drug-related activity, and they were trying to get him to pay the debt. The man declined medical attention and said he believed one of the subjects was Benson, as he recognized his voice and eyes through the ski mask, according to the report. The man reportedly told police he was familiar with Benson from numerous previous encounters. The deputy showed a Department of Revenue photo of Benson to the two residents of the home, who said they were sure he was one of the intruders, according to police. The report states the home has exterior surveillance cameras that captured video during the incident. The deputy watched the recordings and reported seeing what appeared to be a silver Ford Focus with a black front bumper stop on the side of the street in front of the house. The video reportedly showed two taller individuals exiting the vehicle and approaching the house. The deputy noted a momentary commotion could be heard on the camera's audio. He said he heard a single gunshot being fired in the footage and saw the two run from the residence and get back in the car. The vehicle was then seen on video speeding down the street, according to the report. After leaving the home, the deputy radioed Madison County Dispatch to broadcast a stop-and-hold request for Benson. He also asked dispatch to contact the St. Francois County Sheriff's Department to see if they could check Benson's registered address for him or the Ford Focus. A short time later, a St. Francois County deputy contacted Madison County authorities, saying that a silver Ford Focus with a black front bumper was at Benson's house. The deputy reported family members at the home said Benson had just left his car there and left with a couple of friends in a Cadillac. St. Francois County deputies were able to locate that vehicle at an address in St. Francois County. The report states Benson was with one of his friends, Johnny Jackson. At the time, Jackson reportedly had a white ski mask on top of his head. Authorities also found a black Ruger .9mm pistol lying on a table in the residence, as well as a black ski mask lying in plain view on the couch. Benson and Jackson were taken into custody by St. Francois County deputies, who later turned the pair over to deputies in Madison County. The two men were booked at the Madison County Jail, both with $100,000 cash-only bonds set in their cases. At the jail, Jackson allegedly told police he and Benson went to the house trying to collect some money owed to Benson. He reportedly said they entered the residence with firearms, trying to scare the alleged victim into paying Benson. Jackson said he was uncomfortable with the situation because he does not like guns, so he tried to get Benson to leave the house. Jackson allegedly admitted to having the .9mm with him inside the home but said he handed it to Benson as they were leaving. The man told investigators that Benson then turned around and fired a single shot from the .9mm into the door of the residence once they were outside. Jackson said Benson had just handed him a gun and pressured him into participating in the situation, according to the report. When Benson was interviewed by police, he also allegedly admitted they were at the house to get money owed to him. The man reportedly said he told Jackson they would just leave the residence when they could not get any money. Per the report, Benson admitted being inside the home with a revolver and said Jackson entered with the .9mm pistol. He told police Jackson was the one who fired a shot from the .9mm into the front door, according to the report. The report notes that both Benson and Jackson told investigators that their friend "Levi" was driving the car during the alleged burglary and assault, but neither Benson nor Jackson would provide a last name. Both men reportedly said "Levi" did not get out of the car during the incident. Jackson's other charges filed this week stem from an incident that allegedly happened at the Madison County Jail after the man was booked. Charging documents in the case state a deputy was called to the jail at about 1 a.m. Monday, for complaints from dispatch staff about Jackson, yelling. The man was reportedly being held in a cell at the front of the facility, and the yelling was making it hard for staff to hear and perform dispatch duties. The report states the responding deputy opened the cell door to speak with Jackson. The deputy reports Jackson was not making much sense during the conversation, randomly becoming angry and cursing at the deputy. The deputy said Jackson managed to push his way past him and ran toward an exterior door before quickly running into the bathroom. While chasing the man, the deputy hit his legs on a pole in the middle of the booking area and briefly lost his balance. Jackson then opened the bathroom door and the deputy administered a burst of pepper spray to Jackson's face, according to the report. Jackson reportedly ran out of the bathroom toward the deputy, but the deputy grabbed the man and attempted to take him to the ground. Jackson was able to pull away from the deputy and ran into the jail trustee room. The deputy managed to pull Jackson out of the trustee room and tried to place him in a restraint hold as the man allegedly continued to fight to get away. The report states the deputy wrestled Jackson to the ground, but the man was able to roll over and got on top of the deputy briefly before the deputy regained control of him. The man allegedly continued to fight for several minutes before the deputy placed him in safety restraints. Just before being restrained, the report states Jackson tried to put the deputy in a headlock-style restraint hold; however, the officer was able to break free of the hold and regain control of his arm. Other officers arrived to assist, and they attempted to take Jackson to what is commonly referred to as the "hole." The report states he continued to fight and was trying to push his way out of the cell. An officer deployed a taser, striking Jackson, and the man was secured in the jail's restraint chair. Madison County EMS later evaluated Jackson and told officers the man did not appear to have any injuries that would require medical attention. The deputy reportedly experienced redness and swelling in both knees following the alleged altercation. He reported damage to his eyeglasses as well. Authorities said a substantial portion of the reported incident was caught on the facility's surveillance camera in the booking area. Dotdash Meredith and Yahoo Inc. may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Fellow travelers have also bought the warm, stretchy jeans for trips to Iceland, Aspen, and Antarctica. Travel + Leisure / Reese Herrington Packing for any trip is anxiety-inducing. But packing for a trip to the South Pole? Thats next level. I know all too well, because I recently spent weeks stressing about what to bring, and perhaps just as importantly what to leave behind, for a 10-day Highlights of Antarctica cruise with Hurtigruten Expeditions. In addition to packing the biggest parka I could find and the warmest cashmere sweater I own, I decided I needed a pair of jeans because, well, jeans go with everything. While Im a huge fan of Levis best-selling jeggings, I knew Id need a pair that were as warm as they were comfy. Fortunately, I found Heipeiwas Fleece-lined Winter Jeans. They start at just $40 at Amazon, and they can be customized to more than 41 different styles; so even if youre picky, like me, youll find the perfect pair for you. Amazon To buy: amazon.com, $43 First of all, I was impressed that the fleece lining comes in three levels of thickness: microfleece (the thinnest), regular fleece, and a faux shearling (the thickest). Because I was traveling to one of the coldest places on earth, yet also wearing these indoors on a luxury cruise ship between zodiac landings, I went with regular fleece. So far, theyre warm enough for outside adventures when the temperature is below freezing. Yet, they dont make me sweat when I sport them in my heated suite on the ship. Heipeiwas Fleece-lined Winter Jeans are the perfect mid-weight material for a cold-weather cruise. For fit, you get to choose between skinny, relaxed, and boyfriend. I opted for skinny, but I went up a size because I like my skinny jeans a little looser. For the waist, you can pick from elastic, a zipper, a drawstring, or buttons. I went with the classic zipper style because it came with front pockets and back pockets deep enough to hold my passport, my phone, and my cabin key. Story continues Katie Jackson And when it comes to colors, there are almost too many choices including a pair with some serious bling which is exactly why savvy shoppers get more than one pair. And they come in sizes XS-5XL. While I sized up, most shoppers say these jeans run true to size. Of course, it would be remiss not to mention that these jeans also come in both mid-rise and high-rise. In fact, Heipeiwas Fleece-lined Winter Jeans were deemed the best high-waisted jean on Travel + Leisures list of the Best Fleece-lined Jeans of 2023 (Duers Fireside Pant won best overall.) Despite having a higher waistline, these pants arent constricting because theyre a polyester spandex blend with just the right amount of stretch. Because theyre so forgiving, theyve actually become my go-to jeans for when Im bloated. I never thought Id opt for jeans on days when Im carrying extra water weight. Nevertheless, I find myself reaching for these just as often as I reach for my favorite lounge pants. Related: This Editor-loved Brand's Buttery Soft Leggings Are the Most Versatile Pants in My Travel Wardrobe Still, my favorite part about these jeans, at least for winter travel, is that you basically get two pairs of pants a base layer and an outer layer for the price of one. For trips to colder places, I normally have to pack my Icebreaker thermal leggings to wear under my go-to travel pants. But because these jeans are fleece-lined, I can leave my leggings at home. It frees up space in my suitcase, and that means I have one less thing to wash. That said, despite being lined with fleece, these jeans dont feel bulky. Because the material is polyester, theyre still incredibly lightweight. Amazon To buy: amazon.com, $43 My only cautionary tale is that these jeans will shrink if you put them in the dryer on high. I made this mistake the first time I washed them. Fortunately, theyre super stretchy so I was able to fit in them again. But now I know to make sure to tumble dry on low, or hang dry. Fortunately, the polyester material is not only stretchy, but its also fairly moisture-wicking. In my experience, these jeans take about half as much time to dry as traditional denim. Another perk of polyester? Its super soft, which is something other shoppers are noticing too. The softest, most comfortable pair of pants I have owned, wrote one traveler who got these jeans for a trip to Iceland. Still, because Im so active when I travel, the reviewer that really sold me on these jeans was this one, who ordered a pair for a trip to Washington state where they hiked in snow: I was pleasantly surprised by this product. These held up really well [and] had enough stretch in them to be comfortable for hiking but did not stretch out and most importantly kept me warm. Another customer, who praised the price and fit of these jeans in their five-star review, wore theirs while on vacation in Aspen and found them to be warm enough for late nights out on the town. Yes, they may be fleece-lined, but they arent frumpy jeans by any means. Im even planning on wearing them to the opening of Cape Towns finest new luxury hotel, Future Found Sanctuary, later this month. Amazon To buy: amazon.com, $40 (originally $47) Thats right, after Antarctica Im headed to Africa. And Im bringing the same suitcase, filled with the same pieces, on both trips. So, the fact these jeans made the cut is a big deal. Theyre warm enough for Antarctica, cool enough to wear in the evenings in Africa, and ideal for most destinations in between. So, if youre in the market for a nice cold-weather traveling jean as one satisfied shopper calls them, or simply a nice traveling pant that looks like denim but feels like fleece (as I call them), youre in luck. It only takes two clicks to get Heipeiwas Fleece-lined Winter Jeans in your shopping cart. Now, if only we could say the same for packing. At the time of publishing, the price started at $40. Shop More T+L Deals: Love a great deal? Sign up for our T+L Recommends newsletter and well send you our favorite travel products each week. For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter! Read the original article on Travel & Leisure. Jan. 27 marks 50 years since the signing of the Paris Peace Accords that tried and failed to end the Vietnam War. About a week after the treaty was signed, an unarmed secret reconnaissance flight named Baron 52 operated by the U.S. Air Force was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos. Though Laos was a neutral country during the Vietnam War, the United States dropped more than 2.5 million tons of bombs there in an attempt to slow the movement of supplies and people into neighboring Vietnam. Baron 52 was downed at a critical time. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was urgently finalizing negotiations in Paris as President Richard Nixons attention turned to Watergate. Missing in action from Vietnam War Resulting from the accords, Operation Homecoming commenced on Feb. 12, 1973, with 591 American prisoners of war (POWs) scheduled to return home. The men of Baron 52 were not among them. My father, Michael Moore, was a fellow pilot in the Baron 52 squadron but was on leave when the flight was shot down. He returned to base in Thailand just as the first POWs were released and was devastated to learn of the lost seven crew members and the shootdown's significant timing. America's secret war in Laos: I helped clear unexploded bombs in my birthplace to save the next generation Baron 52s missing were not on any negotiated lists. Only 10 of the returning POWs claimed to have been officially captured in Laos, even though there were reportedly several hundred Americans downed in Laos still missing during Operation Homecoming. MIA families and fellow squadron members were devastated to discover that their missing family members were not part of Operation Homecoming that spring. The League of Wives, which had lobbied and advocated for the POWs' treatment and return, evolved into a new organization, the National League of Families of Prisoners and Missing, accepting the baton to hold the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency to its mission of the fullest possible accounting of those missing from the war in Vietnam. Story continues That phrase is an essential lens when evaluating these efforts over 50 years. Operation Homecoming provided accounting of those lost in Vietnam, but less so for those lost in Laos and Cambodia. The writers father, Michael Moore, in the blue shirt in the back row, with his squadron at a U.S. military base in Thailand in 1973. He was a fellow pilot in the Baron 52 squadron but was on leave when the flight was shot down that Feb. 4. Baron 52s crew were soon labeled as missing, bodies unrecovered, with little evidence to prove it, leaving questions swirling for decades about the swift closure of the case due to its critical political timing. And though the peace treaty was signed in 1973, war continued for two years until Saigon fell to northern Vietnamese communist forces. Senate investigation into POWs, MIAs As President George H.W. Bush pushed to open trade relations with Vietnam in the early 1990s, a deeper analysis was made, even if mostly for show, by the Senate POW/MIA Affairs Committee. The panel and its co-chairs, Sens. John Kerry and Robert Smith, spent more than a year conducting over 1,000 interviews and holding public hearings including deep inquiries into Baron 52. An investigative team visited the crash site in Laos, but the trip yielded little physical evidence to prove the deaths of the seven men who were not recovered. Remembrance is vital: Honoring 40 years of the Vietnam wall One tooth, a few tiny bone fragments and a few dog tags and pistols were proclaimed to be proof they all died in the crash. Loved ones were incredulous because the tooth and bone fragments were not DNA tested, yet they were told that it was inconclusive whether the bone fragments were of human origin. Feeling there were no options left, families grudgingly went along with a group interment in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors in 1995. Sen. Smith questioned the validity of the burial at a hearing of the POW/MIA cases. Air Force 2nd Lt. Michael Moore, here in 1972, passed away in 2017 of service-connected Agent Orange exposure that caused kidney failure. My father was haunted by the crash. It fed his post-traumatic stress disorder and survivors guilt endlessly for 44 years, my entire life, before his passing. I recall him being glued to C-SPAN watching the hearings in the 1990s. The disappointment of that exercise devastated him; his mental health spiraled for years afterward. In 2020, after researching the shootdown, I joined forces with the family of one of Baron 52s missing. Air Force Sgt. Joseph Matejovs family has pushed for clear answers since 1973. Together, we want to spotlight this incident due to its important context in the 50th anniversary narrative for the Paris Peace Accords and Operation Homecoming. The downed flight had the potential to derail the Vietnam War negotiations Kissinger and Nixon had worked on for years and so desperately needed as the heat of the Watergate scandal increased. At the 1995 group interment for the Baron 52 crew in Arlington National Cemetery, Mary Matejov receives a burial American flag for her son, Air Force Sgt. Joseph Matejov. He was on the flight shot down over Laos in 1973. Please remember those lost on the Baron 52 flight and the families, friends and colleagues who still mourn them five decades later. Let us not forget the sacrifices of every war, but especially those wars that lacked the fanfare and appreciation our men and women in uniform so deserved. Remember not only those who came home, but also those who never did. Support veterans in your circle and support nonprofits like Legacies of War, an organization that educates the public about the American secret war in Laos and works to remove unexploded ordnance still impacting lives today. I volunteered and then joined the board because our missions aligned to amplify stories from the secret war in Laos. Heather Atherton is on the Board of Directors of Legacies of War. Heather Atherton, communication professional and proud daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, is on the Board of Directors of Legacies of War. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Vietnam didn't end with treaty. For families of MIA, it never did. Several disability and civil rights advocacy groups in California filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsoms (D) new court program targeting mental health concerns that he signed into law last year. Disability Rights California, the Western Center on Law & Poverty and the Public Interest Law Project filed a petition with the California Supreme Court on Thursday, alleging that Newsoms CARE Courts program violates the rights to due process and equal protection in the state constitution. The groups said the program created a court-ordered system of involuntary outpatient treatment by restricting patients autonomy in choosing their medical provider and where and with whom they live. Although designed to address the States homelessness crisis, it will not further that goal. And on its face, the CARE Act violates essential constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection while needlessly burdening fundamental rights to privacy, autonomy and liberty, the petition states. The petition asks the Supreme Court to block the rollout of the program. Newsom last year signed into law the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court, which requires all California counties to provide free comprehensive treatment to homeless citizens suffering from a list of ailments. Under this new law, community members could refer unsheltered people to community-based services to attempt to treat people before they are hospitalized or arrested. This referral could result in court-ordered individualized interventions and services, stabilization medication, advanced mental health directives and housing assistance, which could last up to one or two years. A public defender and a supporter will also be assigned to those referred the CARE Court to help individuals make self-directed care decisions. However, Disability Rights California said this system takes away fundamental rights in the California Constitution and targets those with schizophrenia, which the group notes could impact communities of color due to Latino and Black people being more likely to be misdiagnosed with the disorder. Story continues The petition argues that the program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the state constitution because it singles out people with schizophrenia for burdensome court proceedings and coerced treatment not imposed on others similarly situated. No other California mental health statute distinguishes between individuals based on diagnosis, rather than severity of need, the petition states. The groups also said that criteria to refer someone to the program is unclear, which could lead to biased and discriminatory enforcement and decision-making. The petition argues this unclear language effectively violates the due process clause of the states constitution. For individuals who are not presently a danger or gravely disabled, the CARE Acts eligibility criteria require the courts to speculate who might become so in the future, without offering any guidance about how to make such a subjective determination, the petition states. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A 24-year-old Arkansas man was killed Thursday when his vehicle drove off the Bob Sikes fishing pier. According to a Florida Highway Patrol news release, the driver was traveling north on the bridge and "failed to observe the end of the bridge." As a result, the vehicle crashed into the concrete barrier and came to rest at the bottom of the bay. The man succumbed to the injuries he sustained in the crash, according to the FHP. The initial reports of the incident were based on suspicious markings and car parts found on the fishing pier. Escambia County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Morgan Lewis told the News Journal they received reports of the "ill-placed" car parts and markings early Thursday morning and began assisting FHP. "No one actually saw a vehicle go over and there are no witnesses, but someone just thought (the car parts) were suspicious," Lewis said. "We don't have a timeframe, we're not really sure when this happened, but we do have our dive team and boat unit in the water and they are seeing if anything is out there." The FHP confirmed the crash and the death via an emailed news release at approximately 6 p.m. Thursday. The time of the crash was not included in the release. This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Did car drive off Bob Sikes Pier? ECSO dive team investigating report After four days of intense fighting in one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, Peter Mathews, an Army sergeant with the 1st Cavalry Division, swept through an area of South Vietnam's Central Highlands near Dak To with his unit as they prepared to leave. As he rifled through a group of backpacks left by North Vietnamese soldiers at the bottom of a hill, he came upon a small booklet covered in plastic to protect it from the elements. Its lined pages were decorated with beautifully intricate drawings of flowers and landscapes and what appeared to be poetry, songs and journal entries. Mathews didnt know what the handwritten words meant, but it looked like the booklet was a personal diary, not a military document, so he stuck it in his pocket, where it remained for much of the next month until his tour ended in December 1967. I just thought it was such a beautiful thing," he recalled. "I was amazed by the detail, the artistic ability. Peter Mathews found a Vietnamese soldier's diary while he was serving with the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War. Now he is searching for its author. Mathews at his home in Bergenfield on Tuesday, December 20, 2022. "Maybe I should have turned it in, but I just couldnt part with it," he said. "It didnt look to me like military or secret information. I didnt show it to anyone, I just put it in my pocket. When he returned home to New Jersey, Mathews tried to put his war experiences behind him. He got married, started a family and built a small construction business. The small 93-page diary was set aside in a box in his Bergenfield attic. Now, more than a half-century later, Mathews, 77, is searching for the author of the diary and hopes to return it to the soldier or his surviving relatives. My dream is if we can find him, to take a trip out there and present it, he said. I plan to put closure to it. At my age, now I feel its time. Waiting for green card, then drafted Mathews, a native of the Netherlands, came to the United States in 1963. He was living in Teaneck and working odd jobs while waiting to get his green card. Then in 1966, within months of getting the documentation, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. Story continues In Vietnam, Mathews was a machine gunner. After five months he became a squad leader in the 1st Cavalry, which would fly in to help other units if they needed backup. In late 1967, when Mathews found the diary, the Vietnam War was at its very height, said Michael Rockland, a professor of American Studies at Rutgers University who has taught extensively on the war. If you go to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and see the names of all 58,000 American soldiers carved on the rock and look at the dates of when they died, it was the late 1960s when the vast majority were killed, he said. By 1967, we had half a million American soldiers there. The battle of Dak To in November 1967 was a brutal monthlong fight in the wild terrain of the Central Highlands. Mathews unit had come in to help the soldiers there who were exhausted from weeks of combat. North Vietnamese soldiers would often drop their backpacks in a staging area rather than lugging the heavy packs up a hill while battling American soldiers, Mathews said. It was at the bottom of Hill 724, named for its elevation from sea level, where he found the diary in a backpack strewn among several other bags and dead North Vietnamese soldiers. Peter Mathews found a Vietnamese soldier's diary while he was serving with the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War. Now he is searching for its author. Mathews displays the diary at his home in Bergenfield on Tuesday, December 20, 2022. It was inside of a backpack. It was not attached to a person, he said. Maybe he survived and ran away and didnt have a chance to get his backpack, or maybe he got killed. Its impossible to say. That the book was found during such a major battle may help in the search for its author, said Grant Coates, the chair of Vietnam Veterans of Americas POW/MIA Affairs Committee. Revisiting their war experiences Through a program called the Veterans Initiative, Coates works with counterparts in Vietnam to recover the bodies of missing soldiers. In the programs 29 years, using personal items veterans had taken home with them and hand-drawn maps of battles, the initiative has provided information on the possible locations of roughly 14,000 bodies of Vietnamese soldiers. While there are many veterans groups in the U.S., there is just one in Vietnam: the Veterans Association of Vietnam, with more than 3 million members, Coates said. The Vietnamese kept meticulous records on units, he said. This was taken from a major battle scene in 1967. If we can give them even partial information, they might be able to finish the puzzle. That the diary has his address will help quite a bit. Coates said many veterans in recent years have begun revisiting their war experiences. Many veterans are wanting closure and feeling like now is the time to get these items back to family members, he said. Peter Mathews found a Vietnamese soldier's diary while he was serving with the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division during the Vietnam War. Now he is searching for its author. Mathews displays the diary at his home in Bergenfield on Tuesday, December 20, 2022. The summer after Mathews got home, he became a U.S. citizen. Every now and then, he took the diary out of storage to show family members, but he never talked much about his war experience with his four children, now in their 40s and 50s. You know, you put it in a box, it goes in the attic and its not on your mind, he said. My son has always complained how I never talk about it. This has opened me up a bit. As he left Hill 724 on an army helicopter, Mathews remembers looking down at the land he and others had fought so hard to take. The hill looked just like any other in the Central Highlands. It was covered by dense jungle, except for a brown scar across the top. Thats the crazy thing. You fight up there, people kill each other and then we leave, and they leave, he said. Its not like youre holding that hill for the duration of the war, you just walk away. It was senseless. Translating pages reveals soldier's name It wasnt until he was working at a job in Upper Saddle River a little more than a year ago that his interest in the book was rekindled. He spotted a non la, a traditional conical straw Vietnamese hat in a customers home office. That sparked a conversation with the client, who had adopted two children from Vietnam and had visited the country several times. Mathews returned to the mans home with the diary, and the client offered to have one of his friends translate some of its pages. Mathews began posting pages from the diary on social media, hoping to get more information. He heard from a professor at Harvard who was interested in researching the diary with his students, and a collector who offered $1,200 for the booklet. Andrew Pham, who translated I Dream of Peace, the wartime diary of Dang Thuy Tram, a doctor who cared for wounded Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers, and Frances Fitzgerald, a journalist who covered the war and wrote the introduction to the book, both gave advice should Mathews want to explore getting the diary published. The diary of the young doctor, who was killed in 1970, had been found by an American soldier and later became a runaway bestseller in Vietnam. A Vietnamese American with a friend in Vietnam who was once a high-ranking officer in the North Vietnamese Army also offered to help Mathews find the soldier and his family. As he got some of the pages translated, to Mathews surprise one of them held the soldiers name, Cao Xuan Tuat, as well as his address in a commune in the rural Ky Anh district of Ha Tinh province on Vietnams north central coast. The area was heavily bombed during the war and many people left, Mathews said, which may make it difficult to find the soldiers relatives. Mathews plans to create a website, myyearinvietnam.com, where he will post pictures and pages from the diary. Based on the writings in the diary, Mathews believes the soldiers job may have been to spread communist propaganda among people in villages taken over by North Vietnamese soldiers. There is poetry praising Ho Chi Minh and pages where the soldier writes of his hatred for American troops and the South Vietnamese who fought against him. He also writes of his love for his family and the realization he likely had just a small chance to see them again. Mathews' research on the diary still covered in the plastic wrapping the soldier used to protect it, its pages now brittle with age has raised complicated emotions. I had put a lot of Vietnam behind me," Mathews said. "Now it's bringing up difficult memories and feelings. But maybe its good, because now I am talking about it. Theres a certain sadness that I have theres no hatred," he said. "This is a person like anyone else. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Vietnam vet seeks owner of enemy soldier's diary he found after battle In December, in preparation for celebrating the 35th anniversary of Hamas establishment, the group once again focused its efforts on creating the perfect storm to achieve its goal of annihilating Israel, yet this time with less of its fingerprints and a strategy the group felt would focus away from the Gaza Strip and help to achieve its two political strategic objectives: to secure itself as the unquestionable leader of the Palestinians and to position itself as a reliable regional player. With a then-expected, now installed, formation of Israels most right-wing government in history, a deepening inner-Palestinian crisis and escalating power struggle over Mahmoud Abbas successor, and the increasing criticism of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority on the Palestinian street, Hamas felt that it could accomplish two objectives at once harm Israel and deepen its influence in the Palestinian Authority-controlled area, by fomenting further clashes in the West Bank. January 26, 2023: Palestinians shout slogans during a demonstration in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip following an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. - An Israeli raid on the West Bank's Jenin refugee camp killed nine Palestinians including an elderly woman, Palestinian officials said, also accusing the army of using tear gas inside a hospital. Yesterday that plan took on new steam when Israeli counterterrorism operations in Jenin initiated a round of rockets from Gaza and an Israeli retaliatory strike on Hamas military infrastructure. As most people who have followed the news over the last three and a half decades know, one of Hamas core ideological and political values and operational objectives is to violently eliminate Israel. This is an ideology known in Arabic as Al-Muqawamah al-Musallah The Armed Resistance. Under this banner, Hamas has initiated violent round after round with Israel since its initial formation. Hamas extremism and its unwavering pursuit of this objective has brought death and destruction to Gaza since it took control of the Strip in 2007, and its cycle of violence and despair has created a bleak future for the Palestinians who live under Hamas' control. With each round of Hamas-initiated violence, Gaza sinks further into despair, and the recovery time takes longer. Its residents suffer from economic hardship, and over the past few years, Israel has stepped in to provide work visas to thousands of Gazans so that they can work in Israel and support their families. Story continues These are just some of the reasons, an increasing number of Palestinians, as well as growing circles in the Arab world are starting to hold Hamas accountable for its actions and for the dismal reality in Gaza. Whenever violence escalates in the West Bank, whether supported and fomented by Hamas overtly or covertly, the groups military establishment, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, pressures Hamas political leadership to open a second front against Israel. This puts Hamas in a very difficult position where, on one hand, if it stays neutral, Palestinians and the Arab world will criticize its lack of support for its Palestinian brethren, an opportunistic manipulator who when push comes to shove stays on the sidelines, a criticism that compromises its position as the defender of the Palestinians. On the other hand, if it continues to escalate, thereby preserving its image of serving as the defender of the Palestinians, it proves that its power is centered within its military wing, and thereby will make it harder to market itself as a reasonable regional player with allies within the Arab world and the west. That issue is further compounded by the existence of other paramilitary groups in Gaza, and particularly the second largest paramilitary power in Gaza Strip, the Islamic Jihad in Palestine, who represent a potential challenger to Hamas power, and to the perception of Hamas total control in Gaza. If IJIP escalates, Israel will counter, and if IJIP were to openly challenge Hamas for failing to join the fight, it would create a nightmare scenario for Hamas. Based on my analysis, I dont see Israel and Hamas as being interested in expanding upon the recent flare-up of hostilities, and accordingly, it is likely we will not witness further escalation this time around. But all the ingredients for the next burst of violence are there. Avi Melamed, the author of "Inside The Middle East | Entering A New Era," is a former Israeli intelligence official and the former senior Arab affairs advisor to Jerusalem mayors Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert. He is the founder and chief education officer of Inside the Middle East, a nonprofit devoted to providing professional knowledge about the Middle East and empowering critical thinking by way of non-partisan and innovative education. Avi Melamed This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Hamas is stuck in a Catch 22 of its own making with new Gaza chaos Michael Shannon is offering his opinion on the circumstances surrounding Alec Baldwin's involuntary manslaughter charges. On Tuesday, the Bullet Train star spoke with The Chicago Tribune about an actor's perspective on how firearms should be handled on sets. "If you have guns in your movie, that's no place to cut corners," he shared. "The person on Rust clearly was not qualified for the job," Shannon, 48, opined, in reference to Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who is also facing two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the October 2021 on-set death of Halyna Hutchins. "She should not have been there." Shannon agreed with SAG-AFTRA's recent statement that "an actor's job is not to be a firearms or weapons expert" on set, noting that "if it were up to the actor to determine whether a firearm is safe or not, you wouldn't need an armorer in the first place." "Being an armorer is a hard job, a demanding job, and I have nothing but respect for them," he told the Tribune. RELATED: Alec Baldwin Seen Out in the Hamptons After News of Involuntary Manslaughter Charges "With Rust, before that gun went into his hand, [Baldwin] should have seen with his own eyes there was nothing in it," Shannon added as he explained typical procedure for how actors are given weapons on set, though it was not clear whether the actor has knowledge of the actual firearm procedures that preceded the fatal shooting. Shannon explained that armorers should always tell actors on set whether the firearm they are handing over is empty, or has decoy or dummy rounds in it. Michael Shannon attends The Museum of Modern Art's 15th Annual Film Benefit honoring Guillermo Del Toro at The Museum of Modern Art on December 08, 2022 in New York City. , Alec Baldwin attends the Annual Charity Day hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald, BGC and GFI at Cantor Fitzgerald on September 11, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Presley Ann/Getty Images for Cantor Fitzgerald) Theo Wargo/Getty; Presley Ann/Getty "You never settle for walking up to an actor and handing the gun over without showing them what's inside of it," he told the outlet. "Ever." Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "I'm not condemning Alec. I feel horrible for the guy," Shannon, who is not involved with the production of Rust, added. "It's a nightmare. I feel terrible for everyone on that production." Story continues "But this is what happens when you lowball and cut corners and hire people that may not be qualified, and pay them next to nothing, and make the movie on the cheap," he speculated to the outlet. Elsewhere in the interview, the two-time Academy Award nominee said actors should never "put your finger in the trigger hole" of a firearm "unless you're going for a take." Alec Baldwin attends the World Premiere of National Geographic Documentary Films' 'The First Wave' at Hamptons Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images Alec Baldwin RELATED: Brandon Lee's Sister Endorses Newspaper Editorial Calling for Banning Guns on Hollywood Sets Baldwin previously said in a memorable December 2021 sit-down with George Stephanopoulos that he "didn't pull the trigger," though an FBI report released in August 2022 determined the gun's trigger must have been pulled. "If you're holding a firearm between takes, which you shouldn't be, you point it at the ground until somebody comes and collects it from you," Shannon told the Tribune of his experience with firearms on set. The actor noted that he thinks the role of an on-set armorer "might become obsolete" in the wake of the fatal Rust shooting. "There's a big push now to do [gunfire] in post, you know, postproduction," he told the outlet. "No more live firing on set, period. So you act like you're firing a gun when you're not. It's called 'acting.' And it's truly not worth dying for." After news of the charges were announced last Thursday, two attorneys for 25-year-old Gutierrez Reed said in a statement that the charges "are the result of a very flawed investigation, and an inaccurate understanding of the full facts." "We intend to bring the full truth to light and believe Hannah will be exonerated of wrongdoing by a jury," Jason Bowles and Todd J. Bullion said in a statement. Image via Bape For years, many have speculated about why Nike hadnt taken aggressive legal action against Japanese streetwear brand A Bathing Ape, BAPE, after it had released several sneakers that appeared to be clear derivatives of its own designs. The question regained momentum over the past few years, as Nike targeted independent sneaker companies that sold an inspired Air Jordan 1, Air Force 1, or Dunk-like model. Most recently, Kool Kiy and Omi were on the other end of a Nike infringement lawsuit over their look-alike designs. Now, the question about Nikes apparent reluctance to after BAPE is no more, as the two are finally heading toward a courtroom showdown. On Wednesday, Nike filed a lawsuit against Bape in a Manhattan federal court, accusing the brand of outright copying its sneaker designs. A graphic chart in the lawsuit submitted by Nike compares Bapes Bape Sta to the Air Force 1, Bape Sta Mid to the Air Force 1 Mid, Sk8 Sta to the Dunk, Court Sta High to the Air Jordan 1, and Court Sta to the Air Jordan 1 Low. Originally released in 2000, the Bape Sta is Bapes flagship sneaker. Taking cues from Japanese streetwear culture, the shoes were generally styled in vibrant colors and often featured patent leather builds. While resembling the Air Force 1, the Bape Sta (and other Bape sneakers) is marked by the companys STA logo. Image via U.S. District Court Addressing why it waited as long as it did to take legal action against BAPE, Nike says thats not exactly the case. According to the lawsuit, Nike met with BAPE in 2009 to discuss the designs, resulting in the company diminishing its U.S. activities and closing most of its stores in the country. BAPE re-designed the Bape Sta in 2016 to less resemble the Air Force 1, but reintroduced its original version of the silhouette in 2021. Thats when Nike says BAPE drastically increased the volume and scope of its infringement. BAPE also allegedly refused to stop selling the infringing shoes when asks. Bape for years sold redesigned Bapestas (left, from 2018) that looked less like Nike Air Force 1s. Nike says in lawsuit that the new Bapestas (right, from 2022) return to the "initial infringing design." pic.twitter.com/zJbPibheCM brendandunne (@brendandunne) January 26, 2023 Nike, citing BAPE shoes that have been referred to as Air Force 1s or Dunks by second-market sellers, has asked the court to order BAPE to stop selling the shoes. Additionally, its requesting an unspecified amount of money for damages. Students attending a Step Up for Students Rally cheer and wave their signs during the rally in Tallahassee. Diverting taxpayer dollars to private, and often religious, schools used to be a wacky, unconstitutional subversion of public education in Florida. Former Gov. Jeb Bush was one of the pioneers of privatizing public education. Like most bad ideas, it started out small. The Opportunity Scholarship Program was set up to fund private tuitions for just 730 former public-school students. But it didnt get very far. The Florida Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 2006. "It diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools that are the sole means set out in the Constitution for the state to provide for the education of Florida's children," the state's high court wrote. More:Cerabino: Woke or joke? Trying to feel the pain of straight, white men More:Frank Cerabino: School announcement outside jail? High cost of politicizing school boards in Florida More:Cerabino: DeSantis: Proposed state license plate features warning to "out-of-state cars" Playing the long game on school vouchers That should have been the end of it. But entrepreneurs, religious organizations and home-schoolers looking to tap into public education dollars found allies with Republican lawmakers eager to dismantle and starve public schools and their unions. So, they never gave up. The state Constitution became a minor detail to sidestep, and with the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts transitioning to a captured, fully-compliant enabler of the partys wildest dreams, were now seeing Jeb Bushs secret plan being shouted boldly in the open. Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court, on a 6-3 decision in the case Carson v. Makin, tore down the once-solid wall of church-state separation by deciding that if a state funds vouchers for private schools, it must also include vouchers for religious schools. This month, the Florida Legislature began pushing a bill (HB 1) aimed at making most of Floridas 2.8 million public school students eligible for vouchers that would, in effect, defund traditional public schools for a patchwork of alternatives private, religious, or home schools that lack state oversight for teacher certification, academic and testing requirements, and other accountability standards traditional public schools face. Story continues (Some of these private Christian schools that get taxpayer dollars use textbooks that dispute evolution and teach that humans and dinosaurs lived together on Earth.) I think its clear to us that nobody, absolutely nobody knows the abilities and needs of their child better than a parent, said Rep. Kaylee Tuck, R-Lake Placid, a sponsor of the legislation. HB 1 will empower every parent to be able to choose the customized and tailored education system that fits best for their students. The bill is being cheered on by the nations biggest enemies of traditional public schools, including former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Amway heiress and voucher proponent who home-schooled her own children. DeVos signed onto a letter from a coalition of voucher pushers across the country urging Florida to fund students, not schools. WASHINGTON -- Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (left) leans over to listen to Bill Cordes, U.S. Department of Education Budget Service Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Analysis Division Director, as they wait to testify before a House Committee on Appropriation subcommittee hearing. "In the interest of students in Florida and across the country, we urge Floridas lawmakers to adopt these policies, to further empower parents and expand school choice, and set the roadmap for an education system to benefit the Free State of Florida," the Educational Freedom Institute said. The Education Freedom Institutes website contains a piece by two of its fellows that urges Republicans to engage in culture wars to promote vouchers. Making attacks against public schools by criticizing the teaching of Black history, COVID-19 mask policy, books available in school libraries, and the so-called woke mindset of public schools on LGBT issues will help drive parents toward educational alternatives, it says. The school choice movement should adopt new tactics not only on policy design but also with respect to messaging, their piece says. On policy, this means developing universal programs with large scholarship amounts and few regulatory constraints. On messaging, this means promoting choice to parents who are concerned about political activism and other so-called social justice trends in neighborhood schools. It is time for the school choice movement to embrace the culture war. Money laundering education dollars in Florida The enemies of public education in Florida have had a long history of deceit. To sidestep the 2006 Florida Supreme Court ruling on vouchers, the states lawmakers engaged in a kind of money-laundering scheme with a company organized as a charity. Cut off from using tax collections from the general fund to directly pay private schools, Florida lawmakers allowed corporations to pay their taxes as donations to a private company, Step Up for Students, which would then give scholarships (vouchers) to individual students for their private school tuition. By passing the tax money through the company, which skimmed off 3 percent for administrative fees, the states Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program became the metaphorical camels nose under the tent. Doug Tuthill, the founding head of Step Up for Students, couldn't help bragging about what he had created in Florida when speaking in 2011 to a California symposium on the importance of faith-based schools in the school-choice movement. "Because the Republican Party is fairly solid on our issue, most of the money we're spending is in Democratic primaries," Tuthill said. "I'd like to say that people do it because it's the right thing to do but that $1 million every other cycle gets people's attention." Tuthill said the goal in Florida was vouchers for all but his group had to make its pitch about helping poor kids. "In a world of finite resources, we focus our resources as a tactical priority on the high-poverty family," he said at that symposium. "That's another reason why we've been very, very successful, is because we make low-income families the face of the program. Frank Cerabino "It's all about parental empowerment, and here's the face," he said. "An overwhelming majority of the folks in our program are Democrats. ... We put those people in the face of Democrats and say, 'How can you deny this parent the right to educate their child in the way that they need?' That and the money has gone a long way to creating this cognitive dissonance among Democrats." The idea that kids would be better off in some unregulated private school that stays in business by collecting voucher money is far from the truth. The state is littered with failed private schools that then dump their students back into the public system. For example, this month, parents taking their children to the private Allapattah Wynwood School in Miami-Dade were furious to find the school suddenly shut down due to a legal battle going on among the family that founded the school. Herbert Fonseca Jr., the son of the schools owner, was an assistant principal at the school before he was fired last month a move he said was attributed to his fathers declining mental condition and bad advice. It really hurts me, the son told WPLG Channel-10 news. Its emotional for me to see these kids displaced like that over some nonsense. Parents were left scrambling, trying to enroll their kids in traditional public schools, but unable to get student records from the suddenly shuttered private school. Some parents protested outside in front of the school with signs that read "Open the school please" and "What happened to the school?" For years, observers have been watching Floridas relentless efforts to outsource public education through the promotion of vouchers. Andrew Coulson, the former director of the Cato Institute's Center of Educational Freedom, predicted 12 years ago that a domino effect for vouchers would happen in Florida. "If you have 300,000 kids in a single state in private schools, thanks to a school-choice program, you're eventually going to have everybody in that state in a school-choice program, because the parents who aren't eligible for it will demand the ability to participate," Coulson had said. It seems that we are racing toward that day. No need to be sneaky about it anymore. The camel's in the tent. Frank Cerabino is a columnist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at fcerabino@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida schools: Vouchers, unaccountable private schools becoming norm A super PAC backing Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for president in 2024 will have a presence at this weekends New Hampshire GOP meeting, planting its flag in the state for the Florida governor and potentially setting up a clash with former President Trump, who will also be in attendance. Ron to the Rescue, a super PAC formed after the midterms pushing support for DeSantis as the GOP nominee, will be in attendance at Saturdays annual meeting in Salem, N.H. The group will be collecting signatures to build up its team on the ground in the Granite State and unveiling a list of former New Hampshire Republican elected officials who are backing DeSantis over Trump ahead of next years primary. This is what I would call our opening salvo in New Hampshire, said John Thomas, a GOP consultant who founded Ron to the Rescue. Ron to the Rescue will have a booth at the New Hampshire GOP meeting, manned by staff from the super PAC and volunteers who are from New Hampshire, including former state officials who are supporting the Florida governor, Thomas said. The group will also be giving out DeSantis-themed items, like T-shirts and bumper stickers, and signing up volunteers who are willing to serve as on-the-ground organizers for the super PAC. This is the first time that members of the party have had the opportunity to engage with anybody related to DeSantis for president, Thomas said. While well certainly have a few people from Ron to the Rescue and staffers who arent from New Hampshire, most of the people there will be from the New Hampshire GOP. Our hope is it feels more friendly and relational rather than an out-of-town super PAC with no connection to people. Thomas said the Ron to the Rescue presence at Saturdays meeting in Salem, N.H., has been in the works for about two months, but the event will have some added intrigue now that Trump plans to speak there, an appearance that was announced just this week. Trump will address the crowd in New Hampshire before heading to South Carolina for an event. Story continues It definitely will change the pulse of the room more than what we thought it was going to be before, Thomas said. At some point we were going to end up in the same room as Trump. I guess better now than never. Thomas suggested Trumps presence on Saturday may actually benefit DeSantis, as it could remind some Republicans why theyre lukewarm about the idea of a third Trump candidacy. All these people dont dislike Trump, they just dont think he should be the 2024 nominee, Thomas said. Theres not a level of animosity toward Donald Trump from the Ron DeSantis supporters weve engaged with. Trump took some jabs at DeSantis around the time of the midterms, suggesting the Florida governor was not gracious enough for Trumps endorsement in the 2018 gubernatorial primary and warning that he could disclose unflattering information about DeSantis if the two squared off in a primary. Ron to the Rescue was formed in November after the Florida governor coasted to reelection on an otherwise underwhelming night for Republicans, cementing him as a figure to watch in the 2024 presidential race. The super PAC has released an ad arguing for DeSantis as the next president, but Saturdays event underscores how the group is hoping to put boots on the ground in early voting states and organize support for the governor before he officially declares his 2024 candidacy. The super PAC would then give DeSantis a leg up if he announces a presidential bid and populates states like Iowa and New Hampshire with his own campaign infrastructure. DeSantis has not announced whether he plans to run for president in 2024, but pundits expect him to get into the race later this year, with polls showing him as perhaps the most formidable challenger to Trump in a GOP primary. A University of New Hampshire poll released Thursday found DeSantis leading Trump, 42 percent to 30 percent. The poll surveyed 347 likely GOP primary voters in the state, which holds the first primary on the Republican calendar after the Iowa caucuses. The conservative group Club for Growth released polling after the midterms that showed DeSantis leading Trump in New Hampshire, Iowa and their shared home state of Florida. But while DeSantis has shown momentum and separated himself from other potential GOP candidates, many polls still show him trailing the former president. A Morning Consult poll released last week showed Trump leading DeSantis by 17 percentage points among Republican primary voters. A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey released last week also found Trump with a 20-percentage point lead over DeSantis in a hypothetical eight-way GOP primary. But DeSantiss 28 percent support in that poll actually marked an increase of 3 percentage points since December. Updated at 8:11 a.m. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Prosecutors have described how disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh allegedly murdered his defenceless wife and son at the familys hunting lodge in 2021. Mr Murdaugh is accused of brutally killing his wife Margaret, known as Maggie, and his youngest son, 22-year-old son Paul, outside kennels on the estate on 7 June 2021. Prosecutors told the opening of his trial on Wednesday that Mr Murdaugh had first shot his son with a shotgun, and then killed his wife with an AR-style rifle. The evidence will show that neither Paul nor Maggie had any defensive wounds as if they did not see a threat coming from their attacker, said prosecutor Creighton Waters. The evidence will show that both Maggie and Paul were shot at extremely close range. They were shot at close range and they did not have defensive wounds. The evidence will show that Alex Murdaugh told anyone who would listen that he was never at those kennels but the evidence is also going to show that he was there, he was there just minutes before with Maggie and Paul, before their cell phone go silent forever and ever, despite what he told people, their cell phones will tell us otherwise. Mr Waters told the jury that despite the defendants denials that he had ever been anywhere near the kennels on the night of the murders, a video sent by Paul to a friend moments before investigators say the murders happened featured Alex Murdaughs voice. He said that Pauls friend kept a dog at the kennels at the estate and he was worried about the animals tail, so sent him a video to show him. You will hear from witnesses that identify Pauls voice, Maggies voice, and Alex Murdaughs voice. He told everyone who would listen he was never there. The evidence will show that he was at the murder scene with the two victims, and more than that, over three minutes later Pauls phone locks forever. The prosecutor wrapped up his opening statement by telling the jury the evidence would give them a straightforward decision. Story continues You will reach the inescapable conclusion that Alex murdered Maggie and Paul, that he was the storm, that the storm was coming for them and the storm arrived on June 7 2021, just like the storms that are heading here today, and that they died as a result beyond any reasonable doubt, he said. Prosecutors have alleged in court filings leading up to the trial that Mr Murdaugh killed his wife and son to distract attention to the scandals that were engulfing him and that his alleged financial crimes were about to come to light. Mr Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced last month that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty but life in prison without parole if Murdaugh is convicted. In addition to the murder charges, Mr Murdaugh faces 99 charges stemming from 19 grand jury indictments for various crimes, including allegedly defrauding clients and his former law firm of nearly $9m. Heres an unconventional mock draft for the New Orleans Saints. The Draft Networks Damian Parson recently completed a two-round projection that has the Saints selecting USC Trojans pass rusher Tuli Tuipulotu at No. 41 overall, bringing a potential heir-apparent for Cameron Jordan into the building. Jordan won the Saints sacks record last year but will turn 34 this summer, so and the team shouldnt keep asking him to be their leading pass rusher. Tuipulotu certainly fits New Orleans prototype at defensive end, being listed at 6-foot-4 and 290 pounds. Hes coming off the best year of his college career with 13.5 sacks and 17 tackles for loss across 14 games; Pro Football Focus charting found he generated 56 quarterback pressures, which led the Trojans by a wide margin. There are some questions about his exact fit in the NFL, though. Parsons peer at TDN Kyle Crabbs wrote in Tuipulotus scouting report that: Expectations for Tuipulotu will range from team to team. Are you going to have him play in the 290s and serve as a B-gap defender? Or is he someone youll charge with playing around 270 and ask him to work more prominently off the edge? Hes shown the ability to do either, but in order to maximize his stock as a prospect, hell need to offer as much passing down value as possible to sell teams on his ability to play high snap volume in the NFL. New Orleans likes its defensive ends to play on the heavier side of that weight scale owing to their natural strength in run defense, so Tuipulotu wouldnt have to drastically change his body to accommodate their system. But thats assuming defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen wont leave for a new job after interviewing with the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons. It shouldnt shock anyone if the Saints end up using their top pick in the 2023 draft on a defensive lineman. Marcus Davenport and David Onyemata are pending free agents, as are guys like Tanoh Kpassagnon, Shy Tuttle, Kentavius Street, and Malcolm Roach. They arent all going to return next season. The Saints havent gotten anything out of their 2021 first round pick Payton Turner, either, so it would make sense if they add someone like Tuipulotu to their rotation behind Jordan and Carl Granderson. Story continues But that should only be a consideration if their bigger problems are resolved in free agency. The Saints have higher priorities at quarterback and running back, and you could make the case for roster needs at left guard, wide receiver, and safety, too. Maybe even tight end. They have plenty of issues to work out this offseason. List Saints use picks from Sean Payton trade in new 7-round NFL mock draft Story originally appeared on Saints Wire "Find a good way to skate," Josh Adams, a Memphis skateboarder and activist, told the crowd of people gathered for a vigil for Tyre Nichols on Thursday night. "Get into some good trouble out here." Nichols was also a skateboarder, though Adams never had a chance to meet him before Nichols died on Jan. 10 at the age of 29, three days after being stopped by Memphis Police in an incident that is under investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. It has led to the firing, arrests and indictments of five Memphis Police Officers as well as a national outcry. READ MORE:Tense Memphis mourns Tyre Nichols, awaits release of video Nichols has been remembered by friends as a deeply spiritual person and a free spirit. Family noted how he was loved by anyone he met. And how he loved skateboarding. According to his longtime friend Angelina Paxton, skate culture in California, where Nichols is from, is an escape from gang culture. "When you're going to inner-city schools, you either choose to be part of the gang banging and all the crazy stuff, or you choose to be part of sports," Paxton told the Commercial Appeal in early January. "Or you can be an outcast and be part of the street team that's what we call skaters and long-boarders and roller skaters." Nichols lived in Memphis for a little under three years, moving to the city in February 2020 after friends convinced him to relocate and start fresh, but the skateboarding community still wanted to come out to honor him. "I know that Tyre had just been in the city not a long time, so he really didn't time to establish an amount of friends and build a community that is here, and we just really wanted to show his mom that skaters do care about skaters," Luke Sexton, one of the organizers, said prior to the vigil. Tobey Skatepark was lined with candles as skaters, activists and community members gathered Thursday evening. RowVaughn Wells, Nichols' mother, spoke to the crowd briefly, thanking everyone for coming and asking for people to protest in peace following the expected Friday evening release of the video showing the interaction between the officers and Nichols. Story continues "When that tape comes out tomorrow, it's going to be horrific," Wells said. "I didn't see it, but from what I hear, it's going to be horrific. But I want each and every one of you to protest in peace. I don't want the burning of our city, tearing up the streets. Cause that's not what my son stood for. And if you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully." Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy said Thursday afternoon that it is his understanding that the video will be a combination of body camera video and SkyCop video. Some of the video will be redacted, Mulroy said. The video is, by all accounts, incredibly difficult to watch, with Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch, calling it "absolutely appalling" and civil rights attorney and one of the Nichols' family attorneys Ben Crump comparing it to the 1991 beating of Rodney King by police in Los Angeles. Crump said Monday after seeing the video that the last words on the video were of Nichols, only 80-100 yards from his house, calling out three times for his mom. "Don't let your children watch the video," family members and activists said Thursday night. Tyre Nichols death:How to navigate news coverage, social media as footage releases Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn "C.J." Davis said Wednesday night that more officers are under investigation in addition to the five charged, though she didn't specify how many or the nature of the policy violations. In addition, a Memphis Fire Department spokeswoman said Monday that two Memphis Firefighters involved in the initial care of Nichols were "relieved of duty" pending the outcome of an internal investigation. "We're not going to take it no more," Amber Sherman, a local activist, said at the vigil. "We want clear answers from every person who was on the scene that violently killed Tyre. Everyone who had a hand, we need every name released. Don't just quietly fire firefighters, don't just quietly fire paramedics, EMTs, release their names. Release the files. All of them got to come out." Sherman also called for the disbandment of the MPD unit called SCORPION, which stands for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods, that some of the officers have been identified as belonging to. The unit focuses on preventing auto theft and gang-related violence and was structured to have some coordination with the Multi-Agency Gang Unit. Davis has also announced an independent review of all of the departments specialized units. "We're not investigating nothing, we're disbanding it," Sherman said. "We're disbanding the OCU, we're disbanding the MCU, y'all are murdering people. Y'all are pulling up on people buying pizzas with guns to their heads, trying to go home. Tyre was just trying to go home. That man was just trying to go home, he just wanted to get food for himself. We can't even feed ourselves and y'all murdering us. We're not doing it no more." In addition to advocating for a city ordinance set to be introduced by Councilman JB Smiley in the Memphis City Council's Feb. 7 meeting that would require Memphis Police officers to report consistent and detailed reports on traffic stops, along with use-of-force complaints, Sherman asked that people show up in the coming days. "Your going to see us putting out calls to action, show up," Sherman said. "Your going to see us saying 'pull up for this family, support this family,' show up. Y'all are real deep at this skate park, I need it deeper. I need thousands. We're going to be in the streets for Tyre and we're not letting up." This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Skateboarders, activists, family gather to honor Tyre Nichols Zachary Grant expected the Transportation Security Administration check-in would take about four minutes at Pueblo Memorial Airport on Thursday as he prepared to board a Southern Airways Express flight to Denver. In actuality, it took about 90 seconds and he even got a cheery, Have a good day, greeting from one of the workers. That treatment was just part of the reason he opted to fly out of Pueblo instead of Denver for a trip to Salt Lake City this week. He listed off all the reasons he made the choice. The convenience, free parking. Its a quick trip to Denver that avoids tolls, traffic, paid parking and the fuel to get up there, Grant said. This is just inexpensive, quick and easy, Grant said. You can show up 30 minutes before your flight and its no problem, and the airport even has free Wi-Fi. Grant said he hopes others will start choosing to fly out of Pueblo. We need to support our little city and make sure this service stays here and possibly grows, Grant said. Grant, a cybersecurity expert, said he will share his experience on Facebook to help spread the word among his friends and family. The convenience is unequaled in Colorado, Mayor Nick Gradisar said to a gathering of local leaders and residents welcoming the new airline to the airport Thursday. Plus, we now have double the available flights. Gradisar said having Southern Airways Express as an essential air service carrier will help Pueblo realize its potential as a business and economic hub. With (rail transportation industry) businesses like ENSCO and MxV Rail, people will be traveling from all over the world to visit Pueblo, Gradisar said. Southern replaces SkyWest Airlines after the U.S. Department of Transportation approved its proposal for the essential air services flights. The federal program guarantees smaller communities access to the national transportation grid by subsidizing carriers that fly from the smaller communities to hub airports. Story continues Under the contract, Southern Airways will provide Pueblo with a total of 24 weekly nonstop round trips to Denver using a 9-seat Beechcraft King Air 200 plane. In exchange for the airlines willingness to serve the market, the federal government will pay an annual subsidy of $2.9 million this year and $3.06 million in 2024, according to the departments order. The contract runs through Jan. 31, 2025, at which time both parties can consider a renewal. More airport news:Ready for takeoff: Southern Airways wins contract for Pueblo to Denver flights Southern is 'spreading its wings' A Southern Airways Express airplane was available to tour on the tarmac at Pueblo Memorial Airport on Thursday. Mark Cestari, chief commercial officer for Southern Airways, told the crowd Thursday that the air service is a major asset for economic development. We are here to help your business grow and thrive. He said the airline launched in 2013 and today is a conglomeration of five separate small airlines, making it the fastest-growing airline in the country. We have spread our wings and we now fly into 54 airports from Nantucket to the east to the Marietas Islands to the west, Cestari said. About half our flights are essential air service like Pueblo, but we are the only airline that also flies to the five major hubs of Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Washington-Dulles and Phoenix. He said the airline balances its growth in hopes of avoiding the other problems major airlines face. He said crew and pilot shortages are a main issue for all airlines and will continue to plague the industry for a few more years. We have 700 employees, logged a record number of boardings last year despite the spike in airfares and expect to make more than $100 million in revenue this year. We arent perfect, but we are doing a better job than most, Cestari said. What helps Southern get a leg up is a pilot school it offers to 50 students a month. First officers can learn to fly the smaller planes, stay with Southern for two years and then move up to SkyWest, where they can fly bigger jets, Cestari explained. Thanks to an agreement with United, passengers can book flights through Southern from Pueblo to their ultimate destination. If there is a disruption, Southerns 24-hour call center can rebook a flight and theres no waiting on the phone for five hours, he said. He said Southerns essential air service flights out of Chadron, Nebraska, logged 365 days without a cancellation last year. Thats incredible, he said, pointing out Southerns founder is an attorney who approaches things from a customer service perspective. We give you our word we will do the best we can. If Pueblo shows a need, more flights could be added to places like Phoenix. There is no limit to what we can do, Cestari said. Flights range from $69 to $119 depending on amenities selected. Puebloans can book all flights at iflysouthern.com or united.com. Zachary Grant of Pueblo zips through the Transportation Security Administration check at Pueblo Memorial Airport before heading to Denver and then Salt Lake City. Grant expected the check in to take about four minutes but he breezed through in about 90 seconds. More airline news:As SkyWest opts out, Southern Airways applies to fly in and out of Pueblo Memorial Airport Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon covers business news. She can be reached by email at tharmon@chieftain.com or via Twitter at twitter.com/tracywumps. This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo welcomes Southern Airways Express to airport BARTLESVILLE, Okla., Jan. 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Four more African countries have been added to the list of the world's most dangerous and difficult places to follow Christ. Since 1997, The Voice of the Martyrs has tracked persecution of Christians and designated nations or areas where followers of Christ regularly face persecution as either restricted or hostile in their annual Global Prayer Guide. VOM added four African countries to their list of the world's most dangerous and difficult places to follow Christ. The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) added and designated Benin , the Democratic Republic of the Congo , Mozambique and Niger as "hostile" nations in their annual 2023 Global Prayer Guide. The VOM 2023 Global Prayer Guide is designed to equip and encourage Christians to pray more specifically by providing in-depth information about the plight of persecuted Christians around the world. The VOM 2023 Global Prayer Guide is free and available to anyone who requests a copy at www.persecution.com/prayerguide . Since 1997, VOM has tracked persecution of Christians and designated nations or areas where followers of Christ regularly face persecution as either "restricted" or "hostile" in their annual prayer resource. Benin, a small country bordering western Nigeria, is considered the birthplace of voodoo. The country is about 30 percent Christian, but Christianity is viewed by many in the north as a threat to their traditional beliefs. The church in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is under immense pressure. Islamist groups severely persecute Christians there, raiding villages, destroying churches and brutally killing hundreds of believers. Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world. It's also one of the most dangerous because an Islamic insurgency that started in 2019 continues to create chaos and instability in the northern province of Cabo Del Gado. In Niger, radical Islamists from countries that surround the nationsuch as Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria are attacking Christians inside the country with increasing frequency. "The first thing that persecuted Christians ask Christians in free nations to do for them is to PRAY. With this newly updated VOM Global Prayer Guide, every Christian can be equipped to pray with a real understanding of the needs and specific ways to pray," said Nettleton. Story continues VOM offers other prayer resources as well, including the new VOM app for iOS and Android which gives users a daily reminder to pray and a specific prayer request for that day. About The Voice of the Martyrs Founded in 1967, VOM is a nonprofit, interdenominational missions organization serving persecuted Christians in the world's most difficult and dangerous places to follow Christ. For more information, visit VOM.org . Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-voice-of-the-martyrs-2023-global-prayer-guide-says-four-african-nations-hostile-to-the-gospel-301721322.html SOURCE The Voice of the Martyrs Some sex offenders in New Mexico could be required to undergo chemical castration as a condition of their parole, under a bill proposed by state lawmakers there. Chemical castration involves taking medication to reduce testosterone, hormones and other chemicals that drive libido. The bill's sponsors include freshman Republican lawmaker John Block, who told USA TODAY Thursday House Bill 128 would be a "commonsense step" to protect children from pedophiles. New Mexico marks the latest state to propose using drugs in an effort to reduce recidivism among child sex offenders. More than a half-dozen other states already have similar laws in place. What New Mexico's chemical castration bill says The proposed legislation would require sex offenders, convicted of crimes involving children, who are eligible for parole to pay for their own chemical castration. If a person cannot afford the treatment, the fees would be waived. Here are the details: A person required to undergo the treatment would begin the process at least one month prior to their release from a correctional facility. The treatment would continue until a court determines it is no longer necessary. The therapy would be administered by the New Mexico Department of Health and parolees would be required to allow the Health Department to share their medical records with the state Parole Board. Criminals who stop the process before a court determines it is no longer necessary will be charged with a fourth-degree felony for being in violation of their parole. The Prison Policy Initiative found that New Mexico incarcerates 773 people per 100,000 total population, and if one imagines the state as an independent country, it would have the 19th highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. Who sponsored it State Rep. Stefani Lord, who cosponsored the bill, said the proposed legislation was aimed directly at offenders who have sexually abused children. "Since pedophiles are eligible for early release in New Mexico, for that privilege, they will need to agree to be chemically castrated as a condition of their parole," the Republican lawmaker said Thursday. "If they don't agree to these terms, they can stay in prison, away from society, and do their entire sentence." Story continues Block added: "With clear science and support from experts in favor of chemical castration of pedophiles, this is the most commonsense legislation to ensure the threat of these criminals is dramatically reduced. What states is chemical castration legal in? Several other states have already passed chemical castration laws including California, the first state to legalize the measure. The state's 1996 law applies to sex offenders who victimize children under the age of 13. Most recently, in 2019, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed the measure into law. Also on the list: Florida Iowa Georgia Louisiana Montana Oregon Texas Wisconsin More: Violent West Virginia prison plagued by officer shortages, pushing staffers to exhaustion Chemical castration may violate constitutional rights, critics say Colleen Glenn, a criminal defense attorney Florida, told USA TODAY there could be a challenge in the state under the Eighth Amendment, as the measure may be perceived as cruel and unusual punishment for someone who has served their time. "The use of chemical castration, while seemingly effective for those with uncontrollable sexual desires, is still controversial, and is associated with harmful side effects in addition to blurring the lines between punishment and treatment," Glenn said. Despite the Eighth Amendment considerations, Glenn said, some defendants actually request chemical castration in exchange for reducing their sentences. "Numerous states have passed legislation allowing chemical castration for sex offenders but the issue becomes more complicated for those defendants whose crimes were not motivated by an uncontrollable sexual desire," Glenn said. Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chemical castration for sex offenders in New Mexico proposed in bill Dan Kitwood - Getty Images Repatriation, and restitution, will be the big headline in the art world in 2023. In France, politicians proposed three laws aimed at speeding up the process, addressing the return of human remains in museum collections, art belonging to Jewish families during World War II, and restitution of art from the colonial era. "I hope 2023 will be a year of decisive progress for restitutions," French culture minister Rima Abdul Malak said in a speech, per ARTNews. In Poland, culture minister Piotr Glinski launched an "Empty Frames" campaign last year, to bring attention to stolen artwork from the country, and it remains a priority this year. "In all, we're now carrying out 130 restitution processes in more than 10 countries around the world," Glinski said in a press conference in mid-January. In Nigeria, there's the ongoing campaigns for the return of the Benin Bronzes, artifacts mainly connected to a a British raid on Benin City in 1897. "Unless there is clear evidence an artifact was acquired illegally, repatriation is largely at the discretion of museums," Sean Elder writes in Town & Country's February 2023 issue. Even then, they may not have the final word. Members of the British government, for example, were quick to point out this winter that, under current statute, it is forbidden for the British Museum to break up its collection of Greek antiquities. But the movement for returning appropriated antiquities is having a moment at big institutions." It's not just art getting repatriated from museums, howeverit's also the remains of people. In the United States, Native American communities are bringing increased attention on the remains of their ancestors still held in museums around the country. An investigation by ProPublica published in January 2023 found institutions in America that still hold Native American remains that have not been returned to tribes, despite the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act that was passed in 1990. Story continues In addition, repatriation isn't just for political entities; the descendants of Holocaust survivors and victims have continued to sue for the ownership of art stolen from their ancestors. In January 2023 alone, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Guggenheim have been sued by Jewish families. In this timeline, Town & Country will document repatriation news in 2023covering stolen antiquities, war crimes, and disputed archeological finds. Repatriated objects and artwork can originate from a wide variety of sources, ranging from private collections to national museums. In addition, repatriation doesn't just mean returning to a countryit can be artwork returning to families, or remains returning to ancestral burial grounds. We will be updating this timeline throughout the year. January - - Getty Images January 2: A wooden sarcophagus, featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, was returned to Egypt (pictured above) after U.S. authorities determined it was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis (near Cairo) and smuggled into the United States in 2008. January 5: An Iron Age ivory cosmetic spoon, found in the collection of billionaire antiquities collector Michael Steinhardt, was repatriated to the Palestinian Authority. The spoon was reportedly looted from the Khirbet al-Koum area in Hebron, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. "It is the first ever event of such repatriation from the United States to the Palestinian Authority in history," the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs said in a statement. January 23: New York County district attorney's office returned 60 antiquities from Italy in a repatriation valued around $20 million. The statues, vases, bronzes, and other pieces of artincluding a fresco depicting Herculeswere found in museums and the homes of private collectors. They will go on display at the Museo dell'Arte Salvata (Museum of Rescued Art) in Rome. January 24: Harvard University's Peabody Museum and Warren Anatomical Museum finished repatriated the remains of 313 Indigenous people from eastern Massachusetts to Wampanoag communities. January 25: Spain repatriated two Flemish paintings created in the Dieric Bouts shop to Poland. The paintings were looted by the Nazis from a Polish noble family during World War II, ad found in a museum in western Spain in 2019. January 26: An Australian citizen returned nine Buddha statues to Thailand that had been in his family since 1911. According to the Bangkok Post, the return is part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Fine Arts Department's mission to repatriate Thai antiquities. You Might Also Like Plans for Greene Countys withdrawal from the Rapidan Service Authority (RSA) are still a work in progress, hinging on the hiring of the countys own water and sewer staff, something that may be made more complicated due to the imminent exit of the departments leader. Last week, Elkton Town Council announced it had voted to rehire former town manager Greg Lunsford. Lunsford had been fired by the previous council back in June, causing an uproar among town citizens that included the resigning of one council member. I know it was difficult for a lot of the people in the town, it was difficult for me, it was difficult for my family. But I cant look back at that, at this point weve just got to look forward, its a new day in Elkton and there are a lot of priorities we need to focus on now, said Lunsford. The support has been overwhelming, if it hadnt been theres no way I could have considered going back. But from the day I left back in June until today, its been a tremendous support and that means so much to me, thats a big reason why I accepted the offer to come back. Lunsford is expected to return to Elkton in February. And while the rehire is great for Elkton and Lunsford, its not so great for Greene County. Lunsford was hired as the countys director of water and sewer in July. He was to oversee the development of the department as Greene transitions out of RSA. Since his hire, he has worked to establish the department, including the hire of its employees. The positions must be filled before Greene can formally make its request to the Virginia Resources Authority (VRA) for the transition of operations. In December, Greene County Supervisor Steve Bowman told the RSA Board of Members that Greene County Supervisors had authorized its chair to request the VRA approval once the hires had been finalized. That was expected to be done by Jan. 10, but during the Jan. 10 board of supervisors meeting, the hires were still being finalized. Lunsfords departure is one more that will need to be filled. In the interim, Greene County Planning Director and Zoning Administrator James F. Jim Frydl will assume the role. Its unknown how the change will impact the RSA withdrawal. Approximately 10 positions were needed. Those already hired have been working with RSA staff as part of their training. After staff is hired, equipment will be purchased; billing and payment processes and the website design will be established and then both VRA and SCC approval can be obtained. However, there will still be inspections after that before a transfer of assets. The lawsuit, of which Madison County is still part of, will then be dismissed and the department will officially launch. In September, Lunsford presented a budget to supervisors of approximately $1.5 million for fiscal year 2023, which is estimated to be seven months as opposed to a full 12 months. There is not currently a firm timeline on when Greene County will officially take hold of the applicable RSA assets. Both Madison and Orange counties have already adopted a resolution establishing RSA as a two-county organization post-withdrawal. Ben Cope / Design by Yoora Kim Even during the most challenging times in history, it's important to highlight those who are continuing to follow their dreams and are taking strides to make the world a better place. Each month, Seventeen is honoring young people as Voices of Change, those who are making a difference in their community and the world at large. At 17 years old, actor Maxwell Acee Donovan is poised to make a name for himself. He portrays affable, Green Bay Packers-adoring Nate Runck in That 90s Show, a spin-off of early-aughts sitcom That 70s Show, which debuted on Netflixs Top 10 list in its premiere week. But Maxs impact extends beyond the cameras and soundstages of Hollywood. It reaches the waterways and terrains that make up our environment and embody our natural world. Together with his sister, Clare Margaret Donovan, Max has launched Natures Negotiators, a nonprofit dedicated to conserving our planet and its ecosystems. The organizations mission is twofold. The first is to implement conservation easements, which are legal agreements that protect a lands natural resources and restrict future development. Through these contracts, Natures Negotiators hopes to protect the migration routes of vulnerable species, such as elk and caribou. The second mission is to identify the causes and impacts of endangered ecosystems, and eventually, fund think tanks that work towards a sustainable solution and actionable change. One of their first focuses is on the reduced number of native salmon in Alaska. In the near future, Max and his sister hope to organize a think tank that brings together all communities connected to the salmon hatcheries, fisherman, local government, local Native American tribes, to name a few to come up with a solution that is agreeable to all. While Natures Negotiators is still in its beginning stages, the pathway to real, effective change is set in motion. Following a meeting with esteemed conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall a lifelong hero, Max tells Seventeen outreach and education on endangered ecosystems are among their top priorities. Social media as a tool is huge, he explains. We want to get people involved and spread the message around to all communities. Maxs commitment to conservation in his DNA, and the opportunity to effect change is one hell never turn down. Better yet, its a lifelong dream, he says. Story continues 17: Tell us about Natures Negotiators and the inspiration behind the nonprofit. Maxwell Acee Donovan: I grew up in Colorado and have always been surrounded by nature. My mom is an anthropologist, and so she really taught my family and I the importance of giving back and conserving this world that we have and understanding how that works. She had gone to the Jane Goodall exhibit at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, and read all about the Jane Goodall Institute. At a grassroots level, they involve all people in a community to figure out the root cause of an environmental issue, and then solve it in a way that benefits everyone. So that was our jumping off point for Natures Negotiators. We wanted to create something that brought disparate stakeholders to the table, where everyone could have a voice, and a solution could be reached that would benefit all. If we ignore one person, then the problem won't be solved. But if we bring everyone to the table, then they can reach a common solution. At least that's the goal. Then, we hope to raise funds and create conservation easements, so migration routes in the Rocky Mountains, Alaska, and eventually all over the planet, can be preserved. The natural world can be preserved. 17: What can fans and followers do to help support Natures Negotiators? MAD: We are officially a 501c3 nonprofit in California, which is exciting. Soon well be able to accept donations. Meanwhile, my sister and I have been telling everyone we know and spreading the word on social media. It would be absolutely monumental if people repost and tell their friends and family about Natures Negotiators. We have a website, naturesnegotiators.org, where people can read more about our mission. [Editors Note: You can soon follow Natures Negotiators on social media, and subscribe to their newsletter for real-time updates on projects, fundraisers, and educational opportunities.] 17: Take us back to the beginning. When did your journey in activism and advocacy begin? MAD: My grandfather works for Habitat for Humanity in Colorado and sits on the board for Trout Unlimited in the Roaring Fork Valley, which is all about sustainable fishing habits. That was one of my first exposures to conservation advocacy. My mom and her work in anthropology and archeology [were a big motivator]. So for a long time, Ive had this mindset of, if I have an opportunity to make a change, I definitely want to and I'm here to give back and use my voice to spread awareness and help the Earth. This is my first big step, but it's been a lifelong dream. 17: How else do you plan to use your platform for advocacy efforts? Where would you like to see Natures Negotiators go in the future? MAD: With my platform, there are so many wonderful organizations out there, and if I have the opportunity to spread their messages as well as mine, I want to. Theres a lot of good that is being done in the world, and I want to amplify those voices. It would be incredible to see Nature's Negotiators bring on partnerships with those who are vocal in advocacy work. There's a lot of young advocates right now and it would be really cool to get to work with them, and be a voice in our generation to help inspire others. 17: What advice would you give to those looking to get involved in environmentalism? MAD: One of the first things that comes to mind is the Jane Goodall Institute, which has the Roots & Shoots program in 60+ countries. It's all about getting young people involved in environmental activism. You can go online right now and join. We live in a world where we're all very interconnected and everyone has a voice, which is amazing and so great to see. Giving people the platform to use their voice is crucial. 17: What is the biggest challenge you've faced so far in launching the nonprofit? MAD: I've been very lucky. I have a good team surrounding me. But I think the hardest part was really fleshing out the mission for Natures Negotiators. We had so many ideas swimming around that it almost had become too big. So, we thought, how do we consolidate this into one or two missions that could make an immediate change? Because its really in large part about making a change as quickly as possible, especially with these conservation easements. So when we fleshed out those two missions, we were like, OK, we've got something. 17: What has been the biggest highlight? MAD: Getting to meet Jane Goodall was pretty amazing. Shes been a lifelong hero for my mom and I, so when we got to be in the same room as her, and she brought out Mr. H, the stuffed animal, and we were like, oh my goodness and started crying pretty much immediately after. 17: What does being a Voice of Change honoree mean to you? MAD: I am so excited about it. My sister had a subscription to Seventeen that Id steal off of her table, since I think she was in third grade. I love that Seventeen has a platform to highlight these voices. It helps spread the word and it's so incredible to be a part of. I was reading some of the [previous Voices of Change] articles earlier this week and I'm blown away by the young people that have been highlighted. There are so many incredible young Voices of Change, and to be a part of that is really amazing. Parts of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity. You Might Also Like Beef-A-Roo is located at 1411 W. Kearney St. in Springfield. Illinois-based fast casual restaurant chain Beef-A-Roo is opening its first Springfield location this week at 1411 W. Kearney St. The grand opening will be held Friday, and the first 100 customers get a golden ticket that is good for one free order of junior cheddar fries every week for a year. "We're really excited to be down in this area," said Matt Riddle, Beef-A-Roo's chief operating officer. In addition to the Kearney Street location (in a former Dairy Queen building), Riddle said Beef-A-Roo is also planning to open a second Springfield location in the old Hardee's building on East Chestnut Expressway. Riddle said Beef-A-Roo hopes the Kearney Street restaurant will be the first step in an expansion that will eventually include locations in Branson, northwest Arkansas and the Kansas City area. More:Hardee's location in east Springfield has closed Beef-A-Roo is located at 1411 W. Kearney St. in Springfield. Riddle said Beef-A-Roo has a well-rounded menu that includes 100% fresh ground beef burgers, roast beef sandwiches, soups, chili, wraps and their famous cheddar fries. Beef-A-Roo was founded in 1976 in Rockford, Illinois and now has several locations in the state. Beef-A-Roo on Kearney Street will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Grand opening set for Friday for Springfield's first Beef-A-Roo JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" airs every weeknight at 11:35 p.m. EDT and features a diverse lineup of guests that include celebrities, athletes, musical acts, comedians and human interest subjects, along with comedy bits and a house band. The guests for Tuesday, June 28 included guest host Chelsea Handler, Simu Liu (We Were Dreamers), Atsuko Okatsuka, and musical guest Jelly Roll. (Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images) CHELSEA HANDLER Eric McCandless/ABC/Getty Chelsea Handler talked about Ozempic being used for weight loss in Hollywood circles and shared her own experience during her appearance on Call Her Daddy. The comedian, 47, sat down with host Alex Cooper for an intimate conversation on the podcast, where she opened up about unknowingly being prescribed Ozempic, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes. "So, my anti-aging doctor just hands it out to anybody," Handler admitted. "I didn't even know I was on it. She said, 'If you ever want to drop five lbs., this is good.'" However, the medication is not intended for people who need to lose just 5 lbs. Ozempic, or its counterpart Wegovy for people with obesity, works in the brain, and shifts the person's fat mass set point, Dr. Ania Jastreboff, M.D., PhD., and an obesity medicine physician scientist at Yale University told PEOPLE. Further, the drug needs to be taken at a low dose at the beginning, and slowly increased over time. Chandler says she gave herself a dose after a vacation. "I came back from a vacation and I injected myself with it. I went to lunch with a girlfriend a few days later, and she was like, 'I'm not really eating anything. I'm so nauseous, I'm on Ozempic,'" she recalled. "And I was like, 'I'm kind of nauseous too.' But I had just come back from Spain and was jet-lagged." Handler then said her friend asked if she was sure she wasn't on Ozempic before sharing that she was just "on semaglutide." "That's Ozempic," her friend explained. RELATED: Are Ozempic and Wegovy Safe? All About the Diabetes and Obesity Drugs man preparing Semaglutide Ozempic injection control blood sugar levels Getty RELATED: Remi Bader Says She 'Gained Double the Weight Back' After Stopping Weight-Loss Drug Ozempic Ozempic is an FDA-approved prescription medication taken by injection in the thigh, stomach or arm for people with type 2 diabetes. It's one of the brand names for semaglutide, which targets areas of the brain that regulate appetite. Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic, makes several brand-name drugs containing semaglutide, including Wegovy, which is FDA-approved for people with clinical obesity. Story continues During the podcast, Handler admitted that once she learned it wasn't medically necessary for her to use Ozempic she stopped, and now gives the remaining doses of the medication to her friends. (Health experts urge patients to consult with their provider before taking any medications.) "I'm not on it anymore. That's too irresponsible," Handler told Cooper. "I'm an irresponsible drug user, but I'm not gonna take a diabetic drug. I tried it, and I'm not gonna do that. That's not for me. That's not right for me." "I've injected about four or five of my friends with Ozempic because I realized I didn't wanna use it cause it's silly. It's for heavy people," she added. "Everyone is on Ozempic. It's gonna backfire, something bad is gonna happen." RELATED: What Is Ozempic Face? Doctors Explain the Side Effect of the Diabetes Drug RELATED: Doctor Criticizes Trend of Using Diabetes Drugs for Weight Loss: 'People Who Need These Drugs Can't Get Them' Handler noted that she understands why the diabetes and obesity drugs are trending. "It's a miracle! It's too good to be true," she said. "You can just make people who struggled with weight their entire lives thin? It's a miracle." Cooper then said the situation is "fd up" because someone in her life needs Ozempic medically for their diabetes, but can no longer get it due to the shortage. Some doctors have expressed frustration that Ozempic and Wegovy aren't getting to people who need it, and the FDA has listed a shortage for the drugs. "The Hollywood trend is concerning," Dr. Caroline Apovian, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, recently told PEOPLE. "We're not talking about stars who need to lose 10 pounds. We're talking about people who are dying of obesity, are going to die of obesity." "You're taking away from patients with diabetes," she continued. "We have lifesaving drugs and the United States public that really needs these drugs can't get them." Photo: Billion Photos (Shutterstock) When you go the hospital, you trust that the nurses who take care of you have completed an accredited nursing program, have passed their licensing exams and have gone through rigorous training. But federal investigators in Florida just discovered a widespread plot to help some aspiring nurses get around one of those pesky steps that is both shocking and scary. Twenty-five people in Florida were hit with federal charges this week after investigators found that they participated in a money-making plot to sell fake nursing diplomas and transcripts from accredited nursing schools. Read more As the Tampa NBC affiliate reports, the Department of Justice says the shady scheme involved over 7,600 fake diplomas sold to aspiring nurses since 2016. And at $15,000 a piece, the crooks could have swindled $114 million from people hoping to find work as registered nurses (RN) and licensed practical nurses/vocational nurses (LPN/VN). According to the Department of Justices investigation, the fake diplomas came from three South Florida-based nursing schools Siena College, Palm Beach School of Nursing and Sacred Heart International Institute and allowed the recipients to sit for nursing board exams and ultimately obtain licenses and employment in states around the country. Those schools are now closed, and the schemers now face up to 20 years in prison. Marcellyne Penny, Associate Dean of Nursing at Hillsborough Community College, says changes need to be made to the certification process. Im very passionate about integrity, she said. There are no shortcuts in nursing, and when you do take a shortcut, sooner or later, its going to catch up with you. Speaking on the investigation, Chad Yarbrough, Acting Special Agent in Charge FBI Miami, said he is glad investigators were able to stop this scheme before it got out of hand. Story continues What is disturbing about this investigation is that there are over 7,600 people around the country with fraudulent nursing credentials who are potentially in critical health care roles treating patients. Were it not for the diligence and hard work of the investigators on this case, the extent of this fraud may not have been discovered, he said. More from The Root Sign up for The Root's Newsletter. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) compared his Senate run to those of Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) on Friday when asked whether there was a lane for a progressive candidate in Arizona. Weve litigated this already. This is the same thing they were saying about Fetterman. This is the same thing they were saying about Warnock, Gallego told The Hill TVs What Americas Thinking. I have the same voting record as [Sen.] Mark Kelly, he continued, referring to his fellow Arizona Democrat. And by the way, in Arizona, no matter who you are, no matter who, left, right or center, you are as a Democrat, youre always going to be too liberal when the Republicans attack you. Arizona has a history of electing statewide candidates that tend to be more moderate and break with their own party, including incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I) and the late Sen. John McCain (R). I think these D.C. labels dont matter to voters in Arizona, Gallego said. They really just care about someone who understands them. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report and the University of Virginias Center for Politics have rated the states 2024 Senate race as a toss-up. Gallego announced Monday that he was running for Senate, setting up the possibility of an incumbent-on-incumbent general election challenge against Sinema. She announced late last year that she was leaving the Democratic Party to become an Independent, while still caucusing with Senate Democrats. Sinema has yet to announce whether she will run for reelection in 2024. However, Gallego has been full-steam ahead in his bid for the upper chamber, raising an eye-popping $1 million in one day after announcing. The Hill first reported on Thursday that Gallego is stepping down from his job as head of Bold PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucuss (CHC) campaign arm, to focus on his Senate campaign. Gallego told HillTV that he has not been in contact with Sinema since announcing his campaign. Story continues No one really speaks to Sen. Sinema and thats kind of the problem, Gallego said. The fact is she hasnt spoken to anybody in Arizona. Gallego is also coming into the race on a high note, after running Bold PAC during the 2022 election campaign the organization successfully defended all its incumbents and added nine new members to the CHC, a record. That experience dialed the five-term Arizona congressman into national campaign and fundraising organizations, giving him the kind of large-scale campaign experience needed to run a successful Senate bid. Democrats, particularly progressives, have viewed Sinema as a roadblock to passing key Democratic priorities. She and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have vocally defended the filibuster, a rule that requires most pieces of legislation to require at least 60 votes to pass in the Senate. But some have expressed concerns that a three-way race between Sinema, Gallego and the eventual Republican nominee could sabotage Democratic efforts to hold the seat in 2024. Gallego dismissed those concerns in the interview, predicting that if she Sinema runs, she would come in a very, low, low third place. Theres no concern on our behalf because we understand polling and more importantly we understand Arizonans, he said. She is very unpopular with Democrats and independents. Her running is more likely to pull from the Republicans because she basically has a ban on a lot of the values that people care about in Arizona. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Justice Department and eight other states filed a historic antitrust lawsuit Tuesday targeting Google over what they allege is the Big Tech giant's monopoly over the online advertising market. "Monopolies threaten the free and fair markets on which our economy is based," Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Tuesday. "They stifle innovation, they hurt workers and producers and they increase costs for consumers." "No matter the industry and no matter the company, the Justice Department will vigorously enforce our antitrust laws," Garland added. VIDEO: Top US Google searches of 2022 The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, aims to break up Google's dominance in the online ad marketplace by compelling the company to divest its Google Ad Manager suite. The lawsuit also seeks an order from the court prohibiting Google from engaging in any of the anti-competitive practices outlined in the case. "Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies," according to the lawsuit. The action seeks to "halt Google's anticompetitive scheme, unwind Google's monopolistic grip on the market, and restore competition to digital advertising," the lawsuit said. PHOTO: A view of the main lobby of building BV200, during a tour of Google's new Bay View Campus in Mountain View, Calif., May 16, 2022. (Peter Dasilva/Reuters, FILE) DOJ is joined in the lawsuit by California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia. "Competition in the ad tech space is broken, for reasons that were neither accidental nor inevitable," the DOJ wrote in the lawsuit. "One industry behemoth, Google, has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising." Google is set to take in more than 26% of all digital advertising revenue this year, according to an analysis from data firm Insider Intelligence. In total, tech giants Google, Amazon and Facebook-parent Meta will take in about 64% of the $200 billion in digital ad revenue generated this year, the study found. Story continues MORE: Google to cut 12,000 jobs from global workforce Google rebuked the lawsuit's claims in a statement to ABC News. "Todays lawsuit from the DOJ attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector. It largely duplicates an unfounded lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General, much of which was recently dismissed by a federal court," a spokesperson said. "DOJ is doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow," the spokesperson added. PHOTO: A view of the Google logo on a temporary house during CES 2023, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas, Jan. 6, 2023. (Steve Marcus/Reuters, FILE) Google exploits a conflict of interest, the lawsuit alleges, since the company controls the technology used to both offer and purchase advertising space, as well as the largest ad exchange on which marketers are matched with publishers. Further, the lawsuit accuses Google of using its market power to punish companies that purchase digital ads elsewhere and charge heightened fees for clients that buy ads on its platforms. In turn, such "anticompetitive behavior" has forced potential competitors out of the digital advertising business and sidelined businesses that remain, the lawsuit said. "Google has thwarted meaningful competition and deterred innovation in the digital advertising industry," the lawsuit said. Justice Department files antitrust lawsuit against Google over digital advertising originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Near the Colorado-Kansas border, sisters Felicia and Stephanie Ohnmacht cultivate corn, wheat and rye on their 3,000-acre Gergen Farm owned by their family for more than a century. As with many small farms across the country, theirs nearly shuttered due to dominating industrial farms and the chaos of global markets. However, after a chance meeting with Al Laws of Denver-based Laws Whiskey House, the Ohnmacht sisters paved a new path for themselves to become Whiskey Sisters Supply. At a young age, both sisters were told to avoid farming and its many challenges. Climate change, for one, is agitating many factors, from drought and floods to the timing of annual harvests. And, unexpected events like Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine can easily disrupt supply chains and bump the prices of basic farming needs. For instance, tractors are more expensive and fertilizer prices have soared. A USDA report published in June shows fertilizer accounts for 36 percent of operating costs for corn and 35 percent for wheat, so this alone can shock a farms ecosystem. More from Robb Report So, rather than taking over the farm, Stephanie pursued a clothing line and a job in telecommunications. Felicia worked a corporate gig and later became a stay-at-home mom. But, in 2015, when Stephanie met Laws at a fashion show, he mentioned his desire to work with a local corn supplier. While Stephanie never aspired to become a farmer, this presented a potentially profitable opportunity. The Ohnmacht sisters with the founder of Laws Whiskey House But, the idea would shift the entire businessfrom generations of growing market grains to alcoholand the familys values. The farm, seeded in 1913 by their great grandfather Charlie Gergen, was fostered by three generations of teetotalers. When the sisters presented the concept to their mom, Paulette Gergen Ohnmacht, they knew it wouldnt be easy. My mom said grandpa would be very upset if grains from his fields were going into alcohol, Stephanie recalled. But, diversifying their crops would provide much-needed financial support. Story continues It took months of convincing, but she agreed on a tentative basis, allowing them to work with Laws one batch of corn at a time. When mom finally [approved], she did it in a whisper so grandpa couldnt hear it, Stephanie chuckled. Now, the sisters work with distillers across Colorado and are also brokers for other family-owned farms doing the same. By selling to distillers, theyve modified the types of grain they grow. For example, they added rye and continuously evolve their crops based on market conditions and the clients needs. [A client] was never a consideration before; it was only about what we can sell for the highest price, Felicia said. Working with Laws rejuvenated their fields and within his ethos, Laws believes the craft spirits movement stimulates a wide range of cottage industries (from locally made stills, ingredients and other things like merchandise). He is adamant about working with Colorado growers, specifically. I think the farms are the most important thing to us because its keeping the family farm archetype alive, he said. In addition to using corn from Whiskey Sisters Supply, Laws sources wheat and rye from Colorado Malting Company, run by brothers Jason and Josh Cody. As fourth-generation farmers, the Codys saved their farm when integrating malting as part of their business. Thats another value add, more distribution, and a revenue diversifier, Laws emphasized. Paul and Rose Mary Gergen on the farm in 1963 Craft distilling in Colorado is growing, with more than 100 distillers throughout the state. Yet, as local farmers look toward the future, continuous pressures challenge them to stay afloat. Drought, dried-up rivers, and aquifers are fiercely impacting agriculture, and those with water rights, like the Ohnmacht sisters, face reduced allotments. Water restrictions are driving us to invest in technology and be better stewards, Felicia mentioned, adding that their well pulled from 1,800 acres in the 1980s. Now theyre only allowed to tap into 500 acres. Theyre also creating pathways for better soil health, ultimately leading to more robust grains and better-tasting whiskey. The biggest challenge, though, is supporting the climate and environment and staying sustainable, especially with our ground and how we plant. The sisters hope to continue supporting other families to reinvent and diversify so they too can preserve their farming lineages. They also encourage craft distillers and consumers to forge pathways for local grains, which bring regional identity to craft products. For Laws, these grains are the difference between consistency and quality from a family or a hodge-podge from an industrial supplier. To him, whiskey is about the people who grow it, make it, and drink it. We produce whiskey, which is a soulful thing, he pondered. It doesnt just come from what we do to it, but it comes from all the people who grew it. As for the Ohnmacht sisters, theyve witnessed their mom open up and explore the alcohol industry through its people and products. She has gone from refusing a taste of whiskey to enjoying a small dram when there is a new release, when the family gathers, or hosts clients, Stephanie said reflecting on the sacrifices and the evolution of moving Gergen Farm into the future, one dram at a time. Best of Robb Report Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. A Mississippi doctor who leads a group of physicians opposed to COVID-19 vaccine mandates has filed paperwork to challenge Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves in the states Republican primary. Dr. John Witcher is the only Republican other than Reeves who has entered the gubernatorial primary so far. He's best known for founding Mississippi Against Mandates, a group of doctors opposed to requiring COVID-19 vaccines. Witcher has said he was fired from a Mississippi hospital in 2021 after switching patients COVID-19 medication to ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that is not authorized by the FDA for use against the novel coronavirus and which research shows doesn't work. More:He was once labeled a danger to patients. Now he's protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates A representative for Baptist Memorial Hospital in Yazoo City told the Biloxi Sun Herald that Witcher practiced at the facility as an independent physician and was never an employee. According to a Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure document, the doctor was suspended in 2010 from practicing medicine at another Mississippi hospital after a regulatory commission found he was an immediate threat to the public by reason of alcohol or other substance abuse. The Associated Press left a voicemail with Mississippi Against Mandates seeking comment from Witcher. Reeves, who was elected governor in 2019, filed for reelection on Jan. 3. Former Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr., who lost to Reeves in the 2019 Republican primary, has said he is considering another run. Brandon Presley, a Democrat in his fourth term as a Mississippi utilities regulator, announced on Jan. 12 that he is seeking the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Presley will face at least one candidate in the Democratic primary. Gregory Wash, who ran a low-budget race for governor in 2019, has filed to run again. Feb. 1 is the qualifying deadline for an election that will include statewide offices, state district offices, legislative seats and county offices. Party primaries are scheduled for Aug. 8, with runoffs on Aug. 29. The general election is on Nov. 7, with runoffs on Nov. 28. Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky are the only states electing governors this year. This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi doctor against vaccine mandate runs for governor A new survey released ahead of Friday's Holocaust Remembrance Day found the number of adults in the Netherlands who believe the worlds worst genocide is a myth or exaggerated is higher than in any of the other nations surveyed, a "disturbing" decline in Holocaust knowledge. In the Netherlands, 23% of adults under 40 and 12% of all respondents said they believed the Holocaust was a myth or that the number of Jews killed has been greatly exaggerated. The survey also found that 54% of all respondents and 59% of millennials and Gen Zers did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered, and 29% of Dutch adults believed the number is 2 million or fewer. Of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands before World War II, 102,000 were killed during the Holocaust, according to the U.S. State Department. Anne Frank and the Dutch Although several transit camps in the Netherlands were used to deport more than 70% of the countrys Jewish population to concentration camps, including Anne Frank and her family, who were hiding in Amsterdam, 53% of Dutch respondents "did not cite" the Netherlands as a country where the Holocaust took place, according to the survey. Though most Dutch respondents 89% were familiar with Anne Frank, 32% of millennials and 27% of all adults surveyed did not know she died in a concentration camp. 'IT CAN'T BE FORGOTTEN': Oldest Holocaust memorial in US gets federal protection amid rise of antisemitism 'EPIDEMIC OF HATE': White House tackles rise in antisemitism at forum led by second gentleman Doug Emhoff Similar survey findings The survey, released Wednesday and commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. In 2018, a similar survey in the U.S. found almost a third of Americans and 41% of millennials incorrectly believed 2 million or fewer Jews died in the Holocaust. The alarming trend continued in 2020, when another survey found almost two-thirds of millennials and Gen Zers didnt know that 6 million Jews were killed. Story continues Survey after survey, we continue to witness a decline in Holocaust knowledge and awareness. Equally disturbing is the trend towards Holocaust denial and distortion, Claims Conference President Gideon Taylor said in a statement. 2020 SURVEY: Almost two-thirds of millennials, Gen Z don't know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, survey finds To address this trend, we must put a greater focus on Holocaust education in our schools globally. If we do not, denial will soon outweigh knowledge, and future generations will have no exposure to the critical lessons of the Holocaust, Taylor said. Netherlands' Holocaust history Nazi Germany occupied the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945. Deportation of Jews from the Netherlands began in 1942, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. For Dutch Jews, Westerbork in eastern Netherlands was a key location during the Holocaust where Jews, including Anne Frank, were sent before being deported to killing centers such as Auschwitz, according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The last train to leave Westerbork for Auschwitz was on Sept. 3, 1944 the same day as when Anne Frank and her family were deported. More than 100,000 Jews spent time at the Westerbork transit camp, and only 5,000 Jews who passed through Westerbork survived, according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Antisemitism on the rise The survey's results come as antisemitic incidents and rhetoric have steadily increased over the past several years. According to the Anti-Defamation League, 2021 was an all-time high in the U.S. for documented incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism directed against Jews. A total of 2,717 incidents were reported to the ADL in 2021, and the group says 2022 will have similar results. The ADL has been tracking antisemitic incidents since 1979 and has since seen a 34% increase of incidents an average of more than seven incidents a day year after year. Contributing: Ryan Miller, USA TODAY; The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Survey: Almost a quarter of Dutch Millennials, Gen Z deny Holocaust A Columbus man was charged last week with raping a 10-year-old girl who got an abortion in Indiana, inflaming the debate over whether sexual assault survivors in Ohio should be allowed to end a pregnancy. For now, the answer among lawmakers is still no. Ohio's current law bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected, which usually occurs around six weeks gestation. The procedure is legal beyond this threshold only if it's necessary to prevent the pregnant person's death or "serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function." Q u0026 A: What we know about case of 10-year-old Ohio girl who sought abortion in Indiana Ohio banned abortion after 6 weeks: What other bills are lawmakers working on? Ohio lawmakers may look to better define 'life of the mother' abortion exemptions There are no exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and Republican leaders who control the Ohio House and Senate will likely keep it that way as they consider a total abortion ban later this year. Instead, lawmakers may explore ways to better define "life of the mother" rules. Attorney General Dave Yost claimed the 10-year-old didn't need to leave Ohio to get an abortion because her pregnancy would have been a medical emergency, but doctors disagreed. Ohio abortion ban: Do 10-year-olds meet 'life of mother' abortion exemptions? Ohio lawmakers, doctors divided Ohio 6-week abortion ban: Mental health isn't an exception in Ohio's heartbeat abortion law. Should it be? "This case along with many other cases that happen are relatively rare," Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said. "Those need to be addressed as specifically as possible so the people involved, the medical professionals, have clear direction about what to do." For example, Huffman doesn't consider inducing during miscarriage to be abortion. "If this child is not going to live and is threatening the health or the life of the mother, its not an abortion, and it needs to be defined as such in the bill," he said. Story continues Ohio abortion ban exemptions debated In 2020, 521 minors got an abortion in Ohio, including 52 who were younger than 15, according to the Ohio Department of Health. The department does not track whether the pregnancies were the result of sexual assault. Doctors and advocates say forcing anyone to carry their rapist's baby particularly a child or teenager can cause trauma that leads to addiction or suicidal ideation. A 2001 study found children who suffer sexual abuse may be 10 times to 13 times more likely to attempt suicide. Abortion: Story of Ohio 10-year-old rape victim who had abortion in Indiana explodes on social media "This decision is about more than abortion," the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence said after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June. "It is rooted in oppression, deciding who has power over us, who makes decisions for us, and who will dictate our future access to legal rights." Dr. Catherine Romanos, with the Women's Med Center in Kettering, near Dayton, performs a sonogram on a woman from Kentucky. Polling shows Americans' views on abortion aren't black and white, but bans that provide exceptions for rape and incest are generally well-received. A recent Pew Research Center survey found 69% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if the pregnancy was caused by rape, including 83% of Democrats and 56% of Republicans. Polling by Monmouth University indicated 85% of Americans support exceptions for rape, incest and to save the pregnant person's life. If Ohio enacts a full ban later this year without these exemptions, it would follow states such as Alabama, Mississippi, South Dakota and Texas. Abortion in Ohio: Ohio lawmakers introduce bill banning abortion at conception unless mother's life at risk That's a path Ohio Right to Life would support. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Whitmarsh said the group wants lawmakers to increase penalties for rapists, but it does not believe the fetus should be punished for "crimes of the father." "I absolutely believe that Ohio should advance any and every policy meant to prevent such horrific cases like we saw happen to the 10-year-old girl," Whitmarsh said. Where do Ohio lawmakers stand? Democrats tried to include rape exemptions in Ohio's six-week ban when it was first debated, but those amendments failed. In the end, some Republicans joined them in opposing the final bill. "I heard from many constituents in my district who had extenuating, nuanced circumstances, and I don't think government can possibly know all of the different reasons that someone would have to seek treatment or seek the termination of a pregnancy," state Sen. Stephanie Kunze, R-Hilliard, said. Recent legislation doesn't exclude these cases, either. A bill introduced last week by state Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, would ban all abortions, except to save the life of the pregnant person. A proposed trigger ban from Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Miami Township, also did not include rape and incest exemptions. Abortion: Arrest made in rape of Ohio girl that led to Indiana abortion drawing international attention Schmidt said earlier this year that a hypothetical teenager who had been raped would have the "opportunity" to help that child become a "productive human being." Click did not respond to an interview request. Schmidt abruptly ended the phone call when reached by the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. A spokesman for Gov. Mike DeWine declined to say where the governor stands on rape and incest exemptions, saying he's focused on "supports for moms and babies." Huffman opposes blanket exceptions for cases of rape and incest. He said Monday that GOP senators drafting the Senate's bill may review the mental health impacts of rape victims particularly minor victims carrying to term. Here's what we know: 10-year-old travels to Indiana for abortion and Columbus man arrested "I dont know because I'm not a medical person how that fits with exceptions already in the law," he said. Ultimately, though, he expects the impending ban to eradicate abortion in Ohio. "If theres going to be some sort of exception, it needs to be narrow," Huffman said. "It needs to be specific...That's why we have a few months to go through and think about things specifically." Columbus Dispatch reporter Max Filby contributed to this report. Haley BeMiller and Anna Staver are reporters for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio abortion: Will case of 10-year-old girl change GOP minds? Hi, OnPolitics readers. Our top recommended read for you today comes from reporters Francesca Chambers and Mabinty Quarshie, who published an exclusive story on the quiet efforts by VP Kamala Harris to engage Black men. Why it matters: The Biden administration appear be responding to criticism that Democrats only care about Black voters during an election, but then fall short on the promises made during the campaign. The news: Vice President Harris met last week with students and civil rights organizers to "solicit ideas on how the Biden administration can lift up young Black men," Mabinty and Francesca report. I asked Mabinty to share a bit more about the story: Sarah Day: Tell us more about the timing. Why is this happening now? Mabinty: During last years midterm cycle there were several stories about how Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams was struggling to attract Black male voters. I went down to Georgia before the midterms and talked with Black men who told me they felt ignored and used by the Democratic Party for votes during elections. But what they truly wanted was an authentic relationship with politicians who understand their daily lives and are partnering with their communities. Now it appears the Biden administration is taking these critiques seriously and holding listening sessions with Black men and civil rights leaders. This is especially important to do ahead of the 2024 presidential election where Black voters will once again be crucial to Democrats getting another four years of control. SD: Is there a consensus around what attendees hope will be the outcome of the conversation? M: Some attendees told USA TODAY they wanted to see legislation or even a policy statement on issues that Black men care about, which includes Black entrepreneurship, voting rights, police reform, student loan debt cancellation. They also wanted the Biden administration to make it clear to Black men how their participation in the electoral process can lead to better economic opportunities for them. Story continues SD: Your story mentions some of the longstanding inequities and systemic racism faced by Black men in particular. Could you briefly share why this focus is important? M: Black men were hard hit by the pandemic. They had higher unemployment rates compared to white men. And then add in George Floyds murder and the public protests that spread across the world. Several Black men I talked with last year said they feel ignored by politicians and left behind. Ultimately, Black men want to be leaders in their communities and families. They want to have access to good-paying jobs and homeownership. But they also need policies that can help them overcome the systemic racism they face in society. SD: What's next? M: Its up to Democrats to prove to Black men their taking their concerns seriously. Congress has stalled on legislation that would increase the minimum wage. But there were funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support Black and minority-owned businesses. Attendees did say they wanted some sort of statement or policy proposal from the Biden administration. But well have to wait and see if that does happen. Keep reading: Democrats have a problem with Black male voters. VP Kamala Harris is quietly trying to fix it Real quick: Stories you'll want to read National Archives asks former presidents, VPs to check their files: Faced with a steady stream of disclosures about improperly kept classified documents, the National Archives on Thursday asked former presidents and vice presidents to look for any sensitive and potentially top-secret material they might have, according to a source familiar with the matter. What we know about former officials. California Rep. Adam Schiff enters race for Senate seat: Schiff, who became a target of GOP wrath for leading the first impeachment of then-president Donald Trump, Thursday launched his candidacy for the Senate seat that fellow Democrat Dianne Feinstein now occupies. Democratic Rep. Katie Porter already announced her candidacy. Video of Paul Pelosi attack will be released: A California judge ordered the home attack on former speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, should be released. How the attack unfolded. What to know about companies linked to Rep. Santos: Companies affiliated with embattled congressman George Santos have drawn scrutiny from lawmakers, regulators, and experts as the newly elected Republican faces increasing political pressure to step down for lying about his background. More political updates: In today's live blog, catch up on more top news out of Washington, including why you'll see Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why VP Kamala Harris engaging Black men voters matters As many as 1 million Ukrainians could soon receive their electricity via ship. On Thursday morning, the state-owned electric trader JSC Energy Company of Ukraine signed a memorandum of understanding with Karpowership, a Turkish-owned operator of floating power plants. Karpowerships floating generators are one potential means of helping Ukrainians weather damage to the electrical grid caused by escalating Russian missile attacks in recent months. According to Karpowership, the company will provide Ukraine with up to 500 megawatts of electricity from ship-based generators. The floating power plants located on ships that can burn liquified natural gas, fuel oil or biodiesel will be anchored near the coast, likely in nearby Romania or Moldova, and connected to the grid through underwater cables. As Ukraine has regained territory occupied by Russia earlier in the war, Moscow has targeted and destroyed much of Ukraines electric infrastructure. Reuters reported that Russian missile attacks damaged virtually the entire Ukrainian electric grid last year. Ukraines military is able to shoot down most of Russias missile barrages. In an attack on Thursday morning, national air defense units shot down 47 out of 55 missiles, Reuters reported. But the remaining eight missiles were enough to kill one Kyiv resident and damage the national grid amid sub-freezing temperatures. In the past few months, Ukraine has conducted controlled blackouts as it tries to weather the attacks on the energy grid. One study of power supplies to 500 ATMs owned by one of Ukraines largest banks machines that are always on as long as the grid is functional and keep precise records of when electricity is turned on and off found that a single attack in November knocked out 55 percent of Ukrainian generating capacity. The scale of destruction is colossal, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the chief executive officer of the state-owned Ukrenergo, told Reuters in November. Story continues And in Ukraine, there is a power generation deficit. We cannot generate as much energy as consumers can use. The U.S. committed $53 million to support Ukraines electric grid in the December budget bill to pay for spare parts to repair this damage and additional money for surface-to-air missiles to deter future attacks, according to an official statement. Energy Department officials said the support will help Ukraine rebuild the backbone of their power transmission system, which is critical and keeping the lights on and homes warm through the winter. Karpowership operates 36 of its Powership generators worldwide and boasts that it can deploy floating generators to shore up an overloaded grid in less than two months. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A longtime Iowa attorney often associated with embattled restaurateur Steve McFadden faces potential disbarment after a state commission found he violated ethical rules in several cases. David Leitner, 67, has been a licensed Iowa attorney since 1979 and has run his own West Des Moines legal practice since 1988. The attorney discipline case going before the Iowa Supreme Court could end that career permanently, as a panel of the Iowa Supreme Court Grievance Commission recommended that Leitner's license be permanently revoked, according to a letter it wrote to the court Jan. 19. At issue are four cases in which Leitner is accused of dishonest or unethical conduct, as well as allegations he mishandled client funds held in his trust account. "While the commission panel recognizes the serious and extreme nature of revocation as a sanction to a long-standing member of the bar, it believes it is necessary to maintain the reputation of the bar, protect the public and the profession, and to deter other lawyers from committing similar misconduct," according to the commission's letter to the court. If the high court agrees with the commission's recommendation, or even chooses to impose a shorter-term suspension of Leitner's license, it would mean he would have to step away from any pending cases, including those involving McFadden. The owner of the Tipsy Crow, Dough Mama and Grumpy Goat establishments has hired Leitner to represent him in multiple matters, including a 2021 domestic violence arrest that resulted in a misdemeanor plea and related civil litigation. Leitner also has sued nearly a dozen people for allegedly defamatory online comments about McFadden, and threatened litigation on McFadden's behalf against other business owners who have spoken publicly about him. McFadden was arrested again in December on new charges alleging he and a fellow bar owner used a GPS tracking device to surveil and harass a romantic partner, but Leitner is not listed as representing McFadden in those cases. Story continues More:Owner of Des Moines metro taverns, pizzeria faces new charges, probation violation What are the allegations against David Leitner? Under Iowa law, the court's Attorney Discipline Board investigates allegations against attorneys and brings substantiated complaints before the Grievance Commission, made up of lawyers and laypeople from across the state. If the commission finds the board adequately proves its claims, it makes a recommendation for discipline, which then goes to the Supreme Court for a final decision. The discipline board first filed its complaint against Leitner in March, according to court filings. Because Leitner failed to file an answer to the claims, the commission accepted the following allegations as fact: After a longtime client was convicted of bankruptcy fraud and ordered to repay "a significant amount of money" to the federal government, Leitner created a new business entity, allegedly with Leitner as its sole employee, to allow the client to continue working as a seed dealer without having his wages garnished to repay his debts. The commission wrote that Leitner's actions "could be criminal" but were "certainly" fraudulent and dishonest. In a divorce case, Leitner secretly inserted new language in an agreement without notifying the opposing attorney, actions the judge in that case found showed "an intent to deceive." He also lied to the court repeatedly about his client's child support payments and scheduling court hearings. After representing one client in writing a contract, Leitner then represented the other party to argue the contract was void. The court found Leitner had a conflict of interest and disqualified him from the case, but he continued representing his new clients by having them sign court filings he filed for them. In an inheritance dispute involving a woman judged not competent to manage her affairs, Leitner continued meeting with the woman despite repeated instructions from the court and her court-appointed guardian to desist, and filed a lawsuit purportedly on her behalf against her guardian that resulted in sanctions for disregarding the court's orders. Leitner had multiple negative balances in his client trust account, failed to deposit client funds in the account and lied to state officials about his accounting practices. "Leitners conduct demonstrates a long pattern of deliberate misconduct and dishonesty," wrote the commission, noting multiple instances in which Leitner disregarded ethics rules and flouted direct court orders. "His behavior interfering with a represented party who had been deemed incapacitated by the court is disturbing, especially his continuation of the behavior after ordered to cease by the court." The Supreme Court is not obligated to accept the commission's disciplinary recommendations and will issue its own ruling at a later date. In McFadden lawsuits, contempt of court? Although McFadden's cases aren't part of the Grievance Commission's case, court records show Leitner has run into difficulty there as well. The judge overseeing McFadden's multiple defamation suits has scheduled a hearing to determine whether he and his attorney should be held in contempt for their conduct in those cases. Leitner filed 11 near-identical lawsuits in May 2022 accusing the defendants of making unspecified defamatory statements about McFadden. Court filings show attorneys for plaintiffs repeatedly asked Leitner to identify the offending statements and explain his allegation that the defendants acted "in concert." Leitner responded only that the "investigation is ongoing" and refused to identify what damages McFadden and his businesses purportedly suffered. The defendants then requested sanctions, arguing that Leitner and McFadden were ethically obligated to ensure a factual basis for all his claims before filing his complaint. The judge handling the cases wrote in December that Leitner's responses were "sorely lacking" and ordered him and McFadden to answer the defendants' questions, and to pay them $2,652 for their attorney fees. But in January, the defendants told the court Leitner continued not to provide meaningful answers, and had missed the deadline to pay the attorney fees sanction. Leitner, in court filings, has accused the defendants of withholding answers to McFadden's questions. The judge has set a Feb. 3 hearing date and ordered McFadden and Leitner to explain why McFadden should not be held in contempt of court. William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris. This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa attorney faces disbarment for fraud, dishonesty Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Steven M. Dettelbach speaks during a press conference Thursday at the Michael B. Coleman Government Center. Behind him are, from left: Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein, Columbus Director of Public Safety Robert W. Clark and Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther. Two special federal prosecutors are being hired and efforts to identify and catalogue guns used in crimes will be intensified under a joint federal and local plan announced Thursday to help combat the rise of gun violence in central Ohio. Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and city public safety officials were joined at a media briefing by Steve Dettelbach, director of the federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and Kenneth Parker, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus, to announce the new steps. Dettelbach, a Democrat and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio who unsuccessfully ran against Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost in 2018, visited Columbus to discuss how the ATF can partner with Columbus and other area communities to address the issues of gun violence in the region. "Everything we do begins and ends with that working to make the public safer," Dettelbach, who was appointed through a bipartisan effort, said. "That means working side by side with our partners all throughout every level of government." Steve Dettelbach, director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives Although homicides and violent crime in Columbus decreased last year from record-setting levels in 2021, Ginther said more work was needed to aggressively track and prosecute criminals using illegal firearms. Last year, the city seized more than 3,300 illegal firearms, averaging about nine a day. Ginther said he was grateful that the ATF was working with local communities to help bolster crime gun detection abilities. He also said the city is planning to spend $5 million this year to purchase tools and technologies that expand city participation in federal government programs. "This is our top priority," Ginther said. "And we believe that federal government plays a critically important role in helping to make sure this community and communities around the country are safer and healthier." Expanding local gun crime lab Columbus police are working with the ATF to expand the use of firearm and ballistics evidence for tracking and prosecuting gun crimes by employing the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and creating a "Regional Gun Crime Intelligence Center." Story continues NIBIN is a national database of digital images of spent bullets and cartridge cases that were found at crime scenes or test-fired from confiscated weapons. The ATF manages the system and provides the equipment to crime labs around the country. Columbus police Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts said the regional element will help Columbus and neighboring communities share firearm intelligence. Columbus police Assistant Chief LaShanna Potts speaks during a press conference Thursday at the Michael B. Coleman Government Center. "It gives us focus where we can share information, not working in silos and having information ready at our fingertips," Potts said. Last year, Columbus police worked with the ATF to host the agency's mobile NIBIN lab stationed in Columbus for the first five months of 2022. Police said last July that the lab was so successful that Columbus was named an "ATF correlation center," which will allow city police to process NIBIN leads faster. Dettelbach said that creating a Regional Gun Crime Intelligence Center requires a "long-term commitment" and added that the center's plans include involvement with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. "There will be an increasing number of partners who can bring in increased resources and expertise but also jurisdiction," Dettelbach said. "Criminals don't respect city limits, county limits." Hiring special prosecutors The city is planning to spend at least $250,000 so the U.S. Attorney's Office can appoint two special U.S. prosecutors to pursue charges in federal court from Columbus gun crimes. City Attorney Zach Klein said that "violent, dangerous criminals belong behind bars." Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein Klein said that one of the things the city wants the special federal prosecutors to focus on are nearly two dozen weapons under disability charges for suspects who have prior misdemeanor domestic violence charges. Possession of firearms is federally prohibited for individuals previously convicted on misdemeanor domestic violence charges, but not under Ohio law. "We thought that was wrong," Klein said. "So we filled the gap, closed the loophole." @Colebehr_report Cbehrens@dispatch.com This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Two special prosecutors, expanded lab planned to curb gun violence On the morning of Jan. 18, during what had become routine police operations to clear protesters from the site of a future training facility nicknamed "Cop City" in Atlanta's forested outskirts, shots were fired. When the smoke cleared, an activist had been killed and a state trooper was wounded. Questions about what happened have elevated the case into a flashpoint in the national debate about policing and environmental activism. Graffiti is seen at the edge of Weelaunee People's Park, the planned site of a controversial The killing of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, a "forest defender" who went by the name Tortuguita (or "little turtle" in Spanish), has generated many questions among activists. The protests against the killing, in turn, have resulted in pushback from law enforcement and supporters. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has said the shooting was not recorded on body cameras. Police said the gun used in the shooting against the trooper was purchased by Teran in September 2020. On Wednesday, Jan. 25, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced that a special prosecutor will be assigned to review the case, but critics are calling for an independent investigation. In recent days, protesters have descended in Atlanta, and chaos has sometimes ensued, resulting in multiple arrests. On Thursday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called for a state of emergency ahead of more potential anti-police protests this weekend. Distrust and outrage on both sides has been quick and pointed. "The official narrative is that 'Cop City' is necessary to make Atlanta 'safe,' but this brutal killing reveals what they mean when they use that word," Defend the Atlanta Forest, a grassroots organization that has led the protests against the training center, said in a statement after the shooting. The authorities, on the other hand, point to acts of vandalism and alleged attacks on officers to discredit the protesters. "These are not acts of peaceful protest. These are criminal acts to destabilize communities and endanger citizens," Michael Register, director of the Georgia State Bureau of Investigation, the agency investigating the shooting, said in January. Story continues Tensions between police and environmental activists in Atlanta have continued to grow since Teran's death. During the first weekend in March, authorities detained at least 35 demonstrators at another "Cop City" protest. Atlanta police say people involved in the protest threw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at officers while dressed in black. Surveillance video released by the Atlanta Police Department showed a group of people, all wearing black clothing, enter a fenced area of the training center. Footage also captured a piece of heavy equipment, which appeared to be a tractor, engulfed in flames. This image provided by the Atlanta Police Department shows construction equipment set on fire Saturday, March 4, 2023 by a group protesting the planned public safety training center, according to police. / Credit: / AP "The agitators destroyed multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism," Atlanta police said in a news release issued after the protest, which Police Chief Darin Schierbaum called "a very violent attack" during a news conference held around the same time. "This wasn't about a public safety training center," said Schierbaum. "This was about anarchy ... and we are addressing that quickly." Here's what we know about what led to the current tense and volatile standoff between protesters and officers in Georgia. What is "Cop City"? For years, Atlanta police have trained officers in temporary facilities, but in 2021 the police department and partners proposed building a facility to boost recruitment and retention efforts. "We're excited, because first class cities have first class investment in their training, in their public safety first responders," Deputy Chief Darin Schierbaum told Atlanta News Now during an overview of the project. "Training is the lifeblood of any public safety organization." The $90 million, 85-acre center, which includes a shooting range, mock city and burn building, among other facilities, will "reimagine law enforcement training and Police/Fire Rescue community engagement," said the Atlanta Police Foundation, a not-for-profit that helps fund police initiatives through private-public partnerships in a statement on its website. But the training center drew opposition almost immediately, coming on the heels of a tumultuous year of high-profile cases of police brutality and strained community relations. "We're talking about spending millions of taxpayer dollars to fund another failed proposal that will only line the pockets of wealthy people and not actually address the issues of our day," James Woodall, a policy associate with the Southern Center for Human Rights, told Atlanta News Now. "City council members have even admitted that this will not impact crime," he added. During a city council vote on the proposal, public comments poured in for 17 hours; many of the pre-recorded messages were passionately against the facility. Who are the "forest defenders"? Activists loosely connected through the grassroots network Defend the Atlanta Forest started arriving in the area after the facility was announced. For nearly two years activists say they have been protesting the $90-million training campus through peaceful sit-ins in the forest. The protest has attracted supporters from outside the state to the Atlanta area. Their goal, they say in a statement on their website, is to protect an ecosystem "home to wetlands that filter rainwater and prevent flooding" and is "one of the last breeding grounds for many amphibians in the region." "The movement to prevent the development of Cop City is a fight against hundreds of years of racialized violence and ecological destruction," the website adds. The activists take inspiration from environmental defenders in other parts of the world, where deadly clashes and targeted killings are common. The organization Global Witness documented the killing of 200 environment and land defenders, mostly in Latin America, in 2021 alone. As part of their protest, activists have built campsites, filed petitions, and hosted rallies and educational events. On their website, they also admit that they have vandalized property owned by the Police Foundation and contractors, and sabotaged construction equipment. What comes next? Confrontations between the police and the activists in the area have grown increasingly contentious. Officers have been deployed to the site many times to protect crews trying to start construction, the GBI director said. In May, Atlanta police arrested eight people after a raid on the site, alleging that suspects had thrown Molotov cocktails and rocks at officers. Demonstrators protest in downtown Atlanta after a 26-year-old man was shot and killed by police. / Credit: R.J. Rico via AP In December, five people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism and other charges after allegedly throwing rocks and bottles at the training center, officials said. The DeKalb District Attorney's Office told CBS News it is pursuing domestic terrorism charges against five protesters. One of the arrested protesters, Ariel Ebaugh, 22, of Stockbridge, Georgia, has been charged with two counts of firearm possession during a commission of a felony, the DA's office said. Tensions have only escalated further since Teran's killing and there are no signs that they will ease anytime soon. On Saturday, masked protesters dressed in all black threw rocks and lit fireworks in front of a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation, shattering large glass windows. Demonstrators also torched a police car and vandalized walls with anti-police graffiti. Governor Kemp's State of Emergency puts up to 1,000 members of the Georgia National Guard on alert, ready to be deployed. The State of Emergency declaration is currently set to run through Feb. 9. 2 kidnapped Americans found dead in Mexico, 2 found alive, officials say Critics slam Fox News for depiction of January 6 attack JetBlue-Spirit Airlines merger may be blocked by Justice Department lawsuit UPDATE: Gov. Glenn Youngkin officially signed off on bills to make the Chincoteague pony the official pony of the commonwealth. Youngkin signed the bills Monday, March 27. Sen. Lynwood Lewis' bill SB1478 passed unanimously while a companion bill HB 1951 cleared the House of Delegates with 93-7 votes during the 2023 General Assembly session. What better way to foster bipartisan unity than with the legendary herd of Chincoteague ponies? A pair of bills introduced in the Virginia Legislature by the Eastern Shore delegation, Delegate Robert Bloxom, a Republican, and Sen. Lynwood Lewis, a Democrat, have put forward an idea that touches Shore residents and many beyond: Making the Chincoteague pony the official pony of the Commonwealth. And now both bills have been passed and have been forwarded to the desk of Gov. Glenn Youngkin for his signature. The Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, which had led the charge for the overdue designation, celebrated the victory in a post on Facebook. "We are very happy to announce that SB 1478 and HB 1951 have passed! Votes were unanimous in VA State Senate and 93-7 in the House of Delegates! All thats left is for t;he gvernor to sign into law. Hooray for the Chincoteague Ponies, their owners and their fans! Near and far we thank you for your overwhelming support for this distinct honor on behalf of all Chincoteague Ponies!" The Department, which has cared for the herd for generations. launched the drive to bring the beloved ponies to legislators' attention. "We are grateful to be the stewards and proud owners of the Wild Chincoteague Ponies. Earlier this year, we set out with a goal of making the Chincoteague Pony the Official Pony of Virginia. I am pleased to announce that Delegate Bloxom and Senator Lewis have stepped up to the plate and will present a bill to make the Chincoteague Pony the Official Pony of the Commonwealth of Virginia," the fire department shared in a Facebook post. Story continues Delegate Bloxom shared this with Delmarva Now about his reason for introducing the bill in the House: "When Gov. Youngkin visited Chincoteague this idea was discussed with me and by members of the Volunteer Fire Department. Sophia Gallivan, a member of the drill team, championed the project and help give background and motivation behind the bill. I am proud to bring this to Richmond and to have the support of the governor and first lady." Pony Swim history and appeal The story of the Chincoteague herd is well-known now, and as the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company shared, the famous Pony Penning that has given it worldwide appeal really all began in 1925, and really took off with the publication of Marguerite Henry's "Misty of Chincoteague" in 1947. "Since 1925 people have been able to buy a wild foal and take it home to train and ride it, often it becomes a part of their family and has a lasting impact on their life," the department stated in Sunday's post. PONY HISTORY: Did Chincoteague ponies come from a Spanish shipwreck? Centuries-old tooth adds to legend More:Chincoteague Pony Swim 2022 returns to full glory. 'It gives you chills' Pony Penning refers to the weeklong celebration in July that include the pony roundup, swim, auction and swim back, among other events. Despite two virtual years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the related auction has set records for three years running. Chincoteague pony lovers were out in force to make 2022 a year to remember with a record total of $450,200 raised from the auction of 63 ponies, including 10 buybacks, according to a tally posted on the Chincoteague Chamber of Commerce and Certified Visitor Center's site. The Pony Swim itself, which draws all kinds of pony lovers to wade into swamps, climb trees or whatever they have to do to get a glimpse, also returned live in 2022 after two years off. Here is a gallery from the 2022 swim. Through it all the appeal of the Chincoteague ponies has persevered, so as the fire department pleads, "Now please join us in voicing your support for the bill. With your support they will receive this well deserved accolade and yet again they will prove they are here to stay for generations!" OLDEST PONY: Chincoteague herd's oldest pony, Wild Thing, has died This article originally appeared on Salisbury Daily Times: UPDATE: Chincoteague ponies now official pony of Virginia U.S. forces stormed a mountain complex in northern Somalia and took down a key member of the foreign terrorist group ISIS. Well talk about the raid, how it went down and why the U.S. was targeting the ISIS leader. Plus, weve got the details on new sanctions on Russias Wagner Group and a breakdown of the U.S. tanks headed toward Ukraine. This is Defense & National Security, your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, Im Brad Dress. Subscribe here. US forces take down ISIS leader in Somalia On Wednesday night, American troops killed a key ISIS leader who helped grow the organization in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. forces also took down 10 other members of the foreign terrorist group. There were no U.S. casualties. The death of Bilal al-Sudani in a mountainous cave complex in northern Somalia leaves the U.S. and allies safer and more secure, said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. And it reflects our steadfast commitment to protecting Americans from the threat of terrorism at home and abroad, Austin said in a statement. A major financier: al-Sudani was an operative and facilitator for ISISs international network and a major funder for the terrorist group. Senior administration officials said he was a key financial backer for foreign violent extremists in Somalia. His operational and financial role made him a major target for the U.S. The operation: The U.S. wanted to capture al-Sudani, but said a hostile response led to his death. Members of President Bidens national security team were aware of the operation months ago. Biden, along with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy CIA Director David Cohen, were briefed on the mission last week. The president signed off on the operation after asking questions about risks to U.S. troops and civilians and after a recommendation from Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Read the full story here. Story continues NEW SANCTIONS FOR RUSSIAS WAGNER GROUP The U.S. is continuing to impose heavy penalties on Russian mercenary company Wagner Group, which is overseeing brutal fighting in Ukraine. The State Department announced sanctions against the private paramilitary groups infrastructure and front companies, as well as those producing weapons for Russia. This action supports our goal to degrade Moscows capacity to wage war against Ukraine, the State Department wrote in a news release. Targets: The new sanctions target five entities and one person associated with the Wagner Group, including an aviation firm used by the company and a Wagner-based propaganda organization. Additionally, three members of Russias federal prison department were sanctioned for facilitating the transfer of Russian prisoners to the Wagner Group to fight in Ukraine, and several Russian businessmen and entities were also named. The sanctions further targeted Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov, who was scolded by Russian President Vladimir Putin this month for not working fast enough on aircraft contracts. Roundup: Wagner Group and its leader, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a close ally of Putin, are coming under increasing scrutiny as paramilitary forces wage war in Ukraine. The State Department last week listed the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization and said any entities or nations doing business with the group would run afoul of the U.S. government. To others, not far enough: A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday to go even further and designate Wagner Group a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The Holding Accountable Russian Mercenaries (HARM) Act would require an FTO designation, which would give the U.S. more jurisdiction against Wagner Group, within 90 days of the legislations enactment. Where the Wagner Group operates, atrocities follow, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said in a statement. Read more here. Ukraine getting latest edition of Abrams tanks The high-tech, sought-after M1 Abrams tanks heading over to Ukraine in the fall are the top of the line. Washington will send over to Kyiv the most updated version of the tank, the M1A2, which is considered more lethal and runs on a digital system. Not a lot of them: These tanks are not in excess in U.S. stocks, so it will take some time to get to Ukraine. The Pentagon said it will procure the tanks through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI). That means they will buy the heavy combat vehicles directly from manufacturer General Dynamics and ship them over to Ukraine, which could take months. Training requirements: Deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters the time it takes to ship them over gives the U.S. the ability to train Ukrainians on the equipment. These things are going to require training maintenance, sustainment, that is going to take a very long time to also train in Ukrainians on, she said. We took that into account. Still, the 31 Abrams tanks were a major victory for Ukraine, which had pushed for the combat vehicles for months before the announcement this week. Check the story out here. ON TAP FOR TOMORROW The Atlantic Council hosts a discussion on managing international and national crises. The hybrid event begins at 10 a.m. in Washington, D.C., and is available to stream here. The Brookings Institution will hold a conversation with author and military expert Michael OHanlon to discuss his new book, Military History for the Modern Strategist, at the Falk Auditorium in Washington, D.C., at 10 a.m. The Center for Strategic and International Studies talks transatlantic tech and security with European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton at 9 a.m. ET. WHAT WERE READING OP-EDS IN THE HILL Make nuclear nonproliferation great again Turkey, Finland and Sweden: Strategic patience, but with a deadline Thats it for today! Check out The Hills Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you tomorrow! For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Donald Trump is working hard to recapture the magic from his 2016 run for president, but hes receiving lukewarm responses from Republicans who supported him in his prior campaigns. It seems like his ongoing legal battles and constant sparring with everyone in politics has exhausted some of his voter base. As he heads to New Hampshire on Saturday to drum up support for his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump is learning that he has a lot of work to do. Donald Trump right now is a distraction for the Republican Party in trying to go forward. Donald Trump has run his course, Hillsborough County Republican Committee member Brian Sullivan told Reuters. He prefers to see Ron DeSantis running for the GOP nomination, but hes not even in the race yet. More from SheKnows Marjorie Taylor Greene is reportedly angling for a big Donald Trump promotion. https://t.co/jBxR9O3idv SheKnows (@SheKnows) January 25, 2023 Sullivan believes the former president has too much baggage and doesnt have what it takes to win the White House again. Ouch. New Hampshire is an important state to win over because good results in their primary often influences other Republicans across the nation to follow suit. Another former Donald Trump supporter in the New England state finds him too polarizing. Lori Davis added, Its going to be an uphill battle for him in this primary because of his divisiveness. People are tired of the drama. However, people shouldnt write off Donald Trump completely just yet. A Jan. 24 Emerson College nationwide poll still sees the former president leading DeSantis 55% to 29% in Republican voters. That has to buoy his confidence quite a bit, and its likely why he jumped in the race so early. Donald Trump wants to keep that momentum going, even if some Republicans have jumped off the Trump train for good. Story continues Click here to read the full article. Before you go, click here to see every time Queen Elizabeth has met the US Presidents! . Launch Gallery: These Trump Family Tell-All Books Are Impossible to Put Down Best of SheKnows Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Ukraines breakthrough in securing heavy tanks from the U.S. and Germany has ignited talk about sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to defend the nations skies. The government of Ukraine quickly renewed its calls for world-class fighter jets after it secured the victory on tanks, arguing it needed the help to defend itself against Russia. Shortly after the U.S. announcement on tanks, Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraines defense secretary, told The Hill that Kyiv would do everything possible to secure the fighter jets. And Dymytro Kuleba, Ukraines minister of foreign affairs, tweeted Wednesday morning that Ukraine has new tasks ahead, naming western fighter jets as one of them. ArmyINFORM, an information agency for Ukraines ministry of defense, also published an article Wednesday suggesting that Ukrainian pilots are already training in the U.S., but there has been no public announcement on such a program. Asked to comment on the possibility of fighter jets going to Ukraine, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday said he had no news to share. Cant blame the Ukrainians for wanting more and more systems, Kirby said. Its not the first time theyve talked about fighter jets, but I dont have any announcements to make on that front. Kyiv operates a fleet of aging Soviet aircraft and has requested western, modern fighter jets since the onset of the war but so far it has remained out of the nations grasp. Supplying jets would be another escalation in terms of U.S. support for Ukraine, and the Biden administration has been careful in offering support that might intensify the conflict with Russia particularly with the fear of nuclear weapons hovering over the war. Yet the supplying of jets seems much less unlikely after the Biden administration made a major u-turn by agreeing to send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. The administration did so to convince Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine. Germany also gave its blessing for other allies to send the German-made Leopards to Kyiv. Story continues Germany has expressed opposition to sending fighter jets to Ukraine. There will be no fighter jet deliveries to Ukraine. This was made clear very early, including from the U.S. President, Germany Chancelor Olaf Scholz said in remarks to his countrys parliament after the tanks decision. This position has not changed at all and will not change. Despite such remarks, a number of experts think the supplying of jets to Ukraine by the U.S. is now likely to happen. Ukraine has slowly secured more and more advanced weaponry from the U.S. and European allies, and they say American-made F-16s will probably follow that same course. Tomasz Blusiewicz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, said most of the concerns over sending the jets are probably over logistical questions, such as training and getting the aircraft and related systems delivered. I think its now really more down to the nitty-gritty, logistical servicing and delivery and training, he said. The fighter jets would make a huge difference in the skies over Ukraine in combat against Russian fighter jets, which are much more outdated than western aircraft. Both Ukraine and Russia are currently using MiG-29 fighter jets and various different models of the Sukhois aircraft, which are extremely inferior to advanced western technology. Those advocating for sending western aircraft to Ukraine also say the U.S. public would accept it as a means to defend Ukrainian skies and protect civilians from Russias relentless bombardments. Blusiewicz explained the fighter jets, which he described as Guardians, would be even more of a game-changer for Ukraine than the battle tanks. In terms of air superiority, western tech is light years away, he said. And for Ukrainian civilians, it now becomes more realistic to make sure these drones and rockets dont fall on them. The U.S.-made F-15s and F-16s are the cream of the crop, but other advanced fighters such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, Swedish Gripens and French-made Dassault Rafale would all be decisive on the battlefield. U.S. lawmakers, most of whom have prodded the Biden administration to support more and more advanced weaponry for Kyiv, also appear to show early signs of supporting this next push for the fighter jets. A statement released by Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), as well as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) on Wednesday applauded the Biden administration for sending tanks to Ukraine but quickly pivoted to a push for fighter jets and long-range artillery systems. The combination of tanks, fighter aircraft, and ATACMS will help Ukraine confront the upcoming Russian offensive and go on offense in both the east and the south in an attempt to further erode Russias capability to continue fighting in Ukraine, the statement read. Lets give the Ukrainians everything they need to win now. Most of the concerns around supplying advanced weaponry before from the HIMARS rocket launchers to the western battle tanks revolved around escalating tensions with Russia. But an increasing number of voices say that after the tanks, the F-16s are not likely to be seen as more of an escalation. Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute, told The Hill that Russia defines everything as an escalation. In reality I think there are some guardrails that have been established between the United States and Russia and there is a tacit understanding not to cross the lines, she said. At the same time, Adyintasbas said the U.S. still probably wont supply the F-16s anytime soon. We know the reason why, she added. Escalation management. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. The Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership plans to hold its second annual housing summit in Charlottesville this March. The theme of this years event is Coming Back Home, recognizing the role local and regional housing policies play in communities recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a statement from the group. The March summit is set to include sessions on short- and long-term rentals, affordable housing in college towns and efforts to prevent rural displacement. The regional housing partnership is an advisory board that was created by the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission to aid in the coordination and effectiveness of housing needs in Charlottesville and the surrounding counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson and Greene. The summit will take place from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on March 24 at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel at 212 Ridge McIntire Road in Charlottesville. Tickets are available online. ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) Faculty leaders at a Minnesota college that dismissed an art history instructor who showed depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in a course have overwhelmingly called for the university president to resign. Faculty leaders at Hamline University said 71 of 92 members who attended a meeting Tuesday voted to call on President Fayneese Miller to resign immediately. They say they lost faith in Miller because of her handling of an objection lodged by a Muslim student who said seeing the artwork violated her religious beliefs. The adjunct instructor who showed the artwork, Erika Lopez Prater, sued the private liberal arts school last week after it declined to renew her contract. It became clear that the harm thats been done and the repair that has to be done, that new leadership is needed to move that forward, Jim Scheibel, president of the Hamline University Faculty Council, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. The faculty objected to what they considered a violation of academic freedom. We are distressed that members of the administration have mishandled this issue and great harm has been done to the reputation of Minnesotas oldest university, the faculty council statement read. It later went on to say, As we no longer have faith in President Millers ability to lead the university forward, we call upon her to immediately tender her resignation to the Hamline University Board of Trustees. After criticism from across the country, Miller conceded last week that she mishandled the episode, which sparked a debate over balancing academic freedom with respect for religion. Like all organizations, sometimes we misstep, she said in a joint statement with the chair of the schools trustees. In the interest of hearing from and supporting our Muslim students, language was used that does not reflect our sentiments on academic freedom. Based on all that we have learned, we have determined that our usage of the term Islamophobic was therefore flawed. Story continues A Hamline spokesman told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Miller and her team were discussing how to respond to the faculty vote. Lopez Prater showed centuries-old artwork depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an October lesson on Islamic art. She said she knew that visual depictions of him violate many Muslims' faith, so she warned the class ahead of time. The instructor alleges in her lawsuit that Hamline subjected her to religious discrimination and defamation, and damaged her professional and personal reputation. The American Association of University Professors, which is devoted to academic freedom, has launched an inquiry and is planning a campus visit next month. While leaders of some local Muslim groups have criticized Lopez Prater, the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations disputed claims that her actions were Islamophobic. The group said professors who analyze images of the Prophet Muhammad for academic purposes are not the same as Islamophobes who show such images to cause offense. Sam Bankman-Fried Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) Court documents show FTX aims to question Sam Bankman-Fried's parents and brother about their personal wealth, per Bloomberg. The family should provide financial documents about any money they may have received from the company, FTX lawyers said. The bankruptcy judge still has to approve the request before FTX lawyers can move forward. FTX wants to question Sam Bankman-Fried's family members about whether they received any funds from the bankrupt crypto exchange, court filings show, per Bloomberg. As part of the company's mission to recover funds that could be used to pay back creditors, FTX lawyers said in the filing that Bankman-Fried's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, as well as brother Gabriel Bankman-Fried, should answer questions under oath and also provide financial documents about their personal wealth. Before FTX can move forward with any questioning, US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey must approve the request. Federal prosecutors have charged Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX empire, with fraud amid allegations that FTX transferred billions of dollars in clients' funds to prop up his Alameda Research trading arm. He has pleaded not guilty. Both of Bankman-Fried's parents have been involved with the company. Joseph Bankman, a Stanford law professor, reportedly gave tax advice to FTX staffers and helped recruit the company's lawyers. Barbara Fried is said to have founded a political action committee that took money from FTX. Like her husband, she is also a law professor at Stanford. In addition, Reuters reported in November that a $16.4 million house in the Bahamas listed Bankman-Fried's parents as signatories and was described in property records as a "vacation home." He later said it was actually meant to be company property. As for Gabriel Bankman-Fried, he founded a nonprofit focused on pandemics that lobbied politicians, and a $3.28 million house in Washington DC that it bought last year has just been put on the market. Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried remains under house arrest at his parents' home in Palo Alto, California, as he awaits trial. Read the original article on Business Insider Gisele Bundchen the supermodel is back in a big way. Just months after her divorce from Tom Brady, the 42-year-old fashion superstar is ready for her return to the industry that made her a household name. Bundchen is back from her Costa Rica trip, where she was spotted with her rumored beau Joaquim Valente, and on the beaches of Florida for a very racy photoshoot. (See the photos HERE.) She wore a contemporary purple bathing suit in a shiny material that came complete with a hood and long sleeves. The plunging neckline revealed her stunning curves, but the real surprise came when she turned around. The thong backside gave off a very cheeky view needless to say, she looked amazing. More from SheKnows Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady might regret those Super Bowl ads involving cryptocurrency. https://t.co/0EpScdlSOa SheKnows (@SheKnows) December 16, 2022 Her return to modeling is quite a big deal since she has openly discussed putting her career on hold to raise her kids, Benjamin, 13, and Vivian, 10. Ive done my part, which is [to] be there for [Tom]. I moved to Boston, and I focused on creating a cocoon and a loving environment for my children to grow up in and to be there supporting him and his dreams, she told ELLE last September before the couple divorced. However, he chose to unretire and Bundchen couldnt put her dreams on hold any longer. I have a huge list of things that I have to do, that I want to do, she added. At 42, I feel more connected with my purpose. That likely means we will see a lot more of Bundchen in the coming months as she returns to the industry that made her the highest paid model in the world. Welcome back, Gisele! Story continues Click here to read the full article. Before you go, click here to see more celeb moms who put their careers on hold to stay home with their kids. Launch Gallery: Gisele Bundchen, Kate Hudson, & Other Celebs Raising Their Kids With Unconventional Parenting Styles Best of SheKnows Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Richard Glossip was convicted of ordering the 1997 murder of his boss at an Oklahoma City motel and has been in criminal justice limbo ever since (Oklahoma Department of Corrections) An independent counsel has been appointed to review the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip, a death row inmate who has maintained his innocence in a 1997 murder-for-hire, after a growing body of evidence sparked calls for reassessment. Oklahoma attorney general Gentner Drummond on Thursday stated that a comprehensive review of Glossips conviction will be carried out by district attorney Rex Duncan, including the initial investigation by Oklahoma City police, two separate trials, sentencing, and appeals. The decision comes after a growing innocence movement around Glossips case as emerging evidence suggested the initial conviction was based on shaky grounds. Circumstances surrounding this case necessitate a thorough review, Mr Drummond said in a statement. While I am confident in our judicial system, that does not allow me to ignore evidence. This review helps ensure that justice is served, both to the (victims) family and the accused. Glossip, 59, was convicted of ordering the 1997 murder of his boss at an Oklahoma City motel and has been in criminal justice limbo ever since. He has escaped the execution chamber three times, including once due to an accidental mix-up by authorities with the lethal drug just hours before his sentence was set to be carried out. Glossip has long maintained his innocence in the case. However, a push to prove his innocence grew last year when a Houston law firm that investigated his conviction after state lawmakers requested it discovered a slew of new information, raising serious concerns about whether Oklahoma was about to execute an innocent man. The firms 30 attorneys working through 12,000 documents , reported there was some lost or destroyed evidence in the case and that a detective, biased against Glossip, improperly asked leading questions to a co-defendant Justin Sneed to implicate Glossip in the killing. Our conclusion is that no reasonable juror, hearing the complete record, and the uncovered facts ... would have convicted Richard Glossip of capital murder, Stan Perry, an attorney for Houston-based Reed Smith who led the firms investigation, said after the report was released last year. Story continues On 7 January 1997, 19-year-old maintenance man Justin Sneed beat his boss, 54-year-old motel owner Barry Van Treese, to death with a baseball bat. Oklahoma police arrested the teenager, who had a history of drug addiction, violence, and past criminal offences, soon after, and he admitted to robbing Treese. However, his statement at the time said he did so only after Glossip promised to pay him $10,000. A jury decided to sentence Sneed to life in prison and he was a key witness against Glossip at both of his trials. Glossip, 33 at the time, who lived and worked at the hotel as manager and had no significant criminal history, was believed to be the mastermind of the killing and was convicted later for murder-for-hire. The thing that didnt make any sense right off the bat is Richard Glossip had all the money, he always had all the money. It was a cash kind of business. He would hold money until Van Treese came to pick it up, Don Knight, Glossips current attorney, told The Independent last year. That never made any sense to me. You could have twice as much and you didnt have to kill anybody to get it. You could just walk off. That was absolutely insane to me. Glossip is scheduled to be executed on 18 May, but the review has come as a ray of hope for the lawyers. The new evidence we have uncovered since 2015 shows conclusively, as the first independent investigation by Reed Smith found, that no reasonable juror who viewed all the evidence would find Mr Glossip guilty of murder for hire, Mr Knight said in a statement. We are confident that this new investigation will reach the same conclusion. MADRID (Reuters) - An Iranian chess player who defected to Spain after she competed without a hijab and was warned not to return to her country met with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Madrid on Wednesday. Sarasadat Khademalsharieh, 25, better known as Sara Khadem, arrived in Spain in early January. She had taken part in the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships held in Kazakhstan's Almaty in late December without a hijab - a headscarf mandatory under Iran's strict Islamic dress codes. "How much I have learned today from a woman who inspires me," Sanchez posted on his Twitter account after hosting Khadem at his official residence, the Moncloa Palace. "All my support to women athletes. Your example contributes to a better world," he added. In footage provided by the prime minister's office, Khadem is seen chatting with Sanchez on a couch while sporting a black suit and without wearing a hijab. They later appear to engage in a game of chess at a table. Demonstrations against Iran's clerical leadership have swept the country since mid-September when a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the morality police, which had detained her for wearing "inappropriate attire". Laws enforcing mandatory hijab-wearing have become a flashpoint during the unrest, with a string of sportswomen competing overseas appearing without their headscarves in public. In a recent interview with newspaper El Pais, Khadem - who holds the title of Woman Grandmaster - said she only used to wear the headscarf at tournaments when there were cameras because she was representing Iran. "With the hijab, I'm not me, I don't feel good, and so I wanted to put an end to that situation," she said. "So I decided not to wear it anymore." Khadem is ranked 771st in the world, according to the International Chess Federation's website, and 9th in Iran. (Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Sandra Maler) Jan 17, 2023; Manhattan, Kansas, USA; Kansas State Wildcats guard Keyontae Johnson (11) is defended by Kansas Jayhawks guard Kevin McCullar Jr. (15) during the first half at Bramlage Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports MANHATTAN A lot has changed for Keyontae Johnson in the two-plus years since, as a member of Florida's basketball team, he collapsed face-first onto the floor during a game at Florida State and was rushed for a Tallahassee hospital with a heart condition. For one, he is no longer with the Gators, graduating last spring after spending most of two seasons on the sidelines, relegated to student-coach status while hoping to be medically cleared to resume his career. When that didn't happen in Gainesville, Johnson entered the NCAA transfer portal, signed on with Kansas State in late August, and he has since taken the Big 12 by storm, helping to lead the Wildcats to a No. 5 national ranking and a share of the Big 12 lead. One thing that did not changed for a now-healthy Johnson was his productivity. He was the SEC preseason player of the year and a projected first-round NBA draft pick entering the 2020-21 campaign and was averaging 19.7 points when he went down during that Dec. 12 game. He currently leads the Wildcats (17-3, 6-2 in the Big 12) with 18.3 points and 7.5 rebounds per game as they prepare to take on you guessed it Florida (12-8, 5-3 SEC) at 5 p.m. Saturday in an SEC/Big 12 Challenge matchup at Bramlage Coliseum. More:How forward Ismael Massoud's growth has contributed to Kansas State basketball's success Kansas State basketball in heated race for Big 12 title Not that facing his former team is foremost on Johnson's mind heading into the brief respite from an intense Big 12 race that has K-State tied for first with Iowa State and Texas, and with Kansas, Baylor and TCU looming one game behind. All six teams are nationally ranked. "Not really," Johnson said Tuesday when asked if he expected for get emotional when he takes the floor against the Gators. "I talk to some of them, but I'm just trying to win the next game, really. Just bounce back from this game." Johnson was referring to an 80-76 loss at No. 13 Iowa State, that dropped the Wildcats from sole possession of first place in the league and into the three-way tie. He had 15 points and 10 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season, and he has now scored in double figures in all 20 games. Story continues "An NBA player I'd assume a first-round draft pick," Texas Tech coach Mark Adams said of Johnson after he had 15 points and 11 rebounds against the Red Raiders last Saturday. "He's just a three-level scorer, and it helps them with their momentum on the floor." Johnson and point guard Markquis Nowell (17.1 points, 8.3 assists) give the Wildcats one of the most potent one-two scoring combinations in the Big 12 and nation. They teamed for 38 points against Iowa State, while sophomore guard Cam Carter had 15 points and reserve forward Ismael Massoud kept up his recent hot streak by scoring 13 with four 3-pointers. More:Jerome Tang views Kansas State basketball's glass as half full despite loss to Iowa State Lack of rebounding hurt K-State against Iowa State Of greater concern for K-State is rebounding. The Wildcats lost the board battle to Iowa State, 28-20, and the Cyclones had a 17-7 advantage in second-chance points. Worst of all, big men Nae'Qwan Tomlin, Abayomi Iyiola and Massoud didn't have a single rebound between them. "All three of my bigs have zero rebounds in the minutes that they played, and that just can't happen," K-State coach Jerome Tang said. "And that's not a knock on them, that's a knock on our staff. We've got to do a better job and just help them, and so we will. "We have to collectively rebound, and if you can't get it, you've just got to make sure your man doesn't get it. That's got to be the mentality, and we will get better at it." The Wildcats could benefit from a return to form from 6-foot-9 forward David N'Guessan, who has yet to see meaningful action since hurting his ankle before the Big 12 opener against West Virginia. N'Guessan played three minutes against Texas Tech, but did not get on the court at Iowa State. More:How to watch Kansas State basketball vs. Florida in SEC/Big 12 Challenge "It's just hard to play nine dudes," Tang said of N'Guessan's return. "We're trying to figure it out. "My thought was to bring him along a bit more (Tuesday), but today wasn't a bring-along-a-little-bit-more game." K-State faces a Florida State team that has struggled on the boards as well, averaging 36.1 rebounds a game while giving up 36.7. They were outrebounded 45-36 in an 81-60 victory over South Carolina on Wednesday. But the Gators otherwise are on a roll, having won two straight and five of their past six. Big man Colin Castleton averages a team-high 15 points and 7.6 rebounds a game. Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen. This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas State basketball's Keyontae Johnson to face former teammmates The mother of two children found dead inside a Massachusetts home earlier this week will be charged with their murders, officials announced. Lindsay Clancy, 32, is accused of strangling to death her 5-year-old daughter, Cora, and 3-year-old son, Dawson, Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday. She also allegedly attempted to kill her third child, a 7-month old boy, who is being treated at Boston Childrens Hospital, according to the Boston Globe. Authorities responded to Clancys home in Duxbury on Tuesday to investigate reports of an attempted suicide. When they arrived on the scene, officers found Clancy, who tried to commit suicide by jumping from a second-floor window at her home. She remained hospitalized on Thursday. Inside the home, emergency crews found the three children with obvious signs of severe trauma, Cruz said. Cruz on Wednesday confirmed murder charges have been filed and a warrant has been issued for Clancys arrest. He said an arraignment date would be set as soon as Clancy is well enough to leave the hospital. Clancy, a labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, is also facing three counts of strangulation or suffocation, and three counts of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, officials said. The Virginia Senate has passed a bill that would allow Charlottesville and Albemarle County to raise the areas sales tax to fund school renovation and construction. The bill passed on Monday in a 27-10 vote, winning bipartisan support. It will move to the House of Delegates, where a similar bill introduced last year was nixed by Republicans. If signed into law, the bill would allow the city and the county to bring an up-to-1% sales tax hike to their respective voters, who would then decide whether theyre willing to take on the extra cost at the register. Each locality could decide if they wanted to exclude a certain kind of good from the tax hike, such as groceries, city and county officials said. A 1% increase would generate roughly $14 million for Charlottesville City Schools and $20 million for Albemarle County Public Schools, according to city and county officials. Thats a huge, huge amount, Albemarle Board of Supervisors Chair Donna Price told The Daily Progress on Thursday. Its equivalent to about an 8% increase in property taxes, she said, and somewhat more recession-proof than those property taxes. School buildings in the area and across the commonwealth are in desperate need of investment, according to the bills author, Democratic state Sen. Creigh Deeds, who represents the area in the General Assemblys upper chamber. Weve got a $28 billion problem statewide. Weve got a huge problem locally, Deeds told The Daily Progress on Thursday. Deeds said he wrote the bill that specifically targets Charlottesville and Albemarle County at the request of the city and county school divisions. Both city and county schools are roughly the same age, around 60 to 70 years old. Officials said that means both divisions need capital funding to update and expand schools as student populations grow and their needs change. Theres no shortage of projects, county schools spokeswoman Helen Dunn told The Daily Progress on Thursday. And those projects are not superfluous, according to Charlottesville schools spokeswoman Beth Cheuk. The community, theyre in favor of our students having modern facilities, Cheuk told The Daily Progress on Thursday. They may not want the fanciest, shiniest thing you ever imagined, but they also know that our kids need better and deserve better than what they have now. In the city, Cheuk said the higher sales tax could benefit the Buford Middle School reconfiguration project, which would move sixth-grade facilities at Walker Upper Elementary School to Buford and convert Walker into a preschool. The first phase of that project is expected to cost $75 million, according to data from the city. In the county, a prioritized capital funding request lists two new elementary schools at the top of the list: a $50.6 million school in the northern part of the county and a $44.1 million one to the south. Also on the countys wish list is land for a third elementary school, which it estimates will cost $7.5 million to purchase. City and county officials as well as Deeds himself could not say whether the money raised by the tax hike could be used to buy land. Deeds, however, said it could at least be used to free up other money to do so. Deeds legislation has made it out of the state Senate, but it still needs to make it through the Republican-controlled House of Delegates and to Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkins desk before it is law. Last year, similar legislation co-sponsored by Democratic Del. Sally Hudson died in the House before making it out of committee. Hudson, who represents Charlottesville and sections of Albemarle County as part of the 57th District, is Deeds challenger in the Democratic primary for the state Senates 11th District seat. Deeds, who won some Republican votes in the Senate for the latest tax hike, said he is optimistic he can win over at least some of the GOP in the House. I dont want to fool anybody into thinking its going to be easy, because its not, Deeds said. Im anxious to talk to the House of Delegates. The Dublin Police Department is investigating a local familys death as a possible murder-suicide. >> TRENDING: 4 people taken to hospital, some unconscious after hazmat, rescue operation at Dayton business Dublin Police were called to the 7300 block of Balfoure Circle at around 2 a.m. Wednesday, January 18, a spokesperson for the department stated. Officers responded after a friend of one of the residents requested a wellness check. Crews found parents and their son shot to death, the spokesperson informed. The initial investigation showed that the family was deceased for several days. Officers did not find any signs of forced entry, leading investigators to suspect the deaths were caused by a murder-suicide, the spokesperson continued. Rajan Rajaram, 54, Santhalatha Rajan, 51, and Anish Rajan Rajaram, 19, were identified as the father, mother, and son. Anish was a sophomore at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, a spokesperson from the college confirmed. He studied at the Farmer School of Business and was an active member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity and Pi Sigma Epsilon. We are devastated by this loss of life. Our hearts go out to Anishs family, friends, and all who knew him, the spokesperson said. Any students seeking support during this time can contact Student Counseling Services at 513-529-4634 or Dean of Students office at 513-529-1877. The H.O.P.E. (Help Over the Phone Everywhere) line, 855-249-5649, is also available 24/7 for students to call for immediate support, crisis intervention, and stabilization from a crisis support specialist. Dublin Police do not believe there is an ongoing threat to the public. Officers encourage anyone having suicidal thoughts to reach out to the Dublin Police or text 988 to connect with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which provides 24/7 confidential support for people in distress as well as prevention and crisis resources. NEW YORK An Islamic extremist who killed eight people with a speeding truck in a 2017 rampage on a popular New York City bike path was convicted Thursday of 28 federal crimes and could face the death penalty. Sayfullo Saipov, who was living in Paterson at the time of the arrest, bowed his head as he heard the verdict in the trial for a Halloween attack that prosecutors said was inspired by his reverence for the Islamic State militant group. Saipov was tried in a Manhattan courtroom just a few blocks from where the attack ended. Darren Drake, 32, of New Milford, was among those killed. The Darren Drake Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in December, is a bipartisan law aimed at stopping lone-wolf terrorism. The dozen jurors deliberated for about seven hours over two days before convicting Saipov, 34, of crimes including murder in aid of racketeering and supporting a foreign terrorist organization. The jury will return to court within days to hear more evidence to help them decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison. A death sentence for Saipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, would be an extreme rarity in New York. The state no longer has capital punishment, and the last state execution was in 1963. A federal jury in New York has not rendered a death sentence that withstood legal appeals in decades, with the last execution in 1954. Even before the trial, there was little doubt Saipov was a killer. His lawyers conceded to the jury that he rented a pickup truck near his New Jersey home, steered it onto the path along the Hudson River and mowed down bicyclists for blocks before crashing into a school bus near the World Trade Center. He emerged from his truck yelling, "God is great," in Arabic, with pellet and paintball guns in his hands, before he was shot by a police officer who thought the guns were real firearms. The vehicle attack killed a woman visiting from Belgium with her family, five friends from Argentina and two Americans. Story continues It left others with permanent injuries, including a woman who lost her legs. "His actions were senseless, horrific, and there's no justification for them," defense attorney David Patton told the jury during the trial. The defense asked jurors to acquit Saipov of racketeering charges, saying he intended to die a martyr and was not conspiring with the Islamic State organization, despite voluminous amounts of propaganda from the group found on his electronic devices and at his home. Saipov, who moved legally to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010 and lived in Ohio and Florida before joining his family in Paterson, did not testify at his trial. Related:Darren Drake Act, named for North Jersey terror victim, is signed into law by Biden He sat quietly each day, unlike at a pretrial hearing in 2019 when he insisted on questioning the judge about why he should be judged for eight deaths when "thousands and thousands of Muslims are dying all over the world." Prosecutors said Saipov attacked civilians to impress the Islamic State group so he could become a member and appeared pleased with his work, smiling when he spoke to an FBI agent afterward. Among those testifying were several family members from Belgium who were injured in the attack. Aristide Melissas, a father, said he had challenged family members to race their bikes to the World Trade Center with the loser paying for ice cream. When he was struck by Saipov's truck, his skull was fractured, and he underwent brain surgery. His wife, Marion Van Reeth, spoke of waking up in a hospital to learn that her legs had been amputated. Saipov's lawyers have said the death penalty process was irrevocably tainted by former President Donald Trump, who tweeted a day after the attack that Saipov "SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!" President Joe Biden instituted a moratorium on executions for federal crimes after taking office. Until Saipov's trial, Biden's Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, had not launched any new attempt to obtain the death penalty in a federal case. But Garland has allowed U.S. prosecutors to continue advocating for capital punishment in cases inherited from previous administrations. It has been a decade since a jury in New York last considered the death penalty Federal juries in Brooklyn twice handed up a death sentence for a man who murdered two New York police detectives, once in 2007 and again in 2013, but both sentences were tossed out on appeal. A judge ultimately ruled the killer was intellectually disabled. In 2001, just weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal jurors in Manhattan declined to impose a death sentence on two men convicted in the deadly bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa after their lawyers urged them not to make the defendants into martyrs. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Sayfullo Saipov convicted in NYC attack that killed Darren Drake Last November, a snuff film began to circulate online depicting the gruesome murder by sledgehammer of a former member of the Wagner Group, a private military outfit closely linked to the Russian state. If such execution videos bring to mind the grisly tactics of ISIS, the similarities dont stop there: Like ISIS before it, Wagner engages in extreme violence and is now actively recruiting foreign fighters to join its armed campaigns in numerous countries across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, has left a trail of death and destruction in every place it has operated since 2014, including Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Mozambique, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mali. After the snuff video circulated on Telegram, Prigozhin, who now readily acknowledges his role as the founder of the Wagner Group, explained that the murdered man had been one of the estimated 50,000 Wagner mercenaries now fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine many of them convicts who have been released from prison to serve as cannon fodder. The dead mans mistake was that he defected, Prigozhin explained, observing, A dog receives a dogs death. And after the European Parliament prepared a resolution last November that called for the Wagner Group to be added to the EUs terror list, Prigozhin seemed to embrace his pariah status, sending a warning to the EU: a sledgehammer in a violin case. So when the Biden administration designated the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organization on Thursday, it might have seemed like a significant step. But it is not enough: Wagner is not just a criminal syndicate, but something more akin to a terrorist group. And Biden can do more. The administration is of course right that Wagner is engaged in a range of criminal enterprises. There is speculation that its costly siege of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is motivated by a desire to control salt and gypsum mines in the area. It has also embraced far-right extremism, with links to a white supremacist organization the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) that the U.S. already designates as a terrorist group. But if you consider the range and severity of Wagners activities mass murder, rape and torture; using terror to subjugate civilian populations; control of territory; looting of natural resources; enlistment of foreign fighters; sophisticated, Hollywood-style propaganda glorifying the group and Russia it presents much more of a global threat than the average criminal racket. Branding Wagner as a transnational criminal organization is mainly a symbolic move. Because Wagner and some of its associates including Prigozhin himself are already subject to economic sanctions, the Biden administrations designation offers no new meaningful tools for actually fighting the group. But if the group were also to be designated a foreign terrorist organization, the U.S. and its allies would be equipped with a much more robust set of tools to starve Prigozhin and his henchmen of resources and halt Wagners rampage of destruction. As we saw in the successful international effort to vanquish ISIS, designating a foreign terrorist group under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act would bring into play one of the most powerful economic tools that the U.S. government has: a criminal statute that would make it illegal to provide material support to the Wagner Group. Due to the extra-territorial nature of the statute, such a designation would substantially hamper Wagners operations by putting foreign individuals, companies and countries on notice that doing business with the organization means risking prosecution in the United States. Several legal and counterterrorism experts have already weighed in that the Wagner Group meets the legal definition of a foreign terrorist organization: a foreign organization, engaged in terror and presenting a threat to the national security of the United States. Members of Congress agree. So why the half measure? One answer may be a reluctance to further antagonize the Kremlin, which enjoys close ties to Wagner and has come to rely on the groups mercenaries. But surely such a designation would be less of an irritant than the weapons Washington is sending to arm Ukraine. It would also fall short of the more aggressive proposal offered by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russia itself be designated a state sponsor of terrorism, which would bring with it a host of complications. Another concern may be the checkered history of material support prosecutions in counterterrorism cases. The many excesses of the post-9/11 era mean that this sort of expansive tool has been reviled, with ample justification, by human rights and humanitarian groups. As we have seen with ISIS, Al-Shabaab and Yemens Houthis (whose terrorist designation was withdrawn), when a terrorist group has de facto control of territory as Wagner currently does in the Central African Republic there can be a chilling effect preventing humanitarian organizations from providing aid and other support, leading to disastrous humanitarian consequences. But just because a powerful instrument of foreign policy has been used in an overly broad manner in the past does not mean that it should be jettisoned altogether. Last year, the Treasury Department issued a slate of general licenses to authorize ongoing transactions with individuals or entities subject to sanctions, provided that they are engaged in a range of humanitarian activities. If the Wagner Group is designated a foreign terrorist organization, it will be critical to implement these measures in a way that chokes off the groups resources and frustrates its activities without visiting collateral damage on already vulnerable populations. This means that the Department of Justice should commit to not pursuing material support prosecutions against humanitarian actors. One reason for ISIS eventual defeat in Syria and Iraq was the collective efforts of the 85-member strong Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS. This alliance collaborated to cut off the groups finances, combat its propaganda and reduce the flow of foreign fighters to its territories. A coalition to combat Wagner could focus on the same three pillars. Given Wagners continued expansion in Africa, it is critical that such an effort include African states. With the prospect of a spring offensive by Russia looming, it is time to step up pressure on this vicious fighting force that is prolonging the Ukraine conflict and destabilizing wide swaths of Africa. It requires a truly international effort to stop an ascendant transnational threat, and the U.S. should start by utilizing the most robust economic tool it has, designating the Wagner Group a foreign terrorist organization. Contributor#8523328 Top Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov has been spending his weekends on the frontlines in order to support and promote Russias stuttering invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, all that time being confronted by the grim reality is teaching Solovyov just how badly this war is going. And hes not happy about it. In a wild rant on Thursday, Solovyov attacked the overall strategy, claimed the Russian Army was failing miserably to suppress their enemies and said he had first-hand evidence of foolish tactical errors on the frontline. During his show Full Contact, Solovyov was raging about the recent announcement that Ukraine would soon be getting Abrams and Leopard-2 tanks from NATO countries. The host started his monologue with a deep sigh, asking: So, we lived long enough to see this? He urged the audience not to trust the numbers of the tanks slated for the upcoming deliveries, predicting they will send even more: They will deliver everything. Ive been saying it for a while, these bastards will also rehabilitate Hitler in our lifetime... this is where everything is going... WWIII is underway and the West has returned to its Nazi roots. Germany got tired of concealing its Nazi nature and America finally openly acknowledged its own Nazi ways. Calling Americans conniving liars, Solovyov said that their arrogance is Russias own fault: We arent creating any threats against them. We arent conducting strikes against New York, we arent banging Washington, we arent threatening Miami, we arent doing anything to endanger Americans. They blew up our pipelines, we just wiped our face off. Theyre delivering heavy tanks, were wiping our face off. Stop talking about red lines! Its a totally empty phrase that doesnt mean a thing! Enraged, Solovyov screamed: Berlin, Paris, Madrid, London, Washington should be on fire! The capitals of Nazi countries who made a decision to go to war with Russia... Why wasnt Kyiv wiped off the face of the earth after the Nazi nation of Ukraine conducted a strike against our strategic aviation base? Stop resorting to empty, worthless words! Story continues The host went on to claim: Strikes are being carried out against our cities! Against our land! Russian soldiers are perishing! Russian people are dying! Nazis are rejoicing! How are we planning to respond? By howling that avoiding nuclear war is the most important thing? Then why the heck do we have a stockpile of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons? To be afraid to use it? So that big decorated generals would gasp, Do you want a nuclear war? Do you want the destruction of Russia with conventional weapons, of which NATO countries have 3 and a half times more than we do? Sanctioned Russian TV Host Cries About Losing His Italian Villa Solovyov yelled that destroying Ukraines infrastructure was insufficient. He demanded to know: Why do Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk [Dnipro] still exist? He angrily shouted: We are no longer stationed near Kyiv! Was it a damn good-will gesture? A good-will gesture? And Kharkiv was a good-will gesture? No one was executed by shooting for [surrendering] Kharkiv! No one was sent into retirement, at least not publicly. The society didnt get any answers to its questions. Im asking you, why did you move the frontline closer to Belgorod? We still didnt get back to those positions! In responsesilence. Silence. Solovyov demanded that enemies be destroyed on their land: Citizens of NATO countries should not feel at peace, while the Russian man is suffering... Citizens! A war has been declared against us. Wake up! Wake up. Solovyovs guest, military correspondent Alexander Kots, revealed one of the reasons for the hosts helpless rage: glaring incompetence and mismanagement of the invading forces by their military leadership. Discussing new items slated for delivery to Ukraine by NATO countries, Kots said: While we have this list, only on paper for now, we should start thinking about what we will do when or if all of it gets to the frontlines. Somehow, we have to counter their artillery systems and tanks. For the last month, throughout the holidays, as a member of the presidential Human Rights Council, I was receiving outraged and concerned messages from the relatives [of soldiers]. We have trainedI wont say how many, but a decent quantity of the artillery battalions, but all of them were sent to the infantry. This is a huge number of people, weve been training them for three months, spending ammo, spending money to house them, great instructors from our military universitiesincluding the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Military Academyhad given their time and knowledge to train them. With respect to our artillery, its a very sad story... we dont have any artillery schools left! We used to have eleven and now only Mikhailovskaya remains. Solovyov remarked that he was aware of this problem because of his frontline visits. Kots added that the same issue is happening with the anti-tank divisions, describing them as the very units that should have been the ones meeting this tank Armada, burning up those Abrams and Leopard tanks. Instead, for some reason, theyre also being transferred to the infantry. I cant understand why this is happening... We professionally trained up specialists, trained them well, but they sit without being given appropriate tasks... While were facing a threat of these deliveries from the West to the frontlines by Spring, its very wasteful on our part. Solovyov chimed in: I understand that you dont fight tanks with tanks, you use other means. Our anti-tank fist should be ready. Kots hit him over the head with more bad news: The first line of defense that will be meeting these tanks will often be comprised of mobilized men. Our mobilized soldiers on the frontlines are armed solely with Kalashnikovs. Unfortunately, there are no anti-tank weapons on many stretches of the frontline. Solovyov reverted to his favorite topic, claiming that its only a matter of time before NATO gives the Ukrainians tactical nuclear weapons. He said, I believe that the use of tactical nuclear weapons is unavoidable. The question is who will do it first: us or them. Playing along, Kots pointed out: The tanks that are being delivered contain depleted uranium. After Solovyov noted that depleted uranium is not radioactive, Kots suggested: It could still be used as the pretext, in order to use our tactical nuclear weapons. But even his trademark shtick of threatening Russias adversaries with nuclear mayhem failed to bring the bitter propagandist even a modicum of customary satisfaction. Introducing his next guest, Solovyov bitterly complained: Im sad. All of this is very sad. 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. Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Russia is building up a network of fortifications and trenches along the front in Ukraine, in apparent anticipation of a new round of heavy fighting, according to satellite imagery analysis shared exclusively with The Daily Beast. The analysis from Brady Africk, an open-source intelligence analyst, shows that Russia is building up fortifications all along the front in Luhansk, from the Russian border down to Donetsk, and throughout Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The satellite imagery indicates that Moscow may be on edge about a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeksor may even be preparing its own offensive to try to seize more Ukrainian land, nearly one year into the war. Theyre trying to basically consolidate their gains and keep the parts that theyve held on to thus far, Africk, who works at the American Enterprise Institute, told The Daily Beast. I think its definitely both a message to soldiers in Ukraine, and to everyone who might be watching, that theyre going to at least try and stay. The recent buildup of fortificationsdepicted in an interactive map created by Africkcould indicate Russian forces are worried about losing their hold in those regions, according to William Courtney, a former special assistant to the president for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. A time lapse of satellite photos of the region by Semyhiria, west of Luhansk. Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Sentinel Hub EO Browser They are expecting counteroffensives, and they know that the West is going to be providing more and better equipment. They know that the West has already provided a lot of artillery which can be used to, if you will, blast away through fortifications, Courtney told The Daily Beast. The Russian purpose is to slow Ukraine down and try to stop it where it can, said Courtney, now an adjunct senior fellow at the nonprofit RAND Corporation. An analysis from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) suggests Russia is preparing to be on defense as well. Russian forces are clearly concerned to some degree about Ukrainian advances and they want to be able to secure these lines in case of Ukrainian advances, Karolina Hird, Russia Analyst at the ISW, told The Daily Beast. The type of defensive fortifications were seeing do suggest defensive intent. Story continues Russia is currently using the cold winter months to regroup, retrain, re-equip, and prepare for next steps in the war after a series of losses to Ukrainian forces last year, according to a White House National Security Council assessment shared with reporters this week. The United States, meanwhile, is helping Ukraine prepare to go on the counteroffensive against Russia, according to White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. Its about helping Ukraine defend itself, but also helping Ukraine be able to go on the offense, Kirby told reporters this week, in reference to current American aid to Ukraine. Western nations finally settled on sending modern tanks to Ukraine to help fight Russia just this week after hesitation over fueling and other issues, in what could be a game-changer on the battlefield. President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that the United States would be sending Ukraine Abrams tanks, just as the German government made a similar announcement of its intentions to send Leopard tanks and allow other countries to send German-made tanks to Ukraine. Some of the Russian fortifications appear primed to throw the Ukrainians off course in an onslaught and make a Ukrainian advance very stop-and-start, Africk said. Thats kind of the main Russian goalmake it really, really, really hard and slow to advance and then use that to try and honestly stop Ukraine from launching counteroffensives. Russia has been working on trenches for months, but the latest developments show Russia doubling down and digging in. Compared to an analysis Africk completed earlier this month, the Russians have been adding fortifications in layers to those they had already established. And where there were gaps, the Russians have been constructing or setting up new fortifications, such as trenches and dragons teetha network of concrete triangles meant to block advances. The fortifications also include barriers, such as mounds that stretch for miles, and anti-tank ditches. The fortification buildup is sweeping, but there are some areas that can provide clues as to Russias game plan. For example, Russia has added multiple layers of fortifications between Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been trying to seize for months now, and Popasna, which is Russian-controlled, according to the analysis. It could be a sign that Russia is concerned with securing Bakhmut and the areas around it, particularly as Russian mercenary forces from Wagner Group have tried and failed to seize Bakhmut. That could feasibly be to protect the kind of Bakhmut front line, Hird said. A time lapse of satellite photos of the region between Bakhmut and Popasna, south of Volodymyrivka. Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Sentinel Hub EO Browser Ukraines government has begun to acknowledge that Russian momentum is building there. Russian forces have been increasing pressure in the direction of Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in remarks this week, adding that they want to increase pressure on a larger scale. The buildup could also be a sign that Russia is preparing an offensive itself, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Having strong fortified defensive lines also allows Russian forces to be able to potentially use these lines for launchpads for their own offensives having that sort of security could hypothetically allow the development of a Russian offensive, Hird said. There are other indications from inside of Russia that the Kremlin might be preparing a major attack this year. President Vladimir Putin promoted Gen. Valery Gerasimov to his old role commanding Russian forces in Ukraine, in what some analysts see as a step in the direction of building up a more offensive posture. According to an analysis from Ukraines Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Putin has already ordered Gerasimov to seize all of the Donbas, which includes several of the areas in question in the satellite imagery, by March. The White House warned this week Russia is gearing up as well. You can expect that the Russians are going to pick up the tempo, we have to be ready for that and I know the Ukrainians are famous for that, the National Security Council's Kirby told reporters this week. Under Gerasimovs leadership so far, Russia has begun to shift towards more conventional troops, as opposed to private mercenary fighters from Wagner. Already, Moscow has been transferring Russian troops from training in Belarus to Luhansk, according to an analysis released Wednesday from the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Other divisions, including airborne forces, have also been deployed to the Svatove-Kreminna line, according to ISW. A Luhansk offensive would probably be from the Svatove-Kreminna linethe westward push in an attempt to regain territory in eastern Kharkiv Oblast and potentially northern Donetsk Oblast, Hird said. The imagery shows a concerted effort to construct fortifications northwest of Severodonetsk near Pryvillya. The Institute for the Study of War has also been observing activity nearby that could indicate Russia is preparing to either prevent Ukrainian advances into the Luhansk Oblast, or launch Russian forces westward. We also have been seeing that Russians may be preparing for some sort of decisive effort, either of defensive or offensive nature, in Luhansk Oblast, which we can kind of see by this very, very strong defensive line that runs all the way down the Luhansk Oblast border essentially, especially on the Svatove-Kreminna line, Hird said. A time lapse of satellite photos of Priyvillya and Novodruzhes'k by Severdonetsk. Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Sentinel Hub EO Browser The imagery could serve as a predictor for the battles to come throughout eastern Ukraine. The network of fortifications in Luhansk forms straight lines in a pattern which suggests that the Russians here would like to just halt the Ukrainian offensive in place and hold that line, Hird said. In Kherson, the imagery shows a different arc in the story, with multiple layers of fortifications, which could suggest Russia anticipates a slower, perhaps piecemeal, progress. The exact direction of a potential Ukrainian offensive might be impossible to predict for now. But the development of defensive barriers indicates Russia might be concerned about a Ukrainian onslaught that gets Kyiv closer to taking back Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The fortifications being built by Russia would appear to indicate they're worried about it, Africk said. 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. In the fall, I sat in on a Brown University Law and Literature class. But the class wasnt being taught on College Hill to Brown students. Instead, it was being held 4 miles north, at Central Falls High School. The course was Browns first in partnership with the National Education Equity Lab, which enlists universities from across the country to provide college-level classes to high schoolers from historically underserved communities. In the classroom that day, Deloris Grant a longtime and beloved Central Falls High School English and drama teacher was prompting her students to brainstorm ideas for their final project. Grant serves as co-teacher and facilitator for the Law and Literature course, which has the same syllabus, assignments and college credit as the course taken by Brown students. Its going really well, she said. Its an excellent fit. For this hybrid course, Browns professor records video lectures (with opportunities for live Zoom discussions throughout the semester) while a teaching fellow or, near peer from Brown meets with the high schoolers each week, virtually. Women in Action: RI food entrepreneur Sterling Clinton-Spellman is cooking up new restaurant, jobs program Woman in Action:Barbara Papitto is invested in reducing barriers for people of color When Grant told us we were the first school in Rhode Island to do it, it made me feel like Wow! said 12th-grader Alexis Ambers, one of the students recruited for the course. Just because were from Central Falls doesnt mean were ghetto or hood. Were also appreciated, because Brown looked at us to do it. Alexis enthusiasm for the Law and Literature course goes to the very heart of Soljane Martinezs work. As education coordinator for Brown Universitys Annenberg Institute for School Reform, Soljane works tirelessly to meet the needs of local K-12 schools and community organizations with the vast resources at Brown. We want to be able to offer the opportunity for students to build that confidence that, Hey, college is for me, Soljane said, referring to the pilot program. To be able to say at age 16 or 17, I got credit from Brown University. I passed this course. Story continues Central Falls High School 12th-grader Alexis Ambers participates in the Law and Literature class last fall. In the background is her English teacher, Deloris Grant. Women in Action:Bringing long-overdue inclusiveness to Providence Public Library Women in Action:One woman's amazing effort to help coastal communities defend themselves from rising seas Instilling the belief that I can be whatever I want to be.' Soljanes role as liaison between Brown and the community is a critical one. Before her position was created in 2019, there was no point person to coordinate the enormous array of existing and ever-evolving K-12 educational outreach, research and programming conducted by Brown faculty and students. Public school officials didnt have a clear point of contact at Brown, either. Building trust and building bridges have been a big part of my world, she said. Personally, Ive always wanted to help break down those trust or intimidation barriers that many of our communities may feel when it comes to universities generally, or Brown specifically. I want to show them that we are accessible. And, that we are committed to disrupting a lot of the inequities that still exist. Shes passionate about helping others, said her colleague at Brown, Joshua Correa, the communities program manager at the Annenberg Institute. Shes the best representative that Brown could hope for. One of her greatest strengths, she feels, is her background. The fact that shes Puerto Rican, speaks Spanish, attended public schools in New York City and was even a teacher herself makes her more relatable to the students and schools that Brown is trying to serve. Women in Action:Ancient grain fuels modern dream for Providence entrepreneur Women in Action:Clerk of Court Nora Tyer-Witek brings military ingenuity to role I am a product of the urban school system, she said. I am Latina. I am first-generation. From day one, one of my personal goals in this role was to help put a different face [representing Brown University] and be a connector for many different communities. Robert McCarthy, principal of Central Falls High School, appreciates Soljanes and by extension, Brown Universitys commitment to creating opportunities for equity to occur in underserved communities. Central Falls High English teacher Deloris Grant served as co-teacher and facilitator for Brown's Law and Literature class, which had the same syllabus, assignments and college credit as the course taken by Brown students. Soljane understands this community, Robert said. She relates to our kids. And, I think, for that reason, it makes her an even more effective advocate for our kids. Despite what Robert described as the socioeconomic realities of the largely Latino and Cape Verdean community, he said that Central Falls High School is the most "hopeful" school in which he has ever worked. His students have benefited from a number of Brown programs over the years from summer sessions at the universitys Warren Alpert Medical School to having teachers who were hired from the universitys master's in teaching program. The relationship has only deepened, thanks to Soljane. It goes back to that sense of possibility, he said. And, this idea that I can be whatever I want to be.' And, thats what Soljanes all about, that belief. Theres no shortage of smart, motivated, intelligent students in Central Falls or any other school. Soljane understands that and works to make sure that our kids get those possibilities they may not otherwise get to do. Central Falls High School students brainstorm ideas for their final projects in the Law and Literature class. New York City native redefines her identity in rural Puerto Rico When she was growing up, Soljanes family was tight-knit. She was born in New York City, living in the Bronx (a mini Puerto Rico) and later in Queens. In middle school, the family moved for two years to a rural town in Puerto Rico. There, Soljane went from being la gringa or, the American who came from the mainland and spoke perfect English, to becoming more immersed in the culture of the Puerto Rican countryside. Life was simpler, she said, of the farming community. I think it kept me grounded as a young person. Her childhood was also marked by her parents conversion to a Pentecostal denomination. Soljane and her younger sister had to follow a number of strict rules. They couldnt wear pants, cut their hair or wear makeup or jewelry. They werent allowed to go to the movies and could only listen to church music. Their family attended church nearly every day. Women in Action:Refugee is now a lifeline for other newcomers in RI Women in Action:No glass ceiling for RI artist Toots Zynsky Ive always wanted to help break down those trust or intimidation barriers that many of our communities may feel when it comes to universities generally, or Brown specifically," said Soljane Martinez. "I want to show them that we are accessible. It impacted me socially, she remembered. I looked very different from the rest of my peers. That was tough on my self-esteem. In high school she started challenging her parents authority, developing her own sense of style. When it came time for college, she knew she wanted to study as far away from New York as possible. I wanted to get out from under that grip, she said. My father is very strict, very old-school. But, education was always stressed. 'It was destiny': How a career change saved her life on Sept. 11 She studied journalism at the University of Rhode Island and became involved in everything under the sun, including a Latina-based sorority that had a joint Brown-URI chapter. After graduation she spent two years as a reporter for The Providence Journal before moving back to NYC to work at the Wall Street Journal Sunday edition (now-defunct). But in 2001, she handed in her notice at the paper and switched careers to become a teacher. Her fourth day leading a third-grade classroom in Brooklyn was on Sept. 11. It was destiny, she said, her voice filled with emotion. [The Wall Street Journal Sunday editions] offices were in the World Trade Towers. I remember my mother bawling, saying she was so grateful I had left. Fortunately, her former coworkers survived. But David Marc Sullins, a family friend and EMT who rushed to save people at ground zero, perished at the scene. That changed my perspective about a lot of things, about life and the time we have with our loved ones, she said. Since then, Soljane has followed her passion in education from teacher to dean and principal to earning her master's and doctoral degrees in education along the way. In her current role, she continues to be committed to creating pathways for students to succeed. Were trying to be proactive, not reactive, she said. To understand clearly what it is that the community needs, what they want, and what do we have that can apply. Women in Action:Eleanor Dove Harris is a proud advocate for Narragansett Tribe Mark Patinkin:This RI high schooler is pen pals with a player on the NY Jets. Why it may save his life. Key goal: Helping students visualize themselves in a college setting That means supporting and connecting long-standing programs at Brown in math and reading enrichment, earth science curricula, teacher training and so much more, to an expanding number of classrooms across the state. But it also means developing new initiatives, like College Day at Brown, in which public high school students and teachers are invited to a day-long immersive program on campus. The semester-long Law and Literature course at Central Falls High School wrapped up in December, and Brown is now offering a second course at five schools, including Highlander Charter School in Warren. Central Falls High School students listen to Soljane Martinez during Brown's Law and Literature class. For a lot of these students," she said, "they go to school a few blocks away and theyve never experienced campus." For a lot of these students, they go to school a few blocks away and theyve never experienced campus, she said. We wanted to make sure they knew that were here. This campus is open to you. We want you to see yourself on a college campus, even if its not here at Brown. As if making Soljanes point, Central Falls 12th-grader Alexis Ambers says the Law and Literature class, along with her exposure to Brown students near campus, have opened her eyes to new possibilities. You can see it is diverse, Alexis said. It isnt just white kids. Its girls who look like me. Girls who have hair like me, and have their nails like me. So, its really pushed me to want to go. Patricia Andreu, a freelance journalist living in Providence, writes Women In Action, a periodic column. Reach her at WomenInActionRI@outlook.com and follow her on Twitter: @ri_women. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Brown's Soljane Martinez helps underserved students aim for college HARTFORD, Conn., January 27, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UBS Wealth Management USA today announced that Financial Advisors David Sacharko and Sean Siana have joined the firm. They bring more than 30 years of combined industry experience, and are responsible for managing $340 million in client assets for high net worth individuals and families. David and Sean will join the UBS Greater New England Market, managed by William Cholawa and Weisner Perez, and will be based in the Hartford, Connecticut office. "David and Sean are experienced advisors who are well-versed in navigating family dynamics, which helps them provide clients with comprehensive plans for the accumulation, retention and transfer of wealth," said William Cholawa, Greater New England Market Executive at UBS Wealth Management USA. "Their team is an outstanding addition to our Hartford office and we are thrilled to welcome them to UBS as we continue to focus on being the firm of choice for the industrys most productive and talented advisors." David Sacharko brings 20 years of wealth management experience to UBS. Previously, he was a Financial Advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management since 2004. David and his team, KSS Group, focuses on family wealth management and building strong client relationships based on trust and personalized service. He also holds his Certified Plan Fiduciary Advisor and Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor designations. David graduated in 2002 from Central Connecticut State University and currently resides in Burlington, CT with his wife and two children. Sean Siana entered the financial services industry in 2012 with U.S. Trust (now known as Bank of America Private Bank), and joined Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in 2014. He focuses on providing high net worth clients with personalized wealth planning advice, including trust and estate planning services, investment and retirement planning, and liquidity planning. Sean holds the Certified Financial Planner certification and graduated from Bryant University with a BSBA in Management, along with an MBA in Management from the Florida Institute of Technology. He lives in Glastonbury with his wife, son and two dogs. Story continues The team also includes Client Service Associate Barrett "Jake" Heyde who supports clients with onboarding, continuous service and daily management of client goals. Notes to Editors About UBS UBS convenes the global ecosystem for investing, where people and ideas are connected and opportunities brought to life, and provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as to private clients in Switzerland. UBS offers investment solutions, products and impactful thought leadership, is the leading global wealth manager, provides large-scale and diversified asset management, focused investment banking capabilities, and personal and corporate banking services in Switzerland. The firm focuses on businesses that have a strong competitive position in their target markets, are capital efficient and have an attractive long-term structural growth or profitability outlook. UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in more than 50 regions and locations, with about 30% of its employees working in the Americas, 29% in Switzerland, 20% in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 21% in Asia Pacific. UBS Group AG employs more than 72,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). UBS 2023. All rights reserved. The key symbol and UBS are among the registered and unregistered trademarks of UBS. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230127005291/en/ Contacts Christina Aquilina Christina.Aquilina@ubs.com https://www.ubs.com Every year, cities scramble to count how many people are experiencing homelessness on a given day of the year. In Albany, undertaking the point-in-time count is a feat that takes many hours and volunteers. The stakes for accuracy are high: The more people counted, the more federal dollars make their way to the city to combat homelessness. This year, volunteers gathered at several locations churches, laundromats and parks over the week to try and get as clear a picture as possible for how many unhoused people there were in Albany on Jan. 25, the point in the point-in-time count. In the warm glow of St. Mary's church basement, people filled their plates with bread and meat and cold hot cups of coffee. Volunteers flitted from table to table to fill out a survey on their phones. There were about 20 questions. Some were about race, age and gender. Some were about the persons history of homelessness and where they take shelter. When volunteers, who went through a short training course, weren't able to ask these questions, they recorded visual observations via an app. It gives a way to help people who are falling through the cracks, and there are a lot of people who fall through the cracks, said Michael McCarthy, a member of the Creating Housing Coalition. The nonprofit's outreach team spearheaded this years count. Its difficult to say there is a pattern among the circumstances experienced by unhoused people, McCarthy said. But a lot of the people he interviewed fell into homelessness because of mental health issues, drug addiction or are seniors who cant pay their rent, he said. Some were even displaced by fires. For volunteers, the survey is a measurable way to do something for unhoused people. It just feels important, there is a direct financial impact to those experiencing houselessness, volunteer Ash Soller said. More than 700 unhoused people were counted in Benton, Linn and Lincoln counties last year. But Stacey Bartholomew, president of Creating Housing Coalition, believes that's a vast undercount. In Albany, just under 200 people were counted last year. But those numbers dont seem to add up, Bartholomew said. The organization keeps a running log of the people to whom they offer outreach services. She believes the pandemic made the count more difficult last year because reaching people was difficult. In the height of the omicron surge, many shifts got canceled, confirmed Melissa Egan, housing services coordinator at the Community Services Consortium. Egan was hoping that count would be pushed off to February. Counts across the United States were able to put off the event, but that didn't happen in Oregon's rural region, she said. But even when everything goes off without a hitch, Egan still isn't confident in the accuracy of the numbers tallied. Its an imperfect system that was created for urban areas, not rural ones, she said. In urban areas, there are often more organizations that can put in the legwork for the count. A (point-in-time) count is the result of the capacity to do a (point-in-time) count," she said. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Albany Democrat-Herald. Final numbers are certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Last year, that process took 10 months, Egan said. The earliest unofficial numbers will be available early April, she added. Egan hopes there will be a better system for rural areas to get resources for those experiencing homelessness. But in the meantime, this is how the federal government collects the information on which it bases funding decisions. Because Albanys count numbers didnt increase from 2016 to 2020, local agencies lost out on some federal dollars, Bartholomew said. But there is a silver lining. Doing the count informs their outreach strategies, Bartholomew said. It pushed us to work with multiple agencies coordinating services, she said. Although getting the federal funds is part of the goal, it isnt the only reason Bartholomew believes the count is important. It informs the community who is out there and how impacted by homelessness people are, she said. Related stories: Getty Images A World Economic Forum report says business leaders believe a catastrophic cyber event is coming. Cybercrime will grow from a $3 trillion industry in 2015 to a $10.5 trillion industry by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. The unpredictable nature of cybercrime increases threats. The 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, has filled us with lots of uplifting predictions, like how companies will soon decode our brain waves. The latest warns of a global catastrophic cyber event in the very near future. The most striking finding that weve found, WEF managing director Jeremy Jurgens said during a presentation highlighting the WEF Global Security Outlook Report 2023, is that 93% of cyber leaders, and 86% of cyber business leaders, believe that the geopolitical instability makes a catastrophic cyber event likely in the next two years. This far exceeds anything that weve seen in previous surveys. Add in the extreme unpredictability of these eventsJurgens cited a cyberattack recently aimed at shutting down Ukranian military abilities that unexpectedly also closed off parts of electricity production across Europeand the global challenges are only growing. This is a global threat, Jurgen Stock, Secretary-General of Interpol, said during the presentation. It calls for a global response and enhanced and coordinated action. He said the increased profits that the multiple bad actors reap from cybercrime should encourage world leaders to work together to make it a priority as they face new sophisticated tools. One country that recently saw a massive cyberattack, Albania, is now working with larger allies in warding off the criminals, serving as a laboratory of sorts for folks to realize what is coming. Edi Rama, Albanias prime minister, spoke during the presentation, saying that the growth of the cybercrime industryfrom $3 trillion in 2015 to an expected $10.5 trillion in 2025, Rama says during the presentationmeans that if cybercrime was a state, it would be the third largest global economy after the U.S. and China. Story continues That means the crime coming could truly be catastrophic. Rama cited the global response to COVID-19 and said a cyberattack could be much more substantial: Lets imagine an exponential multitude of viruses that mutate everyday exponentially while not threatening our body, but the bodies we live in, our organizations, our countries, our system, then, you know, it could be just apocalypse. Its about viruses that can not only block our way of living, but can control it and deviate it. You Might Also Like Cheat Codes David Higgs Cheat Codes Don the cowgirl hats and cowboy boots before heading to the club Cheat Codes have gone country. The musical trio released One Night in Nashville, their 15-song, remixed love letter to the timeless soundtrack of Tennessee (and Las Vegas, if bandmates Trevor Dahl, Matthew Russell and KEVI have anything to say about it). "I've always loved country music. I've always loved the way they write songs as storytelling, and it's so different than any other kind of genre. It's so picturesque, and you can really imagine what's happening in every song. It's just unique in that way," says Dahl of his history with the genre. For Russell, annual summer trips to Branson, Missouri, to see Dolly Parton's horse show at the Dixie Stampede served as his introduction to country music an experience that has now come "full circle" with the inclusion of Parton on one of the album's songs, "Bets on Us." "[When] we started this project and we were diving in on what we wanted to do, we had a list of names of people that we would love to work with, and Dolly was at the very top of that list. She's the queen of country," says Dahl. RELATED: Cheat Codes and Dolly Parton Team Up for New Cross-Genre Single 'Bets on Us' "And for her to give her stamp of approval on this song and also just being a part of the album is a huge, huge compliment from her. It really means a lot. And it's a crazy situation: as a kid, I would've never pictured us having a song with somebody as epic as her," he adds. The Dolly-love rings true for KEVI, too, who says he "grew up in the music business" as his family played in various bands, and his dad, a longtime Dolly fan, is "hyped" about "Bets on Us." And, for her part(on), the country queen even sent Russell a celebratory cake in the wake of their song's release earlier this month. "Matthew, Congrats on 'Bets on Us'" reads the cake's inscription. cheat codes Matthew Russell/Instagram "I don't want to blow up her spot, you know what I'm saying?" joked Russell when asked about the personalized dessert. "It's more of a celebration cake for the song." Story continues The track list on One Night In Nashville reads like a Who's Who of country music stars, old and new, young and old, including fellow band Little Big Town, who signed up to sing Cheat Codes' "Never Love You Again" with Bryn Christopher, and in doing so, made one of the DJs fall in love with Nashville almost immediately. "KEVI spent some time in Nashville, and he was hyping it up. He went to Kid Rock's bar, and then, a year and a half ago, he bought a truck which we never thought he would buy a truck. And he started wearing cowboy hats," Russell details of his friend, whose classic influences include Travis Barker and Shania Twain. RELATED: Shania Twain on Reclaiming Her Throne: 'I Don't Have Anything to Prove Anymore' KEVI laughs. "I love Shania Twain! I'm trying to see her actually at the Hollywood Bowl. She's playing here in a couple months," he says. As for KEVI's ultimate transformation into a country crooner? Russell adds, "We were like, "What happened to you, bro? And he was like, "Hey man, I spent that night in Nashville. I'm all about it now." Not long after working with Little Big Town came opportunities to collaborate with Lee Brice and Lindsay Ell on "How Do You Love," and then, with two tracks and a growing Nashville rolodex to boot, Cheat Codes just had one question left to answer. "Should we try to do more?" RELATED: Lindsay Ell Says She Celebrated with Little Big Town After Passing Her American Citizenship Test In fact, KEVI's country-fication is a phenomenon at the crux of the album, if not also part of the inspiration. If Cheat Codes' punk, pop rock bandmate could buy a truck and convert to life on an old dirt road, then why couldn't everyone? "That's kind of where we came up with 'One Night in Nashville,' because I think it just converted our mentality. Once you see country music, if you don't understand the lifestyle of it, I feel like you don't understand the full picture and scope of the music. These songs are so cool, and they strike a level of emotion that is different from other genres of music," explains Russell. "It's just a small world and you work with one artist and you're like, 'Hey, what about this record? What about that record?' And then, things just start being sent back and forth, and before you know it, you're like, "Oh, we have 15 demos. Cool. Let's make it an album,'" he adds. Cheat Codes Cheat Codes LLC The other country stars rounding out the track list for the record include Mitchell Tenpenny, Russell Dickerson, Jimmie Allen, Lady A, Brett Young, Nate Smith, Matt Stell, Maddie & Tae and Adam Doleac. And, while choosing favorite songs is often a lot like choosing favorite children (impossible, but really just depends on the day), the boys agree that there is one track in particular that, for all its country charm, might be equal parts at home in Las Vegas's Zouk Nightclub where the band will kick off a residency in March. "'One Night Left' works really well," says Russell, with echoes from his bandmates. "We have tonight, you gotta live it up," Dahl adds of the song's particular theme. ("One Night Left" features country up-and-comer MacKenzie Porter). As for a country icon who wasn't able to make it on One Night in Nashville? Keith Urban. "It was this close! Something with scheduling. I don't know what happened exactly, but Keith, if you're out there, we know you're listening. Next time!" says Dahl. Coincidentally, Urban is also preparing for his Vegas residency that kicks off in March. At this news, the boys perk up. RELATED: Keith Urban Dishes on New Vegas Residency, Different Ways to Release Music: 'There's No Center Anymore' "There we go. We'll just corner him there in Vegas," says Dahl with a laugh. The beauty of the new album, concludes the band, is its unexpectedness: Keith Urban is to Vegas as perhaps Cheat Codes is to Nashville. Not anticipated, but so welcomed nonetheless. "So, this is just that era for Cheat Codes, if you're going on the boat, maybe you're going out and fishing, you throw on One Night in Nashville and you're like, 'Oh, I'm actually listening to Cheat Codes right now. That's interesting,'" says Russell. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "People might traditionally listen to a specific genre, whether it's dance or hip hop or whatever, but they also love country, and they didn't expect this from us," says Dahl. "Being able to have both of those worlds combined is cool." Arizona Republicans commissioned Florida-based company Cyber Ninjas to perform a partisan-driven audit of 2020 election results in Maricopa County, which ultimately confirmed the outcome. (AP) A $1,000,000 donation to the group responsible for the sham audit of Maricopa County, Arizonas 2020 election results came from former president Donald Trumps Save America PAC, according to analysis of publicly available data by the watchdog group Documented. The analysis, which was first reported by The Guardian, was based on campaign finance disclosures, tax filings, and communications records obtained by another transparency group. It contradicts statements made by Mr Trumps associates who denied he had anything to do with the effort to audit election results in Arizonas most populous county. The group found that a million-dollar donation flowed from the Trump PAC, which was his primary political operation from the end of his term as president until he launched his third presidential campaign late last year, to attorney Cleta Mitchell, a right-wing activist who tried to help Mr Trump overturn 2020 election results across the US, and who was forced to resign from her law firm partnership as a result. Ms Mitchell, who now works at a conservative nonprofit affiliated with many ex-Trump administration figures, directed the donation to the Arizona audit effort. Bill Gates, the Republican vice-chair of the Maricopa county board of supervisors at the time of the Cyber Ninjas audit, said he was disappointed, but not surprised by the revelation that Mr Trump had helped to fund it. He told The Guardian he has no problem with audits, but stressed that he objects to an audit that is undertaken with a goal in mind, and that is literally being funded by one of the candidates. This is absolutely what we do not want to happen, he said. The Biden administration on Thursday released new, more complete data about the more than 25 million Americans who signed up to have their student debt canceled before the program was blocked by the courts. The Education Department received 25,031,094 applications for President Joe Biden's student debt relief program during the four weeks that the program was operating between Oct. 14 and Nov. 11, according to the new data, which was obtained by POLITICO under a Freedom of Information Act request. Department officials approved 16,485,454 of those applications and sent them to be processed by loan servicers, according to the data. That process was also halted by federal court orders, and none of the approved debt relief has been carried out on borrower accounts. Biden administration officials had previously only provided approximations of the number of borrowers who filled out applications to apply for the program, which provides up to $20,000 of debt relief for federal student loan borrowers. The new federal data details, for the first time, the precise number of borrowers who filled out applications and where they live. The Education Department received the most applications from some of the nations most populous states: California (2.2 million applications); Texas (2 million); Florida (1.5 million); New York (1.5 million); Pennsylvania (1 million); Ohio (1 million); Illinois (1 million); and Georgia (about 950,000). The data does not include information on borrowers who did not apply but were deemed automatically eligible for relief because the Education Department already had their income information on file. But many of those borrowers also submitted applications. The Biden administration was widely praised among Democrats for setting up an easy online application for borrowers to apply for the debt relief program. But the data also highlights some significant gaps in which borrowers filled out the application compared to the White Houses earlier estimates of the number of borrowers who may be eligible. Story continues For example, the data shows that Massachusetts borrowers submitted 563,740 applications in the first month of the program nearly 70 percent of the 813,000 borrowers that the administration estimated would be eligible in that state. Wyoming borrowers, by contrast, submitted 26,869 applications only about half of the 49,600 borrowers the administration estimates qualify for the program. The new data also shows the huge influx of applications in the days after the Biden administration launched the application in mid-October, just weeks before the midterm elections. Several million applications poured into the Education Department each day in the week following the announcement. In the following weeks, the department continued to receive hundreds of thousands of applications each day. More than 100,000 borrowers were applying each day when the application was taken offline on Nov. 11 in response to a federal court order. About 76,000 borrowers applied for student debt relief using the Spanish-language version of the application, according to the data. The Supreme Court is preparing to decide the fate of Bidens student debt relief program in the coming months. The justices in February will hear arguments in two legal challenges brought by six Republican-led states and a conservative group. Full state-by-state data as released by the Education Department under a FOIA request: The Food and Drug Administration will ease its restrictions on blood donations and allow gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships to donate blood without the condition that they abstain from sex. The proposal, announced on Friday, represents a notable shift from the prior lifetime ban on blood donations from gay men. That ban stemmed from the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when gay men were reported to have higher rates of HIV infections since the virus spread more easily in smaller sexual networks and during anal sex, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the plan to ease restrictions. The FDA justified the ban as necessary to ensure the safety of the donated blood supply in the U.S. But the rule was strongly criticized over the years by blood banks and LGBTQ organizations, which claimed it was homophobic and outdated. These groups have put pressure on the FDA to lift the restriction. Maintaining a safe and adequate supply of blood and blood products in the U.S. is paramount for the FDA, and this proposal for an individual risk assessment, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, will enable us to continue using the best science to do so, said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf in a press release. The new policy, which was reported by The Wall Street Journal to be under consideration in November, would focus more on individual risk through questionnaires as a way to reduce the risk of HIV transmission in blood donations rather than on blanket assessments. Prospective donors will be barred from donating if theyve had anal intercourse with a new partner in the last three months, according to CNN. The proposed policy change comes a year after the U.S. faced what the Red Cross described as its worst blood shortage in over a decade. During this time, the FDA faced increased pressure and criticism surrounding its restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. In 2015, the FDA ditched the 1983 lifetime ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men and instead adopted a one-year abstinence rule (which still was criticized for being discriminatory). This policy remained in place until the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the FDA reduced the abstinence period from a year to three months. Story continues While todays announcement is a victory, its not the end of the road; there is much more that needs to be done, and we urge the Biden administration to prioritize removing remaining barriers and ask the FDA to move expeditiously while ensuring the safety of the blood supply and a blood donation policy in-line with the science, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a statement Thursday. Related... Tennessee's Jasmine Powell (15) tries to get to the basket while guarded by UConn's Nika M hl (10) during the NCAA college basketball game between the Tennessee Lady Vols and Connecticut Huskies in Knoxville, Tenn. on Thursday, January 26, 2023 / Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Lou Lopez Senechal scored 26 points and Aaliyah Edwards added 25 to lead No. 5 Connecticut to a 84-67 victory over Tennessee in a matchup of iconic womens basketball programs on Thursday night. Aubrey Griffen and Dorka Juhasz, each scored 13 points for the Huskies (19-2), who led by as many as 16 points at the end of the first quarter and extended their winning streak to 12 games. Nika Muhl had 13 assists. Jordan Horston scored 27 points for the Lady Volunteers (16-7), who closed within two points early in the third period but couldnt complete the comeback. Rickea Jackson scored 13 points and Jillian Hollingshead added 11 as Tennessee lost for the first time in 10 games. UConn, which couldnt miss in the first quarter, and couldnt buy a basket in the second, carried a 40-36 lead into halftime. Edwards had 10 points and Lopez Senechal had nine in the first 10 minutes, when the Huskies shot 71 percent and led 33-17. Tennessee scored the last eight points of the second quarter four by Horston, who had 11 at the break to make it interesting. POLL IMPLICATIONS UConn has been ranked in The Associated Press Top 25 poll for 557 straight weeks. That wont change. On the other hand, Tennessee started the season No. 5, but has struggled with the toughest schedule in the country. ... When the Lady Vols take on LSU on Monday and South Carolina on Feb. 23, they will have played all of the top six teams in this weeks poll. BIG PICTURE Connecticut: If the Huskies were healthy, they would be a powerhouse. However, their two top players, Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, and top freshman Ice Brady, are out with injuries. Jana El Alfy, a 6-foot-4 2023 recruit from Cairo, Egypt, has enrolled early. Shes with the team, but not expected to play this season. Tennessee: This 26th meeting (UConn leads 17-9) between the Vols and Huskies is the climax to the We Back Pat week that brings attention to Alzheimers disease, which claimed the life of iconic Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt. Tennessee coach Kellie Harper said playing UConn was important to Summitt, who she played for, so she hopes the series will continue. Tennessee has had to deal with the loss of 6-6 Tamari Key, who was diagnosed with blood clots nine games into her senior year. Story continues UP NEXT Connecticut: Host a Big East meeting with No. 21 Villanova on Sunday. Tennessee: Travel to No. 4 LSU on Monday night. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Thursday and activated 1,000 National Guard troops in response to ongoing violent protests in downtown Atlanta following a shooting last week near a controversial future law enforcement training site in which a Georgia state trooper was wounded and a man was killed. The state of emergency is in effect until Feb. 9, according to the document, unless renewed by the governor. The Atlanta protests center around the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, nicknamed "Cop City." Protestors have been at the site for months, but on Jan. 18, a protestor identified as Manuel Esteban Paez Teran was shot and killed by law enforcement after authorities said he shot and wounded a Georgia state trooper during a planned multi-agency operation to remove protestors from the area. The trooper was hospitalized and survived. On Jan. 21, six people were arrested after protests at "Cop City" led to property damage and a police vehicle being set ablaze. Some of the arrested protestors were found with explosives, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said. No one was injured. Police block downtown streets following a protest, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, in Atlanta, in the wake of the death of an environmental activist killed after authorities said the 26-year-old shot a state trooper. / Credit: Alex Slitz / AP Kemp specifically referenced the burnt car in his declaration of the state of emergency. "Masked activists threw rocks, launched fireworks and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation office building," the declaration read, in part. "Georgians respect peaceful protests, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property." The state of emergency declaration authorizes the Georgia National Guard to be used in response to continued protests. Activated troops will have "the same powers of arrest and apprehension as do law enforcement officers." The Atlanta Police Department also told CBS News in a statement that it is monitoring events in Memphis, and protests related to the death of Tyre Nichols, who died on Jan. 10, three days after a violent traffic stop. The five officers involved in the arrest were charged with second-degree murder Thursday. Video footage of the arrest is expected to be released Friday afternoon, officials said. Story continues "We are closely monitoring the events in Memphis and are prepared to support peaceful protests in our city," Atlanta police said. "We understand and share in the outrage surrounding the death of Tyre Nichols. Police officers are expected to conduct themselves in a compassionate, competent, and constitutional manner and these officers failed Tyre, their communities and their profession. We ask that demonstrations be safe and peaceful." Video released of Paul Pelosi attack Heart-related deaths rose sharply during first year of COVID pandemic Biden announces Jeff Zients as next White House chief of staff An artist's depiction of the Janus spacecraft. Scientists are working hard to try to salvage a pair of spacecraft that lost their launch and the solution might include the most notorious asteroid out there, Apophis. NASA's Janus mission was designed to send two spacecraft past two binary asteroids , giving scientists their first close look at this category of object. The mission, which was meant to cost no more than $55 million, was due to launch between August and October 2022 with the Psyche mission that will explore a metal-rich asteroid. But Psyche wasn't ready to launch last year and will instead launch this October leaving the Janus team's two perfectly good spacecraft grounded . "Suddenly, we don't have a launch," Dan Scheeres, an aerospace engineer at the University of Colorado Boulder and principal investigator of the Janus mission, said on Wednesday (Jan. 25) to a meeting of the Small Bodies Assessment Group held in California and online. "Suddenly, everything we were designed to do is not nominally achievable." Related: The greatest asteroid missions of all time! There's still room aboard Psyche's rocket for the hitchhikers, of course, but the larger mission's new launch plan would make Janus' original design impossible. "Within three months, we would not have enough power to thrust; within five months, we wouldn't have enough power to do anything," Scheeres said. "Basically, we'd be a brick in less than five months. And there were no real science opportunities between launch and that time period." So NASA and the Janus team are working to determine whether there are other rockets launching soon that may be able to send the spacecraft on their way to a different intriguing target. In particular, the team is looking for a ride that would carry the spacecraft out to either one of the gravitational " parking spots " located on each side of Earth with respect to the sun. From there, loops around Earth or the moon would give the team a range of trajectory options, Scheeres said. Story continues "We found several binary asteroid flyby candidates that we could get to using this sort of an approach, including some of our original targets," he said. "Of course, that is very exciting because then that might allow us to recover our original science goals." But one particular opportunity has caught people's notice. If the Janus spacecraft can find a ride by early 2028, scientists could use one or both of the spacecraft to scout out the large asteroid Apophis before its super-close approach to Earth in April 2029. (If only one spacecraft visits Apophis, scientists would see only about half of the asteroid but could send the second spacecraft elsewhere; if both spacecraft fly past the same object they can be arranged to reveal the whole surface.) Related stories: Photos: Asteroids in deep space OSIRIS-REx asteroid samples will land on Earth in 2023 and scientists can't wait Huge asteroid Apophis flies by Earth on Friday the 13th in 2029, a lucky day for scientists Scientists suspect that Apophis' close approach, which will carry the skyscraper-sized rock within the ring of Earth's geosynchronous satellites, will have some serious consequences for the asteroid as Earth's gravity stretches the rock. NASA has found a way to see the aftermath of the flyby: The OSIRIS-REx mission, after dropping asteroid samples on Earth in September, will continue on to Apophis, arriving at the rock just one week after its dramatic flyby and studying it in detail for about 18 months. If Janus' reinvention carries it past Apophis, the mission could provide the "before" view for scientists to compare. "We have two awesome spacecraft that we will be able to launch," Scheeres said. "We could send them to asteroids that would help fulfill our original science goals or we can also take an opportunistic approach, and we plan to work closely with NASA on seeing what the right pathway forward is." PANAMA CITY HCA Florida Gulf Coast Hospital is rapidly growing as the hospital completed its newest rehabilitation facility in Panama City. HCA Florida Gulf Coast announced the completion of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Center and the expansion of rehabilitation services. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Wednesday to celebrate the completed milestone with local officials and the Bay County and Panama City Beach chambers of commerce. More:$11 million freestanding emergency room coming to Panama City Beach. Here are the details More:Panama City hospital GCRMC plans to complete $60 million expansion by next spring The Rehabilitation Center is connected to the main hospital at 449 W. 23rd St., which allows easy access to the acute-care setting of the hospital. The new facility is expected to open Jan. 30. "As our community continues to grow, there is a need for advanced inpatient rehabilitation services," hospital CEO Chase Christianson said in a Wednesday press release. "The Inpatient Rehabilitation Center at HCA Florida Gulf Coast Hospital offers those who have been critically ill or injured, continuity-of-care and access to an array of rehabilitative specialists helping them regain strength to live life to the fullest." The $20.5 million addition adds to the array of high-quality care services provided to patients, increases access to healthcare, particularly for seniors and brings more than 30 jobs to the community, the press release states. In addition, the 22,000-square-foot center features 20 private patient rooms, a gym and a dedicated dining room. The Rehabilitation Center care team will include specially trained physicians, nurses, speech-language pathologists, and physical and occupational therapists. The center will help patients overcome functional limitations brought on by injury or illness through three or more hours of therapy a day, six to seven days a week. Patients most frequently need inpatient rehabilitation if they have suffered one of the following: Story continues Stroke Cardiac and Pulmonary Events Brain, Back and Spinal Cord Injuries Orthopedic Fractures Amputations Neuromuscular Disorders Construction is underway for a free-standing emergency room at 9318 Panama City Beach Parkway, on the north side of U.S. 98 at Moylan Road. The new $11 million Breakfast Point Emergency Room is slated to open in February. For more information about HCA Florida Gulf Coast, visit hcafloridahealthcare.com. This article originally appeared on The News Herald: HCA Florida Gulf Coast completes new rehab center Here's your guide to today's 2023 spring primary election in the Oshkosh area. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The candidates who advance in the primary will go on to the general election on Tuesday, April 4. There are lots of resources for voters at myvote.wi.gov. You can: Here's the list of contested races for Oshkosh voters State Supreme Court Justice Candidates are running for the seat that will be vacated by Justice Patience Roggensack, who is not running for re-election. The top two candidates will advance to the general election. Jennifer R. Dorow Daniel Kelly Everett D. Mitchell Janet C. Protasiewicz More:The 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race will decide control of the bench. Here's a closer look at the four candidates. More:Wisconsin's Supreme Court election could be the most expensive in history. Here's what's at stake in the closely watched race. This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Oshkosh voters' guide to the 2023 Wisconsin primary election * New U.S. migrant rules push down traffic in Darien Gap jungle * Venezuela former chief justice indicted in U.S. * Mexico giving 'complete support' to Pemex * Mexico finds unaccompanied kids from Guatemala in migrant truck Jan 27 (Reuters) - The latest in Latin American politics today: Peru president considers moving up general elections to December 2023 Peruvian President Dina Boluarte said Friday she was considering moving up general elections to December, as the Andean leader struggles to keep a hold on protests that have left dozens dead. The change would need to be passed by Congress. Boluarte said elections could come even sooner than December depending on how quickly the proposal was passed. Congress is set to debate Friday a proposal presented earlier by Boluarte to move to April 2024 national elections, which are currently set for 2026. However, some lawmakers have proposed moving the elections up to December or October of this year. New U.S. migrant rules push down foot traffic in Colombia-Panama jungle, says IOM chief BRASILIA - The number of people making a perilous crossing on foot of the Darien Gap jungle between Colombia and Panama as they head north to try to get to the United States has dropped significantly since the U.S. government tightened its rules on migrants, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Earlier this month Washington expanded COVID-19 pandemic-era restrictions to include migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua and not just Venezuelans as people who can be expelled back to Mexico if caught crossing the border into the United States. The restrictions are known as Title 42. IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino said the measure was discouraging people from heading north. Venezuela former chief justice indicted in U.S. for money laundering CARACAS - Venezuela's former chief justice Maikel Moreno has been indicted on money laundering charges related to bribe payments he allegedly received in exchange for influencing court decisions, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Southern District of Florida said. Story continues Moreno allegedly took over $10 million in bribes and used the funds to purchase or renovate real estate in Tuscany, Italy, and Miami, among other places, according to a statement late on Thursday. Mexico giving 'complete support' to Pemex, has plan for 2023 debt payments MEXICO CITY - Mexico's government will provide further support to state-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and has a plan to ensure that pending bond payments in 2023 are met, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday. Pemex's debt obligations are being paid on time with the government's assistance, and the finance ministry and Pemex's leadership are working out the schedule for this year's payments, Lopez Obrador said at a news conference. Mexico finds over 50 unaccompanied kids from Guatemala in migrant truck Mexican authorities late on Thursday stopped a crowded truck transporting nearly 70 migrants from Guatemala, mostly unaccompanied children, the country's National Institute of Migration (INM) said in a statement. The INM said federal Mexican agents spotted the truck at a checkpoint in Mexico's northern Chihuahua state, which borders the United States. (Compiled by Steven Grattan; Editing by Diane Craft) Jan. 5A mainstay of river trips on the Middle Fork and main stem of Idaho's Salmon River is closing up shop. Caldwell Transportation Company is closing after 20 years of shuttling boaters of all stripes to put-ins and take-outs on the Middle Fork Salmon River and River of No Return section of the Salmon River, both of which cut through the 2.3-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, according to a news release. The closure has left commercial outfitters and private boaters looking for a solution. "They gave their notice last summer," ROW Adventures founder Peter Grubb said in an email. "We outfitters are all scratching our heads and hoping another company steps in!" In an effort to find another company, the Middle Fork Outfitters Association hired Steve Stuebner, an outdoor PR and marketing specialist to send out a news release looking for a new shuttle service. "There's 40 river businesses trying to figure out what they're going to do next summer," said Steve Zettel, owner of Idaho Wilderness Company, a Middle Fork outfitter, based in Challis, Idaho, in the release. "We see this as a business opportunity for an existing bus or transportation company that might want to expand to Stanley, Idaho." Shuttling river rats, however, is a complicated endeavor, warned Dustin Aherin, the owner and operator of Idaho River Adventures. Middle Fork and Salmon River outfitters take about 10,000 people a year on weeklong wilderness whitewater rafting trips, according to the statement. Private float parties also need shuttle services. At the beginning and conclusion of each trip, bus/shuttle services are needed to drop off and pick up customers. For reference, Caldwell Transportation had eight buses running a day for a season that is anywhere from 90 to 120 days long. "There is very much room to expand," Aherin said . "(But) it's a hard business. It would be seven days a week for three consecutive months." Story continues One boon? The shuttle service doesn't need federal permits as it operates under the outfitter's permit, Aherin said. Still, it's hard and demanding work. "My wife and I spent 21 summers in Stanley, raised three kids, loved living in the mountains, and ran the business. We just decided it was time," Mike Stephenson of Caldwell Transportation said in the release. Transportation service is needed to the following river launch points, according to the news release: Boundary Creek launch point on the 100-mile Middle Fork. Twenty-five miles of single-lane dirt road. * Nearest town: Stanley. * Corn Creek launch point on the 80-mile Salmon River, River of No Return section. Corn Creek is 40 miles from U.S. Highway 93 on the Salmon River Road. The drive features 25 miles of dirt road. Nearest town: Salmon. Cache Bar takeout, the end of the trip for Middle Fork floaters. Cache Bar also is accessed via the Salmon River Road, 33 miles from North Fork. The drive features 20 miles of dirt road. Nearest town: Salmon. There are other commercial shuttle operations working in Idaho, Aherin said. Historically, those companies worked in their own geographic locations, meaning Caldwell's closure leaves a hole. "Caldwell was providing a heck of a service," Aherin said. (Reuters) - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday urged his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, to have France attend the summit of the Amazon countries that he aims to host in coming months. Lula, who was elected for a third term last October vowing to tackle deforestation in the rainforest, discussed in a phone call with Macron efforts to combat the threat posed by climate change, according to a statement from his office. He talked about the importance of France attending a summit of the countries of the Amazon forest that Brazil plans to host in the next few month, as it is the only European country to share the biome, through its overseas territory of French Guiana. Besides Brazil and French Guiana, seven other countries have territory in the world's largest rainforest. Macron has meanwhile asked Brazil to attend its own "One Forest Summit" that France and Gabon will host in early March, according to the Brazilian statement. Lula won a narrow election last year promising an overhaul in Brazil's climate policy, after deforestation in the Amazon reached its highest levels in 15 years under then far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who undermined environmental law enforcement and pushed for more mining and farming in the region. Bolsonaro had a strained relationship with Macron, after the French president denounced in 2019 surging fires in the Amazon. Bolsonaro responded by insulting Macron's wife and accusing him of disrespecting Brazilian sovereignty. Later on Thursday, Macron said after speaking with Lula that he had reaffirmed his determination to take action "for the climate, biodiversity, our forests and against hunger." "We will meet these challenges," he said. (Reporting by Peter Frontini; Editing by Sandra Maler) NORBIT ASA Trondheim, 27 January 2023: Reference is made to the stock exchange notice dated 2 January 2023 where NORBIT announced that segment Connectivity had received confirmation from an existing undisclosed European customer of a significant volume increase of On-Board Units, pending final negotiations on commercial terms. Today, NORBIT is pleased to announce that the parties have entered into an agreement and NORBIT has received the order for approximately NOK 150 million. The order received is for deliveries in the first half of 2023. The parties will continue discussions with regards to additional volumes for the second half of the year. Thus, total volumes are expected to be significantly higher for the full year compared to what was communicated 2 January. This is the result of a strong and trusted partnership with the client and our strategy of migrating the sales of On-Board Units from tendering to B2B. Our in-house manufacturing capabilities allow for scalability, enabling us to deliver on these kind of opportunities. We are enthusiastic with regards to the additional volume potential in the second half of 2023, says Per Jrgen Weisethaunet, CEO of NORBIT. For further queries, please contact: Per Jrgen Weisethaunet, CEO, +47 959 62 915 Per Kristian Reppe, CFO, +47 900 33 203 About NORBIT ASA NORBIT is a global provider of tailored technology to selected niches, solving challenges and promoting sustainability through innovative solutions, in line with its mission to Explore More. The company is structured in three business segments to address its key markets: Oceans, Connectivity and Product Innovation & Realization (PIR). The Oceans segment delivers tailored technology solutions to global maritime markets. The Connectivity segment provides wireless solutions for identification, monitoring and tracking. The PIR segment offers R&D services, proprietary products, and contract manufacturing to key customers. NORBIT is headquartered in Trondheim with manufacturing in Norway, has around 450 employees, and a worldwide sales and distribution platform. Story continues For more information: www.norbit.com The information is such that NORBIT is required to disclose in accordance with the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to Section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication by Elise Heidenreich, Investor Relations at NORBIT ASA, on 27 January 2023 at 07:00 CET. North Korean authorities have ordered a lockdown in the nations capital city Pyongyang because of the spread of an unspecified respiratory illness, according to a statement released by the Russian embassy in North Korea on Facebook. The lockdown will last for five days, and could be extended another three days, according to the post, which called for a special anti-epidemic period and urged foreign diplomats to remain inside. The notice also stated that individuals should take their temperature four times a day and report the results daily to a hospital in Pyongyang. If an individual has a high temperature, they should immediately report to the hospital. While the notice does not mention any particular illness, such as COVID-19, it does say the city has seen a rise in patients with recurrent influenza in winter and other respiratory diseases. South Korean news outlet NK News first reported the lockdown. The secretive dictatorship has been guarded about the toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on the country. In August, North Korean leader Kim Jung Un said in a speech that the country had eradicated the virus, according to state media reports. While North Korea did not officially report coronavirus cases, it did report cases of people with fever symptoms. In 2022 it reported statistics that showed nearly a fifth of its 25 million population had the symptoms, but it has stopped reporting the cases since the end of July. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. Trigger warning: This story contains disturbing details about sexual abuse, rape and assault. If you or your loved ones are struggling, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline. Call 1-800-656-HOPE or visit https://www.rainn.org Pamela Anderson is taking us back to her hometown of Ladysmith, B.C., for the intimate Netflix documentary Pamela, a love story (premiering Jan. 31). The internationally renowned Canadian Playboy model and actor reflects on her life, most importantly, in her own words, largely through what she has written in personal journals. Im not a victim, Anderson says in the documentary. I put myself in crazy situations and I survived them. When most people think about Anderson, likely the first thing that comes to mind is Baywatch and stars whirlwind romance with Motley Crues Tommy Lee, including the stolen personal tapes that became the first real viral video. But what led to that moment and how does she look back at the time in her life? Numerous stories have been written about the sex tape scandal, the Hulu series Pam & Tommy recreates the events for entertainment, but in Pamela, a love story, Anderson gives us her honest thoughts on this notable moment in pop culture history. Pamela Anderson in "Pamela, a love story" (Netflix) Traumatic moments in Pamela Anderson's childhood revealed Before getting to that moment, Pamela, a love story director Ryan White begins the film by looking at Andersons upbringing in Canada, on Vancouver Island. But the film doesnt take long to get to some shocking details about her life, including a babysitter who molested her as a child for years. I tried to kill her, Anderson says. I tried to stab her in the heart with a candy cane pen and then I told her I wanted her to die, and she died in a car accident the next day. Anderson never told anyone about this abuse, thinking she had somehow caused the babysitters death. When she was a bit older, age 12, Andersons friend had a crush on a much older boy. One night, her friend was with her crush, leaving Anderson alone with a 25-year-old man, who raped her. Story continues Once again, she told no one. Particularly because Anderson's mother had been dealing with issues with her husband at the time, but Anderson reveals in the documentary she felt like it was tattooed on her forehead that this had happened. Its those events from Anderson's childhood that made her feel shame about her body. That may seem odd for some to hear, given that Anderson is one of the most famous Playboy models in history, but like many women, she lived with insecurity about her body and her Playboy work actually made her feel more empowered. Pamela Anderson in "Pamela, a love story" (Netflix) 'Youre in Playboy, you have no right to privacy' Theres a core message in Pamela, a love story that is critical for society to understand, after weve failed so miserably at how we engage with celebrities, particularly women. Just because someone, like Anderson, is on Baywatch running on a beach in a bathing suit, and her body is on display modelling for Playboy, doesnt mean she isn't deserving of privacy or respect. For example, the documentary shows a series of clips where interviewers are referencing her breasts and asking about her implants. I think its kind of inappropriate to ask women those kinds of questions, Anderson says. There has to be some line that people dont cross. I always hoped something would come along where I would do something, which would be more interesting to people than my body.Actress Pamela Anderson Pamela Anderson in "Pamela, a love story" (Netflix) That concept is even more egregiously misunderstood when it came to her horrifying deposition in the 90s related to the release and distribution of her sex tape with then-husband Tommy Lee, created with stolen personal video footage from the couples home. I didnt know that I was going to be completely humiliated all these guys in there, they had up naked pictures of me, Anderson recalls in the documentary. The lawyers basically said, youre in Playboy, you have no right to privacy, and that was a little bit shocking. They would ask about my sex life and I kept on thinking, How am I getting questioned about my sexuality and preferences, and my body parts and where I like to make love, when its stolen property?' It made me feel like I was such a horrible woman. Im just a piece of meat. That this should mean nothing to me because Im such a whore, basically. They didnt have a lot of sympathy for me.Actress Pamela Anderson In Andersons words, this type of questioning and judgment felt like a rape. Not to bring up something really heavy from my childhood, but when I was attacked by this guy, I thought everybody would know, she explains in the film. When the tape was stolen, it felt like that and the depositions were so brutal. I remember looking at them thinking, why do these grown men hate me so much? With the emergence of the internet, this footage was shared all over the world in an instant. The model and actor then described her professional persona as more of a caricature from that point forward, always linked to this stolen footage. I knew at that point my career was over, she says. Pamela Anderson in "Pamela, a love story" (Netflix) 'I blocked that a out of my life, I had to in order to survive' That leads to the release of the series Pam & Tommy last year, which depicts a version of the "sex tape" scandal in Andersons life, but notably executed without her consent. They should have had to have my permission, she says in Pamela, a love story. The star goes on to say that when she talked to her ex-husband about it, he said to not let it hurt her like it did the last time. In one moment in the documentary, Anderson takes a call from her son Brandon Thomas Lee (also a producer on Pamela, a love story) after he watched the first three episodes of the Hulu series. He tells his mom that the setup for the show gives Seth Rogans character Rand Gauthier a reason to steal the tapes, because his father was an a hole who didnt pay for his home renovation work. I blocked that out of my life, I had to in order to survive, Anderson says, adding that she feels sick with it coming back up again. Documenting her life from childhood to her Broadway debut in Chicago last year, Pamela, a love story is really essential viewing for everyone to understand the consequences of this rather toxic way we consume content about celebrities. Just because they have a public persona and reach a level of fame, doesn't mean these people and their bodies are, as Anderson puts it, "owned by the world." WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland will send an additional 60 tanks to Ukraine on top of the 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks it has already pledged, the Polish prime minister said in an interview with Canadian television on Thursday. Warsaw, which has positioned itself as one of Kyiv's staunchest allies, had pressed hard for Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine and to allow other countries to do so as well, a demand which Berlin agreed to on Wednesday. "Poland sent 250 tanks as the first country half a year ago or even more than that," Mateusz Morawiecki told CTV News. In April last year, two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Poland said it had sent tanks to held Kyiv fend off the assault. "Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernised tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession." The PT-91 is a Polish-made battle tank that came into service in the 1990s. It was developed from the Soviet-era T-72 range. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked Poland on Twitter for the decision to supply the additional tanks. "Together we will win!", he wrote. Canada on Thursday announced that it would send four Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine. Norway has also said it will send Leopards while Spain said it was open to providing them. Ukraine has said it needs hundreds of the Leopards to drive Russia from its territory. On Friday, Polish Deputy Defence Minister Marcin Ociepa told private broadcaster RMF FM that it would be around three months before Leopard tanks reached Ukraine. "It depends what country we are talking about, but I would estimate that we are talking about around a quarter... until those tanks can really be on Ukrainian territory and go into battle," he said. (Reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Nick Macfie) Rakovina Therapeutics Inc VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. (TSX-V: RKV) (the Company), is pleased to announce a scientific presentation at the 6th Annual DDR Inhibitors Summit in Boston, MA. The 6th Annual DDR Inhibitors Summit, held in Boston January 24-26, 2023, brought together academic and pharmaceutical industry researchers to share progress across the preclinical and clinical DDR inhibitor landscape. The conference aims to provide an up-to-date overview of the field across both novel and established targets, utilizing inhibitors in combination studies and improving patient selection through novel biomarkers. Conference organizers highlighted that DNA damage response (DDR) inhibition has amassed significant interest over the last decade through its potential to treat many types of tumors such as breast and colorectal cancers, and even notoriously difficult-to-treat tumors. Professor Mads Daugaard, president & chief scientific officer of Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. presented an address intitled Exploring a Novel Dual PARP-HDAC Inhibitor for the Treatment of Ewing Sarcoma, in which he described the companys research results with its novel kt-3000 series in pre-clinical models of Ewing sarcoma, a rare childhood tumor. The data demonstrated that co-inhibition of PARP and HDAC amplifies DNA damage and cytotoxicity in cancer cells. An FDA approved PARP inhibitor has previously been tested in a phase II clinical study in Ewing sarcoma where it failed to produce durable responses. Prof. Daugaard reported that Ewing sarcoma cancer cells are highly sensitive to treatment with combination PARP-HDAC inhibition exhibited by kt-3000 drug candidates. It was an honor to present work to the distinguished audience at todays summit, said Prof. Daugaard. We look forward to continuing to share our continued progress with the medical and pharmaceutical community as we seek to advance a kt-3000 lead candidate toward human clinical trials. Story continues Development of Rakovina Therapeutics novel kt-3000 bi-functional DNA-damage response inhibitors is supported, in part, by the St. Baldricks Foundation Marthas BEST Grant for All, which is aimed at developing new treatments for Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive bone and soft tissue cancer in children and young adults. About Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. is focused on the development of new cancer treatments based on novel DNA-damage response (DDR) technologies. The Company has established a pipeline of novel DNA-damage response inhibitors with the goal of advancing one or more drug candidates into human clinical trials and obtaining marketing approval for new cancer therapeutics from Health Canada, the United States Food and Drug Administration and similar international regulatory agencies. Further information may be found at www.rakovinatherapeutics.com . Additional Information The TSXV has neither approved nor disapproved the content of this press release. Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Notice regarding forward-looking statements: This release includes forward-looking statements regarding the Company and its respective business, which may include, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the proposed business plan of the Company and other statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, is expected, expects, scheduled, intends, contemplates, anticipates, believes, proposes or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events, or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Such statements are based on the current expectations of the management of the Company. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur by certain specified dates or at all and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting the Company, including risks regarding the medical device industry, economic factors, regulatory factors, the equity markets generally and risks associated with growth and competition. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events, or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events, or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. The reader is referred to the Companys most recent filings on SEDAR for a more complete discussion of all applicable risk factors and their potential effects, copies of which may be accessed through the Companys profile page at www.sedar.com . Contact: Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. David Hyman Chief Financial Officer Email: info@rakovinatherapeutics.com Investor Relations Contact IR@rakovinatherapeutics.com Media Contact MEDIA@rakovinatherapeutics.com Child remains that were found last week in Oklahoma have been positively identified as Athena Brownfield, a 4-year-old who had been missing for several weeks, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday. The girl's two caretakers were arrested earlier this month in connection with her disappearance. The remains were found in Rush Springs, Oklahoma, on Jan. 17, one week after the search for the missing toddler began. "Due to a gag order filed in Caddo County District Court, there is no additional comment on the investigation from the OSBI," the bureau said. The search for Brownfield began Jan. 10, when a mail carrier found Brownfield's 5-year-old sister playing alone on the street. On Jan. 16, OSBI declared the search a "recovery operation." The girls' caretakers, 31-year-old Alysia Adams, and her husband, 36-year-old Ivon Adams, have both been arrested in connection with Brownfield's death. Ivon Adams is facing one count each of first-degree murder and child neglect. Alysia Adams is charged with child abuse and neglect. According to court documents, Alysia Adams who OSBI has said is a relative of the two girls had been watching the children for about two years after their biological mother, Jasmin Brownfield, left them in her care. Alysia Adams confessed that around midnight on Christmas Day, Ivon Adams beat Athena Brownfield and held her up by her arms until she stopped moving, court documents said. Then he punched the toddler three times in the chest and left the house around 1 a.m. on Dec. 26, the documents allege. He returned sometime later, telling his wife he buried Athena Brownfield near the fence line near their old residence in Rush Springs, according to the documents. He placed a large broken branch over the burial site, the documents said. Both were arrested Jan. 11. Alysia Adams was arrested in Oklahoma, while Ivon Adams was taken into custody in Arizona, but has since been extradited back to Oklahoma. Story continues The sister who was found by the mail carrier was placed in protective custody, OSBI previously said. Senators push for access to Biden, Trump classified documents Memphis police prepare for unrest ahead of release of Tyre Nichols arrest video U.S. economy grew to end 2022, unemployment rate stays low Republican Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina blasted embattled fellow GOP Representative George Santos of New York and said he should resign. The South Carolina Republican spoke to The Independent in an exclusive interview. I mean, if you look at the allegations about his campaign finance, there are serious issues there, she said. Specifically, federal prosecutors are investigating irregularities regarding financial disclosures and loans, according to NBC News. Nothing he has ever said has turned out to be true. He should resign, but he won't and if you watch the press gaggled up, chase him around Capitol Hill, he's loving the attention, she said. He's smiling and giggling and just soaking it up. Earlier this week, Mr Santos was seen taking selfies with reporters at Hill Country BBQ, a restaurant in Washington. Hes also left out donuts and Chick-Fil-A for reporters who stake out his office. Mr Santos flipped New Yorks 3rd district last year, which President Joe Biden won in 2020 by 8 points. Since then, hes faced scrutiny about fabricating mutliple parts of his resume, including being descended from grandparents who fled the Holocaust, where he worked and whether he graduated from Baruch College. In addition, Mr Santos faced scrutiny for reportedly raising money to pay for the surgery for a service dog that belonged to a veteran and then pocketing the money. And this is a guy that pretended to be the descendant of Holocaust survivors used a pretend Jewish name to raise money for veteran and his service dog and they and the guy was fleeced, right? Ms Mace told The Independent. Despite these allegations, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he would support Mr Santos because voters in New Yorks 3rd district elected him. But Ms Mace, who like Mr Santos voted to make Mr McCarthy speaker, disagreed. This is a constitutional republic and the voters elect who represents them in Congress, however, the voters were completely lied to there, she said. If you want to talk about election fraud. Let's talk about New York 3. Ms Mace also criticised the fact that Mr Santos now sits on two committees: The House Small Business Committee and the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Back in 2017, we covered the worlds most expensive cup of coffee, which clocked in at $55. Six years later, you can now grab a cup of joe for just about three times that. Proud Mary Coffee Roasters, an Australia-based company with locations in Portland, Ore. and Austin, Texas, will be selling a cup of coffee for $150 starting on February 6. And theres a reason youre paying more than 30 times more than what Starbucks would charge you. More from Robb Report The cup features Black Jaguar Geisha coffee from Panamas Hartmann Estate, which won the 2022 Best of Panama competition. The Geisha varietal, originally discovered in Ethiopia, has a nuanced flavor profile beloved by baristas. Hartmann Estate grows its version in the Santa Clara region of Panama, differentiating it from the Boquette producers that are more well known for Geisha coffees. One of the Hartmann Estate coffees offered by Proud Mary To acquire the Black Jaguar Geisha coffee, Proud Mary paid $2,000 for just one pound of the beans. Given that relatively small quantity, only 22 cups of the good stuff will be available between the companys Portland and Austin locations. If youre not able to acquire one, Proud Mary will be serving five additional Hartmann coffees throughout Februarythree available as espressos and two natural Geisha coffees as deluxe pours. The beans themselves will also be for sale via the roasters website. The $150 price tag on this particular cup of coffee might seem steep, even to coffee connoisseurs. But those in the industry have been trying to get consumers to think of coffee more like wine, which many are happy to pay a premium for. Eater Portland, in its article about Proud Marys limited-edition cup, noted how we pay pretty low prices for our coffee, given the amount of labor that goes into harvesting, roasting and processing beans. If more people understood the labor-intensive nature of coffee, they might be willing to pay a bit more for their everyday cup (maybe not $150 more, though). Story continues Todd Goldsworthy, the former coffee guru at the LA-based Klatch Coffee, said the same thing back in 2017, when his company was selling that $55 cup. Sometimes those are those really really special wines, where the terroir is just right for a grape, and I want them sourced from a single vineyard, he told Robb Report. For that Im willing to pay much more, and thats what were going for with this coffee. That really high-end experience. Now Proud Mary has come out with an even more luxe option. And as with many great things, theres a very limited supply. Best of Robb Report Sign up for Robb Report's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Jan 26 (Reuters) - Russia's finance ministry, economy ministry and central bank all oppose plans by mobile operator Veon Ltd to sell its Russian business, Vimpelcom, the Kommersant newspaper said on Thursday. Last November, Amsterdam-listed Veon said it would sell Vimpelcom to senior members of the Vimpelcom management team, led by CEO Aleksander Torbakhov, for 130 billion roubles ($1.87 billion). Kommersant, citing unidentified sources, said the deal in its current form did not suit the holders of Veon Eurobonds and had been sent back for revisions. Separately, Tass news agency cited a source saying the government had sent the deal back so changes could be made, but did not give any details. Kommersant said it had not received responses to requests for comment from Vimpelcom, Veon or the two Russian ministries. ($1 = 69.6505 roubles) (Reporting by David Ljunggren) Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images When former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman wrote a tell-all book last year about the drama inside the powerful Manhattan federal prosecutors office, many people were irked that he waited two years to reveal how the Trump administration secretly pressured him to protect the president from criminal investigations. But Michael Cohen, Donald Trumps consigliere-turned-fall guy, had more reason than anyone to be pissed off. Cohen was the only person targeted by that office who served jail time for his role in the scheme to pay porn star Stormy Daniels hush money to keep her quiet about her affair with Trumpthus sparing his 2016 presidential campaign the scandal. According to Bermans book, Justice Department top brass tried to shield Trump, demanding that Bermans team of prosecutors scrub any reference to him in public law enforcement documents. And the attorney general at the time, Bill Barr, even tried to unravel Cohens prosecution by shopping around an alternative legal theory that, in fact, Trumps right-hand man hadnt broken campaign finance laws. But all the details remained secret until Berman landed a book deal with Penguin Press and published Holding the Line in September. Political Pundits Might Be Done With Trump, But GOP Voters Arent So on Dec. 7, Cohen filed an official bar complaint in New York against Berman, pointing to the bombshell allegations in the book. Mr. Berman, despite his self-aggrandizing refusal to capitulate to the pressure campaign, failed and failed miserably to uphold his ethical and legal obligation to report the occurrences. By failing to do so, Mr. Berman deprived me of valuable information that could have been used in my defense, Cohen wrote. When The Daily Beast first notified Berman about the complaint on Thursday at noon, the New York lawyer declined to comment. But just 45 minutes later, the legal professional board issued an official determination that it would no longer pursue an investigationmerely citing Bermans claim in the book that he did nothing wrong. Story continues Mr. Berman wrote that he took no inappropriate action at the behest of the Department of Justice under former President Trump, wrote Jorge Dopico, chief attorney of the judicial regions attorney grievance committee. We have concluded that no further investigation or action is warranted. And now Cohen is even more infuriated. He says nothing about the communications until hes out of office, in private practice, and decides to write about it in a for-profit book. How is this not unethical? Cohen asked The Daily Beast on Thursday afternoon. Unlike some states where the legal profession is regulated by an independent bar association, New York state courts set the rules of conduct. Cohen filed his complaint against Berman, who works at the Manhattan firm of Fried Frank, with the attorney grievance committee at the regional appellate court, the First Judicial Department. Legitimate bar complaints are rare against anyone with Bermans credentials. As the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York, for two years he oversaw complex investigations spanning the globeeverything ranging from illegal gold trading and spycraft to terrorism and bank fraud. His predecessors include James Comey and Mary Jo White, who went on to lead the FBI and SEC respectively. Michael Cohen Sits Down With Investigators in Trump Hush Money Probe Then again, the list also includes Rudy Giuliani, who was stripped of his law license in New York and might also be disbarred in Washington, D.C. But when bar complaints are registered, they stay under wraps. Thats because, according to court rules, all disciplinary investigations and proceedings shall be kept confidential by court staff. Still, The Daily Beast exclusively obtained a copy of the complaint, emails, and the conclusion letter marked personal and confidential dropping the case. Specifically, there is an insufficient basis for the committee to make a finding that Mr. Berman violated the New York Rules of Professional conduct as you allege, the committee wrote to Cohen on Thursday. It was unclear if the committee actually read the book, which details how Berman received a ton of pressure from AG Barr, Trumps bulldog at the Justice Departmentand how the office at times gave him some of what he wanted to keep him at bay. Berman, who served on Trumps transition team and was later appointed by him as Manhattans U.S. Attorney, chose to recuse himself from the Cohen caseknowing full well where it could lead. But the book shows that he remained apprised of the situation, as well as the relentless and unethical campaign by DOJ officials beholden to the Trump administration trying to meddle in the case. The Trumpy DOJ then screwed up his ouster in 2020 when Barr claimed Berman resigned, only to have Berman publicly reveal that was a lie, leading Barr to promptly fire him in a nasty letter. In his memoir, Berman made some shocking accusations. He claimed that his team of federal prosecutors working on Cohens case initially drafted a damning court document detailing his crimes that ran about forty pages long. And the document made numerous references to Trump, a central figure to the criminal scheme, as Individual-1. Senate to Probe Sacked U.S. Attorneys Claim Trump Wielded DOJ Against Critics However, a top DOJ official at the time, Edward C. OCallaghan, was bothered by all the incriminating details implicating the president and asked them to cut it down. The information, as the official document is called, was whittled down to 21 pages. The law firm where OCallaghan is now has denied that description of the events. In his book, Berman also explains how AG Barr later weaponized an administrative corner of the Justice Departmentthe Office of Legal Counselto throw a wrench into the Cohen prosecution. He wrote that OLC head Steven A. Engel had his office draft a 15-page memo to the New York team questioning whether it might even be illegal to charge Cohen for making hush money payments, a legal theory that could have cut off any ability for the investigation to lead to the big boss: Trump himself. We submitted numerous memoranda to Main Justice, supporting the legal basis of the campaign finance charges against Cohen, Berman wrote in his book. Berman credits a senior counsel in the Manhattan prosecutors office, Audrey Strauss, who has since joined him at the Fried Frank firm, for getting the nations partisan AG to back off and not kill the Cohen case. But its that secret back-and-forth that Cohen wanted examined by the professions ethicists. The commissions decision left him despondent. It continues to validate the fact that those who hold power or have held power are treated differently than those who dont, he said. 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. Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine The week before Christmas, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived unannounced in the eastern town of Bakhmut, right on the front line of his country's fight against the Russian invasion. He was there to boost morale and hand out medals. Ukrainian Armed Forces Captain Pavlo Chernyavsky was among the recipients that day standing dutifully in line for his turn to receive a medal and shake the president's hand. But what happened next shocked Zelenskyy. Instead of humbly accepting the Ukrainian military's Cross of Merit, Chernyavsky handed it right back to the president. Russia: Promised tanks show "growing" U.S. "direct involvement" in war Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, is given back a Ukrainian Armed Services Order of Merit medal by Captain Pavlo Chernyavsky, in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, in late December, 2022. / Credit: AFP "You could tell that he was shocked," Chernyavsky later told CBS News. But it was no protest. Chernyavsky was the commander of a unit operating a battery of HIMARS missiles. They'd been using the advanced, U.S.-made and U.S.-supplied rocket system to hammer Russian positions in the fields and forests of occupied eastern Ukraine for months. The HIMARS, which stands for Hight Mobility Artillery Rocket System, have been a game-changer on the Ukrainian battlefield because of their nimbleness and accuracy. Manufacturer Lockheed Martin says the rockets are accurate to within a few feet at a range of almost 200 miles. They've allowed Chernyavksy's unit and others like it to rain down fire on Russian artillery and command posts deep behind the enemy's lines. In handing his medal back that day in Bakhmut, the young captain wanted to extend his gratitude to the benefactor of the four HIMARS launchers he commanded: He wanted to say thank you to President Joe Biden. So, he asked Zelenskyy to take his military cross and present it, in person, to the United States commander-in-chief. Just a few days later, on the Ukrainian leader's first trip to Washington D.C. since the war began, Zelenskyy offered the medal and an accompanying letter to Mr. Biden at the White House. Story continues Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presents a Ukrainian military medal, The Cross for Military Merit, to U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House, December 21, 2022. / Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty "He's very brave, and he said, 'Give it to very brave president,'" Zelenskyy told the American leader. "Well, undeserved but appreciated," responded Mr. Biden, accepting the medal. He later gave Zelenskyy a command coin from the battlefields of Iraq, where his late son Beau fought. That coin was presented to Chernyavsky in a televised ceremony at the Ukrainian parliament after Zelenskyy returned to Kyiv. The Ukrainian captain said he didn't "have the words" to explain how that made him feel. He keeps the talisman stored safely at his parent's home, for fear of losing it on the battlefield. Ukraine's front-line commanders say some of their outdated equipment has been no match for Russian tanks. That's why the nimble and highly accurate HIMARS systems sent by the United States have proven so invaluable. In the eastern city of Kramatorsk, right back in the thick of it, Chernyavsky told CBS News the war along the front line, which stretches for hundreds of miles, "would be very different" if it wasn't for the heavy American weapons. He said that vital assistance was more important than any number of medals or coins, even the most treasured, and he made it clear as other Ukrainian leaders have, right up to Zelenskyy, that they need more; More weapons, more tanks, and more long-range rockets to hit Russian forces regrouping miles from the front lines, preparing for an expected new offensive. "That way, the war would be over quicker," said the captain. Trains see boost in passengers looking for an alternative to flying MoneyWatch: Hiring boost for job-seekers this winter Holocaust survivors create cookbook to share Jewish recipes, stories of perseverance Sergei Ilnitsky/Reuters The founder of the private mercenary group Wagner has made the audacious claim that his band of killersbulked up with murderers, rapists and other convicts sprung from prisonhave done nothing in Ukraine that would deserve to be sanctioned. In a comment to the Wall Street Journal for an article about sanctions, the group responded on behalf of Evgeny Viktorovich, referring to founder Evgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin, We conducted an internal check on the crimes of PMC Wagner, but did not find anything discrediting. The message then suggested that if proof of the well-documented atrocities exist, they should be published. Therefore, if someone has information about the crimes of the Wagner PMC, please send it to our press service or publish it in the media, the statement says. So that we can help our American colleagues form their position. On Thursday, the United States designated the Wagner group, a significant transnational criminal organization for its work on behalf of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Wagner is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses, and we will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose, and target those who are assisting Wagner, John Kirby, with the White House National Security Council said. The sanctions come as rumors surface that the Kremlin has warned Prigozhin of fears he may be assassinated, raising eyebrows about whether that is an indirect threat from Putin himself. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, instead said threats are coming from Kyiv, not Moscow. The assassination claims stem from a supposed request by Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky to the CIA to off the Wagner boss. One of the requests Zelensky made [during a meeting with the CIA director] was the murder of the Wagner boss, Mr. Prigozhin, Vladimir Rogov, a Russian general in charge of a large swath of territory Russia occupies in Ukraine, told Russian media. Story continues 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. A federal watchdog agency for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says in a report released this week that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) failed to carry out sufficient oversight into research conducted using millions in federal funds, including research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been aggressively scrutinized amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for HHS said in its report that the NIH did not make enough of an effort to ensure that requirements tied to federal grant awards were complied with, despite the potential risks that were known and the monitoring procedures that were developed. The report focused on the awards that were distributed through the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and public health from emerging diseases. The OIG looked into three NIH grants awarded to EcoHealth totaling about $8 million, which in turn were awarded to several recipients, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Other recipients included the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control And Research in Bangladesh. The organizations each conducted research into zoonotic diseases, which are infections spread between animals and humans. NIH policies dictate that grant recipients adhere to certain requirements, particularly when it came to gain-of-function research, enhancing a pathogens ability to cause infection in order to understand its potential to cause outbreaks. Gain-of-function research has gained notoriety throughout the pandemic, with lawmakers such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) questioning whether COVID-19 could have originated from the lab in Wuhan. According to the OIG, monitoring of research was done by reviewing lab reports, performing audits and corresponding directly with the award recipients. However, it was found that EcoHealth failed to submit timely progress reports to the NIH, which in turn did not follow up with the nonprofit in a timely manner. Story continues EcoHealths failure to submit a progress report in a timely manner and NIHs failure to follow up on a missing progress report limited NIHs ability to effectively monitor its grant award to EcoHealth and evaluate whether the special terms and conditions were met, the OIG report read. These lapses in oversight were noted to be particularly noteworthy due to concerns NIH had previously raised with EcoHealth regarding the type of research being conducted. EcoHealth was also unable to provide scientific documents from the Wuhan Institute when they were requested by NIH. The OIG found no evidence that EcoHealth obtained these documents from the Wuhan Institute, and the organization confirmed the lab was not responsive to document requests. In April 2020, NIH directed EcoHealth to stop providing funding to the Wuhan Institute due to concerns the lab may have been involved in the release of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Apart from these oversight failures, the watchdog agency determined EcoHealth had spent $89,171 of its grants in ways that fell outside of federal requirements and recommended that these funds be refunded to the U.S. government. In a response letter, EcoHealth President Peter Daszak said they have already reimbursed NIH for these unallowed costs. Going forward, the OIG recommended that NIH enhance its monitoring and documentation requirements for foreign grant recipients and define what is considered to be immediate notification. The NIH concurred with all of the OIGs recommendations. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. One of House Republicans most prominent investigators promised he wouldnt spend his time wading into the conspiracy theory fever swamps unless we have proof. But just a few days after taking a powerful new position and without any evidence to speak of, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) is amplifying a wild conspiracy theory: that Joe Bidens former executive assistant, Kathy Chung, is actually a foreign agent working for the Chinese Communist Party. The hand-in-glove effort from top House Republicans and right-wing media has steered a comparatively banal classified document scandal into baseless, xenophobic fantasies. The allegations and innuendo stem from classified documents from Bidens vice presidency that the FBI and Biden lawyers recently recovered from his former D.C. office and his home in Delaware. Federal investigators are probing the situation now as they are classified documents recovered from former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort. (In the latter case, Trump spent months resisting authorities efforts to recover the documents.) NBC News reported earlier this month that federal investigators had interviewed Chung, who now works in the Pentagon as deputy director of protocol, as part of their review of the recovered classified documents. A few days later, The Washington Post reported that Chung had expressed concern that she may have unintentionally been involved with moving or storing classified documents, which were ultimately recovered from the University of Pennsylvanias Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. Both news organizations cited unnamed sources. Chungs attorney, Bill Taylor, confirmed to HuffPost that she has spoken with federal investigators and that in January 2017, she was involved in packing up Bidens vice presidential office, boxes from which later arrived at the Biden Center. Chung didnt know there was any classified material in the boxes, Taylor said. Story continues Theres no public evidence at all that Chung who was born in South Korea has any relationship to China or its government. But that hasnt stopped Comer from playing along with conspiracy theorizing from right-wing media hosts. On Newsmax Tuesday, host Jenn Pellegrino asked Comer, Do you believe that Chungs connection to Hunter Biden, possibly the Chinese Communist Party, and her role in transferring these classified documents is something that the House Oversight Committee should investigate? We are investigating that, Comer responded. Its very troubling and very disturbing to see the numerous ties the Biden family has to the CCP. Although he didnt name Chung specifically, Comer later referred to the process of moving the classified documents: When you start tracing back, you see that there are people that had very suspicious ties to some of our adversaries that were involved in the moving process. Comer didnt respond to HuffPosts questions about what evidence if any he has to support his cable news innuendo about Chung, nor did representatives of Fox News or Newsmax. Chungs attorney blasted the line of attack. Its uninformed and absurd, Taylor said. Its particularly odious in a partisan atmosphere like this, where people feel no compunction about suggesting that someone is a traitor without any evidence, and frankly knowing that its not true. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has tied a multitude of issues back to Hunter Biden. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) has tied a multitude of issues back to Hunter Biden. Comer repeated the talking points in an interview with Fox News Maria Bartiromo Wednesday and attempted to link the story to the presidents son Hunter Biden, saying there most certainly is a connection between the documents and the younger Bidens business dealings in China. Bartiromo said Chung was overseeing the packing of this, referring to the presidents documents. Do we know if shes reporting back to the CCP about any of this? she asked. Were looking into that. Were looking into at least three different people that Hunter Biden was directly involved with that have very close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, Comer said. The back-and-forth between Comer and Bartiromo has been going on for days. On Jan. 22, Bartiromo introduced an interview with Comer by saying we do not know if [Chung] was ultimately reporting back to the Chinese Communist Party. Bartiromo asked Comer about the links between Joe Biden and Communist China and whether it had dictated the way Biden treats the country. Most Americans would be shocked if they saw how many connections the Biden family has to people directly affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party, Comer said. Its particularly odious in a partisan atmosphere like this, where people feel no compunction about suggesting that someone is a traitor without any evidence, and frankly knowing that its not true.Bill Taylor, attorney for Kathy Chung Conspiracy theories about the former Biden aide have been brewing for months on the right-wing web, stemming from various email exchanges with Chung reportedly taken from Hunter Bidens laptop. In one exchange, Chung emailed with Hunter Biden about taking a job in his fathers vice presidential office. Shed previously worked for former Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), a longtime staffer and friend of Joe Biden who ultimately recommended her for the job, the Post first reported. Taylor confirmed these details to HuffPost, noting Chung and Bidens son met when they both worked at the Department of Commerce. Call if/ when you want me to tell Dad you are interested, Hunter Biden reportedly told Chung of the job in a 2012 email, asking in another, Would you like me to see when you can meet with VP? In a 2015 email, Chung sent invitations to a State Department luncheon co-hosted by Biden and then-Secretary of State John Kerry honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping. In February 2017, a month after Joe Biden left the White House, Hunter Biden invited Chung to work with him; she reportedly responded that she was looking to stay on with Joe Biden. Chung never worked for Hunter Biden, Taylor said. Referring to these emails, Newsmaxs Pellegrino exclaimed in her interview with Comer, Hunters laptop just keeps on giving us a lot! None of the emails between Chung and Hunter Biden offer any sign that Chung is or was a secret Chinese agent rather than a regular mid-level political aide. And yet thats the narrative currently being blessed by the top Republican on the Oversight Committee. Comer is a noted master of tying everything back to Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was in charge of picking the people out to pack the boxes and transport the boxes from point A to point B, he told Bartiromo on Wednesday. (Thats not true, Taylor told HuffPost.) On Thursday, Comer recited the same line to Sean Hannity: Were learning in our investigation that Hunter played a role in determining who actually would be in charge of taking the documents from the vice presidents office to the first point of delivery for those documents. Separately in that interview, Hannity referenced a reported 2015 email from Chung to Hunter Biden, sent the day after the funeral of Hunters brother Beau. In it, Chung includes a list of phone numbers for high-profile people, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and several senators and members of Congress. Conservatives have seized on an email from Kathy Chung to Hunter Biden after the funeral of his brother, Beau, that included contact info for prominent figures. Conservatives have seized on an email from Kathy Chung to Hunter Biden after the funeral of his brother, Beau, that included contact info for prominent figures. This email in particular has been chum for the right-wing web. Trump pardon recipient Michael Flynn gushed a few days before the 2020 presidential election, Any foreign power would love to have this information!!! And G News, a China-focused, Steve Bannon-linked website, published an article the same day headlined, without evidence, Hunter Biden Sold the Clintons Phone Numbers to the CCP. The article references the Bannon-connected Chinese internet personality Lu De, whose real name is Wang Dinggang. The New York Times and NBC News have reported Wang is the origin of several Hunter Biden rumors. The G News post claimed the purpose of sending Hunter this email is so that he could forward the phone list to the CCP. (Crazy and absurd, Taylor said.) In his interview with Hannity, Comer dove down the rabbit hole. Hunter Biden, he said, would try to prove his worth to these people in these other countries that were paying these enormous sums of money to him, in part by showing them he had cell numbers for powerful individuals. As Fox News exit music swelled, Comer rushed to finish his point: Influence peddling! Thats what were investigating, and more and more evidence turns up every day to prove that this family has been involved in it, and that Joe Biden was an integral part of it. Related... Whitney Sharpe, a business executive and former beauty queen, is being praised online after she called out a male client for making nasty comments about her when he accidentally shared his screen during a video call. On Tuesday (24 January), the former Miss Massachusetts winner posted a TikTok video of herself on a Microsoft Teams call with three male clients from a prospective vendor who were looking to sell their software to her staffing company, Mindlance. When one of the men accidentally shared his screen during the video call, he also exposed his group chat with his colleagues in which they made objectifying comments about Sharpes appearance. In response, Sharpe called out her male colleagues prompting women everywhere to praise her for standing up for herself. First of all, if were going to continue working together, I want to work with a woman sales representative because I dont want to have to see locker room talk about myself youre sharing screens, she said during the call, after catching a glimpse at their inappropriate messages. So, if were going to move forward, I would like to work with an account rep thats maybe a woman in the area so that we can move forward that way, Sharpe continued. The Boston-based executive gave her male clients the benefit of the doubt when she assured them that it was a mistake, but reaffirmed that she doesnt want to see locker room talk about myself especially while conducting business. I just want to work with a woman moving forward, if possible, she emphasised. @whitneyrose617 Its rough being a woman in a male dominated field original sound - Whitney One of the male clients on the video call apologised profusely to Sharpe, and said the nasty comments were inexcusable. She wrote over the video, When a vendor accidentally shares his group Teams chat and its all nasty things about me, and captioned the clip: Its rough being a woman in a male dominated field. Story continues Since it was posted, Sharpes video has been viewed 10 million times. But despite receiving an apology from one of the male vendors during the video call, she didnt receive a formal apology from the company which she didnt name until much later. In one follow-up video, which she captioned How not to apologize in corporate America 101, Sharpe shared a screenshot of an email she received from the companys vice president of sales one day later. Although the VP said there was no excuse for the mens lack of professionalism, he did admit that he couldnt reassign her to a female sales representative moving forward because there were no women skilled enough to assist her. Red flag! Red flag! Dont you see that as a problem in that statement alone? Sharpe filmed herself saying as she showed off a screenshot of the email. Why dont you hire someone? Theres plenty of talented women out in the field. Sharpe then posted a second update, revealing that the VP of sales finally called her over the phone not to apologise, but to do damage control and continue with the sale. Sharpe revealed to her followers that she ultimately dropped the company as a potential vendor because she cant work with a vendor and my company will not support a vendor that does not support women in business. After going viral, Whitney Sharpe received countless support from fellow women in the comments section. Thousands of users commended Sharpe for how she handled the inappropriate situation. @whitneyrose617 The saga continues. I cant thank you all enough for the love and support. Theres so many bad ass women out there original sound - Whitney Yeeees! You handled this so well! Im sending to my daughters! one person commented. You are AMAZING! The way you stood up for yourself right then too, said someone else, while another user shared, You handled this like a BOSS. Another user noted: The fact that you called them out so tactfully is so impressive. I hope they are embarrassed. Even Shark Tank star Barbara Corcoran commented, You rock! along with a clapping emoji. The Independent has contacted Whitney Sharpe for comment. zellers-food-truck-0127-ph Hudsons Bay Co. (HBC) said its launching a fleet of food trucks with dishes from the old Zellers Family Restaurant as part of its relaunch of the discount retailer this spring. The company is polling Canadians about what restaurant meals theyd like to eat again on the Zellers Instagram page. The survey, released on Jan. 27, includes a list of 10 dishes, most of which were on the original menu. The top five dishes will become part of the menu on the food trucks, which will be situated at Zellers locations when they open across the country later this year. Although an in-store diner just isnt possible in a 10,000 sq ft footprint, Zellers is mobilizing a fleet of food trucks to greet customers at its first locations opening this spring, HBC said in a press release. The retailer has heard loud and clear the call for the restaurant return! The 25 new Zellers locations across Canada will take up space inside of existing HBC department stores. The company is also launching an e-commerce site, serving customers who might be too far from the in-store shops. A Zellers diner back in the day. The nine dishes up for voting from the original Zellers Family Restaurant menu are the Big Z burger, fries and gravy, hot chicken sandwich, grilled cheese sandwich, onion rings, quesadilla, poutine, hot dog and chicken fingers. HBC is also adding a veggie burger to the voting list for good measure. Instagram users have one week to get their votes in, according to the press release. Following the initial stops at the store locations and if customers embrace the comeback the Zellers Diner on wheels will gear up to head out for its cross-Canada debut. Tour dates and locations to be shared at a later date, HBC said. HBC has remained tight-lipped on its motivations for bringing back Zellers, but the revival could be a play to boost revenues. Story continues The 352-year-old company which owns The Bay department store, luxury Saks Fifth Avenue and discount luxury retailer Saks Off 5th has spent the past decade trying to cope with a shifting retail environment. In March 2020, HBCs owners took the company private so it could change direction without having to answer to shareholders amid declining sales, which were down 1.7 per cent in its final earnings release. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization had also fallen 32 per cent year over year. To shore up sales, HBC has added a number of individual brands to its stores, such as Forever 21, Mango and Mountain Equipment Co. Ltd. Email: bbharti@postmedia.com | Twitter: Photo Editor Emree Weaver, originally from South Texas, has worked as the photo editor for the Yakima Herald-Republic since November 2021. She completed her bachelors degree in Italian at the University of Texas of Austin and her masters degree in photojournalism, also at UT. She has spent time in Italy and Botswana and previously worked in digital and print media in central and southern Texas before moving to Washington. She also enjoys teaching photography, with experience as a teaching assistant for beginner and advanced photography classes at the collegiate level and leading a multimedia internship program. Emree is passionate about community journalism and believes compassionate visual storytelling can foster connections among neighbors. Yakima City Government Reporter Kate Smith is the city government & politics reporter for the Yakima Herald-Republic. She is passionate about connecting people to policy in storytelling that is thorough, fair and compassionate. In Yakima, she is following local elections, city council, budgets & audits, public health, housing & homelessness, public safety, utilities and more. Yakima County Government, Lower Valley Reporter Hi, Im Phil Ferolito, longtime reporter with the Yakima Herald-Republic, where I have gained an array of experience from covering small city governments and school districts to big-picture issues concerning county government, crime and the Yakama Nation, a federally recognized tribe with important historical and cultural ties to the land. I began with the Herald-Republic in Oct. 2000 as a copy editor, designing pages, writing headlines and proof-reading stories. Over the years I have covered four Lower Valley municipalities, Granger, Toppenish, Wapato and Harrah, and the Yakama Nation. My goal always has been to shine a light in dark places and bring readers closer to concerning issues, important people, and other events in our community. If you are sending a Letter To the Editor, please be sure to follow these rules: Letters have a firm 200-word limit and will be edited for grammar, clarity and accuracy. The person who signs the letter must be the author. Anonymous letters will not be considered. Letters must address the editor, not a third party. We will not print form letters, libelous letters, business promotions or personal disputes, poetry, open letters, letters espousing religious views without reference to a current issue, or letters considered in poor taste. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters. Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month. Education Reporter Vanessa Ontiveros is the education reporter at the Yakima Herald-Republic. She grew up near Los Angeles but has happily made Yakima her new home. She is passionate about reporting stories that serve the community and highlight various aspects of the educational system.She also hosts a podcast that discusses local arts education, Yakima Arts Talk, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The daughter of two longtime public school teachers, she is always looking to include community voices in her work. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Electricity distributor E.ON Hungaria has announced the launch of 74 billion forints-worth of network investments in the period until 2026. Half of the investment cost will come from Hungarys European Union Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) funding, which the government is pre-financing, deputy-CEO in charge of the network Adam Katona said. The investments will add 726 MW of capacity to the network, he added. State secretary for energy Attila Steiner noted that the EU has cleared 163 billion forints in RRF funding for Hungary that will allow 3,000 MW of solar power capacity to be hooked up to the electricity network. Katona said E.ON Hungaria last year received 130,000 requests to hook up household solar panels to the network, more than the combined number in the preceding ten years. Every year in January, Robert Burns is in spotlight, as are the products of The Isle of Arran Distillery. Here we shine some light on what they have in common. "Freedom and whisky gang thegither The poet, Robert Burns was born on 25th January 1759 to a poor family in Alloway. After an illustrious career, he was deemed the national poet of Scotland after his death in 1796. He was a candid lover of whisky which he mentioned in several of his writings and helped to popularize it as the nations favourite drink. Burns most famous whisky related quote is: "Freedom and whisky gang thegither. It is from the poem called "The Authors Earnest Cry and Prayer which he wrote in order to convince the 45 Scottish representatives in the House of Commons, who were preparing to vote in favour of a bill concerning the excise tax on Scotch whisky which was a predecessor of income tax back in the day. In his poem, Burns states that it was Scotch whisky which helped Scotland earn its freedom and respect in the past. And while this proclamation is a bit of an overstatement, Burns was so convincing that the representatives ended up voting against the bill. This iconic act has contributed to whiskys image as a symbol of the nation, and an icon of Scottish patriotism. World Burns Federation Arran Since 2000, The Isle of Arran Distillery is a member of the World Burns Federation. As such, the distillery owns the rights to bottle official Robert Burns whiskys. To commemorate the iconic author, the distillerys master distiller created two expressions: a single malt, and a blend, with the poets portrait and signature on the bottle and the packaging. "Sin on and fear not There are several myths existing about the great and kind-hearted poet from which the most captivating is the following. At a point in his life, Burns was unable to support himself from either his farming business, or his poetry. As a necessity, he went on to work as an exciseman, an agent responsible for enforcing excise, and punish violators, who did not pay the official taxes. Plenty of interesting and entertaining stories have been passed on from this time. One tells of a visit he had to pay to an elderly lady, who was suspected to run an illegal still in her home. He asked for whisky, bread, and some cheese. But when inquiring about the necessary payment, the lady only charged a small amount for the bread and cheese. Hearing this, our poet turned a blind eye to the ladys illegal whisky production by saying "sin on, and fear not. Timorous Beastie & Robert Burns However, Arrans bottlings are not the only ones which have a connection to Burns. One of the famous Scottish independent bottlers, Douglas Laings core whiskies is called the Timorous Beastie. This bottling is a reference to one of Robert Burns famous poems, called To a Mouse. In it, the author apologises to a mouse for disturbing its nest while working on the fields with a hoe. The front of this whiskys label features the adorable creature, while the whisky inside is a blended malt with the flavours of a typical highland scotch whisky: smooth, with honeyed and fruity notes. Burns Supper 26 January We commemorate the poets life every year on Burns Night, his birthday, 26 January. In the evening, the guests traditionally eat haggis, a traditional Scottish recipe, and enjoy a glass of good whisky. Since 2004, this event is also held in Budapest by the International Robert Burns Foundation each year in Hotel Corinthias imposing ballroom. Click here to visit WhiskyNets webshop. A brand-new tail art created at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and installed on the Boeing 737-800 aircraft VT-AXN has been unveiled by the Air India Express. A parallel history across the planes of memory is depicted in the 25-foot-long tail art, which is an adaptation of an original acrylic painting by artist G.S. Smitha. The painting recreates multi-coloured landscapes populated by chameleons, grasshoppers, microorganisms, and aquatic species. According to sources, the metaphysical painting simultaneously reveals the enigma of tiny creatures and the enormity of hills and flowerbeds. The unveiling event took place at a hangar of Air India Engineering Services Limited situated at Thiruvananthapuram International Airport on the occasion of Republic day. Also read: Air India Finalising 'Historic' Order of New Aircraft, Says Tata Airline CEO P.A. Mohamed Riyas, State Minister of Public Works and Tourism who unveiled it, said back in 1935, Mr Tata`s first plane landed in this very Thiruvananthapuram international airport, and we have seen many such milestones in Kerala. Mr Aloke Singh, CEO, Air India Express & President, Air Asia India; Mr Bose Krishnamachari President, Kochi Biennale Foundation & Director, Kochi-Muziris Biennale & Artist Ms Smitha G S attended. (2/3) pic.twitter.com/K20JQRrBXm January 26, 2023 "The vibrant tail art that carries the culture of India and this unique partnership between Air India Express and Kochi Biennale shows their commitment to art and culture," said Riyas. The 5th edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale festival, which began in December 2022, will continue till April 2023. It`s Asia`s largest contemporary art festival, and Air India and Air India Express are the official travel partners for the festival. Aloke Singh, CEO of Air India Express, said, "Kochi - Muziriz Biennale has emerged as one of its kind art event in the country, and by placing a piece of art developed by Biennale on our aircraft, we take the spirit of Biennale to the overseas. I am sure this will go a long way strengthening the tourism potential of this art event." With IANS Inputs As the first year of Tata group's ownership of Air India comes to an end, the airline announced on Friday that it is finalising a historic order of new aircraft. Campbell Wilson, the airline's CEO, noted that the carrier's growth has been truly spectacular. As Air India 2.0 entered its second year, Wilson admitted that there will be difficulties along the way and emphasised that more than accomplishments, " it is how we respond to our lapses ... That will define us." The airline has put in place a roadmap under Vihaan.AI for transformation over the next five years and has taken various measures, including committing USD 400 million to refurbish the interiors of its entire wide-body fleet. Also read: 'Hijack' Tweets SpiceJet Passenger Frustrated Over Flight Delay, Arrested at Delhi Airport However, in recent weeks, the carrier has faced certain headwinds related to the unruly behaviour of passengers onboard two international flights and has also been penalised by the aviation regulator DGCA. Listing out major initiatives, Air India on Friday said it is "finalising a historic order of new aircraft to power future growth" and has added more than 1,200 professionals across key functions to upgrade capabilities. "Hundreds of initiatives across 22 broad work streams are underway to transform the airline over three phases: Taxi, Take Off and Climb," the airline said. In his message, Wilson said that while working on improvements, the airline has not shied away from other ambitious actions such as merging Air India Express with Air Asia, or Vistara with Air India, or kicking off the establishment of a new InfoTech Centre, or an Aviation Academy. "And that's not to mention our much talked-about short- and-medium term fleet expansion," the CEO and MD of Air India said. In the past year, Air India said its total operating aircraft increased 27 per cent to 100, 16 new international routes have been either launched or announced, average daily revenue has doubled, and manpower at its call centre has been more than doubled, among other initiatives. Tata group took control of loss-making Air India from the government on January 27 last year. "Taken together, the progress over the last 12 months has been nothing short of stunning, even if so much of what we have been working on has been behind the scenes, building platforms and capabilities so that our future ambitions can take flight. There is, of course, much more that needs to be done, and everyone - internally and externally - is hungry for us to do it," Wilson said. Started his message by saying, "Happy Friday, folks?.. And Happy Anniversary, for today marks the first anniversary since Air India returned to Tata!" Wilson extended his deepest gratitude to the employees for the hard work they put in over the past year. Noting that together they have embarked upon "one of the most ambitious turnarounds in international aviation history," Wilson said, "quite remarkable progress" has been made in a very short space of time. "I would especially like to acknowledge our erstwhile Air Indians who have experienced probably the most significant period of change in your entire working lives, with all the trepidation, uncertainty, and adjustment that this entailed. "And to all of you, whether 'old' or 'new,' I thank you for coming together behind this mission of national importance so quickly and constructively," he said. According to Wilson, the airline will continue to communicate and roll out new things, "being clear about the rising expectations we must all meet, how these relate to you and how we will support." "Transforming any organization entails deep cultural shifts, which is why we have put such a high priority on communicating with you, and on improving policies, practices, and support systems, not just benefits." "Fostering integrity, accountability, collaboration and trust are keys to future success and must be guiding lights," he added. The airline has revamped its domestic in-flight menu with an assortment of gourmet meals, appetisers, desserts, and refreshing beverages to satiate taste buds. It will also shortly introduce an enhanced menu on its international routes. With PTI Inputs A man was detained after reportedly falsely reporting over Twitter that a flight from Dubai to Jaipur had been hijacked. The incident happened on Wednesday. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (airport) Ravi Kumar Singh, Moti Singh Rathore, a resident of Nagaur in Rajasthan, arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport after a Dubai-Jaipur flight was diverted to Delhi because of inclement weather. The flight landed at 9:45 am and was given clearance to depart at 1:40 pm. Meanwhile, Rathore tweeted, " SG 58 Dubai to Jaipur high jacked ", the police said. However, in the same thread, he tweeted saying that he is not good with the English language and, instead of 'delay' used the word "high jacked." Furthermore, he apologised for the tweet later on. Rathore was offloaded from the flight with his bag, and the flight was allowed to leave after the necessary checks. He was handed over to the local police for further action, they said. @flyspicejet SG 58 Dubai to jaipur high jacked @JM_Scindia Moti Singh Rathore (@MotiSin04410585) January 25, 2023 The accused told police that he posted the tweet as he was frustrated over the flight being stranded, they added. A case was registered in the matter, and Rathore was arrested, the police said. Such incidents of 'Unruly' passengers have been increasing along with incidents of misbehaviour on flights. In one such incident, a passenger left a note saying 'bomb' on the flight, causing panic at the airport. Other notable incidents of misbehaviour on the flight include an Air India passenger peeing on his co-passenger, fights on flight, and an argument between the passengers. However, airlines are yet to devise a method to deal with such passengers. With PTI Inputs New Delhi: Vedanta Ltd on Friday reported a 40.8 per cent drop in consolidated net profit at Rs 2,464 crore in the quarter ended December 31, 2022 on the back of higher input cost and windfall tax. The company had posted its consolidated net profit at Rs 4,164 crore in the year-ago period, Vedanta Ltd said in a filing to BSE. However, the consolidated income of the company in the October-December period increased marginally by 0.4 per cent to Rs 34,818 crore from Rs 34,674 crore in the year-ago period. The consolidated expenses of the company during the third quarter of FY23 increased to Rs 31,327 crore from Rs 26,777 crore in the corresponding quarter of previous fiscal. There has been an impact of Rs 333 crore due to introduction of windfall tax in July 2022. In a conference call, Vedanta Group CFO Ajay Goel said, "If you look at Q2 over Q3 our PAT has increased by 15 per cent." Commenting on Vedanta's board approval to sell international zinc business to Hindustan Zinc, company's Chief Executive Officer Sunil Duggal said:"The objective of this merger is to create a winning combination where the fundamental of both the companies is so great...The R&R of our Zinc International is more than Hindustan Zinc so there is a great potential there." The move, Duggal said, will give opportunity to put Hindustan Zinc into the foothold of geography where availability of many more critical minerals could be the opportunity. Vedanta on Thursday said that it will sell Zinc International assets to Hindustan Zinc for a cash consideration of USD 2,981 million. The company's board approved the fourth interim dividend of Rs 12.50 per equity share for the financial year 2022-23 amounting to Rs 4,647 crore. The board also approved plans for the group to source 91 mw hybrid renewable power and 600 mw solar power for its aluminium plant in Jharsuguda, copper and oil and gas operations across the country. "Accordingly, the company will execute power delivery agreements through special purpose vehicles (SPVs)...," the BSE filing said. Vedanta's depreciation and amortisation increased by four per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 2,720 crore mainly due to higher depletion charge in oil and gas business. The company's gross debt stood at Rs 61,550 crore as on December 31, 2022. Vedanta Ltd, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Ltd, is a diversified global natural resources company with significant operations in oil and gas, zinc, lead, silver, copper, iron ore, steel, and aluminium and power across India, South Africa and Namibia. New Delhi: The Union Forum of Bank Unions has called for a two-day all-India strike that will likely take place on January 30. (UFBI). On Friday, there will be a second round of mediation talks with the unions; only then will it be possible to determine the precise position of the strike. State Bank of India (SBI), the largest public sector lender in the nation with over 42 crore account holders, has stated that the strike may affect regular services at its branches. Why are bank unions going on strike? The trade unions have been demanding five-day banking, updation of pension, and recruitment of people in all cadres, among other issues, it said. The conciliation meeting took place after the finance ministry asked public sector banks to hold negotiations on wages with the bank unions to avoid the strike just before the Union Budget. The last five-year settlement (201722) for the revision of pay and service conditions is now over, thus the bank unions want to start talks on a new five-year settlement. The UFBU is made up of nine bank unions, including the All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC), the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), and the National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW). The bank strike is expected to draw a significant number of participants, causing disruptions to banking services due to its organization and leadership by UFBU. Ten lakh employees and officers of all the banks of the country are expected to participate in the strike Bank strike: SBI services to get affected We inform that, we have been advised by the Indian Banks Association (IBA) that the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has served a Notice of Strike, informing that the members of the constituent Unions of UFBU viz. AIBEA, AIBOC, NCBE, AIBOA, BEFI, INBEF, and INBOC propose to go on a nationwide Bank Strike on 30 & 31st January 2023 in support of their demands," SBI said in a regulatory filing on January 24. We advise that while the Bank has made necessary arrangements to ensure normal functioning in its branches and offices on the days of the Strike, it is likely that work in our Bank may be impacted by the Strike, in the event of the Strike taking place, the bank added. The call for a strike for January 30 and 31 is still in effect, according to the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) on Monday. No specific promise of a settlement to our concerns was made at the conciliation meeting held by the Deputy Chief Labour Commissioner on Tuesday in Mumbai quoted AIBEA. New Delhi: The government has convened an all-party meeting on January 30 -- on the eve of the Budget Session, sources aware of the developments said on Tuesday. The customary meeting has been convened by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi just ahead of the budget session, which begins on January 31. The government is likely to reach out to all the parties, mainly the Congress, Trinamool Congress and other Opposition parties, to seek their cooperation for a smooth functioning of the session. While the economic survey will be presented in Parliament on January 31, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Budget on February 1. The first part of the session will be held from January 31 till February 13. The second part of the session will commence on March 13 and culminate on April 6. New Delhi: Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah is likely to attend a road show, a public meeting and a series of other public programs in Karnataka on Saturday as the southern state is likely to witness Assembly elections in mid-April or the beginning of May.The Home Minister will participate in the roadshow near Brahma Devara Temple in Dharwad`s Kundgol area on Saturday, mentions an official engagement plan. Shah will also attend a public meeting at M.K. Hubballi Belagavi in Karnataka`s Belgaum district, the plan pointed, adding that both events will be held on Saturday evening. Expected to reach Karnataka anytime by late Friday evening, the Home Minister will start his day-long visit to Karnataka by attending the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology at 10.30 am in KLE Technology University, Hubballi city of the state. The Minister will further lay the foundation stone of National Forensic Sciences University (Karnataka Campus) around noon in National Forensic Science University (NFSU) in Dharwad, a city located in the north-western part of Karnataka. Shah will also offer prayers at Shambulingeshwara Temple in Dharwad`s Kundgol and visit Sri Basavanna Devara Mutt in the area on Saturday afternoon. The Home Minister`s visit to Karnataka has been organised at a time when Assembly elections are scheduled here this year along with eight other states, including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. These Assembly elections are said to be the semi-finals ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections scheduled to be held in 2024. The elections in Karnataka are likely to be held in mid-April or the beginning of May. Ahead of the assembly polls, the focus of political parties has shifted to the state. Among the other significant seats, one is the Mangalore City South assembly constituency. Kolkata, Jan 27 (PTI) More than 100 students at Jadavpur University have reportedly watched the controversial BBC documentary on 2002 Gujarat riots, with a Left student's body having arranged its screening. The Centre has recently issued directions for blocking multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the documentary 'India: The Modi Question', which claims to have investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of the state. The Student Federation of India (SFI), a Communist Party of India (Marxist)'s arm, said the police or institute authorities did not interfere with the screening at Jadavpur University on Thursday. SFI state unit assistant secretary Subhajit Sarkar said that the student's body will hold another screening at Presidency University on Friday. Authorities at Presidency are yet to give a formal nod, but "we will still go ahead with the show", he said. Sarkar, a former Presidency student, also claimed, "The varsity has effected a power cut at the badminton court, where the screening was supposed to be held. We will now use the common room for the show." An official at the university, however, said the power cut happened due to technical reasons. He stated that no such documentary was being shown on the university premises. Meanwhile, All India Students' Association (AISA), another Left body, said it will hold another screening of the documentary at Jadavpur University on Friday. The Centre also ordered YouTube to take down copies of the document. (The above article is sourced from news agency PTI. Zeenews.com has made no editorial changes to the article. News agency PTI is solely responsible for the contents of the article) New Delhi, Jan 27 (PTI) Delhi Police on Friday detained 24 students from the Delhi University's Arts Faculty for planning to screen the controversial BBC documentary on the 2002 Godhra riots, a senior police official said. The action comes days after a similar ruckus at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia over the documentary's screening. Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Sagar Singh Kalsi said, "Around 4 pm, some 20 people came outside the Arts Faculty gate to screen the banned BBC documentary. As it can cause disturbance of peace and tranquility in the area, they were asked to disperse from there. "When they did not, they were peacefully detained. A total of 24 people were detained." Earlier in the day, the varsity authorities wrote to Delhi Police about the proposed screening. Delhi University Proctor Rajni Abbi said they would not allow the screening and stressed that the students' outfits had not sought the administration's permission. There was heavy police deployment at the north campus after students' outfits gave a call to screen the documentary. The police have also banned large gatherings on north campus. When asked, another official said Section 144 was imposed on the campus in December. "Section 144 was imposed in December till February 28 to prevent any law and order problems at the university," the official told PTI. The Congress-affiliated National Students' Union has announced a screening of the documentary at 4 pm on the north campus while the Bhim Army Students' Federation said it would hold a screening outside the varsity's Arts Faculty at 5 pm. Delhi Police personnel entered the Ambedkar University campus to stop Students' Federation of India (SFI) activists from screening the controversial documentary, several students alleged, even as the outfit made alternative arrangements to watch it on phones and laptops. Police officials, however, said they were visiting all college and university campuses in the district to ensure peace and tranquility in the area. The Left-affiliated SFI alleged that the screening could not be held as the administration of the government-run varsity disconnected power supply but a QR code with a link to the film was shared with students so that they could watch it on their personal devices. Jamia Millia Islamia became the centre of a kerfuffle on Wednesday after the SFI's plans to organise a screening of the documentary were thwarted by the varsity and the police. Jawaharlal Nehru University also witnessed a ruckus and protests over the screening on Tuesday. (The above article is sourced from news agency PTI. Zeenews.com has made no editorial changes to the article. News agency PTI is solely responsible for the contents of the article) The controversy surrounding the BBC documentary shows no signs of abating with Kolkata's prestigious Jadav University reportedly screening the documentary on the campus on Republic Day. At the same time, the University of Hyderabad (UoH), also screened the documentary for the second time on January 26 with the Students Federation of India (SFI) organising it on Thursday (January 26, 2023). According to news reports, the screening of India: The Modi Question was reportedly held without any interference from the police or the administration at Jadavpur University. Earlier, PTI had reported that the SFI will show the documentary at Jadavpur University on Thursday and at Presidency University the day after (January 27), the state organisation's assistant secretary Subhajit Sarkar said. All India Students' Association (AISA), another Left body, also decided to screen the documentary on the campus of Jadavpur University on January 27, said Sandip Nayak, a senior member of the organisation, as per the same agency report/ Meanwhile in Hyderabad, as the SFI screened the documentary at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), the RSS' student wing, ABVP showed the controversial film 'The Kashmir Files', on the campus. The Fraternity Movement in UoH campus, a students' group, had earlier organized the screening of the BBC documentary "India: The Modi Question" on January 21, at the varsity campus without prior notice or permission, prompting the University authorities to seek a report on the incident for taking necessary action. The screening of the documentary "India: The Modi Question", access to which was recently blocked by the Centre on social media platforms, was earlier announced by the SFI at the university campus. The screening of the documentary 'India: The Modi Question' was organised by SFI Hyderabad Central University (SFI HCU) on Republic Day following the call of SFI Central Executive Committee (SFI CEC). "More than 400 students turned up for the screening, rejecting the false propaganda and the attempts of ABVP to create unrest and the administration to disrupt the screening of the documentary. SFI-HCU salutes the student community who have stood for freedom of expression and campus democracy," a social media post by SFI HCU said, tagging the photos. UoH, is also known as Hyderabad Central University (HCU). Countering it, the students of ABVP HCU organised the screening of 'The Kashmir Files,' on the university campus. Written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri, the Bollywood film depicts the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Kashmir following systematic killings of people from the community by Pakistan-backed terrorists. UoH Registrar Devesh Nigam in a statement said the Dean-Students' Welfare had counselled the student groups and issued an appeal not to do any screening of films in view of the law and order issue, maintaining peace and tranquillity in campus and forthcoming end-semester exams starting from next week. However, students decided to go ahead with their programme schedule. "We have come to know that one group held the screening in one of the hostels," he said adding the campus is peaceful. Also read: Defying Centre's Ban, Congress Screens BBC Documentary on PM Narendra Modi in Kerala The Union government had last week directed social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube to block links to the documentary "India: The Modi Question". The Ministry of External Affairs has trashed the documentary as a "propaganda piece" that lacks objectivity and reflects a colonial mindset. The two-part documentary claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of the state. (With PTI inputs) Thiruvananthapuram: Despite the Centres ban on the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Thursday screened the controversial series - "India: The Modi Question" - at the Shanghumugham beach for the general public. According to reports, the screening of the controversial documentary was first held at the KPCC headquarters for its staff and party workers. KPCC general secretary G S Babu said, We received a positive response to the screening from the general public. Lots of people turned up to see it. In view of the positive response, we will show it across the State at various places." KPCC showed the introduction portion of the first part of the documentary and the entire second part at the screening, he said. The Kerala Congress leader further said the response indicates that people want to know what is there in the documentary and what it is all about. Various wings of Congress have already screened the first part of the documentary in several parts of the State. BJP, Congress Spar Over BBC Documentary on PM Modi Attacking the Congress for allowing the screening of the controversial series, Union Minister Jitendra Singh launched a scathing attack on the Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge and said that if the Congress had respect for the judiciary, it would not have supported the BBC documentary. "Whatever Mallikarjun Kharge is saying is completely different from reality. If he and his party men had respect for the judiciary, they would not have supported the BBC documentary," the Union Minister said. "I do not agree that the Judiciary itself had given a clean chit to the Chief Minister of the then Government of Gujarat regarding Godhra, so is this not a contempt of court, the kind of attitude they have, I think this is the doublespeak of the Congress," Singh said. Centre's Ban on BBC Modi Documentary UKs British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) recently aired a two-part series attacking PM Modi`s tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister during the Gujarat riots of 2002. The documentary sparked outrage and was removed from select platforms. In a strong rebuttal to the BBC documentary on Modi, more than 300 eminent Indians including retired judges, retired bureaucrats, and retired armed forces veterans signed a statement slamming the British national broadcaster for showing "unrelenting prejudice" toward India and its leader. The Centre also last week directed the blocking of multiple YouTube videos and Twitter posts sharing links to the documentary. The two-part BBC documentary, which claims it investigated certain aspects relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of that State, has been trashed by the Ministry of External Affairs as a "propaganda piece" that lacked objectivity and reflected a "colonial mindset." New Delhi, Jan 27 (PTI) India has issued a notice to Pakistan for modification of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of September 1960 following Islamabad's "intransigence" on its implementation, stressing that the neighbouring country's actions have adversely impinged on the provisions of the pact. The notice was issued on Wednesday. Notably, in its report tabled in August 2021, a parliamentary standing committee recommended renegotiating the Indus Waters Treaty to address the impact of climate change on water availability in the river basin and other challenges which are not covered under the agreement. Indus River System: The Indus system of rivers comprises the main river along with its five left bank tributaries, namely the Ravi, the Beas, the Sutlej, the Jhelum and the Chenab. The right bank tributary, the Kabul, does not flow through India. The Ravi, the Beas and the Sutlej are together called eastern rivers while the Chenab, the Jhelum and the Indus main are called western rivers. Their waters are critical to both India and Pakistan. Indus Waters Treaty: At the time of Independence, the boundary line between the two newly created countries -- Pakistan and India -- was drawn right across the Indus Basin, leaving Pakistan as the lower riparian and India as the upper riparian. Two important irrigation works, one at Madhopur on the Ravi river and the other at Ferozepur on the Sutlej river, on which the irrigation canal supplies in Punjab (Pakistan) had been completely dependent, fell in the Indian territory. A dispute thus arose between the two countries regarding the utilisation of irrigation water from existing facilities. Negotiations held under the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) culminated in the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty in 1960. The treaty was signed in Karachi by Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, the then President of Pakistan, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Indian Prime Minister, and W A B Illif of the World Bank on September 19, 1960, with its effective date being April 1. The treaty contains a preamble, 12 articles and eight detailed annexures. It provides India an absolute control of all the waters of eastern rivers of the Indus -- Ravi, Sutlej and Beas. Pakistan shall receive for unrestricted use all those waters of the western rivers -- the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab -- which India is under obligation to let flow beyond the permitted uses. According to the treaty, all the waters of the eastern rivers with average annual flow of around 33 million acre feet (MAF) are allocated to India for unrestricted use, while the waters of western rivers with average annual flow of around 135 MAF is allocated largely to Pakistan. However, India is permitted to use the waters of the western rivers for domestic use, non-consumptive use, agricultural and generation of hydro-electric power. The right to generate hydroelectricity from the western rivers is unrestricted subject to the conditions for design and operation of the treaty. India can also create storages up to 3.6 MAF on the western rivers, the pact states. The treaty also enables India and Pakistan to establish a permanent post of Commissioner for Indus Waters. The two commissioners constitute the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC). Unless either government should decide to take up any particular issue directly with the other, each commissioner will be the representative of his government for all matters arising out of this treaty. The commission enables to establish and promote cooperative arrangements for the treaty implementation, furnish or exchange of information or data provided for in the treaty, promote cooperation between the parties in the development of the waters of the Indus system. It also examines and resolves by agreement any question that may arise between the two countries concerning interpretation or implementation of the treaty. The commission is required to meet regularly at least once a year, alternately in India and Pakistan, and also when requested by either commissioner. The commission is also required to undertake tours of inspection of the rivers and works for ascertaining the facts connected with various developments and works on the rivers. To enable Pakistan to satisfy itself that India's planned projects are within the treaty provisions, India is required to communicate to Pakistan, in writing, their information specified in the treaty. Pakistan can raise objections within three months of its receipt. If the commission is unable to resolve a specific problem, provisions have been made for reference to a neutral expert. It also provides for the provisions of the pact to continue in force until terminated by a duly ratified treaty between the two governments. (The above article is sourced from news agency PTI. Zeenews.com has made no editorial changes to the article. News agency PTI is solely responsible for the contents of the article) New Delhi: India has sent a notice to Pakistan calling for the amendment of the Indus Waters Treaty even as the dispute resolution mechanism of the treaty remains in a logjam for 5 years. This is for the first time New Delhi has called on Islamabad for the amendment of the treaty that was signed in 1960 in Karachi between the then-Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru and then-Pakistani president Ayub Khan. Sources said, "India has issued notice to Pakistan for modification of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of September 1960. This is as per Article XII (3) of IWT...Pakistani intransigence on the Indus Waters Treaty forced India to issue a notice of modification to the Treaty." Under the notice, India has called on Pakistan to enter into intergovernmental negotiations within 90 days to "rectify the material breach" of the treaty and also "update the treaty to incorporate the lessons learned over the last 62 years", sources explained. Under the Indus water treaty of 1960, the waters of 3 Eastern Rivers - Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi are allocated to India for unrestricted use while the waters of 3 Western rivers - Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab go to Pakistan. Additionally, New Delhi has the right to generate hydroelectricity through the run of the river projects on the 3 Western rivers, subject to specific criteria for design. Pakistan can under the treaty raise technical objections to the design of Indian hydroelectric projects on Western rivers. One of the key issues has been dispute resolution mechanisms that have led to India issuing the notice. For example, in 2015, Pakistan requested for the appointment of a Neutral Expert to examine its technical objections to Indias Kishenganga and Ratle Hydro Electric Projects (HEPs). The following year, that is 2016, Pakistan unilaterally retracted from the "neutral expert" mechanism and proposed that a "Court of Arbitration" decide on its objections. Meanwhile, India made a separate request for the matter to be referred to a Neutral Expert. The initiation of two simultaneous processes on the same issue essentially creates a legal issue. Sources pointed, "at Pakistans continuing insistence, the World Bank has recently initiated actions on both the Neutral Expert and Court of Arbitration processes. Such parallel consideration of the same issues is not covered under any provision" of the treaty, adding, " faced with such violation of the treaty provisions, India has been compelled to issue a notice of modification". In 2016, World Bank took a decision to pause the initiation of two parallel processes and request India and Pakistan to seek an amicable way out. Despite repeated efforts by India to find a mutually agreeable way forward, Pakistan refused to discuss the issue during the five meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission from 2017 to 2022. The last Indus water talks took place in Delhi between India's Indus water commissioner AK Pal and Pakistani counterpart Mehr Ali Shah. The next meeting of the Indus water commission will take place in Pakistan. Purnea: The claims of hoisting of a Pakistani flag in Bihar's Purnea have been proven incorrect. As per a report by news agency ANI, a Pakistani flag was hoisted in Bihar's Purnea district on Thursday. The said flag was hoisted on a house near the little mosque at Shastri Nagar, Madhubani TOP police station, Purnea district. The police investigation found that the flag was not Pakistani According to SDM Rakesh Raman, the investigation confirmed that the claim made in the video is incorrect. The flag raised by the teacher is an Islamic flag, not a Pakistani flag as per reports. The police are now trying to locate the person who made this video go viral. Following his identity, an FIR will be filed against him. Keeping in view the sensitivity of the matter, the Madhubani TOP police station chief got the information verified. Investigation revealed that the said flag is a religious flag, which has been installed on the roof of the said person for about a month. NEW DELHI: A 14-year-old boy was apprehended for allegedly snatching a groom's garland carrying currency notes worth Rs 1,64,500, police said on Friday. The incident happened in west Delhi's Mayapuri. The matter came to light on Wednesday when the groom's brother reported that a boy had snatched the groom's garland when he was about to sit on a horse for the wedding ceremony, police said. A case was registered under section 356 (Assault or criminal force in attempt to commit theft of property carried by a person) and 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and an investigation was undertaken, they said. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Ghansham Bansal said during the course of investigation, CCTV footages of the nearby areas were analysed. Through Technical and manual surveillance, the juvenile was traced and apprehended from his locality in Hari Nagar. Seventy-nine notes of denomination of five hundred rupees, amounting to Rs 39,500, out of 329 notes were recovered from his house, police said, adding that further investigation is underway. Lok Sabha Election 2024 Survey Prediction: Ahead of 2024 General Elections, political leaders can be seen forming multiple fronts against the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is trying to position herself on the national stage, similar efforts are being done by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also harbours a national ambition, especially in wake of his party having a government in two states. Meanwhile, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra is on the verge of a conclusion. Through this yatra, Congres is trying to position him as the next prime ministerial candidate. Amid all these hullabaloos, India Today-C-Voter surveyed to find out who will be the next PM if Lok Sabha Elections are held today. The survey gauged the mood of the general public a year ahead of the general elections. According to the survey, if elections are held today, there is a possibility of the return of the BJP-led NDA government in the country. In the survey, NDA is expected to win 298 seats out of 543 Lok Sabha seats. While the Congress-led UPA is seen improving its performance and may win 153 seats. Other including regional parties and independent candidates may win around 92 seats. While the NDA's vote share stands at 43 percent, the Congress-led UPA is likely to get 29 percent and others 28 percent of the votes. According to the survey, BJP alone is likely to get 284 seats- a comfortable majority while Congress may get 68 and others 191 seats in the Lok Sabha elections if held today. Talking about party-wise vote percentage, BJP is getting 39 percent votes in while Congress is likely to get 22 percent and others 39 percent votes as per the survey. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA made a comeback and formed the government for the second time in a row. The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 303 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while the NDA got 353 seats. The Congress-led UPA had won 91 seats including 52 seats of Congress. The tragic Lucknow building collapse case has raised a question about the building's quality and an FIR has already been lodged. The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) yesterday retrieved a body of a woman, 48 hours after the collapse of the Alaya Apartment building in Lucknow's Hazratganj. The SDRF said that the woman's body found while removing the debris from Alaya's apartment is identified as 42-year-old Shabana Khatoon who was the resident of the apartment's flat number 201 the relatives informed. With this, the toll of death in the case has risen to four. In the meantime, the surprising good news was received as the SDRF was able to rescue a six-year-old boy from the debris. The boy was shifted to the hospital for treatment where he is said to be doing well. The boy reportedly informed that he saved his life by hiding under the bed, an idea that he learnt from the Doraemon-Nobita cartoon series. He said that in one of the episodes, Doraemon had told Nobita to take shelter under a bed or table in case of an earthquake. The boy said that when he realised that the building was shaking, he took shelter under the bed thinking that it was an earthquake. On the other hand, the SDRF team further informed that on Tuesday bodies of three women were found during the rescue operation. So far, 16 people have been rescued from the debris created after the Alaya Apartment Building collapsed in the Hazratganj area of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. According to an official statement, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took cognizance of the accident and instructed sending SDRF and NDRF teams to the spot. The Chief Minister also directed the district administration officials to take the injured to the hospital for proper treatment immediately. The police are present at the spot and rescue operations are underway. Uttar Police registered an FIR against three people in connection with the case. They have been identified as Nawazish Shahid, Mohammad Tariq and Fahad Yazdani, the police said. As per the police, the search is underway to nab the other two accused. The FIR has been lodged by senior sub-inspector Daya Shankar Dwiwedi. The case has been registered under sections 308, 323, 420, and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). As per the allegations, the construction was done without passing the map, and substandard materials were used in the construction. The three are also accused of cheating people in the greed of earning money. The police have said that the people complained of the building shaking due to the construction work going on with drilling machines. (With agency inputs) The Russian government has reportedly objected to operator Veon planning to join a raft of companies in selling off assets in the country and exiting the market. Reuters reported via the Russian newspaper Kommersant, the Russian finance, economy ministries and central bank all expressed opposition to the Amsterdam-headquartered operator group selling off its unit Vimpelcom and effectively departing Russia. A raft of companies left the Russian market in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine even at a cost, most prominently from the telecoms space, Ericsson and Nokia were quick to announce so. Veon announced plans to sell its operations to Vimpelcom senior executives led by CEO Aleksander Torbakhov for around RUB130 billion (US$1.8 billion) in November 2022. Russian newswire Tass reported the government demanded revisions to the deal but gave no further details. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday extended birthday greetings to Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and prayed for his long and healthy life. Taking to Twitter PM Modi said, "Best wishes to Meghalaya CM Shri Conrad Sangma Ji on his birthday. Praying for his long and healthy life." Best wishes to Meghalaya CM Shri Conrad Sangma Ji on his birthday. Praying for his long and healthy life. @SangmaConrad Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 27, 2023 Conrad Sangma is the 12th Chief Minister of Meghalaya since March 2018, a Member of Parliament since May 2016, and Minister of Finance, Power and Tourism, Government of Meghalaya from 2008-2009. He began his political career in the late 1990s after completing his studies. He started off as a campaign manager in the NCP (National Congress Party) for his father P A Sangma. In 2004, he contested his first election but faced a defeat. In 2008, he tasted success by being elected to State Assembly as an NCP member. Later, he held several portfolios such as Power, Finance, IT, Tourism, and GAD. Sangma also presented his first budget within 10 days of being a minister in Meghalaya. From 2009 to 2013, he held the position of the Leader of the Opposition in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly. In March 2016, he became NPP`s president after his father`s death. In the 2018 Meghalaya Assembly elections, NPP won 19 seats, coming second in rank behind Congress. Sangma`s Party NPP allied with regional parties due to the requirement of having at least 30 seats to form the government. He became the Chief Minister of the state and sworn in on March 6, 2008. Ballia: BJP Lok Sabha MP from Salempur Ravindra Kushawaha on Friday said senior Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya should embrace Islam and ask his daughter and BJP MP Sanghamitra to resign from Lok Sabha. Maurya, a prominent OBC leader in Uttar Pradesh, kicked up controversy recently by alleging that certain verses of the Ramcharitmanas "insult" a large section of society on the basis of caste and demanded that these be "banned". "If SP leader Swami Prasad Maurya has some morality, he should immediately accept Islam, and his entire family should follow. Being a Hindu, Maurya is making objectionable comments about Ramcharitmanas. People belonging to the Sanatan Dharma will not accept this," Kushawaha told reporters in Ballia. "He is making frivolous statements against Hinduism, while opposing the BJP. Hindus will not accept this act," he added. Sanghamitra Maurya, a BJP MP from Budaun, on Wednesday, came in support of her father and said there should be a debate on some portions of the Hindu epic. The "chaupai (verse)" of the Ramcharitmanas her father called objectionable should be discussed with scholars, she added. "On moral grounds, Maurya should also ask his daughter, who is a Lok Sabha MP, to resign immediately," Kushawaha said. New Delhi: Delhi Police on Friday imposed Section 144 (banning large gatherings) at the Faculty of the Arts at Delhi University in wake of a call by NSUI-KSU for the screening of a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.A large number of security personnel have also been deployed outside the Faculty of Arts.The BBC documentary has created a fresh row in the country after the government, earlier this month, denounced it and described it as a "propaganda piece" that is designed to push a discredited narrative. The government also pulled down the BBC documentary `India: The Modi Question` from various social media platforms including Twitter and Youtube.The row further deepened after JNUSU members allegedly faced a "deliberate" power outage, while they were screening the impugned BBC documentary at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in the national capital.The documentary leads to opposition attacking the government on freedom of speech despite the government terming it as a `propaganda piece`. #WATCH | Students & members of NSUI protesting outside the Faculty of Arts at the University of Delhi, being detained by the Police Provisions u/s 144 CrPC are imposed outside the Faculty,in wake of a call by NSUI-KSU for screening of a BBC documentary on PM Modi, at the Faculty pic.twitter.com/EYWjubCSfy ANI (@ANI) January 27, 2023 Earlier on Wednesday, 13 students were detained after some students tried to create a ruckus outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University over the screening of a BBC documentary.The Delhi Police said the university administration did not allow the screening of the BBC documentary in campus. On Monday the administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi also warned against screening the BBC documentary on the campus after a group of students released a pamphlet inviting students to a screening of the film at the students union`s office at 9 pm on Tuesday (January 24). The JNU Students Union wrote to the university administration over its firm advisory against the screening of the BBC documentary stating that they "do not seek to create any form of disharmony" and their purpose is to only watch it on the campus. It also mentioned in the letter that the students with "voluntary interest" would take part in the screening. Later in the night, the JNU students marched toward Vasant Kunj police station claiming stone pelting by members of ABVP while the said documentary was being screened.The protest was later called off after the police assured students of taking up the matter and looking into it immediately. TANCET 2023: Anna University has announced the Tamil Nadu Common Entrance Test, TANCET 2023 Exam dates. Previously, the TANCET MCA test, as well as M.E, M.Tech, M.Arch, and M.Planning, were slated for February 25, 2023. The TANCET MBA exam was set to take place on February 26, 2023. The exam, however, was postponed by Anna University. The exam will now be held on March 25, 2023, according to a post on the official website. The TANCET 2023 Exam Date has been published on the official website tancet.annauniv.edu. The registration process is scheduled to begin soon after the exam date is revealed. The Common Engineering Entrance Test and Admission (CEETA-PG 2023) exam for the MTech, ME, MArch, and MPlan programmes will be held on March 26, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. On January 25, 2023, the university released the TANCET 2023 eligibility criteria. TANCET 2023: Here's how to check dates Go to the official website Then on the homepage, scroll down and look for exam date and time The exam date and time will be displayed on screen Go through the same and take its screenshot for future reference TANCET is administered by Anna University in Chennai on behalf of the Tamil Nadu government. TANCET is an entrance examination for candidates seeking admission to MBA, MCA, M.E., M.Tech., M.Arch., or M.Planning degree programmes at several state institutions and colleges in Tamil Nadu. Nagpur: Former Chief Justice of India Sharad Bobde on Friday batted for Sanskrit as the country's official language, including for use in courts, and said even the architect of the Constitution and eminent jurist BR Ambedkar had proposed it as per media reports from 1949. He said Hindi and English are used as official languages in governance and courts as per law, while every chief justice receives representations seeking a nod to introduce respective regional languages, which is now a reality in the district-level judiciary and some high courts. Bobde was speaking at the Akhil Bhartiya Chhatra Sammellan organized by Sanskrit Bharti. At the level of the high court, the official language is English, though many HCs have had to allow applications, petitions and even documents in regional languages, he said. "I don't think this issue (of official language) should remain unresolved. It has remained unresolved since 1949. There are grave dangers of miscommunication in governance and administration of justice, though this is not the place to discuss," he said. "Newspapers of September 11 of 1949 have reported that Dr Ambedkar initiated the move to have Sanskrit as the official language of the Union of India. Sanskrit vocabulary is common to a lot of our languages. I ask myself this question as to why Sanskrit cannot be the official language as Dr Ambedkar had proposed," he said. The former CJI said introducing Sanskrit would not amount to introducing any religion, as 95 per cent of the language has nothing to do with any religion but deals with issues related to philosophy, law, science, literature, phonetics, architecture, astronomy etc. "The (Sanskrit) language does not belong to south or north India, and is perfectly capable for secular use. It has been found most suited for computers by a NASA scientist, who wrote a paper 'Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence'. He also said it can be used to communicate messages in the fewest possible words," the former CJI said. Citing a survey, Bobde said some 43.63 per cent of citizens speak Hindi, while just 6 per cent speak English, which comes down to 3 per cent in rural areas. He further said 41 per cent of the rich speak English, while it is just 2 per cent among the poor, adding that Sanskrit is possibly the only language which can co- exist with our regional languages, 22 of which are recognized by the Constitution's Eighth Schedule. "I say this after consulting language experts, who agree that Indian use many Sanskrit words while communicating with each other in regional languages. Every regional language, including Urdu, contains words of Sanskrit origin. Some, like Assamese, Hindi, Telugu and Bengali and Kannada contain up to 60-70 percent Sanskrit words," he said. Bobde, however, admitted the transition (to Sanskrit) cannot take place overnight but over many years. "The language will have to be taught as a language without any religious connotation. Like English is taught in professional courses. A vocabulary (will need to be) created and the language added to the Official Languages Act," he asserted. New Delhi: As the entire nation is wrapped in the Republic Day fever, Nushrratt Bharuccha celebrated the occasion with the underprivileged kids at an orphanage in the city. The actress made a visit along with the director of Dream Girl and Janhit Mein Jaari, Raaj Shaandilyaa, and his team. Her visit indeed came as a cherishing moment for the orphanage children. The actress was seen having a great time as she celebrated the entire day with them. She enjoyed her film, Dream Girl with the children and later on danced to the 'Radhe Radhe' song from the film for the children. She was seen sharing her delight on her social media as she posted, "Showing Dreamgirl to these wonderful angels at Bal Bhavan!! @writerraj @ayushmannk" Further to this, the actress was seen clicking a picture with the children and she further wrote, "Best time! Such energy! Such purity!! Such love!" Moreover, the team of 'Dream Girl' was also present to celebrate Republic Day with orphanage girls with a special screening for orphanage girls. On the work front, Apart from Chhorii 2, Nushrratt has an interesting lineup of films including Selfiee alongside Akshay Kumar and Emraan Hashmi. She also has Akelli in the pipeline, which is another solo lead film by the actress. New Delhi: Popular Pakistani actress Mehreen Shah has levelled some serious sexual assault allegations against Indian producer Raj Gupta and Pakistani director Syed Ehsan Ali Zaidi during the shoot of their film in Baku, Azerbaijan. She narrated her ordeal in a video shared on social media which went viral after these shocking allegations came fore. In the now-viral video, Mehreen Shah said, 'I had reached Azerbaijan's capital Baku with Ehsan Ali Zaidi and raj Gupta in connection with a shooting. As soon as they reached here, the behaviour of both of them changed completely. When I refused their demand, they tried to misbehave with me. Working with Ali Zaidi and raj Gupta has been nothing less than a nightmare for me. I don't even know whether people came here to work or they have some other motive behind it. The actress told, 'The Indian producer tried to get close to me, but when I flatly refused, his style changed completely. They didn't even give me food. Not only this, my health had deteriorated during the shoot, yet he did not even see me." #MehreenShah pic.twitter.com/crSPO7lUJe Khabarwalay (@khabarwalay0) January 10, 2023 She added, "My aim in telling all this is that girls should be alert. I am working with Ehsan Ali Zaidi for the first time. I met him through a reference and working with him has been terrifying. I just want to say that if these people have treated me like this before with any actress, then they should come forward and tell their truth to the people and if any actress is going to work with them in the future, then I should alert her in advance. I give These people are not good. At night, Ali Zaidi and Raj Gupta call for sex work in their rooms. I cannot say openly whether Raj Gupta has done anything to him or not, but Ali Zaidi is completely involved in it." The Pakistani actress alleged that she suffered anxiety and harassment after she came to Baku for the film shoot. New Delhi: Shah Rukh Khans big-screen comeback after 4 years with his latest release Pathaan has induced festival-like celebrations across the country! Rashmika Mandanna, who is currently in Delhi for the shoot of her next, 'Animal' opposite Ranbir Kapoor, also watched the film alongside her team, yesterday. Rashmika took time out from her busy schedule on Republic Day and joined the cast and crew of Animal to watch Pathaan. Sharing the screenspace alongside Ranbir Kapoor for the first time in Animal, took to her social media and shared a picture of the movie team from Pathaans viewing party. She also praised Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, John Abraham and filmmaker Siddharth Anand. Sharing the picture, Rashmika hailed the team of Pathaan for an extraordinary experience on her social media. She wrote Team Animal watched and fully enjoyed Pathaan. @iamsrk sir, @deepikapadukone maam, @thejohnabraham sir ... an absolute treat thank you so much for this. Congratulations Siddharth Anand sir @yrf. Rashmika is looking at a blockbuster 2023 with four films. Riding high on the success of Varisu (released across languages) and Mission Majnu, the actress is eagerly awaiting her next line up including Animal alongside Ranbir Kapoor and another which is currently under wraps. From the beginning of her career, Rashmika has been showered with immense love from audiences for her characters like 'Saanvi', 'Geetha', and the most recent 'Srivalli' from 'Pushpa: The Rise'. The national crush will be next seen in 'Pushpa: The Rule', and 'Animal' opposite Ranbir Kapoor. New Delhi: HDFC Life has announced that it has collaborated with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to offer a first - UPI 123PAY. This is a unique voice-based premium payment service that further simplifies the premium payment process for HDFC Life policyholders, a company statement said. UPI 123PAY is a payment facility through a pre-defined IVR (Interactive Voice Response). This platform will enable customers to make financial transactions with or without an internet connection. Customers can avail this service in various regional languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, etc. The process is very simple - a customer has to initiate a secure call from their phone using the UPI number 080 4516 3571, and complete the UPI on-boarding formalities. Once this is done, they can start transacting. This service will also empower those policyholders of HDFC Life who are not accustomed to digital payments, thereby enabling them to take control of their policies with a single IVR call, HDFC Life added. A voice based payment feature, UPI 123PAY was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and launched by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to increase the digital penetration of financial services. UPI 123PAY enables smart phone and feature phone users to digitally undertake a host of transactions based on four approaches, including voice payment based via IVR number, proximity sound-based payments, missed call-based payment approach, app based scan and pay on feature phone. Vineet Arora, Chief Operating Officer, HDFC Life said, The UPI 123Pay service we are offering, in collaboration with NPCI and Ubona will enable policyholders across the country to make payments through this IVR based service in a secure manner, with ease. Nalin Bansal, Chief Relationship Management & Key Initiatives, NPCI said, We are glad to witness the implementation of NPCIs unique offering UPI 123PAY voice based payment in the insurance sector. New Delhi: PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget 2023 presentation on February 1 will be keenly watched by all and sundry. While several businesses and industries have pinned a lot of hope on Sitharaman's Budget, the farmer community is waiting with a baited breath on FM's Budget announcement. While only time till tell as to what the finance minister has in her kitty for the farmers, some media reports are saying that lakhs of Indian farmers who are entitled for a cash reward of Rs 6,000 per year under PM-KISAN Scheme might hear some pretty good news. According to some media sources, the government may boost the amount of the PM-KISAN scheme's annual financial benefit to farmers to Rs 8,000 from the current Rs 6000. According to additional reports, the eligible farmers will receive the Rs 8000 in 4 equal payments on their accounts. The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) Scheme, was launched by PM Narendra Modi in 2019, aims to provide income support to all landholder farmer families across the country with cultivable land, subject to certain exclusions. Under the Scheme, an amount of Rs 6000 per year is released in three 4-monthly instalments of Rs 2000 each directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. While lakhs of eager farmers are waiting for the disbursal of Rs 2,000 in their account, there are several farmers who are not eligible for the PM KISAN Scheme. Who are eligible to get benefits under the PM-KISAN Scheme? All landholding farmers' families, which have cultivable landholding in their names are eligible to get benefit under the scheme. Who are excluded from the PM-KISAN Scheme? The following categories of beneificiaries of higher economic status shall not be elligible for benefit under the scheme. A. All Institutional Land holders. B. Farmer families which belong to one or more of the following categories: i) Former and present holders of constitutional posts ii) Former and present Ministers/ State Ministers and former/present Members of LokSabha/ RajyaSabha/ State Legislative Assemblies/ State Legislative Councils,former and present Mayors of Municipal Corporations, former and present Chairpersons of District Panchayats. iii) All serving or retired officers and employees of Central/ State Government Ministries /Offices/Departments and its field units Central or State PSEs and Attached offices /Autonomous Institutions under Government as well as regular employees of the Local Bodies (Excluding Multi Tasking Staff /Class IV/Group D employees) vi) All superannuated/retired pensioners whose monthly pension is Rs.10,000/-or more (Excluding Multi Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees) of above category v) All Persons who paid Income Tax in last assessment year vi) Professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Chartered Accountants, and Architects registered with Professional bodies and carrying out profession by undertaking practices. Uzbekistan's state-owned operator Uzbektelecom has signed a new infrastructure agreement with four Japanese firms - Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ), NEC, NTT and Toyota Tsusho. The agreement will see the firms provide network equipment and services for a wide-reaching initiative under the Digital Uzbekistan 2030 digital economy programme an initiative pushed by the countrys government in order to meet escalating data communication demand driven by the increased digitalisation across industry verticals. Under the initiative, Uzbektelecom plans to expand its transport and data networks, improve the speed and capacity of its international data network, and deploy new data centres in three of Uzbekistans largest cities Bukahara, Kokand and Tashkent. This will help the operator to improve quality of service and boost connectivity between rural and urban locations. NEC will provide optical wavelength multiplexing communications equipment and training for Uzbektelecom's operational staff as part of the transport network and data network expansion. IIJ meanwhile will provide containerised IT modules for the construction of the new data centres, as well as building the cloud platform and providing training for Uzbektelecom's data center operational staff. NTT will deliver equipment for the large-scale communication network and education for Uzbektelecom's operational staff, while Toyota Tsusho will export the equipment and serve as the overall coordinator of the project. Installation is scheduled for 2023, with funding provided by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the MUFG Bank. Nikkei Asia reports that these institutions will extend financing of around 19.3 billion yen (US$148 million) to Uzbektelecom, of which JBIC will account for around 60% with MUFG as a co-lender. The latters portion will be insured by Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI). Hyderabad: Veteran actress Jamuna passed away here on Friday after a brief illness. She was 86. She breathed her last at her residence, family sources said. Jamuna, who acted in about 200 movies in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi, is survived by a son and a daughter. She was born at Hampi in Karnataka on August 30, 1936, but her parents Nippani Srinivasa Rao and Kowsalya Devi moved to Andhra Pradesh. She received her primary education at Duggirala in Guntur district and was a stage artist in her school days. Jamuna, whose real name was Jana Bai, made her acting debut at the age of 16 with Puttillu (1953) directed by Garikapari Rajarao. It was L. V. Prasad's Missamma (1955) which gave her recognition. She had played a supporting character in the film with the lead roles played by N. T. Rama Rao, Savitri and Akkineni Nageswara Rao. In a career spanning four decades, she portrayed a variety of roles and acted with these legendary actors of her time other top actors of her times. Jamuna also acted in 11 Hindi films. She won FilmFare award for best supporting actress for Milan (1967) starring Sunil Dutt and Nutan. It was a remake of Telugu movie Mooga Manasulu (1964) which featured Jamuna along with Nageswara Rao and Savitri. Impressed by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, she joined the Congress party in 1980 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from Rajahmundry in 1989, but quit politics after the defeat in 1991. She later joined BJP and campaigned for the party in late 1990s. NEW DELHI: Tina Datta is the latest contestant to have been evicted from the 'Bigg Boss 16' house. The popular television actress, who rose to fame for her role as 'Ichcha', was nominated this week along with Shalin Bhanot, Priyanka Choudhary and Shiv Thakare. Now if latest reports are to be believed, Tina has been evicted from the show as she received lowest votes among all. A paparazzo account shared a photo of Tina on Instagram and wrote, "Tina Datta evicted from Bigg Boss house." However, there is no official confirmation on the same. Exclusive and Confirmed Yes #TinaDatta Is eliminated from the house. Elimination Took place few minutes back. The Khabri (@TheKhabriTweets) January 26, 2023 Meanwhile, a 'Shukravar Ka Vaar' promo is being shared on social media where host Farah Khan is seen bashing Tina Datta and Priyanka Chahar for mentally harassing Shalin. As Tina tried to defend herself, Farah gives her back again and warns her that she will walk out. Farah appears to be visibly irritated with Tina and Priyanka's behaviour in the house and slam them for continuously bullying Shalin Bhanot. Tina and Priyanka continued to argue with the host and tried to explain their viewpoint. However, this irritated Farah. Farah tried to make them understand but after a point, she got annoyed and said: "If you don`t want to listen to me, I`ll walk out." Anil Kapoor, Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, and Mika Singh will be making an appearance on the show this week as special guests. As per sources, the grand finale of 'Bigg Boss 16' is expected to take place on February 11-12. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan after the arrest of PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said that efforts were on to arrest and silence him. He, however, said he did not fear death or detention because he had seen death very closely, Pakistan based The News International Newspaper reported. Khan while condemning Fawad Chaudhry's arrest, said the legal fraternity and judiciary should play their role in the current situation and that those who did not present him before the court must be held accountable. The country`s future seems bleak, the way rulers are leading it, Khan said. He urged the nation to rise. He further said that the people of Pakistan were the true heirs of its legacy adding that the country needed to be run under the principle of justice, which was also the base of the Medina state. The News International reported that the former Pakistan prime minister said Fawad was arrested for using the word Munshi, which was not a crime, and added that those who did not present him before the court must be held accountable for this violation of law. "In order to alleviate poverty in the country, justice must prevail," he said. Khan called Fawad's wife and asked about the family. He expressed solidarity with the family and lauded Fawad's role in the party. Geo News recently reported that shortly after he publicly criticized the Pakistan government for plotting to arrest the country's former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, the party`s senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry was arrested. Chaudhry was arrested from his house on Wednesday morning. PTI leader Farrukh Habib confirmed Chaudhry`s arrest. Habib posted a tweet stating, "Fawad Chaudhry has been arrested by the police from his house. The imported government has gone berserk. "Several other PTI leaders have also condemned Chaudhry's arrest. Chaudhry's arrest comes amid the nightlong turnout of PTI workers who descended upon party chairman Imran Khan's house to ensure his security. The Islamabad police confirmed the arrest of Chaudhry. A case was registered against Chaudhary last night at the Kohsar police station in Islamabad on the complaint of Election Commission Secretary Umar Hameed, Geo News reported.Citing Islamabad police sources, the report said Chaudhry was arrested from his residence near Thokar Niyaz Baig in Lahore. The sources further revealed that Chaudhry will be taken to Islamabad, according to a Geo News report.Condemning the arrest PTI Sindh President said, "Pakistan has become a lawless state." India seems to have taken the self-sufficiency theme to another level with a home-grown mobile operating system developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Its called BharOS (Bhar is short for Bharat, or India). The recently unveiled OS does not appear to be consumer focused. Instead it is designed to be used in businesses and high-security surroundings. It is claimed to be more secure than Android. The Linux-based BharOS has no default apps; it gives users access only to trusted apps from private store services. It also comes with a native over-the-air update (NOTA) feature that keeps devices safe; this is automatically downloaded and installed on the device. This local operating system is another step towards Prime Minister Narendra Modis aim of making India self-reliant in a number of mobile-related technologies like chip-making and 5G equipment. Its also another shot across the bows of Google, whose dominant market position with its Android mobile operating system has come under fire in India recently after it received a $160 million fine in an antitrust case. The countrys competition watchdog has also asked Google to allow smartphone users to uninstall certain apps and use their preferred search engine, among other measures. Android certainly does dominate this market; it runs about 97% of Indias 620 million smartphones. But can BharOS compete? As the Indian Express newspaper points out, there is no clear information on when BharOS will be available for download, how to install it, OEM partners, or targeted phones and chipsets. In fact a wide rollout is not imminent, so, despite the upbeat mood around the announcement of the new OS, its real-world performance is not likely to be measurable for some time. Alabama will receive almost $192 million in federal funds to expand broadband internet access in rural areas, the U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday. The funds, part of the American Rescue Plan to help bolster the U.S. economy rebounding from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, will expand coverage to an estimated 55,000 locations across the state. In addition to homes, schools and libraries will benefit from the expanded broadband coverage, according to Gene Sperling, senior adviser to President Joe Biden and American Rescue Plan coordinator. The pandemic was a national teaching moment that reliable, strong, affordable internet access is an economic and educational necessity, not a luxury, Sperling said in a conference call with reporters. He went on to say that it was evident in the most visceral and tangible way that homes that did not permit a parent to work or a child to do schoolwork remotely that that family faced serious economic and educational disadvantage. Awards for expanded broadband service were also announced for Kentucky, Nevada and Texas. Altogether, broadband funding for the four states added up to about $793.7 million. The treasury department approved Alabama for $191.9 million for the Alabama Broadband Capital Projects Fund. Its a competitive grant program designed to deploy last-mile infrastructure projects in rural areas of the state. The money is part of the states $2.1 billion in American Rescue Plan funds. The treasure departments announcement Thursday gives approval to the state legislatures plan outlined more than a year ago to use $192 million in ARP funds for capital broadband projects. The state legislature in 2021 allocated $400 million of the ARP funds to build two new prisons and $80 million for hospitals and nursing homes. Specifically, the Alabama Broadband Capital Projects fund will provide internet service speeds of 100/100 megabits per second to households and businesses. And each of the internet service providers funded by the program will participate in the Federal Communications Commissions Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides a $30 subsidy for low-income families. Making high-speed internet more accessible has been a focus of state officials for years. In addition to the $192 million, the state legislature last year allocated $85 million for broadband expansion from the fiscal recovery fund. It means survival or death, state Sen. Clay Scofield, R-Guntersville, said in 2020 of expanding broadband. Scofield, the Senate Majority Leader, has been on the forefront of the need to make high-speed internet more accessible. U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, brought U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to the state in 2018 to help shine a spotlight on broadband needs in rural Alabama. Aderholt also convened a forum that same year featuring Gov. Kay Ivey and Anne Hazlett, then-assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We think about kids that are living in small towns these days, Hazlett said at that 2018 conference held at Lake Guntersville State Park. Ive traveled to 38 states in the 16 months Ive been on this job and the number of stories I hear of children who are doing homework in a McDonalds parking lot is staggering. For those kids to be able to do homeworkwhether at McDonalds or at allthat connectivity is needed. During Thursdays conference call, Sperling made a similar reference. He alluded to the funding working to eliminate the homework gap that now requires in some rural areas a devoted parent have to drive to a fast-food parking lot in the middle of the night so that their child could complete their homework. Troy University will now be required to make better accommodations for pregnant students following a Title IX investigation by the US Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights. The federal agency first began its investigation into Troy in December 2020 after a pregnant student claimed the universitys Title IX coordinator failed to provide her with a larger desk so she could attend classes, to communicate with her professors on how to accommodate her when she missed class because of medical issues, and to intervene when the student alerted the Title IX office about issues in class. As a result, the student failed one class because she was not allowed to make up work and received a failing grade in another because her grade was based on attendance. OCR has a concern that the university did not make reasonable and responsive adjustments in response to the complainants pregnancy-related requests, Scott Sausser, supervisory general attorney for OCR wrote in a letter to Troy notifying them of the results of the investigation. At the time of the incidents at issue here, the university provided pregnant students no information, either in its 2020- 2021 Student Handbook or on its website about how students could seek adjustments related to pregnancy, and one professor interviewed by OCR had not received training regarding Title IXs application to pregnant students. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal money. The law also requires schools to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant students. The Office for Civil Rights laid out several conditions for Troy that must be completed this year, including developing new policies to make adjustments for pregnant students; publishing information on the universitys website about what pregnant students are entitled to and how they can request accommodations; training all staff on their obligations to pregnant students; and developing a tracking system for accommodation requests. I thank Troy University for addressing the pregnancy-related needs of the student who came to OCR for help and for ensuring that, going forward, it will provide pregnant students equal access to the universitys courses and other offerings, said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon. MONTGOMERY Gov. Kay Ivey issued an executive order Thursday that she said would improve access to public records maintained by state agencies. For years, Alabamas law requiring access to public records has come under fire for weakness that allows agencies to stall and essentially ignore requests for documents that should be available to the public. A 2019 study by a researcher at the University of Arizona ranked Alabama last among states in responsiveness to requests for records. The Legislature has not come close to passing bills that would strengthen the law. In a press release, Ivey, who started a new term last week, said the policy is part of her commitment to strengthen public confidence in state government. Access to public records is essential to guaranteeing transparency in government, and I am proud to sign this executive order that improves this process as a whole, the governor said. The order requires agencies to acknowledge receipt of a request within two business days. The order sets deadlines for when agencies must provide substantive responses depending on the nature of requests. Standard requests are those seeking one or more clearly identified documents that the agency determines would take less than eight hours of staff time to process. Agencies must give substantive responses within 15 business days, subject to the receipt of any required payment for the records. The agency can extend the deadline by 15 business days with written notification. Time intensive requests are those that the agency determines would take more than eight hours of staff time. That could be because the request is vague or overly broad or because it will take substantial efforts find the documents or redact legally protected information. Those requesting documents will have a chance to clarify and narrow their requests. Subject to the receipt of any required payment, the agency must provide a substantive response fulfilling or denying the request within 45 business days. The agency can extend that time by 45 business days with written notice. The order establishes a schedule for fees. Agencies It says agencies cannot charge a per-page fee for records provided electronically. Agencies can charge up to $20 per hour, including a standard, minimum fee of $20, for the time spent locating, retrieving, and preparing records for production. Agencies cannot charge for legal review of documents or redaction necessary to withhold legally protected information. Agencies can charge up to 50 cents per page for copies on standard 8.5x11 paper. That does not apply to electronic documents. Agencies can charge any actual costs incurred in processing public records requests, such as for a flash drive or other hardware necessary for electronically producing records, or for special paper sizes and for costs associated with searching electronic databases. Alabama Press Association Executive Director Felicia Mason said the new policy will be a major improvement. For years, the APA has lobbied for a stronger public records law, but bills to strengthen the law have stalled. We certainly hope that this becomes the gold standard because it is much improved, Mason said. And the definitions offered here will certainly help with access. It gives a set time to respond for either a standard or a time-intensive request. Its very explicit of what you do, how you do it. The reasonable fees are somewhat defined. We certainly commend the governors office for this. And I think it will help our newspapers and the public in getting records from the state agencies. Mason said the APA was not involved with the governors office in developing the order. Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, who has sponsored bills to strengthen the public records law, said the governors order would help but that legislation is still needed. Orr said he is working with the APA and the League of Women Voters of Alabama on developing a bill for this years legislative session, which begins in March. Orr said the bill is needed partly because the governors order does not apply to local government entities, such as city and town councils, county commissions, and local boards of education. I applaud Gov. Iveys executive order as far as it affects state government and appreciate her taking the lead on this issue, Orr said. However, there is still much work to be done when it comes to city and county public records. We are in the process of drafting a bill for the 2023 session and this will impact the bill as far as state government goes. But again, we have to bring cities and counties into the 21st century with public access to their records. Orr said one weak spot in the current law is that it does not give a specific time by which agencies must provide documents or formally deny a request for documents. That means document-seekers can encounter repeated delays without a firm denial. One of the problems that weve had in the past is that when a citizen requested records, many times the governmental entity will just take no action, Orr said. Weeks slide into months and its difficult for an individual desiring public documents to go into court, when the defendant, which would be the governmental body, says Weve not denied that request. But their delay is tantamount to denial. And thats one of the issues that we wanted to nail down in legislation. Iveys order says state agencies must comply with the new requirements or begin to make formal rule changes necessary by April 26, 2023. It looks like your browser does not have JavaScript enabled. Please turn on JavaScript and try again. Your browser is unable to render the navigation correctly. Please verify that JavaScript is enabled and that cookies are turned on. Each category (like About the DPS), has multiple sub-categories. To browse these categories, please click on the links in the global navigation bar, and you will be presented with these links. If you have any questions, please see the Help Section or contact us. We apologize for any inconvenience. Container trucks are seen near Kim Thanh Border Gate in northern Lao Cai Province. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy Vietnam is set to benefit from Chinas reopening after three years of Covid-19 restrictions in terms of tourism and trade, economists say. "We expect Chinas re-opening to boost Vietnams GDP growth by over 2% points next year, driven by the full resumption of Chinese tourist arrivals in the second half of 2023," said Michael Kokalari, chief economist of investment fund VinaCapital, adding that China accounted for one-third of Vietnams pre-Covid total tourist arrivals. Kokalari expects the number of foreign tourist arrivals to climb more than 50% over pre-Covid levels in 2023 based on the assumption that Chinese tourists fully recovers in the second half of next year. The pace of recent developments in China point to a possible faster full resumption of Chinese tourist arrivals, which could lead to an even larger contribution to Vietnams GDP growth next year than currently expected, he added. Starting January 8, China dropped most Covid testing requirements, scrapped contact tracing and resumed immigration at border gates with Vietnam after three years of imposing various levels of restrictions to curb the spread of the pandemic. Over the three-year period Vietnam has been somewhat hurt by the stringent border safety measures imposed by its second largest export market behind the U.S. Vietnams trade deficit with China, its biggest import market, rose 11.5% from 2021 to $60.9 billion last year, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam. In December 2021, up to 4,000 containers from Vietnam were stuck at the border with China as the latter tightened its Covid-19 measures. But a different picture is now seen at the border. Each day around 1,000 vehicles pass through Huu Nghi Border Gate in Lang Son Province to enter China, said Tran Van Hung, deputy head of the gates border guard unit. Nguyen Cong Kinh, CEO of agriculture produce exporter Cao Thanh Phat, said that since the reopening his company has been able to shorten delivery times to China by using roads instead of sea shipping. The price of fruit in the Mekong Delta has increased as a result, he told local media, adding that he is struggling to source enough dragon fruit to meet the needs of Chinese buyers. Shrimp exporter Thanh Nhon has seen an increase of 40% in orders from China since the reopening. There was already "a little explosion" of activity among Chinese manufacturers shifting production to Vietnam, and the reopening since Sunday will stir more activity in the supply chain, said Paul Tonkes, industrial deputy director of factory developer Core5 Vietnam. "Things are picking up," he told Nikkei Asia by phone. "Business was put on hold or under pressure for quite some time," but now there's a "release". Other economist said that Chinas reopening will also have a positive impact on the global economy, including Vietnam, beginning in mid-2023. "Around April or May, China will be more confident about its open-door policy, and this will create opportunities for Vietnams exports and tourism," said Nguyen Xuan Thanh of Fulbright University Vietnam. Kokalari said that in addition to a trade boost, the most immediate impact has been the improvement in the sentiment towards the Vietnamese dong, as the surge in the value of Chinas currency was the primary factor that drove the rebound in the value of the dong at the end of December. He added that Vietnams stock market benchmark VN-Index could also expect a boost from Chinas reopening. Visitors take boat tours at Trang An Landscape Complex in Ninh Binh during the Tet holiday, January 2023. Photo by VnExpress/Le Hoang Tourism seems to be recovering with popular destinations across Vietnam being overrun by holiday crowds during the week-long Tet break that ended Thursday. The northern province of Ninh Binh, home to UNESCO heritage site Trang An Landscape Complex, welcomed 330,000 tourists between January 20 and 26, 25 times higher than last year. Hanoi received 332,000 visitors, including 32,000 foreigners, triple last year's number. Though the central region was hit by bad weather during the holidays, there too some localities saw recovery. Hue, famous for its royal temples and Imperial Citadel, received 95,000 tourists, double last years number. Quang Nam, home to Hoi An town, saw visitor numbers surge 3.8 times to 215,000 as hotel occupancy rates topped 85%. Khanh Hoa, which is home to the twin beach resort towns of Nha Trang and Cam Ranh, welcomed 151,000 visitors, double last years figure. Nguyen Thi Le Thanh, director of the Khanh Hoa Department of Tourism, said the target for this year is four million tourists since Chinas reopening has kindled hopes. In the south, the number of visitors to Ba Ria-Vung Tau, home to beach town Vung Tau, increased by 1.5 times and streets leading to beaches were gridlocked with long lines of vehicles. Other tourist hotspots like Da Lat also reported an increase in visitor numbers. Foreign tourists also arrived by luxury cruise ships. On New Years Day the Silver Spirit from Hong Kong brought 500 American and European tourists to Ha Long Bay. On Thursday the Malta-flagged Mein Schiff 5 cruise vessel docked in Ba Ria-Vung Tau with 2,370 foreign visitors, mainly Germans. Daves family came to Ninh Binh, around 90 kilometers to the south of Hanoi, on Monday, the second day of the Lunar New Year, where they visited tourist attractions like Thung Nham Cave, the UNESCO heritage site Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex and Tam Coc-Bich Dong. Ninh Binh, home to the ancient capital of Hoa Lu during the reign of the Dinh Dynasty (968-980), was overlooked by foreign tourists for years until "Kong: Skull Island" was filmed there in 2016, giving it a global reputation. Enrique A. Franco, 38, of Elko was arrested Jan. 23, 2023, at 5th Gear Powersports for burglary of a motor vehicle, grand larceny of a motor vehicle, destroying or injuring real or personal property, and resisting a public officer. Bail: $66,140 Michael D. Hathaway, 41, of Delta, Utah was arrested Jan. 23, 2023, for fugitive felon from another state. Michael D. Belcher, 30, of Carlin was arrested Jan. 23, 2023, at 3920 E. Idaho St. for violation of probation or condition of suspended sentence. Torrance C. McKnight, 31, of Elko was arrested Jan. 23, 2023, at Idaho Street and Boyd Drive for possessing forged instruments or bills. Bail: $10,000 Rory R. Moe, 26, of Spring Creek was arrested Jan. 23, 2023, at 726 Spring Creek Parkway for two counts of abuse of an old or vulnerable person and two counts of domestic battery. Bail: $10,280 Lee A. Amor, 42, of Grain Valley, Missouri was arrested Jan. 24, 2023, in Jackpot for felony possession of a controlled substance and driving under the influence. Bail: $6,140 Jesse W. Avery, 29, of Elko was arrested Jan. 24, 2023, at 10th and Silver streets for possession of a stolen vehicle. Bail: $20,000 Nichole A. Lane, 35, of Elko was arrested Jan. 24, 2023, at 1309 Idaho St. felony possession of a controlled substance, six counts of drug paraphernalia, and possession of a controlled substance by a prisoner. Bail: $13,840 Jorden R. Rosecrans, 18, of Crescent Valley was arrested Jan. 25, 2023, at Motel 6 in Elko for home invasion with a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting a public officer with a firearm. Bail: $130,000 Frank J. Mercado, 31, of Falls Church, Virginia was arrested Jan. 25, 2023, on Interstate 80 for possession of a controlled substance and selling, transporting or attempting to sell a controlled substance. Bail: $10,000 Christopher N. Ahlin, 37, of Spring Creek was arrested Jan. 26, 2023, at 5762 Apache Ave. for drug paraphernalia, felony driving under the influence, open container of alcohol in vehicle, and parole violation. Albaro A. Gonzalez, 39, of Elko was arrested Jan. 26, 2023, at 12th Street and Opal Drive for destroying the property of another. Bail: $2,500 Sandra K. Smith, 54, of Elko was arrested Jan. 26, 2023, in the Albertsons parking lot for violation of probation or condition of suspended sentence. 125 YEARS AGO January 22, 1898: A new and heavy electric wire is being put up in Elko, and better lights are expected. Ceasar Alexander is experimenting with an incubator, and is going to raise chickens by artificial heat, this spring. While assisting in branding calves at Wm. Hunters ranch last Saturday, Lawrence Horn had his left leg broken below the knee. He was brought to town and taken to the county hospital where Dr. Hood set the broken limb. The Lnyman Brothers are going to commence work on their gold claim at Harrison Pass, as soon as the weather will permit. 100 YEARS AGO UNAVAILBLE 75 YEARS AGO January 25, 1948: Plans are complete for the annual meeting and get-acquainted-with-your neighbor pot-luck supper and party of the South Side Improvement club, to be held January 31 according to Mrs. R.C. Barnes, chairman of the ladies committee. Every resident or owner of property in the Riverside addition, and his or her family, is invited to be present at the K. of P. Hall for the pot-luck supper. The business session will follow immediately after the supper, at which time directors will be elected for the year, and the committee headed by Orr Johns which has been working on the proposition of obtaining a grammar school on the South Side when additional school facilities are needed for Elkos children, will report. January 26, 1948: Announcement of the sale of the Dupont Pharmacy by Dr. R.P. Roantree to John J. Hunter, Jack Hunter and Howard Eppling was made today. The Hunters are widely known because of their business interests here, which include the Hunter and Rainbo theaters, in addition to a number of stores and other properties. Eppling has been with the pharmacy for the past two years. Dr. Roantree purchased the Dupont Pharmacy from W.S. Dupont and has owned the drug store since December 1938. The store was first established by Dupont, who was especially active in city affairs during his life time. During the time that Dr. Roantree owned the store, he modernized it in many ways, until it has become known as one of the outstanding drug stores in this section of the state. It is particularly favorably situated for tourist trade. January 28, 1948: George W. Sinclair, Elko contractor, was the successful bidder for the addition to the Ranchinn, according to an announcement made by Newton Crumley, owner. Actual construction started this morning. Sinclair will rush the work, with the goal being to be completed by the time tourist travel starts in the summer months. Included in the additions will be a restaurant on the first floor and will be known as The Chuck Wagon. The bar and gaming rooms will be enlarged with a small dance floor in connection, to have its present name, The Ranch Room. On the second floor, there will be a private dining room for overflow parties. It will be known as The Corral. There will also be a small wedding chapel on this floor, to be known as The Two Hearts Chapel. 50 YEARS AGO January 24, 1973: Trustees of the Elko County School District last night discussed a proposed budget for the coming year. Trustees will have to adopt a tentative budget at their first meeting in February. The board also authorized Ed Achurra to begin demolition on the burned out auditorium building on the Elko High School campus, as soon as weather permits. In other board action: Rehired Charles Knight, Roy Smith and Don Elser, central office employees, for the coming year. Signed an agreement for the current year with the Elko Development School at the Presbyterian Church. January 26, 1973: Legislation has been reintroduced in the U.S. Senate to authorize $4.2 million in federal money for the Elko railroad Track Relocation Project. The projects are contained in the federal-aid highway bill for 1973, Nevada Sens. Alan Bible and Howard Cannon said today. A similar measure passed the Senate last year but died in the House of Representatives. Under the legislation, Elko would be designated one of two sites in the country for a pilot project to pioneer new methods of relocating railroad tracks which impede community progress. January 27, 1973: Beta Sigma Phi met at the home of Binnie Maher Jan.10. Alice Horton, president, called the meeting to order. The annual Valentine party was discussed, and members decided to have a progressive dinner with husbands as guests. The theme this year, Lead a Queenly Quest, was carried out by Billie Blanchard and Karen Martin of the social committee. The program, by Kerry Lipparelli, was a history with pictures of silent films. 25 YEARS AGO January 23, 1998: Keeping with the 14th annual Cowboy Poetry Gatherings Celtic theme, the Scots will hold their annual Robert Burns Birthday Bash Sunday at Western Folklife Centers Pioneer Pub, located inside the Pioneer Hotel. Each year, Scots around the world celebrate the birthday of Scottish folk poet Robert Burns. He wrote more than 370 poems and songs during his lifetime, including the famous New Years tune, Auld Lang Syne. Ann and Bill Nisbet have been organizing the annual Elko bash for 20 years. It was always held at someones home until last year, when it moved to Elko Convention Center. Since Cowboy Poetry is celebrating the Celtic roots of the Old West, the Nisbets decided to hold the bash in conjunction with the gathering. The traditional Scottish buffet will include roast beef, Haggis (a baked pudding with oatmeal and lamb), tatties and neeps (potatoes and turnips), shortbread and a drunken lairds dessert (a trifle spiked with sherry and Drambuie). No Scottish celebration would be complete without bagpipes, and local piper Ron Dickenson will entertain guests at the Sunday bash. January 24, 1998: The United States Navy League Elko Council elected new officers at its Pearl Harbor Day Dinner last month. New officers are Ted Blohm, president; Leo Morandi, president-elect; Frances Thiercof, secretary; and Jim Polkinghorne, treasurer. New committee chairmen are Jim Meeks and Tom Hood, membership; Nick Halton, sea cadet/youth and recruiting; Dale Porter, public affairs; Howard Hickson, newsletter; Nancy Ernaut, photographer; Lorraine Urriola, social director; Jack Hull, judge advocate; and Bill Nisbet, chaplain. For decades, Argentines have dreamt of having a hydroelectric power plant on the Santa Cruz River, one of the last large free-flowing rivers in the region of Patagonia encompassing the southern end of South America, so that they could be less dependent on energy imports.But the plan to build one was on ice at one point because of the engineering challenges of adverse weather conditions like freezing temperatures and perennial gusts, as well as environmental impacts given the river's proximity to an iconic glacier.Now, thanks to Argentina's determination and Chinese expertise, Argentines are about to witness their dream coming true. BREEZE OF THE BELT AND ROAD On the first day of the Year of the Rabbit, when most of the Chinese people across the world were still enjoying their Spring Festival vacation, Chinese engineer Xiong Yongfeng went to work on the construction site of the Nestor Kirchner-Jorge Cepernic Hydroelectric Power Plant on Santa Cruz. Upon arrival, Xiong took out some construction blueprints, and started a heated discussion with Argentine engineers on site. Surrounding him and his Argentine colleagues were running machines and moving construction vehicles.Xiong was one of the 50 Chinese staff remaining on duty during the festival break. Together with Argentine staff, they ensured that the construction is progressing smoothly, so that ordinary Argentines could be a step closer to their "energy dream."Besides increasing energy sufficiency in Argentina, the project has improved the living conditions of many, generating jobs and building roads for the local communities. Braving numerous challenges, Chinese and Argentine engineers have also guaranteed the environmental sustainability of the project, as the plant has been designed with fish passes and ecological bottom wells.Argentina is not the only Latin American country working with China on infrastructure construction under the framework of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The reconstruction of the Eloy Alfaro International Airport in the Ecuadorian city of Manta, which was hit hard by a powerful earthquake in 2016, has enhanced the country's trade, tourism and business ties with the rest of the world; a UHV power transmission lane stretching from north to south in Brazil, a country abundant in energy but limited by unequal distribution, has brought benefits to 22 million Brazilians, or 10 percent of the country's population.Eduardo Regalado, a researcher at the International Policy Research Center of Cuba, said the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has given a strong boost to the development of relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries.China has played a key role in promoting infrastructure construction in Latin America, while economic and social development in the region has injected new impetus into China-LAC relations, Regalado said.As Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a video address delivered at the seventh Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held Tuesday in Buenos Aires, more and more countries in the region have engaged in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with China, supported and participated in the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative, and are working with China in building a China-LAC community with a shared future. BILATERAL TRADE IN BLOOM Dalian Port in northeast China has opened a direct shipping route to import cherries from Chile.Earlier in the month, the ship GSL Tinos, loaded with 616 twenty-foot equivalent units of Chilean cherries, docked at the container terminal in Dalian after a 22-day trip.Of the total, 592 TEUs of cherries would be delivered directly to the wholesale markets in China. The others would be transferred to the Republic of Korea via Dalian Port. Chilean cherries are increasingly favored by Chinese consumers, and the market demand continues to rise. "China has become our main market and strategic partner," said Victor Maroto, a representative of Chilean shippers. In addition to Chilean cherries, blueberries from Peru and beef from Uruguay are also among the best-selling products in China, especially during the Spring Festival. In Guangzhou in southern China, Ecuadorian roses and Colombian hydrangeas have become good choices for local people to decorate their houses. During the fifth China International Import Expo held in November 2022 in Shanghai, Latin American companies showcased such quality products as Argentine wine and Colombian chocolate, hoping to take a bigger share in the Chinese market. Meanwhile, Latin American countries have become important markets for Chinese companies. In Ecuador, Chinese vehicles lead the automobile market as consumers are increasingly drawn to their design, sticker price and innovative features. Automobiles, vans, SUVs and trucks of more than 40 Chinese brands are estimated to be sold in Ecuador. Even during the pandemic, bilateral trade has showed strong vitality. Data from China's General Administration of Customs showed that in 2022, the total trade value between China and Latin America and the Caribbean exceeded 450 billion U.S. dollars for the second consecutive year. TOGETHER TOWARD A BETTER FUTURE In Mexico, the "home of corn," China's technical cooperation with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is making steady progress. Bram Govaerts, director general of CIMMYT, said the collaboration with China can be regarded as one of the mutually beneficial examples of working together to safeguard the world's food security. "CIMMYT and China together can be partners," said Govaerts. "CIMMYT can work with China for new wheat varieties that can fight climate change, for new maize varieties that can sustain new diseases." China and Latin America have set a good example of South-South cooperation, and they are expected to carry out more exchanges and cooperation through such multilateral platforms as the China-CELAC Forum in the future, so as to jointly benefit the world, Argentine sociologist Marcelo Rodriguez said. In Tuesday's video address, Xi said: "We highly value our relations with CELAC, and take CELAC as our key partner in enhancing solidarity among developing countries and furthering South-South cooperation. That is why China has been working with LAC countries to steadily strengthen the China-CELAC Forum and take the China-LAC relationship into a new era characterized by equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and benefits for the people." In fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine cooperation between China and multiple Latin American countries has helped protect people's lives and health. China-LAC cooperation in science and technology innovation has also yielded fruitful results, including China-Brazil Earth resources satellite cooperation and an astronomy research center jointly launched by China and Chile. As Xi said in the video address, China is ready to join forces with LAC countries to promote world peace and development, build a community with a shared future for mankind, and open up an even brighter future for the world. Israeli researchers found that Chinese acupuncture treatment reduces pain and anxiety during gynecological oncological surgeries, Israel's largest healthcare organization Clalit said on Wednesday. In a new study published in the U.S.-based interdisciplinary journal Cancer, Clalit researchers found that intraoperatively administered acupuncture reduces pain and anxiety in patients suffering from cancer of gynecological origin, including ovarian and uterine cancer. The study, which included 99 patients, examined the effect of a unique therapeutic approach that combines acupressure, touch and relaxation techniques before surgery, and acupuncture treatment during surgery. The results indicated a significant reduction in anxiety among patients who were treated before surgery, while the addition of acupuncture during surgery helped to reduce the pain after it. "The study expresses an innovative treatment concept of integrative oncology, which combines practitioners in Chinese and integrative medicine and a surgical, anesthesiologist, and nursing team, considering the best of both worlds," said Eran Ben Arye, one of the researchers. After a journey of more than ten days, hundreds of tonnes of hybrid rice seeds from east China's Anhui Province arrived in Pakistan in January. These seeds will take root in the land there in May. "We exported nearly 5,000 tonnes of hybrid rice seeds to Pakistan every year, and the yield of some varieties reached 800 kg per mu (0.067 hectares), about 30 percent higher than local varieties," said Jiang Sanqiao, vice general manager of Win-all Hi-tech Seed Co., Ltd., the producer of these seeds. Besides Pakistan, the company also exported hybrid rice seeds to several other countries, including Bangladesh and Angola, Jiang added. As the largest food producer and the third largest food exporter in the world, China has dedicated itself to promoting Chinese rice seeds and planting techniques to more countries and contributing its share to the safeguarding of global food security. In 1979, hybrid rice began to be introduced to the world, benefiting nearly 70 countries across five continents. This has been a remarkable contribution to their grain output increase and agricultural development and offered a Chinese solution to food shortages in developing countries. "Chinese hybrid rice seeds are high-yield and are more drought resistant. I can earn 100,000 Pakistani rupees (about 426 U.S. dollars) from planting one season of hybrid rice," said Zizam Jagsi, a Pakistani farmer who buys over 800 kg of Chinese hybrid rice seeds each year. While promoting high-yield rice varieties, China is also sharing agricultural techniques and strengthening scientific cooperation with other countries, to help cultivate rice varieties that are more suited to the local conditions. After years of research and testing, Botswana launched a ceremony to celebrate the harvest of Chinese water-saving and drought-resistant rice in the southern African country last year. This rice variety is also more adaptable and environmentally friendly. Now, this variety has been introduced to 11 African countries, bringing higher yields and income to local farmers. "We have been developing rice varieties based on the local climate and hope the Chinese rice varieties can help African countries achieve food self-sufficiency as soon as possible," said Liu Zaochang, a researcher with the Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center, who is also one of the members of the development team of the water-saving and drought-resistant rice. To promote hybrid rice planting techniques, China has sent a large number of agricultural experts to dozens of countries and regions. In 2015, Win-all Hi-tech Seed Co., Ltd. established a branch in Bangladesh to cultivate new rice varieties and launch scientific cooperation with local people. Lian Chengye, general manager of the branch company, said that they launched a new project in 2022, which includes establishing scientific laboratories, a storage house for seeds, and a seeds processing workshop, aiming to promote advanced agricultural technologies in Bangladesh. The Steering Committee of the Donor Coordination Platform for Ukraine, the first meeting of which was held on Thursday, was co-chaired by Finance Minister of Ukraine Serhiy Marchenko, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Mike Pyle, and European Commission Director General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Gert Jan Koopman, the Ministry of Finance said. According to IMF Alternate Executive Director Vladyslav Rashkovan, Marchenko will work in a group with Deputy Prime Minister Minister for Communities and Territories Development and Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov, and First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economy Yulia Svyrydenko responsible for the development of the private sector during and after the war. The Coordination Platform will have its own Secretariat, which will have two offices in Brussels and Kyiv, Rashkovan added. "Representatives from G7 countries, the government of Ukraine, and the international financial institutions discussed how to better coordinate economic support for Ukraines immediate financing needs and future economic recovery and reconstruction efforts. They committed to work closely with Ukrainian authorities to define, prioritize, and sequence strategic economic needs, to further Ukraines reform ambitions, and to deliver economic assistance to stabilize Ukraines economy and underpin a sustainable and inclusive recovery," according to a report on the website of the White House. It notes that this fulfills the commitment made by the leaders of the G7 in December last year. According to Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal, who opened the meeting, the main tasks of the platform are to provide predictable, rhythmic budget support in 2023, planning and ensuring the beginning of Ukraine's recovery, restoration of damaged housing, critical and social infrastructure, as well as coordination of financial instruments to support the economy and the private sector (war risk insurance for potential investors, public-private partnership, assistance in financing projects to support small businesses that provide a large number of jobs). EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited and opened a new rescEU energy hub in Poland, which will act as a logistics center for delivering emergency energy assistance to Ukraine, the press service of the European External Action Service reports. "By opening the new rescEU energy hub for other donors, we can help boost energy donations for Ukraine in its darkest hour. I want to thank Poland for stepping up and taking the lead. Since day one of the war, we have worked hand in hand with the Polish authorities to ensure rapid and organized delivery of life-saving aid from across Europe to Ukraine," Lenarcic said. "The hub is used to deliver power generators to Ukraine, helping the country sustain electricity supply in the midst of Russia's deliberate attacks on its energy infrastructure. The EU hub will allow international partners and the private sector to help channel their donations. The EU will fully finance the transport of supplies from the hub to Ukraine," the report says. "The EU has awarded EUR114 million to Poland for purchasing generators to be part of this rescEU energy reserve. As a first step, 1,000 new generators from the rescEU reserve in Poland will be delivered to Ukraine, which comes on top of the 1,400 generators and millions of energy items already offered via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism," the report says. The response to Russian terror may be a new advance of the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the front and the defeat of ground-based terrorists forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message on Thursday. This Russian terror requires asymmetrical responses. We need a new movement of our forces at the front. We need to ensure the defeat of the terrorists' ground forces. Whatever the Russian occupiers are planning, our preparation must be stronger, he said. According to him, this was discussed yesterday at a meeting of the commander-in-chiefs headquarters meeting. Details about the situation in the Donetsk region. Bakhmut, Vuhledar and the battle for Donbas in general. I am grateful to all our units who demonstrate the resilience Ukraine needs, exhausting the occupier and destroying it. The more Russia loses in this battle for Donbas, the less its overall potential will be, Zelensky noted. At the meeting of the Staff we also discussed in detail what we should prepare for in the coming months. We know what the occupiers are planning. We are countering it. This applies both to the supply of weapons and ammunition and to the overall strengthening of our defense forces, he also said. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky again stated that any departure abroad of state officials and deputies must comply with the decision of the NSDC. Any trip abroad by government officials, MPs, representatives of local authorities and other persons authorized to perform the functions of the state or local self-government, any of their trips abroad must comply with the relevant decision of the National Security and Defense Council, which you have all seen, he said in a video message on Thursday, adding: There will be no other trips abroad by officials or MPs in wartime. I think this is fair. On Thursday evening, head of the Servant of the People party Olena Shuliak announced the exclusion of MP Mykola Tyschenko from the political force. His expulsion followed information published in the media that on January 27, Tyschenko planned to hold a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community in Bangkok at the Novotel hotel to "discuss issues of improving cooperation." This information was confirmed by the press service of the Embassy of Ukraine in Thailand. At the same time, according to the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, deputies and civil servants during martial law can travel outside the country exclusively on official business trips. Later, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk said that he had not signed an order on Tyschenko's business trip to Thailand. Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak has discussed with the ambassadors of the G7 countries and head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas their support for the Peace Formula proposed by Ukraine, the press service of the head of state reports. "It is important for this document to be adopted by the maximum possible number of votes. Therefore, Ukraine counts on the support of the G7 countries in its adoption and assistance in mobilizing support from other countries," Yermak emphasized. In particular, according to the Head of the President's Office, a special session of the UN General Assembly may be held by that date to consider a resolution in support of the Peace Formula proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky during his speech at the recent G19 Summit in Indonesia. The parties also discussed preparations for the summit of the G7 and Ukraine. In addition, the interlocutors paid attention to analyzing the effectiveness of compliance with the sanctions restrictions imposed on the aggressor state and agreeing on further joint actions in this area. The participants of the meeting discussed possible new formats for informing the international community, including ambassadors and representatives of partner countries, about the latest developments of the Yermak-McFaul expert group on sanctions against Russia. Ukrainian forces have resumed counter-offensive operations in the area of Kreminna, Luhansk region, according to a report of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) for January 26, citing Russian sources. It is also reported that Russian forces continued ground attacks in the area of Bakhmut, on the western outskirts of Donetsk and in the area of Vuhledar, Donetsk region. At the same time, analysts note that the private military company Wagner probably suffered significant losses in offensive attrition operations in eastern Ukraine over the past few months. Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces in Zaporizhia region are not conducting offensive operations at the size or scale necessary for a full-scale offensive. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces continued to conduct limited and localized ground attacks in Zaporizhia region, the report says. According to ISW, the Russian occupation administration continues to seize property and close churches of Ukrainian evangelical Baptist Christian communities in the occupied areas of Zaporizhia region in an attempt to make the Kremlin-affiliated Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate the dominant denomination in the region. The Canadian Red Cross will additionally send $25 million in support of the government's Prykhystok program, Ukrainian Ambassador to Canada Yulia Kovaliv has said. "The Canadian Red Cross will additionally send $25 million in support of the government's Prykhystok program, thanks to which thousands of Ukrainians who sheltered internally displaced persons in their homes could receive financial assistance," she wrote on Facebook. Kovaliv noted that since the beginning of the implementation of the Prykhystok program in July 2022, the Canadian Red Cross has provided $10 million in assistance to support the project and is now significantly increasing the amount of assistance. "We are grateful to Canadians and Canadian businesses who have joined the charity, as well as to the large team of the Canadian Red Cross and its head Conrad Sauve for fruitful cooperation on many projects," the Ambassador stressed. Poland will provide Ukraine with 60 tanks, including the PT-91 Twardy, in addition to the announced delivery of 14 Leopard 2 tanks, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in an interview with the Canadian channel CTV News. Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession, Morawiecki said. He recalled that earlier Poland became the first country to supply tanks to Ukraine, and handed over 250 units. And we have said to our partners in Western Europe how many tanks we've already delivered, and I have quoted President Zelensky (to explain) how important it is in this kind of war to have modern tanks. Russians have several thousands, or some say even more than 15,000, of the tanks in their stores, the prime minister stressed. The Russian occupiers are unlikely to have achieved significant success in military operations near Orikhiv, Zaporizhia region and Vuhledar, Donetsk region, and the relevant messages may be targeted misinformation, according to a defense intelligence report published on Twitter by the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on Friday morning. Over the last six days, Russian online commentators have claimed Russian forces have made significant advances, breaking through Ukrainian defences in two areas: in Zaporizhia region near Orikhiv, and 100km to the east, in Donetsk region, near Vuhledar. Russian units have probably conducted local, probing attacks near Orikhiv and Vuhledar, but it is highly unlikely that Russia has actually achieved any substantive advances, the message reads. According to British intelligence, there is a real possibility that Russian military sources are deliberately spreading disinformation, trying to create the impression that the Russian operation is ongoing. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna assured her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba of unwavering support, and said that with her fourth visit to Ukraine she wanted to convey this message personally from the President of France and the French people. My visit shows that France is close and supports Ukraine. Supports the territorial sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine. This is the message I brought here today. This is my fourth visit to Ukraine since last May. I wanted to convey this message personally from the President of France, and this the message from the French people to the people of Ukraine, she said at a joint press conference with Kuleba in Odesa on Thursday. Colonna stressed that for almost a year the Russian Federation has been conducting military aggression against Ukraine, violating all the basic principles of international law, committing atrocities and war crimes. According to her, in order to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people, the Russian Federation is hitting civilian objects and critical infrastructure. Today we visited the substation, which had more than one arrival. And this morning once again. This is a sad illustration of the crimes of the Russian Federation, which it commits every day. Hitting infrastructure facilities is not to wage war, but to commit war crimes, she said. She also said that the military aggression of the Russian Federation threatens the security of the entire European continent. The French minister assured that France, together with European and other partners will support Ukraine so that it can restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We provide Ukraine with everything necessary in the matter of military support, and for this we are in constant contact with the Ukrainian government. This applies to equipment, training, and full support, the minister stressed. She added that there is reason to believe that it was France's decision to transfer AMX-10 RC wheeled tanks to Ukraine that prompted other countries to provide tanks. Ukraine strongly condemns the attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran on January 27, as a result of which one person was killed and several others were injured, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleh Nikolenko said. Ukraine strongly condemns todays attack on the embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran, which resulted in one death and left several security personnel injured. We offer our sincere condolences to the loved ones of the victim, and wish a speedy recovery to the wounded, Nikolenko said on Twitter. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry earlier reported that an armed attack was carried out on the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran at around 08:30 (Baku time) on January 27. Armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, he killed the head of the diplomatic mission's security service. When repelling an armed attack, two more embassy security officers were injured, their condition is satisfactory. According to Iranian media, the criminal was a man in his 50s. According to preliminary data, he drove up to the administrative building of the embassy in a car with two minor children: a 14-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. He entered the embassy building and opened fire right at the entrance to the building. The head of the Tehran police announced the arrest of the perpetrator of an armed attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran. More than 14,000 Ukrainian children verified in Russias territory, but there may be more than 150,000 of them there Ombudsman The Office of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights verified the presence of more than 14,000 Ukrainian children on the territory of the Russian Federation, but their total number may be much more, said Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets. "We have data that there are more than 14,000 Ukrainian children in Russia. These are the ones that have been verified. In fact, I assume there may be more than 150,000 such children," Lubinets said in an interview with Suspilne. According to him, the Russian side does not provide information about the deported Ukrainian children and does not allow the Ukrainian side to return them. Also, according to the Lubinets, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation Tatiana Moskalkova informed him that she had a list of Ukrainian children who want to return to Ukraine, but refused to provide specific information. When asked how many civilians there are currently on the territory of the Russian Federation, he noted that he could not give an exact figure. "But the number of appeals received by the Ombudsman's Office over the past six months, specifically concerning the maintenance of civilians, is more than 20,000. That is, we can state that at least 20,000 adult citizens are in Russia," Lubinets said. As reported, in mid-December 2022, Lubinets reported that the Ombudsman's Office verified the stay of 12,000 Ukrainian children in the territory of the Russian Federation, 8,600 thousand of whom were forcibly removed from Ukraine. Ukrainian MFA: Holocaust has become a wound in our national memory as Ukrainians and Jews lived together in Ukraine for centuries On the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned crimes against humanity and attempts to justify or deny the Holocaust. The catastrophe of the Jewish people, the Holocaust, is a tragic page of the worlds history, and of the history of Ukraine. At least 1.5 million people became the victims of the Nazi extermination of Jews in Ukraine - a fourth part of the Jews of Europe killed during the Shoah. For Ukraine, the Holocaust became a wound in the national memory as Ukrainians and Jews lived together in Ukraine for centuries. One of the symbols of this tragedy, the place of mass execution of Jews in Europe, was Babyn Yar in Kyiv, where over 100,000 people Jews, Roma, Ukrainian national elite, and prisoners of the Syrets concentration camp were killed in 1941-1943, a comment posted on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the occasion of Memorial Day reads. The Ministry condemned all forms of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, manifestations of intolerance. We also strongly condemn the shameful actions of representatives of the Russian regime, which defame the memory of millions of victims of the Holocaust. Russia fosters state-sponsored anti-Semitism, promoting hatred towards other peoples, the comment says. On the Holocaust Memorial Day, the Foreign Ministry recalled that a bloody repetition of the most terrible crimes in the history of mankind has been taking place in the center of Europe for almost a year - an attempt to destroy an entire nation. Ukrainians who survived the tragedy of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932-1933, and now find themselves under the unprovoked armed aggression of Russia, feel the pain of the Jewish people and the depth of the Holocaust's wounds especially keenly. The calamity of Russia's war against Ukraine also affected the places of common sorrow of the Ukrainian and Jewish peoples. On March 1, 2022, Babyn Yar was hit by one of the rockets of the Russian invaders. As a result of the invasion of the Russian Federation, other memorials to the Jewish people, as well as Jewish cemeteries throughout Ukraine, were destroyed. Victims of the Russian Federations war were also Ukrainians who survived the Holocaust and Nazi occupation, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called on the international community to take all possible measures to curb the ongoing crime of aggression committed by Russia on Ukrainian territories. Council of European Union extends sanctions against Russia over Ukraine events for another six months The Council of the European Union extended the sanctions against Russia over the events in Ukraine for another six months on Friday, the Council said in a press release. "The council today decided to prolong by six months, until July 31, 2023, the restrictive measures targeting specific sectors of the economy of the Russian Federation," the press release said. According to the document, the sanctions imposed for the first time on July 31, 2014, for one year responded to "Russia's actions destabilizing the situation in Ukraine." They were substantially broadened in February 2022 following the start of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine. "They currently consist of a broad spectrum of sectoral measures, including restrictions on finance, energy, technology and dual-use goods, industry, transport and luxury goods," the press release said. Besides economic sanctions, the EU "has in place different types of measures in response to Russia's destabilizing actions against Ukraine," it said. These include restrictions on economic relations with the illegally occupied Crimea, Sevastopol and the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics, personal restrictions on individuals and legal entities, such as a freeze of assets and a ban on trips to the European Union, and diplomatic measures. Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Belgium Alexander De Croo, announced the strengthening of military support for Ukraine and the provision of the largest aid package to date. "Ukraine must be able to defend itself against the brutal Russian aggression. That is why Belgium is strengthening its military support to Ukraine, with the largest aid package to date. Ukraine will win this war. Our security and our values are also at stake," he said on Twitter. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, along with representatives of the diplomatic corps, took part in the commemoration of millions of victims of the Holocaust in Kyiv, the head of Ukrainian state's press service said. The president set up a lamp near Menorah memorial sign on the territory of Babyn Yar National Historical and Memorial Reserve. He said everyone who values life must be decisive when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy. "Today we repeat even more weightily than before: never again hatred; never again indifference. The more peoples of the world overcome indifference, the less space in the world will remain for hatred," Zelensky said. The ceremony was also attended by Head of the Office of the Head of State Andriy Yermak, representatives of the diplomatic corps of European countries, the United States and Canada. The president thanked the diplomats for their participation in honoring the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Ukraine is interested in Japan's participation in the post-war reconstruction of the country, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk has said. "It would be valuable for us if Japan, known throughout the world for its technologies and investment projects, came to Ukraine with its support, so that together we could demonstrate that the restoration of Ukraine is a success story for the whole world," Stefanchuk said at a meeting with the Japanese Ambassador in Ukraine Kuninori Matsuda. According to the Verkhovna Rada press service, in turn, Matsuda said Japan is ready to actively participate in the economic recovery of Ukraine. He said with the aim of his country's participation in new projects, a professional agency is already starting to work at the Japanese Embassy in Ukraine, which will help in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine. Stefanchuk congratulated Matsuda on the beginning of Japan's G7 presidency and expressed hope that Ukraine would be able to join the work of the association in all possible formats, including the parliamentary one. According to him, Ukraine counts on the support of Japan as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2023-2024 in the organization's agenda relating to Ukraine and its fight against the Russian aggressor. The meeting participants also discussed issues of further cooperation between the two countries. Stefanchuk called on his Japanese colleagues to join the support of President Volodymyr Zelensky's peace formula and take patronage over one or more of its settlements. Issues of military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine were also raised at the meeting. The parliament's chairman expressed hope that Japan will strengthen sanctions against Russia in order to limit the aggressor's ability to wage war. Matsuda assured his Ukrainian colleagues that Japan is ready to use all international platforms, in particular the UN and the UN Security Council, so that Ukrainian issues, including reparations, as well as Russia's responsibility for crimes against Ukraine, are on the world agenda. Matsuda also said the Japanese government is currently working on a new package of assistance to Ukraine, both humanitarian and financial, as well as defense, and recalled the announcement of the next round of sanctions against Russia. The F-16 fighter could be the best candidate for the Ukrainian Air Force to become a single type of multi-purpose aircraft, however, we can only speak about the timing of pilot training, Spokesman for the command of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Ihnat said. "How much time [it takes to train pilots] this question is of great interest to everyone, here everything can be said conditionally, because it is impossible to know such terms. The terms are extremely long, such terms for training both pilots and aviation engineers are not suitable for us in war conditions, we must do everything many times faster," Ihnat said at a briefing at Ukraine Media Center in Kyiv. The spokesman said that according to the pilots, flying is not a problem for them, they can master the planes in a few weeks, but fighting in fighters, using all types of weapons is completely different. "The F-16 can carry out strikes against ground targets with various types of weapons (cruise missiles, bombs, etc.), as well as become part of the air defense," he said. According to Ihnat, the F-16 could be the best candidate for the Ukrainian Air Force to become a single type of multi-purpose aircraft. Today, there are four of them: two types of Su-27 fighters, Su-29, Su-25 attack aircraft and Su-24 bomber. In turn, the F-16, according to the Air Force, could combine all these functions. He said Ukrainian military pilots had already been to the United States and communicated with congressmen and senators about the needs for aircraft. "This would greatly help Ukraine on the way to our victory and the de-occupation of our lands," he said. Ihnat also said the list of pilots who can be trained on aircraft has long been ready, that is, the pilots are ready. "However, I emphasize that not only pilots. Aviation engineers need to be trained. The sky does not forgive mistakes, so these people need to be trained no less carefully than pilots... In order for the plane to take off, and most importantly, to complete the task, a hundred people work," he said. In addition, the spokesman of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted the importance of preparing the airfield infrastructure. According to him, work is already underway on this issue in different regions of the country in coordination with relevant departments in order to create an airfield network in war conditions. In the future, military airfields may become joint airfields, as is customary in world practice. Among the 55 missiles in the missile attack launched by the Russian army on January 26, there were two Kinzhal missiles, which are virtually impossible to shoot down with the air defense systems currently available to Ukraine, Yuriy Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has said. "There are few of them (Kinzhal missiles), so the Russians cherish them to hit the most important targets for them. And this time, unfortunately, the most important strategic targets for them were one of the objects in Zaporizhia and one of the objects of the energy infrastructure of Kyiv," he said during the national telethon. Ihnat explained that this missile is launched by a MiG-31 fighter from the upper atmosphere, and it flies along a ballistic trajectory at a speed of roughly 5,000 km/h. According to him, the Kh-22 missiles, which are launched from the Tu-22-M3, pose a similar problem for the Ukrainian air defense forces. The spokesman of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that Ukraine will have the ability to hit such air targets at a distance of up to 40 km (and cruise missiles, aircraft and helicopters up to 160 km) after the delivery of Patriot and SAMP-T systems. Ihnat said that the NASAMS and IRIS-T systems already in service can effectively destroy cruise missiles in automatic mode, but they are not designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. As reported with reference to the prosecutor's office, on January 26 at 3:40 am, the Russian military using the S-300 air defense system launched missile attacks on a critical infrastructure facility in Zaporizhia region. Three people were killed, seven more were injured. Technical equipment and structures were destroyed. The explosion caused a fire on the territory of the enterprise, which was extinguished. However, at about 10:00, during the investigation, search and rescue operation, this infrastructure facility was shelled again. Ukraine's MFA in response to Palestinian-Israeli conflict aggravation: We call on parties to exercise restraint, immediate stop rocket attacks The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which escalated the day before, to restraint and an immediate cessation of missile attacks in order to prevent human casualties and destruction. "Ukraine observes with concern the aggravation of the security situation on the territory of Israel and Palestine, caused by mutual missile attacks," the agency said in a comment published on the Foreign Ministry website on Friday. It notes that Ukraine, who is suffering from the defiant armed aggression of the Russian Federation, understands the need for peace like no one else. "Condemning manifestations of terrorism in any form, Ukraine advocates the need for peaceful coexistence of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and calls on the parties to exercise restraint and immediately stop rocket attacks to prevent further human casualties and destruction," the Foreign Ministry said. They said Ukraine also welcomes the mediation efforts of the international community aimed at de-escalating the situation and finding ways to resolve the conflict, including its final settlement based on the principle of two states that will coexist in peace and security. Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal says as a result of a Russian missile attack on January 26, five high-voltage substations in the central, southern and southwestern regions were hit. "Yesterday, Ukraine survived the 13th major air attack against our energy system. Russian terrorists do not stop trying to destroy our energy system, deprive us of heat and light. This time, the main target of the enemy was the high-voltage infrastructure. The air defense forces shot down most of the missiles. However, there is a hit into five high-voltage substations in the central, southern and southwestern regions," Shmyhal said at a government meeting on Friday. The prime minister stated the importance of agreeing this week during a meeting of the "energy Ramstein" on increasing assistance to the energy system of Ukraine. "We understand how to survive this winter, but we are already preparing a plan for how to restore our energy system in spring and summer. We are not talking about temporary solutions, but about changing approaches, building and developing decentralized generation, high-quality restoration and protection of distribution networks," he said. There are 800 severely wounded Ukrainian servicemen on Russia's territory, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said. "According to our data, there are 800 severely wounded servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the territory of Russia. According to the Russian side, there are 200 severely wounded prisoners of war of the Russian army on the territory of Ukraine. Therefore, these figures were heard (at a meeting with Russian Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova)," the ombudsman said in an interview with Radio Liberty. He said such data were announced during his meeting with Moskalkova. At the same time, Lubinets said the talks discussed the return of seriously wounded Ukrainian defenders under the repatriation procedure, and not exchange. "In fact, based on the results of our meeting, information was not made public that a large exchange was being prepared. The only aspect that we discussed with her in the context of prisoners of war was the issue of the possible return of seriously wounded servicemen, prisoners of war from both sides. This procedure is called repatriation. It is clearly spelled out in the Geneva Convention (Article 110). What is it about? Repatriation is not an exchange. It is the return of wounded, severely wounded prisoners of war without any conditions, without reference to quantity," the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights said. The UK is ready to actively work to find ways to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of the sanctions policy against the Russian Federation, Director General for Economics, Science and Technology of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of the United Kingdom Kumar Iyer has said in a telephone conversation with Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak. As reported on the website of the Office of the President, in a conversation, Yermak said that one of the important areas today is the application of restrictive measures against Russian propagandists and well-known public figures who justify the Russian war against Ukraine, while having assets and real estate in Western countries, organizing various events in these countries and participating in them. He also announced the need to introduce visa restrictions for the Russian military who participated in the war against Ukraine, and their families. For his part, Iyer said that the UK is ready to actively work in this direction and expressed readiness to see all relevant proposals from the Office of the President. The interlocutors discussed holding a sanctions summit in Ukraine soon with the participation of representatives of the partner countries to analyze what has already been done and discuss the next steps. At the same time, Yermak said that the Yermak-McFaul International Working Group continues to work on recommendations for new sanctions against Russia. The head of the President's Office also briefed Iyer on the situation at the front, in particular in the east, where heavy fighting does not stop, and about another missile attack launched by the Russian Federation. In this regard, Yermak stressed the need to increase sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation. Invaders shell residential areas of Kherson, its region, there are casualties local authorities On Friday, Russian occupiers shelled residential areas of Kherson and Kherson region, as a result of which there are killed and wounded, the press service of Kherson Regional Military Administration said. "The Russian army once again shelled residential areas of Kherson and Kherson region. Debris from a Russian shell in Suvorov region mutilated a car with a man and a woman inside. The ambulance brigade took the man, and the woman died on the spot," the administration said. It notes that Komyshany also came under fire, where three people were wounded. "A 25-year-old girl died from her wounds," the administration said. They said that at the moment the doctors are fighting for the lives of the wounded. The first in the world unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) crack companies are being formed of the most professional servicemen who will head them, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has said. "During a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, General Valeriy Zaluzhny voiced a decision to form the crack companies. Jointly with the Defense Ministry of Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, within the framework of the Army of Drones project, the Digital Transformation Ministry created a headquarters with the key ministries and services for full implementation of the project," the General Staff said on Facebook on Friday. It is necessary to implement a range of key reforms and scale production of UAVs in order to provide the defense forces of Ukraine with them. "The most professional servicemen have been selected to head the crack companies. Each of them will be supplied with drones and ammunition, access to the Starlink system, and other equipment necessary to defeat the enemy," the General Staff said. The main partner of training the crack companies if the Boryviter military school. On Friday, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal discussed the issue of strengthening support for Ukraine with German Ambassador Anka Feldhusen. "The strengthening of support for Ukraine was discussed with Mrs. Ambassador of Germany to Ukraine Anka Feldhusen," Shmyhal said in Telegram. He said the day before, the first meeting of the "financial Ramstein" was held, a multi-donor coordination platform, the concept of which was outlined at the recovery conference in Berlin. "We expect that the work of the platform will provide rhythmic financial support to Ukraine this year," Shmyhal said. The prime minister said that during the meeting with the ambassador, he conveyed gratitude to the German leadership for making important decisions for Ukraine: the supply of an additional battery of Patriot air defense systems and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, as well as Leopard-2 battle tanks. Hungarian ambassador to be summoned to Ukrainian MFA over Orban's statement that Ukraine, like Afghanistan, is 'land of nobody' Nikolenko The Hungarian Ambassador will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for a frank conversation in connection with Prime Minister Viktor Orban's disparaging remarks about Ukraine, Spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleh Nikolenko has said. Earlier, the media said that during a conversation with journalists, the Hungarian Prime Minister compared Ukraine with Afghanistan and called it "the land of nobody." "Another dismissive statement by Viktor Orban against Ukraine. Such statements are categorically unacceptable. Budapest continues its course of deliberately destroying Hungarian-Ukrainian relations, significantly hindering the possibility of further dialogue between the two neighboring countries. The Hungarian ambassador will be summoned to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for a frank conversation," Nikolenko said on Facebook. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry saud they reserve the right to take other response measures. Earlier, Orban, at a meeting with journalists in Budapest, said he did not believe in Ukraine's victory and believed that the country "is gradually turning into an uncontrollable ruin." According to Orban, "Russia's goal is to turn Ukraine into an unruly ruin so that the West cannot claim it 'as a prize.'" Brazil not to supply ammunition for German tanks that Berlin intends to transfer to Ukraine media Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday refused to supply ammunition for German tanks that could end up in Ukraine, the Brazilian edition Folha de Sao Paulo said. As part of maintaining the neutrality of the country, the president refused to fulfil the request of the German government. It turned to Brazil with an appeal to supply ammunition for tanks that Berlin will transfer to Ukraine, according to the newspaper. The publication said the decision was made on January 20 on the eve of the resignation of the commander-in-chief of the ground forces, Julio Cesar de Arruda said. According to the newspaper, it was General Arruda who came up with the proposal to bring this issue up for discussion. As result of shelling from MLRS in Chasiv Yar, school is on fire, houses damaged Donetsk administration Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region came under fire from a MLRS a strike was made on a residential area, a school, apartment buildings and private houses are on fire, Head of Donetsk Regional Military Administration Pavlo Kyrylenko said. "Chasiv Yar is again under fire from Russian multiple launch rocket systems. The Russians have attacked a residential area. A school, apartment buildings and private houses are on fire. There is currently no information about the victims," he said on the Telegram channel on Friday evening. On Monday, January 30, at 12.00, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a discussion entitled "Are there any signs of a sharp change in the internal political situation in Ukraine?" Participants include political scientist, political expert Kostiantyn Matviyenko; political expert Oleksandr Kochetkov; political scientist, co-founder of the "National Platform for Sustainability and Cohesion" Oleh Sahakyan (8/5a Reitarska Street). The event will be streamed on the YouTube channel of Interfax-Ukraine. Admission of journalists requires registration on the spot. Egypt and Turkey have agreed on a timeframe for upgrading diplomatic relations, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Thursday during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara. Representatives from nine Arab countries will meet in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Friday to discuss their stance and moves to end the decade-long isolation of President Bashar Al-Assad, Arab diplomats said Tuesday. The suspect was relatively easy to find. Leading Indian companies, including ReNew Power and the Adani Group, have expressed to President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi "huge interest" in investing in Egypts renewable energy sector, the production of green hydrogen and infrastructure development. According to a statement by the Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady, Sumant Sinha, the founder, chairman and CEO of ReNew Power, Indias leading renewable energy company, voiced in a meeting with President El-Sisi during his three-day visit to New Delhi his companys "huge interest" to cooperate with Egypt in the area of clean energy and the production of green hydrogen. Sinha also praised the leading Egyptian role in international climate action as demonstrated in the hosting of the 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) in the Red Sea city of Sharm El-Sheikh in November. El-Sisi confirmed to Stinha Egypts interest in collaborating with the Indian side, given its broad expertise in the field of new and renewable energy, The Egyptian government is providing unprecedented support to the green energy sector as a top priority, said the president, in order to capitalise on the countrys renewable energy resources including wind and sun. The ReNew Power chairman said "Egypts richness in renewable sources of energy of wind and sun qualifies it to become one of the worlds largest producers of renewable energy, boosting promising investment opportunities in this field." Egypt launched its national strategy for green hydrogen production during COP27 with a vision to produce green hydrogen at the cheapest price worldwide. The country has signed numerous memoranda of understanding on hydrogen and green ammonia production with international partners over the past year as part of its efforts to attract foreign investments into the sector in order to become a transit route for clean energy to Europe. The meeting also focused on cooperation with the Indian global energy company in additional projects in Egypt for the production of electricity from new and renewable sources of energy, as part of the national strategy for the generation of clean energy. President El-Sisi also met with Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani Group of India, a leading integrated business conglomerate, which owns a network of companies operating in various sectors, particularly infrastructure. Adani expressed his interest in stepping up investment in and cooperation with Egypt, expressing his interest in forging partnerships between his group and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, the country's investment arm, given the fund's diverse activities and resilience. El-Sisi welcomed the Adani Group's interest in investing in Egypt, Rady pointed out. El-Sisi also stressed his readiness to provide all necessary support for the group's future projects in Egypt, in particular in cooperation with the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, in the field of ports development on the coasts of the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez. The meeting discussed investment prospects for the Adani Group in other aspects of Egypts infrastructure, including airports, the new and renewable energy complexes and their transmission and distribution networks. It also covered other areas like the data centres and their marine and ground cable networks, as well as industrial zones for the production of green hydrogen and its derivatives added the statement. Both meetings were attended by Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy Mohamed Shaker and Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said. Shortly after meeting President El-Sisi, the Adani group chairman tweeted that he is looking forward to engage with Egypt in its ambitious development plans: An honour to have met HE President Sisi and his ministers on his visit to India and hear from him about his ambitious development plans for Egypt. Great possibilities in the Ports and Logistics, Energy and Digital sectors. We look forward to engaging. @AlsisiOfficial @MfaEgypt pic.twitter.com/jKAxm1HWyH Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) January 26, 2023 Around 50 Indian companies are operating in Egypt currently, providing direct employment to approximately 38,000 Egyptians. Indian companies invest over $3.2 billion across the chemical, energy, automobile, retail, apparel and agriculture sectors, among others. Egypt has promised to offer incentives and facilities for Indian investment, as per a joint statement released on Thursday, where both countries agreed to elevate their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership on all levels. This includes a possible allocation of a special area of land for Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCEZ), the statement added. India, for its part, said it would encourage Indian companies to make use of the available investment opportunities in Egypt. Earlier on Thursday, the Egyptian president attended the public celebrations of India's 74th Republic Day as chief guest of honour. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi described El-Sisi's visit as "historic" and a "matter of immense happiness" to the Indian people. Search Keywords: Short link: Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip traded missile fire Friday, raising fears of a further escalation after one the deadliest army raids in the occupied West Bank in years. Israel said in response to the missiles, it "targeted an underground rocket manufacturing site" belonging to Hamas and a north Gaza military base used by the Palestinian militant group. There were no reported casualties on either side and most of the rockets fired from the coastal Israeli-besieged Palestinian enclave were intercepted by Israel's air defence system. Islamic Jihad said the rockets were "part of a message" to show that "Palestinian blood is not cheap". Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad had vowed to respond to Israel's raid Thursday in the West Bank. Nine people were killed by Israeli forces during the raid on the crowded Jenin refugee camp, where gunshots rang through the streets and smoke billowed from burning barricades. Another Palestinian was killed Thursday by Israeli fire in separate West Bank unrest near Ramallah. In Jenin, calm returned on Friday, with businesses across the city shuttered as part of a general strike. The military said Israeli forces came under fire during a "counterterrorism operation to apprehend an Islamic Jihad terror squad" and shot several enemy combatants. Since its records began in 2005, the United Nations has never logged such a high death toll in a single operation in the West Bank. 'State of panic' The violence prompted the Palestinian Authority to announce it was cutting security coordination with Israel, a move criticised by the United States. Among those confirmed dead in Jenin was Majeda Obeid, 61, who lived some metres (yards) from the house targeted by the Israeli forces. Her daughter, Kefiyat Obeid, told AFP her mother was shot as she peered out her window at the clashes. "After she finished her prayers, she stopped for a moment to look and, as she stood up, she was hit in the neck by a bullet and she fell against the wall and then to the floor," the 26-year-old told AFP, as bloodstains soaked into the rug of their home. The military said the incursion targeted Islamic Jihad militants who were allegedly behind attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians and, according to Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, were planning "to conduct a terror attack in Israel". Three Palestinians were shot in a firefight, while Israeli forces shot a further two "fleeing the scene", an army statement said. Israeli forces also shot a sixth suspect inside a building, and other Palestinians were hit after firing on troops, the army said. There were no casualties among the Israeli forces, the military said. Wisam Bakr, director of the Jenin Government Hospital, said there was a "state of panic" in the paediatric ward, with some children suffering from tear gas inhalation. The Israeli military told AFP "the activity was not far away from the hospital, and it is possible some tear gas entered through an open window". Jenin resident Umm Youssef al-Sawalmi said homes were hit during the raid. "Windows, doors, walls and even the refrigerator, everything was damaged by the bullets," she told AFP. 'Bloody massacre' Islamic Jihad spokesman Tariq Salmi vowed that "the resistance is everywhere and ready and willing for the next confrontation". The latest deaths bring the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank so far this year to 30, including fighters and civilians, most of whom were shot by Israeli forces. Saleh al-Arouri, deputy leader of Hamas, which rules Gaza, vowed that Israel "will pay the price for the Jenin massacre". Washington earlier Thursday announced US Secretary of State Antony Blinken would travel next week to Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he will push for an "end to the cycle of violence". US regional allies Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE condemned the deadly Israeli incursion. The mounting toll follows the deadliest year in the Palestinian territory recorded by the UN. At least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians were killed across Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2022, the majority in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally from official sources. UN peace envoy Tor Wennesland said he was "deeply alarmed and saddened by the continuing cycle of violence in the occupied West Bank". Thousands flocked to funerals in Jenin, as the Palestinian presidency announced three days of mourning. It charged that Thursday's raid was happening "under international silence". Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi arrived on Friday in Baku, Azerbaijan, for an official visit, to discuss means of developing political and economic relations, according to Egyptian Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady. President El-Sisi is scheduled to hold a meeting with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to discuss means of cooperation between the two countries at the international and regional levels, Rady added. Later today, El-Sisi is scheduled to hold a meeting with a number of businessmen and heads of major companies in Azerbaijan. These meetings come within the presidents efforts to discuss investment opportunities in Egypt as well as boosting trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, Rady added. Egypt was among the first countries that recognised the independence of Azerbaijan in December 1991, with the two countries exchanging diplomatic representation in 1992. Both nations have signed a series of agreements over the past year to develop bilateral ties El-Sisi's visit to Azerbaijan comes on the heels of a three-day visit to India that wrapped up Thursday, where he attended the public celebrations of India's 74th Republic Day as chief guest of honour. The president's visit to India included meetings with high level Indian officials and representatives from Indian business community to bolster economic ties. During the visit, Egypt and India agreed to elevate their bilateral relations to a strategic partnership on all levels. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt has expressed its "full solidarity" with Azerbaijan after Friday's attack on its embassy in Tehran that killed its security chief and injured two guards. Spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Abu Zeid extended his condolences to the government and people of Azerbaijan over the killing of a staff member of its embassy. "We affirm Egypt's full solidarity with Azerbaijan in this painful incident," Abu Zeid tweeted. The attack was carried out by a man armed with a Kalashnikov as per a statement released on Friday by Azerbaijan's foreign ministry. Tehran said the assailant who carried out the attack was motivated by "personal" reasons. However, Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesman Ayxan Hacizada told local media that the responsibility for the attack lies with Iran. Hacizada added a recent anti-Azerbaijani campaign in Iranian media had "encouraged the attack," reported AFP. Following the attack, Azerbaijan said it was evacuating staff from its embassy in Tehran. Search Keywords: Short link: That compares with spending of about 295 billion euros in a similar military plan for 2019-2025. The money would notably go to modernizing France's nuclear arsenal, boosting intelligence spending by 60%, doubling the number of military reservists, reinforcing cyberdefense and developing more remote-controlled weapons. ``Nuclear deterrence is an element that makes France different from other countries in Europe. We see anew, in analyzing the war in Ukraine, its vital importance,`` he said in a speech to military personnel at an air base in Mont-de-Marsan in southwest France. France is the only member of the 27-nation European Union with nuclear weapons, and the bloc is still largely dependent on the U.S. and NATO for defense. Macron also wants to expand French submarine surveillance capacity to depths of 6,000 meters (nearly 20,000 feet), both for military reasons and to protect critical infrastructure such as undersea cables carrying energy and information across oceans that have come under threat. Friday's speech comes as defense officials from the U.S. and allies are meeting in Ramstein, Germany, to discuss further help for Ukraine. Macron didn't address Ukraine's pleas to supply French Leclerc tanks _ even after a tongue-in-cheek video released Thursday by Ukraine's defense ministry vaunting the tanks as ``compact, sporty, easy to park'' and quoting French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. France already has provided Ukraine with 18 Caesar cannons, six TRF1 cannons, two Crotale air defense systems, rocket launcher units, anti-tank and anti-air weapons, armored vehicles, munitions, protective gear, medical equipment and military rations, according to Macron's office. Earlier this month, France agreed to send AMX-10 RC armored surveillance and combat vehicles that in French are called ``light tanks.'' France also is aiming to train at least 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers as part of EU-wide training efforts. ``What we are experiencing on European soil for the past year in Ukraine teaches us lessons,'' Macron said. ``The threats are multiple, and mix together,'' he said. ``There is no longer a peace dividend, because of Russia's aggression against Ukraine ... The international order has ceded to a state of play between nations like we have not seen in decades.'' Macron noted threats from hybrid warfare, cyberattacks and continued threats from terrorism, and called for boosting the production capacity of the arms industry to be able to help Ukraine and supply the French military. Among lessons of the Ukraine war, Macron's office said the French military needs to be more reactive and ready for quick deployments, and have equipment that performs well, logistical support and ammunition. Macron wants France's military strategy to strengthen the country's role as an independent global power. He called for reinforcing military partnerships with European neighbors as well as countries like Egypt, India, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and in Africa. The new budget plan would need parliamentary approval. Macron's centrist alliance doesn't have a majority in either house of parliament, but military officers have long lamented shrinking spending on the armed forces, and conservative and far-right parties tend to support investment in defense. France's military budget reached 1.9% of gross domestic product in 2021, with a goal to reach 2% by 2025, as per NATO expectations. Before carrying out one of the deadliest West Bank raids in recent memory, Israeli soldiers reportedly snuck into the Jenin refugee camp hiding in the back of a milk truck. The operation, which Israel said targeted Islamists planning an attack, killed nine people, and Palestinians recalled the bloodshed of the second intifada or uprising between 2000 and 2005 when Jenin was plagued by fighting. Analysts have warned of more violence to come, after the deadliest year in the West Bank since the UN started tracking the death toll in the occupied territory in 2005. According to Jihad Abu Kamal, a Jenin resident and self-described member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades armed group, a dairy truck enters the Jenin refugee camp at the same time every morning to deliver milk. "They tried to surprise us with it," the 35-year-old told AFP, referring to multiple accounts from witnesses who said Israeli forces entered undercover in the back of the vehicle. A local armed group released a video purportedly showing the truck used by the Israelis. Israel has said the target of the raid was a group of Islamic Jihad fighters hiding in a house near a hospital, some of whom shot at troops during the raid. Among those killed, according to Palestinian officials, was a 61-year-woman named Majeda Obeid. Her daughter, Kefiyat Obeid, told AFP that after morning prayers her mother looked out her window as gunfire rang through the street when she was shot in the neck. The Israeli army has said it was looking into reports of additional casualties beyond "armed suspects." 'Bodies on fire' Israeli forces withdrew from the camp before midday. When the fighting ended, 23-year-old Fadi Sabbarini said he ran into the targeted house to see if he could help. "There were two bodies on fire, I put out the first one, but they both were badly charred," he told AFP. "A third man's brains were spread across the wall," he added, pointing to bloody smears inside the front entrance. Such scenes are not new to residents of Jenin. The camp has long been home to Palestinian fighters from various armed groups, and a frequent target of Israeli raids. Following a series of deadly attacks inside Israel last year, Israeli forces raided Jenin before dawn on a nearly daily basis. 'Broader strategy' Fighters are increasingly trying to draw Israelis into combat inside the camp, said Tahani Mustafa, West Bank analyst at the International Crisis Group think-tank. "It's part of a broader strategy we are seeing with these armed groups," she told AFP. "They are luring Israel into these sorts of battlegrounds. Now you're actually seeing Israel having to confront these groups on their own turf." She forecast that the violence would continue to escalate, as Palestinian anger over the repeated Israeli raids deepens and frustrations mounts with the Palestinian Authority, seen by many as an Israeli pawn. The raid "is going to fuel the frustration and anger they are already feeling towards the PA and the Israelis." The PA announced late Thursday that it was severing security coordination with Israel for the first time since 2020, a move condemned by Washington days before Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due in the region. Abu Kamal told AFP Jenin felt like a community under siege. "The atmosphere is very tense, there is resentment against the occupation, and the crimes it has committed," he said. "It is as if every household in the camp has been targeted." Israeli security officials have said the army's incursions into West Bank towns and cities are essential to averting attacks on Israeli civilians. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the group targeted in Thursday's raid "planned to conduct a terror attack in Israel". Search Keywords: Short link: Iranian authorities have executed 55 people so far in 2023, a rights group said Friday, adding that the surging use of the death penalty aims to create fear as protests shake the country. Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it has confirmed at least 55 executions in the first 26 days of this year. Four people have been executed on charges related to the protests, while the majority of those hanged -- 37 convicts -- were executed for drug-related offences, IHR said. At least 107 people are still at risk of execution over the demonstrations after being sentenced to death or charged with capital crimes, the group added. With Iran's use of the death penalty surging in recent years, IHR argued that "every execution by the Islamic Republic is political" as the main purpose "is to create societal fear and terror". "To stop the state execution machine, no execution should be tolerated, whether they be political or non-political," said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. He added that a lack of reaction from the international community risked lowering "the political cost of executing protesters". 'State-sanctioned killing' Activists have accused Iran of using the death penalty as an instrument of intimidation to quell the protests which erupted in September following the death of the Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the country's dress code for women. UN rights chief Volker Turk has said Iran's "weaponization of criminal procedures" to punish demonstrators "amounts to state-sanctioned killing". IHR and other rights groups have yet to publish figures on executions in Iran for 2022. But IHR said in early December that more than 500 people had been hanged by then -- the highest figure in five years -- while according to its data, at least 333 people were executed in 2021, a 25 percent increase compared to 267 in 2020. As well as arresting thousands of people, Iranian security forces have also used what campaigners describe as a lethal force to crack down on the protests. IHR said that according to its latest count, security forces have killed at least 488 people, including 64 aged under 18, in the nationwide protests. Of the 64 children, 10 were girls, it added. Mohsen Shekari, 23, was executed in Tehran on December 8 for wounding a member of the security forces, while Majidreza Rahnavard, also 23, was hanged in public in Mashhad on December 12 on charges of killing two members of the security forces with a knife. On January 7, Iran executed Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini for killing a paramilitary force member in November. In another high-profile execution, Iran said on January 14 that it had executed British-Iranian dual national Alireza Akbari after he was sentenced to death on charges of spying for Britain. He had been arrested more than two years earlier. Analysts say demonstrations have subsided since November, but the protest movement still remains a challenge to the Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Search Keywords: Short link: The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group in partnership with the government of Canada launched a new initiative aiming to support Africas small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the agriculture sector. The announcement was made during the launch event of the Agri-food SME Catalytic Financing Mechanism (ACFM) at Dakar 2 Summit, which concludes on Friday. Dakar 2 is being held under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic of Senegal and the Chairperson of the African Union Macky Sall, the government of the Republic of Senegal and the AfDB Group, under the theme Feed Africa: Food Sovereignty and Resilience. The ACFM initiative is projected to provide concessional finance and technical assistance to financial intermediaries including agribusinesses, micro-finance institutions and impact funds. This effort aims to enable the intermediaries to make loans to agri-SMEs working with women, as well as to those that build resilience to climate change. In a press briefing, the two sides said that ACFM is meant to catalyse and de-risk investment for agricultural SMEs, make SMEs more bankable and make banks more agriculture-friendly. It also aims to strengthen agricultural value chains and improve food security across the continent. At the Africa Food Summit, we have seen a strong commitment to addressing the financing gap for SMEs and creating an environment that encourages private sector investments in climate-smart, gender-oriented agricultural solutions, said Beth Dunford, the AfDBs vice president for agriculture, health and social development. Dunford explained that ACFM is anticipated to help unlock opportunities for these SMEs in Africa, particularly for women and young people. The government of Canada contributed $85 million to this mechanism, which is housed at the AfDB. Small and medium agri-businesses produce, process or transport around 65 percent of Africas food, according to the AfDB. Yet, these businesses face a financing gap of more than $180 million annually. The ACFM will contribute to the AfDBs Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) target of closing the $42 billion access-to-finance gap for women-led SMEs to accelerate their growth. It also represents the banks first blended financing facility to specifically target SMEs operating across the agricultural value chain. The best way to build up food security in Africa is to work with small and medium-sized agriculture and food businesses. Through a shared commitment between Canada and the African Development Bank, the Agri-food SME Catalytic Financing Mechansim will advance resilient growth and climate adaptation. It will also help African SMEs to pursue climate smart models, and support women by shifting attitudes that perpetuate gender gaps in financial inclusion, Anita Vandenbeld, Parliamentary Secretary to Canadas Minister of International Development sated during the press briefing. The two sides announced that the ACFM, as a multi-donor trust fund, is open to and welcomes the participation and contribution of other development partners. Search Keywords: Short link: The African Development Bank (AfDB) is working with Egypt to alleviate the impacts of the war in Ukraine on the countrys food security and agriculture, including by funding water projects, said the President of the AfDB Akinwumi Adesina. Adesinas statements came in response to a question from Ahram Online about how the commitments and pledges made during the Dakar 2 Summit could benefit Egypt, the largest wheat importer globally The three-day summit that took place in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, concluded on Friday. Adesina said that Egypt is in a very sensitive spot on the global food market map given that the increase in the cost of importing food since the onset of the war in Ukraine impacted the country and, at the same time, climate change continues to affect its agricultural production capacity. Egypt, the largest wheat importer in the world, imported $8 billion worth of the strategic grain in 2022 alone, he noted. Tackling threats to food security is imperative for Egypt and the whole continent alike, he stressed The Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compacts we worked on during the summit regarding ensuring the food security in the continent will mean regional initiatives to meet the needs of all the African countries including Egypt, Adesina noted. The AfDB's president revealed that the bank has doubled its financing of the water pillar under Egypts Nexus of Water, Food and Energy (NWFE) Programme from $1.6 billion to $3.6 billion. The bank is integrating these efforts with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to tackle food and agriculture issues in Egypt, he added. Within the NWFE programme, the AfDB is the key catalyst of the water pillar while IFAD is the main catalyst of the food pillar. Adesina said that the bank is also working with the Egyptian government to enable Egypt to plant enough wheat to be self-sufficient. The Dakar 2 Summit concluded with the announcement of Dakar Declaration on Food Sovereignty and Resilience. According to this declaration, the participants, including Egypt, pledged to finalise the development of the compacts endorsed at the summit in collaboration with country stakeholders, development partners and the private sector to achieve food security and self-sufficiency, as well as establishing presidential delivery councils to oversee the implementation of the compacts. The participants also committed to supporting the implementation of the compacts with time-bound and clearly measurable indicators for success, including concrete national policies, incentives and regulations to establish an enabling environment for wider and accelerated investments across the agriculture sector. Moreover, the participants pledged to mobilise internal and external financing for the compacts from a broad range of bilateral and multilateral partners and the private sector, besides increasing financing from national budgets. The declaration also included a commitment to requesting the African Union Commission and the AfDB follow up with various development partners to finalise their planned financial support to complement the $30 billion of financing announced at this summit, to report on the overall investment of development partners and ensure that the summits declaration is submitted to the February 2023 African Union Summit for consideration. Search Keywords: Short link: Most Koreans in their 20s hope for a fair society that rewards them for their efforts in 2015, a straw poll suggests. Five hundred people between their 20s and 60s were asked what they hope for Korean society in the New Year. One 28-year-old respondent who graduated from a provincial university said, "I don't know just how hard you have to try in order to get a job in Korea." He recently failed to get a job at a mid-sized company despite having close to a 4.0 GPA and a TOEIC score in the 900 range. "Graduates of provincial universities such as myself are already at a disadvantage compared to those who graduated from top universities in Seoul," he said. He said he hopes for a society where people are rewarded fairly for their efforts and can have a cushion to alleviate the impact of failure and a second chance at success. Older Koreans also support such hopes. Lee Tae-sung (57), a government worker, said, "Our generation grew up poor but had plenty of opportunities. But young people these days don't seem to have many opportunities. Giving them an equal chance would not only reward them for their efforts, but also ease the stress those in their 50s receive from their children." Others were less sympathetic toward young people. Gong Won-il (72) said, "Young people these days seem to fixate either on short-term goals or unrealistic ones. They all want a job with a major conglomerate and high salaries, but they should lower their sights and look for what they really want to do." Jung Keun-sik at Seoul National University commented, "The hopes of people in their 20s reflects their desperate search for employment in a tough job market, as well as the sad reality of becoming mere cogs in a big machine once they do find work." The grandson of the founder of the company, Toyoda has been CEO since 2009. He says he faced "crisis after crisis" when he took over, including the global recession, the catastrophic 2011 earthquake in Japan, and a recall scandal that prompted him to apologize before the United States Congress. He is expected to remain heavily involved during the initial transition period and beyond. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda announced Thursday during a webcast that he will step down from his position and transition to chairman of the board on April 1. Replacing him is 53-year-old Koji Sato, the current chief branding officer. Toyota has faced some criticism over the years for being slow on the shift to electric cars amid growing concern about climate change. During the webcast, the company discussed its plans to stay on top of social changes and the environmental landscape. Sato "has worked hard in the workplaces of car-making to embrace Toyota's philosophy, techniques, and practices. Those are exactly the traits I would want whoever stands at the top of Toyota to embody," Toyoda said. "I am going to give it my all," Sato said. "The new team will lead the shift in the transition to a mobility company to provide the freedom of mobility to all people." Top Chinese, Russian and American officials are scrambling this month to visit African nations and pledge their commitment to the world's fastest-growing continent. As President Joe Biden prepares for a visit later this year, several of his top officials have recently visited Africa. There, they must balance the desire to secure the continent's support against Russian aggression and Chinese ambitions with their promise to work to benefit Africa. Washington says this is not about countering Russian and Chinese ambitions -- though the U.S. has expressed dismay over African nations' reluctance to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine -- but about building meaningful relationships in areas such as business, health, peace and security. "Our partnership in Africa is not about -- about other nations," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to a question from VOA. "Our partnership there, it's -- as demonstrated by our commitments at the U.S.-Africa Leaders' Summit -- the United States sees African countries as genuine partners and wants to build relationships based on mutual respect." But the continent's top diplomat says Africa, which was brutally colonized by European powers for centuries, is no one's pawn. And, he pointedly added, China understands that. "Africa refuses to be seen as an arena for influence struggles," said African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki. "We are open to cooperation and partnerships with everyone, as long as they respect our principles, our priorities and our interests. The partnership we have with China is built on these principles." But as the most senior visiting U.S. official said recently, these great-power rivals are keenly aware of each other's activities, especially as China and Russia flex their muscles globally. "Many African countries are now plagued by high and unsustainable debt, and that's undeniably a problem, and much of it is related [to] Chinese investment in Africa," said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the latest U.S. official to visit. "So, I think that's simply a factual statement. But this is not for us. This is not a competition with China. We want to deepen our engagement with Africa." The Ministry of Justice wants to ban repeat sex offenders from living near schools -- a rule modeled on the so-called Jessica's Law in the U.S. Briefing President Yoon Suk-yeol on Thursday, the ministry said it plans to submit a bill to the National Assembly in May. The ban would apply to repeat offenders and those convicted of sexual assault against children under 13. They would not be allowed to live within 500 m of a school or daycare center. The ministry said the bill will also include other restrictions, such as preventing the offenders from going out at night and contacting any children and teenagers. The proposal follows growing demand for restrictions on where repeat sex offenders can live after reports that a notorious serial rapist was moving back into his old neighborhood in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province in December 2020. Lawmakers here have proposed similar bans in the past, but none have so far passed the National Assembly. In the U.S., more than 30 states have implemented versions of Jessica's Law, named after a young girl murdered by a repeat sex offender in 2005. Hanoi longest spring festival opens The Huong Pagoda Festival, the longest of its kind in Vietnam, opened on January 27 in Hanois outlying district of My Duc. Coming to the festival, which will last for three months until April 23, visitors can sightsee pagodas, temples and caves, and join Buddhist ceremonies. The pagoda has seen thousands of visitors over the past few days. Despite the rainy cold weather, many waited through Thursday night until the festival officially opened at 12 am on Friday. A visitor, Nguyen Tuan Anh, 38, said that he joined a group of over 10 friends to go to the pagoda at 8 pm on January 26. They took a trip along the Yen River and visited some sites through the night. According to the head of the Management Board of Huong Son relic site Nguyen Ba Hien, this year, the festival has some new features, including online tickets and electric cars around the site to serve visitors. Constructed in the late 17th century, the Huong Pagoda Complex has a large number of pagodas, temples, and caverns filled with marvellous stalactites and stalagmites. The Huong Tich Cavern displays the autograph of the defacto ruler of north Vietnam Lord Trinh Sam from 1770, describing the cavern as the most beautiful cave in the country. Several heirs to Korean business fortunes and other elite figures are among 17 people indicted for using and distributing marijuana, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said Thursday. The indictments were the result of an investigation following the arrest of a 39-year-old dealer who was nabbed last September. When prosecutors searched his home, they turned up text messages, money transfer records and other evidence implicating the privileged young people. Nine people were already indicted last year, including the Namyang Dairy founder's grandson, the managing director of a former Hyosung Group affiliate, and an heir to JB Financial Holding Company. This week saw the indictment of a grandson of the Kiswire founder, a son of a former National Police Agency commissioner, and the head of a talent management agency. UN Command has warned both Koreas that they violated the armistice by sending spy drones across the military demarcation line last month. The UNC's Military Armistice Commission published the findings of an investigation into the incident on Thursday. "The [North Korean] Army side committed a violation of the armistice when multiple North-side unmanned aerial systems entered [South Korea]-controlled airspace," it said. Although the South Korean military's attempt to "neutralize" the North Korean drones in South Korean airspace "was in compliance with the armistice rules of engagement," sending drones after them into North Korean airspace "constitutes a violation of the armistice." KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2023 - 13:15 | All, Japan Japan decided Friday to add 36 individuals and 52 organizations linked to Russia to its list of sanctions imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, as the war shows few signs of ending, threatening security in Europe and Asia. The sanctions, including asset freezes and bans on exports by Japanese firms, target politicians, military officers, businesspeople, companies in Russia and regions in eastern and southern Ukraine, and others. The move came as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government is aiming to put more pressure on Russia this year, with Japan chairing the Group of Seven industrialized nations that have led international efforts to maintain and reinforce punitive measures against Moscow. Since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine almost a year ago, Tokyo has imposed economic sanctions on Moscow in lockstep with Western countries, such as asset freezes on President Vladimir Putin and the nation's central bank. Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko and Deputy Defense Minister Mikhail Mizintsev were among those newly added to the Japanese sanctions list. Kishida's government also said it will expand the list of items banned for export to Russia as they could be diverted to military use, effective Feb. 3. "It is necessary for the international community, including the G-7, to band together and respond to the crisis with a decisive resolution" to protect peace and the global order, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara said at a press conference on Friday. Related coverage: Japan urges Russia to start annual talks over safe fishing pact Outgoing Russian ambassador blames Japan for strained bilateral ties Japan orders Russian diplomat to leave in tit-for-tat response KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2023 - 13:45 | Feature, All, Japan Although universities in Japan are beginning to shun the use of live animals in experiments, few companies disclose information about the animal testing they engage in and there is little public awareness about the downsides of the practice. In Europe and the United States, the concept of animals' right to life has become widely accepted and a number of companies in recent years have publically stated their opposition to the use of animals in the research and development of cosmetics and medical products. The European Union has gone as far as banning the sale of cosmetics tested on animals. Meanwhile, in Japan animals are still subject to needless pain and sacrifice, a situation that seems unlikely to change any time soon. Only four companies in Japan are known to refrain from testing on animals and hold certification from the international animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA, as it is widely known, conducts activities to investigate and certify whether the products of companies that have applied are tested on animals in the research and development process. In 2005, 500 companies worldwide, mainly in the cosmetics and detergent fields, were certified, but that number shot up to around 6,000 in 2022. Most were European and American. Laila Imai, the spokesperson for PETA Asia, praised the EU for "banning the distribution of cosmetics tested on mice and rats in its member states in 2013." In stark contrast, she pointed out that few companies in Japan disclose information on animal testing, and thus "it is difficult to have a constructive debate" about the issue. In fact, the number of certified companies in Japan has not even reached 0.1 percent of the total. Lush, a beauty brand established in Britain in 1995 and sold widely in Japan, conducts product safety confirmation tests and only uses ingredients that have not been tested on animals. Its "Fighting Animal Testing" logo stands out on the colorful shampoo and soap bottles displayed in each store. A first-year middle school student shopping at Lush's Shinjuku outlet in Tokyo said she became aware of animal testing through social media. "I think it is wrong that the lives of animals are sacrificed in the pursuit of beauty," she said. Gifu University's Center for the Development and Promotion of Joint Veterinary Education decided at its students' request to use surgical videos and sponges as substitutes for living organisms during surgical training procedures. It has done so now for around a decade. However, the decision means it is difficult for students to acquire sufficient surgical skills, so in April 2022, a "biological model" was obtained through crowdfunding. It is a close representation of what they would encounter when performing actual surgery. "Society's sense of values toward animals has shifted to the idea that animals are family, and veterinarians are beginning to think strongly about animal welfare," said Gifu University professor Kazuhiro Watanabe. According to Reuters, American businessman Elon Musk's medical firm Neuralink has been accused of welfare violations after killing an estimated 1,500 animals, including sheep and monkeys, in testing since 2018 in the development of a brain implant the company hopes will help paralyzed people walk again. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has opened a probe into the potential violations. "There are many sacrifices behind daily necessities. We need to continue telling people that animals have lives and rights, too," PETA's Imai said. Related coverage: FEATURE: Low-cost sterilization of dogs, cats curbing killing of strays Animal rights becomes key issue in Japan's general election FEATURE: Pet ownership in Japan on the rise amid COVID-19 pandemic KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2023 - 21:42 | All, Japan A pharmaceutical advisory body for Japan's health ministry on Friday expressed no objection to the manufacturing and marketing of an abortion pill, bringing the medication a step closer to becoming the first of its kind to gain approval in the country. Abortions in early stages of pregnancies in Japan are currently limited to surgical procedures, and the oral pill, if approved, is seen as a new option that could lighten both physical and mental stress on women. The health ministry said it would gather public opinion and debate the matter further with its pharmaceutical subcommittee as the abortion pill had garnered "deep societal interest and necessitates careful discussion." Linepharma KK, a subsidiary of British pharmaceutical Linepharma International Ltd., applied for manufacturing and marketing approval for its abortion pill "Mefeego" in Japan in December 2021. The medication can be used to terminate pregnancies of up to 63 days of gestation, or 9 weeks, and is made of a combination of mifepristone, which blocks a pregnancy hormone, and misoprostol, which stimulates uterine contractions. According to a domestic clinical trial consisting of 120 women who opted for an abortion, 93 percent were successful in their terminations within 24 hours of ingestion. Although 59 percent presented symptoms such as abdominal pain or vomiting, they were mild or moderate. The combination of the drugs was first approved in France in 1988. It is used in over 70 countries across the world, according to the World Health Organization. KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2023 - 22:28 | All, Japan, Coronavirus, Travel/Tourism The number of foreigners entering Japan surged nearly 12-fold to 4.20 million people in 2022, as COVID-19 border control measures were eased gradually and the number of inbound tourists spiked, the Immigration Services Agency's data showed Friday. The figure is up sharply from around 353,000 in 2021 but far below the record 31.19 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to the data. Foreign entries began rising sharply in October when the government removed almost all border restrictions, such as the daily cap for overseas arrivals and the entry of foreign tourists only via package tours. Japan saw foreign arrivals post all-time highs for seven straight years through 2019, as the government took measures to boost tourism as a pillar of its growth strategy. Of the total in 2022, short-term visitors accounted for roughly 70 percent, at 2.86 million people, a nearly 40-fold from 2021, boosted by an increase in the number of tourists. In 2019, short-term visitors totaled 27.81 million. The number of people who entered for a mid or long-term stay, such as technical intern trainees, highly skilled professionals and overseas students, returned to nearly pre-pandemic levels. By country and territory, South Koreans led with 953,000, followed by visitors from Taiwan and the United States. The number of Japanese nationals who went overseas more than quintupled to 2.77 million in 2022, the government data showed. By Maricar Cinco and Ken Sasaki, KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2023 - 21:32 | Japan, All The alleged ringleader of a string of robberies across Japan, known to have gone by the name of "Luffy," is believed to have remotely given instructions to those carrying out the break-ins via an encrypted messaging app from an immigration facility in Manila, where he is being held. Philippine Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla told Kyodo News on Thursday evening that the man was arrested in the Philippines in 2021 and is being held at the immigration facility, along with another Japanese national suspected of being part of the robbery group. Remulla said the second man will be deported to Japan as soon as the necessary paperwork is completed, but Luffy is facing other, unrelated criminal charges in the Philippines with the case pending in a Manila court, preventing his immediate deportation to Japan. The two are believed to be among four men detained in Manila who Japanese police have requested be transferred to Japan, investigative sources said Friday. All four men, who are members of a communications fraud group based in the Philippines, have arrest warrants for various crimes, including theft, according to the sources. According to the minister, Luffy was arrested by Philippine authorities in May 2021. He faced deportation the same month as a fugitive of justice and was allegedly using counterfeit documents. He is now facing separate charges in the Philippines and will be deported if the case is dismissed or once he has served time if he is found guilty of the alleged crimes. The other Japanese male has been detained at the immigration facility since 2019. After being apprehended by Philippine immigration at Manila's international airport in 2019, he faced a deportation order the following year for being a fugitive in Japan for theft. He also faced separate criminal charges in the Philippines, but immigration authorities said he can now be deported because the criminal case against him was dropped at a local court on Wednesday. The robberies began last year and appeared to have been carried out by people who ringleaders instructed through the encrypted messaging app Telegram. According to Japan's National Police Agency, there have been at least 20 robberies in 14 prefectures since last year, with over 30 suspects arrested in some cases. Among the cases is the murder-robbery of 90-year-old Kinuyo Oshio in her home in the city of Komae in Tokyo on Jan. 19. The incident struck a nerve in Japan, a country known for low crime rates and safety relative to other countries. Analysis of phones belonging to some of those arrested in connection with the robberies shows they received instructions from three names -- Luffy, Kim and Mitsuhashi. The telephone number linked to Luffy suggested the person was in the Philippines, according to Japanese police. According to Remulla, the warden of the Manila immigration facility has been instructed to confiscate all communication devices at the facility and ensure that access to them is strictly monitored. Related coverage: 8 arrested in case linked to "Luffy" group robberies across Japan Presumed mastermind of Japan burglaries may be in Philippines: source Robbers of east Japan homes suspected of striking other areas KYODO NEWS - Jan 27, 2023 - 17:15 | All, Japan A Japanese court on Friday ordered a high court judge to pay 440,000 yen ($3,300) in damages after posting messages on social media that the bereaved family of a high school girl murdered in Tokyo found offensive. Social media posts by Kiichi Okaguchi of the Sendai High Court were "thoughtless" and "inappropriate acts that violate duties imposed on an incumbent judge," said Presiding Judge Masahiko Kiyono at the Tokyo District Court in handing down the ruling. Okaguchi, 56, is also being tried at the Judge Impeachment Court in Japan for the posts after a parliamentary committee for the prosecution of judges decided in 2021 to refer him. He became the ninth judge ever to be referred to the impeachment court and the first over the expression of views. According to the complaint filed to the Tokyo District Court, Okaguchi in 2017 posted on his personal Twitter account about the murder of the high school girl, saying a 17-year-old female was "mercilessly" murdered by a "man who has the propensity to be sexually aroused by watching a woman being strangled and agonized." Almost two years after the tweet, he posted on Facebook that "the bereaved family has been brainwashed by the Tokyo High Court office and others to criticize me." At trial, the girl's family demanded 1.65 million yen against Okaguchi, claiming that the posts "significantly lacked consideration for the sentiment of the bereaved family and the dignity of the victim and caused psychological pain." Okaguchi refuted that, saying the posts "did not expose the victim to sexual curiosity." At a hearing at the Judge Impeachment Court in November, the parliamentary committee said in its opening statements that Okaguchi continued to make posts despite repeated warnings by the Tokyo High Court and even after expressing regret over the posts. At the impeachment court, Okaguchi is also accused of tweeting about a civil suit concerning dog ownership, in which he apparently blamed the original pet owner ANTANANARIVO, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Cultural activities celebrating the Chinese New Year were held Saturday in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Students and teachers of the Confucius Institute of the University of Antananarivo showed their talent in performing martial arts and dragon and lion dances, among others. Charge d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Madagascar Huo Wei sent his New Year wishes to local communities at the event. He also expressed confidence in the future of relations between the two countries. On behalf of the Malagasy government, Madagascar's Secretary of State for the National Gendarmerie Serge Gelle congratulated all Chinese nationals on the occasion of the Spring Festival. Produced by Xinhua Global Service People attend a rally in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 26, 2023. Tens of thousands of people attended "Invasion Day" rallies held across Australia's major cities, calling for changing or abolishing the date as the country celebrates its national holiday Australia Day.(Xinhua/Bai Xuefei) MELBOURNE, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of people attended "Invasion Day" rallies held across Australia's major cities, calling for changing or abolishing the date as the country celebrates its national holiday Australia Day. In Melbourne, a large crowd assembled outside the state's Parliament House on Thursday morning, holding placards and the Indigenous flag, with loud cheers breaking out. "I believe that January 26 should be recognized as a day of mourning, as opposed to Australia Day celebration, because it's not a celebration for the indigenous people," one of the protesters, Amilia, told Xinhua. "I think this day represents a massive genocide that happened to our First Nations, indigenous Aboriginal Australians ... Some people think we can change the date, but most people just want to abolish the date or change it to a day of mourning where people can actually cry and remember what actually happened instead of celebrate." According to local media reports, similar scenes were seen across Australia's other major capital cities. In Sydney, thousands of protesters packed into Belmore Park. Marchers were seen carrying placards that read: "stop the genocide." A candlelight dawn service began in Brisbane at 4 a.m. local time in Musgrave Park, followed by a flag-raising ceremony at Jagera Community Hall. The crowd kicked off the Invasion Day march around 11:30 a.m., with protesters chanting: "End black deaths in custody!" Since 1994, Australia Day has been marked on Jan. 26 as a national public holiday in every state and territory. However, on Jan. 26, 1788, Arthur Phillip raised the British flag at Sydney Cove to claim the land as a British Colony. The celebration is regarded as a painful reminder of the beginning of British colonization and the dispossession of First Nations peoples. The public holiday referred to as "Invasion Day" for the indigenous communities has sparked heated debates and rallies in recent years calling for a change or abolishment of the date to make the national day more inclusive of Indigenous Australians. People attend a rally in Melbourne, Australia, Jan. 26, 2023. Tens of thousands of people attended "Invasion Day" rallies held across Australia's major cities, calling for changing or abolishing the date as the country celebrates its national holiday Australia Day.(Xinhua/Bai Xuefei) MEXICO CITY, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) should deepen regional integration and forge even closer ties with China, some experts and diplomats have said after Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the CELAC Summit on Tuesday via a video link. In his speech, Xi said that CELAC has played an important role in safeguarding regional peace, promoting common development and advancing regional integration, noting that China always supports the regional integration process of Latin America and the Caribbean. Eugenia Dos Santos, an expert at the Chile-based University of Santiago, said that Xi's remarks highlighted regional integration, people's welfare, justice and peace, among others, and reaffirmed China's support for the region's economic recovery. "Economic integration is not only an advantage for the region, but a matter of life or death" at a time of global economic slowdown, said David Castrillon Kerrigan, an international relations academic at the Externado University of Colombia, calling regional integration an "existential issue." Against the backdrop of a changing international order, deeper regional integration will grant regional countries a say on a range of issues of both regional and global significance, including climate change, new technologies, anti-corruption and the reform of global institutions, Kerrigan said. Latin American integration was not driven by ideology or politics, "but by a real integration that includes all regional countries, without exclusion," he added. Argentine sociologist Marcelo Rodriguez believed that strengthening CELAC integration would help forge a relationship with China at the regional level as a whole and not just with each country. Xi's speech conveyed the message that China values its "friendly and cooperative" relations with CELAC, an integral part of the Global South, said Decio Machado, an international political analyst and a Spanish citizen who has been living in Ecuador for years. Former Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Huanacuni said Xi's speech reaffirmed China's commitment to greater cooperation with the region through the China-CELAC Forum. "We can cooperate regionally with China for win-win and shared benefits." "This platform (China-CELAC Forum) provides the region with the possibility to participate in a more active way in the Chinese initiatives for global security and development as well as for the creation of a community with a shared future," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said. China's cooperation with CELAC contributes to the main development needs of regional countries, namely infrastructure and economic support, without the imposition of conditions, said Pamela Cristales, an academic at the Mexico-based Autonomous University of Yucatan. "Multilateralism encourages all countries to seek solutions to common challenges," Cristales said, adding that China's proposals share common values with CELAC's goals of seeking "cooperation based on mutual respect, the promotion of dialogue among equals, respect for sovereignty and non-interventionism." "China's contribution to the Latin American and Caribbean region has been made evident in recent years through South-South cooperation, equality for developing countries and proposals such as the Belt and Road Initiative," said Gonzalo Tordini, director of the China-Argentine Strategic Program at the National Defense University in Buenos Aires. Former Peruvian Foreign Minister Miguel Rodriguez Mackay believed that China offers CELAC the opportunity to turn shared development into a reality through closer cooperation, recommending that the region strengthen ties with China for fruitful outcomes that benefit all sides, particularly in the areas of technology and industrialization. JINAN, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Before the Spring Festival this year, Hu Tao, as a representative of successful entrepreneurs, conducted an e-commerce training seminar in his hometown in Huji Township, Binzhou City, east China's Shandong Province, sharing his experience in innovation, entrepreneurship and e-commerce development. Hu took some a small business online while still in college. After graduation, the 27-year-old returned to Huji and officially started his own business with the help of a service platform called "talent supermarket" initiated by the township. "At first, I operated the online shop in my attic. The office environment there was not very good and made it difficult to manage my team. Later, thanks to the 'talent supermarket,' I settled in the township's e-commerce workspace, where I can develop the business more orderly," Hu said. Now, Hu's business mainly involves computer screen protectors, laptop sleeves and keyboard covers, with daily sales hitting around 10,000 yuan (about 1,474 U.S. dollars). Through the "talent supermarket" platform, which integrates the local human resources and social security department, economic commission and other authorities, Huji Township has established a talent database. It is capable of bridging job seekers and entrepreneurs with enterprises, providing two-way services for both sides. In China, an increasing number of college graduates are pursuing budding careers in their hometowns. The "talent supermarket" has not only attracted more young people to return home to start businesses and find jobs, but also boosted local economic development and injected new vitality into rural vitalization. Li Jingxin, a student at the Beijing Institute of Technology, plans to return to his hometown after graduation. During this winter break, he worked as an intern in the township government of Chishang, Boshan District, Zibo City. Li often went to the township's "talent supermarket for rural vitalization" after work. Xiang Qilong, a service provider in the "supermarket," would recommend suitable jobs and explain supporting policies to Li. "You undergraduates can enjoy a living allowance of 1,000 yuan a month, a 25 percent discount on the market prices for the talent apartments in the city, and a one-time subsidy of 10,000 yuan for your family," Xiang said. Through the "talent supermarkets for rural vitalization," Boshan District has coordinated the job demands and supporting policies of more than 180 key enterprises in the district. In 2022, eight such special supermarkets helped 930 college graduates return to their hometowns to find jobs or start businesses. Zhao Shengjian, general manager of a tourism company in Boshan, said that the development of village tourism is inseparable from the support of talents. "Through 'talent supermarket for rural vitalization,' we have introduced a team of 63 people with an average age of 26, responsible for management and operation of the company." *During the Spring Festival, a group of train mechanics were working around the clock in a bullet train workshop in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to ensure the safety of each train. *Since China adjusted its COVID-19 response, the number of bullet trains in operation in Xinjiang has increased to 36 to meet people's travel and tourism needs during the festival. *Official statistics show that there are more than 7,400 employees from ethnic minority groups working in the railway system in Xinjiang. URUMQI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Amid the sound of firecrackers and drums during the Spring Festival, a group of train mechanics were working around the clock in a bullet train workshop in Urumqi, capital of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to ensure the safety of each train. "The Spring Festival travel rush is the busiest period of the year. Our workload increases greatly during the period, but it is worthwhile to make sure that every passenger gets home safely," said Azigul Tuniyaz. Azigul Tuniyaz, 42, is one of over 380 train mechanics at the Urumqi bullet train unit maintenance station. The team include 41 members from 10 ethnic minority groups. A technician inspects a bullet train at the Urumqi bullet train unit maintenance station in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 14, 2023. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) Since China adjusted its COVID-19 response, the number of bullet trains in operation in Xinjiang has increased to 36 to meet people's travel and tourism needs during the festival. These mechanics work in rotation to keep the trains and the passengers they carry secure. DREAM JOB Born in a family of railway system practitioners in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Azigul Tuniyaz lived near the railway station and grew up listening to the trains whistle each and every day. "I was very enthusiastic about train car parts, so my father encouraged me to further dive into the field," the Uygur woman said, adding that although railway transportation is not a suitable field for females in many people's eyes, she wanted to follow her heart. Mechanic Azigul Tuniyaz examines an ultrasonic flaw detector at the Urumqi bullet train unit maintenance station in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 16, 2023. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) In 2001, Azigul Tuniyaz began to work in Xinjiang after graduation, responsible for troubleshooting issues on train cars and fixing them. She was trained and dispatched to be a bullet train mechanic 12 years later due to her excellent performance when the region started developing bullet train transportation. During her shift, the woman, with delicate makeup and permed hair, was wearing a hardhat and a light grey uniform while devoting herself to train flaw detection, repairs and looking after power supply. "The uniform reminds me to focus on my work. I need to be completely clear-headed, responsible, and careful, as any carelessness could result in serious consequences," said she, who was rewarded for discovering a major flaw a few years ago. Today, Azigul Tuniyaz has grown to a veteran train mechanic, cultivating young workers for the station. "This is an extraordinary post, and I have done some extraordinary things. My father takes great pride in my achievements," she said. CHASING DREAM Alim Yimin was once a shepherd boy on the Pamir Plateau. His hometown is more than 1,000 km away from Urumqi. However, the 36-year-old man of the Kirgiz ethnic minority has now become a senior bullet train mechanic. "My father didn't want to send me to school. He wanted me to become a herdsman or run a repair shop. But I insisted on receiving an education," said Alim Yimin, adding that he could never forget the miserable memories of herding sheep and finding the herds in the storms, which motivated him to study hard and go to university. In 2014, Alim Yimin graduated from Lanzhou Jiaotong University majoring in vehicle engineering and started his career at the bullet train unit maintenance station in Urumqi. He is in charge of checking the wheels of bullet trains and the power supply. Mechanic Alim Yimin maintains a bullet train's wheel at the Urumqi bullet train unit maintenance station in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 14, 2023. (Xinhua/Ding Lei) "I found the gap between me and my coworkers who work very hard. So I continue to learn from them and strive to be better," said Alim Yimin, who later became a senior mechanic and in the process, has obtained four operation certificates for low-voltage electrician, high-place operation, forklift driver and hoisting operator. In general, it takes at least 18 months to train a bullet train mechanic and this involves large sums of money. Official statistics show that there are more than 7,400 employees from ethnic minority groups working in the railway system in Xinjiang. The railway operating mileage in Xinjiang has added 4,176 km since 2012, pushing the total mileage to over 9,091 km. (Video reporters: Bai Zhiqiang, Guan Qiaoqiao, Ding Lei and Zhou Ye; Video editors: Hui Peipei, Zhou Sa'ang, Wang Houyuan, Wei Yin and Zhang Yuhong) LIMA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Peru decided to withdraw its ambassador to Honduras, Jorge Alejandro Raffo, in response to Honduran President Xiomara Castro's support for Peru's embattled former president Pedro Castillo, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said Thursday. Castro has said that a "coup d'etat" in Peru had ousted Castillo from office and called for his "immediate release," said the ministry on Twitter. Castro's comments constitute an "unacceptable interference in internal affairs," said the ministry, adding relations with Honduras will be maintained indefinitely "at the level of charge d'affaires." Castillo was impeached by Peru's Congress for alleged "permanent moral incapacity" and arrested shortly afterward, sparking waves of protests around the country. ANKARA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- It is "meaningless" to hold a trilateral meeting with Sweden and Finland to discuss their NATO accession process after recent protests in Stockholm, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday. "In this environment, a trilateral meeting is meaningless. It has been postponed because the current environment will overshadow this," Cavusoglu explained at a joint press conference with visiting Serbia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic. "Sweden has to decide. Does it want to join NATO or not? One of the aims of these incidents is to prevent Sweden from joining NATO," the Turkish minister said, referring to recent protests in the Nordic country, which involves burning of Quran and demonstrations by the supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) outlawed by Turkiye. He warned the incident was a "racist attack that has nothing to do with freedom of thought." Turkiye has postponed a trilateral meeting with Sweden and Finland on their NATO bids slated for February following the burning of a copy of the Quran in Stockholm. Sweden and Finland submitted their formal requests to join NATO in May 2022, which were initially objected by Turkiye, a NATO member, citing their support for anti-Turkish Kurdish organizations and political dissidents. A month later, Turkiye, Sweden and Finland reached a memorandum of understanding (MoU) ahead of the NATO summit held in Madrid. Under the MoU, Ankara agreed to lift its veto on the NATO bids by Finland and Sweden, which in return pledged to support Turkiye's fight against terrorism and address its "pending deportation or extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously and thoroughly." The Turkish parliament has not ratified the Nordic countries' NATO bids so far, citing that they have yet to meet Turkiye's requests. Upon the invitation of President Alberto Fernandez of Argentina, rotating president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a video address at the seventh Summit of CELAC. The summit was held in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, on Jan. 24, 2023. (Photo by Martin Zabala/Xinhua) MEXICO CITY, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) should deepen regional integration and forge even closer ties with China, some experts and diplomats have said after Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the CELAC Summit on Tuesday via a video link. In his speech, Xi said that CELAC has played an important role in safeguarding regional peace, promoting common development and advancing regional integration, noting that China always supports the regional integration process of Latin America and the Caribbean. Eugenia Dos Santos, an expert at the Chile-based University of Santiago, said that Xi's remarks highlighted regional integration, people's welfare, justice and peace, among others, and reaffirmed China's support for the region's economic recovery. People visit an exhibition during the 14th China-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Summit in southwest China's Chongqing on Nov. 16, 2021. (Xinhua/Tang Yi) "Economic integration is not only an advantage for the region, but a matter of life or death" at a time of global economic slowdown, said David Castrillon Kerrigan, an international relations academic at the Externado University of Colombia, calling regional integration an "existential issue." Against the backdrop of a changing international order, deeper regional integration will grant regional countries a say on a range of issues of both regional and global significance, including climate change, new technologies, anti-corruption and the reform of global institutions, Kerrigan said. Latin American integration was not driven by ideology or politics, "but by a real integration that includes all regional countries, without exclusion," he added. Argentine sociologist Marcelo Rodriguez believed that strengthening CELAC integration would help forge a relationship with China at the regional level as a whole and not just with each country. Xi's speech conveyed the message that China values its "friendly and cooperative" relations with CELAC, an integral part of the Global South, said Decio Machado, an international political analyst and a Spanish citizen who has been living in Ecuador for years. Former Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Huanacuni said Xi's speech reaffirmed China's commitment to greater cooperation with the region through the China-CELAC Forum. "We can cooperate regionally with China for win-win and shared benefits." "This platform (China-CELAC Forum) provides the region with the possibility to participate in a more active way in the Chinese initiatives for global security and development as well as for the creation of a community with a shared future," Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said. Chinese engineers and technicians with CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd., together with their Argentine colleagues, inspect a train in Llavallol, some 33 km south of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 16, 2020. (Photo by Martin Zabala/Xinhua) China's cooperation with CELAC contributes to the main development needs of regional countries, namely infrastructure and economic support, without the imposition of conditions, said Pamela Cristales, an academic at the Mexico-based Autonomous University of Yucatan. "Multilateralism encourages all countries to seek solutions to common challenges," Cristales said, adding that China's proposals share common values with CELAC's goals of seeking "cooperation based on mutual respect, the promotion of dialogue among equals, respect for sovereignty and non-interventionism." "China's contribution to the Latin American and Caribbean region has been made evident in recent years through South-South cooperation, equality for developing countries and proposals such as the Belt and Road Initiative," said Gonzalo Tordini, director of the China-Argentine Strategic Program at the National Defense University in Buenos Aires. Former Peruvian Foreign Minister Miguel Rodriguez Mackay believed that China offers CELAC the opportunity to turn shared development into a reality through closer cooperation, recommending that the region strengthen ties with China for fruitful outcomes that benefit all sides, particularly in the areas of technology and industrialization. Tourists disembark from a cruise ship in Mombasa, Kenya, Nov. 27, 2022. (Photo by Dihoff Mukoto/Xinhua) Kenya received 3,000 international cruise ship tourists in the past two months, a government official has said. NAIROBI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Kenya received 3,000 international cruise ship tourists in the past two months, a government official said on Thursday. John Ololtuaa, Principal Secretary at the State Department of Tourism, said that Kenya is benefiting from infrastructural development at the newly revamped cruise terminal at the port of Mombasa which has helped the destination tap into the cruise tourism segment. "Two more cruise ships are expected to call on the port before the end of this quarter," Ololtuaa said in a statement after receiving 800 visitors and crew aboard the MV World Odyssey cruise ship at Kenya's port of Mombasa. This photo shows a cruise ship at the port of Mombasa in Kenya, Dec. 25, 2022. (Photo by Dihoff Mukoto/Xinhua) Ololtuaa noted that the development of the terminal was significant with more cruise planners now targeting Kenya within their itineraries. He also noted that the return of the MV World Odyssey cruise ship was a testament to the appeal Kenya has among international travelers. "This is a clear indicator of the growing interest by cruise companies in our destination and in particular the coastal region which forms a key component of Kenya's multi-dimensional tourism product," he added. Ololtuaa revealed that Kenya will capitalize on the niche cruise tourism market as part of the country's diversified tourism marketing strategy. People wait for the arrival of a cruise ship in Mombasa, Kenya on Nov. 27, 2022. (Photo by Dihoff Mukoto/Xinhua) He noted that cruise tourists form a crucial part of the tourism industry owing to their high spending thereby generating additional crucial revenue for the destination, adding that cruise tourism is a high-value market worth billions of dollars, especially for destinations that have invested heavily in the relevant infrastructure as well as marketing their destinations globally. John Chirchir, acting chief executive officer of Kenya Tourism Board, said that the return of MV World Odyssey to Kenya shows that the destination has tourism opportunities that suit every visitor who arrives in the country. "With the enhanced experiences at the Kenyan Coast and other parts of the destination, we take pride in being able to accommodate global visitors of diverse interests and tastes," Chirchir noted. BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Creating a common South American currency, an idea floated this week by Argentina and Brazil, could pave the way for regional integration and growth without leaving anyone behind, Argentine academic Hernan Letcher has said. The move could also promote economic stability in Argentina, the director of the Argentine Center for Political Economy told Xinhua in an interview. "A common currency requires convergence of the main macroeconomic variables. In the case of Argentina, our country has exchange rate and monetary issues that need to be controlled," said Letcher. A common currency will also benefit Brazil, Latin America's largest economy. "Brazil and Argentina account for 50 or 60 percent of the region's GDP, so it is very significant for Brazil in terms of geopolitics and trade ties," Letcher said. "Brazil is Argentina's main trade partner. In 2022, it ... became the leading destination for Argentine exports, accounting for 14 percent of the total, or almost 12 billion U.S. dollars," said the expert. Meanwhile, "purchases from (Brazil) accounted for 20 percent of Argentine imports, or about 15 billion U.S. dollars, ranking second after China," Letcher said. "For Brazil, Argentina represents 7 percent of its foreign trade, the third most important market, after China and the United States," he added. On Sunday, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva proposed establishing a common South American currency ahead of the 7th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), held Tuesday in Buenos Aires. On Monday, Lula da Silva said creating a common South American currency would eventually reduce the region's dependence on the U.S. dollar, though the move would initially have a mainly bilateral impact by eliminating trade barriers between Argentina and Brazil. However, there are challenges to creating a common currency, namely transitions of power that bring in new governments. Such "political fluctuations" could throw a wrench in the process "because institutional commitments must be sustained over time" to ensure the idea succeeds, Letcher said. "The road to a common currency is not easy ... because it entails productivity and economic policy issues that must be synchronized," he added. For now, a common currency is an idea "that is beginning to be discussed," but implementing it will be "at the very least a medium-term" project, said Letcher. A common currency between Argentina and Brazil, or other nations in the region, "must serve as a tool that leads to countries' integration and growth," Letcher noted. BEIJING, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- With the Spring Festival holiday drawing to an end, China's highways, railways and airports are seeing a surge of people returning from family reunions and festival celebrations. The country saw more than 43.56 million passenger trips on Thursday, the sixth day of the seven-day holiday, a rise of 23.4 percent from Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Transport. The volume was 85.9 percent higher than the same period in 2022, but still 46.9 percent lower than the pre-pandemic level in 2019. Of the total, nearly 10.29 million were train trips, up 54.3 percent year on year, and the number of road trips increased by 101.8 percent to 30.72 million. Thursday also saw a 58.3 percent rise in air trips and a 98.9 percent hike in waterway trips. The first day of the first lunar month is the Spring Festival, and spending the turn of the new year with loved ones is a ritual for Chinese people. This year's Spring Festival fell on Jan. 22. In the past two years, most Chinese people stayed put during the festival amid virus curbs, but the country's shift in COVID-19 response has brought about a dramatic change. The demand for travel surges after China's recent downgrading of COVID-19 management from Class A to Class B. Under Class B management, travelers no longer need to present health codes and negative nucleic acid test results or undergo temperature checks when entering railway stations and airports. China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., the national railway operator, said it expects the number of railway passenger trips to hit 12.1 million Friday. The total number of passenger trips for this year's 40-day Spring Festival travel rush, which began on Jan. 7, is expected to reach 2.1 billion, almost twice as much as last year or 70.3 percent of the 2019 reading, according to the ministry. YINCHUAN, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese aviation company has been doing its part to help reduce poverty and advance rural revitalization in a once poverty-stricken area in northwest China. COMAC, the developer of the C919 large passenger aircraft, has been providing paired assistance to Xiji County in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region for over a decade. The company introduced advanced technologies and a mature management system to a local plant, which has created revenues and job opportunities. Besides, COMAC has also worked to commercialize local products and build brands to help generate more benefits. Produced by Xinhua Global Service TEHRAN, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian foreign ministry condemned an armed attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran, in which one was killed and two others injured. The ministry's spokesman Nasser Kanaani expressed "deep" sympathy to the assassinated embassy member's family as well as the Azerbaijani government, according to a statement published on the ministry's website. He added the assailant has been arrested by police and security forces and is being interrogated. Kanaani gave the assurance that at the order of the Iranian political and security authorities, the attack is under investigation with high priority and sensitivity. Mohammad Shahriari, the caretaker chairman of Tehran Province's criminal court, said initial investigations showed that personal issues have been behind the attack, the official news agency IRNA reported. Shahriari said the attacker claimed that his wife went to the embassy in April 2022 and had never returned home, and the assailant had gone to the embassy on numerous occasions looking for his wife but had never received any response. Shahriari added the attacker said he had believed that his wife was in the embassy, but did not want to meet him. On Friday morning, the assailant went to the embassy with a Kalashnikov rifle and started shooting, killing one employee and injuring two others, according to Tehran police Chief Hossein Rahimi. The assailant had entered the embassy with his two young children, he added. Azerbaijan's foreign ministry identified the victim as a guard, who had served as the head of security at the embassy, saying the Friday attack also wounded two people. BANGKOK, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Palang Pracharath Party on Friday nominated Prawit Wongsuwan, leader of the party and deputy prime minister of Thailand, as its candidate for prime minister in the upcoming general election. At the party's general meeting held Friday, Prawit, 77, was chosen as the party's candidate for prime minister in this year's general election. The party has made all preparations for the upcoming election and is heading towards the goal of leading efforts in forming a new government, Santi Promphat, the party's secretary general, said at the meeting. Early this month, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha joined the Ruam Thai Sang Chart Party (United Thai Nation Party), which was founded in March 2021, and was nominated as the party's candidate for prime minister. According to Thailand's election law, election candidates must have been in a party for at least 90 days from the date of election. If the House of Representatives finishes its term on March 23 as scheduled, the Election Commission will hold the general election within 45 days following the parliament's dissolution. OTTAWA, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- The number of job vacancies across all sectors in Canada decreased by 20,700 to 850,300 in November, down from the peak of more than 1 million recorded in May 2022, Statistics Canada said on Thursday. Job vacancies decreased in the professional, scientific and technical services as well as the health care and social assistance sectors in November, the national statistical agency said. Job vacancies were up in construction, and were little changed in accommodation and food services, retail trade and manufacturing, according to the agency. The job vacancy rate, which corresponds to the number of vacant positions as a proportion of total labour demand, was 4.8 percent in November 2022, the lowest rate since June 2021, the agency said. There were 1.2 unemployed persons for every job vacancy in November 2022, virtually unchanged since August, but up slightly from the low of 1.0 in June. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment-to-job vacancy ratio hovered around 2.2 from January 2019 to February 2020, Statistics Canada said. Afghans receive China-donated humanitarian aid in Nimroz province, Afghanistan, Dec. 20, 2022. (Photo by Aziz/Xinhua) Mardini named China "a key player in the international arena" which has "played a very positive role when it comes to advocating for humanitarian access" at the United Nations Security Council in New York. GENEVA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- With the world currently facing multiple crises including climate change, armed conflicts and COVID-19, a senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called on the international community to step up humanitarian aid. Robert Mardini, director-general of ICRC, also praised China's role in promoting international humanitarian law, and the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. "Unfortunately, the world is not in a good place," Mardini told Xinhua in an exclusive interview at the organization's headquarters in Geneva. Ukraine is the ICRC's biggest operation this year, Mardini said. However, he also emphasized that there are currently more than 100 other armed conflicts across the globe. "All those conflicts are unfortunately below the radar of the international community," he said. Humanitarian aid supplies sent by the Red Cross Society of China to the Ukrainian Red Cross Society are loaded in Warsaw, Poland, March 15, 2022. (Xinhua/Chen Chen) "Most of them are in places where people and communities are hard hit by the compounded effects of armed conflict, climate shocks as a result of climate change, the socio-economic consequences of COVID-19, and now the global knock-on effects of the Ukraine-Russia conflict." CHINA'S HUMANITARIAN ENGAGEMENT Mardini named China "a key player in the international arena" which has "played a very positive role when it comes to advocating for humanitarian access" at the United Nations Security Council in New York. "China has also been advocating for ... the protection of civilians in the midst of the Ukraine-Russia armed conflict," he said. ICRC has a long-standing dialogue with China and "in many African countries where ICRC is present, China has a very significant anchorage," he noted, adding that ICRC and China engage in dialogue on international humanitarian law, humanitarian access and development priorities. About 60 countries where the ICRC has large operations are located along China's Belt and Road Initiative, Mardini said. "The vast majority of these countries are affected by armed conflict, climate change, and socio-economic disruptions." The ICRC signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Red Cross Society of China here on Friday. Syrian Minister of Health Hasan al-Ghabash (3rd R, front) welcomes the Chinese COVID-19 vaccines at the international airport of Damascus, Syria, on July 29, 2021. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua) "It will be very important to further the discussion on the importance of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions," Mardini said. FUNDING NEEDS While the number of violent and armed conflicts is growing around the world, the fundraising environment for non-profit organizations is becoming more difficult, and budgets are shrinking. Mardini said that the ICRC's funding appeal for 2023, at 2.8 billion Swiss francs (3.05 billion U.S. dollars), is the highest ever. This is a huge challenge both for fundraising, and in terms of delivering humanitarian aid, Mardini said. He noted that the challenge is in places such as Afghanistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, the Lake Chad region and Syria, which are "key hotspots" for the ICRC's work and mission. Established in 1863, the ICRC helps people affected by conflict and armed violence, and promotes laws that protect victims of war. It is funded mainly by donations from governments, and from National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. A child is seen inside the Dharawan camp, in the northern suburb of Sanaa, Yemen's capital, on Dec. 7, 2022. (Photo by Mohammed Mohammed/Xinhua) KIGALI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta has accused Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) authorities of abandoning last year's agreement signed in the Angolan capital, Luanda, which aimed to address the crisis in the DRC's North Kivu province, where government forces are battling M23 rebels. While briefing parliament on Thursday in the capital city Kigali on the country's diplomatic relations with its neighbors, Biruta said Rwanda maintains good relations with all its neighboring countries except those with the DRC, which he described as "very poor" due to tensions over the M23 rebel group. Last November, African leaders at a mini-summit in Luanda agreed on an immediate ceasefire in North Kivu province, the immediate withdrawal of M23 rebels from the occupied areas, and the disarmament and repatriation of foreign armed groups, among others. "You hear the Congolese government saying, and the international community supports them, that the agreement was not respected because the M23 did not withdraw as required," Biruta said. "They never talk about the rest... the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda rebels) disarmament or other foreign armed groups, the refugee issue, the political talks, yet all these are part of the (Luanda) communique," he said. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has accused the M23 of "faking" withdrawal from areas it recently captured in the east. Biruta said that Rwanda remains ready to participate in all initiatives aimed at finding solutions to the current violence in the eastern DRC. Relations between the two neighboring countries have soured since fighting resumed between M23 rebels and DRC government troops. The DRC accuses Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels, a charge Rwanda denies. Kigali has in turn accused the Congolese army of allying with the FDLR, whose elements are accused of participating in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. NAIROBI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's President William Ruto on Friday launched the country's data protection registration system as the east African nation moved to safeguard personal information amid a boom in digital transactions. President Ruto said at the launch in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, that the data protection system will help Kenya accelerate its quest to be a fully digital economy. "This data system was developed by the Kenyan youth and has already been used to register and certify over 1,700 data processors and handlers. Thousands of others will be registered going forward," he said. He noted that Kenya, through the data protection registration system, has moved to seize opportunities that come with the ongoing fourth industrial revolution that has radically changed lives and transformed the way things are done across the world. Ruto said the government will ensure that terrorists and other criminal elements do not hide behind the data protection laws to perpetrate crimes. He further said Kenya will not use its data protection laws to violate the rights of citizens and stifle access to information, adding that Kenya will conclude the domestication of the African Union Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection adopted in 2014. Kenya is among 33 countries in Africa that have ratified the convention that establishes a framework for cybersecurity in the continent. ACCRA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Africa needs to increase its production capacity to realize the dream of trading its way out of poverty, Ghanaian Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia has said. Bawumia made the comments on Thursday in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of a three-day high-level policy dialogue on achieving prosperity in Africa in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) initiative presents the continent with a unique opportunity to increase its capacity in manufacturing and industrialization, he said, adding that Africa needs the appropriate infrastructure to achieve that goal. "As a continent, we need to produce and trade our way out of poverty and underdevelopment, and we cannot do that without investing in smart infrastructure across the continent," Bawumia said. While the last decades have seen some positive investments, there is still a need for additional resources to finance both physical and digital infrastructure, he said, adding that the continent needs at least 170 billion U.S. dollars annually to invest in critical infrastructure to bridge the infrastructure deficit. These investments, Bawumia said, would be critical to delivering the success of the AfCFTA and creating the needed economic power for the youth through job creation and reducing poverty by empowering African women through trade and entrepreneurship. The three-day "Africa Prosperity Dialogue" gathered business leaders and officials in charge of trade, economic, and other business-related sectors from across Africa. KIGALI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva has hailed policies and sustained implementation of reforms to address climate change by the different stakeholders in Rwanda. "I came away impressed by the dynamism and creativity of Rwandan youth advocating for climate action and environmental conservation, and entrepreneurs using their ingenuity to bring climate-friendly solutions for a greener tomorrow," she said after exchanges with Rwandan youth, women, civil society, and green entrepreneurs in the capital city Kigali on Thursday. Rwanda was last December announced as the first country in Africa to access the IMF's 319-million-U.S. dollar loan under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility, to support the country's ambitious agenda to build resilience to climate change and help catalyze further financing. In a statement at the conclusion of her three-day visit to Rwanda, Georgieva said this is a testament to Rwanda's strong track record of policies and sustained implementation of reforms. "Considering Rwanda's place as a pacesetter on climate initiatives and the challenges the East Africa region faces with increasingly frequent and damaging droughts and flooding, I appreciated the opportunity to focus on the existential threat of climate change," she said. Noting that climate change is a global emergency that transcends national borders, Georgieva said she heard clearly Rwanda's unequivocal call for stronger international cooperation and coordination to address the challenge. She called for international cooperation and coordinated solutions to climate challenges, including mobilizing the needed financing. The Resilience and Sustainability Facility is to help vulnerable low- and middle-income countries address longer-term structural changes such as climate change and pandemic preparedness. "We look forward to seeing Rwanda serve as a leading example of how long-term low-cost funding from the IMF can help sub-Saharan Africa mitigate the effects of climate change," Georgieva said. While in Rwanda, Georgieva held discussions with senior policymakers from the East African Community on how the IMF can be a more effective partner to help the region emerge from multiple crises and build a more resilient, inclusive, and greener economy. LUSAKA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- A tripartite deal aimed at enhancing connectivity in order to enhance business in Africa has been signed, a statement released on Friday said. The Lobito Corridor Transit Transport agreement was signed by Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia on Friday in the Angolan capital Luanda, according to the statement released by Zambia's Ministry of Transport and Logistics. According to the statement, the agreement will unlock the business potential along the corridor through effective participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the value chains as well as boost private sector investment in the three countries. Frank Tayali, Zambia's Minister of Transport and Logistics, said the agreement will also ease the movement of people, goods and services as well as improve and stimulate regional connectivity and integration through the implementation of harmonized trade facilitation instruments. The agreement, he added, will provide Zambia with an alternative strategic outlet to the Western and European export markets and offers a key rout to the sea Port of Lobito. He, however, said there was an urgent need to constitute governing organs and structures of the Lobito Corridor to actualize the quick implementation of the agreement. According to him, the mere signing of the agreement without actualizing its content and aspirations will be futile hence the need to ratify it in order to enter into force. "I have also noted that our technical experts are yet to develop the tripartite and railway transport agreements which will be additions to this agreement. In this regard, I wish to encourage our technical experts to start formulating these agreements as they are key to the successful implementation of the transport corridor agreement," he said. The Lobito Corridor represents an alternative strategic outlet to export markets for the DRC and Zambia and offers the shortest route linking key mining regions to the sea. BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- QueUp, a widely-used mobile application for making public service appointments, will be made offline following a data breach incident, local media reported on Friday. Rhymin & Partners, the developer of QueUp, made the offline announcement, saying they "have taken the first line of action and currently working closely with Cyber Security Brunei to mitigate and address the impacts of this incident." "We will inform the public as soon as we restore the system," the developer said. The QueUp application is widely used to reserve appointment slots for local identity card applications, all kinds of visa applications and employment pass applications of foreign workers. In a separate statement, Brunei's Ministry of Health said that several services under the ministry are affected. QueUp is used for booking appointments for foreign workers' employment health screening and for the public to reserve vaccination slots before traveling overseas, the ministry said. The Postal Services Department said in a statement that the appointment for medicine delivery can be made by contacting nearby post offices. JAKARTA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has set to focus on developing and promoting tourism villages this year, as such an alternative tourism has been proven to be able to survive during a pandemic, the country's Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno said on Friday. A tourism village is usually described as a village designated to welcome tourists, offering experiences that combine nature, authentic cultures and local life. Uno said that in the last two years, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of foreign tourists who visited tourism villages across Indonesia increased around 30 to 50 percent, particularly the villages in Central Java and West Java provinces, while other tourism destinations experienced downturns. Uno said tourism villages had become "pandemic winners" because they mostly offered open nature spaces and not many people flocked to one area, and there were only a small group of villagers who lived there. "Therefore, we want to make the tourism villages become our flagship program to boost our tourism sectors. We believe they can significantly drive our post-pandemic economic recovery," Uno said in a written statement. He added that the tourism villages were small and simple destinations, but they could carry huge impacts to Indonesia's tourism sector and support the local enterprises. This photo provided by Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) shows a worker cleaning mud and debris with an excavator near a damaged house after flood in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, Jan. 30, 2023. One people died after floods 80 to 300 cm high destroyed dozens of homes in Indonesia's North Sulawesi on Friday. At least five sub-districts have been flooded, and 33 houses in six sub-districts have experienced landslides, as the authorities continue to assess the situation on the ground. (BNPB/Handout via Xinhua) JAKARTA, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- One people died after floods 80 to 300 cm high destroyed dozens of homes in Indonesia's North Sulawesi on Friday. "Heavy rains in several areas of Manado City have caused the Tondano River to overflow, and flooding cannot be avoided," said Abdul Muhari, spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. At least five sub-districts have been flooded, and 33 houses in six sub-districts have experienced landslides, as the authorities continue to assess the situation on the ground. The evacuation is still ongoing, and officers are preparing a variety of needs for evacuation posts. Manado City faces a medium to high risk of ground movement in January, according to the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. On the other hand, rain accompanied by lightning will continue to flush the area until Saturday, according to the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency. BANGKOK, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's Ministry of Finance on Friday lowered its growth forecast for 2022 but maintained its projection for 2023 at 3.8 percent, helped by improving tourism sector and domestic demand. The country's economy is expected to expand 3 percent year on year in 2022, down from the ministry's previous projection of 3.2 percent, dragged by a slowdown in private consumption, public investment and exports, Pornchai Thiraveja, director general of the ministry's Fiscal Policy Office, told a news conference. The gross domestic product (GDP) data for 2022 is due in February. The ministry expected the country to welcome 27.5 million foreign tourist arrivals this year, up from a previous forecast of 21.5 million, thanks to increasing tourists from the Asian region, Pornchai said. The country's tourism sector is picking up, receiving 11.15 million international tourist arrivals in 2022, up from only 428,000 in 2021. China's optimization of its COVID-19 strategy is considered a tailwind to Thailand's economic growth, while the global economic slowdown, monetary policy tightening in major economies and geopolitical tensions are among the risk factors, he said. However, he said exports are expected to increase just 0.4 percent this year due to declining demand from key trading partners. Previously, the ministry expected the country's exports to rise 2.5 percent in 2023. NEW DELHI, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government has signed an agreement with South Africa to bring 12 cheetahs next month, officials said Friday. The big cats will be flown to the Kuno National Park in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, and join eight other cheetahs introduced to India from Namibia last year. In the next eight to 10 years, more than 100 cheetahs will be translocated to India as part of the Indian government's cheetah introduction project, according to the agreement between the two countries. Restoring cheetah populations is considered a priority for India, as the country is aiming to re-establish the function role of cheetahs within their historical range in India and improve the livelihood and economies of the local communities, said a statement issued by the environment ministry of South Africa. "The plan is to translocate a further 12 annually for the next eight to 10 years," the statement said. Prior to their extinction from India in 1952, cheetahs used to share space with other big cats like lions and tigers in the forests. Last year in September, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a cheetah reintroduction program in Madhya Pradesh's Kuno national park by releasing the cheetahs that were brought from Namibia in a special cargo plane. Modi then said that with the reintroduction of cheetahs, there is a chance to reconnect the age-old link of biodiversity that was broken decades ago with the extinction. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis addresses Parliament in Athens, Greece, on Jan. 27, 2023. A motion of censure against the Greek government over allegations of extensive wiretapping was outvoted on Friday, Greek national broadcaster ERT has reported. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) ATHENS, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- A motion of censure against the Greek government over allegations of extensive wiretapping was outvoted on Friday, Greek national broadcaster ERT has reported. The motion was tabled by the main opposition party, SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, over alleged surveillance of ministers, legislators, military officers, journalists, and businessmen by the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP). A total of 143 Members of Parliament voted in favor of the motion of censure, while 156 deputies voted against, Greek national broadcaster ERT reported. Addressing the plenary shortly before the vote, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that he had been calling on the main opposition party to table a censure motion for the past five months, as it is the procedure in parliament and general elections for political parties to resolve their differences. The prime minister has reiterated several times lately that general elections will be held in Greece this spring. His conservative New Democracy party was elected to office in July 2019, and is leading in recent opinion polls. Mitsotakis and the government claim that they were not aware of any surveillance activities, and all procedures carried out were legal. For several months, the Greek media has been reporting that many people have been under surveillance by EYP in recent years. SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Alexis Tsipras (Front) addresses the Greek Parliament in Athens, Greece, on Jan. 27, 2023. A motion of censure against the Greek government over allegations of extensive wiretapping was outvoted on Friday, Greek national broadcaster ERT has reported. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) Photo taken on Jan. 27, 2023 shows a view of the Greek Parliament in Athens, Greece. A motion of censure against the Greek government over allegations of extensive wiretapping was outvoted on Friday, Greek national broadcaster ERT has reported. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) A man casts his vote during the second round of presidential election at a polling station in Prague, the Czech Republic, Jan. 27, 2023. Voters in the Czech Republic began to cast their ballots on Friday afternoon in the second round of this year's presidential election. The first round was held on Jan. 13-14. (Photo by Dana Kesnerova/Xinhua) PRAGUE, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Voters in the Czech Republic began to cast their ballots on Friday afternoon in the second round of this year's presidential election. The first round was held on Jan. 13-14. Since postal ballots is not an option, Czechs living abroad could already go to the polls on Thursday so that their votes can make it in time for the final tally on Saturday. The two candidates in the two-day runoff are retired army general Petr Pavel and former prime minister Andrej Babis. The winner will succeed incumbent President Milos Zeman, whose second and final term ends in early March. The election results are expected to be announced late on Saturday. Analysts predict a higher voter turnout this weekend, pointing to aggressive campaigning by both candidates. Pavel, 61, served as head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee. He was endorsed by the current ruling government coalition. Babis, 68, the head of the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) party, served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021. Public opinion polls have given Pavel an edge over Babis. In the first round, which included eight candidates, Pavel received 35.4 percent of the vote to Babis's 34.99 percent. Voter turnout was 68 percent, about six percentage points higher than that in the 2018 election. The president of the Czech Republic is chosen in a direct election and serves a term of five years. The mandate can be held for a maximum of two consecutive terms. A woman casts her vote during the second round of presidential election at a polling station in Prague, the Czech Republic, Jan. 27, 2023. Voters in the Czech Republic began to cast their ballots on Friday afternoon in the second round of this year's presidential election. The first round was held on Jan. 13-14. (Photo by Dana Kesnerova/Xinhua) STOCKHOLM: A "consensus" from EU interior ministers was reached on Thursday to warn other countries, which refuse to take back illegal immigrants, to enter Europe from doing so, according to Sweden's migration minister. Stricter visa requirements may result. According to Maria Malmer Stenergaard, who spoke to journalists, the ministers agreed that the tools available from 2020 will be "fully used" to increase the number of migrants returning to their countries of origin after their applications for asylum have been rejected. should be done" . Sweden, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, chaired the Stockholm meeting. Malmar Stenergaard said, "Member States call on the (European) Commission to return to the (European) Council, with proposals for visa restrictions should political and diplomatic efforts not yield the desired results. Also Read; We hacked the hackers US infiltrated a major ransomware gang Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen took a tough stance in a letter sent to EU leaders on Thursday ahead of a summit on the subject scheduled for February 9-10. In the first half of this year, EU member states can take part in a pilot program to speed up screening and asylum procedures for eligible migrants and the "immediate return" of those who are not. She further said she wanted the EU to compile a list of "safe countries of origin" and increase border security checks along migration routes in the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean into Europe. According to von der Leyen, the EU intends to implement migration agreements with countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Nigeria "to improve returns ... and to prevent departures". EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson stressed in Stockholm that many EU countries were under "enormous pressure" as a result of the nearly one million asylum requests received in 2017. She claimed that the EU's capacity to house nearly four million Ukrainian refugees, who fled Russia's war in their country, was further strained. Figures from the European Commission indicate a low rate of effective return. Also Read; UN Watchdog: Explosions near a nuclear plant in Ukraine Russia claims it's a provocation Of the 340,500 orders to send migrants back to their countries of origin in 2021, only 21% have actually been followed. The European Union provides funding for a number of reintegration initiatives in nations that accept their citizens who were refused asylum in Europe. These are distinct from forced returns or deportations pursuant to a court or administrative order, which often involve escorting and often do not involve assistance in the country. Sweden wants EU countries to use visas, foreign policy and development aid to pressure other countries on the issue of returns. Sweden's government relies on the far-right Sweden Democrats to stay in power. The Gambia, whose citizens must obtain a Schengen visa which is more cumbersome and expensive, is the only country against which the EU has so far used the visa restriction instrument. The commission suggested in 2021 that Bangladesh and Iraq should be included in the mechanism, but nothing came of it. After a visit to Bangladesh in November, Johansson claimed that the threat of visa restrictions prompted Dhaka to change its "political openness" towards receiving illegal immigrants returning from Europe. Since accepting more than a million asylum seekers between 2015 and 2016, most of whom were Syrians fleeing civil war in their country, Europe's attitude towards immigration has become more hostile. In 2016, an agreement was reached between the bloc and Turkey to prevent most undocumented migrants from entering Europe. To further stem the flow of asylum seekers, Austria supports strengthening of the border fence between EU member Bulgaria and Turkey. During a visit to that border area on Monday, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehmer said the cost of the fence would be around two billion euros and urged the European Commission to provide funds. The Commission has been hesitant to take that action, instead focusing on Frontex, the organization in charge of border patrols for EU member states. The existing fence needed to be strengthened, Nehmer told reporters in Vienna on Thursday. "The commission categorically denies that there is funding for the fence. It cannot be the last word on this," he continued. Also Read; First anti-Islamophobia advisor hired in Canada is "important step," says Prime Minister Trudeau He insisted that the visa-free Schengen zone and the current asylum management system were ineffective. Johansson claimed she disagreed with the fence proposal because the European Council, which represents member states, had reduced her department's budget for the period 2021-2027. Washington: According to US officials, President Joe Biden directed a US military operation in Somalia that resulted in the death of Bilal al-Sudani, a prominent regional head of the Daesh organisation. Sudani was killed in a crossfire by US troops after he entered a network of mountain caves in northern Somalia in the hope of being captured, according to US officials. About ten Daesh supporters from Sudan were killed at the scene, according to officials, but no Americans were hurt. According to a statement by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, "On orders from the President, US forces conducted an assault operation in northern Somalia on January 25 that resulted in the killing of several Daesh members, including Bilal al-Sudani." Also Read: We hacked the hackers US infiltrated a major ransomware gang According to Austin, al-Sudani was in charge of aiding Daesh's expansion into Africa and providing financial support for the organization's worldwide operations, including Afghanistan. A US official said on condition of anonymity from his mountain base in northern Somalia that he provided funding and coordination not only for Daesh branches in Africa but also for Daesh Khorasan, the branch operating in Afghanistan. Sudani was involved in recruiting and training fighters for the radical al-Shabaab movement in Somalia ten years ago before joining Daesh. According to the official, "Sudanese had an important operational and financial role and special skills, making him a prime target for US counterterrorism operations." US forces were conducting exercises at a site designed to mimic the area where the Sudanese had been hiding during months of preparation for the operation. Also Read: UN Watchdog: Explosions near a nuclear plant in Ukraine Russia claims it's a provocation The official claimed that Biden authorized the strike earlier this week after consultations with senior defense, intelligence and security officials. Another administration official stated that "an intended capture operation was ultimately found to be the best option for maximizing the intelligence value of the operation and increasing its accuracy in difficult terrain." But the officer claimed that he died due to "reaction of hostile forces to the operation". According to the official, the only injury suffered by an American during the raid was caused by a US military service dog biting one of the service members. The official said that President Biden has made it clear that we are committed to detecting and neutralizing terrorist threats to the United States and the American people, no matter how far they hide, in this operation and all others. . The long-running US military operations in Somalia have been conducted in coordination with and on behalf of the government, most of which involve routine airstrikes to support government forces battling Shabaab rebels. Some of them are reportedly carried out from a US base in Djibouti, which is located in the north of Somalia. Between 2017 and 2020, the number of US airstrikes in Somalia increased to dozens per year; However, two to four ground operations were also observed each year. Also Read: First anti-Islamophobia advisor hired in Canada is "important step," says Prime Minister Trudeau Data compiled by New America, a national security think tank, shows that since Biden took office in 2021, airstrikes have dropped to just 16 in 2022, and no ground strikes. Germany provides Ukraine with additional Iris-T SLM missiles 27 January, 06:00 PM IRIS-T system (Photo:_AD_CHANEL6/Twitter) Another batch of military aid from Germany, which includes additional Iris-T SLM missiles, has arrived in Ukraine, the German government reported on Jan. 27. The recently delivered military support to Ukraine includes the following: Iris-T SLM missiles; 13 trucks; two load-handling trucks 15t; 12 truck tractor trains and four semi-trailers; 12 border protection vehicles; two pick-ups. Germany has also updated its list of military support to Ukraine in planning/in execution with: Video of day 14 Leopard 2 A 6 main battle tanks with ammunition; two armored recovery vehicles Bergepanzer 3; two air surveillance radars; 78 truck tractor trains and 86 semi-trailers. On Oct. 11, 2022, Germany handed over the first out of the four pledged IRIS-T air defense systems to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Oct. 24 that Germany would hand over three more IRIS-T systems to Ukraine as soon as possible. Prior to that, then-German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht stated that Kyiv would receive three more IRIS-T air defense systems in 2023. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Russians claims about advances near Vuhledar, Orikhiv misinformation, says UK intelligence 27 January, 01:35 PM Russian invaders (Photo:REUTERS/Alexey Malgavko) Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation that the Russian army is allegedly advancing near the town of Vuhledar, Donetsk Oblast, and the town of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhya Oblast, the UKs Ministry of Defense wrote on Twitter on Jan. 27. According to UK intelligence, over the last six days, various Russia media sources have begun to claim that Russian forces have made significant advances, breaking through Ukrainian defences in two areas: in Zaporizhzhya Oblast near Orikhiv, and 100km to the east, in Donetsk Oblast, near Vuhledar. Video of day Russian units have probably conducted local, probing attacks near Orikhiv and Vuhledar, but it is highly unlikely that Russia has actually achieved any substantive advances, the ministry said in its daily summary. The MoD also noted that there is a realistic possibility that Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation in an effort to imply that the Russian operation is sustaining momentum. Read also: Ukrainian military says fighting continues near Soledar Ukraines General Staff reported on Jan. 27 that the Defense Forces had repelled enemy attacks in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts over the past day. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Japan tightens Russia sanctions after latest missile strike in Ukraine 27 January, 11:44 AM Japan will now prohibit shipments of certain products to 49 organizations in Russia from Feb. 3 (Photo:Anwar Nillufary/www.flickr.com) Japan tightened sanctions on Russia on Jan. 27, following the latest wave of missile strikes against Ukraine, the Reuters news agency reported. The country will now prohibit shipments of certain products to 49 organizations in Russia from Feb. 3 that could be used to enhance its military capability. Those include products ranging from water cannons, gas exploration equipment, and semiconductor equipment, to vaccines, X-ray inspection equipment, explosives, and robots, the ministry said. Video of day According to Reuters, Japan will also freeze the assets of three entities and 22 individuals in Russia, including aircraft company JSC Irkut Corp, surface-to-air missile maker MMZ Avangard, deputy defense minister Mikhail Mizintsev, and justice minister Konstantin Chuychenko, and 14 pro-Russian individuals who are linked to the occupation of southeastern Ukraine. In light of the situation surrounding Ukraine and to contribute to international efforts to secure peace, Japan will implement export bans in line with other major nations, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry said in a statement. Early on Jan. 26, invading Russian forces launched 55 air and sea-based missiles against Ukraine, of which 47 were downed by Ukrainian air defense forces. According to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the enemy launched Kh-101, Kh-555, Kh-47 Kinzhal, Kalibr, andKh-59 missiles from Tu-95, Su-35, MiG-31K aircraft, and from warships in the Black Sea. Russia also conducted an overnight attack on Ukraine with Iranian drones, with all 24 launched being shot down. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Ukraine needs 300-500 tanks for counteroffensive, Zelenskyy says 27 January, 08:23 PM President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Photo:Office of the President) Ukraine would need between 300 and 500 tanks for a major counteroffensive against Russian forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with UK TV channel Sky News, published on Jan. 25. We need 300 or 500 tanks, at this point, said Zelenskyy. Thats why I believe that we need tanks to carry out an offensive on our territory, on our land. We need armored vehicles to protect our people, thats all. Zelenskyy explained that Russian tanks vastly outnumber the vehicles that Ukrainian forces have at their disposal. Video of day He also expressed his gratitude to Europe and the United States for their decision to arm Ukraine with modern tanks. At the same time, the president stressed there was no time to waste in getting them to the frontlines. Im very happy and I would like to thank Germany, thank Britain, and thank the United States that they made such decisions, he said. Overall, Im grateful to the world for their support of Ukraine. But if we are talking frankly and honestly with you, the number of tanks and delivery time are of crucial and critical importance, in comparison to the decision that has been made. We have instances of approved weapons to be sent to us, but we still havent received them. Sometimes, the delivery of the weapons takes months, you see. I dont blame anyone, but, in response to your question, a sense of relief comes only after the weapons, which our partners give us, are already being used by our army. In mid-December, 2022, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said Ukraine needs 300 tanks. On Jan. 25, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz officially announced that Germany would transfer 14 Leopard-2 tanks to Ukraine and approve their re-export from partner countries. According to German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, the tanks could be sent to Ukraine in about three months. The same day, U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to supply 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, along with the equipment and spare parts needed to keep them running. Biden added that while the delivery of Abrams will take some time, the training of the Ukrainian crews will begin as soon as possible. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News Home Entertainment Star Nabin Chauhan: Why this music video director stands out from the rest in Nepal Nabin Chauhan. Photo: Aryan Dhimal There is nothing new about creating a music video; all it takes is a song and getting its visual interpretation. However, the way Nabin Chauhan handles the process is different. He treats each of his music videos as if they are his last and only job. In this music video directors works, be it Ke Maya Lagchha Ra or Teenpatey, Ghumi Ghumi or Lajayera, his passion and skill are reflected in them. His focus is quality rather than quantity. Nabin Chaudhans works are unique and experimental, different from others in terms of the process. He first collects visuals according to the story he wants to portray and then creates a song that matches his story. Chauhan says, It might seem the opposite of the video-making trend, but I am not going to record the song first and make a video of it later. Making his first-ever music video Screengrab of a scene from Nabin Chauhans music video Lukichhipi Kina Mayama. Lukichhipi Kina Mayama is Nabin Chauhans first music video. He went to Panchthar, his own village to film the music video. It is the place where he had spent his youth and played with his friends, hence it is the place that he enjoys the most. He had many experiences and feelings connected with the soil there. That is why he wanted to capture those feelings in the form of a story and put them in a video. But, how could all the stories be covered in a song of just three minutes? This challenge reminded Nabin Chauhan of his naivety. Many of the scenes he wanted to show and tell were not used in that video. A lot of footage was shot for a 12-15 minute story, which was not possible to put in a single music video, the director says, The rest of the footage was unused. Being creative during the pandemic The Covid pandemic was restless for Nabin Chauhan as nobody was allowed to go out and producing music videos was out of sight. At that time, he consulted his friends to see if they could do something with the remaining footage. They created a video using the remaining footage and showed it to Hark Saud, a well-known lyricist. Sauds creativity and language skills are known in the Nepali music industry. Hence, after watching Chauhans video, he prepared lyrics to match the scenes: Ke maya lagchha ra?/ Ukhumai lagchha Ni/ Mero yaad aunchha ra/ Hurhuri aauncha ni (Do you love me?/ Yes, a lot/Do you miss me?/ Yes, I miss you a lot). Screengrab of a scene from Nabin Chauhans music video Ke Maya Lagchha Ra This song became a massive hit during the pandemic and created a buzz in the Nepali musical scenario. Especially, this song and video was a byproduct of the previous music video, says Chauhan, but this song inspired us to do more work. Musical videos to tell stories After that, Nabin Chauhan created the music video for Teenpatey-Dekhera Timilai. The song had not been written yet when Chauhan arrived at Mangalbare, Ilam, from Kathmandu with a team of around 15 people. Upon reaching there, he started filming random clips instantly. He captured local scenes like a haat bazaar (open-air market), wedding ceremonies and youth arriving home from foreign employment. In particular, Chauhan was only sure about the concept of his music video, which is about local people who are entrepreneurs. Himself an entrepreneur, he wanted to make a music video based on the story of his own experience. Screengrab of a scene from Nabin Chauhans music video Teenpatey-Dekhera Timilai It was the time when Nabin Chauhan used to do business related to dairy products such as ghee and chhurpi in Kathmandu and his classmate Milan Khatri ran a dairy farm in the village. He added a hint of a love story while filming in Ilam along with the story of entrepreneurship and returned to Kathmandu. The videos were shown to Saud and he wrote Teenpatey-Dekhera Timilai, which was sung by Sujan Chapagain and Bidya Tiwari later. According to Chauhan, Teenpatey-Dekhera Timilai was created with a desire to narrate stories. It is not a music video but a musical video. After that, he created more musical videos narrating stories with different themes. The song Baaf shows the lifestyle in a border area, Dhaago shows different aspects of humanity, and Ghumi Ghumi shows the story of migration. Nabin Chauhans latest hit is Chandrama. This is my latest and probably the last project of a music video, says Chauhan, I have made this music video as a dedication to everyone who is related to me directly and indirectly. Like most of his videos, he shot the video first and asked for a song to fit it. At other times, I was standing behind the camera and telling other peoples stories, says Chauhan, In this music video, I am also seen in front of the camera. He says that he wanted to show how locals treat the music video team during their stay at shooting locations. In the course of shooting, we develop a cordial relationship with the locals, he says, They do everything from emptying their own house for shooting to gathering the necessary materials immediately. Hence, this music video depicts the story of how Nabin Chauhan and his team are welcomed and helped by the locals while filming in their locality. According to him, Chinese director Zhang Yimou is his inspiration to create music videos and he adds, Zhang is my favourite director, and this video is dedicated to him as well. This story was translated from the original Nepali version and edited for clarity and length. (Adds AES comment) SANTIAGO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Chile's environmental regulator accused a major hydroelectric power facility operated by U.S.-based AES of violations, largely related to a failure to build required infrastructure but it also said the company skirted its ecological obligations. Environment regulator SMA outlined four charges covering AES' $3.5 billion Alto Maipo project in a statement on Thursday, which also accused it of engaging in work in a protected paleontological area plus unlawful moving of fauna. AES is analyzing the regulator's charges, it said in a statement released later on Thursday, adding it is committed to complying with its legal obligations to care for the environment and human health. Alto Maipo, located southeast of the capital Santiago, features two power plants and an extensive network of tunnels that extend deep under the Andes Mountains. It has been mired in controversy dating back several years, including fierce opposition from local communities who complain the facilities harm their access to water. An audit showed that the company's local unit AES Andes failed to build a "complementary" water outlet for irrigation for a canal set out in previously agreed to deal with local communities, SMA Superintendent Marie Claude Plumer said in the statement. In its statement, AES Andes refuted that accusation, saying it did build the water infrastructure for the Manzano canal, which it described as "operational." The violations could lead to a fine of around $18.5 million, the closure of the plants or the termination of its environmental permit. AES Andes sells electricity to Chile, as well as Colombia and Argentina. It has 10 working days to present a compliance plan and 15 working days to submit its response, according to the regulator. (Reporting by Fabian Andres Cambero; Editing by David Gregorio and Aurora Ellis) The Insight Partners The global 5G network and tower deployment market growth is fuelled by increase in adoption of 5G technology across industries, rise in government initiatives to promote the deployment of 5G and increase in network subscribers and adoption of smart phone. New York, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to The Insight Partners, 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends anf Global Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Component (Small Cell, 5G Mobile Core Network, and Radio Access Network), Location (Ground Tower and Rooftop Tower), Frequency Band (Low Band, Medium Band, and High Band), and Small Cell Tower (Femto Cells, Pico Cells, and Micro Cells); the global 5G network and tower deployment market size is expected to grow from USD 9.21 billion in 2022 to USD 17.78 billion by 2028; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11.6% from 2022 to 2028. Get Sample Report at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00013527 Global 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Report Scope: Market Size Value in USD 9.21 billion in 2022 Market Size Value by USD 17.78 billion by 2028 Growth rate CAGR of 11.6% from 2022 to 2028 Forecast Period 2022-2028 Base Year 2022 No. of Pages 208 No. of Tables 110 No. of Charts & Figures 92 Historical data available Yes Segments covered Component, Location, Frequency Band, and Small Cell Tower Global 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Analysis: Competitive Landscape and Key Developments American Tower Corporation, Crown Castle International Corp, CTI Towers Inc., Dish Network L.L.C., SBA Communications Corporation, CommScope Inc., Mavenir, Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc., and Qualcomm Technologies Inc. are among the key 5G network and tower deployment market players profiled in this market study. Several other essential 5G network and tower deployment market players were studied and analyzed to get a holistic view of the market size and its ecosystem. Story continues In 2022, Nokia was awarded a five-year contract to provide 5G network infrastructure to Norwegian mobile operator Ice. In 2022, Ericsson entered a strategic partnership with Bouygues Telecom to supply 5G Standalone (5G SA) connectivity. Inquiry Before Purchase: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPRE00013527 Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Growth The COVID-19 crisis has drastically affected two huge markets in APACIndia and China. Though the pandemic has affected the economy, it did not impact the 5G developments extensively. The COVID-19 crisis has caused the authorities and local governments in many Asian countries to use 5G technology to fight against the spread of the disease. 5G has motivated them to bring new methods of conducting surveillance and patrol in public areas. 5G technology has opened up prospects for using drones. In China, 5G-powered drones equipped with voice broadcast systems are installed to broadcast health warnings and operate aerial patrols in public areas. Similarly, in Malaysia, over 10 units of drones equipped with speakers and heat-sensing technology are installed to control and monitor the public to ensure contactless temperature screening of massive crowds. Moreover, in China, schools have used 5G remote education, including Live Distance Education and Cloud Video Distance Education, to avoid mass gatherings of students and lower the spread of infections. Due to cloud capabilities and 5G bandwidth, the education sector in China has successfully worked on lowering the spread of the virus. Speak to Research Expert: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/speak-to-analyst/TIPRE00013527 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Study: Regional Overview North America has been the pioneer in the rapid adoption of new and advanced technologies over the years. The presence of multiple industries, continuous investment by market players in technological advancements, and the rise in demand for fast data transmission from commercial and residential broadband subscribers are propelling the requirement for 5G networks across the region, thereby boosting the growth of the 5G network and tower deployment market The 5G network and tower deployment market in Asia Pacific is segmented into China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, and the Rest of APAC. Asia Pacific is an early adopter of 5G, with countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and China seeming to be ahead in the 5G wave. Other countries, including India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam, appear to develop significantly. South Korea, Australia, and China are the first in the world to launch commercial 5G services. For instance, South Korea deployed the first 5G network in April 2019 and is expected to have increased penetration of the technology, with almost 60% of mobile subscriptions in South Korea will be for 5G networks by 2025. Japan had been trialing 5G network technology since 2010 before launching a decade later. GSMA states that 5G will contribute significantly to the Asia Pacific economy by 2034, with key industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, utilities, retail, and financial services, and the public sector benefitting the most from the new technology for digital transformation, Industry 4.0, and enterprise 4.0. Due to the growing demand for 5G technology by various industries, earnings from 5G services in Asia Pacific will increase to US$ 8 billion (a 137% increase) in 2026 from US$ 106 million in 2021. Thus, 5G is vibrant in Asia Pacific, with many deployments planned for both emerging and mature markets. This is contributing to the 5G network and tower deployment market growth in Asia Pacific Buy Premium Copy of 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Growth Report (2022-2028) at: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00013527 5G Network and Tower Deployment Market Study: Location Overview Based on location, the 5G network and tower deployment market analysis is segmented into ground tower and rooftop tower. The ground tower segment dominated the 5G network and tower deployment market in 2022, whereas the rooftop tower segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. 5G ground towers are telecommunication sites that are used to boost wireless signals at an increased speed than that of 4G. 5G operates in a high-frequency band of the wireless spectrum. Major companies such as Ericsson, Huawei, and Nokia are working to ensure that the 5G tower radio gear features as multiple standards as possible while keeping it compact and lightweight. Operators have supported any measure that promotes investment in the 5G ground tower infrastructure, which is driving the market for the segment. For instance, in February 2022, the FAA, Verizon, and AT&T decided on procedures enabling additional towers to deliver 5G services. The introduction of additional 5G service in significant areas across the US will allow wireless operators to switch to more towers securely. Browse other research published by The Insight Partners: 5G Market - The global 5G market size is expected to grow from US$ 2.56 billion in 2020 to US$ 23.95 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 56.39% between 2020 and 2025. 5G Infrastructure Market - The global 5G infrastructure market size was valued at US$ 963.74 million in 2021; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 64.8% from 2022 to 2028. 5G Fixed Wireless Access Market - The global 5G fixed wireless access market size is expected to grow from US$ 425.26 million in 2021 to US$ 90,563.22 million by 2028 at a CAGR of 85.2% between 2022 and 2028. 5G Antenna Market - 5G antennas are also referred to as digital antenna arrays, adaptive array antennas, or multiple antennas. 5G Services Market - "Global 5G Services Market Analysis To 2028" is a specialized and in-depth study of the 5G services industry with a special focus on the global market trend analysis. 5G in Defense Market - 5G technology provides higher network speed and lower latency, thereby increasing the implementation of 5G in defense sector. Small Cell 5G Network Market - Small Cells are short-range, low power transmission systems that cover a small geographic area. Small cells are used 5G to tackle several challenges, such as high data speed, reliability, and other latency specifications. Voice-over-5G (Vo5G) Market - Voice-over-5G (Vo5G) is referred to as voice services via the fifth generation of mobile networking technologies. 5G enterprise Market - 5G (short for 5th Generation) is a term for specific advanced wireless systems.5G technology utilizes a higher-frequency band of the wireless spectrum which allows data to be transferred more rapidly than the lower-frequency band dedicated to 4G. 5G Industrial IoT Market - 5G is the latest trend adopted rapidly in order to improve connectivity. The combination of IoT and 5G technology will help to overcome all the obstacles in various industries. About Us: The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We specialize in industries such as Semiconductor and Electronics, Aerospace and Defense, Automotive and Transportation, Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Manufacturing and Construction, Medical Device, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Chemicals and Materials. Contact Us: If you have any queries about this report or if you would like further information, please contact us: Contact Person: Sameer Joshi E-mail: sales@theinsightpartners.com Phone: +1-646-491-9876 Press Release: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/pr/5g-network-and-tower-deployment-market Company Logo Dublin, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) Films Market Size, Market Share, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Trends, Key Players, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts, 2022 to 2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) Films Market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period of 2022 to 2030. BOPP (Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene) sheets are a thermoplastic polymer widely used in packaging. This polypropylene film is extensible in both the machine direction and across machine directions. This stretching provides BOPP films with superior printability, low gauge, clarity, flatness, and retention of twist. Additionally, the film provides UV resistance with a flat surface area and superior chemical resistance. BOPP has gained popularity and great demand in recent years since it provides an excellent barrier for water vapor, oil, and grease, is recyclable, and emits no harmful substances. Additionally, the BOPP films' associated benefits have opened the potential for the product in both developing and non-developing businesses. Increasing disposable incomes and rising consumption are boosting the revenue of the overall BOPP film sector. Increasing product use by industries such as food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics, among others, has created product demand with enormous market prospects for the coming years. However, rigorous government regulation regarding the production of BOPP films has posed a significant obstacle to the market's growth during the aforementioned time period. Increased Demand from The Food Industry Flexible packaging, or packaging in general, is regarded as one of the most lucrative industries due to its wide applicability in the food and beverage, personal care, and pharmaceutical industries. Increasing demand for bi-pivotally positioned polypropylene (BOPP) in packaging, marking, printing, and overlay is mostly attributable to the thriving growth of the aforementioned industries. BOPP finds application primarily in the food industry, and this segment is the primary contributor to the volumetric expansion of the BOPP market. BOPP is used for packaging and labeling in the food industry, and the rising popularity of snacks, cakes, bread, ready-to-eat packaged food sources, frozen food sources, and candy shops has affected the need for BOPP in this industry. The food sector is also anticipated to be the fastest-growing application segment by the end of the forecast period. In light of the growing need for tapes in mechanical packaging, the tapes segment also offers lucrative opportunities for leading players in the BOPP market. Story continues Increased Adoption Across Industry to Open Significant Opportunities Globally rising demand for consumer electronics and electrical goods creates a profitable growth opportunity for the biaxially oriented polypropylene films market. Due to their superior mechanical and thermal qualities, these biaxially oriented polypropylene sheets are ideally suited for wrapping wires and cables. They are regarded as good wire and cable insulators. The global expansion and growth of the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries create a suitable environment for the advancement of the biaxially oriented polypropylene films business. Biaxially oriented polypropylene films can be used to prevent the oxidation of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, which is regarded as the industry's greatest difficulty. These elements are viewed as the most significant growth potential for the Biaxially oriented polypropylene films market as a whole. Market by Type: The Bags & Pouches Dominated the Market in 2021 The bags & pouches subsegment generated the largest market share in 2021. The BOPP bags and pouches are resistant to water and may be printed with high-resolution images. The segment's rapid expansion is owing to the fact that it is recyclable and does no environmental impact at a cheap price. BOPP bags & pouches have numerous uses for the packaging of animal feed, pet food, seeds, and other consumer goods, allowing for the potential to reach a broader audience. Market by Application: Tobacco Packaging Segment Witnessing Market Traction BOPP films have a variety of uses, including medical, food & beverage, personal care & cosmetics, tobacco packaging, electrical, and electronics. Recent years have seen the largest demand for tobacco packaging due to the rising number of new product launches and the rising disposable income of consumers. North America Dominates Revenue Share, While APAC Leads the Growth On account of the pharmaceutical industry's increasing demand for packaging materials, North America held the largest revenue share in 2021. In addition, the increasing government attempts to address the challenges of solid wastes generated from single-use plastics are anticipated to boost the demand for BOPP films among the region's end-users. In 2018, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) reported the generation of 292,4 million tonnes of solid municipal garbage. In addition, plastic waste comprised more than 18% of landfills in the United States in 2018. The Asia-Pacific region is anticipated to have a higher market growth rate for Biaxially oriented Polypropylene films because to the increasing growth of end-user industries such as food and beverage, medical, and personal care. Additionally, the packaging and manufacturing industries are growing in the Asia-Pacific area, which is regarded as the key growth stimulant for biaxially oriented polypropylene films. In addition, the Asia-Pacific area is experiencing increased demand in the retail and e-commerce sectors, where Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene films are deployed extensively. Market Segmentation Material Silica-based Aluminum-based Polymer-based Others Production Process Tenter Tubular Thickness Below 15 microns 15-30 microns 30-45 microns More than 45 microns Type Wraps Bags and Pouches Tapes Labels Others End-User Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Medical & Pharmaceutical Companies Mentioned KopafilmElektrofolien GmbH SRF Limited Chemosvit A.S. Tempo Group Taghleef Industries Vibac Group S.p.A. Treofan Group Rowad Global Packaging Co. Ltd. Zubairi Plastic Bags Industry LLC Poligal S.A. Futamura Chemical Co. Ltd. Manucor S.p.A. Oben Holding Group Inc For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ep10y3 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. 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 Allied Market Research Advancements in 3D technology regarding car night vision system serves as a potential opportunity for the expansion of the global car night vision system market. In 2020, key players operating in the car night vision system industry temporarily witnessed a slowdown. Based on region, Asia-Pacific held the largest share in 2021, contributing to more than two-fifths of the global car night vision system market share. Portland, OR, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the global car night vision system market garnered $3.4 billion in 2021, and is estimated to generate $9.5 billion by 2031, manifesting a CAGR of 11.0% from 2022 to 2031. The report provides an extensive analysis of changing market dynamics, major segments, value chain, competitive scenario, and regional landscape. This research offers a valuable guidance to leading players, investors, shareholders, and startups in devising strategies for the sustainable growth and gaining competitive edge in the market. Download Free Sample Report: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/32088 Report Coverage and Details: Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 20222031 Base Year 2021 Market Size in 2021 $3.4 billion Market Size in 2031 $9.5 billion CAGR 11.0% No. of Pages in Report 166 Segments covered Technology, Component, and Region. Drivers Surge in awareness among mass in road safety issues Growing penetration of luxury cars in developing countries Opportunities Advancements in 3D technology regarding car night vision system Restraints High prices associated with the night vision system products COVID-19 Scenario: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the growth of the global car night vision system market, owing to implementation of global lockdown which resulted to temporary closure of production and manufacturing facilities across the globe. Considering the inputs from various industry experts belonging to the various stages of the value chain, such as OEMs, suppliers, integrators, end users, and distributors, and the financial release of various companies in the car night vision system ecosystem, it has been calculated that the market experienced a decline during 20192020. Furthermore, the outbreak of the pandemic had disrupted the global supply chain, thereby creating significant gap in supply chain. Key players operating in the car night vision system industry temporarily witnessed a slowdown, owing to lack of availability of skilled professional to develop car night vision system, which led to decline the revenues for the financial year 2020 to 2021. However, the market recovered in 2021 and is expected to remain in the growth stage during the forecast period. Story continues The research provides detailed segmentation of the global car night vision system market based on Technology, Component, and region. The report discusses segments and their sub-segments in detail with the help of tables and figures. Market players and investors can strategize according to the highest revenue-generating and fastest-growing segments mentioned in the report. Interested to Procure the Data? Inquire Here (Get Full Insights in PDF - 166 Pages): https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/32088 Based on technology, the Far Infrared (FIR) segment held the highest share in 2021, accounting for nearly three-fifths of the global car night vision system market, and is expected to continue its leadership status during the forecast period. However, the Near-Infrared (NIR) segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 11.7% from 2022 to 2031. Based on component, the thermal imaging camera segment accounted for the highest share in 2021, contributing to more than two-fifths of the global car night vision system market, and is expected to maintain its lead in terms of revenue during the forecast period. This segment is expected to manifest the highest CAGR of 12.0% from 2022 to 2031. Based on region, Asia-Pacific held the largest share in 2021, contributing to more than two-fifths of the global car night vision system market share, and is projected to maintain its dominant share in terms of revenue in 2031. In addition, the same region is expected to manifest the fastest CAGR of 11.7% during the forecast period. Get Detailed COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the Car Night Vision System Market: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/32088?reqfor=covid Leading market players of the global car night vision system market analyzed in the research include Robert Bosch GmbH, FLIR Systems, Inc., Continental AG, Denso Corporation, OMRON Corporation, Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems, Delphi Technologies, Magna International, Inc., AUDI AG, Auto Liv. The report provides a detailed analysis of these key players of the global car night vision system market. These players have adopted different strategies such as new product launches, collaborations, expansion, joint ventures, agreements, and others to increase their market share and maintain dominant shares in different regions. The report is valuable in highlighting business performance, operating segments, product portfolio, and strategic moves of market players to showcase the competitive scenario. Key Benefits For Stakeholders: This report provides a quantitative analysis of the market segments, current trends, estimations, and dynamics of the car night vision system market analysis from 2021 to 2031 to identify the prevailing car night vision system market opportunity. The market research is offered along with information related to key drivers, restraints, and opportunities. Porter's five forces analysis highlights the potency of buyers and suppliers to enable stakeholders make profit-oriented business decisions and strengthen their supplier-buyer network. In-depth analysis of the car night vision system market outlook assists to determine the prevailing market opportunities. Major countries in each region are mapped according to their revenue contribution to the global market. Market player positioning facilitates benchmarking and provides a clear understanding of the present position of the market players. The report includes the analysis of the regional as well as global car night vision system market trends, key players, market segments, application areas, car night vision system market forecast and market growth strategies. Car Night Vision System Market Key Segments: By Technology: Far Infrared (FIR) Near-Infrared (NIR) By Component: Thermal Imaging Camera Night Vision Control Unit Sensor System By Region: North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico) Europe (U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, and Rest of Europe) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Rest of Asia-Pacific) LAMEA (Latin America, Middle East and Africa) Buy this Research Report at Discounted Price @ https://bit.ly/3HAiJy3 Trending Reports in Semiconductor and Electronics Industry (Book Now with 10% Discount + COVID-19 Scenario): Healthcare Machine Vision System Market By Product Type (MV Camera with Host PC, Smart Camera, and Vision-Based Barcode Readers), Type (1D, 2D, and 3D), Application (In Vitro Diagnostics, Access Tracking, Surgical, Patient Monitoring, Microscopy [Histopathology], and Drug Dispensing): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031 Battery Energy Storage System Market By Battery Type (Lithium Ion, Lead Acid, Flow Batteries, and Others), Connection type (On Grid, and Off Grid), Application (Front of the Meter, and Behind the Meter): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2031 Building Automation System Market By Component (Hardware and Software), Application (Industrial, Residential, and Commercial), Offerings (Facility Management Systems, Security and Access Controls, Fire Protection Systems, Building Energy Management Software, BAS Services, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2021-2030 Machine Vision System Market By Type (1D Vision, 2D Vision, and 3D Vision), Product (PC-Based Machine Vision System, Vision Controllers, Standalone Vision System, Vision Sensors & Image-Based Bar Code Readers, and Others), and Application (Identification, Inspection, Gauging, Positioning, and Others), and End Use (Automotive, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Industrial, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020-2027 About Us: Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain. We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Allied Market Research CEO Pawan Kumar is instrumental in inspiring and encouraging everyone associated with the company to maintain high quality of data and help clients in every way possible to achieve success. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry. Contact: David Correa 5933 NE Win Sivers Drive #205, Portland, OR 97220 United States USA/Canada (Toll Free): +1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022 UK: +44-845-528-1300 Hong Kong: +852-301-84916 India (Pune): +91-20-66346060 Fax: +1(855)550-5975 help@alliedmarketresearch.com Benzinga Add up the market valuation of Apple Inc., all the cryptos in the world and entrepreneur Jeff Bezoss fortune, and you get to over $3 trillion. But one 80-year-old man has created something bigger than all three of these combined. These days, he shuns the spotlight and lives on a modest farm in rural Pennsylvania. You would never guess the farms owner set in motion a $5 trillion force that grows each fortnight. Dont Miss: This Startup Built the World's First AI Marketing Platform That Can Unde WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Family Research Council, along with a coalition of thirteen other pro-life organizations, sent a letter addressed to the leadership of Walmart Inc. calling on them not to seek certification to dispense chemical abortion drugs, as well as a letter to the leadership of Rite Aid Corporation calling on them to stop acting as de-facto abortion centers by seeking certification to dispense abortion inducing drugs. Family Research Council logo (PRNewsFoto/Family Research Council) In particular, the letter to Walmart acknowledges that, at this time, the company has not formally sought FDA certification to dispense chemical abortion drugs and urges them to formally decline dispensing the abortion pill regimen: "We are grateful that Walmart Inc. has not declared that it will seek a certification that would essentially make the corporation an abortion facility--forcing every employee and customer to wrestle with its radical association with the abortion industry. We urge you to hold fast to this position." Mary Szoch, Family Research Council's Director of the Center for Human Dignity, released the following statement: "We are grateful that, so far, Walmart Inc. has not followed the path of CVS and Walgreens in becoming, in effect, an abortion facility. As long as Walmart pharmacies remain pharmacies--not abortion drug dispensers--Americans will know that there is a place where they can have their prescriptions filled without unwillingly subsidizing abortion. "In addition, we are saddened and disappointed to learn that Rite Aid will be seeking a certification to transform the company into an abortion facility. From this point forward, no one can have their prescription filled at a Rite Aid, CVS, or Walgreens without contributing to the death of innocent, unborn children. "Chemical abortion drugs are extremely dangerous--they take the life of an unborn child, and they can put the life of that child's mother in jeopardy. Pharmacies across the country should recognize that distributing these drugs is antithetical to their mission of providing medications that allow life to flourish," Szoch concluded. Story continues Earlier this month, Family Research Council, along with the same thirteen other pro-life organizations, also sent letters addressed to the leadership of CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance pharmacy chains asking them to stop dispensing the chemical abortion drug regimen. FRC Action, FRC's legislative affiliate, also gathered 53,016 signatures from constituents calling on the Walgreens and CVS to stop selling chemical abortion drugs in their pharmacies, to keep their pharmacy businesses, a pharmacy business - not an abortion business. Read the full Rite Aid Corporation letter. Read the full Walmart, Inc. letter. Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/family-research-council-13-pro-life-groups-send-letter-urging-walmart-to-decide-not-to-sell-chemical-abortion-drugs-301732792.html SOURCE Family Research Council MarketsandMarkets Research Pvt. Ltd. Chicago, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global Pharmaceutical Packaging Market size is projected to reach USD 229.9 billion by 2027 from USD 99.9 billion in 2021, at a CAGR of 14.9% during the forecast period, as per the recent study by MarketsandMarkets. Better healthcare access, rising healthcare spending, rising demand for blister packing, and growing consumer awareness towards healthier lifestyle are the factors driving the demand for pharmaceutical packaging in emerging nations like China, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and others. The market for pharmaceutical packaging is also driven by advanced drug delivery system for biologics and biopharmaceuticals. Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=890 Browse In-Depth TOC On "Pharmaceutical Packaging Market 280 - Market Data Tables 47 - Figures 325 - Pages List of Key Players in Pharmaceutical Packaging Market: Schott AG (Germany) Amcor PLC (Switzerland) AptarGroup,Inc (US) West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. (US) Berry Global (US) Gerresheimer AG (Germany) Catalent,Inc (US) WestRock (US) Drivers, Restraints, Opportunities and Challenges in Pharmaceutical Packaging Market: Driver: Technological advancements to contribute to growth of pharmaceutical packaging Restrain: Lack of access to proper healthcare Opportunity: Growing demand for primary pharmaceutical packaging Challenge: Safeguarding against counterfeit products Key Findings of the Study: Based on raw material, plastics is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Based on type, Prefilled syringes is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Based on drug delivery, Injectable delivery is projected to register the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Based on region, North America is estimated to be the largest market share for pharmaceutical packaging in 2022 Get Free Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=890 Story continues Based on raw material, the pharmaceutical packaging market is segmented into plastics, glass, metal, paper & paperboard, and others. The glass segment is the second fastest growing, during the forecast period. Glass packaging has many advantages in terms of hygiene and is suitable for sterilization. It is easily dehydrogenated, relatively non-reactive (depending on the grade of glass), does not deteriorate with time, can be used on high-speed packaging lines, transparent, has good protection capability, and can be easily labeled Based on type, the pharmaceutical packaging market is segmented into plastic bottles, blister packs, caps & closures, labels & accessories, temperature-controlled packaging, prefilled syringes, medical specialty bags, vials, ampoules, jars & containers, pre-filled inhalers, pouches & strip packs, medication tubes, and others. The plastic bottles segment accounted for the second fastest growing market amongst others.Plastic bottles have properties such as moldability, rigidity, shatter resistance, and light weight. Plastic bottles are used in various types of packaging such as rigid form for solid dosages, sterile packaging for blood and related components, squeezable bottles, jars, and others. They can be easily molded by techniques such as injection molding, blow molding, injection blow molding, extrusion molding and others. Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=890 Based on drug delivery, the pharmaceutical packaging market is segmented as oral, injectables, topical, ocular/ophthalmic, nasal, pulmonary, transdermal, IV, and others. The oral drugs segment is the second fastest growing market during the forecast period. drug delivery is most used drug delivery mode because it is noninvasive, has higher patient compliance rate, and is convenient to handle. .This oral drug delivery mode also offers affordability, flexibility in dosage design and ease of production Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market amongst other regions in the pharmaceutical packaging market during forecast period, in terms of value. The rising demand from the aging population, increasing government initiatives, growing population, changing lifestyle, growing contract manufacturing activities are increasing the demand of pharmaceutical packaging in this region. India and China are investing heavily in their respective healthcare sectors, which is going to benefit the rapidly growing pharmaceutical industry. Browse Adjacent Markets Packaging Market Research Reports & Consulting Related Reports: CONTACT: About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. We have the widest lens on emerging technologies, making us proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients. The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion of new revenue streams that are substituting existing revenue streams in this decade alone. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines - TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing. Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we work with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies - helping them stay relevant in a disruptive ecosystem. Our insights and strategies are molded by our industry experts, cutting-edge AI-powered Market Intelligence Cloud, and years of research. The KnowledgeStore (our Market Intelligence Cloud) integrates our research, facilitates an analysis of interconnections through a set of applications, helping clients look at the entire ecosystem and understand the revenue shifts happening in their industry. To find out more, visit www.MarketsandMarkets.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Contact: Mr. Aashish Mehra MarketsandMarkets INC. 630 Dundee Road Suite 430 Northbrook, IL 60062 USA: +1-888-600-6441 Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian banks' exposure to the Adani Group is within manageable limits, said brokerage houses CLSA and Jefferies, as the group fend off an attack from well-known short-seller Hindenburg Research. The U.S. short-seller said it held short positions in the Indian conglomerate, accusing it of improper use of offshore tax havens and flagging concerns about high debt that eroded $11 billion in investor wealth on Wednesday. "While we watch for developments here, we don't see material risk arising to the Indian banking sector," brokerage firm Jefferies said in a note dated Jan. 26. According to the brokerage, the group's debt accounts for 0.5% of total loans across the Indian banking sector. For public sector banks (PSU), the debt is at 0.7% of total loans and for private banks, it is at 0.3%. "Our recent conversation with industry participants also indicated that cash-flows and repayment timelines of debt have been conservatively planned," Jefferies said. The group comprises the flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd as well as Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd, Adani Power Ltd, Adani Green Energy Ltd and Adani Transmission Ltd. Brokerage CLSA estimates the consolidated debt of these five companies at 2.1 trillion rupees ($25.73 billion), or at 1.9 trillion rupees, excluding inter-group lending. Indian banks have exposure to less than 40% of total group debt, the brokerage estimates. "Within this, private banks' exposure is below 10% of total group debt and most banks have indicated that they have largely financed assets with strong cash flows, such as airports/ports," CLSA said. While PSU banks have material exposure at 30% of group debt, this level has not increased in the past three years, CLSA said. "Most of the incremental funding to the group for new businesses and acquisitions has come via overseas sources." The brokerage pegs the exposure of Indian private banks at 0.3% of FY24 loans and 1.5% of FY24 net-worth. For PSU banks, the exposure is 0.7% of FY24 loans and 6% of FY24 net-worth, CLSA said. ($1 = 81.6150 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Ira Dugal; Editing by Savio D'Souza) (Bloomberg) -- Japan and the Netherlands are poised to join the US in limiting Chinas access to advanced semiconductor machinery, forging a powerful alliance that will undercut Beijings ambitions to build its own domestic chip capabilities, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Most Read from Bloomberg US, Dutch and Japanese officials are set to conclude talks as soon as Friday US time on a new set of limits to what can be supplied to Chinese companies, the people said, asking not to be named because the talks are private. There is no plan for a public announcement of the restrictions, and once an agreement is struck, actual implementation could take months as the two countries finalize legal arrangements, according to people familiar with the matter. Talks are ongoing, for a long time already, but we dont communicate about this. And if something would come out of this, it is questionable if this will be made very visible, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Friday in The Hague in response to a question about the talks. This is such a sensitive topic that the Dutch government chooses to communicate diligently, and that means that we only communicate in a very limited way, Rutte said. The Netherlands will expand restrictions on ASML Holding NV, which will prevent it from selling at least some of its so-called deep ultraviolet lithography machines crucial to making some types of advanced chips and without which attempts to set up production lines may be impossible. Japan will set similar limits on Nikon Corp. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, confirmed Friday that Dutch and Japanese officials were meeting with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Story continues As you might expect, they are talking about a range of issues that are important to all three of us, and certainly the safety and security of emerging technologies is going to be on that agenda, he told reporters on a conference call. He said he couldnt confirm any agreement. The joint effort expands on restrictions the Biden administration unveiled in October that were aimed at curtailing Chinas ability to manufacture its own advanced semiconductors or buy cutting-edge chips from abroad that would aid military and artificial-intelligence capabilities. The three countries are home to the most important companies that produce equipment for manufacturing chips, including ASML, Japans Tokyo Electron Ltd. and the USs Applied Materials Inc. US equipment makers have complained that the unilateral action by the Biden administration allowed overseas competitors to continue to operate in one of the biggest markets for their products and undermined the aim of restricting Chinas military advancements. The action could hurt Chinas offshore yuan. This sets the next escalating move in the US-China tech war a bit more meaningfully and could weaken yuan sentiment a tad in the near term, said Fiona Lim, a foreign-exchange strategist at Malayan Banking Berhard in Singapore. China has fought back against the US effort. Beijing filed a dispute with the World Trade Organization in December aimed at overturning the US-imposed export controls. Even ASMLs chief executive officer has warned that the US campaign could have unintended consequences. On Jan. 25, CEO Peter Wennink said the US-led export control measures against China could eventually push Beijing to successfully develop its own technology in advanced chipmaking gear. If they cannot get those machines, they will develop them themselves, he said in an interview with Bloomberg News. That will take time, but ultimately they will get there. --With assistance from Debby Wu, Ian King and Tania Chen. (Updates with Rutte, Kirby remarks beginning in fourth paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. Located in Albrook, the 331-room hotel invites guests to immerse themselves in and explore Panama's attractions PANAMA CITY, Jan. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Marriott Hotels, the flagship brand of 30 extraordinary Marriott Bonvoy hotel brands, announced the opening of Marriott Panama Hotel, with a strategic location connecting the city to the road to the Panama Canal, and views toward the mountains. The property features several food and beverage outlets and an outdoor pool, as well as spacious meeting areas including its convention center and direct access to Albrook Mall. This hotel will be an ideal destination for global travelers who appreciate the balance of business and leisure travel, while learning about and experiencing the attractions of Panama City. Marriott Hotels Return To Panama City With Marriott Panama Hotel. "We are thrilled to bring back the Marriott Hotels experience to Panama City, with a strategic location and ample convention spaces. With the recovery of the travel industry and the return of in-person events, we are ready to host memorable meetings, conventions, and events, in the lives of our guests and transcendental for the business sector," said Glenn Simon, General Manager of the hotel. Symbolizing the continuous evolution of Marriott Hotels, guests are drawn to contemporary and comfortable spaces, inviting them to relax from the moment they arrive, starting with the Greatroom Lobby the hotel's elegant center that allows guests to combine work with pleasure. The hotel features 331 spacious guest rooms with amenities such as technology-enabled work surfaces, open closets, relaxing bathrooms, and LED televisions. In addition, through the first long-standing partnership between Marriott Hotels and TED, guests will have access to specially curated TED content to enjoy during their stay. Marriott Panama Hotel has two restaurants offering a variety of local and international dishes, as well as a coffee shop and 24-hour Room Service. The restaurant, bar, pool area, and lobby were renovated, including the addition of an M Club. The M Club a flagship brand at Marriott hotels worldwide is an exclusive spot to rest, recharge and refocus, every day at any time. A range of complimentary food and beverage options are offered throughout the day including hot breakfast, evening drinks and snacks, and premium beverages. Story continues Additional amenities include a state-of-the-art fitness center, self-service laundry, outdoor pool, and special lodging for four-legged guests. Designed to foster collaboration, the hotel's Next Gen Meeting Spaces can be adjusted to a variety of group formats and sizes. With 5,002 square meters in 21 meeting rooms, including a 1,700-square-meter convention center that can hold up to 1,600 people, 2 grand ballrooms, and 6 meeting rooms with natural daylight, the hotel is the perfect destination for business or social gatherings. The hotel is connected to Albrook Mall, the largest shopping mall in Central America, and close to must-see local attractions such as the Miraflores Visitors Center of the Panama Canal, Cerro Ancon, the Amador Causeway, and Casco Antiguo, and just minutes from the Marcos A. Gelabert International Airport. The Marriott Panama Hotel will participate in Marriott Bonvoy Marriott International's award-winning travel program allowing members to earn and redeem points for their stay at the new hotel, and other hotels and resorts in the extraordinary portfolio of Marriott Bonvoy brands. With the Marriott Bonvoy app, members enjoy a level of personalization and a touch-free experience that allows them to travel with peace of mind. For reservations and more information, please visit www.marriotthotels.com. About Marriott Hotels With over 600 hotels and resorts in more than 65 countries and territories around the world, Marriott Hotels continues to elevate the art of hospitality - putting people first is the brand's living legacy ensuring guests always feel deeply taken care of during their stay. Marriott Hotels raises the bar by consistently delivering friendly service, in modern and comfortable spaces, and providing experiences that go beyond the daily quotidian. As the needs and expectations of the world's travelers change, so does Marriott Hotels, with its avant-garde spirit including the Greatroom lobby and M Club that elevate style and design. To learn more, visit www.MarriottHotels.com. Stay connected to Marriott Hotels on Facebook, @marriott on Twitter and @marriotthotels on Instagram. Marriott Hotels is proud to participate in Marriott Bonvoy, the global travel program from Marriott International. The program offers members an extraordinary portfolio of global brands, exclusive experiences on Marriott Bonvoy Moments, and unparalleled benefits including free nights and Elite status recognition. To enroll for free or for more information about the program, visit marriottbonvoy.com. About Marriott Bonvoy Marriott Bonvoy's extraordinary portfolio offers renowned hospitality in the most memorable destinations in the world, with 30 brands that are tailored to every type of journey. Members can earn points for stays at hotels and resorts, including all-inclusive resorts and premium home rentals, and through everyday purchases with co-branded credit cards. Members can redeem their points for experiences including future stays, Marriott Bonvoy Moments, or through partners for luxurious products from Marriott Bonvoy Boutiques. To enroll for free or for more information about Marriott Bonvoy, visit marriottbonvoy.com. Press Contact Zasha Perez Gallardo Public Relations, Central and South America Zasha.PerezGallardo@marriott.com Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/marriott-hotels-returns-to-panama-city-with-marriott-panama-hotel-301732769.html SOURCE Marriott International in the Caribbean and Latin America Santa Monica, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Santa Monica, California - Merchynt, a local SEO service provider, offers listings management software, reputation management software, and GMB services (now known as Google Business Profile) to help local businesses rank higher in "near me" searches. With the increase in the use of search engines by consumers, businesses not utilizing local SEO services are significantly disadvantaged in today's digital age. Merchynt, a leading white label GMB services company based in Santa Monica, is thrilled to announce the official launch of its GBP management services. This service, previously known as GMB management services, has been in beta testing for the past nine months and has seen significant growth and improvement in client rankings. As of January 2023, small business owners can now access this affordable and effective service to boost their Google rankings and attract more customers online. With Merchynt's white label local SEO services, small business owners can expect an increase in customers from Google and improved ratings, helping them succeed during an economic downturn when other means of obtaining customers may be too expensive and risky. The cost of SEO services for local businesses can be a significant barrier for small businesses struggling to stay afloat. However, Merchynt's white label GBP management services' affordability and effectiveness set them apart, which is particularly important during an economic downturn when other means of obtaining customers, such as PPC, become too expensive and risky for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Marketing agencies and other companies working with SMBs can resell Merchynt's service under their brand while maintaining at least a 50% profit margin. Resellers of this service also have access to Merchynt's white label Google review software, white label listings management software, and white label reputation management software. All resellers get their white label client dashboards for easy management and tracking of their client's progress. Story continues Merchynt works with many resellers, including large b2b software companies, prominent associations, business consultants, and marketing agencies. Merchynt offers standard pricing to all resellers, empowering the smallest agencies to succeed. For more information about Merchynt and their white label local SEO services, visit: https://www.merchynt.com/ Their mission is to help small business owners succeed, which is their leading principle in everything they do. According to Justin Silverman, Founder & CEO of Merchynt, "I'm very proud of our team for consistently delivering exceptional local SEO results for our resellers and clients. I look forward to getting this incredibly effective service in the hands of more small business owners via our amazing partner network." Businesses not utilizing local SEO services are missing out on many potential customers and are not building a solid online reputation, leading to a decline in sales and revenue and, ultimately, a downfall for the business in the long run. Merchynt's white label GBP management services are a game-changer for small business owners and the agencies that serve them. The company's mission is to help small business owners succeed, and they do that by providing an affordable and effective service that boosts Google rankings and attracts more customers. Merchynt is rated excellent on Trustpilot and has a proven track record of delivering exceptional local SEO results for resellers and clients. They are excited to continue helping local businesses worldwide rank higher in 'near me' searches on Google and drive more customers to their doorsteps. Local SEO is so important because more and more consumers are using search engines to find businesses in their local area. Unfortunately, if a business is not optimized for local search terms, it is unlikely to show up in the search results, which means it is missing out on potential customers. About the Company: Merchynt is a white label local SEO service company that offers marketing agencies white label products and services that can sell to their clients under their brand. The top-selling products are white label listings management software, white label Google review software, white label local SEO services, & white label GMB management services (now called GBP management services). They are experts in helping local businesses worldwide rank higher in "near me" searches on Google. Many leading marketing agencies and associations resell their marketing tools & services to their customers under their brand, and they're rated Excellent on Trustpilot. ### For more information about Merchynt, contact the company here: Merchynt Justin Silverman media@merchynt.com 150 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405 CONTACT: Justin Silverman Pussy Riots Nadya Tolokonnikova and street artist Shepard Fairey are encouraging supporters to express their proof of protest on the blockchain through an open-edition collection of non-fungible tokens (NFT) to raise funds for Ukraine. The collection, titled Putins Ashes, will be available for purchase Friday on Tezos-based NFT marketplace Objkt. All of the proceeds from the collection will be donated to Ukrainian soldiers who have been battling the Russian invasion since February 2022. The open edition will start minting on Friday at 10 a.m. PT and end on Feb. 3. Each NFT will be priced at 10 TEZ (about $11). Pussy Riot plans to open the collection with a protest and performance Friday in Los Angeles at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery. Tolokonnikova began creating Putins Ashes in August, when Pussy Riot members burned an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a protest. Collecting the ashes from the event, Tolokonnikova bottled them to create the artwork for the NFT collection. The collection also features work by Fairey in his signature style, depicting Tolokonnikova wearing a corset with Putin on the front that appears to be in flames. Citing the skills she learned when she was in prison for two years following Pussy Riots anti-Putin performance, Tolokonnikova is eager to give back to Ukraine. I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up, said Tolokonnikova. Putin is a danger to the whole world, and he has to be stopped immediately" Tolokonnikova has also been dedicated to making the NFT space more diverse. Last year, she started UnicornDAO, a collective to empower women and LGBTQ+ NFT artists, which raised $4.5 million in May. Ukraine has embraced cryptocurrency and NFTs as alternative crowdfunding methods. in May, the country had received about $135 million in cryptocurrency donations since the start of the war. In March, Ukraines Ministry for Digital Transformation began minting moments from the war as NFTs and selling them to raise funds. When you take into consideration that people spend most of their waking hours either at work or commuting to work, it should come as no surprise that workplace stress is the top driver of mental health issues. According to Calms 2023 Workplace Mental Health Trends Report, 50% of employees say that work stress is impacting their personal lives and their relationships with their family members and friends, as well as their relationships with themselves. When people are overwhelmed or stressed at work, it can result in parents being disconnected from their kids at home or partners not having the emotional energy to give to their loved ones, explains Calm CEO David Ko. It is important for employers to train mindful managers that can recognize signs of high stress or burnout and promote a healthy work-life balance. Productivity and company culture will suffer when work stress impacts employees personal lives. But its time for employers to go beyond simply talking about mental health needs and putting action (and money) behind making it a priority. Many workplaces have settled into their new normal, whether fully remote, hybrid, or back in the office full-time, and expect their employees have settled in as well, says Ko. However, employees are still processing and healing from the uncertainty, pressure and change of the past three years. Stressors like financial loss, personal illness, and caregiving impact people in the workplace and can even be exacerbated by work stress. What employers can do Employers and leaders need to recognize they can be both the cause of and solution to workplace stress, says Scott Domann, chief people officer at Calm. We must be acutely aware of our employees diverse experiences, family situations, and mental health needs, and how these variables impact individuals at work. To start, Domann recommends employers offer tangible mental health benefits, such as meditation apps and access to free or low-cost therapy, as well as intangible support from managers, peers, and human resources. Story continues Providing holistic mental health support for employees is not a nice-to-have, its a must have, he says. Sixty-seven percent of people from our survey results say employers should offer mental health support and benefits to their employees. Moreover, Domann says that employers need to listen, including having engaged conversations with employees beyond the scope of their job duties and conducting regular employee surveys throughout the year instead of one annual one to gather feedback on how employees are doing and what support they require. Meanwhile, Mark Debus, manager of the behavioral health team at Sedgwick, points to flexible work schedules as a potential solution to workplace stress. When it really comes down to it, we only have so many hours in a day and we want to spend that time with our loved ones, developing hobbies and things that are not related to work, he says. So from a managers perspective, you have to be aware that anything you do that impacts your employees schedulelate-night meetings, last-minute travelis going to be a major source of stress. Lastly, Domann urges employers to be open about their own mental health as a way of alleviating the stigma around the conversation at work. Its okay to feel stressed and its okay not to be okay. Encourage leaders to talk about their stress and how they care for their own mental health, he says. Employees will see these examples and feel more comfortable discussing their own stress and mental health needs at work. What employees can do As for employees, experts encourage staff to take matters into their own hands by advocating for their needs and building their personal mental health toolkits. When interviewing for a new role or going through a life change, Debus suggests the following script: In order for me to get my job done and be at my best, Im going to need occasional flexibility to do X, Y and Z. Thats important for me and I will give you 100%. And if that doesnt work, then it may be time to seek employment elsewhere. Most employers want you to do a good job. They dont want employees who are upset, disgruntled, or burned-out, says Debus. Its costly to train new people. Its more cost-effective to keep your employees happy and not burned-out. As were expected to prioritize our physical health, Domann recommends doing the same with our mental health. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com More from Fortune: Olympic legend Usain Bolt lost $12 million in savings to a scam. Only $12,000 remains in his account Meghan Markles real sin that the British public cant forgiveand Americans cant understand It just doesnt work. The worlds best restaurant is shutting down as its owner calls the modern fine dining model unsustainable Bob Iger just put his foot down and told Disney employees to come back into the office By Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday launched a fresh attack against U.S. oil companies, accusing them of using profits to pay shareholders instead of boosting supply, after Chevron Corp said its annual profit doubled for 2022. Chevron posted a record $36.5 billion profit for 2022 that was more than double year-earlier earnings, kicking off what analysts expect to be a bumper earnings season for global energy suppliers. Earlier this week, Chevron said it would triple its spending on share repurchases to $75 billion over five years at current guidance. Other oil companies are expected to follow suit. "Companies clearly have everything they need record profits and thousands of approved permits to increase production," White House spokesperson Abdullah Hasan said in a statement. "The only thing getting in the way is their own decision to keep plowing windfall profits into the pockets of executives and shareholders instead of using them to boost supply." Under former President Donald Trump, Congress passed big, retroactive tax breaks for Big Oil, as fuel demand dropped during COVID lockdowns. After oil prices soared following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European governments imposed windfall taxes on their oil industries, but U.S. lawmakers are unlikely to do the same. Chevron and Exxon Mobil - the nation's two largest oil producers - are poised to post record annual profits for 2022 of nearly $100 billion combined, analysts forecast. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request from comment, Exxon declined to comment. Hasan's comments mark the latest set of attacks from the White House lambasting oil companies for funneling a windfall of profits to investors. President Joe Biden's administration tried several times last year without success to convince oil companies to boost output as gasoline prices rose, and Biden ultimately decided to tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Story continues Last week, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Biden will veto a bill by U.S. House of Representatives Republicans that limits the president's authority to tap the oil reserves if it passes Congress. U.S. oil producers overall are increasing their budgets for new energy projects this year, but the expenditures will be dwarfed by the amounts paid to shareholders. The energy industry last year was one of the top sectors in the S&P 500 index after trailing the broader market for years. (Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and David Gregorio) Fortune Business Insights The wires and cables market size is expected to grow from USD 200.23 billion in 2022 to USD 294.73 billion by 2029; it is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.7% from 2022 to 2029. Increasing demand for renewable energy globally to favor the growth Pune, India, Jan. 27, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to Fortune Business Insights, the global wires and cables market to grow at a CAGR of 5.7% and reach USD 294.73 billion during forecast period of 2022-2029. The market was valued USD 181.28 billion in 2021. The market growth is attributed to factors such as the increasing demand for electricity and the need for renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power is expected to favor the growth of the market in the forthcoming years. Also, it is expected to gain momentum from increasing infrastructure development, and advancements in technology. Additionally, the escalating demand from IT facilities and data centers is projected to be a key trend stimulating the market growth during the forecast period. The wire and cable industry is expected to continue growing in the coming years, driven by increasing infrastructure development, rising demand for energy, and advancements in technology. However, the industry may face challenges such as increasing competition from alternative materials, such as wireless technology and the need to comply with ever-changing environmental regulations. The industry is highly competitive, with a large number of players operating at the global, regional, and local levels. Key Development: October 2021: Furukawa Automotive Systems Inc., unveiled their first installation of aluminium electrical wire in WHs for automobile seats. It uses the exemplary corrosion-resistant Alpha Terminal Series. Request a Sample Copy of the Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/sample/wires-and-cables-market-103322 Market Drivers & Restraints: The deployment of green energy technologies by governments all across the globe to reduce the usage of fossil fuels is rising. The escalating establishment of solar farms and wind turbines boosts the demand for wires and cables. Moreover, the development of offshore renewable technologies such as offshore wind farms is anticipated to boost market growth as wires and cables are laid underground in seafloors to deliver power. The growing demand for renewable energy is likely to bolster the global wires and cables market growth. Story continues The increasing urbanization across the globe is set to propel the demand for energy. The World Investment Report 2018 mentions that in 2017, Asia Pacific invested approximately USD 476 billion of inflow from foreign direct investment. The contributions were majorly given by Singapore and China. Hence, rising investments would also aid the wire and cable market growth in the coming years. However, the high prices of raw materials, especially copper, may hinder the demand for wire and cables. However, volatile raw material costs may hinder the market growth. The wire and cable industry is heavily dependent on the prices of raw materials, such as copper, aluminum, and rubber. Volatility in the prices of these materials can impact the profitability of the industry. The wire and cable industry is highly competitive, with a large number of players operating at the global, regional, and local levels, which can make it difficult for companies to maintain market share and profitability. COVID-19 Impact: The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the wires and cables industry, as lockdowns and supply chain disruptions caused a decline in demand and production. Many companies in the industry also saw a decrease in investment and construction projects due to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. Additionally, the industry faced challenges in terms of logistics and transportation, as movement restrictions and border closures made it difficult to move goods and raw materials. Despite these challenges, the industry is expected to recover as economies begin to reopen and construction activity picks up. Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this Market. Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/wires-and-cables-market-103322 Report Coverage: It assimilates key market drivers and restraints. It profiles the rankings of key market players accordingly. It includes key market developments and information on different market segments. It provides a comprehensive market assessment. It assesses the COVID-19 pandemics impact on the market. Segmentation: On the basis of voltage, the market is fragmented into extra-high voltage, high voltage, medium voltage, and low voltage. On the basis of end-user, the market is categorized into manufacturing, consumer electronics, automotive, oil & gas, power transmission and distribution, IT & telecommunication, construction, aerospace & defense, and others. Geographically, the market is classified into the Middle East & Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Regional Insights: Asia Pacific to Hold the Lions Share Asia Pacific is likely to attain a major global wires and cables market share. The rising investments in transmission and distribution sectors across nations such as India and China are expected to amplify the regions market growth. Additionally, the increasing demand for renewable power is anticipated to magnify the regions market growth. North America is projected to witness substantial growth due to the rising energy generation through renewable sources. Europe is expected to gain second rank in the upcoming years due to rising investments in grid infrastructure. The Middle East & Africa, and Latin America will witness moderate growth due to growing investments towards renewable projects. Quick Buy - Wires and Cables Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/103322 Competitive Landscape: The major market players operating global and local levels in the value chain make the marketplace highly consolidated. Sumitomo Corporation, KEI Industries, Southwire Company, and Prysmian Group currently hold the market dominance. They adopt strategies such as contracts, acquisitions, new product launches, technological developments, amongst others to amplify their growth in the global market. For instance, Prysmian Group obtained a Limited Notice to Proceed in January 2022 for the Middle Easts landmark HVDC submarine cable project. A List of Key Manufacturers Operating in the Global Market: Prysmian Group Southwire Company Nexans Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. Fujikura Ltd. Sumitomo Corporation Belden Inc. LS Cable & System KEI Industries Ltd. Cords Cable Industries Ltd. NKT A/S Amphenol Finolex Cables Ltd Polycab Encore Wire Corp Wires and Cables Market Segmentation: By Voltage: Low Voltage Medium Voltage High Voltage Extra-High Voltage By End-User: Aerospace & Defense Construction IT & Telecommunication Power Transmission and Distribution Oil & Gas Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Automotive Others Have Any Query? Ask Our Experts: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/wires-and-cables-market-103322 Table of Content: 1. Introduction 1.1. Research Scope 1.2. Market Segmentation 1.3. Research Methodology 1.4. Definitions and Assumptions 2. Executive Summary 3. Market Dynamics 3.1. Market Drivers 3.2. Market Restraints 3.3. Market Opportunities 4. Key Insights 4.1. Key Emerging Trends For Major Countries 4.2. Latest Technological Advancement 4.3. Regulatory Landscape 4.4. Industry SWOT Analysis 4.5. Porters Five Forces Analysis 5. Qualitative Analysis Impact of COVID-19 5.1. Impact of COVID-19 on the Wires and Cables Market 5.2. Steps Taken by the Government to Overcome the Impact 5.3. Key Developments by Industry Players in Response to COVID-19 5.4. Potential Opportunities and Challenges due to COVID-19 Outbreak 6. Global Wires and Cables Market Analysis (USD Billion), Insights and Forecast, 2018-2029 6.1. Key Findings / Summary 6.2. Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Voltage 6.2.1. Low Voltage 6.2.2. Medium Voltage 6.2.3. High Voltage 6.2.4. Extra-High Voltage 6.3. Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By End User 6.3.1. Aerospace 6.3.2. Construction 6.3.2.1. Commercial 6.3.2.2. Residential 6.3.3. IT & Telecommunication 6.3.4. Power Transmission & Distribution 6.3.5. Oil & Gas 6.3.6. Consumer Electronics 6.3.6.1. High Tech Products 6.3.6.2. Small Appliances 6.3.6.3. Household Appliances 6.3.6.4. White Goods 6.3.6.5. HVAC 6.3.6.6. Others 6.3.7. Manufacturing 6.3.7.1. Industrial Machinery 6.3.7.2. Others 6.3.8. Automotive 6.3.8.1. Passenger Vehicles 6.3.8.2. Utility Vehicles 6.3.9. Others 6.4. Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Region 6.4.1. North America 6.4.2. Europe 6.4.3. Asia Pacific 6.4.4. Latin America 6.4.5. Middle East and Africa Continued Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/wires-and-cables-market-103322 About Us: Fortune Business Insights offers expert corporate analysis and accurate data, helping organizations of all sizes make timely decisions. We tailor innovative solutions for our clients, assisting them address challenges distinct to their businesses. Our goal is to empower our clients with holistic market intelligence, giving a granular overview of the market they are operating in. Contact Us: Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd. US: +1424 253 0390 UK: +44 2071 939123 APAC: +91 744 740 1245 Email: sales@fortunebusinessinsights.com Live Stats Click Here Streaming SEC Network + (Will Start with the Running Events on Each Day) Streaming Links Friday (Starting at 7:00 PM ET) Saturday (Starting at 12:00 PM ET) Meet Location Randal Tyson Track Center GAINESVILLE, Fla. The Florida Gators Track and Field teams travel to Arkansas this week for their first of three trips to Randal Tyson Track Center this season. They will take part in the 2023 Razorback Invitational for the first time since 2020. This is the 11th consecutive year that the Gators have competed at an indoor event in Fayetteville.In the first meet of the year Gators took home 13 event titles (10 women's, 3 men's). In addition to the titles, Florida saw success from everyone who traveled. The men's team had 24 event performances finish in the top-10 at the meet, while the women's team registered 21 top-10 performances.andearned SEC Field Athlete of the Week honors for their performances. Dixon-Bodie's mark of 16.53 (54'2.75") in the triple jump is second in the NCAA this year and just 0.14 meters behind the leading mark in the world this season. Moore jumped 14.44m (47'4.5") in the triple jump, finishing first and setting the mark for top women's triple jump in the nation so far this year.On the track a number of Gators found success includingand. Diggs competed in the women's 60m (7.14) and 300m (36.12) events, placing first in both and setting a new school record in the 300m. Austin ran the men's 60m and 200m at Clemson. In the 60m he ran a PR of 6.59, placing third in the event and tying him for the fifth fastest time in school history. In the 200m, he made his indoor debut, finishing third and running a time of 20.85.The first event Friday will begin at 1:15 p.m. ET withtaking part in the 60m hurdles, the first of five events for the pentathlon competition. Day one of the meet will see the Gators men and women compete in the long jump, shot put, and 200m. The women will also take part in the pentathlon and distance medley relay, while thewill compete in the high jump for the men.Day two begins at 1:30 p.m. ET and includes men and women in the 60m hurdles, 60m, mile, 400m, 800m, and 4x400. Only the men will participate in the triple jump on Saturday.In addition to the Razorback Invitational, several Gators will be taking part in the Alachua County Collegiate Invitational. This is the first meet Florida will take part in at the Jimmy Carnes Indoor Track & Field. Live results are available here SOCIAL: Twitter A Culpeper couple and a Spotsylvania County relative have been sentenced to federal prison for their involvement in a drug distribution ring, court records show. Fahid Rashid, 32, was sentenced this week to nine years in prison. He had previously pleaded guilty in federal court in Charlottesville to conspiracy, distributing methamphetamine and possession of 500 grams or more of methamphetamine and 40 grams of fentanyl with the intent to distribute. His wife, Kahlisah Zuma Khan, 31, and his cousin, 30-year-old Akhter Ahmed of Spotsylvania, were previously convicted of drug conspiracy charges. Ahmed is serving a 45-month prison term, while Khan was ordered to serve 46 months. According to federal court records, an investigation began in 2020 when Rashid was living in Brittany Commons in Spotsylvania. A neighbor had complained about extensive foot traffic at the residence, an affidavit states. Rashid eventually moved, but he continued paying rent at the residence and the foot traffic continued. In February 2021, Rashid told an undercover officer that he was storing between 15 to 20 pounds of methamphetamine at the apartment and about 30,000 oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl. He was arrested in April that year. The trio used multiple addresses in Spotsylvania, Culpeper, Fairfax County and elsewhere to traffic drugs, court records state. Those addresses included Ahmeds home in the 5400 block of Silver Maple Lane in Spotsylvania and various car dealerships that Ahmed owned. The drugs were sent to the trio from California, New York and elsewhere, court records state. A number of law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation, including the Spotsylvania, Culpeper and Orange sheriffs offices and Virginia State Police. A Spotsylvania County man who killed his mother during an argument over a house rule was convicted of second-degree murder Thursday. Elijah D. Smith, 22, shot and killed 41-year-old Latoya Acree early Sept. 18, 2021, outside their home in the 6100 block of Pondoley Drive in Spotsylvania. Acree was apparently upset about her son violating her rule about bringing women into her home. Smith was in his vehicle when he shot through his rolled up passengers window and hit his mother in the chest. She was later pronounced dead at the scene. Smith was arrested a short time later at a motel in the Four Mile Fork area. A bullet casing and the gun that were forensically tied to the bullet that killed Acree were found inside the car. A Spotsylvania Circuit Court jury also convicted Smith of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He will face the possibility of up to 43 years in prison when he is sentenced by Judge William Glover on April 14. It was almost a foregone conclusion that Smith would be convicted of something Thursday. Even defense attorney John Spencer conceded that Smith had killed his mother, but Spencer argued that he should be convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder. The manslaughter charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Im not asking you to open the door and let him walk out, Spencer said. But this is a manslaughter case. Prosecutors Holli Wood and Crystal Montague-Holland successfully argued that it was a murder. Wood said Smith should have driven away before he shot his mother. Instead, he chose murder, Wood said. Then he chose to leave her there dying for his younger brothers to find her. MontagueHolland said Acree had talked to Smith before about bringing women into the home and said he should have followed that rule. He wanted to shut his mother up and decided to permanently silence her, she said. Two prominent Virginia Democrats are voicing concerns about the influence of the Chinese Communist Party on companies investing in the United States from high-technology industries to agriculture. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, raised similar concerns on Thursday to those made by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. But they stopped short of supporting the Republican governors sudden decision to pull Virginia out of competition for a Ford Motor Co. project expected to invest $3.5 billion in an electric vehicle battery factory in partnership with a Chinese company that specializes in the technology. Warner, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, declined to comment on Youngkins decision to drop a bid to bring the Ford project to the Berry Hill megasite in Pittsylvania County, but he also emphasized the national security risks raised by the Chinese governments control over its companies that do business in the U.S. and other countries. I have huge concerns about the Chinese Communist Partys influence on many of the companies coming from China, he said in a regularly scheduled conference call with regional media organizations in Virginia. I dont think we need sever all ties with China, he said. We have to figure out ways we can work with China, but we need to recognize that the Chinese Communist Party has undue influence ... over Chinese companies. Youngkin has defended his decision to withdraw Virginia from bidding on the Ford project because of the role of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, or CATL, a Chinese company that has patented the battery technology that the new factory would use. In his State of the Commonwealth address to the General Assembly this month, the governor also said he is committed to preventing Chinese acquisition of farmland in Virginia, while not providing specific examples of it happening. Critics have questioned whether Youngkin is acting on real concerns or attempting to match similar moves by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is a potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Spanberger, who touts her role as the only Virginian on the House Agriculture Committee, is a co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress on Wednesday to expand the role of agricultural interests on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which vets companies that could pose national security risks because of influence by other countries. Rep. Ben Cline, R-6th, is a co-sponsor of the bill. Direct foreign investment in American agriculture and infrastructure has skyrocketed and the Chinese Communist Party has driven much of its growth, Spanberger said in a news release on Thursday. In the face of significant foreign investment in American farmland, we need to recognize how foreign actors could pose potential threats to our economic strength, the competitiveness of our ag industry, and our national security. Spanberger, a former CIA case officer, said in a separate statement that she shares Warners concern about protecting emerging 5G telecommunications networks from influence by the Chinese company Huawei, as well as lessening dependence on China for lifesaving pharmaceuticals like penicillin. However, she called on Youngkin who campaigned vigorously but unsuccessfully for her Republican opponent in November to be clear about the specific threats and ties to the CCP that his administration may have encountered before blocking the [Ford] factory from coming to Virginia. This information will help other elected officials make informed decisions down the road, Spanberger said in comments to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Additionally, I look forward to learning more about how Governor Youngkin intends to prioritize economic development and job growth in Southside, as well as all areas of the commonwealth, including for the Virginians I represent. Warner said the debate about Chinese purchase of farmland in North Dakota is less about the land than the location. If that farmland happens to be adjacent to a military installation, I think it raises questions. He also said the challenge for the U.S. is to regain its footing in critical industries, such as semiconductor chips, electric vehicle batteries and solar energy, while getting ahead in other technologies. Were going to dig into this in a meaningful way, so were not chasing the horses after theyre out of the barn, Warner said. Biggest sources of immigrants to Virginia Biggest sources of immigrants to Virginia #50. Panama #49. Poland #48. Haiti #47. Sudan #46. Saudi Arabia #45. Argentina #44. Ukraine #43. Ecuador #42. Trinidad and Tobago #41. Lebanon #40. Cambodia #39. Italy #38. France #37. Nicaragua #36. Sierra Leone #34. Dominican Republic #33. Venezuela #32. Nigeria #31. Brazil #30. Morocco #29. Turkey #28. Taiwan #27. Thailand #26. Japan #25. Nepal #24. Iraq #23. Russia #22. Egypt #21. Jamaica #20. Bangladesh #19. Canada #18. Colombia #17. Iran #16. Ghana #15. Afghanistan #13. Bolivia #12. Pakistan #11. Peru #10. Ethiopia #9. Honduras #8. Guatemala #7. China #6. Vietnam #5. Philippines #4. South Korea #3. Mexico #2. India #1. El Salvador Don and Dinah Tenhagen were watching television in their recreational vehicle when the power suddenly went out. I thought wed tripped a breaker. I checked that and it was OK, he said. After noticing a faulty light on an inverter device in the RV, Tenhagen began reading an instruction manual about it. Then they heard a pop. A slideout behind the drivers seat began moving. We jumped up and thats when we saw smoke, he said. We opened the door and dashed out. The Tenhagens, who live in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, had come to Fremont in October to help a granddaughter, who has a 4-year-old child and was expecting a baby. The Florida couple has been staying in the RV in the Midway Trailer Court, 1015 N. Pierce St. On Thursday afternoon, the Fremont Fire Department was at the scene extinguishing the fire. Smoke could be seen from U.S. Highway 30. Lt. Rick Schutt said the fire department received a call at 2:20 p.m. of a structure fire at the trailer court. En route, firefighters learned everyone was out of the RV except a small dog. Schutt said the RV was engulfed in flames. Firefighters contained the fire to the RV and Schutt said the fire was under control within 10 minutes. A nearby trailer and vehicle were protected from the blaze. Tenhagen said after he and his wife saw the smoke, they and their Labradoodle, Bronx, made it out of the RV. Then Tenhagen said he realized their 19-year-old miniature dachshund, Lillie, was still inside. She was sound asleep in the bed, he said. I hope she was gone before the fire got there. Tenhagen tried to re-enter the RV, but a woman at the trailer court said her husband wouldnt let him do that. Tenhagen said he and his wife were uninjured. They say stuff happens. I just dont know for sure what caused it, Tenhagen said as he sat in a folding chair at the scene. Im really upset about my puppy (Lillie). The rest of the stuff can be replaced. Schutt said the cause of the fire is believed to be electrical in nature. He said the RV is a total loss. Firefighters from C shift were on duty Thursday and went to the scene. They were onsite until 4:15 p.m. Both A and B shifts were called back to the station. Schutt said from what he understands the couple went to a granddaughters house for now and the Red Cross was going to help them find a place to stay. Omaha will look to partner with Portland, Oregon, in its search for a streetcar vehicle manufacturer. An agreement approved by the Omaha Streetcar Authority on Monday puts into writing the intent of both cities to work together on their procurement of streetcar vehicles. The agreement, a memorandum of understanding, is nonbinding, but sets in motion a series of events that will need to happen over the course of 2023 to keep the streetcar on track to open in 2026. A considerable amount of cost is spent on evaluating the professional proposals and inspecting the (manufacturing) plants all the way through production, said Rick Gustafson, interim director of the authority. We can do this cooperatively to share resources and reduce our costs. Omaha estimates purchasing six vehicles. Portland expects to purchase 11. The Streetcar Authority plans to decide on vehicle specifications by March, and issue a request for proposal to potential manufacturers over the summer. If all goes as planned, the first streetcar vehicles would be delivered to Omaha in July 2025. The streetcar system would open for operation in 2026. The Streetcar Authority was created last year to oversee the design, construction and eventual operation of the streetcar. The board is made up of seven members: three appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council, three appointed by Metro Transits CEO and one community member appointed by the Greater Omaha Chamber. The streetcars planned route runs east along Harney Street and then turns north along 10th Street up to about Cass Street near the CHI Health Center. The streetcars then would head back south on 10th to Capitol Avenue. From there, the route would run a couple of blocks east to Eighth Street near the citys riverfront before turning west onto Farnam Street. The cars then would travel to the routes western terminus at 42nd Street near the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Construction of an Omaha streetcar system is tied to Mutual of Omahas plans to build a $600 million headquarters on the former site of the W. Dale Clark library, which was demolished late last year. Mutual officials have said the streetcar system is critical to their plans to construct the companys headquarters. Mutual is scheduled to break ground on the tower Wednesday. Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of January 2023 010123-owh-new-fireworks-pic-cm01 010423-owh-new-storm-pic-cm02.jpg 010123-owh-new-fireworks-pic-cm08.jpg 011223-owh-new-icejam-pic-cm01.jpg 011223-owh-new-icejam-pic-cm02.jpg 011223-owh-new-icejam-pic-cm03.jpg 010923-owh-new-feature-pic-cm01.jpg KALK 012423-owh-new-rime-pic-cm01.jpg Inaugural Ball Railroad snow Danger-Closed: The Flora Apartments and Omaha's failure to ensure safe and livable housing Mary Sue Haag was in a tough spot. It happened years ago. I had no idea what I was going to feed my two little boys for supper, she said. I had no money and no food at home. Mary Sue had gone to every bank in the town where she lived to see if she had even $5 left in an account somewhere. She didnt. As I left the very last bank, my very last hope, I was in tears, she said. Those two little boys were going to be out of school in 45 minutes and I had nothing for them for supper. She hung her head low. Then she saw something. As I opened my car door, there was God just being God, she said. On the ground right below my car door was a $20 bill. I cant begin to tell you my relief. But that wasnt the end. When she reached the grocery store, she found hamburger on sale for 99 cents a pound. I was able to feed my boys and my faith grew by leaps and bounds that day, Mary Sue said. Mary Sues experience reminds me of a time in the Bible when a group of men wondered how theyd ever feed a large crowd of people. We can find the story in the 14th chapter of Matthew, starting with verse 13. By this point, a crowd has followed Jesus, because theyve seen hes been healing the sick. Jesus goes on a mountainside and sits with his disciples. When he sees the big crowd, Christ asks his disciple, Philip, a question: Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? The Scriptures say Jesus was testing Philip, because Christ already knew what he was going to do. Can you imagine the astonishment in Philips voice? It would take more than half a years wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite! Philip says. Another disciple, Andrew, also seems to wonder how theyll ever tackle this catering nightmare. Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many? Andrew asks. Jesus simply says, Have the people sit down. Theres plenty of grass in the place so about 5,000 men (not to mention women and children) sit down. Jesus takes the loaves of bread, gives thanks, and gives the people as much as they want. He does the same with the fish. When everyone has enough to eat, Jesus tells his disciples: Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted. So the disciples gather the extra pieces and fill 12 baskets with the pieces of five barley loaves left over by those whod eaten. There were 12 disciples and 12 baskets. Go figure. But Christ isnt finished with feeding big crowds. Ive read where the first feeding took place near the Sea of Galilee, an area where Jewish people lived. After that, Christ and his disciples were in a region around the Decapolis, an area where Gentiles lived. Head over to the 15th chapter of Matthew, starting with verse 29. I wonder if the disciples are having any sense of deja vu when another large crowd gathers. The Scriptures say great crowds come bringing the lame, blind, crippled and mute, laying them at Christs feet. And he heals them. People are amazed when they see lame people walk and blind see. And they praise the God of Israel. Jesus calls his disciples to him. I have compassion for these people, Jesus says. They have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way. The disciples again foresee a supply shortage. Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd? they ask. How many loaves do you have? Jesus asks. Seven, they reply, and a few small fish. Jesus has the crowd sit down on the ground. This time, he takes seven loaves and the fish and after he gives thanks he breaks them and gives them to the disciples who give them to the people. Heres the line I love best: They all ate and were satisfied. No one obviously asked for more. Nobody asked to see the dessert menu. Afterward, the disciples pick up seven basketfuls of broken leftover pieces. The number of dinner guests? The Scriptures list them at 4,000 men, besides women and children. It was feeding miracle. Actually, if you look in the Bible you can see other miracles involving food. God fed manna (bread from heaven) to the Israelites for 40 years when they were in the desert. The manna tasted like wafers made with honey. Elijah told a widow to make a small cake of bread for him before she made some for herself and her son during a famine. The widow complied and her jar of oil and jar of flour didnt run empty until God sent rain. That rain meant crops could grow again and people could eat. These are wonderful, faith-filled stories, which Ive forgotten about when Ive previously faced financially tough times in my life. Yet God always provided. And the same God who provided then, provides for us today. As I think about the Bible stories, I wonder if the Israelites ever longed for the days of manna after they reached the Promised Land and had to grow their own food and pull weeds. I wonder if the widows son remembered the incredible faith of his mother who trusted God enough to make bread for a stranger, before preparing what she thought would be the last meal shed ever fix for herself and her child. And I wonder if the little boy whose lunch was stretched to feed a multitude was able to share that miraculous story with this grandchildren. Recently, Mary Sue sent me a photo of her handsome sons. My boys are now in their middle to late 30s, she said. If youve seen them lately, they are grown, healthy and very well fed. We all have been. God is good. And she has a marvelous testimony of Gods provision. Ill bet Mary Sue never forgets it and Im hoping her sons will share it to remind others about a God who provides in unique and incredible ways and whose love can stretch even farther than some fish or bread or 99-cent hamburger. A fire Friday burned about a tenth of an acre in southeast Colorado Springs, according to fire officials. Colorado Springs Fire Department spokesman Capt. Mike Smaldino said the fire in the Hancock Expressway and Transit Drive area near Evergreen Cemetery around 6 a.m. was contained to a large debris and slash pile, spreading only a few yards past. CSFD arson investigators linked the fire to a propane-fueled stove located in an unoccupied homeless camp nearby, police wrote in their crime blotter entry. The area burned measures approximately .16 acres and the estimated property damage is $5,000. No suspects were identified at this time. The property is jointly owned by the city of Colorado Springs and by Evergreen Cemetery, police said. Police are asking anyone with information to call them at 719-444-7000. The debris is a remnant of cemetery construction, Smaldino said. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. The fire was contained shortly before 8 a.m. and fully extinguished by 11:30 a.m., the fire department announced on Twitter. "It's a good reminder that fire season is a year-long event," Smaldino said, "the fuels were dry, and this thing (the fire) took off with snow on the ground." Correction: This story has an updated acreage total from the fire. In January 2021, La Plata County Court Judge Anne K. Woods presided over an emotionally-fraught sentencing hearing: Preston Edward Pitcher, a church leader, pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor offenses after sexually abusing young adults whom he groomed as children. Despite the option to impose jail time, Woods opted against incarcerating Pitcher for 60 days and instead sentenced him to four years of probation, as the parties had agreed to. Observers were aghast. What if it was your son that was molested or sexually abused? one victim's parent told her. "The victims here deserve something," the prosecutor added. Woods, who was barely into her fourth month as a judge, attempted to make the point that Pitcher needed reformation and supervision, and putting him in a cell would not serve the community. But her actual words, as the local newspaper described the hearing, conveyed an air of insensitivity. Im not going to sentence you to 60 days in jail because I just dont see the point," Woods said. Theres no amount of jail thats going to help anyone here." *** The day after the November 2022 election, Annie Woods was no longer a judge. Appointed at age 33 just two year prior, a slim majority 51% of La Plata County voters chose not to retain her in office. "I had strong reactions sometimes when presiding over cases, hearing from victims who were harmed. And having the instinct to tell that defendant how horrible they were and punish them. Im human," she said, explaining her style as a judge. "But so are they." Woods was the only judge in Colorado not to be retained in 2022. It is not a rare event to have a judge come up short on a retention vote, as each of the four prior election cycles also featured judges losing their seats. However, Woods fell into the unusual category of being non-retained despite a favorable evaluation from one of the state's independent, citizen-led commissions that reviews the performance of judges. The performance commissions used to recommend to voters whether to retain or not retain a judge; now, they advise whether judges "meet performance standards" based on a matrix of factors. Woods was one of several judges in 2022 to receive a split vote from her performance commission. Six members believed she met performance standards, while three did not. It was the same margin, for instance, of a county court judge in Rio Blanco County an older man who met performance standards despite parties in his courtroom feeling pressured to settle cases for fear the judge would get confused and misapply the law at trial. (Voters retained him by 2-to-1.) In contrast, Woods' commission repeatedly noted that she had improved as a judge since the time of the Pitcher hearing. And yet, its members wrote, "the Commission found the public did not see Judge Woods as fair." Rather than being the first signal to voters that something was wrong, the commission's observation was actually a confirmation of the local narrative about Woods, spread for two years online and through the media. To her opponents, Woods' loss was a function of her approach to crime, specifically her application of "restorative justice," which focuses on repairing the harmful effects of a crime rather than punishing the offender. In their telling, Woods' version crossed over the line into coddling criminals. For Woods, in contrast, the election involved a confluence of external and internal forces of her own unfamiliarity with the job, of misinformation, of differential treatment because of her age and sex, and of a Democratic-leaning county not liking the criminal justice reform it was seeing. "I was different and they didnt want that," she said. A defense attorney with a vision Woods graduated from the University of Denver's law school in 2015, five years prior to her appointment. She then became a public defender in Durango, which she characterized as a "front seat" to the systemic flaws of the criminal justice system. In 2020, she applied to become the sole La Plata County Court judge, beating out two men with prosecutorial experience for the position. Woods recalled being open with Gov. Jared Polis' office and the citizen-led judicial nominating commission about her goals. "I really was always a fan of procedural justice, which is the concept of giving everyone a voice, treating everyone with dignity and respect, and using plain language that people can understand, trying to be neutral," she said. "Treating everyone the same, regardless of what they've said or what theyve done." In Colorado, county court judges preside over misdemeanor crimes, traffic cases (including non-felony drunk driving), small claims and evictions. They also set bail for criminal defendants. Initially, Woods struggled to adapt. Multiple attorneys told Colorado Politics that lawyers would openly demean her, and she occasionally had difficulty controlling the courtroom. An initial evaluation from her judicial performance commission in 2021 corroborated the concerns 70% of attorneys and 100% of non-attorneys who filled out surveys believed Woods did not meet performance standards. Her lowest score was in the category of "application and knowledge of law." At the time, Woods felt that some of the criticism of her performance was unfair, but acknowledged she had legitimate issues to fix. In large part, there was concern the judge extended inappropriate amounts of compassion to the criminally accused. "I just really wanted to empathize with everyone and feel like the court is a place where they are not gonna come in and the judge is gonna throw a bunch of terms at them and not help them at all," Woods said. "I didn't want my courtroom to be a place like that. But I definitely think I crossed the line sometimes into the category of giving advice." The public portrait of her was as someone who privileged the criminally accused, a reputation developed through a small number of cases highlighted in the media. There was the man for whom Woods granted bond in a DUI case, only to then drive drunk again and kill his passenger. There was a mentally-ill woman arrested for setting fire to a barn, but then led police on a high-speed chase after Woods granted her bond. And there was Pitcher's sentencing. Some victims corroborated the view that Woods was to blame, at least in part, for perceived leniency. John Purser was riding his motorcycle in March 2021 when another biker hit him on a curve, injuring them both. The man pleaded guilty to a traffic offense, careless driving resulting in injury, and received a fine with no jail time. Purser, who voted against Woods' retention, is still unhappy with her and the district attorney's office for agreeing to the punishment. "She didnt require him to address me personally, to write a letter of apology, to do public service. There was virtually no consequence for what he did," Purser said. As for the prosecution, "Im hoping well have some half-decent option when the DA comes up for election." Still, by 2022, the majority of Woods' performance commission was satisfied she had improved enough. "The public still may be partially anchored on the view that Judge Woods is a pro-defense judge," commission members wrote to voters, "but the Commission noted a significant increase in cash bail and sentences above the minimum since the interim evaluation." The numbers bore out that narrative. Disapproval of her job performance dropped from the prior year. One-third of lawyers and one-quarter of non-lawyers still believed she did not meet performance standards percentages higher than average for county court judges but it was a steep decline from 2021. But there was another number that foreshadowed a retention problem. In 2022, the chief judge of Woods' judicial district, who was also up for retention, received 39 survey responses from lawyers and nonlawyers across all three counties in the district. Two other counties closest in population to La Plata Garfield and Fremont also had their county judges up for retention, who garnered 59 and 48 responses, respectively. In contrast, 90 people had something to say about Woods. Persistent coverage, persistent outrage Marshall R. Sumrall, a private criminal defense attorney in Durango, believed Woods was doing a good job. He noticed the newspaper, The Durango Herald, published a "slew" of opinion articles, editorials and letters to the editor that were critical of Woods during her time in office. "The Durango Herald seemed to be opposed to her from the beginning," he recalled. "In my opinion the voters were influenced by their unfair reporting." Nikkolette Moyer, who worked for the court system between 2021 and 2022 and was assigned to Woods as a clerk, said the paper's coverage bothered Woods. "They didn't really talk about Annie in the most positive light. All of the articles they wrote about her, there was nothing ever positive," Moyer said. "It was just really strange how they always picked her out." Senior editor Trent Stephens told Colorado Politics he had "not detected a bias or known of an uncorrected inaccuracy" in The Herald's coverage of Woods. Woods acknowledged the paper did not publish anything factually inaccurate, but argued its reporting about her sensationalized certain cases or failed to mention key facts. For example, Woods pointed to specific articles that, in her view, laid full responsibility for a lenient sentence on her, when in reality the sentence was stipulated in a plea deal with the district attorney's office. Another article's sub-headline advertised that Woods "faced criticism for releasing criminal defendants on low bond amounts," although the article itself made no mention of any criticism. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. The paper was not the only venue for conversation about Woods' approach to judging. A post on Reddit, with 89 comments, featured a discussion ostensibly about her, but veered into the merits of restorative justice and criminal procedure. "Be honest with yourself: If you were the defendant and we are all just a moment and a mistake away from becoming the defendant you would want someone with compassion, integrity, and principles sitting behind that bench," wrote one commenter. "Repeat offenders need to be locked up, rehabilitation be damned," responded another. For her part, Woods avoided the Internet commentary. It was the newspaper she saw as the problem, and Woods even went so far as to mention "misinformation from small town media" in her resignation email to the chief justice the day after the election. But then the radio ads started. The party chair Dave Peters is the chair of the La Plata County Republican Party. He also happens to be a member of the judicial performance commission that received information about Woods' performance and deliberated confidentially about its recommendation to voters. Before the election, the county party ran radio ads for 10 days, including against Woods. Peters estimated the group spent $1,000 specifically on her. The GOP also posted a voter guide that recommended Woods not be retained, with an explanation. "Judge Woods is a far-left activist Judge, with an abysmal track record. This Polis appointee has shown time and again a blatant disregard for public safety and the rule of law," the guide explained. Peters denied any impropriety given his dual roles as commissioner and party chair. "My views on the performance commission are based solely on the performance standards laid out by the state," he said, suggesting the "much bigger" issue was the presence of lawyers on the commission reviewing the judges they appear before. The local Democratic Party did not take a position on judicial retention. Although the rules governing performance commissions forbid members from publicly advocating for or against the retention of judges, Kent Wagner, the director of Colorado's Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation, said he detected no breach in this circumstance. "I have found no indication that Mr. Peters publicly advocated against Judge Woods' retention personally," he said. Gary M. Jackson, a retired Denver County Court judge and a former judicial performance commissioner in Arapahoe County, said he could not recall a prior instance of a political party advocating against a judge's retention. Peters' involvement struck him as problematic, as did the party's characterization of Woods, Jackson said. "What was put in that voter guide, first of all, was inaccurate. That performance commission did not make a determination that her performance as a judge was 'abysmal,'" he said. "It did not come to the conclusion that she was not abiding by the rule of law." And yet, at the same time Woods was narrowly losing her retention election, La Plata County voters selected Democrats across the partisan races, suggesting the county's Republicans were far from the only demographic dissatisfied with her. "They didnt have enough votes to really get her out, so it had to be a lot of other people, as well. It wasnt a one-party or one-group protest," said Rep. Barbara McLachlan, D-Durango, who declined to say whether she voted to retain Woods. Pulling the cards Woods said she does not like to "pull the woman card" or the "young woman card." "I think it can be used as an excuse for our own shortcomings," she explained. But Woods nonetheless perceived differential treatment by attorneys, by litigants and by voters because of her age and sex. Perhaps coincidentally, of the last five judges who lost their retention elections, three were women. "When you're a woman or you're a judge of color," said Jackson, "we still live in a society and a system where we are viewed differently, and we have to work harder and longer and are not given the same leeway that white males are given." Public defenders, he added, have also been subject to "inherent prejudices" about their suitability for judging. Some observers who spoke to Colorado Politics witnessed what they believed to be hostile treatment of Woods. Others, including those who worked for her and were in her courtroom frequently, did not pick up on any problematic behavior. Woods made clear that she does not blame anyone else for her non-retention. But she also suspected those who might have labeled as "competent" a man with similar credentials instead saw her as "inexperienced." Ellen Stein, the former editorial page editor for The Herald and currently a corporate marketing director, voted against Woods' retention. Stein said she is "as liberal as they come" and in favor of restorative justice. But Woods' version of restorative justice was not what Stein wanted. "I hate to say this I would like to see somebody who has a little more experience under their belt," she said. "I want to see women thrive in government and public positions, but my sense in this case is that she needs more experience." 'It made me grateful' Stein's "no" vote on Woods was driven by a specific case she handled: Preston Pitcher, the man Woods sentenced for sexual abuse, with no jail time. "He was not sentenced to more than some kind of therapy," Stein said. "I thought that was abhorrent." In reality, Pitcher's plea agreement stipulated to four years of probation, with up to 60 days in jail as an option. Probation, in turn, includes several limitations on a defendant's liberty, along with supervision and the possibility of incarceration for violating the conditions. In Pitcher's case, Woods also ordered treatment. Stein said she spoke to a lawyer she knew about Pitcher's sentence, who agreed with Woods' approach to rehabilitating Pitcher. But that did not convince her that what the judge did was right. "Probation is not jail time," she said. "I think restorative justice, when appropriately used, it absolutely has a place. But this was not a match. The scope of the crime was much greater." On the other side of the divide, however, was one man Woods sentenced in a criminal case, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be candid and also to avoid backlash from those still upset with him. "Her kindness toward me actually helps in aiding toward no recidivism," he said. "Because she was kind to me it actually added way more fuel to me doing right by the system moving forward." The man said he recognized the societal need for punishment, and the perception that a less severe sentence means he "got off." He understood, though, that if he faltered in the treatment Woods ordered, he would be back in court again. He voted to retain her. "She got accused of being too light, but it wasnt just she was letting people of the hook. I think she knew what was required of me and it wasnt just, 'Youre good to go'," the man said. "It made me want to succeed." A Colorado Springs nonprofit is teaming up with high schools across the state to bring construction industry-based vocational education into classrooms. Careers in Construction Colorado, which was launched in 2015 by leading homebuilders in Colorado Springs, has partnered with nearly 50 high schools in support of a twofold purpose: To bolster the states construction workforce and to expose young Coloradans to the array of opportunities the industry offers. Students deserve choices, and the industry deserves a workforce, said operations manager Marlo Asher. A lot of people in the industry are on the verge of retiring, and there arent enough young people coming in to fill their positions. So they end up having to work longer than they want to. The program has grown exponentially since its inception, officials said. Eight years ago, CICC started with 15 students from a single high school in Colorado Springs. Now more than 2,300 students across the state are being introduced to the building trades at an early age and learning that college isnt the only route to a lucrative career. If you want to go to college, great, Asher said. Were definitely not discouraging that. But college isnt for everyone, and students need to start thinking about the next step after high school. Were helping with that. The programs growth has benefited from a shift in recent years toward Career and Technical Education and work-based learning, spokeswoman Sydney White said. More than 400 Colorado high schools currently offer CTE programs, according to Department of Education data. In just the past year, (the program has) grown by 20 schools, said school liaison Keira Conley. Nikki Carter, Widefield School District 3's CTE director, has seen her district's program increase eightfold over the past few years. We have gone from 25, to 75, to 100, to over 200 students in the construction program," Carter said. "The students are meeting professionals in the industry, and they are transitioning from high school and going right to work with the skills they learn in this program. Through the CICC program, students can acquire construction industry internships, do job shadowing, and earn up to 12 certificates that are recognized by the U.S. Labor Department, White said. A mention of the construction industry often evokes images of a heavy equipment operator, or of a worker holding a Stop/Slow sign in the middle of a street. Few people outside the industry are aware of the depth and breadth of the building trades, Conley said. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. We go into schools and we ask the students, How many trades do you think it takes to build a house from the ground up? Conley said. Most students cant think of more than four or five. But it actually takes 85 separate trades and thats just for a residential home. The CICC program uses a curriculum provided by the Home Builders Institute. In the first year, students learn trade basics including industry materials, tool identification and construction math. The second year expands on the lessons of the first and includes exposure to plumbing, masonry, painting, carpentry, landscaping and a host of other building disciplines. Students earn a certificate on completion of each unit. At Widefield and in other area districts, third- and fourth-year students participate in a home build. They take the foundational skills they learned during the first two years, and apply them toward building a modular home on-site, and then we move it onto someones property, Carter said. CICC program leaders hope that at least 20% of enrolled students will pursue a career in the building trades, officials said. But even if they decide not to join the construction industry, students will learn skills that will benefit them in the long run. When (students) understand the basics, theyll be able to do a lot of (home maintenance and repairs) on their own, without having to hire somebody, Conley said. We also teach employability skills resume building, how to do a job interview, how to work as part of a team and those skills are transferable to any career path. Students also develop an appreciation for the vital role the construction business plays in their everyday lives, Asher said. The streets they drive on, the sidewalks they walk on even when they turn on a faucet the construction industry is involved, she said. Its not magic. Its time, talent and human hands. The plan, officials said, is to place the CICC program into 65 Colorado schools by 2025. If successful, that would translate to about 5,000 enrolled students and, ideally, about 1,000 new construction professionals. Weve got some work to do to get there, White said. But last year we had 170 kids enter the construction industry from Colorado Springs alone. So were definitely moving in the right direction. Wendy Birhanzel received the 2023 Colorado Superintendent of the Year award before hundreds of supportive students, principals, staff and community members at Sierra High School on Friday. The audience was fitting, given that the award is just as much theirs as it is hers, the Harrison School District 2 superintendent said. This is an amazing day, but its not a day about me, Birhanzel said, repping Sierras colors with her cardinal jacket. Her son graduated from the high school in 2015. The plaque says my name, but it should say District 2. The Colorado Association of School Executives presented Birhanzel with the honor after a committee of former winners and superintendents selected her from a pool of 178 school districts statewide. The associations executive director Bret Miles said she demonstrates an unparalleled commitment to elevating student voices. Birhanzel created 20-person student advisory groups at Harrison and Sierra high schools, which regularly meet with her to discuss ideas and address issues. She also created an equity council and began supporting and training staff members in alternatives to suspension while ensuring each school in the district employed a full-time social worker. The work has paid off; over the past three years, out-of-school suspensions have dropped 38%, officials said. The initiatives have also contributed to an 81% graduation rate and helped shrink the dropout rate to 1.2%. Watching from the bleachers was Stratton Meadows Elementary Principal Christina Clayton, who coordinated matching outfits with her boss in honor of National Big Wig Day, which just so happened to align with the award ceremony. In her kajillion years working in districts across Colorado Springs, shes never had a superintendent quite like Birhanzel. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Clayton said it is not uncommon for disconnects to arise between superintendents and the communities they lead. With so many big-picture issues to manage, day-to-day interactions become a secondary focus. Its just a 30,000-foot view all the time, but she is not, Clayton said. She has the ability to deal with all the macro things for our district and then sit on the floor of the kindergartners and read a book with them, and shes genuine ... Its all about the kids. She says it, and she lives it.' Birhanzel's accessibility has in part contributed to the highest employee culture scores the district has ever seen and an all-time-high staff retention rate, Clayton said. It doesnt take long when talking with Dr. Birhanzel to realize shes a fierce advocate for all of you: students, teachers, staff and community partners, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said. She is doing transformative work in your school district and in our entire community. Superintendent of the Year is far from Birhanzels first recognition. She received the Mayors Young Leader Award in 2015, and in 2022 she was named a Woman Making a Difference by the League of Women Voters and received the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award from the Colorado Springs Business Journal. Under her leadership, the Colorado Springs Business Journal also named D-2 the 2022 Best Education Workplace. We know that in our district we have plenty of haters throughout the city, throughout the state, who say were not gonna do what we said were gonna do. We cant do what we said were gonna do," Birhanzel said. "Guess what, guys? We did it. More than 1,000 new cemetery plots at the U.S. Air Force Academy, roundabouts near Peterson Space Force Base, energy-efficiency improvements at El Paso County buildings and full completion of a new Childrens Advocacy Center in Colorado Springs are among 94 projects in Colorado that are receiving funding from congressionally directed spending requests for 2023. Colorado's U.S. senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, both Democrats, identified the projects to be included in the $1.7 trillion fiscal year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee accepted the requests in December. Each of these projects is an example of the progress we can make when the federal government invests directly in local communities, Bennet said in an email. The practice of including local spending requests in the bill on a bipartisan basis was revived two years ago. This process has been an opportunity for Coloradans to tell Congress about the challenges they face and resources they need, Bennet said. Coloradans know best what their communities need, Hickenlooper said in a statement. These projects are examples of how everyone wins when Washington listens to the needs of the people we serve, he said. In this go-round, Colorado is receiving $178.3 million in funding for projects statewide. Recipients go through an extensive application process to be awarded the federal funds. The U.S. Air Force Academy is receiving $3.4 million, the largest local allotment, which will help add 1,200 plots at the cemetery on the federal military installation located between Colorado Springs and Monument. As of Thursday, 499 burial spots remain open, along with 475 niche spots in the columbarium, said spokesman Dean Miller. The cemetery is the final resting place for departed academy cadets, graduates and dependents. The first burial took place on Sept. 28, 1958, and there now are 2,327 people buried, memorialized with a marker or placed in the columbarium, Miller said. "In the last decade, internments more than doubled, and we expect that number to steadily increase, as the initial cadre of graduates are now in their 80s," he said. Existing forested land will be cleared and the land transformed into new burial sites, according to a solicitation for contractors. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. A total of $4.4 million in funding has been approved for the expansion, officials announced at the Dec. 6 meeting of the Board of Visitors in Washington. The $500,000 awarded to the Colorado Department of Transportation will pay for the city of Colorado Springs to finish the design of two new roundabouts at Peterson Road and U.S. 24, said Todd Frisbie, city traffic engineer. The city had received an initial $500,000 grant from the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments to do preliminary design work and obtain environmental clearances, he said. Standard roundabouts will replace two stoplights on Peterson Road near Peterson Space Force Base, located at the ramp intersections to the north and south of U.S. 24. Roundabouts improve access, traffic flow and safety, Frisbie said. The total project cost and timeline are yet to be determined, he said. The new Children's Advocacy Center received the smallest amount, $360,000, but the money is of great significance, said Mo Basenberg, executive director of Safe Passage. The organization helps children who have been sexually abused or witnessed a crime. It created the center in a renovated building at 2335 Robinson St. The center opened in November 2021 as a one-stop site where hurt children and families can receive physical, mental, legal and other child-safety assistance. The money enables the nonprofit to sunset its two-year capital campaign and complete its goal of raising $2.7 million, Basenberg said. Most recipients of the congressionally directed spending funds across the state are government agencies, although nonprofits also can apply. Basenberg said its meaningful that Bennet and Hickenlooper championed the Children's Advocacy Center, which she said their offices have toured. We have huge gratitude and appreciation for both senators offices recognizing that weve added a best-practice model in our community and the good that weve achieved, she said. The organization is applying $260,000 to paying off the loan for the building renovations; the remainder will be spent on additional landscaping and interior finishes, Basenberg said. Basenberg attributes the increase in clients 143 more children were served in 2022 than 2021, for a total of 776 to the new center, which is larger than the organization's previous location and has room for Colorado Springs police to be on-site as well as a forensic nursing team from UCHealth and other groups. CSPD can bring all the cases to us, whereas before we didnt have the space, she said. For better or worse, our numbers are pretty strong. El Paso County will use its share of $445,000 to improve energy efficiency at all major county facilities, a spokesperson said, including the jail, courthouse, main county services building, public works, the Sheriffs Office and Centennial Hall. LED upgrades will reduce county utility usage by an estimated 30% and enhance energy efficiency, the spokesperson said in an email. The Colorado Springs Downtown Development Authority is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to the recovery of a sign from a historic downtown store, according to a Wednesday news release. The large sign above the entrance to Michelles Chocolatier, a downtown institution for more than 50 years before it closed in 2007, was reported missing in December, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department. It had been removed from its former place in front of the store to make room for a new business sign and was in the storage lot of a sign shop on the east side of the city, said spokeswoman Carrie Simison. Were looking for it so we can have it restored, Simison said. If you used to frequent Michelles as a kid, it holds a special place in your heart. So we want to fix it and place it in another location downtown, so people can see it and enjoy it. Longtime Colorado Springs residents may remember lining up outside the store at 122 N. Tejon St. for chocolate hearts or homemade ice cream, Simison said. Michelles was founded in 1952 and moved to its downtown location in 1954. In 2007, the IRS took the building in a voluntary seizure to satisfy a federal tax lien, according to previous reporting in The Gazette. The sign, which is old and in disrepair, may have been taken by someone who thought it was being discarded, Simison said. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. It could have been taken for some innocuous reason, she said. For all we know, it could be sitting in someones backyard somewhere. It had broken bulbs, and it was rusted, she said. The sign doesnt have much actual value to it, except maybe as scrap. But it does have emotional value for a lot of the community. The sign is light blue, says Michelle in an ornate script, and is decorated with multicolored light bulbs. It weighs about 1,500 pounds and should be fairly easy to spot, officials said. Anyone with information about the signs whereabouts is asked to call 719-886-0088 or email info@downtowncs.com. Officials hope to recover the sign before April 30. If we get it back and restore it, people who have years of memories at Michelles will be able to relive them in a small way, Simison said. Thats all we want. Joshua Johnson, the man accused of killing 17-year-old co-worker Riley Whitelaw at a Colorado Springs Walgreens, has a new trial date. At a motions hearing on Friday morning, Johnson's defense attorney Deana O'Reily requested for a continuance of Johnson's trial date, which was originally scheduled to begin on March 6. O'Reily said there was not enough time between now and the start of the jury trial for Johnson's defense to hire an expert to review DNA evidence that was submitted to the defense one week ago. The prosecution had no objection to a continuance, and thus, Judge Eric Bentley set May 8 as the new jury trial date. Bentley also ruled on several different motions filed by both the prosecution and defense at the hearing. The first motion ruled on by Bentley was a motion to allow testimony from friends and family of Whitelaw to speak about unwanted advances that Johnson allegedly made towards Whitelaw while working together at Walgreens. Johnson, 28, allegedly killed Whitelaw in the breakroom of the store at 6820 Centennial Blvd., in June 2022. At Johnson's preliminary hearing in September Colorado Springs police detectives testified that Whitelaw told friends, family and co-workers that Johnson had a romantic interest in her that made her feel uncomfortable. Detectives at the hearing testified that Whitelaw had made complaints to her manager at Walgreens about Johnson more than a year before her death, saying he was making advances towards her that made Whitelaw uncomfortable. Several weeks before her death, Whitelaw had requested different hours so she would no longer have to work with Johnson, according to police. However, when Whitelaw asked for additional hours, she was told it would require her to work with Johnson. Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Bentley ruled that while the testimony wasn't intrinsic, it was admissible at trial due to being potential evidence as a motive for Johnson's alleged actions. Bentley made the same ruling in regard to the admissibility of a voicemail from Whitelaw prior to her death. The last significant ruling made by Bentley was a denial of the request from Johnson's defense for a change of venue, with Bentley stating that despite the significant media coverage of the homicide that it did not warrant a change of venue. A motion to suppress evidence and testimony filed by Johnson's defense that requires testimony from at least one CSPD detective will be heard at a motions hearing on a different date, according to Bentley. During Johnson's preliminary hearing in September, CSPD detectives testified that only Johnson could be responsible for killing his teen co-worker. At the preliminary hearing, Bentley described Johnson's story of another man potentially committing the crime as "wildly implausible," before ruling that Johnson would face a trial for allegedly killing Whitelaw. Johnson was last in court in November when he entered a not guilty plea to the charge of first-degree murder. While Johnson is scheduled to begin his trial in May, he will return to court on March 17 for a motions hearing. Johnson remains in custody at the El Paso County jail on a no-bond hold. If found guilty of first-degree murder Johnson will be given a mandatory sentence of life in prison. As a former M1A1 tank commander, headquarters and headquarters company commander and battalion operations officer in the 3rd Armored Division (Spearhead) from 1988-1991, I have followed the frantic reporting of the unleashing of the German Leopard tanks in versions I and II with great interest. Will this tank live up to the expectations NATO and Ukraine put into it? During my time as a defender of the Fulda Gap, I had the opportunity to command a Leopard II in a battalion live-fire setting with our partnership unit, Panzer Battalion 153 in Koblenz, Germany. We operated in a combined warfare environment that had our reconnaissance platoon of Bradley Fighting Vehicles scout the way for the German battalion to the Baumholder tank range. The exercise unfolded during the hours of darkness and in radio-listening-silence, something that was a tad difficult for us Americans since we tend to love talking a bit too much on our radios. Meanwhile, the Germans effectively used motorcycle dispatch riders to keep unit commanders and vehicle crews posted on the progress of the movement. The live-fire occurred during the morning hours and quite impressively, the Leopard IIs of the Bundeswehr had no mechanical failures during the extended road march. Their efficient diesel engines were quickly refueled and the Panzers ready to roll again. The Leopards power plant was louder than the M1s gas turbine, yet if you were the enemy, the impressive deep grumble of the tank would have made you aware that something terrifying was on its way to you. Climbing into my Leos turret on the morning of the live-fire, I was greeted by the German gunner who was handing me a quite comfortable crew helmet. Then I got acquainted with and the rest of the crew via the intercom system in German, of course. What struck me was how clear the German headsets transmitted compared to ones we used. The commanders and gunners stations where tight, yet everything was in its right place. The daylight targeting optics proved of extremely high quality much better than ours. I was able to bring any target into clear vision without much effort. Going down-range with the Leo was impressive, to say the least. The vehicle and main gun had great stability and the crew compartment was relatively quiet. Indeed, it felt like you were driving in a Mercedes. The 120mm gun, like ours, hit on point and the draftee-loader was able to feed it without a problem. The 7.62mm MG3 turret machine gun was similar to the famous Wehrmacht WWII MG42, yet the crew had to stick out their heads out to operate itbad news in built-up areas and sniper country. Sign up for free: Gazette Opinion Receive updates from our editorial staff, guest columnists, and letters from Gazette readers. Sent to your inbox 12:00 PM. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Overall, I found the Leopard II to be a lovely cat that I would have gladly taken into combat against any foe. My assessment then and now is that the Leopard II is an excellent combat vehicle that continues the tradition of first-class German armor developments like the Panther and Tiger my father crewed in WWII. In the end, however, it will depend on the training of the tank crews, the tactical prowess of leadership and the ability to keep the vehicles in the fight in terms of logistics and maintenance. Given the combat scenario in Ukraine, it will also have to be seen if drones and other top-attack weapons will limit this fine tanks impact. Hopefully, the Leo IIs, most likely coming from a variety of countries, will be in decent shape and used in the appropriate combined arms environment, where they can unleash their tremendous capabilities. That also means they must be placed in specified main efforts and not piecemeal as good ol Heinz Guderian, the father of the German Panzer arm once emphasized: Clobber them, dont stroke them! While a lot of hope is riding on the German Leos backs, I would be careful not to count out the Russian armys ability to deal with this new challenge. In many conflicts they have shown a tremendous ability to adapt and overcome, especially when challenged on their own turf. Hence our old cavalry saying still holds true: Excessive hope is not a method. R.W. Zimmermann is a former tank battalion commander and 3rd Armored Division Desert Storm veteran. He served as a warfare strategy and leadership instructor for the U.S. military and has written op-eds on various military and international relations topics. The crowded race for Colorados most powerful elected position has begun to winnow, though only barely. With just six weeks to go until Denver voters start to receive lengthy ballots in the mail for the April 4 municipal election, the field of mayoral candidates has slimmed a bit from more than two dozen hopefuls to the 17 who managed to gather enough petition signatures to qualify. Among them are two state lawmakers, a veteran city councilor, a former state lawmaker and nonprofit chief, the former longtime head of the citys chamber of commerce, several prominent social justice advocates, and two CEOs who own or co-own homegrown local businesses. The floodgates are open. For the first time since 2011, there wont be an incumbent seeking reelection three-term Mayor Michael Hancock is term-limited no doubt inspiring the dozens of Denver denizens who saw the citys next mayor in the mirror. The advent of public financing for candidates who can prime their coffers with enough small-dollar donors has also likely encouraged some who otherwise would have sat this one out. As more and more candidates carve out slices of the potential electorate, the incentive grows for additional candidates to jump in, in hopes that they can find their niche and edge out the next in line. Couple those factors with the races relatively low barrier to entry it takes just 300 valid signatures to make the ballot and youve got a free-for-all. While this years slate of aspiring mayors sets a modern record, Denver is no stranger to loaded line-ups. Over the years, though, even the most crowded races for Denver mayor have eventually sorted out to a few tiers, with most candidates failing to gain traction, a few falling back in the pack after making an initial splash, and a clump of candidates triangulating for the coveted pair of spots in the run-off. If none of the candidates receives more than 50% of the vote in April, voters get another chance to pick a winner, with ballots due on June 6. Three of Denvers last six mayoral elections have been decided in the first round, without going to run-offs, in each case when an incumbent was running for reelection. While its too early to assign frontrunner status to any of this years candidate, this years crop of potential top dogs has already sorted itself into at least tiers, with nine of the 17 mounting campaigns that could conceivably land them in the finals. In alphabetical order, they are former chamber boss Kelly Brough; criminal justice reform advocate and 2019 mayoral candidate Lisa Calderon; state Reps. Chris Hansen and Leslie Herod; former state Sen. Mike Johnston, who ran unsuccessful campaigns for governor and U.S. senator; at-large council member Debbie Ortega; self-funding veteran Andy Rougeot, a business owner and the fields lone Republican; Tattered Cover co-owner and CEO Kwame Spearman; and, human rights activist Ean Tafoya. Depending how the chips fall and shifting voting blocs align, any one of them has a chance at making the final two, though the weeks ahead will reveal which have better chances. If decades of Denver municipal elections have yielded a lesson, its that early assumptions about the end results are bound to be confounded. A few tendencies, however, have emerged in Denvers contests for mayor. Some are obvious every time theres been a race for an open seat, its been a crowded and expensive scrum, with plenty of elbows and no small quantity of mud thrown before a victor emerges but others are less so, like voters bent for choosing an underdog over the assumed frontrunner in every race for an open seat for at least the last 40 years. Additionally, since at least the early 1960s, it seems that Denver voters have suffered from a palpable 20-year itch Westwords Patty Calhoun uses a less genteel term to describe the phenomenon appearing ready to turn the page every fifth election. The pattern has been remarkably consistent, and if it holds, this years election could be the latest incarnation of voters zigging after years of zagging. In 1963, voters broke from their post-war streak of electing Republicans to the nonpartisan office, elevated city auditor Tom Currigan to the seat while turning out one-termer Richard Brattigan the last Republican to serve as Denvers mayor. Citing difficulty getting by on the mayors salary, Currigan stepped down in 1968 to take a job at Continental Airlines after winning reelection the year before. He handed the reins to his deputy mayor, Bill McNichols Jr., the citys public works director and the son of a former Denver auditor. McNichols, whose brother Stephen served three two-year terms as governor of Colorado before the terms were lengthened to four years in the mid-1960s won reelection to full terms three times, in 1971, 1975 and 1979, though not without prevailing twice in run-offs over Denver District Attorney Dale Tooley, who finished in first place in the first rounds 1975 and 1979. The itch returned in the 1983 election, when McNichols was seeking a fourth term but finished in third place behind Tooley and energetic, young state Rep. Federico Pena, whose Imagine a Great City slogan enticed voters to break from the citys by-then-staid past. The field of McNichols challengers was relatively large that year, fueled by voter anger over his administrations response to a Christmas blizzard that shut down the city. Voters were ready to reject McNichols that year but also assigned Tooley, his heir apparent, to also-ran status when Pena eked out a narrow win in the second round of voting. Pena, who was later tapped for Bill Clintons cabinet as transportation and energy secretary, faced a tough bid for reelection bid in 1987, prevailing by the same 2-point margin in a runoff with Don Bain, a 17th Street attorney and former head of the state GOP. Webb, who had since won election as city auditor, came from behind to win the runoff for the open seat in 1991, besting frontrunner Norm Early, the charismatic district attorney. Amid difficulties getting the new Denver International Airport up and running, Webb encountered an unexpectedly rocky bid for a second term but eventually defeated challenger Mary DeGroot, a city councilor, by a wide margin in the 1995 runoff, and sailed to his third and final term with nominal opposition in 1999. By the 2003 election, voters were again primed to take the city in a different direction. Quirky brewpub owner John Hickenlooper left presumed frontrunner Ari Zavaris, the citys former police chief, in the dust, nearly avoiding a runoff in the first round and then defeating Denver Auditor Don Mares by nearly two-to-one in the one-on-one bout. Hickenlooper easily won a second term in 2007, crushing lone challenger Danny Lopez in the first round, but stepped down in early 2011 after winning election as governor, handing over the job to his deputy mayor, Bill Vidal, for about six months until the mayor elected that spring took office. Thats when Hancock jumped from city council to the hot seat after trouncing former state Sen. Chris Romer the son of former three-term Gov. Roy Romer and the frontrunner in the races first round by roughly 16 points in the runoff. Hancocks strolled to a second term in 2015 with 80% of the vote but faced a crowded field of challengers in his bid for a third term, including Calderon and former state lawmaker Penfield Tate III, before facing urban planner Jamie Giellis in a runoff the incumbent won by a comfortable margin. Given that history, dont be surprised if this years mayoral candidates shun the mantle of frontrunner and frame their candidacies as the scratch for Denver voters every itch. The more than 3,000 psychologists operating in Colorado could soon be able to prescribe mental health medications to patients if a bill from Colorado Springs Rep. Mary Bradfield is passed into law. Currently, if a psychologist providing therapy or counseling decides their patient needs medication such as antidepressants, they must refer the patient to a psychiatrist or medical doctor to get a prescription. But due to a lack of prescribers in Colorado, Bradfield said this process can take months to complete and delays necessary care for people who are struggling. House Bill 1071 would let a licensed psychologist prescribe and administer psychotropic medications if they complete additional education and are certified by the state's Board of Psychologist Examiners. I want to see Colorado have accessible mental and behavioral health, Bradfield said. This is not a quick fix. It does not make Colorado healthier tomorrow or next month. But it can be another tool in the toolbox for anybody who has behavioral or mental health problems and has had trouble getting in to see a psychiatrist. This effort comes as the 2022 State of Mental Health in America report ranked Colorado as the worst state in the country for adult mental health. The year before, Childrens Hospital Colorado declared a state of emergency for youth mental health, as suicide became the leading cause of death for Colorado kids ages 14 to 19. Bradfield, a Republican, is sponsoring the bill with Boulder Democrat Rep. Judy Amabile, along with another Republican/Democrat pair in the Senate. But despite the bipartisan support, the mental health community is divided on the bill. Opponents have raised concerns about allowing non-medically trained psychologists to prescribe medications, saying they do not understand how medications impact the body or how physical illnesses can manifest as mental health issues. There are many medical considerations for prescribing and treating a child on powerful psychiatric medications weight, blood pressure, metabolic panels, organ systems, side effects and interactions with other medications, to name a few, said Dr. Cassie Littler, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics Colorado Chapter. Even with the training requirements listed in the bill, a prescribing psychologist would be the least-trained professional with prescriptive authority in Colorado. Under the bill, a psychologist could apply for conditional certification if they, in part, have a doctorate in psychology, a masters degree in clinical psychopharmacology, pass the national psychopharmacology exam and hold professional liability insurance. Psychologists would hold conditional certification for two years, during which time they could only prescribe and administer medications under the supervision of a physician or nurse. After two years, the psychologist could apply for full certification and work without supervision, so long as they maintain their license, their insurance and complete at least 20 hours of continuing education annually. Supporters of the bill point out the two-year supervision period for prescribing psychologists as well as the permanent requirement that they inform a patients primary care doctor of what is being prescribed as making the program safe. Sign up for free: News Alerts Stay in the know on the stories that affect you the most. Sign Up For Free View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. This partnership between psychologists and other prescribers is a comprehensive approach to patient care that treats both emotional and physiological conditions together instead of in a silo, said Kyle Piccola with Healthier Colorado. "Coloradans deserve life-saving mental health medications without delay, and psychologists can be added to the care team to ensure they have access. Psychologists can already prescribe mental health medication in five states New Mexico, Louisiana, Illinois, Iowa and Idaho as well as in the U.S. military. In New Mexico and Louisiana, deaths by suicide were reduced by between 5% and 7% since psychologists were granted prescriptive authority, according to Healthier Colorado. Colorado is in the middle of the worst mental health crisis because we are failing people with mental health and emotional conditions by not having enough providers, said Dr. Jin Lee, a pediatric psychologist and chair of the Colorado prescriptive authority task force. Prescribing psychologists are valuable resources for patients and the medical team because they work as an integrated team. Other organizations backing the bill are the Colorado Psychological Association, National Association of Social Workers, One Colorado, Boulder County and Envision: You. Groups in opposition to the bill include the Colorado Medical Society, Colorado Psychiatric Society, Colorado Radiological Society, Colorado Society of Anesthesiologists and Kaiser Permanente. The Colorado Psychiatric Society maintains that the bill is unsafe and argues that it wouldnt have the desired effect of increasing prescribers, claiming that fewer than 250 psychologists throughout the entire country have been issued licenses to prescribe with current psychologist prescribing laws in effect in five other states. Allowing psychologists to prescribe powerful psychotropics will not increase access and is not a viable solution, said Anna Weaver, executive director of the Colorado Psychiatric Society. "Investing in programs that truly expand access, integrate care, and do not compromise patient safety is the right solution to address our crisis. Dr. Patrick Pevoto, president of the Colorado Medical Society, agreed, calling granting psychologists prescriptive authority lowering the standard of care and increasing the focus on medicating adults and children. However, Bradfield said the current system is simply not working for the Coloradans who are struggling with mental and behavioral health issues. I understand where the pushback is coming from. I get it. Prescribers have worked very hard and spent many years working to get their degree and to be licensed to practice but there aren't enough of them," Bradfield said. There just aren't enough. We need to do something in this state to improve the access to care. The 2018 law that legalized hemp production and barred states from prohibiting the transportation of hemp does not permit a man to sue a police officer for confiscating 32 of his plants at Denver International Airport, the federal appeals court based in Colorado ruled on Tuesday. It was an open question whether a provision of the 2018 Farm Bill, which specifies that no state or tribe "shall prohibit the transportation or shipment of hemp or hemp products," gave Francisco Serna the right to sue Officer Anselmo Jaramillo for seizing his legal hemp plants in March 2021. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined Serna did not have that right. "Serna must show that Congress intended such authorization," wrote Judge Nancy L. Moritz in the Jan. 24 opinion. Jeffrey S. Gard, a criminal defense attorney who also focuses on cannabis and hemp issues, said the case revolved less around hemp than about individuals' broader ability to hold the government liable for wrongdoing. "I think I agree with the plaintiff. He had every right under the Farm Bill to transport his product. It says right there, right where he quoted it directly, nobody should be prohibiting my transportation of a legal product," Gard said. "Being able to sue for that right is another matter." Serna told Colorado Politics he had not been optimistic the 10th Circuit would find an ability to sue, known as a private right of action, in the hemp-legalization language of the Farm Bill. "I think its an interesting result for the hemp industry because it answers the question: Whether theres a private right of action if somebody gets their stuff confiscated," he said. "At least in this circuit, it answers that question." Serna, who lives in Austin, Texas, filed a federal lawsuit by himself one day after passing through Denver International Airport in March 2021. He alleged he was traveling with 32 hemp plant clones or rooted clippings. According to Serna, he legally cultivated the plants pursuant to the 2018 Farm Bill, which set up a framework for nationwide hemp production as long as plants contain less than 0.3% of the psychoactive substance tetrahydrocannabinol. Anything over that THC threshold is legally considered marijuana, which is outlawed federally. "At the TSA checkpoint, Officer Jaramillo confiscated the plants after speaking with Detective Casper, who stated they have a policy of confiscating any plants above zero percent," Serna wrote. Serna sued under the provision of the Farm Bill that ostensibly prohibits states and tribes from blocking hemp transport. A magistrate judge initially reviewed Serna's claims and determined the provision gave no private right of action to hemp producers, even if states violated the law. Sign up for free: News Alerts Stay in the know on the stories that affect you the most. Sign Up For Free View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. U.S. District Court Judge William J. Martinez acknowledged licensed hemp producers were a "protected class" under the law, but that Congress had not created a remedy if states violate their rights. He subsequently dismissed the case. Martinez relied in large part on a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2001, Alexander v. Sandoval. The majority held that if Congress did not intend to include an individual right to sue, "courts may not create one, no matter how desirable that might be as a policy matter." Serna then appealed to the 10th Circuit, now represented by a student attorney with the University of Colorado. The appellate panel during oral arguments observed the law, which describes what states and tribes may not do, contains no language about how hemp producers may personally litigate a violation. The panel's opinion confirmed that view. The provision, Moritz wrote, "does not suggest that Congress intended to grant hemp farmers a right to freely transport their product from one jurisdiction to another, with no interference from state officials." She added that, pursuant to the Supreme Court's Sandoval decision, there must be "rights-creating language" for Serna to prevail. Alex Buscher, a lawyer whose practice touches on hemp and marijuana, said the 10th Circuit's interpretation means that the federal government is the party who can enforce states' compliance with the transport provision. "In order to change this outcome, the Supreme Court can hear the case and potentially overturn it, or Congress can amend the statute to provide the private right of action," he said. "With the next Farm Bill due this year, the legislative route is likely to be more successful." Groups representing the hemp industry in Colorado and nationally did not respond to emailed requests for comment on the ruling. Serna indicated he may appeal the 10th Circuit's decision. Although he remains interested in the hemp industry and hemp products, he said he is no longer producing himself. He called his effort to clarify the law a "fun hobby project." "Theyre saying, instead of it being written, no farmers gonna have their rights infringed, its written as a prohibition against the states," Serna said, adding, "I do think they got the wrong answer." For the second time in nearly eight years, Colorado's second-highest court has agreed Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc. violated the state's antidiscrimination law by refusing to sell a cake to an LGBTQ+ customer. A three-judge panel for the Court of Appeals concluded the store's owner, Jack Phillips, ran afoul of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) when he turned down a transgender woman's request for a cake because of her gender identity. Although Phillips attempted to justify his actions by referencing his religious beliefs, the panel noted that Colorado has a compelling interest in preventing discrimination in places of public accommodation, like businesses. "CADA is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest. Accordingly, CADA may be enforced against Masterpiece and Phillips without violating their right to the free exercise of religion," wrote Judge Timothy J. Schutz in the Jan. 26 opinion. However, the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hand down the opposite conclusion in a separate, but similar, free speech case pending before the justices, 303 Creative v. Elenis. The case also arose from Colorado and, like Phillips, involves a Christian business owner whose religious beliefs are inimical to LGBTQ rights. Phillips and his Lakewood cake-making business attracted national attention in 2017 when the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether CADA violated Phillips' First Amendment rights by compelling him to "create expression" in the form of baking a wedding cake for a gay couple. Phillips initially refused to serve the couple, telling them, "Ill make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just dont make cakes for same-sex weddings." The Colorado Civil Rights Commission later determined Phillips' actions violated CADA, a decision the Court of Appeals upheld in August 2015. "CADA prohibits places of public accommodations from basing their refusal to serve customers on their sexual orientation, and Masterpiece violated Colorados public accommodations law by refusing to create a wedding cake," wrote Judge Daniel M. Taubman in the appellate opinion. The court also found CADA did not infringe on Phillips' free speech and religious exercise. On appeal to the federal Supreme Court, a majority of justices reversed the state court decision, but did not resolve the larger issue of whether CADA violated Phillips' rights. Instead, they decided the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was not a neutral decision-maker in Phillips' case. The same day the Supreme Court agreed to hear the original Masterpiece Cakeshop appeal, a transgender attorney, Autumn Scardina, called the store to see if Phillips really would provide non-wedding cake services to LGBTQ+ customers as he had claimed. Scardina spoke to Phillips' wife, Debra, over the phone, asking for a blue and pink birthday cake. Debra Phillips confirmed they would make the cake, until Scardina disclosed the cake would celebrate her transition from male to female. Phillips then said she did not believe her husband could provide such a product. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission eventually dismissed the case as part of a settlement with Jack Phillips, but Scardina filed suit to allege Phillips violated CADA. After a 2021 trial, Denver District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones found in Scardina's favor. Although Phillips claimed he was willing to serve anyone, and simply objected to the "message" of Scardina's proposed cake, Jones believed Phillips' own self-expression was not implicated by Scardina's request to bake a blue and pink cake. "Here, the refusal to provide the bakery item is inextricably intertwined with the refusal to recognize Ms. Scardina as a woman," Jones wrote in June 2021. "The concept that a business can decide whether to make the requested item depending on what information the customer provides would establish the equivalent of a 'Dont Ask, Dont Tell' rule LGBT individuals would be entitled to equal service only to the extent they do not request goods that reflect their identity as LGBT individuals." Sign up for free: News Alerts Stay in the know on the stories that affect you the most. Sign Up For Free View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. Phillips then appealed, and the appellate panel held oral arguments in the case last fall. "Compelling Phillips to express that message invades his individual freedom of mind," argued Jake Warner, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which litigates cases that challenge LGBTQ+ legal protections. "Imagine a store that sells black and white cookies and it sells them to the public. And a mixed-race couple comes in and says, 'These are fantastic. We want them for our anniversary,'" said John M. McHugh, Scardina's lawyer. "And the baker says, 'Im sorry, Im a member of the First Church of Aryan Nations. I wont sell that to you because I have a religious objection to interactional marriage.' "Under their theory," McHugh continued, referring to Phillips, "no CADA violation. Under our theory, its an obvious CADA violation." Schutz, in the panel's opinion, wrote that business owners cannot refuse to sell a "nonexpressive product" based on a customer's protected characteristics. Phillips had effectively done just that when Scardina learned she could order a blue and pink cake, only to have the product withdrawn after disclosing her gender identity. "We conclude that creating a pink cake with blue frosting is not inherently expressive and any message or symbolism it provides to an observer would not be attributed to the baker," Schutz wrote. Therefore, the First Amendment did not protect Phillips' refusal. Phillips attempted to have the Court of Appeals hold off on issuing a decision until the Supreme Court decides 303 Creative, whose ruling will come before the end of June. Although the appellate panel declined to wait, the Supreme Court's decision will likely answer whether artists can use the First Amendment to avoid serving customers based on LGBTQ+ status or other traits. That is the outcome Phillips advocated for to the Court of Appeals. A similar argument came from 16 Republican attorneys general, who filed a brief in the Court of Appeals that was supportive of Phillips. A ruling that CADA cannot compel Phillips to "speak" in the form of creating a cake for LGBTQ+ customers would not have a broad effect, they argued, because the "vast majority of transactions" in the marketplace do not involve custom speech. However, the legal associations in Colorado representing LGBTQ+, women and Hispanic attorneys also filed a brief, pointing to a study that suggested wedding businesses became less likely to serve LGBTQ+ couples following the Supreme Court's ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop. The appellate panel also rejected Phillips' arguments that Scardina should have been barred from bringing suit and that the case should have been moot. Even though Phillips had attempted to pay the $500 fine for a CADA violation, the trial judge found and the panel agreed the money alone would not resolve the case unless Phillips admitted to violating the law. Phillips, on a website soliciting donations, alleged Scardina's lawsuit was a "setup" and that Colorado has "been on a crusade to crush Jack because of his Christian faith." Jones, the trial judge, explicitly found Scardina intended to purchase a cake, not as a ruse to set up her lawsuit. The Alliance Defending Freedom said on Thursday that it would appeal the panel's decision. The group is also litigating the 303 Creative appeal before the Supreme Court. The case is Scardina v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Inc. et al. A state Senate committee unanimously advanced two bills Thursday aiming to improve Colorados wildfire prevention efforts through workforce development and new technology. These are the first wildfire bills to pass out of committee this session, after the state legislature approved nearly a dozen laws last year trying to mitigate the threat of wildfires in Colorado. Just over one year ago, the Marshall fire became the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history, destroying more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County. Before that, the three largest wildfires in state history all occurred in 2020. As global temperatures rise, droughts, natural disasters and specifically wildfires are increasing at an alarming rate, said Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont, sponsor of the first bill. Colorado faces the largest increase in homes and businesses threatened by wildfire of any state in the nation. If passed by the full legislature, Senate Bill 5 would implement several measures intended to bolster the forestry workforce, including creating and expanding forestry programs in two- and four-year colleges, and creating high school-targeted educational materials about career opportunities in forestry and wildfire mitigation. The bill would also fund internships in timber, forest health and wildfire mitigation; increase recruitment efforts for college educators in wildland fire prevention and mitigation; and, invest $1 million annually in the Wildfire Mitigation Capacity Development Fund. Not including that annual investment, the bill would cost $1.56 million in 2023-24 and $1.15 million in 2024-25. Despite the bills Democrat-only sponsorship, the bill received unanimous bipartisan support from the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday. Resources dont mean much if you dont have the workforce to deploy them, said Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, the other sponsor of SB 5. The average age of a worker in the timber industry is in the 60s. The State Forest Service has told us, the timber industry has told us, and our firefighters have told us, they need more trained people on the ground ready to help preserve and protect our forests. The committee was also united in advancing Senate Bill 32, to create a pilot program that would use fire-detecting cameras to monitor the state for wildfires. Sign up for free: News Alerts Stay in the know on the stories that affect you the most. Sign Up For Free View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters. The pilot program would place mobile cameras in remote areas throughout the state and use artificial intelligence systems to detect wildfires and notify firefighters when they spark. The program would run from April 2024 to September 2027 in the wildland-urban interface where human-built environments meet natural environments, creating greater wildfire risk and cost $2 million over the four years. It can detect just a wisp of smoke and its that type of situation in remote areas that could save forests, homes, properties and lives, said Sen. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, who sponsored SB 32. This is an excellent tool that, if we test it over the timeframe of a pilot program, may be preventing a lot of wildfires for years to come. Lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to create the same pilot program last year with House Bill 22-1148. Though the bill received bipartisan sponsorship and unanimously passed the House Agriculture Committee, it was killed by the House Appropriations Committee on the last day of the session after being left on the agenda for three months without action. Critics at the time raised concerns about investing in technology that may be obsolete soon and questioned the usability of the data the cameras collected. That year, the Wildfire Matters Review Committee rejected the proposal for the bill, leading to individual lawmakers bringing the bill forward themselves. The committee is backing the bill this year and Sen. Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa who was on the committee when it rejected the pilot program in 2022 is now sponsoring SB 32. Originally, I was a little suspect about the camera technology because I really thought somebody had to watch it for it to be effective. Ive learned and now have a greater appreciation for the artificial intelligence and the technology, Simpson said. It seems like an appropriate investment in learning more about this technology and how it can help the state of Colorado. The Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee voted 7-0 in support of both SB 5 and SB 32. The bills will now be sent to the Senate Appropriations Committee for consideration in the coming weeks. Photo: PLA Southern Theater Command On Sunday, the day of the Chinese New Year, two fighter planes of a naval aviation brigade under the PLA Southern Theater Command took off from Yongxing Island in the Xisha Islands to track and monitor foreign aircraft over the South China Sea, the PLA Southern Theater Command revealed on Tuesday on WeChat. In the face of the approaching foreign aircraft, the PLA aircraft changed their flight attitude considerably several times to ensure that the target was within monitoring range and maintained the position until the foreign aircraft flew away. Photo: PLA Southern Theater Command After the first round of the mission, the returning PLA aircraft slid into the hangar, where ground carried out checks, refueling, nitrogen filling and other support work on the aircraft, so as to get the aircraft ready for mission at any time. Zhang Lei, flight commander of naval aviation brigade under the PLA Southern Theater Command, said, Combat preparedness is particularly important during festivals and holidays. The number of aerial emergencies tends to increase significantly during holiday season, which means more tracking, surveillance and monitoring patrols and more frequent combat take-offs. "As pilots, we are always ready no matter day or night, to make sure we can carry out the mission as soon as the command is given, to ensure the peace of the sea and air of the motherland," Zhang said. In the face of the complex maritime and air environment, naval aviation brigade under the PLA Southern Theater Command has revised and improved several sets of combat take-off, maintenance and support plans for quick sorties under different tasks, different time periods and different weather conditions, to ensure that warplanes can take to the air at any time when the alarm sounds, local media reported. Photo: Contributed South Okanagan-West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings There is nothing more precious to us than our health, and good health is dependent on good health care. For decades, Canadians have been proud of our universal health care system, but that system is now in a state of crisis. After decades of cuts by Liberal and Conservative governments, people are waiting longer for simple operations, waiting longer in emergency rooms and waiting longer to get a family doctor. Those waits are painful, full of anxiety and some even end in tragic loss of life. So, what has happened and what can we do? When universal public health care was introduced in Canada 60 years ago, health costs were to be shared 50-50 between the federal and provincial governments. Today, Ottawas share has slipped to around 22% and the provinces are asking for that to be increased to 35%. The federal cabinet is meeting over the next few days to discuss what sort of increase to the Canada Health Care Transfer (the government) will offer the provinces. While (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau agrees with Conservative-led provinces that are offering up innovation in the guise of a for-profit, American-style health care system, the my NDP colleagues and I are ready to stand up to rebuild and protect our public health care system. Our public health care system clearly needs strengthening, through more investments and more professional workers. We need to help provinces train and hire more nurses and family doctors and we need to do better at recognizing the thousands of internationally trained health care professionals already in Canada and ready to work. And we need to find ways to retain those professionals. But what we do not need is privatization. A private system is not innovation. It will make things worse. The biggest problem right now in health care is there are simply not enough nurses and doctors. Besides needing to make a profit, new private care clinics will also need new nurses and doctors, and where will they come from, the publicly funded clinics and hospitals? So, the new clinics will cannibalize the public system, making staff shortages much worse across the country. If health workers find jobs in the private sector more attractive, we need to find out why, and create working conditions that provide the same job satisfaction in the public sector. We need to create primary care clinics where health workers are happy to work and where every Canadian can find a team of professionals they can access whenever they need health care. History shows more for-profit health care means less access to public health care and poorer services overall. The classic example of a private health care system is the American system, which costs twice as much per capita as the Canadian system, is highly inequitable and results in much poorer health outcomes, including a shorter life expectancy. Instead, Ottawa needs to urgently invest in health care and partner with the provinces. As Trudeau crafts his agreement on health care with the provinces and territories, the NDP will look for a clear condition that federal money must go directly into patient care, not into the pockets of private corporations. We will also look for significant investments for retention, recruitment and support for healthcare workers. We cant fall down the slippery slope of a two-tier health system. World-class health care should be waiting for you when you need it. We can best deliver that by rebuilding and growing our public system, not allowing Conservative premiers to decimate it with American-style for-profit health corporations. We should look to other countries for inspiration. Sweden, with a per capita health expenditure about the same as Canada, provides full public health care, including dental care, pharmacare and long-term care. The NDP is working hard to bring all those service within the Canadian system as well. Lets all defend and expand the public health care system that makes us proud to be Canadian before its too late. Lives depend on this. Richard Cannings is the NDP MP for South OkanaganWest Kootenay. This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet. The shares of Petrobras (PETR4) are not cheap enough, despite the support that the dividends (albeit smaller) could offer for the thesis of the state-owned company, evaluates the BTG Pactual. The bank reiterated the neutral rating for the shares, with a target price of BRL 35.70, after the approval of Jean Paul Prates by the board of directors to be the new president of Petrobras. While approval was expected, investor appears to have reduced confidence that the current executive board will provide the checks and balances investors have been hoping for, says BTG. For analysts, this leaves room for more noise about the possibility of changing the pricing policyshareholder compensation and the investment plan (which may gain greater focus under the new management). The general inability to outline a clear strategy for the company hampered the markets ability to come to a conclusion about the current fair multiples of the share, say analysts Pedro Soares, Thiago Duarte and Bruno Lima, in a report published this Friday. (27). Action is not cheap In BTGs assessment, the action is not cheap in many likely scenarios. According to the institutions base scenario, Petrobras should return to growth mode, reducing the payment of dividends from now on. Currently, the companys dividend policy considers 60% of operating cash flow less capexwhich would imply a dividend yield of 23% in 2023, according to BTG. In the event of a change in Petrobras dividend distribution policy to a smaller payoutBTG assumes that the state-owned company will distribute between 25-50% of profits in 2023, which would imply a dividend yield of 9-19%. It could offer relevant support for the story, but it is not too far off from many of its global peers and other names in commodities in Brazil, comment the analysts. For comparison purposes, Soares, Duarte and Lima mention that the OK (VOUCH3) is trading close to 10-11%. For BTG, the arrival of gringos on the Brazilian stock exchange and oil prices still high are the main triggers for a good performance of Petrobras shares. That works, but not for long, he says. We note that high oil prices will eventually increase pressures on commodity prices. fuels in Brazil, consequently increasing the political noise around the companys fuel pricing policy, explain Soares, Duarte and Lima. Analysts reinforce that betting on Petrobras now is extremely risky. Pete and Arlene Kiroff have been mixing pizza dough, baking carrot cake and serving up smiles for 37 years now. But on Feb. 10 they will close the doors as proprietors of Pete's Kitchen in Mason City. But they are not leaving the business completely. They'll soon be setting up shop right next door. At Pete's Kitchen, the tasks are often the same measuring flour and yeast and watching as the big mixers mark the start of the day. It's the customers who make every day special. It's those folks Pete hopes to see as he winds down his time at the restaurant. "One thing I'll always hold close is the looks on the kids' faces as they take that first bite of carrot cake. Their eyes get so big," Pete said, his eyes misting up. But don't count Pete out just yet. Next door, The Phoenix Bar is rising from the ashes of a December 2021 fire. In that incident, an attempted burglary involving a cutting torch significantly damaged the former Pete's Corner Tap, which had been operating most recently as Burke's South. It's not the first time the Kiroffs have bounced back. In November 2019, beleaguered by ongoing road repairs, Pete's Kitchen asked the community to take roads less traveled and support their "Ma and Pa" business. New and old customers heeded the call, and the Kiroffs were able to breathe a sigh of relief. COVID, too, took its toll. Not just on the Kiroffs' business, but Burke's, as well, which closed in August 2020. In 2022 the deli closed for a few days after Kiroff suffered a knee injury and hospitalization. The fire, however, was more than just ups and downs. It was a really big mess. That mess is gone. The bar frame is in place, plastic-wrapped stools bellied up around. Drywall is up and painted, but construction on the interior is only about 75% complete, and supply chain issues mean the Kiroffs can't put a date on opening day. "We've got a bit more to do, but it's coming along," Pete said. "The materials for the bar come next week. I may even be able to open before I originally thought." As equipment and supplies arrive, workers are making progress toward rebuilding the neighborhood bar. The Phoenix Bar, located next door to Pete's Kitchen at 631 Sixth St. S.W., will serve traditional bar fare of frozen pizzas and fried foods as well as fresh gyros and other unique pita snacks. The establishment will also have a pool table, electronic games, a number of TVs and an entirely new look. Not all the restaurant's customers will cross over to the new place, Kiroff knows, but plans are in the works for a new owner to carry on at Pete's Kitchen, along with many time-honored recipes. The details of the sale are still being hammered out. A number of folks were on Pete's list of people to thank. "There's so many: my regular customers for sure and all the people who came to support the business." He also credits the Zanios family for helping him get his start so many years ago. Though he said it's going to be difficult handing over the keys, at almost 71 years old, he knew it was time to pass the business to someone else and embark on a little bit easier venture. "It's going to be hard. I've spent 37 years here. There's nothing about the job I didn't like. But, I've also been [a bar owner] for more than 10 years; I'm a night owl, so I'm excited to relax and pour some drinks for my friends." Lisa Grouette contributed to this story. PHOTOS: Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (1).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (2).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (3).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (4).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (5).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (6).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (7).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (8).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (9).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (10).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (11).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (12).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (13).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (14).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (15).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (16).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (17).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (18).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (19).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (20).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (21).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (22).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (23).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (24).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (25).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (26).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (27).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (28).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (29).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (30).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (31).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (32).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (33).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (34).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (35).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (36).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (37).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (38).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (39).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (40).jpg Mason City Senior Activity Center weekly dance (41).jpg CEDAR FALLS Cedar Falls police have arrested a Denver man for allegedly pretending to be a police officer. Now real police officers are asking anyone who may have had contact with him to contact them. On Tuesday, Cedar Falls officers talked to 21-year-old Mitchil Dayvid Thuesen, who said he had been the victim of an assault. During the interview, Thuesen claimed he had recently worked for the Waterloo Police Department. The following day, officers determined he had claimed to others that he was an undercover officer working for Waterloo police on several occasions over a span of months. These acquaintances told police he had showed them a gun while indicating he was a police officer, according to court records. Cedar Falls police contacted the Waterloo Police Department where officials confirmed Thuesen wasnt a police officer and never worked for the department. On Wednesday, police arrested Thuesen for impersonating an officer, a misdemeanor. He was later released pending trial. Cedar Falls Police are encouraging anyone who had contact with Thuesen, and he told them he was a police officer, to contact department investigators at (319) 273-8612. Photos: Missing children in Iowa Alexandra Storm Hailey Coleman Jamira Debose Osbourne Breasia Terrell Julian Murray Daniela Salinas-mejia Jade Colvin Fredrick Workman Benjamin Roseland Erin Pospisil Marc Allen Eugene Martin John Gosch Kimberly Doss Colleen Simpson Caleb Williams Xavior Harrelson Alyssa Dluzak Fatima Conteh Daniela Vera-Ortega Xerxes Blaesing Jorge Peneda Castillo Anya Pritchard Desirae Gifford Daquan Nelson Diomarix Crespo As to when the first people populated the American subcontinent is hotly debated. Until recently, the Clovis people, based on evidence found in New Mexico, were thought to have been the first to have arrived, some 13,000 years ago. Yet evidence gathered from other sites suggest the Americas had been settled at least 1,000 years prior to the Clovis. The Clovis first idea, nonetheless, was treated as gospel, backed by supporters who, at least initially, outright discounted any claims that suggested precedence by non-Clovis people. While such a stance smacked of fanaticism, proponents did have a solid claim: if the Clovis peoples crossed the Bering Strait 13,000 years ago, only after it had become ice-free, how would a people have been able to make a similar trip but over ice? A recent school of thought, backed by Weber, provides the following answer: pre-Clovis people reached the Americas by relying on a sophisticated maritime culture, which allowed them to take advantage of refugia, or small areas in which aquatic life flourished. Thus they were able to make the long journey by hugging the coast as far south as to what is today British Columbia. Additionally, they were believed to have fashioned a primitive form of crampon so that they would be able to dock in these refugia and avail themselves of the microfauna. Still, how such a culture developed in the first place remains unanswered. The Solutrean theory has been influential in answering this question, a fact that may seem paradoxicaland startlingto those familiar with its line of reasoning: the Clovis people were actually Solutreans, an ancient seafaring culture along the Iberian peninsula, who had--astoundingly given the time period--crossed into the Americas via the Atlantic ocean. Could not a similar Siberian culture, if not the pre-Clovis themselves, have displayed equal nautical sophistication? Even if one subscribes to this line of reasoning, the Clovis first school still have an objection: proponents of a pre-Clovis people rely solely on the Monte Verde site in Chile, a site so far south that its location invites yet another question: What of the 6,000 miles of coastline between the ice corridor and Monte Verde? Besides remains found in network of caves in Oregon, there has been scant evidence of a pre-Clovis peoples. Nonetheless, Meade and Pizinsky claim that a propitious geologic accident could account for this discrepancy: Monte Verde was located near a peat bog that essentially fossilized the village. Archaeologists uncovered two wooden stakes, which, at one time, were used in twelve huts. Furthermore plant species associated with areas 150 miles away were found, suggesting a trade network. These findings indicate that the Clovis may not have been the first to people the Americas, yet more excavation, both in Monte Verde and along the coast, must be conducted in order to determine the extent of pre-Clovis settlements in the Americas. (A) ancient cultures were in most likelihood unable to develop such a sophisticated form of maritime transport that they were able to cross the Atlantic (B) it supports the Clovis school of thought, and posits the existence of a capacity not commonly associated with ancient people (C) the Clovis people had crossed from Siberia navigating across a difficult ice corridor, whereas the pre-Clovis people had sailed, with far less difficulty, across the Atlantic ocean (D) it suggests that the pre-Clovis people had a way to circumvent the ice-corridor, yet were unlikely to have traveled as far south as modern day Chile (E) it runs counter to one of the chief tenets of the Clovis first school of thought Show Spoiler B 2. According to the passage, Meade and Pizinsky address the question, What of the 6,000 miles of coastline..., by offering up the Monte Verde site for which of the following reasons? (A) The Monte Verde settlement was so rudimentary that it fundamentally differs from known Clovis settlements. (B) Monte Verde is one of the only pre-Clovis sites found between Monte Verde and the ice corridor, and thus provides compelling evidence of a pre-Clovis settlement. (C) The circumstances that allowed scientists to discover Monte Verde were so unique that such circumstances were unlikely to have occurred in sites between Monte Verde and the ice corridor. (D) Evidence that the Americas were settled over thousand years ago provides support for the Solutrean hypothesis, because it suggests that water travel over long distances was possible. (E) The spread of plant species over 150 miles from the Monte Verde site indicate that there were numerous settlements throughout the Americas, beginning from the ice corridor and stretching to Monte Verde. Show Spoiler C 3. According to the passage, the existence of the refugia would have enabled pre-Clovis people to do which of the following? (A) Access a form of sustenance on an arduous journey (B) Find a place to dock their watercrafts so they could undertake inland exploration (C) Develop a sophisticated maritime culture rivaling that of the Solutreans (D) Build settlements around the coastline (E) Access inland regions otherwise cut off to those on watercraft Show Spoiler A 1. It can be inferred from the passage that the reason the author finds the Solutrean hypothesis both startling and paradoxical is that(A) ancient cultures were in most likelihood unable to develop such a sophisticated form of maritime transport that they were able to cross the Atlantic(B) it supports the Clovis school of thought, and posits the existence of a capacity not commonly associated with ancient people(C) the Clovis people had crossed from Siberia navigating across a difficult ice corridor, whereas the pre-Clovis people had sailed, with far less difficulty, across the Atlantic ocean(D) it suggests that the pre-Clovis people had a way to circumvent the ice-corridor, yet were unlikely to have traveled as far south as modern day Chile(E) it runs counter to one of the chief tenets of the Clovis first school of thought2. According to the passage, Meade and Pizinsky address the question, What of the 6,000 miles of coastline..., by offering up the Monte Verde site for which of the following reasons?(A) The Monte Verde settlement was so rudimentary that it fundamentally differs from known Clovis settlements.(B) Monte Verde is one of the only pre-Clovis sites found between Monte Verde and the ice corridor, and thus provides compelling evidence of a pre-Clovis settlement.(C) The circumstances that allowed scientists to discover Monte Verde were so unique that such circumstances were unlikely to have occurred in sites between Monte Verde and the ice corridor.(D) Evidence that the Americas were settled over thousand years ago provides support for the Solutrean hypothesis, because it suggests that water travel over long distances was possible.(E) The spread of plant species over 150 miles from the Monte Verde site indicate that there were numerous settlements throughout the Americas, beginning from the ice corridor and stretching to Monte Verde.3. According to the passage, the existence of the refugia would have enabled pre-Clovis people to do which of the following?(A) Access a form of sustenance on an arduous journey(B) Find a place to dock their watercrafts so they could undertake inland exploration(C) Develop a sophisticated maritime culture rivaling that of the Solutreans(D) Build settlements around the coastline(E) Access inland regions otherwise cut off to those on watercraft Five teenagers were honored on Thursday for completing life skills training and goal-setting exercises through Project Imagine, a community violence intervention collaborative that steers gang-prone kids off the streets and toward completing school and becoming employed. Graduating from the program were Terrance Adkins Jr., JaZyon Fitzgerald, Jayden Harrington, Tashawn Simmons and Jaylen Valentine. Robert David, youth services and gang violence prevention coordinator for the city of Danville, commended the youths for taking this step, and he said the Project Imagine staff will serve as a support system for them going forward. I like to call us your new aunts and uncles because there might not be resources you can get, but we can, David said, speaking to the graduating kids. That is what we do. We are that support system in every aspect. David said the staff will be an advocate for the youths in school and in the community. We are going to stand behind you when you are right, and when you are wrong, we are going to hold you accountable, David said. That is what we are here for, because we want you to be successful. Curtis Artis, assistant coordinator for the program, thanked the parents of the graduates for trusting the program with their children. Weve never had a turnout of parents concerned about their children like this, Artis said. You need to hold me and everybody in this room accountable for your child. Also remember, we are a team. We are going to work together to make sure each of these young men succeed and not become a statistic. Deputy City Manager Earl Reynolds encouraged the kids to stay on a positive path. People will call you what you answer to, Reynolds said. Therefore, you need to know what your name is. If you dont know what your name is, then you dont know how to answer. You will answer to anything. For example, Reynolds said, If they say, industrious, then you say, yes, are you calling me? If they say, forward-thinking, then you say, yes, are you calling me? What do you want? Always answer to the positive side of who you are. He also stressed the importance of goals in life. Where is it that you want to go? Reynolds asked. If you dont know where you want to go, then you will never get there. You will never reach that place where you can say that I am here. I have arrived. Since the programs inception, 15 classes, totaling 85 teens, have graduated. Project Imagine started in 2018 to create a positive image in the youths mind so that he or she can imagine a life without gangs or crime. Initially, the program consisted of a nine-week paid work experience and mentoring while on the job with a partnering agency. The focus now is developing and maintaining those relationships as each teen progresses in meeting their goals, such as finishing school and becoming employed. A Project Imagine outreach worker is assigned to mentor each teen in the program for a minimum of one year. David says Project Imagine provides opportunities for the kids, who in turn have the responsibility of taking advantage of it. As part of the program, the participants receive strength-based assessments using the Casey Life Skills and Clifton Strengths tools that aim to set youth on their way toward developing healthy, productive lives. The teens in Project Imagine are chosen from referrals from the police department, courts, schools, and parents. Project Imagine has received national recognition. In 2020, David was named a winner of the Frederic Milton Thrasher Award by the National Gang Crime Research Center. The award recognizes his accomplishments in gang prevention and intervention. The program also received the Presidents Award from the Virginia Municipal League in October 2019. Date : Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023 | Time: 1:00 p.m. ET Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023 | 1:00 p.m. ET Location: University Park, Pa. | Venue: Rec Hall University Park, Pa. | Rec Hall Live Stats | Watch: B1G+ ($) | B1G+ ($) Admission: Tickets Wear a pajama onesie and become eligible to win prizes in a raffle contest 800 Strong Free pizza after the meet provided by men's gymnastics No. 4 Penn State men's gymnastics open its conference slate against no. 3 Nebraska on Saturday, Jan. 28 in Rec Hall. The meet will kick off at 1 p.m. and will be streamed on Big Ten Plus.Penn State is ranked fourth in the Road to Nationals rankings and CGA weekly poll this week. The Nittany Lions also rank third in the Big Ten.vs. no. 3 NebraskaPenn State placed second at the Navy Open last weekend against Navy, Ohio State, Springfield and William & Mary. The Nittany Lions team score was 395.450Juniorwon the all-around with a score of 80.950 whilefinished in third with a 77.00. Both qualified for the USA Gymnastics Winter Cup in February.Jaroh also took first on still rings (13.800), had a career best on floor (13.400) and earned a second-place finish on parallel bars (13.800).took home the winning score on vault with a personal best of 14.750.earned a career best on parallel bars, securing another first place finish for the team with a score of 14.350. He also earned a second place finish on high bar (13.700). Matt Underhill earned his best score of his freshman campaign with a 14.500 on vault, tying him for second in the meet.scored a 13.350 on high bar landing him in fourth place.Nebraska claimed the victory in the last meeting between the Nittany Lions and Cornhuskers in 2022. The score of the competition was 408.650- 400.850. Penn State competed well on still rings at Nebraska last season with Jaroh, Karnes andsecuring personal bests ,at the time, and finishing as the top three. Jaroh also took first on high bar with a score of 13.850, his season best.The all-time record between the squads is 4-5, with Nebraska holding the advantage.Nebraska finished in third place at the Rocky Mountain Open last weekend with a team score of 405.300. The team competed at the West Point Open the previous week against Penn State. The Cornhuskers took second place behind the first-place Nittany Lions. Photo: CTV News A class action lawsuit over the 2013 spill of aviation fuel into Lemon Creek took a dramatic step forward last week. BCs Court of Appeal dismissed an action by the defendants in the case to have the class action thrown out of court. This decision is a great victory for environmental class actions and the community of the Slocan Valley, said lawyer David Aaron in Vancouver. Finally, a procedure has been confirmed which will allow class members their day in court. The lawsuit claims negligence, nuisance and loss of enjoyment of property against the provincial government, an aviation company, the fuel company, and the tanker truck driver. But its not been an easy fight. The chambers judge hearing the case, J.D. Masuhara, certified the action to proceed in 2017. The defendants appealed that ruling and won. They had the decision sent back to Masuhara with instructions to change particulars of the ruling. The judge did that and reconfirmed the class action to go ahead in 2021. The defendants appealed again, but were not so lucky this time. In a 35-page decision issued January 19, the BC Court of Appeal ruled an appeal by the defendants should fail. The court cited several tests from case law, and found the judge had not erred on any of the legal points. Justice Christopher Grauer wrote that Masuhara relied in large part on the centrality of the questions of causation and responsibility in negligence, and on the concerns of access to justice and judicial economy. In my view, he did not err in following this approach; the appellants are asking us, in essence, to re-weigh the judges careful determinations. Grauer's decision was affirmed by the two other judges on the appeal panel. Tenth anniversary Aaron is wasting no time moving forward on the case. He reports that he has already made the application for the trial to be scheduled to begin. Residents of the Slocan were awoken in the middle of the night, coughing and choking on jet fuel vapours. They were denied access to their homes under threat of legal consequences, he says. Now there will be a single common-issues trial to determine who is responsible for events leading up to that happening. The disaster began after a tanker truck filled with aviation fuel tipped over on a logging road in the Slocan Valley in July 2013. The driver had got lost searching for a BC Wildfire Service helicopter refuelling station. He ended up spilling 35,000 gallons of high-octane jet fuel into Lemon Creek, a tributary of the Slocan River. The spill forced around 2,500 people from their homes up to 40 kilometres downstream from the spill. Many were forced out for several days, or had to find alternate water sources for themselves and livestock. Aaron notes that this summer will mark the 10th anniversary of the disaster. And hes expressed frustration at the obstructing tactics by the Province and other defendants. This case tells us how the government treats innocent members of the community that fall victim to fossil fuel transportation disasters, he says. What happens when something goes wrong? Does the government step up to the plate and make whole those who fall victim to those accidents? This is a case in point. He particularly highlights the role the local MLA has played in the matter, who he says was a strong advocate for timely compensation when she was in Opposition during the time of the disaster. Now shes a member of the government the Finance Minister, in control of the purse strings, he says. So where is the compensation? No date has been set for the trial, which will be heard in Vancouver. EDEN Firefighters remained at the scene Thursday afternoon to put out hot spots after a massive fire destroyed the main mill building of the former Spray Cotton Mill complex on Wednesday night. Local firefighters were assisted by fellow first responders from 23 area fire departments to extinguish the inferno, which was brought under control just before daybreak, according to Eden Mayor Neville Hall. The fire, reported when a passerby noticed heavy smoke, engulfed the structure at the historic site shortly before 11 p.m., according to dispatches from Rockingham County emergency responders. Cranes from fire engines could be seen in silhouette against raging orange flames as tankers rushed to the scene at 413 Church Street in the historic Spray community. The sight was surreal and like something out of a movie, Hall said during a press briefing at the scene on Thursday afternoon. I came out at around 1 (a.m.) this morning and I couldnt believe what I was seeing, Hall said. Equally impressive was the response ... seeing that many people come out to help. Indeed, the two dozen fire departments that turned out to included those from surrounding counties and Virginia. As leader of the city of 15,000, Hall said he and emergency responders had often pondered how they would handle such a major fire. And this was that fire, Hall said, explaining that developers had approached the city with plans to create apartments in the structure. Local residents said that Faisal Khan of Pittsboro, N.C., owns the destroyed mill as well as Nantucket Mill, another of the complexs buildings. Khan had recently begun work on the roof of the main mill, and had cleared several of the structures windows, residents close to the project said. Well move on and hopefully find a building these developers can use instead, Hall said, mentioning the Nantucket Mill as an option. Fighting the fire presented challenges to emergency crews Wednesday, Hall said. A narrow bridge made access to the back side of the mill difficult for tankers. And firefighters, unable to access some portions of the fire with trucks, battled it on foot with hoses, according to radio dispatches. Local firefighters called on any and every firefighter from Rockingham County to come to their aid as the blaze raged through the multi-story brick structure. The mill, which consists of four buildings that total 200,000 square feet combined, sits along the Smith River near the Barrett Canal. As one of the countys major employers for decades, the mill brought generations of workers to help spin yarn, Hall noted. Its what drew people to this area ... peoples grandchildren, great-grandchildren ..., Hall said. On Thursday, no injuries had been reported and the Rockingham County Fire Marshals Office was investigating the cause of the fire, authorities said. Spray Cotton Mill closed in 2015 after operating for 105 years due to fierce competition from cheaper yarn makers overseas. In recent years, parts of the buildings, erected in 1896, 1898, 1967 and 1994, have been renovated and converted to offices and apartments. The mill building closest to Church Street is now called Spray Mercantile, home to Three Rivers Outfitters and other businesses. The four buildings cover seven acres. While the fire was an economic development blow to the community, Hall said hes grateful no one was hurt and hes optimistic that the area will ultimately thrive. Its bricks and wood, and well move on. Among the agencies responding to the fire were: Monroeton Volunteer Fire Department, Ruffin Volunteer Fire Department, Wentworth Volunteer Fire Department, Williamsburg Volunteer Fire Department, Madison Fire Department, Mayodan Fire Department, Oregon Hill Volunteer Fire Department, Yancey Road Volunteer Fire Department, Stoneville Volunteer Fire Department, Shiloh Volunteer Fire Department, North West Volunteer Fire Department, Bethany Volunteer Fire Department, Huntsville Volunteer Fire Department, Jacobs Creek Volunteer Fire Department, Stokes County Volunteer Fire Department, Summerfield Volunteer Fire Department, Stokesdale Volunteer Fire Department, Leaksville Volunteer Fire Department, Draper Volunteer Fire Department, Brosville Volunteer Fire Department, Ridgeway Volunteer Fire Department, Cascade, Va. Volunteer Fire Department, Horse Pasture, Va. Volunteer Fire and Eden Rescue Squad. GREENSBORO The sculptor behind one of the citys most recognized pieces of public art has died. It was Jay Rotbergs hands that created A Cup of COFFEE, PLEASE at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex, which is a nod to the citys civil rights history. Rotberg who died Jan. 19 at age 89 was one of eight people chosen by ArtsGreensboro, the International Civil Rights Center & Museum and SynerG (Action Greensboros young professionals group) to produce the art as part of the Coffee Cup Collaborative. His sculpture sits in a heavily traveled route into the coliseum. The cups commemorate the sit-in movement that began on Feb. 1, 1960, when four N.C. A&T freshmen sat at the segregated F.W. Woolworths lunch counter downtown and one asked for a cup of coffee. The A Cup of COFFEE, PLEASE sculpture shows Rotbergs vision of the inside of the diner with the counter and stools. Two figures sit brooding over their coffee, each with their back to the other across the floor. The counter is interrupted in two places, split by narrow walls that represent the structural dividing lines between the races. Such walls would be easy to overcome but would require one to turn and acknowledge the other figure, Rotberg said at the time. The question is: How far has the wall come down? We have further to go, beyond the lunch counter. Rotberg also designed bronze pieces displayed at Temple Emanuel, including The Infinity in the synagogues lobby and another that commemorates the Holocaust. He was proud of that, his daughter Debra Tuggle said. Rotberg was born in Philadelphia, but after living in the weather extremes Boston, where a son was born during a snowstorm, and Miami, where he was a special education professor he and wife Keren moved to North Carolina for the climate. Closer to retirement at the time, he took a job in Greensboro running several group homes for people with special needs. Rotbergs father had also been an artist, but for the son it was only a hobby until later in life, when he opened his own studio in Greensboro. In 2015, Rotberg took on a project merging several of his interests. Rotberg, whose sculptures celebrated human relationships, took to the streets of Greensboro to ask people to tell him, in one word, whats important to them. Some said family. For others, it was love. One woman immediately said moxie. And the only other thing Rotberg recalled about the woman at the time was that she was middle-aged and said moxie with the force of her character. I wanted to talk to 1,000, the retired university professor said at the time. The responses varied and the survey alone would not solve, say, the areas hunger problem, but Rotberg saw it as a reflection of what the community was thinking and caring about, which he thought could lead to action. Oh, and the word that was important to Rotberg: people. He loved people, Tuggle recalled. He never met a stranger. CHARLOTTE When Nicolas Contreras, an organizer with Action NC, walked up a concrete driveway toward a home in the Hidden Valley neighborhood, he was unsure who would answer the door. He is a part of Renters Rising a coalition of tenant activists to sign renters up for a national union. Contreras was in Hidden Valley to speak with tenants who rent homes from corporate landlords, to gauge their interest in joining this national union and inspire them to take action. No one answered at the first few homes Contreras visited. Then Elena Navarro was seen walking into her house. Navarros home is among 32 single-family residences owned by corporate landlords in Hidden Valley. Across Charlotte, canvassers spent the day knocking on doors in many neighborhoods ahead of a rally at Invitation Homes a large corporate landlord demanding rights for tenants. The rally drew at least 75 people to Invitation Homes office on Harris Corners Parkway. Jessica Moreno, a housing justice organizer with Action NC, said the office was the new local base for the North Carolina Rental Home Council, a corporate landlord lobby. The groups demands include a 3% cap on rent increases, establishment of a grievance procedure and to be formally recognized as a union. Were losing the opportunity to own our homes where it has been historically possible to own a home, Moreno said. Its forced tenancy. Back in Hidden Valley, Navarro shared she had to pay a $200 fine to the city because neighbors left their trash-bins in front of her home. When she reached out to her landlord for help, she didnt get much of a response. Contreras said corporate landlords being unresponsive was a common complaint especially regarding maintenance. Large rent increases was another. I think a lot of people in these situations feel forced to deal with it, Contreras said. Especially if they have no other options. In the span of a decade, many large companies have gone from owning few homes to being among the largest single-family landlords in North Carolina, according to Security for Sale, a Charlotte Observer and News & Observer investigation into the rise of corporate landlords. A lot of tenants want to own their homes but feel trapped, according to Moreno. When tenants want to move they are either forced to compete with corporations for housing or settle for continuing to rent. It has shielded families from building generational wealth, she said. At the rally, Lathan Welker, a tenant with Invitation Homes, said over the last month hes spoken with residents who faced $500 rent increases. Others shared they had sewage issues and a lack of heat due to maintenance requests not being fulfilled, he said. This is unjust and its not fair, Welker said. These people are paying exorbitant prices to live in substandard conditions. North Carolina has been seen as ground zero for corporate landlords, said Katie Goldstein, director of housing and healthcare campaigns for the Center for Popular Democracy. Her organization oversees the Renters Rising campaign. Goldstein said the reason the housing crisis exists was because of corporate greed. More than 30% of all homes in Charlotte over the last quarter of 2022 went to investors. Corporations drive for profit has cut out potential homeowners, Goldstein said. Its also increased instability for renters. There needs to be new, affordable housing, she said. But part of the crisis is the new affordable homes being built arent affordable to the communities that need it. CHARLOTTE In a courtroom set aside for the legal reckoning of dozens of violent deaths, Melody Wetherbee will carry this question: What value does the criminal justice system place on a single, stolen life? Shes referring to her daughter, Morgan, of course. Morgan Wetherbee was 19 when she died on Dec. 4, 2020 seven months after police say a speeding car on North Tryon Street spun out of control, hurdled across a median and three lanes of traffic, and crashed head-on into her Toyota. **** The other driver, Breeana McClain, 27, of Charlotte, is scheduled to enter a plea on the involuntary manslaughter charge filed against her after Morgans death. At the time of the collision, police also charged McClain with speeding, reckless driving and having an open alcoholic container in her 2007 Nissan. She was also cited for failure to carry insurance, driving with a revoked license and failing to register her car. Outside the scope of legal charges and while Morgan was struggling for her life, McClain also copied a photo of the teens mangled car and used it to create a GoFundMe page. She asked for $2,800 while reversing many of the details of the crash. According to the GoFundMe post shared with The Charlotte Observer, McClain said that she, not Morgan, had been struck head-on by an uninsured driver. While police said in their original crash report that McClain had suffered only minor injuries, she claimed on her GoFundMe post that she had required multiple major surgeries that had kept her from working. When Wetherbees family members asked McClain to take the post down, they say, she accused them of harassment and said Morgan had caused the accident by speeding and talking on her phone. She also claimed that the crash had cost taken her unborn child. Involuntary manslaughter is a criminal charge involving an unintentional death. In North Carolina, a person with McClains minimal police record who is convicted of the charge faces a maximum sentence of 23-37 months in prison or as little as 12 months of probation. The Mecklenburg County District Attorneys Office has offered McClain the chance to plead guilty to the charge in return for a 15-to-27 month suspended sentence and three years of probation, according to details McClains prosecutor shared with Morgans mother. The plea deal also carries a 30-day jail sentence. But since McClain already spent some five weeks in custody after her December 2020 arrest, its likely that Superior Court Judge Lou Trosch will reduce the jail sentence to time served, allowing McClain to walk out of the courthouse with a probationary sentence. Its unclear whether McClain will sign the agreement. Melody Wetherbee, still grieving the loss of her daughter, said in a phone interview Tuesday that she is shocked that a crime of such recklessness and irresponsibility on McClains part can steal a life and still lead to such a minimal punishment. Wetherbee, who lives in Concord, said she intends to represent her daughter by working to overhaul the states law on involuntary manslaughter so other families do not go through what she and her family have experienced over the past two years. I really want to honor Morgan by helping others, she said. Theres no way a year or two years of having to report to a parole officer measures up to losing a precious life, of taking someone who had the ability to see the world in a different way, with an artistic view. That all comes later. First, Wetherbee wants to have a word with the judge. **** On a recent day, the docket for Courtroom 5310 in the Mecklenburg County Courthouse includes procedural updates for 43 homicide defendants. Almost every case arose from the violent death of someones father, mother or child. Where murder convictions can carry even minimum sentences spanning decades in prison, vehicular homicide cases, such as McClains, generally feature punishments measured in years or months or even probation. Melody Wetherbee, who has two living children, wants Trosch, the judge, to know that Morgan spoke honestly but never to wound. That she worked three jobs to raise money for her Toyota. That a Facebook page Morgans aunt created after the crash to call for prayers drew thousands of posts. That Morgan cared far more about living up to her personal standards rather than being popular. That she was a beautiful spirit, a beautiful soul, a beautiful mind and body, and that she was taken too early. In most plea hearings, the defendants normally stand with their attorneys inside the railing, separated from the speaking family member by one or more armed and uniformed bailiffs. The judge routinely gives each defendant a chance to speak. Some apologize. Some do not. Wetherbee says shes been told she can address only the judge and not McClain. Even if I could I dont know what difference it would make in her life. They would almost seem like wasted words, Wetherbee says Ive always had the thought that mistakes will happen ... and that forgiveness is such an important piece of life, that we have to forgive to find peace. Wetherbee says she might have found the means to forgive McClain had she displayed one bit of remorse or ownership for what she has done. Instead, according to Wetherbee, her behavior has been revealed over time. And that is not something I can forgive. Al-Farabi Center for Studies, Consultations and Training organized a symposium at the Egyptian Cultural Forum in the capital, Cairo, entitled Demographic Change in Syria and the Unity of the National State: Dimensions, Repercussions, and Ways of Confrontation. The official spokesman for the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Counselor Jamal Rushdi, participated in the symposium, along with the President of the Executive Board of the Syrian Democratic Council, Ilham Ahmed, the head of the Al-Farabi Center, Dr. Medhat Hammad, and the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, in addition to ambassadors, former diplomats, and retired doctors. In addition to heads of research and human rights institutions, university doctors, and journalists. The participants in the symposium concluded that they agreed on /6/ recommendations as an action map to confront the processes of demographic change in Syria. First: The call for launching a Syrian-Syrian dialogue under the umbrella of the League of Arab States. Second: Emphasizing the importance of restoring the Arab role in the Syrian cause as supportive of the unity of the Syrian national state. Third: The importance of concerted Syrian and Arab efforts to confront attempts to change the Syrian demographic reality. Fourth: The call to emphasize the stability of the principle of the Syrian national state, with the importance of preserving the privacy of religious and ethnic beliefs, and the right to political representation for all in accordance with the principle of equality and political justice. Fifth: Demanding the speedy departure of all foreign forces from Syrian territory. Sixth: Launching an international public relations campaign for the Syrian Democratic Council to address and confront false speeches that attempt to distort the image of the Council and link it abroad, and to develop a clear media discourse for the Council's orientations and Syrian national goals. The Arab League is on the side of the Syrian territorial integrity In the League of Arab States speech delivered by Counselor Jamal Rushdi, official spokesman for the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, it was stated that the Syrian regime is largely responsible for the demographic change, as half of the Syrian population has become refugees, and the goal is not random as he described it, adding that the Iranian and Turkish regimes practice a systematic policy to change the demographics, which will have an impact in the long term, even after the end of the war. The spokesman for the Secretary-General pointed out that "the Arab East consists of different sectarian and ethnic components, and this internal conflict that it witnessed throughout history is due to kinds of demographic changes, and that the change that is taking place in Syria is great, not for Syria, but for the Arab East." He stressed that "the Syrian crisis is one of the biggest crises, and unfortunately it is a forgotten crisis, as the areas controlled by the regime suffer from a severe economic crisis, and this is something that bleeds the heart because it makes us doubt the ease of Syria's return to its situation." Dr. Mukhtar Ghobashi, Professor of International Law and Secretary-General of the Higher Academic Commission of the Al-Farabi Center, touched on the issue of demographic change in Syria from another perspective, saying that the issue is one of the deepest issues on the international and regional scale. The law professor confirmed that four countries, along with local organizations, are practicing demographic change processes, and at the head of those who carry out this change for political reasons is Turkey, then Iran comes after it, and Russia may come after it, then ISIS or some organizations such as the Free Syrian Army. Ghobashi explained that the causes of demographic change are known, especially among the references to the countries we mentioned, as the demographic change represents a change in the identity of some regions, pointing to the intervention of some international parties in this issue, and that the process of normalization in Syria is intended to do so. In an intervention via Zoom, the head of the executive body of the Syrian Democratic Council, Ilham Ahmed, referred to the political dimensions and repercussions of demographic change, and in turn revealed the parties involved in the process of demographic change. Elham Ahmed emphasized the unity of the Syrian lands and its inclusive identity, with the importance of preserving the privacy of religious and ethnic beliefs, and the right to political representation, for all according to the principle of equality and political justice. The representative of the Syrian Democratic Council in Egypt, Laila Moussa, addressed the issue of efforts to prevent the process of demographic change, and that the main goal is to preserve the Syrian geography and sovereignty, and that the structure of the highly centralized regimes has no problem with giving up the Syrian demographic. Moussa explained that the Syrians believe that the solution in Syria will be achieved through the Syrian dialogue, but they lack the ability to be independent, stressing that the solution to the Syrian crisis is a political solution, not a military one, in addition to believing in the role of the League of Arab States. A ANHA Helena Public Schools had 283 students experiencing homelessness in grades K-12 at the beginning of this year, nearly double from the year before, a school official said. At the end of the 2021-2022 school year, the district recorded 130-150 students experiencing homelessness. In the first few months of the 2022-2023 school year, the number doubled to around 300 students, Superintendent Rex Weltz said Thursday at a meeting of Hometown Helena, a grassroots civic organization. I think that were better at identifying (students experiencing homelessness) as well, Weltz said. Weve done training at each school to identify what does homeless look like. Its not necessarily the student thats living on the street. For us and the federal definition, homeless is a student that goes to your house for three days and grandmas house for four and back over to aunties house for two. Of the 283 students, a breakdown of their circumstances shows that 107 children are sheltered, meaning they are housed in a group home, foster care or transitional housing; 104 children live with extended family or friends; 38 children are unsheltered, meaning living in a car or other inadequate housing; and 34 children are living in hotels or motels, according to Weltzs Jan. 20 Friday Message from the Superintendent posted on the school districts website. Michele Zentz, the districts homeless liaison, coordinates the districts support of students experiencing homelessness under the McKinney-Vento Act established in 1987 through the U.S. Department of Education, Weltz said. This act provides grants to state education agencies, such as the Montana Office of Public Instruction, which then provide funding to school districts to help level the playing field of learning for children experiencing homelessness and their peers. Zentz said one of the biggest challenges is changing the stigma associated with the term homeless. She prefers the terms living transition or experiencing homelessness because those better describe the most often temporary situation and not the person. Under McKinney-Vento, the district has assistance available to all students experiencing homelessness such as immediate enrollment in school without requirement of academic records, immediate access to the Free and Reduced Lunch program without an application and transportation assistance that includes transporting a student to their school-of-origin if theyve been forced to move outside its boundaries. They dont have the structure around parents that helps them to get into schools, so thats our job, Weltz said. This act also provides funding to help these students stay engaged in school activities like musical instrument rentals, AP testing exam fees, student activity pass fees and more. Emily McVey, executive director of Helenas United Way, pointed out at Hometown Helena that on Thursday evening, United Way would be doing their Point in Time Survey, the annual count of Helenas local unsheltered population under the guidance of the Federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program. Many of the students counted as experiencing homelessness in the district wont count under HUDs guidelines because students who are couch surfing or living somewhere with access to heat and water dont qualify as homeless and wont be counted in the surveys total, she said. If a family is experiencing homelessness, school counselors can provide children with resources to stay on track at school during the transitional time, officials said. Its just something coming out of the pandemic and where were at right now, said Weltz. Theres a lot of needs. UPDATE FROM 2:52 A.M.: A suspect described as a "very dangerous individual" is now in custody in Jefferson County, according to an overnight Facebook post from the sheriff's office. The post from just before 3 a.m. Friday said that there is no longer an active threat to the community. Previously people in the Comet area were asked to shelter in place and lock their doors. Further information was not immediately available. The Jefferson County Sheriffs Office said Thursday night their deputies and the Montana Highway Patrol are trying locate a man who they described as a very dangerous individual. The person left on foot south from the Comet area, officials posted on Facebook in a public safety alert for Basin and Boulder. The Montana Highway Patrol says that the fugitive is wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service and has warrants for kidnapping and strangulation. He was last seen wearing a Carhartt jacket and black jeans. The name was not part of the social media post. Numerous agencies are working hard to bring this situation to a close and provide better information, authorities posted at 9:25 p.m. The individual is considered armed and dangerous. A Shelter in Place is advised in the area of High Ore Road east to Depot Hill Road, and down to Interstate 15. Shelter in place generally means finding a safe location indoors and staying there until you are given an all clear or told to evacuate. People were advised to lock their doors and call 911 if they see any suspicious activity. Do not pick anyone up in that area, the Facebook post warns. People were asked not to call 911 or the administrative lines for information. This story will be updated as more information becomes available. The Yellowstone River flood in June tore a wide swath of destruction through critical Montana infrastructure, communities and lives. Warm overnight temperatures beginning June 10 melted lingering snow in the river's surrounding mountains and combined with inches of precipitation caused millions of dollars in damages to towns all along the watershed. The U.S. Forest Service released a flood damage assessment on June 28 that estimated $20 million in damages to its property in the state. The Montana Department of Transportation initially estimated damage to transportation infrastructure totaling $29 million, Gov. Greg Gianforte said in his June 16 news release announcing the major disaster declaration from President Joe Biden. Rural communities such as Gardiner just north of a Yellowstone entrance and Cooke City in southern Montana were cut off entirely by flood waters and damaged roads. Families lost nearly everything. How does a community start to pick up the pieces? Where does it begin? Montana Disaster and Emergency Services, a state agency leading the coordination of emergency management, hosted The Montana Recovery Resources Symposium at Fort Harrison in Helena on Wednesday to answer those tough questions and find better solutions to the challenges of rebuilding after a disaster. The event brought together more than 100 representatives of federal, state and local entities, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Lewis and Clark County Disaster and Emergency Services. Sierra Anderson was hired as the county's DES coordinator about five months ago. She helped lead county response and recovery efforts and coordinated with state and federal agencies during the Matt Staff Road and Mount Helena fires in August. "Matt Staff Road was day four on the job," Anderson said. She said she benefited from the knowledge accrued by her predecessor and colleagues around the region in the aftermath of the record flooding events across the state last summer, "hearing the stories about what happened last year, gaps in the pre-planning." "It showed just how important these relationships (between governmental and non-governmental agencies) are all the way down to the local level," she said. That was the upshot of Wednesday's symposium: strengthening the ties between partnering entities to better support communities. FEMA Federal Coordinating Officer Maona Ngwira, who oversaw the feds response to the flooding, said the major disaster declaration, which was made June 16 by the president, opened up a wide range of federal assistance programs for individual citizens up to public infrastructure repairs. "Immediately, we began delivering access to the individual assistance and public assistance programs," Ngwira said. FEMA has allocated close to $17 million to assist citizens and communities with emergency and long-term recovery projects in the wake of the floods, including about $3.7 million through individual assistance programs, according to Ngwira. "It was through the wonderful collaboration with the Montana Disaster and Emergency Services, we were able to work together to guide resources and provide enhanced capacity in response to this event," he said. He said by following the state's lead, leaning on their firsthand knowledge of the area, FEMA responders decided to deploy mobile disaster recovery centers to reach rural areas in the Flathead. "A well-run response and recovery must be locally executed, state managed and federally supported, and that's what we did here in Montana," he said. He said at the very least he hoped by the end of the symposium the group will have "identified resources and potential collaboration that will not only help the state recover from these disasters, but also enhance capacity to respond to future disasters." U.S. Economic Development Administration's Julianne Kingery, an economic development specialist, told the attendees the EDA was recently appropriated $500 million to support survivors of disasters throughout Montana and the nation. "These funds, while not yet distributed to each of the regions, will soon be distributed to the EDA's six regional offices and then competitively awarded to eligible entities like those in Montana to help support long-term recovery and resiliency," Kingery said. For Lewis and Clark County, which has experienced its own significant flooding events in recent memory, those partnerships have long been cultivated, and Anderson said they never stop preparing for the next disaster. The county disaster and emergency services department has scheduled a flood-themed "tabletop exercise" for late February and have invited other agencies, non-governmental agencies, cities, towns and community partners such as Carroll College. The goal of the exercise is to help local entities better prepare for responding to such natural disasters. "In emergency preparedness, there's always room for improvement," Anderson said. Photo: The Canadian Press Police cars surround a TTC streetcar on Spadina Ave., in Toronto on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 after a stabbing incident. The Toronto mayor and police chief along with the head of the city's transit operator are set to hold a press conference on transit safety after several violent incidents on the system recently. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey Toronto police are increasing their presence on city transit in light of recent violence, the force's chief said Thursday, despite criticism that more officers would not address deteriorating social conditions that could be at the root of the situation. Chief Myron Demkiw said more than 80 officers are expected to be in place at Toronto Transit Commission locations across the city to reduce victimization, prevent crimes of opportunity and enhance public safety. "We have moved quickly together, with the Toronto Police Services Board and mayor's support, to establish a sustainable solution to address the safety of everyone who uses our transit system," Demkiw said at a news conference alongside the mayor and the transit system CEO. "Officers from across the city are participating in this enhancement and those who ride the transit will immediately notice an increased presence of Toronto police officers in the subways, on the streetcars and buses." The TTC has seen several cases of violence in recent weeks, including stabbings, shootings with BB guns and a swarming. The additional police patrols will comprise primarily off-duty officers working paid overtime shifts so front-line officers can keep responding to priority calls, Demkiw said. There's no end date for the enhancement, but police will monitor the situation day-to-day as it unfolds. Further, he said police will use data from the force, the TTC and communities to adjust officer deployment locations and times. A million people travel our city every day using subways, streetcars and buses safely," Demkiw said. "We also have to be responsive to the recent events we have seen." TTC CEO Rick Leary said the transit system is a "microcosm" of wider issues playing out in the city. "We don't know exactly what is behind these incidents," he said. "But we know that the root causes are complex and they're going to require a co-ordinated approach and response." Toronto Mayor John Tory said Thursday's announcement of more police in the system is just one step toward addressing safety concerns on public transit that came out of discussions between the city, the TTC, its union representatives and police. "I know many people who use the TTC the passengers are anxious and even scared," said Tory. "They must know that we are doing everything we can." Tory also addressed criticism he's received over increasing the city's police budget and said the investments "are still a necessary part of the safety answers for today and tomorrow." The city will continue investing in key areas of community safety, mental health and addictions treatment and anti-violence programs, he said, while calling on other levels of government to provide additional funding. Shelagh Pizey-Allen, executive director of the transit users advocacy group TTCRiders, said the expansion of police presence on and around Toronto's transit system is a "bandage solution" that won't help in addressing the issue of violence in the city. "Police don't address the root causes of violence ... Police cause harm to Black, Indigenous and racialized people," she said. "Some people, they will feel less safe when police is around." She said some homeless people are taking shelter on the transit system because they have nowhere else to go and that makes them vulnerable and victims of violence. Pizey-Allen said she takes the TTC almost every day and she and other riders have been feeling more nervous recently. "It's not acceptable that transit workers and transit users are experiencing violence," she said. "But we are not confident the solutions we've heard today will increase safety, instead they will decrease safety for some people in our city." The president of the union representing TTC workers penned an open letter to the prime minister Thursday calling for an "immediate and direct injection" of resources for violence prevention, mental health relief and homelessness on the transit system. "No employee should feel endangered or threatened in their line of work, especially in a position like ours where we serve the interest of the general public in moving the city," Marvin Alfred wrote. When asked about transit safety at a news conference Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government "will no doubt step up'' if there was a role for it to play, and was "happy to partner'' with provinces and municipalities. Tammy Landau, an associate professor of criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University, said there's no evidence linking the attacks on transit to people experiencing homelessness or psychological distress. However, she said the increasing number of people she's seen using the TTC for safety and shelter indicates a larger social problem. "There seem to be spikes in cases of violence but I would see it on a continuum of the city really not being on top of taking care of its citizens," Landau said. "There is a certain amount of disorder on public transit these days from people who are using it as housing that has, unfortunately, created a level of discomfort around the riders. Rightly or wrongly, people are not comfortable with that and, frankly, as a society we should not be either." Part of the TTC's proposed 2023 operating budget includes a $4.4-million investment that will go toward 50 new special constable positions in an effort to increase safety and security, as well as 10 additional outreach workers. Landau said that funding should be redirected to mental health supports as well as getting people safely housed. "Why does that come after a $40-million bump to the police budget? You know how much support that could provide to communities that are going to end up being policed anyway?" Landau said. "The easy response is to provide more policing and security, and it's just such a red herring ... You can't police your way out of social problems." A House committee narrowly advanced two bills supported by Montanas landlords on Thursday, the votes coming less than a week after voting down a bill that sought to recoup certain fees for those applying for rentals. The balance of rights for landlords and renters has long come with an inherent tension, but Montanas housing pinch that continues to squeeze the availability of rental properties has only amplified discussion around those protections. In cities such as Missoula and Bozeman, rentals that come on the market drive in many cases extreme interest from prospective tenants. Many landlords in high-demand areas have begun charging fees to applicants, ostensibly for the purpose of reviewing qualifications and the cost of outside tasks such as background checks. But Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, says that system has moved from recovering reasonable costs to a virtual revenue stream. An available rental in Bozeman can draw dozens if not more applicants, with each tenant required to submit fees regardless of whether services are actually performed or they get the rental. His House Bill 233, which would mandate refund of a portion of application fees for unsuccessful applicants, made its return to the Legislature last week after being voted down in 2021. It would allow charging for costs of documented services. The bill drew 43 co-sponsors, including a number of Republicans, and got support from university students, representatives for people with disabilities, and a number of renters who saw fees collected on multiple properties totaling hundreds of dollars. Some supporters testified about a system where the first qualified applicant would be approved, meaning fees collected by other applicants went unused for their intended purpose but were retained regardless. HB 233 saw opposition from the Montana Landlords Association president John Sinrud, who said the bill removes the ability for rental companies to charge for their time. He did say that companies are obligated to perform the services they collect fees for, and if they do not, they would violate fair housing statutes and I would say they would be committing fraud. The majority of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted down the bill, but a few voted with Democrats in support. We heard testimony about an ugly business practice which I think we could even make the argument was an immoral business practice to collect fees to not offer a service for the fees, said Rep. Neil Duram, R-Eureka, one of the co-sponsors of the bill. On Thursday the committee narrowly advanced two bills that saw landlords in support and university students and the lobbyist for the city of Missoula in opposition. Rep. Steven Galloway, R-Great Falls, who is a landlord, carried both House Bill 282 and 283. HB 282 would allow a landlord to issue a 24-hour notice to a renter for being out of compliance with terms of the lease. After that time period, the landlord may terminate a lease and seek a court injunction to have the renter removed if they refuse entry to the property. A landlord could also recover up to three months of rent for failing to vacate the property in a month-to-month lease currently that can only be sought in a long-term lease. Galloway and the Montana Landlords Association said HB 282 was about clarifying a process for removing a tenant who refuses to vacate a property, in part to allow quicker turnover of properties to make them available again to paying tenants. Opponents raised concerns about fairness in terms of notice. For example, a renter could be traveling at the time of the 24-hour notice and be unable to correct a violation. I think that again we need to balance the reasonable needs of landlords with the reasonable needs of tenants and I think this is tipping the scales too far in one direction, Rep. S.J. Howell, D-Missoula, said in reference to the 24-hour notice provision. HB 283 attempts to bar local governments from passing ordinances that conflict with the Montana Landlord Tenant Act. Sinrud testified that landlords have incurred expense and litigation over some municipalities attempts to regulate beyond what the state law allows, calling it a nightmare for people who are current landlords. The bill would create fairness across the state. Sam Forstag with the city of Missoula pointed to striking language stating that landlords must comply with ordinances applicable to other properties or businesses, calling it like a power grab. That could strike any attempts at local control, such as nondiscrimination ordinances in housing, he said. Sinrud disputed that testimony, calling it a red herring and saying that federal and state nondiscrimination law already prevents housing discrimination. Both HB 282 and 283 passed by a single vote to move on to the full House. The vehicle for the Legislature to recommend changes to new House and Senate district maps proposed by Montana's redistricting commission moved closer to passage Thursday. Over Democratic opposition, Republicans on the House State Administration Committee voted to send SJ 8 to the House floor. The vote was 12-6. As it now stands, the resolution contains two parts: One with bipartisan recommendations requested by Republican lawmakers and agreed to by Democrats; and another section listing GOP complaints with the independent Districting and Apportionment Commission's process for drawing the maps. Rep. Ed Stafman, D-Bozeman, attempted to segregate the bipartisan recommendations out of the rest of the resolution for a separate vote, but that proposal also failed on party lines. The resolution cleared the Senate earlier this week on a party-line vote. It needs a final pair of House votes before the Feb. 5 deadline for the Legislature to issue its recommendations to the commission. It's nonbinding, but the commission's nonpartisan chair has said she will look more favorably on recommendations that win bipartisan support from the Legislature. Once finalized, the maps will go into place for the 2024 elections. A proposal to unwind a law inserting the Legislature into the citizen ballot initiative process was voted down in a party-line committee vote Wednesday. The bill by Sen. Brad Molnar, R-Laurel, would have removed language added in the 2021 session that requires that a legislative interim committee review proposed ballot initiatives before citizens can begin collecting signatures to get them placed on the ballot. It would have also repealed new layers of review the Attorney General gained from the 2021 law. Republicans on the Senate State Administration Committee voted against sending SB 153 to the Senate floor, and the panel subsequently tabled the bill. On another party-line vote, a proposal to ban grants and other third-party funding for local election offices now moves to the full Senate for consideration. Republicans have been skeptical of large grants provided to election offices during the 2020 general election by the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which has connections to liberal or Democrat-aligned groups. The grants helped pay for things like security cameras, voting equipment and informational advertising to help voters navigate new pandemic-related election processes. Democrats and Native American tribes opposed SB 117, arguing it would take away a tool for rural election offices that already struggle to reach voters living on Indian reservations. It passed the committee 7-3 on Wednesday, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. A bipartisan vote in the House State Administration Committee Thursday moved a bill to strengthen security measures for ballot tabulators. The committee first voted to tweak the language in the bill to address concerns about its ban on unauthorized devices, such as modems. The change was intended to address the fact that local election officials use special flash drives to copy the tabulated results before transmitting them to the Secretary of State. The changes also allow for third-party inspections of machines by local governments. The Secretary of State must approve companies able to perform those inspections. The bill advanced from committee on a 14-4 vote. DECATUR Voters across Macon County will be asked in April if they want to eliminate the office of county auditor. It is one of three questions that will appear on the April 4 ballot. Voters in the Mount Zion Fire Protection District decide if they want to approve a tax increase to fund a department-based ambulance service, while voters in the South Wheatland Fire Protection District to increase its tax rate. The voters are either agreeing to the change or not, and then it is a binding question, Macon County Clerk Josh Tanner said. So if the voters vote yes, then it happens. If the voters vote no, then it doesn't. Macon County Board members approved a resolution placing the county auditor elimination question on the April 4 ballot during its Jan. 12 meeting. The resolution passed 11-1, with board member Democrat Karl Coleman, District 1, as the only opposition vote. I think it is obviously in the best interest of the taxpayer to have someone fully dedicated and elected to that position working every day, nine to five, to make sure that the way we spend our funds as the county board in the county departments is done accurately and fairly, Coleman said at the time. If approved by voters, the positions elimination wouldnt go into effect until Dec. 1, 2024, allowing current county auditor Carol A. Reed to complete the duration of her term. Reed told the Herald & Review she is neither for nor against the referendum but said she can understand the boards viewpoint in urging the vote. The Macon County auditors office takes on more responsibilities and functions than do other county auditor offices, which makes the position more demanding. In other counties, they're pretty much responsible for performing audits in other departments and different departments of the county, Reed said. While we do some of that, we're also responsible for the payroll, financial reporting, budgets, accounts payable, accounts receivable, risk management and HR function (of different departments). In short, auditing does not compromise the bulk of the Macon County auditors job. The office is more like a finance department, Reed said, and she thinks it should be very professionally run. In an election, the person may or may not have qualifications in accounting or finance or whatever it would take to do the job well, I guess is my take on it, she said. It's a time consuming job, and it needs to have some level of expertise in it to run well. Only 17 of Illinois 102 counties have elected county auditors, and many of them are among the states most populous areas. Macon County is of similar population to other counties that are part of the Illinois Association of County Auditors, including Kankakee, LaSalle and Vermilion counties. What happens to the current auditors tasks if the position were eliminated would be up to the county boards discretion, Tanner said. They would either hire someone to do whatever duties the current county auditor is doing, or they would assign them to someone else in the county, he said. That'll be up to the County Board to decide that. In Mount Zion, the fire protection district is seeking to levy a special tax that would fund an ambulance service for the district. The tax rate would not exceed .40% of the equalize value of all taxable property within the district. The action in Mount Zion comes after a majority of Hickory Point Fire Protection District voters in November approved a referendum to raise property taxes to fund an ambulance in their district. The South Wheatland tax levy referendum is not related to a specific fund, Tanner said. If approved, the referendum would increase the maximum allowable tax rate for the fire protection district from 0.30% to 0.40%. All three referendums could technically face objections, though Tanner said he doesnt anticipate any challenges. Thursday was last day that any government body has to certify a ballot referendum with the county clerks office. Looking back: historical photos of Decatur, Macon County Macon County Memories Fire at Leon & Morris The Decatur Fire Department Bazleys Cash Market The Library Block The Hawk Eye Hay Loader Sangamon River Lake Decatur beach Dennis School Goat cart The Illinois Traction System Millikin University football CHARLESTON A former Coles County assistant states attorney has been charged with 32 counts of misconduct over interactions with three Coles County women, according to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office. Brady Allen, 33, turned himself in to the Coles County Sheriffs Office on Thursday after a warrant was issued for his arrest, Raoul's office said. Allen, who previously lived in Charleston but now lives in Missouri, has since been released and will make his first appearance in Coles County Circuit Court at 9 a.m. Feb. 16. Raoul said his office charged Allen with nine counts of bribery, all Class 2 felonies; one count of witness harassment, a Class 2 felony; 21 counts of official misconduct, all Class 3 felonies; and one count of witness intimidation, a Class 3 felony. Coles County State's Attorney Jesse Danley said he is am grateful to the Illinois State Police and the attorney general and his staff for their professional and thorough investigation into this matter. He said due to the nature of the initial allegations, it was necessary to forward the investigation on to outside agencies. "My office has and will continue to cooperate fully with the investigation and prosecution," Danley said. "The charges filed by the attorney general reflect the basis for Mr. Allen's immediate termination from my office in 2020, and I am glad that my request for investigation by the Illinois State Police at that time was followed with diligent action." Allens attorney, Fred Johnson of Mattoon, declined to comment when he was contacted Friday. At the appropriate time, we will address the court on the filing that was made, Johnson said. A booking photo of Allen wasnt available because the camera at the Coles County Jail was inoperable Thursday, jail officials said. The charges stem from allegations that Allen had inappropriate communications "that were sexual in nature" with female defendants while he was serving as an assistant state's attorney from December 2018 until his resignation in August 2020. The women were between the ages of 18 and 35, Raoul's office said, and were either currently being or had been prosecuted by Allen. Raoul's office alleges that Allen solicited sexual contact, photos and videos with an understanding that in exchange, the women would receive preferential treatment in their pending criminal cases. Even after Allen was assigned to another courtroom, according to the allegations, he continued to solicit sexual contact, photos and videos with the suggestion that he could influence fellow prosecutors in the state's attorney's office. Once Allens behavior was discovered, he offered to pay one woman's fines and court costs if she could convince another female defendant to not pursue claims against him, according to Raoul's office. If convicted, Allen could face up to seven years in prison and up to $25,000 in fines. As a prosecutor who has sworn to uphold the law, I am shocked and outraged that a fellow prosecutor would allegedly use that authority to manipulate and victimize women in the community, Raoul said in a statement. I appreciate the continued collaboration of the Illinois State Police, which investigated this complex case. I am absolutely committed to holding public employees accountable for using their positions to take advantage of the residents they are supposed to serve. The case was investigated by the Illinois State Polices Division of Criminal Investigation. Coles County State's Attorney Jesse Danley, who was Allen's boss, said in August 2020 that he sought an Illinois State Police investigation after becoming aware of the accusations and conducting an internal investigation. That statement came a week after attorney Todd Reardon filed a motion to dismiss two Coles County DUI cases, saying that Allen sought sexual favors from the defendant in these cases. Danley did not return messages seeking comment Friday. When contacted Friday, Reardon said he had been surprised to see the Illinois Attorneys Generals Office file charges against Allen. Reardon said so much time had passed since he filed a complaint report about Allen in 2020 that he was worried the attorney general would treat the matter as water under the bridge and take no action. Im glad that justice may be served, but well find out, Reardon said. Reardon also is the attorney of record in a case filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, East St. Louis Division, naming Allen, Danley and Alex Hesse and Jason Taylor of the Mattoon Police Department as defendants. The lawsuit, filed in August 2022 on behalf of Kara Chumbley, alleges that her rights to due process and equal protection as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution were violated. In addition to some of the same allegations made in the states criminal filing, the federal case alleges that Allen continued to make threats to Chumbley even after his resignation from the states attorneys office, and that Danley, Taylor and Hesse falsely claimed to initiate a proactive investigation against Allen to intimidate any and all corroborating witnesses and other victims. Among the documents filed in that case are copies of text conversations and a copy of a signed statement from Allen dated Aug. 23, 2020. I deny all allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, Allen wrote. He wrote that he and Chumbley had a relationship outside of court entirely over social media after they were matched on a dating app and that they never met in person. Allen stated the relationship ended after she became a defendant in a case to which he was assigned. After he received a promotion, the idea of a relationship was entertained, but he said that Chumbley became frustrated when he wasnt able to help with her case and said she altered text messages to give the appearance of impropriety. He went on to say the allegations against him were part of a political stunt leading up to a contested race for states attorney between Danley and Reardon. After he left the state's attorney's office, Allen began working as a criminal defense attorney, according to a website that appears to promote his service. In the "About" section, Allen touted his experience with the state's attorney's offices in Coles and Franklin counties as a selling point for why prospective clients might hire him, noting that he could offer "an elevated level of strategic and practical guidance." "Brady also understands that clients who require legal counsel are typically experiencing a great deal of anxiety, and are deeply concerned about their future," the website continued. "To alleviate this stress, he ensures that each client is always up-to-date on their specific legal matter, and fully prepared for the next step in the process. "Furthermore, Brady prides himself on being responsive and treating each client with the respect, professionalism and care that they deserve. To Brady, clients are real people not mere cases." According to the Illinois Supreme Court's Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission attorney directory, Allen is currently licensed to practice law in the state of Illinois and is registered under an address in Belleville with the firm John Buchmiller and Associates. The commission's public records show no records of discipline or pending proceedings against Allen. "There's nothing formal pending against him," confirmed Steve Splitt, a spokesman for the commission. Per Illinois Supreme Court code, Splitt said, all investigations are private. Any investigations and related records are not made public until a formal complaint is made by the commission. Though the attorney generals news release listed Allen as living in Missouri at the time of his arrest, a search from the Missouri Bar Association's online directory revealed no licensed attorneys under the name Brady Allen. Taylor Vidmar contributed to this report. 2022 in review: The year in photos Theres no way to spin this into a positive Decatur is losing some healthcare options. HSHS St. Marys Hospital in Decatur is seeking state approval to close some of its units. It plans to apply for permission from the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to discontinue its advanced inpatient rehabilitation, obstetrics and newborn nursery, pediatrics and inpatient behavioral health services. Specifics at this point are elusive. The Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board process generally lasts about 60 days but could last longer. A statement from HSHS Illinois said, HSHS Medical Group Pediatrics in Decatur will remain open with no changes to providers, location or services offered. A statement from St. Marys President and CEO Theresa Rutherford said, First and foremost, please be assured that HSHS is committed to keeping HSHS St. Marys Hospital open and on the current Decatur campus. We intend to be in Decatur for decades to come. Rutherford also hinted at plans for $90 million investment to modernize the current facility, a plan and amount of money that seems to fly in the face of HSHS reporting a $67 million loss from operations in the 2022 fiscal year. Decatur Memorial Hospital leaders say they can accommodate some of the needs if the plans are approved. Options for advanced inpatient rehabilitation and inpatient behavioral health services are limited and could force patients out of town. The Millikin School of Nursing and the education efforts at Richland Community College could suffer if the cuts led to reduced staffing needs. The need for nurses still wont abate. What happens when in-clinic opportunities for those students are reduced? The St. Marys announcement follows a nationwide trend of regional and local hospitals shuddering pediatric units. Institutions can generate higher profits by treating adults instead of children. Profits are important, but were ultimately judged on the fashion we treat those most in need. This action comes on the heels of HSHS St. Marys discontinuation of its ambulance service that served a large area around Decatur. Abbott EMS officially assumed coverage of the Decatur and greater Macon County service areas on Oct. 7. Of all the crises in the United States, health care is high on the list of importance. Health is an industry whose role is regularly discussed, both in practice and in price. Theres a reason the Affordable Care Act is one of the most debated pieces of legislation in America. Unfortunately, were in wait-and-see mode. Any pronouncements about the future of Decaturs health care are guesses at this point. Vote now until noon on April 20th to support the businesses that you think are the best in the New Braunfels area. The Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina has acquired 6 acres across from Valdese Childrens Park on East Main Street in Valdese for permanent conservation, according to the organization. This property will eventually be transferred to the town of Valdese for future development of the Wilderness Gateway State Trail, said a release from the conservancy. Valdese Town Manager Seth Eckard said the town will not be expanding Childrens Park or adding any amenities to the acreage when it is transferred to Valdese. He said the town will keep the area mowed and the public will be welcomed to use it as open space. There are no additional plans for the property other than that, Eckard said. Eckard said the property would have to be transferred to the town at no cost to the town. He said the purpose of the town accepting the property is so it will be used for Wilderness Gateway State Trail and to preserve more green space in Valdese. Foothills Conservancy is glad to partner with Friends of the Valdese Rec and the town of Valdese to secure this 6 acres of open space for future public park and trail use, Land Protection Director Tom Kenney said in the conservancy release. Projects like this support healthy lifestyles and economic development through tourism in Valdese associated with the Wilderness Gateway State Trail. Preserving this property also will help protect the water quality of the area, as this property adjoins Micol Creek, a tributary that drains into Lake Rhodhiss in the Catawba River Basin, the release said. This project is the latest in a series of conservation efforts for the state trail by Foothills Conservancy, which serves as the lead organization for the trail. Earlier this month, the conservancy transferred 75 acres in Catawba County to the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation as part of the state trail corridor, the release said. State Senator Dean Proctor is right. Its past time for North Carolina to expand Medicaid. Proctor, a Republican, said Friday that he supports a proposed Medicaid expansion for North Carolina. He said the expansion is not a done deal but estimated it has a 95% chance to pass. If approved, it would signal a remarkable change in the GOP-controlled General Assembly. As recently as 2019, N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the state budget after the senate and house refused to even discuss a possible expansion. Today, Senate leader Phil Berger and Speaker of the House Tim Moore, both Republicans, have signaled they are aligned and looking to pass legislation during the legislative session that started this week. Proctor made his remarks Friday during a legislative breakfast hosted by The Chamber of Catawba County at Mortez Mills in Hickory. Erica Palmer Smith, the executive director of NC Child and former executive director of Care4Carolina, was also on the agenda at the Hickory breakfast. Care4Carolina is a coalition of 150 groups that has worked for Medicaid expansion since 2014, according to the Associated Press. Smith laid out the case for Medicaid expansion. The expansion, she said, provides relief for people caught in the gap between what Medicaid currently provides and the cost of subsidized insurance. She provided the example of a single parent with two children. If that person makes less than $10,400 a year, they qualify for Medicaid. To get subsidized insurance, the person must make $24,860 annually. People working 40 hours a week at $12 an hour are among the people who would fall into the gap, she said. That leaves single parents with tough choices, Smith said. Should they work and pay nearly $400 a month for insurance or leave the workforce to qualify for health care via Medicaid? Medicaid expansion, she said, removes the disincentive to work. Proctor agreed, noting the expansion would help protect the work force and make jobs on the lower end of the pay scale more attractive. Smith said more than 14% of Catawba County workers are caught in a coverage gap. She said most of these people are employed and about one-third of the people in the gap are parents with children in the home. If Medicaid expansion is approved in North Carolina, Smith said nearly 10,000 people in Catawba County would get coverage. She added that statistics predict that the change would lead to 523 new jobs in the county, with half being in the health care field. She said that 38 of 50 states have already expanded Medicaid coverage and the expansion should have zero impact on state taxpayers. Dean Proctor is right. It is time to expand Medicaid and ensure that people who want to work can do so without the fear of losing their health insurance. Photo: The Canadian Press Shopify Inc. says chief technology officer Allan Leinwand will be departing the company with chief executive Tobi Lutke to take on some of his responsibilities. In a statement from Leinwand provided by the Ottawa-based e-commerce giant, he says he is leaving Shopify for an unspecified "personal reason." Leinwand, once a senior vice-president of engineering at Slack, spent 18 months at Shopify, taking over from Jean-Michel Lemieux, who left in 2021. A statement from Harley Finkelstein, Shopify's president, says company founder Lutke will now oversee research and development. Lutke previously stepped in to takeover chief product officer Craig Miller's responsibilities, when he left in 2020. At the time, Lutke said there were no plans to replace Miller. Leinwand's departure comes after the company parted ways with several key staff including chief financial officer Amy Shapero, chief operating officer Toby Shannan and chief talent officer Brittany Forsyth during the pandemic. NEWTON Carolina Caring is hosting Walk A Mile With Me, an online support group for caregivers, spouses and widows/widowers of veterans, beginning Tuesday, Feb. 7, at 1 p.m. The group will continue to meet on the first Tuesday of each month and is designed to be a welcoming place to talk about the journey before and after the passing of a veteran. Carolina Caring for Veterans is proud to be a Level IV partner of the We Honor Veterans program, an awareness initiative spearheaded by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The program has also been recognized as a partner of the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration Program. For more information, contact Cindy Stamey, Carolina Carings Director of Community and Veteran Relations, at cstamey@carolinacaring.org or call 828-466-0466. Carolina Caring, founded in 1979, is an independent, community-based, nonprofit health-care provider. It specializes in programs that offer relief from chronic conditions, serious illnesses, and the challenges they bring, including palliative medicine and hospice care for all ages, primary care and grief counseling. Currently, Carolina Caring serves 12 counties across western North Carolina and the Charlotte region. For more information, call 828-466-0466 or visit www.CarolinaCaring.org. Reps. Jay Adams and Mitchell Setzer voted in favor of what can only be called sneaky N.C. House rules that govern how that body will operate. Though the rules are temporary, unless a few Republicans have a come-to-Jesus moment in the name of fair and honest representation, those rules will assuredly shortly become permanent along party lines. We the people should know that included in these rules is the right of the Speaker of the House to call for a vote on anything at any time without any notice. Zip. None. The purpose, of course, is to give Republicans control of the outcome of any vote, including overriding the governors veto which removes the balance of governing powers. Whats prompted this is the outcome of the last election where Cabarrus County sent a Democrat to the House, depriving that body of the one seat Republicans needed to have total, as in autocratic, control of voting and policy setting. These rules are the workaround for the loss of that seat. If one Democrat is absent from the Chamber for any reason, say illness or death in the family, or for any amount of time, even minutes to take an emergency phone call or go to the restroom, a vote on a contentious issue can be called without one seconds notice. Done deal. Contentious issues? Budget, abortion, voting rights, education, etc. I find this workaround sophomoric, a reprehensible and irresponsible way to run a government that is supposed to represent and operate transparently in the best interest of all the citizens of this state. The rules mean no discussion, no transparency, and no input from the citizens. Our representatives, Jay Adams and Mitchell Setzer, voted in favor of this underhanded rule and will vote aye when the vote to enshrine it is called. Lets remember that come the next election. You can follow how Adams and Setzer vote on every issue/bill at the site North Carolina General Assembly, House, Member List. I challenge the HDR to establish a dashboard to help us keep track of how Adams and Setzer vote. Beverly Finney Hickory We have a little too much supply and a little less demand to start the dairy year out, shared Rabobanks Mary Ledman at the dairy market outlook session at the International Dairy Foods Associations (IDFA) Dairy Forum. In making those comments, Ledman was giving a very high-level outlook on supply and demand from both a domestic and global perspective. What does this mean on the farm? When it comes to the 2023 dairy price forecast, the word would be anxiety, said Ever.Ags Katie Burgess, who added that she spends half her business day talking to dairy farmers. We all learned this in recent years it only takes a little spark to make dairy markets move, she continued, also speaking at IDFAs dairy market outlook session. Be sure to lock in profits or establish a floor, she advised as to an action step. How a farm manages its risk in 2023 will matter. How one manages risk will determine winners and losers in the dairy business, continued the Ever.Ag economist. That floor will look different depending on where one produces milk. If I had to peg the cost of production in the Upper Midwest, it would be $20, shared Burgess of the cost of producing milk on a hundredweight basis (cwt.). The western U.S. is $2 to $3 higher (cwt.). There is a tight margin picture this year. Because of those higher costs, which appear to be a long-term situation, some west coast dairy farmers are considering their options when it comes to the future of their businesses. I hear more and more conversations from people in California saying, Is there somewhere else to dairy? There will be more movement to the Midwest in the future, forecasted Burgess. Specifically, the I-29 corridor, she said of the interstate that rolls through South Dakota and the surrounding region. Dairy demand and buying in 2023 Even with a potential for a downturn in prices, Burgess believes there will be less price shopping among dairy product buyers this year. Our expectations for 2023: After the supply chain issues of previous years, people are looking to lock in both prices and supply more so than prior to the pandemic, explained Burgess. Theres nothing worse than an empty shelf in the dairy case, added the panel moderator, Mike Brown, who now serves as IDFAs chief economist. Previously, Brown had been the director of the Kroger Companys dairy supply chain for seven years. Long-term future is bright for U.S. dairy Ledman believes that the U.S. dairy industry is poised for long-term growth, pointing to domestic and global investment in the American dairy processing sector. The veteran economist who has traveled the world discussing dairy also shared a perspective on the psyche of the top dairy exporters. There is no confidence to expand milk production in Europe at this time, said Ledman of the 27 countries that make up the European Union (EU), along with Great Britain. Its due to political rhetoric, she said of the collective countries of the EU that make it one of the worlds top two dairy product exporters right alongside New Zealand. Remember, there have not been any laws passed, advised Ledman of the situation in Europe. The rhetoric is shaking dairy producer confidence, Ledman further explained of potential legislation. In New Zealand, the worlds largest dairy product exporting nation, dairy producer confidence is the lowest its been since the economic crisis of 2009, said Ledman of the island nation that has passed some legislation in this area. To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com. (c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2023 January 26, 2023 Fifty years ago, as the sun rose and the smoke cleared from around an isolated district compound in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, I was a 25-year-old field artillery first lieutenant serving as an adviser with the Montagnards and thankful to be alive. The Paris Peace Accords cease-fire went into effect at 0800 (Saigon time) on 28 January 1973. The night before had been a rough one as both sides were jockeying for position and trying to grab as much land as possible before the 0800 deadline. For weeks prior, the South Vietnamese government had been festooning every building, pole, and tree with its national flag. I was the only American for 10 miles around in what I referred to as the Depression-era rural Oklahoma of South Vietnam due to no paved roads or electricity. I had undergone 11 weeks of adviser (JFK Center) and Vietnamese language training prior to arrival in-country and was somewhat proficient in the language. The Montagnards, the indigenous people of Vietnam and among the best fighters in the world, however, did not particularly care for the Vietnamese, but with my interpreter and college French, we got along just fine. As I walked the perimeter of our compound in the late afternoon of 27 January, I was struck by the fact that our RF/PF soldiers (regional forces/popular forces, roughly akin to locally recruited militias and affectionately called Ruff-Puffs) had brought their families into the compound for safety and situated them behind their fighting positions. Quite frankly, I had mixed emotions about the matter. On the one hand, I understood the desire of the soldiers to have their families in what they hoped would be a secure environment, and I thought their presence might influence them to fight harder. On the other hand, I was concerned about what would happen if family members were wounded, which could cause soldiers to leave their fighting positions. I kept my thoughts to myself. Small arms fire from AK-47s began soon after it got dark, and it was a particularly dark, moonless night! We fortunately had two venerable split-trail World War II-era M101A1 105 mm howitzers on our small compound, and their Vietnamese Army crews began firing intermittent high-angle self-illumination. The flares imparted a ghost-like effect to the images in the distance outside our concertina wire. Sometime after midnight, illumination rounds which had not extinguished before hitting the ground ignited the dry grass around our perimeter, and we soon had sheets of flame and smoke headed our way. Our claymore mines began going off either because of the fire or command detonation. Based on the debris that was coming in our direction, it seemed to me that someone had forgotten to properly orient the convex side of the mine stamped Front Toward Enemy, or perhaps the enemy had turned the mines around. So it went throughout the remainder of the night: the small arms fire, the thunderous roar of the cannons firing, the relatively soft pop of the base-ejecting illumination flares, the sound of the flames, and the claymores going off. The entire scene was surreal and suggested what I imagined Dantes Inferno would have looked like. When morning came, it was obvious that the enemy had been busy during the night. We were surrounded by Viet Cong flags! I have a VC flag that was pulled from our wire and presented to me by the district chief, a Montagnard lieutenant colonel. On this 50th anniversary, as I often do each day, I reflect on Vietnam and the loss of over 58,000 Americans, including six of my classmates. The Citadel class of 1969 was the last class to suffer KIA/MIA in Vietnam. One of my classmates, Joe Eubanks, a graduate of Concord High School, is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, and two others lie in Southeast Asia in unmarked locations known only to God. I mourn their loss but give praise and thanks for their example of selfless, sacrificial service and willingness to put themselves in harms way for our country. I strive every day to prove myself worthy of being called their classmate. We should all resolve to live our lives in such a manner as to earn their sacrifice. I ask you to remember them and their families in your prayers. Pray also for our servicemen and women who are defending our country. Pray for the families of our deployed service members as they face an empty seat at the table and the gnawing uncertainty over the fate of a loved one. Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you on this special day. God bless my noble classmates! May their memories be an eternal blessing. God bless our servicemen and women! God bless America! SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. Just click here. include_once "/home/jwreview/public_html/$theme/includes/sidebar.php"; ?> On Tuesday, meanwhile, former vice president Mike Pence notified Congress that "a small number" of documents bearing classified markings were found in his Indiana home. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed special counsels to investigate the Trump and Biden cases. But it's not too early to draw some obvious conclusions. To begin with, it seems evident that both men broke the law. Under Section 1924 of Title 18 of the US Code, it is a crime for any federal officer or employee to "knowingly remove" documents containing "classified information of the United States" and to "retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location." There are differences between the two cases, but the language of the statute is clear. Trump and Biden plainly did what it forbids. Second, neither the president nor the former president has to worry about facing a serious criminal penalty. Big shots in these cases never do. "Carelessness with government secrets has become endemic in official Washington," observed The Washington Post this week. In recent years, highly classified government material has been mishandled by numerous senior officials, including former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former CIA directors John Deutch and David Petraeus, former national security adviser Sandy Berger, and at least two former secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton. None of them was punished with anything more severe than a temporary loss of security clearance or a fine. Petraeus, who supplied classified material to a former mistress who was writing his biography, paid the heaviest price: He resigned from the CIA and was charged a $100,000 penalty. Getting caught with classified government documents earns prison time only when the offender is a low-level federal employee or contractor. Just ask Asia Lavarello, Ahmedelhadi Serageldin, Harold Martin III, Reynaldo Regis, Benjamin Bishop, or Reality Winner. Their names are little known. But all of them ended up behind bars for doing what numerous high officials have gotten away with. Perhaps the most important point is this: Even without any wrongful intent, it is inevitable that government documents classified as secret will be mishandled or misappropriated for the simple reason that there are way too many of them. The amount of federal paperwork classified as confidential each year is staggering. At a congressional hearing in 2004, then-Representative Chris Shays noted that in the previous year, at least 14 million documents had been placed off-limits by the nearly 4,000 government officials authorized to do so. "No one can say with any degree of certainty how much is classified, how much needs to be declassified, or whether the nation's real secrets can be adequately protected in a system so bloated," Shays said. "This much we know: There are too many secrets." With the coming of the digital era, the already vast sea of classified documents swelled into what the director of the Information Security Oversight Office, a division of the National Archives, calls a "tsunami." The 14 million documents a year being designated as secret in 2004 has metastasized into more than 50 million a year today, according to Oona Hathaway, a Yale Law School professor and former special counsel to the Pentagon. A maxim attributed to Frederick the Great holds that "he who protects everything, protects nothing." The Prussian king was referring to battlefield strategy, but the principle applies equally to government paperwork. The annual classification of tens of millions of documents, most of which do not deal with ultrasensitive national security secrets, serves mostly to shelter the political class from scrutiny and to keep from the public information it has a right to see. So far there's no indication that any actual harm was caused by the cavalier manner in which Trump and Biden made off with classified material. Politics aside, it may all amount to a big nothing. The same can't be said of Washington's bloated classification process. The breathless obsession with who mishandled classified government documents and how, where, and when makes headlines. What really deserves attention is why the documents were classified in the first place. So it's safe to say that the latest proposal isn't going anywhere. Still, it's important to understand why further lowering the voting age is a bad idea. Those who back voting rights for 16- and 17-year-olds argue that since kids that age can work, pay taxes, and get a driver's license, it isn't right to exclude them from the voting booth. Here's how Moulton put it in 2020: "Americans put a lot of faith in 16-year-olds. We let them drive, hire them at our businesses, and make them pay taxes." Moreover, he wrote, "we know that voting at an early age helps encourage civic habits for life." Pressley goes even further. In a 2021 statement, she contended that a 16- or 17-year-old was qualified to vote by virtue of the "wisdom and maturity" that comes from living in a time of unique "challenges," "hardships," and "threats." Young people, said Pressley, are entitled "to have a say in our federal elections and the policies that impact their lives today and will shape the nation in their lifetime." Such flimsy contentions don't stand up to scrutiny. Americans don't put a lot of faith in 16-year-olds. To be sure, some kids at that age have jobs some even contribute to their family's expenses. But the great majority of teens don't work, and vanishingly few hold down full-time jobs. Rare is the 16- or 17-year-old who foots the bill for groceries, rent, or utilities. Yes, kids that age can legally drive, and yes, teenagers pay some taxes. But no one younger than 18 (and in some cases, 21) may legally drink alcohol or buy tobacco or marijuana. They may not purchase firearms or ammunition. They may not get married or adopt a child. They may not enlist in the military, buy a lottery ticket, book a hotel room or an Airbnb stay, apply for a mortgage, rent an apartment, file a lawsuit, obtain a credit card, work in a bar, or make a will. In almost every area of life, society has established 18 as the age of majority because, broadly speaking, that is the age of maturity. Or at least the age of the minimum level of maturity to be entrusted with important decisions. It is well established that adult and teen brains operate differently. The prefrontal cortex the brain region that governs decision making, long-term thinking, and rational judgment isn't fully developed until the mid-20s. Behavior and reactions in teens are instead controlled by the amygdala, the more emotion-driven, impulsive, primitive section of the brain. If Moulton, Pressley, and their colleagues want to make a serious claim that 16-year-olds are mature enough to cast a ballot, they need to show why the scientific consensus on teen immaturity is wrong. And to be consistent, they should also be lobbying to lower the minimum legal age of every other activity to 16. As for the idea that "voting at an early age helps encourage civic habits for life," that too is unsupported by evidence. The same claim was made when the 26th Amendment was being adopted. Lowering the voting age to 18, Senator Ted Kennedy declared, will "bring American youth into the mainstream of our political process" and "we will gain a group of enthusiastic, sensitive, idealistic, and vigorous new voters." That didn't happen. Newly enfranchised 18-to-20-year-olds promptly became the least engaged cohort of voters. In every election, the youngest voters invariably participate at a lower rate than any others. There was considerable hoopla about how "high" turnout was for younger voters in last November's midterm elections, but the data actually confirmed the longstanding pattern: Only 27 percent of voters younger than 30 bothered to cast a ballot. (On the other hand, those were the voters most likely to vote for Democratic candidates. A cynic could be forgiven for wondering whether that's why Democrats like Pressley and her cosponsors are so eager to lower the voting age still more.) Weak turnout rates among younger voters shouldn't be surprising. Interest in government and politics tends to rise as the concerns of adulthood rise. Americans who have full-time jobs, who have to pay a mortgage, who are raising a family, who file yearly tax returns, who wrestle with health care premiums are more likely to take an interest in how they are governed than those who don't. For perfectly understandable reasons, teens are apt to worry more about school, social media, and relationships with other teens than with candidates, legislation, and public policy. If we don't trust 16-year-olds to serve on a jury or sign a contract, we certainly shouldn't expect them to cast thoughtful votes for presidents, governors, and members of Congress. In the eyes of society, adulthood begins at 18. Voting should begin then too. Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe, from which this is reprinted with permission." MATTOON Multi-media quilt enthusiast Mary Fons is scheduled to return to Mattoon early next month to give an encore presentation. Mary Fons is going to be coming back to Mattoon for one night only in the Lone Elm Room, said Mattoon Arts Council Coordinator Julia Degler of this event at 6 p.m. Feb. 5 in the train depot, 1718 Broadway Ave. She previously held a series of well attended presentations and workshops there in 2017. The guest speaker, an Iowa native who now lives in Chicago, is a writer, editor, and live-streamer who specializes in quilt history and quilts in popular culture. Her live video magazine, Quilt Nerd, airs three times a week on Twitch. Fons served as editor in-chief of Quiltfolk magazine from 2017-2021, and now serves as an editorial advisor to Quiltfolk publications and workshop instructor. She also was editor and creative director of Quilty magazine from 2010-2015. In addition, Fons has hosted a combined 250 episodes of instructional programming through Fons & Porters Love of Quiltingon PBS and the Quilty website. She authored Make & Love Quilts: Scrap Quilts for the 21st Century and Dear Quilty, and wrote a bi-monthly The Quilt Scout column for Quilts, Inc. Fons serves on the board of the International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska and lectures at universities and quilt events, such as QuiltCon. She holds a bachelors in theater from the University of Iowa and a masters in writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is in pre-production for Americas Quilt, a 10-part docuseries. Degler said only 80 seats are available for An Evening with Mary Fons and more than one-fourth have already been reserved. We have had a steady stream of registration, Degler said. Tickets are $25. Reservations can be arranged by going online to www.mattoonartscouncil.org, calling the Mattoon Tourism & Arts Office at 217-258-6286, or visiting this office in the depot. Degler said Fons is also set to help with a program for Mattoon middle school and high school students on Feb. 6 as part of the Lebovitz-Lively Workshop Series. MATTOON The Student Lighthouse Committee at Mattoon Middle Schoo l has invited community members to take guided tours of the school to get updates on programs there . Tours will be offered during the school day on Wednesday, Feb. 1; March 1; and May 3. Each tour will last approximately 30 minutes. Those who would like to participate in the tours are asked to call Mattoon Middle School at 217-238-5800 and leave their name and contact information with one of the secretaries there. Students will then call them back to schedule their tour times and dates. SPRINGFIELD A law recently signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker will extend the deadline for the state to transfer criminal defendants deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial from jail to a mental hospital. That same bill, House Bill 240, also gives nursing homes in Illinois two more years to comply with minimum staffing levels implemented in 2022 before getting fined by the Department of Public Health. Those are just two parts of a 67-page omnibus health care bill that passed the General Assembly on the final day of its recent lame duck session. And even though parts of the bill received criticism, many lawmakers who opposed those elements said they felt compelled to vote for it anyway because other parts of the bill were too important. Those necessary provisions included enabling certain rural hospitals to draw upon more federal funds, distributing federal disaster aid to ambulance services impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and extending the deadline for a shuttered hospital in Chicagos west suburbs to reopen under new ownership. I think that there are some important changes in this bill, and I certainly disagree with the process of putting things together where some I really support and some I don't, said then-Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, during a committee hearing on the bill. Bourne ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2022, giving up the opportunity for a fifth term in the House. Extended jail stays Previous standards set in Illinois law set a 20-day deadline for the Department of Human Services to assume custody of a criminal defendant deemed incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity. DHS would then be required to place them in a psychiatric institution. The new law extends the period a defendant can sit in jail to 60 days. And, if DHS cannot place the defendant in a facility in that amount of time, it can ask the court for 30-day extensions until such time as a space becomes available. Officials in the Pritzker administration testified that DHS often isnt able to do that, either because the agency doesnt get notice from the court that a defendant needs to be transferred or because there simply arent enough staffed beds available in Illinois seven state-run mental institutions. I think it really was just an attempt to try to be realistic, said Ann Spillane, Pritzkers general counsel, in committee testimony earlier this month. We're not meeting 20 days. We haven't for a long time. State officials estimate there are currently more than 200 individuals in county jails who have been awaiting transfer to a state mental hospital for 60 days or more. Spillane said DHS is working to expand the number of mental hospital beds in the state, but there has been a tremendous increase in the past year in the number of people found unfit to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity. But county sheriffs, who oversee county jails, argued they have staffing shortages too, and that they are not equipped to house and treat people with severe mental illnesses. Jim Kaitschuk, executive director of the Illinois Sheriffs Association, said the problem is especially severe in southern Illinois where there is a shortage of community-based mental health services to begin with. He pointed to ongoing litigation filed by a number of states attorneys over DHS failure to promptly take people into its custody out of county jails. We certainly understand the dilemma that the Department of Human Service has in terms of getting those staff, he said. The problem is, at the local level, we have that same problem. So, we're not able to maintain the level of staffing and the number of people and the beds that we need within our county jails. He also said many counties lack community services to provide treatment to the individuals. During House debate earlier this month, now-retired House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, of Western Springs, said he understood the concerns of county sheriffs, but said the rest of the bill was too important to be held up by that issue. Don't let this provision kill or change your position or change your vote on this, he said. It's a really good bill. Durkin suggested lawmakers should continue to negotiate that specific issue in the new General Assembly which began Jan. 11. Nursing homes Other lawmakers had similar issues with a provision giving nursing homes two more years until 2025 to come into compliance with minimum staffing requirements before facing fines from the Department of Public Health. Illinois has some of the most understaffed nursing homes in the country, and last year lawmakers passed a sweeping overhaul of the way they are reimbursed through Medicaid that included as much as $700 million per year in incentive payments to increase their staff and raise wages for nursing home workers. But nursing home industry lobbyists said many facilities are still reeling from the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and that statewide, employment in nursing homes is still below pre-pandemic levels. Pandemic exhaustion has led to the resignation of thousands of nursing home employees and strained the long-term care labor market, Ron Nunziato, director of policy and regulatory affairs at the Health Care Council of Illinois, said in a statement. He said nursing homes are facing the same hiring obstacles as the rest of the health care industry. The pipeline for workforce development is slow in many areas of the state and it will take years for nursing homes to recover from staffing challenges, Nunziato said. Rep. Lakesia Collins, D-Chicago, a former nursing home worker, spoke against that provision on the floor of the House, but at the same time said her objections to it werent enough to reject the whole bill. I am not going to sink the ship on this because these other measures are very important, she said. But as a former nursing home worker, I would be remiss to not speak about the importance of short staffing and the provision in the bill about holding off for another two years around the penalties. The bill passed the Senate on Jan. 6 by a 32-15 margin. It passed the House Jan. 10, 85-24. 5 home improvement projects to tackle during winter 5 home improvement projects to tackle during winter Bathroom tile and flooring Painting Shoring up insulation Light kitchen remodeling Brighten your home with additional light fixtures We must resist the temptation to add to the escalating US/NATO proxy war with Russia. We must say no to any risk of a third World Warno tanks for Ukraine and an end to military and financial aid. Its time to embrace peace, not to continue to fund a pointless proxy war. Taxpayers are funding more and more of this pointless destruction and attrition. Taxpayers who are increasing struggling with the burden of government taxation in many forms, the cost of living, and rising accommodation costs as Western governments spend money like drunken sailors in port for the first time in months. In Germany, rarely covered protests are increasing in ferocity as Germans react to the thought of German tanks going to war with the Russians, reminiscent of the Second World War. In the early stages of the conflict, then U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson went to Ukraine. At the time there was a possibility of a ceasefire and agreement between the two parties. But Johnsons interference seemed to deter Ukraine from discussions. He went there again recently, not with a message of peace but for more sabre-rattling and to rattle the donations can. He is on the front line and, as the sons of Russia and Ukraine spill their blood, his offspring are not facing death. Perhaps if we threatened to send politicians to war, we would have less war. The common sense approach would have been to agree to a territorial settlement for the four regions Russia is securing with a buffer zone to the West, an end to all shelling and military activity and peace for all peoples of the disputed eastern Ukraine. Perhaps, something like the Minsk Agreement, but with teeth and a sense of finality (would be appropriate). However it has been revealed that (former German chancellor) Angela Merkel used the agreement as a cover to provide time for Ukraine to build up its military infrastructure ready for a war. And of course (former CIA director) Mike Pompeo bragged about using the CIA to train agitators on the ground. Just this week numerous heads and deputy heads of Ukraine regions resigned. There are claims of grift and investigations into how funds are being used. Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky died in a helicopter crash, which is strange as he was becoming more animated towards creating a peace deal. Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations in the world so none of the dubious shenanigans happening there right now should come as a surprise. Much of the military aid sent to Ukraine doesn't even reach the front lines. What a pointless waste. Coincidentally governments, through taxation, fund military equipment and infrastructure as the military industry gets richer. Your politicians do not want peace. Like Boris Johnson, they want a perpetual state of war and conflict. War is profit. I say no to war. A Minsk 3 agreement, buffer zone and an end to all military action in eastern Ukraine. And I would say the same to Russian President) Vladimir Putin. In the long-term, NATO needs to be pushed back from infringing on the boundaries of Russia. Bloodthirsty politicians need to be reigned in. We, the people of the world, are not at war with Russia. It is our governments and agents of military industry who are manipulating and agitating for more human misery. Ricky Daytona, West Kelowna With a new congressional term kicking off, the agricultural lobby will fight to bring the Farm Workforce Modernization Act back for approval to alleviate the shortage of farmworkers across the country. The bill is now in limbo after Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives. Despite this, lawmakers could take up other measures, such as increasing farmworker minimum wage, that would help address the shortage and more important, improve labor conditions for these workers. Net farm income for last year across the United States is projected to be $160.5 billion, up from $141 billion in 2021. Though 10% of this income is from government support to help farmers recruit enough workers, this investment has done nothing to address the root causes of the farmworker shortage. About 2.5 million workers toil in U.S. farms each year. In the last two decades, farmworkers have lost more than $65 million in wage theft. Few standards exist to protect their wages. According to the 2019-2020 National Agricultural Workers Survey, at least 70% of farmworkers are foreign-born and 68% were born in Mexico and Central America. American farmers are once again speaking up about their inability to secure enough laborers for the harvest of hand-picked crops. Chronic labor shortages of farmworkers regularly lead to rising production costs, empty shelves and higher food prices. But theres an effective solution to prevent such shortages: paying farmworkers a higher wage. Recent research indicates that raising minimum wages improves the recruitment and retention of low-wage workers, including agricultural workers. Today, the federal minimum wage for agricultural workers is set at $7.25 per hour, lagging behind the 30 states and the District of Columbia that have a higher minimum wage and the 47 cities that have adopted minimum wages higher than their state minimum wage. Agricultural work is not just poorly paid, it is also dangerous, with a fatal injury rate four times higher than other private sector workers. Work schedules in this industry include early mornings, weekends, holidays and more than 40 hours per week with insufficient or unreliable pay. The hazards of farm labor include working outdoors, dying in extreme heat (which is increasing due to climate change), enduring inadequate and crowded living facilities and lacking access to adequate health care, which is the case, for example, for the half-million farmworkers based in California. This is why raising wages is only the first step for improving the working conditions of farmworkers. In addition to harsh working conditions, these workers are seldom allowed to claim overtime or have collective bargaining rights due to exemptions in the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act. The lack of basic labor rights leaves many farmworkers unprotected from retaliation should they attempt to form unions. Having equal access to collective bargaining in all states would offer farmworkers the opportunity to negotiate wages, hours and benefits, thus making agricultural employment more attractive to a diverse pool of workers. We need to advocate for federal changes to the National Labor Relations Act to offer all workers the right to union representation and support local living wage ordinances that mandate at least $15 per hour. While it may be too late to pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, it is never too late to begin imagining pieces of legislation that would truly help to raise the wages of all farmworkers. We can begin by supporting legislation that would extend federal overtime protections to agricultural workers. We could also ask our legislators to support the Raise the Wage Act, a bill introduced in the House of Representatives last year. If passed, this bill would gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, achieving a modest and adequate standard of living for all workers. And we could support the Fight for $15 and a Union, a decade-old labor rights movement. Though these are just modest solutions, we need to act soon because one thing is for sure: the continued exploitation of 2.5 million farmworkers is unacceptable, and we can do better. A Winston-Salem man died after being shot while standing in front of his house on Stockton Street late Wednesday, one of two homicides in the city within 24 hours, police said Thursday. Winston-Salem police responded at 11:37 p.m. Wednesday to the 2600 block of Stockton Street on a report of gunfire. When officers arrived, they found evidence that a shooting had taken place in front of the house at 2605 Stockton, but they found no victim, police said. Moments later, officers learned that Namir Miguel Seabrook, 20, had been taken to a local hospital by family members, police said. Seabrook had been shot and critically wounded. He died from his injuries at the hospital, police said. Investigators believe Seabrook was shot while standing in front of his house. On Thursday, police detectives searched Seabooks home. Thats an active investigation and there is no additional information available at this time, Kira Boyd, a spokeswoman for the Winston-Salem Police Department, said. Seabrooks death is the citys seventh homicide so far this year, as compared with two homicides during the same time period last year, police said. Earlier Wednesday, Archie Nash, 63, was found stabbed to death in his home on North Cameron Avenue, police said. Investigators believe Nash was stabbed during a disturbance with an acquaintance. Crystal Lakita Spencer James, 32, of East Devonshire Street, is charged with murder in Nashs death, police said. She was being held Thursday in the Forsyth County Jail with no bond allowed, police said. Anyone with information about these incidents can call Winston-Salem police at 336-773-7700, Crime Stoppers at 336-727-2800 or its Spanish line at 336-728-3904. Crime Stoppers of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County is on Facebook. The Text-A-Tip program at 336-276-1717 allows people to text tips, photos and videos to the police. After three shooting attacks damaged three North Carolina utility facilities in the past two months, a bill filed Wednesday in the N.C. House aims at protecting the states electric substations from vandalism and other security threats. The proposed legislation by Republican Ben Moss of Richmond County would require utilities to operate security systems at substations 24 hours per day, but offers no specifics about the makeup of those systems. On Dec. 3, two Duke Energy stations in Moore County were damaged, leading to power outages for about 45,000 customers during a cold snap that sent temperatures below zero. In a similar incident Jan. 17, EnergyUnited crews responding to an alarm found that a transformer in Thomasville had been damaged by gunfire. There were no outages tied to that incident, EnergyUnited said. The Randolph County Sheriffs Office said investigators found more than two-dozen projectile holes in the transformer. The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force and the State Bureau of Investigation are investigating the transformer attacks. No arrests have been made or suspects identified. I became aware of the controversy surrounding the unveiling of the sculpture titled, The Embrace, while at dinner with friends. A woman seated behind me vehemently offered, at a high-decibel level, her disappointment at the sculpture that emphasized the love between Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King. Watching the actual unveiling online and the reaction of the thousands on hand, largely displaying their approval, told me nothing. I then conducted a search on the internet, a reliable harbinger of truth, and discovered a plethora of pseudo art critics offering their dismay of the statue of Martin Luther King in Boston. Therein lies a portion of the problem; it was a sculpture. A statue is a carved or cast figure of an individual. Conversely, a sculpture is art that appears in representative or abstract forms. The Embrace, which is based on a photo of Coretta and Martin upon receiving the news that he had won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize, became the vision of sculptor Hank Willis Thomas. It was an homage to the love that began in Boston where the civil rights icons met in 1952. Those not at the unveiling allowed photos of the sculpture taken from particular camera angles to support their opposition. Some saw a penis, others claimed they saw oral copulation, and some offered the lack of faces as a systematic attempt to whitewash the legacy of Martin Luther King. When did immediate reactionary critiques from the comforts and conveniences of ones laptop or smartphone of something that was years in the making suffice as thoughtful commentary? Seneca Scott, a cousin of Coretta, claimed The Embrace was insulting to his family, describing it as a masturbatory metal homage. One can only assume Scott was referring to his immediate family because Coretta Scott Kings son (Martin Luther King III), daughter in law and granddaughter, all of whom were in attendance, unlike Scott, did not find the sculpture objectionable. Too bad the energy to oppose The Embrace isnt replicated when it comes to following the legacy blazed by Coretta and Martin Luther King. Theirs was not an occasional public outcry to the injustice de jour, but a sustained effort to eradicate public policies that ignore the human dignity of those on the margin. Lest we forget, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis advocating for the dignity of sanitation workers. And it was Coretta Scott King, continuing and, in some cases, expanding the work of her spouse seeing LGBTQ equality as the logical extension of the civil rights movement of the 1960s: My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny ... an inescapable network of mutuality. Therefore, I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther Kings dream to make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people. Shouldnt there be sustained anger, not toward the artists vision for a sculpture, wrongly depicted as a statue, but rather that the price demanded for the King holiday include that he be defanged and domesticated? America does not grant holidays for prophets, at least not in their original form. Prophets are not spokespersons for cheeseburgers, computers, luxury watches and pickup trucks. Why are misappropriations of Kings words and actions not an ongoing source of outrage? Self-righteous indignation, notwithstanding, the whitewashing of King is a daily phenomenon sometimes conducted by those who claim to be in his tradition. Its not enough to demonstrate outrage about a piece of art, while clinging to the avatar commonly referred to as Martin Luther King. To examine the totality of the art based on a portion of a photo that allows for a salacious critique, is fodder for comedians, but hardly the basis for a substantive observation. Would a photo of the left sleeve taken from the Mona Lisa offer an accurate portrayal? There is nothing wrong with not liking the sculpture. One person can see The Embrace as symbolizing the love between Coretta and Martin and the injustice they fought against, while others are free to view it through a less intellectual lens. Though ultimately subjective, art interpretation requires that we look at the same thing prior to rendering a reactionary critique based on internet photos. Alas, its been a long time since our public discourse displayed that type of maturity. Contact Marilu at 402-327-6222 or mcazares@cssisus.org Woman is caregiver of her granddaughter and is unemployed on Supplemental Security Income. Her father (her only means of support) died last year. She faces rising rent (up over $200) and a repair bill of around $500 for a vehicle thats still in the shop. She would welcome any gift cards for groceries, a visa card or gas money. Single mom of eight children (ages 16, 10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4 and 3) has lots of medical issues, no health insurance and receives no child support. When her cars transmission went out, she had to pay the repair bill, leaving her short of money to cover the rent and other bills. One of her children is disabled, for which she receives disability benefits, and one is diabetic and has to use insulin, which is covered by Medicaid. She received rental assistance in May 2021, but has received no other cash assistance from other agencies. She needs grocery gift cards or a visa card so she can buy clothing and toys for her children this Christmas. Single mom, 40, with a 14-year-old son was in a car crash a month ago that left her with memory loss for over a week. Not working while she recovers, she has no health insurance and faces mounting medical bills. She was already behind on rent and bills due to being sick with COVID and missing work prior to the crash. Most of her support is limited to her friends from church. She was staying at her sons godparents house while she was having memory loss. They paid for some of her doctors appointments, medications and missed work to take her to some appointments. They now need financial assistance as well. Single mom, 26, with two children (ages 4 and 3) and another on the way has not worked since mid-September, when a combination of COVID and her pregnancy sidelined her. With no one available to watch the children, she seeks a job she can do from home. Any gift cards for groceries would be appreciated, as well as a visa card that would cover some toys for the kids. An injury at work has resulted in financial difficulties and a sporadic work schedule for a single mom of two boys (ages 9 and 15) who worked 11 years for a cleaning company before hurting her hand, shoulders and back. Her youngest son received a new bike earlier this year, but her older son, now in high school, does not have a bike. In addition to a bike for the 15-year-old, the family would like gift cards for groceries or a visa card to buy gifts for the boys. THURSDAY, Jan. 26, 2023 (American Heart Association News) -- Barbara Bartels and a friend were catching up over coffee on a Sunday morning in August. They'd met up at a cafe not far from Bartels' home in Santa Cruz, California. As an artist and a bit of a self-professed hermit, Bartels didn't socialize much beyond her regular art critique group. But she did occasionally accept invitations to go out. At 87, Bartels recently had felt herself slowing down. She still did yoga every day, but not as vigorously. To compensate, she added qi gong, a Chinese-based practice that involves movement, mindfulness and breathing. Both physical and mental health have always been important to Bartels, a mixed-media artist and former fashion designer. Like most of her artist friends, she had been a moderate smoker when she was younger, but she quit in her early 50s. Her only serious health issue was hereditary high blood pressure, for which she took medication. As Bartels sat at the cafe with her friend, she noticed her sentences were no longer making sense. Words were coming out of her mouth jumbled. She felt like she was removed from the scene; instead, it was as if she was hovering about it. Her friend was concerned enough to take Bartels' phone and dial the first number she saw under "favorites." Bartels' niece answered. When the niece heard that Bartels had trouble speaking, she told the friend to call 911. "Are you sure that's necessary?" the friend said. "She just wants to go home and rest." "I'm sure," said the niece, who knew that speech problems could be a sign of stroke. "Call them now." Bartels indeed was having a stroke. Thanks to her friend's action, she reached the hospital within the time frame to be treated with clot-busting medication. While she was unconscious, her daughter and other relatives arrived at the hospital. Doctors warned them she would likely require weeks if not months of intense rehabilitation at a facility. Yet when Bartels awoke, she could walk and talk. She had no paralysis and no cognitive deficits. She was released to go home three days later. Doctors recommended outpatient rehab to strengthen her muscles but were OK with her choice to stick with her usual custom of exercising at home. To Bartels' family, it almost seemed too good to be true. What about the weeks or months of recovery they'd been told to expect? They also carried the long-held belief that strokes are devastating for older people. Her son came from Oregon to stay with her for a week. Her daughter and granddaughter, who live 45 minutes away, joined them during the day. Although they could see that she was on the mend, they were still concerned. Her daughter wanted Bartels to move, preferably to an assisted living facility or even a nursing home. "Mom, you've had a stroke," she said. "You need someone watching you." "Just hold on," Bartels said. Divorced at 30, she had lived alone since her children were adults. The only help she had before the stroke was a housecleaner who came twice a month. "Look how well I came out of this," she told them. "I can do this." Her longtime friend Andrea Borsuk happened to be present for this discussion. Borsuk is the organizer of the art critique group that Bartels regularly attended. She knew what her friend was capable of handling. She also appreciated the importance of someone her age maintaining her independence. In fact, Bartels herself had made that point when Borsuk worried about whether her own independent 90-year-old mother might need to move to a nursing home. "Tell them I'll be OK," Bartels pleaded with Borsuk. "I'll make sure she's taken care of for the next couple weeks," Borsuk told Bartels' family. "We'll have people check in on her every day. Then let's see how this plays out." Using an online scheduling system, Borsuk arranged for members of the art group to help. Every day, friends visited Bartels, brought her meals and ran errands. Bartels' landlady, who lives next door, also volunteered to help. "I know it helped Barb's morale to be surrounded by so many people who care," Borsuk said. Bartels' biggest frustration was that doctors at the hospital never corrected their initial dire prediction of her recovery. Had they amended it based on how well she was doing, perhaps her family would've dropped their assumption that older people don't recover from stroke. The facts speak for themselves: Six weeks after the stroke, her doctor cleared her to drive. Six months in, she's feeling more energetic and stronger. "I'm always forgiving myself for not being able to do things at the level I was doing things at before," she said. "But it's also important to push yourself. Plus, I had to prove to my kids that I could make it." American Heart Association News covers heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved. If you have questions or comments about this story, please email editor@heart.org. By Diane Daniel, American Heart Association News A 23-year-old Lincoln man is facing a felony charge after allegedly taking a video of himself sexually abusing a woman while she was unconscious. The Lancaster County Attorney's Office charged Garrett Shaw with first-degree sexual assault in December and a warrant went out for his arrest. He was picked up and made his first court appearance Wednesday, where Lancaster County Court Judge Timothy Phillips set his bond at $500,000. In the affidavit for Shaw's arrest, Lincoln Police Officer Robert Martin said on Dec. 1 an 18-year-old told law enforcement that a month earlier she had found a video on her cellphone after Shaw allegedly dragged her into a bedroom and strangled her. She woke and found a prompt on her phone asking if she wished to delete the selected files. She declined and watched the two videos, time-stamped the previous night. Martin said they showed Shaw sexually assaulting her as she laid motionless. She told investigators she was not conscious and did not consent to the acts. Lincoln City Libraries' most popular books of 2022 1. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles 2. Sparks Like Stars by Nadia Hashimi 3. Sparring Partners by John Grisham 4. The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci 5. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 6. Run, Rose, Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson 7. The Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand 8. Dream Town by David Baldacci 9. Shattered by James Patterson 10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney Photo: The Canadian Press RowVaughn Wells, mother of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers, leaves at the conclusion of a candlelight vigil for Tyre, in Memphis, Tenn., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. The family is calling for calm across the United States as the country braces for visceral video evidence of another young Black man dying at the hands of police. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Gerald Herbert UPDATE 4:30 p.m. Memphis authorities released more than an hour of footage Friday of the violent beating of Tyre Nichols in which officers held the Black motorist down and struck him repeatedly as he screamed for his mother. The video emerged one day after the officers were charged with murder in Nichols' death. The footage shows police savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes. The Nichols family legal team has likened the assault to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Im going to baton the (expletive) out you, one officer can be heard saying. His body camera shows him raise his baton while at least one other officer holds Nichols. After the beating, officers milled about for several minutes while Nichols lay propped up against the car, then slumped onto the street. Cities across the country braced for large demonstrations. Nichols relatives urged supporters to protest peacefully. THIS IS GRAPHIC - Twenty three seconds where Memphis Police officers appear to be punching a helpless Tyre Nichols. The sound you hear is from another video. #TyreNicholsVideo #TyreNichols #MemphisPolice pic.twitter.com/kqssJ9hRxn Steve Futterman (@sfutterman) January 28, 2023 ORIGINAL 11:30 a.m. The family of Tyre Nichols is calling for calm across the United States as the country braces for visceral video evidence of another young Black man dying at the hands of police. Authorities in Memphis, Tenn., say the three-minute video already likened to the explosive 1991 police beating of Rodney King will be released after 7 p.m. eastern time. Rodney Wells, Nichols' stepfather, says he wants people to go out and protest once they see the video, but he is urging them to do so peacefully and safely. Five former Memphis police officers, all of them Black, face murder charges following the Jan. 7 confrontation with Nichols, 29, a FedEx employee and father of a four-year-old boy. The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Ben Crump, the family's lawyer, cheered how promptly the charges were laid, calling it the "blueprint" for similar cases of police brutality in the future, regardless of ethnicity. "It was the police culture in America that killed Tyre Nichols," Crump said. "We want to proclaim that this is the blueprint going forward for any time any officers, whether they be Black or white, will be held accountable We won't accept less going forward in the future." All five officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody, but at least four of them had posted bond and been released Friday. Antonio Romanucci, another member of the family's legal team, singled out the kidnapping charges as especially remarkable in a case involving a police takedown. "Think about the weight of a kidnapping charge being brought against officers who are wearing a badge, a shield, carrying weapons on their duty belt, acting under the cover of law," Romanucci said. He likened the actions of the officers, describing them as a "pack of wolves," to an act of terrorism. "It was designed to terrorize the victim," Romanucci said. "Once those officers were there, they knew their actions were going to cause death. And indeed it did." The contents of the video are said to be so explosive, police officials decided it would be best to release it later Friday after schools have let out and businesses are closed. OMAHA A $915,163 grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is allowing the University of Nebraska Medical Center to address a shortage of nurses at K-12 schools throughout Nebraska. The grant will place 25 nurses across UNMCs five campuses Omaha, Lincoln, Norfolk, Kearney and Scottsbluff at K-12 schools later this semester through the new School Nurse Scholars program. The grant has been awarded as a subcontract through the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. On average, for every school nurse in Nebraska, there are more than 1,100 students. The CDC recommends a student-to-nurse ratio of 750 to 1. A news release noted students will focus on the specifics of school-age nursing in four one-credit-hour scholar classes over the course of four semesters through spring 2024. Nursing students will be able to directly care for students, conduct school screenings and provide mental health education. The grant will cover participating students tuition, books and fees. Each student also will receive a $1,500 stipend for each semester theyre enrolled in the program. A students participation in the program will be in addition to their regular course load. Top Journal Star photos for January 2023 The public is invited to share input during a series of listening sessions in February on the search for the next chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green has announced his plans to retire in June after seven years in the role. All members of the university and broader communities are invited to attend the sessions, which will be moderated by AGB Search, the executive firm hired to assist with the search, according to a news release from University of Nebraska System President Ted Carter's office. The sessions are scheduled Feb. 7, 9, 10. They will be used to gather feedback on the desired qualities of the next UNL chancellor, and opportunities and challenges facing UNL. Feedback will help develop a leadership profile that will be used to advertise the position and recruit candidates. A list of sessions, including two offered via Zoom, is available at nebraska.edu/unl-chancellor-search and feedback can be submitted at go.unl.edu/unl-chancellor-search. Photos: Historic UNL buildings University of Nebraska-Lincoln buildings; Architectural Hall UNL CBA building UNL Temple Building UNL Morrill Hall Cather Hall, Pound Hall Teachers College Brace Laboratory Brace Hall University of Nebraska astronomical observatory UNL Architecture Hall University of Nebraska-Lincoln buildings; Architectural Hall Cather Hall, Pound Hall University of Nebraska-Lincoln buildings; Architectural Hall A Winside teacher has been arrested on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with a student. In a post on its Facebook page, the Wayne County Sheriff's Office said it received information about an alleged relationship between a Winside Public Schools teacher and a student and began an investigation. On Sunday, authorities arrested Cali Heikes, 25, of Winside, and booked her into the Antelope County Jail in Neligh. Heikes has posted bond and was released. The investigation is ongoing, according to the sheriff's office. Charges have yet to be filed in Wayne County. Winside school Superintendent Andrew Offner said in an email Wednesday Heikes has resigned, and the school board will take action on the resignation at its next meeting. Heikes was a high school and junior high family and consumer sciences teacher. Offner said state law limited him on how much information he could share concerning a personnel matter. He said Heikes was placed on administrative leave before she resigned. "The school district is unaware of the exact nature of the criminal charges," Offner said, referring anyone with relevant information about the situation to contact law enforcement. Heikes is the second Winside teacher accused of inappropriate contact with a student in the past year. Rachel McPhillips, 28, a former art teacher, was charged in April with third-degree sexual assault and child abuse, both misdemeanors, for having sexual contact with a 16-year-old male student. She has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set. Top Journal Star photos for January 2023 The police chiefs of two of Nebraska's three largest law enforcement agencies testified in opposition to Sen. Tom Brewer's latest "constitutional carry" bill, while dozens of residents traveled as long as four hours to the Capitol to support the proposal during a hearing that lasted more than four hours Thursday. The Gordon senators bill (LB77) would allow Nebraskans to carry concealed weapons without a permit or safety training, which Brewer said would bring state law in line with the state's constitution and help him fulfill "the promises Ive made to Nebraskans. The bill, which has 26 co-sponsors, marks Brewer's latest attempt to end Nebraska's regulations on the concealed carry of firearms. His effort last year (LB773) fell two votes short of the 33 required to overcome a filibuster that ultimately killed the bill on the floor of the Legislature. This year, Brewer again prioritized the bill allowing it an early appearance before the Judiciary Committee and removed two amendments that he had added to LB773 in an attempt to appease opposition from law enforcement in Omaha and Lincoln. Brewer removed a provision that would make carrying a concealed handgun during the commission of a crime an enhancement penalty that could be considered in court, so an individual who commits a minor violation couldnt be charged with a stiffer crime a change that Omaha police oppose. He also removed an amendment included last year that would have allowed Omaha to require all handguns be registered other than those owned by people who already have a concealed carry permit. As he introduced this year's bill to the committee, Brewer called LB77 a "clean constitutional carry bill," free of exceptions for the state's largest cities which Brewer said is already the statewide norm for each of Nebraska's neighbors, save for Colorado. "Missouri has big cities," Brewer said. "So why our police would be unable to do ... quality work under the same condition of constitutional carry as other states and other cities, I do not know." Citing support from rural police who Brewer said need "all the help they can get," suggesting gun-toting residents would serve as a relief for rural law enforcement the senator lamented the lines that have been drawn around his proposal. "I hate that it's become a battle with law enforcement on this issue," he said, noting his own history as a reserve police officer. "I've always supported law enforcement." Brewer's prior support for police did not stop Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer, Lincoln Police Chief Teresa Ewins and a handful of representatives from Omaha and Douglas County police unions from testifying in opposition to LB77 at Thursday's hearing. Schmaderer, who said the Omaha Police Department seized more firearms last year than any other year on record, expressed concern over potential unintended consequences of Brewer's proposal and scoffed at the senator's comparison to Missouri. Were not looking to replicate Kansas City and St. Louis, he said. "If you look at their statistics to crime and compare them to Omaha, there is no comparison." Omaha Police Sgt. Brian Dembinski, a member of the Omaha Police Officer's Association, said he supports gun ownership rights and doesn't oppose the notion of constitutional carry, but said LB77 as written "represents a significant threat to the personal safety of every police officer in the state." Under current state law, concealed carry permit holders are required to notify law enforcement officers immediately of a weapon's existence if they come into contact with police, such as during a traffic stop. If they don't they could face enhanced criminal penalties. "This bill removes those increased penalties," Dembinski said. While Omaha law enforcement officers who testified largely sought minor tweaks or continued exceptions for the Douglas County city, where residents must have a concealed carry permit to openly carry a handgun in a vehicle and where all handguns must be registered, Lincoln's police chief drew a hard line against the bill entirely. "I have not asked for a carveout," Ewins told Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha. "I think this legislation is extremely dangerous." McKinney repeatedly pressed law enforcement on the racial equity of creating exceptions for Lincoln or Omaha, which McKinney said would allow every state resident except those in Nebraska's two most racially diverse cities to conceal and carry a gun without a permit. "If we're gonna do it, do it across the board," said McKinney, who was among 31 senators who voted to end the filibuster of Brewer's bill last year. A large majority of residents who testified Thursday did so in favor of the bill some of whom acknowledged, but dismissed, the concerns of law enforcement. "When it comes down to it, we don't make laws to make the government's job easier nor law enforcement," said Allie French, who founded the pandemic-inspired group Nebraskans Against Government Overreach. Some even supported the bill because of the restraints it will place on law enforcement in the state's two biggest cities. Spike Eickholt, an attorney and lobbyist who testified on behalf of the Nebraska Criminal Defense Attorneys Association, said the nearly 400 lawyers who make up the group want to see the law passed for the sake of statewide consistency in criminal statutes surrounding guns. In Lincoln, Eickholt said, being involved in a bar fight or being arrested for a second-offense DUI can see a defendant barred from possessing a firearm for 10 years. "Some people might say, 'Well, Lincoln and Omaha are different. We'd like them to have the discretion to have these sort of looser standards,'" Eickholt said. "We would submit that that is exactly what's wrong." Most supporters of Brewer's proposal testified for a simpler reason, though: They want to be able to carry concealed weapons in Nebraska without the time and money required to seek a permit. Dozens of proponents of LB77 described the state's current permit requirements as antithetical to both the Nebraska and U.S. Constitution, imploring senators to adopt the bill and bring state statute in line with the broad liberties allowed by the Second Amendment. Among such voices was that of Margo Chenoweth, who appeared before the committee clad in American flag apparel and flashing her concealed carry permit, which she said cost her more than $300 to acquire from start to finish. "That's an almost insurmountable position for a lot of people," she said, before asking senators to support Brewer's latest bid to rewrite the state's gun permit law. "Whatever you decide to do is going to affect us all," she said. Other hearing notes: Before listening to more than three hours of testimony on LB77, the Judiciary Committee also heard discussion on a proposal from Sen. John Fredrickson of Omaha that would require gun dealers to provide information on suicide prevention resources when selling firearms. Fredrickson said the bill (LB314) would put resources in the hands of potentially suicidal parties at an "important prevention point." Gun-owning residents and anti-gun advocates alike supported the bill at Thursday's hearing, where no opponents testified verbally against the idea. A proposal from Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln to allow full-time, off-duty law enforcement officers to possess firearms on school property did not draw the same unanimous support. Though a trio of police union officials testified in support of the bill (LB17), Melody Vaccaro of Nebraskans Against Gun Violence raised concerns over laws created to accommodate inconvenienced police officers. Dungan dropped a last-minute amendment on the desk of the committee before Thursday's hearing that limited the scope of the already-narrow bill, which would allow off-duty officers to carry guns onto school grounds for the specific purpose of dropping off and picking kids up from school. Photos: Judiciary Committee hearing on concealed carry bill Specifically citing wide disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice system, Sen. Terrell McKinney of Omaha on Friday urged the Legislature's Executive Board to support a bill that would require an examination of the potential racial impact of proposed legislation. His bill (LB54) would direct the legislative research office to prepare racial impact statements for bills introduced in the Legislature. McKinney said his purpose is to "evaluate potential disparities and unforeseen policy ramifications" while attempting to assure that "systemic racism remains subdued." "Legislation that has negative effects on the minority population perpetuates systemic harm," the senator said. Blacks and Hispanics are incarcerated at a much higher rate than white Nebraskans, McKinney said, and many of them "have zip codes in my (North Omaha) district." Nine states, including neighboring Iowa, already have implemented similar racial disparity mechanisms, he said. An array of civil liberty and human rights organizations testified in support of McKinney's proposal. Jasmine Harris, director of public policy and advocacy at RISE in Omaha, said "a disproportionate number of people of color are incarcerated," largely because "over-policing" in their neighborhoods results in more contact, which in turn has "a devastating impact on families." A number of other organizations, including Open Sky Policy Institute, Voices for Children in Nebraska, ACLU Nebraska and Nebraska Appleseed, added their support. There was no opposition testimony, although the board received some written statements expressing opposition. The board, chaired by Sen. Tom Briese of Albion, adjourned without taking action in order to allow senators to participate in afternoon committee hearings that had just gotten underway. Meet the Nebraska state senators making laws in 2023 A total of 83 projects from across Nebraska will receive a share of nearly $20 million in federal pandemic recovery funds to bolster the development of the states behavioral health workforce. The money is the first and largest installment of the $25.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds the Legislature allocated to the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska last year. In total, the Legislature designated approximately $40 million of the federal funds for behavioral health projects in the state. Among projects that will receive a portion of that funding are a planned pediatric mental health center on the campus of Childrens Hospital & Medical Center and Community Alliances new headquarters and expanded services, both in Omaha. The Behavioral Health Education Center was tasked with distributing the funds in a way that would address the impacts of the pandemic and the shortage of behavioral health professionals. The center received nearly 200 applications totaling nearly $50 million in requested funds. That speaks to the unmet need, said Dr. Marley Doyle, director of the center, which is housed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Center officials decided they wanted money to be available to providers and organizations across the state, she said. Of the 83 projects funded through the competitive application process, 43 or 52% were in rural areas. Were thrilled about that, Doyle said, noting that the behavioral health workforce shortage is a challenge. But the rural areas are where we see the most need. The center soon will open a second round of applications. Updated information will be made available on the centers website. The workforce money was awarded in four categories: behavioral health training and education; tele-behavioral health in rural areas; behavioral health projects to address the COVID-19 pandemic; and funding for supervision of provisionally licensed health providers. HopeSpoke, a Lincoln nonprofit that provides mental health services for low-income youth and families, received $600,000 to recruit and retain therapists and other staff over the next few years. HopeSpoke is grateful for these awards, said Executive Director Katie McLeese Stephenson. Especially during the pandemic, agencies like HopeSpoke have strained to serve all of the children waiting for services. This funding will help more kids find the care they deserve. Doyle said the education funding will allow clinics and organizations to take on more behavioral health students and trainees and pay them for their work. Most training programs require students and trainees to spend time in clinical settings under supervision. But many of those internship programs are unpaid. Not all students can take an unpaid position. The hope, Doyle said, is that the funding will allow programs to train more people and to increase the number of trainees who go on to full licensure. Separately, the fourth category, which provides funding for supervision of provisionally licensed providers, provides funding for existing providers to be paid for providing supervision. That way, more will be likely to do so. To receive tele-behavioral health funding, Doyle said, applicants had to have a specific plan outlining how the funding would impact their current system or help them build a new one. Bryan Telemedicine, which provides a long list of telemedicine services in rural areas, including behavioral health, received $1 million, which will allow it to further expand its services. Such services are particularly important in areas of the state where there are no behavioral health care providers, Doyle said. We know that tele-behavioral health is not the answer to access to behavioral health services, she said. But its a big part of the answer, because it is better than nothing. Doyle said the state is fortunate that legislators saw mental health as a priority and chose to put resources toward it. Top Journal Star photos for January 2023 OMAHA Students can take a break to visit a new vending machine at Westgate Elementary School, but they wont find any snacks inside. It instead offers books that can be taken home permanently with the use of a shiny gold token. Westside Community Schools staff gathered recently to unveil a new book vending machine, which was donated by the Christ Child Society of Omaha as part of a pilot literacy program. Students can earn tokens either by having positive referrals or by buying them with their gator bucks fake money given to students who demonstrate good behavior in the classroom. Sue Seline, vice president of the National Christ Child Society board, said Omahas pilot program will start with Westgate Elementary but could expand to other metro schools depending on its results. Besides the installation of the vending machine, volunteers will visit the school throughout the year to host reading events. Back when I was a kid, learning how to read it made a difference in my life. And so I hope that will happen here, Seline said. The Christ Child Society of Omaha, which has been around the metro area for more than a century, focuses on serving children in need. Seline said local members got the idea of the vending machine after the national organization introduced two others in different states. The Westside school district houses the third book vending machine so far. The machine itself cost $6,000, and the school also will receive up to $1,500 a year to fill it with books, Seline said. Breezy Parker, a Westgate reading specialist, said the books are picked out through Scholastic, a childrens book publisher commonly used in schools. Only time will tell how fast students will go through the books currently in the machine. Parker said all of her students have been excited while waiting for the installation of the vending machine. In the past few weeks, her colleagues would routinely ask when students can start getting books out of the machine. This is just a really special opportunity to get books in the homes of our students, Parker said. A small group of students helped unveil the machine by being its first customers. After sliding in a gold token, they punched in the combination of what book they wanted, and it was dispensed below, just like regular vending machines. Each student used markers to sign their names on the inside covers of their books, which will go home with them. Some of the students said they didnt know they were going to be chosen to receive a book until Wednesday morning. Others said the only time they get access to many books is at the school library. There are kids who dont have books in the home. You dont think that, but there are. And the teachers always know, Seline said. So if we can help get books in the homes, and especially books that they pick out I hope that will resonate. Top Journal Star photos for January 2023 BURLINGTON Embarking on a journey to find peace and understanding among the races, Burlington is starting where it all began a time when Black slaves were running to their freedom. And some of them ran to Burlington. A city task force working to improve race relations in the community brought area residents together Wednesday for an educational presentation about Burlingtons role in bringing an end to Black slavery in the 19th century. Dan Meddaugh, a social studies teacher at Burlington Catholic Central High School, told the group that Burlington was home to many anti-slavery activists, and that some escaped slaves sought refuge in the city on their path to freedom along the Underground Railroad. It happened here, Meddaugh said. It happened where were sitting. It was the first major public event organized by the task force since Mayor Jeannie Hefty empaneled the group in 2021 in response to multiple incidents of racism and racial tensions in the community. About 75 people turned out for the presentation, which took place in The Coffee House, a popular gathering spot in downtown Burlington. Some came to learn, others to advance the cause of inter-racial understanding. Jeff Lettow of the Town of Burlington said he is active in the Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism, a private citizens group, and he wants to know what the city task force is doing to address the issues. Lettow said he also is interested in the history of Black slavery. Rather than recent troubles with Confederate flags and other signs of racism, Lettow wishes Burlington was better known for its role in the slavery abolition movement of the 1800s. I would really like to see us put that at the front lead with that, he said. Lina Schaal of Burlington said she recently began dating a Black man in an inter-racial relationship, and she has witnessed the type of racism he experiences in Burlington. Just walking down the street at night, she said, her boyfriend draws suspicious looks and questions from people. Schaal said she hopes to get involved in the city task force and work to break down barriers between white people and minorities. Ive learned that theres a lot of racism, she said. Its very frustrating. Hefty, who did not attend Wednesdays event, formed the task force to discuss racial tensions in the community following incidents and protests against racism in recent years. A Burlington school teacher came under heavy criticism for teaching students about the Black Lives Matter movement, and state education officials later issued a scathing report that the Burlington Area School District had allowed a racially hostile environment to exist in the schools. Even a consultant hired by the city to study options for rebranding Burlington raised concerns that the predominantly white city has image problems stemming from racial issues. The task force issued a report calling for a strong action to confront racism, including public education outreaches. The group plans a series of presentations billed as an Evening of Understanding. Task force member Eric Burling, a former high school principal, greeted the crowd at the Coffee House, 492 N. Pine St., saying that the task force hopes educational events will promote inter-racial awareness and will make everybody feel welcome. We want to build a more inclusive community, Burling said. The crowd of men and women, plus some children, gasped and cheered as Meddaugh laid out stories of Burlingtons role in stopping Black slavery more than 150 years ago. Even famed activist Frederick Douglass once visited Burlington and thanked citizens for their dedication, Meddaugh said. One audience member interjected with a question about Burlingtons attitude on race since the days of slavery: When did it start to change? The Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism, which has two members on the task force, distributed information and questions for consideration about how the history of Black slavery remains relevant and important for people to understand today. Marie Gaborik, an audience member from the Town of Lyons, called racism a serious problem in Burlington. Gaborik recalled seeing a Hispanic family endure abuse in a local grocery store a few years ago. Hispanic students experience similar mistreatment in the schools, she said. Gaborik expressed doubt that the perpetrators of racism were in attendance at the task forces coffee shop event. Looking around, she said she recognized a lot of people as friends and others who shared her attitudes on race relations. Its a shame, she said. Theyre not the ones we need to educate. In photos: free haircuts for kids at the Racine NAACP center Zakee Darr Jace Mayfield Denim Hicks Jayden and Maggie Precision Timothy and Shaun RACINE Jermika Jackson believes her son is destined for greatness. From a young age, DMarion Jackson seemed wise beyond his years. He was a voracious reader who quickly finished handfuls of library books. Ive always said hes going to be someone great, Jermika said. That has so far proven accurate. DMarion was homecoming king, prom king and student government president as a high school senior. He is now a freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and that was made possible by the colleges in-state tuition guarantee. DMarion is one of about 800 freshmen receiving Buckys Tuition Promise. The promise, which began in fall 2018 and is funded by private donors, is a tuition-free guarantee to Wisconsin residents accepted to Madison whose families have annual household incomes of $60,000 or less. DMarions fall 2022 tuition cost of $10,722 was fully covered by Buckys Tuition Promise. The UW System is working on a similar offering for all other UW schools, including the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, starting in fall 2023, called the Wisconsin Tuition Promise. DMarion called Buckys Tuition Promise the biggest reason why he chose to be a Badger. I felt like I didnt have to sacrifice anything, he said. I was really getting everything I wanted, and then I also didnt have to pay for it, so its amazing. DMarion said BTP and other scholarships he received allow him to focus on class, and he is proud of the work he did to make that a reality. Its easier to think about everything else when you dont have that lurking in the back of your mind, he said. Its like everything youve worked for over the past couple of years is coming to fruition. You get to reap the benefits of what you sowed. DMarion hasnt declared a major, but is interested in creative writing, psychology and social work. Jermika, who is still paying off student loans, was thrilled the tuition promise will likely ensure her son will not have much college debt. That was a weight lifted off of us, she said. Hopefully he doesnt have to worry about that, because its a lot of stress and burden. Growing up in Racine, DMarion said Jermika made sure he and his three older siblings were always taken care of. Money was never an issue, he said. She always provided for us. We never had to worry about when our next meal was going to be, which Im eternally grateful for. She was above and beyond. Jermika and DMarion are very close. He said they both are stubborn, fun and unafraid to say whats on their mind. I think I took her entire personality, DMarion said. He loves music and books, especially the works of Stephen King, and appreciates fashion design and architecture. DMarion took a creative writing class in middle school that sparked his interest in language. I like the idea that you can really create very vivid imagery just with words, he said. There are so many things you can do with writing, and I really like that creativity. DMarion attended Walden III from sixth through 12th grade, graduating last year. He enjoyed the intimate setting where differences were appreciated. All that uniqueness was embraced instead of cast aside, DMarion said of Walden. He appreciated the relationships between Walden students and teachers, saying several educators encouraged his passions and creativity. The things teachers say to you can stick with you, DMarion said. Walden English instructor Matt Landry was one of those teachers. Landry taught Jackson English for two years and was his home group teacher for four years. They saw each other every day of high school, and Landry said DMarion evolved into an adaptive, outgoing and active member of Walden. Im really impressed by how much he was willing to change over the course of his four years and try new things, Landry said. Thats probably one of the reasons why hes going to be successful in college. Hell be able to roll with the punches. Walden Spanish teacher Jennifer Bowe taught DMarion for three years. He initially seemed reserved but wasnt quiet for long, Bowe said. Teachers remembered DMarion as a funny, kind and thoughtful student. He occasionally taught Bowe dance moves between classes. After a virtual lesson during the pandemic, Bowe said DMarion asked how she was and showed her his new shoes to try to cheer her up. He basically took it upon himself to start a conversation with me to see how I was doing, Bowe said. That will always stick with me. Landry said DMarion wanted to improve himself while also helping the collective, especially as student government president. He would come in and think about what he should do, how he should go about his business, what he could best do to balance his own needs with the needs of the school, Landry said. Most kids that age arent really thinking about stuff like that. DMarion took ownership of his studies, never blaming anyone else if an issue arose. He was willing to work his way back up to where he wanted to be, Landry said. That likely comes from Jermika, who instilled in DMarion the importance of education. She prioritizes schooling because it creates better opportunities for people to fulfill their potential. Fueled by his mothers belief, Jackson is on track to graduate college with minimal debt. Yall remember the name, Jermika said. Hes going to be great. Hes going to do great things. Copperas Cove, TX (76522) Today Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy in the afternoon. High around 80F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Photo: The Canadian Press Fencing is seen on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, one year after the Freedom Convoy protests took place, on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. The Parliamentary Protective Service expects 500 people to gather this weekend to mark a year since the "Freedom Convoy" occupied downtown Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang The Parliamentary Protective Service expects 500 people to gather this weekend to mark a year since the "Freedom Convoy" occupied downtown Ottawa. The agency, which polices the precinct, says it will curtail some access to Parliament Hill. The public can still use the central and east gates to access the Hill lawn, but not the gates closest to the West Block, where the Liberals are holding their caucus meeting this weekend. The Parliamentary Protective Service says public tours have been cancelled and Ottawa Police will enforce the closure of Wellington Street to traffic. Ottawa city council voted this week to reopen Wellington Street to cars as soon as March, after a yearlong closure. Large trucks occupied the street for weeks last year, and were only removed after the Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act. 1. Yes. Having a community member interview panel is an excellent opportunity for input. 2. Yes. Its good that the city will allow residents to meet the finalist at a reception. 3. No. The city should have conducted a public survey early in the process, as KISD is doing. 4. No. Residents should be able to meet candidates before a lone finalist is chosen. 5. Unsure. Its hard to know how to gauge the proper level of public involvement. Vote View Results Photo: The Canadian Press Victims of a shooting attack are covered near a synagogue in Jerusalem, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing five people and wounding five others in one of the deadliest attacks on Israelis in years, medical officials said. The attack was halted when the gunman was shot by police. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) A Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue Friday night, killing seven people, including a 70-year-old woman, and wounding three others before police shot and killed him, officials said. It was the deadliest attack on Israelis in years and raised the likelihood of further bloodshed. The attack, which took place as worshippers were celebrating the Jewish Sabbath, came a day after an Israeli military raid killed nine people in the West Bank. The new attack set off public celebrations in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, where people fired guns into the air, honked car horns and distributed sweets. The burst of violence, which also included a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes, has posed an early challenge for Israels new government, which is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for a hard line against Palestinian violence. It also cast a cloud over a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the region Sunday. Israeli police said the attack occurred in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish area in east Jerusalem. Jerusalem police chief Doron Turjeman told reporters the shooter was killed after trying to escape. He confirmed seven deaths, in addition to the shooter, and said three people were wounded. Police identified the attacker as a 21-year-old east Jerusalem resident who apparently acted alone. Turjeman promised an aggressive and significant effort to track down anyone who had helped him. Police also released a photo of the pistol it said was used by the attacker. Israel's MADA rescue service said the dead included a 70-year-old woman. Jerusalems Hadassah Hospital later said a 15-year-old boy was recovering from surgery. The bloodshed was the deadliest on Israelis since a 2008 shooting killed eight people in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, according to Israels Foreign Ministry. Given the location and timing, it threatened to trigger a tough response from Israel. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant scheduled a meeting with his army chief and other top security officials. Overnight Thursday, Gaza militants fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel, with all of them either intercepted or landing in open areas. Israel responded with a series of airstrikes on targets in Gaza. No casualties were reported. Earlier in the day, Gallant had ordered Israel to prepare for new action in Gaza if necessary. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Fridays shooting. In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the attack was a revenge and natural response to the killing of nine Palestinians in Jenin on Thursday. At several locations across the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinians gathered in spontaneous demonstrations to celebrate the Jerusalem attack, with some coming out of dessert shops with large trays of sweets to distribute. In downtown Gaza City, celebratory gunfire could be heard, as cars honked and calls of God is great! wafted from mosque loudspeakers. In the West Bank town of Jericho, Palestinians launched fireworks and honked horns in celebration. The attack escalated tensions that were already heightened following the deadly military raid Thursday in the West Bank town of Jenin where nine people, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman, were killed. It was the deadliest single raid in the West Bank in two decades. A 10th Palestinian was killed in separate fighting near Jerusalem. Palestinians had marched in anger earlier Friday as they buried the last of the 10 Palestinians killed a day earlier. Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but calm prevailed in the contested capital and in the blockaded Gaza Strip for most of the day. Signs that the situation was calming quickly dissolved with the east Jerusalem shooting. Israels opposition leader, former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, called it horrific and heartbreaking. Neve Yaakov is a Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be a neighborhood of its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as a capital of their future state. There was no immediate response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Blinkens trip is now likely to be focused heavily on lowering the tensions. He is likely to discuss the underlying causes of the conflict that continue to fester, the agenda of Israels new far-right government and the Palestinian Authoritys decision to halt security coordination with Israel in retaliation for the deadly raid. The Biden administration has been deeply engaged with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in recent days, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, underscoring the urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank. While residents of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank were on edge, midday prayers Friday at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, often a catalyst for clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police, passed in relative calm. Both the Palestinian rockets and Israeli airstrikes seemed limited so as to prevent growing into a full-blown war. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars and several smaller skirmishes since the militant group seized power in Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Tensions have soared since Israel stepped up raids in the West Bank last spring, following a series of Palestinian attacks. Jenin, which was an important a militant stronghold during the 2000-2005 intifada and has again emerged as one, has been the focus of many of the Israeli operations. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making 2022 the deadliest in those territories since 2004, according to leading Israeli rights group BTselem. Last year, 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis. So far this year, 30 Palestinians have been killed, according to a count by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the dead were militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations also have been killed. Anwar Gargash, a senior diplomat in the United Arab Emirates, warned that the Israeli escalation in Jenin is dangerous and disturbing and undermines international efforts to advance the priority of the peace agenda. The UAE recognized Israel in 2020 along with Bahrain, which has remained silent on the surge in violence. In the West Bank, Fatah announced a general strike and most shops were closed in Palestinian cities. The PA said Thursday it would halt the ties that its security forces maintain with Israel in a shared effort to contain Islamic militants. Previous threats have been short-lived, in part because of the benefits the authority enjoys from the relationship, and also due to U.S. and Israeli pressure. The PA has limited control over scattered enclaves in the West Bank, and almost none over militant strongholds like the Jenin camp. Israel says its raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart attacks. The Palestinians say they further entrench Israels 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want those territories to form any eventual state. Israel has established dozens of settlements in the West Bank that house 500,000 people. The Palestinians and much of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace, even as talks to end the conflict have been moribund for over a decade. HOLDREGE Joel Green spoke to a crowd of about 30 people Tuesday about Robbers Cave at the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege. The presentation was part of the museums Prairie Program. Green has been giving tours at Robbers Cave in Lincoln year-round for many years. Many people who grew up or went to college in Lincoln have sent him several stories and photos of the mostly man-made cave. Green used stories and photos to tell the history of Robbers Cave. The cave is older than Lincoln and has had several names over the years. The name Robbers Cave stuck as it is storied that outlaws, including Jesse James, used the cave as a hideout in the 1800s. Over the caves existence, it has been used for brewing beer, storing gun powder, raising exotic fish, parties and dances. The cave has always been privately owned, and for many years it was locked up due to vandalism. It has a stairway that leads down to its three large areas that connect. There are several vent holes for fresh air. One area even has a firepit. Over the years, safety features were added such as handrails and lighting, and there is even an additional exit if needed. With Greens help, Robbers Cave was added to the National Historic Register. Green has written a book on the cave, and more recently, the cave was the subject of a film crew that came and documented its history. The film should be coming out on the History Channel or ETV later this year. Greens books are available at the Nebraska Prairie Museum or online. The next Prairie Program at the Nebraska Prairie Museum will be held in February. The museum is located one-half mile north of Holdrege on Highway 183. It is open this winter from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is by free-will donation. LEXINGTON Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol have arrested a Cozad woman following a pursuit on Interstate 80 Wednesday night in Central Nebraska. At approximately 10:30 p.m., a trooper attempted a traffic stop on a Hyundai Elantra, which was believed to be driven by a subject with multiple felony warrants. The trooper attempted the traffic stop near Overton at mile marker 247 on Interstate 80. The driver of the Hyundai refused to yield and accelerated to speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour. The trooper initiated a pursuit. As the vehicle reached mile marker 238, additional troopers successfully deployed stop sticks to slow the vehicle. The vehicle exited I-80 at the Lexington interchange and then attempted to reenter I-80 westbound. A trooper performed a tactical vehicle intervention on the entrance ramp to bring the vehicle to a stop. The driver refused to exit the vehicle for several minutes. Troopers deployed pepperball into the vehicle, at which time the driver exited. The driver, Mikayla Schooley, 25, of Cozad, was then taken into custody. She was lodged in Dawson County Jail for flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving, resisting arrest, obstructing a peace officer, possession of cocaine and outstanding warrants. Palestinian mourners carry the body of Yusef Muhaisen during his funeral in the West Bank town of al Ram, north of Jerusalem, Jan. 27. Muhaisen, 22, was killed during clashes with Israeli troops. AP-Yonhap Israeli forces conducted a massive raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday, killing at least nine people and injuring more 20 others, Palestinian officials said. An elderly woman was among those killed in the Jenin refugee camp, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, while describing the raid as "the latest in this extremist government's heinous onslaught against the Palestinian people." Israel said it conducted "an intel-based counterterrorism" operation to apprehend an Islamic jihad terrorist squad planning an attack for later Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces said that its soldiers were fired upon during the operation, resulting in a battle in the streets of the refugee camp. The Israel Foreign Ministry said eight "terrorists" were "neutralized." "Israel will not allow Jenin to become a place of refuge for terrorists," the Israel Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Palestinian health ministry had announced the death toll, and later said a 10th person was fatally shot by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Al-ram, which is located about 60 miles south of Jenin. The majority of those transported from Jenin camp to the hospital had sustained injuries to the head and chest, which the ministry said "means that shooting at citizens was intended to kill." At least four people were in critical condition, it said. Palestinian officials also accused the operation of attacking ambulances and hospitals. During a press conference, Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said Israeli forces stormed the Jenin Governmental Hospital and "deliberately fired tears gas bombs" at its children's ward, injuring sick patients, their families and medical staff. Al-Kaila said the attacks on medical facilities amount to war crimes, while the Palestinian mission to the United Nations has requested a closed-door meeting of the security council to address the situation. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian permanent observer to the United Nations, called on the intergovernmental body to put Israel on notice "that its crimes against the Palestinian people will not be tolerated and that its insistence on this destructive, unlawful path will bring serious consequences." "This occupation is unlawful in every manifestation, has no right to enter Palestinian homes, cities, towns, villages and camps to violently asserts its unlawful domination over our people, and it must be brought to an end," Mansour said in the letter. The raid occurred amid rising tensions between the two sides and after Prime Minister Netanyahu returned to the helm of the country with a right-wing coalition government, which is promoting the annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. It also follows a series of large-scale operations and raids conducted by Israeli forces into occupied territories. A day earlier, a minor holding what turned out to be a imitation firearm was shot and killed by security forces in a Palestinian refugee camp in East Jerusalem during an operation to demolish the former home of a slain gunman accused of killing an Israeli soldier in October. According to the Palestinian healthy ministry, Israeli forces have killed 30 Palestinians this year. Tor Wennesland, U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, issued a statement saying he was "deeply alarmed and saddened by the continuing cycle of violence in the West bank." "Since the beginning of this year, we are continuing to witness high levels of violence and other negative trends that characterized 2022," he said. "It is crucial to reduce tensions immediately and prevent more loss of life." Ned Price, U.S. State Department spokesman, said the United States mourns the loss of innocent lives and is "deeply concerned" by the continuing violence in the West Bank. "We underscore the urgent need to de-escalate, prevent further loss of civilian life and work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank," he said in a statement. "Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live safely and securely." (UPI) QUESTION: Why do we call it a flashlight if it doesnt flash? ANSWER: It goes back to the early days of battery powered lighting. The common D or C batteries we put in flashlights today are the zinc-carbon type. Those first ones, pre-1900, could not produce a steady continuous current. They only gave a brief flash of light. Thats where the name comes from. That flash was better and safer than kerosene lanterns. Police and fire departments used them. British inventor David Misell, living in New York, patented the original flashlight. Conrad Hubert, a Russian immigrant, purchased all of Misells previous patents related to lighting, then sold those patent rights to the American Ever Ready Battery Company. The patent was issued on Jan. 10, 1899. The portable light was designed in the now-familiar tube shape and used three D batteries placed in a line, with a light bulb at one end surrounded by a crude brass reflector. It was the worlds first flashlight. The name and trademark were shortened to one word Eveready. The companys ads stated that the light that does not flicker in a draft, extinguish in the wind and is controlled by finger pressure. The biblical quote let there be light, was on the cover of the 1899 Eveready catalog advertising the new flashlight. In 1910 Eveready introduced its own, more reliable, tungsten filament bulb. The Light Emitting Diode was introduced in 1962. It required far less electricity than incandescent bulbs. It took off in 1999. Modern LED lighting, including LED flashlights, use one-tenth as much electricity as incandescent lighting. LEDs are not prone to burning out and they do not get hot. Conrad Hubert continued to improve his product and made the flashlight a commercial success in the early 1900s. It helped make Hubert a multi-millionaire and Eveready a huge company. Today, the Eveready Battery Company, headquartered in St. Louis, makes Eveready and Energizer batteries. If you have ever viewed any of the videos or listened to the CD tapes of Yorkshire veterinarian James Alfred Wight, better known as James Herriot, you will hear Herriot calling for or using a torch. In England, the flashlight is called a torch. Send questions and comments to: lscheckel@charter.net. State Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) announced that Tomah High School student Lily Joyce has been selected to participate in the 2023 Senate Scholar program. She will join a handful of high school juniors and seniors from across Wisconsin to participate in a week-long, program at the state capitol. The Senate Scholar program introduces students to the many facets of government and the legislative process. They meet with legislative support agencies, lawmakers staff, the governors staff, a Supreme Court Justice, the media, lobbyists and University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members. Scholars staff a state senate floor session under the direction of the Senate Sergeant at Arms office and hold a mock hearing on a bill the students craft together. Senate Scholars gain experience in areas such as policy development, constituent relations and processing legislation by working with Senators, legislative staff and University of Wisconsin faculty. WASHINGTON (AP) A New Jersey man who joined a mob's attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to more than six years in prison for using pepper spray to assault police officers, one of whom died a day after the siege. Julian Khater didn't mention the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick or address the officer's family in a written statement he read aloud before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced him to six years and eight months of imprisonment. A medical examiner concluded that Sicknick, 42, suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he and other officers tried to hold off the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Hogan said Sicknick's death was the "elephant in the room" but stressed that the coroner's report didn't give him any basis to use that as a sentencing factor against him. But the judge noted that Khater did not apologize to the officers whom he attacked or express any sorrow for hurting them. "Somewhere along the line, we've lost the sense of acceptance of responsibility," Hogan said. Khater replied that he changed his prepared statement to the court on his lawyer's advice after he was recently named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit over his actions on Jan. 6. "I wanted to apologize to everybody," he said. The judge gave Khater credit for the nearly two years he has served in pretrial detention. Hogan also ordered him to pay a $10,000 fine. Khater's friend and co-defendant, George Tanios, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly and disruptive conduct. Hogan was also scheduled to sentence Tanios, 41, of Morgantown, West Virginia, on Friday. Read the full story: Photos: Scenes from the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot We've all been trained by decades of science fiction to think of artificial intelligence as a threat to our working futures. The idea is: If an AI robot can do a job as well as a human cheaper and with less interpersonal unruliness who needs the human? The technology news site CNET tried to answer that question, quietly, even secretly. For months, the site employed an AI engine to write articles for its CNET Money personal finance page. The articles covered such topics as "What is compound interest?" and "What happens when you bounce a check?" At first glance and to financial novices, the articles seemed cogent and informative. CNET continued the practice until early this month, when it was outed by the website Futurism. But as Futurism determined, the bot-written articles have major limitations. For one thing, many are bristling with errors. For another, many are rife with plagiarism. Futurism's Jon Christian put the error issue bluntly in an article stating that the problem with CNET's article-writing AI is that "it's kind of a moron." Christian followed up with an article finding numerous cases ranging "from verbatim copying to moderate edits to significant rephrasings, all without properly crediting the original." This level of misbehavior would get a human student expelled or a journalist fired. We've written before about the unappreciated limits of new technologies, especially those that look almost magical, such as artificial intelligence applications. To quote Rodney Brooks, the robotics and AI scientist and entrepreneur I wrote about last week, "There is a veritable cottage industry on social media with two sides; one gushes over virtuoso performances of these systems, perhaps cherry picked, and the other shows how incompetent they are at very simple things, again cherry picked. The problem is that as a user you don't know in advance what you are going to get." That brings us back to CNET's article-writing bot. CNET hasn't identified the specific AI application it was using, though the timing suggests that it isn't ChatGPT, the AI language generator that has created a major stir among technologists and concerns among teachers because of its apparent ability to produce written works that can be hard to distinguish as nonhuman. CNET didn't make the AI contribution to its articles especially evident, appending only a small-print line reading, "This article was assisted by an AI engine and reviewed, fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff." The more than 70 articles were attributed to "CNET Money Staff." Since Futurism's disclosure, the byline has been changed to simply "CNET Money." According to the Verge, CNET executives told staff members that the site would pause publication of the AI-generated material for the moment. As Futurism's Christian established, the errors in the bot's articles ranged from fundamental misdefinitions of financial terms to unwarranted oversimplifications. In the article about compound interest, the CNET bot originally wrote, "if you deposit $10,000 into a savings account that earns 3% interest compounding annually, you'll earn $10,300 at the end of the first year." That's wrong the annual earnings would be only $300. The article has since been corrected to read that "you'll earn $300 which, added to the principal amount, you would have $10,300 at the end of the first year." The bot also initially described interest payments on a $25,000 auto loan at 4% interest as "a flat $1,000 ... per year." But interest is charged only on outstanding balances, which shrink as payments are made. Even on a one-year auto loan at 4%, interest will come to only $937. For longer-term loans, the total interest paid falls every year. CNET corrected that too, along with five other errors in the same article. Put it all together, and the website's assertion that its AI bot was being "fact-checked and edited by our editorial staff" begins to look a little thin. The bot's plagiarism is more striking. Christian found that the bot appeared to have replicated text from sources including Forbes, the Balance and Investopedia, which all occupy the same field of personal financial advice as CNET Money. In those cases, the bot utilized similar concealment techniques as human plagiarists, such as minor rephrasings and word swaps. In at least one case, the bot plagiarized from Bankrate, a sister publication of CNET. None of this is especially surprising because one key to language bots' function is their access to a huge volume of human-generated prose and verse. They may be good at finding patterns in the source material that they can replicate, but at this stage of AI development they're still picking human brains. The impressive coherence and cogency of the output of these programs, up to and including ChatGPT, appears to have more to do with their ability to select from human-generated raw material than any ability to develop new concepts and express them. Indeed, "a close examination of the work produced by CNET's AI makes it seem less like a sophisticated text generator and more like an automated plagiarism machine, casually pumping out pilfered work," Christian wrote. Where we stand on the continuum between robot-generated incoherence and genuinely creative expression is hard to determine. Jeff Schatten, a professor at Washington and Lee University, wrote in an article in September that the most sophisticated language bot at the time, known as GPT-3, had obvious limitations. "It stumbles over complex writing tasks," he wrote. "It cannot craft a novel or even a decent short story. Its attempts at scholarly writing ... are laughable. But how long before the capability is there? Six months ago, GPT-3 struggled with rudimentary queries, and today it can write a reasonable blog post discussing 'ways an employee can get a promotion from a reluctant boss.'" It's likely that those needing to judge written work, such as teachers, may find it ever-harder to distinguish AI-produced material from human outputs. One professor recently reported catching a student submitting a bot-written paper the old-fashioned way it was too good. Over time, confusion about whether something is bot- or human-produced may depend not on the capabilities of the bot, but those of the humans in charge. When Zelenskyy Explained to Ukraine a Peace Plan with Russia Jan. 26, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)In an article for Antiwar today, What Can the United States Bring to the Peace Table for Ukraine? CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin and collaborator Nicolas Davies very usefully remind of a time when the world was only half-crazy. In March 2022, negotiations including a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, carried out in Istanbul, resulted in a 15-point neutrality agreement, which President Zelenskyy publicly presented and explained to his people in a national TV broadcast on March 27th. Russia agreed to withdraw from the territories it had occupied since the invasion in February in exchange for a Ukrainian commitment not to join NATO or host foreign military bases. That framework also included proposals for resolving the future of Crimea and Donbas, wrote Benjamin and Davies. They included a link to the Guardians March 28, 2022 coverage of Zelenskyys presentation. The Guardian stated that Zelenskyy was willing to discuss neutral status at face-to-face talks with Russia in Turkiye. Then it quotes Zelenskyy as saying in his broadcast: Our goal is obviouspeace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible. Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt. Effective security guarantees for our state are mandatory. And Zelenskyy granted a video interview with independent Russian media outlets to signal his willingness to discuss the idea of Ukraine adopting a neutral status, and also make compromises about the status of the eastern Donbas region, in order to secure a peace agreement with Russia. Worth noting, though not mentioned in the Benjamin-Davies article, within hours of Zelenskyys presentations, the Bucha narrative was set into play. Then, within two weeks, Britains then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Kiev making clear that the West would not provide such security guarantees as Zelenskyy had called for. Rather, the West expected Ukraine to reject any agreement with Russia and to fight to the last Ukrainian. The article does list some steps the U.S. could consider putting on the table to start de-escalating these ever-rising tensions. It begins with the West supporting Ukrainian neutrality by agreeing to participate in the kind of security guarantees Ukraine and Russia agreed to in March, but which the U.S. and U.K. rejected. EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY JANUARY 27, 2023 Confront an Evil March Toward World War III with Relentless Optimism Jan. 26, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)Yesterdays Tanks to Ukraine parade, a silly and dangerous piece of theater, meant primarily to busy Europe into a perpetual state of conflict, provoked more than a few forces around the world today to dig deeper into their own principles. In Gottfried Leibnizs best of all possible worlds, evil is certainly possible, but the better angel of mankinds nature always has the capacity to rise to the occasion, forging a greater good than otherwise would have been possible. Today provided more than a few examples. The President of Switzerland Alain Berset not only ruled out any involvement in sending weapons to Ukraine, but explained on television that Switzerland had a unique quality of neutrality. Their role, as reflected in the Geneva Conventions, is so much more important than joining a parade of weapon providers. Today, it is not time to change the rules against exporting weapons. Neither is it time to change the rules of neutrality. On the contrary, it is time to recall our basic principles, to stay committed to them and find a right path for the country in this situation. Switzerland has a different role from other states. It was their duty to uphold a decent part of Western civilization. At a time when Japan is getting enmired in offensive warfare capabilities, and Germany has broken its never again commitment, never to send weaponry into an openly hostile areawhen decades-long sacred commitments born out of a burning desire to not repeat the tragedies of the past, Switzerlands re-assertion of an actual principle should not go unnoticed. In Germanys Bundestag, Chancellor Olaf Scholz was openly confronted by AfD parliamentarian Petr Bystron for abandoning Germanys never again tenet, declaring that Scholz stood in stark contrast to the legacy of SPD predecessors such as Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, who had done a lot for peace and reconciliation. (Scholz admitted he had abandoned those SPD principles, but Russia made him do it.) Another parliamentarian, Sevim Dagdelen of the Linke party, blamed the U.S., but more importantly, Germanys neo-cons, the Greens and the Free Democrats (the liberals), for muscling Germany down this ominous path. She then usefully recalled When you see the books of Brzezinski and many think tankers in the United States, it was always an aim by the United States elites to destroy the relationship between Germany and Russia, which could only thrown current developments backward into the geopolitics of the 1930s. Germany should benefit from more such deliberations. A chorus of voices sang out in Russia, honing in on a completely overlooked reaction awaiting the West, when the image of German tanks rolling across Ukraine is rebroadcast. Russias Interior Minister said it called up the historical memory among Russians of the crimes of Hitlers forces and their henchmenthe Banderitesin Ukraine. Nikolay Mezhevich, of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences offered: Our opponents do not really understand that the emergence of German tanks in the post-Soviet space will mean a turning point in the Russian public mind. The Germans will be forced to feel the consequences of their decision. And Andrey Kortunov, general director of the Russian International Affairs Council explained that it also had consequences for Germans, as the West does not let Germans hear their inner voice. There is a heavy load of political symbolism for the people of Germany, who will again see German tanks in Donbass ... this brings to mind various unpleasant associations for the Germans as well. In the United States, Congressman Paul Gosar, in his statement, Bidens Reckless Decision To Escalate War and Send Tanks to Ukraine, called out Bidens dangerous and reckless escalation matched by a historic escalation by Germany, which has now violated its post-World War II policy of non-intervention.... This war needs to be resolved and America should be a peace maker, not a war monger. Former President Donald Trump was succinct, on target, and free of any sloppy populism: FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES. Get this crazy war ended NOW. So easy to do! CODEPINKs Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies article, What Can the United States Bring to the Peace Table for Ukraine? reminded readers of a time when even President Zelenskyy stopped playing a comic book hero, and on March 27, 2022, addressed his country about Ukraine agreeing to a neutrality status, and settling with Russia. She suggested that the U.S. now can simply bring something to the peace table by endorsing Ukrainian neutrality and agree to participate in the kind of security guarantees Ukraine and Russia agreed to in March [2022], but which the U.S. and U.K. rejected. Finally, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) presented Leopards vs. the Russian Bear, as an Alert Memorandum to President Biden, which eviscerates the reckless incompetence behind what Biden is receiving as intelligence, and bluntly tells him that he has lost his war in Ukraine, and in the process has driven Russia and China so close together, that the U.S. now faces two conjoined nuclear powers in any showdown. Further, Putin has heard from the lips of U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: One of the U.S.s goals in Ukraine is to see a weakened Russia. The U.S. is ready to move heaven and earth to help Ukraine win the war against Russia. And Putin and Russia view that as an existential threat. Can the U.S. achieve Austins goal? Not without using nuclear weapons. The VIPS conclude that an off-ramp is needed for the sake of the U.S. and of Ukraine. Take up Putins hint from October 2022 that Moscow might agree to halt before taking Odessa, in return for concessions from U.S./NATO/Ukraine.... It is true that the final word belongs to those who implement this policy in Washington. It is very easy for them to solve this problem: to send the appropriate signal to Kiev that they should change their position and seek a peaceful solution to these problems. And that will do it.... In return for flexibility on the part of Washington/Kiev, we suggest the Russians might consider stopping their advance at the Dniepr River and try to arrange talks to create some kind of demilitarized zone from Odessa northward roughly along the Dniepr. This would leave Ukraine with access to the sea. No one wishes more evil in the world. But when it appears, we must rise to the occasion. And do recall, that on January 27, we celebrate the freedom in 1994 of that embattled political prisoner Lyndon H. LaRouche, and the birthday in 1756 of that genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, both forces of relentless optimism. On March 12, actors, directors, producers and other filmmakers will gather in Hollywood, California, the center of the American film industry. Some will receive Academy Awards for the best acting, directing, writing, music and other work on movies released last year. The winners will receive an award called an Oscar, a small metal statue of a man, covered in gold. The Oscar is only about thirty-four centimeters tall and weighs less than four kilograms. But the award is extremely valuable. Oscar winners can earn greater fame. They can get offers to work on the best movies. They can also earn much more money. On Tuesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored more than 300 films with Oscar nominations. Among them are five movies competing for best foreign film. European countries produced all the nominees except one: the movie Argentina, 1985. As you might have guessed, it comes from Argentina. The South American country is not new to Academy Award history. Argentinian movies have won the best foreign film Oscar two times already. The most recent award came in 2009 for the film The Secret In Their Eyes. Argentina, 1985 is a historical drama. It tells a story about the effort to punish the countrys military dictatorship after its rule ended. Earlier this month, it won the Hollywood Foreign Press Associations Golden Globe for best foreign language film. That awards event is considered a signal of what is to come at the Oscars. Another 2023 nominee is the first Irish-language film to be considered for an Oscar. Irelands The Quiet Girl is based on the book Foster, by Irish writer Clair Keegan. The film tells about a young girl from a large, poor family living in difficult conditions. She is sent to the home of distant relatives. There, she finds warmth and love but also learns of a secret. The Quiet Girl has earned loud praise in Ireland and other places. Shortly after its release, it became the highest-grossing Irish-language film in history. The other three Oscar nominees for foreign film come from mainland Europe. Belgium was recognized for Close. Like Irelands nominee, the movie centers on children and their relationships. Close explores a close but threatened friendship between two boys. Polands EO was also nominated in the best international film category. EO explores the imagined life and times of a donkey raised in a circus. Its interactions with and experiences of the human world point to deep questions about animal connections. EO won the Jury Prize, a major award, at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in France. The final nominee for the best foreign film Oscar is Germany for its offering All Quiet on the Western Front. The film is based on the 1929 book of the same name. It tells a story of a soldier during World War One and explores the horror of such conflict. Two earlier movie versions, both American, came out in 1930 and 1979. The 1930 production of All Quiet on the Western Front won the most important Academy Award of all -- Best Picture -- at the 1931 ceremony. Check back here for more stories about other 2023 Oscar nominees in the weeks ahead. Im Caty Weaver. Caty Weaver wrote this story for VOA Learning English. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story drama -n. a play, movie, or television production with a serious tone or subject highest-grossing -adj. highest-earning before deductions such as taxes category -n. an individual group, or kind, of something circus -n. a show that usually travels from place to place and that has a variety of exhibitions including acrobatic feats, wild animal displays, and performances by clowns ________________________________________________________________ We want to hear from you! Which movie do you think will win the Oscar for best international film? We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: Write your comment in the box. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is the blue circle with D on it. It is free. Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here. Nine American military officers who worked many years ago at a nuclear missile base have been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer. The Associated Press says military briefing documents suggest the cancer might be linked to the officers service. The cancer is non-Hodgkin lymphoma. One of the officers has died from the disease. The documents were from a meeting led by a top member of the U.S. Space Force, Lieutenant Col. Daniel Sebeck. At the time, he suggested a possible connection between the cancer and the time at the missile base. Sebeck refused the APs request for comment about the briefing. He said the information was predecisional. The soldiers were members of the United States Air Force. All worked at the Malmstrom Air Force base in the western state of Montana. Some worked as long ago as the 1990s. At the time, Malmstrom had 150 nuclear missile launch structures called silos. The soldiers who worked there are known as missileers. They work at the base several days straight. They are there to carry out presidential orders concerning the missiles. At the meeting, Sebeck called the number of military members with cancer concerning. He also said 455 former missileers are now in the Space Force, including four of those who have cancer. A spokesperson for the U.S. Air Force told the Associated Press that medical leaders in the military are working to understand more. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma strikes about 19 out of 100,000 people in the U.S. each year. That means that nine cancer cases out of only hundreds of former missileers is concerning. In addition, most people diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma are in their 60s. In the case of the military officers, most worked at the base in their 20s and were diagnosed in their 30s and 40s. It is not the first time health concerns have come up for soldiers who worked at Malmstrom. In 2001, an Air Force health group investigated the base after 14 cases of cancer were reported among missileers who worked there. The report that followed said the base was safe and that sometimes illnesses tend to occur by chance alone. The news of the new cancer concern comes at the same time the U.S. military is talking more openly about the hazards soldiers face while serving. For example, President Joe Biden signed a law last August that offered more health services to former soldiers who may have been in contact with dangerous substances in smoke. It is possible 3.5 million people could have health problems from such smoke. Part of the new law said soldiers with health problems would be offered healthcare without having to prove their sickness came from the time they served in the military. When asked about the cancer cases among the soldiers who worked at the missile centers, the Air Force spokesperson said we are heartbroken for all who have lost loved ones or are currently facing cancer of any kind. At the same time, however, Sebecks report noted that missileers should be screened and tracked for the rest of their lives. Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story diagnose v. to give a medical opinion about a sickness or health problem launch v. to put something into action or into the air, such as a rocket or missile illness n. a sickness or health problem tend v. used to describe something that often happens occur v. to happen hazard n. something dangerous screen v. to check for the presence of something _______________________________________________________________ We want to hear from you. Do you think the government will offer help to the sick soldiers? We have a new comment system. Here is how it works: Write your comment in the box. Under the box, you can see four images for social media accounts. They are for Disqus, Facebook, Twitter and Google. Click on one image and a box appears. Enter the login for your social media account. Or you may create one on the Disqus system. It is the blue circle with D on it. It is free. Each time you return to comment on the Learning English site, you can use your account and see your comments and replies to them. Our comment policy is here. Irrespective of the place you grew up in the UK, its seemingly you werent too distant from a main college and also you in all probability even attended your native one. Even Foula, which is among the islands that make up the Shetlands, has an area college, despite the fact that it solely has a inhabitants of simply 30 individuals. Everybody at Tropic believes entry to training is a basic human proper, however not everybody in every single place can entry it. Tropic has been working with United World Schools (UWS) for over three years, funding training in areas the place theres a want for it in Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, and Madagascar. In Nepal, many kids residing in rural and distant areas wouldnt have entry to training, which may restrict their alternatives in life. With out an training, these kids could wrestle to search out good jobs, enhance their residing situations, or absolutely take part of their communities. Nepals literacy fee is among the many lowest on the earth, with many rural villages remaining unreached by authorities training, however a Nepalese little one in training is 74% much less prone to be concerned in little one labour. In Nepal, UWS has labored to determine main colleges in areas the place entry to training is proscribed or non-existent. These colleges present free, high quality training to kids who could in any other case not have the chance. Permitting women to take management of their future can be what Tropic helps to do as a result of 25% of all women with out an training marry earlier than the age of 15. Whereas Tropic offers help to present colleges, it additionally funded the development of its personal college in Madamsingh and the Tropic HQ workforce visited it to see its influence on the neighborhood. We spoke to Nation Director Surya Karki to grasp why the necessity for training is so necessary and the way Tropics help could have a useful distinction for generations to come back. Watch the video beneath to listen to from Surya first-hand. Wisconsin author Paula Dail has for years written nonfiction and academic books and articles about women in poverty. However, she recently decided to take on a new challenge and wrote Fearless, a novel about an Irish Catholic nun who takes on the Catholic Church over womens reproductive rights. The book, published last June, recounts the story of Sister Maggie Corrigan, a poor Irish girl from the south side of Chicago whose mother dies during childbirth, leaving Maggie to raise her younger siblings. That experience defines her life choices and ultimately (after becoming a nun) she takes on the patriarchal Catholic Church over womens reproductive rights, Dail said. The story illuminates Maggies personal struggles and her fierce and unwavering commitment to what she believes is a just cause. She ends up a very controversial figure. Some people call her a heretic and others call her a saint. Q: Please start by giving a little background on yourself. I know you earned a degree from UW-Madison. Are you originally from Wisconsin? A: I was born and grew up in California, and eventually earned two graduate degrees, including a Ph.D., from UW-Madison. I spent several years in a Catholic boarding school and began the long process of separating from the church in my early 20s when I realized the church was a patriarchy intent on controlling womens lives. My academic research career has focused on poverty issues, particularly (involving) women. Leaving academia, I took a hobby job writing editorials and a column for a small local newspaper, then accepted a contract with McFarland Publishers to write a book about women in poverty. It turned out that I wrote three additional books for them, and two won the Council for Wisconsin Writers Nonfiction Book of the Year awards. The last nonfiction book I worked on was as a lead editor and contributor for a book called We Rise to Resist: Voices from a New Era in Womens Political Action. Q: What inspired the story and character of Maggie? A: The story is inspired by the lives and efforts of many nuns I worked with as a career poverty researcher, several of whom who supported womens reproductive autonomy. They believed the church got it 100 percent wrong on this issue and werent afraid to say so. Q: What inspired you to write it from the perspective of a nun? A: For better or worse, religion plays a major role in setting the moral tone for a society, and the Catholic Church has always been at the forefront of this effort. Nuns are the public face of the Catholic Church, and that was a useful voice for discussing womens rights and pointing out that women dont have to accept this and can push back against. The other reason is the Catholic Church is a major player in the social welfare system around the world. That work is carried out by nuns who get their hands dirty in the messy trenches of real life and know how to fight for important social concerns like reproductive rights. They understand the negative impact the church has on womens reproductive lives and want to work toward changing that. By making the protagonist a nun, I hope this story will inspire the next generation of both Catholic and non-Catholic reproductive rights activists, because this fight is far from over. Q: Why did you pick Chicago for the setting? A: I have always found Chicago an endlessly fascinating city, both culturally and politically. Historically, the Chicago Catholic Church has had a huge presence and exerted a lot of power. Probably the only other city that would come close is Boston, and it is not as familiar to me. Q: Fearless was released in June 2022, the same week the decision to reverse Roe v. Wade was announced. Were you surprised by the decision? A: I honestly didnt think the decision was going to be entirely overturned. My husband, whos a trial attorney, and I had many long discussions about this. He said the original decision was based on flimsy legal arguments that could be easily overturned, but I really thought he was coming at it from the male perspective and the Supreme Court would not take away rights previously granted. Unfortunately, I was dead wrong, and that is exactly what happened. From the books perspective, the timing of the decision was great, but I never planned it that way when I began writing the story. Q: Until Fearless you had written mostly nonfiction. What has it been like writing and having published a work of fiction? A: Its been very different. (I worked with) a different publisher, and it was a much more interactive process, which has been great. I carefully chose who to publish this book with and wanted an all-women publishing team. The Warren publishing team was deeply committed to the subject, and we had fun working together to bring the book alive. I was concerned that a male editor might struggle with the books smash the patriarchy subtheme and would likely have a different conscientiousness around womens reproductive rights that I would not have resonated with. This would not have been a productive working relationship. Q: Womens reproductive rights is something you care about deeply and is at the center of Fearless. Why did you decide to address this issue in the form of a fictional story? A: Its an issue thats troubled me since I was a very young woman, when I realized that without control over her reproductive life, a woman has no control over her life at all. I also knew the Catholic Church was a major player in this issue, and while there were things about the Catholic Church I really liked, ultimately this was a deal-breaker. By forbidding birth control and also being against abortion, they are trying to have it both ways, thereby turning women into baby machines. The result is forcing women to seek abortions for pregnancies that easily could have been prevented. Q: Do you plan to write another novel? A: I have two in the pipeline. Conflicted is about the struggles confronting a Catholic priest both within his church and when he encounters a charming, fiercely independent Jewish woman who is a much more avowed feminist than he is an avowed celibate. In Now, Honey the protagonist is a northern Yankee liberal research professor working on a project in dirt-poor, rural Appalachia. Like Fearless, both have strong social messages. Q: Youve talked about how critical it is for authors to do their homework and report accurately about the issues they discuss, even in fictional writing. How did you do this in Fearless and what type of research did you do for your book? A: I researched the fictional information in the same way I research nonfiction, with one major caveat: I wrote it during the height of the COVID pandemic and that limited my research to background reading, telephone conversations and carefully vetted internet sources. I let the story point out what I didnt already know from personal observations or experience and followed up on that. A writer can really destroy the story if the facts they present arent accurate. For example, the statistics on who received abortions in this country quoted in the book come from Guttmacher Institute, a valid source of this information. I also leaned on my social science researcher background, which helped me know when I had to be factual and when I could be more creative. Q: Why make Fearless fiction? A: I decided to write it as fiction for a couple of reasons. There is already a large body of nonfiction on the topic of womens reproductive rights. I wanted to push the central arguments to the next level and decided well-written fiction was the most effective way to do that. The other reason (was) I was already published in the social sciences and wanted the challenge of writing a good fiction book on a topic that would reach a wider audience than nonfiction typically does. Writing fiction was considerably more difficult, but it was a lot more fun. Q: What was fun? A: Its a much more imaginative process and as a writer you have a lot more freedom. You can create interesting characters and use sarcasm, drama, humor, pathos, or anything else you want to use to make a point. Two Wisconsin pizza restaurants made it into Yelps 100 top pizza spots in the United States and Canada: Santinos Little Italy in Milwaukee, and Novanta in Madison. Santinos came in at No. 46, Novanta at No. 83. Novantas owner, Nick Mattioli, became an expert on traditional Neapolitan-style pizza as head chef for four years at Porta Alba at Hilldale, which closed in 2019 after 10 years. Mattioli opened his original Novanta on Old Sauk Road, near Junction Road, in 2013, at age 23. He opened a second Novanta on University Avenue, a mile from the former Cafe Porta Alba, in late 2019. The name Novanta, 90 in Italian, refers to the number of seconds it takes a Neapolitan pizza to bake in 900- to 1,000-degree heat. Yelp, in which customers rate restaurants online, called the ranking an all-time list of the top pizza spots in the U.S. and Canada according to its reviewers. We identified businesses in the pizza category, then ranked those spots using a number of factors including the total volume and ratings of reviews, it said. Mattioli said Yelp has reached out to him before, noting that the restaurant is highly rated in the pizza category, but hes surprised to see Novanta ranked in the top 100 nationwide. Being a small business certainly helps give you the ability to just pay attention to detail in customer service and in food quality and many other aspects of business, he said. I think that certainly gives us an advantage in the ability to just satisfy clientele. Mattioli said hes honored when customers have enjoyed their experience enough to take the time to give the restaurant a review. I would just imagine if we were any bigger of a company that we wouldnt probably be able to sustain such good ratings over time. The original restaurant will celebrate its 10th anniversary this summer and by now has firm roots in the community, Mattioli said. We know tons of people, and they know us, and were loving that. The University Avenue restaurant opened about three months before the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, so it took a little longer to establish itself, he said. Mattioli said the restaurant has developed a good relationship with nearby University Hospital and helped it solve some of its food demands early in the pandemic. He said he first learned about the Yelp ranking on Wednesday night and the restaurants experienced a bit of a lunch rush Thursday. Regulars and new customers were talking about the ranking. It was just really, really nice in every way, Mattioli said. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. So far, knock on wood, things have been really smooth and just delightful. Santinos Little Italy, in Milwaukees Bay View neighborhood, also serves traditional Neapolitan pizzas, plus antipasti, pasta and salads, in a rustic setting. Take a look at 'Immersive Van Gogh' The U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs, alleging the state agency sought to pay a female applicant less than similarly or less-qualified male applicants. According to the complaint, Michelle Hartness was selected for a director position, but the Department of Military Affairs offered her a salary below the salary range stated in the job announcement. When Hartness pointed this out and asked for a salary commensurate with the range from the posting and her skills and experience, the department offered her the lowest salary in the range. Hartness then asked for a salary consistent with her qualifications and on par with the man holding the other director position in the division, the Justice Department said. The Department of Military Affairs rejected her request and instead conducted another selection process and offered the director position to only men, at salaries significantly higher than the salary it offered Hartness. The Department of Military Affairs ultimately hired a less-qualified man at a higher salary than it offered Hartness, the Justice Department said. The complaint alleges the Department of Military Affairs discriminated on the basis of sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits compensation discrimination and other forms of employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion. In a statement, DMA's deputy director of public affairs AmyLyn Reynolds said the department "takes the conduct alleged in this complaint very seriously, but due to ongoing litigation, we are unable to comment further at this time." Editor's note: This story was updated with a comment from DMA on Jan. 27 at about 9:30 a.m. A man currently in prison in Illinois was charged Thursday with attempted first-degree intentional homicide for a shooting in September during a marijuana deal on Madisons South Side that left another man critically injured. A criminal complaint charged Alonte Raggs, 24, of Maywood, Illinois, with attempted homicide for the shooting, which happened in the parking lot of an apartment building in the 1100 block of Moorland Road shortly before 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 4. The shooting left the victim hospitalized for about two months, initially unable to speak with Madison police investigators because of respiratory equipment in place to help the 27-year-old man breathe, according to the complaint. The man initially said he did not know who had shot him, but confronted with evidence gleaned from cellphones and surveillance cameras, he admitted he had met the man later identified as Raggs to sell him a large quantity of marijuana. Police had also found items such as a digital scale and vacuum sealer in the mans car. According to Illinois prison records, Raggs was taken into custody on Dec. 13. The complaint states police in Maywood, asked about Raggs by Madison police, said they have had frequent contact with him. Corrections records state he is serving a six-year sentence for burglary and has served prior sentences for failure to report an accident involving a death and aggravated fleeing, both in Cook County. According to the complaint: Police found text conversations from the day before the shooting and the morning of the shooting between the victim and a phone number that was later identified as belonging to Raggs. The topic was marijuana that the victim had for sale. In an interview in late October with police, the man said the person who shot him was associated with someone who had been a temporary worker at the same place the man worked. He said he had had a conflict earlier with the former co-worker, but thought it had been worked out. The victim said he had sold some marijuana the day before the shooting, and then that person asked to meet him to get a larger quantity, which the victim said should have been suspicious to him. But he said he needed the money from selling marijuana that bad, to supplement income from his job. They arranged to meet at Seven Oaks Apartments, 1190 Moorland Road, which was unfamiliar to the victim. The purported customer got into the mans car, and after the man gave him the marijuana, he told police, the customer jumped out, pulled a gun out and shot the victim. The man said he drove out of the parking lot after being shot in order to get help. Emergency personnel found the victim in his car, with other people surrounding it, in the 1200 block of Moorland Road. The complaint indicates he was shot in the chest and that there was no exit wound. An armed robbery suspect intended to kill two Madison police officers who were among a group trying to arrest him last year, a jury ruled Thursday. The jury of seven women and five men, after re-watching video evidence several times throughout the afternoon Thursday, found Syngleton Smith-Harston guilty of two counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, along with two counts of being party to armed robbery, possession of a firearm by a felon and identity theft. Smith-Harston was shot and wounded by other officers who fired back. Guilty findings were also entered by Circuit Judge David Conway on six counts of bail jumping after the verdicts had established that Smith-Harston, 24, of Madison, had committed crimes while he was free on bond for other alleged crimes at the time the robberies and shootings took place. Smith-Harston still has six other open criminal cases, two of them involving felony charges. It will be decided later what is to be done with them. He potentially faces decades in prison when he is sentenced by Conway on May 11. The four-day trial drew a gallery of Madison police officers and their families and supporters who appeared relieved and pleased with the verdicts afterward. According to court documents and trial testimony, Smith-Harston was one of two men sought for the Jan. 9, 2022, armed robbery of a cab driver, who had driven them to Madisons North Side, and a robbery the following night at Capitol Petro at Northport Drive and North Sherman Avenue. Police were able to track the robbers in each case to an apartment at 1810 Northport Drive, where Smith-Harston and Cameron X. Smith, 23, had been staying. On Jan. 11, 2022, Smith and the 6-year-old son of his girlfriend left the apartment, and Smith was arrested. Smith-Harston refused to come out, and claimed in testimony on Wednesday that he did not know police were out there because he had turned up the volume on the television so loud he could not hear anyone. Smith-Harston eventually jumped from the second-story balcony to escape, then repeatedly fired toward Officers Tieranie de la Rosa and Sarah Boespflug. Assistant District Attorney Dan Hess told the jury in his closing argument Thursday that Smith-Harston pulled the trigger until the gun was empty, and each of those pulls was an attempt to kill. But Smith-Harstons attorney, Charles Ver Hove, said theres no evidence in the form of ejected shell casings that Smith-Harston fired more than three times. Ver Hove urged the jury to find Smith-Harston guilty of a lesser crime for the shootings, first-degree reckless endangerment. He never argued for acquittal on any of the charges. Both Smith and Smith-Harston testified during the trial, offering what Hess characterized as ridiculous testimony intended to help Smith-Harston avoid convictions. Theyre really two peas in a pod, Hess told the jury. Their statements are equally ridiculous. After Smiths testimony on Tuesday, Conway said he had witnessed a very clear instance of perjury, in light of statements Smith had made to a state Department of Corrections agent preparing for Smiths sentencing two weeks ago on two armed robbery convictions. Conway had sentenced Smith to 6 years in prison. In the statement, Smith told the agent Smith-Harston was there during the robberies. But he claimed on the witness stand he had been misinterpreted by the agent. In his testimony, Smith claimed he was drunk the entire time he committed the cab driver and gas station robberies and does not recall anyone being with him when they occurred. Smith-Harston testified Wednesday that he didnt know Smith was planning either robbery, telling the jury, It was never a planned situation. He also said that when he jumped from the balcony he just wanted to get away from police and avoid arrest so he could see his grandmother in Chicago the next day. He said he didnt realize he had the gun until he jumped over a fence and that he doesnt remember firing it. I never had any intention to physically harm them, he said of the officers, and apologized to them in court. Hess said, however, that Smith-Harston made the conscious decision to point the gun at people and shoot until he had no more rounds. This was intentional. Each of Smith-Harstons attempted homicide convictions carries up to 60 years of combined prison and extended supervision, while the armed robbery convictions each carry up to 40 years. The firearm conviction carries up to 10 years and the identity theft carries up to six years. Each bail jumping conviction also carries up to six years. State Journal reporter Chris Rickert contributed to this report. See the Wisconsin State Journal photo staff's favorites of 2022 Two Y-20 large transport aircraft of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force fly in formation. Photo: Courtesy of Aviation Industry Corporation of China By Liu Xuanzun China's Y-20 large transport aircraft is expected to generate more variants and get more powerful engines after a series of successful development and mission deployments since its maiden flight one decade ago, experts said on Friday. The domestically developed military cargo plane celebrated the 10th anniversary of its maiden flight on Thursday. The development of a large plane like the Y-20 required China's complete independence in terms of aviation technologies as well as breakthroughs in fields including new materials, modern manufacturing, advanced engines, electronics information and automatic control and computer technologies, state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), the maker of the Y-20, said in a press release it sent to the Global Times on Thursday. Over the past 10 years, the Y-20 was tasked with missions including participation in military exercises, military parades, air shows, the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and transporting international humanitarian aid, as the aircraft flew not only across China and in Asia, but also around the world, including to other continents like Europe, Africa and Oceania. This demonstrates that the Y-20 has become a reliable aircraft and has been mass-produced, observers said. Based on the success of the Y-20 project, China can now not only deliver the large transport aircraft in significant numbers, but also improve designs and upgrade technologies based on needs to develop the plane into a series of aircraft, AVIC said. The Y-20 large transport aircraft has been developed into the YU-20 aerial tanker, and the Y-20 will have more variants, China Central Television reported on Thursday. In the future, the Y-20 could be developed into a strategic early warning aircraft, a command and control aircraft, a long-range electronic warfare aircraft, or even a drone carrier, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese military aviation expert, told the Global Times on Friday. The Y-20 could also be increased in length, and this will give it a larger cargo space, Fu said. Thanks to the development of the new and more powerful engine which the Y-20 is expected to be equipped soon, the aircraft will receive a boost in terms of payload capacity and range, the expert said. Fave 5: Reporter Kimberly Wethal shares her favorite stories of 2022 In the weeks before I joined the Wisconsin State Journal in September, I was told this: Remember that a higher education institution is like their own city. It has its own character and struggles, defined by the students who learn there and the faculty who teach them. I have seen this over and over again, and it was particularly clear when I visited UW-Platteville at Richland a week after the University of Wisconsin System ordered degree-fulfilling classes to cease because of low enrollment. During my visit, I found many of the devastated students to be emotionally invested in their campus community and committed to saving it. It's why Richland Center grieving the loss of its once-vibrant campus is my top story of 2022. UW-Madison has its own slate of issues. There, a growing population is pitted against on- and off-campus housing availability. I wrote about the tactics used to clear returning students out of the dorms to make room for freshmen, and the frenzy that ensued as students put their lives on hold to secure housing for next fall. At Madison Area Technical College, a key issue is how to alleviate barriers their students face just to get into the classroom. Finding adequate child care is one of them I wrote about the efforts to expand future access at the Goodman South Campus and its four rural campuses. Much of my beat is hard news, but some of my favorite stories are features of students who make up the character of campus. I wrote about Kirstan Gimse, the student commencement speaker who's achieving her dream of being a scientist that she saw as unattainable. I'm looking forward to diving deeper into the beat in 2023 and am so grateful for the support of State Journal subscribers that allows me to be one of the few reporters in the state dedicated solely to covering higher education. If you go What: The public is invited to hear and interact with the design teams as they discuss their visions for the John Nolen Drive lakefront. When: Tonight; food and music at 5:30 p.m., presentations at 6 p.m. Where: Madison Central Library, 201 W. Mifflin St., Rooms 301-302, also live streamed at Madison City Channel-Presentations (cityofmadison.com) When Phoebe Anderla was 23 weeks pregnant with twins, one baby started sending blood and nutrients to the other, a rare condition that threatened to kill both before they were born. Until March, when UW Health started doing surgery on fetuses, Anderla from Menominee, Michigan, just north of Marinette, Wisconsin would have had to go to Chicago or elsewhere outside of Wisconsin to address the emergency. But in Madison in August, UW Healths Dr. Inna Lobeck made a small incision on Anderlas belly and snaked a thin scope into her uterus, where the surgeon used a laser to close the dangerous connections between the still-developing babies. The twins, born Nov. 1 in Green Bay, are thriving at home, where Anderla and her husband, Chad, now have four sons. Theyre sleeping and eating and growing, said Phoebe Anderla, whose older boys are ages 7 and 2. Its like nothing ever happened (with the twins), Chad Anderla said. UW Health became one of about two dozen U.S. centers doing a range of fetal surgeries after Lobeck, who was trained in the specialty, arrived in September 2021. Six months later, UW Health opened its Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment Center in collaboration with UnityPoint Health-Meriter. Childrens Wisconsin hospital near Milwaukee did fetal surgeries until a few years ago and still does various interventions before and during birth. It hopes to start fetal surgeries again soon, said Dr. Jessica Smith, medical director of the hospital's Fetal Concerns Center. The most common condition for which fetal surgery is performed is twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, or TTTS, in which blood flow between identical twins that share a placenta becomes unbalanced. The Anderlas had a variation of the condition, known as twin anemia polycythemia sequence, or TAPS, in which one twin has too few red blood cells and the other has too many, which can cause both hearts to work too hard. Surgery is reserved for the most serious cases since it poses risks to the pregnant woman and increases the possibility of premature delivery, which can be fatal for fetuses before viability, Lobeck said. The procedures are typically done only between about 15 to 26 weeks gestation, as the risks of operating later generally outweigh the risks of early delivery, she said. Were extremely selective with offering fetal surgery, said Lobeck, noting that the UW-Meriter team has evaluated more than 30 patients since the center opened and performed surgery on 10. No time to lose: Finding rare diseases in infants Wisconsin doesn't screen newborns for some disorders other states include, which can delay treatment that could prevent death or disability. Fetal surgery is increasingly done to repair spina bifida, a birth defect in which the spinal column doesnt fully close, which can cause an inability to walk, urinary and bowel problems and other complications. The surgery, which involves a larger incision to expose the back of the fetus, increases the likelihood of the baby walking and reduces the risk of fluid on the brain, Lobeck said. Another type of surgery is called ex-utero intrapartum treatment, or EXIT. The head and neck of the baby are delivered through an incision in the uterus so a blocked airway can be cleared such as by removing a large mass from the neck before the rest of the baby is delivered and the umbilical cord is cut. In addition to such surgeries, the UW-Meriter center manages other heart, urinary, spinal cord, lung and gastrointestinal defects, some of which are operated on after birth. They include gastroschisis, in which the intestines develop outside of the body. The Anderlas knew TTTS was a possibility as Dr. Edward Hayes, their obstetrician-gynecologist in Green Bay, monitored their pregnancy. When Hayes saw something amiss on an ultrasound in August, he sent them to Madison, where Phoebe Anderla underwent surgery the next day at Meriter. One twin, Shea, was anemic from giving blood and nutrients to the other twin, Carter, who was receiving a hazardous excess of red blood cells. Twins who share a placenta typically share some blood vessels, but the Anderla boys had imbalanced vessels in a no-mans land that usually serves as a break between babies. They had stage 3 TAPS. Both of their hearts were working very hard, Lobeck said. Theyre both at risk of death at that point. With assistance from Dr. Michael Beninati, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UW Health, Lobeck positioned her scope in the no-mans land and closed the blood vessels with the laser. The Anderlas went home two days later. Except for a follow-up visit in Madison a week later, they received the rest of their care in Green Bay. At Aurora BayCare Medical Center, the twins were delivered at just under 35 weeks a few weeks early, on purpose each weighing about 4 pounds. Carter was on oxygen for a few days and both twins stayed in neonatal intensive care for three weeks. Since they went home just before Thanksgiving, theyve been healthy, giving Phoebe and Chad the challenges and joys of parenthood. Mom and dad are not getting as much sleep as we would like, Phoebe Anderla said. But theyre great. Were really happy to be a family of six. Online racial discrimination or harassment has a negative effect on the academic and emotional well-being of students of color. That is the key finding from a study I published recently in the "Journal of Youth and Adolescence." For the study, I surveyed 356 Black and Hispanic teens across the U.S. I analyzed their responses to questions about their social media use and experiences. I also asked about their mental health and beliefs about their academic potential. The adolescents were 16 years old on average. Girls in this study had on average one to three more social media accounts than boys. Girls reported depression levels that were 4 percentage points higher than those of boys. This suggests more depressive symptoms among girls. Black teens reported social media activity that was 3 points greater than that of Hispanic teens. They also reported more online experiences of discrimination -- almost 10% more -- than their Hispanic counterparts. Black and Hispanic teens who used social media more were more likely than not to encounter online racial harassment or discrimination, whether as direct victims or observing their racial group or another racial group being demeaned or discredited. Brendesha Tynes, a researcher at the University of Southern California, describes online discrimination as disparaging remarks, symbols, images, behaviors that inflict harm through the use of computers, cellphones and other electronic devices. Additionally, students who observed more online racial harassment or discrimination suffered more depression and anxiety than those with fewer of these negative online experiences. Higher levels of depression and anxiety undermined Black and Hispanic adolescents confidence in their academic abilities. Students didnt experience more depression and anxiety only when they personally, or members of their own racial or ethnic group, were targeted. They also experienced more depression and anxiety when they observed other people and racial or ethnic groups being targeted. When teens encountered online discrimination during their social media use, they had fewer positive beliefs about their academic skills. This is noteworthy, because if it werent for this discrimination, teens who use social media often had more positive perceptions of their academic skills and abilities than those who used less social media. Online racial discrimination and harassment represents a unique risk for teenagers of color. Not only are they more likely to see and post more race-related content, but when this race-related content is negative it has harmful effects on their mental health, academics and overall behavior. My lab and other researchers are conducting studies to determine other effects that online harassment may have on young people of color. For instance, I am currently exploring whether these negative online experiences may influence young people to engage in social and political activism. This includes protests, voting, canvassing, writing to legislators and community organizing. If society has a better understanding of how online racial discrimination and harassment affects teenagers mental health and academic well-being, then schools, parents and youth agencies could be better able to help reduce the harm. Bill passed away peacefully on Sunday, January 22, 2023, at home surrounded by his wife and children. Services will be held at St. Jeromes Catholic Church in Jerome, Idaho, on Monday, January 30, 2023, with the viewing at 10:00am, Rosary at 11:30am and a Mass of Christian Burial at 12:00pm. His interment will be held in Fresno, CA at St. Peters Cemetery on Monday, February 13, 2023 at 1:30 pm. Condolences may be offered by visiting www.whitereynoldschapel.com. Phone: 208-733-4900. TWIN FALLS The release of the Lava Ridge Draft Environmental Impact Statement last week has started a 60-day clock for public comment around the massive south-central Idaho wind energy project proposed by Magic Valley Energy and LS Power. The Bureau of Land Management is encouraging the public to review and comment on the draft EIS, which is available for download on the BLM project website. Hard copies are also available at BLM offices in Shoshone, Twin Falls and Boise. Instructions for submitting comments are also available on the website. This week, Luke Papez, senior director of project development for LS Power, credited public involvement for helping to shape the proposed project, which could include up to 400 wind turbines across 114 square miles of BLM land about 25 miles northeast of Twin Falls. Many of the turbines would stand taller than Seattles Space Needle, at up to 740 feet taller than any other currently being used on land in North America. This is a good example of how the permit process, led by the BLM, can lead to a compromise all sides can appreciate, Papez said Tuesday during a video call with reporters and other stakeholders. For all the effort to collect and review public comments, however, some people arent sure feedback opposing the project has received equal consideration. Minidoka County Commissioner Wayne Shenk has spent a little over a year on the Resource Advisory Councils Lava Ridge Subcommittee, which worked to identify and reach out to stakeholders who would be affected by the project While Shenk credited the BLM for casting a wide net, soliciting input from anyone and everyone who had a stake in the decision, he told the Times-News on Thursday that the subcommittee heard mostly opposition from people. The local input has definitely been asked for and has been received, Shenk said. Definitely, they are not being taken as seriously or given the same weight as what other competing interests have been given. The draft EIS, which is more than a 1,000 pages and examines the project as proposed by LS Power and Magic Valley Energy, also produced and analyzed three alternative options of reduced scope. Here are the projects five options: Alternative A: No action In the parlance of the BLM permitting process, Alternative A would effectively kill the project and deny the permit sought by Magic Valley Energy and LS Power. As a selection of this option would result in no change to the current environmental or land use, the effects of this choice were not evaluated. The BLM has not designated this as one of its preferred alternatives, despite a majority of input from constituents in opposition to the project. Alternative B: As proposed This is the plan as proposed by Magic Valley Energy and LS Power. Alternative B could have up to 400 3-megawatt turbines or up to 349 6-megawatt turbines, or a combination of 3- and 6-megawatt turbines, not to exceed 400. It would have a general project area of 308 square miles, with 131 square miles of siting corridors. It would be capable of producing an estimated 1,2002,094 megawatts. The project would entail building 486 miles of new project roads, and improving 147 miles of existing roads. Alternative C: Reduced western corridors Alternative C is one of the BLMs preferred alternatives. It would reduce the projects overall extent in an attempt to avoid and minimize potential impacts to Wilson Butte Cave, Minidoka National Historic Site, and the communities that have connections to those places. Alternative C would also aim to encourage development in areas that have already been impacted by energy infrastructure and reduce the extent of wildlife habitat fragmentation. Alternative C would not include siting corridors north of Idaho Highway 24 to minimize the extent of wildlife habitat fragmentation. Limiting the northern extent would also reduce development in areas that are relatively undeveloped and have a low potential to be successfully reclaimed. Alternative C would eliminate siting corridors northwest of the existing Idaho Power transmission line to provide for a path for pronghorn and mule deer migration. Alternative C would have a general project area of 229 square miles. Siting corridors would cover 100 square miles, with room for up to 378 3-megawatt turbines or up to 259 6-megawatt turbines. The estimated generation capacity of Alternative C is 1,134 to 1,554 megawatts. The project would require 360 miles of new access roads and 17 miles of improved roads. Alternative D: Centralized corridors Alternative D is the smallest option. It would eliminate the same siting corridors as Alternative C and additionally not include most of the siting corridors east of Crestview Road to protect functional sage-grouse habitat. The reduced overall project footprint would also avoid or minimize impacts to other resources and areas of concern. Alternative D would locate 75 square miles of siting corridors over a general area of 172 square miles. It would allow up to 280 3-megawatt turbines or up to 179 6-megawatt turbines, with an estimated generation capacity of 840 to 1,074 megawatts. Alternative E: Reduced southern corridors Alternative E, like Alternative C, is a preferred alternative. The intent of Alternative E is to avoid and minimize potential impacts to Minidoka NHS and Japanese American communities associated with the site. Alternative E builds off Alternative C, but would further remove additional siting corridors from development. Alternative E would eliminate the same siting corridors as Alternative C and also limit the projects 500-kV transmission line to a single route that would follow the route of existing transmission lines. Alternative E would additionally eliminate most of the siting corridors west of Crestview Road and south of the existing West-wide Energy Corridor. These siting corridor eliminations are intended to further reduce visibility of the project from Minidoka NHS. Alternative E would locate 77 square miles of siting corridors on a general project area of 191 square miles. Up to 269 3-megawatt turbines or up to 194 6-megawatt turbines would be capable of an estimated 807 to 1,164 megawatts of electricity. The public comment period on the Draft EIS opened Jan. 20, with input received through March 21 considered during the review process. Though comments made during the scoping phase have been included in the draft EIS, only comments submitted during the current comment period will be included in the draft EIS review. A collection of Lava Ridge stories and letters The debate over a massive wind-energy project north of the Minidoka National Historic Site has only begun. A consistent theme in the lefts push for power has been their attempts to remake election processes. No-fault absentee voting. Nonpartisan redistricting commissions. Drop boxes. Noncitizen voting. Now, their latest push for ranked choice voting. The framers of our Constitution grounded our elections on a simple principle: One person, one vote. Each voter chooses one candidate, and the winner secures the plurality of votes. Conversely, in ranked choice, voters rank the candidates on the ballot, from their first to last choice. Votes are then tabulated in rounds. In the first round, all first choices are tabulated. If no candidate wins a 50% majority, then the lowest vote-getter is dropped and ballots who listed that candidate in the first slot are recast for their second-choice candidate. The process continues until one candidate exceeds 50% and a winner is declared. RCV poses several obvious difficulties. First, RCV is unnecessarily complicated and lacks real transparency. In the jurisdictions where Democrats have successfully adopted RCV Berkeley, Cambridge, Seattle, New York City voters have consistently said the process is confusing and instructions are cumbersome. Because completing an RCV ballot is difficult, tabulation errors are much higher than with traditional voting. Second, RCV can create ballot exhaustion. Some voters will rank some, but not all candidates, and if their preferred candidates are eliminated, they will ultimately cast no vote at all. Whether a voter chooses to rank all candidates may also reflect an uninformed or misinformed choice. Does a voter believe she is obligated to rank all candidates, even candidates she would never cast an affirmative vote for? Or does a voter believe it is appropriate to rank only candidates she affirmatively supports, even if it means not completing the ballot? Under RCV, voters dont just select the candidate they want to win, they must rank all candidates, from their top pick to their least favorite, even if their last choice is someone they would never vote for or even know much about. The likelihood is slim that a voter knows something about every candidate especially in a multicandidate field. Worse, under RCV, voters are forced to rank candidates they may not even want to win or risk that their ballot is cast aside if the race moves to additional rounds of tabulation and reassignment. Third, RCV changes the nature of an election. Imagine you are invited to a party and asked to vote by ranked choice for your favorite flavor of pop to be served. Your favorite is Dr. Pepper, but you would consider drinking Pepsi or Coke in a pinch, so you rank the three in that order. In the first ballot, the three sodas split the vote roughly in thirds, but Dr. Pepper comes in last and is eliminated. Your vote is recast for Pepsi, which is declared the winner. You never wanted Pepsi, of course, but you could live with Pepsi, and that is where your vote lands. The difference is significant: In a winner-take-all election, the candidate with the most votes wins. But in a RCV election, the winner is the candidate that a majority of the electorate can live with. The election answers a different question entirely. Elizabeth Warren, Eric Holder, Bernie Sanders and a whole host of leftists support ranked choice voting. The people of Idaho need to affirm our framers vision and ban this silly idea from our elections. TODAYS WORD is bibelot. Example: Henrys mother left him a box of bibelots when she passed and he cherished it more anything else she had left him. THURSDAYS WORD was trouvaille. It means a lucky find. Example: Carolyn discovered a trouvaille while walking on the beach when she stumbled upon an expensive looking ring. Breakfast buffet Work up an appetite tonight dancing and eat well the next morning. The Cascade School Community Center (3581 Huntington Trail) is the site of a weekly dance, from 7-9:30 Friday night. This weeks band is Silver Eagles. On Saturday morning, the Horsepasture Volunteer Fire Department will host a country breakfast buffet from 6-10 a.m. On the menu are bacon, ham, sausage, biscuits, gravy (both brown and white), eggs, apples and grits, all you can eat for $10. Free fixing The 3D Shop in uptown Martinsville is a place to make things; the public can use its specialty equipment, which includes several varieties of 3D printers. To show what the printers can do, proprietor Duncan Monroe will be just around the corner at the Ground Floor coffee shop all day today, until 4 p.m. Bring broken items from around your home; hell be set up to fix things, for free, on a first-come, first-serve basis. Chicken sexing The Stroller was in a conversation about the rooster, who had been purchased years ago as a pullet (female chick) but apparently the chicken sexer had made a mistake; that little chick grew a large comb and wattle and eventually bright, long feathers and revealed himself to be a male. Fortunately he is the most gentle, docile rooster the Stroller ever has encountered, with no signs of aggression (and you hardly ever catch him hopping on top of the hens as one does all the time with other roosters). Ive read about chicken sexing in this one book about software development, said someone who didnt grow up in the country. Its apparently very hard to do and you only get good at it by doing it. Bulletin Editor Holly Kozelsky is from Siler City, N.C., where the job of chicken sexer was an elite and high-paying job. Siler Citys main industry is chicken farming and processing. The people who separated the chicks by sex protected their jobs by not telling others how it was done. The other high profile job in Siler City was chicken catcher, recognized by large hands covered in callouses. In each hand a catcher scoops up four birds by their legs and carries them upside down to the cages. THURSDAYS TRIVIA ANSWER: The oldest college in America is Harvard University, which dates back to 1636. The second oldest is The College of Williams and Mary followed by St. Johns College, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and Moravian College. TODAYS TRIVIA QUESTION: Before transferring to Columbia University in 1981, President Barack Obama attended what university? Heres what happened locally on Jan. 27 over the past century, as reported in this newspaper, which went from being called the Henry Bulletin to the Daily Bulletin to the Martinsville Bulletin: 1923: MT. OLIVET The health of this community is improving after an attack of influenza and pneumonia. Little Wesley, son of Mr. and Mrs. B.L. Barrow, is recovering from a very serious bout of pneumonia. Mrs. T.S. Moore and children are recovering, after suffering several days with flu. Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Lovell and children are out again after suffering with influenza. 1948: Martinsville and Henry county today suffered the coldest weather of the current winter season when the temperature dropped to 3 degrees at dawn this morning. Heavy blankets, roaring furnaces and stoves and several layers of wearing apparel were all in order for use as the weather started a downward course yesterday afternoon to hit near bottom early today. Also 1948: At a meeting Saturday of the Henry County Farm Bureau, tobacco farmers voted unanimously to request W.R. Broaddus, local delegate in the state legislature, to support the program of cooperation with Tobacco Associates, Inc. A proposal to levy a tax of 10 cents an acre will be introduced in the General Assembly. 1973: Adult education classes will begin this week in Martinsville. Courses in beginning and advance typing and related instruction for apprentices will begin tonight. Tuesdays starters will include beginning and advanced bookkeeping, beginning and intermediate shorthand, sewing, driver education and electricity and electronics. A wood construction class will begin Wednesday and an auto mechanics class on Thursday night. Anyone who wishes additional information may call Mrs. Florence Stanley at the school system. 1998: Demolition of the former W.M. Bassett Furniture plant on Rives Road began last Wednesday and should be complete in three months, a Martinsville city official said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Eritrea on Thursday for a surprise one-day visit, the government of the Horn of Africa country announced. Lavrov was due to meet President Issaias Afeworki and discuss strengthening bilateral relations as well as regional developments of interest to both countries, the Information ministry said in a statement. This visit was not on the agenda of the Russian diplomats African tour, his second in six months on the continent, which saw him previously visit South Africa, Eswatini and Angola. Led by an iron fist by Issaias Afeworki since its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, Eritrea is one of the five countries that voted in March 2022 against the UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine, along with Russia, Belarus, Syria and North Korea. Eritreas army is accused of numerous abuses against the civilian population in the Tigray region, in northern Ethiopia, where it supported the Ethiopian army against Tigrayan rebels in a deadly conflict between November 2020 and November 2022. These troops, present in the region since the beginning of the war, began withdrawing late last week, the US and the Ethiopian government announced. Guinea-Bissaus customs revenues increase by 40 percent in 2022, compared to 2021, the Secretary of State for Budget and Fiscal Affairs, Joao Alberto Djata said on Thursday. In 2022, there was an increase in customs revenues of around 14.5 billion cfa francs (about 22 million euros) corresponding to almost 40% compared to 2021, said the secretary of state, who was speaking at a ceremony to mark Customs Day in Bissau. In his address, the secretary of State highlighted the resilience of the Directorate General of Guinean Customs, despite the national and international context characterized by a slowdown in production and trade, caused by the covid-19 pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine. Joao Alberto Djata stressed that the results achieved in 2022 are related to the reforms implemented, calling for continued efforts to protect citizens from illicit trafficking. Revenue mobilization requires officials to adopt ethical conduct. Apart from ethics and integrity discipline with the higher hierarchy is key, the Secretary of State stressed. I want to encourage customs authorities to apply disciplinary sanctions to eradicate practices that harm the interest of users and jeopardize the achievement of objectives, he insisted. The director-general of Customs, Domenico Sanca, defended a coherent and efficient system of administration and said that he would deepen the reforms with the aim of collecting more public revenue. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, the head of Sudan since his coup, assured on Thursday that he was in agreement on all points with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whom he was receiving on the subject of his mega-dam on the Nile. During Abiy Ahmeds first visit of to his neighbor since August 2020, General Burhane assured in a statement that Sudan and Ethiopia agree on all points on the Renaissance Dam. When Addis Ababa began construction of this huge structure on the Blue Nile in 2011, it aroused the ire of Egypt, downstream, which fears for its water supply. In recent years, Khartoums position has varied, sometimes alongside Cairo and other times alongside Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed, however, has so far not mentioned the Grand Renaissance Dam (GDR) in tweets on his discussions in Khartoum. He said he had stressed to General Burhane and his number two, General Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, Ethiopias non-interventionist principle. He said it was necessary to rely on the multiple capacities of the Sudanese people to face their own challenges and to find local solutions to get out of the post-Putsch crisis. On December 5, Sudanese civilians and the military signed a framework agreement for a way out of the crisis, applauded by the UN, the African Union and several countries, but which remains very general and sets few deadlines. The ultimate goal is to re-establish a civilian government, as was established after the revolt that led the army to remove dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Over the next three years Angola will have a $550,000 project funded by US space agency NASA to support policies to combat drought in the south of the country. The project called Policy Support System to Combat Drought in Southern Angola, launched in Luanda, aims to collect, organize and share systematized and permanent information to mitigate the effects of drought, which has been occurring for several years in the south of the country. The Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Information Technology, Pascoal Fernandes said that the project is an initiative of the information technology sector, with the aim of contributing significantly to other projects and programs that the Angolan government has undertaken, in order to mitigate and significantly reduce the impact of drought situations on populations. He stressed that southern Angola has been experiencing cyclical periods of drought for several decades, and that in 2019 the worst drought of the last 40 years was recorded, with the rainfall index 65% below normal. As a result, over one million and 300,000 individuals, in the provinces of Cunene, Huila and Namibe, were affected by the drought, with financial losses, not only, for farmers and livestock breeders, but also worsening social problems for the general population, he stressed. According to Fernandes, the projects main benefits will be information on the state of water resources, the location of the population settlements most vulnerable to the effects of drought in the south of the country and the identification of ideal locations for the implementation of structuring projects. In 2019, the Ministry of Telecommunications, Information Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched the pilot project to quantify the problem of drought in southern Angola. "It indicated that the enactment of these laws increased the incidence of suicide by about 5 percent. It's a small percentage increase, but we're a large country so that does translate into roughly 125 suicides per year," says Tyler VanderWeele. Credit: Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer A study published in December showed a connection between restrictive abortion laws and increased suicides by pregnant women in the U.S. The research, conducted by University of Pennsylvania scientists, examined data between 1974 and 2016 and so didn't consider changes since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year, but the dramatically heightened tensions around the issue prompted Tyler VanderWeele, the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, to argue in a recent editorial in JAMA Psychiatry that the raging policy debate shouldn't obscure what the research shows are very real mental health challenges for pregnant patients considering abortion, no matter what they decide. VanderWeele, who is also director of the Human Flourishing Program at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, spoke with the Gazette on the topic. GAZETTE: Let's talk about the study on abortion and suicide by Jonathan Zandberg out of the University of Pennsylvania. What findings do you think are important? VanderWeele: The study was looking at laws restricting abortion access in states, how those changed over time, and from an analytic standpoint, what the mental health consequences might be. You can look at the timing of changes in the restrictions and the changes in mental health. It's complicated because there are all sorts of trends taking place simultaneously, but when you've got all 50 states and 40 years of data, you can control for other variables and try to work out roughly what the effect of those laws might be. Any observational study where you don't randomize is not definitiveand that's the case with this onebut from a methodologic perspective, this was a pretty good design. It indicated that the enactment of these laws increased the incidence of suicide by about 5 percent. It's a small percentage increase, but we're a large country so that does translate into roughly 125 suicides per year. That's a small fraction of total suicides, but from my perspective every life is important. GAZETTE: And over 40 years, we're talking about more than 5,000 suicides. VanderWeele: And these are completed suicides, so this is indicating greater mental anguish, greater suicidal ideation than just the completed suicides. So there are real mental health difficulties and challenges around this issue, not necessarily for all women, but for many. There have been some studies on this indicating that restrictions on access for those who would like an abortion lead to mental health challengesanxiety and stressand then some literature that actually having an abortion leads to higher rates of depression and suicide ideation. It's disputed and the quality of these studies isn't great, but it's quite plausible that both point to the need for better mental health care. GAZETTE: Are you concerned that this will be used as a weapon in the political battle over abortion versus to highlight a mental health problem we need to address? VanderWeele: I am not an expert on this topicmy primary interaction with it has been through the research literaturebut my sense is that, to some extent in the reporting of the research and to a large extent in the media uptake, these various associations have been used by both sides to weaponize the research to advocate for either pro-life or pro-choice policies. That's problematic in two respects. First, I don't think this is where the center of the debate lies. I think what's taking place is, on the pro-choice side, there are concerns about women's autonomy, control, and privacy. And on the pro-life side, there's a belief that a fetus is a human life and that this is the intentional destruction of human life and so is wrong. This is fundamentally a moraland at some level metaphysicaldebate: When does life begin? I think the intractable nature of the political debate is because there are very different views on those issues. So to then say, "We're going to make this decision according to mental health statistics," is to ignore the fundamental contours of the debate and, to some extent, to stop trying to understand the other side's perspective and engage with it. Certainly, there are limitations with regard to policies that reasonably take both sides into account, but I'm not sure we've exhaustively explored all that might be possible. In some ways then, weaponizing the research shifts the debate to someplace where it ought not be. The second problematic aspect is it's moving the empirical research away from the mental health care needs of women who are confronting what are often very difficult situations, regardless of the decision they make. Having an unwanted pregnancy is difficult and is often accompanied by other challenging circumstances with regard to financial state, relationships, and work/life complications. The abortion and mental health research should thus be focused on the very real needs of mental health care for women. GAZETTE: Are there particular populations that are most affected by this? VanderWeele: There is evidence that Black women and lower socioeconomic status women have higher rates of abortion and more difficulties accessing mental health care. They're particularly affected by the neglect that results from focusing reproductive health, abortion, and mental health research around policy questions rather than the needs of women. All of these studies give us averages that compare groups of women with unwanted pregnancies who are facing different laws or making different decisions but who are already facing challenges, with higher mental health struggles. Both groups need help trying to navigate these difficult situations, regardless of policies around the abortion question. And individual women's experiences are going to be different than the average. There are going to be individuals in both groups who really need mental health care. So a reorientation of the mental health, abortion, abortion access literature toward what are the mental health care needs and how might they be met would be advantageous for everyone. I do think that is something that both sides of the political debate could approach together: How do we provide for the mental health needs of women? GAZETTE: What kinds of things could be done to help that aren't? VanderWeele: One might divide this into the policy level and the research and clinical level. At the policy level, these difficulties are arising in large part because of the number of unwanted pregnancies. There has been reasonably good work on the reasons for that, ranging from the absence of a stable partner, to serious financial constraints, to concerns about care for existing children, to lack of autonomy, and other things. We could put in place better parental leave policies in this country, which don't compare favorably with other developed countries. That of course wouldn't address all of these cases where the pregnancy is unwanted, but it would help. I think more workthis is some of the work of the Human Flourishing Programcould be devoted to supporting and promoting better relationships. Social well-being is embedded in the World Health Organization's definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Yet it's only very recently that the World Health Organization launched an initiative on social well-being. We do know some things about how to support relationships and there's increasingly evidence-based interventions around what leads to greater marital stability. Again, it's only a piece of the puzzle, but I think an important one. On the research front, as I said in the commentary, we can move away from these comparisons toward understanding mental health care needs. Under what circumstances are depression, anxiety, and suicide most likely to arise and when, during the process of reproductive care, are they most likely to arise? On the clinical side, screening for mental health challenges as well as talking about the mother's life circumstances and financial constraints and concerns about child care and so on could help. The bigger debate touches on lots of other issues, but with respect to mental health we could be doing better on policy, we could be doing better on research, we could be doing better on clinical care in ways that are partially overlooked because of the orientation of the research toward the abortion access question rather than mental health care. More information: Tyler J. VanderWeele, Abortion and Mental HealthContext and Common Ground, JAMA Psychiatry (2022). DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.3530 Journal information: JAMA Psychiatry Provided by Harvard Gazette This story is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University's official newspaper. For additional university news, visit Harvard.edu. 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 Saturday marks a major milestone in the global fight to eliminate the AIDS epidemic, as the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief celebrates its 20th anniversary as the largest commitment by a country to combat a disease. PEPFAR, launched under then-President George W. Bush, has now spanned four administrations, operates in more than 50 countries, and has helped increase access to HIV prevention tools and treatment. It's also reduced transmission and progression of the disease and, with the help of new pre-exposure prophylaxis and antiretroviral drugs, reduced deaths globally. Since its inception, the U.S. government has invested more than $100 billion, with the program estimated to have saved 20 million lives globally. And it's moving the world toward a larger goal: In 2016, United Nations member states, including the U.S., committed to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Parts of the PEPFAR program are up for reauthorization this year, giving policymakers a new opportunity to examine how to achieve international goals amid competing global health priorities, local policy changes and stigma against at-risk populations. The program has historically seen strong bipartisan support. In the U.S., the Ryan White Program, housed under the Health Resources and Services Administration, administers HIV programming primarily through state and local grants. It's often touted as the gold standard for domestic health programming. But the models used successfully in the U.S. may not translate to other countries, and experts acknowledge that there is room to improve the response. "HIV remains a serious threat to global health security and economic development," wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken in December as part of a report updating the agency's five-year strategy. "Our progress can be easily derailed if we lose our focus or conviction, or fail to address the inequities, many fueled by stigma and discrimination and punitive laws, that stand in our way," The report highlights five main challenges ahead: continuing to identify and treat HIV-positive individuals in the face of changing demographics and populations affected, reducing new HIV infections globally, reducing transmission inequities in PEPFAR-supported nations, improving public health infrastructure and local government partnerships, and combating the effects of other infectious health threats that could thwart progress. On a Saturday morning in November, the staff at a Bangkok HIV clinic set up for their afternoon stream of patients. Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, RSAT, is a Thai community group that conducts outreach for populations at-risk for HIVprimarily serving gay men and transgender women. The group's Bangkok clinicone of five nationwideand office are situated in a multistory building on a bustling street. Downstairs, patients can get tested for HIV or referrals for treatment. On the second floor, technicians process tests for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Phubet Panpet, RSAT's deputy director, speaking through a translator to CQ Roll Call, said the group works with 100 volunteers and uses outreach through social media and advertising in Thailand's gay saunas to advertise that people can get stigma-free health care at the clinics. In 2021, it saw about 6,000 peoplesome as young as 15. About 10% of RSAT's clients are migrants from neighboring Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. In Thailand, PEPFAR has helped contribute to AIDS-related deaths dropping by 65% and new infections declining by 58% since 2010, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS. Thailand in 2016 became the first country in the region to eliminate mother-to-child HIV transmission. While the RSAT clinic provides other servicescondom and harm reduction distribution, STD testing, hormone level testing, counseling groupsPanpet said most patients visit them to access HIV testing and PrEP, which can help prevent HIV transmission. RSAT has received funds from PEPFAR and United States Agency for International Development as part of Thailand's efforts to reduce HIV transmission. Its goal for 2030 is to reduce HIV transmission to under 1,000 new cases per year, decrease AIDS-related deaths to under 4,000 per year, and counter discrimination against HIV-positive people. Som, a 38-year-old male sex-worker from Ayutthaya who is being identified under a pseudonym because sex work is illegal in Thailand, moved to Bangkok when he was 19 to attend university. His father pressured him to be a high achieving student, but he slowly shifted to working in bars and using drugs, primarily injectable forms of speed and methamphetamine. Som has now been HIV-positive for many years and said he initially connected with RSAT for HIV testing, later connecting for treatment through the organization. He now visits with a doctor four times a year for his medications but rarely tells people that he is HIV-positive. He said he continues to always use condoms with clientsbut sometimes clients refuse. Thailand has reduced its rates of new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths in part by covering the cost of antiretroviral drugs to HIV positive individuals. But now, groups like RSAT face a new obstacle. Last November, Panpet said RSAT planned to shift from international funding to using domestic financing from Thailand's National Health Security Office. But in December, Thailand's Ministry of Public Health announced a new policy to limit the ability of clinics like RSAT from distributing PrEP and PEP, or post-exposure prophylaxis, which reduces transmission after exposure. PrEP, which the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2012, as well as advancements in and access to antiretroviral treatments like the once daily table Atripla in 2006, were widely credited in reducing HIV-related morbidity and mortality in the U.S. The Thai policy, which went into effect in January, blocks private health care services from dispensing either of the two drug regimens for free. The medications would still be available at no cost through public hospitals. All Thai citizens are covered under the country's three-pronged health care systemcivil servants and their families are covered through one system, private company workers are covered through social security and most others through its universal coverage program. But patients who rely on clinics like RSAT and HIV experts worry this new policy change could be a roadblock in the country's HIV-related goals by eliminating this point of access to these medications. The United States aims to reduce new HIV infections by 90% by 2030. The domestic epidemic disproportionately affects gay and bisexual Black and Latino men, as well as transgender women who have sex with men and users of injectable drugs. HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson said the agency has been an important PEPFAR partner because of its work implementing the Ryan White program to people living with HIV in the U.S. "We've had tremendous success in helping people to get to viral suppression," she told CQ Roll Call. "But there are many people who we continue to need to get into care, and so those strategies that we're using domestically are also applicable to the work that we're doing internationally." In 2016, a consortium of the four historically Black medical schoolsCharles Drew University of Medicine and Science, Howard University of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and Morehouse School of Medicineestablished a program to connect hard-hit African nations with some of the best domestic approaches for HIV prevention and treatment. The partnership is supported through PEPFAR and began implementing HIV services in October 2020 to help Zambia and Malawi reach their UNAIDS targets. Patricia Matthews-Juarez, senior vice president of the Office of Faculty Affairs and Development at Meharry and project director for the HBCU-Global Health Consortium, said the overall transmission HIV rate for moms and babies in sub-Saharan Africa is about 11%, compared to less than 1% for their four flagship clinics in Zambia. And almost 100% of the moms and babies treated in those clinics are now virally suppressed. She said the program employs 450 people, including local HIV-positive mothers with little education for peer support. While HIV-related stigma remains a huge issue globally, it's also an issue domestically. "I think that public perception might generally be that we have made real progress on stigma in the U.S. and to some degree, we certainly have, but, there are many people who are either HIV-infected or at risk, who are not in care. And some of the reasons that they're not in care is because of stigma," said HRSA's Johnson. 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: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Japan's government will drop its recommendation to wear masks indoors and downgrade its medical classification for Covid-19, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday. The changes, effective from early May, will classify the disease on the same level as the flu, down from its current status on par with tuberculosis and SARS. "As for masking, regardless of indoors and outdoors, the decision will be left up to individuals," Kishida told a televised government meeting. "We will take further steps towards 'life with corona' and make steady progress on returning to normality in homes, schools, workplaces, neighbourhoods and all facets of life." Masks are ubiquitous in public places and are commonly worn outdoors as well, despite the government having already said they are not necessary outside in uncrowded settings. Even before the pandemic erupted in 2020, many people in Japan used masks when they had a cold or hayfever or to ward off illness in the winter. Polls by major media outlets have indicated that most people will continue wearing masks for public health purposes even if the government lifts its request. The change means that from May 8after Japan's "Golden Week" holiday periodCovid-19 patients and their close contacts will no longer have to isolate. South Korea also plans to drop its indoor masking requirement from Monday, while China has eased its strict zero-Covid stance in a sharp policy reversal. 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: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Jenna Eisenhart spent nearly six years as a licensed therapist in Colorado before deciding to move to a place with a greater need for her services. She researched rural states facing a shortage of behavioral health providers and accepted a job as a lead clinical primary therapist at Shodair Children's Hospital in Helena, Montana, in January 2018. But she couldn't start her new job right away because state officials denied her application for a license to practice in Montana on the grounds that her master's degree program required only 48 credits to complete instead of 60. Eisenhart spent nearly $7,000 to earn 12 more credits to meet the requirement, something she acknowledged not every provider would be able, or want, to do. "I'm coming here as a licensed therapist to provide services that Montana desperately needs and you're saying, no, you're educationally deficient, when that's not actually true," said Eisenhart, now the director of clinical services at Shodair. "It kind of made me feel unwanted." Eisenhart's difficulties are an example of the problems that health professionals can have in obtaining a Montana license to practice. State lawmakers are considering proposals to make it easier for professionals with out-of-state licenses to work in Montana. The need to attract more workers is particularly acute amid a national mental health crisis and a worker shortage, both heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. But lawmakers, behavioral health advocates, and providers say the need is so great, they doubt that lowering barriers for out-of-state practitioners will be enough. One measure, House Bill 101, sponsored by Republican Rep. Jane Gillette and drafted by the Children, Family, Health and Human Services Interim Committee, covers social workers, professional counselors, addiction counselors, marriage and family therapists, and behavioral health peer support specialists. It would let the Department of Labor & Industry automatically license those providers in Montana if they meet certain requirements, like having an active license from another state for at least a year and having proper educational credentials. Eisenhart said if the bill had been in effect in 2018, she wouldn't have had to jump through as many hoops to work in Montana. Another, House Bill 152 sponsored by Republican Rep. Bill Mercer and requested by the state Department of Labor & Industry as part of Gov. Greg Gianforte's "Red Tape Relief" initiative, aims to streamline the licensing process for all occupations regulated by the department, from nurses to real estate appraisers. HB 152 is designed to simplify the process for licensing the more than 50 professions and 150 types of licenses under the purview of the labor department, Eric Strauss, administrator of the department's Employment Standards Division, said in a Jan. 18 committee hearing on the bill. Last year, the department received more than 21,300 applications for licensure across professions, and half of those were from out-of-state professionals, said Dave Cook, the department's deputy administrator of professional licensing. Health care-related licenses had an even higher share of out-of-state applicants60%, he said. HB 152 would improve license mobility by creating a standard the department uses across professions to determine whether out-of-state license holders are qualified to work in Montana, department officials said. It also would establish a timeline of 30 days for the agency to issue a license after receiving a completed application. "This helps the engineer, psychologist, social worker, or cosmetologist who has practiced for 20 years to get licensed without being required to get additional education or take an examination," said department spokesperson Jessica Nelson. Though the two bills have the same aim, labor department officials criticized Gillette's bill on behavioral health worker licensing as not going far enough to remove obstacles for out-of-state workers. HB 101 "creates additional burdens to licensure, including requiring residency and mandating that a particular licensing examination has been taken," Nelson wrote in an email. "These are issues that HB 152 is attempting to reform." Gillette said she doesn't think her bill or Gianforte's bill alone would solve the workforce problem in health care. To make a substantial change, Gillette said, Medicaid provider reimbursement rates need to be higher. "It'll do something but it's not going to fix it by any stretch," Gillette said, referring to streamlining the licensing process. A study commissioned by the 2021 legislature found that Montana's Medicaid provider rates were too low to cover the cost of many of those who work with seniors, people with disabilities, and children and adults with mental illness. The study found that the state's Medicaid program is now paying, on average, 85% of the actual cost of care for adult behavioral health services, for example. Gianforte's proposed budget would boost that funding next year to 94% of costs, on average, before lowering it again to 91%. The budget proposal is before lawmakers, and, to fully fund the services, providers are asking them to raise the rates higher than the governor proposes. Mary Windecker, executive director of the Behavioral Health Alliance of Montana, which strives to make community-based services more accessible to patients, said that her organization recommended the interim committee come up with what became HB 101 but that HB 152 goes further than they could have hoped. Windecker said every agency that her organization represents is experiencing staffing shortages of 25% to 30%. Up to 90% of the alliance members' income comes from Medicaid reimbursements, she said, and it's not enough. She said speeding up the licensure process and raising the Medicaid provider rates in accordance with a study the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services instigated are the main strategies needed to satisfy demand for behavioral health services. "We've got to get people in here to work," Windecker said. "We have a huge labor shortage and with the Medicaid reimbursement so low, we're having a really hard time hiring people." According to the Board of Behavioral Health, there were 5,126 active behavioral health providers in Montana as of last April. The Montana chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness reported 163,000 adults in Montana have a mental health condition. Keely Larson is the KHN fellow for the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Newspaper Association, and Kaiser Health News. Larson is a graduate student in environmental and natural resources journalism at the University of Montana. 2023 Kaiser Health News. 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: Penn State College of Medicine researchers helped identify eight medications that may be repurposed to help people quit smoking. A team of more than 70 researchers contributed to the analysis of genetic and smoking behavior data from more than 1.3 million people. Credit: Ella Maru Studio for Penn State College of Medicine Medications like dextromethorphan, used to treat coughs caused by cold and flu, could potentially be repurposed to help people quit smoking cigarettes, according to a study by Penn State College of Medicine and University of Minnesota researchers. They developed a novel machine learning method, where computer programs analyze data sets for patterns and trends, to identify the drugs and said that some of them are already being tested in clinical trials. Cigarette smoking is risk factor for cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory diseases and accounts for nearly half a million deaths in the United States each year. While smoking behaviors can be learned and unlearned, genetics also plays a role in a person's risk for engaging in those behaviors. The researchers found in a prior study that people with certain genes are more likely to become addicted to tobacco. Using genetic data from more than 1.3 million people, Dajiang Liu, Ph.D., professor of public health sciences, and of biochemistry and molecular biology and Bibo Jiang, Ph.D., assistant professor of public health sciences, co-led a large multi-institution study that used machine learning to study these large data setswhich include specific data about a person's genetics and their self-reported smoking behaviors. The researchers identified more than 400 genes that were related to smoking behaviors. Since a person can have thousands of genes, they had to determine why some of those genes were connected to smoking behaviors. Genes that carry instructions for the production of nicotine receptors or are involved in signaling for the hormone dopamine, which make people feel relaxed and happy, had easy-to-understand connections. For the remaining genes, the research team had to determine the role each plays in biological pathways and using that information, figured out what medications are already approved for modifying those existing pathways. Most of the genetic data in the study is from people with European ancestries, so the machine learning model had to be tailored to not only study that data, but also a smaller data set of around 150,000 people with Asian, African or American ancestries. Liu and Jiang worked with more than 70 scientists on the project. They identified at least eight medications that could potentially be repurposed for smoking cessation, such as dextromethorphan, which is commonly used to treat coughs caused by cold and flu, and galantamine, which is used to treat Alzheimer's disease. The study was published in Nature Genetics on Jan. 26. "Re-purposing drugs using big biomedical data and machine learning methods can save money, time and resources," said Liu, a Penn State Cancer Institute and Penn State Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences researcher. "Some of the drugs we identified are already being tested in clinical trials for their ability to help smokers quit, but there are still other possible candidates that could be explored in future research." While the machine learning method was able to incorporate a small set of data from diverse ancestries, Jiang said it's still important for researchers to build out genetic databases from individuals with diverse ancestries. "This will only improve the accuracy with which machine learning models can identify individuals at risk for drug misuse and determine potential biological pathways that can be targeted for helpful treatments." More information: Fang Chen et al, Multi-ancestry transcriptome-wide association analyses yield insights into tobacco use biology and drug repurposing, Nature Genetics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-022-01282-x Journal information: Nature 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: Mutation in the F protein is key for the measles virus to fuse and infect neurons. Two primary strategies exist for such infection. Initially, fusion activity of a mutant F protein is suppressed due to interference from the normal F proteins (black box). That interference is overcome by accumulation of mutations and increased fusogenecity (orange box). In another case, a different mutation in the F protein acts oppositely and reduces fusion activity, but conversely cooperates with normal F proteins that increase the fusion activity (blue box). Thus, even mutant F proteins that appear to be unable to infect neurons can still infect the brain. Credit: Kyushu University/Hidetaka Harada/Yuta Shirogane Researchers in Japan have uncovered the mechanism for how the measles virus can cause subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE, a rare but fatal neurological disorder that can occur several years after a measles infection. Although the normal form of the measles virus cannot infect the nervous system, the team found that viruses that persist in the body can develop mutations in a key protein that controls how they infect cells. The mutated proteins can interact with its normal form, making it capable of infecting the brain. Their findings were reported in the journal Science Advances. If you are of a certain age, you may have gotten the measles as a child. Many born after the 1970s have never gotten it thanks to vaccines. The condition is caused by the virus of the same name, which is one of the most contagious pathogens to this day. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly nine million people worldwide were infected with measles in 2021, with the number of deaths reaching 128,000. "Despite its availability, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has set back vaccinations, especially in the Global South," explains Yuta Shirogane, assistant professor at Kyushu University's Faculty of Medical Sciences. "SSPE is a rare but fatal condition caused by the measles virus. However, the normal measles virus does not have the ability to propagate in the brain, and thus it is unclear how it causes encephalitis." A virus infects cells through a series of proteins that protrude from its surface. Usually, one protein will first facilitate the virus to attach to a cell's surface, then another surface protein will cause a reaction that lets the virus into the cell, leading to an infection. Therefore, what a virus can or cannot infect can depend heavily on the type of cell. The measles virus is an enveloped virus bearing a lipid bilayer. The bilayer holds the receptor binding hemagglutinin (H) protein and the fusion (F) protein. For infection to happen, the H protein first binds to a receptor on the target cell, and then the F protein changes its conformation to fuse the membranes. Credit: Kyushu University/Hidetaka Harada/Yuta Shirogane "Usually, the measles virus only infects your immune and epithelial cells, causing the fever and rash," continues Shirogane. "Therefore, in patients with SSPE, the measles virus must have remained in their body and mutated, then gained the ability to infect nerve cells. RNA viruses like measles mutate and evolve at very high rates, but the mechanism of how it evolved to infect neurons has been a mystery." The key player in allowing the measles virus to infect a cell is a protein called fusion protein, or F protein. In the team's previous studies, they showed that certain mutations in the F protein puts it in a "hyperfusongenic" state, allowing it to fuse onto neural synapses and infect the brain. In their latest study, the team analyzed the genome of the measles virus from SSPE patients and found that various mutations had accumulated in their F protein. Interestingly, certain mutations would increase infection activity while others actually decreased it. "This was surprising to see, but we found an explanation. When the virus infects a neuron, it infects it through 'en bloc transmission,' where multiple copies of the viral genome enter the cell," continues Shirogane. "In this case, the genome encoding the mutant F protein is transmitted simultaneously with the genome of the normal F protein, and both proteins are likely to coexist in the infected cell." Based on this hypothesis, the team analyzed the fusion activity of mutant F proteins when normal F proteins were present. Their results showed that fusion activity of a mutant F protein is suppressed due to interference from the normal F proteins, but that interference is overcome by the accumulation of mutations in the F protein. When the F protein induces membrane fusion at a neuronal synapse, multiple measle virus genomes are simultaneously transmitted to the next neuron. This phenomenon is known as an 'en bloc transmission.' Under this condition, both normal and mutant genomes are transmitted simultaneously, resulting in normal and mutant F proteins coexpressed in an infected cell. Credit: Kyushu University/Hidetaka Harada/Yuta Shirogane In another case, the team found that a different set of mutations in the F protein results in a completely opposite result: a reduction in fusion activity. However, to their surprise, this mutation can actually cooperate with normal F proteins to increase fusion activity. Thus, even mutant F proteins that appear to be unable to infect neurons can still infect the brain. "It is almost counter to the 'survival of the fittest' model for viral propagation. In fact, this phenomenon where mutations interfere and/or cooperate with each other is called 'Sociovirology.' It's still a new concept, but viruses have been observed to interact with each other like a group. It's an exciting prospect," explains Shirogane. The team hopes that their results will help develop therapeutics for SSPE, as well as elucidate the evolutionary mechanisms common to viruses that have similar infection mechanisms to measles such as novel coronaviruses and herpesviruses. "There are many mysteries in the mechanisms by which viruses cause diseases. Since I was a medical student, I was interested in how the measles virus caused SSPE. I am happy that we were able to elucidate the mechanism of this disease," concludes Shirogane. More information: Yuta Shirogane, Collective Fusion Activity Determines Neurotropism of an en Bloc Transmitted Enveloped Virus, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf3731. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adf3731 Journal information: Science Advances Provided by Kyushu University 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 Even a simple movement like pushing a button sends ripples of activity throughout networks of neurons spanning across the brain, new University of Oregon research shows. The finding highlights just how complex the human brain is, challenging the simplified textbook picture of distinct brain areas dedicated to specific functions. "It's really well known that that the primary motor cortex controls movement output," said Alex Rockhill, a graduate student in the lab of human physiology professor Nicki Swann. "But there's a lot more to movement than this one brain area." Rockhill is the first author on a new paper from the lab, published in December in the Journal of Neural Engineering. Swann and her team are studying brain networks in humans thanks to a collaboration with Oregon Health & Science University doctors and researchers. The OHSU team is using a technique called intracranial EEG to determine where seizures may be starting in patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy. They surgically implant an array of electrodes into patients' brains to pinpoint precisely when and where a seizure is happening and potentially remove the affected brain area. Intracranial EEG also can provide valuable insight into other brain activity, too. It's a "gold standard" technique, Swann said. But it's one researchers rarely have access to, because implanting the electrodes is such an intensive process. Participants in Swann's study have agreed to let her team study their brains while they're already hooked up to electrodes for the seizure study. Swann and her colleagues gave study participants a simple movement-related task: pushing a button. They recorded the activity of thousands of neurons throughout the brain while participants were doing the task. Then, they tested whether they could train a computer to identify whether particular patterns of brain activity were captured while the participant was at rest or moving. In certain areas of the brain, the signals were obvious. Those were areas previously linked to movement, where most of the neurons are probably focused on that behavior. But the researchers also found brain signals predictive of movement throughout the brain, including in areas that aren't specifically dedicated to it. In many parts of the brain, "we can predict with higher-than-chance accuracy whether that data was from during movement or not during movement," Swann said. "We found there's a spectrum of brain areas, from primary motor areas where you can decode that the person is moving 100 percent of the time, to other areas that can be decoded 75 percent of the time," Rockhill added. In some of the areas that don't specialize in movement, "some of the neurons might be firing, but they might be overwhelmed by neurons that are not movement-related," he said. Their findings complement a study published in 2019 in the journal Nature, in which other researchers showed similar far-reaching brain networks related to movement in mice. "That paper showed that movement is everywhere in the brain, and our paper shows that's true in humans too," Swann said. The phenomenon probably isn't limited to movement, either. Other systems, like vision and touch, are also probably extending through more of the brain than previously appreciated. Now the team is working on developing new tasks that involve different kinds of movement, to see how those show up in the brain. And they plan to keep growing the collaboration with OHSU, involving more researchers in the project and gaining a deeper understanding of the brain's intricacies. "There's a lot of opportunity now that we have this new collaboration," Swann said. "We're really fortunate to be able to have the opportunity to collect such exciting data by working with the OHSU team and their incredible patients." 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 beneficial effects of putting yourself in someone else's shoes are well known. But can doing so in romantic relationships reduce the temptation to cheat? A team of psychologists from Reichman University in Israel and the University of Rochester put that question to the test in a series of three double-blind, randomized experiments. The answer appears to be "yes." Perspective-takingor putting yourself in our partner's shoesnot only reduces the temptation to cheat but inoculates against other partnership-destroying behaviors, according to the study, published in the Journal of Sex Research. Why do people cheat in relationships? People cheat for a variety of reasons, according to the study's lead author, Gurit Birnbaum, a professor of psychology at Reichman's Ivcher School of Psychology. Birnbaum notes that while people may be satisfied with their relationships, they may still betray their partners. For example, so-called "avoidant types" who feel uncomfortable with intimacy may try to maintain distance and control in their relationship by cheating. Context is key. "People often cheat not because they planned to do so," Birnbaum says. "Rather, the opportunity presented itself and they were too depletedtoo tired, too drunk, too distractedto fight the temptation." Coauthor Harry Reis, the Dean's Professor in Arts, Sciences & Engineering at Rochester, agrees that there are multiple reasons for cheating. One of the more interesting ones, says Reis, author of Relationships, Well-Being and Behavior, is that men are more likely to cheat because they feel that their sexual needs are not being met. The evidence has shown that women, on the other hand, are more likely to cheat because they feel that their emotional needs aren't met. How practicing empathy can reduce the temptation to cheat One way to practice empathy is to try to adopt another person's perspective. Across three studies, the 408 total participants (213 Israeli women and 195 Israeli men, ranging in age from 20 to 47) were randomly assigned to either adopt the perspective of their partner or not. The participants were uniformly in monogamous, mixed-sex relationships of at least four months. As part of the experiments, the participants evaluated, encountered, or thought about attractive strangers while the psychologists recorded their expressions of interest in these strangers, as well as their commitment to and desire for their current partners. The researchers found that adopting a partner's perspective increased commitment and desire for the partner, while simultaneously decreasing sexual and romantic interest in alternative mates. The findings suggest that perspective taking discourages people from engaging in behaviors that may hurt their partners and damage their relationship. "Perspective taking doesn't prevent you from cheating, but it lessens the desire to do so," says Reis. Ultimately, he says, cheating means "prioritizing one's own goals over the good of the partner and the relationship, so seeing things from the other person's perspective gives one a more balanced view of these situations." According to Birnbaum, the findings can help people understand how to resist short-term temptations: "Active consideration of how romantic partners may be affected by these situations serves as a strategy that encourages people to control their responses to attractive alternative partners and derogate their attractiveness." The team did not test if the benefits of perspective taking extended to the participants' romantic partners who were not part of the experiment. But the researchers have a hunch, because perspective taking generally promotes empathy, understanding, closeness, and caring. "Both partners may feel more satisfied with their relationship," says Birnbaum, "and therefore might be less likely to cheat on each other, even if only one of them adopts this strategy." Besides reducing the likelihood of infidelity, perspective taking motivates people to have compassion for their partners' emotions and to seek to strengthen the bond with that partner, thereby boosting the existing relationship. "People invariably feel better understood, and that makes it easier to resolve disagreements, to be appropriately but not intrusively helpful, and to share joys and accomplishments," Reis says. "It's one of those skills that can help people see the 'us'rather than the 'me and you'in a relationship." Reichman University's Tammy Bachar, Gal Levy, and Kobi Zholtack were also part of the team. More information: Gurit E. Birnbaum et al, Put Me in Your Shoes: Does Perspective-Taking Inoculate Against the Appeal of Alternative Partners?, The Journal of Sex Research (2022). DOI: 10.1080/00224499.2022.2150998 Journal information: Journal of Sex Research Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue TD, today announced that 2023 Nitrates Derogation applications can now be submitted using the Departments on-line portal, www.agfood.ie The Minister said: The Nitrates Derogation provides farmers with an opportunity to farm at higher stocking rates without compromising our water quality. The Nitrates Derogation is subject to certain strict conditions designed to protect the environment and meet the requirements of the Nitrates Directive. All farmers have an important role to play in protecting our environment particularly those farming more intensively, and it is crucial that we protect and restore our waters as soon as possible to maintain the nitrates derogation at current levels into the future. Water quality is crucial to a healthy environment and farmers are keen to drive further improvements here. The Nitrates Derogation is contingent on meeting water quality standards, and these measures are designed to protect water quality and where appropriate to also provide biodiversity benefits. I encourage more intensively stocked farmers to engage as soon as possible with this application process and to discuss the need for a derogation with their agricultural advisor, the Minister added. Dairy farmers who previously did not avail of the derogation are also strongly encouraged to consult with their agricultural advisor, due to the new excretion rate bands applicable for dairy cows from 01 January 2023. The three bands applicable for dairy cows are: 80kg N/cow, 92 kg N/cow and 106 kg N/cow per year. Previously all dairy cows were considered equal in terms of nutrient excretion rate at 89kg N/cow per year. To reflect differences in nutrient output as milk yield increases, from 2023 onwards, each dairy herd will be confirmed annually as being in one of the three bands based on the herds average milk yield/cow. Applying for a Nitrates Derogation may assist these dairy farmers to comply with the limits set out in the Nitrates Regulations. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will shortly write to farmers individually regarding the banding options applicable to their herd and the requirements around banding. This will help farmers inform themselves to make important decisions in the year ahead. The online system is aimed at simplifying the application process and assisting farmers to avoid penalties. Farmers can also remain compliant with the regulations by managing their livestock, exporting enough slurry/farmyard manure or renting additional land. The closing date for applications is 31 March 2023. Farmers who applied for a derogation in 2022 are also reminded they must submit Fertiliser Accounts for 2022 by the closing date 31 March 2023. Nitrogen and Phosphorus statements (N&P Statements) for January to November 2022 (cattle only) are also now available to view on the Departments online system, www.agfood.ie. The end of year N&P Statement will be published as soon as all data is available. Some documentation submitted to the Department after 31 December 2022 is not yet included; this will be processed in due course. Farmers not already registered for agfood.ie can do so by logging onto www.agfood.ie and clicking the 'Register' button. More information is available on the Departments website at the following link here. Further information, including Terms & Conditions are available on the Departments website here. END Notes for Editors Nitrates Derogation The Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage are the lead Government Department in relation to the Nitrates Regulations. (S.I. No. 113 of 2022 as amended). The Nitrates Derogation allows farmers to exceed the limit of 170 kg of livestock manure nitrogen per hectare set down in the Nitrates Regulations, up to a maximum of 250 kg per hectare, subject to adherence to stricter rules. For a Nitrates Derogation application to be valid, all terms and conditions of the Derogation must be adhered to, including the following: An annual application must be made online to the Department. No postal applications will be accepted. to the Department. No postal applications will be accepted. Farming a holding that is at least 80% grass and have grazing livestock a derogation is only available in respect of grazing livestock. All slurry applied on derogation holdings must be applied using low emission equipment. All slurry produced on a derogation holding must be applied by 1st October 2023. Commonage will not be eligible for the derogation allowance of 250 kg N/ha. The maximum allowed organic N on commonage is 50 kg N/ha with no chemical fertiliser allowed. Clover must be incorporated where grass is being sown. Grass measurement and recording must be undertaken. New applicants have the option of completing training in grassland management. Environmental training must be completed. A soil liming programme must be adopted where necessary to correct soil pH. A biodiversity measure from the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan must be undertaken. Maximum rates for the percentage crude protein in concentrate feed for grazing livestock must be adhered to between 15 April and 30 September. A derogation holding must have sufficient storage for all livestock manure, soiled water and silage effluent produced on the holding. A Nutrient Management Plan must be in place on the holding. This plan should be submitted to the Department along with the application form unless the farmer has submitted a fertiliser plan to the Department in 2020, 2021 or 2022 and there have been no changes on the holding. Nutrient Management Plans must be based on soil analysis results dated after 15th September 2019. New applicants who do not have soil analysis results must assume Phosphorus Index 4 until a soil sample analysis showing a different Phosphorous Soil Index becomes available. Soil sample analysis, in respect of crop year 2023, must be available and the fertiliser plan amended accordingly and submitted online to the Department before 31 March 2024 Fertiliser accounts must be submitted to the Department in the case of 2022 applicants, by 31 March 2023. Nitrates Derogation applicants cannot import livestock manure onto their holding onto their holding Derogation information including Terms & Conditions is available on the Departments website at; gov.ie - Rural Environment & Sustainability - Nitrates (www.gov.ie) N & P Statements These statements are particularly useful to allow farmers to plan for the coming year and to ensure compliance with the limits of the Nitrates Regulations, thus avoiding penalties for breaching the limits of 170kg of livestock manure Nitrogen per hectare, or for those who hold an approved derogation, the limit of 250kg of Nitrogen per hectare. In addition to dairy farmers, those farmers who exceeded the limits or came close to the limits in 2022 should engage with their advisor and consider applying for a derogation in 2023, which allows application of livestock manure on a holding (including that deposited by the animals themselves) up to 250kg N/ha/year. Telehealth services have been around for decades, but it wasnt until the COVID-19 pandemic when Medicaid and private insurers loosened payment restrictions, that consumer use exploded. Following a nationwide swell of legislation to make the exceptions permanent, Montana lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 that made it mandatory for insurers to offer telehealth coverage. But with no policy in place to establish consistency in insurance reimbursement rates, providers faced underpayment for their telehealth services. Unfortunately this type of parity (coverage requirement) does not guarantee the same type of payment. For Montana to stay competitive, and still reducing our health care costs for both rural and urban citizens in our state, we want to be able to provide efficient quality of care to all residents and payment parity is definitely going to be one of those pieces that helps bridge that gap, said Republican Senator Walt Sales of Manhattan. Sales introduced Senate Bill 196 Wednesday night explaining the legislation would make it mandatory for insurers to reimburse telehealth and in-person services at an equal rate, further incentivizing providers to offer telehealth services. The telehealth model is ideal for frontier states like Montana, where geographical expanse, provider shortages and limited resources at critical access hospitals impede access to health care. Many leaders in Montanas health care industry spoke in support of the bill, including representatives from NAMI Montana, Montana Medical Association, Montana Farmers Union and the Montana Academy of Physicians Assistants. There seems to be a misunderstanding that telehealth is less work for the provider. Let me assure you, its not," said Bill Warden with Bozeman Health. "Our providers still need to schedule, interview, diagnose, document, prescribe and follow-up regardless of modality and regardless of whether the appointment was virtual or in-person. Warden also pointed to the financial struggles Critical Access Hospitals have endured for years but were made worse during the pandemic. Citing the Center for Health Care Quality report, Warden said that 15 CAHs are at risk of closure in Montana and seven are at risk of iminant closure. Its not economically possible to maintain a full service acute care hospital in every rural community. If we really want to understand the barriers to health care in rural communities then we have to acknowledge that many of these barriers are driven by inadequate reimbursement, Warden said. Arguments against equal reimbursement have cropped up in recent years, largely centering on the value of a telehealth visit compared to an in-person visit. For instance, audio-only communications are considered an acceptable method for receiving medical services but insurance companies such as Montana Blue Cross Blue Shield reimburse only 70% of visits carried out over the phone. As more people called in for their doctors appointments during the pandemic, researchers found that audio-only visits increased access to quality care for marginalized groups, highlighting the importance of adequate reimbursement for these services. Representatives from health insurance companies including Montana Blue Cross Blue Shield and Cigna said they supported the bill, but would like to add an amendment that would allow them to negotiate lower prices for provider services. Greg VanHorssen with TelaDoc Health, a multinational provider of telemedicine, requested a similar amendment that would allow the company to negotiate lower prices with the group of providers the company utilizes. Sales considered the amendment to be a friendly one, and plans to make the addition. FRIDAY, Jan. 27, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- There are no differences in school-age childhood developmental and educational outcomes between in vitro fertilization (IVF) and spontaneously conceived children, according to a study published online Jan. 24 in PLOS Medicine. Amber L. Kennedy, M.D., from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and colleagues examined the causal effect of IVF conception on primary school-age childhood developmental and educational outcomes versus outcomes associated with spontaneous conception. Analysis included 412,713 children born between 2005 and 2014. The researchers observed no causal effect of IVF conception on the risk for developmental vulnerability at school entry compared with spontaneous conception (measured using Australian Early Developmental Census metrics at ages 4 to 6 years; adjusted risk ratio, 0.97; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.77 to 1.25). Similarly, at age 7 to 9 years, there was no causal effect of IVF conception on the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy overall z score (adjusted mean difference, 0.030; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.018 to 0.077) compared with spontaneous conception. Sex at birth, age at assessment, language background other than English, socioeconomic status, maternal age, parity, and education were all adjusted for the models. "These findings provide reassurance for current and prospective parents, as well as clinicians who are involved in IVF," the authors write. Several authors disclosed financial ties to IVF companies. The Host Julie Rovner KHN Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KHNs weekly health policy news podcast, What the Health? A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book Health Care Politics and Policy A to Z, now in its third edition. The abortion debate has changed dramatically in the seven months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and its nationwide right to abortion. Nearly half the states have banned or restricted the procedure, even though the public, at the ballot box, continues to show support for abortion rights. In this special two-part podcast, taped the week of the 50th anniversary of the Roe decision, an expert panel delves into the fight, the sometimes-unintended side effects, and what each side plans for 2023. This weeks panelists are Julie Rovner of KHN, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Sandhya Raman of CQ Roll Call, and Sarah Varney of KHN. Panelists Alice Miranda Ollstein Politico Sandhya Raman CQ Roll Call Sarah Varney KHN Among the takeaways from this weeks episode: Exemptions to state abortion bans came into question shortly after the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe, with national debate surrounding the case of a 10-year-old in Ohio who was forced to travel out of state to have an abortion although, as a rape victim, she should have been able to obtain an abortion in her home state. The restrictions in many states have caused problems for women experiencing miscarriages, as medical providers fear repercussions of providing care whether affecting their medical licenses or malpractice insurance coverage, or even drawing criminal charges. So far, there have been no reports of doctors being charged. A Christian father in Texas won a lawsuit against the federal government that bars the states Title X family-planning clinics from dispensing birth control to minors without parental consent. That change poses a particular problem for rural areas, where there may not be another place to obtain contraception, and other states could follow suit. The Title X program has long required clinics to serve minors without informing their parents. Top abortion opponents are leaning on misinformation to advance their causes, including to inaccurately claim that birth control is dangerous. Medication abortion is the next target for abortion opponents. In recent months, the FDA has substantially loosened restrictions on the abortion pill, though only in the states where abortion remains available. Some opponents are getting creative by citing environmental laws to argue, without evidence, that the abortion pill could contaminate the water supply. Restrictions are also creating problems for the maternal care workforce, with implications possibly rippling for decades to come. Some of the states with the worst maternal health outcomes also have abortion bans, leading providers to rethink how, and where, they train and practice. Looking ahead, a tug of war is occurring on state and local levels among abortion opponents about what to do next. Some lawmakers who voted for state bans are expressing interest in at least a partial rollback, while other opponents are pushing back to demand no changes to the bans. With Congress divided, decisions about federal government spending could draw the most attention for those looking for national policy changes. Also this week, Rovner interviews Elizabeth Nash, who tracks state reproductive health policies for the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research group. Credits Francis Ying Audio Producer Emmarie Huetteman Editor To hear all our podcasts, click here. And subscribe to KHNs What the Health? on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details). The researchers found that the rate of parental stress was 3.00 times greater for those with insomnia and 1.88 times greater for those with sleep apnea. There was no increased risk for stress observed for those with hypersomnia. Employee insomnia was 111 percent greater if their child had a sleep disorder, while employee sleep apnea was 115 percent greater if their child had a sleep disorder. With increasing employee age, the association between child sleep disorders and sleep apnea decreased. If their child had a sleep disorder, the rate of employee stress was 90 percent greater. Similarly, employee stress was 189 percent greater if their child had insomnia and 81 percent greater if their child had sleep apnea. The association between insomnia and stress and sleep apnea and stress was greater for women. Uber Freight, which opened a sprawling new headquarters in Chicago 15 months ago, has laid off 150 people. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune) Uber Freight, which opened a sprawling new headquarters in Chicago 15 months ago, has laid off 150 people. The layoffs amount to 3% of the freight businesss workforce, the company confirmed. Advertisement Uber Freight joins a wave of tech companies announcing layoffs in recent months. In some cases, the layoffs follow hiring surges by tech industry giants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Microsoft said this month it was cutting 10,000 people, or almost 5% of its workforce, though that was fewer people than it added during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon said it would be cutting about 18,000 workers, and Facebook parent Meta said in November it would lay off 11,000 employees, or 13% of its workforce. Advertisement Uber opened new offices in the redeveloped Old Post Office in October 2021, intended to serve as the headquarters for the Uber Freight business and Chicago operations. The new office was delayed and downsized by the pandemic. The company in 2019 announced it had signed a 10-year lease for 463,000 square feet, but when the office opened the company was occupying about 310,000 square feet of office space and subleasing about 150,000 square feet. When the Old Post Office space opened, Uber had about 1,500 Chicago office workers, about half employed by Uber Freight. The company planned to expand to more than 2,000 Chicago employees at that time. sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is investing $139 million in its Special Diabetes Program for Indians. Funding awards have been made to 302 tribal, urban and Indian Health Service clinics in 35 states, including 13 in Montana. The Special Diabetes Program for Indians aims to provide diabetes prevention and treatment services to Indigenous communities. Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services secretary, said the agency is committed to eliminating health disparities in communities across the country. Native Americans face persistent health and health care disparities, which, according to a recent Health and Human Services report, are a result of centuries of structural discrimination, forced relocation, reduced economic opportunities and chronic underfunding of health care. The report found that Native Americans have a 207% greater chance of dying from diabetes compared with the overall U.S. population. Eleven organizations and tribes are being funded for the first time through this program, including the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana and Native American Development Corporation in Billings. After a decades-long fight, the Little Shell Tribe gained federal recognition status in 2019, and since then, has established its first tribal health clinic in Great Falls. Molly Wendland, Little Shell tribal health director, said the tribe plans to work with Indian Health Service to offer new services through their mobile health clinic. Its really exciting! she said. Its great. We hope to offer services to members and build on this program. Recipients in Montana include: All Nations Health Center in Missoula will receive $169,428 The Blackfeet Nation received $867,948 Butte Native Wellness Center received $242,969 The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes received $1,040,808 The Crow Indian Health Service facility in Billings received $1,224,949 The Fort Belknap Diabetes Prevention Program received $434,243 The Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes received $815,808 Helena Indian Alliance received $288,686 Indian Family Health Clinic in Great Falls received $301,028 The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana received $148,030 Native American Development Corporation in Billings received $288,686 The Northern Cheyenne Tribe received $595,755 Rocky Boy Health Center in Box Elder received $451,191 The Missoula populace particularly the business community feels mixed emotions about the citys new proposal to redo Higgins Avenue and the Beartracks Bridge. City staff are proposing a redesign that would reduce four lanes of traffic to one lane in each direction with a center lane. On the north and south ends of the bridge, that center lane would be a left turn lane. On Beartracks, it would serve as snow storage and emergency vehicle access. Protected bike lanes would also be added on both sides of Higgins throughout the corridor. Theres a lot of potential ways, directions we could go and potential outcomes we could work towards on this corridor, Infrastructure and Mobility Planning Manager Aaron Wilson told the Missoula City Council Wednesday. But there isnt room for everything we would want to do to accommodate everyones potential interest in how they use Higgins So at the end of the day, regardless of the decision we make on this project, there will be users and decisions that I think will make folks unhappy and its difficult to do that. Particularly unhappy are a cross-section of business owners with properties on the popular through-way that cuts through downtown Missoula. While most of the public polled by the team working on the corridor expressed more support for the project than opposition, at a rate of about 2-1, business owners were pretty equally divided between those that support the redesign and those against it. Scott Billadeau, co-owner of Pangea and Liquid Planet, spoke Wednesday on behalf of the businesspeople who dont support the project. He railed against the process used to make decisions about the roadway, taking special exception to the recent outreach performed within the business community. Now at the very end of the process theyre finally coming to us who actually live and work on Higgins, Billadeau said. That is really upsetting. Its really infuriating actually. Another Higgins business owner, however, cast a different opinion of the proposed changes. There is wide support for this, Alex Gallego maintained. Once these things are in place, the business community is going to thrive and its going to be more attractive, more people are going to want to visit this area. Among the general public, meanwhile, there is concern about a loss of parking and increased congestion. Parking on the west side of Higgins, south of the Clark Fork River, will disappear from Fourth Street to Sixth Street. Additionally, traffic delays will likely increase about 51 seconds during afternoon rush hour, according to Wilson. But Wilson reminded council: Despite all the growth that Missoula is seeing, were not seeing huge increases in volumes of traffic along this corridor. Wilson also said the change on Beartracks Bridge, which only opened to four lanes of traffic in November 2022, will create benefits that should outweigh the drawbacks of reconfiguring the construction-weary structure. While were proposing changes just to the striping over the bridge, were not taking away any of that investment in that future capacity, Wilson pointed out. He said the possibility of going back to two lanes in each direction will be preserved into the future. Wilson also stressed that the need for bridge rehabilitation predated the current study of the best transportation uses of Beartracks. The benefits of reworking Higgins, Wilson said, include increasing safety, adding protected bike lanes, reducing crossing distances, improving lane widths and creating emergency and maintenance access. The project still needs council approval and a green light from the Montana Department of Transportation. After gaining those approvals, Wilson said the city will pursue grants to complete the work. There is an opportunity for Higgins to become sort of that core of downtown, Wilson reiterated. Montanas American Indian Caucus is comprised of 11 Indigenous lawmakers who serve in Montanas Legislature. This legislative session, Indigenous lawmakers make up 7.3% of all Montana legislators, which mirrors the Native population in the state. Native representation in the Legislature has dramatically increased since data on it was first recorded more than 30 years ago. In 1989, for example, there was one Indigenous lawmaker in Montana. While tribes are sovereign entities, state laws affect everyone living in Montana. A bill moving through the Legislature would provide resources for communities experiencing high rates of missing persons cases, for example, and theres a bill draft establishing hunting seasons on fee land within the Flathead Reservation. The American Indian Caucus is not monolithic its made up of two Republicans and nine Democrats. While the caucus doesnt agree on everything, they often come together to support or oppose legislation. Other lawmakers and members of the public are welcome at caucus meetings, as well. Native lawmakers this session submitted 26 pieces of legislation, as of Friday. Legislators have until Friday, Feb. 24 to introduce general bills. Heres a look at who serves in the American Indian Caucus, which committees theyve joined and what bills they are sponsoring. This list of lawmakers was taken from the Governors Office of Indian Affairs. SENATORS Sen. Jason Small Caucus Chair Party: Republican Tribal affiliation: Northern Cheyenne Hometown: Busby Committee assignments: Business, Labor and Economic Affairs, Energy and Telecommunications, Natural Resources and Joint Natural Resources Sponsored bills: to revise alcohol laws relating to purchasing beer. to prohibit local governments from banning or limiting energy choices. to revise laws related to court administration of certain civil cases. This bill was tabled in committee, meaning it is probably dead. to prohibit local governments from banning petroleum fuels. Sen. Mike Fox Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Aaniiih Hometown: Hays Committee assignments: Fish and Game, Business, Labor and Economic Affairs, State Administration, Joint House Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Senate Fish and Game, and Joint State Administration Sponsored bills: to revise laws related to Montana national guard benefits and rights. SB 80 to authorize investment authority for retained interest. Sen. Shane Morigeau Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Confederated Salish and Kootenai Hometown: Missoula Committee assignments: Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, Finance and Claims, Natural Resources, Rules, Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, Joint Appropriations and Finance and Claims, Joint Education, Joint Natural Resources and Joint Rules Committee Sponsored bills: to revise independent contractor laws. to revise laws related to redistricting data for inmates. to limit the number of registered voters in each election precinct. to create Indigenous Peoples Day. to revise laws related to wage transparency. Morigeau has said he will bring a bill that expands Indian Education for All to lawmakers. Sen. Susan Webber Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Blackfeet Hometown: Browning Committee assignments: Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, Education and Cultural Resources, Judiciary, Public Health, Welfare and Safety and Joint Education Sponsored bills: to provide a tax exemption for tribal members who are transferring fee land to trust. to establish the Chief Earl Old Person Memorial Highway. After some contention, this bill passed the Senate and has moved to the House. to recognize the Indian boarding school experience. REPRESENTATIVES Rep. Tyson Running Wolf Caucus Vice-Chair Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Blackfeet Hometown: Browning Committee assignments: Education, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, State Administration, Joint Education, Joint House Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Senate Fish and Game and Joint State Administration Sponsored bills: to establish a missing persons response team training grant program. Browning residents traveled to Helena to testify in support of this bill. to revise laws related to Indian affairs and economic development. to revise and extend the Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force. Rep. Donavon Hawk Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Crow Hometown: Butte Committee assignments: Ethics, Human Services and Judiciary Sponsored bills: None yet Rep. Frank Smith Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Assiniboine Sioux Hometown: Poplar Committee assignments: Agriculture, State Administration, Transportation and Joint State Administration Sponsored bills: to revise tobacco, alternative nicotine and vape product laws. to revise laws related to tribal DUI task forces. to revise country of origin labeling. Rep. Sharon Stewart Peregoy Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Crow Hometown: Crow Agency Committee assignments: Appropriations, Rules, Joint Appropriations and Finance and Claims, Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Transportation and Joint Rules Committee Sponsored bills: None yet Rep. Marvin Weatherwax Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Blackfeet Hometown: Browning Committee assignments: Agriculture, Natural Resources, State Administration, Joint Natural Resources and Joint State Administration Sponsored bills: None yet Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy Party: Democrat Tribal affiliation: Chippewa Cree Hometown: Box Elder Committee assignments: Appropriations, Joint Appropriations and Finance and Claims, Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education and Joint Education Sponsored bills: to revise laws related to Indian language preservation. to revise laws related to tuition waivers for American Indian students. to provide for the Montana Indian Child Welfare Act. to revise laws related to Indian Education for All. to revise the tribal computer programming scholarship program. Rep. Rhonda Knudsen Party: Republican Tribal affiliation: Turtle Mountain Chippewa Hometown: Culbertson Committee assignments: Natural Resources, Rules, Taxation, Joint Natural Resources and Joint Rules Committee Sponsored bills: HB 28 to increase l egislator per diem reimbursements for lodging and meals. How to access the legislative session Lawmakers in Montana convene for three months every two years to pass new laws. Bills are typically introduced in a committee, where the bill sponsor explains the bill, and proponents and opponents are encouraged to share their thoughts. Committees can either table the bill, meaning it does not pass, or they can pass it, meaning the bill will advance to either the House or Senate. To become a law, bills must move through the House and Senate and be signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte. To follow bills or offer testimony, visit leg.mt.gov and visit the tabs called look up bills, watch/listen to meetings and look up legislators. Groups that serve Native Americans in Montana, including the ACLU of Montana, Western Native Voice and Red Medicine, also offer resources on how to engage with bills that affect Indian Country. The Montana VA Health Care System is hosting an open house in Missoula to allow Montana veterans and their families to enroll in VA health care. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3 at the David J. Thatcher VA Clinic, officials will be on hand to help enroll veterans in benefits, according to a press release. Information on eligibility and enrollment, women's health, whole health, caregiver support and the Veterans Benefits Administration will be available. Veterans can also get a toxic exposure screening, the release said. "The Montana VA has one, single-minded focus Veterans, said Montana VA Executive Director Dr. Judy Hayman in the release. We are here for our Veterans and their families. On the anniversary of our new clinic in Missoula, we are opening our doors and inviting Veterans to see the beautiful state of the art facility and learn more about the high-quality health care services that we provide." Veterans can connect to their VA health care records, information, and message their VA care teams 24 hours a day through the MyHealtheVet patient portal (myhealth.va.gov/mhv-portal-web/how-to-use-mhv). Montana VA information, updates, and events are available on the Montana VA website (va.gov/montana-health-care) and Facebook page (facebook.com/VAMontana). MEMPHIS, Tenn. Five fired Memphis police officers were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the killing, "they are all responsible." The officers, who are all Black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Video of the Jan. 7 traffic stop will be released to the public sometime Friday evening, Mulroy said. Nichols' family and their lawyers say the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old father and FedEx worker for three minutes. Nichols' stepfather, Rodney Wells, told The Associated Press by phone that he and his wife, RowVaughn Wells, who is Nichols' mother, discussed the second-degree murder charges and are "fine with it." They had sought first-degree murder charges. "There's other charges, so I'm all right with that," he said. Earlier this week, Wells called for any protests that happen when the video is released to remain peaceful. He also said he is "ecstatic" that authorities moved quickly in the case. David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said during the news conference that he saw the video and found it "absolutely appalling." "Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing," he said. "This was wrong. This was criminal." Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were in custody. The records did not list attorneys for Smith, Bean or Haley. Martin's lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mills' lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. "No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die," Massey said. Both lawyers said they had not seen the video. "We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is," Ballin said. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. The attorneys for Nichols' family Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci issued a statement saying that the charges offer "hope as we continue to push for justice for Tyre." "This young man lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop," they wrote. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who founded and runs the National Action Network and will deliver the eulogy at Nichols' funeral service next week, called the charges "a necessary step in delivering justice" for Nichols, who was an avid skateboarder and had a 4-year-old son. At the White House, President Joe Biden said Nichols' family and the city of Memphis deserve "a swift, full and transparent investigation." "Public trust is the foundation of public safety, and there are still too many places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken," Biden said in a statement. The Memphis police chief called the officers' actions that night "heinous, reckless and inhumane." "This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual," Memphis Police Director Cerelyn "CJ" Davis said in a video statement released late Wednesday on social media. Davis said the five officers found to be "directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. Nichols" were fired last week, but other officers are being investigated for violating department policy. In addition, she said "a complete and independent review" will be conducted of the department's specialized units, without providing further details. Two fire department workers were removed from duty over Nichols' Jan. 10 death. As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police department's "full and complete cooperation." Mulroy told The Associated Press on Tuesday that local and state investigators wanted to complete as many interviews as possible before releasing the video. Crump said the video showed showed Nichols was shocked, pepper-sprayed and restrained when he was pulled over for a traffic stop near his home. He was returning home from a park where took photos of the sunset. The legal team likened the beating to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Police said Nichols was stopped for reckless driving and at some point fled from the scene. Relatives accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure. Authorities have only said Nichols experienced a medical emergency. When video of the arrest is publicly released, Davis said she expects people in the community to react, but she urged them to do so peacefully. "None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens," she said. One of the officers, Haley, previously was accused of using excessive force. He was named as a defendant in a 2016 federal civil rights lawsuit while employed by the Shelby County Division of Corrections. Photos: The aftermath of the violent arrest, death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis This months Wallet Warning arises from actions which just literally happened to some of our county taxpayers and involves something we talked about in 2022 government impersonation scams. One of our employees reached out to a taxpayer last December about a matter they had been working on together a tax payment plan. The taxpayer informed our employee that they had taken care of it by signing a plan with the Shelby County employee who came to their house over the weekend. It was brought to my attention since our office doesnt send employees out to folks houses to get their signatures. After further conversation with the taxpayer, it was uncovered that the person who presented himself to the taxpayer at her home, and who the taxpayer was convinced was a county employee, was not. The unfortunate taxpayer, instead of signing a tax payment plan which she thought she was doing, had inadvertently signed a deed and gave her property to the stranger and sure enough he recorded that deed at the County Registers Office immediately. At that point, he owned her property. Luckily our office and the Memphis Police Department were able to intervene immediately and the taxpayer once again owns her own property. Many thanks to MPDs Economic Crime unit. This month, another county taxpayer was contacted via telephone and received a notice in the mail that appeared to be legitimate, even though it stated in small print it wasnt a government document. The entity called itself Clerks Property Office and listed two different addresses one in Nashville and one in St. Petersburg, Florida. They are in no way affiliated with Shelby County government or the County Trustees office, nor do they have anything to do with the collection of your local property taxes. Dont send them tax money as one of our taxpayers almost did. Government employee impersonation scams take variety of forms and have been around for a while, but they all want your money, your signature, or other identifying information they are not entitled to. These consumer cons can succeed if you dont protect yourself. Story continues Also, deed fraud is now a widespread, national problem whether someone comes to you for a signature or not. There are several things to know to prevent bad outcomes from these scams: If someone claims to be from, or work for, the government, always ask for identification. Real government workers all have government issued photo identification. It is rare for a government employee to drop by unannounced. Typically, you will know they are coming and for what reason. If the visit is unexpected, call the office where the person claims to work. Get the phone number from the internet, not from the visitor, in order to assure you are speaking to an actual government office. As to the County Trustees Office, we do collect property taxes but we do not send people to your home, and we certainly dont complete any type of monetary transactions away from our main office or our scheduled cashiering locations during tax season. Our locations are on our website: www.shelbycountytrustee.com We also dont drop in to have you sign any paperwork. Never send your County property tax payment to any address outside of Memphis/Shelby County. If you receive any mailing asking you to do otherwise, call the Trustees office at (901) 222-0200 to verify the information. We have electronic payment options on our website which are safe and secure. To avert and be aware of any deed fraud related to your property, all Shelby County property owners and homeowners are encouraged to sign up for the Shelby County Register of Deeds Fraud Alert Program. You can do that on their website: https://register.shelby.tn.us/fraud-alert. It just takes a couple of minutes. The program will then send you an email when any document is recorded in their office related to your property. This will keep you informed and allow you to immediately address any fraudulent issues. If you do get caught up in a government impersonation scam, contact the official government office right away to enlist their help in resolving the issue. Our goal with Wallet Warnings remains the same - to help you safeguard your money. If you have any questions or need any additional information about anything discussed here, please call (901) 222-0206. We are happy to help you avoid scams, fraud and predatory lenders. We hope you have a safe, scam-free new year! Regina Morrison Newman is the Shelby County Trustee. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How to prepare for a government employee impersonation scam Much is still unclear about the Burke County Board of Educations pending decision on the 2023-24 school calendar. For one, the board, despite signals that it wants to adopt an early start date, has pushed the decision back to gather more information and give all board members an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. It is clear an early start date Aug. 14 according to a proposal the board considered on Jan. 9 would violate state law, under which Aug. 28 would be the earliest possible start date allowed next year. It is still unclear, however, what violating the 2004 law mandating schools begin no earlier than the Monday closest to Aug. 26 would mean for the district. According to a statement from Allison Schafer, the General Counsel to the N.C. State Board of Education and the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI), such a decision could place the district in legal peril. The nature of that legal peril, however, is only beginning to come into focus this month. The school calendar statute does not list any specific penalties for non-compliance, and three Charlotte-area school districts Rutherford County, Cleveland County and Gaston County managed to open early this year unscathed. But that all changed Jan. 9 when two Union County parents filed a lawsuit against Union County Public Schools for its December decision to start the 2023-24 school year on Aug. 9. The suit asks the court to invalidate the calendar, calling the decision the willful failure of a school board member to follow the law. Requests from North Carolinas tourism industry were a significant driver in the passage of the current school calendar law in 2004. Vince Chelena, executive director of the North Carolina Travel Industry Association (NCTIA), told The News Herald this is because August is a critical month, not just for the tourism industry but for many North Carolinians who plan their vacations around school calendars. North Carolina families want to vacation in August, he said. 35,000 small tourism businesses earn as much as 75% of their income during the summer months, and their families count on a busy August to make ends meet for the rest of the year. According to Chelena, Union County is not the only place where parents and business owners are upset. We have received a significant number of calls this year from across the state as more school districts seek to pass illegal calendars, he said. He said his office has not yet received any calls from Burke County. Tamika Walker Kelly, North Carolina Association of Educators president, sees things differently. Weve included local calendar flexibility in our most recent iteration of our legislative priorities, she told The News Herald. We do believe that school calendar needs are best known by the community and the students and parents that the school board represents. She said local districts should have the flexibility they need to pass a calendar that meets the needs of their individual district. She believes the needs of teachers, students and families should be the first priority when deciding on a calendar and, in many cases, an early start, like the one being considered in Burke County, is what best meets those needs. We know a number of school districts have polled their parents and communities to find out what changes they would like, Walker Kelly said. Most recently, Gaston polled their parents and a lot of them wanted the calendar that ends the first semester before winter break. She said these schedules may also help with student performance. We know that ending the first semester before winter break allows students to have academic gains in their progress because it lessens the time between when theyve completed their academic review of the material and when they take their end-of-course exams, she said. Burke County Board of Education Chair Wendi Craven agrees, saying her main concern is what is best for Burke County students, which she believes is an early start. Its whats best for kids, for all the children to start back to school when the community college starts, she said. Ultimately, Craven said she believes districts should have the flexibility to create a calendar that meets the specific needs of that district. Board member Leslie Ritchie Taylor agrees. I am in favor of an early start, she said. She cited her experience as the parent of a high school student who had to take his exams after the two-week holiday break. She feels like this set up has the potential to negatively affect student success. What that does is create a negative impact on student success, Ritchie Taylor said. It also negatively impacts teacher success which completely works against what (the boards) goals are. Still, Craven said the board is not going to rush into a decision. We have until April, she told The News Herald, then clarifying that she believes the board will come to a decision long before the April 1 deadline. The matter originally was slated to be voted on at the Jan. 23 regular called meeting, but Craven said she asked Superintendent Mike Swan to strike the item from the agenda. I just think it would be best to hold off another month, she told The News Herald. I want to make sure all the board members are educated before we make a decision like that. On Jan. 19, Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina acquired 6 valuable acres for permanent conservation in Valdese. This property, across from Valdese Childrens Park on East Main Street, will be eventually transferred to the town of Valdese for expansion of the Childrens Park and future development of the Wilderness Gateway State Trail, said a release from the conservancy. Town Manager Seth Eckard said the town will not be expanding Childrens Park or adding any amenities to the acreage when it is transferred to Valdese. He said the town will keep the area mowed and the public will be welcomed to use it as open space. There are no additional plans for the property other than that, Eckard said. Eckard said the property would have to be transferred to the town at no cost to the town. He said the purpose of the town accepting the property is so it will be used for Wilderness Gateway State Trail and to preserve more green space in Valdese. Foothills Conservancy is glad to partner with Friends of the Valdese Rec and the town of Valdese to secure this 6 acres of open space for future public park and trail use, Land Protection Director Tom Kenney said in the conservancy release. Projects like this support healthy lifestyles and economic development through tourism in Valdese associated with the Wilderness Gateway State Trail. Preserving this property also will help protect the water quality of the area, as this property adjoins Micol Creek, a tributary that drains into Lake Rhodhiss in the Catawba River Basin, the release said. This project is the latest in a series of conservation efforts for the WGST by Foothills Conservancy, which serves as the lead organization for the trail. Earlier this month, the conservancy transferred 75 acres in Catawba County to the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation for addition to state land and the WGST corridor, the release said. The nonprofit Foothills Conservancy has conserved more than 66,000 acres in its eight county service area: Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Cleveland, Lincoln, McDowell and Rutherford, in three major river basins: the Broad, Catawba and Yadkin. Information about Foothills Conservancy, including ways to support its work, can be found online at www.foothillsconservancy.org or by calling 828-437-9930. People walk by the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago on Aug. 18, 2022, in Chicago. The school will no longer participate in U.S. News & World Reports medical school rankings, joining a growing list of institutions rejecting the rankings. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune) University of Chicagos Pritzker School of Medicine will no longer participate in U.S. News & World Reports medical school rankings, joining a growing list of institutions rejecting the rankings. Leaders at the Chicago medical school have decided to no longer submit data to U.S. News to help the publication rank the institution. Typically, U.S. News asks medical schools to fill out surveys, and uses the results of those surveys, along with other information, to help rank the schools. Advertisement Leaders said in a memo sent to the medical school community Thursday evening that the decision was based on a number of factors, but our overriding concern is to help address and reduce inequities in medical school education. This decision is based on our judgment that the current methodology raises deep concerns about inequity perpetuated by the misuse of metrics that fail to capture the quality or outcomes of medical education for those who most need these data: applicants to medical school, said Dr. Mark Anderson, medical school dean, and Dr. Vineet Arora, dean for medical education of the Biological Sciences Division and Pritzker School of Medicine, in the memo. Advertisement They wrote that aspiring medical students deserve transparent, meaningful, and usable data that reflect both the quality of their educational experience and graduation outcomes. They said the U.S. News rankings dont provide that, and the medical school will share essential information on its admissions website. They said theyve written a letter to U.S. News editors seeking to convene stakeholders to discuss how to better measure and report on medical schools. University of Chicagos decision follows similar ones by medical schools across the country in recent weeks, including at Harvard, Stanford and Columbia universities and University of Pennsylvania. Locally, other Illinois medical schools are making varied decisions amid the controversy. Rush Universitys medical school will continue to participate in the rankings, for now, Rush said in a statement. Rush will, however, continue to assess their process of evaluating and ranking, it said. Meanwhile, the medical school at Chicagos Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in Chicago is backing away from the ranking system. The schools leaders decided in the fall to stop filling out the U.S. News survey, said Dr. Archana Chatterjee, dean of the universitys Chicago Medical School. I learned more about how flawed their methodology is and became really concerned that this wasnt what we wanted to be a part of, Chatterjee said. We live in a competitive world, but what we are trying to teach our students is collaboration instead of competition. That is not fostered by this type of ranking system that falsely makes one institution look better than another. The medical school at Loyola University has not submitted data for rankings for several years, a spokeswoman said. A spokeswoman for Northwestern Universitys medical school declined to comment, and University of Illinois did not respond to a request for comment. Advertisement Of medical schools in Illinois, U.S. News ranked Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine 17th in the country for research, and University of Chicagos Pritzker School of Medicine 20th in the nation for research. For research, University of Illinois medical school ranked 56th and Rushs school ranked 68th. Loyolas medical school was unranked. U.S. News also has a separate ranking, in which medical schools are judged for their ability to train primary care doctors. University of Chicagos medical school ranked 30th on that measure, Northwesterns ranked 43rd, University of Illinois ranked 61st and Rush ranked 71st. Harvard Medical School announced Jan. 17 that it was dropping out of the rankings. Harvard was rated the No. 1 medical school in the country for research by U.S. News in 2022. Harvard Medical School Dean George Daley said in a letter at the time that rankings cannot meaningfully reflect the high aspirations for educational excellence, graduate preparedness, and compassionate and equitable patient care that we strive to foster in our medical education programs. As unintended consequences, rankings create perverse incentives for institutions to report misleading or inaccurate data, set policies to boost rankings rather than nobler objectives, or divert financial aid from students with financial need to high-scoring students with means in order to maximize ranking criteria, Daley wrote. When Harvard announced its decision earlier this month, U.S. News & World Report Executive Chairman and CEO Eric Gertler said in a statement: Where students attend school and how they use their education are among the most critical decisions of their life, and with admissions more competitive and less transparent, and tuition increasingly expensive, we believe students deserve access to all the data and information necessary to make the right decision. Advertisement Gertler said rankings should be just one component in a students decision of where to attend medical school. The fact is, millions of prospective students annually visit U.S. News medical school rankings because we provide students with valuable data and solutions to help with that process, he said. The wave of dropouts follows a similar revolt in recent months by law schools across the country against U.S. News law school rankings. U.S. News said in a letter to law school deans this month that it is making changes to the way it ranks law schools, including a reduced emphasis on the peer assessment surveys of academics, lawyers and judges, and an increased weight on outcome measures, such as bar exam passage and employment outcomes. U.S. News has said that it will continue to rank law schools, using publicly available data, regardless of whether a law school responds to its annual survey. But it will publish more detailed information for schools that do respond to the survey. Butte Central Catholic Schools will join over 6,000 other Catholic schools and over 2 million students across the United States in celebration of National Catholic Schools Week 2023. The week-long celebration continues through Saturday, Feb. 4, with 23 Montana Catholic schools participating. This years theme is Faith, Excellence, and Service and reflects the challenge of Pope Francis, who calls on Catholic schools to prepare future Catholic Church leaders. According to Don Peoples Jr., BCCS president, the schools are excited to participate in the week-long event. We are very proud of our schools, and we look forward to celebrating the traditions of Catholic education, said Peoples. Throughout the week, Butte Central will hold a series of special events. On Sunday, Jan. 29, parents and staff members will deliver thank you messages to parishioners. On Tuesday, Jan. 31, an All-School Mass will be held at 10 a.m. at St. Patricks Church. Students from Butte Central Catholic High School and Butte Central Catholic Elementary will be in attendance. The Mass, which will be celebrated by Bishop Austin Vetter, is open to the public. Later that day, the Butte Central Foundation will host a Parish Appreciation Luncheon at the Maroon Activities Center where the clergy and staffs of Buttes parishes will be honored. Volunteers, benefactors, and alumni will be honored at the annual Awards and Dedication Ceremony at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1, at the Maroon Activities Center. In addition, a series of activities are planned throughout the week to honor volunteers, faculty and students. A Butte police officer initially charged with felony strangulation of a partner or family member pleaded guilty to a lesser offense Thursday and was given a one-year deferred sentence. Benjamin Rauch pleaded guilty to misdemeanor partner-family member assault, first offense, for an altercation he had with a female relative at a residence on Jan. 3, 2022. Rauch, 47, has been a Butte police officer for 16 years. Prosecutors wanted a one-year jail sentence with all but 24 hours suspended, plus counseling and other conditions, but District Judge Luke Berger said he had to treat Rauch the way I treat anyone else for such an offense. He ordered 40 hours of counseling and other supervisory conditions but gave Rauch a deferred sentence. That means if Rauch meets the supervisory terms and remains law-abiding for a year, he could get the case removed from his record. The original felony strangulation charge carried a possible five-year prison term and fine up to $50,000. Rauch had been suspended from Butte-Silver Bow police without pay for some time and that remained in effect Thursday, said Sheriff Ed Lester. He said the matter would be reviewed again given the court action before determining Rauchs status going forward. Police were called to a residence on Jan. 3, 2022, to investigate a report from a female who said she had been assaulted at a different location. Butte police did a preliminary investigation then asked the Montana Attorney Generals Office for assistance. According to charging documents, a state investigator met with the alleged victim and documented injuries to her leg, foot and neck. She said Rauch had strangled her and during the assault, she told him she couldnt breathe. Rauch told agents they were having a verbal argument until something happened and he grabbed the female and put her on a bed. He said he did not choke her. Rauch was booked after an investigation but released two hours later after posting a $50,000 bond. The plea was part of an agreement between Rauch and the AGs office but Meghann Paddock, a prosecutor with that office, wanted a suspended sentence and another 22 hours of jail time served. That would make 24 hours total and the overall sentence would provide some accountability for the assault, particularly in light of his position as a police officer, she said. The legal process has been difficult for the victim, she said. Berger gave Rauch an opportunity to speak at the hearing but his attorney, Frank Joseph, said he wasnt comfortable doing that. Joseph argued for the deferred sentence, saying Rauch took accountability for his actions and on his own sought services, including counseling, through the Yellowstone County Veterans Court. Rauch had served four years in the Army Reserves and four years in the Marine Corps besides his time as a police officer, Joseph said. Berger said his sentence would be criticized no matter what because Rauch was a police officer but said he had to treat the case like any other. He suggested that the assault occurred because Rauch, given his job and military background, was dealing with a lot of stress. Finally the stress is too much and it comes out, Berger said. He encouraged Rauch to talk to others and take other steps to deal with such issues in the future. Montanans are blessed with some of the most expansive rights and freedoms of any U.S. state. We have these freedoms because our Constitution was written by Montanans to serve Montanans. In 1972, 100 delegates from every corner of the state folks elected by their communities authored this revolutionary document. These were everyday people: ranchers, teachers, homemakers, and even a beekeeper from Lewistown. They were not politicians. They were not corporate lobbyists. Sadly, some politicians and lobbyists want to dismantle our Constitutional rights this legislative session. We wont let them succeed. But why are they trying to undermine our freedoms in the first place? To answer that question, we simply need to remind ourselves what Montana looked like before we expanded our Constitutional rights. For much of Montanas history, most of the power was held by only a few, wealthy elites. They controlled our economy, our land, and our resources. They owned and controlled our newspapers. They bribed and coerced our politicians and made secret deals far from public view. These were the Copper Kings and robber barons, routinely buying and selling public officials who fed on perks and proximity to power, aiding the barons by pouring millions into their massive fortunes. The tighter the grip these corrupt elites had on our government, the weaker we became. Out of control, toxic pollution rendered many of our communities unsafe. No matter their talent or work ethic, those without wealth and political connections had few economic opportunities. In an act embodying both courage and democratic values, Montanans rose up to demand new rights, freedoms, and liberties. This is the moment we convened the 1972 Constitutional Convention that brought together those 100 delegates from every walk of life to demand a voice in our governments decisions and an end to the stranglehold of corruption. Thanks to that groundswell of democratic action, the Montana Constitution guarantees at least 17 more rights than can be found in the U.S. Constitution. This includes the right to a clean and healthful environment, helping us preserve our land and water for future generations. It includes our right to know what our government is up to, ensuring accountability and transparency. It protects our democracy by requiring nonpartisan districting measures so that legislators cant use corrupt gerrymandering tactics to handpick their voters. Our Constitution ensures fair and impartial courts to ensure the vital checks and balances between our branches of government and protections for our individual rights. It also recognizes our Indigenous culture and history, preserving Native American languages and education. Montana is stronger, safer, more just, and more independent because of our Constitution. We have leveled the playing field so that wealthy individuals and large corporations cant co-opt our legislators behind our backs. Unfortunately, some politicians like the power and perks from the old shady and unethical way of doing things, and they want to dismantle our rights. Already this session, legislators have drafted at least 54 amendments to our Constitution, almost twice as many as the document has seen in its entire history. These amendments could take away our right to a clean and healthful environment, undermine the independence of our courts, and dismantle vital pillars of our democracy. But we can stop them if we stand together. Lets honor the spirit of those who worked so hard 50 years ago to gain these rights, honor our friends and neighbors using these protections right now to make contributions to communities and civic life, and honor future generations who will rely on our Constitutional safeguards for protection tomorrow just as we do today. On Wednesday, Feb. 1 at noon, a broad coalition of individuals and organizations will gather for We the People: A Rally for the Montana Constitution inside Helenas Capitol Rotunda. Please join us to let legislators know how fiercely proud Montanans are of our Constitution and how fiercely we will protect it! Learn more at NorthernPlains.org/WeThePeople. WATERLOO From the opening shot of a new docuseries, Waterloo is a point of focus in New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones newest project. The 1619 Project is a six-episode docuseries premiering Thursday on Hulu. Each episode is based on a chapter from the book of the same name. Hannah-Jones, a Waterloo native, won a Pultizer Prize in commentary for a personal essay that opened the 1619 Project, a deep dive into the implications of the history of slavery. The New York Times Magazine project marked the 400th anniversary of the 1619 arrival of a ship which, for the first time on the continent, brought 20 enslaved Africans to Virginia. The book was published later based on the magazines work. The project posits that 1619 is Americas true origin date, rather than the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The series seeks to reframe the countrys history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the center of the narrative, according to information from Hulu. Hannah-Jones said after the projects publication in 2019, she was contacted by several studios interested in putting the story on TV or film. The series is a Lionsgate production in association with One Story Up Productions, Harpo Films and The New York Times. She is one of the executive producers and serves as a guide throughout each episode. Hannah-Jones has worked on the series while remaining a New York Times correspondent. Since 2021, she has also been the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Washington, D.C.s Howard University, a tenured faculty position. That same year, she founded the 1619 Freedom School, a Waterloo after-school program focused on students from low-income families behind in their literacy skills. She said the potential reach of the docuseries was what drew her to pursuing the venture. Im an old-school print reporter, and I understand the power of the media, she said in a phone interview with the Courier. You can reach so many more people through television, and you can tell the story in a different way. The series wont be exactly like the book, she said. Every episode contains new, original reporting and real Americans who dont appear in the book. Also featured more: the city of Waterloo. Over three days last summer, Hannah-Jones and her team filmed in the city and talked to her family, who still live here. Waterloo and my family appear throughout the series to personalize the episode and create connective tissue, she said. Waterloo and my story is a constant throughout. Waterloo was also the start of her learning about 1619. Hannah-Jones said she was taught about the year at West High School in an elective African-American history course. Earlier in her life, at age 11, she was published in The Courier, where she wrote a letter to the editor about Jesse Jacksons presidential run and how he fared in Iowas primary. I thought about why he didnt do well, she said. Well, because he was a Black man. And I predicted one day we would have a Black president. The docuseries six episodes are titled Democracy, Race, Capitalism, Music, Fear and Justice. Hannah-Jones is most excited for the last episode to air, saying its about reparations for descendants of American slavery. The fact youre getting an hour on a major streaming service on reparations is pretty amazing to me, she said. Along with Hannah-Jones, the series was produced by Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams; Caitlin Roper, editor of The 1619 Project and New York Times executive producer for film and TV; Kathlene Lingo, New York Times editorial director for film and TV; and Oprah Winfrey. Peabody Award-winning executive producer Shoshana Guy served as the showrunner. I hope I do Waterloo proud, Hannah-Jones said, noting she has the word Waterloo tattooed on her wrist. Im excited other people will learn about the place that raised me. 5 of Iowa's oldest barns Gehlen Barn The Gehlen Barn in St. Donatus is one of the few stone barns in Iowa and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The three-story barn was built of locally quarried limestone by Peter Gehlen in 1839. Stromeyer Barn Stromeyer Barn, located at 37647 Iron Bridge Road in Spragueville. Built by brothers Henry, Otto and William F.H. Stromeyer, it is constructed of hand-sawed lumber from native cottonwood trees. The barn has 96 window panes and 40 doors. Knoll-Crest Round Barn The Knoll Crest Round Barn was built by Benton Steele in 1914. It is located in Scott County, between Davenport and Blue Grass. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Tyden Farm No. 6 Barn The 1936 Tyden Farm No. 6 Barn in Dougherty, Iowa, owned by Ted and Judy Pitzenberger, is one of Iowa's largest barns. Marlow-Saak Barn The 1890 Marlow-Saak Barn, located in Waukon, Iowa, was built by German immigrants and owned by acclaimed-artist Jeremy Marlow. Californias decision last month to cancel the results of a long-planned bidding competition among commercial health plans in its Medicaid program has some industry insiders and consumer advocates wondering whether the state can stand up to insurers and force improvements in care for millions of low-income beneficiaries. In a backroom agreement announced in the final days of 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsoms administration, facing lawsuits, granted concessions that allowed major insurers to claw back business they would have lost had health officials stuck with the states initial contract awards for managed-care plans. Oakland-based Blue Shield of California and St. Louis-based Centene Corp. which owns Health Net, the largest commercial health plan in Medi-Cal, the states version of Medicaid were among those that had aggressively challenged the initial results. They had this long process, and then they just sort of struck deals, said Maya Altman, who retired a year ago after nearly 17 years as CEO of the Health Plan of San Mateo, which did not participate in the bidding. Its kind of weird. Not transparent very much behind closed doors. It was a remarkable change of course that came four months after the state had announced its initial contract awards. The Department of Health Care Services, which oversees Medi-Cal, had spent years preparing for the bidding competition and touted it as an important means of addressing substandard care. Eight commercial Medi-Cal plans, covering around 30% of the programs 13 million managed-care enrollees, were required to submit bids for contracts worth about $70 billion over five years. Noncommercial, locally governed Medi-Cal plans that cover the other 70% of managed-care enrollees did not have to submit bids, but they will be required to sign the same new contract as the commercial plans, scheduled to take effect next year. State officials said their new decision avoids uncertainty after the losing health plans Health Net, Blue Shield of California, Community Health Group, and Aetna threatened drawn-out legal action. It also dramatically reduces the number of Medi-Cal enrollees who will have to switch plans from an estimated 2.3 million to about 1.2 million. And state officials said it strengthens their ability to enhance Medi-Cal through the new contracts, which will contain requirements for higher-quality care, greater transparency, and more equitable access. Other states have faced legal disruption after they put their Medicaid contracts up for bid. In Louisiana, for example, Centene and Aetna in 2019 protested the results of a rebidding process, which led that state to nullify its awards and start over. The new results were announced nearly two years later, with Centene and Aetna among the winners. When you create disputes, and lawsuits, they always put some uncertainty into things, Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, told KHN. We feel that we ended up in a place where we achieved certainty. We have a set of [health] plans who are committed to this. Consumer advocates had worried that lingering uncertainty would hinder the rollout of a far-reaching nearly $12 billion, five-year Medi-Cal initiative to provide nonmedical social services that address socioeconomic factors such as homelessness and food insecurity, widely viewed as key health indicators. Still, the states decision to throw out the bidding results has many patient advocates and some health plan executives questioning the value of future contract competitions and even whether health officials will effectively enforce the higher standards in the new contract. It would be extremely disappointing if poor-performing plans were able to litigate their way into participating in Medi-Cal, said Abbi Coursolle, a senior attorney in the Los Angeles office of the National Health Law Program. Tony Cava, a spokesperson for the Department of Health Care Services, said the bids submitted were still incredibly valuable, because they showed how the health plans intend to improve care. He said commitments made in the bids will be incorporated into the new contracts. Cava also said the department, which had not previously held a statewide bidding competition, now intends to hold one every five years. Patient advocates and industry insiders gave the state credit for fining health plans that fell short of quality and access standards in a report issued late last year. But they also noted that several of the health plans that will continue to operate in Medi-Cal including Molina Healthcare and Health Net were among the lowest performers. When the state announced its initial awards in August, Blue Shield was shut out, despite its large health care footprint statewide and its long-standing efforts to curry favor with the states political class. The state also said initially that it would take Los Angeles County, a huge Medi-Cal contract, away from Health Net. Between 2018 and 2022, Blue Shield spent at least $31 million on lobbying, political donations, and other contributions, including $20 million to a state homelessness fund Newsom set up, according to a KHN analysis of filings with the secretary of state and the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Health Net parent Centene spent at least $5 million over that period, mostly on lobbying and political donations. Under the new arrangement, Blue Shield will keep its San Diego County Medi-Cal business after initially losing it in the contract competition, though it will not get a contract in any of the other 12 counties where it bid. Its roughly 129,000 San Diego enrollees will not have to switch plans, but over 100,000 other Medi-Cal members in San Diego will still have to switch, as Health Net and Aetna exit. In Los Angeles County, Health Net will retain its primary Medi-Cal contract, but will have to split its 1.1 million members 50-50 with Molina under a subcontract. Molina already subcontracts with Health Net in the county, but currently has only 80,000 enrollees under that arrangement. Some observers questioned how the split can be maintained. Cava said half of new Medi-Cal enrollees in L.A. County dont choose a plan and are assigned to one instead, according to the most recent data. These assignments will be used to help balance enrollment between Health Net and Molina, he said. The state and the five participating health plans issued an unusual joint statement, and the plans put a positive spin on it. Centene said the states revised decision is in the best interest of millions of members. A Blue Shield executive said it was honored to continue serving Medi-Cal beneficiaries in San Diego County. In an investor call this month, Molinas CEO, Joseph Zubretsky, noted that his companys Medi-Cal membership will double with the new agreement, though it would have tripled under the states initial decision. He summarized the situation for Molina as taking three steps forward, taking one step back, and ending up being two steps ahead. Consumer advocates, patients, and medical professionals expressed relief that the new agreement allows Community Health Group, the largest Medi-Cal health plan in San Diego County, to keep operating there. Had the initial results held, it would have lost its contract, and its 335,000 members would have had to choose new plans. Christine Xayalinh, a member of Community Health Group in Escondido, said the plan afforded her treatment for Type 2 diabetes and referred her to University of California-San Diego for a successful gastric bypass. I know some people do have concerns about their health insurance, Xayalinh, 29, said, but for me, its been a lifesaver. With the contract awards decided, the states hope of improving Medi-Cal will hinge on its ability to enforce the new contracts. The focus now needs to be on making sure that works, said Kiran Savage-Sangwan, executive director of the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network. This is a very vulnerable population of Californians who are not getting what they need. This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details). Today, KHN has released details of 90 previously secret government audits that reveal millions of dollars in overpayments to Medicare Advantage health plans for seniors. The audits, which cover billings from 2011 through 2013, are the most recent financial reviews available, even though enrollment in the health plans has exploded over the past decade to over 30 million and is expected to grow further. KHN has published the audit spreadsheets as the industry girds for a final regulation that could order health plans to return hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars or more in overcharges to the Treasury Department payments dating back a decade or more. The decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is expected by Feb 1. KHN obtained the long-hidden audit summaries through a three-year Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against CMS, which was settled in late September. In November, KHN reported that the audits uncovered about $12 million in net overpayments for the care of 18,090 patients sampled. In all, 71 of the 90 audits uncovered net overpayments, which topped $1,000 per patient on average in 23 audits. CMS paid the remaining plans too little on average, anywhere from $8 to $773 per patient. The audit spreadsheets released today identify each health plan and summarize the findings. Medicare Advantage, a fast-growing alternative to original Medicare, is run primarily by major insurance companies. Contract numbers for the plans indicate where the insurers were based at the time. Since 2018, CMS officials have said they would recoup an estimated $650 million in overpayments from the 90 audits, but the final amount is far from certain. Spencer Perlman, an analyst with Veda Partners in Bethesda, Maryland, said he believes the data released by KHN indicates the governments clawbacks for potential overpayments could reach as high as $3 billion. I dont see government forgoing those dollars, he said. For nearly two decades, Medicare has paid the health plans using a billing formula that pays higher monthly rates for sicker patients and less for the healthiest ones. Yet on the rare occasions that auditors examined medical files, they often could not confirm that patients had the listed diseases, or that the conditions were as serious as the health plans claimed. Since 2010, CMS has argued that overpayments found while sampling patient records at each health plan should be extrapolated across the membership, a practice commonly used in government audits. Doing so can multiply the overpayment demand from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of millions for a large health plan. But the industry has managed to fend off this regulation despite dozens of audits, investigations, and whistleblower lawsuits alleging widespread billing fraud and abuse in the program that costs taxpayers billions every year. CMS is expected to clarify what it will do with the upcoming regulation, both for collecting on past audits and those to come. CMS is currently conducting audits for 2014 and 2015. UnitedHealthcare and Humana, the two biggest Medicare Advantage insurers, accounted for 26 of the 90 contract audits over the three years. Humana, one of the largest Medicare Advantage sponsors, had overpayments exceeding the $1,000 average in 10 of 11 audits, according to the records. That could spell trouble for the Louisville, Kentucky-based insurer, which relies heavily on Medicare Advantage, according to Perlman. He said Humanas liability could exceed $900 million. Mark Taylor, Humanas director of corporate and financial communications, had no comment on the overpayment estimates. Commenting on the upcoming CMS rule, he said in an emailed statement: Our primary focus will remain on our members and the potential impact any changes could have on their benefits. ... We hope CMS will join us in protecting the integrity of Medicare Advantage. Eight audits of UnitedHealthcare plans found overpayments, while seven others found the government had underpaid. In a conference call with reporters this week, Tim Noel, who leads UnitedHealthcare's Medicare team, said the company wants CMS to make changes in the regulation but remains very comfortable with what the 2011-13 audit results will show. Like all government programs, taxpayers and beneficiaries need to know that the Medicare Advantage program is well managed, he said. He said the company supports annual auditing of Medicare Advantage plans. But Perlman said the sheer size of the program makes annual audits completely impractical. These audits are incredibly time-consuming and labor-intensive to conduct, he said. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details). At a meeting to simplify the nations covid vaccination policy, the FDAs panel of experts could agree on only one thing: Information is woefully lacking about how often different groups of Americans need to be vaccinated. That data gap has contributed to widespread skepticism, undervaccination, and ultimately unnecessary deaths from covid-19. The committee voted unanimously Thursday to support the FDAs proposal for all vaccine-makers to adopt the same strain of the virus when making changes in their vaccines, and suggested they might meet in May or June to select a strain for the vaccines that would be rolled out this fall. However, the panel members disagreed with the FDAs proposal that everyone get at least one shot a year, saying more information was needed to make such a declaration. Several panelists noted that in recent studies, only about a third of people hospitalized with a positive covid test actually were there because of covid illness. Thats because everyone entering a hospital is tested for covid, so deaths of patients with incidental infections are counted as covid deaths even when it isnt the cause. The experts questioned the rationale for annual shots for everyone, given that current vaccines do not seem to protect against infection for more than a few months. Yet even a single booster seems to prevent death and hospitalization in most people, except for the very old and people with certain medical conditions. We need the CDC to tell us exactly who is getting hospitalized and dying of this virus the ages, vulnerability, the type of immune compromise, and whether they were treated with antivirals. And we need immunological data to indicate whos at risk, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a pediatrician at Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. Only then can we decide who gets vaccinated with what and when. Offit and others have expressed frustration over the lack of clear government messaging on what the public can expect from covid vaccines. While regular boosters might be important for keeping the elderly and medically frail out of the hospital, he said, the annual boosters suggested by the FDA and the drug companies may not be necessary for everyone. The goal is to keep people out of the hospital, he said. For the vulnerable, it would be important for vaccines to keep up with circulating strains. But for the general population, we already have a vaccine that prevents hospitalization. Other panelists said the government needs to push research harder to get better vaccines. Pamela McGinnis, a retired official of the National Institutes of Health, said she had trouble explaining to her two young-adult sons why they promptly got sick after venturing out to bars one night only weeks after getting their bivalent booster. Think how sick you would have gotten if you werent fully vaccinated is not a great message, she said. Im not sure You would have landed in the hospital resonates with recipients of the disease. Members of the FDAs advisory committee have been irked in recent months, saying the agency didnt present them with all the data it had on the bivalent vaccine before it was released in September. And some critics have said the FDA should have instructed drug companies to include only the newer strains of the virus in the shot. Asked about that Thursday, Jerry Weir, a senior FDA vaccine officer, said his gut feeling was that a vaccine matched to a single omicron strain would have performed better than the bivalent shot, which also contains the original covid strain. But the real question is where were headed, he said, and I dont know the answer. Perhaps the most important presentation Thursday was from Heather Scobie, who keeps tabs on covid at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She reported that fewer than half of Americans 65 and older had gotten the latest booster, and that only two-thirds of that age group had gotten even a single booster. Yet evidence continues to mount that its mostly the elderly who are at serious risk from covid. Death rates from the disease have declined in every age group except those over 75 since April, despite the uptick in new strains. Except for the very old, the death rate has hovered around 1 in 100,000 since April. Earlier in 2022, babies 6 months old and younger were hospitalized and died at relatively high rates. Vaccination levels in the 4-and-under group hover at about 10%. While acknowledging the FDAs desire to regularize its covid vaccine policy, panel members said its still too early to know for sure whether covid will surge only in the winter, like flu, respiratory syncytial virus, and other respiratory infections. For the next few years we may not know how often we need to make a strain change in the vaccine, said Dr. Steven Pergam, medical director of infection prevention at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Or even if people who are not in poor health or elderly need additional boosters. One vaccine-maker represented at the meeting, Novavax, said it would need to know by the end of March which strain to include in its vaccine for fall. Companies with mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna can change their formulas faster, but their products arent clearly better than Novavaxs. All three of those vaccine-makers revealed at the meeting that they are developing single-dose vials or prefilled syringes. Up to now, theyve delivered their vaccines in multidose vials, but since the government has run out of money to buy vaccines, individual pediatricians may order them in the future. Since the vaccine must be used quickly once a vial is open, doctors are leery of wasting vaccine and losing money. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details). Mark Buck, a physician and pharmacist in Helena, Montana, said hes been seeing more patients turn to urgent care clinics when they run out of medication. Their doctors have retired, moved away, or left the field because they burned out during the covid-19 pandemic, leaving the patients with few options to renew their prescriptions, he said. Access is where were really hurting in this state, Buck said. Senate Bill 112, sponsored by Republican Sen. Tom McGillvray, would address that need by expanding the limited authority Montana already gives pharmacists to prescribe medications and devices. Supporters said the measure could help fill health care gaps in rural areas in particular, while opponents worried it would give pharmacists physician-like authority without the same education. Eleven states, including Montana, give pharmacists prescribing authority to some degree for medications such as birth control, naloxone, tobacco cessation products, preventive HIV drugs, and travel-related medications. The FDA has allowed pharmacists nationwide to prescribe the covid drug Paxlovid during the public health emergency. According to a 2021 report by George Mason Universitys Mercatus Center, there were about 228,000 primary care physicians nationwide in 2019 and more than 315,000 pharmacists in 2020. The report found that patients using Medicare visit a pharmacist twice as often as a primary care provider, and the difference is even larger in rural areas. Pharmacists, who often work in grocery stores, are open longer hours than most doctors offices, and no appointment is needed, the authors of the Mercatus Center study wrote. Under the bill, pharmacists could prescribe for patients who do not require a new diagnosis, for minor conditions, or in emergencies. They could not prescribe controlled substances. During a Jan. 18 committee hearing on the bill, supporters said pharmacists also would be able to provide strep and flu tests, along with diabetic supplies. Buck, the Helena doctor-pharmacist, said the bill wouldnt solve the provider shortage, but it would put a thumb in the dike thats leaking. According to data from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, Montana had one primary care physician per 1,210 people in 2019. Some counties have no primary care providers, but they usually have a pharmacy, said Kendall Cotton, executive director of the Frontier Institute, a public policy think tank in Montana. For example, Powder River County has no physician, he said, but a grocery store in the county seat, Broadus, has a pharmacy. As a clinical pharmacist practitioner for 15 years, Travis Schule of Kalispell wouldnt be much affected by the passage of SB 112. In Montana, providers like him with additional education and training already have authority to prescribe under Montanas existing rules. But he sees the bills potential to expand access to treatment in Montana. In some cases, people might have to drive three hours to see a physician, and SB 112 would allow a pharmacist to serve as a first triage before they travel that long distance, Schule said. This bill is a patient-centric bill, Schule said. Its not for pharmacists. Its for patients. SB 112 is modeled after a bill passed in Idaho. Tim Flynn, a pharmacist at an Albertsons grocery store in Meridian, Idaho, said the legislation lets patients be treated for minor conditions, such as urinary tract infections, when they cant schedule a doctors appointment or get to an urgent care clinic. The Montana Medical Association and the Montana chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics oppose SB 112. They say SB 112 would fragment care, risk patient safety, and substitute pharmacists for emergency care physicians. But Montana Medical Association CEO Jean Branscum said there was an opportunity to build on the Idaho model, by bringing pharmacists and physicians together while making sure patients get the same standard of care. Lets come up with a model of care that will allow pharmacists to do more than they do now, be a part of that team, practice at the highest level, and also appreciate the value of the physicians as part of that team too, Branscum told lawmakers at the Jan. 18 hearing. Keely Larson is the KHN fellow for the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Newspaper Association, and Kaiser Health News. Larson is a graduate student in environmental and natural resources journalism at the University of Montana. KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. USE OUR CONTENT This story can be republished for free (details). Reed was charged Thursday following an investigation for a hit and run that occurred on Jan. 13. According to the police report, a juvenile subject had been run over by a vehicle in the 300 block of Broadway Street. Immediate family members identified the juvenile, with her permission, as Brianna Cross, 17. She remains in the University of Iowa Childrens Hospital after suffering injuries to her pelvis and tailbone. In a previous interview, family members say it will be weeks before she can even try to walk. The arrest record alleges that at about 3:40 a.m. Friday, Jan. 13, Reed was driving a blue 2008 GMC Acadia when she parked in the area of Fourth Street Park, behind the residence of 609 W. Third St. The report said she had gone there multiple times that evening with a juvenile female in regards to a fight that was supposed to take place. On the final time she parked in the area and was confronted by a group who came from the residence. The report said the members of the group surrounded the vehicle and Reed had remained inside the vehicle as the confrontation continued. The report also said a wooden table had been thrown at the vehicle and that Reed had sprayed one of the members of the group with mace. The report further says that a juvenile female was standing in front of the vehicle and bent down to pick up a piece of the wooden table when Reed allegedly accelerated, striking the juvenile female and knocking her to the ground. The front drivers tire went over the juvenile female subject. It also reports the vehicle stopped, reversed, and backed over the juvenile female, then left. According to the Governors Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP), although the state of Iowa ranks fifth lowest in the rate of drug overdose deaths, the state still saw an increase of opioid-related overdose deaths during the pandemic, increasing by 35% in 2020. While the struggle to quit an opioid addiction can be a tough journey for many, the state of Iowa is hoping to prevent more of these deaths by offering free lifesaving medicine for citizens of all ages. This week, the Muscatine County Public Health Department announced that the state is now offering free doses of Narcan, a nasal spray that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose thats also known as Naloxone or Kloxxado, to all Iowa business, schools and organizations along with individual citizens. We know the data shows that opioid overdoses have continued to increase throughout the United States, and Muscatine County is not immune to opioid overdoses, Christy Roby, director of Muscatine County Public Health said. People of all ages are known to have experienced overdoses associated with this drug including prescription and illicit opioids and this Naloxone Iowa program shows that our state is recognizing the growing need for intervention to save lives, Roby continued. Sadly, we are aware of overdoses that have occurred in our county and continue to happen. We knew it was important to disseminate this life saving intervention resource across our county businesses and for individual emergency use. By participating in this program, eligible organizations, businesses and schools in Muscatine County can be prepared for any opioid emergencies within their specific setting. The list of eligible applicants for this program can also include colleges, libraries, community mental health centers, retail or convenience stores, restaurants and community or social services. Individuals who would like to have Narcan on hand in case of a personal emergency are first required to have an online consultation with a pharmacist in order to learn how to administer Narcan correctly. Once individuals have fulfilled any necessary requirements for their request, they can either receive their dose through the mail or have it available for pick-up at a nearby pharmacy. Additionally, because the dose is free, individuals will be able to keep the process confidential and wont have their insurance billed for the consultation or for the dose of Narcan. We encourage anyone that works with or lives with someone that may have a prescription for opioids or that may be at risk for using illicit opioids to request Naloxone to have on hand, Roby said. You can save their life! To learn more about the program, watch educational videos on the impacts of opioids and how to administer Narcan, or to fill out a request application for a dose of Narcan, residents can visit https://www.naloxoneiowa.org. Anyone in Muscatine County who may be struggling with addiction is encouraged to reach out to the Chemical Dependency Program at UnityPoints New Horizons in Muscatine, or they can receive confidential support from Your Life Iowa at https://yourlifeiowa.org/. The Chicago Boundaries Map allows users to search by location to find what neighborhood, community area, ward, ZIP code, police district and police beat an address is located in. All boundaries used are those officially designated by the city of Chicago. What each boundary represents Neighborhoods are smaller subsections of the city that many residents use to identify where they live. The official neighborhood boundaries were developed by the Office of Tourism, but the city of Chicago does not use these boundaries for any official purposes. Because of this, Chicagoans may define neighborhoods by different names or boundaries. Additionally, there can be multiple neighborhoods within a single community area (Example: River North, Gold Coast and Streeterville are neighborhoods in the Near North Side community area). Community areas represent broader swaths of Chicago. There are 77 community areas defined by the city of Chicago and their boundaries do not change over time (Example: Lincoln Park, Near South Side, West Garfield Park). Wards are political districts used to divide representation within the Chicago City Council. There are 50 wards and voters in each ward elect an alderman to represent them in City Council. These boundaries change every 10 years or so to reflect population shifts within the city and to ensure that each ward has roughly the same number of residents. ZIP codes are postal codes assigned by the U.S. Postal Service to geographically group regions to assist in the sorting and delivery of mail. There are 61 ZIP codes in Chicago. Police districts are designated regions used by law enforcement. There are 22 police districts in Chicago, each anchored by a station building and overseen by a police commander. Police beats are blocks within police districts that are used by officers for patrols. There are multiple police beats within a police district (Example: Beats 1021, 1022 and 1031 are all in District 10). How to use You can search using four functions: 1) type in an address; 2) use your current location; 3) look up a specific place name; 4) drop a marker anywhere on the map. Hovering over the results in the sidebar will highlight the corresponding geometry on the map and a pop-up label will appear. Clicking on one of the boundary results in the sidebar will zero in on that boundary, allowing users to only view the geometry for that result. To search for a new location or clear your results select Clear search location at the top of the map. Viewing on mobile? Click here. iFrames are not supported on this page. Napa Countys controversial, 5,000-page plan designed to keep Napa Valley groundwater from ever being pumped dry has won approval from the state Department of Water Resources. The state on Thursday made the announcement. It is requiring groundwater sustainability plans for various groundwater basins up-and-down California. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help. Subscribe today! Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register. Californias extreme swings between drought and flood make sustainable management of groundwater supplies more important than ever for the states overall climate resilience, a state press release said. Napa Countys plan is for the Napa Valley subbasin extending from Napa to Calistoga the heart of wine country. Groundwater is pumped to water wine country vineyards and serve wineries, as well as rural residents. It also serves some city residents and businesses. The state approval came with several recommended corrective actions. Among them was doing more monitoring and collecting more data to better understand how water pumped from wells might affect nearby waterways, such as Napa River. Resident David Graves chaired a 25-person advisory committee that spent 16 months working on the plan. On Thursday, he called state approval a milestone. Its not the end, Graves said. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning of having a high-level, sophisticated groundwater management process. As a follow up, the county is now doing such things as working on a groundwater pumping reduction work plan. This is one of several work plans that Graves said will "flesh out" the Napa Valley Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan. Napa County supervisors, sitting as the countys Groundwater Sustainability Agency, approved the groundwater sustainability plan in January 2022 and submitted it to the state. Various groups, agencies and citizens then submitted comments to the state. Sierra Club Napa criticized the plan because the group believed it does not address the severity of the drought. It expressed concern the plan relies too much on historical data for modeling in a world experiencing climate change. Environmentalist Chris Malan of the Institute for Conservation Advocacy, Research and Education expressed concern that too much groundwater pumping and illegal water diversions sap the Napa River. She mentioned she and group members regularly kayak on the river. Since 2005, we have seen less and less water in the river each year with more and more dry segments causing us to portage a lotthis is heartbreaking to lose this natural resource before our very eyes, Malan wrote to the state in April 2022. California requires that the plans find ways to avoid undesirable results that can result from too much groundwater pumping. These results range from plummeting well levels to land subsidence. The state approval said the Napa County plan "demonstrates a thorough understanding of the subbasin based on what appears to be the best available science and information...and proposes a set of projects and management actions that will likely achieve the sustainability goals defined for the subbasin." Photos: Almost homeless -- Napa RV dwellers face a tough road Al Foshee 12 Al Foshee 10 Al Foshee 9 Al Foshee 11 Al Foshee 4 Al Foshee 5 Al Foshee 6 Al Foshee 7 Al Foshee 8 Al Foshee 1 Al Foshee 2 Al Foshee 3 The Mayacamas Charter Middle School has been making steady progress toward opening its doors next fall, while lawsuits around the California State Board of Educations approval of the school last year, which overturned two denials of the school from the Napa Unified School District and the Napa County Office of Education boards, continue to swirl. On Jan. 20, the Mayacamas School was able to take an important procedural step forward when the state board voted unanimously to assign it a charter school number, after a move by NVUSD to halt that process was denied in court. Along with ensuring charter schools approved in California stay below a cap of 2,650 theres been 2,134 numbers assigned so far, with the Mayacamas school the most recent the number is an important prerequisite for charter schools to receive funding from state and federal programs administered by the California Department of Education. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help. Subscribe today! Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register. Though there are more steps in the process, that essentially clears the way for the school to be able to receive the public funding it needs to get going in the next school year, according to Mayacamas petitioners Lauren Daley and Jolene Yee. The active progression from the State strongly indicates that we are on track for our fall 2023 opening, despite opposition from the Napa Valley United School District, the petitioners said in a statement. The Napa Valley Unified School District sued the state board in November 2022 over its approval of the Mayacamas school, arguing the approval was in violation of recent changes in state law established by Assembly Bill 1505, which limited the ability of the state board to overturn denials of charter schools by local school districts and county offices of education. (The California School Boards Association also sued the state board for pretty much the same reason earlier this month.) The NVUSD and NCOE boards previously cited the school's projected financial impact on NVUSD as a result of the charter school sapping enrollment, and thus enrollment-based funding, from the district, at a time when the district is already seeing rapidly declining enrollment as a major justification to deny it. But the state board questioned whether the projected financial impacts were sufficiently significant. Though the assignment of a charter school number is generally a routine process after a charter school has been approved, NVUSD also used the reasoning of financial impact in an attempt to halt that process. But Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang on Jan. 17 denied that request, arguing that halting the administrative charter school number process would go against maintaining the status quo, and would be contrary to the public interest, given that the Mayacamas school administration have been taking active steps to open the school this fall. Petitioners assertions of financial harm are speculative at this point, and there is evidence Napa Foundation for Options in Education has already opened enrollment, met with prospective families, and taken other actions to move forward its goal of opening for the 2023-2024 school year, the order stated. According to the Mayacamas petitioners, the organization has also been keeping up in other ways to stay on track for opening this fall. For example, school recently hired for its head of school position, and has been applying for multiple grants. The Mayacamas organizers have also been working to connect with families of diverse backgrounds and to negotiate benefits packages with teachers and staff, along with negotiating services with mental health professionals. Many local families have braved rainstorms and navigated busy schedules to attend informational sessions and tours, and 6th and 7th grades are filling up merely a month after we began our open enrollment, the petitioners said in a statement. On Saturday, police, firefighters and paramedics from Napa County will practice a set of skills they hope never to have to use. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help. Subscribe today! Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register. The former home of Harvest Middle School in Napa will become a training ground for public safety agencies preparing to protect and evacuate people during a shooting attack. During two exercises through the morning and afternoon, first responders will use simulated weapons, sirens, drones and ambulances to rehearse the skills and tactics needed to stop a shooter and save lives. Training will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2449 Old Sonoma Rd., where the Harvest school operated until it closed at the end of the 2021-22 school year. Even more than learning how to move in on a gunman to tend to wounded victims, the drill which will take place in the wake of three mass attacks in California this month, including the shooting deaths on Monday of seven people in Half Moon Bay is meant to instill the teamwork that first responders need to get people out of danger, according to Napa Fire. The purpose of the exercise is to prepare first responders, medical staff and supporting agencies for a large-scale critical incident where communication and partnership between agencies is imperative, the department said of the exercise in its announcement Thursday. By having hospital personnel, police and fire dispatchers, law enforcement and fire department personnel partner for this highly realistic training scenario, all agencies hope to be better prepared for real-life critical incidents that may occur within the City and County of Napa. Chief defends delay telling public of mass shooter at-large The police chief in the California city where 20 people were shot at a ballroom dance hall, 11 fatally, has defended his decision not to warn the public for hours that a killer was on the loose. Taking part will be members of the Napa and American Canyon police departments along with the Napa County Sheriffs Office and the California Highway Patrol. Other agencies on hand will include Napa Fire, Napa County Fire, the county Office of Emergency Services and American Medical Response, the countys ambulance contractor. The goal is for us to work with one another, to hone our skills for an unfortunate event like this, said Battalion Chief Ty Becerra of Napa Fire, the city agency organizing the drill. Saturdays exercise, which follows about two years of smaller-scale training sessions, aims to improve speed and efficiency when there are multiple casualties and the danger overwhelms safety workers initial response and first responders must call in reinforcements and quickly work out how to get medical help to patients. Public safety workers at the drill will be dressed and equipped as they would be to confront an active shooter in a school building, Becerra said Tuesday. Firefighters as well as police officers will don personal protective gear, agencies will attempt to coordinate their efforts as if an attacker were roaming the campus, and medical workers will extricate victims a group of role players drawn from the Napa Community Response Team and Napas Explorer program from buildings for treatment and transport to hospitals. The active-shooter drills will reflect the ways tactics have evolved in hopes of stopping an assailant more quickly, according to Becerra, a 21-year veteran of Napa Fire. In particular, he said, firefighters and other first responders have moved away from the idea of staging far from a crime scene until it is deemed safe, and instead are now taught to create a warm zone that has not yet been fully secured, but is closer to those in need of help. Were going into harms way more than in the past, he said. We have people who are bleeding, and from when the bleeding started we only have so much time before somebody bleeds out. Thats why we go in with law enforcements help; theyre our shield as we go in to get people out. Saturdays training also will include members of Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center as they practice creating a base station to coordinate medical care during an act of mass violence, according to Becerra. During an attack, the station would help determine where victims would be taken depending on the severity and urgency of their injuries by ground ambulance or helicopter, to the Queen or the Santa Rosa Hospital trauma center or the childrens hospital in Oakland. Although law enforcement will not close Old Sonoma Road or nearby streets, authorities asked residents to avoid the area during the training and to use alternate routes when possible. The Napa exercise will be the second to take place in the county in recent months. In August, Upvalley law enforcement, firefighters and paramedics joined forces in St. Helena for an active-shooter drill at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School, with volunteers taking the roles of victims or shooters. PHOTOS: Training for an active shooter situation in St.Helena City leaders and Asian-American communities are mobilizing to protect Lunar New Year celebrations across the country after two separate mass shootings in California. Organizers in San Francisco, which is home to the oldest Chinatown district in the U.S., plan to press ahead with their annual parade in an effort to show resilience, said Harlan Wong, the director of the citys Chinese New Year Festival & Parade. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said her citys festivities would be observed in solidarity with those affected by the weekend attack in Monterey Park, California. The New York City Police Department increased its presence at celebrations in Chinatown on Sunday, while the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department said security at any Lunar New Year event was a top priority. A gunman opened fire during a Lunar New Year celebration at a dance studio in Monterey Park on Saturday, killing 11 people. In a separate incident two days later, another gunman killed seven people at two farms in a coastal city in Northern California. Los Angeles County authorities have not determined the motive in the Monterey Park shooting rampage, where the suspected attacker died by suicide. The Half Moon Bay incident is believed to be a case of workplace violence, according to San Mateo County law enforcement officers. Both suspects are of Asian descent, according to authorities. The mass shootings further rattled an Asian American community experiencing an uptick in anti-Asian racism and hate crimes in recent years. Communities are continuing with the planned celebrations, to show resiliency but also to show support for small businesses in those neighborhoods, many of which were hit hard during the pandemic and have not yet fully recovered. We are all saddened by the shooting in LA, said Wong, the parade organizer in San Francisco. We dont know what triggered the gunman, but we want to show our resilience and continue the celebrations. He expects thousands will still show up to the parade, which is taking place in downtown San Francisco on Feb. 4. Parade organizers had already worked with the police to arrange monitoring activities as part of the routine planning. Hate crimes against the Asian American community in the U.S. increased 339% in 2021 compared to 2020, according to the latest available data from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, in the wake of rising racism and xenophobia, often stoked by COVID-19 misinformation. Many in the Asian American Pacific Islander community have increasingly demanded leaders to take steps to stop hate and injustice. San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced on Jan. 11 a steep drop in reported hate crimes against people of Asian descent in the city, with six reported in 2022, down from 60 the year before. More than one-third of San Francisco County residents are Asian, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Many still have concerns."I'm reading about attacks on Asians like never before, said Steve Hong, a San Francisco resident and the director of Kingdom Rice, a local nonprofit. I'm seeing reports of attacks on Asian businesses, some of them very close to where I live. I'm sensitive to large gatherings that are meant to be celebratory." He said he and his family will refrain from attending upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, in part due to the recent spate of violence. Security assessments are a common part of event planning, but as risks have heightened so have the preparations. Groups like Stop AAPI Hate and Hate Is a Virus have worked to support the Asian American community, and the LA-based nonprofit Seniors Fight Back teaches self-defense to older Asian Americans. We have always planned ahead to ensure event safety and had drafted contingency plans, but what used to be more of a theoretical scenario is gradually becoming a possible existential risk amid rising violence in the U.S., said Zainan Victor Zhou, a high-tech professional and co-founder of the ZaiGeZaiGu Community, a nonprofit Chinese volunteer group based in the Bay Area. The economic factor is also very much top of mind. Many Asian-owned businesses cant afford to close their doors and need the foot traffic, said New York State Assemblymember Grace Lee, whose district includes Chinatown in Manhattan. Such businesses have struggled to retain staff and stay open since March 2020. Over half of Asian-American-owned businesses in New York City said they lost at least 75% of their revenue that year, a 2021 report by the Asian American Federation found. In a separate survey by the diversity non-profit Coqual, 63% of Asian and Asian American professionals said ongoing violence against their community negatively impacted their mental health, while 62% said such violence had negatively impacted how safe they feel while commuting to work. To be candid, I think we need to be doing a better job helping small businesses, Lee said. They have to be open for business every day. We need to create an environment where we're supporting them and making sure that they have what they need. Large crowds congregated in Manhattans Chinatown on Sunday, the start of Lunar New Year. It was one of the biggest turnouts ever seen by Wellington Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation. Streets were packed for a firecracker ceremony and other festivities and lines snaked outside restaurants. Chen called the increased NYPD presence a startling symbol of the times we live in. It was still unclear whether business was down in the district, he added. Across town in the predominantly Asian American neighborhood of Flushing, Queens, business didnt seem to be affected by Monday. New Yorkers have been through so much, said Tina Lee, co-chair of the Flushing Business Improvement District, a local association. They tend not to panic. We continue to do what we do. The community had already held its Lunar New Year celebrations on Saturday before the shooting, and events seem to be continuing as planned through the next two weeks. The New York Chinese Cultural Center is going forward with its schedule of Lunar New Year activities across the city through early February, said Ying Yen, the centers executive director. The sad news does dampen our spirits, but we will continue with our Lunar New Year events with our thoughts and prayers with the Monterey Park community in mind, said Yen. Chinese New Year in 30 stunning images A group of disability and civil rights organizations is hoping to block Gov. Gavin Newsoms latest plan to address Californias homeless crisis by moving people with severe, untreated mental illness off of the streets into court-ordered treatment programs. Three organizations Disability Rights California, Western Center on Law & Poverty, and The Public Interest Law Project filed a petition on Thursday with the California Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of a new statewide program to compel residents struggling with mental health and addiction into court-ordered treatment. The lawsuit asks the states highest court to strike down development of a new civil court system dubbed the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court, or CARE Court for those diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. The organizations argue that the program robs unhoused Californians of their autonomy to choose their own mental health treatment and threatens those with disabilities of their fundamental rights, all while failing to guarantee they will get permanent housing and coordinated community care. While the intersecting crises of homelessness and serious mental illness demand effective actions and significant resources, the Care Act provides neither, Mike Rawson, director of litigation for Public Interest Law Project, said in a statement. Such coercive systems and treatments have been proven ineffective and will only serve to perpetuate institutional racism and worsen health disparities. Amid mounting pressure to tackle the state homeless crisis, Newsom concocted and unveiled his proposal for CARE Court in March. Although the program is also open to Californians who have stable housing, the governor has repeatedly framed it as an innovative tool to treat some of the states most vulnerable residents those living in sordid conditions who often cycle between the streets, hospitals and jails. In September, Newsom signed the bill into law. The governors administration estimated that 10,000 to 12,000 people could qualify for the program while county officials believe that number could soar as high as 50,000, according to an Assembly floor analysis. In a statement, Daniel Lopez, Newsoms deputy communications director, condemned those behind the lawsuit, saying that efforts to block CARE Courts implementation would needlessly extend the suffering of those who desperately need our help. Theres nothing compassionate about allowing individuals with severe, untreated mental health and substance use disorders to suffer in our alleyways, in our criminal justice system, or worse face death, the statement read. While some groups want to delay progress with arguments in favor of the failing status quo, the rest of us are dealing with the cold, hard reality that something must urgently be done to address this crisis. People are dying we need to do better. Under the new law, family members, first responders and medical professionals, among others, can also seek to enter someone with mental illness into treatment. The policy then requires people to participate in treatment programs and also mandates that counties make services available to them. The program is scheduled to be rolled out in two phases. The first group of counties Glenn, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Stanislaus, and Tuolumne are required to establish courts by Oct. 1, 2023, while the rest of the state has until Dec.ember 2024 to comply. The organizations petitioned the state Supreme County directly in hopes of expediting the process and receiving a decision sooner than if they filed the suit in a lower court. The CARE Act seeks to trade in peoples fundamental rights in favor of an ineffective short-term system, said Sarah Gregory, senior attorney at Disability Rights California. Disability Rights California and its allies will continue to fight for permanent housing and voluntary services. PHOTOS: Napa County conducts point-in-time count of homeless population Point in Time Count 10 Point in Time Count 1 Point in Time Count 4 Point in Time Count 3 Point in Time Count 2 Point in Time Count 5 Point in Time Count 6 Point in Time Count 9 Point in Time Count 7 Point in Time Count 8 Point in Time Count 11 Point in Time Count 12 Point in Time Count 13 Point in Time Count 14 What is healthcare marketing? Astghik Medical Center marketing department head explains Brazil's president in China called for abandoning the dollar Artsakh's Ombudsman expresses dissatisfaction to OSCE chairman for attitude of international community Ararat Mirzoyan will go on a working visit to Uzbekistan How can your account be stolen via Telegram for Adults? Police and demonstrators clash on the 12th day of demonstrations in France Anahit Manasyan had a phone conversation with the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh he 12th protest against pension reform takes place in France Russia MOD: No ceasefire violations recorded in Karabakh during last 24 hours Lemkin Institute issues statement on Azerbaijan noncompliance with ICJ order to unblock Lachin corridor MFA: Shushi is Artsakhs integral part in territorial, cultural, economic, historical aspects Bankrupt FTX may resume work: It has recovered $7.3 billion in assets An earthquake of magnitude 4.3 occurred in southeastern Turkey Charles Michel explains his activeness in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations normalization process Armenia PM to Bujar Osmani: This visit is good opportunity to get familiarized with complicated situation South Korea bans its citizens from traveling to Armenia-Azerbaijan border region What kind of photos does the world's most expensive camera phone Xiaomi 13 Ultra take? Karabakh President convenes working consultation, security challenges discussed OSCE Chairman-in-Office: I am here to find out if there is possibility to build bridges between Yerevan and Baku Armenia PM chief of staff: Azerbaijanis are already in Yerevan, we have ensured their safety Chairman-in-Office: OSCE toolkit provides mechanisms to assist peace process between Armenians and Azerbaijanis Osmani: We are ready for any efforts to achieve positive dynamics between Azerbaijan and Armenia Armenia FM: Replacing army with guards on Azerbaijan border should be part of final settlement Armenia MFA: Rumors about OSCE Minsk Group activities termination are greatly exaggerated 168.am: Who is the Azerbaijani already rendered ineffective in Armenia? What does he say in video? Armenia village youth tell how they caught Azerbaijani Armenia Investigative Committee issues statement on murder of security guard, 56, in Syunik Province Azerbaijani who crossed border into Armenia is caught by locals, found in Achanan village territory 2nd Azerbaijan soldier found, detained in Armenia Armenian health minister: Wounded soldier in critical condition due to Azerbaijan provocation has stabilized Which Armenia company is put on US sanctions list? Astrophotographer captures 100,000 km high 'plasma waterfall' on Sun Kev Orkian speaks about latest Azerbaijan military aggression against Armenia Premier: Armenia ready for reopening of transport links, delimitation of borders Pashinyan: We are ready to withdraw troops to safe distance along Armenia-Azerbaijan 1991 border Armenia to have trade attache in Germany Azerbaijan MFA accuses France foreign ministry of smear campaign and unfair position Armenia PM: It failed to deploy border guards without escalation of tension Newly elected Armenia ombudsperson announces her priority objective in this capacity Armenia deputy PM, US Deputy Secretary of Treasury acknowledge high level of cooperation between both countries NHL: Stanley Cup playoff participants are decided Newspaper: Karabakh soldiers who showed necessary resistance to Azerbaijan military are rewarded Armenia FM, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office tete-a-tete kicks off (PHOTOS) Armenia deputy PM, USAID official discuss opportunities for deepening cooperation Mher Grigoryan, Todd Robinson exchange views on ongoing democratic reforms in Armenia Europa League: Matches of the day Champions League: Real beat Chelsea, Milan defeat Napoli (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) Armenia FM to Derek Hogan: Provocation near Tegh village was another manifestation of Azerbaijan aggressive policy shamshyan.com: Murder in Armenias Syunik Province, 6 gunshot wounds found on body of security guard, 57 US State Department on Armenias Tegh village incident: Use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable MFA: France deeply concerned about violence that took place near Tegh village of Armenia Legal entity from Armenia on list of those subject to US export restrictions Russia MOD: 4 ceasefire violations recorded in Karabakh The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max will not get the much-discussed new technology EU monitoring mission in Armenia not present in the area when Azerbaijan attacked Armenia National Security Service Border Guard Troops commander dismissed Armenia MOD: Tegh village incident that led to undesirable consequences was due to deployment adjustment Mayor of Frances Lyon expresses unconditional support to people of Karabakh Pashinyan: Armenian side had recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan Criminal proceedings launched into Armenia soldiers being killed, wounded by Azerbaijan near Tegh village Chairman-in-Office: OSCE supports continuation of Armenia-Azerbaijan direct contacts MFA: Russia asked Armenia to explain information about participating in joint military exercises with NATO Zakharova does not disclose details of Russian, Turkish FMs talks on Armenia-Turkey relations Annual Investment Meeting 2023 to explore the role of digital technology in designing future cities Russia MFA spox: CSTO mission deployment details can be talked about when Armenia is ready Zakharova: Russia favors complete unblocking of Lachin corridor Elon Musk plans to develop his own AI project to integrate into Twitter Russia MFA: Other players engagement will lead to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations destabilization EU calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to intensify border delimitation talks, until then to respect 1991 line Russia MFA spox: Yerevan, Baku accepted proposal to hold another bilateral talks Pallone: This is another senseless provocation from Azerbaijani forces against Armenia Zakharova: Russia Border Guard Service, army took measures to de-escalate situation near Armenias Tegh village Update on WhatsApp: one account can now be used on four devices simultaneously Armenian Liana Shahinyan, 45, wins MyDream Miss International America beauty pageant (PHOTOS) Armenia deputy defense minister on possible Azerbaijan provocations again: Nothing can be ruled out Armenia MP: Azerbaijanis demanded not to do engineering work, our soldiers responded, battle started from that Marukyan: This is continuation of attacks carried out against Armenia in May and November 2021, in September 2022 About 100 killed in airstrikes in rural Myanmar Criminal proceedings to be launched against Armenia opposition MP Mher Sahakyan Armenia MP: Army corps commander was there, talks were to be held but Azerbaijan resorted to provocation Mher Grigoryan, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State discuss security issues in Armenia, region Japanese company plans to organize artificial meteor showers on demand: How? Parliament observes minute of silence in memory of Armenia soldiers who died yesterday Serj Tankian calls for sanctions against Azerbaijan, President Aliyev Newspaper: How Europe reacts to yesterday's provocation by Azerbaijanis? Anahit Manasyan is elected Armenia ombudsperson Armenia MOD: No significant ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan recorded at night Henrikh Mkhitaryan: We fought hard and we helped each other MOD: 3 of wounded Armenia soldiers in satisfactory condition, other 3 in moderate, severe, critical condition Champions League: Inter, with Mkhitaryan, beat Benfica, Man City defeat Bayern (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) RA MOD announces names of soldiers killed by Azerbaijani Armed Forces As of 10:15 p.m., the situation on the frontline is relatively stable. RA Ministry of Defense The destruction of Artsakh and Syunik is a key issue for Turkey and Azerbaijan. David Babayan Suren Papikyan interrupts his working visit and returns to Armenia Azerbaijans provocation is another encroachment on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia. MFA Azerbaijan MOD publicizes data on own losses during latest Baku provocation A mockup of new iPhone 15 Pro design shown on video for the first time Russia MOD: 2 ceasefire violations recorded in Karabakh The reason for Azerbaijan's aggression is not being sanctioned by the international community. Edmon Marukyan Four Armenian soldiers killed, six wounded because of Azerbaijani provocation. MOD PACE held a debate on the humanitarian consequences of the blockade of Artsakh, not without scandal from the Azerbaijani delegation. French parliamentarian Bertrand Bouyx noted the crucial importance of this debate. "This debate is crucial. It is impossible to imagine a situation because life is becoming impossible in the enclave. As EU members we have to keep the advantage on both sides, we have to maintain the economic situation of both sides, but at the same time, we should remember that our continent is a community that respects human rights. British MP Jill Mortimer said that if Armenia and Azerbaijan want to live peacefully as neighbors, they must find a way to talk to each other honestly. "I understand that the origin of the conflict comes back almost a century. But what have these wars achieved? They must find a way to talk to each other. I urge both governments to engage in the OSCE format and secure the stability. We must avoid humanitarian disasters. I urge all parties of the trilateral statement to open the movement along the corridor. I urge the countries to save these people from catastrophe. The opening of the Lachin corridor will be the new chapter," she said. "When humanitarian issues are involved we have to be rigid. This alarming situation may threaten the fragile peace process. It has disaster consiquences for the situation not only in Armenia and Azerbaijan but the whole South Caucasus. After all, we all deserve a better future in Europe. Living people starving and freezing is an act of genocide. We are on the tipping point of Genocide. Every single person there deserves to live and preserve its fundamental rights" said Cyprus representative Constantinos Efstathiou. According to Finnish MP Kimmo Kiljunen, there is a serious humanitarian crisis. "The desperate conflict of two nations who have for centuries been close to each other. Now we have a discussion about such a blockade of the corridor and blockade of Karabakh. There is a major humanitarian crisis. Unfortunately, we have parties in this situation totally differently. We hear that the Lachin corridor is closed and no transport can pass there and Karabakh is isolated also, the gas line and power lines have been cut. It's a major problem the other side is saying that it actually controls the military vehicle going so there are no problems. that's their argumentation. There is confusion, we should observe the situation. We are ready to do this. We are ready to go into the region and asses the situation as much as we can," he said. Turkey's representative Zeki Hakan Sidali, of course, rushed to defend the Azerbaijani "brothers." "The priority for all of us is that peace should prevail in the South Caucasus. In the last two months, there is a new tension rising in the region. Azerbaijani MPs have repeatedly stated that there is no problem accessing food in the region, there is a problem of the management, Who does benefit from such behavior. You must act on facts, not perceptions. Whatever approach we choose today, we leave it for tomorrow. We must set an example for the whole world. Don't look at someone to find faults," he said. Azerbaijani MP Kamal Jafarov, acting in the best traditions of Baku, preferred the position of an ostrich, burying his head in the sand, saying that "there is no blockage, then it's an information blockade. If there is a crisis it's a political one. It's a Ruben Vardanyan plan. He was sent from Moscow with an open and clear agenda to damage the peace process and throw Pashinyan from power and become PM of Armenia. The number of cars passing across the corridor is 3 times more than the member of this assembly. But the number of cars passing through Zangezur corridor is zero," the Azeri politician shared his fantasies. Responding to the Azerbaijani MP, Ruben Rubinyan, deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament, suggested to assume that this is all an evil Armenian plot, a global conspiracy, which somehow convinced the whole world, the Americans, Russians, Europeans, Iranians, OSCE, CoE that there is a blockade which does not exist in reality. This means that Azerbaijan must agree that this organization, the PACE, must send a fact-finding mission to the Lachin corridor immediately, because this is the only way for our Azerbaijani colleagues to prove that they are making false accusations. And when he says "they", he means himself, his Armenian colleagues and all his other colleagues who are not Armenians. If the Azerbaijani MPs don't agree with that, it means that they have genocidal intentions, they intend to cleanse Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population, and that means that the PACE must act accordingly and take measures to prevent that. The Azerbaijani delegation could not resist the temptation to cause a scandal. The head of the delegation Samad Seyidov accused the organization of bias because there was not enough time for his speech. Jumping up to his seats, Seyidov said he had a comment on the order of the meeting. He said in indignation that during this important discussion he was not given time to speak, adding that it is a biased attitude. Despite PACE President Tiny Kox's attempts to reason with him, Seyidov continued shouting that the Armenians could speak and he could not, although more than one member of the Azerbaijani delegation had spoken before. As a result, his microphone was turned off, and the chairman of the meeting warned him that next time he would not tolerate any disruption of the meeting on his part. The chairman stressed that time for statements was limited, and added that he was absolutely serious with Mr. Seyidov. The chairman stressed that this is not how they work. By the way, in addition to Seyidov, eight other delegates who were on the list of speakers did not speak. Piece Brewery and Pizzeria has partnered with PAWS Chicago for a new campaign, Slice to Meet You, with limited-edition collaboration pizzas by notable local chefs including Rick Bayless. Doug Sohn of Hot Dougs and Barry Sorkin of Smoque BBQ kicked off the winter series with their Hot Smoquein pizza released this month. They topped Pieces classic white pie with Hot Dougs brand jalapeno jack brat sausage and Sorkins smoked portobellos, finished with fistfuls of fresh basil. Do note that smoked mushrooms are not on the menu at Smoque BBQ, so they may be a taste of the upcoming Smoque Steak restaurant. Advertisement The Hot Smoquein will only be available until Feb. 9, National Pizza Day. Its a day so important on the pizza calendar that chef Matthias Merges takes over the pizza ovens next on the same day. The restaurateur (Billy Sunday, Mordecai, Old Irving Brewing Co.) has named his pizza after his dog. Jupiters Pride is a pie with Yukon Gold potatoes, roasted garlic, pecorino cheese and rosemary. It will be on the menu for another momentous day: Puppy Bowl XIX on Feb. 12. Advertisement Jupiter's Pride pizza with Yukon Gold potatoes, roasted garlic, pecorino cheese and rosemary by chef Matthias Merges will be one of the limited-edition chef collaboration pizzas benefiting PAWS Chicago at Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Wicker Park. (HANDOUT) Rick Bayless wraps up the series with big signature flavors. The chef is best known for his critically acclaimed Mexican restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. Hes created a salsa verde pizza with goat cheese, bacon and queso anejo, an aged Mexican cheese rolled in paprika thats similar to Parmesan and Romano. The Bayless pizza will be available in March. Piece will donate $5 from every limited-edition chef collaboration pizza in the campaign to PAWS. Plus, the pizzeria will feature the face of an adoptable dog on thousands of pizza boxes. A flyer with a QR code links to their bio on the shelters website. The Slice to Meet You campaign highlights dogs who have been looking for homes the longest. You might meet Rocco, a big 4-year-old boy, whos been searching for his forever family for a year, according to a release. He can be a couch potato, or he can be your fetching buddy at any moment, says his foster parent on a profile that shows off toffee-colored floppy ears. A flyer showing adoptable dog Rocco is attached to a pizza box. It's part of the Slice to Meet You campaign where chefs craft limited-edition slices to benefit PAWS Chicago animal shelter at Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Wicker Park. (HANDOUT) Or you might meet Natasha, a small-yet-spunky 5-year-old pup. According to her profile, which shows off cream-colored upright ears, she can be a little introverted when first meeting people. Luckily, there is little that this girl wont do for treats so food will be your best tool for befriending her! Most of our pets find homes easily, but there are always a few that need just the right person or household, said PAWS Chicago CEO Susanna Wickham. Advertisement PAWS, the citys largest no-kill humane organization, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2022. Piece Brewery & Pizzeria, home to thin crust, Neapolitan-inspired, New Haven-style pizza, opened in Wicker Park in 2001. Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy > Animals make our lives better; I will never live without one, said Piece owner Bill Jacobs. My hope is that this will be a matchmaking tool that introduces unique pets to their perfect someone. Full disclosure: I volunteered at PAWS before working at the Tribune, driving the shelter van filled with carriers of cats and dogs from the medical center in Little Village to the adoption center in Lincoln Park. I also adopted my dog, Kol Chu, from PAWS. You can order the limited-edition chef collaboration pizzas for dine in, takeout or delivery. Piece Brewery and Pizzeria, 1927 W. North Ave., 773-772-4422, piecechicago.com Advertisement PAWS Chicago, 1997 N. Clybourn Ave., 773-935-7297, pawschicago.org lchu@chicagotribune.com Big screen or home stream, takeout or dine-in, Tribune writers are here to steer you toward your next great experience. Sign up for your free weekly Eat. Watch. Do. newsletter here. Brazil's president in China called for abandoning the dollar Artsakh's Ombudsman expresses dissatisfaction to OSCE chairman for attitude of international community Ararat Mirzoyan will go on a working visit to Uzbekistan Police and demonstrators clash on the 12th day of demonstrations in France Anahit Manasyan had a phone conversation with the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh he 12th protest against pension reform takes place in France Russia MOD: No ceasefire violations recorded in Karabakh during last 24 hours Lemkin Institute issues statement on Azerbaijan noncompliance with ICJ order to unblock Lachin corridor MFA: Shushi is Artsakhs integral part in territorial, cultural, economic, historical aspects An earthquake of magnitude 4.3 occurred in southeastern Turkey Charles Michel explains his activeness in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations normalization process Armenia PM to Bujar Osmani: This visit is good opportunity to get familiarized with complicated situation South Korea bans its citizens from traveling to Armenia-Azerbaijan border region Karabakh President convenes working consultation, security challenges discussed OSCE Chairman-in-Office: I am here to find out if there is possibility to build bridges between Yerevan and Baku Armenia PM chief of staff: Azerbaijanis are already in Yerevan, we have ensured their safety Chairman-in-Office: OSCE toolkit provides mechanisms to assist peace process between Armenians and Azerbaijanis Osmani: We are ready for any efforts to achieve positive dynamics between Azerbaijan and Armenia Armenia FM: Replacing army with guards on Azerbaijan border should be part of final settlement Armenia MFA: Rumors about OSCE Minsk Group activities termination are greatly exaggerated 168.am: Who is the Azerbaijani already rendered ineffective in Armenia? What does he say in video? Armenia village youth tell how they caught Azerbaijani Armenia Investigative Committee issues statement on murder of security guard, 56, in Syunik Province Azerbaijani who crossed border into Armenia is caught by locals, found in Achanan village territory 2nd Azerbaijan soldier found, detained in Armenia Armenian health minister: Wounded soldier in critical condition due to Azerbaijan provocation has stabilized Which Armenia company is put on US sanctions list? Premier: Armenia ready for reopening of transport links, delimitation of borders Pashinyan: We are ready to withdraw troops to safe distance along Armenia-Azerbaijan 1991 border Armenia to have trade attache in Germany Azerbaijan MFA accuses France foreign ministry of smear campaign and unfair position Armenia PM: It failed to deploy border guards without escalation of tension Newly elected Armenia ombudsperson announces her priority objective in this capacity Armenia deputy PM, US Deputy Secretary of Treasury acknowledge high level of cooperation between both countries Newspaper: Karabakh soldiers who showed necessary resistance to Azerbaijan military are rewarded Armenia FM, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office tete-a-tete kicks off (PHOTOS) Armenia deputy PM, USAID official discuss opportunities for deepening cooperation Mher Grigoryan, Todd Robinson exchange views on ongoing democratic reforms in Armenia Armenia FM to Derek Hogan: Provocation near Tegh village was another manifestation of Azerbaijan aggressive policy shamshyan.com: Murder in Armenias Syunik Province, 6 gunshot wounds found on body of security guard, 57 US State Department on Armenias Tegh village incident: Use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable MFA: France deeply concerned about violence that took place near Tegh village of Armenia Legal entity from Armenia on list of those subject to US export restrictions Russia MOD: 4 ceasefire violations recorded in Karabakh EU monitoring mission in Armenia not present in the area when Azerbaijan attacked Armenia National Security Service Border Guard Troops commander dismissed Armenia MOD: Tegh village incident that led to undesirable consequences was due to deployment adjustment Mayor of Frances Lyon expresses unconditional support to people of Karabakh Pashinyan: Armenian side had recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan Criminal proceedings launched into Armenia soldiers being killed, wounded by Azerbaijan near Tegh village Chairman-in-Office: OSCE supports continuation of Armenia-Azerbaijan direct contacts MFA: Russia asked Armenia to explain information about participating in joint military exercises with NATO Zakharova does not disclose details of Russian, Turkish FMs talks on Armenia-Turkey relations Russia MFA spox: CSTO mission deployment details can be talked about when Armenia is ready Zakharova: Russia favors complete unblocking of Lachin corridor Russia MFA: Other players engagement will lead to Armenia-Azerbaijan relations destabilization EU calls on Armenia and Azerbaijan to intensify border delimitation talks, until then to respect 1991 line Russia MFA spox: Yerevan, Baku accepted proposal to hold another bilateral talks Pallone: This is another senseless provocation from Azerbaijani forces against Armenia Zakharova: Russia Border Guard Service, army took measures to de-escalate situation near Armenias Tegh village Armenia deputy defense minister on possible Azerbaijan provocations again: Nothing can be ruled out Armenia MP: Azerbaijanis demanded not to do engineering work, our soldiers responded, battle started from that Marukyan: This is continuation of attacks carried out against Armenia in May and November 2021, in September 2022 About 100 killed in airstrikes in rural Myanmar Criminal proceedings to be launched against Armenia opposition MP Mher Sahakyan Armenia MP: Army corps commander was there, talks were to be held but Azerbaijan resorted to provocation Mher Grigoryan, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State discuss security issues in Armenia, region Parliament observes minute of silence in memory of Armenia soldiers who died yesterday Newspaper: How Europe reacts to yesterday's provocation by Azerbaijanis? Anahit Manasyan is elected Armenia ombudsperson Armenia MOD: No significant ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan recorded at night MOD: 3 of wounded Armenia soldiers in satisfactory condition, other 3 in moderate, severe, critical condition RA MOD announces names of soldiers killed by Azerbaijani Armed Forces As of 10:15 p.m., the situation on the frontline is relatively stable. RA Ministry of Defense The destruction of Artsakh and Syunik is a key issue for Turkey and Azerbaijan. David Babayan Suren Papikyan interrupts his working visit and returns to Armenia Azerbaijans provocation is another encroachment on the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia. MFA Azerbaijan MOD publicizes data on own losses during latest Baku provocation Russia MOD: 2 ceasefire violations recorded in Karabakh The reason for Azerbaijan's aggression is not being sanctioned by the international community. Edmon Marukyan Four Armenian soldiers killed, six wounded because of Azerbaijani provocation. MOD Video shows how Azerbaijani soldiers approach and open fire at Armenian soldiers Armenia National Assembly cancels special session Legislature deputy speaker on Azerbaijani infiltration into Armenia: Not case where accountability is implied Azerbaijanis opened fire in direction of Sotk Armenia MOD: Azerbaijan army continues provocation, uses mortars Azerbaijani shooting resumes in direction of Armenias Tegh village Haykakan Zhamanak: Armenia Special Army Corps commander wounded in skirmish MOD: Armenian side has casualties and wounded, according to preliminary data Shots fired at Tegh village area, Armenia has casualty Armenia parliament vice-speaker: Turkey border shall be open for 3rd countries citizens at summers beginning Armenia lawmaker: Azerbaijan has violated mutual understanding on Karabakh issue Sargis Khandanyan: Armenia does not play football on CSTO issue Armenia Prosecutor General submits petition to parliament for consent to prosecute opposition MP Ruling force MP: Before sending mission, CSTO must record Armenia territorys occupation Photo traps of Armenias Khosrov Forest State Reserve capture grizzly bear again Peskov calls information about Egypt president's covert shipment of rockets to Russia sensational lie The Washington Post: Egypt planned to secretly send up to 40,000 rockets to Russia, leaked US document says Earthquake hits Iran-Turkey border zone, also felt in Armenia Sharm El Sheikh-Yerevan flight that landed in Turkey arrives in Armenia capital According to the decision of the court of general jurisdiction of Gegharkunik Province of Armenia, detention for a period of two months has been selected as a pretrial measure against G.A., the head of the rear and the deputy commander in charge of the rear and utility operation service of a military unit. Armenian News-NEWS.am learns about this from the public relations department of the Prosecutor Generals Office. The Prosecutor Generals Office informed that on Wednesday, the prosecutor supervising the legality of the pretrial criminal proceedings decided to launch a public criminal prosecution against G.A., under Section 3 of Article 550 of the Criminal Code of Armenia; that is, official military negligence that caused the death of a person through carelessness. G.A. was detained on Thursday. Earlier, Armenian News-NEWS.am reported that at around 1:30am on January 19, a fire broke out in the accommodation of the engineering-sapper platoon of the military unit located in the territory of Azat village of Armenias Gegharkunik Province. Fifteen servicemen have died as a result of this fire, and seven others were injured. Four of them were discharged from the Vardenis town hospital after receiving medical treatment, whereas three others with severe burns were transported to National Center of Burns and Dermatology in the capital Yerevan. Immediately after the incident, the commander of the 2nd Army Corps and seven other high-ranking military personnel were relieved of their positions. A few hours after the incident, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting of the government that an officer had poured gasoline in the stove of the aforesaid accommodation. After which, when the fire had gotten to him, he had thrownwith a self-protective instinctthe 5-liter can of gasoline in his hand towards the accommodation, and this had caused the fire. But later, the platoon commander told reporters that there was no gasoline in the accommodation, essentially refuting the PM. The Military Prosecutor also stated that it is not yet clear whether it was gasoline or diesel fuel. Criminal proceedings have been launched into this incident. The first high-level Armenia-EU Political and Security Dialogue took place Thursday in Yerevan, co-chaired by Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Vahe Gevorgyan and Deputy Secretary General/Political Director of the European External Action Service Enrique Mora. The one-day meeting reflected the interest of both sides to take forward political dialogue and cooperation in the area of foreign and security policy, as a further important step in Armenia-EU relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia informs Armenian News-NEWS.am. The parties reviewed key security issues for Armenia, the EU and the wider region, in particular challenges to European security, as well as issues related to the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the growing humanitarian concerns related to the obstruction of free movement in the Lachin corridor. Armenia is pleased to host the 1st Armenia-EU Political and Security Dialogue which is an important framework for discussing a wide range of issues related to international and regional security. Armenia looks forward to strong cooperation with the EU Mission in Armenia in monitoring the international borders of Armenia. Armenia values all mediation and facilitation activities aimed at building peace and security, which is essential to ensure the territorial integrity of Armenia, the rights and security of Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, said Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia Vahe Gevorgyan. The EU is making significant efforts at the highest level to contribute to comprehensive normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We have just established a civilian EU Mission in Armenia, which aims to contribute to increased stability on the ground, human security and confidence-building. The first ever Armenia-EU Political and Security Dialogue launched today demonstrates our mutual interest in enhancing cooperation on foreign and security policy issues, and readiness to work together for the benefit of peace, security and stability, especially in the current challenging international context marked by the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, said EEAS Deputy Secretary-General Enrique Mora. The meeting confirmed the commitment of Armenia and the EU to work towards the South Caucasus that is secure, stable, peaceful and prosperous for the benefit of all people living in the region. In this regard, the parties discussed the upcoming deployment of the civilian CSDP mission established by the EU Foreign Affairs Council earlier this week. Through its activities and reports to the EU leadership, the EUMA will also contribute to efforts undertaken in the framework led by the President of the European Council Charles Michel. In the comprehensive exchange of views, the participants in the Dialogue also discussed the situation in the wider region, including the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, as well as issues relating to hybrid threats and other security-related matters. Meetings of the Armenia-EU Political and Security Dialogue will be held regularly, in principle on a yearly basis. Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis: The Best of Duke Ellington: For one night only at Symphony Center, Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra present an all-Duke Ellington program, including It Dont Mean a Thing If It Aint Got That Swing, Sophisticated Lady and Mood Indigo. Plus a preconcert talk 6:45 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. on the stage by Seton Hawkins, director of public programs for Jazz at Lincoln Center. 8 p.m. Saturday in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; tickets $82-$399 at cso.org Disney On Ice presents Frozen & Encanto: The two Disney animated family favorites are brought to life, with music and skating, in an ice show hosted by Mickey and Minnie. Through Jan. 29 at the United Center, 1901 W. Madison St., then Feb. 2-5 at the Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim Road, Rosemont; www.ticketmaster.com Advertisement Inzo: The from-Chicago electronic music artist also known as Michael Inzano is in the midst of his first-ever headlining tour. Catch the hometown concert of his Earth Magic Tour at Concord Music Hall this weekend. Last time I played this venue I was the first opener, he noted on Twitter. This is insane. 10 p.m. Saturday at Concord Music Hall, 2047 N. Milwaukee Ave.; tickets $18 (ages 18+) at concordmusichall.com Lady Day at Emersons Bar and Grill: Starring Alexis J. Roston as Billie Holiday, this show is set at a cabaret performance in 1956, one of her last concerts before her death in 1959. Through March 12 in the Venus Cabaret at Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport Ave.; www.mercurytheaterchicago.com Advertisement Kevin Nealon: Hes still best known for his nine years on Saturday Night Live where his standout moments included hosting the Weekend Update desk and his character Mr. Sublimina. Hes joined at City Winery by Chicago comic and Laugh Factory regular Kristen Toomey. 8 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday at City Winery Chicago, 1200 W. Randolph St.; citywinery.com Heidi Stober and company in "Hansel and Gretel" at Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Cory Weaver / HANDOUT) Hansel and Gretel: The opera by Engelbert Humperdinck, adapted from the story by the Brothers Grimm, has been in Chicago before, but the creepy and arresting stage pictures never get old. A highlight this time at Lyric Opera is soprano Heidi Stober, who plays Gretel opposite Samantha Hankeys earthier Hansel, writes the Tribunes Chris Jones in his review. Stober knows just how to play a lively and inquisitive young girl. Through Feb. 5 at Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker Drive; tickets $40-$330 at 312-827-5600 and lyricopera.org Sleeping Village Five-Year Anniversary: The Avondale bar and live music venue is marking its fifth anniversary with a series of shows. On Friday, catch DJ sets from Sextile and Club Drippy. Saturdays shows feature Plaid and Matchess. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Sleeping Village, 3734 W. Belmont Ave.; tickets $12-$15 for Friday and $21-$25 for Saturday sleeping-village.com/events National Geographic Live Greenwood: A Century of Resilience: Alicia Odewale, an archaeologist and Tulsa native, comes to the Auditorium Theatre to discuss her research on the impacts of the Tulsa Race Massacre. There will also be an audience Q&A session and discussion with the Chicago History Museum following her presentation. 2 p.m. Sunday at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B Wells Dr.; tickets $25-$48 at auditoriumtheatre.org Leif Ove Andsnes: The Norwegian pianists program includes Beethovens Op. 110 sonata, as well as pieces from Czech composers Dvorak and Janacek. 3 p.m. Sunday at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 220 S. Michigan Ave.; tickets $35-$250 at cso.org Already theres a huge range of reactions to You People, debuting on Netflix Jan. 27 after a week in a few theaters for appearances sake. Hilarious? Riotous? Hackneyed? Annoying? Are comic sensibilities really so various that nobody can agree whether the laughs and the heart are there with this thing, or not? Well, no. We cant agree. Comedy, like everything else in movies, has a tendency to divide, not unite. Surely most of us know the feeling of being the one not laughing in a laughing crowd, the Buster Keaton surrounded by hyenas. Advertisement Already raved up in early reviews, You People offers a few choice bits and throwaway lines served up by a first-rate cast especially Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus way, way out ahead of their material. For millions of eyeballs, theyll be enough. Black-ish creator Kenya Barris directed and cowrote the Los Angeles-set You People. His co-writer, Jonah Hill, stars as Ezra, a 35-year-old stockbroker tired of his job and eager to develop his side hustle a brash podcast on Black culture, which he hosts with his friend Mo (Sam Jay). She calls Ezra my favorite Jew with nuthin to do; hes so devoted to their mutual love for the podcasts subject, hes like the brother Quentin Tarantino never had. Advertisement The topic their podcast hits on in every episode, inevitably, is simple: Can Black and white people in America today ever truly know each other? When lonely Ezra meets aspiring costume designer Amira (Lauren London), the question shifts from macro to micro. Shes the daughter of Muslim parents Akbar (Murphy) and Fatima (Nia Long), who do not love the idea of their only girl getting serious with a white man. Ezras parents, meantime, are more receptive but also more embarrassing, especially Shelley (Louis-Dreyfus), married to podiatrist Arnold (David Duchovny, very much sidelined and near-silent in the final cut). In the first big fat awkward meetup with her future in-laws, Shelley broadcasts her sympathy with and understanding of the Black experience in ways that scream Wake up! Im woke! You know the national anthem? she asks, as shes being pushed out of the living room by her aghast son. I think everybody should kneel! You People contrives obstacle after obstacle for Ezra and Amira, with the expected arrival of serious relational conflict around the two-thirds point. A rom coms predictability rarely dents a streaming audiences enjoyment of anything. Predictable is comfortable. Still, without Murphys deadpan, steely reactions to the latest affront, You People would be all strain and little gain. Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy in a scene from "You People." (Tyler Adams/AP) On the page and as acted, Hill settles for familiar readings of lines that should be fresher. Ezras a chronic liar, largely out of desperation to please or get along with his perpetually side-eyeing in-laws. Some of the bits work, usually in dubious taste; one deals with Ezra concocting a story about the modest engagement ring he buys for Amira being an heirloom from his grandmother, from the Holocaust. The movie gives us dueling bachelor/ette parties in Palm Springs and Las Vegas, and eventually Akbar sees past his initial harsh judgment of Ezra. The crises come and go, but my heart periodically sank watching You People squander its on-screen pros. In an early Yom Kippur sequence, set at LAs Skirball Cultural Center, you get Hal Linden, Elliott Gould and Richard Benjamin in cameos, only to be saddled with a relay joke about Ezras genitals. Im spoiling nothing by saying the central couple just might stay coupled in the end. Mr. and Mrs. Mohammed Cohen, Murphy says, smiling, approvingly, to Louis-Dreyfus, his partner in movie-saving. Aint that a bitch? A century ago, the massive Broadway hit Abies Irish Rose satisfied audiences with a tale of an Irish lass, a Jewish boy and their meddling, tradition-minded parents. With a smooth overlay of LA sights and sounds, and a side of blueprints stolen from Guess Whos Coming to Dinner and Meet the Fockers, You People ends up a lot less insightfully funny than Black-ish. At heart its a disappointing 21st century answer to Abies Irish Rose. People 2 stars (out of 4) Advertisement MPA rating: R (for drug content, some sexual material and language throughout) Running time: 1:57 How to watch: Netflix premiere Jan. 27. Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic. mjphillips@chicagotribune.com Twitter @phillipstribune Armen Gevorgyan, a member of the Armenian National Assembly delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the key rapporteur on PACE Local and Regional Authorities, on Thursday delivered an address during the debate of the topic progress of the Assembly's monitoring procedure (January-December 2022). The Government of Azerbaijan as well as its representatives in this Assembly want us to forget about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They don't want you to use the name of this unrecognized state. They don't want you to speak about the human toll of its aggression during the 44 day-war in 2020. Moreover, Azerbaijan has, since May 2021, occupied the sovereign territories of Armenia, launched a new three-day intensive hostilities last September in the southern Armenia. Since then, they have refused to withdraw from our land and even built fortifications. Today we are witnessing a grave humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani government has imposed a 46-day siege in Nagorno-Karabakh, depriving its people of their right to live in dignity, freedom of movement, import of food supplies, medicine, and other essential goods. This is not just a human rights issue, but the manifestation of a state policy of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. I believe Europe must stay focused on Nagorno-Karabakh. In that context, it's quite strange that the decision to dispatch a PACE monitoring mission for fact-finding purposes in the region is not being implemented. What is this? Indifference, or expression of dysfunctionality of our organization? The Democracy Index by The Economist defines Azerbaijan as an authoritarian state. It has been ruled by the same family for more than 40 years, and over the past 30 years has started three wars against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing thousands of people, destroying the culture and religious heritage of the Armenian people. Today, it terrorizes Armenians through the siege of the Lachin corridor. Given the authoritarian and terrorist nature of Azerbaijan, is it possible to imagine Nagorno-Karabakh as part of it? Azerbaijan has for years manipulated the public opinion in our organization. Something they are now unable to do in the European Parliament, in the United Nations Security Council, or in OSCE. We have to reflect on why this is the case. I also want to draw this Assembly's attention to the fact that Azerbaijan, since late 2022, has begun a process of abolishing the self-governing status of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic. This is a clear violation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government that has to be prevented. It is also time for this Assembly to very seriously consider the non-recognition of credentials of those delegations whose governments are engaged in the transborder use of force or other serious and systematic violations or human rights, be that in their own territory or abroad, Armen Gevorgyan stated, in particular. Senior Iranian officials have taken the necessary security measures to ensure the normal operation of the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, Tasnim reports. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Friday discussed various issues related to the deadly attack on the Azerbaijani embassy, including the motives and goals of the armed assailant. Based on the evidence and initial observations, they concluded that the motive for the attack was completely personal. In addition, the necessary security measures have been taken to ensure the normal functioning of the embassy and diplomats of Azerbaijan in Tehran. Legal measures are also being taken to clarify the personal motives for the armed attack. As previously reported, on the morning of January 27, a man entered the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran and opened fire, killing one and injuring two people. Tehran's criminal court prosecutor said the suspect claims his wife went to the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran in April last year and never returned home. According to him, the man did not receive any answer from the Azerbaijani embassy during his repeated visits about where his wife had gone, and he thought that his wife was hiding there in Tehran and did not want to meet him. This morning I decided to go to the embassy with a Kalashnikov already prepared, he told investigators, assuring the motive for his attack on the embassy in Tehran was personal. Earlier, Tehran's police chief said that the attacker was detained by police immediately after the incident. According to him, the man entered the embassy with two children. This morning this man entered the Azerbaijani embassy with a firearm (AK-47 assault rifle). As a result of the attack, one person was killed and two wounded. He also noted that according to preliminary data, the attacker was motivated by personal and family problems. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani noted that the Iranian security forces took prompt action to detain the attacker, and he is currently under investigation. "This matter is being investigated with a high degree of priority and sensitivity to determine the scope of this action and the attacker's motives," the spokesman added. He noted that the preliminary investigation shows that the attacker's motive was personal, adding that the investigation into this case will continue, and the media will report on the results. People walk next to the ''Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Sets You Free) gate at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, Jan. 26, 2023. (Michal Dyjuk/AP) OSWIECIM, Poland Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and other mourners commemorated the 78th anniversary Friday of the liberation of the Nazi German death camp, some expressing horror that war has again shattered peace in Europe and the lesson of Never Again is being forgotten. The former concentration and extermination camp is located in the town of Oswiecim in southern Poland, which was under the occupation of German forces during World War II and became a place of systematic murder of Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma and others targeted for elimination by Adolf Hitler and his henchmen. Advertisement In all, some 1.1 million people were killed at the vast complex before it was liberated by Soviet troops on Jan. 27, 1945. Today the site, with its barracks and barbed wire and the ruins of gas chambers, stands as one of the worlds most recognized symbols of evil and a site of pilgrimage for millions from around the world. Advertisement Yet it lies only 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Ukraine, where Russian aggression is creating unthinkable death and destruction a conflict on the minds of many this year. One survivor, Zdzisawa Wodarczyk, said during observances Friday that the war has created a feeling of horror in her. Piotr Cywinski, Auschwitz state museum director, compared Nazi crimes to those the Russians have committed in Ukrainian towns like Bucha and Mariupol. He said they were inspired by a similar sick megalomania and that free people must not remain indifferent. Being silent means giving voice to the perpetrators, Cywinski said. Remaining indifferent is tantamount to condoning murder. Russian President Vladimir Putin attended observances marking the 60th anniversary of the camps liberation in 2005. This year, no Russian official at all was invited due to Russias attack on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the event, alluding to his own countrys situation. We know and remember that indifference kills along with hatred, he said in a social media post. Indifference and hatred are always capable of creating evil together only. That is why it is so important that everyone who values life should show determination when it comes to saving those whom hatred seeks to destroy. Advertisement Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has its roots in the post-Word War II neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, called the Holocaust the abyss of humanity. An evil that touched also our country with the infamy of the racial laws of 1938. Bogdan Bartnikowski, a Pole who was 12 years old when he was transported to Auschwitz, said the first images he saw on television last February of refugees fleeing Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine triggered traumatic memories. He was stunned seeing a little girl in a large crowd of refugees holding her mother with one hand and grasping a teddy bear in the other. It was literally a blow to the head for me because I suddenly saw, after almost 80 years, what I had seen in a freight car when I was being transported to Auschwitz. A little girl was sitting next to me, hugging a doll to her chest, Bartnikowski, now 91, said. Bartnikowski was among several survivors of Auschwitz who spoke about their experiences to journalists Thursday. Another, Stefania Wernik, who was born at Auschwitz in November 1944, less than three months before its liberation, spoke of Auschwitz being a hell on earth. Advertisement She said when she was born she was so tiny that the Nazis tattooed her number 89136 on her thigh. She was washed in cold water, wrapped in rags and subjected to medical experiments. And yet her mother had abundant milk, and they both survived. After the war, her mother returned home and reunited with her husband, and the whole village came to look at us and said its a miracle. She appealed for no more fascism, which brings death, genocide, crimes, slaughter and loss of human dignity. Among those who attended Fridays commemorations was Doug Emhoff, the husband of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Emhoff, the first Jewish person to be married to one of the top two nationally elected U.S. officials, bowed his head an execution wall at Auschwitz, where he left a wreath of flowers in the U.S. flags colors and the words: From the people of the United States of America. The Germans established Auschwitz in 1940 for Polish prisoners; later they expanded the complex, building death chambers and crematoria where Jews from across Europe were brought by train to be murdered. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the suffering of 6 million innocently murdered Jews remains unforgotten as does the suffering of the survivors. Advertisement We recall our historic responsibility on Holocaust Memorial Day so that our Never Again endures in future, he wrote on Twitter. The German parliament was holding a memorial event focused this year on those who were persecuted for their sexual orientation. Thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people were incarcerated and killed by the Nazis. Their fate was only publicly recognized decades after the end of World War II. Elsewhere in the world on Friday events were planned to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemoration established by a United Nations resolution in 2005. Frank Jordans in Berlin and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report. The issue of men's participation in combating violence against women was on the agenda of PACE's winter session, and Sona Ghazaryan, a member of the Armenian National Assembly's delegation to PACE, spoke on the issue. Sona Ghazaryan spoke on the issue of men's participation in combating violence against women at PACE Winter Session, the press service of the Armenian National Assembly informed NEWS.am. The deputy, in particular, noted: Dear Colleagues, I am truly impressed and happy to see such a distinguished speakers list. So many men stepped up, perhaps some got out of their comfort zone to speak on this specific subject fight against violence. Although there is ample evidence showing that women are more vulnerable to gender based violence, than men, I believe this fight against the phenomenon should be owned by all of us, regardless of gender. What happens usually and unfortunately it is always women that come together, discuss, agree with each other on the subject and this is not very productive in my opinion.As clearly mentioned in the UN Beijing+20 campaign we need to engage men and boys on gender equality and womens empowerment talks. Violence free society is to the benefit of all. Men need to be engaged as gender advocates speaking out as active agents and stakeholders who can transform social norms, behaviours and gender stereotypes that perpetuate discrimination and inequality. It is very impressive to see how different states all over the world put efforts into engaging local leaders and authorities to fight against violence, regardless of their gender. The concept of positive masculinity is what male resource centres should focus on and educate their communities about. Today in this room, I am privileged to share the efforts I pursue at the national level. Firstly, as an MP, I work on improving the legal environment, improving the law on domestic violence. With my colleagues I drafted the amendments on the law on domestic violence. We surely engaged male MPs in the process. Moreover, the Armenian government created the council on women's affairs led by the deputy prime minister, members of government, members of Civil Society Organisation (CSO) and Parliament to have multi stakeholder discussion. It makes me pleased to see that many men in this discussion accept their responsibility and duty to also be the frontrunners on the subject. Petra, I agree with your conclusion that gender based violence is a threat to democracy, this is another reason why everyone, regardless of gender, should be partners and allies to the fight against it. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is shocked and horrified that BBC HARDtalk Anchor Stephen Sackur suggested genocide as one of the two "realistic options" facing Artsakh Armenians. Note that the statement was made during an interview with Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan that aired on January 23, 2023. Referring to the blockade of Artsakh by the dictatorial regime of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Sackur asked Vardanyan: You now control a tiny enclave which is suffering from the economic blockade right now, and it seems your only realistic option is either to work out a political deal with Azerbaijan or for the people, the Armenian community in Nagorno-Karabakh, to decide that this is no longer sustainable and leave the territory. So, which is it to be a political deal or leave? The Lemkin Institute has repeatedly noted in its warnings and statements that forcing people to leave their land under threat of death is a form of genocide. In its statement, the Lemkin Institute expressed surprise that it had to point out that genocide should never be offered to threatened peoples as a possible "realistic option" going forward. "By deploying a tactic called DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), Sackur is mirroring a common strategy of genocidaires. Not once does Sackur note that Azerbaijans blockade of Artsakh is a violation of the Ceasefire Agreement that ended the 2020 war, nor does he note that siege tactics against civilians constitute a violation of international law. In fact, he appears to excuse the blockade by referring to a misunderstanding between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the terms of the 2020 agreement after Vardanyan rightly points out that the blockade is a clear violation of the aforementioned ceasefire," the statement adds. According to the statement, one of the most telling moments in the interview is when Sackur interrupts Vardanyan to "clarify" what language should be spoken about Artsakh: You just referred to your territory as Artsakh, I should make it plain that while you, in your territory, refer to it as Artsakh, the Azerbaijani government, of course, calls it Nagorno-Karabakh, as indeed does the international community, so I just want to be clear about that. The Lemkin Institute is shocked that Sackur also insists on using the name "Nagorno-Karabakh." "Sackurs clarification suggests the illegitimacy of the name Artsakh, which is in fact the historical Armenian name for the region. His insistance also ignores the political undertones of the term Nagorno-Karabakh, or simply Karabakh, a name that is often utilized during torture sessions, in which Azeri soldiers will force, under threat of physical harm, Armenian POWs to repeat terms such as Karabagh is Azerbaijan. According to the statement - Armenians of Artsakh have consistently and consistently expressed their will for independence since 1991, when they voted in a referendum in which an overwhelming majority of 99.89% voted for autonomy. Moreover, they have built democratic institutions and have consistently demanded worldwide recognition as an independent republic. On the run from his former employer, a reluctant hitman seeks refuge in an isolated village where he is faced with events that test the true nature of his conscience. On the run from his former employer, a reluctant hitman seeks refuge in an isolated village where he is faced with events that test the true nature of his conscience. When Mayor Eric Adams of New York runs into White House officials, promoting his city to host the Democratic National Convention is often among his top three agenda items. When Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois rode with President Joe Biden in his motorcade last spring, he pressed the case for Chicagos convention bid. And days before Biden landed in Atlanta this month, Mayor Andre Dickens was likewise plotting his pitch to the president. Advertisement The battle over where Democrats should host their presidential convention in 2024 has been unfolding for months in some of the countrys largest Democratic-run cities. It is at once an opaque insiders game and a spirited debate over Democratic messaging and symbolism, shaped by regional rivalries, whispered disparagement of competitors and high-powered public jockeying. Theres sort of a baseline of stuff that matters, said Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey, a former Democratic National Committee finance chair, pointing to issues such as security and hotel capacity. You then sort of step back and you ask yourself, Does this city fit who we are as a party? Advertisement Atlanta, Chicago and New York remain in contention and have advanced toward the endgame of the process, hashing out potential nuts-and-bolts terms with the DNC, according to two people with direct knowledge of the bidding process. Of those three cities, Atlanta and Chicago have often been seen as leading contenders, but in many ways, the final decision will be a matter of Bidens preference. Atlanta is the only one of those cities in a presidential battleground state. Houston, which also submitted a bid, is no longer being considered, a DNC official confirmed. Mayor Sylvester Turner also said in an interview Thursday that he had been informed that his city was out of the running. For the 2020 Democratic convention, the host city was announced in March 2019, and Democrats involved expect a similar spring timeframe this year, but caution the process is unpredictable. Biden, 80, has said he intends to run again, but he has yet to officially announce a reelection campaign. If he is again his partys standard-bearer, the convention would be his first real one as a presidential nominee. The 2020 event was an almost entirely virtual affair, after the coronavirus outbreak forced the cancellation of major in-person appearances in Milwaukee. Eyeing the next convention, boosters for various cities are building alliances with governors, senators, mayors and business leaders from their regions as they press their cases to Democratic officials and to the public. Midwestern Democrats know how to win big and get things done, said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, endorsing the bid from nearby Illinois. My hearts with New York, Murphy said. Its got all the infrastructure that the party needs. Its historically a bastion of Democratic support. The Democratic Partys future on a national level is tied to success in the South, declared former Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, who is working to secure support for Atlanta from other Southern officials. Advertisement Georgia undeniably holds political significance for Biden. The state, once reliably Republican, flipped for him in 2020, and then cemented the Democratic Senate majority. As the cradle of the civil rights movement, Georgias place in history and our national story ideally suit the Peach State to host the convention, said Jon Ossoff, one of Georgias two Democratic senators. Reflecting Bidens preferences, a key committee at the DNC has recommended that Georgia host an early presidential primary, although the state faces logistical hurdles in doing so. On a call last year with Nevada Democrats in which he discussed the primary calendar, Biden also mentioned Georgia, according to two people on the call. He was talking about Georgia, we need to put some emphasis there, said Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev. The White House declined to comment for this article. The primary calendar lineup is separate from the convention decision. The latter is shaped as much by factors such as hotel availability, union friendliness, transportation options, fundraising ability from the various host committees and security considerations as it is by political calculations. Advertisement Dickens, the Atlanta mayor, said he had solicited the help of a number of prominent Southern Democrats to make the case for bringing the convention to his city, including former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, now a White House senior adviser; Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, a close Biden ally; and a number of mayors across the region. Dickens and Bottoms sat in the front pew at Ebenezer Baptist Church on the Sunday before Martin Luther Kings Birthday, when Biden visited the congregation. He was greeted by a wave of pro-Atlanta convention messaging: A full-page advertisement for the city to host the convention ran in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Several city leaders jostled for face time. Dickens said he aimed to include the convention somewhere in the first three sentences of his conversation with Biden when he greeted him. Some union leaders across the country have begun weighing in for Chicago or New York but against Atlanta. They maintain that it would be insulting to hold the Democratic convention in a state that is hostile to unions and in a city with very few unionized hotels. A lot of delegates to the DNC dont want to have to stay farther out or compromise their values because a city has just a few union hotels, said Bob Reiter, president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, who has made his case to party leaders. Last week, eight prominent labor leaders, including Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, signed a letter to Biden encouraging him to host the convention in New York, to demonstrate pro-worker principles. Advertisement The convention does not have to use unionized hotels and convention workers, although it is encouraged. Asked about criticism of Georgia, Dickens replied, Why wouldnt you take the mantra of, Lets bring our brand of government and politics to the South? And you can then influence things. Advocates for Chicago which is in the midst of a tumultuous mayors race and of New York argue that a Democratic convention should be held in a place that unambiguously embraces Democratic values. Were perhaps the most pro-choice state in the country, we have protected LGBTQ rights, we have protected civil rights, Pritzker said in an interview last year. In a follow-up statement this week, he pointed to other recent liberal achievements including common-sense legislation to end gun violence. He has noted that the city often hosts large-scale events, the state reflects the nations diversity and that summertime in Chicago, along Lake Michigan, isphenomenal, an implicit contrast with the heat and humidity in Atlanta, and the pungent summer smells of New York City. He also highlighted the citys Midwestern location, in a critical battleground region, though Illinois itself is strongly Democratic. Nearby mayors and governors, including Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, are supporting Chicago, as is Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. The Republican National Convention in 2024 is already scheduled for Milwaukee. Advertisement We do not win national elections without the Midwest, and so I think its important for us to show up here, said Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway of Madison, Wisconsin. But some Chicago-skeptical Democrats quietly point out that the city is closely associated with a different Democratic president Barack Obama and argue that the only splashy convention Biden would ever get should be in a place that could be made to feel distinctly his own. New York is not competitive in presidential elections, but advocates insist that no city can match the nations largest in easily absorbing thousands of convention-goers. In an interview, Adams emphasized New Yorks event infrastructure and cast the racially diverse, liberal city as a place that showcases all the values that we look for in the Democratic Party. (Democrats in the state, however, had a deeply disappointing midterm election.) When you do an examination of all the things that a good convention looks like, it says New York, Adams proclaimed. It reeks with New York. He described the city as a walkable cultural capital, a place where spouses of attendees, too, would be entertained A happy family is a good experience for the convention. Advertisement New Yorks prominent political backers include the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader; and the Clintons. Other cities are home to major Democratic donors including Pritzker himself but New York is an especially significant fundraising center. Then there was Houston, a 2020 convention finalist in an electoral vote-rich state Democrats dream of flipping. In an interview Thursday morning, Turner, the mayor, urged his party to be more forward-thinking in terms of, how do you expand the map? At some point, he said, Democrats are going to have to invest in its future rather than just trying to lock in what it currently has. c.2023 The New York Times Company 30 to 40 Jewish extremists attacked a restaurant in Jerusalem owned by Armenian Mihran Grigoryan on Thursday. The owner of the restaurant, Mihran Grigoryan, told NEWS.am that the restaurant's property was substantially damaged. The attackers shouted slogans "death to Christians" and "death to Arabs". "The incident took place in the evening, around 10:30 pm. No one was hurt in the end. Everything lasted about five minutes. Only the property and dishes were damaged. The restaurant was quite full. The Jewish extremists stood in front of the restaurant and started shouting slogans "death to Christians" and "death to Arabs". They also shouted various insults, after which they started knocking over tables and chairs that were located outside. It all flew in the direction of our employees," the restaurant owner said. According to him, the extremists had prepared for the action in advance. They had papers with slogans "death to Christians" and "death to Arabs." Mihran Grigoryan filed an application to the police the same night. As a result, 2-3 extremists were detained. They were to be released as early as today. "The police should continue working to identify the perpetrators. They must be brought to justice, but law enforcement officers have not yet contacted us," complained the owner of the establishment. However, the incident did not stop there. Extremist Jews also attacked the restaurant's official Facebook page. After the incident, they began writing negative comments in an attempt to influence the restaurant's rating. "This is not the first time extremists have demonstrated such behavior. Non-Jewish residents are systematically attacked... The government has also become a bit extremist. Minorities are harassed. People's property is being damaged, and there is no one who is responsible for all this," Grigoryan said. Minister of State of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Chief of the Operational Staff Ruben Vardanyan continued his visits to the communities. Vardanyan continued his visits to the Nagorno-Karabakh communities, the press service of the republic informed NEWS.am. On January 27, he held meetings in Spitakashen, Agorti and Mushkapat communities of NKR Martuni region. Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Suren Galstyan, head of the parliamentary group "Free Homeland- OGA" Artur Harutyunyan, head of the Martuni region administration Edik Avanesyan, and member of the Operational Staff, representative of the Ministry of Interior Karen Avetisyan accompanied the State Minister. During the meetings the Minister talked about the crisis situation created in the NKR as a result of the Azeri blockade and its influence, introduced the works implemented by the Operational Staff as well as the steps in various fields and spheres aimed at lifting the aforementioned blockade. The questions of the Martuni participants mainly related to the existing situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, security of the country and its future. Answering the questions Ruben Vardanyan reiterated that it is necessary to continue the fight. And by all possible means and tools in this situation: "Struggle doesn't mean war. Struggle means disagreement with the path offered to us by Azerbaijan. We will not leave our homeland, despite all the difficulties," said the Head of the Government. Responding to a question about the expected assistance, the State Minister, in particular, said: "We should not rely on anyone, sit back and do nothing." "First and foremost, we must do our job, and only then expect help. If you do nothing and just hope for others - nothing will work. But if you fight and do something, that creates a completely different situation," Vardanyan stressed. The participants of the meeting noted that they support this point of view. Moreover, they said that under no circumstances are they going to leave their motherland and their homes. Other issues were also discussed at the meeting. Emory University has appointed Carlos del Rio, MD, an internationally known clinician and epidemiologist, as interim dean for the Emory University School of Medicine. He will also serve as interim chief academic officer for Emory Healthcare. He will begin his role on March 1, when Vikas Sukhatme, MD, ScD, steps down as dean to return to the Emory faculty. Dr. Carlos del Rio is an eminent global leader in medicine and public health, and I look forward to his contributions at this time of transition for the Emory School of Medicine, says Emory University President Gregory L. Fenves. He understands the role of our School of Medicine, and will build on the accomplishments of Dean Sukhatme who set this school on a course for continued success in its tripartite mission of education, research and clinical care. Currently, del Rio is the Leon L. Haley, Jr. MD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases for Emory School of Medicine and executive associate dean for Emory at Grady. He is also a professor of global health and professor of epidemiology in the Rollins School of Public Health. Del Rio is co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and co-PI of the Emory-CDC HIV Clinical Trials Unit and the Emory Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit. He previously served as chief of the Emory Medical Service at Grady Memorial Hospital from 2001 to 2009 and chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health from 2009 to 2019. Dr. del Rio is a renowned physician, researcher and epidemiologist who is dedicated to educating and training future physicians and protecting the health of individuals around the world, says Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH, Emorys executive vice president for health affairs, executive director for the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, and vice chair of the Emory Healthcare Board of Directors. Under Dr. del Rios direction and leadership, Emory School of Medicine will continue to be a leader in academic medicine and further enhance the Woodruff Health Sciences Centers mission to improve health outcomes, cure diseases and save lives. For more than two decades, del Rio has worked with marginalized populations to improve clinical care and outcomes in the U.S. and abroad and was recently recognized by the CDC Office of Minority Health and Health Equity as a Health Equity Champion. His work has focused on research, policy development and disseminating scientific findings regarding global public health crises such as COVID-19 and HIV prevention and the HIV continuum of care. Del Rio is currently the HIV/AIDS chief section editor for NEJM Journal Watch Infectious Diseases and member of the editorial board of Journal of AIDS, Vaccines and Global Public Health. He has co-authored 30 book chapters and over 500 scientific papers. Carlos del Rio is an outstanding scholar whose work has eased the global burden of HIV and other infectious diseases, as well as a passionate advocate for equitable health care for all, says Ravi V. Bellamkonda, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Emory University. With his deep knowledge of Emory and commitment to best-in-class medical education, research and patient care, we are fortunate to have him serve as the interim dean of the School of Medicine, and look forward to his advancing the ambitious goals and progress the school has made under the leadership of Dean Vikas Sukhatme. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, del Rio advised municipal, state and national leaders and was a frequent source for international media to educate and inform the public about the ongoing health crisis. He currently serves on the national advisory committee of the COVID Collaborative, which focuses on developing consensus recommendations and engaging with U.S. leaders on effective policy and coronavirus response. He was also a member of the WHO Influenza A(H1N1) Clinical Advisory Group and of the CDC Influenza A(H1N1) Task Force during the 2009 pandemic. Del Rio currently serves as president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is also chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of PEPFAR and a member of the UNAIDS Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee. In 2022, del Rio was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2013 and elected as the International secretary of the National Academy of Medicine in 2020. Among del Rios many honors are the James H. Nakano Citation received in 2001 and awarded by the CDC for an outstanding scientific paper published in 2000; the Emory University Marion V. Creekmore Achievement Award for Internationalization; the Thomas Jefferson Award from Emory University, the highest award conferred by Emory to a faculty or staff member who has significantly enriched the intellectual and civic life of the Emory community; the Ohtli Award from the Government of Mexico for work that benefits communities of Mexican origin living in the U.S.; the APHA Award for Excellence in Public Health; and the MAP International Bill Foege Global Health Award. In 2021, he was recognized by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as a Great Immigrant, Great American and by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms with the Phoenix Award, the City of Atlantas highest honor, for his medical guidance and support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Del Rio is a member of the board of directors of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and of the Atlanta Opera. I am honored and humbled to serve as interim dean of Emory School of Medicine and want to thank Dr. Sukhatme for his leadership as dean since 2017, says del Rio. As a physician who first came to Emory as a visiting medical student in 1982 and joined the faculty in 1996, I am committed to the institution and to our students, trainees, faculty and staff. As a Hispanic physician, I am deeply committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and look forward to working with all stakeholders to continue to advance Emorys role as a leading institution in education, biomedical research and patient care. A native of Mexico, del Rio attended medical school at Universidad La Salle and completed internal medicine and infectious diseases residencies at Emory University. Prior to rejoining Emory in 1996, he served as executive director of the National AIDS Council of Mexico (CONASIDA, the federal agency of the Mexican government responsible for AIDS Policy throughout Mexico). Del Rios spouse, Jeannette Guarner, MD, is also a physician and Emory School of Medicine professor who serves as vice chair for faculty affairs in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. As analysts made election predictions based on Georgia poll results last fall, Emory College of Arts and Sciences junior Jackson Eckel was gathering information from 2,700 precincts across the state. Polls predicting a tight U.S. Senate race between Raphael G. Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R) proved correct. The voting district data allowed Eckel, working with College senior Robert Schmad, to explain why: Republicans who voted down the ballot could not bring themselves to vote for either candidate. Walker lost by 36,000 votes in the general election, and up to 24,000 of them were undervotes from otherwise Republican voters, Eckel, a political science major with a minor in quantitative methods, says of the voters who skipped the race. That confirms how weak a candidate Walker was, in a process that really demystifies the election in a clear way. Eckel and Schmad were among 16 undergraduate and graduate students working together in Bernard Fragas Election Data Science course during fall semester, learning how to examine their theoretical grasp of politics and elections through a quantitative approach. Fraga, an associate professor of political science, regularly conducts such statistical analyses of voter records and election results as part of his research into electoral politics and voter behavior. As the class discovered in projects as varied as the shifting percentage of white voters who must support a statewide Democrat to win now less than 30% and the impact of the 2022 U.S. Senate races undervotes, the numbers often tell a clear story. A lot of Emory students have learned skills in class and gained knowledge from working on campaigns, or even just observing elections in Georgia, but havent figured out how to turn that into a credible analysis that makes them better consumers of journalism and data, Fraga says. Learning how to examine and challenge popular narratives about elections builds understanding not just of this election but for what todays political trends mean for the future of Georgia, Fraga adds. The course was Fragas first effort at guiding students through the quantitative skills and necessary engagement with the literature to unearth those trends. He now plans to offer the class every election cycle. The course builds on Fragas research on the 2020 election in Georgia, which challenged the national narrative that white suburban voters were responsible for turning the state purple. Instead, his analysis showed that more than a million Black voters were behind Democrats capturing the states two senate seats and supporting Joe Biden for president. Cara Waite worked with Fraga on the project during her sophomore year. The political science major, who graduated in December 2022, enrolled in the fall course hoping to gain more coding experience. She focused her research project on voter turnout and data visualization, decisions that allowed her to share screenshots of maps-in-progress with friends, driving home the significance of going to the polls versus staying home. Waite also worked with Eckel on Election Night, pulling live data for Fragas real-time analysis of turnout and results. She is working with Fraga again this spring as she prepares for the LSAT and a career in public interest law. I find it all fascinating, Waite says. But even if you dont find it that interesting, its never been more important to know how to understand what is going on in politics and with each other. Amid criticism by political opponents and activists, Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thursday directed to slash the cost of the 75th Independence Day celebrations (February 4), primarily due to the severe economic crisis facing the island nation. At a meeting with high-ranking officials and ministers, Wickremesinghe said the 75th Independence Day should be celebrated with pride, but maintaining minimum cost. While pointing out that there is huge opposition among people regarding allocation of funds for the 75th Independence Day celebrations, the President emphasised that efforts should be made to minimise the related expenses, the President's Media Division (PMD) stated. The President has advised the officials that it is their responsibility as well as that of the political authority to pay attention to the current financial situation of the country while estimating the expenses to be incurred for the Independence Day celebrations. "We must celebrate the 75th Independence Day otherwise the world will say that we are not capable of celebrating even our Independence. Similarly, we need to attract tourists and investors to our country. We need to build a positive image of our country. "Therefore, let us minimise our expenditure and celebrate our Day of Independence," the President told those present at the meeting, including Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, ministry secretaries and other senior officials. Wickremesinghe also announced that it has been planned to initiate a project to create urban forests in conjunction with the Independence Day celebrations. "We expect to start the activities prior to attending the Climate Summit (COP28) in Dubai. In addition, we also expect to initiate several new institutions. Further, we have planned to establish the University on Climate Change, which will bring long-term benefits to the country," the President said. "However, the treasury does not have enough funds to bear the full cost of these activities. Therefore, we will have to focus on other events only after allocating funds for the main activities," he emphasised. Celebrating the February 4 anniversary of gaining Independence from the British, Sri Lanka had planned a number of special programmes, including religious ceremonies of all faiths, cultural show in Colombo, the main event at Galle Face Green, opening of the Jaffna Cultural Centre, the Kandy republic parade and the cycle race from the northern most tip to the southernmost tip of the island -- Dondra Point to Point Pedro. --IANS sfl/arm ( 406 Words) 2023-01-26-22:34:02 (IANS) Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], January 27 (ANI/BusinessWire India): ITC Master Chef Creations celebrates the flavours of Republic Day 2023 with a special, ecologically-friendly initiative. With every order of ITC Master Chef's delectable gourmet food, the brand is sending a plantable seed paper Indian flag to consumers. ITC Master Chef Creations is the first cloud kitchen to launch this initiative as an ode to the nation's diversity and unity. Every delicacy from the ITC Master Chef Creations is prepared in ITC's world-class cloud kitchens, and is the result of decades of mastery over authentic Indian delights. Dilli ki chaat, tandoori kebab platters, Amritsari pindi chole, murgh dum biryani, Jodhpuri halwas and kulcha dhabelis are just a few examples of India's culinary excellence that ITC Master Chef Creations offers. Further, with this initiative, the brand aims to bring a change and help people use the Indian Flag responsibly. One has to do is plant the vegetable seed flag in a pot of soil, water it, nurture it and soon be able to proudly display a plant. This unique offer is available for Bangalore food lovers. To grab this one-of-a-kind initiative, the orders can be placed between January 21 and 26, 2023 via Swiggy or Zomato. Savour India's might and diversity over blissful bites of India's Tastiest Creations. This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India) Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 27 (ANI/ATK): To commemorate the 74th Republic Day, India's tallest luxury skyscraper, Minerva, located in Mumbai's south, unfurled the tri-colour, indicating the spirit of nationalism. Hoisted by its labourers at the top of the tower, Minerva proudly adorns the Indian national flag. For Minerva, Lokhandwala Kataria Construction has appointed Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate (SPRE) as a project marketing consultant. Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd. and PAG, a leading APAC-focused investment firm, have financed the project. The ultra-luxurious project Minerva is situated at Mahalaxmi in South Mumbai and will be the tallest residential project in the country upon its completion. On the flag hoisting occasion, Parikshit Pawar, Chief Marketing Officer, Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate (SPRE), said, "Hoisting the national flag on top of the tallest tower in India is a proud moment for us. We are delighted to display our national flag hoisted by our labourers as a tribute to their contribution to this masterpiece." Ali Lokhandwala, MD, Lokhandwala Kataria Construction Pvt Ltd (LKCPL), said, "We are honoured to create the tallest residential building in the country. Hoisting the national flag on the top of this landmark gives us immense pleasure." He further adds that "Minerva is changing the skyline of Mumbai like never before. We have given special attention to the construction technologies and safety of the building along with environmental sustainability and efficiency." Minerva overlooks the beautiful Mahalakshmi Racecourse and the Arabian Sea. Designed by renowned architect Hafeez Contractor, the Vantage series includes 4 BHK apartments starting from the 54th floor upwards. The ultra-luxurious project consists of 372 apartments. Situated in an affluent neighbourhood, Minerva offers various amenities distributed across multiple levels of the building and services that cater to homeowners' well-being, recreation, and business needs. The project is located near business hubs, international schools and colleges, multi-specialty hospitals, malls, clubs, and multiplexes in Mahalakshmi. The project has received a part occupancy certificate (OC) up to the 51st habitable floor, and over 200 homebuyers will soon be moving in. The rehabilitation component of the project is also nearing completion. Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate is a well-regarded, reputed player in the Indian real estate sector owing to its cutting-edge design innovation, construction quality, and architectural excellence. It constitutes a significant segment of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, an enormous multi-business conglomerate. The group has more than 155 years of legacy that bridges the earliest celebrated structures of India and the modern marvels. With a development potential of over 113 million square feet, SPRE has made inroads into most Indian cities--Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Gurugram, and Kolkata--with a variety of developments, from luxury apartments and opulent residences to aspirational homes for mid-income homebuyers as well as one of the largest mass housing projects in India. Link to the website: https://www.shapoorjipallonji.com/ This story has been provided by ATK. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/ATK) Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], January 27 (ANI/NewsVoir): Earshot, India's first Dolby Atmos-enabled podcast platform, has won the Best Podcast Publisher prize at the prestigious 'India Audio Summit & Awards' hosted by Radioandmusic.com, an initiative of IndianTelevision.com. Earshot received two more awards in the Science and News & Politics categories at the award function held in Mumbai, on January 24. The awards honoured individuals and organisations who have significantly contributed to the audio industry in radio, podcast, audiobooks, and technology verticals. India has the third largest podcast listenership in the world, behind the US and China. The nation's monthly podcast listenership had crossed 95 million in 2021, according to research firm RedSeer, and is projected to grow to 176.1 million in 2023 according to consulting and audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Earshot, which has produced more than 10,000 hours of original content in Hindi, English, Bengali, Assamese and Bhojpuri, also won the award for the best show producer in the Science category for its series, 'Listen to the Forest'. The Earshot audio series, 'India's Transgender Judges', was selected as the 'Best Show' in News & Politics. The organisation's leadership team - Co-founders Rohit Upadhyay, Abhijit Majumder and Gaurav Choudhury, and executive editor Nagendar Sharma - personally received the awards. "We tell stories in the most engaged, immersive manner in the world's oldest and most potent mode of communication: audio. Earshot is making podcasting Indian; telling stories from the ground in the language of the people. And we produce these stories with the sleekest technology. You can almost see the sounds and the stories that our podcasts tell," said Abhijit Majumder, Co-founder and Editor-in-chief of Earshot Digimedia Private Limited. "Podcast listening will continue to grow rapidly in India. It is also emerging as a very effective communication tool for thought leadership, brand messaging, and in the areas of learning and development. India's linguistic and cultural diversity, coupled with rapid smartphone penetration, offers enormous opportunities for podcasting to expand much beyond the metropolises into hinterland, aided by the fact it is a non-screen medium, keeps one's hands and eyes free, allowing for content consumption while multitasking," said Gaurav Choudhury, Co-founder and CEO of Earshot Digimedia Private Limited. This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], January 27 (ANI/BusinessWire India): When deciding to enroll for any course, the first and foremost thing that comes to mind is the Quality of Education, a College/Institute has to offer. Alongside that, it is of utter importance to know what Initiatives are being taken by the said entity to impart quality education and how it will enhance one's skills and prepare them for further challenges. The present scenario demands the finest Quality of Education among students to rise and bring out their best in every aspect, so it is mandatory to understand why it is beneficial, prior to deciding the right time and place. However, the role of Academic Staff in Colleges holds major importance in improving the Quality of Higher Education in a country like India. The Arya College in Jaipur with its well-planned curriculum, improvised facilities, appropriate training, and other departmental programs brings you the desired education curriculum with widespread opportunities. Recently, there is a rapid increase in the number of Colleges and Private Institutions in India. Students across the Globe prefer Colleges where the basic learning environment is designed to impart theoretical knowledge armoured with the Case Study Approach. And, the thing that remains intact among individuals is why is Quality Education important? The College plays a vital role in this context and is composed of separate domains as well as services to enhance the Quality of Education. The College is vastly known for its Research and Development unit, which offers world-class technology for its students in areas like robotics, mechatronics, drones, and many more. Talking about Robots, Arya College is the first and only one to have covered a distance of making innumerable types of Robots naming, serving Ruby at Restaurants, Robo Cop at CBI, Delhi, and Selfie Robot that clicks pictures and shares on WhatsApp immediately, Bionic Hand, now being worked upon sensors, Human Brain Controlling cap, that can read a human mind, Traffic Robot, to control the traffic and many more and many more customised Robots that have been created by the students themselves. Students taking admission and securing a seat in the college get an opportunity to explore and have hands-on experience on live projects under "ARYA STATE OF ADVANCE R&D LAB". The Laboratories, however, consist of the latest machines and technologies, and the increased number of specialized pieces of training, CSTs, PSTs, and CRTs provide quality education among its students. With the advancement in fields of technology, the college possesses smartboard classrooms, and the motto of this digitized concept of learning is to provide a proper understanding of various topics in a detailed and interesting manner. Moreover, it has an E-library facility with essential and maximum available resources. Each department initiates numerous industrial visits for its students, and conducting seminars is a regular feature of the college. The frequent engagement in activities conducted by the Entrepreneurship Development Cell (EDC) and Student Development Cell (SDC) aims at giving exposure and improving the practical knowledge and learning of the students. Also enhancement in their personality and outlook. Along with these, the Faculty Development Programs (FDPs) like workshops in association with reputed organizations are held on a regular basis. Moreover, it encourages the students to participate in various competitions as it is one of the important features of enhanced quality of education. Various pieces of training linked to upgrading the soft skills of an individual are a major part of the curriculum, such an improvised syllabus lets the students have a better quality of education, as well as nurture themselves for professional development. Besides this, the college has come up with an excellent feature for its students that connects them with numerous experts around the globe via webinars. Arya College Jaipur The Arya College Jaipur was set up under the aegis of "All India Arya Samajis Society" for Higher and Technical Education. It is located in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and is considered one of the best institutions in Rajasthan, having earned innumerable awards, and recognitions to its name. With 22 years of experience, it has been successfully imparting advanced quality of education to a generation of students. The college is made up of one of the finest academic infrastructure facilities with a big auditorium of around 500 seating capacity. Moreover, it consists of well-structured and well-maintained conference rooms, seminar halls, and interview drive setups. Also, the college has a capacity where nearly 1000 students can appear for exams at the same time. Moreover, the college is composed of experienced faculty units. Conclusion As one can see, quality education allows to lead a healthier and sustainable life and plays an important role in enhancing the skills and potential of an individual. Further, it can guide you to reduce inequalities, as well as break the poverty cycle. And, if one is willing to pursue higher education and research in Technology and Engineering, Arya College Jaipur can be a good option. Along with the best quality in higher education in India, it further assists you toward achieving your goals. This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India) Jeffrey Zients at a news briefing at the White House, in Washington on April 13, 2021. President Biden said on Friday, Jan. 27, 2023 that Zients, who served as the coronavirus response coordinator and a chairman of Biden's transition, would take over as the White House chief of staff. (Pete Marovich/The New York Times) President Joe Biden said Friday that Jeff Zients, who served as the coronavirus response coordinator and a chairman of Bidens transition, would take over as the White House chief of staff. The formal announcement came several days after it was reported that Zients had been tapped to replace Ron Klain, the longtime Biden adviser and skilled political operative who has served the first two years of the presidents term. Advertisement In a statement, Biden said that it is important to fill Rons shoes with someone who understands what it means to lead a team, and who is as focused on getting things done. Ive seen Jeff Zients tackle some of the toughest issues in government. The president said that the White House would hold a formal event for Klain next week and officially welcome Jeff back to the White House in this role. Advertisement When he leaves the White House, Klain will take with him decades of institutional knowledge about Washington politics, the inner workings of Capitol Hill and the Biden family in his statement, the president pointed out that he had known Klain since he was a third-year law student. Zients, an entrepreneur who made a fortune by building health care and education consultancies, has a different set of skills: His allies say that he has a keen eye for recruiting talent and that he is adept at coordinating large projects, including overseeing the largest vaccine campaign in U.S. history. As the White House faces a barrage of attacks from Republicans and shifts toward a probable 2024 campaign, allies say the president is likely to look to Zients to keep pushing the White House staff to deliver after two years of grinding work and nonstop crises such as a continuing pandemic and a land war in Europe. While several senior advisers, including Anita Dunn, Steven J. Ricchetti, Mike Donilon, Jennifer OMalley Dillon and Bruce Reed are expected to oversee political operations, Zients will be expected to help oversee the implementation of the CHIPS Act, several infrastructure projects and the most significant expansion of veterans health care benefits in decades. People are tired, theyve done historic things, said Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs. And the president, he said, needs to know that one person is accountable for the effective implementation of big priorities. It was McDonough, who served as President Barack Obamas chief of staff for his second term, who first recruited Zients to work on fixing the glitch-prone website for Obamas health care program. Hes not the guy whos in this for the debate, McDonough said of Zients. Hes not in this for scoring political points. Hes in it for quality of life and for outcomes. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Advertisement c.2023 The New York Times Company New Delhi [India], January 27 (ANI/PNN): Eccentric Engine, a digital auto retail experience platform company, which is home to top automotive brands in India in their digital transformation journey, has now set eyes on a truly global footprint. They are now gearing to deliver their flagship offering, 'Virtual Retail Cloud' in January to U.S. dealerships. A McKinsey Automotive report estimates that more than 25% of the current US$ 3 trillion new cars market is set to go virtual by 2025 globally. The company is now registered as Eccentric Inc. in the U.S. (known as Eccentric Engine in India) and plans for deep investments in industry agnostic virtual tools, which are being deployed first for automotive retail in U.S. starting this month. The first showcase of their new metaverse tech is being demonstrated at the upcoming North American Dealer Association (NADA) conference that attracts top dealers and auto OEMs from the North America, from January 26-29, in Dallas. The new indigenous platform of Eccentric Engine went borderless on Dec 7, 2022 with 'The Citroenzing 3' launch in Indonesia for the Stellantis NV and their local dealer partner PT Indomobile Wahana, a subsidiary of Indomobil Group. OEMs or Dealers in Japan, Indonesia, South Africa and Oman are deploying the virtual retailing ecosystem with select dealers and OEM partners. Varun Shah, Co-Founder and CEO Eccentric Engine added, "We are excited about the new growth path of Eccentric Engine that is transforming the company to become a global player. We look forward to extending the best of virtual retailing to our OEM & Dealer partners across the world. By virtue of Virtual Retail Cloud, we welcome new car dealers across North America to adopt a scalable and cutting-edge retail experience" The U.S. market is experiencing a sea of concepts in automotive retail and metaverse, of which, several concepts were featured at the 2023 CES in Las Vegas, NV, USA earlier in the month. At the 2023 NADA Show, Eccentric Inc. will demonstrate ready to use solutions on how virtual retailing, which encompasses 3D & AR-VR, can actually be deployed at scale for North American dealerships. It was evident that the dealers had a broken experiences and are yearning to provide their buyers one-stop solution to their prospects to enable a faster and intelligent purchase decision. Unlike other technology companies, Eccentric Engine honed the expertise to deploy and measure at scale. Eccentric Inc. has signed up two new customers in the Bay Area - Stevens Creek VW (American Motors Group) and Dublin Cadillac (California Automotive Retailing Group). The 3D platform will allow dealerships to design unique virtual retail interfaces to help buyers explore cars in an immersive experience and make an informed decision. Dealerships in India are foundational exploring a suite of virtual retail immersive technologies rolled out by Eccentric Engine. Aryaman Thakker, Director Group Landmark remarked, "Eccentric Engine has transformed vehicle showcase at our dealership. The tool is great for feature showcase as well as accessories sale. We wish them all the best for NADA 2023." Eccentric Engine reveals that their new virtual retailing cloud is an ecosystem and will need every ounces of intelligence, hardwork and creativity. Eccentric Engine plans to leverage millions of interactions it registers on its platform to obtain unique customer insights and build several use cases. Here is a sneak peek into their international roadmap with the Virtual Retail Cloud services: * Put together the right standards that will help dealers/OEMs develop and maintain experiences such as Loading Time, Device Performance and Latency know-how. * Develop and build an exclusive 3D warehouse for quick deployment, reducing OEM dependency * Equip OEMs & Dealerships with capabilities to create virtual experiences. An example of this is a no-code platform for any website partner to develop journeys in virtual retailing. * Robust back-end analytics through Eccentric Inc.'s comprehensive engine that will offer deep insights on buyer preferences. * Actively syndicate learnings from deployments across dealerships & OEMs around the world A new U.S. dealer customer Jessie Dosanjh, President, California Automotive Retailing Group, owner of Dublin Cadillac stated, "We pride ourselves in being a progressive & trusted group. Cadillac is a luxury brand and we are excited to bring to our customers, premium digital shopping experiences through our new partner Eccentric Inc. Thanks to their capabilities, our buyers will be more confident about their purchase. We look forward to having virtual retailing capabilities on our website & within our store premises." "By 2025 more than 100 million interactions will be powered by Eccentric Engine. The Virtual Retailing cloud ecosystem will be a game changer to empower buyers across the world," concluded Shah. Founded in 2012, Eccentric Engine is a pioneer in Automotive Visualization, Retail and Ecommerce withsuite of proprietary technology solutions such as One 3D platform, Experience Manager and Concierge to delivers seamless omni-channel experiences. Their technology enables creators globally to 'show better and sell faster' on web browsers and empowers customers by allowing them to access products across all devices. https://eccentricengine.com This story is provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PNN) Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 27 (ANI/NewsVoir): ISS Facility Services India, a subsidiary of the global facility management services and workplace experiences leader ISS A/S (ISS Group), and one of India's leading integrated facilities management companies, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IIT Bombay's Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), an umbrella organization at IIT Bombay for fostering entrepreneurship and nurturing tech startups. In a recent round table with media, Aksh Rohatgi, CEO and Country Manager of ISS India elaborated on the collaboration and ISS India's plans for the future, "The Facility Management industry in India is 10 billion US dollars, a huge industry that is highly fragmented. Our focus is to be the industry leader in our chosen segments which are: industry and manufacturing, banking, and business services & technology. These three segments hold huge opportunities and our focus is to grow in India. We are following a strategy of 25 by 25 and are confident of achieving success." "Our MoU with SINE is a really important step for us. We believe that supporting and investing in the ideas and potential of these bright minds will not only drive economic growth, but also help pave the way for a brighter future for the world and especially support India in its quest of Aatmanirbharta (Self-Reliance). We are confident that a lot of solutions will emerge for the Facilities Management industry which is currently undergoing transformation with rapid infusion of technology into various facets of the business. ISS has been laser-focused on sustainability and sustainable business practices and we are excited to see how ideas emerge to take businesses to progressively higher levels of sustainability," Rohatgi added. Through the new collaboration, ISS and SINE will be developing joint accelerator and incubation programs to support innovators and start-ups. These programs will provide access to resources, mentorship, and funding opportunities, including Proof of Concept (POC) funding, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding, seed support, market outreach, and early adoption options. Recently, the company had also collaborated with Delhi Skill and Entrepreneurship University (DSEU) to train students enrolled in BBA (Facilities & Hygiene Management) Program and started a Facility Management Lab at the DSEU campus which complements the skill development process with the tools and technology required for the sector. Rohatgi also elaborated on the in-house development of technology. With technology and innovation at the core of its business, ISS has created a workplace experience app with the idea of transforming the way workplaces operate. With its powerful features, desk booking, meeting room booking, wayfinding, events, news feed and push notifications ISS Workplace App helps to manage everything in one place. The application also allows users to receive push notifications about upcoming events or important news. With the help of this application, one can stay up-to-date with all the latest changes in the workplace. This makes it easier for them to stay productive and efficient while at work. The ISS Workplace Application is the perfect tool for companies looking to curate their employee experience. App's features combine to provide employees with the assistance they need when getting around the workplace. From finding their way around unfamiliar spaces to grab their comfortable spaces to keeping up with company news and events, the app enhances the employees' experience through its easy-to-use interface and convenient services. This story has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir) Pune (Maharashtra) [India], January 27 (ANI/PNN): On Thursday, January 26th, 2023, the 74th Republic Day was celebrated with great pride and enthusiasm at the Mahatma Gandhi School for the underprivileged in Pune, Maharashtra. The event began with a Flag Hoisting Ceremony led by Honorable Gaurav Sengupta, Chairman and Founder of BlueFlame Labs Pvt. Ltd. The ceremony was a grand and patriotic event, with the flag being hoisted to the sound of the national anthem, as students and guests alike stood at attention in respect for the country. The ceremony was followed by a series of cultural events that showcased the talents of the students, who performed traditional dances and songs with great enthusiasm and energy. The guests were thoroughly impressed by the talent and creativity of the students, and many were moved to tears by their performances. The annual national ceremony was attended by a distinguished gathering of guests, including Honorable Sahebkour Kung-Sengupta (Co-Founder, BlueFlame Labs Pvt. Ltd), Dr Mahesh Rathi (Philanthropist), Honorable Jeetendra Bhandari (Founder Chairman - Walko Company Pvt. Ltd.), Dr Abha Kumari (Yog Guru), and the school's Founder President, Vinayak Deokar, along with Dr Ravindra Sethiya, Dr V. L. Bhujadi, Ms. Richa Deokar, and the school's Managing Trustee. Each of these guests brought their own unique perspective and contribution to the event, and their presence added to the significance and importance of the celebration. In his speech, Gaurav Sengupta, Chairman and Founder of BlueFlame Labs Pvt. Ltd, emphasized the importance of giving back to the community and supporting the education of underprivileged children. He said, "At BlueFlame Labs, we believe that everyone deserves a chance at a good life and good education. As people who are blessed with resources, it is our responsibility to give back to society in any capacity we can. It is through events like these that we can truly make a difference in the lives of these children and build a better future for our country." His words were met with a round of applause from the guests, who agreed wholeheartedly with his sentiment. BlueFlame Labs Pvt. Ltd is a socially responsible company, which is a leading provider of Salesforce, Microsoft, and Oracle NetSuite solutions. The company is dedicated to creating a better future for the youth of India through its innovative solutions and employee growth initiatives. The company is headquartered in Pune with international offices in USA and UK. The association with Mahatma Gandhi School is a reflection of the tech giant's commitment to giving back to the community and supporting the education of underprivileged children. The company was founded by Gaurav Sengupta, Founder and Chairman, and Sahebkour Kung, Co-Founder, along with Praveen Shrivastava, Co-Founder, a trio that brings extensive experience and expertise in the Salesforce technology ecosystem to the table. Their passion for innovation and customer satisfaction has been instrumental in establishing BlueFlame Labs as a trusted provider that delivers measurable results for businesses. With a proven track record of success, BlueFlame Labs has been serving clients for the past 5 years. The 74th Republic Day celebration at the Mahatma Gandhi School was a heartwarming and meaningful event for all involved. Not only was it an opportunity to celebrate the country's patriotism, but it also served as a reminder of the importance of giving back to the community and supporting the education of underprivileged children. BlueFlame Labs, as a socially responsible company, demonstrated their commitment to these values through their association with the school and their ongoing efforts to create a better future for the youth of India. Furthermore, BlueFlame Labs continues to strive towards creating an inclusive and diverse environment within the company. The company actively promotes and encourages diversity and inclusivity in its hiring practices, employee development programs and in interactions with its customers and partners. By fostering a diverse and inclusive culture, BlueFlame Labs is able to bring a wealth of perspectives, ideas, and creativity to the table, which has greatly contributed to the company's success. The celebration at Mahatma Gandhi School was not just a patriotic event but also an opportunity for BlueFlame Labs to give back to the community, support the education of underprivileged children and showcase their commitment to social responsibility and diversity. The company's dedication to creating a better future for the youth of India serves as an inspiration for others to follow in their footsteps. This story is provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PNN) New Delhi [India], January 27 (ANI/SRV): Wavesys Global is launching a new feature of integration of video monitoring systems with the TELEGRAM social messaging app for this precise reason-to deliver alerts to users on a platform that is actually more used and allows multiple user channels. "We are happy to announce the integration of the Wavesys Video Monitoring Systems with Telegram. As a company offering IT-led security solutions, it is and always will be our goal to offer products and services that add comfort and bring progress to the lives of our customers. The new Telegram integration feature stands true to all our promises and goals." said Abhishek Kumar, Senior Regional Director, Wavesys Global, about the launch. Explaining the relevance of this VMS-Telegram integration feature, he said that the reason for the choice of Telegram is simple- the app is very popular and installed on almost every smartphone nowadays. But more importantly, it is an encrypted and secure channel that offers privacy and independence to the users as Telegram does not engage in data harvesting. It has an open and powerful API and is less expensive compared to some other mediums. Telegram also offers the liberty of transferring files of any size to a single user or a group of users. Recent case study and implementation: A manufacturing unit in Punjab was faced with a major crisis just last month. It all started with Amit, the security surveillance in charge receiving a family medical emergency call. While Amit rushed to the hospital, attended to the emergency, and was returning to the factory, an unfortunate accident happened at the factory injuring 1 worker and destroying one whole lot of material. This factory unit had top-class surveillance and video monitoring systems that very promptly sent risk alerts to Amit by SMS and email. But the alerts went unnoticed for understandable reasons. If only the notification had reached multiple people- not just Amit, or multiple channels and not just the rarely seen SMS, the damage could have been stopped and losses could have been avoided. The in-premises supervisory authority in any kind of industrial setup can take advantage of this feature by simply creating a channel or a group on Telegram without any additional investment and can then add interested parties to it (like the officials, admins, IT managers, or even the security staff). The user may also set instructions to message individual users or even multiple recipients of the created group or private channel. Once the CCTV video monitoring system is integrated with Telegram the user will instantly start receiving message updates, alerts, and/ or live streaming links. Message updates, alerts, or live video links are broadcasted on Telegram based on the preferences, trigger events, and event-related actions instructed to the Telegram bot by the user. Although the scope of instructions one could give to the bot is vast, some features deemed most beneficial are the alert notifications for certain trigger incidents and real-time frames for such incidents (if a rule is pre-set by the user to showcase live stream in case of triggers), frames pulled out of the storage archives for a specific time frame, and notifications regarding system faults. As a final step, install the Telegram app on your Android or iOS smartphone for enhanced mobility, and you are all set to stay alert and to alarm the concerned even while you are on the move. Further talking about the progress of the security surveillance industry and the source of the forethought of the Wavesys VMS- Telegram integration in India, Abhishek Kumar spoke of the immense growth of the security and surveillance industry in terms of innovations that offered an analysis of footage, simplified availability of footage, and reduced human intervention in footage handling that enhanced the feeling of security and successfully offered comfort too. But, some security and surveillance-related matters are still considered 'for professional handling only' even today, he added. For instance, when there is an incident on your premises, the first person to be contacted will be someone authorized to access the security footage, such an individual would have to rush to the CCTV control room or the footage monitoring station to look at the footage. They would then watch the footage and alert the security in charge who, in turn, would alert the others concerned. The hierarchical transfer of information consumes a lot of crucial make-or-break time. By integrating this simple social messaging app Telegram with its video monitoring systems, WAVESYS GLOBAL will enable multiple accounts and users to get simultaneous and safe access to security footage. This VMS-Telegram integration has much more to offer if you wish to explore. You just need to make up your mind to integrate and order. Read more about Wavesys Global and the VMS-Telegram integration at https://wavesysglobal.com/ or contact sales.apac@wavesysglobal.com for specific information. This story has been provided by SRV. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/SRV) On a quarterly basis, investments stood at USD 2.3 billion in the October-December quarter, a quarterly increase of 64 per cent. On a year-on-year basis, they were 115 per cent higher during the December quarter. "Foreign investors took the lead with a 57 per cent share in the overall investment volume in 2022. Investors from Canada accounted for nearly 37 per cent of the foreign capital inflows, followed by those from the US (15 per cent)," the consulting firm said in a release. Domestic investors contributed the remaining 40 per cent of the total investment in 2022. Delhi-NCR led investment activity, followed by Mumbai; cumulatively, the two cities accounted for about 56 per cent share of the investments in 2022. "The record investment inflows, the highest ever for the sector, reflect the resilience and growth potential of the Indian real estate sector," said Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and CEO - India, South-East Asia, Middle East and Africa, CBRE. "Undeterred by global headwinds, equity inflows into the sector are expected to remain steady in 2023," said Magazine. Going ahead, capital flows are likely to remain steady. However, it said investors may also remain cautious amidst recessionary fears in the US and Europe. (ANI) Ayo Edebiri, the breakout star of 'The Bear,' has joined Marvel Studios' anti-hero team-up film 'Thunderbolts' in an unspecified capacity. According to Variety, a US-based mediahouse, the film is directed by Jake Schreier ('Paper Towns,' 'Robot and Frank') from a script by Eric Pearson ("Black Widow"). Kevin Feige is producing, as he is with every Marvel Studios production. At the San Diego Comic-Con, Feige confirmed 'Thunderbolts' for 2022 as the culmination of Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which begins in February with 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'). It is currently scheduled to debut on July 26, 2024. According to Variety, 'Thunderbolts' will bring together several anti-heroes from the MCU, including Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) from 'Black Widow,' Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and John Walker (Wyatt Russell) from 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,' and Ghost from 'Ant-Man and the Wasp' (Hannah John-Kamen). Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus in 'Falcon and Winter Soldier,' 'Black Widow,' and 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,' will command the crew. Louis-Dreyfus told Variety that 'Thunderbolts' will begin filming in June. (Though Harrison Ford is planned to play the film's namesake, Thunderbolt Ross, replacing the late William Hurt, the character is rumored to appear in 'Captain America: New World Order,' which is set to premiere two months before 'Thunderbolts,' in May 2024.) Talking about Ayo Edebiri, since FX's 'The Bear' aired on Hulu in June 2022, her career has been on fire. She co-stars with Ben Platt in the movie 'Theater Camp,' which premiered at Sundance and was quickly snatched up by Searchlight, and she'll next be seen in the LGBTQ coming-of-age comedy 'Bottoms,' which will be available on Amazon Prime Video later this year. (ANI) 'Boygenius,' the indie-rock "supergroup" comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, announced the release of their much awaited debut full-length, 'The Record,' on March 31. According to variety, last week, a three-song teaser was released with little notice, coupled with the disclosure of the album's 12-song tracklist in a Rolling Stone piece that is shaping out to be the gift that keeps on giving! As per Variety, Rolling Stone shared a slew of outtakes from their chats with the band on Thursday, including the news that Kristen Stewart has been hired to helm at least three of their next music videos. Variety reports that although no other information was revealed, and the group's acquaintance with Stewart is unknown. Nevertheless, Bridgers once famously remarked on Twitter, "I like to release music on sacred days such as Kristen Stewart's birthday." Bridgers then released 'Kyoto,' the hit song from her 2020 album of the same name, the same day. Along with the director's announcement, the band also disclosed who they would want to have as their fourth member, naming Adrianne Lenker and Mitski from 'Big Thief.' "Those two writers keep me awake at night thinking about what is good and decent in the world and in art," Bridgers said, as per a report by Variety. They also revealed that Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes was the first to suggest that the three join together and play in 2018. "He probably said it first and was the least unpleasant of all people," Dacus added. "It was coming from a musical standpoint, not a marketing standpoint." (ANI) According to Variety, a US-based news outlet, the cable network debuted the first teaser for the upcoming season, in which the Roy children scheme against Logan (Brian Cox) as the sale of Waystar Royco to tech entrepreneur Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgrd) approaches, prompting family strife and a struggle for dominance. "It's a razor walk on a tightrope... In the teaser, Kendall (Jeremy Strong) says, "500-foot reputational drop." https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn4ljbUpbqm/ The teaser also suggests that Tom (Matthew Macfadyen) joins Logan's inner circle and that Connor (Alan Ruck) and Willa (Justine Lupe) exchange vows. Adam Godley, Eili Harboe, Johannes Haukur Johannesson, and Annabeth Gish are among the recently revealed Season 4 cast members. The show's devoted viewers, which include Emmy voters, will have to wait a little longer to find out if this will be the last season. "Succession" has received 48 Emmy nominations over three seasons and 13 victories (including two prizes for best drama). It received the top honour for its third season last year, as well as writing Emmys for Armstrong for "All the Bells Say" and Macfadyen for supporting actor. (ANI) The entire Telugu film industry was left in shock and tributes began to pour as veteran Telugu actor and former MP Jamuna passed away at the age of 86 on Friday. She was suffering from old-age-related illness. Celebrities including Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu and Jr NTR among others took to social media to convey their condolences on her death. Jr NTR remembered her as the queen of the Telugu film industry and wrote in Telugu, "She continued as Maharani in the Telugu film industry for almost 30 years. She left an incredible mark on our minds with many memorable films like Gundamma Katha, Missamma and many more diverse characters. May your soul rest in peace. My deepest condolences to Jamuna's family." https://twitter.com/tarak9999/status/1618823889718747136 Megastar Chiranjeevi tweeted in Telugu, "The news of senior heroine Jamuna passing away is very sad. She is a multi-lingual actress. Though her mother tongue is Kannada, she left an incredible mark in the hearts of Telugu people with many successful films." https://twitter.com/KChiruTweets/status/1618830792582647811 Mahesh Babu said he would remember her for all her iconic roles. He wrote, "Saddened to hear about the demise of Jamuna garu. Will fondly remember her for all her iconic roles and her immense contribution to the industry. My condolences to her family and loved ones." https://twitter.com/urstrulyMahesh/status/1618832653821812736 Producer Neelima Guna tweeted, "Rest in peace legendary actress Jamuna garu, your portrayal of 'Satyabhama' will forever be etched in our hearts. A woman of grace and substance, you shall remain iconic (sic)." https://twitter.com/neelima_guna/status/1618825594627842050 Actor Vishnu Manchu tweeted, "Jamuna Garu. One of most beautiful woman with a childlike heart, a legend in Telugu cinema. Will miss her dearly." https://twitter.com/iVishnuManchu/status/1618817514221490179 Jamuna was born in Hampi of present-day Karnataka to Nippani Srinivasa Rao and Kowsalya Devi. During the span of her almost seven-decade-long career, she acted in 198 films in Telugu and other south Indian languages. The late actor joined the Congress party in the 1980s but ultimately quit it. She had been an MP from Rajahmundry in 1989. As per reports, Jamuna was married to the late Professor Juluri Ramana Rao, a zoology professor, and they had a son, Vamsee Juluri and a daughter, Sravanthi. (ANI) A study team from the University of Copenhagen was able to stop invasive growth in a skin cancer model by utilising synthetic human skin. The study has been published in Science Signaling and looks at what actually happens when a cell turns into a cancer cell. "We have been studying one of the cells' signalling pathways, the so-called TGF beta pathway. This pathway plays a critical role in the cell's communication with its surroundings, and it controls e.g. cell growth and cell division. If these mechanisms are damaged, the cell may turn into a cancer cell and invade the surrounding tissue," said Professor and Team Lead Hans Wandall from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. Under normal circumstances, your skin cells will not just start to invade the hypodermis and wreak havoc. Instead, they will produce a new layer of skin. But when cancer cells emerge, the cells no longer respect the boundaries between skin layers, and they start to invade each other. This is called invasive growth. Hans Wandall and his colleagues have been studying the TGF beta pathway and applied methods for blocking invasive growth and thus curbing the invasive growth in skin cancer. "We already have various drugs that can block these signalling pathways and which may be used in tests. We have used some of them in this study," said Associate Professor and co-author of the study Sally Dabelsteen from the School of Dentistry. Hans Wandall and Sally Dabelsteen have worked together with Dr. Zilu Ye and Professor Jesper V. Olsen from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. "Some of these drugs have already been tested on humans, and some are in the process of being tested in connection with other types of cancer. They could also be tested on skin cancer specifically," she said. This is what the articifial skin looks like. Artificial skin is the closest we get to real human skinThe artificial skin used by the researchers in the new study consists of artificial, genetically manipulated human skin cells. Skin cells are produced on subcutaneous tissue made of collagen. This makes the cells grow in layers, just like real human skin. Unlike mice models, the skin model, which is another word for artificial skin, allows researchers to introduce artificial genetic changes relatively quickly, which provide insight into the systems that support skin development and renewal. This way they are also able to reproduce and follow the development of other skin disorders, not just skin cancer. "By using artificial human skin we are past the potentially problematic obstacle of whether results from tests on mice models can be transferred to human tissue. Previously, we used mice models in most studies of this kind. Instead, we can now conclude that these substances probably are not harmful and could work in practice, because the artificial skin means that we are closer to human reality," said Hans Wandall. The artificial skin used by the researchers resembles the skin used to test cosmetics in the EU, which banned animal testing in 2004. However, artificial skin does not allow the researchers to test the effect of a drug on the entire organism, Hans Wandall points out. Skin models like the one used here have been used by cosmetics companies since the mid-1980s. "We can study the effect focussing on the individual organ -- the skin -- and then we reap experiences with regard to how molecules work, while we seek to determine whether they damage the structure of the skin and the healthy skin cells," he said. (ANI) RowVaughn Wells, center, mother of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by Memphis police officers, is comforted by his stepfather Rodney Wells, at the conclusion of a candlelight vigil for Tyre, in Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 26, 2023. (Gerald Herbert/AP) MEMPHIS, Tenn. Authorities announced the Friday release of police video depicting five officers beating a Black man whose death prompted murder charges against them and provoked outrage at the countrys latest instance of police brutality. Family members of Tyre Nichols pleaded for any protests to remain peaceful. The officers, all of whom are Black, were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Nichols, a motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop on Jan. 7. Advertisement Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the killing, they are all responsible. Nichols family members and their lawyers said the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. Advertisement Memphis Police Director Cerelyn Davis described the officers actions as heinous, reckless and inhumane, and said Friday that her department has been unable to substantiate the reckless driving allegation that prompted the stop. As far as I know today, I do believe that the stop itself was very questionable, she told Good Morning America. Video of the traffic stop will be released to the public sometime Friday evening, Mulroy said, noting that local and state investigators wanted to complete as many interviews as possible before releasing it. Nichols family members viewed the footage on Monday. Davis told GMA that she and other local officials decided it would be best to release the video later in the day Friday after schools have let out and people are home from work, given that protests are expected to erupt. As a precaution, Memphis area schools canceled all after-class activities and postponed a school event scheduled for Saturday morning. Other early closures include the Memphis power companys community offices and the University of Memphis. Nichols mother, RowVaughn Wells, who said her family is grief-stricken, warned supporters of the horrific nature of the video but pleaded for peaceful protests. I dont want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because thats not what my son stood for, she said Thursday. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. Davis also urged calm after the videos release. Advertisement I expect our citizens to exercise their First Amendment right to protest, to demand actions and results, but we need to ensure our community is safe in this process, she said Thursday. None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens. Andre E. Johnson, pastor of Gifts of Life Ministries and a local activist, noted that past protests in Memphis have largely been peaceful. He said the anticipation of unrest is different from when white people storm the Capitol or show up at any statehouse with weapons, and said people in the community see the contrast. Memphis has been known as a nonviolent city, he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. We have tried to live the life and the legacy and teaching of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Any time any violence has ever happened in this city, more than likely it has come from the police. I pray that the police tonight will not be violent, and I pray that all goes well. On Thursday night, several dozen supporters joined Rodney and RowVaughn Wells for a peaceful candlelight vigil and prayer service at a Memphis skate park. Nichols, who had a 4-year-old son, was an avid skateboarder. Activists and clergy led the group in prayer and a drummer played a steady rhythm to lead into the spoken part of the vigil. Afterward, skaters rode their boards as the Wellses watched. Earlier Thursday, Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, told the AP by phone that he and RowVaughn Wells discussed the second-degree murder charges and are fine with it. They had sought first-degree murder charges. Advertisement Theres other charges, so Im all right with that, he said, adding that he was ecstatic about how quickly the officers were fired and charged. Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody. The officers each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Four of the five officers had posted bond as of Friday morning and had been released from custody, according to court and jail records. Martins lawyer, William Massey, and Mills lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. Lawyers for Smith, Bean and Haley could not be reached. No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die, Massey said. Both lawyers said they had not seen the video. Advertisement We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is, Ballin said. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Lt. Essica Cage-Rosario, president of the Memphis Police Association, the union representing officers, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. The attorneys for Nichols family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, issued a statement saying that Nichols lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop. At the White House, President Joe Biden said the Nichols family and the city of Memphis deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation. Public trust is the foundation of public safety, and there are still too many places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken, Biden said in a statement. Advertisement Davis said other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. In addition, she said a complete and independent review will be conducted of the departments specialized units, without providing further details. Two fire department workers were also removed from duty over the Nichols arrest. As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police departments full and complete cooperation to determine what contributed to Nichols Jan. 10 death. Crump said the video showed that Nichols was shocked, pepper-sprayed and restrained when he was pulled over near his home. He was returning home from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset. Police have said Nichols was stopped for reckless driving and at some point fled from the scene. Relatives have accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure. Authorities have only said Nichols experienced a medical emergency. Advertisement One of the officers, Haley, was accused previously of using excessive force. He was named as a defendant in a 2016 federal civil rights lawsuit while employed by the Shelby County Division of Corrections. The claims were ultimately dismissed after a judge ruled that the plaintiff had failed to file a grievance against the officers within 30 days of the incident. Of the Memphis Police Departments 2,006 commissioned officers, 1,194, or 59.5%, are Black, Memphis Police spokesperson Karen Rudolph said. Associated Press reporters Aaron Morrison in New York, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Rebecca Reynolds in Lexington, Kentucky, contributed to this report. Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis, or SSPE, a rare but devastating neurological condition that can develop years after a measles infection, has been linked to the measles virus by researchers in Japan. The scientists discovered that viruses that remain in the body can evolve mutations in a crucial protein that regulates how they infect cells, despite the fact that the normal form of the measles virus is unable to infect the nervous system. Its normal form can interact with the altered proteins, giving it the ability to infect the brain. The journal Science Advances published a report on their discoveries. If you are of a certain age, you may have gotten measles as a child. Many born after the 1970s have never gotten it thanks to vaccines. The condition is caused by the virus of the same name, which is one of the most contagious pathogens to this day. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly nine million people worldwide were infected with measles in 2021, with the number of deaths reaching 128,000. "Despite its availability, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has set back vaccinations, especially in the Global South," explains Yuta Shirogane, Assistant Professor at Kyushu University's Faculty of Medical Sciences. "SSPE is a rare but fatal condition caused by the measles virus. However, the normal measles virus does not have the ability to propagate in the brain, and thus it is unclear how it causes encephalitis." A virus infects cells through a series of proteins that protrude from its surface. Usually, one protein will first facilitate the virus to attach to a cell's surface, then another surface protein will cause a reaction that lets the virus into the cell, leading to an infection. Therefore, what a virus can or cannot infect can depend heavily on the type of cell. "Usually, the measles virus only infects your immune and epithelial cells, causing the fever and rash," continues Shirogane. "Therefore, in patients with SSPE, the measles virus must have remained in their body and mutated, then gained the ability to infect nerve cells. RNA viruses like measles mutate and evolve at very high rates, but the mechanism of how it evolved to infect neurons has been a mystery." The key player in allowing the measles virus to infect a cell is a protein called fusion protein, or F protein. In the team's previous studies, they showed that certain mutations in the F protein put it in a 'hyperfusongenic' state, allowing it to fuse onto neural synapses and infect the brain. In their latest study, the team analyzed the genome of the measles virus from SSPE patients and found that various mutations had accumulated in their F protein. Interestingly, certain mutations would increase infection activity while others actually decreased it. "This was surprising to see, but we found an explanation. When the virus infects a neuron, it infects it through 'en bloc transmission,' where multiple copies of the viral genome enter the cell," continues Shirogane. "In this case, the genome encoding the mutant F protein is transmitted simultaneously with the genome of the normal F protein, and both proteins are likely to coexist in the infected cell." Based on this hypothesis, the team analyzed the fusion activity of mutant F proteins when normal F proteins were present. Their results showed that the fusion activity of a mutant F protein is suppressed due to interference from the normal F proteins, but the accumulation of mutations in the F protein overcomes that interference. In another case, the team found that a different set of mutations in the F protein results in a completely opposite result: a reduction in fusion activity. However, to their surprise, this mutation can actually cooperate with normal F proteins to increase fusion activity. Thus, even mutant F proteins that appear to be unable to infect neurons can still infect the brain. "It is almost counter to the 'survival of the fittest' model for viral propagation. In fact, this phenomenon where mutations interfere and/or cooperate with each other is called 'Sociovirology.' It's still a new concept, but viruses have been observed to interact with each other like a group. It's an exciting prospect" explains Shirogane. The team hopes that their results will help develop therapeutics for SSPE, as well as elucidate the evolutionary mechanisms common to viruses that have similar infection mechanisms to measles such as novel coronaviruses and herpesviruses. "There are many mysteries in the mechanisms by which viruses cause diseases. Since I was a medical student, I was interested in how the measles virus caused SSPE. I am happy that we were able to elucidate the mechanism of this disease," concludes Shirogane. (ANI) In animal trials, a nerve stimulation technique developed at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University is showing promise and may someday help people with spinal cord injuries regain the use of their arms. According to Jason Carmel, MD, PhD, a neurologist at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian who is heading the research, "the stimulation technique targets the neural system connections spared by injury, enabling them to take up part of the lost function." The results were released in the journal Brain. In 1999, when Carmel was a second-year medical student at Columbia, his identical twin brother suffered a spinal cord injury, paralyzing him from the chest down and limiting the use of his hands. Carmel's life changed that day, too. His brother's injury ultimately led Carmel to become a neurologist and a neuroscientist, with the goal of developing new treatments to restore movement in people living with paralysis. In recent years, some high-profile studies of spinal cord electrical stimulation have allowed a few people with incomplete paralysis to begin to stand and take steps again. Carmel's approach is different because it targets the arm and hand and because it pairs brain and spinal cord stimulation, with electrical stimulation of the brain followed by stimulation of the spinal cord. "When the two signals converge at the level of the spinal cord, within about 10 milliseconds of each other, we get the strongest effect," he says, "and the combination appears to enable the remaining connections in the spinal cord to take control." In his latest study, Carmel tested his technique--called spinal cord associative plasticity (SCAP)--on rats with moderate spinal cord injuries. Ten days after injury, the rats were randomized to receive 30 minutes of SCAP for 10 days or sham stimulation. At the end of the study period, rats that received SCAP targeted to their arms were significantly better at handling food, compared to those in the control group, and had near-normal reflexes. "The improvements in both function and physiology persisted for as long as they were measured, up to 50 days," Carmel says. The findings suggest that SCAP causes the synapses (connections between neurons) or the neurons themselves to undergo lasting change. "The paired signals essentially mimic the normal sensory-motor integration that needs to come together to perform the skilled movement," says Carmel. If the same technique works in people with spinal cord injuries, patients could regain something else they lost in the injury: independence. Many spinal cord stimulation studies focus on walking, but "if you ask people with cervical spinal cord injury, which is the majority, what movement they want to get back, they say hand and arm function," Carmel says. "Hand and arm function allows people to be more independent, like moving from a bed to a wheelchair or dressing and feeding themselves." Carmel is now testing SCAP on spinal cord injury patients at Columbia, Weill Cornell, and the VA Bronx Healthcare System in a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The stimulation will be done either during a clinically indicated surgery or noninvasively, using magnetic stimulation of the brain and stimulation of the skin on the front and back of the neck. Both techniques are routinely performed in clinical settings and are known to be safe. In the trial, the researchers hope to learn more about how SCAP works and how the timing and strength of the signals affect motor responses in the fingers and hands. This would lay the groundwork for future trials to test the technique's ability to meaningfully improve hand and arm function. Looking further ahead, the researchers think that the approach could be used to improve movement and sensation in patients with lower-body paralysis. In the meantime, Jason Carmel's twin is working, married, and raising twins of his own. "He has a full life, but I'm hoping we can get more function back for him and other people with similar injuries," says Carmel. (ANI) This is his second visit to Kittur Karnataka (Mumbai-Karnataka) region within a month. The BJP's Karnataka unit hopes this tour and more such visits by the BJP leadership in the days to come, will help the party in mobilising its cadre base and achieve its 'mission 150' target (winning at least 150 out of 224 seats) in the Assembly polls, due by May, to retain power. According to a source, Shah will be arriving and staying in Hubballi on January 27, and on January 28 morning, attend two programmes - the 75th anniversary of the KLE's BVB college and inauguration of an indoor stadium, then, the stone-laying foundation for Forensic Science Laboratory in Dharwad" "He will then participate in BJP's 'Vijaya Sankalpa Abhiyana' in Kundagol," the source added. "After the rally, two meetings are organised regarding party affairs in Belagavi district - one will be related to organisation and the other will be leaders meeting- and both these will be attended by Shah," the source said. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, state President Nalin Kumar Kateel, senior leader B.S. Yediyurappa, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi among others, will be participating in party programmes. --IANS dr/vd ( 226 Words) 2023-01-26-22:06:05 (IANS) Former MP Chhatrapati Sambhajiraje, who is the 13th descendant of Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji, on Thursday called on Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao here. According to the Chief Minister's Office (CMO), the grandson of Sahu Maharaj, successor of Kolhapur princely state and Swaraj movement activist, paid a courtesy call to the chief minister. KCR welcomed Sambhajiraje by presenting a shawl and a flower bouquet at Pragati Bhavan. The chief minister hosted lunch for Sambhajiraje and had discussions on many issues. Sambhajiraje inquired about the public welfare and development achieved by Telangana within a short time and stood as a role model for the country. He was keen to know the operational procedures followed by the Telangana state government in providing big welfare to the people of all sections including farmers, SC, ST, BC and Minorities. Sambhajiraje expressed his wish that the Telangana development model and welfare schemes should be implemented in Maharashtra as well. He opined that the "magnificent" Telangana development model should not be limited here but also extend to all other states, including Maharashtra. Apart from the development issues, CM KCR and Sambhajiraje had a lengthy discussion on the political situation in the country. The chief minister and former MP opined that an innovative agenda aimed at public welfare is necessary to come before the people for the development of the people and for the integrity of the country. They decided to meet again and discuss all the issues if necessary, depending on the occasion. On this occasion, CM KCR and Sambhajiraje recollected the services rendered by the ancestors of Shambhajiraje from Shivaji Maharaj to Sahu Maharaj to the country. KCR opined that their rule towards equality and public welfare will remain in the history of the country with golden letters. In the discussion, the chief minister made it clear that, with their inspiration, people's rule would continue in Telangana without caste and religious discrimination. --IANS ms/pgh ( 329 Words) 2023-01-26-22:06:06 (IANS) In a setback to the Congress, its Bihar ally JD-U said it could not attend the concluding event of the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Srinagar on January 30, as it was pre-occupied by the February 27 Nagaland polls but wished it all success. The Congress had invited 24 opposition parties on the day to put a united face. In a letter to his Congress counterpart Mallikarjun Kharge, Janata Dal-United President Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh wrote: "Much as I would like to be present at the historic event, I regret my inability to do so, as I need to be present at the launching of the party's election campaign at Wokha in Nagaland the same day." However, he said that the Bharat Jodo Yatra has also given an opportunity to study, experience, and sense the mood and anxieties of the people first hand, and will go a long way in helping us formulate joint strategies in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. "There are no two opinions that there is decline in democratic values in the country and that the Constitutional institutions that are supposed to ensure checks and balances on unrestrained executive power are being systematically destroyed. The pace at which the country is fast transforming itself from an electoral democracy to an electoral autocracy, to say the least, is frightening," he said. Lalan Singh said that the need of the hour is an unified opposition and he expects that the Congress takes appropriate steps in this direction. --IANS miz/vd ( 271 Words) 2023-01-26-22:24:03 (IANS) The video clip of P. Kaushik Reddy, a member of the state Legislative Council, using the abusive word in Telugu went viral on social media, evoking condemnation. It was immediately not clear where and when Kaushik Reddy was speaking. The use of unparliamentary word by the MLC surfaced on Republic Day when the Governor indirectly attacked Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao during her speech. The differences between the BRS government and the Governor had first cropped up in 2021 when she did not approve the Cabinet's recommendation to nominate Kaushik Reddy to the Legislative Council under the Governor's quota in social service category. When the Governor delayed clearing the file, the BRS government sent Kaushik Reddy to the upper house under the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) quota. Meanwhile, the BJP has reacted strongly to the use of abusive word by Kaushik Reddy against the Governor. BJP national Vice President D. K. Aruna demanded that the Chief Minister immediately suspend him from the party. Aruna said if the Chief Minister failed to act on the insult to a woman Governor, the BJP would stage state-wide protests. --IANS ms/vd ( 233 Words) 2023-01-26-22:32:03 (IANS) Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday urged the people to bring in a sense of equality along with freedom. Addressing the Republic Day celebrations organised at Keshav Vidyapeeth here, he said: "B.R. Ambedkar, while dedicating the Constitution to the public, said that there is no slavery in the country. Even the British have gone, but to remove the slavery that came due to social conservatism, the provision of political equality and economic equality was made in the Constitution. That is why, it is necessary to read both the speeches given by Babasaheb in the Parliament on Republic Day." Saying that B.R. Ambedkar showed the path of duty, the RSS chief said that for (individual) freedom, it is necessary to take care of the freedom of others. "That's why, it is important to have equality. To have freedom and equality together, it is necessary to bring fraternity. Ideological differences arise as part of the democratic process in Parliament. Despite this, if the spirit of fraternity prevails, then the situation of equality and freedom remains," he said. "After Independence, the Constitution was framed to define the path and this glorious day is celebrated as Republic Day. The Tricolour is hoisted on both days. Its saffron colour symbolises the tradition of knowledge and continuous work with 'Sanatan'. This is the colour of the sunrise, the harbinger of action. As a Republic, we will make our country a nation of knowledgeable and hard-working people. It is necessary to get the direction of activism, sacrifice and knowledge. The flag wears white to represent power. This colour unites us. Green colour is the symbol of prosperity and Lakshmi. The feeling of 'Sarve Bhadrani Pashyantu' is born in the mind. Keeping the diverse society united, we should take a pledge about how far we will move forward till the next Republic Day. The programme started with the lighting of the lamp and the National Anthem, and ended with the collective singing of 'Vande Mataram'. --IANS arc/pgh ( 348 Words) 2023-01-26-22:36:03 (IANS) Delhi BJP's working president Virendra Sachdeva on Thursday reacted sharply to Aam Aadmi Party's move to approach the Supreme Court over the repeated adjournments of mayoral polls for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. In its suit, the AAP has demanded time-bound urgent mayoral, besides seeking prohibition on voting by aldermen as per the law. "Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party have always been misleading the public. They have no faith in the Constitution. Whenever they want to divert people's attention from their mistakes, they knock the door of the court. And when the court's decision doesn't go in their favour, they refuse to accept the same," Sachdeva said. Sachdeva also said that it was the Aam Aadmi Party that ran away from the MCD House, adding that when Kejriwal has the majority, what is the problem in electing the Mayor. The BJP leader said now that AAP has moved the court, it will have to come clean as to who created ruckus in the House, who threw the mike, or who climbed on to the chair of the presiding officer. There are photographs and videos which show AAP councillors deliberately obstructing the mayoral election, Sachdeva claimed. --IANS dr/prw ( 216 Words) 2023-01-26-22:50:03 (IANS) The Border Security Force (BSF) foiled a smuggling attempt and recovered three kilograms of heroin near the village Tindiwala, in Ferozepur district in Punjab. "Vigilant troops of BSF Punjab Frontier recovered three packets (Wt - appx 3 Kg) suspected to be Heroin close to border fencing near Village - Tindiwala, District - Ferozepur. Another smuggling attempt of Anti-national elements foiled," BSF Punjab frontier said. On Sunday, security forces shot down a six-wing drone in Punjab's Amritsar near the India-Pakistan International border and seized 5 kilograms of heroin, officials said.They said that two people were also arrested in this connection while they tried to flee. According to Punjab Police, at around 4 am, a joint patrolling party of the Border Security Force (BSF) and Amritsar Police heard the humming sound of a drone and shot it down at the Lopoke area in Kakkar village, and seized 5 kg of heroin. "In a major breakthrough, Amritsar Police, in a joint operation with BSF, have recovered a 6-wing drone after firing and bringing it down and seized 5 Kg Heroine from village Kakkar, which is 2 Km from the International border with Pakistan," the Punjab DGP said in a tweet.The DGP said that the drone parts were manufactured in US and China. "Two persons were arrested with a total of 12 rounds fired from AK-47. The drone found is assembled, with parts manufactured in USA and China," he added.Earlier on January 19, two persons were arrested after a drone was caught at the Indo-Pak border in Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar. BSF seized around 6.150 Kg of Heroin, while 3 other persons managed to abscond. According to the police, till now all the smugglers caught in smuggling are from Punjab. In a similar incident from Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar, two were held for smuggling heroin to India from Pakistan through a drone. The incident took place on January 15. Drones from the Pakistan side smuggle drugs and ammunition in India. In another incident, the Border Security Force (BSF) seized four Chinese-made pistols among a consignment of weapons dropped by a Pakistani drone in Punjab's Gurdaspur district on Wednesday. The consignment which included four Chinese-made pistols, eight magazines and 47 live rounds was recovered from Uncha Takala village in Gurdaspur on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday. (ANI) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has asked his party colleague and parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha to quit the JD(U). Kushwaha retorted saying that he could not leave the party without his share in the "paternal property". This comes amid speculation about Kushwaha 'being in touch' with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "Well said, Bhai Saheb....! If the younger brothers keep leaving the house like this at the advice of the elder brothers, then all elder brothers will grab the entire property of Baap-Dada (ancestors) by throwing away the younger brothers. How can I go out (of the party) while leaving behind my share in entire properties...?" Upendra Kushwaha tweeted in Hindi. Meanwhile, JD(U) leader Umesh Kushwaha slams party leader Upendra Kushwaha. He said, "Upendra Kushwaha should be ashamed of his conduct. Nitish Kumar has given him so much but he is trying to break the JD(U). He should resign from the party." "Till now he hasn't submitted the form for the membership drive. If he has any ethics, he should leave the party himself." "Nitish ji made him Upendra Kushwaha from Upendra Singh. He sent him to the parliament and the council," claimed Umesh Kushwaha. The JD(U) leader further stated that the party grew strong on its own but when Upendra Kushwaha joined the party, he worked to weaken it. "If he has any self-respect, he should very well resign. The ones who cheated Nitish ji should be careful," warned Umesh Kushwaha targeting the JD(U) leader. Earlier on Sunday, Upendra Kushwaha refuted the rumours about him joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On Saturday reacting to the speculations of Upendra Kushwaha's alleged proximity with the BJP, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that he will meet Kushwaha and discuss it. "Please ask Upendra Kushwaha to talk to me. He left the party earlier too, I don't know what he wants. I was not in Patna so I'm not aware of it. He is currently unwell, I'll meet him and discuss this," Nitish Kumar said during his Samadhan Yatra in Gaya. (ANI) A portrait of Tyre Nichols is displayed at a memorial service for him on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023 in Memphis, Tenn. (Adrian Sainz/AP) MEMPHIS, Tenn. Five fired Memphis police officers were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the killing, they are all responsible. Advertisement The officers, who are all Black, each face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression. Video of the Jan. 7 traffic stop will be released to the public sometime Friday evening, Mulroy said. Nichols family and their lawyers said the footage shows officers savagely beating the 29-year-old FedEx worker for three minutes in an assault that the legal team likened to the infamous 1991 police beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King. His family urged supporters to protest peacefully. Advertisement Nichols stepfather, Rodney Wells, told The Associated Press by phone that he and his wife, RowVaughn Wells, who is Nichols mother, discussed the second-degree murder charges and are fine with it. They had sought first-degree murder charges. Theres other charges, so Im all right with that, he said. Asked about the kidnapping charges, the district attorney said: If it was a legal detention to begin with, it certainly became illegal at a certain point and was an unlawful detention. David Rausch, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said he saw the video and found it absolutely appalling. Let me be clear: What happened here does not at all reflect proper policing. This was wrong. This was criminal, Rausch said during the news conference. Court records showed that all five former officers Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith were taken into custody. Martins lawyer, William Massey, confirmed that his client had turned himself in. He and Mills lawyer, Blake Ballin, said their clients would plead not guilty. Lawyers for Smith, Bean and Haley could not be reached. No one out there that night intended for Tyre Nichols to die, Massey said. Advertisement Both lawyers said they had not seen the video. We are in the dark about many things, just like the general public is, Ballin said. Second-degree murder is punishable by 15 to 60 years in prison under Tennessee law. Later Thursday, Nichols mother and stepfather were joined by several dozen supporters on a cold night for a candlelight vigil and prayer service at a Memphis skate park. Nichols, who had a 4-year-old son, was an avid skateboarder. RowVaughn Wells thanked those who attended, then added that her family is grief stricken. She warned supporters of the horrific nature of the video set to be released Friday, but she pleaded with supporters to protest in peace. Advertisement I dont want us burning up our city, tearing up the streets, because thats not what my son stood for, she said. If you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully. You can get your point across but we dont need to tear up our cities, people, because we do have to live in them. Activists and clergy led the group in prayer and a drummer played a steady rhythm to lead into the spoken part of the vigil. Afterwards, skaters rode their boards as Wells and her husband watched. The attorneys for Nichols family, Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, issued a statement saying that Nichols lost his life in a particularly disgusting manner that points to the desperate need for change and reform to ensure this violence stops occurring during low-threat procedures, like in this case, a traffic stop. The Rev. Al Sharpton, who runs the National Action Network and will deliver the eulogy at Nichols funeral service next week, called the charges a necessary step in delivering justice for Nichols. There is no point to putting a body camera on a cop if you arent going to hold them accountable when the footage shows them relentlessly beating a man to death, Sharpton said. Firings are not enough. Indictments and arrests are not convictions. As weve done in the past ... we will stand by this family until justice is done. At the White House, President Joe Biden said the Nichols family and the city of Memphis deserve a swift, full and transparent investigation. Advertisement Public trust is the foundation of public safety, and there are still too many places in America today where the bonds of trust are frayed or broken, Biden said in a statement. The Memphis police chief has called the officers actions that night heinous, reckless and inhumane. This is not just a professional failing. This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual, Memphis Police Director Cerelyn CJ Davis said in a video statement released late Wednesday on social media. Davis said the five officers found to be directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. Nichols, were fired last week, but other officers are still being investigated for violating department policy. In addition, she said a complete and independent review will be conducted of the departments specialized units, without providing further details. Two fire department workers were also removed from duty over the Nichols arrest. As state and federal investigations continue, Davis promised the police departments full and complete cooperation to determine what contributed to Nichols Jan. 10 death. Advertisement Mulroy told The Associated Press on Tuesday that local and state investigators wanted to complete as many interviews as possible before releasing the video. The timetable has rankled some activists who expected the video to be released after Nichols family and the familys lawyers viewed it Monday. Crump said the video showed that Nichols was shocked, pepper-sprayed and restrained when he was pulled over near his home. He was returning home from a suburban park where he had taken photos of the sunset. Police have said Nichols was stopped for reckless driving and at some point fled from the scene. Relatives have accused the police of causing Nichols to have a heart attack and kidney failure. Authorities have only said Nichols experienced a medical emergency. When video of the arrest is publicly released, Davis said she expects people in the community to react, but she urged them to do so peacefully. None of this is a calling card for inciting violence or destruction on our community or against our citizens, she said. Advertisement One of the officers, Haley, was accused previously of using excessive force. He was named as a defendant in a 2016 federal civil rights lawsuit while employed by the Shelby County Division of Corrections. The plaintiff, Cordarlrius Sledge, stated that he was an inmate in 2015 when Haley and another corrections officer accused him of flushing contraband. The two officers hit me in the face with punches, according to the complaint. A third officer then slammed his head to the ground, Sledge said. He lost consciousness and woke up in the facilitys medical center. The claims were ultimately dismissed after a judge ruled that Sledge had failed to file a grievance against the officers within 30 days of the incident. Reynolds reported from Lexington, Kentucky. Associated Press reporters Aaron Morrison in New York and Travis Loller in Nashville contributed to this report. The six-day mega event "Bharat Parv" was inaugurated today at Red Fort lawns by the Union Minister for Culture, Tourism and DoNER GK Reddy, said a press release by the Ministry of Tourism. Reddy unveiled the Incredible India digital calendar of the Ministry of Tourism at the event. The theme of the Calendar for 2023 is "The Incredible Festivals of India", added the press release. On occasion, Reddy said that the celebration of Republic Day today will give new energy to the young population to work for the betterment of the country. He also added that Bharat Parv fulfils the spirit of Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat as artists, handicrafts, food stalls from all over India are present here. He further said that one can see mini India through Bharat Parv. He also informed that Bharat Parv this year is promoting Millets and is also showcasing achievements of different ministries. On the occasion Secretary, the Ministry of Tourism Arvind Singh said that this year's Bharat Parv brings together the vibrant rich culture of Bharat with participation by over 30 States/UTs & 20 Central ministries at this historical place. The Government of India is organizing the six-day mega event "Bharat Parv" event from January 26-31, 2023, as part of the Republic Day celebrations. Ministry of Tourism has been designated as the nodal ministry for the event, the highlights of which include showcasing of the best Republic Day Parade tableaux at the venue, cultural performances by the Zonal Cultural Centres as well as cultural troupes from States/ UTs, a pan-India Food Court and a pan-India Crafts Bazaar with 65 handicraft stalls. The event is open to the general public from 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on January 26, 2023, and from 12 noon to 10 p.m. from the 27th onwards to January 31, 2023. The event is expected to attract a large number of visitors on all days. Bharat Parv was previously held in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (and virtual in the year 2021) at the lawns and Gyan Path in front of Red Fort. The physical event is being organized after a gap of 2 years at the lawns and Gyan Path in front of Red Fort. The event would have a Food Festival, Handicraft mela, folk and tribal dance performances, Performances by cultural troupes, a Display of Republic Day Tableaux, an illumination of Red Fort etc. Branding and promotion of Dekho Apna Desh, Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat, G20 and Mission LIFE would be undertaken during the event. (ANI) The centenarian was conferred with Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award, in the 'Art (Folk Music)' category. "Ever since we came to know about the Padma award, I have been feeling very happy. I have been playing Sarinda since I was 4-5 years old. Have played Sarinda everywhere from Delhi, Kamakhya to Darjeeling," Mangala Kanti Roy said. Roy is one of the oldest folk musicians in West Bengal and is famous for producing unique bird calls through Sarinda. He has been promoting and preserving the Sarinda instrument for 8 decades through workshops and performances. Achievers from a range of professions and diverse areas of the country figure in the list of 106 Padma awardees this year, with the majority, picked from the field of Arts. The list comprises six Padma Vibhushan, nine Padma Bhushan, and 91 Padma Shri winners. Nine of the awardees are women while seven will receive the award posthumously. The President confers the awards at a ceremonial function held at Rashtrapati Bhawan, around March or April every year. (ANI) The incident was reported at around 8.30 pm on Thursday night following which fire tenders were pressed into service. Fire broke out in the 42nd floor of 44 storied building. The overnight operation of dousing the flames continued till 4 am in the morning of January 27. No injuries have been reported yet, said BMC. As per the latest reports, the fire has been doused. The residents of the high-rise building were seen rushing out of the building as fire engulfed it and fire-fighters went inside to bring the situation under control. According to BMC, the building fire fighting system is not in a working condition and currently cooling operation is underway in the residency tower. The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained. (ANI) Amid the ongoing controversy over Congress leader Digvijaya Singh questioning the authenticity of the '2019 Surgical Strike', Congress leader Rashid Alvi on Friday came in support of his party colleague and asked the Centre to release the surgical strike video that it claimed it has. "Government says it has a video (of a surgical strike) so what is wrong with Digvijaya Singh asking the government to show it? We're not asking for proof (of strike) but the government should show the video it claims it has," said Rashid Alvi while speaking to ANI. Alvi's reaction comes days after Digvijaya Singh's remark on the surgical strike. Digvijaya Singh had said the government talks of surgical strikes. "They (government) claim to have killed so many people but no proof is given," Singh had said. Congress leader Rashid Alvi said that the country has confidence in the security forces but can't trust the BJP government. "We have faith in our security forces but can't trust the BJP government," he added. Rashid Alvi further raised questions about various ministers' statements surrounding the surgical strike. "Sushma Swaraj, who was a minister in the government, had said that the air strike was done at a place where there was no possibility of anyone getting killed. Amit Shah claims that more than 300 terrorists were killed in the air strike. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath claims that more than 400 terrorists were killed in the air strike," Alvi pointed out. Citing the above statements, Congress leader Alvi said that it varies and therefore if the government claims to have video proof it should be shown. "These contradictory statements raise questions as to what exactly happened in the surgical air strike. That's why the government if it claims that it has the video evidence of the air strike should make it public," Rashid Alvi demanded. Congress leader Alvi further sought an apology from the Centre in case it does not have video proof. "If they do not have any video evidence to prove its claims, then the government should apologize," he added. In strong disapproval of Digvijaya Singh's remarks on surgical strikes, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the party leader had stated a "ridiculous thing" and that he disagrees with the views. "I do not agree with what Digvijaya Singh said. We have full trust in our Army. If Army takes action, there is no need for proof. I disagree with his (Digvijay)'s statement and Congress' official position is also that this is his opinion," Rahul Gandhi said. The party had officially also distanced itself from Digvijaya Singh's remarks on Monday. (ANI) The meeting of the Central Election Committee (CEC) of the Bharatiya Janata Party will be held at the party's central office in Delhi on Friday evening. "During the meeting, the names of the candidates for the Tripura elections will be stamped, as well as the election strategy of the three North-East states will also be discussed," party sources told ANI. All members of CEC will participate in the meeting, they said. Ahead of the CEC meeting to be held today, a round of meetings continued throughout the day on Thursday regarding the strategy and names of the candidates for the Tripura Assembly elections. According to party sources, the meeting on Thursday started at around 5 pm under the leadership of the BJP National President JP Nadda and in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, Tripura in-charge Dr Mahesh Sharma, North Eastern States Convenor Sambit Patra and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha. Apart from these, all the members of the BJP core group were also present in the meeting which continued till 10.30 pm. After the meeting was over, Amit Shah, JP Nadda and BL Santosh continued the meeting at JP Nadda's residence for almost five and a half hours, they added. According to party sources, the names of BJP candidates for the 60-member assembly elections were discussed and scrutinized in detail along with the party's ability to contest all seats in case of no alliance in the state. The names of the candidates for different seats and their capability was discussed in detail in this meeting. (ANI) Stating that the Centre has "expertise in renaming" schemes, Bihar Finance Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary alleged that the Union government has reduced its share in funding education from 90 per cent to 60 per cent. "The central government has expertise in renaming schemes. Earlier in the education department, the centre used to contribute 90 per cent, then 75 per cent, and now it has been slashed to 60 per cent. Not only that, the Centre announced to rename Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, an integrated scheme for school education, funded by the Centre and the states. It has also announced to decrease its share in the scheme by five per cent every year," Janata Dal-United leader Vijay Chaudhary told ANI Thursday. Likewise in Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), earlier the Centre has reduced its share to 60 per cent from the earlier's 100 per cent, he claimed. Bihar's Finance Minister further alleged that the Centre has also stopped scholarships for minorities. But the Bihar government has decided to give such scholarships at its own expense, he said. Reacting to the Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party unit chief Sanjay Jaiswal's statement that one man rules over the regional area, Finance Minister said that it is well-known who is running the central government and the BJP. "Under the leadership of that one man, Chief Ministers in BJP-ruled states are getting changed like clothes. Everyone knows which party has the most dictatorship, even Sanjay Jaiswal himself knows this," he added. Batting for Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's repeating demand of granting special status to Bihar, the JD(U) leader Chaudhary said that there is nothing wrong with it. "Nitish Kumar is asking for more help, so what is wrong with it? The demand for special assistance and the demand for special status is being made so that Bihar can accelerate the pace of development. Bihar's achievement is even better than the national average achievement," he said. Chaudhary further supported Kumar for asking party leader Upendra Kushwaha to quit the JD(U). "Upendra Kushwaha should go quickly wherever he wants to go," Chaudhary said. (ANI) The members of Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Thursday organized a statewide screening of the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the occasion of Republic Day. Vice President of Congress Kerala unit VT Balram on Thursday said that the statewide screening of the documentary was in the wake of the Centre's attempt to suppress the freedom of speech and expression. "The Congress party in Kerala has decided to conduct a statewide screening of the BBC documentary because we believe that the government has no right legitimately and constitutionally to suppress the freedom of speech and freedom of expression," KPCC Vice President VT Balram, who was present in the screening of the documentary at Shankhamukham Beach here, told ANI. "You can't dispute the contents of the documentary, but you can put forward the counter-arguments and it is noway agreeable when a government comes up and bans a documentary," he added. "We from the Congress party do believe that the people of this country have every right to discuss these political and social matters in detail from various angles, so we have decided to conduct a widespread screening of this documentary," VT Balaram said. "So we have started this in Trivandrum on Republic day at the Shankhamukham beach side so that thousands of ordinary people can turn up here in this screening," he added. Earlier on Thursday, police registered a case against BJP and youth Congress after a scuffle broke down between them during the screening of the documentary in Pothencode. According to the bystanders, while the youth congress was screening the BBC documentary in Pothencode last evening, a BJP worker tried to tear the screen, this led to a scuffle between him and the youth congress workers. The BBC documentary has created a fresh row in the country after the government, earlier this month, denounced it and described it as a "propaganda piece" that is designed to push a discredited narrative. The government also pulled down the BBC documentary 'India: The Modi Question' from various social media platforms including Twitter and Youtube. The row further deepened after JNUSU members allegedly faced a "deliberate" power outage, while they were screening the impugned BBC documentary at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in the national capital. The documentary leads to opposition attacking the government on freedom of speech despite the government terming it as a 'propaganda piece'. In another episode, Anil Antony, the son of former Kerala Chief Minister AK Antony, on Wednesday resigned from all posts of KPCC, a day after he criticized the BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He alleged that he had received threat calls and hate messages "through the night". While posting about his resignation on Twitter, Antony mocked the Congress party by saying that he received intolerant calls to retract a tweet by those "fighting for free speech". "I have resigned from my roles in @incindia, @INCKerala. Intolerant calls to retract a tweet, by those fighting for free speech. I refused. @facebook wall of hate/abuses by ones supporting a trek to promote love! Hypocrisy thy name is! Life goes on," Anil K Antony said in a tweet. (ANI) Jaysukh Patel of Oreva group is included as an accused in the charge sheet. Earlier on January 24, a Gujarat court had issued a warrant for the arrest of Jaysukh Patel of the Oreva Group in relation to the October 30 bridge collapse in Morbi in which 134 people were killed. Ajanta Manufacturing Limited (Oreva Group) had secured the contract to renovate, repair and operate the British-era bridge on the Machchu river in Morbi. On Sunday, Chief Judicial Magistrate of Morbi, MJ Khan, issued an arrest warrant against Patel under section 70 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). "The court issued an arrest warrant against Jaysukh Patel of Oreva Group, which had a contract for the renovation of the Morbi bridge. He has not been arrested for 70 days. "No lookout notice issued yet," Government prosecutor Sanjay Vora told ANI yesterday. Notably, Patel had moved to Morbi sessions court on January 20 for anticipatory bail in the case, while the hearing was adjourned till February 1 as the public prosecutor was not present. Patel is not named as an accused in the FIR filed by the police in the case. Nine persons, including four employees of Ajanta Manufacturing (Oreva Group), have been arrested so far in the case. They include two managers and an equal number of ticket booking clerks of the Oreva Group that was managing the British-era bridge. As many as 134 persons lost their lives after a century-old suspension bridge fell into the Machchhu River of Morbi, Gujarat. Gujarat High Court on November 7 took suo motu cognisance of the Morbi accident, issuing notices to officials, including those of the state Home department and seeking a report within a week. The Supreme Court in November said the Morbi bridge collapse incident was an "enormous tragedy", as it asked the Gujarat High Court, which was already holding hearings in the matter suo motu, to hold periodical hearings. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday encouraged the students to believe in their strengths and use electronic gadgets wisely and smartly. "People in India spend an average of six hours on screen. This is a matter of concern. Why be a slave of gadgets when God has given us an independent existence and individuality with immense potential?" PM Modi said during the sixth edition of the 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' programme in the national capital. He further said that the average six-hour screen time for gadget users in our country is "meaningless" that benefits only the makers. "There is an average of six hours of screen time for a gadget user in our country now. This certainly reflects the amount of time and energy any person drains out meaninglessly and without productivity. This a matter of deep concern and a threat to the creativity of the people," PM Modi said adding that any person would feel "bliss" once he or she frees the self from the clutches of the misuse of technology. "The moment you feel bliss, you will attain true freedom, he continued. Further, motivating the students for believing in themselves and their intelligence, the Prime Minister advised them to use the gadgets wisely. He also enlightened the student to believe in their smartness and underlined the major mistake the students make by relying on gadgets. "You have to decide who among you and the gadgets is smarter. Sometimes you believe that the gadgets are smarter- this is where the mistake starts. You will get better results once you start using the gadgets smartly," he said. He reiterated to the students that the gadgets are means to help any person in the journey towards excellence and they can be used in a comparatively better way if used with the presence of mind. Talking further, PM Modi suggested the students create a "No technology zone" so that they can spend considerate time with their family without the distraction from gadgets. Earlier, he also addressed the issue of cheating during examinations and said that times have changed, one has to give exams at every step and those who cheat will pass one or two exams but will never be able to pass life. "Some students use their creativity for 'cheating' in examinations but if those students use their time and creativity in a good way they will achieve heights of success. We should never opt for shortcuts in life, focus on ourselves. Those who work hard will certainly have a blessed life, a life filled with colours," said PM Modi. PM Modi further said that the students who are dedicated will definitely achieve the best and the difference in numbers does not matter. The difference of 2-3 marks in exams between you and your peers doesn't matter in life in the long run. Those who are dedicated will definitely achieve the best, said PM Modi. He also cheered up the students to never underestimate their potential and said: "Our country, which the world called 'Average' is shining globally now! So, never underestimate your potential. Times change and everyone has some extraordinary skills; the thing is that you need to recognize those." Later, he also addressed the concerns surrounding criticisms, he said that there is a deep and thick line between 'Criticism' and 'Blame'. "Don't pay attention to habitual critics... We should never lose our focus. I also urge the parents that you cannot 'mold' your children through gossip," he said. (ANI) Dhami earlier while speaking to ANI said, "The Pariksha Pe Charcha organised by the Honourable Prime Minister will provide guidance to the students. The students will be motivated to perform better." "Many students are under massive pressure due to the fear of examination. Many of them face issues like depression due to this fear. The Prime Minister's guidance will help those students cope," the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said. The Chief Minister stated that the Prime Minister had written a book that will be given to the students today during 'Pariksha Pe Charcha'. "The students will use that book to gain strength and motivation. They'll work hard and score great in their upcoming examinations," added Dhami. Various leaders and Chief Ministers attended the 'Pariksha Pe Charcha 2023' program online. Along with Uttarakhand Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal attended the 'Pariksha Pe Charcha'. (ANI) Chicago firefighters pack up after an early-morning blaze on Jan. 27, 2023, at Georgis Catering in the 6300 block of South Central Avenue near Midway International Airport. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) A fire that broke out during pre-dawn hours Friday caused extensive damage to a 77-year-old catering business near Midway Airport that cooks thousands of meals for the elderly each day, officials said. Since 1946, Georgis Catering has provided the Chicago area with the finest quality food with creative presentation and the best service possible, according to the companys website. The site claims a lengthy list of famous clients, including multiple Fortune 500 companies; music stars like the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra; the White Sox, Blackhawks, Cubs, Bulls and other professional sports teams; as well as former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Advertisement Shortly after midnight, firefighters were called to the blaze in the 6300 block of South Central Avenue, according to the Chicago Fire Department Twitter page. Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said the business sustained extensive damage. Owner George Buz Georgis could not be reached for comment. Advertisement Becky Walowski, an employee for the catering business, said co-workers had left the kitchen at about 11:30 p.m. She said she started getting calls around 3 a.m. that the building was on fire. She added that the catering company provides about 2,000 meals for seniors daily in the suburbs from Calumet City to Dolton and in Melrose Park and Maywood. Lauren Doherty, chief executive officer of the Meals on Wheels Foundation of Northern Illinois, said those 2,000 seniors didnt receive hot meals Friday because of the fire. 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 > But before winter, the nonprofit had provided those seniors with boxes of five nonperishable meals to keep in case of emergencies, so thats what were relying on for today, she said. Doherty added that the nonprofit is searching for other caterers, so that hot meals can resume next week. According to the nonprofit, the fire impeded hot meal service at multiple Cook County sites. Programs in Will, Kendall and Grundy counties were not affected. Chicago firefighters work at the scene after an early-morning blaze on Jan. 27, 2023, extensively damaged Georgis Catering in the 6300 block of South Central Avenue near Midway Airport. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) We are devastated at the loss that our catering partner, George Buz Georgis at Georgis Catering, has endured, Doherty said in a written statement. For over a decade, Georgis Catering has provided nearly 10,000 meals per week to Cook Countys most vulnerable seniors. Buz is a kind soul who has always shown up for our clients, and Georgis Catering truly helped make a difference in our communities. Walowski said the catering business does plan to reopen, fast. She said the owners first words this morning were, How fast can we get into another kitchen? Advertisement She also said they cant stop working because theres too much business going on, and theres too many people being affected. According to an official, the drugs were seized during a raid in a house at Tsumang - A colony, Wokha Town, Nagaland on Thursday evening. The arrested drug peddler has been identified as William Kikon. According to an official, based on a specific intelligence report, the Anti-Narcotics Task Force led by the SDPO of Wokha along with Wokha police station and D/10IR raided a house at Tsumang. "A case has been registered. Further investigation is underway," the official added. On January 21, Security personnel seized contraband drugs worth Rs 1.71 crore from the possession of husband and wife in Nagaland's Peren district. The husband and wife are residents of Senapati, Manipur. According to Nagaland police, a joint team comprising of Peren District Executive Force, Narcotic Personnel, and CISF while conducting a routine inspection at Teipuiki bridge, Peren intercepted a car that was proceeding to Dimapur from Senapati. "During thorough checking and frisking, security personnel recovered 50 soap cases containing suspected Heroin measuring 600 grams approximately, with a market value estimated to be Rs 1.71 crore from the possession of husband and wife who are residents of Senapati, Manipur," Nagaland Police officials said earlier in the week. A case has been registered at the Narcotic Cell in Kohima, officials said earlier. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Friday reduced the duration of interim bail of expelled BJP leader Kuldeep Singh Sengar to attend his daughter's marriage. On January 16, 2023, the Delhi High Court granted interim bail to Sengar from January 27 to February 10 to attend his daughter's marriage and related functions. The Division Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta and Justice Poonam A Bamba on Friday modified its earlier order, after the victim in the Unnao Rape case moved a plea for recalling its order. Victim through Advocate Mahmood Pracha had submitted that after the passing of the above interim bail order, the Applicant/victim has been receiving information that the Appellant/ Sengar is going to harm her and her family after being released from prison. While modifying the earlier order, the court noted that there are two main functions on Jan 30th (Tilak) at Gorakhpur and the wedding on February 8 at Lucknow. According to the modified order, Sengar gets interim bail from Jan 27 to Jan 30 to attend Tilak Ceremony, then he'll surrender to the police. "And on Feb 6, 2023, he shall be released again to attend his daughter's marriage scheduled for Feb 8 and surrender back to the Police on Feb 10, 2023," the court said in its fresh order. Sengar is a convict and was awarded a life sentence for raping a minor in Unnao in 2017. He was also convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in the case of custodial death of the father of the victim of the rape case. He was granted interim bail in this matter for his daughter's wedding. Sengar's appeal against the conviction and sentence is pending before the High Court. His plea seeking regular bail is also under consideration before the High Court. Victim's plea alleged that in the present case, the Appellant/Sengar had concealed, and the CBI had also failed to highlight the fact, that the Appellant stands convicted in a case which pertains to the custodial death of the father of the Applicant at the behest of the Appellant. (ANI) Congress In-Charge of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Rajani Patil, on Friday alleged security lapses in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, and accused the administration of the Union Territory of failing to manage the crowd. "J&K UT Administration failed to provide security to #BharatJodoYatra led by Shri @RahulGandhi. Security lapses indicate unfair & unprepared attitude of UT administration. @OfficeOfLGJandK," Rajani Patil said in a tweet along with a picture from the spot. All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary KC Venugopal said that there was no security personnel with the Bharat Jodo Yatra for 15 minutes, and termed it a 'serious lapse'. "The security has been mishandled by concerned agencies here. For 15 mins, there have been no security officers with the Bharat Jodo Yatra here. This is a serious lapse. Rahul Gandhi and other yatris can not walk without security," Venugopal said speaking to mediapersons. Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, which is in its final leg in Jammu and Kashmir, resumed on Friday morning from the National Highway-44, Banihal Railway station, in the UT's Ramban district. Security was tightened in the area in the wake of the recent twin blasts on the outskirts of Jammu city on January 22 which rocked a busy locality in Narwal leaving atleast nine people injured. The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started in Kanyakumari on September 7, will conclude on January 30 in Srinagar after covering 3,970 km, 12 states and two Union territories. The reports of the Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi's security breach have come to the fore. A security breach emerged at the Bharat Jodo Yatra on January 17 when an unknown man came out of the crowd and tried to hug Rahul Gandhi in Tanda in Punjab's Hoshiarpur district. However, Gandhi later termed him "excited" and said it was the people's enthusiasm. Earlier on January 4, the Congress wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah alleging "security breaches" in the Bharat Jodo Yatra which entered the national capital on December 24. Congress general secretary KC Venugopal in a letter to the Centre said the Delhi Police behaved like "mute spectators", and completely failed to control the surging crowd and maintain a perimeter around Rahul Gandhi, who is assigned Z+ Security. (ANI) Delhi's Patiala House Court on Friday adjourned the bail plea of Shankar Mishra, accused of urinating on a woman on board an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi. The Court listed the hearing for January 30. The Additional Sessions Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla on Friday adjourned the matter and noted that Investigation Officer is not present. Complainant Lady's Lawyer wasn't supplied with a copy of the plea, Court noted. Senior Lawyer Ramesh Gupta appearing for Shankar Mishra objected to the adjournment of the hearing and said, if the matter is getting adjourned then please grant him interim bail. It can't be a reason that the investigating officer is not here, so adjourn. Recently Mishra's bail plea was dismissed by the Magistrate court. He was arrested by the Delhi Police on January 6 and is presently in judicial custody. On January 11, the Magistrate Court of Delhi's Patiala House Court dismissed the bail plea of accused Shankar Mishra. It said the alleged act of the accused of relieving himself upon the complainant is utterly "disgusting and repulsive". "The alleged act in itself is sufficient to outrage the modesty of any woman. Egregious conduct of the accused has shocked the civic consciousness and needs to be deprecated, said Metropolitan Magistrate Komal Garg. As per the allegations, the accused was voluntarily drunk and had consumed alcohol during the flight and the said fact has not been denied by the applicant. The alleged act in itself prima facie reflects the accused's intention, added the Magistrate. Recently senior advocate Ramesh Gupta appearing for Shankar Mishra alleged that "the complainant woman's seat was blocked. It was not possible for him (Mishra) to go there. The woman has a problem with incontinence. She urinated on herself." Raising questions over the Delhi Police investigation, advocate Gupta submitted that there must be someone else. She herself urinated. The seating system was such that no one could go to her seat. The passenger sitting behind the complainant did not make any such complaint, he added. On this allegation, the complainant issued a statement stating that the accused has adopted a campaign of spreading misinformation and falsities with the intent of further harassing the victim "Accused, instead of being remorseful for the utterly disgusting act committed byhim has adopted a campaign of spreading misinformation and falsities with the intent of further harassing the victim, said the complainant through her lawyer Ankur Mahendru. Mishra had allegedly urinated on a 70-year-old woman in an intoxicated condition in business class of an Air India flight on November 26 last year. Delhi Police had registered an FIR against him on January 4 on a complaint given by the woman to Air India. The police registered an FIR under sections 354, 509, and 510 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 23 of the Indian Aircraft Act. Both the accused and the victim are from outside Delhi. (ANI) Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, who is on Bharat Jodo Yatra in Kashmir, had to "cancel" his yatra on Friday due to an alleged security lapse at Quazigund. "This morning during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, unfortunately, the police arrangement completely collapsed and the police who were supposed to manage the crowd was nowhere to be seen. My security people were very uncomfortable with me walking further on the yatra so I had to cancel my walk. Other yatris did the walk," Rahul Gandhi said addressing a press conference in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag. Further speaking on security issues, Gandhi said, "I think it is important the police manages the crowd so that we can do the yatra. It's very difficult for me to go against what my security people are recommending." "I don't know why it happened but it should not happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow," he added. When asked if Rahul Gandhi would continue his padayatra in wake of security lapses by the J-K administration as alleged by his party, the Wayanad MP said, "Yes, we will. It will continue." Meanwhile, the party's national spokesperson Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "Politics has its place but by playing with the security of Rahul Gandhi in the Kashmir valley, the government has stooped to its lowest level. India has already lost Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, any government or administration should desist from doing politics on such matters." Congress in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Rajani Patil, had earlier reported security lapses in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra and accused the administration of the Union Territory of failing to manage the crowd. "J&K UT Administration failed to provide security to #BharatJodoYatra led by Shri @RahulGandhi. Security lapses indicate unfair & unprepared attitude of UT administration. @OfficeOfLGJandK," Rajani Patil said in a tweet along with a picture from the spot. All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary KC Venugopal also said that there was no security personnel with the Bharat Jodo Yatra for 15 minutes, and termed it a 'serious lapse'. "The security has been mishandled by concerned agencies here. For 15 mins, there have been no security officers with the Bharat Jodo Yatra here. This is a serious lapse. Rahul Gandhi and other yatris can not walk without security," Venugopal said speaking to media persons. "The sudden withdrawal of security personnel from the D-area has caused a serious security breach at the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Banihal, Kashmir. Who ordered this? The authorities responsible must answer for this lapse and take appropriate steps to prevent such incidents in future," Venugopal tweeted. Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, which is in its final leg in Jammu and Kashmir, resumed on Friday morning from the National Highway-44, Banihal Railway station, in the UT's Ramban district. Security was tightened in the area in the wake of the recent twin blasts on the outskirts of Jammu city on January 22 which rocked a busy locality in Narwal leaving at least nine people injured. The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started in Kanyakumari on September 7, will conclude on January 30 in Srinagar after covering 3,970 km, 12 states and two Union territories. (ANI) Five people, accused in connection to the 1994 ISRO espionage case, appeared before the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) in Thiruvananthapuram for questioning on Friday. The five accused, Sibi Mathews, former Kerala Director General of Police (DGP); R B Sreekumar, former Gujarat Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Thampi S Durga Dutt, Deputy Superintendent of Police; P S Jayaprakash, former intelligence officer; and S Vijayan, (retd) Circle Inspector, appeared before the CBI for questioning, said officials. Earlier this month, two accused Siby Mathews and R B Sreekumar were granted anticipatory bail by the Kerala High Court. A single bench of Justice K Babu granted anticipatory bail to former Kerala police officers S Vijayan and Thampi S Durga Dutt, and retired intelligence official PS Jayaprakash, with conditions. The HC held a fresh hearing on the bail applications of the five accused after its earlier order, granting them pre-arrest bail in 2021, was set aside by the Supreme Court in December 2022. The Supreme Court referred the matter back to the high court, observing that the previous order was passed without considering certain aspects. "The accused must appear before the CBI for interrogation on January 27 between 10.00 am and 11.00 am. They shall continue to appear before the interrogating officer on Mondays and Fridays for a further period of two weeks. They shall continue to report before the investigating officer for interrogation as and when required. If arrested, they shall be released on bail on executing bonds for Rs 1 lakh each with two solvent sureties each for the like sum," HC said on January 20, laying out the conditions for granting anticipatory bail. "The accused cannot leave India without the permission of a jurisdictional court. They shall not influence the witnesses or tamper with the evidence. They shall fully corporate with the investigation subjecting themselves to deemed custody as observed in Gurbachan Singh and Sushila Aggarwal cases for the purpose of discovery or identification if any," the single bench ruled further. (ANI) Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena on Friday dismissed Harish Bajaj, Delhi Administrative Subordinate Services (DASS), Grade I officer from his services. According to an official statement issued by Rajniwas, Haish Bajaj was fraudulently registering 57 sales/purchase deeds of government and gram sabha lands and lands falling in Khasras that had already been notified u/s 4 & 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, in favour of private persons. "Bajaj illegally registered 106 instruments with mala fide intentions and financial quid pro quo, in violation of rules, regulations and instructions issued by the Revenue Department. Of the 106 instruments, 57 were in relation to government/gram sabha lands," the statement read further. Disposing of a case of appeal filed by Bajaj against an order of the government that had 'compulsorily retired' him from services in 2020, for the acts of commission and omission on his part, the LG observed that the 'penalty of compulsory retirement' is grossly disproportionate and Harish Bajaj, Deputy Secretary (Labour Department), is liable to be held responsible for gross dereliction in the discharge of his duties and responsibilities and for proven misconduct, the ends of justice would be met by imposing an appropriate major penalty, and therefore, proposed to enhance the penalty to 'dismissal from service'.The statement further added that Bajaj in his appeal to the LG - who is the appellant authority in such matters, had not denied having registered the said lands. In support of his misconduct, omission/commission, he had contended the sub-registrar performs his duties under the provisions of the Registration Act 1908. As per Rule 42, the sub-registrar has nothing to do with the 'title of land' and a sub-registrar is under no obligation to verify the title of property before registering it.However, the LG ruled that the averments of Bajaj were misleading and he had blatantly disregarded government orders and circulars. As per the order dated January 3, 200, of the Revenue Department, GNCTD, no fresh instrument of transfer, including GPAs in relation to government land, which includes acquired land and land notified under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, shall be registered without the compliance of the provisions of Delhi Land (restriction on transfer) Act, 1972."Bajaj violated the aforementioned provisions and registered 57 instruments pertaining to government land without even obtaining the status report of the land from the competent authority i.e. ADM (East) as prescribed vide order dated 25.08.2006," Raj Niwas added in the statement. (ANI) According to sources, Tarakaratna, the grandson of acting legend NT Rama Rao, was immediately shifted him to a nearby hospital. Doctors at the hospital said they have planned to move the actor to Bengaluru, if necessary, for proper treatment. As per reports, after providing initial treatment at a private hospital in Kuppam, they shifted him to PES hospital for further treatment. The actor reportredly lost consciousness during the foot march -- 'Yuva Galam' (Voice of Youth), which was launched on Friday by TDP national general secretary and former minister Nara Lokesh. Lokesh offered prayers at a mosque near Kuppam after the padayatra started and Tarakaratna, too, joined him in the march, sources said. Further, according to sources, as soon as Lokesh came out of the mosque, Tarakaratna fell unconscious. TDP workers rushed him to the hospital. Further details are awaited. (ANI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday appealed students to not to compare themselves and compete with their peers. "Do not destroy your inner peace in a consistent feeling of comparing and competing with your peers, and do not consider your exams, your life. There is a life beyond these. The more you feel positive and free, the better you'll perform in life," PM Modi said. Modi was interacting with students, teachers, and parents during the 6th edition of 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' 2023 in Delhi. He said that life does not stop at one station because of an exam and emphasis should be placed on inner potential. "We live day and night in the spirit of competition... We live for ourselves... Live in ourselves... Live while learning from our own people. Everyone needs to learn, but the emphasis should also be placed on your inner potential. Life does not stop at one station because of one exam," Modi said. Underlining the importance of learning new languages, PM Modi said that new languages open the doors to know not only new words and sentences but also about the ancient heritage, history, culture, and the age-old civilizations associated with these. "Learning new languages open the doors for us to learn and know not only new words and sentences but also about the ancient heritage, history, culture, and the age-old civilizations associated with these," he said. Mentioning his visit to the UN where PM Modi spoke in the Tamil language, he said that India has the oldest language in the world and everyone should be proud of it. "The country which has the oldest language in the world should be proud of it. At the UN, I deliberately told some things related to the Tamil language because I wanted to show the world that we have the oldest language in the world," he said. He said that the curiosity of the student is his biggest asset. Modi urged the students to choose the path of belongingness instead of choosing the path of discipline with a stick. "Even today our students value their teachers' words. We should choose the path of belongingness instead of choosing the path of discipline with a stick... If we choose the path of belongingness then only we will be benefited," Modi said. PM Modi also urged parents to give children liberty and freedom as there are ample opportunities to grow and develop. "Free your child, let him treasure the liberty, the freedom; give your child the open skies, the ample opportunities to grow and develop. Remain concerned about the way and directions of his steps, but let him walk freely, with high spirits devoid of any limits," he said. PM Modi also encouraged the students to believe in their strengths and use gadgets wisely and smartly. He further said that the average six-hour screen time for gadget users in our country is fruitful for their creators. "People in India spend an average of six hours on screen. This is a matter of concern. Why become a slave of gadgets when God has given us an independent existence and individuality with immense potential?" PM Modi said. "There is an average of six hours of screen time for a gadget user in our country now. This certainly reflects the amount of time and energy any person drains out meaninglessly and without productivity. This a matter of deep concern and a threat to the people's creativity," PM Modi said adding that any person would feel "bliss" once he or she frees the self from the clutches of the misuse of technology. "The moment you feel bliss, you will attain true freedom," he continued. He also enlightened the students to believe in their smartness and underlined the major mistake they make by relying on gadgets. "You have to decide who among you and the gadgets is smarter. Sometimes you believe that the gadgets are smarter- this is where the mistake starts. You will get better results once you start using the gadgets smartly," he said. He reiterated to the students that the gadgets are means to help any person in the journey towards excellence and they can be used in a comparatively better way if used with the presence of mind. Talking further, PM Modi suggested the students create a "No technology zone" so that they can spend considerate time with their family without the distraction from gadgets. "Zenith of success and prosperity lies in remaining energetic. Stay enthusiastic, flourish!" Modi said. (ANI) Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah is likely to attend a road show, a public meeting and a series of other public programs in Karnataka on Saturday as the southern state is likely to witness Assembly elections in mid-April or the beginning of May. The Home Minister will participate in the roadshow near Brahma Devara Temple in Dharwad's Kundgol area on Saturday, mentions an official engagement plan. Shah will also attend a public meeting at M.K. Hubballi Belagavi in Karnataka's Belgaum district, the plan pointed, adding that both events will be held on Saturday evening. Expected to reach Karnataka anytime by late Friday evening, the Home Minister will start his day-long visit to Karnataka by attending the Platinum Jubilee celebrations of B.V. Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering and Technology at 10.30 am in KLE Technology University, Hubballi city of the state. The Minister will further lay the foundation stone of National Forensic Sciences University (Karnataka Campus) around noon in National Forensic Science University (NFSU) in Dharwad, a city located in the north-western part of Karnataka. Shah will also offer prayers at Shambulingeshwara Temple in Dharwad's Kundgol and visit Sri Basavanna Devara Mutt in the area on Saturday afternoon. The Home Minister's visit to Karnataka has been organised at a time when Assembly elections are scheduled here this year along with eight other states, including Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. These Assembly elections are said to be the semi-finals ahead of the Lok Sabha Elections scheduled to be held in 2024. The elections in Karnataka are likely to be held in mid-April or the beginning of May. Ahead of the assembly polls, the focus of political parties has shifted to the state. Among the other significant seats, one is the Mangalore City South assembly constituency. (ANI) As the son of a longtime state lawmaker, Alex Acevedo was sophisticated enough to know that he had to report money he made from his brothers lobbying business on his tax returns, but failed to do so out of greed, federal prosecutors told a jury Thursday. It was intentional all the way along, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Chapman said during his opening statement in Acevedos trial on charges of tax evasion, which has ties to the massive ComEd bribery probe involving ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan. He knew he was getting the money, and he was spending the money. Advertisement Acevedos lawyer, however, said the case was really just about a common man who was doing his best under the circumstances not about politics or greed or his father, ex-state Rep. Edward Acevedo. This case has nothing to do with his dad, attorney Ricardo Meza told jurors in his opening remarks. ... It is about the common man who sometimes makes errors. Advertisement Acevedo, 37, a registered nurse who previously made failed election bids for Chicago alderman and to replace his father in the state legislature, is facing two counts of willfully filing false tax returns that underreported his income by about $70,000 in 2016 and 2018, resulting in a total tax loss of about $20,000. All of the money came from Apex Strategy LLC, a lobbying and consulting firm formed by his brother, Michael, in 2015, according to prosecutors. The trial, which began in U.S. District Judge Edmond Changs courtroom Thursday afternoon, is expected to last about five days. Though relatively minor in scope, the indictment against Acevedo, along with separate charges filed against his brother and their father, received widespread attention due to the connection to the ComEd probe. Meza later alleged in court filings that it was clear investigators were after Madigan. During a proffer meeting between Alex Acevedo and prosecutors in February 2020, at least 75% of the questions asked by the government pertained to Mr. Madigan and his associates, Meza wrote. However, when (Alex) Acevedos truthful responses did not seem to align with what the government sought to hear, the IRS agent pivoted and began asking Mr. Acevedo questions about his 2016 and 2018 tax returns, Meza wrote in the motion. According to prosecutors, Alex Acevedo did most of the work on several of Apex Strategys contracts, including one with the Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois trade association. But all of Acevedos income was off the books, with no W-2 form issued and no other paperwork reporting it to the IRS. Apex was a virtual black box, Chapman said. Advertisement But Meza said Acevedo was simply waiting for the paperwork from his brother and was under pressure to file his returns on time and made a mistake. He likened his error to the famous flub by Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner, who had a ground ball go through his legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, which was ultimately won by the New York Mets. We all make errors. Alex makes errors, Meza said. Edward Acevedo, 59, pleaded guilty to skirting about $37,000 in taxes by misreporting lobbying income hed received over three years. He was sentenced in March 2022 to six months in prison and was released in December, records show. Michael Acevedo, 36, pleaded guilty in last month to failing to file tax returns documenting five years of revenues for Apex Strategy. Hes scheduled to be sentenced on March 15. ComEd agreed in 2020 to pay a record $200 million fine as prosecutors unveiled a criminal complaint charging the company with a yearslong bribery scheme involving jobs, contracts and payments to Madigan allies. Under the terms of a deferred prosecution agreement with the government, the charges against the utility giant will be dropped if the company continues to cooperate. Advertisement In November 2020, Madigans longtime confidant Michael McClain and three others were charged. Theyre scheduled to go on trial March 6. 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 > Meanwhile, last year AT&T Illinois and the phone giants former president, Paul La Schiazza, were charged in a similar scheme to funnel payments to Edward Acevedo in exchange for the speakers help passing legislation important to the company. La Schiazza, 65, has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, federal program bribery, and using a facility in interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity. AT&T Illinois has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorneys office, admitting its role in the scheme and agreeing to pay $23 million and cooperate in the investigation. In exchange, prosecutors will drop criminal charges filed against the company in two years. Madigan and McClain were both charged in a separate indictment in March 2022 with racketeering conspiracy alleging they participated in a range of corrupt schemes, including the ComEd and AT&T Illinois bribery. Advertisement The scandal helped end Madigans reign as the nations longest-serving speaker in January 2021. Madigan later resigned from the Illinois House and as Illinois Democratic Party chairman. jmeisner@chicagotribune.com Bharatiya Janata Party's Central Election Committee (CEC) meeting has begun at the party headquarters in the national capital to finalize the names of the candidates for the upcoming Tripura Assembly elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party's national president JP Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other members of CEC and Tripura Core Groups leaders are present in the meeting. "During the meeting, the names of the candidates for the Tripura elections will be finalized, as well as the election strategy of the three North-East states will also be discussed," party sources earlier told ANI. Ahead of the CEC meeting to be held today, a round of meetings continued throughout the day on Thursday regarding the strategy and names of the candidates for the Tripura Assembly elections. According to party sources, the meeting on Thursday started at around 5 pm under the leadership of the BJP National President JP Nadda and in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah, Tripura in-charge Dr Mahesh Sharma, North Eastern States Convenor Sambit Patra and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha. Apart from these, all the members of the BJP core group were also present in the meeting which continued till 10.30 pm. After the meeting was over, Amit Shah, JP Nadda and BL Santosh continued the meeting at JP Nadda's residence for almost five and a half hours, they added. According to party sources, the names of BJP candidates for the 60-member assembly elections were discussed and scrutinized in detail along with the party's ability to contest all seats in case of no alliance in the state. The names of the candidates for different seats and their capability was discussed in detail in this meeting. Tripura is slated to go to Assembly polls on February 16. Votes will be counted on March 2. (ANI) National Conference (NC) leader Omar Abdullah on Friday hit out at the BJP-led UT government saying that Jammu and Kashmir has not seen the days of "no assembly elections" even in the worst days of militancy. "It has been eight years straight since the last Assembly elections were conducted in Jammu and Kashmir. This is the first time that there has been such a long gap between polls here. Such a situation never even occurred during the worst days of militancy in J-K. It was in 2014 when the last Assembly elections took place," NC leader Omar Abdullah said addressing the media persons in J-K's Banihal. National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Friday joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir's Banihal. Further, talking about the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir, its Former Chief Minister expressed his faith in the judiciary and alleged the Centre for not allowing the hearing to take place in the Supreme Court. "I still believe that Article 370 was more of the Congress' legacy [viraasat] than ours, but I won't want to comment on their politics. As far as statehood is concerned, it should not have been taken from us. There was no need [jawaziyat] to turn Jammu and Kashmir into a Union Territory, but since they have done it now, we are waiting for the statehood again," Omar Abdullah said. He further added, "Our fight for statehood will continue through the Court and we are optimistic that the way the government [hakumat] is trying that the hearings do not take place in the Court, it shows that our case is stronger than theirs." The Centre, on August 5, 2019, revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and the state was bifurcated into two union territories. Later in the conversation, Omar Abdullah also talked about Congress leader Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra and stressed that it is important for the country to stay united. He said that the message of the Bharat Jodo Yatra is equally important for J-K as well as other countries. "We also want everyone to unite here in such a way that the internal conflicts are minimised," he added mentioning that there is a limit to democracy in the Union Territory which makes such movement of the people play more crucial role. "As compared to other nations, there is a limit of democracy [jamuriyat] in Kashmir, and in such cases, such movement of the people (Bharat Jodo Yatra) plays a more vital role," Abdullah said adding that people in the UT have been "very excited and enthusiastic" for the yatra. He further remained hopeful that people would gather in huge numbers on the last day of the yatra on January 30. Expressing his opinion, Abdullah said: "I don't think Raghul Gandhi conducted this yatra to change his image. As far as I know him, if he has led the yatra, it is because he actually wanted to unite the country and has been upset with the ongoing situation of the country. Many people here are upset with the way religious stress is being created in the country and the way by which minorities are being targetted here." Abdullah, then, continued with his concern for the minorities in the country and said it is for the first time that there is no Muslim Representative in either house of the Parliament. "There is no Muslim as a Member of Parliament either in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha despite this large country having such a huge population of Muslims here. This is, perhaps, the first time since Independence that the Government [hakumat] of India has no representative [numainda] from a section which comprises 15 per cent of its population." (ANI) Delhi Police on Friday imposed Section 144 (banning large gatherings) at the Faculty of the Arts at Delhi University in wake of a call by NSUI-KSU for the screening of a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A large number of security personnel have also been deployed outside the Faculty of Arts. The BBC documentary has created a fresh row in the country after the government, earlier this month, denounced it and described it as a "propaganda piece" that is designed to push a discredited narrative. The government also pulled down the BBC documentary 'India: The Modi Question' from various social media platforms including Twitter and Youtube. The row further deepened after JNUSU members allegedly faced a "deliberate" power outage, while they were screening the impugned BBC documentary at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in the national capital. The documentary leads to opposition attacking the government on freedom of speech despite the government terming it as a 'propaganda piece'. Earlier on Wednesday, 13 students were detained after some students tried to create a ruckus outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University over the screening of a BBC documentary. The Delhi Police said the university administration did not allow the screening of the BBC documentary in campus. On Monday the administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi also warned against screening the BBC documentary on the campus after a group of students released a pamphlet inviting students to a screening of the film at the students union's office at 9 pm on Tuesday (January 24). The JNU Students Union wrote to the university administration over its firm advisory against the screening of the BBC documentary stating that they "do not seek to create any form of disharmony" and their purpose is to only watch it on the campus. It also mentioned in the letter that the students with "voluntary interest" would take part in the screening. Later in the night, the JNU students marched toward Vasant Kunj police station claiming stone pelting by members of ABVP while the said documentary was being screened. The protest was later called off after the police assured students of taking up the matter and looking into it immediately. (ANI) The Patiala House Court of Delhi on Friday allowed Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez to travel to Dubai from January 27 to January 30 to attend the PepsiCo India Conference. The Additional Sessions Judge Shailender Malik on Friday while granting permission said that this court is very much conscious of the case which is at crucial stage when the matter is being heard at the point of charges and the case involves a very high stake in the sense that there are very serious allegations made against the accused persons including accused/applicant. However that fact by itself cannot be a reason to deprive the accused at this stage of travelling abroad when she is to fulfil her professional commitments, said the Court. More particularly when it is pointed out by Counsel for the accused that on account of her acting career accused/ applicant has been nominated for the prestigious Oscars Award. In such situation it is all the more necessary for the sake of the pride of the country that unnecessary restrictions may not be imposed unless it is required for the accused said the court. The court said the accused shall submit an FDR to the tune of Rs 1 crore along with an undertaking that in case of her not return, the 'DR shall be forfeited in favour of the ED along with the surety of Rs 1 crore. The accused/applicant shall submit her itinerary, place of stay and the number at which she can be contacted. On her return, the accused/applicant shall inform the investigating agency about her return. The court made it clear that the LOC against the accused/ applicant issued in this case shall stand suspended during the aforesaid period. However, ED has opposed the travel abroad plea stating that the accused/applicant did not cooperate in the investigation and rather tried to conceal the evidence. It is stated that the case is at the crucial stage of consideration on charge and there is sufficient oral and documentary evidence against the accused/applicant. On Wednesday, Jacqueline moved an application seeking permission to travel to Dubai from January 27 to January 30, 2023, to attend the PepsiCo India conference. The plea stated that Applicant/Jacqueline seeking permission from this Court to travel to Dubai from January 27, 2023, to January 30, 2023. The reason for undertaking the travel to Dubai is on account of the PepsiCo India Conference in Dubai; to which the Applicant has recently received an Invitation. The Applicant recently received an invitation to perform at the said PepsiCo Conference in Dubai as a star performer for the concert scheduled on Sunday, the 29th of January, 2023 for the Annual Bottler Conference organized by PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd. Jacqueline Fernandez is being investigated by the ED in an Rs 200 crore money laundering case involving alleged conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar. Jacqueline Fernandez earlier had appeared before the probe agency for questioning in a money laundering investigation against alleged conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar and others. Jacqueline Fernandez is a Sri Lankan National living in India since 2009 and belongs to a Bollywood Fraternity and holds a good name in the Bollywood industry, stated the application She earlier stated that being a renowned film the actress has been invited to Events, press conferences, Rehearsals & participation in the event. The Applicant has always joined the investigation before the Enforcement Directorate and remains present in all court proceedings, following the law of the land. She earlier stated that she is ready and willing to abide by any such conditions that this Court may deem fit to impose if the prayer sought is granted, in accordance with the law. The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police on Monday also filed a supplementary chargesheet against Pinki in connection investigation of the Rs 200-crore extortion case involving conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar. According to Delhi police Mumbai-based Pinky Irani is said to be a close aide of Chandrashekhar and introduced him to bollywood actor Jacqueline Fernandez. The fresh supplementary also mentioned the progress taken place through the recording of various statements including Jacqueline Fernandez, Nora Fatehi etc This ED case is based on an FIR filed by Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) against Sukesh Chandrasekhar who is accused of cheating and extorting Aditi Singh, wife of the former promoter of Religare Enterprises Shivinder Mohan Singh, who was arrested in October 2019 in a case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd. Chandrasekhar and his associates reportedly took money from Aditi after posing as government officials and promising to get bail for her husband. Chandrasekhar reportedly persuaded Aditi to transfer money by impersonating a central government official over a spoof call while he was lodged in Rohini jail and promised to manage bail for her husband. Both Chandrasekhar and his actor wife Leena Maria Paul were arrested by the Delhi Police in September last year for their alleged role in the duping case. (ANI) Amongst the buzz of a possible alliance with BJP, the Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (Tipra Motha) Chief Pradyot Bikram Manikya Deb Barma has clarified on Friday that 'no alliance' will be formed with anyone in the upcoming state assembly polls. Sharing a video for his supporters on Twitter, he said, "A lot of people have speculated in the last three days that we are about to form an alliance. I have said it before and I am saying it again that unless we get in writing from the government of India that our demands will be met constitutionally, I will not form any alliance. I don't blame the people who don't believe it. Because in 46 years, after 1977, every regional Tiprasa political party has gone to Delhi and has come back with an agreement before the election. But after the election, Tiprasa doesn't get anything." "I have said this before and am repeating it, we will not compromise on our demands. We went to Delhi to discuss and we heard them. If we didn't go, they would've mentioned it that despite the invitation, we skipped the meeting," added Pradyot. While speaking about the meeting, Pradyot said, "One thing is clear in my heart that they haven't given anything in writing. I want to inform all my TIPRA Motha warriors and the entire Tiprasa that there will be no alliance in this election." "Either we'll win or we'll lose, but this time we'll fight for one last time," Pradyot assured his supporters in the video. While the larger sentiment of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) both in the centre and state remains the same, they cannot be seen forming an alliance with a unit that is demanding a separate state, that is 'Greater Tipraland' for indigenous tribes, confirmed the sources. According to the sources, while Congress and the Left have come together, the ruling BJP is still in search of an appropriate partner. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has declared an official list of 43 candidates with several new entrants. Former Chief Minister Manik Sarkar is sitting out of the electoral fray this time, confirmed the sources. According to the sources, Congress will get 13 seats in alliance and four others will be given to the smaller parties. Earlier on January 19, the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) was also invited by Pradyot to enter into an alliance with his unit. The INPT alliance, which came together with BJP in 2001, diverged in 2009. The party again allied with BJP in the 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election and won 8 seats out of 9 contested seats. With a population of over 28 lakhs, the state of Tripura will vote for 60 Assembly seats and the ruling BJP will be searching for its second term in office after uprooting the decades-old CPIM government in 2018. (ANI) Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann along with Aam Aadmi Party Chief and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated 400 Mohalla Clinics in Amritsar's Putlighar on Friday. The newly inaugurated 400 mohalla clinics across Amritsar take the number to 500 in the state. Delhi CM Kejriwal, who was present as a chief guest at the inauguration, expressed his joy at the event and said that the clinics which took five years to build in Delhi are built in ten months in Punjab. More clinics will be built in many districts and villages, he added. "I am very happy and thankful for the citizens for believing in us. My little brother, Mann, has fulfilled another guarantee," he said. Taking a dig at the central government, Kejriwal said, "Being a full state, Punjab suffers no interference from the central government unlike Delhi. In the coming few years, more such clinics will be made in every village." Calling the year 2022 the turning point of the state, Kejriwal noted that the foundation of the state has been built due to the AAP government and guaranteed to fulfil every promise in the next five years. He also attacked the earlier Congress government and said that the state was dominated by some families. "Bhagwant Mann knows the problems of common man and common farmers. Earlier, the politics of Punjab was dominated by some families and the public had no option." Earlier, Mann inaugurated 100 Aam Aadmi Clinics on August 15, 2022 on the occasion of Independence Day. More than 10 lakh people have received free treatment in these 100 Aam Aadmi Clinics till now. Whereas more than three lakh people benefited from free tests, the government said in an official statement. Punjab CM Mann, while speaking at the event, said that his party talks about education and employment by rising above the politics game. He said, "We were not looted by the British as much as our own people looted us. Our party is taking into account the people who looted even a single penny. They (the previous government) did not build schools, universities or hospitals but are still in debt. We aim to take back money from the same robbers." "So far, 1.25 lakh people have been treated in the 100 clinics so far. All the clinics will be digitalised," said the Punjab chief minister. He also announced "Sarkar Aapke Dwar" (Government at your doorsteps) initiative wherein government officials will visit door-to-door to listen to the problems of the people. (ANI) Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday applauded the sixth edition of 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' annual interaction by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with students, saying the programme was a "masterclass on self-management". Shah said the interaction will enrich India's young minds and motivate them to achieve their goals, and that solutions to time and stress management and cutting gadget dependency are the new mantras to enhance efficiency. "ParikshaPeCharcha by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a masterclass on self-management that will further enrich our young minds and motivate them to achieve their goals. Simple solutions to time and stress management and cutting gadget dependency are the new mantras to enhance efficiency," Shah tweeted. Shah's message came a few hours after the Prime Minister suggested the students maintain focus on their work and cautioned them against excessive use of gadgets and asked them to believe in their smartness during the sixth edition of 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' on issues such as exam stress at Talkatora Stadium here in the city. The Prime Minister also spoke strongly against the use of unfair practices in exams and advised students against boasting about how well their exams went to avoid stress. "Cheating may help someone in an exam or two but not in life in the long run. Never take the shortcut. The hard work of students will always help them advance in life. Students should at times analyse the pressure applied on them to see if they are underestimating their strengths," the PM said. Modi said it is natural for family members to have expectations but it is wrong if they are linked to consciousness about social class or status. "Exam results are not the end of life," the PM told the students. Students should concentrate on their studies like a batter focuses on the ball thrown to him, ignoring the shouts for fours and sixes from the crowd, he added. "One of the reasons for stress is boasting about how well we did in our exam. Parents start believing in what the children say and start telling this to people around them. Avoid giving a wrong impression about your performance in exams," the PM said. A record of 38 lakh students registered this year for participation in 'Pariksha Pe Charcha'. The number of registrations is at least 15 lakhs more than last year, according to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The first edition of the Prime Minister's interactive programme with school and college students was held on February 16, 2018. (ANI) The third edition of the Interpol young global police leaders programme began on Friday in Delhi with the theme 'Trust' which aims at building trust between public-police as well as trust factors between international police forces in the era of technology. There are 60 participants from 44 countries. A delegation of Interpol young global police leaders program on Friday visited National Police Memorial and paid homage to the fallen policemen. A senior official said that the event brings together young police leaders holding vital assignments in their respective countries and helps them develop an international perspective and understanding. It seeks to empower the next generation of International Police leaders through mentoring from experienced officers. The Interpol Young Global Police Leaders Program (YGPLP) began on January 25 and will end on February 2. The Young Global Police Leaders on Thursday attended the Republic Day celebration as an audience. During the programme, they will inter alia visit CBI Headquarters, Global Operations Center, Delhi Police Headquarters, Maharashtra Police Headquarters and Mumbai Police Control Room. They are making a study visit to National Forensic Science University, Gandhinagar. The officials said that the program will help to understand the importance of looking into the future, attempt to visualize it, and explore the implications for law enforcement, learn from more seasoned police chiefs and content experts on policing practices and international police cooperation, now and for the future. "Improve how they present and articulate their thoughts and learnings based on the information they gathered and analysed in preparation for successful future police leadership," the officials said. Pankaj Kumar Singh, Deputy National Security Advisor has interacted with the delegation. The Central Bureau of Investigation, which acts as a nodal agency with Interpol, is coordinating with the participating nations. Young Global Police Leaders Programme was set up in 2019 to prepare the next generation of global police leaders to effectively combat international crime - now and in the future. The second edition of global police leaders programme was held between March 13 to 17, 2022 in UAE. Building on the success of the inaugural YGPLP event, held in Dubai in September 2019, the second edition was also hosted by the Dubai Police. Underlining the innovative nature of the Programme, the event took place inside the World Expo 2020. In line with the theme of the Expo - 'Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,' - the second YGPLP highlighted the importance of international police cooperation and knowledge exchange.(ANI) Amid India-China border tension, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) Eastern Command RP Kalita on Friday said that the situation in both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is stable now but unpredictable because of the boundary issue. The Eastern Command takes care of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim sectors. Addressing a press conference, GOC-in-C Eastern Command Kalita said, "There are different perceptions about LAC which leads to friction, however, the situation in both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh is stable now but unpredictable because of the absence of delineation of borders." He further said that India is continuously monitoring the activities that take place across the border and we are prepared to beat any kind of emerging challenges. "Eastern Army is responsible for maintaining territorial integrity on eastern borders and the task has been executed by our units and formations with utmost professionalism and dedication. We are continuously evolving and aware of oncoming operational challenges," said GOC-in-C Eastern Command. Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had told in parliament that China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops tried to transgress the LAC in the Yangtse area of Tawang Sector in Arunachal Pradesh and unilaterally change the status quo but they went back to their locations due to timely intervention of Indian military commanders. Talking about the increase of Chinese troops in India-China border areas, he said, "We have read that gradually there has been an increase in deployment of troops opposite our sectors along with infrastructure being carried out by People's Liberation Army (PLA) across the down borders." GOC-in-C Eastern Command said that it is difficult to quantify the number of Chinese troops deployed in these areas. "But we are continuously and closely monitoring the developments in these areas," he added. When asked about measures being taken to protect Siliguri Corridor, Kalita said, "Siliguri Corridor is geo-strategically extremely important to us. All our mechanisms are in place to ensure there are no disruptions in connectivity in the northeast." He further said that PLA started infrastructure development post-2017 Doklam issue within their own territory. "On our side, to mirror those activities, infrastructure development has been carried out to ensure better response from us in case we're required to do it," he added. He said that Arunachal Pradesh comprises seven valleys so movement is extremely difficult and it is difficult to make roadways. When asked how it feels when the man in uniform is questioned over the operation and political leaders ask for proof, he said, "This is the national issue as well as a political issue so I would not like to comment much but this much I can say those who raising question they should trust the Indian Army and their operations." The GOC Eastern Command said, "The year gone by witnessed profound changes in geopolitical dynamics in the form of security and economic fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war, the gradual shift of power centre to the Indo-Pacific region that saw sudden key developments in our neighbourhood." (ANI) Two villages in Himachal Pradesh's Chamba district were cut off the road after an avalanche hit the Panga Valley of the Chamba district on Friday. No loss of life or property, however, was reported, official said. "With weather cleared after heavy snowfall in the upper areas of the Chamba district, reports of avalanches have started coming in at various places. Glaciers are melting in Bharmour and Pangi Valleys," Dunichand Rana, Deputy Commissioner of Chamba, told ANI "We have received news of an avalanche in the Pangi Valley, but there has been no damage. The area has a network issue and as soon as more information is received from there, it will be informed," he added. According to authorities, no damage has been reported. However, an inspection by higher authorities is being conducted in the region in order to understand the current situation. "When the sun shines after a snowfall, there are often reports of small avalanches here and there. There is also information about the avalanche in Bharmour but there was no damage of any kind," Rana added. (ANI) Roxana Vera and Claudia Medina walk into the Cicero Police Department to talk with detectives on Jan. 24, 2023. Vera's son, Edixon Vera, was shot while walking to a venue to perform hip-hop. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Just 10 minutes after leaving her Berwyn home, Roxana Vera got a call from her oldest son, crying and pleading for help. He had been shot as he made his way to perform at a local establishment for his first show of the year the night of Jan. 19. When she arrived at the scene, her 21-year-old son, Edixon Vera, lay on the ground covered in blood. Two friends who were walking with him were also shot. Advertisement It was like a nightmare, Roxana Vera said in a phone interview from the hospital where her son was taken. Edixon Vera was shot in the right leg, and he has undergone four surgeries, she said. Though she is grateful her son is alive, Roxana Vera fears for the safety of her family after receiving threats following the shooting. She is also worried because even after she expressed her concerns, Vera said, it took several days to get a call back from the detective to follow up on the case. Advertisement Roxana Vera, left, and friend Claudia Medina walk into the Cicero Police Department to talk with detectives on Jan. 24, 2023. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) They assume that just because he is a rapper he is also involved in gangs, the mother said. It has become so normal to walk away from shootings because police assume that all young kids are involved in that. Her son is not, she said. Ray Hanania, a spokesman for Cicero police, confirmed the shooting in the 5500 block of 22nd Place, in which at least two people shot and wounded two males, both 21, and one female, 24. All three were struck by gunfire in the lower extremities, according to the statement. Hanania said police are aware of the threats and are investigating. The police take the shooting very seriously and will continue to investigate it based on the evidence, Hanania said. Roxana Vera and Claudia Medina wait in the lobby of the Cicero Police Department on Jan. 24, 2023. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) Roxana Vera and her son say in the meantime they pray that they remain safe. The single mom of three said the shooting has changed their lives forever as she raises money to pay for the medical bills. On Tuesday night, she finally met with the investigator on her sons case. Every time I walk outside Im in fear, Roxana Vera said. But I want people to know that my son is a good man and he does not deserve this. Advertisement When she migrated to the Chicago area she ran from violence to protect her kids, she said. She first lived in Forest Park and then moved to Berwyn. Edixon Vera, known as EdiXzon, began writing his raps at an early age, right before moving to the Chicago area from Venezuela when he was 15. It was a way for him to dream and cope with life changes. But he never thought he would share his art with the public, he said from the hospital bed. 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 > He began sharing his raps, all in Spanish and mostly about his experiences, on social media and then slowly found others who have an appreciation for the art in his circle of friends. Edixon Vera is a graduate of Morton East High School and paid his tuition at Morton College by working as a driver delivering food. He said he has avoided gangs or other trouble since arriving in this country, focusing on his music and bettering his life and that of his family. Perhaps they didnt like my music, he said. Advertisement Yo vengo de un lugar bajo y Uno viene aqui a progresar, he said. I come from a bad place, and we come here to do better for ourselves. Just an hour before undergoing a fourth surgery, Edixon Vera said he is hopeful he will walk again and he is confident he will continue to write his music. larodriguez@chicagotribune.com Political Analyst Prashant Kishor on Friday took a dig at Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and revealed that he had told the latter about the alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal in March 2022. Prashant Kishor also said that Kumar had invited him to join the 'Mahagathbandhan'. "Nitish Kumar chose Tejashwi Yadav because he knows after 2025 he won't be the Chief Minister and want the condition of Bihar to turn worse as then people would think Nitish Kumar was better and then choose him again. He wants to continue his legacy that's why he does not want someone better than him to come to power," Prashant Kishor said. He further said, "When Nitish Kumar met me in Delhi in March 2022, he told me about the Mahagathbandhan and requested me to join. He knew that if he continued his alliance with BJP, after winning the 2024 polls, he would be removed and the BJP would choose a Chief Minister from their own party." Nitish Kumar is of the ideology that if Yadav comes to power and Lalu Yadav's jungle raj returns in the state, people would want Kumar to come back and think that he has been better, Prashant Kishor stressed. The JD(U) and RJD together constitute a majority in the 243-member state assembly. JD(U) has 45 and the RJD has 79 MLAs. They also have the support of smaller parties like Jitan Manjhi's HAM. The BJP has 77 MLAs in the state assembly. Nitish Kumar on August 9, 2022, broke his alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) following a meeting of JD-U leaders and legislators. He then sought time from Governor Phagu Chauhan and tendered his resignation. While lashing out at the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Kumar had also said, "Everything was going good after we broke the NDA alliance earlier, but then we made the mistake of joining hands with them again in 2017, due to which many people from some states parted ways from us. But now that we split again, many of them said good going." In 2020, the BJP-JD(U) fought election in an alliance and went on to form the government with Nitish Kumar being given the Chief Minister's post. In less than two years' time, Nitish Kumar flipped his choices and in a surprise move went on to stitch an alliance with RJD and Congress to form a 'Grand Alliance' government in Bihar. (ANI) The Students Federation of India (SFI) on Friday screened the banned BBC documentary "India: The Modi Question" at Kolkata's Presidency University after a brief power cut. The members of SFI raised slogans at University earlier this evening, following a power cut as they planned the screening of the banned BBC documentary PM Modi. However, the screening was resumed later and the first part was screened today. Earlier Delhi Police detained around 20 people from outside the Faculty of Arts at the University of Delhi in the wake of a call by NSUI-KSU for the screening of the BBC documentary series on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Provisions under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) are imposed outside the Faculty of Arts. The BBC documentary has created a fresh row in the country after the government, earlier this month, denounced it and described it as a "propaganda piece" that is designed to push a discredited narrative. The government also pulled down the BBC documentary 'India: The Modi Question' from various social media platforms including Twitter and Youtube. The row further deepened after JNUSU members allegedly faced a "deliberate" power outage, while they were screening the impugned BBC documentary at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in the national capital. The documentary leads to opposition attacking the government on freedom of speech despite the government terming it as a 'propaganda piece'. Earlier on Wednesday, 13 students were detained after some students tried to create a ruckus outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University over the screening of a BBC documentary. The Delhi Police said the university administration did not allow the screening of the BBC documentary in the campus. On Monday the administration of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi also warned against screening the BBC documentary on the campus after a group of students released a pamphlet inviting students to a screening of the film at the students union's office at 9 pm on Tuesday (January 24). The JNU Students Union wrote to the university administration over its firm advisory against the screening of the BBC documentary stating that they "do not seek to create any form of disharmony" and their purpose is to only watch it on the campus. It also mentioned in the letter that the students with "voluntary interest" would take part in the screening. Later in the night, the JNU students marched toward Vasant Kunj police station claiming stone pelting by members of ABVP while the said documentary was being screened. The protest was later called off after the police assured students of taking up the matter and looking into it immediately. (ANI) Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazagam (AMMK) General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran on Friday announced Erode-East District secretary AM Shiva Prasadh as the candidate for Tamil Nadu's Erode East bye-elections. Meanwhile, AMMK General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran would also have talks with a few political parties regarding the alliance. Erode East By-Poll has been necessitated after the demise of East Erode MLA Thirumahan Everaa due to health issue. While speaking with the media in the Chennai AMMK office, TTV Dhinakaran said, "The Election Committee comprising 294 members is taking care of the Election works. From Sunday we will start our election work in full swing". He also said the law and order situation in Tamil Nadu and the DMK government failed to fulfill their election manifesto and it would reflect in the Erode East bye-election. "We are contesting this election to make the people of Tamil Nadu realise the actual situation in Tamil Nadu for the last 20 months that the ruling government failed to follow the Election Manifesto and the same is reflected in the Law and order. Referring to the EPS Vs OPS fight, after which O. Panneerselvam (OPS) was expelled from the party, TTV Dhinakaran said, "Our beloved leader is not there. Whoever sits in the chair, we cannot treat them as leaders. Party cadres would answer that" TTV Dhinakaran added. Amid the row between EPS and OPS as the case is still pending in SC, he also said, "I feel there will not be two leaf symbols in the election". He said that the two-leaf symbol will disappear in the upcoming Erode East bye-elections in Tamil Nadu. The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) led by Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) has the party symbol of two leaves. Reacting to DMK Minister's viral video on misbehaviour with cadres, TTV Dhinakaran said, "I appeal to Erode East Public to be careful with local ministers. The ministers themselves don't know how they would behave next minute. People also should be careful and keep distance with them". DMK minister SM Nasar on Tuesday allegedly threw stones at party workers for the delay in bringing chairs for him at an event in Tiruvallur. In a video of the alleged incident that went viral, the minister was purportedly seen picking up a stone and throwing it in the direction of the party workers. (ANI) Jammu and Kashmir Police dismissed the allegations levelled by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of security lapse in the Bharat Jodo Yatra which entered the Valley on Friday. "The government is acutely mindful of the security concerns and all arrangements have been made to ensure the best possible security for the ongoing Bharat Jodo yatra," RK Goyal, Additional Chief Secy (FC), Home Dept J-K, on Rahul Gandhi's security breach. "The size of the crowd was larger than planned which led to the pressure on the available security resources & created the impression that security arrangements were not in place. However, 15 companies of paramilitary forces & 10 companies of J-K police were deployed," he added. This comes after Rahul Gandhi alleged that the police personnel who were supposed to manage the crowd during the Yatra "were nowhere to be seen". "This morning during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, unfortunately, the police arrangement completely collapsed and the police who were supposed to manage the crowd was nowhere to be seen. My security people were very uncomfortable with me walking further on the yatra so I had to cancel my walk. Other yatris did the walk," Rahul Gandhi said addressing a press conference in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag. Dismissing the allegations, Kashmir Zone Police said that only authorized persons who were identified by organisers were allowed on the route of the yatra. The police said that the organizers of the yatra did not inform about the large gathering from Banihal. "Only authorised persons as identified by organisers & frisked crowd was allowed inside towards the route of Yatra. Organisers & managers of BJY did not intimate about large gathering from Banihal joining the Yatra, which thronged near the starting point," Kashmir Zone Police tweeted. The police said that full security arrangements were in place. "Full security arrangements were in place including 15 Coys of CAPFs and 10 Coys of JKP, comprising of ROPs and QRTs, route domination, lateral deployment and SFs were deployed for high-ridge and other deployments," the police tweeted. "JKP was not consulted before taking any decision on discontinuation of Yatra after conducting 1 km yatra by organizers. Rest of yatra continued peacefully. There was no security lapse at all. We will provide foolproof security," the police added. Earlier, Congress In-Charge of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, Rajani Patil, on Friday alleged security lapses in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, and accused the administration of the Union Territory of failing to manage the crowd. "J&K UT Administration failed to provide security to #BharatJodoYatra led by Shri @RahulGandhi. Security lapses indicate unfair & unprepared attitude of UT administration. @OfficeOfLGJandK," Rajani Patil said in a tweet along with a picture from the spot. All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary KC Venugopal said that there was no security personnel with the Bharat Jodo Yatra for 15 minutes, and termed it a 'serious lapse'. "The security has been mishandled by concerned agencies here. For 15 mins, there have been no security officers with the Bharat Jodo Yatra here. This is a serious lapse. Rahul Gandhi and other yatris can not walk without security," Venugopal said speaking to mediapersons.Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, which is in its final leg in Jammu and Kashmir, resumed on Friday morning from the National Highway-44, Banihal Railway station, in the UT's Ramban district. (ANI) Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Friday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's connectivity with the school students and said that he could explain complex topics with utmost ease. "Prime Minister could connect with children to a great extent. He explained complex topics like how pressure from parents and teachers affects children, how to identify their talent, and what role parents and teachers can play in this, in very simple words," Union Minister Jitendra Singh said. This was the sixth edition of Pariksha Pe Charcha (PPC) and PM Modi interacted with students, teachers and parents today at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi. During the interaction, he also witnessed the exhibits of students showcased at the venue before the interaction. Addressing the gathering, PM Modi highlighted that this is the first time that Pariksha Pe Charcha is taking place during the Republic Day celebrations and noted that those visiting New Delhi from other states also got a glimpse of the Republic Day. Throwing light on the importance of Pariksha Pe Charcha for the Prime Minister himself, he pointed out the millions of questions that are posed as part of the programme and said that it gives him insight into the minds of the young generations of India. For recognising one's potential, PM Modi said that every student should realise and set appropriate goals and skills set possessed by him or her as it makes the person very capable, he said. He also asked the parents to do a correct assessment of their children and said that most people are average and ordinary but when these ordinary people do extraordinary deeds, they achieve new heights. "We should never be under the pressure that we are average and even if we are average there will be something extraordinary in us, all you need to do is to recognize and nurture that," PM Modi said recalling the global economy and said there was a time when Indian economists and even the Prime Minister were not seen as proficient economists but today India is seen as shining in the comparative economics of the world. PM Modi also urged parents to give children liberty and freedom as there are ample opportunities to grow and develop. "Free your child, let him treasure the liberty, the freedom; give your child the open skies, the ample opportunities to grow and develop. Remain concerned about the way and directions of his steps, but let him walk freely, with high spirits devoid of any limits," he said. PM Modi also encouraged the students to believe in their strengths and use gadgets wisely and smartly. He further said that the average six-hour screen time for gadget users in our country is fruitful for their creators. "People in India spend an average of six hours on screen. This is a matter of concern. Why become a slave of gadgets when God has given us an independent existence and individuality with immense potential?" PM Modi said. "There is an average of six hours of screen time for a gadget user in our country now. This certainly reflects the amount of time and energy any person drains out meaninglessly and without productivity. This a matter of deep concern and a threat to the people's creativity," PM Modi said adding that any person would feel "bliss" once he or she frees the self from the clutches of the misuse of technology. "The moment you feel bliss, you will attain true freedom," he continued. He also enlightened the students to believe in their smartness and underlined the major mistake they make by relying on gadgets. "You have to decide who among you and the gadgets is smarter. Sometimes you believe that the gadgets are smarter- this is where the mistake starts. You will get better results once you start using the gadgets smartly," he said. He reiterated to the students that the gadgets are means to help any person in the journey towards excellence and they can be used in a comparatively better way if used with the presence of mind. Talking further, PM Modi suggested the students create a "No technology zone" so that they can spend considerate time with their family without the distraction from gadgets. "Zenith of success and prosperity lies in remaining energetic. Stay enthusiastic, flourish!" Modi said. (ANI) Praveena Bano was taken from Kurali village to Primary Health Care (PHC) Centre in Boniyar. "During the early morning hours of January 27, Indian Army's detachment at Paro, acted on a distress call from a resident of Sumwali village, seeking the evacuation of his 19-year-old daughter, who was lying unconscious at his relatives' house in Kurali village," said Indian Army in a statement. The Soldiers of Paro Detachment reacted swiftly and provided immediate medical aid. The detachment coordinated a vehicle for the evacuation of the young girl to Boniyar PHC. The villagers expressed their appreciation to the Indian Army's Paro detachment and praised their supportive as well as a humane approach towards the public. (ANI) During the meeting, the ASHA workers' union urged the CM to frame a policy for them besides enhancing their honorarium. Chief Parliamentary Secretary Sanjay Awasthi and MLA Vinod Sultanpuri were also present. The ASHA Workers who are primarily engaged in remote areas have been presenting their demands for fixing their minimum wages, for a long. President of the union, Satya Ranta have urged the Chief Minister to sympathetically look into their demands, keeping in consideration their contribution to the fight against COVID, in rural belts of the State. The Chief Minister while appreciating their role in the implementation of Government health schemes at the grassroots level, lauded them for their efforts of working wholeheartedly during the pandemic in the rural areas of the State. He assured them that the government would prioritise all their genuine demands. (ANI) Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his initiative Pariksha pe Charcha and said that PM solved all the problems of the students with his experience. "He spoke on how to make exams joyful and fun. He spoke on a lot of topics including time management, the importance of smart work, and the development of children," CM Chouhan added. Prime Minister Modi was interacting with students, teachers, and parents during the 6th edition of 'Pariksha Pe Charcha' 2023 in Delhi. He said that life does not stop at one station because of an exam and emphasis should be placed on inner potential. Underlining the importance of learning new languages, PM Modi said that new languages open the doors to know not only new words and sentences but also about the ancient heritage, history, culture, and the age-old civilizations associated with these. Mentioning his visit to the UN where PM Modi spoke in Tamil, he said that India has the oldest language in the world and everyone should be proud of it. PM Modi also urged parents to give children liberty and freedom as there are ample opportunities to grow and develop. He reiterated to the students that the gadgets are means to help any person in the journey towards excellence and they can be used in a comparatively better way if used with the presence of mind. Talking further, PM Modi suggested the students create a "No technology zone" so that they can spend considerate time with their family without the distraction from gadgets. "Zenith of success and prosperity lies in remaining energetic. Stay enthusiastic, flourish!" Modi said. Earlier in the day, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan distributed appointment letters to newly appointed constables in Bhopal. While addressing the event he said, "The roads of MP make criminals scared & this must continue to be like that. Crush the criminals who play with the lives of people & wipe them out completely." (ANI) Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Friday targeted the BJP-led central government, saying the Padma Vibhushan award doesn't do justice to the persona and standing of the late party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav as he deserved the Bharat Ratna. Annoucing this year's picks for the coveted Padma awards on the eve of the 74th Republic Day, on Wednesday, the Centre named the former Defence Minister and Uttar Pradesh chief minister for Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian honour in the country after Bharat Ratna. The late SP stalwart, a long-time Parliamentarian, passed away last year afrer prolonged illness. Speaking to mediapersons in Lucknow on Friday, the SP leader, who was formerly with the BJP, said, "Netaji Mulayam Singh Yadav should a 'Bharat Ratna'. The 'Padma Vibhushan' is not beffting of his stature and personality. The government still has time to honour him with a Bharat Ratna." On his recent remark, demanding deleting of certain "insulting comments and sarcasm" in Ramcharitmanas, a poem on the epic Ramayana, Maurya said, "I respect all religions. I merely objected to certain verses in Ramcharitmanas which hurts the sentiments of 97 per cent Hindus. Those verses reflect poorly on our own religion. They also advocate killing women and the Shudras. This is nothing but an abuse and no religion should stand for such abuse and insult." "I just sought the deletion of a few lines that are disrespectful of women, Adivasis and the Dalits. All communities are being disrespected in the state since the SP was voted out of power. After the BJP came to power, 5, Kalidas Marg (the CM's official residence in Lucknow) was cleansed with Gangajal (water from River Ganga)," added Maurya. However, he was quick to clarify that his remarks on the holy verses were his own and does not reflect his party's position. Coming down heavily on self-styled godman Dhirendra Krishna Shastri alias Bageshwar Dham Sarkar, the SP leader said no religion should have place for such 'pretence' and 'hypocrisy'. The godman claimed that he would make India a 'Hindu rashtra' if he gathers enough public support to the cause and also exhorted people to practise 'Sanatan Dharma'. Earlier, an FIR was filed against Maurya at Lucknow's Hazratganj police station over his statement on Ramcharitmanas. (ANI) Vehicle checking is being done to ensure free, fair, peaceful and violence-free Assembly elections in Tripura. The Election Commission has started taking various enforcement measures. "During Naka checking conducted by Radha Kishorepur Police Station along with Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) personnel at Ramesh Choumuhani, Udaipur Gomati District have recovered cash of Rs 5.57 lakh from a car today. Two persons have been arrested in this connection," the Chief Electoral Officer, Tripura said in a statement. Further investigation related to the case is going on. The Assembly elections are scheduled to be held in Tripura on February 16 this year. (ANI) Deer graze inside the gates of the ExxonMobil Joliet refinery on the Des Plaines River. The refinery exceeded its permitted levels of pollution 40 times between 2019 and 2021, federal records show. (William DeShazer / Chicago Tribune) Oil refineries are dumping massive amounts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals into the Great Lakes and the nations rivers with little, if any, oversight from government regulators, according to a new analysis that found some of the worst polluters are in the Chicago area. During 2021 alone, 81 refineries in the United States that treat waste on-site released 1.6 billion pounds of chlorides, sulfates and other dissolved solids harmful to fish and other aquatic life, the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project determined in its review of federal data. Advertisement The refineries also collectively discharged 60,000 pounds of selenium, an element that can mutate fish, and 15.7 million pounds of nitrogen, which contributes to water-fouling algae blooms and dead zones in important fisheries such as the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the refineries are in low-income, predominantly Black and Latino communities that face disproportionate health risks from industrial pollution. Advertisement Some refinery pollution is legal because federal and state officials have failed to limit it, despite requirements in the 1972 Clean Water Act mandating a review of standards for various chemicals and metals at least every five years based on the latest science and improvements in water treatment technology. You have refineries that may look like they are complying with the law, but the standards are decades old and really dont require very much, said Eric Schaeffer, the groups executive director and former chief of civil enforcement at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Three Chicago-area refineries BP Whiting in Indiana, ExxonMobil Joliet and Citgo in Lemont highlight the consequences of lax regulations and weak enforcement, Schaeffer said Thursday during an online news conference. Even when limits are in place, oil companies often pay minimal fines for violating the law. Some arent penalized at all. The Joliet refinery, on the Des Plaines River southwest of the city, exceeded its permitted levels of pollution 40 times between 2019 and 2021, federal records show. Neither federal nor state officials have sued ExxonMobil or fined the company for its repeated infractions. The BP Whiting refinery in northwest Indiana in 2017. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) The Citgo refinery in Lemont in 2019. (Scott Olson/Getty) [ BP settles another lawsuit over lung-damaging soot from Whiting refinery ] Only three other refineries discharged more selenium than BP Whiting, located on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan about 8 miles from one of Chicagos water intake cribs. Small doses of the element are healthy, but higher levels can cause hair and nail loss, gastrointestinal distress, dizziness and tremors. Citgo Lemont and ExxonMobil Joliet ranked fifth and ninth for selenium pollution, respectively, the analysis showed. A public beach near the Whiting refinery is a popular spot for surfers drawn by big waves when winter winds whip down Lake Michigan from Canada. Advertisement Mitch McNeil, chairman of the local chapter of Surfrider, a nonprofit advocacy group, said he and other surfers have suffered eye, ear and urinary tract infections and gastrointestinal illnesses after swimming in dark brown water that smells alternately like metal, sewage, petroleum and a used ashtray. People always ask us why we keep surfing in dirty water, McNeil said. Our response is we surf in it but you drink it, so you should be just as concerned as we are. BP routinely faces scrutiny about air pollution from the Whiting refinery. Water pollution hasnt drawn as much attention since the Chicago Tribune reported in 2007 that Indiana regulators were planning to relax limits on the refinerys discharges of ammonia, brain-damaging mercury and suspended solids tiny particles of sewage sludge. [ BP under gun to expand production, limit pollution ] The company later backed down and vowed to abide by the terms of its existing permit. Responding to the new analysis of federal data, BP said it will continue to operate consistent with its permit as part of our commitment to safe, compliant and reliable operations, not just at Whiting refinery but at every facility BP operates around the world. Speaking on behalf of the oil industry in general, the American Petroleum Institute did not directly answer questions about the lack of standards for selenium and other pollutants. Advertisement Our industry takes seriously its obligation to protect our nations waters and adheres to strict local, state and federal requirements to ensure water is properly treated and tested prior to leaving a facility, Will Hupman, the trade groups vice president of downstream policy said in a statement. Schaeffer noted that federal pollution standards for refineries and several other industry sectors havent been updated since Ronald Reagan was president during the 1980s. Federal judges are taking notice. Calling existing standards out of date is a charitable understatement, a federal appellate court concluded after the EPA in 2019 updated its 1982 limits on water pollution from coal-fired power plants. Environmental groups asked EPA Administrator Michael Regan in 2021 why the agency had fallen so far behind in meeting its legal obligations under the Clean Water Act. The EPA acknowledged the letter but didnt respond. An EPA spokesman said the agency is aware of the new pollution analysis and will review and respond accordingly. Most of the top polluting refineries are in California or along the Gulf of Mexico in Texas and Louisiana. Also in the top 10 is a Phillips 66 refinery on the Mississippi River in Wood River, a small, heavily industrialized Illinois city upstream from St. Louis. Advertisement The Wood River refinery released more fish-harming nickel than any of the other facilities reviewed. It also ranked among the top 10 for discharges of selenium, nitrogen and total dissolved solids. 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 > For people who live near refineries, the new report reflects what they see, smell and breathe and ingest when eating locally caught fish or while swimming. Gina Ramirez grew up on Chicagos Southeast Side and often visits Whihala Beach in Whiting, 2 miles up the lakeshore from the BP refinery. Nowadays her son joins her. To think that we are recreating among some of the most polluted waters is terrifying, said Ramirez, an outreach manager at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council and senior adviser to the Southeast Environmental Task Force. U.S. EPA needs to step up. John Beard, a former refinery worker who leads the Port Arthur Community Action Network in Texas, said communities like his rely on the EPA to enforce air and water laws because they cant afford to fight for a cleaner environment. (Oil companies) dont build these facilities in Beverly Hills, or River Oaks (in Houston) or Madison Avenue, Beard said. They dont build in communities of affluence that have the ways and means to go about seeking justice and correction. Advertisement Many people say we need the jobs and we need all these products (oil companies) produce, Beard added. Thats true. But we dont need the pollution that comes with it, and they can do better. mhawthorne@chicagotribune.com Following an appeal from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, the government of Himachal Pradesh has issued a notification prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and use of glue traps on Friday. The notification cites Section 11 of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act, 1960, which prohibits causing unnecessary pain and suffering to animals. Through the notification, the government also emphasised that glue traps have an indiscriminate nature to ensnarl not only rodents but also "non-target" animals, including birds, squirrels, reptiles, and frogs. In its appeal, PETA India had requested the state government to take immediate steps to implement circulars issued by the Animal Welfare Board of India advising a ban on glue traps. Previously, the governments of Chhattisgarh, Goa, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana have issued circulars banning glue traps, according to media reports. Last year, the government of Himachal Pradesh demanded action against the manufacture, sale, and use of cruel and illegal gestation and farrowing crates in pig farming. "The manufacturers and sellers of glue traps sentence small animals to hideously slow and painful deaths and can turn buyers into lawbreakers," says PETA India Advocacy Officer Farhat Ul Ain while speaking to the press. "PETA India applauds the Himachal Pradesh government for taking steps to protect animals, no matter how small, and for setting an example for the entire country to follow," he added. The use of glue traps, which cause unnecessary suffering to the animals, is a punishable offence under Section 11 of the PCA Act, 1960, said PETA through its website. According to PETA, glue traps often affect birds, squirrels, reptiles, and frogs which is in violation of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, which prohibits the "hunting" of protected indigenous species. Mice, rats, and other animals caught in the devices can die of hunger, dehydration, or exposure after days of prolonged suffering. Others may suffocate when their noses and mouths become stuck in the glue, while some even chew through their limbs in a desperate bid for freedom and die from blood loss. Those found alive may be thrown away along with the trap or may endure death by bludgeoning or drowning. PETA India, whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to abuse in any way" notes that the best way to control rodent populations is to make the area unattractive or inaccessible to them. PETA suggests eliminating food sources by keeping surfaces and floors clean and storing food in chew-proof containers, seal trash cans, and use of ammonia-soaked cotton balls or rags to drive the rodents away (they hate the smell). After giving them a few days to leave, seal entry points using foam sealant, steel wool, hardware cloth, or metal flashing. Rodents can also be removed using humane cage traps but must be released near where they were found, as animals relocated outside their natural territory struggle to find adequate food, water, and shelter and can die as a result. (ANI) Citing "financial and other reasons", the Ministry of Railways has turned down a proposal of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to allow complimentary passes (free travel facility) travel in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains for President's Police Medal for Gallantry (PPMG) and Police Medal for Gallantry (PMG) awardees and widows of gallantry awards recipients. The proposal was mooted by Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and was taken up by the MHA with the railways. The Railway Board in its reply did not agree to the proposal citing financial and other reasons. Earlier, the PMG and PPMG awardees used to get free travel in executive class once a year. "On the request of CRPF, MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) had taken up a proposal for extension of the facility to travel in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains to the recipients of PMG/PPMG with Govt. of India, Ministry of Railway but the same has not been agreed to by the Competent Authority of Railway," reads a recent communication of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) that was circulated for information. The issue of booking of complimentary pass tickets and extension of the facility to travel in Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains to recipients of PPMG/PMG through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) ticketing website was taken up by the Director General of CRPF through a slew of communications with the Home Ministry which in turn sent the proposal to the Railway Ministry. Following this, the Railway Ministry communicated to the IRCTC requesting it to examine the request in consultation with the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and send a detailed proposal on this. The Railway Board said, ".....the proposal to extend travel by Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains to Police Medal for Gallantry (PMG) /President's Police Medal for Gallantry (PPMG) has been examined several times by this Ministry, but the same has not been agreed to by the Competent Authority for financial and other reasons." The sources in the police establishment said that granting complimentary tickets to the PPMG and PMG awardees and widows of winner of the gallantry awards in executive class in Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express trains was in practice for several years but later in was withdrawn by the Railway ministry. According to sources of the Ministry of Railways, the facility was discontinued during COVID time and it cannot be allowed yet due to some financial and other reasons in premium class trains. (ANI) Denouncing the slanderous remarks of Samajwadi Party MLC Swami Prasad Maurya over Ramcharitmanas, Hindu seers in Magh Mela in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj demanded the government to take stringent action against the Samajwadi Party leader. "Ramcharitmanas is the heart of Sanatan culture and civilization. It is very indecent to comment on such a holy book, which teaches us the art of living life, which teaches our society to move forward, and is our heart," Jagadguru Agamacharya said on Thursday. He added that if Maurya does not have faith in the most revered Lord Shri Ram or Ramcharitmanas, he should leave the country. And I will also demand from the government that the person with such a mentality should be immediately declared a traitor. "The comment made by Maurya against the respect and self-respect of Brahmins is highly condemnable, I demand the government that Swami Prasad Maurya gets the strictest punishment for his statement," another Hindu seer told ANI. Earlier on Thursday, daughter of Samajwadi Party MLC Swami Prasad Maurya and Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sanghamitra Maurya reacted to her father's controversial remark on Ramcharitmanas and said that it should be discussed and not objected to. "See, I think that the comment is not a matter of controversy or debate but a matter of discussion. Whosoever has reverence for Lord Rama and whosoever has read Ramcharitmanas, all of them have quoted that line from time to time. Today my father did the same," Sanghamitra Maurya told ANI. Earlier this month, the Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya sparked a major controversy after he demanded the deletion of "insulting comments and sarcasm" targeted at particular castes and sects in Ramcharitmanas, a poem based on the epic Ramayana. Speaking to ANI, the SP leader said, "I don't have any issue with Ramcharitramanas but parts of it have insulting comments and sarcasm directed at particular castes and sects. Those should be removed." Maurya's remarks gave fresh ammunition to the BJP with its own party chief Akhilesh Yadav distancing himself from the controversial remarks. Apart from Akhilesh Yadav, several MLAs of the party are also keeping themselves away from the statement of Maurya. (ANI) The UP government reached Chandigarh under the leadership of Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta 'Nandi', Minister of State for Agriculture Baldev Singh Aulakh and Minister of State Independent Charge, Home Guard Dharamveer Prajapati. During their visit, team Yogi held Business to Government (B2G) meetings at Hotel Taj, as a result of which investors made numerous investment proposals. About 26 MoUs in various sectors were signed in the roadshow. "With this investment coming on the ground, more than 20,000 employment opportunities will be created in the state," the government said. The ministers involved in the roadshow informed attendees about the vision of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath regarding Uttar Pradesh. Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta 'Nandi' said that Uttar Pradesh has a large number of young and skilled labour force here. "Under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the state has emerged as the 'New Uttar Pradesh of New India'," the minister said. After the addresses of ministers and officials in the roadshow, people representing the business world expressed their views. A question-answer session was also held for the attendees for expressing their views. (ANI) Voting for Assembly elections in Meghalaya will be held on February 27. The results will be declared on March 2. BJP and AITC are among the principal oppositions. BJP's Mawrie alleged that the AITC government led by Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal is the "most corrupted" government across India. Further, Mawrie slammed the AITC leader for saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an "outsider" and terming BJP as an "outsider party" during the last assembly polls in West Bengal. "How can you give a statement that the Prime Minister is an outsider, in that way she (Mamata Banerjee) is more outsider than him", the Meghalaya BJP chief further added. (ANI) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday while presiding over the restoration and consecration of the idol programme at Neelkanth Mahadev Temple located in Bhinmal, Rajasthan said 'Sanatan Dharma is the national religion of India' which every citizen must respect. During his address to the gathering, CM Yogi urged people to run a campaign to restore desecrated religious places on the lines of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. During this event, CM Yogi and Union Water Power Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat planted Rudraksha. Chief Minister Yogi further remarked, "If our religious places have been desecrated during any period, then a campaign for their restoration must be launched on the lines of Ayodhya where the construction of a grand temple of Lord Rama is going on after 500 years with the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All of you devotees contributed to the construction of this grand national temple of Lord Rama, representing national sentiment. " CM Yogi said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the entire countrymen pledge to respect their heritage and preserve it. The restoration of Lord Neelkanth's temple again after 1400 years on a grand note is an example of respect for and protection of heritage, he added. CM Yogi said that the land of Rajasthan is the focal point of coordination of religion, karma, devotion and power. "If you want to understand the real secrets of religion, then it is necessary to come to Rajasthan. (ANI) The official website of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) party headed by actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan has been hacked, said party on Friday. The party also denied reports of its merger with Congress, claiming that its website was hacked. Taking to Twitter, the MNM said, "Miscreants had hacked MNM website. We will bravely respond to those, who are well versed in stifling the democratic forces." Earlier, the MNM's official website stated that the party has decided to merge with Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The statement read, "The year 2023 is going to be crucial for India because this is the year when we must make final preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha election - which is the final battle to save the soul of India. The year started with Kamal Haasan joining the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Rahul Gandhi, where the two towering intellectuals also had a deeply intellectual conversation that was released on YouTube. Kamal Haasan was very impressed with Rahul Gandhi's intellect and commitment to save India, and has been thinking his next moves ever since he returned after meeting the former Congress President." "After various rounds of discussions and deliberations within Makkal Needhi Maiam, it has been decided that not just Haasar, but all of us are with Rahul Gandhi in his attempts to save India, the South Asian Union of States. We have taken a crucial decision today, a day after we celebrated our Republic Day," it further said. "The general public and media are hereby informed that Makkal Needhi Maiam has decided to merge itself with Indian National Congress. The formal merger will take place on January 30, 2023 - the day Mahatma Gandhi was killed by a Hindutva fanatic - in Delhi at Raj Ghat in presence of both Kamal Haasan and Rahul Gandhi," the statement further reads. "On January 30 - we will bring Bapu back from the dead to fight Hindutva. That is the message," it said. "We further hope that other parties will follow Makkal Needhi Maiam and merge themselves with Indian National Congress so that the party becomes strong and big enough to defeat Bhartiya Janata Party. if different ideologies could come together to form Janata Party to defeat Indira Gandhi, there is no reason why parties of almost similar ideologies can't merge together to defeat the Bhartiya Janata Party," it said. "If different ideologies could come together to form Janta Party to defeat Indira Gandhi, there is no reason why parties of almost similar ideologies can't merge together to defeat Bhartiya Janta Party,"Rahul Gandhi said welcoming the decision of Makkal Needhi Maiam. "Ever since Rahul Gandhi said that he had killed Rahul Gandhi, I wanted to do something similar. Today Makkal Needhi Maiam has killed Makkal Needhi Maiant and we are all Congress," Kamal Haasan said. Earlier on January 25, Kamal Haasan, who has extended support to Congress-DMK alliance candidate EVKS Elangovan in the Erode East bypolls, said why he should not expect an MP ticket from Congress. Kamal Haasan said that his party will lend support to the Congress candidate in the Erode East bye-election. Pertinent to mention, Kamal Haasan joined Rahul Gandhi in Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi last month. The development comes after Elangovan met Haasan in his Alwarpet office on January 23 and sought his support for the bypolls. After having a discussion with MNM executive members, Kamal Haasan announced the decision to support the Congress candidate. (ANI) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday alleged that police arrangement "completely collapsed" during Bharat Jodo Yatra on Friday in Jammu and Kashmir and he had "to cancel" his walk. Senior Congress leaders also alleged that security during had been "mishandled by concerned agencies" on Friday. However, Jammu and Kashmir Police dismissed the allegations of security lapse in the Bharat Jodo Yatra which entered the Valley on Friday. The Police said steps had been taken to ensure the best possible security for the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra and organisers and managers did not intimate about a large gathering from Banihal joining the Yatra, which thronged near the starting point. BJP leader Gaurav Bhatia accused Rahul Gandhi of making misleading allegations against the security agencies. "It has become Rahul Gandhi's habit to make baseless allegations. He has made wrong allegations against Kashmir Police. It appears that cheap politics is being practiced," he said. Rahul Gandhi, who briefly addressed a press briefing at Khanabal in Anantnag, said there was a large crowd and it is important that the police manage it. "This morning, we had quite a large crowd that had gathered and we were looking forward to walking on the Bharat Jodo Yatra, but, unfortunately, the police arrangement completely collapsed and the police people, who were supposed to manage the crowd and hold the rope, were nowhere to be seen," Gandhi said. "So, my security people were very uncomfortable with me walking further on the yatra. So, I had to cancel my walk. The other yatris, of course, did the walk. I think, it is important that the police manage the crowd, so that we can do the yatra. It is very difficult for me to go against, what my security people are recommending," he added. The Jammu and Kashmir administration said that the size of the crowd was larger than planned. Addressing a press conference, RK Goyal, Additional Chief Secretary (FC), Home Department of Jammu and Kashmir, said the government is acutely mindful of security concerns and all arrangements have been made to ensure the best possible security for the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra. "The size of the crowd was larger than planned which led to the pressure on the available security resources and created the impression that security arrangements were not in place. However, 15 companies of paramilitary forces and 10 companies of J-K police were deployed," said Goyal. He further said a large portion of the crowd from the Banihal side who were supposed to have returned to Banihal rushed to the Kashmir side. "Contrary to arrangements worked out between Bharat Jodo yatra organizers and security establishment, a large portion of the crowd from Banihal side who were supposed to have returned to Banihal rushed to Kashmir side," he said. "The size of the crowd was larger than planned which led to the pressure on the available security resources & created the impression that security arrangements were not in place. However, 15 companies of paramilitary forces & 10 companies of J-K police were deployed," he added. Dismissing the Congress allegations, Kashmir Zone Police said that only authorized persons who were identified by organisers were allowed on the route of the yatra. The police said that the organizers of the yatra did not inform about the large gathering from Banihal. "Only authorised persons as identified by organisers and frisked crowd was allowed inside towards the route of Yatra. Organisers and managers of BJY did not intimate about large gathering from Banihal joining the Yatra, which thronged near the starting point," Kashmir Zone Police said in a tweet. The police said that full security arrangements were in place. "Full security arrangements were in place including 15 Coys of CAPFs and 10 Coys of JKP, comprising of ROPs and QRTs, route domination, lateral deployment and SFs were deployed for high-ridge and other deployments". "JKP was not consulted before taking any decision on discontinuation of Yatra after conducting 1 km yatra by organizers. Rest of yatra continued peacefully. There was no security lapse at all. We will provide foolproof security," the police added. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh accused the government of playing with security of Congress leader. "Politics has its place but by playing with the security of Rahul Gandhi in the Kashmir valley, the government has stooped to its lowest level. India has already lost Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, any government or administration should desist from doing politics on such matters," he said in a tweet. Party leader KC Venugopal alleged that security had been "mishandled by concerned agencies". "For 15 mins, there have been no security officers with the Bharat Jodo Yatra here. This is a serious lapse. Rahul Gandhi and other yatris can not walk without security," Venugopal told the media. "The sudden withdrawal of security personnel from the D-area has caused a serious security breach at the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Banihal, Kashmir. Who ordered this? The authorities responsible must answer for this lapse and take appropriate steps to prevent such incidents in future," Venugopal tweeted. Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, which is in its final leg in Jammu and Kashmir, resumed on Friday morning from the National Highway-44, Banihal Railway station, in the UT's Ramban district. Security was tightened in the area in the wake of the recent twin blasts on the outskirts of Jammu city on January 22 which rocked a busy locality in Narwal leaving atleast nine people injured. The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started in Kanyakumari on September 7, will conclude on January 30 in Srinagar after covering 3,970 km, 12 states and two Union territories. (ANI) The Delhi High Court on Friday asked the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government to set up 'One-Stop Centres' for women and children in every district in compliance with a Supreme Court decision of 2018. The court's direction came while a division bench comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad was hearing a plea against media houses for revealing the victim's identity and accused persons' name in a rape case of Hyderabad. The court directed the Delhi government to act under the relevant section(s) of the Indian Penal Code and lay down the criteria as directed by the Supreme Court for identifying social welfare institutions or organisations, to whom the next-of-kin to give the authorisation for declaration of the name. The court referred to the Supreme Court judgement in Nipun Saxena vs Union of India passed on December 11, 2018. The bench also noted that the Delhi government has not followed the Supreme Court order to date, wherein the court had requested the state governments and Union Territories to set up at least one one-stop centre in every district within one year of the judgment. The top court had ruled that the centres should employ well-trained staff, have sufficient medical facilities with counsellors and psychiatrists available on call and video conferencing facility for recording statements of the victims and courtrooms for the trial of such cases in an attempt to make such centres a central police station where all women-and children-related crimes are registered. The bench said: "The state governments are already in contempt in not adhering to the time limit fixed by the Supreme Court in setting up such centres within one year from the date of the judgment passed on December 11, 2018." The high court also said that it does not find it appropriate to initiate proceedings against media houses and reported individuals or to direct investigating authorities to take cognisance of the offence. "With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of, along with pending applications, if any," the court said. --IANS spr/pgh ( 356 Words) 2023-01-27-20:18:02 (IANS) JD-U Parliamentary Board President Upendra Kushwaha on Friday termed Nitish Kumar a liar and claimed that he only had requested him to join the JD-U in 2021. "After the JD-U obtained 43 seats in Bihar Assembly election 2020, Nitish Kumar called me in 2021 and invited me to join the party. Now, he is saying that I was joining and leaving. The allegation levelled against me is absolutely incorrect and I can swear on my son. Can he do the same. "Nitish Ji has one son and so do I. Let him swear on his son and say how many times he had called me. Now, you are asking to meet me. Whenever I put my point, you have asked me whether I would join the BJP. If I am saying anything wrong, set the date and time. We will go there and take the oath on our respective sons," Kushwaha said. Stressing he wanted to put his perspective in the public domain, he demanded the call details of 2021 be seen. "The calls came from the CM's residence 1 Anne Marg and not from my bungalow. It would clarify who is lying. Nitish Kumar is alleging that I am joining and leaving the party whenever I wish too. It is absolutely incorrect. I had merged my party RLSP in the JD-U following a request from Nitish Kumar. After that call, two senior ministers were assigned to talk to me following the call from Nitish Kumar," he said. "On October 31, 2009, I was in another party and Nitish Kumar was the Chief Minister. When we met on that day to celebrate the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, he requested me from the dais and asked me to join the JD-U," he added. Kushwaha said that when he was admitted to AIIMS Delhi, Nitish Kumar gave a statement in the media, saying that I should meet him to address my grievances. "I am saying that he is not available to meet me. I have demanded the party's Executive Committee meeting where I could put my point but the national President of the party ignored it. The RJD leaders are claiming that a deal had happened during the formation of the Mahagathbandhan government, I was demanding that the deal be revealed," he said. "At present, there is no leader in the party who could struggle and make it strong," he claimed. Nitish Kumar had on Wednesday said that Kushwaha should leave the JD-U as soon as possible, and no one would stop him. --IANS ajk/vd ( 440 Words) 2023-01-27-20:28:02 (IANS) Faculty at the University of Florida discuss how to deal with ChatGPT on Jan. 13, 2023, in Gainesville. In response to the increased student use of ChatGPT, a chatbot that generates articulate and nuanced text, colleges and universities are restructuring some courses and taking preventive measures. (Todd Anderson/The New York Times/NYT) An administrator at the college where I was teaching English called to say a lawsuit had been filed against the school by a student with hearing loss, alleging I violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Advertisement It was the late 1990s, and the news was a surprise. Through three decades of teaching, the only complaints, by and large, were from students who received failing grades. Whereas, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, a man in his late 20s who paid close attention during lessons and whom I could always count on for a smile when I told a joke, dropped the class before grades were issued. I puzzled over the basis for the legal action. Granted, my seminars included a lot of oral discussion. But the student had been assigned a sign language interpreter who conveyed everything said, whether by me while writing on the whiteboard or by other students participating in discussions. Advertisement There were no quizzes or tests, and the final grade was based primarily on five essays that students completed during the term. But two of the essays had to be written in class and turned in by the end of the 80-minute period. Those two assignments were what the student objected to, alleging that I did not make accommodations, under the ADA, for his individual learning style and needs. Before he withdrew, he told me that he required more time for the in-class essay. I conceded that he could finish at home, as long as he started it here and showed me the unfinished work. This he wouldnt do, sitting at his desk, signing with his interpreter. My suggestion that he at least get a couple of sentences down, or a brief introductory paragraph that I might read before he left, was also declined. When I related all of this to the attorney deposing me over the telephone, he asked why I did not allow the student to do the work at home. I explained that 40% of a students grade must derive from writing that I know is authentic and not plagiarized. I told him that I hang on to the in-class essays to use as a control, for judging the ownership of the other three. Later, I learned the lawsuit was unsuccessful. The W remained on the students transcript, no refund was issued and he retook the class with another teacher. More importantly, a simple teaching practice for ensuring academic integrity was affirmed. And this is the same method that can be just as effectively employed today to detect and deter cheating in college with ChatGPT. The language-processing artificial intelligence bot generates competent, focused writing, which many fear will be used by college students to produce papers for their professors. Advertisement Its a free program invented by research company OpenAI that can swiftly provide cogent-sounding sentences and paragraphs in response to a question or a prompt. For example, a student doing a paper on climate change might feed ChatGPT four prompts that produce four 500-word blocks of text explaining climate change and elaborating on its causes, possible solutions and the potential consequences for not taking action. Voila! A 2,000-word term paper. [ Sheldon Jacobson: Is ChatGPT actually exposing problems with college education? ] It works a bit like Google. But instead of responding to a search prompt, as Google does, by offering and excerpting articles, blogs and websites, ChatGPT generates a direct answer to the prompt in nearly flawless text and at reading and vocabulary levels as basic or as advanced as you want. Rather like a robotic term-paper mill. ChatGPT uses artificial intelligence to write an article by cribbing from an enormous amount of data it has been fed from millions of sources without citing those sources. This last fact alone makes it a lousy cheat sheet, since college professors routinely require documentation of sources used in essays and term papers. And for informal or personal essays requiring no research, an in-class written essay or timed essay test would thwart a cheater. Of what practical use, then, is ChatGPT? Advertisement It may prove to be an effective time-saver in situations in which plagiarism is acceptable or forgiven. For example, a speech writer might use ChatGPT to produce a 15-minute stump speech for a politician, which can then be easily adapted for each town they visit. A second draft can be pumped up by directing ChatGPT to add topical humor or an inspiring anecdote. A teacher in a hurry can use ChatGPT to craft a class lecture or discussion, with a prompt such as: What were the four major causes of the Civil War? Anyone in need of a toast, instructions for CPR, a letter of apology or a humorous set of wedding vows might also benefit. I would use it to generate a term paper right before my students eyes and then show them every sentence I would flag with my red pen, for its obvious undocumented appropriation from a published source. [ Editorial: Did your kid write that essay? Or did ChatGPT? ] If youre a student, beware: 9 out of 10 who cheat with ChatGPT would likely be caught, earning an F for their trouble or outright expulsion. (See the article Cheating in class at new level published in the Jan. 19 Tribune.) Advertisement And the 10th student, smart enough to evade detection, is probably smart enough that they dont need ChatGPT in the first place. David McGrath is an emeritus English professor at the College of DuPage and author of South Siders. He can be reached at mcgrathd@dupage.edu. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday declined to respond specifically to allegations levelled by party leader Upendra Kushwaha, who claimed that he was invited to join the JD-U by him only. Nitish Kumar, who was furious over Upendra Kushwaha for the last one week, took a more controlled approach on Friday, saying that he does not want to comment on him. "The questions about him come from the media. I was avoiding him. If he had any problem, he would have talked within the party," he said. "He was trying to join the JD-U 7 to 8 months before the merger in 2021. He had talked to me and then I allowed him to join the party. He was doing well within the party. Suddenly, he started talking about lots of things. If he has anything in mind, he should have to talk within the party and not go for the press conference and tweet," Nitish Kumar said. Asked about Kushwaha's claim that the first call was made from the CM's residence in 2021 and he requesting Kushwaha to join the party in 2009, Nitish Kumar declined to answer, saying he was the one who sent Kushwaha to the Rajya Sabha, and then, the state Legislative Council, and he became an MP once from another party. Nitish Kumar also refused to take Kushwaha's challenge to swear on his son's head, saying that these things have no meaning. "People of old generation would tell you what works we have done in the past were," he said. "Upendra Kushwaha has no value in the JD-U, we obtained only 43 seats in 2020 Assembly election and I am in immense pain over it. Everyone knows who cheated us. We had transferred our votes to the BJP and they did not do the same. Kushwaha is saying that the party is weakening. I am doing Samadhan Yatra in Bihar and getting a huge response," he said. --IANS ajk/vd ( 337 Words) 2023-01-27-21:04:01 (IANS) Union minister Jitendra Singh on Friday said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, the government is constantly removing bottlenecks for faster disposal of litigation in the Central Administrative Tribunal across the country, said a press release by Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions. While addressing the two-day Orientation Workshop for the Members of the Central Administrative Tribunal at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) in New Delhi today, Jitendra Singh, who is also the Chairman of the IIPA Executive Council, said that the government, in the last eight years, has repealed around 2,000 laws which had become obsolete. He said that the government has looked forward and made efforts to reduce the burden of the judiciary by simplifying procedures and removing hurdles, added the statement. Singh also launched the Namani Gange Calendar on the occasion. Singh said that while conceptualising the idea of a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), it was expected that the setting up of such Administrative Tribunals to deal exclusively with service matters would go a long way in not only reducing the burden of the various Courts and thereby giving them more time to deal with other cases expeditiously but would also provide to the persons covered by the Administrative Tribunals speedy relief in respect of their grievances. He said that Parliament enacted Article 323A to provide for special Tribunals for the purpose of hearing specialized matters like service matters on two grounds, first, the High Court is so much burdened with other types of works and, therefore, it is not possible for it to expeditiously dispose of service matters. And, second, the service matters need an amount of specialization and, therefore, an element of the experience of service matters is necessary The Union Minister said that with the increasing pendency of litigation before the High Courts, the theory of 'alternative institutional mechanisms' has also been propounded to defend the establishment of Administrative Tribunals. He noted that these Administrative Tribunals are expected to function as a viable substitute for the High Courts. Singh said that the Administrative Tribunals are distinguishable from the ordinary courts with regard to their jurisdiction and procedure, as they exercise jurisdiction only in relation to the service matters of the litigants covered by the Act. He stated that these Tribunals are also free from many of the procedural technicalities of the ordinary courts. Singh said that the Tribunal is thus now manned by persons having vast experience in judiciary and administration, resulting not only in quick disposal of cases, but quality judgments as well. He appreciated the fact that these Members are discharging their duties similarly as are being discharged by higher judiciary in the country, independently of government intervention and the Chairman of the Tribunal can be given powers akin to that of the Chief Justice of a High Court. The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) was set up on November 1, 1985. with Benches in five places. As of date, it has 19 regular Benches, 17 of which operate at the principal seats of High Courts and the remaining two at Jaipur and Lucknow. Both the newly created Benches at Jammu and Srinagar have been made functional. The Jammu Bench was made functional w.e.f. June 8, 2020, and the Srinagar Bench has recently been made functional w.e.f. November 23, 2021. Singh noted with satisfaction that since its inception in 1985 and up to November 30, 2022, 8,93,705 cases have been received in CAT for adjudication (including those transferred from High Courts), out of which 8,12,806 cases have been disposed of, leaving a pendency of 80,899 cases. He noted that the disposal rate by CAT, on average, has been above 90 per cent. He said that there is no doubt that the Central Administrative Tribunal has come a long way and is rightly being characterised by the uniqueness of its jurisdiction and procedure. Freedom from the long-drawn mandatory procedural technicalities has enabled it to achieve an unmatched disposal rate. (ANI) Because of the nature of seismic waves after they reach the area, earthquakes in the Nenana Basin region of Interior Alaska persist longer and feel significantly stronger than quakes of equivalent magnitude in non-basin regions. This is because seismic vibrations are enhanced as they bounce off the sides and bottom of the sedimentary basin, which is deeper than Denali and contains millions of years of fill material. Kyle Smith, a former University of Alaska Fairbanks Ph.D. student, published research on the Nenana Basin in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America in December. Smith's adviser, UAF Geophysical Institute seismology professor Carl Tape, is a co-author on the paper, along with associate professor Victor Tsai of Brown University in Rhode Island. The Nenana Basin is one of the deepest in Alaska. The scientists found that seismometers overlying the basin's deepest areas recorded stronger low-frequency amplification and that monitors at the basin's shallow edges recorded minimal amplification as the seismic waves ricocheted inside the basin. They also found that higher frequency amplification occurs at monitors over both deeper and shallower areas. "That reverberation is what is making the ground motion last longer," Tape said. "And the slowing down of the waves is what makes it feel stronger." "In many places around the world -- Tokyo, Mexico, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay, the Puget-Willamette lowland in Oregon, Seattle -- it's all the same thing: sedimentary basins near active seismic areas," Tape said. "All those places have enhanced hazards, because they are in sedimentary basins." The researchers analyzed data from 48 local and regional earthquakes recorded by 13 temporary broadband seismic monitors installed in the Minto Flats seismic zone from 2015 to 2019. The monitors, the first seismic stations installed in Minto Flats, are part of the Fault Locations and Alaska Tectonics from Seismicity project funded by the National Science Foundation. They cataloged the wave behavior of those earthquakes, which included magnitude 3 and 4 earthquakes beneath the basin and several regional earthquakes greater than magnitude 6. Cataloged earthquakes also included some considered exotic: very low-frequency earthquakes, not previously seen in strike-slip faults such as those below the Nenana Basin, and earthquakes immediately preceded by a "nucleation" signal, a sign that an earthquake is about to occur. Those events make the fault zone and basin geologically exceptional and add to the researchers' understanding of the basin's influence on seismic wave behavior, Tape said. The deep sedimentary basin is located in the Minto Flats fault zone, one of three zones in Alaska's central region. Others to the east are the Fairbanks and Salcha zones. The basin, 56 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, lies west of Nenana and south of Minto. It is nearly 4.5 miles deep, making it one of the deepest in mainland Alaska. Denali, North America's tallest peak, rises about 3.85 miles above sea level just 125 miles southwest of the Nenana Basin's center. The basin sits between two active faults parallel to its length. It was defined in 2015 as a transtensional basin, a type in which the bedrock pulls apart and thins. The basin is believed to have formed 66 million to 84 million years ago in the early Cenozoic or late Mesozoic eras, when Alaska had a warmer and wetter climate than today. Sediment has filled it since then. David Barnes of the U.S. Geological Survey discovered it in 1961 during gravity anomaly surveys. A commercial core sample from about 2 miles deep revealed just under a mile of gravel deposited by the Tanana River over the past 6 million years. It is likely that the process continues today, with the basin sinking and continuing to accumulate sediments. "It's that unconsolidated pile that is causing these seismic effects that are so profound," Tape said. Scientists have long known that basins affect seismic waves. The catalog of Nenana Basin seismic wave behavior provides a way for seismologists to improve their understanding of some of the world's nearly 800 known sedimentary basins. (ANI) Scientists have detailed a lifestyle switch that occurs in marine bacteria, where they change from coexisting with algae hosts in a mutually beneficial interaction to suddenly killing them. The results are published today in eLife. Details of this lifestyle switch could provide new insights into the regulation of algal bloom dynamics and its impact on large-scale biogeochemical processes in marine environments. Single-celled algae, known as phytoplankton, form oceanic blooms which are responsible for around half of the photosynthesis that occurs on Earth, and form the basis of marine food webs. Therefore, understanding the factors controlling phytoplankton growth and death is crucial to maintaining a healthy marine ecosystem. Marine bacteria from the Roseobacter group are known to pair up and coexist with phytoplankton in a mutually beneficial interaction. The phytoplankton provide the Roseobacter with organic matter useful for bacterial growth, such as sugar and amino acids, and the Roseobacter in return provides B-vitamins and growth-promoting factors. However, recent studies have revealed that Roseobacters undergo a lifestyle switch from coexistence to pathogenicity, where they kill their phytoplankton hosts. A chemical compound called DMSP is produced by the algae and is hypothesised to play a role in this switch. "We have previously identified that the Roseobacter Sulfitobacter D7 displays a lifestyle switch when interacting with the phytoplankter Emiliania huxleyi," states first author Noa Barak-Gavish, a PhD graduate in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. "However, our knowledge about the factors that determine this switch was still limited." To characterise this lifestyle switch, Barak-Gavish and colleagues performed a transcriptomics experiment, allowing them to compare the genes that are differentially expressed by Sulfitobacter D7 in coexistence or pathogenicity stages. Their experimental setup demonstrated that Sulfitobacter D7 grown in a pathogenicity-inducing medium have a higher expression of transporters for metabolites such as amino acids and carbohydrates than those grown in a coexistence medium. These transporters serve to maximise the uptake of metabolites released from dying Emiliania huxleyi (E. huxleyi). Furthermore, in pathogenic Sulfitobacter D7, the team observed an increased activation of flagellar genes that are responsible for the movement of the bacteria. These two factors allow Sulfitobacter D7 to utilise an 'eat-and-run' strategy, where they beat competitors to the material released upon E. huxleyi cell death and swim away in search of another suitable host. The team confirmed the role of DMSP in bringing about the switch to this killer behaviour by mapping the genes activated in Sulfitobacter D7 in response to the presence of DMSP and other algae-derived compounds. However, when only DMSP was present, the lifestyle switch did not occur. This implies that, although DMSP mediates the lifestyle switch, it is also dependent on the presence of other E. huxleyi-derived infochemicals -- compounds that are produced and used by organisms to communicate. DMSP is an infochemical produced by many phytoplankton, so it is likely that the other required infochemicals allow the bacteria to recognise a specific phytoplankton host. In natural environments, where many different microbial species exist together, this specificity would ensure that bacteria only invests in altering gene expression and its metabolism when the correct algal partner is present. The study also uncovers the role of algae-derived benzoate in Sulfitobacter D7 and E. huxleyi interactions. Even in high concentrations of DMSP, benzoate functions to maintain the coexistence lifestyle. Benzoate is an efficient growth factor and is provided by E. huxleyi to Sulfitobacter D7 during coexistence. The authors propose that as long as Sulfitobacter D7 benefits from coexistence by receiving materials for growth, it will maintain the mutualistic interaction. When less benzoate and other growth substrates are provided, the bacteria undergoes the lifestyle switch and kills its phytoplankton host, swallowing up any remaining useful materials. The exact mechanism of Sulfitobacter D7 pathogenicity against E. huxleyi remains to be discovered, and the authors call for further work in this area. The cellular machinery Type 2 secretion system -- a complex that many bacteria use to move materials across their cell membrane -- is more prevalent in Sulfitobacter D7 compared to other Roseobacters, hinting at a unique method of pathogenicity that requires further investigation. "Our work provides a contextual framework for the switch from coexistence to pathogenicity in Roseobacter-phytoplankton interactions," concludes senior author Assaf Vardi, a Professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science. "These interactions are an underappreciated component in the regulation of algal bloom dynamics and further study in this area could provide insights into their impact on the fate of carbon and sulfur in the marine environment." (ANI) As the Taliban banned female employees from working at NGOs, the United Nations Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths said that the quality of the UN aid will be impacted to quite an extent if Afghan women cannot go to work in the country, TOLOnews reported on Thursday. He also stated that six million people will face famine if timely aid is not provided. "If we cannot get female employees back to work--which they are working in those two sectors and we are going to expand it, but if they weren't--we would not be able to operate because we would not be able to deliver the kind of quality of programming we need. It is a practical matter," he said in an interview with TOLOnews, as he expressed concerns about the ban on female employees by the Taliban. Griffiths reported that the UN had made the largest-ever worldwide plea for Afghanistan in 2023, asking for USD 4.6 billion. "They should respect the rules of our country and make their operations in accordance with the rules of our country," said Islamic Emirate's spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, as per TOLOnews. "There isn't time for us to go back. All we have is the determination to move forward. Women will eventually be allowed because they have a right to, but we still need them to give birth. Afghanistan, therefore, represents the top humanitarian priority in the entire world. You have witnessed these visits because of that," Griffiths added. Amid the ongoing violation of the rights of Afghan women under the Taliban regime, Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid recently said in a statement that overturning restrictions against women is not a priority for the group, reported Khaama Press. The latest action by the Taliban to ban women from working in NGOs generated protests by female university students and women activists in several regions of the country, as well as sparked condemnation globally. (ANI) At least 11 people have died in the Russian missile strike that hit Ukraine on Thursday, CNN reported citing the Ukrainian State Emergency Services. The strike also left 11 people injured. Most of the damage has been caused to the housing in the Kyiv region, the service's spokesperson Oleksandr Khorunzhyi said in a statement adding that around 100 rescuers are involved in the recovery process after the attack. The US State Department, in a regular briefing on Thursday, condemned the attack on Ukraine and extended sympathies to all those who were hurt. "As you all saw, Russia launched more missiles across Ukraine last night ...On behalf of US, I want to extend sympathies to all those who are hurt and condolences to the families of those who are killed across Ukraine," Principal Deputy Spokesperson of the US State Department Vedant Patel said. The attack came after US and Germany agreed to provide battle tanks to Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict. 35 buildings were damaged in the missile strikes and two fires broke out. The missiles caused damage in 11 regions throughout Ukraine, Khorunzhyi said, according to CNN. "Most of the damages to the housing are in Kyiv region," he added. "We have connected 88 power generators in order to supply electricity to social facilities such as hospitals, etc." Lat week, at least 30 people were killed in an apartment block in the city of Dnipro after it was hit by Russian missiles. Natalia Babachenko, the regional governor's adviser, said 30 people had been confirmed dead so far, and more than 30 were hospitalised, with 12 in critical condition. She further estimated that 30 to 40 people could still be trapped beneath the debris. Citing the emergency workers who said they heard screams for help from beneath the rubble of the nine-storey apartment building in the east-central Ukrainian city, Al Jazeera reported that the workers used silence to direct their rescue efforts amid freezing temperatures. Since October, Moscow has been bombarding Ukraine's energy infrastructure with missiles and drones, causing widespread blackouts and disruptions to central heating and running water. (ANI) Nine Palestinians, including an elderly woman, were killed by Israeli forces on Thursday during clashes in the refugee camp of Jenin, CNN reported, referring to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The raid that took place in the West Bank city took the overall toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to 29 this year. Israeli military claimed there had been no injuries on their side, but they added that they were looking into "reports regarding more casualties during the exchange of fire." According to the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC), Israeli forces first made it impossible for medical personnel to get to the Jenin camp, where four injured people were in serious condition. It went on to say that Israeli forces also shot tear gas canisters at the Jenin Government Hospital, resulting in children suffering from inhalation injuries, according to CNN. However, the Israeli force refuted claims of innocent Palestinians being killed in the raid and added that they were operating in Jenin Thursday to catch a "terror squad belonging to the Islamic Jihad terror organization," saying in a statement that it killed three "terrorists," the American broadcaster CNN reported. As bloodshed continues to remain a part of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh called on the United Nations and international human rights organizations to "intervene urgently to provide protection to the children, youth and women." (ANI) A protest was held in Swat in front of the press club. President of the PTM local chapter Mir Inam Khan led the demonstration, and Waqif Khan, Aftab Khan, Abid Jan, Samiul Haq, Dr Khalid Mehmood, and Attorney Ataullah Jan also spoke. The demonstrators carried signs and banners with slogans against the release of Rawo Anwar and 17 other suspects in the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud, as per Dawn. Notably, the extrajudicial killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a budding model from the ex-FATA region in 2018 by Senior Superintendent Rao Anwar galvanized the Pashtun community and institutionalized its collective efforts into the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) under Manzoor Pashteen's leadership. During the rallies, the speakers said that Naqeebullah Mehsud was murdered brutally. "We are not against the state, but against the wrong decision of the state institutions. We will not tolerate such injustice and wrong decision by any court," they said, according to Dawn. Anwar, along with around two dozen of his subordinates, has been charged with killing the aspiring model from South Waziristan and three others after dubbing them "Taliban" in a "fake shoot-out" on January 13, 2018. The matter was investigated under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. So-called "encounter killings" are common in Pakistan. (ANI) An international Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation will visit Pakistan next week to discuss the ninth review of the USD 7 billion Extended Fund Facility, Dawn reported citing the official. According to the statement released by the IMF, the international fund organization Resident Representative for Pakistan Esther Perez Ruiz said: "At the request of the authorities, an in-person Fund mission is scheduled to visit Islamabad [from] January 31 - February 9 to continue the discussions under the ninth EFF review." The Pakistani rupee has dived to a historic low against the United States dollar after an exchange cap was lifted as the cash-strapped country seeks the help from IMF. Earlier, Pakistan entered a USD 6 billion programme in 2019 but later on, it increased to USD 7 billion. If everything goes well then the international organization would release USD 1.8 billion, which is still pending, according to Dawn. It had earlier been put off for two months due to the Pakistan Muslim League-N-led government's unwillingness to accept certain conditions placed before it by the IMF, and the disagreements have yet to be resolved. However, it is pertinent to mention that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has indicated that the government is finally ready to swallow the bitter pill of the IMF's "stringent" conditions to revive the loan programme. In the statement, Ruiz said that the mission would focus on policies to restore domestic and external sustainability, including strengthening the fiscal position with durable and high-quality measures while supporting the vulnerable and those affected by the floods; restoring the viability of the power sector and reverse the continued accumulation of circular debt; and re-establish the proper functioning of the foreign exchange market, allowing the exchange rate to clear the forex shortage. "Stronger policy efforts and reforms are critical to reduce the current elevated uncertainty that weighs on the outlook, strengthen Pakistan's resilience, and obtain financing support from official partners and the markets that is vital for Pakistan's sustainable development," Dawn quoted her as saying. The Financial Post recently reported that with Pakistan Finance Ministry being unable to furnish tenable answers for the IMF to commence formal negotiations on the 9th review, it may delay the release of funds from the IMF. The IMF visit to Pakistan scheduled for October has been delayed amidst differences between Pakistan's commitment to the IMF on fiscal consolidation. "Pakistan and the global lender continued talks virtually but differences still persisted over tax collection targets, and non-starter energy reforms including hiking of gas tariff, rising circular debt, and expenditure overrun, making consensus harder to strike on a staff-level agreement for completion of the review," according to the Financial Post report. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that the government knows that it has no other option but to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and face humiliation and that their legs start shaking at the name of elections, reported The Express Tribune. (ANI) An Interpol delegation on Friday visited the National Police Memorial in New Delhi and paid homage to the heroes who laid down their lives to keep India safe. The Interpol delegation came after an invite from Prime minister Narendra Modi. PM Modi, in the 90th Interpol General Assembly in Pragati Maidan, appealed to all the dignitaries to consider visiting the National Police Memorial and National War Memorial in New Delhi and pay homage to the heroes who laid down their lives to keep India safe. The 90th General Assembly of Interpol was held in New Delhi between October 18-21 last year and delegations from 195 member countries comprising Ministers, police and intelligence chiefs of countries and heads of national central bureaus, and senior police officers attended the event. PM Modi also expressed hope that the 90th Interpol General Assembly proves to be an effective and successful platform for tackling crime, corruption and terrorism. "Let communication, collaboration and cooperation defeat crime, corruption and terrorism", the Prime Minister concluded. Throwing light on the evils of transnational terrorism, the Prime Minister remarked that India has been combating it for several decades, even before the world recognised it. "We knew the price of safety and security. Thousands of our people made the ultimate sacrifice in this fight", Modi added. Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the National Police Memorial to the nation on Police Commemoration Day on October 21, 2018. The Memorial gives Police Forces a sense of national identity, pride, unity of purpose, common history and destiny. 'Police Commemoration Day' is observed every year in memory of ten valiant Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killed during patrol duty in an ambush by heavily armed Chinese troops in Hot Springs, Ladakh on October 21, 1959. To honour the police personnel who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty for national security, the idea of setting up a National Police Memorial in Delhi was approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 1992. The Memorial includes a Central Sculpture, the Wall of Valour and an underground Museum. As one enters the site, the flower-laden ramparts with two large symmetrically placed bowls, laced with flowers, symbolize the everlasting spirit of Police martyrs and their dedication. (ANI) A Chicago police evidence technician processes the scene of a fatal shooting on Jan. 6, 2023, in the 600 block of South Independence Boulevard. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune) On Feb. 28, Chicago voters pick their next mayor from a field of nine candidates. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the two top vote-getters face a runoff April 4. After three violent years, including more than 3,500 shootings and 700 homicides last year, polls show crime and violence are, by far, the top issues. As voters weigh their options, Chicago CRED can share insights from an analysis conducted using a review of data and research, interviews with local leaders from the South and West sides, meetings with participants and an examination of best practices in New York and Los Angeles. Both cities have achieved dramatic drops in gun violence over the last 25 years, while Chicago has remained stubbornly high. Based on the analysis, to bring the annual number of homicides below 400, which has not occurred since 1965, four things must happen: Advertisement 1. We must scale up violence prevention programs that directly engage with the highest-risk individuals. 2. We must cut off the pipeline of high-risk youths into street life. Advertisement 3. We must strategically rebuild high-crime communities, targeting the blocks with the most crime. 4. And we need much more effective policing. Items one, two and three require significantly more public and private funding. Item four requires a bigger commitment to drive change in the Chicago Police Department. The mayoral candidates are all talking about crime. Several have released crime plans. Some promise to address root causes, such as lack of employment, housing and education. Some promise to hire more police. Crime-weary voters should consider the following facts. Data from the Cook County states attorneys office shows that only a third of homicides in Chicago over the last 10 years have led to an arrest. And, in the last three years, citywide arrest rates for homicides have declined to 28% in 2022 from 37% in 2020. Were going in the wrong direction. For nonfatal shootings, arrest rates are much lower, triggering cycles of retaliation. In the absence of true justice and meaningful deterrence, we get street justice. There are at least three contributing factors to our low arrest rates. First, the sheer volume of shootings is overwhelming. Second, no one is accountable. And third, trust levels among people and police are low due to a long history of abuse. Even cooperating witnesses who we know routinely report negative experiences with police investigators. Until Chicago gets serious about police reform, we will continue to have low arrest and homicide clearance rates, no matter how many detectives we have. The bigger challenge is that Chicago needs a credible plan for more effective policing a complex blend of recruiting, training, deployment, supervision, mental health support and accountability. Absent more effective policing, more police will not make Chicago safer. As it is, we have more police per capita than almost every other big city, yet no one feels safe. Advertisement As for violence prevention and youth programs, our field also needs to continually improve, build capacity and hold each other accountable for outcomes. That means closely tracking participants and being transparent about their safety and success. Research from Northwestern University shows that people enrolled in Chicago CRED are about half as likely to be shot or rearrested as they would be if they had not enrolled. Other violence prevention programs also show promising results. But we can all do better. The violence prevention field also needs considerably more resources to serve the estimated 21,000 highest-risk individuals in Chicago today and reduce the pipeline of youths heading into the street life. The time for half-measures is over. The next mayor must commit to fund successful violence prevention programs at scale on a permanent basis. Lastly, a recent Urban Institute study of Chicago shows much more private investment in non-Black communities compared to Black communities. The business community must step up. City initiatives such as INVEST South/West are a tiny slice of the pie compared to what the private sector spends. The business community must also give jobs to more individuals who are at risk. They need to eat, pay rent and support families. If they cant work in the legal economy, theyll remain in the illegal economy. Homicides in Chicago dropped by 14% last year. If we match that decline for each of the next five years and publicly report how we are doing on each of the four strategies outlined above, Chicago will be under 400 homicides for the first time since 1965. The next mayor of Chicago should unite the city behind this goal. As urban designer Daniel Burnham famously said, Make no little plans. Advertisement Arne Duncan is a managing partner of Emerson Collective, the founder of Chicago CRED and a former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. Israel launched a series of bombing raids in the central Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks from Gazan terrorists, and said that the raids will lead to "significant harm to Hamas efforts" in building up its arms, The Times of Israel reported on Friday. The Israel Defence Force (IDF) said that they targeted Bottom of Form, an underground facility where rockets are manufactured in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza. "The attack will lead to significant harm to Hamas' efforts to build up its arms," the IDF said in a statement, according to The Times of Israel. Footage published on social media showed several large explosions from the airstrikes in Gaza. Nine Palestinians, including several members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) cell, other gunmen, and at least one uninvolved civilian, were killed, and another 20 were wounded in the clashes, reported The Times of Israel.. Israel says it holds Hamas responsible for all violence emanating from the Gaza Strip and generally responds to rocket fire with airstrikes against the group regardless of who launched the attack. According to Israeli officials, the IDF had foiled a "ticking time bomb" in Jenin on Thursday after receiving "accurate intelligence" from the Shin Bet security agency about the PIJ cell's hideout apartment in the camp, reported The Times of Israel. As tit-for-tat continues, Israel and Gazan terrorists continued launching their rockets against each other. After Israel launched rockets, on Friday morning Ghaza launched several rockets toward southern Israel. At least three rockets were fired from Gaza at around 3:30 am Friday, Israeli jets bombed sites said to belong to the Hamas terror group in retaliation for a rocket attack hours earlier. One of the rockets was intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system, another landed in an open field and a third fell short of the border, the army said, after alarms sounded in the towns of Nir Oz, Ein Habesor and Magen. Separately on Thursday afternoon, a Palestinian man was killed in clashes with Israeli troops in the town of a-Ram, north of Jerusalem, the PA Health Ministry said. Tensions have recently soared in the West Bank as the Israel Defence Force presses on with an anti-terror offensive mostly focused on the northern West Bank to deal with a series of attacks that have left 31 people in Israel dead in 2022, as per the The Times of Israel report. (ANI) Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan after the arrest of PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said that efforts were on to arrest and silence him. He, however, said he did not fear death or detention because he had seen death very closely, Pakistan based The News International Newspaper reported. Khan while condemning Fawad Chaudhry's arrest, said the legal fraternity and judiciary should play their role in the current situation and that those who did not present him before the court must be held accountable. The country's future seems bleak, the way rulers are leading it, Khan said. He urged the nation to rise. He further said that the people of Pakistan were the true heirs of its legacy adding that the country needed to be run under the principle of justice, which was also the base of the Medina state. The News International reported that the former Pakistan prime minister said Fawad was arrested for using the word Munshi, which was not a crime, and added that those who did not present him before the court must be held accountable for this violation of law. "In order to alleviate poverty in the country, justice must prevail," he said. Khan called Fawad's wife and asked about the family. He expressed solidarity with the family and lauded Fawad's role in the party. Geo News recently reported that shortly after he publicly criticized the Pakistan government for plotting to arrest the country's former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, the party's senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry was arrested. Chaudhry was arrested from his house on Wednesday morning. PTI leader Farrukh Habib confirmed Chaudhry's arrest. Habib posted a tweet stating, "Fawad Chaudhry has been arrested by the police from his house. The imported government has gone berserk." Several other PTI leaders have also condemned Chaudhry's arrest. Chaudhry's arrest comes amid the nightlong turnout of PTI workers who descended upon party chairman Imran Khan's house to ensure his security. The Islamabad police confirmed the arrest of Chaudhry. A case was registered against Chaudhary last night at the Kohsar police station in Islamabad on the complaint of Election Commission Secretary Umar Hameed, Geo News reported. Citing Islamabad police sources, the report said Chaudhry was arrested from his residence near Thokar Niyaz Baig in Lahore. The sources further revealed that Chaudhry will be taken to Islamabad, according to a Geo News report. Condemning the arrest PTI Sindh President said, "Pakistan has become a lawless state." (ANI) Continuing international isolation of the Myanmar's military regime including its inability to reduce armed opposition to its rule domestically and secure legitimacy worldwide is holding back China from taking its relations further with Myanmar's junta, Myanmar-based Mizzima news reported. Notably, after the February 2021 coup in Myanmar, China has stepped up its engagement with the junta. Myanmar was expected to hold a summit of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) towards the end of 2022, but it was not held as China's Premier Li Keqiang did not respond to the junta's invitation for the summit. This meant that there was no chance of Army Chief Min Aung Hlaing (MAH) meeting with a senior Chinese official in person. MAH has not yet been able to meet a senior Chinese leader or official since the coup on 1 February 2021, Mizzima news reported. A lack of response by Beijing could be due to the fact that Myanmar's ministers have been barred from ASEAN meetings after the Myanmar junta failed to make progress in implementing the five-point peace plan drawn up by ASEAN in April 2021. China by denying the invitation appears to say that the country will not prioritize its relationship with the Myanmar military regime above its relationship with other ASEAN countries. According to Mizzima news, Beijing's concerns with Myanmar may not just be diplomatic as the growing conflict in the country is undermining the investment environment, with Chinese projects facing growing risks as the anti-coup conflicts escalate across the country. The Myanmar people view China as a supporter of the military junta in their country and there have been many attacks on Chinese properties and investments in Myanmar since the coup in 2021 A total of 7,800 clashes have been recorded across Myanmar since the coup. Of these, 300 have taken place in areas where major Chinese project sites are located, with 100 in 19 townships where China's oil and natural gas pipeline projects are located. Resistance by Myanmar's pro-democracy resistance forces, known as People's Defence Forces (PDFs), is also affecting China. More than 250 of Myanmar's 330 townships have witnessed attacks on police and military by PDFs and EAOs. All these developments raise questions as to whether the Myanmar junta might be gradually falling out of favour with Beijing, according to Mizzima news. The media recently reported that the Myanmar people doubt China's capability to expedite peace process in the country, as Beijing repeatedly chooses silence over the Myanmar military takeover, and suppression of its own people, especially democratic activists and protesters against the excesses of the military regime. There are widespread negative sentiments about China and its moves in Myanmar, at a time when the military junta is becoming increasingly authoritarian and suppressive by using state power against its own people. (ANI) India has issued notice to Pakistan for modification of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of September 1960 after Islamabad's actions adversely impinged the provisions of the treaty, according to sources. The notice was conveyed on January 25 through respective Commissioners for Indus Waters as per Article XII (3) of the IWT. The objective of the notice for modification, according to sources, is to provide Pakistan with an opportunity to enter into intergovernmental negotiations within 90 days to rectify the material breach of the IWT. This process would also update IWT to incorporate the lessons learned over the last 62 years. India has always been a responsible partner in implementing the IWT. Pakistan's actions, however, have encroached on the provisions of IWT and their implementation and forced India to issue an appropriate notice for modification of IWT, sources said. In 2015, Pakistan requested for the appointment of a Neutral Expert to examine its technical objections to India's Kishenganga and Ratle Hydro Electric Projects (HEPs). In 2016, Pakistan unilaterally retracted this request and proposed that a Court of Arbitration adjudicate its objections. According to sources, this action by Pakistan is a breach of the graded mechanism of dispute settlement envisaged by Article IX of IWT. India thus made a separate request for the matter to be referred to a Neutral Expert. The initiation of two simultaneous processes on the same questions and the potential of their inconsistent or contradictory outcomes creates an unprecedented and legally untenable situation, which risks endangering IWT itself. The World Bank acknowledged this itself in 2016, and took a decision to "pause" the initiation of two parallel processes and requested India and Pakistan to seek an amicable way out, sources say. Pakistan, despite repeated efforts by India to find a mutually agreeable way forward, has refused to discuss the issue during the five meetings of the Permanent Indus Commission from 2017 to 2022. The World Bank at Pakistan's continued insistence initiated actions on both the Neutral Expert and Court of Arbitration processes. Such parallel consideration of the same issues is not covered under any provision of IWT. The World Bank in October 2022, made appointments in two separate processes requested by India and Pakistan in relation to the Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric power plants. It appointed a chairman of the Court of Arbitration and a neutral expert "in line with its responsibilities" under the Indus Waters Treaty. A World Bank release said that the two countries disagree over whether the technical design features of the two hydroelectric plants contravene the Treaty. It said Pakistan asked the World Bank to facilitate the establishment of a Court of Arbitration to consider its concerns about the designs of the two hydroelectric power projects, while India asked for the appointment of a Neutral Expert to consider similar concerns over the two projects. Michel Lino was appointed as the Neutral Expert and Sean Murphy was appointed as Chairman of the Court of Arbitration. They will carry out their duties in their individual capacity as subject matter experts and independently of any other appointments they may currently hold, the release said. (ANI) The road widening of the Butwal- Narayanghat section of the East-West Highway has made just 23 per cent progress in 48 months. Now, the incomplete project by a Chinese contractor is resulting in road accidents, reported epardafas.com, an online magazine. The project began with the 17 billion Nepalese rupee (NPR) assistance from the Asian Development Bank in 2019 and has to be completed in mid-July 2022, it said. The non-completion of the work has left the busiest road along the East-West Highway filled with potholes which is not only delaying travel but is also leading to road accidents, the report said. The report quoted the Team Leader of China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited, who said that "In the initial stage, there was a delay in many important works like deployment of equipment, delay in permission from the park and forest for cutting trees, delay in moving the electricity poles and the closure of the crusher industry in the district". The report further said that the closure of the crusher industry has led to a shortage of construction materials. According to the construction side, the obstruction of the road has not been removed within the deadline for the completion of the road expansion. "Until now, only 99 per cent of the tree-cutting work has been completed," he said. "Only 30 per cent of the electric pole moving work has been completed, so there is a problem with road expansion." Although the construction company representative in Nepal stated that the project deadline has been extended by one year, and 50 per cent progress will be achieved by that time. So far only 23 per cent work has been completed. Although, the District Chief of the Narayanghat-Butwal Road Project (Eastern Sector) Ramesh Kumar said that he is constantly urging the construction company to speed up the work. Currently, the road expansion from Gaindakot to Danda is being done. The work of removing structures and cutting trees within the road standards is about to be completed, the report said. (ANI) Referring to the memorandum of understanding that Fiji and China signed in 2011, Fiji's PM said, "There's no need for us to continue, our systems are different." For the first time ever, any country's leader so publicly revokes an existing Chinese security agreement, according to The Fiji Times. The MoU, linked in 2011, resulted in Fijian police officers undergoing training in China and Chinese officers being deployed to Fiji on attachment programs for three to six months. In September 2021, police cooperation efforts between the two countries reached new heights following the appointment of a Chinese Police Liaison officer to be based in Fiji. "Our system of democracy and justice systems are different so we will go back to those that have similar systems with us." He said officers from other countries like Australia and New Zealand could stay because their systems were similar to Fiji, reported The Fiji Times. (ANI) Senior US House lawmaker Michael McCaul has said he is frustrated with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) due to its apparent refusal to investigate a government grant issued to Michigan-based Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD), a non-profit group allegedly linked to terrorism, US based Magazine National Review reported. Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) administrator Samantha Power, demanded a full review. HHRD, a non-profit organisation, reportedly has ties to Jamaat-e-Islami, a violent extremist network that operates in South Asia. USAID in October 2021, awarded HHRD a grant for USD 1,10,000 to reimburse it for shipping costs related to its humanitarian aid work. McCaul in the January 24 letter, wrote: "Please immediately personally review this grant to HHRD. I strongly urge you to pause this grant while you complete a thorough review of the allegations, including coordination with the intelligence community, federal law enforcement, the State Department Counterterrorism Bureau, and the Department of Homeland Security." According to National Review, this is not the first time that HHRD's alleged links to the terrorist group, which has existed since 1941, have come up. In 2019, Representatives Jim Banks, Chuck Fleischmann, and Randy Weber wrote to a US State Department official requesting an investigation into "the nexus of charitable networks and terrorist groups," such as Jamaat-e-Islami. A 2017 conference organised by the HHRD in Pakistan was attended by terrorist groups. This shows HHRD's links to Jamaat-e-Islami, National Review reported. According to National Review, McCaul in his letter said that his team first inquired about the grant in May of last year but USAID replied with an insubstantial response. "It was clear that the agency had failed to take any action to investigate the allegations or suspend the award, despite having been provided detailed information by congressional staff months prior," McCaul wrote. According to McCaul, one of the State Department briefers had only recently learned about the issue. McCaul also wrote that USAID told McCaul's staff that the matter was being taken up by the agency's inspector general. USAID and HHRD did not respond to National Review's requests for comment. (ANI) As per the news agency, the attacker, carrying a machine gun and opened fire at an employee of the security service of the embassy. Two others were also reported injured in the incident. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the deceased was the head of the embassy's security service Orkhan Askerov. After the attack, Iranian authorities confirmed that the perpetrator was arrested but his name was not made public. According to the IRNA news agency, the police are investigating the case. Tehran Police shief Hussain Rahimi said the attacker entered the Embassy with his two children. Preliminary reports say that the motive for the attack was "personal and family problems". (ANI) Buddhism has thrived globally under Prime minister Narendra Modi as the Indian government took Buddha's message to nations across the world to promote and expand Buddhism from a global perspective, Sathipattana Buddhist Magazine reported. Calling PM Modi an "internationally renowned statesman," the Buddhist magazine said that he had reiterated his desire and indomitable spirit towards protecting and preserving such holy sites as shrines, temples, archaeological sites, and everything related to Buddhist heritage in India. PM Modi also instituted uninterrupted and far-sighted measures to take the Buddha's message to nations across the world and to promote and expand Buddhism from a global perspective. Exactly, a month ago, an innovative five-year Pali and Sanskrit International Bhikkhu Exchange Program was launched at Bodh Gaya and was the continuation of one among such far-sighted activities to promote Buddhism in the region and across Buddhist countries in the world. The Mahanayake Theros of all three Nikayas of the Sri Lankan Maha Sangha together with hundreds of other senior members of the Maha Sangha attended it and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, delivered his lofty Buddhist teachings on that occasion for three consecutive days. According to the Buddhist magazine, the Indian government has launched different plans to promote Buddhism among the people. India's Ministry of Culture also celebrated Buddha Jayanthi at Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi, in cooperation with the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC). In this event, PM Modi who inaugurated the event emphasized, while speaking on that occasion, the importance of Buddhist diplomacy to India's relations with other (predominantly Buddhist) countries in Asia. In another Buddhist religious ceremony in Sarnath, PM Modi gave Sangha Dana to the Maha Sangha present, and also presented the Vishakh Samman Prashasti Patra Award to the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in another such occasion. He gave a similar award at Bodh Gaya to the All-India Bhikkhu Sanga for their efforts to preserve and promote India's Buddhist heritage, art, culture, and Buddhist studies. Not only PM Modi played an important role in spreading the word of Buddhism but Tibetan Spiritual leader Dalai Lama also propagated the message of peace based on Buddhist philosophy in countries across the world, as per the report in Sathipattana. The Dalai Lama is the present world-recognized and world-renowned Buddhist spiritual leader, constantly travelling from county to country, especially to the Western hemisphere, taking the message of the Buddha, incessantly conducting lectures, talks, teachings and meeting with political and spiritual leaders. with a view to safeguarding Buddhist Teachings and practices. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is considered a living Bodhisattva, specifically, an emanation of Avalokitesvara. Buddhist scholars said that the role that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been playing as a world-recognized statesman towards internationalizing Buddhist concepts is pivotal to the role that Emperor Dharmashoka played millennia back towards that cause. In extending every support and cooperation to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and his followers in India to take the message of the Buddha across the world, despite vehement and continuing protests from China; his government's committed involvement towards preserving Buddhist historical, cultural and archaeological sites; his government's support and direct involvement in all Buddhist religious activities, celebrations and festivals; entertaining with open arms Buddhist religious tourism and he himself visiting and taking part in some of such important celebrations, PM Modi is extending yeoman services for the promotion of the noble Buddhist doctrines throughout the world. Certainly, this trend under the able leadership of the Prime Minister would instill in the minds of political, religious and corporate leaders sublime thoughts of brotherhood, compassion and non-violence for a peaceful, harmonious, happy and war-free world of tomorrow, according to Sathipattana. (ANI) As China's population is shrinking, Beijing is re-assessing the labour policies as shrunk labour is expansive labour, reported The HK Post. China is currently re-assessing the labour policies given that a simultaneously reducing working population will have major implications for the Chinese economy as well as the global economy. The biggest concern for the Chinese government will be the loss of global influence that a declining population inflicts on the country, reported The HK Post. China became an economic giant in the world thanks to its gigantic workforce manufacturing record capacities over the years, the report said, adding that would no longer be the case in the future. The weight a country with a record population carries in the international community will also reduce, and so will the country's influence, reported The HK Post The number of Chinese fell by 850,000 from the previous year to 1.4118 billion, official statistics showed. Its birth rate had been slowing for years, prompting a range of policies to try to slow this trend, including scrapping the country's infamous one-child policy seven years ago. Conservative estimates suggest that by 2035, around 400 million Chinese will be over 60. That is nearly a third of the total population. How the country manages to improvise the use of the labour force will determine how bad the impact of labour shortage will be, reported The HK Post. Notably, the Chinese labour market is allegedly overworked and underpaid, which is what helped the country become an economic giant all these years. The competition in the labour market is extremely severe. So, people are willing to work long hours just to keep a job, reported The HK Post. Moreover, China's social safety net is not fully developed compared to the US. Retired Chinese still depend on government aid, especially the state pension, the report said. So, the Xi Jinping government is faced with a Hobson's choice -- either reduce the fiscal benefits to the old and infirm or burden the younger Chinese with more taxes, or both, reported The HK Post. The second problem is, in order to maintain full employment, Chinese society must maintain high spending percentages to sustain the economy's productive capacity. When the population falls, the first victim is spending, especially investment spending, the report said. The logic is that if the number of workers is declining, why build new factories, office buildings, and so on? if the number of families is declining, there is not much need to build new housing, according to the report. If the labour force reduces over the next few years, the government will need to give a new direction to its shrinking labour market. A labour shortage will automatically strengthen the labouring Chinese demand for decent work hours and pay. But once labour becomes costly, it will reduce the benefits of manufacturing accruing to the government and impact exports, reported The HK Post. (ANI)